The Greatest Trick of WWII? How Operation Fortitude Fooled Nazi Germany and Enabled the D-Day Landings

Almost anyone with even a passing interest in the Second World War knows of Operation Overlord (D-Day) and its immense importance. Yet, far fewer have heard of another great military operation that helped to ensure Overlord’s success: Operation Fortitude. Here, Nathan Richardson explains what happened in the 1944 operation to fool the Nazis and make them think that the D-Day landings would take place in Calais, France and Norway – and not in their actual location of Normandy.

A dummy British RAF aircraft in October 1943. Source: The National Archives, available here.

In 1944, the combined British and American military chiefs, along with their various allies, were intently planning an invasion of Western Europe. They all knew Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” must be breached if the Western Allies were to bring the war effectively to Nazi Germany and take the pressure off of the beleaguered Russians. Fighting in Italy had taken a terrible toll on the Allied armies. Regrettably, Italy had not turned out to be the “weak underbelly” that Churchill had thought. Though the operations in Sicily and Italy had successfully forced the fascist Mussolini out of power and switched Italy over to the Allied side, German troops barred the Allies from crossing the Alps into Europe proper. The Allies decided that they must find another invasion route into Europe.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Allied generals made up of both British and American commanders and headed by General Eisenhower, determined that an amphibious assault must be made from Britain into Western Europe. Where and when were the only remaining questions. Ultimately, Normandy, France and June were the location and time decided upon. Yet, keeping this information from the Germans could very well decide the success or failure of the invasion. Churchill, though convinced of the necessity of an invasion, nevertheless greatly feared its results if it turned out to be a disaster, which it very well could have been (Keegan 164-5). 

However, Eisenhower, who held the gut-wrenching last word on when the invasion took place, went to impressive lengths to keep the Germans as much in the dark as possible. That an invasion was coming, the Germans knew for a fact—it was inevitable that the Allies would attempt to retake Occupied Europe. Indeed, Hitler had been making enormous preparations on his coastal defenses, stretching from Norway in the north, down the whole coast, all the way down the English Channel. However, this impressive length of coastline defenses was never completed, and never lived up to its propaganda—nor did it live up to the faith that Hitler placed in it (Esposito 66). Naturally, the Germans knew they must decide which areas were most likely to be assaulted, and to build their best defenses there. Deciding that the Allies must need a port to sustain an invasion, the Germans centered their heaviest weapons and fortifications at port-cities such as Cherbourg, Calais, and Antwerp (Weinberg 685).

Not illogically, the German High Command decided that the most likely invasion point was the Pas de Calais, with its port close at hand, and it being the closest point between Europe and England. Why would the Allies travel farther than necessary? Would not the Allies enjoy greater air cover from their powerful air forces the closer they were to England? Thus, the Germans centered the bulk of their divisions in the West around Calais, and there put their best forces, ready to repel at this likely invasion site (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 88). However, this was exactly why the Allies knew they must not attack where the Germans expected them. Eisenhower knew he must keep the Germans from knowing the true invasion point. In order to do that, he made sure the Germans found evidence that seemed to confirm their preconceived ideas. The Germans must be convinced that Calais was the true planned site of the invasion, and that any other attack was just a diversion (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 82, 88). To accomplish this trickery, the Allies employed some truly ingenious schemes.

German Spies Flipped

World War Two was a war of spies and espionage. In an age of rapidly advancing weaponry and innovative tactics, spies were absolutely essential in keeping the commanders on both sides knowledgeable of the enemy’s capabilities and plans. Yet, the Allies were able to effectively deprive the Germans of their ability for espionage, and turn any German spies into Allied agents, who would turn around and feed the Germans false information about the Allies. How was this done? The British Secret Service identified German spies and carefully evaluated them. If German spies were deemed suitable (i.e., most likely to cooperate with the Allies), they were convinced to turn ‘double-agent’, and to report to the Abwehr (the German military intelligence) exactly what the British wanted them to know. Those spies who were not deemed suitable or who did not cooperate were either executed or imprisoned. This system was known as the Double-Cross System. Thus, not only did the Allies control the German spies, but with the ability to intercept German coded radio transmissions due to British code breaking (known as ULTRA), the Allies could confirm that the Germans were receiving the information the Allies wanted them to receive, and could also confirm whether the Germans believed what they were being told (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 77). This system of turning German spies into double-agents had carefully been built up since the beginning of the war. Yet, British intelligence knew that using the Double-Cross System to the Allies’ advantage could likely only be used once, since the Germans would eventually realize they had been duped, and the Allies would never have such an opportunity again. So, the British were forced to sit by and patiently wait to use this weapon until the perfect time. That time was D-Day. Until then, the British carefully fed the Germans true and valuable information to ensure the Germans trusted and valued their agents, while also taking care not to feed them information that would be militarily damaging (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 78).

Operation Fortitude

The last thing the Allies wanted was for the Germans to realize that their spies had become compromised. The Germans must see tangible evidence that what their spies were reporting was true. Enter: Operation Fortitude. Operation Fortitude was designed to fool the Germans into believing that the Allies were attacking at Calais, France and southern Norway, which would hopefully cause the Germans to concentrate their best defensive efforts at these points - and away from Normandy (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 82). 

A seaborne invasion, of course, necessitates a massive buildup of men and materials. Shipping of all sorts must be concentrated at the embarkation points. Supplies of every sort, including a massive number of vehicles, such as tanks, trucks, and jeeps. Fighter and bomber aircraft, ready to provide air support for the attackers, must be kept in readiness at airfields close to the invasion beaches. For a Normandy landing, this massive buildup must be assembled in and around ports in the south of England, at important port cities such as Plymouth, Dartmouth, Portland, and multiple others (Esposito 67). How could these preparations be kept hidden? They could not fully keep them hidden, despite the Allies’ best efforts. No amount of care and camouflage could keep German scouting planes from picking up the U.S. 4th Infantry division near Plymouth or the British 50th Armored Division west of Poole or the Canadian 3rd Infantry division near Portsmouth (Esposito 67). The location of these troops, if spotted, would show the Germans that Normandy was a more likely invasion site. Contrarily, the empty fields and ports of southeast England around Dover (the closest point between England and France), would indicate that Calais was not the target. Despite all of the Allied efforts to hide and disguise their readying of forces and to muzzle or flip the German spies, the Germans might still catch on, and the result might lead the Allies to an enormous defeat. 

Thus, the only way to keep the Germans from guessing the true invasion point, was to provide a distraction. This distraction was Operation Fortitude. Operation Fortitude was a dummy Operation, involving dummy formations of troops. In Scotland, the completely fake British “Fourth Army” was stationed, ready to assault southern Norway. In the southeast of England, the bogus First United States Army Group (FUSAG) was stationed, across from Calais, right where the Germans expected to see such an Army Group stationed (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 82). To make FUSAG look like a real army group to the Germans (from far enough away at least), the Allies built poorly camouflaged dummy landing craft and fields of papier-mâché tanks. To make the tanks look more legitimate, jeeps were used to drag chains around the tanks to create “tank tracks” and to kick up dust, indicating movement. Hitler’s spies obediently reported all of these fraudulences as the real thing (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 84). Fake radio traffic was also broadcast around the assembly areas for these fake armies. The British Fourth Army, which was entirely fictional (FUSAG was made up of some real units, though not all were even in England yet), knew that the Germans, due to their expertise in intercepting and decoding their enemy’s radio transmissions, were able to geographically pinpoint the location of the Fourth Army headquarters (which was Edinburgh Castle), as well as locating and identifying divisional and corps command posts (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 82-3, 85). The Allies would use the Germans’ proficiency against them with great effect. 

The already-famous General George S. Patton was placed in command of this force, giving further credence to the Army Group he supposedly led, since the Germans believed him the best Allied general. In reality, Eisenhower considered Patton more in his element when the time came for an impetuous drive across France, so Patton was given this unconventional role and saved for later (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 85). With control over the German spies in Britain, the Allies could control in large part what information the Germans received, and what they did not receive. Also, with the ability to read the German codes, the Allies could see the Germans’ react to the false reports, and could tell whether the Germans were buying it or not. Even if some information indicating Normandy as the main landing area came into German hands, this information would be buried amidst a far greater volume of reports that said the Allies were getting ready to attack Calais (Weinberg, 682).

Dummy landing craft used as decoys in south-eastern England harbours in the period before D-Day, 1944.

The German Defenses Affected by Fortitude

Operation Fortitude worked so successfully that the Germans believed not only that the Pas de Calais was the main target (which Hitler and General von Rundstedt, the commander in the West, both agreed would be the case), but that the Allies actually had far greater capabilities than they actually possessed (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 84, 87). From the intercepted and decoded German radio messages, the Allies could tell that the Germans figured Eisenhower had twice as many forces as he actually had (the Germans counted eighty-nine Allied divisions, rather than the forty-seven Ike actually had), and that he had four times as many landing craft, which were actually in very short supply (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 87, 83). Believing that Eisenhower had so many men and landing craft at his disposal, the Germans easily believed that Ike had enough power for diversionary assaults in addition to the main assault—which, in the end, kept the Germans from reacting swiftly and with enough force against the Normandy assault. In fact, the lie that Normandy was just a diversion for a Calais assault lasted until nearly two months after the Allied invasion, well after the beachhead had been secured and the push inland accomplished (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 100; Esposito 83). Fifteen German divisions, the bulk of the Fifteenth Army, which were the best-equipped the Germans had in France, were kept out of the fight in Normandy altogether, awaiting another threat that never came (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 88, 100). The distraction caused by the bogus British Fourth Army was no less successful. Hitler was so convinced that an attack was coming that he reinforced the Norwegian garrisons, leaving them with thirteen divisions—twice as many troops as were needed for the occupation. An additional 90,000 naval and 60,000 air personnel were also left to guard Norway, along with an armored division—all of which would have served a far better purpose in Normandy (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 84).

Conclusion

In summary, Operation Fortitude, which masterfully employed the resources that the Double-Cross System provided, managed to utterly fool the Germans into believing that the main attack was coming anywhere but Normandy. It can even be said that if Operation Fortitude had not succeeded, Operation Overlord would have failed. The Allies simply did not have the means to transport enough men to France quickly enough to meet the full force of the German occupation troops in the West if Fortitude failed to hold them back (Ambrose, Ike’s Spies 88-9). Eisenhower wrote frankly in February of 1944, just months before the great invasion, that “The success or failure of coming operations depends upon whether the enemy can obtain advance information of an accurate nature” (Ambrose, D-Day 83). The success of the Normandy invasion was just the first step in the freeing of all Europe from the terror of Nazi occupation. Thus, Operation Fortitude did incalculable service in the Allied effort to rid the world of Nazism.

What do you think the significance of Operation Fortitude was? Let us know below.

References

Ambrose, Stephen Edward. D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Ambrose, Stephen Edward. Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment. Doubleday, 1981.

Esposito, Vincent J. The West Point Atlas of War. European Theater. Tess Press, 1995.

Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. Viking Penguin, 2002.

Weinberg, Gerhard. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1994.

McCarthyism Before McCarthy: Vincent Hartnett in the 1940s

American Senator Joseph McCarthy remains well known due to his Communist witch-hunts in 1950s America. But others were giving similar messages a decade earlier. Here, Alex Reid explains how Vincent Hartnett was discussing the rise of Communism and its threat to America in the 1940s.

A colorised image of Joseph McCarthy, a man much more famous for his anti-Communism than Vincent Hartnett. Available here.

McCarthy and the 1950s

The 1950s for the United States proved to be a time in which it could flex some of its muscle as a new world superpower after the conclusion of the Second World War. Consumerism was flourishing amongst citizens and Rock n’ Roll was hitting the mainstream. However, the same decade in which Elvis Presley was swinging his hips on the new media platform of television is synonymous with Communist anxiety. No one better personifies this anxiety, arguably, than Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was a Senator from Wisconsin during the 1950s who reached a level of infamy that few can claim to have without leaving behind a body count. His ascent into notoriety as well as fear mongering began with a speech he delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia on February 9, 1950. As we know, the speech mostly consisted of McCarthy ranting that he held a list of known Communists that had infiltrated the State Department. The ensuing panic gave McCarthy his own “ism” and the early 1950s became known as the McCarthy era.

It is no secret that McCarthy was not the first person to spread fears of an impending Communist takeover, he does get the most attention though. He also wasn’t the only one to do so using religious overtones due to his strong Catholic upbringing. During the 1940s, before McCarthy was the face of anti-Communism, a writer named Vincent Hartnett was polluting the air with Communist fears. Hartnett would obtain some notoriety himself in the Faulk v. AWARE Inc. court case. Hartnett was one of the founders of AWARE Inc. in 1953 which was one of the organizations responsible for the blacklisting of celebrities during the 1950s due to possible Communist affiliations.[i] In 1962 Hartnett was being sued by actor John Henry Faulk for lost wages and libel. Faulk was fired from his job as a radio host due to the publications by AWARE Inc. labeling him as a Communist. Hartnett’s publications during the two decades before the court case show that he was no stranger to condemning people for what he saw as the downfall of the country.

Hartnett’s Fears During the 1940s

Hartnett wrote numerous articles for America Press Inc, the subjects of which ranged from book reviews to critiques on society. The former usually turned into the latter, however. One of his favorite themes was the impending collapse of western civilization due to the rise of naturalism and society’s shift away from religion. In an article Hartnett published in 1941, he discussed the dire need for Catholic leadership against expanding paganism in the United States.[ii] He stated in the article that “At the present day, when the powers of hell are attacking the Mystical Body of Christ with almost unparalleled violence” not referring to anyone specifically but bringing attention to what he believed was a crisis. Hartnett wasted no time in placing blame for the destruction of religious values. He traced the causes back to English desists, French Encyclopedists and the Illuminati in Germany. Scientists and patent offices also received their own share of the blame for bringing too much comfort and convenience to our everyday lives.

Like McCarthy, Vincent Hartnett was a staunch Catholic. Both were obsessed with what seemed like an unseen nemesis to the American way of life. Harnett even went as far as to call naturalism an “invisible toxin” that was poisoning Catholics. According to Hartnett, Western civilization was almost beyond the point of saving. In another article he wrote for America Press in October 1941, he cited a census taken in 1926 that stated less than half American citizens attended any church regularly.[iii]Hartnett excelled at using religious rhetoric to stir up fear and anxiety in the community. However, after the United States became directly involved in the Second World War his writing shifted in attempts to disfigure the causes and meaning of the war.

Communism and Soviet Attacks on Faith

Hartnett published an article in 1942 titled “Wanted: More Saint Justins in the Church’s Serious Crisis” that heavily discussed the book Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson published in 1907.[iv] Immediately Hartnett points out that the novel is set at the end of the world in a time of universal Socialism.  He praises Benson for his far-sightedness but stated that he did not predict the rise of Communism or Nazism. Once again Hartnett tries to convince readers that Christianity is facing a time of absolute crisis. According to Hartnett, the true evil of Nazism and Communism is not the Holocaust or the Great Purge by Stalin, it was their attacks on spiritual values. In fact, he makes no mention of Nazi or Communist actions outside of religious perspectives. Hartnett goes as far to say that Nazism and Communism are nothing but the tip of the iceberg hiding the true enemy, naturalism.

Even though Nazism and Communism were discussed, Hartnett condemns the latter more so. The root of his condemnation was that “Communists have been more forthright in their abjuration of religion than have the Nazi leaders.” Death tolls did not seem to be a problem for Hartnett but what he believed was a Communist attempt at building a Utopia without God was. He argued that not only does Communism attempt to destroy religion, Communism is a logical reaction of the rejection of God. Without God, Hartnett argued, the United States would fall into a totalitarian government. The spread of Communism meant the spread of paganism which meant the downfall of the United States.

Hartnett proposed this supposed war on faith was being waged on the United States by the Soviet Bezbozhniki, or Union of Militant Godless.[v] Not only was this Soviet group attacking Christianity, it was attacking the American democratic way of life. He sincerely believed this group had been slowly poisoning the United States. The article culminated in a call to arms of all Catholics especially writers and journalists. He was charging these writers with the task of stopping the expansion of paganism through Communism in the United States. It should be noted that he mentioned that action must be taken quickly because America might already be losing to Communist despotism. Hartnett drew on emotion by relating the story of Saint Justin in which he became a martyr and wrote one last Christian message with his own blood. He stated that the United States needed more people like Saint Justin.

Harnett turned the Second World War into a religious battle between Christianity and Atheism. He believed a victory in the war without faith was no victory. Communist ideals would bring about the end of Western civilization. Hartnett’s constant crisis rhetoric as well his anxieties about Communist subversion serve as a precursor to McCarthyism. Although Hartnett has not obtained the infamy or notoriety that McCarthy has, his goals were the same. Hartnett continued his fear mongering from the 1940s into the 1950s. More broadly, there is a lack of current writing on Vincent Hartnett and this lack has led to a weak spot in the historiography of McCarthyism.

What do you think of Vincent Hartnett? Let us know below.

[i] Doherty, Thomas. Cold War, Cool Medium. New York: Columbia University Press. 2003. 

[ii] Hartnett, Vincent. “Accent on Catholic in Catholic Action.” America Vol. 65, Issue 9 (1941): 233-234. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/

[iii] Hartnett, Vincent. “Tertiarism: Sanctity with Action.” America Vol. 66, Issue 1 (1941): 7-9. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/

[iv] Hartnett, Vincent. “Wanted: More Saint Justins in the Church’s Serious Crisis.” America Vol. 66, Issue 16 (1942): 430-432. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/

[v] Ibid. Pg. 431. 

The Life of Princess Anastasia Romanova, the Youngest Daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova (1901-1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, Russia’s last Tsar. While many of us know how Nicholas II and his family were killed by the Bolsheviks, so ending the Romanov Dynasty, many of us know less about Nicholas’ children. Here, Jordann Stover tells us about Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Grand Duchess Anastasia in court dress, 1910.

We’re all familiar with the auburn haired beauty drawn up by 20th Century Fox, the orphaned girl rescued by a young boy at the height of an attack on her family’s palace. The animated movie, Anastasia, was released in 1997 and has since become a childhood classic for a generation of children. We watched Anya slowly transform into the missing Grand Duchess; we cheered as she fell in love with Dimitri and hid our eyes when the menacing Rasputin appeared on screen in an eerie green hue. For many of us, this story was the first time we’d dipped our feet into the subject of history, marveling as our parents told us the true story-- that there had once been a powerful Romanov family that was murdered but the remains for the youngest daughter had never been found. As young kids, we hoped that Anastasia would one day remember who she was, that this real princess would get the happily ever after awarded to her fictional counterpart.

The life of Anastasia

In 2007, the final two remains of the Romanov family were found in a Siberian forest. The state of their bodies was consistent with the executioners’ notes and were then confirmed to be Romanovs via DNA testing. With that case closed and any chance of the Grand Duchess or any of her family members surviving their basement room assassination in the Ipatiev House, the real story becomes inherently more interesting. Who was Anastasia? What is the story behind those ghost-like characters who danced along to the iconic “Once Upon a December”? Anastasia was born Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, the youngest daughter and fourth child of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, on June 18, 1901. While her parents had been hoping for a son and heir, they loved their little Anastasia. She was named for St. Anastasia in the Russian Orthodox Church, the saint known as "the breaker of chains". A fitting title as Anastasia broke nearly every rule set in order to chain her to the idea of what an imperial daughter should have been.

Even when Anastasia was a small baby, her personality was larger than the Alexander Palace itself. She was best friends with her big sister, Maria with whom she was fondly referred to as “the Little Pair” in contrast to her older sisters Olga and Tatiana who were the “the Big Pair”. The four were close but so incredibly different; unlike the introspective Olga, the dutiful Tatiana, and the loving Maria-- Anastasia was referred to as “Schwipsig” meaning “little mischief” in German. She did the same needlework, the same chores and academics as her three sisters but she desired something far more fun than listening to tutors lecture for hours. Anastasia had a knack for comedy, often performing little skits with her sisters. She not only thrived on making people laugh, she excelled at the art. Helen Azar notes in her short biography of the fourth Grand Duchess that “some remarked that [Anastasia] was destined for the stage. Even in the darkest of times for her family following her father’s abdication and their arrest amidst country-wide revolution, she managed to draw laughter from her loved ones, the sound surely echoing off the walls of their prison house in Ekaterinburg for the Bolshevik guards to hear. 

Her personality, though fun-loving and entertaining, was not always charming to the people around her. As a small child, she was known to be a bit of a brat, her will too strong to be held back by her English, Victorian nannies. She would climb trees, hide away in cupboards, and refuse orders. She was a master at pranks and naughtiness, the blue eyed, strawberry blonde haired little girl dissolving into fits of giggles as she tripped servants and her siblings. She was not always the ideal playmate with other children, even noted by her cousin, Princess Nina Georgeivena, as being “nasty to the point of being evil”. Anna Vyrubova notes of an instance in her memoirs where Anastasia played a bit too rough with her sisters-- the four sisters had been having a snowball fight in the yards of their Polish palace when Anastasia knocked Tatiana to the ground with a snowball full of rocks.

Birth of a male heir

When her little brother, Tsarevich Alexei, was born, the family and country rejoiced. Russia remained one of the only monarchies at the time to refuse women the throne. Because of the Law that had been put into place by the son of Catherine the Great, the fact that Tsar Nicholas already had four daughters, they meant little to nothing for the Romanov line of succession. The birth of a little boy in 1904 meant that the Tsarina had fulfilled her duties as Empress and that the four sisters had a little one to dote on. When it was discovered that their baby brother was sick, that he had the dreaded Hemophilia, the four young girls became even more protective of the boy. They kept a close eye on him, sitting by his bedside when he was sick and writing letters when they were not permitted to visit. Despite his sickness that often left him bedridden, Alexei was a vivacious, curious boy. Who better than to be his partner in crime? His big sister, Schwipsig. The two of them were incredibly close, the absolute best of friends. Together, they no doubt ran their governesses ragged.

Towards the end

As Anastasia aged to the seventeen year old she would forever be frozen as, she mellowed out. She still enjoyed making people laugh, still pushed the boundaries of what was allowed-- for example, during the family’s time under house arrest Anastasia was nearly shot for peering out a window and then stuck her tongue out at the guard who had fired at her. Anastasia went from playing silly pranks and sticking pins on the chairs of her tutors to becoming the relief that her family desperately needed. One can hardly imagine what it must have been like for the teenage girl locked up with her future in constant danger. She and her family had no clue what awaited them, they did not know if they’d ever be allowed outside for more than an hour under guard ever again, they had no clue if they’d be allowed to see their friends, to dance, paint, sing, or any of the other number of activities they’d so loved prior to the Russian Revolution. Anastasia, determined to maintain her status as the joy of the family, must have felt an enormous weight on her small shoulders. How was she to make her father, who had lost his kingdom, laugh? Her eldest sister, Olga, who was becoming thinner and more depressed with each passing day-- how was she to bring a smile back to her face? Her brother who was in agonizing pain, her mother who was suffering from her own ailments-- could she make things better for them? We will never know if Anastasia was able to accomplish these goals but we can hope. We can hope for this Anastasia, the real girl with messy hair and skinned knees who lost her life before it had truly begun, just as we hoped for the animated princess of our adolescence. 

What do you think of Princess Anastasia? Let us know below.

References

Azar, Helen (2017). GRAND DUCHESS ANASTASIA NIKOLAEVNA: 18 JUNE, 1901 – 17 JULY, 1918. theromanovfamily.com

Eagar, Margaret (1906). Six Years at the Russian Court. Alexanderpalace.org

Massie, Robert K. (1967). Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Dell Publishing

Vyrubova, Anna. Memories of the Russian Court. Alexanderpalace.org.

Russian Prince, U.S. businessman, hero of World War II: The Unbelievable Life of Sergei Obolensky

Serge Obolensky (1890-1978) may not be somebody you have heard of; however he led a fascinating life. From World War I to the Russian Civil War, from London to New York, from marrying the daughter of one of the richest Americans to capturing Sardinia in World War Two - and playing a key role in the US hotel industry. Dmitriy Nikolayev explains.

Serge Obolensky, Source: Available here.

There have been some amazing people in the history of Russian immigration to the USA. The life of the Russian aristocrat, Prince Sergei (Serge) Obolensky, was full of rises and falls, deprivations, great financial success, and military exploits. During the First World War he was awarded the highest medals for personal courage; later, the Bolsheviks hunted him. In America he became one of the founders of the U.S. Special Forces, a lieutenant colonel of the Office of Strategic Services, and a U.S. Army paratrooper at the age of 53. Obolensky successfully completed the task of peacefully seizing Sardinia and transferring it to American forces. He became a successful businessman, socialite and publicist, vice chairman of the board of directors of the Hilton Hotels Corporation. Obolensky was married several times, including the daughter of the Russian emperor Alexander II and the daughter of one of the richest people in the USA, John Jacob Astor IV, who died in the sinking of RMS Titanic.

The revolution of 1917 in Russia turned out to be a disaster for the country. Entire groups of society (for example, the nobility and the clergy) were proclaimed ideologically alien to the new Bolshevik state. There was no place for them in the new country. Several million people were forced to emigrate from Soviet Russia. Many died in the Russian Civil War (1917-22), between the ‘red’ communists and the opposition ‘whites’. Those few who remained were repressed or had to hide their origin. Life scattered the ‘white’ Russian immigration across different countries and continents. Some tried to find a new life in Europe, some fled to China, and some moved to the United States.

Sergei Obolensky was the oldest son of Prince Platon Obolensky-Neledinsky-Meletsky (1850-1913) and Maria Naryshkina (1861-1929). Thereby, both of his parents were the representatives of noble families of the highest rank. In 1897 his parents divorced. From the age of seven, the prince was brought up by his father. In 1912, Obolensky went to study in Oxford, England. There he got acquainted with representatives of the English aristocracy, including the Prince of Wales (the future king of England, Edward VIII). At the beginning of World War I, Obolensky returned to Russia and joined the army as an officer in the Cavalier Guard regiment. He was awarded three St. George’s crosses, which was the highest medal for bravery in Tsarist Russia.

During one holiday Sergei Obolensky met Ekaterina Yuryevskaya, the daughter of Alexander II in his morganatic marriage. Despite the significant difference in age for the time (she was 12 years older than the Prince), they got married in 1916. Then the revolution erupted. First Obolensky hid from the Bolsheviks in the Crimea, using a fake passport, then the couple moved to Moscow. He found a job for a textile factory in Moscow, and his wife began working as a schoolteacher. Their property in Russia was confiscated, and having such noble titles became simply dangerous.

Fleeing from the communist regime, the Obolensky couple moved to Europe. After wandering around several countries they settled in London. The Prince still had money in English banks. His former university connections helped as well. Even so, his marriage with Catherine broke up and they got divorced. 

Immigration from Russia

In London, Obolensky found a job in sales of agricultural machinery. He started to participate in social life and attend balls and parties of the English nobility. At one of the balls he met Alice Muriel Astor. Alice's father, John Jacob Astor IV, was one of the richest people in the United States, the great-grandson of the first American millionaire who was among the passengers of the Titanic in 1912. The last time he was seen, he was calmly smoking a cigar on a sinking liner. Obolensky proposed and they soon got married and settled in New York.

The Russian aristocrat joined the circle of confidants of the head of the family business of Vincent Astor and became the manager of its hotels and restaurants. Alice gave birth to their two children, son Ivan and daughter Sylvia. Though they divorced in 1932, Serge maintained friendly relations with both his ex-wife and her brother Vincent. Obolensky ran Astor's fashionable St. Regis Sheraton hotel on Fifth Avenue.

Vincent successfully navigated the financial crisis of 1929 and became an advisor to President F.D. Roosevelt and sometimes provided Roosevelt with his yacht "Nurmahal". Along with Vincent’s financial success, Obolensky’s prosperity grew as well. The Prince hosted lavish parties. George Gershwin presented the fragments of his still unfinished opera “Porgy and Bess” at one of his birthdays. 

Serge also helped Russian emigrants who were in a difficult financial situation in America, while his interests were not limited to the hotel business. Before the Second World War, he was successfully involved in perfumery with his immigrant friend Aleksandre Tarsaidze.

During World War II

When the war broke out, Obolensky decided to join the army again. But this time it was the US Army. His cavalry past was not in demand, but he thought that his experience of hiding from the Bolsheviks could be useful in the Special Forces. At first, he was refused. Nevertheless, Obolensky continued his training, passed the exams to be an officer, became a lieutenant, and soon received the rank of captain. He did it in his free time when working at the hotel.

Bill Donovan, the man who was busy organizing American commando forces, was living in the same hotel at that moment. He just formed the OSS - the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. After talking with Donovan, the Russian Prince became part of the OSS. Obviously, Obolensky had an extraordinary talent for convincing people, finding a common language with different individuals. He could use his gift both in business and in military service.

First, he got several months of special training. The commanders developed not only the technical side, but also the tactics of guerrilla warfare. For this, Obolensky translated a manual for Soviet partisans into English, which formed the basis for the preparation of sabotage groups. After that, Serge took part in training in various branches of the army, from the Marine Corps to the tank forces. At the age of 53, Obolensky made his first parachute jump.

In September 1943, shortly after the overthrow of Mussolini, Obolensky, having landed in Sardinia with three other commandos, came into contact with General Basso, who commanded the Italian forces there, and, passing him special messages from Eisenhower, the Italian king and Marshal Badoglio, persuaded him to join the American forces. The capture of Sardinia was regarded as one of the most impressive achievements of the OSS at that time. Later he received the order to prevent the destruction of the power plant by Germans during their retreat. This task was also completed successfully.

The life of Serge Obolensky after the war

After the war Obolensky continued to work in his hotel business. He went to work for the fast-growing hotel empire of Conrad Hilton. And soon he became a vice president of the Hilton Corporation. In 1949, the Russian aristocrat also started his own public relations firm in New York City, Serge Obolensky Associates, Inc.

Serge continued to host society parties too. There are some photos of him with American celebrities; for example, on one of them he is dancing with Marilyn Monroe. At "white balls", which he sometimes arranged, he danced on the table the so-called "Russian dance with daggers" - even when he became much older. In 1971, Sergei Obolensky married for the third time to Marilyn Fraser Wall. He was 81 years old that year, his wife was 42. During the last years of his life, they lived in Gross Point, a rich suburb of Detroit. Sergei Obolensky died in 1978, at the age of 88. He worked in the hotel business until the last days of his life.

What do you think of the life of Sergei Obolensky? Let us know below.

The Great Flu of 1918 and CoVID-19: A Wake Up Call

CoVID-19 is leading to great change in how societies and economies operate the world over; however the Great Flu (or Spanish Flu) of 1918 caused devastation some 100 years ago. Here, Daniel L. Smith considers what happened in 1918 and in retrospect what it could mean for CoVID-19 now.

Daniel’s new book on mid-19thcentury northern California is now available. Find our more here: Amazon US| Amazon UK

U.S. Army Camp Hospital No. 45, Aix-Les-Bains, France, Influenza Ward No. 1, in 1918. Influenza pandemic ward during World War I.

So here we are. In a great modern-day national quarantined lock-down. A new procedure for most people in America and the West. Has anyone ever heard of the Great Flu  - or Spanish Flu - of 1918? The Great Influenza of 1918 might arguably resemble the CoVID-19 flu that we are seeing today, at least to some degree. For instance, we notice that Iran is dealing with a large viral outbreak with over 1,000 casualties that they are allowing to be officially reported inside of their borders.[1] Of course they are also hyping up the situation by calling for “over one-million deaths” from this unfriendly influenza.[2] During the Great Influenza the global economic and social effects were catastrophic for everybody at that time, not just Asia and the Middle East.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention wrote: “The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not a universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.  In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

“It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide, with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.

“While the 1918 H1N1 virus has been synthesized and evaluated, the properties that made it so devastating are not well understood. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.”[4]

After doing some research, I found out that Iran (Persia) seemed to suffer the most casualties from the Great Influenza of 1918. A telegram from the Minister in Persia (Caldwell) to the US Secretary of State read: “American Relief Commission en route to Persia (Iran), headed by Doctor Judson, are scattered on the Pacific at Seattle, Bombay, Kermanshah, and Harakiri. They have immense supplies of much-needed medicine, supply of which is almost entirely exhausted in Persia. Epidemic of influenza prevails and quinine retails at $125 a pound.”[5]

In Retrospect

In this transcript, the American Relief Commission was charged with supplying Iran specifically with viral medication for the pandemic’s relief efforts. The point that is being made here, is that these viral and bacterial outbreaks do happen and these things will continue to happen. There will be war, there will be sickness, there will be pestilence and famine.[6] People will be injured, and people will lose their lives. It is the way of humanity, as we can see today when we look into our more recent history. It is clear that people know this, as panic and fear have driven people nationwide to hoard supplies at grocery and department stores.[7] Shelves are empty. Supply simply cannot keep up with demand.

Was the 1918 Influenza epidemic bad? Sure it was. It's obvious by the way the United States, Britain, and Germany have been unleashing their national “war-time powers” for the (so far milder) CoVID-19 today, powers not seen since WWI and WWII.[8]  And there is good reason to be aware of the history behind this whole “Pandemic” feature of post-Modern America.[9] With the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) trying to unite countries across the globe to fight CoVID-19 in unity and parallel coordination, it should make you ponder the political freedoms that everybody has taken for granted here. I feel as of right now our American liberty is being thrown under the bus in some sense. Some might say all for an illusion of a false sense of security.[10] A certain security that absolutely no government can offer you, or your family.

An over-reaction?

Statistical numbers on fatalities due to this global pandemic just aren’t matching up with the reality of this fully overblown response and lock-down of millions upon millions of people across the globe. Here’s the breakdown for infections: “COVID-19: Approximately 247,400 cases worldwide; 14,250 cases in the U.S. (as of Mar. 20, 2020). Regular Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year. And here’s the breakdown for Deaths: COVID-19: Approximately 10,067 deaths reported worldwide; 205 deaths in the U.S., (as of Mar. 20, 2020). And for the regular Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.”[11]

As we all sit and wait out what has been dubbed the newest pandemic to affect humanity, we should take time to appreciate everything that we have in our own lives. This means educating ourselves on issues that we do not understand. This also means we should also take this time to reflect on our own household and community. As we endure our newest and most politically uncharted direction for some time, we should also ponder taking on an old-time responsibility and obligation to our American solidarity, heritage, and traditional acts of participation in community affairs. We have hit a crossroads in humanity’s timeline. From here on out, regardless of your social class and occupation, we are all prisoners of the political and social cycle that we as individuals choose (and don’t choose) to be part of.

Daniel was due to give a talk about his book on mid-19thcentury northern California later this year. It’s now been canceled; however, you can keep up-to-date on when it is rearranged for here.

Finally, Daniel Smith writes at complexamerica.org.

Resources

[1] "Iran Coronavirus Death Toll Passes 600, Syria Shuts Schools." Worthy Christian News. Last modified March 14, 2020. https://www.worthynews.com/47764-iran-coronavirus-death-toll-passes-600-syria-shuts-schools. 

[2] "Coronavirus Ravages Middle East As Iran Warns of 'Millions' of Deaths." Worthy Christian News. Last modified March 17, 2020. https://www.worthynews.com/47862-coronavirus-ravages-middle-east-as-iran-warns-of-millions-of-deaths.

[3] "The Minister in Persia (Caldwell) to the Secretary of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 2, The World War." Office of the Historian. Last modified October 2, 1918. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Supp02/d709.

[4] "History of 1918 Flu Pandemic." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last modified January 22, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm.

[5] Ibid., Office of the Historian.

[6] "African Locust Swarm Headed for Middle East." Worthy Christian News. Last modified March 17, 2020. https://www.worthynews.com/47840-african-locust-swarm-headed-for-middle-east.

[7] Solé, Elise. "Hoarding Toilet Paper Amid the Coronavirus: Why Are People Doing It?" Yahoo. Last modified March 19, 2020. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/hoarding-toilet-paper-amid-the-coronavirus-why-are-people-doing-it-203046290.html.

[8] Rawlinson, Kevin. "'This Enemy Can Be Deadly': Boris Johnson Invokes Wartime Language." The Guardian. Last modified March 18, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/enemy-deadly-boris-johnson-invokes-wartime-language-coronavirus.

[9] "Trump Says He Will Invoke Wartime Act to Fight 'enemy' Coronavirus." U.S. Last modified March 19, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trump-act/trump-says-he-will-invoke-wartime-act-to-fight-enemy-coronavirus-idUSKBN2152XL?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews.

[10] "COVID-19: Is A Psyop – Cabal Wants To Turn The World Into A Militarized Police State." Investment Watch – Spreading the Truth. Empowering the People. Last modified February 19, 2020. https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/covid-19-is-a-psyop-cabal-wants-to-turn-the-world-into-a-militiarized-police-state/.

[11] Dr. Maragakis, Lisa L. "Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vs. the Flu." Johns Hopkins Medicine, Based in Baltimore, Maryland. Accessed March 20, 2020. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu. 

The TV Series Chernobyl: A Masterpiece?

The TV series Chernobyl has been the subject of acclaim by many people. Here, Shannon Bent returns and gives us her generally positive take on the series. However, she also considers the inaccuracies in the show and some of the negative impacts, including the vandalization of the Chernobyl area.

This follows Shannon’s articles on Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie (here) and Topography of Terror (here), the UK’s Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker (here), and the definition of a museum (here).

A 2013 photo of a ferris wheel in Pripyat, the town in which the Chernobyl power plant was. Source: Tiia Monto, available here.

We all love a good war film, or period drama TV show. History carries its own drama and intrigue that we can capitalize on and use for entertainment value. And yes, it is okay to say that you are interested in a movie about the darkest moments for the human race; arguably it is part of the human condition to have interest in ‘horrible’ subjects. And then big film companies have a fantastic ability to take these already amazing, impressive, unbelievable historical subjects and add even more drama, explosions and death to it. Sometimes to the point of impertinence. 

As a historian, historical accuracy is the most important thing in not only my work, but in my own time when enjoying TV, books and films. I enjoy action, drama, suspense. But all this cannot be at the expense of historical accuracy. There’s just no need for it! There are so many war films that take drama and action over the heroic stories of those that actually fought and it is a huge shame. 

Moving away from war

I’m going to move away from war for a moment. I know, shock. In my defense, when you have a degree in something, it tends to occupy your mind more than other subjects. But the first piece of popular culture (using a term harping back to my Sociology class) I want to speak about is the recent HBO series ‘Chernobyl’. I don’t wish to use the word ‘masterpiece’ more than once in this series of articles so let’s get it out of the way first off. This series was a masterpiece. I have never been more gripped, more hooked, more moved, by a piece of cinematography than I was by this mini-series. I was skeptical at first. While the writers, producers and cast list was enough to make anyone impressed, it was the topic that concerned me. We have a tendency to wait a few decades before we begin to encompass historical events like this into popular culture. That, or we begin fairly soon after the event so that it is fresh in everyone’s mind and people that were apart of it can be involved if they wish. The Chernobyl disaster happened in 1986, and not only that but during the most secretive period in the world’s history, the Cold War. (Okay, I lied. I said there was no war in this one. There is. Sorry.) This makes accurately commenting on the subject tricky to say the least. For a start, of course 1986 is within many people’s lifetimes. However, to be crude and obvious about it, not many people that were there have survived to be able to tell their story today. Furthermore, anything that happened within the Soviet Union was kept under tight lock and key, and even with the downfall of the regime in 1991 that supposedly made archives and records accessible to governments, journalists and historians, knowledge on everything that occurred is sketchy at best. Let alone knowledge on a subject as damming as this. 

So, I was skeptical. I was worried if it was going to be handled sympathetically, accurately, and without too much political correctness when it came to ‘pointing the finger’ so to speak. There were many things that could have gone horribly wrong. But we were all in for a positive shock.

The Bridge of Death

The series begins a mere few hours before the disaster occurs yet does a fantastic job at setting the scene in communist Ukraine. It presents Pripyat as the purpose-built town it was intended to be – all existing purely to house workers for the power plant. Filmed in previously communist Lithuania, the architecture is perfectly Soviet. The reactor room was reconstructed on the set with minute accuracy, but we have photos to help us with that. This means costumes etc. can be fairly accurate too. These things should be correct; however, like I say, photos and, lets be honest, logic, should lead to these things being accurate. It’s the smaller matters that may be an issue. 

I’ve just spent the last half an hour annoying my parents who are trying to read the newspaper by reading out lines from various articles I have found online about the accuracy of this series. There seemed to be a consistent item that was cited in these articles – ‘The Bridge of Death’. In the first episode, it is shown that many residents of the town went to stand on a bridge that directly faced the power plant to watch the fire, and this eerie blue glow that sat above it. The episode also depicts a type of ‘ash rain’ falling onto the skin of the onlookers, adults and children alike, presumably radioactive ash. At the end of the episode, in a manner that a lot of historical dramas like to adopt, the producers add in comments about what has been more accurate or extra information about scenes shown before. The comments at the end of this episode claim ‘of the people who watched from the railway bridge, it has been reported that none survived. It is now known as ‘The Bridge of Death’’. This has been highly disputed by just about everyone. A BBC article containing the comments from Mr Breus, an engineer at the power plant and eyewitness of the disaster just hours after it happened, says that many people would have slept through the night and would have only been aware of the explosion the following morning. I am inclined to agree. Depending on how loud the explosion was (and I know that sounds potentially stupid, it is an explosion. It’ll be damn loud. But what I mean is, taking into account proximity to the town, surrounding terrain etc., it may not have been loud enough to wake some people) many people may have continued to sleep unaware. The series practically implies that half the town took a picnic up to the bridge to go and watch. Also, I do not wish to insult the intelligence of the people of Pripyat by implying that an explosion or fire at a nuclear power plant is something to go and watch like one would a firework display. It is more likely that even if residents were aware, most would have done the smart thing of staying in their homes until morning and awaiting official information.

Google this concept and you will find forum after forum, website after website, thread after thread, about how there is no evidence of this being true. Keep in mind this is one of the most highly researched events in history, and I don’t just mean by historians. Every sector of science has taken this one under its wing; environmental scientists, human scientists, biologists, chemists, physicists, sociologists, anthropologists. You name it, they have studied it. Not to mention historians, journalists and writers collecting eyewitness accounts and numerous stories from just about every element of society in Pripyat. If there was a notable amount of people collecting on a bridge to watch the biggest nuclear disaster in history, someone would have noticed the pattern and commented on it. Perhaps this is a case of drama for drama’s sake. People are pretty annoyed about this point. It’s a fairly large misleading point, and furthermore to claim that everyone depicted died is even more misleading.

Chernobyl Tourism

There are various other historical inaccuracies that people have pointed out, and a few accounts of drama for drama’s sake. Overall though, the consensus is that the series was done sympathetically, mostly accurately and with fantastic self-awareness of the enormity of what they were commenting on. Even I, who believe that historical inaccuracy is the worst thing people could grace TV and cinema with, can overlook these elements in favor of overall understanding better the hell that these people went through in dealing with this disaster. But more to the point, very much more to the point than my last 1,000 words have been, far worse and sinister things have come out of this series than just a few historical inaccuracies or dramatization of the facts.

I will forever maintain that the human race is its own greatest vice. We are an incredible species; we develop and research and discover. We advance at the speed of light to make our lives better. Yet we are still infinitely stupid. Within a month of the series airing on its various platforms, visitors to the exclusion zone rocketed in numbers. I guess to be expected, to an extent. If you draw attention to any historical site or event in popular culture, you are, by definition, making it popular. This is very much the point of this series; making history popular and how we react to it. I will also admit my guilt in jumping onto this bandwagon. Many times I have seen a site on TV or read about it in a book or article and insisted on going to see visit it. After all, standing in the place in which history has occurred brings it to life, as I have said before. However, I must say, not many of these places I have been eager to visit contain the most radioactive areas of land on the planet. I considered it, once, when I was looking for interesting trip destinations. While it was cheap to visit (it has considerably risen in price now as I’m sure you can imagine), it was a fleeting consideration and it was short-lived. 

However, unfortunately, many people aren’t flocking to the site to pay their respect to history, to the people that lost their lives because of the tragedy. No, instead they are going there to take selfies and graffiti the buildings. And it is not just the visitors that are capitalizing on ‘dark tourism’. Online and at the site there are gift shops selling souvenirs such as t-shirts with the radioactive symbols on, ‘radioactive glow’ mugs and key rings, fridge magnets and hats. But perhaps more disturbingly than all of this, the official souvenir vendors at the checkpoint entering the exclusion zone are selling bottled ‘radioactive air’ and ‘Chernobyl ice cream’, supposedly made from the contaminated milk of local cows. The amount of times I have used inverted commas in this article to do with this topic is disturbing to me. These elements of gifts and souvenirs are fairly alarming when you consider that they are supposed to be a thing which would give the user radiation poisoning. Apart from being totally stupid, it is the most appalling, unethical, amoral thing I have ever read in my life. 

Reading up on what these tours off, how these tour companies bring bus after bus of people in, making their guests spend longer at these souvenir stands than at the actual site, and then allow these visitors to pick things up, climb into buildings, vandalize the area and litter the now reclaimed wildlife-filled forest is utterly disgusting. Both parties are to blame here. Yes, the people should know better; have some basic humility. But these tour companies shouldn’t be allowing such vile behavior in such a dangerous place. Ultimately, the bottom line is that while living history is amazing, and the concept of standing in the very place that history happened is very important to many including me, this should not be happening. Who is to blame is to be debated, of course, and is hotly contested. To me, everyone is. Everyone from the tour companies to the people behaving badly on the tours are all throwing their hat into this ring of destruction and in some manner competing to see who is worse.

The importance of the media in popularizing history

The question is, seeing as this has all stemmed from the HBO series as the popularity of the site rose along with the viewing figures of the show, how much is the entertainment industry to blame? And I’m referring to more general concepts too, not just Chernobyl; World War battlefield sites and movies, areas of natural beauty that appear in the media, these are all places that have been affected by the emergence of media popularity through TV and film. 

Ultimately, I feel the question is should we have to miss out on educational and entertainment opportunities of TV and movies so that idiots don’t know where to go to defile and destroy an area of great importance to humanity.?

This seems harsh maybe. But if you’ve read anything else I’ve written you may know by now I pull no punches in these articles. I’m fed up with people thinking that their stupid actions should take priority over the preservation of a place in which people lost their lives to try and save others. Not many things can make my blood boil like this topic does. I was beside myself with anger when I began reading the articles I have mentioned and quoted in this piece. I do not believe we should stop creating fantastic pieces such as the series Chernobyl just in case someone decides that they want to graffiti a radioactive building or somebody decides to capitalize on a very real deadly concept of radioactive material and uses it to sell some kind of ‘quirky’ and ‘individual’ gift. However, I feel ultimately this is the price we pay if we wish to encompass sites such as Chernobyl into popular culture. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are, how historically accurate you make your show, you always run a risk of being misconstrued or misinterpreted or simply people missing the point that this area is a) dangerous, b) should be protected, and c) is sacred to the people that once lived there and witnessed this disaster. Even if you can beautifully articulate this point in your work, as I feel Chernobyldid, capitalism will continue to roam free in the area and people will continue to not understand why taking smiling selfies in a reactor room where people lost their lives is in poor taste, to put it mildly. 

Creating series like this are so important for everyone, and I cannot express how vital it is for everyone to understand this topic, no matter how little of it they understand. And if we remove the tour guides, the souvenir shops and the memorabilia, the Chernobylseries has achieved its main goal: one thing is for sure, the disaster of Chernobyl on the April, 26 1986 will never be forgotten. 

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

References

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/shortcuts/2019/jun/04/chernobyl-welcomes-the-tourists-a-messy-and-morally-queasy-experience

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/dark-tourism-chernobyl/index.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48580177

https://works.bepress.com/philip_stone/31/

A Secret US Cold War Facility in Greenland: Operation Iceworm

During the Cold War both the Americans and Soviets set up secret facilities all over the world in order to give them an advantage over the other side. One of the most ambitious was Operation Iceworm (or Project Iceworm), an American attempt to set-up a major base in frozen Greenland with many nuclear missiles that could reach the USSR. K.R.T Quirion explains.

The PM-2A nuclear power plant. From 1960 until 1963, the electricity was provided by this portable nuclear reactor, known as PM-2A.

In 1959, Army surveyors began preparing for a new U.S. military station to be built on the Greenland icecap. It would come to be called Camp Century. The official statement claimed that it would be an experiment in constructing military facilities on the icecap. The Army would test various construction techniques under Arctic conditions, explore practical problems with a semi-mobile nuclear reactor, and support scientific experiments.

Publicly, Camp Century claimed to show how ordinary Americans could live and work in a remote location, and a veritable first-step in determining whether a viable moon colony could ever be maintained. Tunneling began in 1959 and went on for three years. Eventually, the underground facility would house sleeping quarters, laboratories, offices, a barbershop, laundry, library, and warm showers for 225 soldiers. The entire base was powered by a nuclear reactor that had been shipped in to provide electricity.[1]

Despite the public claim that Camp Century was nothing more than a “nuclear-powered Arctic research center,” the truth was more reminiscent of a James Bond film.[2]In 1997 the Danish Institute of International Affairs published a report titled Grønland under den kolde krig(Greenland during the Cold War), in which the contents of a newly declassified U.S. document were discussed.[3] This report outlined the existence of a top-secret plan by the U.S. Army to construct a massive nuclear missile facility under the Greenland Icecap. During the early 1960s, the Danish government had no idea that this strategic base was being constructed underneath their own sovereign soil. Plans for this base were kept secret from the Danes because at the time the Danish government supported the popular “no to nuclear weapons in Denmark” movement.[4] But, to those in the know, Camp Century was the home of “Operation Iceworm.”

Nuclear Facility Plans

In the early years of the Cold War, NATO relied almost entirely on the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal to deter Warsaw Pact aggression. By the mid-1950s, the U.S. was struggling to meet the ever-escalating demands of its global war against the Soviet Union. NATO allies were demanding that the U.S. deploy nuclear forces in sufficient number and range to credibly deter a Soviet attack. In a 1960 report entitled the Strategic Value of the Greenland Icecap, the U.S. Army Engineer Studies Center described a plan to deploy 600 Mid-Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) across 52,000 square miles of Greenland’s frozen ice sheet.[5]

The new two-stage “Iceman” missiles that army planners envisioned for “Operation Iceworm” had a range of 3,300 nautical miles. From its strategic location within the Arctic Circle, Camp Century and its retinue could cover 80% of all relevant Soviet targets.[6]Furthermore, because of its design and harsh climate, the base would be nearly invisible and penetrable only by ground forces or the most massive of thermonuclear assaults. Finally, as a safeguard, the missiles would be moved every few hours via a subterranean railway among 2,100 different launch sites and controlled by sixty launch control centers (LCCs) embedded in hardened bunkers.[7]

Accommodating the “Iceman” missiles and the 11,000-strong defense and support team needed to maintain them would require a massive expansion of Camp Century’s livable facilities. The Army calculated the price tag of “Operation Iceworm” as around $2.37 billion. Construction of the strategic facilities began as soon as tunneling started in 1959. 

Challenges

Despite initial success, the lynch pin of the entire facility, the subterranean railway that would transport the “Iceman” missiles, was found to be infeasible. After construction began it was found that the tunnel walls, made only of ice and snow, were in continual flux due to the natural shifting of the icecap. This constant movement caused the tunnels and trenches to narrow as their walls deformed, bulged, and settled. In some instances the tunnels collapsed entirely. These complications created a danger for Camp Century’s nuclear arsenal and made transportation on the missile train impossible.[8]Even the nuclear reactor, which provided electricity to the Camp, was in constant danger from the ice shifting. By the summer of 1962 the ceiling of the reactor room had dropped five feet and had to be lifted to avoid fatal contact with the reactor. Collapsing continued and the Army was forced to deactivate and remove the reaction chamber of the nuclear generator.[9]

Due to these complications, and a fierce inter-service rivalry for control of strategic nuclear assets, “Operation Iceworm” was abandoned in 1963 having never received any of its nuclear ordnance. Camp Century remained operational for a few more years as a summer research facility until it too was decommissioned in 1967. When the Army final left, minimal deconstruction and removal was conducted. Along with the facilities and transportation infrastructure, 200,000 liters of diesel fuel as well as other chemical, biological, and radiological wastes were left under the ice. [10]The Army abandoned Camp Century hoping that the remaining memory of “Operation Iceworm” would be “preserved for eternity” under the perpetual snowfall of the Greenland Icecap.[11]

Let us know what you think of Operation Iceworm below.

Now, you can read K.R.T Quirion’s recently published series on telegraphy in the US Civil War here.

[1]Petersen, Nikolaj, “The Iceman That Never Came,” Scandinavian Journal of History 33, No. 1 (2008): 75–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/03468750701449554, 78.

[2]Ibid., 75.

[3]Niiler, Eric, “When the Pentagon Dug Secret Cold War Ice Tunnels to Hide Nukes,” History.com, A&E Television Networks, March 27, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/project-iceworm-cold-war-nuclear-weapons-greenland.

[4]Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt, and Henry Nielsen, Aarhus University, Centre for Science Studies, and Aarhus University, “How the US Built a Mysterious Military Camp under the Greenland Ice Sheet,” SNORDIC-FRONT, December 19, 2017. https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-forskerzonen-history/how-the-us-built-a-mysterious-military-camp-under-the-greenland-ice-sheet/1451993.

[5]Petersen, “The Iceman That Never Came,” 79.

[6]Ibid.

[7]Weiss, Erick D., “Cold War Under The Ice: The Army’s Bid for a Long-Range Nuclear Role, 1959-1963,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, (Fall, 2001): 31-58, doi:10.1162/152039701750419501, 41.

[8]Niiler, “When the Pentagon Dug Secret Cold War Ice Tunnels to Hide Nukes.”

[9]Colgan, William, Horst Machguth, Mike Macferrin, Jeff D. Colgan, Dirk Can As, and Joseph A. Macgregor, “The Abandoned Ice Sheet Base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a Warming Climate,” Geophysical Research Letters

 43, No. 15 (April 2016): 8091-96, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016g1069688, 8091.

[10]Ibid., 8092.

[11]Ibid., 8091.

The Creation of a Modern Tsar: How Vladimir Putin Established Political Domination in Russia

Vladimir Putin has presided over Russia for more than twenty years. Here, Brenden Woldman returns to the site (a previous article from him on why the USSR collapsed is here) and in this extensive and thought-provoking piece, considers how Vladimir Putin came to dominate Russian politics. He considers how Putin has exploited terrorism, destabilized democracy, controlled the media, and arrested and even killed opposition.

Vladimir Putin in 1998, when he was Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Director. Source: RIA Novosti archive, image #100306, http://visualrian.ru/ru/site/gallery/#100306 Digital / Цифра, available here.

Who decides the leaders of a country? The answer, according to those who live in the west, is simple: the people. Citizens have the inalienable right to decide who will lead their country through a fair, legal, and democratic process. This western belief in the voting process for representative government is a pillar for a successful democratic society. But what if a country falsely claims to be democratic? Who decides, then, the leaders of a country that pretends to be a country that is founded on democratic and republican principles? In the case of modern Russia, it is current President Vladimir Putin. 

In Russia, President Putin has an iron clasp grip on all aspects of Russian society, including the country’s political institutions. Director General of NTV media company Yevgeniy Kiselyev gives the most succinct way of understanding Putin’s control of Russia. Kiselyev believes that, “The president has different ideas to ours about what the state is and what its interests are. I think Putin is trying to imitate Louis XIV, who said ‘the state is me.’ Putin... made it clear that what he means by strengthening the state is strengthening his personal power.”[1]In short, Putin is the state and the state is Putin. This firm ideology that the former KGB agent has is a vital reason why he has undisputed power in Russia. However, it must be known that Putin’s current anaconda-like suffocation of Russia did not occur over night. 

When Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation and the face of the post-Soviet era after the fall of the U.S.S.R., he was greeted with much enthusiasm and support throughout Russia. Though beloved, the honeymoon phase between Yeltsin and the Russian people would not last. As the 1990s progressed, Yeltsin’s popularity would falter due to his inability to establish the new democratic Russian state as a major economic or political power. Also, the President’s warm, welcoming, and almost subservient attitude toward the west caused many Russians to view Yeltsin as a weak embarrassment. With Yeltsin’s influence slipping and his days numbered, a group of governors that made up nearly a quarter of the entire Russian Federation in the fall of 1999 wrote a letter to Yeltsin, pleading that to sustain power it was necessary to resign from the Presidency and transfer power over to newly appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.[2]Yeltsin followed up on this idea, and on December 31, 1999 Vladimir Putin became the acting President of the Russian Federation. Yet it was far from guaranteed that Putin would be able to keep power for decades to come. 

As the new millennium came into fruition and the Yeltsin-led 1990s faded into the past, the newly crowned President-Tsar of Russia needed to secure his power fast. To do this, Vladimir Putin subsequently had to achieve four goals: exploit the fears of Chechen terrorism, control the media, strip away any democratic power or institution that could curb his ambitions, and imprison or kill oligarchs, journalists, political rivals, and any person that may be a threat to his reign. Putin has achieved supremacy in Russia. However, it did not occur overnight, as these four aspects were successfully executed over the course of a decade.

Exploiting Terrorism

Before Putin was President, the conflict in Chechnya was becoming more and more prevalent. The Second Chechen War began in August of 1999 when Yeltsin was still President. Between September 4thand 16th, unidentified terrorists bombed four apartment complexes in multiple Russian cities, including Moscow. The attacks led to the deaths of 293 people and injured 1,000 more.[3]The immediate, and initially the most logical, group to blame were Chechen rebels. 

However, upon further investigation of the bombings it became increasingly plausible that Chechnya was not responsible for the attacks. In fact, Chechnya did not take claim for the attacks, something that all terrorist groups usually do after a successful attack. Even more peculiar was that there was no solid evidence that connected the Chechen rebels to the attacks.[4]Moreover, a military operation on this scale was out of the realm of possibility from a logistical or strategic point of view even if Chechen terrorists wanted to attack. What evidence that wasfound did not connect the bombings to Chechnya. Instead, the evidence connected them to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, or FSB. Only Yeltsin and his cronies, which included Putin, were able to have the FSB coordinate the bombings. But why would Yeltsin and Putin support the killing of Russians? The Yeltsin administration believed that Russia could be unified in its hatred of Chechnya and terrorism while also boosting the appeal of Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin.[5]This was not a far-fetched assumption either, as it became increasingly likely that Yeltsin, who had been in the pockets of oligarchs and gangsters, would do something so terrifyingly unethical to keep his inner circle in power.[6]   

Upon hearing the news of the bombings, newly appointed Prime Minister Putin had a firm response to the attacks stating that, “[Russia] will pursue the terrorists everywhere.”[7]Putin’s desire for violent revenge rang in the ears of the Russian citizenry. As a result, the second invasion of Chechnya was carried out more methodically and was seemingly more successful when comparing it to the first Chechen invasion on New Year’s Night in 1994-95, and Putin was given much of the credit for the initial victory. Due to this, the young Prime Minister’s popularity soared.[8]

With Yeltsin’s term coming to an end and a new President on the horizon, Putin was initially seen as a weak candidate to succeed Yeltsin. Shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999, polls revealed that only 2 percent of the Russian populace favored Putin for the position of President.[9]However, after the “terrorist” attacks and Putin’s strong response to them coinciding with the patriotic enthusiasm that came from a new war, support for Putin rose to 21 percent in October and then 45 percent in November, which was far higher than any other candidate at that point.[10]This rise in popularity because of the attacks made Yeltsin’s decision all the easier and, on December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned from office, allowing Putin to become President due to Russian law which permits the prime minister to become acting president, after the president resigns, for the rest of the term. 

By being one of the planners of the FSB terrorist bombings and blaming Chechnya for it, Vladimir Putin was able to manipulate the Russian populace into supporting him, as he portrayed himself as the strong, vengeful leader Russia needed in those troubling times, even though evidence shows that Putin was one of the people who helped plan and execute the attacks. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Putin was not the mastermind of the attacks. Instead, he was an important cog in the Yeltsin regime. This would not always be the case, as from this point forward everything that Putin does will come directly from him to solidify his place as supreme ruler of Russia.

With the terrorist attacks catapulting him into the spotlight and Yeltsin’s resignation, by the year 2000 Putin had become the second President of the Russian Federation and was popular for it. However, Putin never wanted to give up this power once achieving it. This leads to a major theme that will be seen throughout Russia in the twenty-first century, as Putin will begin to strip major democratic principles that are vital to a healthy democracy all for the purpose to keep him in power.

Destabilizing Democracy

Yeltsin was such a laughing stock by the time he resigned that Russians and westerners alike saw Putin with rose-colored glasses. Many began to believe that it was impossible for the new president to be any more embarrassing than Yeltsin. They were right in a way. Though Putin was not as prone to the frequent political gaffes that Yeltsin faced, the idealistic vision of Putin that many had quickly evaporated when the 2000 election saw Putin use dirty and illegal tactics to assure his victory. 

By the time of the election in March, Putin had been acting president for almost three months. A week before the election the Russian newspaper Kommersantpublished a leaked government document entitled ‘Reform of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation‘ that advocated the FSB to do Putin’s bidding, with the goal of allowing Putin to “control the political process” in Russia.[11]There was little debate against Kommersant’saccusations. Putin was using the FSB as his own “Praetorian Guard,” as the new President used the FSB to manipulate the Russian state and presidential process by making it more authoritarian. The document most damningly noted that Putin had a dream of “replacing the ‘self-regulating’ nature of a democratic, market-driven, and rule-by-law system with manual control from the top.”[12]Putin’s dream would quickly come to fruition.

Six days after he was inaugurated, Putin proposed a set of bills with aims of “strengthening vertical power”, which served as the beginning of his dismantlement of the Russian democratic government and the establishment of a Putin led autocracy.[13]By claiming that the autocratic tendencies were necessary for reinvigorating Russia as a global leader, bills were passed that replaced elected members of parliament with ones that were Putin approved, allowing elected governors to be removed from office by pseudo suspicions of misdoings without a trial, and permitting envoys that were appointed by the President to supervise elected legislatures and governors.[14]Autocratic bills like this were quickly passed through the Russian Duma without protest and the dismantlement of the Russian constitution began in an almost unrecognized fashion by the outside world. However, this would not be the only time that Putin would force through legislation that centralized his political power.

With reelection approaching in March 2004, President Putin had five opponents running to usurp him. To curb their intentions, Putin passed laws to hinder his opponent’s campaigns and break the spirit of the election process. The president passed a law that required campaigns to have a notary certify the presence and signatures of every person present at meetings where presidential candidates were nominated with a minimum of five hundred signatures needed, followed by the candidate needing two million signatures from the public a few weeks after to have the campaign be legal or risk disqualification. This was a tough enough task that was made more difficult, as signatures could be disqualified for spelling errors.[15]Those able to successfully qualify to run found it difficult to find companies to print their campaign material, air their commercials, or rent areas for campaign events, as it became increasingly clear that Putin and his inner circle had threatened any and all who would support opposition campaigns. One candidate, Sergei Glazyev, found it nearly impossible to find a printing company to take his campaign’s legal funds to print his flyers.[16]When he did find someone who was willing to let him hold a campaign event, the building where Glazyev was going to speak was suddenly raided by police due to a “bomb threat,” giving the police justification to kick everyone out of the building and evacuate the premises. Moreover, physical violence was either threatened or executed, as Glazyev’s campaign manager Yana Dubeykovskaya was once beaten, robbed, and had the brake lines to her car cut.[17]

Making the campaign process difficult for candidates was not enough for the ambitious Putin. To truly disrupt the spirit of democracy, Putin wanted to make the voting process difficult. International observers and independent Russian organizations outside of government control listed a plethora of voting violations that the Putin administration promoted. These transgressions included the deletion of over a million elderly people and others unlikely to vote from the record, effectively voiding their vote, the delivery of ballots that were prefilled to psychiatric wards, the allowance of precinct staff to go door to door in elderly homes with a mobile ballot box to collect votes for Putin and disregard ones for other candidates, and managers and school officials were blackmailing staff and parents to vote for Putin or risk termination.[18]These neo-Soviet style tactics of maintaining the “democratic” process of Putin’s Russia was like an iceberg. On the surface there was no obvious or violent form of voter suppression, but below the surface was a widespread conspiracy of democratic repression. Legal or not, the 2004 election came and went, and with 71% of the vote, Putin won the presidency.

Soon after he began his second term, Putin announced that governors and the mayor of Moscow were no longer able to be elected by the people. Instead, Putin would appoint them personally. As well, the lower house of the Duma would no longer be decided by a direct election, with Russian citizens being given the right to vote for a party and Putin filling in the vacated seats with members that were a part of that party. This ruling forced all political parties to re-register, and many would be eliminated in the process. Moreover, all legislation proposed by the lower house of the Duma would be vetted by a public chamber that was appointed by Putin. All these changes became law rather quickly, and by the end of 2004 the only federal-level public official who was directly elected was Putin himself.[19]

When his second term ended in 2008, Putin found a simple but effective way to go around the Russian Constitution to keep himself in power. Due to the Russian Constitution forbidding the President to rule for more than two consecutive terms, Putin relinquished his power to his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev (with Putin using illegal election tactics to get Medvedev elected), followed by Medvedev appointing Putin as prime minister, allowing the former president to become “the puppet master of Russia.” Following the whims of his overlord, Medvedev introduced a measure that would extend presidential terms from four to six years.[20]If executed correctly, Putin planned for Medvedev to be a “manchurian president,” all the while allowing himself to pull the strings behind the scenes like a mafia Godfather. This plan worked to perfection. After one term in office Medvedev did not seek to run for a second term, instead endorsing Putin to return to the presidency in 2012. This act subsequently established a trend that not only could legally keep Putin in power for the rest of his life, but also effectively dismantle any remnants of a democratic system that were left in Russia.

Controlling the Media

It is almost cliché to say that a free press is the most dangerous opponent to an autocratic system, as the institution can inform the public on the misdeeds of the government. However, what happens when the leader of an autocracy establishes a monopoly on media outlets? In Putin’s Russia, it allows the free press to transform into a state-run institution. 

In the days leading to the 2000 election, a key component to Putin’s ‘Reform of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation’ was for the FSB to not only “control the political process” but specifically silence opposition media by “driving them to financial crisis.”[21]Putin knew the importance of controlling media and the television market since the medium helped create the positive image that many within Russia had of him after Yeltsin resigned. Putin knew the medium could turn on him and quickly end his political career if the industry was left unchecked.

To create a state-run monopoly of media Putin used personal vendettas against those who opposed him to drive his actions. Putin summoned Boris Berezovsky, the would-be “kingmaker” of Russian politics and head of one of Russia’s largest news and television networks Channel One, and tried to persuade him to handover his majority shares to the Russian government.[22]If Berezovsky did not willingly give up his shares, Putin implied that he would blackmail Berezovsky into giving him the control of Channel One and subsequently would be imprisoned for his refusal to comply.[23]The oligarch refused, knowing that crossing Putin in this manner would lead to his arrest. Days after his meeting with the President, Berezovsky fled to Great Britain. Soon enough, a warrant was out for Berezovsky’s arrest in Russia, forcing him to surrender his shares in Channel One.[24]

This kind of “thuggish” behavior to acquire media shares was not unique to Berezovsky and Channel One. The first attack was aimed at anti-Putin media mogul and owner of news channel NTV and newspaper Sevodnya Vladimir Gusinskiy. Gusinskiy and his company had a history of producing anti-Putin rhetoric, including the airing of a documentary about the apartment building explosions two days prior in the 2000 election.[25]This negative portrayal of Putin would not go unnoticed. On May 11, 2000, Gusinsky’s Media-Most company headquarters were raided by government officials and Gusinskiy was arrested a month later.[26]From prison, Gusinskiy made the dramatic declaration that Putin had, “begun the move toward the creation of a totalitarian regime.”[27]Nonetheless, in a deal that would drop all criminal charges and let him flee the country unharmed, Gusinskiy agreed to sell his shares in NTV and renounce all statements or information that would be considered to undermine the Putin government and the Russian Federation. Though Gusinskiy was given his freedom, by April 2001 the Russian state had majority control of Gusinskiy’s media assets, as the old staff of NTV and Media-Most were replaced with Putin and state approved journalists and commentators.[28]

In quick and decisive actions, Putin was able to force two of Russia’s wealthiest men, and his biggest threats, into self-exile while also stripping any wealth and influence that Gusinskiy and Berezovsky had within Russia. This took all of three months to achieve after he was inaugurated. Alas, the Putin led government was able to gain complete control of the three largest federal television networks.[29]Without any opposition networks that could reach the masses, Putin was now able to manipulate the media to unanimously presenting him and his policies in a positive light.

Arresting and Killing Opposition

What is most famous, and heinous, of Putin’s tactics to solidify his power is his tendency to imprison or murder those who oppose him. Putin got this reputation of being a thug by his own doing, as he preferred to be portrayed as a brute above all else.[30]A part of his thuggish reputation comes from his relationship with oligarchs. However, Putin is not a crusader against oligarchs for moral reasons. For the most part, Putin continues to maintain a relatively warm relationship with oligarchs due to his plan to transform the traditional oligarchic independent system into one that is more accustomed to a corporate structure, with the oligarchs and their industries serving the state.[31]In short, the president wants the oligarchs to be under him, allowing the former laissez-faire style of capitalist industry to be under the control of Putin. However, those oligarchs who do not comply will face devastating consequences.

As previously noted, oligarchs like Gusinsky and Berezovsky were forced to flee Russia or face imprisonment. However, they were not the only ones to be treated to this fate. For example, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia in the early 2000s. Yet when he fell out of favor with Putin due to his independent and vocal spirit, he was quickly arrested on charges of tax evasion. This may have been the official reason for the arrest but, as economic advisor to Putin Andrei Illarionov believes, Khodorkovsky, “was-and remains-an independent human being. Because he refused to bend. Because he remained a free man. This state punishes people for being independent.”[32]Russians, however, saw this act as Putin breaking the oligarchic system for the good of the people. In truth, Putin did not want to break the oligarchic system, but tame it. Khodorkovsky got out of line and, as a result, was imprisoned for it. To make matters worse for Khodorkovsky, Putin froze all of his assets and the state took control of his oil company Yukos, one of the largest and most successful companies in Russia. Other oligarchs took note: if they wanted to keep their wealth and assets, they had to unabashedly follow Putin’s demands. 

However, there have been cases where threats of imprisonment were not sufficient enough. Putin’s reputation as a “mafia president” comes less from psychological intimidation but through the killing of oppositional forces. Most famous, was the case of Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who fled to England, was one of Putin’s most vocal critics. He was considered the “most prominent and ebullient” of Putin’s critics, as his “denunciations were fierce.”[33]The culmination of his discontent toward Putin came from the publication of his book ‘Blowing Up Russia‘ which claimed that Putin was one of the planners of the 1999 apartment bombings and that Chechnya was falsely blamed.[34]Not pleased by such vocal opposition, Putin approved the assassination of Litvinenko. On November 23, 2006 Alexander Litvinenko died mysteriously from radiation poisoning in London.[35]

Litvinenko, unfortunately, was not the only one to be murdered due to their opposition to Putin. Sergei Yushenkov, a politician who identified as a liberal and who campaigned for a free market economy, democratic reforms, and higher standards of human rights in Russia, was one of Putin’s most persistent and popular objectors. On April 17, 2003, mere hours after registering his political party to participate in the December 2003 parliamentary elections, Yushenkov was shot four times in the chest and died.[36]A few years prior, Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg and co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, was a popular critic of the president, going so far as to call him “the new Stalin.”[37]He mysteriously died in a private hotel on February 20, 2000. As recently as 2015 there was the assassination of Boris Nemstov, a liberal politician and outspoken critic of Putin’s, who was shot four times in the back and died on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow. Those brave politicians who were willing to oppose Putin put their life at risk, as Putin is all too willing to kill political opponents.

The only group that are at greater risk of being murdered by Putin then politicians are journalists. Publishing and producing critical material against Putin is an unwritten high crime that could lead the author to the same fate of Alexander Litvinenko. Anna Politkovskaya tragically found this to be the case. Politkovskaya, a human rights activist and writer who authored several books criticizing Putin, was shot in the elevator of her apartment building in 2006. As well, Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist who made his name by writing and campaigning against organized crime and corruption in Russia, found the same fate three years prior. In July 2003 he mysteriously and suddenly died in Moscow, with claims (and evidence) that he was poisoned. Finally, there is Marina Litvinovich, a journalist and aid to Putin’s political rival Garry Kasparov, who regularly condemned the president. Leaving her Moscow office in March 2006, Litvinovich was savagely attacked. She was hit several times in the head with a blunt object and was left for dead. After spending several hours in intensive care, Litvinovich miraculously survived. But Putin’s strategy for state terror scared off many opposition journalists who wanted to write against Putin. It was better to play along with Putin then die.[38]

The politicians, journalists, and oligarchs that are discussed here are only some of those who were affected by Putin’s reign, as many more have been influenced in how they operate within their occupation due to the president’s use of state terror. Freedom of speech has effectively been censored unofficially, as the Sword of Damocles lays right above the heads of people of influence. Whether a person is a rich oligarch, opposition political opponent, or a critical journalist, one thing was for certain. If someone wanted to succeed in their field they had to work for Putin. If they opposed the former KGB agent, they risked imprisonment or even death.

Conclusion

When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 there was much optimism in the air. The opportunity for a better, freer Russia was on the horizon. However, these dreams would remain only that, a dream. A decade after the collapse of the Soviet empire, Vladimir Putin became president. Ever since he was granted the presidency by Yeltsin, Putin has done everything possible to keep his power from slipping from his grasp. To do this Putin had to go against the optimistic, democratic ideals that were found in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. From murdering opponents and imprisoning oligarchs to taking their assets and controlling media enterprises, dismantling any remnants of a democratic state, and going so far to commit tragedies on his people to further his gains, one thing about Putin is clear: he will stop at nothing to keep his control on Russia. Unfortunately, there is no end of the Putin regime in sight. In January 2020, Putin’s liquidation of the Russian Duma and the subsequent resignation of current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, has left the control of Russia squarely in the hands of Vladimir Putin.  By using all of these different strategies to keep power, Putin has undisputed rule over his country, and has successfully became the “neo-Tsar” of Russia.     

What do you think of Vladimir Putin? Let us know below.

You can also read Brenden’s past articles on Russian history for the site: Why did the USSR collapse? (here) and Peter the Great’s visit to England (here).

[1]Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (Simon & Schuster, 2015), 276.

[2]Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2014), 26.

[3]David Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), 8.

[4]Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep, 9.

[5]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 42.

[6]Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep, 19.

[7]Ibid., 8.

[8]Ibid., 19.

[9]Ibid., 20.

[10]Ibid., 20.

[11]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 273.

[12]Ibid., 324.

[13]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 181.

[14]Ibid., 181.

[15]Ibid., 183-184.

[16]Ibid., 185.

[17]Ibid., 185-186.

[18]Ibid., 184-185.

[19]Ibid., 190.

[20]Ibid., 265.

[21]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 273.

[22]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 173.

[23]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 289.

[24]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 174.

[25]Ibid., 161.

[26]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 274.

[27]Ibid., 274.

[28]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 164. 

[29]Ibid., 174.

[30]Ibid., 145.

[31]Ibid., 324.

[32]Ibid., 243.

[33]Robert Owen, The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, House of Commons, 2016, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf, 56.

[34]Ibid., 57.

[35]Ibid., 244.

[36]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 129.

[37]Ibid.,142.

[38]Ibid.,218-226. 

Bibliography

Dawisha, Karen. Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? Simon & Schuster, 2015.

Gessen, Masha. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2014.

Owen, Robert. The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, January 2016, 

Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 26 of the Inquiries Act 2005. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 21 January 2016. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf

Satter, David. The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.

The Controversial Career of the First Female US Senator: Rebecca Latimer Felton

In my history classes at Texas A&M University-Commerce, I enjoy talking about strong women in American history who championed for women’s rights. I consider Rebecca Latimer Felton (b. 1835) to be one of these powerful women. Felton became the oldest freshman senator  - and first female senator - at eighty-seven years old in 1922. In this article I analyze the political career of Rebecca Felton—a patriotic and successful, yet highly controversial legislator in the Progressive Era. 

Joshua V. Chanin explains.

Rebecca Felton in later life.

Political Beginnings 

Rebecca was unlike her boisterous peers on the playground, instead enjoying quieter, mature activities such as reading newspapers and partaking in dinner conversations on the state of American politics. Since her father was a Whig, young Rebecca naturally followed suite and devoted herself to reading dense material written by several prolific Whig leaders, including Henry Clay and Millard Fillmore. “I confess to a real liking for political questions. It was my habit for many years to keep up with the progress of great questions in the national congress and I found interest and food for thought in the daily, but dull, congressional record.” She later attested that Henry Clay was the greatest man in the United States in the nineteenth century. 

One of her first major political experiences was the 1844 presidential election between Henry Clay and James K. Polk. Rebecca, at age nine, “read the newspapers very diligently” and, like others among the higher social class, firmly believed that “Henry Clay’s election was a forgone conclusion. His ability as a statesman was so transcendent; defeat was unthinkable…” However, the pollsters were wrong, and Polk easily won the political race, capturing 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105. Rebecca later recalled the political shockwaves in the South following the 1844 election: “It was a terrible affair—it ruptured friendships, split up neighborhoods and got among church people.” Rebecca’s political upbringing allowed the young girl to absorb a distinct preview of the life she would be drawn to in the future—a life of activism and unforeseen outcomes.

Standing at the Side

Amid an education at Madison Female College and responsibilities at the family plantation in Cartersville, Georgia, Rebecca Latimer fell in love with Dr. William Harrell Felton, a southern minister. The couple wed in October 1853. Political ambitions were put aside as Rebecca Felton settled into domesticity where she completed chores and tendered to five children—one of whom, Howard Erwin Felton, survived childhood. She was one among the many women in the South prior to the Civil War who did not have a public voice and was obligated to stand at the side of their husband. Rebecca Felton not only supported her spouse in his expansive political career in Georgia’s House of Representatives and the national House, she gradually honed her own political skills by polishing his speeches and helping draft bills—William Felton’s constituents often bragged that they were getting two politicians for the price of one. At first Rebecca Felton believed her career was tied to her husband, however, she strategically used her husband’s position as a springboard for her future roles. And her visibility as a champion for public education—interest in this subject increased after the Felton’s opened Felton Academy following the Civil War—and in women’s suffrage grew to immense capacities in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

A Patriot

Like many Southerners during the Civil War, Felton did not label herself as a “rebel” nor a “secessionist.” Instead, she viewed herself as a patriot, a defender of Southern values, and a proud citizen of Georgia: “I loved my country. No heart ever was more loyal to the South and Southern honor.” Felton, among many in this region, were angry at the 1860 presidential election results and terrified that Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who had flirted with the idea of stopping the spread of slavery in the West, would abolish the slave trade and forcefully drive the Southern economy to a grinding halt. Thus, southerners kept a watchful eye for hostile political opponents and Union spies. Felton wrote about the hidden enemy in a diary: “..Danger lurked in every passing breeze and was concealed under every hasty legislative act of our political war leaders.” To combat this enemy fear, it was natural for southerners to adopt a patriotic tone in life and demonstrate fierce nationalism. 

Rebecca Felton’s love for the South and its common Confederate sympathizers during the war is evident in her 1911 memoirs: “Such heroism was unexemplified! The South has reason to be proud of its soldiers and its women. Their story of courage will bear repeating, because it was genuine, sincere and patriotic. Like all other military achievements, the officers earn and receive all the honors of war, but it was the plain soldiers and true-hearted women of the defunct Confederacy who deserve the medals of merit.” When the Confederate government ceased operations and fled Richmond in April 1865, many supporters blamed Confederate President Jefferson Davis for the country’s economic and political failures. Instead, Felton consistently defended the president’s policies, heeding to the fact that Davis had a herculean undertaking at the start of the war: “He was not faultless—he had many and violent enemies…he was victimized by newspaper reporters…he gave it the best that was in him—and went down with it in defeat.” Although patriotism plays a key role in fueling a politician’s agenda and despite being a Dixie woman of her time, Felton’s admiration for Southern racial politics cannot be ignored.

Racial Politics

Felton’s inhumane racial views coincided with her political career. She openly shunned Native Americans and called them “savages,” a label that presumably had been in her vocabulary since she was a young child when her mother occasionally told her bedside stories of Native-led massacres against the white man. Moreover, Felton promoted white supremacism by partaking in regional Ku Klux Klan activities and dissuading her husband’s political colleagues to vote on bills that favored more liberties for African Americans; she believed that more money spent on black education would result in more black crimes in neighborhoods, and voting rights for black women would lead directly to the rape of white women. Felton was eager to spread her nauseating racial beliefs to mass audiences and publicly mock the “half-civilized gorillas,” as she tried to do at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago where she proposed a southern history exhibit that featured “A cabin and real colored folk making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.” To the relief of some, the suggested slave exhibit never came to fruition. 

During a bloody time where racial violence was already prevalent in the South, Rebecca Felton advocated for more lynchings in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. She wanted the rugged noose to play a fixed role in Southern society, as evident by an explicit diary entry dated on August 11, 1897: “When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about inonce and virtue—if it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts—then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.” Following the burning of Sam Hose, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, by a white mob in Georgia’s Coweta County in April 1899—where civilians sold parts of Hose’s body as souvenirs—Felton vocally made it known that Hose was a “beast” who was no better than a rabid dog. Not only was she an aggressive advocate of racial prejudice, Felton condemned anyone who dared to question the South’s racial practices. When Andrew Sledd, professor of Biblical Studies at Emory University, published an article in the Atlantic Monthlyin July 1902 criticizing the lynchings of black men, Felton played an instrumental role in forcing Emory’s administration to terminate Sledd for improper behavior and stoked public anger towards the professor through a series of editorial attacks in the Atlanta Constitution. Felton’s racial views were perpetual as she treaded lightly with progressive politics and stayed true to antiquated Southern beliefs—Felton, having possessed slaves since she was eighteen years old, was the last member of either house of Congress to have been a slave owner. 

U.S. Senator

The peak of Rebecca Felton’s political career was her one-day appointment to the United States Senate between November 21-22, 1922. A Senate seat suddenly became vacant on September 26, 1922, following the death of Thomas E. Watson. Since Georgia Governor Thomas W. Hardwick wanted to win the November special election for the seat and appease the women voters who were displeased on his opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment, he strategically decided to appoint Felton as Watson’s temporary replacement on October 3. Despite the fact that Congress was not expected to reconvene until the end of November—President Warren Harding persuaded Congress to meet earlier due to an influx of letters from Felton’s supporters requesting the woman to take the oath of office—Walter F. George, the special election winner, chose to step aside and allow Felton to be sworn in as the nation’s first woman senator on November 21. The symbolic gesture to permit a female to sit in one of the highest political chairs in the United States (even just for a day) was a major political victory for white women.

Equal Partners

Felton did not have the opportunity to support or challenge any legislation in the Senate since she only served for one day. However, in front of a filled senate chamber, Felton delivered a speech to her male peers on November 22, pronouncing the increasing influence women had in 1920s national politics: “When women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.” The reactions in the chamber after the address varied. Felton wrote that some of the gentlemen “Seemed to be a little bit hysterical, but most of them occupied their time looking at the ceiling.” Felton’s triumphant exit from the Senate reinforced the suffrage message she had been campaigning about for decades. Felton had been an outspoken leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union since 1886 and had articulated the ideas of white women having more decision-making power in the home, acquiring education beyond basic schooling, and enjoying more influence over their children. 

Felton also had tirelessly championed for white women’s suffrage during her career—she ferociously debated anti-suffragist Mildred Lewis Rutherford in 1915. Although the suffrage marches in the 1910s propelled the government to pass the Nineteenth Amendment, the Georgia Legislature was the first state to reject the amendment on July 24, 1919. In retaliation, Felton criticized the hypocrisy of southern gentlemen who boasted about their chivalry but opposed women’s rights: “In truth, character seemed to have gone out of politics…The moral salt of character could not be rescued, inside the party, controlled by such machinery…these men in the saddle were full, fat and saucy!” Thus, white women in Georgia were not allowed to vote in the 1920 presidential election, having to wait until the 1922 congressional elections. 

Conclusion

Following an active career in politics—behind and in front of the curtain—Felton returned home to lecture at public libraries and write books; she died in Atlanta in January 1930. Senator George remarked that “All in all she [Felton] must be grouped among the great women of her time.” Despite her political success and critical efforts to advance the women’s suffrage movement, Rebecca Felton was unquestionably a flawed character, rooted in her discriminating beliefs on race and southern prejudice.

What do you think of Rebecca Felton? Let us know below.

References

Felton, Rebecca L. Country Life in Georgia in the Days of my Youth. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1919. 

Felton, Rebecca L. My Memoirs of Georgia Politics. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1911. 

Helms, Amanda. ““Poor forsaken colored girls:” Rebecca Latimer Felton, White Supremacy, and Prison Reform, 1896-1900.”  M.A. Thesis, DePaul University, 2013. 

Staman, A. Louise. Loosening Corsets: The Heroic Life of Georgia’s Feisty Mrs. Felton, First Woman Senator of the United States.Macon, GA: Tiger Iron Press, 2006. 

Talmadge, John E. Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy Decades. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1960. 

Whites, LeeAnn. “Rebecca Latimer Felton and the Wife’s Farm: The Class and Racial Politics of Gender Reform.” Georgia Historical Quarterly76 (1992): 354-372.

Why did Germany get the blame at the end of World War One? Part 4 – How the War Impacted Germany

Germany is often blamed for causing World War I – and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles led to the country needing to pay large reparations to the winners. Here, Denise Tubbs continues her look at why Germany got much of the blame for World War I. She considers how the war ended, how Germany got the blame for the war, and the lasting impact in Germany.

Part 1 in the series is on the decades leading up to World War One is here, part 2 on the role of Austria-Hungary in the outbreak of war here, and part 3 on the roles of the Great European Powers in the build-up to war here.

The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 1919.

Welcome back! We’ve covered a good deal of information during he first three parts of just how the world spiraled into chaos in 1914. But now the answer to the question that brought us here. Why did Germany get the blame? After all, the conflict would not have occurred without the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. He wasn’t even German, but Austrian. And what about those Austrians? Shouldn’t they carry some of this blame? They were the ones who wanted to fight in the first place. Germany had no direct reason to be involved other than having a treaty of military aid to Austria. 

So besides all that, let’s start with the most obvious reason: They were the first to invade anyone. Up until they crossed into Belgium in August 1914, no one had fired a shot, and no one had really believed that hostilities were that far gone. Things could have cooled, especially with Great Britain, if Germany had only got out of its own way. Arrogance and their determination at being seen as a major player is what started the war.

The War’s Progress

As the war progressed its long four-year ordeal, Germany, along with the rest of the Central Powers (that also included the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, who need their story told all on its own), began to crumble under the weight of starving troops, starving populations, and radical ideals bubbling to the surface of their cities. In 1917, Germany sent for a secret weapon to knock one of the fronts off its back. They chose the Eastern Front because Russia was simmering with revolution. That weapon was Vladimir Lenin. They paid his passage to Russia, arriving from exile like a missing hero ready to take the lead. By the end of 1917, Germany has knocked Russia out of the war by using the cries of revolution to do it. 

In Austria, things were going bad to worse. In 1916, the old Emperor Franz Josef died. His successor was the great nephew of the Emperor’s brother. Charles I, also known as Karl IV (in Hungary), became the ruler of the country at a time when change was a dangerous game. He would only be emperor for two years before abdicating his powers and abolishing the monarchy. The young King himself would be dead within 4 years of the war’s end. With the end of Austria-Hungary the land that made up the country was officially split. Austria became its own country and so did Hungary.

The Ottoman Empire

Of the other members of the Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire (known at the time as ‘the old man of Europe’ because they had been around since 1453) also came to a close. The sultan was deposed, although he had been nothing but a figurehead for quite some time. In fact in 1918 the Ottomans were forced to give up after the armistice between Bulgaria and the Allies. Suddenly the Ottomans had no help from them, Austria-Hungary had already begun to disintegrate, and Germany no longer had the manpower to send relief.  The Ottoman Empire signed its own armistice with Great Britain in October of 1918, just one month before the official end to the war.

In its peace terms, the Ottoman Empire was to be occupied by French, Italian, and British troops. It also stipulated that the Ottoman Empire be carved up into smaller countries; effectively ending the country as a whole. The area known as the Ottoman Empire became separate countries; including Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the boundary lines of Palestine, and the preliminary decisions of establishing land for a Jewish state. Turkey would end up changing their capital’s name from Constantinople to Istanbul.

Meanwhile, still in a position of power, the generals of Germany were beginning to see the unrest in their troops. Before long it becomes apparent that they had lost all control of their armies, and the rise of democracy became the voice of the people. While trying to salvage some remnant of the country, Kaiser Wilhelm was forced to abdicate the throne. But, unlike Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, Germany did not cease to exist. The country remained unified but was now a democracy. Their elective body became known as the Weimar Republic, had control over the country and helped negotiate the ending of the war. This is why Germany is blamed. Solely for the reason of ‘last country standing.’ The season of revolution arrived and in its ruins only Germany, for the most part, remained intact. I believe had any one of the other belligerents, Austria-Hungary or the Ottoman Empire been left with some power, the blame would have been split. Since neither country existed anymore, combined with the desire to teach Germany a lesson, is how this blame came to pass. 

Accepting Terms

On a train near one of the battlefields, the representatives of the new Germany Republic were forced to sign the official Armistice. Later on at the official signing of the Treaty of Versailles they were given no chance to negotiate the terms of the treaty. All the decisions were made by the victors, including a rather smug France who implored the peace talks be decided in Paris to begin with. This brought rise to the belief that those who signed for Germany were no more than traitors to their country. Hitler used parts of this to imply that Jewish politicians were to blame for surrendering so easily.

The terms of the treaty were as follows: German land was handed over to other countries. France acquired the Rhineland, and additional lands were split between Denmark, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. The bulk of the land was given to the newly formed country of Poland; and any colonies that Germany had were also divided up amongst the allies. From a military perspective the treaty stipulated that the army be reduced to 100,000 men, and all remaining tanks were to be destroyed. The Air Force was dismantled and any German U-Boats were to be destroyed. Essentially the country was gutted and stripped of everything that made them proud.

The final terms of the treaty were the worst of all. Germany was ordered to repay the war debt that had accumulated over the course of the war. They were charged 132 Billion Gold Marks, with a requirement of 50 Billion to be paid in full. If we adjusted for inflation, that would be $393.6 billion dollars (using the year 2005 as a point of reference). This threw the country into shambles. The citizens had lost all faith and credibility in the Monarchy and the military. While the war started with the Kaiser playing an active role in the planning and decision making, by its end he had been completely in the dark as to what was actually happening in his own country. The two generals who essentially ran the country during this time were Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenberg. Of these two, you could argue that Ludendorff was more responsible for decisions with a warped sense of reality to the loyalty of the German people and their troops.

Germany Post-war

With the Weimar Republic formed, Germany began elections under a new democracy and the former Kaiser went into exile. He ended up living the rest of his life in the Netherlands. He always thought that one day he’d return to his post but it never came. He sadly had hopes that with Hitler’s rise, he would return to prominence. But like so many others, he too was placed under Nazi Occupation in the last years of his life. 

The new government began paying the war debt immediately. Then when Hitler rose to power in the 1930s he ordered the debt not to be paid. The country would not begin to pay that debt again until after WW2. The total war debt would not be paid in full until the year 2010, some 92 years since its enforcement.

So what are your thoughts? Does Germany deserve the blame? Or is the perception of their guilt clouded by revisionist history? It’s a debate that will probably go on forever. The only thing we can all agree with is that the end of the war in 1918 was not a real peace treaty; it was merely an agreement to stop fighting - placing a band-aid on the sore spot to be dealt with at another time. Do you think if those who signed the armistice of 1918 would have done something different, if they knew what was to come within 20 years? We’ll never know.

Let us know your thoughts below.

Sources

Wikipedia 

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast (Blueprint for Armageddon parts 1-6)

The History of the Great War Podcast

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War by G.J. Meyer