Modern History

YANKEES AND
CONFEDERATES IN THE
AMERICAN STATES
IN THE MID-19TH
CENTURY
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
The topic of this depth study is one of the most critical in the history of the United
States of America. This study deals with the American Civil War between the Union
in the North, the Yankees, and the Confederates in the South, who sought to leave
the Union and establish a separate country.
The Civil War is the most widely studied and discussed historical issue in the USA.
Books, films and television programs about the war are popular with the general
public. For academic historians this time redefined the American nation, which
became a world power in the twentieth century.
Timeline
1820
The Missouri Compromise. The territory of Missouri applies to join the Union as a state
in 1819. The Whites in Missouri own slaves; therefore, it would join as a slave state. Up
until this time, states from the pro-slavery South and the anti-slavery North had joined the
Union in pairs to keep the balance between pro-slavery and anti-slavery politicians in the
US Senate. Missouri spoils the balance. The dispute is settled by letting the Northern free
state of Maine into the Union at the same time. This compromise shows that a big problem
exists over slavery; the Missouri Compromise does not solve the problem; it just postponed
it for forty years.
1831
The Nat Turner slave rebellion in Virginia. Turner and a group of followers kill sixty Whites.
After the rebellion is put down, Turner and a hundred others are executed. The state
government in Virginia starts to talk about abolishing slavery.
1832
South Carolina defies the Federal Government over a national tariff law citing states
rights. President Andrew Jackson threatens to use the army to force South Carolina
to accept the law and the state backs down. This is an example of the views held by
Southern states about their rights in relation to the Federal Government.
1846
1850
The USA goes to war with Mexico and gains land in the south-west.
1852
1854
Harriet Beecher Stowe writes the novel Uncle Toms Cabin attacking slavery. It has great
influence in the North and causes resentment in the South.
1857
The Dred Scott case. The case, heard by the US Supreme Court, holds that slaves are
always the property of their masters, even if they are taken into free states or territories.
This decision is greeted with approval in the South, but increases calls from the North to
make slavery illegal.
1859
1860
John Browns Raid. John Brown raids the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry to steal guns
and start a slave rebellion. The Union army stops him and Brown is hanged.
1861
The South forms the Confederate States of America (known as the CSA or the
Confederacy) and leaves the Union.
The compromise of 1850. Land taken from Mexico creates new problems: should people
in these new lands be allowed to have slaves? The result is another compromise.
California joins the Union as a free state, while the rest become territories and decide for
themselves whether they will allow slavery. The problem is put off again until another time.
The KansasNebraska Act. This is a political attempt to find a solution to slavery. As

people move west, arguments increase about whether slavery should go with them.
The North doesnt want slavery to spread and the South feels that because slavery is
legal, slave-owners should be allowed to take their slaves wherever they want. The new
territories of Kansas and Nebraska attract a great deal of attention. Stephen Douglas, a
Northern Democrat who wants to be president, says that the new territories should make
the decision for themselves. This is called popular sovereignty. Pro- and anti-slavery
groups flood the new territories with their supporters and this leads to violence.
The Republican Party is formed. The Republicans are outraged by the KansasNebraska
Act and oppose the idea of extending slavery any further. Abraham Lincoln becomes one
of the early leaders of the new party.
The Democratic Party splits over slavery into Northern and Southern Democrats. This
ensures the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the presidency.
When Lincoln is elected, the first of the Southern states, South Carolina, leaves the Union.
Jefferson Davis becomes President of the Confederacy.

The Confederates fire upon Fort Sumter, the Union fort in Charleston Harbor, South
Carolina, and the Civil War begins.
The Battle of Bull Run is the first battle of the Civil War and the South wins. The North
realises it will be a long war.
2 | Key Features of Modern History
1862
Robert E. Lee is given command of the army of Northern Virginia.

The Battle of Antietam, repelling an invasion of the North by Lee, is called a Union victory,
but at a great cost of lives. It is really a wasted opportunity.
At the Battle of Fredericksburg the Union attacks at the strongest point of the Southern
line, suffers heavy losses and is forced to withdraw.
1863
Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees all slaves.
1864
1865
Lincoln appoints Grant as general-in-chief of the Union army.
The Battle of Gettysburg is perhaps the last real chance of success that the South has in
the war. Gettysburg is a Union victory.
Lincoln is re-elected president.
The Civil War ends.
Lincoln is assassinated. Vice-President Andrew Johnson becomes president.
The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution makes the abolition of slavery official.
1868
Ulysses Grant, the most successful Union general of the war, is elected as the eighteenth
president of the USA.
Timeline exercise
Study the timeline, then match a clue from List A with an answer from List B.
List A
List B
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Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 3
THE SOUTH AND STATES RIGHTS

One of the key issues of the Civil War was the question of states rights. Before the Civil War, the United
States was a plural noun; in other words, the focus was on the separate states that had chosen to unite.
After the war, the United States was accepted as a singular noun with the emphasis on the union of
states, or the fact that the states had become one country. Before the Civil War many in the South
believed their first and greatest loyalty was to their state. An example of this was the clash between
the state of South Carolina and the Federal Government in 1832. The president at the time was
Andrew Jackson, who believed that the interests of the people were best served by a strong Federal
Government. Jackson made this clear during the dispute with South Carolina over tariffs, which were
taxes put on imported goods by the Federal Government to make them more expensive so that people
would buy US-made goods. South Carolina was against the policy; they didnt have industries and
wanted to buy goods more cheaply from Britain. They claimed the law favoured the Yankee Northern
states where most of Americas industries were located, but disadvantaged the Southern states.
Historian James McPherson pointed out that the question of states rights, along with the issue
of slavery, was central to the debate about the origins of the Civil War. The Southern states jealously
guarded their way of life and what they saw as their legal right to hold slaves. They also feared that the
more populous North, growing rich on trade and industry, threatened their independence and way of
life (McPherson 1997).
SLAVERY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The first black slaves arrived around 1619. Slavery expanded when the plantation economy of the
South developed. By rough count about three million slaves were brought into the US between 1619
and 1865 to provide cheap labour for the tobacco, sugar cane and cotton plantations. As the number
of slaves grew into the millions in the South, the laws were adjusted to control slavery. By 1740 slaves
had become chattels: not people, but objects or things that could be bought, sold and used as the
owner pleased. The changes to the law produced what has been called the peculiar institution of
slavery in the Southern states of the USA.
In the late 1700s the Yankees in the North had less need for slaves; their industries and farms did
not need slave labour. In the South exactly the opposite had happened. Therefore, by 1800, slavery
was dying out in the North and growing in the South. This fundamental difference was one of the key
causes of the American Civil War. Cotton was one of the main factors in this distinction as the cotton
industry in the South used slave labour. Slavery may have declined gradually in the South, as it had in
the North, had it not been for cotton.
RE VI E W Q U E ST I O N S
1 When did the first slaves arrive?
2 Why did slavery become important to the South?
3 To what does the phrase the peculiar institution refer?
4 How many slaves were brought into the United States between 1619 and 1865?
THE EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON THE SOUTH

Not everyone in the South owned slaves. Out of eight million Whites, only about 380 000 owned slaves
in 1860. Nevertheless, the class of rich landholders with slaves controlled the South. Slavery might
have, in the short term, helped the Southern economy, but it could not last as it discouraged the
development of new industry and new ideas.
Slavery was seen by many Southerners as the means to keep all Whites more or less equal. Without
slavery, they argued, Whites would have to perform menial jobs; with slavery, the Blacks performed such
tasks, keeping the Whites in a class above. Southerners were critical of developments in the North, where
Whites did manual work in harsh conditions in factories, claiming this created inequality among Whites
and was, therefore, contrary to American ideals. Right up to the Civil War the South believed that it
reflected the true and original spirit of the United States, and it was the North that wanted change.
R E VI E W Q UE S TI O N S
1 How many Southern Whites owned slaves?
2 How was slavery meant to avoid inequality among Whites?
LIFE FOR SLAVES IN THE 1800s

In the 1800s slaves suffered the following conditions:
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In general, slaves were subjected to these conditions, but there were differences in how they were
treated depending on their age, gender, skills, location and luck. Some masters could be kind and
thoughtful; others could be extremely cruel.
Occasionally, slaves did gain their freedom. Some managed to get extra work and save money to buy
themselves from their owners. Some slaves were set free in thanks when their owner died. For the most
part, however, slaves gained their freedom by running away. Many free Blacks and ex-slaves played an
important part in the Civil War; for example, they made up ten per cent of the Union army. One of the
most famous Black units was the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Their story was made into an excellent
historical film, Glory.
THE REACTION OF BLACKS TO SLAVERY

It is impossible to tell just how the slaves felt about their situation in the mid-1800s. Slave-owners
claimed their Blacks were happy; however, this was not supported by the fact that slaves saw Abraham
Lincoln as a hero, or that Whites were always on the alert for slave revolts or runaway slaves. The
argument that the slaves were happy was based on the perception that Blacks were different. The
Whites knew that they wouldnt like to be slaves, but if they

could convince themselves that the Blacks were not like
them, slavery might be acceptable.
Slaves fought the system in two ways. First, every day,
in little ways, and second by violent uprising. In their daily
life many would only do enough work to avoid getting
into trouble. Many Whites misunderstood this, believing
their Black slaves were just stupid or lazy. By far the greatest
fear of the Whites was, however, the risk of a slave revolt.
These uprisings were rare but this didnt diminish the fear.
The most famous of all slave revolts was led by Nat Turner
in Virginia in 1831. Turner had been taught to read by the
son of his owner, which was against the rules. Turner led
a group that killed sixty White men, women and children.
Turner had a kind master and this confused the Whites,
who would have found the rebellion easier to understand if
Turner had been regularly beaten. To the Whites this proved
how unpredictable slaves could be and they were all the
more afraid. Not long after the rebellion was suppressed
and Turner was put to death, the Virginia State Legislature
discussed ending slavery in that state. For many months
they debated the idea of gradually freeing the slaves and
returning them to Africa.
REVIEW TASK
Nat Turner was a terrorist. (Terrorism is the use
of violence or the threat of violence by a person
or group to get what they want.) Most of the
murdered Whites did not know Nat Turner. The
children were unlikely to have done him harm,
yet he was responsible for their deaths.
Can the rebellion be justified?
As you discuss this question, you might
consider the following points:
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DO CUM E NT S T UDY: TH E ASS E SSM ENT O F SLAV ERY

The historical issue of slavery has produced disagreement.
One of the earliest issues discussed was the part slavery
played in causing the Civil War; historians then moved on
to look at what life was like for the slaves themselves.
Just before the Civil War most of the books written
about slavery either showed that it was good for Blacks
or that it was cruel. Writers from both the South and the
North selected their facts and stories to prove their point
of view.
In the 1920s U. B. Phillips wrote a book called American
Negro Slavery, arguing that the vast majority of slave-owners
took good care of their Blacks and that the slaves were
generally happy. This idea lasted until the 1940s. One of the
books to challenge this idea was The Peculiar Institution by
Kenneth Stampp (1956), which presented evidence to show
that slavery was cruel, both physically and mentally.
Books written in the 1970s and 1980s accepted that
slavery was cruel, but pointed out that Black families had not
been destroyed. In fact, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman
in their book Time on the Cross noted that many slaves
became managers and leaders of their own communities.
At the time of the Civil War, 90 per cent of the Black

population could not read or write. By 1880 this figure
had dropped to 70 per cent, and by 1900 it was down
to 50 per cent. In 1860 only 2 per cent of Black children
attended school; by 1880 this was up to 34 per cent.
When slavery ended many Blacks were still poor, and the
racism that existed in the USA generally, and the South in
particular, did not make life easy, but, as historian James
McPherson noted, this was the beginning of a social
revolution in the US that is still being felt today.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST IONS

1 Summarise the views on slavery
presented by:
(a) U. B. Phillips
(b) Kenneth Stampp
(c) Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman.
2 Why did the abolition of slavery result in a
social revolution in the USA?
SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR

The noble statement made by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence about all people being equal
was contradicted by the fact that there were slaves in the US. American politicians struggled with the
contradiction that their society was meant to be free and fair, but at the same time allowed slavery. The
Civil War almost destroyed the USif the South had won, there would be two countries occupying the
area that is now the USA. It was the bloodiest war in American history. Six hundred thousand Americans
died, more than in either the First World War (115 000) or the Second World War (318 000). The leadership
of the North provided by the Republican President Abraham Lincoln was one of the key reasons for the
survival of the Union. Lincoln did not like slavery, but he always said that to him the Union, or in other
words the survival of the USA as a united country, was the most important thing. Lincoln and the North
did fight to free the slaves, but primarily they fought to keep the USA as one country.
THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR

The causes of the Civil War have been argued for a long time. It is fair to say that there were a number
of causes.
THE BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH

The Northern states and the Southern states were not alike. The North was industrialised and
urbanised; by contrast the South depended more on agriculture and did not have many large cities.
The North favoured high tariffs; the South wanted lower tariffs. The South didnt like the fact that most
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Figure 1.1 The Union (Yankees) in the North and the Southern Confederates in the Civil War
of the big banks were in the North; many felt controlled by Northern bankers. The North received more
migrants from Europepeople with new ideas and the dream of a new way of life. Southerners liked
the old ways and were more conservative.
The different views of the Constitution

The US Constitution is the set of rules that states what the government is allowed to do. Before the
Civil War it became clear that politicians in the North and South had different views about the powers
of the Federal Government. The Northern view was that the Federal Government was dominant and
its authority was greater than that of the states. In the South there was a strong belief in states rights:
the idea that individual states were more important than the Federal Government. Southern politicians
argued that if they disapproved of the Federal Government they could leave the Union, because the
states had joined the Union of their own free will and were therefore entitled to leave whenever they
wanted. This view was not accepted in the North, especially by Republican politicians such as Abraham
Lincoln who argued that the Union could not be broken up.
Slavery
This is one of the causes of the war that historians have argued about since the 1860s. At times
historians believed that slavery was the only real cause, and at other times historians felt it wasnt really
that important. The truth is that slavery was a vital cause as it became the symbol of the differences
between North and South. The South believed that slaves were needed to work their plantations. To
Southerners, slavery was part of their way of lifeit had existed for hundreds of years and was legal.
When people in the North started to speak out against slavery and demand that it be made illegal,
Southerners saw this as another example of the North trying to tell them what to do.
Slavery was the source of bad feeling between North and South, stirred up by events like John
Browns raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Brown was a violent Northerner who believed that slavery was
against the will of God. He staged an unsuccessful raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry to steal
guns to arm the slaves, planning a massive slave revolt.
The period of slavery also saw the birth of the Republican Party. In addition, arguments between
Northern and Southern Democrats resulted in a split in the Democrats just before the Civil War. Clearly
slavery had a great deal of influence on events.
The westward expansion

When the USA was formed it was made up of only thirteen states. The men who wrote the Constitution
hoped the problems of slavery would just go away with time, but as the USA grew, the problem of
slavery grew with it. The westward expansion kept the nations attention on slavery. People in the
North didnt want slavery to expand; people in the South felt that since slavery was legal they should
be able to have slaves wherever they wanted. As the frontier moved west, there were arguments about
whether slaves should be allowed in the new territories.
The problem was that the newly opened territories would eventually become states. Under
the Constitution each state had two senators. The Senate was the most important law-making and
decision-making body in America. If the anti-slavery groups from the North got more senators,
they could pass laws to make slavery illegal. If the pro-slavery South got more senators, they could
maintain the status quo. Neither side wanted the other to gain the advantage. The result was a series of
compromises that kept the balance between slave and free states, and therefore a balance between
slave and free senators.
First came the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when Missouri wanted to be let into the Union.
Missouri would have been a slave state, giving the South two extra senators. The problem was solved
by allowing Maine to enter the Union at the same time. Maine was a free state in the far North. This
compromise lasted until 1850 when another was needed over the land that had just been won from
Mexico. This held until Kansas and Nebraska wanted to join the Union and yet another compromise,
the KansasNebraska Act, was passed. As the country moved west, arguments about slavery continued,
increasing tension between the North and South.
Lincolns election
The Republican candidate for the presidency in 1860 was Abraham Lincoln. His main opposition was
split. The Democratic Party had become so badly divided over slavery that they put up two candidates,
one from the North, Stephen Douglas, and one from the South, John Breckinridge. Lincoln won the
election with strong support from the North, even though he was hated in the South, where people
feared that he would ban slavery. As soon as Lincoln was elected Southern states began to leave the
Union. The new president made it as clear as he could that he would not force the South to give up
slavery, but the Southerners were in no mood to listen. The first state to leave the Union was South
Carolina, quickly followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. They became
the Confederate States of America on 4 February 1861. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi became the
President of the CSA.
Lincoln took the view that although slavery was legal, breaking away from the Union was illegal and
constituted a rebellion. When Southern forces, also known as Rebels or Confederates, fired on the Union
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, the Civil War began. At this point, four more states
Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolinaalso joined the CSA, bringing the total to eleven.
THE SOUTHERN ARGUMENT
THE NORTHERN ARGUMENT
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R E VI E W TA SK
Look at the list of statements for and against the right of the Southern states to leave
the Union, dealing with the themes of states rights and national unity.
The arguments for are like those presented by the President of the Confederacy,
Jefferson Davis. The arguments against are the ones used by US President
Abraham Lincoln.
4HINKABOUTTHEARGUMENTSPRESENTEDTHENDISCUSSTHEM)FYOULIKEHOLDACLASS

debate. Add any arguments that you think fair and write one page for the argument
you support.
THE COURSE OF THE CIVIL WAR

There was confidence that the war would be over quickly.
Many in the South believed all that was needed was a strong
show of force to convince the North to leave them alone.
Southerners also believed the European powers would
get involved to help them. The South supplied much of
the worlds cotton and they thought that any attempt by
the North to stop the export of this key material to Europe
would result in Britain and other European nations joining
the war. Northerners were confident because the North was
more populous, had more industry and greater wealth, and
controlled almost all the US Navy. Both sides were wrong.
The war turned into a long and bitter struggle that didnt
end until 1865.
The American Civil War was the first industrial war and
was also one of the first wars that could be called a total
war. In other words, civilians of both sides felt its effects.
Industry increased in importance, supplying guns, uniforms
and all kinds of military equipment; farming produced
food to feed the armies. Railways increased in importance,
transporting the soldiers and their equipment. Many vital
battles determined the outcome of the war and each side
had real chances to win.
Union versus Confederate resources in the Civil War
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Figure 1.2 Using the graph, predict the outcome of the Civil War.
Support your answer with close reference to the graph.
THE KEY BATTLES

The first battle at Bull Run 1861 This was the first major
battle of the Civil War and was a setback for the North.
It was fought in northern Virginia not far from the Union
capital, Washington. A Union army of 30 000 under the
command of General Irvin McDowell faced a Confederate
force of 20 000 led by General Beauregard. Both sides were
equally inexperienced and the battle could have gone
either way; however, in the end the South won and the
Union troops ran all the way back to Washington. This
proved to be a great surprise to the civilians who had driven
out from the Union capital with picnic baskets in order
to watch. They were forced to flee with the Union army
and a few lucky members of the rebel army enjoyed the
lunches that were left behind. McDowell was immediately
replaced as commander of the Union army by General
George McClellan. Throughout the rest of 1861 and most
of 1862, McClellan spent his time recruiting and training
the Union army. President Lincoln kept urging McClellan to
fight, but the general usually found excuses to avoid it. It
appeared that he was better at training armies than he was
at leading them in battle. When he did attack, moving south
into Virginia, he was unsuccessful, partly because of the
Figure 1.3 Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Many regard him as the

greatest American president.
Figure 1.4 Artillery and the mini-ball made the open battlefield a lethal place.
outstanding leadership of the new Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee and partly because
McClellan was exceptionally cautious.
The battle of Antietam 1862 McClellans army of 87 000 faced the invading Confederate army
of 50 000 led by General Lee across Antietam Creek in Maryland. This was the bloodiest battle in a war
filled with bloody battles. Twenty-four thousand men died and it was possible to walk all the way across
the battlefield on a carpet of corpses. During the battle some of the wounded from both sides had
crawled into haystacks to wait for help. As the battle raged, shells fired by the cannons started fires,
which raced through the haystacks, and the wounded men, too weak to move, were burnt alive. The
Confederate army withdrew, so the battle was technically a Union victory, but at enormous cost.
The next two commanders of the Union army were Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker. They
were in turn replaced by General Meade as President Lincoln tried to find a general who might match
the leadership of the Souths Robert E. Lee.
The capture of Vicksburg July 1863 In the west the Union forces were doing better. The
important Confederate town of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River fell to the Union after a long siege.
Control of Vicksburg and a later Union success at Port Hudson in Louisiana gave the North command
of the entire Mississippi River, cut Texas off from the rest of the Confederacy, and badly weakened the
Souths already poor supply and transport system. Along with other successes in the west, the capture
of Vicksburg brought General Ulysses Grant to national attention.
The battle of Gettysburg July 1863 This battle was fought just before the surrender of
Vicksburg, because of the long Union siege. The Southern commander, General Lee, moved north into
Pennsylvania; he hoped that by doing so he might force the Union to take some of the pressure off
Vicksburg. Gettysburg was one of the key battles of the Civil War and probably the last real
chance the South had to win. It was perhaps the worst battle that General Lee fought. His
decision on the last day of the battle to order the charge of General Picketts division across
open ground in the middle of the Union line proved to be a disaster. Lees army retreated and
was on the defensive for the rest of the war (Stackpole 1956).
The campaigns of 186465 By 1864 Lincoln had found the general he needed. Grant
was put in charge of all the Union armies. Some historians argue that Grants understanding
of modern industrial war made him as good a general, if not better, than Robert E. Lee. Grant
had fought in the war against Mexico and knew how bloody war could be. In his first battle
a bullet blew the jaw of the man standing next to him clean away; his jaw and lower teeth
were left lying on the ground, his face a bloody mask.
Grant was a clear-minded and realistic commander. He recognised what had to be
done to end the war and he believed the way to win was to wage war in a way that would
hurt the civilians on the Southern home frontGrants march south into Virginia and
General Shermans campaign in Georgia were clear examples of this plan. Grant led the
Union army south into Virginia. He fought a series of bitter battles in May and June of 1864:
The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor. Of these four battles, only
Spotsylvania could be called a Union victory. The difference was that Grant kept moving
South, putting Lee under continual pressure. Even though the Union armies suffered heavy
losses, Grant was more ruthless and relentless than previous Union generals. Grant was in
fact fighting a war of attrition. He knew the North had more men and more resources and
that in this kind of war ultimately had to win. This idea is supported by the fact that when the
war ended the North had lost 359 000 men and the South 258 000. The North won because
they could afford more losses.
During the Battle of Spotsylvania one of the Unions most popular generals, John
Sedgwick, reluctantly provided an important lesson about modern war. The Confederates
had snipers, that is, expert riflemen armed with rifles with telescopic sights. These snipers
shot at anything in sight from a range of 800 metres, keeping the Union troops down and
slowing important preparations for coming attacks. When General Sedgwick heard of this
he went straight to the front line to convince his men there was really nothing to fear from
snipers. Uncle John, as Sedgwick was known to his men, told them he was ashamed of them
taking cover as soon as they heard a shot. He laughed and stepped into the open. They
couldnt hit an elephant at this distance, he said, just before a Confederate sniper put a bullet
into his face below the left eye. Sedgwick died almost immediately.
Meanwhile, in the west, General Sherman was moving south into Georgia with a
ruthlessness to match Grants. A defeat at Kennesaw Mountain did not stop him. Sherman
moved on and captured the city of Atlanta in September 1864 and then set about destroying
the economy of Georgia to diminish the supply of Confederate troops. Railway lines were
torn up, crops and houses were burned and livestock were killed. Sometimes the Union
troops got out of control, robbing and bashing civilians. Shermans march to the sea from
Atlanta to the coast at Savannah was an example of total war. The purpose was to make war
on the Southern home front. Sherman did not apologise for this. He blamed the South for
starting the war and felt they were simply being punished, saying, war is cruelty. This act of
war by the North resulted in bitterness, which lasted for decades.
As the war moved into 1865, Grant set up another siege, this time around Petersburg. When
Lee could no longer defend the town, he moved west. By this time, however, Lees army was
reduced to only 25 000 men and on 9 April 1865 he surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
DID YOU KNOW?

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Figure 1.5 The reasons for the Union victory in the Civil War all in one photograph. Yorktown, Virginia, late in the war. The Union had more
munitions and men, and the ships in the background reflect the Norths control of the sea.
Figure 1.6 The Confederate capital of Richmond after the Union siegeevidence that the Civil War was a total war
1 What is a civil war?
2 List and explain the five main causes of the American Civil War.
3 Which states of the USA joined the Confederacy?
4 What were the key battles of the Civil War?
5 Which general led the Southern army so well for most of the war?
6 List the commanding generals on the Union side before General Grant.
7 Why was General Shermans march to the sea an example of total war?
8 Outline the main reasons why the North won the Civil War.
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

The Civil War saved the Union, creating the modern American nation. Lincoln believed that the war
was also fought to return the USA to the ideals of the revolution by abolishing slavery. The war firmly
established the authority of the Federal Government over the states.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln

As a result of his leadership during the greatest domestic crisis in Americas history, Lincoln is widely
regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the US presidents. The circumstances of his death
at the hands of an assassin on 14 April 1865, only five days after the end of the war helped reinforce
his reputation. Lincoln became another of the tragic victims of the war that had threatened to destroy
the country.
Figure 1.7 A Civil War surgeons kit. Few battlefield surgeons had treated gunshot wounds before the war. Of the 11 000 Union doctors
only 500 had performed surgery; on the Confederate side only 27 out of 3000 doctors had done so. Seven out of ten wounds treated by
the doctors were in the limbsstomach wounds were assumed to be fatal. The most common operation was an amputation. The bonesaw at the top of the illustration was one of the most frequently used medical instruments.
Lincoln was shot in the head and killed as he sat with his wife and two guests, Major Rathbone and
Clara Harris, in the presidential box at Fords Theatre in Washington. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth,
a well-known actor. With the war lost, Booth decided he would take revenge on Lincoln and the Union
government. Lincoln was not the only target. Booth and his fellow conspirators planned not only to kill
the president, but the vice-president, Andrew Johnson, and the secretary of state, William Seward.
As an actor Booth had no trouble moving around the theatre. After the president and his party were
seated, Booth waited for a particular scene in the play where the audience always gave a big laugh
and a generous round of applause then opened the door to the presidents private box. The guard
had wandered off. Booth moved quietly behind Lincoln and put the barrel of his pistol, a single-shot
Derringer, next to Lincolns head and pulled the trigger. The president turned his head just before the
fatal shot was fired. The bullet, a handmade lead ball, 12 mm in diameter, marked with the initials AL,
entered the presidents head behind his left ear and travelled 17.5 cm into Lincolns skull, stopping
behind his right eye. For a moment everyone was uncertain what had actually happened. Major
Rathbone made a grab for Booth. The actor brought out a large knife and slashed Rathbones arm
before jumping onto the stage. In making the jump Booth broke a bone in his leg just above the ankle.
As he limped behind the curtains he called out Sic semper tyrannis, Latin for Thus always to tyrants. As
Booth made his escape from the theatre, Dr Charles Leale, a member of the audience, went to Lincolns
side. He found the president very pale and without a pulse. Leale managed to restore the pulse but
then found the wound in the back of Lincolns head and was certain the president would die. Leale was
joined by two other doctors and they moved Lincoln to a more comfortable place in a house across
the road. Lincoln died on a bed in the back room of William Petersens house.
Figure 1.8
John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln in the back of the head.
The events at the Seward house

Equally sensational events took place at the home of Lincolns secretary of state, William Seward.
Seward was in bed recovering from a carriage accident. A large man appeared at the door claiming
to have medicine for the injured Seward. When the servant refused to let the man in, the intruder
pushed past and, drawing a gun, began to climb the stairs. At this point, Frederick Seward, a son of the
secretary of state, appeared at the top of the stairs. The large man who had burst into the house was
clearly an assassin. The assassin attempted to shoot Frederick Seward but his gun wouldnt work, so he
smashed the pistol repeatedly over young Sewards head, leaving him near death on the stairs as he
rushed into the secretary of states bedroom. William Seward, however, was not alone; George Robinson
was in the room. The assassin drew a large hunting knife, called a Bowie knife after its inventor, Jim
Bowie, who was a legendary frontier character. The blade was 22 cm long, heavy and extremely sharp.
The assassin slashed Robinson across the front of the head, producing a rush of blood as he pushed
past and began to hack at Seward, who was stabbed three times around the head and neck. There
was, by now, literally blood all over the room. Then one of Sewards other sons, Augustus, burst into the
room and tried to save his father. At the same time George Robinson had struggled to his feet and they
both rushed the assassin. Robinson was again stabbed, this time in the chest, and Augustus Seward
was practically scalped as the assassin slashed wildly with his knife. With bodies as well as blood all over
the room the assassin raced down the stairs, heading for the door. Just before he reached the door a
Figure 1.9 This contemporary woodcut shows the attack on Seward. Compare it with the account in the text and note the differences.
young government messenger, Bud Hansell, arrived. Hansell was immediately stabbed in the chest; the
assassin hardly slowed as he raced into the night. Despite his terrible wounds Seward survived.
Controversy continues about the identity of the man who attacked the Seward household. It is
usual to read that the man was Lewis Payne, a powerful young man who knew Booth and fitted the
description of the attacker; however, some people claim it was Paynes cousin, Lewis Thorton Powell.
After the Union government caught most of the conspirators they claimed that Payne and Powell were
the same person, and quickly hanged Lewis Payne, but there is evidence that they were two different
people. In their race for quick justice the wrong man may have been hanged (Hanchett 1986).
At the same time, another conspirator, George Atzerodt, was meant to kill Vice-President Andrew
Johnson at a hotel where he was staying. However, for some reason Atzerodt did not act.
The fate of John Wilkes Booth

After shooting Lincoln, Booth ran from the theatre, got on a horse and rode into the countryside near
Washington. He went to the house of a local doctor and had his broken leg set. A major search was
conducted and he was finally trapped in a barn at Garretts farm on 26 April. Booth was shot and killed.
The man officially credited with killing Booth was Sergeant Boston Corbett. This act made Corbett famous
and he travelled the country. By 1887, however, he could no longer make a living through appearances
as the man who got Lincolns assassin. Instead, Corbett was made the doorman of the Kansas state
legislature. He kept this job until one day he went crazy and started shooting at politicians. Corbett was
arrested and put in an asylum. He then escaped and was thought to have travelled to Mexico.
References
Hanchett W., The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1986
McPherson J. M., Drawn with the Sword, Oxford University Press, New York, 1997
Stackpole E. J., They Met at Gettysburg, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, 1956
Stampp K. M., The Peculiar Institution, Vintage Books, New York, 1956
BISMARCK AND
UNIFICATION OF THE
GERMAN STATES
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
The process of German unification and the ultimate union of the German states
had a profound influence on the history of Europe and the world in the late
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For years, Germany comprised a group of
independent states, such as Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Wurttemberg,
Hanover and others, bound together by a common language and aspects of
culture. The influence of the French Revolution and the invasion by Napoleons
armies accelerated the move towards unification. Under Napoleon the number
of German states was reduced from 300 to 38 as part of the Confederation of
the Rhine. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 held back the forces of change and
delayed unification for a time. In 1848, however, a series of revolutions inspired
by the ideas of liberalism, socialism and nationalism broke out across Europe. The
German revolutionaries of 1848 hoped to unify the old feudal states of Germany
and build a modern nation. The revolutions failed. Germany was, however,
ultimately unified, but the process of unification came from above. Otto von
Bismarck, a Prussian aristocrat, was the architect of unification and used the power
of the Prussian state and war to achieve his goals.
Timeline
1815
The Congress of Vienna. The European powers that had defeated Napoleon meet in
Vienna to decide the fate of Europe. Prince Metternich of Austria is one of the dominant
figures at the conference. Metternich doesnt want Germany to be unified as he is afraid it
will lead to other changes that will challenge the power of the Austrian king. Metternich is
also worried about the growing power of the other large German-speaking state, Prussia.
Germany, therefore, remains a loose confederation of states.
1819
The Carlsbad Decrees. Metternich continues to worry about the growth of ideas like
liberalism that encourage change, and controls the kinds of ideas taught in universities
through the Carlsbad Decrees.
1834
Prussia sets up the Zollverein, an economic union to remove tariff barriers that limit trade
between the German states. By 1842 almost all the German states including Austria join.
It is an important step on the path to Germanys political unification and also amounts to
economic unification.
1848
The revolutions. Liberal revolutions break out in Paris, Vienna and Berlin. The
revolutionaries want to limit the powers of the monarchs, establish representative
government and ensure basic freedoms. They also want to see the creation of a unified
German state. These ideas lead to the Frankfurt Assembly, where the future of Germany
is debated. However, the forces of liberalism are not strong enough and the 1848
revolutions fail.
1862
Bismarck becomes Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck uses his position to oppose
liberalism and to fight for the unification of Germany under the domination of the Prussian
state. The king of Prussia will be the new king of Germany and Bismarck will be the
chancellor of Germany.
1864
The war over SchleswigHolstein. Prussia and Austria join together to fight Denmark for
control of the provinces of SchleswigHolstein. The war is short. It is important because
it adds to German territory. Bismarck will have a later dispute with Austria over the
provinces.
1866
The war with Austria. Bismarck wants a unified Germany, but without Austria. The modern
Prussian army crushes the Austrians in seven weeks, removing Austria from German
affairs and uniting a number of the northern German states with Prussia in the North
German Confederation.
187071
The Franco-Prussian War. This war is the final step in German unification. Bismarck
isolates France from likely allies and then finds an excuse to go to war. The war is over in
a matter of months and the remaining German states rally to support Prussia against the
common French enemy. In January 1871 Germany becomes one country and the Prussian
king becomes Kaiser of Germany.
Timeline exercise
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THE ROLE OF LIBERALISM, SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN

CREATING A SENSE OF GERMAN UNITY
Both liberalism and nationalism flourished following the French Revolution, which began in 1789. Both
reflected major social, economic and political changes that were taking place in Europe. The economic
revolution, the beginning of modern industry, had led to changes in the class structure of Europe.
A middle class of businessmen, manufacturers and merchants had grown in wealth and numbers,
while a growing urban working class had expanded, providing labour in the new factories and mines.
These groups wanted change. They were encouraged by the philosophies of liberalism, socialism and
nationalism.
LIBERALISM
Liberalism was a nineteenth-century ideology that favoured representative government, which would
give the middle class a say, but was not full democracy. The liberals believed only those with property
or assets should vote and they wanted to limit the power of the old monarchies and aristocracies.
Liberals favoured freedom of the press, of trade, of religion and of assembly. Liberalism meant change
as it amounted to a challenge to the privileges of the old ruling classes.
Encouraged by the French Revolution, liberalism was later suppressed by the old rulers of Europe
through the Congress of Vienna in 1815, but revived in Germany in 1817, only to be suppressed again
by the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819. Its next flowering came with the 1848 revolutions, but it was again
crushed, and liberalism became a minor element in the process of German unification.
SOCIALISM
Socialism resulted from the suffering of the working class who were at the mercy of wealthy
industrialists. Socialists called for shared wealth and property, and better conditions for workers. They
combined with liberals during the 1848 revolutions and took to the streets; however, the failure of
the liberals and the socialists to agree and remain unified led to the failure of the 1848 revolution and
meant that the Frankfurt Assembly was unable to promote real change.
Bismarck and Unification of the German States | 21
DENMARK
B A L T I C
Copenhagen
S E A
N O R T H
SCHLESWIG
EAST PRUSSIA
S E A
HOLSTEIN
MECKLENBURG
Oldenburg
PRUSSIA
HANOVER
Warsaw
BRANDENBURG
NETHERLANDS
RUSSIA
POLAND
Od
er
R
iv
er
Riv
Hesse
Cassel
Nassau Hesse
Darmstadt
er
i ne
Rh
BELGIUM
rR
be
El
WESTPHALIA
THURINGIAN
STATES
ive
r
Prague
Free city of
Frankfurt
LUXEMBOURG
SAXONY
BOHEMIA
MORAVIA
ALSACE
LORRAINE
BAVARIA
WRTTEMBURG
FRANCE
BADEN
Danu
be River
Vienna
Munich
Prussia before 1866
N
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN
EMPIRE
SWITZERLAND
100
200
Drava River
300 km
Unification of Germany 186471
NATIONALISM
Nationalism, the idea that people with a common language and culture should band together as
members of one country, proved to be one of the most powerful of the nineteenth century. German
unification had more to do with nationalism that any other single idea. Bismarck used the idea of
nationalism in one war after another to bring the German states and the German people together.
Nationalism was a concept that was accepted across the political spectrum by liberals, socialists and
their more conservative political opponents like Bismarck.
In 1859 the Nationalverein (National Association) was set up by liberal groups to discuss unification
and nationalist ideas. During the same period many German cultural, sporting and educational
associations were established and in 1863 a German National Working Mens Association was formed.
These organisations reflected the spirit of nationalism.
1 What part did the French Revolution play in German unification?
2 What was liberalism?
3 What was socialism?
4 What was nationalism?
Acquired by Prussia or
joined North German
Confederation, 18661867
Incorporated in German
Empire 1871
Boundary of the German
Confederation 1815
Boundary of the German
Empire 1871
Venice
Figure 2.1
KEY
BISMARCKIAN FOREIGN POLICY

The historian Mary Fulbrook noted that What came as unification in 1871 was less a result or
expression of any budding German nationalism than a form of Prussian expansion and colonisation of
non-Prussian Germany (Fulbrook 1990, p. 125). The man who directed this expansion and colonisation
was Otto von Bismarck. He dominated the domestic affairs of Prussia and controlled its foreign policy.
THE PRIME MINISTER OF PRUSSIA

Bismarck had spent a number of years as a diplomat, representing Prussia in St Petersburg and Paris,
before the Prussian king, Wilhelm I, asked him to become prime minister. In 1862 the king was faced
with a liberal parliament once again demanding changes. Wilhelm appointed Bismarck prime minister
of Prussia and minister for foreign affairs at the age of forty-seven, because of his record as a devoted
enemy of liberal reform. Bismarck stayed in the job for twenty-seven years until the kings grandson
Wilhelm II dismissed him.
Bismarck had never been elected to parliament, but in Prussia that did not matter; the king selected
and appointed his ministers and they attended parliament but ultimately were not responsible to it.
When Bismarck became prime minister he didnt belong to any particular party. He was not even typical
of his own social class and didnt always behave the way people expected a member of the land-owning
Junker class to behave. He therefore had a great deal of independence. His first step was to divert the
liberal calls for reform by saying that all real progress towards change should wait until Germany was
unified. Bismarck reminded the liberals that in 1848 unification had once been one of their aims. This
approach reflected Bismarcks considerable political skill: he redirected public and political attention away
from issues he didnt favour and toward objectives that he did. This approach is reflected over and over in
the actions of politicians of every era and every countryif
domestic issues become a problem, try to focus the publics
thinking on foreign policy or on a common enemy.
At this time the complexity of Bismarcks personality (Taylor
1985) was reflected in his dealings with those around him. His
concern was mainly with foreign policy (Waller 1997, p. 20).
Tsar Alexander II of Russia, Napoleon III of France and Queen
Victoria of Great Britain, despite their suspicions, found him
charming and impressive. In domestic politics, however, he
was abrasive and vengeful. His political career was dotted
with bitter personal feuds. Friedrich von Holstein, who worked
with Bismarck at the foreign ministry, said that Bismarck had
no friends beyond his family and he used people as tools, like
knives and forks which are changed after each course.
1 What was the historian Mary Fulbrooks view of
German unification?
2 When did Bismarck become prime minister of
Prussia?
3 What was Bismarcks attitude to German
unification and liberalism?
Figure 2.2
Portrait of Otto von Bismarck
THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS UNIFICATION

The unification of the German states was undoubtedly Bismarcks greatest political achievement and one
that created the Bismarck legend. Bismarck had opposed the liberals in their bid to unify Germany from
below in 1848. By the 1860s, however, he was ready for unity on his terms. The new German nation would
be created from above, with Prussia as the leading state and the ruler of Prussia as the ruler of Germany.
The process involved three wars, in what Bismarck described as a process of iron and bloodthese were
Bismarcks words, but the phrase blood and iron came to be more commonly used.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TH E H IST OR IOGRAPHY O F GERMAN UNI FIC ATIO N
CAUSES AND MOTIVATION

Originally historians interpreted German unification
in terms of foreign policy, nationalism and Bismarcks
diplomacy. Traditional German scholarship going back
to Leopold von Ranke, described by some as the father
of modern history, identified foreign policy as the key to
understanding why nations behaved as they did. By the
1960s, however, historians had moved away from this
view. By contrast, they looked at the domestic scene for
the primary sources of national motivation.
One of Germanys best known historians, Wolfgang
Mommsen, further developed this argument in the 1990s.
He argued that Bismarcks policies were an attempt, in
defiance of the trends of the age, to protect the existing
social order (Mommsen 1996). This view was not as
extreme as that put forward by the Marxist historians of
the old East Germany, who suggested that Bismarcks
approach to unification was little more than a plot by the
ruling class to delay the domestic forces of social change
and revolution. Marxist historians paid little attention
to either individuals or foreign policy; they addressed
the sweeping social and economic changes that were
taking place in Germany at the time. These forces, they
argued, not Bismarck or his diplomacy, were the key to
understanding the period.
According to Mommsen, Wolfgang Sauer in his book
The Problem of the German Nation State explained German
unification as a three-part model:
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Mommsens position acknowledged the domestic
social pressures that were central to the Marxist position,
but he insisted that Bismarck remained a central figure in
the process: Bismarcks policiesadmirable or satanic
occupy centre stage (Mommsen 1996).
Mommsens greatest contribution to this debate was
his recognition that causation in this instance, like in so
many others, rested on many factors: The social and
political foundations on which the German Empire of
1871 rested were multiple and varied. Mommsen also
made a telling point about the process and the outcome
of German unification, noting that it was modernization
without democratization (Mommsen 1996). In other
words, the way the new German state had been created
would make it difficult for democracy and democratic
ideals to flourish.
The implication of this, according to Mommsen, was
that conservative politicians were willing to take risks in
foreign policy in 1914 to shift attention away from Social
Democratic calls for reform (Mommsen 1996). Beyond
that the ethos of the Prussian state, with its values of
authoritarian rule and militarism, remained a strong factor
in German political life in the 1930s. Therefore, the way the
German state was created influenced not only the First
World War, but also the rise of Hitler.
This view is supported by the American historian
George Kent, among others, who summed up this
situation by pointing to the ceremony that took place in
1871 to proclaim the new German nation. He said that
it was in character: Kings and princes of the German
states and generals and officers of the victorious armies
attended, and, of course Bismarck. Only the representatives
of the German people were missing (Kent 1978, p. 76;
emphasis added).
PREDETERMINED OR OPPORTUNIST?
The other major question of historiography about the
process of German unification is this: how much of it was
pre-planned? Did Bismarck calculate the process step-bystep, or did he simply respond to individual opportunities
as they presented themselves? It is possible when reading
about the three wars of German unification to assume that
it all fell into a neat, pre-planned pattern, with Bismarck
as the puppet master, pulling the diplomatic strings. This
is the Bismarck legend; a legend that Bismarck added to
in his memoirs. We can test the legend. If we examine
Bismarcks memoirs, his version of history after the event,
and compare it with what he actually wrote and said
at the time we find evidence to contradict the legend,
Bismarck continued to be firmly opposed to any liberal

or sentimental visions of nationalism. To him it was a matter
of foreign policy, power and politics. In Bismarcks eyes
unification was as much about Prussia taking over the rest
of Germany, as it was the German people uniting. Bismarck
was not a German nationalist in any conventional sense. By
opportunism of astonishing boldness and complexity, he
brought about unification as a by-product of service to his
King (Gay & Webb 1973, p. 786). An important step in this
process was the removal of the other great Germanic power,
Austria, which was Prussias only rival for the leadership of a
united Germany. From the outset Bismarck was certain that
Prussias interest could be forwarded only at the expense
of Austria (Gay & Webb 1973, p. 786). During the 1860s
Bismarck took diplomatic steps to isolate Austria from
support. As a result, Russia, Italy and France indicated their
friendship with Prussia.
THE WAR OVER SCHLESWIG

HOLSTEIN 1864
In 1864 Prussia and Austria combined to go to war against
Denmark over control of the provinces of SchleswigHolstein.
Some historians have suggested that this brief conflict,
easily won by the two German states against a much weaker
Denmark, was just a tactic by Bismarck to draw Austria into a
later dispute between Prussia and Austria over control of the
newly acquired provinces. Historian A. J. P. Taylor disagrees,
however, rejecting the idea that Bismarck entered into the
war over SchleswigHolstein with the idea that it would be
the basis of a later, perhaps more critical dispute with Austria
(Taylor 1985). Taylor saw Bismarck as a brilliant opportunist.
namely, that it wasnt all carefully pre-planned. Following

from this, the British historian A. J. P. Taylor believed that
Bismarck was a brilliant opportunist, taking advantage of
situations as they arose, rather than pre-planning them.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y TASK
s 3UMMARISETHECHANGINGHISTORICAL
interpretations of German unification. In
Mommsens view what have been the
consequences of this process?
s 2ESEARCH!*04AYLORSVIEWSABOUTTHERISE
of Hitler and the causes of the Second World
7AR.OTE4AYLORSVIEWABOUTTHESIMILARITY
between Bismarck and Hitler that both were
GREATOPPORTUNISTS
The American historian George Kent agreed with Taylor

when he wrote: It is impossible to point to the moment
when Bismarck decided to go to war against Austria. As
usual, he kept his options open and pursued several policies
simultaneously (Kent 1978, p. 52).
Ultimately the province of Schleswig did become very
important to the German nation. In 1895 the Kiel Canal was
cut through the Jutland peninsula in Schleswig, allowing quick
and easy passage of German warships from the Baltic Sea into
the North Sea and the Atlantic. Without Schleswig and the
Kiel Canal, the build-up of the German navy, which was part of
the global German policy that contributed to the First World
War, would have been far more difficult. There is, however, no
evidence that any of this occurred to Bismarck at the time. He
never expressed an interest in a Prussian or a German navy and
his focus was always European, never global.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

7HATISMEANTBYTHESENTENCE@4HENEW
German nation would be created from above?
2 What was Bismarcks attitude to Austria in terms
of German unification?
3 Which was the first of the three wars of German
unification?
7HATARETHEKEYASPECTSOF'EORGE+ENTS
OPINIONTHATSUPPORT4AYLORSARGUMENTTHAT
Bismarck was an opportunist?
(OWDID3CHLESWIGBECOMEIMPORTANTTO
Germany?
THE WARS OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION AGAINST AUSTRIA AND FRANCE

Bismarck wanted Germany to be unified, but without including Austria. A war between Prussia and
Austria was intended to unite northern Germany behind Prussia, then remove Austria as a rival in German
affairs. The war only lasted seven weeks. Nevertheless, Wilhelm I, the Prussian king, insisted on being with
his armies. This meant that Bismarck felt obliged to go along as well and this created a problem because
Bismarck was only a lieutenant in the Prussian army reserve. Clearly this would be awkward because he
would be a lieutenant surrounded by generals. He had undergone the required period of military service
but hadnt enjoyed it or stayed in the army long, later admitting he disliked war and always had a problem
dealing with superiors. The problem was solved when Bismarck was granted perhaps the quickest
promotion in military historyfrom lieutenant to temporary major-general, overnight.
The Prussian army, led by the legendary Helmuth von Moltke (uncle of the general of the same
name who led Germanys army in 1914) crushed the Austrians at the Battle of Sadowa, also known
as the battle of Koniggratz, and they surrendered. Bismarck granted generous peace terms for the
Austrians. The Treaty of Prague was a soft peace. Bismarck claimed to be thinking ahead. It was enough
that Austria was out of German affairs and he wanted to be able to build a peaceful understanding
with them. Bismarck didnt want a bitter enemy on his southern border.
Prussia now stood alone as the most powerful German state. Bismarck had drawn together most
of Germanys northern states in the new North German Confederation. It did not include southern
German states like Bavaria, Wurttemberg or Baden. The next war was designed to complete the
unification process and draw these southern states into one nation. The technique was familiar: give
the German peoples a common enemy, something that would encourage them to band together.
That common enemy would be France.
(OWLONGDIDTHEWARWITH!USTRIALASTANDWHATWASTHEKEYBATTLE
7HYWAS"ISMARCKGENEROUSTO!USTRIAINTHEPEACESETTLEMENT
)STHEREANYEVIDENCEIN"ISMARCKSTREATMENTOF!USTRIATHATHEWASALREADYTHINKING
about another war?
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 187071

Bismarck was always careful to ensure alliances that were a threat were never established against him.
He also worked hard diplomatically to ensure that potential enemies didnt have strong allies to call on
in time of war. This had been his policy towards France. As a review of the historiography of the period
indicates, there is debate over whether Bismarck planned all the steps leading to the Franco-Prussian War
or if he just took advantage of situations that developed.
The key events that led to the war with France were as follows:
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1 What were the second and third wars of
German unification?
2 List the events that immediately led to the
Franco-Prussian War.
R E VI E W TA SK
4OCONSIDERTHEHISTORIOGRAPHICALQUESTIONOF
how much was pre-planned by Bismarck and
HOWMUCHWASOPPORTUNISMAS4AYLORSUGGESTS
DOFURTHERREADINGTHENDISCUSSTHECAUSESOF
the war.
Make a list of the situations that were created
and controlled by Bismarck and another list of
events and developments beyond Bismarcks
control.
Figure 2.3
Bismarck in his seventies
THE CONSEQUENCES OF GERMAN UNIFICATION

Much to the surprise of the French and many of the neutral observers, the French army proved no
match for the Prussian forces. With the benefit of hindsight, the Prussian victory does not seem so
surprising. Von Moltke was a brilliant commander and the Prussian army was better trained and had
far better artillery than the French. Although the French rifles had a longer range, and they had an
excellent multi-barrelled weapon that was like the American Gatling gun, an early version of the
machine-gun, it didnt matter in the face of the huge advantage the Prussians had with their Kruppmade heavy artillery. The only aspect of this war in which the French were clearly supreme was in
the brilliance of their uniforms, which had bright colours, gold braid and an excellent cut. In every
other important respect their army was inferior. The British historian Michael Howard summed it up as
follows: The social and economic development of the past fifty years had brought about a military as
well as an industrial revolution. The Prussians had kept abreast of it and France had not. Therein lay the
basic cause of her defeat (Howard 1981, p. 1).
The war was over in six months. The Treaty of Frankfurt gave the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to
Germany, and France had to pay an indemnity of 5000 million francs. On 18 January 1871 the Prussian
king became the Kaiser of Germany and the German nation was born.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Franco-Prussian War had:

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NPEFSOXBS
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r MFGUBCJUUFSOFTTCFUXFFO'SBODFBOE(FSNBOZUIBUJOVFODFEUIFPVUCSFBL
PGUIF'JSTU8PSME8BS
All of these factors had a direct influence on the events of 191418. In the
longer term, however, the impact of German unification was even greater.
Both Mommsen and Michael Howard (1991) acknowledged that the legacy
of German unification, as directed by Bismarck, had implications that went
beyond the First World War and continued into the 1930s and 1940s. Howard
maintained the victory over France in 187071 was seen in Germany as the
vindication of a specific value-system; one based on loyalty, obedience,
discipline, courage and religious faith, as against that democratic creed widely
regarded as atheistical, materialist, individualistic and morally decadent
(Howard 1991, p. 56). Howard asserted that there were intrinsic links between
aspects of the Prussian tradition and Nazism.
Bismarck was not an easy person to have

as a neighbour. People who lived near him
called him the mad Junker, based on the
fact that he was often too impatient to
climb down from his horse to knock on a
door, so he just fired pistol shots through
windows to announce his presence.
Bismarck liked to drink and smoke. He
claimed to have invented a drink that he
called Black Velvet, which was a mixture of
champagne and stout. Bismarck announced
that it was his ambition to drink 5000 bottles
of champagne and smoke 100 000 cigars in
his lifetime. He also liked women and despite
being married he had many affairs. His taste
in women was made clear when he wrote
that he hated clever womenwomen should
be there simply to comfort and entertain him.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY
Source 2.1
The Empire created in 1871 by Bismarcks diplomacy
and Prussian military power, despite its institutional
similarities to the Western constitutional regimes, was, and
remained, an authoritarian State that recognized neither
the theory nor the practice of popular sovereignty and
self government; and that meant that Germany entered
the twentieth century without the kind of tradition that
might have enabled it to meet the hard problems that were
awaiting it.

7HATTWOFACTORSACCORDINGTO#RAIGUNIlED
Germany?
2 What do you think were the hard problems
THAT#RAIGMENTIONED
$OESTHISPASSAGESUPPORTORCONTRADICTTHE
views of Mommsen and Howard? Explain your
answer.
G.A. Craig, The Germans, 1991, p. 33.
1 Why did the French lose the Franco-Prussian War?
7HATWERETHEMAINTERMSOFTHE4REATYOF&RANKFURT(OWDIDITDIFFERFROMTHETERMS
of peace Bismarck imposed on Austria?
3 What were the immediate results of the Franco-Prussian War?
7HATWERETHELONGER TERMRESULTSOFTHEPROCESSOF'ERMANUNIlCATION
R E VI E W TA SK
!NSWERONEOFTHEFOLLOWINGESSAYTOPICS
s %VALUATETHEKEYFACTORSTHATLEDTOTHEUNIlCATIONOFTHE'ERMANSTATESIN
s 7HATLESSONSOFHISTORYCANBEGAINEDFROMASTUDYOFTHEPROCESSANDRESULTSOF
German unification?
If you go on to study Chapter 11, take particular note of the views expressed by both Mommsen
and Howard about the legacy of the process of German unification for democracy in Germany.
References
Craig G. A., The Germans, Meridian, New York, 1991
Fulbrook M., A Concise History of Germany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990
Gay P. & Webb R. K., Modern Europe, Harper and Row, New York, 1973
Howard M., The Franco-Prussian War, Methuen, New York, 1981
Howard M., The Lessons of History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1991
Kent G. O., Bismarck and His Times, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1978
Mommsen W. J., Imperial Germany 18671918, Arnold, London, 1996
Taylor A. J. P., Bismarck, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1985
Waller B., Bismarck, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1997
THE DECLINE AND

FALL OF THE
ROMANOV DYNASTY
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
When, in 1894, Tsar Alexander III died suddenly of kidney failure aged only fortynine years, his son Nicholas Romanov succeeded him as Nicholas II. Inexperienced
and ill-prepared for the task of governing the extensive Russian Empire, Nicholas
complained to his brother-in-law: I am not prepared to be a Tsar. I never wanted
to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling.
Like his father before him Nicholas was determined to rule as an autocrat, that
is, one who rules without accepting any limitations to his power. In an autocracy
no consultation is necessary; the rulers will is law and parliaments, if they exist,
are powerless. Nicholas would not willingly grant any concessions to those who
wanted political reform and in this lay the seeds of destruction, both for Russia
as a monarchy and for Nicholas as an individual. As Orlando Figes says of the
reigns of Nicholas and his father: It was their tragedy that just as Russia was
entering the twentieth century, they were trying to return it to the seventeenth.
(Figes 1997, p. 14)
Figure 3.1 Nicholas and Alexandra circa

1890. A serious character and prone to
nervous illnesses, Alexandra rarely smiled in
photographs.
Timeline
1868
1894
1895
1904
1905
1906
1914
1915
Nicholas Romanov is born.
1916
1917
1918
Rasputin, whose influence over Alexandra attracts criticism, is murdered.
Nicholas marries Princess Alix (Alexandra) of HesseDarmstadt and becomes Tsar.

The royal children are born: Olga (1895), Tatiana (1897), Marie (1899), Anastasia (1901) and
Alexis (1904). Alexis suffers from the potentially deadly disease haemophilia, in which the
blood fails to clot.
A year of riots and disturbances leads to the October Manifesto, a concession which
helps to stop the unrest by promising a constitution.
First Russian Duma (parliament) meets but is dissolved after ten weeks because it
questions the Tsars powers.
The First World War breaks out, temporarily uniting the country behind Nicholas.
Nicholas becomes army commander-in-chief, thus identifying himself with Russias
military failures in the war: military defeats, lack of ammunition and poor medical facilities
were now blamed on him.
Nicholas II abdicates in the face of revolution. Russia becomes a republic.

Nicholas, Alexandra and children are executed at Ekaterinburg.
The Decline and Fall of the Romanov Dynasty | 31
Timeline exercise
Study the timeline, then use the information to write
questions for which the following are answers.
1 fifty years old
2 1904
3 murdered
4 the Russian monarchy ends
5 twenty-six years old
6 Anastasia
7 ten weeks
8 Ekaterinburg
9 1915
Figure 3.2 Marie, Tatiana, Anastasia, Olga and Alexis. Their mother
always insisted that the daughters dress identically.
10 seventeen years old
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: RU SSIA I N 1 9 0 0

DO CUMENT ST U D Y QUEST IONS
Look carefully at the cartoon and answer the following
questions, based upon your observations.
1 What comment is the cartoon making about the Tsars position
in society?
2 What is the cartoon suggesting about conditions in Russia?
3 What is the Tsar holding? What is the significance of each of
these items?
4 There are two figures on the surface of the ground
(one on the left and one on the right). What are they doing?
What group in society do you think these figures represent?
5 Consider the title of the cartoon. What clue does it give
about the type of people who are in the caverns in the middle
of the picture?
Figure 3.3
Underground Russiaa foreign artists view
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E CH ARACT ER O F N IC HO LAS II

Source 3.1
Source 3.4
At his desk, he wore a simple Russian peasant blouse,

baggy breeches and soft leather boots Although
Nicholass English, French and German were excellent, he
preferred to speak Russian.
A quick intelligence, a cultivated mind, method and

industry in his work, and an extraordinary charm that
attracted all who came near himthe Emperor Nicholas
had not inherited his fathers commanding personality
nor the strong character and prompt decision which are so
essential to an autocratic ruler
R.K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1972, p. 61.
Source 3.2
Nicholas was not only unstable, but treacherous. Flatterers
called him a charmer because of his gentle way with
courtiers. But the Tsar reserved his special caresses for just
those ocials he had decided to dismiss. Charmed beyond
measure at a reception, the minister would go home and
find a letter requesting his resignation.
Nicholas recoiled in hostility from anything gifted and
significant. He felt at ease only among completely mediocre
and brainless people.
Sir G. Buchanan, British ambassador to Russia from 1910,

in H. Seton-Watson, The Decline of Imperial Russia, 1964,
p. 108.
DOCUMENT ST U DY QUEST IONS

1 Assess the character of Nicholas II as revealed
in the sources:
(a) List the positive features mentioned.
(b) List the negative features mentioned.
L. Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution,

pp. 529.
2 Why was his desire to rule as an autocrat

likely to end in failure?
Source 3.3
3 Overall, did Nicholas possess the qualities to

be a good ruler of a country on the brink of the
twentieth century? Explain your answer.
He was a devoted husband and father, loved the country

and the wildlife, and was a good landlord. Of constitutional,
social and economic problems he understood little.
H. Seton-Watson, The Decline of Imperial Russia
18551914, Methuen, London, 1964, p. 136.
THE 1905 REVOLUTION

Russian society at the beginning of the twentieth century was rapidly becoming more
educated, more urban and more complex (Figes 1997, p. 15). Literacy rates were rising, even
in the countryside. Ironically, this newly literate generation was to provide many of the local
activists who, when faced with the intransigence of an autocratic regime, became more
revolutionary as discontent increased.
The new century had started badly for the autocracy. A poor harvest in 1902 intensified
the poverty of the peasants. They seized land from the landowners and destroyed property.
Disorder spread to the cities and by the middle of 1903 a wave of strikes in the oil industry,
engineering works and the railways threatened to paralyse the economy. A war with Japan,
begun in 1904 with the expectation that Russia would enjoy a quick and cheap victory
over an inferior rival, had brought unexpected difficulties. Mobilisation of peasants sons
disrupted agriculture and food supplies. A general discontent with the conduct of the war
and alarm at a series of defeats was added to the economic hardships.
DID YOU KNOW?

Alexander III, Nicholass
father, enjoyed showing off
his strength. His party trick
was to crash through locked
doors or bend silver roubles
in his thumb.
The agitation of 1905 began with a strike in the Putilov steelworks in St Petersburg on
16 January, caused by the dismissal of some men belonging to the Assembly of Russian
Figure 3.4 A workers lodging

house in Moscow in 1911. Those
workers who were too poor
to hire beds slept on the floor
underneath the beds.
Workers. The union had been founded, with police assistance and approval, by Father George Gapon,
a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Gapon has been described as a young and popular priest with a genuine interest in the welfare of
his people in the working-class districts of St Petersburg where he worked, though some suspected
him of being a police agent. Others saw him differently. A contemporary observer alleged he was
actually a revolutionary socialist, whose purpose was to secure concessions on working conditions
from the employers, under the respectable cloak of the priesthood (Bucklow & Russell 1987).
Whatever his motivation, Gapon decided to put himself at the head of the protest movement.
He organised a protest march and petition that would be presented to the Tsar at the Winter Palace
on Sunday 22 January. About 150 000 people marched from all parts of the city, many of them
carrying religious icons and portraits of the Tsar.
The petition was written in respectful terms, addressing the Tsar as Sire and O Emperor, and
called for:
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To many of the marchers, and to others of the poorer classes throughout Russia, Nicholas was a
father figure who had their best interests at heart but was prevented from understanding their plight
by a barrier of officialdom. If they could only meet the Tsar face to face, so the argument ran, he would
realise the true situation and put in place measures to remedy it. However, Nicholas was not in the
Winter Palace that weekend; he had gone to Tsarskoe Selo, another palace on the outskirts of the city.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E B LOODY S UN DAY MARC H

Source 3.5
Source 3.6
Along the Nevsky Prospect came row upon row of orderly

and solemn faced workers all dressed in their best clothes
We had already reached the Alexander Gardens, on the
other side of which lay the Winter Palace square, when
we heard the sound of bugles, the signal for the cavalry to
charge. The marchers came to a halt in front, on the right,
was a detachment of police, but since they showed no sign
of hostility, the procession began moving again. Just then,
however, a detachment of cavalry rode out The first volley
was fired in the air, but the second was aimed at the crowd
Panic stricken, the crowd turned and began running in
every direction It was quite clear that the authorities had
made a terrible mistake; they had totally misunderstood the
intentions of the crowd the workers went to the palace
without any evil intent. They sincerely believed that when
they got there they would kneel down and the Tsar would
come out to meet them or at least appear on the balcony.
Robert McCormick, the United States ambassador in

St Petersburg, described it differently.
I have heard the assembled crowd accused of nothing
worse than jeering at the troops, hustling the ocers,
and using language to them that will not bear repetition,
although they came, it is said, armed with knives, pieces of
piping, sticks, and some even with revolvers.
I do know that the commanding ocer of the infantry
twice warned them to disperse, adding that if they did not,
he would be compelled to fire on them the ocers, on
foot, would go right in among the people and try to reason
with them, seeming to do everything in their power to
persuade the people to disperse peaceably.
M. Bucklow & G. Russell, Russia: Why Revolution?, 1987.
A. Kerensky, The Kerensky Memoirs: Russia and Historys

Turning Point, 1965.
v a
N e
r
v e
R i
Winter Palace
X
Ne
G U L F
vsk
O F
y
Pro
s
pe
F I N L A N D
ct
Narva Gate
KEY
3 km
Routes of the Bloody

Sunday Marches.
To Putilov Factory
Points where soldiers

stopped the marches.
Figure 3.5 St Petersburg, showing the routes of the Bloody Sunday marchers
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: CONT INU ED
Figure 3.6 Troops open fire on the marchers approaching the Narva Gate on the southern outskirts of St Petersburg; Father Gapon
(in centre) in a tall hat, holding an icon.
D O C U M E N T ST UDY TA S K
Read the accounts by Kerensky and McCormick of the Bloody Sunday march. In what ways do these
accounts differ? How do you account for these differences?
The official toll was ninety-two dead and several hundred
wounded, though one English newspaper reported 2000
killed and 5000 wounded. Whatever the final figure, Bloody
Sunday had a profound effect on the attitude of the people
towards the Tsar. Instead of their Little Father he became
Nicholas the Bloody. The traditional belief that the Tsar and
the people were linked in a common bond, a view that
Nicholas himself liked to foster, was shattered forever.
Father Gapon escaped into hiding, from where he issued
a public letter denouncing the Tsar for the bloodshed in
bitter terms. Just over a year later, in April 1906, his body was
found hanging in an abandoned cottage in Finland.
REVIEW TASK
The mysterious death of Father Gapon leaves
many questions: Was it suicide? Was he
executed by revolutionaries suspicious of his
past links with the police? Was he executed by
the secret police because he knew too much?
Present a case for each of these possibilities,
then indicate which you favour.
THE AFTERMATH OF BLOODY SUNDAY

Following the events of Bloody Sunday the police arrested those leaders of the march they could find
and sent them into internal exile. This only succeeded in spreading the news of the massacre across
the country. On 17 February Grand Duke Sergei, Nicholass uncle and governor-general of Moscow, was
killed by a bomb thrown by a socialist revolutionary.
Peasant revolts began in early February 1905 and intensified as the year progressed. In one district
after another the landowners were forcibly removed and their land seized. In June a national Peasants
Union was formed as the peasants took up the socialist revolutionary cry of land for the peasants.
By the end of January nearly half a million workers were on strike in the cities, and unions for
all classes blossomeddoctors, lawyers and teachers formed organisations alongside waiters
and engineers. In May the Union of Unions was formed, and at the end of June a congress of
representatives from eighty-six city councils across Russia met in Moscow to demand civil liberties and
the formation of a legislative assembly elected by universal suffrage. In factories, councils of elected
delegates were formed to negotiate with the factory owners.
Bad news from the east worsened the situation. The war against Japan had produced a series of
embarrassing defeats. In February 1905 the Russian army was defeated by the Japanese at Mukden, and
on 27 May the Russian fleet was destroyed in the Straits of Tsushima. With morale in the armed forces
low, the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin in the Black Sea mutinied in June.
By August the increasing discontent led Nicholas to promise that an assembly or Duma would be
called. Nicholas would seek its opinion when he chose, but it would have no authority to make laws
against his wishes.
The promise of a Duma on such limited terms failed to satisfy the opponents of the regime. Strikes
and protest meetings intensified. On 21 October a railway strike was declared in Moscow and spread
across the nation. On 26 October the first St Petersburg soviet was formed, with Leon Trotsky as one of
its leaders.
Nicholas turned to Prime Minister Witte for advice and was told that the regime could only be saved
by granting the people a constitution. This document, the October Manifesto, marked a watershed in
the events of 1905, but ultimately it solved little and pleased very few.
The soviets, with their concerns for working conditions such as the eight-hour day, condemned the
Manifesto as it did little to address the everyday needs of the working people. They found, however,
that their alliance with the more liberal middle-class elements was crumbling as the latter seemed to
be willing to settle for the political concessions offered. When, in November, the St Petersburg soviet
called a general strike in support of the eight-hour day, it was forced to abandon the protest as there
was little support from the middle classes.
Nicholas disliked the Manifesto. He had hoped to buy peace with concessions and felt betrayed
when the strikes and protests continued. Nicholas returned to the methods of an autocrat.
In the countryside loyal troops moved through the villages with a campaign of hangings and
floggings to subdue the rebellious peasants. On 16 December the St Petersburg soviet was closed
down and 190 of its members arrested. A general strike in Moscow led to street fighting from
21 December until 2 January 1906, resulting in defeat for the strikers at the cost of over 1000 lives.
It had been a troubled year for Nicholas; however, the secret police were as powerful as ever, the
army had remained loyal, the bureaucracy remained intact, and the soviets had been defeated. As
Trotsky said, Although with a few broken ribs, Tsarism came out of the experience of 1905 alive and
strong enough.
Source 3.7
The October Manifesto
We, Nicholas the Second declare to all our loyal subjects:
The rioting and agitation in the capitals and in many localities of
our Empire fills our heart with great and deep grief. The welfare of
the Russian Emperor is bound up with the welfare of the people,
and its sorrows are his sorrows. The turbulence which has broken
out may confound the people and threaten the integrity and unity
of our empire.
[The Tsar decided the following:]
1 To grant to the population the inviolable right of free
citizenship, based on the principles of freedom of the person,
conscience, speech, assembly, and union.
2 Without postponing the intended elections for the State Duma
to include in the participation of the work of the Duma
those classes of the population that have been until now
entirely deprived of the right to vote
3 To establish as an unbreakable rule that no law shall go into
force without its confirmation by the State Duma
Tsar Nicholas.
Source 3.8
A comment by Leon Trotsky:
So a Constitution is granted.
Freedom of assembly is granted;
but the assemblies are surrounded
by the military. Freedom of speech
is granted, but censorship exists
exactly as before. Freedom of
knowledge is granted, but the
universities are occupied by
troops. Inviolability of person
is granted, but the prisons are
overflowing with the incarcerated
A constitution is given, but the
autocracy remains. Everything is
given and nothing is given.
Figure 3.7 The Releasean optimistic view of the

October Manifesto from Punch, 8 November 1905
DO C UME N T ST UD Y QUEST IONS

1 Why, according to Source 3.7, was the Manifesto introduced?
2 What changes were granted by Nicholas? Summarise them in your
own words.
3 What does the female figure symbolise in Figure 3.7?
4 Explain the message of the cartoon in Figure 3.7.
5 How does Source 3.8 contradict Figure 3.7?
6 In Trotskys view (Source 3.8), how genuine is the Tsars desire
for reform?
7 Do the comments in Source 3.8 suggest that the revolutionary activity
will increase or diminish after the issuing of the October Manifesto?
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS 190514

The Tsar bitterly resented the concession of a Duma and tried to reassert his position by issuing a series
of Fundamental Laws on 2 May 1906. These confirmed the Tsars right to appoint his own ministers,
to legislate by decree and to have complete control over foreign affairs. Laws passed by the Duma
required his approval to have legal force, and an Imperial Council, half of whose members were to be
appointed by the Tsar, would share power with the Duma.
The elections for the first Duma produced a parliament that took a clear anti-government stance.
The Duma met for ten weeks, from May until June 1906, after which it was dissolved by the Tsar.
A second Duma, meeting in February 1907, fared little better. It was dissolved within three
months after it severely criticised the Tsars administration.
Before the third Duma met, the Tsar altered the electoral law to ensure that the
representation of the peasants, small landowners, and urban dwellers was drastically
reduced. The resulting Duma, a docile and conservative body, was allowed to serve its full
term from 1907 until 1912. The fourth and final Duma (191217) followed a similar pattern.
While the Dumas met, the Tsars prime minister, Peter Stolypin (190611), carried out
a policy to repress the revolutionary elements, and offer limited land concessions to the
peasants in a two-pronged approach designed to consolidate the position of the Tsar by
removing his opponents and winning the loyalty and gratitude of the peasants.
DID YOU KNOW?

Russian peasants sometimes
had to live with rude names,
for example, Smelly or
Ugly, which originally had
been an insult, but became
formalised as surnames.
They could not change
them without the Tsars
formal consent.
Revolutionary Parties
LEFT WING (radical revolutionaries)
2)'(47).'MODERATEREVOLUTIONARIES
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
split in 1903 into
NAME
Figure 3.8
BOLSHEVIKS
MENSHEVIKS
SOCIALIST
REVOLUTIONARIES
CADETS
OCTOBRISTS
SUPPORT
s URBANWORKING
class
s SOLDIERSINTHEARMY
DURING77)
s URBANWORKING
class
s SOMELAWYERS
ANDOTHER
professionals
s CAUTIOUS
socialists
s PEASANTS
s SOMEMODERATE
URBANSOCIALISTS
s PROGRESSIVE
landlords and
industrialists
s MANYLAWYERS
ANDOTHER
professionals
s WEALTHYLAND AND
FACTORY OWNERS
MONARCHISTS
PERSONALITIIES
s 6LADIMIR,ENIN
s ,EON4ROTSKY
s *ULIUS-ARTOV
s &EDOR$AN
s!LEXANDER+ERENSKY
s 0AUL-ILIUKOV
s 0RINCE,UOV
s !LEXANDER'UCHKOV
s -IKHAEL2ODZIANKO
POLICIES
s ALLIANCEBETWEEN
WORKINGCLASS
and peasants
s RAPIDOVERTHROW
OFTHE4SARANDTHE
MIDDLECLASSTO
ATTAINSOCIALISM
s #OOPERATIONWITH
THEMIDDLECLASSTO
OVERTHROWTHE4SAR
FOLLOWEDBYSTEADY
PROGRESSTO
SOCIALISM
s LANDREFORMTO
BENEFITTHEPEASANTS
s ACONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHYLIKETHE
%NGLISHMODEL
s SUPPORTEROFTHE
/CTOBER
Manifesto
s A$UMABUTWITH
THE4SARRETAINING
MOSTPOWER
Revolutionary parties
1 What do you understand by the term
revolution? Do the events of 1905 merit the
description of a revolution? Why or why not?
4 To what political party did each of the following

people belong: (a) Lenin (b) Miliukov (c) Martov
(d) Rodzianko (e) Kerensky?
2 What choices were available to Nicholas in facing

the growing call for change in Russia? Assess
the strengths and weaknesses of the options
available to him at the end of 1905.
5 Which of the political parties wished to retain

the Tsar as head of state?
3 The events of 1905 have been called a dress

rehearsal for the revolution of 1917. What
lessons might revolutionaries have drawn from
the events of 1905?
6 Remembering that Russia was a mainly

agricultural country, which party would seemingly
have attracted the support of the peasants?
7 State two policy differences that explain why
the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks disagreed with
each other.
THE EFFECTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

When war was declared between Germany and Russia in August 1914 it seemed that the conflict
would save the Romanov throne, not destroy it. Volunteers hastened to join the army. The Tsar blessed
the troops as they left for the front. Political differences were put aside as Russians joined to fight the
common enemy in defence of the homeland. Even urban discontent, which had been expressed in an
increasing number of political and economic strikes in the first half of the year, vanished. No strikes of
any kind were recorded for the month of August 1914.
At first it seemed a story of unstoppable success. In the south the Austrians were pushed back
in Galicia, while in the north the Germans were defeated at Gumbinnen. Then came the German
response. At Tannenberg in August 1914 the Germans inflicted a heavy defeat on the Russians. Masses
of prisoners, stores and guns were taken and the Russian commander Samsonov shot himself. In
September another heavy defeat at the Masurian Lakes confirmed the end of the advance against the
Germans and the beginning of a three-year attempt to hold back the German advance into Russias
western provinces. Though further successes were gained against Austria, the optimistic mood that
had greeted the war changed to one of increasing disillusionment.
Russia had been inadequately prepared for a modern war. Sukhomlinov, the war minister, had
severely underestimated the needs of the army. Factories could not produce enough ammunition and
army commanders were forced to plan manoeuvres using maps as much as eighteen years out of date.
By 1916 soldiers were fighting barefoot because of a shortage of boots, and only one in three had a
rifle. Artillery commanders were rationed to three to five shells per gun per day. The wounded were
often left unattended on station platforms for days and were transported in freight cars, lying on the
bare boards, often without adequate clothes or food. By the end of the 1915 summer campaign, Russia
had suffered 3.5 million casualties. Trotsky wrote: Through the infantry divisions, as through a sieve,
there passed ever new and less and less trained human masses.
The economy soon began to feel the strains of war. The
normal trade routes through the Baltic Sea and the Black
Sea were virtually cut off. Exports fell by 86.7 per cent in the
first full year of the war while budget expenditure rose from
3.5 billion roubles in 1914 to 15.3 billion roubles in 1916.
The government tried to fill the gap by borrowing from the
allies and by printing more money. The result was inflation,
which saw the price of flour double and the price of meat
triple between 1914 and 1916. Speculators flourished, with
a third of all grain stocks being held by banks, anticipating
price increases.
RUSSIA
Gumbinnen
Tannenberg
Mogilev
Masurian
Lakes
Warsaw
GER
MA
NY
AUSTRIAHUNGARY
N
Brusilovs
Offensives,
1916 and 1917
Galicia
1
19
S E A
ber
Front Line, Decem
The war hit the rural area particularly hard. About

fifteen million men were mobilised during the war, and
most of them were from the countryside. The loss of
fathers and sons, and even horses, to the war effort meant
fewer people and animals to work the soil. Though the
1916 harvest was good, the army took most of the supplies
and the peasants were reluctant to sell grain for devalued
money that bought little. There was, in fact, little to buy.
With the manufacturing focused on the war effort, the
production of agricultural implements dropped to 15 per
cent of the pre-war level.
Petrograd
B A L T I C
B L A C K
0
200
Figure 3.9
400
600 km
Russia at war, 191416
S E A
Figure 3.10
Russian boy soldiers guarded by German troops after capture at the battle of Tannenberg
In the cities the situation was no better. Food was hard to come by as an increasingly overloaded
rail network had trouble transporting grain from the farming areas of the south to the cities of the
north. Wages remained low and as prices rose discontent showed itself in strike activity: there were 268
in January and February 1917, resulting in a total of 403 295 lost working days.
As long as the states main priority was feeding and equipping millions of conscripts there could
be no improvement in the overall economic picture. Increasingly, thoughts turned towards ending the
war. One soldier wrote, Everyone, to the last man, was interested in nothing but peace who should
win and what kind of peace it would be, that was of small interest to the army. It wanted peace at any
cost, for it was weary of war.
If the war showed up Russias economic weaknesses, it also confirmed the view that the corruption
and ignorance of key individuals were leading the country to ruin. The principal objects of gossip and
rumour were Gregory Rasputin and the Tsarina Alexandra.
R E VI E W TA SK
1 Write a sentence about each of the following to show their place in the Russian
war effort:
(a) Gumbinnen
(b) Tannenberg
(c) Samsonov
(d) Sukhomlinov
2 Suggest reasons for the increased level of industrial unrest in Petrograd over this
period, as outlined below.
Strikes in Petrograd
August 1914
Strikes in Petrograd
JanuaryFebruary 1917
0
268
3 You are a peasant soldier writing to a friend in your home village. It is January
1917, and you have served in the army since the beginning of the war. Outline your
experiences and your thoughts on the progress of the war.
THE MAD MONK AND THE GERMAN WOMAN

Gregory Rasputin was born in Pokrovskoe, Siberia, in 1872. His drinking and sexual activities
quickly gained him a local reputation (Rasputin is Russian for womaniser). As a young man
he claimed to have had a deep religious experience, which led him to undertake several
pilgrimages. He was brought to the attention of Nicholas and Alexandra in November 1905
as a staretz, a wandering holy man.
Rasputins physical appearance was in stark contrast to the courtiers and nobles who
normally surrounded the royal couple. Dressed in a peasants smock, Rasputin had broad
shoulders with a large head, and unkempt, matted brown hair, which hung down to his
shoulders. He would use his long beard as a napkin, and his teeth were blackened stumps.
His eyes held the attention: they were small, bright and piercing, and many described
how they felt hypnotised by his gaze. Despite the label that his enemies later gave him, he
was neither mad, nor a monkhe had a wife and three children in Pokrovskoe. It was his
supposed powers as a healer that earned him the unquestioning support of Alexandra.
DID YOU KNOW?

The Khlysty were a religious
sect who believed that you
had to sin before you could
be saved before God. At their
meetings they danced naked
to achieve a state of frenzy,
then engaged in whipping
themselves and group sex.
Since the birth of their son and heir, Alexis, in 1904, Alexandra had worried constantly
about his health. His haemophilia meant that he was often ill and in great pain. Their regular
doctors could do little to prevent the pain and swelling that accompanied each knock or
bruise. Only Rasputin seemed to be able to help the boy. Whatever the source of his power,
Alexandras belief in Our Friendher name for Rasputincould not be shaken.
As Rasputins influence at court grew, so did the stories about his disreputable conduct.
The Okhrana, the Tsars secret police, watched his home
and listed his drunken exploits, his party-going and his
womanising. Lewd posters appeared depicting Rasputin
and the empress in sexual poses.
There was little point bringing these scandals to the
attention of the Tsar because Nicholas could always be
swayed by Alexandras robust defence of Our Friend.
In her mind any enemy of Rasputin was an enemy of the
autocracy. Rasputin boasted openly of his influence over
the royal couple, whom he referred to in their presence
as Mama and Papa: I can get anything and everything
from her. As for him, hes a simple soul. (Bucklow & Russell
1987, p. 115)
Rasputin also began to meddle in political and military
matters. When Nicholas appointed himself commander-inchief of the army in 1915 he spent much of his time in his
military headquarters at Mogilev, over 600 kilometres from
Petrograd. Control of the capital was left in the hands of
Alexandra, which, to a great extent, meant the control
of Rasputin.
He promoted his friends and admirers to positions of
power, regardless of ability. Able ministers were dismissed
if they spoke out against this growing corruption. Daily
audiences were held where Rasputin would dispense
favours, often by sending the petitioner to the relevant
Figure 3.11
Gregory Rasputin. His eyes had a hypnotic quality.
minister with a personal note. To ignore the note was

to invite dismissal. In this way Russia went through five
interior ministers and three foreign ministers in the space
of ten months.
The Tsarinas regular telegrams to Nicholas carried
military advice from Rasputin to advance here or retreat
there. Though Nicholas was not under Rasputins influence
to the same extent as his wife, the advice was sometimes
heeded to the astonishment and anger of the generals.
As the fortunes of war turned against Russia, rumours
abounded of German spies and sympathisers at the very
top in Russia. Alexandra, the former German princess, was
openly despised as the German woman, and it was known
that Rasputin had opposed the declaration of war against
Germany in 1914. By the autumn of 1916, with a Cabinet
dominated by Rasputins nominees, criticism was constant.
In December 1916 Rasputin was murdered by Prince Felix
Yusupov and Grand Duke Dimitry, young members of the
extended royal family. After he had been poisoned, shot and
clubbed to death, Rasputins body was wrapped in canvas
and dropped through a hole in the ice in the River Neva.
The death of Rasputin could not undo the effect
of his years of influence. Open corruption in political
appointments, rumours of German sympathisers at court,
and the inability of Nicholas to overrule the influence of
the German woman and the mad monk made it clear
to many, including the nobility and the wider royal family,
that a change was needed at the top. The desirability of the
change was accepted; only the nature and the timing of the
change were in doubt.
Figure 3.12 The Tsar and Tsarina dominated by Rasputin:

an opposition cartoon
R E VI E W TA SK
Produce the front page of a newspaper announcing Rasputins death. You should
choose an appropriate headline and write the main story. Your story could contain
reactions to the news from among the following: a spokesman for the Okhrana, a
palace spokesman representing the Tsarina, and the people in the street.
THE OVERTHROW OF THE TSAR

There was already talk of removing Nicholas II at the beginning of 1917. This came not from
revolutionary groups but from members of the Duma and several of the grand dukes of the imperial
family. Their hope was to put the Tsarevitch Alexis on the throne, with the experienced and popular
Grand Duke Nicholas as regent and effective leader. One grand duke wrote:
wUIFHPWFSONFOUJTUBLJOHFWFSZQPTTJCMFNFBTVSFUPDSFBUFBTNBOZEJTTBUJTFEQFPQMFBT
QPTTJCMFBOEJTTVDDFFEJOHDPNQMFUFMZBUJU8FBSFBTTJTUJOHBUBOVOQSFDFEFOUFETQFDUBDMFPG
SFWPMVUJPOGSPNBCPWF SBUIFSUIBOCFMPX 3BE[JOTLZ Q
Nicholas ignored the growing demands for change, remaining true to his coronation vow to uphold
autocracy. Alexandra supported him: Now let them [the Russian people] feel your fist They must
learn to fear you. Her view of the revolutionary threat was simple: There is no revolution in Russia, nor
could there be. God would not allow it. (Radzinsky 1992, p. 171)
THE MARCH REVOLUTION

On 7 March the Tsar left Petrograd for his military headquarters. The next day riots and demonstrations
broke out over the shortage of bread in Petrograd. Striking workers from the factories swelled the
numbers, and by the end of the day about 90 000 workers were on strike. Though there was violence,
there was no shooting by the police. The following day the demonstrators stopped the trams and
disabled the vehicles. In parts of the city the police fired on the crowds but, in an ominous sign for
the authorities, patrols of mounted Cossack troops refused to fire on the people. Nicholas, with a poor
understanding of what was happening in the capital, ordered the military commander in Petrograd to
end the disorder. From Alexandra he received assurances that all the trouble came from a collection
of idlers, wounded soldiers and high school girls; from Michael Rodzianko, the president of the Duma,
he received warnings that there was anarchy in the capital and it was essential immediately to order
persons having the confidence of the country to form a new government (Moynahan 1992, p. 63).
Nicholas ignored the latter telegram, complaining that that fat Rodzianco has written me some kind of
rubbish (Moynahan 1992, p. 63).
Monday 12 March was the turning point in the revolution. On the previous day, approximately
400 troops had mutinied for about an hour. By 10 a.m. on Monday, over 10 000 soldiers had mutinied.
Nicholas had given orders to suspend the Duma, but its members continued to meet. This in itself was
Figure 3.13 The revolution begins. The march through Petrograd on 8 March.
an act of rebellion. Some ministry buildings and government

offices had been occupied by revolutionaries. The headquarters of the secret police, police stations and the law
courts had been set on fire. No one gave orders or directed
events. In the words of one observer, the revolution went of
itself. The Duma members formed a provisional committee
to try to control the developing situation. Yet even as they
were taking this step, a rival source of authority had arisen in
the form of the workers soviet.
Finally, grasping the seriousness of the situation, Nicholas
prepared to return home, but he received word that the rail
lines into Petrograd were in the hands of the revolutionaries
and had to turn aside to Pskov. There he heard that his generals
had deserted him and he received messengers from the newly
formed provisional government urging him to abdicate.
At first he intended to abdicate in favour of his son,
Alexis, but after talking to his personal physician, Dr Federov,
who reminded him of the seriousness of Alexiss illness
and the likelihood that Nicholas and Alexandra would be
separated from him by exile, he decided to include Alexis in
the abdication document, which was signed on Thursday
15 March. The throne passed to Nicholass brother, Michael,
but he was persuaded that the public would not accept him
as Tsar, and also abdicated. Russia was now a republic and
the Romanov dynasty had ended.
Right to the end, Alexandra retained unrealistic hopes.

On the day of abdication she telegraphed to Nicholas: I feel
that God will do something When people find out they
have not let you go, the troops will be outraged and will rise
up against them all. (Radzinsky 1992, p. 184)
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What issue began the revolution on 8 March?
2 What was Alexandras attitude to the threat of
revolution?
3 What day is described as the turning point in
the March revolution? Why is this so?
4 Trotsky said: There is no doubt that the fate
of every revolution is decided by a break in the
disposition [loyalty] of the army. What did he
mean by this? Do the events of 815 March
support this view?
REVIEW TASK
A hypothetical exercise: how might the history
of Russia have been different if Alexis had not
suffered from haemophilia?
THE MYSTERY OF ANASTASIA

Nicholas had hoped that while the political turmoil of the revolution played itself out in Russia, he and
his family would be allowed to retire to Livadia, their palace on the Black Sea coast. This was not to be.
The new government could not let Nicholas stay at liberty. On the one hand, revolutionaries might
try to kill him; on the other, supporters might try to restore him to the throne. Efforts to find the family
a refuge abroad brought no results. The most obvious solution was to send them to Britain, where
Nicholass cousin George was king. However, British public opinion was against giving refuge to a man
with such a bad reputation as a harsh ruler.
After some time spent confined to the palace at Tsarskoe Selo outside St Petersburg, the family
were taken in August 1917 to the small town of Tobolsk, to the east of the Ural mountains, where they
were kept under house arrest. Later they were moved to Ekaterinburg, a town where the local soviet
was loyal to the Bolshevik revolutionary cause. They were detained in the Ipatiev House, the home of
a local merchant. From May until July they remained under guard, an afternoons walk in the garden
being the only break from the confinement in their rooms. How was Nicholas now? A guard recalled:
5IF5TBSXBTOPMPOHFSZPVOH IJTCFBSEXBTHFUUJOHHSFZ<IFIBEIJTUICJSUIEBZBU
&LBUFSJOCVSH>w)JTFZFTXFSFLJOEBOEIFIBEBMUPHFUIFSBLJOEFYQSFTTJPO*HPUUIFJNQSFTTJPO
UIBUIFXBTBLJOE TJNQMF GSBOLBOEUBMLBUJWFQFSTPO .BTTJF
Beyond their prison, Russia was in the grip of a civil war. Supporters of the revolutionary Bolshevik
government (Reds) were opposed by a collection of anti-Bolshevik forces (Whites). As the fighting spread
Ekaterinburg, held by Red forces, came under threat from the

approaching Whites. The decision was taken to kill the entire
Romanov family to prevent their being rescued by the Whites
and the possibility of Nicholas being restored to the throne.
Around midnight on 17 July 1918 the family were
awoken in their upstairs rooms and told to get dressed and
be ready to leave. When they made their way downstairs
they were shown into a small room, and chairs were brought
for the Tsarina and Alexis. Yurovsky, their head jailer, then
stepped into the room at the head of the squad of armed
guards. He announced that, as their relatives in Europe
continued to attack Soviet Russia, they would now be shot.
All seven members of the family were shot, along with
the family physician Dr Botkin, the valet Trupp, the cook
Kharitonov and the Empresss maid Demidova. The bodies
were placed in a truck and transported to the abandoned
Four Brothers mine, where they were doused in sulphuric
acid, burned, then tossed down the mine shaft. This was
the end of the Romanovsor was it? Later investigations
by Whites at the mine discovered hundreds of articles
Figure 3.14 Related by blood and almost identical in appearance,
King George V of England refused to give refuge to his cousin.
such as the Tsars belt buckle, Dr Botkins false teeth, several
items of jewellery, three small icons like the ones that the
Grand Duchesses had worn around their necks and a severed finger, presumed to be Alexandras.
But what about the bodies? Critics of the accepted version of the story pointed out that the
number of charred bones found down the shaft could not account for the remains of eleven bodies.
Doubts arose as to whether this really was the last resting place of Nicholas Romanov. But if he wasnt
down the mine shaft, where was he?
For almost 70 years the mystery remained. The Soviet Union, under a communist government, kept its
state files secret and showed no interest in the Romanov mystery. With the collapse of communism came
a new openness and the opportunity to unravel the puzzle.
B A R E N T S
ra
l
RUSSIA
FINLAND
ou
nt
ai
ns
S E A
St. Petersburg
Tsarskoe Selo
Moscow
Tobolsk
Ekaterinburg
1000 km
Figure 3.15 The final journey,

August 1917July 1918
The bodies had been thrown down the mine shaft but
they had not been left there. Yurovsky was appalled to
find upon his return to Ekaterinburg that the secret burial
place was being talked about all over town (Radzinsky
1992, p. 408). The guards on the burial party had been
unable to hold their tongues. The Bolsheviks did not want
the grave of the last Tsar to become a shrine for future
generations of monarchists, and so it was necessary to
move the bodies to a new hiding place. Yurovsky led
another group of soldiers back to the mine.
5IFZMJUUIFNJOFTIBGUXJUIUPSDIFT7BHBOPWUIFTBJMPS
DMJNCFEEPXOJOUPUIFNJOFTIBGUBOETUPPECFMPXJO
UIFEBSLOFTTJOUIFJDZXBUFS XIJDIXBTVQUPIJTDIFTU
"SPQFXBTMPXFSFE)FUJFEUIFCPEJFTUPJUBOETFOU
UIFNVQ 3BE[JOTLZ Q
Figure 3.16 The skulls of Alexandra (left) and two of her daughters.
Alexandras skull was easy to identify because of her false teeth of
platinum and porcelain.
Once again the bodies were placed in the back of a truck, which set off into the forest. It got stuck
in the mud and it was decided that the bodies should be buried.
"UBCPVUTFWFOJOUIFNPSOJOH<PG+VMZ>BQJUUXPBOEBIBMGBSTIJOT<N>EFFQBOEUISFF
BOEBIBMGBSTIJOT<N>TRVBSFXBTSFBEZ5IFCPEJFTXFSFQVUJOUIFIPMFBOEUIFGBDFTBOE
BMMUIFCPEJFTHFOFSBMMZEPVTFEXJUITVMGVSJDBDJE CPUITPUIFZDPVMEOUCFSFDPHOJ[FEBOEUP
QSFWFOUBOZTUJOLGSPNUIFNSPUUJOH<JUXBTOPUBEFFQIPMF>8FTDBUUFSFEJUXJUIEJSUBOEMJNF
QVUCPBSETPOUPQ BOESPEFPWFSJUTFWFSBMUJNFTOPUSBDFPGUIFIPMFSFNBJOFE5IFTFDSFUXBT
LFQUUIF8IJUFTEJEOPUOEUIJTCVSJBMTJUF 3BE[JOTLZ Q
In 1979, three geologists and a writer did. They dug up three skulls, made casts and put them back.
Fearful of the reaction from the authorities, they did not talk about it. Only ten years later did they tell
their story to the press. In 1991 the grave was opened again and the bones of nine corpses removed.
Modern techniques of forensic science established one of the skulls as that of the Tsar. The grave of Nicholas
Romanov had been found. Yet there remained a further mystery. Of the eleven people shot, only nine
skeletons were found in the grave. The remains of Alexis and one of the younger females were missing.
CASE STUDY
DID ANASTASIA SURVIVE?

In 1920 a young girl was pulled from
a canal in Berlin. It was presumed
that she had attempted suicide and
for several months she was kept in a
clinic while attempts were made to
find her identity. She refused to tell
the doctors who she was at first, but
gradually it emerged that this young
woman claimed to be Anastasia. After
she left the clinic and began a life that
would take her from Europe to the
USA, she became best known as Anna

Anderson. For years her claim intrigued
historians and surviving members of
the Russian nobility. She fought several
court cases to establish her identity
but they were inconclusive. During her
lifetime many people who claimed to
know the Romanov family, including
surviving relatives, met Anna Anderson
in a bid to establish the truth. Some,
such as Pierre Gilliard, who had been
tutor to the Grand Duchesses, declared

her to be a fraud; others, such as the
son and daughter of Dr Botkin, the
Romanov family doctor, declared her
to be genuine. In 1984 she died in
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
If this was Anastasia, how did she
survive? Her story was that she
had been badly wounded in the
Ipatiev House. She had lapsed into
unconsciousness and when she next
Figure 3.17 Anastasia in 1915
Figure 3.18 Anna Anderson in 1926
Source 3.9
The room in the Ipatiev house where
Nicholas and all his family were reported
to have been killed. (Refer to Figure 3.19)
Figure 3.19 The murder room

E
N
Position of Romanovs
in murder room
(according to official testimony)
Key:
Doors to storeroom
10
8
11
17
16
13
15
Tsar
Tsarevich
Tsarina
47
Daughters
Dr Botkin
911
Servants
12
Yurovsky
13
Aide
1423
Guards
7
5
6
2
4.3m
1
12
14
21
19
18
20
24
22
23
Source 3.10
The positions of
the Romanovs,
their servants and
the guards in the
room, according to
ocial witnesses
at a later inquiry.
(Refer to
Figure 3.20)
24, 25 Guards observe

through window
Doors giving access from hall

5.2m
scale 0.6cm = 3m
Figure 3.20 Plan of the murder room
opened her eyes she saw stars above

her. Seeing that she was still alive, a
guard, Alexander Tschaikowsky, took
pity on her and helped her to escape
in the confusion and darkness that
surrounded the disposal of the bodies.
Eventually she made her way as a
refugee to Romania, where she had
Tschaikowskys child and married him.
Tschaikowsky was shot and killed on the
streets of Bucharest in 1919 (Radzinsky
1992, p. 389). His young widow left the
child with her late husbands family
and made her way to Berlin, in the
hope that she would be able to get
help from members of her mothers
family. However, when approaching the
Netherlands Palace in Berlin she had
been overcome with doubts. Would
she be admitted to the palace? Would
any of the royal family be in residence?
Would anybody recognise her after
all the ordeals she had been through?
Filled with despondency, she turned
aside to the Landwehr Canal.
Several aspects of the Anastasia story

throw up questions for the historian.
Consider the following.
What happened in the murder room
in the Ipatiev house?
Source 3.11
An account by Kabanov, one of the
executioners:
When all of us participating in the
execution walked up to the opened
door of the room, there turned out to be
three rows of us firing revolvers, and the
second and third rows were firing over the
shoulders of the ones in front. There were
so many arms with revolvers pointed
toward those being executed, and they
were so close to each other, that whoever
was standing in front got a burn on the
inside of his wrist from the shots of his
neighbour behind.
They gave up the entire space of the
tiny room of execution to the eleven
unfortunates, who raced around in that
cell while the twelve sharpshooters,
sorting out their victims, fired
continuously from the mouth of the

double doors.
Edvard Radzinsky, The Last Tsar, p. 389.
S OURCE QUEST IONS

1 Do Sources 3.9 and 3.10 make
it easier or harder to believe
that all the members of the
family and their servants
were murdered in that room?
Explain your answer.
2 How does Source 3.10 conflict
with Source 3.11? Which do
you think is the more accurate
source? Why? How might this
difference be explained?
Source 3.12
Various accounts of the execution:
Yurovsky:
So the Tsar was down, felled by the first
shots But the girls were still alive. It
was bizarre how the bullets bounced o
them. Bullets flew around the room.
Kabanov:
I shouted to stop the firing and finish
o those still alive with bayonets. One
of the comrades began plunging the
bayonet into her [Demidovas] chest.
The bayonet was like a dagger, but it was
dull and would not penetrate.
Yurovsky:
When they tried to stab one of the girls
with a bayonet, the point would not go
through her corset.
Edvard Radzinsky, The Last Tsar, pp.
38991.
Source 3.13
At the mine shaft, an account by Yurovsky:
The commandant ordered the bodies
undressed and a fire built so that
everything could be burned When they
began undressing one of the girls, they
saw a corset torn in places by bullets
and through the opening they saw
diamonds A. F. [Alexandra] turned out
to be wearing an entire pearl belt made
from several necklaces sewn into linen.
Source 3.15
When they laid one of the daughters on
the stretcher, she cried out and covered
her face with her arm. The others [the
daughters] also turned out to be alive. We
couldnt shoot anymorewith the open
doors the shots could have been heard
on the street Ermakov took my bayonet
from me and started stabbing everyone
dead who had turned out to be alive.
S O URCE QUEST IONS

5 Source 3.14 suggests that
all were killed in the room,
whereas Source 3.15 suggests
that this was not so. Is one
of these statements untrue?
Could they both be correct?
6 From the evidence you have
read, do you think it likely
that any of the Tsars family
survived the events of July
1918? As a historian, what
other evidence would you like
to see to enable you to make a
clearer decision in this matter?
S OU RC E Q U E ST I O N S
THEORIES AND PROOFS?
3 How does Source 3.13 help to

explain the events recorded in
Source 3.12?
Attempts to prove or disprove the

identity of Anna Anderson (later Anna
Anderson Manahan after her marriage
to an American history professor) gave
rise to a constant stream of books and
at least one feature film. Tom Mangold
and Anthony Summers produced
an intriguing piece of investigative
journalism in 1976 called The File on
the Tsar providing evidence that the
female members of the Tsars family
had left Ekaterinburg by night in a
sealed train, and during the course of
their journey at least one unsuccessful
escape attempt had been made by a
daughter they identified as Anastasia.
Despite the believable evidence they
provided, the opening of the mass
grave in 1991 shows this to be a work
of unintentional fiction.
4 Why might all the women have

altered their clothes?
Source 3.14
Radzinksy describes what happened when
the shooting stopped:
They had to get them out as quietly as
possible. This truck had to be on its way
while the July night still hung over the
town, Quickly, hastily, they turned the
bodies over, checking pulses. They were
in a hurry. The light barely shone through
all the gun smoke.
The bodies were then carried out to the
truck. Strekotin, one of the guards, recalled:
A further complicating factor has been

the attitude of the Russian authorities
over the identity of the two missing
Romanovs from the mass grave.
Whilst there can be no dispute over
the absence of Alexei because of his
gender, the Russian authorities insist
that the missing body is that of Marie,
not Anastasia. Forensic pathologists in
the West have dismissed such a positive
identification as being impossible,
given the close age of the sisters and
the condition of the remains. Could
the Russians be so insistent in their
identification because they wish to kill
off any Anastasia speculation?
In the early 1990s Richard Schweitzer, a
lawyer married to a descendant of the
Dr Botkin who had died with the Tsar,
commissioned a British forensic team
under Dr Peter Gill to carry out DNA tests
on a piece of preserved intestine from
Anna Anderson which had been kept in
an American hospital following an earlier
operation. It was not possible to test
the skeleton or other organs because
Anna Anderson had been cremated.
This was to form the centrepiece of a
television documentary to finally prove
the identity of this mysterious woman.
The documentary, which appeared in
1994, showed various tests which had
been carried out to establish Anna
Andersons true identity. These included
examination of her handwriting,
compared to Anastasias surviving
schoolbooks, speech patterns, compared
to accents from eastern Europe and,
most convincingly, ear patterns. Ears,
like fingerprints, are distinctive and
personal. Though they grow as we age,
they retain the same basic proportions
and can therefore be used as a means of
identification. Measurements taken from
Anna Anderson in life were compared to
a photograph of Anastasias ear and the
two were found to be virtually identical.
It would seem that Anna Anderson and
Anastasia were the same person.

However, the findings from the DNA
sample were to upset this conclusion.
Mitochodrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed
down through the generations from
women to their children; no mtDNA is
inherited from the father. Thus, mtDNA
patterns can link people to their
mothers and grandmothers and even
to ancestors and descendents who
are separated by many generations.
Using DNA obtained from the Duke
of Edinburgh, a grand-nephew of
Empress Alexandra, for comparison, it
was found that Anna Anderson could
not have been related to Alexandra
and therefore could not have been
Anastasia. Furthermore, a link was
made, through the mtDNA, between
Anna Anderson and the family of
Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish
wartime factory munitions worker who
had long been suggested, by Anna
Andersons opponents, as the real
identity of this mystery woman.
As Dr Gill presented his DNA findings,
Richard Schweitzer continued to
believe in the authenticity of Anna
Anderson based on rational human
experience. How could a Polish

wartime factory worker know so much
about the intimacies of court life? How
could she convince people who had
known Anastasia personally that she
was genuine? What about the physical
features, including an apparent
bayonet scar behind her ear, which she
bore? Are ear profiles definitive or not?
For most people, DNA is the clinching
evidence and the case is closed.
It is, however, interesting to note
that in December 2007 the British
government announced the collapse
of an IRA terrorism case and the review
of a number of others because the
DNA testing technique used was found
to be flawed. This was not the same
technique used in the Anna Anderson
case, but does it cast a shadow
over the infallibility of any scientific
procedure? The lingering supporters of
Anna Anderson would like to think so.
In August 2007 it was announced
that the two missing bodies from the
Romanov mass grave had been found
by a team of Russian amateur historians
searching in the forests around
Ekaterinburg (now Yekaterinburg).
Russian archaeologists asserted they

had discovered the remains of a
1013-year-old boy and an 1823-yearold womanpresumed to be Prince
Alexei and Grand Duchess Marie. The
remains had been doused with acid
and burned, and were found not far
from the mass grave of their relatives.
Sergei Pogorelov, deputy director of
the Sverdlovsk regions archaeological
institute, claimed that there was little
doubt that the remains were those
of the Romanov children. As well as
bone fragments, his team found pieces
of Japanese ceramic bottlesused
to carry sulphuric acid poured on
the Romanovs corpses. They also
recovered seven teeth, three bullets of
various calibres, and a fragment of a
dress.
In May 2008, a US genetic science
laboratory confirmed the royal
identities of the bones. The governor
of the Sverdlovsk region declared,
Now we have found the whole family.
Many would now be satisfied that the
Anastasia mystery has been answered
beyond a reasonable doubt.
Do you agree?
References
Bucklow M. & Russell G., Russia: Why Revolution?, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1987
Figes O., A Peoples Tragedy, Viking, London, 1997
Kerensky A., The Kerensky Memoirs: Russia and Historys Turning Point, Orwell, Shaw and Pearce, New York, 1965
Massie R. K., Nicholas and Alexandra, Victor Gollancz, London, 1972
Moynahan B., Comrades: 1917Russia in Revolution, Hutchinson, London, 1992
Radzinsky E., The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II, Doubleday, New York, 1992
Seton-Watson H., The Decline of Imperial Russia 18551914, Methuen, London, 1964
Trotsky L., The History of the Russian Revolution, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, undated
ASSASSINATIONS
AND THE DEATH
OF PRESIDENT
KENNEDY
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
An assassin is a murderer. The term assassination is normally used when referring
to the act of killing a powerful or famous person. Assassinations and assassins are
as old as human history. In ancient history there are stories about the murder of all
kinds of prominent people, kings, queens, tyrants, soldiers and politicians. Ancient
writers, in fact, often argued that it was acceptable to murder a bad ruler. In more
recent times the deaths of American presidents like Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and
John F. Kennedy in 1963 have become well known and the subject of many books
and films. One of the key events leading to World War I was the assassination of
the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
Sometimes we look back on assassinations and assassins and think of them as
evil; on other occasions we might decide that the killers had good reason for what
they did.
Assassins have acted for a variety of reasons, sometimes personal, and at other
times motivated by racial hatred or issues linked to politics or religion. This brings
us to the important question: can assassination be justified?
TA S K
Consider whether assassination or other acts of political terrorism can be justified.
Look at the arguments set out below, talk about them in class, then set out briefly
your point of view. Support your opinion with what you think are your three best
arguments. Note that you dont have to rely on the arguments given. Feel free to add
ideas of your own.
ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST POLITICAL ASSASSINATION

AND TERRORISM
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BACKGROUND
The word assassin comes from the Arabic word hashshashin, meaning those who use hashish. Around
10001100 a religious sect in the Middle East employed agents to murder their enemies. These agents
carried out their tasks under the influence of drugs. As noted above, in the past, assassins have had all
kinds of motives. Some assassinations are planned and carried out by groups of people. These are called
conspiracies. Many of the best known assassinations have been the work of conspiracies. A small group
of Romans plotted the death of Julius Caesar, while President Lincoln, Tzar Alexander II of Russia, Franz
Ferdinand and Adolf Hitler were all the victims of group plots. On other occasions assassins have acted
alone and killed famous people for strictly personal reasons. Personal motives can include the entire range
of human feeling, hate, jealousy, revenge, passion or just the desire to become famous. It is not surprising
therefore that some assassins, like some murderers, have been mentally unstable. For example:
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Assassinations and the Death of President Kennedy | 53
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TA S K
Do these lone assassins have anything in common?
Go back over the stories of the assassins above and use the internet to conduct
further research of your own. Look closely at the personalities of the assassins. Are
there any personality traits they share?
What you are doing is called a personality profile. Police use methods like this to help
them find murderers, lone assassins and serial killers. This is one way in which the
historical method, that is, looking at the past and learning from it, can be very useful.
THE PUNISHMENT OF AN ASSASSIN

Assassins often die for what they believe in. If anyone wants to murder an important person there
are almost always major risks. Famous people tend to be well guarded (although not always). There
is therefore a very real danger that the assassin will be caught or killed in the attempt. In the past, the
penalties for anyone plotting against royalty have been especially harsh.
In 1584 Balthasar Gerard, a French Catholic, was the first assassin to use a handgun to kill a head
of state. Gerard shot William of Orange, the Protestant ruler of the Netherlands. Following his capture
Gerard was severely punished over four days. On the first day he was taken to the local market place
and was tortured by having his arms tied behind his back then hoisted off the ground by a rope thrown
over a beam. Gerard was subsequently dropped from a height of about three metres. The rope was,
however, tied off so that he never actually hit the ground. This particular form of torture was known as
strappado and the process was repeated until the victims shoulders were dislocated. On the second
day Gerard was lashed and most of the skin flayed from his back. Salt was then rubbed in to the raw
wounds. After this his right hand was cut off. On the third day chunks of flesh the size of an adult hand
were hacked from Gerards chest and the wounds were again salted. He then had his left hand cut off.
On the fourth day things got worse. Gerard was tied naked to two stakes so that he could not sit or
move. A large fire was built close by and two men used it to heat red hot metal pincers. The pincers
were then used to repeatedly nip chunks of flesh from Gerards body. Finally, ensuring that the victim
was conscious, Gerard was taken down and laid on the ground. His stomach was carefully cut open
and his intestines slowly removed, they were then burned in front of him. The final act of the four-day
execution saw Gerards body then cut into quarters. Reports from the time indicated that throughout
Gerard abused his tormentors and repeated that he rejoiced that he had killed their ruler.
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the youngest and most popular men ever to be president of the
United States. Writers have described Kennedy as charismatic. This meant that due to his appearance,
personality and speeches, people came to admire and support him. Kennedy was born into a very
wealthy family and his early political career was dominated by the money and ambitions of his father
Joseph Kennedy. At the time of his death historians, including William Manchester, suggested that
Kennedy was one of the great American presidents. This opinion has not stood the test of time.
Historians still argue about John F. Kennedy, but few would suggest that he deserved to be ranked with
the greatest of US presidents.
In the long history of assassinations the murder of John Kennedy is one of the most famous and
controversial. People talk about how they can remember where they were when they heard the news
about the shooting. The assassination is also famous because the presidents death was recorded on
film by Abraham Zapruder and because the man who was charged with shooting Kennedy, Lee Harvey
Oswald, was himself gunned down in front of a television audience. Immediately after Kennedys death,
the new president, Lyndon Johnson, set up a special investigation into the assassination. Called the
Warren Commission, it was headed by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Earl Warren. The
commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone and that he had been solely responsible for
the presidents death. Rather than clearing up the details of Kennedys death, the Warren Commission
only added to the mystery and controversy. There have been hundreds of books, many television
Figure 4.1 President Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline with the Texas Governor John Connally and Mrs Connally in the motorcade through
Dallas. Take special note of the raised hand grips at the rear of the car, on the boot. There were footplates on the rear of the car for the
Secret Service. Had there been agents standing on these footplates, Oswald would not have been able to get a clear shot at Kennedy.
documentaries and several films dealing with the Warren

Commission and the events surrounding the presidents
death, few of them have anything good to say about the
findings of the commission. The chief failure of the Warren
Commission appears to have been that it decided in advance
that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin and then set
about trying to make all the evidence fit that conclusion.
This is an excellent example of what not to do. Historians, or
anyone involved in a search for the truth need to keep an
open mind. Let the evidence lead you to the answer; do not
try and make the facts fit a predetermined answer.
Between 1976 and 1979 the US Congress reopened
the investigation into Kennedys death. After a detailed
examination of all of the evidence the House of
Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations
concluded that Kennedys death had probably been the result
of a conspiracy and that that there was enough scientific
evidence to suggest that had been at least two gunmen in
Dealey Plaza.
THE MAGIC BULLET

One of the main causes for complaint about the Warren
Commissions finding was the claim that a single bullet had
passed through Kennedys body, hit Governor Connally,
exited the front of his chest, and smashed his right wrist
Figure 4.2 The necessary path of a single bullet, based on
Kennedys and Connallys wounds.
before ending up in the governors thigh. This bullet then
fell from Connallys thigh and was found on a stretcher in
Parkland Hospital. When examined this bullet was in near
perfect condition and showed none of the kinds of damage that might have been expected. Tests
were done with similar bullets, firing them into paper wadding and through the bodies of dead goats.
All of the bullets from these tests were bent badly out of shape, while the bullet that wounded both
Kennedy and Connally displayed little damage. The magic bullet also got its name because, if it did
the things that the Warren Commission claimed, it would have had to alter direction dramatically in
flight. It entered Kennedys body on a downward path, striking him in the upper back about 15 cm.
below the point it exited the front of his throat. In other words, after it hit Kennedy it stopped travelling
downwards and angled up. Critics of the Warren Commission also claim that the bullet had to turn to
the right after leaving Kennedys throat if it was going to hit Connally where it did.
RE VI E W Q U E STI O N S
1 What does the word charismatic mean? List two other leaders in modern history
who you think were successful because of their personalities.
2 Why is the Kennedy assassination so famous?
3 What was wrong with the Warren Commissions approach to the investigation?
4 Why do critics of the Warren Commission talk about a magic bullet? Why did it get
its name?
THE EVENTS IN DALLAS ON 22 NOVEMBER 1963

As the motorcade carrying President Kennedy passed through Dealey Plaza in the centre of Dallas
travelling from Love Field, the local airport, to a luncheon at a convention centre, the Trade Mart, a
number of shots were fired. Kennedy was hit at least twice. The first bullet appeared to strike him high
in the back. (The Warren Commission maintained the Kennedy was struck in the lower neck). This
wound was serious but did not kill him. Seconds later the president was hit by another bullet, which
blew his skull apart. Bits of the presidents brain were found in the car and on the uniform of one of the
escorting motorcycle policemen. Jacqueline Kennedy had been sitting next to her husband. She had
turned to try and help him after he was first hit. After the second shot she appeared to climb out of the
back of the car, before she was pushed back in by a secret service agent. Some people suggest that she
was trying to get help; others think that she was afraid that she would get shot next and that as a result
Figure 4.3 A still photograph from frame 312 of the Zapruder film. Kennedy has been hit and is
leaning forward to his left. Governor Connally has also been shot and has fallen back towards his wife.
Figure 4.4 Frame 321 from the Zapruder film. The President falls back and to his left in response
to the fatal head shot.
Mrs Kennedy was running away in fright; others point out that she might have been attempting to
recover a fragment of her husbands skull that was lying on the boot of the car behind the presidents
seat. During the frantic ride to Parkland Hospital Mrs Kennedy nursed her husbands shattered head
in her lap. A vivid memory of that day for many people was the sight of Jacqueline Kennedy in her
bloodstained pink suit. Hours later, after the president had been declared dead, she refused to change
her outfit. Mrs Kennedy said that she wanted people to see what had been done to her husband. The
Governor of Texas, John Connally, who was riding in the same car as the president and Mrs Kennedy,
was also shot. The governor, however, recovered from his wounds.
Members of the large crowd who had gathered to see the president and his wife panicked. Some
fell to the ground fearing that they would be shot; others began to run. The shots had echoed around
the Plaza and people couldnt be sure how many shots were fired or from where. Local Dallas police
were just as confused. Some ran with part of the crowd towards a small hill that had been in front
and to the right of the presidents car, called the grassy knoll; others ran into the Texas School Book
Depository near the motorcade.
TA S K
Below are some of the many eyewitness accounts of the assassination. Read each of
them carefully and summarise in point form what they have to say. Then take note of
where the accounts agree and disagree.
Account One: From Ken ODonnell, one of John

Kennedys aides riding in the car behind the
president.
We heard shots, two close together and then a third
one. There must have been an interval of at least
five seconds before the third and last shot because,
after the second shot Dave [Dave Powers another
presidential aide riding with ODonnell] said to me,
Kenny, I think the presidents been shot. Powers
explained that the president had slumped over
towards Mrs Kennedy and was holding his throat.
ODonnell then said that as he stared at the president,
a third shot took the side of his head off. He saw
pieces of bone and brain tissue and bits of President
Kennedys reddish hair flying through the air.
According to ODonnell the impact of the shot lifted
the president and shook him limply, as if he was a rag
doll, and then JFK dropped out of our sight, sprawled
across the back seat of the car. ODonnell was then
certain that the president was dead.
A
C
Figure 4.5 Dealey Plaza, Dallas. Note the route taken by the motorcade.
Oswalds best opportunity to shoot the president was as the motorcade
approached the Texas School Book Depository (A) on Houston Street (B)
not on Elm Street (C).
ODonnell thought that all of the shots came from behind and to his right, in other words from the
area of the Texas School Book Depository.
Account Two: From W. E. Newman, who was standing with his wife and two children near the road
on the grassy knoll.
Figure 4.6 The view Oswald would

have had. Note how the tree would
have blocked his view. This was not the
best place for a sole assassin to take
his shot.
Newman said that he was looking directly at Kennedy when he was hit in the side of the head.
Newman then fell to the ground because he was convinced that he and his family were in the direct
path of fire.
Newman thought that the shot that hit Kennedy in the head had come from what he described as
the garden directly behind him, in other words from the grassy knoll, to the front and right of the
presidents car.
Account Three: From Jean Hill, who was standing on the opposite side of the street to Newman,
facing the grassy knoll.
Mrs Hill said there were from four to six shots. The first three cameone right after the other, followed
by a distinct pause. She testified that they were fired rapidly and that she thought that all of the shots
came from the grassy knoll, in front of the presidents car and opposite where she was standing.
Account Four: From Bobby Hargis, a policeman who was riding his motorcycle behind the
presidents car.
Hargis gave evidence that at the time it sounded like the
shots were right next to him. He sensed that the shots
probably could have been coming from the railroad
overpass (directly in front of the car), perhaps because
Hargis was spattered with blood.
Account Five: From Howard Brennan, who was on
the grass near the corner of Houston and Elm streets,
opposite the Texas School Book Depository.
Brennan said that he heard what he thought was a
backfire. It ran through his mind that it might have been
someone throwing firecrackers out of the window of
the red brick Texas School Book Depository Building.
Brennan said that he then looked up at the building.
Brennan gave evidence that he saw a man in a window
of the building taking aim with a high-powered rifle.
Figure 4.7 Mr Newman and his family were on the

grassy knoll. They fell to the ground, convinced that
shots came from behind them.
Brennan thought that he could see the entire barrel of the gun and said he was looking at the man
in this window at the time the last shot was fired.
Account Six: From Harold Norman, who was watching the motorcade from the fifth floor of the
book depository.
Norman said that the shots came from the floor above him, the sixth floor, directly above his head.
Harold Norman testified that he had heard the empty shells fall after they were ejected from the
weapon as they fell on the wooden floor above him.
Account Seven: From Carolyn Walther, who was standing near the book depository.
Walther claimed to see at least two people on the sixth floor of the depository.
As historians we need to take all the pieces of evidence into account. We cant just ignore some and
use the ones that fit our predetermined theory.
It is also very important to remember that first-hand accounts of this kind are not always accurate.
People are taken by surprise and sometimes they are in shock at what they have seen. In addition a
gunshot can make three separate sounds:
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Which sound or how many of these sounds these witnesses might have heard depends upon
where they were standing. It was therefore possible for them to be confused about how many shots
were fired. The fact that bullets travel faster than the speed of sound also means that witnesses could
become confused about where the shots originated.
Of all the witnesses in Dealey Plaza on the morning of the assassination, a significant majority
claimed that at least some of the shots came from the grassy knoll. Some even said that they saw
men with guns behind the fence on the knoll. In fact one Dallas policeman, Joe Smith, ran into the
car park behind the grassy knoll and said that he could smell gunpowder. Officer Smith had his gun
drawn. He saw a man near one of the cars in the car park and held him at gunpoint. The man produced
identification and when he claimed that he was a secret service agent (one of the people meant to
protect the president), Officer Smith let the stranger go. Later it was discovered that according to the
official records there were no secret service agents anywhere near the grassy knoll.
1 Using all the information presented to you, how reliable and useful are these sources
to historians studying President Kennedys assassination? In your answer think about
the following points.
2 Is there any reason that we know of for these people to lie?
3 Were they in a good position to see and/or hear what happened?
4 Do the facts, as we know them, back up what the witnesses have said?
5 Is there any reason why some of the witnesses might have been distracted or confused?
LEE HARVEY OSWALD

Lee Harvey Oswald was the man charged with the murder of John Kennedy. Oswald worked in the Texas
School Book Depository. He was seen carrying a long parcel to work on the morning of the 22 November;
he said that it contained curtain rods. The authorities discovered that he had ordered by mail the rifle
found on the sixth floor of the book depository. Oswalds palm print and some fingerprints were found on
the boxes that had been placed near the sixth floor window to hide the assassin and as a rest for the rifle.
Oswald was not arrested for the presidents assassination. In fact he had been captured by the
Dallas Police because he was a suspect in the murder of a local policeman, Officer J. D. Tippit. At no
stage did Lee Harvey Oswald admit that he was responsible for the presidents death. Oswald claimed
that he was somehow set up; that he was, in his own words a patsy. Policemen talking to Oswald
noted that he seemed to be intelligent and remarkably calm. Later investigation revealed that he had
fired shots at General Edwin Walker some months earlier.
If Oswald did have anything to tell us about the assassination, he never got the chance. On the
morning of 24 November, as he was being moved from the Dallas police headquarters, Oswald was
shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Ruby had been hanging around the police station
since Oswalds arrest. Jack Ruby said that he shot Oswald because he wanted to save Mrs Kennedy the
grief of a trial and that he had admired President Kennedy because he had class.
Figure 4.8 Lee Harvey Oswald, flanked by two

Dallas police officers, was shot by Jack Ruby.
Historians later discovered that Ruby had links to
organised crime; the Mafia was one of the groups
with a motive for killing Kennedy.
Oswalds murder deepened the mystery. There has been a growing body of evidence to indicate
that Jack Ruby had links to the Mafia and major crime bosses. There are people who claim to have seen
Oswald and Ruby together before the assassination. Others suggested that someone who looked very
like Ruby was near Dealey Plaza at the time Kennedy was shot. Jack Ruby died in prison from cancer
and never added any information that might have cleared up the uncertainty.
Oswald does not appear to have been a nut as Gerald Ford, a member of the Warren Commission
and a man who would later become US president, suggested. Oswald had enlisted in the Marine Corps
as a teenager. Later he was involved in some top-secret intelligence operations. In 1959 Oswald had
defected to the Soviet Union. He lived in Russia and took a Russian wife. Although he claimed to be
a communist, Oswald grew unhappy with life in the Soviet Union and returned to the United States,
bringing his wife Marina with him. Many writers view all of this with suspicion, claiming that all of this
indicated that Oswald had contacts with people in high government positions. They point out that it
wasnt easy to move so freely between the United States and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold
War and that it was even harder for Soviet citizens like Marina to get permission to leave their country.
Oswald became politically active after he returned to the US. He supported the pro-communist
government of Fidel Castro in Cuba and was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets in New Orleans
before moving to Dallas.
A REVIEW OF SOME OF THE THEORIES ON KENNEDYS ASSASSINATION

1
ANTHONY SUMMERS THE KENNEDY CONSPIRACY (1980)
Anthony Summers based his book on the findings in 1979 of the US House of Representatives Select
Committee on Assassinations. Summers argued that both the Mafia and the US governments Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) were involved in the conspiracy. He established that there were clear links
between Oswald and the CIA and that there were links between Jack Ruby and the Mafia. According to
Summers both the CIA and the Mafia were unhappy with President Kennedys attitude to Cuba.
Before Fidel Castro made Cuba communist, the Mafia had made a great deal of money out of the
gambling and drug trade operating from the island. They wanted to see Castro thrown out so they
could resume their activities in Cuba. Very early in Kennedys time in power there had been a military
operation planned secretly by the CIA to take power from Castro by using American weapons and
Cubans trained by the CIA. This was known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. It failed, and when it failed
some people in both the CIA and the Mafia blamed Kennedy for not sending in US troops to destroy
Castro. Summers argued that a desire to have a stronger man like Lyndon Johnson as president
encouraged the CIA to help with the assassination.
Around the time that John Kennedy was shot his younger brother Robert Kennedy, who was
attorney-general, was waging a major war on organised crime. Robert Kennedys activities had also
begun to hurt the Mafias operations; therefore, according to Summers, the Mafia had extra reasons to
want John Kennedy dead. Once the president was no longer around Robert Kennedy would not have
the power to bother them. It was also well known that Lyndon Johnson, the man who would become
president following JFKs death, hated Robert Kennedy and would replace him as soon as possible.
Summers argues how unlikely it was that the magic bullet could have done the things the Warren
Commission claimed. He also wrote that the Zapruder film shows that Oswald didnt have time to fire
the three shots that the Warren Commission claims were fired.
Summers case is a strong one. He begins with the weaknesses that are obvious in the Warren
Commissions approach, uses the research of the House of Representatives Select Committee on
Assassinations and then adds his own ideas about the possible reasons why the CIA and the Mafia
might have been involved.
The key weakness in Summers version is that it remains a theory. He raises many questions and
guesses at the answers, but we dont have proof.
R E VI E W Q UE STI O N S
1 What was the basis of Summers ideas about a conspiracy?
2 What reasons did Summers give for the CIA and the Mafia wanting Kennedy dead?
3 Research and find out a little more about the Mafia and the CIA and the Bay of Pigs
invasion.
DAVID LIFTON BEST EVIDENCE (1980)
David Lifton also argued that there was a conspiracy to kill the president. Unlike Summers, however,
Lifton focused most of his attention on what happened after Kennedy was shot. Lifton maintained
that when the presidents body was taken from Parkland Hospital in Dallas back to Bethesda Naval
Hospital in Maryland, near Washington DC, it was operated on to hide evidence that the president
had been shot from the front. According to Lifton the decision to move the body was illegal and that
the findings of the official US government autopsy directly contradicted the testimony of the doctors
who saw Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. He pointed to differences between X-rays taken of Kennedys
skull and autopsy photos. The X-rays show a large area of the front right hand side of the presidents
head missing, but in the photos that part of the skull is undamaged. Furthermore, vital evidence in the
form of Kennedys brain is missing. Lifton also noted that Kennedy left Dallas in one coffin and arrived
at Bethesda in a different type of coffin. He suggested that something happened to the coffin and the
body after it left Dallas and before it arrived at Bethesda. For Lifton this amounts to evidence of a coverup at the highest levels of government. He claimed that it established a case for someone at the top in
the government being involved in the assassination, the cover-up, or both.
The difficulty for this version is the very complex medical evidence involved. There are experts
who agree with Lifton and say that Kennedys body was operated on to hide evidence, while at the
same time there are other experts who say that the facts dont support such a view and there is clear
evidence that the president was shot both times from behind.
R E VI E W Q UE STI O N S
1 According to Lifton, what did the official autopsy try to hide?
2 What are the main problems with Liftons version?
3 MARK LANE PLAUSIBLE DENIAL (1991), JIM MARRS CROSSFIRE (1989)

AND JIM GARRISON ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS (1988)
These three books are grouped together because they all argue that Kennedys death was the result
of a conspiracy involving the CIA. In each case the motive was President Kennedys attitude to the CIA.
There is evidence to indicate that the president was not happy with the performance of the CIA, that
he felt that it had gained too much power and that he intended to break up the organisation. This
point of view formed the basis for Oliver Stones film JFK starring Kevin Costner. According to Jim Marrs,
Kennedy was preparing to start an American withdrawal from the Vietnam War. This aroused opposition
from both the CIA and the US military; they felt that Kennedy was too soft on communism. Marrs wrote
that just after Kennedys death the new president Lyndon Johnson ended any idea of pulling American
troops out of Vietnam and ordered even more soldiers into the War.
All three books say that the Warren Commission was just a cover-up and that the physical evidence
of Kennedys wounds and the eyewitnesses all point to a number of assassins in Dealey Plaza. They all
raise the issue of the magic bullet and the time factor linked to the Zapruder film.
Claims that the CIA was involved are still a theory, or an idea of what might have happened, but
not fact. There are also questions arising from the argument between experts from all sides about the
events linked to the shooting of the president. For example:
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The answer to these questions depends on which expert you listen to. The third weakness
concerns the idea that Kennedy was about the pull US troops out of Vietnam. It is a fact that he had
issued an order to begin withdrawals, but this order may have been just a threat. Kennedy let it be
known to his advisers that he was not happy with the leaders of South Vietnam and that he hoped
by bluffing that he was going to withdraw; he would force the South Vietnamese to change their
leadership. In other words, he didnt really plan to take the US out of the Vietnam War after all. If this was
the case the CIA and the military would not have a motive to kill him.
1 According to this version, who had Kennedy killed and why?
2 What are the three weaknesses with this version?
BONNAR MENNINGER MORTAL ERROR (1992)
Menninger claimed that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy, but that his death was just a terrible
accident. According the Menningers version Lee Harvey Oswald was in the Texas School Book
Depository and he did shoot at the president, but Oswald only wounded him. The fatal bullet that
blew open Kennedys skull was fired by accident by one of his own Secret Service Agents riding in
the car behind. Menninger produced photos of the Secret Serviceman holding a high powered rifle.
After Oswald started shooting, one of them picked up an AR-15 assault rifle that they carried on the
floor of their car. However the agent was off balance and as the cars sped away from the scene his rifle
accidentally went off, hitting the president. Menninger produces evidence from his experts, who claim
that the bullets that hit President Kennedy all came from the back. He also quotes a conversation that
took place between the presidents brother, Robert Kennedy and secret service agent Clint Hill. Robert
Kennedy had phoned Parkland Hospital to find out about his brothers condition. When he asked about
the president, Agent Hill said that there had been a terrible accident.
Menninger has claimed that if there has been a cover-up over Kennedys death, it has been to hide
the embarrassing truth that the president of the United States was killed by his own bodyguards.
Figure 4.9 The motorcade raced to Parkland Hospital with the mortally wounded president. Note the secret
service agent in the trail car to the right of the photo holding the AR-15 assault rifle. Was this the source of the fatal
head shot?
Like all the theories that attempt to explain what happened in Dallas, Menningers version has
weaknesses. A lot of it is guesswork, taking bits of evidence and trying to fit them all together. Perhaps
the greatest weakness is the fact that after more than thirty years no one has any real reasons to hide the
facts. If Kennedy was killed by accident, the truth could come out now. In addition, there were a lot of
people not linked to the secret service who would surely have noted the AR-15 being fired, but not one
eyewitness account mentions anything about shots coming from anywhere near the secret service cars.
1 In Menningers version, who killed Kennedy?
2 What evidence does Menninger give to support his opinion?
3 What are the weaknesses with this version?
DR CHARLES A. CRENSHAW JFK CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE (1992)
Doctor Crenshaw was a member of the medical team at Parkland Hospital. Crenshaw is convinced that
the wounds to President Kennedys head were the result of gunshots from the front and he thinks that
the official autopsy report and photos were faked. Crenshaw also refers to a phone call that he received
from Lyndon Johnson after Oswald had been shot. According to the doctor, Johnson insisted that a secret
service agent be present in the operating theatre with Oswald because the government was keen to get
a confession from Oswald about the assassination. Dr Crenshaw thought that it was unusual that the new
president should take the time and trouble to make a personal phone call of this kind.
The key problem with this version is that Dr Crenshaw might be a good doctor but it does not make
him an expert on gunshot wounds and points of entry and exit. He knows what he saw but that does
not mean that he made the right interpretation. The large wound in Kennedys skull could still have
been an exit wound. In addition Crenshaw waited a very long time before publishing his version. If he
was so convinced that something was wrong with the official verdict why didnt he make his opinion
public much earlier?
Figure 4.10 Dr Crenshaw, Dr McClelland and Dr Petersthree of the doctors who attended Kennedy at Parkland Hospital, giving evidence
to the House Committee on Assassinationswere all agreed about there being a major wound at the back of the presidents head.
How and why do these eyewitness accounts differ from the photographic evidence?
1 Who is Doctor Crenshaw?
2 Why are his comments important?
3 How reliable and useful is his version?
When answering Question 3, think about:
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6 GERALD POSNER CASE CLOSED (1993) AND VINCENT BUGLIOSI

RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY (2007)
These two books are the best defences written of the Warren Commissions version of the assassination,
supporting the view that Lee Harvey Oswald, alone, killed Kennedy. They review all of the eyewitness
accounts and note how stories changed and that many of the witnesses were confused. In the most
recent book about the Kennedy assassination, Bugliosi offers an exhaustive investigation of more than
1500 pages, where he addresses and challenges each of the main conspiracy theories. Bugliosi claims
that there is no physical evidence for a second gunman. We only have physical evidence in the form
of bullets that were fired from Oswalds rifle. Bugliosi adds that the nature and shape of the linear or
elliptical wound in Governor Connallys back is best explained by the idea that the bullet had been
shifted off-line by hitting Kennedy.
According to Posner, Oswald had a record of political violence. He points out that Oswald
attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker because he opposed the generals political ideas. Even
though Bugliosi claimed that the Zapruder film is overrated as evidence, both Posner and Bugliosi
reviewed the film and argued that it was possible for Oswald to have fired all of the shots in the time
available. They point out that the doubts about Oswald being the assassin can be explained. First, the
Warren Commission was wrong when it said that Oswalds first shot hit Kennedy. Posner said that the
first shot missed but claimed that there was time for Oswald to fire the second and then fatal third
shots. Posner suggested that there is nothing wrong with the idea that one bullet (the so-called magic
bullet) could have passed through both Kennedy and Connally. He pointed out that the bullets Oswald
used were metal jacketed. That meant that they were designed to pass easily through the human body.
Posner added that there is plenty of evidence for bullets altering direction in flight, especially after they
have hit something. He said that it is not unusual for bullets to yaw (move around in flight). As for the
tests done on similar bullets where they all came out badly damaged, Posner claimed that the bullets
in all of these tests were travelling too fast, at maximum speed, because they had been fired into
wadding or dead goats at close range. By contrast the bullet that hit Kennedy and Connally had been
slowed gradually, first by the branches of the tree that partly blocked Oswalds view and second by
passing through the bodies of both men. Therefore, the impact on the bullet was not as great; hence
less damage. Posner added that if the bullet had hit one of the small branches that would have started
its irregular movement and added to the yawing affect. Finally Posner rejects the claim that the magic
bullet was in near perfect condition as some writers suggest. He says that there is clear evidence that
the bullet is slightly out of shape and that some lead can be seen to have been squeezed out of the
end of the bullet.
Posner and Bugliosi defend the Warren Commission better than the Warren Commission defended
itself. They offer reasonable explanations to many of the questions raised by those who argue that there
was a conspiracy. The dispute, however, continues between their views of the physical evidence and
those offered by the conspiracy theorists.
In terms of weaknesses, Posner prefers to focus his attention on Oswald and Ruby and spends less
time dealing with the charges made by Summers, Lifton and others about the different groups that had
reasons to want Kennedy dead. Bugliosi was part of a well-known television simulation called The Trial
of Lee Harvey Oswald where he fulfilled the role of the prosecution. Bugliosi became famous as a Los
Angeles district attorney. Therefore you have to consider whether his account reflects his background
as a lawyer and prosecutor where, in an adversarial system, he is accustomed to arguing for one side.
This is in contrast to the approach of the historian who is encouraged to examine all sides.
1 According to Bugliosi, what is the significance of the wound in Governor Connallys
back?
2 According to Posner, what are metal jacketed bullets meant to do?
3 How does Posner explain the lack of damage to the magic bullet?
4 How does Posner explain the magic bullet moving around as it did?
5 What are the weaknesses in Posners version?
6 What motives might Bugliosi have for arguing that the Zapruder film was overrated
as evidence?
7 Why might there be a reason to question Bugliosis approach?
ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE WARREN COMMISSION

For the official version
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Against the official version

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Two important ideas emerge when studying the people and the events that surround assassination:
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References
Bugliosi V., Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, W.W. Norton, New York, 2007
Crenshaw C. A., JFK: A Conspiracy of Silence, Signet, New York, 1992
Garrison J., On the Trail of the Assassins, Warner Books, New York, 1991
Lane M., Plausible Denial, Bookman Press, Melbourne, 1991
Lifton D. S., Best Evidence, Carroll & Graf, New York, 1980
Marrs J., Crossfire, Carroll & Graf, New York, 1989
Menninger B., Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1992
Posner G., Case Closed, Warner Books, New York, 1993
Summers A., Conspiracy: Who Killed President Kennedy?, Fontana, New York, 1980
THE ORIGINS OF
ARABISRAELI
CONFLICT 1880s1947
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
As the Second World War ended in 1945 another conflict intensified in the ancient
territory of Palestine, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. This conflict
was fought with words and weapons between Jewish settlers and the British
administration. Looking on with increasing apprehension was the majority
Arab population, whose political and territorial rights were soon to be limited
by a United Nations decision to carve from the old territory of Palestine a new
homeland for the JewsIsrael. The creation of Israel in 1948 was the latest stage
in an ArabIsraeli conflict, which had emerged at the beginning of the 20th
century and was still continuing at its close.
Timeline
1897
1915
1916
1917
1920
1929
1936
1937
1939
194245
1946
1947
1948
The First Zionist Congress in Basle, led by Theodor Herzl, calls for a homeland for
the Jews.
The McMahonHussein correspondence supports Arab independence in Palestine
if the Arabs help Britain to fight the Turks.
The SykesPicot agreement signed in secret to divide the Middle East between
Britain, France and, to a lesser extent, Russia.
The Balfour declaration promises a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The San Remo conference confirms Britains control over Palestine.
Riots in Jerusalem kill over 200 Arabs and Jews.
A general strike in Palestine is followed by an Arab revolt in protest against Jewish
immigration.
The Peel Commission recommends partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an
Arab state.
The White Paper rejects partition and foresees the end of Jewish immigration, leading to
an independent Palestine with an Arab majority.
The Holocaust kills six million Jews. Many survivors want to make a new life
in Palestine.
The King David Hotel bombing. Jewish terrorists blow up the British headquarters
in Palestine.
United Nations Resolution 181 approves partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an
Arab state.
The state of Israel is proclaimed.
Timeline questions
1 How many different options are suggested for the future of Palestine?
2 What example of violence by Jews is given?
3 What did Arabs do to show their opposition to Jewish immigration?
4 Why is Herzl an important Jewish figure?
5 When did the United Nations decide the fate of Palestine?
6 Which event caused an upsurge in the number of Jews wanting to go to Palestine?
7 How many years did it take the Jews to gain a state of their own after the first calls in Basle?
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Old Testament of the Bible tells the story of how Abraham was guided by God to settle in the land
of Israel, once called Canaan and much later Palestine. The Jews often referred to Israel as the Promised
Land because of their belief that God had promised it to Abraham and his descendants.
In AD 70 the Romans conquered Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple was destroyed, except for the
western wall, which remains to this day and is known as the Wailing Wall. Many Jews fled or were driven
out of the country and became known as Jews of the Diaspora, or Dispersion. They never gave up hope
The Origins of ArabIsraeli Conflict 1880s1947 | 71
S E A
RE
M E D I T E R R A N E A N
Tyre
SANJAK OF
HAURAN
Acre
AC
TURKEY
Nazareth
Beirut
Damascus
S E A
CU
IL
Jaffa
SAN
VILA
YE
OF
Hebron
S E A
D E A
D
Gaza
SANJAK OF SANJAK OF
GAZA
JERUSALEM
KEY
Jerusalem
Cairo
EGYPT
JA
Nablus
Jerusalem
Turkish (Ottoman) Empire

R E D
50 km
S E A
Figure 5.1 The Turkish Empire around 1900. Palestine did not exist as a separate territory but was part of the vilayet of Damascus,
which was divided into several smaller regions called sanjaks.
of one day returning to the Promised Land, but for many

centuries this seemed impossible. The Jewish population of
Palestine gradually declined until, by the fifth century AD,
they were a minority in the land.
Arab peoples began to move into Palestine in the
seventh century AD. Most Arabs adopted the Muslim
faith and spoke their own language: Arabic. Like the Jews
before them, the Arabs had to endure invasion from
foreign powers. The Ottoman Turks ruled the area from
1516 to 1920, during which Palestine was an area without
fixed boundaries within the Turkish Empire. For centuries
Jews and Arabs lived in relative harmony under their
Turkish rulers.
Despite the differences that were later to emerge
between them, Arabs and Jews by tradition share
a common ancestor in Abraham, who was in turn
descended from Shem, the son of the Biblical character
Noah. The term Semite is given to any one of a variety of
ancient peoples who claimed descent from Shem, though
for practical purposes the term anti-Semitic has come to
mean anti-Jewish.
Figure 5.2 Jerusalema holy city for Jews and Muslims. The Dome
of the Rock marks the spot from where the prophet Mohammed rose
to heaven. Below it stands the Wailing Wall, which Jews believe to be
the last remaining part of the ancient Jewish temple.
DEVELOPMENTS TO THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

For many centuries Jews were periodically persecuted in Europe. With their different culture and
religion they stood out from the rest of the population. Labelled as the killers of Christ, they were often
made the scapegoats for problems such as famine and plague. Some of the worst persecution took
place in Eastern Europe in the Russian Empire. About five million Jews were forced to live in an area
called the Pale of Settlement (parts of modern Poland and western Russia). In other areas Jews lived
close together in the poorer sections of towns in areas known as ghettos. From time to time acts of
organised state-approved violence called pogroms were launched against the Jews. A notable pogrom
occurred in 1881 when the Jewish community was blamed for the assassination of the Russian Tsar
Alexander II. Two hundred Jewish communities were looted and burned.
1 Explain the following terms: Promised Land, anti-Semitic, pogrom, ghetto and the
Diaspora.
2 What religious response would an Arab make to the following Jewish claim: God
promised the land to Abraham and his descendants and we are the descendants of
Abraham. Therefore the land is ours?
THE BIRTH OF JEWISH NATIONALISM

By the middle of the nineteenth century there were approximately 10 000 Jews and 500 000 Arabs in
Palestine. Until the last quarter of the century a small trickle of Jewish immigrants entered Palestine,
primarily for religious reasons. Thereafter, the main motivation was Zionism (derived from Zion, the
Hebrew name for Jerusalem), the desire to establish a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people.
During the first wave of modern immigration to Palestine, called the first Aliyah (ascent), between
1881 and 1903 about twenty agricultural settlements were established and some 10 000 Jewish
settlers entered the country. Finance to assist the settlers was provided by benefactors such as Baron
Rothschild, a member of a prominent Jewish banking family in France.
HERZL AND THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS

In 1896 an Austrian Jew, Theodor Herzl, published a pamphlet, The Jewish State, in which he argued
that the Jew was alienated from society, and destined to be universally hated. Because the Jews were
a nation without a land, the world powers should, Herzl believed, grant them a territory to fulfil the
needs of a nation.
After publication of his pamphlet, Herzl travelled throughout Europe meeting national leaders, but
failed to convince them to support his scheme. Among the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe, however,
he was hailed as a new Moses, and on the strength of this was able to convene the First Zionist
Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in August 1897.
Congress delegates agreed to promote the settlement of Palestine by Jewish farmers and artisans,
attempt to strengthen the national consciousness of all Jews, and seek approval from whatever
governments were necessary to achieve the goals of Zionism. Not all Jewish opinion was in favour of
the congresss aims. Opponents argued that for men to create a new state was a blasphemy, forcing
the hand of God. Others advocated assimilation (mixing in) rather than separation as the way for Jews
to become better accepted in society. Nonetheless, the congress was a significant step towards the
establishment of a Jewish homeland.
Because Herzl did not have the deep emotional and

religious ties to the Old Testament of many Eastern European
Jews, he was willing to consider sites other than Palestine for
the new Jewish homeland. Consequently, when in 1903 the
British government offered a territory in Uganda, East Africa,
Herzl was eager to accept. To those who argued that only
Palestine would be acceptable, he replied that, like Moses,
he was leading the people to their goal via an apparent
detour.
Argentina ?
Palestine ?
Herzls advocacy of Uganda split the Zionist movement,

but his death in July 1904 effectively killed off the Uganda
scheme. Inspired by the idea of settling the Land of Israel, a
second wave of immigration, the second Aliyah, began in
1904 and continued until the outbreak of the First World War.
By 1914 the Jewish population of Palestine lay somewhere
between fifty to ninety thousand.
Australia ?
A HOME
FOR THE
JEWS?
Cyprus ?
Sinai ?
Uganda ?
and the winner is

Palestine!
Figure 5.3 A home for the Jews?
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: ZI ONI SM

Source 5.1
The poorest will go first to cultivate the soil. In accordance with
a preconceived plan they will construct roads, bridges, railways
and telegraph installations, regulate rivers, and build their own
dwellings; their labour will create trade, trade will create markets
and markets will attract new settlers.
An extract from The Jewish State in W. Laqueur (ed.),
The IsraelArab Reader, 1984, p. 10.
Source 5.2
They own the Anglo-Palestine bank which makes loans to them at a
rate not exceeding one per cent per annum They have a blue flag
in the middle of which is a Star of David They have deceived the
government with lying and falsehoods when they enrol themselves
as Ottoman subjects for they continue to carry foreign passports
which protect them you see their houses crammed with weapons
They have a special postal service, special stamps etc, which
proves they have begun setting up their political aims no time will
pass before you see that Palestine has become the property of the
Zionist organisation.
An extract from a Haifa newspaper, 1910, in S.J. Houston, The
ArabIsraeli Conflict, 1989, p. 11.

1 What advantages and disadvantages
would you expect the measures outlined
in Source 5.1 to have on the lives of the
existing Arab population of Palestine?
2 Herzl makes no reference to the Arab
inhabitants of Palestine in Source 5.1.
Why might this be the case?
3 Why was the role of the bank so important
to Zionists in Source 5.2? (Clue: refer
to Source 5.1.) What is the main fear
expressed by the newspaper?
4 From the tone of the article in Source 5.2,
who do you think are the main readers of
this newspaper?
5 What evidence is there in Source 5.2 that
the Zionists might not be willing to live
side by side with the Arabs in Palestine?
THE BEGINNINGS OF CONFLICT

Tensions between Arab and Jew began after the first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880s, when
quarrels broke out with neighbouring Arab villagers over grazing, crop and other land issues. Disputes
also arose when Jews purchased land from absentee Arab landowners, leading to the dispossession
of the peasants who farmed the land. As the number of Jewish settlements increased and as Arabs
became aware of the Zionist intention to establish a Jewish homeland, opposition to the movement
spread through all the Arab community. Jews in the Diaspora were largely unaware of the situation in
Palestine. Many regarded Palestine as a land without a people awaiting a people without a land.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND PALESTINE

In November 1914 Turkey entered the First World War on the side of Germany, and in opposition to
Britain and France. Though the fighting in the Middle East was always considered subordinate to that
on the main battlegrounds in Europe, the allies were keen to encourage the Arabs to revolt against
their Turkish masters.
THE HUSSEINMcMAHON CORRESPONDENCE, OCTOBER 1915

The British High Commissioner in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, exchanged letters with the Sharif of
Mecca, Amir Hussein. Husseins family was the traditional guardian of the Holy Places of Islam, Mecca
and Medina, and they had a large following among the Arab peoples. The result was an agreement
that seemed to promise British support for Arab independence if the Arabs assisted in the overthrow
of the Turks. In 1916 Sharif Hussein declared war on Turkey. Prince Feisal, his son, led the Arab army.
Assisting him was a British officer, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). The campaign mostly consisted
of blowing up Turkish trains to interfere with the supply of guns and equipment to the Turkish troops.
THE SYKESPICOT AGREEMENT, OCTOBER 1916

While seemingly promising to support Arab independence, the British were in close consultation with
their allies France and Russia about the possible future division of the Turkish Empire between the
victorious powers. Diplomats Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot drew up an agreement that divided up
much of the Middle East, placing it under the control of either Britain or France. Arabia was to be an
independent Arab state, while Palestine was to be under the joint control of Britain, France and Russia.
This was at first a secret agreement. However, in November 1917 the new revolutionary government in
Russia published the terms, to the embarrassment of the British and the annoyance of the Arabs, who
felt they had been betrayed in their hopes to obtain much more of the region, including Palestine, as
independent Arab territory.
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION, NOVEMBER 1917

Only a few days before the publication of the SykesPicot agreement, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord
Balfour, had further confused the situation by writing a letter to Lord Rothschild, a prominent British
Zionist, in which the British government promised support for the establishment of a Jewish national
home in Palestine. There were several motives for the issuing of what became known as the Balfour
declaration. Firstly, the British were eager to pre-empt any attempt by the Germans to win the support
of the Jewish community for their war effort. It was also hoped that favourable Jewish opinion in the
USA and Russia would encourage their governments to increase their war effort on behalf of the allies.
Finally, the establishment of a friendly Jewish presence in Palestine would safeguard the Suez Canal and
the route to India.
If the Arabs made an

effective contribution to
driving out the Turks,
Britain would support
Arab independence.
But
Areas of importance
to France (Syria and
Lebanon) and Britain
(Iraq) must be excluded
from Arab claims.
and
The Arabs must agree
to seek advice and
guidance from Britain
only in establishing
independent
governments.
A Turkish defeat would

ensure the uninterrupted
supply of oil from Persia
to Britain.
Figure 5.4 Why Britain encouraged an Arab revolt
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: WARTIM E AGREEMEN TS

Source 5.3
The two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta
and portions of Syria lying to the west of the
districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo
cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should
be excluded from the limits [of independent
territory demanded by the Arabs].
(1) Subject to the above modifications, Great
Britain is prepared to recognise and support
the independence of the Arabs in all regions
within the limits demanded by the Sharif of
Mecca.
(2) Great Britain will guarantee the Holy Places
against all external aggression
(3) When the situation admits, Great Britain will
give to the Arabs her advice and will assist
them to establish what may appear to be the
most suitable forms of government in those
various territories.
Extract from the HusseinMcMahon
correspondence, 24/10/1915, in W. Laqueur
(ed.), The IsraelArab Reader, 1984, pp. 1617.

1 What is the most important promise the British made to
the Arabs?
2 What do these terms suggest about the extent of Arab
independence and the British position in the Middle
East? (See also Figure 5.4.)
3 In your view which map in Figure 5.5 provides the most
reasonable interpretation of the text of the Hussein
McMahon correspondence?
Source 5.4
His Majestys Government views with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its
best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice
the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country.
Extract from the Balfour declaration in W. Laqueur (ed.),
The IsraelArab Reader, 1984, p. 18.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: CONT I NU ED

The British view
The Arab view

TURKEY
Mersina
TURKEY
Aleppo
S E A
Mersina
Aleppo
Alexandretta
Alexandretta
Hama
Hama
Homs
Beirut
Damascus
S E A
Jerusalem
EGYPT
Homs
Beirut
Damascus
Jerusalem
In this interpretation, Palestine lies

west of the line running through
Aleppo, Hama, Homs and
Damascus (see the text of the
document in Source 5.3) and is,
therefore, excluded from the land
promised to the Arabs.
In this interpretation, Palestine lies

to the south of the area mentioned
in Source 5.3 and is, therefore,
included in the land promised
to the Arabs.
EGYPT
KEY
Area excluded
from Arab state
R E D
R E D
S E A
S E A
100
200
300 km
Figure 5.5 The fate of Palestine: British and Arab views
D O C U M E N T ST UDY Q UE S TI O N S
1 What was the promise made by Balfour to
Lord Rothschild in Source 5.4?
4 What Arab rights are to be protected?

What Arab rights are not mentioned?
2 The declaration speaks of a national home,

not the national home. What difference does
a word make?
5 How does this statement compare with the

McMahonHussein correspondence and the
SykesPicot Agreement?
3 The Arabs represented over 90 per cent of

the population of Palestine. How are they
referred to in the declaration? Why might this
reference be taken as an insult by Arabs?
6 What were the reasons for Britain giving

contradictory assurances to both Arabs
and Jews?
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MANDATE SYSTEM

When the First World War ended, the future of the Middle East was determined at the Versailles Peace
Conference in 1919. President Wilson of the USA was anxious to avoid a return to the old pre-war
habits of colonialism, but was forced to acknowledge the interests of Britain and France in the former
territories of the Turkish Empire. The resulting compromise was the mandate system, whereby the
victorious powers would administer the regions of the former empire until they were ready for selfgovernment, with the added provision that an annual report on progress would be made to the newly
established League of Nations.
(A)
(B)
Theodor Herzl, 18601904
Hussein Ibn Ali (Sharif of Mecca), 18521931
Father of modern Zionism. When he was told that

Palestine was not empty but populated by Arabs he
reportedly said, I did not know that.
Leader of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in 1916. Later

proclaimed himself King of the Hejaz (1924), but was
driven out by Ibn Saud, who renamed it Saudi Arabia.
Husseins family still rule in Jordan.
(C)
(D)
Chaim Weizmann, 18741952
T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), 18881935
A noted chemist, and Britains leading Zionist. Made

important discovery that aided British munitions
production in the First World War, thus giving him
influence with leading politicians. Widely regarded as
the architect of the Balfour declaration.
A supporter of the Arab cause, Lawrence became

disillusioned with British policy and left the army.
Figure 5.6
Men of the moment
In the Middle East, Syria and Lebanon became the

mandates of France, while Britain became responsible
for Iraq and Greater Palestine. These arrangements were
confirmed at the San Remo Conference in 1920 where the
principles of the Balfour declaration were incorporated into
the arrangements for British rule in Palestine.
The British divided the mandate of Greater Palestine into
two portions: the land to the east of the Jordan River was
renamed Transjordan, and Abdullah, a son of Sharif Hussein,
became its king; the area between the Mediterranean Sea
and the Jordan River now became known as the British
mandated territory of Palestine. For the first time Palestine
had defined frontiers.
TURKEY
LEBANON
SYRIA
M EDITERRANEAN
IRAN
IRAQ
SEA
PALESTINE
TRANS-JORDAN
KUWAIT
PERSIAN
GULF
EGYPT
DID YOU KNOW?
RED SEA
T. E. Lawrence found it hard to settle into civilian life. He joined the

RAF, using the name Ross to avoid publicity. When he was discovered
he changed his name to Shaw. He died when he swerved his
motorbike off the road to avoid a collision with a butchers delivery
boy on a bicycle in a country lane in Dorset, Englanda far cry from
the sands of Arabia.
SAUDI ARABIA
SUDAN
N
KEY
French mandate
British mandate
R E VI E W TA SK
Prepare a letter to a newspaper (about 200
words) entitled Betrayed by the British and
write it from the point of view of an Arab
nationalist around 1920. Then prepare a
response to justify British policy entitled
Britain defended.
200
400
600 km
Figure 5.7 The Middle East mandates after the First World War
PALESTINE IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH IMMIGRATION
The intractable problem that confronted Britain was that if they allowed any Jewish immigration at all,
they would offend the Arab residents who feared being overrun by Jews; yet if they stopped or slowed
Jewish immigration, there would be an outcry from Jews and their supporters worldwide.
The establishment of the British mandate saw the third wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine from
1919 to 1923. In September 1923 the mandate authority limited Jewish immigration to a maximum of
16 500 a year, though this number was rarely reached in the remainder of the decade. Those who did
arrive were mainly poor, uneducated immigrants from the Ukraine or Poland, where anti-Semitic violence
or legislation persuaded Jews to leave. By the late 1920s the Zionist hope of a national home built on
a steady influx of immigrants appeared to be in crisis. Both the costs of establishing new settlements
and unemployment were growing. In 1927 as economic conditions worsened, twice as many Jews left
Palestine as reached it, and in that year the net gain in Jewish population was only 289. In 1918 there had
been 60 000 Jews in Palestine (8 per cent of the population); in 1929 there were 175 000 (17 per cent of
the population). It was not only the Jewish population that had grown. The Arab population of Palestine,
which had doubled in number between 1882 and 1920, had risen to approximately 850 000 by 1931,
partly due to an influx of Arabs from surrounding countries.
The situation changed with the advent of Nazism in Germany. In 1932 there were 9553 Jewish
immigrants to Palestine; in 1933 there were over 30 000, many of these from Germany where Adolf
Hitler had come to power. Hitler regarded Jews as an inferior race and was determined to remove
them from German life. Jews in countries surrounding Germany also felt threatened and an exodus
from Europe began. Many countries were unwilling to accept these migrants, or imposed strict quotas
on their intake. For many migrants Palestine became their only hope. The new wave of immigrants
from central Europe tended to be better educated and wealthier than that of the 1920s. By 1940
Jews made up 40 per cent of the population of Palestine. The uneven but continual growth of the
Jewish population had caused mutual distrust and antagonism between the Jews and the Arabs and
suspicion by both towards the neutral mandatory power.
THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE

The beginning of the mandate period was marked by outbreaks of violence. In 1920 Arabs attacked
Jewish settlements in the north of Palestine, causing four to be abandoned. This resulted in the
establishment in March 1921 of the Haganah, or Jewish Defence Force, which began as a secret
organisation operating without the approval of the British but was dedicated to maintaining the
security of the settlements, which the British could not do.
In April 1921 mob violence broke out in Jerusalem when Arabs attacked the Jewish quarter of the
Old City. In four days of bloodshed, nine people were killed and 244 wounded. This was followed in May
by further riots in Jaffa, leading to the deaths of almost one hundred Arabs and Jews. The authorities
reacted by temporarily suspending Jewish immigration, but following protests from Jews abroad the
suspension was lifted.
In 1921 the British also appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini
as Mufti (chief judge) of Jerusalem. Al-Husseini had been
prominently involved in the anti-Jewish riots of the previous
months. If the British hoped to curb his anti-Jewish actions
by appointing him to responsible office, they miscalculated.
Though there was a period of peace between the
communities for several years, trouble flared again in 1929.
Jewish religious observances at the Wailing Wall in
Jerusalem were a focus for Arab protests throughout the
early months of 1929. Matters came to a head in August
when Arab mobs attacked Jews in Jerusalem and other
settlements. In Hebron sixty Jews were killed and the ancient
Jewish community was driven out of the city. It took British
troops several days to bring the riots under control, by which
time 116 Arabs had been killed, mostly by the British police,
and 133 Jews had died at the hands of the Arabs.
Many observers see the riots of 1929 as marking the
emergence of a particular Palestinian nationalism, which
expressed itself from April 1936 through the workings of
the Arab Higher Committee under the leadership of the
Mufti, which worked to mobilise all sections of the Arab
community to halt Jewish migration and land purchase.
1 200 000
1 050 000
900 000
750 000
600 000
450 000
300 000
150 000
0
1882 1914 1918 1923 1931 1936 1947
Jews
Arabs
Figure 5.8 Arab and Jewish populations in Palestine. Books often

differ on actual population figures; therefore, it is best to think in
general proportions, as this figure indicates.
The Arab leadership, under the direction of the Mufti,

organised a general strike when Arabs refused to pay
taxes and businesses were closed. The strike, which began
in April 1936, lasted six months, during which time over
300 people, mostly Arabs, were killed. This was followed
by the Arab Revolt of 193739, which involved attacks on
Jewish settlements and individuals. In response, the Jews
established over fifty new tower and stockade settlements
in strategic areas. The region was engulfed in violence until
the beginning of the Second World War. The revolt was
eventually put down by British troops after the death of over
500 Jews and 3000 Arabs, and the arrest or imprisonment of
the major Arab leaders. Haj Amin fled to Damascus and later
made his way to Germany, where he sought support for his
anti-Semitism from Hitler.
Figure 5.9 Jews at the Wailing Wall in the 1920ssuch religious

observances were a focus for Arab protests.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: V I OLENCE DU R I N G TH E 1930S

Source 5.5
Orde Wingate, a British officer, interrogated Arab villagers.
Wingate reached down and took some sand and grit from
the ground. He thrust it into the mouth of the first Arab
and pushed it down his throat until he choked and puked.
Now, he said, Where have you hidden the arms? Still
they shook their heads. Wingate turned to one of the Jews
and, pointing to the coughing and spluttering Arab, said
Shoot this man. The Jew looked at him questioningly and
hesitated. Wingate said in a tense voice: Did you hear?
Shoot him. The Jew shot the Arab.
L. Mosley, in S.J. Houston, The ArabIsraeli Conflict, p. 24.
Source 5.6
A Palestinians account of his treatment by the British:
Beisan since the beginning of the century and all but

one Jewish family of the ten families who had lived in the
Arab village of Pekiin, where, according to tradition, their
ancestors had lived since Roman times.
M. Gilbert, Israel: a History, 1998, p. 80.
Source 5.8
An English nun, who had lived in Palestine for many years, made
this comment about British policies.
It is this kind of thing which drives the young men to join
the bandits in the hills they have nothing more to lose
than their lives.
J. Dimbleby, The Palestinians, 1980, p. 76.
I was arrested along with scores of others from my village.

They took us in lorries to one of the concentration camps
in a place called Akrit. There we had to pass between two
lines of soldiers who beat us as we entered the camp. They
used their guns as sticks Then we had to crawl through
barbed wire while they hit us all the time. We were herded
into a compound. Day after day we sat in the open under
the sun, and in the night we had to endure the extreme
cold. We had no blankets.
1 From information in Source 5.5 and Source 5.6

describe the different methods used by the
British to subdue the Arab resistance to the
mandate authority. (See also Figure 5.10.)
J. Dimbleby, The Palestinians, 1980, p. 76.
3 Why do you think Gilbert uses the example of

the families from Pekiin in Source 5.7?
Source 5.7
4 According to the sources, how effective were

the British policies in:
For the Jews it was galling to see what little eect the British
protection could have. Jews were killed while travelling
in buses, or even sitting in their homes. Whole Jewish
communities fled, among them the 94 Jews whose
families had lived in the predominantly Bedouin town of
2 How would you describe the actions of Wingate

in Source 5.5. Does a reading of Source 5.7 help
to make his actions more understandable or
acceptable?
(a) reassuring the Jewish community that they

would be protected?
(b) persuading the Arabs to abandon violence?
One result of the 1929 riots was the increasing division between those Zionists who still sought
compromise with the Arabs, and those who believed that military confrontation was the only option.
The most notable figure of the emerging right was Vladimir Jabotinsky, who founded Betar, a
uniformed youth movement trained in street-fighting and the use of weapons. During the Arab revolt
several Haganah members broke away from the organisation, which they regarded as too moderate, to
form the Irgun Zwei Lumi, which acted as the military wing of the ultra-nationalist Zionist movement.
By 1939 British attempts to maintain peace in Palestine had proven unsuccessful, drawing criticism
from Arab and Jew alike. The approach of the Second World War caused a shift in British attitude
and policy. From a firm adherence to the principles of the Balfour declaration throughout the 1920s,
the need to maintain their position in the Arab world in the face of mounting German and Italian
challenges in the 1930s caused the British to view the Arab cause with more sympathy.
The Churchill White Paper 1922
The Passfield White Paper 1931
Reason: A response to the 1921 riots.
Reason: A response to the 1929 riots.
Main points: Recommended limits on

Jewish immigration to conform to the
economic capacity of the country.
Main points: Repudiated major elements

of the Balfour declaration, urging
tighter controls on Jewish immigration
and limits on land sales to Jews.
Results: The Zionist Council approved
the paper, fearful of antagonising

the British. The Arabs rejected any
mention of the notion of a Jewish
national home in Palestine.
Results: After protests by Zionist
supporters in England, Prime Minister

Ramsay MacDonald repudiated the
Passfield paper.
The White Paper 1939

Reason: Britain wished to bring about a
settlement in Palestine that had the support of
the Arabs, to maintain their goodwill during
the Second World War.
Main points: To establish within ten years an
independent Palestine, with Arabs and Jews
combined in government. Jewish immigration
to be restricted to a total of 75 000 over a
five-year period. After that period no further
Jewish immigration would be permitted
unless the Arabs agreed to it.
Results: The Jews were furious at this betrayal
of the Balfour declaration. Their leader David

Ben-Gurion expressed Jewish policy in the
phrase: We shall fight the war as if there
was no White Paper; and we shall fight the
White Paper as if there was no war.
Figure 5.10 A political juggling act
The Peel Commission 1937

Reason: A response to the 1936
general strike.
Main points: It was impossible for an
Arab and Jew to live together in a
unified Palestine. Proposed partition
into a Jewish state and an Arab
state, with Jerusalem remaining under
British control.
Results: Jews accepted the proposal;
Arabs rejected it. The Arab revolt

followed. Britain abandoned the idea
of the partition of Palestine in 1938.
ATTEMPTS TO REACH A POLITICAL SOLUTION

Outbreaks of violence and the tension caused by Jewish immigration caused the British to produce
several reports on the future of the mandated territory (see Figure 5.10). The overall result was to
deepen the atmosphere of distrust and uncertainty by 1939. By the outbreak of war the British had
settled on the policies of the 1939 White Paper. While the Arabs were impatient for independence, the
Jews were outraged by its terms as their leader, David Ben-Gurion, declared when he said that Jews
would fight the war as if there was no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there was no war.
Ben-Gurion had immigrated to Palestine from Poland in 1906 and became head of the Jewish Agency
in 1935. As such he was responsible for the Jewish defence forces in their conflict with the Palestinian
Arabs and the British.
1 Draw a timeline representing the period 192040, marking on it the outbreaks of
violence in Palestine. In each case mention one consequence of the period of rioting.
2 What was the role and influence of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the interwar period?
3 How did the nature and type of Jewish immigrants change in the interwar period?
4 Suggest reasons why Jews might have been reluctant to go to Palestine during
the 1920s.
5 What divisions emerged in the late 1920s in the Jewish community?
6 What significant event in Europe altered the rate of Jewish immigration in the 1930s?
7 The British argued for much of the interwar period that it was possible for Jews and
Arabs to live together in Palestine. From your reading, how realistic a view was this?
8 As the mandate authority Britain tried to play a neutral role between the Jews and
Arabs. How well did they succeed?
DEVELOPMENTS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR 193945

A Jewish Brigade was formed in 1942 to fight with the allies in the Mediterranean theatre. Within
Palestine the political climate was calmer than it had been in decades with most of the Arab leaders in
prison or exile after the Arab Revolt, and the majority of the Jewish population content to suspend its
anti-British actions for the duration of the war.
One exception to this was the Lehi or Stern gang, which broke away from the Irgun in 1940 when
that organisation suspended operations. The Stern gang continued to attack British installations and
carry out assassinations, the most notable of which was the murder of Lord Moyne, the British minister
in Palestine, on 6 November 1944.
One form of Jewish resistance that was widely supported was the undertaking to subvert the
immigration restrictions the British continued to maintain in accordance with the terms of the 1939
White Paper. This led to a pattern of illegal immigration that persisted until 1948. Jews sailed to
Palestine on whatever ship they could. Some landed illegally, others were intercepted by the British
navy, and some died when their ships sank on the way; for example, the Patria sank in Haifa harbour
with 250 deaths in 1940 and the Struma, with 769 refugees aboard, sank in the Black Sea 1941.
JEWISH OPINION
s ,ETREFUGEESINTO0ALESTINE
s @&IGHTTHE7HITE0APERASIFTHERE
WASNOWAR
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!2!"/0).)/.
s /PPOSE*EWISHIMMIGRATION
s 7HYSHOULD!RABSSUFFERFORTHE
WRONGSDONETOTHE*EWS
Which way forward for

Palestine after 1945?
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s -AINTAINLIMITED*EWISHIMMIGRATION
BUTOPPOSEBYFORCELARGE SCALE
ATTEMPTSBY*EWSTOREACH0ALESTINE
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IMMIGRATION
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THETHREATFROMTHE3OVIET5NION
s !NGLO !MERICAN#OMMITTEEOF%NQUIRY
RECOMMENDEDTHEADMISSION
OF
Figure 5.11 Which way forward for Palestine after 1945?
Figure 5.12 The Theodor Herzl arrives in Palestine. Many old and overcrowded boats brought illegal Jewish immigrants. The banner
reads: The Germans destroyed our families and homesdont you destroy our hopes.
Figure 5.13 Two Jewish terrorists captured by the British in

1946. They cheated the hangman by blowing themselves up with
a grenade that had been smuggled to them in prison.
Figure 5.14 A wing of the King David Hotel lies in ruins. The Irgun
claimed that they had telephoned a warning to allow the building to
be evacuated; the British said no warning was received.
Select one or more of the photographs in
Figures 5.12 to 5.15 and write an accompanying
newspaper article to explain the situation to your
readers. You should outline the events leading
up to the event in the picture and speculate
on what will or should happen as a result. The
tone of the article can vary, depending on the
viewpoint from which you writea British,
Jewish, Arab or neutral point of view. Choose an
appropriate headline for your story.
Figure 5.15 In retaliation for the execution of three of their

members, the Irgun hanged these British soldiers and boobytrapped their bodies.
THE EFFECT OF THE HOLOCAUST

In 1945 the truth about the Holocaust was revealed. Six million Jews had been killed; hundreds of
thousands more, survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, had been placed in refugee camps. By
1946 there were 250 000 Jewish displaced persons in Europe. Where were they to go?
Jewish people, with much international support, argued that for humanitarian reasons Jewish
refugees from Europe should be allowed to enter Palestine. American opinion supported the Zionist
cause. Many Jews had settled in the USA and held significant financial and voting power. In 1945
an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was established. Its report in May 1946 recommended
that 100 000 Jews be allowed into Palestine. The American president, Harry Truman, supported this
recommendation; Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, rejected it.
Arabs continued to oppose increased Jewish immigration
into Palestine and argued that as they had not been
responsible for the recent persecution of the Jews
they should not be the ones to bear the brunt of
Jewish resettlement.
LEBANON
S E A
SYRIA
Acre
Haifa
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ISRAEL

194547
THE GROWTH OF JEWISH
RESISTANCE
Jerusalem
NEGEV
OF J
ORDA
Beersheba
DOM
Gaza
S E A
Rehovot
KING
On 22 July 1946 in retaliation for a British security blitz

that had seen 4000 suspected Jewish terrorists swept into
detention camps, Irgun fighters dressed as Arabs delivered
milk churns packed with explosives to the basement of the
King David Hotel, used as the headquarters of the British
administration of Palestine. When the churns exploded
much of the hotel was destroyed and nearly one hundred
people killed, among them top civil servants and military
officials. One of the five Irgun terrorists involved was shot
dead; the others escaped. On 30 July 1947 two British
sergeants were kidnapped and hanged by the Irgun, and
their bodies booby-trapped.
Jaffa
D E A
D
As the Second World War ended, the armed struggle

between Jewish groups and the British authorities in Palestine
intensified. While the Haganah attacked installations and
deliberately avoided endangering lives, the Irgun and the
Stern gang had no such reservations. They attacked British
soldiers and government workers, mined roads, blew up
facilities and captured weapons from the British.
Tel Aviv
SINAI
KEY
Jewish State
Arab State
0
50
100 km
UN Zone
Aqaba
Figure 5.16 The UN Partition Plan; of the 26 000 square kilometres

of Palestine, the Arabs retained 44 per cent, although they had
67 per cent of the population.
Numerous ships, many in an unseaworthy condition, continued to arrive off the coast of
Palestine loaded with illegal immigrants. The most famous was the Exodus, used to transport
4550 survivors of the Nazi death camps to Palestine. The vessel was intercepted, rammed
and boarded by the British navy. At Haifa the passengers, with at least 143 wounded,
were disembarked and immediately placed on board ships to take them back to Europe.
When the passengers refused to disembark in France, their starting point, the British
government sent them back to Germany where they returned, in locked trains, to the old
Nazi concentration camps near Lubeck. This had a profound effect on world public opinion,
which condemned Britain for these actions. Despite this setback, approximately 40 000 Jews
entered Palestine illegally between August 1945 and May 1948.
DID YOU KNOW?

When the British arrested
over 3000 Jewish leaders
in Palestine in 1946, BenGurion was in Paris. There
he met the Vietnamese
leader, Ho Chi Minh. Hearing
about the Jews troubles, Ho
offered Ben-Gurion another
homelandthe highlands of
central Vietnam. Ben-Gurion
politely declined!
1 What criticisms could you make about the boundaries of the two proposed
states (see Figure 5.16)?
2 Does either side, Jewish or Arab, have more to complain of than the other?
3 Why has Jerusalem been set aside as a separate entity under United
Nations control?
THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS

The actions of the Jewish resistance groups tied up 100 000 British troops in Palestine at a
time when Britain was hoping to reduce the numbers in its armed forces after the end of
the war. The search for a compromise between Arabs and Jews had only antagonised both
sides at Britains expense. In February 1947 Britain decided to hand over the Palestine issue
to the United Nations. The United Nations sent an eleven-member team, the United Nations
Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), to investigate the situation. By coincidence,
some members of UNSCOP were at the quayside when the refugees from the Exodus were
temporarily landed. They were moved by the plight of the refugees and unimpressed by the
way in which the British handled the situation.
In September 1947 UNSCOP recommended that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish
state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem administered as an international zone. The Arabs
objected to the proposal; the Jews accepted it, although they made it clear that in their
opinion Jerusalem should be part of the Jewish state.
DID YOU KNOW?

During the Second World
War, Stern gang members
sent messages of support to
the Nazis and offered their
cooperation in the new world
order. It later emerged that
the Nazis were responsible for
the murder of six million Jews.
A bad choice of friends?
The Partition Plan gave the Jews 56 per cent of the land area of Palestine, although they constituted
only 33 per cent of the population. As originally envisaged, the new Jewish territory would include
510 000 Arabs and 500 000 Jews. This was later amended in May 1948 to 397 000 Arabs and 538 000 Jews.
The United Nations voted on the Partition Plan on 29 November 1947. Thirty-three nations
supported the plan, including the USA, France, Australia and the Soviet Union. Thirteen nations
opposed the plan, including all the Muslim bloc, India, Yugoslavia and Greece. There were ten
abstentions, including Britain. The Jewish people had finally turned the national home of the Balfour
declaration into a state.
Much uncertainty remained. Who was to oversee the creation of the two new states? Britain made
it clear that their mandate would end on 15 May 1948, and that no authority would be handed over
before that date. The USA was unwilling to involve itself in the transition, leaving Jews and Arabs to
commence a series of hostilities that was to lead to the first ArabIsraeli war (see Chapter 13).
In the midst of that process, on 14 May 1948, Ben-Gurion

proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel and
became its first prime minister.
1 Explain the following terms: Haganah, Irgun and
Stern gang.
2 What was the recommendation of the AngloAmerican Committee of Inquiry concerning
immigration to Palestine?
3 Illegal immigration and acts of terrorism were
tactics used by the Jews against the British.
What effect do you think these tactics had on
British public opinion? Was one tactic more
effective than the other?
4 Some suggest that Britain should be
condemned for handing the problem of
Palestine to the United Nations; others
say it was the sensible thing to do. What do
you think?
Figure 5.17 Cabinet ministers of the new state of Israel sing

Hatikvah the Jewish national anthem, May 14 1948, at a ceremony
marking the creation of the new state. Notice the portrait of Herzl
and the Israeli flag behind them.
References
Bregman A. & El-Tahri J., The Fifty Years War, Penguin/BBC, 1998
David R., Arabs and Israel for Beginners, Writers and Readers Publishing, New York, 1993
Dimbleby J., The Palestinians, Quartet Books, London, 1980
Dixon M., Whose Promised Land?, Heinemann, Auckland, 1991
Gilbert M., Israel: A History, Doubleday, Sydney, 1998
Greenup E., Conflict in the Middle East, Nelson, Melbourne, 1988
Harper P., The ArabIsraeli Issue, Wayland, Hove, 1986
Harper P., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Wayland, Hove, 1989
Houston S. J., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Longman, London, 1989
King J., Conflict in the Middle East, Wayland, Hove, 1993
Laqueur W. (ed.), The ArabIsraeli Reader, Penguin, 1984
Meir G., My Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1975
Mosley L., Gideon Goes to War, 1955
Peretz D., The ArabIsraeli Dispute, Facts on file, New York, 1996
Piggott L. & Rutland, S., One Land: Two Peoples, Harcourt Brace & Company, Sydney, 1994
Pyne M., Middle East Conflict, Longman, Melbourne, 1996
Rice K., The Middle East since 1900, Longman, London, 1990
Ross S., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Evans Brothers, London, 1995
Rubinstein A., The ArabIsraeli Conflict: Perspectives, Praeger, New York, 1984
Schools Council 1316 Project, ArabIsraeli Conflict, Holmes McDougall, Edinburgh, 1977
Scott-Baumann M., Conflict in the Middle East, Edward Arnold, Sydney, 1987
Scott-Baumann M., War and Peace in the Middle East, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998
Sprinzak E., The Ascendance of Israels Radical Right, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991
Sprinzak E., Brother Against Brother, The Free Press, New York, 1999
THE WORLD AT THE

BEGINNING OF
THE 20TH CENTURY
CORE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
The world at the beginning of the 20th century was very different from the world
today. Much of the Earths surface, particularly in Africa and Asia, was ruled by
foreign, usually European, countries under a system called imperialism.
While the agricultural economy persisted unchanged in many parts of the world,
in those countries experiencing industrialisation the new economy precipitated
a movement of workers from the land to the city in search of work. This increase
of city-dwellers overwhelmed the existing water, sewerage and accommodation
facilities, creating vast urban slums where people lived in appalling conditions and
poverty. These conditions bred discontent, as well as disease, and the anarchist,
socialist and trade union movements began in an attempt to improve the
conditions of the working class.
Where national interests clashed, conflict developed. In Asia, the Japanese built
their military power to rival that of the intrusive foreigners; while the Chinese, less
successfully, hit back at imperialist powers through the Boxer Rebellion. In Europe,
national and military rivalries began to build until the old world and its values
were swept away in the tragedy of the First World War.
Timeline
1871
1882
1889
1898
1899
1900
1901
1906
1907
1908
1910
1914
Germany wins Franco-Prussian war and takes the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France.
Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy sign the Triple Alliance.
The Second International, a congress of socialists, meets in Paris.
The Spanish-American War: the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico are transferred to the United
States of America.
Boer settlers rebel against British rule in South Africa.
The Boxer Rebellion against foreign influence takes place in China.
President McKinley (USA) is assassinated by an anarchist.
The British Dreadnought battleship is launched; naval race with Germany begins.
The Triple Entente is created between Britain, France and Russia.
A commission uncovers abuses and maltreatment of tribespeople in the Belgian Congo.
Japan annexes Korea.
28 June
28 July
4 August
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne is assassinated in Sarajevo.

Austria bombards Belgrade with the opening shots of the First World War.
All major European powers are at war.
Timeline exercise
1 What major leader was killed by an anarchist?
2 Which countries were members of the Triple Entente?
3 How long was the gap in time between the assassination in Sarajevo and the involvement
of the major powers in the First World War?
4 When did the naval race between Britain and Germany start?
5 What Asian country was expanding its empire in 1910?
6 What country fired the first shots of the First World War?
7 Who met in Paris in 1889?
8 Which two areas of the world were in rebellion around 1900?
9 What country did the USA defeat to take possession of the Philippines?
10 What secret was revealed in 1908?
KEY IDEOLOGIES AND THEIR ROLE IN THE WORLD AROUND 1900

IMPERIALISM
Of the various ideas that affected the lives of politicians and people around the globe at the turn of
the century, one of the most significant was imperialism, or the building of empires. Winning empires
brought adventure and glory; their exploitation brought wealth and trade. The USA, in the Caribbean
and the Pacific; Russia, on her southern and Asiatic borders; and Japan, in Formosa and the Asian
mainland, were all actively expanding their empires at this time, but the greatest area of empirebuilding was Africa, where virtually the entire continent had, from around 1875, been carved up
between the European powers in the scramble for Africa. Only Liberia, founded by the Americans as a
home for freed slaves in 1822, and Abyssinia were not colonies of one of the European countries.
Colonial rule and the treatment of the subjugated peoples varied, depending on who was
governing, but some of the worst characteristics of imperialism and colonialism were observed in the
tropical jungles of Africa.
At this time in different parts of the world, Americans tortured and killed people, and burned villages
in a counter-guerrilla war in the Philippinesover 200 000 Filipinos died of war-related hunger or disease.
In Australia, Aborigines were victims of random and planned killings as the new nation was born.
Around 1900, the quest for colonies and empires was seen as a great civilising mission by those who
were doing the colonising. Those who were colonised could be forgiven for seeing things differently.
ALASKA
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
GREAT BRITAIN
CANADA
GERMANY
NEWFOUNDLAND
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
CUBA
MARQUESAS
TURKESTAN
ITALY
1
JAMACA
BRITISH HONDURAS
HAWAII
SAMOA
TONGA
AZORES
WEST
INDIES
CAPE
VERDE IS.
ALGERIA 2
FRENCH WEST
AFRICA
ADEN
WEIHAIWEI
CHINA
JAPAN
KIAOCHOW
HONG KONG
INDIA
GOA
PORTO RICO
PANAMA
CAYENNE
GUIANA
GOLD COAST
NIGERIA
SURINAM
TAHITI
8
CYPRUS
PERSIA
9
BURMA
SIAM
INDO
CHINA
MARIANA IS.
PHILIPPINES MARSHALL IS.
5
BORNEO BISMARK SOLOMON IS.
SOMALILAND CYELON
BELG. 6
ARCH.
KENYA
CONGO
TIMOR
GERMAN E. AFRICA
NEW
FIJI IS.
DUTCH EAST
ANGOLA
HEBRIDES
INDES
MADAGASCAR
NEW
GERMAN S.W.
AUSTRALIA
7
CALEDONIA
MOZAMBIQUE
AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
3000 km
NEW ZEALAND
FALKLAND IS.
1. Malta
2. Tripoli
3. Egypt
4. Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
5. Abyssinia
6. Uganda
7. Rhodesia
8. Russian Sphere
9. British Sphere
KEY
British
German
Russian
American
Italian
French
Spanish
Portuguse
Dutch
Belgian
Figure 6.1 The empires in 1914these were the source of bitter rivalry between the major powers.
The World at the Beginning of the 20th Century | 91
CASE STUDY
THE BELGIANS IN THE CONGO

In the late 1870s King Leopold of Belgium decided that
he wanted to join in the exploitation of Africa, saying,
I do not want to risk losing a fine chance to secure
for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake
(Hochschild 1998, p. 58).
Initially, the main crop of the Congo was ivory, but an
invention from the industrialised world, rubber, was the
foundation of the horrific exploitation of the Congo. The
Dunlop Rubber Company began making tyres in 1890,
which set off a bicycling craze in Europe, and coincided with
the invention of the motor car. Factories in the developed
world could not get enough of the raw material and rubber
prices soared. For Leopolds Congo, the rubber boom was
a godsend.
ANGLO
EGYPTIAN
SUDAN
FRENCH
EQUATORIAL
AFRICA
KAMERUN
(Ger)
Congo R
iver
UGANDA
(Br)
BELGIAN
CONGO
Leopoldville
GERMAN
EAST
AFRICA
THE RUBBER TRADE

Rubber trees need cultivation and time before they can be
tapped. Leopold knew the price of rubber would drop once
the plantations in Latin America and Asia reached maturity.
In the meantime, the best source of rubber was the vines
that snaked high into the trees of the Congos forests.
In order to gather the wild rubber, the workers were sent
through the forests, often having to climb trees to get to the
vines, which were slit to bleed the rubber sap. The gatherers
had to dry the syrup-like rubber so that it coagulated, and
often the only way to do this was to spread it on their
bodya painful experience when the rubber was pulled off.
Exhausted men, carrying baskets of lumpy grey rubber on
their heads, walked over 30 kilometres to assemble at the
houses of European agents who weighed the rubber. They
were paid in cloth, beads or salt.
Any suggestion of non-cooperation was treated with force,
but the European masters mistrusted their native soldiers,
therefore, the policy of cutting off hands was used.
DID YOU KNOW?

Rubber got its name in the late 1700s when a
British scientist noticed that it would rub out
pencil marks.
ANGOLA
(Port)
ATLANTIC
NORTHERN
RHODESIA
(Br)
OCEA N
400
800 km
Figure 6.2 The Belgian Congo
For each cartridge issued to their soldiers they

demanded proof that the bullet had been used to kill
someone, not wasted in hunting or worse yet, saved
for possible use in a mutiny. The standard proof was
the right hand of a corpse Sometimes soldiers
shot a cartridge at an animal in hunting [or missed
their human target]; they then cut off a hand from a
living man. In 1896 a news report was published in
Germany saying that 1308 severed hands had been
given to one district commissioner in a single day!
(Hochschild 1998, p. 165)
In addition to the killings and mutilations, diseases

introduced by the Europeans ravaged the inhabitants.
Smallpox, which was endemic in parts of the African
coast, was introduced inland by the Europeans. One
traveller to the Congo came upon a deserted town
where a five-metre boa-constrictor was dining on
smallpox victims, and another where the vultures were
too gorged to fly.
THE HUMAN COST
Figure 6.3 A Congolese rubber worker looks at the severed hand

and foot of his five-year-old daughter, a victim of the Anglo-Belgian
Rubber Company militia.
Between 1890 and 1910, the height of the rubber

boom, an estimated eight million Congolese died
from the combined effects of the savage regime and
sickness; effects that were magnified by the exhausted
and ill-fed state in which the indigenous workers were
kept. Though the Belgian Congo provides an example
of some of the worst excesses of colonialism, it was
not the only one. Other colonial powers capitalised
on the rubber boom. The French territories in the
north and west of the Congo, Portuguese Angola
and the German Cameroons also treated their native
populations as expendable. An estimated 50 per cent of
the indigenous population was lost in French Equatorial
Africa. A scandal erupted in France when a French
colonial official, to celebrate Bastille Day, exploded
a stick of dynamite in a black prisoners rectum. A
commission of inquiry was sent to Africa, but its report
was so horrific it was suppressed. In German SouthWest Africa, a revolt in 1904 by the Hereros was met
with an extermination order. Of an estimated 80 000
Hereros in 1903, less than 20 000 remained by 1906.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What, according to the text, motivated
empire-builders? Can you think of other
motivations?
2 Which were the only parts of Africa to
remain free of colonial rule?
3 How was the invention of the motor car
linked to the exploitation of the Congo?
Figure 6.4 British missionaries with men holding the hands severed
from victims of the Anglo-Belgian Rubber Company, 1904
DID YOU KNOW?

Leon Rom, a Belgian official in the Congo, collected
butterflies, painted portraitsand displayed a row
of severed heads around his garden!
4 Why was the amputation of hands part of

the policy of the Congo authorities?
5 How many Congolese died at the height of
the rubber boom?
6 What general conclusions can you make
about the attitudes of the colonisers
towards the indigenous people they
found?
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: RACI AL AT T IT U DES
BUSHMAN SHARES A CAGE WITH BRONX PARK APES

Some laugh over his antics, but many are not pleased
There was an exhibition at the
Zoological Park yesterday
which had for many of the visitors
something more than a provocation
for laughter Something about it
that I dont like [said] one man
The exhibition was that of a
human being in a monkey cage. The
human happened to be a Bushman,
one of a race that scientists do not
rate high in the human scale
The human being caged was the
little black man, Ota Benga, whom
Prof. Verner, the explorer, recently
brought to this country from the
jungles of Central Africa. Prof. Verner
lately handed him over to the New
York Zoological Society for care and
keeping.
The news that the pigmy would
be on exhibition augmented the
Saturday afternoon crowd
Like his fellow-lodgers, the orang

outan and monkeys, Benga has a
room inside the building. It opens,
like the rest, into the public cage.
A crowd that fluctuated between
300 and 500 persons watched the
little black man amuse himself in
his own way yesterday. He doesnt
like crowds, especially the children,
who tease him. So he wove at the
hammocks and mats which he
knows how to make, jabbered at
the parrot which came from the
jungles with him, and shot at
marks in the ample cage with his
bow and arrow
A little after noon Benga
was allowed to go into the woods. A
keeper watched him from a distance.
It is doubtful if any one has ever
seen a happier mortal. Grabbing
his bow and arrow, he jumped into
the thickest of the underbrush and

frisked about.
At liberty Benga seemed to live
in Africa again But the crowd
soon found him and in the end
the keeper had to send him back
into the monkey house But it was
hard to keep him there. Frequently
he appeared at the door and in looks
not hard to understand let the keeper
know that he would rather be among
the trees
There has been no attempt to
make Benga look grotesque. He wears
white trousers and a khaki coat. Only
his feet are bare.
New York Times, 9 September 1906
1 How do you think Ota Benga came to America?
2 Describe Professor Verners attitude towards Benga.
3 Describe and explain the various attitudes of the crowd towards Benga.
4 How do you react to the following phrases?
(a) It is doubtful if any one has ever seen a happier mortal.
(b) There has been no attempt to make Benga look grotesque.
5 Describe the newspapers attitude to the exhibition.
6 What does this article tell us about racial attitudes at the beginning of the twentieth century?
7 Such an incident is unimaginable today. Why? To what extent have racial views and stereotypes
changed since 1906?
ANARCHISM
Between 1894 and 1914 six national leaders were killed by lone assassins. The assassins believed in, and
killed for, the same ideologyanarchism. Anarchists said that if there were no government, no laws, no
rights to property, people would be free and happy as God intended. They argued that it was pointless
trying to reform social evils because the ruling class would never give up its rights and privileges. They
despised the efforts of socialists to work for reforms such as the eight-hour day, which would still leave
the bosses in control.
They believed that violence was the only answerthe bullet, the knife and the bomb were the
tools of the anarchist.
Around 1900, society was terrified of the anarchist threat as bombs were thrown in public places
and anyone might have suddenly pulled out a pistol or a knife. Courts in Europe imprisoned people for
proclaiming anarchism, and in 1903 the US Congress decided to ban immigrants teaching disbelief in
or opposition to all organized government (Tuchman 1997, p. 108).
President Carnot of France, 1894,

was stabbed with a dagger in the
stomach by a young man who dashed
out of the crowd.
Premier Canovas of Spain, 1897,

was shot three times by a young man
while sitting on a hotel terrace reading
a paper.
Empress Elizabeth of AustriaHungary,

1898, was stabbed in the heart with a
sharpened file while walking.
King Humbert of Italy, 1900, was shot

four times while in his carriage by a
man who rushed out from the crowd.
President McKinley of the USA,1901,

was shot by a man in a receiving line
of guests.
Premier Canalejas of Spain, 1912,

was shot from behind while looking in
a bookshop window in the street.
Figure 6.5 The celebrity victims of anarchists
Anarchism had no individual leaders and no heroes. It first emerged around 1848 and its two
major prophets were Pierre Proudhon of France and Michael Bakunin, a Russian exile. Proudhon said,
Government of man by man is slavery and its laws are cobwebs for the rich and chains of steel for the
poor. Bakunin added that violence was a necessary part of the anarchists creed.
The paradox of anarchism was that anarchists rejected all forms of organisation; yet to bring about
a revolution required some form of leadership and organisation. They believed that revolution would
burst forth from the massesall that was needed was a spark, and an assassination could provide
that spark.
Anarchism in action
The Empress Elizabeth of AustriaHungary was the wife of Emperor Franz-Josef. Married at sixteen, she
led an unhappy life at the Viennese court as she hated court ceremony and ritual. For years she escaped
by travelling around Europe with her maid. In September 1898, at the age of sixty, she was staying by
the lake in Geneva.
Also in Geneva was Luigi Lucheni, who had been abandoned by his mother at birth. At nine years
of age he became a labourer on the Italian railroad, then later served in the army before becoming
unemployed. In 1897 he began to read anarchist literature and became consumed with the idea of
killing someone important. When the Swiss papers announced the arrival of the Empress, he made
a dagger out of an old file then confronted the Empress on a lakeside walk. Pausing only to peer
under her parasol to make sure of her identity, he plunged the file into her heart. He was immediately
Figure 6.6 Luigi
Lucheni, the Italian
anarchist, stabbed the
Empress Elizabeth as
she hurried to catch a
boat on Lake Geneva.
When later told that
she had died, Lucheni
replied, Delighted!
Lucheni is shown being
escorted to court.
arrested, but he was extremely pleased, declaring that he had acted as part of the war on the rich and
the great. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and hanged himself in his cell in 1910.
What happened to anarchism?

Anarchism did not have a long-term future as it was an ideology that drew people to follow it, but
could not draw them together for concerted action. It died out as fighters for the working class
realised that true progress could only come with organisation, and drifted towards the socialist or trade
union movement. Within the union movement the old anarchist belief in decisive action found new
expression in the notion of the general strike; those who believed in this weapon in the class war came
to be known as syndicalists: from the French syndicat, or union.
1 What did anarchists believe?
2 Proudhon said that laws are cobwebs for the rich and chains of steel for the poor.
What did he mean by this?
3 Why did anarchism die out?
4 Is it reasonable to ban or imprison people for what they believe? What examples of
this can you think of in todays society?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: CONT RAST ING LI V ES

Source 6.1
Source 6.2
They came from the warrens of the poor, where hunger

and dirt were king, where consumptives coughed and the
air was thick with the smell of latrines, boiling cabbage
and stale beer where roofs leaked and unmended
windows let in the cold blasts of winter, where privacy
was unimaginable, where men, women, grandparents
and children lived together, eating, sleeping, fornicating,
defecating, sickening and dying in one room, where a
teakettle served as a washboiler between meals, old boxes
served as chairs, heaps of foul straw as beds, and boards
propped across two crates as tables, where sometimes
not all of the children in a family could go out at one time
because there were not enough clothes to go round, where
decent families lived among drunkards, wife-beaters,
thieves and prostitutes.
The poor lived in a society where wealth and magnificent

spending were never more opulent, in which the rich dined
on fish, fowl and red meat at one meal, lived in houses
of marble floors and damask walls and of thirty or forty or
fifty rooms, wrapped themselves in furs in winter and were
cared for by a retinue of servants who blacked their boots
and lit their fires.
B. Tuchman, The Proud Tower, Papermac, London, 1997.
B. Tuchman, The Proud Tower, Papermac, London, 1997.

1 List the different problems faced by the poor
described in Source 6.1.
2 Why do you think these conditions were
permitted to exist?
3 What do these passages tell you about the
issues of class and wealth in European society
around 1900?
SOCIALISM
Like anarchists, socialists sought to correct the ills of society that industrialisation brought upon the
working classes. Socialists spoke of a class warthe ruling class and the bourgeoisie (middle class)
were the enemyand desired the abolition of private property and the redistribution of wealth to
provide everybody with enough. Its goals were similar to those of anarchism, but the methods differed.
Though socialists would speak of revolution it was a more organised movement, and they did not
attempt to assassinate individuals or use the indiscriminate bomb-throwing tactics of the anarchists.
For many socialists, the great teacher was Karl Marx, the German thinker who had written his
Communist Manifesto in 1847. Marx pointed to the growth of factories in Britain and Germany as the new
method of creating wealth, different from the farms and small cottage industries of the 1700s, and said
that in these factories the new working class, which he called the proletariat, were victims of the wealthy
industrialists. He wrote that under this system, which he called capitalism, the conditions of workers could
only get worse, leading to class conflict and revolution as the workers overthrew their masters.
One of the main socialist goals at the turn of the century was to shorten the working week
unskilled labourers regularly worked seven days a week and twelve hours a day. Socialists campaigned
for the eight-hour day and the right to vote for every man.
The goal of many socialists had always been to overthrow the existing political system; however,
from 1890 in countries across Europe socialists were increasing their representation in national
parliaments. The German Socialist Party was considered the torch-bearer. In the election of 1893 the
The red flagthe
symbol of socialism.
Karl Marx
1 May was to be an annual holiday

in celebration of labour.
Important meetings:
First International 1864 to coordinate
attempts by workers to achieve socialism.
Second International 1889
Workers of the world unite!

Figure 6.7
Socialism
Amsterdam 1905condemned the participation of socialist

parties in bourgeois coalitions.
Copenhagen 1910called for joint action by workers to prevent war.
Social Democratic Party gained 25 per cent of the votemore than any other single partyincreasing
this to 35 per cent in 1912.
Should socialists work within the political system in the hope of gaining power, or should they to
continue to talk of revolution? This issue split the socialist movement in the early years of the century.
The first convention of the International Workers of the World (IWW), which claimed it would unite
the skilled and unskilled as one great union to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist society,
occurred in the USA in 1905. However, when in that same year a revolution did occur in Russia, it was
noted by Leon Trotsky that other European socialists showed little interest in supporting or exploiting
the Russian situation.
By 1910 the main issue was not social revolution but the coming war. As nationalism grew, socialists
were torn between international brotherhood and patriotism. Keir Hardie, a British socialist, hoped that
war would be made impossible by an international strike of the working class, but socialists in Germany
and Austria opposed this. The great French socialist Jean Jaures was murdered on 31 July 1914 by a
young man who condemned him as a traitor and pacifist for opposing the coming war.
At the end of the day, the working class willingly joined their countrymen from the upper and
middle classes in going to war. The foreigner was a far easier target than the class enemy.
1 In what ways was socialism similar to and different from anarchism?
2 What were the two major issues confronting socialism as the century developed?
How were these issues resolved?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: E X T RACT FROM THE CO MMUN IS T MANIFES TO

Source 6.3
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf in a word, oppressor
and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted fight
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society
has not done away with class antagonism. It has but established new classes, new
conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into
two great classes directly facing each otherbourgeoisie and proletariat
But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number;
it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that
strength more the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class
The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is
on the eve of a bourgeois revolution and the bourgeois revolution in Germany
will be but a prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution.
The Communists openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at
a Communist revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have the world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUESTI O N S
1 What are the two great
classes under capitalism?
2 Where does Marx expect
a communist revolution to
occur?
3 How many revolutions does
Marx foresee before the
workers obtain control?
4 What advantage does the
proletariat have over other
classes?
5 What is the only way of
bringing about change to
existing social conditions?
K. Marx & F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto in H. Kohn (ed.), The Modern
World, Macmillan, New York, 1966.
KEY
A R C T I C
Countries with alliances

or agreements against
Central Powers
O C E A N
Central Powers
ICELAND
NORWAY
Allied to Central Powers

but declared neutrality on
outbreak of war
SWEDEN
Reykjavik
Neutral countries and

neutral countries later
aligned
FINLAND
The Balkan States

are shown ringed
Kristiana
Stockholm
A T L A N T I C
DENMARK
BRITAIN
O C E A N
Berlin
GERMAN
EMPIRE
London
Paris
500
RUSSIA
1000 km
Gibraltar (Brit.)
Rome
Sardinia
Algiers Tunis
MONTE
NEGRO
ALBANIA
TURKEY
GREECE
Sicily
S E A
Crete
PERSIA
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Athens
Cyprus
SYRIA ARABIA
Europe in 1914 showing the position of the various allies
Though 1900 was the last year of the old century, 1914 marked the end of an era. The outbreak of
the First World War changed the old world forever. Historians have long argued about the factors that
caused the war and the question of responsibility for it. A summary of the major issues that students
should consider follows.
BACKGROUND CAUSES TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR

GERMANYS DESIRE FOR WORLD POWER
Germanys power was centred in Europe rather than overseas and was tied to the strength of its army.
Germany had only been united in 1871, and wished to increase its power and prestige by obtaining
colonies and expanding its navy to rival that of Britain. These elements would increase Germanys status
from that of mere continental force to world power.
THE ALLIANCE SYSTEM

The great powers of Europe had formed links that, while intended to be basically defensive,
encouraged the possibility that a quarrel between any two of the opposing powers would inevitably
draw in the rest.
C AS P I A N
IA
SPAIN
ROMANIA
Bucharest
Sofia
BULGARIA B L A C K S E A
Constantinople
RB
Lisbon
Sarajvo
SE
Madrid
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN
EMPIRE
BOSNIA
FRANCE
Corsica
Warsaw
POLAND
Vienna
Belgrade
Alsace
Lorraine
PORTUGAL
Figure 6.8
Moscow
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
St Petersburg
GERMAN SUPPORT FOR AUSTRIAHUNGARY

Germany supported AustriaHungarys annexation of BosniaHerzegovina in 1908, disregarding
Russian protest. Also, Germany warned against Russia mobilising on Serbias behalf in 1912, when
Serbia moved to defend its interests against Austro-Hungarian expansion. Each time, Russia, despite
its cultural, religious and political links with Serbia, had to back down humiliated. Germany felt that if
the Balkan wave of nationalism, of which Serbia was a part, succeeded in creating small independent
countries in the region, it would break up the Austro-Hungarian empireGermanys only effective
European ally.
THE ARMS RACE

France, Germany and Russia all built up huge peacetime armies after about 1910. The naval race
between Britain and Germany stretched the resources of both nations and increased mutual tensions.
ALLIANCES AND TERMS (contracts)

1879 Dual alliance: Germany + AustriaHungary
Mutual assistance if either were attacked by Russia
and for benevolent neutrality if either were attacked
by another power.
BALANCE
OF
POWER
1882
Triple alliance: Germany + Austria-Hungary

+ Italy
Italy would remain neutral in a war between Russia
and AustriaHungary. Germany and AustriaHungary
would assist Italy if it was attacked by France. Italy
would help Germany and AustriaHungary if they
were attacked by at least two powers.
1894 FrancoRussian: France + Russia

Russia would aid France if attacked by Germany or
Germany/Italy. France would aid Russia if attacked by
Germany or Germany/AustriaHungary.
1902 Anglo-Japanese: Britain + Japan

Britain recognised Korea as an area of Japanese
influence and mutual assistance in the event of war.
ENTENTES AND TERMS (understandings)

1912 Anglo-French naval agreement
Britain would secure the North Sea and the
English Channel while France patrolled the
Mediterranean.
1904 Entente Cordiale: France + Britain

French special interests in Morocco were recognised
by Britain. France accepted British control in Egypt.
1907 Triple Entente: France + Britain + Russia

Created through previous agreements between
these powers.
German Fears
of Encirclement
1914 July Days

Figure 6.9 The Alliancespreserving security
NATIONALISM AMONG THE GREAT POWERS

The Pan-German League and Navy League wanted to increase the expansion of Germany. France
wanted revenge for the loss of AlsaceLorraine in 1871. The British public was certain that Germany
was the enemy. British literature was quick to use Germany as the enemy in its plots. Russia wanted to
regain prestige after its loss to Japan in the 190405 war.
THE JULY DAYS

On 28 June 1914 the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was
assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian terrorist group
called the Black Hand. For the next three weeks there was little sign that Europe was
moving toward a crisis, as politicians and public alike took advantage of excellent weather
across the continent to enjoy their summer holidays. What is clear is that the AustroHungarian government saw an opportunity to punish Serbia and save the empire. The need
to find out where Germany stood if Russia supported the Serbs caused a delay. The answer
came with the famous blank cheque on 6 July when the Kaiser pledged Germany to stand
by AustriaHungary.
DID YOU KNOW?

The car in the picture below,
complete with bullet hole,
and the Archdukes bloodied
uniform, are preserved in the
Army Museum in Vienna.
There is almost no mention
of Sophie!
Eventually, on 23 July, AustriaHungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia with a time limit

of forty-eight hours. From this point on, events moved quickly.
Serbia accepted all but one clause of the ultimatum, that which required them to allow AustroHungarian officials to participate in the inquiry into the assassination. Nevertheless, the AustroHungarians declared that as the ultimatum had not been accepted in full, it had been rejected.
On 28 July the Austro-Hungarians began the bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
Figure 6.10
Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, leaving Sarajevo Town Hall. Within minutes they were dead.
After several days of military preparation and debate,

Russia declared a general troop mobilisation, including
those on the border with Germany. Germany sent an
ultimatum on 31 July demanding the withdrawal of these
troops and also sent an enquiry to Paris regarding the
intentions of the French. The die was cast when Russia did
not reply to the ultimatum. Germany, committed to the
Schlieffen Plan in the event of war (see Chapter 8), refused
the British request to respect Belgian neutrality, and when
France stated vaguely that it would follow its own interests,
on 1 August, Germany took action in accord with the
Schlieffen Plan.
The violation of Belgian neutrality greatly influenced
the British decision to go to war. Already committed by
prior naval agreements to guarding Frances northern
coastline, Britain was given the excuse to enter the war by
the clear violation of Belgiums neutrality in the face of an
international agreement signed by Germany in 1839. The
First World War had begun.
Figure 6.11 Gavrilo Princip. Being only nineteen, he was too young
to be executed. He died in prison from tuberculosis in April 1918.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: RE SP ONS IB IL IT Y FO R THE FI RS T WO RLD WAR
GERMANYS RESPONSIBILITY
Fritz Fischer, writing in the 1960s, argued that Germany provoked war and ensured that compromise
was impossible. Germany had economic problems; however, it was convinced of its own military
strength and was ready to use war to achieve its aims. Thus, German leaders encouraged Austria
Hungary between 6 and 8 July to frame an ultimatum, which was meant to be rejected. War was also
necessary because of the encirclement of Germany by the Triple Entente. Given these considerations,
it appears logical that Kaiser Wilhelm II believed that it was now or never and thus the blank cheque
was issued.
Source 6.4
The other way in which Germany was exerting pressure on Austria was by insisting
that the ultimatum to Serbia should be couched in terms so strong as to make
acceptance impossible. As Germany willed and coveted the Austro-Serbian war and,
in her confidence in her military superiority, deliberately faced the risk of a conflict
with Russia and France, her leaders must bear a substantial share of the historical
responsibility for the outbreak of general war in 1914. This responsibility is not
diminished by the fact that at the last moment Germany tried to arrest the march of
destiny, for her eorts to influence Vienna were due exclusively to the threat of British
intervention and, even so, they were half-hearted, belated and immediately revoked.
F. Fischer in D. E. Lee (ed.), The Outbreak of the First World War, D.C. Heath & Co.,
Lexington, USA, 1975.
D O C U M E N T ST UDY Q UE S TI O N
List the reasons why Fischer attempts to blame Germany for the
outbreak of war.
Imanuel Geiss, writing in 1967, also took up this

position by emphasising the role of Germanys imperial
aims in creating the tension in Europe.
The industrialists wanted overseas expansion so
that their raw materials and markets could be secured.
Germany had a huge merchant fleet and led the world
in chemical and electrical industries. To maintain this
position, expansion was essential. However, expansion
was being blocked by Britain, which was also fighting
for sustainable economic growth. This was not the only
problem for Germany. Geiss points out that a successful
expansionist policy would solve domestic and political
problems by taking the minds of the population off
them. The power of the government was under attack
by socialist politicians, who wanted a more responsible
government. Geiss believed that the German elite felt
compelled to defend themselves against these democratic
and revolutionary forces.
Source 6.5
The logical consequence was the concept of preventive
war. Objectively, German fears were unfounded. But the
more Russia recovered her former military strength after
her defeat at the hands of Japan and the revolution of
19045, the more urgently the idea of preventive war was
formulated in Germany.
I. Geiss in D. E. Lee (ed.), The Outbreak of the First
World War, D.C Heath & Co., Lexington, USA, 1975.
DOCUMENT ST U DY QUEST ION

In your opinion, does the concept of a preventive
war, as used by Geiss, justify Germanys actions?
GERMANY RISKED WAR, BUT DID NOT PLAN IT

This position was a response to Fischers argument and essentially attempted to explain away
Germanys responsibility.
Egmont Zechlin, writing in 1964, believed that Germany was ready to accept the risk that war
would eventually break out, but had no desire to provoke it. The Germans had a real fear of being
surrounded by the hostile Entente powers, which, they believed, had become a reality during the
July crisis of 1914. Thus the blank cheque was a reaction to many fears and could not be considered
as aggression. Indeed, Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, hoped for a limited war. The First
World War was therefore a preventive defensive war for Germany.
Gerhard Ritter, writing in 1971, believed that Germany did not want war but was overwhelmed
by events. Germanys actions in the July crisis were defensive, and, to a large extent, it was led on
by AustriaHungary. According to Ritter, the German leaders believed that war with Russia was
inevitable. Despite this, their use of power in 1914 did not necessarily mean that Germany wanted or
planned for war.
Karl Erdmann, writing in the 1980s, believed that there was no real evidence of military
planning after 1911. Indeed, AustriaHungary did not act quickly enough after the assassination
and it was left to Bethmann-Hollweg to attempt to localise the conflict. Germany considered that
Britain would not remain neutral, but tried sincerely to achieve this neutrality and thus prevent a
world war.
Erdmann uses the diaries of Dr K. Riezler, a companion of Bethmann-Hollweg, to attempt to
disprove the aggressive nature of German foreign policy. He believes that the chancellor wanted to
avoid war and support AustriaHungary by attempting to divide the Entente powers through bluff.
He hoped that Russia would back down. If not, the conflict could not be localised.
Source 6.6
Neither was the wish for territorial gains a motive of
Bethmann-Hollwegs policy before and during the July
crisis. In his private talks with Riezler, there is no hint
which points in this direction, in contrast to the extensive
reflections on war aims in the diaries of later date, once the
war had started. The formulation of territorial war aims is a
product of the war, but not its cause.

1 How does Erdmann argue against the total
responsibility of Germany for the outbreak of
the war?
2 What weaknesses are there in the fact that
Erdmann relies on Riezler as his source?
K. Erdmann in D. E. Lee (ed.), The Outbreak of the First

World War, D.C Heath & Co., Lexington, USA, 1975.
ALL COUNTRIES BEAR SOME RESPONSIBILITY

Joachim Remak, writing in 1971, regarded the First World War as the third Balkan war, which got
out of control. The Russian mobilisation meant that a localised war was impossible. Serbia was too
aggressive and acted under the belief that the stakes were worth the risk. France was not reconciled
to the loss of AlsaceLorraine in 1871, and made no real attempt to restrain Russia. Germany
blundered by giving the blank cheque to AustriaHungary, which in turn was in reckless pursuit
of prestige, and so it was intended that the ultimatum should be rejected; AustriaHungary, too,
believed that the risk of war with Russia was worth the gains.
The historians A. J. P. Taylor and Martin Gilbert pointed to other factors. According to Taylor,
Russia had to mobilise fully because of its limited amount of rolling stock. If Russia opted for limited
mobilisation and a general war broke out, its military situation would have been disastrous as it could
not have moved troops up to the front. Gilbert believed that AustriaHungarys Foreign Minister,
Berchtold, was keen for war. Germany, despite its fear of Russia, opted for war as it considered the
timing to be to its benefit and Bethmann-Hollweg did little to prevent its outbreak. Russia wanted
revenge for its humiliation at the hands of Germany in 1909 and 1912. Russia was given its own blank
cheque by France when Poincar, the prime minister, was in St Petersburg between 20 and 23 July.
The military considerations of the Russians and the Germans thus prevented the last minute efforts of
Grey, the foreign minister, to avert war.
Source 6.7
Of course, so was everybody right, and one wishes that Versailles had never introduced the concept of
guilt. Serbia was right in wanting to expand, Austria in wanting to survive. Germany was right in fearing
isolation, Great Britain in fearing German power. Everyone was right. And everyone was wrong, for no
one foresaw what war would mean, either in terms of costs or of consequences. All were sinners, all
were sinned against.
J. Remak in D. E. Lee (ed.), The Outbreak of the First World War, D.C Heath & Co., Lexington, USA, 1975.
Writing in 1984, James Joll starts with the July crisis. Immediate decisions were made by the
politicians with all their human weaknesses. These decisions were, of course, influenced by their context.
The politicians were pressured by recent events as well as diplomatic deals made many years before.
Public opinion supported the declaration of war because the politicians had ensured that the issues had
been popularised on an emotional level, playing on the various national traditions, myths and legends.
War was not seen as something to be avoided; rather, it fitted the national mood of 1914.
Source 6.8
Source 6.9
The building of the German navy led

to the creation of a body of nationalist
opinion and the development of an
aggressive imperialist rhetoric which
contributed to making war seem
acceptable and even desirable. The
existence of such a body of opinion was
one of the factors which the German
government between 1911 and 1914 had to
take into account.
Armaments bred armaments; and an armaments program once started

was not easy to stop, for its reversal could have wide social and economic
consequences German ambitions. Russian expansionism, British and
Austro-Hungarian fears and French revenge had created a position where
compromise would be seen as a selling-out of national pride and interests.
For countries such as Germany, Russia and Britain war was a choice that
could relieve domestic pressure. For Germany the socialists power could
be curtailed; for Russia, loyalty to the regime could be restored among the
working class, and for Britain, the delicate and dicult Irish Question could
diminish in importance.
J. Joll, The Origins of the First World War,

Longman, London, 1984.
J. Joll, The Origins of the First World War, Longman, London, 1984.
Germany has been blamed for the outbreak of war. How does Joll disagree
with this view?
RE VI E W TA SK
Imagine that you are a neutral journalist in Europe in 1914. Write an article for
publication in a neutral country in which you explain why the war broke out, and what
and who was responsible. Use the ideas of the historians who support your opinions.
References
A. Hochschild, King Leopolds Ghost, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1998
B. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 18901914, Papermac, London, 1997
THE HISTORICAL
INVESTIGATION
CORE STUDY
The Board of Studies NSW requires that a Historical Investigation should be part of
the Preliminary Modern History course. Its purpose is to provide opportunities for
all students to further develop relevant investigative, research and presentation
skills that are at the core of the historical enquiry process (Modern History
Syllabus, Board of Studies NSW, 2004, p. 23).
Your teacher may require you to work as an individual or as part of a group, and to
present your completed investigation in written, oral or PowerPoint form, or any
other suitable presentation style. This chapter concentrates on common problems
and issues that arise as you attempt to select and prepare your Historical
Investigation.
WHERE DO I START?
What are the limits of choice for your investigation? There is one major qualification that the syllabus
lays down: The investigation should not overlap or duplicate significantly any topic attempted for
the HSC Modern History or History Extension courses (Modern History Syllabus, p. 23). There are no
geographical limits placed upon your choice of topic, so you may choose a topic dealing with any part
of the world. But what about time limits?
WHAT IS MODERN HISTORY?

You may think you know one end of this timeline: Modern History is up to the present day. But a word of
caution is necessary when choosing a topic. Things that seem significant at the moment will not necessarily
appear so in a few years time. Has your topic stood the test of time? Similarly, there may be people alive
today who will be classed as significant historical individuals in the future, but it is too soon to write about
them at the moment. To put it bluntly, a significant person does not have to be deadbut it helps!
WHEN DOES MODERN HISTORY START?

Historians can argue for hours over this, so we suggest you use the time limits set down in the NSW
Modern History syllabus, which requires the Preliminary course to cover studies from the eighteenth
century to the present (Modern History Syllabus, p. 11).
The Preliminary Modern History course, as set out by the Board of Studies, is a course of international/
national history with an emphasis on political and economic events. Although some social history is also
involved, it is not designed as a course in popular culture. Therefore, as a general rule, pop/rock/film stars
are not appropriate as topics for the Historical Investigation, nor are topics based on sports people or
the sports themselves. You may notice that the syllabus does permit a case study of the Bodyline cricket
series in the 1930s but this is in recognition of the fact that for the historian the interest in this series lies,
at least in part, beyond what happened on the pitch. There will inevitably be grey areas because it is
hard to categorise history. You should check with your teacher before committing yourself to a topic to
ensure that it is suitable. A word of caution: stay clear of conspiracy theories. They do not usually lead
you into serious history and you are reminded of an old rule of thumb that says the simplest and most
straightforward answer to a mystery is usually the correct one.
You are now in a position to start thinking about your topic.
Figure 7.1 Do you have a favourite time period?

Figure 7.2 Do you have a preferred location?
When you have made some choices, it is time to think about the type of investigation you will pursue.
The NSW Modern History Syllabus provides a comprehensive list of suggestions, including:
r "TJHOJDBOUFWFOUPSFWFOUT FHUIF&VSPQFBOEJTDPWFSZPG"VTUSBMJBPSUIF'SFODI3FWPMVUJPO
r "CJPHSBQIJDBMTUVEZ FH.BIBUNB(BOEIJPS/BQPMFPO#POBQBSUF
r "UIFNBUJDTUVEZ FHUIFTMBWFUSBEFPSUIFJOEVTUSJBMSFWPMVUJPO
r "IJTUPSJDBMDPODFQU FHUFSSPSJTNPSDPNNVOJTN
Take some time to examine your interests.
r %PZPVQSFGFSUPTUVEZQFPQMFPSFWFOUT
r %PZPVQSFGFSBTUVEZXJUIBNPSFDPODFQUVBMUIFNF
r "SFZPVJOUFSFTUFEJOXBS 4DJFOUJDEFWFMPQNFOUT "EWBODFTJONFEJDJOF -JWJOHBOEXPSLJOH
DPOEJUJPOT 3FMJHJPOJOIJTUPSZ
You are now in a position to further refine your choice.
Figure 7.3 Do you have a favoured type of study?

The Historical Investigation | 109
WHAT IS MY QUESTION?
When you have developed an idea about the area you wish to study, you need to come up with a main
focus question. Note that this is a Historical Investigation, so there needs to be something to investigate;
something that provides interest and argument/controversy in your topic. Be prepared for the fact that
your first choice of topic may fail to provide you with something to get your teeth into, so you may
need to rethink your choice.
To develop your writing abilities and produce a good Historical Investigation you need to do more
than simply describe or outline. This simple narrative approach (= telling the story) does not meet the
standards expected at the higher levels of HSC work. It may help you to consider some of the following
key words or phrases as you try to phrase your focus question:
r 5PXIBUFYUFOUw
r )PXBOEXIZw
r "TTFTTUIFBDIJFWFNFOUTPGw
r "OBMZTFw
r 8IBUXBTUIFTJHOJDBODFPGw
Another way of ensuring that your Historical Investigation will stay on track and not lapse into
a narrative account is to think of a dramatic or challenging title that sets one view against another.
For example:
r 5IFTJOLJOHPGUIFTitanic"OBDDJEFOUPSBOBDDJEFOUXBJUJOHUPIBQQFO
r $PMPOFM(FPSHF"SNTUSPOH$VTUFS%JTUJOHVJTIFETPMEJFSPSJSSFTQPOTJCMFQVCMJDJUZTFFLFS
r 5IF"SNFOJBOTJO$BTVBMUJFTPGXBSPSHFOPDJEF
A good, attention-grabbing title will keep the focus of your research on track. Dont worry if the
exact wording of the title does not come immediately to mind. Sometimes the main focus will only
emerge after you have done some research and learned more about your topic. Before embarking on
your research you should try to brainstorm a series of subsidiary questions that need to be answered
before you can answer your focus question. See the example in Figure 7.4.
D
I
I
S
A RY
B
U
S
What was Wilberforces

background that led
him to this issue?
Were there other groups

or individuals opposed
to the trade?
Was it an issue of race

or economics?
FOCUS QUESTION
Evaluate William Wilberforces
role in ending the slave trade
QUESTIONS
Where did slaves

come from and how
were they transported?
Figure 7.4 Developing subsidiary questions
How were
slaves treated?
Why did some

people support the
slave trade?
BEGINNING YOUR RESEARCH

Researching your information or doing the spadework involves discovering the facts and information
that are relevant to your investigation. Do not attempt a shortcut by researching material from only one
source. Always try to use several sources, both in hard copybooks, journals, articlesas well as from
the internet. It is a mistake to rely totally on the internet. While written publications must pass certain
tests of quality and acceptability (the publishers do not wish to be sued or to lose money because of a
poor-quality product), anyone can pass themselves off as a historical expert on the internet.
SOME TIPS ON THE USE OF PRINTED WORKS

Always make a note of the author, title, publisher and date of publication of any printed work that you use.
When searching library shelves or catalogues, think more widely than your immediate focus
question. In the example given in Figure 7.4, books with titles such as Europe in the 19th Century
or A History of the British Empire or books in the African or North American history sections could
prove useful.
You dont have to read through every book. Make good use of Contents and Index pages to track
down information.
SOME TIPS ON THE USE OF THE INTERNET

There are now online encyclopaedias which may be easier to work with than a large book. You could
try Encyclopaedia.com.
Good internet sources often have edu or gov in their URL, indicating that they are an educational
or government site.
Beware Wikipedia! Its originators do not make the claim that it is a major authority on any subject,
but students often think that it is. Remember that entries on this site can be altered by people who
have no particular knowledge or qualifications.
REFERENCING YOUR RESEARCH

As you accumulate information and begin to form it into a written text, it is important to avoid
plagiarism. Plagiarism is stealing the words of others and attempting to pass them off as your own
you may know it as cutting and pasting. Plagiarism is not only cheating, but is also counterproductive
to your development as a student because you avoid the mental processes of forming arguments and
expressing them on paper. The cutting and pasting of large sections of material into an answer makes
it obvious, by the level of language or expression copied, that the student has not understood what it is
that they have written.
You are not expected to be the original creator of every idea or argument that you use. Naturally,
you will be working from information that you have researched, and building upon that. The way
to avoid plagiarism is to acknowledge the contributions of others by a system of referencing. In this
book the preferred system of referencing is the Harvard system, where an idea or direct quotation
is acknowledged by the insertion of the authors name, the date of publication of the work, and the
relevant page number. You can see many examples of this system throughout the chapters of this
book. The bibliography then provides the full details of the reference works used for those who would
like to follow up the reference.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
The purpose of a bibliography in a book is to give additional information about references, and to
provide suggestions for further reading on the subject. You should ensure that when you compile your
bibliography you follow the standard conventions for setting out.
Example for written sources:
Lewy G., America in Vietnam, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980
(Surname, initial, title, publisher, place of publication, date of publication)
Example for internet sources:
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2children/index.shtml
(main site plus links to specific pages)
Your bibliography should be a work in progress from the time you start your investigation. Do not
leave it until the last minute. Trying to rediscover the details of that book you borrowed from the library
three months ago can be extremely frustrating.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

You have researched, you have lots of information, and now you are ready to put it together. The most
common form of presentation is an essay. Writing an essay is like making a cake.
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Some students cant bear to leave out any of their research and throw everything in, regardless of its
importance to the argument (Picture 2). The result, as in Picture 4, does not meet expectations.
Further tips on how to write successful essay can be found on the disk that accompanies this book and
on our website at www.oup.com.au/kfmh.
Some students may choose to study History Extension for the HSC stage. The Extension course
requires candidates to select and present a History Project. The following diagram may further assist
those students in choosing and preparing their project.
THE KEY QUESTIONS

s
s
s

s

s
7HATARETHEHISTORICALDEBATES
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-YPOSITIONISTHAT)SUPPORTx
BECAUSExANDDONOTSUPPORTx
BECAUSEx/24HEREISSOMETHINGTO
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Figure 7.6 A framework for a History Extension Investigation
THE FIRST
WORLD WAR
19141919
CORE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
On 4 August 1914, after weeks of tension, hesitation and uncertainty, Europe
plunged into war. The conflict was welcomed on all sides as an opportunity for
glory, patriotism and adventure. Soldiers rushed to be in the show in the firm
belief that it would be over by Christmas. After four years when the guns fell silent
and over 9.5 million people lay dead, this enthusiasm had largely been replaced
by disillusionment, and a conviction that there must be no more wars. The League
of Nations was created to ensure that discussion and right replaced warfare and
might. Yet the seeds for the next war had already been sown.
Timeline
1914
August
September
OctNov
December
August
Western Front
Schlieffen Plan results in the German invasion of Belgium and war begins.
Battle of the Marnethe Schlieffen Plan fails, leading to trench warfare and stalemate.
Falkenhayn replaces Moltke as German commander.
First battle of Ypres.
Unofficial Christmas truce.
Home front
Recruits flock to enlist.
Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) introduced in Britain to impose wartime restrictions.
Germans declare the Burgfrieden or political truce.
August
1915
March
AprilMay
December
Western Front
Battle of Neuve Chapelle.
Second battle of Yprespoison gas is introduced.
Sir Douglas Haig replaces Sir John French as British commander-in-chief.
January
June
December
Home front
First Zeppelin raid on Britain.
Ministry of munitions set up by Lloyd George in Britain to increase production of munitions.
Peace demonstration in Berlin.
February
May
1916
Other developments
Royal Navy blockade of Germany begins.
FebDec
JulyNov
August
Other developments
German U-boat campaign begins.
German U-boat sinks the Lusitania with the loss of 1198 lives, including 128 Americans.
Western Front
Battle of Verdun.
Battle of the Somme. Tanks are used for the first time in September.
Hindenburg replaces Falkenhayn as German commander-in-chief, with Ludendorff as his
quartermaster-general.
Nivelle replaces Joffre as French commander-in-chief.
May
December
Home front
Britain introduces conscription.
Lloyd George becomes British prime minister, replacing Asquith.
The Auxiliary Services Law in Germany states that every male aged 1760 can be
conscripted into the workforce. Ministry of food is set up in Britain.
MayJune
1917
March
JulyDec
April
July
January
February
April
November
Other developments
Battle of Jutland, the only major encounter between the British and German fleets, ends
indecisively.
Western Front
Germans withdraw to the Hindenburg Line.
Third battle of Ypres, usually known as Passchendaele.
Home front
Miners go on strike in the Ruhr coalfields objecting to a cut in the bread ration.
Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg resigns in Germany.
Other developments
Zimmermann telegram offers German support to Mexico if an alliance against the United
States is formed.
Germans begin unrestricted U-boat warfare.
The US enters the war.
Bolshevik revolution ends Russias participation in the war.
The First World War 19141919 | 115
1918
March
April
JulyAug
November
October
November
December
April
1919
JanJune
Western Front
Ludendorff offensive begins as an attempt by the Germans to break through the Allied lines
to end the war.
General Foch becomes Allied commander-in-chief.
Second battle of the Marne marks the farthest point of the German advance and the tide
turns in the battle.
Armisticethe war ends.
Home front
A German army representative tells the Reichstag that victory is no longer possible.
Naval mutiny at Kiel begins the German revolution.
Kaiser abdicates.
Lloyd George wins British election with slogans such as Hang the Kaiser.
Other developments
Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, Germanys most famous air ace,
is killed.
Paris Peace Conference meets and produces the Treaty of Versailles.
Timeline exercise
List A
List B
s /NEOFTHESPECIALISTMINISTRIESSETUPIN"RITAINTOBOOSTSHELL
PRODUCTION
s &RENCH
s !NEWWEAPONUSEDIN
s !FAMOUS'ERMANAIRACEWHOWASKILLED
s !TOWNTHATWASTHESCENEOFTHREEBATTLES
s 4HENAMEOFANOFFENSIVEANDANARMYCOMMANDER
s 4HE"RITISHCOMMANDER IN CHIEFIN
s (EBECAME"RITISHPRIMEMINISTERDURINGTHEWAR
s !RIVERIN&RANCEWHERETWOBATTLESWEREFOUGHT
s !YEARWHENONECOUNTRYLEFTTHEWARANDANOTHERJOINED
s !LINEOFFORTIlCATIONSTOWHICHTHE'ERMANSWITHDREW
s 4HE&RENCHCOMMANDER IN CHIEFIN
s !GIRLSNAMETHATSTOODFORGOVERNMENTRESTRICTIONSONTHEHOMEFRONT
s 4HELOSSOFTHISSHIPHARDENED!MERICANOPINIONAGAINSTTHE'ERMANS
s 4HETHIRDMANTOBEINCHARGEOF"RITISHFORCESDURINGTHEWAR
s 6ENUEFORTHEPEACECONFERENCETHATENDEDTHEWAR
s 7HENTHE+AISERABDICATED
s .EWWEAPONUSEDONTHE3OMME
s 7HEN'ERMANYBEGANUNRESTRICTED5 BOATWARFARE
s 4HEONLYMAJORNAVALBATTLEOFTHEWAR
s (ESUCCEEDED-OLTKEAS'ERMANCOMMANDER IN CHIEF
s GAS
s -ANFREDVON2ICHTHOFEN
s *OFFRE
s
s -ARNE
s .OVEMBER
s ,UDENDORFF
s 9PRES
s TANKS
s &EBRUARY
s 0ARIS
s MUNITIONS
s (INDENBURG,INE
s &ALKENHAYN
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s *UTLAND
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s Lusitania
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

THE REASONS FOR STALEMATE
The Schlieffen Plan 1905
When Count Alfred von Schlieffen took over the position as
Germanys leading soldier in 1891, he devised a plan that
became Germanys only war strategy, which was designed
to avoid the problem of simultaneously fighting a war
against France and Russia on two fronts. The plan was based
on the following assumptions:
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Figure 8.1 Scenes like this in Munich, Germany, were common throughout the cities of Europe, where the war was greeted with
enthusiasm. The anonymous figure in the crowd (circled) was to serve on the Western Front, be decorated for bravery, blinded temporarily
by poison gas and, later, conquer half of Europe. It is Adolf Hitler.
Figure 8.2 The horse meets the artillery shell! Commanders on both sides expected cavalry charges to play an important part in the war.
Machine-guns, shells and craters in the ground made cavalry irrelevant for front-line warfare.
Modifications to the plan 1911

When Schlieffen retired in 1906 he was replaced by Helmuth von Moltke. Moltke was more cautious
than Schlieffen, but the ideas behind Schlieffens plan had become so much a part of German military
thinking that the plan could not be abandoned. All Moltke could do was modify it. These modifications
have been the subject of debate by soldiers and military historians ever since. Did they weaken the
plan and rob Germany of a real chance of victory? Or was the plan basically flawed from the start?
Schlieffen argued that luring the French into Germany through AlsaceLorraine would ensure their
destruction at the hands of the German right wing sweeping through Holland and Belgium. Moltke
shrank from this bold strategy, and strengthened the Lorraine armies at the expense of the right hook
through Belgium, instructing them to hold the initial French onslaught and then be ready to go on
the offensive. Wishing to preserve free communications along the Rhine, he abandoned the sweep
through neutral Holland.
1
1. A major attack through
Holland and belgium.
NETHERLANDS
GERMANY
BELGIUM
RUSSIA
2. Germans fight a defensive

2
action against expected
French attack in Lorraine.
3. Germans fight a defensive
3
action against Russians in
east Prussia.
4. Capture Paris then defeat
4
remaining French armies.
Paris
AUSTRIAHUNGARY.
SWITZ.
FRANCE
1. A major attack will

1
not pass through Holland.
2. Troops transferred to
2
strengthen the force
in Lorraine.
NETHERLANDS
GERMANY
BELGIUM
Paris
2
SWITZ.
0
FRANCE
Figure 8.3
500 km
(A) The original plan (B) Moltkes changes in the West
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E SCH LI EFFEN PLAN

Source 8.1
Source 8.2
[Moltke said] It will be very important

to have in Holland a country whose
neutrality allows us to have imports
and supplies however awkward it
may be, the advance through Belgium
must therefore take place without the
violation of Dutch territory [thus]
the threat of a British blockade had
led Moltke to make a substantial
modification in the Schlieen Plan
and one which probably doomed the
German campaign in the west before
it was ever launched. From the very
start of the oensive in August 1914 the
German first and second armies were
faced with chronic supply problems,
which they would not have encountered
if the railways and roads of southern
Holland had been at their disposal.
Subsequently German military critics held that Moltke failed to capture Paris in
1914 because he had departed from the plan of the masterly strategic genius.
This view was challenged by Dr Gerhard Ritter, who published in 1956, for the
first time, the text of the full plan with its authors emendations and Moltkes
comments. It is clear that there was not such a dierence between the strategy
of Schlieen and Moltke as earlier historians had maintained. It may however
be doubted whether the Schlieen Plan deserves its high reputation, for its
author had underestimated the strength of the Russians and the near panic
that their advance would cause in Berlin, the power of Belgian resistance, the
eectiveness of the British Expeditionary Force, and the importance of the
French railway system in bringing up reserves.
L. C. F. Turner, Origins of the First

World War, 1970, pp. 624.
A. Palmer, Dictionary of Modern History, Penguin, 1983, p. 257.
DO CUMENT ST U DY QUEST IONS

1 Why did Moltke alter the original plan with regard to Holland?
2 According to Turner, what problem did this alteration cause?
3 How do Turner and Palmer differ in their view of the effectiveness
of Schlieffens original plan?
1 Why was the Schlieffen Plan devised?
2 State two advantages of attacking France via Belgium.
3 What was the French war plan called? What strategy did it involve?
4 When did Moltke replace Schlieffen as German chief-of-staff?
5 What changes did Moltke make to the Schlieffen Plan?
6 Which plan would you criticise more: Schlieffens original one or
Moltkes modifications of it?
THE WAR OF MOVEMENT

The German army invaded Belgium on 4 August. Though its advance was unstoppable,
the attempt to maintain the timetable imposed by the Schlieffen Plan met with difficulties.
Belgian resistance delayed the advance. Desperate to avoid any delay, the German high
command ordered severe reprisals against any Belgian community that hampered their
progress. In retaliation for what they claimed was the work of civilian snipers in Louvain,
the Germans went on a rampage through the ancient city. Whole streets were set on fire,
the ancient library was destroyed, and women and children were shot, along with priests
and male civilians.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: P ROPAGANDA AND FAC T I N THE IN VAS IO N OF BELG IUM
Figure 8.4
1914
Bravo Belgiuma cartoon from Punch, 12 August
Figure 8.5 The triumph of culturea cartoon from Punch,

26 August 1914

Source 8.3
Frightfulness was the Germans own word If the
Germans were to advance and advance quickly, the civil
population of the occupied countries must be smartly
brought to heel and harsh measures against saboteurs
were calculated to spread terror and implant in the civil
population a wary respect for German discipline
The rules were laid down eciently and categorically. As
soon as a district was occupied, hostages would be taken
into custody as a matter of course. If a single German was
molested or injured the hostages would be shot.
If a German column was attacked on a road between
two villages, reprisals would be taken on the nearest.
L. Macdonald, 1914, Penguin, 1987, pp. 21011.
Meanwhile, true to their pre-war doctrine, French troops

launched an all-out assault against the well-defended
German positions in Lorraine and in the Ardennes. On
20 August the German forces defending the frontier cut
the attacking French troops to ribbons with artillery and
machine-gun fire. The French lost over 200 000 men in
twelve days. They abandoned Plan 17 and regrouped to
defend Paris from the advancing Germans.

1 Analyse carefully the portrayal of the two
countries in Figure 8.4 on page 120. How has
the artist attempted to influence your feelings
about each character?
2 What famous biblical story is brought to mind
by Figure 8.4? What does the artist want you
to feel about the eventual outcome of this
encounter?
3 How has the portrayal of Germany changed
in Figure 8.5? How are the feelings of the
reader towards Germany expected to change,
compared with Figure 8.4?
4 How does Source 8.3 help to explain the
change of mood reflected by the two cartoons?
DID YOU KNOW?

The British army conscripted 120 000 horses in the first two weeks of
the war. Zealous authorities took farm horses, to the annoyance of
many farmers wanting to get the harvest in, and the powerful horses
that pulled tramcars. In Morecambe, none were left to pull the trams!
The German army, its troops underfed and exhausted

and already delayed, on nearing Paris suffered a further
blow when it lost 100 000 men, who were transferred to the
Eastern Front because the Russians had mobilised quicker
than expected and had invaded Germany.
General von Kluck commanded the German First Army
on the western edge of the advance. On 5 September,
fearful that a gap was opening up between his army and
that of General von Bulow to the east, von Kluck abandoned
the move to surround Paris and moved the line of march
east of the city to close the gap, in the mistaken belief that in
doing so he was driving the French armies away from their
capital. Klucks intelligence information was exceptionally
poor. He had, in fact, left the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)
and the French Sixth Army to his west, exposing his flank to
the Allies. The French commander, Joffre, had become aware
of Klucks move by aerial observation and took advantage.
The battle that followed on the Marne was a desperate
Allied victory.
The Germans had come so close to Paris they could see
the Eiffel Tower in the distancebut they got no further.
Figure 8.6 Taxi! When 6000 fresh troops arrived in Paris, the
police, on the orders of General Gallieni, the commander of the city,
roamed the streets and bundled passengers out of every taxi they
could find. Each taxi made two journeys to the front and in this way
the new troops were taken into action.
NETHERLANDS
E N G L I S H
BELGIUM
C H A N N E L
Brussels
Ypres
1
2
Mons
Ri
v
rS
Amiens
omme
KEY
Revised Schlieffen Plan
FRANCE
e
Riv
Actual route of
german armies
Riv
e
Furthest German
advance in 1914
Paris
Allied counter-attacks
LUXEMBOURG
ne
r Ais
rM
ar
n
Verdun
GERMANY
6
eine
er S
Riv
Main French armies
N
0
Figure 8.7
80 km
The failure of the Schlieffen Plan
1 Moltkes refusal to use the communications routes through Holland led to a supply
bottleneck in Belgium that slowed the advance.
2 Allied resistance in Belgium was stronger than anticipated.
3 Advancing and fighting in hot weather exhausted the soldiers.
4 The abandonment of the move to surround Paris allowed an Allied counter-attack.
5 The Allies stopped the German advances at the Battle of the Marne.
6 By diverting troops to Lorraine the major attack had been weakened.
7 Further diversions to the eastern front also lessened the power of the right hook.
The battle of the Marne was a turning point. The Schlieffen

Plan had failed and Germany was caught in a two-front war.
The German army retreated to the River Aisne and began
to dig in. The Allied armies, equally exhausted, did not have
the strength to push the Germans out of France. Moltke was
replaced by Falkenhayn, who tried to outflank (get round
the end of ) the Allied lines. This led to the race to the sea as
each side extended their trench systems and fortified them
with barbed wire, machine-guns and artillery defences. At
the battle of Ypres in Belgium from 16 to 22 November the
deadlock was firmly established. By the end of the year a
line of trenches stretched from the sea to the Swiss Alps,
movement had ended and the war was at stalemate.
much greater than the power of offence. It was much

easier to defend a trench line than to capture one. In 1914
the British infantryman had his rifle and bayonet when he
attacked the enemy trenches (the hand grenade or Mills
bomb was not developed until 1915). He had little chance of
overcoming the German defences of barbed wire, machineguns and artillery shells.
An important factor to consider in accounting for the

stalemate which endured on the Western Front for the next
three years was the new type of war which had begun to
unfold. This was not to be a war of dash, excitement and
adventure but an industrial war, where the products of
modern armaments factories were set against flesh and
bone. In this uneven contest, the power of defence was
Over the course of the war the ordinary soldier was to

change, according to historian J. M. Bourne, from looking like
a gamekeeper to looking like an industrial worker.
The soldier in 1914
The soldier in 1918
Soft cap
Safety helmet
Puttees and pack
Gas respirator
Rifle and bayonet
Lewis gun, grenades, rifle

grenade, flame-thrower
Walked into battle
Trucked into battle
Supported by shrapnel-firing
field guns
Supported by high-explosive
artillery barrage, tanks, planes,
smoke and gas shells and
armoured cars
At the close of 1914 the soldiers knew nothing of these

later refinements of the science of warfare. The war had
not ended by Christmas, as both sides had promised, and
soldiers now settled down to the new experiences of trench
warfare.
REVIEW TASK
People were told that the war would be over by
Christmas. Write a report to explain why it wasnt.
Consider the ways the report could be written: a
formal report to parliament, a letter from a soldier,
or a newspaper article. Adjust your style of writing
according to the form you choose.
THE NATURE OF TRENCH WARFARE AND LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

There were usually at least three lines of trenches, called
the front line, support, and reserve, which were linked to
the rear by communications trenches to enable soldiers
and supplies to move to and from the front line, out of
sight of the enemy. The front-line trenches of either side
were separated by no mans land, which could be up to a
kilometre wide, though most often the distance was around
200 metres.
Fighting was not continuous along the front line

timing and location could give soldiers vastly different
experiences of war. When the British took over the Somme
region in 1915 it was a quiet area. Two-thirds of the line
might have been quiet on any given day. Anywhere near
Ypres was always bad, yet if a man served near Festubert,
near Arras, after 1915 the war passed him by.
An Allied soldiers experience of the war could be directly
influenced by whom they were fighting. Prussians were seen
as very aggressive, while the Saxons were known to paint
their trenches with signs advertising their peaceful nature.
Clearly a report, letter or diary entry from a soldier fighting a
Prussian unit would be different from one facing the Saxons.
The first two years of the war were the time of greatest
amateurism and blundering on the British side. At this time,
most of the serious fighting was left to the French. The BEF
was heavily engaged in major battle for little more than
thirty days between Christmas 1914 and 30 June 1916.
NETHERLANDS
Ostend
Nieuport
Antwerp
Ghent
Brussels
Calais
Ypres
Aachen
Neuve Chapelle
E N G L I S H
Arras
rS
Amiens
omme
BELGIUM
Douai
Vimy Ridge
Bapaume
Peronne
os
M
Me
us
FRANCE
r
ve
Ri
Soissons
Ri
LUXEMBOURG
Rheims
Metz
Verdun
Chteau Thierry
Chlons
Paris
eine
er S
Riv
KEY
r
ve
Compigne
se
Oi
GERMANY
Mons
r
ve
Ri
Ri
v
Loos
in e
Rh
C H A N N E L
Cologne
Ri
ve
r
Boulogne
el
le
BRITAIN
St Mihiel
Riv
e
rM
ar
n
LOR
RA
IN
Nancy
Strasbourg
Epinal
SA
Points of attack with gains
CE
AL
Trenches line
Mulhouse
German occupied
0
80 km
SWITZERLAND
(neutral)
Figure 8.8 The Western Front 1915. The two trench systems ran unbroken from Switzerland to the English Channel.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TH E T RENCH SYST EM
Figure 8.9 An aerial photograph of the trench system. The main trench area is German. The
British trenches are on the right. The white colouration around the trenches is due to the chalk
soil that was thrown up during the digging. (Imperial War Museum Negative Number Q45786)
Figure 8.10 The perfect trench (Imperial War

Museum Negative Number Q15857)
Figure 8.11 A trench in Guedecourt, December 1916

(Imperial War Museum Negative Number E(AUS)575)
1 Refer to Figure 8.9 and suggest why the trenches do not run in straight lines, but
have zigzag patterns.
2 What are the differences between the perfect trench and the real trench? How
would this affect trench life for the soldier?
3 Comment on how useful and reliable these photographs would be to a historian
studying trench conditions on the Western Front.
How long a man spent in the trenches varied widely over the course of the war, depending, for
example, on whether his division was considered adept at simply holding the line or at launching an
assault on the enemys positions. The British high command had an unofficial pecking order of divisions,
in which the reputedly trustworthy formations would be given the hardest jobs, more frequently. Hence
the 18th division saw action thirty-two times; the 35th division only eleven times. The reward for fighting
well was to be asked to do it all again, thus increasing the chances of becoming a casualty!
From his diaries for 1916, author and soldier Charles Carrington calculated that he had been in the
front line for sixty-five days, and thirty-five in support, making a total of a hundred days under fire, with
a further 120 days in reserve, where he would have remained in danger from shelling. During the year,
Carrington was in action four times, venturing six times into no-mans land on patrols and working
parties. It would therefore be wrong to think that soldiers rarely left the front line or, alternatively, that it
was action all the time. Going over the top was, in fact, a rare experience. Life in the line was generally
a time of unrelieved boredom punctuated by occasional heart-stopping moments of action. Many
veterans claimed to be 80 per cent bored stiff, 19 per cent frozen stiff, and 1 per cent scared stiff.
Unlike their German counterparts who tended to stay put, British soldiers were switched with their
units from front to front with alarming regularity. Few soldiers saw the same trenches on more that
two or three occasions, Carrington estimating that he moved his equipment eighty times during 1916,
sixty-six times on a route march and another fourteen times by rail.
From 1915 until 1918 warfare on the Western Front took on the characteristics of what is commonly
called a war of attrition, in which each side mobilises all its resources to gradually wear down the ability
and will of the enemy to keep fighting. This was a kind of war that Germany could not win. Even before
the entry of the United States in 1917, the Allies shared an advantage in the vital resources of war.
THE CHALLENGE OF TRENCH WARFARE

From 1915 the Germans and the Allies adopted significantly different approaches to trench warfare. The
Germans sensed that they had to make the best of their situation of facing a long, two-front war. Their aim
was, essentially, to bide their time and hang on. With the exception of attacks on the French stronghold of
Verdun in 1916 and the 1918 Ludendorff offensive, they were more defensive than the Allies.
For the French generals the situation was very different. The hated Germans were on the sacred soil
of France; French people and French towns were behind the German lines. The expectation was that
the armies of France would drive the invader from their land, which meant that the French generals
had to take the offensive against entrenched opposition.
The British, as Frances ally, were obliged to support this offensive strategy. The BEF, however, had a
problem of its own. The British front line in Belgium and northern France was only 80 kilometres from
the Channel ports. A major German breakthrough could see them take these vital ports and isolate
the British army from contact with home. Therefore, the British commanders Sir John French, and from
1915 Sir Douglas Haig, felt an offensive approach was needed to push the front farther from these ports
to give the BEF more breathing room.
THE TRENCHES
It is generally acknowledged that the German trenches and their location were superior. After the Marne
the Germans withdrew to the best available defensive positions. Their trench lines took every advantage
of the available terrainridges, hills and small villages could be turned into fortified strong points. By
contrast, the French felt obliged to reoccupy every possible bit of native soil. Therefore their trenches were
not generally as well positioned; they dug them as close to the German lines as they could.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: A GERM AN T RENCH

1 What advantages in siting their trenches did
the Germans have?
2 What features of the trench shown in Figure
8.12 make this a good example of trench
building?
3 What comments would a historian
make about how reliable and useful the
photograph is as an indication of trench
conditions?
Figure 8.12 A strong German trench with dugout entrance on right
no-mans land
enemy
parados
barbed wire
sandbags
parapet
ammunition
shelf
2m
Figure 8.13 illustrates the main features of a trench.

Troops would use the firestep when repelling attacks,
when on alert, called stand-to, or when on sentry duty.
The parapet and parados consisted of sandbags (actually
filled with earth). The parados was designed to be higher
than the parapet and was meant to prevent troops being
silhouetted against the skyline at dawn or dusk, or when
going over the top in attack. The parados also protected
front-line troops from being shot by their own over-eager
comrades in support trenches behind them. The sides
of trenches were reinforced using sandbags, timber and
corrugated iron. Reinforced shelters, called dugouts, were
also part of the trench system. The Germans on the Somme
made extensive use of a system of dugouts, cut into the
firm chalk of the region, to improve both the strength and
comfort of their trenches. Soldiers dug funk holeslittle
man-sized sheltersinto the trench walls that provided
protection from the weather, especially when a waterproof
groundsheet was hung across as a curtain.
firestop
funk hole
duckboards
sump
0.5m
Figure 8.13 A cross-section of a trench on the Western Front
No trench ran in a continuously straight line. The British and Germans used a system
of right-angled bays, while the French used a zigzag pattern. The angles and changes of
direction were designed to lessen the effect of a shell burst or grenade, and allowed parts of
the trench to still be defended even if the enemy occupied another section.
British generals were obsessed with getting as close to the enemy as possible and with
keeping up an offensive type of trench warfare, even when they were not preparing a major
attack. This involved two types of action. The first was continued threat from snipers, who were
soldiers trained to try to pick off any enemy careless enough to show himself; and trench raids,
which were small attacks across no mans land at night to disrupt the enemy and perhaps
capture prisoners and gain information. The second action concerned salients: points where
the German line pressed in on the British, forming an indentation in the line. The British often
launched local offensives to straighten the line and eliminate the salient.
DID YOU KNOW?

English speaking troops had
difficulty coping with foreign
names. Hence, Moquet
farm, a scene of fierce
Australian fighting on the
Somme, became Moo-cow
farm; Funky villas became
the name of the village of
Fonquevilliers; and Ypres
became Wipers.
Field-Marshal Hindenburgs decision to give up more ground in March 1917 and

withdraw to well-established and better defensive lines, known as the Hindenburg Line,
was the clearest example of the contrasting German view of trench warfare.
R E VI E W Q UE S TI O N
Explain each of the following terms:
(a) war of attrition
(f) firestep
(b) no mans land
(g) dugout
(c) parapet
(h) funk hole
(d) parados
(i) salient.
(e) duckboards
LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

The famous war poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote that anyone who had been in the trenches would be
everlastingly different from those who had not shared the experience. We imagine battles, artillery and
the rattle of machine-gun fire, but one of the most lasting memories many veterans of the trenches
had was the smell. Robert Graves, a gifted scholar who was a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers,
vividly described trench life in his classic memoir Goodbye to All That. He wrote about the distinctive
odour produced by the combination of the decaying flesh of humans and horses, the latrines, rotting
sandbags, stagnant mud, fumes from explosives, and body odour. The trenches stank with a gas
bloodlydolitelatrine smell. Accounts of the day-to-day details of life in the trenches are regularly
marked by references to lice, rats, latrines, sickness, food and the routine.
Lice These small insects made their homes in the seams of clothing and their eggs were hatched by
body heat. Bites left red marks on the skin and could also cause a disease called trench fever. On the front
line, soldiers might not change their clothes for up to a week and it was impossible to live lice-free.
Rats These rodents thrived on the plentiful supplies of decomposing flesh available on the
battlefields, and numbered in the millions. There was, in fact, so much food available to them that the
rodents became selective and veterans record that rats preferred to eat the livers, eyes and tongues of
the dead.
Figure 8.14 Enlargement of a blood-sucking louse. Lice caused great irritation and skin problems.
Latrines These were either holes dug 15 metres deep or were buckets. Latrines were
normally located at the end of specially dug small trenches or saps behind the front line.
Some officers, however, concerned that their men were taking too long, had latrines dug
between the front line and the wire. The exposed position was meant to encourage a speedy
return to duties. Latrine saps were also popular targets with enemy snipers, who would
wait patiently for a soldier to answer the call. Little wonder then that soldiers would often
defecate on a shovel in the bottom of the front-line trench, then hurl the contents out into
no mans land.
Sickness The harsh conditions led to hospitalisation for illnesses such as pneumonia,
dysentery, frostbite and kidney disease. Trench foot was an affliction caused by being
constantly immersed in water, having poor circulation, and being unable to change into dry
Figure 8.15 British Tommies serve out a stew in the front-line trench at Arras, March 1917.
DID YOU KNOW?

Lice were also known as
chats and soldiers at rest
would sit around talking while
removing the chats from their
clothing. Hence we get the
term chatting to describe a
social conversation.
Figure 8.16 British troops try to get some sleep in cramped conditions in their dug-out, 1916.
footwear. Often gangrene set in, leading to the loss of toes or the whole foot. Non-battle casualties,
caused by sickness or accidental injury, stood at 3 528 468 in the BEFroughly a million more than
battle casualties.
Food Typical front-line rations were tinned beef, biscuits and tins of jam. Other foods included
condensed milk and sometimes boiled eggs or potatoes. At times, parties from the rear would bring up
hot soup or stew. Rum was issued at stand-down at dawn. There was enough food, but it always had an
unvaried sameness about it.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: COND IT IONS I N THE TREN C HES

Source 8.4
Source 8.5
During the time we remained in Death

Valley we were considerably troubled by
hundreds of bluebottles [large blowflies];
they were full bodied ones too, and appeared
quite bloated. I found out the reason later
for their number and their rotundity, and
the discovery filled me with a feeling of
revulsion. I went up on to a ridge and at
one spot as I put my foot down there was
a loud buzzing, and dozens of bluebottles
flew up. There to my astonishment I saw a
facethe face of a dead German. The whole
ridge was covered with German and French
dead, upon which swarms of bluebottles had
settled. These same insects no doubt were
going to follow their fellows down into the
valley and were going to settle on our food.
One morning when Davidson and I got up to make breakfast, we found

everything frozen. The lids were tight on the dixies, and our bread was as
hard as rock. A pot of syrup was as solid as toee as the days went on
the cold got more intense. On one occasion I took a dixie of boiled water
o the fire and stood it six feet away from the blaze, and within half an
hour the water was frozen hard. The tea in our mugs became a solid mass;
and we began to realise the hardships of a winter campaign!
A. S. Dolden, Cannon Fodder, 1980, p. 106.
DOCUMENT ST UD Y QUEST IONS

1 What health problems were caused by the presence of so
many unburied dead on the battlefields?
2 Refer to Source 8.5 and the text and explain the difficulties
encountered during trench life in winter.
A. S. Dolden, Cannon Fodder, 1980, p. 86.
Figure 8.17
Playing with fire? British soldiers taking time off from fusing Stokes mortars for a game of cards.
Routine Soldiers lives were dominated by routine. When in the front line, the day for British
soldiers was broken up as follows:
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RE VI E W TA SK
Write a letter from the front or a series of diary entries to convey the difficulties of
trench life.
THE WESTERN FRONT

NEW WEAPONS
e.g. gas, tanks
DEFENSIVE WEAPONS DOMINATE

Machine-guns, barbed wire
SCHLIEFFEN PLAN FAILS

War of movement ends
FAILED ATTEMPTS TO
BREAK STALEMATE
MAJOR BATTLES
e.g. Ypres, Verdun, the
Somme, Passchendaele
(or 3rd Ypres)
STALEMATE
Trench warfare
HAZARDS FROM THE ENEMY

Shells, snipers, gas, mines, etc.
WAR OF ATTRITION
Sending men over the top
in hopeless attacks
OTHER HARDSHIPS
Lice, trench feet, severe cold, etc.
DECISIVE FACTORS LEADING

TO A BREAKTHROUGH
US entry into the war; the
naval blockade of Germany;
German war-weariness at home
and at the front.
SOLDIERS DISILLUSIONMENT WITH WAR
Figure 8.18 The Western Front
BREAKING THE STALEMATE: STRATEGIES AND TACTICS

GOING OVER THE TOPTHE FRONTAL ATTACK
One of the commonest images of the Great War is of soldiers climbing from their trenches to advance
across no mans land, usually with great loss of life and for very little, if any, gain in territory. Most of
these offensives were launched by the Allies in their attempts to drive the Germans from French soil,
and until the latter stages of the war followed a predictable pattern.
An artillery bombardment would precede the attack. This might last for hours, even days, with the
aim of annihilating everyone in the enemy front-line trench, cutting the barbed wire that protected
the trench-line in order that soldiers could advance through, and wiping out the defensive artillery
behind the enemy lines. Unfortunately, until about 1917, artillery fire was notoriously inaccurate due to
technological inefficiencies.
At a pre-arranged time the bombardment or barrage would stop. At zero hour a piercing whistle
signalled the moment to clamber up the ladders, which was difficult because men were loaded down
with equipment: water bottles, ammunition, gas masks, field dressings, mess tins and rations, adding
up to about 30 kilograms. Some men also carried machine-guns and their ammunition, or other extra
equipment. All this made it difficult even to climb out of the trench, or to move faster than a slow walk
across no mans land.
Once in the mud and shell-holes of no mans land, order and organisation began to break down
as men came under fire from the defenders. Machine-guns poured out 600 rounds per minute, rifle
bullets flew and artillery shells burst among the exposed advancing soldiers. Artillery shells were
responsible for 75 per cent of all casualties in the war. Life could be snuffed out in an instant. A medical
officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers wrote in his diary about how he saw a man step from a dugout
Figure 8.19 Dogs were sometimes used to take messages to and from the front. This one brings news to his
countrymen in a shell hole.
and when a shell burst on top of him, they couldnt find any remains to bury. At other times artillery left
horrible mutilating wounds from shrapnelfragments of metal spread as the shell exploded.
The advantage was always with the defender, and more attacks ended in failure as the second and
third wave got no further than the first. Sometimes the enemy front line was taken, but breakthroughs,
even minor ones, were rare.
Table 8.1
Use of gas on the Western Front
Type
Date of first use
Venue
Comments
Chlorine
April 1915
Ypres
Greenish-yellow cloud
Phosgene
October 1915
Champagne
Colourless; faint smell of old hay
Mustard
July 1917
Ypres
Looked like a pool of sherry; smelt of onions or garlic
GASA BREAKTHROUGH WEAPON?

Gas was one of the scientific developments of war designed to break the deadlock. At first it was
released from cylinders, thousands of which had to be carried up to the front line and placed in
position. However, the vagaries of the wind made gas difficult to control and even though from 1916
the French and Germans used the gas shell to release the gas, the weapon had a limited use.
Chlorine caused difficulty in breathing, a burning sensation in the throat and chest pain. Phosgene
was more sinister and deadly because it didnt lead to coughing and irritation on first contact, as did
chlorine; thus, victims were exposed to larger doses for longer without realising it. Mustard gas led to
blistering of the skin, airways and lungs.
Germany was the first to use each type of gas. It should be remembered that the German
chemical industry was the most advanced in Europe prior to 1914. The Allies did not develop
mustard gas until 1918.
Figure 8.20 An Australian soldier, wearing a gas mask, prepares to sound the gas warning bell. Alternatively klaxon
horns were blown or empty shell cases hit as gas alarms.
For protection against gas, soldiers were at first told to urinate on a sock or piece of cloth and place
it over their mouth and nose. Apparently the ammonia in the urine reduced the effects of the chlorine.
Various types of gas mask were tried until in 1917 the small-box respirator was developed, which gave
effective protection.
To experience a gas attack must have been frightening, but, nonetheless, L. F. Haber argues in The
Poisonous Cloud that it was not gas, but the fear of gas that was the main problem on the Western Front.
General William Sibert, who headed the US Chemical Warfare Service, was asked in a post-war
Congressional hearing whether he considered gas to be a cruel method of warfare. He replied,
Not a cruel method. I look upon it as the most humane element in war. It should be said that of our
gas casualties only 3 or 4 per cent died and of those that lived nearly all of them are getting well
(Richter 1994, p. 219).
Gas was not the new breakthrough weapon hoped for. On the Western Front, the use of gas was
occasionally effective, never decisive.
THE TANKA BREAKTHROUGH WEAPON?

Tanks or land battleships were developed to break the dominance over no mans land of machine-gun
use. Trials for tanks began in Britain as early as February 1915. For security reasons during development
the story was put about that the new constructions were water tanks and the name tank stuck.
Tanks were first introduced to the battlefield on the Somme in September 1916. The tank lacked
the capacity to seriously affect the course of events as only small numbers were available, and they
were used on muddy and churned up ground. The tank could neither spearhead an attack, because
Source 8.6
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: *Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

1 What gas is referred to in the poem?
2 Why has the man been injured?
3 What are the effects of the gas as described in
the poem?
4 Contrast the views about gas warfare shown
by Owen in Source 8.6 and General Sibert
in the text. How would you account for the
differences?
5 Would you regard the view of Owen or Sibert as
the more reliable picture of gas warfare? Explain
your reasons.
(*It is sweet and fitting to die for ones country.)

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est.
Figure 8.21 Gassed Australian soldiers lying out in the open at an overcrowded aid-post near Bois de LAbb in
France, 1918. They were gassed in operations in front of Villers-Bretonneux. (Note by Sergeant A. Brooksbank,
Gas NCO, 10th Australian Infantry Brigade. Examples of what should not be done: casualties should have
removed contaminated garments; lying on the ground with contaminated clothes and not wearing respirators
means that they are inhaling quantities of vapour and adding to their injuries.) (AWM/E04851)
of its slowness, nor punch such a hole in the enemy line to open the way for a major advance. From
191618 tanks were never more than an auxiliary to the infantry, with only slightly greater speed than a
foot soldier and a fighting time of only eight hours. The tanks most notable success was at the battle of
Cambrai in 1917; when used over ground that did not have craters the tanks achieved their objectives
in breaking through the German lines. Unfortunately, the gains were not exploited and the opportunity
to consolidate the breakthrough was lost.
The tanks main uses were to flatten barbed wire obstacles, to offer the advancing troops a sense
of moral support and a degree of shelter, and to knock out enemy machine-gun nests. However,
tank crews faced an ever-increasing risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning, over-heating or general seasickness. Tanks were noisy, which was deafening for the crew inside, and blind. At Cambrai, even
extreme care in choosing forward routes failed to prevent the tanks from tearing up most of the
signallers delicately laid telephone cables. Tanks could not operate safely in built-up areas or woods,
which excluded a good proportion of the areas where infantry needed it most, or over badly cratered
or muddy ground.
A great deal is often made about the role of the tank in the successful Allied offensives of 1918,
late in the war. These claims exaggerate the significance of the tank as an actual rather than a
potential weapon in the war. By the time the tank was reliable enough to consistently be a factor on
the battlefields of the Western Front, the war had been lost by Germany. It is true that in 1918 many
German positions were surrendered quickly once tanks arrived on the scene; however, by October
1918 tanks were more often an excuse to give up rather than a cause of surrender. By 1918 the war of
attrition had taken its toll and this, not the tank, ended the stalemate.
Figure 8.22 A British Mark IV tank doing what it did wellcrushing barbed wire
1 What was the purpose of the artillery bombardment preceding an attack?
2 Why did the bombardments often fail to meet the objective?
3 What was shrapnel?
4 When and where was gas first used on the Western Front?
5 Why was gas ineffective as a breakthrough weapon?
6 List the strengths and weaknesses of the tank as a weapon.
VERDUN 1916
Situated on the eastern border of France, the town of Verdun was surrounded by thirteen
massive concrete forts. Most of their structure was below ground and the guns had been
removed by the French earlier in the war for use elsewhere. Falkenhayn originally hoped
to break the French army by forcing it to defend Verdun. The German general was correct
in his assessment that the French would fight to the death to defend Verdun because of
its strategic position and its historical status as a great French fortress. He began a massive
bombardment of the French defences in February 1916, using 1400 heavy guns in the
hope of drawing French defenders into the Verdun sector, then using artillery to inflict huge
numbers of casualties and bleed the French army to death.
General Petain was given the job of defending Verdun. Its resistance became symbolic in
the eyes of the French; Petain declared, They shall not pass, and coordinated the movement
of soldiers and supplies along La Voie Sacre (The Sacred Way), the only road into and out of
Verdun. At the height of activity, 6000 vehicles a day used the road, and despite intensive
German shelling the road was never closed. The forts were the scene of fierce hand-to-hand
fighting in the underground passageways. The Germans called off their main attack in July
1916, although fighting went on around Verdun until November.
DID YOU KNOW?

Troops had their own
language or slang. For
example, short arm
inspections were conducted
by the medical officer for
signs of venereal disease.
Groups of men would be lined
up in a hut and told to drop
their trousers; a Blighty one
was a wound that required
a much sought after return
to England; and cold meat
tickets were identity discs,
worn around the neck.
The results of Verdun

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THE SOMME 1916

The battle of the Somme in 1916 has become symbolic of much that was the Great War. The first day of the
Somme was, in terms of casualties, perhaps the worst ever in the history of the British army. The Somme
resulted in Britains new armies of volunteers being thrown into the war at an enormous cost in lives, which
caused comments to be made about the destruction of the finest flower of Britains young generation.
Before the German threat to Verdun, Haig and Joffre had agreed that the British would stage an
attack on the Somme River with French support. The desperate defence of Verdun changed all that.
The Somme was largely a British battle, with reduced French support. Several reasons for the battle
of the Somme have been proposed:
KEY
Bapaume
Beaumont
Hamel
Ground gained
by 10 July
Ground gained by
1 September
Le Sars
Beaucourt
Ground gained by
1 October
Thiepval
Pozieres
Sailly
Bazentin
Front line on 1 July
Longueval
ad Albert
ai
ish Sector
Brit
Fre
nch
Front line on
18 November
Combles
Mametz
o
nR
Ground gained in
October and November
German occupied
France
Maricourt
Curlu
Peronne
Biaches
Se
ct
or
Estrees
8 km
Chaulnes
Figure 8.23 The battle of the Somme
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The battle began on 1 July and lasted until 18 November.
The attack was preceded by a week-long bombardment of
the German trenches in which one and a half million shells
were fired. This was designed to destroy the German barbed
wire and wipe out the front-line trenches. These aims were
not achieved because the Germans were aware of the
impending attack and made preparations for it by digging
huge underground chambers, 12 metres below the ground,
to enable them to shelter from the bombardment.
What happened on the morning of 1 July, when the
British went over the top has long been a source of grim
fascination for historians, but has recently become the subject
of a revisionist view outlined by Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson
in their book The Somme (2005). Traditionally, historians have

emphasised the overconfidence and poor tactics employed
by the high command which led to the figure of 57 000 British
casualties on the first day. This viewpoint, told in histories from
Basil Liddell Hart in A History of the World War, 1930), through
Martin Middlebrook (The First Day on the Somme, 1971) to Paul
Kennedy (In A. H. Millett & Williamson Murray (eds), Military
Effectiveness, 1988) speaks of the instruction to the British
soldiers that they could walk across no mans land, smoking
their cigarettes and pipes, to take possession of the empty
trenches as no Germans would have survived the barrage.
Another anecdote which illustrates this overconfident naivety
is the story of Captain W. P. Nevill of the 8th East Surreys who
bought four footballs, one for each platoon, and offered a
prize to the platoon which, at the jump-off, first kicked its
football up to the German front line. The first football was
kicked in a high arc towards the Germans; Captain Nevill
was killed instantly. The greatest criticism of the generals,
however, is that the troops were ordered to advance slowly,
in line abreast as on a parade ground, allowing the German
machine-gunners time to emerge from their dugouts to mow
down the easy targets.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TH E SLAU GH T ER O N THE S O MME

Source 8.7
Source 8.8
French infantry were preceded to

within sixty yards of the enemys front
line by a creeping barrage which beat
the ground ahead. At that point, so the
French had bloodily discovered in 1915,
the value of shells was cancelled out by
the weight of small-arms fire through
the shell curtain. The French artillery
barrage therefore jumped forward
to isolate the enemys front line and
the infantry changed from lines into
small, flexible formations which could
manoeuvre independently over the
last few yards. These half-section units
were naturally well provided with light
machine-guns, rifle grenades, hand
grenades and rifles in a preplanned
ensemble whose eectiveness was as
much the result of training as of firepower The British were absolutely
unable to reproduce this tactical
sophistication the whole philosophy
of British preparation assumed war in
the eighteenth century style The men
must learn to obey by instinct without
thinking. The whole advance must be
carried out as a drill.
The determinant of victory in industrial war is the prevalence and eectiveness

of killing machinesin this case predominantly machine-guns and artillery. It is
not the specific tactics or attack formations adopted by the infantry What must
be deemed surprising is that for over 80 years historians have turned this story
on its head. They have argued as if the skill, or lack of it, evident in the tactics
supposedly imposed from above on the infantry really did, on the first day, make
all the dierence between winning and losing
D. Winter, Haigs Command: A

Reassessment, 1991, p. 61.
It is fairly clear that the established portrait of the battle was derived from Buchan
[The Battle of the Somme, 1917]and other early writers on the Somme. The portrait
seemed to them particularly appropriate because it resonated with their view of
the virtues possessed by the British infantrysteadiness under fire and unflinching
bravery in the face of disaster This picture also resonated with that later group of
historians characterised by Liddell Hart. For them, however, the conventional image
was not associated with the bravery of the infantry. It centred on the stupidity of the
high command and on the needless slaughter of an innocent rank and file by those
whose duty it was to safeguard them So for all these groups the first day of the
Somme became the necessary image of the war
The mystery of all this is the devotion of military historians to the notion that the
outcome of even the largest conflicts is determined by the skill and heroism of the
rank and file infantry. Whatever truth this notion may have had in earlier wars, it
was clearly inappropriate for the large episodes of industrial war in 191418
Let it be stressed that there were command errors aplenty on the first day of the
Somme. But the most profound misjudgements lay elsewhere. Only an abundance
of guns and shells on the Western Front could create the conditions whereby rank
and file infantry might operate on a battlefield with any chance of success None
of this may seem glamorous or heroic, but it more nearly represents the reality of 1
July 1916 than any obsessive focus on infantry tactics.
Prior and Wilson, The Somme, 2005, pp. 11618.
Figure 8.24 The creeping barragean artillery tactic that required a level of accuracy the British were unable to
command until September 1916
1 Refer to Source 8.7. What were the main
differences between French and British tactics
at the Somme?
2 What was the advantage of the creeping
barrage, as shown in Figure 8.24?
3 According to Winter, why didnt the British
employ the more successful French methods?
4 How do the conclusions of Prior and Wilson in

Source 8.8 conflict with those of Winter in 8.7?
5 Why, according to Source 8.8, did the
traditional accounts of the first day on the
Somme persist over the years?
6 What, according to Source 8.8, is the major
explanation for the enormous losses on
1 July 1916?
Prior and Wilson argue that the vast majority of the British casualties on 1 July did not meet their
fate by advancing shoulder to shoulder at a steady walk, nor did the high command order them to do
so. They refer to General Rawlinsons instruction that there can be no general rule as regards the best
formations for advance. Decisions on how to proceed were left to the battalion commanders on the
spot. From their research they show that, of the eighty battalions involved on the first day:
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Prior and Wilson also point out, as has not previously been sufficiently acknowledged, that the killing
zone was not simply no mans land. Enemy bullets did not stop when they reached a trench line! Thirty
per cent of all British casualties on 1 July were sustained as they moved up behind their own front line.
They disagree with those historians who have argued that it was the flawed infantry tactics of the
high command which caused the massive casualties on the first day of the Somme. No matter where
the British soldiers started from, or how they progressed, tactics did not matter. As long as the Germans
survived the artillery barrage, a hail of bullets6000 per minute by their reckoningwill kill or wound
all before it. If the [British] artillery had done their job it mattered little if the infantry walked or ran or
executed the Highland fling across no mans land (Prior and Wilson 2005, p. 115).
Figure 8.25 The Lochnager crater at La Boisselle.

A mine was exploded under the German lines a
few moments before 7.30 a.m. on 1 July the start
of the Somme offensive. Its size can be judged
from the figures standing on the far side. The hole
is now owned by an Englishman and preserved
as a site of remembrancesome wreaths can be
seen at the bottom of the crater.
An example of the traditional approach towards the battle can be found in Denis Winters book
Haigs Command: A Reassessment, where he points out that 1 July was a day of two battles. The French
in the south met all their objectives at a cost of 7000 casualties, whereas the British to the north failed
to make any significant impression and lost 57 000 men in their failure. Winter explains that this was a
result of the superior tactics and training of the French.
The British did not achieve any of Haigs targets for the first two days. Nevertheless, the British
commander persisted and the offensive continued. Haigs critics, including Denis Winter, have charged
that Haig was too inflexible and failed to note the lessons that both the French and Germans had
learned about attacks and artillery support. In his own defence Haig wrote that he had hoped for a
breakthrough at first, but then accepted that the attack must go on anyway because it drew German
troops away from Verdun. The optimistic breakthrough battle had become part of the war of attrition.
The results of the Somme

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Figure 8.26 The preserved battlefield at Beaumont Hamel in 1998. The Canadian government bought the site in remembrance of the men
from Newfoundland who died there. The Canadian second line of trenches is in the foreground, with the front-line trench running across
the centre of the picture. The German front line was curved along the base of the trees. Notice the small war cemetery to the right and the
surviving shell craters. The Newfoundlanders suffered 80 per cent casualties as they crossed this ground on 1 July 1916.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: AN ASSESSM ENT O F THE S O MME BY VARI O US HIS TO RI AN S

Source 8.9
By the end of July, responding to every British or French
advance or attempt to advance, the German infantry had
made not less than sixty-seven counter attacks, large or
small, that I can identify. Probably they had made a great
many more, now lost in times obscuritypossibly twice as
many. This was the texture of the battle: attack, counterattack; attack again, counter-attack again That is why it
is so utterly pernicious to dwell constantly on the freak of
1 July, and to associate the whole battle with the image of
that day The Somme was the turning point.
John Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire: Myths and Antimyths of War 18611945, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980.
The Somme oensive was a necessary if painful stage in
the process of weakening a skilful, courageous and highly
professional enemy.
Peter Simkins, foreword to Chris McCarthy, The Somme:
The Day-By-Day Account, Arms & Armour, 1993.
The battle of the Somme was not a victory in itself, but

without it the entente would not have emerged victorious
in 1918.
Gary Sheeld, The Somme, Cassell, 2003.
We may perhaps question whether the four-and-a-half
month slog of the Somme was the unmitigated disaster it
is usually painted. One voice worth hearing in this context
is that of the German supreme commander Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg, who was suciently chastened by
the suerings of his troops during the campaign to state at
a conference in January 1917, We must save the men from
a second Somme battle. Another notable viewpoint is that
of the distinguished soldierwriter Charles Carrington, who
would later claim that The Somme battle raised the morale
of the British Army. Although we did not win a decisive
victory there was what matters most, a definite and growing
sense of superiority, man to man We were quite sure we
had got the Germans beat.
M. Brown, Sommewhere in France, History Today,
July 2006, Vol. 56, Issue 7, pp. 224.
D O C U M E N T ST UDY TA S K S
1 Using information provided in the document study and the text, reinforced by internet
research, show how the historiography about the Somme has changed over time.
2 For written task or debate: Assess the battle of the Somme. Was it a monstrous
waste of human life resulting from incompetent generalship or was it a turning
point which mortally wounded the German army?
THE FRENCH MUTINIES AND PASSCHENDAELE 1917

The year 1917 began positively for the Allies. The British naval blockade continued to deprive Germany of
vital raw materials, the British and French gained control in the air and Allied industrial production was up.
Joffre had been replaced as French commander by a highly articulate and optimistic general,
Robert Nivelle. Joffre had spoken of 1917 as a year of continued attrition. Nivelle suggested
breakthrough. Nivelles great offensive gained less than 8 kilometres at great cost. General Philippe
Petain replaced Nivelle in May and disillusionment led to mutinies in some French units. Some scholars
have gone so far as to suggest that from this point on, the French army ceased to be a potent offensive
force. This view may be extreme, but the fact still remains that for the rest of 1917 the British army had
to carry the weight of the offensive.
The third battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele, lasted from the end of July until
December. There were many frightening parallels between the circumstances surrounding the Somme
in 1916 and Passchendaele in 1917. On both occasions the British were requested to launch an attack
to take pressure off the French army and in both battles the point of attack gave every advantage to
the German defenders.
Haigs decisions about this battle, once again, have produced debate and criticism. A huge
bombardment of four and a half million shells combined with the worst rains in thirty years turned the
Figure 8.27 Canadian machine-gunners manning shell holes in the mud at Passchendaele.
battlefield into a quagmire. Movement became almost impossible as men, horses and equipment stuck
fast in the mud. Men who had fallen into craters had their backs broken as comrades tried to pull them
out of the mud. Most of the familiar photographs of soldiers struggling knee deep and more in the
mud were taken during the Passchendaele campaign.
Even without a breakthrough Haig claimed that because of their losses the Germans were suffering
a fearful defeat. Passchendaele was the ultimate example of the rationale of attrition. Even though
the Allies suffered heavy losses, as long as the Germans lost more men than the British and French,
Haig argued, the Allies would win in the end. Clearly, this kind of thinking worried the politicians, who
were dependent on the support of the publica public weary of the long casualty lists in their daily
newspapers. Haigs view of attrition also gave little comfort to the troops, who joked grimly about who
would be left to take food and ammunition up to the last man. Passchendaele cost the British 245 000
casualties and the Germans a few less for a gain of just over 10 kilometres.
1 When were the following battles fought: Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele?
2 In each case, what factors brought about the battle?
3 Assess each of the three battles. Were they German victories, Allied victories, or
neither? Explain your answer carefully in each case.
4 What was the significance for the French army of the Nivelle offensive?
5 What criticism of Haig may be made after reading the account of Passchendaele?
Figure 8.28 Then and now: the medieval cloth hall at Ypres in 1917 and as it looks today, lovingly restored from the original plans which
survived the war
CASE STUDY:
HAIG AND THE GENERALS

At the time, almost all the leaders,
Joffre, Haig and Hindenburg, were
considered great men. Between the
wars their reputations crumbled,
largely because of the diaries and
memoirs published by ex-soldiers such
as Sassoon and Remarque, whose
descriptions of the realities of trench
life contrasted with the easy life of the
high command far back behind the
lines. The war produced the phrase
chateau generalship to reflect the idea
of commanders living comfortably
behind the lines in large houses,
unsympathetic towards their men and
unrealistic in their view of the fighting.
Overall, the reputation of the generals of
the Great War has not recovered, despite
books such as Bloody Red Tabs by
F. Davies and G. Maddocks (1995), which
argues against the view that the high
command were out of touch with the
front line. Davies and Maddocks point
out that at the battle of Loos in 1915
eight British generals were killed in nine
daysthey clearly did not stay in their
chateaus behind the lines. As a result,
an order was issued in October 1915

that forbade senior British officers from
taking up forward positions. It would
therefore seem unfair to criticise senior
officers for not being with their men,
when to do so would have constituted
a military offence. They also point out
that far more senior officers were killed
in action during the First World War
than in the Second World War. Of the
seventy-eight people documented
in the book who were killed (not all
on the Western Front) twenty-two
generals, approximately 28 per cent of
the total, were killed by small arms fire
or snipersa clear indication that they
were in the thick of the fighting.
HAIG AND THE PENDULUM OF

HISTORIOGRAPHY
As mentioned above, Haigs post-war
standing as a war hero was diminished
in the inter-war years, not least by
the publication of Lloyd Georges
memoirs in 1933. The politician, who
had clashed with the Field-Marshal
over the conduct of the war, took the
opportunity to set down his criticisms

for posterity. In more recent times,
Alan Clarks The Donkeys (1962) and
Denis Winters Haigs Command (1991)
continued this tradition of criticism of
the high command in general and Haig
in particular. Modern popular opinion
has also been moulded by other means
to take a critical view of Haig. In 1998,
at the ceremonies surrounding the
eightieth anniversary of the armistice,
the English Daily Express launched
a campaign to have Haigs statue
removed from Whitehall in London,
under a headline proclaiming: He led
a million men to their deaths.
Amid this torrent of criticism it should
be remembered that the critical view
of Haig is not the only view, and,
revisionist historians would assert,
not the most appropriate. Critical
historiography may itself be criticised.
Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, in a
scathing review of Haigs Command,
accused Winter of ignoring the major
issues of command, such as how
battles were devised, organised,
waged, and supplied, in favour of

attention to trivialities of Haigs
character: A book like Haigs Command
helps to preserve historical writing
about the Great War in its ridiculously
protracted adolescence (Prior and
Wilson, Australian War Memorial Journal,
October 1993, p. 13, quoted in Bond
and Cave, 1999, pp. 23).
The revisionist defence of Haig, to
be found in books such as Haig: A
Reappraisal 70 Years On (1999), edited by
Brian Bond and Nigel Cave, follows two
main directions. First, to refute specific
allegations, such as that characterising
Haig as the cavalryman who knew
nothing of modern warfare; second, to
shift the popular gaze from the first day
of the Somme to the last year of the war,
and thereby to come to appreciate the
enormous difficulties associated with
expanding an initial force of 120 000
men into a vast army of two million
soldiers, organised, equipped, and led in
such a way that they achieved victory.
If the commander is to be blamed for
defeats, is he not to be given credit for
the successes?
Criticism: Haig was at heart a
cavalryman, and therefore unaware of
the demands of modern warfare.
Revisionist response: Just because
Haig had a background in cavalry
does not necessarily mean that he
was incapable of understanding new
technology. During the war, the cavalry
grew by 80 per cent (remember their
effective use in Palestine) but the
infantry grew by 469 per cent, artillery
by 520 per cent, and engineers by
1429 per cent. The BEF also acquired
the worlds first tank corps and the
worlds first independent air force, a
service arm encouraged by Haig. By the
end of the war the BEF was not only
awash with horses and mules but also
with lorries, motorcars, armoured cars,
tanks and motorbikes. It was the most
Figure 8.29 The concerned Field-Marshal visits his troops or Aloof and surrounded by
his favourite cavalry, the Field-Marshal looks down upon his foot soldiers. Its all a matter of
perspective! (Verelst, John/National Archives of Canada/C-092414)
mechanised army in the world. Haigs

cavalry obsession therefore seems to
have had little practical effect (Bond
and Cave 1999, p. 5).
Criticism: Haig was a chateau general.
Revisionist response: Modern warfare
requires a lot of administrative work,
and it is the commanders role to ensure
that this is done. This cannot be done
in a trench! Hussey describes Haig as
the principal director of Britains newest
and greatest corporate enterprise
and adds that to make the BEF run as
smoothly as it did is an achievement as
remarkable as it is underpraised (Bond
and Cave 1999, p. 19). Despite these
demands on his time, Haig was not
bound to his desk. A sample fortnight
in April 1917 shows that he visited
several battalions and a sniping school,
held a commanders conference, and
inspected base camps, hospital wards,
recreation facilities and a military prison.
Criticism: Haig was out of touch with
the needs of his men.
Revisionist response: Michael
Cranshaw praises Haigs insatiable
curiosity and enthusiasm for new ideas

and concludes, Haigs listening and
information gathering service was
excellent; his body of liaison officers
visiting forward formations kept him
abreast of happenings in the real
world His personal intervention at
critical junctures was instrumental in
the development of the RFC, of the
gas weapon, of mortars and of
tanks And his tireless persistence
in pressing for quantity in both new
and existing equipment was proved
correct The spring of 1918 did not
bring defeat for the BEF, but defeat
twice came too close for comfort. That
the same BEF, despite its depleted
ranks, came back to play the principal
role in running the German Army out
of France is a tribute to those who
equipped it and those who identified
and pressed for the equipment it
needed. Douglas Haig did not fail in
that duty of a commanderthe duty
of ensuring that his troops had the
right tools for the job, and, in the end,
enough of them (Bond and Cave 1999
p. 169).
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: M IL ITARY LEADE RS HIP IN THE G REAT WAR

Source 8.8
Source 8.10
Siegfried Sassoon was a courageous junior officer, winning

the Military Cross in 1916. He was the first to consistently write
poetry that was critical of the conduct of the war. This poem was
written during the war.
Though the practice of establishing headquarters well

behind the lines was indeed a novelty in warfare it was
one justified, indeed necessitated by the vast widening and
deepening of fronts, which put the scene of the action in its
entirety far beyond the field of vision of any commander;
indeed, the nearer a general was to the battle, the worse
placed was he to gather information and to issue orders.
Only at the point of junction of telephone lines, necessarily
located behind the front, could he hope to gather
intelligence of events and transmit a considered response
to them.
If I were fierce and bald, and short of breath,

Id live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
Youd see me with my puy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. Poor young chap,
Id sayI used to know his father well;
Yes, weve lost heavily in this last scrap.
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
Id toddle safely home and diein bed.
Siegfried Sassoon, Base Details.
Source 8.9
The impassive expressions that stare back at us from
contemporary photographs do not speak of consciences
or feelings troubled by the slaughter over which these men
presided, nor do the circumstances in which they chose
to live: the distant chateau the glittering motor cars, the
cavalry escorts, the regular routine, the heavy dinners,
the uninterrupted hours of sleep. Jores two-hour lunch,
Hindenburgs ten-hour night, Haigs therapeutic daily
equitation [horse ride] along roads sanded lest his horse
slip were a world away from the cold rations, wet boots,
sodden uniforms, flooded trenches in which their
subordinates lived.
J. Keegan, The First World War, 1998, p. 338.
[Telephone lines were often the first thing to be destroyed

in a battle.]
Most of the accusations laid against the generals in the
Great Warincompetence and incomprehension foremost
among themmay therefore be seen to be misplaced
While battle-altering resourcesreliable armoured, crosscountry vehicles, portable two way radiolay beyond their
grasp the generals were trapped within the iron fetters
of a technology all too adequate for mass destruction of
life but quite inadequate to restore to them the flexibilities
of control that would have kept destruction of life within
bearable limits.
J. Keegan, The First World War, 1998, pp. 33842.

1 What is Sassoons view of the senior officers?
2 Compare Source 8.8 with Source 8.10. In what
way do they differ in their views of the senior
commanders? Discuss how reliable and useful
each source is.
3 What image of the First World War senior
officers would be gained by considering only
Source 8.9 and Figure 8.30? To what extent is
this view limited? Are these sources, therefore,
of little use to the historian studying military
leadership in the First World War?
Figure 8.30 General Haigs headquarters at Chteau de

Beaurepaire from 1916 to 1919
CHANGING ATTITUDES OF SOLDIERS TO THE WAR

The outbreak of the war was generally greeted with
enthusiasm. It was an opportunity for adventure and
excitement while also earning honour in a righteous cause
both sides felt this way. Of course, there were those who
feared the darker side of war, but the widely held belief that
it would be over by Christmas reassured worried civilians that
their husbands and sons would soon be home again.
The First World War was unique among conflicts in
the amount of poetry that was produced about it, often
by serving soldiers. Through this poetry we can trace the
evolution of attitudes towards the war, the high command,
the enemy, and the civilian population at home. A large
proportion of the war poets from the First World War died
in that conflict. Perhaps the most famous of all was Wilfred
Owen, who was killed only days before the armistice in
November 1918. Among the famous survivors were Siegfried
Sassoon and Robert Graves. The writings of the poets mirrored
the mood of the men among whom they had served. Most of
the early poets were influenced by the work of Rupert Brooke,
whose poems were filled with fervent patriotism and idealism.
Brooke himself died during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915
from an infection arising from a mosquito bite.
There are many reasons why soldiers welcomed the war
and even continued to regard it as a positive experience
overall, even after it had settled down into a war of attrition.
For some young men from the upper classes, the war was a
release from the stifling confinement and regulation of the
boarding school, while for the working class it provided an

option to the grinding monotony of the factory, or worse,
the uncertainties of unemployment. Even in the worst times,
soldiers recorded feeling a unique bond of comradeship
with those around them, and some took to the discipline
and order of a soldiers life.
The historian Denis Winters conclusion is that some
soldiers liked the war, more hated it, but most exhibited a
passive acceptanceit was something that had to be done.
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE 1914

By Christmas 1914 the fighting on the Western Front had
settled into trench routine. Christmas Eve was a clear
and frosty night. At some points in the German trenches
Christmas trees had been erected and there was singing
of Silent Night. On Christmas morning, along much of the
Anglo-German front, soldiers got out of their trenches to
meet in no mans land. This fraternisation was almost always
initiated by the Germans.
Photographs, gifts and addresses were exchanged, and
one German, who had been working in England when
the war broke out, wrote out a postcard for his girlfriend in
Brighton and gave it to a British officer to post! Sing-songs,
ranging from Christmas carols to bawdy trench songs, took
place. Soldiers played games of football, and in one place
the English sent Christmas puddings over to the German
trenchesthey were much appreciated!
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: EARLY AT T IT U DES TO WAR

Source 8.11
Hodgson was born in 1893, the son of a bishop. He was killed on
the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916.
Free in service, wise in justice,
Fearing but dishonours breath;
Steeled to suer uncomplaining
Loss and failure, pain and death;
Strong in faith that sees the issue and in hope that
triumpheth.
Go, and may the God of battles
You in his good guidance keep:
And if He in wisdom giveth
Unto his beloved sleep,
I accept it nothing asking, save a little space to weep.
W. N. Hodgson, from England to Her Sons, 1914.

1 How is death referred to in the poem in Source
8.11? What is the poets attitude towards the
possibility of being killed? How does this
indicate that the writer has not yet experienced
the full realities of trench life?
2 What does the poet fear most?
3 Comment on the tone and language of the
poem. What aspects of it would enable a
historian of the war to date this poem to the
early days of the war if the date had not been
given?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: WARA P OS ITI V E V IEW

Source 8.12
Source 8.14
I adore war, its like a big picnic without the object lesson
of a picnic. Ive never been so well or so happy. No-body
grumbles at one for being dirty. Ive only had my boots o
once in the last ten days and only washed twice but we
cook good hot food in the dark in the morning before we
start and in the night when we get back to our horses and
we take our good cold rations with us in the daytime. It is
all the best fun.
Ernst Junger was a German soldier. He was wounded fourteen

times with precisely twenty puncture wounds.
Captain Julian Grenfell, in a letter to his mother, date

unknown. Grenfell was killed in action on 26 March 1915.
Source 8.13
Just recently I have discovered an old 12th Division man
lives close to me and my heart leaps when I spot him
walking up the road. We never miss a natter, and his eyes
shine as we go over our war experiences. We catch vivid
memories of the past and are glad that we were young in
1914.
A correspondent writing to Coppard said: Like yourself,
I would not have missed ithooray!
G. Coppard, With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, 1980, p. 136
& Appendix.
We learned, once and for all, to stand for a cause and if

necessary to fall as befitted men.
Hardened as scarcely another generation was in fire and
flame, we could go into life as though from an anvil. It is not
every generation that is so favoured.
E. Junger, The Storm of Steel, Howard Fertig, New York,
1993, p. 317.

1 Referring to each source in turn, can you explain
why each man has written in the way he has?
2 Reading these sources, what impression does
the historian get of the war? Is this a reliable
impression?
3 How useful are these sources to a historian
studying the morale of soldiers on the Western
Front during the war?
4 How can you explain the fact that some
soldiers would not have missed out on going
to the war?
Figure 8.31 Fraternisation between British and German troops in no mans land during the Christmas truce (Imperial War Museum
Negative Number Q50719)
On a more sombre note, the occasion was used to collect and exchange bodies of fallen comrades,
who had lain out in no mans land, for burial. Both sides also took the opportunity for a little trench
maintenance and repairs to barbed-wire entanglements.
Though the initiative seems to have come from the lower ranks, officers of both sides were involved
in these meetings. However, when Sir John French heard of the fraternisation he issued orders that
it was to stop immediately. In many areas fighting resumed as normal the next day, though in a part
of the line near Messines Ridge, the truce lasted several days. On the last day of 1914 a message was
brought over from the German trenches by a very polite Saxon corporal, which said that as the lines
were to be visited by staff officers around midnight, the Saxons would be forced to fire their machineguns at the British. They would aim high but the British were nevertheless advised to keep under cover
to avoid any regrettable incidents!
The unofficial Christmas truce was never to be repeated to the same extent, though there are
accounts of limited fraternisation at Christmas 1915.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: INT ERP RETATIONS O F THE C HRIS TMAS TRUC E

Source 8.15
Source 8.17
The crucial thing to note, however, is that distrust and

scarcely veiled hostility were the features of these truces
Bodger described the exchange of smokes and the
Germans stroking the English-issue goatskin overcoats but
when a German urinated on British barbed wire he was
shot. The English respected a brave and resourceful enemy
but there was no love or liking.
I had taken the addresses of two German soldiers,

promising to write to them after the war. And I had,
vaguely, a childlike idea that if all those in Germany could
know what the soldiers had to suer, and that both sides
believed the same things about the righteousness of the
two national causes, it might spread, this truce of Christ on
the battlefield, to the minds of all and give understanding
where now there was scorn and hatred.
D. Winter, Deaths Men, 1978, pp. 2212.
Source 8.16
Bruce Bairnsfather, an English soldier and cartoonist of the war
speaking of his feelings at the time:
There was not an atom of hate on either side that day; and
yet, on our side, not for a moment was the will to war and
the will to beat them relaxed.
B. Bairnsfather, cited in M. Gilbert, First World War,
1995, p. 118.
Henry Williamson, a soldier near Ypres, cited in History of

the First World War, 1969, p. 556.

1 In what ways do the writers in the sources
agree and disagree with each other?
2 Sir John French was quick to send orders to
halt the fraternisation. How does Source 8.17
help to explain why he did this?
3 As a historian, do you find all these sources
equally reliable? Explain your answer.
CHANGING ATTITUDES AFTER 1916

Initial enthusiasm for the war evaporated during 1915, as shown in the drop in voluntary recruitment in
England for that year. As the worst aspects of trench life began to impose on the soldiers, despair replaced
enthusiasm. This feeling was accentuated after the dreadful losses on the Somme in 1916, in which
Kitcheners new army was virtually wiped out. While some soldiers felt bitter about the wara bitterness
that can be felt in some of the war poetry of the timethere was for others a stoical acceptance of their
lot. As Winter points out, many of the infantry came from a background of poverty with its associated
passivity. They knew a popular culture that made light of hardship, were more familiar with sudden death,
and experienced bereavement with a greater degree of fatalism than we do today.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: AT TI T U DES T O THE WAR

Source 8.18
Source 8.20
A German section were lying fully exposed to us on level

ground where they had remained from the moment daylight
caught them We put bullets into the heads of the lying
enemy I felt disgusted. We had slaughtered too many
already. I was miserable until the German line was still and
I prayed for them as I killed them.
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun

In the wild purple of the glowring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear.
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!
D. Winter, Deaths Men, 1978, pp. 21617.
Source 8.19
We had a gorgeous killing yesterday. Macdonald saw
30 men go into a barn, which we had already accurately
registered. We fired one salvo; one shell went right through
the roof and blew out the door from the insides We then
tried the old trick of waiting for fifteen minutes, which
allows time for people to gather round the scene of a
shelling, actuated by motives of curiosity or desire to help
the wounded, after which we opened [fire] and fired fast
for two minutes One comes across only too many people
who quite forget that the essence of war is to kill.
Lt Col. N. Fraser-Tytler, Field Guns in France 19151918,
Tom Donovan, Brighton, 1922, pp. 501.
These two extracts, from later periods of the war,
show a differing approach to killing, depending
on the individual. How do the reactions of the
soldiers differ? What difficulty does this illustrate
for the historian trying to generalise about
soldiers attitudes to war?
S. Sassoon, Attack, 1917.

1 What information in the poem in Source 8.20
allows us roughly to date the action described?
2 How are the men described?
3 How would you describe the mood or attitude
of the soldiers, choosing words that are not
necessarily from the poem?
4 Compare this poem with England to her
Sons in Source 8.11. What changes in attitude
between 1914 and 1917 do the poems
illustrate?
THE ARMISTICE
When the end of the war came at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918, the overwhelming feeling of the
soldiers at the front was one of anti-climax. For some the morning was spent peacefully, for others
action carried on until the stroke of eleven.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: S OLDIERS AND T H E ARM I S TI C E

Source 8.21
There was a parade and some sort of announcement made
but no cheers raised. The occasion was too much for that.
It was a curious physiological study of human nature too
overcome with the significance of the good news to rejoice.
The making [celebrations] was left, as we saw afterwards,
to those at home less in touch with realities.
Lieutenant R. D. Reid, cited in A. Simpson, Hot Blood and
Cold Steel, 1993, p. 199.

1 How would you describe the mood of the
soldiers, as described in Source 8.21 and
Source 8.22?
2 What is the attitude of the soldiers towards
those on the home front at this time?
3 Why does Reid say in Source 8.21 that the
people at home are less in touch with realities?
4 Why was Dolden reluctant to celebrate?
Source 8.22
Folks at home apparently went frantic with joy and
excitement That we fellows did not conduct ourselves
like a crowd of maniacs, as many at home seem to have
done, was no doubt due to the fact that we looked upon the
armistice merely as a truce We had faced the Germans
for many weary months, and knew by experience that they
were fighters, by no means to be despised.
Private A. S. Dolden, cited in A. Simpson, Hot Blood and
Cold Steel, 1993, p. 201.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: S OLDIERS EX P ERIEN C ES OF WAR

There are seventeen men in the photograph (Figure
8.32). In 1914 a platoon was composed of around sixty
men; by 1918 this was usually thirty. W. H. Connell traced
the stories of these men in Seventeen men, an article
in Wartime (the official magazine of the Australian War
Memorial), No. 3 Spring 1998.
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Figure 8.32 The battle of Amiens, France, 8 August 1918. Lieutenant R. F. A. Downes MC addressing his platoon, from B Company,
29th Battalion, during a rest near the villages of Warfusee and Lamotte before the advance on to Harbonnieres, the battalions second
objective. The background is obscured by the smoke of heavy shell fire. (AWM/E02790)
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The photo shows how the men had broken the
regulations. The metal entrenching tool, a small spade,
was meant to be worn at waist level on the rump, but the
men had moved the flat metal blade of the entrenching
tool around to the front to protect an area they felt was
more vital! You may be able to see this on Private Hall.

Using Figure 8.32 and accompanying
information, answer the following questions.
1 What was the average age of the platoon?
2 How many of the men were wounded during
the war?
3 How many of the men in the photo did not
survive the war?
4 How many men survived the war without any
form of injury?
5 Combining deaths and injuries, what was the
casualty rate? Research how this compares
to the rest of the Australian army and to other
armies on the Western Front.
6 What can we learn from the stories of Private
Olive and Private Thomlinson?
7 Can anything be concluded from the fact that
so many of the men came from Victoria?
8 How reliable and useful is this photograph to
the historian studying the war on the Western
Front?
THE HOME FRONTS IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY

TOTAL WAR AND ITS IMPACT
Wars had traditionally been fought by men on battlefields, often in distant lands. But the First World War
was different. The communities left behind became more than spectators awaiting news of battle; they
became participants. They joined another front in the warthe home frontthat became vital to the
outcome of the conflict.
The growing demand for munitions, men and machinery forced governments to intervene more
and more in the management of the economy and the lives of its citizens. Winston Churchill described
it as no ordinary war, but a struggle between nations for life and death that would demand a massive
commitment of both human and material resources. The result was total war, with all activities of
civilians and industry directed towards the war effort.
The war had a deeper and more profound impact on the German home front than it did in Britain.
German food shortages were more severe; the regulation and control of domestic labour, industry and
agriculture more extensive. Germany had over three and a half million civilians engaged in war work,
the greatest number of any aggressive power. Food and fuel rationing eventually led to a breakdown
%!2,9%.4(53)!3-
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THE ROLE OF WOMEN
Figure 8.33 The home front
of the economy, strikes, and revolution. In Britain, civilians directly experienced the horrors of war when
German warships bombarded east-coast towns, and Zeppelins dropped bombs on London. Here too
there were food shortages and rationing.
ANTI-GERMAN HYSTERIA IN BRITAIN

The German advance through Belgium soon gave rise to atrocity stories, which were repeated and
believed by the British public. One told of the sight of German soldiers marching through Belgian
towns with babies skewered on their bayonets; another told of the barbaric treatment of nuns who
were raped then hung upside down inside church bells to act as living clappers. Under the headline
Horrible Stories of German Fiendishness the War Illustrated told how their correspondents in Belgium
had seen little murdered children with roasted feet and explained that the children had been hung
over a fire before being killed.
Though there were atrocities, such as the taking and shooting of civilian hostages, these more lurid
tales were almost certainly false, but they served their purpose in whipping up anti-German hysteria.
In 1914 there were about 53 000 Germans living in Britain, with many more born of German parents
but who classed themselves as thoroughly British, despite their German names. This made Germans the
third largest immigrant group in Britain, after the Irish and the Jews. By the end of the war only 22 000
remained, many being deported at the end of the war despite their ties to Britain.
Suspicions about Germans were rife. It was the common belief that German watchmakers were
actually bomb makers and that German waiters poisoned food. There were German spies in Britain,
many of them known to British Intelligence. Thirty-six were arrested in the first months of the war and
by its close a total of eleven spies had been shot in the Tower of London.
Anti-German hysteria led to the attacking of shops owned by Germans or people with Germansounding names, and the alteration of names to a more patriotic variant. Thus German sausage
became Belgian sausage, German measles became the Belgian flush and German shepherd dogs
became Alsatians. Prince Louis of Battenberg, the First Sea Lord and relation of the King, was forced to
resign in October 1914 because of his German origins. The family changed their name to Mountbatten.
In July 1917 the royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg Gotha (a reflection of their German
ancestry) to Windsor.
Figure 8.34 The smashing and looting of German-owned shops became common throughout Britain, as shown at this
pork butchers in London.
ANTI-BRITISH HYSTERIA IN GERMANY

Germany also experienced spy scares. There were cases of mobilised military officers from the reserve
being abused and roughly handled in the street, accused of being British spies because they had become
overweight during peacetime and did not fit their uniforms as trimly as a German officer should.
In Germany too there were name changes to reflect a more patriotic spirit. The caf Piccadilly in
Berlin became the Caf Vaterland, the Hotel Westminster became the Lindenhof. A new anti-British
greeting became popularGott strafe England (God punish England)which was soon stamped on
envelopes, engraved on cuff-links, pots and pans, and on the black, red and white braces worn by the
German soldiers to keep their trousers up!
BRITAIN UNDER ATTACK

Before the end of 1914 the fact that this was a new sort of war was brought home to British civilians on
the east coast. On 16 December the coastal towns of Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby were shelled
by German battlecruisers, leaving 230 dead and 500 wounded. Though a small incident in the totality
of the war, for the civilians concerned the effects were terrifying as they feared that a German invasion
was imminent.
Modern warfare unveiled a new form of terrorthe attack from the air. Until 1916, air raids on
Britain were mainly carried out by Zeppelins, the great hydrogen filled balloons with the crew slung
underneath in a gondola. They usually came singly, the first raid being on 19 January 1915 with an
attack on Great Yarmouth on the east coast. The attack took no more than ten minutes and killed
Martha Taylor (72) and Samuel Smith (53), Britains first ever air raid victims.
At first, there was little protection against the Zeppelins. Anti-aircraft guns were hopelessly
inadequate, the shells exploding well below the height of the airships. Even when better guns were
provided they generally couldnt reach the necessary height and were fired more to quell public
disquiet than to realistically down the enemy. The capital, London, was attacked for the first time on
31 May 1915, when seven were killed and thirty-five wounded. Zeppelin raids came by night, and
London defended itself by searchlight batteries and anti-aircraft guns. Restrictions varied from town
to town. Some put their faith in searchlights and guns, others went to great lengths to maintain a
complete blackout. In Norwich men were fined for striking matches in the street after dark to light their
cigarettes or pipes. In September 1916 the first airship was shot down over England. By the end of 1916
the Zeppelin had had its day as an offensive weapon, though there were sporadic raids until the last
one in August 1918.
The Zeppelin was succeeded by the Gotha bomber. The daylight attack on London by twenty
Gothas on 13 June 1917 killed 162 civilians, the highest death toll from a single air raid on Britain during
the war. Less than a month later, on 7 July, a further raid in which fifty-seven more people were killed
raised British anti-German sentiments to fever pitch. In all there were fifty-three Zeppelin raids and fiftyseven aeroplane raids over Britain during the war resulting in about 1400 deaths and 3400 injuries.
These air raids had mixed results. Civilian morale suffered in the affected towns, but there were no
calls upon the government to seek peace terms, and no prized targets were hit. However, the raids
signalled an important change in the nature of modern warfare. Women and children, in their own
homes, were now in the front line.
Britain was not the only country to face an aerial onslaught during the First World War. Gotha planes
also attacked Paris. Although Berlin was too distant, British and French aviators bombed many other
German cities, especially in the Ruhr and Rhineland industrial areas in 1918. As in Britain, civilian morale
in Germany was shaken by these attacks. German casualties from Allied aerial bombing were 740 killed
and 1900 wounded.
1 How would you define total war?
2 List the ways in which the First World War was different from wars of the
previous century.
R E VI E W TA SK S
1 Use your available research facilities to investigate the conduct of the German army in
Belgium in 1914. To what extent were there atrocities?
2 Design a propaganda poster on one of the following themes:
(a) Encourage civilians to switch from enemy to patriotic products.(This could be done
from either a British or German perspective.)
(b) Use the impacts of the German air or sea raids to design a British
recruitment poster.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: CIVI LI ANS U NDER ATTAC K

Figure 8.35
A Zeppelin is caught in searchlight beams
over London. (AWM/A03991)

1 How are these sources useful to a historian in
explaining the nature of total war?
2 State two ways in which Figure 8.35 indicates
the new technology of twentieth-century
warfare.
3 Research how Zeppelins were used as a
weapon of warfare: their advantages and
disadvantages.
4 In Figure 8.37 how has the paper made use
of the deaths of children?
Figure 8.36 Cleveland Road, Hartlepool, and serious damage to private houses during the bombardment. People in other parts of the
country found it difficult to believe that the attack had really happened.
Figure 8.37 Some of the 200 casualties caused by the German naval bombardment of Hartlepool, England, on 16 December 1914.
In the Dixon family, three children (Albert, aged 7; Margaret, aged 8; George, aged 14 years) were killed, two were wounded (including
Joseph, aged 12) by shrapnel, two escaped injury, and their mother had a leg blown off.
BRITAIN: ECONOMIC CHANGES

Despite Britains initial wartime slogan of Business as Usual, it was no longer the industrial
giant it appeared to be. In reality both Germany and the United States had outproduced Britain
in many important areas. The British explosives and munitions industry also lagged seriously
behind that of Germany in 1914. The British government normally relied on a few old firms to
meet the countrys armaments needs. These proved to be grossly inadequate, as the scandal of
the shell shortage of 1915 revealed.
One of Britains major successes on the home front, therefore, was in creating an
industrial complex capable of supplying an army of millions and meeting the needs of war.
This did not come easily. It was a piecemeal change that developed by stages in response to
specific problems.
The extension of government powers came with the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) in
August 1914, which gave the government extraordinary powers over the lives of its citizens.
People could be arrested without a warrant, and workers could be directed into specific
jobs. Under the Act public houses were forced to close during the afternoons, and beer and
spirits were watered down to reduce drunkenness, which was seen as a hindrance to war
production. In 1916 the clocks were altered in summer time to allow more working hours in
daylight. Flying kites, buying binoculars, feeding bread to animals and the ringing of church
bells were all forbidden.
DID YOU KNOW?

Because the fuses in British
shells manufactured by the
Vickers company in England
were actually made under
licence from the Krupp
company in Germany, Vickers
was legally obliged to pay
Krupp a fee for each of its
shells fired at the Germans!
The more shells Vickers
produced, the greater the
profit for the Germans!
Payment was delayed until
after the war, when the head
of Krupp estimated that the
British firm owed him
60 marks for every dead
German soldier.
A flood of major administrative and legislative changes followed, which transformed

Britains economy from one dominated by the principles of free trade and the free market
to one dominated by government controls and planning. Step by step, the governments of Herbert
Asquith and David Lloyd George used the provisions of DORA to increase the part played by
government in almost all sectors of community life. Extensions of government powers included the
creation of the manpower board in 1915, the Munitions of War Act of 1915 and the creation of the
Ministry of Labour in 1916.
All extended direct government control over wages, hours and working conditions, as well as over
the nature and volume of production.
Although the government made arrangements to purchase the entire Australian and New Zealand
meat export, there were food shortages that led to long queues and the issuing of ration books. The
Ministry of Food was created in 1916, and by 1917, at the height of the shortages, meatless days were
imposed and people were urged to turn any spare land over to food production. Rationing of meat,
sugar, butter and eggs occurred in 1918 and prices rose so that between July 1914 and June 1918 the
cost of living for an unskilled workers family rose by 81 per cent.
At the same time the prime minister and the war cabinet, especially under Lloyd George, gained
more executive power at the expense of parliament. The war demanded clear and often quick
decisions, and this made long debates in parliament a luxury that Britain had to limit.
1 Why wasnt Britain as well prepared for war as it appeared?
2 What was DORA? What was its purpose?
3 Assess the list of activities prohibited by DORA. Can you suggest why each
one was forbidden?
4 How did the war affect politics in Britain?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: A CART OON IST S V IEW O F THE WARS EFF EC TS
Figure 8.38 A cartoon from 1917
Refer to Figure 8.38.
1 To what class does the Brown family belong?
How do you know this?
2 Write a description of each frame of the
cartoon, pointing out what has changed.
3 From your own knowledge of the war, how

can you explain these changes?
4 How does the familys attitude towards the
war change over time?
5 Draw a picture, or write an explanation,
of the last frame of Christmas 1918.
How would it differ?
GERMANY: ECONOMIC CHANGES

Germany needed the war that broke out in August 1914 to be a short one. Although by comparison with
Britain, Germany had a large, well-trained army from conscription and an efficient industrial complex, it
was badly exposed over imports. In 1914 one-third of Germanys food came from overseas. Food became
a critical issue for the German home front within six months of the outbreak of war. Surprisingly, in the
initial euphoria that greeted the commencement of hostilities in 1914, little was done at first to confront a
problem that, due to the efficiency of the Royal Navys blockade of German trade, proved disastrous.
A steadfast belief in the idea of a brief war in 1914 meant that there was little initial economic
planning in Germany. One man who recognised the dangers of this lack of planning and coordination
was Walter Rathenau. It is to Rathenau perhaps more than any other individual that Germany owed its
ability to wage war after 1915. Rathenau understood Germanys need for a coordinated program to
ensure a supply of vital food and raw materials, which was done largely through a raw materials board
or KRA. A three-part plan was adopted to maintain supply:
Regulation This was done by rationing and control of production. In addition, a central purchasing
agency was set up in Berlin to buy whatever grain they could from other countries. Bread was rationed
from January 1915, as were fat, sugar, meat and potatoes soon after. Ultimately, many of these items
disappeared completely.
Synthetic manufacture Natural or imported products were replaced by products that had been
created by other means. The best example of this was the production of synthetic nitrates (for use in
the manufacture of explosives) that solved the problem of importing natural nitrates from Chile.
Substitutes These were the famous ersatz products of the German home front. This principle was
normally applied to food, for example, ersatz coffee was made from roasted barley, rye, chicory and figs;
and ersatz bread, the K bread or Kriegsbrot (war bread) went through various stages. At times, potatoes,
turnips and rye were included in the mix. By 1918 bread contained large amounts of sawdust and chalk.
The KRA was only one aspect of Germanys Kriegswirtschaft (war economy). The Kriegsernahrungsamt
was the agency charged with feeding the nation and controlling rationing and prices. All these
organisations and regulations meant that Germany had an economy that closely resembled a socialist
state. This impression is further reinforced when Germanys labour regulations are considered. From
December 1916 the Auxiliary Service Law controlled the bulk of Germanys industrial labour force. This
made every male between seventeen and sixty not in the army subject to a kind of labour conscription.
Despite all efforts, production continued to drop and shortages
increased: for example, between 1913 and 1917 agricultural production
dropped by 50 to 70 per cent and industrial production fell by between
30 to 40 per cent as a result of a combination of factors. The limited
supplies of nitrates had to be used for munitions; therefore they werent
available for fertiliser, and crop yields dropped. Horses were needed for
army transport, so fewer were available for farm work such as ploughing.
The years 1916 to 1917 had bad seasons and poor harvests. Severe frosts
destroyed much of the potato crop, and turnips became a standard part
of the German diet as a substitute. This was the infamous turnip winter.
Even though those workers in industry and doing heavy labour received
extra rations, the lowered vitality and morale of the labour force made it
difficult to maintain production. By 1917 the official ration was only half
the normal individual calorie requirement. Opposition to the war grew
in the face of these privations.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 Explain the following terms:
KRA, ersatz products, Kriegsbrot,
Kriegswirtschaft, and turnip winter.
2 From an economic point of view, why
did the Germans need a short war?
3 How significant was the contribution
of Walter Rathenau to the German
war effort?
4 What evidence is there of economic
collapse as the war continued?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: SH ORTAGES AND D IS RUP TI O N O N THE HO ME F RO N T

100
Potatoes
90
Sugar
80
70
60
50
Cereals
40
30
Butter
Vegetable fats
Cheese
Eggs
Meat
Lard & vegetables
Fish
Food rations as a
percentage of the
prewar consumption
July to December 1918
20
10
0
Figure 8.39 The decline in food rations in Germany
100
90
80
Index of industrial production

1913=100
772
7396
531
6302
241
Source 8.23
At no time during the First World War was there any
widespread privation in Britain, and what might justly be
called shortages were only really apparent in 1917, when
scarcity of sugar, potatoes, margarine (butter was often
quite unobtainable) and coal brought a new phenomenon
on the civic scene, the queue.
A. Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First
World War, 1967, pp. 2056.
Source 8.24
This notice was prominently displayed on public transport, in
shops, restaurants and other public places.
GERMANY IS STANDING AGAINST A WORLD OF ENEMIES
WHO WOULD DESTROY HER!
I. We have enough breadstus in the country to nourish our
population until the next harvest, but nothing must
be wasted.
II. Breadstus must not be used as fodder.
VI. Do not despise even a single piece of bread because it is
no longer fresh.
VII. Do not cut o a slice more than you need to eat. Think
always of our soldiers in the field who, often in some far-o,
exposed position, would rejoice to have the bread which
you waste.
VIII. Eat war bread. It is recognisable by the letter K. It
satisfies and nourishes as thoroughly as any other kind
IX. Whoever first peels potatoes before cooking them
wastes much. Therefore, cook potatoes with the jackets on.
X. Leavings of potatoes, meat, vegetables, etc., which you
can not use, do not throw away, but collect them as fodder
for cattle.
H. W. Wilson, The Great War, Vol. 4.
1094
Strikes
Factories affected
1 304 236
5 217 982
925 120
3 766 456
379 116
1 451 526
Strikers
STRIKES
Economic
Working days lost

Political
Figure 8.40 Germany 1918: economic collapse
Total
Figure 8.41 Berliners crowd around a mobile soup kitchen for a

cheap mealHot dinners, 35 pfennigs a portion!

1 Compare Sources 8.23 and 8.24. In what ways does the experience of Germany
appear to differ from that of Britain?
2 What does Figure 8.40 indicate about the morale of the German workforce?
3 How do these sources and figures assist the historian in understanding the eventual
outcome of the war?
RECRUITMENT AND CONSCRIPTION

The outbreak of war was generally greeted with
enthusiasm in 1914. Germany had in place a coordinated
program of calling up reservists. The German army had
behind it a one hundred-year background of conscription
and reserve training, and service involving men from

seventeen to forty-five. Therefore, at the start of hostilities,
reservists and new conscripts were quickly added to the
German army.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: RECRU IT M ENT POS TERS
Figure 8.42 A 1914 recruitment poster featuring Lord Kitchener

(Imperial War Museum Negative Number Q48378A)
Figure 8.43 A 1915 recruitment poster (Imperial War Museum

Negative Number Q46428)

1 Describe the methods used in each poster to persuade men to enlist.
2 How useful and reliable are these posters for a historian studying the home front in
Britain at the beginning of the war?
In Britain the situation was different. For the British, after

their small professional volunteer army, the BEF, sailed to
France, they only had the Territorials left. The Territorials were
Britains reservists, the part-time soldiers. Like the BEF they
were also volunteers.
In August 1914 Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state
for war declared at a cabinet meeting, There is no Army.
Kitchener pointed out that the size of the existing force was
totally inadequate to fight a major continental war. His sense
of urgency was clearly reflected in his call for more men.
Calls for volunteers went out in the newspapers,
rallies and speeches, on the factory floor, in universities,
gentlemens clubs and from the pulpits of churches. The

British parliament passed a bill to recruit at least another
500 000 men. Newspapers of the day described the rush to
volunteer, and historians have since labelled it the August
madness. Those who volunteered appear to have been
prompted by a range of emotions. Reasons expressed in
public and real reasons for joining up were not always
the same. For example, some local magistrates in Britain in
1915 made it clear to young men appearing before them
that time in jail could only be avoided by a visit to the local
recruiting office.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: REASONS F OR EN LI S TIN G

Source 8.26
Source 8.28
I think it was excitement more than anything else that made

me join up. I was too young to understand what patriotism
really was. I lived in the country and there were not many
boys my age, so I thought it would be nice to be with a lot of
lads on something of a picnic, because we all thought the
war would be over by Christmas. When I told the manager
[where he worked] he said Well, itll be a nice six month
holiday for you, yes, you join up.
I never, ever, thought I would go into the army, it never

entered my head, but doing my duty was automatic. Now
England was in a dire strait and I simply had to play the
part of a soldier I felt we had to fight Germany or they
would take over our country and dictate English law I did
not want to join up, no, I think I can definitely say that, but I
was of age so I had to, full stop.
Robert Burns, cited in R. van Emden & S. Humphries,

Veterans, 1998, p. 17.
Source 8.27
We thought it would be a novelty, you know, none of us
had ever been out of England. To see another country, we
thought that was a great thing. We were raw country lads
whod never seen nowt you had the impression youd
grown up from being a lad to a man. We were patriotic. It
had been driven into us a bit that Germany wanted England,
thats all we knew. We were young, strong lads, and thought
we should go and help the old soldiers out.
Guy Botwright, cited in R. van Emden & S. Humphries,

Veterans, 1998, pp. 267.

1 List the variety of reasons given for enlisting.
2 For each writer, choose one word that best
describes his major reason for enlisting.
3 What do these sources indicate about the level
of knowledge of many would-be recruits?
4 Is there any evidence that these young men had
been influenced by propaganda?
George Littlefair, cited in R. van Emden & S. Humphries,

Veterans, 1998, pp. 1819.
In Britain the medical standards for volunteers in 1914 were far higher than the guidelines
applied later in the war. The British minimum height requirement was originally 5 feet 3 inches (157
centimetres) but by March 1915 this had been relaxed to 5 feet (150 centimetres). Some shorter
volunteers who joined the army in 1915 were part of what was known as the Bantam Division.
Observers suggested that their lack of height was in fact an advantage, because it was easier for them
to stay under cover in the trenches.
CONSCRIPTION IN GERMANY
One of Germanys advantages in 1914 was the quality and readiness of its conscript army. Every man in
Germany between the ages of seventeen and forty-five was liable for military service.
Conscription did give Germany a large, well-trained professional army from the outbreak of the war.
However, in the end, a lack of manpower at the front and reduced supplies of skilled labour, both male
and female, on the home front cost Germany dearly.
CONSCRIPTION IN BRITAIN
Before 1914, military conscription was held to be against the traditions of Britain, where individual
freedom of choice was valued. When the war broke out, Lord Northcliffes Daily Mail began an
enthusiastic pro-conscription campaign, but the government believed that such a move would
threaten national unity.
The Derby scheme

Lord Derby had been the inspiration behind the idea of the Pals battalions. This scheme
encouraged men from the same town, football club, or factory to enlist with their pals (mates) so
that they would fight togetherunfortunately, as was realised after the Somme in 1916, it also meant
that whole towns were devastated when the pals died together. In 1915 Lord Derby was invited to
prepare a scheme to deal with the shortfall in volunteers. The resultant Derby scheme of November
1915 relied on persuasion to pressure men into attesting, that is to undertake to serve if and when
called upon to do so. The scheme carried the pledge that no married men were to be considered
until unmarried men were no longer available. Every man was to attest, but there were provisions
for exemptions, which ranged from being a skilled worker in a munitions factory to being the sole
supporter of a widowed mother. To judge applications for exemptions, local tribunals were set up
around the country.
The Universal Conscription Bill

It soon became clear that the Derby scheme would not produce enough men willing to attest.
Consequently, Prime Minister Asquith introduced a Military Service Bill in January 1916 that effectively
conscripted all single men. Even this was soon seen to be inadequate, and in May 1916 a new Universal
Conscription Bill affecting married and single men was introduced. Though there was opposition to the
whole concept of conscription in certain quarters, the general public tended to accept the measure
as a hard necessity; at least it imposed an equality of sacrifice, the lack of which had drawn public
complaint previously.
Conscientious objectors
Known as conchies or Cuthberts, these people opposed the war and conscription for political, moral
or religious reasons. They were required to appear before their local tribunal, which would consider
their conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service. The tribunals, composed
almost exclusively of local bigwigs, were generally unsympathetic to the claimants. While there was
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E PRI M E M I NIS TERS VI EW O N ABS O LUTIS TS

Source 8.29
DO C UME NT ST UD Y QUEST IONS
I do not think they deserve the

slightest consideration. With
regard to those who object to
the shedding of blood it is the
traditional policy of this country to
respect that view, and we do not
propose to depart from it: but in
the other case I shall consider the
best means of making the lot of
that class a very hard one.
1 How did Lloyd George distinguish between different types of

conscientious objection?
Lloyd George,
House of Commons Debates,
26 July 1916.
6 A favourite question posed by the tribunals was: What would you

do if a German soldier broke into your home and was about to rape
your wife or mother? Why was this a clever question?
2 Choose a word or short phrase to describe Lloyd Georges view of

the absolutists.
3 Can you suggest reasons why he should have such a view?
4 What information in the text supports the view expressed in
the source?
5 What is your view of conscientious objection during wartime?
some understanding for those who were unwilling to fight, but were willing to do an alternative form
of war work, such as driving an ambulance or serving in another non-combatant form, there was little
understanding or sympathy for the absolutistthe man who declared he could play no part at all in
the war effort.
In Britain during the war there were about 16 000 conscientious objectors. About 3300 agreed to
serve in non-combatant roles; rather less than 3000 undertook ambulance work or other work designated
for them by the government to aid the war effort; rather more than 6000 went to prison at least once.
Approximately 1300 absolutists suffered the round of arrest, court martial, imprisonment, release, arrest,
court martial, imprisonment and so on. About seventy men died because of their prison treatment.
1 What was a Pals battalion?
2 Explain the three bills that led to conscription in Britain, distinguishing between each
(that is the Derby Scheme, the Military Service Bill, and the Universal Conscription Bill).
3 Explain the following terms: conchie; absolutist; and tribunal.
4 What various fates could happen to a conscientious objector?
PROPAGANDA AND CENSORSHIP

Propaganda is an attempt to spread or encourage a particular idea or ideas. Though it can be a
collection of lies, the best propaganda relies upon a seed of truth, even though it may be necessary to
exaggerate or distort that truth.
BRITISH PROPAGANDA
Propaganda proved to be one area of the war where Britain and her allies gained an early advantage
over Germany, and never really lost it. The apparently ruthless behaviour of the German armies
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s POSTERS
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Figure 8.44 Propaganda
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: RECRU ITI NG P ROPAG AN DA
Figure 8.45 A spontaneous picture of men enlisting? (Imperial War Museum Negative Number Q30072)
1 Figure 8.45 does not show a mass of men enlisting, so what is its propaganda purpose?
(Clue: look at the clothing.)
2 What suggests that the photo has been posed?
in Belgium and the use of U-boats meant that British

propagandists had a wealth of material to draw on to picture
Germans as inhuman, or as bullies and aggressors. British
propaganda, both written and pictorial, employed a variety
of techniques.
The war as a moral crusade

Germany and the Kaiser represented all that was evil.
A single article in the Daily Mail from 22 September 1914
described the Kaiser as a lunatic, a monster and a
criminal. He was also compared unfavourably with Judas.
Rudyard Kipling, a beloved writer and poet of the Empire,
was more direct. He wrote that the events of 1914 had
split the world into two divisions: human beings
and Germans.
The atrocity story

This was a popular way to arouse enthusiasm for the cause
and a passionate hatred of the Germans. The execution of
British nurse Edith Cavell by German troops in Belgium on
12 October 1915 was constantly trumpeted as a murderous
act and a crime against humanity. The fact that Nurse Cavell
was an active member of a Belgian resistance group helping
Allied soldiers and that the French had previously executed
people for similar offences didnt matter.
The other great British story of atrocity was the sinking of
the Lusitania (see p. 176). The British used this to fan strong
anti-German feelings, especially in the United States.
Figure 8.46 A French poster, after the execution of Nurse Edith

Cavell in Brussels on 12 October 1915
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: A FA B RICAT ED STO RY O F ATRO C ITY F RO M A BRIT IS H N EWSPAP E R*

Source 8.30
News has reached Dumfries of the shocking death of a Dumfries young
woman, Nurse Grace Hulme, who went to Belgium on the outbreak of the
war. Nurse Hulme was engaged at the camp hospital at Vilvorde, and she
was the victim of horrible cruelty at the hands of German soldiers. Her
breasts were cut o and she died in great agony. Nurse Hulmes family
received a note written before she died. It was dated September 6th
and ran:
Dear Kate this is to say goodbye. Have not long to live. Hospital has been
set on fire. Germans cruel. A man here had his head cut o. My right
breast has been taken away. Give my love to Goodbye. Grace.

1 What are the newspapers motives
for publishing this story?
2 What generalisations can be
reasonably made about the
audience for this article?
3 How useful and reliable is this
report for a historian studying the
early stages of the war?
The Star, 16 September 1914.

*There were other stories designed to remind the public of the evil they were fighting. For example,
on 16 April 1917 the Times newspaper featured a headline: German Corpse Factory. The article
following made the unsupported claim that the Germans had built factories just behind their lines
to boil down the bodies of the dead to distil fats for the glycerine used in munitions.
Posters and cartoons
DID YOU KNOW?
Posters and cartoons were a common propaganda device. The messages reinforced positive
feelings about your own side and negative images of the enemy.
Just before Nurse Cavell was

to be executed, she asked for
some large pins. When these
were brought she pinned the
hem of her dress tightly as
she was afraid that it would
fly up immodestly when she
was shot. She was killed, but
her modesty was preserved!
Much of the British propaganda was produced voluntarily by patriotic and eager
publishers. However, the British began to organise and control their propaganda flow
through agencies like the War Propaganda Bureau.
Censorship was indistinguishable from propaganda and was designed to minimise
bad news or keep it from the public entirely. In April 1915 a Directorate of Special
Intelligence (DSI) was set up to coordinate all censorship and intelligence activities.
Censorship of mail offered excellent opportunities for finding suitable themes on which
propaganda might be based.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: P ROPAGANDAA C O M PET ITI O N F RO M A C HI LDREN S C O MIC
Figure 8.47
Comic competition, from Sparks, 13 February 1915
1 What is the story of how Private McPherson won the VC?
2 What lessons does this teach the young reader?
In the trenches, soldiers were forbidden to keep diaries, a

regulation that was bypassed by writing on scraps of paper
or keeping notes illicitly. It may seem surprising that there
are so many war memoirs, but it should be remembered
that nearly all letters were censored by a soldiers own
officers, and they often were not especially rigorous. There
was also the green envelope system: these envelopes were
liable to censorship at the base, but only a small proportion
was opened. The system was based on trust, which enabled
writers to record details of a more intimate nature that they
did not wish their immediate superiors to see.
GERMAN PROPAGANDA
There is a dispute among historians concerning the nature
and quality of German propaganda. One group argues that
there appears to be little real difference between the aims
and techniques of British and German propaganda. They
point to posters of the female form of Germanica standing
against her enemies, and compare this with British images
of Britannia. Another group suggests that there were real
differences and that it had to do with the coordination of
propaganda and its effectiveness both on the home front
and overseas. They argue that in each of these areas British
propaganda was superior.
Compared to the British propaganda effort, German
propaganda did lack coordination. It was largely undertaken
by a number of private groups. Circulation both of
newspapers and of magazines rose in Germany during the

war, with people eager for news; however, there appears
to have been a discernible and growing lack of public
confidence in these publications. The military was clearly
unhappy with the domestic propaganda effort and set up
their own news source, the Kriegsnachrichten (German War
News).
A further indication of the difference in the outcomes
of British and German propaganda was the bid to influence
public opinion overseas, especially in the United States.
Germany spent approximately US$100 million on a
propaganda campaign aimed at the American public. The
money was spread across a number of pro-German groups
throughout the USA. By contrast a more efficient, centralised
campaign was coordinated by Sir Gilbert Parker for the
British. The fact that the Germans didnt have anything
to compare to the British War Propaganda Bureau or the
centrally focused campaigns that originated from Wellington
House in London during the war ensured British leadership
in propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion.
Nevertheless, there was an evident similarity in the
style of British and German propaganda. Like the British,
the Germans sought to justify the war. Encirclement of
Germany was a constant feature of published stories, as was
the suggestion that the war was somehow a plot by rivals
to suppress German Kultur and deny Germany her true and
deserved position of greatness. As with Allied propaganda,
Figure 8.48 A German propaganda poster featuring Germanica and reading God punish England
the Germans did not hesitate to use and embellish the

story of atrocity: one report in a Berlin paper claimed that
the Allies deliberately blinded German prisoners of war. The
headline was designed to be sensational: Ten-year-old boy
reports bucket full of eyes. The colonial troops fighting for
Britain and France also received attention. Charges were
made that Gurkhas and Indian Sikh troops drank the blood
of German soldiers.
Censorship and outright lies were well-established
aspects of German propaganda. Five critical examples of this
approach were as follows:
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REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 Why do many historians suggest that German
propaganda was not as good as British
propaganda?
2 Why is propaganda and censorship necessary
in wartime? Do you think its use is justified?
To what extent can it be counter-productive?
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THE ATTITUDE OF CIVILIANS TOWARDS THE WAR

In both Britain and Germany in 1914 the reaction of the civilian population was to support the war and
bury political differences. In Germany the socialists voted for war credits and the Kaiser responded with
the phrase I see no parties, only Germans. In Britain the leader of the Labour party, Ramsey Macdonald,
had to resign because he did not support the war while his party did.
CHANGING MOOD IN BRITAIN

In Britain, the turning point came with the battle of the Somme, with the enormous losses for so little
gain. People began to question the way the war was being fought. There was still a determination to
finish the job, but the early enthusiasm had evaporated.
Despite the change of government that brought the more energetic Lloyd George into power in
December 1916, criticism continued. In July 1917 Sassoons A soldiers declaration was read out in
parliament and published in the daily newspapers.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: SI EGFRIED SASSOON S A S O LDIERS DEC LARATIO N

Source 8.31
I believe that the war is being prolonged by those who have
the power to end it. I believe that this war upon which I
entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become
a war of conquest and aggression. I have seen and endured
the suerings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to
prolonging these suerings for ends which I believe to be
evil and unjust.
S. Sassoon, A soldiers declaration, cited in B. Walsh,
Modern World History, 1996, p. 54.

1 According to Sassoon, why was the war no
longer justifiable?
2 The government reacted by sending Sassoon
for psychiatric treatment. He returned to France
to fight in 1918, having withdrawn his criticism.
Does this mean that the declaration has no
value to historians?
Figure 8.49 Shortages on the home front in Britain. The well-dressed man seems to have got what he wanted,
but for others in the rationing queue food, like his margarine, had to be spread thinly.
The year 1917 involved a series of setbacks that affected the public mood. Bad news
from the front, the losses at sea, and some of the worst bombing raids of the war led the
Spectator to label the nation war-weary. Queueing for food became a national pastime
and the Times described scenes of women with babies having to queue from 5 a.m. on a
Saturday morning to obtain margarine. Ordinary people were naturally angry at the stories
of war profiteers who made fortunes out of the trade in war goods.
Attitudes in 1918
A soldier returning from the front commented: England was beastly in 1918 envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, fear and cruelty born of fear, seemed the dominant
passions Only in the trenches (on both sides) were chivalry and sweet reasonableness to
be found. (History of the First World War, 1969, p. 2776.)
DID YOU KNOW?

Plans to counter the menace
of the German U-boats
included training seagulls
to defecate on the lenses
of submarine periscopes to
blind the enemy, and training
seals to bark whenever they
heard a U-boats engines. No
successes were reported.
The victory, when it came, was something of a surprise. Only at the end of August had the
newspapers begun to speak of the flowing tide of success, and when the armistice came there was an
outpouring of joy and relief.
CHANGING MOOD IN GERMANY

The political unity with which Germany had entered the war began to crack in 1917. The masses were
affected by the turnip winter of 1916 to 1917, and the political left was inspired by the events in Russia
in March 1917. Led by the Social Democrats, the parties of the left argued that if political reforms were
not forthcoming, the government could not count on the continuing support of the working classes
for the war effort. If the people could not have bread, they demanded political rights. The position of
the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the main party of the left, was challenged in April 1917 when the
breakaway Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) was formed. The split was essentially over
attitudes to the war, the USPD being firmly opposed to its continuation.
The growth of the peace movement

Growing hardship and disillusion with the war led to
demands for peace. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg,
as leaders of the far-left Spartacus group, were outspoken
in their opposition to the war, and broader support was
shown in a peace demonstration in Berlin in December
1915. Bethmann-Hollweg raised the peace issue informally
in December 1916, but his suggestions were dismissed
by the Allies as empty and insincere. On 19 July 1917 the
Peace Resolution was passed in the Reichstag by 212 votes
to 120 votes. The resolution was dismissed by Chancellor
Michaelis and the Kaiser, and an attempt to gain support for
the resolution in the British parliament was defeated by 148
votes to 19these figures indicated that most British MPs
didnt even turn up for the vote.
Strikes continued to occur across the country in
1917 and even spread to the fleet, where hunger strikes
developed into an anti-war movement supported by several
thousand men. This was suppressed by the government
with arrests and executions of the ringleaders.
At the end of January 1918 there was a week-long antiwar strike that involved about one million people across the
nation. Increasingly, the effects of the British blockade and
the news from the front led to greater disenchantment both

with the Kaiser, the government, and the war as a whole. By
October 1918 Germany was on the fringe of revolution and
the abdication of the Kaiser seemed inevitable.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 The attitude of soldiers and civilians towards the
war seemed to have been the same in 1914, but
by 1918 it was different. To what extent do you
agree with this statement? How can you explain
the change?
2 There was greater disenchantment with the war
in Germany than in Britain. What evidence is
there for this statement?
REVIEW TASK
Construct a diary of the home front, from a
German or a British point of view, to show an
individuals experiences from 1914 to 1918. The
diary should reflect the changing mood towards
the war. Refer to previous sections of this
chapter to help you.
THE IMPACT OF THE WAR ON WOMEN IN BRITAIN

Women played a major part in almost all non-combatant
fields of the war effort.
WOMEN ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Lyn Macdonalds book The Roses of No Mans Land gives a
graphic account of the contribution made by British women as
doctors and nurses in military hospitals and casualty clearing
stations in France. She records how women came under
artillery fire and risked their lives to aid and comfort all who
were in their care. They worked in battlefield operating theatres
where conditions were primitive by present-day standards
and amputations were the most common operation. Diaries
mention nurses moving from one operating table to the next,
collecting an arm here and a leg there and placing them in a
barrel already full.
In Britain women gradually became a key part of the
industrial labour force, but there was an initial reluctance to
put them in uniform. When doctor Elsie Inglis offered her
medical services in 1914, she was told: My good lady, go
home and sit still. Doctor Inglis later led a medical team to
Serbia in 1915. Eventually, the pressure of war forced the
British government to alter its policy and a Voluntary Aid
Detachment (VAD) was established. As the war progressed,
women moved closer to the war zone as doctors, nurses and
ambulance drivers. In July 1917 the Womens Army Auxiliary
Corps (WAAC) was formed, enlisting 41 000 women and
sending 17 000 overseas. This was followed by the Womens
Royal Naval Service (WRENS) and the Womens Royal Air
Force (WRAF).
WOMEN ON THE HOME FRONT

The Great War brought tragedy and suffering into the lives
of tens of thousands of British women who lost their men
to the war. Women coped in different ways. One woman
placed an advertisement in the personal column of the
Times newspaper, one year into the war: Lady, fianc killed,
will gladly marry officer totally blinded or incapacitated by
the war (T. Wilson 1986).
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: A W OM AN S WORK
Figure 8.50 Women war workers loading wheelbarrows from a

limestone stockpile and wheeling the limestone to be loaded on
to railway trucks (Donor: British Official Photograph BB575/AWM/
H07734)
Figure 8.51 A group of women who volunteered their services

as ambulance drivers pose around a Buick ambulance
(AWM/H08740)
Figure 8.52 Women war workers loading a truck with coal at

a gas works (Donor: British Official Photograph BB314/AWM/
H08235)
Figure 8.53 Lancashire, England. Women war workers at an

asbestos factory making asbestos cylinders for smoke shells.
Note the absence of any protective clothing. The dangers
of asbestos were not known then. (Donor: British Official
Photograph BB604/AWM/H07763)
Refer to Figures 8.50 to 8.53.
1 In what ways would the work shown here be different from the pre-war concept of
womens work?
2 What dangers were involved in this work?
3 Why do you think women volunteered to undertake this sort of work?
4 How useful are these photographs to a historian investigating the contribution of
women to the war effort?
The war brought sweeping changes to the world of British women. It should be noted, however,
that the changes were not uniform. Some lives were changed radically, some slightly, others hardly at
all. It depended on the class, location, education, personality and luck of the woman in question.
In broad terms, the war liberated many women: it allowed them to enter areas of employment and
experience previously reserved for men. Between 1914 and 1918 an extra 1.6 million women entered
the British workforce: half went into manufacturing industries, notably munitions. Some historians overgeneralise and suggest that war work taught British women that they could cope with hard physical
labour. Such a claim might be true for some upper-class and middle-class women, but working-class
women knew a great deal about strenuous physical work. The change for them was not in how hard
the work was, but that it was often better paid.
In addition to manufacturing, women became involved in other sectors of the economy,
including transport, education, banking, finance and administration. The number of female doctors
increased, as did the number of policewomen: there had been six in 1914; by 1917 there were 650.
The toll on manpower of the war meant women were a key element in maintaining production on
the home front.
Women and the munitions industry

The most celebrated work undertaken by women was in the munitions industry, where they provided
a large part of the workforce. In July 1914 the munitions industry employed 212 000 women, rising to
819 000 within three years. Some worked in their home towns, but many had to move away from family
and friends and go to new areas, such as the specially built town of huts at Gretna, in Scotland, which
housed 9000 women and 3000 men. Shifts in the factories usually lasted for twelve hours,
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The women faced many dangers. The varnish used on aeroplane wings produced toxic fumes, and
it was common for women to be found lying ill or unconscious outside the workshops. Prolonged
exposure to TNT, an important ingredient in explosives, caused toxic jaundice, an illness that turned the
skin yellow, and gave affected women the nickname of canaries. Limbs would swell, and if the skin did
not break to allow the enclosed fluid to escape, the illness could be fatal. A total of 106 women died
in the period 191618 from the effects of working with TNT. Explosions were an ever-present danger.
The most serious accident occurred in January 1917 when the munitions factory at Silvertown in east
London blew up, causing widespread devastation. Two thousand people were made homeless, 69
killed and 450 injured. In Nottingham in July 1918 an explosion in a munitions factory killed 134 people.
Continuity and change

The work that women undertook during the war helped to convince men of the physical strength and
endurance of women, and of the sacrifices they were making for the war effort. Many women felt a
growth of self-confidence as a result of their work. On a personal level, living away from their families
gave many women a new sense of freedom, and the wages earned in the munitions factories and
other places of work were usually superior to what they formerly had earned in domestic service, the
main avenue for working women before the war.
Nonetheless, when the war ended there was a widespread feeling that women should give up
their jobs to returning servicemen and return to the home or traditional workplace. Many women
were reluctant to do this, having enjoyed the greater responsibility, higher pay, and greater freedom
that their wartime occupations provided. Two years after the war had ended there were fewer women
in work than there had been before the war. Among men, there was also the feeling that their jobs
needed protecting against women, who were usually prepared to work for lower wages. Although on
the work front, little appeared to have changed for women, politically there was a step forward.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: A W OM AN S PLAC E?

Source 8.25
Women have still not brought themselves
to realise that factory work, with the money
paid for it during the war, will not be
possible again. Women who left domestic
service to enter the factory are now
required to return to their pots and pans.
From the Southampton Times, 1919, cited
in B. Walsh, Modern World History, John
Murray, 1996, p. 56.

1 What appears to be the attitude of the writer towards the
work that women had done in the factories?
2 Which readers would agree with the sentiments expressed
by the newspaper?
3 Compose a letter to the newspaper either agreeing or
disagreeing with the statements made in the source.
Remember that a returning soldier or a female ex-munitions
worker might have very different views.
The vote
The clear contribution of women to the war effort convinced
most members of parliament, who were overwhelmingly
male, that women had earned a fuller place in society.
Previously, women in Britain had not been allowed to vote,
but in December 1917 a bill was passed to give the vote
to all women over thirty. In this way, the war had enabled
women to achieve a change which a long campaign before
the war had failed to do.
1 List the ways in which British women
aided the war effort.
2 What attitudes towards women were
shown by men in wartime?
3 Why did working-class women
welcome the extra opportunities for
employment?
4 What benefits did women gain from
their experiences of war work?
5 The war was a step forward for
women. Do you agree?
Figure 8.54 The front cover of the magazine of 26 November 1915
TURNING POINTS
ENTRY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The entry of the USA into the Great War was decisive. It is generally accepted that when the USA joined
the war against Germany, the Kaisers armies were doomed to defeat. The American declaration of war
came in April 1917. President Woodrow Wilsons decision to bring the USA into the war made hundreds
of thousands of fresh, eager troops available to the Allies, in addition to the seemingly limitless industrial
and economic resources of the USA. However, it should be

remembered that the American role in military terms was
potential rather than actual. In other words, American forces
were not a factor on the Western Front until 1918; therefore,
their actual contribution to the fighting was limited. American
potential, however, was a vital factor. From the date of US
entry, the German general staff, dominated by Ludendorff,
knew that they were on borrowed time. The desperate
Ludendorff offensive of 1918 was a direct response to the
potential of the USA. Ludendorff hoped to achieve a victory
before the full weight of its potential power became real. As
the USA mobilised more and more men and focused its home
front on the war, there could only be one result.
The decision to bring the USA into the war was a slow
and complex one. From 1914 most Americans saw the
conflict as a European problem; they saw no reason for their
boys to become involved. This feeling was reinforced by a
basic American isolationism, the opinion that they were
better off away from Europes problems. These sentiments
were reinforced by the significant German and Irish migrant
communities in the USA who saw no cause to fight Germany
or help the British Empire. Gradually, however, American
anti-war feeling changed enough to allow President Wilson

to declare war and win support for it from the US Congress.
This change in attitude was gradual. The suggestion that it
was simply triggered by a single event such as the sinking
of the British passenger liner the Lusitania in 1915, with
the loss of American lives, is a distortion of the truth. If the
Lusitanias sinking was the key event, why did it take the
USA so long to declare war? Remember that the Lusitania
went down in 1915; the USA didnt join the war until 1917.
The fact is that the USAs decision to enter the war was an
evolutionary change, and a key element in this slow and
gradual development was Allied propaganda. From 1914 the
Allies successfully presented Germany as the aggressor, as
the villain. The ruthless conduct of the Germans in crushing
Belgian resistance, the way the British and French reported
U-boat warfare and the way the British propagandists uses
the sinking of the Lusitania were all notable. This Allied
public relations exercise reached a peak in 1917 when the
British made available to the USA information contained
in the famous Zimmermann Telegram that Zimmermann,
Germanys foreign secretary, was actually encouraging
Mexico to attack the USA.
Figure 8.55 The Lusitania sailed from New York to Liverpool despite a published warning from the German authorities
that appeared in US newspapers the morning of her departure. On 7 May 1915, off the southern coast of Ireland she
was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Of the 1959 on board, 1195 died, including 123 Americans.
These Allied efforts were greatly aided by Germanys attitude to the USA. An example of this was
their early rejection of Wilsons offer to mediate a settlement and then the sinking of American ships as
part of Germanys unrestricted U-boat warfare.
THE RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL

When war was declared in 1914 it seemed that the conflict would save the threatened Romanov
dynasty, not destroy it. Volunteers hastened to join the army and Tsar Nicholas II blessed the troops
as they left for the front. Political differences were put aside as Russians joined to fight the common
enemy in defence of the homeland. After some initial successes, the pattern for the war on the Eastern
Front was soon set by the German victories at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and
September 1914.
Russia was inadequately prepared for modern warfare. Supplies of weapons, ammunition and
clothing for the troops proved hopelessly inadequate. Some soldiers fought barefoot while their
incompetent generals used out-of-date maps, and the wounded were left untended on railway
platforms for days. By the end of 1915 Russia had suffered 3.5 million casualties.
In the cities, food supplies dwindled and prices rose. There were 268 strikes in January and February
1917 alone. Increasing discontent with the war and the leadership led to the abdication of Tsar
Nicholas II in March 1917. Though the provisional government that replaced the Tsar attempted
to continue the war, the failure of its last major offensive in July strengthened the calls of anti-war
revolutionaries within Russia, led by Lenins Bolsheviks. With little direction from the government and
increasing rates of troop desertion at the front the war on the Eastern Front effectively ended as a
contest in 1917. When the Bolsheviks took power in November 1917 the formal ending of the war was
only a matter of time and negotiation. Russian and German delegates signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
on 3 March 1918. The Germans imposed severe terms. In return for peace, Russia lost Poland, the Baltic
provinces of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, and the Ukraine. Russia was required to pay a war indemnity
of 6000 million marks. The overall effect of the terms was that Russia lost 30 per cent of its population
(62 million people), 32 per cent of its agricultural land, 85 per cent of its beet-sugar land, 54 per cent
of its industrial undertakings and 89 per cent of its coal mines.
THE LUDENDORFF OFFENSIVE (OPERATION MICHAEL) AND THE

ALLIED RESPONSE 1918
Russias withdrawal from the war in November 1917 freed fifty-two German divisions for transfer to the
Western Front. These reinforcements, as well as a desire to finish the war before the Americans arrived,
led General Ludendorff to launch his offensive on 21 March at several points along the Allied line.
A second major attack was made on 9 April, directed against the Channel ports.
The key to the Ludendorff offensive was an initial attack, code named Michael, that aimed to
smash through the Allied lines in northern France. The last great German offensive of the war began
on 21 March 1918 when forty-seven German divisions attacked twenty-eight British divisions. The
British and then the French were forced into retreat. The Germans gained more ground than at any
other time since 1914. There were 300 000 British casualties in the four weeks after 21 March; they also
lost 600 guns on the first day and were forced back 65 kilometres in a week.
The German success was due to several factors:
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For a while German success seemed inevitable, and their
armies got within shelling range of Paris. On 11 April, in his
Order of the Day, Haig decreed that every position should be
defended to the last man, with no thought of retirement. The
near collapse of the Allied armies led to the appointment of a
supreme commander with authority over all Allied armies at
the end of March, the French Marshal Foch.
The German advance halted on the Marne. On 18 July
Foch launched a counter-attack that sent the Germans into
full retreat. It was their first major setback of 1918.
Figure 8.57 Hindenberg (left) and Ludendorff (right), the effective

rulers of Germany from 1916 to 1918, seen here in May 1918
(AWM/H12354)
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 Why did the USA enter the war?
2 What factors encouraged Ludendorff to launch
an offensive early in 1918?
3 Who was appointed as overall commander of
the Allied forces, and when?
4 Why was the second battle of the Marne (the
first had been in 1914) a significant event in the
story of the Ludendorff offensive?
5 Explain why each of the following may be
considered a turning point in the war. Rank
them according to their significance, explaining
your reasons.
Figure 8.58 Joffre (left) and Haig (centre) leaving their Somme
headquarters in 1916. The Ludendorff offensive resulted in them
handing supreme command to Marshal Foch (right). (AWM/H08416)
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ALLIED VICTORY
EVENTS LEADING TO THE ARMISTICE, 1918
Before considering the major events of the final period of the war it should be realised that the closing
months have often been underrated or glossed over by generations of historians and popular myth. For
years there has been a tendency in writings, particularly in Britain and Australia, to dwell on the images
of 1916static trench warfare and the horrors of attrition typified by the Somme.
This may be the correct picture for the middle years of the war, but the year of 1918the year of
Allied victorypresents a different picture. After the launch of the Ludendorff offensive in March it
becomes a war of movement. With the passage of time and the experiences learned it becomes, for
the Allies at least, a time of technological success. After a long and bloody apprenticeship there is finally
evidence that the generals are coming to terms with the conditions and requirements of modern warfare.
Winston Churchill wrote in the 1920s that the victories of the British and Dominion troops in 1918
will excite the wonder of future generations. They didnt! They became more or less forgotten as British
and Australian memory wallowed in the misery of the Somme. Because of the emphasis on the middle
years it is often not realised that the closing months of 1918 provide some of the most intense fighting
on the Western Front, as the following figures show.
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) daily casualty rates on the Western Front
Battle
Year
Duration
Casualties
Rate/day
Arras
1917
39 days
159 000
4 076
Final offensive
1918
96 days
350 000
3 645
Somme
1916
141 days
415 000
2 943
Passchendaele
1917
185 days
244 000
2 323
The changing techniques of warfare and, through them, some of the reasons for Allied victory, can
be seen in an examination of three major battles leading to the armistice.
The Battle of Hamel, 4 July 1918

This battle was planned by the Australian general John Monash. Les Carlyon, in his book The Great War
(2006) lists Monash, and his Canadian counterpart, General Arthur Currie, as two of the best generals on
the Western Front. They were a new breed who planned meticulously and incorporated the technology
available to them. The planning for Hamel was a world away from those futile battles of former years:
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The battle was largely fought by Australians, but also included 1000 American troops. Monash
timed the battle to last 90 minutes. It lasted 93. The battle of Hamel shows some of the reasons why the
Allies were to win the war.
They had developed an overwhelming industrial supply of weaponry. Artillery, and the constant
supply of it, was a key factor for victory on the western front. The British war economy, now increasingly
aided by the Americans, could supply it: the German war economy could not.
Figure 8.59
The box-like German A7V tank
was inferior to the British and
French tanks. The Germans
preferred, if possible, to capture
Allied tanks and rebrand them
as their own.
The innovative technology of the tank was now being properly exploited. The tank had begun poorly
in 1916 and was not without its faults in 1918, but it was a weapon worth having and the Allies had over
4000 of them. The Germans never realised the potential of the tank and built about thirty of their own
large machines, with a crew of about eighteen, that were both cumbersome and of little use.
Better tactical thinking in the preparation of battles now meant that armies were unlikely to be
bogged down into attrition situations as in previous years.
By the summer of 1918 the Americans were arrivingfresh, enthusiastic, well equipped and in
numbers. The Germans could not match this. On 29 September their ally Bulgaria asked for an armistice
(news which caused Ludendorff, his nerves stretched to the limit, to foam at the mouth and collapse
in a fit). By the first week in November AustriaHungary and Turkey had gone too. Germany was alone,
and fifteen-year-olds were being sent to the front.
The Battle of Amiens, 811 August 1918

Once again, a coordinated attack with artillery, tanks and aircraft pushed the Germans back. The
Australians, this time with the Canadians, were largely responsible for the main thrust. Although the
battle went well for the Allies at first, after four days the advance slowed, and casualties began to
mount. Instead of going into attrition mode, as in previous years, General Haig called a halt.
When we look for the reasons for Allied victory, the significance of Amiens is twofold. Ludendorff
famously referred to 8 August as the Black Day for the German army. On 11 August he told the Kaiser
that the balance had finally come to rest on the side of the Entente and the war must be ended.
He offered his resignation, which was refused.
This is the battle which first clearly showed the extent to which the morale of the German army
had collapsed. There are tales of fifty to sixty Germans surrendering to one Allied soldier. Around 30 000
prisoners were taken at Amiens. There had been tactical reverses before, and Germany had lost ground
before, but never before had the Germans surrendered to the Allies in such high numbers. It was in this
sense that the Battle of Amiens signalled the beginning of the end for Germany.
It must not be inferred from this that German resistance evaporated from this point. There was
much fierce fighting to come. But the deeds of the resisters cannot hide the fact that desertion and
surrender became endemic in the German army. Cases of men not returning from home leave or
deserting from rest areas were frequent. In Brussels, the numbers of deserting German soldiers living in
groups in attics and cellars had assumed such proportions that by the late summer of 1918 (August
September) the German military police had given up their raids to capture them.
Heinrich Bruning, then an infantry lieutenant, and later a chancellor of Germany, wrote of his
surprise when towards the end of the war he found that desertion was not an isolated occurrence, but
a mass phenomenon.
During the last months of the war it is estimated that between 750 000 to one million German
soldiers avoided battle by surrendering, disappearing, or feigning light injury or sickness. The German
historian Wilhelm Deist has spoken of this as a covert [hidden] military strike.
The capture of the Hindenburg Line (end of September to early October)

The Hindenburg Line was a formidable, many layered construction of barbed wire, trenches, tunnels
and concrete fortifications that the Germans had completed in early 1917. But it was not to be the
defensive rock upon which waves of Allied soldiers were to dash themselves, as the Germans had
hoped. The reasons for its capture were threefold.
Firstly, in structure the basic layout was linear, that is a line of strong fortifications. Once a hole
had been punched through the line the way lay open for the attackers. The more advanced and
formidable form of defence was a series of mutually supporting strong points in a chess-board design,
as the Germans had used at Passchendaele in 1917. But by then the Hindenburg line had been built,
and the Germans had not updated the design because their whole endeavour between January and
July 1918 had been devoted to the offensive, which would leave the Hindenburg line far behind.
Secondly, in August 1918 Australian troops had captured the plans of the layout of a large section of
the Hindenburg linetrenches, dugouts, artillery pointsthe lot! Thirdly, Britain had such massive
quantities of artillery available, which could now be used with accuracy, so that no defensive position
could have withstood the bombardment.
As the line crumbled at the end of September, Ludendorff demanded an armistice. In order to
get the best possible terms the first of a series of notes was sent to President Wilson of the USA at the
beginning of October. On 2 October 1918 Major von dem Bussche, acting on behalf of the army high
command, told the German Reichstag that victory in the war was no longer possible for the German
army: We can carry on the war for a substantial further period, we can cause the enemy heavy loss, we
can lay waste his country as we retreat, but we cannot win the war.
On 26 October General Ludendorff resigned. In early November, with the Austrians signing an
armistice and the threat of revolution growing in Germany, the Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland.
At 5 a.m. on 11 November 1918 the armistice was signed and came into operation six hours later, thus
ending the war at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
The war was over, but the first seeds of the next war had already been sown. The resignations of
Hindenburg and Ludendorff, as well as the fact that they allowed the democratic politicians to pick
up the pieces of a shattered nation, allowed extremists to develop the myth that the army had not
really lost the war at all, but rather had been betrayed. Clearly these rumours were false, because it was
Ludendorff himself who declared to the Kaiser that the war was lost. Facts, however, often suffer when
they contradict what people really want to believe.
1 By 1918 lessons in military leadership had been learned on the Allied side. How do the
battles of Hamel and Amiens illustrate this?
2 How had the technology of warfare changed on the Western Front from 1916 to 1918?
3 Why is 8 August 1918 regarded as a significant day on the Western Front?
4 How did manpower become a significant issue in the final months of the war?
5 What evidence is there of collapsing German troop morale from August 1918?
6 Why did the Hindenburg Line prove less of an obstacle to the Allies than the Germans
would have hoped?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E LEGACY O F WARDEATH AN D MA IMIN G
Figure 8.60 Dust to dustthe decomposing remains of a

soldier and a horse. In the intensive fighting many human and
animal corpses had to be left unburied. Over 100 000 soldiers,
Allied and German, remain without a proper burial on the Somme
battlefields alone. (Imperial War Museum Negative Number
E(AUS)2966)
Figure 8.61 Plastic surgery was in its infancy. After the war
soldiers like this would often refuse to leave home in daylight
because of the reactions they would receive in the street.

1 What can a historian learn about the fighting
on the Western Front from photographs
such as these?
2 Photographs such as these were rarely if
ever seen on the home front. Why?
Figure 8.62
REASONS FOR THE ALLIED VICTORY AND GERMAN COLLAPSE

Failure of Germanys
last offensive
Blockade of
Germany
Allied superiority in
manpower and firepower
REASONS FOR VICTORY
AND DEFEAT
Germany planned
for a short war
Morale and condition of

German troops
Entry of the US; collapse
of Germanys allies
Figure 8.63 The reasons for victory and defeat
Germanys only access to vital raw materials was Swedish

iron ore, which could be shipped across the Baltic, the only
sea that Germany controlled. Even these imports became
subject to British submarine attack by 1915.
The only way for the Germans to break the blockade
would have been to defeat the British fleet in combat, but
the indecisive battle of Jutland in 1916 was the only time
when the British naval stranglehold was challenged, and the
return of the German High Seas Fleet to port ensured that
the blockade noose continued to tighten around Germany.
Allied Countries
0
Central Powers
500 km
Neutral Countries
1914 (August)
Allied Fleet Anchorages
and Naval bases
German Fleet Anchorages
and Naval bases
Blockade
NORWAY
EDE
Naval leaders on both sides knew that the key to success in a

long war lay in the control of the sea lanes around northern
Europe. A country deprived of food and raw materials
from abroad would not be able to continue the fight over
the longer period. Germany, with the largest maritime
trade of all the countries on the continent and a merchant
fleet second in size only to that of Britain, was particularly
vulnerable because of its limited access to the worlds
oceans. When the ships of the Royal Navy took up their war
stations on the night of 29 July 1914, they effectively cut off
Germany from the rest of the world (see Figure 8.64).
KEY
Scapa Flow
SW
THE BRITISH NAVAL BLOCKADE OF

GERMANY
Cromarty
DENMARK
Rosyth
GREAT
BRITAIN
Harwich
London
Chatham
Portsmouth
Dover
Kiel Canal Kiel

Cuxhaven
Wilhelmshaven
Hamburg
Bremen
NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM
Calais
GERMAN EMPIRE
FRANCE
Figure 8.64 The British blockade in the Dover Strait, and from the
Orkneys to Norway, strangled Germanys maritime trade.
Throughout the war the British policy of stopping, searching and sometimes confiscating the
cargoes of ships under neutral flags caused irritation to these non-combatants. Attempts were made
to avoid diplomatic protests by schemes involving the purchase of cargoes bound for Germany and
special deals made with particular countries. Thus in 1916 Britain agreed to supplement Dutch grain
supplies only if the Dutch agreed to reduce their exports of pork to Germany, since British fodder had
been fattening Dutch pigs for German dinner tables!
At the time of the armistice it was agreed that the blockade would continue until Germany signed
a formal peace treaty. It was thought necessary to have a continuing hold over Germany to ensure that
the armistice was adhered to. One result was increasing starvation in parts of Germany during 1919.
By March 1919 food relief from the Allies was reaching Germany, but the blockade was not officially
ended until 12 July 1919. As to the overall effectiveness of the blockade, Marshall Foch stated that the
final victory was due 50 per cent to the military and 50 per cent to the blockade.
FIREPOWER AND MANPOWER

The British home front had shown itself capable of not only replacing the enormous number of guns
lost during the March retreat, but also of adding to that number. By July, the British had more artillery
at their disposal than had been available before 21 March. At the same time British factories were
delivering large quantities of tanks (of a better model), machine-guns, Lewis guns, trench mortars and
shells. The 500 men in a British battalion in 1918 packed a considerably heavier punch than did the
1000 strong battalion of 1916. A battalion in 1916, apart from its rifles, which were well-nigh useless in
trench warfare, might have at its disposal four Lewis guns and one or two light trench mortars.
Figure 8.65 Younger and younger German boys in uniform were being captured towards the end of the war, as the
faces of some of these prisoners suggest.
In 1918, each battalion included thirty Lewis guns, eight light trench mortars, and at least sixteen rifle
grenadiers. In addition, a battalion in the vanguard of the advance would enjoy the support of at least
six tanks.
Both sides were running out of men, An important factor, therefore, was the growth in numbers
with the arrival of the Americans. In June 1917 the first contingent of US troops, 14 000 in all, arrived in
France, though they had no immediate effect on the battlefield as they had to be properly trained and
equipped. With the British and French high commands urging the Americans to enter the fighting, the
first sustained US offensive took place at the end of May 1918. The growing numbers of fresh US troops
was to provide a source of manpower that the Germans could not match.
THE MORALE AND CONDITION OF THE GERMAN TROOPS

As the initial successes of Operation Michael waned, German morale crumbled. Many divisions were
simply exhausted after advancing 65 kilometres in seven days. Their very success posed a problem:
divisions waited kilometres ahead of their supply trains, whose wagons, pulled by skinny underfed
horses, lumbered with difficulty over the pockmarked wasteland. In recrossing the old Somme
battlefields of 1916 the Germans had to contend with the networks of old trenches, shell craters and
barbed wire. Though the effort at the Somme had not won the battle for the Allies in 1916, it certainly
played a part in defeating the 1918 German offensive.
Disciplinary problems also existed within the German army: hungry and tired soldiers, thoroughly
sick of war, fell like scavenging hordes on villages, towns and enemy supply depots that stood in their
way. The troops soon discovered that their British opposites, far from starving as German propaganda
had told them, were well clothed and well fed. Desertion rates rose alarmingly.
The Sturmtruppen tactics of the Ludendorff offensive were initially effective but also expensive,
costing the lives of highly trained and motivated men who could not be replaced. In many units boys
were commanding boys. Replacements lacked quantity and quality: young recruits, ill-clothed and
hungry, without the patriotic feelings of their predecessors, most of whom had become casualties;
older men from other fronts; or repatriated prisoners who had experienced enough of war. The spring
offensives had cost half a million German casualties. Replacements from the Eastern Front were a mixed
blessing. Too many of them had heard the message of Bolshevism, were spreading socialism in the
ranks and were talking of an immediate peace without annexations or reparations.
The uniforms of many German soldiers were in tatters and their boots leaked, they lacked blankets,
and they were hungry and undernourished. For months the German doctors had had to use crpe-paper
bandages, like toilet rolls, to cover wounds. Instead of cotton wool they used a kind of cellulose paper,
which in no time got soaked with pus and blood and just dissolved into a wet and stinking mess.
TACTICS AND STRATEGY

The Ludendorff offensive has been criticised for being tactically strong but strategically weak. By this it
is meant that while Ludendorff planned the preparation and instigation of the battle well, the whole
operation lacked a major strategic goal. It was not enough to simply break the Allied line. Having
broken through, then what? It was the failure of Ludendorff to answer this question of wider strategy
that helped to unhinge the whole offensive. When the Ludendorff offensive ground to a halt it left the
German armies in precarious forward positions, in lightly fortified trenches where they could only be
supplied with difficulty over war-torn terrain.
Historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson have argued that Ludendorff made a further mistake in
leaving at least half a million men on the Eastern Front after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia.
These were not, as is commonly thought, left to stand on the defensive against the
Bolsheviks, but were used in a totally unnecessary advance deep into the Ukraine and the
Crimea as part of an aggressive policy in the east. Arguably, those half a million men would
have been much more useful for Germany on the Western Front.
By contrast, Allied tactics improved. Under Fochs direction, attacks on the Germans came
in different directions from the French, the British and the Americans in a never-ending series
of jabs that wore down enemy resistance. For his part, Haig pursued a series of carefully
planned, closely defined engagements that spared his troops and made maximum use of
his now considerable backing of guns, tanks and aircraft. The British did not push beyond
the protection offered by their artillery in a series of bite and hold tactics, which saw them
consolidate gains before moving on.
DID YOU KNOW?

If a British soldier died as a
result of war injuries by
31 August 1921, he was
officially counted as a war
casualty, with implications
for benefits for his family.
If he died after 1 September,
he was not a war casualty
and his family suffered
financially.
THE INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC

Influenza broke out in Europe in the spring of 1918 and affected all countries, but found easy victims
among the undernourished population of Germany, where over 400 000 died of the disease in 1918.
A STABBUT IN WHICH DIRECTION?

It did not take long for the German high command to manufacture the legend of the Dolchstossthe
stab in the back (from a mixture of Jews, socialists and communists) to explain the ending of the war,
thus preserving the reputation of the undefeated army.
Roger Chickering in Imperial Germany and the Great War 191418 describes this myth as a shameless
exercise in evasion and suggests that it was a series of arrogant miscalculations by the German high
commandwhich he labels the Frontstoss or stab from the frontwhich helped to bring about
Germanys loss.
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politicians into the spotlight of defeat, allowing themselves to slink behind the curtain and disappear
from the stage, only to reappear with untarnished reputations at a later stage of German history.
R E VI E W TA SK S
1 List the reasons for victory and defeat mentioned in the text, ranking them in order of
importance. Justify your ranking.
2 Germany was not defeated on the battlefieldit collapsed from within. Draw
evidence from the text to argue for and against this proposition.
THE ROLES AND GOALS OF THE PEACEMAKERS AND THE TREATY

OF VERSAILLES
WILSONS FOURTEEN POINTS
In late 1917 President Wilson (USA) had hoped to induce the Allies to issue a joint statement of liberal
war aims. When this was refused he issued his own plan on 8 January 1918. At the heart of the program
was his proposal for the creation of a League of Nations to bring countries together for the preservation
of future peace. At no time did Britain and France accept the Fourteen Points as the basis for a common
program for peace. Germany at first rejected the Fourteen Points, but in October 1918, with defeat
inevitable, Wilson was approached for an armistice and peace settlement on the basis of the program.
While Wilson was prepared to consider this, Britain and France were not. They felt that the terms were
far too vague and Wilson was strongly advised by his allies that the terms of the armistice must be left
for the military leaders to decide. He relented and communicated this to the Germans on 14 October.
The Fourteen Points proposed by President Wilson were as follows:
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VOTES AND EXPECTATIONS

In the closing weeks of 1918 voting took place in all three major Allied countries. In the USA, President
Wilsons Democratic party suffered defeat in the congressional elections and the rival Republicans took
control. In France there was a public vote of confidence in the government of Clemenceau.
In Britain, an election was called for on 14 December. For a variety of reasons, not least because of
the virulent influenza epidemic that was at its height at the time of the campaign, the public seemed
apathetic towards broader party policies, and even Lloyd Georges promise to make Britain a fit country
for heroes to live in aroused little interest.
It was the nature of the peace that captured the publics attention, and the public message was clear
it was to be harsh! The leaders of Germany should be tried as war criminals, Germany should pay Britains
war costs and German nationals, interned during the war, should be expelled from Britain permanently.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E ARMI ST ICE

The following points are extracts from the terms of the armistice. Germany was to do the following:
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NETHERLANDS
Cologne
N O R T H
Antwerp
S E A
Aachen
Frankfurt
Bruges
GERMANY
Brussels
BELGIUM
Ypres
LUXEMBOURG
Luxembourg
Arras
LORRAINE
Metz
Verdun
Strasbourg
ALSACE
KEY
Rheims
Liberated by the Allies

JulyNovember 1918
Front Line 11 November 1918
when the armistice was signed
Evacuated by Germans after
the armistice
FRANCE
0
100 km
Mulhouse
Figure 8.66 The zones of occupation
1 Look at Figure 8.66. What important point may be made about the location of the
German army at the time of the armistice?
2 The Germans argued for more lenient terms. Which parts of the armistice would have
been hardest for them to accept?
3 Suggest reasons why points 2, 3 and 4 of the armistice were demanded by the Allies.
The anger towards Germany was inflamed by two further examples of German frightfulness in late
1918. On 10 October the mail boat Leinster was torpedoed in the Irish Sea with the loss of 451 civilian
lives. Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour spoke for most Britons when he declared Brutes they were
when they began the war, and brutes they remain. Then about 60 000 British prisoners of war had
been made to perform hard labour behind the German lines. When the war ended they were freed
undernourished, ill-clothed, and with no transportation. Skeletons drag their way into France. Many
dying on the road, reported the Daily Mail.
On 29 November, George Barnes, a parliamentary candidate, coined the most famous slogan of the
campaign: Hang the Kaiser. Sir Eric Geddes, from the Admiralty, later added, the Germans are going
to pay every penny; they are going to be squeezed as a lemon is squeezeduntil the pips squeak!
Lloyd George had begun the campaign moderately, calling for a peace of reconciliation and
speaking of social reconstruction. However, he belatedly caught the public mood and was soon
promising that he would demand the entire cost of the war from Germany. The government was
returned with a large majority.
1 Why would Germany favour a peace based upon the Fourteen Points? Why wouldnt
the British and French favour this?
2 Contrast the Fourteen Points with the armistice terms. Is the approach different?
Why?
3 What was the attitude of the British public towards peacemaking?
4 How was Lloyd George affected by the public mood?
THE VERSAILLES CONFERENCE JANUARYJUNE 1919

The conference began with almost a hundred delegates from countries as diverse as Brazil, Portugal
and Japan, though all the main decisions were taken by the Big Three: Wilson (USA), Lloyd George
(Britain) and Clemenceau (France). Each had their different goals and the six months of discussions saw
several clashes of personality and policy.
Georges Clemenceau At the age of seventy-seven, he had seen Germans invade his country twice,
first in 1870 and then in 1914, and was determined it would never happen again. The peace had to be
punitivehe was not interested in the sort of idealism spoken by Wilson. For Clemenceau the main
issues were territorial. French security had to be guaranteed and this could best be done by weakening
Germany, by reducing her size: territory in the east should go to Poland and in the west, as well as
regaining AlsaceLorraine, the Rhineland (that is the part of Germany lying west of the Rhine) should
be detached and given to France. Clemenceau also strongly supported large reparations.
Woodrow Wilson Wilson was seen, and saw himself, as an idealist, seeking a peace that was fair and
just. The centrepiece of his program was the establishment of a League of Nations to guarantee future
world peace. He also favoured self-determination, the right of peoples to rule themselves; opposed
the annexation of Germanys colonies by the victorious powers; disapproved of French attempts to
dismember Germany; and wanted to limit any effort to impose reparations.
Lloyd George Britains priorities lay with the fate of the German colonies and reparations. While Lloyd
George wanted to see Germany punishedhe was conscious that the British electorate had recently
re-elected him to ensure thishe also wanted to moderate the anti-German demands. Britain, by
tradition, had never favoured a powerful France dominating

the European continent.
The clash of personalities

Prior to the conference, Clemenceau had objected to
President Wilson representing the USA. As the only head of
state, Clemenceau feared that Wilson would dominate the
proceedings. However, having met Wilson in December
1918 during Wilsons trip to Europe, Clemenceau withdrew
his objectionhe felt he had nothing to fear. Clemenceau
and Lloyd George were at times irritated by Wilsons
assumed air of moral superiority. Their countries had, after all,
borne the brunt of the fighting and suffering.
Six months of discussion meant that alliances changed
between the Big Three. Some examples of this were the
alliance between Lloyd George and Clemenceau against
Wilson over reparations. Wilson lost. Lloyd George and
Wilson were allied against Clemenceau over the detachment
of the Rhineland. Clemenceau lost. Clemenceau and Wilson
were allied against Lloyd George over revisions to the terms
before final submission. A compromise was made.
Figure 8.67 The Big Four of the Allies gather for the Treaty of
Versailles. They are, left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain,
Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and
Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America.
The Fontainebleau memorandum, 25 March 1919

Lloyd George became increasingly uneasy about the course of the peacemaking. He feared that if the
final treaty was too severe, Germany would turn to Bolshevism and seek retribution against the Allies.
At the palace of Fontainebleau he set out his thoughts on the future directions of the negotiations.
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Clemenceau later gave a cool reception to this call for moderation. Arguing that no one in Germany
drew any distinction between the just and the unjust demands of the Allies, he said, The Germans, a
servile people, must have force to sustain an argument.
Spotlight on a key issue: reparations

Pre-conference utterances indicated a moderate and limited reparations settlement. The prearmistice agreement required Germany to compensate for all damage done by the aggression of
Germany by land, sea and air to the civilian populations of the Allies and their property. This could
not be interpreted to include the war costs of the Allies. However, British attitudes stiffened after the
December 1918 election campaign, and Lloyd George found himself having to adopt a tougher stance
on the issue.
The USA firmly opposed the idea that Germany should pay war costs, and secured from the other
Allies an undertaking that they would not pursue such a claim.
The question of a fixed sum

The central objective of USA policy was to secure the inclusion in the peace treaty of a reasonable fixed
sum of reparations. Two approaches were tried: the first to fix the sum by determining the amount of
damages claimed, the second by determining Germanys capacity to pay. Both methods failed, partly
due to the intransigence of the British and French delegations. Having successfully eliminated war
costs, the USA failed to translate that victory into a limited and defined reparations obligation.
War pensions
The British wished to define a category of reparations that would provide for the financial losses of
Britain as against the property losses suffered by France and Belgium. The category chosen to serve this
end was military pensions. France supported this move, probably because it welcomed any measure
that added to the bill, and after a little persuasion Wilson agreed. This was condemned in some
American circles as an unwarranted surrender of principles on the reparations question.
The war guilt clause

Lloyd George insisted that the treaty contain some indication of Germanys incapacity to pay all they
owed, in order to enable him and Clemenceau to justify their renunciation of war costs before public
opinion. They also insisted that the necessary clause should contain a statement of German acceptance
of war guilt. The USA questioned the compatibility with the pre-armistice agreements of an explicit
German acceptance of responsibility, but they yielded. The result was Article 231 of the Treaty of
Versailles, which was designed as a compromise between the determination of the USA to comply
with the pre-armistice agreements, and the desire of Lloyd George and Clemenceau to appease public
opinion by a declaration of at least theoretical German responsibility for the reparations.
The question of a time limit

The defeat of American efforts to specify a fixed sum made it all the more important, from their
point of view, to limit Germanys obligation by a time limit on payments. The British position was
that Germany should complete all payments within thirty years, but that if they had not done so, the
reparations commission should have the power to extend the time. Davis, the US representative, said
that when Wilson agreed to pensions he had counted on a thirty-year time limit so that the pensions
would affect only the distribution of the reparations, and not the amount of money Germany
would have to pay. Colonel House, the leader of the US delegation in the absence of Wilson, who
was ill, suggested that the British idea be adopted. House, who seems not to have understood the
significance of this concession, thus surrendered a major principle of US policy, namely that some
form of limitation should be put on the Allied demands for reparations.
Having established the principles, actual amounts were to be worked out by a reparations
commission after the signing of the peace treaty. In April 1921 the amount was fixed at 6 600 000 000,
plus interest!
In May the treaty was presented to the Germans for their comments, though there was to be no
renegotiation. Despite their objections Germany had little choice but to sign the treaty on 28 June 1919.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E T ERM S O F THE TREATY

Source 8.32
The treaty terms imposed on Germany, not mentioned
elsewhere:
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Source 8.33
The historian, with every justification, will come to the
conclusion that we were very stupid men We arrived
determined that a Peace of justice and wisdom should be
negotiated; we left the conference conscious that the treaties
imposed upon our enemies were neither just nor wise.
Harold Nicolson, member of the British delegation at
Versailles, cited in B. Walsh, Modern World History, 1996.
Source 8.34
Figure 8.68 A German cartoon published in 1919. The German
mother is saying to her starving child: When we have paid one
hundred billion marks then I can give you something to eat.
Severe as the Treaty seemed to many Germans, it should be

remembered that Germany might easily have fared much
worse. If Clemenceau had had his way the Rhineland would
have become an independent state, the Saar would have
been annexed to France and Danzig would have become part
of Poland.
W. Carr, cited in A History of Germany, 1972.
KEY
NORWAY
Land taken away

from Germany
Demilitarised
zone
SWEDEN
N O R T H
S E A
S E A
DENMARK
Danzig (Free city). This

was to give Poland
a sea port
To Denmark after
a vote (or plebiscite)
North Schleswig
GERMANY
AlsaceLorraine
0
200
400
600 km
To Lithuania
RUSSIA
Lithuania, Estonia
and Latvia became
independent states.
Germany had taken
these from Russia
in 1918
To Poland
Upper
Silesia
Union forbidden
To France
SWITZERLAND
LITHUANIA
West Prussia
and Posen
Saarland: a plebiscite
to be held after 15 years
FRANCE
LATVIA
EAST
PRUSSIA
Polish corridor
Eupen and Malmedy
to Belgium
ESTONIA
B A L T I C
AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
Figure 8.69 Territorial changes as a result of the Treaty of Versailles

1 Which clauses of the treaty would appear most unfair to the Germans?
2 What changes would you have made to the treaty if you wanted to: (a) establish a
more just peace, or (b) punish Germany severely?
3 To what aspect of the treaty is Figure 8.68 referring? Was that provision reasonable?
4 Who has the most appropriate view of the treaty: Nicolson in Source 8.33 or Carr in
Source 8.34?
R E VI E W QU E ST I O N S
1 What were the different approaches of the Big Three to the peace settlement?
2 Using the sources, figures and text make a list of the final provisions of the Treaty
of Versailles.
3 Do you believe that one person triumphed over the others, when reading the final
settlement?
4 What was the purpose of the Fontainebleau memorandum?
5 In what ways was the reparations settlement a defeat for US policy?
The historiography of Versailles

Ruth Henig points out that the historiography of the Versailles Peace Settlement falls into two
phasesbefore and after 1950 (Henig, 1995). Until the 1950s the almost unanimous view was that the
settlement was a harsh one. Historians after 1950 conclude that the settlement was probably the best
that could be achieved in the circumstances. Its weaknesses, so modern historians conclude, lay not so
much in its terms as in its lack of mechanisms to enforce those terms on a resentful Germany.
In the New Cambridge Modern History (1964), Rohan Butler argued that on Germanys eastern frontier
a creditably fair compromise was reached, and the Germans, to divert attention away from their
own greedy and vindictive war aims, launched an instant, and very effective, propaganda campaign
against the treaty, and in particular against the war guilt clause. Butler points out that this clause had
been inserted into the treaty as part of the financial reparations provisions, but had been plucked out
of its financial context and unfairly denounced by the Germans as placing moral war guilt upon their
nation. Butler saw the main problems as arising not so much from the treaty itself but from Germanys
failure to accept that it had suffered defeat, that the war had left a dangerous power vacuum in eastern
Europe, and that the struggle to restore stability was undermined by the USAs withdrawal from the
implementation of the settlement.
Howard Elcock, in Portrait of a Decision: The Council of Four and the Treaty of Versailles (1972), shared
the view that US withdrawal and the effects of the Depression destroyed any chance that the Versailles
settlement might work. Elcock argued that the failure of the settlement did not lie so much in its
provisions as in what happened after 1919.
In The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe 19181933 (mid-1970s), Sally Marks argued
that the problem was not that the treaty was exceptionally unfair, but that the Germans thought it was.
The peace left Germany both powerful and resentful and with a string of weak neighbours to its east.
Negotiating the treaty was only the first step. The more important task was to enforce it, and it was here
that the peacemakers failed.
In The Origins of the Second World War (1961), A. J. P. Taylor argued that the treaty was designed to
provide security against a new German aggression, yet it could work only with the cooperation of the
German government. As Taylor noted, Germany remained by far the greatest power on the continent
of Europe; with the disappearance of Russia, more so than before. She was the greatest in population
her preponderance was greater still in the economic resources of coal and steel. Once Germany
recovered from the effects of the war they would constitute a major threat to the other continental
European powers, and the settlement contained nothing that would guard against that eventuality.
In Guilt at Versailles (1984), Anthony Lentin observed Machiavellis precept that the victor should
either conciliate his enemy or destroy him, and the Treaty of Versailles did neither. The main problem
was that the powerful and unrepentant Germany had come out of the war in better shape than her
neighbours and late enemies. Lentin argues that, because the peace settlement was seen on all sides
as such an unsatisfactory compromise, there was little will to enforce Versailles on the American and
British side, little confidence in its effectiveness on the French side, and on the part of Germany, every
inducement to undermine it.
In The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris 1919 (1991), Alan Sharp emphasised the nature of
the compromises that had to be made to meet the varying needs of security, stability and nationalism.
The great majority of British, German, French and American historians now generally agree
that the treaty was relatively lenient. Hilgruber (German) wrote that it was too weak to be a
Carthaginian peace. Soutou (French) wrote: it would not have been easy to do much better. Of the
leading personalities, Lloyd George and Clemenceau are now viewed as having emerged from the
peacemaking process with some credit, fighting both to safeguard the interests of their countries and
to construct a durable and rational peace. It is Wilson who has increasingly been seen as having failed
to negotiate effectively, both in terms of his inability to deal with domestic opposition and in terms of
his intransigence at vital points of discussion in Paris.
On reparations, Keyness critique was challenged by tienne Mantoux in The Carthaginian Peace (1945).
Mantoux argued that Germanys economic and military revival in the 1930s demonstrated the underlying
strength of the German economy, and the great recovery it had already made by 1929 showed that
the treaty was neither punitive nor vindictive. He points out that the catastrophic depreciation of the
mark in the early 1920s was the result not of the reparations burden but of runaway inflation resulting
from the financing of the war itself and the handling of the accrued debt. Sally Marks believes that the
scholarly consensus now suggests that paying what was actually asked of her was within Germanys
capacity. Germany could, had it wished, in the 1920s have raised its low rates of tax, raised domestic loans
to pay off the reparations and, as a consequence, secured the removal of the Allied occupation of the
Rhineland. This is how France had reacted after 1871Germany chose not to, treating the reparations
battle as part of the ongoing political battle with its enemies. All combatants, and in particular, France
and Belgium, faced huge reconstruction costs. Frances ten richest provinces had been devastated by war
and deliberate German sabotage as they retreated. If Germany evaded the payment of substantial sums
in reparations, while France has to restore her war-damaged areas, this would be a considerable step
towards the recovery of the German position in Europe.
France is now seen by historians as having been badly treated by its allies after 1919, left to restore
its wartorn provinces and weakened economy as best it could, and forced to battle with Germany
alone for the reparations due to it. Frances invasion of the Ruhr is now seen by historians as evidence
of Frances growing weakness and isolation, a desperate act to seize the reparations due to it, and to try
and strangle the inexorable German political and economic recovery.
Most historians now take the view that, in economic terms, the treaty was not unduly harsh on
Germany, and that the intention was to give Germany substantial help towards paying its bills, and
to meet many of the German objections by amendments to the way the reparations schedule was
in practice carried out. In terms of war damage, Germany was one of the luckier belligerents, in that
it was spared invasion, denudation and devastation. It was indeed this German strength, rather than
weakness, that brought about such a strong German reaction to the Treaty. Germany did not feel itself
to be a defeated nation.
As historians now acknowledge, the real criticism of the peace settlement lies in its lack of means
of enforcement. Peacemakers naively assumed that Germany would accept the Versailles medicine
handed to it, just as France had complied with the terms of 1871. Instead, the Germans took every
opportunity to denounce the settlement, declaring it morally invalid because it contravened the
Fourteen Points, and sought to subvert or substantially revise it. In this strategy it soon acquired
considerable support from the British government.
A recent, highly acclaimed study of the Versailles conference by Margaret Macmillan concludes:
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Support for the peacemakers also comes from Richard Evans, who writes:
5IFSFQBSBUJPOTCJMMTUIBU(FSNBOZBDUVBMMZEJEIBWFUPQBZGSPNPOXBSETXFSFOPUCFZPOE
UIFDPVOUSZTSFTPVSDFTUPNFFUBOEOPUVOSFBTPOBCMFHJWFOUIFXBOUPOEFTUSVDUJPOWJTJUFE
VQPO#FMHJVNBOE'SBODFCZUIFPDDVQZJOH(FSNBOBSNJFT*ONBOZXBZT UIFQFBDFTFUUMFNFOU
PGmXBTBCSBWFBUUFNQUBUNBSSZJOHQSJODJQMFBOEQSBHNBUJTNJOBESBNBUJDBMMZ
BMUFSFEXPSME*OPUIFSDJSDVNTUBODFTJUNJHIUIBWFTUPPEBDIBODFPGTVDDFTT#VUOPUJOUIF
DJSDVNTUBODFTPG XIFOBMNPTUBOZQFBDFUFSNTXPVMEIBWFCFFODPOEFNOFECZ(FSNBO
OBUJPOBMJTUTXIPGFMUUIFZIBECFFOVOKVTUMZDIFBUFEPGWJDUPSZ &WBOT Q
R E VI E W QU E ST I O N
After you have reviewed all the evidence, evaluate the view that the Versailles Treaty
was a Carthaginian (that is, harsh) peace.
References
Barnett C., The Swordbearers, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1963
Bond, B., and Cave, N. (eds), Haig: A Reappraisal 70 Years On, Lee Cooper, Barnsley, 1999
Carlyon, L., The Great War, Macmillan, Sydney, 2006
Churchill W. S., The World Crisis 19111918, Four Square Books, London, 1960
Coppard G., With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, Papermac, 1980
Davies F. & Maddocks, G., Bloody Red Tabs, Leo Cooper, London, 1995
Dolden A. S., Cannon Fodder, Blandford Press, 1980
Emden van R., & Humphries S., Veterans, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 1998
Evans, R. J., The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin, London, 2004
Graves R., Goodbye to All That, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1960
Gilbert M., First World War, HarperCollins, 1995
Haber L. F., The Poisonous Cloud, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986
Henig, R., Versailles and After, Routledge, London, 1995
History of the First World War, BPC Publishing, 1969
Junger E., The Storm of Steel, Howard Fertig, New York, 1993
Keegan J., The Face of Battle, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1978
Keegan J., The First World War, Hutchinson, London, 1998
Keiger J. V. F., France and the Origins of the First World War, Macmillan, London, 1983
Kennedy P., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Fontana Press, London, 1988
Laffin J., The Western Front Illustrated 19141918, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1993
Lee D. E. (ed.), The Outbreak of the First World War, D. C. Heath, Lexington, 1975
Liddell Hart B. H., History of the First World War, Book Club Associates, London, 1983
Macdonald L., 1914, Penguin, London, 1987
Macdonald L., Somme, Book Club Associates, London, 1983
Macdonald L., The Roses of No Mans Land, Penguin, London, 1993
Macmillan, M., Peacemakers, John Murray, London, 2001
Marwick A., The Deluge: British Society and the First World War, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967
Middlebrook M., The First Day on the Somme, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1984
Prior R. & Wilson T., The Somme, University of NSW Press, Sydney, 2005
Richter D., Chemical Soldiers, Leo Cooper, London, 1994
Simpson A., Hot Blood and Cold Steel, Tom Donovan, London, 1993
Stewart D. & Fitzgerald J., The Great War: Using Evidence, Nelson, Melbourne, 1987
Synder L. L., Historic Documents of World War I, van Nostrand, Princeton, 1958
Terraine J., White Heat: The New Warfare 191418, Book Club Associates, London, 1982
Travers T., The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modern Warfare 19001918,
Unwin Hyman, London, 1990
Tuchman B. W., August 1914, Macmillan, London, 1980
Tuchman B. W., The Zimmerman Telegram, Papermac, London, 1980
Turner L. C. F., The Origins of World War One, Edward Arnold, London, 1970
Wilson T, The Myriad Faces of War, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1986
Winter D., Haigs Command: A Reassessment, Penguin, London, 1991
Winter D., Deaths Men, Penguin, London, 1978
THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA
19191941
NATIONAL STUDY
INTRODUCTION
America was not always a global power. The America that we know today as
a superpower and a global force is a product of the twentieth century, and
especially, the first half of that century. The twentieth century became the
American century. No single country dominated the political, economic,
and cultural life of the world during that period as much as the United States
did. America and its way of life became a symbol, either admired or loathed.
Capitalism, that driving entrepreneurial spirit, became part of what it was to
be American.
The America we know today emerged from the Progressive Era (190010), as it adapted to multiculturalism, industrialisation, World War I, the communications revolution and its struggle with the
challenge of the Great Depression. With growing industrialisation, the ideas of capitalism and democracy
increasingly became equal in the minds of many Americans. For many Americans freedom and democracy
meant the opportunity to get ahead, to make money, and lead a better life. American democracy
emphasised freedom and opportunity, but did not offer opportunities equally to all Americans. The issue
of race exposed limitations in the American concept of democracy and influenced both government and
society throughout the period. By focusing on the period from 1919 to 1941, this chapter will offer some
understanding of the key features and issues that helped to make modern America.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Americas history was dominated, according to historian
David M. Kennedy, by war and the Great Depression (Kennedy 1999). In 1903 the Americans Orville and
Wilbur Wright became the first people to fly in a powered aircraft. For much of the century, American
companies like Ford and General Motors dominated the car market. American business defined and
symbolised capitalism. Hollywood became part of the worlds language as motion pictures brought
American culture and American heroes to other countries. According to Hugh Brogan, Americas
growing wealth meant that many Americans had come to think that the American way of life was the
only model worth emulating (Brogan 1985, p. 450).
In the twentieth century, Americas view of itself and the world changed. Until the Spanish
American War in 1898, and until transport and communication reduced travelling times and increased
the flow of information, the United States had been relatively inward looking: Geographical isolation
and strategic security turned the Americans in upon themselves (Brogan 1985, p. 449). In other words,
the government and people of the United States were far more concerned with their own problems
than with events overseas. The exception to this was business and investment: American capital and
technology reached out to the world throughout the twentieth century, in a phenomenon that could
be best summed up by saying that the US dollar was never isolationist.
Politically, however, the events of 1941 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor produced the most
dramatic change. In the second half of the century, the United States became far more internationalist,
that is, more conscious of events, other than those relating to trade and investment, beyond its shores.
The nature of American government also underwent changes in the twentieth century. Woodrow
Wilson, writing in 1908 as an academic at Princeton University before he became president, noted
the growing power and influence of the presidency. The most significant changes were linked to the
presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. During Roosevelts twelve years in power, the Federal Government
became bigger and played a far more active role in the lives of its citizens, taking more control over
the economy, wages, unemployment insurance, business, working conditions, planning and the
environment. During the twentieth century, there was a clear shift in the basis of political power away
from the Congress and towards the office of the president. The famous American historian Arthur M.
Schlesinger described this as the growth of the Imperial Presidency (Schlesinger 1974). The two events
that accelerated this shift were the Great Depression of 1929 and the Second World War. In each case,
strong leadership from the president was seen as important to deal with the crisis.
1 Why do some historians describe the twentieth century as the American century?
2 How did Americas view of itself and the world change during the twentieth century?
3 How did the nature of American government and the power of the presidency change
during the twentieth century?
The United States of America 19191941 | 199
PATTERNS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

As you study the events, key features and issues in this chapter, look beyond the events of a particular
period, and, as historians do, attempt to explain, assess and evaluate the events you are examining.
Richard Hofstadter, one of Americas most influential twentieth-century historians, writing in the
1950s, maintained that US history since 1890 was part of a cycle and part of what he described as
an age of reform (Hofstadter 1962, p. 1). Hofstadter saw a link between the Progressive Movement
of the pre-World War I period and Franklin Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s. Writing in the 1990s,
David McElvaine reinforced the idea of cycles or patterns. He argued that it was hard to deny periodic
swings of mood, opinion and values among the American people. McElvaine argued that there was
an ebb and flow in American life between a desire for reform and change to more settled, conservative
attitudes, with each wave of reform and each trough of reaction usually lasting between ten and
twenty years (McElvaine 1993, p. 4).
Timeline
1919
President Wilson attends the Versailles Peace Conference and proposes the creation
of the League of Nations in the hope that the creation of the League will help make the
world safe from war. He receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts; however, he fails to
convince his fellow Americans to join the League. Wilson suffers a stroke while touring the
country campaigning for League membership. He is an invalid for the rest of his term as
president. Wilsons wife comes to play an important role in the running of the country.
1920
The passing of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gives women the vote. It is
known as the Anthony Amendment after Susan B. Anthony.
Warren Harding is elected president of the US. Harding, a Republican, defeats the
Democrat candidate by promising a return to normalcy. People want to forget about the
war, about Europe and the League of Nations, and get on with their lives. Harding leads
one of the most corrupt administrations in US history. He dies in office in 1923.
192033
The prohibition of alcohol is the result of the Volstead Act, which had been passed by
Congress in 1919 and came into effect in 1920. Prohibition, as it is known, opens up a vast
new area for crime as gangsters take over the trade in illegal drink. The most famous of
these gangsters is Al Capone, crime boss of Chicago.
192027
The Sacco and Vanzetti controversy. In 1920 two Italians, Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fishmonger, are arrested for robbery and murder. They are found
guilty, even though the evidence against them is thin, but they are foreigners and are seen
as being political radicals. Despite years of appeals, both men are executed by electric
chair in 1927.
1923
Vice-President Calvin Coolidge becomes president, after Hardings death. Coolidge is an

honest but unimaginative leader. He believes that government should step back, do as little
as possible, and give business every chance to guide the country. After he steps down
from the presidency he is regarded as one of Americas great leaders as his five years in
office had been marked by apparent prosperity. However, historians were to change their
opinion of Coolidge later and blame him for many of the problems that led to the Great
Depression.
1925
The Scopes Trial. In Dayton, Tennessee, a science teacher, John Scopes, goes on trial
because he breaks a state law that makes it illegal to teach Darwins theory of evolution.
It is one of the most famous cases in American legal history. Scopes is represented by
Clarence Darrow, perhaps Americas best-known trial lawyer, while the state of Tennessee
is represented by William Jennings Bryan, a man who had been unsuccessful as a
Democrat candidate for the presidency in 1896, 1900 and 1908. Scopes is found guilty,
but doesnt go to jail. Publicity from the trial discourages other states from passing
similar laws.
1927
1928
The first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer, is released. The film, produced by
Warner Brothers, stars Al Jolson.
1929
Franklin Roosevelt becomes governor of the state of New York after winning the 1928
election. Franklin Roosevelt is a distant cousin of former president Theodore Roosevelt.
Franklin is a member of the Democratic Party and believes in using the powers of
government to make changes. When the Depression hits after the Wall Street crash,
Roosevelt introduces many measures to help the unemployed in his state, in what has
been called the mini New Deal by some. He becomes the Democratic Partys candidate
for the presidency in 1932.
Herbert Hoover is elected president. When President Coolidge announces that he will
not stand for another term as president, the Republican Party nominates Herbert Hoover.
Hoover is an orphan who had worked hard and become rich as a mining engineer. He
defeats the Democrat candidate Al Smith. Hoover promises a continuation of prosperity
with a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.
24 October
The Wall Street crash begins the Great Depression. A massive fall in stock prices on the
New York stock exchange on Wall Street marks the start of one of the worst depressions
in US or world history. Within months millions of people are out of work.
1930
President Hoover suggests that the unemployed should be helped by local government
and volunteer groups. He is slow to realise that the Great Depression needs a more active
response from the Federal Government.
1931
Congress passes the HawleySmoot Tariff. As a reaction to the Depression and the
consequent drop in sales, the American Congress raises the tariff, which is a tax that
makes imported goods more expensive. This is meant to help American industry, but
it doesnt work. Foreign countries simply put up their tariffs and world trade is cut.
Everybody suffers.
Al Capone is jailed. Al Capone had risen to fame during the years of Prohibition as one
of the leaders of organised crime in Chicago. He is sent to jail for income tax fraud. He is
released after eight years and dies in 1947.
1932
Over twelve million people are out of work. It becomes clear that the Depression, which
began in 1929, is getting worse.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) is established in a limited attempt by
President Hoover to use government money to get the economy going again. The
US government lends money to private business in agriculture, finance and industry.
Historians have suggested that, under Hoover, the RFC did not go far enough or lend
enough money to break the grip of the Depression. It is later expanded by President
Franklin Roosevelt.
The Bonus Army marches on Washington. Former US soldiers, who had fought in the First
World War, travel to Washington in May 1932 to ask that the bonus money ($500 each) they
were to get in 1945 be paid early. They set up camp in Washington parks until the president
orders the army to drive them out. General Douglas MacArthur leads the army in its attack
on the bonus marchers.
The state of Wisconsin passes the first law to set up unemployment insurance. Many
Americans, including President Hoover, feel that unemployment insurance or the dole will
be bad; Hoover fears that it will rob Americans of their will to find work.
Franklin Roosevelt is elected president. Hoover appears to be unable to deal with the
Depression and is defeated by the Democrat candidate Franklin Roosevelt, then governor
of New York state. Roosevelt promises the American people a New Dealhe plans to
use the money and resources of the US government to get the economy going and people
back to work. Roosevelt remains president for a record period of time, until his death
in 1945.
1933
The first Hundred Days of Roosevelts administration results in the first New Dealduring
this time President Roosevelt orders the creation of many special government agencies
to deal with the Depression. This was seen by many at the time as a revolutionary step for
American government.
193336
Drought turns farmland on the Great Plains into a dust bowl. Combined with the
Depression and the drop in prices for farm goods, ruins many small farmers, who are
forced off their land.
1935
The second New Deal. In 1935 President Roosevelt starts a second round of major
programs to deal with the Depression and the government makes laws, such as the
Banking Act, the Social Security Act and the Wealth Tax Act, to try to prevent future
depressions.
1936
1939
Franklin Roosevelt is re-elected president. Despite the controversy aroused by aspects of

the New Deals, Roosevelt easily defeats the Republican candidate Alfred Landon.
1940
The US stops all exports of iron and scrap steel to Japan to voice their objections to
continued Japanese aggression in South-East Asia.
Roosevelt is the first president to be elected for a record third term. He wins comfortably
over the Republican candidate Wendell Wilkie.
1941
Roosevelt delivers the Four Freedoms speech, declaring his support for democracy,
upholding freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear. He also wants the
US to provide material aid to Britain in the war against Germany.
The Second World War begins in Europe; however, the US remains neutral. There is
evidence to indicate that Roosevelt is convinced that the US eventually will be drawn into
the conflict, as they were in the First World War. However, there is a strong isolationist
movement in the country that is strongly opposed to involvement.
Congress passes the Lend Lease Act, giving the president the power to lend or lease
any equipment to countries that the president decides might be important for Americas
security. Under this act, Roosevelt gives $7 billion worth of aid in weapons and food to
Britain, making the US, in Roosevelts words, the arsenal of democracy. The act means
that the US is no longer neutral in the war between Britain and Germany.
7 December
The Japanese attack the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands.
They hope that by destroying the US 7th Fleet in the Pacific they will be able to expand
their control of South-East Asia, and acquire important raw materials, such as oil and
rubber, from Malaya (West Malaysia) and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). At the same
time, German leader Adolf Hitler, declares war on the US, dragging them into the Second
World War. President Roosevelt, who had led his people through the Depression, is now
called upon to lead them in a world war.
The Japanese continue their advance in the Pacific, defeating British and US forces to
take Hong Kong, Wake Island and Guam.
Timeline exercise
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THE END OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

WOODROW WILSON
Wilson was elected president in 1912. Although he was a Democrat and Roosevelt had been a
Republican, Wilson moved in a similar direction when it came to social, economic and political change.
His new freedom program is generally seen as the last political manifestation of the progressive era.
Before America entered the First World War in 1917 Wilson managed an impressive record of reform,
including lowering tariffs to make imported goods cheaper, reforming the tax system, reforming
banking, establishing a federal trade commission to review business practices, and introducing the first
federal workingmans compensation legislation and child labour laws.
Americas entry into the First World War dramatically shifted the focus of national attention. Wilson
dealt with the war and the peace that followed in an idealistic fashion. His failure to secure Americas
entry into the League of Nations was a bitter defeat. He suffered a stroke while campaigning for the
cause in October 1919 and served out his term as an invalid. During this time his wife, Edith, dealt with
many of the daily matters of the presidency.
Wilson hoped that a Democratic victory in the 1920 presidential election might ensure US
acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles and membership of the League. However, the Republican Party
was returned to the White House when Warren Harding was elected president, promising not heroics
but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration (Divine 1999, p. 773). Under
Harding and the Republican presidents, Coolidge and Hoover, who came after him, the US adopted a
more isolationist approach to foreign policy. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s three factors reinforced
this relative isolationism: first, the understandable war-weariness and aversion to war that followed the
horrors of the First World War; second, the Great Depression, which turned Americans in on themselves
as they became preoccupied with their own domestic economic problems; third, the threat of war
that, by the 1930s, made the Americans even more determined to distance themselves from possible
sources of conflict. It should be noted, however, that isolationism was a relative rather than an absolute
idea. America was not naturally or always isolationist.
Railroad construction 18301920
18301840
18411850
18511860
18611870
18711880
18811890
18911900
19011910
19111920
10 000
Figure 9.1
20 000
30 000
40 000
Miles of track
50 000
60 000
70 000
Railways contributed to and symbolised Americas transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society.
Will the real Woodrow Wilson please stand up?

Woodrow Wilson is referred to in the textbooks as a progressive, and his record in a range of areas
justifies the description. However, as often happens in history, we cannot put a simple label on Wilson.
David Shannon of the University of Virginia has argued that such a generalisation ignores a number
of important features of Woodrow Wilsons personality, political philosophy, and decisions he took
while in the White House. Shannon suggests that presenting Wilson as an idealist and a wholehearted
progressive is to create a myth that amounts to more than an oversimplification. It is a clear distortion
(Shannon 1979, p. 21). Shannon argues that Wilsons decisions were not consistently progressive. He
goes on the say that Wilsons reputation as a progressive depends largely on the period from 1913
to 1916, and that the last two years of Wilsons time in office cannot be seen as progressive. Shannon
goes further, claiming that it was Wilson and not the Republican president Warren Harding who began
Americas post-war conservatism. The evidence he presents for this claim includes the following:
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POLITICS IN THE 1920s

With Warren Hardings election as president of the United States in 1920, the Republican Party was
restored to the White House. With the exception of two Democrats, Grover Cleveland and Woodrow
Wilson, all American presidents since the Civil War (186165) had been Republican. The election of
1920 therefore seemed to be a return to the normal and familiar patterns of American political life. The
Republicans continued to dominate presidential politics until the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.
The economic policies of three Republican administrations under Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge
and Herbert Hoover made America rise from an economic recession shortly after the First World War
to the dizzy heights of what proved to be the false prosperity of the Roaring 20s. The Republicans
believed in limiting government interference in the economy. In the early 1920s, Republican
appointees to the Supreme Court restricted government influence over the economy and the
workplace. One of the clearest examples of this trend was in the case Adkins v. Childrens Hospital
(1923) that declared that women were not entitled to any special protection in terms of their wages or
working conditions. Although anti-trust laws that limited the power of big companies and guaranteed
fair economic competition were still in place, they were typically ignored. Both Harding and his
successor Calvin Coolidge supported high tariffs; it was good for their supporters in big business. These
high-tariff policies, however, placed pressure on international trade and European countries responded
by raising their tariffs to limit the importation of American goods. This restriction of international trade
contributed to the Great Depression.
In 1928, Coolidge was replaced as president by yet another Republican, Herbert Hoover. Hoover
was intelligent and talented. He had grown up in modest circumstances in rural America to become
a self-made millionaire. He was, therefore, in every way a reflection and champion of the American
dream and the American wayand the American way was business. Hoover believed in self-help and
that the strength of America and its economy rested on the initiative and energy of the individual.
President Herbert Hoover has often been dealt with harshly by historians and the public. He is seen as
a lacklustre figure when compared to the political genius Franklin Roosevelt. Nevertheless, with the
onset of the Great Depression, Hoover introduced a range of programs that would be the foundation
for key aspects of Roosevelts famous New Deal. It was Hoover who convinced Congress to vote for
$2.25 billion funding for public works programs to simulate the economy. In 1932, Hoover created the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The RFC, as it was known, was a forerunner of the agencies that
were to become a familiar feature of the New Deal. It provided indirect aid and funded banks, insurance
companies and a range of other organisations. It is clear that while Hoover retained his belief in private
enterprise and was cautious of anything that might be seen as socialistic, he did, in the final years of his
administration, begin to move in the direction of far greater government involvement in the economy
and intervene on behalf of the unemployed and needy. It

is fair to see Herbert Hoover as a pioneer of the New Deal
rather than as a heartless economic rationalist.
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS IMPACT

The Great Depression began in 1929 and proved to be one
of the greatest domestic crises in American history. It was
marked by high unemployment, the closure of businesses
and the failure of banks. President Herbert Hoover failed
to respond to the crisis and was defeated in the 1932
presidential election by Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a speech
before the Democratic Party convention Roosevelt promised
a new deal for the American people.
Long-term causes
The Depression is often linked to the crash in share prices
on Wall Street, home of the New York Stock Exchange, in
October 1929. The causes of the Depression, however, went
far deeper than just a bad day on the stock exchange. The
American economist John Kenneth Galbraith has made
clear his view that the Great Depression could have been
avoided or its impact lessened if fundamental flaws within
the American economy had been rectified during the 1920s.
Figure 9.2 Big business sings the praises of President
He maintained that the American economy in 1929 was
Coolidges policies.
despite President Hoovers comments to the contrary at the
time of the Wall Street Crashbasically unsound (Galbraith
1955). This view is supported by the US historian David
Kennedy, who emphasised the economic disparities between the agricultural and industrial sectors
(Kennedy 1999, p. 20), which meant that farmers werent doing as well as manufacturers. During the
1920s there had been a fall in the market for agricultural produce due to shrinking export markets
and a reduced domestic market, owing to slowed population growth resulting from limitations on
immigration from 1924.
In manufacturing, new technology and mass production based upon economies of scalethe
idea that the more you produce the cheaper it ishad been the basis for Americas industrial growth
throughout the 1920s. Productivity per worker hour had risen by 43 per centthe most successful
example being the Ford Motor Company. The flaw in this system was that Mass production made
mass consumption a necessity (Kennedy 1999, p. 21). This couldnt continue. The vast profits made by
American industry during the 1920s were unevenly distributed. The richest 5 per cent of the population
received over one-third of all personal income. Most of the profits were, therefore, going to the wealthy
owners of business; workers wages had risen, but not enough to maintain the level of consumption
needed to avoid a depression. Production did not outstrip the desire of people to consume, it simply
outstripped their ability to buy because wealth had not been shared.
In addition to these basic weakness in the industrial system were added factors as follows:
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1 When did the Depression begin and who was the president at the time?
2 What do Galbraith and Kennedy identify as the basic weakness in the US economy
that led to the Depression?
3 What are the added factors that led to the Depression?
The immediate effects

Following the Wall Street crash, despite the efforts of Herbert
Hoover, perhaps the most able Republican of his time, the
Depression grew worse. Hoover tried to restore confidence.
His private papers suggest that he deliberately used the
word depression because he thought it was less likely to
worry people than words like panic or crisis. He adopted a
mildly inflationary policy to encourage recovery, but it was
based largely on self-help and voluntary cooperation from
business. Between 1929 and the presidential election of
1932, however, national income had fallen from $87.4 billion
to $41.7 billion and almost 70 000 businesses had gone
bankrupt. Five thousand banks had failed. Unemployment
reached 4 million in 1930, and then doubled in 1931. By
1932 it had reached 12 million. Fortune magazine calculated
that 28 million Americans had no income at all in 1932.
As a result hundreds of thousands lost their homes as
banks foreclosed. Over a million jobless people roamed the
country. There were hunger riots in factory towns and shanty
townsmakeshift housing, bitterly called Hoovervilles
sprang up.
Nevertheless, there were those who championed the
traditional values of individualism and self-help. The former
president, Calvin Coolidge, had said, The man who builds a
factory builds a temple and the man who works there
worships there (Manchester 1974, p. 25). Free enterprise and
Figure 9.3 Inauguration Day 1933. President Hoover (left) makes

way for Franklin Rooseveltthe two men were a study in contrasts
and did not get on.
business were cornerstones of what it was to be American.

In the 1920s Bruce Barton had written a very popular book
about Jesus, suggesting if Jesus had come to America in the
1920s, he would have been an advertising executive. Henry
Ford said of the unemployed roaming the country in search of
work: Why its the best education in the world for those boys
travelling around! They get more experience in a few months
than they would in years at school (Manchester 1974, p. 22).
Against this background Franklin Roosevelt set about offering
the American people his New Deal and hope.
CASE STUDY:
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT 18821945

In any discussion of American
history, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)
is mentioned as being one of the
greatest US presidents. He led his
country through the crisis of the Great
Depression, an event that rates with
the US Civil War of the 1860s as the
greatest domestic threat to Americans
and their way of life. Roosevelt then
led the USA through most of the
Second World War, the greatest
external threat to the American way
of life. During Roosevelts time in
office, a record period from 1933 until
his death in 1945, America became
the worlds leading power. Under the
Roosevelt administration the role of the
government and the part it played in
the lives of American citizens increased
dramatically. Franklin Roosevelt
changed American government and
politics in a major way. The changes he
introduced still play a large part in the
political, social and economic life of the
US today.
EARLY LIFE
Franklin Roosevelt was born in 1882
into a world of wealth and privilege.
The Roosevelts were a well-known
New York family. One of Franklins
distant relatives, Theodore Roosevelt,
had already been president of the
United States. Franklins early life and
much of his adult life was dominated
by his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt,
who was a strong-minded woman
who intended to play an ongoing
role in her sons life. Young Franklin
attended Groton, an expensive private
school, and then went on to university
at Harvard. An example of his mothers
attitude was that she took rooms near

the university so that she could be
near her son. In 1905 Franklin married
a distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Eleanor was a shy but determined
young woman with definite ideas
about politics. Throughout their
marriage Franklin relied on her advice
when making important political
decisions. He didnt always agree
with his wife because he wasnt as
idealistic as Eleanor. FDR, as Franklin
Roosevelt became known, was a
practical politician who understood
power and knew when to stand firm,
when to compromise and also when
to do nothing. There is a story that
Eleanor was sitting with her husband
after he became president, at a series
of meetings with two top government
officials during the Depression. Each
of the officials came privately to see
FDR and to complain about the other.
Roosevelt agreed with both of them
and promised his support, saying
to each in turn as they left youre
absolutely right. After the second
official left Eleanor took her husband to
task, telling him that what he did was
wrong, and that he had misled at least
one of the visitors. Roosevelt replied
youre absolutely right.
FDR went into politics in 1910 and
supported the Democratic Party.
He won a seat in the New York state
senate. In 1913, FDR moved into
national politics when Woodrow Wilson
asked him to become a member of
his administration. Roosevelt became
assistant secretary for the navy in
Wilsons Cabinet. He attended the Paris
Peace Conference in 1919 at the end of

the First World War. FDR had developed
into a tall, impressive, charming figure.
He won the respect of the other
members of the Democratic Party
and, in 1920, got the chance to run
for the office of vice-president when
fellow Democrat James Cox stood for
the presidency. Even though Cox and
Roosevelt lost to Republicans Warren
Harding and Calvin Coolidge, Roosevelt
was seen as a possible future president.
In 1921 it appeared as though his
political career had come to an end
when he fell ill with poliomyelitis. He
would never again be able to walk
unaided. FDR could stand with special
leg braces fitted, but could only walk
with crutches or with a walking stick,
while being supported by another
person. He was a rich man and could
have accepted his disability and lived
a comfortable life. FDR, however, was
changed by his illness. Those who
knew him claimed that he was more
understanding about the problems
of others and that he thought more
deeply about things. He worked to
return to political life and achieved
this goal when he attended the
Democratic convention in 1924. He
became governor of New York in 1928
and won the presidency in 1932.
THE NEW DEAL

Roosevelt first used the term New Deal, on becoming the partys candidate for the
presidency, in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1932.
I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people (Sitkoff 1985, p. 4).
It is unlikely that at the time Roosevelt was doing anything more than making a speech.
The words were inspiring, but vague. He didnt want to and didnt need to commit himself
to any specific plan of action. The 1932 election was the election that Hoover lost, rather
than the election that Roosevelt won. In FDRs mind his first task was to get elected. During
the campaign he gave little away. In fact, he criticised Hoover for being reckless and
extravagant with government money and for trying to centre too much government power
in Washington. Roosevelt, in fact, pledged to cut government spending by 25 per cent.
These conservative arguments bore no resemblance to what he actually did, but it was an
important reflection of FDRs style. He could be ruthless, practical and willing to deceive
others to get what he wanted.
The New Deal that emerged during 1933 evolved from trial and error. There was no bold,
revolutionary grand design; that was not Roosevelts style. He was pragmatic; in other words,
he looked for practical solutions to specific problems. FDR was not caught up with ideals or
theories, but he was, however, prepared to experiment and he did want action. He said, Take
a method and try it if it fails try another. But above all, try something (Sitkoff 1985, p. 5).
The 20th Amendment to the US Constitution was yet to be passed, so Roosevelt had
to wait from election day November 1932 until March 1933 before his inauguration as
president. The 20th Amendment changed that and now Inauguration Day has been brought
forward to 20 January. During that time FDR had a number of meetings with President
Hoover, the man he had defeated in the election. They did not get on. Hoover described
Roosevelt as intellectually lightweight and felt he had little understanding of the economic
situation. They were a study in contrastsHoover immersed himself in economic detail,
Roosevelt had little time for detail; Hoover read every economic report, FDR gained more
from talking to people.
DID YOU KNOW?

FDR was almost assassinated.
In Miami, Florida, on
15 February 1933 Giuseppe
Zangara, an unemployed
bricklayer, attempted to shoot
President Franklin Roosevelt
at point-blank range. As
Zangara fired, a woman
standing nearby accidentally
bumped his arm. He missed
Roosevelt but hit and killed
Chicago mayor Anton Cermak,
who had been standing near
the presidents car. Zangara
acted alone. From his jail
cell he wrote that he was
perfectly happy with what
he had done, claiming that
he was protesting against
the rich for the poor people
of the world. Up until the
moment he was put to death
in the electric chair Zangara
abused all wealthy people and
appeared to be upset that the
newspapers had not come
to take his picture. His last
words were, Go ahead, push
the button.
There were a few clues as to what Roosevelt might do to address the Depression. In the
past and as governor of New York he had supported low tariffs and assistance to agriculture.
He was willing to spend government money; he favoured public-funded hydroelectric projects and
the provision of government money for the unemployed and old. Many people gave Roosevelt
advice between election day and his inauguration and he listened to them all with equal politeness,
frequently sending them away with the belief that they had convinced him. However, if they had or if
he had a definite plan in mind it was difficult to distinguish from measures that Hoover had already
adopted (Kennedy 1999, p. 118).
1 List the main economic effects of the Depression between 1929 and 1932.
2 What were Hoovervilles?
3 There is a growing interest in what is called alternative, or counter-factual history.
If Roosevelt had been killed in 1932, John Garner, FDRs vice-president, would have
become the nations leader. How might things have been different if no one had
accidentally bumped the gunmans arm and Garner had become president? Research
the character and attitudes of Garner.
THE HUNDRED DAYS: RELIEF AND RECOVERY

All the uncertainty vanished after Inauguration Day; the talk and interviews were replaced with action.
Roosevelt used the full power of the presidents office to attack the Depression. He also appealed directly
to the public through radio, in what became famous as his fireside chats. The program for the New
Deal became clear after Roosevelts first one hundred days in office. The initial stage of the New Deal
was based on three foundations: the establishment of government agencies devoted to relief from the
hardships of the Depression and recovery; tighter government regulation of aspects of business, banking
and the economy at large; and an expansion of public works to stimulate the economy.
Fifteen major bills went through Congress between 9 March and 16 June in 1933 creating the
following agencies: the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Home-Owners Loan Corporation, the
Farm Credit Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA), the United States Employment Service, the Civil Works Administration, the Federal
Communications Commission, the National Housing Administration, and the Securities and Exchange
Commission, which was headed by John Kennedys father, Joe, and is another example of FDRs
political style. When Roosevelt was criticised for the appointment because of Joe Kennedys reputation
for shady deals on Wall Street, FDR replied: Set a thief to catch a thief.
FDR took the US off the Gold Standard, closed the banks and then gradually reopened them,
providing a government guarantee of all deposits under $5000.
Roosevelt went on to extend government regulation of the economy through the National Labor
Relations Act, Social Security Act, Farm Tenancy Act, Public Utilities Holding Company Act and the
Fair Labor Standards Act. There was an expanded public works program with the Rural Electrification
Administration, United States Housing Authority and the Works Progress Administration.
Figure 9.4 Drought made the plight of farmers worse during the Depression. This shows one of the great dust storms that rolled over
the plains in the 1920s and 1930s. The new western historians believed this was the result of reckless development in which trees were
cut down to create more farmland with little thought for the ecological balance. With nothing to hold the top soil in dry weather, it just blew
away. The TVA and the Conservation Corps, established under the New Deal, attempted to repair the damage.
This aspect of the New Deal did play a role in easing the burden of the Depression. The so-called
New Deal recovery caused unemployment to fall from nearly 12 million in 193233 to less than eight
million four years later. A recession in 193738 saw the figures rise again for a time, until full recovery
came with the Second World War.
Regardless of the results of the first one hundred days or of the New Deal as a whole, it did win
major and enduring public approval. Roosevelts party, the Democrats, added to their majority of seats
in the Congress and the Senate in the 1934 elections. Roosevelt was re-elected president with a huge
majority, defeating the Republican candidate, Alf Landon. He was re-elected in 1940 and 1944.
The New Deal prompted a great deal of controversymany people saw it as revolutionary; others
complained it didnt go far enough. The Supreme Court blocked many of the changes that FDR
wanted; for example, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), an agency designed to provide
direction for future economic planning set up in 1933, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court in 1935.
THE NEW DEAL AND REFORM

As mentioned above, the New Deal was not a grand plan; rather it was a series of specific and often
experimental solutions to particular social and economic problems. As a consequence, the New
Deal comprised many changes and many phases. Some historians have found it useful to distinguish
between the initial changes and later aspects of the program.
The early phase, sometimes called the first New Deal, referred to measures taken up to 1935. The
second phase went from 1935 to 1939. If the early period had been about relief and recovery, the
second period was dominated far more by the hope of lasting reform. Some historians argue that the
first part of the New Deal had focused on the needs of business and banks in order to support the
economy. The second part did more to address the needs of the poor, the unemployed, the farmers,
and other disadvantaged groups.
The second period ushered in significant social welfare reform in the form of unemployment
insurance, old age pensions, and provision of public housing.
One of the triggers for the reforms of the second New Deal was the Supreme Courts ruling that
the NRA was unconstitutional. Roosevelt rose to the challenge. In 1935 the Social Security Act and then
the Revenue Act or Welfare Tax Act were passed. Each of these was designed to make the social system
more equitable, providing pensions and social welfare payments to the unemployed and the elderly,
and imposing a heavier tax burden on the rich.
1 Roosevelt has been described as pragmatic. What does this mean? Is this description
accurate?
2 What were the three foundations of the New Deal?
3 Select any two of the agencies listed and research their roles during the New Deal.
4 What key features of Roosevelts personality made him a successful politician?
The first and second New Deal

Although the labels first New Deal and second New Deal are often used, neither William
Leuchtenburg nor David Kennedy, Americas most distinguished historians writing about the New
Deal, regards them as adequate or useful terms. William Leuchtenburg has identified different sets of
meanings for the terms:
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the New Deal in terms of its legacy. Which pieces of legislation had lasting effects? Kennedy sees the
measures adopted to address the immediate economic crisis of the Depression as part of what he calls
the first New Deal. For Kennedy, the second New Deal includes all of the enduring changes that came
out of the reforms from 1933 onward. He bases his distinction not on when policies were enacted, but
on how significant and lasting they proved to be.
THE POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW DEAL

One of the foremost scholars on FDR and the New Deal, William Leuchtenburg, maintains that The
Presidency as we know it today begins with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Leuchtenburg 1995, p. 1).
Richard Kirkendall, as well as other prominent historians, suggests that Roosevelt and the New Deal
did make significant changes to American politics. Kirkendall argues that the New Deal helped defend
the two-party system, and provided moderate change that prevented more radical change, either
revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.
Kirkendall saw the New Deal as continuing an American tradition of pragmatic reform (Sitkoff
1985, p. 11). He claimed that it was possible to imagine better results than those brought about by
the New Deal, but he also claimed that it is also possible to conceive of less desirable ones. In 1929
and 1930 the economic crisis of the Depression was so extreme that the view was not whether there
would be change, but rather how significant the change would be. Hoover had been willing to involve
the government in the bid for recovery, especially through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of
1931, but he hoped that the private sector might lead the way. His failure to turn the economic cycle
meant that people had less confidence in the ability of the private sector to deal with the crisis, leading
them to accept FDRs expanded role for government.
A
Figure 9.5 Two different views of the New Deal. (A) Roosevelt
has killed the dragon of fear and now confronts the dragon of
deflation. Deflation was seen as the traditional method of dealing
with the Depression. FDR adopted an inflationary policy. Note that
recovery is still faint and is around the corner. What was the NRA
and what happened to it? (B) The academic, one of Roosevelts
New Deal economists, unsuccessfully juggles solutions to the
Depression. What do you think the dishes represent? Compare
and contrast the cartoons. What is their message and how is it
communicated?
By 1932 the Communist Party and the Socialist Party had expanded their membership and
campaigns for radical change. There were outbreaks of violence and repression, the best documented
of which was the famous attack on the veteran bonus marchers in Washington in 1932.
Kirkendall describes Roosevelts approach as the middle way, saying, The American voters chose
Roosevelt, not revolution (Sitkoff 1985, p. 15). Roosevelt wasnt a radical; he believed in the conservative
function of reform. He believed in capitalism, but called for changes in the nature of the relationship
between government and business. He had a significant political mandate from the people for his
program: he won 57.4 per cent of the vote compared with Hoovers 39.7 per cent. This was a significant
political change given the Republicans had been the majority party since the 1890s.
Kirkendall describes Roosevelts election victory in 1932 as a triumph for the centre. The political
support FDR called upon, dubbed the Roosevelt coalition, was made up of urban support from the big
cities (he won big support in the thirty-six largest cities) and immigrants. In addition, the Depression
resulted in a return of the South to the Democratic Party and farmers in the West and Midwest shifted
to the Democrats. This support became even stronger in the 1936 election.
Democratic support from Black voters rose in the 1932 election. Traditionally the Blacks had
supported the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and emancipation, but Hoovers record on race
relations was poor. Even so the majority of Black voters still distrusted the Democrats. By 1936 this had
changed and the majority of African Americans voted for Roosevelt.
A new balance of support for the Democratic and the Republican Parties was taking shape, a trend
that was reinforced by Roosevelts smashing victory in 1936. Until this time, the Democratic Party
machine did not exist beyond the old South and in some of the larger Northern cities. Roosevelt,
therefore, campaigned without emphasising his party while trying to draw in new support.
A major result of Roosevelts efforts and the politics of the New Deal was the establishment of the
Democrats as an ongoing political force. Roosevelt was creating the modern Democratic Party.
THE POLITICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW DEAL

The New Deal meant a greater role for the national government in American economic life, and that
the economic system remained a capitalist one, the survival of which the New Deal was committed to
promoting.
FDR initially followed a policy similar to Hoovers of trying to gain the cooperation of business
leaders. By 1935, however, he became more critical of these leaders and raised the level of government
activity to promote the welfare of the lower income groups and the workforce, as part of the second
New Deal. Politically, Roosevelts success was reflected in his overwhelming election victory in 1936.
Immigrants
A good deal of FDRs support in 1932 came from immigrants, who had opposed the idea of Prohibition.
Their experiences at the bottom of the social ladder meant they were in favour of social welfare
programs, and approved of the social security legislation promised by FDR Roosevelts Cabinet
appointments also came from beyond the narrow group of Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
African Americans
Even though a majority of Blacks had come to support the Democrats by 1936, there wasnt much
done specifically for them under the New Deal. There was no effort to address the lynchings,
disenfranchisement, segregation or job discrimination against Blacks. Where the New Deal helped
Blacks was as members of the lower class through welfare programs.
Even though Roosevelt and the policies of the New Deal were cautious on race issues, there was
an improvement from the previous Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson. The New Deal
resulted in more African Americans being placed in important government positions than any previous
administration. Blacks perceived that in what the president said, perhaps more than what he did, he
was concerned about the issues that concerned them.
The organised labour movement

The union movement gave the New Deal solid support. John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and
Sidney Hillman backed FDR. Support from the labour movement filled the gap left by the alienation of
business.
Rural voters
Against past tradition and the traditional individualistic philosophy of farmers, the rural farm vote went
to the New Deal; for example, in 1936 60 per cent of Iowa farmers supported FDRin the 1920s only
30 per cent of this group had voted for the Democrats.
Women
Women were a key part of Roosevelts support base. Women were employed in significant government
positions. The high public profile of Eleanor Roosevelt as first lady was also significant.
During his time in office, Roosevelt was both plagued and blessed by crisis. He was elected in
1932 because of the Depression; he was re-elected in 1936 because of the political realignment that
approval of the New Deal had created. By 1940 war had broken out in Europe and by 1944 the USA was
in the closing stages of that war.
Historians continue to debate the extent and duration of the political fall out from the New Deal.
It could be argued that its legacy carried through to the Kennedy and Johnson campaigns of 1960 and
1964. Johnson was a New Deal Democratic congressman from Texas, who proposed the great society
of the 1960s, the high tide of Democratic liberalism. The Clinton campaign of 1992 was not without
cultural links to the Democratic tradition of FDR and the New Deal in terms of its rhetoric.
THE ASSESSMENT OF THE NEW DEAL

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Roosevelt claimed to dislike theory and ideology; he saw his approach as pragmatic. FDR did not
see himself as a radical and described the New Deal as consistent with the American political tradition.
He argued that it followed on from Theodore Roosevelts Square Deal and the New Freedom reform
agenda of Woodrow Wilson.
The criticism
There were those, such as Benjamin Stolberg and Warren Vinton writing in 1935, who claimed that
the New Deal didnt go far enough and that it failed to alter the basic injustices within American
society. They attacked the limitations of the social security, the lack of concern for the Blacks and the
inadequate unemployment relief programs.
CASE STUDY:
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE

NEW DEALWHAT THE HISTORIANS HAVE SAID
1945 TO 1965: THE NEW DEAL
WAS VIEWED AS BEING
GENERALLY BENEFICIAL
In the twenty years after Roosevelts
death in 1945 the general consensus
among historians was that the New
Deal had been essentially successful
and beneficial. They differed in their
ideas about the origins of the New
Deal and the degree of change it
promotedfor example, was the New
Deal a radical departure, or was it the
result of the evolution, as Roosevelt
saw it, of American reform?
The question was also raised as to
whether there were two distinct New
Deals, the first and second, or whether
there was a clear and common

underlying purpose to the whole.
FROM 1965: THE NEW

DEAL WAS INCREASINGLY
PRESENTED AS A FAILURE
From around 1965 the New Deal
was described as a failure and was
blamed for the social ills that became
apparent in the mid-1960s. More
historians claimed that it had not
changed or improved the US to any
real degree, saying that it had failed
to provide economic security for all,
reduce the gap between rich and poor,
limit corporate power, create racial
equality, and reduce exploitation of the
environment. These historians, often

called historians of the New Left, saw
the New Deal as a means to preserve
capitalism rather than serve the needs
of the people.
There is now general consensus that
the New Deal didnt really provide
radical economic, social or political
change. It is seen as a practical and
pragmatic American solution to a
specific problem and one that fits in
with the overall pattern of American
reform. The New Deal is therefore
better described as an aspect of
evolutionary change rather than
revolutionary change.
This attack has since been continued by James MacGregor Burns and Paul Conkin, who argued that
the New Deal benefited the wealthy, and those with vested interests, especially the farmers and the
middle class. They suggest that it didnt lead to fundamental change for those most in need.
On the other side of politics, FDR was criticised for being revolutionary. Conservatives, such as
former president Hoover and Robert Taft, claimed that the New Deal tried to set up a welfare state, and
that it was socialisttoo much power flowed to government.
1 List the main political results of the New Deal.
2 Write an essay on the topic: What was the New Deal? How did it attempt to address
the problems of the Great Depression? What were its consequences?
3 Was the New Deal a revolutionary change or an evolutionary change? Provide
examples to support your answer.
AMERICAN SOCIETY 19191941

The decade after the First World War has been called the Roaring Twenties; the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald
called it the Jazz Age. It was time of urban expansion, technological advance, social change and
superficial prosperity. It was a decade of transition that established many of the foundations of modern
American society. The 1920s were characterised by conservative impulses such as Prohibition, the
resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, a fear of immigrants and of communism, and clashes with a modern
sense of permissiveness symbolised by the flappers. The term flapper was used to describe young
women who broke with the puritanical traditions of the past. They wore short dresses and make-up,
and smoked in public. The 1920s were not a time of prosperity for everyone. Worker wages did not
increase at a rate comparable to productivity or profits. The decade after the war also saw a major
rural recession. Prices for farm produce fell from wartime highs and failed to recover. The growing gap
between the rich and poor, which had been a feature of the twentieth century, and the farm recession
reinforced class divisions and the sense of alienation between more traditional Anglo-Saxon America
and the emerging urban, multicultural America of the big cities. It is fair to suggest that the Jazz Age
has been glamorised in popular American culture because of the stark contrast with the bitter decade
of the Great Depression that followed in the 1930s.
A close study of the domestic history of the US in this period reveals a colourful story full of largerthan-life characters and interesting contradictions, some of which are explored in more depth here.
THE SCOPES TRIAL

The USA led the world in the development of science and technology throughout much of the
twentieth century, yet in 1925 an American science teacher was put on trial in the state of Tennessee
for teaching part of his subject. Tennessee, along with fifteen other states, had passed laws declaring
that Charles Darwins theory of evolution could not be taught in their schools and universities. They
wanted only the biblical version of creation. One of the great campaigners in defence of the creationist
view was William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was the unsuccessful Democratic Party candidate for the
presidency in 1896, 1900 and again in 1904, and had played a key role in gaining the passage of
two important constitutional amendments, one giving votes to women and the other introducing
prohibition. At the time of the Scopes Trial, Bryan, who appeared for the prosecution, was working
towards another constitutional amendment to ban the teaching of Darwin from any school or
university in the country. To us this might seem to be opposed to everything that education stands
for. However, in some parts of the USA in the 1920s, fundamentalist religion, that is, belief in the literal
truth of everything in the Bible, was highly influential. John Scopes, the science teacher involved, was
arrested and found guilty. The contradiction was evident in that America based much of its greatness
on science and technology, yet at the same time, in some states, attacked science and education
through their own laws.
THE KU KLUX KLAN

A country that provided the world with one of the great examples of democracy and government by
the people, a country that valued the ideas of freedom and individual liberty, was also the birthplace
of a powerful, racist secret society called the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had existed briefly at the end of
the American Civil War and then withered away; however, it was reborn in 1915 and grew through
the 1920s. Even though it claimed to be American, the Klan contradicted the things that the USA was
meant to represent: the Klan attacked Blacks, Catholics, Jews and anyone not born in the United States.
PROHIBITION
The Prohibition Era, from 1920 to 1933, was a time when it was against the law to produce, sell or
transport alcohol in the USA. It is very difficult for us today to imagine how the groups opposed
to alcohol could have become strong enough to pass a law banning it; nevertheless, they did. It is,
again, one of the fascinating things about the US that a country so proud of its traditions of individual
freedom should be prepared to pass laws like Prohibition. Prohibition grew out of campaigns by strong
religious groups, which had been a factor in American life since the 1800s. When it was discovered that
Prohibition was almost impossible to enforce and encouraged criminal elements, it was abandoned. It
is worth noting, however, that the state of Oklahoma didnt make drinking legal until 1959.
1 Refer to the timeline. What examples can you find of Americas leadership in science,
technology and industry between 1898 and 1941?
2 Why can the Scopes trial, the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition be described as
contradictions?
The major social characteristics of the period can be summarised in the following terms.
The growth of urban society This was one of the most striking developments of the 1920s. It
was the result of immigration; most of the foreign immigrants tended to flock to the large cities and
stay. It was also the product of internal immigration as people from the small towns moved to the large
manufacturing centres in search of work and opportunity. For the first time in Americas history the
urban population was larger than the rural communities.
In 1910 there were only three US cities with populations over one million: New York (4 766 883),
Chicago (2 185 283), and Philadelphia (1 549 008). By the end of the 1920s there were five, all with vastly
increased populations: New York (6 930 446), Chicago (3 376 438), Philadelphia (1 950 961), Detroit
(1 568 662), and Los Angeles (1 238 048). It is also significant to note that in 1910 Detroit had fewer than
500 000 people and Los Angeles was an even smaller rural community. The automobile and motion
pictures had far-reaching social consequences. The growth of the cities accelerated the development
of skyscrapers, giant multi-storey buildings that have become synonymous with the USA. By 1929
there were 377 buildings in the USA of more than twenty storeys.
The acceleration of industrial development The 1920s have been called the decade of the
second American industrial revolution; a claim that is supported by the fact that industrial production
doubled between 1922 and 1927. The increased production was a result of technological advances
in manufacturing technology. Electrical power replaced steam in most factoriesmost of the added
output was in consumer goods.
The birth of modern consumer society Industrial expansion made more and more consumer
goods available at lower prices. For example, the price of one of Henry Fords Model Ts had dropped
from $950 down to $290 in 1926. Industry provided a growing range of now familiar labour-saving
household appliances: stoves, refrigerators and washing machines. Technology allowed the production
of synthetic products such as cellophane and rayon.
With the consumer society came advertising In the 1920s the focus of advertising shifted.
Advertising began life to inform the consumer; by the 1920s advertising was persuasive. The
fundamental and near-fatal weakness of the market capitalism of the 1920s was the continual need for
consumption and growth. Advertising agencies more than doubled their income from 1919 to 1926,
when the advertising industry, for that is what it had become, earned over $3 billion.
A growing gap between the city and the country The cities were growing and the rural way
of life was in decline. The mass media, radio and films glamorised the urban way of life. Cities stood
for opportunity and were the centres of political and economic power. The politicians, banks and
big business had headquarters in the cities. Many so-called traditional Americans viewed cities with
suspicionthe urban centres were far more multicultural and appeared to be far more radical. The
anti-communist Red Scare of 1919 was based upon a conservative wave of Americanism. The same
conservatism resulted in Prohibition and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. This type of conservatism
was not unique to rural Americathere were plenty of conservatives in the citiesbut it was still
a reflection of a rift that appeared in American life. The sense of rural alienation was one of the key
elements of social division in the America of the 1920s.
Changes in family life By 1920 women made up 20 per cent of the workforce and this figure
continued to rise slowly. By 1920 women had won the right to vote. The traditional family unit felt
the impact of ongoing change. Family members were likely to make their careers further from their
birthplace than earlier generations. The motor car gave them rare and even revolutionary mobility for
both work and recreation. During the 1920s, divorce laws
were liberalised and the divorce rate rose. The average life
REVIEW QUEST IONS
expectancy for an American male was fifty-six, for a woman
fifty-nine; this was a jump of about ten years over the
1 What were the major social characteristics of
previous decade. Women, as depicted in Hollywood films
the 1920s?
and the media, were far more independent and liberated
2 Why did Detroit and Los Angeles grow so much
than they had been previously.
during the 1920s?
A growth in mass entertainment sponsored by
Hollywood and radio Silent films had been around for
many years, but during the 1920s Hollywood as an industry
expanded. The revolution gained added impetus in 1927
with talking pictures: the revolution of sound. The mass
production of radio sets led to commercial broadcasting.
Following the success of the first station, KDKA, in Pittsburgh,
others followed, and by 1924 there were over 500 radio
stations. There was a remarkable growth in the popularity
of spectator sports as a leisure activity. Baseball and football
attracted huge crowds and Babe Ruth and Red Grange
became national heroes on the diamond and the gridiron.
3 Why were the 1920s called the second

American industrial revolution?
4 What products were a result of industrial
growth?
5 What was the role of advertising in the
emerging consumer society?
6 Describe the nature of the gap that appeared
between the city and the country.
7 List some of the key changes to family life.
8 What were the dominant forms of mass
entertainment?
CASE STUDY:
THE KU KLUX KLAN

It is fair to say that there have been
at least two and perhaps more than
two Ku Klux Klans in the history of the
United States.
leader or Grand Wizard of the Klan. The

Klan was responsible for a great deal of
violence against Blacks between 1868
and 1871.
THE FIRST KLAN
In response to the Klans violence, the

US Congress passed two bills, in 1870
and 1871, known in the South as the
Force Acts. They were quickly followed
by the Ku Klux Klan Act (1871). These
laws gave the president the power
to use military force in any areas
where secret societies like the Klan
were operating. Despite their good
intentions these laws didnt help much,
and although 7000 charges were laid,
few Klansmen were convicted.
The Ku Klux Klan first appeared in 1865

and 1866, just after the American Civil
War, in a reaction by Southern Whites
against the policies of the victorious
North, and against the privileges
gained by Blacks. The KKK was a secret
society that used violence and terror
to ensure that Blacks didnt vote or
have any real power. Members of the
Klan were known as the Knights of the
Invisible Empire and dressed in hoods
and white robes. The Klan lynched,
burned, bashed and murdered Blacks
or people who helped Blacks. The
famous Southern Civil War general
Nathan Bedford Forrest became the
The first Klan was officially disbanded

in 1869. There were occasional signs
of Klan activity after this time, but they
were isolated incidents. Basically, the
Klan had disappeared as a major force
by the start of the twentieth century.

There are three possible explanations
for the end of the first Klan. First,
laws passed by congress did give
the government more power when
it wanted to act and the publicity
associated with Klan violence and the
debates in congress did not make
the South look good. Second, many
respectable Southern Whites were
opposed to the brutality and violence
of some Klan actions. Finally, by 1869
many of the White community leaders
realised that they could control the
Blacks by legal meansthey passed
laws that kept Blacks and Whites
separate, and that made it hard for
Blacks to vote. If the Whites made the
laws and the Whites ran the police
force, they didnt need the Ku Klux Klan
to keep the Blacks in line.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY
Source 9.1
Below you will find an extract from W. C. Wades book The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan
in America, published in 1987. The passage is the story of what happened to a Black
shopkeeper named Henry Lowther at the hands of Klansmen in Wilkinson County in the
state of Georgia.
They [the Klan] took him [Lowther] o to a swamp, some two miles from town.
Within a hundred yards of the swamp, one of the Klansmen brought out a rope,
and thinking he was going to be hanged, Lowther fell to his knees and begged
for his life Suddenly, every Klansman cocked his gun and pointed it at Lowther.
Lowther was certain he was going to be shot to death and, as he recalled, I didnt
care much then.
To his surprise, the Klan leader came up to him and asked whether he preferred to
be murdered or altered. After choosing the latter, Henry Lowther was pushed to
the ground and castrated.
Nearly naked and profusely bleeding, Lowther walked two and a quarter miles
before coming to the first house.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST I O N S
1 Where did the Klansmen take
Lowther?
2 The Klansmen threatened
Lowther with death twice in
different ways. What were
they?
3 Why do you think the
Klansmen wanted to convince
Lowther that they would kill
him?
4 What did they do to him?
5 Why might the Klan have
wanted Lowther to survive
the ordeal?
W. C. Wade, The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America, Simon & Schuster,
New York, 1987, p. 78.
The best way to account for the

decline of the first Klan is probably a
combination of the three explanations
offered above.
THE SECOND KLAN: THE BIRTH

OF A NATION, HOLLYWOOD
AND THE REBIRTH OF THE
KLAN
In 1915 the famous film-maker
D. W. Griffith gave the first showing of
his epic silent picture about the period
of the American Civil War. Even though
the film was originally entitled The
Clansman, the film is better known by
its second name, The Birth of a Nation.
The film was enormously popular and
its message was that the Southern way
of life was saved from violent Blacks by
the Ku Klux Klan. The idea for the film
came from a racist novel by Thomas
Dixon, making no secret of the fact
that it thought Blacks were somehow
less than human. The plot for the book
and film followed the experiences of
a Southern family through the Civil
War and beyond. At one stage in the
film a Black chases the White heroine,
with the intention of raping her. When
the film was shown in the South some
members of one audience became
so enraged that they drew pistols and
shot at the image of the Black man on
the screen. The heroes of the film were
the hooded members of the Ku Klux
Klanat the films climax they rode in
to save the day. Some people at the
time felt the film was racist and there
were arguments about whether parts
of it should be changed or censored.
Nevertheless, the film reached a wide
audience and triggered a revival of the
Klan, reflecting the emerging power
of Hollywood to mould public opinion
and as the creator of myth.
reappeared in Atlanta in the state

of Georgia. Simmons was a good
organiser and used Griffiths film
as advertising for his new Klan. He
became the leader or Imperial Wizard
of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux
Klan. The second Klan was also antiBlack and anti-immigrant. It wasnt
hard to stir up these feelingsAmerica
was changing a great deal in the early
1900s. Between 1900 and 1920 over
fourteen million immigrants arrived
in the US and Simmons and the
Klan simply played on old American
fears about new arrivals. Like the
Blacks, immigrants were different
and for many people difference was
frightening. During the First World
War, fears of spies meant that anyone
who looked or sounded foreign was
suspected. Simmons made clever use
of wartime fears.
WILLIAM SIMMONS
During this wartime period it

became a policy of the Klan to keep
membership secret. Simmons claimed
it was important in the Klans work
against spieseven though there is
no evidence that Klansmen ever did
anything other than raise money for
the Klan and recruit new members. In
reality it added to the sense of mystery
and excitement the Klan could offer
members and also meant that it was
more difficult for the government to
investigate the Klan. Under Simmons
leadership the Klan spread to some
of the larger northern cities. Due to
the industrial boom produced by
the war 750 000 Blacks moved to
Northern states in search of jobs in the
new factories, leading to some racial
violence between Whites and the
newly arrived Blacks. Late in 1919 there
were twenty-six recorded race riots in
northern cities. Klan membership grew
to more than 3000.
A key figure in the revival of the Klan

was William Simmons. The Klan first
The Klan seemed to hate people who

were not native-born Americans, not
White, not Protestant. The success

of the Klan was built on the fact that
Americans seemed to like joining
local social groups or clubs called
lodges in the US. The Klan was like a
lodgeit was something that people
could join and feel like they were part
of a group. The 1920s were a time of
change in America; more and more
people were moving away from the
small towns into the big cities. Many
of these people missed the feeling
of community they had known in
the pastlodges and the Klan filled
that need.
In 1921 a newspaper, the New York
World, began a series of articles
criticising the Klan for its part in
attacks on Blacks, Catholics, Jews
and immigrants, claiming that the
Klan had been responsible for four
murders, forty-one floggings and over
one hundred acts of assault. Pressure
from the press forced the US congress
to investigate the Klan. Simmons
was called to testify. He performed
extremely well and the questions
werent too tough. Simmons blamed
all the violence on groups outside the
Klan. Despite the efforts of the New
York World all the publicity seemed to
do was help the Klan. After Simmons
appeared before congress, Klan
membership went up by 20 per cent
and there are claims that President
Warren Harding was personally
sworn in as a member of the Klan by
Simmons in the White House.
UNREST WITHIN THE KLAN

Although to people outside the Klan
it appeared that Simmons was at the
height of his power, he was coming
under attack from within. The attacks
were led by Hiram Evans, an important
member of the Klan in Texas, who was
unhappy about the amount of money
Simmons seemed to be making out
of his leadership of the Klan. Evans
Figure 9.6 Application for Klan citizenship, circa 1921
Refer to the Application for citizenship and answer the following questions.
1 How much did membership of the Klan cost?
2 What was a member of the Klan required to be and required to believe?
found an important ally in David

Stephenson. Stephenson was building
a mighty Klan empire in the state of
Indiana. Evans replaced Simmons as
the Imperial Wizard in 1922 and under
his leadership the Klan expanded
even further. He continued the ideas
of racial purity, but went further and
made the Klan into a ultra-nationalist

group, encouraging its members to
become active in politics and to help
one another in business. He called this
klannishness. The Klaverns published
newsletters about local issues and
sponsored public meetings regularly
Evans had a target of 10 million
members. He thought that too much

violence was bad for membership;
therefore, he wanted it reduced,
saying it was better to put pressure on
the government to cut immigration
than it was to beat up immigrants.
Nevertheless, incidents of Klan violence
and murder did continue.
Evans was most successful in turning

the attention of the Klan towards
politics. A review of the newspapers
and magazines of the time shows that
the Klan was taken seriously as a factor
in many elections between 1923 and
1925. The political high point of the
Klans power came in 1924 when they
blocked the nomination of a Catholic,
Al Smith, as the Democratic candidate
for the presidency. In 1924 the Klan
claimed to have a total of four million
members. This membership was used
to influence members of congress
to pass the 1924 Immigration
Restriction Act.
THE TACTICS OF THE KLAN

The Klan was in favour of white
supremacy and believed in
segregation and the Blacks, immigrants,
Jews and Catholics were described
by the Klan as being un-American.
The Klan used a variety of methods to
achieve its goals, as follows:
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more members the Klan had, the
wealthier and more influential it
became
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of violence against people they
hated, on a local levelincluded
assault, arson, kidnapping and
murder or latent violence, such as
members driving by in white robes,
their faces covered with masks to
leave a burning cross (the symbol
of the Klan)
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other in business and careersby
making Klan members richer and
more powerful within the local
community, the Klan itself became
more powerful
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pressurein areas with high levels
of Klan membership, they sought
to elect politicians who supported
their ideas; they also refused to do

business with groups they didnt like.
Despite the growing numbers, and
the increasing wealth and power of
the Klan, there were those who were
prepared to speak and write against it.
C A S E S TUDY REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What triggered the revival of
the Klan in 1915?
2 When and why did the Klan
start to keep membership
secret?
3 Why did the Klan begin to gain
new members in the North
during the First World War?
4 Why were Americans likely
to be willing to join a club or
lodge in the 1920s? How did
this help the Klan?
5 What was the result of attacks
on the Klan by the newspaper,
the New York World in 1921?
6 What was the high point of the
Klans political power?
7 List the tactics used by the
Klan to achieve their goals.
C A S E S TUDY REVIEW TASK

Hold a class discussion to
consider whether some
Australians might be similar
to the people who were
attracted to the Klan because
they are afraid of change or
because they listen to people
who might build on this fear
and misunderstanding. For
example, the Klan claimed
that immigrants to the US
took jobs and put White
Americans out of work. In
reality the increased population
and skills that the immigrants
brought to the USA in the
1920s created jobs; they
helped to make more work for
everyone. Consider whether
or not this might also be true
for Australia.
THE DECLINE OF THE KLAN

Many of the high points and the
low points of the Klans fortunes
were closely tied to the talents and
weaknesses of David Curtis (Steve)
Stephenson. Stephenson was the
Grand Dragon of the state of Indiana.
He was an ambitious, likeable figure,
a good public speaker and a clever
salesman. Stephenson was aware that
power depended upon membership
and money. He hired professional
salesmen as Kleagles to increase Klan
numbers and profits. In six months
in 1921 he added 6000 members to
the Klan in Indiana. The approach to
recruitment in states like Indiana, which
were outside the South, had to be
different from the approach adopted
in states like Georgia or Mississippi.
Stephenson could not rely on the old
fear and hatred of Blacks. The Indiana
Klan had to appear respectable. He
encouraged links between Klaverns
and the local Protestant churches.
Local ministers were told that if they
supported the Klan, the Klan would
ensure that new members joined the
church, and that churches sympathetic
to the Klan would receive regular
donations. In doing so Stephenson
played on a long-running suspicion
of the Catholic church in Indiana.
Protestant clergymen often appeared
at Klan rallies in Indiana in the 1920s.
This added to the respectability of
the movement in the eyes of ordinary
people. Stephenson didnt preach
hatred of the Blacks or immigrants in
public; he spoke of, what he called
Americanism. Rallies would often take
the form of a day-long picnic with
music and entertainment. Stephenson
liked to arrive at these rallies in an
aeroplane, making, for the 1920s, an
impressive and eye-catching entrance.
He opened the Klan to women, calling
them the Queens of the Golden
Mask. In public Stephenson and

the Klan were for Prohibition and
family values, and against alcohol.
He found an old Indiana law dating
back to 1852, which he used to make
deputies of Klan members, giving
them the legal right to make arrests.
They used it to check up on anyone
who might be drinking alcohol and
to legally victimise anyone they
didnt like. Stephenson made the Klan
exciting; he made it seem respectable
and he made Klan members feel
important. People recalled that when
they visited Stephenson in his office
he would often appear to be on the
phone holding an important personal
conversation and then at the end
pretend that he had being talking to
the president of the United States.
Stephenson used the Klan to win
political office for candidates of his
choice. In 1924 the governor of Indiana,
Ed Jackson, was the Klans man, as was
the mayor of Indianapolis.
THE MADGE OBERHOLTZER

AFFAIR
In 1925 Stephenson was at the
height of his personal power. Klan
membership in Indiana had reached
350 000. Stephenson was perhaps
the single most influential person in
Indiana and had every prospect of
gaining power on a national scale.
Stephenson, however, became too
impressed with that power. He had a
weakness in private for women and
alcohol, and he dated a 28-year-old
woman Madge Oberholtzer. With
the help of two of his bodyguards
Stephenson kidnapped, raped
and badly beat the young woman.
Oberholtzer had been taken out of
Indianapolis; they stayed overnight in
Hammond, a small town nearby. After
the rape and beating, Madge, out of
fear or shame, went to a chemist and
bought deadly tablets of mercuric
chloride. She took the tablets then

panicked, telling Stephenson what
she had done, but he refused to allow
her medical attention. He had her
driven home and dumped on her
own doorstep. Her parents called the
doctor but it was too lateshe died
a slow, lingering and painful death,
but not before she could tell her story.
Stephenson and his two bodyguards,
Earl Klinck and Earl Gentry, were
charged with second-degree murder.
The trial was a national sensation.
Stephenson repeated often that he
would not be found guilty because of
his political friends and because he
was the law in Indiana. Stephenson,
however, was found guilty. The trial
and the nature of the crime convinced
many people that the Klans message
had been a lie. Klan membership
in Indiana fell by over 300 000.
Stephenson was still confident that he
would be pardoned by the governor
after all, Ed Jackson was the Klans
candidate. When the governor refused
to pardon Stephenson, the Klan leader
took his revenge and published full
details of corruption and the extent of
the Klans political control in Indiana.
Later in 1925, after Stephensons trial,
Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard, tried
to revive the Klans public image with a
mass march in Washington. The march
attracted less than half the expected
number of Klan members. In 1926
Klan membership fell even further
nationally. As the Klan lost more and
more of its better educated members,
Klan leaders began once again to
appeal to the hatreds and fears of the
less educated. The Klans message
changed as did the level of language
used. The clearest example in the
decline in the Klans fortunes came in
1928. Evans and the Klan attended the
Democratic Partys national convention
as they had in 1924, again determined
to block the nomination of the Catholic

Al Smith as the Democratic nominee
for president. This time, however, they
failed. The Klan was no longer the
force it had been. From a high point
of four million members in 1924, Klan
numbers had dropped to just over
40 000 in 1930. The influence of the
Klan almost disappeared outside the
Deep South.
Even though the Klan still exists today
its influence continued to decline after
the 1920s. In the 1932 elections the
Klan began by supporting Franklin
Roosevelt, but finally opposed him
when it became clear that he was
happy to have Jews and Catholics in
his administration. In the late 1930s
the Klan extended its hate list to
include communists and trade union
organisers. In the Southern states the
Klan had a flash of revival during the
1950s when the Federal Government
ruled that Blacks and Whites would
attend the same schools. In the 1960s
Klan membership was just over 10 000,
but it did rise, again briefly, when John
Kennedy was elected the first Catholic
president of the US. The Klan was
active in its opposition to Martin Luther
King and the civil rights movement.
More and more in the 1970s, 1980s and
1990s, the Klan was seen as a fringe
group and was isolated to poorer parts
of the Deep South.
C ASE ST UD Y REVIEW QUEST I O N S

1 Why was David Stephenson
important in the history of the
Ku Klux Klan?
2 How did he build the support
and influence of the Klan in
Indiana?
3 What was the Madge
Oberholtzer affair?
4 Describe how the influence
of the Klan began to decline
after 1925.
THE IMPACT OF THE PROHIBITION ERA ON AMERICAN SOCIETY

Prohibition was a ban placed on the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol in the United
States. The Prohibition Era lasted from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition was introduced by the 18th
Amendment to the US Constitution and was ended by the 21st Amendment. Many people, including
President Herbert Hoover, described Prohibition as a noble experiment. It was seen as an attempt to
protect families and weak individuals from the harmful effects of too much drink. Without alcohol and
saloons, it was hoped that family and church life would rule in America and that everyone would be
better off. Many of those who supported Prohibition did so because they blamed alcohol for changes
in the traditional ways of life. They didnt realise that there were other larger forces at work: urbanisation,
improvements in transport, the mass media and more. The Prohibition experiment failed: it didnt make
Americans better citizens and it didnt help them work harder or love their families more. In fact, during
Prohibition, criminals took over the illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol and this proved to be a
major boost to organised crime in the USA. The government found it very difficult to enforce the law
banning drink. Saloons were closed, but were quickly replaced by speakeasiessecret undercover
bars or saloons. Rather than diminishing the evils of alcohol, Prohibition appeared to make them worse.
After the introduction of Prohibition in New York, there were more speakeasies than there had been
legal saloons. Ultimately, those politicians opposed to Prohibition, called the Wets, gained control of
the Democratic Party; hence Prohibition came to an end soon after the Democratic candidate for the
presidency, Franklin Roosevelt, was elected in 1932.
1 What was Prohibition and how long did the Prohibition Era last?
2 Name the amendments to the US Constitution that introduced and ended Prohibition.
3 Why has Prohibition been called a noble experiment?
4 What were two negative effects of Prohibition?
5 Who were the Wets?
THE ORIGINS OF PROHIBITION

The introduction of Prohibition in 1920 was not a sudden development. America had a long history of
groups that were opposed to alcohol. In the 1800s they were called temperance groups. Members of
these groups felt that alcohol was un-American and evil; they spoke of the demon drink and blamed
it for divorce, poverty, unemployment and crime. Many of them looked back to what they thought
were real American values: the simple country life centred on the family, the local community and
church. As America changed during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the
twentieth, some Americans from White, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon backgrounds became convinced
that America was changing for the worse. The growth of the cities and industry, plus the influx of
immigrants from Europe, changed the face of America. Immigrants came from cultures where alcohol
was a normal part of daily life. The Germans came to America and brewed beer as they had at home;
the Italians continued to drink wine with meals. Temperance groups saw this as a bad thing and
wanted to turn back the clock. Prohibition was encouraged by the desire to return to an American past
its supporters imagined had been a better, happier time.
Prohibition had made some progress by 1910. A number of individual states had passed laws
banning alcohol. The Drysthose in favour of Prohibitionhowever, wanted more, and in 1913 they
began to campaign for a change to the US Constitution that would ban alcohol all over the country.
Source 9.2
This is Section 1 of the 18th Amendment to the US

Constitution.
1 What five specific things about intoxicating

liquors did the 18th Amendment make illegal?
After one year from the ratification of this article the

manufacture, sale, or transport of intoxicating liquors
[alcohol] within, the importation thereof into, or the
exportation thereof from the United States and all territory
subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is
hereby prohibited.
2 Note that the purchase of liquor was not illegal

even though almost everything else was. What
effect do you think this had on the ability of the
government to enforce Prohibition?
R. A. Divine, et al., Americas Past and Present, Vol. II,

1999, p. A-17.
One of the most colourful fighters for Prohibition was Mrs Carrie Nation. She went around the country
invading bars and saloons with a small axe, smashing bottles, glasses, beer kegs and anything else she
could reach.
The First World War helped the Prohibition cause. The Prohibitionists proposed arguments that since
many of the brewers of beer were German or of German origin, it was somehow unpatriotic to drink
beer; that the grain used to make alcohol was needed to feed the hungry during the war; and that since
American soldiers at the front were not allowed to drink, civilians at home should make the same sacrifice.
The US congress passed the 18th Amendment in 1917. To become law, the 18th Amendment had
to be agreed to (ratified) by three-fourths of the states; this happened in 1919. Congress then passed
the Volstead Act, which was meant to give the government the power to enforce Prohibition.
1 Who was Mrs Carrie Nation?
2 How did the First World War help the Prohibition cause?
3 What was the Volstead Act?
PROHIBITION IN ACTION
Prohibition proved almost impossible to enforce. Many Americans realised that the government had
taken away some of their personal freedom and the fact that it wasnt against the law to buy alcohol
made it acceptable to many people to continue drinking. The groups who, publicly, were most in
favour of Prohibition were the Protestant churches and organisations like the Ku Klux Klan, claiming
that Prohibition would help America return to its past values. They were wrong.
Prohibition and the growing influence of gangsters

Prohibition proved to be the greatest boost to crime and gangsters in American history. People still
wanted to drink and it wasnt against the law for them to buy alcohol, but respectable, honest brewers
and distillers of beer and spirits had been put out of business. Organised crime stepped in. By 1925
Al Capone was the crime boss of Chicago. Gangsters ran breweries and imported liquor from Canada.
Capone was willing to kill to protect his illegal empire. Federal authorities claimed he was responsible
for the deaths of at least 400 men. The most violent single act was the St Valentines Day massacre in
Figure 9.7 Beer kegs being broken open by government officials during Prohibition. It was legal to buy alcohol, but illegal to produce or
sell it. What problems might this have created for enforcement of Prohibition law?
1929, when Capones men used machine-guns to murder seven members of a rival gang. Capone had
moneyUS authorities estimated that he earned over $100 million in 1927 alonewhich gave him,
and other gangsters, political influence. Police were paid low wages and were not always hard to bribe.
Capone was finally brought to justice for cheating on income tax. Capone was, however, only one of
many crime bosses who grew rich, made war on one another and contributed to the corruption of
local government and the police during Prohibition.
The governments own statistics showed that Prohibition did not work. Americans continued to
drink, while arrests for drunkenness and drink-driving went up. In the end, people were willing to
accept the idea that Prohibition had failed to achieve its aim. Roosevelts election in 1932 brought with
it a commitment to end Prohibition. In 1933 the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution made alcohol
legal once again in the United States.
THE EFFECTS OF PROHIBITION

Prohibition failed to take America back to what its supporters thought were the traditional values of
American life. It did not stop Americans drinking, and encouraged an increase in organised crime and
violence between rival groups of gangsters.
The growing wealth of the crime bosses added to the corruption of local government officials and
police through bribes. Prohibition not only led to people breaking the law, but also encouraged a lack
of respect for the law.
1 Why was Prohibition difficult to enforce?
2 Who was Al Capone and why was he famous?
3 In what way did the government statistics show that Prohibition didnt work?
4 Write a brief one-page account of Prohibition, answering the following questions:
(a) What was Prohibition?
(b) When was it introduced?
(c) Why did it fail?
(d) What were its effects?
The role and importance of Hollywood

American films are useful in understanding aspects of people and their time. The motion-picture
industry, however, did more than record the times, it moulded themHollywood influenced values
and attitudes. Globally, Hollywood has symbolised America to millions of people.
Early silent films were a popular source of cheap entertainment. By 1900 there were thousands of
Nickelodeons, small theatres where admission was only a nickel or five cents. Many of the founders
of the film industry, such as Louis B. Mayer and the Warner brothers, were immediate descendants of
immigrant families. Silent films were the ideal entertainment for the newly arrived, as poor English was
no barrier to enjoyment of the films and admission was cheap.
In 1886 a man named Wilcox purchased land called Rancho La Brea, which his wife renamed
Hollywood, in California near Los Angeles. In 1911 the Nestor Company set up the first film studio
in Hollywood. California was attractive to the new industry because of the weather, an important
consideration since much of the filming was done outside and needed good natural light. Southern
California also had cheap electricity, which helped to keep costs down. Beyond that, many of the early
producers were said to be fearful of all kinds of legal action and disputes over patents, film rights and
contracts. California had a reputation for being a place where people did not resort to the courts often,
and the nearby Mexican border always provided a potential safe haven if things became too tricky legally.
By 1920 over 100 000 people were involved in making pictures in Hollywood. As films became
increasingly popular the studio heads employed a former Republican Party boss, Will Hays, to draw up
a code to regulate the content of films. The famous Hays Code determined for the forty years from the
early 1920s the kind of material presented on the screen. The chief guidelines of the Hays Code were:
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Source 9.3
The document below comes from David Kennedys book
Freedom from Fear, a study of US history from 1929 to 1945. He
presents a portrait of the typical American of 1930, based on
social research initiated by President Hoover.
As 1930 opened, the investigators compiling Recent Social
Trends were just beginning their researches. Taking their
presidential mission seriously, they were much interested
in that typical American. His age, they determined, was
twenty-six. (He would have been a male, this hypothetically
abstracted individual, as men continued to outnumber
women in the United States until 1950, when the eects of
declining immigration, heavily male, and rising maternal
survival rates made women for the first time a numerical
majority in the American population.) He had been born
during the first term of Theodore Roosevelts presidency,
in the midst of the progressive reform ferment. His birth
occurred about the time that Japan launched a surprise
attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, Chinaan attack
that led to war, Russian defeat, and the first Russian
revolution (in 1905) and that heralded Japans ambition to
play the great-power game.
About a million immigrantsvirtually none of them
Japanese, thanks to a distasteful gentlemens agreement
by which the Japanese government grudgingly agreed to
limit its export of peopleentered the United States in
every year of his early childhood. He had reached the age
of ten when World War I broke out in 1914, and he had just
become a teenagera term, indeed a concept, not yet in
wide usewhen President Woodrow Wilson took the United
States into the war. By the time the fighting ended, in 1918,
he had left the eighth grade and completed his formal
schooling. (He would have completed it some three years
earlier if he had been black.)
He was too young to have seen battle, but he soon
concluded that the whole business of sending American
troops to Europe was a useless, colossal blunder and
an inexcusable departure from the venerable American
doctrine of isolation. The spectacle of wretched Europeans
going bankrupt in Germany, knuckling under to a fascist
dictator in Italy, welcoming BolsheviksBolsheviks!in
Russia, and then, to top it o, refusing to pay their war
debts to the United States confirmed the wisdom of
traditional isolationism, so far as he was concerned.
Raised in the country without flush toilets or electric
lighting, as the 1920s opened he moved to the city, to an
apartment miraculously plumbed and wired. In the streets
he encountered the abundant and exotic ospring of all
those immigrants who had arrived when he was a baby.

Together they entered the new era when their country was
transiting, bumpily, without blueprints or forethought,
from an agricultural to an industrial economy, from values
of simple rural frugality to values of flamboyant urban
consumerism, and, however much the idea was resisted,
from provincial isolationism to inevitable international
involvement.
Jobs were plentiful for the moment and paid good wages.
With hard work he was making a little more than a hundred
dollars a month. He had been laid o several times in the
preceding years but had built a small cushion of savings at
his bank to tide him over when unemployment hit again,
as he knew it must. The stock market had just crashed,
but it seemed to be recovering, and in any case he owned
no stocksfor that matter, neither did anybody he knew.
Evenings he radioed. Weekends he went to the movies,
better now that they had sound. Sometimes he broke the
law and lifted a glass. On his one day a week o, he took
a drive in the car that he was buying on the instalment plan.
He was living better than his parents had ever dreamed of
living. He was young and vigorous; times were good, and
the future promised to be still better. He had just cast his
first presidential vote, in 1928, for Herbert Hoover, the most
competent man in America, maybe in the world. In that
same year he married a girl three years younger than he.
She gave up her job to have their first baby. They started
to think of buying a house, perhaps in one of the new
suburbs. Life was just beginning.
And their world was about to come apart.
D. M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 1999, pp. 412.

1 What was the age of the average American in
1930?
2 How many immigrants had come to the USA
since he was born?
3 How much formal schooling did the average
White have? What was the average amount of
schooling for a Black?
4 What was his attitude to isolationism?
5 How did his life change during the 1920s?
6 What did he do for recreation during the 1920s?
7 What do you think the author means by the line
their world was about to come apart?
Hollywood became even more popular and influential following the development
of talking pictures in 1927. Motion pictures helped to teach English to a generation of
immigrants, but more than that, it indoctrinated and assimilated them into Hollywoods
version of the American way of life. In this way, Hollywood proved to be far more successful
than Prohibition or any other movement in reinforcing traditional American values.
THE BUSINESS MAGNATES

Much of the social and economic life of the US during this period was influenced by the
activities of the powerful and wealthy business magnates. They contributed to Americas
underlying wealth, but they also exploited its people and resources. They prompted the
anti-trust campaigns of Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson but they also established a foundation
for the emerging consumer society of the 1920s.
R E VI E W TA SK
Although each of the following men rose to prominence before 1898 their
influence endured. Use the library and the internet to research the career
of each:
DID YOU KNOW?

In Hollywood films, under the
Hays Code, kisses were timed:
they were not allowed to go
on too long in case members
of the audience became
excited. If ever a man and a
woman were shown together
on a bed, it was preferred
that both were fully dressed.
Hays suggested, also, that at
least one of them keep one
foot on the floor at all times.
Hays was keen to avoid the
suggestion that beds might be
used for anything other than
sitting on or sleeping.
Andrew Carnegie (steel magnate)

J. P. Morgan (banking magnate)
John D. Rockefeller (oil magnate)
Henry Ford
The life of Henry Ford (186347) coincides closely with the
period under study. His ideas about the automobile and
mass production established one of the lasting foundations
of the modern consumer society and made Detroit one
of the major American cities and car maker for the world.
Ford was a complex individual; he was single-minded and
ruthless. He had vision, energy and a flair for organisation.
He began his working life as a machinist and worked for
a time for Thomas Edison. Ford began experimenting with
engines in the 1890s. At one stage in 1904 he achieved the
world land speed record of around 144 kilometres per hour
in a car he built himself. When Ford developed the Model T
in 1908 it transformed the rural life of America, whittling
away the isolation and the distances. It also contributed to
the growth of the suburbs surrounding Americas major
cities. Fords skill as a businessman meant that he used mass
production to become the second American billionaire,
after Rockefeller (Johnson 1998, p. 619). Ford did not invent
the assembly line; the distinction goes to Ransom Olds, of
Oldsmobile fame, but Ford refined and improved it. Among
the more controversial aspects of Fords career were his
opposition to trade unions and willingness to use violence
to keep union organisers away from his plants. Ford also
expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler during the 1930s.
Figure 9.8 Henry Ford did not like trade unions. A group of thugs
employed by Ford as part of his Service Department attacks trade
union organisers outside the Ford plant in May 1937.
DID THE PROGRESSIVE ERA REALLY

END?
It is a widely held view that the Republican administrations
of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover reflected a return to
the political philosophy of the nineteenth century that had
held sway before Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Certainly there were strong conservative forces at work
during the 1920s and early 1930s:
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Nevertheless, this generalisation neglects some
important details. Many aspects of the period were truly
progressive. For example:
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Prohibition, normally seen as a typically conservative
measure, might also be regarded as a reflection of
progressivism. In typically progressive fashion, prohibition
did involve the government taking a direct and active role
in trying to improve the wider social and economic life of
the community. Professor Ian Tyrrell of the University of New
South Wales has argued that, despite all the problems caused
by prohibition, it did result in a reduction of the consumption
of spirits in the United States. Therefore prohibition cannot be
easily classified as merely a conservative failure.
CASE STUDY:
AFRICAN AMERICANS
THE PLESSYFERGUSON
DECISION
The 1890s marked the beginning of the
age of Jim Crow and reflected growing
racial tension in both the North and
South. The term Jim Crow dated back
to the nineteenth century and was
from a show that ridiculed blacks. Jim
Crow laws, as they were known, were
designed to segregate or separate
Whites and Blacks. Immediately after
the Civil War, and throughout the 1870s
and 1880s the races shared facilities.
The 1890s saw a major change, the key
to which was the 1896 ruling of the US
Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v.
Ferguson. Homer Plessy, a young man
who was part-Black, tested a Louisiana
state law that insisted that Blacks

and Whites ride in separate railway
carriages. Plessys lawyers argued that
segregation of this kind challenged
the US Constitutions provisions on
equality, and the 1875 Civil Rights
Act that declared that Blacks were to
have full and equal access to public
facilities. The court, however, ruled by
seven to one against Plessy that the
segregation law was legal. It based its
decision on the concept of separate
but equal. They argued that facilities
could be the same, just separate. The
reality proved to be very different.
Separate for African Americans quickly
became inferior. The Plessy v. Ferguson
decision and the doctrine of separate
but equal dominated race relations for

fifty-eight years until it was overturned
in 1954. The courts decision in 1896
reflected a change in social attitudes.
Although in 1896 70 per cent of African
Americans still lived in rural areas of the
South, movement North and into the
large cities had begun. When this was
combined with economic pressure,
and the fear of competition for jobs felt
by Whites following the depression of
189293, a social basis for the change in
attitude can be detected.
The 1896 decision paved the way
for states across the South to pass all
kinds of segregationist Jim Crow laws.
Schools, restaurants, toilets, waiting
rooms and even lifts were segregated.
Figure 9.9 The Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 made the segregation of facilities for Blacks and Whites legal. It lasted for sixty years.
In 1905 the state of Georgia legislated

for separate parks. Alabama passed a
law in 1909 declaring that Blacks had to
be off the streets by 10 p.m. The extent
of segregation was evident in that
the city of New Orleans in Louisiana
segregated White and Black prostitutes,
and Atlanta, Georgia, used separate
bibles for Black and White witnesses
to swear by in court. Furthermore, the
American Red Cross kept the blood
of Blacks separate from that of Whites
White soldiers.
until the 1940s.
When America entered the First World
Segregation was a fact of life in the
War in 1917, two Black divisions sailed
US army and it lasted until after the
for France. One served with the French
Second World War. One fourth of those
army and won high praise; the other,
who sailed for Cuba to fight in the
poorly led by Southern Whites and
SpanishAmerican War were African
inadequately trained and equipped,
Americans. Onboard the troopships
did less well. In 1937 the US army war
Blacks were put on the lower decks
college for senior offices produced
or on the opposite side of the ship to
an unfavourable report on African
Figure 9.10 Look at their faces. Lynching was rarely straightforward; it frequently involved torture. In some instances,
the rope was cut in pieces afterwards and these were handed out as souvenirs
American soldiers. The report ignored a

long and proud tradition that had been
established by Black units within the
US army during the Civil War and, later,
on the frontier.
NAACP
William E. B. Du Bois was an AfroAmerican activist who led the
campaign for equality for Blacks,
contributing to the formation of
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in 1910. Blacks received less
pay, had fewer opportunities and
a poorer quality of life than Whites.
Even in 1930 the infant mortality rate
among Blacks was almost double
that of Whites and the life expectancy
for the Afro-American community
was fifteen years less than that of the
White community. In many states,
poll taxesa regulation that used
income as a limitation on the right to
voteprevented Blacks from having
the vote. As late as 1940 only 5 per
cent of eligible Blacks voted in eleven
Southern states. Du Bois, responding
to this injustice, segregation and
inequality, began the Niagara
movement in 1905. The movement
took its name from a conference
held near Niagara Falls. The delegates
met in a hotel on the Canadian side
of the border as American hotels
refused to take them. They were
committed to addressing the issues

of voting, integration and equality of
opportunity. The next step was the
establishment of the NAACP. Du Bois
was its guiding light and edited the
organisations official journal. It grew
quickly and became an influential
pressure group; they funded many
legal battles, some all the way to the
Supreme Court, but there was a long
way to go. Neither the progressive
movement, nor the administrations
of Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow
Wilson had done much for the AfroAmerican cause. Blacks also faced
racial violence: between 1900 and
1914 over 1000 Blacks were murdered
by White mobs. Lynching was not
uncommon. There were, in fact, more
than fifty lynchings of Blacks per year
in 1919, 1920, 1921 and 1922. Blacks
fought back; there were race riots in
Washington, New York, East St Louis
and Chicago from 1917 and 1919.
MARCUS GARVEY
The Universal Negro Improvement
Association, led by Marcus Garvey,
was a more militant Afro-American
alternative to the NAACP. Garvey
aggressively encouraged pride in
being Black and worked on schemes
for a return to Africa. Garvey used
the revival and growth of the Ku
Klux Klan as evidence of the need for
Afro-Americans to be more assertive
in protection of their rights, building

on the call for self-reliance by an
earlier Afro-American activist, Booker
T. Washington. Garvey published a
paper, the Negro World, in 1918 and
established Black businesses: the Black
Star Shipping Company in 1919, and
the Negro Factories Corporation in
1920. He hoped he might lift the status
of all Blacks and give them personal
pride through success in business.
Garvey claimed to understand the
Whites in the Ku Klux Klan, arguing
that they were at least honest in their
ideas of competition and conflict
with the Black community. This simply
demonstrated how controversial
Garvey was and brought him under
attack from both sides, Black and White.
The movement faltered when Garvey
was charged with fraud and was
deported to his native Jamaica in 1927.
C ASE ST U DY REVIEW QUEST I O N S

1 What was the purpose of
the Jim Crow laws? Provide
examples.
2 What was the result of the
Plessy v. Ferguson case? For
how long did it influence race
relations in the USA?
3 What was the NAACP? What
was its aim?
4 Provide examples of inequality
during this time.
5 What was Marcus Garveys approach to race relations?
US FOREIGN POLICY
It is one of the realities of history that the foreign policies of all nations are influenced by their past
experiences and by domestic pressures. American foreign policy from 1919 and the Treaty of Versailles
to 1941 and the Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor were no exception.
From the end of the First World War until the Japanese attack in 1941 that brought America into the
Second World War, Americas foreign policy was seen as isolationist. In other words, America avoided
becoming involved with the political or diplomatic affairs of Europe. It did not mean that America cut
itself off completely from the rest of the world. The government always maintained a close interest
in the affairs of Central and South America and in order to protect its interests, on more than one
occasion, dispatched troops to intervene in the affairs of those states. As American business interests
and investments and the dollar were global, America could never be completely isolationist. During the
1920s, for example, Americas overseas investment was more than US$17 billion.
In terms of Europe, the United States was cautious and eager to stay clear of European diplomacy
and its alliances. The best example of this was the refusal of the senate to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles that had been signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The result was that America
did not become a member of the League of Nations. There were times, however, when American
representatives attended League of Nations meetings as observers, and they later became involved
in some of the Leagues economic and cultural work. Aside from a traditional suspicion of foreign
entanglements that dated all the way back to the first American president, George Washington, none
of the Republican administrations of the 1920s was willing to surrender American independence by
becoming involved in either the collective security of the League of Nations or binding alliances.
Isolationism had long been a fundamental part of Americas foreign policy but it gained added
strength following the experience of the First World War and after the aggressive acts of Germany, Italy
and Japan in the 1930s. Although some Americans acknowledged the potential longer term dangers
if this aggression were to continue unchecked, many expressed an almost mystical confidence in the
security granted the America by the twin barriers of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In 1935, 1936 and
1937, the US Congress passed a series of laws known as the Neutrality Acts, deliberately designed to
limit Americas involvement in any foreign war. Some historians have called this storm-cellar neutrality,
arguing that it was based on the false premise that America
could hide from the political storms of Europe and Asia.
In the face of strong isolationist sentiments, Roosevelt
cautiously attempted to shift public opinion in favour of a
more active foreign policy. In 1937, he delivered his now
famous Quarantine Speech, in which he suggested that
America needed to take positive steps to quarantine the
aggressors. It was widely assumed that Roosevelt was
suggesting that America apply some kind of economic
sanction or trade embargo.
The outbreak of the war in Europe in September 1939
put Roosevelt under even more pressure. Until 1940 and the
fall of France, America technically remained neutral. During
the Battle of Britain, however, Americas foreign policy
debate became even more intense. Two sides argued over
what should be the main strategy or approach to domestic
foreign policy. The first side argued that America should
not involve itself in the war in Europe in any wayfortress
America. The other side argued that to defend America, it
needed to give Britain all help short of actually going to war.
Isolationists such as Charles Lindbergh and the America
First group were afraid that offering any aid to Britain could
lead to America becoming part of the war in Europe, as
Figure 9.11 This cartoon from 1939 depicts the spirit of democracy
pleading with Uncle Sam, the symbol of American government, to
stay out of the conflict in war mad Europe.
happened in the First World War. However, Roosevelt argued that aid to Britain was the best way to
defend America, because a victorious Germany might ultimately become strong enough to pose a
threat to America. Roosevelt used all his political skill and powers of persuasion to move America out of
its staunch isolationism. In September 1940, under pressure from the president, the Congress passed a
law introducing conscription. In the same month, Roosevelt agreed to transfer fifty ageing destroyers
(warships vital to Britains fight against German submarines) to the Royal Navy. In return, America
gained the lease on eight key British naval bases along the Atlantic coast of the Americas.
In the midst of the growing international tension, Roosevelt broke with a long-established
American political convention and ran for a third term as president. He was successful and, once the
election was over, Roosevelt encouraged the passage of the Lend Lease Act to provide financial aid
to those nations opposed to the dictators. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941,
American aid, under Lend Lease, was extended.
It is, however, dangerous to generalise and it is fair to say that America had more than one foreign
policy. American attitudes to Europe were very different to their attitude to Central and South America
or their approach in Asia, where Japan was seen as a growing menace.
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1 What two elements influenced the nature of American foreign policy between 1919
and 1941?
2 What were the aims of Americas isolationist foreign policy?
3 What were the Neutrality Acts?
4 What was President Roosevelts reaction to the isolationist policy in the 1930s and
how did he attempt to change it?
5 What were the two sides in Americas domestic debate over the best strategy for its
foreign policy?
6 What were the Lend Lease Acts?
7 What were the aims and strategies of Americas foreign policy towards Europe,
Central and South America, and Asia?
PERSONALITY IN THE 20TH CENTURY:

J. EDGAR HOOVER 18951972
Historical context
Personality Profile: J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover, or J. Edgar Hoover as he liked to be

called, was born in Washington, DC, on New Years Day
1895. For forty-eight years, in his post as director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his
death in 1972, Hoover was a central figure in the political
life of the United States. He built the FBI into one of the
best-known law enforcement agencies in the world. As a
result of the carefully crafted Hoover myth, J. Edgar Hoover
was seen by many as a patriotic, incorruptible crime-fighter,
a guardian of the nations morals and security. However,
not long after he died the myth began to crumble and the
truth emerged. A series of investigations by the Church
Committee of the US Congress in 1975the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence Activitiesand the work of
historians revealed that Hoover had spent much of his
time as director abusing his immense power. Hoover had
sanctioned illegal break-ins, wire-tapping and the secret
opening of mail and investigations, which had been
outlawed by the US Bill of Rights. He neglected organised
crime and allowed it to grow during the 1930s. The Church
Committee also charged that Hoover misappropriated
Bureau funds. FBI agents looked after his garden, painted
his house and maintained all his household appliances;
they even installed automatic window-openers and then a
special kitchen fan when Hoover complained he didnt like
the smell of bacon cooking. Later in life, they provided him
with a heated toilet seat. He regularly took holidays in Florida
and California at the expense of the Bureau. Curt Gentry as
well as other journalists charged that Hoover ignored the
Mafia because he had taken illegal bribes and gifts (Gentry
1992). Some went as far as to suggest that the Mafia had
evidence of Hoovers homosexual affairs and threatened
blackmail. In the 1930s homosexuality was potentially a
cause for automatic dismissal, which was a major threat to
Hoover. His job was his life. The evidence for bribes and gifts
is strong, but as yet serious historians have not been able to
find conclusive evidence of homosexual affairs (Theoharis
& Cox 1993). Hoover did have close personal male friends,
in particular Frank Baughman, who was for a time Hoovers
personal assistant; Clyde Tolson, who became assistant
Figure 9.12 Hoover claimed that he didnt take holidays, but every
winter he found important FBI business to attend to in Florida or
California. This figure shows Hoover (right) relaxing with fellow
bachelor and long-time friend Clyde Tolson, assistant director of the
FBI. Note the car in the backgroundit is one of Hoovers specially
modified bulletproof limousines.
director of the FBI within only three years of joining in 1928;

and Guy Hottel, who was a kind of companion cum personal
bodyguard. Each of these men, however, had numerous
heterosexual relationships. Baughman married and Hottel
was well known in Washington social circles as a ladies man.
Clyde Tolson didnt marry; like Hoover, he remained a lifelong
bachelor; hence the rumours.
Hoovers rise to the directorship of the FBI coincided with Americas emergence as a world power. He
served under ten presidents, eight as director: Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover (no relation), Roosevelt,
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. A study of Hoovers life brings into focus many of the
key features of the USA in the early twentieth century. Hoover championed the socially conservative, antiradical values of the American mainstream. He was suspicious of Black activists such as Marcus Garvey in
the 1920s. This attitude lingered into the 1950s and 1960s when he had Martin Luther King investigated.
Hoover became a household name during the gangster era of the 1920s and 1930s. Hollywood films
added to the fame of the G-mengovernment menas Hoovers Bureau agents became known.
Hoovers career also spanned many of the critical events of the period, as follows:
r )JTJOVFODFXJUIJOUIF#VSFBVHSFXEVSJOHUIF'JSTU8PSME8BS XIFOIFXBTIFBEPGUIF(FOFSBM
Intelligence Division (GID).
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continually denied the existence of organised crime. To his dying day he never admitted that there
was a Mafia (Turner 1993, p. 74).
r 5IFSJTJOHJOVYPGJNNJHSBOUTJODJUFEBOJODSFBTJOHMZOFHBUJWFSFBDUJPOGSPNAOBUJWFCPSO
Americans. Hoover frequently associated immigrants with un-American ideas.
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and also created a growth in the influence of the federal government by the New Deal, increasing
Hoovers personal power.
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entering the war in 1941 further consolidated Hoovers influence.
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which there was concern over the Cold War, racial unrest in America associated with the civil rights
movement, growing domestic opposition to the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.
PE R SO N ALI TY S TUDY R E VI E W Q UE S TIONS

1 What image of Hoover was created by the Hoover myth?
2 What charges were levelled at Hoover by the 1975 Church Committee after his death?
3 Why might Hoover have overlooked the Mafia and ignored organised crime?
Background
Hoover graduated from Washingtons Central High School in 1913 and went to work as a file clerk in
the Library of Congress. Here he learned about cataloguing and keeping recordsHoovers famous
files would be the basis of much of his power. He attended George Washington University by night
and gained a law degree in 1916. In 1917 he moved to the Department of Justice as an intelligence
clerk. At this time, the Bureau of Investigation, as it was known, was a small section within the justice
department, which had been established in 1908.
Hoover joined the Bureau during the First World War when fears about communists and foreign
spies were growing. His work at the Bureau involved seeking out and deporting alien anarchists and
4 What critical historical events were linked to Hoovers career?
revolutionaries. The Attorney General at the time, A. Mitchell Palmer, believed that there was a real
communist threat and began what was known as the Red Scare. These fears were reinforced when
hapless radicals attempted to bomb Palmers house. The bomber apparently stumbled on his way up
the front steps and the device went off, splattering the front door with bits of the bomber. No one else
was hurt, but Palmer reacted quickly and Hoover was put in charge of the General Intelligence Division
(GID). It was from this time that Hoover began to style himself J. Edgar Hoover. His experience at the
Library of Congress equipped him to collate a vast amount of information on all kinds of radical groups.
Most of the planning of raids against radicals was left to Hoover. The 1918 Immigration Act was used to
round up and deport alien radicals. Two of Hoovers prime targets were Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman. They were anarchists and preached both violent revolution and free love. Raids against
them and other radicals followed by deportations became known as the Palmer raids. The raids were
popular at the time, but many of the arrests were unlawful. When the Red Scare died down there was
criticism of the high-handed nature of the Bureaus actions. Hoover began to show his political skills
at this time as he managed to deflect criticism of the raids that he had planned by presenting himself
as a simple and loyal public servant, following orders from above. He also recognised the value of
cultivating the friendship of politicians. The success of the Republican Party in the 1920 election meant
that Hoover had to show himself ready to work for his new bosses.
Rise to prominence
The brief Harding administration was one of the most corrupt in US history. The most notable example
of corruption was the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1922. Members of Hardings Cabinet had illegally
made government oil reserves available to private business. Senator Burton Wheeler, a Democrat from
Montana, started the investigation. At the governments request Hoover began an investigation of
Wheelers private life to see if they could gain any information that might allow them to pressure the
senator to call off his investigation. This was another of the early examples of Hoovers willingness to
play the political game and abuse his position and power.
When Calvin Coolidge became president after Hardings death in 1923, he appointed a new
Attorney General, Harlan Fiske Stone. Stone appointed Hoover as the new director of the Bureau of
Investigation. Hoover worked hard to convince Stone that he was a reliable and incorruptible civil
servant, assuring him that the Bureau no longer investigated radical political groups. What Hoover did
and what Hoover said were not always the same.
The chief characteristics of Hoovers style became clear from the start. He continued his secret
investigations of radical political groups. All information on file was worded so that it looked as though
it had come from informants outside the Bureau, not from Bureau agents. Hoover encouraged agents
to investigate what he called obscene and indecent activities involving public figures. A special secret
Bureau file was opened for this information, which could be used to persuade important people to
cooperate with Hoover and the Bureau, on 25 March 1925. His first manual as director established a
centralised power structure where everything was controlled from his office. The manual specifically
directed that agents were subject to duty at all times, must give due regard to their personal
appearance, should patronise hotels of the better class, were forbidden contact with the press, and
could not receive gifts or gratuities. Drinking alcohol was banned whether on official duty or otherwise.
An annual report was made on each agents marital statusdivorce was frowned upon.
The extent of Hoovers zeal for monitoring and control is reflected in the detailed report on
every employee that was made every six months. It dealt with twenty separate categories: accuracy,
aggressiveness, dependability, health, industry, initiative, judgment, speed, knowledge, leadership,
loyalty, office work, promptness, resourcefulness, tact, teamwork, personal appearance, executive
ability, habits, and attitude. Agents were ranked on a scale from one to a hundred. Hoovers rule stifled
initiativein the first manual one hundred and thirty-one pages were devoted to administration and
only thirty-eight to investigation.
Hoover and the New Deal

The 1932 election resulted in another change of administration and the Democrats were back in power.
An element of luck entered the equation for Hoover at this time. Thomas Walsh, the man Franklin
Roosevelt had chosen as his Attorney General, was hostile to Hoover. He had been an ally of Burton
Wheeler back at the time of Teapot Dome. Walsh, however, died of a heart attack before taking office
and was replaced by Homer Cummings. Cummings kept Hoover on as director.
Hoover benefited from the New Deals war on crime. The new Attorney General, Cummings,
published a public enemies list that was primarily directed against a crime wave in the Midwest. All on
the list had been involved in kidnapping and bank robbery. Some of those included were:
George Machine Gun Kelly When Kelly was captured in September 1933 following good,
but well-publicised, detective work, he is said to have called out Dont shoot G-men. It would
become a famous phrase, much used by Hollywood and the Bureaus publicity department to create
the Hoover myth.
John Dillinger was killed on 22 July 1934. Melvin Purvis, the Chicago Senior Agent in Charge (SAC),
directed the operation but was later forced out of the Bureau. Some claimed he took too much public
credit, upsetting Hoover.
Charles Pretty Boy Floyd was later shot to death by police on 22 October 1934; Kate Ma Barker
was killed with her son in November 1934; and Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed in Texas
early in 1935.
Alvin Creepy Karpis Hoover got personal credit for the arrest of Karpis in May 1936. However,
Karpis claimed in his autobiography that Hoover had hidden around the corner until he had been
secured. He should have been handcuffed, but someone forgot to bring handcuffs, so his hands were
tied with an agents necktie. There is reason to believe that the arrest was staged. A short while before,
Hoover had been before a senate committee to answer an embarrassing question about whether he
had ever made an arrest. Until the capture of Karpis, the answer had been no.
In May 1934 Congress granted to the Bureaus agents

the right of arrest and the right to carry firearms. Then
Cummings called for a national police academy to be run
by the FBI. Cummings, as Attorney General, was meant
to supervise the FBI, but the controversial legal matters
associated with the New Deal and FDRs decision to try and
stack the Supreme Court in 1937 left him with less time.
Hoover was therefore left to his own devices.
Although Hoover was a political conservative, his FBI
came under attack at this time from conservatives because
it was associated with the New Deal and the growing
centralised power of the federal government.
Figure 9.13 The woman holding the toy gun was a well-known
New York model, Louisa Stewart. She claimed she saw Hoover
(centre) and Tolson (left) holding hands later that same evening.
During this period Hoover employed Louis B. Nichols to publicly promote the Bureau. Nichols was
head of the Crime Records Division and he arranged the publicity that surrounded the arrest of Creepy
Karpis. Hoover, himself, had a keen sense of publicity and
cultivated journalists, such as Walter Winchell, and encouraged
closely monitored Hollywood films about the Bureau.
In 1936 Hoover renewed his campaign against groups he regarded as subversive. The international
climate helpedfrom 1934 the White House secretly had Hoover investigate American Nazis. Hoover
was happy to oblige and from 1939, with the outbreak of the war in Europe, he regularly sent FDR
reports on his right-wing critics. Hoover, however, was always suspicious of the left and warned the
president about what he saw as a number of communist-controlled trade unions, mentioning the West
Longshoremen and the United Mine Workers among others.
Hoovers Bureau had always been a secret political police force, even after direct instruction to
discontinue the investigation of political groups had been given. Therefore Hoover now welcomed
Roosevelts initiative as providing formal presidential authorisation for broad-scale anti-subversive
investigations (Theoharis & Cox 1993, p. 189). Documents reveal that FDR wanted a limited review of
potential foreign-directed threats; Hoover turned it into a broad-based investigation.
In February 1940 Hoover made a risky miscalculation: he ordered agents to arrest leftists in Detroit
and Milwaukee who had attempted to recruit volunteers to fight against General Franco in the Spanish
Civil War. Twelve were arrested. The offence, if any, had been committed in 1937. Critics asked why
the leftists had been arrested in 1940. Liberals were outraged. The general tension of the period saved
Hoover from too much criticism.
The war began the period of the Bureaus greatest expansion. It went from 898 agents in 1940 to
4886 in 1945.
The war added lustre to Hoovers reputation and, with prestige, came influence. Even as he served
his country, Hoover exploited all the opportunities that wartime offered a man ambitious for power,
both for himself and for the FBI. By a combination of luck and good management, Hoover and the
FBI managed to capture a small group of German saboteurs shortly after they had landed secretly in
a submarine in America. The quick arrests were primarily due to the actions of an informant, George
Dasch, who betrayed the rest of the group. Hoover skilfully avoided mentioning Daschs part in the
speedy capture of the German spies. He let everyone assume that it was due to the quality of the FBIs
agents and, of course, his leadership as director of the Bureau.
The reputation of the Bureau and its director during the Second World War was not, however,
based solely on the fortuitous capture of the spies. President Roosevelt had temporarily placed Hoover
in charge of censorship between 8 December and 18 December 1941. Hoover not only ensured that
the task was accomplished efficiently, but also his skill as a bureaucrat meant that, when a permanent
appointment was made, Hoover had established the necessary organisational infrastructure to
continue and expand on the task. As with so much in Hoovers career, however, his contribution to
national security through censorship in time of war had a dark side. While Hoover was creating the
organisation and censorship techniques, he arranged to have items of mail from selected individuals
opened and photographed and he filed the information for his personal use. This practice continued
after the war and was always done without the knowledge of the president or the attorney-general.
During the war, Hoover was also quick to establish a language school to train some of the
thousands of linguists that would be needed by Americas intelligence community. There is no denying
that Hoover was an excellent administrator. His efficiency was as important as his growing files on
Washingtons politicians in ensuring his long and virtually unchallenged tenure as the nations most
famous law-enforcement officer.
According to Curt Gentry, Hoovers biographer, many of the new FBI agents recruited during the
war saw themselves as soldiers defending their countryin a war the ends justify the means. This
mentality and a strong personal loyalty to Hoover meant that a culture developed within the FBI at this
time, in which legal technicalities and civil rights were often ignored.
Hoover was never one to rest on his laurels and even though the war helped his reputation as Americas
watchdogalways alert and on guardhe was constantly engaged in political contests with the heads
of other agencies, namely Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr, who was also in charge of the
Secret Service, and William J. Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The rivalry between
Hoover at the FBI and Donovan at the OSS (later known as the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA) was so
intense that each organisation deliberately planted agents to spy on the other. FBI agents worked for the
CIA but reported back to Hoover. Americas spies were at work, spying on each other.
During the war, FBI agents had operated overseas and Hoover hoped to permanently expand the
Bureaus role after the war to become a super law-enforcement and intelligence agency, responsible
for both internal security and assessment of external threats. This was not to be and Donovan and the
CIA was given the responsibility for protecting America against external threats.
Perhaps the most controversial and infamous period of Hoovers career came after the Second
World War. In the tense climate of the Cold War, under the Truman and the Eisenhower administrations,
Hoover and the FBI flourished. It was the time of the Red Scare, McCarthyism and the House
Un-American Activities Committee. Hoover was in his element. He had always been suspicious of
radicals and had a long history of cracking down on communist or socialist groups. The FBI was at the
forefront of what became known as the McCarthy era.
When Lyndon Johnson became president, Hoover was approaching the age for retirement but
Johnson and Hoover knew each other well and they had been Washington neighbours for years.
Johnson announced that Hoover could stay in his post as FBI director indefinitely. During the Johnson
years, the civil rights movement grew and Hoover saw this movement as a threat to the American way
of life he knew and loved. He had, after all, grown up in Washington when Black people and White
people were strictly segregated. The focus of his hostility was the civil rights leader Martin Luther
King. Hoover installed illegal wire taps and had King under almost constant surveillance. When it was
revealed that King was having an adulterous affair, Hoover was even more certain that King was a moral
degenerate and a communist. Anti-Vietnam war protests and growing civil unrest in Americas cities
convinced Hoover that the country was under siege and therefore justified whatever steps needed to
be taken to protect the status quo. His feelings were only reinforced during the Nixon administration.
President Nixon, like so many in Washington, had known Hoover for years. In fact, Hoover had helped
Nixon make his political reputation during the McCarthy era, when the young Nixon became famous
for tracking down supposedly communist spies.
Significance and evaluation

Hoover died in 1972. There had never been a bureaucrat like him in American history. Any evaluation of
the significance of his life and career needs to balance his strengths and weaknesses. Hoover acquired
enormous personal power and his career therefore reflected the assets and liabilities that flow from
one person having so much power. On the plus side, Hoover gave America one of the worlds great
law-enforcement agencies. The FBI pioneered many of the most important developments in criminal
By the 1960s, when John Kennedy became president, Hoover was an institution. Some historians
suggest that President Kennedy and his brother Robert, the attorney-general, had a stormy relationship
with Hoover. Although this might have been true at times, there was no real reduction in Hoovers
independence; he continued to run the FBI as his own personal kingdom. Hoover was, in fact, a long-time
associate of the presidents father. However, John Kennedys assassination in November 1963 caused
some embarrassment to the Bureau. There is evidence that the FBI had information on both Lee Harvey
Oswald and Jack Ruby, which they failed to pass on to the Secret Service or the Warren Commission.
In fact, Hoover ordered that some of the key files in the FBIs Dallas field office be destroyed.
investigationtheir records system and the FBI crime laboratories alone are worthy of the highest
praise. Hoover created an organisation to meet the challenges that America faced as an emerging
superpower. At a time when many people in America lacked faith in law enforcement, Hoover created
an organisation and an image of the FBI that instilled confidence. He also raised the standards of both
recruitment and training for law-enforcement officers. On the minus side, if the FBI reflected Hoovers
strengths it also mirrored his flaws and his prejudices. Hoovers obsessive personal control over the
Bureau meant that talent and initiative were often suppressed. The FBI, under Hoover, neglected
organised crime for many years. Hoovers recruitment policy was always prejudiced against Black
people and his personal prejudices meant that the FBI expended excessive resources in investigating
left-wing radicals and activists such as Martin Luther King. Under Hoover, the FBI repeatedly infringed
the civil rights that it was sworn to defend.
The image of the FBI was enhanced by Hoover but the credit always went to himall publicity
about the Bureau and its achievements focused on Hoover.
References
Ambrose S., D-Day June 6, 1944, Touchstone, New York, 1995
Brogan H., The Pelican History of the United States of America, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1985
Divine R.A. et al., Americas Past and Present, Longman, New York, 1999
Galbraith J. K., The Great Crash, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1955
Gentry C.J., Edgar Hoover: The Man and his Secrets, Plume, New York, 1992
Hofstadter R., The Age of Reform, Vintage books, New York, 1955
Johnson P., A History of the American People, HarperCollins, 1998
Kennedy D. M., Freedom from Fear, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999
Leuchtenburg W. E., The FDR Years, Columbia University Press, New York, 1995
Limerick P. N., The Legacy of Conquest, W.W. Norton, New York, 1988
McElvaine, R. S., The Great Depression: America 19291941, Times Books, New York, 1993
Manchester W., The Glory and the Dream, Little, Brown, Boston, 1974
Schlesinger A. M., The Imperial Presidency, Popular Library, New York, 1974
Shannon, D. A., Between the Wars: America 19191941, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1979
Sitkoff H., Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1985
Theoharis A. G. & Cox J. S., The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition, Virgin, London, 1993
Turner F. J., The Frontier in American History, Holt Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1962
Turner W., Hoovers FBI, Thunders Mouth Press, New York, 1993
Worster D., Under Western Skies, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992
Wade W. C., The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1987

RUSSIA AND THE

SOVIET UNION
19171941
NATIONAL STUDY
INTRODUCTION
The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 brought to power the first government in
the world dedicated to the implementation of communism, or rule by the working
classes. Initially, hopes ran high that the revolution would spread worldwide,
sweeping away national boundaries and uniting the working people of all nations.
By 1920, the flame of worldwide revolution had been extinguished, and by 1941,
10
when the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, the wheel of Russian
history had turned full circle. Once again an autocratic figure ruled, the ordinary
people seemed to have few rights, and opponents of the regime were hunted
down by a secret police force. This may not have been the vision of the
early revolutionaries, but it was the reality of Stalins Russia. Yet in 1945
the Soviet state was to emerge victorious from a war against the
formidable forces of Nazi Germany.
Note: The old-style Julian calendar was in use in Russia until February 1918. It lagged thirteen days behind
the Gregorian calendar, used in the rest of Western Europe. This text gives dates according to the
Gregorian calendar.
Timeline
1917
1918
The Bolsheviks seize power.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ends the war with Germany with a great cost in Russian
territory.
A civil war begins in Russia between the Bolshevik Reds and anti-Bolshevik Whites.
The Tsar and his family are murdered.
1920
1921
The civil war ends in Bolshevik victory.
1924
1928
1929
193233
1934
193638
1939
1941
Lenin dies.
Sailors from the Kronstadt naval base rebel against Bolshevik government. The New
Economic Policy (NEP) introduces a degree of private enterprise after the state control of
War Communism.
The first Five-Year Plan begins to modernise Soviet industry and agriculture.
Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Union.
Famine in the Ukraine is caused by Stalins collectivisation policies against the kulaks.
The Soviet Union enters the League of Nations, concerned by the rise of Nazi Germany.
Kirov, the Leningrad party boss who Stalin regarded as a rival, is murdered.
Three major show trials take placeStalins opponents are publicly tried and shot.
The NaziSoviet non-aggression pact allows Hitler to invade Poland without the Soviet
Union reacting. In return Poland is divided between them.
Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, takes place.
Timeline exercise
Use the information in the timeline to write questions for the answers in List A.
List A
s
s "ECAUSE3TALINTHOUGHTHEWASAPOLITICALRIVAL
s 4HE2USSIANSENDEDONEWARANDBEGANANOTHER
s
s /PERATION"ARBAROSSA
s 3HOWTRIALS
s
s "ECAUSETHECOUNTRYFELTTHREATENEDBY'ERMANY
s )TLOOSENEDSTATECONTROLOFTHEECONOMY
s 7HITES
BOLSHEVIK CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION OF 1917
In 1927 the Russian film director Eisenstein portrayed the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 as a triumphant
victory of the proletariat (urban working class) over the last vestiges of resistance by the bourgeoisie
(middle class) and the privileged. The film included the spectacle of armed masses of Red Guards
storming the Winter Palace, braving the fire of the defenders. It made for a good film, but it was not the
truth. The actual revolution involved little shooting, minimal damage to the Winter Palace, and did not
have the mass support of the city workers. Many would argue that it was not even a revolution, more
a seizure of power. It was, however, a triumph for the Bolsheviks, and in particular their leader Lenin.
How had the Bolsheviks arrived at the position of supreme power?
BOLSHEVIK IDEOLOGY
The autocratic regime of the Tsars had led, in the nineteenth century, to the development of several
revolutionary parties dedicated to overthrowing the system. One of these was the Social Democratic
Party, which split in 1903 into two factions: the Mensheviks (minority) and the Bolsheviks (majority).
The Mensheviks believed in the eventual introduction of socialism, but thought that the overthrow
of the autocracy would be followed by a long period of cooperation between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat. They also believed that the party should have a broad base of membership, including all
who supported their platform.
In contrast, Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, said that the period of bourgeois domination would be
briefa time when the proletariat would be pushed by the party towards the completion of the
second and final stage of the revolution. This was best achieved, he argued, by keeping the party as a
tightly disciplined elite group. Lenin also acknowledged the rural nature of much of Russian society and
said that the proletariat would have to enlist the support of the peasantry to complete the revolution.
THE BOLSHEVIKS IN 1917

The revolution of March 1917 led to the formation of a provisional government that, under the leadership
of Prince Lvov, then from July Alexander Kerensky, tried to bring moderate reform to Russia, while still
remaining in the world war. The Petrograd Soviet, a council of workers and soldiers, had been set up as a
rival to the more bourgeois Provisional Government, but tended to acquiesce in its decisions.
When Lenin returned from exile in April he advocated an end to Russian involvement in the war, no
cooperation with the Provisional Government, and a recognition that the March revolution represented
a transitional stage towards the goal of revolution and was not an end in itself.
These ideas at first won little support, even among fellow Bolsheviks, and it took several weeks for
Lenin to persuade the party to follow his line. The Bolsheviks had two major policy initiatives that proved
the strength of their support. Firstly, they were the only party consistently to oppose the continuation of
the war; secondly, they argued for the immediate seizure of landed estates, not redistribution at some
future date as the Provisional Government advocated. Soon Bolshevik delegates at the front were telling
soldiers that they should return to their villages to avoid missing out on the land redistribution. Desertions
from the army increased as the Bolshevik slogan of peace, bread, land was taken up.
Bolshevik fortunes fluctuated throughout the year and by August the chaotic situation at the front
and in the country as a whole meant that democracy was giving way to demands for a restoration of
firm rule. Newspapers called for Bolsheviks to be hanged and for the Soviet to be closed down.
Russia and the Soviet Union 19171941 | 245
Figure 10.1 The storming of the Winter Palace, from a later painting
Kornilov, the army commander-in-chief, ordered troops to march on the capital, though it is not
clear whether their purpose was to protect the Provisional Government against a possible Bolshevik
threat or to threaten a military coup. As his troops neared Petrograd they were harangued by Soviet
agitators who persuaded them to disperse. Contrary to the Soviet myth, no actual fighting took place in
the defeat of Kornilov.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE KORNILOV REVOLT

The mass of soldiers suspected their officers of having supported Kornilov, which resulted in a
sharp decline in army discipline and a great increase in desertions. In the cities there was a similar
radicalisation, which aided the Bolsheviks. In mid-September they won their first majority in the
Petrograd Soviet. Without the Kornilov affair they may never have come to power at all. The whole affair
was a dress rehearsal for the seizure of power, with some 40 000 men armed during the crisis. The
prestige of Kerensky and the Provisional Government, wrote his wife, was completely destroyed by the
Kornilov affair; and he was left almost without supporters . (Figes, 1996, p. 455)
RISING SUPPORT FOR THE BOLSHEVIKS

The rising fortunes of the Bolsheviks were essentially due to the fact that they were the only major
party that stood uncompromisingly for Soviet power. This point bears emphasising because one of the
misconceptions of the Russian Revolution is that the Bolsheviks were swept to power on a tide of mass
support for the party itself. The slogan All Power to the Soviets was a useful tool, a banner of popular
approval covering the nakedness of Lenins ambition. Later, as the nature of the Bolshevik dictatorship
became apparent, the party faced growing opposition from precisely those groups in society that in
1917 had rallied behind the Soviet slogan.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: B OLSH EV I K FORTUN ES IN 1917
Figure 10.2 The roller-coaster of Bolshevik fortunes in 1917

1 The March Revolution catches the Bolsheviks unprepared.
2 The Bolsheviks provide only forty of the 1500 delegates to the Soviet.
3 Lenin returns in April.
4 Trotsky returns in May.
5 In June, the first All Russian Congress of Soviets has only 105 Bolsheviks in a total of 822 delegates.
6 A Bolshevik demonstration planned for June is called off after condemnation from the Soviet.
7 The July Days: Bolshevik demonstration fails; Lenin flees to Finland.
8 The Kornilov Revolt is resisted by the Bolshevik Red Guards.
9 The Bolsheviks increase their popularity, and capture 50 per cent of the seats in the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.
10 The November Revolution: the Bolsheviks seize power.
1 Refer to Figure 10.2. What was the low point for the Bolsheviks during 1917?
2 What does the figure show about the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the Soviets?
3 Research the events of the July Days. What were these events and how were the Bolshevik
leaders affected by them?
A SOVIET GOVERNMENT?
Only a Soviet government could hope to command any real authority in the country at large. This
had been the case since the March revolution, but time and again the Soviet leaders had chosen to
ignore it. Influenced by the Mensheviks and other moderate revolutionaries, their faith in the need for
a bourgeois stage of the revolution had tied them to the task of keeping a coalition going. At last, after
the Kornilov affair, it seemed that the moment had come for the socialist parties to make the break and
form a government of their own.
THE SEIZURE OF POWER

Everybody cursed the Bolsheviks but nobody was willing to do anything about them. Nobody wanted
to defend the Provisional Government, least of all the monarchists. They preferred to let the Bolsheviks
seize power in the belief they would not last long, as they would bring the country to such utter ruin
that the Rightists would be able to impose their own dictatorship.
Only a spark was needed, and it came in the threat to transfer some of the Petrograd garrison to
the front. The garrison revolted and switched their allegiance from their officers to the Bolsheviks. The
Provisional Government lost effective military control of the capital a full two days before the armed
uprising began. This was the essential fact of the whole

insurrection and explains why there was so little fighting. The
Provisional Government was virtually defenceless and it only
remained for the Bolsheviks to walk into the Winter Palace
and arrest the ministers.
1 How did Lenins revolutionary theory differ from
that of the Mensheviks?
2 What policies did the Bolsheviks adopt to get
mass support?
3 Which two political slogans were frequently
used by the Bolsheviks during 1917?
4 Why was the defeat of the Kornilov revolt an
important landmark for the Bolsheviks and the
Provisional Government?
Figure 10.3 Members of the Womens Battalion of Death, which

was formed in 1917 and fought at the front. Later they were left to
guard the Provisional Government against the Bolsheviks.
THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

Bolshevik numbers had risen from only a few thousand at the beginning of 1917 to around
250 000 by September, yet the Bolshevik leaders hesitated, afraid of starting a premature
uprising. From his hiding place in Finland, Lenin urged a coup against the government, but
his pleas for action were ignored.
The second All Russian Congress of Soviets was due to meet in Petrograd in early
November, and it was decided that the move against Kerenskys government should
coincide with this. The Bolsheviks would then be able to claim power on behalf of the
Soviet, the parliament of the people. A problem lay in the number of Mensheviks and
Social Revolutionaries (SRs) in the Soviet who might oppose the Bolsheviks plans. Trotsky,
as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, organised to pack the Soviet with as many Bolshevik
delegates as possible by encouraging the attendance of representatives from the Bolshevikcontrolled areas of central and northern Russia.
On 23 October Lenin returned to Petrograd in disguise and went into hiding. On the
evening of 6 November, while the Soviet was meeting in the Smolny Institutea former
girls school, which the Petrograd Soviet had taken overgroups of Bolshevik Red Guards
aided by sailors from the Baltic fleet were moving through the city, taking over key buildings
such as the telephone exchange and police stations.
DID YOU KNOW?

Lenin, a wanted man, set
off for the Smolny Institute
on the eve of the Bolshevik
takeover wearing old clothes,
a wig, a workers cap and a
bandage round his face. A
government patrol stopped
him, but took him for a
harmless drunk and let him
go. How different would
world history have
been if they had looked a
little closer!
Government resistance was largely in the hands of approximately 2000 soldiers, most of them
inexperienced cadets, and a Womens Battalion. There was little fighting and the casualties were fewer
than a couple of dozen, most of those accidentally caught in random crossfire. The shops and theatres
stayed open, the trams still ran; it was more like a changing of the guard than a revolution.
When Petrograd awoke on the morning of 7 November there was great confusion about what had
happened during the night. Kerensky borrowed a car from the American embassy and left the city in
search of loyal soldiers. Apart from a small troop of Cossacks he found none, and his attempt to march
on Petrograd soon petered out.
By mid-afternoon the Bolsheviks controlled all of the city except for the Winter Palace,
where the remaining members of the Provisional Government had taken refuge, guarded by
a few loyal cadets and the Womens Battalion.
At about 9.40 p.m. the cruiser Aurora, moored nearby in the river Neva, fired a blank
shell towards the Winter Palace. This signalled the start of the attack on the palace that was,
like most of the earlier takeovers, completed quickly and without much bloodshed. The
Womens Battalion was disarmed and told to go home and the members of the Provisional
Government were arrested.
DID YOU KNOW?

Maria Bochkareva was
the fearless leader of the
Womens Battalion of Death.
Once, she came across one
of her women soldiers having
sexual intercourse with a
soldier in a shell hole. She
bayoneted the woman to
death; the man escaped!
As the Winter Palace was being taken over the Soviet was in session. As Bolshevik
speakers gained the upper hand and liberal speakers were howled down, many of the
Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries walked out, with Trotskys jibe that they were being
consigned to the waste-paper basket of history where they belonged ringing in their ears! With the
removal of the Provisional Government, Lenin, who had come out of hiding to address the Soviet,
could now proceed to organise the new Bolshevik state.
It was not so much that the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government, rather that
due to weariness, apathy and a lack of purpose and leadership by Kerenskys government, a power
vacuum had opened up in Russia. The Bolsheviks were the only group able and willing to step into the
voidthey did not seize power, they picked it up.
1 Why did the November revolution involve so little fighting?
2 Refer to Figure 10.1. How does the painting differ from reality?
3 Why would film-makers and painters create scenes like this when they were not true?
THE INITIAL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORMS OF THE

BOLSHEVIK GOVERNMENT
The Bolsheviks most urgent task was to establish themselves as the legitimate government of Russia
while holding together a country that seemed to be breaking apart. Non-Russian and borderland
regions, such as the Ukraine and the Caucasus, had become virtually independent, and provincial areas,
freed from any effective central government for the previous eight months, were reluctant to accept
the reimposition of direction from the capital.
The composition of the government caused much political debate at this time. There were many
revolutionaries, some of them within the Bolshevik party, who distrusted Lenin and who argued
for a coalition government involving Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Zinoviev
and Kamenev, both leading Bolsheviks, began talks with the other groups as the Bolshevik central
committee at first favoured a coalition. However, it changed its view in the face of fierce argument
from Lenin and Trotsky. Zinoviev and Kamenev maintained their opposition and wrote that the central
committee insists on a purely Bolshevik government no matter what the consequences and how
many victims the workers and soldiers will have to sacrifice [This policy is] pursued in opposition to
the will of the vast part of the proletariat and the troops (Izvestiya 17 November 1917).
Though Lenin would not tolerate an agreement with the Mensheviks, whom he regarded as tainted
by their cooperation with the Provisional Government, he realised that an agreement with the left
Social Revolutionaries would have some advantages, mainly that it would enable the government to
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: EARLY DECREES FRO M THE BO LS HEV IKS

8 November
The land belonging to the church, Tsar and nobles would be handed over to peasants.
Russia asks for peace in the war with Germany.
12 November
The working day would be limited to eight hours in a forty-eight-hour working week.
14 November
Workers would be insured against illness or accident.
1 December
All non-Bolshevik newspapers would be banned.
11 December
The opposition Cadets party would be banned and its leaders arrested.
20 December
The Cheka (secret police) is established.
27 December
Factories to be put under control of workers committees.

The banks to be put under Bolshevik government control.
31 December
Marriages can take place without a priest and divorce is made easier.
Which of the decrees were introduced to: (a) satisfy the peasants, (b) satisfy the workers,
(c) increase Bolshevik control, and (d) improve personal freedom?
claim it represented the peasants, the main supporters of the SRs. In December 1917 the Left SRs joined
Sovnarkom and took the portfolios of agriculture and justice.
In the community, support for the Bolsheviks was not unanimous. In the first week of power there
were arrests and newspaper closures as the Bolsheviks attempted to stifle criticism and opposition. In
reaction, workers in banks, shops, schools and government buildings went on strike. The State Bank
refused government demands for access to funds. The railway union, bitterly hostile to the Bolshevik
Social Revolutionaries
Bolsheviks
Left--wing Social Revolutionaries
Constitutional Democrats
175
Mensheviks
Others
370
40
16
17
89
Figure 10.4 The results of the Constituent Assembly elections
coup and the prospect of one-party rule, refused orders to drive troop trains. The Bolshevik tactic
was to identify any resistance as the work of class enemies. Trotsky labelled all such resisters petty
bourgeois scum and urged the party to maintain its nerve. By Christmas 1917 some government
departments were still refusing to work with their new masters.
All awaited the opening of the Constituent Assembly. The Provisional Government had scheduled
the elections for the assembly and the Bolsheviks allowed them to proceed, confident of victory.
Voting took place during December 1917, with all men and women over twenty years of age
entitled to vote. There was a high turn-out, but the results were a slap in the face for the Bolsheviks.
The SRs, thanks to their peasant support, were the most successful party with 40 per cent of the vote,
the Bolsheviks gained 24 per cent, various nationalist parties 14 per cent, and the Cadets 5 per cent.
When the trend of the results became clear, the Bolsheviks postponed the opening of the assembly,
claiming electoral abuses. A protest movement led by the SRs and other socialists quickly arose, and
a demonstration was planned to coincide with the delayed opening of the assembly on 18 January.
Squads of armed Bolsheviks arrested every leading Cadet they could find, the Cadet party itself was
banned, and once again the sailors from the Baltic fleet at Kronstadt were brought into the city to
intimidate the delegates to the assembly.
When the Constituent Assembly finally met, the attempts by the Bolsheviks to control its proceedings
were resisted. In the early hours of 19 January the assembly adjourned, but when they returned later in
the day the Kronstadt sailors blocked the entrances. The first freely elected Russian parliament had lasted
a little over twelve hours. Trotsky defended the closure of the assembly to the third All Russian Congress
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E CONST IT U EN T AS S EMB LY

1 Which sections of Russian society are
represented in the boat?
2 What message is this cartoon conveying
about the Constituent Assembly?
3 Which political group is most likely to have
produced this poster, and when? Explain
your answer.
Figure 10.5 The Constituent Assembly
of Soviets, which was meeting at the time, by saying, We have trampled underfoot the principles of
democracy for the sake of the loftier principles of the revolution (Williams 1987, p. 59).
The Bolsheviks, having struggled throughout 1917 to achieve power, were in no mood to relinquish
it merely because a majority of the people had been misguided enough to vote for other parties! The
building of the socialist state would continue, but to do that the ruinous war against Germany had to
be brought to an end.
1 Why did the Bolsheviks allow the elections for the Constituent Assembly to go ahead?
2 Can you suggest reasons why the Bolsheviks failed to get a majority of the votes for
the Constituent Assembly?
3 As a Bolshevik, how would you justify the closure of the Constituent Assembly? Refer
to Trotskys comment about this and try to work out what he meant.
THE TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK

Having steadfastly opposed Russias involvement in the war since Lenins return in April, the new
government rapidly issued the Decree on Peace. The Bolsheviks offered an immediate peace without
annexations and without indemnities. The actual negotiations between the Soviet government and the
representatives of the central powers began in Brest-Litovsk on 22 December.
When the Germans set out their demands for a peace agreement the Soviet leadership split into
three factions:
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At first Trotskys policy was chosen in preference to Lenins. On 10 February Trotsky announced
that Russia would end the war but would not sign the peace agreement. On 18 February the Germans
resumed the offensive, their armies moving deeper into Russian territory and meeting little resistance
from the almost non-existent Russian army. Lenin threatened to resign if his colleagues would not vote
for the immediate acceptance of peace terms, and on 3 March 1918 the Soviet delegates signed the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The treaty was a harsh one. In terms of territory, Russia lost Poland, the Baltic provinces of Latvia,
Estonia and Lithuania and the Ukraine. In the south, land was given to Turkey, which had the effect
of cutting Russia off from the Black Sea. Russia was required to pay a war indemnity of six thousand
million marks. The overall effect of the terms was that Russia lost 30 per cent of its population (sixty-two
million people), 32 per cent of its agricultural land, 85 per cent of its sugar beet land, 54 per cent of its
industrial undertakings and 89 per cent of its coal mines.
The treaty, now signed, still had to be ratified. At the congress called for this purpose, ratification
was approved by a vote of 784 to 261. The left Social Revolutionaries and the handful of other socialists
still in the Soviet voted against ratification and walked out. The Bolsheviks were now on their own
which was what Lenin wanted!
In the long run, Lenins view that no sacrifice of territory was too great to ensure the survival of the
revolutionary government, coupled with his feeling that a concession now could always be reversed
later, proved to be correct. At the end of the war in 1918, Germany was forced to release many of
the gains it had made at Brest-Litovsk. It was Lenins foresight that gave the new Soviet government
the freedom from international conflict which it needed to consolidate. However, no sooner had the
Bolsheviks ended one war than they had to contend with another, which, fought within Russia itself,
was again to threaten the existence of the revolution.
R E VI E W TA SK
Write a newspaper report with an appropriate headline about the making of the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk as it might have been written by: (a) Lenin, and (b) a member of the
left Social Revolutionaries.
THE CIVIL WAR

The civil war that broke out in the early months of 1918 both
hindered and advanced the cause of Bolshevik consolidation.
By threatening the very existence of the new government, the
civil war preoccupied the minds of Lenin and his associates at
a time when they wished to lay the foundation stones of the
new socialist state; on the other hand, the war ensured that
by 1920 the major counter-revolutionary groups in Russia had
been brought into the open and defeated.
Trotsky, as commissar for war, took command of the Red
Army in March 1918. Realising the need to have experienced
military leaders, he recruited thousands of officers from
the old imperial army. To each of the officers he attached
a political commissar who travelled alongside to share
command and ensure loyalty.
Trotsky imposed a firm and often ruthless discipline upon
the Red Army. Peasants were conscripted, and hostages
were taken and frequently shot. Trotsky himself toured the
battle lines in a special train equipped with its own printing
press. In this way the troops were inspired to fight by a
mixture of revolutionary fervour and a fear of execution by
their own side if they failed.
The communist strength was greatest in the north-west,
around Moscow and Petrograd. The task of the Red Army was
to extend the authority of the regime across the rest of Russia,
reconquering those areas that had used the breakdown of
central authority in 1917 to declare their independence.
KEY
Lands lost by the
Treaty of BrestLitvock
Lands regained
by 1922
Lands retaining
their independance
FINLAND
Petrograd
B A L T I C
S E A
ESTONIA
RUSSIA
LATVIA
Moscow
LITHUANIA
POLAND
Kiev
UKRAINE
500 km
B L A C K
S E A
Figure 10.6 Territory lost by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
A R C T I C
DID YOU KNOW?
KEY
O C E A N
Bolshevik Territory
Murmansk
Foreign Intervention
White Armies
Archangel
Petrograd
B A LT I C
One day during the civil war,

General Kornilov refused
to leave his farmhouse
headquarters outside
Ekaterinodar, saying it was
not worth the trouble. Next
morning, a chance shell
scored a direct hit, killing him.
British and
French
Kolchak
SE A
Moscow
Denikin
Kiev
er
Vol
ga
Ri
v
Yudenich
Czech Legion
French
N
B L AC K
S E A
British
CAS PIAN
SEA
Figure 10.7
200 400
600
800 1000 km
Russia during the civil war
Ranged against the defenders of the revolution was an assorted collection of liberals, monarchists,
disgruntled socialists and ex-officers who collectively became known as the Whites. They were aided
by foreign powers, groups of partisans, and even a collection of 40 000 ex-prisoners of war called the
Czech Legion.
In the south of the country the Volunteer Army headed the anti-communist cause. This was led
by General Denikin, who declared his support for an eventual re-election of a Constituent Assembly.
In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak set up a rival government at Omsk and declared himself Supreme Ruler in
November 1918. Another White Army under General Yudenich moved out from Estonia to threaten
Petrograd, while the Mensheviks retreated to their stronghold of Georgia where they ran a democratic
national government with considerable success.
The Whites received support from foreign powers whose intervention in Russias affairs stemmed
from a mixture of motives. The original concern of the British and French was the preservation of
the eastern front in the war against Germany. When it became clear that the Bolsheviks could not
be tempted to resume the struggle, the British sent troops to the northern ports around Murmansk
and the French occupied Odessa in the south. The official reason given was the protection of large
quantities of war supplies that had been sent by the Allies to the pre-revolutionary governments.
There was also a financial aspect to anti-Bolshevism. One of the first acts of Lenins government had
been to repudiate all foreign debts incurred by their predecessors and to freeze all foreign assets
in Russia. This was particularly resented by the French who, as Russias main pre-war ally, had made
extensive loans to the Tsars government. The defeat of the Bolsheviks would, the Allies hoped, restore
financial normality.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E REASONS F O R THE BO LS HEVI K V IC TO RY

Source 10.1
Following is a diary entry of Colonel Drozdovsky, a White

commander, written in 1923.
1 Who do the human characters in Figure 10.8

represent?
Having surrounded the village they fired a couple of

volleys in the direction of the village and everyone took
cover. Then the mounted soldiers entered the village, met
the Bolshevik committee and put the members to death
After the execution the houses of the culprits were burned
and the male population was ordered to deliver without
pay the best cattle, pigs, fowl, forage and bread for the
soldiers as well as the best horses.
2 What is the message of the cartoon?

3 Which side do you think produced the poster?
4 How does the diary entry in Source 10.1 help
to explain the defeat of the Whites?
Colonel Drozdovsky in B. Walsh, Modern World History,

1996, p. 92.
Figure 10.8 A Bolshevik civil war poster from 1919. The dogs are labelled (left to right) Denikin, Kolchak and Yudenich.
In addition to the British and the French, the Japanese moved into the far-eastern territories with
plainly imperialistic motives, while the Americans sent in forces to keep an eye on the Japanese!
The major obstacle to interventionist action in Russia was not the Bolsheviks but the pressure
from home. With the conclusion of the world war in November 1918 neither the public nor the troops
welcomed the thought of further conflict.
The vital year in the civil war was 1919. The Bolsheviks marshalled their resources under the slogan
everything for the front, as they began the year on the defensive. By the autumn Kolchaks forces had
retreated deep into Siberia, Denikin had been defeated and Yudenich crushed. Kolchak was caught and
executed in February 1920; Denikin handed over his command to General Wrangel, whose activities in
the Crimea had ended in 1920. The Bolshevik victory was assured. By 1921 the Soviet government had
reconquered most of the territories that had previously constituted the Russian Empire. The Japanese
intervention ended in 1922, allowing the re-incorporation of the far-eastern territories.
How had the Bolsheviks managed to defeat the forces of counter-revolution? It should not be
assumed that they had the automatic support of the mass of ordinary Russians. To the occupants of the
small towns and villages of rural Russia there was little to choose between the brutality and terror that
was inflicted by both sides. The Whites failed because all they could offer was a return to the past. In
the areas they controlled, the rights of the landlord and the church were reinstated and the benefits of
agrarian reform brought by the Soviets were denied to the peasants.
Furthermore, the White cause was doomed by its own divisions. Offensives were rarely coordinated
due to the differing objectives of the leaders and the massive distances that separated their forces.
The Bolsheviks, in contrast, held the industrial heartland of the nation between Moscow and
Petrograd. Within this area lay the countrys major producers of war supplies, the largest pool of
potential conscripts, and the major rail and transport networks.
The foreign intervention, while being of little practical help to the Whites, helped the Bolshevik
cause. Lenin was able to appeal to the nationalism of the people by pointing out that only the
Bolsheviks stood for the removal of these foreign forces from the soil of the motherland.
Finally, there was a marked difference in the quality of leadership that each side possessed. There
was no White leader or combination of leaders who could match the determination and ruthless ability
of Lenin and Trotsky.
1 List the countries that intervened in the civil war and their reasons for doing so.
2 What impact did the foreign intervention have on the civil war?
3 The weaknesses of the Whites determined the fate of the civil war. To what extent do
you agree?
WAR COMMUNISM AND THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

For several months, between the Bolshevik revolution and the onset of the civil war, Lenin was
prepared to let much of the existing industrial system continue under state supervisionthe so-called
state capitalism. However, the anticipated economic recovery did not occur, and in fact the ceasefire
with Germany made the industrial situation worse. Over 70 per cent of Russias industrial capacity was
geared to the war, and the need to change to peacetime production proved too difficult for many
factories, resulting in large-scale factory closures and redundancies, which caused a rise in the number
of poor people on the streets of the major cities.
Workers began to leave the cities to return to the villages or join the Red Army. Petrograd had lost
60 per cent of its workforce by April 1918 and in Russia as a whole the urban proletariat decreased
from 3.6 million in January 1917 to 1.4 million two years later. H. G. Wells, the famous author, visited
Petrograd in 1920 and described it as a ghost town.
In the countryside the situation was only a little better. The autumn harvest of 1917 was down
on the annual average. Confiscation of non-peasant land continued, and although most of the land
owned by nobles had been farmed by the peasants for years, the relief from rents and mortgage
payments was welcomed.
The basic economic problem remained. The traditional balance in trading had been that the
farmers sent their excess food to the towns in return for manufactured goods. Now there was no
DID YOU KNOW?
excess in the countryside, and even if there were, the towns were unable to provide the
manufactured goods in exchange. Stories grew of peasants deliberately withholding grain
from the towns in order to drive up prices, while the inhabitants of the towns starved.
The onset of the civil war in March 1918 required new and firmer policies. To fight
the war, emphasis had to be given to armaments and heavy industry. All industry was
taken over by the state, as was foreign trade. Strict discipline was imposed in the factories.
Workers were punished for lateness and absenteeism and the working day was extended
to eleven hours. Cheka informers were ever-present to watch for signs of sabotage or a
slackening of enthusiasm for the Bolshevik cause. For efficient industrial production the
town workers had to be adequately fed. Lenins answer to the failure of the food supply was
to send out armed requisition squads to seize grain.
Food shortages even affected

the Bolshevik leadership in
1918. When visiting Danish
socialists presented the
commissars with a cheese,
they carefully divided it
up, then left for an urgent
meeting. When they returned,
a Red Guard had eaten the lot!
The stricter conditions of this War Communism period bred revolt across the country.
Peasants slaughtered their cattle and refused to sow their land, rather than turn over food
supplies to the government. Russia was pushed further towards economic chaos. The
harvest of 1918 was less than a tenth that of 1916. Official sources admitted the existence
of 344 peasant revolts in 1919. As the civil war ended, these revolts intensified. One of the
largest was in the Tambov region between the rivers Don and Volga. Twenty thousand
people rebelled, attacking grain-collection centres. Famine became widespread across
southern Russia in 1921 and the diseases of povertytyphoid and cholerareached
epidemic proportions.
Significant sections of the proletariat began to oppose
Bolshevik power. Strikes occurred in Moscow and Petrograd
throughout the civil war. In the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks
were defeated in some town soviet elections in central
Russia. The polls were ruled invalid.
The most significant blow for the Bolsheviks came in
1921 when the sailors from the Kronstadt naval base near
Petrograd mutinied in support of striking workers in the city.
These sailors had provided the backbone of the revolution
on vital occasions such as the November takeover and the
suppression of the Constituent Assembly. Now they turned
their power against Lenin and his government.
The Kronstadt sailors put forward a list of demands
that showed their dissatisfaction with the government.
They called for new elections for the soviets, freedom of
speech, freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant
associations, the freeing of all political prisoners, fairer
rationing, and the freedom for the peasants to do as they
wished with the land.
In response, Lenin sent Trotsky and a successful general
from the civil war, Tukhachevsky, to suppress the revolt,
which lasted from 28 February until 18 March. Units of the
Red Army were sent across the frozen Gulf of Finland to
attack the naval base. Behind the army were Cheka units
with instructions to shoot any who showed a reluctance
to advance.
Figure 10.9 During the 192021 famine, a business grew in the

sale of bodies to the starving. Cannibalism, although officially
denied, was quite common. Some body sellers are pictured. People
ate their own relativesthe flesh of children was thought to be
particularly sweetand armed guards were posted at cemeteries
to prevent the stealing of corpses for food.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: WAR C OM M U NI SM AN D THE N EP

Source 10.2
Source 10.3
The civil war of 191820 greatly increased the devastation of the

country and bled the proletariat more than any other class.
To this was added the failure of the harvest of 1920, the fodder
shortage, the dying o of cattle, which still further retarded the
restoration of transport and industry, because, among other
things, it interfered with the employment of peasants horses for
carting wood, our main fuel
Roberts is a good example of the use of Lenins words.

He cites Lenin from 1917 through to the end of War
Communism, showing how during this period Lenin
consistently supported the sorts of policies of which
War Communism consisted. He reports that at no
time did Lenin refer to the policies as temporary or
as wartime measures. Furthermore he argues that
when Lenin rejects War Communism in favour of the
NEP, he does so not by what would appear to be the
easy argument, i.e. War Communism was a temporary
necessity designed to deal with the wartime conditions,
but by saying that the socialist program had been
driven to the point of exhaustion by the war. It was not
a mistake in principle, but in the wartime conditions it
had been pushed too far too fast, and so what was now
needed was an economic breathing space.
We were forced to resort to War Communism by war and ruin it

was a temporary measure Our poverty and ruin are so great we
cannot hope to restore large-scale factory state socialist production
at one stroke Hence, it is necessary to help restore SMALL
industry the eect will be a revival of the petty bourgeoisie and
of capitalism on the basis of a certain amount of free trade
The proletarian regime is in no danger as long as the proletariat
firmly hold power in its hands, as long as it firmly holds transport
and large scale industry in its hands We must not be afraid
of Communists learning from bourgeois specialists, including
merchants, small capitalist co-operation and capitalists.
V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, 1960 in J. Daborn, Russia:
Revolution and Counter-Revolution 19171924, 1991, p. 121.
G. Gill, Twentieth Century Russia: The Search for

Power and Authority, 1991, p. 78.

1 How does Source 10.3 differ from
Source 10.2?
Refer to Source 10.2.
1 What circumstances led to the change of policy
from War Communism to the NEP?
2 What was Lenins attitude towards capitalism?
3 How would Lenin respond to the view that the
revolution was in danger of being overthrown
because of this change?
2 According to the information in Source 10.3,

how did Lenin justify the change to the NEP?
3 War Communism is described as a
temporary measure in Source 10.2 and the
NEP as a breathing space in Source 10.3.
Which policy do you think reflects Lenins
real policy wishes?
4 What does Figure 10.10 tell us about the
effects of the NEP?
Electricity
140
Pigs
Cattle
Grain
120
100
80
Coal
Steel
60
40
20
0
1913
Figure 10.10
First
World War
1917
1918
Revolution
War
Communism
Economic changes from War Communism to the NEP
1921
New
Economic
Policy
1925
An eye witness described the scene:

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The defenders of Kronstadt lost approximately 1500 men, and 2500 were captured. The prisoners
were handed over to the Cheka to be shot in small groups over the next few months.
Victory in the civil war, combined with these revolts, persuaded Lenin to reverse the War
Communism policy. In its place was introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP). While retaining
the key sections of the economy in state handsfor example, the banking, steel and transport
industriessmall businesses were permitted and private profits could be made. In the countryside
grain requisitioning was abolished and replaced by a tax in kind. Peasants could once again sell their
surplus crops in the marketplace for a profit.
The change from War Communism to the NEP was approved at the tenth party congress in 1921,
but some believed that Lenin had abandoned socialism in pushing for the change.
Historians have debated the significance of this policy change. The left-wing view is that War
Communism was no more than a temporary diversion from the mixed economy, which Lenin had
outlined during the spring of 1918 and to which he returned in 1921 with the NEP. Thus the pro-market
socialism of the NEP was the real face of Leninism, as opposed to the anti-market socialism of War
Communism and the Stalinist era. In the right-wing view, the Bolsheviks true policy can be seen in War
Communism, which was only abandoned by concessions to the market when they were forced to do so.
They therefore see a link between War Communism and the later planned economy under Stalin. Figes
(1996) is critical of the view that War Communism was only introduced as a practical response to the
demands of the civil war, questioning why, if this was the case, the policy was kept in place more than a
year after the White armies had been defeated. He argues that War Communism was not a response to
the civil war, but a means of creating civil war. The Bolsheviks were convinced that unless they made war
on the grain-hoarding peasants their urban revolution would be destroyed by starvation.
1 Why was War Communism introduced?
2 Why did ordinary workers and peasants feel unhappy about their living and working
conditions by the end of 1920?
3 Would you agree that the NEP was an unnecessary retreat from the goals of the
revolution?
REFORMS WITHIN THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY

Who was to hold power in the new socialist state? In the
early weeks the revolutionary slogan All power to the Soviets
was freely interpreted to mean that local soviets across the
country should have power at the expense of the central
authority. Lenin appeared to support this view when he spoke
at the Third Congress of Soviets in January 1918: Socialism
cannot be implemented by a minority, by the party. It can be

implemented only by tens of millions when they have learned
to do it for themselves (Daborn 1991, p. 125).
The beginning of the civil war altered this course. By the
spring of 1918 Lenins speeches began to emphasise party
organisation and discipline over popular self-government.
Soviets and trade unions were reconstructed to follow the

party line and to act less independently.
In January 1919 further reconstruction was carried out.
Power at the top was divided into two subcommittees
of the party. The Politburo decided major policy, and the
Orgburo oversaw internal administration. In 1919 the
Politburo consisted of Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Bukharin
and Stalin. These roles were emphasised at the 1921 party
congress, which clamped down on factionalism and internal
disagreements. The secretariat now controlled all party
appointments and the party machine.
Lenins view about the role to be given to the people
had changed since early 1918. By December 1920 he was
arguing that power could not be exercised by the whole of
the proletariat because it was still so divided, so degraded
and so corrupted. Power could only be exercised by a
vanguard that had absorbed the revolutionary energy of the
class (Daborn 1991, p. 81).
In 1918 the Bolsheviks changed their name to the
Communist Party. In 1922 Russia became the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The new title was ratified
in 1924, the same year that Petrograd became Leningrad.
At the national level, Moscow decided all foreign policy and
most domestic policy, leaving some lesser matters such as
education to regional control.
criticism. Hence, the terms of Brest-Litovsk and the NEP were

acceptable to him, not because they were in any sense fair
or proper, but because they headed off the threats to the
revolution posed in the one instance by the German army
and in the other by a rebellious populace.
Having secured the Communist Party in power, Lenin did
not live to see its continued development. Towards the end of
1921 his health became seriously impaired. The eleventh party
congress in March 1922 was the last he attended. Early in May
1922 he suffered his first stroke and lost the ability to speak or
walk. He made a good recovery, but suffered a more severe
stroke in December; his last writings date from this time. A
third stroke followed in March 1923 and finally, on 21 January
1924, he died at the relatively young age of fifty-three.
REVIEW QUEST ION

For an essay or for discussion: Lenin put aside
his revolutionary principles simply to stay in
power. Do you think this is a fair assessment?
The reality was that the Communist Party ruled supreme.

The revolution of March 1917 had been fought to end the
centralised autocracy of Tsarism; it had been replaced by
the centralised dictatorship of communism. Nicholas, the
crowned head, had been succeeded by Lenin, the party head.
BOLSHEVIK CONSOLIDATION
By 1924 the Communist Party had survived severe challenges
to its authority and consolidated its position in government.
Although the use of terror against opponents had become
an important method for retaining power, other factors were
equally important. Peace had been secured as promised,
the land had been redistributed, and the popularity of these
measures should not be underestimated. The promotion
of factory workers, the basis of the Bolshevik support, into
public office had strengthened the Soviet state. The hardships
of the years 191821 had conversely helped to secure the
communists in power. Hunger, unemployment and the flight
from towns cut back the potential for resistance.
Above all, there was the leadership of Lenin. Taking the
longer view of the need for the revolution to survive, he was
willing to compromise in the short term, often in the face of
Figure 10.11 The dying Lenin with his younger sister after his third
stroke in 1923. By this time he was helpless and Stalin was moving
to take his place.
STALINS RISE TO POWER

STALIN AND TROTSKYTHE STRUGGLE FOR POWER 192428
Until Lenin suffered his first stroke in 1922 there was no suggestion he would soon disappear from the
political stage. Nevertheless, certain individuals had begun to make their reputations among the Bolshevik
leadership. Foremost was Leon Trotsky, the planner of the Bolshevik revolution and victor of the civil war.
Trotskys greatest rival was Joseph Stalin, who had played only a minor part in the events of 1917.
Stalin was not an intellectual and had no strong talents in the areas of writing or speaking. He was,
however, recognised as a practical man, a down-to-earth revolutionary who would get things done.
For this quality he was appreciated by Lenin.
Other leading Bolsheviks were Gregory Zinoviev, a gifted speaker, but a man whose intellectual
pretensions were not taken seriously by others in the party; Lev Kamenev, respected for his abilities
as a writer and speaker but a man of little personal ambition; and Nikolai Bukharin, an intellectual and
leader of the left wing of the party.
LENINS TESTAMENT
Although Lenin originally valued Stalins practical nature, he began to have doubts about
him during 1922. While recovering from his first stroke in December 1922, Lenin wrote down
his views on the leading Bolsheviks in what became known as his testament. His verdict on
Stalin was that he has concentrated limitless power in his hands, and I am not sure that he
will always manage to use this power with sufficient caution.
Trotsky did not fare much better: Comrade Trotsky is distinguished not only by his
exceptional capabilities but also by his excessive self-assurance and excessive absorption
in administration. He later added a damning postscript on Stalin: Stalin is too rude, a fault
intolerable in the office of General Secretary Therefore I propose to the comrades to find a
way to transfer Stalin from that office and appoint another man more tolerant.
DID YOU KNOW?

Proud Bolshevik parents
chose revolutionary names for
their children: popular names
were Ninel (Lenin backwards)
and Diktatura (dictatorship)
for girls, and Marlen (Marx +
Lenin) for boys.
Lenins intention to present this testament to the 1923 party congress was thwarted by a further
deterioration in his health. Lenins widow, Krupskaya, placed the testament before the party central
committee in May 1924, but it was decided that it would not be publicly read out.
Before Lenin died the leading figures in the Politburo had begun to position themselves for
the power struggle that would inevitably follow. Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin formed a group
often referred to as the troikagroup of three. They were not friends, but they were united in their
opposition to Trotsky.
The first clash of viewpoints came over the so-called scissors crisis of 1923. This was caused by a
fall in prices for agricultural products, while at the same time prices of industrial goods were rising. The
troika advocated giving priority to the recovery of the peasant sector, financing the growth of industry
from the growing prosperity of the peasants and from their increased purchasing of products.
The left opposition, led by Trotsky, argued that priority should be given to industry and the interests
of the proletariat. Stalin used the party machine to ensure that when the issue came before the 1923
party congress the majority of the delegates supported the troika line.
REVOLUTION OR CONSOLIDATION?
The struggle between Trotsky and Stalin now turned to another ideological question: what path
should the party and the revolution take? Trotsky and his followers mounted two criticisms: firstly, that
the party was becoming anti-democratic in its methods and, secondly, that the course for the future
should be one of permanent revolution. By this Trotsky supported the view, held by Lenin in 1917, that
Russia could only be safe if the revolution was spread to other countries. Without such a course, Russia
risked isolation and attack in a capitalist world.
Stalin rejected Trotskys comments about the methods of the party, accusing him of factionalism.
This had been specifically prohibited by Lenin at the 1921 congress when party discipline had been
tightened following the Kronstadt revolt, which had threatened to divide the workers movement.
In terms of the future course of the party, Stalin advocated a policy of socialism in one country,
which was a concentration on the building up of communism within Russia. He accused his opponents
of a lack of faith in Russia and its people if they argued that the country could not survive without the
spread of revolution. Also in his favour was the feeling that Trotskys permanent revolution sounded like
an ominous warning to a tired generation, which had endured war and civil war, that it could expect no
rest in its lifetime.
The fourteenth party congress of 1925 supported socialism in one country and Trotsky was forced
to resign as commissar for war. Zinoviev and Kamenev wanted to expel Trotsky from the party but
Stalin would not support this, arguing that the policy of cutting off heads was a dangerous one for the
party to follow. Trotsky remained as a member of the Politburo for the time being.
THE FUTURE OF THE NEP

Within months another issue had arisen to test the alliances within the Politburo. This time the issue was
the NEP and the peasants. The left opposition, now consisting of Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that the
NEP had been introduced as a temporary measure and that to continue it would lead to a restoration
of capitalism. The proper socialist policy, they argued, was to concentrate on industrialisation. This was a
clear reversal of the pro-peasant line that Zinoviev and Kamenev had argued in 1923 and represented a
political ploy to attack the leadership of Stalin and Bukharin rather than any deeply held conviction about
economic policy. The right wing of the party, led by Bukharin,
argued for the preservation of the NEP and claimed that even
Lenin had come to realise that it would take many years for
the peasants to accept the idea of change to cooperative
farming.
STALIN AGAINST THE LEFT WING

In vital discussions, Stalin sided with Bukharin, and in 1926
the influence of Zinoviev and Kamenev was reduced when
Stalin further increased his hold by having his associates
Molotov, Kalinin and Voroshilov added to the Politburo.
In 1927 the left wing, now composed of an alliance
between Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky, made its last
protest after a series of setbacks in foreign policy. In 1926 a
general strike by workers in Britain had failed and there were
recriminations in Russia about the lack of support that had
been offered. The following year, the Chinese leader Chiang
Kai-shek abruptly dismissed Soviet aid and attempted to
wipe out the Chinese Communist Party in the Shanghai
massacres. The left wing blamed Stalin and the right wing for
these setbacks and criticised them for the direction in which
Figure 10.12 Stalin was a prominent mourner at Lenins funeral.

Trotsky had been misinformed about the date of the funeral and did
not attend. What effect would this have had on Trotskys reputation?
they were taking the party. Each side tried to portray the
other as departing from the policies of Lenin.
At a party meeting in November 1927 Stalin denounced
Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky as anti-Leninist and accused
them of factionalism, attempting to undermine the unity
of the party. Their expulsion from the party followed, and
although Zinoviev and Kamenev were later readmitted after
acknowledging their errors, Trotsky refused to recant. In
January 1928 he was arrested and sent into exile to Alma Ata
in Soviet Central Asia.
STALIN AGAINST THE RIGHT WING

With his left-wing opponents removed, Stalin disagreed
with the right wing, now led by Bukharin, Rykov and
Tomsky, over the question of agricultural policy. Reversing
his previous stand, Stalin now declared that the way
forward lay in the rapid collectivisation of agriculture and
the rapid development of heavy industry. He expressed
his determination to eliminate the wealthy farmer or kulak.
Bukharin was convinced that Stalin was aiming for a second
revolution in the countryside and a return to the days of War
Communism, and he stood by his earlier defence of the NEP.
Once again Stalin was able to arrange the numbers when
the crunch came in April 1929. The right wing was defeated
and Bukharin was dismissed from the Politburo. In the same
year Trotsky was banished from the Soviet Union.
REASONS FOR STALINS TRIUMPH
Figure 10.13 Changing historyLenin giving a speech in 1920,

with Trotsky and Kamenev on the steps (top photo). Stalin later had
the photograph altered to remove Trotsky and Kamenev.
Before Lenins death, Stalin had been appointed to two

positions within the leadership, first as commissar for
nationalities and second as general secretary. As commissar for nationalities after the revolution, his
contacts gave him a wide sphere of influence, which increased when he was appointed general
secretary of the Communist Party in April 1922. Stalins temperament did not naturally equip him to be
a good administrator. He tended to personalise every issue, and Bukharin observed that he resented
anyone whose talents seemed greater than his own. However, he was not interested in administration
for its own sake. As Bullock states, what marked him out was his ability to see how administrative power
could be turned into political power (Bullock 1993, p. 118).
Stalin began to reorganise the party machine. He surrounded himself with people who linked their
own careers with his. Their loyalty was total, for as Stalin rose they rose. Through the secretariat Stalin
placed nominees he could trust at every level of the party structure. A significant change took place
in the selection of regional officials: they were no longer elected locally, but were recommended for
appointment from Moscow. As Trotsky commented: In his position as General Secretary he became the
dispenser of favour and fortune (Laver 1991, p. 50)
By 1929, Stalin was the outstanding figure in a party that had changed considerably from the early
days. In addition to being filled with Stalins nominees the party had also become larger, growing from
350 000 in 1923 to over one million by 1927. Many of the new members were young, inexperienced
and poorly educated, and more members worked as party officials than actually worked in industry.
While the old Bolsheviksthose whose membership predated the revolutionstill dominated the
upper ranks of the party, over 60 per cent of all local secretaries had joined after 1921.
The party congresses had also changed in character. In Lenins lifetime they had been places of
genuine discussion and debate, but after his death they became stage-managed affairs where all the
decisions had been taken in advance. By managing the congresses, Stalin was able to lay the charge
of factionalism against any opponent, no matter what the issue, secure in the knowledge that the
majority of delegates would support him.
1 Explain each of the following terms in relation to Soviet history in the 1920s: troika,
permanent revolution, socialism in one country, factionalism.
2 What views did the left wing of the Bolshevik party hold on: (a) whether priority in
growth should be given to industry or agriculture, and (b) the future of the NEP?
3 Did Stalin side with the left wing of the Bolshevik party or with their opponents in the
policy debates of 1923, 1925, 1927, and 1929?
RE VI E W TA SK
Design an electoral poster from the time of the TrotskyStalin rivalry. The message of
the poster should show why your candidate should be chosen as the new leader. Use
positive material about your candidate and negative information about the other. Dont
forget Lenins testament.
THE SOVIET STATE UNDER STALIN

THE FIVE-YEAR PLANSCOLLECTIVISATION AND THE KULAKS
The starting point for the massive restructuring of agriculture was the procurement crisis of 1928.
Stalin announced that the USSR was two million tonnes short of the minimum amount of grain needed
for feeding the workers in the cities. Rationing was introduced and squads were sent into the countryside to seize grain, which, it was alleged, was being held back by the peasants in the hope of forcing up
the price.
At the sixteenth Communist Party conference in April 1929 Stalin announced a longer-term solution
to the problem of the food supplyall farms were to be collectivised. The original plan called for the
collectivisation of 20 per cent of the sown area during the first Five-Year Plan, beginning October 1928.
However, in January 1930 the central committee decided that the complete collectivisation of the
major growing regions would be completed by the autumn of 1930.
THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF COLLECTIVISATION

Collectivisation meant the end of small, privately owned farms. In their place came the kolkhoz, the
collective farm, and the sovkhoz, the state farm. In the kolkhoz peasants pooled their fields, livestock and
tools, and shared the labour and the wages. In the sovkhoz the peasants worked directly for the state,
which paid them a wage. In practice, there were only minor differences between these two types of farm.
The collective farm consisted of between fifty and one

hundred families. Motor tractor stations were set up around
the countryside, each with a central pool of tractors for use
by about forty neighbouring farms. It was argued that the
larger farm units and the access to heavy machinery that
collectivisation allowed would result in the much needed
modernisation of Russian agriculture.
Hand in hand with agricultural reform went the desire to
rapidly modernise Russian industry. To do this the country
needed industrial investment and manpower. The land could
provide both. Improved agriculture would lead to surplus
grain stocks that could be sold abroad to raise investment
funds for industry. At the same time the rural disruption
that collectivisation involved would create a pool of surplus
peasant labour to be recruited into the industrial labour
force.
PLAN
increase state control
centralisation of
the economy
MOTIVE
ideology
survival of state
COLLECTIVISATION
RESULTS
famine 193233
fall in production
government gained
control of the countryside
There were also political motivations behind the

collectivisation drive. The Bolsheviks, with their proletariatcentred ideology, had always been wary of the power of
the peasants, who made up roughly 80 per cent of the
population. Unrest among the peasants had played an
Figure 10.14 Collectivisation
important part in the introduction of the New Economic
Policy in 1921, which left-wing Bolsheviks still regarded as a
backward step. Therefore, when Stalin waged a war against the peasants in the name of the revolution,
those elements of the party freely and enthusiastically supported him.
REACTION
peasant resistance
deportation of kulaks
CHANGE AND RESISTANCE

Collectivisation was to be accomplished at a rapid pace. In the period between December 1929 and
March 1930, nearly 60 per cent of the peasant farms in the USSR were collectivised. The result was
chaos and the beginning of massive peasant resistance to collectivisation. Rather than be herded into
the collective farms the peasants slaughtered their own animals and even burned their own homes
in acts of defiance. Between 1928 and 1930 peasants had killed 25 per cent of all cattle, 48 per cent of
all pigs and 25 per cent of all sheep and goats. Government forces sent to enforce the collectivisation
edict acted with such savagery that in March 1930 Stalin called a halt to the process.
In an article in Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, in March 1930, entitled Dizzy with Success,
Stalin, who had given instructions for the rapid enforcement of collectivisation, now criticised lower
level officials for being over-zealous. He wrote: Collective farms must not be established by force. That
would be foolish and reactionary. The collective farm movement must rest on the active support of the
main mass of the peasantry (Laver 1991, p. 58).
Many peasants took Stalin at his word and left the collectives after the Dizzy with Success article.
By 1 August 1930 the March figure of about 50 per cent of households collectivised had fallen to
21 per cent. However, the government retreat was only temporary. After the harvest of 1930 the
campaign to force the peasants into the collectives began again in earnest. In Stalins view, the
difficulties of the collectivisation drive were not caused by the haste and brutality of the government,
but rather by the existence of an anti-revolutionary force within the peasantry. These were the richer
peasants or kulaks.
CASE STUDY:
THE KULAKS
swine, loathsome they had no souls
they stank they all had venereal
diseases; they were enemies of the
people and there was no pity for
them (Conquest 1991, p. 159).
Figure 10.15 Not all peasants opposed collectives. These peasants are in a procollectivisation demonstration in 1930. The banner reads: Liquidate the kulaks as a class.
One of the difficulties for historians

in understanding Stalins campaign
against the kulaks lies in the shifting
definition of the word. What was a
kulak? The kulaks, or richer peasants,
had been identified by Lenin as
capitalist enemies of the revolution. In
his 1918 article Civil War in the Villages
he described the kulaks as rabid foes
of the Soviet Government and urged
ruthless war against them.
In fact, land redistribution and the
effects of the revolution had virtually
done away with the traditional image
of the kulakthe rich peasant who
was disliked as a capitalist and a money
lender. Using the rough definition that
a kulak was someone who possessed
twenty-five to forty sown acres, kulaks
made up no more than 3.9 per cent of
the peasantry in 1927, approximately

one million people, compared to
15 per cent before 1917.
Nevertheless, Stalin said that a new
class of kulak had arisen under the
NEP and was deliberately undermining
the state by withholding large supplies
of grain from the market. It was
necessary therefore to liquidate the
kulaks as a class.
The treatment of the kulaks was brutal.
In addition to losing their land and
possessions, they were rounded up
in their thousands and transported
by cattle wagons to the far north
or to Siberia where many died in
labour camps. The justification for this
treatment was that the kulak was less
than human. One Russian later wrote
that kulaks were looked on as cattle,
As the de-kulakisation campaign

intensified the mass of peasants
refused to support it. The Communist
Party then sent 25 000 urban members
into the countryside to run the
campaign. Increasingly the word
kulak was used to mean anyone in
the countryside who opposed Stalins
collectivisation plans: many of the socalled middle peasants who protested
against the loss of their land and
livestock were labelled as kulaks and
deported.
The consequence of the
collectivisation campaign, and the
peasant opposition to it, was the
complete collapse of the agricultural
sector and widespread famine in
193233. The party leadership, unable
or unwilling to acknowledge that
they had brought about this situation,
blamed the poor performance of
collectivised agriculture on sabotage
and wreckers.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: COLLECT IV ISAT I O N

Source 10.4
Source 10.5
Stalins description of collectivisation:
Stalins description of the fate of the kulaks:
It was absolutely necessary for Russia, if we were to avoid

periodic famines, to plough the land with tractors. We
must mechanise our agriculture. When we gave tractors to
the peasants they were all spoiled in a few months. Only
collective farms with workshops could handle tractors.
We took the greatest trouble to explain it to the peasants.
It was no use arguing with them.
Many of them agreed to come in with us. Some of them

were given land of their own to cultivate in the province
of Tomsk or the province of Irkutsk further north, but the
great bulk were very unpopular and were wiped out by their
labourers.
D. Chapman, Stalin: Man of Steel, 1987.
D. Chapman, Stalin: Man of Steel, 1987.
Source 10.6
Production figures for Russian agriculture
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
Grain harvest (million tons)
73.3
71.7
83.5
69.5
69.6
68.4
67.6
75.0
Cattle (million head)
70.5
67.1
52.5
47.9
40.7
38.4
42.4
49.3
26.0
20.4
13.6
14.4
11.6
12.1
17.4
22.6
146.7
147
108.8
77.7
52.1
50.2
51.9
61.1
Pigs (million head)

Sheep and goats (million head)
J. Laver, Russia 191441, 1991, p. 60.
Source 10.7
DO CUMENT ST U D Y QUEST IONS
Men began slaughtering their cattle

every night. As soon as it grew dusk,
one could hear the mued bleating of
sheep, the death squeal of a pig piercing
the stillness. Both the peasants who
had joined the collective farm and the
individual farmers killed o their stock
Kill, its not ours now! Kill, the state
butchers will do it if we dont Kill, for
you wont taste meat in the collective
farm. The insidious rumours crept
around. And they killed. They ate until
they were unable to move.
1 Refer to Source 10.4. Why did Stalin feel that the introduction
of collective farms was essential?
M. Sholokov, Virgin Soil Upturned, 1937.
7 Are the following statements about Source 10.7 true or false?
2 What other reasons are given for the introduction of collective

farms?
3 On what grounds might a historian criticise Stalins statement
in Source 10.5?
4 Refer to Source 10.6. When was the agricultural crisis at
its worst?
5 How does the information in Source 10.7 help us to
understand the figures given in Source 10.6?
6 Refer to Source 10.7. Why did the peasants slaughter at night?
(a) The passage is about a celebration meal among the
peasants.
(b) The peasants felt that they would be well looked after in a
collective farm.
(c) Peasants killed their animals whether they were members
of collective farms or not.
THE FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE

Though the collectivisation campaign led to grave food shortages in many areas, the worst hit was the
province of the Ukraine on the western border of the Soviet Union. Angered by the provinces failure
to meet grain requisition targets, and determined to crush an independence movement that had
flourished briefly after the revolution, Stalin deliberately induced a famine in the region by seizing all
the peasants grain stocks.
Guards were put on fields after the harvest to stop starving mothers and children searching for
leftover ears of grain. As starvation increased, stories of cannibalism surfaced, but were denied by the
authorities.
The famine reached its height in March 1933. Corpses were piled up by the sides of the roads, and
troops were stationed along the internal borders of the Ukraine to prevent any of the peasants from
leaving. A visiting communist, travelling by train through the Ukraine, recalled women holding babies
who looked like embryos out of alcohol bottles. For soup, people boiled rats, nettles, tree bark and the
skin of old furs.
A total of seven million people are thought to have died in the famine of 1932 to 1933, five million
of them in the Ukraine. As Robert Conquest states: though confined to a single state, the number
dying in Stalins war against the peasants was higher than the total deaths for all countries in World War
One (Conquest, in Bullock 1993, p. 294).
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE COLLECTIVISATION CAMPAIGN

Despite fierce peasant resistance, collectivisation was virtually complete by 1936. The government
claimed that several important goals had been achieved. Politically, the party now controlled the
countryside: counter-revolutionary peasants were no longer able to threaten the wellbeing of the
workers in the cities by withholding food supplies, and the extra labour needed in the new industrial
ventures had been provided by the peasants who had been forced off the land.
It is difficult to avoid judging collectivisation in terms of the humanitarian cost. The Soviet
agricultural economist V. A. Tikhonov estimates that approximately fifteen million people were evicted
from their place in rural society. Some were shot, others deported to the far north and some escaped to
the cities (Bullock, 1993, p. 293).
In economic terms the plan failed. The countryside had been disrupted by a state of virtual civil war,
livestock numbers had been drastically reduced by slaughtering, crop yields fell to the point where
the government produced false figures to cover up the shortages, and there is little evidence that the
sale of grain provided the capital expected for the industrialisation drive. By 1939 Soviet agricultural
production barely reached the level recorded in 1913.
1 What was a collective farm?
2 What was the main point of Stalins 1930 article Dizzy with Success? Why do you
think Stalin wrote the article?
3 Explain how views changed about the meaning of the word kulak.
4 Why was the famine of 193233 so severe in the Ukraine?
5 Debate the proposition that: the collectivisation campaign was harsh but necessary
for the progress of the USSR.
THE FIVE-YEAR PLANSINDUSTRY

Stalin argued that there was an urgent need to change the USSR from an agrarian country into a
modern, self-sufficient industrial country. The result was the Five-Year Plans. The plans worked in the
following way:
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&BDISFHJPOXBTUPMEJUTUBSHFUT
5IFSFHJPOTFUUBSHFUTGPSFBDINJOF GBDUPSZ FUD
5IFNBOBHFSPGFBDINJOF GBDUPSZ FUDTFUUBSHFUTGPSFBDIGPSFNBO
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The first Five-Year Plan was put into action at breakneck speed on 1 October 1928, so much so that
in the following year Stalin decreed that the original targets could and had to be met in four years
instead of five. When protests arose concerning the speed of industrialisation, Stalin said that national
security was at stake, claiming that Russia was fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries
and faced destruction at the hands of the Western capitalist powers if the shortfall was not made good
in ten years. Emphasis was laid on heavy industries such as coal, steel and oil in the first plan. Whole
industrial cities, such as Magnitogorsk in the Urals, rose up from virgin ground.
WORKERS CONDITIONS
Stalin linked rapid industrialisation to the security of the
nation and workers were expected to sacrifice working
conditions in the national interest, implying that protest
over lost rights could be interpreted as a treasonable act,
for which protesters would be shot or imprisoned. The
measures taken are shown in Figure 10.16.
Industrialisation produced rapid urbanisation as the need
grew to house workers near the factories. Housing shortages
developed and urban health standards deteriorated. Juvenile
delinquency, petty crime and alcoholism increased in the
depressing conditions. During the period 192832 nine
million peasants entered the urban workforce, displaced from
their villages by collectivisation. Often the workers, particularly
those from rural backgrounds, broke machines and tools due
to their ignorance. To the authorities, who would not tolerate
any slow down in progress, all such incidents were regarded
as sabotage, leading to the arrest and trial of wreckers.
In 1928, when production difficulties and industrial
accidents affected the Shakhty coal mines in the Donets
Basin, the secret police discovered an organisation of fiftythree wreckers. A trial was held at which public confessions
of treason and sabotage were extracted from the accused.
Eleven were sentenced to death, of whom five were executed.
Though working conditions could be harsh and
the demands great, there were those who regarded
the challenge of the Five-Year Plans with enthusiasm.
1929
1930
October
December
Introduction of the 7- day week in factories

The free movement of labour forbidden
Factories forbidden to employ people who
had left previous jobs without permission
1931
January
Prison sentences for violations of labour

discipline
February
Labour books made compulsory for all

workers. In those books a workers job
record was noted
Workers made responsible for damage
to tools
March
1932
July
Transfer of a worker from one place of

work to another made possible without
his or her consent
Death penalty for theft of state property
August
November A single days absence from work becomes
punishable by dismissal
December
The internal passport reintroduced. (This

had been condemned by Lenin as one of the
worst features of the Tsarist regime)
Figure 10.16 Clamping down on the workersthe restrictions

placed on workers freedoms
Communists of the younger generation who had not

been involved in the struggles of 1917 saw this as their
opportunity to work for the success of the revolution and
the security of the country. Shock brigadesgroups
of young workers who aimed to set a good example by
competing with each other to raise outputwere formed.
They received special privileges such as tickets to the opera,
paid holidays, and access to special shops.
At the forefront of the workforce were the Stakhanovites,
who were given medals, better pay and superior housing.
The group was named after Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner,
who in 1935 cut 102 tonnes in a single shift, instead of the
normal 7 tonnes. Workers were urged to follow Stakhanovs
example and were rewarded when they did so.
Recent evidence suggests that Stakhanovs efforts, and
those of other record breakers, were part of a manufactured
propaganda drive to encourage workers to strive for
improvement. His record had been achieved under special
circumstances; he had been helped by two other miners and
a whole gang had performed the auxiliary services, such as
moving away the cut coal, that normally slowed down the
work of the miner. Stakhanov himself, promoted to a desk
job in Moscow, soon dropped into oblivion when his story
had fulfilled its purpose.
Figure 10.17 A painting of Stalin at the newly built Dnieprostroi

Dam. What image of Stalin and the plans is given by this painting?
How is this effect achieved?
For one group of workers, the inhabitants of the forced

labour camps, the only reward they could hope for was
freedom. By the end of the 1930s there were labour camps
in every part of the Soviet Union, containing a total of eight
million prisoners by 1938. A special department, the chief
administration of camps, or Gulag, was set up in 1930 to run
the system.
The first major work organised by the Gulag was the
Figure 10.18 Forced labour worked without machinery to
construction of the 500-kilometre Belomor Canal to link the
construct the Belomor Canal.
Baltic Sea with the White Sea. Nearly 300 000 prisoners were
set to work to dig the canal without the aid of any machinery. Their reward was the promise of freedom
at its completion. When the work was completed both the canal and the promise proved shallow.
Built to allow the Soviet Baltic fleet a back door to the worlds oceans if the entrance to the Baltic was
ever blocked, the canal was not deep enough for the naval vessels and fell into disuse. Though some
prisoners were freed, most were simply transferred to other projects.
INDUSTRIALISATION: AN ASSESSMENT
The results of the three Five-Year Plans between 1928 and 1941 remain a subject of controversy. There
were undoubted successes in terms of industrial production, though the extent of the success is hard
to separate from the mass of government propaganda.
Though Stalin claimed in 1933 that the material conditions of workers and peasants were improving
year by year, the reality was that, given the continuance of food rationing and high prices, living
standards were lower in 1937 than they had been in 1928.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E SU CCESS OF THE FIV E-YEAR P LAN S

Production in 192718
First FiveYear Plan. Target and

actual production in 1933
Second FiveYear Plan. Target and

actual production in 1937
Electricity
(thousand million kilowatt hours)
Actual
13.4
5.05
Target
17.0
Actual
36.2
Target
38.0
Coal
(millions tonnes)
35.4
Actual
64.3
Oil
(million tonnes)
11.7
Target
68.0
Actual
128.0
Target
152.5
Actual
21.4
Target
46.8
Target
19.0
Actual
28.5
Target
8.0
Target
16.0
Pig Iron
(millions tonnes)
3.3
Actual
6.2
Steel
(million tonnes)
Actual
14.5
Actual
17.7
Actual
5.9
4.0
Target
17.0
Target
8.3
Figure 10.19 The achievements of the Five-Year Plans
From your study of the chart in Figure 10.19, would you say that the plans were an
economic success?
In revolutionary terms the extension of state control and planning may have appealed to the
purists, but the deliberate introduction of differentials in wages and privileges seemed to ignore basic
Marxist doctrine. By government order, the redistribution of wealth had changed from Marxs view of
to each according to his need to Stalins view of to each according to his work.
1 Explain each of the following terms: (a) Stakhanovite, (b) labour book, (c) the Shakhty
trials, (d) shock brigades, and (e) Gulag.
2 Why were trials for sabotage and wrecking held at this time? Do you think it likely that
the charges were deserved? Explain your answer.
3 Write a brief newspaper article for publication in the Western press, praising the
achievements of the industrialisation plans in the Soviet Union. Set the article around
1938 and remember to give it a suitable headline.
4 Write an article in reply to the one above as it might have been written by a critic of
the changes that had taken place.
THE IMPACT OF STALINISM ON SOCIETY

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN BOLSHEVIK CULTURE
The official Bolshevik view, as seen in the writings of leading women writers such as Nadezhda
Krupskaya, Alexandra Kollontai, and Inessa Armand, was that Russian women suffered meekly under
an oppression imposed by class and family. Revolutionary theorists called for the establishment of
communal dining halls, laundries and nurseries to liberate women from the drudgery of housework,
while the dissolution of the bourgeois family through reform of marriage, divorce and abortion laws
was supposed to liberate women from the tyranny of their husbands.
However, sympathy for womens plight was tempered by the view that women were by nature
conservative and therefore likely to be enemies of the revolution.
In 1919 the Womens Bureau or Zhenotdel was established under the leadership of Armand.
Bolshevik women were allowed to run the organisation, not as an indication of gender equality
among the party leadership, but largely because most Bolsheviks did not consider its work to be very
important, particularly when there was a civil war raging.
EQUALITY FOR WOMEN?

In ideology and policy the Bolsheviks always subordinated womens emancipation to the greater
goal of revolution for the entire society. Equality was explained in terms of political rights, the right to
divorce from a cruel husband, and equal pay for equal work. Especially during the civil war, womens
natural passivity was condemned.
The Zhenotdel attempted to portray the new Soviet woman through its journal Kommunistka: she
would work tirelessly at whatever job the party gave her, putting duty before all else. Inessa Armand
became a prime example of self-sacrifice. Having worked herself to the point of exhaustion for the
revolution she contracted cholera and died in 1920. Kollontai took over her role at the Zhenotdel. In
Kommunistka the Marxist belief in free love, meaning monogamous relationships based on mutual
affection, rather than economic dependency, was acknowledged.
THE CHANGING EMPHASIS

The end of the civil war enabled the party to turn its
attention to peacetime problems, such as the pattern of
daily life emerging in the new Russia. Faced with the task of
governing a war-ravaged country, the revolutionary aim of
abolishing the traditional family structure was postponed
as the family was seen as essential to the social order. After
Kollontais dismissal as head of the Zhenotdel in 1922, the
organisation lost influence. Sofia Smidovich, the new leader,
had little status in the party and did not share Armands
or Kollontais socialist feminism. Less controversial goals,
such as full employment for women, and child care, were
pursued; more radical demands, such as the abolition of the
family and female equality throughout society, were allowed
to lapse. Kommunistka was confined to instructing women
on organisational techniques.
By the mid-1920s a revision of the view of women and
social mores began to set in. Writers in the party press
reacted to a perceived increase in the level of promiscuity
by declaring that monogamy and premarital chastity were
the ideals for Soviet youth. Some accommodation between
Marxist feminism and traditional attitudes towards women
and the family was needed as the individualistic image of
the new Soviet woman came up against the realities of the
family-centred, conformist world of the peasant village.
MARRIAGE LAW REFORM (1926)
Figure 10.20 This poster from 1931 is encouraging women to

work in the new factories, but also to have children.
Since 1918 it had become clear that the marriage law had
flaws that allowed men to walk out on their wives and take
all the family assets. There was no clear statement about
the fathers responsibility towards his children. To address this the 1926 marriage law reinstated the
concept of alimony and recognised common-law marriages to bring them within the scope of
the new provisions.
WOMEN IN THE 1930s

By the 1930s a view emerged of the modified revolutionary heroine who, while still an equal citizen and
loyal worker outside the home, was also a devoted wife and mother to her family. This modified view
was more acceptable in its blend of old and new than the revolutionary feminism of 191718. Under
Stalin, divorce became more difficult to obtain and in 1936 abortion was outlawed. There was a retreat
from the cause of womens emancipation, and the message of the 1930s was that the family came first
and that no achievement could be greater than that of a successful wife and mother.
SUMMARY
A great deal had been accomplished in the Soviet Union after the revolution. Women had made
substantial progress towards political equality: they were equal with men in the eyes of Soviet law,
education was fully open to them, they could claim generous maternity benefits, and a start had
been made in the provision of day care. These were major gains, achieved very rapidly by a regime
Figure 10.21 At this factory milk station, female workers have filled their bottles with their
breast milk before starting their shift. This prepared milk was then fed to their babies in the
factory crche without the need for the mothers to stop working on the factory floor.
that had been struggling to survive. The party had accomplished more between 1917 and 1929 than
any other European political movement. In doing so the Bolsheviks overcame significant opposition
within Russia but they stopped short of abolishing traditional womens roles and eliminating traditional
discrimination. Thus women continued to work as wives and mothers, and added work outside the
home to their duties. This triple responsibility meant they could not function as mens full equals in
Soviet society.
1 Write a sentence to explain the following: Zhenotdel and Kommunistka.
2 What barriers did revolutionary feminists face in trying to alter the status of women?
3 How did Stalin reverse some of the earlier changes?
4 To what extent did tradition triumph over change in the lives of Soviet women?
STALIN AND THE CULT OF PERSONALITY

Stalins image came to dominate everyday life in the Soviet Union. Walls, hoardings and buildings
were covered with his portrait. Homes and workplaces displayed busts of him. In Moscows Kazan
station there were 151 busts and pictures of the man who was referred to as the Granite Bolshevik
and Supreme Genius of Humanity. This was all part of the cult of Stalin, a movement that sought to
associate him with all positive aspects of life and lauded him as the inspiration of the nation.
Though Stalin publicly displayed some modesty in the face of this adulationIf this is what the
people want, I see no harm in it (De Jonge 1986, p. 297)it is probable that he encouraged the cult in
all its manifestations. Hence, kindergarten children were trained to thank Stalin for happy childhoods
as they rose from the meal table, the writer Alexander Avdeyenko said in a speech When a son is born
to me the first word he utters will be Stalin., and anyone speaking to Stalin on the telephone was
expected to remain standing as a mark of respect.
DID YOU KNOW?
In feature films Stalins role in the revolution was accentuated. Paintings and altered
photographs showed him alongside Lenin. Cities and towns were named after him
Stalingrad, Stalinsk and Stalinogorsk.
The cult of Stalin was not a purposeless outpouring of adulation. It provided Stalin with
the climate in which he could produce the Short Course (1938), a book which rewrote the
history of the Communist Party to show that Stalin had never been wrong and that he had
played a central role in the events of 1917. This became a bible for all the younger members
of the party and cemented their loyalty to him as the leader and saviour of the revolution.
Forty-two million copies of the book were eventually printed, in sixty-seven languages.
When one of Stalins

speeches was put on a series
of gramophone records, the
whole of the eighth side was
devoted entirely to applause.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: STALIN AS LEADER
Figure 10.22 Stalin as the friend of children. This shows sixyear-old Engelsina Chezkova meeting Stalin. A statue based on
the meeting was erected in Moscow called Thank you Comrade
Stalin for my happy childhood. Stalin had her father shot for being
a spy, and her mother died young after being accused of being
an enemy of the people.
Figure 10.23 A poster of Stalin praising the strength of the

Soviet army and people
What image of Stalin do we get from Figures 10.22 and 10.23?
Laqueur suggests that the cult of personality may well have been necessary in the Soviet Union at
the time. Russians, he argues, had traditionally followed a figurehead, such as a Tsar, or in more recent
times, Lenin, and their culture demanded a living person to inspire them, not a political abstraction
such as the Communist Party. Thus the worship of Stalin fitted in with Russian historical tradition
(Laqueur, 1990, p. 181).
Certainly the cult was also a useful instrument for measuring loyalty to the leader. With the
knowledge that one could be denounced to the secret police (the NKVD) for lack of enthusiasm over
the slightest thing, this was, as one writer suggests, truly a time when one could not afford not to love
Stalin (De Jonge 1986, p. 290).
PURGES, SHOW TRIALS AND TERROR

Purging, or removing, unworthy members from the Communist Party had been standard practice
since the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. The usual procedure was to require members to hand
in their membership cards for checking, at which point suspect individuals would not have their
cards returned. The first large-scale purge was carried out in 1921 when nearly 20 per cent of the
membership of 750 000 was expelled on grounds ranging from drunkenness to counter-revolutionary
tendencies. Expulsion, though a disgrace that may have involved loss of employment, did not carry any
further penalties. Under Stalin, however, the purges came to involve a ritual of arrest, false accusation,
condemnation and either imprisonment in a labour camp or execution.
The starting point for Stalins purges was the murder of Sergei Kirov, the secretary of the
Leningrad Soviet, on 1 December, 1934. He was shot as he left his office by Leonid Nikolayev, a
young disaffected communist. Historians believe that Stalin was behind the execution because he
saw Kirov as a rival for power. Kirov was a rising star in the Politburo, a good speaker, a popular figure,
and one who was known to be unhappy with the pace of Stalins industrialisation drive. Whatever
the circumstances, the death of Kirov was advantageous to Stalin, not only because it eliminated a
potential rival but also because it gave him the necessary excuse to move against others who might
form an opposition to him.
A R C T I C
O C E A N
Murmansk
BAL
TIC
W H I T E
S E A
rc
tic
Ci
rc
le
Area of camps
of complete
isolation
Vorkuta
SEA
Labour camps
Igarka
Leningrad
Railways
built by
prisoners
Salekhard
Kotlas
Canals
built by
prisoners
Moscow
Kiev
Komsomlsk
Irkutsk
Stalingrad
CAP
SIA
N
SEA
B L ACK
S E A
Karaganda
A R A L
S E A
Lake
Balkhash
Ferghana Canal
Figure 10.24
Stalins labour campsthe Gulag
KEY
1000 km
Sovetskaya
Gavan
Khabarovsk
Stalin acted quickly after Kirovs death. In public he appeared as a grieving mourner at the funeral; in
private he issued an emergency decree ordering the NKVD to speed up its investigations into suspects
and to promptly carry out death sentences when passed, since there was no question of appeal. At the
end of December 1934 many of Kirovs supporters in Leningrad were brought to trial as enemies of the
people. All were condemned to death, including the assassin Nikolayev, and were shot the same night.
Some of those arrested were Old Bolsheviks, distinguished members of the party whose
involvement could be traced back to the 1917 revolution and beyond. The major figures were given
public trials to which the press had been invited and which were given maximum publicity. The first
of these show trials began in 1936 and involved Zinoviev, Kamenev and fourteen others. They were
accused of involvement in a conspiracy organised by Trotsky to overthrow the government. Andrei
Vyshinsky, a man totally loyal to Stalin, was the prosecutor in this and the other major trials. All of the
accused were found guilty and shot.
In the next show trial in January 1937, the victims were accused of having links with Trotsky, of
setting up terrorist groups, and of wrecking industry. All were found guilty and thirteen were shot. The
last and biggest of the show trials, in March 1938, involved Bukharin, Rykov and nineteen others. In
this trial of the twenty-one, the accused confessed to being members of a TrotskyistRightist bloc, to
wrecking industry and to helping foreign spies. All were found guilty and eighteen were shot.
It was the job of the NKVD to provide the victims of the purges and, in many cases, to extract
confessions from those arrested. Stalin felt that a man who condemned himself out of his own mouth
not only provided justification for the purges, but also saved the need to mount expensive and
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E P U RGES

Source 10.8
Source 10.10
The only way to deal with these enemies was to inflict upon
them the most merciless policy of suppression.
Matrena Chuchalina, a poorly educated peasant woman,

had allegedly said one day in the fields that the situation
would be better if people were permitted to pray. She was
sent to a labour camp for six years.
Stalin.
The traitors and spies who are selling our country to the
enemy must be shot like dirty dogs.
Vyshinsky.
The TrotskyBukharin fiends had set out to destroy
the party and the Soviet state to assist foreign military
intervention to destroy the gains of the workers and
collective farmers.
Communist Party pamphlet.
Source 10.9
Ivan Demura, a twenty-four-year-old semi-literate
porter from Siberia, was arrested, and admitted under
interrogation to having been a member of a right-wing
Trotskyite bloc that plotted to assist Japan in restoring the
capitalist order in the Far East. Under pressure he named
his fellow conspiratorsanother porter, a builders mate,
and a carpenter. He was shot.
W. Laqueur, Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations, 1990, p. 113.

1 Refer to Source 10.8 and list the official reasons
given for the purges.
2 Read Source 10.9 and Source 10.10. For what
official reasons were these people arrested? On
what grounds might their arrests and sentences
be criticised by an impartial observer?
3 Can you suggest other reasons to explain why
so many ordinary people were arrested and
punished during the purges?
W. Laqueur, Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations, 1990, p. 112.
time-consuming prosecutions involving many witnesses. As most of the confessions were

fabricated, methods had to be devised to make the accused confess.
The NKVD, under Genrich Yagoda, applied pressure to prisoners in various ways. There
were repeated beatings and physical torture, and prisoners were made to stand or go
without sleep for days on end while under continuous interrogation. Psychological torture
was also used, such as the threat to torture a prisoners wife, with sound effects of a woman
screaming and crying in the next room. Informing and denunciation were an important part
of the system and prisoners were encouraged to accuse each other. Some were blackmailed
into doing this; others saw it as a way of diverting attention away from themselves.
DID YOU KNOW?

At public meetings, when
applause for Stalin was
called for, the NKVD would
often watch for the first
person to stop clapping and
arrest him. Ovations went on
for a long time!
The search for enemies of the people was not limited to potential rivals within the party. The purges
of the NKVD and the army that followed showed that Stalin wanted to destroy all possible sources of
opposition. Yagoda, the instrument of the early terror, fell from favour in April 1937 and was himself
tried and executed with Bukharin in 1938. He was replaced as head of the NKVD by Yezhov under
whom the purges intensified. Three thousand of Yagodas NKVD officers were executed during 1937 as
the secret police itself was purged. Of the twenty NKVD commissars listed in November 1935, all were
subsequently shot. Yezhov himself was purged in December 1938.
On 11 June 1937 it was announced that Marshal Tukhachevsky, the Soviet Unions most famous
general, had been arrested with other officers of the Red Army high command and charged with
spying for Germany and Japan. They were executed the next day. In the following months Stalin so
thoroughly purged the armed forces that virtually the whole of the experienced military leadership
of Russia was swept away. The military purges affected three out of five Soviet Marshals, thirteen out
of fifteen army commanders, fifty out of fifty-seven corps commanders, and ninety-eight out of 108
members of the Supreme Military Soviet.
The purges reached wider into Soviet life. Quotas were set for the identification and execution of
enemies of the people, Trotskyites and saboteurs. Each region had to prove its loyalty by finding and
killing its quota of people. Ordinary citizens were encouraged to denounce their neighbours, and
children to denounce their parents. Some people were even arrested for a failure to denounce those
around them.
HOW MANY DIED?

No one knows how many people died during the purges. Most estimates suggest a total of around
fourteen million in the period 193639, of whom twelve million died in the labour camps, the rest
being shot. Of the 139 members of the central committee elected in 1934, 115 had disappeared by
1939. It is thought that 110 of these had been shot.
WHY DID STALIN ORDER THE PURGES?

Stalins objective seems to have been the establishment of an autocratic form of rule, a goal which required
him to remove all possible sources of opposition. Once established on this course, he could not abandon
it for fear that a period of respite would allow opponents to regroup and to plot against him. Thus, on one
single day, 12 December 1937, he personally confirmed the death sentences of 3167 prisoners.
WHY DID PEOPLE CONFESS TO CRIMES THEY COULD NOT

HAVE COMMITTED?
From the sheer scale of the purges it is obvious that vast numbers of people were convicted for crimes
they did not commit. Yet so many, including the leading figures involved in the show trials, confessed
DID YOU KNOW?
their guilt. Why did they do this? First, some were bribed with promises of freedom for
themselves and their families. These promises were often forgotten once the conviction
had been obtained. Second, force and torture were commonly used, and few were able
to withstand the physical and mental strain involved. Finally, many had given so much of
their lives to serving the Communist Party that even though they were innocent they were
prepared to die when told it would be for the good of the party.
The thought of expulsion from the party made life seem not worth living. Bukharin,
speaking during his trial in 1938, said that there was no future in being isolated from
everybody, an enemy of the people completely isolated from everything that constitutes
the essence of life (Bullock, 1993, p. 547).
As a foreigner (born in
Georgia), Stalin sometimes
confused Russian word
endings. If he mistakenly
used the wrong ending, no
one dared correct him, and
that became the correct
word from then on.
1 What event was the starting point for the purges?
2 List the major figures of the Communist Party who were victims of the purges.
3 What was a common accusation made against the prisoners in the show trials?
4 From Stalins point of view, how necessary and how useful were the purges?
5 What groups of people benefited from the purges?
6 The real puzzle is not why Stalin conducted a policy of terror, but why the Soviet Union
accepted it. Discuss.
STALINISM AS TOTALITARIANISM?
Stalinism, the term used to describe the form of government experienced by the Soviet Union under
Stalins rule, has sometimes been equated with totalitarianism. To what degree is this justified?
A characteristic of a totalitarian regime is that no opposition is allowed against the ruling power.
While this may be applicable to the Soviet Union in the later 1930s, it was not the case during the early
years of Stalins supremacy. Even after he had become the dominant member of the Politburo, Stalin
still had to contend with opposing views within the party. As the progress of industrialisation and
collectivisation unfolded, critics emerged calling for a slowing down of the pace of change. In 1932
M. Ryutin, a Politburo member, called for the replacement of Stalin, describing him as one who,
motivated by a personal desire for power and revenge, had brought the revolution to the verge of ruin
(Christian, 1986, p. 233).
Though Stalin succeeded in having Ryutin purged from the party, his demand for Ryutins execution
was successfully opposed. Stalins word, though influential, was not yet law.
At the 1934 party congress the sustained applause for Kirov and the fact that 260 people voted
against Stalins leadership indicated the existence of a growing opposition within the party. It was
events following the death of Kirov in December 1934 that began Stalins progress to totalitarian
rule. Immediately after the assassination, Stalin issued a decree on new procedures for dealing with
terrorism. These decrees, issued without consultation with the Politburo and only later ratified by that
body, showed Stalin that he could take important decisions without reference to his senior colleagues.
The Communist Party itself was not a totalitarian structure. For much of its history it had
accommodated different viewpoints on key issues, such as whether to support the Provisional
Government in 1917, when to seize power, whether to accept the terms of Brest-Litovsk, or the virtues
of the NEP. In this sense the party had always provided an opposition to the leading figure
of the day, and this had applied to Lenin as much as it did to Stalin. The leading Bolshevik,
Bukharin, had described the party in 1925 as a negotiated federation between groups,
groupings, factions and tendencies.
In order to remove opposition within the party, Stalin turned to the NKVD. Having rid
himself of Zinoviev, Kamenev and other Old Bolsheviks, the arrests of Bukharin and Rykov
in 1937 marked not only the final defeat of the opposition but also the weakening of the
central committee. As Bullock points out: Stalin felt strong enough to order the arrest of
any of his colleagues without consultation or appeal to the Central Committee or anyone
elsethe classic definition of the tyrants power (Bullock 1993, p. 525). Molotov, a Soviet
foreign minister in the 1930s, wrote, Until 1937 we lived the whole time with opposition.
After thatthere were no more opposition groups! (Radzinsky 1996, p. 316).
DID YOU KNOW?

When Stalins second wife,
Nadya, shot herself in
1932 after a violent quarrel
with Stalin, he was greatly
affected and offered to
resign from the Politburo. His
colleagues refused to accept
his resignation. Most of them
were later shot in the purges.
Bad decision?
The extensive use of the secret police in society is a characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Under
Stalin the elimination of real or supposed oppositionists within the party and the army confirmed
Stalins grip upon the nation, as did the system of forced labour camps across the country.
A third feature of totalitarian regimes is that society is kept in check and opposition quelled by fear
and coercion. This is an inadequate description of Stalinist Russia, as there was undoubtedly support
for Stalins regime. A whole new class of people owed their advancement to the systemevery person
purged meant a job vacancy to be filled by an ambitious subordinate. The pull of industrialisation and
the push of collectivisation brought many peasant families into the towns where they felt, probably
correctly, that their prospects were better than in the countryside. In the early 1930s, at least half a
million people of working-class origin moved into white-collar and managerial jobs. These were to
form the new Stalinist elite, rewarded with extra privileges, power and status.
Stalins regime could not properly be considered totalitarian before 1937, and afterwards, though
his power may have been absolute, it was nonetheless founded on a substantial degree of popular
support, which, encouraged by propaganda and the cult of personality, gave Stalin credit for the
successes of Soviet life, whether real or fictitious.
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY 191741

Initially, the imminence of a world revolution dominated Bolshevik thinking to such an extent that
conventional diplomacy was regarded as unnecessary. The Communist International (Comintern) was set
up to work for revolution worldwide. Trotsky declared that his new role of commissar for foreign affairs
would involve the issuing of a few revolutionary proclamations before shutting up shop! As the First World
War ended communists in Hungary, led by Bela Kun, and Germany, led by the Spartacist group, attempted
takeovers. Both revolutions were brutally put down as the flame of revolution died in continental Europe.
As the prospect of world revolution diminished, the Soviet need for trade led to the establishment
of links with foreign powers.
RELATIONS WITH BRITAIN

In 1921 the Soviet Union made a trade agreement with Britain, the first official contact between the
communists and a capitalist state. In 1924 a new Labour government in England granted diplomatic
recognition of the communist regime. However, later in that year, just before an election, a letter
was published in the British press that purported to come from the Comintern and was directed at
British trade unionists, urging them to press for strikes and other disruptions. The affair of the Zinoviev
letternamed after the head of the Cominternturned public opinion against the Soviets and
helped the Labour Party to lose the election. The letter was later proved to be a forgery.
In 1927 British security forces carried out the Arcos Raid in London on the headquarters of the
Soviet trade delegation. As a result of the information found there, the British broke off diplomatic
relations with the Soviet Union. These were resumed in 1930.
RELATIONS WITH GERMANY

Neither the Soviet Union nor Germany were invited to the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, which
helped to draw them together as both countries searched for allies. In 1921 a trade agreement was
made between them, followed by the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922. Each country cancelled any financial
claims that it had against the other as a result of the war, and each country granted the other full
diplomatic recognition.
In the early 1920s secret military cooperation began between the two countries. The Soviets
agreed to let the German army train on Soviet soil and also let them build munitions factories in Russia.
In return, the Germans gave help with the training of the new Red Army. The high point of Soviet
German relations came with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin in 1926. Each side promised that if either
party were attacked by a third power, the other would remain neutral. Gradually, relations between the
two powers declined as each tried to find other allies on the diplomatic stage.
At the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin was waging a political war against Social Democratic groups
in neighbouring countries for control of the labour movement. The most disastrous effect of this
policy was seen in Germany, where the seriousness of the threat from the growing right-wing Nazi
party was ignored. In 1929 the German communists, under the influence of Stalin, refused to join the
Social Democrats in the traditional May Day parade of workers. Appeals from the Social Democrats for
a united front against the Nazis were ignored. Only in 1935 was the official policy of fighting the Social
Democrats dropped in favour of a popular front policy, sanctioning a coalition of anti-Nazi forces.
As Hitler consolidated his power and eliminated all political opposition, including the German
Communist Party, the Soviet Union became more conscious of its diplomatic isolation and joined
the League of Nations in 1934. Although it had previously scorned the League as a capitalists club,
the Soviet Union realised that membership would enable it to call for assistance under the collective
security agreementthe idea, written into the Charter of the League of Nations, that member states
would stand together to defeat aggressor nations in the event of an attack by Germany. As further
insurance, under the guidance of foreign minister Litvinov, the Soviet Union concluded treaties of
alliance with France and Czechoslovakia in 1935. Events in the East, with the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria, had also alarmed the Soviets and they reacted to this by seeking diplomatic recognition
from the USA, which was finally achieved through Litvinovs trip to Washington in November 1933.
Despite involvement in the League of Nations, the Soviet Union harboured the suspicion that
Britain and France lacked the willpower to stand up to Hitler and would prove unreliable as allies.
This fear seemed justified in March 1936 when Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland without opposition
from London or Paris. Furthermore, when the civil war in Spaina war lasting from 1936 to 1939 in
which the Nationalists, supported by Germany and Italy, defeated the Republicans, supported by the
USSRbroke out in July 1936, the Russians again noted the refusal of the Western Allies to resist Hitlers
involvement and that of his ally, Mussolini of Italy. Although the Soviet Union did intervene on behalf
of the Republicans in September 1936 their military effort began to taper off by February 1937 to be
replaced by the policy of prolonging the conflict in order to tie down German forces in Spain.
By 1937 the Soviets were becoming increasingly disillusioned with Britain and France as allies
against Germany. The alternative was to reach some agreement with Hitler. Immediately after Hitlers
seizure of Austria in March 1938, the Soviet Union sent diplomatic signals to Berlin indicating a
willingness to talk. Litvinov made it clear that time was running out for the Allies if they wanted Soviet
support against Hitler. As the Czechoslovakian crisis developed later in the year, the Soviet Union
reiterated its readiness to stand by its 1935 treaty of support for the Czechs if France would do likewise.
The French did not take up the suggestion. When Britain, France, Germany and Italy met in conference
at Munich in September 1938 to decide the fate of Czechoslovakia, the Soviets, who were not invited,
were able to observe how the Western democracies caved in to Hitler and doubtless drew their own
conclusions for the future.
In 1939 as war approached, Stalin ordered negotiations with both Germany and the Allies. On
26 July the Germans suggested that in return for Russian neutrality in the coming conflict they would
be prepared to turn over large tracts of Eastern Europe to the Soviets. This was an attractive proposition
for Stalin: not only would he avert the immediate risk of war, he would gain a buffer zone against future
attacks from the west.
The Allies were unable to offer an attractive alternative and by dragging out their negotiations
they suggested to Stalin that they were not serious in their intent. On 23 August 1939 the two foreign
ministers, Ribbentrop and Molotov, who had replaced Litvinov in May 1939, signed the NaziSoviet
Non-Aggression Pact. The pact contained a secret agreement providing for the division of Eastern
Europe into spheres of Russian and German influence.
The outbreak of war between the Allies and Germany in September 1939 was not displeasing to
Stalin. It meant that he could watch the Western capitalist countries exhaust themselves in struggle
against each other. When the Germans achieved rapid early successes Stalin lost no time in moving
his forces into the eastern half of Poland in accordance with the secret protocol of the non-aggression
pact. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were also occupied, thus ending their brief experience of self-rule,
which they had experienced since the early 1920s after German and Russian control was relinquished.
Attempts to deal with Finland in the same way met with resistance and led to the Russo-Finnish war at
the close of 1939.
Relations between Germany and the Soviet Union over the following months were periodically
strained. The Russian attack on Finland, which lasted until March 1940, interrupted vital supplies of
Finnish timber and nickel on which the Germans depended, and renewed Russian claims in the Balkans
clashed with German interests in the oil fields of Romania. By the end of 1940 Hitler had given the order
for the development of his attack in the east: Operation Barbarossa.
1 Write a sentence about each of the following: the Comintern, the Zinoviev letter, the
Treaty of Rapallo, and the Treaty of Berlin.
2 What was the Bolsheviks original view of foreign policy? Why did this view change?
3 What secret military arrangement was made between the Soviet Union and Germany
in the 1920s?
4 How did Stalins desire to control left-wing political movements blind him to the
danger posed by Hitler?
5 When and why did the Soviet Union change its attitude towards the League of
Nations?
6 To what extent was Stalin a willing ally of Hitler at the beginning of the Second
World War?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: E VENT S LEAD IN G TO THE N AZIS O VI ET NO N - AG G RES SIO N PACT
Figure 10.25 What, no chair for me? by David Low, published

in September 1938
Source 10.11
This reflects the official Soviet view:
The great powers (Britain, France, and the USA) wanted to
direct the German Fascist aggression eastwards, against
the USSR. The disgraceful Munich deal (where Britain and
France allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from
Czechoslovakia) helped Germany to turn her aggression
towards the USSR At the same time the Soviet Union tried
to make peace. In March 1939 the Soviet Union opened
talks with Britain and France to discuss ways of preventing
Fascist aggression. These talks, which lasted until August
1939, showed how unwilling Britain and France were to
set up collective security against Hitler. As a result, the
Soviet Union stood alone in the face of the growing Fascist
menace. In this situation the USSR took the only correct
decision: when she was asked by Germany to make a treaty
of non-aggression, the Soviet Union agreed.
Adapted from A History of the USSR by Kukushkin, 1981.
Figure 10.26 On the Great European Road, by Boris

Efimov. The Russian abbreviation for USSR is CCCP.

1 The country on the map in Figure 10.25 is
Czechoslovakia. Who do the seated figures
represent?
2 What is the significance of Stalin standing in
the open doorway in Figure 10.25?
3 What is the message of the cartoon in
Figure 10.25?
4 Who do the two policemen in Figure 10.26
represent?
5 What is the message of the cartoon in
Figure 10.26?
6 How does the information in Source 10.11
support the message of the cartoons?
7 Refer to Source 10.11. Why did the Soviet Union
sign the non-aggression pact of 1939?

LEON TROTSKY 18791940
Trotsky had a long association with the revolutionary cause, having come to
prominence during the 1905 revolution. His conversion to Bolshevism came
late, but his intellectual gifts and organising abilities made him second only to
Lenin in the events leading to the Bolshevik revolution. Lenins death resulted
in the beginnings of Trotskys decline as he was outmanoeuvred by Stalin in the
subsequent battle for leadership. Trotsky spent his later years in exile, speaking
and writing against Stalinism. His influence with voice and pen were still
considered sufficiently dangerous for Stalin to have him murdered.
Timeline
1879
Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, the fifth child of prosperous farmers in the Ukraine.
1898
He was arrested and sent to Siberia because of his revolutionary activities, where he married and had two children in
Siberian exile.
1902
He escaped to London, leaving his family in Siberia. He met Lenin.
1903
He sided with the Mensheviks when the Social Democratic Party split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. He went to
Paris, where he met Natalya, his second wife.
1905
He returned to St Petersburg to help lead the first Soviet and was arrested in December and exiled to Siberia.
1907
He escaped from Siberia and toured central Europe, making his base in Vienna, where he worked as a journalist and writer.
1917
He returned from the USA in May to take part in the revolution and became a Bolshevik in July. With Lenin, he was the
main organiser of the revolution in November. He became commissar for foreign affairs after the revolution.
191821
He became commissar for war at the outbreak of civil war. He used his great organisational and speaking ability to rally the
Red Army to defeat the Whites.
Personality Profile: Leon Trotsky
1925
He was forced to resign as commissar for war in a leadership power struggle with Stalin.
1927
He was expelled from the Communist Party.
1928
He was exiled to Alma Ata in Soviet Central Asia.
1929
He was deported to Turkey.
1933
He moved to Paris, where the French government grew suspicious of his involvement in left-wing politics and expelled him.
1935
He moved to Norway where the government kept him under house arrest.
1937
He moved to Mexico where the left-wing President Cardenas supported him. Spent his time writing, lecturing and receiving
visitors. He maintained a constant criticism of Stalins rule in Russia and was condemned to death in his absence by Stalin.
1938
His younger son, an engineer in Russia, was arrested by the secret police and disappeared.
1940
The first attempt on his life occurred in May. A Stalinist group in Mexico fired machine-gun bullets into Trotskys house. He
was unharmed. On 20 August Ramon Mercader, a Stalinist agent, visited Trotsky, pretending to be interested in his writings.
When Trotskys back was turned, Mercader crashed an ice-pick into his skull. Trotsky died the next day.
Family background and education

Note: To simplify understanding, the name Trotsky is used throughout, though that name was not
adopted until 1902.
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on 26 October 1879 at Yanovna in the Ukraine. His
father, David, was a kulak or rich peasant. He was also a Jew. This was an unusual combination in late
19th century Russia, but had come about because Tsar Alexander I (180125) had wanted to encourage
settlement on land captured from the Turks in the south of the country, and permitted Jews to buy
land for this purpose. Trotskys grandparents had taken advantage of the Tsars scheme and while Jews
were later to face restrictions on their rights and become the occasional victims of officially sanctioned
persecutions or pogroms in later times, the Bronstein family had managed to prosper. Trotskys father
was illiterate though his mother Anna could read, if poorly. In his autobiography Trotsky recalled that
he was the son of a prosperous landowner [and] belonged to the privileged class rather than to the
oppressed (Swain, 2006, p. 6). He was one of eight children, though only four survived into adulthood.
Trotskys sister Liza died of natural causes in 1914 and his siblings Alexander and Olga were both shot in
the purges of the 1930s.
Trotskys father, eager for the family to climb the social ladder, was obsessed with the education of
his children. At the age of seven Trotsky started at a local school, moving to a school in the major port
city of Odessa two years later. He stayed with his cousin Moishe Shpentser and his wife and became a
model student. Trotsky later described his time in Odessa as the time when he learned to become an
urbanite. Like his parents, who had abandoned the more common Yiddish to speak Russian at home,
Trotsky was eager to shed his Jewishness and become assimilated into Russia culture. He regularly
excelled in his studies and developed a self-confidence and egotism that bordered on arrogance,
which was to become a major character trait in later life. Volkogonov writes: From childhood on,
Trotsky was unwilling to recognise his intellectual equal in anyone, except possibly in Lenin, and even
then only after October 1917 (Volkogonov, 1996, p. 5).
In 1895 Trotsky moved from Odessa to Nikolaev at the prompting of his father who felt that this
would be a better place for the young Lev to prepare for university entrance. It was here that Trotsky
discovered politics when he lodged with a respectable family whose sons had become interested
in revolutionary ideas. They introduced him to Franz Shvigovskii who ran a revolutionary commune
for young people in the town. Trotsky began to neglect his studies and spend more time discussing
politics in the commune. David Bronstein, disturbed at this course of events, cut off Trotskys allowance
as a way to make him see sense. Unable to pay for his lodgings, Trotsky moved in to the commune!
In 1896 Trotsky became ill and his father arranged for him to return to Odessa to lodge with a relative
while he attended the university there. However, politics now fascinated Trotsky and it was not long
before he was back in the Nikolaev commune. There he met Alexandra Sokolovskaya, a Marxist student,
and together with her brother Ilya they set up a workers cell, which they named the South Russia
Workers Union. Trotskys career as a revolutionary had begun. He began to use his skills as a writer and
helped produce a revolutionary newspaper, Our Cause.
The organisation grew rapidly, but by doing so came to the attention of the authorities. In January
1898 over 200 arrests were made and Trotsky served two years in prison followed by trial and exile
to Siberia. While he was in prison awaiting transportation to Siberia, Trotsky passed two important
milestones in his life: he became a convinced Marxist and he married Alexandra.
Development of political ideals
Life in Siberia brought freezing winters and plagues of mosquitoes in summer. Trotsky applied
himself to the study of revolutionary works and to writing articles on a variety of subjects under the
alias Antid Oto. Hearing about a new Marxist newspaper Iskra (The Spark), begun by Lenin, Martov and
others in exile, Trotsky determined to escape from Siberia. Alexandra supported him in this decision,
though having given birth to two daughtersZina and Ninain exile, she was unable to go with him.
Trotsky escaped under a pile of hay in a peasants cart. The peasant took him to Irkutsk where he
met Alexandras brother Ilya who provided him with a false passport. The passport was in the name
of a local man, or one of his jailers from Odessa (historians differ)and so Bronstein became Trotsky.
He travelled to the town of Samara on the Volga, which was a distribution centre for Iskra, and began
writing for the paper. His work brought him to the attention of the leading Social Democrats in exile
and in October 1902 Trotsky arrived in London and met Lenin for the first time.
He was sent on a lecture tour of Social Democratic groups in Europe to promote the Iskra cause.
Whilst in Paris he met Natasha Sedova, a young Social Democrat activist, and they began to live
together. When Alexandra was able to escape Russia in 1904 she visited Trotsky only to find that she
had been replaced in his affections.
The Second Congress of the Social Democratic party met in London in 1903 and was the scene of
the famous spilt between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, with Trotsky identifying with the latter group.
Having earlier sided with Lenin on various issues, Trotsky now openly criticised him. After further
political infighting Trotsky ended his links with Iskra and devoted his time to writing a critique of Lenins
views on party organisation called Our Political Tasks, which appeared in 1904. Though a Menshevik,
Trotsky disliked their notion of cooperation with the bourgeoisie and developed his ideas about the
need to develop the proletariat to lead the revolution.
Rise to prominence
Trotskys emerging political role, 190517
When Bloody Sunday took place in 1905, Trotsky was in Geneva. He and Natasha quickly returned to
Russia, firstly to Kiev and then to join the Menshevik group in St Petersburg. When Natasha was arrested
in May, Trotsky fled to Finland where he spent his time writing dozens of pamphlets and articles which
were smuggled into St Petersburg, and in developing his notions of the importance of the working
class if the revolutionary movement was to succeed. When a series of strikes broke out among working
groups in St Petersburgstarting with the printers and culminating with the railway workersTrotsky
was taken by surprise and hurried back from Finland to find that the Social Democrat activists were
trying to give the strike movement some cohesion and purpose. What emerged was the Soviet of
Workers Deputies, which Trotsky joined and increasingly dominated.
After the issuing of the October Manifesto, which Trotsky dismissed as a ploy by the Tsar to offer
reform whilst providing none, the Tsar began to reassert his authority. The chairman of the Soviet was
arrested, to be replaced by a triumvirate headed by Trotsky, but within a week all the Soviet leaders
had been arrested. The fifty-three days of the Soviet had been a hectic time for Trotsky. In addition
to dominating its proceedings, he had worked behind the scenes to bring Bolshevik and Menshevik
factions together and had written for, or helped to produce, three newspapers. He had clearly emerged
as a revolutionary leader of talent; now he again awaited trial and probable exile.
Trotsky was imprisoned, though in reasonably comfortable circumstances, until the trial of the
Soviet leaders which began in September 1906. He continued to write while in prison and produced
an essay entitled Results and Perspectives, in which he argued that the Social Democrats should work
directly towards the establishment of a government of the working class. Having raised the danger that
the proletariat, in power, might clash with the peasantry, Trotsky advocated the spread of the revolution
abroad, firstly in Russian Poland and then in Germany and Austria, as a way of maintaining the
momentum. This was the beginning of Trotskys association with the concept of permanent revolution,
by which he believed that accomplishing the socialist revolution within national limits is impossible
The socialist revolution is becoming permanent in a new and broader sense of the word: it will
not be complete until the triumph of the new society has taken place throughout the entire planet
(Volkogonov 1996, p. 43).
In stressing the role of the proletariat in the coming revolution Trotsky was adopting a position
similar to Lenin, but they differed in their attitude to the peasantry. Lenin spoke of a revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, whilst Trotsky was dismissive of the revolutionary
potential of the agrarian sector.
Sentenced to exile for life, Trotsky set off in January 1907, but Siberia did not detain him long.
Feigning illness, he escaped and made his way to Finland, where he again met Lenin and Martov. Soon
they moved to London in May 1907 for the fifth party congress. From there Trotsky moved to Vienna
where, reunited with Natasha and their son Lev, he concentrated on his writings. From 1907 until his
appointment as a Bolshevik commissar in 1917 Trotsky lived off the money he earned from journalism.
In 1912 he became the war correspondent for Kiev Thought, and in that capacity he covered the two
Balkan wars. On 19 November 1914 the newspaper asked Trotsky to work as a war correspondent on
the Western Front and so he moved to France, from where he was eventually deported in September
1916, allegedly because mutinous French soldiers had been discovered reading Our Word, a Russian
migr newspaper which Trotsky had been helping to edit. He left, via Spain, and arrived in the USA on
14 January 1917 where he again sought work as a journalist on a Russian language newspaper.
The abdication of Nicholas I caught Trotsky by surprise, and half a world away. He immediately
made plans to return, and after a prolonged journey in which he and other Russian males were taken
off ship by the British authorities and placed in a German prisoner of war camp in Canada until released
after Russian provisional government protests, he arrived back in Russia in early May 1917.
Role in the 1917 revolution
As the middle of the year approached, Bolshevik attempts to increase their influence suffered
from a series of setbacks. In June the first All Russian Congress of Soviets convened in Petrograd. Most
of the delegates were Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries, only 105 our of 822 being Bolsheviks.
The Bolshevik slogan All Power to the Soviets had been proclaimed on the assumption that they
would be able to take control of the workers councils, but this was not proving to be the case. At the
end of the congress, a vote of confidence in the Provisional Government was passed. Also in June, a
Bolshevik plan for a demonstration against the Provisional Government was called off after the Soviet
condemned the march.
On 1 July Kerensky ordered a new military offensive under General Brusilov. A success in the war
would, he thought, enhance government prestige and diminish the influence of the Bolsheviks. A brief
period of success was followed by the all-too-familiar tale of defeat and retreat. When the government
On his arrival Trotsky found that the leadership of the workers and soldiers Soviet was in the hands
of the pro-war Mensheviks. Because of his role in 1905 he was given a seat on the Soviet executive.
His first political act was to join with the Bolsheviks in a vote against the formation of a coalition
government. As revolution developed in the cities, talks took place to unite Trotskys faction and
the Bolsheviks.
decided to move more soldiers out of the capital to support their comrades at the battlefront, some
regiments rebelled and, supported by sailors from the nearby Kronstadt naval base, took to the streets
in demonstration against the government.
They were joined by some factory workers, but support for the demonstration was not widespread.
The bulk of the Petrograd garrison was unwilling to commit itself to rebellion while comrades at the
battlefront were under intense pressure from the Germans.
Nevertheless, crowds were in the streets and the Bolsheviks had to decide on their attitude to the
events. Lenin was initially reluctant to commit the Boslheviks to the side of the demonstrators, believing
than an attempt to overthrow the Provisional Government at that time was premature. However, if
the party did not support the demonstrations it was feared that it could lose the leadership of the
revolutionary cause. Consequently, the Bolsheviks placed themselves at the head of the protestors. In
doing so, they alienated revolutionary opinion within the Soviet. The Mensheviks described the move
as stab in the back, the Social Revolutionaries warned of civil war, and Izvestiya, the Soviet newspaper,
accused the Bolsheviks of trying to strangle the revolution.
In a series of street clashes from 16 to 18 July (the July Days), troops loyal to the Provisional
Government quelled the disturbances. This was followed by the arrest and imprisonment of the
Bolshevik leaders Zinoviev and Kamenev and Lenins flight into hiding in Finland. The Bolshevik group
was now leaderless in the Soviet and turned to Trotsky to lead them, even though he had not yet
formally joined the Bolshevik faction. He readily agreed, but within a few weeks he too was arrested
and imprisoned.
Trotskys imprisonment did not last long. The Kornilov affair (see p. 246) saw the balance of power
swing to the Bolsheviks and in mid-September Trotsky was released and elected chairman of the
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TROT SKY S CONT R IB UTIO N TO THE REV O LUTIO N

Source 10.12
Source 10.14
Some of Trotskys achievements:

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as Lenin was in exile in Finland.
+LVFOHYHUGHOD\LQJWDFWLFVDW%UHVW/LWRYVNHDUQHG
the Bolsheviks time to consolidate their hold on
government.
+LVRUJDQLVDWLRQDQGOHDGHUVKLSRIWKH5HG$UP\VDYHG
the country in the civil war.
+HSXWGRZQWKH.URQVWDGWUHEHOOLRQRIZKLFK
threatened the government.
To Lenin, Trotsky was a valuable ally. It was Trotsky

whose oratory could sway crowds. Since he had regained
his old 1905 ascendancy over the Petrograd Soviet and
become chairman, Trotsky was in a position to organise the
revolution itself.
Source 10.13
The conflict [about the timing of the second revolution]

might well have split the party except for Trotskys tactical
genius. Embracing Lenins idea about the necessity of an
armed uprising, he still had the perception that its chances
of success would be immeasurably strengthened if it was
undertaken in conjunction with the meeting of the Second
Congress of Soviets.
A. Ulam, A History of Soviet Russia, 1976, p. 13.
B. Williams, The Russian Revolution 19171921, 1987, p. 45.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST ION

Trotsky, rather than Lenin, deserves the credit
for Bolshevik success. To what extent do you
agree with this statement?
Petrograd Soviet. With Lenin absent in Finland (though he

sent numerous messages to the revolutionaries throughout
this period), it was left to Trotsky to dominate the public face
of Bolshevism in the lead up to the Bolshevik revolution of
November 1917 (see pp. 2479).
Commissar for foreign affairs and for war

The first major issue for the triumphant Bolsheviks in
1917 was to end the war with Germany, and Trotsky was
appointed commissar for foreign affairs to bring this about.
Trotskys role in bringing about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
in March 1918 is discussed on p 252. The decision to accept
the harsh German terms and to end the revolutionary
phrase mongering, as Lenin described Trotskys negotiating
tactics, caused a rift among the leadership. Trotsky resigned
as commissar for foreign affairs but was soon back in
action as commissar for war. You can read about his main
contributions in this role on p. 253.
Power struggle and exile
Figure 10.28 Trotsky talking to a young Red Army recruit during

the civil war
Following the death of Lenin in 1924 a power struggle

took place, principally between Trotsky and Joseph Stalin,
over the question of leadership of the party and country. This struggle (see pp. 2613) led to Trotskys
expulsion from the party and exile to Alma Ata in Soviet Central Asia.
Life and activities in exile
Keen to play a greater part in European political life, Trotsky gained permission to move to France,
which he did in July 1933.
Trotskys political involvement in domestic politics embarrassed the French government and he
was ordered to leave in April 1934. At first, no country would accept him, but the election of a Labour
government in Norway provided an opportunity and in June 1935 Trotsky and his family moved there.
When Zinoviev and Kamenev were put on trial in the Soviet Union, Trotsky mounted a press campaign
to prove his innocence of the charge of conspiring against the Soviet Union. Under heavy diplomatic
While in exile, Trotsky was approached by a messenger from Stalin to see if there was any chance of
reconciliation. Trotsky replied: I answered him to the effect that at the moment there could be no
question of reconciliation, not because I did not want it, but because Stalin could not make peace with
me: he was forced to pursue to the end the course set him by the bureaucracy. (Swain, 2006, p. 186).
This suggests that Trotsky was both overestimating his own negotiating position and underestimating
the growing power of Stalin. In December 1928 Trotsky was asked to give a categorical assurance
that he would cease all contact with his supporters or face further exile. When he refused to give the
assurance, he was exiled to Turkey in February 1929. As he left, equipped with a grant from the Soviet
government to enable him to settle abroad, he predicted, confidently but inaccurately Well be back.
Trotsky spent the next four years in a villa on the island of Prinkipo where he survived on the earnings
from his writings. Following a series of hostile articles against Stalin, in which Trotsky referred to the
Soviet leader as his Bonapartist Almightiness and corrupter of the party, Trotsky and all the members
of his family living abroad were deprived of their Soviet citizenship.
pressure from the Soviets, the Norwegian government expelled Trotsky. His next, and final, port of
refuge, was in Mexico, where a left-wing government offered him shelter. There he busied himself with
denunciations of Stalin and attempts to form another conference of world communiststhe Fourth
DO CUM E NT S T UDY: TROT SKY S I NT ERN ATIO N ALIS M

Source 10.15
Ever since writing Results and Prospects Trotsky had
juggled to balance the two elements of his vision, the
kulak danger and the need for a European revolution
[Now, in France he believed that] the formation of leftwing governments elsewhere in Europe could conceivably
have produced a more relaxed climate in Russia, making
it possible to criticise Stalins leadership and call for more
modest and rational economic planning without running
the risk of being branded a traitor. The problem for Trotsky
was that while he understood the big picture, he had
absolutely no understanding of European politics nor the
limited horizons of most of those European politicians who
had rallied to his side
On 6 February 1934 the authoritarian Right in France staged
a massive demonstration in Paris aimed at preventing [left
wing Prime Minister Edouard Daladier] from forming his
second administration. To all on the Left this was a clear
attempt by fascists to seize power and Trotsky called on
his supporters to enter the French socialist party and help

Figure 10.29 Trotsky with his security guards in Mexico
move it further to the Left but his slogan showed how out
of touch he was. He called for the formation of Soviets
[which he saw as the logical organisational step] but the
reality in Europe was that they were everywhere associated
with insurrection and any call for their formation would be
universally understood as a call for immediate insurrection,
no matter how often Trotsky explained that he was just
making a historical analogy with 1905.
Swain, G., Trotsky, 2006, pp. 1956.

1 Why, according to Source 10.15, did Trotsky
begin to emphasise the internationalist nature
of the revolution once he had arrived in Paris?
2 Why could this new emphasis be classed as
political navety?
3 Why could Trotskys call for the establishment
of Soviets in France in 1934 also be seen as
the work of a nave idealist?
international. When the meeting finally convened in September 1938 only the Polish delegation
dared to call a spade a spade and declare that the organisation was basically fictitious, uniting not the
world proletariat but a few hundred sectarians [Trotskyites]. (Swain, p. 205)
Stalin ordered Trotskys assassination in March 1939. On 24 May 1940 an assassin fired over sixty
bullets into the bedroom occupied by Trotsky and Natasha, but they were not harmed. Despite
increased security, Ramon Mercader, a Soviet agent, ingratiated his way into the household and under
the pretence of seeking Trotskys advice on a political article that he had written, gained access to
Trotskys study. While Trotsky read the article, Mercader struck him in the head with an ice pick.
On 21 August 1940 Leon Trotsky died in hospital.
An assessment of Trotsky
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: CONT RAST ING V I EWS
Isaac Deutscher, who wrote the classic trilogy on Trotskys

life went along with, and indeed helped to foster the
Trotsky myth, the idea that he was the best Bolshevik:
together Lenin and Trotsky carried out the October
revolution and, with Lenins support, Trotsky consistently
challenged Stalin from the end of 1922 onwards to save
the revolution from its bureaucratic degeneration; in
this version of events Trotsky was Lenins heir. This view
has been challenged repeatedly in the fifty years since
Deutschers trilogy appeared James White has completely
reassessed the Lenin and Trotsky relationship in 1917,
showing that the two mens visions of insurrection were
entirely dierent. Eric van Ree demolished the notion
that Trotsky was Lenins heir. Richard Day argued
convincingly that Trotsky, far from being an internationalist,
firmly believed in the possibility of building socialism in
one country.
Trotsky believed in world revolution, but no more and
no less than every other Bolshevik, and like all other
Bolsheviks this belief was largely rhetorical. While he was
in power, he had no qualms about talking about building
socialism in the absence of a world revolution, and when
he was on the fringes of power he objected to Stalins
theory of socialism in one country not because such a
task was impossible but because his approach implied
too many concessions to the peasantry and therefore
threatened the restoration of capitalism. It was only in
exile in 1933 that internationalism became central to
Trotskys purpose.
For good or ill, the Bolsheviks would not have come to
power without Trotsky, and they would have lost power in
less than a year if he had not been put in charge of the Red
Army. It is equally certain that if Trotsky had remained in the
leadership in the 1920s, the Soviet Union would have been
a more technocratic and less terrorised society. However,
Trotsky was the instigator of his own downfall. Partly from

personality failings, but largely because of an unresolved
disagreement about how the Party should operate and an
ideological obsession with the kulak danger, he turned on
his colleagues as much as they turned on him.
Swain, G., Trotsky, 2006, pp. 14.
Source 10.17
Trotsky occupied a unique position. As a militant radical
during the revolution and civil war, he saw no need to
adopt moderate policies once the internal threat had
receded. For him, it was the threat from the capitalist
world that was most pressing, and the Russian revolution
was only the first stage of the world revolution that was
envisaged as inevitable in Marxs understanding of history
and social change. As Trotsky himself confessed in his last
will and testament in 1940, he was just as committed to the
revolutionary idea in his last days as he had been when he
first entered the Russian revolutionary movement in the
1890s, if not more so.
Commitment to world revolution entailed for Trotsky
commitment to radical domestic and foreign policies when
he was still a figure with authority in the Soviet Union and
it was this above all that alienated him from the rank
and file of a Party that was more inclined to begin the
economic reconstruction of the country than to embark
on further revolutionary adventures having left the
Soviet Union he remained fully active in promoting world
revolution. The fact that his venture ended in oblivion does
not diminish Trotskys image as one of the most committed
revolutionaries of the twentieth centurythe eternal
radical, indeedbut rather shows that the ideas to which
he devoted his life were both outmoded and utopian.
Volkogonov, D., Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, 1996,
pp. xxvixxviii.
Source 10.16

Using Source 10.16:
1 What does Swain mean by the Trotsky myth?
2 In what ways have recent historians challenged features of this myth?
3 What reservations are made regarding Trotskys belief in international revolution?
4 Why does Swain describe Trotsky as the instigator of his own downfall?
Using Source 10.17:
1 How does Volkogonov differ from Swain in his analysis of Trotskys internationalism?
2 Why does Volkogonov describe Trotskys central ideas as outmoded and utopian?
Trotskys strong points
Trotskys weak points
Trotsky was a brilliant speaker who could win

over the crowds.
Trotsky was often regarded as arrogant;

he looked down on people who were not
as intellectual as he was. This led him to
underestimate Stalin as a political rival.
He was a gifted writer who wrote hundreds of

articles and books, including the three-volume
History of the Russian Revolution in the 1920s
and The Revolution Betrayed, a criticism of
Stalins Russia, in 1937.
Although not a soldier, during the civil war he
revealed great skill in planning and military
leadership.
Figure 10.30 Trotsky in the balance
He could be nave and did not have Stalins eye

for the political opportunity. For example, by not
being present at Lenins funeral, he allowed Stalin,
who was there, to take the political advantage.
Because he thought of himself as superior to many
around him, he did not work well with others and
easily made political enemies.

1 How had Trotsky been involved in revolutionary activities before 1905?
2 Why was the 1905 revolution a significant stage in Trotskys development as a revolutionary?
3 What were Trotskys major concerns in his essay Results and Perspectives?
4 What factors led Trotsky to join the Bolsheviks in 1917?
5 What two positions did Trotsky hold in the Bolshevik government?
6 Give examples of Trotskys actions from around the time of his exile from the Soviet Union that an
observer might consider politically unwise or naive.
7 In which countries did Trotsky spend time after his expulsion from the Soviet Union? What caused
him to move between countries?
8 Why do you think Stalin was so anxious to have Trotsky killed, even after he had been expelled from
the Soviet Union?
9 Write a brief obituary for Trotsky as: (a) a friend would have written it, and then (b) Stalin would have
written it. Remember to mention aspects of his character as well as his deeds.

ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI 18721952
Timeline
1872
Kollontai was born Alexandra Domontovich in St Petersburg into a family of wealth and privilege; her father was an army officer.
1893
She married Vladimir Kollontai, an engineer from a poor family, and had a son, Mikhael, in 1894.
1898
She left her family to study in Zurich for one year.
1908
She was forced into exile for advocating armed revolt in Finland.
1915
She changed from the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks because of their opposition to the war.
Personality Profile: Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Kollontai was a major figure in the Russian socialist movement from
the turn of the century to the end of the civil war. She was a gifted orator,
whose major contributions were her attempts to free Russian women from their
traditional roles in society and to redefine womanhood and family life in the
context of the new communist state. Appointed as commissar for social welfare
in 1917, her insistence on preserving the purity of the revolution in the face
of practical difficulties led to disagreements with Lenin and the decline of her
influence and role in the party leadership. In 1922 she began a diplomatic career
as a Soviet representative, which lasted until her retirement in 1945. From 1946
until her death in 1952 she was an adviser to the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs.
1917
She returned to Russia after the March revolution and was appointed commissar for social welfare in the Bolshevik
government.
1918
She married Pavel Dybenko, a man sixteen years her junior. She resigned from government over the acceptance of
Brest-Litovsk.
1920
She was appointed head of the Zhenotdel.
1922
She was criticised at party congress for her support of the Workers Opposition and was dismissed from Zhenotdel.
She was appointed to a diplomatic post in Norway.
1945
She retired due to ill health.
1952
She died following a heart attack.
Kollontai began her political work in 1894 among

the workers of St Petersburg and involved herself in the
1896 textile workers strikes. She joined the Social Democrats
in 1899.
She rapidly became known as a gifted speaker and a
writer of numerous pamphlets on revolutionary topics,
especially issues related to women. When the March
revolution broke out Kollontai was in Norway, having just
returned from the USA. She was one of the few voices who
supported Lenins April theses and his call for an end to the
war. It was said that Whatever Lenin jabbers, only Kollontai
agrees with him (Clements, 1979, p. 109). After speaking
to a gathering of soldiers, she was elected to the Petrograd
Soviet as a soldiers representative. During the July Days
Kollontai was arrested along with other Bolshevik leaders.
While in jail she became the first woman elected to the
central committee of the Bolshevik party.
Figure 10.31 Alexandra Kollontai, 1940
Kollontai in power
After the Bolshevik takeover, Kollontai was appointed commissar for social welfare. Efforts were made to
combat prostitution and to increase the state provision of child care. Kollontais views began to diverge
from those of Lenin. She criticised the narrow base of the post-revolutionary government, regarding
Trotsky as too impulsive, Lenin as too theoretical and both of them as lacking contact with the masses.
Kollontai fell out with Lenin over the question of acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
with the Germans, accusing him of compromising with imperialism in his advocacy of peace at any
price. This dispute led to Kollontai joining the left opposition within the government, and in March
1918 she resigned as commissar for social welfare.
By the middle of 1918 Kollontai was again active in the role of agitator and organiser. She played
a key role in organising the first all-Russian Congress of Working and Peasant Women in November
1918. Kollontai, Armand and others attempted to establish womens commissions across the country
but were hampered by resistance from the less well educated and conservative communists of the
provinces. The strain of the work took its toll in late 1918 when Kollontai suffered a serious heart attack.
In September 1920 Kollontai made her first public criticism of the party since Brest-Litovsk. She,
like others, had become concerned by the bureaucratic centralisation of the party. A group called the
Workers Opposition came together to protest against the diminishing role offered to trade unions.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: KOLLONTA I S REAC TIO N TO BRES T- LITO V S K

Source 10.15
When she clamored for guerrilla combat in March 1918 she seemed to allow
her commitment to revolutionary war to overshadow her humanitarianism. In
truth, Kollontai was not motivated by her adherence to the notion of revolutionary
war alone. Her refusal to countenance the peace came from another, more
central facet of her ideology, her hatred of compromise with the enemy. The
Treaty was a surrender to a coalition of capitalists and monarchists that ruled
Germany and therefore a capitulation to the forces against which she had fought
all her life. Rather than betray the proletariat of Europe by making a humiliating
peace, Kollontai wanted to stake the Bolsheviks future on a desperate gamble
that the time for international revolution was now.
B. E. Clements, Bolshevik Feminist, 1979, p. 141.
DOCUMENT ST U DY QUEST ION S

1 What reasons are given for
Kollontais refusal to agree
to the terms of the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk?
2 What points would Lenin be
expected to make in response
to Kollontais view?
3 Would you consider Kollontais
stance to be sensible or naive
in 1918?
They wanted a greater number of workers in decision-making positions in the party and government,
an attack on bureaucratic abuses, and full freedom to criticise these abuses. In January 1921 Kollontai
joined the Workers Opposition, and her oratorical skills increased the appeal of the faction. In February
she published a pamphlet entitled Workers Opposition in which she said that the party had gone
astray, in part because its proletarian essence had been corrupted by a flood of new members from the
peasantry and the bourgeoisie, and she proposed expelling everyone of non-proletarian origin who
had joined since 1919.
At the tenth party congress in March 1921 the delegates, with the Kronstadt rebellion fresh in
their minds, were prepared to follow Lenin and outlaw opposition. Kollontais pamphlet turned Lenin,
Trotsky and Bukharin against her. Lenin openly criticised her and called for moderation and unity. The
congress condemned the Workers Opposition and outlawed factionalism.
After the tenth congress Kollontai returned to the work of the Zhenotdel. The women who ran the
organisation were, for the most part, young and inexperienced. Consequently they made mistakes
that irritated party officials and confirmed their low estimate of the worth of womens work. When the
leaders of one section could not persuade factory women to attend meetings, they sentenced them to
hard labour. Such high-handedness reinforced the opinion of many Bolsheviks that the Zhenotdel was
a waste of valuable party resources.
Kollontais life at the centre of Bolshevik politics had ended. She used her exile to do her final
writing on the role of women.
Kollontai on love and marriage

Kollontai had a succession of husbands and lovers and was seen as an advocate of free love. Her work
was often misunderstood and she was blamed for encouraging the sexual promiscuity and moral
anarchy that swept through Russia after 1917. She did not declare that marriage should be abolished,
but claimed that bourgeois monogamy was not the only form in which heterosexual love should be
permitted. Often, she argued, a woman was drawn to one man by his physical appeal, to another by
In February 1922, Kollontai was dismissed as head of the Zhenotdel. She had not run the bureau
well, and had pointed out shortcomings in the partys work among women. In the same year,
Kollontais marriage to Dybenko collapsed. She wrote to Stalin, the party secretary, asking for a new
position and was told to prepare herself for a diplomatic posting. This, she knew, would be a form of
exile, but she was willing to accept it. In October 1922 she joined a Soviet trade delegation to Norway.
his spirit, and she should not be barred from pursuing both loves. So long as love was based on the
higher, less carnal emotions, Kollontai welcomed it.
Through her later fiction, Kollontais ideas on erotic love spread round the world. Reading her
fiction alone it might be presumed that she favoured promiscuity, and in Soviet Russia her name was
associated with the glass of water theory: the view that one should satisfy ones sex drive as readily
and as easily as one satisfies thirst. This, however, was a distortion of Kollontais views. She made three
main points in her writings: women should have the right to choose between love and work; they still
had to contend with economic insecurity, unsympathetic husbands, and pregnancy; and Soviet society
should permit a variety of relationships between men and women.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: KOLLONTA I S P OPULARI TY AN D B EL IEFS

Source 10.16
Source 10.17
Nor would Kollontai ever stand as high in the party as she

did in the fall and winter of 1917. She was then one of the
top Bolshevik orators and leading reformers, so long as
the Bolshevik goal was the destruction of the old order
and massive change, Kollontai, with her utopian vision,
spoke the will of the majority. But once the means of
survival as a government began to divide Bolsheviks, her
calls for revolutionary idealism cut her o from many of her
comrades. She would not adjust to becoming a politician;
she cultivated no following outside her commissariat
Refusing to accept compromise, she withdrew into solitude.
The emancipation of women and the emancipation

of all people would proceed from the creation of a
harmonious society, built by the working class and by
a party of revolutionaries who refused to compromise
their principles. It was a fine vision, unsullied by realism.
Factories, electrification, uneducated workers, military
power nuts and boltsnone of these concerned
Kollontai. She demanded communes, revolutionary purity
and the emancipation of women. And 1923 was the last
year she was allowed to do so.
PE R SO N A L I T Y S TUDY RE VI E W Q UE S TI O NS
1 What contribution did Alexandra Kollontai make to the Bolshevik revolution?
2 Was her fall from power a result of naivety or principle?
3 What was meant by the glass of water theory? To what extent was criticism of Kollontais moral
teaching justified?
4 What difficulties did Kollontai face in her efforts to reform the position of women in Russia? To what
extent was she successful?
References
Armstrong D., People and Power: Russia 19141941, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1993
Baker C., Russia 19171945, Heinemann, London, 1990
Brooman J., Stalin and the Soviet Union, The USSR 192453, Longman, London, 1988
Bullock A., Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Fontana Press, London, 1993
Chapman D., Stalin: Man of Steel, Longman, Auckland, 1987
Christian D., Power and Privilege, Pitman, Melbourne, 1986
Clements B. E., Bolshevik Feminist, Indiana University Press, USA, 1979
Clements B. E., The birth of the new Soviet woman in A. Gleason, (ed.) Bolshevik Culture, Indiana University Press, USA, 1985
Conquest R., Stalin: Breaker of Nations, Viking Penguin, New York, 1991
Conquest R., The Great Terror: A Reassessment, Hutchinson, London, 1990

Conquest R., The Harvest of Sorrow, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986
Daborn J., Russia: Revolution and Counter-Revolution 19171924, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1991
De Jonge A., Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union, William Morrow, New York, 1986
Downey T., Russia and the USSR 19001995, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996
Figes O., A Peoples Tragedy, Pimlico, UK, 1996
Gill G., Twentieth-Century Russia: The Search for Power and Authority, Nelson, Melbourne, 1991
Kochan L. & Abraham R., The Making of Modern Russia, Penguin, Middlesex, 1985
Laqueur W., Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations, Unwin Hyman, London, 1990
Laver J., Russia 19141941, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1991
Lynch M., Reaction and Revolutions: Russia 18811924, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1993
Lynch M., Stalin and Khrushchev: The USSR 192464, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990
McCauley M., The Stalin File, B.T. Batsford, London, 1979
Moynahan B., Comrades: 1917Russia in Revolution, Hutchinson, London, 1992
Pares B., A History of Russia, Methuen, London, 1965
Radzinsky E., Stalin, Sceptre, 1997
Robottom J., Russia in Change 18701945, Longman, London, 1985
Service R., The Russian Revolution 19001927, 2nd edition, Macmillan, London, 1991
Shub D., Lenin, Pelican, London, 1966
Trotsky L., The History of the Russian Revolution, University of Michigan Press, undated
Swain, G., Trotsky, Pearson Education, Harlow, 2006
Ulam A., A History of Soviet Russia, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1976
Volkogonov, D., Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, Harper Collins, London, 1996.
Williams B., The Russian Revolution 19171921, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1987
GERMANY
19181939
NATIONAL STUDY
INTRODUCTION
The First World War had a significant impact on Germany. It brought about the
collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy and its replacement by a democratic
system, which, after early difficulties, seemed to flourish before becoming a
casualty of the Great Depression. The wars legacy allowed Adolf Hitler to rise from
obscurity to overthrow this short-lived democracy, impose a dictatorship, and
11
pursue a foreign policy that, in the name of righting the wrongs of the Versailles
settlement, plunged the world into another war.
Timeline
1889
1919
1923
1925
1929
1933
1934
1935
1936
1938
1939
April
Adolf Hitler is born.
January
The Spartacist left-wing revolt is crushed by the Freikorps.
June
Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles.
January
The occupation of the Ruhr by French troops leads to hyperinflation and the collapse of
the German currency.
April
Hindenburg becomes president.
October
The death of Stresemann, and the onset of the Great Depression.
January
Hitler becomes chancellor.
June
The Night of the Long Knives curbs the power of the Sturm Abteilung (SA).
August
Hindenburg dies and Hitler becomes Fhrer.
September
The Nuremberg Laws deprive Jews of German citizenship.
March
The reoccupation of the Rhineland takes place.
March
Germany unites with Austria (the Anschluss).
September
The Munich Agreement hands part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.
September
The Second World War begins.
Timeline exercise
1 When did Jews lose their German citizenship?
2 Which left-wing group tried to seize power in Germany?
3 Who died in 1934?
4 What event led to the destruction of the Germany currency?
5 How long was Hindenburg president?
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

REVOLUTION AND THE BIRTH OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
On 2 October 1918 Major von dem Bussche, acting on behalf of the army high command, told
the Reichstag that victory in the First World War was no longer possible for the German army. Kaiser
Wilhelm IIs cousin, Prince Max von Baden, accepted the role of chancellor and, in order to secure a
favourable peace settlement with the Allies, and to douse the fires of revolution that were threatening
on the home front, brought representatives of the Social Democratic Party (the Majority Socialists) into
his Cabinet. He hoped to be able to maintain a monarchy with limited powers, but it soon became
clear that the Allies would not sign an armistice with Germany while the Kaiser ruled.
Prince Max tried to persuade the Kaiser to abdicate but Wilhelm refused. Meanwhile, the revolution
that government leaders had hoped to avert began in the dockyards of Kiel on 28 October. The naval
Germany 19181939 | 299
B A L T I C
S E A
SCHLESWIG
HOLSTEIN
Heligoland
N O R T H
Danzig
Kiel
Kiel Canal
EAST PRUSSIA
S E A
Spartacist
uprising 1919
Berlin
NETHERLANDS
GERMANY
Kapp Putsch 1920
Antwerp
Cologne
BELGIUM
Weimer
SAAR BASIN
D
SU
Mainz
AN
NL
E
ET
Koblenz
EUPEN AND
MALMEDY
LORRAINE
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
CE
SA
The demilitarised Rhineland
AL
Figure 11.1
200
300
400
500 km
AUSTRIA
The Saar basin. Voted by plebiscite to

return to Germany in 1935
Danzig area. Administered by
the League of Nations
Germany 19191936
high command ordered the warships at Kiel to put to sea for a final battle with the British fleet. The
sailors recognised the futile and suicidal nature of the order and refused to obey. This was mutiny, and
600 sailors were arrested. Protest meetings were held and the mutiny soon spread.
Workers and soldiers joined the sailors and took control of the town of Kiel. The red flag of
revolution appeared on the streets and within a week towns all over Germany were setting up councils
of workers and soldiers after the model of Soviet Russia. In the provinces of Bavaria and Saxony, the
Independent Socialists set up a republic. The Independent Socialists had split from the Majority
Socialists in April 1917 over the question of support for the war, which the Independents had opposed.
The revolution came to a head in Berlin on 9 November when thousands of workers, soldiers and
sailors took to the streets in a general strike. When his military commanders made it clear that the army
would not fight for him, Wilhelm finally agreed to abdicate. He made his way to Holland, where he lived
the rest of his life in exile, dying in 1941.
Von Baden agreed to hand over power to the Majority Socialists (SPD) and their leader, Friedrich
Ebert, became chancellor. What form would the new government take? The left wing of German
politics was split between the Majority Socialists, the Independent Socialists and the Spartacists, a
revolutionary group who were to become the German Communist Party in December 1918.
Ebert announced that his major priority was the maintenance of law and order, but the Spartacists
wanted an ongoing revolution on the Russian model, with the creation of further soviets of workers
and soldiers.
Philip Scheidemann, a prominent Majority Socialist, was sitting in the Reichstag restaurant when
news came that Karl Liebknecht, a Spartacist leader, was about to call for a Russian-style Soviet
Outbreaks of
violence
German losses after the First World War
Munich
SWITZERLAND
100
KEY
Germany
Munich Putsch 1923
SILESIA
Prague
LUXEMBOURG
Warsaw
POLAND
Friedrich Ebert
The first president of Weimar
Germany. He died, worn out by
crises and the pressure of office in
1925, aged 54.
Rosa Luxemburg
A leader of the Spartacists, she
was imprisoned during the war
for her anti-war views. She was
arrested and brutally murdered on
15 January 1919.
Soldiers in Berlin fly the red flag
Philip Scheidemann
He proclaimed the Weimar Republic
on 9 November 1918 and became
its first elected chancellor.
Figure 11.2 The German Revolution
General Groener
He controlled the army after the
armistice. He advised the Kaiser
in November 1918 to go and
get himself killed at the front. He
supported Ebert against left-wing
revolutionaries.
republic. Rushing quickly to the Reichstag balcony, Scheidemann addressed the crowd milling below
and proclaimed a new republic, with Ebert as chancellor, stating that the army had agreed to respect
this arrangement. When Ebert heard of this he was furious, as he had hoped for the setting up of a
constitutional monarchy in Germany. Nevertheless, the die was cast, and by the evening of 9 November
1918 the Weimar Republic had come into being, almost by accident.
The question of authority was now significant. How could Ebert enforce the decisions of his
government? Technically, he had not been appointed by the Reichstag or approved by the Kaiser,
as precedent demanded. Left-wing opinion was split between the competing socialist groups. The
position of the army was crucial. On the evening of the 9 November Ebert received a telephone call
from General Groener at army headquarters. In return for Eberts support for the officer corps, the army
offered its services to resist left-wing extremism. Ebert agreed, thus pledging the republics support
Germany 19181939 | 301
to be known as the Freikorps to provide the republic with a

military force. The Freikorps became a home for ex-soldiers
and others who wished to defend their country against what
they saw as the evils of communism. At one time there were
177 different units under the overall authority of defence
minister Gustav Noske.
Figure 11.3 Hunger in Berlin. The Allied blockade continued until

12 July 1919. A horse, shot in the disturbances, is immediately
carved up and the meat shared amongst bystanders.
The first test of the new Freikorps came in the second

week of January 1919: there had been sporadic clashes
between Spartacists and government troops for several
days before the situation intensified. On 11 January 2000
Freikorps troops entered Berlin and fought bitter street
battles with the Spartacists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg, the Spartacist leaders, were both captured,
badly beaten, then shot.
for the continuance of the Prussian militaristic tradition and

placing its future in the hands of the army. Thus, as the writer
Sefton Delmer observed, the republic was born with a hole
in its heart.
The Freikorps continued to act with brutality. Suspected

communists were rounded up and shot, with the total
number of victims was estimated at 1200. Noske was able
to assure the government that order had been restored, and
elections went ahead on 19 January to produce the first
elected government of the republic.
The revolution was a mixture of order and turmoil. Shots

were fired, but there were few casualties, and no serious
disruption to public transport or services. Yet, to the anxiety
of the government, discipline was breaking down in the
Berlin garrison. An officer reported that there was disorder,
looting and house searches The troops go their own
way, the barracks are like a madhouse There are soldiers
soviets in every corner and alley (De Jonge 1978). It was
therefore decided to recruit irregular volunteer companies
In the elections, Eberts Social Democrats won more

seats than any other party, though not an absolute majority.
Nevertheless, with the support of other pro-republican
parties, the Democrats and the Catholic Centre Party, they
were able to form government with the support of 76 per
cent of the electorate. When the parliament met in the quiet
town of Weimar, far away from the turbulent streets of Berlin,
Scheidemann became chancellor and Ebert was elected the
first president of the Weimar Republic.
Figure 11.4 A street battle in Berlin between Freikorps and communists, 1919.
The Bavarian republic
DID YOU KNOW?
The new republic soon had to face a political challenge from the south of Germany.
A Bavarian republic had been declared on 7 November 1918 under the leadership of
Kurt Eisner, a dedicated socialist.
Chimney sweeps in Bavaria

flew small red flags on their
carts as a badge of their
trade. Trigger-happy Freikorps
troops from Prussia shot
several of them before it
could be explained that they
were not Red Guards flying
the communist flag.
On 2 February Eisner was assassinated by a right-wing fanatic. Workers took to the streets
in protest against the killing and the Bavarian parliament dissolved in panic. After a time of
uncertainty, a Soviet republic was declared in April. Luxury flats were taken over and given to
the homeless, workers were armed and a Red Guard formed, and factories were run by joint
councils of workers and owners.
The government in Weimar now put Munich, the Bavarian capital, under siege. Freikorps
troops entered Munich on 1 May. A period of Freikorps killings, the white terror, lasted until
8 May and took the lives of 700 men and women.
Noske sent a message to his Freikorps commander: I am extremely pleased with the discreet and
wholly successful way in which you have conducted operations in Munich; please convey my thanks to
your troops (De Jonge 1978).
The government barely had time to reflect on how it had unified the country under Weimar
authority before another blow was delivered in the form of the Treaty of Versailles, which was issued to
the German government for comment on 7 May.
1 Who were the following people and what was their role in the revolution:
(a) von Baden, (b) Eisner, (c) Ebert, (d) Groener, (e) Scheidemann, and (f) Noske.
2 What was the Freikorps? How was it used in the early months of 1919?
3 What attempts were made by communists to take power in 1919? Why did they fail?
4 With reference to the GroenerEbert telephone call, what is meant by the phrase
the Weimar Republic had a hole in its heart?
THE IMPACT OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

When the terms of the treaty became known there was consternation in Germany. Scheidemann
resigned as chancellor in protest, and Field Marshal Hindenburg advised Ebert that although a
resumption of hostilities would almost certainly bring defeat, it was better to die honourably than
accept such a disgraceful peace. In practice, Germany was in no condition to restart the war and had to
accept the inevitable.
Germans were stunned by the harshness of the treaty and looked for someone to blame. The officer
class, led by Hindenburg, pointed out that the army had not been defeated in the field and, at the time
of the armistice, was still in France and Belgium. Even Ebert himself had welcomed returning troops in
November 1918 with the greeting: As you return unconquered from the field of battle, I salute you
(De Jonge, 1978).
Responsibility must therefore lie elsewhere, and the legend arose that it was all the fault of
the November Criminals, the socialist politicians who had negotiated and signed the armistice in
November 1918. Another slogan that Germany had been stabbed in the back by a conspiracy of
communists and Jews went hand in hand with this sloganonly in this way could Germanys helpless
position in June 1919 be explained for many Germans.
Germany 19181939 | 303
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: GERM AN REACT I ON TO THE TREATY O F V ERS A ILLES

Source 11.1
Source 11.2
The following quote is from the newspaper Deutsche Zeitung,

28 June 1919.
The following quote is from the newspaper Vorwarts,

28 June 1919.
Vengeance! German nation! Today in the Hall of Mirrors

of Versailles the disgraceful treaty is being signed. Do
not forget it! The German people will press forward
to reconquer the place among the nations to which it is
entitled. Then will come vengeance for the shame of 1919.
Unfortunately until November 1918 not Social Democrats,

but the pan-Germans controlled the policy of our country.
Therefore, there has come about, as the outcome for us
of this war, the saddest peace that world history has ever
seen.
N. K. Meaney (ed.), The West and the World, Vol. 2,

19141976, Science Press, Marrickville, 1977, p. 460.
N. K. Meaney (ed.), The West and the World, Vol. 2,

19141976, Science Press, Marrickville, 1977, p. 461.
1 In what way do the opinions in the newspapers agree about the Treaty of Versailles?
2 How do the opinions differ in their reaction to the treaty?
3 One of these newspapers represented the extreme right wing of German politics.
Which do you think it is? Explain your answer.
By the middle of 1919 German democracy had come through its first challenges but the country
still lived with the legacy of the war. Richard Evans argues that Germany remained on a continued war
footing: at war with itself, and at war with the rest of the world Military models of conduct had been
widespread in German society and culture before 1914; but after the war they became all pervasive;
the language of politics was permeated by metaphors of warfare, the other party was an enemy to
be smashed, and struggle, terror and violence became widely accepted as legitimate weapons in the
political struggle (Evans 2004, p. 72).
A symbol of this militaristic influence was the proliferation of uniformed paramilitary organisations
throughout the Weimar period. The Nazis were to have their SA, or Brownshirts, the Social Democrats the
Reichsbanner and the communists the Red Front-Fighters League. Largest of all was the Stahlhelm (Steel
Helmets), a conservative veterans association which had 300 000 members by the mid-1920s. With parades
and street fighting among these groups the military presence could never be far from the public mind.
However, it would be wrong to suggest that the cause of democracy was hopeless in Germany.
German society and politics were polarised into extremes by the collapse of 191819, not converted
to a general enthusiasm for extreme nationalism. And, crucially, the centre ground of politics was still
occupied by people and parties committed to the creation of a stable, functioning parliamentary
democracy, to social reform, to cultural freedom and to economic opportunity for all. The collapse of
the Wilhelmine Reich was their chance too, and they seized it willingly (Evans, 2004, p. 76).
ISSUES IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC TO 1929

THE WEIMAR CONSTITUTION
In August 1919 the constitution of the Weimar Republic was proclaimed. By extending the vote to all
men and women over twenty years of age, and by diminishing the dominance of Prussia in the upper
house, the constitution was an improvement on its imperial predecessor.
However, some aspects of the constitution have long been criticised for playing an important part
in the developing instability of the republic.
Article 22 specified that voting would take place according to the principles of proportional representation, a system that tends to encourage the existence of a multi-party parliament, which is criticised
for making it difficult for one party to gain a clear working majority in government. The result is often
government by coalition, and frequent elections, as coalitions dissolve and reform. Richard Evans,
however, believes that the instability caused by the proportional representation system has been
exaggerated (see document study on p. 306).
The amount of power placed in the hands of the elected president by the constitution was also
criticised. He could appoint and dismiss the chancellor and, under Article 48, could suspend the
fundamental rights of citizens if public order and security were seriously disturbed. Ebert himself,
though a clear supporter of democracy, used this provision on 136 occasions to depose legitimately
elected state governments, to retrospectively sanction summary executions carried out by Freikorps
units in the Ruhr, and to enact legislation without reference to the Reichstag. The precedent had been
set for any successor, whether a friend or foe of democracy.
THE KAPP PUTSCH

Wolfgang Kapp was a right-wing former civil servant from Prussia who had, in 1917, launched the
German Fatherland Party which aimed to annex enemy territory and establish an authoritarian style of
government. Though the party withered, Kapps ambition did not, and in 1920 he attempted to seize
power in an incident that showed the lack of authority of the Weimar government. Kapp approached
various army leaders to obtain their support. Most refused him, but he found an ally in General von
Luttwitz, commander of the Freikorps around Berlin. On 13 March Freikorps troops entered the city.
The government turned to the army, or Reichswehr, to defend it, but received from von Seeckt, its
commander, the reply: Reichswehr does not fire on Reichswehr. The government fled from Berlin and
the Freikorps encountered no military opposition.
The workers of Berlin brought the Kapp Putsch to an end by organising a general strike,
which effectively brought the city to a standstill. Kapp and his colleagues had no policies beyond
overthrowing the government, and on 17 March Kapp announced that he had accomplished all he set
out to do, and fled to Sweden.
The abortive Putsch in Berlin had its consequences elsewhere in the country. Some military leaders
in northern and eastern Germany declared their support for the Putschists and clashes between
Freikorps and workers militias occurred in several cities. The most intensive fighting was in the Ruhr,
where a Red Army of the Ruhr was set up involving, at its peak, nearly 100 000 workers. After the
government returned to Berlin, a call for a return to work was issued. In bitter fighting, over 1000
workers were killed before order was restored in the region.
There were repercussions for the Social Democrats. Noske, hated by the workers as the founder of
the Freikorps, was forced to resign. In the elections of 6 June 1920 the SPD vote fell from 11.5 million
to six million in a massive vote of no confidence. Political violence became a regular feature of the
early years of the republic. Between 1918 and 1922 there were 354 political murders, two of the most
prominent being that of Matthias Erzberger, who had signed the armistice, in August 1921, and Walter
Rathenau, the foreign minister, in June 1922.
Germany 19181939 | 305
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: W EIM AR GOVERNMEN TS 191923

Source 11.3
Chancellor
Term of office
Parties represented in Cabinet
Scheidemann (SPD)
13/2/19 19/6/19
7 SPD, 3 Dem., 3 Cent., 1 non-party
Bauer (SPD)
19/6/19 3/10/19
7 SPD, 4 Cent.
Bauer (SPD)
3/10/19 26/3/20
6 SPD, 4 Cent., 3 Dem.
Mller (SPD)
27/3/20 8/6/20
5 SPD, 3 Dem., 4 Cent.
Fehrenbach (Cent.)
20/6/20 4/5/21
2 Dem., 5 Cent., 3 Peoples, 2 non-party
Wirth (Cent.)
9/5/21 22/10/21
Wirth (Cent.)
26/10/21 14/11/22
Cuno (non-party)
22/11/22 12/8/23
2 Dem., 2 Cent., 2 Peoples, 1 Nat, 4 non-party
Stresemann (Peoples)
13/8/23 3/10/23
4 SPD, 2 Dem., 3 Cent., 2 Peoples, 1 non-party
10
Stresemann (Peoples)
6/10/23 28/11/23
3 SPD, 2 Dem., 3 Cent., 2 Peoples, 1 non-party
Key to parties
SPD
Social Democratic Party. Formed 1875. Largest party in the Reichstag during the 1920s. Supported by workers and
lower middle class. Strong supporter of Weimar Republic.
Dem.
Democrats (DDP). Formed 1918. Left-wing party backed by business. Helped draft the Weimar constitution but lost
support to the DVP.
Cent.
Centre Party (ZP). Formed 1870. Defended Catholic interests. Supported Weimar.
Peoples Peoples Party (DVP). Formed 1918. Started by Stresemann. Represented the interests of the upper middle classes
and employers.
Nat.
Nationalist (DNVP). Formed 1918. Members supported the conservative values of imperial Germany.
Table adapted from G. Warburton, Weimar Republic and the Nazi State, 1992, p. 15.
Source 11.4
The governmental instability of Weimar has itself often
been overdrawn, for the frequent changes of government
concealed long-term continuities in particular ministries
Gustav Stresemann, the leading figure in the Peoples
Party, for instance, was Foreign Minister in nine successive
administrations and remained in oce for an unbroken
period of over six years. Heinrich Brauns, a Centre Party
deputy, was Minister of Labour in twelve successive
cabinets, from June 1920 up to June 1928. Otto Gessler,
a Democrat, was Army Minister in thirteen successive
governments, from March 1920 to January 1928. Such
ministers were able to develop and implement long-term
policies irrespective of the frequent turnover of leadership
experienced by the governments they served in. Other
ministries were also occupied by the same politicians
through two, three or four dierent governments. Not by
chance, it was in such areas that the Republic was able to
develop its strongest and most consistent policies, above
all in fields of foreign aairs, labour and welfare.
Evans, R. J., The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin,
London, 2004, p. 87.

Using Source 11.3:
1 What was the average length of Reich Cabinets
over the period 191923?
2 Do these figures support any of the criticisms
of the Weimar constitution?
3 What were the longest and shortest Reich
Cabinets in the period shown?
4 Which parties contributed most support to
coalition Cabinets?
5 What difficulties do coalition governments often
face?
Using Source 11.4:
6. What is the main point being made by Evans in
relation to government instability?
7. Note two examples that provide evidence for
Evanss argument.
8. According to Evans, why was the Weimar
government more successful in some areas of
policy than in others?
THE OCCUPATION OF THE RUHR

The Germans paid reparations in regular instalments, often
in materials such as coal and timber. In January 1923,
alleging that a reparations consignment of telegraph
poles had not been delivered, the French sent troops to
occupy the Ruhr industrial region. Determined to take for
themselves what the Germans would not deliver, the French
took over factories and coal mines and attempted to make
the Germans work for them. The German government
ordered a policy of passive resistance from the workers.
The French retaliated with arrests and shootings, but were
unable to secure the normal resumption of work. By the
end of March they were receiving only 1 per cent of the coal
deliveries they had previously enjoyed from the Ruhr.
Various acts of French violence only served to arouse a
militant spirit among the Germans. An ex-Freikorps soldier,
Leo Schlageter, was shot for sabotage and instantly became
a martyr to the nationalist cause. At the giant Krupp factory
at Essen, French soldiers shot and killed workers during a
demonstration. From an economic viewpoint, the occupation
was a failure for the French; the result was even worse for
Germany. The almost total halt in production from the
countrys main industrial region caused the German economy
to collapse, and led to the disaster of hyperinflation.
THE HYPERINFLATION OF 1923
Figure 11.5 No, you cant force me. A German poster advocates
passive resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr.
Inflation is an economic term meaning a rise in the general

level of prices. A certain level of gradual inflation is common over time, which is why most everyday items
cost more now than they did in our grandparents day. Another way of looking at it is to say that our
money has lost its value because we cannot buy as much with it due to rising prices. Hyperinflation is a
rapid and uncontrolled rise in prices that takes place over hours, days and months, rather than years.
The value of the German mark had already begun to fall before the occupation of the Ruhr. In July 1922,
one American dollar would buy 550 German marks; by December 1922 the rate had increased to 7500
marks. Nonetheless, the events in the Ruhr worsened the situation and, as the richest part of Germany was
no longer producing goods, prices began to spiral. The government reacted firstly by printing more paper
money, then when even this proved inadequate to meet the demand old notes were overprinted with
new inflated values. In November 1923 it was possible to obtain a one billion mark note, but this was not
enough to buy a loaf of bread, the price of which had risen from 0.63 of a mark in 1918, to 250 marks in
January 1923 to 1 512 000 marks in September and 201 000 000 000 marks in November 1923.
The official rate of exchange changed several times a day. Workers were paid daily instead of weekly
in an effort to retain the purchasing power of their wages, and the simplest shopping expeditions would
require a suitcase or wheelbarrow full of notes. As confidence in the money supply collapsed, people
looked to other commodities as a means of bargaining. At different times, butter, eggs and cigarettes
were used as money. Although many suffered because of hyperinflation, the suffering was not evenly felt.
Indeed, some did rather well out of the situation.
Germany 19181939 | 307
Who gained from hyperinflation?

r 5IPTFMJWJOHJOSFOUFEBDDPNNPEBUJPOXIFSFSFOUTXFSF
YFE
r &YQPSUCVTJOFTTFTUIBUDPVMEVOEFSDVUDPNQFUJUJPOJO
GPSFJHONBSLFUTBOESFDFJWFGPSFJHODVSSFODZJOFYDIBOHF
r "OZPOFXJUIBDDFTTUPEPMMBSTPSQPVOETTUFSMJOH BTUIFZ
CFDBNFJNNFEJBUFMZSJDI
r -BSHFCVTJOFTTFTUIBUDPVMEBDRVJSFBMPBO QVSDIBTF
BTTFUT BOESFQBZMBUFSGPSBUJOZQSPQPSUJPOPGUIFPSJHJOBM
TVN)VHP4UJOOFT BXFBMUIZCVTJOFTTNBO CPVHIUNPSF
UIBOFOUFSQSJTFTJOUIJTXBZ
r -BOEPXOFST MBSHFBOETNBMM XIPXFSFQBZJOHP
NPSUHBHFT
r $PVOUSZEXFMMFSTXJUITVQQMJFTPGGPPE TVDIBTDIJDLFOT
FHHT FUD'PPE BTBUBOHJCMFQSPEVDU SFUBJOFEJUTWBMVF
r 'PSFJHOFST NBOZPGXIPNPDLFEUP(FSNBOZBUUIJT
UJNF BTUIFJSGPSFJHODVSSFODZNBEFUIFNSJDI
Figure 11.6
Children playing with worthless banknotes, 1923
Who lost from hyperinflation?

r 5IPTFMJWJOHPOYFEJODPNFT GPSFYBNQMF QFOTJPOT
r 5IFNJEEMFDMBTT NBOZPGXIPNXBUDIFEUIFJSTBWJOHTWBOJTI
r 8BHFFBSOFST*O/PWFNCFSSFBMXBHFTXFSFEPXOQFSDFOUDPNQBSFEXJUI
r $JUZEXFMMFST XIPXPVMEUSBWFMUPUIFDPVOUSZUPFYDIBOHFKFXFMMFSZBOEOFGVSOJUVSFGPSBDIJDLFO
PSBGFXFHHT
The end of the mad spiral of hyperinflation came with the advent of a new government under
Gustav Stresemann, who was chancellor from August to November 1923. He took the difficult
but necessary decision in September to call off the passive resistance in the Ruhr, which enabled
production to resume, and halted the financial speculation by introducing a new currency, the
Rentenmark, in November 1923.
Figure 11.7 A German banknote of 1923
R E VI E W TA SK
1 You are a German in 1923. Look back over the years since 1918. What criticisms would
you make of the Weimar government?
2 Design a poster reflecting one of your major criticisms.
3 If you were sympathetic to the Weimar government, how would you defend the
government against the sort of criticisms that were made in response to Question 1?
4 If you were a political opponent of the Weimar government, and an election was due,
what alternative policies would you offer to persuade people to vote for you?
THE STRESEMANN ERA 192429

The second half of the 1920s is often seen as a period of prosperity for Weimar, a time when the
difficulties of the earlier years had been overcome and the democratic republic had flourished, only to
be stopped in its tracks by the Great Depression of 1929.
The dominant political figure of the times was Gustav Stresemann, chancellor from August to
November 1923, and foreign minister in all succeeding governments until his death in October 1929.
Like other Germans, Stresemann detested the terms of the Versailles treaty. His objective was to restore
Germany to its rightful position on the world stage, but he differed from the more extreme nationalists
over the tactics used to achieve this aim. He realised that directly challenging the victorious powers
would be unproductive; instead he followed a policy of fulfilmentthat is, meeting the requirements
of the victorious powers as long as it served Germanys greater interest.
The first problem to be tackled was reparations. In 1924 the Dawes Plan (named after the American
banker Charles Dawes) was drawn up, which fixed German annual reparations payments at a level within
its capacity to pay. Nothing was said about a total amount or a time limit for payments. An important
consequence of the Dawes Plan was an increase in American loans to Germany, which helped to boost its
economic recovery. In return for its signature on the Dawes Plan, Germany received an assurance from the
French that the Ruhr would be evacuated within a yearthe last French troops withdrew in July 1925.
Further changes to the conditions of reparation came in 1929 when the Young Plan (named
after another American financier) placed a time limit on reparations payments, requiring an annual
repayment until 1988. The advantages for Germany were that the annual payment was less than under
the Dawes Plan, and the Allies agreed, in return for German acceptance of the terms, to discontinue
their military occupation of the Rhineland by June 1930, five years earlier than the date laid down in the
Treaty of Versailles.
The Locarno treaties of October 1925 were seen as a triumph of cooperation between foreign
ministers Chamberlain of Britain, Briand of France, and Stresemann. The most important of these treaties
was an agreement confirming the inviolability of the Franco-German and Belgo-German frontiers. The
treaty was signed by Germany, Belgium and France and guaranteed by Britain and Italy. It gave France
the assurance it sought that there would be no repetition of the invasions of 1870 and 1914. From the
German point of view the treaty meant that there would be no repeat of the humiliating invasion of the
Ruhr, and also ended any lingering French hopes for an extension of French influence up to the Rhine.
The cooperation experienced at Locarno gave rise to talks of a Locarno spirit and a Locarno era as
hopes were raised that the old methods of warlike diplomacy were redundant. In this spirit Germany was
admitted to the League of Nations in 1926 and immediately gained a seat on the influential council.
Germany 19181939 | 309
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: A GOLDEN ERA?
Figure 11.8 A Democratic Party (DDP) poster from 1924. The democrats were supporters of the republic.
Figure 11.9 A cartoon from The Washington Post, 16 February

1924, shows Stresemann (right) and Dawes at the negotiating table.
1 Refer to Figure 11.8. How is the Democratic
party portrayed?
2 In Figure 11.8, can you suggest two evils that the
Democratic party is shielding Germany from?
Figure 11.10 The nurse says, Youre late Gentlemen, he

(Stresemann) is dead in this German cartoon from 1929.
Right-wing Germans like Hugenberg pursue him with stink
bombs and manure and signs calling him a traitor.
3 Who do the standing figures in Figure 11.9

represent? What attitude is shown towards
Stresemann by the cartoonist?
4 In what ways are Figure 11.9 and Figure 11.10
similar and dissimilar?
5 How does the text in this chapter support and/
or contradict the message of these pictures?
Stresemanns years of influence coincided with a period of cultural innovation in Germany and,
in particular, in Berlin. The city became famous for its theatres, music, and literary and artistic life.
Newspapers and magazines proliferated, cinemas developed on a large scale, the radio made its
appearance, and new spectator sports such as cycle-racing drew large crowds. Sexuality entered
a permissive phase, with nudity and open homosexuality becoming a regular part of the club
scene. Experimental design in architecture flourished, such as that emanating from the Bauhaus, an
educational centre created by the architect Walter Gropius to combine high art with practical design.
Achievements were made in science and technology; seven Nobel Prizes were won by German
scientists between 1919 and 1929.
This, then, is one picture of the middle period of the Weimar years: success in foreign policy, a stable
economy, a cultural revival and an absence of the politics of violence.
WEIMAR IN THE MIDDLE YEARSAN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

In terms of foreign policy, the right wing was constantly critical of Stresemanns fulfilment policy,
especially over reparations, regarding it as capitulation to the Allies. It has been argued that even before
the onset of the world depression and Stresemanns death in 1929, the days of the fulfilment policy
were numbered: Even if it had been Stresemanns lot to conduct Germanys foreign affairs for a longer
period, his policy of compromise and cautious steps towards the restoration of German power would
have involved violent battles against increasing resistance on the home front (Kolb 1988, p. 64).
In domestic politics the democratic system was unable to provide stable government. During
the period 1924 to 1930, a succession of brief coalition governments, which often divided over
some aspect of domestic or foreign affairs, were in power. Even within the parties themselves there
were constant shifts of power, which added to the instability. As a result, discontent with party and
parliamentary government became widespread, already foreshadowing the transformation into an
authoritarian presidential regime (Kolb 1988, p. 67).
During this period the links between some of the parties and the republican ideal began to wane.
In 1928 the Nationalist Party, which had twice joined coalition governments in 1925 and 1927, elected
the right-wing businessman Hugenberg as their new leader. He was a firm opponent of the republic
and took the Nationalists down the road of opposition to the system. The Catholic Centre Party
experienced a similar rightward shift in the late 1920s, as became clear with Brunings chancellorship
from 1930 to 1932. Overall, the liberalism that was associated with support for the republic declined
in the second half of the decade. The Democratic Party and the Peoples Party, both supportive of the
republic, regularly polled a combined total of over 20 per cent of the votes in the early years of Weimar,
but by 1932 they were only just able to gain 2 per cent between them.
One of the foundations of the Weimar experiment was the social partnership between the employers
and the trade unions that had been agreed on 15 November 1918. By this agreementthe Stinnes
Legien Pactthe employers recognised the right of unions to represent the workers, and accepted the
demand for an eight-hour day; in return they received a promise of industrial peace. When the threat of a
socialist takeover of industry had clearly diminished in the early 1920s, the employers pushed for a longer
working day and resisted claims for higher wages. The union movement regarded this as a betrayal of the
political basis of the Weimar system (Kolb 1988, p. 79). and industrial disputation increased.
Between 1924 and 1932 the state arbitration procedure, developed for exceptional cases only, was
used 76 000 times. The reaction among employers was to look for a right-wing solution to the problem:
the curbing of the workers movement and a more authoritarian form of government.
The new vitality in the cultural field did nothing to cement the advantages of democracy in the
German mind. Conventional morality was offended by new theatrical performances such as The Threepenny
Germany 19181939 | 311
Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, which was set in the criminal underworld. Eroticism in nightclubs,
new dance crazes such as the foxtrot and the Charleston and the new music of jazz, associated with racially
inferior Black Americans all combined to represent to the conservative German public nothing less than
cultural Bolshevism. Even new apartment blocks and designs for modern living challenged the traditional
image of the German family living on the land. As Kolb says, It was not sufficiently realised at the time that
the conditions for a free development of artistic and intellectual energies were in no small degree ensured
by the political system itself. (1988, p. 83.) On the contrary, the new avant-garde culture polarised German
society, as broad sections of a basically conservative population associated modernism with decadence,
and blamed the Weimar system for introducing it into their midst.
Many of the influential institutions of the Weimar Republic were filled with those who owed their
loyalty to the former monarchical regime. Among these were the higher civil service, the judiciary, and
university staff, who became increasingly right wing as their world and values seemed to disappear.
Well before the end of the 1920s, the universities had become political hotbeds of the extreme right.
A generation of graduates was being created that thought of itself as an elite to which racism, antiSemitism and ideas of German superiority were almost second nature (Evans 2004, pp. 1323).
A final factor that threw a note of caution over the Stresemann era was the economic dependence
on foreign loans. Between the period 1918 and 1931 Germany received a total of 33 000 million marks
in foreign loans, chiefly from the USA, which almost covered the reparations payments of 36 000 million
marks. Foreign money was also used for the essential re-equipping of Germanys factories, which could
not be financed from domestic sources. The result was an unhealthy dependence on foreign capital.
Germany prospered only as long as the foreign aid flowed. Stresemann described this as Germany
dancing on the edge of a volcano, a prediction of problems that were to come true with the onset of
the Great Depression at the end of 1929.
1 What word was used to describe Stresemanns foreign policy? Why did he follow
this policy?
2 List, in point form, the achievements of Stresemann.
3 Look at the Figure 11.11 and Figure 11.12. Why would activities like these be a concern
for democratic politicians in the republic?
Figure 11.11 Members of the Nazi Stormtroopers (SA) parade past

Hitler. The banner reads Death to Marxism.
Figure 11.12 The communist Red Fighting League parades

in 1926.
R E VI E W TA SK
1 You are a militant Nationalist. Write a criticism of Stresemanns foreign policy.
2 Debate the proposition: If it had not been for the onset of the Depression, the
democratic experiment of the Weimar Republic would have succeeded.
THE IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

The Great Depression, which began with the Wall Street crash in October 1929 and soon spread to
the major European capitalist economies, had its most severe effect in Germany. This was not simply
because of the numbers of unemployed but because of the effect on the republic itself. As Kershaw
(2001a, p. 317) points out, Economic crises frequently unseat governments. It is much rarer for them to
destroy systems of government.
Weimar democracy had never been embraced by powerful groups such as big business, the army,
large landowners and leading civil servants, and the onset of the Depression, allowed them to openly
express their disaffection. In Britain and America, the elites backed the existing and long-established,
democratic system because it continued to serve their interests. In Germany, where the roots of
democracy were far more shallow, they looked to change a system which, they felt, less and less upheld
their interests, and to move to authoritarian rule (Kershaw 2001a, p. 318).
Authoritarian rule did not mean Nazi rule. While it is true to say that the Depression provided the
golden opportunity for the Nazis, it was not, in the narrow economic sense, the sole cause nor arguably
the main cause of their rise to power. There was no inevitable linking of the onset of the Depression
with the Hitlers accession to power.
Associated the republic,

already tainted by
memories of 1923, with
economic disaster
Confirmed the inclination

of Hindenburg and his
associates to move
towards authoritarian rule
Radicalised the electorate
and polarised the
political system
HOW DID THE DEPRESSION

AID THE NAZIS?
Undermined the labour

movement, a strong
defender of democracy
since 1920, by mass
unemployment
Figure 11.13
Portrayed the Nazis as

fresh, dynamic and
disciplined compared to
the tired old parties of
the republic
Destroyed the moderate

parties which supported
the Weimar democracy
How did the Depression aid the Nazis?
Germany 19181939 | 313
What the Depression did was to encourage President Hindenburg to move from his quiescent attitude
towards the republic to a more interventionist policy based on his powers under Article 48 of the
constitution and aimed at the introduction of a more authoritarian rule. This initially took the form of the
appointment of Heinrich Bruning, who Bracher describes as not the last chancellor before the break-up
of the Weimar Republic, but the first chancellor in the process of destroying German democracy (Kolb
1988, p. 182). Brunings subsequent deflationary policies, which plunged the German people further into
the miseries of unemployment, were themselves a matter of choice; his priority lay in the political aim of
abolishing reparations payments, not the social and economic aim of reducing unemployment.
The worst effects of the Great Depression peaked in Germany early in 1932. By the end of that
year, industrial production was rising and Nazi fortunes, as seen in the results of the November 1932
elections, were falling and on 1 January 1933 the Frankfurter Zeitung could report that, The mighty Nazi
assault on the democratic state has been repulsed. Yet, within a month, Hitler was in power. The key to
understanding why lies in the policies and actions of Hindenburg.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC, 193033

The resignation of the Muller government on 27 March 1930, as a result of coalition disagreements over
unemployment insurance, marked the beginning of the end for the democratic experiment in Germany.
Henceforward, the ruling Cabinets became presidential, with the chancellor being chosen by Hindenburg,
and the Reichstag becoming increasingly irrelevant to the process of political decision making. This change
did not come about by accident, nor was it forced upon the country by the demands of the economic
depression. Central to the changing mood was the figure of the Reich president, Paul von Hindenburg.
CONSERVATIVE ELITES AND THEIR INFLUENCE

The great war hero Field Marshal Hindenburg had officially retired from his role as head of the armed
forces in 1919. He was called back into public life after the death of President Ebert in 1925, when
he became the candidate of the political right for the vacant presidency against William Marx, the
candidate of the Weimar coalition parties. Hindenburg won the election and, at seventy-eight years of
age, the avowed monarchist became the second president of the Weimar Republic.
With his presidency there began a rightward shift from parliamentary to presidential power. Given
the unstable nature of Weimar coalitions he was able to bring his preferences to bear to a greater
extent than would otherwise have been the case. He looked with favour on the inclusion of Nationalists
within the government and preferred, if possible, to keep the Social Democrats out.
In his immediate circle of friends and advisers were many confirmed anti-republicans, and gradually
there emerged an influential reactionary bloc of Junkers (large landowners), captains of industry, and
politically minded officers of the Reichswehr led by General von Schleicher, who had the ear of the
president. Their objective was to transform the parliamentary democracy into an authoritarian state
governed by the political right. To aid their cause, the press empire of Hugenberg, the Nationalists
leader, poured out a constant stream of anti-republican propaganda.
The resignation of Muller gave the rightists the opportunity they needed. On Schleichers advice,
Hindenburg sent for Heinrich Bruning, the leader of the Centre Party, and asked him to form a
government, specifying that it should have a rightward orientation and should not include the Social
Democratsdespite the fact that they were by far the largest party in the Reichstag.
Bruning had been a zealous monarchist in 1918, with little attachment to the republican ideal. His
first priority was to end reparations by convincing the Allies that Germany could no longer meet her
obligations due to the poor state of the economy. To further this aim he was prepared to contemplate
high levels of unemployment and the impoverishment of

large sections of the population due to the world depression.
Under Bruning, the numbers of German unemployed rose
from 2 258 000 in March 1930 to 6 031 000 in March 1932.
Brunings contempt for the parliamentary process was
clear. He stated that if the Reichstag would not support
his policies he would request the use of emergency
powers under Article 48 of the constitution. During his
chancellorship the number of meeting days of the Reichstag
fell from ninety-four in 1930 to thirteen in 1932, while the
number of emergency decrees under Article 48 rose from
five to sixty-six. Brunings ultimate aim, as his subsequent
memoirs show, was the restoration of the monarchy with a
right-wing government.
In September 1930 new elections catapulted the Nazis
into prominence. They rose from twelve seats in the old
Reichstag to 107 in the new, making them the second largest
party, after the Social Democrats. Since Hitlers imprisonment
the party had not made much impression on the electorate,
but what they had done was build a national organisation
and successfully target particular groups in society, such as
the small farmers. Hence, when an agricultural depression
began around 1926 the Nazis began to win favour in the
rural areas and the small and medium-sized towns that were
part of the rural economy.
Figure 11.14 An election poster for the Nazi party, headed We

are building. The poster contrasts the Nazi agenda (Our building
blocks: Bread, freedom, work) with those of their rivals who, it is
claimed, offer only promises, lies, smears, unemployment, social
degradation, corruption, terror and a reduction in services.
A chance to promote themselves on the national scale

came in 1929 when the Nazis joined with a conservative
alliance to oppose the Young Plan. The alliance called for a
referendum on the plan, and although this campaign was a
failure, the Nazis made a favourable impression nationwide
with their campaigning. At the Nuremberg rally of that year
the Nazis drew 200 000 supporters.
The fruits of this growing reputation were first seen
in local elections in late 1929, and they maintained this
popularity into the Reichstag elections of 1930.
After the elections there was no possible way in which
a republican coalition could be formed. Similarly, there
was no way in which a right-wing government could take
office without the inclusion of the Nazis. A stalemate had
developed, and therefore Bruning continued as chancellor
and ruled by decree with the use of Article 48.
The Social Democrats now found themselves in a
dilemma. They were unwilling to support Bruning because
of his deflationary policies, but even more unwilling to move
to unseat him because it might open the way for the Nazis.
In addition they feared that their hold on the important state
government of Prussia, which they governed in coalition
Figure 11.15 General Kurt von Schleicher (left) and the new
chancellor, Franz von Papen, early in 1932. They thought they could
control Hitler but within two years Hitler had Schleicher killed and
Papen dismissed to Vienna as German representative, lucky to
escape with his life.
Germany 19181939 | 315
with the Centre Party and which provided their main power base, would be prejudiced if they were
seen to oust the leader of the Centre Party from the chancellorship. For these reasons, the SPD entered
a period of toleration of the Bruning government.
Brunings downfall came in May 1932, not because of electoral unpopularity, but because
Hindenburgs conservative, anti-republican friends believed that Bruning had not moved the
government sufficiently far to the right. An excuse was found for his removal when some land reform
legislation, which threatened the big estates of the Junkers, was labelled as Bolshevism.
General von Schleicher led the intrigue and persuaded Hindenburg to dismiss Bruning. Brunings
replacement was another nomination of the conservative clique, Franz von Papen, although Schleicher
was the main force behind the scenes.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: DID T H E WEALT H Y F IN AN CIERS S UPPO RT HITLER?

Source 11.5
Source 11.8
National Socialism aimed to eviscerate [destroy]

the working-class movement and then to embark on
nationalist and militarist policies which would redound
principally to the benefit of industry. The Nazi leadership
courted industrialists, and they responded by oering
financial support to the party.
Recent research tends to the view that the NSDAP cannot

simply be described as a party of the petty bourgeoisie, but
was developing into a party integrating all the social strata
it certainly had its main support in the lower middle
classes but was able to attract others, particularly manual
workers who did not belong to an urban industrial milieu
but were employed in small or medium-sized businesses.
G. Martel (ed.), Modern Germany Reconsidered

18701945, 1992, p. 127.
Source 11.6
It was still true in 1931, and largely so in 1932 as well, that
the Nazi Party was self-financing. The major industrialists
and bankers continued to show mistrust of a party which
was unable or unwilling to produce an unambiguous
statement of its economic policy and intentions towards
the capitalist enterprises which they directed The sudden
influx of new members, the bigger audiences at party
rallies for which admission was charged, all helped the
party to face the permanent expansion of its activities.
E. Kolb, The Weimar Republic, 1988, p. 106.

1 How do Sources 11.5 and 11.6 differ in
explaining the sources of funding for the Nazis?
2 Refer to Source 11.5. Why did industrialists
support the Nazis?
3 Refer to Source 11.6. Why did industrialists
refuse to support the Nazis?
4 Refer to Source 11.7.
A. Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, 1993, p. 242.
(a) What change of policy brought increased

success to the Nazis?
Source 11.7
(b) When did this change of policy occur,

and why?
Until the late 1920s, the NSDAP addressed itself chiefly

to an urban working-class audience which showed little
interest in its message The Nazi breakthrough to the
centre of the German political stage came only after
1928 [when] rural tax revolts in Schleswig-Holstein
and Oldenburg gave the NSDAP the first signals that
the partys eorts might be better directed at the rural
Mittelstand rather than at the urban area on which the
party had hitherto concentrated. It was these groups which
then deserted the moderate parties of the democratic
middle, notably the Democratic Party, the Peoples Party
flocking after 1929 into the ranks of Nazi voters.
G. Martel (ed.), Modern Germany Reconsidered
18701945, 1992, pp. 1234.
5 How does the information in Source 11.8 modify

or alter the conclusions reached from a reading
of Source 11.7?
6 Why do you think the NSDAP was unable to
attract large numbers of votes from workers in
the large urban industrial areas?
In March 1932 Hindenburgs term as president expired and he stood for re-election. His major
opponents were Hitler and the communist leader Thalmann. In the final ballot, Hindenburg gained
53 per cent of the vote to Hitlers 36.8 per cent. The election served to illustrate the growing popularity
of the Nazi movement, as was further shown in the elections of July 1932 when they scored their
greatest success, gaining 230 seats in the Reichstag and becoming the largest single party. The Nazis
and the communists, both sworn enemies of the republic, now controlled 52 per cent of the Reichstag.
The Weimar Republic was now effectively dead; the only question was how to dispose of the remains.
After the election Hitler told Schleicher that the Nazis could no longer tolerate the Papen
government, and demanded the chancellorship for himself. Throughout the negotiations and intrigues
of 1932 Hitler maintained an all or nothing strategy: either the Nazis would enter government with
him as chancellor, or they would not enter it at all. He repeated this demand in a talk with Hindenburg
on 13 August, but was rebuffed.
Hindenburg disliked Hitler. He looked down on him as a mere ex-corporal and was unforgiving
over Hitlers decision to stand against him for the presidency, and he was critical of the violence on the
streets caused by the SA.
In the increasing uncertainty and intrigue, further elections followed in November 1932 as
Hindenburg looked for a chancellor who could provide a right-wing majority in the Reichstag. The
result was a setback for the Nazis, whose vote fell by two million, giving them a total of 196 seats,
although they still remained the largest party in the Reichstag.
SPARTACIST REVOLT
DEPENDENCE ON ARMY
s%BERTn'ROENER0ACT
POLITICAL MURDERS
BORN IN UNCERTAINTY
3(/24 ,)6%$'/6%2.-%.43
KAPP PUTSCH
TREATY OF VERSAILLES
sHUMILIATINGTERMS
HYPERINFLATION
MID-LIFE CRISIS
().$%."52'2%0,!#%3
EBERT AS PRESIDENT
'2/74().%,%#4/2!,3500/24
FOR EXTREMIST PARTIES
s.AZIS
s#OMMUNISTS
MONARCHIST TRADITIONS
SURVIVE IN ARMY, JUDICIARY,
BUREAUCRACY
DEATH THROES
'2/74(/&02)6!4%!2-)%3
s.AZIS
s#OMMUNISTS
US LOANS WITHDRAWN:
ECONOMY COLLAPSES
MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT
Figure 11.16 The troubled life of the Weimar Republic
Germany 19181939 | 317
It was now Schleichers turn to intrigue on his own behalf. Convincing Hindenburg that a
continuation of Papens chancellorship might lead to civil war, he argued that he would be able to
form a majority by splitting the Nazi Party. On this basis, he became chancellor in December 1932. His
attempts to split the Nazis were aimed at Gregor Strasser, the leader of the left, that is socialist, wing of
the Nazi Party, who Schleicher tried to persuade to come into alliance with him. Hitler found out about
the move, dismissed Strasser, and maintained the unity of the party.
Schleicher, his plans foiled, now asked for authority to rule by emergency decree. This was refused,
and Papen, who had not been idle in his intrigues against his former colleague and successor,
now came forward to persuade Hindenburg of the necessity of accepting a coalition with Hitler
as chancellor, but surrounded by experienced conservatives such as Papen (as vice-chancellor)
and Hugenberg. Papen explained to Hindenburg that within a few months the older, experienced
politicians would be able to push Hitler to one side and provide the right-wing government that the
president and his advisers had been seeking since 1930. A final objection of Hindenburgs was removed
when General von Blomberg agreed to serve as defence minister, thus removing Hindenburgs fear of a
Reichswehr revolt against the new government.
Adolf Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933. He had behind him an active and enthusiastic
party that was united in its acceptance of his leadership, and a paramilitary organisation numbering
hundreds of thousands. He had come to power legally, as he had said he would, yet he had never been
able to secure a majority of votes in the electorate or seats in the Reichstag. He was only successful
because the old elites of land, industry and the army were determined to replace the Weimar
democracy with an authoritarian system. Their intrigues, especially since 1930, had opened the door.
Hitler now stepped boldly through it.
1 What role did President Hindenburg play in the collapse of the Weimar Republic?
2 What important shift in the formation of governments happened in March 1930?
3 Which interest groups became influential in the choosing of governments after 1930?
4 Write a sentence or two about each of the following to explain their significance in
the collapse of democracy in: (a) Bruning, (b) von Schleicher, (c) Hugenberg, and
(d) von Papen.
5 When did the Weimar Republic end? Compose an argument for each of the following
dates: (a) March 1930, (b) July 1932, or (c) January 1933.
Which of the three options do you favour?
THE REICHSWEHRENEMY OF THE REPUBLIC?

Throughout the history of the Weimar Republic the army tried to maintain for itself a separate and
superior place in German society, and frequently involved itself in the political decisions of the day.
ESTABLISHING RELATIONS WITH THE WEIMAR GOVERNMENT

As defeat loomed in 1918 the army made a determined attempt to pass the responsibility for the loss
to a civilian government. Ludendorff wrote: I have asked His Majesty to bring those people into the
government who are largely responsible for things having turned out as they have. By this he meant
the Social Democrat politicians who, in his view, had failed to support the war effort. The fact that a
civilian government had signed the armistice allowed the army to preserve the myth that it had been
undefeated in the field, and later gave substance to the November Criminals slur when scapegoats
were needed at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
General Groeners pact with Ebert further laid down the rules for the armys participation in the new
republic: the officer class would be preserved in return for the suppression of challenges from the left wing.
That the support was politically biased, reflecting the outlook of the army, was seen when von Seeckt, who
had succeeded Groener, refused to turn out his troops to suppress the right-wing Kapp Putsch.
RECAPTURING THE GROUND LOST AT VERSAILLES

General von Seeckts reaction to the Treaty of Versailles was to work in secret to circumvent its terms.
The development of armoured warfare was disguised as transportation, and the regiments of cavalry
were used to conceal motor and horse transport battalions as well as a number of technical units.
With the army limited to 100 000, of whom 4000 were to constitute the officer corps, Seeckt picked
his men with care, choosing recruits of high quality and from among the officers those who were promonarchist, strongly anti-republican, and who disliked parliamentary control.
To train this new army a secret agreement was reached with the Soviet Union whereby Germany
built a number of factories on Soviet territory for the manufacture of aircraft, tanks and gas in exchange
for the Soviets allowing German military personnel to train with these weapons.
For most of the 1920s the army stayed in the background, though the government relied on it
at key moments, as was illustrated in 1923 when, in the crisis generated by hyperinflation and its
aftermath, including the Munich Putsch, the politicians approached von Seeckt to enquire where the
army stood. The Reichswehr, Herr Reichspresident, stands behind me, replied the general. Clearly the
army saw itself as the final arbiter in questions of national unity. From September 1923, for six months,
von Seeckt in effect ran the country under a state of emergency, before handing back to civilian rule.
Sought to blame the

politicians for the defeat
of 1918. The stab in the
back legend
EbertGroener Pact
against Bolshevism,
November 1918
Influence of army officers in

government, for example:
s'ROENERAS-INISTRYOF
Defence 192832
sVON3CHLEICHERn
Hindenburg as president
from 1925: growing
influence of the army
The Kapp Putsch:

Reichswehr does not
fire on Reichswehr
General von Seeckt: military head

n/RGANISEDTHE
circumvention of Versailles
conditions, for example, by
training the army secretly in the
Soviet Union
Had its own separate

agenda to reclaim the
land lost at Versailles
Figure 11.17 The role of the army 191833: the Reichswehra state within a state. Its aims included maintaining its position as part of
the ruling class and rebuilding the military power of Germany.
Germany 19181939 | 319
INTRIGUES IN THE POLITICAL LIFE OF THE STATE

The elevation of army or ex-army officers to civilian office increased the armys influence in Germanys
political life. Supreme among these officers was Hindenburg who, as president, was always conscious
of the needs and aspirations of the Reichswehr. Others occupied important ministries, such as General
Groener, minister for defence from 1928 to 1932, and General von Blomberg, whose willingness to
serve in Hitlers Cabinet was instrumental in gaining Hindenburgs approval for the new government.
Perhaps the major source of the armys influence and intrigue was General von Schleicher, who
manipulated much of the political scene from 1930 to 1932, served briefly as chancellor himself, and
was in a large measure responsible for the creation of conditions that enabled Hitler to come to power.
The onset of the Depression saw the reawakening of the armys ambition to establish an
authoritarian regime through the use of the presidential power to rule by decree. The more Germany
descended into political chaos and extremist violence, the more pivotal the position of the army
became. Already in the autumn of 1930 Groener was telling officers: Not a brick can be moved any
more in the political process in Germany without the word of the army being thrown decisively onto
the scales (Evans 2004, p. 248).
HISTORIANS VIEWS ON THE ROLE OF THE ARMY

During the 1950s and 1960s, historians such as W. Sauer and F. L. Carsten emphasised the state within
a state concept, arguing that the autonomous position of the Reichswehr weakened the democratic
order and contributed to the downfall of the republic. An alternative view, from historians such as
H. T. Gordon and H. Meier-Welcher, claimed that Seeckt was loyal to the state and did much to
consolidate the republican order. The Reichswehr had come to terms with the republic, becoming
republican by conviction if not by sentiment, and would have remained so if the political leaders
had shown some sympathy towards the armed forces and more understanding of Germanys
security needs.
From the mid-1970s, through the writings of historians such as M. Geyer and A. Hilgruber, a new
perspective shifted interest from the Seeckt era to a period from 1926 onwards, when the army wanted
to extend military influence, with the objective of creating a totalitarian military state.
Kolb sums up the impact of the army in the Weimar period as follows: the political aims and ambitions
of the Reichswehr chiefs, and their consequent manoeuvres in 192932, which were in no way forced by
events, were factors of the first rank in the disruption of the Weimar Republic (Kolb 1988, p. 156).
WHY DID THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC COLLAPSE?

No one major cause is acceptable to historians. Consider:
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HITLER AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria, on 20 April 1889. As a young man he left Austria to avoid
national service and made his way to Munich, the capital of the south German state of Bavaria. In 1914
he volunteered for the German army and reached the rank of corporal. He was awarded the Iron Cross,
First Class, as a reward for his courage. In October 1918 he was temporarily blinded by gas and was in
hospital recovering his sight when he heard of the end of the war.
He remained in the army and was employed as an investigator to check on the bewildering range
of right-wing radical groups that had sprung up in Bavaria. In this role he attended a meeting of the
German Workers Party in September 1919. Hitler reported that the party was harmless. However, he
saw it as a vehicle for his own ambitions and joined the party. Soon, his exceptional speaking talents
were drawing larger audiences and in 1920 he had clearly emerged as leader. He renamed the party
the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, or, more commonly, the Nazis) and set out a
twenty-five-point program designed to attract a wide variety of support.
The program called for strong leadership from a central government; the abolition of the Treaty of
Versailles, and the unification of all Germans in a greater Germany; anti-capitalist measures such as land
reform, profit-sharing; the abolition of unearned income, for example, inheritances; the introduction of
welfare provisions such as pensions for the aged; and the creation of a healthy middle class (Mittelstand). It
also incorporated anti-Semitic views, declaring that no Jew could be a member of the German nation.
The Nazi Party, like its program, was a curious mixture, and was to remain so for much of its history.
It enjoyed the support of powerful conservative interests, yet its message was addressed to ordinary
Germans, and its meetings were often rough and violent affairs where, from its inception in 1921,
the Sturm Abteilung (SA, or Brownshirts) would beat up opponents or hecklers. As one historian has
observed, the party seemed to be sponsored by interests different from and more powerful than its
socially inferior membership (Martel, 1992).
Party membership grew, reaching about 55 000 by 1923, but the NSDAP remained a small and not
particularly distinctive element in the multifarious [varied]
and fragmented German volkisch (people) movement
(Martel 1992).
THE MUNICH PUTSCH

The opportunity to lift the profile of the party came in 1923
at the height of hyperinflation. A rift had developed between
the right-wing Bavarian government led by von Kahr, General
von Lossow, and Colonel Seisser, and the Weimar authorities.
A meeting was called for the evening of 8 November to
discuss the situation, at which the Bavarian leaders spoke.
Hitler saw this as the moment to seize power. Backed
by his SA, he burst into the beer hall where the meeting
was being held, leapt onto the platform, fired shots into the
ceiling, and declared that the national revolution had begun.
General Ludendorff strode in and announced his support,
and the three Bavarian leaders were persuaded to agree
to Hitlers actions. In the chaos and disorganisation that
followed, the three Bavarians were allowed to escape and
immediately began organising resistance to the Nazis.
Figure 11.18
Hitler (right) as a soldier, 1916
Germany 19181939 | 321
WAR AND STRUGGLE
Master race
Aryans
RACIAL
THEORIES
Those who
want to live, let
them fight, and those
who do not want to
fight in this world
of eternal
struggle do not
deserve to live.
Coloured
races
Gypsies
Untermenschen
(sub-human)
Jews
The Jew is the international
maggot of nations.
FHRERPRINZIP
(leadership principle)
LEBENSRAUM
Debate and democracy

produced weakness.
Strength lay in loyalty
to the leader.
Living space
was necessary
for the expansion
of the master race: Our aim in
foreign policy to secure for
the German people the land
to which they are entitled
we can have in mind only Russia
and her vassal border states.
METHODS
Propaganda
Force
TREATY OF
VERSAILLES
Education for
indoctrination
and fitness
Figure 11.19 The ideas of Mein Kampf
Realising his plans had gone awry, Hitler decided on a march through the city the next day to
regain the initiative. The march, with Hitler and Ludendorff in the front rank, was opposed by a cordon
of armed police, who opened fire. Ludendorff strode on through the police cordon, Hitler fell to the
cobbles with a dislocated shoulder, and fourteen Nazis were killed. Hitler was arrested two days later
and charged with high treason.
If the Munich Putsch was a failure, the trial was an unquestioned success for Hitler. It lasted for
twenty-four days and was front-page news throughout Germany. Hitler made patriotic speeches from
the dock, declaring there was no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918. He drew
applause in the courtroom and sympathy from the judges. Ludendorff was released, and Hitler received
the minimum sentence of five years imprisonment, of which he served nine months in the comfort
of the Landsberg prison, surrounded by his party faithful and as many newspapers and books as he
wished. He used the opportunity to dictate the text of his book Mein Kampf in which he set out his
views on Germanys future.
THE STRUCTURES AND POLICIES OF THE NAZI PARTY

Hitler learned from the failed Putsch that the way to power lay through the ballot box rather than the
street riot. As he explained: If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results
will be guaranteed by their own constitution (Martel 1992).
The provisions
of the treaty
should be
overturned.
Figure 11.20 Hitlers political statements were superior to his fashion statements! Here he leads
a Nazi march in Weimar in 1926, while stormtroopers clear the way. Rudolf Hess marches in similar
garb to his Fhrer (right) while Heinrich Himmler prefers a suit and hat (behind Hess).
Upon his release from prison in December 1924, Hitler found that the Nazi Party had become
fragmented and its membership had dropped to around seven hundred. The party, and its newspaper,
the Volkischer Beobachter, had been banned in Bavaria, and his first objective was to have this ban
reversed. He managed to convince the Bavarian prime minister that he would work within the Weimar
constitution, and the ban on the Nazi Party and its newspaper was lifted. On 27 February 1925 the party
was officially refounded.
Hitlers next problem was to reunify the party, particularly in view of differences that had developed
between his support base in Bavaria, and in the north of the country, where his leadership of the rightwing movement was not unchallenged. At a special congress in Bamberg in February 1926, Hitlers
authority over the whole movement was reimposed. This was strengthened in July 1926 when he
decreed that only motions approved by the leader could be discussed at conferences and meetings,
and that same month appointed Josef Goebbels, a loyal follower, to be Gauleiter in Berlin.
Although during the period from 1924 to 1929 the Nazis had little electoral success, it was a time
when the party developed its structures and rituals. Between 1924 and 1928, Nazi organisations were
created to appeal to special interest groups: for example, in 1926 the Nazi Students league, Physicians
League, Teachers League and Womens League were all created. Germany was divided into a series of
Gau, or districts, each supervised by an appointed Gauleiter.
The brown shirts, originally designed for German troops in East Africa and acquired from warsurplus stock, became party uniform in 1924. The swastika (crooked cross), derived from ancient
mythology, became the party emblem, and in 1926 the stiff-armed Heil Hitler salute, used sporadically
since 1923, became established as party ritual. In 1925 the SS (Schutzstaffeln) was set up, originally as
Hitlers bodyguard. By 1926 the party membership had risen to 49 000.
Germany 19181939 | 323
1 What was the role of the SA in the Nazi organisation?
2 Which items of the Nazi program could be classed as nationalist and which
as socialist?
3 Why do you think General Ludendorff was willing to be associated with the young
Nazi Party?
4 The maximum penalty for treason was death, yet the judges only sentenced Hitler
to five years imprisonment. What does this suggest about the attitude of the judges
in this case?
5 In retrospect, do you think the Munich Putsch was a success or a setback for the
Nazi cause?
6 What use did the Nazi Party make of its years of obscurity between 1924 and 1929?
SUPPORT FOR THE NAZIS: SOME HISTORICAL ISSUES

Why did the Nazis gain popularity? According to Martin Broszat, the goal of a national community
(Volksgemeinschaft) was the most effective element of National Socialist propaganda, and the party
became highly popular with the younger generation as it seemed the party of vitality, in contrast to the
tired older parties of the republic. J. Kocka attributes the Nazis popularity to their Janus-like character.
(Janus was the Roman god of doorways, represented as two-faced, looking forward and back.) He
meant that National Socialists could be both radical and anti-capitalist, yet also anti-socialist and
nationalistic, thus attracting all types of people to the party.
Were the Nazis a middle-class party? For many years, historians such as S. M. Lipset supported the view
that National Socialism was essentially a lower-middle-class phenomenon, arguing that the upper and
upper-middle classes were largely immune to National Socialism, as was the working class, except that
the Nazis had some success with the unemployed. Kolb points out that more recent analysis of the
political origin and social background of NSDAP voters means that this conclusion must be seriously
qualified in the following ways:
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J. W. Falter sums up the situation thus:
6OEPVCUFEMZUIFNJEEMFDMBTTFMFNFOUQSFEPNJOBUFEBNPOHUIPTFXIPWPUFEGPSUIF/4%"1
GSPNPOXBSET#VU XJUIJUTFYUSFNFOBUJPOBMJTNBOEJUTJEFPMPHZPGUIFASBDJBMDPNNVOJUZ
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ZFBST RVPUFEJO,PMC Q
6 008 900
3 693 300
3 914 400
Majority Socialists
Independent
Socialists
Communist Party
Centre
597 600
2.0
14
Figure 11.21 Voting figures for the Reichstag elections, 192432
Adapted from K. S. Pinson, Modern Germany, Macmillan, 1966, pp. 6034.
4.0
3.0
1 445 300
1 165 900
907 300
Other parties
32
810 100
6.5
1 918 300
0.8
National Socialists
262 700
481 300
Deutsche
Bauernpartei
1.0
199 500
195 600
319 800
4 381 600
1 397 100
2 679 700
1 505 700
945 600
3 712 200
Deutsch-Hannov.
Partei
1.6
103
9 153 000
3 264 800
581 800
499 400
20.5
17
51
32
19
69
45
131
30 753 300
41 221 700
Christlich-natl.
Bauern u.
Landvolk
10
6 205 800
3.3
10.1
6.3
3.7
13.6
9.0
26.0
77.69
493
Total
votes
4.8
2.6
1.5
0.5
1.8
0.6
14.2
4.5
8.7
4.9
3.0
12.1
10.6
29.8
74.60
12
10
73
23
45
25
16
62
54
153
491
2 458 300
1 362 400
1 578 200
1 322 400
1 059 100
4 127 900
4 592 100
8 577 700
34 970 900
42 957 700
Total
votes
1 073 500
6 409 600
339 600
144 300
1 108 700
194 000
1.9
95
1 005 400
3 049 100
1 919 800
1 134 000
4 118 900
2 709 100
7 881 000
30 290 100
38 987 300
No.
deputies
3.1
18.3
1.0
0.4
3.0
0.5
2.5
7.0
3.9
4.5
3.8
3.0
11.8
13.1
24.5
81.41
107
19
14
41
23
30
20
19
68
77
143
577
No.
deputies
14 September 1930
868 200
574 900
19.5
10
45
28
16
65
62
100
472
Total
votes
No.
deputies
20 May 1928
Landbund
5 696 500
2.4
9.2
5.7
3.2
13.4
12.6
20.5
76.30
No.
deputies
7 December 1924
Christlich-soz.
Volksdienst
Nationalists
693 600
2 694 400
Peoples Party
Wirtschaftspartei
1 655 100
Democrats
946 700
29 281 800
No. valid votes cast
Bavarian Peoples
Party
38 375 000
Total
votes
4 May 1924
No. eligible voters
Party
342 500
13 745 800
137 100
46 900
90 600
96 900
405 300
2 177 400
146 900
436 000
371 800
1 192 700
4 589 300
5 282 600
7 959 700
36 882 400
44 226 800
Total
votes
0.9
37.4
0.3
0.1
0.2
0.2
1.1
5.9
0.4
1.2
1.0
3.2
12.5
14.6
21.6
83.39
31 July 1932
230
37
22
75
89
133
608
No.
deputies
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: W H O SU P P ORT E D THE N AZIS ?
Germany 19181939 | 325

1 By referring to events in Germany that you have read about in this chapter, can you explain why the vote
for the Nazis fluctuates over the period shown in the table?
2 Examine the 1932 election results and compare them with those for 1930.
(a) Which parties have made gains and which have made losses?
(b) What can you say about the attitude of each of these parties towards the republic?
(c) Can you suggest where the extra Nazi votes may have come from? (Clue: remember to look at the
total of votes cast.)
HITLERS ACCESSION TO POWER AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF

NAZI RULE 193334
Though the Nazis were heavily outnumbered in the new Cabinet of January 1933, Hitler insisted on
controlling key domestic posts: Wilhelm Frick became Reich minister of the interior and Hermann
Goering became minister of the interior of Prussia, Germanys largest state. From these positions the
Nazis were ideally placed to control the local police and begin what the German scholar Karl Dietrich
Bracher has described as a legal revolution.
From the day Hitler became chancellor the fate of the republic was sealed. With the resources of the
state at their disposal, the Nazis presided over a number of impressive parades and celebrations. Hitlers
chancellorship was greeted by many as a turning point in their nations history. There was, according
to eyewitnesses like Times correspondent Douglas Reed, a sense of expectation and hope. Hitler was
the outsider, the non-politician, come to clear away the debris of a failed and broken political system.
Von Papen and the other coalition partners were instantly relegated to the background; they were
yesterdays men, part of the republican mistake.
Few army officers had supported the Nazis in the early 1930s. They regarded them as vulgar street
fighters who wanted to radicalise society. On gaining office, Hitler began an intensive campaign to
win them over. On 2 February 1933, he met with the leading generals and admirals and stressed two
points: a promise to restore German military strength by rearmament, and an assurance that the army
would not be called upon to intervene in a civil war. Many of the new laws, which were anti-Semitic
or aimed at restricting civil liberties, found support among the army leaders. A symbol of the growing
link between the Nazis and the army came in February 1934 when Blomberg ordered that the Nazi
Party emblem of the swastika carried by an eagle was to be worn on the uniforms of all members
of the armed forces. Between 1933 and 1936, Hitler was careful to respect the opinions of the army.
Therefore, it could not be argued that Hitler had established total political control until his foreign
policy successes and domestic programs had cemented his position firmly enough to make him safe
from the Reichswehr. He was aware that the career of more than one political leader had been cut short
by the sentence: The chancellor no longer enjoys the confidence of the army.
Although Brachers idea of a legal revolution might imply that Hitler didnt break the law in establishing
his power, a closer examination of the weeks after his swearing in reveals a tendency to at least stretch
constitutional law and conventions. For instance, the decree of 6 February 1933 giving Goering nearly full
control of Prussia, the largest German state, was a clear breach of the findings of the Prussian State Court
when it dealt with a similar constitutional question in 1932. In addition, the strict limitations on the freedom
Heil Hitler was

styled the German
greeting and made
compulsory for all public
employees in July.
Dachau, the first concentration

camp, set up near Munich
in March
STRENGTHENING
THE NAZI GRIP,
1933
Burning, in May, of un-German books written

by left-wing, pacifist or Jewish authors
Figure 11.22
Establishment
of the Gestapo,
the Secret State
police in April
November
Strengthening the Nazi grip
of the press, freedom of assembly and other civil rights

definitely defied constitutional convention and the SA carried
on its campaigns of street violence, brawls and assassinations.
They continually broke the law.
If, therefore, both laws and constitutional conventions
were broken by Hitler and the Nazi organisation, why did
Bracher call it a legal revolution? The point that Bracher
wanted to make was that the creation of an authoritarian
system had to appear legal. Politically conservative Germans
had repeatedly shown themselves to be hostile to violent
political revolution. Hitler learnt this lesson from the failure
of the Munich Putsch in 1923. From that moment on he
decided that the Nazi revolution could only come from
above, using and abusing the political powers of the state.
Hitler was clearly not content to be a captive of his
conservative coalition partners. Within a day
of becoming chancellor he called a new Reichstag election.
His goal was to win an absolute and crushing majority.
The basis of the Nazi campaign was set when Hitler

made his Appeal to the German People on 31 January 1933,
continuing his well-worn theme of blaming the November
parties of 1918 and the communists for all of Germanys ills.
He also issued a call for national unity of mind and will. The
reference to unity was a typical aspect of Hitlers speechmaking and propaganda, but it also went further. For many
Germans the Weimar Republic and the whole democratic
notion had brought nothing but division and indecision.
Hitler offered unity and strong authoritarian leadership:
direction, discipline and unity appealed to traditional
German values. The Nazis frequently used the idea of unity
to justify eliminating democratic processes and institutions.
Hitlers concept of unity would ultimately be reflected in the
creation of a one-party state.
During the election campaign on 27 February the
Reichstag building was set on fire. A Dutch communist,
Marinus van der Lubbe, was arrested at the scene and
Germany 19181939 | 327
charged with the crime. Van der Lubbe was an unemployed loner and, having dabbled in anarchist circles,
had made previous unsuccessful arson attempts in his desire to protest against the plight of the labour
movement in the Depression. He freely confessed to starting the fire. Various attempts have been made
over the years to suggest that van der Lubbe was merely a dupe in a Nazi plot to burn the Reichstag
and blame the communists, but prevailing historical opinion is that he acted alone. Whatever the truth,
the burning of the Reichstag was a propaganda gift for Hitler. He requested and got special emergency
powers from the president to resist the supposed communist threat. Civil rights were set aside and arrests
made as the Nazis used the episode as an excuse to attack their political enemies. The Decree for the
Protection of People and State of 28 February was also used to help extend central power over the states.
Surprisingly, despite the propaganda, the terror and the full weight of the chancellors office behind
the Nazis, they failed to win more than 43.9 per cent of the vote in the election. Ignoring this temporary
setback, Hitler pressed on with his bid to destroy democracy. His instruments were threats and political
pressure, which resulted in the new Reichstag, which met in the Kroll opera house, voting for the
Enabling Act on 23 March 1933. The act was passed by 444 votes to 94; only the Social Democrats
opposed it. Hitler had taken political power away from the parliament and ended democracy. The
Enabling Act not only made Hitler an apparently legal dictator, it also led to Gleichschaltung, the
coordination of Germanys political structure. The federal system, with separate state governments,
was unified under central government control. Not long afterwards, on 2 May 1933, trade unions were
abolished and replaced by the German Labour Front. By 14 July a decree made the Nazi Party the only
legal political party in Germany.
In October 1933 Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, showing his disregard for
a body created by the despised Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis prestige was enhanced with the results
of a referendum on Hitlers administration, and Reichstag elections held simultaneously in November.
The referendum produced a 90 per cent approval, and there was a 87.8 per cent vote for the Nazi Party
in the elections. It is true that no opposition parties were allowed, but the overall mark of approval for
Hitler by the end of 1933 was genuine.
1 What was the general publics reaction to Hitlers accession to power?
2 What do you understand by Brachers reference to a legal revolution?
3 How was the Reichstag fire used by Hitler to his advantage?
4 Which institutions of the state had been brought under Nazi control by mid-1933?
What significant institution remained outside Nazi control?
THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES

It had long been Hindenburgs hope that upon his death the monarchy would be restored in Germany.
This, however, was not Hitlers wish. As long as there was a presidential position, Hitlers leadership
as chancellor was not absolute. In 1934 Hindenburg was eighty-seven years old and ailing. Upon his
death, which could not be far away, Hitler intended to combine the two positions and thus achieve
absolute power. To do this, however, he needed the support of the army, and to get the support of the
army, he needed to address the problem of the SA.
The brown-shirted SA had provided the muscle and physical intimidation in Nazi election
campaigns. Throughout the 1920s they had been involved in brutal street brawls with the communists.
The SA was drawn from the old soldiers of the lower classes.
By 1934 there were close to two million of them. Many
were the worst kind of hooligan and thug, attracted by
the uniform, comradeship, racial hatred and violence. The
SA celebrated Hitlers chancellorship with murders and
beatings: they had a free hand to settle old scores.
Ernst Rhm, as leader of the SA, had a power base from
which he could, in theory, be a threat to Hitlers position
within the Nazi Party. Not only that, Rhm and the SA were
part of a more radical element within the Nazi movement.
They endorsed the socialist elements of national socialism
and called, in 1933 and 1934, for the Second Revolution to
attack big business and the propertied classes. Rhm also
called for the reconstitution of the German army with the
SA as its corea prospect that appalled the upper-class
generals of the Reichswehr.
Hitler was not yet in a position where he could ignore
the wishes of the army high command, who made it clear
that they wanted the threat from the SA removed. In April
1934 Hitler met with the army commanders on board
the cruiser Deutschland during military manoeuvres and
arranged a deal. The army would support Hitlers succession
to the presidency in return for the suppression of Rhms
plans and the acceptance of the armys position as the sole
armed force in the state.
Figure 11.23 Ernst Rhm, SA leader, and Adolf Hitler review an SA

display in June 1933
Until 1933 Rhm and the SA had been useful allies for
Hitler, but they had become a liability. As well as alienating
the army and big business, who did not like the SAs socialist ideas, the SA were seen by
many respectable middle- and upper-class Germans as thugs and criminals. They had
become an obstacle to winning the confidence of these groups.
On 30 June 1934 Hitler used Heinrich Himmlers SS to murder Rhm and other leaders
of the SA. The killing extended to other enemies of the Nazi Party: communists, Jews,
outspoken politicians and trade unionistseven Kurt von Schleicher, the former chancellor.
Hitler later admitted to about seventy deaths, but the number is probably nearer 400.
THE AFTERMATH
Hitler defended his actions in the Reichstag on 13 July, giving prominence to the charges
of corruption, favouritism and homosexuality that had been levelled at Rhms group, and
the threat of a second revolution they posed. A notable aspect of the public reaction to
the murders was their approval. To many it appeared to be symptomatic of Hitlers strong,
decisive leadership.
The SA continued under Viktor Lutze, but was never again to play a prominent part in
the Third Reich. The SS, however, having carried out the bloody murders, were now given
independence from the SA under their leader Heinrich Himmler.
DID YOU KNOW?

Dr Willi Schmidt, the music
critic of a Munich newspaper,
was dragged away from
his family and shot on the
Night of the Long Knives.
The SS actually had been
looking for another man of
the same name. His wife
was sent a sum of money in
recognition of the mistake,
but was warned not to open
the coffin!
Germany 19181939 | 329
Upon Hindenburgs death on 2 August, Hitler combined the leadership positions, to be known in
the future as Fhrer of the Reich. That same day, at ceremonies throughout Germany, the army took an
oath of allegiance to Hitler personally. On 19 August, 90 per cent of the German people approved these
actions in a plebiscite.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: H IT LER S ST EP S T O D IC TATO RS HIP
Night of the Long

Knives: purge of
the SA, June 1934.
Enabling Act March

1933 gives Hitler
more power.
Hitler becomes
chancellor and
president, August
1934; army
swears Loyalty
Oath to Hitler.
Rival political
parties banned,
July 1933.
Hitler becomes
chancellor of
Germany,
January 1933.
Figure 11.24
Steps to the creation of Hitlers dictatorship
Refer to Figure 11.24 and the chapter to answer the following questions.
1 When did Hitler become chancellor?
2 When was the Enabling Act passed and what did it do for Hitler?
3 When were rival political parties banned?
4 Who was the leader of the SA? In your opinion, how did the army feel about the
destruction of the SA?
5 When did Hitler become chancellor and president? How had his relationship with the
army changed?
Hitler Supreme
Dictator of
Germany,
controlling:
s Nazi Party
s government
s police
s armed forces
s media
s church
s law
s education
s finance
s labour
s industry
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E NIGH T OF THE LO NG KNIV ES

Source 11.9
Source 11.12
Hitler praises the SA at a meeting of German industrialists,

January 1932:
Rhm, in conversation in 1933:
I know quite well, gentlemen, that when the National

Socialists march through the streets, and suddenly in the
evening there arise tumult and commotion, then the middle
class draws back its curtain, looks out and saysWhy
must the Nazis always be so provocative and run about
the streets at night? If everyone thought that way, if these
young people had no ideal to move them and drive them
forward, then certainly they would be gladly rid of these
nocturnal fights. But remember that it means real sacrifices
when many hundred thousands of SA and SS men
every day have to mount their lorries, protect meetings,
undertake marches, sacrifice themselves night after night
to come back in the grey dawn to workshop or factory, or as
unemployed to take the pittance of the dole.
Hitler cited in N. H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler,
Oxford University Press, 1942.
Source 11.10
From a letter by Rhm to Hitler:
I regard the Reichswehr now only as a training school for
the German people. The conduct of war, and therefore of
mobilisation as well, in future is the task of the SA.
Rhm cited in R. ONeill, The German Army and the Nazi
Party, Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1966.
Source 11.11
Rhm, on Hitler:
Adolf is a swine. He will give us all away. He only associates
with reactionaries now. His old friends arent good enough
for him. Getting matey with the Prussian generals Adolf
knows exactly what I want. Ive told him often enough.
NOT a second edition of the old imperial army. Are we
revolutionaries or arent we? Im the nucleus of the new
army, dont you see The basis must be revolutionary.
Rhm cited in H. Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, Thornton
Butterworth, 1939.
Where would he be without me? Hitler had better look

outthe German revolution is only beginning if he thinks
he can squeeze me for his own ends for ever, and some
fine day throw me on the ash-heap, hes wrong. The SA
can also be an instrument for checking Hitler The SA and
SS, who bear the great responsibility for having set the
German revolution rolling, will not allow it to fall asleep or
be betrayed at the half-way mark.
Rhm cited in K. Ludecke, I Knew Hitler, Hutchinson,
1938.
Source 11.13
From Hitlers speech to the Reichstag:
After the month of May, there could be no further doubt
that Rhm, was busied with ambitious schemes which, if
realised, could only lead to the most violent disturbances.
If during these months I hesitated again and again it was
because I could not lightly persuade myself that a relation
I had thought founded on loyalty could only be a lie, and
because I still cherished the hope that it might be possible
to remove the mischief without severe conflicts General
Schleicher was the man who gave open expression to the
secret wish of Rhm. He it was who defined the latters
views 1. The present regime cannot be supported.
2. Above all, the army and all national associations must
be united in a single band. 3. The only man who could be
considered for such a post was Rhm.
Hitler cited in N. H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler,
Oxford University Press, 1942.

1 What do we learn about the activities of the
members of the SA in Source 11.9?
2 What do Sources 11.10 to 11.12 indicate about
Rhms ambitions for himself and for the SA?
3 What sentence in Source 11.12 sounds
particularly threatening to Hitler?
4 Summarise Hitlers justification for his actions in
Source 11.13.
Germany 19181939 | 331
NAZISM IN POWER
HITLERS ROLE IN THE NAZI STATE
Fhrerprinzip, the principle which Hitler made the basis of the party, placed all authority in the hands of
the leader. Hitlers authority, derived from his exceptional, charismatic gifts as a person, was recognised
and accepted by all members of the party. Nazi propaganda deliberately built up his image, creating
the Hitler myth. According to this myth, Hitler represented the national will and worked tirelessly for
his people, was above party politics or selfish motives, had brought prosperity and work to his people,
and was a statesman, a defender of Germanys rights and a rebuilder of national pride.
It was therefore possible and was often the case for the general public to separate their devotion
to Hitler from their anxieties or complaints about the Nazi Party. If only Hitler knew about this or that
injustice committed by subordinate party officials, so the argument ran, he would put it right.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: AN EX P RESSI ON O F THE FHRER MYTH

Source 11.14
An extract from a typical letter sent to Hitler in 1936:
My Fhrer! I feel compelled by unceasing love to thank our creator daily for
giving us and the entire German people such a wonderful Fhrer, and in a time
where our beautiful dear Fatherland was threatened with the most horrible
destruction through Jewish bolshevism. It does not bear thinking about what
blood would have flowed, if you, my beloved Fhrer, in all your anguish for such
a great people had not found the courage to win through as the saviour of 66
million Germans It is a pleasure for me to pray for you, my Fhrer, that the Lord
God who has created you as a tool for Germanity should keep you healthy, that
the love of the people towards you should grow, firm and hard like the many oak
trees which have been planted in love and honour to you even in the smallest
community in Germany Your unto death loyally devoted front-line comrade.
Cited in I. Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, 1991, p. 81.

1 Refer to Source 11.14. What
benefits has Hitler brought to
his people?
2 What characteristics of
personality are attributed to
Hitler in the letter?
3 What gesture or ritual have
Hitlers supporters made to
show their love of the Fhrer?
4 What suggests that the
admiration for Hitler was
widespread?
What was the effect of all this adulation on Hitler? Kershaw suggests that from 1933 to 1935 Hitler
saw it as an essential device for uniting the people, and that despite the forceful egocentric intolerance
toward any form of criticism or opposing opinion, which was a consistent feature of Hitlers character,
he appears at least in the first years of power to have retained some distance from the personality cult
built up around him (Kershaw 1991, p. 81). Kershaw identifies a change in Hitler after the successful
reoccupation of the Rhineland in March 1936, after which he began to speak in more messianic tones:
That you have found me among so many millions is the miracle of our time! And that I have found
you, that is Germanys fortune!
DID HITLER RULE A TOTALITARIAN STATE?

Definitions of the word totalitarian will often include the following characteristics. Firstly, the state is
led by a dominating, often ruthless, individual presiding over a single political party or group, with no
opposition groups allowed. Although subordinates may have particular powers and responsibilities,
totalitarian leaders retain overall control of policy. Like spiders at the centre of their web, totalitarian
leaders know all and decide all. People are constantly subjected to propaganda that praises the leader,
and are kept submissive by a system of terror that includes the use of secret police and arbitrary
imprisonment. Given Hitlers supreme authority over the party and the country, would it be fair to
describe Nazi Germany as a totalitarian state? Historians have argued the point.
The German historian Hans Mommsen has suggested that Hitler was not a strong, decisive leader.
Mommsen claims that Hitlers role was as a figurehead and a unifying force for the party and the nation,
but that as a leader he was easily swayed, moody, erratic and not in direct control of the affairs of state.
Mommsen emphasises the power of those within the Nazi Party around Hitler.
A completely contrasting view is presented by the American historian Norman Rich. He sees
Hitler as the vital, powerful, central ingredient to the Nazi system of government. Rich accepts that
individuals around Hitler, such as Himmler, Goering and Goebbels, did have significant power; however,
he interprets this as a deliberate policy. No one person could administer every aspect of government.
Therefore Hitler, as Master of the Third Reich, delegated authority. Rich describes this as part of Hitlers
plan: giving power to those below him but encouraging them to compete among themselves for
power and influence, while at the same time keeping the power to interfere, change policy and make
the final decision for himself. Hitler rarely consulted the Cabinet before taking a decision, which was an
indication of his desire to keep power in his own hands. In 1936 only four Cabinet meetings were held.
The last one was held on 5 February 1938.
Figure 11.25 Martin Bormann, (190045). Nobody liked him and

everybody was afraid of him. He became Hitlers right-hand man
and controlled access to the Fhrer. He committed suicide or was
killed in 1945.
Figure 11.26 Josef Goebbels (18981945). A master of

propaganda, he was probably the most loyal of all Nazi leaders to
Hitler. He killed his wife and children and committed suicide in 1945.
Figure 11.27 Heinrich Himmler (190045). An ex-chicken farmer

who became head of the SS in 1929 and chief of police and security
forces in 1936. He committed suicide after capture in 1945.
Figure 11.28 Hermann Goering (18931946). An ex-fighter pilot

from the First World War, he held many posts but fell from favour
after 1940. He was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials but
committed suicide in his prison cell.
Germany 19181939 | 333
There is evidence to support both these views, and

this reflects the real historical complexity of Nazism. Two
of the most distinguished German scholars writing about
Nazism, K.D. Bracher and Martin Broszat, both agree that
Germanys government under Hitler was chaotic. Frequently
the responsibilities of different departments overlapped and
clashed. Martin Broszat, in his book The Hitler State, refers to
a multi-level power structure: rather than being autocratic,
having one person rule, the structure was polycratic, having
many different rulers. Goering had control of the air force
and the Four-Year Plan, Himmler had the SS and Gestapo,
Goebbels had propaganda, Ley had labour, Bormann had the
party and administration, and others, at different times, had
complete power over one or other aspect of government.
The totalitarian form of government is shown in
Figure 11.29. All power centred on Hitler at the top of the
pyramid, while functions of the Nazi Party and government
administration became joined. Hitler often spoke of the
unity of Party and State. Control then flowed on to other
parts of society. The polycratic model in Figure 11.30
shows Hitler still at the top, but actual day-to-day power
and administrative control rested at the level below him.
Himmler, Goering, Goebbels and others stood at the top
of their own smaller autocratic pyramids. Competition
and rivalry existed on this level as the functions of each
overlapped, causing friction, rivalry, and often confusion.
The polycratic structure appears to more accurately reflect
the true nature of the Nazi government. The historian
A. Bullock offers the following conclusion:
Hitler
Nazi Party government
armed forces
media
industry
police
SS, Gestapo
law and the courts
education
labour
finance
Figure 11.29 The totalitarian pyramid: all power centres on Hitler.
Hitler
Himmler
Goering
Goebbels
Ley
Bormann
Figure 11.30 A diagram of the polycratic structure of the Nazi

government
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Given the polycratic nature of Hitlers Germany, the question arises as to whether this was part of
a deliberate divide and rule policy of Hitler. K.D. Bracher suggests that it was, that Hitler encouraged
those below him to be rivals to make sure they did not join together to plot against him, and to
ensure that no one person got too much power. Ian Kershaw and Martin Broszat do not see in Hitlers
approach any evidence of a divide and rule plan.
RE VI E W TA SK
Was Hitler a weak dictator or Master of the Third Reich? Review the arguments
below for and against Mommsens view that Hitler was a weak dictator.
Based on the arguments outlined in the following table, your own reading and class
discussion, write a summary (about one page) of your opinion.
church
WAS HITLER A WEAK DICTATOR?

Yes
No
The Nazi system of government was polycratic. The people just below
Hitler had the real power; he was just a figurehead.
The structure of government might have been polycratic, but Hitler

was still the most important person in Germany.
Hitlers work habits were lazy and erratic. He didnt follow up on

his decisions.
Hitler could be lazy, but he made all the final decisions on matters that
he thought were important, such as foreign policy.
Hitler was not decisive. He often delayed or avoided making decisions.

This gave more power to others who were prepared to be decisive.
Hitler created the Nazi Party idea of the leadership principle. This made
him the key figure in the party.
Hitler often became preoccupied with pet projects: for example, his
building plans and architectural ideas with Albert Speer. As a result he
didnt always know what was going on in government.
Hitler encouraged the polycratic structure. It was part of a deliberate

plan of divide and rule.
Hitler was part of a power sharing arrangement within his own party,
the government, the army, the old ruling class and big business.
Hitler made alliances and gave power to others, but he was the
dominant figure in all alliances and could take power away from
anyone when, where and as he chose.
PROPAGANDA AND CULTURE

In Hitlers Germany all forms of entertainment and culture had to conform to Nazi ideology
and be approved by the authorities. A Reich chamber of culture was set up in 1933,
supervised by Goebbels propaganda ministry. Goebbels was a master of propaganda and
used all means at his disposal to perpetuate the Hitler myth and propagate Nazi values.
The radio became the principal means of reaching ordinary Germans. An inexpensive
peoples radio (Volksempfanger) was produced and, by 1939, 70 per cent of German
households had one, the highest percentage of any country in the world.
DID YOU KNOW?

Hitler as art critic: Anyone
who sees and paints a sky
green and pastures blue
ought to be sterilised!
Goebbels had firm ideas about the use of the cinema as propaganda. He favoured escapist
entertainment in which the films had an interesting story, with the Nazi message being subtly
conveyed through the lives of the main characters. Historical dramas based on famous periods of
German history were favoured. Even anti-Semitism could be portrayed in the context of an exciting
story. A famous piece of anti-Semitic propaganda film, which likens Jews to rats teeming through
underground passages, was produced on Hitlers orders but against Goebbels wishes. He recognised,
quite correctly, that audiences would be revolted by such explicit images.
Figure 11.31
Hitler is visibly shocked at an exhibition of decadent art.
Germany 19181939 | 335
The staging of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 provided a cultural spectacle and a
propaganda opportunity not to be missed. Leni Riefenstahl filmed the event and this, along with
Triumph of the Will, her film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg, established her reputation as a
film-maker of high renown.
In painting and sculpture, realism was favoured. Works had to be true to life and abstraction was
regarded as decadence. Architecture had to be along classical lines and size was valued. Hitler spent
many hours with his architect, Albert Speer, poring over plans for the rebuilding of Berlin. Hitler told
Speer that the purpose of his buildings was to transmit Hitlers spirit to posterity.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: N AZI P ROPAG ANDA AN D C ULTURE
Figure 11.32
Publicity material for Leni Riefenstahls Olympic documentary

1 How do the pictures of the
Olympic Games in Figure 11.32
conform to Nazi cultural values?
2 Why is the photograph of the
English soccer team in Figure
11.33 such a valuable piece of
propaganda?
Figure 11.33 The English soccer team joins in the Hitler salute
in Berlin in 1938. They won 63 but were very embarrassed in later years.
THE ROLE OF TERROR AND REPRESSION

The enormous personal popularity of Hitler and the obvious support for measures that appeared to
reduce unemployment and promote national pride cannot mask the fact that, from early in 1933, the
Nazis established a system of terror and repression to root out opponents, to maintain a vigilant eye on
the population and to discourage dissent. In April 1933, Goering established a new secret police force
the Gestapothat later came under the control of Himmler. A system of special courts and concentration
camps sprang up throughout Germany to quickly deal with enemies of the state. Between 1933 and
1939, approximately 225 000 Germans were imprisoned for political crimes. Denunciation by colleagues,
neighbours or even family members became a fact of life that made all Germans wary of voicing criticism
of the authorities. Conformity was expectedin attitude and speech, in manner of formal greeting and in
actions such as putting out Nazi flags to celebrate national occasions.
THE SA
The SA had begun as a street-fighting organisation but its growing powers had been largely curbed
by the Night of the Long Knives. The survivors of the Rhm Putsch became little more than an old
comrades association (Hhne 2000) under Viktor Lutze, though their violent tendencies could be
called upon when necessary, as when they led the destruction that accompanied the persecution of
Jews on Kristallnacht in November 1938.
THE SS
The Rhm Putsch saw the confirmation of the SS as the principal uniformed organisation of the Nazi
Party. On 30 June 1934, they took over the running of the concentration camps. Under Himmler, the
power of the SS spread throughout society:
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D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T ERROR OR COMPLI AN C E?

Source 11.15
The image of the Gestapo as an omnipresent terror organisation:
impressed the left because the absence of mass resistance, their own growing
social isolation, and the decimation of their ranksall this forced them to accept
an explanation, which would not shake the basic foundations of their own
worldview. The image of the Gestapo fabricated by the regime was just what was
needed the communist press in exile drastically underestimated the extent of
proletarian collaboration with the regime the fact that there were large numbers
of voluntary informers was ignored or dismissed as the act of traitors who had
been bribed. The left was not pretending to be blind; it was.
It was rarely the case that local [Gestapo] oces were able to ferret out their own
suspects; instead they acted primarily as collection points for outside sources
of information upon which the Gestapo then decided whether or not to act Its
ocials were desk-bound perpetrators, not well-versed criminologists working in
the streets. They administered terror, but the initiative came primarily from below
denunciations were the key link in the interactions between the police and the
population they were among the most important factors which kept the system
of terror going if it [the Gestapo] was an instrument [of terror] it was one which
was constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally
dependent on the continuing cooperation of German citizens.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST ION S

1 How does the image of the
Gestapo given in this source
conflict with the popular image
of the Gestapo?
2 According to the source,
why was this popular image
maintained by left-wing groups?
3 What factor enabled the
Gestapo to do its work most
effectively?
4 If this source is correct, how
does it affect our view of the
German public under the Nazi
regime?
K-M. Mallman & G. Paul Gestapo, Society and Resistance in D. Crew (ed.),
Nazism and German Society 19331945, Routledge, 1994, pp. 1678, 1878.
Germany 19181939 | 337
As their power grew, so did their mysterious and sinister reputation. Himmler deliberately cultivated
the SS as a secret society, its workings obscured from the view of the public and even other leading
Nazis. Hhne (2000) rejects the view that the SS formed a state within a state, citing examples to show
that, like much of the Nazi regime, it was beset with personal rivalries and contradictions of policy. Yet
it remains true that, within Germany, the SS was feared. As Himmler approvingly said, I know there are
many in Germany who feel uncomfortable when they see this black tunic; we understand that and do
not expect to be beloved by overmany people (Hhne 2000, p. 1).
OPPOSITION TO NAZISM
Between 1933 and 1939, after the rapid disappearance of multi-party democracy, opposition to Nazism
was restricted to small groups or individuals. The popularity of Hitler, the propaganda calling everyone
to work together for the peoples community and the fear of retribution tended to ensure submission
of the general population to the authorities. Opposition was largely a matter of civil resistance, because
it was recognised that armed resistance would easily be crushed. Those areas of society in which some
opposition could be found included:
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE IN THE NAZI STATE

The Nazis aimed to create a new peoples community, or Volksgemeinschaft, based on what they saw
as the traditional values of the German people. To the Nazis, these values were found in the farms and
small towns of rural Germany, whereas the growing cities represented the decadence and corruption
of the modern industrial society.
Volksgemeinschaft implied a classless society, which would be at the heart of the peoples
community. Hitler aimed to create a national solidarity behind the regime, as in the slogan Ein Volk, ein
Reich, ein Fhrer, (one people, one country, one leader).
A social revolution was implied in propaganda and various images adopted to mould public
opinion to end the class divisions and conflicts of previous years and to achieve a change in attitudes.
Many Germans and foreign observers were impressed by what appeared to be a transformation
in peoples attitudes. As part of a drive to achieve social conformity, everyone was expected to attend
parades and speeches, which became a feature of new public rituals celebrating events in the Nazi
calendar. A number of welfare measures were introduced to

give people the opportunity to show the Volksgemeinschaft
at work: for example, the Winterhilfe (winter-help) scheme, in
which collections to help the unemployed were organised.
Even after full employment had been achieved by 1936
the system continued as a massive ritual aimed at raising
popular feeling and encouraging self-sacrifice.
Once in power, the Nazis made great efforts to win over
industrial workers into the new German state, encouraging
them to see themselves as part of an industrial community
of workers and employers acting together, motivated by a
common spirit.
The first priority was to provide work. The law to reduce
unemployment was passed on 1 June 1933 and led to the
creation of public works projects such as the building of
autobahns. In September 1935 all young men between
eighteen and twenty-five were required to perform six
months Arbeitdienst (labour service). This, added to the
workforce dedicated to rearmament, which absorbed more
unemployed workers, meant that Hitler turned the total
of unemployed from around six million in 1933 to a labour
shortage in 1939.
Figure 11.34 A present for the Fhrer on his forty-ninth birthday,

20 April 1938. Hitler is amused to find that the model Volkswagen
has the engine in the boot. Less amused were the 336 000 Germans
who paid, in full or in part, for a car but did not receive one.
True to the ideology of Volksgemeinschaft the workers lives

were controlled. They had regular work and also the prices in
shops were controlled, but their pay was also controlled, and
they had lost their bargaining power when Hitler abolished the trade unions in 1933, replacing them
with the Labour Front under Robert Ley. The Strength through Joy movement (Kraft durch Freude)
provided holidays, concerts and sporting events for the workers, many of whom had never enjoyed
these privileges before.
A peoples car (Volkswagen) was designed, and workers were encouraged to save weekly to
purchase one, although none had been delivered before war broke out in 1939. The beauty of work
campaign sought to improve working conditions in the absence of pay rises with slogans such as
clean people in a clean plant and good ventilation in the work place. It was policies such as these that
gave the illusion that the Nazi regime was achieving a social revolution.
By 1937, Hitler claimed that he had succeeded in breaking down the old class system with all its
prejudices, achieving a genuine peoples community.
THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN NAZI GERMANY

The attitude of Nazis towards women was summed up in the slogan Kinder, Kuche und Kirche (children,
kitchen and church). Women at home producing healthy Aryan children were a central image in Nazi
ideology, with its biological division of the world. There were no female Nazi members of the Reichstag,
and a party rule of 1921 banned women from senior leadership positions. Nazi organisations for
women, such as the National Socialist Womanhood (NSF), followed the party line that women should
stay at home and have babies.
Between 1933 and 1936 married women were banned from the top professional jobs as doctors,
lawyers and senior civil servants, and employers were asked to favour men in their appointments.
Germany 19181939 | 339
Statistics on marriage and birth rates suggest that Nazi policies were not successful. The birth rate
did increase from a low point in 1933 to peak in 1939, but thereafter declined. Historians differ on the
interpretation of these statistics but in the main have argued that Hitlers policies of social engineering
were less responsible than general factors such as the end of the Depression and a tendency towards a
younger age of marriage, as occurred in other countries.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: W OM EN I N N AZI GERMAN Y

Source 11.16
Josef Goebbels, speaking in 1929:
The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring
children into the world. The female bird pretties herself for
her mate and hatches eggs for him. In exchange, the male
takes care of gathering the food and stands guard and
wards o the enemy.
Cited in J.A. Cloake, Germany 19181945, 1997, p. 81.
Source 11.17
A letter to Hitler from several women, published in a Leipzig
newspaper in 1934:
Today man is educated not for, but against, marriage.
We see our daughters growing up in stupid aimlessness
living only in the vague hope of getting a man and having
children. A son, even the youngest, laughs in his mothers
face. He regards her as his servant and women in general as
merely tools of his aims.
Source 11.18
Advertisement for a wife:
52 year old Aryan doctor. Fought in First World War. Wishes
to settle down. Wants male children through marriage to a
young, healthy, Aryan virgin. She should be undemanding,
thrifty, used to heavy work, broad hipped, with flat heels
and no earrings.
Figure 11.35 A Nazi poster from 1937 showing their support

for family life. The Nazi Party protects the national community
(Volksgemeinschaft)
1 Refer to Source 11.17. How has the Nazi ideal, as seen in the quote from Goebbels in
Source 11.16, gone wrong?
2 In Source 11.18, why does the advertiser mention his war service?
3 What is required for an applicant to be successful in Source 11.18. Can you suggest
why the doctor has specified these qualities?
4 Refer to Figure 11.35. How do the figures conform to the Nazi notion of the
perfect family?
PROBLEM
PROBLEM
1901: 2 032 313 births
In 1932 six million men

unemployed; women were 37%
of workforce
1932: 971 174 births
SOLUTION
Abortions made illegal
Contraceptive advice restricted
SOLUTION
Interest-free loans to newly
married couples.
Repayments reduced by 25%
for each child born.
SOLUTION
Motherhood awards
Bronze cross
(4 children)
Silver cross
(6 children)
Gold cross
(8 children)
Figure 11.36
SOLUTION
Family allowance scheme for
couples with children.
As women stayed home to
have children, job vacancies
expanded for men
Nazi womanhood
Policies on the work front were irreconcilable with Nazi objectives of rearmament and military
conquest. As the state mobilised for war, the need to draft women into the workforce to provide cheap
and reliable labour became more pressing. The result was that the Nazis relaxed the restrictions on
women working from 1938.
1 Explain the meaning and implications of the term Volksgemeinschaft.
2 What was the Nazi attitude towards women in society?
3 What problems are illustrated in Figure 11.36 and how did the Nazis propose to
overcome them?
4 To what extent was Hitlers attempt to change the role of women in Germany
successful?
THE HITLER YOUTH

A lasting transformation of society required the Nazis to capture the minds of young people
and indoctrinate them with Nazi ideology. The Hitler Youth had originally been set up in
1926, but it was with the appointment of Baldur von Schirach as leader in July 1933 that the
organisation began to develop rapidly. Boys and girls were recruited into the movement, at
first voluntarily, but after the Hitler Youth Law of December 1936 membership was regarded
as compulsory. Nonetheless, further regulations, including a second Hitler Youth Law of
1939, were needed to deal with those who sought to find loopholes in the regulations.
Many young people found the activities attractive, combining outside sports with
comradeship and excitement. Others found the activities confining and resented the
attempts to eradicate individualism. Young people were expected to keep watch on their
parents and to report any anti-Nazi sentiments to the authorities.
DID YOU KNOW?

Girls in the HJ who permed
their hair instead of plaiting
it had their hair shaved off
as punishment.
Germany 19181939 | 341
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: MEM B ERSH I P OF THE HITLER YO UTH

GIRLS
Age
1014 Jungmadelbund
Activities
Sports, songs, hikes and camps
BOYS
Age
610 Pimpfen
Activities
Sports, map-reading, songs, marches
Age
1418 Bund Deutcher Madel (BDM)
Activities
Physical culture, domestic science,
feminine ideals
Age
1014 Jungvolk
Activities
Camping, sports, semaphore,
small-arms practice
Age
1821 Glaube und Schonheit
(Faith and beauty)
Activities
An extension of the BDM
Age
1418 Hitler Jungend (HJ)
Activities
Various sections, e.g. motorised HJ,
marine HJ, gliding HJ
VALUES
Duty, obedience,
courage, strength
Individuality, humanity,
kindness, peace
Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). How do the activities for the different sexes illustrate the ideological beliefs of the Nazis?
Figure 11.37

1018 year olds
in Germany
Total membership
2
1
107 956
7 287 470
8 870 000
7 031 226
9 109 000
8 656 000
8 172 000
3 943 303
2 292 041
7 682 000
Figures not available
Millions
3 577 565
7 529 000
5 437 601
5 879 955
9 060 000
10
Figure 11.38
1933 1934 1935 1936 1937
1938 Start of
1939
Membership figures for Hitler Youth movements, 193239
2 Refer to Figure 11.38. Calculate the

percentage of young people in the Hitler
Jugend for each of the years from 1933
to 1939. Do the figures show a constant
trend?
3 Why do you think the Nazis were unable,
despite coercion, to achieve 100 per cent
membership in the Hitler Jugend?
0
1932
1 Refer to Figure 11.37. In what ways were

the experiences of boys and girls: (a)
similar, and (b) different in the Hitler Youth
movement?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: AN ASSESSM ENT O F THE HITLER YO UTH

Source 11.19
The following was adapted from an article written by Detlev
Peukert in 1985.
Under the Nazis three separate age groups passed through
adolescence (aged 1418). Those from 19331936 had
already had important experiences before the Nazis came
to power. They had suered the economic problems of the
1930s and, therefore, were receptive to the appeal of the
rearmament program. The youth of 19361939 had no such
memories, they had gone through Nazi schools. For them
there was no alternative to the Nazis. This group enjoyed
the HJ as a rival to the traditional authorities of home and
school. The age group whose adolescence fell between
19391945 experienced the empty aspects of the HJ full of
drill and compulsion. This war generation lost its leaders to
the army and many of its club buildings to allied bombing.
They found the HJ most irritating and increasingly repellent.
For many young people the Nazi ideology seemed vague,
as one said, No one in our class ever read Mein Kampf. On
the whole we did not know much about Nazi ideas. We were
politically programmed to obey and to stop thinking when
the magic word Fatherland was uttered.
For many young people the arrival of the Hitler Youth meant
access to leisure activities for the first time. Girls had the
chance to escape the female role-model centred on family
and children. They could do things normally reserved for
boys. The HJ concentrated in the late 1930s on bringing
all young people in to their organisation. They carried out
disciplinary and surveillance activities on their friends
which caused great resentment. Many young people were
turned away from the HJ. They formed independent gangs
and fought the Hitler Youth patrols. By the 1940s the Reich
Youth leadership was worried that their influence was being
undermined by these gangs. They could not blame this on
Weimar, Communism or the Churches. This opposing
youth culture was the product of the Nazi system.
values. The Gestapo and the Hitler Youth cracked down

on these alternative youth groups. Warnings were given,
members arrested (and released with their heads shaved),
sent to labour camps or put on trial. Thousands were caught
on a single day in Dsseldorf on 7 December 1942, and
their ringleaders were hanged. Their activities ranged from
deliberate non-participation to open protest and resistance.
Another group was the middle class Swing Youth. It was
inspired by English and American dance and jazz music.
Banned from public gatherings by the Hitler Youth, clubs
sprang up in Hamburg, Kiel, Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt
and Dresden. In Swing clubs, young people danced the
jitterbug, wore hair down to the collar and wore casual,
fashionable English looking clothes. The Swing youth had
a dierent identity to that of the HJ. They accepted Jews
and admired the slovenly culture of the wartime enemies,
England and America. They upset the Nazi leaders. Himmler
wanted to put the leaders of the Swing movement into
concentration camps for at least three years of beatings,
drill and forced labour.
The Pirate and Swing cultures show that even after years
of power the Nazis still did not have a grip on German
society. Indeed, sections of it were slipping increasingly
from its grasp.
Cited in J. A. Cloake, Germany 19181945, OUP, 1997,
pp. 756.
One notable group, the Edelweiss Pirates, based around

Essen, Dsseldorf and Cologne, went on weekend camping
trips that involved bashing up Hitler Youth patrols. The
majority were from the working class who because of the
war work were relatively well paid. To the Pirates, the HJ had
few attractions.
One of the Edelweiss Pirates from Dsseldorf, explained
his groups slogan Eternal war on the Hitler Youth. Its the
Hitler Youths own fault, every order I was given contained
a threat. Their weekend trips allowed these young people
some space and time away from adults and were made
more attractive by the presence of girls. They adapted HJ
songs with their own lyrics which reflected their anti-Nazi
Figure 11.39 Rebellious young people were punished. Twelve

Edelweiss Pirates from Cologne were hanged in 1944 for
sabotage, arms raids and anti-Nazi activities.
Germany 19181939 | 343

1 Young Germans degree of enthusiasm for the
Hitler Youth depended on the year in which they
joined. What evidence is there in Source 11.19
that supports this statement?
2 Why did the Hitler Youth appeal to some young
people?
3 What features of the Hitler Youth deterred some
young people from joining the organisation?
4 What youth groups grew in opposition to the
Hitler Youth?
Figure 11.40
Examples of the Swing Youth movement
5 What activities did these opposition groups

undertake?
6 Refer to Figures 11.39 and 11.40. Why did
the authorities find young people like this
unacceptable?
7 Why do you think the punishment of these
young people was so severe?
8 From what you have read in this document
study section, assess the success of Hitlers
aim to bring all youth under Nazi control.
RE VI E W TA SK
Take the part of an enthusiastic HJ member or organiser and either
(a) justify the organisation and its activities to a critic, or (b) explain the
nature and purpose of the HJ to a foreign visitor.
THE CHURCH
DID YOU KNOW?

Camping rules were strict and
live ammunition was used.
One fourteen-year-old sentry
shot and killed a ten-year-old
boy who had forgotten the
password!
Hitler told the Reichstag on 23 March 1933 that the national government saw in both
Christian denominations the most important factors for upholding our nationhood. These calming
words scarcely hid the truth that the teachings of the Christian church, with its humanitarian outlook
and care for the poor and weak, ran contrary to the Nazi ideology of a racially based struggle and the
survival of the fittest.
Historically, Germany was divided into a Protestant (Lutheran) north and Catholic south and
despite the Nazis pledge of support for a positive Christianity, clashes soon occurred with both
branches of the faith.
The Protestant church was divided into twenty-eight separate regional churches. In July 1933, these
were brought together into a single Reich church under Ludwig Mller. Mller was a former naval
chaplain and head of the Nazi-inspired German Christians in East Prussia but he had few natural gifts
for church leadership. Attempts to introduce Nazi ideas such as banning the Old Testament of the
Bible on the grounds that it was a Jewish book and a measure to exclude non-Aryans from church
attendance in November 1933, led to the formation of a breakaway Confessional Church, formed in
May 1934 under the leadership of Pastor Martin Niemller.

The Confessional Church saw itself as the true custodian of
Protestant Christianity in Germany and enjoyed the support
of a majority of Protestant churchgoers.
Although individual pastors of the Confessional Church
did use it as a platform to criticise the Nazi government, the
church was essentially a religious movement to preserve the
integrity of the Lutheran faith, not a political movement of
opposition to the Nazi state. Niemller himself had joined
the Nazi Party in 1933. As the Church Struggle intensified,
Niemller was sent to a concentration camp in 1937 (he was
released in 1945) and over 800 other Confessional pastors
shared his fate. Mllers influence waned and the Nazis never
succeeded in bringing the Protestant church entirely under
their control. Any radical action to transform traditional
religious beliefs or practices was postponed until after the
war. Periodic attacks against the church surfaced, usually
inspired by radical Gauleiters and officials rather than by
Hitler for whom the Church Struggle became more of an
irritation than a major campaign.
Hitler had a greater regard for the Catholic church
because of its larger, more international organisation. In
July 1933, Hitler signed a Concordat (agreement) with
the Vatican, promising to guarantee the freedoms of the
Catholic church on condition that it did not interfere in the
political life of the state. Hitler regarded the Concordat as
a triumph for his regime as it nullified the possibilities of

Catholic political interference.
Shortly afterwards, the Nazis attempted to introduce
Nazi teachings into Catholic schools, tried to ban the crucifix
in Catholic churches and banned Catholic newspapers.
In March 1937, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical, On
the condition of the church in Germany, in which he
complained that Hitler had gone back on the terms of the
Concordat. In criticising Hitlers anti-Catholic measures, the
Pope made no mention of the fate of the Jews, the existence
of concentration camps or any policies that did not directly
involve the church.
As with the Protestant church, there were periodic
attacks on church activities in an effort to limit Catholic
influence, which was very strong in the rural areas of Bavaria.
As resistance grew, over 400 Catholic priests were sent to
concentration camps.
NAZI RACIAL POLICY

In the early 1930s there were approximately 500 000 Jews
in Germany, less than 1 per cent of the population. Yet they
were a highly visible minority, who professionally were
heavily concentrated in the professions of law, medicine
and journalism. Hitler saw life as a struggle between the
Aryan master race, typified by the strong, blond, blue-eyed
German, and inferior races, of which the Jews were the
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E CH U RCH AND THE N AZ IS

Source 11.20
The unrest stirred up by the Church Struggle was extensive. But it was largely
compartmentalized. It seldom equated with fundamental rejection of the regime,
or with any commitment to active and outright political opposition. Fierce defence
of traditional observances, customs, and practices against Nazi chicanery was
compatible with support for Hitler personally, with approval for his assault on
the Left, with applause for his national triumphs, with readiness to accept his
discriminatory measures against Jews, with most measures, in fact, which did
not directly impinge on Church aairs. Catholic bishops had, in the very first
weeks of Hitlers chancellorship, exhorted their charges to obedience to the new
regime. And even at the height of the Church Struggle, they publicly endorsed
its stance against atheistic Bolshevism and armed their loyalty to Hitler. The
brutality of the concentration camps, the murder in 1934 of the SA leaders, and
the mounting discrimination against the Jews had brought no ocial protests or
opposition. Similarly in a Protestant Church divided within itself, unease, criticism,
or dissent over Nazi high-handedness towards the Church and interference in its
aairs, practices, structures, and doctrine coexistedapart from the examples of
a few exceptional individualswith ocial avowals of loyalty and a great deal of
genuine approval for what Hitler was doing.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST I O N S
1 To what extent did Hitler
succeed in his attempts to
make the Christian church
conform to the requirements
of the Nazi state?
2 What were the chief concerns
of the church leaders in these
times?
3 Given the circumstances
of the 1930s in Germany,
the churches as a whole
were justified in their largely
cooperative approach to
the regime. Evaluate this
viewpoint.
I. Kershaw, Hitler: 19361945, Nemesis, Penguin, London, 2001, p. xxxix.
Germany 19181939 | 345
worst example. Between 1933 and 1939 more than 400

pieces of anti-Jewish legislation were introduced by the
Nazis designed both to deprive the Jews of their civil
rights and to affirm Aryan Germans in their sense of racial
superiority.
April 1933
SA men supervised
boycott of Jewish
shops.
Anti-Semitic laws
September 1935
According to the Nuremberg laws of 1935 an individual

with even one Jewish grandparent could be deprived
of their German citizenship and status as an Aryan. The
Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour
made it illegal for Jews to marry Aryans or have sex with
them. With each succeeding regulation the position
of Jews in Germany became more difficult. They could
no longer attend German schools or universities, were
excluded from the professions, prohibited from teaching
and forbidden to own land. Their property was taken
from them and their businesses forced into bankruptcy
or Aryanisation, that is sold at low prices to Aryan firms
or individuals. Recourse to the law was not an option for
Jews: as the Supreme Party judge, Walter Buch, declared
in the publication Deutsche Justiz in 1938, the Jew was
outside the law as he was not a human being.
The whole community was encouraged to despise
and distrust the Jews, who were described as ugly and
swarthy in appearance. There was a constant stream
of anti-Semitic broadcasts on the radio, and films were
produced that portrayed Jews as evil, scheming, and
less than human. Der Strmer was a violently anti-Semitic
newspaper run by Hitlers close friend Julius Streicher.
Nuremberg laws: Jews

deprived of German
citizenship. Marriages
between Jews and
Aryans forbidden.
July 1938
All Jewish street
names to be replaced.
November 1938
All Jewish children
remaining in German
schools to be
removed.
November 1938
All Jewish
businesses closed
down or Aryanised.
Figure 11.41 Anti-Semitism in action
Kristallnacht
In November 1938 a young Jew, upset because his parents had been deported from Germany to
Poland, killed a German diplomat in Paris. On the night of 9 November the Nazis organised an outbreak
of violence against Jewish people and property, which led to the deaths of seventy-four Jews, 20 000
arrests, the destruction of 875 Jewish shops and the burning of 191 synagogues. The broken glass that
littered the streets gave the night its name: Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The bill for the
damages was twenty-five million marks. Having destroyed Jewish businesses, the Nazis now made the
Jewish community pay for the damage by imposing on them a fine of one billion marks. Surviving Jewish
businesses were confiscated by the state.
1 Write a sentence or short paragraph about each of the following: the Nuremberg laws,
Aryanisation and Kristallnacht.
2 How many Jews were there in Germany in the early 1930s?
3 Why didnt Jews seek compensation or justice through the courts?
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: E X T RACT S FROM HITLERS WILLIN G EXEC UTIO N ERS

Source 11.21
Source 11.22
The perpetrators [of Kristallnacht], principally SA men,

killed approximately one hundred Jews and hauled o
thirty thousand more to concentration camps How did
the German people react? In small towns, the SA men were
greeted by many willing locals who availed themselves of
the opportunity to join the assault on the Jews
The number of concentration camps (more than 10 000)

which the Germans established, maintained, and staed
was staggering. They were strewn around the European
continent, with the majority located in eastern Europe.
Poland alone, the primary site for the vast genocidal
slaughter of the Jews, contained over 5800 camps. Yet,
contrary to what much of the scholarly literature suggests,
the regime made no serious eort to spare the German
people from exposure to these institutions of violence,
subjugation, and death. Within Germany itself, within sight
of the German people, the regime created an enormous
network of camps that saturated the country
Nuremberg the day after Kristallnacht, saw a rally,

which was attended by close to 100 000 people who
came voluntarily to hear the anti-Jewish invective of
Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Strmer and the
man known to be the most rabid anti-semite in Germany.
Photographs of the rally show relatively few men in uniform
The overwhelming majority of the men and women of
Nuremberg could have stayed away without risking reprisal;
instead, they acclaimed the criminals in government.
H. Glaser, cited in D. Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing
Executioners, Little, Brown & Co., 1996.
It is not known how many camps existed in Germany,

because the research has not been done Berlin, the
countrys capital and showpiece, was itself the home to
645 camps just for forced laborers.
Cited in D. Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners,
Little, Brown & Co., 1996.
What do Sources 11.21 and 11.22 indicate about:
(a) the attitude of ordinary Germans towards persecution of the Jews
(b) the involvement of ordinary Germans in the persecution of the Jews
(c) the notion that ordinary Germans feared retribution if they did not support
anti-Semitic activities
(d) the idea that ordinary Germans did not know about the camps?
POPULAR
FEARED
personal popularity of Hitler
creation of concentration
camps for political opponents
reduced unemployment
activities of SA, SS and Gestapo
national pride regained by foreign
policy successes after 1935
persecution of the Church
welfare and holidays for workers

e.g. Strength through Joy
regimentation and supervision

of peoples lives
inspired youth with

camps, parades, etc.
anti-Semitic activities
propaganda captured the imagination

and entertained, e.g. parades, films
Figure 11.42
all courts under Nazi control
Hitlers Reich (193339): popular or feared?

Germany 19181939 | 347
NAZI FOREIGN POLICY

AIMS AND STRATEGIES TO 1939
When Hitler came to power in 1933, his stated aim was to revise the Treaty of Versailles. For the first two
years he was more preoccupied with establishing domestic control, but by 1935 he was able to turn his
attention to unilaterally revising some of the treaty terms.
In March 1935 he reintroduced conscription and rearmament, and noted that there was no hostile
response from Britain or France. Between 1935 and 1939 everything appeared to work in Hitlers favour.
He freed Germany from the military and territorial limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and
began to create a Greater Germany. Some of the key events are outlined below:
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B A L T I C
S E A
N O R T H
EAST PRUSSIA
S E A
POLAND
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NETHERLANDS
GERMANY
Rhineland
1936
BELGIUM
Sudetenland
1938
REST OF
CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1939
LUXEMBOURG
Saar 1935
KEY
FRANCE
Germany
in 1933
SWITZERLAND
0
100
200
300
400
500 km
Figure 11.43 The expansion of Germany, 193539
AUSTRIA 1938
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1 Why was the Rhineland called a demilitarised zone?
2 When was the Anschluss with Austria?
3 What was Hitlers excuse for starting the Sudetenland crisis?
4 Why didnt Hitler expect Britain and France to help Poland?
Historians differ in their attempts to explain Hitlers foreign policy. Intentionalists argue that Hitler
had long-term and detailed plans for war, whereas the Structuralist view is that Hitler had no specific
plans, but just took advantage of opportunities as they arose.
Germany 19181939 | 349
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: DID H IT LER H AVE A LO N G- TERM PLAN FO R WAR?

Source 11.23
The Intentionalist case:
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Mein Kampf.
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The Structuralist case:
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as deliberate plans.
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That doesnt mean that he planned to risk it all in a war.
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These risks led to war.
Source 11.24
Source 11.25
Until the 1980s it was argued that:
Recent research, using improved and more sophisticated

data sampling techniques has challenged this
interpretation.
Hitler decided to gamble on small forces to fight

opportunistic wars (Blitzkrieg) in order to avoid strains
on the population.
The economy operated on a peace-like war basis
throughout 193941 and only changed when Speer
became minister of armaments in 1942, while a fullscale commitment was not fully realised until 1944.
There was a clear gap between Hitlers ambitions and
economic and military policy.
Hitler was not really planning for war in 1939. The proof of
this lay in the level of German rearmament which by 1939
was by no means great enough to sustain a European, let
alone a world, war.
A. J. P. Taylor cited in J. Jenkins, Hitler and Nazism,
Longman, 1998, p. 11213.
Overy argues that the Blitzkrieg theory does not fit the
facts. Hitler planned for a total war, though well after 1939,
and when war broke out Germany mobilised as fast as it
could. Things went wrong when economic planning got
out of phase with foreign policy. He supports this argument
by citing:

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was much bigger than was needed for Blitzkrieg.
War coming in 1939 threw the long-term plans into
confusion showing up unsolved structural problems in
the Nazi economy.
R. J. Overy, cited in J. Jenkins, Hitler and Nazism,

Longman, 1998, p. 114.
1 How do Taylor in Source 11.24 and Overy in Source 11.25 differ in their interpretation
of German foreign policy?
2 Read and discuss the points outlined in the section on Hitlers foreign policy, then,
aided by your own research, indicate which view you support and why. For more
information on Nazi foreign policy from 1935 to 1939, read Chapter 15.
HITLER AND THE ARMY

As we saw earlier (see pp. 31820) the army or Reichswehr in Germany was jealous of its reputation, its
independence and its own special interests. Few senior army officers supported the Nazis in 1933 and
its leader, General Kurt von Hammerstein, was an aristocratic conservative who regarded the Nazis as
vulgar street fighters led by a loud-mouthed former corporal. The inclusion of General von Blomberg as
war minister in Hitlers first Cabinet had been done to reassure the army leadership of the acceptability
of Hitler as chancellor, but this aim was undermined by Blomberg being narrowly military in his
outlook, and almost entirely ignorant of politics (Evans 2004, p. 316), which made him putty in Hitlers
hands.
On 3 February 1933 Hitler met with the leaders of the armed forces to reassure them on major
issues: his determination to restore German military strength by rearmament and the reintroduction
of conscription, effectively overturning Versailles, and an assurance that the army would not be called
upon to intervene in a civil war.
Satisfied by this, army generals were prepared to accept the Nazis in 1933 but, like von Papen,
they underestimated Hitler. The Reichswehr made the same mistake as Hitlers coalition partners; they
assumed they would be able to use him. In the end, Hitler used and controlled them.
A British historian J. W. Wheeler-Bennett in his book Hitler and the Army suggested a number of
motives behind the armys decision to cooperate with Hitler:
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As Hitler began to reorder German affairs the leaders of the army were prepared to support many of
the new laws, particularly those which were anti-Semitic or aimed at restricting civil liberties. A symbol
of the growing link between the army and the Nazis came in February 1934 when Blomberg ordered
that the Nazi Party emblem of the swastika carried by an eagle with outstretched wings was to be worn
on the uniforms of all members of the armed forces.
It was the arrangement leading to the elimination of the SA in the Night of the Long Knives
(see p. 328 ff ), which consolidated Hitlers hold over the army. The army was confined to barracks that
night. Even though one of its ownGeneral and former Chancellor von Schleicherwas shot, the
army made no protest. Blomberg forbade officers to attend Schleichers funeral. Only von Hammerstein
disobeyed, but as he had resigned his post as army leader in February 1934, he could be ignored.
Shortly after, on 2 August 1934, in accordance with the arrangements made between Hitler and the
army high command, the armys allegiance was secured by oath. Under the republics constitution the
troops had sworn loyalty to the Reich constitution, the Reich and its lawful institutions with obedience
Germany 19181939 | 351
1 <DEN_KFMH4_1070 >
The army returns undefeated, its honour and reputation intact. The
stab in the back legend grows.
Secret agreements with Russia enable the Reichswehr to develop

and train with new weapons.
EbertGroener pact guarantees army independence in return for

military support for new republican government against left-wing
rebels.
Ex-army chief Hindenberg is elected as president of the Weimar

Republic
Military officers play an increasing role in politics.
Hitler becomes chancellor as the army watches cautiously.
Hitler and his armed forces chiefs arrange the deal that leads to the
Night of the Long Knives.
Hindenberg dies and the army swears allegiance to Hitler: I

swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render unconditional
obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fhrer of the German Reich, supreme
commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be
prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath.
10
Hitler becomes commander in chief of the armed forces and

reorganises the military leadership.
Hitler commands. His generals obey.
Figure 11.44 The German army and the state 191839: from master to servant?
to the holder of the presidential office and to the soldiers superiors. In December 1933 Hitler had
changed the oath so that a recruit swore allegiance to the people and the Fatherland and in August
1934 this changed to unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler the Fhrer of the German Reich. This act
symbolically marked the armys acceptance of the new order.
With the reintroduction of conscription and the reoccupation of the Rhineland the new army
(from 21 May 1935 known as the Wehrmacht) was kept busy. As Hitlers confidence grew he felt strong
enough to ignore the army leaders when he wished. In 1936 Goering argued for the establishment of
an air force (Luftwaffe) separated from control of the General Staff and with himself in command. The
army objected, but was overruled by Hitler. In February 1938 Hitler moved to increase Nazi Party control
over military and foreign policy.
In January 1938 General von Blomberg married a young woman who turned out to have a police
record for prostitution (Hitler and Goering had been witnesses at the wedding). Horrified and disgusted
by the news, Hitler demanded that Blomberg have the marriage annulled. When he refused, he was
sacked. The Minister of War post was abolished, and Hitler himself adopted the role of Commanderin-Chief of the Armed Forces. Meanwhile General von Fritsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army,
was falsely implicated in a homosexual scandal and sacked. In his place was appointed General von
Brauchitsch, who was sympathetic to Hitler. To complete the process of change, von Neurath, the
conservative foreign minister since 1933 was eased out of office and replaced by the Nazi Joachim
Ribbentrop. At the same time, twelve senior generals were retired and fifty-one other senior military
posts were refilled as Hitler showed that the balance of power with the army firmly lay with him.
Between 1934 and 1938 relations between the army and Hitler had amounted to a partnership.
The army had retained a large degree of independence and had beenin Nazi termsbeyond the
program of coordination. After 1938, with Hitler in clear overall command the army could no longer
consider itself a state within a state but had become an instrument of the party (i.e. Hitlers) will.
Hitlers bold foreign policy initiatives between 1936 and 1938 worried the army. Two initiatives gave
them particular concern: the reoccupation of the Rhineland and the Sudeten crisis with the Czechs.
There were officers who were prepared to lead a coup and remove Hitler from office had either of
these ventures failed. However, Hitlers successes in both these ventures added to his popularity and
strengthened his political position; they also increased his profound belief in his own destiny. He grew
increasingly contemptuous of his own generals, many of whom had advised against the reoccupation
of the Rhineland and the actions over the Sudetenland.
The absence of real resistance to Hitler from the army in the run up to the Second World War was
guaranteed by three factors:
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Germany 19181939 | 353

ALBERT SPEER 19051981
Tall, handsome, quietly spoken and intellectual, Speer was the only leading Nazi
at the Nuremberg Trials to acknowledge the evils of the Nazi regime, and one
of the few to show remorse. As a result, he escaped the death penalty, receiving
a sentence of twenty years imprisonment. After his release he was a courteous
and helpful source of information for numerous documentaries and books.
Although he claimed to have had a close relationship with Hitler, saying: If Hitler
ever had a friend, it would have been me, to the end of his days he claimed
complete ignorance of the excesses of the regime, including the horrors of the
concentration camps. Was Albert Speer really the good, if misguided Nazi as he
liked to portray himself, or did he succeed in fooling everyone?
Timeline
1905
Speer is born in Mannheim; his father is a wealthy architect.
1927
After studying in Munich and Berlin, he qualifies as an architect.
1928
He marries Margarete Weber and they have six children.
1931
He joins the Nazi Party.
1933
He redesigns the Gauhaus in Berlin for Goebbels.

Designs a simple but effective backdrop for the Nazi rally on the Templehof airfield on 1 May.
Commissioned by Hitler to renovate and refurbish the dilapidated chancellery in Berlin.
1934
He runs the Beauty of Labour section of the Strength through Joy campaign, and becomes the First Architect of
the Reich.
Commissioned to redesign the Nuremberg Rally grounds; work was begun but never completed.
1937
His design for the German pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition wins the gold medal.
He is appointed to rebuild Berlin as Germania, directly answerable to Hitler.
Personality Profile: Albert Speer
1938
He is appointed to build a new Reich chancellery within twelve months; he succeeds.
1942
He is appointed minister of armaments and munitions.
1943
September: his position is expanded to Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production.
1945
He is sentenced at the Nuremberg Trials, principally for his use of forced and slave labour; the Soviets want him hanged.
1966
He is released from Spandau prison, Berlin.
1969
Inside the Third Reich, Speers memoirs are published.
1975
Spandau: The Secret Diaries is published.
1981
Speer dies.
Background
Albert Speer was born in Mannheim on 19 March 1905.
He came from a normal upper-middle-class family and
enjoyed the typical upbringing of a provincial child in
those circumstances. Speers father, like his grandfather,
was an architect who had made a name for himself in the
Mannheim area. His mother had come from a wealthy
merchant family in Mainz, by the river Rhine, and was
never reconciled to the move to industrial Mannheim
upon marriage. She compensated for the less glamorous
surroundings by being socially ambitious and running
an aristocratic household complete with servants and
fine furniture. In 1918, the family moved to a new home
surrounded by woodland and overlooking the town
of Heidelberg.
Speer was not close to his parents, who were virtually
strangers to him (Fest 2002, p. 14). Nor did he get on well
with his brothers, Hermann (b. 1902) and Ernst (b. 1906), who
were robust and outgoing, while he was physically delicate
and had unstable health. The inhibitions that all observers
later remarked on were already conspicuous in those early
years. Speers mother, who had sought refuge from various
disappointments in a restless social life filled with receptions
and house parties, remained aloof (Fest 2002, p. 14). When
he passed his school-leaving exam, Albert wanted to study
mathematics, but his father persuaded him to follow the
family tradition into architecture.
Figure 11.44
Young Speer with Margarete Weber
In 1922 he fell in love with Margarete Weber, the daughter of a joiner. Both sets of parents objected
and tried to keep the young people aparthe being sent to Karlsruhe to begin studies, she to a
boarding school in Freiburg. They kept in touch by letter and in 1925 Speer moved from Munich to
Berlin to continue his studies. There he came under the influence of Heinrich Tessenow, who appointed
Speer as his assistant in 1928. This well-paid post enabled him to marry in that year. Albert and
Margarete spent their time in cultural activities, mountain walks and canoeing.
In his parents home, open discussion of politics had been banned. Albert remained apolitical,
apparently untouched by developments during the Weimar years. His father was a liberal, despising
Hitler as a criminal upstart. Yet Speers mother, after being impressed by an SA march through the
streets of Heidelberg in 1931, secretly joined the Nazi Party.
Fest sums up this early phase of Speers life by describing him as an immature but gifted young
man, caught up in the prejudices and moods of his day. Nothing in him suggests any disorder caused
by parental neglect, or any complexes or deformations. He had even remained untouched by the
political and artistic extremes of the wild twenties, which captured almost everybody, at least for a time
(Fest 2002, p. 24).
Speer first heard Hitler speak when he addressed a meeting of arts students in Berlin in December
1930, and Speer declared himself captivated by the magic of Hitlers voice. On 1 March 1931 he joined
the Nazi Party.
Germany 19181939 | 355
Rise to prominence
Speer the architect
Speers first architectural commission for the Nazis came
from Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin, to renovate the
Gauhaus in that city. That was quickly followed by the task
of organising the backdrop for the May Day rally at the
Templehof airfield in Berlin in 1933. The black, white and
red flags of the old Reich, each ten storeys high, were hung
vertically. In between them a similarly large Nazi standard
was placed, the whole lit up at night.
The Fhrer was pleased with the effect and Speer was
asked to organise the Nuremberg rally of 1933, followed
by a commission to build entirely new rally grounds at
Nuremberg for the 1934 party rally. Hitler began to forge a
close relationship with the young architect.
In 1934, Speer was given responsibility for the Beauty
of Labour section of the new Strength through Joy
campaign. This involved improving workers conditions by
providing canteen facilities, turning paved areas into parks,
and improving lighting and ventilation. These changes,
while part of Nazi policy, never interested Hitler, whose
main interest lay in architecture. In January 1934, Paul
Troost, Hitlers favourite architect, died, and Speer replaced
him. Speers plans for the 1934 party rally at Nuremberg

brought him further credit, with his idea of a Cathedral of
Light effect created by placing 150 searchlights around the
perimeter of the rally ground, with their beams pointing
perpendicularly into the night sky.
In 1936, the Olympic Games were to be held in Berlin.
A crisis arose when Hitler, furious at the glass box stadium
designs of the architect Werner March, threatened to cancel
the games. Speer was hastily brought in, removed much
of the glass and concrete that had angered Hitler, and
carried out the essential reconstructions to the satisfaction
of the Fhrer.
The next year, Speer achieved another triumph at the
Paris World Exhibition, when his design for the German
pavilion, incorporating an eagle holding a wreathed swastika
in its claws, seemingly looking down in triumph on the
Soviet exhibition opposite, won the approval both of Hitler
and the exhibition judges, who rewarded Speers effort with
the gold medal.
In January 1938 Hitler asked Speer to build a new
Reich chancellery, with the specification that it had to be
completed within twelve months. Speers ability as an
Figure 11.46 Speers cathedral of light formed by hundreds of searchlights pointing vertically to give the impression of huge columns
surrounding the rally grounds.
Germania
In 1937 Speer was handed the most ambitious architectural
project of his career: to rebuild Berlin, to be renamed
Germania, as the capital of the new Reich. The whole project
was the brainchild of Hitler who, in subsequent years, spent
many hours going over the designs of the new city with
Speer. A start was made by clearing away 52 000 flats in
the centre of Berlin to make way for one of the imposing
avenues of the new capital.
Figure 11.47 The centre of Germania. The arch in the centre would contain the names of all 1.8 million Germans who had died in the
First World War.
Germany 19181939 | 357
organiser now became clear. Using the best tradesmen

and having several building firms working simultaneously
on different parts of the building, the deadline was met.
In January 1939 the new building was opened and Hitler,
greatly pleased with the result, declared Speer a genius.
The chancellery was intended to demonstrate the might
of the Reich. Visitors could gain access to Hitlers office only
by walking along an imposing marble gallery almost 150
metres in length. The building was decorated with heroic,
muscle-bound sculptures representing party and army.
Speer as minister of armaments and munitions

At the start of the war, Fritz Todt had been appointed as minister of armaments and munitions.
He had already built up a massive organisation for the construction of public works and defences.
On 8 February 1942, Todt was killed in a plane crash and Speer was named as his successor.
Speer threw himself enthusiastically into his new role. He found that after two and a half years
of war the German workforce was riddled with inefficiencies. Some factories still operated single
shifts, and too many resources were being diverted to non-essential consumer production. In April
1942, Speer established a central planning board, which he called the most important war economy
measure of all, and which controlled the allocation of raw materials and planning decisions for new
plants. Speer pushed through a program of rationalisation, which trebled armaments output in three
years with a relatively small increase of resources, despite the loss of millions of workers to the armed
forces. This loss would have been greater without the introduction of a system of reserved occupations,
which gave exemptions from military service to the most important skilled men. In July 1943 he
established the Ruhr staff: a taskforce whose job it was to organise the restitution of damaged plant
and workers accommodation in this heavily bombed industrial area.
Obstacles to efficiency
On 12 July 1943, Speer sent a memorandum to Hitler urging the use of more women for the war effort:
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JOUIFQSFTFOUDJSDVNTUBODFTBSFUIFSFTUJMMGFNBMFTUVEFOUTTUVEZJOHQIJMPMPHZ NVTJD GBTIJPO
MBOHVBHFTPSPUIFSUIJOHTXIJDIBSFOPXPGBCTPMVUFMZOPJOUFSFTU /PBLFT Q
However, the Nazis conservative ideology still opposed maximising the use of women for war work,
and Speer had to turn to forced labour from the camps and conquered countries for his workforce.
Another source of opposition was the Gauleiters. These Nazi regional leaders were antagonistic
towards Speers attempts to impose a central control of resources, particularly when it took resources
away from their own Gaus. As late as 1943 Speer was still pressing for the closure of non-essential
plants, in the face of opposition from the local Gauleiter.
Achievements
The transformation in armaments output between 194142 and 194445 was remarkable. The higher
production was achieved in the face of intensified Allied bombing of industrial plants.
1941
1942
1943
1944
Combat aircraft (Germany)
11 030
14 700
25 220
37 950
Combat aircraft (Britain)
20 100
23 600
26 200
26 500
Source: D. van der Vat, The Good Nazi: the Life and Lies of Albert Speer, 1997, p. 178.
By August 1944 Speer was responsible for the whole of German war economy, with fourteen
million workers under his direction. It was Speer who, by a remarkable feat of organisation, patched
up bombed communications and factories, and somehow maintained the bare minimum of transport
and production, without which the war on the German side would have come to a standstill. His efforts
enabled Germany to stay in the war for another year or possibly two.
His relationship with Hitler

Speer had worked very closely with Hitler on architectural
matters. He was one of the few ministers allowed direct
access to the Fhrer. Speer was later to say, partly perhaps
as an excuse for his actions, that Hitlers charisma cast a
spell over his subordinates: I noticed during my activities
as architect, that to be in his presence for any length of
time made me tired, exhausted and void. Capacity for
independent work was paralysed (Bullock 1993). Illness kept
him away from the Fhrers headquarters from February to
June 1944, but on his return he became alarmed at the price
which Germany was being made to pay to prolong the war.
Hitlers destruction orders

The collapse of the German Ardennes offensive in December
1944 and the Russian offensive in January 1945 convinced
Speer that the war was lost. Hitler, however, was determined
to destroy Germany rather than admit defeat. On 15 March
1945, in response to Hitlers ideas of a scorched earth policy
for Germany, Speer drew up a memorandum in which he
argued that Germanys final collapse was certain within
weeks, and that the overriding obligation of Germanys
Figure 11.48
Speer in conversation with Hitler
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: AN ASSESSM ENT O F ALBERT S PEER

Source 11.26
Source 11.27
Galbraith [J. K. Galbraith, an interrogator at Nuremberg], is

scathing about Speers claims to have frustrated Hitlers
scorched-earth decree almost single handed and to have
plotted to gas him These stories, Galbraith thought, had
gained much in the telling and contained major elements
of fantasy. So, he felt, did Speers claims about the German
war economy, whose exponential growth had been from
a very small base and did not surpass a smaller Britains
until 1944. All this, and Speers carefully nuanced candour,
were part and parcel of his well devised strategy of selfvindication and survival.
By the time he took over responsibility for the war economy,

Germany was fighting for its life and Speer [was] in his
element, as a crisis manager and problem solver. But
even he could not make up for Hitlers earlier, Blitzkriegbased short-termism and could only achieve too little, too
late, even when building up production so spectacularly
(if from a small base). He was also as responsible as
Hitler himself for some immensely wasteful diversions of
scarce resources, such as the V2 project, as well as for the
suering of millions forced to work for himand the tens
of thousands of Jews he had directly caused to be thrown
on the streets of Berlin in the first stage of a journey that
usually ended in murder.
D. van der Vat, The Good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert
Speer, 1997, p. 241.
D. van der Vat, The Good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert
Speer, 1997, p. 366.
1 What comment does Galbraith make in Source 11.26 about Speers economic claims?
2 What claims by Speer does Galbraith dismiss as fantasy?
3 What qualities of Speer are mentioned in Source 11.27?
4 What criticisms of Speer are made in Source 11.27?
Germany 19181939 | 359
rulers was to ensure that the German people should be left with some possibility of reconstructing
their lives in the future. Hitler did not agree and issued orders for the scorched-earth policy. Noakes
comments that Speers determination to thwart the destruction of German industry was motivated
partly by a genuine concern for the future of the German people and partly, no doubt, by an attempt
to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Germanys conquerors (Noakes, 1998, p. 659).
Speer devoted himself in the final months of the war to preserving as much as possible of
Germanys industrial base. He flew into the blockaded Ruhr and persuaded the Wehrmacht not to
destroy the bridges, railways and other installations or encourage the enemy to destroy them by
using them as defensive positions. He organised stockpiles of food and other essentials in Berlin and
elsewhere, persuading many individual commanders to refrain from an orgy of destruction, not only in
Germany but also in the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Speer devoted all his efforts to saving
everything he could. But for him, thousands of bridges, waterways, telegraphic and power facilities
would have been blown up.
Speers refusal to carry out Hitlers scorched-earth policy completed the break with the Fhrer. In
Hitlers last testament, written just before his suicide, Speer was replaced as minister for armaments.
The Nuremberg trials

At the Nuremberg trials, Speer claimed to have been detached from the politics of the Reich. He was,
he said, first and foremost an architect and an organiser, but he was disinterested in party politics and
ignorant of the excesses of the Nazi regime, particularly in relation to the fate of the Jews. Nonetheless,
as a minister in Hitlers government he admitted a shared responsibility for what had been done and
expressed his contrition. He even claimed to have formulated a plan to assassinate Hitler. Convicted
of Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes, primarily for his role in the use of forced labour, Speers
expressions of regret and acceptance of responsibility allowed him to escape the death penalty,
receiving instead a sentence of twenty years imprisonment.
Speer in Spandau
For a time, Speer and his fellow prisonersRaeder, Doenitz, Funk, Neurath, von Schirach and Hess
were held at Nuremberg until their transfer to Spandau prison, Berlin, on 18 July 1947.
Speers account of these years appeared in 1975 in Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Despite a prohibition
on the keeping of diaries, Speer managed to smuggle out more than 20 000 pages of notes, some by
way of letters, others on cardboard and even sheets of toilet paper. In this enterprise he was assisted
over the years by friendly prison workers. The opportunity first arose on 14 October 1947 when a young
Dutch prison employee Toni Proost (referred to as Anton Vlaer in the diaries) offered to smuggle letters
for Speer. Proost had been a wartime labour conscript in Berlin. When he became ill he had been taken
to a hospital for construction workers, which Speer had established, and been well treated. Now he
wished to repay Speer.
The smuggled writings found their way to Rudolf Wolters, an old friend and architectural colleague
of Speer, who had them typed into a manuscript ready for Speers eventual release. Wolters was
determined to help his friend in other ways. He later smuggled a small camera into Spandau for
Speers use, but his major contribution came with the setting up of a school fee account, designed
to support Speers family during his imprisonment. Many contemporaries of Speer had risen to
important positions in government and industry in post-war Germany and were willing to contribute
to the fund.
Speer had to devise ways to keep his diary writings secret, as discovery would mean confiscation of
the notes, and punishment for him. One method he used in his cell was to keep the top button of his
trousers undone so that he could shove his writing paper into his underpants if disturbed. This was also
where he kept his reserve stock of paper (supplied by Proost)

and letters awaiting answer. Using bandages he sometimes
needed for a swollen leg, he closed the bottom of his
underpants to prevent anything falling out.
Conditions in Spandau were severe. The prisoners,
referred to only by their number (Speer was number five),
were not permitted to speak to each other, a restriction that
was not eased until 1954. The four Allied powersBritain,
the USA, France and the Soviet Uniontook turns to guard
the prisoners, and though it was true that the Russian
periods were generally regarded as times of poorer food,
friendly and unfriendly guards could be found from among
all the nations. Exercise was taken in the prison yard, and
eventually the prisoners were allowed to cultivate a garden.
In 1954 Speer adopted the idea of walking the distance from
Berlin to Heidelberg (626 kilometres), having marked out a
course in the exercise yard. By 1955 he had completed the
journey and, encouraged by Hess, planned a walk around
the world, a feat which led him, by his own calculations, to
cover 31 936 kilometres by the time of his release in 1966.
In his prison memoirs Speer commented on his

relationship with Hitler. In 1947 he reflected that my
relationship to him far more resembled that of an architect
towards an admired patron than of a follower towards
a political leader (Speer 1976, p. 81), while in 1949 he
commented on opinions in a book about Hitler which a
guard had shown him: They remind me of a remark my
associate Karl Maria Hettlage made after Hitler had paid an
evening visit to my studio, that I was Hitlers unrequited love.
(Speer, 1976, p. 139)
As for his culpability for Nazi war crimes, Speer recalled
touring the country with Hitler but claimed not to have
noticed the various anti-Semitic slogans on signs and
streamers strung across the road in welcome. Even in the
light of the strictest self-examination, I must say that I was
not an anti-Semite, he added (Speer 1976, p. 23), claiming
that Hitler toned down his anti-Semitic rhetoric in Speers
Figure 11.49
Speer in Spandau prison
presence and that in my official speeches I refrained from

participating in the campaign against the Jews. In 1960 he
wrote: Like almost all of us, I thought Hitlers anti-Semitism
a somewhat vulgar incidental, a hangover from his days in
Vienna Moreover, the anti-Semitic slogans also seemed
to me a tactical device for whipping up the instincts of the
masses. I never thought them really important, certainly not
compared with the plans for conquest, or even with our vast
projects for rebuilding the cities. (Speer 1976, p. 353)
Speers relations with his fellow prisoners were never
easy. He alleged that they sided against him because
of his attitude at Nuremberg and, although they would
speak to him, he regarded himself as an outcast among
prisoners. In addition, Doenitz continually blamed Speer
for recommending him to Hitler as successor, a fact which
Doenitz blamed for the length of his sentence. Gradually
the prisoners left Spandau. In November 1954 Neurath
was released early because of ill health. Raeder and Funk
followed in September 1955 and May 1957 for the same
reason. Meanwhile, Doenitz had been released in October
1956, having completed his sentence. At midnight on
30 September 1966, Speer and Schirach were released,
leaving Rudolf Hess as the only prisoner in Spandau until
his death, officially by suicide, in 1987. The prison was then
demolished.
Germany 19181939 | 361
Family visits were restricted and closely supervised by

officials. The first visit from his wife at Spandau was in June
1949. Speers work in the Nazi regime meant that he had
lost contact with his family, a situation exacerbated by his
imprisonment. This first visit lasted for one hour and with
touching forbidden, not a word passed between them. Only
in 1961, for the first time in sixteen years, did the guards
step out of the room, leaving Speer alone with his wife. Not
knowing how to react, Speer automatically stuck to the rules
and did not take her hand or embrace her.
After Spandau
Prior to his release, Speer had entertained hopes of reviving his architectural skills in a new business,
but the death of two former colleagues who had offered him work ended that possibility. He found
relations with his family difficult and even fell out with his old friend Wolters. With the publication of his
books Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries he became a much sought after interviewee
for press articles and film documentaries on Hitlers Germany.
At the end of August 1981, he was in London for an interview with the BBC. Suffering a stroke in his
hotel, he died on the evening of 1 September.

The central question in any historical evaluation of Albert Speer is: Was Albert Speer the Good Nazi,
essentially an honourable man who became involved in the workings of the Nazi government without
any knowledge of, or involvement in, its excesses? Or was he a committed follower of Hitler who, although
not directly linked to the worst aspects of the regime, knew of these excesses and, if on a lesser scale than
others, played a part in perpetrating them, only to use his undoubted intelligence and seemingly modest
personality to convince the Nuremberg judges that he was not deserving of the death penalty?
Given that twelve of the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg received the death sentence, and a
further three life imprisonment, Speers sentence was mild by comparison. Why? It was a question of
responsibility, knowledge and contrition.
Speer, alone among the defendants, admitted responsibility for the crimes of the Reich, but only
in a limited and general way. In his Nuremberg testimony Speer claimed A state functionary has two
types of responsibility. One is the responsibility for his own sector and for that, of course, he is fully
responsible The common responsibility, however, can only be applied to fundamental matters, it
cannot be applied to details connected with other ministries or departments. This conduct, by which
Speer accepted a general responsibility for the actions of the government of which he was a member,
while at the same time denying any knowledge or involvement in Nazi brutalities, earned a grudging
admiration at Nuremberg.
Any attempt to evaluate the life of Albert Speer must go back through the stages of his involvement
with Nazism, beginning with his early links to the party.
Joining the party

When the rising politician Hitler spoke to a crowd of students, including Speer, on 4 December 1930,
he spoke calmly and reasonably, tailoring his address to the young, enthusiastic, but also educated
listeners. Speer was captivated by this speaker and in March 1931 he joined the Nazi Party. He later gave
three reasons for joining: he was motivated by the fear of communism; he was fascinated by Hitler, the
man, though not his political program, of which Speer claimed to know little; he rejected the notion of
German war guilt pronounced at Versailles.
In his book Inside the Third Reich, Speer describes his decision to join the party as frivolous:
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On this point, it is difficult to judge Speer. He joined the Nazis, but so did many others at the time
of the Depression. Dan van der Vat suggests that it is only the committed who join a party long before
it is elected to office, as opposed to the bandwagon effect the Nazis experienced after January 1933.
In his view Speers becoming member 474 481 (from an

eventual total of approximately seven million) was an act of
commitment, not frivolity. However, as Kershaw points out,
the electoral success of September 1930 was the political
breakthrough that meant that many of the respectable
middle class felt ready to join the party.
Speer as architect
Speer frequently claimed that he was first and foremost
an architect and was therefore immune from and ignorant
of the developing evils of the Nazi regime going on
around him. It is with the beginnings of his work on
Germania that a question mark appears over Speers
record of his own history. Speer was formally appointed as
inspector-general of construction for the Reich capital (GBI)
in January 1937.
To make space for this construction, thousands of old

apartment blocks were demolished. Some of the occupants
of these flats were good Aryan Germans but several
thousand were Jews. To rehouse the Aryans, Speers men
combed the capital in search of flats occupied by Jews.
When found, the occupants were turned out, often with only
an hours notice. Documents have been found that clearly
show that Speer threatened any landlords with punishment
if they rented out a vacant flat to Jews. In August 1941, on
Speers orders, action was taken to clear a further 5000 Jew
flats for the rehousing of demolition tenants. This work was
not an example of Speer carrying out Hitlers ordersthe
evictions were done at Speers command.
How did Speer respond to the issue of the Jew flats
at Nuremberg? He didntbecause he wasnt asked. All
he would concede at Nuremberg was that he knew in an
overall sense that Jews were evacuated from Germany, while
denying any personal involvement in that process. The Jew
flats affair shows that he did, at the very least, send many of
them on the first steps of the journey which was to lead to
the ghettos, concentration camps and death. The evidence
about the Jew flats evictions did not emerge until after the
Nuremberg trials. In later years, Speer denied all knowledge
of the issue.
Figure 11.50 All that remains of Speers Germania: a few street

lights in central Berlin
Speer and anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism was one of the watchwords of the Nazi
regime and led to some of its worst excesses. Was Speer
as anti-Semitic as the rest, or was he untouched by that
particular prejudice?
In his books, Speer repeatedly claims that he was not
anti-Semitic, pointing out that he had Jewish friends from
his school and university days. Yet in one of his letters to
Hilde, his daughter, who corresponded with him throughout
his imprisonment, he later wrote about Jews: I really had
no aversion to them, or rather, no more than that slight
discomfort all of us sometimes felt when in contact with them.
(authors italics)
As we have seen above, in the Spandau diaries Speer
again declared an absence of personal anti-Semitism and a
failure to grasp its importance to Hitler.
Speer and Hitler

In his early years as Nazi architect, Speer formed a close
relationship with Hitler. Gita Sereny calls the relationship
almost erotic, Hitler referred to Speer as a genius and Speer
reports himself as being Hitlers unrequited love.
Germany 19181939 | 363
Germania, the new capital for the anticipated thousandyear Reich was to be built on the site of Berlin. It was to be
filled with grandiose buildings, statues and fountains in the
classical style. Though the war intervened to ensure that
Germania was never completed (only some ornate streetlights
survived as a testimony to Speers grand designs), the work
was begun and one of the first tasks was the creation of a
wide avenue in central Berlin.
They spent hours poring over designs together, sharing the same pencil, as one report has it, to
correct and amend their joint formulations. In the later years of the Reich, Speer is usually credited with
being the second most powerful man after Hitler. Only Speer, Bormann and Goering were allowed to
have a house inside the three-kilometre inner security fence at the Berghof.
It is known that Hitler liked to keep his subordinates guessing, and issued no written orders about the
Holocaust, but is it likely that a man so close to Hitler would be as unaware of the anti-Semitic agenda
as he claimed to be? Historians such as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen have suggested that the German
population as a whole knew a lot more about the anti-Semitic policies and deeds of the Nazis than has
previously been credited. How then, in Speers case, can one so important have remained so ignorant?
The use of forced labour

The single most specific issue that helped to bring Speer a prison sentence was the use of forced
labour in his efforts to boost war production. And yet, even here, critics might argue that he got off
lightly. At Nuremberg Speer admitted that he knew the workforce for his labour camps was brought
into Germany against their will and that he approved of that, though when faced with the evidence of
how they had been transportedjammed into cattle truckshe alleged that he knew nothing about
transport conditions. Later in his testimony, when Mr Justice Jackson asked him about the working
conditions of the forced labour, he said that this was not in his sphere of responsibility and he couldnt
be expected to remember any details of them.
In the Harz Mountains of southern Germany lay the Dora camp. In twenty kilometres of tunnels dug
deep into the mountains to avoid Allied bombers, 40 000 workers slaved to build the V2 rockets. One in
three died in the hellish conditions. The workers worked for eighteen hours a day, slept underground,
had no heating, ventilation or running water, and used half-barrels for toilets. They saw the sky once a
week at roll call. Speer inspected conditions at the Dora camp at the end of 1943. According to Fest,
Speer noted the stale, damp air reeking with excrement and was himself made dizzy by the lack of
oxygen. Some of his companions on the inspection were so overwhelmed by what they saw that they
had to go on leave to recover from the stress. Presumably it was small details like this that he could not
be expected to remember two years later. As Lord Shawcross, the British prosecutor, would complain
long after the Nuremberg sentence had been handed down, Fritz Saukel, Speers subordinate, was
hanged for his role in the slave labour system for carrying out Speers orderswhy wasnt Speer?
The concentration camps

In assessing Speers complicity in the crimes of the Nazi regime it is important to understand what he
knew of the concentration camps, and when.
In Inside the Third Reich he speaks of a meeting with his friend Karl Hanke, the Gauleiter of lower
Silesia, which took place in the summer of 1944.
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And what was Speers reaction to this piece of news?
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It is for this deliberate blindness that Speer condemns himself at Nuremberg and assumes a share of
the responsibility for the worst actions of the Nazi government. It is as if he is saying You cannot blame
me for being involved, because I did not know. I blame myself for not seeking to know.
What did Speer know about the concentration camps? Only one visit by Speer to a concentration
camp is recordedto Mauthausen in Austria in March 1943. In a letter to Himmler written shortly
afterwards (April 1943), he complained about the luxurious constructions he found there (he was
referring to the prisoners barracks) and urged that the SS switch to more primitive construction
methods involving minimal material and labour. Mauthausen, bad as it was, was not one of the
extermination camps that were at the centre of the Final Solution. So did he really have no idea of the
Polish camps until he talked with Hanke?
His claim to have known nothing about the Final Solution is questionable. At a meeting in Posen,
Poland, on 6 October 1943, Speer and Himmler addressed assembled Gauleiters. In the morning,
Speer warned them not to obstruct his attempts to reduce the output of consumer goods. After
lunch Himmler divulged the secret of the Final Solution. Speer later claimed that he had left the
meeting before Himmler spoke and remained unaware of the details of Himmlers speech. Details of
this meeting emerged into public knowledge long after the Nuremberg trials had concluded. Even
if Speers excuse is accepted at face value, are we expected to believe that none of Speers friends or
colleagues who had heard Himmler saw fit to mention the speech in Speers presence in the weeks
and months that followed, until he had his talk with Hanke some nine months later?
In 1977 Speer engaged in correspondence with a South African Jewish organisation. In a long letter
he wrote: To this day I still consider my main guilt to be my tacit acceptance of the persecution and
the murder of millions of Jews (Fest 2002, p. 333). Surely tacit acceptance implies knowledge of, if not
necessarily involvement in, the Final Solution?
In an interview in 1979, Speer, referring to Himmlers speech, said indeed he said that it was a secret
which we had to take with us to the grave; we dared not say anything about it to anyone. Dan van der
Vat suggests that the use of we in this context is significant, a verbal slip which implies that Speer had
been present (van der Vat 1997, p. 169).
The Wolters chronicle

Information relating to Speer and his activities was only partial at the time of the Nuremberg trials. One
of the most intriguing aspects to subsequently emerge in exploring the enigma that was Albert Speer
is the story of the Wolters chronicle.
Dr Rudolf Wolters was, like Speer, an architect. They had met in the 1920s, and when Speer was
appointed as inspector-general of construction for the Reich capital he recruited Wolters as one of his
department heads.
In 1940, Wolters suggested to Speer that he should compile a chronicle (or history) of the work of
the GBI. Speer agreed and gave orders to his department heads to cooperate in its formulation. It is in
the Chronicle that Wolters wrote the details of the clearance of the Jew flats.
Had the Chronicle been known about at the time of Nuremberg, containing as it did the details of
the anti-Jewish actions ordered by Speer, there seems little doubt that Speer would have been hanged.
Wolters kept what he presumed was the only copy of the Chronicle with him. In 1964 he decided
to revise it, principally to remove certain parts that would incriminate Speer and one or two of his
colleagues. The Chronicle was retyped and a copy of the edited version sent to Speer. Wolters kept the
original. In 1966 the British historian David Irving made reference to the Chronicle in one of his books.
His source, Wolters thought, was probably notes made by a colleague in the GBI, a Dr Groener.
Germany 19181939 | 365
In 1969, Speer presented his copy of the edited Chronicle

to the German Federal Archive and was panic-stricken to
receive a request for the original for purposes of comparison.
Speer wrote to Wolters and strongly hinted that he
should destroy the incriminating pages in the original
but, by this time, the friendship between the two had
cooled. Wolters had grown increasingly unhappy at Speers
condemnation of the Nazi years and his criticisms of
Hitler. When Inside the Third Reich was published, Wolters
observed: A more thrilling crime novel could not have been
invented. (Fest 2002, p. 328). As van Der Vat comments:
Wolters could not bring himself to blow the whistle while
both he and Speer were alive, but he made sure that his
own cleansing of the Chronicle and Speers plan to
destroy the suppressed evidence of his crimes against the
Jews would inescapably become known (van der Vat,
p. 348). Following the death of Wolters in January 1983 the
complete Chronicle was deposited in the German Federal
Archive at Koblenz.
The closing phase of the war

In his memoirs, even while admitting his limited
responsibility, Speer managed to insert references to
whatever good I may have done or tried to do in the last
period of the war (Speer 1995, p. 507). What was this good,
and does it tip the balance back towards the figure of the
reluctant Gentleman Nazi whose eyes were opened to the
horrors of the regime he served?
Speers relationship with Hitler began to deteriorate
early in 1944 when illness kept him away from the Fhrers
headquarters from February until June. By the beginning
of 1945, Speer was convinced that the war was lost. Hitler,
however, was determined to destroy Germany rather than
admit defeat.
According to Speers testimony at Nuremberg, he hatched

a plot to kill Hitler in February 1945 by introducing poison
gas to the Fhrers bunker via a ventilation shaft that lay at
ground level in the chancellery garden. He was thwarted, so he
claimed, because in the time taken to obtain the gas, armed SS
guards had been posted on nearby roofs and the ventilation
shaft at ground level had become a chimney over three metres
high. Having reluctantly given the Nuremberg judges the
details of the assassination attempt, it could only have served
to incline the judges more favourably towards him. But is the
story true? We only have Speers word for it, and others have
observed rather cynically that the second most powerful man
in the Reich seemed unable to find a ladder!
This assassination attempt, combined with Speers efforts
to thwart Hitlers scorched-earth policy after March 1945,
may be taken at face value as Speers attempt to rescue
as much as he could from this lost cause for the benefit of
future Germans. However, we have seen all through this
study that there were two sides to Albert Speer. If this was,
as Noakes alleges, merely a rehabilitation attempt, it came to
its climax at Nuremberg. And though twenty years in prison
is not to be ignored, Speer did save his neck and enjoy his
rehabilitation as the Gentleman Nazi.
Long after his death, Albert Speer remains an enigma.
The only leading Nazi to accept responsibility for the crimes
of the regime and a man who accepted his punishment
without rancour, he has been admired as an essentially
decent man who was swept away by his surroundings, saw
the error of his ways, and paid the price. Yet if this were the
case, surely he would wish, if he could have his time again,
to alter the past? When Speer was asked whether he would
have behaved differently after all that he had since learned
about Hitler and the system created by him, he replied, after
a pause: I dont think so. (Fest 2002, p. 348)
1 What were Speers achievements as an architect?
2 List the different positions that Speer held in the Nazi leadership and the dates when he was
appointed to those positions.
3 Outline Speers achievements in his wartime ministerial roles.
4 What factors hindered Speer in his wartime work?
5. Using the evidence provided, assess Speers relationship with Hitler.
4 What are the contentious issues that concern Speer in his wartime role?
6 From what you have read, how do you assess Speers role in Hitlers Reich? Was the Nuremberg
verdict fair?

LENI RIEFENSTAHL 19022003
Leni Riefenstahl was both blessed and cursed by a long and eventful life.
She lived until the age of 101. Riefenstahl was brilliant, driven, and selfobsessed. As a pioneering female movie director Riefenstahl was responsible
for creating some of the great examples of the film-makers art. She also
willingly allied herself to the Nazi cause, one of the most contemptible
regimes in history. Hence she was both a feminist pioneer and, by association,
a Nazi propagandist.
The key events of Leni Riefenstahls career

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of Faith and then Triumph of the Will, which were films of the Nazi rallies at Nuremburg in 1933
and 1934.
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denied it, witnessed the massacre of Polish civilians in Konskie.
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she was essentially cleared, simply being described as a follower.
r *OTIFDPNQMFUFETiefland, a film begun under the Nazi years. The film was controversial
because Riefenstahl was accused of using Gypsies who had been interned by the Nazis as extras in
the film.
r *OUIFTimes of London commissioned her to photograph the Munich Olympics.
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the people of the Sudan, The Last of the Nuba (1974) and People of Kau (1976).
Personality Profile: Leni Riefenstahl
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started a new career as an underwater photographer.
During her life Riefenstahl, through her skill as a film editor and her understanding of the use
of the best possible camera angles, created some great films, most notably Triumph of the Will and
Olympia. She used the same talents to create and refashion her own life story. Riefenstahl edited the
scenes from her life, altering details and omitting events to suit her purposes. She also knew how to
fashion images of herself, so that she might be seen in the best light and from the best possible angle.
When it suited her she was happy to be regarded as Adolf Hitlers lover. It provided her with influence
during the 1930s and 1940s in the male-dominated and chauvinistic world of the Nazi leadership.
Germany 19181939 | 367
After 1945 she played the role of the victim, often claiming that she was a mere woman, and asking
what she was expected to do in the face of such an evil dictatorship, when it had required a world war
to end the Nazi tyranny. At other times she cast herself in the role of the nave artist, the film-maker
who only saw the world through the lens of her camera. Riefenstahl claimed that she may have
made films during the Nazi regime, but that she was an artist, not a political propagandist. Like many
other Germans of her generation she denied knowledge of the concentration camps and the worst
evils of Nazism.
Riefenstahl was a woman who aroused strong emotions in those who knew her. She has been
idolised and condemned, praised as a feminist heroine, and the victim of unfair criticism by the petty
and jealous. Riefenstahl has also been charged with caring for no one but herself and of displaying
a willingness to exploit other people and circumstances to serve her own egotistical, obsessive and
selfish ambition. Early in her film-making career she exploited Jewish friends; later she rejected and
condemned them. She had many lovers but does not appear to have known how to love.
Historical judgments of Leni Riefenstahl range from her own claims that she was not a Nazi
supporter and that she was interested in film-making, not politics. She asserted more than once
when discussing her film of the 1934 Nuremburg Nazi Party rally, Triumph of the Will, that it was a
documentary, not propaganda. In an interview in the 1990s for the documentary The Wonderful
Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl she asked Where is my guilt? Later in an interview with the New York
Times Riefenstahl declared, in her own defence, I didnt do any harm to anyone. What have I ever done?
I never intended any harm to anyone.
Writing in 1976, Glenn Infield in his book Leni Riefenstahl: The Fallen Film Goddess praised Riefenstahl
as a film-maker but argued that she had actively supported Nazism after its potential for evil became
clear. Infield also argued that Triumph of the Will was propaganda that aided the Nazi cause. He summed
up his judgment of Riefenstahl with the words: Those who believe in freedom have not forgotten her
actions during the period when so many men, women, and children were losing their freedom and
their lives (Infield 1976, p. 238).
In 1980 Renata Berg-Pan published a biography of the film-maker simply called Leni Riefenstahl.
Berg-Pan claimed in the preface that the difficulty in writing about Leni Riefenstahl arose from the
contradictions Berg-Pan discovered as she sifted through the chaotic memories of love and hate,
gratitude and pain that surrounded people touched by the life of Leni Riefenstahl.
Writing in 1996 Audrey Salkeld in A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl argued that much of the
condemnation of Riefenstahl came from hindsight. According to Salkeld, looking back and knowing
the horrors that unfolded under Nazism, horrors that Riefenstahl could not have known were to come
in 1934, makes it almost impossible to offer a fair judgment of the film-maker.
In 2000 Rainer Rother published Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius. The book was translated
into English in 2002. Rother began his account with a chapter entitled The Problem with Leni
Riefenstahl. He described the problem as the difficulty of resolving Riefenstahls genius as a film-maker
and artist with the moral judgments that emerge from the extent to which she profited from and
contributed to the Nazi cause. Rother also argued that our ideas about Riefenstahl have been heavily
influenced by the fact that after 1945 the government of West Germany wanted to distance itself
from the Nazi regime. One result of this distancing was that Riefenstahl became a special case and an
example. In other words she received more attention and criticism than might otherwise have been
the case.
Jurgen Trimborns 2002 German biography Leni Riefenstahl: A Life was translated into English in
2007. Trimborn maintained that the difficulty of coming to any judgment about Riefenstahl arose from
the fact that she had become a myth and that views of her remain divided. Nevertheless Trimborn
summed her up primarily as a careerist a person solely concerned with her artistic obsessions, her
fame and recognition, and her control of the publics image of her (Trimborn 2007, p. xii). These were
the factors that motivated Riefenstahl throughout her life.
One of the best and most recent accounts of Reifenstahls life Leni: The Life and Work of Leni
Riefenstahl was written by Steven Bach and published in 2007. Bach argued that Riefenstahl was
obsessed with her career and moulding her image, and that these things are the keys to understanding
Riefenstahls behaviour throughout her life. Bach also presented strong evidence to support the view
that Riefenstahl knew more about Nazism than she would have liked people to believe.
To summarise these points of view:
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As historians we need to ask our own question: can we trust you?
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deaths of millions, but Riefenstahl was never a Nazi Party member and she just made films.
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Riefenstahl. Can we as historians condemn someone when the evidence is so full of contradictions?
r "VESFZ4BMLFMETVHHFTUFEUIBUXIFOKVEHNFOUTPG3JFGFOTUBIMXFSFCBTFEPOIJOETJHIUUIFZNJHIU
be unfair to the German film-maker: after all, she could not have known in the 1930s what would
occur in Europe in the 1940s. What role does hindsight play for the historian?
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the fact the West German government after 1945 made her a special case. The result was that
Riefenstahl became the deliberate focus of special criticism. Was it fair to make Riefenstahl a
special case?
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He then went on to suggest that she was a careerist, and that this meant that she allied herself with
Hitler. Read on and decide if Trimborns view makes sense to you.
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about herself and her career. As you read about Riefenstahls life decide whether Bach is being too
hard and providing us with an example of the unfair use of hindsight that Audrey Salkeld described.
After all, when asked about Triumph of the Will, Leni maintained that she had been ordered to
make the film and that it was impossible for the young girl that I was to foresee what was going
to come about.
1 What were the key events of Riefenstahls life and career?
3 Why is Glenn Infield so critical of Riefenstahl?
4 According to Renata Berg-Pan why is a study of Riefenstahl so difficult?
5 According to Audrey Salkeld why might some of the judgments that have been made about
Riefenstahl be unfair?
6 According Rainer Rother, why did Riefenstahl become a special case?
7 How did Jurgen Trimborn describe Riefenstahl?
8 What are the key points of Steven Bachs assessment of Leni Riefenstahl?
Germany 19181939 | 369
2 What were the main points made by Riefenstahl about her association with the Nazis?
TA SK
1 Memorise the key events of Riefenstahls career. This information will be useful for any HSC
exam question.
2 Use the internet to research Leni Riefenstahl. In particular look for newspaper obituaries published
at the time of her death. Compare and contrast their assessments.
3 Also use the internet to research Susan Sontags 1974 article about Riefenstahl:
Fascinating Fascism.
4 As you read the following pages consider Riefenstahls own version of events and weigh up
her comments against the views offered by the historians who have studied her. Examine the
evidence for yourself and decide what kind of person she was. Should she be condemned as a Nazi
propagandist, or acclaimed as a feminist heroine and pioneer?
Figure 11.51 Leni Riefenstahl used her looks throughout her career.
Figure 11.52
Leni Riefenstahl was Hitlers favourite film-maker.
Historical context
German cinema in Weimar Germany

Anyone who lived for over a hundred years, in Leni Riefenstahls case from 1902 to 2003, would have a
broad historical context. However, when that life was so eventful and active, the context is both richer
and wider.
During the 1920s and 1930s the film industry in Weimar Germany was one of the biggest and
most successful in Europe. With the aid of the Weimar Governments Reich Film Act that provided
tax assistance to film companies, the 1920s were seen as the great age of German film. Aspects of
German film production in these years came to rival that of

Hollywood. Before the invention of sound, language was no
barrier and German silent films could speak to the world.
One of the most successful of the Weimar film studios was
Ufa, short for Universum-Film-Aktiengesellschaft. In 1925,
when an ambitious twenty-three-year-old Leni Riefenstahl
appeared in her first film, Ufa was making a major film every
week. Ufa had directors, actors and actresses who would
become legends of the global film industry. People like Fritz
Lang, Emil Jannings, Pola Negri, Conrad Veidt and Marlene
Dietrich all worked for Ufa and were part of the growth of
cinema in Weimar Germany.
The Alpine genre

During the 1920s in Germany one of the most popular
film genres, a classification given to types or categories
of movies, was the so called Alpine film. These involved
action and adventure stories filmed on location amidst the
snow and ice and set against the backdrop of spectacular
mountain scenery. The best of the Alpine films were made
by Dr Arnold Franck and were seen locally as reflecting key
aspects of German nationalism.
Leni Riefenstahl was born into the age of films, so it is
hardly surprising that she was attracted to the opportunity
and fame they offered. Her first film appearance came in
1925 in a film called Ways to Strength and Beauty. The film
was not great. It was billed as a celebration of physical fitness
and exercise; in reality it was an excuse to film attractive
half-naked women. The film was popular and Riefenstahl

had a minor part. Her part was so small that she did not
receive billing, but she was later identified by name in a
photograph that appeared in a magazine promoting the
film. Riefenstahl appeared bare-breasted, first as Eve, then
as a Greek and finally as a Roman woman. According to film
historian Steven Bach, the film was important for two reasons:
first because it marked Riefenstahls film debut and second,
because Riefenstahl denied ever having heard of the film,
let alone having appeared in it. Bach concluded that her
denials had nothing to do with embarrassment at having
appeared topless; Leni Riefenstahl was not shy about getting
her clothes off. Rather, according to Bach, Riefenstahl denied
knowing anything about the film because it did not fit in with
her own preferred version of her life story. She wanted her
story to be all about instant success. Until the day she died
her version of the beginning of her film career was that she
saw one of Arnold Francks Alpine films, Mountain of Destiny,
and in her own words, she was spellbound and it changed
my life completely. She claimed to have approached Franck,
told him that she wanted to be in one of his films and left
him with photos and press reviews of her performances as
a dancer. Riefenstahl then claimed that the film producer
came to her with a copy the script for his next film, The Holy
Mountain, and that Franck had scribbled a note across the
typed screenplaywritten for the dancer, Leni Riefenstahl.
This is just the first of many examples of Riefenstahls
tendency to edit her story to create the desired image.
1 What was Ufa?
2 What was the Alpine genre?
3 What was Leni Riefenstahls first film?
TA SK
Leni Riefenstahl was not the only famous German involved in film during the Weimar period or after
1933 in the early Nazi years. Select two of the following names: Fritz Lang, Emil Jannings, Pola
Negri, Conrad Veidt, Marlene Dietrich, and write a very brief biography. In particular note how they
responded to Hitler and Nazism. This will be useful as you form judgments about Leni Riefenstahls
behaviour during the same period.
Germany 19181939 | 371
4 According to the film historian Steven Bach, why was Riefenstahls first film important?
The rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party

The turbulent 1920s and 1930s in Germany with the threats of revolution, hyper-inflation and
depression was the backdrop to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Hitlers rise coincided with the
early development of Riefenstahls career first as a dancer, then as an actress and finally as a filmmaker. Hitler would be one in a series of men that Riefenstahl used to advance her career. The first was
a Jewish banker called Harry Sokal, who she took as a lover. He financed her solo dance career and
her early films. The hyperinflation of the 1920s helped rather than hindered her because Sokal, as an
international banker, had access to American dollars. The next was Dr Arnold Franck, who gave her a
start in films and helped edit Riefenstahls first film as a director. Adolf Hitler was the third: Riefenstahls
fame and Hitlers rise to power are inseparable. She was Hitlers favourite film-maker and made two
films of the now infamous rallies at Nuremburg: the first in 1933 filmed as the Victory of Faith (1933) and
the second, better known, of the 1934 rally Triumph of the Will, which was released in 1935.
The Berlin Olympics

The Berlin Olympics had originally been scheduled for 1916, but were cancelled due to World War One.
The International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Games to Berlin in 1931, before Hitler came to
power. When Hitler became chancellor in January 1933 his first reaction was to condemn the Olympic
Games as an evil invention by Jews and Freemasons. By March of 1933, however, Josef Goebbels, the
minister of propaganda and enlightenment, saw advantages in holding the games in Berlin to advertise
to the world the successes of the new Nazi regime. This was the backdrop to the Nazi Olympics. Even
though the German Olympic Committee was still apparently in charge, the Nazi regime funded and
planned the 1936 Games. They built a vast new stadium replacing the one that had been built for
the 1916 Games, which Hitler didnt think was sufficiently impressive. Jews, in theory, were allowed
to represent Germany, but this was difficult because they had been banned from membership in all
sporting organisations. These were the Olympics that became the subject of Leni Riefenstahls two-part
film Olympia.
The period after Hitlers death and Germanys defeat was difficult for Riefenstahl. After all, she had
exploited her special relationship with Hitler and had made no secret of her admiration for him. In her
autobiography Riefenstahl wrote about hearing of Hitlers death in these terms: I cannot describe what
I felt at this moment. I was overcome by a frenzy of emotionsI threw myself onto my bed and cried
all night.
In the immediate post-war years Riefenstahl cast herself as a victim. After she unsuccessfully tried to
go into hiding Riefenstahl was first interrogated by the Americans following her arrest in 1945. In these
interviews Riefenstahl insisted that she was an artist and that Hitler had been a supporter of her career
because the Nazi dictator was a great patron of the arts. She claimed that she only met Hitler on official
occasions. Riefenstahl also insisted that The Triumph of the Will and Olympia, the films she had made for
the Nazis, were documentaries and not propaganda, and that Goebbels, the minister for propaganda,
was her bitter enemy. Riefenstahl added that she had been a major star before the Nazis came to
power, that she did not owe her career to the Nazis, and that she had never received financial backing
from the Third Reich.
Riefenstahl wrote in her old age that her highest commitment was to the truth and that she did
not lie. Riefenstahl stuck to this version of her script for the rest of her life, long after so much of it was
disproved by a range of documentary evidence that established:
1 The fact that she had a good working relationship with Goebbels and that she did receive funding
and aid from the Nazi government
2 The reality that both The Triumph of the Will and Olympia were commissioned by the Nazis as
propaganda films
3 The fact that Riefenstahl met with Hitler on many private occasions and that her relationship with
him was personal, and not just formal and official.
All of these facts come in addition to the contradiction at the heart of her story. First, Riefenstahl
said that she knew Hitler because he was a supporter and patron of the arts, but that she never
received funding from Hitlers government.
Even though doubts about Riefenstahl remained, she was released by the occupying Americans
in 1945 with no formal charges laid. This was not, however, the end of the questions that Riefenstahl
would face. Between 1948 and 1952 she faced four separate tribunals that were established as part
of the formal process of denazification. On three occasions the tribunals found that she had not done
anything illegal; on another, they declared that she had been a Nazi follower. It is important to note
that none of these tribunals had at their disposal the range of documents that historians eventually
uncovered. So Riefenstahl was free, and set about rebuilding her life and career.
1 Who were the three men who played key roles in helping Riefenstahl with her career?
2 What were the names of the two films Riefenstahl made of the Nuremburg rallies?
3 Why did Goebbels support the staging of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games?
4 According to Riefenstahl, what was her reaction to Hitlers death?
5 What were the inaccuracies that historians discovered in Riefenstahls version of her relationship
with Hitler and the Nazis?
6 What was the result of the denazification process?
TA SK
Individually or in groups, consider what you know about Riefenstahl from what you have read
so far. Write three or four questions that you would have asked Riefenstahl at one of the
denazification tribunals.
Then, write what you think Riefenstahls answers might have been.
If you are so inclined, you could prepare and video your own docudrama interviewing Leni
Riefenstahl.
Background
Family background and education
Leni Riefenstahl was born on 22 August 1902. Her full name was Helene Amalie Bertha Riefenstahl;
she was the elder of two children and grew up first in Wedding, one of the working-class industrial
suburbs on the edges of Berlin before moving to Berlin-Neukollen. Riefenstahls father Alfred Theodor
Paul Reifenstahl was a plumber and small businessman. He was a hard and demanding figure and
Leni probably learned at a very early age how to manipulate and deceive people to get her own way.
Riefenstahls mother was Bertha Ida Scherlach Riefenstahl and stories persist that she was Jewish, even
Germany 19181939 | 373
though Riefenstahl passed the Nazi test for proof of descent that she had to provide in order to work in
German films after 1933.
After elementary school, Riefenstahl attended secondary school in her teens and even though her
father wanted her to have a traditional academic education this did not suit Riefenstahl and she was
re-enrolled in a less academic school. She did best at physical endeavours: gymnastics and a range
of other sports. In her early teens Riefenstahl claimed that she fantasised about becoming a nun; this
proved to be ironic in a woman for whom sex would prove to be recreational, variously spontaneous
and calculated, and a matter of personal vanity, experiment, entertainment and opportunity.
Riefenstahl was by all accounts a good looking teenager; she was coordinated and graceful, and
became interested in dance. Her father did not approve of this interest and Riefenstahl began taking
lessons at the Grimm-Reiter School of Dance without his knowledge, but with her mothers support.
When Alfred learned what had been going on he sent his daughter to boarding school far from Berlin.
This did not end Riefenstahls desire to dance.
Early career as a dancer and film actor

At the age of nineteen Riefenstahl had finished school as was back in Berlin, living with her family
and working in her fathers office. After appearing in beauty contests and on magazine covers, and
dancing in minor roles, Riefenstahl began to move in more sophisticated social circles. She took as a
boyfriend the ageing tennis star Otto Froitzhiem, but she wanted more. In 1922 Riefenstahl set about
the conquest of the Jewish banker Harry Sokal and a solo dance career. She took Sokal as a lover
and with his funding, took to the stage as the star of her own dance recital. Riefenstahl appeared
regularly between October 1923 and June 1924 before her career as a dancer was ended by a knee
injury. Typically Riefenstahl claimed more talent as a dancer than was the case. A number of her earlier
biographers accepted Riefenstahls version of her artistry as a dancer. By contrast Riefenstahls two most
recent biographers, Jurgen Trimborn and Steven Bach, offer a different view. Trimborn pointed out that
Riefenstahl only paid attention to reviews that described her as a great artist, ignoring everything else.
Bach went further and claimed that Riefenstahls story made her eight months of dance loom larger
and more brilliantly than they had in life (Bach 2007, p. 32).
As pointed out earlier, Riefenstahls first film appearance was in 1925 in Ways to Strength and
Beauty. Her significant career as a film actress, however, began with her association with the director
Arnold Franck, who was known as the father of the Alpine film. Why Franck would have agreed to use
Riefenstahl is one of those familiar points of contradiction and controversy. Riefenstahls version is that
Franck was so taken with her charm and beauty that he just had to have her in his films. The reality is
that Riefenstahls lover Harry Sokal, the Jewish banker, agreed to fund the production of Franks films
and in return, Franck felt obliged to hire Riefenstahl. Naturally after the Nazis came to power in 1933 any
Jewish associations were an embarrassment to Riefenstahl and therefore Harry Sokal was written out of
Riefenstahls script and the story of her life.
Riefenstahl would go on to appear in a number of Francks films, among them The Holy Mountain
(1926), where she had an off-screen affair with her leading man; The Great Leap (1927) and took another
lover, a cameraman. On the set of The White Hell of Piz Palu (1929) Riefenstahl complained of losing her
most recent lover. Storm Over Mont Blanc (1930) was her first film with sound and dialogue and SOS
Iceberg (1933) was her last film with Franck. At the premiere of SOS Iceberg, a few months after the Nazis
had come to power, Riefenstahl appeared on stage at the end of the film and rather than taking a bow
she gave a Nazi salute.
1 Where and when was Riefenstahl born?
2 How long did Riefenstahls solo dance career last?
3 What comments did historians Jurgen Trimborn and Steve Bach make about Riefenstahls career as
a dancer?
4 What part did Harry Sokal play in the beginning of Riefenstahls film career? Why was his role cut
from her version of the story?
5 What were some of Riefenstahls best known films, as an actress, with Arnold Franck?
Rise to prominence
Direction of The Blue Light 1932
The film was remarkable because Riefenstahl was the writer, director, producer and star. Riefenstahl
had learnt a great deal during her time with Franck, but she was also a gifted director and editor in
her own right and brought her own style to film-making. If Franck captured on film dramatic weather
and landscapes audiences had not seen before, Riefenstahl was more concerned with the creation of
beautiful and memorable images.
Even though Riefenstahl claimed that the screenplay for The Blue Light was her vision, she did
have help in coming up with a workable script. Assistance came from the Jewish writer Bela Balazs.
Riefenstahl could not afford to pay Balazs but set about charming the Hungarian. We do not know
whether the charms she offered extended to the physical, but Balazs wrote the script and agreed
to wait and take a share of the profits when the film was released. Balazs also directed scenes when
Riefenstahl was in front of the camera. In terms of money to start the project, Harry Sokal funded
Riefenstahls directing debut, as he had funded her solo dance career.
The film premiered in Berlin in March 1932 before the Nazis came to power and was generally,
but not universally, well received. From the point of view of the historian, rather than the film critic,
the most interesting aspect of the story of the making of The Blue Light was the involvement of Sokal
and Balazs. When the film was reissued under the Nazi government in 1938, the names of the two
Jews Sokal and Balazs had vanished from the films credits. Shortly after both Sokal and Balazs left for
America. Aside from being removed from the film credits, Balazs never received his promised fee for the
screenplay and direction. It can only be hoped that Riefenstahls charms were enough to satisfy him.
1932 meeting with Hitler
Riefenstahl met Hitler for the first time in person on 22 May 1932, not long before he had come to
power, in the small village of Horumersiel near Wilhelmshaven. We only have Riefenstahls account of
the meeting, but according to her, she told Hitler that she could never join the Nazi Party because you
have racial prejudices. This does seem strange coming from the person who had read and praised
Mein Kampf. Nevertheless, according to Riefenstahl, her frankness impressed Hitler and he made
physical advancesa reaction that all of Hitlers biographers find unlikely. Whatever the nature of the
relationship, Hitler did become a supporter of Riefenstahls film career.
Ban on Jews working in the film industry

Once the Nazis came to power Goebbels took the view that the film industry was meant to serve the
national culture. In this case the national culture was Nazi culture. The film industry anticipated that it
would eventually come under regulations similar to the Civil Service Law, a law that acknowledged the
Germany 19181939 | 375
racial concepts of Aryan and non-Aryan. As a result the film industry began regulating itself and Jews
were excluded. The formal government regulations were announced on 30 June 1933.
Riefenstahl insisted that she was overseas during this period. It depends on which interview you
acceptin some she only learned of these changes much later; in others she didnt notice them at all.
Both of these claims are hard to believe for a member of the close-knit film community.
Commission for Victory of Faith (Nazi Party rally 1933)

Riefenstahl has to be seen as a surprise choice to direct the film of the 1933 Nazi Party Rally at
Nuremburg. At Nuremburg Riefenstahl met Albert Speer, Hitlers young architect and the person
responsible for planning the ceremonies associated with the rally. Riefenstahl and Speer shared a deep
devotion to Hitler. Even though the film is not one of Riefenstahls best, it is marked by the creative use
of camera angles. The film premiered in December 1933, and was a useful rehearsal for a much better
film, Triumph of the Will.
R E VI E W Q U E S TI O N S
1 What was the significance of the involvement of Harry Sokal and Bela Balazs in the making of The
Blue Light?
2 When did Riefenstahl have her first meeting with Hitler, and what is her version of events?
3 What was useful about the making of Victory of Faith?

Relationship with Hitler
Jurgen Trimborn suggests that Hitlers positive response to
Riefenstahls film The Blue Light was in marked contrast to
some critics and that this was a key element in Riefenstahl
paying attention to some of the other things that the Nazi
leader had to say. Riefenstahl attended a mass Nazi meeting
at the Berlin Sports Palace on 27 February 1932 and heard
Hitler speak. Therefore, before they ever met, Riefenstahl
had been exposed to Hitler. Her version of events indicated
that her world changed in a moment and that she had been
infected by the power of Hitlers words.
It is interesting that both Riefenstahl and Albert Speer

offer a similar version of coming under Hitlers spell. This
Figure 11.53 Although Riefenstahl claimed to only have met Hitler
on official occasions, they often met informally.
kind of explanation was used by both of them after 1945 as
a kind of defence. Like Riefenstahl, Speer claimed to be nonpolitical, but said that he was somehow swept along by the
tide of emotion Hitler generated. This is not believable. Riefenstahl and Speer both displayed ambition
and a willingness to use other people to get ahead. If Riefenstahl was true to character, her response to
Hitler was more calculated than emotional.
Riefenstahl wrote to Hitler and requested a meeting which, as noted, took place near Wilhemshaven
in May 1932. Hitler and Riefenstahl developed a close relationship, one that despite her post-1945
version of the script, made her part of the Nazi inner circle. Although Riefenstahl seemed closest to
Hitler in 1933 they remained on good terms right up to their final meeting in March 1944. Despite her
fondness for sex and a range of sexual partners, there is no evidence to suggest that Riefenstahl and
Hitler were ever lovers. Nevertheless, up to 1945 Riefenstahl played the part of Hitlers intimate friend;
after 1945 her role changed and she played the role of independent artist.
Triumph of the Will and Olympia

Riefenstahl described Triumph of the Will as the perfect film. Hence she rarely wanted to acknowledge
or comment on the earlier Victory of Faith. Like the image of instant stardom in her film career, she
wanted Triumph of the Will to be a spontaneous burst of genius. After 1945 she also preferred people to
think that she had only made one film of this kind for Hitler. Leni tried to say that Ufa had funded the
film, but we now have the documents to prove that 300 000 reichsmarks were made available by the
Nazi Party to finance the film.
The Nazi Party rallies at Nuremburg generally lasted a week and the party faithful came from all over
the country. Riefenstahls film of the event is now a classic and has been used repeatedly by film experts,
historians and political scientists to say things about Hitlers Germany, propaganda, film and the role of
the media. The film captures the essence of Hitlers desired message: a message of German unity and
strength. Riefenstahls status within the Nazi elite and her special relationship with Hitler were reflected in
this film. She obtained what she wanted in terms of funding and material support in fashioning the film,
because she acted on the direct orders, and with the personal authority, of the Fuhrer.
We now know that in August 1935 Hitler privately commissioned Riefenstahl to make the famous
film Olympia and that the idea was to make more than a sporting film, it was to be an epic. Riefenstahls
vision for the film was so big that it was released in two parts: Festival of Nations and Festival of
Beauty. In the opening sequence of Olympia Riefenstahl filmed Grecian statues of men and women
that turn into athletes and dancers, linking Hitlers Olympics to the Greek ideal of physical beauty.
Some film scholars argue that one of the topless women was Riefenstahl. We do know that the actor
Riefenstahl filmed running with the Olympic torch at the start of the film was the young Anatol
Dobriansky. Riefenstahl was so impressed by his physical beauty that she paid Anatols parents two
hundred reichsmarks and they allowed him to travel to Berlin, where he briefly became another of
Riefenstahls lovers. During the games Anatol was discarded in favour of the American decathlon gold
medallist Glenn Morris.
The debate continues about to the extent to which the film was Nazi propaganda. Riefenstahls
obsession with the body beautiful and her lingering close-ups of the famous African American athlete
Jesse Owens suggest that if the film was propaganda, it was subtle. Nevertheless, both films were
acclaimed at the time and won international recognition and awards.
TA SK
Use the library and the internet to research for yourself specific details of Riefenstahls long list of
international film awards. Also look closely at her time in Africa and the striking images she captured
in her 1960s Nuba photography.
Evaluation: Nazi propagandist, feminist pioneer?

Any evaluation of the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, her international honours as film-maker and
photographer, and the controversies that followed her throughout her life need to be weighed against
her association with Hitler.
Germany 19181939 | 377
The Tiefland Gypsies

One of the key elements in that evaluation needs to be her use of Gypsies taken from a collection
camp to play extras in her 1954 film Tiefland. These people were the victims of Nazi Germanys hateful
race laws and Riefenstahl willingly exploited their victimisation. Under the orders of the SS the Gypsies
were put at Riefenstahls disposal.
TA SK
Below you will find set out the case for and against Leni Riefenstahlhow should she be judged?
Read each of the arguments carefully, discuss them in class, decide which are the strongest and
weakest aspects of both cases and then make up your own mind.
In building the case for, look at the praise Riefenstahl received from unbiased film critics for her
work on Olympia, and the fact that she was never a Nazi Party member. Also consider that fact that
she was never actually found guilty of any crimes.
In building the case against, look at all of the lies Riefenstahl told and just how her story repeatedly
changed. She claimed not to have known about the Konskie massacre, but she witnessed it.
Riefenstahl knew that there were collection camps, if not concentration camps, and in Tiefland used
the victims of Nazi race laws.
THE CASE FOR:
THE CASE AGAINST:
Leni Riefenstahl was brilliant and ambitious. She was independent and
single minded. Riefenstahl has, for the most part, been judged by men.
Riefenstahl was a pioneer, willing to do what was needed to succeed.
Riefenstahl was passionate and impulsive. These were the qualities
that made her a great film-maker; none of her critics denies her a place
among the great directors. These were also the qualities that caused
her to ally herself with Hitler and the Nazis. Among Germans in the
1930s, she was not alone in being willing to work with and for the
Third Reich.
Leni Riefenstahl did more than just go long with the Nazis. She was a
believer. Riefenstahl accepted Hitlers political ideas and his world view.
She had read Mein Kampf and encouraged others to read it. She was
quick to blame what she called the Jewish press for bad reviews and
blamed Hollywood Jews for the failure of her American visit.
Her greatest failing was not considering the consequences of her links
to the Nazis, but what was she meant to do? What could a young
working class girl, with no political experience, do to change Nazi policy
or the course of German history? The answer is nothing. Hence she was
a victim, a victim of her time and her associations.
True, she did alter many of the facts of her life, but who hasnt done
that? The harsh judgments that have been made of Leni Riefenstahl all
rest on how her films were used, not on how they were made.

Riefenstahl was happy to be seen as an associate of Hitler until it

became clear that the war was lost. Little or nothing in Riefenstahls
version of events is to be believed because historians have caught
her in one lie after another. She may not have been able to alter the
course of German history, but she could have changed her own. Many
other Germans involved in the film industry chose to abandon Hitlers
Germany and fulfilled their career ambitions in America.
Riefenstahl knew about the evils of Hitlers racial policies and exploited
various groups of Gypsies, many of whom were later to be killed in
the camps, using them as film extras. If the post-1945 denazification
tribunals had known what we know about Riefenstahl today she would
not have been treated so leniently.
Figure 11.54 A photo of Riefenstahl taken at Konskie just after the shooting began
Figure 11.55 Victims of the Konskie massacre
First write a concise but detailed biography of the key episodes of Riefenstahls life.
Then set about answering each of the following questions:
All individuals are the victims of the times in which they live. Discuss this statement in the light of
the life and career of Leni Riefenstahl
All individuals need to be held accountable for their actions. Discuss this statement in the light of
the life and career of Leni Riefenstahl
Note that in the case of each of these responses adjust the length to the amount that you think that
you would be able to write under HSC examination conditions.
Germany 19181939 | 379
TA SK
References
Bach S., Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstah, Alfred Knopf, New York, 2007
Berg-Pan R., Leni Riefenstahl, Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1980
Bracher K. D., The German Dictatorship, Penguin, London, 1991
Brooman J., Weimar Germany: Germany 191833, Longman, Essex, 1985
Broszat M., The Hitler State, Longman, London, 1981
Browning C. R., The Path to Genocide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992
Bullock A., Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Fontana Press, 1993
Cloake J. A., Germany 19181945, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
Crew D. (ed.), Nazism and German Society 19331945, Routledge, London, 1994
De Jonge A., The Weimar Chronicle: Prelude to Hitler, Paddington Press, New York, 1978
Evans, R. J. The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin, London, 2004
Fest J. C., Speer: The Final Verdict, Phoenix Press, London, 2002
Fest J. C., The Face of the Third Reich, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970
Fulbrook M., A Concise History of Germany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991
Hitler A., Mein Kampf, Radius Books, Hutchinson, London, 1972
Hhne H., The Order of the Deaths Head, Penguin, 2000
Infleld G., Leni Riefenstahl: The Fallen Film Goddess, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1976
Jenkins J., Hitler and Nazism, Longman, 1998
Kershaw I., Hitler: 18891936 Hubris, Penguin, London, 2001a
Kershaw I., Hitler: 19361945 Nemesis, Penguin, London, 2001b
Kershaw I., The Hitler Myth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991
Kershaw I., The Nazi Dictatorship, Edward Arnold, London, 1993
Kohn H. (ed.), The Modern World, Macmillan, New York, 1966
Kolb E., The Weimar Republic, Routledge, London, 1988
Martel G. (ed.), Modern Germany Reconsidered 18701945, Routledge, London, 1992
Nicholls A.J., Weimar and the Rise of Hitler, Macmillan, London, 1991
Noakes J., Nazism 19191945, Vol. 4, The German Home Front in WW2, University of Exeter Press, 1998
Pinson K., Modern Germany, Macmillan, New York, 1966
Rother R., Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius, Continuum, London, 2002
Salkeld A., A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, Pimlico, London, 1997
Schmidt M., Albert Speer: The End of a Myth, Harrap, London, 1985
Sereny G., Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, Macmillan, London, 1995
Speer A., Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Collins, London, 1976
Speer A., Inside the Third Reich, Phoenix, London, 1995
Taylor S., Germany 19181933, Duckworth, London, 1983
Trimborn J., Leni Riefenstahl: A Life, Faber and Faber, New York, 2007
van der Vat D., The Good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert Speer, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1997
Warburton G., Weimar Republic and the Nazi State, Heinemann, Auckland, 1992
Wheeler-Bennett J. W., The Nemesis of Power, Papermac, 1963
THE COLD WAR

19451991
INTERNATIONAL STUDY IN PEACE

AND CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION
The term the Cold War has meaning on two levels: first, in the broad or generic
sense, it has been used to describe the relationship that evolved between the United
States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) between 1945
and the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Second, on a more specific level, it refers to
12
phases in the relationship when tension and conflict between the two countries
were at a peak. It is wrong to assume that the relationship was static or
involved consistent and unchanging hostility. The Cold War was, in fact,
marked by aspects of both peace and conflict. This study considers the
origins and development of the Cold War in terms of the political,
diplomatic, military, economic, historical and cultural elements that
dominated the period from 1945 to 1991, exploring its key features,
concepts and groups.
Odd Arne Westad is the Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. In 2006, his book The Global Cold War won the Bancroft Prize, an American award
given to the best history book. Westad argued that understanding the Cold War was critical to an
understanding of our world in the twenty-first century. He looks closely at the ideological motivations
of the superpowers. Westad argued the need to view the Cold War as truly global. He considers the
impact of the superpower rivalry on the so-called Third World. Westad defines the Third World as the
former colonial and semi-colonial countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America countries that were, for a
time, subject to European and American economic and social domination.
Westad attempts to explain the interventions of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the
Third World in terms of the ideologies inherent in their politics. He argued that both the United States
and the Soviet Union saw themselves as the fulfilment of European modernism. Hence both the USA
and the USSR believed that their type of government and their ideas would dominate the world of the
future. The United States believed that their government and entrepreneurial capitalism was the way of
the future and the means of achieving happiness. By contrast the Soviet Union believed that capitalism
belonged to the past and that socialism and the path to communism would ensure a better, fairer
world in the future.
The result was that the governments in Washington and Moscow needed to change the world
in the image of their ideology and their view of the future. This was, according to Westad, the key to
understanding the conflict and competition that developed between the United States and the Soviet
Union after 1945.
Westad points to the vast amount of new material that has become available to historians, not just
from the United States and the former Soviet Union but from the archives of the emerging Third World
countries.
Westad labelled the United States the empire of liberty (Westad 2007, p. 8) it may not have been
a factual description but it was certainly how the US saw itself throughout the Cold War and how it
continues to see itself. Westad goes on to argue from its beginning the US preached a revolutionary
message the message was a combination of personal liberty and capitalism. The United States saw
itself as the leader of the Allied powers in their fight against Germany and Japan in World War II, a view
not shared by the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the United States felt obliged to take a leading role in
remaking the post-war world.
Westad referred to the Soviet Union as the empire of justice (Westad 2007, p. 39). Like the label
he gave the Americans, this was not an actual description, but it did reflect aspects of Soviet thinking.
In the beginning the Soviet Union saw itself as great human experiment, an experiment that had the
potential to make the world a better place. According to Westad all of Soviet foreign policy was based
on the challenge of reconciling two potentially contradictory aims. The first was to ensure the security
of the Soviet state; the second was to establish the global dominance of communist ideology. These
aims were contradictory because the Soviet Union did not have the resources to achieve both aims.
Furthermore the attempt to achieve the national security represented by the first was endangered by
the hostility, especially from the United States that resulted from attempts to achieve the second.
These, therefore, according to Westad were the key elements that caused the Cold War and the
ideological factors that determined the course of US and Soviet foreign policy throughout.
In 2001, Walter Russell Mead published Special Providence, an acclaimed study of the evolution of
American foreign policy. Mead argued that four schools or approaches to foreign policy influenced the
conduct of the Cold War. He identifies these views as:
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According to Walter Russell Mead, These four schools have shaped the American foreign policy
debate from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first (Mead 2001, p. xvii). During the course of
the Cold War, the Jeffersonian view, an isolationist policy that favoured the US dealing with its own
domestic affairs, was less influential than the other three. However, there were times during the period
between 1945 and 1991, especially after the Vietnam War, when Jeffersonian, isolationist sentiments
re-emerged. Nevertheless, a study of the Cold War usually emphasises the other three approaches:
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The Cold War 19451991 | 383
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As you read about the history of the Cold War consider how each of these views alone or in
combination has influenced American policy and decision-making.
1 What are the four schools of foreign policy thinking identified by Walter Russell Mead?
2 Which of the four was the least influential during the Cold War?
3 Which view helps explain Americas key interest in the Middle East? Why?
4 Which view helps to explain Americas interest in creating or promoting democratic
governments throughout the world?
5 What events and decisions during the Cold War are explained, in part, by the
Jacksonian view?
RE VI E W TA SK
As you read about the key events of the Cold War and review American foreign policy
decisions, try to link them to one or more of Walter Russell Meads schools or views.
Timeline
1940s
1945
February
The Yalta conference. President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin, the
leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, meet to discuss the future
of Europe and Asia after the war. The USA and Britain want free elections in Eastern
Europe and agreement on plans for the United Nations. The Soviet Unions main concern is
to establish a buffer zone of friendly countries to protect it from further attacks from the
West; the key issue for the Soviets at Yalta is the communist government in Poland.
April
President Roosevelt dies and is replaced by his vice-president, Harry Truman.
June
Germany surrenders and the war in Europe ends.
JulyAugust
The Potsdam conference. Stalin, Truman and the new British prime minister, Clement
Attlee, meet at Potsdam in Germany. Germany is divided into zones each controlled by one
of the major powers. The German capital of Berlin is in the Soviet zone and is divided into
sections, like the country. During the conference, Truman receives word that the USA has
successfully tested a nuclear bomb, encouraging, so it is said, his very tough line with the
Soviets and their plans for a communist Eastern Europe.
The wartime alliance breaks down.
August
Atomic bombs are dropped, marking the beginning of the nuclear age in terms of
international relations, and Japan surrenders. The existence of nuclear weapons would
come to dominate the nature of the relationship between the USA and the USSR.
1946
1947
March
Winston Churchill delivers his famous Iron Curtain speech, claiming that the post-war
world had become divided into two hostile armed camps and that communist expansion
should be resisted.
March
President Truman announces his doctrine, making it clear that US policy is to provide
economic and military aid to contain the spread of communism, in response to the threat
of a communist revolution in Greece. The Truman Doctrine also becomes known as a policy
of containment, which is to dominate the USSoviet relationship for the next fifty years.
June
The Baruch Plan for International Control of Atomic Energy is put to the United Nations by
Bernard Baruch. The Americans offer to give up their nuclear weapons if an international
body takes control. The USA wants inspections to ensure that the USSR doesnt develop
nuclear weapons of their own. The Soviet Union rejects the Baruch Plan, believing that the
USA will, in fact, control any international body set up by the United Nations.
The Marshall Plan, named after the US secretary of state, George Marshall, is announced.
It is designed to give economic aid, as the economic aspect of the Truman doctrine of
containment, to the countries of Europe, based on the idea that communism will not be
popular in countries with strong economies and good living standards.
November
The Soviet Union sets up Cominform, a communist information and propaganda service
based in Eastern Europe, reinforcing the idea that the world is now divided into two camps,
the communist and the capitalist.
1948
1949
June 1949 May

The Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union closes off all access to the city of Berlin, which is
in the Soviet zone of Germany. President Truman decides against direct military action and
uses an airlift to supply the Western section of Berlin. Finally the Soviets lift the blockade.
January
The Soviet Union sets up COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, as
part of the Molotov Plan, named after the Soviet foreign minister. The Molotov Plan and
COMECON are meant to give economic aid to the communist countries in Eastern Europe
as a counter measure to the US Marshall Plan.
April
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is established as a military alliance designed
to contain communism in Europe. Its members include the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy,
Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, Portugal and Canada.
September
The communists take over China in what is seen in the United States as an example of the
worldwide spread of communism.
The USSR tests its first A-bomb, marking the end of the American nuclear monopoly.
1950s
1950
April
The US National Security Council policy paper, number 68 (NSC 68), calls for massive
increases in US spending to meet the threat of communism worldwide. It estimates that
defence spending will reach $35 billion a year.
June 1953 July
The Korean War is initially fought between the communist North Koreans and noncommunist South Korea. When the United States and the United Nations become involved
to help South Korea, the war expands to include communist China.
The Cold War 19451991 | 385
November
Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president of the USA, and leads the United States for the
next eight years. He is a conservative and cautious leader.
The US explodes the first hydrogen bomb. As a thermonuclear weapon, it is a larger
nuclear device than the A-bomb, and the test blows the small Pacific island of Elugelab to
bits. The Soviets spend a great deal of time and money to catch up and nine months later
they test their own H-bomb. This is a clear example of the arms race.
1953
1954
March
Stalin dies and his death is followed by a period of collective leadership, until 1957 when
Nikita Khrushchev emerges as the most powerful figure in the Soviet Union. Historian Fred
Halliday suggests that Stalins death marks the end of what he called the first Cold War.
January
Massive retaliation and brinkmanship, ideas that are introduced by President Eisenhowers
secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, become part of US foreign policy. Massive
retaliation means that the USA will use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union if the
USA or its allies are threatened, even if the Soviet Union attacks with conventional (nonnuclear) weapons. Brinkmanship means that the USA is willing to go the edge or the
brink of nuclear war to protect its interests. Nuclear weapons will be used as a threat.
May
The French are defeated at Dien Bien Phu, marking the end of French rule in Vietnam, and
the beginning of the US role, as it opposed what they saw as further communist expansion
under Ho Chi Minh.
1955
May
The Warsaw Pact, in which the communist countries of Eastern Europe agree to a mutual
defence, is established. The Soviets believe this is needed to balance their forces against
NATO and because Eastern Europe is a vital sphere of interest.
July
The Geneva Summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Little is actually achieved, but
at least the leaders appeared to be talking, so there is room for hope that relations might
improve.
1956
July November
The Suez crisis. The president of Egypt takes control of the Suez Canal, which, although on
Egyptian territory, had always been controlled by the British and French. Egypt had Soviet
support but the British, French and Israelis send in troops. When the USA refuses to back
the British and French, they are forced to withdraw. However, the crisis and concern about
communist influence in the region does lead to the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957.
OctoberNovember
The Hungarian uprising. In October it appears as though non-communist forces inside
Hungary might take over. The Soviet Union responds by sending in troops to restore
communist rule.
1957
January
Eisenhower Doctrine. The US president promises money and military aid to stop
communism spreading in the Middle East, as an extension of the principles set out in the
Truman Doctrine.
October
The Soviets use a rocket to put a small satellite, the Sputnik, into orbit. The rocket, an
SS-6, is powerful enough to be used to drop an A-bomb on the USA, and is the first
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The USA races to catch up and launches its first
ICBM in 1958.
November
The Gaither report, by US experts, suggests a major build up of US forces and the
construction of fallout shelters. It has a similar effect to the NSC 68.
1958
The National Defense Education Act. Following the Soviet Unions success with Sputnik,
the USA adds $2 billion to its spending on education, particularly the funding for science at
high school and university level.
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell sets up the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND).
1959
January
Fidel Castro becomes the pro-communist leader of Cuba, a small island not far south of the
United States.
1960s
1960
January
Khrushchev announces a policy of peaceful coexistence, claiming that war between
the USSR and the USA is not inevitable, and that there could be peaceful economic
competition between the two.
November
John Kennedy is elected president of the USA.
1961
April
The Bay of Pigs invasion. The US government had spent money to help anti-communist
Cubans plan an invasion of Cuba to get rid of Castro. The invasion fails and President
Kennedy is criticised for not doing more to help.
June
The Vienna Summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy takes place. Khrushchev makes
it clear that he is not happy with the growing economic and military strength of West
Germany. Kennedy wants an agreement to keep the existing balance of power. There is
little agreement and Kennedy leaves Vienna determined to build up US forces in the face of
what he thinks are Khrushchevs threats.
August
The Berlin Wall is constructed to divide East and West Germany and East and West Berlin
in response to what Khrushchev sees as the growing military and economic power of West
Germany. The communists want to keep Western influence out of their part of the country
and maintain pressure on West Berlin. This is seen in the West as a hostile act.
1962
Early
1963
1963
October
The Cuban missile crisis. From August 1962 the Soviets had been building missile sites in
Cuba. When this becomes clear to the USA, President Kennedy demands the immediate
withdrawal of the sites and places a naval blockade on Cuba. The world is taken to the
brink of nuclear war. However, Premier Khrushchev backs down and the missiles are
taken away. In this crisis the USA is defending what it thinks is a vital sphere of interest
because any part of the American continent is important to them.
The USA moves from massive retaliation to the idea of flexible response, which means
that the USA doesnt have to use all its nuclear weapons in a dispute with the Soviet Union.
The policy gives American leaders choices to either use conventional weapons, following
a big build up, or nuclear weapons, but in a limited way. The Cuban missile crisis clearly
indicates the need for such a change in policy. Historians now see the Cuban crisis as one
of the key turning points of the Cold War.
August
Partial Test Ban Treaty. Following the Cuban crisis, President Kennedy makes a speech at
American University, Washington, DC, where he offers to come to terms with the Soviet
Union about limitations on testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. This is seen as the
beginning of the relaxation in tension between the two countries.
November
President Kennedy is assassinated and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson becomes the new
president of the USA.
The Cold War 19451991 | 387
1964
August
The Gulf of Tonkin incident. The USA claims that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked
an American destroyer, the Maddox, and President Johnson commits US combat troops in
numbers to the Vietnam War.
October
Khrushchev is removed from power at a special meeting of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party and is replaced by a new group of leaders, Leonid Brezhnev, Aleksei
Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny. In time it becomes clear to the USA that Brezhnev is the
key figure.
Late 1964 early 1965
US moves towards the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD), put forward by the US
secretary of defence, Robert McNamara, to ensure that no matter what the Soviet Union
does, the USA will always be able to hit back. This policy is the key to deterrence.
1968
January
The Tet Offensive in Vietnam occurs at a time when the US government is insisting that
they are winning the war in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese launch a major attack on key
positions in South Vietnam, including the US embassy in Saigon, which goes a long way to
convince Americans at home that the Vietnam war is the wrong war in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
August
The Soviets invade Czechoslovakia. The leaders of Czechoslovakia want to reform their
economy and move away from communist ideas, so the Soviet Union and other members of
the Warsaw Pact invade and change the Czech government.
September
Under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet Union, in the name of the communist nations of
Europe, claims the right to interfere in the affairs of any communist state. This doctrine is
seen as a justification for Russian actions against Czechoslovakia.
November
Richard Nixon is elected president of the USA.
1969
July
The Nixon Doctrine is announced in response to the Vietnam War stating that future
conflicts against communism in the Third World would not be fought by US troops. The
USA makes it clear that it is willing to provide aid, but that the fighting will have to be done
by locals.
September
The West German chancellor, Willy Brandt, begins negotiations to improve relations
between West Germany and East Germany and between West Germany and the Soviet
Union. The Ostpolitik is a policy of cooperation between Eastern Europe and West
Germany, which fits in very well with dtente.
196979
1972
Dtente refers to a relaxation of previously strained relations and this decade is marked
by relatively good relations between the USA and the USSR. President Nixon and the
Soviet leader, Brezhnev, meet on three occasions and establish the basis for important
agreements on arms limitations. Dtente is closely linked to Henry Kissingers idea of
linkage: relations with one country are linked to relations with others. It is suggested
that Nixon wants to take the mind of the American people off the Vietnam War, and that
Brezhnev wants a break from the arms race to make important domestic changes in the
Soviet economy. Dtente ends in 1979 with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
1970s
February
Nixon visits China as the first step in establishing normal diplomatic relations between the
USA and China. It is another aspect of linkage.
May
Nixon and Brezhnev agree to a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which sets limits
on the numbers of missiles.
1973
1974
1975
1976
1979
January
The USA signs a truce agreement and withdraws troops from Vietnam. This truce does not
last long and by 1975 the North Vietnamese control Vietnam.
August
Nixon resigns as president and is replaced by Gerald Ford.
January
The Alvor Accord. The Organisation for Africa Unity attempts to arrange a settlement
between communist and anti-communist groups in Angola, a former Portuguese colony in
South West Africa. The Accord provides for free elections, but fails and the USA, through
the CIA, and the USSR and Cuba provide aid to their respective allies. The result is a bloody
civil war.
November
Jimmy Carter is elected president. Carter is inexperienced in foreign policy but hopes for
a continuation of dtente. He is perhaps unrealistic in associating US foreign policy with
human rights.
March
The EgyptianIsraeli Peace Treaty, also known as the Camp David Accord, is signed. This
is the high point of Carters foreign policy and is an important step towards peace in the
Middle East.
June
The second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), signed by Carter and Brezhnev, is
intended to extend the gains of the first, but is never put into effect. Dtente ends and the
US Senate refuses to ratify (agree to) the treaty.
December
The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. The Soviets are always convinced that their
security depends upon having friendly, communist governments on their borders;
therefore, they invade Afghanistan to ensure it remains communist. The USA objects and
this event marks the end of dtente.
1980s
1980
January
The Carter Doctrine. US President Jimmy Carter declares that the Persian Gulf is now a
vital sphere of interest to the USA, because of its oil. He declares that the USA is willing to
use nuclear weapons to protect its interests and allies in the region.
November
Ronald Reagan is elected president of the USA. Reagan says that the USA needed to take a
much tougher line with the USSR. He serves eight years as US president.
1981
1982
1983
November
The USA provides aid to the anti-communist Contras who are attempting to overthrow
the communist government of Nicaragua in Central America. The USA claims that they are
attempting to eliminate Cuban and Soviet influence in the region.
November
Brezhnev dies and is replaced as leader of the Soviet Union by Yuri Andropov, who is seen
as a reformer, keen to improve the productivity of the Soviet economy.
March
President Reagan describes the Soviet Union as an evil empire, clearly reflecting the
tough line he wants to take. He believes that the Soviets respect strength.
President Reagan announces his Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) or Star Wars program,
using US technology to create a defence system in outer space to shoot down missiles
aimed at the USA. The Soviets see this as a threat, because if the USA can hit them, while
being protected from a Soviet attack, then the idea of deterrence no longer works.
The Cold War 19451991 | 389
August
A South Korean passenger airliner, KAL 007, strays across the Soviet border near a key
defence base and is shot down. Incidents like this add to the hostility and tension between
the Soviet Union and the West.
October
The USA invade Grenada, an island in the Caribbean that has a Marxist government. The
United States doesnt approve and sends in troops to change its leadership. They use the
excuse of protecting US medical students, but clearly the issue is geopolitical and related
to the US sphere of interest.
1984
1985
February
Andropov dies and is replaced as Soviet leader by Konstantin Chernenko. Such rapid
changes in Soviet leadership make it difficult for the USA, President Reagan in particular,
to come to terms with the Soviet Union.
March
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union. After the death of Chernenko,
the Soviet Union decides that it is time to turn to the next, younger generation of leaders.
Gorbachev is committed to changing both the domestic and the foreign policy of his
country.
November
The Geneva Summit between Gorbachev and Reagan is held as just a getting to know you
meeting, but talks about cutting the numbers of intermediate-range nuclear forces are
started. Reagan writes later that he thinks both he and Gorbachev could agree on reducing
the threat of nuclear destruction.
1986
1987
1988
October
The Reykjavik Summit between Gorbachev and Reagan takes place. The issue of SDI, or
the Star Wars program, prevents any real agreement. The Soviet Union sees it as a threat
and Reagan will not agree to end the program.
December
The Washington Summit between Gorbachev and Reagan results in the signing of the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). This removes medium-range missiles from the
US and Soviet forces.
November
George Bush Snr is elected president of the USA.
December
Gorbachev delivers a speech to the United Nations where he claims that the Cold War is
over.
1989
January November
The end of communist rule in Eastern Europe as communists lost power in Hungary,
Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
December
The Malta Summit, also sometimes called the Saltwater Summit, takes place between
Gorbachev and Bush. Gorbachev and Bush talk about the future of Europe and the
possibility of more arms reduction.
1990s
1990
November
The Conventional Forces Europe Treaty (CFE) is signed, resulting in a huge cut in numbers
of conventional (non-nuclear) forces in Europe.
1991
July
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is signed as part of the Moscow Summit,
cutting the numbers of ICBMs on both sides.
August
There is an attempted coup against Gorbachev. The failure of this coup and the opposition
to it by Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president, marks the beginning of the end of communism
in the Soviet Union.
December
The Soviet Union is ended and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is created.
Timeline exercise
1 Refer to the timeline and put the following events in chronological order (oldest to
most recent).
(a) John Kennedy is elected president of the USA.
(b) The Berlin Blockade.
(c) Atomic bombs are dropped on Japan.
(d) Sputnik is launched.
(e) Malta Summit.
(f) Dtente begins.
(g) Eisenhower is elected president of the USA.
(h) Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union.
(i) Carter Doctrine is announced.
(j) SALT I is signed.
(k) Truman Doctrine is announced.
(l) COMECON is set up.
(m)Stalin dies.
(n) Cuban missile crisis.
(o) Gulf of Tonkin incident.
2 Refer to the timeline and answer the following questions.
(a) Who were the American presidents between 1945 and 1996?
List them in their correct order.
(b) Who were the Soviet leaders between 1945 and 1991?
List them in their correct order.
(c) Why does the list of Soviet leaders stop at 1991?
(d) What was massive retaliation and whose idea was it?
(e) What was the CND and when was it formed?
(f) What started the Cuban missile crisis?
(g) When was the Tet Offensive?
(h) Why did the Soviet Union invade Czechoslovakia in 1968?
(i) What was the Nixon Doctrine and when was it announced?
(j) What action by the Soviet Union marked the end of dtente?
The Cold War 19451991 | 391
THE UNIQUE ASPECTS OF COLD WAR HISTORIOGRAPHY

Many books and articles have been written about the Cold War since it began in 1945. However, the
studies that have become available since 1991 are different from previous ones. As the noted American
historian John Lewis Gaddis (1997) observed, everything produced before the end of the Cold War, what
he called old Cold War history, was written from a different perspective. The books and articles written
before 1991 were written in the midst of the event they were attempting to assess; they were part of
the flow of history. Normally, historians stand backthey use the perspective of timeand they can
see the start, the middle and the end of an event or episode in history; however, this was not the case
with the material on the Cold War produced before 1991. Historians could see the start of the Cold War,
but they didnt know how close to the middle they were and they certainly could only guess about the
likely end. It is only now that we can view the Cold War in full, and our perspective and interpretations
may well differ from those of only a decade or so ago. This does not mean that everything written before
1991 is worthless; it simply means that we need to be aware of its perspective. We can use this material
to understand the attitudes of both sides during the course of the Cold War. If we combine it with the
perspective of hindsight, we can produce new Cold War history (Gaddis 1997, p. 282).
In addition, what has come to be known as the new Cold War history is multi-archival. It is more
successful in drawing on the records of all major participants in that conflict (Gaddis 1997, p. 282),
which means that it is more reliable because there is a better balance in the sources. In the past, a
great deal of what passed as the old Cold War history in the West was dominated by US sources. It was
written from the perspective of only one of the prime participantsnew Cold War history is different.
Figure 12.1 Cold War historiography
1 What is old Cold War history and new Cold War history?
2 What are the differences between them?
THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD INTO TWO OPPOSING CAMPS

The Cold War and the division of the world need to be examined in political, diplomatic, military,
economic, historical and cultural terms.
POLITICAL FACTORS
The term politics describes the competition for power and influence; international relations are politics
on a global scale. Every nation works for its best national self-interest. The key elements of this selfinterest are security, the ability to protect your people and your national borders; and sovereignty, the
ability of each nation to make its own decisions and not have some other country telling it what to do.
Nations try to protect their self-interest in a variety of ways: militarily, being willing to use force, or
the threat of force to protect what they have; economically, using trade as a weapon, using trade bans
and sanctions to cut off trade with countries that are opposed to you; or diplomatically, by talking
things over with your enemies or making alliances with friendly countries.
Both the USA and the Soviet Union wanted to have as many allies, supporters and as much
influence in the world as possible. Both sides believed that it was important to protect their national
interests, sometimes leading to competition. Both sides also had special geopolitical spheres of interest,
areas that they have always thought of as important to their national security. Geopolitics is the study
of how geography can influence government and politics. For the USA, the sphere of interest has
always been the American continent and, more recently, the Persian Gulf because of its oil. For the
Soviet Union, the vital sphere of interest has always been their western frontier, because of fears of
invasion. Neither side ever liked to see the other interfere in their sphere of interest.
These spheres of interest often amounted to modern empires, built around trade and political
allegiance. Gaddis asserted that the United States and the Soviet Union built empires after World War
II; a fact acknowledged in old Cold War history. A distinction, however, is drawn in new Cold War history
pointing out that although both sides set up empires they were not of the same kind (Gaddis 1997,
p. 284). The European empire or sphere of interest, established by the USA, was based on collaboration
and a degree of consensus. The Western nations freely associated with the USA because of a shared
set of political, social and economic values (Howard 1991, p. 135). The Soviet Unions European empire
faced more resistance. The American presence had a strong base of popular support, confirmed
repeatedly as free elections kept the governments in power that had invited it. The Soviet presence
never won such acceptance (Gaddis 1997, p. 285). This leads into a discussion of the role of ideology.
Ideology and politics

Both sides believe that certain political ideas, or ideologies, are best: the USA believes democracy, the
rights of the individual and private property; the USSR believes in the communist ideals of Karl Marx,
sometimes called Marxism, opposing private property and always believing that the group or the state
is more important than the individual. Because of Marxism, the Soviet Union believed throughout
the 1950s and 1960s at least that a clash between them and the USA was inevitable. This led to what
became known as the two camps theory: the world was divided into two rival camps, the communist
and the capitalist. The Soviets were convinced that the capitalist countries, as they called the Western
democracies, would try to destroy Marxism and their country. As a result many scholars believed that the
Soviet Union could never really trust the USA. Ideology has played a part in how the Soviet Union has
looked at its relationship with the USA; however, it is not the most important factor. National self-interest
and geopolitical division about spheres of interest have been more important. This is supported by the
fact that the closest either side has come to war with the other was over geopolitical disputes about Berlin
and Cuba (see sections on the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban missile crisis).
The Cold War 19451991 | 393
It also seems to be a fact of history that powerful nations

are often rivals and enemies (Bialer & Mandelbaum 1989,
p. 10). Going back to ancient history, there are many
examples of rivalry. In more recent times, Britain and France
were rivals in the 1800s, and before that Britain and Spain
were. In the twentieth century the increasing power of
Germany led to competition with Britain and France, and
finally to the First and Second World Wars. The key difference
between these past rivalries and the USSoviet competition
is that the latter has not led to war. Experts agree that the
main reason there hasnt been a war between the USA
and the USSR is the existence of nuclear weapons: atomic
bombs and missile warheads have made war between these
countries unacceptable since 1945.
Superpowers
Since 1945, for most of the time, the USA and the USSR
have been global superpowers, nations that think and act
in global terms. Their military and economic power were
so great that they created, in the 1940s and 1950s, what
has been called a bipolar world (Fliess 1968, p. 3), meaning
that most of the nations in the world were allied to either
one or the other superpower. The USA and the USSR were
the two opposite poles and smaller nations became linked
to them as allies or trading partners. The bipolar nature of
international affairs began to gradually break down from
the 1960s. It was slowly replaced by a multipolar world
of international relations, due to the growing power and
influence of China, Japan and West Germany. Nevertheless,
the USA and the USSR remained the only real superpowers.
After 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
United States was the only superpower left in the world.
The influence of domestic politics

Domestic politics, that is what happens inside a country, has
had an influence on foreign relations. Politicians sometimes
do and say things about other countries because of internal
political pressures, perhaps thinking that they need to
impress the people at home with their ability to get results
in international relations. There is plenty of evidence that
American voters have questioned the ability of many
presidential candidates in dealing with the Russians: in the
1950s the record of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican
Partys candidate for president, as a strong military leader
during the Second World War was seen as better than
the more gentle and intellectual image of his Democratic
opponent, Adlai Stevenson. In the 1970s Jimmy Carters
chances of a second term as president were ruined by what
was seen as weakness in foreign policy. On the other side,
it is suggested that Stalin took over so many of the Eastern
European countries after the Second World War because
Russia was so weak after the war with Germany. In the
1960s Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba
and triggered the famous Cuban missile crisis because he
needed to distract domestic political attention away from
the poor results of the Virgin Lands Program, an agricultural
policy that he had developed. Another example is when
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev agreed to a series of treaties
that limited nuclear weapons and marked a period of good
relations with the USA called dtente from 1969. He did this,
in part, because of a domestic political need to reform the
Soviet economy and to do this he needed to save money on
military spending.
1 What are the two key elements of national self-interest and what do they mean?
2 What is meant by the terms geopolitics and spheres of interest?
3 What is meant by the term ideology? What were the main differences between the Marxist
or communist ideas of the Soviet Union and the capitalist ideas of the United States?
4 How did Marxist, or communist ideology, influence the relationship between the Soviet
Union and the USA?
5 What is meant by the term superpower and who were the superpowers?
6 What is meant by the term, a bipolar world?
7 What is the key difference between the rivalry of the USA and the Soviet Union and other
great international rivalries of the past?
8 In what ways could domestic politics influence foreign relations between countries?
Give examples.
Figure 12.2 The atomic bomb dominated and defined the Cold War.
DIPLOMATIC FACTORS
Diplomacy refers to the use of special experts in foreign relations, called diplomats, to negotiate with
and talk to the other side. Diplomacy can be carried out by either professional diplomats, such as
ambassadors, or directly by the leaders of countries. Sometimes diplomatic relations during the Cold
War were carried out through the United Nations.
Summit diplomacy
Summit meetings or summits, as they were called, were direct meetings between presidents of
the United States and the Soviet leaders, and they marked some of the most important stages in
the timeline of the Cold War. Summit diplomacy involved the rivals meeting to talk things out. The
basis for dtente and the end of the Cold War itself was established at summits between Brezhnev
and President Nixon, and then Presidents Reagan and Bush and the Soviet leaders. It should not be
assumed, however, that summits were the only direct diplomatic activity, rather they were the public
face of months, sometimes years, of private negotiation and preparation.
Diplomacy can also involve making alliances or agreements between countries to help one another
in time of trouble. The United States made a series of such alliances after the Second World War, such
as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. The Soviet Union did a similar thing when it
organised the Warsaw Pact.
The Cold War 19451991 | 395
1 What is diplomacy? How is it carried out?
2 What is summit diplomacy?
MILITARY FACTORS
In the past, using the army or any military forces was thought to be a normal part of international
relations. War, or the threat of war, was often a part of the politics and the diplomacy of international
relations. However, the massive destructive power of atomic weapons changed all that: both the USA
and the Soviet Union knew that if there was an all out nuclear war, both of them would be crippled,
if not destroyed. This led directly to what has been called the Cold War, a stage between outright
armed conflict and peace. The Cold War meant that the USA and the Soviet Union were in conflict and
competition, but they could not fight one another.
Atomic weapons are the key to understanding how the relationship between the USA and the
Soviet Union is different from foreign relations between countries in the past. Fear of one another and
atomic weapons was a key feature of the Cold War. The result has been a close link between nuclear
strategy, how each side planned to use its nuclear weapons, and foreign policy. For example, having the
A-bomb made it possible for the USA under President Truman and then President Eisenhower in the
late 1940s and 1950s to commit the USA to the protection of Europe. The American public is unlikely
to have been willing to see large numbers of American troops permanently stationed in Europe after
the Second World Warnote the influence of domestic politics. Therefore, the A-bomb was needed to
deter possible Soviet aggression (Ambrose 1993, p. x).
Nuclear strategy
During the 1950s the United States accepted the idea of massive retaliation, which meant that the USA
was prepared to use all its atomic weapons in a massive strike against anyone who threatened the USA
or its allies. From the Russian point of view, massive retaliation and Americas nuclear monopoly, the sole
Source 12.1
The bomb appeared to be a godsend to the Americans. They could

impose their will on any recalcitrant [uncooperative] nation merely by
threatening to use it. Stopping aggression would be simplicity itselfjust
drop the bomb. America could retain a powerful position in Europe
without having to maintain a mass army there. One of the great fears in
American military circles was that, having smashed Germany, the West
now had to confront the Red Army, and the only nation capable of doing
so was the United States. But in the United States domestic political
realities precluded [prevented] the maintenance of a large, conscripted,
standing army in postwar Europe.
1 Once they had the A-bomb, how

did the Americans plan to stop
aggression in Europe?
The bomb seemed to solve all these problems. America could fight a cold
war without demanding any sacrifices of her citizens. Americas leaders
hoped that through a judicious use of financial credit and the veiled
threat of the bomb the United States could shape the postwar world.
4 Until 1949 the USA was the only

country to have the A-bomb. What
do you think happened to Americas
plans after 1949 when the Soviet
Union also got the A-bomb?
S. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism, 1993, p. 67.
2 Why couldnt the Americans keep a

big army in Europe after the Second
World War?
3 What was the great fear of the
American military after they had
defeated Germany?
control of nuclear weapons, which lasted until 1949, meant

that they felt the need to keep a huge standing army in
Eastern Europe in order to balance the nuclear power of the
USA. After 1949, when the Soviet Union developed a bomb of
their own, everything changed. The nuclear strategy of both
sides became dominated by the idea of deterrence: both
sides would threaten to use their nuclear weapons to stop the
other becoming aggressive. In this strategy, nuclear weapons
were meant to deter or prevent a war.
Nuclear strategy changed as the weapons and weapon
design developed. At first the only way to drop A-bombs
was in aircraft, and both sides set about building up their
numbers of long-range bombers. Then, in 1957, the Soviet
Union launched Sputnik, a small satellite, which they put
into orbit around the earth using a rocket. This rocket was
the key development for nuclear strategy. It was the first
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), a rocket capable of
dropping an atomic warhead, or bomb, on the USA. The
Americans quickly set about developing ICBMs of their own.
The race to develop the A-bomb, the race to build more
long-range bombers, and then the race to build ICBMs was
all part of the arms race and the economic competition that
became a key feature of the Cold War.
By the 1960s the policy of massive retaliation was out of
favour in the USA. President Kennedy and his secretary of
defence, Robert McNamara, wanted more choices. They didnt
want their only choice to be all-out nuclear war or nothing.
Therefore, they developed the concept of flexible response
so that the USA could respond to Soviet aggression with
conventional, that is non-nuclear, weapons or by using just
a few nuclear weapons on a limited number of targets. As
missiles became bigger and more accurate, nuclear strategy
changed again in the 1970s and 1980s, with counter force:
the idea of targeting the other sides missiles and bombers
on the ground to reduce their ability to fight. It was hoped
that, by doing this, the damage and losses on their own side
would be reduced. From counter force came the nuclear
war theory. Experts tried to work out ways of fighting and
surviving a nuclear war if one was actually fought.
In general, however, at the heart of nuclear strategy has
been the idea of deterrence: nuclear weapons are there as a
threat to frighten the other side, not to actually be used. The
clearest statement of deterrence came from US secretary of
defence, Robert McNamara, in 1962 when he proposed the
idea of mutual assured destruction (MAD). With MAD the
USA had to be able to guarantee that it could inflict at least
50 per cent casualties on the Soviet Union even if the Soviets
attacked the USA first with their nuclear bombers and missiles.
Figure 12.3 Throughout the Cold War, the fear of nuclear

war acted as deterrence, but it prevented either side from
ever really trusting the other.
It is generally agreed that the policy of deterrence did

stop the United States and the Soviet Union from going to
war. British prime minister Winston Churchill described safety
in the nuclear age as the child of terror. However, many
studies since the end of the Cold War have suggested that
while deterrence might have stopped the USA and the USSR
fighting, it also stopped them from ever really becoming
friends. The terror that Churchill referred to prevented them
from being able to trust one another completely.
An example of new Cold War history was an article by
Professor Richard Lebow and Professor Janice Stein in the
American journal Political Science Quarterly in 1995. They
posed the question about the impact of nuclear weapons
on the Cold War, arguing that, on the one hand, deterrence
and the bomb played a vital role in preventing war between
the two superpowers, but, on the other, the threat of nuclear
war poisoned the relationship. For the policy of deterrence
to work, fear rather than trust was the main ingredient.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What is meant by the expression Cold War?
2 How did nuclear weapons change the role of
the military in the relationship between the USA
and the Soviet Union?
3 What is meant by these terms: massive
retaliation, nuclear monopoly, ICBM, flexible
response, counter force, nuclear war theory,
deterrence and MAD?
The Cold War 19451991 | 397
ECONOMIC FACTORS
When two countries are rivals for global power and influence as the USA and the Soviet Union were, and
when atomic weapons make war unacceptable, they have to find other methods of competition. The
most important aspect of this competition was economics. They tried to outspend each other, building
up their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and they spent money helping countries that they thought would
be on their side. This was a key feature of the superpower rivalry in Africa and the Middle East. The USA
and USSR also spent money on the space race. Economic competition became the heart of the Cold War,
which became a life and death struggle between rival social and economic systems.
Source 12.2
The Cold War was also the first total war between economic and social
systems, an industrial test to destruction. Victory became clear when the
Soviet economy in the 1980s cracked under the strain of devoting an ever
larger proportion of gross national product (GNP) and research resources
in the vain attempt to keep pace. The West prevailed [won] because its
economy proved able to supply guns as well as butter, aircraft-carriers
and private cars, rockets as well as foreign holidays for an ever-increasing
proportion of its taxpayers.

1 Refer to Source 12.2. When did the
first signs appear of the collapse of
the Soviet system and the end of
the Cold War?
2 Why, in Walkers view, did the West
prevail in the Cold War?
Each time the Soviet leaders tried to redirect their economy towards
the production of more consumer goods, the demands of the arms race
forced them back into the military-industrial bunker.
M. Walker, The Cold War, 1994, pp. 14.
Many experts argue that the reason for the end of the Cold War and perhaps even the collapse
of the Soviet Union was its failure to keep up with the USA in economic competition. The old Soviet
economy could not provide money for the arms race and the space race and still offer its people the
standard of living they saw in the West.
Economic competition, in terms of military spending and financial aid to underdeveloped countries,
continued between the USA and the USSR.
The economic competition also had a propaganda value. Both sides wanted to show the rest of the
world that their system was the best, and in order to do this they had to produce more, have bigger
and better weapons, and lead the way into space. Sport, and the Olympics in particular, also became
an arena of competition, especially from 1952, when the USSR sent a team to the Olympics for the first
time. All of this cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The USA coped with the financial strain better than
the Soviet Union.
1 What did the USA and the USSR spend money on during the Cold War?
2 How did the economic competition have a propaganda value?
HISTORY AND CULTURE

The historical and cultural aspects of the Cold War focus on the background and attitudes of the two
countries. For example, Russias history has been dominated by foreign invasions and internal ethnic
struggles between the many different races that live within the borders of the old Russian Empire, the
former Soviet Union and now the CIS. American history was first dominated by isolationism, as they
concentrated on establishing control over their frontier. Early American presidents, such as George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson, warned against the United States getting involved in the affairs of
other countries. The USA wanted to remain isolated from political entanglements, while still reaching out
to trade with the world. All of that changed after the Second World War when the USA took on a global
role. Americans believed strongly in the rights of the individual and never trusted communist ideas. The
historical and cultural traditions of both sides greatly influenced the way they view each other: the Soviet
Union was afraid of the West and the USA found it hard to trust a communist government.
Just after the Second World War the Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin, took control of many countries
in Eastern Europe, starting the Cold War, so it was said (Ambrose 1993, p. 52). Stalins actions in taking
control of these countries can be explained in terms of Russias historical fear of invasion from the West.
He wanted to create a wall or buffer to make it impossible for Russia to be attacked from the West again.
This also explains why, for so long, the Soviet Union wanted to keep Germany weak and divided. Russia
had been invaded in 1812 by the French, and again in 1914 and 1941 by the Germans; therefore, invasion
was to many Russians a very real fear. This fear also led to the Brezhnev Doctrine of 1969. The Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev claimed that for security the Soviets had the right to interfere in the affairs of the
countries of Eastern Europe to ensure that governments friendly to the Soviet Union stayed in power.
On the American side, there was particular fear of a sneak attack from 1941. The memory of what
the Japanese had done at Pearl Harbor, in catching the US 7th fleet by surprise, influenced many
American attitudes. The risk of a sneak attack by the USSR worried the Americans a great deal once the
Russians got the bomb in 1949, and even more after 1957 when the Soviet Union took a very brief lead
in the development of ICBMs.
The end of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism have not prevented historical and cultural
factors from playing a role in the relationship between the USA and the CIS. The Russians are still
worried about the growing part played by the Western powers of NATO in Eastern Europe, while
internal ethnic disputes still go on: for example, in Chechnya during 1995, 1996, 2000 and 2004.
Reviewing the events, personalities and crises that marked the development of the relationship that
exists between the USA and the CIS today, it is important to remember the five key reference points
political, diplomatic, military, economic, historicalculturalbecause without these all historians have
is a list of events, treaties, and disputes. We might be able to say what happened, but we will not be in a
position to understand or explain why.
1 What factors traditionally dominated Russias history? How did these influence
Russias attitudes to other countries?
2 What factors traditionally dominated Americas history? How did these influence the
USAs attitudes to other countries?
3 What action of Stalins is said to have started the Cold War?
4 What was the Brezhnev Doctrine?
5 What are the five key reference points in the history of the Cold War? Why are they
important?
The Cold War 19451991 | 399
THE BACKGROUND TO THE COLD WAR

Both the United States and the Soviet Union were countries born out of revolution. In 1776 the
Americans created what they saw as a new and more just form of government. In 1917 the Russians
did the same thing. However, after the revolutionary struggle, the kind of society that each of them set
up was very different. In America, the rights of the individual, personal freedom and opportunity based
on capitalist principles were the keysthe great American dream was that an individual became rich
through hard work and individual effort. In Russia, the needs of the group, the idea that everybody
should be equal and should share were the keysthe communist revolutionaries wanted to create
a workers state where no one profited from the labour of another; all profit was to be shared. The
Russian political tradition is not a democratic one; the country has no real history of liberty (Bialer
& Mandelbaum 1989, p. 19). These differences were to become part of the historical, cultural and
ideological gap that made it hard for the USA and the USSR to get along.
RE VI E W TA SK
Research the lives and achievements of: (a) George Washington, the first American
president and leader of the revolutionary army, and (b) Vladimir I. Lenin, the leader of
the Bolshevik, or Communist Party, and the first leader of the Soviet Union.
1 Write a brief biography of each using dot points.
2 Identify what the two men had in common, and then identify differences between
them. Make a list of each.
THE GEOPOLITICAL INFLUENCES ON EACH COUNTRY

Geopolitics is the term used to describe the influence of geography on government and
political attitudes.
Source 12.3
Source 12.4
To early settlers America

oered escape from hunger
and war. For the dispossessed
emigrants from the Old World,
Americas sweep of unsettled
land and virginal resources
held the promise of a fresh
start.
As for autocracy [power held by one person], there were very good reasons why it
should have been the dominant political form in Russia, and why it should have been
acceptable to most of the people First, there are Russias flat, open frontiers, which
have been both her strength and her weakness Her weakness, because they have
rendered Russia ever vulnerable to attack, from the east, the south and, especially in
recent centuries, from the west. For that reason all Russian governments have made the
securing of their territory their chief priority National security has been, in fact, more
than a priorityan obsession to which, when necessary, everything else has
been sacrificed.
R. Morris, America: A History

of the People, 1971, p. 2.
G. Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, Fontana, London, 1992, p. 16.
1 Why did the early settlers come to America?
2 What was always the main concern of Russian governments?
3 Do you think that these concerns encouraged autocratic, anti-democratic types of
government? Explain.
The USA
The USA was protected from invasion by two vast oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. For most of
its history the USA used its time and energy to settle and control the vast American West, an area
sometimes called the first American empire. The result of this was that they became politically isolated
and were tied up in their own affairs until into the twentieth century. They only took an ongoing
international role during and after the Second World War.
Russia (USSR)
The vast flat plains of Russia provided no natural barriers to invaders, which meant that invasion was
a common event and a common fear for the Russians. Due to its size and location, Russia was cut
off from the changes going on in the rest of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Therefore, at the start of the twentieth century it was economically and industrially backward. The
USSR became very worried about security or Bezopasnost. This Russian word has no direct English
translation: the closest meaning is total security.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION OF 1917

The events linked to the First World War from 1914 to 1918 led to major changes in the relationship
between the USA and the Soviet Union. During this time the USA reluctantly broke with its isolationist
tradition and entered the war against Germany. At the time the Americans thought this was necessary
to protect their national self-interest, because they were afraid of what might happen to them in the
future if Germany won the war and controlled Europe. It became clear, during the war, that the USA
was one of the most powerful countries in the world.
Russia did very badly in the war. They were invaded by Germany from the West and lost a great
deal of territory. The war led to the Russian Revolution of 1917 that put the Communist Party in power.
The Communist Party pulled Russia out of the war, upsetting the Americans and the other Allies. Some
American soldiers were actually sent to Russia with troops from France and Britain to fight briefly
against the communists. Despite a bloody civil war, the communists survived.
Even after America refused to join the League of Nations and returned to its policy of isolationism
during the 1920s and 1930s, they were still suspicious of communism and the new Soviet government.
The communists in Russia were convinced that America and the other Western powers would one
day try again to destroy the Soviet Union and the gains of their revolution.
MUTUAL FEAR AND SUSPICION

The results of these events were that America thought Russia had an evil and brutal kind of
government that was opposed to everything they believed in. They also thought that the Russians
might try to spread their communist ideas. In simple terms, America just did not trust the new
government in Russia. The Soviet Union felt convinced that America and the rest of the capitalist
world was its enemy; after all, they had helped the enemies of the communist revolution during the
Russian civil war. In simple terms, the new Soviet government just did not trust America. As a result, the
foundation of the relationship between the two countries was mutual fear and suspicion. Both would
grow to be increasingly afraid and neither would ever really trust the other.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND STALIN

After Lenins death in 1924, Joseph Stalin emerged as the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin was convinced
that to protect the gains of the revolution and the Soviet Union he had to create a strong industrial state.
Therefore, he used all the power of the government in an often brutal program of modernisation.
The Cold War 19451991 | 401
When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Stalin became worried about the growing threat
of yet another invasion from the West. Stalin tried to get the British and the French to take a strong line
against Hitler during the 1930s and when they didnt, he began to suspect that they were giving in to
Hitler in the hope of encouraging him to attack Russia. These fears led to Stalin signing the NaziSoviet
Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939, which dictated that Germany and the Soviet Union would
not go to war. To the Western powers such as the United States, Stalins agreement with Hitler labelled
him as just another ruthless dictator, an impression that was then supported by the fact that the Soviet
Union helped Germany carve up Finland and Poland.
However, Hitler was not to be trusted and he launched an invasion of Russia in 1941. This meant
that the Soviet Union and the Allies were on the same side, although it didnt mean that they liked or
trusted one another. It was just that they hated Germany more.
The wartime alliance between the USA and the USSR worked well enough, but it wasnt completely
smooth. Stalin was convinced that the Soviet Red Army was doing most of the fighting and that the
Americans and the British were just waiting to take advantage of a weakened Soviet Union once
Germany had surrendered. These misunderstandings were highlighted at the Tehran conference of
1943 and the Yalta conference of 1945. At the first, Stalin demanded that the British and the Americans
provide more help against the German army by opening a second front, that is, an American and
British invasion of Europe. At the second, there were arguments over how Europe would be divided
and ruled after Germanys defeat.
At no stage were there clear plans for the post-war world. There was general talk about democracy
in Eastern Europe, however, what the Western leaders such as President Roosevelt meant by democracy
and what Stalin meant were very different things. By the time of the Yalta conference, it does appear
that the USA and Britain thought that after the war the borders of Eastern Europe would go back to
what they had been in 1919. Stalin, however, had very different ideas. He was determined that his
country would never be invaded again. As a result he ordered the Red Army to establish control over
the lands taken from Nazi Germany, wanting to resurrect the old geopolitical borders of the Russian
empire. The countries of Eastern Europe would be the Soviet Unions sphere of interest and would
provide a barrier against Western invasion. The Soviet Union saw this as an act of protection; in the West
it was seen as an act of aggression and expansion.
1 What were the main geopolitical differences between the USA and the USSR?
2 What were the results of these differences?
3 List the changes that influenced the relationship between the USA and the Soviet
Union from the time of the First World War.
4 What caused the mutual fear and suspicion that grew between the two countries?
5 Who was the leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin? What did he do to make the
Soviet Union safe from attack?
6 What was the result of the Yalta conference in 1945?
THE ATOMIC BOMB

During the Second World War the United States government set up the Manhattan Project, which
was the code name for the British and American program to develop the atomic bomb. They feared
that Nazi Germany might develop an A-bomb, so the Allies worked very hard to develop one first. By
1945, the bomb was tested and ready. President Roosevelt had died and been replaced as president
by Harry Truman, who thought that the A-bomb was a very good way to frighten Stalin and keep the
Red Army under control. At the Potsdam conference in 1945, after Germany had surrendered, President
Truman told Stalin about the new super weapon. The USA went on to use two atomic bombs against
Japan to end the war in the Pacific. Many historians, including the American Gar Alperovitz, in his books
Atomic Diplomacy (1985) and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1995), argue that dropping these
bombs was not really necessary and that Japan was close to giving up anyway. They suggest that the
real reason Truman decided to use the A-bomb against Japan was to demonstrate its power to the
Russians. The plan was to make the Russians cooperate with the plans of the Americans for Eastern
Europe. Regardless of whether the bombs were needed to defeat Japan, if Truman hoped the threat of
the atomic bomb would make Stalin change his plans to create a sphere of interest in Eastern Europe
and a barrier between the Soviet Union and the West, he was very wrong. If anything, the atomic bomb
convinced Stalin more than ever of the need for the Red Army to set up communist governments in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COLD WAR

From this point on, it was clear that the USA and the
USSR were no longer allies. The Cold War had begun. The
term Cold War was first used by Bernard Baruch (Ball
1998, p. 9), an American government adviser, and was
popularised by the journalist Walter Lippman, who defined
it as being conflict through threat, pressure, propaganda
and espionage: simply, conflict on all levels, political and
economic, short of direct armed conflict. Due to the fact that
neither the USA nor the USSR wanted to risk a war, especially
after the Soviets got their own bomb in 1949, the real
weapons in the Cold War were economic competition, the
arms race, alliances, summit diplomacy and conflict by proxy.
The last of these, conflict by proxy, meant that there
could be war, but not directly between the USA and the
USSR. At various times both the USA and the Soviet Union
backed groups who were fighting their superpower rival:
the Soviet Union backed the Chinese and the North Koreans
in the Korean War, as well as the North Vietnamese in the
Vietnam War; while the USA provided aid to those opposed
to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets and the
Americans backed rival groups in the Angolan civil war,
which started in 1975.
It is important to remember the points made at the
start of the chapter and consider the use of these weapons
in terms of the political, diplomatic, military and economic
basis of the relationship.
KEY
200
The Iron Curtain, 1948
400
600 km
FINALND
Allied control zones of

Germany and Austria
Lenningrad
States that became

communist, 1945 to 1948
SWEDEN
N
B A L T I C
DENMARK
S E A
N O RT H
S E A
Berlin
British
Bonn
French
USSR
Warsaw
EAST
GERMANY
POLAND
WEST
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
GERMANY
French
Russian
USA
French
AUSTRIA
British
SWITZERLAND
Vienna
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
ITALY
Rome
T Y R R H E N I A N
Belgrade
YUGOSLAVIA
Bucharest
BULGARIA
ALBANIA
GREECE
S E A
Figure 12.4 The territorial division of Europe after the Second

World War
The Cold War 19451991 | 403
RE VI E W TA SK
Arguments that support the traditional American view that the Soviets started the
Cold War and arguments for the USSRs point of view are outlined in the table below.
Read the arguments and, after some extra research, organise a class discussion or
debate about the question: Who started the Cold War? Or, write a two-page essay
that sets out both sides of the issue and provides a review of events between 1917
and 1945.
WHO STARTED THE COLD WAR?

The traditional American view
The USSRs view
The Red Army drove the Germans out of many countries in Eastern
Europe, but instead of allowing those people to regain their freedom
and independence the army stayed, just replacing German soldiers and
tanks with Russian soldiers and tanks.
The Soviet Union had been badly weakened in the fight against
Germany and they felt threatened by the huge American army in
Europe in 1945.
The Soviet Union didnt allow free elections in the countries they
occupied; they put communist governments in power.
The Soviet Union extended its power far beyond its own borders.
Stalin was building an empire in Eastern Europe and his actions were
aggressive and expansionist.
Stalin broke promises he had made at the Yalta conference about
establishing democracy in Eastern Europe.
Stalin was a brutal dictator who had made a deal with Hitler in 1939.
When President Truman told Stalin at Potsdam in 1945 about the

atomic bomb, the Soviet Union had more cause to worry. America had
the bomb and was willing to use it by dropping it on Japan. The Soviet
Union did not get the bomb until 1949.
A great deal of the land that Stalin took after 1945 traditionally was
part of the old Russian empire.
The countries of Eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Poland, that had
new communist governments were to be a barrier against Western
invasion. Stalins actions were defensive, not aggressive.
The United States put capitalist governments in power in the countries
of Western Europe, such as West Germany; why shouldnt Stalin be
allowed to have communist governments in countries in Eastern
Europe, such as East Germany?
FEAR OF THE WEST

M. P. Leffler and David Painter (Leffler & Painter 1995) provided another useful review of the origins
of the Cold War in 1995. They suggested that the old, comfortable conventions had come under
increasing challenge. For example, they suggested that the most recent documentation suggests that
the Soviet Union under Stalin had been far more opportunistic and pragmatic in its application of
foreign policy than had previously been thought.
There is clear evidence to support the view that Stalin had cause to be fearful of the West because
of the relative strengths of the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945. At the end of World War II,
Americas gross national product had doubled; in 1945, the US accounted for 50 per cent of the worlds
manufacturing capacity and controlled most of the worlds food surpluses and almost all of its financial
reserves. By contrast, the Soviet Union had lost more than 20 million people during World War II. Its
gross national product was only 25 per cent that of the United States. Despite having more troops in
Europe than America, its military capacity was significantly inferior to that of the USA. The Soviets felt
threatened because they had only meagre air defences, no long-range strategic bomber force, no
meaningful surface fleet, and no atomic bomb.
1 What was the Manhattan Project?
2 What effect did President Truman hope the news about the A-bomb would have
on Stalin?
3 What is the view of the American historian Gar Alperovitz about the use by the USA of
the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945?
4 What was the Soviets reaction to the huge American army in Europe, and to the fact
that the USA had the A-bomb?
5 List the Eastern European countries that set up communist governments.
6 Define the term Cold War.
7 List the real weapons of the Cold War.
8 What is meant by the phrase conflict by proxy? Give examples.
9 What do you think is the best argument for the traditional American view that the
Soviet Union started the Cold War? Write half a page to support your choice.
10 What do think is the best argument for the USSRs point of view about the start of the
Cold War? Write half a page to support your choice.
A FRAMEWORK OF EVENTS AND A REVIEW OF THE POLICIES OF THE

USA AND THE USSR
A review of all the policies, events and characters related to the Cold War can be a lengthy and complex
process, and therefore the history of the last fifty years has been divided into five main periods, as
suggested by the American historian Fred Halliday (1989).
PERIOD 1: 19451953 THE FIRST COLD WAR

The wartime alliance and the period of cooperation between the USA and the USSR, while they were
fighting the common enemies of Germany and Japan during the Second World War, ended during this
period. Fred Halliday believed that the death in 1953 of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, marked the end
of the first Cold War, and he suggested that there are six characteristics of the first Cold War.
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The Cold War 19451991 | 405
RE VI E W TA SK
Review the timeline at the beginning of the chapter and list the main events that took
place between 1945 and 1953.
1 Who was the Soviet leader during this period?
2 Who were the three US presidents during this period?
3 What was the Truman Doctrine?
4 What was the aim of the Marshall Plan? What did the Soviet Union do in response to
the Marshall Plan in January 1949?
5 What happened in 1949 to change forever the basis of the USSoviet relationship?
Clear signs of the breakdown of the wartime cooperation between the USA and the USSR came
with the meetings of foreign ministers in 1945 to draw up the separate peace treaties to end the
Second World War. By 1946, President Truman made it clear to his secretary of state, James Byrnes, who
was responsible for US foreign policy, that he was tired of babying the Soviets. Truman thought that
Stalins plans for communist governments in Eastern Europe were nothing but aggression. Threats of a
communist takeover of Greece in 1947 led to the announcement of the Truman Doctrine. It was linked
to ideas put forward by US foreign policy expert George Kennan, and was based on the idea of a longterm, patient but firm and vigilant containment. The United States had committed itself to supporting
any country it thought was threatened by communism. By 1950 the USA had backed up its policy of
containment with the following strategies.
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THE BERLIN BLOCKADE 19481949

Germany had been divided into East and West Germany from 1945: East Germany was under Soviet
control, and the USA and other Western powers had West Germany. The old German capital of Berlin
was in the Soviet sector, but it too was divided. The Berlin Blockade was the Soviets reaction to
Americas activity after the end of the war. Stalin wanted the Western powers and, in particular, the USA
out of Berlin. He wasnt prepared to do this by attacking the US troops directly, so he planned to starve
them out by cutting off all road links to the western part of Berlin. Americas reaction was to set the
pattern for the future relationship between the two countries during the Cold War. The US didnt want
to risk direct conflict either, but they wouldnt give in, so they set about supplying West Berlin from the
air. Strictly speaking it was legal for the Soviets to close the roads, after all they were on their territory,
but both sides had agreed to safe air corridors into West Berlin and Truman used these. Everyday,
tonnes of food and fuel were flown into Berlin by American and British aircraft until the blockade was
lifted. In the West this was seen as an important Cold War victory.
CASE STUDY:
THE YEARS 194553 IN REVIEW

As historian Fred Halliday suggests,
this was the period of the first Cold
War. It marked the breakdown of the
wartime alliance and set the USA and
the USSR on their paths as enemies.
Each had a different view of the postwar world and what they wanted in
Europe. The mutual fear and suspicion,
which had been a feature of their
relationship since 1917, became clear.
President Truman became annoyed
over the expansion of Soviet influence
in Eastern Europe but found there
was nothing he could do to prevent

it. This was very frustrating for the
Americans because they were clearly
the most powerful nation in the world,
but couldnt get their own way. As the
American historian Stephen Ambrose
has pointed out, the Americans were
slow to learn that power did not equal
influence (Ambrose 1993, p. 75).
Europe and the post-war world
appeared to be divided into two rival
camps or what has been termed the
bipolar world: the Western capitalist
side led by the United States and the

Eastern communist side led by the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Before the Second World War there
were a number of major powers;
therefore, the international relationship
was multipolar, but the war left only two
major powers and a bipolar relationship.
This structure was weakened a little as
other countries developed the atomic
bomb, but it didnt really end until the
decline of the Soviet Union as a major
international force.
Source 12.5
Source 12.6
The term bipolarity has entered into discussions of international relations

only since the end of the Second World War Through their unmatched
thermonuclear as well as economic and industrial power, the Big Two [the USA
and the Soviet Union] have, in a dual sense, become the leading forces in the
world. Their lead in arms technology has given them the exclusive possession
of total destructive power and thus has made them the ultimate determinants
of human destiny. At the same time, their economic and industrial strength has
made others dependent on them for the military and economic aid needed to
build or maintain modern societies. Such dependence has given the superpowers
a unique influence and has made them the directors of the course of world
politics. International stability, consequently, depends chiefly on the balance
between these powers.
The bipolar structure of the postwar

world soon contributed to the
American belief that nearly every
international problem emanated
[started] from the Soviet Union.
Distrust between the superpowers
received impetus from the
clashing ideologies of capitalism
and communism. Each nation
constructed exaggerated images of
the others military strength.
P. Fliess, International Relations in the Bipolar World, 1968, p. 3.
H. Jones, The Course of American

Diplomacy, 1985, p. 41.
1 According to Fliess in Source 12.5, when did the term bipolarity start to be used?
2 Refer to Source 12.5. Who were the Big Two? What gave them so much influence?
3 Refer to the timeline at the start of the chapter. When do you think that the Soviet
Union became too weak for bipolarity to work?
4 According to Jones in Source 12.6, how did the bipolar structure influence American
thinking about international problems?
5 What encouraged distrust between the USA and the USSR?
The Cold War 19451991 | 407
NORWAY
NATO versus the Warsaw Pact
KEY
SWEDEN
ICELAND
DENMARK
CANADA
USA
UNITED
KINGDOM
IRISH
REPUBLIC
SWITZERLAND
Communist countries
not Warsaw Pact
members
AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
YUGOSLAVIA
BULGARIA
ITALY
SPAIN
600
NATO
Neutral
WEST CZECHOSLOVAKIA
GERMANY
PORTUGAL
400
POLAND
LUX
200
EAST
GERMANY
BELGIUM
FRANCE
The Iron Curtain

1948
Warsaw Pact
NETH.
NATO was established 1949.

Members joining later were
West Germany (1955),
Greece and Turkey (1952),
and Spain (1982). The Warsaw
Pact was formed in 1955.
USSR
800
ALBANIA
GREECE
TURKEY
1000 km
Figure 12.5 How were the NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances a reflection of the key features of the Cold War?
THE KOREAN WAR 195053

At the end of the Second World War, Korea had been split
in two. The Northern part of the country had come under
communist control; the Southern part was non-communist.
By 1950 the communist North Korean government of Kim
Il Sung had the backing of the Soviet Union and the new
communist government of China led by Mao Zedong.
On 25 June 1950 the North Koreans invaded the South.
President Truman saw this as clear act of communist
aggression and was determined to stop it. At the time, there
was a great deal of domestic political pressure in the USA on
Truman and his Democratic Party from the rival Republican
Party. The Republicans said that Truman had not been tough
enough and had allowed the communists to take China.
There were also members of the Republican Party at this
time, such as Senator Joe McCarthy, who claimed that there
were communist spies in Americas government. These
domestic pressures combined with Trumans commitment
to the policy of containment meant that he had to act over
Korea. American military aid was immediately sent to South
Korea. Truman also managed to convince the United Nations
that they should act against the North Korean invaders.
The Korean War lasted until 1953 and eventually
involved the Chinese on the North Korean side and many
Figure 12.6 This contemporary cartoon presents the American

view that the Marshall Plan was helping Europe by providing an
economic lifeline. What do you think the Soviet view of the Marshall
Plan would have been?
Source 12.7
The extract below comes from an interview that President Truman gave to writer Merle
Miller on the question of the North Korean invasion of the South.
What the Communists, the North Koreans, were doing was nothing new at all. Ive
told you. The only thing new in the world is the history you dont know.
And it was always the same, always had the same results. Hitler and Mussolini and
the Japanese were doing exactly the same thing in the 1930s. And the League of
Nations had let them get away with it. Nobody had stood up to them. And that is
what led to the Second World War. The strong got away with attacking the weak, and
I wasnt going to let this attack on the Republic of Korea, go forward. Because if
it wasnt stopped, it would lead to a third world war, and I wasnt going to, let that
happen. Not while I was the President.
1 What was Truman afraid

might happen if he didnt
stop the North Korean
invasion?
2 Who were the leaders in the
1930s that Truman claimed
had been attacking weaker
countries?
3 What was Trumans view on
the importance of history?
M. Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, 1976, p. 293.
they could not use them due to the risk of starting a

nuclear war; and it was an example of war by proxy
the Soviet Union backed the communist Koreans and
Chinese who were fighting the USA, but avoided getting
involved themselves.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What terms did the American expert
George Kennan use to describe the policy of
containment? What three things did the USA do
to back up this policy?
Figure 12.7 The Soviets decision to blockade Berlin between June

1948 and May 1949 resulted in one of the first confrontations of the
Cold War. The blockade reflected a desire by both sides to defend
their spheres of interest and to support allies.
countries, including the USA, Britain and Australia among

others, on the South Korean side. In the end the two sides
agreed to end the fighting and to keep the country divided.
By then over a million Koreans from both North and South
were dead, along with one and a half million Chinese and
more than 30 000 Americans. The Korean War provided
three important lessons about the Cold War: the war was
a clear example of the Truman Doctrine in action; it also
showed that even though the USA had atomic weapons
2 Why was the Berlin Blockade a good example

of the tactics that both the Soviet Union and
the USA would use during the Cold War?
Make notes on the events linked to the Berlin
Blockade.
3 From what you have read so far, why do you
think Stalin was so worried about the American
influence and troops in Berlin?
4 What part of Korea was under communist
control in 1950?
5 What started the Korean War? How did the USA
react?
6 What evidence can you find that domestic
political pressure influenced President Trumans
actions in 1950?
7 The Korean War provided three important
lessons about the Cold War. What were they?
The Cold War 19451991 | 409
The election of President Eisenhower and the death of Joseph Stalin

In 1952, former Second World War General Dwight D. Eisenhower
was elected president of the United States. His Republican
Party claimed that the Democratic Party had been too soft on
communism, claiming that the Democratic presidents, Roosevelt
and Truman, had let Stalin gain too much territory in Europe, and
that the USA had not done enough in 1949 to stop the communist
takeover of China. A domestic desire to end the Korean War, fear of
communism and the hope that Eisenhowers military experience in
the Second World War would give them a strong leader were key
factors in his election win. The man seen as most responsible for
directing foreign relations in the Eisenhower administration, John
Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, was sworn in just a few weeks
before Stalin died in 1953. Dulles and many other Republicans
Figure 12.8 By the 1950s, fears of nuclear attack were real.
A swimming pool company in California found a new market.
accepted the idea of containment set out in the Truman Doctrine,
but wanted more. They spoke about roll back, the idea that the USA
and its Western allies should work towards freeing the countries
that had become communist after 1945. Dulles also made it clear, through the strategy of massive
retaliation, that the USA would use atomic weapons even if the USSR attacked with conventional
weapons. There is evidence to indicate that Eisenhower considered using nuclear weapons to end the
Korean War if the other side had not agreed to terms. These kind of threats were very dangerous and
were known as brinkmanshiptaking the world to the brink or the edge of nuclear war.
Despite the public attention that John Foster Dulles received as Eisenhowers secretary of state,
there are many historians, especially Eisenhowers biographer Steven Ambrose, who argued that it was
really Eisenhower who directed US policy towards the Soviet Union (1984). Ambrose also suggested
that Eisenhower was far more cautious and calculating than many people knew. Eisenhower used
Dulles to establish a tough public line against communism, while he worked to avoid nuclear war and
to establish some kind of peaceful relationship with the Soviet Union. He was helped in this regard
by the death of Stalin in 1953. Stalins death transformed the possibilities for Soviet Cold War policy
(Ball 1998, p. 66). The men who took over, Georgi Malenkov and Nikita Khruschev, appeared willing to
change the foreign policy that Stalin had set up.
PERIOD 2: 195369 OSCILLATORY ANTAGONISM

The term oscillatory means changing and antagonism means hostility: in other words, this period in
the Cold War was marked by periods of conflict and also by periods when both sides got on reasonably
well. The difference between this period and that of the first Cold War was that there were signs that
both sides wanted to lessen confrontation and set up agreements on different issues.
The main examples of attempts to settle differences during the period of oscillatory antagonism
were the agreement to end the Korean War, the Geneva Summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower,
Khrushchevs visit to the USA in 1959, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, and the establishment of a
hot line between the leaders in Washington and Moscow after the Cuban missile crisis.
During the same period there were flashes of hostility and conflict, the main examples being the
Suez crisis, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban
missile crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
R E VI E W TA SK
1 Who were the Soviet leaders during this time?
2 Who were the American presidents during this time?
3 How did nuclear strategy change during this period?
CASE STUDY:

The period that Halliday called a time
of oscillatory antagonism was a good
example of many of the key features
of the Cold War. The relationship
between the two countries was always
changing; it was never static. The
fluctuating nature of relations during
this period is reflected in the fact
that the word dtente was first used
during this period (Fursenko & Naftali
1999, p. 101). When the Soviet leader,
Khrushchev, met with US President
Eisenhower at the Geneva Summit in
1955 there was the hope of improved
relations, but it was crushed by the
Suez crisis and the Hungarian uprising
of 1956. A second chance came in 1959
when Khrushchev was the first
Soviet leader to visit the USA, but again
hope of better relations crumbled
when the Soviets shot down an
American U-2 spy plane over Soviet
territory in May 1960.
Both countries continued to do what
they thought was in their best national
self-interest, and supported their allies,
tried to convince other countries that
their system of government was the
best, and defended their spheres of
interest. At the same time they were
trying to adjust to the bipolar pattern

of power that made them the worlds
superpowers. US and Soviet leaders
began to meet more often and
summits became regular events.
During this period, nuclear and
weapons technology also went
through some of its greatest changes.
The development of the hydrogen
bomb, ICBMs and nuclear submarines
made both sides aware of the risks
and expense involved in the arms
race. At the same time, other countries
developed the A-bomb: for example,
Britain, France and China. This spread
of nuclear weapons was called nuclear
proliferation: the more countries that
had the bomb, the greater the risk that
one of them might use it.
These factors combined to increase
attempts to control the risk that the
Cold War would turn into all-out war. In
the Soviet Union, Khrushchev moved
away from the idea that war with the
West was inevitable, introducing the
concept of peaceful coexistence.
Khrushchevs view was that the
risks of nuclear war were too great.
He believed that without war the
communist system would ultimately
prove to be better than capitalism.

In his mind, the superior Soviet
system would out-produce the United
States and win the struggle through
economic and social competition.
Despite moves to ease the tension
between the USA and the USSR, crises
did arise.
DID YOU KNOW?

During the Cold War spies were used on
both sides. Some intelligence operatives
were better than othersnot everyone can
be 007. On Red Airforce Day, July 1955,
an American intelligence officer reinforced
the adage that military intelligence is
sometimes a contradiction in terms. The
Soviet airforce completed a fly past of
its eighteen new M-4 Bison long-range
bombers. As there were only eighteen
bombers the Soviets had the same aircraft
circle the field in a wide arc again and
again to cover up the weakness. The
American agent reported that the USSR had
suddenly drastically increased its numbers
of bombers, leading to the estimates that
the Soviets would have 600 to 700 longrange bombers by the middle of 1959. The
Americans immediately rushed to build
more bombers and the myth of the bomber
gap was born (Newhouse 1989, p. 110).
The Cold War 19451991 | 411
RE VI E W Q U E ST I O N
What is meant by these terms:
s @OSCILLATORYANTAGONISM
s @NUCLEARPROLIFERATION
s @PEACEFULCOEXISTENCE
Examples of antagonism
opposition, following an economic boycott of Cuba, was

a US-sponsored attempt to use anti-communist Cubans,
trained and equipped in the USA, to overthrow Castro. This
operation, an invasion at the Bay of Pigs, failed. Nevertheless,
US hostility to a communist administration in Cuba
continued. Both Castro and the Soviet Union had reason to
believe that the Americans would continue to try to remove
Cubas communist government.
In 1959 a communist government under Fidel Castro

had come to power on the island of Cuba. The Russians
provided the new government with economic aid and
the Americans saw this as an affront. The high point of US
In October 1962, US spy planes discovered that the

Soviet Union had been building missile sites in Cuba. The
reaction of President John Kennedy was immediate, making
it clear that any missiles launched from Cuba at the United
States or its allies would lead to a nuclear attack on the
Soviet Union in response. Kennedy demanded that the
missiles be removed, ordering the USA navy to blockade
Cuba to prevent more Soviet missiles being delivered.
Kennedy actually used the word quarantine because
a blockade was, in fact, an act of war. The Soviet leader,
Khrushchev, and the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, claimed
that the demands by the US were unfair, arguing that the
missiles were defensive and that the US navy had no right to
blockade Cuba or try to stop Soviet ships on the high seas.
There appeared to be a real risk of war.
Figure 12.9 This American cartoon refers to the Vienna Summit

between Khrushchev (left) and Kennedy. They wanted to get to
know one another. The Cuban missile crisis reflected the difference
in their public view of each other and of the Cold War.
Figure 12.10 One of the many victims of the Cold War. An East
German policeman carries the body of Peter Fechter away from the
wire guarding the border between East and West. Fechter was shot
trying to flee from communist East Germany.
The four main crises of this period were all geopolitical:

the Suez crisis, the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956,
the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban
missile crisis in 1962. The Suez crisis and the Cuban missile
crisis were examples of the Soviet Union trying to extend its
influence, while the occupation of Hungary and the Berlin
Wall were examples of the Soviets trying to protect what
they had.
The Cuban missile crisis
Cape Canaveral
Tampa
<DEN_KFMH4_1218>
(Cape Kennedy)
KEY
G U L F
US air base
Florida
O F
Russian missile bases

October 1962
BAHAMAS
Miami
M E X I C O
US naval blockade
Key West
A T L A N T I C
Havana
O C E A N
Saqua La Grande
CUBA
USoccupied from 18981902

after war with Spain
C A R I B B E A N
Santiago
Guantnamo
S E A
US base since 1898
N
JAMAICA
0
HAITI
DOM. REP.
PUERTO RICO
Annexed by US
from Spain 1898
San Juan
500 km
Figure 12.11 The Cuban missile crisis, October 1962
Source 12.8
Six weeks after the crisis, on 12 December 1962, Khrushchev
gave a speech explaining his reasons for putting missiles in
Cuba. He repeated his views later in a number of interviews,
including this one from 23 December 1962. Note that in 1962
the USSR had about 220 warheads deployed against the
USA. The USA had 4000 targeted at the USSR, a ratio of 1:18
(Ball 1998, p. 74).
Cuba is terrible to the imperialists because of her ideas. The
imperialists do not want to reconcile themselves to the idea
that little Cuba dared to live and develop independently as
her people want to and not in the way which would please
the American monopolies.
Flouting generally accepted standards of international
relations, the United States reactionary forces have
been doing everything from the first day of the victory of
the Cuban revolution to overthrow Cubas revolutionary
government and to restore their domination there.
Revolutionary Cuba was compelled to take all measures to
strengthen her defence.
Agreement was reached on a number of new measures,
including the stationing of several score Soviet IRBMs
Figure 12.12
Premier Nikita Khrushchev
The Cold War 19451991 | 413

[Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles] in Cuba. These
weapons were to be in the hands of the Soviet military.
What were the aims behind this decision? Our only
aim was to defend Cuba. We all saw how the American
imperialists were sharpening their knives, threatening
Cuba with a massed attack. We could not remain impartial
observers in face of this bandit-like policy.
Indeed, had there been no threat of an invasion there
would have been no need for the stationing of our rockets
in Cuba.
Some people pretend that the rockets were supplied by us
for an attack on the United States. This, of course, is not
wise reasoning. Why should we station rockets in Cuba for
this purpose when we were and are able to strike from our
own territory, possessing as we do the necessary number of
inter-continental missiles of the required range and power?
R. A. Divine (ed.) The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1988, p. 102.
Source 12.9
Five days after Khrushchevs speech of 12 December,
President Kennedy appeared in the USA on national
television to reply.
The real problem is the Soviet desire to expand their power
and influence. If Mr Khrushchev would concern himself with
the real interests of the people of the Soviet Union, that
they have a higher standard of living, to protect his own
security, there is no real reason why the United States and
the Soviet Union should not be able to live in peace. But
it is this constant determination that they will not settle
for this kind of world, but must settle for a Communist
world. That is what makes the real danger.
R. A. Divine (ed.) The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1988, p. 109.

1 What reason does Premier Khrushchev give in
Source 12.8 for placing Soviet missiles in Cuba?
2 According to President Kennedy in Source 12.9,
what motivated the Soviets?
3 Khrushchev claimed that the Soviets didnt need
IRBMs in Cuba in 1962 to attack the US. Do you
think this is true? Give a reason for your answer.
4 Remember Khrushchev and Kennedy were
both politicians. Try to work out where in their
speeches they were being truthful and where
they stretched the truth: both speeches have
elements of propaganda. What are the phrases
used deliberately by both men to colour their
version of the event?
Figure 12.13
President John F. Kennedy
Many of Kennedys military advisers suggested an air strike to wipe out the missile bases before
they became fully operational. Adlai Stevenson, Americas representative to the United Nations,
recommended a diplomatic solution. Stevenson pointed out that there were US Jupiter missiles in
Turkey and Italy near the Soviet Unions southern border. It was his view that Kennedy should offer
to remove these if Khrushchev pulled his missiles out of Cuba. President Kennedy rejected both of
these options.
The strong reaction of the USA and their naval superiority in the waters around Cuba was enough.
Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in return for a promise from the USA not to invade Cuba.
The crisis added to Kennedys reputation and built

domestic political support. For Khrushchev, his failure led
to a decline in his domestic support and ultimately to his
fall as Soviet leader in 1964. Khrushchev had hoped that
by putting missiles in Cuba he could ensure that islands
safety from US invasion and place pressure on the USA,
which might lead to negotiations over Berlin. There is also
evidence that Khrushchev was under pressure from the
Chinese communists to take a tougher line with the USA.
Khrushchevs status as the leader of the communist world
was at stake and he felt that he needed to act.
The significance of the Cuban crisis

The Cuban crisis, in the literature of both old and new
Cold War history, is central. In fact it appears to have been
an even more important turning point than previously
realised. Rather than humiliating the USSR, the long-term
effect appears to have been to raise its image to that of
an equal to the United States in a Cold War that would
continue for another three decades. The Cuban crisis led to
a different kind of Cold War, one that evolved into a long
peace (Gaddis 1997, p. 261). The political hawks in the
USA, who called for the toughest response to the Soviet
Union, described Khrushchevs action of putting missiles in
Cuba as communist aggression and expansionism. In reality
Khrushchevs motives were far more defensive, both in terms
of Cuba and more generally. The Russians felt that they were
losing the Cold War. By 1961 the USA had secured Western
Europe and Japan as part of the capitalist world, which
combined with that of the USA, was the basis of global,
economic, industrial and military power. The Soviet Unions
most promising area of influence remaining was the Third

World. As a result, Khrushchev was determined to protect
the Cuban revolution, hoping that it would be the basis for
others (Zubok 1997, p. 260).
Robert Thompson, professor of international relations at
the University of South Carolina, said that the Cuban missile
crisis left the USA believing that, as long as they were strong
and determined, they could manage the world. He pointed
out that this idea influenced President Johnson and then
President Nixon to expand the war in, and bombing of,
Vietnam. Smiths view is that not all of these lessons were the
right ones. Guts, force, leadership and secrecy didnt help the
USA in Vietnam. Each crisis and each episode in international
relations needed a fresh individual response; it wasnt a
matter of setting out rules and always following them.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What started the Cuban missile crisis?
2 What did Kennedys military advisers
recommend?
3 What response did Adlai Stevenson suggest?
4 What did Kennedy do in response to the
Soviets actions?
5 Why did Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba?
6 What is the link between the success of the
USA over Cuba and the actions of Presidents
Johnson and Nixon over Vietnam?
Source 12.10
Robert Thompson wrote about the lessons of the Cuban Missile crisis in
his book The Missiles of October.
As the ocials of the Kennedy administration rested, then returned
to their duties, they shifted their attention from Cuba to Vietnam.
To Southeast Asia they applied four principles they had gleaned
[learned] from the Caribbean: (1) that success in an international
crisis was largely a matter of national guts; (2) that the opponent
would yield to superior force; (3) that presidential control of force
can be suitable, selective, swift, eective, and responsive to the
situations demands; and (4) that crisis management and execution
are too dangerous and events move too rapidly for anything but the
tightest secrecy.

1 What four lessons did the Americans
think they had learned from the Cuban
missile crisis?
2 Where else in the world did the USA
think of applying these four lessons?
R. Thompson, The Missiles of October, 1992, p. 355.
The Cold War 19451991 | 415
The Vietnam War

The conflict in Vietnam between the communist North and the non-communist South was seen by
many in the United States as yet another example of attempted communist expansion that had to be
stopped. The administrations of Eisenhower, then Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all held onto the idea
the policy of containment should be applied in the Vietnam War. They used a new term, the domino
theory, to describe the potential situation: if one country in South-East Asia fell to communism, so
would the next, then the next, just like a row of dominoes. The USA believed that if they applied force
and were determined, they would win the Vietnam Warthey were wrong. The Vietnam War deeply
divided the American public. For the Soviet Union it was good to see the USA use its resources in the
Vietnam conflict. The Soviet Union and communist China provided aid to the North Vietnamese forces
of Ho Chi Minh, but did not become directly involved.
The Vietnam War caused a change in US policy. The Nixon Doctrine, announced in 1969, altered the
Truman Doctrine. The USA still opposed the expansion of communism, but as a result of Vietnam, they
expected the fighting to be done by the locals; American troops would not be used.
The famous American historian Stephen Ambrose noted that the USA has often expected quick
solutions to problems: the A-bomb was meant to provide a quick solution to the problems of postwar Europe in 1945 (Ambrose 1993). This view was supported by former Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara when he wrote that some of the reasons for the US defeat in Vietnam was their failure to accept
that some problems dont have a quick fix; that they overestimated what their high-technology weapons
could do, and that they didnt accept that their wishes would not always prevail (McNamara 1996, p. 322).
One of the most telling comments made by McNamara was the claim that: Our misjudgements of
friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture and politics of the people in
the area (McNamara 1996, p. 322). After a bitter war, McNamara, the supreme technocrat and a highly
intelligent individual, admitted the importance of history. Dont let anyone ever tell you it isnt important.
Historian S. J. Ball suggested that defeat in Vietnam had a profound influence on US foreign policy:
failure in Vietnam had a transforming effect (Ball 1998, p. 115).
RE VI E W TA SK
Research Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy and write a brief one-page biography
of each of them, with particular emphasis on their time as leader of their country.
PERIOD 3: 196979 DTENTE

The years 1967 and 1968 had not been good in terms of the relationship between the USA and the
USSR. The USA sided with Israel and the Soviet Union backed the Arabs during the 1967 ArabIsraeli
War, and, in 1968, the USA criticised the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries for invading
Czechoslovakia. While this was happening, the United States continued to be caught up in the Vietnam
War. However, from 1969, the Nixon administration began to develop better relations with the Soviet
Union. Halliday suggested that there were six characteristics of this period of improved relations, which
came to be known as dtente.
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The term dtente was not new; it had first appeared in 1955 as a way of describing a reprieve in the
struggle (Fursenko & Naftali 1999, p. 101). During the period of dtente, both sides tried to see each
event, conflict or crisis as a separate problem, with its own causes and its own solutions. This became
the basis of the concept that Henry Kissinger referred to as linkage (Kissinger 1995, p. 714). The Cold
War and the periods of antagonism until 1969 were, by contrast, seen as signs of the overall hostility
between the communist and the capitalist world.
R E VI E W TA SK
1 Who were the US presidents during this period?
2 Who were the Soviet leaders?
3 What was Ostpolitik and how did it fit in with the final point of Hallidays set of
characteristics of dtente?
THE STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TREATIES (SALT I AND SALT II)

One of the most striking examples of dtente was the progress made on limiting the numbers of
nuclear weapons. In 1972 the US and the Soviet Union signed SALT I, which limited the numbers of
missiles on each side. There was also an agreement to limit spending on anti-ballistic missiles or ABMs,
which were defensive missiles intended to shoot down incoming enemy rockets. When SALT I was
combined with the Nuclear Accident Agreement of 1971, which was meant to cut the risk of accidental
nuclear war, and the Sea Bed Treaty that came into effect in 1972, which banned nuclear weapons from
the sea floor outside the territorial waters of each country, it amounted to real progress.
There were hopes that SALT I would be the beginning of more far-reaching arms limitation treaties;
however, even though a SALT II agreement was signed in 1979, the spirit of dtente was coming to an
end and SALT II was never ratified.
From 1972 there were signs that dtente was fading. In the USA, President Nixon had been
forced to resign in disgrace. The Soviet Union saw his successors, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, as
weak and unreliable. Brezhnev was particularly annoyed by Carters attacks on the Soviet Union over
human rights, relating to the Soviet Unions treatment of its own citizens. The Soviet leader saw this
as direct interference in Soviet domestic policy and he believed that it was none of Carters business.
Conservatives in the USA began to attack SALT I, saying that the USA had given too much away and
that it allowed the Soviet Union to keep pace with the USA in nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union
invaded Afghanistan in 1979 dtente was well and truly dead.
The Cold War 19451991 | 417
CASE STUDY:

Following the fall of Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev emerged
as the dominant figure in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev was
conscious of the economic weakness of the Soviet Union
and the urgent need for reform of the system. To help bring
about these domestic changes he needed a break from
the arms racedtente made that possible. Less money
spent on arms meant more money could be spent on the
domestic needs of the Soviet Union. In the USA, President
Nixon and his chief foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger,
followed the policy of linkage: to deal with each aspect of
the relationship with the Soviet Union on its merits, while
linking cooperation in one area to progress in another
(Kissinger 1995, p. 714). They also hoped that improved links
or relations with China would pressure the Soviet Union
into seeking better links with the USA. Once better links or
relations were set up with China and the USSR then, it was
hoped, the two communist countries would put pressure on
the North Vietnamese to end the Vietnam War. Linkage only
worked in part. Relations between the USA and both China
and the Soviet Union improved, but the North Vietnamese
displayed their independence and refused to be influenced.
Dtente did show that the USA and the USSR could come
to terms on many issues. The improved relationship during
Figure 12.14 President Nixon (left) speaks with his chief foreign
policy adviser, Henry Kissinger. Kissinger developed the concept
of linkage.
dtente was based on self-interest, as is everything in

international relations. During this period, the USA and the
USSR thought that an easing of tension would be beneficial.
1 What was dtente?
2 According to Halliday, what were the six main characteristics of dtente?
3 What was the idea of linkage, and what was it meant to achieve?
4 What were the results of SALT I?
5 What were the signs from 1972 that dtente was fading?
6 How was the national self-interest of the USA and the USSR reflected in dtente?
RE VI E W TA SK
Research Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon and write a brief one-page biography of
each, with particular emphasis on their time as leader of their country.
Figure 12.15 Both Brezhnev and Nixon had their own reasons for pursuing dtente. What were they?
PERIOD 4: 19791988 THE SECOND

COLD WAR
This period marked the end of dtente and a return to the
hostile atmosphere of the first Cold War. It lasted until the
late 1980s. In November 1988, the Soviet leader, Mikhail
Gorbachev, made a speech to the United Nations, claiming
that the Cold War was over. It appears that the Soviets
thought the Cold War was over before the USA. President
Bush only seemed to accept that the Cold War had ended
after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
The second Cold War was at its most intense in the
early 1980s during the first four years of the Reagan
administration. Halliday identified what he thought were the
five characteristics of the second Cold War.
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The Cold War 19451991 | 419
CASE STUDY:

At the time, the period of the second Cold War appeared
to be more dangerous than it really was. The old Cold War
history focused on aspects of regional conflict that were
supported by the USA and USSR, such as Angola (197588),
Afghanistan (197989) and Nicaragua (197980).
built up not only their nuclear forces, but also their

conventional forces. In 1983 he added to this plans for a
new defensive system: the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI)
or star wars to build satellites designed to destroy Soviet
missiles aimed at the USA.
President Reagan adopted a tough and confrontational

manner towards the Soviet Union. This worried many
people, but, in reality, Reagan appears to have been far more
willing to listen to advice, especially from George Shultz,
who became his secretary of state in 1982. Shultz showed
himself to be a skilful diplomat. The US arms build up and
Reagans tough talk did not really mean that the US was any
more willing to go to war with the USSR than it had been
before, but to many it looked that way.
The arms build up added to tensions over incidents in

Poland where the power of the Communist Party was under
attack by the Solidarity movement headed by Lech Walesa.
The USA became entangled in the Middle East, trying to
solve local problems, and in El Salvador in Central America,
where there was the threat of a communist takeover.
There were signs, however, that Reagan and Gorbachev
gradually might begin to establish some kind of
understanding.
Reagan needed to get to know the people he was dealing

with on a personal level. The US president was far better
with people than with abstract ideas. Unfortunately, during
the early years of the Reagan administration, this proved
impossible. One Soviet leader replaced another in quick
succession due to ill health. Once, when Reagan was asked
why he hadnt held a summit meeting with the Soviet
leader, he replied, because they all keep dying on me.
Brezhnev died in 1982, Andropov in 1984, and Chernenko in
1985. It was not until Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of
the Soviet Union that Reagan found someone he could deal
with. From 1985 onwards the tension of the second Cold
War began to ease. This was due, in part, to Reagans desire
for the progress of nuclear arms reduction, and because
Mikhail Gorbachev recognised that the future of his country
depended on serious and sustained reform. The changes
that Gorbachev wanted in the Soviet Union were impossible
if the Cold War with the USA and the arms race continued.
When Reagan first became president he made many
speeches that were critical of the Soviet Union, saying that
they were willing to lie and cheat and also blaming them
for all the unrest in the world. The Reagan administration
Figure 12.16 This cartoon from 1984 satirises Reagans public

attitude to the Soviet leadership. Why was it difficult for Reagan to
hold a summit during his first term?
R E VI E W TA SK
Review the timeline at the beginning of the
chapter and list the main events that took place
between 1979 and 1988.
1 Who were the US presidents during this
period?
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What characteristics did the first and the
second Cold War have in common?
2 What were the differences between the first
and the second Cold War?
2 Who were the Soviet leaders?
Source 12.11
Reagan writes about his first meeting with Mikhail
Gorbachev at the Geneva Summit in 1985 in his
autobiography, An American Life.
George Shultz told me that if the only thing that came
out of this first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev was an
agreement to hold another summit, it would be a success.
But I wanted to accomplish more than that.
I believed that if we were going to break down the barriers
of mistrust that divided our countries, we had to begin by
establishing a personal relationship between the leaders of
the two most powerful nations on earth.
During the previous five years, I had come to realize
there were people in the Kremlin [the centre of Soviet
government] who had a genuine fear of the United States.

I wanted to convince Gorbachev that we wanted peace and
they had nothing to fear from us. So I had gone to Geneva
with a plan.
That morning, as we shook hands and I looked into
his smile, I sensed I had been right and felt a surge of
optimism that my plan might work.
No one could win a nuclear warand as I told Gorbachev
in one of my letters to him, one must never be fought.
I wanted to go to the negotiating table and end the
madness of the MAD policy, but to do that, I knew America
first had to upgrade its military capabilities so that we
would be able to negotiate with the Soviets from a position
of strength, not weakness.
R. Reagan, An American Life, 1990, pp. 1214.
1 What did Secretary of State George Shultz want from the first meeting of the
two leaders?
2 What did Reagan claim would be the basis of a new and better relationship with
the Soviet Union?
3 What was the MAD policy that Reagan wanted to end?
4 According to Reagan, why had he upgraded US military capabilities?
Other summit meetings between the two leaders followed at Reykjavik in 1986 and Washington in
1987, where the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) to limit the numbers of medium-range missiles
was signed. In real terms, progress had been made towards ending the second Cold War. In 1988, George
Bush Snr was elected president of the USA; in December of the same year, Gorbachev made a speech to
the United Nations stating that there had been six causes of the Cold War: the fear of Soviet expansion,
the Soviet Unions control of Eastern Europe, fear of Soviet military strength, concern over the repression
of individual human rights within the Soviet Union, restrictions on people leaving the Soviet Union, and a
lack of cooperation about inspection of military sites for arms reduction agreements.
Gorbachev made it clear that he wanted to remove these causes for poor relations between the
USA and the USSR. Even though the response of the new president, George Bush, and his secretary of
state, James Baker, was cautious, clear changes in the relationship had begun.
The Cold War 19451991 | 421
DID YOU KNOW?
Figure 12.17 Reagan and Gorbachev meet at the Reykjavik Summit in 1986. The meeting
was an example of old Cold War history and new Cold War history: at the time, the gap
between the two seem almost as wide as ever, due to the Star Wars program; later,
historians looked back and recognised the extent of accord.
The American writer Garry Wills, a

close observer of Reagan throughout his
political career, observed that the former
actor often confused reality with old
Hollywood film scripts. Wills suggested
there were striking similarities between
Reagans ideas about the Star Wars
program and a film part Reagan had
in 1940. The film, Murder in the Sky,
starred Reagan as Brass Bancroft,
secret agent. In the film, Reagan
protected the secret of a wonder
weapon against those who would steal
it from Americaan inertia projector
that would bring down enemy airplanes
by knocking out their electrical systems
(Wills 1987, p. 361).
RE VI E W TA SK
Research Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and write a brief one-page biography
on each, with particular emphasis on their time as leader of their country.
1 What, according to Fred Halliday, were the five characteristics of the second Cold War?
2 Who was President Reagans secretary of state from 1982?
3 Why was it hard for Reagan to begin to come to an understanding with the Soviet
Union until 1985?
4 Why was Gorbachev interested in an easing of the arms race?
5 What was SDI? How did its existence affect USSoviet relations?
6 Give three examples of global incidents that added to tension between the USA and
the USSR.
7 What did Gorbachev state were the six causes of the Cold War in his speech to the
United Nations?
PERIOD 5: POST-1988 AFTER THE SECOND COLD WAR,

OR DTENTE II
Sudden changes have taken place in the Cold War more often since 1988 than at any other time.
During 1989, communist rule in Eastern Europe came to an end. Between 1989 and 1991 more
summits were held and more treaties signed, reducing the numbers of conventional forces in Europe,
and further cutting the numbers of missiles held by each side. In 1991 there was an attempted coup
(takeover of power) against Gorbachev, resulting in the collapse of communist rule and the end of the
USSR. From 1992 the USA had to come to terms with Russia, with its new leader, Boris Yeltsin, and the
Commonwealth of Independent States.
It appeared that the USA had finally won the Cold War. After 1991 the United States stood alone as the
worlds remaining superpower. There was a clear reduction to the immediate threat of nuclear war, but
the end of the bipolar basis of international relations made the global situation far more complex: it was
no longer a simple matter of the USA versus the USSR, capitalism versus communism, West versus East.
R E VI E W TA SK
Review the timeline at the beginning of the chapter and list the main events that have
taken place since 1988.
1 Who have been the Soviet and the Russian leaders during this time?
2 Who have been the US presidents?
What are the main changes that have taken place in the Cold War period since 1988?
THE REASONS FOR THE END OF THE COLD WAR

The explanations given by new Cold War historians for the end of the conflict between the USA and
the USSR draw together the key features presented in this chapter. The end of the Cold War came with
shocking rapidity (Ball 1998, p. 221). This fact alone is an example of the difficulties faced by those
who attempted to write Cold War history while it was still going on. There is ongoing debate about the
reasons for the collapse of the Soviet system, but there is little doubt that the Cold War came to an end
as the result of Soviet economic failure (Ball 1998, p. 241).
With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems clear that the 1960s was the critical decade: the USA
consolidated its position in the global economic and industrial powerhouses of Western Europe and
Japan; the Soviet economic system was showing signs of stress, unable to keep up with Americas
economic strength. The building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban crisis are now seen as acts of
desperation and insecurity.
The failure of the Soviet Union to continue to compete successfully with the United States in the
Cold War was due to their lack of what John Lewis Gaddis referred to as multidimensional power
(Gaddis 1997, p. 283). Gaddis identified economic, ideological, cultural and moral aspects as the key
features of this power. He presented four hypotheses in his new Cold War history to account for the
success of the USA in the Cold War.
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The Cold War 19451991 | 423
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CASE STUDY:
NUCLEAR PROTESTERS
There have always been groups
opposed to war and violence; however,
the groups discussed below are mainly
those who have opposed not only
war, in general, but also the threat of
nuclear weapons, in particular. Since
the 1950s support for anti-nuclear
groups has varied. The high points
of their popular support occurred
during the 1950s and then the late
1970s and 1980s. The participants of
peace movements staged protests
and rallies to educate the public
about the dangers of the nuclear age
and to put pressure on politicians.
The most notable examples of peace
movements are outlined below.
THE BERTRAND RUSSELL

ALBERT EINSTEIN MANIFESTO,
PUBLISHED IN JULY 1955
Bertrand Russell was a famous British
philosopher and pacifist; in 1955
he worked with the physicist Albert
Einstein on a joint statement warning
about the risks of atomic weapons.
Both these men were highly regarded
and respected for their intelligence,
however, neither was seen as practical.
Although their comments were noted
they did not significantly alter the
views of governments.
THE CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR

DISARMAMENT (CND),
ESTABLISHED FEBRUARY 1958
The CND movement largely was
based in Britain and it built on the
RussellEinstein manifesto. Inspired by
Bertrand Russell, the CND movement
held numerous rallies and staged a
high profile ban the bomb campaign.
The movement had an impact in
raising public awareness, but little on
government policy. CND was at its
peak in the late 1950s, then went into a
decline. During the 1970s, there was a
renewal of interest. In the USA, a similar
campaign known as the Pugwash
movement attempted to play a role in
limiting the risks of nuclear war.
EUROPEAN NUCLEAR
DISARMAMENT (END),
ESTABLISHED APRIL 1980
The growing numbers of nuclear
missiles in Europe, and the fact the
USA and its NATO allies planned to use
nuclear weapons to defend Western
Europe even if the Soviet Union and
the Warsaw Pact countries attacked
with conventional forces, added to the
support for END. This group staged
strong political campaigns within many
European countries and put domestic

political pressure on the NATO alliance.
HELEN CALDICOTT AND

THE ALLIANCE OF NUCLEAR
DISARMAMENT AND ANTINUCLEAR ENERGY GROUPS
During the 1970s and 1980s in the
USA there was a growing link between
people who opposed nuclear power
plants and those who opposed
nuclear weapons. An Australian, Helen
Caldicott, wrote a number of influential
books attacking both nuclear weapons
and nuclear power plants.
C ASE ST U DY REVIEW QUEST I O N S

1 What were the high points
of support for the peace
movements? In what periods
of USSoviet (CIS) relations did
they occur?
2 What has been the prime
purpose of the peace
movements?
3 What do the initials CND and
END stand for?
4 How and when were the
books of Helen Caldicott
influential?
THE LEGACY OF THE CONFLICT

It is estimated that the USA and the USSR spent trillions of dollars on defence during the Cold War.
Money in both countries was diverted from domestic social and educational programs to fund the Cold
War. One estimate suggests that the USA spent $8 trillion ($8 000 000 000 000) on defence between
1945 and 1996 (Isaacs & Downing 1998, p. 419). Figures for the Soviet Union are not easy to find, but it
is estimated that as much as 50 per cent of the Soviet Unions national product went on defence.
The question arises as to how this money might have been spent to improve conditions in both
countries. In the USA, a major program of social and educational reform known as the great society
under President Johnson was stalled, then snuffed out by the needs of the American military in
Vietnam.
The world faces ongoing problems with nuclear proliferation. The USA and Russia must deal with
the nuclear waste that is the massive by-product of their nuclear arsenals.
The Cold War went a long way to restricting freedom of thought, not only in the Soviet Union but in
the USA as well. Propaganda and censorship were features of the Cold War mentality.
References
Alperovitz G., Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam, Penguin, New York, 1985
Alperovitz G., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, HarperCollins, London, 1995
Ambrose S., Eisenhower the President, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1984
Ambrose S., Rise to Globalism, Penguin, New York, 1993
Ball S. J., The Cold War: An International History, Arnold, London, 1998
Bialer S. & Mandelbaum M., Global Rivals, I.B. Tauris, London, 1989
Divine R. A. (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis, Markus Wiener, New York, 1988
Fliess P. J., International Relations in the Bipolar World, Random House, New York, 1968
Fursenko A. & Naftali T., One Hell of a Gamble, Pimlico, London, 1999
Gaddis J. L., We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold War, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997
Halliday F., The Making of the Second Cold War, Verso, London, 1989
Howard M., The Lessons of History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1991
Isaacs J. & Downing T., Cold War, Bantam Press, London, 1998
Jones H., The Course of American Diplomacy, Franklin Watts, New York, 1985
Kissinger H., Diplomacy, Touchstone, New York, 1995
Lebow R. & Stern J., Deterrence and the Cold War, Political Science Quarterly, November 1995
Leffler M. P., & Painter, D. S. (ed.), The Origins of the Cold War, Routledge, London, 1995
McNamara R. S., In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Vintage, New York, 1996
Mead W. R., Special Providence, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2001
Miller M., Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, Coronet, London, 1976
Morris R. B. et al., America: A History of the People, Rand McNally, Chicago, 1971
Newhouse J., The Nuclear Age, Michael Joseph, London, 1989
Reagan R., An American Life, Hutchinson, London, 1990
The Cold War 19451991 | 425
Thompson R. S., The Missiles of October, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992
Walker M., The Cold War, Vintage, London, 1994
Wills G., Reagans America: Innocents at Home, Doubleday, New York, 1987
Zubok V. & Pleshakov C., Inside the Kremlins Cold War, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1997
THE ARABISRAELI
CONFLICT 19481996

AND CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION
The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 ushered in a period of conflict between
Jews and Arabs that was to last over half a century, encompassing a series of wars
and acts of terrorism by both sides. A new phrase was added to the vocabulary
of international affairs: the Palestinian problem. Despite decades of hostility and
13
mutual suspicion, in the 1990s a peace process began that, while experiencing
setbacks, opened the possibility for peace in the troubled region. By the end of
the century these hopes remained unfulfilled.
Timeline
1948
1956
1964
1967
1973
1979
1982
1987
1991
1993
1994
1995
1996
Israel is created and the War of Independence (the Catastrophe) is fought.

The Suez crisis occurs. President Nasser of Egypt emerges as an Arab hero.
The PLO is established.
The Six Day War is an overwhelming victory for the Israelis and it ends with the capture of
the Occupied Territories.
The Yom Kippur War, a surprise attack by the Egyptians, is beaten back. This is another
Israeli victory.
The Camp David Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt, which becomes the first Arab
state to recognise Israel.
The Israelis invade Lebanon to wipe out the PLO bases there.
The Intifada (uprising) begins in the Occupied Territories.
The Gulf War takes place. A coalition of countries led by the USA defeats Saddam Hussein
of Iraq.
The Oslo Accords, the first peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, is
signed.
The IsraelJordan Peace Treaty.
Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an Israeli extremist.
The election of Benjamin Netanyahu slows down the peace process.
Timeline exercise
Study the timeline, then write a question to match the answer from the following list.
1 1964
2 Nasser
7 Lebanon
3 1987
8 An Israeli extremist
4 USA
9 The Catastrophe
5 Camp David
10 A surprise attack
6 1996
THE ORIGINS OF TENSION

CIVIL WAR IN PALESTINE
The effect of the United Nations (UN) Resolution 181the vote for partition (see Chapter 5)in
November 1947 was to provoke a period of civil war in Palestine. Armed Arab gangs killed eighty
Jews in the twelve days following the vote, looting Jewish shops and attacking Jewish civilian buses.
However, the Palestinian Arab fighters lacked organisation, particularly after the death of their most
influential commander Abdel Kadir Husseini in April 1948. By contrast, the Jewish forces had developed
their fighting skills in the campaign against the British, and although they did not always agree with
one another, the Haganah, with its elite force known as the Palmach, the Irgun, and the Stern gang
were to prove formidable opponents.
That both sides committed acts of violence is clear. In the light of the subsequent events of 1948,
historians continue to debate the nature of Israeli policy towards the Arab villages. Benvenisti rejects
Palestinian historiography, which depicts the destruction of the Palestinian landscape as a single,
continuous process, planned from the start by the Zionist leadership. He cites a meeting of the Jewish
leaders on 12 January 1948 to create guidelines for the execution of reprisal raids. The decision to launch
such raids only in reaction to Arab attacks was an indication that in the early stages of the 1948 war there
was no policy of ethnic cleansing as claimed by the Palestinian scholars (Benvenisti 2000, p. 104).
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E PARTI TI ON PLAN

KEY
KEY
PALESTINE
Distribution of population
by subdistricts, with
percentages of Jews and Arabs.
PALESTINE
Land ownership by subdistricts.
Percentages
Percentages
4%
Arabs
SAFAD
13%
Arabs
3%
10%
Jews
SAFAD
18%
Jews
14%
96%
Public and other
87%
ACRE
87%
68%
ACRE
33%
16%
67%
47%
30%
NAZARETH
53%
S E A
11%
TIBERIAS
23%
M ED ITERRANEA N
HAIFA
70%
20%
NAZARETH
BEISAN
100%
17%
52%
34%
44%
less than 1%
16%
HAIFA
SEA
28%
35%
42%
TIBERIAS
84%
ME D IT E R R AN E A N
38%
51%
22%
BEISAN
JENIN
83%
JENIN
17%
5%
TULKARM
100%
86%
39%
47%
NABLUS
71%
NABLUS
less than 1% 1%
14%
JAFFA
JAFFA
100%
22%
RAMALLAH
78%
2%
RAMLE
4%
99%
HEBRON
less than 1%
99%
BEERSHEBA
S E A
GAZA
D E A
D
98%
14%
84%
21%
JERUSALEM
less than 1%
RAMALLAH
77%
62%
2%
98%
9%
38%
RAMLE
14%
1% 4%
JERUSALEM
S E A
29%
75%
GAZA
D E A
D
TULKARM
less than 1%
13%
78%
83%
95%
HEBRON
less than 1%
15%
84%
10
20
30
40
50 km
Figure 13.1 Distribution of population in Palestine, 1947
BEERSHEBA
Figure 13.2
10
20
30
40
50 km
Land ownership in Palestine
The ArabIsraeli Conflict 19481996 | 429

DOCUMENT ST U DY TASK
<DEN_KFMH4_1303>
SAFAD
ACRE
S E A
TIBERIAS
NAZARETH
HAIFA
BEISAN
You are a United Nations official charged with

drawing up the partitioned map of Palestine
to provide a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Use the land ownership and population maps
(Figures 13.1 and 13.2) to help you. Allocate
each region of Palestine in Figure 13.3 to the
Jews or the Arabs.
1 What similarities are there between your
final map and the one produced by the UN?
(see Figure 5.16)
2 What are the difficulties in trying to construct
two states out of one original territory?
JENIN
TULKARM
NABLUS
JAFFA
RAMALLAH
N
RAMLE
JERUSALEM
HEBRON
D E A
D
S E A
GAZA
BEERSHEBA
0
10
20
30
40
50 km
Figure 13.3 The districts of Palestine, 1947
As fighting intensified, the Haganah High Command met on 10 March to approve Plan D (Dalet),
so called because it was the fourth in a series of strategic plans that the Haganah had compiled since
1941. Plan Dalet superseded the principles agreed in January, and saw the commencement of a
deliberate policy of expelling the Arab inhabitants of Palestine.
It was in this context that the attack on the Arab village of Deir Yassin took place on 9 April 1948.
Fighting had centred around the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the Jews tried to defeat Arab
attempts to besiege the ancient capital. Deir Yassin, close to Jerusalem, was attacked by forces of the
Irgun and the Stern gang. What happened at Deir Yassin, and the subsequent reaction, was to play an
important role in determining the future of the Jewish and Arab communities.
THE ATTACK ON DEIR YASSIN
DID YOU KNOW?
Some historians have seen the attack as an atrocity committed against defenceless women
and children. Benvenisti calls the action a barbaric act of ethnic cleansing (p. 116). Those
who took part deny that any atrocity took place and claim that the capture of the village
was a legitimate act of war.
The numbers gamethe

owner of the Firestone tyre
company in the USA was
told to pressure the president
of Liberia to support the
Jewish cause by voting for
the partition resolution,
otherwise Firestone products
would be boycotted in the
USA. (Firestone had extensive
rubber plantations in Liberia.)
He did, and Liberia supported
partition.
The attack was carried out by members of the Irgun and the Stern gang. At first, there
was heavy Arab resistance, which led to the order given by the Irgun commander that
fighters should not enter any house without first throwing grenades inside. In one house
this resulted in the death of twenty-eight people.
After the Arab forces retreated, leaving mainly old men, women and children, the
Jewish forces continued the killing. When the shooting stopped, the surviving Arabs were
loaded on to lorries and taken to Jerusalem. Some were paraded through the streets and
subsequently shot, others were unloaded by the Damascus gate.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E AT TACK ON DEIR YAS S I N

Source 13.1
Source 13.4
Two hundred and fifty-four Arab women, children and old

men were butchered by the Zionists while the young Arab
men worked in the fields. Unborn children were killed
inside the guts of their murdered mothers. There was talk of
hands being cut o, and of children being blinded but that
was hard to prove because most of the bodies were thrown
down a well. (The Zionists also dynamited houses, looted
and raped.)
Yigal Allon described the tactics he used as commander

of the Palmach:
R. David, Arabs & Israel for Beginners, 1993, p. 115.
I gathered all the Jewish Mukhtars [village leaders] who

had contact with Arabs in dierent villages and asked
them to whisper in the ears of the Arabs that a great Jewish
reinforcement had arrived in Galilee and that it was going
to burn all the villages of the valley. They should, I said,
suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, that the Arabs
should escape while there was still time.
Source 13.2
A. Bregman & J. El-Tahri, The Fifty Years War, 1998,

pp. 334.
According to Begin [Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun],

his men had fought a clean fight against fierce resistance;
they had sought to avoid a single unnecessary casualty;
and, by using a loudspeaker to warn all the women,
children and old men to take refuge in the hills they
had deprived themselves, in a spirit of humanity, of the
elements of complete surprise.
D. Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber & Faber,
1984, p. 125.
Source 13.3
A young villager who had been assigned guard duty
remembers: we were all very troubled and prepared
ourselves. We held a meeting and decided that everyone
should stand guard. Ben Zion Cohen, who led the Irgun
troops towards the village in the dead of night, recalls:
The hour of attack was four-thirty in the morning.

1 Read the text and Sources 13.1, 13.2 and 13.3.
(a) What differences or contradictions can you
find in these accounts of the attack?
(b) Can you find any similarities between the
accounts in the sources?
(c) What factors may affect the reliability of each
account in the sources?
2 Read the text and Source 13.4.
(a) How was it to the advantage of: (i) the Jews,
and (ii) the Arab Palestinians, to exaggerate
what happened at Deir Yassin?
(b) Would either side gain from playing down
the scale of the tragedy in Deir Yassin?
A. Bregman & J. El-Tahri, The Fifty Years War, 1998, p. 29.
Crucially, Arab leaders decided to exaggerate the

terrible events as it was favourable propaganda against the
Jews, and encourage neighbouring Arab states to liberate
Palestine. Therefore, it was alleged, incorrectly, that the Jews
had raped Palestinian women during the attack.
The effect of this announcement from the Palestinian
Broadcasting Corporation was the very opposite of that
intended. Arabs in other villages and towns began to flee
their homes, fearing that they would share the same fate as
the villagers of Deir Yassin. The broadcast was, in the words
of a senior Palestinian, the biggest blunder that could have
happened (Bregman & El-Tahri 1998, p. 33). The flight of the
Arabs was in the Jewish interest and so their military leaders
did nothing to hinder the spread of fear about atrocities.
The events of Deir Yassin only served to intensify the
violence. Five days later a Jewish convoy of supplies and
civilians, going to Hadassah hospital and the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, was attacked, with 78 killed and 24
wounded. On 13 May, the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion
surrendered. Of the 133 inhabitants of the settlement, 129
were murdered after the surrender.
Figure 13.4 Israeli soldiers set off to relieve besieged Jewish

settlements. Shortly after this picture was taken the group was
ambushed by Arabsevery single member of the group was killed.
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

(AL-NAKBATHE CATASTROPHE)
194849
At 4 p.m. on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion proclaimed
the establishment of the state of Israel and became its first
prime minister. Almost simultaneously, the armies of five
Arab countriesEgypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and
Iraqcrossed the borders of Palestine in an attempt to wipe
out the new state at the moment of its birth.
Within a month the Egyptian attack was halted by
Israeli forces, while the troops of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon
were poorly trained and equipped and posed little threat.
Only the Transjordanian Arab Legion made any real gains,
capturing the West Bank region and East Jerusalem. Both
sides accepted a United Nations sponsored ceasefire in June,
though the Israelis made the better use of the respite to
import a large quantity of arms from Czechoslovakia.
Two incidents that occurred around the middle of the
year illustrate the fragility of Ben-Gurions leadership and the
fear that the Jewish cause might be threatened by internal
divisions.
The Altalena affair

In mid-June, during the ceasefire, a ship, the Altalena,
arrived off the coast of Israel carrying a cargo of arms
Figure 13.5 Picture dated 1947 of a placard issued by British

police forces showing 18 wanted Jewish activists from Irgun and
the Stern gang. Top row left, Menachim Begin, the commandant of
Irgun, who became Israeli prime minister in May 1977.
purchased in France for the Irgun. The Irgun had grown

increasingly critical of the national leadership under BenGurion, opposing the 1947 partition plan and warning
that they would fight for the full liberation of the biblical
lands of Israel. After the Declaration of Independence BenGurion insisted that the Irgun would have to be dissolved.
He saw the arrival of the Altalena off the Tel Aviv beach as
a challenge to his governments authority. After an initial
stand-off, the ship was blown up by Haganah forces and
leading Irgun activists were arrested in an attempt to
dissolve the organisation. Nineteen Jews were killed and
dozens wounded in the action against the ship.
The assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

Count Bernadotte was the UN peace mediator in Palestine.
He was suspected by the Stern gang of being a British
agent, who was unwilling to recognise Israels war conquests
and eager to reimpose partition. On 17 September he was
assassinated, though the killers were never caught and
the truth about the assassination was kept a secret. Yitzhak
Shamir, then a Stern gang leader and later prime minister
of Israel, revealed the facts in his 1990 memoirs. It was after

the assassination that the Stern gang and the Irgun were
effectively wound up at Ben-Gurions insistence.
THE RESUMPTION OF THE WAR

On 8 July the Arabs resumed the fighting, but the Israelis
soon regained the initiative. Fifty thousand Arab inhabitants
of Lydda and Ramle were driven out at gunpoint with the
taunt go to King Abdullah (of Transjordan). The further
exodus of Arabs from their towns helped to solve a potential
problem for the Israeli government: what to do with the
Palestinians within the borders of the new state?
The official end to the war came in February 1949 when
Egypt and Israel signed an armistice agreement on the Greek
island of Rhodes. Armistice agreements with the other Arab
countries soon followed.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: ISRAEL AFT ER 1948

LEBANON
1 What territorial gains had the Israelis made

compared with those determined by the
United Nations partition plan?
SYRIA
Nazareth
Haifa
2 Had these gains satisfied any of Israels

major concerns? If so, in what way?
S E A
River Jorda
n
Nablus
Tel Aviv
Jaffa
Amman
Hebron
D E A
D
Gaza
S E A
Jerusalem
Ashod
3 Why did each Arab state agree only to an

armistice, not a peace settlement?
JORDAN
Beersheba
NEGEV
EGYPT
KEY
Jerusalem (divided)
JerusalemTel Aviv
roads
Territory of Israel
proposed by UN 1947
Territory conquered
by Israel, 194849
Armistice frontiers
Eilat
50
100 km
Aqaba
Figure 13.6 Israel after the 194849 war, showing an enlarged

Jewish state
Figure 13.7 An Arab refugee camp near Hebron after the 194849 war
Reasons for victory and defeat
r 5IF"SBCBSNJFTGBDFEMPHJTUJDBMQSPCMFNTGPSFYBNQMF
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Syria 75 000
S E A
Syria 10 000
Algeria 13 000
Tunisia 46 000
Libya 34 000
West Bank
280 000
S E A
Cyprus
120 000
D E A
D
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Iraq
4000
Iraq
124 000
Lebanon
100 000
Gaza Strip
190 000
TransJordan 70 000
Egypt
36 000
Yemen and Aden

62 000
Egypt
7000
KEY
Jewish refugees
from Arab countries
approximately
691 000
Palestinian refugees
from Israel
approximately
726 000
50
100 km
Figure 13.8 The flow of refugees. Numbers are approximate

no official count was possible at the time.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE 194849 WAR

The territory of Israel expanded to include land that the UN had originally allocated for the new Arab
state, including West Jerusalem. Israel now covered about 80 per cent of the old Palestine. The West
Bank, occupied during the war by the troops of Transjordan, was annexed into the new Kingdom of
Jordan in 1950. As Gaza had been occupied and was retained by Egypt, it meant that there was none of
the original territory of mandated Palestine left for Palestinian Arabs to call their own. They became, in
effect, a stateless people.
The Palestinian people had been shattered as a community. In places, their traditional leaders
had been the first to leave during the war. A British report on the hasty departure of Arab leaders
from Haifa concluded that the desertion of their leaders and the sight of so much cowardice in high
places completely unnerved the inhabitants (Gilbert 1998, p. 172). Approximately 160 000 Palestinians
remained in Israel after the war. About 700 000 Palestinians fled their homes in Israeli-controlled
territory. Many of these settled in refugee camps in the surrounding Arab countries. Frustrated
Palestinian refugees formed themselves into bands of fedayeen (self-sacrificers), guerrilla fighters who
crossed from their places of refuge into Israel for purposes of sabotage, arson or murder.
The refugee traffic was not all one way. The outbreak of war resulted in an increase in anti-Jewish
violence in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. In British-controlled Aden, in December
1947, eighty-two Jews were killed by Arabs. In Cairo and Beirut synagogues were attacked and Jewish
houses looted. Within weeks of the establishment of Israel a steady stream of immigrants began to
arrive: within five years the population of the country had doubled. The largest single influx of Jews
came from Iraq123 371 in total. In return for permission to leave Iraq, the emigrants had to give
up their homes, property, valuables and jewellery. The second largest group of immigrants were the
120 000 survivors of the Holocaust, many of whom had been held in British detention camps in Cyprus.
Operation Magic Carpet flew over 45 000 Jews from the Yemen where anti-Jewish riots had broken
out. At first, enormous tented camps were set up to house these returning Jews while the government
launched appeals for money from overseas Jewry, especially in the USA, to build homes for them.
Israels determination to be a homeland for all Jews was confirmed in the passage of the Law of Return
in July 1950, which gave every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel.
Israel benefited by the departure of the majority of Arabs. More than 50 per cent of Israels total
land area consisted of land abandoned by former Arab owners or farmers. The Jewish refugees
entering Israel created an accommodation crisis. The government made a series of absentee property
regulations that disallowed the return of the Arabs to any property abandoned during or immediately
after the war. By 1951 nearly all the property of the Arabs was used by Jewish migrants. Of 370 Jewish
settlements founded between 1948 and 1953, 350 were on absentee property.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: J EW I SH REFU GE ES

Source 13.5
Golda Meir once remarked that Israels propaganda mistake was to do away
with its own refugee problem, by treating the refugees as human beings and
making every eort to give them a decent home and jobs. The world looked
with far greater sympathy on refugees who were kept in their camps (as
happened to the Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan) and
given the minimum of help, or even no help, to integrate into society.

1 What point is Golda Meir making
in Source 13.5 about the plight of
refugees after the war?
2 How does this affect your view
of the situation of the Arab
refugees?
M. Gilbert, Israel: A History, 1998, p. 262.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TH E FAT E OF T H E PALES TIN IAN S

Source 13.6
Source 13.9
The Britain/Israel Public Affairs Centre, an Israeli information

service, made the following comment:
Golda Meir was a member of the first Israeli government and

prime minister 196974.
If the Arabs were so attached to their land, why did they

leave it during a crisis? The blame must belong to the Arab
leaders who, expecting a quick victory by their combined
armies over Israel, encouraged Arabs to leave Palestine,
promising that on their return they would be able to claim
the property of the Jews as well. Arab propaganda led them
to fear what would happen to them if they stayed, and
threatened that they would be considered traitors to the
Arab cause.
Ben-Gurion said: I want you to try to persuade those

Arabs on the beach to come back they have nothing to
fear. So I went immediately I begged them to return to
their homes. But they had only one answer. We know there
is nothing to fear but we have to go. Well be back. I was
quite sure that they went not because they were frightened
of us but because they were terrified of being considered
traitors to the Arab cause.
Cited in M. Scott-Bauman, War and Peace in the Middle

East, 1998, p. 11.
Source 13.7
Yitzhak Rabin, a Jewish commander, reports a conversation
with Ben-Gurion, relating to the fate of the 50 000 Arab
inhabitants of Lydda:
Allon repeated his question: What is to be done with the
population? Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which
said: Drive them out! The population did not leave
willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and
warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the
ten to fifteen miles to the point where they met with the
Arab Legion.
Source 13.8
In the 16 June [1948] Cabinet meeting, Ben-Gurion was clear
enough: They [the Palestinians] lost and fled. Their return
must now be prevented And I will oppose their return also
after the war. This decision was endorsed by all members of
the provisional government.
G. Meir, My Life, 1975, p. 230.
Source 13.10
Why did we want them [the Palestinians] to stay? There
were two very good reasons: first of all, we wanted to
prove to the world that Jews and Arabs could live together
secondly, we knew perfectly well that if half a million
Arabs left Palestine at that point, it would create a major
economic upheaval in the country. Of course, there were
some Jews who said that the Arab exodus was the best
thing that ever happened to Israel, but I know of no serious
Israeli who ever felt that way.
G. Meir, My Life, 1975, p. 231.

1 What reason is given in Source 13.6 for the
Arabs leaving Palestine?
2 Which other source supports the argument
outlined in Source 13.6?
3 Refer to Sources 13.7, 13.8 and 13.9. How does
Ben-Gurions attitude conflict in these sources?
How can you explain this?
4 After reading Source 13.8, what comment
would you make about the last sentence in
Source 13.10?
The Arab countries refused to sign a peace treaty and to accept the existence of the state of
Israel. Equally, they refused to cooperate with the United Nations plans to resettle the Palestinians
permanently in their countries of refuge. It has been argued that the Palestinian refugees were
deliberately kept in camps by their Arab hosts in order to keep their plight in the minds of the
international community.
Looking back on the events from the UN partition resolution to the conclusion of the war, Benny
Morris has written:
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Haaretz Weekend Supplement +VMZ RVPUFEJO#FOWFOJTUJ Q
1 When did the first ArabIsraeli War begin and end?
2 Which Arab countries were involved in the war?
3 When was the truce? What was the significance of this break in fighting?
4 List four reasons why the Arabs lost the war.
5 Write one or two sentences about the role of each of the following in the war:
David Ben-Gurion, Count Bernadotte and Menachem Begin.
R E VI E W TA SK
Prepare a justification of Israels role and conduct in the war. Include a reference to
refugees. Then prepare a response by Palestinian Arabs.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES BY 1967

THE FEDAYEEN AND THE RISE OF ARAB NATIONALISM
DID YOU KNOW?
In the early 1950s the focus of attention in the ArabIsraeli dispute was the relationship
between Israel and its most powerful Arab neighbour, Egypt. Two themes came to dominate
this relationship: fedayeen raids into Israel and the emergence of Arab nationalism.
The first state to recognise

Israel on the day of its birth
was the USA. The second
was Guatemala.
Fedayeen attacks across the border were a constant source of tension for the Israelis.
In February 1955, after a series of raids, the Israelis attacked an Egyptian army base in Gaza,
resulting in the deaths of thirty-nine Egyptian soldiers. Clashes intensified and during the
course of the year the fedayeen claimed 238 Israeli lives.
In 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser became president of Egypt. For months, Nasser had been
unsuccessfully seeking weapons from the USA to modernise his army. After the Gaza raid there was a
new urgency, so Nasser turned to the communist bloc and purchased weapons from Czechoslovakia in
September 1955.
Britain and France were concerned about the growing nationalism of the Egyptian regime and the
possible effect this might have on the Suez Canal, regarded by both countries as a vital lifeline to the
Far East. Despite Egypts independent status, Britain still ran the
canal and maintained 70 000 troops in the adjacent canal zone.
Nassers attempts to develop the Egyptian economy
centred on the construction of the Aswan dam on the river
Nile, which would regulate the flow of the river to improve
Egyptian agriculture and generate hydroelectricity. Funds for
the construction of the dam were promised by the Western
powers but, stung by Egypts arms purchases from the
communists, the USA decided to punish Nasser in July 1956
by refusing financial aid.
In retaliation Nasser decided to carry out an operation that
would, at a stroke, supply a source of funding and pursue his
nationalist agenda: he decided to seize the Suez Canal and
use the profits from its operation to build the dam.
Figure 13.9 Nasser became a popular hero among Arabs in Egypt

and elsewhere as he defied the West.
In Britain, opposition to the nationalisation plan was

led by the prime minister, Anthony Eden, who saw Nasser as another Hitler and, in an allusion to the
importance of the canal to British interests, spoke of the need to remove Nassers thumb from the
British windpipe. Meanwhile, France was anxious to diminish Nassers prestige, accusing him of aiding
nationalist rebels in the French colony of Algeria. Britain and France secretly conspired to defeat Nasser.
In Israel there was rising disquiet over Egypts military build-up. David Ben-Gurion, who had
now returned to power, and his army chief, Moshe Dayan, were determined to strike at Egypt before
the Egyptians could develop their expertise with their new weapons. The Israelis joined the AngloFrench conspiracy.
THE SUEZ WAR 1956

On 29 October the Israeli army invaded Egypt and advanced towards the Suez Canal. Britain, claiming
the role of an intermediary, demanded that both sides take up positions 16 kilometres from the canal
the Egyptians to the west and the Israelis to the east. As this would mean that the Egyptians would
have to retreat from the Sinai, while the Israelis were being given the green light to advance almost to
the canal itself, the Egyptians naturally refused the demand.
In response to the failure of the Egyptians to accept British mediation, British and French planes
bombed Egyptian airfields and dropped paratroopers into the Suez Canal zone. The Egyptians reacted
by sinking ships in the canal to block it.
International reaction was severely critical of the invading forces. The USA, outraged at the resort
to force in defiance of the United Nations charter, and the secrecy that had surrounded the operation,
threatened to organise a run on British gold reserves and disruption to British and French oil supplies.
The Soviet Union informed the American ambassador in Moscow that they were contemplating
flattening Israel. In the face of such international condemnation, the British and French agreed to
withdraw their troops and respect the United Nations call for a ceasefire.
THE RESULTS OF THE CRISIS

Both Egypt and Israel regarded the Suez crisis as a success. Although his armies had been defeated
by the Israelis, Nassers popularity soared in the Arab world. Politically he had challenged the old
colonial powers and defeated them; here, it seemed, was a leader who could restore Arab pride. For
Israel, their army had successfully struck at Egypt and captured the Sinai peninsula. Although, because
MALTA
CYPRUS
Beirut
LEBANON
AngloFrench
bombers
paratroops
SYRIA
S E A
31 Oct.
Damascus
5 Nov.
WEST
BANK
Tel Aviv
Amman
Jerusalem
Gaza
River Nile
Port Said
Suez Canal
JORDAN
Ismailia
KEY
Cairo
Israeli advances
Suez
SINAI
Eilat
EGYPT
Aqaba
G
U
L
F
O
F
SAUDI ARABIA
S
U
E
Z
50
100
150 km
Sharm el Sheikh
STRAITS
OF TIRAN
R E D
S E A
Figure 13.10 The Suez War 1956
of pressure from the USA, they were forced to hand the area back to Egypt in 1957, the presence of
a UN peacekeeping force on the IsraeliEgyptian border and at Sharm el-Sheikh ensured the end of
fedayeen raids from Gaza and the opening up of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.
THE INVOLVEMENT OF SUPERPOWERS

During the 1950s the Soviet Union turned away from the pro-Western Israel and began to court the
Arab nations of the region. Arms deals were concluded, such as that with Nasser in 1955, designed to
encourage the anti-Western face of Arab nationalism.
Although it was President Eisenhowers intervention that forced an end to the Suez crisis, it was the
Soviet Union that gained prestige in the Arab world as it replaced Egypts arms. In contrast, the USA
deliberately maintained a low profile in the region: its decision making was dominated by the need to
maintain good relations with the oil-rich Arab nations and did not display the heavily pro-Israel stance
of later years.
WAR AND PEACE

THE EVENTS LEADING TO THE SIX DAY WAR
After the Suez crisis, the presence of the United Nations Expeditionary Force (UNEF) on the EgyptIsrael
border ensured that fedayeen activity diminished. However, there were increased raids by fedayeen
based in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: INVOLVEM ENT OF THE SO VIETS IN THE S IX DAY WAR

Source 13.11
Source 13.12
The following comment was made by a Soviet foreign

ministry spokesman.
The following comment was made by an American

CIA agent.
We believed then that even if the war was not won

by our sidethe Egyptiansa war would be to our
political advantage because the Egyptians would have
demonstrated their ability to fight with our weapons and
with our military and political support.
The USSR wanted to create another trouble spot for

the United States in addition to that already existing in
Vietnam. The Soviet aim was to create a situation in which
the US would become seriously involved economically,
politically and possibly even militarily, and would suer
serious political reverses as a result of siding [with the
Israelis] against the Arabs.
Cited in A. Bregman & J. El-Tahri, The Fifty Years War,

1998, p. 65.

1998, p. 66.
1 Refer to Source 13.11 and 13.12. Why did the Soviet Union want to provoke a
confrontation in the Middle East?
2 Which of the possible motives seems to you to be the most convincing?
By 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization had come

into existence and was the main organiser of border raids.
Israeli reprisals ensured that tensions on the borders grew.
Speeches from Arab radio continued to adopt a harsh antiIsraeli tone and began to be critical of Nassers inactivity
towards Israel, accusing him of hiding behind the skirts
of UNEF.
This impression was strengthened in the minds of the
Syrians when an incident in the Golan Heights in April 1967
brought retaliation from the Israelis with bombs, napalm and
the shooting down of several Syrian MIG fighters. Despite the
signing of a Mutual Defence Pact between Egypt and Syria in
November 1966, Nasser made no move to help his ally.
Historians differ in their interpretations of why the Six
Day War broke out. The official Israeli version states that
Nasser, needing to prove to the Arab world that he was still
a great leader, made obvious preparations to attack Israel,
which responded to this by launching a pre-emptive strike
against the countries poised to invade: Egypt, Syria and
Jordan.
The crisis began on 13 May 1967 with a Soviet
intelligence report that Israeli troops were massing on the
Syrian border. The report was false, but it had the effect of
galvanising Nasser into action. To show his support for his

Syrian ally, Nasser ordered his army to advance into the
Sinai and asked UNEF to leave its positions on the border
and at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran,
in preparation for closing the straits to Israeli shipping
(see Figure 13.10).
The news that the straits were to be blocked shocked
Israel, which had for years regarded such an action as a casus
belli (cause of war). On 23 May full mobilisation was ordered
in Israel. In Syria, Defence Minister Assad declared, It is high
time to launch the battle for the liberation of Palestine
(Bregman & El-Tahri 1998, p. 69).
INTERVENTION BY THE
SUPERPOWERS
Both the USA and the Soviet Union were anxious to limit the
prospect of war and stressed to their respective client states
that they would not support a pre-emptive strike. When
the Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin, informed Egypt
that We cannot give you our consent for your pre-emptive
strikes against Israel (Bregman & El-Tahri 1998, p. 82) Nasser
made the fateful decision that he would have to allow the
Israelis to attack first before striking a counter-blow.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: ISRAEL S P RE-EMPT IV E S TRIKE

Source 13.13
Source 13.15
Abba Eban, the Israeli foreign minister, received a telegram

from his government as he was attempting to find out the
attitude of the USA to the developing crisis.
Israels military strength is based on its reserves. Once

these have been mobilized, and the Israeli economy
paralyzed, a time limit is placed on the crisiseither the
potential threat had to be removed or war is bound to
break out.
Now he was being asked to tell the Americans that an Arab

attack was imminentsomething he did not believe. For,
while the Arabs had concentrated huge forces along the
borders with Israel, Eban knew from his own sources that
these forces were in a defensive position and not about
to attack.
Rostow [an American diplomat] said that there was no
evidence whatsoever to support what Eban had said that an
Arab oensive was not pending Johnson [US president]
said Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone.
1998, p. 724.
Source 13.14
The telegram [to Israeli Prime Minister Eshkol] was from
Prime Minister Kosygin [Soviet prime minister] and it called
on Eshkol to calm things down. It is easy to ignite a fire,
warned Kosygin, but putting out the flames may not be
nearly as simple.
A. Rubinstein, The ArabIsraeli Conflict: Perspectives,

1984, p. 50.

1 What was the attitude of the superpowers
towards the developing crisis?
2 What risks did the Israelis take by launching a
pre-emptive strike?
3 Why was the order from the Israelis for full
mobilisation a significant step leading to the
outbreak of war?
4 How does the information in Sources 13.13,
13.14 and 13.15 affect the official Israeli view of
the reasons for the outbreak of war?
THE SIX DAY WAR

The fate of the war was virtually decided in the first few hours. In the desert terrain of the Middle East,
whoever commanded the skies had an unbeatable advantage. In the early hours of 5 June, 180 Israeli
warplanes attacked the airfields of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, destroying most of the Arab air forces on
the ground. Over 400 Arab planes were destroyed, for the loss of only 19 Israeli planes.
Realising that his troops and tanks were now extremely vulnerable to land and air attack by the
Israelis in the Sinai, the Egyptian commander ordered them to turn around and retreat to the canal. The
retreat turned into a rout as the Egyptian vehicles and tanks were attacked by Israeli tanks and planes.
Two thousand Egyptian soldiers had died fighting the Israelis. Ten thousand more died in the retreat.
The Israelis lost 338 men.
Timetable of the Six Day War
Monday 5 June
Israeli airforce destroys the airforces of Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
Tuesday 6 June
Fighting in the Sinai and around Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Wednesday 7 June
Egypt is defeated; all of Jerusalem is captured.
Thursday 8 June
All of West Bank is captured.
Friday 9 June
Israeli troops attack Golan Heights.
Saturday 10 June
Golan Heights is captured; the war ends.
The Jordanian king entered the war reluctantly. Although

allied to the Egyptians, King Hussein was pessimistic about
the chances of victory. However, failure to fight would have
almost certainly led to civil war between forces loyal to the
king and the Palestinians who made up approximately 50
per cent of Jordans population. The Jordanians fought to
retain control of Jerusalem and the West Bank but were
soon defeated.
With Egypt and Jordan defeated by 8 June, Israels
attention turned to Syria and the opportunity to capture
the Golan Heights, an area from which Syrian guns regularly
bombarded Israeli settlements in the plain below.
On the morning of 10 June, with the Israelis fighting in
the Heights and looking as if they were about to advance
on Damascus, the Soviet Union sent a clear warning to the
Americans that they would intervene if the Israelis would
not accept a ceasefire. Russian bombers in the Ukraine were
put on a state of combat readiness, in Egyptian colours, but
were not called upon. By mid-afternoon the Israelis had
completed the conquest of the Golan and accepted a call
for a ceasefire.
THE RESULTS OF THE WAR

Israel captured the Sinai peninsula and Gaza Strip from
Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and
the Golan Heights from Syria. These were placed under
military occupation and became known as the Occupied
Territories. Israels borders were much more secure,
especially with the Sinai desert forming a massive buffer
zone between Israel and Egypt. All Israelis were especially
delighted by the capture of the Old City of Jerusalem,
which gave them access to the Wailing Wall and the site of
the biblical temple.
Figure 13.11 In the exposed sands of the Sinai the wreckage

of the Egyptian army litters the road through the Mitla Pass.
Israeli troops reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal.

With Egyptian troops on the western side, the canal was
to remain closed to all shipping for some years. Israel now
controlled Sharm el-Sheikh and the entrance to the Gulf of
Aqaba. It was now their turn to impose a ban on shipping,
and this time it was the Jordanians who found themselves
cut off from access to the Red Sea and beyond.
The war polarised relations between the Soviet bloc
and the West. Most Arab states believed that the USA had
colluded with Israel. The Soviet Union maintained its links
with the Arab states and rearmed them to replace their
losses in the war. The USA now replaced France as Israels
chief weapons supplier, a combination of events that caused
the arms race in the region to escalate.
Figure 13.12 Defence Minister Moshe Dayan holds a press

conference; Dayan had an eye for publicityhe lost the other eye in
the Second World War.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E GAI NS B Y THE IS RAEL IS I N 1967

Beirut
Golan Heightsan area of high ground that dominates much

of northern Israel and the route to the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Between 1948 and 1967 the Syrians held the Heights, and before
the war Syrian troops shelled Israeli settlements from these hills.
Most of the 100 000 Syrian inhabitants fled during the fighting.
LEBANON
SYRIA
Golan Heights
East Jerusalem was added to West Jerusalem

(which had been captured in 1948). The whole
city was now in Israeli hands.
West Bank
Gaza Stripa narrow piece of land on the coast.

It is densely populated with 300 000 inhabitants,
mostly Palestinian Arabs.
Tel Aviv
S E A
Gaza
West Bank of River Jordan

this area had been part of
the Arab state of Jordan
since the 194849 war;
750 000 people, mostly
Palestinian Arabs, lived here.
Parts of the West bank are
very fertile, especially in the
river valley.
Suez Canal
River Nile
Negev
Sinaia large area of
Egyptian territory. It is
mostly desert. Very few
people live here.
Suez
JORDAN
Eilat
EGYPT
Amman
Jersusalem
Port Said
Cairo
Damascus
Aqaba
G
U
L
SINAI
O
F
S
U
E
Z
50
100
150 km
Sharm el Sheikh
STRAITS
OF TIRAN
R E D
SAUDI ARABIA
S E A
Figure 13.13 The gains of the Israelis in the 1967 war
What advantage did the Israelis gain by capturing each of the territories shown
in Figure 13.13?
The war had produced a stalemate in IsraelArab relations. Israel, supported by the USA, had shown
that it could defeat its Arab neighbours in war, but could not inflict a total defeat on the Arab world. At
first, the view in Israel was that the Occupied Territories, with the exception of the West Bank, could be
used as pawns to bargain for a peace settlement and recognition of Israel. However, the Arabs, backed
by the Soviet Union, felt that Israel was the aggressor and should be punished rather than rewarded.
They demanded the return of the territories without any concessions on their part and in August 1967
they adopted the policy of No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel,
and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.
In November 1967 the UN passed Resolution 242, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed
forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict and for the right of all countries in the Middle East
to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries. Israelis emphasised that the resolution did
not specify withdrawal from all the territories and put special emphasis on the second condition, which
implied a recognition of Israels right to exist, while the Arab nations refused to recognise Israel, claiming
that the first condition meant that Israel must give up all the land captured during the recent war.
THE WAR OF ATTRITION

By 1968 Nasser was determined to force the Israelis back from the Suez Canal and launched a war of
attrition to wear down the Israeli forces stationed there. Egypt used their artillery power to shell the Israeli
forces on the eastern bank. In response, the Bar Lev Line of high sandbanks was constructed to offer
shelter. Egyptian squads also crossed the canal to attack Israeli outposts. The Israelis retaliated by using
their air power to bomb Egyptian targets, often far from the canal. By the end of 1969 the conflict was in
danger of escalating as the Egyptians called on Soviet support. Soviet ground-to-air missiles and planes,
and Soviet crews to operate them, were deployed on the battle front. Israel now faced the prospect of a
direct clash with the Soviet Union. The dangers of escalation caused the USA to intervene and American
Secretary of State William Rogers eventually arranged a ceasefire in July 1970. The death, by heart attack,
of Nasser in September 1970 allowed the opening of a new chapter in ArabIsraeli relations.
1 What role did the superpowers play in the Six Day War crisis?
2 What role was played by the United Nations?
3 Was Israel justified in starting the war?
4 By the time he discovered that there was no Israeli military concentration [on the
border of Syria], Nasser had already realized that the remilitarization of the Sinai had
restored his standing as the leader of Arab nationalism. (Rubinstein 1984, p. 50.)
Examine the role of Nasser in the crisis. Do you think he wanted war?
5 The crisis acquired dynamics of its own, independent of its original cause (Rubinstein
1984, p. 50). What point is Rubinstein making?
THE YOM KIPPUR WAR, OCTOBER 1973

Nassers successor, Anwar Sadat, wanted to regain the Sinai and reopen the Suez Canal. He realised that
a new approach was needed and sought to improve relations with the USA by sacking anti-American
members of his government. In February 1971 he went a step further by announcing that he would
sign a peace agreement with Israel in return for its withdrawal from the western part of the Sinai.
Timetable of the Yom Kippur War
6 October
War begins.
8 October
Israeli counter-attack in Sinai.
10 October
Syrians in retreat.
14 October
Egyptian forces move further into Sinai, beyond missile cover.
15 October
Israeli tanks establish themselves on the western side of the canal.
17 October
Oil-producing states increase prices and cut off supplies to the West.
24 October
Ceasefire comes into effectthe fighting ends.
However, both the Americans and the Israelis failed to respond to Sadats initiatives. The Americans
were preoccupied with the Vietnam War and were unsure of Sadats sincerity, while Israeli Prime
Minister Golda Meir was not prepared to negotiate.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E OU T B REAK O F WAR

Source 13.16
Source 13.17
President Sadat of Egypt states on 6 October 1973:
Prime Minister Golda Meirs view, 6 October 1973:
We didnt know what the Israelis had in store. What new

weapons did they have? But after three hours it was clear
that the Israelis had not mobilized and had been totally
surprised. Our troops made their crossing over the steep
canal sides
Citizens of Israel, at around 1400 today the armies of Egypt

and Syria launched an oensive against Israel The Israeli
Defence Force is fighting back The enemy has suered
serious losses They hoped to surprise the citizens of
Israel on the Day of Atonement while many were praying in
the synagogues But we were not surprised Our forces
were deployed as necessary to meet the danger.
Cited in K. Rice, The Middle East Since 1900, 1990, p. 62.
Cited in K. Rice, The Middle East Since 1900, 1990, p. 62.
1 Over what important point do Sadat and Meirs views differ?

2 What information in the text would make a historian decide that Source 13.16 was
more reliable than Source 13.17?
Sadat decided that only war would fulfil his objective, and he began to make preparations.
He first went to Moscow to obtain more weapons, but received little support. In July 1972
Sadat expelled 15 000 Soviet military advisers from Egypt, hoping that this would enable him
to enlist the aid of the US to pressure the Israelis to the conference table, but the Americans
were still not convinced that Sadats offer to negotiate was genuine.
To lull the Israelis into a false sense of security, Egyptian forces regularly held military exercises
along the canal. Meanwhile, old quarrels with Syria and Saudi Arabia were patched up.
On 6 October Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel. It was the day of Yom
Kippura Jewish religious holiday when the whole country comes to a standstilland the
attack came as a complete surprise.
Recovering from their initial setbacks, the Israelis fought back and soon had the Syrians
in retreat. Fears that the Israelis would push on to Damascus caused the Soviet Union to rush
arms to its ally, and the USA did the same for Israel. When
the Egyptians advanced beyond the range of their
protective missile cover in Sinai, the Israelis were able
to destroy many Egyptian tanks and begin an encircling
movement that took the Israeli forces across the canal and
behind the Egyptian army.
DID YOU KNOW?

Moshe Dayans favourite hobby
was archaeology. On one
occasion Palestinian terrorists
explained his temporary
absence from public affairs by
claiming they had badly injured
him with machine-guns and
grenades during a raid. In fact,
he had been completely buried
at an archaeological dig when
a trench collapsed on him. He
recovered.
A new factor entered the warthe oil weapon. The

Arab oil-producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia, raised
the price of oil by 70 per cent and threatened to reduce
production until Israel withdrew from all of occupied
Palestine. Oil supplies to the USA and Europe were stopped.
Faced with this threat to their economy, and the danger
of a direct clash with the Soviet Union, the USA urged
restraint on Israel and threatened to withdraw their support
if a joint USASoviet Union ceasefire in the UN was not
observed. After eighteen days the fighting ended.
Figure 13.14 Egyptian troops cross the canal on pontoon bridges

having used giant hoses to blast holes in the Bar Lev Line sand
barrier on the opposite shore.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR
Damascus
Initial Arab attacks

Israeli counter-attacks
SYRIA
Tel Aviv
S E A
Jersusalem
Although beaten on the battlefield, the Arab soldiers

had recovered some of their reputation as fighters and the
Arabs felt that they had achieved a political victory. They had
broken the stalemate that had existed in the region since
1967 and, with the introduction of the oil blockade, had
found an influential weapon to deal with the West.
Port Said
Suez Canal
Cairo
River Nile
ISRAEL
the trapped
Egyptian army
Suez
EGYPT
JORDAN
G
U
L
SINAI
O
F
SAUDI ARABIA
S
U
E
Z
American politicians had been forced to take greater

note of the Arab position, a result of which was that the
secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, began two years of shuttle
diplomacy in the Middle East. As a result, in 1974 the Israelis
agreed to move back from the Suez Canal, and its advanced
fortified areas in the Golan Heights. The Egyptians were able
to reopen the canal for non-Israeli shipping in June 1975. In a
later agreement, Egypt permitted Israel-bound cargo to pass
through the canal as long as it was not carried on Israeli ships.
LEBANON
KEY
For Israel, the war that had started with a debacle ended
with a comprehensive military victory. However, 120 planes
and 650 tanks had been lost and almost 3000 soldiers killed.
Although the Arab losses were heavier, this was a huge cost
for such a small country. The Israeli public wanted to know
why the country had been taken by surprise and, after a
bitter political row, Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defence
Minister Moshe Dayan resigned in April 1974.
50
100
150 km
R E D
S E A
Figure 13.15 The Yom Kippur War 1973
Relations between Egypt and Syria deteriorated after the

war. Sadats concessions to Israel angered President Assad of
Syria, who feared that Egypts compromise would undermine
his own efforts to regain the Golan Heights. Assad refused to
participate in further peacemaking efforts.
THE EVENTS LEADING TO CAMP DAVID

In both Israel and Egypt the cost of the 1973 war had taken
its toll on the economy. President Sadat wanted to secure a
permanent peace for his country and also to take the lead
in solving the Palestinian problem. On 9 November 1977 he
told the Egyptian parliament that he was willing to go to
the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) in search of peace. The
announcement surprised everyone, not least the Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin, who invited Sadat to Israel. On 20
November Sadat addressed the Knesset and called for a peace
agreement and a recognition of the rights of the Palestinians.
Peace talks began but soon became bogged down in
disagreement. American President Jimmy Carter invited
Sadat and Begin to Camp David in America. After much
hard bargaining and threatened walkouts, two agreements
were reached in September 1978: a framework for peace in

the Middle East, and a framework for an EgyptIsrael peace
treaty. One difficult point for Begin was Sadats insistence
that all Jewish settlements that had been established in the
Sinai since 1967 should be withdrawn. Begin was personally
opposed to this but agreed to put it to the Knesset. When
the Knesset, by a large majority, agreed that the settlements
would be dismantled, the way was clear for the signing of the
treaty and it was signed in Washington on 26 March 1979.
The treaty led to a phased withdrawal of the Israelis from
Sinai, which was completed in April 1982. A new phase
opened in EgyptIsrael relations. Israeli ships could now pass
through the Suez Canal, ambassadors were exchanged, and
trade and airline flights between the two countries began.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E DESI RE FOR PEAC E

Source 13.18
The following table shows Israeli economic statistics from 1970 to 1975.
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
10
11
11
0.5
Industrial production growth (%)

Balance of payments deficit ($ billion)
1.2
1.2
1.1
1.8
3.5
3.8
450
650
710
750
620
590
Immigration (1000 people)
30
35
50
50
35
15
Emigration (1000 people)
13
10
25
22
110
120
150
180
230
310
Tourism (1000 people)
Index of consumer prices (1969 = 100)
Yom Kippur War
Table based on original in the Sunday Times, 7 December 1975.
Source 13.19
CAIRO ON THE BREAD-LINE
Some weeks ago, Mr Sadat twice stopped his ocial car in crowded streets to give lifts
to pedestrians who were walking to work along the crumbling pavements Workers
in Egypt customarily eat five times a day, but they eat bread to keep away hunger and
otherwise consume about the same quantity of food in 24 hours as a Briton might
take for tea. In Cairo, where an estimated 90 per cent of the eight and a half million
population are on the poverty line and where their lives are made desperate by
chaotic transport, homelessness, unemployment, staggering bureaucracy and dirt,
most people exist in misery, sustained only by their family ties and the eternal patriotic
assurance that they were the victors of the great war of Ramadan. The riots of the
last two days therefore, were as predictable as they were fierce.
DOCUMENT ST U DY TASK
Use the information in
Sources 13.18 and 13.19
to explain why both Israel
and Egypt wished to avoid
another war after 1973.
The Scotsman, 21 January 1977.
Within Egypt, the initial enthusiasm for the peace treaty cooled. Some groups, particularly Pan-Arabists
and Islamic fundamentalists, had always opposed the treaty, and when Begin announced the annexation
of East Jerusalem in 1980 and the Golan Heights in 1981, to the embarrassment of Sadats government,
anger grew. In 1981 Sadat was murdered by Islamic fundamentalists while reviewing a military parade.
THE CAMP DAVID PEACE TREATY, MARCH 1979

A framework for peace in the Middle East
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1 How did Israels position at the end of the 1973 war differ from its position at the end
of the 1967 war?
2 How did Egypts position at the end of the 1973 war differ from its position at the end
of the 1967 war?
3 What surprising initiative did Sadat undertake to get peace talks moving in 1977?
4 When was the initial framework for peace signed? When was the EgyptIsrael peace
treaty signed?
5 Which of the Camp David agreements came into being? Which did not?
6 What were the motives of Sadat and Begin in seeking a peace treaty? Did they each
get what they wanted?
7 In retrospect, the Camp David agreements can be seen as both a success and a
disappointment. Why?
8 Explain in detail the message of the cartoon in Figure 13.17.
Figure 13.17 An Arab view of the Camp David agreements. The

writing on the sword says Camp David.
Figure 13.16 Sadat, Carter and Begin at the signing of the

Camp David peace treaty
THE SUPERPOWERS IN THE 1960s AND 1970s

During the early 1960s the USA avoided involvement in ArabIsraeli issues, being increasingly preoccupied
by affairs in Vietnam. Although the Soviets had established an arms trade with the Arabs, the principal
suppliers of weapons to Israel before the 1967 war were Britain and France. The 1967 war increased the
involvement of both superpowers in the region. The Yom Kippur War intensified this involvement and for
the first time the superpowers seemed headed on a collision course, until the crisis was defused. In the
field of peacemaking, the Soviet Union has never undertaken a diplomatic initiative to foster an ArabIsraeli
settlement, whereas the Americans brokered the Camp David peace treaty in 197879.
THE PALESTINIANS
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: W H O IS A PALEST I NIAN ?
Source 13.20
The following are extracts from the Palestinian National Charter of July 1968.
7KH3DOHVWLQLDQLGHQWLW\LVDJHQXLQHDQGLQKHULWHGFKDUDFWHULVWLF
7KH=LRQLVWRFFXSDWLRQDQGWKHGLVSHUVDORIWKH3DOHVWLQLDQ$UDESHRSOH
do not make them lose their Palestinian identity.
7KH3DOHVWLQLDQVDUHWKRVH$UDEQDWLRQDOVZKRXQWLOQRUPDOO\UHVLGHG
in Palestine regardless of whether they have been evicted from it or have
stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian fatherwhether
inside Palestine or outside itis also a Palestinian.
7KH-HZVZKRKDGQRUPDOO\UHVLGHGLQ3DOHVWLQHXQWLOWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKH
Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.
Cited in W. Laqueur (ed.), The ArabIsraeli Reader, 1984, p. 366.

1 What problem, related to the
definition of nationality, did the
Palestinians inevitably face with
the passage of time after the
events of 1948?
2 How does the definition of
Palestinian identity in Source
13.20 overcome this problem?
3 What is the attitude towards Jews
living in Palestine, as expressed in
the charter in Source 13.20?
THE CREATION OF THE REFUGEE PROBLEM

During the 194849 war over 750 000 Palestinians fled their homes. Their rights and political status
continues to be disputed because of the differing interpretations of this exodus. The view of the Israelis
is that the Palestinians left their homes willingly or at the instigation of the Arab leadership, who told
them that they would be able to return once the infant state of Israel had been defeated. Because
they left willingly, Israel accepts no responsibility for the welfare of these people. The Arabs claim that
the Palestinians were forced from their lands and villages by the threats and actions of Jewish terrorist
groups, who demolished several Arab villages. Also, Jewish radio broadcast stories about outbreaks of
cholera and typhus to panic the Palestinians into leaving. Because they were forced out, Arabs argue,
Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their former homes. On 11 December 1948 the UN passed
Resolution 194, which stated that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with
their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date. However, the Israeli
government had already decided not to permit the refugees to return.
Where did the refugees go?

Many refugees went to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Gulf states.
While some went to cities such as Beirut, Damascus, or Amman, 80 per cent of the refugees were
fellahin (farmers) and were forced to settle in squalid refugee camps.
THE PALESTINIAN ROLE IN THE ARABISRAELI CONFLICT

In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization was set up under the chairmanship of Ahmed Shukairey.
The PLO was as an umbrella group for eight separate and often rival Palestinian organisations. The largest
group was Al Fatah, led by Yasser Arafat, which launched its first raid into Israel in 1965, while the much
smaller but more extreme Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was led by George Habash.
THE EFFECTS OF THE SIX DAY WAR 1967

The 1967 war was a setback for the Palestinian cause. For years the Palestinians had relied on the Arab
nations to fight for the restoration of Arab Palestine. The decisive defeat in 1967 made Egypt, Syria and
Jordan more concerned about the recovery of their territory than they were about the demands of the
Palestinian refugees in the camps. Furthermore, the war only added to the refugee problem, with an
extra 200 000 people fleeing from the advancing Israeli armies. Immediately after the war many of these
refugees had tried to recross the river Jordan into the West Bank, but more than one hundred of them
were shot by Israeli troops, before Prime Minister Eshkol ordered the practice of shooting returning
refugees be stopped. In March 1968, near the Jordanian town of Karameh, Israeli forces launched a
reprisal raid in revenge for the explosion of a school bus that had led to the deaths of two children. In
an intensive battle the Israelis were defeated by a combined force of members of the Jordanian army
and Palestinian fighters. Although the Israelis lost fewer men this was the first time that such a raid had
been stopped and turned back with substantial lossestwenty-nine killedto the Israeli side. Glossing
over the part played by the Jordanian army, Arafat claimed the Battle of Karameh as a great Palestinian
victory, the result of which was an influx of thousands of young men from Arab countries and the
refugee camps eager to join the ranks of Fatah.
In 1969 Yasser Arafat became Chairman of the PLO and the Palestinians began a campaign to win
international recognition for themselves and their cause.
SEEKING THE WORLDS SPOTLIGHT 196872

The Palestinian leadership embraced the tactics of terrorism to bring their cause to the front pages of
the worlds press, as they believed that the plight of the Palestinians was being ignored. This led to a
series of incidents.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: W H Y DID T H E PALE S TIN I AN S BEC O ME AN I N DEPEN DEN T FO RC E?

Source 13.21
The refugee camps in Gaza were prisons. And it was the same situation
in the camps in Jordan, in Syria, in Iraq and in Lebanon. Our people in
the camps were totally isolated. They were not allowed any freedom
of movement. They were not allowed to speak or write any word about
our problem. They were not allowed to organise. They were not allowed
to demonstrate. And those of us who did try to organise were treated
as spies the Arab intelligence services intimidated and tortured our
people in order to have their agents among us.

1 Why were refugee camps described
as prisons in Source 13.21?
2 What does this source tell us about
the attitude of the host governments
towards the refugees on their land?
3 Can you suggest reasons why the
host governments acted in this way?
Abu Jihad, cited in M. Pyne, Middle East Conflict, 1996, p. 36.
In December 1968 an El Al (Israeli national airline) plane was hijacked at Athens airport, resulting in
one death. In retaliation Israeli commandos, among them the nineteen-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu,
destroyed thirteen aircraft at Beirut airport. In 1970 the PFLP hijacked three aircraft to Jordan, landing
them at a disused military airport called Dawsons Field. The passengers were removed and the planes
blown up. The blowing up of these aircraft, the adverse world publicity, and the fear of heavy reprisal by
the Israelis made the Jordanian government decide to expel the Palestinians within their borders.
King Husseins dilemma

The increasing power of the radical Palestinians was a problem in Husseins essentially conservative Arab
kingdom. A power struggle developed as the more revolutionary Palestinians began to challenge the
Jordanian authorities on the streets. King Hussein recalled a breakdown of law and order; a situation
where people were not able to go around without being stopped and searched by Palestinians, where
vehicles were confiscated, people shot, people disappeared (Bregman & El-Tahri 1998, p. 147).
Figure 13.18 A hijacked plane is blown up at Dawsons Field in Jordan.
The hijacking at Dawsons Field was seen as the last straw by Hussein, who used the Jordanian army
to expel the PLO forces from Jordan. In the course of the heavy fighting Arafat appealed to the Syrians
for help and a force of Syrian tanks crossed the border to assist the Palestinians. Faced with this new
threat, King Hussein obtained help from an unexpected sourceIsrael. Acting through the Americans,
Israeli fighters were sent to persuade the Syrian tanks to turn backwhich they did. Ten thousand
Palestinians were killed in the expulsion, an incident that became known as Black September. An
extreme terrorist group later adopted this name. The PLO moved its headquarters from Jordan to
Lebanon. The anger of the Palestinians with Jordan was shown in 1971 when the Jordanian prime
minister was murdered while on a visit to Egypt.
In May 1972, three members of the radical Japanese Red Brigades terrorist group, working in
sympathy with the Palestinians, machine-gunned twenty-seven passengers in the arrivals hall of Lod
(Lydda) airport. Later that year, in September, eleven Israeli athletes were held hostage by members
of the Black September terrorist group at the Munich Olympics. After a shoot-out with the German
authorities, the hostages were killed, as were five of the terrorists. A few days later Israeli reprisals killed
over 200 Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon.
Though isolated incidents of terrorism continued to occur, most notably the hijacking of ninetyeight Jewish passengers on an Air France jet to Entebbe in 1976, who were rescued by Israeli
commandos, from 1973 onwards more moderate views began to emerge among the Palestinian
Source 13.22
There is a law which governs Israeli behaviour towards us. They wont
interfere so long as there is an Arab power to do it for them. The
Jordanians had fought us only a short time before Karameh. They were
bound to turn on us again, especially as we were more powerful than
ever. To understand this, you should see Jordan as a sponge, designed
by the West, to absorb any Palestinian tendency towards the liberation
of their land. Even if we behaved like angels towards his regime,
Hussein would have been bound to try to annihilate us.

1 How does the information in the
text and Source 13.22 differ in
explaining Husseins expulsion of the
Palestinians?
2 What is meant by the description of
Jordan as a sponge designed by the
West?
Fatah leader Salah Tamari, cited in J. Dimbleby, The Palestinians,

1980, p. 149.
leadership, and instead of insisting on the complete

elimination of Israel, talk of a mini-Palestinian state emerged.
As the goal was moderated, so too were the methods, and
the Palestinians turned more to politics rather than terrorism.
Arafat on the world stage

In 1974 the PLO gained greater status during a meeting of
Arab nations at Rabat in Morocco where it was agreed that
only the PLO could officially speak for the Palestinians. In
October 1974 the UN voted to recognise the PLO officially as
the representative of the Palestinians and, in the following
month, Yasser Arafat was invited to address the UN in
Geneva. He ended his speech: Today I have come bearing
an olive branch (a symbol of peace) and a freedom fighters
gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
By the 1980s the PLO was legitimised internationally by
recognition from many states, including the Soviet Union
and Vatican City. Israel and the USA, however, continued
to refuse recognition of or negotiations with the PLO,
which they regarded as a terrorist group. Israel remained
unresponsive to any moderation in the PLOs policies,
regarding this as merely a gesture to gain more support in
Western eyes.
Figure 13.19 One of the hooded Palestinian terrorists on the

balcony of the Olympic village building where the Israeli athletes
were held hostage
1 What lessons did the Palestinians learn from the failure of the Arab armies in 1967?
2 What was the significance of the battle of Karameh for the Palestinian cause?
3 Why did the Palestinians turn to terrorism? Do you think they achieved their
objectives?
4 Why did King Hussein expel the Palestinians in 1970?
5 Arafats appearance at the United Nations justified the terror that had gone before.
Do you agree?
6 What gains were made by the Palestinian people and their representatives in the
period from 1968 to 1980?
THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND LEBANON

THE PALESTINIANS IN LEBANON
For many years Lebanon had been a prosperous country with a mixture of Western and Arabic
influences. However, increasing disagreement between its Christian and Muslim populations led to the
outbreak of civil war in 1975. With the breakdown of central authority, the PLO leadership, which had
moved to Lebanon in 1970, controlled much of southern Lebanon and launched attacks across the
border into Israel.
The first Israeli invasion of Lebanon 1978
The second Israeli invasion of Lebanon

198285
S E A
LEBANON
Baalbek
Beirut
Philip Habib was sent to Lebanon from the USA to

attempt to resolve the situation. Eventually, the Lebanese
government, in an attempt to save what was left of their
war-damaged capital, asked Arafat to leave the country.
Habib had then to find an Arab country that would give
shelter to Arafat and the PLO. Syria, Egypt and Jordan all
refused. Eventually, in August 1982, over 14 000 PLO fighters
left Lebanon by sea for a variety of destinations. Yasser Arafat
ta
Li
Sabraa and
Shatila camps
ni
SYRIA
all
ey
In 1981 Ariel Sharon became the Israeli defence minister. In

1976 Syria had been invited to send troops into Lebanon to
help restore order. They came, but they also stayed, and it
was feared that Syria had longer-term ambitions to establish
control over Lebanon. Sharon wanted to remove both the
PLO and the Syrians from Lebanon. What he needed was an
excuse to invade.
On 3 June 1982 the Abu Nidal faction, a radical splinter
group of the PLO, attempted to assassinate the Israeli
ambassador in London. This provided the excuse that
Sharon needed. Three days later the Israeli army and air force
were sent into Lebanon on Operation Peace For Galilee
with the declared aim of establishing a limited security
zone extending 40 kilometres to the north of the border.
In fact, the troops continued onwards until they reached
Beirut. Another column advanced on an inland route and
pushed the Syrian forces out of the southern Bekaa valley.
The Syrians quickly arranged an armistice after the fifth day
of the war. Beirut was placed under an Israeli siege that
lasted for two months. The city was bombarded and badly
damaged by the Israeli army and air force, but Sharon was
unwilling to send his troops into the city to clear out the
PLO, as he knew that the Israeli government and people
would oppose such an action. He turned to the Americans
to provide an intermediary.
Ri
ve
r
In 1978 a PLO suicide squad attacked an Israeli bus near

Tel Aviv, killing thirty-seven people. Three days later the
Israeli army invaded Lebanon with the objective of wiping
out the Palestinian bases there. The Palestinian guerrillas
disappeared before the Israelis could find them. After five
days the Israeli army withdrew under pressure from the UN
and the USA. UN troops were sent to the border to supervise
the withdrawal of the Israelis and to prevent further
outbreaks of hostilities. Despite the UN presence Palestinian
fighters again infiltrated south Lebanon to threaten Israels
northern settlements.
Be
ka
nV
KEY
Israeli
security zone
Ceasefire line
June 1982
Direction of
Israeli army
advance
ISRAEL
10
20
30 km
Figure 13.20 The Israeli advance into Lebanon, 1982
Figure 13.21 Sana MHeidli was a sixteen-year-old Muslim.

She drove a car packed with explosives towards a group of Israeli
soldiers in Lebanon and detonated the charge. She killed herself and
two Israelis. The photo is from a video she made before the suicide
mission to explain what she was going to do. What do you think of
the action of Sana MHeidli? Would you describe her as a terrorist?
was one of the last to leave, headed for the new headquarters of the PLO: Tunis in north Africa, 2400 kilometres
from the centre of the ArabIsraeli struggle.
Massacre in the refugee camps

In September 1982 the Christian President Gemayal of
Lebanon was murdered when a massive bomb blew up in a
building where he was addressing a meeting. In retaliation
Lebanese Christian forces entered the Palestinian refugee
camps at Sabraa and Shatila and killed over 2000 men,
women and children. The external security of these camps
was in the hands of the Israeli army and, despite denials
at the time, it seems clear that the Israelis knew what was
happening and failed to intervene. It is ironic, therefore, that
Gemayal had not been assassinated by Palestinian Muslims,
as the Christian militias supposed, but on the orders of the
Syrian government. There was considerable disquiet and
public protest in Israel over the massacre, which led to the
largest anti-government demonstration in Israels history,
and eventually the removal of Sharon from the post of
defence minister.
In 1985 the Israelis withdrew from Lebanon but
established a 15-kilometre-wide security zone in the south
of the state to prevent PLO raids being mounted from bases
there. It was patrolled by the Israeli trained and supplied
South Lebanese Army, made up mainly of Lebanese
Christian troops.
Figure 13.22 In Tel Aviv more than 400 000 people

around 10 per cent of the entire Israeli populationmet to
demonstrate about the Lebanese war after the Sabraa and
Shatila massacres.
The 1982 invasion was a major failure for the Israelis as none of Sharons objectives were realised.
The PLO soon began to re-establish offices and militias in Lebanon. Syria, assisted by Soviet aid, soon
re-established its position of influence over the Lebanese government, and the war imposed a severe
cost on the Israeli economy. The security situation remained unstable in the south of the country and
the Israeli army had to make periodic incursions in an attempt to root out hostile elements. The war
also saw the emergence of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia movement in southern Lebanon. They
soon became the main antagonists of the Israelis by shelling Jewish settlements in northern Israel.
A military defeat for the Palestinians and a political disaster for the Israelis.
Is this a fair summary of Israels actions in Lebanon from 1978 to 1985?
ISRAELS POLICY ON THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

After the 1967 war there were conflicting views in the Israeli government concerning the fate of
the Occupied Territories. One view held that the territories should be used as bargaining tools and
exchanged for peace guarantees from Israels neighbours. Advocates of this view pointed out that
an extra one million Arabs had come under Israels control since the war. To simply add these to the
population of Israel by annexing the territories would threaten the Jewish character of the state.
Others believed that the captured territories, particularly the West Bank, represented a return to the
original God-given borders of Israel and retention of the territories was both a practical and a religious
necessity. Many began to use the biblical names of Judea and Samaria in preference to West Bank,
and spoke of Eretz Yisrael, greater or biblical Israel. In August 1967 the Land of Israel Movement was
formed to advocate the retention and settlement of all lands gained during the war.
Former general and Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon developed a settlement plan that proposed
the return of some of the West Bank to Jordan and most of the Sinai to Egypt, while retaining lands
which were essential to Israels security. During the Labour-led governments until 1977, all Jewish
settlement activities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights were limited to those areas to be
retained by Israel under the Allon Plan.
As Jewish settlers moved into the captured territories, conflict did not emerge immediately. As
long as the settlers were relatively few in number, and they settled outside the densely populated
areas, the animosity of the Arabs could be contained and the myth of coexistence maintained. This
was the case during the Labour administration of Yitzhak Rabin, when the government strictly forbade
Jewish settlement in Samaria and would not allow land to be confiscated. The case of Hebron was an
indication of the difficulties to come. Jews had lived in Hebron, a holy site for Jews and Muslims since
biblical times, because it contains the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the burial place of Abraham. During the
riots of 1936 many Jews had been killed in the city and the Jewish presence driven out. The return to
Hebron took place on 4 April 1968 when ten Israeli families, led by Rabbi Levinger, registered as guests
in the Park Hotel. Levinger then announced that Jewish settlement had returned and the settlers would
not leave. Within the Israeli Cabinet, Allon argued that the Jews should be allowed to stay, while Dayan
wanted them removed. A compromise was reached when the settlers were allowed to build a new
settlement, Kiryat Arba, on the outskirts of the city.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE RADICAL RIGHT

Ehud Sprinzak in The Ascendance of Israels Radical Right argues that the radical right, with its emphasis
on greater ultranationalism, greater extralegalism, greater militarism, greater ethnocentrism, and
greater religiosity (1991, p. 14) barely existed for the first twenty years of Israels existence, and had no
power or influence.
The event that changed this situation was the Six Day War. The possibility of defeat followed
by sudden and overwhelming success caused a mental revolution. Israelis determined that never
again would they let their homeland be weak and vulnerable For nearly half of Israels citizens the
outcome of the Six Day War created a new psychology and new identity: Israels territorial maximalism
(Sprinzak 1991, p. 38).
In September 1971 the advocates of Jewish expansion received a boost when Rabbi Meir Kahane,
the notorious head of the Jewish Defence League in the USA, moved to Israel. He believed that Arabs
had no part to play in Israel and should all be expelled by any means. He stated that Jewish violence to
protect Jewish interests is never bad, advocated action in the streets, and formed his political movement
Kach (Thus) to pursue these objectives. In 1980, when authorities discovered a plot to destroy the Dome
of the Rock on the Temple Mount with a long-range missile, Kahane was detained for nine months in an
administrative arrest.
In 1973, the Likud party was formed as a party of the right wing. Its name means unity in Hebrew,
and it was a coalition of several smaller parties, of which Herut was the most notable. The main driving
force behind the merger of the parties, and the radical rights most prominent supporter in Likud, was Ariel
Sharon, who left the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to go into politics in 1973. Sharon stood for maximising the
territory of Israel, and the belief that political goals can be achieved by military means. The other significant
figure in those early years of Likud was the leader of the Herut wing of the partyMenachem Begin.
LIKUD AND THE RADICAL RIGHT

In 1975 the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), a religious Zionist movement, was founded and
advocated extensive Jewish settlement throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Two years later the
Likud election victory brought an end to the cautious settlement policy of the Labour government.
Likuds policy, under Menachem Begin, advocated massive settlement of the entire West Bank. Its
purpose was to cause an irreversible situation in the West Bank: so much settlement that future political
compromise over the area would be impossible. The most important part of the plan was to have Arabpopulated Samaria settled by Jews to negate Labours Allon Plan. Likuds program had an enormous
impact upon the relations between Arabs and Jews in the West Bank, leading to an increase in violence.
Violence by Israeli settlers, often triggered by Arab harassment such as stone throwing or individual
assaults, became a way of life in the territories. A survey in 1983 found that 28 per cent of male settlers
and 5 per cent of female settlers admitted to having participated in some form of violent activity, while
only 13 per cent of Jewish settlers disapproved of such activity. In May 1982 six senior Israeli reserve
officers decided to speak out against what they described as atrocities that Israeli forces were carrying
out on the West Bank. Their opinion was that the daily reality in the territories is one of violence and
brutality (Gilbert 1998, p. 501).
The radical right had welcomed Begins elevation to prime minister in 1977 and felt that he would
be a constant supporter of their views. However, while nationalistic to the bones, and often extreme in
rhetoric, in later life Begin became more open to other views. When he not only signed the Camp David
Accords but also ensured that the final pull-out from Sinai, including the dismantling of the settlement
of Yamit, was carried out on time by April 1982, the radical right felt betrayed.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: ISRAEL I SET T LEM EN TS
M E
D I
T E
R R
A N
E A
N
S E
A
Source 13.23
The aim of the government of Israel is to achieve majority
Jewish control of the whole land of Eretz Israel This is
not peaceful settlement, but war by other means: each
settlement has a part in a wider defensive pattern. Thus the
Palestinians in exile see their land disappearing, literally,
under concrete and tarmac.
West Bank
JORDAN
ISRAEL

1 Can you see any pattern or purpose in the
distribution of settlements in Figure 13.23?
Jerusalem
S E A
2 How does the information in Source 13.23

support the evidence of the map.
3 Why is the building of settlements described
as war by other means?
D E A
D
KEY
Israeli settlements
The Green Line
divides the
occupied West Bank
from Israel proper.
Figure 13.23
10
20
30
Israeli settlement in the West Bank
The World Atlas of Revolutions, p. 188.
40
50 km
Nonetheless, the radical right peaked during the great

settlement years of 197985, which were also the years of
the Lebanon War and the growth of ArabJewish friction
throughout the entire West Bank region. In 1980, Jerusalem
was officially annexed to Israel. A similar annexation of the
Golan Heights took place less than a year later. The West
Bank was opened for massive Israeli settlement and the
possibility of its future annexation looked bright.
Though the Lebanon War was, for Israel, a failure, the
radical right and the settler community benefited from every
month of its prolongation. From 1982 to 1985 little attention
was paid to the creeping annexation of Judea and Samaria,
the West Bank, as the worlds attention was firmly centred
on the war to the north. Bitter about its leftist critics at home
and abroad, the besieged Likud government moved closer
to its natural allies from the right, radicalising its anti-Arab
and anti-left rhetoric. By 1984, there was little difference
between the radical right and Likud.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What is the significance of the terms Judea
and Samaria for many Israelis?
2 What was the Allon Plan?
3 What is the aim of the Land of Israel
movement and Gush Emunim?
4 Why is the issue of Israeli settlements such an
important one in IsraeliPalestinian relations?
5 Prepare an argument that Israel should
withdraw from the Occupied Territories to its
pre-1967 war boundaries.
6 Prepare an argument that Israel should maintain
and increase its presence in the Occupied
Territories.
ETHIOPIAN AND SOVIET IMMIGRATION

During the 1980s and early 1990s an influx of Jews from two
sourcesEthiopia and the Soviet Unionimmigrated to Israel.
The Falasha community of Ethiopia traced its Jewish
history back to the fourteenth centuryit had been argued
that they were the descendants of one of the biblical lost
tribes of Israel. From 1977 civil war in Ethiopia caused small
groups of Jews to flee to refugee camps in the Sudan.
There the conditions were poor, and the Israeli government
decided to rescue them in a secret airlift. Between
November 1984 and January 1985, 7500 Ethiopian Jews
were brought to Israel in Operation Noah, followed in May
1991 by Operation Solomon, which resulted in over 14 000
Jews being airlifted from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa
in a thirty-six-hour period.
The Falashas were usually unskilled and found work in
the lower paid sections of the economy. Their appearance
as black Jews in a white community caused some tension,
and it was alleged that several suicides among young
Falashas during their national service in the army were
a result of racial taunts, although condescension rather
than racial hatred characterised the attitude of the wider
Jewish community. Once the 48 000 Ethiopian Jews were in
Israel the chief rabbinate questioned their Jewishness and
their own spiritual leaders were not allowed to function as
rabbis. Following riots about their second-class status in
February 1996, the government appointed a commission to
investigate their grievances.
Figure 13.24
Ethiopian Jews arrive at Lod airport in Israel.
For decades the Soviet Union had severely restricted the opportunity for its Jewish citizens to
emigrate to Israel. The collapse of communism, beginning in 1989, opened the door for their release. In
1990 over 180 000 Soviet Jews entered Israel, followed by other large influxes over the next two years.
Many of the Soviet Jews were highly skilled technicians and professionals. Their expectations for
employment could not always be met and some had to take jobs well below their level of qualification.
Politically this influx bolstered the radical right as the Soviet Jews were hostile to left-wing politics,
believed strongly in Eretz Yisrael, and were anti-Arab. Yitzhak Shamir encouraged these new arrivals to
settle in the West Bank, despite protests from Arab leaders that this would involve further occupation of
Arab land.
THE PEACE PROCESS

THE INTIFADA
On 8 December 1987 four Palestinians died in a road accident involving an Israeli vehicle. At their
funeral a young mourner threw a stone at some Israeli soldiers. They shot him. This was the start of
the Intifada or uprising. The initial demonstrations and clashes were not orchestrated by the Palestine
Liberation Organization, but were a spontaneous response to the mounting frustration with Israeli army
occupation felt in Gaza and the West Bank. The growth in popularity of militant religious groups, such
as Islamic Jihad and, from February 1988, Hamas, helped to channel this frustration into direct action.
The rioting was at first confined to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but by the beginning of 1988
had spread to East Jerusalem, then to several Arab towns and villages within Israel. There followed a
general strike during which Arab towns throughout Israel closed their shops and schools.
The tactics of the Israeli army and the international reaction

The reaction of the Israeli army, the enforcers of law and order within the Occupied Territories, was firm
and swift. Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered his soldiers to use live ammunition against the rioters.
By January 1988 the Israelis had tried tear gas, rubber and live bullets, mass arrests, imprisonment and
deportationsall had failed to quell the rioting. Rabin then introduced the break bones policy saying
no demonstrators have died from being thwacked on the head. Soldiers indiscriminately wielded boots,
batons, and rifle butts against Palestinian men, women, and children. Israeli officials argued that the policy
was far more humane than the earlier approach of using live ammunition.
The actions of the Israeli army,
broadcast on news bulletins around the
world, brought a wave of international
condemnation. In the West Bank village of
Salim on 5 February 1988 four suspected
riot leaders were ordered to lie on the
ground and an army bulldozer then
pushed a mound of earth over them. The
victims were dug out alive by the villagers
after the soldiers left.
Even the United States, usually a
reliable ally of Israel, joined in the criticism
and refused to veto a UN Security Council
resolution to strongly deplore Israels
peacekeeping tactics.
Figure 13.25 A father looks at his son who has been beaten by Israeli soldiers for
having flung a Molotov cocktail.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: IN T H E REFU GEE C AMPS
Figure 13.26 A Palestinian refugee camp at Raffa in the Gaza Strip
1 What word would you use
to describe the refugee
camp in Figure 13.26?
2 Refer to the picture and
suggest why it might
be difficult to suppress
crowds rioting there.
3 Why is it difficult for fully
armed soldiers to deal with
situations like the one in
Figure 13.27?
Figure 13.27 A group of Palestinian youths hurl rocks at Israeli troops.
The PLO had become involved in the Intifada by early 1988. In March a bus-hijacking in southern Israel
left three Israeli civilians dead. The Israelis identified Khalil al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, as the
mastermind behind the hijacking. A founding member of Fatah, the major Palestinian resistance group,
Abu Jihad was second only to Yasser Arafat in the military arm of the PLO. In April, a special Israeli
commando unit raided Abu Jihads home in Tunis and shot him dead.
By August 1988 a measure of calm had returned to the Occupied Territories, but at a price for both
sides. Schools had been closed since the beginning of the year and the Israeli army was going through
a ritual of curfews, mass arrests, demolition of rioters homes, destruction of crops, and deportations.
Nearly 5000 Palestinians were in jail for their alleged part in the uprising. The lid was being kept on the
unrest, but only at the cost of using 11 000 soldiers for the purpose. Even some Israeli army officers
were admitting that they could see no end to it all.
JORDAN CUTS ITS TIES WITH THE WEST BANK

A dramatic change in the political situation of the region came in August 1988 when King Hussein of
Jordan renounced all ties between his country and the West Bank. Jordan had directly ruled the West
Bank from 1950 until its occupation by the Israeli army after the 1967 war. Even after the Israeli occupation
Jordan had paid the salaries of teachers, health workers and other officials in the region, maintained the
hospitals and the mosques, and allowed some 75 000 Palestinians to hold Jordanian passports.
King Hussein had increasingly resented criticism from other Arab states that he was trying to usurp
the PLOs role. At the Arab summit in Algiers in June 1988 Arab leaders had refused to honour past
financial commitments to assist Jordan with the expenses of running the West Bank, but insisted on
reiterating their position that the PLO was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
His action, which effectively handed over responsibility for the West Bank to the PLO, was also designed
to put an end to the claims of right-wing Israelis who argued that Palestinians already had a national
home in the shape of Jordan. Husseins blunt statement Jordan is not Palestine undermined the plans
of those who saw this as a solution to the Palestinian problem.
THE PLO RECOGNISES ISRAEL

Attention now turned to the question of whether the PLO was prepared to recognise the state of Israel.
The Palestinian National Charter of July 1968 had declared Palestine, within the boundaries of the
former British mandate, to be an indivisible territorial unit, and had called for armed struggle to secure
its liberation and the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. This objective, translated in many minds as
the destruction of Israel, seemed to be confirmed by the actions of the PLO and other terrorist groups
in the years that followed. Why should the PLO now change its mind?
The Intifada had not only placed the issue of the Middle East in the forefront of world attention, but
also had aroused an unprecedented wave of international sympathy for the Palestinian cause and a
feeling that something should be done. However, as the course of the Intifada had shown, Israel could
not be removed from the Occupied Territories by Palestinian action alone. Furthermore, Israel had a firm
policy of refusing to talk with the PLO, which it regarded as a terrorist organisation. For the Palestinians
to make any progress it was necessary to enlist the aid of the worlds major powers, but the Soviet Union
was preoccupied with its own internal problems, so it was to the West, principally the USA, that the
Palestinians had to turn if they wanted assistance to lever the Israelis out of Gaza and the West Bank.
The American position had been laid down in 1975 in meetings between Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Americans had promised that they would not talk to
the PLO until it had recognised the state of Israel and its right to exist, and renounced the use of terrorism.
There were conflicting pressures within the PLO. Moderates realised the need to make some
concessions to win American support for negotiations, while hardliners insisted on no change to
the traditional policy. Outside the organisation, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq urged Arafat to adopt a more
moderate approach. In the closing months of 1988 intense diplomatic activity led to a series of
meetings, advances, retreats and semantic word plays as the PLO sought to express its policies in a
formula acceptable to the USA. On 5 November, the Palestinian National Council declared a Palestinian
state, with Jerusalem as its capital. It also proclaimed its acceptance of United Nations Resolutions 242
and 338 that implicitly recognised Israels right to exist. On 14 December, at a specially convened press
conference, Arafat specifically affirmed Israels right to exist in peace and security and added: We totally
and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism.
Within hours of this pronouncement, US secretary of State George Shultz announced that the
USA would open negotiations with the PLO. Reaction in Israel to Shultzs announcement was swift
and bitter. Prime Minister Shamir condemned Arafats words as a monumental act of deception and
insisted that Israel would not alter its refusal to talk to the PLO.
A RETURN TO STALEMATE
By this time, the close of 1988, the first anniversary of the Intifada had come and gone. More than 7000
Palestinians had been injured, 15 000 arrested, 12 000 jailed, 34 deported, and 318 killed by the Israeli
army. Eleven Israelis had been killed by Palestinians and a number of Palestinians had been executed by
their fellow Arabs, usually on the grounds of alleged cooperation with the Israeli occupation forces.
After the activity of 1988 the ArabIsraeli conflict settled into a frustrating and largely inactive phase
for the next two years. James Baker succeeded George Shultz as US secretary of state and brought his
own plan calling for a conference that would include a Palestinian delegation. The sticking point for the
Israelis was their refusal to accept any PLO members in this delegation.
On the second anniversary of the Intifada thousands of Israeli peace activists marched silently in
Jerusalem to demand talks with the PLO. The uprising itself had changed in character since its inception.
Sixty per cent of the violent activity was now being carried out by children aged thirteen or younger. As
the Intifada settled into a predictable routine and the hope of peace talks faded, the Middle East spotlight
moved from the fate of the Palestinians to the more dramatic events centred on Iraq and Kuwait.
1 What event started the Intifada and when did this occur?
2 What tactics were used by the Israeli army to try to suppress the Intifada?
3 Which aspects of these tactics attracted international criticism?
4 Why, despite their military advantages, was the Israeli army unable to suppress
the Intifada?
5 What was the significance of King Husseins statement in August 1988?
6 Why did the Palestinians recognise Israel?
7 For many years Israel had sought recognition from its Arab neighbours. Why was
Yitzhak Shamir unwilling to accept Arafats statement of recognition?
THE GULF WAR AND ITS EFFECTS

On 2 August 1990 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Four days later the UN Security Council adopted a trade
embargo against Iraq, and US President Bush called for collective action to enforce the embargo. By
November it had been decided that force would be necessary to dislodge the Iraqis from Kuwait, and
when Saddam Hussein failed to meet a UN-imposed deadline to leave Kuwait by 15 January 1991, a
US-led coalition of forces launched an attack two days later. After forty-three days the Iraqis had been
forced from Kuwait. The war had several repercussions for the progress of the ArabIsraeli conflict.
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DO CUM E NT S T U DY: S CU D M ISS ILE ST R IKES AGAI N S T IS RAEL

Source 13.24
The distance from [the Scud missile sites] to Tel Aviv was 440
kilometres: a flying time for the missile of between five and seven
minutes meant that no eective warning could be given. Forty Scuds
fell on [Israel] but only one civilian was killed There was anger in
Israel at the reports of West Bank Arabs standing on their roof tops to
cheer the Scud missiles on their way.
The nights spent in gas masks and sealed rooms had a traumatic eect
on Israel. Every family was aected. There was a sense of vulnerability;
Israel was not at war, her army and air force could not show its prowess,
her borders could not keep away the danger.
M. Gilbert, Israel: A History, 1998, p. 547.

1 What part of Source 13.24 suggests that
the Gulf War would worsen relations
between Palestinians and Israelis?
2 Why was it difficult for the USA to
persuade the Israeli government to stay
out of the war?
3 How does the information in the source
suggest that Israel might need to
reassess the way it had traditionally
maintained its security, that is by
fighting a series of land wars.
Although the actions of the PLO during the Gulf War seemed to have seriously damaged the hopes
for negotiations over the future of the Palestinians, it was only a matter of months after the conclusion
of the Gulf War that the diplomatic activity resumed again. There were several reasons for this.
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1 How and why did Saddam Hussein attempt to involve Israel in the Gulf War?
2 Can you suggest reasons why certain Arab countries were willing to join the USA in
the anti-Iraq coalition?
3 It can be argued that the Gulf War proved to be both a brake on and an accelerator
of the ArabIsraeli peace process. Why?
THE PEACE TALKS BEGIN

In November 1991 peace talks began in Madrid attended by representatives of Israel, the Palestinians,
excluding the PLO upon Israels insistence, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the USA. Little was
achieved as the speakers postured to the world rather than talked to each other. They did agree that
the next round of talks would be held in Washington.
THE EMERGENCE OF HAMAS

The lack of progress in the peace talks opened the way for the emergence of Hamas (meaning zeal),
a Palestinian movement that was formed in February 1988 with the following policies: to not talk with
Israel, to eliminate the state of Israel, to establish an Islamic Palestine, and to replace the secular PLO as
the organisation speaking for Palestinians.
Hamas began with an emphasis on the provision of schooling, medical clinics and mosques,
but it also established a military wing. In mid 1991 the organisation, largely funded by Iran, became
more openly militant and began attacking Israeli targets with home-made bombs. By the end of
1992 they had substantial support within the Occupied Territories and were stepping up their
activities. The Israelis hit back in December 1992 by exiling a group of 415 alleged Islamic activists
to Lebanon. The government of Lebanon refused to accept the expelled Palestinians, leaving them
to camp on exposed hillsides in the middle of winter with limited supplies. Faced with international
criticism for their action, the Israelis eventually allowed the deportees to return in small groups over a
period of months.
A NEW GOVERNMENT IN ISRAEL

Although the peace talks stalled during 1992, there had been a significant change in Israeli policy. The
coalition government of Yitzhak Shamir was defeated in the June 1992 election by Yitzhak Rabins Labour
Party, which had campaigned with a promise to reach an agreement on Palestinian autonomy within
a year. Rabin, who as defence minister had authorised the break bones policy at the beginning of the
Intifada, had come to realise that the uprising could not be subdued by force. In addition, there was a
growing view in the Rabin Cabinet that the extremist Hamas was more of a threat to Israeli interests than
the now more moderate PLO. Defusing Hamas power required a willingness to speak directly to the PLO,
and following the election the official policy of no contact with the PLO was gradually ignored.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: ISRAEL S AT T IT U DE TO PEAC E N EG O TIAT IO N S

DOCUMENT ST U DY QUEST ION
Source 13.25
Shamir is not a bargainer. Shamir is a two-dimensional man. One
dimension is the length of the Land of Israel, the second, its width. Since
Shamirs historical vision is measured in inches, he wont give an inch.
How does Shlaim help to explain why

the Madrid talks were not likely to
advance the peace process?
A. Shlaim, Arafats Camel, London Review of Books,

21 October 1993, p. 6.
How and why did Israeli policy change after June 1992?
THE OSLO ACCORDS 1993

From January 1993 a series of secret meetings took place
in Oslo (the Oslo Channel) involving representatives
of the PLO and the Israeli government. On 29 August
1993 agreement was reached on the Oslo Accords. On
13 September 1993, in front of the worlds press on the
White House lawn, Prime Minister Rabin, Chairman Arafat,
and President Clinton of the USA formally signed the
Accords, and the Israeli prime minister finally, if somewhat
hesitantly, shook the hand of his Palestinian counterpart. The
agreements were as follows:
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Figure 13.29 Rabin, Clinton and Arafat at the signing of the Oslo
Accords in Washington, 13 September 1993.
THE REACTION TO THE ACCORDS

Within Israel reaction was mixed. The deal was opposed by Benjamin Netanyahu, the new Likud leader,
and strongly rejected by the 115 000 Israeli settlers of the settlements in the Occupied Territories. An
opinion poll taken in response to the publication of the Accords showed that 53 per cent of Israelis
supported the plan while 44 per cent opposed it. Rabin said: They are murderers, but you make peace
with your enemies We have to take risks.
In the Occupied Territories many Palestinians supported Arafat, though others felt that he had sold
out their long-term hopes. Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said that
they would resist Palestinian autonomy as strongly as they had resisted Israeli occupation.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E OSLO AGRE EMEN T

Source 13.26
Source 13.27
The Declaration is also completely silent on vital issues

such as the right of return of the 1948 refugees, the
borders of the Palestinian entity, the future of the Jewish
settlements on the West Bank and Gaza, and the status of
Jerusalem.
Edward Said [has argued] that all secret deals between

a very strong and a very weak partner necessarily involve
concessions hidden in embarrassment by the latter. Gaza
and Jericho first and last was the damning verdict of
Mahmoud Darwish [a Palestinian poet].

21 October 1993, p. 6.

21 October 1993, p. 6.
1 Refer to Sources 13.26 and 13.27. How much of a breakthrough in the peace process
were the Oslo Accords?
2 What point does Edward Said make in Source 13.27? Do you agree with him?
3 What fear is expressed by Mahmoud Darwish in Source 13.27?
THE NEGOTIATIONS FALTER

Under the Washington agreements, it was envisaged that Palestinian control of the Gaza Strip and
Jericho would begin after three months. However, as the 13 December deadline approached, it
became obvious that the symbolism of the White House handshake had become bogged down in the
practical details of implementation of the Accords. Three main issues remained unresolved: the size of
the Jericho enclave to be handed over to the Palestinians, protection for the Israeli settlers in the Gaza
Strip, and control of the borders.
In February 1994 Arafat and Peres signed an agreement in Cairo that gave Israel overriding control
and responsibility for the security of the border crossings and surrounding areas, and for the Jewish
settlements in Gaza. The Palestinians would be present at the border terminals, and a 15 000-strong
Palestinian police force would take over security duties inside the self-rule area.
THE RISING EXTREMISM

Negotiations after September 1993 were being carried out against a background of rising violence. An
unlikely alliance had emerged between extremists in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Right-wing
Israelis and fundamentalist Palestinians shared a vehement opposition to the peace process: the Israelis
because it gave away more than they wished, and the Palestinians because it granted less than they
sought. Instead of pulling troops out of the Occupied Territories, Rabin was forced to send in 5000 more
because of the inter-community violence. Angry Jewish settlers were accusing Rabin of appeasement
and some were attacking Arab communities.
THE HEBRON MASSACRE 1994

The peace process was brought to a temporary halt by the actions of an Israeli fanatic in the West Bank
town of Hebron. Baruch Goldstein emigrated from New York to Israel in 1983. Goldstein was linked to
the extremist Kach party, founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, a zealot who preached the removal of Arabs
from Greater Israel. Kahane was shot dead in New York by an Arab assassin in 1990.
On 25 February 1994 Goldstein entered the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a holy place for
both Muslims and Jews. He opened fire on the praying crowd, killing twenty-nine people. He was
eventually overcome and beaten to death by the crowd within the shrine. The shooting provoked riots
throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in which more Palestinians were killed by security forces. In
Kiryat Arba, Goldstein was hailed as a hero and a martyr.
AUTONOMY AND THE END OF THE INTIFADA

Although the peace talks faltered for a time after the Hebron massacre, a major step forward was
taken on 4 May 1994, when Arafat and Rabin signed another accord in Cairo agreeing to the terms for
Palestinian self-rule. The accord called for negotiations towards a permanent settlement for the rest of
the West Bank, and gave the Palestinians the right to make laws and collect taxes, but kept control of
the Jewish settlements and the border crossings to Egypt and Jordan in the hands of the Israelis.
Soon after the signing, Israel began to withdraw its troops from the specified areas. The soldiers left,
marking the end of the Intifada. The youths who had spent years throwing stones at Israelis were now
reported to be cleaning the streets of the accumulated rubble of over six years in preparation for their
new, autonomous existence.
Figure 13.30 Yasser Arafat makes a triumphant return to the Gaza Strip, 1 July 1994.
On Friday 1 July Yasser Arafat flew from his base in Tunis to make a symbolic return to the Gaza Strip.
While there was elation in much of Gaza, thousands of right-wing Israelis rampaged through East Jerusalem
vandalising Arab property, stoning a US consulate building, burning pictures of Arafat and denouncing him
as a murderer. Their anger was also turned against Rabin, denounced once again as a traitor to his people.
THE ISRAELJORDAN PEACE TREATY

On 26 October 1994 a peace treaty was signed between Jordan and Israel. This was only the second
peace treaty made between Israel and an Arab state, the first being with Egypt in 1979. The treaty
pleased King Hussein by recognising Jordans role as the guardian of the Holy Places in Jerusalem, but
angered the Palestinians, who claimed that right for themselves. Other Arab states began to follow
Jordans lead in reducing their hostility to Israel. In October, Tunisia announced low-level diplomatic
contacts, while the Gulf States indicated that they would drop their indirect economic boycott.
Morocco also expressed a desire for friendlier relations.
VIOLENCE BY HAMAS INTENSIFIES

A significant problem for the new Palestinian authority was the activities of Hamas. On 6 April 1994,
seven people were killed when a Hamas suicide car bomb detonated next to an Israeli bus. A week later
a man with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up in a bus, killing five people. On 2 October
another bus bomb in Tel Aviv killed twenty-two.
In reaction, Israel suspended the peace talks and closed the Gaza Strip. Rabin warned that
autonomy would not be expanded to the rest of the West Bank if violence went unchecked, and urged
Arafat to control Hamas. Palestinian security forces arrested about 200 Hamas activists.
On 18 November Arafats police force in Gaza city opened fire for the first time on Palestinian
protesters, killing at least eleven and wounding 200 in street battles. It was the worst internal violence
since the PLO had taken control of Gaza.
1 Can it be said that Hamas was a danger to both Israel and the PLO? Why?
2 When and where were the Oslo Accords formally signed?
3 The Accords split both the Israeli and Palestinian communities. Explain why this was so.
4 What was the Hebron massacre? What effect did it have on the peace process?
5 When and why did the Intifada end?
6 How did relations improve between Israel and some Arab countries in October 1994?
AUTONOMY AND ASSASSINATION 1995

The new year opened with frustration on both sides of the peace process. Israeli troop redeployment
from Arab towns in the West Bank was six months behind schedule, and the PLO appeared unable, or
unwilling, to prevent random suicide bombers from Hamas or Islamic Jihad from detonating explosives
that killed Israeli civilians and threatened the security of the state.
Deadlines came and went without any advancement of Palestinian self-rule. Both sides wondered
whether the 1993 accord had been worth it. Only 45 per cent of Israelis still favoured the peace
accord in April 1995, down from 61 per cent at the time it was signed. In the Gaza Strip it was felt
that conditions had worsened. In response to suicide bombings Israel had limited the numbers of
Palestinians working in Israel, reducing them from 100 000 to 29 000. Trade with Israel had been sharply
curtailed by border closures and the unemployment rate in Gaza was 58 per cent. Despite the security
measures it was impossible to stop the determined suicide bomber. On 24 July another suicide bus
bomb in Tel Aviv killed six passengers and injured another twenty-eight. Israeli anger was turned
against Arafat as they once more demanded that Arafat control the extremists within his territory.
For their part, the Palestinian authorities were trying to crack down on the militants. Arafat once
again condemned the bus bombings as terrorist activity. Political speeches in mosques were banned
and hundreds of Islamic activists imprisoned. There was even cooperation between the Israeli and
Palestinian intelligence services.
Finally, in September, came the long-awaited breakthrough when Israel and the Palestinians
signed an accord agreeing to extend Palestinian self-rule on the West Bank. This accord paved the way
for more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jericho to hold their first
elections for a Palestinian council.
THE ASSASSINATION OF YITZHAK RABIN

On 4 November Yitzhak Rabin had just finished addressing a peace rally of 100 000 people in a Tel
Aviv square when he was gunned down as he returned to his car. It emerged that the assassin, Yigal
Amir, had links with extreme rightist groups in Israel who had increasingly criticised Rabin for pursuing
the peace process. Opposition to the peace process within Israel had increasingly taken on a violent
tone. In rallies throughout the country, extremists had branded Rabin as a traitor and carried effigies
of him in a Nazi uniform; militant rabbis had encouraged soldiers to disobey the orders to vacate army
bases, while in Florida a group of Hasidic rabbis had been chastised by the Israeli consulate for openly
declaring they would welcome Rabins death. For the extremists, Rabin had committed the ultimate act
of betrayal in September when he signed the agreement ceding control of sections of the West Bank
(parts of Eretz Yisrael) to the Palestinians.
THE REACTIONS TO RABINS DEATH

Reactions to the assassination varied across the Middle East. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan
condemned the act; however, in Lebanon, shots were fired in the air in celebration and in Palestinian
refugee camps there was dancing and singing.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres succeeded Rabin as
prime minister, determined that the peace process should
continue. Doubts were expressed in the international media
about Peress ability to carry on Rabins policies. Peres was a
professional politician, not a former military hero as Rabin
had been, and was therefore less likely to appeal to the more
hawkish voters in Israel as Rabin had done. Only Rabin, it was
said, could comfortably beat the opposition Likud party in the
November 1996 elections to keep the peace process on track.
For a time after Rabins death there was a revulsion in Israel
against the extremism that had led to the assassination. In
this context the autonomy agreement moved slowly forward.
Israeli troops pulled out of several West Bank towns, including
Bethlehem, in time for Christmas. After a six-month freeze in
negotiations, it was announced that Israel and Syria would
resume talks on 27 December.
Figure 13.31 Yigal Amir in court after assassinating Yitzhak Rabin
Figure 13.32 Israeli officials inspect the wreckage of the bus that was destroyed by a Hamas bomb in Jerusalem, killing
twenty-three people.
THE PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS

In January 1996 the Palestinians voted for the members of a Palestinian council and for a president.
Arafat, with 87 per cent of the vote, easily defeated his only challenger for the presidency and was
sworn in on 12 February as the first president of the Palestinian autonomous region. A high voter
turnout in the elections delivered a major blow to militant Muslim groups that had refused to
stand candidates. As one election seemed to cement the peace process in place, so another was
contemplated. Confident that he could exploit the apparent rejection of extremism in Israel following
Rabins death, Peres brought forward the general election to 29 May 1996.
A RETURN TO VIOLENCE
Unfortunately for the advocates of the peace process, the pendulum was about to swing against
them. In February 1996 a Hamas bus bomb in Jerusalem killed twenty-three people. Another blast,
fifty minutes later, killed two others at a soldiers hitch-hiking post at Ashkelon. The attacks were in
retaliation for the assassination of Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas bomb-maker known as the engineer, for his
role in masterminding previous bus bombings. Another suicide bomb in a crowded shopping centre in
Tel Aviv killed thirteen people. Right-wing extremist voices were heard again in Israel. Crowds chanted:
Peres is a murderer. Peres is a traitor. Peres is next in line.
Needing a show of strength, Peres ordered a crackdown in areas of the West Bank still under Israeli
rule. The homes of Islamic radicals were blown up and Arafats Palestinian authority arrested hundreds
of Islamic activists.
On 13 March twenty-nine international leaders gathered at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for a Summit
of the Peacemakers conference against terrorism. The real importance of the gathering lay in the
symbolism of Arab states standing with Israel against Islamic suicide bombers.
Claiming that its attacks were aimed at Hezbollah, Israel made more than
1000 air raids and fired some 15 000 artillery shells during the
Grapes of Wrath campaign.
LEBANON
Lita
ni
Ri
ve
Beirut Most of the 400 000 Lebanese displaced by Israels attacks fled here;
5000 sought refugee in UN compounds scattered in the south. Air strikes
damaged the citys southern suburbs and two major power plants.
R
Sohmor, April 12 Israeli artillery bombards lower Bekaa valley,

killing nine civilians in this village, including a two-year-old girl
and a 100-year-old man.
D
E
Beirut
Tyre, April 13 Israeli aircraft fire on an ambulance south of the city,

killing eight civilians, including two women and four children.
I T
Baalbek
Sidon, April 1620 Israeli missiles strike Ein Helw Palestinian

refugee camp, wounding four. Israeli gunboats bombard
the coastal highway daily, shutting down traffic.
Sohmor
Qana, April 18 Responding to a Hezbollah rocket and

mortar attack, Israeli gunners fire artillery shells into
a UN compound, killing more than an estimated 100
refugees sheltering there.
KEY
SYRIA
Sidon
Nabatiyeh, April 18 An Israeli F-16 bombs a house,

killing 11 civilians, including seven children.
Nabatiyeh
Tyre
Israels self-declared
security zone
Qana
Golan
Heights
UN Bases
Israeli attacks
Hezbollah rockets
10
20
30 km
ISRAEL
Figure 13.33 The Grapes of Wrath campaign
1 What evidence in Figure 13.33 suggests that the Israelis were making a determined
attempt to defeat the Hezbollah guerrillas?
2 What actions of the Israelis were likely to draw widespread criticism?
In April, the Grapes of Wrath campaign was launched against Hezbollah guerrillas in South
Lebanon. Officially it was in retaliation for rocket attacks by Hezbollah into northern Israel, but it was
also another attempt by Peres to show that he too could be a tough leader when necessary. Whatever
the motives, it was a campaign with mixed fortunes.
THE ISRAELI ELECTION, MAY 1996

For the first time in the countrys history the Israeli electorate were given two votesone for a prime
minister and one for the parliamentary party of their choice. In the prime ministerial ballot Benjamin
Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, won with 50.5 per cent of the vote, against 49.5 per cent for the
Labour leader Shimon Peres. The difference was a mere 30 000 votes in an electorate of 3.1 million, but
the small margin was to have a major effect on the future of the peace process. Ironically, if Israel had
not changed its electoral law in 1992, Peres would have retained the prime ministerial position. Labour
won 34 seats; Likud won 32. Under the old system, as the leader of the largest party, Peres, would have
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: PALEST INIAN STATEHO O D

Explain the message of the cartoon.
Figure 13.34 Arafats dilemma
been invited to form a government. This honour passed to Netanyahu who, after a negotiating process
lasting over two weeks, put together a coalition government that represented a cross-section of
conservative to extreme Orthodox religious opinion.
NETANYAHUS BACKGROUND
The new prime minister was forty-six years old, the grandson of a Jewish Lithuanian who had
arrived in Palestine in 1920. At the age of fourteen Benjamin moved with his family to the USA. After
graduation he returned to Israel to serve in an elite special forces unit that, in 1972, stormed a hijacked
jet on the tarmac at Tel Aviv airport. His brother Jonathan was killed in 1976 while leading the team
that rescued the passengers of a hijacked plane at Entebbe airport in Uganda. As a result, it was
said, Benjamin detested Yasser Arafat, then leader of the Palestinian terrorists and now, as Palestinian
president, his negotiating partner in the peace process.
A NEW APPROACH TO PEACE

Although proclaiming his belief in the peace process, Netanyahu quickly established new ground
rules for negotiation that differed markedly from the RabinPeres approach. He rejected Rabins land
for peace formula, lifted the four-year-old restrictions on new or expanded settlements on the West
Bank, abandoned any thought of a retreat from the Golan Heights, and pre-empted further discussion
on two key issues by declaring that there would be no national sovereignty for the Palestinians and
no discussions on the future of Jerusalem as it would remain under full Israeli control. These policies
reflected the new conservative view in the Israeli government.
1 How did the activities of Hamas affect: (a) Israels attitude to the peace process, and
(b) conditions for people in Gaza?
2 Why were some Israelis so violently opposed to Rabins policies?
3 How did Hamas affect the outcome of the Israeli election in 1996?
4 Peres was not Rabin. How does this statement help to explain the outcome of the
Israeli election in 1996?
5 How do you think the result of the Israeli 1996 election would have been greeted by:
(a) Yasser Arafat, (b) Hamas, and (c) Israeli settlers in the West Bank?
THE PEACE PROCESSA SUMMARY TO 1996

The advent of the Netanyahu government was to put a brake on the ArabIsraeli peace process.
Despite the stops and starts, the violence and the demonstrations for and against negotiations,
the process was never quite dead, despite the attempts of journalists and even the main players
themselves to label it as such. Kirsten Schultze, a lecturer in international history, said:
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CONCLUSIONTHE CONTINUING ISSUES

By 1996 several key issues had emerged that had to be resolved if a lasting peace was to be agreed
between Israelis and Palestinians.
SECURITY
The security of the state of Israel is the first priority of its leaders. For many years security was
maintained by an efficient army that proved more than capable of defending the borders. The Gulf
War brought home the reality that in the age of the missile, destruction could come almost without
warning and from a source out of range of the traditional means of retaliation. Rabins government
turned to the land for peace strategy, leading to a secure Israel which would live on friendly terms with
its neighbours. His opponents argued for retaining the previous policies based on military strength, and
establishing security within a fortress Israel, believing that the Palestinians could not be trusted.
BORDERS
The Israeli view was that the 1967 war gave Israel a greatly expanded state. Included in this state was
the territory of the West Bank, which was made up of the old Jewish biblical territories of Judea and
Samaria, often referred to as Eretz Yisrael. To many on the right wing of Israeli politics this traditionally
Jewish land should not be given up. In the north, discussions with Syria over the Golan Heights were
frozen after the death of Rabin and the Netanyahu government insisted on retaining the area. The
border with Lebanon remained protected by the 15-kilometre-wide security zone.
The Palestinian view was that, having regained Gaza and portions of the West Bank since the Oslo
Accords were signed in 1993, the Palestinians would like to regain all of the West Bank. The Syrians
continue to insist that the return of the Golan Heights must precede any peace agreement.
SETTLEMENTS
The issue about Israeli settlements in occupied land has been a constant hindrance for the peace
process. The longer a settlement is established, the harder it is for any Israeli government to abandon it,
especially in the face of resistance from the settlers.
The land for peace agreements under Rabin meant that the future of these settlements was
in doubt. Would the land be given to the Palestinians? Would there be protected enclaves within a
Palestinian territory? If so, who would do the protectingPalestinian police or the Israeli army? This was
never clearly resolved before Rabins death and with the appointment of Netanyahu the notion of any
downgrading or abandonment of Israeli settlements was forgotten.
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
The Palestinians want a just solution for those who left their lands inside Israel in 1948. Including
descendants, they number approximately three million, living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. UN
Resolution 194 recognises their right to return, or to compensation. Israel has ruled out any right of
return for the 1948 refugees, arguing that they left of their own free will (see the beginning of this
chapter for evidence). They also claim that compensation should, in addition, cover the confiscated
property of Jews who fled Arab countries to Israel.
JERUSALEM
In 1948 Israel captured West Jerusalem, and, in 1967, East Jerusalem. In 1980 Israel declared the united
city the new capital. The United Nations does not recognise this declaration. The Palestinians want
East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. However, Netanyahu declared that Jerusalem would
always remain the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.
LIMITED AUTONOMY OR STATEHOOD?

The Palestinians have as their ultimate goal the creation of an independent state. For many Israelis this
goal is unacceptable. Netanyahu, speaking in a television interview in 1996 said:
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YASSER ARAFAT 19292004
It is hard to be neutral about Yasser Arafat. Praised or vilified, according to the
sympathies of the commentator, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 yet
was branded a terrorist by successive Israeli governments.
Understanding Arafat is made more difficult by his tendency to give conflicting
accounts of his policies, attitudes and even his birthplace. As Rubinstein (1995,
p. xii) says, Arafat was something of an enigma for his principal role was to
portray himself not as an individual character but as a symbol for his people,
the Palestinians.
Timeline
Personality Profile: Yasser Arafat
1929
24 August Born Muhammad Abdel-Raouf al-Qudwah al-Husayni; Yasser was a childhood nickname meaning carefree.
1947
He completes high school in Egypt.
1948
He begins to study engineering at Cairo University and fights in Palestine during the first ArabIsraeli war.
1949
He returns to Cairo to continue and complete his engineering studies, devoting most of his time to political activities.
1957
He leaves Egypt for an engineering job in Kuwait.
1959
He establishes al-Fatah.
1964
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is formed under Egyptian influence. Al-Fatah is not part of this new movement.
1965
Al-Fatah carries out the first raid into Israel.
1967
The Six Day War takes place, followed by increasing al-Fatah activity against Israel.
1968
The Israeli attack on Karameh is repulsed. Arafats al-Fatah takes the credit.
1969
Arafat and his supporters take control of the PLO and he becomes its chairman.
1970
Following the events of Black September, the PLO moves from Jordan to Lebanon.
1973
The PLO decides to pursue diplomatic as well as military means to achieve its aims.
1974
Arafat gives his olive branch speech to the UN General Assembly. The Arab world recognises the PLO as the sole
representative of the Palestinian people.
1982
Israel attacks PLO bases in Lebanon. Arafat and PLO leadership move to Tunis.
1987
The Intifada begins spontaneously but the PLO soon takes over its direction.
1988
Arafat renounces terrorism and recognises Israel.
1990
Marries Suha Tawil (aged twenty-seven).
1991
Peace talks open in Madrid with a non-PLO Palestinian delegation, in reality directed by Arafat.
1993
The Oslo Accords are signed in Washington.
1994
Arafat returns to Gaza from Tunis. Arafat and Israeli leaders Rabin and Peres are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1995
Daughter Zahwa is born.
1996
Arafat is elected president of the Palestinian National Authority with 88 per cent of the votes. Netanyahu and Arafat meet
in September, but PalestinianIsraeli relations worsen with riots in Jerusalem.
199899
The peace process stalls. Arafat comes under increasing pressure from extremist Palestinians and conservative Israelis
as Israeli settlements expand in the West Bank.
2000
The second Intifada begins.
2004
Arafat is taken from the West Bank to Paris for medical treatment and dies there on 11 November.
Early life
The enigma of Arafat begins with his birthplace. He claimed
to have been born in Jerusalem or perhaps Gaza, though,
in reality, he was born in Cairo, Egypt. Why the mystery?
The adult Arafat wished to be associated with his people,
the Palestinians, and to admit to a birthplace outside Palestine
detracted from that association. He was happy to be addressed
as Abu Ammar (Abu means father), his chosen nom de
guerre and the name by which he was best known among
Palestinians. This did not betray his foreign origins, although,
apparently his Egyptian accent, prominent when he flew into
a rage, did! His Egyptian birthplace meant that he could never
claim to be a Palestinian refugee in the truest sense, although
his wider family felt the effects of Israeli occupation.
Little is known of Arafats childhood. He appeared to have been an active child, with a fondness for
military games. Fathi recalls Yassers liking for drilling the local boys by marching them up and down
the street, striking them with a stick if they disobeyed.
In 1947, Arafat completed his schooling and entered Cairo University to study engineering. His
studies lasted until 1956, being punctuated by significant episodes of military and political activism.
Arafat quickly immersed himself in politics, assisting the organisation set up by Hajj Amin al-Husseini,
the mufti of Palestine, who had arrived in Cairo in 1946. By 1947, Arafat was assisting in the purchasing
and smuggling of weapons into Palestine.
Arafat played a role in the 1948 war, although it is disputed to what extent. He entered Gaza with
fellow students as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and fought creditably. Arafat claimed that, as
Arafats father, Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudua al-Husseini,

Figure 13.35 Arafat around 1967
was a Gazan textile merchant. He married Zahwa Abul Saoud,
from Jerusalem, and moved their home from Gaza to Egypt
in 1927 as Abdel Raouf attempted, in vain, to pursue a land inheritance claim. Yasser was the sixth of
seven children. In 1933, Zahwa died suddenly of kidney disease. Yasser and his brother Fathi were sent
to live with their mothers relatives in Jerusalem, where they were well cared for. In 1937, the boys were
summoned back to Cairo to be looked after by Inam, an older sister. Arafats father made two further
unhappy marriages after Zahwas death. The children became estranged from their stepmothers and
Yassers father was too obsessed with his legal case to pay much attention to the education of his sons.
Abdel Raouf finally lost his case in 1948 and died in 1952. Arafat chose not to attend his fathers funeral.
a young officer, on one occasion, he personally halted the advance of ten Israeli armoured vehicles and
went on to fight in the battle of Jerusalem. Aburish (1998, p. 18) dismisses these claims. Early in 1949
Arafat returned to his studies in Cairo.
Arafat joined Egyptian and Palestinian student organisations while retaining his links with the
Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptians were agitating against King Farouk because of Egypts poor
showing in the War of Independence. In 1953, Arafat became president of the General Union of
Palestinian Students, which had branches throughout the Arab countries. In 1954, the Muslim
Brotherhood attempted to assassinate Nasser, the new Egyptian president. Although Arafat was not a
leader of the Brotherhood, he was caught up in the general sweep by the authorities and served two
months in prison. Afterwards he became involved in fedayeen raids from Gaza into Israel.
In 1956, Arafat made his first overseas journey to Prague for a student conference. His love of
symbolism showed itself at the conference by his wearing of the kuffiya, the headscarf which had been
the emblem of the Palestinian fighters during the 193639 rebellion against British rule.
As Egypt became less welcoming of Palestinian radicalism, Arafat and several of his colleagues
left to take up jobs in Kuwait; Arafat to be a civil engineer for the Ministry of Public Works. In 1959,
this group took two important steps: they created a resistance organisation, al-Fatah, and wrote a
publication, Our Palestine, to spread their view that the liberation of Palestine should come through
armed struggle carried out by the Palestinians themselves. This ran counter to the mainstream view
among Palestinians and other Arabs that liberation would follow united Arab action.
The leader and the symbol

Arafat carefully crafted the image of his leadership. After his first public adoption of the kuffiya in 1956,
the scarf became part of the legend, painstakingly folded each day to fall in the shape of the map of
pre-1948 Palestine. This, along with the military fatigues, gun holster and unshaven appearance, gave
the air of the freedom fighter constantly on the move. As one of his staff said, Arafat is extremely
careful about his careless appearance (Rubinstein 1995, p. 32). His undoubted personal bravery soon
established the myth of his heroism and survival. Travelling in a variety of disguises into Israel after
1967, constantly evading the Israeli Defence Forces attempts to capture him, he began to appear on
the covers of international magazines as the heroic embodiment of the Palestinian struggle. His simple
lifestyle and scant regard for personal possessions added to his stature as the single-minded leader.
Arafat survived many attempts on his lifeforty, by his own estimateand numerous narrow
escapes in battle and he used this to further his indestructible image by claiming a special sixth sense
for danger. This attribute was sorely tested in 1992 when his light plane, carrying him to Tunis, crashed
in the desert, killing three people. Arafat, of course, survived!
Surviving in the world of Arab politics provided Arafat with further challenges. He was imprisoned
by the Egyptians (1954), the Lebanese (1965) and the Syrians (1966), his life was under threat from
the Jordanians (197071) and he antagonised his major financial backers, the Saudis, by his decision
to back Saddam Hussein in 1991. To the Arab states, Arafat may have been the acknowledged public
figurehead of resistance against Israels regional hegemony but he was also an unpredictable radical
whose actions brought destabilising Israeli reprisals across their borders. To Arafat, the Arab states were
essential for their territory, which was used for guerrilla bases and refugee settlements, as well as for
their financial support. At the same time, he branded them as cowardly for their failure to militarily
support the Palestinian cause to its successful conclusion.
Within the PLO, Arafat jealously guarded his position as leader. In 1966, he was temporarily
suspended from his position as al-Fatahs military commander for refusing to accept the principle of
collective leadership but within months he was restored, as

it was realised that no one could match his zeal and energy.
His assumption of leadership of the PLO in 1969 brought
more than thirty Palestinian groups under his control and
he used persuasion, patronage and threats, as appropriate,
to cement his position. This raises the issue of Arafats role
in the terrorism campaign of 196872. Downing (2002,
p. 25) argues that while Arafat was personally opposed to
terrorist acts, he was reluctant to condemn or discipline the
perpetrators for fear of splitting and weakening the PLO and
thereby his own authority.
After the withdrawal from Lebanon in 1982, Arafat
faced a Syrian-backed revolt within the PLO. The rebels
objected to the concentration of all political, military and
economic power in Arafats hands and fighting broke out
between pro- and anti-Arafat factions. At a PLO conference
in 1984, the support for the idea of collective leadership
was overwhelming but, as Aburish states, it was too late to
control Arafat, and as had become his habit the master of
drama responded by threatening to resign several times.
Everybody knew there would be no PLO without him
(1998, p. 185). For the next ten years, Arafat held the
Palestinian movement together from his exile in Tunis, using
aircraft to criss-cross the world to meet leaders in his efforts
to maintain the profile of the Palestinian cause.
Figure 13.36 Arafat, 2001
The return of the exile

Arafats triumphal return to Gaza in 1994 presented him with a new challenge. Could the rebel
become a ruler? Unfortunately for the credibility of the new Palestinian Authority (established by
the Oslo Accords), it appeared that Arafat was more concerned with retaining power than creating
democracy. Local Palestinians who knew the conditions in the Occupied Territories were overlooked
for administrative positions in favour of outsiders who had been with Arafat in Beirut and Tunis and
whose sycophancy was often greater than their competence. Arafats insistence on retaining control
led to a bottleneck in decision-making and the deterioration of telephone, postal and health services
and inefficient tax collection.
In his attitude towards the Islamic extremist groups, Arafat remained an enigma. At times he
used his security forces to round up militants when they threatened the peace process. On other
occasions, he seemed powerless or unwilling to halt their excesses. Is this because they had slipped
from his control or was he secretly encouraging them as an arm of the continuing struggle against
Israeli occupation? Those who criticised Arafats failure to curb the radical terrorist elements within the
Occupied Territories were asking Arafats inexperienced and under-resourced security forces to do what
the Israeli army, with its technical efficiency, network of intelligence and superior financial resources,
had failed to do when the Occupied Territories were under their total control.
A further example of Arafats authoritarian influence was the work of the Palestinian security forces.
By 1995, the Human Rights Watch organisation described the situation in the Palestinian territories
typified by secret trials, beatings and the use of tortureas perilous.
An assessment
The life of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian struggle for a homeland were inextricably linked. He was
one of the first to advocate that the cause of the Palestinians must be fought for by the Palestinians
themselves, rather than relying on the sporadic support of the Arab nations. The formation of
al-Fatah and Arafats bold leadership in its early years brought both pride and publicity to his people.
Arafats level of involvement in the terrorism of 196872 remains in dispute but undoubtedly it was his
leadership that turned the Palestinians to the diplomatic path after 1973. His willingness to recognise
Israel and renounce terrorism in 1988, thereby opening the way for the peace process to begin, should
be appreciated in its context of serious opposition within the PLO that had to be overcome by the force
of his personality.
Arafat was a man of contradictions: he was personally austere but tolerant of corruption in those
around him, an advocate of armed struggle and a signer of peace accords, and was committed to the
liberty of his people but also committed to retaining personal control of that liberation.
At his death in November 2004, columnist Anton La Guardia (2004) wrote, Ordinary Palestinians will
mourn the loss of Arafat as their symbol, but long ago felt let down by him as their leader.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: ARAFAT AS A LEADER

Source 13.28
Source 13.30
Without doubt one of the most unusual characters and

unlikely statesmen ever to grace the world stage Arafats
great achievement was that he led the Palestinians out
of the deserts of obscurity into the land of prime time
galvanized them into a coherent and internationally
recognized national liberation movement, and transformed
them in the eyes of the world from refugees in need of tents
to a nation in need of sovereignty.
Black September came into being without Arafats explicit

approval. It was a conglomeration of the leading Palestinian
resistance groups, and the PFLP in particular provided it
with all the expertise at its disposal and volunteers. But
could the actions of Black September have taken place
without Arafats knowledge and approval? Amazingly,
the answer to this question is a qualified yes. It was the
strength of Palestinian feeling which cornered Arafat into
accepting the idea of a terror organisation; the master of
consensus, whose leadership of the Palestinians during
the civil war in Jordan had diminished him, could not do
otherwise and survive.
T. Friedman, quoted in D. Rubinstein, The Mystery of

Arafat, Stainforth Press, Vermont, 1995, p. 4.
Source 13.29
Arafat knows only one way to rule and it is divide and

conquer. Arafat operates by the Noahs Ark theory set
up two of everything. Two police forces, two intelligence
services [etc.] you stay in power by letting each one
counterbalance the other At heart Yasir Arafat not only is
not a democrat, he is an anti-democrat. He has nothing but
contempt for his political rivals and he will never willingly
share power with anyone.
Even after more than twenty years no evidence has been

uncovered to suggest that Arafat was personally involved
[in the Munich Olympics massacre], or that he approved any
one single operation. But he was in a position to stop the
operations, at least most of them, and that he did not do.
Nor was he averse to seeing the various members of Fatah
and the PLO compete with each other as to who conducted
the more successful acts of terror: it weakened them and
made them more dependent on him.
T. Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, HarperCollins,

London, 1998, p. 563.
S. K. Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator,

Bloomsbury, London, pp. 1234.
Using the information in these sources and the text, evaluate Arafats merits and failings
as leader of the Palestinians.
References
Aburish S. K., Arafat: From Defender to Dictator, Bloomsbury, London, 1998
Benvenisti M., Sacred Landscape, University of California Press, 2000
Bregman A. & El-Tahri J., The Fifty Years War, Penguin/BBC books, 1998
David R., Arabs and Israel for Beginners, Writers and Readers Publishing, New York, 1993
Dimbleby J., The Palestinians, Quartet books, London, 1980
Dixon M., Whose Promised Land?, Heinemann, Auckland, 1991
Downing D., Yasser Arafat, Heinemann, Oxford, 2002
Friedman T., From Beirut to Jerusalem, HarperCollins, London, 1998
Gilbert M., Israel: A History, Doubleday, Australia, 1998
Gowers A. & Walker T., Arafat: The Biography, Virgin, 1994
Greenup E., Conflict in the Middle East, Nelson, Melbourne, 1988
Harper P., The ArabIsraeli Issue, Wayland, Hove, 1986
Harper P., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Wayland, Hove, 1989
Hirst D., The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber & Faber, London, 1984
Houston S. J., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Longman, London, 1989
King J., Conflict in the Middle East, Wayland, Hove, 1993
La Guardia A., The Weekly Telegraph, No. 695, 2004
Laqueur W. (ed.), The ArabIsraeli Reader, Penguin, London, 1984
Meir G., My Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1975
Mosley L., Gideon Goes to War, 1955
Peretz D., The ArabIsraeli Dispute, Facts on file, New York, 1996
Piggott L. & Rutland S., One Land: Two Peoples, Harcourt Brace, Sydney, 1994
Pyne M., Middle East Conflict, Longman, Melbourne, 1996
Rice K., The Middle East Since 1900, Longman, London, 1990
Ross S., The ArabIsraeli Conflict, Evans Brothers, London, 1995
Rubinstein A., The ArabIsraeli Conflict: Perspectives, Praeger, New York, 1984
Rubinstein D., The Mystery of Arafat, Stainforth Press, Vermont, 1995
Schlaim A., The Iron Wall, W.W. Norton, New York, 2000
Schools Council 1316 Project, ArabIsraeli Conflict, Holmes McDougall, Edinburgh, 1977
Scott-Baumann M., Conflict in the Middle East, Edward Arnold, Sydney, 1987
Scott-Baumann M., War & Peace in the Middle East, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998
Sprinzak E., The Ascendance of Israels Radical Right, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991
Sprinzak E., Brother Against Brother, The Free Press, New York, 1999
CONFLICT IN
INDOCHINA 19541979

AND CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION
Indochina is a region made up of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Like many other
parts of Asia and Africa, it fell under the control of a European power in the 1800s.
France had established its power over all of Indochina by 1893. During the middle
of the twentieth century, the Indochina conflict was one of a number of struggles
14
for national self-determination (independence from foreign rule) in Asia and Africa
against colonialism that marked the passing of European imperialism. By 1954
the Vietnamese had freed themselves from French colonialism, but then had to
continue to fight until 1975 to unify their country completely.
The Vietnam War, which is the main topic of this chapter,

also had a major impact on the twentieth-century national
history of the USA and was one of the defining events of the
Cold War. Professor David Kennedy of Stanford University
has argued that the cost and trauma of the Vietnam War
produced a crisis of confidence in the USA. Until the
Vietnam War, Americans had generally felt confident in
their ability to mould events through the exercise of their
ingenuity, energy, and vast economic resources. Vietnam
proved to be a problem that they couldnt manage. The
Vietnam conflict gave rise to social division and distrust
of government in the USA. It ended the political career of
President Lyndon Johnson and his dreams of major social
reform. It also produced, in the case of Richard Nixons
presidency, a siege mentality that contributed directly to the
infamous Watergate Scandal (197374) and the resignation,
in disgrace, of Nixon. Because of the Vietnam War, as part of
the wider conflict in Indochina, a generation of Americans
Hanoi
Haiphong
G U LF
LAOS
O F
HAINAN
TO N K I N
Vinh
Vientiane
r
ive
gR
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONFLICT

TO THE USA
Ri
ve
r
on
Mek
The struggle for independence and national unity by

the Vietnamese people in particular proved to be one of
the major events of the twentieth century. Scholars like
Robert Schulzinger have argued that The war in Vietnam
helped shape the contours of world politics after the era of
European domination (Schulzinger 1998, p. 3).
Dien Bien Phu
BURMA
SIAM
(THAILAND)
NATIONALISM IN INDOCHINA
It has been widely acknowledged that the Vietnamese
people have a long history of fierce and determined
nationalism. The Vietnamese fought to oppose Chinese
imperialism in 938, 1257, in the 1280s, in 1406, and 1788.
These engagements left a legacy of resentment of outsiders
and glorification of military heroes the Vietnamese
developed a distinctive military style that combined infinite
patience with guerrilla warfare (Schulzinger 1998, p. 5).
CHINA
TONKIN
d
Re
A study of the conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

highlights a range of concepts. We look not only at
imperialism and decolonisation, but also different views
of communism and democracy. The events in Indochina
after 1954 reflected a number of the major global political
changes that took place after the Second World War. The
relationship between European colonial powers such
as France, Britain, and Holland and their Asian colonies
changed as the result of a dramatic surge of Asian
nationalism in Indochina (French), India, Burma, Malaya
(British), and Indonesia (Dutch).
Quang Tri
Hue
Da Nang
ANNAN
Bangkok
CAMBODIA
Tonle Sap
G U LF
Phnom Penh
O F
SI AM
Saigon
( THAI LAN D)
COCHINCHINA
Mekong
Delta
0
Figure 14.1
100
200
300 km
French Indochina
identified with anti-conscription and anti-war protest

movements. Many of the social and political effects evident
in the USA were also present in Australia.
The conflict in Indochina between 1954 and 1979, and in
particular the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1975, ended because
those who fought for and supported the North Vietnamese
Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (Vietnamese communists)
refused to give up the struggle. This persistence reflected one
of a number of differences in perspective that divided the
warring sides. American histories of the Vietnam War include
books with titles like The Ten Thousand Day War by Michael
Maclear and Americas Longest War by George Herring. These
titles give the impression that, for the Americans, the Vietnam
conflict was excessively long and draining. Writing in 1999,
former US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara claimed
that the hope of an American victory in Vietnam had been
an illusiona dangerous illusion if acted upon in future
US conflicts (McNamara 1999, p. 318). By contrast, for the
Vietnamese the Second Indochina War against the Americans
represented just one part of a much longer struggle.
Debate about Americas policy towards Indochina
and its part in the Vietnam War still rages, and is summed
Conflict in Indochina 19541979 | 481
up by the title of former US Secretary of Defence Robert

McNamaras most recent book about the conflict, Argument
Without End (1999).
There are a range of opinions. David Kaiser, in American
Tragedy (2000), argued that the lost war remains the
greatest policy miscalculation in the history of American
foreign relations (Kaiser 2000, p. 1). In Dereliction of Duty
(1997), H. R. McMaster describes the Vietnam War as a
disaster. Nevertheless there are still those in America
prepared to defend US policy and argue that the
commitment of men and material to the Vietnam conflict
was correct. Recently Michael Lind, in Vietnam: The Necessary
War (2002), presented a conservative defence of US policy
with regard to Indochina by suggesting that it is best
understood and justified, as part of the global Cold War. He
claimed that The case that Indochina was worth a limited
American war of some kind, particularly in the circumstances
of the Cold War in the 1960s, is compelling in light of what
we now know about the pattern and result of the Cold War
as a whole (Lind 2002, p. 32).
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What countries make up the region known as
Indochina?
2 What concepts are highlighted by a study of the
Indochina conflict?
3 What is meant by the term national selfdetermination?
4 What historical evidence is there to support the
view that the Vietnamese had a fierce sense of
nationalism?
5 According to Professor David Kennedy, how did
the Vietnam War influence twentieth-century
American history?
6 What kind of lessons for the future could a
study of the history of the conflict in Indochina
and the Vietnam War have for the USA in
particular? In your answer consider the quote
from Robert McNamara.
7 How do the opinions of McNamara, Kaiser, and
McMaster differ from those of Michael Lind?
As you read the chapter consider these different points

of view.
Timeline
1612
1800s
1890
1893
1911
1919
1929
1930
1940
1941
French Catholic missionaries arrive in Indochina.
1944
With support from the USA, the Viet Minh begins a guerrilla war against the Japanese.
The French begin to take political control over parts of Indochina.

Ho Chi Minh is born.
The French finally take control of all of Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos).
Ho leaves Vietnam and begins a thirty-year exile.
Ho attends the Paris Peace Conference and unsuccessfully attempts to see US President
Woodrow Wilson to make a case for national self-determination for Vietnam.
The Indochinese Communist Party is established.
The Communist Party of Vietnam adopts its first party platform.
Japanese forces occupy Indochina.
Ho Chi Minh returns to Vietnam, and the League for the Independence of Vietnam
(Viet Minh) is established. It is committed to opposing both the French colonial powers
and the Japanese invaders.
1945
August
The Second World War ends.
September
On behalf of the Viet Minh, Ho declares independence from France and the establishment
of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) based in Hanoi in the North. Later in the same
month, French troops return to Indochina to reassert control.
1946
1947
1949
1950
December
After failed negotiations with the French, the Viet Minh begin the First Indochina War.
March
US President Harry Truman announces the policy of containment of communism. The
Truman Doctrine, as it became known, promises to provide economic and military aid to
contain the spread of communism. This global anti-communism policy is to have a major
impact on Americas attitude to Indochina.
September
The Communist Party takes power in China. The USA fears the spread of Communism
throughout the region.
The French set up the State of Vietnam (SOV) based on Saigon in the South.
April
The US National Security Council issues policy paper number 68 (NSC68). It calls for a
massive increase in spending to meet the threat of communism worldwide. The USA
provides aid to the French in their fight to retain control of Indochina. By this time the
Domino Theory is generally accepted by the US State Department.
June
The Korean War begins, and continues until July 1953.
1954
April
US President Dwight Eisenhower refers to the Domino Theory in a press conference.
The theory is that if one South-East Asian country fell to communism, so would the next,
and next, like a row of dominoes. US policy is therefore aimed at preventing the fall of the
first domino.
May
French forces are defeated by the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, ending the first
Indochina War.
July
Ngo Dinh Diem becomes the leader of the SOV based in the South.
The Geneva Agreement divides Vietnam into North and South along the 17th parallel of
latitude.
September
The USA sets up the South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), an alliance with the
aim of containing the spread of communism. The organisation includes Australia.
1955
July
South Vietnam refuses to take part in the elections, prescribed in the Geneva Accords, for
a unified Vietnam.
October
A referendum makes Ngo Dinh Diem President of the new Republic of Vietnam.
1956
April
The American Military Assistance Advisory Group Indochina (MAAGI) takes over the
training of South Vietnamese forces.
August
Souvanna Phouma and the communist Prince Souphanouvong agree to a coalition
government in Laos.
1957
1959
May
The communist Pathet Lao attempts to take power in Laos.
June July
The Pathet Laos bid for power receives aid from communist North Vietnam.
December
Fearing the Pathet Lao, the anti-communist General Phoumi Nosavan takes power in
Laos and, with US aid, holds off challenges.
1960
1961
December
The communist National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam is formed.
May
A fourteen-nation conference is held in Geneva to try to resolve the Laotian Crisis.
October
The various Laotian factions agree to support a neutral government led by Souvanna
Phouma.
November
President Kennedy increases US aid to South Vietnam.
1962
February
The Strategic Hamlet Program begins in South Vietnam: the plan is to concentrate
South Vietnamese peasants in special fortified villages.
August
Australian Military Aid Forces (MAF) arrive in South Vietnam.
1963
May
Riots in Hue in South Vietnam, led by Buddhists, when the Diem government attempts to
stop them from celebrating the Buddhas birthday.
June
The first of a number of Buddhist monks commit suicide by setting himself on fire as a
protest against the Diem government.
November
A US-sponsored coup overthrows Diem, and he is assassinated. General Duong Van Minh
takes power.
1964
January
General Nguyen Khanh replaces General Minh as leader of South Vietnam.
August
The US Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution after it is claimed that North
Vietnamese torpedo boats have attacked US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin; the resolution
commits combat troops to Vietnam.
November
Tran Van Huong takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
1965
March
Operation Rolling Thunder, the large-scale bombing of North Vietnam, begins.
June
Nguyen Cao Ky takes over as the leader of South Vietnam.
November
Anti-war protests grow in the USA.
1967
January
South Vietnamese and US forces begin Operation Cedar Falls in an area north of Saigon.
February
Operation Junction City begins near the Cambodian border.
June
US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara requests a review of US policy in Indochina
since the Second World War. The massive report History of the United States DecisionMaking Process on Vietnam Policy is completed in 1968. It is classified Top Secret and
only 15 copies were made. It will eventually be leaked to the public as The Pentagon
Papers.
September
Nguyen Van Thieu becomes the President of South Vietnam, with former leader Nguyen
Cao Ky as Vice-President.
1968
January
The Tet Offensive by communist forces erupts.
March
Vietnamese people in the village of My Lai are massacred by US troops.
May
Preliminary peace talks begin in Paris.
November
Richard Nixon is elected President of the USA. During the election campaign he claims to
have a plan to end the war with honour, and promises to reduce the number of US combat
troops in Vietnam.
1969
September
Ho Chi Minh dies.
November
The Moratorium, a massive anti-war protest, is staged in the USA.
1970
March
The pro-American General Lon Nol takes power from Prince Norodom Sihanouk in
Cambodia. Later in the same month, US and South Vietnamese forces attack communist
bases in Cambodia.
April
US and South Vietnamese combat troops move briefly into Cambodia.
May
Four college students at Kent State University, Ohio, in the USA are shot and killed by
members of the National Guard during a protest over President Nixons Indochina policy.
December
The US Congress denies funds for military operations in Laos or Thailand. Later in the same
month it repeals the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
1971
April
Another round of major anti-war demonstrations take place in the USA.
June
The New York Times publishes a series of articles about the Vietnam War based on
Top Secret documents referred to as The Pentagon Papers.
August
Australia announces that it would withdraw troops from Vietnam.
November
President Nixon announces more US troop withdrawals.
1972
March
North Vietnamese regular troops invade South Vietnam.
May
The South Vietnamese city of Quang Tri falls to the North Vietnamese.
August
The last US combat troops leave Vietnam.
1973
January
The Paris Peace Accord is signed, officially ending the Vietnam War.
March
The last US troops leave Vietnam.
1974
1975
Fighting between North and South Vietnamese forces resumes.

April
South Vietnamese President Thieu resigns, and later in the same month North Vietnamese
troops enter Saigon.
December
Rebel forces take power in Cambodia, and rename the country Kampuchea.
1976
1977
April
Pol Pot becomes prime minister of Kampuchea (Cambodia).
June
SEATO is dissolved.
July
Border clashes break out between Vietnamese and Kampuchean forces.
August
Pol Pot has achieved almost total power in Kampuchea.
December
Vietnam launches a major attack on Kampuchea.
1978
June
Pol Pot begins his purification campaign.
July
Vietnam begins another major assault along the Kampuchean border.
1979
January
Vietnamese troops reach the Kampuchean capital of Phnom Penh.
February
Chinese troops invade Vietnam in response to Vietnams war with Kampuchea.
March
Chinese troops withdraw from Vietnam.
April
Peace talks begin between China and Vietnam.
Timeline exercise
1 Study the timeline, then match a clue from List A with an answer from List B.
List A
List B
French take control of Indochina
1965
Lon Nol
Eisenhower press conference 1954
Domino Theory
Prime Minister of Kampuchea 1976
Strategic Hamlet Program
Duong Van Minh
Pol Pot
1970
French defeat
Dien Bien Phu
Laotian communists
Tet Offensive
Rolling Thunder
1893
Leader of South Vietnam after Diem
Pathet Lao
1968
1962
2 Name each of the leaders of South Vietnam in chronological order.

3 Name the US presidents in the period between 1954 and 1979 chronologically.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
They didnt know Vietnam. They didnt know the past. They had forgotten the history.
Paul Kattenburg, a US State Department official, referring to top members of the Kennedy
Administration (Young 1991, p. 98)
Although the syllabus for Conflict in Indochina begins in 1954, it is impossible to understand or
explain events between 1954 and 1979 without understanding what went before. A failure to gain an
understanding of that past would be to repeat one of the mistakes and ignore one of the lessons of the
Indochina conflict, that is, the importance of history.
INDOCHINA AND CHINA

Indochina has a long history of conflict, both within the region and as a result of resistance to foreign
empires. As early as 208 BC, the Han Dynasty of China spread its influence across the region. From this
time, revolts against foreign powers became a feature of the history of Indochina.
One of the earliest recorded Vietnamese challenges to foreign domination came in 40 AD. A traditional
tactic employed by the Vietnamese in their struggles against great powers was guerrilla warfare. Thus
by the time of Americas war in Vietnam the waging of

protracted war by irregular means already had a long
history among the Vietnamese (Addington 2000, p. 5). Even
though nationalist aspirations survived in Indochina, Chinese
cultural influences did take hold. The Chinese form of writing,
Chinese Buddhism, and the Confucian style of government
administration all left their mark in Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos. However, Vietnams enduring desire for independence
was briefly rewarded in the 1400s when Prince Le Loc
successfully led a revolt against the Chinese of the Ming
Dynasty.
INDOCHINA AND THE FRENCH

In 1612 the first signs of European imperialism appeared
with the arrival of French Catholic missionaries. As
was often the case during the centuries of European
expansion, churchmen and traders formed the spearhead
of colonialism. During the 1800s, the French, under the
pretext of defending their missionaries from persecution,
used force to extend their authority and ultimately take
control of all of Indochina. The French took control of Saigon
and the territory around it in the southern part of Vietnam
in 1859. In 1862, the French extended this power over an
even larger part of the South, and called it Cochinchina. The
following year, French troops annexed the Khmer Kingdom
(Cambodia). French domination of the northern part of
Vietnam was completed in 1883. By 1893 the countries that
we now know as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos had all been
brought together as French Indochina.
France did not have a good reputation as a colonial
power. French administration of Indochina was based on
repression and exploitation. Repression was evident when
the French attempted to suppress traditional Vietnamese
schooling above the village level and any nationalist
sentiments. Exploitation was obvious:
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exploited the resources and the peoples of Asia and Africa,
Figure 14.2 Ho Chi Minh during negotiations with the French in 1946
Cuba
Space Race
Arms Race
Fear of
Soviet
Communism
Domestic
American party
politics
The Future of Europe
NATO v Warsaw Pact
Vietnamese
nationalism
Berlin
McCarthyism
Massive
retaliation
Fear of Chinese
Communism
Korean
War
Laos
Cambodia
Containment
(Truman
Doctrine)
SEATO
Domino
Theory
Who lost
China?
The UN
Figure 14.3 The Cold War puzzle: the pieces in the American
foreign policy puzzle
the French colonial rule in Indochina was seen as particularly harsh. Although the French legacy in
Vietnam included industries, roads, railways, improved ports and increased sanitation in the cities
very few ordinary Vietnamese benefited from these improvements (Addington 2000, p. 13).
HO CHI MINH
This kind of rule led to a determined nationalist resistance. Ho Chi Minh emerged as one of Vietnams
nationalist leaders. He was attracted to communism because of its claim to oppose imperialism and
colonial empires such as the one France had established in Indochina. He proved to be a leader with the
vision, passion, and skill to harness the potential of Vietnams peasants in the fight against foreign rule.
EARLY AMERICAN ATTITUDES TO INDOCHINA

The USA consistently and tragically displayed a lack of understanding of the nationalistic aspirations
of South-East Asian countries. In 1918 and 1919, Woodrow Wilson was preoccupied with the state of
Europe, relations with France, and his grand vision of a League of Nations. A similar pattern was to be
repeated after the Second World War in 1945. American presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower
again paid far more attention to the post-war situation in Europe and to the emerging Cold War (see
Chapter 12) than they did to the renewed nationalistic goals of Indochina.
The pattern established, therefore, at the end of the First World War continued throughout the
twentieth century. The US State Department, the Pentagon, and Democratic and Republican presidents
saw conflict in Indochina as part of a larger global, ideological struggle between the communist and the
capitalist world. They did not give sufficient weight to the distinctive, nationalistic desires of the peoples of
Indochina and those of the Vietnamese people in particular. The failure, therefore, of US policy in Vietnam
was the result in no small measure of seeing Vietnam as one small piece in a much larger puzzle. US
policy-makers did not give enough weight to the Vietnamese piece of the larger puzzle. Had they done
so, the tragedy of Vietnam, for the Vietnamese and for the USA, might have been avoided.
THE FORMATION OF HOS IDEOLOGY

During his time in France, Ho read Lenins Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions, which had
been delivered to the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920. It claimed that only
socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations. Hos exposure to Lenins communist
ideas were a revelation, confirming much of Hos personal experience. In Hos mind, Lenins ideas linked
the evils of capitalism and the exploitation of the workers, with colonialism and the exploitation of
Vietnam by the French. Ho developed his own thinking and blended the concepts of:
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he lived in Moscow and studied methods for organising a revolution.
By 1930 the Communist Party of Vietnam had adopted a party platform based on ten aims,
expressed as the following slogans:
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RE VI E W TA SK
Look closely at each of the points set out above. Consider what each of them means.
Hold a class discussion.
1 Are there any of these points that you would reject? If so, why?
2 Which of the ten points are based on communism?
3 Which of the points would be accepted happily by democratic non-communists?
4 How popular do you think that these ideas would have been with the majority of the
Vietnamese people?
THE SECOND WORLD WAR

When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, the Germans agreed to leave a collaborationist French
government under Marshall Ptain in control of south-eastern France, with a capital at Vichy. The
French governor-general of Indochina accepted the authority of the Vichy government. Therefore,
when Germanys ally Japan demanded access to Indochina, the French colonial authorities agreed.
Ho Chi Minh now combined his opposition to both the French and the Japanese. In February 1941,
he returned to Vietnam after an absence of 30 years. Ho travelled overland from China and established
a formidable and enduring partnership with Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong. Ho announced the
formation of the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Nam Doc Lap Minh), or Viet Minh for
short. Although Ho was by now a committed communist, the nationalist nature of the new movement
was emphasised by the fact that it looked for non-communist support and sought to appeal to the
widest possible support base. The Viet Minh under Ho and Giap blended traditional Vietnamese guerrilla
war with the lessons learned from Lenin and Trotsky in Russia (see Chapter 9) and Mao in China.
The USA, through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), provided aid to Ho in his fight against the Japanese. In October 1944, the Viet Minh
Liberation Army was formed under Giap. It had only 34 members at first.
At the Potsdam Conference in JulyAugust 1945, the Allied leaders began to make decisions about
the post-war fate of Vietnam. The decisions proved to be a reflection of the ongoing pattern mentioned
earlier. The Great Powers repeatedly saw Vietnam and the Indochina region as part of a larger global
problem. At Potsdam, it was decided that at the end of the war with Japan:
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The ultimate fate of Vietnam and Indochina would then be decided later. The Americans had
publicly been opposed to European colonialism in Asia. The French wanted to return and re-establish
their control over Indochina. The British were concerned that if they didnt back France in its bid to
reclaim its colony, British colonial power in Malaya, Burma, and Singapore might be at risk. Ultimately
the USA, more concerned about communism, Europe, and the need to establish a powerful post-war
alliance against Soviet Russia than any concerns about the fate of the Indochinese people, accepted
the French return to Indochina.
1 What was the traditional tactic employed by the Vietnamese in their struggles against
invading empires?
2 When did the French complete their domination of Indochina?
3 Why was French rule described as repressive and exploitative?
4 Who was Ho Chi Minh?
5 What was the historical significance of Hos failed bid to meet US President Woodrow
Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference?
6 What were the three key aspects of Hos ideology?
7 When did Ho return to Vietnam and what did he do?
8 Who was Vo Nguyen Giap?
9 What plans were made for Vietnam at the Potsdam Conference?
10 Why did the British and the Americans support a French return to Indochina after the
Second World War?
AUGUST SEPTEMBER 1945

During this period Ho Chi Minh made three decisions that marked him as a gifted politician and as the
leading Vietnamese nationalist:
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nationalism with American ideals.
On 16 August, Ho declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).
Although the new government included many communists, it also had non-communist members.
Ho was clever enough to recognise the need for broad support. He displayed the kind of political skill
and understanding that contributed to the ultimate victory of his cause. Ho blended the new political
realities with Vietnamese traditions:
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On 2 September 1945 in Hanoi, Ho issued the formal Vietnamese Declaration of Independence. Up
to this point Hos Viet Minh forces had benefited from US aid in their fight against the Japanese, and Ho
still hoped for US support, or at least their acknowledgment of the legitimacy of his new government.
Ho took as the opening of his Vietnamese Declaration of Independence the words: All men are created
equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He acknowledged that these words came from the American
Declaration of Independence in 1776, hoping that such a direct reference to the USA might forge a
link between his aspirations for Vietnam and the sentiments that had inspired the birth of the USA. It
failed to do so. America had its eyes on the bigger picture and on what seemed to them to be more
important parts of the post-war puzzle.
THE FIRST INDOCHINA WAR

Between August and September 1945 Ho had established himself as a calculating and perceptive
politician. Despite this, the Great Powers ignored Hos declaration and began to occupy Vietnam
as a prelude to the return of the French. Later negotiations between the French and the Viet Minh
failed to reach any agreement about a special autonomous status for Vietnam within French
Indochina, and by 1947, after a series of clashes, the First Indochina War had begun. Ho called it
a war of national liberation.
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1 List the three decisions made by Ho between August and September 1945. Explain
how they marked him as a gifted politician.
2 What were the key events in the period of the First Indochina War between 1947 and
May 1945?
3 What was the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
DIEN BIEN PHU AND THE END OF THE FIRST INDOCHINA WAR, 1954
General Henri Navarre, who lacked experience of both Indochina and guerrilla warfare, had taken
command of the French forces in May 1953. In 1954, he decided to close the Ho Chi Minh Trail and
perhaps force the Viet Minh to fight a large-scale conventional battle. Navarre recognised that the
French were losing the guerrilla war, but was confident in the superiority of French firepower in a
conventional battle. Therefore Navarres French troops occupied the strategic valley of Dien Bien Phu
and established a base supplied from the air. He underestimated both Giap as a commander and the
capacity of the Viet Minh to mobilise a major force for a large-scale battle.
Once the French had set up their base, both Ho and Giap immediately recognised the opportunity
that Navarre had offered them. The French were at the bottom of a valley flanked on all sides by
mountains, and therefore exposed to artillery fire. Giap immediately surrounded the French positions with
a much larger force and took up the high ground directly overlooking the French base. In March 1954,
the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began. It was a battle that both sides had wanted. On the French side Navarre
hoped that it would give him the chance to crush the Viet Minh. On the Vietnamese side, Ho and Giap
wanted to inflict a major defeat on the French, and undermine French morale and public opinion to the
extent that it would force the French government to give up the fight to stay in Indochina.
The French managed to hold the valley for 55 days

before they were overrun, and forced to surrender on 7 May
1954. Throughout the final days of the battle, the French
defenders clung to the hope that the USA would intervene
directly and send in troops to save them. The Americans
had in fact developed a plan, codenamed Vulture, to relieve
the French, but it was never used. President Eisenhower
accepted the advice of the US Army Chief of Staff General
Matthew Ridgeway, who claimed that air power alone
would not be enough to turn the tide and that an American
commitment would mean that US ground forces would
have to fight under the most difficult logistic circumstances
and in a uniquely inhospitable terrain (Herring 1996, p. 34).
Also, the US Congress did not support the idea of military
intervention. The Congress made it clear that it opposed
the notion of America acting alone to oppose communism
in Indochina. Unwilling to act alone and unable to gain
support from Britain for military intervention, Eisenhower
refused to commit US forces to save the French.
Both the Truman and the Eisenhower administrations had
viewed support for the French in Indochina as important. Each
Figure 14.4 North Vietnams General Vo Nguyen Giap, the victor
president, although of opposing parties, saw opposition to
over the French and the Americans
communism as more important than the traditional American
distaste for European colonialism. Nevertheless, even as
the USA was spending vast amounts of money to assist
the French cause there had been diplomatic disagreements between them. The Americans ultimately
assumed that the failure of the French was because, although they opposed communism, at the same
time they opposed the nationalistic aspirations of the Indochinese peoples. Eisenhowers secretary of
state John Foster Dulles argued that, despite the French defeat and withdrawal, it would still be possible
for the USA to hold the line against communism in Indochina. Many State Department and Pentagon
documents from the period reveal a strong sense of confidence that the USA could establish and support
anti-communist, nationalist regimes in Indochina that would prevent the spread of communism.
1 Why did the French commit troops to the Dien Bien Phu valley?
2 How did the French General Henri Navarre underestimate his opposition?
3 What did Ho and Giap hope to gain from a major battle at Dien Bien Phu?
4 Why didnt the US move in with troops to save the French?
5 Why did the Americans think that they would do better than the French in opposing
what they saw as communist expansion in Indochina?
R E VI E W TA SK
Vo Nguyen Giap, along with Ho, played a key role in the Vietnamese campaigns
for independence and unification. He was one of the cofounders of the Viet Minh,
and directed much of the Norths military campaign against South Vietnam and the
Americans.
Use the library and the internet to research the life and career of Giap. Assess his talents
as a military leader and his part in the ultimate victory of the North Vietnamese cause.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE VIETNAMESE VICTORY AGAINST THE FRENCH

THE GENEVA AGREEMENT
On 8 May 1954, the day after the French were defeated at
Dien Bien Phu, a conference began in the old League of
Nations Building in Geneva. The conference was chaired
by Britain and the Soviet Union, and included seven other
delegations. There were representatives from:
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from Geneva, meant that the Geneva Accords were doomed

to failure.
The negotiations that divided Korea into North and
South to end the fighting in the Korean War in 1953 were
seen by many as a blueprint for the situation in Vietnam.
However, the attitudes of a number of the key players
were mixed.
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COMMUNIST CHINA
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Communist China acted out of national self-interest, and

wanted to use the Geneva Conference to:
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acceptance.
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The final outcome of the Geneva Conference is
historically controversial. The end result, known as the
Geneva Accords, was made up of six unilateral decisions,
three ceasefire agreements, and an unsigned final
declaration. On 21 July, the conference came up with a
series of separate agreements covering:
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implementation of the agreements.
The conference clearly meant different things to the
different delegations. These differences, plus events far
As a result, the Chinese delegate Chou En Lai suggested

the idea of dividing Vietnam. The Chinese were concerned
that if the Indochina War with the French lasted much
longer the USA might be tempted to commit forces. The
deployment of an American military presence so close
to their borders was seen by the Chinese as a danger.
Furthermore if, for some reason, a new independent Vietnam
installed a pro-Western, pro-American government, this was
also a possible threat. For the Chinese, therefore, the creation
of two Vietnams, with a pro-communist government in
North Vietnam, would provide the Chinese with a buffer
along their southern border.
THE VIET MINH

The Viet Minh were represented by Pham Van Dong, who
wanted:
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However, the DRV (North Vietnam) could not afford at this time to oppose the wishes of both
communist China and the Soviet Union. The two major communist powers both appeared to want a
general relaxation of international tension at this time. As a result, North Vietnam (the DRV) and South
Vietnam (the SOV) were separated by a five-kilometre Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 17th parallel.
The Viet Minh felt, incorrectly, that the absence in 1954 of any other real political force in Vietnam
would ensure their success in the planned national elections.
THE UNITED STATES

The American delegation only attended as observers. However, the attitude of the Eisenhower
Administration was that the defeat of the French had been a setback for containment, but one that
could be remedied. At a press conference in April 1954, President Eisenhower had spelt out the
Domino Theory (see Source 14.1). Referring to the consequences of the loss of Indochina to the
communists, Eisenhower called them incalculable. These views determined the American response to
the Geneva Conference.
The US delegation offered a vague response to the Accords:
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The American delegate, Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, did not spell out just
what the USA meant by further aggression, but most of those at the conference took this to mean
any further activities by the communists, and particularly any moves to alter the divided status of the
two Vietnams.
IN SUMMARY
So much about the Geneva Accords proved to be arbitrary and vague. The division of Vietnam at the
17th parallel followed bargaining between the French and the Viet Minh.
The French wanted the line further north, the Viet Minh further south. For many Vietnamese it must
have seemed like yet another foreign imposition. The line chosen was arbitrary; in other words, it didnt
match any natural, social, economic, or linguistic division. For the Vietnamese, a group of foreigners half
a world away had chosen a line on a map with little or no regard to the lives of the people involved.
Accepting the Accords meant that the Viet Minh had to give up a significant amount of territory it
had come to control south of the 17th parallel. Nevertheless, the prospect of an election to unify the
country gave them hope, since they were confident of success in any fair election.
Despite taking note of the Accords, the USA began to make its own arrangements for the fate of
Indochina. The USA took almost immediate steps to strengthen the position of the anti-communist
forces in South Vietnam. It provided $2 billion in aid to the government of Ngo Dien Dinh and
sponsored the formation of an anticommunist alliance, the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO),
which was, like NATO in Europe, a diplomatic tool of the containment policy. The USA would use the
terms of the SEATO agreement as a pretext, a kind of international authority to take military action, if it
thought it necessary over Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos.
Source 14.1
President Eisenhower explains the Domino Theory, 1954.
Q: Robert Richards, Copley Press: Mr President, would you mind commenting on the strategic
importance of Indochina to the free world? I think there has been, across the country, some lack of
understanding on just what it means to us.
The President: You have, of course, both the specific and the general when you talk about such things.
First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs.
Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the
free world.
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the falling domino
principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the
last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration
that would have the most profound influences.
Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from this particular area that the world uses are tin
and tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of course, the rubber plantations and so on.
Then with respect to more people passing under this domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some
450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply cant aord greater losses.
But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand,
of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the
disadvantages that you would suer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are
talking about millions and millions and millions of people.
Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island
defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten
Australia and New Zealand.
It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in
turn, will have only one place in the world to gothat is, toward the Communist areas in order to live.
So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
R E VI E W Q U E S TI O N S
1 Which nations were represented at the Geneva Conference?
2 How was the status of the USA and South Vietnam different from that of other
countries at the conference?
3 What were the main provisions of the Geneva Accords?
4 What did communist China want from the conference?
5 What did the Viet Minh, representing North Vietnam, want from the conference?
6 What was the response of the USA to the Accords?
R E VI E W TA SK
1 Were the terms of the Geneva Accords binding?
2 Should there have been elections in 1956?
3 Did anyone break the rules?

Source 14.2
The Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on
Indochina, 1954
1
The Conference takes note of the agreements ending

hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and
organising international control and the supervision of
the execution of the provisions of these agreements.
The Conference expresses satisfaction at the end
of hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam; the
Conference expresses its conviction that execution of
the provisions set out in the present declaration and
in the agreements of the cessation of hostilities will
permit Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam henceforth to play
their part, in full independence and sovereignty, in the
peaceful community of nations.
The Conference takes note of the declarations made
by the governments of Cambodia and Laos of their
intention to adopt measures permitting all citizens to
take their place in the national community, in particular
by participating in the next general elections, which,
in conformity with the constitution of each of these
countries, shall take place in the course of the year
1955, by secret ballot and in conditions of respect for
fundamental freedoms.
The Conference takes note of the clauses in the
agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam
prohibiting the introduction into Vietnam of foreign
troops and military personnel as well as all kinds
of arms and munitions. The Conference also takes
note of the declarations made by the governments of
Cambodia and Laos of their resolution not to request
foreign aid, whether in war material, in personnel, or
in instructors except for the purpose of the eective
defence of their territory and, in the case of Laos, to the
extent defined by the agreements of the cessation of
hostilities in Laos.
The Conference takes note of the clauses in the
agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam
to the eect that no military base under the control of
a foreign State may be established in the regrouping
zones of the two parties, the latter having the
obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall
not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not
be utilised for the resumption of hostilities or in the
service of an aggressive policy. The Conference also
takes note of the declarations of the governments of
Cambodia and Laos to the eect that they will not join
in any agreement with other States if this agreement
includes the obligation to participate in a military
alliance not in conformity with the principles of the
Charter of the United Nations or, in the case of Laos,
with the principles of the agreement on the cessation
of hostilities in Laos or, so long as their security is

not threatened, the obligation to establish bases on
Cambodian or Laotian territory for the military forces of
foreign powers.
6 The Conference recognises that the essential purpose
of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military
questions with a view to ending hostilities and that
the military demarcation line is provisional and should
not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political
or territorial boundary. The Conference expresses its
conviction that the execution of the provisions set out
in the present declaration and in the agreement on
the cessation of hostilities creates the necessary basis
for the achievement in the near future of a political
settlement in Vietnam.
7 The Conference declares that, so far as Vietnam is
concerned, the settlement of political problems,
eected on the basis of respect for the principles of
independence, unity, and territorial integrity, shall
permit the Vietnamese people to enjoy the fundamental
freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions
established as a result of free general elections by
secret ballot. In order to ensure that sucient progress
in the restoration of peace has been made, and that
all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression
of the national will, general elections shall be held in
July 1956 under the supervision of an international
commission composed of representatives of the
Member States of the International Supervisory
Commission, referred to in the agreement on the
cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on
this subject between the competent representative
authorities of the two zones from July 20, 1955, onward.
8 The provisions of the agreements on the cessation
of hostilities intended to ensure the protection of
individuals and of property must be most strictly applied
and must, in particular, allow everyone in Vietnam to
decide freely in which zone he wishes to live.
9 The competent representative authorities of the North
and South zones of Vietnam, as well as the authorities
of Laos and Cambodia, must not permit any individual
or collective reprisals against persons who had
collaborated in any way with one of the parties during
the war, or against members of such persons families.
10 The Conference takes note of the declaration of the
Government of the French Republic to the eect that
it is ready to withdraw its troops from the territory of
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, at the request of the
governments concerned and within periods which
shall be fixed by agreement between the parties except
in the cases where, by agreement between the two
parties, a certain number of French troops shall remain
at specified points and for a specified time.

11 The Conference takes note of the declaration of the
French government to the eect that for the settlement
of all the problems connected with the re-establishment
and consolidation of peace in Cambodia, Laos, and
Vietnam, the French government will proceed from
the principle of respect for the independence and
sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam.
12 In their relations with Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam,
each member of the Geneva Conference undertakes to
respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity,
and the territorial integrity of the above-mentioned

States, and to refrain from any interference in their
internal aairs.
13 The members of the Conference agree to consult one
another on any question which may be referred to
them by the International Supervisory Commission, in
order to study each measure as may prove necessary
to ensure that the agreements on the cessation
of hostilities in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are
respected.
THE ELECTIONS THAT DID NOT TAKE PLACE

It is now a fact of history that the elections set down for July
1956 did not take place. Hos supporters claimed that this
was because the American-sponsored government of South
Vietnam knew that it would lose. The South Vietnamese and
the Americans claimed that fair elections would have been
impossible.
There are, however, a number of points of view to
consider. Read Source 14.2, the Final Declaration of the
Geneva Conference, look at the arguments set out below,
use the library and the internet for further research, and
make a decision on the following question: Did the Souths
failure to hold elections in 1956 justify the guerrilla war that
was launched by the North?
ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF NORTH

VIETNAMS GUERRILLA WAR
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understanding that there would be elections.
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not an independent state. Therefore, under international
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liked and could control.
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the time and the thinking behind the containment policy
and the Domino Theory, it is clear that America would
not risk elections in Vietnam.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST NORTH

VIETNAMS GUERRILLA WAR
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and obligations under international law, the fact is that
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the Accords, and it is therefore hard to see why either
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Vietnam.
NGO DINH DIEM GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH VIETNAM

NGO DINH DIEM
Ngo Dinh Diem was born in January 1901. He was a devout
Catholic, nationalist, intelligent, stubborn, and an elitist.
The Americans hoped that he could be the leader of a
new democratic Vietnam. His background as a provincial
governor under the French and as a minister for the interior,
combined with his strong anti-communist record, made him
appear the logical choice. Diem, however, was no democrat.
He tended to look back to the administrative traditions of
Vietnams past. Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu spoke of
personalism, a political theory that included:
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It blended Catholicism and Confucianism. Diem argued
that it could be a kind of middle way between communism
and American-style democracy. Nevertheless, these ideas
never won wide support outside Diems inner circle.
Figure 14.5 President Eisenhower (left) shakes hands with South

Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, Washington, May 1957.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: DIEM S AT T IT U DE TO DEMO C RAC Y

Source 14.3
In any event, political reform would have been lost on
Diem, for whom democracy was alien in terms of
experience and temperament. Inasmuch as he had
a political philosophy, it was the vague concept of
personalism, a fusion of Western and Eastern ideas Diem
and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu used as a rationalisation
for absolute power, distrust of popular rule, and the belief
that a small elite was responsible for defining the general
welfare. Good government, Diem once asserted, was
not a collection of laws but the simple and patient art of
fusing in a harmonious synthesis the desirable diversity of
conceptions and the inevitable complexity of reality.
Diems vague words only slightly obscured his authoritarian
tendencies. His model was the Emperor Ming Mang, the
nineteenth-century reformer who created an assembly of
mandarins to approve his royal decrees. Diems philosophy
of government was expressed with uncharacteristic
succinctness in a line he personally added to the
constitution: The President is vested with the leadership
of the nation. He identified his principles with the general
good and firmly believed that the people must be guided
by the paternalistic hand of those who knew what was best
for them.
G. C. Herring, Americas Longest War, McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1996, p. 69.

Read the above extract from George Herrings
book Americas Longest War and complete the
task set out below.
1 Make a list of the kinds of qualities needed in
an individual attempting to lead a developing
country, under threat, and in need of land
reform on the path to democracy.
2 Now, take from the document a number of key
words and phrases that make up the list to form
a word portrait of Diem.
3 Compare and contrast the qualities in your first
list with the word portrait in the second.
4 Use the library and the internet to find out more
about Ngo Dinh Diem, then write a page in your
notebook in response to the following question:
In terms of his character and background,
was Ngo Dinh Diem the kind of leader the
USA needed if it was going to build a strong
democratic South Vietnam?
His real foundations of power were:

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He had little understanding of the needs or problems of the Vietnamese peasants, he was far
less charismatic than Ho, and he lacked Hos reputation as a nationalist leader in Vietnams fight for
independence.
SOUTH VIETNAMESE OPPOSITION TO DIEM

Throughout his period in power Diem depended on force, repression and the support of the USA.
His first challenge within South Vietnam came from the influence of three religious sects. The most
powerful of these was the Cao Dai. It followed a blend of Buddhism, Catholicism, and some local
religions. The others were the Hoa Hao and the Binh Xuyen. Each of them had its own small army.
In March 1955 Diem successfully moved against them.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INDOCHINA

DIEM AND HO, 195460
The USA used money, propaganda and sabotage in a bid to strengthen the anti-communist
government it set up in South Vietnam and weaken Hos communist government in North Vietnam.
At the same time, the leaders of the two Vietnams set about consolidating their hold on power.
DIEM IN THE SOUTH

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used for Vietnamese communists.
The problem of land distribution

One of the most pressing problems that Diem faced in the South was not the threat from
communism but the needs of his own landless peasantry. His approach to this problem
played into the hands of the communists and began the challenge to his government.
The figures indicate that in 1954 one-tenth of the wealthiest landlords in the South controlled 65 per cent of the land.
Historian Gabriel Kolko, who was involved in the anti-war movement and is clear
about his left-wing point of view, maintained that when Diem began to undo the land
reforms introduced by the Viet Minh he unleashed social discontent and created actual
DID YOU KNOW?

During 1956, the Michigan
State University School of
Police Administration, under
a secret deal with the Central
Intelligence Agency, received
$25 million to train and equip
Diems political police, the
Civil Guard.
and potential enemies (Kolko 2001, p. 93). When faced with opposition to his reforms, Diem became
increasingly repressive.
In the past, the peasants had seen the landlords and the French as their main enemies. Now much
of that traditional hostility was directed at the officials of Diems government. Diems army, the new
ARVN, often acted as agents for collecting the reimposed rents. When landlords were themselves afraid
to venture into the countryside, they used members of the ARVN as rent collectors. This service was
provided by the army for a commission. The results were understandable:
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Problems caused by North Vietnamese intervention

Kolko points to these policies by Diem as the trigger for conflict in the South rather than any actions
sponsored by the communists in the North. However, more moderate scholars, such as Marilyn Young
and George Herring, acknowledge a definite role for the North Vietnamese in the growing conflict
in the South. According to Herring, Between 1957 and 1959, Hanoi gradually committed itself to the
growing insurgency in the south (Herring 1996, p. 74). It is fair to argue that the conflict was the result
of a combination of both of these factors:
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The role of the USA

The Americans, in order to get around the Geneva Accords, had set about nation building in South
Vietnam. They chose to create a nation. Their first priority was to establish an anti-communist state and
perhaps, in time, a democratic one. Such a modern, democratic nation carved out of the former French
colony of Indochina would therefore be, to some extent, in Americas own image. As a result of these
hopes, the USA was committed to Diem. It maintained its loyalty towards him long after suspecting
that he would not be the kind of leader that they had wanted. Because South Vietnam had been largely
an American creation, over the next 20 years the USA found it difficult to abandon the new Republic of
Vietnam. This might explain why, despite well-documented doubts, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
continued to increase Americas commitment to the South Vietnamese cause.
HO IN THE NORTH
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to make the key policy decisions for the country.
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remnants of feudalism and colonialism.
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Land reform had been one of the tactics used by the Viet Minh to secure peasant
support during its struggle with the French. Land reform continued to be a feature
of government policy in North Vietnam after 1954, but it was not without problems.
Land reform and the bid to build a viable economic structure in the North was often
compromised by the overzealous politics of purification. There were excesses against many
of the richer peasants. When opposition mounted to some of the more extreme aspects of
purification and land reform, Hos government compromised, and from 1958 pursued land
reform through a cooperative strategy. The process was voluntary and almost evolutionary,
rather than revolutionary in its pace. The period was also marked by notable improvements
in industrial production and the transport infrastructure.
1 What steps did Diem take to consolidate his power as the leader of South
Vietnam?
2 Which of his actions appeared to be the most damaging to his hold on
power?
DID YOU KNOW?

During the vote to endorse
Diem as President of
the new Republic of
Vietnam in October 1955,
Walter Lansdale, a CIA
representative, warned Diem
that the elections should at
least appear to be fair. Diem
gained 98.2 per cent of the
vote. The problem was the
level of corruption involved
in the process. In Saigon, for
example, there were 450 000
voters but Diem managed to
get 605 000 votes!
3 What is the difference between the interpretations presented by Gabriel

Kolko and by George Herring with regard to the outbreak of guerrilla war in
South Vietnam?
4 Why did the Americans support Diem in both the immediate and the long
term?
5 What steps did Ho take to consolidate his power as the leader of North
Vietnam?
6 Which of his actions appeared to be, for a time, the most damaging to his
hold on power?
7 Some historians have argued that Ho could be more flexible and willing
to compromise than Diem. What aspects of this period could you use as
examples to support that view?
WAS SOUTH VIETNAM THE WRONG DOMINO?

When contrasting some of the political, social, economic, and military circumstances of the two
Vietnams, South and North, it is clear that the USA picked a bad place to build a new nation as a barrier
against communism. The Domino Theory dominated American thinking, but there are arguments that
the USA picked the wrong domino. Consider the chart at the bottom of the page.
South Vietnam/Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam/Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Population 11 million
Population 14 million
Ngo Dinh Diem as the national leader never had wide

support
Ho Chi Minh was a well-known and charismatic leader
The government was poorly organised and was

without experienced civil servants
The government was well organised
The army was weak and poorly organised
The army was large and well equipped
The economy had been damaged during the war with

the French
Between 10 000 and 15 000 Viet Minh supporters committed

to unification under Ho had stayed in the South to work for
the cause
INFILTRATION FROM NORTH VIETNAM INTO SOUTH VIETNAM

By 1955 it had become clear that neither Diem nor the USA was willing to risk what had been
established in South Vietnam in a popular election against Ho. The idea of elections to reunify the
country therefore disappeared. If there had been an election it is most likely that it would have been
won by the side best able to arrange the result. It wouldnt have settled anything. Both Diem and Ho
would have been willing to manipulate the count.
After some dispute among communist leaders about the timing of an insurrection in the South,
fighting began to flair between rebels and the ARVN more frequently during 1957 and 1958. By 1959,
the armed struggle against the South Vietnamese government had intensified. The communist plan
was to fight a long war against Diem. Guerrilla tactics and small engagements on favourable terms
would gradually be used to wear down the ARVN before the campaign changed to fighting major
battles. During 1959, 90 000 Viet Minh fighters moved south and regularly challenged ARVN forces.
WHY WAS THE USA SURPRISED BY GUERRILLA WARFARE?

The way that the Second Indochina War began and the tactics used appeared to take the USA by
surprise. The USA had expected that any communist challenge to Diem would come from the North in
the form of a conventional military attack by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). America was prepared
to defend South Vietnam against a Korean War-style northern invasion. The USA therefore took time to
adjust to the insurgency and the guerrilla threat being launched from within South Vietnam against
Diem. The nature of the US response was typical of its ongoing lack of historical understanding of
Indochina, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, and Vo Nguyen Giap. After all, the Viet Minhs war against the French
had begun with small guerrilla groups operating in the countryside, then taking control of small towns
before fighting a major conventional battle at Dien Bien Phu.
Why was the USA surprised when the same leaders, Ho and
Giap, chose to use the same successful tactics again?
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Hanoi
Dien Bien Phu
Luang Prabang
G U LF
O F
TO N K I N
Haiphong
Harbour mined
1972
HAINAN
LAOS
Vinh
Maddox incident
1964
Vientiane
SIAM
(THAILAND)
Bangkok
Demilitarised zone (17)
Quang Tri
Hue
CAMBODIA
Da Nang
My Lai
Ho Chi Minh Trail
In late 1960, the Peoples Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF)

was formed to oppose the ARVN. It brought together South
Vietnamese communists, communists moving down from the
North, and the remains of the religious and political sects that
Diem had suppressed in 1955. This effort was combined with
a political and propaganda campaign by the National Front
for the Liberation of Vietnam (NLF) established in December
1960. The creation of these two groups represented the
beginning of the direct challenge to the existence of South
Vietnam. This challenge drew the USA into the Vietnam War
and continued until 1975 with the fall of Saigon.
BURMA
r
ive
gR
TWO NEW FORCES FORMED

AGAINST DIEM
OF VIETNAM
(NORTH VIETNAM)
on
Mek
In line with US thinking dominated by containment and

the Domino Theory, the USA had set up SEATO and begun
to build the ARVN into a formidable conventional army. The
USA was looking at the global pattern, and again, didnt pay
enough attention to the Vietnamese piece of the puzzle.
The USA found it hard to help Diem defend himself against
the guerrilla war that was growing in the paddy fields of the
Mekong Delta and in the countryside around Saigon.
CHINA
Dak Yo
Kontum
Pleiku
REPUBLIC
OF VIETNAM
Tonle Sap
(SOUTH
VIETNAM)
US invasion
1970
Loc Ninh
G U LF O F
Phnom Penh
An Loc II Corps
SI AM
III Corps
Ap Bac
Bien Hoa N
( THAI LAN D)
Saigon
Sihanoukville
Mekong
Delta
IV Corps
Communist
Khmer Rouge
victory, 1975
Figure 14.6
Indochina 196075
100
200
300 km
As a result of Diems policies, many of the South

Vietnamese peasants saw the NLF as allies against Saigon.
The NLF was also successful in presenting itself as a
genuine nationalist force. By contrast, the South Vietnamese
government:
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The South Vietnamese governments links with foreigners
were reinforced when peasants saw growing numbers of
US military advisers directing ARVN military operations and
giving orders to South Vietnamese troops.
By contrast the NLF:

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NLF propaganda took this idea even further, and tried to
present itself as simply South Vietnamese people unhappy
with Diems government. While it is true that the NLF did,
by and large, have a better relationship with the peasants
than Diems government, the fact remains that the NLF was
still willing to use violence, terror, and intimidation where
necessary to achieve its ends.
1 What kind of tactics did the communists and their supporters use against Diem?
2 What kind of challenge to Diem had the Americans expected to face?
3 What were the PLAF and NLF?
4 What advantages did the NLF have over Diems government in its bid to win the
support of the peasants?
THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF GROWING US INTERVENTION

In 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected President of
the USA at a time of considerable Cold War tension. What
was seen as the challenge of global communism was a key
issue in the election campaign. Kennedy and his Republican
opponent Richard Nixon tried to outdo one another in their
claims of being best equipped to lead the USA and meet
the communist challenge. Between 1960 and 1965, the US
commitment to Vietnam grew massively.
HOW COMMITTED WAS KENNEDY

TO SOUTH VIETNAM?
Americas involvement in the Vietnam War remains one of
the most contentious issues in recent American history. One
of the most frequently asked questions is: if John Kennedy
had not been assassinated in 1963, would the USA still have
made such a major commitment to the Vietnam War?
Some historians argue that Kennedy was convinced
that Vietnam was a place that had to be defended against
communism and that he believed in the Domino Theory.
Others claim that Kennedy would not have gone as far as his
successor Lyndon Johnson and that, had he lived, he would
have reduced Americas commitment to Vietnam after a

victory in the 1964 presidential election.
One of the most recent studies on Americas growing
commitment to the Vietnam conflict was American Tragedy
by David Kaiser, published in 2000. He identifies a number of
factors that played a role in Americas involvement:
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took little account of political and military realities
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of the Eisenhower Administration but was cautious
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was thinking, but at the same time Kaiser does suggest
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and was therefore more willing to accept a military
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Figure 14.7 John F. Kennedy (right) with Secretary of State

Dean Rusk (centre) and Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara
in the Oval Office at the White House. In 196061, both Rusk and
McNamara were committed hawks. McNamara wrote later that
the Vietnam War was a mistake.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What is the historical debate about the
decisions that President Kennedy might have
made regarding Vietnam if he hadnt been
assassinated in November 1963?
2 What are the key factors that historian David
Kaiser identifies in terms of the USAs growing
involvement in Vietnam?
WAR IN VIETNAM 196263 AND THE FALL OF DIEM

It is only now that we have the American documents that provide a clear picture of the last two years
of Diems regime. The war against the Viet Cong, as Diem had named the forces arrayed against him,
was complicated on the American side by three different approaches. The first two involved how to
fight the war, and were part of an ongoing dispute between the Pentagon (military) and the State
Department (diplomatic and political) parts of the US government over the tactics to be employed in
Indochina. The third arose from a report by US Senator Mike Mansfield after a visit to Vietnam in 1962.
This third option was considered and rejected. It suggested that efforts to maintain the Diem regime
would probably fail, and recommended the USA move towards negotiating a settlement that would
neutralise the region. In other words, the USA should accept a Ho-led government but try to ensure
that it wasnt too closely linked to communist China.
THE AMERICAN MILITARY APPROACH (PENTAGON)

This was based on the mistaken assumption that the Viet Cong (VC) could be defeated with
conventional military operations. This involved:
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To achieve these goals the American advisers wanted to concentrate the ARVN forces so that
they could launch offensives. Until this time they had been spread across the country and focused on
holding defensive positions.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT APPROACH: THE STRATEGIC HAMLET PROGRAM

Roger Hilsman, Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) with the US State Department,
argued that the danger to Diems government came from the fact that the VC was successfully building
support among the villages in the Vietnamese countryside and that the VC therefore had to be denied
access to those villages. He argued that the political threat posed by the VC was more serious than the
military one. Hilsman made two recommendations:
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Hilsman recommended an approach that had been successfully used by the British against
communist guerrillas in Malaya. This approach concentrated the local population in a village stronghold
and therefore separated them from the VC. If the guerrillas were to be, in the words of Chinas communist
revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, fish concealed in a sea of peasants, the Americans would dry up the
sea by bringing all the peasants together. In theory, this would deny the VC supplies; any group in the
countryside not accounted for as villagers would be regarded as VC and could be attacked.
This approach, which became known as the Strategic Hamlet Program, began in February 1962.
Diem signed a decree establishing the Interministerial Committee for Strategic Hamlets chaired by his
brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Diem and his brother, however, undermined the vision behind the plan. Instead
of using it as a means of winning back peasant support, they turned the strategic hamlets into another
mechanism for repression.
The Strategic Hamlets Program had other problems:
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THE NLFS FORTIFIED VILLAGES

The NLF had its own more effective version of strategic hamlets: fortified or combat villages. These
were used as bases for local operations. One of the most obvious differences between strategic
hamlets and combat villages was their physical appearance. The strategic hamlets had army posts and
watchtowers, while the combat villages used tunnels and kept most of their defences, supplies, and
living quarters underground.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: H OW T H E NLF GA I N ED THE C O UN TRYSIDE

Source 14.4
The NLF version of strategic hamlets were fortified or
combat villages equipped for self-defence and serving as
bases for small-scale oensive operations. The dierence
between strategic hamlets and combat villages can be
expressed in their central physical features. Strategic
hamlets were guarded by army posts and tall watchtowers
from which suspicious activity both inside and outside the
camp could be observed. By contrast, a guerrilla explained
to a sympathetic reporter, we build our fire positions as
close to the ground as possible and the rest underground,
because our people are defending their own homes. Thus
the two sides fought not just with dierent tactics but in
dierent dimensions.
How combat villages were organised provides an even
more dramatic contrast to the strategic hamlets and
illustrates as well how dierently each side conceptualised
its relationship to the people and the meaning of control.
A captured document described the transformation of one
such village it called XB in Kien Phong Province, with a
population of six thousand. Significantly, the report begins
with an account of the landholdings in the village, for any
mobilisation eort would have to start there, at the centre
of peoples concerns. During the Resistance war, the land
of absentee landlords had been distributed to villagers
by the Viet Minh; but with the establishment of Diems
government, the landlords had returned accompanied
by troops who seized the land and helped to collect back
rent. Eorts to resist this process were quickly crushed
through arrests and executions; nor did fellow villagers
automatically defend the endangered cadres. Indeed, they
oered no help at all.
In 1959, however, the surviving Party members, with the
help of a few senior cadres, began to rebuild their base in
XB, hiding in the fields and marshes during the day and
emerging at night to meet with villagers in their houses.
As a first step in re-establishing a base in the village, the
report explains in a section titled Means and Methods of
Our Success, the cadres began agitation of farmers to seek
their own intereststhe right of owning land or reduction
of land rent. The campaign attracted considerable support,
but not enough to form the mass base necessary to
struggle against Diem and the Americans (the My-Diem
clique). However, the village Party group, strong enough
now to risk exposure, called mass meetings at which the
crimes of the Diem government were discussed. After a
few of these, the Diem-appointed village administrators
left; no village council could be maintained there. At
this point, the local Party group became the eective
government of the village.
As for the landlords, the cadres encouraged the farmers to

go beyond demands for rent reduction and tenancy rights
to claim the land itself. The slogan Kill the land robbers
gained popularity, and local landlords decided to join
the Diem-appointed administrators in the nearest town.
(The document does not mention executions of landlords;
apparently the threatening slogan was enough.) All public
and private land was distributed except for plots near
Saigon army posts. With the land problem taken care of,
attention turned to improving public health, sanitation,
education, and maternity facilities. Eorts were made to
help farmers market their produce. The people pay for
these services, the report noted, and they also have a
voice in the management of them.
The most dicult part to envision is that the village, now
totally removed from Diems administrative control, was
nevertheless still entirely part of the country Diem ruled.
There were nearby ARVN posts, the local market town
was government controlled, and so on. A description of
how funds were raised for the village school illustrates
the integration: on the advice of the cadres, the villagers
successfully petitioned the Diem-appointed district chief
for an appropriation to build one in the village.
In December 1960, the village held a ceremony to celebrate
the establishment of the National Liberation Front. Houses
were whitewashed and the NLF flag flew from some six
hundred homemade flag poles. When ARVN soldiers came
to remove them, according to the report, people protested:
This is a flag of peace. It is not a Viet Cong flag. This flag
means that the people, some of whom are your relatives or
even your families, have land to till. The soldiers retreated,
taking some but not all of the flags.
Having helped the villagers achieve gains they would then
wish to defend, the cadres turned to the military problem.
At first villagers, fearing government retaliation, resisted
all appeals. Cadres tried to explain that organising for selfdefence would protect the villagers, not endanger them,
keeping away tax and rent collectors as well as soldiers.
After considerable persuasion, villagers began to construct
naily boards, hidden traps with sharpened bamboo and
metal spikes; one farmer invented a bottle grenade, and
these preparations seem to have paid o, for a government
attack led by some six hundred soldiers decided to
withdraw when it became clear that XB village was fortified.
M. B. Young, The Vietnam Wars 19451990, Harper
Perennial, 1991, pp. 846.

Above you will find a description written by historian Marilyn Young of one of the
combat villages set up by VC cadres on behalf of the NLF. The account is based on a
captured VC document. Read the above extract carefully and complete the tasks below.
1 Review the document and list each of the actions taken by the cadres representatives
of the VC, NLF, or Viet Minh) to win the villagers over.
2 Note that only after the cadres had helped the villagers achieve gains they would
wish to defend [did] the cadres turn to the military problem. What, in your own
words, did this passage mean?
3 List the methods used to defend the village.
THE MANSFIELD REPORT

Senator Mike Mansfield was not impressed by the Diem government, and felt that US efforts to support
it would probably fail. He argued that the loss of Vietnam was only really harmful to US interests if the
USA planned to maintain a permanent position of power on the Asian mainland to keep communist
China in check. Mansfields view was ultimately proved to be correct. The USA opposed communism
in Vietnam because it was a convenient and a symbolic place to do so, not because it was vital to
Americas interests. Mansfield recommended withdrawal of US advisers and neutralisation of the region.
The US military rejected Mansfields assessment. They simply could not accept that, after the military
successes during the Second World War and the Korean War, anything could stand against US resources
and firepower.
The Battle of Ap Bac

However, the Mansfield view was reinforced in January 1962 when ARVN forces with 51 American
advisers clashed with the VC at the Battle of Ap Bac. Two and a half thousand troops from the 7th ARVN
Infantry Division under General Huynh Van Cao made a sweep through the Mekong Delta near Ap
Bac, 80 kilometres south of Saigon. Between 300 and 400 VC troops inflicted serious casualties on the
7th Divison; 65 ARVN troops and 3 Americans were killed. The performance of the South
Vietnamese army was extremely poor. During the engagement they:
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occasion shelled their own troops.
An important lesson from Ap Bac that many in the US military failed to heed was the
fact that the VC was willing to stand up to US firepower, and that its troops had begun
to develop tactics to counter helicopters, armoured personnel carriers, and other highly
developed weapons.
By 1963 it was clear that there was a lack of unity in the approach to Vietnam among
the US bureaucracy. At the Pentagon, the military wanted to increase US involvement and
widen operations against North Vietnam. At the State Department, civilians like Hilsman saw
the Vietnam conflict as primarily political. Mansfields view was ignored. The US ultimately
accepted the view that more was the answer: more personnel, more money, more firepower.
DID YOU KNOW?

During the early 1960s, US
ground forces were not
officially in combat against
the VC; they were known as
advisers. By contrast, US
Air Force pilots did directly
engage the enemy, but a
South Vietnamese always
had to fly with the American,
so the pretence could be
maintained that it was still
South Vietnams war.
Until this time, US media coverage, which later became

very important in the conduct of the war, was limited.
As of April 1963, only the New York Times had a full-time
correspondent in Saigon.
THE FALL OF DIEM

Diems government had been a creation of the Americans,
and it depended primarily on American support. It was
a government riddled with corruption, and lacked wide
support.
Two factors combined to seal the fate of Ngo Dinh Diem:
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Thuc had encouraged local officials in Hue to enforce a
ban on the display of Buddhist flags. Under a government
edict, only the South Vietnamese national flag was allowed
to be flown. On 8 May 1963, there was a major street protest
in Hue by Buddhists asserting the right to fly their flags. It
ended in violence, including the deaths of an uncertain
number of Buddhists. Estimates ranged from seven to nine
deaths, with perhaps 15 injured. The Buddhist leadership
called on Diems government to give them the same
freedom as Catholics. Buddhist pressure on the government
intensified.
The Buddhist clergy published a manifesto that called for:
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punishment of those responsible.
The Buddhists were able to mobilise a good deal of
support in the urban areas, and they made skilful use of the
American media. Diem blamed the Hue massacre on the
NLF and the VC. On 11 June, a 66-year-old Buddhist monk,
Thich (Reverend) Quang Duc, staged a protest that gained
worldwide media attention. He sat calmly in a Saigon street
Figure 14.8 One of a number of Buddhist monks who burnt

themselves to death in a public protest against the restrictions
imposed on their religion by the Diem government.
and had two helpers pour petrol over him before setting
himself on fire. As the flames engulfed him he remained
perfectly still. The press had been alerted, and the cause
of the protest was widely publicised. Diems sister-in law
Madame Nhu tried to dismiss the event by referring to the
barbecue. Her comments only made matters worse.
These dramatic acts of protest were very successful
because they gained wide coverage in the US media.
Until then, US journalists had paid scant attention to
the corruption or repression of the South Vietnamese
government. Reporters had been more interested in war
stories, and they had been guided in that direction by
US government media liaison officers. War stories were
exciting and good news war stories were easy copy for the
journalists. The martyrdom of the Buddhist monks, however,
dramatically shifted the focus of the American media to a
new aspect of the Vietnam story. Stories sent from Vietnam
began to undermine the confidence of the US public in the
cause of US involvement in Indochina.
Figure 14.9 On 2 November 1963, Diem (pictured) and his brother

Nhu were assassinated following a military coup.
Figure 14.10 President Johnson (right) with foreign policy adviser

McGeorge Bundy. Johnson was far more willing than President
Kennedy to accept the advice of the bureaucracy about military
action in Vietnam.
US INVOLVEMENT IN INDOCHINA
In November 1963, there were more than 16 000 troops.

Still, Americas involvement in the Vietnam War was about
to grow even further. Johnson was about to raise the stakes
and lift the level of the American commitment to the war.
The USA let it be known through government officials and the

CIA that they now looked favourably on plans to overthrow
Diem. Roger Hilsman told President Kennedy that a coup to
remove Diem could be expected within six months.
After considerable plotting, the South Vietnamese
generals moved against Diem on 1 November 1963. Diem
and his brother Nhu were assassinated, and General Duong
Van Minh became the new leader of South Vietnam.
By the end of the month President Kennedy had been
assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and Lyndon Johnson had
become president. When Kennedy had come to office there
had been 800 American military personnel in Vietnam.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What were the three different approaches to the
Vietnam War that were widely held in American
government circles between 1962 and 1963?
2 Why was the Battle of Ap Bac significant?
3 What were the two factors that sealed the fate
of Ngo Dinh Diem?
4 Why was Thich Quang Ducs protest significant?
ESCALATION
The end of Diem did not change the progress of the war in South Vietnam. The change of government
won back some support from members of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects that Diem had
repressed, but the NLF and VC continued to dominate the countryside and the ARVN failed to win
any battles.
THE REPLACEMENT OF MINH

The Pentagon had advised both Kennedy and Johnson that they thought that North Vietnam was
especially vulnerable to heavy air attack and that Ho could be convinced to give up the campaign
in the South for fear of losing everything that had been gained in the North. Bombing could wipe
out advances that North Vietnam had made in industrial production, transport, and
infrastructure. This was a very American approach: to make the cost of a campaign against
the South so high that Ho would think twice and give it up. Minh opposed this approach
and claimed that the bombing campaign:
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In January 1964, Minh was removed and replaced in what some have called the
Pentagon Coup. Minh had the potential to win a degree of popular support that had
eluded Diem, but he was also independent and critical of American ideas. Minhs removal
highlighted a fundamental problem faced by the USA throughout its time in Vietnam.
A South Vietnamese leader capable of winning popular support and one with the ability
to rival Ho in the public mind as a nationalist would not always be cooperative. The USA
wanted a popular, strong, democratic nationalist leader who would do what he was told.
DID YOU KNOW?

In 1962, the United States
Information Service operating
in Vietnam spent large sums
of money on giving away free
matchbooks with pro-Saigon
slogans. However, they were
disappointed to learn that a
South Vietnamese Colonel
Chuong had diverted some of
the advertising budget for his
own use. Colonel Chuong was
caught importing pornography
from Taiwan.
General Khanh, who replaced Minh, was more understanding of the US point of view.
The USA was always optimistic, and hoped that each new South Vietnamese leader would
be better than the last. Khanh was gone before the year was out, followed by Tran Van
Huong. In 1965, Nguyen Cao Key took over, but there was little stability until Nguyen Van
Thieu took control in 1967.
1 Why was General Minh replaced in the Pentagon Coup by General Khanh?
2 Why do you think that it was called the Pentagon Coup?
3 What was the fundamental problem that Minhs removal highlighted?
THE GULF OF TONKIN INCIDENT

In August 1964, in separate incidents, two US destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy, claimed to
have been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats while operating peacefully in international
waters in the Gulf of Tonkin off the North Vietnamese coast. The truth of both incidents has always
been hard to establish:
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ships or torpedoes were seen. The destroyers had gone on alert because their sonar had detected the
sound of what were taken to be torpedoes.
R E VI E W TA SK
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the trigger for a much larger US commitment and
ultimately led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the use of American combat troops
in the Vietnam War. Assess whether the US warships did really come under attack,
and if so, who was at fault.
Use the points above as the basis for further research. Using the library and the
internet, go to the primary sources and try to piece together exactly what did happen
in the Gulf of Tonkin.
THE GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION

In direct response to events in the Gulf of Tonkin, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Every Congressman supported the resolution, and it was opposed by only two Senators. The key words
in the resolution were that the president was authorised to respond instantly and with appropriate force
when US forces came under attack. The resolution was open ended because it allowed the president to
decide just what amounted to appropriate force. Johnson now had sweeping powers to conduct the
war, but his first steps were confined to limited bombing raids on targets in North Vietnam.
HAWKS AND DOVES

Facing a presidential election in November 1964, Johnson wanted to appear moderate. He easily
defeated the conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who publicly took a much tougher
line on Vietnam. Goldwater was clearly a hawk, a label that was used for those who believed that the
USA should fight the war to win.
General Curtis Le May, who was Air Force Chief of Staff and, after he retired, a vice-presidential
candidate for a minor party, also took a very hawkish view. He repeatedly declared that North Vietnam
should be bombed back to the Stone Age.
There were others in Washington who were more moderate and cautious. Politicians such as
Senator William Fulbright and Senator Mike Mansfield were classified as doves. Although the bombing
of the North did intensify, at this stage Johnson did not express any strong opinions. For a time he
remained balanced between the hawks and the doves.
PRESIDENT LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the USA, could be a commanding presence: he was a
bully, a flatterer, a supreme negotiator, an idealist, and an egomaniac and yet insecure, all at the same
time. Individual reactions to Johnson varied according to which aspect of the man a person met. He
was by his own admission much more comfortable with domestic issues than foreign policy matters.
Johnsons Great Society legislation was among the most significant in terms of social reform in
US history. In Robert Dalleks two-volume biography of Johnson, the second volume, Flawed Giant,
deals with his presidency and the Vietnam War. Dallek argues that Johnson felt trapped by Vietnam.
His political instincts told him that it was a bad situation, but his pride and insecurity made it difficult
and ultimately impossible for him to withdraw. Vietnam now became a matter that Johnson wished
to subject to his irresistible political will (Dallek 1998, p. 103). Johnson was afraid that a communist
takeover of Vietnam would lead to a conservative domestic political backlash in the US that would lead
to the repeal of his beloved domestic reforms.
As historian Robert Schulzinger writes, Between late

1964 and the middle of 1965 the US passed the point of no
return in Vietnam (Schulzinger 1998, p. 154):
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from retaliation for attacks on American forces into a
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NEGOTIATIONS: THE CARROT AND

THE STICK
NORTH VIETNAM
KEY
Areas controlled by
the Viet Cong
Hue
Areas under
Viet Cong influence
Da Nang
Area controlled by
the Government
Areas under
Governement
THAILAND
influence
I Corps
LAOS
Heavily contested
areas
Kontum
Qui Nhon
SOUTH
VIETNAM
CAMBODIA
Tonle Sap
Nha Trang
II Corps
Cam
Ranh
Bay
Saigon
Bien Hoa
III Corps
The USA appeared to adopt a kind of carrot and stick

N
policy towards North Vietnam. President Johnson declared
in March 1965 that he was willing to go anywhere, at any
Bac Lieu
time for discussions that would lead to an honourable
IV Corps 0
100
200
300 km
peace. In April of the same year he called for unconditional
discussions. This was the carrot. Dallek suggests that this
Figure 14.11 Areas of control and influence in South Vietnam,
call for discussions were more than speech-making, and that January 1966
Johnson was sincere. Secret tapes from the Oval Office (the
Presidents personal office) recently made available reveal that Johnson
was deeply torn by the cost of the Vietnam War in terms of blood and resources.
There was also a stick. A major bombing campaign against North Vietnam, code-named Rolling
Thunder, began in March 1965 and continued until October 1968. Within days of the April 1965 call
for talks, Johnson agreed to a change in the role of US Marines in Vietnam. They would no longer
merely guard bases, but would go out into the South Vietnam countryside on active search and
destroy missions.
There was some response from the North Vietnamese. Hanois offer of terms, summarised below,
remained essentially unchanged:
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unity and territorial integrity.
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neither would be permitted to enter into a military alliance with a foreign country.
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without foreign interference.
1 What was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident?
2 What was the significance of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
3 What was a hawk and what was a dove?
4 What does Robert Dalleks recent biography tell us about Johnsons attitude
to Vietnam?
5 Why could US policy in 1965 be referred to as carrot and stick?
6 What were the peace terms offered by Hanoi in 1965?
THE NATURE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIES AND TACTICS OF THE

VIETNAM WAR
There is a distinction to be made between strategies and
tactics. Strategy refers to the broad, overall plan: the vision
for a campaign as a whole. Tactics are the more specific
means and methods that will be used to achieve the
broader strategic goals.
STRATEGY OF NORTH VIETNAM

AND THE NLF
The strategy favoured by the communist forces was
attritionthey would wage a war by a variety of means
until the USA tired of supporting the South Vietnamese
government. The strategy was to make the war in Vietnam
so long, bloody, and expensive that American public opinion
would turn against it. This strategy had been applied
successfully before against the French, but the USA was a
far more formidable enemy. Therefore it required patience,
discipline, and a deep commitment to the nationalist cause.

American troops served in Vietnam for 12 months, but when
North Vietnamese forces were sent south to help the NLF
and VC they were told that they would return home only
when the war was over. According to Ho, that commitment
might be for five, ten orif need betwenty years. Attrition
therefore meant continuing to fight and resist until the other
side was either defeated or decided to give up.
To make this strategy work, General Giap developed a
three-phase view of warfare:
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in South Vietnam was done by South Vietnamese
communists.
Figure 14.12 Booby traps were the cause of many US casualties.
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TACTICS OF NORTH VIETNAM AND

THE NLF
The key tactical instruments of Giaps strategy of attrition
were flexibility and concealment. The Americans and the
South Vietnamese controlled the major cities and even, in
daylight hours, the key arterial roads, but the countryside, the
jungle, and the night belonged to the VC and the NVA. During
the night, they moved troops and supplies, laid mines, set
booby traps, and arranged ambushes. What the VC and NVA
lacked in firepower, they had to make up for with persistence
and ingenuity. Generally the VC and NVA avoided major
confrontations and were largely on the defensive.
Ambush and snipers

The VC and NVA always made it a point to choose the time
and place of any engagementthe classic hit and run
tactics of guerrilla warfare. They also tried to ensure that they
had an escape route. Ambushes were set on jungle trails or
on roads. The ambush would often be used in conjunction
Figure 14.13 A VC complex with tunnels and booby traps
with mines or booby traps. Americans on patrol or mobile

forces arriving at a helicopter landing zone became targets.
Once contact had been made and the fire fight had begun,
the Americans would quickly call in artillery support and/or
an air strike. Therefore the VC had to:
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strikes could not be used because of the danger to their
own side.
Snipers, individuals with high-powered rifles, were also
used against patrols and troops in fixed positions. The key
element for both ambushes and snipers was the element of
surprise. Both also relied on ingenuity and initiative, tactical
qualities not evident in the South Vietnamese Army and
sometimes missing among the Americans.
Shoot and scoot

When the Americans or ARVN set up permanent bases, the
VC and NVA would attack with mortars or artillery in shoot
and scoot raids. These involved moving, normally at night,
and firing a few rounds at a fixed position, then moving
or scooting off before return fire could be coordinated
properly. An hour or so later, another attack could be made
from a different location. Sometimes shoot and scoot raids
were conducted in the hope of drawing out patrols and
perhaps luring them into ambush.
Booby traps
Aside from the psychological impact that booby traps had of never allowing your enemy to feel safe,
between 1965 and 1970, 11 per cent of all US deaths and 17 per cent of wounds were caused by booby
traps and mines.
The effectiveness of a wide variety of booby traps was limited only by imagination, terrain, and
available material. There were non-explosive and explosive booby traps, booby traps targeting
personnel, and others targeting vehicles. The non-explosive booby traps included punji stakes: firehardened bamboo stakes smeared with excrement or some form of poison. These were placed in holes
small enough to trap a boot, or large enough to capture a man. A variety of pits and other projectiles
were also used, even crossbows and spiked mud balls hung in the jungle with trip-wire triggers.
Explosive booby traps included grenades set with trip wires and mines. Larger versions were used near
roads or possible helicopter landing sites. The American military had never before faced an enemy who
used booby traps so extensively.
1 Explain the distinction between strategy and tactics.
2 What were the main elements of the communist strategy?
3 How long did American servicemen spend in Vietnam?
4 How long were North Vietnamese expected to serve in the South?
5 What were the three phases of General Giaps strategy?
6 How was this strategy similar to the one used by Giap and the Viet Minh against
the French?
7 What were the main tactical methods used to carry out Giaps strategy against
US and AVRN forces?
STRATEGY OF THE USA AND THE ARVN

Once they were committed to the war, following the escalation of action during 1964 and 1965, the
USA also had a strategy of attrition. However, their view of attrition was different from the one held by
the communists. The Americans simply intended to use their overwhelming firepower and resources to
make the war too costly for North Vietnam and the NLF to continue fighting. For the USA, the success
of this strategy was measured in the number of bombing raids, the amount of bombs dropped, and
the body counts of VC dead reported from infantry and airborne operations.
Between 1965 and 1968, the total number of US troops in Vietnam rose from 100 000 to more than
500 000. The US commander General William Westmoreland had hoped to draw the enemys major
units into battle, but when this did not happen he responded to guerrilla warfare with his own kind of
attrition. He used technology to save American lives:
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Figure 14.14
Defoliants being
used on the forests
of Vietnam
Westmoreland also used technology to build the toll

of enemy dead to try to reach what he referred to as the
crossover point: the time when the Americans killed VC and
NVA forces faster than they could be replaced.
Alongside a strategy that laid waste to huge amounts
of the countryside and resulted in a high number of deaths
among an innocent civilian population, the USA also had
a plan to win the support of the civil population. This
Hearts and Minds Program aimed to provide aid to the
local population and, by doing so, to win their support. The
contradictions inherent in attrition and winning hearts and
minds and the failure of the USA or the South Vietnamese
government to win over the peasant population were the
keys to their ultimate defeat.
direct shooting engagement) or by calling in artillery or an

air strike. Sometimes they would use all three. This was never
a simple process. The VC tended to blend in and become
part of the local village life, while the regular units of the
North Vietnamese Army when threatened retreated to safe
bases or sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos. Both the VC and
the NVA were skilled at concealment, and made excellent
TACTICS OF THE US FORCES AND

THE ARVN
If the VC and the NVA would not commit to a major
conventional battle, the American strategy of attrition
dictated tactics that would kill as many of the enemy as
possible with minimum risk to their own forces.
Search and destroy missions became the primary US
and ARVN tactic. Such missions used mobile units, tanks
(the M48 tank was the most common, but tanks werent
generally suited to the tropical terrain), and armoured
personnel carriers (the M113) to move through areas in
search of the enemy, or forces flew in by helicopter. The
US and ARVN forces aimed to locate, engage, and destroy
as many of the enemy as possible, either in a fire fight (a
Figure 14.15 An Australian with a Vietnamese child: a reflection of

the Hearts and Minds program
use of tunnels and underground bases beneath apparently

peaceful villages.
The role of the helicopter

The helicopter was perhaps the single most important
tactical weapon used on the American side in the Vietnam
War. Many helicopters were used in Vietnam:
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in Vietnam was the Bell UH-1D and 1E, known as the Huey.
With modifications, the Huey was used to transport troops,
evacuate wounded, or offer air support with rockets and
machine-guns.
For all its advantages in terms of mobility, the helicopter
used as a weapon meant that US and ARVN forces rarely
spent long periods of time in the countryside. When the
helicopters flew back to base, the countryside returned to
VC and NVA control. American and ARVN troops rarely had
long-term contact with local villagers, so most of the villages
remained under VC control.
Figure 14.16 These South Vietnamese villagers were the victims

of an accidental napalm attack. Consider how these images reflect
the contradictions that resulted in the failure of this strategy.
Fire support bases

In those parts of the country where US and ARVN forces felt
the need to establish a permanent presence and challenge
the VC, a system of fire support bases (FSBs) was set up. A
fire support base was a self-contained artillery base. Each
could be supplied from the air by helicopters, and each
was defended by barbed wire and infantry, while drawing
on covering artillery support from the next fire support
base. Patrols would often go out from the FSBs into the
surrounding countryside.
The problem with the concept of the fire support
base was:
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Figure 14.17 US Marines on patrol in the rice paddies of South

Vietnam in search of the Viet Cong
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would strike.
Figure 14.18 A Bell AH-1 Hey Cobra gunship (foreground) escorts

a UH-1
Figure 14.19 A Huey is used to evacuate wounded US troops.
In the Mekong Delta, a special combined force, including the Navy and the Army, used a variety of
patrol boats to cover a region of rivers, marshes and swamps.
The USA had at its disposal technology of the most sophisticated kind, ranging from all kinds
of firepower to personnel sensors and defoliants, but that meant that the US effort in Vietnam was
expensive. Furthermore, technology isolated the Americans from the innocent people they were trying
to win over.
1 What was the strategy of the USA?
2 How was the success of this strategy evaluated?
3 What was meant by the term crossover point?
4 What was the Hearts and Minds program? Why was it incompatible with the rest of
the US strategy?
5 What were the main tactics employed by the US and ARVN forces?
6 In your own words, explain what is meant by the sentence: Modern science and
technology was ultimately no match for history.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: TOU R OF DU T Y

Source 14.5
Men changed emotionally and physically soon after
reaching Vietnam. Many of those who volunteered for
combat duty in Vietnam out of a sense of duty, obligation
to a father or brother who had fought in an earlier war,
or a conviction that the cause was just changed their
minds. Little progress against the enemy seemed to take
place. Vietnamese civilians often appeared ungrateful for
the Americans aid. The brutalisation of the body count
oended some men. More were disgusted and angered by
the deaths of their comrades-in-arms. A lieutenant lashed

out at a minister who oered words of comfort and hope,
Hey, Chaplain! Do you have any idea how tough it is to live
in Vietnam after the kids you love and led died? Do you
have any idea how hard it is to wash their blood out of your
brain? In the field they stopped shaving, grew their hair
long, and threw away their extra pair of socksrefusing to
remove their boots because of fear of a deadly booby trap,
poison-tipped punji sticks. A foot soldier recalled that I
didnt brush my teeth for two months in Vietnam because
the troops needed their tooth brushes to clean their rifles.

Foot soldiers (grunts or dinks) did not like being on
patrol where no one could tell who was the enemy or when
he would strike. Twenty per cent of the men wounded in
South Vietnam fell victim to booby traps rather than direct
enemy fire. The enemy wired bodies with mines, and
dug holes on trails, covering them with leaves and twigs
so the Americans would fall into them to be impaled on
sharpened bamboo stakes. Reporters wrote derisively that
troops would search and avoid the enemy. One combat
soldier bitterly recalled they booby-trapped the trails they
knew wed take, because we always took the same trails,
the ones that looked easy and kept us dry. No wonder
combat soldiers far preferred the relative comfort of base
camps. They made them seem as American as possible
with rock n roll blaring from Armed Forces Radio, steaks
grilling on makeshift barbecues, and beer flowing freely.
The familiarity of base camps also diminished some of the
resentment that combat soldiers, who made up no more
than 20 per cent of the American force at any time, felt
toward the other 80 per cent who had relatively safe jobs
as support personnelsupply ocers, mechanics, medical
personnel, cooks, or laundry workers.
The heat during the dry season, the cold during the rainy
months, the dampness year round, and the dirt took their
toll. Men could never stay dry or clean on search-anddestroy missions. Out in the field they worked eighteenhour days, and would rather sleep than eat. Some forgot
to take their malaria pills or keep their feet dry. Others
patrolled without helmets or flak jackets to avoid the
oppressive heat. Their carelessness made them prime
targets for disease or snipers. Better leadership at the
platoon level would have helped, but the army decided
to rotate ocers every six months to broaden their
experience. This personnel policy made ocers less likely
to bond with their men.
The twelve-month tour of duty of the ordinary soldier
(spread over thirteen months, with one thirty-day break
for rest and recreation or R and R) also contributed to
the alienation GIs felt in Vietnam. Commanders originally
praised the twelve-month tour of duty as a means of
reducing stress on combat soldiers by giving them a fixed
date on which they would return home. Besides, there was
such a large pool of men available for the draft it did not
seem fair to make men stay any longer than necessary.
But soldiers did not develop strong ties with their units in
their twelve months. Worse, after their break for R and R
many men could think only of their return home and had
less desire than ever to expose themselves to the NLF.
Frightened, unfamiliar with guerrilla warfare, not well led,
many American soldiers soon saw all Vietnamese as the
enemy. Id just as soon shoot a South Vietnamese as a VC
was a common refrain.
Between 7500 and 11 500 American women also served

in the military in Vietnam. All of these women were
volunteers, over twenty years of age, and most of them
were ocers. Eighty per cent of them served as nurses, all
of whom held ocer rank. About half of the 1300 women
who did non-medical work were enlisted personnel,
serving as clerks, air trac controllers, photographers, and
cartographers. Like the men in Vietnam, women served a
twelve-month tour of duty spread over thirteen months.
They came and left Vietnam individually, not as members
of units. But the women saw a dierent sort of war. A
tiny minority, women saw their special needs ignored by
commanders. When women got sick, they shared wards
and bathrooms with men. Helmets did not accommodate
womens smaller heads or larger hair styles. Most women
adapted to this overwhelmingly male environment as
they played out what the sociologist Elizabeth Norman
characterised as an unwritten rule of traditional gender
relations in Vietnam: Men protected women; women, in
turn, comforted the men.
R. D. Schulzinger, A Time for War, Oxford University
Press, UK, 1997, pp. 1956.

Read historian Robert Schulzingers account of
life for ordinary US troops fighting in Vietnam
and answer the following questions:
1 According to Schulzinger, how did many troops
change after reaching Vietnam?
2 What was the contrast between the lives of
the 20 per cent of troops who had a combat
role and the 80 per cent who were involved in
support?
3 Suggest a reason for the poor performance of
many US units at the platoon level.
4 What were the results of US troops having a
limited 12-month period of service in Vietnam?
5 Outline the part played by US women who
served in Vietnam.
1968: A TURNING POINT

1968 was a major year in the Indochina conflict.
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peace talks began in Paris.
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IMPACT OF THE 1968 TET OFFENSIVE

The Tet Offensive was typical of General Giaps thorough planning. For the Americans there had only
been a few subtle warning signs that an attack was coming, but with the exception of the siege of the
Marine Base at Khe Sanh, these were ignored. Giap had in fact used the siege of Khe Sanh as a diversion
to distract the American high command.
In January 1968, a series of carefully coordinated attacks
were launched simultaneously right across South Vietnam
by 84 000 troops from the NVA, VC, and available reserves
especially recruited for assault. Attacks were made on
a number of targets in Saigon, including the American
Embassy, and against US and ARVN positions. Some of the
most ferocious fighting took place for control of the old
imperial capital of Hue. For a time, the NLF controlled the
city and proceeded to take bloody reprisals against the
South Vietnamese who had cooperated with the Americans
and the Saigon government. Across South Vietnam, 48
provincial capitals, five major cities and 64 district capitals
came under attack. These attacks marked the beginning of
two weeks of intense fighting until the Americans managed
to rally and repel the offensive.
During the Tet Offensive, the cities were attacked in a
significant way for the first time. It is estimated that there
were 14 000 civilian deaths, 24 000 wounded, and over
600 000 left homeless. The American counter-attack on the
provincial town of Ben Tre gave rise to one of the ironic and
symbolic quotes of the Vietnam War: an American officer
tried to explain to the press that his forces had been forced
to destroy the town in order to save it. The Tet Offensive was
all the more stunning because it happened just after the
American commander William Westmoreland had delivered
yet another of his optimistic predictions that the end of the
war was in sight.
Figure 14.20 This American map shows the extent of the Tet
Offensive. Where were most of the attacks on cities concentrated?
After the Americans had counter-attacked and the

offensive ended, the communist forces had lost 40 000 dead,
with another 8000 captured or wounded. The offensive had
cost both sides dearly. There were major losses among the
South Vietnamese Army: more than 3000 dead and missing,
plus over 8000 wounded. Among the Americans, just over
1500 were killed and almost 8000 wounded. As the figures
show, the losses were greatest among the VC and NVA
forces. They had lost about one-third of their fighting force,
and it would take years before recovering sufficiently to
launch another major offensive.
Historical evaluations of the Tet Offensive

Historical evaluations of the Tet Offensive vary:
Figure 14.21 A scene from the siege of Khe Sanh, where US

Marines came under attack
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Figure 14.22 One of the

most famous scenes from the
television war. South Vietnams
Director of the National Police,
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan,
executes a Viet Cong leader in
front of an Associated Press
photographer and a television
crew. Twenty million Americans
saw the shooting on the NBC
Evening News.
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nature of press reports at the time of Tet. The media
were accused of a lack of balance and their failure to
communicate how, in military terms, it was a communist
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primarily responsible for changing US public opinion.
This argument fails on a number of grounds:
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REVIEW TASK
Use the library and the internet as well as class
discussion to answer the following essay topic:
Assess the extent to which the Tet Offensive
could be called a communist victory.
5IFBOUJXBSNPWFNFOUCFHBOJOUIF64"XFMMCFGPSF
Figure 14.23 Some of the victims from My Lai
Figure 14.24 Lieutenant William Calley (centre) at his pre-trial

hearing. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but served only
three years.
MY LAI
Many of the American soldiers were shocked by the attacks and bitter about their losses. During the
following months, they were more aggressive than usual in their patrolling, especially when the high
command called for an intensification of the pacification program. Pacification involved moving
through villages one at a time, driving out the VC and destroying any of their supplies or tunnel
networks. Therefore Tet contributed to the My Lai Massacre in March 1968.
On 16 March 1968, American troops under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, an
inexperienced and poorly trained junior officer, landed in helicopters near the village of My Lai. They
were involved in a pacification mission in an area they called Pinkville because of its support for the VC.
As soon as the helicopters landed, all VC troops quickly disappeared. The soldiers of Charlie Company
found only women, old men, and children. The villagers were rounded up for interrogation. This process
quickly turned into a massacre. The Vietnamese were stabbed with bayonets and shot. When the
Americans left, there were more than 500 dead.
Read the two documents, consider the Playboy and Bigboy illustrations, and complete the tasks.
Source 14.6
Pocket card: Nine Rules
In September 1967 the following set of nine rules or
guidelines was issued to each member of the United States
Armed Forces serving in Vietnam.
Rules:
The Vietnamese have paid a heavy price in suering
for their long fight against the communists. We military
men are in Vietnam now because their government has
asked us to help its soldiers and people in winning their
struggle. The Viet Cong will attempt to turn the Vietnamese
people against you. You can defeat them at every turn by
the strength, understanding, and generosity you display
with the people. Here are nine simple rules:
1 Remember we are guests here: We make no demands
and seek no special treatment.
2 Join with the people! Understand their life, use phrases
from their language and honor their customs and laws.
3 Treat women with politeness and respect.
4 Make personal friends among the soldiers and common
people.
5 Always give the Vietnamese the right of way.
6 Be alert to security and ready to react with your military
skill.
7 Dont attract attention by loud, rude or unusual
behavior.
8 Avoid separating yourself from the people by a display
of wealth or privilege.
9 Above all else you are members of the US Military Forces
on a dicult mission, responsible for all your ocial
and personal actions. Reflect honor upon yourself and
the United States of America.
[Italics added.]
Figure 14.25
Playboy flyer, Saigon
Figure 14.26
Big-Boy Hamburgers
1 Today historians agree that the USA was
largely responsible for creating South Vietnam
and played a major part in choosing at least
some of its governments. In the light of
this, how valid is the following claim?
We military men are in Vietnam now because
their government has asked us to help its
soldiers and people in winning their struggle.
2 How did US strategy and tactics make rule 2
difficult to carry out?
3 What is the nature of the contradiction
between rule 8 and the images shown in
Figures 14.25 and 14.26?

Source 14.7
Testimony for the Prosecution by Dennis Conti, one of the
soldiers under Calleys command at My Lai under direct
examination by Aubrey Daniels for the Prosecution:
(A= Answer / Q= Question)
A: As I came up, he [Calley] said round up the people.
(Conti)
Q: What did you do? (Daniels)
A: So I did, rounded up the people. There were five or six,
mostly women and children. They were unarmed and
huddled together.
Q: What did you do with them?
A: I brought them back to Calley on the trail. There were
others there. Thirty or forty. All women and children.
I remember one old man. They were in their sixties to
infants.
Q: What were they doing?
A: Just standing there.
Q: Who was with them?
A: The only GI (American soldier) I remember was Meadlo.
Q: What happened then?
A: Calley told me and Meadlo to take the people o and
push them in a rice paddy. We took them out there,
pushed them o the trail and made them squat down
and bunch up so they couldnt get up and run. We
stayed there and guarded them. At this time, I see a
young child running from a hootch (shelter) toward
us. He seen us and he took o. I dropped my gear and
checked out a hootch with a woman and a child in it.
There was an old woman I took her out and put her
on the ground. Then I saw a man running away. I took
the other woman and child to the group. The old woman
wouldnt go, so I left her there.
Q: What was Meadlo doing at this time?
A: He was guarding the people.
Q: Where was he?
A: He was standing on the village side of the people.
Q: Then what happened?
A: Lieutenant Calley came out and said take care of
these people. So we said, okay, so we stood there and
watched them. He went away, then he came back and
said, I thought I told you to take care of these people.
We said, We are. He said, I mean, kill them. I was a
little stunned and I didnt know what to do. He said,
Come around this side. Well get on line and well fire
into them. I said, No, Ive got a grenade launcher.
Ill watch the tree line. I stood behind them and they
stood side by side. So theyCalley and Meadlogot on

line and fired directly into the people. There were bursts
and single shots for two minutes. It was automatic. The
people screamed and yelled and fell. I guess they tried
to get up, too. They couldnt. That was it. The people
were pretty well messed up. Lots of heads was shot
o, pieces of heads and pieces of flesh flew o the
sides and arms. They were all messed up. Meadlo fired
a little bit and broke down. He was crying. He said he
couldnt do any more. He couldnt kill any more people.
He couldnt fire into the people any more. He gave me
his weapon into my hands. I said I wouldnt. If theyre
going to be killed, Im not going to do it. Let Lieutenant
Calley do it, I told him. So I gave Meadlo back his
weapon. At that time there was only a few kids still
alive. Lieutenant Calley killed them one by one. Then I
saw a group of five women and six kidseleven in all
going to a tree line. Get em! Get em! Kill em! Calley
told me. I waited until they got to the line and fired o
four or five grenades. I dont know what happened
Transcript from Calleys trial.

1 Summarise in point form the key parts of
Contis testimony.
2 Suggest how a group of apparently normal
soldiers might be capable of a massacre like
My Lai.
3 In your view, how much responsibility should
Calley, the soldiers under his command, and
Calleys superiors accept for the massacre?
RESEA RCH TASK

Go to the University of Missouri Kansas City
Law School web page, Famous Trials, at www.
law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/
mylai.htm. Use the web page as the basis for
a research essay: The My Lai Massacre: were
the sentences appropriate?
Calley was the only person involved to receive a
prison sentence, although three of his superior
officers were courtmartialled. Calley was initially
sentenced to life imprisonment but President
Nixon reduced the sentence to only three years.
PEACE TALKS IN PARIS AND NIXONS ELECTION

In the months after the Tet Offensive, General Westmoreland made the military assessment that Tet
had been a victory for the American and South Vietnamese forces, maintained that the end was again
in sight, and asked for another 200 000 troops. The Johnson Administration denied Westmorelands
request and lurched, with some uncertainty, towards peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris.
NIXON BECOMES PRESIDENT

1968 was an American presidential election year. Lyndon Johnson had announced that he would not
be a candidate in November. Faced with the need to choose a new candidate, the Democratic Party
divided into several groups. Many among the peace movement supported a peace candidate, Eugene
McCarthy. Also popular among anti-war Democrats was Senator Robert Kennedy, John Kennedys
brother Robert Kennedy would probably have won the Democrat nomination, but he was assassinated
a few weeks before the Democratic Party convention.
Those in the Democratic Party who still supported the Vietnam War effort backed Hubert
Humphrey, who had been Johnsons vice president. This decision angered anti-war protesters,
who campaigned strongly in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic Party convention. The
convention was not only marked by splits within the party but by the violent suppression of the peace
protests by the police on the orders of the Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
Never had Republican candidate Richard Nixon been better placed to win the presidency. The
Democrats were divided; the public had become disillusioned with the war in Vietnam as casualties
began to have an impact on families in both the major cities and the smaller towns of America. In the
small towns, a victim of the war was more than just a name or a photo in the newspaper; he became
somebody fondly and long remembered.
Nixons questionable reputation for political integrity was not enhanced by his conduct during
the 1968 campaign. We now have conclusive evidence that Nixon and his campaign staff feared a
November surprisethat there might be substantial progress in peace talks immediately before the
election. This would have given Democrat Hubert Humphreys failing campaign a vital boost. Nixon
discouraged the South Vietnamese from cooperating with the talks, promising a better deal for them if
he was to become the president. In this way, the Republicans managed to sabotage the talks for their
own political ends.
Nixon took advantage of these factors to win a narrow victory over Humphrey in November 1968. In
1969, Ho Chi Minh died. The search for an end to the war was now directed by new leaders on both sides.
1 Why could 1968 be called a turning point in the Vietnam War?
2 What part did Giaps siege of Khe Sanh play in his plans for the Tet Offensive?
3 Why are some scholars critical of elements of the American media for their coverage
of Tet? Is this criticism justified? If so, why or why not?
4 Write a brief outline of the events at My Lai. How were they linked to the Tet
Offensive?
THE NIXON DOCTRINE, THE GROWING PEACE MOVEMENT, AND THE

END OF THE WAR
VIETNAMISATION
When Richard Nixon became president, he made Henry Kissinger, a former Harvard University
professor, his national security adviser and, later, his secretary of state. The two of them continued to
view Vietnam and Indochina generally in global terms. One of their attempted solutions to the war was
linkage (see Chapter 12). Kissinger believed that if the United States managed to improve relations
with the Soviet Union and if they opened diplomatic relations with China, the two communist giants
would put pressure on the communist North Vietnamese to negotiate. Linkage was a credible theory,
but there was no evidence that it ever worked in practice.
Since the Nixon White House lacked confidence in negotiations alone, they adopted a proposal
that had been made during the final months of the Johnson Administration: that the South Vietnamese
should be encouraged to shoulder a greater share of the burden for their own defence. The policy,
known as Vietnamisation, was formalised when President Nixon announced the Nixon or Guam
Doctrine in July 1969. It was followed shortly after by the announcement that 25 000 US troops would
be withdrawn from Vietnam. From this point on more and more US troops were sent home.
The key steps in the process of Vietnamisation were:
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burden of the war.
The key shortcoming of Vietnamisation continued to be the poor performance of the South
Vietnamese Army, which had a desertion rate of more than 120 000 per year.
CAMBODIA AND THE ESCALATION OF THE AIR WAR

Even as the Americans were withdrawing troops and attempting to hand more of the fighting over to
the South Vietnamese, they stepped up the air war. This intensified air war spilt over into Cambodia.
Nixon authorised American B52 bombers to attack parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and North Vietnamese
sanctuaries in Cambodia. Aspects of this bombing campaign were for a time kept secret from the
American public. When they did come to light, this information further alienated public opinion and
reduced trust in the president.
In April 1970, Nixon ordered a brief invasion of Cambodia. The White House public relations staff
tried to soften the impact of the move by calling it an incursion, rather than an invasion. A month
before, Lon Nol, a determined anti-communist general, had taken power in Cambodia when he
overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk had attempted to maintain a neutral or non-aligned
position. The USA approved of the change of government in Cambodia and had responded by sending
in American and South Vietnamese troops to oppose the Cambodian communists, the Khmer Rouge,
and the North Vietnamese who were using Cambodian territory.
The theory had been that weakening the Khmer Rouge and damaging North Vietnamese bases in
Cambodia would make the fighting easier for the South Vietnamese forces in the months to come, and
would allow accelerated Vietnamisation and American troop withdrawals to continue. The incursion,
however, did not achieve its military goals, and the strategy provoked major protests right across the USA.
To the protesters, the new policy appeared to contradict Nixons avowed policy of winding down the war.
Even after US troops withdrew from Cambodia, the bombing of North Vietnam and a massive
bombing campaign against parts of Cambodia continued. Between July 1970 and February 1971,
American bombers flew 8000 missions over Cambodia. In February 1971, ARVN forces invaded Laos
with American air support to attack parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The failure of this operation again
indicated the weaknesses of the South Vietnamese Army.
NIXONS FIRST TERM: SUMMARY

In summary, during Nixons first term as president:
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countries
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diplomatic solution
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1 What was linkage?
2 What was Vietnamisation?
3 Why did the USA invade Cambodia?
4 What was the result of US bombing of Cambodia and Laos?
R E VI E W TA SK
Use the library and the internet to research Richard Nixons first term as president
of the USA. In particular, look at his foreign policy, especially the Vietnam War. Also
reread the relevant sections of Chapter 12 before writing an essay on the topic:
Assess the success of Nixons policies towards Indochina between 1969 and 1972.
THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS

IN AMERICA
From the earliest days of Americas commitment to the Vietnam War, some people protested against that
commitment. The anti-war movement gained in strength as the war dragged on, as the cost to America
increased and as the media coverage showed people the bloody and ugly nature of the conflict.
President Johnson had been taunted by protesters. The movement grew in the universities during
the late 1960s. The anti-war movement was part of a broader agenda of social reform and civil rights.
One of the earliest organised forms of protest on university campuses were teach-ins. Students and
academics stayed overnight in university buildings discussing and debating aspects of American policy.
Gradually the protests became more militant and vocal. As the US government supported escalation,
the anti-war movement itself escalated into a series of rallies, petitions, burning of draft cards, and
street marches that became an almost constant part of Americas daily news bulletins.
FACTIONS IN THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

It is wrong to assume that the anti-war movement was unified. It was made up of many different
factions and shades of political opinion, ranging from moderates, who wanted peaceful, orderly
protests to voice their disapproval of the war, to militant groups, who advocated violent protest.
Militant groups often saw the anti-war movement as a foundation for a more general political and
social revolution in the USA. Extreme factions did not really help the anti-war cause because:
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Key events in the growth of the anti-war movement included:
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Americas poor and minority groups. The rich managed to obtain college deferments for their sons to
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the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Although he was unsuccessful, his challenge added
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protests, and raised doubts in the minds of many people
about the direction of Americas policy in Vietnam.
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about the war The Pentagon Papers, a study authorised
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Figure 14.27 Members of the Ohio National Guard open fire on

student protesters at Kent State University.
The anti-war movement did not end the Vietnam

War, but it was one of a number of factors, as well as the
television war, which ensured that the nature and conduct
of the war remained in peoples thinking week after week.
1 What were some of the methods of protest
used by the anti-war movement?
2 Summarise the differences between the views
of the moderates in the anti-war movement and
those of more militant groups.
3 What were the key episodes in the anti-war
movement between 1965 and 1971?
4 What part did the anti-war movement play in
ending the Vietnam War?
Figure 14.28 Kent State University protest: those who could

began to flee after the National Guard opened fire.
THE END OF THE VIETNAM WAR

During 1971, President Nixon announced that 100 000 US troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam
during that year. In the same year, the Australian, New Zealand and South Korean governments
announced that their troops would be going home. The reduction in the numbers of US ground forces
in Vietnam continued throughout 1972, but the air war continued. At the beginning of 1973, the US
stopped all military actions against North Vietnam, and this was followed by the signing in Paris of the
Peace Accord that officially ended the war.
As the US troops left, the North Vietnamese forces quickly pushed back the South Vietnamese forces
after fighting between the two Vietnams resumed in January 1974. By April 1975, North Vietnamese
forces had taken Saigon.
REASONS FOR US WITHDRAWAL AND THE EVENTUAL DEFEAT

OF THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE FORCES
The US military campaign failed in Vietnam and fell victim to Giaps strategy of attrition for the
following reasons.
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and minds of the Vietnamese people became incompatible.
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therefore their nationalistic sympathies stayed with the
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Hue
Khe Sanh
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LAOS
THAILAND
Quang Ngai
iver
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later argued, many of Americas mistakes in Vietnam
stemmed from ignorance of the country, the people, and
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were wrong.
Demilitarised zone
North Vietnamese
thrusts
gR
on
Mek
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NORTH VIETNAM
KEY
Kontum
Pleiku
II Corps Qui Nhon
Tactical zone
CAMBODIA
Tonle Sap
Bao Me Thuot
PHUOC DONG
PROVINCE
Nha Trang
Phnom Penh
Phan
Rang
Xuan Loc
Saigon
III Corps
Tactical zone
MEKONG
D E LTA
IV Corps
Tactical zone
C H I N A
S E A
100
Figure 14.29 The last stages of the Vietnam War
S O U T H
200
300 km
Figure 14.30 Henry Kissinger for the USA and Le Duc Tho for
North Vietnam sign the Paris Peace Agreement on 27 January 1973.
Figure 14.31 Helicopters pick up the last Americans in Saigon just

before the arrival of North Vietnamese tanks.
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were prepared to endure a long period of struggle; by contrast, the USA lost patience with a long war.
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Table 15.1 Vietnamese civilian war-related casualties admitted to
hospitals, 196574. Suggest why civilian casualties might have been
very high in 1968.
MOH
hospitals
US
hospitals
Total
1965
18 791
18 791
1966
23 663
23 663
1967
46 774
1 951
48 725
1968
80 359
7 790
88 149
1969
59 222
8 544
67 766
1970
46 247
4 635
50 882
1971
38 325
1 077
39 402
1972
53 367
53 367
1973
43 218
43 218
1974
41 525
41 525
Total
451 491
23 997
475 488
Table 15.2 Allied military deaths in Vietnam, 196574. How many

US military personnel were killed in Vietnam between 1965 and
1974? What other countries, according to the table, fought with the
USA and the South Vietnamese? Check the figures in the table to
find the error. Does this influence the reliability of the statistics?
United States
Number
Deaths from hostile action
46 498
Deaths from other causes
10 388
Missing and presumed dead

Subtotal
South Vietnam
719
56 146
220 357
Korea
4 407
AustraliaNew Zealand
469
Thailand
351
Total
281 730
Source: OASD (Comptroller), SEA Statistical Summary, 1976.
Source: Republic of Vietnam, Directorate General of Planning,

Statistical Yearbook 1969; data compiled by USAID/Public Health.
EVENTS IN CAMBODIA: POL POTS REGIME
Figure 14.32 Thanks a lot. (Courtesy of Don Wright, Miami News). How does Don Wrights cartoon sum up both US strategy
and the tragedy of the Indochina conflict? How did US bombing influence the history of Cambodia?
PRINCE SIHANOUKS NONALIGNMENT

Until 196970, under the administration of Prince Norodom
Sihanouk, Cambodia had managed to stay independent
from US, Chinese or Soviet influence. Sihanouk had been
successful because of his political skills and because of
Cambodians traditional reverence for his aristocratic
background.
Sihanouks foreign policy was realistic and practical. He
had long recognised that Cambodia would suffer if it took
sides in any of the conflicts that raged throughout Indochina.
He therefore adopted a policy of neutrality (non-alignment).
Sihanouk appeared to recognise during the 1960s that
North Vietnam was likely to succeed in the Vietnam War,
and therefore kept his connections with the NLF and the
communist Chinese. He did not, however, cut links with the
West. Sihanouk knew that the communists were hardly likely
to favour a government or a leader with a royal background.
Furthermore, he was fearful of what he saw as Vietnams
traditionally expansionist attitude in the region.
During the course of the Vietnam War, the NVA and
VC had occupied parts of Cambodia or passed through
Cambodian territory along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There was

little that Sihanouk could do to prevent this, especially as
he also faced the emerging power of the Khmer Rouge,
the communists within his own country. This prompted
Sihanouk to continue dialogue with the USA. This attitude
dissatisfied General Lon Nol, the prime minister. In contrast
to the diplomatic approach favoured by Sihanouk, Lon Nol
put his confidence in a military solution. In March 1970,
while Sihanouk was out of the country, Lon Nol staged a
coup and took power.
THE KHMER ROUGE TAKE POWER

The result put Cambodia firmly in the anti-communist camp,
but the country had lost the skilful and popular leadership
of Sihanouk, the one leader who might have prevented a
communist takeover by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. By
1975 Lon Nol had been forced out of power, and the Khmer
Rouge occupied the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
The new government of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge,
was split into two factions:
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Pol Pots faction, the Khmer Viet Minh, was the most
powerful group. Once in power, Pol Pot began one of the
most ruthless campaigns ever undertaken to transform the
social and political life of a country:
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rural, peasant way of life.
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force needed to ensure political control: Pol Pots regime
began a program of ethnic cleansing (eliminating certain
racial groups).
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POL POTS REVOLUTION

Pol Pot was born Saloth Sar in May 1928, the youngest of
seven children. Pol Pots family would in fact have been
viewed as class enemies by the regime that he later
established. Family connections meant that the young
Pol Pot received a good education and travelled overseas.
As a young man he became a communist. He returned
to Cambodia in 1953.
Professor Ben Kiernan argues that the keys to the success
of Pol Pots seizure of power in 1975 were the actions of
the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Although it was indigenous, Pol Pots revolution would
not have won power without US economic and military
destabilisation of Cambodia which peaked in 196973
with the carpet bombing of Cambodias countryside by
American B-52s (Kiernan 2002, p. 16). However, according to
Kiernan, The two most important themes in the history of
the Pol Pot regime are the race question and the struggle for
central control (Kiernan 2002, p. 26).
Figure 14.33 Excavated execution ground, Kompong Speu, 1979
David Chandler, in The Tragedy of Cambodian History, places greater emphasis on the ideological
basis of Pol Pots regime. Chandler argues that most of the million or more deaths that occurred under
the Khmer Rouge were never intended and that they were the result of the governments utopian
program of total and rapid social transformation (Chandler 1991, p. 1).
Chandler and Kiernan agree on the three basic elements that motivated the Pol Pot revolution:
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However, they place a different emphasis on the impact of each. Chandler writes that: Between 1975
and 1979 the CPK (Communist Party of Kampuchea) wanted to exercise absolute control and hoped to
preside over the destruction of Cambodias past (Chandler 1991, p. 237). When the Khmer Rouge seized
power in Phnom Penh, they immediately burned books, destroyed some public buildings, and began
the process of emptying the city. Many people were driven from their homes at gunpoint. Some were
allowed to pack; others were shot for the slightest delay. Hospitals were emptied and patients forced from
their hospital beds. As a result many died. Similar actions occurred in towns right across the country.
Much of this behaviour was formalised when the eight guiding principles of the regime were
produced at a conference in May 1975:
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Schools and hospitals were closed across the country, private property became the property of the
state, and all Cambodians were advised to beware of spies and potential enemies of the new regime.
This fear of enemies gave rise to mass murder and concentration camps (called re-education centres).
The two catch phrases that summed up the new regimes thinking were:
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Total loyalty was expected, and the decisions of the Khmer Rouge (or Angka, or the Organisation, as
it was known) were regarded as infallible. During the process many died, the victims of both organised
violence and random terror. Others died because of famine and other hardships imposed by the state
in an effort to remake everything about the country.
A number of reasons have been offered for the decision to empty the cities and towns. It has been
suggested that, as a result of food shortages brought about by the US bombing and the war, the regime
evacuated people to the countryside in order to move them closer to vital food supplies. An alternative
argument suggests that the towns, and Phnom Penh in particular, provided a source of class conflict and
privilege; therefore, the evacuation took place for ideological reasons. Whatever the primary motive, the
reality was that it proved to be a cold, ruthless action taken to consolidate Pol Pots power. About two
million people were forced into the countryside and many lives were lost in the process.
Once the cities and towns had been placed firmly under the control of the Khmer Rouge, the next
step was to expand their domination across rural Cambodia. From April 1975, the country was divided
into six zones: a special zone around Phnom Penh, an Eastern zone, the North, North-East, North-West,
and the South-West. The power of the Khmer Rouge was therefore extended and consolidated.
Source 14.8
Source 14.9
The evacuees found themselves in a strange land.

Everything they counted on to sustain them was abolished,
forbidden, or broken up. Money, status, employment,
education, possessions, and influence meant nothing.
Few of them knew how to cope with rural life. The villages
they moved through were often hostile to them. The
young soldiers prodding them along were unfriendly and
dicult to bribe. They said that everyone must obey the
Organisation, but not one of them was able to define what
it was.
Several other DK practices were put in place. These

included long working hours for everyone (known as
following the sun), rejection of Western-style medicine, an
abolition of play, and the imposition of a new vocabulary
that dismantled hierarchical pronouns, resurrected
supposedly peasant language, and imposed an almost
syrupy politeness on demand. People taken o to be killed,
for example, were asked to help us collect fruit or to come
with us for further study. The ethical focus of the cadre and
the chhlop, their literalmindedness, and the infallibility of
the Organisation came as a surprise to many, accustomed
as they were to prerevolutionary norms. Definitions of
communally owned property, for example, in some places
came to include wild berries and edible roots. People with
glasses were assumed to be capitalists, as were those
with pale skin and soft hands. Women were forbidden to
wear their hair long, to put on jewellery, or have their shirts
unbuttoned, even at the neck. Any behaviour deemed (by
intellectuals) not to coincide with that of poor peasants
before the revolution was proscribed.
Nobody knew what would happen next. Some of the

evacuees were allowed to rest for days at a time in villages
and forage for themselves; others made to push along,
regardless of hardship. Some voyages took a few days,
others as long as two months. Some refugees settled in
villages where they were known and had relatives; others
were told by their relatives to move on; still others were
parked in faraway villages where they knew no one. In
remote, malarial areas of Pursat, for example, April 17
people were made to build new villages from scratch,
using unfamiliar tools and local timber, thatching, and
bamboo. Some remember cadres at this early stage
roughly through the remainder of 1975as being cruel
and doctrinaire. Others remember instances of kindness
and understanding. Still others cite examples of austere,
literal, and lunatic dedication to the revolutionary cause,
random executions, sadism toward women and old people,
and so on.
D. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1991, p. 254.
Working hours exceeded those that most Cambodians

had ever known, except in the busiest seasons of the
agricultural year. In many areas, particularly the northwest,
work in the fields began before sunrise and ended long
after dark, with only short breaks in between. More arduous
work, such as that on irrigation canals, occupied fewer
hours per day, but was so exhausting that one survivor has
recalled coming home on all fours. The work was made
easier, the party claimed, by the singing of revolutionary
songs, intoned in unison by work crews while marching to
work sites and performing agricultural tasks.
D. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1991, p. 259.
Read the extracts from David Chandlers book The Tragedy of Cambodian History in
Sources 14.8 and 14.9 and answer the questions below.
1 Describe in your own words the experiences of some of those who were forced
from the cities into the countryside.
2 List the changes in daily life that occurred under Pol Pots regime.
1 When did Pol Pot take power in Cambodia?
2 What were the key parts of Pol Pots bid to transform the country?
3 According to Ben Kiernan, what was one of the key factors that helped Pol Pot attain
power?
4 What is the difference between Kiernans and Chandlers view of the basic elements
of Pol Pots regime?
5 What were the consequences of the ideas Build the country and Defend the
country?
6 To what did the term Angka refer?
WAR WITH VIETNAM

The Khmer Rouge and its leaders, such as Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan, hated the Vietnamese
and resented what they saw as the betrayal of the communist cause in Cambodia by the Viet Minh and
the Indochina Communist Party at the time of the Geneva Conference in 1954. This legacy of hostility
played an important role in influencing the nature of Pol Pots regime and events between 1975 and 1979.
Pol Pot wanted the Vietnamese out of the sanctuaries that they had occupied in eastern Cambodia.
The Cambodians also had a fear that Vietnam might attempt to create some kind of Indochinese
federation, with Vietnam at the head. These attitudes and racial hostility led to clashes between the two
countries in 1977. Cambodian actions prompted the Vietnamese to invade. Their plan was to remove
Pol Pot and replace his government with a communist regime more sympathetic to Hanoi. Once the
invasion began, it only took 17 days for the Vietnamese to overrun the Cambodian forces. Pol Pot fled to
western Cambodia. The Vietnamese installed Heng Samrin as the new leader of Cambodia and the new
government became known as the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea, replacing Pol Pots Democratic
Republic of Kampuchea.
Communist China had supported the Pol Pot regime. When it launched a short sharp attack on
Vietnam in 1979, it appeared as though China wanted to teach the Vietnamese a lesson and reaffirm
Chinas dominant status in the region.
1 When and why did Cambodia and Vietnam fight?
2 What was the result of Vietnams invasion of Cambodia?
3 When and why did China attack Vietnam?
THE RESULTS OF THE YEARS OF WAR IN INDOCHINA

There were three Indochina Wars: the first to remove the French; the second, the North Vietnamese
campaign to unify the country; and third, the clashes between Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. All three
wars saw massive loss of life and social and economic dislocation within the region. The period marked
the end of western imperialism and forced the USA to acknowledge that there were limits, even as a
superpower, to its capacity to determine the fate of other nations.
A study of the region and the time provides important lessons about communism and nationalism.
Communism is not a monolithic or uniform ideology that directs and determines the actions of all its
adherents in the same way. Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Chinese communists all displayed
very different points of view and even went to war with one another. The years of war were initially
prompted by a desire for national self-determination, but were then maintained by traditional and
long-standing ethnic and cultural animosities. The Indochina region now has self-determination, but it
struggles with the burdens and challenges of economic development, burdens and challenges made
all the more difficult by the price that the region has had to pay.

HO CHI MINH 18901969
Introduction
Ho Chi Minh was a great and inspiring revolutionary leader. He was also a mysterious and
complex figure. Ho led his country through the first difficult stages of its bid for independence.
Although he did not live to see final unification and independence, Ho was willing to attempt
what might have appeared to be the impossible. Initially Ho challenged the French, one of
Europes great colonial powers. Then he inspired his people sufficiently to wage a war of national
liberation and self determination against the United States, greatest economic and military
power on earth. Until recently historians have found it difficult to form a clear view of Ho as a
leader and a man. There have been three reasons for this difficulty:
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secretive about many of the details his early life and
political career.
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archival and resource material has become available to
historians.
There can be little doubt about Hos place in the history

of his own country. Beyond that, however, his inspired
leadership in Vietnams struggle for independence marks
him as a major figure in the history of both South East
Asia and the post-colonial period. In 1998 Ho Chi Minh
was included in a list of the one hundred most influential
people of the twentieth century prepared by the American
publication Time magazine.
Debates about Ho are associated not so much with his
achievements, but with his methods and motivations. William
Duiker in his biography of Ho simply titled Ho Chi Minh
published in 2000 wrote that Ho remains one of the most
mysterious of men, a shadowy figure whose motives and
record have long aroused controversy (Duiker 2000, p. 3).
Figure 14.34 Until his death in 1969, Ho Chi Minh provided

inspiring leadership in North Vietnams struggle against the military
might of the USA.
Personality Profile: Ho Chi Minh
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separate from attitudes to the conflict in Indochina.
The questions that surround Hos motives and methods are:

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and manipulative politician?
Historical context
Ho Chi Mins life and career reflected the historical context of his age because Hos story and the forces
that influenced so much of the twentieth century were mixed. The great motivating forces of the
twentieth century were:
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government and rule themselves, free from outside interference. Ho was a Vietnamese nationalist.
He was part of the struggle to free Vietnam from outside interference.
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things. Ho believed in the need for revolutionary change and therefore he became a communist
because, communism taught the arts of revolution.
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the Vietnamese people had been exploited.
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while they were ruled by foreigners.
Ho witnessed or was part of many of the great episodes of twentieth century history. He attended
the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1920 he was one of the founding members of the French
Communist Party. Ho attended the Fourth Conference of the Communist International, known as the
Comintern, in Moscow in 1922. He went on to become a representative of the Comintern in South East
Asia. In 1930, when known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, Ho established the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP).
During the Second World War, Ho saw Frances defeat by Germany in 1940 and the Japanese invasion of
Indochina as the time to begin organising in earnest for, what Ho hoped would be the final stages of the
Vietnamese struggle for independence. In 1941 Ho returned to Vietnam and began to work closely with
Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong. With Japans surrender in 1945 Ho proclaimed the Independent
Republic of Vietnam. The French, however, with the support of the United States set about re-establishing
their control over Indochina. This led to the First Indochina war. When that conflict ended Ho became
committed to the unification of the North and South Vietnam on his terms that this led to the Second
Indochina War and conflict with the United States, a supporter of South Vietnam.
TA SK
Vo Nguyen Giap, the great military commander and Pham Van Dong, the skilled diplomat and
bureaucrat worked with Ho. Use the library and the internet to prepare brief biographies of each of
these men. Pay particular attention to their relations with Ho and use them as a means to measure
Hos contribution to the Vietnamese cause.
Start a class discussion or debate:
Was Ho more or less important than Giap or Pham Van Dong?
Was Giap the real hero of the Vietnamese triumph?
Background
Ho Chi Minh, or he who enlightens, was not Hos real name. He was born Nguyen Sinh Cung on
19 May 1890. During his adolescence, as was the tradition in Vietnam, Ho was given a new name,
Nguyen Tat Thanh. Ho was also known at other times as Nguyen Ali Quoc, a pseudonym that he
used for thirty years. The use of so many names added to the mystery that has surrounded Ho.
The point also needs to be made that much of this mystery and confusion was due to the fact
that, with a few exceptions, Westerners failed to understand the cultural patterns of South East Asia. In
other words the Euro-centric values that caused American and Australian politicians and their so-called
experts to misunderstand the nature of the war that they plunged into in Indochina was linked to
misunderstandings about Ho. Nevertheless it must be said that Ho added to this sense of mystery. For
example for many years, Ho tried to hide the fact that the man the world knew in 1945 as Ho Chi Minh,
was in fact Nguyen Ai Quoc, the founder of the Indochinese Communist Party.
Ho was the youngest of three children and grew up in a small village in central Vietnam. Hos father
had been a minor government official of peasant origins. He was, however, a determined nationalist
and gave up his government job to become a teacher. Many of Hos beliefs stemmed from the
influence and example of his father.
As Ho grew, he followed his father briefly into teaching, but gradually became more and more
politically active and took part in a series of tax revolts against the French colonial government.
Rise to prominence
Hos rise to prominence began when he left Vietnam in 1911. He declared that he would not return
to his homeland while the French ruled. Ho did not return for 30 years. His travels took him to the
United States, Africa, China and Europe. Much of what he saw confirmed his opposition to colonialism.
Between 1919 and 1923, while living in France, Ho became deeply involved with other Vietnamese
nationalists and with French socialists and communists. This led directly to Hos particular blend of
nationalist and communist ideas.
During the 1920s and 1930s, on different occasions Ho spent time in various parts of China, where
he was involved with both the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists.
Ho had two stays in the United States, the first between 1912 and 1913 and the second in 1917 and
1918, when Ho lived Boston and New York. Ho was in France in 1919 and attended the Paris Peace
Conference. He made an unsuccessful attempt to gain a meeting with the American president
Woodrow Wilson. By this stage Ho had risen to become one of the leading figures in the Vietnamese
nationalist movement. Ho wanted to put the case for Vietnamese independence to Wilson. Ho believed
that Wilsons claim to support national self determination contained in the famous Fourteen Points
should apply to Asia as well as Europe. Ho and the American president however did not meet. It is
unlikely that Wilson would have done anything to help the Vietnamese nationalist cause, but this is
just another example of how on a number of occasions Ho reached out to the United States. It would
happen again years later when he requested the support of the United States and used the language
of the US Declaration of Independence when he declared Vietnamese independence in 1945.
Ho and the USA

Ho was clearly attracted to communism because of its claim to oppose imperialism and colonial
empires such as the one France had established in Indochina. He proved to be a leader with the vision,
passion, and skill to harness the potential of Vietnams peasants in the fight against foreign rule.
The formation of Hos ideology

During his time in France, Ho read Lenins Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions, which had
been delivered to the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920. It claimed that only
socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations. Hos exposure to Lenins communist
ideas was a revelation, confirming much of Hos personal experience. In Hos mind, Lenins ideas linked
the evils of capitalism and the exploitation of the workers, with colonialism and the exploitation of
Vietnam by the French. Ho developed his own thinking and blended the concepts of:
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The combination of these three ideas became the foundation of Hos ideology. In 1923 and 1924 he
lived in Moscow and studied methods for organising a revolution.
By 1930 the Communist Party of Vietnam had adopted a party platform based on ten aims,
expressed as the following slogans:
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control of the workerpeasant government
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reactionary capitalist class and distribute them to poor peasants
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Role and impact as a revolutionary and war leader

it would be wrong to argue that Vietnam would not have gained its independence without Ho Chi Minh,
but it is fair to say that Ho influenced both the timing and the nature of the ultimate triumph of Vietnamese
independence and unification. Ho was after all the founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the
President of North Vietnam. He was the principal architect of strategy during the wars for independence
and he was a good organiser and a great leader. When all of these factors are combined with Hos role as a
charismatic symbol of the cause, it is difficult to imagine the Vietnamese revolution without him. It was Ho
who made the first audacious Vietnamese Declaration of Independence on 2 September 1945. It was Ho
who refused to accept the return to French colonial rule and instigated the First Indochina War. Ho, with
the support of Communist China, organised a drawn out guerrilla campaign against the French. His plan
was to simply make it too costly for the French to remain in Indochina. The dramatic victory of Viet Minh
forces at Dien Bien Phu in September 1954 prompted a surrender of the French garrison and the beginning
of negotiations to end colonial rule. The Geneva Conference followed and Vietnam was to be temporality
divided into North and South. As the time for the proposed elections to re-unify the country came and
went the country began to slide from 1959 into what has been called the Second Indochina War. Strong
American support for the governments of South Vietnam under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
saw Ho lead his people in a war against their most powerful enemy. Ho never saw the end to that conflict
but he did put in place the political structures and the sense of discipline, while developing the future
leaders that would ensure victory. Above all Hos leadership was marked by the politics of the possible.
He was pragmatic. Ho accepted compromise when that was the best option, as he had done in 1954. Ho
Chi Minh was a master communicator and manipulator. He was careful in the cultivation of his image as
the simple man of the people and exploited it to serve the revolutionary cause. Even though historians
continue to debate the role and status of Ho Chi Minh in the history of Indochina, the fact remains he will
be seen as one of the twentieth centurys great revolutionary leaders.
TA SK
Was Ho a communist or a nationalist?
Although it is widely acknowledged that Ho Chi Minh was both a communist and a nationalist, this
task requires you to evaluate a series of arguments that address the question: Was Ho more a
nationalist or more a communist leader?
Use the arguments set out below, library resources, and the internet for further research. Following
class discussion add further arguments before preparing an essay in response to the question:
Was Ho a Communist or a Nationalist?
MORE A COMMUNIST
MORE A NATIONALIST
Ho was in reality a communist, and he only used nationalism to further

his real communist goals.
The reality was that Ho was a true nationalist, and only used
communism to help his main nationalist goals.
It was a typical communist tactic to use nationalist sentiments to help

spread communism. In 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had called
for communists to join wars of national self-determination.
Ho did use communism, but there is no evidence that he put the

interests of other communist countries above those of Vietnam.
Vietnamese nationalism always came first. When Ho established the
Viet Minh as a nationalist movement, it replaced the Indochinese
Communist Party.
During his purification process Ho had imposed major hardships on the

North Vietnamese people in the name of communist ideology.
As a good communist, Ho accepted pressure from the USSR and
communist China to accept the division of Vietnam in 1954.
Towards the end of his life Ho pleaded with fellow communists, the
Russians and the Chinese, to end their split for the good of international
communism.
Ho accepted the division of Vietnam in 1954 because he thought that it

would be temporary, and because at that time the North was not strong
enough to act alone, not because he was following some international
communist policy.
When in 1957 the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev suggested that both
North and South Vietnam be admitted to the UN, acknowledging to a
degree the permanent status of the division, Ho opposed the idea.
When President Nixon and Henry Kissinger tried to win favour with
the USSR and Communist China, hoping that they would put pressure
on Ho as a fellow communist and end the war, the plan failed. Ho put
Vietnamese nationalist interests above communist solidarity.
As you read the arguments set out below, be mindful of the fact that in his last testament first drafted
in 1965 and then amended in 1968 and 1969, Ho claimed that nationalism and socialism were equally
important to him. At the same time he reaffirmed his loyalty and devotion to the Communist Party.
References
Addington L. H., Americas War in Vietnam, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2000
Chandler D. P., The Tragedy of Cambodian History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1991
Dallek R., Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998
Duiker W. J., Ho Chi Minh, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000
Herring G. C., Americas Longest War, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1996
Kaiser D., American Tragedy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2000
Kiernan B., The Pol Pot Regime, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002
Kolko G., Anatomy of War, Phoenix Press, London, 2001
Lewy G., America in Vietnam, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980
Lind M., Vietnam: The Necessary War, Touchstone, New York, 2002
Maclear M., The Ten Thousand Day War, Avon, New York 1981
McMaster H. R., Dereliction of Duty, Harper Perennial, New York, 1997
McNamara R. S., Argument Without End, Public Affairs, New York, 1999
Newman J. M., JFK and Vietnam, Warner Books, New York, 1992
Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars 19501975, University of North Carolina Press, 2000
Schulzinger R. D., A Time For War, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, 1998
Westad, O. A., The Global Cold War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007
Young M. B., The Vietnam Wars, Harper Perennial, New York, 1991
CONFLICT IN EUROPE
19351945

AND CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION
In many respects, the conflict in Europe, or the European part of the Second World
War, was in fact a resumption of the Great War (First World War) of 1914 to 1918
and it cannot be properly understood without reference to the earlier conflict.
The war was caused primarily by Germanys desire to revise the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles.
15
According to the famous British military historian John Keegan

(1997, p. 1), the Second World War, in its origins, nature and
course, is inexplicable except by reference to the First. The
historian A. J. P. Taylor called it a repeat performance. Another
military historian, Correlli Barnett (1970, p. 424), wrote that
these wars were two episodes of the same great conflict,
and the same fundamental strategic pattern unfolded itself in
both. Keegans and Barnetts assessment of the war has been
supported by other scholars, including Williamson Murray
and Allan Millett (2001, p. 19) who maintained that the
continuities between 1918 and 1939 are striking.
There were, however, some differences between the
two wars:
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Figure 15.1 Hitler reviewing German troops in Warsaw, October 1939
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Aside from the racist ideological element, the focus on the
differences between the wars is often misleading due to the
fact that many military histories are written from the British
and American perspective, in which operations such as the

Battle of Britain, El Alamein and D-Day are emphasised at the
expense of the fate of civilians in Eastern Europe, the Russian
campaign and the vital role played by the Soviet Red Army.
The reality is that the war in Europe from 1939 to 1945
and the First World War offer striking comparisons:
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REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 What, in your view, is the most significant
point of contrast or difference between the
First and Second World Wars in Europe?
Explain your choice.
2 Why have some historians overemphasised
the differences between the First and Second
World Wars?
3 What, in your view, is the most significant
point of comparison or similarity between the
First and Second World Wars in Europe?
Explain your choice.
Timeline
1922
1933
1935
Benito Mussolini, Europes first fascist dictator, comes to power in Italy.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party come to power in Germany. Hitler declares that he will undo
the Treaty of Versailles and restore Germany to its place as a major European power.
March
September
October
1936
March
July
October
November
1937
1938
Hitler announces that Germany will begin to rearm in defiance of the limits imposed on the
size of the German military by the Treaty of Versailles.
The Nuremberg Laws are passed in Germany and deprive Jews of German citizenship.
Italy invades Abyssinia and defies the League of Nations.
The German army occupies the Rhineland on Hitlers orders. According to the conditions
of the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland was meant to be a demilitarised buffer zone
between France and Germany. Britain and France take no action.
The Spanish Civil War begins. Both the German and Italian governments provide military
aid to the fascist General Franco. The war is used by Hitler and Mussolini to test some of
their new weapons.
Italy and then Japan sign diplomatic agreements with Hitler. This was the beginning of the
Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo axis that became known by 1937 as the Axis Alliance.
November
At the Hossbach conference, Hitler holds a high-level meeting to set out plans for the
occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
March
Anschluss with Austria: Hitler again successfully defies the Treaty of Versailles when the
German army marches peacefully into Austria and makes it part of the German Reich.
The Sudetenland crisis: Hitler falsely claims that Germans living in the Sudetenland, a
part of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia, are being victimised by the Czech
government and threatens war. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, intervenes
and, at the Munich conference, the Sudetenland becomes part of Germany. This is the
most well-known aspect of the appeasement policy.
September
Conflict in Europe 19351945 | 547
1939
January
March
August
September
1940
January
April
May
June
August
September
1941
February
June
September
December
1942
January
August
October
November
November
1943
May
July
September
1944
May
June
September
December
Germany takes the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Following the gains made at the Munich
conference and, breaking promises regarding the security of the rest of Czechoslovakia,
Hitler orders the German army to invade. The British and French protest but do not act.
Britain and France promise to support Poland in case of attack. The British and French
finally appear to be ready to take action in the face of repeated aggression by Germany
but there is little that they can actually do to help Poland.
NaziSoviet Non-Aggression Pact: Hitler and Stalin sign a non-aggression pact that
removes the immediate threat of a war on two fronts for Germany and paves the way for
the invasion of Poland.
The German army attacks Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on
Germany on 3 September after an ultimatum demands the withdrawal of German forces
from Poland. The Second World War begins. Poland surrenders on 27 September after
coming under attack from both Germany and the Soviet Union.
In Britain food rationing of butter, bacon and sugar begins.
Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
Germany invades Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Winston Churchill replaces
Chamberlain as Britains prime minister.
Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British army from the Channel port of Dunkirk, is
completed, following the success of the German Blitzkrieg. Mussolini enters the war on
Germanys side on 10 June. France surrenders on 22 June.
The Battle of Britain, the planned destruction of Britains Royal Air Force (RAF) as a
prelude to Operation Sealion, the German invasion of Britain, begins and continues until
September when plans for an invasion are postponed.
The Blitz, the German bombing of London and other major British cities, begins.
The Germans provide troops to support the Italians against the British in North Africa and
General Erwin Rommel is given command of the German Afrika Korps.
The beginning of the Russian campaign, Operation Barbarossa, as Germany attacks the
Soviet Union.
The siege of Leningrad begins and does not end until January 1944.
The United States of America enters the Second World War, following the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, and Hitler declares war on the USA.
The Holocaust: Plans for a Final Solution to the Jewish problem are drawn up at the
Wannsee conference.
The Battle of Stalingrad begins. The first German bid to take Stalingrad is launched but the
Germans are forced back from the city by the end of the year and the German 6th Army is
forced to surrender in early 1943.
Battle of El Alamein results in a major victory for Britains General Montgomery and the 8th
Army against the German Afrika Korps.
Operation Torch, a landing of mainly American forces takes place on the west coast of
North Africa.
The German army in North Africa is finally defeated by combined British and American
forces in May.
The Allied invasion of Sicily begins on 10 July. The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in
history, between the Germans and the Soviet Red Army takes place on the Eastern Front.
The Allied invasion of Italy begins.
The Soviet Red Army drives the Germans out of the Crimea.
D-Day, the Allied invasion of France with landings along the Normandy coast begins on
6 June. German V-1 missile attacks on London begin on 13 June. These attacks are
followed in September by attacks by the larger V-2 rockets.
The Soviet Red Army continues its advance and crosses into Bulgaria.
The Battle of the Bulge, a brief and failed German attempt to halt the advance of Allied
armies in the west, begins on 16 December.
1945
March
April
May
November
Allied forces in the west cross the Rhine into Germany on 7 March.
The Soviet Red Army captures Vienna. Hitler commits suicide on 30 April.
The Soviet Red Army captures Berlin on 2 May. Germany surrenders on 7 May, and 8 May
is declared VE Day (Victory in Europe Day).
Nuremberg war crimes trials and the prosecution of leading Nazis begins on 10 November.
Timeline exercise 1
List A
List B
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Timeline exercise 2
Put the following events in chronological order
s %NDOFTHESIEGEOF,ENINGRAD
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THE GROWTH OF EUROPEAN TENSIONS

Any discussion of the growth in European tensions from
1935 onwards, and the causes of the conflict in Europe,
must begin with the British historian A. J. P. Taylor. In 1961,
Taylor published his controversial Origins of the Second
World War. In it, he challenged what had been the generally
accepted view that (1) Hitler had carefully planned each
of the steps that led to war and (2) the British and French
leaders had done nothing to stop himthe group known
as the appeasers, led by the British prime minister, Neville
Chamberlain, had been near-sighted fools.
Taylor argued that, rather than having a blueprint for
war, Hitler had been an opportunist. According to Taylor, the
course of events from 1935 to 1939 had more to do with
the political situation in Europe and the reactions of other
national leaders to Hitlers speeches, pressure and threats,
than to any detailed Nazi plan.
Taylor shifted the focus from the Second World War being
just Hitlers war, and identified these lines of continuity in the
foreign policies adopted by Germany, Italy and Russia:
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According to the historian Paul Kennedy, even though
in 1961 Taylor did not have at his disposal important
documents that became available in 1967, many of Taylors
judgements or hunches have stood the test of time (Martel
1986, p. 140). Kennedy (1988, p. 392) backs Taylors ideas that
early Nazi foreign policy certainly represented a continuity
with past ambitions of German nationalists and the
armed forces. Kennedy does, however, express reservations
about Taylors treatment of Prime Minister Chamberlain and
the policy of appeasement. Allan Bullock and others have
criticised Taylor for neglecting Mein Kampf, the book written
by Hitler in the 1920s. Although Bullock accepts that Hitler
did act like an opportunist, he claims that it is important to
ICELAND
SWEDEN
FINLAND
NORWAY
B A LT I C
N O R T H
A T L A N T I C
LATVIA
Memel
(free city) LITHUANIA
DENMARK
BRITAIN
O C E A N
EIRE
EAST
PRUSSIA
NETHERLANDS
Danzig
(free city)
GERMANY
BELGIUM
LUXEMBOURG
SAAR
SWITZERLAND
FRANCE
ITALY
SPAIN
RUSSIA
POLAND
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
AUSTRIA HUNGARY
ROMANIA
Fiume (free city)
YUGOSLAVIA
N
PORTUGAL
ESTONIA
S E A
S E A
BULGARIA
200
400
600
800 1000 km
Figure 15.2 Europe after the First World War
S E A
ALBANIA
GREECE
0
B L AC K
S E A
TURKEY
note the difference between Hitlers ultimate objective, the racist empire in the east, and the tactics by
which this was to be achieved (1993, p. 688).
More recently, another historian, Ian Kershaw (2001), has emphasised Hitlers commitment to the
two ideological purposes that contributed to war in 1939: first, destruction of the Jews, a race that
Hitler regarded as Germanys mortal enemy, and, second, the control of Europe. According to Kershaw,
Hitlers interlocking aims were based on a world view dominated by the concept of racial struggle as a
key determinant of history.
Not all of Taylors and Kershaws ideas are incompatible. Kershaw and the German historian Joachim
Fest (1974), Hitlers greatest biographer, both acknowledge Hitlers artistic temperament. He was an
individual with grand plans and great visions and was not the kind of politician to plan the path to war
step by step. Hitlers temperament, therefore, was in accord with Taylors view that he was an opportunist.
Hitler knew what he wanted to achieve but this did not mean that his actions had to be methodical.
The key difference between the views of Taylor and those of his critics relates to matters of
ideology. Was Hitlers foreign policy driven by his particular brand of Nazi racist ideology, or was he an
opportunist and his foreign policy the continuation of long-established German objectives?
It wasnt just Hitlers war. Hitler and all the leaders of Europe in the 1930s were products of their
times. John Keegan (1997, p. 3) referred to the militarisation of Europe and linked it to nineteenthcentury nationalism and the economic revolution. Hitler, Mussolini and others, according to Keegan,
had embraced a military ethicthe idea that personal and national greatness was linked to war.
In discussing Britain and Frances policy of appeasement and its failure to stop Hitler, Martin Gilbert
has pointed out that appeasement was not a product of the 1930s alone. Nor was it the product of
Neville Chamberlains imagination. According to Gilbert (1966, p. xi), appeasement as a feature of British
foreign policy dated to 1919 and even earlier. Even though individual leaders and their personalities
played a part in the causes of the conflict, it would be wrong to view aggression solely in terms of Hitler
and appeasement solely in terms of Chamberlain.
1 What generally accepted views did Taylor challenge?
2 What were the lines of continuity identified by Taylor in German, Italian and Russian
foreign policy?
3 What is Bullocks key criticism of Taylor?
4 What were Hitlers two ideological purposes, according to Kershaw?
5 What is the key difference between Taylors views and those expressed by his critics?
6 Why do we need to look further than the personalities of Hitler or Chamberlain when
considering the causes of the conflict?
Debates about the origins of the war continue to rage. Was it Hitlers War arising from Nazi ideology,
or was Hitler simply pursuing traditional German foreign policy objectives? Did Hitler plan each of the
steps to war, or was he an opportunist? Was the war the product of appeasement? Was it, as Churchill
wrote, the unnecessary war, one that could have been easily avoided? Was it due to the failure of the
victors of the First World War to find a better peace settlement at Versailles? Could the League of Nations,
established at the end of the First World War for international cooperation, have succeeded?
Source 15.1
Source 15.2
The following extract was written in 1973 by the German

historian Joachim Fest.
The following extract was written in 2001 by the American historians

Murray and Millett.
In regard to the Second World War there can be

no question about whose was the guilt. Hitlers
conduct throughout the crisis, his highhandedness,
his urge to bring things to a head and plunge into
catastrophe, so shaped events that any wish to
compromise on the part of the Western powers was
bound to come to nothing. Who caused the war is
a question that cannot be seriously raised. Hitlers
policy during the preceding years, in the strict
sense his entire career, was orientated toward war.
Without war his actions would have lacked goal and
consistency, and Hitler would not have been the man
he was.
The rise of Nazi Germany represented a threat to the survival of

Western civilization. Yet the shadow of World War Is slaughter
exercised a powerful influence over statesmen guiding Western
policy. On one hand, their analysis of the intentions and aims of
the Third Reich minimized the threat of Nazi ideology. On the other
hand, from 1935 to 1938 their military advisers wildly exaggerated
Germanys capabilities on the battlefield, a misjudgement
that undermined Allied confidence and buttressed a policy of
appeasement. But in 1939, when British armed forces received
substantially greater funding, British military advisers became
more optimistic. There is some irony in this change of mood,
because before 1939 the German military did not possess the
capability to break out from the Reichs constrained position. But
1939 was the year when the Wehrmacht gained significant benefit
from its massive rearmament, as well as the looting of Austria and
Czechoslovakia. Allied policy, pressed by inflamed anti-Nazi public
opinion, could not avoid the implications of the Nazi seizure of
Prague. Thus, in unfavourable circumstances the Western powers
took a stand over Poland. While the outbreak of World War II was
a direct result of Hitlers aggressive policies, the date on which it
began reflected as well the choices and mistakes made by Western
statesmen, military leaders, and diplomats. The long road to 1
September 1939 was paved with good intentions, but in a world
of Hitlers and Stalins, good intentions were not enough. Now only
cold steel and the battlefield could defend the interests and hopes
of Western nations.
He said that war was the ultimate goal of politics.

That sentence must be taken as one of the key
premises of his world view. In many passages in his
writings, speeches, and conversations he repeatedly
developed the underlying train of thought: the aim
of politics was to guarantee a peoples Lebensraum;
the requisite living space had from time immemorial
been conquered and held only by struggle;
consequently, politics was a kind of permanent
warfare, and armed conflict was only its actualization
and maximum intensification. War was, as Hitler
formulated it, the strongest and most classic
manifestation of politics and indeed of life itself.
J. Fest, Hitler, Penguin, London, 1974, p. 607.
W. Murray & A. Millett, A War to Be Won, Belknap Press/Harvard

University Press, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 1617.
1 Who does Fest blame for the war? What is his view of the chances for compromise
with Hitler?
2 According to Fest, what was Hitlers view of the place of war in life?
3 In your view, what position would Fest take in the debates about the origins of the
conflict in Europe in 1939?
1 What role did memories of the First World War and fear of another war play in
causing the conflict?
2 What is Murray and Milletts view about appeasement or what they call good
intentions?
3 In your view, what position would Murray and Millett take in the debates about the
origins of the conflict in Europe in 1939?
Regardless of which version of history or theory you choose to accept, in terms of international
relations, both Britain and France needed to be more aware of the dramatic shift taking place in the
balance of real power in Europe. The appeasers are often defended by those who point out that, at first,
Hitlers demands were reasonable and it was difficult to recognise that appeasement would lead to
war. Between 1933 and 1938, however, as Hitler steadily rearmed, the British and French continued to
disarm and France locked itself into a series of alliances with minor Eastern European powers such as
Czechoslovakia. France also based its foreign policy on a dependence on Britain and the false collective
security of the League of Nations. Professor Henry Kissinger, a former American secretary of state and an
academic who specialised in international relations, wrote that the leaders of the democracies needed
to acknowledge that once Germany had rearmed, the growth of German military strength was bound
to overturn the equilibrium unless it was either stopped or balanced (1995, p. 295). In other words, it
didnt matter what Hitlers goals might have been. If Germany was allowed to rearm, its population and
its economic and industrial potential would mean that it could and, in all probability would, challenge
the status quo and perhaps the peace of Europe.
DICTATORSHIPS IN GERMANY AND ITALY

The European conflict that broke out with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 was
linked to the grievances expressed by the dictators Hitler and Mussolini about the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles. Hitler had created a political persona around his avowed mission to rescue the German
people from the shame of defeat in the First World War and to free Germany from the restrictions
imposed by the treaty. In Mein Kampf, he wrote that Germany would either be a world power or there
would be no Germany. Also, Hitler had spoken often of how this mission could only be accomplished
by the sword. Hitlers ideas were applauded by German military leaders because, whether or not his
ideas were acted upon, they still required an expansion of the armed forces.
The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, or Il Duce (the leader) as he was known to his followers,
pledged to restore Italy to its former imperial glory. This meant that Mussolini set about building a new
Roman or Italian empire and in 1935 he defied the League of Nations and invaded Abyssinia in North
Africa. Mussolini had repeatedly complained that Italy had been short-changed by the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles and that the Italian people deserved more.
In Europe in 1935, therefore, the democracies of Britain and France stood on one side hoping
to maintain the terms of the Versailles settlement and on the other stood the dictators, Hitler and
Mussolini, who were determined to destroy the status quo. This situation was clearly reflected in
Gathering Storm, the famous first volume of Winston Churchills history of the Second World War.
Churchill wrote that in 1935 Hitler was ready to make his first open challenge to the Versailles
settlement and announced the creation of a German air force and the expansion of the German army
beyond the limit of 100 000 imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. On almost the same day, Mussolini
began to move against Abyssinia. Previously the dictators challenges had been easy for the democratic
powers to ignore because, according to Churchill, they had taken the form of evasions or calling things
by other names. In 1935, however, there was an open affront to the treaties of peace upon which the
League of Nations was founded (1964, p. 117). The greatest single advantage for the dictators was the
fact that the democratic powers memories of the horrors of the First World War meant that their fear of
another war outweighed the desire to protect the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany had the potential to be a great power. Despite the
Versailles settlement, Germany still had the population and overall economic strength to dominate
Europe. By 1938 Hitler had managed to harness that potential. In fact, in 1938 Germany spent more
on weapons than Britain, France and the United States of America combined. Although formidable,
Germany was not as strong in 1938 or 1939 as the democracies feared, for the following reasons.
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Hitler intended to make up for any shortages, especially of raw materials, by conquest.
By contrast, the Italian economy could not meet the demands generated by Mussolinis ambitions.
Despite a vigorous program of modernisation, the Italian economy could not sustain the effort required
by a major war because:
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An awareness of Italys economic vulnerability is likely to have influenced Mussolinis caution in
declaring war. Italy did not enter the conflict in Europe until the defeat of France was certain. During
the war, Italy proved to be a liability rather than an asset to Germany. The poor performance of the
Italian military in the Second World War was due in part to the fact that the army, which would
shoulder the major burden of the war, had been neglected because Mussolini had devoted the bulk of
his defence spending to his showpiece navy and to the air force, where the money was not always well
spent. In addition, Italy lacked modern tanks, anti-aircraft guns, an aircraft carrier, radar and a modern,
fast fighter plane. Italy was also economically backward.
1 What was the attitude of the dictators Hitler and Mussolini to the Treaty of Versailles
and what were their aims?
2 What was the attitude of Britain and France to the Treaty of Versailles?
3 According to Winston Churchill, why was 1935 a critical year?
4 What were the strengths and weaknesses of the German economy just before the
Second World War?
5 What was the state of the Italian economy just before the Second World War?
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE COLLAPSE OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY

From the time of Americas refusal to join the League of Nations, the league was doomed to failure. It
was also based upon the utterly unrealistic premise that nations would give up their sovereignty and
right to make foreign-policy decisions and turn aspects of that decision-making power over to an
international body. Hence, collective security, the idea that members of the league would act together
to guarantee the safety or security of member states also was unrealistic. This failure was evident when
Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
In 1935, Mussolini set about building his Italian empire and invaded Abyssinia. In theory, the league
and collective security should have acted. Abyssinia was, after all, a member of the league. However,
political reality and the national self-interest of individual countries intervened. At the start of the year,
Britain and France had hoped to make an ally of Mussolini. German rearmament and Hitlers wellpublicised desire to further defy the league and take over Austria appeared to worry Mussolini and this
drew him temporarily into agreement with Britain and France. The three nations met at Stresa in April
1935 and announced a united front against German rearmament. There was talk of economic sanctions
against Germany but, despite British and French hopes, the Stresa Front, as it became known, was little
more than show. At the time, however, the hopes of the British and French of retaining Mussolini as an
ally and as a potential defender of the Versailles settlement was more important to them than support
for collective security and the fate of a distant North African country. Therefore, when Mussolini moved
against Abyssinia, the British and French were indecisive because:
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Despite the assessments of diplomats and politicians, public opinion in Britain and France
demanded some kind of action against Italy. The result was a series of ineffectual economic sanctions
imposed through the league. In turn, Mussolini and Hitler came to their own understanding because
Germany provided Italy with vital raw materials. The growing bond between the dictators and their
cooperation with the side of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War turned, in 1936, into the
Axis Alliance.
Between 1935 and 1937, the diplomatic situation increasingly appeared to favour the dictators.
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It was becoming clear to the democratic powers and the dictators alike that collective security
was a cause of shame and from this time the league slipped into irrelevance. It was in this diplomatic
environment in May 1937 that Neville Chamberlain became Britains prime minister, replacing
Stanley Baldwin.
1 What was collective security?
2 Why were the League of Nations and collective security doomed to failure?
3 Why didnt the British and the French wholeheartedly back the league and collective
security against Italy in 1935 after the invasion of Abyssinia?
4 Why had the diplomatic situation begun to favour the dictators from 1935 to 1937?
TO THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

THE YEARS 1938 AND 1939
The years 1938 and 1939 proved to be critical. Hitler had
written in Mein Kampf that Austria must one day be returned
to the great German mother country. Hitler maintained that
this union or Anschluss was necessary because the Austrians
and the Germans were one race and, therefore, were meant to
be part of a single state. He described the borders established
by the Treaty of Versailles as a political nonsense.
From 1934 Hitler had worked to strengthen the position
of the Nazi party in Austria. There appears to have been a
plan whereby the Nazi politicians in Austria would stage an
uprising, giving the German army the excuse to intervene.
In February 1938, however, the Austrian chancellor, Kurt
von Schuschnigg, learned of the plot and visited Germany,
hoping to convince Hitler to restrain the Austrian Nazis. The
visit was a disaster. Hitler introduced a strong element of
menace into the meeting by having no less than three of
his generals in attendance, claiming that cannons always
speak a good language. Von Schuschnigg found himself
on the receiving end of one of Hitlers famous outbursts.

Hitler ranted, accusing the Austrians of having betrayed the
German race, and declared that he had a historic mission.
Following Hitlers threats, which were reinforced by a display
of German military strength with a build up of troops along
the Austrian border, von Schuschnigg gave in to a series of
demands that included allowing members of the Austrian
Nazi party to become part of his government.
Von Schuschnigg recognised what was happening and
in March attempted to derail German plans by holding a
carefully worded Austrian national vote or plebiscite that
asked whether the Austrian people wanted the union with
Germany. The risks to Hitler of a vote opposing the union
were too great and an invasion was prepared.
When it was clear to von Schuschnigg that the German
army would invade, he resigned. Hitlers army was invited
into Austria and the Anschluss was complete. France
protested but did not act, while Chamberlain accepted the
situation, saying to the British parliament that there had
always been a close affinity between Germany and Austria.
Chamberlain recognised that the only way to have prevented German expansion at this time was by
the use of force; however, once again, the fear of war was greater than any desire to preserve the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles.
The Anschluss with Austria made Czechoslovakia more vulnerable. Czechoslovakia was a multi-racial
state created by the Treaty of Versailles. It included within its borders three million ethnic Germans.
Hitler claimed that these ethnic Germans, a group he called the Sudeten Germans even though they
didnt all live in the Sudeten region, were being abused by the Czech government and demanded
that the Czech territory known as the Sudetenland become part of Germany. The Czech president,
Edvard Benes, however, was not as easy to bully as von Schuschnigg. His confidence was based upon
a justifiable faith in Czechoslovakias excellent armed forces and on what proved to be an unjustified
belief that he would receive support from Britain and France.
Benes found that rather than standing up to Hitler, the British government was intent on putting
pressure on Benes to make concessions. While the British encouraged negotiation, Hitler readied plans
for military action, codenamed Case Green. On 14 September, with tension at its height, Chamberlain
requested a special meeting with Hitler to attempt to resolve the crisis.
This was the first of a series of meetings that led to the Munich Agreement and to the eventual
break up of Czechoslovakia. This came on 29 September at the Munich conference where Chamberlain,
the French leader Edouard Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini met. The Sudetenland became German
territory and Czechoslovakia lost some of its strongest border defences. In return, Hitler promised to
respect Czechoslovakias new borders and make no further demands. However, a few months later
in January 1939, the German army marched into what was left of Czechoslovakia. At the time of the
Munich conference, Chamberlain had been pleased with the result. He was seen as a peacemaker.
By the January of 1939, Chamberlain knew that Hitlers promises were worthless and the British and
French governments were quick to state their support for Poland, a country likely to be Hitlers next target.
It is easy to understand why Hitler would have ignored the British and French promises to help Poland.
In his mind, the democratic powers had repeatedly failed to act even though they were in a strong
position. So why would they risk war now? There was little that they could actually do to help Poland given
its geographical position and Germany was in a stronger military position than ever before. This position
was made even stronger when, to the surprise of the democratic powers, Germany and the Soviet Union
announced the NaziSoviet Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939. This was significant because for Germany
it removed the immediate threat of a war on two fronts and completely isolated Poland. (see pp. 2813)
Hitler was now convinced that Britain and France could or would do little. On 1 September, after
inventing an excuse, the German army attacked Poland. This time the democratic powers reluctantly
honoured a commitment to Poland and, on 3 September, declared war on Germany.
1 How did Hitler justify his desire to unify Germany and Austria?
2 What was Chamberlains reaction to the Anschluss?
3 What was Hitlers excuse for acting against Czechoslovakia?
4 Why did the Czech president initially feel confident that he could stand up to Hitler?
5 What was the result of the Munich conference in September 1938?
6 Why didnt Hitler worry about the warnings from Britain and France that they would
stand by Poland?
7 Why was the NaziSoviet Non-Aggression Pact important?
CASE STUDY:
NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN AND APPEASEMENT

Neville Chamberlain was the British prime minister from
1937 to 1940. He is forever associated with the policy of
appeasement, which amounted to a concerted attempt by
the democratic powers to avoid war by giving in to Hitlers
demands. History has been harsh in its judgement of both
Chamberlain and appeasement.
C ASE ST U DY REVIEW TASK

Make your own assessment of both the man
and the policy. The key points of view about
Chamberlain and appeasement follow in the
document study. Review the documents and
complete the questions.
Source 15.3
Source 15.4
In this extract, Winston Churchill assesses Chamberlain.
This is Paul Kennedys assessment of appeasement from Rise and Fall of the
Great Powers.
I may here set down a comparative appreciation

of these two Prime Ministers, Baldwin and
Chamberlain, whom I had known so long and
under whom I had served or was to serve. Stanley
Baldwin was the wiser, more comprehending
personality, but without detailed executive
capacity. He was largely detached from foreign
and military aairs Neville Chamberlain, on the
other hand, was alert, businesslike, opinionated
and self-confident in a very high degree His allpervading hope was to go down to history as the
great Peacemaker, and for this he was prepared
to strive continually in the teeth of facts, and face
great risks for himself and his country. Unhappily
he ran into tides the force of which he could not
measure, and met hurricanes from which he did
not flinch, but with which he could not cope.
W. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1:
The Gathering Storm, Cassell, London, 1954,
pp. 199200.
There was a persistent willingness on the British governments part,

despite all the counterevidence, to trust in reasonable approaches
toward the Nazi regime. The emotional dislike of Communism was
such that Russias potential as a member of an antifascist coalition
was always ignored or downgraded. Vulnerable eastern European
states, like Czechoslovakia and Poland, were all too often regarded
as nuisances, and the lack of sympathy for Frances problems
showed a fatal meanness of spirit. Germanys and Italys power
was consistently overrated, on the basis of slim evidence, whereas
all British defence weaknesses were seized upon as a reason for
inaction. Whitehalls views of the European balance of power were
self-serving and short-term. Critics of the appeasement policy such
as Churchill were systematically censored and neutralized, even
as the government proclaimed that it could only follow (rather than
give a lead to) public opinion. For all the plausible, objectively valid
grounds behind the British governments desire to avoid standing
up to the dictator states, therefore, there is much in its ungenerous,
narrow attitude that looks dubious, even at this distance in time.
P. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Fontana Press,
London, 1988, pp. 41112.
1 Refer to Source 15.3. According to Churchill,
what was Chamberlains all-pervading hope?
2 What did Churchill mean when he wrote that
Chamberlain was prepared to strive for his
goal of peace in the teeth of facts? What in
your view might those facts be?
3 Refer to Source 15.4. Beginning with the
British governments willingness to trust
in reasonable approaches toward the

Nazi regime despite the counterevidence,
Kennedy makes a series of critical
observations about appeasement. What are
his observations?
4 Although he acknowledges that appeasement
might have had plausible grounds, how
does Kennedy sum up the policy?
ARGUMENTS FOR CHAMBERLAIN

AND APPEASEMENT
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devoted to his country and the cause of peace. He was
not a fool but more a victim of circumstances.
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of the history of the Second World War by Churchill,
Chamberlains political rival. Churchill made no secret of
the fact that he intended to write his version of events
to ensure that history was kind to him (see D. Reynolds,
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the
Second World War, Penguin, London, 2004).
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1930s, Chamberlain recognised that the British people
were not ready for war, nor were they willing to see large
sums devoted to defence-spending at the expense of
much needed domestic social reform.
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couldnt risk a war in Europe with either Germany or Italy
at a time when the Japanese threat in Asia was growing.
Chamberlain therefore used the policy of appeasement
in an attempt to find a diplomatic means of easing
tensions in Europe.
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Chamberlain did not invent the idea of appeasement; it
had been an aspect of British foreign policy since 1919.
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historians since, Chamberlain believed that Hitlers
initial demands were reasonable. He felt that the Treaty
of Versailles had been too harsh on Germany and that
Germany had a right to rearm, to put troops in the
Rhineland (it was, after all, German territory) and to
unify with fellow Germans such as in the Anschluss
with Austriaa move supported by an overwhelming
number of Austrians.
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his word at the start but there had never been a national
leader like Hitler before. Hitler was willing to lie and bully
outrageously. The extent to which Hitler did this was
unprecedented.
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Hitler could not be trusted.
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Force (RAF) in 1935 as Churchill wanted, they would have
wasted money on outdated designs and not been able

to acquire the large numbers of modern fighter planes
such as the Hurricane and the Spitfire, the aircraft that
saved Britain in the Battle of Britain.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHAMBERLAIN

AND APPEASEMENT
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encouraged Hitler and was therefore a cause of the
Second World War.
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in foreign affairs and often neglected the advice of his
experts.
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the views of Winston Churchill. Nevertheless, regardless
of his motives, Churchill was proved to be right.
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need to fight.
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methods were unacceptable and should have been
opposed.
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failed to do more to enlist the Soviet Union as an ally
during the 1930s. This was a particular failure at the time
of the Czech crisis in 1938, when the Soviet Union made
it clear that it would help Britain and France if they were
willing to stand up to Hitler.
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opportunity. The Czech army was willing to fight and
was about the same size in 1938 as the German army.
It had excellent border defences. Czechoslovakia was
the sixth-largest industrial power in Europe and had an
extensive armaments industry. At Munich, therefore,
Chamberlain not only encouraged Hitler but also made
Germany stronger, because Germany ultimately acquired
all Czechoslovakias military equipment and industrial
potential.
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vastly overestimated Germanys military strength. Had
they taken action at any stage before the final German
takeover of Czechoslovakia in January 1939, or even
before the NaziSoviet Non-Aggression Pact in August
1939, they were likely to have been successful.
C AS E ST UD Y RE VI EW Q UE S TI O N S
C ASE ST U DY REVIEW TASK
1 In your view, what is the strongest argument and

the weakest argument in favour of Chamberlain
and the policy of appeasement? Give reasons for
your answer.
1 Using the evidence presented so far and the

document study, conduct a debate and/or class
discussion assessing appeasement. Consider
whether the policy of appeasement was justifiable
at the time or whether we are only wise after
the event? Did the policy cause the Second
World War?
2 In your view, what is the strongest argument and

the weakest argument against Chamberlain and
the policy of appeasement? Give reasons for your
answer.
2 Use the internet and the school library to

expand your reading with further research about
the appeasement policy. Using the following
process, write an essay offering your assessment
of the policy.
RE VI E W TA SK
Below you will find a list in random order of the main causes of the conflict in Europe.
Using the information you already have and following further research in the library and
the internet, make your own assessment of the causes.
Divide the causes into long-term (those that had an effect for more than a decade) and
short-term (those that played a more immediate role).
Then divide the causes into primary ones (fundamental causes without which there
would have been no war) and secondary ones (less important causes that influenced
the timing and nature of the war but were not vital).
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s !DOLF(ITLERAND.AZIIDEOLOGY
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s 4HEFAILUREOFCOLLECTIVESECURITY
s 4HEUNWILLINGNESSOFTHEDEMOCRATICPOWERSTOALLYTHEMSELVESWITHTHE3OVIET5NION
s 'ERMANBITTERNESSOVERDEFEATINTHE&IRST7ORLD7AR
Note that many of the causes will be linkedit is unusual for a cause to exist in
isolation. During the course of your research and class discussions feel free to add to
or modify causes.
THE COURSE OF THE EUROPEAN WAR

GERMAN ADVANCES
The outbreak of war in September 1939 found Britain and France opposed to Germany once again, as
they had been in 1914. The forces that would decide the outcome of the conflict in Europe began the
war with a range of ideas and capabilities.
1 Germany During the 1920s and 1930s, German military leaders had developed new doctrines
of warfare based upon the lessons of the First World War. These new ideas or doctrines involved
combined and coordinated attacks by different elements of the armed forces: tanks, infantry
(ordinary foot soldiers) and aircraft. According to defence analyst Williamson Murray and military
historian Allan Millett, The new German approach to combined arms would emphasize surprise,
judgement, speed, and exploitation of an enemys momentary weaknesses (Murray & Millett 2001,
p. 23). This meant that the German army or Wehrmacht had developed its plans around the mobility
of tanks, or panzers. Germanys leading military thinkers, generals Werner Fritsch and Ludwig Beck,
drew on some British ideas advocated by Basil Liddell Hart and John Fuller but took them further,
combining the use of tanks, infantry and air attacks. As a result of this policy, the German air force or
Luftwaffe was seen as the servant of the army. The Germans concentrated in developing one very
good fighter plane, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, to give them air superiority over the battlefield, and
medium-range bombers to support ground operations. Germanys submarine or U-boat campaign
had been very successful against Britain in the First World War but, instead of developing this aspect
of naval warfare, grand Nazi plans under Admiral Erich Raeder emphasised a program to build
battleships. Germany, however, lacked either the time or resources to challenge Britains Royal Navy
in this area. Germany needed to spend more on U-boats; they only had 26 at the outbreak of war
and during the first year of the conflict added 35 more, while losing 28 in action.
2 France French army theorists favoured the static set-piece battle. This mentality gave rise to the
Maginot Line, named after the French minister for war and veterans affairs Andr Maginot and built
at great cost between 1929 and 1940. The Maginot Line stretched more than 240 kilometres and
protected the French frontier facing Germany. It was a modern, state-of-the-art concrete super
trench. The lesson that the French learned from the First World War was therefore very different from
that of the Germans. The French decided that the Maginot Line would dominate, as trench warfare
had dominated in 1914 to 1918. The Germans decided that tanks, aircraft and mobility would make
trenches and static defences irrelevant. The Germans proved to be right and the French wrong.
The French became victims of the Maginot mentality; they refused to take the offensive and were
obsessed with sheltering behind their defensive positions. The French air force was the victim of
a lack of funding until after 1938, and as a result they didnt have sufficient numbers of modern
frontline aircraft at the outbreak of war.
3 Britain The British army had failed to develop any plan for coordinating infantry and tanks and
their organisation was much as it had been in the First World War. Britain always regarded the Royal
Navy as its senior service and their first line of defence. However, British governments did reluctantly
begin to invest in their air force during the late 1930s. This led to the acquisition of two first-class
fighter aircraft: the Hurricane and the Spitfire. The RAF also had a long-term belief in the importance
of the long-range strategic bomber. The RAF did much to encourage the development of radar.
Although Britains faith in the Royal Navy was justified, there were weaknesses. The navy had been
slow to modernise and strategists had failed to recognise the importance of aircraft carriers and the
need for an improved anti-submarine capability.
4 Italy The preparations of the Italian armed forces were marked by significant spending but a lack
of any real planning. Although the air force had the expertise, poor planning meant that, when
Italy joined the war in 1940, its air force, the Regia Aeronautica, was even more out of date than
the French air force. The fact that few allowances were made for Italys economic weakness and
strategic vulnerability accounted for Italys poor performance.
5 The Soviet Union The Soviet Red Army, perhaps because of its revolutionary background, made
a real attempt to break with the past. The Soviets established a mechanised tank corps in 1932, three
years before the first German panzer units. The Red Army did, however, suffer from the fact that in
1937 Stalin had purged his top military leaders. Stalin had almost half of the Red Armys officers shot or
sent to the camps. The Soviet Union was only just acquiring the industrial and technological base that
would provide a foundation for a modern air force during the 1930s. When combined with the impact
of Stalins purges in which pilots suffered as badly as generals, it meant that the Red Air Force lacked
sufficient numbers of modern aircraft or trained pilots to meet the German attack in 1941.
6 The United States of America Despite its policy of isolationism and the economic impact of the
Great Depression, during the 1930s, the American armed forces had been significantly modernised.
A feature of this was the development of some world-class infantry weapons: the Garand M1 semiautomatic rifle and a range of Browning automatic rifles and machine guns. In terms of tanks, the
first program in this field involved two officers, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton, who
would play a major role in the conflict in Europe. American tanks were light with an emphasis on
speed. American strategists thought of them as they had the cavalry of old. During the 1930s, the
American air force received a growing share of the defence budget, rising from 10 per cent in 1930
to 15 per cent in 1935. Strategists in the United States of America were, like the British, convinced
about the importance of long-range bombers. Although there were significant weaknesses in the
American navy in terms of personnel, training and size, during the 1930s, they did make progress
in two areasthe development of aircraft carriers and amphibious operations, landing troops by
seathat would be important for their role in the European conflict.
1 What was the basis of German military thinking?
2 What was the most significant mistake in German naval planning?
3 What were the Maginot Line and the Maginot mentality?
4 How did Frances military thinking differ from that of Germany?
5 What were the strengths and weaknesses of Britains armed forces?
6 What was the basis of the poor performance of the Italian armed forces?
7 What challenge faced the armed forces of the Soviet Union?
8 What were the key developments in the American armed forces during the 1930s?
For the democratic powers, Chamberlains policy of appeasement continued even after the war
had begun. Neither the British nor the French were eager to confront Germany. Britain, as they had
in 1914, dispatched troops in the form of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France and, as in the
First World War, Britains Royal Navy moved to blockade Germany. The French army waited behind the
Maginot Line.
Despite its new doctrines of war, Germany was not as strong as Britain and France had feared.
The Germans learned as they went and refined the principles of Blitzkrieg (lightning war)combining
fast-moving attacks using infantry, tanks and aircraftin the eighteen days that it took to defeat
Poland. Although the Germans became famous during the Polish campaign for this kind of war, the
propaganda about the panzer units often disguised the

fact that much of the Wehrmachts transport and supply still
depended on horses. In addition, there was a lack of any
real coordination at the highest level. The organisational
structure of Germanys armed forces was, like much else
in Nazi Germany, chaotic and subject to the whims of
Hitler. He was, in fact, the only coordinating element of
German strategy. The Polish campaign was not a real test
for Germany, especially when, on 17 September, the Soviet
Union joined the attack on Poland.
KEY
Direction of
German attacks
Allied defences
11 May
21 May
28 May
ZUI DER
ZEE
Amsterdam
The Hague
NETHERLANDS
Utrecht
Rotterdam Arnhem
Riv
It is often assumed that there was little that the British

and French could do to save Poland and this may be true,
but the Maginot mentality did cause the democratic powers
Antwerp Albe
Nieuport
rt C
to miss an opportunity. The Germans committed the best
ana
Dunkirk
l
Gent
of its armed forces to the attack on Poland, which meant
Leuvaip
Calais
Maastricht
Brussels
Boulogne
that the frontier with France was protected by thirty-three
Lige
Lille BELGIUM
divisions of which only eight were first rate. The Germans
Namur
Abbeville
had no tanks, little air support and only three days worth of
Givet
Ri
ve
ammunition. Against this, the French had seventy divisions,
rS
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me
LUXENBOURG
enough aircraft to control the air and almost 3000 tanks. For
Sedan
its part, the RAF concentrated on dropping leaflets rather
FRANCE
Riv
than bombs. Following the fall of Poland, the attitude of the
er S
arne
eine
er M
Riv
British and French continued and the war became known
0
50
100
150 km
Paris
as the phoney war. This defensive mindset continued as
the Soviet Union attacked Finland and as Hitler occupied
Figure 15.3 The German attack on the Low Countries and France,
Norway and Denmark in April 1940. A sign of activity came
May 1940
when the British launched a poorly planned attack on
German forces in Norway. This was largely at the instigation
of Churchill, who had been recalled from the political wilderness to become First Lord of the Admiralty,
the political master of the Royal Navy. The British attack failed and Chamberlain, not Churchill, came in
for the harshest criticism. On 10 May 1940, Chamberlain resigned and Churchill became prime minister.
in
Rh
er
The day that Churchill became prime minister proved to be one of the most dramatic of the war
because, on the same day, Hitler unleashed Case Yellow, the German attacks on the Low Countries
of Holland and Belgium and on France. The ultimate speed of the German attack and the victory
was stunning. Within five days, the French premier, Paul Reynaud, telephoned Churchill and said
we are beaten.
The French commander, General Maurice Gamelin, and the leader of the BEF, Lord Gort, had been
confident that the enemy would avoid the Maginot Line but they made the mistake of assuming that the
Germans would simply repeat the Schlieffen Plan of 1914. The Germans, however, drew the British and
French forces into Belgium and then attacked further west, still avoiding the Maginot Line. German tanks
smashed through the lightly defended French region of the Ardennes, north of Sedan, while other units
drove into Holland and Belgium. Allied and German forces were about even in strength but the Germans
were much better organised and they used their panzers in massed forces while British and French tanks
were scattered. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe supported the ground forces efficiently and quickly established
control of the air. Two German field commanders who played important roles in the panzer assault
were General Heinz Guderian, who would play a major role in the German attack on Russia in 1941, and
General Erwin Rommel, who would become the legendary leader of the German army in North Africa and
command the German defences against the Allied landings in France on D-Day, 1944.
With French resistance crumbling, Mussolini raced to

help the winner, entering the war on Germanys side on
10 June 1940. The British had been badly shaken by how
quickly they had been driven back. The British commander,
Lord Gort, was a brave man but not equal to the task.
Out of the wreckage of the BEF, however, two generals
emerged who would play major roles in the war. General
Alan Brooke would go on to become Britains top-ranking
soldier and General Bernard Law Montgomery would
be hailed by many as the greatest British soldier of the
twentieth century. The British focused increasingly on the
prospect of rescuing the BEF. Britain needed those men
even without their equipment they had the potential to

form the nucleus of a new army that might have to face its
own German invasion. The British forces had been driven
back to a small perimeter around the English Channel port
of Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of 338 000
members of the BEF and some French troops from Dunkirk
by the Royal Navy and fleets of small boats, is one of the
legendary stories of the war but, as with much in history,
the truth is complex. It is generally accepted that one of the
keys to the success of the evacuation was Hitlers order to
halt the German tanks and to leave the destruction of the
BEF to the Luftwaffe.
1 Why could it be argued that Chamberlains policy of appeasement continued into
the war?
2 What was the opportunity missed by the French army in 1939?
3 Why was 10 May such a dramatic day?
4 Why did France fall so quickly when the size of the British, French and German forces
was about even?
5 Why did Alan Brooke, Bernard Law Montgomery, Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel
become famous?
6 What was Operation Dynamo?
RE VI E W TA SK
Why did the German panzers halt outside Dunkirk rather than press on to destroy
the BEF? Use the internet and the library to evaluate some of the theories and
explanations set out below. Make your assessment in the form of a class talk or essay.
The possible explanations are grouped into three broad

categories: the military, the political and the personal.
The military
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Figure 15.4 British troops waiting for evacuation on the beaches near Dunkirk
The personal
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THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND THE BLITZ

France officially surrendered on 22 June 1940. Britain was alone, apart from the distant support of
the Commonwealth nations. There was little hope of victory and a major risk of invasion. The Battle
of Britain, the air battle fought by RAF Fighter Command under Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding, is
famous as the battle that saved Britain from a German invasion. In Britain, the battle is viewed with the
kind of reverence that Australians reserve for Anzac Day. The Germans gave up their attempt to gain
control of the skies over the Channel. Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Britain, was
abandoned. There were three phases to the battle:
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WHY THE RAF WON THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

The victory of the RAF in the face of enormous odds and a shortage of trained pilots was due to a range
of factors.
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The legendary triumph of the RAF is still the subject of a range of controversies, as discussed below.
Did the Battle of Britain actually prevent a German invasion or was Operation Sealion just bluff
to pressure the British into a negotiated settlement? There is evidence for both arguments. The
Germans did prepare for an invasion but it could have been largely for show. Hitler might have been
willing to invade Britain at the end of 1940 if the Luftwaffe had been able win a quick victory. Hitler,
however, had always seen Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union as his real enemy and wanted to be
free to begin Germanys real war.
Was the Battle of Britain a victory of what Churchill described as the few(the heavily
outnumbered RAF) or were the forces of Germany and Britain about even? The answer depends
on how and what you count. If you count total strengththat is, all aircraft (fighters and bombers)it
was a victory for the few. At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had about 2600 aircraft
and 10 000 pilots, while the RAF had less than half that number of planes and only about 1500 pilots.
The key to the battle was, however, in the numbers of fighter aircraft. The numbers of Spitfires and
Hurricanes used by the British and the Messerschmitt Bf 109s used by the Germans were about even.
What caused the critical shift in German strategy in the third phase of the battle that resulted in
the bombing raids on London? Apparently, an attack by aircraft of RAF Bomber Command on Berlin
on the night of 2526 August so enraged Hitler that he demanded massed attacks on London and
other British cities. This is only part of the truth. According to the British historian Richard Overy (2004),
who has written one of the best accounts of the Battle of Britain, the real explanation is more complex.
Overy suggests that Hitler had been looking for a quick way either to force the British to negotiate or
to create the right conditions for an invasion and that bomber raids on London had always been part
of that plan. The raid on Berlin on 2526 August by the RAF was a small-scale affair and at best only
influenced the timing.
Was the Blitz (German air raids on London and other British cities such as Coventry, Bristol,
Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham) part of a deliberate terror campaign against British
civilians? Both sides accused the other of deliberately targeting civilians in bombing raids. It is difficult
to convince anyone who lived through the Blitz that they were not a target. However, according to
Overy, The two air forces operated under almost identical instructions to hit military and economic
targets Neither air force was permitted to mount terror attacks for the sake of pure terror (Overy
2004, p. 80). The problem for British and German civilians was that the technology of the 1940s was
such that it was impossible to hit specific military targets without spreading destruction far and wide.
During the 1940s, a bomb dropped from high altitude at night that landed within 1500 metres of its
target was regarded as precision bombing. Hence civilians on both sides felt that they were the victims
of terror raids. Another historian, John Keegan, offers a different point of view and claims that the tactic
known as area bombing (using incendiaries [fire bombs] to set fire to large areas) was in reality a direct
attack on civilians in all but name (Keegan 1997, p. 350).
1 What was the Battle of Britain?
2 What was Operation Sealion?
3 What were the three phases of the Battle of Britain?
4 Why did the RAF win the Battle of Britain?
5 What are the historical controversies about the Battle of Britain?
R E VI E W TA SK
Three fighter planes played key roles in the Battle of Britain: the Messerschmitt
Bf 109 (also known as the Me 109), the Hawker Hurricane and the Vickers
Supermarine Spitfire. Each was an excellent aircraft and all had and still have their
admirers. Using the information below, the school library and the internet, decide
which of the planes you would prefer to fly if you were in combat in the Battle of
Britain. You should compare and contrast the three aircraft and justify your choice.
The Messerschmitt Bf 109

The features of this plane were:
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The Hawker Hurricane

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Figure 15.5 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 (Australian War Memorial

Negative Number PO 3994.010)
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The Vickers Supermarine Spitfire

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Figure 15.6 The Hawker Hurricane (Australian War Memorial

Negative Number SUK 15202)
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Figure 15.7 The Spitfire (Australian War Memorial Negative

Number 005156)
THE BOMBING OF GERMANY

In the 1920s and 1930s the RAF believed that strategic bombing (the bombing of specific targets
such as industrial manufacturing areas) was a war-winning weapon. The nation that mounted the
most sustained bombing offensive on the enemy heartland would win the war. Bomber Command
was formed in 1936 and plans for new heavy bombers were drawn up. However, in 1939 Bomber
Command was ill-prepared for war with a strike force of only 280 ageing aircraft. During the course of
the war new and improved bombers were to be produced such as the Handley Page Halifax (October
1940) and Avro Lancaster (October 1941). The Lancaster was regarded as one of the finest bombers of
the war and crews much preferred to fly in them than in any of the older models.
Bomber Command was in action from the first day of the war. However, raids against German
shipping proved so costly that by the end of 1939 they had been abandoned. In contrast, dropping
leaflets over Germany throughout the winter led to far fewer casualties. In April 1940 it was decided
to confine Bomber Command to mainly night bombing for survival reasons. The first major raid of the
strategic offensive against Germany occurred on 1516 May 1940 when aircraft bombed targets in the
Ruhr valley. During the rest of 1940 and the first half of 1941 the Air Ministry changed priority targets
several times, but a report issued in August 1941 showed that two-thirds of aircraft over Germany did
not get within five miles of their intended target. A combination of the decision to fly by night, which
made it impossible to see precise targets, and technological limitations, which made it impossible to hit
them even if they could be seen, meant that by mid-1941 the adoption of area bombing was seen as
the only alternative if Bomber Command was to continue taking the fight to the enemy.
The issue of area bombing was controversial both during and after the war and led to criticism of
Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris (Bomber Harris) who led Bomber Command from February 1942. His was
a difficult role as the government privately supported the tactic of area bombing, with its inevitable
result of heavy casualties amongst the German civilian population, yet publicly wished to downplay
the tactic to avoid conflict with religious and humanitarian opinion. An Air Ministry directive, issued
before Harris took command, gave the primary objective as the destruction of the morale of the enemy
civilian population. Therefore Harris did not invent the concept of area bombing, though once in office
he enthusiastically embraced it.
Harris set out to improve Bomber Commands performance. Crews were reorganised to produce a
team of highly trained specialists and older bombers were withdrawn from operations. There were new
navigational aids, and the Pathfinder force was introduced in August. As Harris needed a spectacular
success for Bomber Command, the first 1000-bomber raid was launched against Cologne on 3031
May 1942, devastating nearly half the city. He also introduced new tactics concentrating the bombers
in time and space to produce maximum devastation.
In January 1943 Britain and the USA began their tactic of combined day and night bomber
offensives. The Americans, retaining a belief in the possibilities of strategic bombing, bombed
by day and the British, with their area bombing, by night. Between March and July 1943 in the
battle of the Ruhr, Bomber Command launched 43 major attacks against German towns such as
Hamburg. The Americans, with their B-17 Flying Fortresses attacked targets such as the ball-bearing
manufacturing plants at Schweinfurt and Regensburg in central Germany. The ball bearings were
essential components for German tanks, aircraft and U-boats. The Americans also targeted Germanys
aircraft production and the oil industry. However the battle of Berlinsixteen large attacks between
November 1943 and March 1944was much less successful. Further away, more heavily defended,
and a harder target to find, Berlin suffered less damage. Bomber Command incurred unacceptably high
casualty rates. Despite previous successes, by March 1944, the bombing offensive was failing to reduce
German war production or break morale decisively.
At the end of the Battle of Berlin, Bomber Command

was in crisis. Large numbers of German night fighters were
roaming at will and were highly effective. At the beginning
of 1944, 68 per cent of German aircraft were based at
home to defend the Reich against air attack. A raid against
Nuremburg 3031 March 1944 was, in terms of losses, the
most disastrous of the whole war for the RAF.
The tide turned for the Allied bombing offensive for
two reasons. Firstly, from April 1944 British and American
bombers began to prepare the way for D-Day by attacking
transportation targets and the German Air force in France.
Objectives were nearer, and operations were often split
into several different smaller attacks, giving German night
fighters much less time and fewer large bomber streams to
intercept. Secondly, the American P51-Mustang, an aircraft
with the range of a heavy bomber and the performance of an
interceptor fighter, arrived as a long-range escort. The Mustang
could reach Berlin and outpace, outdive and outturn the best
German fighters. The German fighter force never recovered.
The Allies had won command of the air. Therefore the middle
of 1944 was the crucial dividing line in the Allied bombing
offensive. Before, no matter how hard it had fought, results had
not been decisive; afterwards, the bombing went a long way
to destroying Germanys ability to continue the war.
Bomber Command became a formidable weapon in the
last nine months of the war. Nearly half of all the bombs that
fell on German cities during the war were dropped between
August 1944 and May 1945. Bomber casualty rates declined
sharply.
Allied bombing tactics have proved controversial for the
following reasons.
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Figure 15.8 A British propaganda poster depicting an artists

impression of an RAF raid on the Ruhr (Australian War Memorial
Negative Number ARTV 03910)
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Keegan (1997) raises doubts about the strategy of
strategic bombing but Murray and Millett have no doubts,
stating that the strategy was essential to the defeat of
Nazi Germany. It was not elegant, it was not humane, but it
was effective (Murray & Millett 2001, p. 335). They support
this by arguing that although strategic bombing did not
live up to expectations, it certainly did slow down German
industrial production. Furthermore, it forced the Germans
to shift resources away from their military at the front to
anti-aircraft defence at home. Murray and Millet have been
supported by Neillands, who emphasises the fact that the
effects of strategic bombing were slow. He called it the
gradual degradation of Germanys industrial complex and
the destruction of the means for normal life to continue
(Neillands 2004, p. 385).
1 What was the difference between strategic bombing and area bombing in the Allied
air offensive?
2 Why did the RAF change from one tactic to the other in 1941?
3 What role was played by Sir Arthur Harris as chief of Bomber Command?
4 When did the RAF and USAF begin their combined bomber offensive?
5 Why was the Allied bomber offensive relatively unsuccessful until the middle of 1944?
6 Which two factors turned the tide in favour of the Allied bombing offensive?
R E VI E W TA SK
From this section, and after reading pp. 5879 and further research, consider the
following observations about the work of Bomber Command and prepare a response
to indicate your view:
s 4HECONTEMPORARYAUTHOR6ERA"RITTAINSAID@$OWEWANTAGOVERNMENTTO
continue to carry out, through its Bomber Command, a policy of murder and
massacre in our name? Has any nation the right to make its young men the
instruments of such a policy?
s .EIL3COTTWHOmEWWITHSQUADRON @!NYONEWHOHASSEEN!USCHWITZCANHAVE
no doubt that any means, however imperfect, are justified in bringing an end to such
an inhuman terrorist regime as the Nazis imposed on Europe it was a sin, yes, all
war is a sinbut not a crime.
s 4HEDEBATEABOUTTHEMORALITYANDINDEEDEFlCIENCYOFTHEBOMBINGRAIDSWASALREADY
under way in the closing stages of the war, and to Harriss disappointment, his request
for a special campaign medal for the members of Bomber Command who fought in
the skies over Europe was refused, and has never since been granted.
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN: OPERATION BARBAROSSA

Hitlers Russian campaign and the significance of the war in the east have not always been adequately
acknowledged. British and American historians understandably have tended to focus on their own
nations roles in the war. This, combined with the fact that Stalinist Russia was particularly secretive,
has meant that it has not always been easy to learn the full story. Nevertheless, there is growing
acknowledgement in the West of the vital role played by the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi
Germany. This is evident in recent books such as Overys Russias War and Beevors Stalingrad, both
published in 1998. It is vital to remember that the Soviet Red Army continuously engaged the bulk of
the German army from June 1941 until the end of the war in Europe in May 1945.
On 22 June 1941, following plans developed after Fhrer Directive No. 21, the Wehrmacht
unleashed Operation Barbarossa on the Soviet Union and, with it, the largest invasion force that had
been seen to that time. Three million German troops organised into three armies with 3350 panzers,
7000 field guns and 2000 aircraft smashed through poorly prepared Soviet frontier defences. The
Wehrmachts Army Group North under General von Leeb besieged Leningrad and drove towards
Moscow. Army Group Central commanded by General von Bock drove towards Moscow and into
parts of the Ukraine, while General von Rundstedts Army Group South advanced into the Ukraine and
further south towards the oil fields of the Caucasus.
DID YOU KNOW?
KEY
Greater Germany
Axis satelites
Conquered territory
Main direction of
Axis advance
Army Group North, Leeb
Army Group centre, Bock
Army Group South,

Rundstedt
FINLAND
Lake
Ladoga
Helsinki
Stockholm
Novgorod
B A L T I C
S E A
Knigsberg
EAST PRUSSIA
1
Vyazma
Smolensk
Bialystok
Moscow
Mogilev
Minsk
Gorky
USSR
Garnett
Warsaw
POLAND
Brest Litovsk
Zhitomire
Vinnitsa
Vienna
Vologda
Riga
Dvinsk
GERMANY
Lake Omega
Leningrad
During the first months of Operation

Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht made huge
advances and killed tens of thousands
of Soviet soldiers and civilians but
by the first rains of winter, before the
temperature dropped and everything froze,
the roads turned to mud and the German
advance began to slow. The German
engineers were forced to build what are
known as corduroy roads. This involved
using tree trunks, in this case from the
Russian birch forests, to line the muddy
roads to support vehicles. In some places,
however, there were just not enough trees
but anywhere the German army went
were always lots of bodies. So, in many
places, the German engineers used the
bodies of Russian dead to line their roads.
Voronozeh
Kiev
Uman
Stalingrad
Kermenchung
HUNGARY
Budapest
ROMANIA
YUGOSLAVIA
Odessa
Maikop
Sevastopol
Sofia
BULGARIA
B L A C K
S E A
ALBANIA
GREECE
TURKEY
0
200
400
600 km
Figure 15.9
Operation Barbarossa
In the first three weeks of the campaign, the Red Army lost two million men, 3500 tanks and 6000
aircraft. Hitlers opinion that the Stalinist state was rotten and would quickly crumble appeared justified.
However, Hitler and the German High Command had failed to allow for the following factors:
r The size of the Soviet Union "OPQFSBUJPOJOUIF4PWJFU6OJPOXBTOPUMJLFSBDJOHBDSPTTUIF-PX
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Figure 15.10
German troops attacking during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa
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These factors denied Hitler his much-needed quick victory. The result was that the Germans were
forced to suffer more than one harsh Russian winter and were drawn into a war of attrition that they could
not wina war that ultimately produced in the Second World War the same result that the trenches and
attrition had in the First World War: the economic decline and ultimate collapse of Germany.
Three Soviet citiesLeningrad, Moscow and Stalingradfeatured heavily in the story of Russias
victory in what Stalin cleverly allowed, for propaganda purposes, to be called the Great Patriotic War.
Leningrad was under constant siege by the Wehrmacht from September 1941 until January 1944,
but would not fall. Hitler narrowly failed to take Moscow in 1941 but resumed the offensive in 1942,
although his focus was increasingly on the city of Stalingrad, named in honour of Joseph Stalin.
It almost appeared that Hitler had convinced himself that a special psychological victory was to
be won by capturing the city named after the Soviet leader.
THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

This is widely regarded as one of the bloodiest and most brutal military engagements in history.
Although it is still difficult to get accurate figures, it is estimated that between June 1942 and February
1943 combined German and Soviet losses added up to as many as 1 500 000 dead and wounded.
The Battle of Stalingrad involved three phases. In the first, Hitler personally intervened and modified
the operational plan known as Case Blue, which originally called for all of Army Group South to resume
its drive through the Caucasus in 1942. He ordered that Army Group South be split and that one group,
under the generals Hoth and von Paulus, advance towards the Volga River and move into position to
attack the city of Stalingrad. Hitler claimed that the city was important for strategic reasons, but strong
KEY
FINLAND
Axis powers
NORWAY
S E A
Axis satellites
B A LT I C
SWEDEN
N O R T H
S E A
Conquered lands
DENMARK
Neutrals
OSTLAND
Allied powers
EIRE
BRITAIN
BELGIUM
LUXEMBOURG
A T L A N T I C
RUSSIA
NETHERLANDS
GREATER
GERMANY
POLAND
SLOVAKIA
OCCUPIED FRANCE
HUNGARY
SWITZERLAND
O C E A N
VICHY
FRANCE
BANAT
ITALY
ROMANIA
CROATIA
SERBIA
MONTENEGRO
CORSICA
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
BLACK
BULGARIA
SEA
ALBANIA
SARDINIA
Crete
FRENCH NORTH AFRICA
S E A
TURKEY
GREECE
SPANISH MOROCCO
Figure 15.11
UKRAINE
Dodecanese Is.
(Italy)
Cyprus (GB)
Europe at the height of Hitlers power in 1942
evidence indicates that his desire to capture Stalingrad had more to do with propaganda than military
necessity. German tanks, with only minor delays, reached the north of the city in August, while other
units fought their way into position south of Stalingrad in September 1942.
The second phase was the attack on the city itself, which began in September with massive bombing
raids that reduced 80 per cent of the city to rubble. The Soviet defenders established strong points among
the ruins and bitter street-fighting developed as German troops attempted to follow up the bombing by
occupying the city. Stalin used all the authoritarian power of the Soviet state to hold Stalingrad. He issued
Special Order 227, declaring that no Soviet soldier was permitted to take a single step back. This order
was enforced by the security services of the Soviet state. The German attackers referred to the street-tostreet and house-to-house fighting in the ruins of the city as Rattenkrieg or rat war. In early November,
following months of bitter fighting, the Wehrmacht had managed to capture most of the city.
As Hitler insisted that German troops press on in single-minded fashion to take Stalingrad, the Russian
commander, Georgi Zhukov, began to lay a trap. Zhukov built up his forces north and south of the city.
In a plan codenamed Uranus, Zhukov intended to sweep around the city and behind the German lines,
trapping them in a pocket inside Stalingrad. The Soviet counter-attack began on 19 November, first in the
north and then in the south. About 250 000 troops, under the German general Friedrich von Paulus, were
trapped inside the Stalingrad pocket. The German general staff immediately recommended a planned
breakout but Hitler refused to listen, insisting that the Germans stay. Daily the Red Army moved in and
tightened the pocket. General von Paulus and his army were supplied for a time by the Luftwaffe but this
became increasingly difficult and, on 2 February 1943, von Paulus surrendered and more than 90 000
German troops were captured. They faced a brutal captivity and only 6000 survived.
200
400
600 km
Figure 15.12 Soviet T-34 tanks

counter-attack (Australian War
Memorial Negative Number
P00340.001)
The surrender of German forces at Stalingrad and the

subsequent defeat in the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 were
major turning points in the conflict in Europe. From this time
on, the Red Army advanced and the Wehrmacht was merely
delaying Germanys ultimate defeat. It is arguable that this
phase of the war was the most significant, perhaps more
important than either the legendary British victory in North
Africa at El Alamein or the highly celebrated British and
American D-Day invasion of France.
Another significant aspect of the Russian campaign that
distinguished it from the war in the west was the number of
atrocities. One factor that led to the murder of civilians and
the abuse of prisoners of war was that Hitler saw the invasion
of Russia as Rassenkampf or race war. Tens of thousands
of Jews living in the Soviet Union became victims of the
Final Solution. Beyond that, the Russians themselves were
seen by the Nazis as an inferior race. According to Beevor
(1998), among the first people killed in the gas chambers at
Auschwitz on 3 September 1941 were Red Army prisoners.
They were victims of early tests of the poison gas Zyklon-B.
Aside from the activities of Hitlers personal SS units and their
death squads, the infamous Einsatzgruppen, the German army
was responsible for many deaths. After the war, many regular
officers of the German army were quick to deny knowledge
of what they called the Nazi atrocities in Russia. Evidence from
their own files, however, makes it hard to believe that German
generals were not aware of or, in some cases, part of the
atrocities. The Wehrmacht, the regular Germany army (not the
Gestapo or SS), was responsible for prisoners of war and of the
5.7 million Russian soldiers captured, three million died from
starvation, disease and ill-treatment. The Red Army responded
in kind as the tide of battle turned.
REVIEW TASK
One of the key figures in the success of the Red
Army was General Georgi Zhukov. Using the
school library and the internet, prepare a brief
biography (no more than a page in length) of
the general, focusing on the war on the Eastern
Front between 1941 and 1945.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 Why hasnt the full significance of the Russian
campaign always been acknowledged?
2 What was Fhrer Directive No. 21?
3 What was the size of the German invasion force
that launched Operation Barbarossa? How was
it organised and where did it attack?
4 Despite early successes, for what did Hitler and
the German general staff fail to allow in their
Russian campaign?
5 In terms of the campaign as a whole, how was
the Russian campaign like the trench warfare of
the First World War for Germany?
6 What were the three phases of the Battle of
Stalingrad?
7 How significant was the Russian campaign?
THE CONFLICT IN NORTH AFRICA

THE BATTLES OF EL ALAMEIN
When Italy entered the war in 1940, Britain was concerned about the threat posed by the Italian navy
in the Mediterranean and by the 200 000 Italian troops under General Rodolfo Graziani in Libya. It
appeared that Italy had the potential to threaten British control of Egypt and the Suez Canal. If the
Italians took Egypt, the path was open to vital British oil supplies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the
canal itself was a vital British Imperial trade link with India, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
On the other hand, if Britain could retain and perhaps increase its control of the North African coast, it
would open the way for possible counter-attacks on Italy and German-occupied territory anywhere in
the Mediterranean. The contest for Egypt and the canal, therefore, made the campaign in North Africa
significant to the European war.
Although outnumbered, Britains Royal Navy under Admiral Cunningham decisively established its
dominance over the Italians at Calabria in July 1940, Taranto in November 1940 and Cape Matapan in
March 1941 and retained this dominance in the Mediterranean throughout the war. On land, the British
found things more difficult. The British had only 63 000 troops in Egypt, facing a much larger Italian
army to their west in Libya. Even though the British were reinforced in December 1940 with another
35 000 men, including two Australian divisions, they were still heavily outnumbered. The land war in
North Africa was a see-sawing affair with first the Italians and then the British advancing. By February
1941, however, it had become clear that the Italians could not cope on their own and Hitler was forced
to send General Erwin Rommel and a German army known as the Afrika Korps to help. Rommel was
a skilful tank commander and made excellent use of his tanks. The British soon found themselves
in retreat. By July 1941, Rommel had advanced deep into Egypt and only desperate defence by the
British forces under General Claude Auchinleck, at what became known as the first battle of El Alamein,
managed to stop him. At this time chance and circumstances combined with the result that General
Bernard Law Montgomery took command of the British 8th Army in Egypt. Montgomery had not been
the first choice but he ultimately proved to be the perfect one.
On 30 August 1942, Rommel launched another unsuccessful attack to break through British
defensive positions, this time at Alam Halfa. Montgomery knew how desperate the situation was and
had made it clear that there could be no retreat. Rommel was at the end of very long lines of supply
stretching more than 1500 kilometres from his base in Libya and was, therefore, short of ammunition,
fuel and food. He had gambled on achieving a breakthrough before expected British reinforcements of
men and tanks arrived. The gamble failed and it was now Rommels turn to prepare his defences in the
desert as he waited for the British counter-attack. Rommel waited and waited but the attack did not
come. Montgomery was not the kind of commander to begin a battle before he had planned every
detail for every possibility. Montgomery was also waiting until his forces were at full strength. When
Montgomery finally launched Operation Lightfoot, the first phase of the battles of El Alamein on
23 October 1942, he had amassed 200 000 men, 1030 tanks and 900 heavy guns (artillery) to challenge
the 100 000 men, 500 tanks and 500 pieces of artillery of the Germans.
Montgomery carefully and deliberately used the advantages he had in manpower, weaponry and
equipment to wear down the enemy in what he promised would be a dogfight. After weeks of fighting,
Rommel was forced to withdraw. However, Montgomery was not the type of general to chase after
a retreating enemy and he has been criticised for not immediately taking advantage of the situation.
Nevertheless, over the following months, the Afrika Korps was driven all the way back to Libya. Rommels
position was made worse by Operation Torch, the landing on the west coast of Africa by American forces
under General Dwight Eisenhower in November 1942. Rommel was caught between the Americans in
the west and the British 8th Army advancing from the east. Hitler recalled Rommel to Germany when
BRITAIN
GERMANY
SLOVAKIA
KEY
Direction of
Allied Attacks
ITALY
Casablanca
MOROCCO
Algiers
Tunis
B L A C K
BULGARIA
Invasion of
Sicily July 1943
Oran
600 km
ROMANIA
CROATIA
SPAIN
400
HUNGARY
SWITZERLAND
FRANCE
PORTUGAL
200
GREECE
Sicily
TURKEY
Crete
TUNISIA
Rommels Afrika
Korps surrendered at
Tunis, 12 May 1943
AngloUS
invasion forces,
Nov. 1942
ALGERIA
S E A
S E A
Tripoli
Benghazi
Tobruk
Alexandria
Cairo
British 8th Army
LIBYA
EGYPT
Battle of El Alamein
Oct.Nov. 1942
Figure 15.13 The North African campaign
it became clear that the end was in sight. The Afrika Korps
surrendered to British and American forces in May 1943. The
Allies then prepared plans for the invasion of Sicily and Italy.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE

CONFLICT IN NORTH AFRICA
The British could not afford to lose Egypt and the Suez Canal.
This combined with the prospect that German forces in
Russia might drive through the Caucasus and link up with
a victorious Afrika Korps meant that defeat in North Africa
would have been devastating for the Allied cause. The
significance of the conflict in North Africa is still debated
among military historians, many of whom argue that North
Africa was little more than a sideshow, a theatre of war that
gained undue attention and fame. Barnett argues that the
British overcommitted themselves in North Africa and, in
doing so, badly weakened their forces in South-East Asia.
He also acknowledges that it played a less important part in
Germanys ultimate defeat than the Russian campaign. He
supports this argument by pointing out that at the second
battle of El Alamein, by far the largest of all the desert

battles, Montgomery engaged only four and a half German
divisions while, at the same time, the Soviet Red Army
confronted 190 divisions.
REVIEW QUEST IONS

1 Why were the British initially concerned by
Italys entry into the war in 1940?
2 What were the three key naval engagements
that ensured the Royal Navys control
of the Mediterranean?
3 Who was Erwin Rommel? What disadvantages
did he face at the second battle of
El Alamein?
4 Who was Bernard Law Montgomery? What
advantages did he have at the second battle of
El Alamein?
5 When did the Afrika Korps finally surrender?
6 What are the arguments for and against the
significance of the conflict in North Africa?
CIVILIANS AT WARBRITAIN
As Chamberlain was announcing that Britain was at war
with Germany, the air-raid warning sounded and people
scurried to take shelter. It was a false alarm, but everyone
remembered the warning from Stanley Baldwin, the prime
minister in 1936, that the bomber will always get through.
EVACUATION
If British cities were to be bombed, the first priority was the
safety of children. Evacuation plans for children and their
teachers, the blind and mothers with small children had
been put into place before war was declared. Beginning
on 1 September, 1.5 million evacuees, some of them as
young as three years old, made their way from the crowded
inner cities to small towns or the countryside to escape the
inevitable bombing. They were moved in organised groups,
supervised by their teachers or special volunteers, each
carrying their gas mask, a change of clothing and a label
bearing their personal details. Though the evacuation was
carried out efficiently, the situation in the reception areas in
small towns or villages was often chaotic as more children
arrived than had been expected or there was insufficient
accommodation. Typically, children were grouped in a
reception hall and local people arrived to choose a child
or children they would look after. For some children
lucky enough to find caring foster parents, the period of
evacuation was a fund of happy memories. For others, it was
a time of ill-treatment, neglect and misery.
Parents could choose to evacuate their children, but
as whole schools were evacuated any remaining children
had no school to attend. The strain of family separation was
obviously an important factor and, by January 1940, when
no bombs had fallen, 60 per cent of these children had
returned to their families in the cities. There were further
evacuations when air raids began later in 1940 and children
who had been evacuated from London to south-coast
towns had to be evacuated again as these towns came
under air attack.
On 2 May 1945, the London Return Plan was activated
and a judgement was made about each childs situation.
Some had been bombed out, some orphaned. Some had
been away since 1 September 1939 and did not want to
go home and others were not wanted at home. When
the final evacuation scheme ended in March 1946, 5200
unaccompanied children were still billeted with foster
parents or in hostels in the reception areas.
Figure 15.14 Labelled and carrying their gas masks, young

children board an evacuation train.
BRITAIN UNDER ATTACK

The blackout was introduced on 1 September 1939.
Householders were to prevent any light showing from their
windows that would serve to guide German bombers.
Streetlights were turned off and vehicles had to operate
with only narrow slits of headlight showing through special
blackout covers. Air-raid precaution (ARP) wardens, male and
female, were appointed to enforce the restrictions and the
ARP cry of Put that light out! became part of wartime life. The
result was to make the streets at night a dangerous place and,
HE STEPPED FROM
TRAIN, FELL 80FT
A man was taken badly injured to hospital at
Hillingdon, Middlesex, early yesterday after stepping
from a train and falling over an 80-foot viaduct near
Denham, Buckinghamshire, in the black-out.
The train was stopped by signal when the man, telling
another passenger that he had to change at Ruislip and
supposed that was the station, stepped from the carriage.
Figure 15.15 The Daily Sketch reports the fate of a man who didnt
mind the gap.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: E VACU EES

Source 15.5
Source 15.7
These children, of whom country residents so reasonably

complain, are bound to grow up into sub human
savages, unless we seize the opportunity of saving them
war has lifted the flat stonethese disgraces to our
education system have been forced out into the light. Do
not let us let them creep back beneath their stone. This
is, and I repeat it with every emphasis of passion at my
command, an opportunity which, if we miss it, we do not
deserve to have given to us again.
A WVS [Womens Voluntary Service] regional organiser

found over and over again that it really is the poor people
who are willing to take evacuees and that the sort of bridgeplaying set are very dicult about it all. Its always the
same, the poor helping the poor. Theres overcrowding in
every small house, and the rich still go their comfortable
ways, complained a Salisbury resident Even Lady
Reading, founder and chairman of the WVS, who had at one
time thought evacuees would be quite happy billeted in
barns and garages, came round to the view that Evacuation
had been a terrible fiasco not nearly enough use was
made of the big houses of England.
Journalist F. Tennyson Jesse, in J. Gardiner, Britain

19391945, Headline, London, 2004, pp. 334.
Source 15.6
Behaviour and manners were often found seriously at
fault too: there were numerous reports of children who
seemed never to have seen a fork; [for whom] chips, bread
and jam and teaeven beerwas the only sustenance
[they were used to]. The language issuing from many infant
mouthsbloody and bugger peppering every sentence
was deemed oensive and corrupting of rural children.
There were stories of children who defecated on the carpet,
who refused to sleep in a bed since a bed was where the
dead were laid out who thieved money and tormented
younger children and animals.
J. Gardiner, Britain 19391945, Headline, London,

2004, p. 35.

1 What impression is given of the child
evacuees and their inner-city lives in Sources
15.5 and 15.6?
2 What evidence do all the sources reveal about
the existence of social differences in Britain at
the time?
J. Gardiner, Britain 19391945, Headline, London,

2004, p. 32.
from September to December 1939, on Britains roads 4133 people were killed, a 100
per cent increase compared to 1938. Summer time or daylight saving was introduced
in February 1940 and remained all year round, changing to double summer time in
May 1941, thus ensuring it was light until late at night in the summer months.
While the London Blitz was the most memorable example of civilians under
attack, most of Britains major cities were bombed in 1940 and 1941. Liverpool,
Manchester, Belfast and Glasgow were severely damaged and Plymouth was said
to have been eradicated. The fate of the city of Coventry in the English midlands
gave rise to a new word in the war vocabulary of both Germany and England:
Koventrieren or to coventrate, meaning to lay waste by bombing. On the night
of 1415 November 1940, the centre of the city was devastated by over 500 tons
of high-explosive bombs and 30 000 incendiary bombs. Of the citys pre-war total
of 75 000 dwellings, 60 000 were destroyed or damaged, along with twenty-seven
vital war plants. After the raid, soldiers scoured the city picking up bits of arms and
legs and putting them into potato sacks, as if they were working in a harvest field
(Whiting 1999, p. 32). For the first time in the war, mass graves were used to cope
with the number of dead.
DID YOU KNOW?

Blackout! One man was fined
for failing to obscure the
glow from the heating light in
his tropical fish tank. It was
feared that it would be seen
by a German bomber flying at
20 000 feet.
SEEKING SHELTER
What could people do in the face of this terror from the
skies? Some of the wealthy sought refuge in funk hotels
accommodation outside the cities where they would be
safe from attack. Large numbers of people became trekkers,
leaving the towns and cities each night for the safety of the
surrounding countryside, many returning each morning
for work. On 24 April 1941, about 50 000 walked away from
Plymouth and in the same month it was reckoned that only
2000 of Clydesides population of 47 000 were sleeping the
night in the Scottish town.
For those who stayed in their homes through desire
or lack of options, the government provided a choice of
shelters at a low cost or free to those who could not afford
them. The Anderson shelter, sunk in the back garden and
constructed from sheets of corrugated iron and covered
with earth, provided a damp, cold and cramped alternative
to staying in the house. For people without gardens, the
Morrison shelter, resembling a steel cage with a solid top
that could double as a table, offered an indoor alternative.
Figure 15.16 The Morrison shelter: after eating at the table, the
family can sleep under it.
The nightly bombings of the London Blitz meant

disturbed sleep as families moved back and forth between
the house and the Anderson shelter in the time between the
air-raid warning and the all clear. The inconvenience and a
rising sense of fatalism meant that by November 1940 only
27 per cent of the 3.2 million people in the London central
area were using their shelters. Across the country, some
stayed in their beds and took the risk, while others sought
the hopefully more secure public shelters that had been set
up in basements and buildings.
In London, an obvious source of shelter was the Tube,
the underground railway system. At first, the government
banned the use of Tube stations as shelters, not wishing to
disrupt the train services. On 7 September 1940, people from
the East End of London, which was being severely bombed,
Figure 15.17 After a disturbed night, the Morrison shelter, a bit
defied the ban and within days many Tube stations were
buckled, has survived the bombingbut the house has not!
being used. From October 1940 the government sanctioned
the use of Tube stations and gradually gave money to
provide lighting and sanitation and, sometimes, bunks. People were not allowed to stay all day and
queues started to form in the early afternoon to grab a space. An average of 120 000 people a night
sheltered in the Tube.
The air raids did not result in as many deaths as had been feared but resulted in more homelessness
than anticipated. In the nine months of the Blitz, over 43 500 civilians were killed by enemy action.
However, around 2.25 million people were made homeless between September 1940 and May 1941,
two-thirds of them in London. In 1940 and 1941, the home front was the front line and it was not until
1943 that the enemy had killed more British soldiers than civilians.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: M ORALE AND P RO PAGAN DA I N THE B L ITZ
Figure 15.18 A smiling London family sits outside the remains of their Anderson shelter after a near miss from a German bomb.
Source 15.8
Source 15.9
All day long London had been coolly patching up the damaged
spots left after the heavy and prolonged attacks made on Saturday
Immediately after last nights warning a fierce anti-aircraft
bombardment opened up. It started in one outer district, shaking
doors and windows, but in a few seconds the Central London guns
were in action The German machines approaching from the southeast could be seen at a great height. A.A. [anti-aircraft] shells burst
around them and they changed their course. Some bombs were
dropped on a suburb which started a blaze. Some of the German
machines appeared to turn over another district owing to the fierce
A.A. gunfire and flew back towards the coast without, apparently,
reaching their main objective The first hour of the attack was
considerably less formidable than Saturdays raidfewer enemy
planes were penetrating the intense defensive barrage from the
coast to London As one big formation emerged from clouds
three Dorniers were blown to pieces within a minute by A.A. fire. The
brilliant marksman was a gunner aged 22 When the planes were
hit their bombs were released and fell over a wide area. Shops and
cottages were badly damaged, but all the occupants escaped injury.
Our heritage industry has encouraged a Myth of

the Blitz that diers from the reality of wartime
experience. The myth is that we all pulled together,
that spirits were up as young and old, upper and
lower classes muddled through together with
high morale under the onslaught of the Nazis.
But the Myth of the Blitz is just thata myth. As
members of the establishment were able to take
refuge in country houses, in comfort and out of
the way of the bombs, or in expensive basement
clubs in the city, the lower-middle and working
classes were forced to stay in the cities and face up
to the deadly raids with inadequate provision for
shelter. It was a time of terror, confusion and anger.
Government incompetencealmost criminal in its
extentdisplayed what was almost a contempt
for ordinary people. It was a time for the people to
help themselves to the shelter they needed. It was
a time of class war.
From the Daily Mirror, 9 September 1940, in J. Richards, The Blitz:

Sorting the Myth from the Reality, BBC, retrieved 12 December
2004 from www.bbc.co.uk/history.
J. Richards, The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the

Reality, BBC, retrieved 12 December 2004 from
www.bbc.co.uk/history.
D O CUM E NT S T U DY: CONT INU ED

Look at Figure 15.18.
1 Why is the thumbs-up sign being given?
2 What is the purpose of the photo?
3 How reliable would this photo be to a historian studying the morale of the civilian
population during the Blitz?
Refer to Sources 15.8 and 15.9.
1 How does the language in the article indicate that its purpose is for propaganda?
2 How useful and reliable would this article be to a historian studying the London Blitz?
3 What is meant by the phrase the Myth of the Blitz?
German bombing raids carried on into 1943, though lessening in frequency and intensity as the
bombers were required on the Russian front. On the morning of 13 June 1944, one week after D-Day,
British civilians first felt the power of Hitlers much talked about new weaponthe V-1 flying bomb
(nicknamed the doodlebug). These were unmanned projectiles with stubby wings that were fired
from launching ramps in occupied France. The engine made a distinctive burbling sound that ceased
when the fuel ran out. The V-1 then plunged to earth and exploded. A combination of anti-aircraft fire,
fighter planes and barrage balloons managed to bring down around half of the doodlebugs but the
devastation caused by those that got through caused morale to plummet in London and southern
England, the main targets.
By the end of August, the V-1 attacks had diminished to be replaced, on 8 September 1944, by the
first V-2 rocket. A supersonic missile, the V-2 was inaudible and unstoppable. More than 1100 fell on
England and they were undetectable until the explosion was heard. For two months the government,
fearing the effects on public morale, refused to disclose the true source of the devastation, blaming
gas main explosions or plane accidents. One V-2 rocket could destroy a whole block of city houses.
The last V-2 rocket fell on 1 April 1945.
By the end of the war, around 62 000 civilians had been killed by enemy action (49 per cent in
London), and about 86 000 had been seriously wounded.
1 What aspect of modern warfare was most feared in Britain by 1939?
2 Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the evacuation procedures. Do you
think the policy was justified?
3 What was the purpose of the blackout and how did it work?
4 Describe the bomb shelters that were available to Londoners in the Blitz.
5 Using the library and the internet, investigate life in the Tube shelters during the Blitz.
6 Why would the introduction of the V-1 and V-2 missiles cause morale to plummet
among civilians who had survived the Blitz?
<DEN_KFMH4_1628>
Figure 15.19 Damage caused by a V-1 in London
<DEN_KFMH4_1629>
Figure 15.20 A V-2 rocket being raised to the vertical for firing
RATIONING
The experience of the First World War had shown Britains dependence on food imports, which
provided 60 per cent of requirements by 1939. In January 1940, the government introduced a
rationing scheme for basic foods to ensure that everyone received an adequate diet. Ration books
were issued and people exchanged coupons for a weekly allowance of food. Overall, the scheme
was seen as fair and it actually improved the diet of many poorer people, although the wealthy
could always purchase extra or restricted goods on a flourishing black market. Queueing became
an everyday experience for housewives in the search for food, particularly when items that were not
rationed, such as fish and sausages, appeared briefly in the shops.
The best way to obtain more food for oneself and to lessen the nations dependence on imports
was to dig for victory. Public parks, school playing fields, railway embankments and any unused open
spaces were brought under cultivation. This was a successful campaign and, by 1944, food production
had risen by 91 per cent. Staple foods such as potatoes and carrots were relatively abundant and
Britains dependence on imported food dropped to about one-third of its needs.
Clothes rationing was introduced in June 1941. Everyone received a fixed number of ration coupons
per yearsixty-six at firstwith variations for special groups such as manual workers, pregnant
mothers and children. A mans shirt cost five coupons and a womans outdoor coat eighteen, while
one coupon could buy a handkerchief or a bra. The cost depended on the amount of cloth and labour
used in the articles manufacture.
Supplies of clothing could never match demand and the ministry of information instituted a make
do and mend campaign, with a booklet of handy hints. Blankets were turned into coats and curtains
into skirts. A range of utility clothing was designed to show what could be made cheaply from the
available materials.
WOMEN IN WAR SERVICE

Before 1939, it was acceptable for women to work outside the home until marriage or motherhood
intervened. As war loomed, it became clear that a large number of women would be needed in the
workforce to free men for the armed services and to perform auxiliary roles. The Womens Voluntary
Service (WVS) was formed in 1938 to support civil defence. When war came, the volunteers played a
vital role by running bombsite field kitchens, evacuations and support services in air-raid shelters.
The government recognised that the voluntary system could not provide sufficient female
labour and, in December 1941, the National Service (No. 2) Act conscripted all single women and
childless widows aged from 20 to 30 for military service. By 1943, when the conscription age had
been lowered to 19, about 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were
employed in essential work for the war effort. Many women joined branches of the armed services,
such as the following:
r Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) #Z UIF"54IBEPWFSBVYJMJBSJFTJONPSFUIBO
FJHIUZUSBEFT*UXBTBMTPVTFEUPNFFUUIFTIPSUBHFJO"OUJ"JSDSBGU$PNNBOE*O"VHVTU UIFSTU
NJYFETFYDSFXXBTEFQMPZFEBOEBMMGFNBMFTFBSDIMJHIUDSFXTXFSFBMTPVTFE
r
Womens Royal Naval Service (known as the Wrens) .PSFUIBONFNCFSTXPSLFE

NPTUMZBTIPSF BTDMFSLT ESJWFST NFUFPSPMPHJTUTBOESBEBSPQFSBUPST'SPN TPNFTFSWFEBT
DSFXPOUVHCPBUTBOEIBSCPVSMBVODIFT0UIFSTUSBJOFEBTXFMEFSTBOEDBSQFOUFSTUPSFQBJSTIJQT
r Womens Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) 8PNFOQMPUUFEBJSDSBGUNPWFNFOUTBOESBEBSTJHOBMT

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Women in the war economy

By the end of 1942, 10 million single and married women
aged from 19 to 50 were registered for war work. They made
up one-third of the workforce in the metal and chemical
industries, shipbuilding and vehicle manufacture. They built
aircraft, worked on the railways and in demolition gangs.
Nurseries and flexible working hours were arranged to
allow women with small children to play their part in the
war effort. There were few limits to the type of work done
by women to boost the war effort, although they were
rewarded with a pay rate roughly half that of a man.
<DEN_KFMH4_1630>
The Womens Land Army (WLA) was formed in 1939

and produced land girls to work on farms. At first there
was some prejudice from farmers but, by 1943, this had
disappeared as it became clear that productivity had
not fallen. At this stage, further recruitment was stopped
because of the fear that too many women were choosing
work on the land instead of in the forces or industry. To
overcome loneliness on solitary farms, the government had,
by 1944, set up about 700 hostels where 22 000 land girls
lived, getting to work by truck or bicycle.
Figure 15.21 Dig for victory (Imperial War Museum
Negative Number PST005)
<DEN_KFMH4_1631>
Figure 15.22
Everyone can
do their bit
schoolboys knit for
the war effort.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: W OM EN AT WAR
Figure 15.24 62-year-old Edith Leath, working as a welder in a

munitions factory
Figure 15.23 A recruiting poster to attract land girls
Source 15.11
Some boarded in very primitive conditions, with no

electricity or no heating in the bedrooms, broken windows
that let in the wind and the rain, and sometimes only a thin
blanket to cover the bed, no running water in the house to
wash o the caked mud and manure, or clean clothes, the
most basic hole-in-the-ground sort of sanitation and meals
that fell far short of the manual worker rations that the
women were entitled to.
I was 19 years old [My group] was nicknamed the Suicide

Group on account of the many workers who had been blown
up, killed, or maimed one day I was given a red box to
carry with one person [walking] in front and [one] behind
carrying red flags I didnt know what I was carrying. There
was a massive explosion and I dropped the box and was
shocked to see a young woman thrown through a window
with her stomach hanging out. Luckily the box, which
contained detonators, did not explode or we would have
had our legs blown o.
J. Gardiner, Britain 19391945, Headline, London, 2004,

p. 450.
Mabel Dutton, in J. Gardiner, Britain 19391945, Headline,

London, 2004, p. 447.
Source 15.10
1 What aspects of the poster in Figure 15.23 were designed to make the WLA attractive
to women?
2 Contrast the realities of life for land girls as described in Source 15.10 with the image in
Figure 15.23.
3 What observations could a historian make about the women who worked on the home
front, the nature of their work and their attitude towards the war effort, based on all the
sources in the document study?
1 Why was rationing introduced and how did the system work?
2 What was the purpose of the dig for victory campaign? Evaluate its results.
3 Using library and internet resources, research the details of wartime rationing in
Britain, including:
(a) the average weekly rations of food
(b) the hints from the government about cooking and clothing
(c) utility clothing.
4 What was the purpose of the National Service (No. 2) Act of 1941?
5 What were the roles of the WVS and the ATS?
6 In what ways did the Second World War enhance the status of women in Britain?
CIVILIANS AT WARGERMANY
EVACUATION
As in Britain, parents were urged to evacuate their children
from the major cities and, by the summer of 1943,
approximately 300 000 children had been sent away. Most
went to specially established camps run by the Hitler Youth,
which were set up throughout the Reich and occupied
territories, as far afield as Poland and Hungary. There the
children undertook programs of Nazi indoctrination.
Class differences emerged as workers complained that
middle-class families moved away from the towns together
but the workers children were sent far away from their
parents. A natural desire to keep families together led to
the growing tendency by parents to keep their children at
home, even as the Allied bombing intensified. Families that
evacuated together often met hostility in the countryside,
being blamed for food shortages, inflation and the rising
crime rate as a town and country rift developed.
In the last year of the war, the problem of refugees grew
as Germans fled the ruined cities. Areas such as the Black
Forest, Bavaria and the rural parts of eastern Germany had
avoided the horrors of the bombing and it was to these
areas that refugees fled for safety.
THE EFFECTS OF ALLIED BOMBING
Figure 15.25 The enemy sees your light! Blackout!
Before September 1939, Germany had put into place

a system of air-raid precaution wardens, fire drills and
blackout precautions. By the end of 1940, bomb shelterslarge, above-ground reinforced concrete
bunkerswere constructed in the major cities. Although the first year of the war seemed to bear out
Reichsmarschall Goerings boast that the Luftwaffe would never allow Allied bombers over Germany,
<DEN_KFMH4_1637>
Figure 15.26 The charred remains of an air-raid warden and his bicycle, caught in the Hamburg firestorm
public confidence ebbed as Allied attacks intensified

from 1942 onwards. The raid on Cologne in May 1942
devastated the city but the 500 public shelters, which could
accommodate 75 000 people, helped to ensure that the
death toll was only 460. Much more horrifying was the fate
of Hamburg in JulyAugust 1943, when the heat from the
blazing fires caused by incendiary bombs reached 1000
degrees Celsius, causing such powerful suction that winds
reached 240 kilometres per hour, uprooting trees, destroying
buildings and hurling people into the flames. Between 40 000
and 50 000 people died and a further 40 000 were injured.
The destruction of Dresden in February 1945, a city with a
population swollen by refugees, was so complete that it was
impossible to accurately calculate the number of dead. A
figure of 135 000 is generally accepted.
Life in the cities continued as best as possible. Ruined
houses were patched up, the homeless camped among
the rubble and all waited fatalistically for the next air raid.
In spite of the hardship, a large number of people stayed in
the cities. By the end of the war, more than 4 million homes
had been destroyed and 12 million people left homeless.
In July 1944, Bormann, one of the highest ranking Nazis,
announced reductions in the assistance given to the victims
of bombing and, by 1945, the government could not meet
basic needs.
The historical debate

Historians differ over the effects of Allied bombing on
civilian morale and the German war effort. British planners
hoped that intensive bombing of the cities would cause
morale to crumble and encourage active opposition to the
Nazi regime. This did not happen, partly due to the control
maintained by the Nazis almost to the end, but also due to
a spirit of defiance that emerged among the people. Bombs
fell on Nazis and non-Nazis alike and this created a grim
determination from shared misfortune.
While this would seem to support such assertions as
Keegans (1997) that German civilian morale was never
broken by bomber attack, others disagree. Kitchen (1995)
argues that the Allied bombing offensive, contrary to
accepted wisdom, had a shattering effect on civilian morale.
Burleigh (2000), while agreeing that civilian morale did not
collapse, points out that two-thirds of the population of
Hamburg fled the city between raids, spreading panic in the
countryside. About a quarter of the population of Berlin left
the city between March 1943 and March 1944.
Overy (1996) also points to the significant indirect effects
of the bombing. The need to divert scarce resources to rebuild
shattered factories and communications meant a reduction
in the output of weapons by approximately 50 per cent. Also,
the flood of refugees strained the rationing system, while the

hospitals had to cope with 750 000 casualties.
Effects of the Allied bombing by end of 1944

Synthetic oil production
reduced by 95%
The sustained intensity of Allied bombing raids meant

that ten times more German civilians were killed than the
number who perished in Britain. Overall, 305 000 Germans
were killed and nearly 800 000 were injured in air raids. Five
million people were evacuated.
Chemicals for explosives
reduced by 75%
Synthetic rubber
reduced by 88%
Tanks, lorries, aircraft
reduced by 33%
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E EFFECT S OF ALL IED BO MB IN G

Source 15.12
Source 15.13
Opinion is divided on the impact of bombing on industrial production

and morale. This is largely because the Allies post-war bombing surveys
worked with dubious information and notions of how the German war
economy had functioned, partly derived from self-serving sources such
as Albert Speer, but also because they sometimes sought to confirm their
own presuppositions. If the direct impact of bombing on war production
was as low as is often claimed, then why were so many men and munitions
redeployed from the land war to defending German cities? At a minimum,
area bombing placed a ceiling on many of the key features of Speers
rationalisation of war production, namely preventing the concentration of
production in fewer large-scale enterprises, which lay at the heart of his
intentions. Dispersal of production ensued, which made transportation
links vulnerable to further bombing.
War production was aected by direct bomb

attack and by the diversion of resources.
Urban society was transformed by the largescale evacuation of cities, the massive
destruction of housing and amenities,
and the almost constant state of alarm.
Bombing strained emergency services
and the German welfare system almost to
breaking point. Post-war surveys of German
morale showed that 91% of Germans
believed that bombing was the hardest
thing for civilians to endure in the war.
M. Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History, Macmillan, UK, 2000, p. 763.
R. Overy, Penguin Historical Atlas of the

Third Reich, Penguin, UK, 1996, p. 102.
1 According to Burleigh (Source 15.12), why was it difficult to gauge the effect of Allied
bombing after the war?
2 Why does Burleigh dismiss Speer as a reliable source?
3 In what ways did bombing hinder German industrial production?
4 Compare the views of Burleigh (Source 15.12) and Overy (Source 15.13) on the
effects of Allied bombing.
RATIONING
The Nazi leadership had put in place measures to ensure that there would not be a repeat of the
starvation years of the First World War. Ration cards, colour-coded for each food item (for example, red
for bread), had been printed and stored in 1937 and were issued in August 1939. Clothing and shoes
were also rationed on a points system. The initial period saw an allotment of 250 points per persona
winter coat cost 120 pointsbut shops soon ran out of items and the number of points and their
duration was altered as the war progressed. One hundred points were issued in January 1943 but had
to last until the end of 1945.
With the expectation of a short, victorious war, fruit and vegetables were not rationed and there
seemed little sense in converting parks to vegetable plots. As the war dragged on, however, flower
beds became vegetable gardens and the meat ration was reduced. A black market developed ensuring
that the wealthy were still able to eat well.
From 1944, as German-held territory shrank and with the disruptions caused by the Allied advances,
food supplies became harder to get. Farmers refused to surrender their crops to the authorities and
prospered by selling to those townspeople who could afford the higher prices. Despite the increasing
difficulties in finding food towards the end of the war, the situation was never critical and Germans did
not starve as their parents had done in 1918.
THE ROLE OF WOMEN

The fluctuating nature of Nazi leadership policies, given the changing fortunes of war, has made
assessing the role of women in wartime Germany a complex task. The demands of a war economy
that required the labour of German women ran counter to entrenched Nazi philosophyexemplified
particularly by the views of Hitlerwhich saw women as homemakers and mothers, not
industrial workers.
Despite the Nazi emphasis on domesticity, the number of women in employment had increased
from 11.4 million in 1933 to 14.8 million in 1939, when, on the outbreak of war, women made up 37
per cent of the total labour force. The initial needs of the war were met by transferring working women
from the consumer sector to more essential war industries. Between May 1939 and May 1940, around
300 000 women left the labour market. The major reason for this was economic. To sustain morale,
the government introduced generous allowances for the families of those drafted into the armed
forces. Linked with this, women who were employed lost up to 45 per cent of their family allowance,
depending on their incomea clear disincentive to remaining in employment.
The army called for compulsory labour service for women but the call was resisted by the
Nazi leadership, which was anxious to alienate neither women nor their husbands at the front by
compelling women to work. Reliance was placed instead on a campaign urging women to volunteer
for war work under the motto Women help to bring victory. The results of this voluntary campaign
were disappointing, with many German women simply rejecting the notion of war work.
The burden fell on working-class women who resented middle- and upper-class women who
appeared to be carrying on with their peacetime lifestyle, regardless of the changed circumstances.
Employers were reluctant to employ women and preferred workers being provided by Fritz Sauckel,
whose job it was to organise the wartime supply of forced labour into Germany. These workerssome
voluntary, some prisoners of war, most rounded up against their willcould be paid much less than
German women and were less subject to welfare requirements.
By 1942, 52 per cent of the German labour force was female. Nevertheless, as more and more men
were drafted into the armed forces, the need for female labour became greater. Speer claims that, in
April 1942, he proposed to Sauckel further recruitment of German women: Sauckel laid great weight
on the danger that factory work might inflict moral harm upon German womanhood; not only might
their psychic and emotional life be affected but also their ability to bear. Goering totally concurred. But
to be absolutely sure, Sauckel went to Hitler immediately after the conference and had him confirm the
decision (Speer 1995, pp. 3089).
Eventually, Hitler realised the need to act. On 13 January 1943, he signed a decree which
required women aged from 17 to 45 to register for war work. Among the upper classes, the
decree was resisted as Bolshevist, as an assault on basic rights (Kitchen 1995, p. 141).
The decree was not rigidly enforced and had only limited success. Various categories of
exemption were allowed and it seems clear that Hitler remained reluctant to conscript married
women with children, older women or middle-class women unused to factory work. By the end
of 1943, around three million women had registered of whom less than half were considered
able to work. Of these, 50 per cent worked part-time because of family commitments.
DID YOU KNOW?

As food supplies dwindled,
many flat-dwellers kept
balcony pigs (rabbits).
Some later turned to
roof rabbit (cat)!
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: W OM EN AT WAR
Figure 15.28 A woman

carries out maintenance work
on the engine of a warplane.
Figure 15.27 Girls of the Reich labour service going to work in the fields
Source 15.14
The female intellect is dierent from that of the male imagination takes
priority over calculating intellect. That is the reason why most women
prove incompetent in technical matters Thus women are less suitable
for all jobs which require technical understanding or the ability to plan
Women are more easily blind to danger This fact substantially limits
the employability of women on technical assignments on complicated
machines and in dangerous plants.
From the 1940/41 edition of the Year Book of the German Labour Front,
in J. Noakes, Nazism: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 4, The German Home
Front in World War II, University of Exeter Press, UK, 1998, pp. 3434.
Source 15.15
The following extract is from an intelligence report of 4 February 1943 on
the reaction to the conscription of women for war work.
Those [female] national comrades who have long been employed in
important war work had expected tough regulations. However they
were astonished that so many exemptions had been given The
question was frequently raised as to whether all those groups who
up to now had succeeded in avoiding all work would be caught
Already women and girls from every social class have been contacting
numerous Labour Oces to try and prove that they are not available
for labour mobilization people are thinking up the numerous
possibilities of phoney employment with relatives and acquaintances
which simply feigns fulfilment of the legal requirement of registering
for war work Other cases have been noted in which women who are
aected by the duty to register try to get hold of a foster child in order
to become unavailable for work.

1 For what purpose was the photo in
Figure 15.27 of the labour service
girls taken?
2 How does the photo in Figure 15.28
seem to contradict Source 15.14?
3 Refer to Source 15.15. What were
the reactions of women to the
decree for the conscription of
women?
4 How useful are these sources to
a historian studying the role of
women on the German home front?
J. Noakes, Nazism: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 4, The German Home

Front in World War II, University of Exeter Press, UK, 1998, p. 333.
In January 1944, Hitler told Sauckel to get the extra four million workers he needed from the
occupied territories, arguing that the squat Russian woman was more suited to factory work than the
long-legged German girl. Tensions over the use of German female labour remained unresolved. The
needs of war and the requirements of Nazi ideology were uneasy bedfellows.
Women who worked in factories carried out a wide range of tasks involving the manufacture
of munitions and weapons. Millions of women also were used in transport, administration,
communications and commerce. With the men gone from the land, women were left to manage the
farms. They were aided by young women from the Reich labour service. Many thousands of young
women, aged from 17 to 25, were required to spend several months on the land and, by the summer of
1941, 150 000 women were helping to bring in the harvest. Overall, around 6 million women worked in
German agriculture.
Women in the armed forces

In 1939, the Wehrmacht employed about 160 000 women as secretaries, cooks, cleaners, and so on.
After the outbreak of war, women were employed in new roles, such as air-raid warning personnel.
By July 1941, the growing demand for female personnel was increasingly met by young women from
the Reich labour service, when the six months labour service was extended by a further six months of
war service.
From the middle of 1943, women were deployed as anti-aircraft auxiliaries to replace men in
servicing, though not firing, the anti-aircraft batteries. In 1944, they replaced the men manning the
searchlights. By the end of the war, 50 000 women were involved in anti-aircraft defence operations
and 30 000 in searchlight batteries.
R E VI E W Q U E ST I O N S
1 To what extent would you agree that German civilian morale was never broken during
the war?
2 What evidence is there of rifts between sections of German society as they coped
with war on the home front?
3 What factors affected the role and involvement of German women in the war effort?
R E VI E W TA SK
Compare and contrast the experiences of civilians in wartime Britain and Germany.
NAZI RACIAL POLICIES

While the war brought its associated stresses to the greater part of the German volk (community),
those who were members of despised racial minorities, or individuals who did not fully conform to the
Aryan image of mental and bodily strength, found that the war ushered in a period of systematic and
sustained persecution. The desire for racial purification and the provision of programs to achieve this
aim was the most revolutionary aspect of Hitlers regime. While the campaign against Jews, referred to
as the Holocaust, is the largest and best-documented example of Nazi racial policies, other groups were
also persecuted in the drive to create a pure Aryan state.
THE PERSECUTION OF MINORITY GROUPS

Gypsies
The 30 000 German gypsies were an interesting racial group because their origins in India suggested
an Aryan background, though their itinerant behaviour meant they were considered vagrants and
undesirables. A Nazi study concluded in 1938 labelled them as non-Aryan and, in December 1938,
Himmler issued a decree on combating the gypsy plague.
A Berlin conference in January 1940 decided to expel the German gypsies to occupied Poland,
though the mass deportation never took place because of overcrowding in the Polish reception
centres. In November 1941, 5000 gypsies were sent to the Lodz ghetto in Poland where many died of
disease and, in March 1943, Himmler ordered a special gypsy camp to be set up at Auschwitz, where
some gypsies became the subjects of medical experimentation.
Overy (2004, pp. 57980) distinguishes between the treatment of German gypsies and those
of Poland and the Soviet Union. For the former, he argues that, There was no general plan of
extermination. Most gypsies at Auschwitz died from the effects of debilitating labour or disease;
around 5600 were gassed. For the latter, their murder soon became routine racial killing.
The special gypsy camp at Auschwitz was closed in 1944. Some men and women were sent to
German factories as slave labour, while the rest were gassed. Only 5000 of the original population of
German gypsies survived the war and, overall, it is estimated that some 212 000 of a total of 872 000
European gypsies were victims of the Holocaust.
Disabled people
Disabled people had been subject to the 1933 sterilisation law, which resulted in approximately
350 000 people being sterilised between 1934 and 1945. The Nazi definition of handicapped for the
purposes of sterilisation was very loose and included prostitutes, alcoholics and sufferers of Parkinsons
disease. The beginning of the war saw the introduction of the euthanasia program (known by the
code T4) that was designed to give a mercy death to unproductive people, thus lifting the burden
both from the family and the state. It was pointed out that the removal of unproductive people from
hospitals would free beds for wounded soldiers, so linking the program to war needs.
About 1.4 million Germans living in mental hospitals, asylums and childrens homes came within the
scope of the program. A T4 questionnaire was sent to institutions to gather details of patients, then a
committee decided the fate of each. The victims were gassed in a sealed room disguised as a shower.
Families received a form letter that spoke of the unexpected death of their loved one, the need
to regard this as a release, the fact that to avoid disease the person had been cremated and, if it was
considered necessary, a subsequent warning to not to make further enquiries.
By 1940, news of these mercy deaths had spread among the public and religious leaders, and
protests began to mount. Archbishop von Galen of Munster published a widely distributed sermon in
which he said, Once you establish and apply this principle that unproductive human beings may be
killed, then woe to all of us when we grow old and infirm [and] woe to those of our brave soldiers
who will return home heavily wounded, crippled, or disabled.
Mounting public hostility caused the T4 program to be stopped in August 1941. Between October
1939 and August 1941, around 72 000 people were victims of the euthanasia program.
Other minoritiesincluding homosexuals, beggars and trampswere also persecuted in the
concentration camps before and during the war but the greatest sufferers of the Holocaust, in terms
of numbers, were the Jewish people, whose persecution had begun with the onset of the Nazi regime
(see Chapter 11).
Towards the Final Solution

The Nazis regularly said that the answer to the Jewish problem was their complete elimination from
Germany. After Kristallnacht, Hitler told a visiting diplomat that in the event of war the Jews would be
killed. He repeated this threat before the Reichstag in January 1939 when he spoke of the annihilation
of the Jewish race in Europe.
The ghettos
In November 1939 all Jews in Poland were ordered to wear a yellow star to identify themselves. This
regulation was later extended throughout all German-controlled lands in Europe. In the same year
Jewish inhabitants of major towns and cities began to be herded into ghettos. Ghettos were fencedoff portions of a town or city, established in the most run down districts, where it was impossible to
maintain even basic conditions of hygiene. Disease and overcrowding were commonplace. The Warsaw
ghetto in Poland became the largest, accommodating about half a million people. Anyone who tried
to leave the ghetto without permission could be killed by German guards. In April 1943 the Jews in the
Warsaw ghetto rose in revolt against these inhuman conditions. Despite being hopelessly outgunned
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: COND IT IONS IN T HE C AMPS
Figure 15.29
Roll call at Auschwitz, drawn by Ella Liebermann, a prisoner
Describe what is happening in this camp scene.
DID YOU KNOW?
by the Germans, the revolt lasted about a month. Tens of thousands of prisoners were killed,
some on the spot, others in the concentration camp at Treblinka. Over 56 000 Jews were
killed in the suppression of the revolt.
At least seventy-seven
high-ranking officers in the
Wehrmachtas the army
came to be called from the
mid 1930swere partly
Jewish or were married to
a Jew. Almost 2300 Jewish
relatives of soldiers serving in
the Wehrmacht were victims
of the Holocaust.
When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 the measures against the Jews intensified.
As the German attack swept across Russian Poland and into the Soviet Union itself, the army was
followed by Einsatzgruppen, groups of about 3000 men in total whose job was to mop up the
Jews remaining behind the lines. Their orders were to kill all Jews: men, women and children.
The Wannsee conference

In October 1941 a decree was issued forbidding emigration of Jews from areas under
German rule. A conference took place at Wannsee, near Berlin, on 20 January 1942, at which
the Nazis decided on the arrangements for the Final Solution to the Jewish problem.
Jews were to be removed from their homelands or existing ghettos and taken to the east
in overcrowded freight wagons. After undergoing a selection process, those who were unfit,
too old or too young for work were sent directly to extermination camps. Those considered
fit were sent to concentration camps to be worked to death.
Six extermination camps were set up in occupied Poland at Chelmno, Auschwitz,
Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka to deal with the Jews. Prisoners were stripped naked
and deprived of all possessionseven gold teeth fillings were removedbefore being gassed
in specially constructed shower blocks. Their bodies were then burned in large ovens. In
Auschwitz alone, more than four million people were murdered between 1941 and 1944.
KEY
NORWAY
Approximate Jewish
death toll, country
by country
868
ESTONIA
European frontiers
of 1937
Camps established for
the murder of Jews
1000
N O R T H
DENMARK
S E A
BELGIUM
LITHUANIA
S E A
NETHERLANDS
106 000
LATVIA
B A LT I C
120
Treblinka
Chelmno
GERMANY
125 000
24 000
700
LUXEMBOURG
Sobibor
Belzec
Auschwitz POLAND
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Majdanek
AUSTRIA
70 000
FRANCE
83 000
ITALY
277 000
300 000
ROMANIA
264 000
60 000
B L AC K
7 500
200
S E A
GREECE
WESTERN
USSR
HUNGARY
YUGOSLAVIA
4 565 000
400
S E A
65 000
600 km
Figure 15.30 The Jewish death toll, 193945
INTERPRETING THE HOLOCAUST

Much has been written by historians in their attempts to explain why the Holocaust occurred.
Traditionally, the argument has been between the Intentionalists, who claim that the mass murder
in the concentration camps was part of Hitlers plan for genocide from the beginning, and the
Structuralists, who contend that the killings were not part of a long-standing plan, but just happened,
growing out of the confusion and chaos of a nation at war. The central arguments for each view
are as follows.
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This historical debate was reignited with the publication of Hitlers Willing Executioners by Daniel
Jonah Goldhagen in 1996. He not only argued that the mass murder of the Jews was a consistent plan
of Hitlers, but that he was able to do this due to a long-standing and violent strain of anti-Semitism in
German culture, which meant that many ordinary Germans believed that a policy of mass killings was
right and just.
Goldhagen identifies three phases of Nazi anti-Semitism.
193339 Germans implemented the utterly radical policies to turn Jews into non-persons and
forced many of them to flee their homes and country. At a time when most of Europes Jews were
beyond Germanys reach, and when a comparatively weak Germany was pursuing dangerous foreign
policy goals and arming in preparation for the coming war, this was the most practicable solution they
could prudently adopt.
193941 The conquest of Poland and France created new opportunities for Germany, but
fundamental constraints remained. They now had over two million Jews under their control, but a great
number still lived outside their influence in the Soviet Union. If they had begun the genocidal killing of
Jews under the noses of troops of the JewishBolshevik Soviet Union, the flimsy non-aggression pact
between the two countries might collapse. They did begin to implement more severe measures. The
Germans made it clear that Jewish lives were worthless; they were placed into ghettos under inhuman
conditions.
194145 Only after the invasion of the Soviet Union did the Nazis put into effect the complete
apparatus of the Final Solution, because now they could. They had under their control the majority of
European Jewry and they were at the height of their powers and felt no external constraints. From this
point on the policy of mass killings continued, through shootings, gassings and even death marches,
literally until the final day of the war.
In each of these three phases, Goldhagen argues, the major thrust was the maximum and feasible
number of killings possible given the existing opportunities and constraints. There was no unintended
cumulative radicalisation of policy because of bureaucratic politics or anything else.
THE END OF THE CONFLICT

While civilians in Britain and Germany faced up to privations and, in Germany, persecutions
on the home front, on the battlefields the pendulum had swung in favour of the Allies. If
1942 had seen, in Churchills phrase, the end of the beginning, the year 1943 was to signal
the beginning of the end.
D-DAY AND THE LIBERATION OF FRANCE

The turn of the tide after Stalingrad meant that bitter fighting continued in Eastern Europe
as the Russians began their advance westward. Stalin pressured his western allies to begin
a second front to divert the full might of the Nazi war effort away from Russia. Although the
Allied landings in Italy in 1943 did draw German resources, the real diversion would only
come with an Allied landing on the western coast of Nazioccupied Europe. The questions were: where and when?
DID YOU KNOW?

The D in D-Day does not
stand for anything. It is simply
military jargon for any day
on which a crucial operation
is planned and allows for
planning before and after the
event. For example, D-1 is the
day before D-Day and D+1 is
the day after.
Plans and deceptions

Planning for D-Day began in 1943. The name Overlord
was given to the whole operation, with Neptune being
the initial naval phase. General Dwight D. Eisenhower from
the USA was appointed supreme commander of the Allied
invasion forces, General Bernard Montgomery from the UK
as commander of land forces, and Admiral Bertram Ramsay
from the UK as commander of naval forces.
The most obvious site for an invasion was the Pas de
Calais, the area of France opposite the shortest crossing
from Dover in south-east England. However, heavy German
resistance could be expected there and so Normandy was
Figure 15.31 Eisenhower (left) and Montgomery confer before D-Day
chosen. Although the Germans had built a formidable

line of defencesthe Atlantic wall, along the French
coastlineNormandy would be less heavily fortified. It
had suitable landing beaches and it also offered the port
of Cherbourg as easy access for follow-up troops coming
directly from the USA.
To gain as much information as possible about the
landing areas, agents were dropped into France; aircraft flew
reconnaissance missions along the entire French coastline,
so as not to alert the Germans to the real target; and an
appeal went out to members of the British public to forward
pre-war holiday snaps of France and the Low Countries to
the military.
Deceptions were carried out to make the Germans think
that the invasion would occur elsewhere. Agents and double
agents planted false intelligence and, in March 1944, a ghost
army was built up in Scotland, a move that, by the use of
carefully constructed wireless traffic, suggested that Norway
was the invasion target.
As D-Day approachedalthough its precise date was
still undecidedthe problem for the Allies was to conceal
the massive build-up of men and equipment so that the
final target would not be revealed. To encourage the
Germans to believe that the Pas de Calais was the target,
dummy landing craft were assembled in the Thames and
Medway rivers on Englands east coast, fake gliders and
inflatable rubber tanks and trunks were gathered on the
airfields of Kent and a massive, but fake, fuel storage tank
was erected at Dover to fuel the Calais landings.
Even as the invasion force set sail, RAF planes flew over
the Calais region, dropping window (aluminium strips)
to confuse the German radar; while on the sea below
a fleet of small boats played gramophone records over
loud speakers of anchor chains dropping and other naval
noise. Though the Allies never completely deceived the
Germans, for valuable days, the Germans were unsure
whether the Normandy landings were the real invasion or
just a diversion for the main assault still to come across the
narrows at Dover.
D-Day was fixed for Monday 5 June but, after weeks
of good weather, conditions deteriorated with strong
winds and a rough sea. Part of the fleet was already at
sea when Eisenhower postponed the operation. The
meteorologist reported a 24-hour interlude between
two weather depressions moving across the Atlantic that
Figure 15.32 Dummy tanks and other equipment made of

plywood, fabric and rubber acted as decoys to deceive the enemy.
would give a window of opportunity from the afternoon

of 5 June. Eisenhower seized the moment and ordered
the commencement of Overlord. A coded message was
sent to the French resistance to tell them to carry out vital
acts of sabotage and, at 12.16 a.m. on 6 June, over 23 000
parachutists were dropped behind enemy lines.
The landings
The beaches, which had each been given codenames, were
attacked at different times due to the tide, beginning at
6.30 a.m. at Utah beach. Though the landings were
successful overall, there was heavy loss of life at Omaha
beach where stiff resistance and steep cliffs meant that over
2000 Americans became casualties. In addition, of the 2400
tons of supplies that should have been landed at Omaha,
only 100 tons arrived safely. Twenty-six amphibious tanks
sank upon launching, swamped by the heavy seas.
German resistance was fierce but faced several
disadvantages. General Rommel, in overall command
of the area, had gone back to Germany to celebrate his
wifes birthday and did not return until late on 6 June. The
Allies had command of the skies and no German bombers
attacked the landing sites. Finally, the Germans had only
limited numbers of the feared panzers in the Normandy
region with which to resist the invasion. Though the British
failed to reach Caen on the first day as planned, by nightfall
on D-Day, 83 000 British and Canadian troops and 73 000
Americans had landed on the beaches, sustaining 10 000
casualties.
Utah
Omaha
Gold
Juno
KEY
Sword
Cherbourg
27/06
Barneville
18/06
Bridgehead on 6 June
at 24.00 hours
Valognes
20/06
A T L A N T I C
Le Harve
12/09
Ste Mere Eglise

06/06
Coutances
28/07
Arromanches
Carentan
06/06
Merville
06/06
Benouville
17/08
Bayeux
06/06
07/06
Caen
St Lo
09/07
18/07
Bridgehead on
1 July
Bridgehaed on
10 August
Falaise pocket
Granville Date of the liberation

of the town
31/07
Parachute dropping
zone
German Gun battery
German radar station
O C E A N
Granville
31/07
Vire 08/08
Falaise 17/08
Fatalse Pocket
Argentan
13/08
Trun18/08
Chambois
19/08
Avranches
31/07
Figure 15.33 D-Day, 6 June 1944. A The landings. B Mulberry harbours were formed off Omaha and Gold beaches by sinking huge concrete
chambers to form artificial quays. Prefabricated in Britain and towed across the Channel, these were sunk within 30 minutes by opening valves
to let in the sea. From these quays, floating pontoon bridges and roads led towards the shore. Gooseberries (at right) were breakwaters
formed off all the beaches by scuttling old merchant ships. C Floating pontoon railways. D Canadians land on Juno beach.
DO CUM E NT S T U DY: OM AH A B EACH

Source 15.16
Source 15.19
We had a bad break technically because the German 352nd

Infantry Division were on a counter-attack training exercise
at Omaha. So instead of a fortress battalion with kind
of second-rate troops we had a whole damned infantry
division in front of us.
The sea was rough, as our Landing Craft continued to circle

many of our troops became seasick As we approached
the last few hundred yards we began to draw intense small
arms fire as well as mortar and artillery fire from a couple
of well concealed bunkers. The ramp finally was lowered
and we began to evacuate as quickly as possible into
waist deep water. Almost immediately we began to suer
casualties from the severe small arms fire. We had at least
a hundred yards to go before getting to the sandy beach
area and at least two hundred yards of sand to reach the
cover of the rock and shale bank. All along the way we were
trying to keep the seasick and walking wounded moving as
we felt it was sure death to remain in the water.
J. E. Lewis, Eyewitness D-Day, Magpie, UK, 2004, p. 102.
Source 15.17
Then the Flying Fortresses dropped bombs which were
meant to pulverise the beach defences. This is what the
soldiers had been led to expect, and not a single bomb
landed on the beach defences. (It was never intended
that they should, I found out subsequently, but they were
bombing behind the ridge on the artillery positions.) I know
that the American soldiers were expecting the beach
defences to be thoroughly bombed and they never were
the actual beach defences in front.
P. Liddle, D-Day: By Those Who Were There, Pen & Sword,
Barnsley, 2004, p. 112.
Source 15.18
[In our boat] this Major indicated to us that they did
not want to be launched out [in amphibious tanks] at
whatever distance it was because they couldnt possibly
have swum in this heavy sea And, to our absolute
astonishment, we looked to the left and saw that they had
stopped on the left and were launching their amphibious
tanks and they sank twenty-six of them.
Barnsley, 2004, p. 113.

Barnsley, 2004, p. 120.
Source 15.20
As the landing craft reached the beach they were
subjected to heavy artillery, mortar, machine-gun, and rifle
fire, directed at them from the pill-boxes and from the clis
above the beach. Men were hit as they came down the
ramps of the landing craft, and as they struggled landward
through the obstacles, and many more were killed or
injured by the mines attached to the beach obstacles.
J. E. Lewis, Eyewitness D-Day, Magpie, UK, 2004, p. 102
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST ION

Refer to Sources 15.16 to 15.20. List the
difficulties faced by the American soldiers
at Omaha beach. To what extent were these
difficulties a result of bad luck or bad planning?
The breakout
The objective of the Allies was to link their occupied areas (or bridgeheads) as soon as possible and to
break out into Normandy proper, before turning east to push the Germans back to Paris and beyond. A
major obstacle was the nature of the Norman countryside, known as the bocagea patchwork of small
fields and hedgerows with sunken roads in between. This was perfect country for defence and ambush,
thus favouring the Germans.
For the Americans, under the command of General Omar Bradley, the capture of Cherbourg
was essential. Having reached the west coast of the Cherbourg peninsula on 18 June, they turned
northward. The port was captured on 27 June after fierce fighting.
In the British sector, Montgomery ordered an assault on Caen. Only after the city had been
reduced to rubble by Allied bombing was German resistance overcome. Having driven south as far as
Avranches, the Americans turned eastwards and, with the Anglo-Canadians coming south from Caen,
attempted to trap the German forces by a pincer movement in the so-called Falais pocket. There
the largest tank battle on the Western Front took place.

Although 40 000 Germans managed to escape the trap, the
German army in Normandy was virtually wiped out.
Meanwhile, General Patton led his tanks in a charge
towards Paris. General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the
Free French Forces, organised the final assault and, with
American support and the assistance of the population of
Paris who rose in revolt against their German occupiers, Paris
was liberated on 25 August 1944.
The battle for Normandy resulted in over 425 000 Allied
and German casualties, roughly equally distributed. Around
20 000 French civilians also were casualties, largely as a result
of Allied bombing.
Figure 15.34 An American soldier survives a dash between the

hedgerows of the bocage by using the body of a cow for cover.
1 Explain the following terms: Overlord, Neptune,
mulberry, gooseberry, window.
2 What were the advantages of Normandy as a
landing site?
3 What part did deception play in the planning of
Overlord? How successful was the deception?
4 What difficulties did the bocage present to
the Allies?
5 What happened in the Falais pocket?
6 Using the internet and written sources, find out
about the experiences of servicemen who took
part in the landing.
learned from earlier defeats and introduced military reforms,

for example, in the use of tanks, radios and intelligencegathering that enabled them to fully exploit the range of
weapons pouring out of the factories.
On 22 June 1944, Stalin launched Operation Bagration
to push the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Minsk was
recaptured on 3 July and its defending army killed or
captured. Fifty-seven thousand German prisoners were
marched through the streets of Moscow two weeks later.
Lvov fell at the end of July and, by the beginning of August,
the Russian forces rested on the Vistula, a short distance from
Warsaw, the Nazi-occupied capital of Poland.
The Warsaw Uprising
RUSSIAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVES,
1944
On the Eastern Front, the final two years of the war saw
the relentless advance of the Soviet army westwards,
first clearing the Nazi forces from the Motherland before
driving into the heart of the Reich itself. Explanations
for this success, which rely on the image of the Russian
steamrollerthe Soviet preponderance of manpower
miss the point, according to Overy (2004). Taking into
account the manpower of the expanded German empire,
Overy dismisses the view that the Soviet Union had an
overwhelming advantage in numbers, contending that
what changed the balance in fighting power between the
two adversaries was a very sharp increase in the number
of battlefront weapons on the Soviet side, and great
improvements in the way those weapons were organised
and exploited (2004, p. 527). The Soviet army leaders had
On 1 August 1944, the Poles in Warsaw rose in revolt against

the Germans. Assured by radio of Soviet assistance, they
received none. The uprising lasted until 2 October before it
was brutally crushed by the Germans. Over 250 000 Poles
were killed. Why didnt the Russians, who were so close,
intervene to help the Poles? Critics allege that Stalin gave
false assurances to the rebels, who were organised by
members of the London group of democratic Poles, in the
knowledge that they would be annihilated by the Nazis,
thus leaving the way open for his preferred Lublin group
of communist Poles to dominate the post-war state. They
point to Stalins refusal to allow British and American aircraft
to use Soviet-controlled airfields to bring assistance to the
rebels. While the uprising was in progress, Stalin moved
troops away from the Vistula front and, on 22 August, he
launched a million men into Romania, which immediately
defected to the Allies. Bulgaria fell without a shot being
fired on 8 September and the Red Army linked up with Titos
communist partisans in Yugoslavia.
B A L T I C
Figure 15.35
The Soviet advance to the Vistula
and Danube rivers
Knigsberg
S E A
Danzig
EAST PRUSSIA
Minsk
GERMANY
ve
Ri
rV
ist
u
la
Warsaw
Ri
ve
r
POLAND
Od
er
Lvov
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
River Danube
YUGOSLAVIA
ROMANIA
KEY
Approximate front
line, Autumn 1944
0
50
100
150km
In the 1944 summer offensive, the Russians advanced almost 500 kilometres. The land they
reclaimed lay blackened and empty. The Germans had destroyed all property and livestock and either
killed or deported for slave labour the bulk of the population. From September 1944 until January 1945,
the Eastern Front was quiet. Among the Russians, the desire for vengeance increased. The forces and
equipment were also built up, awaiting the final onslaught.
1 What arguments are put forward to explain the success of the Soviet summer
offensives of 1944? Add any other factors that you consider relevant.
2 Stalin fought a political war, not just a military one. Explain the events of August
September 1944 in the light of this statement.
THE FINAL DEFEAT OF GERMANY, 194445

The campaign in the west
Early hopes that the German defeat in France would bring a rapid end to the war were nullified by
several factors:
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D O CUM E N T ST U DY: T H E SOLD IERS

Source 15.21
Hitlers armies performed far more professionally and fought with much
greater determination than Eisenhowers men. Allied generals were constantly
hampered by the fact that, even when they advanced bold and imaginative
plans, these were often incapable of execution by conscientious but never
fanatical civilian soldiers, opposed by the most professionally skilled army of
modern times There is a vital corollary All soldiers are in some measure
brutalised by the experience of conflict To an impressive degree American
and British armies preserved in battle the values and decencies, the civilised
inhibitions of their societies Many individual German soldiers were likewise
unwilling warriors But they fought within the framework of an army which
was institutionally brutalized. Hitler and his generals demanded of Germanys
soldiers, on pain of savage punishment, far more than the Western allies
expected from their men.

1 In what ways did national culture
affect the quality of the fighting of
the troops on both sides?
2 What advantages did the Allied
soldiers have over their German
opponents?
Until a very late stage of the war the commanders of British and American
ground forces knew all too well that, in a confrontation with the German troops
on anything like approaching equal terms, their own men were likely to be
soundly defeated. They were better than we were: that cannot be stressed too
often. Every Allied soldier involved in fighting the Germans knew that this was
so, and did not regard it as in any way humiliating. We were amateurs drawn
from peaceful industrial societies with a deep cultural bias against all things
military fighting the best professionals in the business We blasted our way
into Europe with a minimum of finesse and a maximum of explosive.
M. Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 194445, Alfred A. Knopf,
New York, 2004, pp. 91, 1478.
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The Battle of the Bulge

The Allied advance was brought to a halt by a German counter-offensive through the lightly defended
Ardennes forest on 16 December 1944. By striking towards the coast and capturing Antwerp, the Allies
main supply base, Hitler hoped to separate the Allied forces and, by inflicting a defeat, persuade the
Anglo-Americans to seek peace terms, leaving him free to concentrate on the Russian front. The result
became known as the Battle of the Bulge.
The Ardennes was lightly held by American troops and, in the first five days of the offensive, the
Germans destroyed 300 tanks and captured 25 000 prisoners. The Americans rushed reinforcements to
the Ardennes, making a stand at Bastogne where the town endured an eight-day siege.
For the Germans, the benefits of surprise could not override the fact that, from the outset, the
offensive was doomed to failure. The German panzers had inadequate fuel; the narrow, twisting, snowcovered mountain roads made advance difficult; and, when the weather cleared after the first week,
they were exposed to Allied air attacks.
Retaking the Bulge took until early February 1945. The principle beneficiaries of the Ardennes
offensive were the Russians. Not only were significant panzer formations absent from the Eastern Front
when the Russians launched their Vistula offensive, but also those that were eventually transferred east
were much fewer in number due to the losses in the forest.
NETHERLANDS
KEY
US front line,
evening 15 Dec.
Figure 15.36
German counteroffensive in
the Ardennes,
December 1944
Aachen
Lige
US front line,
evening 24 Dec.
German attacks
er M
Riv
e
eus
Sixth SS Panzer
Army (Dietrich)
US First Army
(Hodges)
Namur
GERMANY
BELGIUM
Fifth Panzer
Army (von
Manteuffel)
Army Group B
(Model)
BASTOGNE
Seventh Army
(Brandenburger)
FRANCE
US Third Army
(Patton)
0
10
20
30 km
LUXEMBOURG
The Eastern Front, 1945

On 12 January 1945, the Russians crossed the Vistula to begin the advance that would take them
through western Poland and into Germany. Between the start of the offensive and mid-February,
8.5 million Germans fled from the Reichs eastern provinces, stretching from the Baltic to
Czechoslovakia. It has been described as the biggest mass flight in history. Both sides fought a savage
war, regularly and routinely killing prisoners. The Germans, convinced by years of Nazi propaganda
that the Russians were bloodthirsty barbarians, often feared death less than capture. Those who
sought survival by desertion or showed a lack of will were randomly executed by their own side.
German morale, fuel and supplies of all forms of equipment were low. At the start of the campaign, the
Germans had only 4800 tanks against the Red Armys 14 000 and 1500 combat aircraft against 15 000.
Production of weapons: Germany and Soviet Union (SU)
Aircraft
Tanks
Artillery
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
SU
15 735
25 436
34 900
40 300
20 900
Germany
11 776
15 409
28 807
39 807
7 540
SU
6 590
24 446
24 089
28 807
15 400
Germany
5 200
9 300
19 800
27 300
42 300
127 000
130 000
122 400
62 000
7000
12 000
27 000
41 000
SU
Germany
Source: R. Overy, The Dictators, Allen Lane, UK, 2004, p. 498.
On the Russian side, political agitators lectured the troops on the need to exact vengeance for the
devastation inflicted on the Soviet Union by Operation Barbarossa. There was a genuine patriotic spirit
but this was backed up by the secret police (NKVD) and counter-intelligence organisation (SMERSH).
These organisations inflicted severe punishment on anyone who faltered.
KEY
<DEN_KFMH4_1662>
Front line,
11 Jan. 1945
B A L T I C
LITHUANIA
S E A
Front line,
end Jan. 1945
ations
Evacu
X Wilhelm Gustloff
sinks with 9000 refugees

and crew
Pillau
Knigsberg
GERMANY
Danzig
EAST PRUSSIA
POLAND
25
50
75 km
Figure 15.37 Soviet advance into East Prussia, January 1945
<DEN_KFMH4_1663>
Figure 15.38 German civilians flee westward from the Russians. The weather, as well as the Russians, often proved fatal.
By the end of January, the Russians had overrun Upper Silesia and had liberated Auschwitz. Russian
prisoners of war here and in other liberated camps found that their freedom was temporary. Victims
of Stalins 1942 decree that any Russian who allowed himself to be captured was to be considered a
traitor, they found themselves interrogated by their own side before being transported to a Soviet
gulag, where many died. There seemed to be little difference between [Russian] treatment of the
peoples they were supposed to be liberating and those they were conquering, commented a British
official visiting liberated Poland (Hastings 2004, p. 255).
To the north, the Red Army entered East Prussiatheir first steps into Germany proper. Many
Russian soldiers, of a peasant background, marvelled at the neat and prosperous farms and villages,
angrily wondering why the Germans attacked their poor country when they had all this. Such feelings
fuelled an orgy of destruction and looting, encouraged by the Red Armys regulation that allowed
each man to send home a monthly parcel of his spoils. People and property suffered as the Russians
carried out mass rapes and killings of civilians, a pattern that was to continue throughout their advance.
One doctor deduced that out of approximately 100 000 women raped in Berlin, some 10 000 died as
a result, mostly from suicide. The death rate was thought to be much higher among the 1.4 million
who had suffered in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. Altogether at least 2 million German women
are thought to have been raped, and a substantial minority, if not a majority, appear to have suffered
multiple rape (Beevor 2003, p. 410).
Beevor (2003) argues that the desire to inflict vengeance on the Germans and the tendency by
Red Army soldiers to get drunk lay behind much of this activity, and while some officers made (often
unsuccessful) efforts to control their men, Moscow was less worried about rape and murder than about
the senseless destruction of useful resources.
News of these atrocities swelled the number of refugees fleeing the Russian advance. These
trekkers died from the winter cold and hunger. Some were simply run over or machine-gunned
by passing Soviet tanks. Between January and May 1945, German shipping evacuated more than
two million refugees from the East Prussian coast. The Wilhelm Gustloff left port on 30 January carrying
9000 refugees and crew instead of its normal load of 1900 people. A Russian submarine torpedoed the
boatonly 949 survived.
In the final stages of the war, the Russians reputation for savagery ensured that the Germans
mounted a fierce resistance, knowing the fate that awaited them in defeat. Zhukov, the Russian
commander, launched the assault across the Oder, the last river separating the Russians and Berlin, on
16 April. The crossing was made but it was a shambles. The initial Russian bombardment from 42 000
guns fell on forward positions previously evacuated by the Germans. The tanks arrived late and in
places advanced over the bodies of their own men and hundreds died in their own minefields, which
had not been properly cleared. The Russian assault ran into accurate German artillery fire. The bitterest
fighting took place around the German defences on the Seelow Heights, to the east of Berlin. Their
capture cost the Germans 12 000 dead and the Russians 30 000.
D O CUM E N T ST U DY: A SAVAGE WAR

Source 15.22
The view of the Wehrmacht as an army like any other is shared by many nonGerman scholars, especially in the West, and reflects a wider trend in public
opinion It is therefore of some importance to point out in what respects the
German armys conduct in the war was essentially dierent from that of any other
army in modern history On the individual level there is no dierence between,
for instance, the killing of civilians by a Wehrmacht soldier in Russia or a Soviet
soldier in Prussia. Once we shift a little from the individual level, however, we
begin to see the dierences. German soldiers fighting in Russia were allowed,
indeed were ordered, to commit mass killings of people who were clearly not of
any direct military threat to them. This was not the case of Red Army troops in
occupied Germany, even if many such instances did occur. And because this was
not the policy, but rather an unauthorised action, the scale of the killing is smaller.
The Red Army in Germany had no policy of decimating the German population
and turning Germany into a wasteland fit for Russian colonisation The German
army in Russia, on the other hand, followed a clear policy of subjugation and
extermination. Had Germany won the war, Russia would have disappeared as a
political entity and millions more Russians would have been murdered, with the
rest being enslaved by their German colonisers The Wehrmacht did not behave
in the same manner everywhere it was on the Eastern Front that the German
army conducted a uniquely savage war.
DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST I O N
How does Bartov in Source
15.22 distinguish between
the actions of the Soviet and
German armies?
Omer Bartov, Savage War, in M. Burleigh (ed.), Confronting the Nazi Past,
Collins & Brown, London, 1996, pp. 1378.
The closing stages

In the west, the Allies continued their cautious advance, reaching the Rhine in early March. The
Germans were making a fighting retreat across the river, destroying the bridges after them. On 7 March,
an American army unit came to the rail bridge at Remagen and found the Germans still retreating
across it. They rushed the bridge and engineers cut the explosives wires that were already in place as
they crossed. The bridge crossing was captured.
<DEN_KFMH4_1665>
Figure 15.39 The rail bridge at Remagen, which was dramatically seized by American soldiers in March 1945
General Bradleys forces staged their breakout from the Remagen bridgehead on 25 March but
progress beyond the Rhine proved embarrassingly slow. Town by town, they pressed into the Reich,
halting where they met opposition and bombarding the defenders into submission. The effectiveness
of German resistance in the west was diminishing daily and many Germans were now surrendering but
there were always just enough men and guns to sustain some kind of defence.
On 27 March, Montgomery, always ready to promote himself, abruptly informed Eisenhower that
he intended to drive for the Elbe on the way to Berlin. The signal infuriated Eisenhower who then
decreed that Bradleys forces in the centre should be the main axis of advance eastward. Eisenhower,
without consulting his political superiors, then sent a personal message to Stalin stating that his armies
had no intention of advancing to Berlin and would meet the Russians at the river Elbe, at least 40 miles
west of Berlin.
Churchill protested but General Marshall, the
American army chief of staff, endorsed Eisenhowers decision; the dying Roosevelt did not intervene.
Eisenhowers decision has provoked historical controversy. To his critics, the decision marked the
nadir of an advance dominated by cautious and unimaginative strategic leadership since he had
assumed command of the Allied ground forces on 1 September 1944. For the Americans and British,
the new policy ensured an anticlimatic end to the greatest military campaign in the history of the
world (Hastings 2004, p. 423). Supporters of the decision point out that the Russians were closer to
the city and could reach it first, and a fanatical German defence could be expected at the cost of large
casualties. It was Churchill and not Eisenhower who displayed naivety about the options open to
Western allied forces to frustrate Soviet imperialism in arms, unless they were prepared to go to war
with Stalin (Hastings 2004, p. 425).
On the afternoon of 25 April 1945, a reconnaissance group of Americans met their Soviet allies at
Torgau on the Elbe. Zhukovs troops entered Berlin on 21 April and met stiff resistance. Progress through
the shattered city was made street by street. In his bunker, Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. On 1 May,
Grand-Admiral Karl Doenitz announced his succession and the war dragged on for a further week, while
executions for desertion in the German army continued. On 7 May, the Germans accepted unconditional
surrender at a signing ceremony in Rheims (France), followed by another in Berlin the next day.
The Second World War was not finished. There remained the war against Japan but it was VE Day
(Victory in Europe Day) and, as Churchill said, We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing.
1 What role did the personalities of Eisenhower and Montgomery play in the
management of the Anglo-American advance?
2 Explain why the Ardennes offensive was a strategic blunder by Hitler.
3 Study the weapons production figures in the table on page 605. What observations
can you make?
4 In 1945, in Soviet eyes, it was time to pay (Hastings 2004). Examine the Russians
final campaign in light of this statement.
5 Put the case for and against the proposal that the Allies should have tried to
capture Berlin.
THE REASONS FOR ALLIED VICTORY

The main reason usually advanced for Germanys defeat was that the Allies had vastly superior
economic and human resources. After 1941, the combined strength of the British Empire, the Soviet
Union and the United States of America far outweighed that of Germany and its allies. In 1946, the
economist Raymond Goldsmith claimed that gross domestic product (GDP) of the Allies won the war.
Overy (1995) disputes this, arguing that economic size, as such, does not explain the outcome of wars.
Germany had greater industrial capacity than Britain in 1940 and access by 1941 to a good deal more
than Britain and the Soviet Union combined, yet it was unable to defeat either power. There was no
other way to defeat Germany, Overy argues, than to defeat it on the battlefield. In the first years of the
war, the Allied states did not fight well or were ill-prepared for conflict.
The reasons for Germanys defeat cannot solely be explained by statistics. There are other factors
to consider:
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Figure 15.40 The defendants at Nuremberg. Hermann Goering sits with his back to camera (bottom
left), with Rudolf Hess looking thoughtful beside him. Joachim von Ribbentrop, next to Hess, consults
a court official. In the back row, Albert Speer looks upwards, towards the camera.
THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

Before the wars end, it was decided to bring the leading Nazis to trial for war crimes. Hitler, Goebbels
and Himmler had all committed suicide, but twenty-one leading Nazis were tried at Nuremberg, a
venue chosen because it had been the home of Nazi rallies. The trials lasted from November 1945 until
October 1946 and the defendants faced some or all of four charges: conspiracy to wage aggressive war,
crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
There was widespread unease about the absence of precedent in international law for formally
imposing the victors justice on the vanquished. The decision to indict the Germans for crimes against
humanity was regarded in some quarters as a mockery as long as Soviet judges sat on the bench, given
Stalins record against his own people.
Early in the trial, the defendants were shown a film of the liberated concentration camps, which seems
to have genuinely shocked most of the prisoners except Goering, who stood by everything he had done
and tried to force the others to do the same. Speer was the only one to openly admit guilt and show
remorse, a reaction which probably saved his life.
The Nuremberg sentences

The sentences imposed on the defendants are summarised in the table below.
Name
Position
Sentence
Martin Bormann
Hitlers secretary (tried in absentia)
death
Hans Frank
Governor of occupied territories
death
Wilhelm Frick
Author of Nuremberg laws
death
Hermann Goering
Head of -VGUXBF (committed suicide in his cell)
death
Alfred Jodl
Hitlers chief military adviser
death
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
SS commander, deputy to Himmler
death
Wilhelm Keitel
Chief of 8FISNBDIU
death
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Foreign minister
death
Alfred Rosenberg
death
Fritz Sauckel
Organiser of forced labour
death
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
death
Julius Streicher
Regional leader, publisher of virulent anti-Semitic literature
death
Walther Funk
Economics minister
life imprisonment
Rudolf Hess
Hitlers former deputy
life imprisonment
Erich Raeder
Head of navy
life imprisonment
Baldur von Schirach
Head of Hitler Youth
20 years imprisonment
Albert Speer
Armaments minister
Constantin von Neurath
Former foreign minister
Karl Doenitz
Admiral and Hitlers successor
Hans Fritzsche
Former army high command
acquitted
Franz von Papen
Former chancellor and Nazi diplomat
acquitted
Hjalmar Schacht
Former banker to the Nazi regime
acquitted
Given that atrocities were committed by all sides in the war, and many subordinates
argued that they were only following orders, were the Nuremberg trials justified?

BERNARD LAW MONTGOMERY
18871976
Figure 15.41 Montgomery at his tactical headquarters
Historical context
PersonalityProfile:BernardLawMontgomery
General, and from 1944 field marshal, Montgomery was a legendary British commander of the Second
World War. His career as a soldier stretched from the days of the Empire, with service in India, Palestine
and Ireland, to the nuclear age. Montgomerys views on war and leadership were forged during the
Great War. He was appalled by the loss of life in the war and it made him a soldiers general. He was
always careful to calculate risk.
Montgomery was involved in many of the major campaigns of the war in Europe from 1939 to
1945. He was part of the ill-fated British Expeditionary Force, which made a desperate evacuation from
Dunkirk in 1940 after the Allied armies crumbled before the German Blitzkrieg. He was given a vital
command for the defence of Britain when a German invasion seemed likely, following the fall of France.
In 1942, he took over the British 8th Army in the Middle East and won a famous victory at the
second battle of El Alamein in October 1942. He led the initial attacks on Sicily and Italy in 1943 and,
in 1944, he took command of all Allied land forces for the D-Day invasion of France. After Normandy,
Montgomery led the 21st Army Group as it drove deep into Germany and then, after the German
surrender, he took command of the British zone of occupation in Germany and was the British
representative on the Allied Control Commission. He went on to become chief of the imperial general
staff and deputy supreme commander of NATO.

1 What was Montgomerys response to the massive loss of life in the Great War?
2 In which Second World War campaigns was Montgomery involved?
Background
Montgomery was born in London on 17 November 1887. He was the fourth of nine children. His father,
Henry, was a clergyman who in 1889 was appointed bishop of Tasmania. Therefore, at the age of two,
young Montgomery found himself growing up in the Australian colonies. Montgomerys mother, Maud,
was a strong-willed woman who ran a highly disciplined household. Her life must have been hard; at
sixteen, she married a man of thirty-four. Her eldest child, Queenie, died on the sea voyage to Hobart,
making her even more protective of her remaining children. Apart from looking after their physical
wellbeing, Maude was always alert for any signs of undesirable Australian influences creeping into their
lives. This normally meant listening for examples of local slang or the sound of the Australian accent.
The children lived by an inflexible routine.
Historians always look to the childhood of famous people in an attempt to explain their personality.
All Montgomerys biographers have given significant weight to his formative years. Chalfont (1976) pays
close attention to Montgomerys relations with other children, which consisted of power struggles,
physical confrontations and matters of will. For young Montgomery, these were intensely personal.
He was not physically impressive. Although he was coordinated and a good athlete, he was small
framed and wiry; therefore, determination mattered. Montgomerys biographers note that, from the
time that he gained high command, he wanted a photograph of any general he opposed on his desk.
Montgomery claimed in his memoirs that it was to help him get inside the mind of the opposition but
it also reflected his childhood tendency to make any contest personal. This combined with his absolute
determination never to lose showed that some key elements of the man were evident in the boy.
In 1901, just months before Montgomerys fourteenth birthday, the family moved back to London
and he started at St Pauls School. On his first day he was asked if he wanted to join the army class,
Young Montgomery quickly began to display a blend of the family characteristics that, in his adult
life, made him such a controversial figure. One of Montgomerys earliest biographers, the Australian
Alan Moorehead, wrote, It was not an easy nature he was impatient if thwarted, and he began to
exhibit a passionate eagerness to be the leader in games (Moorehead 1946, p. 27). A far more critical
biographer, Alun Chalfont, called him an impossible child (Chalfont 1976, p. 29). He was disobedient,
rebelling against his mothers rules but at the same time trying to impose his will and rules on others.
His mother would often say, Go and find out what Bernard is doing and tell him to stop it. In his
memoirs, Montgomery (1958) described his childhood as unhappy, dominated by fierce battles with
his mother. He wrote, there was an absence of affectionate understanding (p. 19). Some might say that
Montgomerys bad behaviour was a plea for attention; he was certainly always willing to confess and take
his punishment. This meant that his mother noticed him. The difficulty in his relationship with his mother
may have been, according to Nigel Hamilton (1981), because they were so much alike. Like her, he was
not intellectually gifted; like her he had a will of steel and a fundamental inflexibility of mind (Hamilton
1981, p. 5). Whatever the cause, his early life featured repeated contests with his mothercontests that he
could not winand a rivalry with other children in contests that he felt he always had to win.
which was for the less academically gifted and, as such, this said a great deal about the British attitude
at the time to soldiering and the army. Montgomery accepted. A number of theories are offered to
explain this decision. The Boer War and the fact that one of his older brothers had gone off to South
Africa might have inspired it. One of Montgomerys much younger sisters, Winsome, thought that he
had always wanted to be a soldier but other family members closer to him in age disagreed. There
is the very real chance that it was an act of rebellion, a way, at last, to win a battle with his mother.
Whatever the reason, by the age of fourteen, Montgomery set himself on the path to become an
officer in the British army.
Montgomery enjoyed his time at St Pauls. His greatest success was on the sporting field where he
captained the school rugby XV and the cricket team. Sport was Montgomerys release and his chance
to lead and excel. In his memoirs, he wrote, For the first time in my life leadership and authority came
my way For the first time I could plan my own battles (on the football field) and there were some
fierce contests (Montgomery 1958, p. 20).
In January 1907, after passing the entrance exam, Montgomery entered the Royal Military College
at Sandhurst. From this moment on, Montgomery was his own man and it marked a significant break
with his mother and his family.
1 When was Montgomery born?
2 For how long did he live in Tasmania?
3 What was Montgomery like as a small boy? What qualities do his biographers see in the young boy
that helps them to understand the man?
4 What explanations are offered for Montgomerys decision to become a soldier?
The army
Montgomerys final report at school described him as backward for his age. This meant that, in 1907,
he would fit in at Sandhurst. When Montgomery entered the Royal Military Academy, one of the most
favoured mottoes of the British army was sweat saves blood. As Moorehead (1946) and Chalfont (1976)
have pointed out, the army wasnt well known for attracting intelligent people. A few more brains
might have saved both sweat and blood. Montgomerys instructors described him as troublesome and
erratic. One of them, in fact, told him that he would have no future at all in the army. Hugh Thomass
1961 history of the military academy, The Story of Sandhurst, described Sandhurst in Montgomerys time
as a place more notable for bullying and drinking than learning. Montgomery was one of the bullies.
Fights among cadets were common: weapons of choice included metal pokers and hockey sticks.
Brutality and frequent hospitalisation were therefore accepted. Montgomery, however, went too far
even for Sandhurst and almost lost his chance at a military career before it had begun. Montgomery
set fire to another cadets shirt tail while others held the cadet at bayonet point. Hamilton (1981)
suggests that Montgomery at the age of nineteen didnt have any idea about the nature of skin burns.
This is a questionable defence. The victim was badly burned and taken immediately to hospital. In his
memoirs, Montgomery showed little remorse, writing simply that his victim had been an unpopular
cadet but that he had behaved in an exemplary manner for not informing the authorities (1958, p. 24).
The instructors did find out and Montgomery was, for a time, in real danger of being thrown out of the
academy. He survived, however, and graduated from Sandhurst at the age of twenty-one. Montgomery
was placed seventy-second out of a class of one hundred and seventy.
In 1908, he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served in India. Montgomery made the
army his life. He became an intense and earnest junior officer. While in India, he learned Hindustani and
later remembered enough to communicate with Indian troops under his command in the Western
Desert during the Second World War. He also played in and organised the regiments sporting teams.
An important aspect of Montgomerys character emerged when, in 1910, he was stationed in Bombay
(now Mumbai). A German warship, the Gneisenau, with the German crown prince onboard arrived for
an official visit. A soccer game was arranged and Montgomery was instructed not to field his best team
because it was a very good side and the Germans werent expected to be very strong. Montgomery
was his own man. His team won by forty to nil. When questioned, Montgomery said, I was taking no
risks with those bastards. Shortly afterwards, Montgomery returned to Britain.
First World War

With the outbreak of war in 1914, Montgomery, at the age of twenty-six, found himself a member of
the British Expeditionary Force sent to France. Montgomerys unit arrived on 23 August 1914. As a force,
they were inadequately equipped. They had only two machine-guns per 1000 men, no heavy artillery
and no radio or field telephone communication. Montgomery took part in the famous Battle of the
Marne and then the first battle of Ypres.
It was during the first battle of Ypres that Lieutenant Montgomery indicated that he understood
that war was a ruthless business. During one attack, Montgomery with his officers sword in hand,
entered a German trench and came upon an enemy soldier aiming a rifle at him. Montgomery did
not know how to use his sword as a weapon; hed only ever been schooled in how to salute with it
on the parade ground. The sword was instantly forgotten and Montgomery relied upon the more
brutal lessons of the rugby field and his Sandhurst brawlshe rushed at the rifleman and kicked the
German between the legs with a full follow-through. Montgomery put it down to the importance of
surprise in war and noted in his memoirs that the German collapsed in great pain before being taken
prisoner. A little later during the same action, Montgomery was wounded, shot through the chest. The
bullet passed right through his body, puncturing his right lung. He fell to the ground, still conscious
but bleeding heavily. One of Montgomerys men came to his aid and was promptly shot through the
head, dying instantly and dropping across Montgomerys body. As others tried to help, they were also
shot. Montgomery ordered them to stay under cover and leave him. The Germans continued to fire at
him and Montgomery was wounded a second time in the knee. Montgomery recorded that, The man
lying on me took all the bullets and saved my life. He spent four hours in the open until nightfall and
was barely conscious as he was carried to the aid station. He must have looked in a bad way because
as soon as the medical orderlies saw him, they began to dig his grave. Montgomery was, however,
assessed by a doctor and sent home to Britain the next day. He was awarded the Distinguished Service
Order and promoted. For the remainder of the war, he trained soldiers and worked as a staff officer.
Montgomery gained further promotion due to his talent for administration and obsession with detail.
In his memoirs he wrote, The frightful casualties appalled me. He was very critical of Britains First
World War generals, describing them as out of touch. He went on to say, My experience led me to
believe that the staff must be the servants of the troops (Montgomery 1958, p. 35).
The reality of trench life during the Great War is reflected in some of Montgomerys letters to his
mother at this time. He records his good luck and how on two occasions the man standing next to
him had been shot dead. The rain and mud in the trenches combined with the lack of sleep made life
difficult. In one letter, he writes in thanks for the parcels sent from home by his family, including some
peppermint-cream chocolates from his young sister Winsome. Montgomery continues in a telling
sentence to mention how the war has created strange situations; I eat the peppermints with a dead
man beside me in the trench.
1 What do accounts about Montgomerys time in officer training at Sandhurst tell you about the
British army at the time?
2 How was Montgomery described by his instructors at Sandhurst?
3 What were the key experiences of Montgomerys time in action during the First World War?
4 What were Montgomerys conclusions, set out in his memoirs, about the First World War and
leadership?
Rise to prominence
Barnett (1970) described the period between 1918 and 1938 in Britain as a time of illusion and neglect.
The army returned to its ceremonial and garrison roles, as well as performing police duties in support
of the civil authorities in India and Ireland. Despite government policy dominated by apathy, neglect of
the armed forces and anti-war sentiment, Montgomery set about readying himself for high command.
He attended Camberley, the army staff college, then went on to become one of its instructors.
In 1925, Montgomery decided that it was time to marry and, at the age of 38, he launched a
campaign to find a wife. In 1927, he married Betty Carver, a widow with two young sons. They had a
son together, David, in 1928. The marriage was a major influence and did much to focus and stabilise
Montgomerys life and ambitions. In 1937, Betty died suddenly from an infection that developed after
an insect bite. Montgomery recorded in his memoirs that he was surrounded by utter darkness I
had no one to love except David (1958, p. 44). Montgomery saw the death of his wife as the only battle
that he ever lost. He dealt with the loss by throwing himself in to his career as a soldier, advancing
to the rank of brigadier general in command of the 9th Infantry Brigade. He made it one of the most
efficient units in the British army.
In 1938, the tensions that were to become familiar aspects of the ArabIsraeli conflict were evident
as Montgomery took command of the 8th Division in Palestine with the rank of major general. Groups
from both sides resorted to terrorism. Montgomery set about establishing firm military control
across his area of responsibility in northern Palestine. In 1939, on the eve of the Second World War,
Montgomery was back in Britain in command of the 3rd Division, one of the units assigned to the BEF
that would sail for France in the event of war with Germany.
Second World War

Montgomerys experiences as part of the BEF in France were as important in determining his approach
as a commander as the First World War. He felt that the British performance was unprofessional and
described the appointment of Lord Gort as the British commander a mistake. In a campaign that
exposed the weaknesses of both the British and the French forces, the few positives that came to light
were the performance of Montgomerys division, a result of his careful training, and the evolution of
a partnership between Montgomery and General Alan Brooke, the man who would soon become
Britains senior military officer.
Shortly after the fall of France, there was a great deal of propaganda in Britain about fighting for the
beaches and every village and town. Montgomery had other ideas. He was a firm believer in a more
flexible approach, using mobile reserves that were ready to move to the point of greatest danger to
counter-attack. This approach was not tested, however, as the victory of the RAF in the Battle of Britain
meant that the Germans were forced to abandon plans for the invasion of Britain.
Command of the 8th Army, 1942

In August 1942, fate and support from General Alan Brooke, now chief of the imperial general staff,
combined to see Montgomery take command of the 8th Army in its desperate struggle with Erwin
Rommels Afrika Korps. Montgomery was not the first choice. General William Gott had been appointed
but was killed when his plane was shot down. In the published version of his war diaries, Brooke noted
that this event might have altered the course of the war due to the way that Montgomery planned the
Battle of El Alamein, leading the 8th Army to victory (Danchev & Todman 2003).
Following the surrender of the Afrika Korps, Montgomery and the newly arrived American forces
joined together to plan and execute the invasion of Sicily and Italy. Montgomery was much admired by
his own men but he did not work well with the Americans. Rivalry and bad feeling were the hallmark of
Montgomerys relationships with American generals including Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley.
The D-Day invasion and the final defeat of Germany

Montgomery played a key role in planning the D-Day invasion. It was a role perfectly suited to his gift
for meticulous organisation. In the first months after the Allied landing, he was in overall command
of all land forces. However, when General Eisenhower arrived in France and took personal command,
Montgomery was reduced to leading the 21st Army Group. This caused the resumption of the bad
feelings that had first appeared between them during the operations in Sicily and Italy. Montgomery
believed that the Allies should focus all of their might in a narrow single thrust, preferably under his
command, but Eisenhower favoured the strategy of wearing down the Germans by forcing them
to fight on a wide front. The Americans claimed that Montgomery was too cautious, contrasting his
performance unfavourably with that of Patton. Most military historians tend to defend Montgomery
on this charge. They point out that from the time that he took command of the British 8th Army in
the desert, Britain was short of manpower and Montgomery was simply being careful with limited
resources, something that the Americans did not always understand. Following one dramatic clash with
Eisenhower, Montgomery was almost relieved of his command but Eisenhowers tact and considerable diplomatic skill, as well as the strong support from General Alan Brooke, saved Montgomery.
Therefore, Montgomery led his troops in Germany and, after the war, was in charge of the British zone
of occupation.
Military genius or egotistical opportunist?

Montgomery remains a controversial figurehe is either admired or loathed. Ronald Lewin (1971) and
Hamilton (1994) believe that he was a superb commander and was certainly Britains greatest general
since the Duke of Wellington; Chalfont (1976), however, assessed him as being competent but not
great. On the positive side are the loyalty and confidence that he gained from ordinary soldiersthe
fighting men who called him Montyand the fact that no army under his command ever suffered
a defeat. He was an excellent tactical commander, gifted at planning and fighting individual battles.
Montgomery is also forever associated with the second battle of El Alamein and victory in the desert,
Following the war, Montgomery became a viscount and Britains highest ranking soldier when he
became chief of the imperial general staff from 1946 to 1948. It was not a role that suited him. Evidence
emerged in 1999 that while he was chief of the imperial general staff in 1947, Montgomery had
written a secret report in which he called for Britain to align itself closely with the racist administration
in South Africa and to create a British-controlled anti-communist block in sub-Saharan Africa. In
1951, Montgomery became deputy supreme commander of NATO and remained in this role until his
retirement in 1958. Montgomery died at the age of 88 in 1976.
a success that Churchill described as one of the turning points of the war. On the negative side is
Montgomerys almost all-consuming ego. He was not a tactful person and his ego and manner made
cooperation with the Americans difficult. He was not comfortable when, after 1942, American forces
played a more important part in the war in Europe. The American supreme commander in Europe,
General Eisenhower, had wanted another British general, Harold Alexander, to lead the D-Day invasion.
As for the battles of El Alamein, Barnett (1970) suggested that their importance has been overrated.
Meanwhile, others have pointed out that Montgomery was luckyhe arrived in the desert at the
right time. When Montgomery took over and was preparing to fight at El Alamein, vast amounts of
equipment was arriving in the Middle East and the 8th Army was being equipped with many more
new American Sherman M4 and Grant M3 tanks.
Montgomery did play an important role in the Allied victories in North Africa and Europe. He
was a meticulous planner and a superior trainer of men and armies. He was also without peer in his
ability to build confidence and communicate with ordinary soldiers. He is one of the best-known
Allied commanders of the Second World War. He was not, however, despite his own views on the
matter, a twentieth-century Alexander the Great or Napoleon. He was an impossible egotist and, like
all successful generals, had his share of luck. Montgomery was a complex and multifaceted figure.
His career included flashes of brilliance, if not genius, and also offered glimpses of the egotistical
opportunist. Historians continue to debate and assess the significance and proportions of each of
the ingredients that made up the life and career of Bernard Law Montgomery.
1 Compare the assessments of Montgomery by Ronald Lewin, Nigel Hamilton and Alun Chalfont?
What arguments support these contrasting views?
2 What were Montgomerys best qualities as a general?
3 How would Montgomerys ego have worked both for and against him?
References
Ambrose S., D-Day June 6, 1944, Touchstone, New York, 1995
Barnett C., Britain and Her Army 15091970, Allen Lane, Penguin, London, 1970
Beevor A., Stalingrad, Penguin, London, 1998
Beevor A., Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin, London, 2003
Brown M., A Childs WarGrowing up on the Home Front 193945, Sutton, UK, 2000
Bullock A., Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Fontana Press, London, 1993
Burleigh M. (ed.), Confronting the Nazi Past, Collins & Brown, London, 1996
Burleigh M., The Third Reich: A New History, Macmillan, UK, 2000
Chalfont A., Montgomery of Alamein, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1976
Charmley J., Churchill: The End of Glory, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1993
Churchill W., The Second World War: Volume I, The Gathering Storm, Cassell, London, 1964
Danchev A. & Todman, D. (eds), War Diaries 19391945: Field Marshall Lord Alan Brooke, Phoenix, London, 2003
De La Bedoyere G., The Home Front, Shire, UK, 2002
Fest J., Hitler, Penguin, London, 1974
Gardiner J., Britain 19391945, Headline, London, 2004
Gilbert M., The Roots of Appeasement, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1966
Gilbert M., Second World War, Phoenix Grant, London, 1989
Hamilton N., Monty: The Making of a General 18871942, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1981
Hamilton N., Monty: The Battles of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1994
Hastings M., Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 194445, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2004
Keegan J., The Mask of Command, Penguin, London, 1988
Keegan J., The Second World War, Pimlico, London, 1997
Keegan J., Six Armies at Normandy, Pimlico, London, 2004
Kennedy P., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Fontana Press, London, 1988
Kershaw I., Hitler: 193645: Nemesis, Penguin, London, 2001
Kitchen M., Nazi Germany At War, Longman, New York, 1995
Kissinger H., Diplomacy, Touchstone, New York, 1995
Lewin R., Montgomery: As Military Commander, B.T. Batsford, London, 1971
Lewis B., Aircrew, Cassell, London, 1991
Lewis J. E., Eyewitness D-Day, Magpie, UK, 2004
Liddle P., D-Day: By Those Who Were There, Pen & Sword, Barnsley 2004
Martel G. (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered, Allen & Unwin, London, 1986
Montgomery B. L., Montgomery of Alamein: Memoirs, Collins, London, 1958
Moorehead A., Montgomery: A Biography, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1946
Murray W. & Millett, A., A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001
Neillands R., The Bomber War, John Murray, London 2004
Noakes J., Nazism: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 4, The German Home Front in World War II, University of Exeter Press, UK, 1998
Overy R., Why The Allies Won, Jonathan Cape, London, 1995
Overy R., The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich, Penguin, UK, 1996
Overy R., Russias War, Penguin, London, 1998
Overy R., The Battle of Britain, Penguin, London, 2004
Overy R., The Dictators, Allen Lane, UK, 2004
Richards J., The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the Reality, BBC, retrieved 12 December 2004 from www.bbc.co.uk/history
Speer A., Inside the Third Reich, Phoenix, London, 1995
Thomas H., The Sandhurst Story, Hutchinson, London, 1961
Whiting C., The Home Front: Germany, Time-Life, 1982
Whiting C., Britain Under Fire, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 1999
Afghanistan 389
Africa 389
Boer rebellion 90
imperialism and 913
African Americans 214, 2302
Ali, Hussein Ibn 78
alliance system 1001
Allied forces 17983, 2812, 563, 587,
597601, 60910
Alvor Accord 389
America see United States of America
American Civil War 219
Antietam 11
Bull Run 1011
causes of 23, 718
campaigns of 186465 12
differences between North and South
78
Federal Government and 4, 8
Gettysburg 1112
key battles 1012
Lincolns election 9
Missouri Compromise 2, 8
Nat Turner rebellion 2
Northern argument 9
results of 1418
slavery and 49
Southern argument 9
states rights 4
timeline 23
surgeons kit 15
Vicksburg 11
westward expansion and 89
anarchism 957
anti-ballistic missiles 417
anti-Semitism 72, 321, 326, 335, 3447, 361,
363, 5967
laws promoting 346, 351
Arab nationalism 4378
ArabIsraeli conflict 416
1880s1947 7088
19481996 42779
attack on Deir Yassin 4312
Balfour declaration 71, 75
Black September 451
Britain and 7588
Camp David Peace Treaty 389, 4468
Churchill White Paper 1922 82
Dawsons Field hijacking 4501
Egypt and 435, 4378
Fedayeen 4378
Gaza 435, 442
Golan Heights 442, 446
Grapes of Wrath campaign 470
Gulf War and 4613
Hebron massacre 466
HusseinMcMahon correspondence
71, 75
Intifada 45861
IsraelJordan peace treaty 467
Jerusalem and 430, 442, 473
King David Hotel bombing 71
Kiryat Arba 455
Lebanon and 4524
Munich Olympics hostage crisis 451
620 | Index
origins of 7088, 42837

Oslo Accords 4647
outbreaks of violence 802
Palestinian role in 44952
Passfield White Paper 1931 82
peace process 45864, 4712
Peel Commission 1937 71, 82
politics of 823, 4378
propaganda and 432
radical right and 4557
refugee camp massacre 1982 454
return to violence 46970
Second World War and 836
social issues 4378
SykesPicot agreement 71, 75
terrorism and 4502, 46870
timeline 71, 428
United Nations and 878
war of attrition 444
West Bank 435, 442, 4557, 460
White Paper 1939 82
see also Israeli War of Independence
Arabs 42830
expulsion from Palestine 430, 435
move into Palestine 72
see also ArabIsraeli conflict
Arafat, Yasser 450, 452, 46061, 4647,
470478
assessment of 478
early life 4756
exile 4778
rise to prominence 4767
timeline 4745
arms race 424
Cold War and 397, 411, 41820
First World War and 101, 106
assassinations 1618, 5269, 95
arguments for and against 53
background 53
punishments for 54
Auschwitz 364, 593, 595
Australian soldiers 127, 134, 1502, 1801,
484
Austria 25
attack on Belgrade 90
German unification and 256, 349,
5567
AustriaHungary 90
First World War and 1013
autocracy 30
Axis alliance 555
Baruch Plan for International Control of
Atomic Energy 385
Battle of Britain 5659
controversy surrounding 5667
phases of 566
reasons for victory 5667
Battle of Jutland 115
battles of Ypres 115, 141
Bay of Pigs invasion 62, 387, 412
Begin, Menachem 4467, 4557
Belgium
Congo and 90, 923
BenGurion, David 87, 4323, 438

Berlin Wall 387, 410
Bismarck, Otto von 20, 238
Black Hand 102
Bochkareva, Maria 249
Bolshevism 177, 24456
ideology of 245
party reforms 25960
seizure of power 2478
support for 246, 2502
Booth, John Wilkes 1416, 18
Bormann, Martin 333
Boxer Rebellion 90
Brezhnev, Leonid 418
Brezhnev Doctrine 388
Britain
appeasement of Hitler 5503, 5569
ArabIsraeli conflict and 7588
Bomber Command 56970
Defence of the Realm Act (1914) 115,
158
economic effects of war 1589
First World War and 11822, 13650,
15262, 1705, 1856
Middle East mandate 7787
naval blockade of Germany 115,
1845
relationship with Russia 2801
Second World War and 5503, 55571,
57887
Suez Canal and 4378
use of horses in war 121
see also Battle of Britain
British Navy 1845, 561
Bruning, Heinrich 31415
Buddhism 510
Bush, George (Snr) 419
Caldicott, Helen 424
Cambodia 5289, 5349
war with Vietnam 538
see also Pol Pot
Camp David Peace Treaty 4468
events leading to 4467
framework for peace 447
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
424
capitalism 989, 199, 321, 382, 393
Capone, Al 2256
Carter, Jimmy 389, 417, 446
Carter Doctrine 289
Castro, Fidel 62, 412
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 490, 501,
511
Kennedy assassination and 624
Chamberlain, Neville 5501, 563
appeasement of Hitler 5503, 5569
arguments for and against
appeasement 559
China 388
communism and 385
Indochina and 481, 4878
Churchill, Winston 152, 397, 511, 563
Clemenceau, Georges 1901
Clinton, Bill 464
Cold War 381426, 488

background to 4004
Berlin Blockade 385, 406
bomber gap 411
characteristics of 4034, 419, 421
collaboration 4234
collapse of USSR 423
conflict by proxy 403, 409
counter force 397
dtente (196979) 388, 41619
dtente II (post-1988) 4223
diplomatic factors 395
domestic politics and 394, 419
economic factors 398, 4234
end of 419, 4234
first Cold War (19451953) 4057
flexible response 397
foreign policy approaches and 3824
geopolitical influences 4001
historical and cultural factors 399
historiography of 392
legacy of 425
linkage 388, 418, 528
massive retaliation 387, 3967
military factors 3967
money spent on 425
morality 424
multidimensionality 423
mutual suspicion 401
nuclear weapons and 3967, 4023,
41015, 417
oscillatory antagonism (195369)
41016
political factors 3934
propaganda and 398, 419
realism 424
reasons for end of 4234
second Cold War (197988) 41922
space race 398
spies 411
Stalin and 4012
timeline 38491
U-2 spy plane incident 411
world division 3939
Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) 423
communism 62, 99, 302, 382, 390, 393,
4823, 48990, 509
domino theory 416, 483, 497, 503
in Cambodia 5368
in Germany 328
in Korea 408
red scare 238
see also Cold War
Communist Manifesto, The 99
conspiracies 53, 626
Cuba 387
Bay of Pigs invasion 62, 387, 412
Cuban missile crisis 387, 394, 41015
significance of 415
Czechoslovakia 349, 388, 410, 557
Dayan, Moshe 4456

D-Day 597601
deception tactics 598
landings 59860
Denmark 25
dtente 388, 41619, 4223
dictatorships 5534
diplomats 395
Dred Scott case 2
Dulles, John 410
EgyptianIsraeli Peace Treaty see Arab
Israeli conflictCamp David Peace
Treaty
Egypt
ArabIsraeli conflict and 435, 43749
Aswan Dam 438
invasion by Israel 4389
Six Day War and 43944
Suez Canal and 4389
Einstein, Albert 424
Eisenhower, Dwight 386, 410, 439, 494,
4967, 597
Eisenhower Doctrine 386
Empress Elizabeth of AustriaHungary 967
Ethiopia 4578
Falashas 457
ethnic cleansing 431
European conflict see First World War;
Second World War
European imperialism in Africa 913
European Nuclear Disarmament 424
Exodus 87
fascism 348
Fedayeen 4378
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 23642
Ferdinand, Archduke Franz, assassination of
90, 102
Firestone tyre company 431
First World War 401, 11497, 204, 225
1918 armistice 14952, 17984,
18896
air raids 1547
Allied victory 17983
American entry into 1767, 186, 203
anti-British hysteria in Germany 154
anti-German hysteria in Britain 153
attitudes after 1916 1489
attitudes of soldiers 14652
battle of Amiens 181
battle of Hamel 1801
battle of Passchendaele 1412
battle of the Somme 13641
battle of Verdun 136
breaking the stalemate 13152
British firepower 1856
British home front 15262, 1705
British munitions industry 174
British naval blockade 1845
causes of 1002
censorship 16570
Christmas truce 115, 1468
civilian attitudes towards 1702
Cold War and 401
conscientious objectors 1645

conscription 1645
Derby scheme 164
dolchstoss 187
economic effects in Britain 1589
economic effects in Germany 1602
equipment of soldiers 122
exceptions to conscription 1645
Fontainebleau memorandum 191
food rationing 15861
France and 1202, 307
French mutinies 141
frontal attack 1312
gas as a weapon 1323
German home front 15262, 1712
German troop morale 186
German U-boat campaign 115
Hindenburg Line 127, 1812
influenza epidemic 187
Ludendorff offensive 1779
Middle East and 759
military leadership in 145
nationalism and 102
peace movement in Germany 172
peacemakers 18896
poetry about 146
positive view of 147
propaganda and 153, 16570, 176,
182, 187, 194
reasons for enlisting 163
reasons for victory 1847
recruitment of soldiers 1624
reparations 1913
responsibility for 1036, 192
Russian and 401, 103, 177
senior officers 143
sinking of Lusitania 176
spies and 1534
tactics and strategy 1867
timeline 11516
total war 1523
trench warfare 12232
Universal Conscription Bill 164
use of tanks 1336
war of attrition 142
Western Front 11723, 131, 172, 179
Wilsons Fourteen Points 188
women and 1725
Zeppelin raids 1557
flappers 216
Ford, Henry 229
France
fall to Germany 5635
13642, 307
German unification and 268
Indochina and 4889, 4923
liberation of 597601
Middle East and 79
5614
Verdun 136
Franco, Francisco 555
Franco-Prussian war 20, 268, 90
Index | 621
freedom of the press 327

French Revolution 21
Gapon, George 34
Garfield, James 53
Garvey, Marcus 232
Geneva Accords 4956
Geneva Conference on Indochina 4956
final declaration of 4989
Geneva Summit 386, 41011, 421
geopolitics 393, 4001
George, Lloyd 143, 1901
Gerard, Balthasar 54
German unification 1929
Austria and 256, 349, 5567
Carlsbad Decrees 20
causes and motivations 24
Congress of Vienna 20
consequences of 279
liberalism and 21
nationalism and 22
North German Confederation 26
process of 25
Prussia and 238
SchleswigHolstein war 20, 25
socialism and 21
timeline 20
Treaty of Frankfurt 27
war with Austria 20, 26
German Workers Party 321
Germany 80, 298380
1933 referendum 328
Anschluss 5567
Bavarian republic 303
Berlin Blockade 406
Berlin Olympics 336, 356, 3723
Berlin Wall 410
birth rates in 340
collapse of Weimar Republic 320
conscription 3513
conservative elites 31418
employment levels 339
expansion of 34850
11720, 13642, 1469, 15262, 3034
French occupation of the Ruhr 307
Germania 357, 363
Great Depression and 31314
hyperinflation 3078, 321
invasion of Belgium 120
invasion of Czechoslovakia 349, 557
invasion of Poland 349, 557, 563
Kapp Putsch 305
legal revolution 3267
limits on army 319
Luftwaffe (air force) 353, 561, 5659
Munich Putsch 3212, 319
Night of the Long Knives 299, 32831,
351
November Criminals 303, 319
occupation of the Rhineland 348, 353
Reichstag fire 3278
relationship with Italy 349, 5534
relationship with Russia 2812, 319
remilitarisation 348, 351
622 | Index
responsibility for First World War

defeat 303, 319
role of the army 31920
Saar 348
Second World War and 54577,
587611
Stresemann era 30911
timeline 299
treaty with Russia 2523
use of tanks 563
volkisch movement 321
weaknesses of 554
Wehrmacht (army) 561
Weimar constitution 3045
Weimar government 306
Weimar Republic 299314, 3701
see also German unification; Hitler, Adolf;
Nazism
global superpowers 394, 423, 448
bipolar world 394, 407
Goebbels, Josef 3335, 340, 611
Goering, Hermann 326, 3334, 337, 611
Goldstein, Baruch 466
Gorbachev, Mikhail 41922
Great Depression 320
effects of 207
Germany and 31314
long-term causes of 2067
Great War see First World War
Grenada 390
Gulf War 4613
Haganah High Command Plan D 430
Haig, Sir Douglas 125, 13645
criticisms of 144
Hamas 458, 464, 4679
emergence of 463
Hamiltonian view 383
Harris, Arthur 569
Hebron 455
Herzl, Theodor 734, 78
Hezbollah 454, 470
Himmler, Heinrich 329, 3334, 3378, 365,
611
Historical Investigation 107113
bibliography 112
getting started 10810
modern history 1089
research for 11113
Hitler, Adolf 80, 117, 281, 31618, 32179,
402, 55067, 5715
25-point program 321
aims of 5501
architecture and 336
army and 3513
arrest for treason 322
assassination plots against 366
background 321
becoming Commander-in-Chief 353
destruction orders 35960
Fhrerprinzip (all power to the leader)
332
military planning of 350
popular or feared? 347
popularity of 328, 332
prison term 322

rise to power 32630
role in the party 333
strength of 3345
totalitarianism and 3335
see also Nazism
Ho Chi Minh 87, 48993, 5013, 51112,
53943
background 5401
evaluation of 5423
ideology of 542
impact of 5423
USA and 541
Ho Chi Minh Trail 493
Holocaust 71, 86, 364, 435, 595
interpretation of 5967
Hoover, Herbert 2057, 209
Hoover, J. Edgar 23642
background 2378
secret files 238
Hossbach conference 349
human rights 47
Hussein, Saddam 4613
imperialism
empires in 1914 91
human cost of 934
in Africa 913
in Indochina 4879
rubber trade and 923
Indochina conflict
195479 480544
attitude in USA 489, 496
background of 48790
China and 481, 4878
First Indochina War 4926
France and 4889, 4923
nationalism and 481
results of 5389
timeline 4827
industrialisation 98, 206
in Russia 26972
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) 397,
399
Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
390, 421
International Workers of the World
convention (1905) 99
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait 4613
Irgun 86, 4323
Iron Curtain speech 385
Islamic Jihad 458, 467
Israel
1996 election 4703
absentee property 435
Allon Plan 4557
army tactics 45860
borders of 473
economy of 447
Eretz Yisrael 4556
establishment of 71, 868, 42830,
4327
gains in 1967 443

immigration from Ethiopia 4578
immigration from Russia 4578
internal divisions 4323
international recognition of 437
invasion of Egypt 4389
invasion of Lebanon 4534
Likud party 4557
maximising territory 455
military forces of 4289
missile attacks against 462
policy for occupied territories 4547
propaganda and 435
recognition by PLO 4601
security of 472
United Nations Resolution 242 443
United Nations Resolution 181 71, 428
violence by settlers 456
Israeli War of Independence 4327
Altalena affair 4323
assassination of Folke Bernadotte 433
consequences of 435
end of 433
Irgun 86, 4323
reasons for victory and defeat 434
refugees 343, 4356
resumption of 433
Italy
economic sanctions against 555
invasion of Abyssinia 554
relationship with Germany 349, 5534
564, 576
weaknesses of 554
Jacksonian view 3834
Japan
atomic bombing of 384
expansionism of 235
Red Brigade terrorists 451
Jeffersonian view 383
Jerusalem 72, 430, 473
annexation to Israel 457
Jewish Defence League 455
Jews 72, 285, 321
film industry and 3756
Jew flats affair 363
Jewish nationalism 735
Law of Return 435
migration of 7980
Operation Magic Carpet 435
persecution of 73, 86, 3457, 365, 372,
435, 594
see also anti-Semitism; ArabIsraeli
conflict; Holocaust
Johnson, Lyndon 55, 62, 6465
Vietnam War and 481, 511, 51314
Jordan 435
West Bank and 460
Kahane, Meir 455
KansasNebraska Act 2
Kennedy, John 41415
assassination of 5569
CIA and 624
different accounts of assassination
5860
different theories of assassination 627
FBI and 241
magic bullet theory 56, 67
Vietnam and 5056
see also Warren Commission
Kennedy, Robert 62
Khlysty 42
Khmer Rouge 528, 5347
Khrushchev, Nikita 388, 41011, 41315
King, Martin Luther 241
Kingdom of Jordan see Jordan
Kissinger, Henry 446, 528
Kluck, General von 121
Kollontai, Alexandra 2936
Brest-Litovsk and 295
timeline 2934
Korean War 385, 4089
nuclear threat and 410
Ku Klux Klan 217, 21923
origins of 21920
decline of 2223
Madge Oberholtzer affair 223
Kuwait 4613
Lawrence, T. E. (Lawrence of Arabia) 75,
789
League of Nations 77, 203, 233, 281, 328
collapse of collective security and
5546
Lebanon
civil war in 452
Lend Lease 234
Lenin, Vladimir 24461
Lennon, John 54
Lincoln, Abraham 7, 9
American Civil War and 1014
election of 9
Lucheni, Luigi 96
Mafia
J. Edgar Hoover and 236
Kennedy assassination and 623
Manhattan Project 402
Marshall Plan 385, 406
Marx, Karl 98, 393
Marxism 393
McCarthy, Joe 408
Mein Kampf 322, 350, 5501
Meir, Golda 4446
Mexico 2
Middle East
mandate system 7780
Molotov Plan 385
Montgomery, Bernard 61218
assessment of 61718
background 61214
command of the 8th Army 617
D-Day and 617

Munich Agreement 299
Munich Olympics hostage crisis 451
Muslims 72
Mussolini, Benito 349, 5534
mutual assured destruction (MAD) 388, 397,
421
Mutual Defence Pact 440
Nasser, Gamal Abdel 43740, 444
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) 232
National Socialist German Workers Party 321
see also Nazism
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
385
Nazism 28, 80, 281, 31518, 32179
Auschwitz 364, 593, 595
banning of party 323
burning of books 327
celebratory events 3389
concentration camps 337, 3645, 593
culture and 335347
Dora camp 364
Enabling Act 328
extermination camps 595
Final Solution 365, 575, 5947
forced labour 364
Gestapo 327, 337
ghettos 5945
Great Depression and 31314
Hitler Youth 3414
in Austria 556
Jewish death toll 595
Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken
Glass) 3467
life under 3389
master race 3456
medical experimentation 593
military and 326, 329, 338, 3513
Nuremberg laws 346
Nuremberg rally 356
one-party state 3278
opposition to 338
party electoral results 323, 325, 328
party foreign policy 34850
party membership 321, 323
party newspaper 323
party propaganda 328, 332, 33547,
372
party reunification 323
party salute 323, 327
party structure 334
persecution of minorities 5935
political policies 3224
racial policies 5927
reasons for popularity 324, 327
Reich church 344
religion and 3444
resistance to 321
restriction of civil rights 327
rise of 3212
Index | 623
Schutzstaffeln (SS) 323, 329, 3378

social classes and 324
stages of anti-Semitism 5967
Sturm Abteilung (SA) 321, 3279,
3378, 347, 351
support for 321, 3246
swastika 323, 351
T4 program 593
use of cinema 335, 369, 373, 377
use of radio 335, 346
use of terror and repression 3368
Vatican and 345
violence caused by 329
Volksgemeinschaft (peoples
community) 3389
Wannsee conference 595
women and 33941, 358
working conditions under 339
see also Hitler, Adolf
NaziSoviet non-aggression pact 2823,
349, 402, 557
Netanyahu, Benjamin 450, 4703
background of 471
New Deal 205, 20916
assessment of 21516
first 100 days 210
J. Edgar Hoover and 23941
politics of 21415
process of 209, 212
results of 21214
Nicholas II, Tsar 3047
Nivelle, Robert 141
Nixon, Richard 481
election of 527
summary of first term 529
Nixon Doctrine 388, 416, 5289
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
385, 395, 406
North Vietnam 499506
infiltration to South Vietnam 5045
land reform in 503
US carrot and stick approach 51415
see also Vietnam War
Nuclear Accident Agreement 417
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 410
partial ban 387
nuclear weapons 394
as a deterrent 3967, 403
brinkmanship 386, 410
delivery methods 397
proliferation of 411
protesters against 424
Nuremberg Trials 354, 360, 362, 611
sentences imposed 611
Operation Peace for Galilee 453
Oslo Accords 4647
conditions of 464
reaction to 465
Oswald, Lee Harvey 556, 612, 658, 241
Palestine 7188, 42779
civil war in 42830
definition of Palestinian 449
departure of leaders 435
624 | Index
districts of 430
expulsion of Arabs from 430
interwar period and 7982
land ownership 429
partition of 42830
Partition Plan 87
population distribution 723, 7980,
87, 429, 435
refugees from 436, 44950, 473
Resolution 194 449
self-rule 46670
statehood 473
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)
4504, 45863, 4767
Abu Nidal faction 453
creation of 440, 449
recognition of 452
recognition of Israel 4601
peace movements 424
in USA 5301
Pearl Harbour 2323, 399
Peres, Shimon 468, 4701
Petain, Philippe 141
PlessyFerguson decision 2302
Pol Pot 5348
Potsdam Conference 384, 403, 4901
Princip, Gavrilo 1023
prohibition 217
effects of 226
organised crime and 2246
origins of 2245
propaganda in war 153, 16570
ArabIsraeli conflict 432, 435
Cold War 398, 419, 425
in Britain 1659
in Germany 16970, 563
posters and cartoons 168
stories of atrocities 1678, 170
war as moral crusade 167, 169
protecting national interests 393
Prussia 238
see also Franco-Prussian war
Pugwash movement 424
Rabin, Yitzhak 455, 4647
racism 217, 21923, 2302, 457, 5927
see also anti-Semitism
Rasputin, Gregory 423
Rathenau, Walter 160
Reagan, Ronald 41922
films and 422
Riefenstahl, Leni 36779
Alpine films 371
assessment of 3689, 3768
background 3734
career of 367, 374
films of 3757
Hitler and 367, 372, 3757
rivalries between countries 394
Roaring Twenties 216
Rhm, Ernst 329, 331
Romanov Dynasty 3051

1905 revolution 336
Bloody Sunday march 347
March Revolution 445
murder of the family 46
mystery of Anastasia 4551
October Manifesto 378
overthrow of the Tsar 435
political developments (190514) 389
Rasputin and 423
timeline 31
war with Japan 37
Rommel, Erwin 5767
Roosevelt, Franklin 20816
assassination attempt 209
Royal Air Force (RAF) 561, 5659
rubber trade 923
Ruby, Jack 612, 241
Russell, Bertrand 424
Russia 99, 101, 177, 249297, 4578
atomic bomb tests 385
censorship in 425
change to Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics 260
civil war 2539
collapse of 419, 423
collectivisation 2648
Communist Party 2602, 27980
coup against Gorbachev 423
fear of the West 404
First World War and 401, 103, 177
five-year plans 264, 26972
foreign policy 280
Gulag 270
invasion of Afghanistan 417
invasion of Czechoslovakia 388, 410
invasion of Hungary 410
Kornilov revolt 245
kulaks 244, 264, 266
marriage law 273
New Economic Policy (NEP) 2589
November revolution 245, 2489, 401
party purges 2769
peasant resistance 265
political aims of 382
Red army 2536, 562
reforms of Bolshevik government
24952
relationship with Britain 2811
relationship with Germany 2812, 319
revolutionary parties 39
role of women 2724
6019
show trials 2769
timeline 244
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 244, 2523
vulnerability to attack 399401
War Communism 2566
wartime alliance with USA 402
White army 2546
workers conditions 26970
see also Bolshevism; Cold War; Romanov
Dynasty
Sadat, Anwar 4447

Sassoon, Siegfried 1456
Schlieffen Plan 103, 115, 11722
assumptions of 117
modifications to 11819
Schmidt, Willi 329
Scopes trial 21617
Sea Bed Treaty 417
Second World War 836, 2334, 2401
Afrika Korps 5767
Ardennes offensive 604
area bombing 567, 569
Battle of Berlin 56970
Battle of Britain 5659
Battle of Stalingrad 5735
Battle of the Bulge 604
battles of El Alamein 5767
beginning of 5567
blackouts 5789
Blitz 567, 5801
Blitzkreig 562
bombing of Germany 56970
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) 5623
causes of 5503
civilian casualty rates 582, 5889
civilian evacuations 5789, 587
civilian morale 581, 5889
course of 5615
D-Day 597601
declaration of war 349
dictatorships and 5534
Dunkirk 5645
eastern front 6047
effects on British civilians 57887
effects on German civilians 58792
end of 597611
German advances 5612
German invasion of Russia 5713
German planes 5678
Indochina and 4903
London Return Plan 578
Maginot Line 561
Middle East and 836
North Africa and 5767
Operation Barbarossa 5713
Operation Dynamo 564
Operation Sealion 5656
propaganda and 5812
rationing 584, 58990
reasons for Allied victory 60910
Russian counter-offensives 601
seeking shelter 580
timeline 5478
VE Day 609
Warsaw uprising 6012
weapons production 605
women and 5846, 5902
Womens Land Army 585
Serbia, First World War and 102
Seward, William 1718
Sharon, Ariel 4535
Sihanouk, Norodom 534
Simmons, William 220
Six Day War 43944

effect on Israel 455
end of 442
events leading to 439440
Israels pre-emptive strike 441
results of 4423, 44950
superpowers and 4402
timetable of 441
slavery 49
effects of 5
human rights and 47
life of slaves 5
reaction of blacks to 56
slaves as property 4
socialism 989
politics and 99
South America 234
South East Asian Treaty Organisation 483
South Vietnam 499506
fall of Diem 50610
Hue massacre 510
issues in 5012
land distribution problems 5012
Ngo Dinh Diem Government 5001,
5045
North Vietnamese intervention 502
role of the USA 502, 5056
US media and 510
see also Vietnam War
Soviet Union see Russia
space race 398
Spain see Spanish Civil War; Spanish
American War
Spandau prison 3601
Spanish Civil War 349, 555
SpanishAmerican War 90
Speer, Albert 336, 35466
achievements 358
anti-Semitism and 3634
as minister of armaments and
munitions 358
assassination plot against Hitler 366
assessment of 359, 3626
background 355
defiance of Hitler 35960, 366
Jew flats affair 363
joining Nazi party 3623
memoirs of 3602
Nuremberg Trials and 354, 360, 362
prison term 3602
relationship with Hitler 354, 3567,
359, 361, 3634
timeline 354
Sputnik 3867, 397
Stalin, Joseph 26183, 349, 399
Cold War and 4012
cult of personality 2746
death of 410
rise to power 2614
wifes death 280
star wars see Strategic Defence Initiative
(SDI)
Stephenson, David Curtis 2223
Stern gang 83, 867
Straits of Tiran 440

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties 388, 417
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 391
Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) 389, 420
Stresemann, Gustav 30911
Suez Canal 4378, 446
Suez crisis 386, 41011
Suez War 4389
Britain and 438
results of 4389
superpowers and 439
USA and 438
summit diplomacy 395
Syria 440, 4534
Talal, Hussein bin 4502, 460
Tehran conference 402
terrorism
arguments for and against 53
Tet Offensive 5224
evaluation of 5234
impact of 5223
theory of evolution 21617
Third World, superpowers and 382
Tomb of the Patriarchs 455
total war 1523
totalitarianism
Hitler and 3335
Stalin and 27982
Treaty of Versailles 18896, 2323, 3034,
319, 328
German circumvention of 319, 3489,
557
trench warfare 12232
challenges of 125
design and location of trenches 1247
life in the trenches 12730
Triple Alliance 90
Triple Entente 90
Trotsky, Leon 378, 99, 244, 261, 28493
background 2856
exile of 28991
role in revolution 2879
timeline 284
Truman, Harry 406, 408, 493, 494
Truman Doctrine 385, 406, 409, 416
Turkey, First World War and 75
twentieth century timeline 90
Ukraine 244
famine 268
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
see Russia
United Nations 878, 438, 452
peacekeeping forces 439
Resolution 181 428
Resolution 194 449
Resolution 242 443
Special Committee on Palestine 87
United Nations Expeditionary Force (UNEF)
43940
Index | 625
United States of America (USA) 198242

19191941 21623
African Americans 214, 2302
American dream 400
anti-war movements 5301
attack on Cambodia 5289
bombing of Japan 403
business magnates 229
censorship in 240, 425
civil rights movement 241
Confederate States of America 9
Constitution of 8
consumerism 218
defence spending 425
economic conditions 2067
foreign policy 2325
guerrilla warfare and 504
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 484, 513
historical patterns 200
Hollywood 199, 2279
hydrogen bomb 386
immigration 214, 224
Indochina and 489
industrialisation 218
involvement in Vietnam War 50533
isolationism 176, 2334, 383, 399
Mansfield report 50911
mass entertainment 218, 2279
military approaches to Vietnam 507
My Lai massacre 5246
New Deal 205, 20916
organised crime 2246
organised labour movement 214
political approaches to Vietnam 507
prohibition 217, 2246
railroad construction 204
reasons for involvement in Vietnam
War 5056
recognition of Israel 437
Rolling Thunder bombing campaign
514
rural voters 214
597601
Strategic Hamlet Program 507
Suez Canal and 438
timeline 2002
urban growth 217
war with Mexico 2
wartime alliance with Russia 402
women and 214
see also American Civil War; Cold War
USSR see Russia
van der Lubbe, Marinus 3278
Vatican, Nazis and 345
Versailles Peace Conference 77, 1906
Verwoerd, Hendrik 534
Vienna Summit (1961) 387
Vietnam 481
Battle of Dien Bien Phu 4934
casualty rates 533
communism and 48992
Communist Party of Vietnam 48990
626 | Index
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) 496

Democratic Public of Vietnam (DRV)
491, 496
division of 495
failed elections 499, 503
fortified villages 5078
French imperialism 4889
guerrilla warfare 490, 492, 499, 504
Ho Chi Minh Trail 493
National Front for the Liberation of
Vietnam (NLF) 5045, 5323
US troop withdrawal 528
USA and 493, 507
victory over France 386, 4956
Viet Minh 4823, 4903, 4956
war with Cambodia 538
see also North Vietnam; South Vietnam;
Vietnam War
Vietnam War 64, 41516, 418, 448
Battle of Ap Bac 50910
Cambodia and 5289
effects in USA 4812, 513, 532
effects of 416
end of 5313
Gulf of Tonkin incident 388, 51213
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 513
My Lai massacre 5246
Nixons sabotage of peace talks 527
North Vietnamese Army (NVA) 481
peace talks 527
reasons for defeat 5323
role of the helicopter 519
strategies and tactics of the North
51517
strategy and tactics of the US and
ARVN 51720
Tet Offensive 5224
tour of duty 5201
US doves 513
US hawks 513
US nine rules 525
US involvement 50533
US peace movement 52831
Viet Cong (VC) 481, 507, 50910, 532
Vietnamisation 5289
Volkswagen 339
von Hindenburg, Paul 303, 314, 31718,
320, 330
von Moltke, Helmuth 118, 122
von Schlieffen, Alfred 117
von Schuschnigg, Kurt 556
Wailing Wall 71, 80, 442
Wall Street 206
Warren Commission 556, 62, 64, 667
arguments for and against 56, 689
Warsaw Pact 386, 395
Watergate scandal 481
Weizmann, Chaim 78
Wilson, Woodrow 1901, 2035
Fourteen Points 188
progressive movement and 2045
Wilsonian view 383
Wolters Chronicle 3656
Wolters, Rudolf 3656
women 2724
being allowed to vote 175
Nazism and 33941, 358
war and 1725, 5846, 5902
Yalta conference 384
Yeltsin, Boris 423
Yom Kippur War 4446
consequences of 446
oil weapon 4456
timeline 444
Zionism 735
First Zionist Congress 71, 73

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YANKEES AND

The KansasNebraska Act. This is a political attempt to find a solution to slavery. As

Jefferson Davis becomes President of the Confederacy.

2 | Key Features of Modern History

Robert E. Lee is given command of the army of Northern Virginia.

Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees all slaves.

Lincoln appoints Grant as general-in-chief of the Union army.

s WRITESUncle Toms Cabin

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 3

THE SOUTH AND STATES RIGHTS

SLAVERY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

4 | Key Features of Modern History

THE EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON THE SOUTH

LIFE FOR SLAVES IN THE 1800s

THE REACTION OF BLACKS TO SLAVERY

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 5

Whites knew that they wouldnt like to be slaves, but if they

DO CUM E NT S T UDY: TH E ASS E SSM ENT O F SLAV ERY

6 | Key Features of Modern History

At the time of the Civil War, 90 per cent of the Black

DOCUMENT ST U D Y QUEST IONS

SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR

THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR

THE BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 7

The different views of the Constitution

The westward expansion

THE SOUTHERN ARGUMENT

THE NORTHERN ARGUMENT

4HINKABOUTTHEARGUMENTSPRESENTED THENDISCUSSTHEM)FYOULIKE HOLDACLASS

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 9

THE COURSE OF THE CIVIL WAR

Union versus Confederate resources in the Civil War

THE KEY BATTLES

10 | Key Features of Modern History

Figure 1.3 Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Many regard him as the

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 11

12 | Key Features of Modern History

DID YOU KNOW?

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 13

THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln

14 | Key Features of Modern History

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 15

John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln in the back of the head.

16 | Key Features of Modern History

The events at the Seward house

Yankees and Confederates in the American States in the Mid-19th Century | 17

The fate of John Wilkes Booth

18 | Key Features of Modern History

20 | Key Features of Modern History

THE ROLE OF LIBERALISM, SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN

Bismarck and Unification of the German States | 21

Prussia before 1866

Unification of Germany 186471

22 | Key Features of Modern History

BISMARCKIAN FOREIGN POLICY

THE PRIME MINISTER OF PRUSSIA

Portrait of Otto von Bismarck

Bismarck and Unification of the German States | 23

4HINKABOUTTHEARGUMENTSPRESENTEDTHENDISCUSSTHEM)FYOULIKEHOLDACLASS