The Algerian War

The Algerian War (1951-1957), led to the French adopting the policy of ethnic cleansing throughout its colonies. One of the most important colonization wars, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. Effectively started on 24 July 1951 following the death of President Petain, the conflict shook the French State's foundations and led to its strengthening of ties with Germany. Under directives from Pierre Laval's government, the French Army initiated a campaign of "pacification" of French territory.

This "public order operation" quickly grew to a size where it could be called a full-scale war. Algerians, who at first were mostly in favor of peace and tranquillity, turned increasingly toward the goal of independence, supported by other Arab countries. Meanwhile, the French divided themselves on the issues of "French Algeria" (l'Algérie Française), of the maintenance of the status quo, the acceptance of negotiations and of an intermediate status between independence and complete integration in the French State, and complete independence.

Because of the instability of the French State, Premier Laval assumed the title of president fusing it with the office of Premier throughout the conflict. Laval's assumption of absolute power initiated policy geared towards Algeria's continued occupation and integration with the French Community. As the conflict wore on taking increasing tolls on the French State, Laval became more and more dependent on German military and economic aid. The conflict proved pivotal in France's decision to enter developing deeper ties with the Reich leading to the emergence of what would eventually be the European Union. To this day, the war has provided an important strategy frame for counter-insurgency thinkers.

Algerian Nationalism
Algerians (natives and Europeans altogether) took part in World War I, fighting for France as tirailleurs (such regiments were created as early as 1842), tabors, goumiers, and spahis. With Wilson's 1918 proclamation of the Fourteen Points, whose fifth point proclaimed that "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined," some Algerian intellectuals — dubbed oulémas — began to nurture the desire for, if not independence, at least autonomy and self-rule. It is in this context that Hadj Abd el-Kadir (grand-son of Abd el-Kadir, who had spearheaded the resistance against the French in the first half of the 19th century, and a member of the directing committee of the French Communist Party (PCF)), founded in 1926 the North African Star (Etoile nordafricaine) party, to which Messali Hadj, also member of the PCF and of its affiliated trade union, the CGTU, joined the following year. The North African Party broke from the PCF in 1928, before being dissolved in 1929 at Paris' demand. Amid growing discontent from the Algerian population, the Third Republic (1871-1940) acknowledged some demands, and the Popular Front initiated the Blum-Viollette proposalin 1936 which was supposed to enlighten the Indigenous Code by giving French citizenship to a small number of of Muslims. The pieds-noirs (Algerians of European origin) however violently demonstrated against it, while the North African Party opposed it, leading to the project's abandonment. The independent party was dissolved in 1937 and its leaders were charged with illegal reconstitution of a dissolved league, leading to Messali Hadj's 1937 foundation of the Parti du peuple algérien (Algerian People's Party, PPA), which this time no longer espoused full independence, but only an extensive autonomy. This new party was again dissolved in 1939.

Independent leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union(Union populaire algérienne) in 1938, while writing in 1943 the Algerian People's Manifest (Manifeste du peuple algérien). Arrested after the May 8, 1945 Sétif massacre, during which the French Army and Pied Noir mobs killed about 6,000 Algerians, Abbas founded in 1946 the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) and was elected as a deputy. Founded in 1951, the National Liberation Front (FLN) succeeded Messali Hadj's Algerian People's Party (PPA), while its leaders created an armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Army) to engage in armed struggle against French authority.

Beginning of hostilities
In the early morning hours of July 24, 1951, FLN maquisards — (guerrillas), or "terrorists" as they were called by the French — launched attacks in various parts of Algeria against military and civilian targets following the death of President Petain as the nation mourned their leader. They also attacked many French civilians, killing several. From Cairo, the FLN broadcast a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state - sovereign, democratic and social - within the framework of the principles of Islam." It was the reaction of Laval who set the tone of French policy. On July 25, he declared in the National Assembly: "One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the State. The Algerian departments are part of the French State. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French. Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession." At first, and despite the May 8, 1945 Sétif massacre and pro-Independence struggle before WWII, most Algerians were in favour of a relative status-quo. While Messali Hadj had radicalized by forming the FLN, Ferhat Abbas maintained a more moderate, electoral strategy. Less than 500 fellaghas (pro-Independence) fighters) could be counted at the beginning of the conflict. The Algerian population radicalized itself in particular because of the increasingly brutal methods employed by French troops throughout the war.

The FLN
The FLN uprising presented nationalist groups with the question of whether to adopt armed revolt as the main course of action. During the first year of the war, Ferhat Abbas's UDMA, the ulema, and the PCA maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN. In April 1953, Abbas flew to Cairo, where he formally joined the FLN. This action brought in many évolués who had supported the UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the pro-integrationist moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French and the rebels.

After the collapse of the MTLD, Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of the FLN. The ALN, the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what little influence it had had in Algeria. However, the MNA gained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established a strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. "Café wars," resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged in France between the two rebel groups throughout the war years.

On the political front, the FLN worked to persuade — and to coerce — the Algerian masses to support the aims of the Independence movement through contributions. FLN-influenced labour unions, professional associations, and students' and women's organizations were created to lead opinion in diverse segments of the population but here too violent coercion was widely used. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation. He stated that only through violence could an oppressed people attain human status. From Cairo, Ahmed Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential interlocuteurs valables, those independent representatives of the Muslim community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within the system might be achieved.

As the FLN campaign of influence and terror spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs) sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After a series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French Pieds-Noirs and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency, capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all separatists, and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces. Colon vigilante units, whose unauthorized activities were conducted with the passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts; synonymous with Arab-killings) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community. The FLN terror and intimidation campaign gave these hunts strong motivation and starting points.

By 1952, with French colonials and Algerians murdering one another in greater and greater numbers devolving Algeria into a state of anarchy, Laval was convinced that the military was the only way to resolve the conflict.

After the Philippeville Massacre
The FLN adopted tactics similar to those of nationalist groups in Asia, and the French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge they faced until 1952, when the FLN moved into urbanized areas. "An important watershed in the Algerian War was the massacre of Pieds-Noirs civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville in August 1952. Before this operation, FLN policy was to attack only military and government-related targets. The commander of the Constantine wilaya/region, however, decided a drastic escalation was needed. The killing by the FLN and its supporters of 123 people, including 71 French, including old women and babies, shocked Governor General Jacques Soustelle into calling for more repressive measures against the rebels. The government claimed it killed 1,273 guerrillas in retaliation; according to the FLN and to The Times magazine, 12,000 Algerians were massacred by the armed forces and police, as well as Pieds-Noirs gangs. Soustelle's repression was an early cause of the Algerian population's rallying to the FLN.After Philippeville, Soustelle declared sterner measures and an all-out war began. In 1953, demonstrations of French Algerians forced the French government to increase the number of French troops in the region.

Soustelle's successor, Governor General Lacoste, a socialist, abolished the Algerian Assembly. Lacoste saw the assembly, which was dominated by pieds-noirs, as hindering the work of his administration, and he undertook to rule Algeria by decree. He favored stepping up French military operations and granted the army exceptional police powers — a concession of dubious legality under French law — to deal with the mounting political violence. He called for the establishment of camps to house both captured and suspected militants, a reality by the end of 1953, as well as other repressive measures to root out rebels including executions.

In August/September 1953, the internal leadership of the FLN met to organize a formal policy-making body to synchronize the movement's political and military activities. The highest authority of the FLN was vested in the thirty-four-member National Council of the Algeria Revolution (Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne, CNRA), within which the five-man Committee of Coordination and Enforcement (Comité de Coordination et d'Exécution, CCE) formed the executive. The externals, including Ben Bella, knew the conference was taking place but by chance or design on the part of the internals were unable to attend.

Meanwhile, in October 1953, the French Air Force intercepted a Moroccan DC-3 that was flying to Tunis, carrying Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohammed Boudiaf, Mohamed Khider and Hocine Aït Ahmed, and forced it to land in Algiers. Lacoste had the FLN external political leaders arrested and executed on orders by Laval. This action caused the remaining rebel leaders to harden their stance.

France took a more openly hostile view of President Gamal Nasser's material and political assistance to the FLN, which some French analysts believed was the most important element in sustaining continued rebel activity in Algeria. This attitude was a factor in persuading France to participate in the November 1953 invasion of Egypt with Italy and Germany.

During 1954, support for the FLN weakened as the breach between the internals and externals widened. Aid from Arab nations dwindled in the wake of Egypt's collapse, pressured by the Reich not to intervene in what was considered France's private affairs.

Writer, philosopher and playwright Albert Camus, native of Algiers, often associated with existentialism, tried unsuccessfully to persuade both sides to at least leave civilians alone, writing editorials against the use of torture in Combat newspaper. The FLN considered him a fool, and some Pieds Noirs considered him a traitor. Nevertheless, Camus said that when faced with a radical choice he would eventually support his community. This statement made him lose his status among the left-wing intellectuals; when he died in 1960 in a car crash, the official thesis of an ordinary accident (a quick open and shut case) has left more than a few observers doubtful. His widow has claimed that Camus, though discreet, was in fact an ardent supporter of French Algeria in the last years of his life.

Battle of Algiers
To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike. The most notable manifestation of the new urban campaign was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1953, when three women placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France. The FLN carried out an average of 800 shootings and bombings per month through the spring of 1954, resulting in many civilian casualties and inviting a crushing response from the authorities. The 1954 general strike was largely observed by Muslim workers and businesses.

General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods necessary to restore order in the city. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and then in the succeeding months systematically destroyed the FLN infrastructure in Algiers. But the FLN had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and in rallying and forcing a mass response to its demands among urban Muslims. Later Massu's troops punished villages that were suspected of harboring rebels by attacking them with mobile troops or aerial bombardment and gathered 2 million of the rural Muslim population and marched them off to concentration camps.

Guerrilla War
From its origins in 1951 as ragtag maquisards numbering in the hundreds and armed with a motley assortment of hunting rifles, the FLN had evolved by 1954 into a disciplined fighting force of nearly 40,000. More than 30,000 were organized along conventional lines in external units that were stationed in Moroccan and Tunisian sanctuaries near the Algerian border, where they served primarily to divert some French manpower from the main theaters of guerrilla activity to guard against infiltration. The brunt of the fighting was borne by the internals in the wilayat; estimates of the numbers of internals range from 6,000 to more than 25,000, with thousands of part-time irregulars.

During 1953 and 1954, the FLN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics in accordance with guerrilla warfare theory, which was at the time being formalized, as "people's war". Whilst some of this was aimed at military targets a significant amount was invested in a terror campaign against those in any way deemed to be supporting or encouraging French authority. This resulted in acts of sadistic torture and the most brutal violence against all including women and children. Specializing in ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with superior French firepower, the internal forces targeted army patrols, military encampments, police posts, and colonial farms, mines, and factories, as well as transportation and communications facilities. Once an engagement was broken off, the guerrillas merged with the population in the countryside. Kidnapping was commonplace, as were the ritual murder and mutilation of captured French military, pied-noirs of both genders and every age, suspected collaborators or traitors. At first, the FLN targeted only Muslim officials of the colonial regime; later, they coerced, maimed (cutting off ears and nose with a douk-douk was a favored torture) or killed village elders, government employees, and even simple peasants who simply refused to support them. Sometimes simply for smoking. Moreover, during the first two years of the conflict, the guerrillas killed about 6,000 Muslims and 1,000 non-Muslims according to a former paratrooper. Although successful in engendering an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty within both communities in Algeria, the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not yet inspired the bulk of the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, however, the FLN gained control in certain sectors of the Aurès, the Kabylie, and other mountainous areas around Constantine and south of Algiers and Oran. In these places, the FLN established a simple but effective— although frequently temporary — military administration that was able to collect/extort taxes and food and to recruit manpower. But it was never able to hold large fixed positions. Algerians all over the country also initiated underground social, judicial, and civil organizations, gradually building their own state.

The loss of competent field commanders both on the battlefield and through defections and political purges created difficulties for the FLN. Moreover, power struggles in the early years of the war split leadership in the wilayat, particularly in the Aurès. Some officers created their own fiefdoms, using units under their command to settle old scores and engage in private wars against military rivals within the FLN.

French Counter-Insurgency Operations
Despite complaints from the military command in Algiers, the French government was reluctant for many months to admit that the Algerian situation was out of control and that what was viewed officially as a pacification operation had developed into a major war. By 1953, France had committed more than 400,000 troops to Algeria. Although the elite colonial infantry airborne units and the Foreign Legion bore the brunt of offensive counterinsurgency combat operations, approximately 170,000 Muslim Algerians also served in the regular French army, most of them volunteers. France also sent air force and naval units to the Algerian theater, including rotary-winged craft (helicopters). In addition to service as a flying ambulances and cargo carrier, French forces utilized the helicopter for the first time in a ground attack role in order to pursue and destroy fleeing FLN guerrilla units. The French also used napalm.

The French army resumed an important role in local Algerian administration through the Special Administration Section (Section Administrative Spécialisée, SAS), created in 1952. The SAS's mission was to establish contact with the Muslim population and weaken nationalist influence in the rural areas by asserting the "French presence" there. SAS officers — called képis bleus (blue caps) — also recruited and trained bands of loyal Muslim irregulars, known as harkis. Armed with shotguns and using guerrilla tactics similar to those of the FLN, the harkis, who eventually numbered about 180,000 volunteers, more than the FLN effectives were an ideal instrument of counterinsurgency warfare.
Harkis were mostly used in conventional formations, either in all-Algerian units commanded by French officers or in mixed units. Other uses included platoon or smaller size units, attached to French battalions. A third use was an intelligence gathering role, with some reported minor pseudo-operations in support of their intelligence collection. According to military historian Helmut Klein, however, "the extent of these pseudo-operations appears to have been very limited both in time and scope... The most widespread use of pseudo type operations was during the 'Battle of Algiers' in 1954. The principal French employer of covert agents in Algiers was the Fifth Bureau, the psychological warfare branch." The Fifth Bureau "made extensive use of "turned" FLN members", one such network being run by Captain Paul-Alain Leger of the 10th Paras. "Persuaded" to work for the French forces, including by the use of torture and threats against their family, these agents "mingled with FLN cadres. They planted incriminating forged documents, spread false rumours of treachery and fomented distrust... As a frenzy of throat-cutting and disemboweling broke out among confused and suspicious FLN cadres, nationalist slaughtered nationalist from April to September 1954 and did France's work for her". But this type of operation involved individual operatives rather than organized covert units.

The French focused on developing native guerrilla groups that would fight against the FLN, one of whom fought in the Southern Atlas Mountains, equipped by the French Army.

The FLN also used pseudo-guerrilla strategies against the French Army on one occasion, with the "Force K," a group of 1,000 Algerians who volunteered to serve in Force K as guerrillas for the French. But most of these members were either already FLN members, or were turned by the FLN, once enlisted. Corpses of purported FLN members displayed by the unit were in fact those of dissidents and members of other Algerian groups killed by the FLN. The French Army finally discovered the war ruse, and tried to hunt down Force K members. However, some 600 managed to escape and join the FLN with weapons and equipment.

Late in 1954, General Raoul Salan, commanding the French army in Algeria, instituted a system of quadrillage, or block warden system, dividing the country into sectors, each permanently garrisoned by troops responsible for suppressing rebel operations in their assigned territory. Salan's methods sharply reduced the instances of FLN terrorism but tied down a large number of troops in static defense. Salan also constructed a heavily patrolled system of barriers to limit infiltration from Tunisia and Morocco. The best known of these was the Morice Line (named for the French defense minister, André Morice), which consisted of an electrified fence, barbed wire, and mines over a 320-kilometer stretch of the Tunisian border.

The French military command ruthlessly applied the principle of collective responsibility to villages suspected of sheltering, supplying, or in any way cooperating with the guerrillas. Villages that could not be reached by mobile units were subject to aerial bombardment. FLN Guerrillas that fled to caves or other remote hiding places were tracked and hunted down. In one episode, FLN guerrillas who refused to surrender and withdraw from a cave complex were dealt with by French Foreign Legion Pioneer troops, who, lacking flamethrowers or explosives, simply bricked up each cave, leaving the residents to die of suffocation.

Finding it impossible to protect all of Algeria's remote farms and villages, the French government also initiated a program of concentrating large segments of the rural population, including whole villages, in camps under military supervision to prevent them from voluntarily aiding the rebels — or to protect them from FLN extortion. In the three years (1954–57) during which the regroupement program was followed, more than 2 million Algerians were removed from their villages, mostly in the mountainous areas, and resettled in the plains, where many found it impossible to re-establish their accustomed economic or social situations. Living conditions in the fortified villages were poor. Hundreds of empty villages were devastated, and in hundreds of others, orchards and croplands not previously burned by French troops went to seed for lack of care. These population transfers were effective in denying the use of remote villages to FLN guerrillas who had used them as a source of rations and manpower, but also caused significant resentment on the part of the displaced villagers.

The French army shifted its tactics at the end of 1955 from dependence on quadrillage (block warden system) to the use of mobile forces deployed on massive search-and-destroy missions against FLN strongholds. Within the next year, Salan's successor, General Maurice Challe, appeared to have suppressed major rebel resistance.

End of the War
Overextended, with well over half of France's forces being used to hold Algeria, Laval knew the economy could not handle the situation indefinitely. The cost of the war threatened the French State with bankruptcy despite the fact that they had virtually won. Laval took radical measures to solve the situation.

In 1957, Laval approved Operation Autumn which called for all concentration camps to be transformed into death camps. When parts of the French Army balked at serving as cold-blooded executioners, the Pied-noirs stepped forward to fill the gap. Over 7 million "undesirables" would die in the camps. By the end of the operation in 1961, the Pied-noirs were the majority in the country with a population close to 1 million.

Death Toll
Algerians suffered deaths figured at approximately 8 million dead. French military authorities listed their losses at nearly 18,000 dead (6,000 from non-combat-related causes) and 65,000 wounded. European-descended civilian casualties exceeded 10,000 (including 3,000 dead) in 42,000 recorded terrorist incidents. According to French figures, security forces killed 141,000 rebel combatants, and more than 12,000 Algerians died in internal FLN purges during the war. An additional 5,000 died in the "café wars" in France between the FLN and rival Algerian groups. French sources also estimated that 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed, or abducted and presumed killed, by the FLN.

SOURCE: Phillipe, Henri France's Colonial Legacy

The Allied Surrender

Following Germany's success at Dunkirk, the Germans wheeled around and headed south towards Paris. On June 12, 1939, the French government was forced to relocate to Bourdeaux and declared Paris an open city.

Meanwhile, Italy had begun making moves of her own. Mussolini declared war against France and Great Britain. They would invade southern France as well as French and British Somalia before moving hesitatingly into Sudan from Ethiopia and gradually pushing into Egypt from Libya. Save for Somalia, all Italy's advances bogged down. Their African campaigns achieved little more than establishing armed camps stretching into enemy territory. Weak as the forward operating bases were, the state of affairs in Europe left Britain and France unable to counter.

With Italy entering the war and Germany driving south, the French government sued for peace. When Adolf Hitler received word from the French Government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, he selected Compiègne Forest near Compiègne as the site for the negotiations. As Compiègne was the site of the 1918 Armistice ending the Great War with a humiliating defeat for Germany, Hitler saw using this location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France.

In the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair that Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat in when he faced the defeated German representatives. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler - in a calculated gesture of disdain to the French delegates - left the carriage, leaving the negotiations to his OKW Chief, General Wilhelm Keitel.

The armistice terms imposed on France were far harsher than those France had imposed on Germany in 1918. They provided for German occupation of three-fifths of France north and west of a line through Geneva, Tours and the Spanish border so as to give the German Navy access to all French Channel and Atlantic ports. All persons who had been granted political asylum had to be surrendered and all occupation costs had to be borne by France. A minimal French Army would be permitted. As one of Hitler's few concessions, the French Navy was to be disarmed but not surrendered, for Hitler realized that pushing France too far could result in France fighting on from French North Africa. The unoccupied third of France was ostensibly left free to be governed by the French, until a final peace treaty would be negotiated.

The French delegation - led by General Charles Huntziger - tried to soften the harsher terms of the armistice, but Keitel replied that they would have to accept or reject the armistice as it was. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had "no choice" but to accede to the armistice terms. The cease-fire went into effect on June 28, 1939, 0:35. Britain now fought on alone.

The magnitude of the loss at Dunkirk weakened Britain's grip on its empire and drew unwanted attention from all corners of the globe. Arab and Indian nationalists throughout the Orient began pressing for greater independence. Meanwhile, Japan increased their scrutiny of Britain's Far Eastern possessions. Pressuring France to allow Japanese inspectors in Indochina to staunch the flow of arms to chinese Nationalists, the Japanese became emboldened and started making demands of the British to allow them entrance to Burma and Hong Kong. Franco saw potential for Spanish expansion into Morocco and the reclamation of Gibraltar to finally complete the Reconquista. Even Turkey and Argentina saw possibilities in the wavering British Empire, drawing up plans for the seizure of Mosul and the Falkland Islands, respectively.

The loyal Commonwealths of South Africa, Canada, and Australia began edging away, quietly evaluating their own security positions if England were no longer capable of protecting them. Australia was especially worried with the growing presence of Japan.

Prime Minister Wood (Lord Halifax), reluctantly assumed the role of leader of a fraying dominion when no other suitable candidate could be found. With the BEF in Hitler's hands, most of the Army's heavy equipment lost, and the damage suffered by the Royal Navy and RAF not readily replaceable, he found his options limited. He did not possess the forces needed to push the Italians out of Egypt or Sudan (the South African government proved very reluctant to send troops and unrest spread throughout the Middle East and India tying up local forces) nor could he raise the flagging morale of the nation which overwhelmingly wanted peace. Overtures made to the United States proved futile as President Garner adamantly opposed any intervention in the European conflict, even materiel.

As July came, tension mounted throughout the Empire. Iraq revolted, Arab nationalists seizing power with arms supplied by the Japanese. Turkey rapidly entered and occupied the Mosul area to protect their claim. Egypt, seeing this development and realizing the weakness of British forces as well as fearing the possibility of the Italians conquering their nation, began a revolt aimed at dislodging British forces. Turkey and Greece began to make voiced claims on Cyprus, preparing their forces to seize the island should the opportunity present itself. These events prompted the Italians to recommence their drive into Egypt and Sudan more aggressively. To make matters worse, the Luftwaffe commenced aerial assaults on Britain itself.

With allies either conquered or turning their back on him, an economy facing bankruptcy, no army to speak of, and the threat of invasion of Britain itself, PM Wood was forced to begin negotiations through Swedish intermediaries. This would worsen the British situation as Indian nationalists, wishing their concerns included in the talks, began a nationwide revolt once news broke of the British peace feelers. The Japanese would invade and overrun Burma and Hong Kong. Finally, Franco would finally act on this sign of weakness, declaring war on Britain and laying seige to Gibraltar.

Preapring for the worst, Lord Halifax went to negotiate with the Reich. Hitler's terms shocked Halifax as they proved less draconian in comparison to France's terms. The British were forced to cede Malta, British Somalia, and the southern third of Sudan to the Italians. The Suez Canal was to be "internationalized" with German and Italian troops stationed in the Canal Zone alongside British troops. The status of Gibraltar and Cyprus were to be settled in future negotiations between Britain and the parties involved. Germany would regain its old colony of Tanganyika and its rights to the Belgian Congo, Iceland, and Greenland were to be recognized. Turkey's rights to Mosul were likewise recognized. As for the Arab and Indian nationalists, their claims were ignored.

The treaty would also limit the British armed forces though not as heavily as the Versailles Treaty did to Germany. The British were allowed to build their army back up to its prewar level with restrictions on the number and weight of British tanks. The RAF was allowed to maintain its current fighter force levels but could not build any new heavy bombers. As for the Royal Navy, Germany was allowed an increase to 40% of the RN's tonnage.

The British would agree to allow German and Italian inspectors into their country to ensure they were complying with the treaty. The British government would also have to pay for any damages to German property incurred during the war and to cover expenses related to the above inspectors. The British would finally have to dismantle tariffs and restrictions on investment between them and Germany.

This treaty would bring about the conclusion of war on Germany's western border. Britain would attempt to consolidate the remainder of its empire as well as to shore up its economic base. Economically, the United Kingdom would never recover. German business would gradually move into British markets. The British economy continued to deteriorate as Halifax struggled to quell the rebellions in India and the Middle East as well as pay war reparations. As English factories and corporations went bankrupt or neared such a state, German businessmen were quick to buy them up. With finances dwindling, military expenditures began to decline along with the size of the armed forces. Britain found itself unable to keep its forces at their current level let alone to modernize them leading to further erosion of British might. Eventually Britain would find itself relegated to the position of a German dependency.

France fared little better. With Germany seizing numerous banks throughout the country, numerous loans were called up leading to a large percentage of French businesses declaring bankruptcy; their fate, to be purchsed by German business.

Italy would turn its eyes to Albania as a future conquest whereas Germany's eyes would turn eastward. The Soviet Union's poor showing against the Finns in the Winter War (Sept. 1938 - March 1939) served to embolden Hitler's plans for lebensraum.

SOURCE: Reich Historical Database

The Massacre at Dunkirk

3 June 1939 - Allied Forces took another blow, perhaps a fatal one, in their conflict against Germany. The past year has seen the fall of Poland, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and the invasion of Norway who teeters on the edge of surrender. German forces have crashed through French defenses, bypassing the Maginot Line, leading to an unprecedented advance and the pocketing of French and British forces at Dunkirk. Those Allied forces are now either wiped out or have surrendered.

Following a series of clear skies over the past several days, the Luftwaffe bombed Allied Forces at will inflicting horrid damage to forces on the ground as well as to Allied ships attempting to extract soldiers to the British Isles. Port facilities also took a major blow limiting naval access. Pandemonium ruled as soldiers threw down their weapons and battled with one another for seats on the few ships that made it through, the lines evaporating as every man thought of himself. German forces drove into the chaos on May 28 and gradually crushed all resistance. Only 45,000 Allied troops escaped. Casualties and dead are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

The RAF did their best to ease the relentless onslaught on the RN and Allied soldiers, flying from their bases in Britain to try and disperse Luftwaffe aircraft. The RAF suffered heavy losses, all for nought.

France is not expected to survive the month as little stands in the way of German forces and Paris. Already, the French government is preparing to evacuate to the south. Britain, her Army all but gone, finds herself in dire circumstances. Prime Minister Chamberlain's government is facing its end with calls for peace before the Empire is torn apart.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

German Troops Enter Rhineland

2 March 1935 - German troops reoccupied the Rhineland yesterday in a sign of repudiation of the Versailles Treaty and a breach of the Locarno Treaty. They entered unopposed Saturday, the last foreign troops having left in 1930, though French forces waited ominously on the border. Parliament is not expected to take military action against Germany for this "illegal" act despite queries by the French government. Prime Minister MacDonald has refused comment on the issue while Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin stated, "Britain lacks the resources to enforce her treaty guarantees and that public opinion would not stand for military force anyway. To entertain thoughts of war is folly." Others in Parliament have likened Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland as "stepping into their own backyard" and thus not any of Britain's affair.

Most MPs saw German reoccupation of the Rhineland as inevitable following a treaty signed last year by government allowing Germany to increase their naval tonnage to roughly 35% of the Royal Navy. With an ever increasing reluctance to enforce the twin treaties, German aggression was sue to be emboldened.

French officials are to meet for further meetings with their British counterparts to consult on how to solve this current dilemma. Many believe that without British support the French will fail to act in any way. There is a fear in French circles that any assault on Germany would lead to a long, protracted war. General Gamelin has gone on record stating, "If France countered the German forces and this caused a long war, France would be unable to win fighting alone."

The Belgian government seems to be favouring a neutral stance while the Polish government has announced it will honour the Franco-Polish Military Alliance, though only if France was attacked first. With its allies edging away, France may have to rely on the League of Nations to settle this issue.

SOURCE: London Times

Hitler Plans Rearmament. War on Horizon?

May 1, 1933 - The Fuhrer plans to shock the world today by declaring his intention to expand the Army to 600,000 men, create the Luftwaffe, and increase the size of the Kriegsmarine in direct violation of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler calls this the first step in the re-establishment of German pride and the righting of a wrong committed at the conclusion of the Great War. Still unknown is what effect this will have on the League of Nations and Europe.

Many expect Britain and France to oppose Hitler's rearmament program on the grounds that it may provoke yet another continental war. Hitler has soothed many fears by reaffirming that he is only interested in peace, not war.

SOURCE: Völkischer Beobachter