- published: 25 Jul 2010
- views: 452988
- author: FUNimation
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![Axis Powers Hetalia [Soldier Side]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130203023342im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/at7fcGY_Pqc/default.jpg "I did another one~ :D yes moar emoe. :B I might do another SuFin vid next. wat do u guys think I should do? Maybe Germany/Italy. idk. I DO NOT OWN REGINA SPEKTOR, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, AXIS POWERS HETALIA, THE ART, THE MUSIC. NUTS. EDIT: 1000 views! thanks alot everbody! :)) EDIT: ~5, 0 0 0 VIEWS~ THANKS SO MUCH!! XDD EDITEDIT: OH- OH. MY. GOD. I literally just passed out for like 3 seconds... OVER. 17000. VIEWS. I-...I am utterly astounded and flabbergasted and a couple of other words that I would have to make up... D: thank you. so. much. I LUV YUU GAIZ.")
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Albania
Albania (
i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
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Algeria
Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
Algeriai/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (Arabic: الجزائر, al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية, al-Jumhūriyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyyah ash-Shaʿbiyyah), also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a large country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.
When referring to its land area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa, Maghreb and the Arab World. It is also the largest of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; it is also the tenth-largest country in the world. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. Its size is almost 2,400,000 square kilometres (926,645 sq mi) with an estimated population of 37.1 million as of 2012. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations. The country is also a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.
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Algiers
Algiers (Arabic: الجزائر, al-Jazā’ir; Algerian Arabic: دزاير, Berber: Dzayer / ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000. An estimate puts the population at about 3,574,000 as of 2010.
Called El-Behdja (البهجة) or alternatively Alger la Blanche ("Algiers the White") for the glistening white of its buildings as seen rising up from the sea, Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the casbah or citadel, 122 metres (400 ft) above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle.
The city name is derived (via French Alger and Catalan Alger) from the Arabic name الجزائر al-Jazā’ir, which translates as "The Islands", referring to the four islands which lay off the city's coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525. Al-Jazā’ir is itself a truncated form of the city's older name جزائر بني مازغان Jazā’ir Banī Mazghannā, "The Islands of the Sons of Mazghanna", used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.
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Argentina
Argentinai/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika aɾxenˈtina]), is a country in South America, the continent's second largest by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a "very high" rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as middle emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] (
listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: 
Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Baku
Baku (Azerbaijani: Bakı, IPA: [bɑˈcɯ]), sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal parts: the downtown and the old Inner City (21.5 ha). Baku's urban population at the beginning of 2009 was estimated at just over two million people. Officially, about 25 percent of all inhabitants of the country live in the metropolitan city area of Baku.
Baku is divided into eleven administrative districts (raions) and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on islands in the Baku Bay and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 km (37 mi) away from Baku. The Inner City of Baku along with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. According to the Lonely Planet's ranking, Baku is also among the world's top ten destinations for urban nightlife.
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Baltic states
The term Baltic states (also Baltics, Baltic nations or Baltic countries) refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (from north to south); Finland also fell within the scope of the term from the 1920s to 1939.Estonia is only considered Baltic geographically, not linguistically or culturally, as Estonians and Finns are descendants of the Baltic Finns.
The term in the indigenous languages of the Baltic states is:
The term "Baltic" stems from the name of the Baltic Sea – a hydronym dating back to the 11th century (Adam of Bremen mentioned Latin: Mare Balticum) and earlier.
The Latvian and Lithuanian term Baltija most likely originates from the Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. In modern Baltic languages, namely, Lithuanian language, baltas literally means white, and in Latvian language balts means white also.
Beginning in the Middle Ages and through the present day, the Baltic Sea appears on the maps subscribed in Germanic languages as German: Ostsee, Danish: Østersøen, Dutch: Oostzee, Swedish: Östersjön, etc. In English "Ost" is "East", and in fact, the Baltic Sea mostly lies to the east for Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Clearly, part of the Baltic Sea lies to the east of Germany and Sweden, and due north of parts of Germany.
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Bataan Peninsula
The Bataan Peninsula is a rocky extension of the Zambales Mountains, on Luzon in the Philippines. It separates the Manila Bay from the South China Sea. The peninsula features Mount Natib (1,253 m) in the north and the Mariveles Mountains in the south, which includes Mount Samat, the location of the historical marker for the Bataan Death March.
The Bataan Province is located on this peninsula. Defeated in the battle of Bataan during World War II, after the fall of the fortress of Corregidor the Bataan death march took place down the Bataan peninsula. The captured allied forces were forced to march off the peninsula to internment camps under brutal and horrid conditions suffering many hundreds of cruel war crimes on the road, where they were allowed little water and even prohibited from relieving bodily functions.
Coordinates: 14°35′N 120°28′E / 14.583°N 120.467°E / 14.583; 120.467
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Battle of Iwo Jima
Coordinates: 24°47′N 141°19′E / 24.783°N 141.317°E / 24.783; 141.317
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S. invasion, charged with the mission of capturing the three airfields on Iwo Jima, resulted in some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Campaign of World War II.
The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a vast network of bunkers, hidden artillery, and 18 km (11 mi) of underground tunnels. The Americans were covered by extensive naval and air support, capable of delivering an enormous amount of firepower onto the Japanese positions. The battle was the first American attack on the Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously. Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American overall casualties exceeded the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths numbered 3 times that of Americans. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner. The rest were killed or missing and assumed dead. Despite heavy fighting and casualties on both sides, Japanese defeat was assured from the start. The Americans possessed an overwhelming superiority in arms and numbers; this, coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, ensured that there was no plausible scenario in which the U.S. could have lost the battle.
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Battle of Leyte Gulf
The Battle of Leyte Gulf, also called the "Battles for Leyte Gulf", and formerly known as the "Second Battle of the Philippine Sea", is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history.
It was fought in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar from 23–26 October 1944, between combined US and Australian forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 20 October, United States troops invaded the island of Leyte as part of a strategy aimed at isolating Japan from the countries it had occupied in South East Asia, and in particular depriving its forces and industry of vital oil supplies. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to defeat the Allied invasion, but was repulsed by the U.S. Navy's 3rd and 7th Fleets. The IJN failed to achieve its objective, suffered very heavy losses, and never afterwards sailed to battle in comparable force. The majority of its surviving heavy ships, deprived of fuel, remained in their bases for the rest of the Pacific War.
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Battle of Madagascar
The Battle of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad) was the Allied campaign to capture Vichy-French-controlled Madagascar during World War II. It began on 5 May 1942. Fighting did not cease until 6 November.
Diego Suarez is a large bay and fine harbour on the northern tip of the island of Madagascar and has an opening to the east through a narrow channel called Oronjia Pass. The naval base of Antsirane lies on a peninsula between two of the four small bays enclosed within the Diego Suarez bay. Diego Suarez Bay cuts deeply into the northern tip of Madagascar (Cape Amber), almost severing it from the rest of the island.
In the 1880s, the bay was coveted by France, which claimed it as a coaling station for steamships travelling to French possessions in the east; the colonisation was formalised after the first Franco-Hova War when Queen Ranavalona III signed a treaty on 17 December 1885 giving France a protectorate over the bay and surrounding territory, as well as the islands of Nossi-Be and St. Marie de Madagascar. The colony's administration was subsumed into that of Madagascar in 1897.
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Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow (Битва под Москвой, Romanized: Bitva pod Moskvoy, German: Schlacht um Moskau) is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km (370 mi) sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the largest Soviet city. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union.
The German strategic offensive named Operation Typhoon was planned to conduct two pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups, simultaneously severing the Moscow-Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front, south of Tula by the 2nd Panzer Army, while the 4th Army advanced directly towards Moscow from the west. A separate operational German plan, codenamed Operation Wotan, was included in the final phase of the German offensive.
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Battle of Stalingrad
Coordinates: 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.7°N 44.517°E / 48.7; 44.517
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major and decisive battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943 and was the largest battle on the Eastern Front, marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with the higher estimates of combined casualties amounting to nearly two million. The heavy losses inflicted on the German army made it a significant turning point in the whole war. After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East.
The German offensive to capture Stalingrad commenced in late summer 1942, and was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing which reduced much of the city to rubble. The German offensive eventually became mired in building-to-building fighting; and despite controlling nearly all of the city at times, the Wehrmacht was unable to dislodge the last Soviet defenders clinging tenaciously to the west bank of the Volga River.
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Beijing
Beijing ( /beɪˈdʒɪŋ/; Chinese: 北京; pinyin: Běijīng, [peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]), formerly romanized as Peking ( /piːˈkɪŋ/ or /peɪˈkɪŋ/), is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The metropolis, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government, with 14 urban and suburban districts and two rural counties. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast.
Beijing is China's second largest city by urban population after Shanghai and is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's largest state-owned companies. Beijing is a major transportation hub in the national highway, expressway, railway and high-speed rail network. Beijing's Capital International Airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic.
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Belgrade
Belgrade ( /ˈbɛlɡreɪd/; Serbian: Београд; [beǒɡrad] ( listen); names in other languages) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. The city is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. Its name in English translates to White city. The city proper has a population of over 1.1 million, while its metropolitan area has over 1.6 million people, making it one of the largest cities in Southeast Europe.
One of the largest prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved around the area Belgrade in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region, and after 279 BC Celts conquered the city, naming it Singidūn. It was conquered by the Romans during the reign of Augustus, and awarded city rights in the mid 2nd century. It was settled by the Slavs in the 520s, and changed hands several times before it became the capital of King Stephen Dragutin (1282–1316). In 1521 Belgrade was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and became the seat of a the Sanjak of Smederevo. It frequently passed from Ottoman to Habsburg rule, which saw the destruction of most of the city during the Austro-Ottoman wars. Belgrade was again named the capital of Serbia in 1841. The north of Belgrade remained a Habsburg outpost until 1918, when it was merged into the capital city. As a strategic location, the city was battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times. Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia (in various forms of governments) from its creation in 1918, to its final dissolution in 2006.
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Bessarabia
Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; Russian: Бессарабия Bessarabiya, Ukrainian: Бессарабія Bessarabiya) is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west.
In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812, and ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern portion of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, was ceded to Imperial Russia and designated "Bessarabia". While this eastern part became the Governorate of Bessarabia, the western part of Moldavia united, in 1859, with Wallachia in what would become the Kingdom of Romania. For a short period between 1856 and 1878, two of the nine traditional counties of Bessarabia were also part of Moldavia and then Romania.
Three months after declaring its independence from Russia, in 1918, as the Moldavian Democratic Republic (shortly before the end of World War I); it united with the Kingdom of Romania. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the USSR in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. Subsequently, Romania joined the Axis Powers and recaptured it in 1941 and lost again in 1944. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border set along the Prut River was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II. The core part of Bessarabia was joined with parts of the Moldavian ASSR (Transnistria) to form the Moldavian SSR. At the same time, smaller parts of Bessarabia, in the south (two traditional counties; Budjak) and north (half of one county), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.
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Brazil
Brazili/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
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Budapest
Budapest ( /ˈbuːdəpɛst/, /ˈbuːdəpɛʃt/ or /ˈbʊdəpɛst/; Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈbudɒpɛʃt] ( listen); names in other languages) is the capital and the largest city of Hungary, the largest in East-Central Europe and the seventh largest in the European Union. It is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre, sometimes described as the primate city of Hungary. According to 2011 Census, Budapest had 1.74 million inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2.1 million due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter Area is home to 3.3 million people. The city covers an area of 525 square kilometres (202.7 sq mi) within the city limits. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with a unification on 17 November 1873 of west-bank Buda and Óbuda with east-bank Pest.
The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia.Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241-42. The re-established town became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture in the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács and nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, development of the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification. It also became the second capital of Austria-Hungary, a great power that dissolved in 1918. After the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, when Hungary lost 72% of its former territory, culturally and economically the country became wholly Budapest-dominated. The capital dominates the country both by the size of its population—which dwarfs those of Hungary's other cities Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, Operation Panzerfaust in 1944, the Battle of Budapest of 1945, and the Revolution of 1956.
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Bukovina
Bukovina (Romanian: Bucovina; Ukrainian: Буковина/Bukovyna; German and Polish: Bukowina; see also other languages) is a historical region in Central Europe, currently divided between Romania and Ukraine, located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains.
From 1775 to 1918, Bukovina was an administrative division of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria–Hungary. After World War I, Bukovina became part of Romania. In 1940, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the northern half of Bukovina was annexed by the Soviet Union.
The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became Austrian Empire in 1804, and Austria-Hungary in 1867.
The official German name, die Bukowina, of the province under Austrian rule (1775–1918), was derived from the Polish form Bukowina, which in turn was derived from the Ukrainian word, Буковина (Bukovyna), and the common Slavic form of buk, meaning beech tree (бук [buk] as, for example, in Ukrainian or, even, Buche in German). Another German name for the region, das Buchenland, is mostly used in poetry, and means "beech land", or "the land of beech trees". In Romanian, in literary or poetic contexts, the name Țara Fagilor ("the land of beech trees") is sometimes used.
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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgariai/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
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Burma
Burma
i/ˈbɜrmə/ BUR-mə, also known as Myanmar i/ˌmjɑːnˈmɑr/ MYAHN--MAR, is a country in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. At 676,578 km2 (261,227 sq mi), it is the 40th largest country in the world and the second largest country in Southeast Asia. Burma is also the 24th most populous country in the world with over 60.28 million people.
Burma is home to some of the early civilizations of Southeast Asia including the Pyu and the Mon. In the 9th century, the Burmans of the Kingdom of Nanzhao, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Empire in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture slowly became dominant in the country. During this period, Theravada Buddhism gradually became the predominant religion of the country. The Pagan Empire fell due to the Mongol invasions (1277–1301), and several warring states emerged. In the second half of the 16th century, the country was reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty which for a brief period was the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Burma as well as Manipur and Assam. The country was colonized by Britain following three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885).
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Central Macedonia
Central Macedonia (Greek: Περιφέρεια Κεντρικής Μακεδονίας, Periféria Kentrikís Makedonías) is one of the thirteen regions of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. With a population of over 1.8 million, it is the second most populous in Greece after Attica.
The region was established in the 1987 administrative reform. With the 2010 Kallikratis plan, its powers and authority were redefined and extended. Along with East Macedonia and Thrace, it is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace which is based in Thessaloniki. The region is based at its capital city of Thessaloniki and is divided into seven regional units (pre-Kallikratis prefectures), Chalkidiki, Imathia, Kilkis, Pella, Pieria, Serres and Thessaloniki. These are further subdivided into 38 municipalities.
Although geographically part of central Macedonia, Mount Athos is not administratively part of the region, but an autonomous self-governing state under the sovereignty of Greece.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Costa Rica
Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east.
Costa Rica, which means "Rich Coast", constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949. It is the only Latin American country included in the list of the world's 22 older democracies. Costa Rica has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in the Human Development Index (HDI), ranked 69th in the world in 2011. Also was cited by the UNDP in 2010 as one of the countries that have attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, and in 2011 was highlighted by UNDP for being a good performer on environmental sustainability, and better record on human development and inequality than the median of their region. It was also the only country to meet all five criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. The country is ranked fifth in the world, and first among the Americas, in terms of the 2012 Environmental Performance Index.
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Crete
Crete (Greek: Κρήτη; [kriti]) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits (such as its own dialect, poetry, and music). Crete was the centre of the Minoan civilization (c. 2700–1420 BC), the earliest civilization in Europe, comprising the first palaces in Europe.
The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and the Bible (Caphtor). It was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting some form similar to both was the Minoan name for the island.
The Mycenaean Greek name for Crete is unknown; it is not mentioned in extant Linear B texts. The name Crete (Κρήτη) first appears in Homer's Odyssey. Its etymology is unknown. One speculative proposal derives it from a hypothetical Luvian word *kursatta (cf. kursawar "island", kursattar "cutting, sliver"). In Latin, it became Creta.
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Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo, Česko-Slovensko) was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992. From 1939 to 1945, the state did not de facto exist because of its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, but the Czechoslovak government-in-exile nevertheless continued to exist during this period. In 1945, the eastern part of Carpathian Ruthenia was taken over by the Soviet Union. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Form of state:
Neighbours:
Topography:
The country was of generally irregular terrain. The western area was part of north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of northern reaches of Carpathian Mountains and Danube River basin lands.
Climate:
The weather was predominantly continental, but varied from the moderate temperature of Western Europe in the west, to more severe weather of Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union in the east.
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Dalmatia
Dalmatia (Croatian: Dalmacija, Croatian pronunciation: [dǎlmaːt͡sija]; see names in other languages) is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, in Croatia. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south. The Dalmatian dog received its name from Dalmatia, as does the dalmatic, a Roman Catholic liturgical vestment worn by deacons and bishops.
The name Dalmatia derives from the name of the tribe of the Dalmatae, which is connected with the Illyrian word delme, dele in modern Albanian, meaning "sheep" in English.
In antiquity the Roman province of Dalmatia was much larger than the present-day Dalmatia County of Croatia, stretching from Istria in the north to historical Albania in the south. Dalmatia signified not only a geographical unit, but was an entity based on common culture and settlement types, a common narrow eastern Adriatic coastal belt, Mediterranean climate, sclerophyllous vegetation of the Illyrian province, Adriatic carbonate platform, and karst geomorphology.
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Djibouti
Djibouti (Arabic: جيبوتي Jībūtī, French: Djibouti, Somali: Jabuuti, Afar: Gabuuti), officially the Republic of Djibouti (Arabic: جمهورية جيبوتي Jumhūriyyat Jībūtī, French: République de Djibouti, Afar: Gabuutih Ummuuno, Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Jabuuti), is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east. Djibouti, which had a population of 818,159 at the 2009 census, is one of the least populous countries in Africa.Islam is the largest religion in the country, practiced by 94% of the population. The land was known as Obock and French Somaliland (Côte française des Somalis) in the 19th century; in 1967, it changed its name to Afars and Issas after new treaties with France. The territory was declared an independent nation in 1977 and changed its name to the "Republic of Djibouti" after its principal city. Djibouti joined the United Nations on September 20, 1977. While Djibouti is an independent sovereign state, it maintains deep French relations, and through various military and economic agreements with France, it receives continued security and economic assistance.
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Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic (i/dəˌmɪnɨkən rɨˈpʌblɪk/; Spanish: República Dominicana [reˈpuβlika ðominiˈkana]) is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries. Both by area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with 48,442 square kilometres (18,704 sq mi) and an estimated 10 million people.
Taínos inhabited what is now the Dominican Republic since the 7th century. Christopher Columbus landed on it in 1492, and it became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, namely Santo Domingo, the country's capital and Spain's first capital in the New World. Santo Domingo can boast of many firsts in the Americas, including the first cathedral, and castle, both in the Ciudad Colonial area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Drava Banovina
The Drava Banovina or Drava Banate (Slovene: Dravska banovina) was a province (banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of most of present-day Slovenia and was named for the Drava River. The capital city of the Drava Banovina was Ljubljana.
According to the 1931 Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
The Drava Banovina is bounded by a line passing from the point where the northern boundary of the district of Čabar cuts the State frontier, then following the State frontier with Italy, Austria and Hungary to a point where the State frontier with Hungary reaches the river Mura (north-east of Čakovec). From the river Mura, the boundary of the Banovina follows the eastern and then the southern boundaries; of the districts of Lendava, Ljutomer, Ptuj, Šmarje, Brežice, Krško, Novo Mesto, Metlika, Črnomelj, Kočevje and Logatec, including all the districts mentioned.
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In 1941 the World War II Axis powers occupied Drava Banovina, and it was divided between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia. Following World War II the region was reconstituted with additional pre-World War II Italian territory (Julian March) as Slovenia, within a federal Communist Yugoslavia.
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Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies (Dutch: Nederlands-Indië; Indonesian: Hindia-Belanda) was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800.
During the 19th century, Dutch possessions and hegemony were expanded, reaching their greatest territorial extent in the early 20th century. This colony which later formed modern-day Indonesia was one of the most valuable European colonies under Dutch Empire's rule, and contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in 19th to early 20th century. The colonial social order was based on rigid racial and social structures with a Dutch elite living separate but linked to their native subjects.
Japan's World War II occupation dismantled much of the Dutch colonial state and economy. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesian nationalists declared independence which they fought to secure during the subsequent Indonesian National Revolution. The Netherlands formally recognized Indonesian sovereignty at the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference with the exception of the Netherlands New Guinea (Western New Guinea), which was ceded to Indonesia in 1963 under the provisions of the New York Agreement.
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East Prussia
East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen, pronounced [ˈɔstˌpʁɔʏsən] ( listen); Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Lithuanian: Rytų Prūsija or Rytprūsiai; Russian: Восточная Пруссия or Vostochnaya Prussiya; Latin: Borussia orientalis) was the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.
East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. The indigenous Balts who survived the conquest were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles and Lithuanians formed minorities. From the 13th century, East Prussia was part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, which became the Duchy of Prussia in 1525. The Old Prussian language had become extinct by the 17th or early 18th century.
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El Salvador
El Salvadori/ɛl ˈsælvədɔr/ (Spanish: República de El Salvador, literally 'Republic of The Savior') is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country as well as Central America. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the countries of Guatemala to the north and Honduras to the east. Its easternmost region lies on the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, opposite Nicaragua. As of 2009, El Salvador had a population of approximately 5,744,113 people, composed predominantly of Mestizos.
The colón was the official currency of El Salvador from 1892 to 2001, when it adopted the U.S. Dollar.
In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index and in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama), due in part to ongoing rapid industrialization. In addition, tropical forests and overall forest cover has expanded by nearly 20 percent from the year 1992 to 2010. Making it one of the few countries experiencing reforestation.
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Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國; Shinjitai: 大日本帝国; Romaji: Dai Nippon Teikoku; literally Great Imperial State of Japan; officially Great Japan or Empire of Great Japan; commonly as Imperial Japan or the Japanese Empire) was an empire and world power that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan on 3 May 1947.
Imperial Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei (富国強兵?, "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Army") led to its emergence as a world power, eventually culminating in its membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific region. At the height of its power in 1942, the Japanese Empire ruled over a land area spanning 7,400,000 square kilometres (2,857,000 sq mi), making it one of the largest maritime empires in history.
After several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War, the Empire of Japan also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples of the countries it conquered. After suffering many defeats and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on 2 September 1945. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, and a new constitution was created with American involvement. The constitution came into force on 3 May 1947, officially dissolving the Empire. American occupation and reconstruction of the country continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose title is simply that ("the nation of Japan" Nippon-koku) or just "Japan" .
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Estonia
Estoniai/ɨsˈtoʊniə/ (Estonian: Eesti), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and the Russian Federation (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. The Estonians are a Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is closely related to Finnish.
Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into 15 counties. The capital and largest city is Tallinn. With a population of 1.29 million, it is one of the least-populous members of the European Union, Eurozone and NATO. Estonia has the highest GDP per person among former Soviet republics. Estonia is listed as a "High-Income Economy" by the World Bank and as an "advanced economy" by the International Monetary Fund; the country is an OECD member. The United Nations lists Estonia as a developed country with a Human Development Index of "Very High". The country is also ranked highly for press freedom, economic freedom, democracy and political freedom and education.
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Gabon
Gabon (
/ɡəˈbɒn/; French pronunciation: [ɡabɔ̃]), officially the Gabonese Republic (French: République Gabonaise) is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west. It covers a land area of nearly 270,000 km² and has an estimated population of 1,500,000. Its capital and largest city is Libreville.
Since its independence from France on August 17, 1960, Gabon has been ruled by three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions. Gabon is also a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2010-2011 term.
Low population density together with abundant natural resources and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest HDI and the third highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Equatorial Guinea and Botswana) in the region.
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General Government
The General Government (German: Generalgouvernement, Polish: Generalne Gubernatorstwo, Ukrainian: Генеральна губернія) was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich (Großdeutsches Reich) between 1939–1945. Following Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the former Polish eastern voivodeships (districts) of Kresy (earlier invaded by the Red Army in Nazi–Soviet pact) were added to the General Government by a decree issued by Adolf Hitler.
In terms of international and civil law, all of these acts were illegal from their inception, according to section III of the Fourth Hague Convention (1907) accepted by Germany. The area was not a puppet state; its rulers had no goal of collaborating with Poles throughout the war, regardless of their political orientation. The Nazi authorities made a determined effort to avoid even mentioning the name "Poland" in government correspondence. The only exception to this were the German-backed banknotes and coins (called 'zloty' and 'grosz') printed in 1940 in which the word was used for propaganda purposes. The government and administration of the General Government was composed entirely of Germans, with the intent that the area was eventually to become an ethnic German province. According to Heim ins Reich initiative the only locals remaining were to be those of German descent.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Gibraltar
Gibraltar ( /dʒɨˈbrɒltər/) is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has an area of 6.8 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) and a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. At its foot is the densely populated city area, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians and other nationalities.
An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The territory was subsequently ceded to Britain "in perpetuity" under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was an important base for the Royal Navy; today its economy is based largely on tourism, financial services, and shipping.
The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum and again in 2002. Under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the UK Government.
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Gran Sasso raid
The Gran Sasso raid refers to Operation Eiche (German for 'Oak'), the rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by German paratroopers led by Major Otto-Harald Mors and Waffen-SS commandos in September 1943, during World War II. It was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, planned by Major Harald Mors and approved by General Kurt Student.
On 25 July 1943, a few weeks after the allied invasion of Sicily and bombing of Rome, the Italian Grand Council of Fascism voted to depose Mussolini and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Mussolini was subsequently arrested on King Victor Emmanuel's orders.
After his arrest, Mussolini was transported around Italy by his captors. Otto Skorzeny, selected personally by Hitler and Ernst Kaltenbrunner to carry out the rescue mission, tracked him.
Intercepting a coded Italian radio message, Skorzeny used his own reconnaissance[citation needed] to determine that Mussolini was being imprisoned at Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort at Campo Imperatore the Italian mountain of Gran Sasso, high in the Apennine Mountains. On 12 September 1943, Skorzeny joined the team—led by Major Harald Mors—to rescue Mussolini in a high-risk glider mission.
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Guadalcanal Campaign
The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
On August 7, 1942, Allied forces, predominantly American, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten the supply and communication routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Allies overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands since May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Powerful U.S. naval forces supported the landings.
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Habbaniyah
Al Habbaniyah or Habbaniya (Arabic: الحبانية) is a city in Al-Anbar Province, in central Iraq.
Coordinates: 33°22′N 43°34′E / 33.367°N 43.567°E / 33.367; 43.567
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Hanoi
Hanoi (Hà Nội; listen), is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế during the Nguyen dynasty as the capital of Vietnam, but Hanoi served as the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1954. From 1954 to 1976, it was the capital of North Vietnam.
The city is located on the right bank of the Red River. Hanoi is located at 1,760 km (1,090 mi) north of Ho Chi Minh City.
October 2010 officially marked 1000 years since the establishment of the city.
Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake, in central Hanoi
Emperor Lý Thái Tổ made Thăng Long (Hanoi) his capital in the 11th century
Colonial Hanoi
Modern Hanoi
Hanoi has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. One of the first known permanent settlements is the Co Loa citadel (Cổ Loa) founded around 200 BC.
Hanoi has had many names throughout history, all of them of Sino-Vietnamese origin. During the Chinese domination of Vietnam, it was known first as Long Biên, then Tống Bình (Chinese: 宋平, Sòngpíng, "Song Peace") and Long Đỗ (Chinese: 龍肚, Lóngdù, "Dragonbelly"). In 866, it was turned into a citadel and named Đại La (Chinese: 大羅, Dàluó, "Big Net").
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Hungary
Hungaryi/ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)) is a country, which is located in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital, and largest city, is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following a Celt (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (AD 9 - c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian prince Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world. After about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541–1699), Hungary was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituted half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (1867–1918).
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Inner Mongolia
Coordinates: 44°N 113°E / 44°N 113°E / 44; 113
Inner Mongolia (Mongolian: s
, Öbür Monggol and c Өвөр Монгол, Övör Mongol; Chinese: 内蒙古; pinyin: Nèi Měnggǔ, but officially romanized to Nei Mongol) is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation. Its capital is Hohhot and the largest city is Baotou.
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was established in 1947 on the area of former Republic of China provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar, Rehe, Liaobei and Xing'an along with the northern parts of Gansu and Ningxia. It is the third-largest subdivision of China spanning about 1,200,000 km² (463,000 sq mi) or 12% of China's total land area. It has a population of about 24 million as of 2004. The majority of the population in the region are Han Chinese, with a substantial Mongol minority. The official languages are Chinese and Mongolian, the latter written in the Mongolian script, as opposed to the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet used in the state of Mongolia.
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Invasion of Normandy
The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in 1944 during World War II. It was the largest amphibious operation ever to take place.
Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on 6 June came from Canada, the Free French Forces, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the weeks following the invasion, Polish forces also participated, as well as contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands. Most of the above countries also provided air and naval support, as did the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the Royal Norwegian Navy.
The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks and naval bombardments. In the early morning, amphibious landings on five beaches codenamed Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, and Sword began and during the evening the remaining elements of the parachute divisions landed. The "D-Day" forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth.
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Isan
Isan (Isan/Thai: อีสาน [ʔiːsǎːn]; also written as Isaan, Isarn, Issan, or Esarn;) is the northeastern region of Thailand. It is located on the Khorat Plateau, bordered by the Mekong River (along the border with Laos) to the north and east, by Cambodia to the southeast and the Prachinburi mountains south of Nakhon Ratchasima. To the west it is separated from Northern and Central Thailand by the Phetchabun mountain range.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, northeastern Thailand has been officially known as Isan, a term adopted from Sanskrit Ishan, meaning in a “north east direction.” The term "Isan" was derived from Isanapura, the capital of the Chenla kingdom. The Lao-speaking population of the region, who comprise the majority, distinguish themselves not only from the Lao of Laos but also from the central Thai by calling themselves Khon Isan or Thai Isan. The Khmer-speaking minority and Kuy (Suai), who live in the south of Isan, speak dialects and follow customs more similar to those of Cambodia than either the Thai people or the Lao people.
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Italian Empire
The Italian Empire (Italian: Impero Italiano) was created after the Kingdom of Italy joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas during the "scramble for Africa". Modern Italy as a unified state only existed from 1861. By this time France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, had already carved out large empires over several hundred years. One of the last remaining areas open to colonisation was on the African continent.
By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Italy had annexed Eritrea and Somalia, and had wrested control of portions of the Ottoman Empire, including Libya, though it was defeated in its attempt to conquer Ethiopia. The Fascist government under Italian dictator Benito Mussolini which came to power in 1922 sought to increase the size of the empire further. Ethiopia was successfully taken, four decades after the previous failure, and Italy's European borders were expanded. An official "Italian Empire" was proclaimed on 9 May 1936 following the conquest of Ethiopia. Italy sided with Nazi Germany during World War II and initially enjoyed successes. However, Allied forces eventually captured Italian overseas colonies and by the time Italy itself was invaded in 1943, its empire had all but ceased to exist.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Jerusalem
Jerusalem ( /dʒəˈruːsələm/; Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם Yerushaláyim ; Arabic: القُدس al-Quds and/or أورشليم Ûrshalîm) is the capital of Israel, though not internationally recognized as such, and one of the oldest cities in the world. It is located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern edge of the Dead Sea. If the area and population of East Jerusalem is included, it is Israel's largest city in both population and area, with a population of 801,000 residents over an area of 125.1 km2 (48.3 sq mi). Jerusalem is also a holy city to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond its boundaries.
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Karelia
Coordinates: 63°N 32°E / 63°N 32°E / 63; 32
Karelia (Karelian and Finnish Karjala; Russian: Карелия, Kareliya; Swedish: Karelen), the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland (the regions of South Karelia and North Karelia).
Various subdivisions may be called Karelia. Finnish Karelia was a historical province of Finland, now divided between Finland and Russia, often called just Karjala in Finnish. The eastern part of this chiefly Lutheran area was ceded to Russia after the Winter War of 1939-40. This area is the "Karelia" of the Karelian question in Finnish politics.
The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject, including the so-called "East Karelia" with a chiefly Russian Orthodox population.
Within present-day Finland, Karjala refers to regions of South and North Karelia.
Karelia was bitterly fought over by the Swedes and the Novgorod Republic for a period starting in the 13th-century Swedish-Novgorodian Wars. The Treaty of Nöteborg (Finnish: Pähkinäsaaren rauha) in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg (Finnish: Viipuri) became the capital of the new Swedish province.
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Karelian Isthmus
Coordinates: 60°30′N 29°54′E / 60.5°N 29.9°E / 60.5; 29.9
The Karelian Isthmus (Russian: Карельский перешеек) is the approximately 45–110 km wide stretch of land, situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, to the north of the River Neva (between 61°21’N, 59°46’N and 27°42’E, 31°08’E). Its northwestern boundary is the relatively narrow area between the Bay of Vyborg and Lake Ladoga. If the Karelian Isthmus is defined as the entire territory of present-day Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast to the north of the Neva, the isthmus' area covers about 15,000 km2.
The smaller part of the isthmus to the southeast of the old Russia-Finland border is considered historically as Northern Ingria, rather than part of the Karelian Isthmus itself. The rest of the isthmus was historically a part of Finnish Karelia. This was conquered by the Russian Empire during the Great Northern War in 1712 and included within the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland (1809–1917) of the Russian Empire. When Finland became independent in 1917, the isthmus (except for the territory roughly corresponding to present-day Vsevolozhsky District and some districts of Saint Petersburg) remained Finnish. Finnish Karelia was ceded to the Soviet Union by Finland following the Winter War (1939–1940) and Continuation War (1941–1944). In 1940–1941, during the Interim Peace, most of the ceded territories in the isthmus were included within the Karelo-Finnish SSR. However, since World War II the entire isthmus has been divided between the city of Saint Petersburg (mostly Kurortny District), as well as Priozersky District, Vsevolozhsky District and Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast.
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Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, mord katyński, 'Katyń crime'; Russian: Катынский расстрел Katynskij ra'sstrel 'Katyn shooting'), was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps, dated 5 March 1940. This official document was approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader, Joseph Stalin. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with 21,768 being a lower bound. The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, with the rest being Polish intelligentsia arrested for allegedly being "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests."
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Kayah State
Kayah State (Burmese: ကယားပြည်နယ်, pronounced: [kəjá pjìnɛ̀] formerly, Karenni State) is a state of Myanmar. Situated in eastern Myanmar, it is bounded on the north by Shan State, on the east by Thailand's Mae Hong Son Province, and on the south and west by Kayin State. It lies approximately between 18° 30' and 19° 55' north latitude and between 94°40' and 97° 93' east longitude. The area is 11,670 km2 (4,510 sq mi). Its capital is Loikaw (also spelt Loi-kaw). The estimated population in 1998 was approximately 207,357, according to UNICEF. It is inhabited primarily by the Karenni ethnic group, also known as Red Karen or Kayah, a Sino-Tibetan people.
Kayah State is located in the eastern part of Myanmar. The relief of Kayah State is mountainous with the Dawna Range and the Karen Hills also known as "Kayah-Karen" mountains separated by the Salween River as it flows through Kayah State.Balu Chaung, called Nam Pilu in local language, flows from Inle Lake and converges with the Salween in southern Kayah State.
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Kengtung
Kengtung (Shan: ၵဵင်းတုင်; Burmese: ကျိုင်းတုံမြို့; MLCTS: kyuing: tum mrui., IPA: [tɕáɪɴtòʊɴ mjo̰]; Thai:เชียงตุง ; also spelled Kyaingtong, Chiang Tung, Cheingtung, and Kengtong) is a town in Shan State, Burma. It is the principal town of Kengtung Township. Kengtung is located on the National Highway 4 (NH4) and at the AH2 and AH3 of the Asian Highway.
There is an airport in Kengtung.
Kengtung was founded by the grandson of King Mangrai on the location of an older city of the Lawa people, the original inhabitants of the region. This migration of the Chiangmai dynasty, made in the 13th century with the idea of founding a new kingdom which called Lannathai in Chiang Mai, has resulted in Kengtung having a different type of Tai population from the rest of the Shan State.
Kengtung, like other major towns in the Shan Plateau, was home to a Shan Saopha. Kengtung was the base of the Kengtung Sawbwanate, and had a Sawbwa palace, built by Sao Kawng Kiao Intaleng in 1905.
The city was occupied by the Thai Phayap Army from 1942 until the end of the Second World War.
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Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria or the Tsardom of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Царство България, Tsarstvo Balgariya; also called Third Bulgarian Tsardom to distinguish it from the First Bulgarian Tsardom and the Second Bulgarian Tsardom) was a constitutional monarchy, created on 22 September 1908 (old style), as а result of an elevation of the Bulgarian state to independendent kingdom from tributary principality. This move was taken by Ferdinand who was crowned a Tsar at the declaration of independence, mainly taken for military plans and more accurately for seeking options for unification of all lands in the Balkans populated with ethnic Bulgarian majority, seized from Bulgaria and given to the Ottoman Empire with the Treaty of Berlin. The state itself was one of the most actively warring as a proportion of its existence for which was referred to as "the Balkan Prussia", for several years Bulgaria mobilized army of more than 1 million people from its population of about 5 million and in the next decade (1910-20) it engaged in three wars - the First, the Second Balkan War and the First World War, but lost both the Balkan and the World War. After this the Bulgarian army was forbidden to exist by the winning side of the World War and was actually dibanded and all plans for national unification of the Bulgarian lands failed. After less than two decades Bulgaria was again warring for national unification in the Second World War, but was fighting again on the losing side, which was a fourth lost war. In 1946, the monarchy was abolished, its final Tsar was sent into exile and the Kingdom was replaced by a People's Republic. Although rarely, it is sometimes referred to as the Third Bulgarian Empire, as in the Middle Ages the term Tsardom meant an Empire. However, the Third Bulgarian state was internationally recognized as a Kingdom.
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Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania (1866, 1923, 1938). Thus, the Kingdom of Romania began with the reign of King Carol I of Romania who gained Romanian's independence in the Romanian War of Independence, and ended with the abdication of King Michael I of Romania in 30 December 1947, imposed by the Soviet Union with the tacit and secret, implicit consent of its allies (as a result of the Yalta Conference and secret agreements). As such, it is quite distinct from the Romanian Old Kingdom, which refers strictly to the reign of King Carol I of Romania, between 14 March (O.S.) (26 May (N.S.)) 1881 and 27 September (O.S.) (10 October (N.S.)) 1914.
From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two vassal principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) under a single prince to a full-fledged independent kingdom with a Hohenzollern monarchy. In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Eastern Moldavia (Bessarabia), and Bukovina united with the Kingdom of Romania, resulting in a "Greater Romania". In 1940, Bessarabia, Northern Bukowina, Northern Transylvania and Southern Dobruja were ceded to the Soviet Union, Hungary and Bulgaria respectively, only Northern Transylvania being recovered after World War II ended. In 1947 the last king was compelled to abdicate and a republic ruled by the Romanian Communist Party replaced the monarchy.
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Kosovo
Kosovo ( /ˈkɒsəvoʊˌ ˈkoʊsəvoʊ/; Albanian: Kosovë, Kosova; Serbian: Косово or Косово и Метохија or Космет, Kosovo or Kosovo i Metohija or Kosmet) is a region in southeastern Europe. In antiquity, it was known as the independent kingdom, and later Roman province, of Dardania. Part of the medieval Serbia, it was then conquered by the Ottoman Empire, later incorporated into Serbia after the First Balkan War and before the constitution of Yugoslavia, later still it became the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (Serbian: Autonomna Pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija) within Serbia (Serbia then being one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia). Long-term severe ethnic tensions between Kosovo's Albanian and Serb populations have left Kosovo ethnically divided, resulting in inter-ethnic violence, including the Kosovo War of 1999. Following the Kosovo War, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) relinquished governance of this territory, whose governance was taken over by the United Nations, Kosovo remained legally the sovereign territory of the FRY after the transfer of authority. The partially recognised Republic of Kosovo (Albanian: Republika e Kosovës; Serbian: Република Косово, Republika Kosovo), a self-declared independent state, has de facto control over most of the territory, while North Kosovo, the largest Kosovo Serb enclave, is under the control of institutions of the Republic of Serbia.Serbia does not recognise the unilateral secession of Kosovo and considers it a UN-governed entity within its sovereign territory.
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Kronstadt
Kronshtadt (Russian: Кроншта́дт), also spelled Kronstadt, Cronstadt (German: Krone for "crown" and Stadt for "city"; Finnish: Retusaari), is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: 42,999 (2010 Census preliminary results); 43,385 (2002 Census).
It is also St. Petersburg's main seaport. In March 1921 it was the site of the Kronstadt rebellion.
Traditionally, the seat of the Russian admiralty and the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet were located in Kronstadt guarding the approaches to Saint Petersburg. The historic centre of the city and its fortifications are part of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.
Kronstadt has been a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians for many years due to the holy memory of Saint John of Kronstadt. Bus and water tours to Kronstadt are taken daily from Saint Petersburg
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Latvia
Latviai/ˈlætviə/ (Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (border length 343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), to the southeast by Belarus (141 km), and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats (Ls). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs (or Livonians), the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia.Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia and 25.5% in Estonia) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic.
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Lebanon
Lebanon (i/ˈlɛbənɒn/ or /ˈlɛbənən/; Arabic: لبنان Libnān or Lubnān, Lebanese Arabic: [lɪbˈneːn]), officially the Lebanese Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية al-Jumhūrīyah al-Libnānīyah, Lebanese Arabic: [elˈʒʊmhuːɾɪjje l.ˈlɪbneːnɪjje]), is a country in the East Mediterranean. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.
The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than 7,000 years—predating recorded history. Lebanon was the home of the Phoenicians, a maritime culture that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (3000–539 BC). Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the five provinces that comprise modern Lebanon were mandated to France. The French expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon, which was mostly populated by Maronite Catholics and Druze, to include more Muslims. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, and established a unique political system, known as confessionalism, a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities – Bechara El Khoury who became independent Lebanon's first President and Riad El-Solh, who became Lebanon's first prime minister, are considered the founders of the modern Republic of Lebanon and are national heroes for having led the country's independence. French troops withdrew from Lebanon in 1946.
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Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on 25 August. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the U.S. Army under Lt. General George S. Patton, Jr., and the British Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery in the Falaise gap in western France around the same time. The Liberation of Paris could be regarded as the transitional conclusion of the Allied invasion breakout in Operation Overlord into a broad-fronted general offensive, though this is a minority opinion.
The capital region of France had been governed by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice in June 1940, when the German Army occupied northern and westmost France, and when the puppet regime of Vichy France was established in the town of Vichy in central France.
The Liberation of Paris started with an uprising by the French Resistance against the German garrison. On 24 August, the French Forces of the Interior (Forces françaises de l'intérieur, FFI) received reinforcements from the Free French Army of Liberation and from the U.S. Third Army under General Patton.
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Lithuania
Lithuania (i/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.
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Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang, or Louangphrabang (Lao: ຫຼວງພຣະບາງ, literally: "Royal Buddha Image (in the Dispelling Fear mudra)," pronounced [lǔaŋ pʰra.bàːŋ]), is a city located in north central Laos, at the confluence of the Nam Khan river and Mekong River about 425 km north of Vientiane. It is the capital of Luang Prabang Province. The population of the city is about 50,000.
The city was formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name. Until the communist takeover in 1975, it was the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The main part of the city consists of four main roads located on a peninsula between the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers. The city is well known for its numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries. Every morning, hundreds of monks from the various monasteries walk through the streets collecting alms. One of the major landmarks in the city is a large steep hill on which sits Wat Chom Si.
Muang Sua was the old name of Luang Prabang following its conquest in 698 A.D. by a Tai prince, Khun Lo. Khun Lo had been awarded the town by his father, Khun Borom, who is associated with the Lao legend of the creation of the world, which the Lao share with the Shan and other peoples of the region. Khun Lo established a dynasty whose fifteen rulers reigned over an independent Muang Sua for nearly a century.[citation needed]
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Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic, Malagasy: Repoblikan'i Madagasikara [republiˈkʲan madaɡasˈkʲarə̥], French: République de Madagascar) is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), as well as numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from India around 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in complete isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot in which over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by human settlement.
Initial human settlement of Madagascar occurred from 350 BCE and 550 CE by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo who were later joined around 1000 CE by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel. Other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is often divided into eighteen or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands.
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Malaysia
Malaysia (i/məˈleɪʒə/ mə-LAY-zhə or i/məˈleɪsiə/ mə-LAY-see-ə) is a federal constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Land borders are shared with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei, and maritime borders exist with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. In 2010 the population exceeded 27.5 million, with over 20 million living on the Peninsula.
Malaysia has its origins in the Malay Kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, became subject to the British Empire. The first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963, with si being added to give the new country the name Malaysia. However, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. Since independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5% for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its natural resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce and medical tourism.
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Manchukuo
Manchukuo (Chinese: 满洲国; pinyin: Mǎnzhōuguó; literally "Manchu state") or Manshū-koku[citation needed] (Japanese: 満州国) was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and in 1932, a sympathetic government was established, with Puyi, the last Qing emperor, installed as the nominal regent and emperor. Manchukuo's government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. The territories formally claimed by the puppet state were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.
Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. There were also Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, White Russians and less numerous minorities. The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory.
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Mannerheim Line
The Mannerheim Line (Finnish: Mannerheim-linja) was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. During the Winter War it became known as the Mannerheim Line, after Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. The line was constructed in two phases: 1920–1924 and 1932–1939. By November 1939, when the Winter War began, the line was by no means complete.
After the October Revolution in Russia, the Finns declared independence in 1917. Although Soviet Russia recognized Finland's independence, the Finns did not trust their sincerity. The relationship between the two countries deteriorated, with the Soviet Union supporting the Red Guard during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. After the victory of the White Guard, a group of Finnish communists fled to Soviet Russia and established the Communist Party of Finland.
Generally, communism was seen as a threat to a democratic system. The situation was dangerous for a new nation like Finland, especially as the capital of the new communist revolution was nearby Petrograd, (now Saint Petersburg). Furthermore, before the Treaty of Tartu in 1921, the border area was restless. The former general of Imperial Russia, C.G.E. Mannerheim, disliked the bolsheviks. The Finns even considered an assault toward Petrograd in 1919, but it was quickly abandoned as the situation changed in the Russian Civil War. Construction work on the Karelian Isthmus had already begun when the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War in 1922. The line was constructed in two phases: 1920–1924 and 1932–1939.
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Mengjiang
Mengjiang (Chinese: 蒙疆; pinyin: Měngjiāng; Wade–Giles: Meng-chiang; Postal map spelling: Mengkiang; Hepburn:Mōkyō), also known in English as Mongol Border Land, was an autonomous area in Inner Mongolia, operating under nominal Chinese sovereignty and Japanese control. It consisted of the then-Chinese provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan, corresponding to the central part of modern Inner Mongolia. It is occasionally called Měnggǔguó (蒙古國) or Mengkukuo (in analogy to Manchukuo, another Japanese puppet state in Manchuria). The capital was Kalgan, and the ruler was Demchugdongrub.
Formed on 12 May 1936, the Mongol Military Government (蒙古軍政府) had Prince Yondonwangchug of Ulanqab as its first chairman. It was renamed in October 1937 as the Mongol United Autonomous Government (蒙古聯盟自治政府). On 1 September 1939, the predominantly Han Chinese governments of South Chahar and North Shanxi were merged with the Mongol United Autonomous Government, creating the new Mengjiang United Autonomous Government (蒙疆聯合自治政府).
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Morocco
Morocco (Arabic: المغرب al-Maghrib ; Berber: ⵍⵎⴻⵖⵔⵉⴱ / ⴰⵎⴻⵔⵔⵓⴽElmeɣrib / Amerruk), officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of about 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², including the disputed region of the Western Sahara, seen by and mostly administered by Morocco as the Southern Provinces. Morocco is part of the Maghreb region, in addition to Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya, with which it shares cultural, historical and linguistic ties.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive powers, including the power to dissolve the parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government but more importantly by the king himself. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors. The king can also issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. The latest Parliamentary elections were held in November 25, 2011, and were considered by some neutral observers to be mostly free and fair. Voter turnout in these elections was estimated to be 43% of registered voters, but only about 25% of Moroccan adult citizens actually voted. The rest either chose not to vote or they were not registered as voters. The political capital is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca; other main cities include Marrakesh, Tetouan, Tangier, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, and Nador.
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Narvik
Narvik (help·info) is the third largest city and municipality in Nordland county, Norway by population. Narvik is located on the shores of the Narvik Fjord (Norwegian: Ofotfjord). The municipality is part of the Ofoten traditional region of North Norway, inside the arctic circle. Narvik borders the municipality of Ballangen to the southwest, Evenes to the northwest, Bardu and Gratangen in Troms county to the north, and Norrbotten County (Lapland) in Sweden to the south and east.
Narvik was separated from the municipality of Ankenes when it became a city and municipality of its own on 1 January 1902. The municipality of Ankenes was merged into Narvik on 1 January 1974.
The town is named after the old Narvik farm ("Narduigh" - 1567), since the town is built on its ground. The meaning of the first element is unknown, and the last element is vik which means "inlet".
Narvik was originally called Victoriahavn after the Queen Victoria of England, however Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria was also honoured.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Normandy Landings
The Normandy landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, in Operation Overlord, during World War II. The landings commenced on Tuesday, June 6, 1944 (D-Day), beginning at 6:30 AM British Double Summer Time (GMT+2). In planning, D-Day was the term used for the day of actual landing, which was dependent on final approval.
The landings were conducted in two phases: an airborne assault landing of 24,000 British, American, Canadian and Free French airborne troops shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France starting at 6:30 AM. There were also decoy operations under the codenames Operation Glimmer and Operation Taxable to distract the German forces from the real landing areas.
Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces was General Dwight Eisenhower while overall command of ground forces (21st Army Group) was given to General Bernard Montgomery. The operation, planned by a team under Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan, was the largest amphibious invasion in world history and was executed by land, sea, and air elements under direct British command with over 160,000 troops landing on June 6, 1944. 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. The invasion required the transport of soldiers and material from the United Kingdom by troop-laden aircraft and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The landings took place along a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
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Operation Shingle
Operation Shingle (January 22, 1944) was an Allied amphibious landing in the Italian Campaign against German forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by American Major General John P. Lucas and was intended to outflank German forces of the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome. The resulting combat is commonly called the Battle of Anzio.
The success of an amphibious landing at that location, in a basin substantially comprising reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended completely on the element of surprise and the swiftness with which the invaders could move relative to the reaction time of the defenders. Any delay could result in the occupation of the mountains by the defenders and the consequent entrapment of the invaders. Lieutenant General Mark Clark, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, understood that risk, but Clark did not pass on their appreciation of the situation to his subordinate General Lucas who preferred to take time to entrench against an expected counter attack. The initial landing achieved complete surprise with no opposition and a jeep patrol even made it as far as the outskirts of Rome. Despite that report, Lucas, who had little confidence in the operation as planned, failed to capitalise on the element of surprise by delaying his advance until he judged his position was sufficiently consolidated and his troops ready.
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Operation Torch
Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942.
The Soviet Union had pressed the U.S. and Britain to start operations in Europe and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Soviet troops. While the American commanders favored Operation Sledgehammer, landing in Occupied Europe as soon as possible, the British commanders believed that such a course would end in disaster. An attack on French North Africa was proposed instead, which would clear the Axis Powers from North Africa, improve naval control of the Mediterranean Sea and prepare for an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspected the African operation would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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Oran
Oran (Arabic: وهران, Wahrān) is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.
It is the capital of the Oran Province (wilaya). The city has a population of 759,645 (2008), while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest city in Algeria. Oran is a major port, and since the 1960s has been the commercial, industrial, and educational centre of western Algeria.
Oran was founded in 903 by Moorish Andalusi traders but was captured by the Spanish under Cardinal Cisneros in 1509. Spanish sovereignty lasted until 1708, when the city was conquered by the Ottomans. Spain recaptured the city in 1732. However, its value as a trading post had decreased greatly, so King Charles IV sold the city to the Turks in 1792. Ottoman rule lasted until 1831, when it fell to the French.
During French rule over Algeria, Oran was the capital of a département of the same name (number 92). In July 1940, the British navy shelled French warships in the port after they refused a British ultimatum to surrender which was designed to ensure the fleet would not fall into German hands. The action increased the hatred of the Vichy regime for Britain but convinced the world that the British would fight on alone against Nazi Germany and its allies. The Vichy government held Oran during World War II until its capture by the Allies in late 1942, during Operation Torch.
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Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf is located in Western Asia between Iran (Persia) and the Arabian Peninsula. It is an extension of the Indian Ocean.
The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers. In 1991, the Persian Gulf again was the background for what was called the "Persian Gulf War" or the "Gulf War" when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was subsequently pushed back, despite the fact that this conflict was primarily a land conflict.
The Persian Gulf has many good fishing grounds, extensive coral reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has come under pressure from industrialization, and in particular, oil and petroleum spillages during wars in the region.
Historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf or simply The Gulf by most Arab states, although neither of the latter two terms are recognized internationally. The name Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf) is used by the International Hydrographic Organization.
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Philippines
The Philippinesi/ˈfɪlɨpiːnz/ FI-lə-peenz (Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas) is a sovereign country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
With an estimated population of about 98 million people, the Philippines is the 7th most populated Asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. An additional 12.5 million Filipinos live overseas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples who brought with them influences from Malay, Hindu, and Islamic societies. Trade introduced Chinese cultural influences which remain to this day.
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Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh (/pəˈnɒm ˈpɛn/ or /ˈnɒm ˈpɛn/; Khmer: ភ្នំពេញ, Khmer pronunciation: [pnum pɨɲ]) is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security, politics, economics, cultural heritage, and diplomacy of Cambodia.
Once known as the “Pearl of Asia”, it was considered one of the loveliest French-built cities in Indochina in the 1920s. Phnom Penh, along with Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, are significant global and domestic tourist destinations for Cambodia. Founded in 1434, the city is noted for its beautiful and historical architecture and attractions. There are a number of surviving French colonial buildings scattered along the grand boulevards.
Situated on the banks of the Tonlé Sap, Mekong and Bassac rivers, the Phnom Penh metropolitan area is home to more than 2 million of Cambodia’s population of over 14 million. The city is the wealthiest and most populous city in Cambodia and is home to the country’s political hub.
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Poland
Polandi/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.
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Ponderano
Ponderano is a municipality with 3833 inhabitants (est. 2004) in the Italian province of Biella, in the region of Piemont. Neighbouring communes include Borriana, Gaglianico, Mongrando, Occhieppo Inferiore and Sandigliano.
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Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (/ˌpɔrtə ˈriːkoʊ/ or /ˌpwɛərtə ˈriːkoʊ/), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, [esˈtaðo ˈlibɾe asoˈsjaðo ðe ˈpweɾto ˈriko]—literally, "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"), is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") comprises an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area of the Greater Antilles. However, it ranks third in population amongst that group of four islands, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. Due to its location, Puerto Rico enjoys a tropical climate and also experiences the Atlantic hurricane season.
Originally populated for centuries by indigenous aboriginal peoples known as Taínos, the island was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain during his second voyage to the Americas on November 19, 1493. Under Spanish rule, the island was colonized and the indigenous population was forced into slavery and nearly wiped out due to, among other things, European infectious diseases. The remaining population was emancipated by King Charles I in 1520. Spain possessed Puerto Rico for over 400 years, despite attempts at capture of the island by the French, Dutch, and British. The Spanish Crown, in an attempt to keep Puerto Rico from gaining its independence, revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. The decree was printed in three languages — Spanish, English and French — and it fostered the immigration of hundreds of non-Spanish European families.
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Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China.
The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in contemporary Northeastern China. The Aisin Gioro leader, Nurhachi, who was originally a vassal of the Ming emperors, began unifying the Jurchen clans in the late sixteenth century. By 1635, Nurhachi's son Hong Taiji could claim they constituted a single and united Manchu people and began forcing the Ming out of Liaoning in southern Manchuria. In 1644, the Ming capital Beijing was sacked by a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt, who then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. The last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor, committed suicide when the city fell. When Li Zicheng moved against Ming general Wu Sangui, the latter made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchurian army. Under Prince Dorgon, they seized control of Beijing and overthrew Li Zicheng's short-lived Shun Dynasty. Complete pacification of China was accomplished around 1683 under the Kangxi Emperor.
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RAF Habbaniya
Coordinates: 33°22′37.0″N 43°34′4.0″E / 33.37694°N 43.56778°E / 33.37694; 43.56778
Royal Air Force Station Habbaniya, more commonly known as RAF Habbaniya, (originally RAF Dhibban) was a Royal Air Force station at Habbaniyah, about 55 miles (89 km) west of Baghdad in modern day Iraq, on the banks of the Euphrates near Lake Habbaniyah. It was operational from October 1936 until the 31 May 1959 when the British were finally withdrawn following the July 1958 Revolution.
It remained a major Iraqi military airbase.
RAF Habbaniya was constructed on the west bank of the Euphrates and opened on 19 October 1936. The squadrons, units and headquarters and the hospital gradually moved in from RAF Hinaidi, Baghdad, which was vacated by the British and re-named "Rashid Airfield" by the Iraqis. Originally called RAF Dhibban, the station was re-named RAF Habbaniya on 1 May 1938. The station was a large flying training school during World War II, as well as a transport staging airfield. During the Rashid Ali rebellion in 1941 the airfield was besieged by the Iraqi Army encamped on the overlooking plateau. On 2 May 1941, British forces from the airfield launched pre-emptive airstrikes on Iraqi forces throughout Iraq and the Anglo-Iraqi War began. The siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF and the RAF's Iraq Levies. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol), part of Habforce sent from Palestine, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad.
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San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino (i/sæn məˈriːnoʊ/ san-mə-REE-noh; Italian: Repubblica di San Marino) and also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino), is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 61 km2 (24 sq mi) with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of Europe.
San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world, as the continuation of the monastic community founded on 3 September 301, by stonecutter Marinus of Rab. Legend has it that Marinus left Rab, then the Roman colony of Arba, in 257 when the future emperor, Diocletian, issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, which had been destroyed by Liburnian pirates.
The constitution of San Marino, enacted in 1600, is the world's oldest constitution still in effect. The country's economy mainly relies on finance, industry, services and tourism. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP (per capita), with a figure comparable to some of the more developed Italian regions, such as Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. San Marino is considered to have a highly stable economy, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, no national debt and a budget surplus.
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Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel (German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsʃtafəl] ( listen), translated to Protection Squadron or defence corps, abbreviated SS—or 
with stylized "Armanen" sig runes) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–1945). After 1945, the SS was banned in Germany, along with the Nazi Party, as a criminal organization.
The SS began as a small permanent guard unit made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for Nazi Party meetings in Munich. Formed at the end of 1920, they were known as the "Saal-Schutz" (Hall-Protection). Later under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler between 1929 and 1945, the SS was renamed the "Schutz-Staffel" and grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich.
The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard", the Nazi Party's "Protection Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men (both on the front lines and as political police), managed to exert as much political influence in the Third Reich as the Wehrmacht (Germany's regular armed forces).
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Shan State
Shan State (Burmese: ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, pronounced: [ʃáɴ pjìnɛ̀]; Shan: မိုင်းတႆး [mœ́ŋ tɑ́ɪ]) is a state of Burma (Myanmar). Shan State borders China to the north, Laos to the east, and Thailand to the south, and five administrative divisions of Burma in the west. Largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km², almost a quarter of the total area of Burma. The state gets its name from the Shan people, one of several ethnic groups that inhabit the area. Shan State is largely rural, with only three cities of significant size: Lashio, Kengtung, and the capital, Taunggyi.
Shan State, with many ethnic groups, is home to several armed ethnic armies. While the military government has signed ceasefire agreements with most groups, vast areas of the state, especially those east of Thanlwin river, remain outside the central government's control, and in recent years have come under heavy ethnic-Chinese economic and political influence, whereas other areas are under the control of military groups such as the Shan State Army.
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Sicily
Sicily (Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia, [siˈtʃiːlja]; [sɪˈɕilja]) is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea; along with surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana (Sicilian Autonomous Region).
Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean. It extends from the tip of the Apennine peninsula from which it is separated only by the narrow Strait of Messina, towards the North African coast. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, which is at 3,320 m (10,890 ft) the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate.
The earliest archeological evidence of human dwelling on the island dates from 8000 BC. At around 750 BC, Sicily became a Greek colony and for the next 600 years it was the site of the Greek-Punic and Roman-Punic wars, which ended with the Roman destruction of Carthage. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Sicily often changed hands, and during the early Middle Ages it was ruled in turn by the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans. Later on, the Kingdom of Sicily lasted between 1130 and 1816, subordinated to the crowns of Aragon, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and finally the Bourbons, as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was united with the rest of Italy in 1860, but a subsequent economic collapse led to a wave of emigration, separatism, and the emergence of the Mafia, whose criminal activities pose problems to this day. After the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region.
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Siege of Leningrad
Coordinates: 59°55′49″N 30°19′09″E / 59.930248°N 30.319061°E / 59.930248; 30.319061
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade (Russian: блокада Ленинграда, transliteration: blokada Leningrada) was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad—now known as Saint Petersburg—in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. The siege started on 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, lifting of the siege took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and overwhelmingly the most costly in terms of casualties.
The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by Leningrad's political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories. By 1939 the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output. It has been reported that Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had the invitations to the victory celebrations to be held in the city's Hotel Astoria already printed. The ultimate fate of the city was uncertain in German plans, which ranged from renaming the city to Adolfsburg and making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in Generalplan Ost, to razing it to the ground and giving areas north of the River Neva to the Finns.
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Skopje
Skopje (Macedonian: Скопје, [ˈskɔpjɛ] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. It was known in the Roman period under the name Scupi.
The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale Fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. On the eve of the 1st century AD, the settlement was seized by the Romans and became a military camp. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in 395 AD, Scupi came under Byzantine rule from Constantinople. During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire, whose capital it was between 972 and 992. From 1282 the town was part of the Serbian realm and its capital city since 1346. In 1392 the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks who called the town Üsküp. The town stayed under Ottoman control over 500 years, serving as the capital of pashasanjak of Üsküb and later the Vilayet of Kosovo. At that time the city was famous for its oriental architecture. In 1912 the city was conquered by the Kingdom of Serbia during the Balkan Wars and after the First World War the city became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia). In the Second World War the city was conquered by the Bulgarian Army, which was part of Axis powers. In 1944 it became the capital city of Democratic Macedonia (later Socialist Republic of Macedonia), which was a federal state, part of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (later Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). The city developed rapidly after World War II, but this trend was interrupted in 1963 when it was hit by a disastrous earthquake. In 1991 it became the capital city of independent Macedonia.
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Slovakia
The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakiai/sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ or /sləˈvækiə/; Slovak: Slovensko (help·info), long form Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
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Sofia
Sofia (Bulgarian: София, pronounced [ˈsɔfijɐ] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 15th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.2 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.
Prehistoric settlements were excavated in the centre of the present city, near the royal palace, as well as in outer districts Slatina and Obelya. The well-preserved town walls (especially their substructures) date back before the 7th century BC, when Thracians established their city around a mineral spring, which exists to the present day. Sofia has had several names in the different periods of its existence. Its ancient name, Serdika or Serdica, derives from the local Celtic tribe of the serdi who inhabited the region since the 1st century BC. Serdica was a Roman capital during the tetrarchic system of government. During the Middle Ages, it was one of the major commercial centres of the Bulgarian Empire, along with Tarnovo. Sofia's population remained small until 1879, when it was declared a capital of the Principality of Bulgaria after the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule.
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Spanish Guinea
Spanish Guinea (Spanish: Guinea Española) was an African colony of Spain that became the independent nation of Equatorial Guinea.
The Portuguese explorer, Fernão do Pó, seeking a route to India, is credited with having discovered the island of Bioko in 1472. He called it Formosa ("Beautiful"), but it quickly took on the name of its European discoverer. The islands of Fernando Pó and Annobón were colonized by Portugal in 1474. The Portuguese retained control until 1778, when the island, adjacent islets, and commercial rights to the mainland between the Niger and Ogoue Rivers were ceded to Spain in exchange for territory on the American continent (Treaty of El Pardo, between Queen Maria I of Portugal and King Charles III of Spain). From 1827 to 1843, Britain established a base on the island supposedly to combat the slave trade. However human trafficking continued through existing networks of slave trade established long before Europeans arrived. The mainland portion, Rio Muni, became a protectorate in 1885 and a colony in 1900. Conflicting claims to the mainland by France and Spain were settled in 1900 by the Treaty of Paris, and periodically, the mainland territories were united administratively under Spanish rule. Between 1926 and 1959 they were united as the colony of Spanish Guinea.
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Syria
Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).
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Tallinn Offensive
Coordinates: 59°26′N 24°44′E / 59.433°N 24.733°E / 59.433; 24.733
The Tallinn Offensive (Russian: Таллинская наступательная операция) was a strategic offensive by the Red Army's 2nd Shock and 8th Armies and the Baltic Fleet against the German Army Detachment "Narwa" and pro-independence Estonian units in mainland Estonia on the Eastern Front of World War II on 17–26 September 1944. Its German counterpart was the abandonment of the Estonian territory in a retreat codenamed Operation "Aster" (German: Unternehmen "Aster").
The Soviet offensive commenced with the Soviet 2nd Shock Army breaching the defence of the II Army Corps along the Emajõgi River in the vicinity of Tartu. The defence decelerated the Soviet advance enough so that Army Detachment "Narwa" could be evacuated from mainland Estonia in an orderly fashion. On 18 September, the constitutional Government of Estonia captured the government buildings in Tallinn from the Germans. The city was abandoned by the German forces by 22 September. The Leningrad Front seized the capital and took the rest of mainland Estonia by 26 September 1944.
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Tangier
Tangier, also Tangiers (Berber: Tanja, ⵜⴰⵏⵊⴰ, archaic Berber name: Tingi, Arabic: طنجة Ṭanjah, Spanish: Tánger, French: Tanger), is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 (2012 estimates). It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. It is the capital of the Tangier-Tetouan Region and of the Tangier-Asilah prefecture of Morocco.
The history of Tangier is very rich due to the historical presence of many civilizations and cultures starting from the 5th century BC. Between the period of being a Berber settlement and then a Phoenician town to the independence era around the 1950s, Tangier was a refuge for many cultures. In 1923, Tangier was considered as an international status by foreign colonial powers, and became a destination for many European and American diplomats, spies, writers and businessmen.
The city is currently undergoing rapid development and modernization. Projects include new 5-star hotels along the bay, a modern business district called Tangier City Center, a new airport terminal and a new football stadium. Tangier's economy is also set to benefit greatly from the new Tanger-Med port.
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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] (
listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
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Tirana
Tiranai/tɨˈrɑːnə/ (indefinite form in Albanian: Tiranë, in the region sub-dialect of Gheg Albanian: Tirona) is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of 400,000 , with metro area population of 763,634 . The city is host to public institutions and private universities, and is the center of the political, economical, and cultural life of the country.
The Municipality of Tirana is located at (41.33°N, 19.82°E) in Tirana District, Tirana County on the river Ishëm, about 32 kilometers (20 mi) inland. Tirana's average altitude is 110 meters (360 ft) above sea level and its highest point measures 1,828 m (5,997.38 ft) at Mali me Gropa. The city is mostly surrounded by hills, with Dajti Mountain on the East and a slight valley opening on the North-West overlooking the Adriatic Sea in the distance. The Tiranë river also runs through the city, whereas the Lanë river is a brook. The city borders the surrounding municipalities of Paskuqan, Dajt, Farkë, Vaqarr, Kashar, and Kamëz. It also contains a total of four artificial lakes: the Tirana Artificial Lake around which was built the Big Park, Paskuqani Lake, Farka Lake, and Tufina Lake. Tirana is on the same parallel as Naples, Madrid, Istanbul, and New York, and on the same meridian as Budapest and Kraków.
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Tunisia
Tunisia (USi/tuːˈniːʒə/ two-NEE-zhə or UK /tjuːˈnɪziə/ tew-NIZ-iə; Arabic: تونس Tūnis pronounced [ˈtuːnɪs]), officially the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية al-Jumhūriyyah at-Tūnisiyyah), is the northernmost country in Africa. It is an Arab Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area is almost 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi), with an estimated population of just under 10.7 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the northeast.
Tunisia is the smallest country in North Africa. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline.
Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs.
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Tuzla
Tuzla is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the time of the 2011 census, it had an estimated population of 120,000 inhabitants, while the municipality had 200,000. After Sarajevo, and Banja Luka, Tuzla is the third largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the seat of the Tuzla Canton and Tuzla Municipality. The name "Tuzla" is the Turkish word for salt mine, and refers to the extensive salt deposits found underneath the city.
The city of Tuzla is home to Europe's only salt lake as part of its central park and also has around 100,000 people visiting its shores every year. The history of the town Tuzla goes back to 1510 when Tuzla was a Turkish garrison town.
The city was first mentioned in 950 by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his De Administrando Imperio as a fort named Salines (Σαληνέζ). Soli means "salts" in the Bosnian language and the city's present name means "place of salt" in Turkish. However, there is enough archaeologic evidence to suggest that Tuzla was a rich Neolithic settlement, and hence inhabited continuously for more than 6,000 years which makes Tuzla one of the oldest European settlements with sustained living. An open-air museum at Solni Trg, opened in 2004, tells the story of salt production in Tuzla.
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Vardar Banovina
The Vardar Banovina or Vardar Banate or Vardarska Banovina (Serbo-Croatian: Vardarska banovina, Вардарска бановина) was a province (banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. It was located in the southernmost part of the country, encompassing the whole of today's Republic of Macedonia, southern parts of Southern and Eastern Serbia and southeastern parts of Kosovo. It was named after the Vardar River and its administrative capital was the city of Skopje.
According to the 1930 statistics of the Central Press Bureau of the Ministerial Council out of the 9 Yugoslav banovinas, the “Vardarska” banovina was the largest at 38,879km2; while its population, was the fourth at 1,386,370 inhabitants. It also suffered the worst health problems, especially typhus and smallpox, and required one Institute of Hygiene, 3 health stations and 6 dispensaries and convalescent homes. However, unlike the banovinas that until recently belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire and the lands of Montenegro, it had inherited no debts.
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Vatican City
Vatican Cityi/ˈvætɨkən ˈsɪti/, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano (pronounced [ˈstaːto della t͡ʃitˈta del vatiˈkaːno]), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.
Vatican City State was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and by Prime Minister and Head of Government Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Vatican City State is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin and Eastern Catholic adherents around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports, whereas Vatican City State issues normal passports. In each case very few passports are issued.
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Vichy
Coordinates: 46°07′40″N 3°25′36″E / 46.1278°N 3.4267°E / 46.1278; 3.4267
Vichy (French pronunciation: [viʃi]; Occitan: Vichèi) is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.
The town's inhabitants are called Vichyssois. Up until the 18th century they were more properly known as les Vichois which stems from the Occitan name of the town, Vichèi. The writer Valery Larbaud uses the term Vicaldiens after the Ancient Roman name for the community[citation needed].
With 80,194 inhabitants, Vichy's urban area is the second largest in the Auvergne region behind Clermont-Ferrand.
The city enjoys a continental climate climate that incorporates some characteristics of a mountainous climate because of the nearby Massif Central and Alps.Heavy snows in the Massif Central often make roads impassable, but Vichy is low enough at about 800 feet (240 metres) above sea level that the climate is more continental. Rainfall is moderate around Vichy, averaging about 30 inches (75 centimeters) annually.
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Vichy France
Vichy France,Vichy Regime, Vichy Government, or simply Vichy are common terms used to describe the government of France which collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944, during the Second World War. It officially called itself the French State (État Français) and was headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who proclaimed the government following the 1940 allied defeat against Axis Powers.
The Vichy regime maintained some legal authority in the northern zone of France (the Zone occupée), which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, but was most powerful in the unoccupied southern "free zone", where its administrative centre of Vichy was located. In November 1942 the southern zone was also occupied and fully subjected to German rule.
Pétain collaborated with the German occupying forces in exchange for an agreement to not divide France between the Axis Powers. Vichy authorities aided in the rounding-up of Jews and other "undesirables", and at times, Vichy French military forces actively opposed the Allies. Much of the French public initially supported the new government despite its pro-Nazi policies, seeing it as necessary to maintain a degree of French autonomy and territorial integrity.
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Vientiane
Vientiane ( /vjɛnˈtjɑːn/ French pronunciation: [vjɛ̃'tjan]; Lao: ວຽງຈັນ Wiang-jun; Thai: เวียงจันทน์ Wiang-chan, IPA: [wíəŋ tɕàn]) is the capital and largest city of Laos, situated in the Mekong river. Vientiane became the capital in 1563 due to fears of a Burmese invasion. During French rule, Vientiane was the administrative capital and due to economic growth in recent times, it has become the economic centre of Laos.
The estimated population of the city is 754,000 (2009). The city hosted the 25th Southeast Asian Games in December 2009 celebrating the 50 years of SEA Games.
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Vizille
Coordinates: 45°04′32″N 5°46′24″E / 45.0756°N 05.7732°E / 45.0756; 05.7732
Vizille is a commune in the Isère department in south-eastern France.
Vizille is home to the Musée de la Révolution Française de Vizille, a rich depository of archival and rare materials devoted to the French Revolution, housed since 1984 in the Château de Vizille, a Monument Historique. The library stacks are accessible to researchers (by appointment). The Museum grounds feature extensive landscaping and formal gardens.
The Château, the grandest in the Dauphiné, was rebuilt in the form it retains today in the seventeenth century by François de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguières, the last connétable of France. A hundred hectares of greens, sheets of water and canals, and a hunting park of woodland pierced by rides and avenues surround the château, enclosed by a wall seven kilometres in circumference. The grounds are maintained by the Conseil général de l'Isère.
The site is especially suitable for its museum because, when the château had been purchased by a wealthy bourgeois of Grenoble, Claude Perier, who installed a manufacture of printed fabrics in it, the three estates of the realm, convoked in Grenoble as the Assemblée des notables but forbidden to meet in the city, were welcomed here, 21 July 1788. They met in the salle du jeu de paume, where their deliberations opened a new chapter in the history of France.
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Voghera
Voghera (Lombard: Vughera) is a town and comune of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Pavia. It is located 30 km south-southwest of that city, on the Staffora (a tributary of the Po).
The neighbourhood produces much silk, in which, as well as in corn and wine, an active trade is carried on.
Known in ancient times as Iria, it took its name from the river on which it was situated. It was on the road from Piacenza to Dertona, and was made a colony by Augustus (colonia Forum Iulium Iriensium).
In the 1st century CE it was destroyed by the Rugii, and it is next mentioned as Viqueria (contracted from vicus Iriae, Iria's village) in the 10th century. After several lordships, it was acquired by the House of Savoy in 1743 with the Concordat of Worms. Five years later it became provincial capital and received the city status.
In 1800 it was occupied by the troops of Napoleon, who set his headquarters in the Palazzo Dattili for the battle of Montebello. In 1805 it became part of the département of Genoa; after the French defeat in 1814, it was captured by the Austrians, who handed it over to the Piedmontese. In 1860 it was included in the province of Pavia.
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Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина / Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina [ʋǒjʋodina] ( listen) (see Name for other languages)), is an autonomous province of Serbia, located in the northern part of the country, in the Pannonian Plain of Central Europe. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad.
Vojvodina has a population of about 2 million (approximately 27% of Serbia's total). It has a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity, with a number of mechanisms for the promotion of minority rights; there are more than 26 ethnic groups in the province, which has six official languages.
The name "Vojvodina" in Serbian language means a type of duchy – more specifically, a voivodeship. It derives from the word "vojvoda" (See: voivode) which stems from the Proto-Slavic language word "voevoda". Those words are etymologically connected with modern-day words "vojnik" (soldier) and "voditi" (to lead). Its original name (from 1848) was the "Serbian Voivodeship" (Srpska Vojvodina).
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Warsaw Uprising
Coordinates: 52°13′48″N 21°00′39″E / 52.23°N 21.01083°E / 52.23; 21.01083
The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa), to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces. Controversially, the Soviet advance stopped short, enabling the Germans to regroup and literally demolish the city in crushing the Polish resistance, which fought for 63 days with little outside support.
The uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide plan, Operation Tempest, when the Soviet Army approached Warsaw. The main Polish objectives were to drive the German occupiers from the city and help with the larger fight against Germany and the Axis powers. Secondary political objectives were to liberate Warsaw before the Soviets, to underscore Polish sovereignty by empowering the Polish Underground State before the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation could assume control. Also, short-term causes included the threat of a German round-up of able-bodied Poles, and Moscow radio calling for the Uprising to begin.
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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945 , was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta, in the Crimea.
The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.
Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin). It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and it was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Harry S Truman, who replaced the late Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, who was replaced mid-point by the newly elected British Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
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Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, Macedonian: Jugoslavija; Cyrillic: Југославија) was a country in the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century which was established three times under differing forms of government.
The first country to be known by this name was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which before 3 October 1929 was known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was established on 1 December 1918 by the union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia (the Kingdom of Montenegro was annexed on 13 November 1918, and the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris gave international recognition to the union on 13 July 1922). The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941, and because of the events that followed, was officially abolished in 1943 and 1945.
The second country with this name was the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, proclaimed in 1943 by the Yugoslav Partisans resistance movement during World War II. It was renamed to the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. In 1963, it was renamed again to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). This was the largest Yugoslav state, as Istria, Rijeka and Zadar were added to the new Yugoslavia after the end of World War II.
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Yunnan
Coordinates: 24°30′N 101°30′E / 24.5°N 101.5°E / 24.5; 101.5
Yunnan (simplified Chinese: 云南; traditional Chinese: 雲南; pinyin: Yúnnán; IPA: [y̌nnǎn] ( listen)) is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers (152,000 sq mi) and with a population of 45.7 million (2009). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.
Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the northwest and low elevations in the southeast. Most of the population lives in the eastern part of the province. In the west, the relative height from mountain peaks to river valleys can be as much as 3,000 m.[citation needed] Yunnan is rich in natural resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. Of the approximately 30,000 species of higher plants in China, Yunnan has perhaps 17,000 or more.[citation needed] Yunnan's reserves of aluminium, lead, zinc and tin are the largest in China, and there are also major reserves of copper and nickel.[citation needed] Yunnan has over 600 rivers and lakes, which provide an annual water supply of 222 billion cubic meters.[citation needed] Projected hydropower reserves stand at 103 GW, with an exploitable capacity of 90 GW.[citation needed]
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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
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Ante Pavelić
Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian fascist leader and revolutionary. As Poglavnik, he ruled the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. He was founder and leader of the Croatian fascist movement Ustaše.
Pavelić was a lawyer and politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia known for his nationalistic beliefs, particularly about an independent Croatia. From 1927 until 1929, he was a member of the Yugoslav Parliament where he declared his beliefs about Croatian independence. In 1920s he radicalized his political activity and called on Croats to revolt against Yugoslavia.
After King Alexander I declared his 6 January Dictatorship Pavelić escaped to Vienna, where he established contact with Croatian political émigrés and formed a link with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in advocating independence for Croatia and Macedonia. He then moved to Italy where he founded the Ustaše (Croatian Revolutionary Movement); initially, this was a Croatian nationalist movement with the goal of creating an independent Greater Croatia via armed revolt. In October 1934 he planned the assassination of King Alexander I and spent time in prison in Italy until 1936. From 1936 until 1939, Italian authorities banned Ustaše, so he dissolved the group. He lived under police watch, eventually seeking German support but without success. After 1939 he was active again, focusing mainly on Ustaše activity in Yugoslavia.
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Anton Mussert
Anton Adriaan Mussert (May 11, 1894, Werkendam, North Brabant – May 7, 1946) was one of the founders of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) in the Netherlands and its de jure leader. As such, he was the most prominent national socialist in the Netherlands before and during the Second World War. During the war, he was able to keep this position, due to the support he received from the Germans. After the war, he was convicted and executed for high treason.
He was born in 1894 in Werkendam, in the northern part of the province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands. He showed from an early age talent for technical matters and he chose to study civil engineering in Delft. In the 1920s, he became active in several extreme right organizations such as the Dietsche Bond which advocated a Greater Netherlands including Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium).
On 14 December 1931, he, Cornelis van Geelkerken, and ten others founded the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB) (literally, the National Socialist Movement), a Dutch counterpart to the German National Socialists, the Nazis. In its early years, the NSB boasted that its membership included several hundred Jews, until the German party directed a more antisemitic course.
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Aung San
Bogyoke (General) Aung San (Burmese: အောင်ဆန်း; MLCTS: buil hkyup aung hcan:, pronounced: [bòdʑoʊʔ àʊɴ sʰáɴ]); 13 February 1915 – 19 July 1947) was a Burmese revolutionary, nationalist, and founder of the modern Burmese army (Tatmadaw), and considered to be the Father of (modern-day) Burma.
He was a founder of the Communist Party of Burma and was instrumental in bringing about Burma's independence from British colonial rule in Burma, but was assassinated six months before independence. He is recognized as the leading architect of independence, and the founder of the Union of Burma. Affectionately known as "Bogyoke" (General), Aung San is still widely admired by the Burmese people, and his name is still invoked in Burmese politics to this day.
Aung San had a daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a recipient of a Nobel Peace an a Burmese politician.
Aung San was born to U Pha, a lawyer, and his wife Daw Suu in Natmauk, Magway District, in central Burma on 13 February 1915. His family was already well known in the Burmese resistance movement; his great uncle Bo Min Yaung fought against the British annexation of Burma in 1886.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Ba Maw
Dr. Ba Maw (Burmese: ဘမော်, pronounced: [ba̰ mɔ̀]; 8 February 1893 – 29 May 1977) was a Burmese political leader, active during the interwar and World War II period.
Ba Maw was born in Maubin. Ba Maw came from a distinguished family of mixed Mon-Burmese parentage which bred many scholars and lawyers. One of his elder brothers, Dr Ba Han (1890–1969), was a lawyer as well as a lexicographer and legal scholar.
In 1924 Ba Maw obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Bordeaux, France. Ba Maw wrote his doctoral thesis in the French language on aspects of Buddhism in Burma. (Ba Maw's elder brother Dr Ba Han, who devoted into Christianity also obtained his doctorate, from a UK university, and Ba Han's doctoral thesis was entitled 'The Mysticism of William Blake').
From the 1920s onwards Ba Maw practised law and dabbled in colonial-era Burmese politics. He achieved prominence in 1931 when he defended the rebel leader, Saya San. Saya San had started a tax revolt in Burma in December 1930 which quickly grew into a national rebellion against British rule. Saya San was captured, tried, convicted and hanged. Ba Maw was among the top lawyers who defended Saya San. One of the presiding judges that tried Saya San was another Burmese lawyer Ba U.
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Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (Italian pronunciation: [beˈniːto musːoˈliːni]; 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party, ruling the country from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of fascism.
Originally a member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of the Avanti! from 1912 to 1914, Mussolini fought in World War I as an ardent nationalist and created the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919, catalyzing his nationalist and socialist beliefs in the Fascist Manifesto, published in 1921. Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the 27th Prime Minister of Italy and began using the title Il Duce by 1925, about which time he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. After 1936, his official title was Sua Eccellenza Benito Mussolini, Capo del Governo, Duce del Fascismo e Fondatore dell'Impero ("His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire") Mussolini also created and held the supreme military rank of First Marshal of the Empire along with King Victor Emmanuel III, which gave him and the King joint supreme control over the military of Italy. Mussolini remained in power until he was replaced in 1943; for a short period after this until his death, he was the leader of the Italian Social Republic.
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Bo Lidegaard
Bo Lidegaard (born 1958) is a Danish historian, diplomat, and editor in chief of daily broadsheet newspaper Politiken.
He is the son of authors Mads Lidegaard and Else Lidegaard. Bo Lidegaard graduated from Gentofte Statsskole in 1976, and became cand. phil. in history at the University of Copenhagen in 1984. He became a Ph.D. after completing a dissertation on Henrik Kauffmann in 1997. He has authored a number of books on Danish history.
Lidegaard started his diplomatic career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984. He was among other positions posted at Danish representations in Geneva and Paris, before leaving the foreign service in 2000. In 2005, he joined the Ministry of the State, where he served as Permanent Under-Secretary of State, initially heading the Foreign and Security Affairs section, and was later in charge of the Climate Change secretariat. During the build-up to COP 15, he headed the Danish overarching coordination secretariat, and was the man who proposed the development of what would become the controversial "Danish Text". In April 2011, he accepted the offer to succeed deceased Thøger Seidenfaden as editor in chief of Politiken.
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Carol II of Romania
Carol II (15 October 1893 – 4 April 1953) reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria. He was the first of the Romanian royal family who was baptized in the Orthodox rite.
Carol was born in Peleş Castle. In November 1914, Carol joined the Romanian Senate, as the 1866 Constitution guaranteed him a seat there upon reaching maturity. Known more for his romantic misadventures than for any leadership skills, Carol (Romanian for "Charles") was first married in the Cathedral Church of Odessa, Ukraine, 31 August 1918, in contravention of royal law, to Joanna Marie Valentina Lambrino (1898–1953), known as "Zizi", the daughter of a Romanian general. They had one son, Mircea Gregor Carol Lambrino, and the marriage was annulled by decision of the Ilfov Tribunal in 1919.
He next married, in Athens, Greece, on 10 March 1921, Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark (who was known in Romania as Crown Princess Elena. They were second cousins as both were great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria. The marriage soon collapsed in the wake of Carol's affair with Elena "Magda" Lupescu (1895?–1977), the Roman Catholic daughter of a Jewish pharmacist and his Roman Catholic wife. Magda Lupescu had formerly been the wife of Army officer Ion Tâmpeanu.
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Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.
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Chen Gongbo
Chen Gongbo (simplified Chinese: 陈公博; traditional Chinese: 陳公博; pinyin: Chén Gōngbó; Wade-Giles: Ch'en Kung-po, October 19, 1892 - June 3, 1946) was a Chinese politician, noted for his role as second (and final) President of the collaborationist pro-Japanese Nanjing Nationalist Government during World War II.
Chen Gongbo was born in Guangzhou (Canton), Qing Empire in 1892. His father was an official in the Qing Dynasty administration. As a student at Beijing University, he participated in the May Fourth Movement and studied Marxism under Chen Duxiu. Chen Gongbo was one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of its First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921, but left the party the following year. He then moved to the United States, where he obtained a master’s degree in Economics at Columbia University in 1925. On his return to China, he joined the Kuomintang (KMT) and was named head of the Department of Peasants and Workers under Liao Zhongkai, and was considered a member of the KMT leftist clique together with Wang Jingwei, with whom he developed a close political and personal relationship. Although he played a significant role under Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition, he strongly opposed Chiang and sided with Wang in political rivalry as Chiang began to exercise dictatorial power. He felt it particularly unfair for Chiang to replace Wang in KMT leadership through a military coup in 1926. However, during a period of Chiang-Wang cooperation, he was named Minister of Enterprises by the Kuomintang government in 1932-36. Some of the fundamental national economic policies he helped set in this period remained in practice under various Chinese political regimes until the 1970s. As director of the Kuomintang Sichuan branch, he helped organize the evacuation of the Kuomintang government to Chongqing after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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Demchugdongrub
Prince Demchugdongrub, commonly known as Prince De or De Wang, (8 February 1902 – 23 May 1966) was the leader of a Mongol independence movement in Inner Mongolia. He was the chairman of Mengjiang, a Japanese puppet state in World War II.
Some see Demchugdongrub as a Mongol nationalist promoting Pan-Mongolism. Others view him as a traitor and as the pawn of the Japanese during World War II.
A Chahar born of the Plain White Banner in Chahar Province, Demchugdongrub was the sole son of Namjil Wangchuk, the Duoluo Duling Junwang (多罗杜棱郡王 Duōluō Dùléng Jùnwáng) of Sönid Right Banner and Chief of the Shilingol Alliance. His name consists of the Tibetan words which means "Chakrasamvara (bde mchog)" and "Siddhartha (don grub)" respectively.
After Namjil Wangchuk died in 1908, the six-year-old Demchugdongrub, with the approval of the Qing Empire, inherited one of his father's titles – the Duoluo Duling Junwang. In his youth Demchugdongrub studied the Mongolian, Chinese, and Manchu languages. After the fall of the Qing Empire, Yuan Shikai promoted Demchugdongrub to the title of Zhasake Heshuo Duling Qinwang (扎萨克和硕杜棱亲王 Zhāsàkè Héshuò Dùléng Qīnwáng) in 1912.
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Enemy alien
In law, an enemy alien is a citizen of a country which is in a state of conflict with the land in which he or she is located. Usually, but not always, the countries are in a state of declared war.
At the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the United Kingdom had become a place of refuge for people who had fled Nazi persecution, including Jews and political refugees. At first, the authorities interned these refugees with other enemy residents, without distinction. Later on, when Italy also declared war, significant numbers of Italian residents were also interned.
The Isle of Man, relatively isolated from the British mainland and with a useful amount of holiday accommodation was used to provide housing for the "Alien Civilians" (as it had in World War I). There were also efforts to move internees from Britain. In July, 1940, the Arandora Star was torpedoed and sunk while transporting Italian and German aliens to North America; 743 died, including prisoners, crew and guards. The 813 surviving prisoners were subsequently included in the 2,500 men transported by HMT Dunera for internment in Hay, New South Wales.
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Erik Scavenius
Erik Julius Christian Scavenius (13 July 1877 – 29 November 1962) was the Danish foreign minister 1909–1910, 1913–1920 and 1940–1943, and prime minister from 1942 to 1943. His cabinet resigned in 1943 and suspended operations. The resignation was never formally accepted by the King so the cabinet existed de jure until a new one was formed following the Liberation of Denmark on 5 May 1945. Scavenius was a member of the Landsting 1918–1920 and 1925–1927 representing the Social Liberal Party. He was chairman of its party organization 1922–1924.
The Scavenius family belongs to the Danish nobility. It was family tradition to work as a diplomat. Erik Scavenius graduated in economics in 1901. Soon after, he became employed in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was a secretary at the Danish Embassy in Berlin 1906–1908, a time forming his emphasis upon the primacy of Danish-German relations. Next, he became head of section in the ministry. He was an envoy to Vienna and Rome 1912–13 and to Stockholm 1924–32. From 1932 to 1940 he was chairman of the board of the major daily Politiken. Scavenius was the owner of a large estate 1915-1946. After 1945 he experienced marital and economic difficulties.
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Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi (Szálasi Ferenc in Hungarian, Hungarian pronunciation: [saːlaʃi fɛrɛnts]) (6 January 1897 – 12 March 1946) was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" (Nemzetvezető), being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" (Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya) for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II. During his brief rule, Szálasi's men murdered 10–15,000 Jews. After the war, he was executed by the Soviets for crimes against the state.
Born the son of a soldier in Kassa (now Košice in Slovakia) of mixed Armenian (the surname of his great-grandfather was Saloshyan), German, Hungarian (one grandparent), Slovak and Rusyn heritage.
Szálasi followed in his father's footsteps and joined the army at a young age. He eventually became an officer and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. Upon the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary after the war, the Hungarian Democratic Republic and then the Hungarian Soviet Republic were briefly proclaimed in 1918 and 1919 respectively. The short-lived communist government of Béla Kun launched what was known as the "Red Terror" and ultimately involved Hungary in an ill-fated war with Romania. In 1920, the country went into a period of civil conflict with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists violently purging the nation of communists, leftist intellectuals, and others they felt threatened by, especially Jews. This period was known as the "White Terror" and, in 1920, after the pullout of the last of the Romanian occupation forces, it led to the restoration of the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság).
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Forest Brothers
The Forest Brothers (also Brothers of the Forest; Forest Brethren; Forest Brotherhood; Estonian: metsavennad, Latvian: meža brāļi, Lithuanian: miško broliai) were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II. Similar anti-Soviet Eastern European resistance groups fought against Soviet and communist rule in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Croatia and western Ukraine.
The Red Army occupied the independent Baltic states in 1940–1941 and, after a period of German occupation, again in 1944–1945. As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, 50,000 residents of these countries used the heavily-forested countryside as a natural refuge and base for armed anti-Soviet resistance.
Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defense, to large and well-organized groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle.
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Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, better known under the name of Franco, (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general, dictator and the leader of the Nationalist military rebellion in the Spanish Civil War, and totalitarian head of state of Spain, from October 1936 (as a unified nation from 1939 onwards) until his death in November 1975. He came to power while recognizing the principles of the far-right Falange movement, although this was for propaganda reasons, as he belonged to no political party before becoming Head of State. As head of state, Franco used the titles Caudillo de España and Generalísimo, but also was called formally as His Excellency, The Head of State.
Franco was from a military family, and although originally intent on entering the Spanish Navy, he instead became a soldier. He participated in the Rif War in Morocco, becoming the youngest general in Europe by 1926. After returning to the Spanish mainland, he saw service suppressing an anarchist-led strike in 1934, defending the stability of Alcalá-Zamora's conservative government. Following the formation of a Popular Front government, made up of various left-wing factions, instability heightened. Violence between militant groups rose sharply with assassination of conservative parliamentary leader José Calvo Sotelo, in retaliation for the killing of José Castillo. Franco and his co-conspirators used Calvo's death as their pretext for war, as they had already initiated the plan for their rebellion.
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François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French naval officer. His great-grandfather was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar. Darlan rose through the French Navy, ultimately becoming Admiral of the Fleet, and was a major figure of the Vichy regime in France during World War II, becoming its deputy leader for a time.
Darlan was born in Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne and graduated from the École Navale in 1902. During World War I, he commanded an artillery battery that took part in the Battle of Verdun. He remained in the French Navy after the war, and was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1929 and Vice Admiral in 1932. Darlan was made an Admiral in 1936 and Chief of Staff from 1 January 1937. In 1939 he was promoted to "Amiral de la flotte," a rank created specifically for him, and given command of the entire French Navy.
When Paris was occupied in June 1940, Darlan was one of those who supported the premier, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain. Darlan was rewarded by retaining his post as minister of the navy, and he quickly ordered the majority of the fleet to French North Africa. He refused several invitations from Royal Navy officers to surrender the French Fleet to British control or move it to 'safe' locations in the Caribbean; consequently Churchill feared the French fleet based in Africa would fall into German hands, so he ordered the Royal Navy to attack it at Mers El Kébir on 3 July, killing around 1,300 Frenchmen who only days before had been allies. Darlan's forces bitterly resisted further British attacks on French colonies in Africa, including Senegal and Madagascar.
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Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (/ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/,Mongol: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ( listen); 1162? – August 1227), born Temujin, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in Khwarezmia. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an unknown location. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Many of these invasions resulted in the large-scale slaughter of local populations, which have given Genghis Khan and his empire a fearsome reputation in local histories.
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Gyula Gömbös
Gyula Gömbös de Jákfa (26 December 1886 – 6 October 1936) was the conservative prime minister of Hungary from 1932 to 1936.
Gömbös was born in the Tolna County village of Murga, Hungary, which had a mixed Hungarian and ethnic German population. His father was the village schoolmaster. The family belonged to the Hungarian Evangelical (i. e. Lutheran) Church.
Gömbös entered the Austro-Hungarian Army as a cadet in Pécs and quickly became a member of the officer corps, serving as a captain during World War I. While in the army, Gömbös became a staunch advocate of Hungary's gaining independence from Austria and a bitter critic of the Habsburgs. After World War I ended and Hungary split from Austria, Gömbös joined Conservative Hungarian forces in Szeged that were unwilling to support Communist Béla Kun, who had seized control of Hungary in 1919, forming his own paramilitary group, the Hungarian National Defence Association (Magyar Országos Véderő Egylet, or MOVE). Gömbös became a close ally of Miklós Horthy, the leader of the anti-Communist government in Szeged, and played a leading role in organizing Horthy’s army. For his services, Gömbös was made minister of defense in the Szeged government. After Kun’s government was ousted in August 1919, Gömbös helped direct the Conservatives’ purge of Communists from Hungarian society. Gömbös also supported the actions against Hungary’s Jews, who Gömbös and his colleagues believed were the primary backers of Communism, having noted that Kun and many of the ministers in his Communist government were Jews.
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He Yingqin
He Yingqin (simplified Chinese: 何应钦; traditional Chinese: 何應欽; pinyin: Hé Yìngqīn; April 2, 1890 - October 21, 1987), also spelled Ho Ying-chin, was one of the most senior generals of the Kuomintang (KMT) during Republican China, and a close ally of Chiang Kai-shek.
A native of Guizhou, He was healthy and bookish in his childhood. In 1907 he was enrolled by the Guiyang Military Elementary School, and transferred to the more famous Wuchang Third Army Middle School in the following year. In the same year, he was chosen by the Defense Department of Qing Dynasty to study in Imperial Japanese Army Academy for his excellent performance.
When studying in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, he became acquainted with fellow student Chiang Kai-shek. He learned military skills and was influenced by the anti-Qing Dynasty theories of the Tongmenghui. He soon joined this secret organization. In 1911 after the outbreak of Wuchang Uprising, He came back to China with other members of Tongmenghui, to work for Chen Qimei, who was governor of Shanghai and also known as Chiang's mentor. When the war waged by the Tongmenghui against Yuan Shikai failed, He had to take refuge in Japan and proceed his military training.
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Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (pronounced [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈluˑɪtˌpɔlt ˈhɪmlɐ] ( listen) 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). Serving as Reichsführer and later as Commander of the Replacement (Home) Army and General Plenipotentiary for the entire Reich's administration (Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung), Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and one of the persons most directly responsible for the Holocaust.
As overseer of the concentration camps, extermination camps, and Einsatzgruppen (literally: task forces, often used as death squads operating to the rear of frontline troops to murder Jews, communists and 'untermensch' in occupied territories), Himmler coordinated the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma, many prisoners of war, and possibly another three to four million Poles, as well as other groups whom the Nazis deemed unworthy to live, including people with physical and mental disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, members of the Confessing Church, and homosexuals. Shortly before the end of the war, he offered to surrender both Germany and himself to the Western Allies if he were spared prosecution. After being arrested by British forces on 22 May 1945, he committed suicide the following day before he could be questioned.
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Hideo Iwakuro
Hideo Iwakuro (岩畔 豪雄, Iwakuro Hideo?, 10 October 1897 – 22 November 1970) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
Iwakuro was born on Kurahashi-jima in the Inland Sea (then part of Aki County, Hiroshima prefecture). Although he grew up on the island neighboring Etajima (where the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy was located), Iwakuro had no interest in a naval career, and was sent for schooling to a military academy in Nagoya. He graduated from the 30th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1918, and was assigned to the 16th Infantry Regiment, based at Shibata city in the Hokuetsu region of Japan.
In September 1920, Iwakuro's regiment was assigned as part of the Japanese expeditionary force participating in the Siberian Intervention, and Iwakuro participated in numerous combat missions against Bolshevik partisans. In 1921, Iwakuro was transferred to the Taiwan Army of Japan, and was based in Taichung. He returned to mainland Japan in 1926 to attend the 38th class of the Army War College (Japan), and it was shortly after graduation that he became a member of the Sakura Kai ultranationalist secret society. In 1932, he was transferred to Manchuria shortly after the Manchurian Incident and assigned to the Kwantung Army, where he held a number of staff positions and was actively involved in planning the independence of Manchukuo, and its future economic development under Imperial Japanese Army management.
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Hirohito
Hirohito (裕仁?), posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or the Shōwa Emperor (昭和天皇, Shōwa tennō?), (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to exclusively by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa. The word Shōwa is the name of the era that corresponded with the Emperor's reign, and was made the Emperor's own name upon his death.
At the start of his reign, Japan was already one of the great powers—the ninth largest economy in the world after Italy, the third largest naval country, and one of the five permanent members of the council of the League of Nations. He was the head of state under the limitation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan during Japan's imperial expansion, militarization, and involvement in World War II. After the war, he was not prosecuted for war crimes as many other leading government figures were. During the postwar period, he became the symbol of the new state.
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Hiroshi Ōshima
Baron Hiroshi Ōshima (大島 浩, Ōshima Hiroshi?, April 19, 1886 – June 6, 1975) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany before and during World War II — and unknowingly a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General George C. Marshall, who identified Ōshima as "our main basis of information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe".
Ōshima was the son of a prominent Japanese family from Gifu Prefecture, his father Oshima Ken'ichi (大島 健一 , Ōshima Ken'ichi?) having served as Minister of War from 1916 to 1918. Ōshima graduated from the 18th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1906, and from the 27th class of the Army War College in 1915. He served as a military attaché to Budapest and Vienna from 1923-1924. After his return to Japan, he was commander of the 10th Field Artillery Regiment from 1930-1931.
In 1934, Ōshima became Japanese military attaché in Berlin, with the rank of colonel. He spoke almost perfect German, and was soon befriended by Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was Adolf Hitler's favorite foreign policy advisor at that time. Although Hitler ostensibly used the Foreign Ministry (Auswärtiges Amt) for his foreign relations, he was in fact more dependent on the Dienststelle Ribbentrop, a competing foreign office operated by the ex-champagne salesman. Öshima's importance for Hitler during that period can be seen in the fact that following the conclusion of the Anti Comintern Pact, US Ambassador in Japan, Joseph Grew estimated that the agreement was more the result of Ōshima's work done even without the participation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Hristo Tatarchev
Hristo Tatarchev (Bulgarian: Христо Татарчев, December 16, 1869 - January 5, 1952) was a Bulgarian revolutionary and first leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace (the organization was renamed to IMARO in 1906 and IMRO in 1920). He wrote the memoirs The First Central Committee of the IMRO (1928). He authored several political journalism works between the First and Second World Wars. He is considered an ethnic Macedonian in the Republic of Macedonia.
Tatarchev was born in the town of Resen in Ottoman Macedonia to a rich family. His father Nikola Tatarchev was a successful banker, and his mother Katerina was a descendant of a prominent family. Hristo Tatarchev received his initial education in Resen, then he moved to Eastern Rumelia and studied in Bratsigovo (1882) and eventually at the Secondary school for boys in Plovdiv (1883–87). It was at that time when he participated in the Unification of Bulgaria and enrolled in a students' legion, which took part in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. Tatarchev was expelled from school because of "insubordination" and he moved to Romania, where he continued his secondary education. Later he studied medicine at the University of Zurich (1887–1890) and completed his degree in Medicine in Berlin (July 1892). He moved to Thessaloniki in 1892, where he worked as physician at the local Bulgarian secondary school for boys.
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Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw, FBA (born 29 April 1943) is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is particularly noted for his monumental biography of Hitler, which has been called "soberly objective."
He was the leading disciple of the late West German historian Martin Broszat, and (until his retirement) professor at the University of Sheffield. Kershaw has called Broszat an "inspirational mentor" who did much to shape his understanding of National Socialist Germany. Kershaw served as historical adviser on numerous BBC documentaries, notably The Nazis: A Warning From History and War of the Century. He taught a module entitled 'Germans against Hitler'.
His wife Dame Betty Kershaw was a Dean at Sheffield.
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Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon antoˈnesku]; June 15, 1882 – June 1, 1946) was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants' revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period. He was a military attaché to France and later Chief of the General Staff, briefly serving as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga. During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him into conflict with King Carol II and led to his detainment. Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with the Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima. After entering Romania into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the Axis and ensuring Adolf Hitler's confidence, he eliminated the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion of 1941. In addition to leadership of the executive, he assumed the offices of Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister. Soon after Romania joined the Axis in Operation Barbarossa, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Antonescu also became Marshal of Romania.
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Isoroku Yamamoto
Isoroku Yamamoto (山本 五十六, Yamamoto Isoroku?, 24 April 1884 – 18 April 1943) was a Japanese Naval Marshal General and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, a graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and a student at Harvard University (1919–1921).
Yamamoto held several important posts in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and undertook many of its changes and reorganizations, especially its development of naval aviation. He was the commander-in-chief during the decisive early years of the Pacific War and so was responsible for major battles such as Pearl Harbor and Midway. He died during an inspection tour of forward positions in the Solomon Islands when his aircraft (a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber) was shot down during an ambush by American P-38 Lightning fighter planes. His death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during World War II.
Yamamoto was born as Isoroku Takano (高野 五十六, Takano Isoroku?) in Nagaoka, Niigata. His father was Takano Sadayoshi (高野 貞吉, Takano Sadayoshi?), an intermediate samurai of the Nagaoka Domain. "Isoroku" is an old Japanese term meaning "56"; the name referred to his father's age at Isoroku's birth.
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Ivan Mihailov
Ivan Mihailov Gavrilov (Bulgarian: Иван Михайлов), sometimes Vancho Mihailov, was a Bulgarian revolutionary in Ottoman and interwar Macedonia, and leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) after 1924.
Ivan Mihailov was born on August 26, 1896, in the village of Novo Selo (now part of Štip Municipality, Republic of Macedonia) in the Ottoman Empire. Mihailov studied at the Bulgarian Men's High School in Thessaloniki up until the Second Balkan War when the school was closed by the new Greek administration, he later continued his studies at a Serbian school in Skopje. He was offered a scholarship by the Serbian Ministry of Education to pursue a degree at a European university but declined, later enlisting in the Bulgarian army, which had by that time occupied a significant portion of the region. After the end of World War I, Mihailov emigrated to Bulgaria, settling in Sofia. Here he began studying law at the Sofia University, at which time he was contacted by IMRO activists and offered to work as a personal secretary for IMRO's leader at that time, Todor Aleksandrov.
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Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the office of the General Secretary was officially elective and not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to consolidate more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and gradually put down all opposition groups within the Communist Party. This included Leon Trotsky, a socialist theorist and the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Whereas Trotsky was an exponent of permanent revolution, it was Stalin's concept of socialism in one country that became the primary focus of Soviet politics.
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Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [jɔ̂sip brɔ̂ːz tîtɔ]; born Josip Broz; Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1945 until his death in 1980. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, due to his successful economic and diplomatic policies, Tito was seen by most as a benevolent dictator, and was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies successfully maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
Josip was born as the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz in the village of Kumrovec within Austria-Hungary (modern-day Croatia). Drafted into the army, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians, Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
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Karl Wolff
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900 – 17 July 1984) was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS), ultimately holding the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS. He became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer (Heinrich Himmler) and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler until his replacement in 1943. He ended World War II as the Supreme Commander of all SS forces in Italy.
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was born in Darmstadt, Germany. His father was a district court judge, who called him "Karele", which stayed Karl's nickname until his death in 1984. Raised agnostically, after the family spent two years in Schwerte they returned to Darmstadt where Wolff was educated at the local Roman Catholic school.
After Abitur, Wolff joined the Imperial German Army at age 16, during World War I. He underwent four months of military training as an Fahnenjunker, then volunteered on 5 September 1917 to serve on the Western Front. Commissioned an officer the following year, he was awarded the Iron Cross second class for bravery. Wolff decided to make the army his career. After the Armistice, he joined the Hesse Infantry Regiment, and for actions during the war received the Iron Cross first class.
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Khuang Aphaiwong
Major Luang Khuang Abhaiwongse (May 17, 1902 - March 15, 1968; Thai: ควง อภัยวงศ์; RTGS: Khuang Aphaiwong) was three times the prime minister of Thailand.
Khuang was born in Battambang now belonging to Cambodia as the son of the Siamese governor of the province Battambang, Chao Phraya Abhayabhubet. He visited the Debsirin school and the Assumption College, Bangkok, and studied engineering at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France. After his return to Thailand he worked in the telegraph department, finally becoming the director of the department.
During World War II he received the title Major, as he joined the guard of King Rama VII. This service also earned him the title Luang Kowit Abhaiwongse. In the governments of Phraya Phahol Pholphayuhasena and Plaek Phibunsongkhram he became minister, and was elected as prime minister on August 1, 1944, after Plaek's plans to move the capital to Phetchabun and to create the Phutthamonthon park failed to get enough approval from the parliament. On August 17, 1945 he resigned to make way for a new administration.
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Kálmán Darányi
Kálmán Darányi de Pusztaszentgyörgy et Tetétlen (22 March 1886 in Budapest – 1 November 1939 in Budapest) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1936 to 1938. He also served as Speaker of the House of Representatives of Hungary from 5 December 1938 to 12 June 1939 and from 15 June 1939 to 1 November 1939. Darányi was associated with the radical right in Hungarian politics, and although not sympathetic to the Hungarian fascists, pursued an increasingly authoritarian policy at home, and an alliance with the fascist powers Germany and Italy abroad.
His parents were Béla Darányi and Antónia Nagy. His uncle was Ignác Darányi who served as Minister of Agriculture during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Kálmán started his civil service activity in 1909 at Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County. After the revolutions of 1918–1919 he served as commissioner then ispan (or official) of Győr County, Komárom County and Győr. Darányi became member of the Diet of Hungary in 1927. Gyula Gömbös appointed him Minister of Agriculture in 1935. He played always a directing role in the agricultural class movements beside his political activity. Beside this he took part in the life of the Calvinist Church as member of the universal convent and synod.
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Lao people
The Lao (Lao: ລາວ, Isan: ลาว, IPA: láːw) is an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southeast Asia.
The etymology of the word Lao is uncertain, although it may be related to tribes known as the Ai Lao (Lao: ອ້າຽລາວ, Isan: อ้ายลาว, Chinese: 哀牢; pinyin: Āiláo, Vietnamese: ai lao) who appear in Han Dynasty records in China and Vietnam as a people of what is now Yunan Province. Tribes descended from the Ai Lao included the Tai tribes that migrated to Southeast Asia. The English word Laotian, used interchangeably with Lao in most contexts, comes from French laotien/laotienne. The Lao people, like many other Tai peoples also refer to themselves as Tai (Lao: ໄທ, Isan: ไท, IPA: tʰáj) and more specifically Tai Lao (ໄທລາວ, ไทลาว). In Thailand, the local Lao people are differentiated from the Lao of Laos and by the Thais by the term Thai Isan (Lao: ໄທຍ໌ອີສານ, Isan: ไทยอีสาน, IPA: i: să:n), a Sanskrit-derived term meaning northeast, but 'Lao' is still used.
According to a shared legend amongst various Tai tribes, a possibly mythical king, Khun Borom Rachathiriat (ຂຸນບໍຣົມຣາຊາທິຣາດ, ขุนบรมราชาธิราช, [kʰǔn bɔ̄ː lóm láː sáː tʰī lâːt]) of Mueang Thaen (ເມືອງແຖນ, เมืองแถน, [mɯ́əŋ tʰɛ̌ːn]) (modern-day Điện Biên Phủ) begot several sons that settled and ruled other mueang, or city-states, across South-East Asia and southern China. Descended from ancient peoples known to the Chinese as the Yue and the Ai Lao, the Tai tribes began migrating into South-East Asia by the beginning of the 1st millennium, but large-scale migrations took place between the 7th and 13th centuries AD, especially from what is now Sipsongbanna, Yunnan Province and Guangxi. The reasons for Tai migration include pressures from Han Chinese expansion, Mongol invasions, suitable land for wet rice cultivation and the fall of states such as Nanzhao that the Tais inhabited.
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Manchu people
The Manchus (Manchu:
Manju; simplified Chinese: 满族; traditional Chinese: 滿族; pinyin: Mǎnzú) are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria (northeastern China).
For centuries, the Manchu ethnicity has acculturated with the majority Han ethnicity of China. Most Manchu today speak Standard Chinese, while the Manchu language is only spoken by elderly people in remote northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of Xibe, a closely related language spoken in the Ili region of Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large—with 10.68 million members (in China), Manchu is the 3rd largest ethnic group in China after the Han and the Zhuang. The adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission, government employment opportunities and exemption from the one child policy) has encouraged some people with mixed Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.
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Manuel Roxas
Manuel Acuña Roxas (January 1, 1892 – April 15, 1948) was the first president of the independent Third Republic of the Philippines and fifth president overall. He served as president from the granting of independence in 1946 until his abrupt death in 1948. His term as president of the Philippines was also the third shortest, lasting 1 year 10 months and 18 days.
Manuel A. Roxas, third and last President of the Commonwealth and the first of the Republic of the Philippines, was born to Gerardo Roxas, Sr. and Rosario Acuña on January 1, 1892 in (now Roxas City). He was a posthumous child, for his father Gerardo had been mortally wounded by Spanish guardias civiles the year before, leaving him and his older brother Mamerto to be raised by their mother and Don Eleuterio, their maternal grandfather.
Roxas received his early education in the public schools of Capiz, and at age 12, attended St. Joseph’s Academy in Hong Kong. But after homesickness, he went back to Capiz. He eventually moved to Manila High School (later named the Araullo High School), graduating with highest honors in 1909.
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Michael of Romania
Michael (Romanian: Mihai I Regele Românilor, "Michael I King of the Romanians", name pronounced [miˈhaj]; born 25 October 1921) is the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania (backed up by orders of Joseph Stalin), to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation. In addition to being the current pretender to the dis-established throne of Romania, he was also a Prince of Hohenzollern until 10 May 2011, when he renounced this title.
A great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria by both of his parents, and a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, he is one of the last surviving heads of state from World War II, the others being the former King Simeon II of Bulgaria and the former King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
Michael was born in the Foişor Castle or Peleş Castle, Sinaia, Romania, the son of Carol II of Romania (then Crown Prince of Romania) and Princess Elena of Greece. He was born as the grandson of the then-reigning King Ferdinand of Romania. When Carol II eloped with his mistress Elena "Magda" Lupescu and renounced 'temporarily' his rights to the throne in December 1925, Michael was declared the heir apparent. He succeeded to the throne upon Ferdinand's death in July 1927.
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Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (Hungarian: Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós, Hungarian pronunciation: [viteːz nɒɟbaːɲɒi horti mikloːʃ], German: Nikolaus von Horthy und Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" (Hungarian: Ő Főméltósága a Magyar Királyság Kormányzója).
Admiral Horthy was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. He served in the Otranto Raid and at the Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917), and was its commander-in-chief in the last year of the First World War.
After Hungarian communists under Béla Kun seized power in Hungary in 1919, proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and commenced Hungary's Red Terror, a counterrevolutionary government was formed and asked Horthy to take command of its forces. In late 1919, Romanian forces invaded Hungary and later overthrew Kun's government.
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Milan Aćimović
Milan Aćimović (1898 – 1945) was a Serbian politician and Axis collaborator.
Aćimović was an attorney by profession. Prior to World War II he was chief of the Belgrade police and in 1939 he was briefly minister of interior in the pro-Axis Stojadinović government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was a dedicated anti-communist, and was pro-German, having been in contact with the German police before the outbreak of WW2.
On 30 May 1941, a few weeks after the Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Aćimović formed the first puppet government in Serbia, called the Commissary Government. He was the leader of the government until 29 August of that year when it was dissolved.
Aćimović's puppet government was replaced by another puppet government, the Government of National Salvation, headed by former general Milan Nedić. In this government, Aćimović served as minister of the interior. He was sympathetic towards the Chetniks of Draža Mihailović and maintained close contact with Mihailović. The Germans suspected that Aćimović warned Mihailović of the launching of Operation Mihailović, which was conducted over 6–7 December 1941. The warning, apparently given the day before the offensive began, enabled Mihailović to escape. Despite these actions and the German's suspicions, Aćimović managed to stay on good terms with them, even meeting with Mihailović in March 1942 with German permission. On 10 November 1942, Aćimović was replaced as minister of interior by Colonel Tanasije Dinić, who was seen as more anti-Mihailović than Aćimović. After his replacement and the expulsion of the Germans from Serbia in October 1944, Aćimović acted as liaison between Mihailović and German Envoy Hermann Neubacher in Vienna.
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Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić (Serbian Cyrillic Милан Недић) (7 September 1877 – 4 February 1946) was a Serbian general and politician. He was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.
After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities imprisoned him, during which he allegedly committed suicide in 1946. This claim has been recently brought into question, with testimony of Miodrag Mladenović, a former officer in Yugoslavian OZNA.
Nedić was born in Grocka close to Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbia. He finished the gymnasium in Kragujevac and entered the lower level of the Military Academy in 1895. In 1904 he completed the upper level of the Academy, then the General Staff Preparatory, and was commissioned in the Army.
In 1908, Nedić was serving as a staff officer, and between 1910 – 1912 in France on foreign assignment. He was promoted to the rank of major in 1910, and served during the Balkan Wars during which he received a number of decorations and medals for bravery.[verification needed] He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1913.
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Norodom Sihanouk
Norodom Sihanouk (Khmer: នរោត្តម សីហនុ) (born 31 October 1922) was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favour of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni. Since his abdication, he has been known as The King-Father of Cambodia (Preahmâhaviraksat), a position in which he retains many of his former responsibilities as constitutional monarch.
The son of King Norodom Suramarit and Queen Sisowath Kossamak, Sihanouk has held so many positions since 1941 that the Guinness Book of World Records identifies him as the politician who has served the world's greatest variety of political offices. These included two terms as King, two as Sovereign Prince, one as president, two as prime minister, and one as Cambodia's non-titled head of state, as well as numerous positions as leader of various governments-in-exile.
Most of these positions were only honorific, including the last position as constitutional King of Cambodia. Sihanouk's actual period of effective rule over Cambodia was from 9 November 1953, when France granted independence to Cambodia, until 18 March 1970, when Lon Nol and the National Assembly deposed Sihanouk.
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Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny was also the leader of Operation Greif, in which German soldiers were to infiltrate through enemy lines, using their opponents' uniforms and customs. At the end of the war, Skorzeny was involved with the Werwolf guerrilla movement and the ODESSA network where he would serve as Spanish coordinator.
Although he was charged with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention in relation with Operation Greif, the Dachau Military Tribunal acquitted Skorzeny after the war. Skorzeny fled from his holding prison in 1948, first to France, and then to Spain.
Otto Skorzeny was born in Vienna into a middle-class Austrian family which had a long history of military service. In addition to his native German, he spoke excellent French.
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Pedro Pablo Ramírez
Pedro Pablo Ramírez (January 30, 1884 – May 12, 1962) was de facto President of Argentina from June 7, 1943 to February 24, 1944. He was the founder and leader of the Guardia Nacional, Argentina's Fascist militia.
After graduating from the Argentine military college in 1904 as a second lieutenant, Ramírez was promoted in 1910 as first lieutenant of the cavalry. In 1911, he was sent to Germany for training with the Fifth Hussars cavalry in Kaiser Wilhelm's Prussian Army. He returned home in 1913, with a German wife, and prior to the outbreak of World War One. Advancing in rank as a specialist in cavalry tactics, he assisted fellow General José Félix Uriburu in a fascist coup that deposed Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1930. Ramírez was sent to Rome to observe Mussolini's army until his return in 1932.
When Uriburu set free elections and was voted out of office, General Ramírez worked behind the scenes to plan a return of fascism to Argentina. Over the next several years, he organized the Milicia Nacionalista (later the Guardia), and authored a program for a state ruled by the militia. In 1942, Ramírez was appointed as War Minister by President Ramón Castillo, and began to reorganize the Argentine Army. At the same time, the Guardia Nacional joined with another party to form "Recuperacion Nacional", a fascist political party. Castillo fired Ramírez following a cabinet meeting on May 18, 1943. Two weeks later, on June 4, 1943, Ramírez assisted Arturo Rawson in overthrowing Castillo's government, and was again made Minister of War. Three days later, on June 7 Ramírez forced Rawson's resignation and maintained Argentina's neutrality during World War II. Argentina was torn by then between Britain, who wanted the country to stay neutral, and the US, who wanted it to join the Allies. Ramírez stayed neutral and, consequently, the United States refused requests for Lend-Lease aid. Argentina finally declared war on Germany and Japan during the government of Edelmiro Farrell.
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Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (French pronunciation: [petɛ̃]; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain (Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français), from 1940 to 1944. Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state.
Because of his outstanding military leadership in World War I, particularly during the Battle of Verdun, he was viewed as a national hero in France. With the imminent French defeat in June 1940, Pétain was appointed Premier of France by President Lebrun at Bordeaux, and the Cabinet resolved to make peace with Germany. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the spa town of Vichy in central France. His government voted to transform the discredited French Third Republic into the French State, an authoritarian regime. As the war progressed, the government at Vichy collaborated with the Germans, who in 1942 finally occupied the whole of metropolitan France because of the threat from North Africa. Pétain's actions during World War II resulted in his conviction and death sentence for treason, which was commuted to life imprisonment by his former protégé Charles de Gaulle. In modern France he is remembered as an ambiguous figure, while pétainisme is a derogatory term for certain reactionary policies.
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Puyi
Puyi (7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan, was the last Emperor of China, and the twelfth and final ruler of the Qing Dynasty. He ruled as the Xuantong Emperor from 1908 until his abdication on 12 February 1912. From 1 to 12 July 1917 he was briefly restored to the throne as a nominal emperor by the warlord Zhang Xun. In 1934 he was declared the Kangde Emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo by the Empire of Japan, and he ruled until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Puyi was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1964 until his death in 1967. Puyi's abdication in 1912 marked the end of centuries of dynastic rule in China, and he is also widely known as The Last Emperor.
Puyi's name is romanised in English as either Puyi (in pinyin) or P'u-i (in Wades-Giles). This naming is in accordance with the Manchu tradition of avoiding the use of a person's clan name and given name together,[citation needed] but is in complete contravention of Chinese tradition, whereby the given name of a ruler was considered taboo and ineffable. Using a former emperor's personal name (or even using a Chinese character from the name) was a punishable offence under traditional Chinese law. However after Puyi lost his imperial title in 1924, he was officially styled Mr. Puyi (simplified Chinese: 溥仪先生; traditional Chinese: 溥儀先生; pinyin: Pǔyí Xiānshēng) in Chinese and Mr. Fugi (溥儀先生; Fugi Sensei) in Japanese. His clan name Aisin Gioro (simplified Chinese: 爱新觉罗; traditional Chinese: 愛新覺羅; pinyin: Àixīn Juéluó) was seldom used.
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Quisling
Quisling ( /ˈkwɪzlɪŋ/; Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈkʋɪsˈlɪŋ]) is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.
The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times in an editorial published on 19 April 1940, entitled "Quislings everywhere" after the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany as it conquered his own country so that he could rule the collaborationist Norwegian government himself. The Daily Mail picked up the term four days later, and the BBC then brought it into common use internationally. The Times' editorial asserted: "To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor...they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Aurally it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous."
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Ramón Castillo
Ramón S. Castillo Barrionuevo (November 20, 1873 – October 12, 1944) was a conservative Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from June 27, 1942 to June 4, 1943. He was a leading figure in the period known as the Infamous Decade characterised by electoral fraud, corruption and rule by conservative landowners heading the alliance known as the Concordancia.
Castillo graduated in law from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and began a judicial career. He reached the Appeals Chamber of commercial law before retiring and dedicating himself to teaching. He was professor and dean at UBA between 1923 and 1928.
Castillo was named Federal Intervenor of Tucumán Province in 1930. From 1932 until 1935 he was elected to the Argentine Senate for Catamarca Province for the National Democratic Party and was also Minister of Interior.
From 1938 to 1942, Castillo was vice-president of Argentina under President Roberto Ortiz, who won the election by fraud at the head of the Concordancia. He served as acting president from August 12, 1940 to June 27, 1942 due to the illness of President Ortiz, who did not resign until less than a month before his death. Castillo maintained Argentina's neutrality during World War II. He was overthrown in the Revolution of '43 military coup in the midst of an unpopular attempt to impose Robustiano Patrón Costas as his successor. Juan Domingo Perón was a junior officer in the coup.
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Ramón Serrano Súñer
Ramón Serrano Súñer (12 September 1901 – 1 September 2003), was a Spanish politician during the first stages of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, the Spanish State, between 1938 and 1942, when he held the posts of President of the Political Junta Política of Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (1938), and Interior and Foreign Affairs Minister. Serrano Súñer was known for his pro-Third Reich stance during World War II, when he supported the sending of the Blue Division to fight along with the Wehrmacht in the Russian front. He was also the brother-in-law of the Spanish dictator General Franco, for which he was nicknamed Cuñadísimo.
Serrano Súñer was the founder, 13 December 1938, of the 67,000 strong Spanish blind people organization ONCE, as well as EFE press-agency, 1939, the later together with Navarrese journalist Manuel Aznar Zubigaray and his Basque falangist son Manuel Aznar Acedo, (a Spanish army officer, journalist and propaganda broadcaster), the father of José María Aznar, Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. Serrano Súñer also founded Radio Intercontinental station in 1950.
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Rash Behari Bose
Rashbehari Bose (Bengali: রাসবিহারী বসু Rashbihari Boshu) (25 May 1886 – 21 January 1945) was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.
Bose was born in Subaldaha village, Burdwan, in the province of Bengal. He was educated in Chandannagar, where his father, Vinodebehari Bose, was stationed.He later earned degrees in the medical sciences as well as in Engineering from France and Germany.
Though interested in revolutionary activities fro early on in his life, he left Bengal to shun the Alipore bomb casetrails of (1908). At Dehradun he worked as a head clerk at the Forest Research Institute. There, through Amarendra Chatterjee of the Jugantar led by Jatin Mukherjee(Bagha Jatin), he secretly got involved with the revolutionaries of Bengal and, thanks to Jatindra Nath Banerjee alias Niralamba Swami, the earliest political disciple of Sri Aurobindo, he came across eminent revolutionary members of the Arya Samaj in the United Provinces (currently Uttar Pradesh) and the Punjab.
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Risto Ryti
Risto Heikki Ryti (Finnish pronunciation: [risto heikki ryti], 3 February 1889 – 25 October 1956) was the fifth President of Finland, from 1940 to 1944. Ryti started his career as a politician in the field of economics and as a political background figure during the interwar period. He made a wide range of international contacts in the world of banking and within the framework of the League of Nations. Ryti served as Prime Minister during the Winter War and the Interim Peace. Later he served as President during the Continuation War. After the war, Ryti was the main defendant in the Finnish War-responsibility trials.
Risto Ryti was born in Huittinen, Satakunta, one of seven sons. His parents were Kaarle Evert Ryti, a farmer, and Ida Vivika Junttila. Although he came from a peasant farming background, during his childhood Ryti hardly participated in work on the family's large farm, being a bookish and academically inclined boy. He was educated briefly at Pori Grammar School, and was then tutored at home, before enrolling in the University of Helsinki in 1906 to study law. Ryti was the only one of seven sons to pass the university entrance examination; however his three sisters also matriculated.
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Romani people
The Romani are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent. Romani are widely known in the English-speaking world by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies).
They are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane (depending on the dialect concerned) and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms.
Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, followed by the Kale of Iberia and Southern France.
The Americas are also home to large numbers of Romani. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States; 800,000 in Brazil, to which Kale were deported by the government of Portugal during the colonial era; and in more recent migrations, Romani have also moved to other parts of the New World.
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two.
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Sang Phathanothai
Sang Phathanothai (1914 – June, 1986) was a Thai politician, union leader, and journalist. He was one of the closest advisors to Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram.
In his early 20s Sang began to write regularly on political and international subjects and became a daily commentator for the national radio station. He became famous thanks to his radio show Mr. Mun and Mr. Kong and soon was appointed the head of the radio and newspaper sections of the Thai Government Publicity Department.
In 1938, shortly after becoming prime minister, Phibun named Sang the official government spokesman and put him in charge of all government propaganda. It was in this capacity that when Thailand had to declare war against the Allies in World War II, Sang had the distinction of reading the formal declaration of war over the radio on January 25, 1942.
When the war ended the Allies wanted to prosecute Sang, along with Pibul and a few others, for war crimes. However, as Phibun had during the war refused Japanese pressure to arrest alleged resistance leaders and had allegedly looked the other way as Pridi Phanomyong, the leader of the Free Thai Movement, developed contacts with the Allies during the war, and with public opinion favourable to all those arrested by the Allies, the Thai Supreme Court ruled that they could not be prosecuted under a war crime statute imposing the death sentence that had been enacted after the end of the war, and ordered their release.
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Savitri Devi
Savitri Devi Mukherji (September 30, 1905 — October 22, 1982) was the pseudonym of the Greek writer Maximiani Portas, who was a Nazi intelligence operative in India during World War II. She wrote about animal rights movements and was a leading light of the Nazi underground during the 1960s.
A critic of the Abrahamic religions, Savitri Devi was an animal-rights activist who authored the book The Impeachment of Man in 1959 and was a proponent of Hinduism and Nazism, synthesizing the two, proclaiming Adolf Hitler to have been sent by Providence, much like an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. She believed Hitler was a sacrifice for humanity which would lead to the end of the Kali Yuga induced by who she felt were the powers of evil, the Jews. Her writings have influenced neo-Nazism and Nazi occultism. Among Savitri Devi's ideas was the classifications of "men above time", "men in time" and "men against time". Rejecting Judeo-Christianity, she believed in a form of pantheistic monism; a single cosmos of nature composed of divine energy-matter.
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Sekula Drljević
Sekula Drljević (1884–1945) was a WWII Montenegrin Nazi-fascist collaborator.
His political views and ideological aims ranged wildly and changed frequently during his career in politics. Initially a proponent of Serb unification, Drljević later founded the pro-Green Montenegrin Federalist Party that supported Montenegrin sovereignty during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, only to eventually end up as the figurehead of the Italian-run Montenegrin fascist puppet state created by the Axis forces in 1941. Later during World War II, Drljević served for the fascist Croatian Ustashi in hopes of forming a militia force that would influence matters on the ground in Montenegro where a chaotic battle was raging. After the war, Drljević was accused of war crimes and Nazi collaboration, as well as being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people.[citation needed]
His single most notable and enduring deed occurred in 1937 when he altered some of the lyrics of the popular Montenegrin folk song, "Oj, svijetla majska zoro" ("Oh, the Bright Dawn of May"), stripping it of the references to the Serb identity of Montenegrins. He published his version in 1944 under the name "Vječna naša" (Eternal Our...). Sixty years later, Drljević's version of the song was adopted by the ruling DPS-SDP coalition of Milo Đukanović as the national anthem of modern Montenegro on 12 July 2004 as "Oh, the Bright Dawn of May", although a few of his lyrics where slightly altered due to popular demand.[citation needed]
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Seni Pramoj
Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj (May 26, 1905 – July 28, 1997) (Thai: หม่อมราชวงศ์เสนีย์ ปราโมช, RTGS: Seni Pramot, pronunciation: [sěː.niː praː.môːt]) was three times the prime minister of Thailand and a politician in the Democrat Party. A member of the Thai royal family, he was a descendant of King Rama II.
Born a son of HH Prince Khamrob and Mom Daeng (Bunnag), he was educated at Trent College in Derbyshire before obtaining a second-class degree in Law from Worcester College, Oxford. He continued his studies at Gray's Inn, London, receiving first honours. After returning to Thailand he studied Thai Law, and following six months as a trainee at the Supreme Court, he started to work at the Justice Civil Court. Later, he was transferred to the Foreign Ministry and was sent to the United States to be the Thai ambassador.
Japanese forces invaded Thailand early on the morning of December 8, 1941 - shortly before the attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Prime Minister, Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, ordered a ceasefire at noon, entering into an armistice that allowed the Japanese to use Thai military installations in their invasion of Malaya and Burma. On December 21, a formal military alliance with Japan was concluded.
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Sisavang Vong
Sisavang Phoulivong (or Sisavangvong) (14 July 1885 – 29 October 1959), was king of Kingdom of Luang Phrabang and later Kingdom of Laos from 28 April 1904 until his death on 20 October 1959.
He was born at Luang Phrabang, on July 14, 1885. His father was Zakarine, King of Luang Phrabang and his mother was Queen Thongsy. He was educated at Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat, Saigon and l'École Coloniale, Paris. He was known as a "playboy" king. He had up to 50 children by as many as 15 wives, two of whom were his half sisters and one of whom was a niece. Fourteen of the children died in the Mekong after a boating accident.
His wives included:
He succeeded his father as King of Luang Prabang after the death of his father, 25 March 1904. Luang Phrabang was then a French protectorate within French Indochina. He ascended the throne, at the old Royal Palace, Luang Prabang, 15 April 1904, and was crowned there, 4 March 1905. During the early years of his reign, the French built a modern palace for him, the Royal Palace of Luang Prabang for his use of residence. Under his kingdom he had united provinces Houaphan, 1931; Houakhong; Xiengkhouang and Vientiane, 1942; Champassak and Sayboury, 1946.
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Son Ngoc Thanh
Son Ngoc Thanh (Vietnamese: Sơn Ngọc Thành, Khmer: សឺង ង៉ុកថាញ់ ) (December 7, 1908 – August 8, 1977) was a Cambodian nationalist and republican policitian, with a long history as a rebel and (for brief periods) a government minister.
Thanh was born in Travinh, Vietnam, to an ethnic Khmer Krom father and a Sino-Khmer Krom mother. He was educated in Saigon, Montpellier and Paris, studying law for a year before returning to Indo-China. He found work as a magistrate in Pursat and as a public prosecutor in Phnom Penh before becoming Deputy Director of the Buddhist Institute. Along with another prominent early Khmer nationalist, Pach Chhoeun, he established the first Khmer language newspaper, Nagaravatta, in 1936. The political outlook of Nagaravatta, which urged Khmers to break the commercial monopoly of foreign traders by starting their own businesses, was to make Thanh and his colleagues receptive to Japanese fascism, or as he termed it "National Socialism". Thanh's ideology was essentially republican, right-wing, and modernising in outlook, which was to make him a longstanding opponent of the King Norodom Sihanouk. Despite his nationalism, he was also a strong advocate of pan-Asian cooperation, and advocated the teaching of the Vietnamese language in Cambodian schools, as it was a potential conduit for modernising ideas.
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Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. The war began after a pronunciamiento (declaration of opposition) by a group of generals under the leadership of José Sanjurjo against the elected government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists such as the religious conservative Carlists, and the Fascist Falange. The uprising was authoritarian and anti-separatist in inspiration; anti-Basque and anti-Catalan feeling marked the Nationalist zone.
Following the only partially successful coup, Spain was left militarily and politically divided. From that moment onwards, general Francisco Franco began a protracted war of attrition against the established government for the control of the country. The rebel forces received the support of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, as well as neighbouring Portugal, while the Soviet Union and Mexico intervened in support of the Republican government or loyalist side.
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Subhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose ( listen (help·info); January 1897 – 18 August 1945 [unconfirmed]) byname Netaji (Hindi: “Respected leader”) was an Indian revolutionary who led an Indian national force against the British colonizers (and therefore also against the allied Western powers) during World War II. Bose was one of the most prominent leaders in the Indian independence movement and is a legendary figure in India today.
He is presumed to have died "in absentia" on 18 August 1945 from injuries sustained in an alleged aircraft crash in Taihoku (Taipei). However, no actual evidence of the death of Subhas Chandra Bose on that day has ever been officially authenticated and many committees were set up by the government of India to investigate the mystery of his presumed death.
Bose advocated complete unconditional independence for India, whereas the All-India Congress Committee wanted it in phases, through Dominion status. Finally at the historic Lahore Congress convention, the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj (complete independence) as its motto. Gandhi was given rousing receptions wherever he went after Gandhi-Irwin pact. Subhas Chandra Bose, traveling with Gandhi in these travels, later wrote that the great enthusiasm he saw among the people enthused him tremendously and that he doubted if any other leader anywhere in the world received such a reception as Gandhi did during these travels across the country. He was imprisoned and expelled from India. Defying the ban, he came back to India and was imprisoned again.
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Thorvald Stauning
Thorvald August Marinus Stauning (26 October 1873, Copenhagen – 3 May 1942) was the first social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark. He served as Prime Minister from 1924 to 1926 and again from 1929 until his death in 1942.
Under Stauning's leadership Denmark, like the other Scandinavian countries, developed a social welfare state, and though many of his ambitions for Social Democracy were ultimately thwarted, in his lifetime, by events beyond his control, his leadership through grave times places Stauning among the most admired of twentieth-century Danish statesmen.
Stauning was trained as a cigar sorter and soon became involved with trade union activity. From 1896 to 1908 he was leader of the Cigar Sorters' Union, in 1898 – 1904 also editor of the magazine Samarbejdet (Co-operation) of the Federation of Trade Unions, and elected Member of Parliament (Folketinget) in 1906.
In 1910 he was elected chairman of the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet), a position he retained for almost thirty years, until 1939. After participating as Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet of Zahle II from 1916 to 1920, he returned to government as prime minister in 1924 for the minority cabinet Cabinet of Thorvald Stauning I which would survive until 1926. His cabinet was considered ground-breaking not only as it was the first purely Social Democratic cabinet, but also because a woman, Nina Bang, was appointed Minister of Education, which attracted some international attention, as she was one of the first female ministers in the world.
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Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (Norwegian: [ˈʋɪdkʉn ˈkʋɪʃlɪŋ] (listen); 18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian politician. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d'etat.
From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President, working with the occupying forces. His government, known as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling, the party he had founded in 1933. The collaborationist government participated in Germany's Final Solution. Quisling was put on trial during the post-war legal purge in Norway and found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945. During World War II, quisling became a synonym for traitor.
The son of a Church of Norway pastor, Quisling blended Christian fundamentals, scientific developments and philosophy into a new theory he called Universism. Before going into politics, he proved himself in the military, joining the General Staff in 1911 and specialising in Russian affairs. He was posted to Russia in 1918, and worked with Fridtjof Nansen during the 1921 famine in the Ukraine, returning to Russia to work with Frederik Prytz in Moscow. When Prytz left in 1927, Quisling stayed on as the Norwegian diplomat responsible for managing British diplomatic affairs. For these services he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by King George V, though the honour was later rescinded. He returned to Norway in 1929, and served as Minister of Defence during the Agrarian governments (1931–33). Although Quisling achieved some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party never polled well and was little more than peripheral at the time of his 1940 coup.
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Vilhelm Buhl
Vilhelm Buhl (16 October 1881 – 18 December 1954) was Prime Minister of Denmark from 4 May 1942 to 9 November 1942 as head of the Unity Government (the Cabinet of Vilhelm Buhl I) during the German occupation of Denmark of World War II, until the Nazis ordered him removed. He was Prime Minister again from 5 May 1945 to 7 November 1945 as head of a unity government (the Cabinet of Vilhelm Buhl II) after the liberation of Denmark by the British Field Marshal Montgomery.
Vilhelm Buhl was a member of the Social Democrats, and had held the post of Finance Minister in the cabinets of Thorvald Stauning from 20 July 1937 to 4 May 1942.
During Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark, Thorvald Stauning had created a unity government. When Thorvald Stauning died in May 1942, Vilhelm Buhl succeeded him. This government only lasted six months, because of a diplomatic incident, the Telegram Crisis, in which King Christian X sent a short and formal reply to a long birthday telegram from Adolf Hitler. Hitler was outraged by this insult, and as a result Vilhelm Buhl was replaced by Erik Scavenius. Werner Best was sent to Denmark as a new tough Nazi commander.
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Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), alternate name Wang Zhaoming, was a Chinese politician. He was initially known as a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT), but later became increasingly anti-Communist after his efforts to collaborate with the CCP ended in political failure. His politics veered sharply to the right later in his career, after he joined the Japanese.
A close associate of Sun Yat-sen, Wang is most noted for disagreements with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and for his formation of a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanjing. For this role he has often been labeled as a Hanjian. His name in mainland China is also now a term used to refer to a traitor, similar to "Benedict Arnold" for Americans or "Quisling" for Norwegians.
Born in Sanshui, Guangdong, but of Zhejiang origin, Wang went to Japan as an international student sponsored by the Qing Dynasty government in 1903, and joined the Tongmenghui in 1905. As a young man, Wang came to blame the Qing dynasty for holding China back, and making it too weak to fight off exploitation by Western imperialist powers. While in Japan, Wang became a close confidant of Sun Yat-sen, and would later go on to become one of the most important members of the early Kuomintang.
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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
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Zhou Fohai
Zhou Fohai (Chinese: 周佛海; May 29, 1897 – February 28, 1948), Chinese politician, and second in command of Wang Jingwei's collaborationist Nanjing Nationalist Government Executive Yuan.
Zhou was born in Hunan Province in the Empire of China, where his father was an official in the Qing Dynasty administration. After the Xinhai Revolution, he was sent to Japan for studies, attending the No. 7 Military Preparatory School (the predecessor of Kagoshima University), followed by Kyoto Imperial University. During his stay in Japan, he became attracted to Marxism, and on his return to China, became one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. He attended the First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921, but quit the Communist Party in 1924 to join the Kuomintang. He was assigned as a secretary to the Public Relations Department of the central government, but maintained strong ties with the party’s leftist clique, headed by Wang Jingwei and Liao Zhongkai. He strongly opposed Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition and Chiang Kai-shek’s conduct of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
wn.com/Zhou_Fohai
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Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
Part 1 available on DVD 9/14/2010! funimation.com When the nations gather to solve the world's problems, USA presents his solution to global warming -- and it's a pretty stupid one. Then everyone argues for a while, just before a flashback to WWI.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_1
Part 1 available on DVD 9/14/2010! funimation.com When the nations gather to solve the world's problems, USA presents his solution to global warming -- and it's a pretty stupid one. Then everyone argues for a while, just before a flashback to WWI.
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
Part 1 available on DVD 9/14/2010! funimation.com Germany is prowling the woods of WWI in search of the enemy, when he happens upon a crate of tomatoes. Just as he opens the wooden box, Italy attacks! I'm only kidding. Italy mostly just lays around.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_2
Part 1 available on DVD 9/14/2010! funimation.com Germany is prowling the woods of WWI in search of the enemy, when he happens upon a crate of tomatoes. Just as he opens the wooden box, Italy attacks! I'm only kidding. Italy mostly just lays around.
- published: 25 Jul 2010
- views: 242742
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 1 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com When the nations gather to solve the worlds problems, USA presents his solution to global warming - and its a pretty stupid one. Then everyone argues for a while, just before a flashback to WWI.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_1_SUB
funimation.com When the nations gather to solve the worlds problems, USA presents his solution to global warming - and its a pretty stupid one. Then everyone argues for a while, just before a flashback to WWI.
- published: 26 May 2010
- views: 198934
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 3 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com WWI is over, but Italy wont quit pestering Germany. In fact, with WWII right around the corner, Italy pledges his undying devotion to his gruff friend, and a delightful Axis of Bromance is born.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_3_SUB
funimation.com WWI is over, but Italy wont quit pestering Germany. In fact, with WWII right around the corner, Italy pledges his undying devotion to his gruff friend, and a delightful Axis of Bromance is born.
- published: 26 May 2010
- views: 101470
- author: FUNimation
Axis Powers Hetalia [Soldier Side]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:58
- Updated: 01 Feb 2013
I did another one~ :D yes moar emoe. :B I might do another SuFin vid next. wat do u guys think I should do? Maybe Germany/Italy. idk. I DO NOT OWN REGINA SPEKTOR, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, AXIS POWERS HETALIA, THE ART, THE MUSIC. NUTS. EDIT: 1000 views! thanks alot everbody! :)) EDIT: ~5, 0 0 0 VIEWS~ THANKS SO MUCH!! XDD EDITEDIT: OH- OH. MY. GOD. I literally just passed out for like 3 seconds... OVER. 17000. VIEWS. I-...I am utterly astounded and flabbergasted and a couple of other words that I would have to make up... D: thank you. so. much. I LUV YUU GAIZ.
http://wn.com/Axis_Powers_Hetalia_Soldier_Side_
I did another one~ :D yes moar emoe. :B I might do another SuFin vid next. wat do u guys think I should do? Maybe Germany/Italy. idk. I DO NOT OWN REGINA SPEKTOR, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, AXIS POWERS HETALIA, THE ART, THE MUSIC. NUTS. EDIT: 1000 views! thanks alot everbody! :)) EDIT: ~5, 0 0 0 VIEWS~ THANKS SO MUCH!! XDD EDITEDIT: OH- OH. MY. GOD. I literally just passed out for like 3 seconds... OVER. 17000. VIEWS. I-...I am utterly astounded and flabbergasted and a couple of other words that I would have to make up... D: thank you. so. much. I LUV YUU GAIZ.
- published: 11 Apr 2009
- views: 226439
- author: lowsodiumsalt
"Axis Powers Hetalia: Episode 23.5"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 22:51
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
Another story that's requested like crazy that I finally got to. I was a little more impressed with the story than I thought I would be. To hear the full vocaloid cover from the opening check out: youtube.com/rockleetist Original Story can be found here: creepypasta.wikia.com Music from: youtube.com/myuuji Seriously check out his original music guys incompetech.com freeplaymusic.com Here's something fun. You can get a T-shirt. Oh joy! www.cafepress.com If anyone's ever wondered where my sound effects come from: freesound.org Also don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and find me on Facebook "Mr. Creepy Pasta" themrcreepypasta.tumblr.com facebook.com/mrcreepypasta youtube.com/mrcreepyextra youtube.com/mrcreepypastareborn
http://wn.com/Axis_Powers_Hetalia_Episode_235
Another story that's requested like crazy that I finally got to. I was a little more impressed with the story than I thought I would be. To hear the full vocaloid cover from the opening check out: youtube.com/rockleetist Original Story can be found here: creepypasta.wikia.com Music from: youtube.com/myuuji Seriously check out his original music guys incompetech.com freeplaymusic.com Here's something fun. You can get a T-shirt. Oh joy! www.cafepress.com If anyone's ever wondered where my sound effects come from: freesound.org Also don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and find me on Facebook "Mr. Creepy Pasta" themrcreepypasta.tumblr.com facebook.com/mrcreepypasta youtube.com/mrcreepyextra youtube.com/mrcreepypastareborn
- published: 30 Jan 2013
- views: 12766
- author: MrCreepyPasta
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 4 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Italy and Germany have a new BFF: Japan. After a getting acquainted soak in the hot springs, Japan shows the guys his value as an ally by actually, he doesn't really do much. But he seems very polite.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_4_SUB
funimation.com Italy and Germany have a new BFF: Japan. After a getting acquainted soak in the hot springs, Japan shows the guys his value as an ally by actually, he doesn't really do much. But he seems very polite.
- published: 26 May 2010
- views: 86736
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 5 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Germany, Japan, and Italy are on a deserted island, and they're making the most of such a pleasant environment. Especially Italy, who uses the free time make white flags and sand sculptures of pasta.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_5_SUB
funimation.com Germany, Japan, and Italy are on a deserted island, and they're making the most of such a pleasant environment. Especially Italy, who uses the free time make white flags and sand sculptures of pasta.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 149834
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia Axis Powers Exhibition Skit
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:44
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
Video of Hetalia Axis Powers Exhibition Skit, sponsored by American Cosplay Paradise and FUNimation performed at Otakon 2010 . Filming credits to Genjitsu from www.acparadise.com (Permission granted) For the higher RESOLUTION version of this video, visit http For details on the convention, cosplayers and series, visit www.acparadise.com
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Exhibition_Skit
Video of Hetalia Axis Powers Exhibition Skit, sponsored by American Cosplay Paradise and FUNimation performed at Otakon 2010 . Filming credits to Genjitsu from www.acparadise.com (Permission granted) For the higher RESOLUTION version of this video, visit http For details on the convention, cosplayers and series, visit www.acparadise.com
- published: 02 Aug 2010
- views: 110049
- author: acparadise
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 6 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Japan, Germany, and Italy roast marshmallows on the beach. The three guys may feel like the night belongs to them, but they are far from alone. Actually, marshmallows sound pretty good right now. BRB.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_6_SUB
funimation.com Japan, Germany, and Italy roast marshmallows on the beach. The three guys may feel like the night belongs to them, but they are far from alone. Actually, marshmallows sound pretty good right now. BRB.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 127493
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 7 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com USA takes a break from stuffing hamburgers into his face just long enough (barely) to reveal his plans for attacking the Axis. Meanwhile, much to Germany's delight, Italy's got an obnoxious brother.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_7_SUB
funimation.com USA takes a break from stuffing hamburgers into his face just long enough (barely) to reveal his plans for attacking the Axis. Meanwhile, much to Germany's delight, Italy's got an obnoxious brother.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 114724
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 8 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Since Italy's kind of a moron, he keeps getting captured by the Allies. But since he's kind of annoying, he keeps getting sent back to the Axis. And in a shocking turn of events, Japan answers a telephone!
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_8_SUB
funimation.com Since Italy's kind of a moron, he keeps getting captured by the Allies. But since he's kind of annoying, he keeps getting sent back to the Axis. And in a shocking turn of events, Japan answers a telephone!
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 98636
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 9 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com The Allies get together to split up their responsibilities for the coming war, which really just means: USA decides he'll be the hero and everyone else will act as his support. Meanwhile, isn't France dreamy?
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_9_SUB
funimation.com The Allies get together to split up their responsibilities for the coming war, which really just means: USA decides he'll be the hero and everyone else will act as his support. Meanwhile, isn't France dreamy?
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 103348
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 10 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com France is devastated upon learning he wasn't invited to the second meeting of the Allies, and as he reflects on the -- I'm sorry, can you excuse me for a second? It seems chibi Italy is wearing Hungary's dress.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_10_SUB
funimation.com France is devastated upon learning he wasn't invited to the second meeting of the Allies, and as he reflects on the -- I'm sorry, can you excuse me for a second? It seems chibi Italy is wearing Hungary's dress.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 98383
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 11 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com The moment of truth arrives in Chibitalia: will Italy accept the adorable Holy Roman Empire's offer? And while the Allies prepare for WWII, UK totally hangs out with a unicorn.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_11_SUB
funimation.com The moment of truth arrives in Chibitalia: will Italy accept the adorable Holy Roman Empire's offer? And while the Allies prepare for WWII, UK totally hangs out with a unicorn.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 96729
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 12 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com First, a scene from after the war: France asks UK to marry him. It has something to do with the Suez Canal. Next, a scene set before the war shows the Axis prepping to take on UK
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_12_SUB
funimation.com First, a scene from after the war: France asks UK to marry him. It has something to do with the Suez Canal. Next, a scene set before the war shows the Axis prepping to take on UK
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 92033
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 13 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com UK is aggravated after losing to Germany, so the lad uses the dark arts to get his revenge. In a scary room, he chants a summoning spell and unleashes -- Russia, the weirdest of all world powers!
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_13_SUB
funimation.com UK is aggravated after losing to Germany, so the lad uses the dark arts to get his revenge. In a scary room, he chants a summoning spell and unleashes -- Russia, the weirdest of all world powers!
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 98109
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 14 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 01 Feb 2013
funimation.com Germany goes to the supermarket to buy sausages. Ordinarily that wouldnt be exciting, but during this trip he manages to encounter every mildly-offensive stereotype ever associated with every nation ever.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_14_SUB
funimation.com Germany goes to the supermarket to buy sausages. Ordinarily that wouldnt be exciting, but during this trip he manages to encounter every mildly-offensive stereotype ever associated with every nation ever.
- published: 19 May 2010
- views: 96276
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 15 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Italy and Germany enjoy soaking in the rays of the sun, but Japan isn't thrilled about the prospect of exposing himself. Of course, a quick glimpse at his library proves he's not totally against nudity.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_15_SUB
funimation.com Italy and Germany enjoy soaking in the rays of the sun, but Japan isn't thrilled about the prospect of exposing himself. Of course, a quick glimpse at his library proves he's not totally against nudity.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 72558
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 16 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 01 Feb 2013
funimation.com A walk down memory lane reveals the moment when China found tiny, young Japan sitting all alone in the woods.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_16_SUB
funimation.com A walk down memory lane reveals the moment when China found tiny, young Japan sitting all alone in the woods.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 82751
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 17 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com USA is ready to clean out his cluttered storage room, but he may not have what it takes to let go of so many memories. Actually, he may need to worry more about letting go of some hamburgers.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_17_SUB
funimation.com USA is ready to clean out his cluttered storage room, but he may not have what it takes to let go of so many memories. Actually, he may need to worry more about letting go of some hamburgers.
- published: 28 May 2010
- views: 78575
- author: FUNimation
Hetalia: Axis Powers - Episode 2 (SUB)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
funimation.com Germany is prowling the woods of WWI in search of the enemy, when he happens upon a crate of tomatoes. Just as he opens the wooden box, Italy attacks! I'm only kidding. Italy mostly just lays around.
http://wn.com/Hetalia_Axis_Powers_Episode_2_SUB
funimation.com Germany is prowling the woods of WWI in search of the enemy, when he happens upon a crate of tomatoes. Just as he opens the wooden box, Italy attacks! I'm only kidding. Italy mostly just lays around.
- published: 26 May 2010
- views: 111939
- author: FUNimation
England's Blog 10 (Axis Powers Hetalia cosplay)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 11:15
- Updated: 01 Feb 2013
The tenth edition of England's 100% voluntary blog. OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY HERE. Sorry about the franklymassive delay. But I finally managed to get this filmed and edited. 8'DI hope you guys enjoy it!...It was certainly fun to film. :P Whoever sent me the first question I must have deleted your name so apologises about that! D: And the person who suggested the trial was bionic Fred so thanks so that! xD If anyone is wondering what the hell we're on about with the pie... www.youtube.com Contact details: invincible_gentleman@hotmail.com (Send questions or trial suggestions here.) Music does not belong to me...Oh and...Hetalia and the characters don't belong to me! They belong to Hidekaz Himaruya... Just so we're clear. O_~ My stupid face, however, DOES belong to me. XP
http://wn.com/England's_Blog_10_Axis_Powers_Hetalia_cosplay
The tenth edition of England's 100% voluntary blog. OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY HERE. Sorry about the franklymassive delay. But I finally managed to get this filmed and edited. 8'DI hope you guys enjoy it!...It was certainly fun to film. :P Whoever sent me the first question I must have deleted your name so apologises about that! D: And the person who suggested the trial was bionic Fred so thanks so that! xD If anyone is wondering what the hell we're on about with the pie... www.youtube.com Contact details: invincible_gentleman@hotmail.com (Send questions or trial suggestions here.) Music does not belong to me...Oh and...Hetalia and the characters don't belong to me! They belong to Hidekaz Himaruya... Just so we're clear. O_~ My stupid face, however, DOES belong to me. XP
- published: 02 Aug 2011
- views: 26314
- author: XMoonLilyX
photo: AP / ESPN Images, Eric Lards Bakke
31 Jan 2013
A freestyle snowmobile rider hurt in a crash at last week's Winter X Games in Colorado has died at the age of 25. Caleb Moore was attempting a backflip when his snowmobile caught the edge of a landing area, sending him over the handlebars. The 450-lb (204-kg) snowmobile rolled over him ... 'Deeply saddened' ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
photo: AP / Manish
02 Feb 2013
NEW DELHI — A crowd of Tibetans came here to India’s capital last week, bearing flags and political banners and a bittersweet admixture of hope and despair. A grim countdown was under way. The number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet had reached 99, one short of an anguished milestone. Enlarge This Image. Freetibet.org, via Associated Press ... Related ... Connect With Us on Twitter ... (Mr ... Mr ... ....(size: 10.7Kb)
photo: AP / Ariel Schalit
31 Jan 2013
Zeenews Bureau. Damascus. The Syrian Army has confirmed that Israeli Air Force fighter planes carried out strikes in its territory, but denied reports of a convoy carrying weapons to Lebanon was bombed ... Two people have been reported to be dead and five others injured in the attack ... If that were to happen, it would change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon ... ....(size: 2.6Kb)
photo: AP / Manu Brabo
01 Feb 2013
"The Iranians have made it clear for some time that keeping Assad in power was one of their highest priorities," she told a roundtable of journalists ... People & Power investigates one of the world's most forgotten conflicts - the West Papuan struggle for independence ... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus ... The Choke Points of Power....(size: 19.0Kb)
photo: AP / Elise Amendola
02 Feb 2013
BOSTON. Harvard University said Friday it issued academic sanctions against about 60 students who were forced to withdraw from school for a period of time in a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress, drawing criticism from a high-profile alumnus. The school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year. . ... . ... . ... ....(size: 5.1Kb)
The Examiner
02 Feb 2013
About the Author.. Viola Russell is a native of New Orleans with long roots in the area. She enjoys writing romance, historical fiction, and mysteries ... With the help of her brothers and a gorgeous Japanese operative, Nuala vows to take down the AXIS powers and avenge her husband even if she must seek revenge while lying in the arms of the enemy ... Tweet ... We are powered by Examiners, the largest pool of passionate contributors in the world ... ....(size: 6.7Kb)
Newstrack India
31 Jan 2013
intelligence agencies in co-operation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb.' ......(size: 2.4Kb)
Ha'aretz
31 Jan 2013
intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb,” ......(size: 3.0Kb)
Business Day
31 Jan 2013
Laws enforced in their colonies by the UK, France, Belgium and other colonial powers before and after the First World War made the exercise of arbitrary power by even junior government officials normal ... In 1864, the European powers adhered to a number of conventions to regulate the conduct of war ... The axis powers seized both state and private property in countries they overran....(size: 5.1Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
30 Jan 2013
NEW YORK, Jan ... (Logo ... intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb." ... ....(size: 1.8Kb)
U~T San Diego
30 Jan 2013
intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb,” Shihab-Eddim said....(size: 12.3Kb)
The Washington Times
29 Jan 2013
intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and ......(size: 1.6Kb)
The Daily Telegraph Australia
29 Jan 2013
"US intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb." ... Recommended Coverage. Clashes intensify in Egypt ... Picture. MOHAMMED ABED ... ... Picture ... ....(size: 3.3Kb)
CounterPunch
29 Jan 2013
There was scholarly interest, of course; and artists and entertainers sometimes employed Muslim themes ... Even so, the Muslim “other” remained largely out of view ... But that was long ago ... * * * ... * * * ... * * * ... Italy was an Axis power during the Second World War, but Italians fared better than Germans, at least in the United States, because their country was perceived more as Germany’s reluctant partner than as a perpetrator in its own right ... ....(size: 21.1Kb)
The Washington Times
23 Jan 2013
A graphic released Tuesday by Mr Boehner’s office also detailed that one could drive from Key West to Seattle 684 times, earn an accounting degree from the University of Chicago, circumnavigate the globe 73 times or defeat the Axis Powers in World War II in the time since the ......(size: 1.5Kb)
noodls
23 Jan 2013
(Source. NRSC - The National Republican Senatorial Committee). U.S. House Sends A Simple Message To Mary Landrieu, Senate Democrats - "No Budget, No Pay" ... To that end, the Republican-led House today passed the (H.R ... BACKGROUND… ... You could build three of them ... The United States declared war and led the Allies to victory over the Axis powers in less time than it's taken Senate Democrats to pass a budget ... Everest 292 times. distributed by....(size: 4.2Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
23 Jan 2013
Speaker of the House John Boehner released a list of eight things that could have been accomplished since Senate Democrats passed a budget bill. The infographic shows some monumental tasks that may have happened in the time since April 29, 2009 ... * Boehner claims the Allies defeated the Axis powers in World War II faster than the Senate passed a budget bill from December 1941 to August 1945, the span of America's involvement in the war....(size: 3.5Kb)
The Washington Times
23 Jan 2013
Facebook. Follow @washtimes. Will Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton be forthright before Congress about the attack in Benghazi?. View results. It didn’t take long ... “Build your wealth. Protect your faith and family. Secure your freedom ... Mr ... The United States declared war and led the Allies to victory over the Axis powers in less time than it’s taken Senate Democrats to pass a budget,” the speaker concludes ... Mr ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
This article is about the independent countries (states) that comprised the Axis powers. For information about other countries that took part in World War II, see Participants in World War II.
| Axis powers | ||||
| Military alliance | ||||
|
||||
 |
||||
| Capital | Not specified | |||
| Political structure | Military alliance | |||
| Historical era | World War II | |||
| - Anti-Comintern Pact | November 25, 1936 | |||
| - Pact of Steel | May 22, 1939 | |||
| - Tripartite Pact | September 27, 1940 | |||
| - Dissolved | September 2, 1945 | |||
The Axis powers (German: Achsenmächte, Italian: Potenze dell'Asse, Japanese: 枢軸国 (Sūjikukoku?)), also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was the alignment of nations that fought in the Second World War against the Allied forces. The alliance began in 1936 when Germany signed treaties with Italy and Japan. The "Rome-Berlin Axis" became a military alliance in 1939 under the Pact of Steel, with the Tripartite Pact of 1940 leading to the integration of the military aims of Germany and its two treaty-bound allies. At their zenith during World War II, the Axis powers presided over empires that occupied large parts of Europe, Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and islands of the Pacific Ocean. The war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of the alliance. Like the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, with nations entering and leaving over the course of the war.[1]
Origins[link]
Main articles: Tripartite Pact and German-Japanese relations
The term "axis" is believed to have been first coined by Hungary's fascist prime minister Gyula Gömbös, who advocated an alliance of Germany, Hungary, and Italy. He worked as an intermediary between Germany and Italy to lessen differences between the two countries to achieve such an alliance.[2] Gömbös' sudden death in 1936 while negotiating with Germany in Munich and the arrival of Kálmán Darányi, a non-fascist successor to him, ended Hungary's initial involvement in pursuing a trilateral axis. The lessening of differences between Germany and Italy led to the formation of a bilateral axis.[2]
In November 1936 the term "axis" was used by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini when he spoke of a Rome-Berlin axis arising out of the treaty of friendship signed between Italy and Germany on 25 October 1936. This treaty was forged when Italy, originally opposed to Nazi Germany, was faced with opposition to its war in Abyssinia from the League of Nations and received support from Germany. Later, in May 1939, this relationship transformed into an alliance, which Mussolini called the "Pact of Steel".
The "Axis powers" formally took the name after the Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on September 27, 1940, in Berlin. The pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (November 20, 1940), Romania (November 23, 1940), Slovakia (November 24, 1940), and Bulgaria (March 1, 1941).[3] Its most militarily powerful members were Germany and Japan. These two nations had also signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.
Economic resources[link]
The total Axis population in 1938 was 258.9 million, while the total Allied population (excluding the Soviet Union and the United States, who later joined the Allies) was 689.7 million.[4] Thus the Allied powers at that time outnumbered the Axis powers in terms of population by 2.7 to 1.[5] The leading Axis states had the following domestic populations: Germany (including recently annexed Austria, with a population of 6.8 million) had 75.5 million, Japan (excluding its colonies) had a population of 71.9 million, and Italy had 43.4 million. The United Kingdom (excluding its colonies) had a domestic population of 47.5 million and France (excluding its colonies) had 42 million.[4]
The wartime gross domestic product (GDP) of the Axis powers combined was $911 billion at its highest in 1941 in international dollars by 1990 prices.[6] The total GDP of the Allied powers in 1941 was $1,798 billion – with the United States alone providing $1,094 billion, more GDP than all the Axis powers combined.[7]
The burden of the war upon the economies of the participating countries has been measured through the percentage of gross national product (GNP) devoted to military expenditures.[8] Nearly one-quarter of Germany's GNP was committed to the war effort in 1939, and this rose three-quarters of GNP in 1944, prior to the collapse of the economy.[8] In 1939, Japan committed 22 percent of its GNP to its war effort in China; this rose to three-quarters of Japan's GNP in 1944.[8] Italy did not mobilize its economy; its GNP committed to the war effort remained at prewar levels.[8]
Italy and Japan lacked industrial capacity; their economies were small, dependent on international trade, and dependent on external sources of fuel and other industrial resources.[8] As a result, Italian and Japanese mobilization remained low, even by 1943.[8]
Among the three major Axis powers – Germany, Italy, and Japan – Japan had the lowest per capita income, while Germany and Italy had an income level comparable to the United Kingdom.[9]
Participating nations[link]
Germany[link]
Main articles: Nazi Germany and Flensburg Government
Germany was ruled at this time by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party).
At the end of World War I, German citizens felt that their country had been humiliated as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany was forced to pay enormous reparations payments and forfeit German-populated territories and all its colonies. The pressure of the reparations on the German economy led to hyperinflation during the early 1920s. In 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr region when Germany defaulted on its reparations payments. Although Germany began to improve economically in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression created more economic hardship and a rise in political forces that advocated radical solutions to Germany's woes. The Nazis, under Adolf Hitler, promoted the nationalist stab-in-the-back legend stating that Germany had been betrayed by Jews and Communists. The party promised to rebuild Germany as a major power and create a Greater Germany that would include Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Sudetenland, and other German-populated territories in Europe. The Nazis also aimed to occupy and colonize non-German territories in Poland, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union, as part of the Nazi policy of seeking Lebensraum ("living space") in eastern Europe.
Germany renounced the Versailles treaty and remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936. Germany had already resumed conscription and announced the existence of a German airforce in 1935. Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and the Memel territory from Lithuania in 1939. Germany then invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939, creating the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the country of Slovakia.
On 23 August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained a secret protocol dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.[10] Germany's invasion of its part of Poland under the Pact eight days later[11] triggered the beginning of World War II. By the end of 1941, Germany occupied a large part of Europe and its military forces were fighting the Soviet Union, nearly capturing Moscow. However, crushing defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk devastated the German armed forces. This, combined with Western Allied landings in France and Italy, led to a three-front war that depleted Germany's armed forces and resulted in Germany's defeat in 1945.
Japan[link]
Main article: Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan, a constitutional monarchy ruled by Hirohito, was the principal Axis power in Asia and the Pacific. The Japanese constitution prescribed that "the Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution" (article 4) and that "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy" (article 11). Under the emperor were a political cabinet and the Imperial General Headquarters, with two chiefs of staff.
At its height, Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere included Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, large parts of China, Malaysia, French Indochina, Dutch East Indies, The Philippines, Burma, some of India, and various Pacific Islands in the central Pacific.
As a result of the internal discord and economic downturn of the 1920s, militaristic elements set Japan on a path of expansionism. As the Japanese home islands lacked natural resources needed for growth, Japan planned to establish hegemony in Asia and become self-sufficient by acquiring territories with abundant natural resources. Japan's expansionist policies alienated it from other countries in the League of Nations and by the mid-1930s brought it closer to Germany and Italy, who had both pursued similar expansionist policies. Cooperation between Japan and Germany began with the Anti-Comintern Pact, in which the two countries agreed to ally to challenge any attack by the Soviet Union.
Japan entered into conflict against the Chinese in 1937. The Japanese invasion and occupation of parts of China resulted in numerous atrocities against civilians, such as the Nanking massacre and the Three Alls Policy. The Japanese also fought skirmishes with Soviet–Mongolian forces in Manchukuo in 1938 and 1939. Japan sought to avoid war with the Soviet Union by signing a non-aggression pact with them in 1941.
Japan's military leaders were divided on Japan's diplomatic relationships with Germany and Italy and the attitude towards the United States. The Imperial Japanese Army was in favour of war with the United States, and the Imperial Japanese Navy was generally strongly opposed. When Prime Minister of Japan General Hideki Tojo refused American demands that Japan withdraw its military forces from China, a confrontation became more likely.[12] War with the United States was being discussed within the Japanese government by 1940.[13] Commander of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was outspoken in his opposition, especially after the signing of the Tripartite Pact, saying on 14 October 1940: "To fight the United States is like fighting the whole world. But it has been decided. So I will fight the best I can. Doubtless I shall die on board Nagato [his flagship]. Meanwhile Tokyo will be burnt to the ground three times. Konoe and others will be torn to pieces by the revengeful people, I [shouldn't] wonder."[13] In October and November 1940, Yamamoto communicated with Navy Minister Oikawa, and stated, "Unlike the pre-Tripartite days, great determination is required to make certain that we avoid the danger of going to war."[13]
With the European powers focused on the war in Europe, Japan sought to acquire their colonies. In 1940 Japan responded to the German invasion of France by occupying French Indochina. The Vichy France regime, a de facto ally of Germany, accepted the takeover. The allied forces did not respond with war. However, the United States instituted an embargo against Japan in 1941 because of the continuing war in China. This cut off Japan's supply of scrap metal and oil needed for industry, trade, and the war effort.
To isolate the American forces stationed in the Philippines and to reduce American naval power, the Imperial General Headquarters ordered an attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. They also invaded Malaya and Hong Kong. Initially achieving a series of victories, by 1943 the Japanese forces were driven back towards the home islands. The Pacific War lasted until the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The Soviets formally declared war in August 1945 and engaged Japanese forces in Manchuria and northeast China.
Italy[link]
Main articles: Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) and Italian Empire
During World War I, Italy entered the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. At the close of the war, Italy made fewer gains than it had been promised in the London Pact, which was nullified with the Treaty of Versailles. Italian nationalists and the public saw this as an injustice and an outrage; there had been over 600,000 Italian casualties. This resentment, together with internal discontent and an economic downturn, allowed the Italian fascists under Benito Mussolini to rise to power in 1922. The Kingdom of Italy and the Italian Empire fell under the leadership of the fascist dictator and Head of Government Mussolini, in the name of King Victor Emmanuel III.
In the late 19th century, after Italian unification, a nationalist movement had grown around the concept of Italia irredenta, which advocated the incorporation into Italy of Italian-speaking areas under foreign rule. There was a desire to annex Dalmatian territories, which had formerly been ruled by the Venetians, and which consequently had Italian-speaking elites. The intention of the Fascist regime was to create a "New Roman Empire" in which Italy would dominate the Mediterranean. In 1935–1936 Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia and the Fascist government proclaimed the creation of the "Italian Empire".[14] Protests by the League of Nations, especially the British, who had interests in that area, led to no serious action. Italy later faced diplomatic isolation from several countries. In 1937 Italy left the League of Nations and joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed by Germany and Japan the preceding year. In March/April 1939 Italian troops invaded and annexed Albania. Germany and Italy signed the Pact of Steel on May 22.
Italy entered World War II on June 10, 1940. In September 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact.
Italy was ill-prepared for war, in spite of the fact that it had continuously been involved in conflict since 1935, first with Ethiopia in 1935–1936 and then in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco's Nationalists.[15] Military planning was deficient, as the Italian government had not decided on which theatre would be the most important. Power over the military was overcentralized to Mussolini's direct control; he personally undertook to direct the ministry of war, the navy, and the air force. The navy did not have any aircraft carriers to provide air cover for amphibious assaults in the Mediterranean, as the Fascist regime believed that the air bases on the Italian Peninsula would be able to do this task.[16] Italy's army had outmoded artillery and the armoured units used outdated formations not suited to modern warfare.[17] Diversion of funds to the air force and navy to prepare for overseas operations meant less money was available for the army; the standard rifle was a design that dated back to 1891.[18] The Fascist government failed to learn from mistakes made in Ethiopia and Spain; it ignored the implications of the Italian Fascist volunteer soldiers being routed at the Battle of Guadalajara in the Spanish Civil War.[18] Military exercises by the army in the Po Valley in August 1939 disappointed onlookers, including King Victor Emmanuel III.[17] Italy's only strategic natural resource was an abundance of aluminum. Petroleum, iron, copper, nickel, chrome, and rubber all had to be imported.[17] The Fascist government's economic policy of autarky and a recourse to synthetic materials was not able to meet the demand.[15] Mussolini refused to heed warnings from his minister of exchange and currency, Felice Guarneri, who said that Italy's actions in Ethiopia and Spain meant the nation was on the verge of bankruptcy.[18] By 1939 military expenditures by Britain and France far exceeded what Italy could afford.[18]
By 1941 the Italians had suffered defeats in Greece and against the British in Egypt. The Germans intervened in Yugoslavia, the Balkans, and North Africa to attempt to stave off the Allied advances. By 1943 the Italian people had lost faith in Mussolini and no longer supported the war; Italy had lost its colonies, the allies had taken North Africa in May, and Sicily had been invaded in July.
On July 25, 1943, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini, placed him under arrest, and began secret negotiations with the Allies. An armistice was signed on September 8, 1943, and Italy joined the Allies as a co-belligerent. On September 12, 1943, Mussolini was rescued by the Germans in Operation Oak and placed in charge of a puppet state called the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana/RSI, or Repubblica di Salò) in northern Italy. He was killed by Communist partisans on April 28, 1945.[19]
Hungary[link]
Main article: Hungary during World War II
Hungary, ruled by Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy, was the first country apart from Germany, Italy, and Japan to adhere to the Tripartite Pact, signing the agreement on 20 November 1940.
Political instability plagued the country until Miklós Horthy, a Hungarian nobleman and Austro-Hungarian naval officer, became regent in 1920. Hungarian nationalists desired to recover territories lost through the Trianon Treaty. The country drew closer to Germany and Italy largely because of a shared desire to revise the peace settlements made after World War I.[20] Many people sympathized with the anti-Semitic policy of the Nazi regime. Due to its pro-German stance, Hungary received favourable territorial settlements when Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938–1939 and received Northern Transylvania from Romania via the Vienna Awards of 1940. Hungarians permitted German troops to transit through their territory during the invasion of Yugoslavia, and Hungarian forces took part in the invasion. Parts of Yugoslavia were annexed to Hungary; the United Kingdom immediately broke off diplomatic relations in response.
Although Hungary did not initially participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union on 27 June 1941. Over 500,000 troops served in the Eastern Front. All five of Hungary's field armies ultimately participated in the war against the Soviet Union; a significant contribution was made by the Hungarian Second Army.
On 25 November 1941, Hungary was one of thirteen signatories to the revived Anti-Comintern Pact. Hungarian troops, like their Axis counterparts, were involved in numerous actions against the Soviets. By the end of 1943, the Soviets had gained the upper hand and the Germans were retreating. The Hungarian Second Army was destroyed in fighting on the Voronezh Front, on the banks of the Don River. In 1944, with Soviet troops advancing toward Hungary, Horthy attempted to reach an armistice with the Allies. However, the Germans replaced the existing regime with a new one. After fierce fighting, Budapest was taken by the Soviets. A number of pro-German Hungarians retreated to Italy and Germany, where they fought until the end of the war.
Romania[link]
Main article: Romania during World War II
When war erupted in Europe in 1939, the Kingdom of Romania was pro-British and allied to the Poles. Following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, and the German conquest of France and the low countries, Romania found itself increasingly isolated. Pro-German and pro-Fascist elements began to grow.
The August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union contained a secret protocol ceding Bessarabia, part of northern Romania, to the Soviet Union.[10] On June 28, 1940, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Bessarabia, as well as Northern Bukovina and the Hertza region.[21] On August 30, 1940, Germany forced Romania to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary as a result of the second Vienna Award. Southern Dobruja was ceded to Bulgaria in September 1940. In an effort to appease the Fascist elements with the country and obtain German protection, King Carol II appointed the General Ion Antonescu as Prime Minister on September 6, 1940.
Two days later, Antonescu forced the king to abdicate and installed the king's young son Michael (Mihai) on the throne, then declared himself Conducător (Leader) with dictatorial powers. Under King Michael I and the military government of Antonescu, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact on November 23, 1940. German troops entered the country in 1941 and used the country as platform for invasions of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Romania was a key supplier of resources, especially oil and grain.
Romania joined the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Nearly 800,000 Romanian troops fought on the Eastern front. Areas that were annexed by the Soviets were reincorporated into Romania, along with the newly established Transnistria Governorate. After suffering devastating losses at Stalingrad, Romanian officials began secretly negotiating peace conditions with the Allies. By 1943, the tide began to turn. The Soviets pushed further west, retaking Ukraine and eventually launching an unsuccessful invasion of eastern Romania in the spring of 1944. Foreseeing the fall of Nazi Germany, Romania switched sides during King Michael's Coup on 23 August 1944. Romanian troops then fought alongside the Soviet Army until the end of the war, reaching as far as Czechoslovakia and Austria.
Bulgaria[link]
Main article: Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
The Kingdom of Bulgaria was ruled by Тsar Boris III when it signed the Tripartite Pact on March 1, 1941. Bulgaria had been on the losing side in the First World War and sought a return of lost ethnically and historically Bulgarian territories, specifically in Macedonia and Thrace. During the 1930s, because of traditional right-wing elements, Bulgaria drew closer to Nazi Germany. In 1940 Germany pressured Romania to sign the Treaty of Craiova, returning to Bulgaria the region of Southern Dobrudja, which it had lost in 1913. The Germans also promised Bulgaria -- in case it joined the Axis -- an enlargement of its territory to the borders specified in the Treaty of San Stefano.
Bulgaria participated in the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece (mainly by letting German troops attack from its territory). As a reward, the Axis powers allowed Bulgaria to occupy parts of both countries -- southern and south-eastern Yugoslavia (Vardar Banovina) and north-eastern Greece (parts of Greek Macedonia and Greek Thrace. The Bulgarian forces in these areas spent the following years fighting various nationalist groups and resistance movements. Despite German pressure, Bulgaria did not take part in the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union and actually never declared war on the Soviet Union. The Bulgarian Navy was nonetheless involved in a number of skirmishes with the Soviet Black-Sea Fleet, which attacked Bulgarian shipping.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Bulgarian government declared war on the Western Allies. This action remained largely symbolic (at least from Bulgarian perspective), until August 1943, when Bulgarian air defense and air force attacked Allied bombers, returning (heavily damaged) from a mission over the Romanian oil refineries. This turned into a disaster for the citizens of Sofia and other major Bulgarian cities, which were heavily bombed by the Allies in the winter of 1943–1944.
On September 2, 1944, as the Red Army approached the Bulgarian border, a new Bulgarian government came to power and sought peace with the Allies, expelled the few remaining German troops, and declared neutrality. These measures however did not prevent the Soviet Union from declaring war on Bulgaria on September 5, and a few days later the Red Army marched into the country, meeting no resistance. This was followed by the coup d'état of September 9, 1944, which brought a government of the pro-Soviet Fatherland Front. After this, the Bulgarian army (as part of the Red Army's Third Ukrainian Front) fought the Germans in Yugoslavia and Hungary, sustaining numerous casualties. Despite this, the Paris Peace Treaty treated Bulgaria as one of the defeated countries. Bulgaria was allowed to keep Southern Dobrudja, but had to give up all claims to Greek and Yugoslav territory. 150,000 ethnic Bulgarians were expelled from Greek Thrace alone.
Yugoslavia[link]
On 25 March 1941, fearing that Yugoslavia would be invaded otherwise, Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact with significant reservations. Unlike other Axis powers, Yugoslavia was not obligated to provide military assistance, nor to provide its territory for Axis to move military forces during the war. Yugoslavia's inclusion in the Axis was not openly welcomed; Italy did not desire Yugoslavia to be a partner in the Axis alliance because Italy had territorial aims on Yugoslavia.[22] Germany, on the other hand, initially wanted Yugoslavia to participate in Germany's then-planned Operation Marita in Greece by providing military access to German forces to travel from Germany through Yugoslavia to Greece.[22]
Two days after signing the alliance in 1941, after demonstrations in the streets, Prince Paul was removed from office by a coup d'état. 17-year-old Prince Peter was proclaimed to be of age and was declared king, though he was not crowned nor anointed (a custom of the Serbian Orthodox Church). The new Yugoslavian government under King Peter II, still fearful of invasion, stated that it would remain bound by the Tripartite Pact. Hitler, however, suspected that the British were behind the coup against Prince Paul and vowed to invade the country.
The German invasion began on 6 April 1941. Yugoslavia was a country concocted by the Treaty of Versailles as multi-ethnic state, and was heavily dominated by peoples of the Eastern Orthodox religion.With unresolved questions of national identity, resistance to the Nazi occupation was not united until major resistance groups like the partisans and Chetniks formed and began making offensives in the Balkans. Resistance crumbled in less than two weeks and an unconditional surrender was signed in Belgrade on 17 April. King Peter II and much of the Yugoslavian government had left the country because they did not want to cooperate with the Axis.
While Yugoslavia was no longer capable of being a member of the Axis, several Axis-aligned puppet states emerged after the kingdom was dissolved. Local governments were set up in Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro. The remainder of Yugoslavia was divided among the other Axis powers. Germany annexed parts of Drava Banovina. Italy annexed south-western Drava Banovina, coastal parts of Croatia (Dalmatia and the islands), and attached Kosovo to Albania (occupied since 1939). Hungary annexed several border territories of Vojvodina and Baranja. Bulgaria annexed Macedonia and parts of southern Serbia.
Co-belligerents[link]
Various countries fought side by side with the Axis powers for a common cause. These countries were not signatories of the Tripartite Pact and thus not formal members of the Axis.
Thailand[link]
See also: Japanese occupation of Thailand
Thailand waged the Franco-Thai War in October 1940 to May 1941 to reclaim territory from French Indochina. It became a formal ally of Japan from January 25, 1942.
Japanese forces invaded Thailand's territory on the morning of December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Only hours after the invasion, prime minister Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram ordered the cessation of resistance against the Japanese. On December 21, 1941, a military alliance with Japan was signed and on January 25, 1942, Sang Phathanothai read over the radio Thailand's formal declaration of war on the United Kingdom and the United States. The Thai ambassador to the United States, Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj, did not deliver his copy of the declaration of war. Therefore, although the British reciprocated by declaring war on Thailand and considered it a hostile country, the United States did not.
On 21 March, the Thais and Japanese also agreed that Shan State and Kayah State were to be under Thai control. The rest of Burma was to be under Japanese control, On May 10, 1942, the Thai Phayap Army entered Burma's eastern Shan State, which had been claimed by Siamese kingdoms. Three Thai infantry and one cavalry division, spearheaded by armoured reconnaissance groups and supported by the air force, engaged the retreating Chinese 93rd Division. Kengtung, the main objective, was captured on May 27. Renewed offensives in June and November evicted the Chinese into Yunnan.[23] The area containing the Shan States and Kayah State was annexed by Thailand in 1942. The areas were ceded back to Burma in 1946.
The Free Thai Movement ("Seri Thai") was established during these first few months. Parallel Free Thai organizations were also established in the United Kingdom. Queen Ramphaiphanni was the nominal head of the British-based organization, and Pridi Phanomyong, the regent, headed its largest contingent, which was operating within Thailand. Aided by elements of the military, secret airfields and training camps were established, while OSS and Force 136 agents slipped in and out of the country.
As the war dragged on, the Thai population came to resent the Japanese presence. In June 1944, Phibun was overthrown in a coup d'état. The new civilian government under Khuang Aphaiwong attempted to aid the resistance while maintaining cordial relations with the Japanese. After the war, U.S. influence prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country, but the British demanded three million tons of rice as reparations and the return of areas annexed from Malaya during the war. Thailand also returned the portions of British Burma and French Indochina that had been annexed. Phibun and a number of his associates were put on trial on charges of having committed war crimes and of collaborating with the Axis powers. However, the charges were dropped due to intense public pressure. Public opinion was favourable to Phibun, since he was thought to have done his best to protect Thai interests.
Finland[link]
Main article: Military history of Finland during World War II
Although Finland never signed the Tripartite Pact and legally (de jure) was not a part of the Axis, it was Axis-aligned in its fight against the Soviet Union.[24] Finland signed the revived Anti-Comintern Pact of November 1941.
The August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union contained a secret protocol dividing much of eastern Europe and assigning Finland to the Soviet sphere of influence.[10][25] After unsuccessfully attempting to force territorial and other concessions on the Finns, the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939 during the Winter War, intending to establish a communist puppet government in Finland.[26][27] The conflict threatened Germany's iron-ore supplies and offered the prospect of Allied interference in the region.[28] Despite Finnish resistance, a peace treaty was signed in March 1940, wherein Finland ceded some key territory to the Soviet Union, including the Karelian Isthmus, containing Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri, and the critical defensive structure of the Mannerheim Line. After the war, Finland sought protection and support from the United Kingdom[29][30] and neutral Sweden,[31] but was thwarted by Soviet and German actions. This resulted in Finland being drawn closer to Germany, first with the intent of enlisting German support as a counterweight to thwart continuing Soviet pressure, and later to help regain lost territories.
In the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Finland permitted German planes returning from mine dropping runs over Kronstadt and Neva River to refuel at Finnish airfields before returning to bases in East Prussia. In retaliation, the Soviet Union launched a major air offensive against Finnish airfields and towns, which resulted in a Finnish declaration of war against the Soviet Union on June 25, 1941. The Finnish conflict with the Soviet Union is generally referred to as the Continuation War.
Finland's main objective was to regain territory lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War. However, on July 10, 1941, Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim issued an Order of the Day that contained a formulation understood internationally as a Finnish territorial interest in Russian Karelia.
Diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Finland were severed on August 1, 1941, after the British bombed German forces in the Finnish village and port of Petsamo. The United Kingdom repeatedly called on Finland to cease its offensive against the Soviet Union, and declared war on Finland on December 6, 1941, although no other military operations followed. War was never declared between Finland and the United States, though relations were severed between the two countries in 1944 as a result of the Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement.
Finland maintained command of its armed forces and pursued war objectives independently of Germany. Germans and Finns did work closely together during Operation Silverfox, a joint offensive against Murmansk. Finland refused German requests to participate actively in the Siege of Leningrad, and also granted asylum to Jews, while Jewish soldiers continued to serve in its army.
The relationship between Finland and Germany more closely resembled an alliance during the six weeks of the Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement, which was presented as a German condition for help with munitions and air support, as the Soviet offensive coordinated with D-Day threatened Finland with complete occupation. The agreement, signed by President Risto Ryti but never ratified by the Finnish Parliament, bound Finland not to seek a separate peace.
After Soviet offensives were fought to a standstill, Ryti's successor as president, Marshall Mannerheim, dismissed the agreement and opened secret negotiations with the Soviets, which resulted in a ceasefire on September 4 and the Moscow Armistice on September 19, 1944. Under the terms of the armistice, Finland was obligated to expel German troops from Finnish territory, which resulted in the Lapland War. Finland signed a peace treaty with the Allied powers in 1947.
San Marino[link]
Since 1923, San Marino was ruled by the Sammarinese Fascist Party (PFS) and was closely allied to Italy. On September 17, 1940, San Marino declared war on Britain; Britain and the other Allied nations did not reciprocate.[32] San Marino restored relations with Germany, as it did not attend the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. This was done to avoid a repeat of the 1936 incident when San Marino denied a Turkish student entry because he was an enemy alien.[33]
Three days after the fall of Mussolini, PFS rule collapsed and the new government declared neutrality in the conflict. The Fascists regained power on April 1, 1944, but kept neutrality intact. On 26 June, the Royal Air Force accidentally[citation needed] bombed the country, killing 63. The Fascists and the Axis used this tragedy in propaganda about Allied aggression against a neutral country.
Retreating Axis forces occupied San Marino on September 17, but were forced out by the Allies in less than three days. The Allied occupation removed the Fascists from power, and San Marino declared war on Germany on September 21.[34] The newly elected government banned the Fascists on November 16.
Iraq[link]
The Kingdom of Iraq was briefly an ally of the Axis, fighting the United Kingdom in the Anglo-Iraqi War of May 1941.
Anti-British sentiments were widespread in Iraq prior to 1941. Seizing power on April 1, 1941, the nationalist government of Iraqi Prime Minister Rashid Ali repudiated the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 and demanded that the British abandon their military bases and withdraw from the country. Ali sought support from Germany and Italy in expelling British forces from Iraq.
On May 9, 1941, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem and associate of Ali, declared holy war[35] against the British and called on Arabs throughout the Middle East to rise up against British rule. On May 25, 1941, the Germans stepped up offensive operations.
Hitler issued Order 30: "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East is our natural ally against England. In this connection special importance is attached to the liberation of Iraq ... I have therefore decided to move forward in the Middle East by supporting Iraq."[citation needed]
Hostilities between the Iraqi and British forces began on May 2, 1941, with heavy fighting at the RAF air base in Habbaniyah. The Germans and Italians dispatched aircraft and aircrew to Iraq utilizing Vichy French bases in Syria, which would later invoke fighting between Allied and Vichy French forces in Syria.
The Germans planned to coordinate a combined German-Italian offensive against the British in Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq. Iraqi military resistance ended by May 31, 1941. Rashid Ali and the Mufti of Jerusalem fled to Iran, then Turkey, Italy, and finally Germany, where Ali was welcomed by Hitler as head of the Iraqi government-in-exile in Berlin. In propaganda broadcasts from Berlin, the Mufti continued to call on Arabs to rise up against the British and aid German and Italian forces. He also helped recruit Muslim volunteers in the Balkans for the Waffen-SS.
Japanese puppet states[link]
The Empire of Japan created a number of puppet states in the areas occupied by its military, beginning with the creation of Manchukuo in 1932. These puppet states achieved varying degrees of international recognition.
Manchukuo (Manchuria)[link]
Main article: Manchukuo
Manchukuo, in the northeast region of China, had been a Japanese puppet state in Manchuria since the 1930s. It was nominally ruled by Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, but was in fact controlled by the Japanese military, in particular the Kwantung Army. While Manchukuo ostensibly was a state for ethnic Manchus, the region had a Han Chinese majority.
Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the independence of Manchukuo was proclaimed on February 18, 1932, with Puyi as head of state. He was proclaimed the Emperor of Manchukuo a year later. The new Manchu nation was recognized by 23 of the League of Nations' 80 members. Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union were among the major powers who recognised Manchukuo. Other countries who recognized the State were the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Vatican City. Manchukuo was also recognised by the other Japanese allies and puppet states, including Mengjiang, the Burmese government of Ba Maw, Thailand, the Wang Jingwei regime, and the Indian government of Subhas Chandra Bose. The League of Nations later declared in 1934 that Manchuria lawfully remained a part of China. This precipitated Japanese withdrawal from the League. The Manchukuoan state ceased to exist after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945.
Mengjiang (Inner Mongolia)[link]
Mengjiang was a Japanese puppet state in Inner Mongolia. It was nominally ruled by Prince Demchugdongrub, a Mongol nobleman descended from Genghis Khan, but was in fact controlled by the Japanese military. Mengjiang's independence was proclaimed on February 18, 1936, following the Japanese occupation of the region.
The Inner Mongolians had several grievances against the central Chinese government in Nanking, including their policy of allowing unlimited migration of Han Chinese to the region. Several of the young princes of Inner Mongolia began to agitate for greater freedom from the central government, and it was through these men that Japanese saw their best chance of exploiting Pan-Mongol nationalism and eventually seizing control of Outer Mongolia from the Soviet Union.
Japan created Mengjiang to exploit tensions between ethnic Mongolians and the central government of China, which in theory ruled Inner Mongolia. When the various puppet governments of China were unified under the Wang Jingwei government in March 1940, Mengjiang retained its separate identity as an autonomous federation. Although under the firm control of the Japanese Imperial Army, which occupied its territory, Prince Demchugdongrub had his own independent army.
Mengjiang vanished in 1945 following Japan's defeat in World War II. As Soviet forces advanced into Inner Mongolia, they met limited resistance from small detachments of Mongolian cavalry, which, like the rest of the army, were quickly overwhelmed.
Reorganized National Government of China[link]
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan advanced from its bases in Manchuria to occupy much of East and Central China. Several Japanese puppet states were organized in areas occupied by the Japanese Army, including the Provisional Government of the Republic of China at Beijing, which was formed in 1937, and the Reformed Government of the Republic of China at Nanjing, which was formed in 1938. These governments were merged into the Reorganized National Government of China at Nanjing on March 29, 1940. Wang Jingwei became head of state. The government was to be run along the same lines as the Nationalist regime and adopted its symbols.
The Nanjing Government had no real power; its main role was to act as a propaganda tool for the Japanese. The Nanjing Government concluded agreements with Japan and Manchukuo, authorising Japanese occupation of China and recognising the independence of Manchukuo under Japanese protection. The Nanjing Government signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941 and declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom on January 9, 1943.
The government had a strained relationship with the Japanese from the beginning. Wang's insistence on his regime being the true Nationalist government of China and in replicating all the symbols of the Kuomintang led to frequent conflicts with the Japanese, the most prominent being the issue of the regime's flag, which was identical to that of the Republic of China.
The worsening situation for Japan from 1943 onwards meant that the Nanking Army was given a more substantial role in the defence of occupied China than the Japanese had initially envisaged. The army was almost continuously employed against the communist New Fourth Army.
Wang Jingwei died on November 10, 1944, and was succeeded by his deputy, Chen Gongbo. Chen had little influence; the real power behind the regime was Zhou Fohai, the mayor of Shanghai. Wang's death dispelled what little legitimacy the regime had. The state stuttered on for another year and continued the display and show of a fascist regime.
On September 9, 1945, following the defeat of Japan, the area was surrendered to General He Yingqin, a nationalist general loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. The Nanking Army generals quickly declared their alliance to the Generalissimo, and were subsequently ordered to resist Communist attempts to fill the vacuum left by the Japanese surrender. Chen Gongbo was tried and executed in 1946.
Philippines (Second Republic)[link]
After the surrender of the Filipino – American forces in Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island, the Japanese established a puppet state in the Philippines in 1942. In 1943 the Philippine National Assembly declared the Philippines an independent republic and elected José Laurel as President of the Second Philippine Republic. There was never widespread support for the state, largely because of the general anti-Japanese sentiments amongst the populace, aside from atrocities committed by the Japanese. The Second Philippine Republic ended with the Japanese surrender. Laurel was arrested and charged with treason by the US government, but was granted amnesty by President Manuel Roxas. He remained active in politics, ultimately winning a seat in the post-War Senate of the Philippines.
India (Provisional Government of Free India)[link]
The Provisional Government of Free India was a government in exile led by Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian nationalist who rejected Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent methods for achieving independence.
One of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement of the time and former president of the Indian National Congress, Bose was arrested by British authorities at the outset of the Second World War. In January 1941 he escaped from house arrest, eventually reaching Germany. He arrived in 1942 in Singapore, base of the Indian National Army, made up largely from Indian prisoners of war and Indian residents in south east Asia who joined their own initiative.
Bose and local leader A.M. Sahay received ideological support from Mitsuru Toyama, chief of the Dark Ocean Society, along with Japanese Army advisers.[36] Other Indian thinkers in favour of the Axis cause were Asit Krishna Mukherji, a friend of Bose, and Mukherji's wife, Savitri Devi, a French writer who admired Hitler.[37] Bose was helped by Rash Behari Bose, founder of the Indian Independence League in Japan. Bose declared India's independence on October 21, 1943. The Japanese Army assigned to the Indian National Army a number of military advisors, among them Hideo Iwakuro and Saburo Isoda.
The provisional government formally controlled the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; these islands had fallen to the Japanese and been handed over by Japan in November 1943. The government created its own currency, postage stamps, and national anthem. The government would last two more years, until August 18, 1945, when it officially became defunct. During its existence it received recognition from nine governments: Germany, Japan, Italy, Croatia, Manchukuo, China (under the Nanking Government of Wang Jingwei), Thailand, Burma (under the regime of Burmese nationalist leader Ba Maw), and the Philippines under de facto (and later de jure) president José Laurel.
Vietnam (Empire of Vietnam)[link]
The Empire of Vietnam was a short-lived Japanese puppet state that lasted from March 11 to August 23, 1945.
When the Japanese seized control of French Indochina, they allowed Vichy French administrators to remain in nominal control. This ruling ended on March 9, 1945, when the Japanese officially took control of the government. Soon after, Emperor Bảo Đại voided the 1884 treaty with France and Trần Trọng Kim, a historian, became prime minister.
The state suffered through the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 and replaced French-speaking schools with Vietnamese language schools, taught by Vietnamese scholars.
Cambodia[link]
The Kingdom of Cambodia was a short-lived Japanese puppet state that lasted from March 9, 1945 to April 15, 1945.
the Japanese entered Cambodia in mid-1941, but allowed Vichy French officials to remain in administrative posts. The Japanese calls for an "Asia for the Asiatics" won over many Cambodian nationalists.
This policy changed during the last months of the war. The Japanese wanted to gain local support, so they dissolved French colonial rule and pressured Cambodia to declare its independence within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Four days later, King Sihanouk declared Kampuchea (the original Khmer pronunciation of Cambodia) independent. Co-editor of the Nagaravatta, Son Ngoc Thanh, returned from Tokyo in May and was appointed foreign minister.
On the date of Japanese surrender, a new government was proclaimed with Son Ngoc Thah as prime minister. When the Allies occupied Phnom Penh in October, Son Ngoc Thanh was arrested for collaborating with the Japanese and was exiled to France. Some of his supporters went to northwestern Cambodia, which had been under Thai control since the French-Thai War of 1940, where they banded together as one faction in the Khmer Issarak movement, originally formed with Thai encouragement in the 1940s.
Laos[link]
Fears of Thai irredentism led to the formation of the first Lao nationalist organization, the Movement for National Renovation, in January 1941. The group was led by Prince Phetxarāt and supported by local French officials, though not by the Vichy authorities in Hanoi. This group wrote the current Lao national anthem and designed the current Lao flag, while paradoxically pledging support for France. The country declared its independence in 1945.
The liberation of France in 1944, bringing Charles de Gaulle to power, meant the end of the alliance between Japan and the Vichy French administration in Indochina. The Japanese had no intention of allowing the Gaullists to take over, and in late 1944 they staged a military coup in Hanoi. Some French units fled over the mountains to Laos, pursued by the Japanese, who occupied Viang Chan in March 1945 and Luang Phrabāng in April. King Sīsavāngvong was detained by the Japanese, but his son Crown Prince Savāngvatthanā called on all Lao to assist the French, and many Lao died fighting against the Japanese occupiers.
Prince Phetxarāt opposed this position. He thought that Lao independence could be gained by siding with the Japanese, who made him Prime Minister of Luang Phrabāng, though not of Laos as a whole. The country was in chaos, and Phetxarāt's government had no real authority. Another Lao group, the Lao Sēri (Free Lao), received unofficial support from the Free Thai movement in the Isan region.
Burma (Ba Maw regime)[link]
Main article: Japanese occupation of Burma
The Japanese Army and Burma nationalists, led by Aung San, seized control of Burma from the United Kingdom during 1942. A State of Burma was formed on August 1 under the Burmese nationalist leader Ba Maw. The Ba Maw regime established the Burma Defence Army (later renamed the Burma National Army), which was commanded by Aung San.
Italian puppet states[link]
Montenegro[link]
Sekula Drljević and the core of the Montenegrin Federalist Party formed the Provisional Administrative Committee of Montenegro on July 12, 1941, and proclaimed on the Saint Peter's Congress the "Kingdom of Montenegro" under a protectorate of the Fascist Kingdom of Italy. The country served Italy as part of its goal of fragmenting the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, expanding the Italian Empire throughout the Adriatic. The country was caught up in the rebellion of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland. Drljevic was expelled from Montenegro in October 1941. The country came under direct Italian control. With the Italian capitulation of 1943, Montenegro became a directly under the control of Nazi Germany.
In 1944 Drljević formed a pro-Ustaše Montenegrin State Council in exile based in the Independent State of Croatia, with the aim of restoring rule over Montenegro. The Montenegrin People's Army was formed out of various Montenegrin nationalist troops. By then the partisans had already liberated most of Montenegro, which became a federal state of the new Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Montenegro endured intense air bombing by the Allied air forces in 1944.
Albania[link]
In spite of Albania's long-standing protection and alliance with Italy, on 7 April 1939 Italian troops invaded Albania, five months before the start of the Second World War. Following the invasion, Albania became a protectorate under Italy, with King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy being awarded the crown of Albania. Albanian troops under Italian control were sent to participate in the Italian invasion of Greece and the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. Following Yugoslavia's defeat, Kosovo was annexed to Albania by the Italians.
After the Italian capitulation in September 1943, the country was occupied by the Germans until the end of the war.
Monaco[link]
A minor fascist regime was established in Monaco after the Italian army occupied the country in the aftermath of Case Anton. Monaco was finally liberated after the Allies landed on Western Europe.
German puppet regimes[link]
The collaborationist administrations of German-occupied countries in Europe had varying degrees of autonomy, and not all of them qualified as fully recognized sovereign states. The General Government in occupied Poland did not qualify as a legitimate Polish government and was essentially a German administration. In occupied Norway, the National Government headed by Vidkun Quisling – whose name came to symbolize pro-Axis collaboration in several languages – was subordinate to the Reichskommissariat Norwegen. It was never allowed to have any armed forces, be a recognized military partner, or have autonomy of any kind. In the occupied Netherlands, Anton Mussert was given the symbolic title of "Führer of the Netherlands' people". His National Socialist Movement formed a cabinet assisting the German administration, but was never recognized as a real Dutch government.
Slovakia (Tiso regime)[link]
See also: Slovak invasion of Poland (1939)
The Slovak Republic under President Josef Tiso signed the Tripartite Pact on November 24, 1940.
Slovakia had been closely aligned with Germany almost immediately from its declaration of independence from Czechoslovakia on March 14, 1939. Slovakia entered into a treaty of protection with Germany on March 23, 1939.
Slovak troops joined the German invasion of Poland, having interest in Spiš and Orava. Those two regions, along with Cieszyn Silesia, had been disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia since 1918. The Poles fully annexed them following the Munich Agreement. After the invasion of Poland, Slovakia reclaimed control of those territories.
Slovakia invaded Poland alongside German forces, contributing 50,000 men at this stage of the war.
Slovakia declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941 and signed the revived Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941. Slovak troops fought on Germany's Eastern Front, furnishing Germany with two divisions totaling 80,000 men. Slovakia declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States in 1942.
Slovakia was spared German military occupation until the Slovak National Uprising, which began on August 29, 1944, and was almost immediately crushed by the Waffen SS and Slovak troops loyal to Josef Tiso.
After the war, Tiso was executed and Slovakia was rejoined with Czechoslovakia. The border with Poland was shifted back to the pre-war state. Slovakia and the Czech Republic finally separated into independent states in 1993.
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia[link]
Main article: Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created on 16 March 1939 by proclamation of Adolf Hitler from Prague Castle following the declaration of establishment of the independent Slovak Republic on 14 March 1939. The protectorate was abolished after the German surrender at the end of WWII.
Government of National Salvation[link]
Main article: Government of National Salvation
In April 1941 Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. On April 30 a pro-German Serbian administration was formed under Milan Aćimović.[38] In 1941, after the invasion of the Soviet Union, a guerilla campaign against the Germans and Italians was launched by the communist partisans under Josip Broz Tito. The uprising became a serious concern for the Germans, as most of their forces were deployed to Russia; only three divisions were in the country. On August 13, 546 Serbs, including many of the country's most prominent and influential leaders, issued an appeal to the Serbian nation that called for loyalty to the Nazis and condemned the partisan resistance as unpatriotic.[39] Two weeks after the appeal, with the partisan insurgency beginning to gain momentum, 75 prominent Serbs convened a meeting in Belgrade and formed a Government of National Salvation under Serbian General Milan Nedić to replace the existing Serbian administration.[40] On August 29 the German authorities installed General Nedić and his government in power.[40] Nedić would serve as Prime Minister, while the former Regent, Prince Paul, was recognized as head of state. The Germans were short of police and military forces in Serbia, and came to rely on armed Serbian formations to maintain order.[41] By October, 1941, Serbian forces under German supervision became increasingly effective against the resistance.[42] These Serbian formations were German-armed and equipped.
Nedić's forces included the Serbian State Guards and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, which were initially largely members of the fascist Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor" (Jugoslovenski narodni pokret "Zbor", or ZBOR) party. Some of these formations wore the uniform of the Royal Yugoslav Army as well as helmets and uniforms purchased from Italy, while others had equipment from Germany.[43] These forces were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the mass killings of not only Croats, Muslims and Jews, but also Serbs who sided with any anti-German resistance or were suspected of being a member of such.[44] After the war, the Serbian involvement in many of these events and the issue of Serbian collaboration were subject to historical revisionism.[45]
The apparatus of the German occupying forces in Serbia was supposed to maintain order and peace in this region and to exploit its industrial and other riches, necessary for the Germany war economy. But, however well organized, it could have not realized its plans successfully if the old apparatus of state power, the organs of state administration, the gendarmes, and the Police had not been at its service.[46]
Several concentration camps were formed in Serbia. At the 1942 Anti-Freemason Exhibition in Belgrade, the city was pronounced to be free of Jews (Judenfrei). On April 1, 1942, a Serbian Gestapo was formed.
Italy (Italian Social Republic)[link]
Main article: Italian Social Republic
Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini formed the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana in Italian) on September 23, 1943, succeeding the Kingdom of Italy as a member of the Axis.
Mussolini had been removed from office and arrested by King Victor Emmanuel III on July 25, 1943. After the Italian armistice, in a spectacular raid led by German paratrooper Otto Skorzeny, Mussolini was rescued from arrest.
Once restored in power, Mussolini declared that Italy was a republic and that he was the new head of state. He was subject to German control for the duration of the war.
Albania (under German control)[link]
Main article: Military history of Albania during World War II
After the Italian armistice, a void of power opened up in Albania. The Italian occupying forces could do nothing, as the National Liberation Movement took control of the south and National Front (Balli Kombëtar) took control of the north. Albanians in the Italian army joined the guerrilla forces. In September 1943 the guerrillas moved to take the capital of Tirana, but German paratroopers dropped into the city. Soon after the fight, the German High Command announced that they would recognize the independence of a greater Albania. They organized an Albanian government, police, and military with the Balli Kombëtar. The Germans did not exert heavy control over Albania's administration, but instead attempted to gain popular appeal by giving the Albanians what they wanted. Several Balli Kombëtar leaders held positions in the regime. The joint forces incorporated Kosovo, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, and Presevo into the Albanian state. A High Council of Regency was created to carry out the functions of a head of state, while the government was headed mainly by Albanian conservative politicians. Albania was the only European country occupied by the Axis powers that ended World War II with a larger Jewish population than before the war.[47] The Albanian government had refused to hand over their Jewish population. They provided Jewish families with forged documents and helped them disperse in the Albanian population.[48] Albania was completely liberated on November 29, 1944.
Hungary (Szálasi regime)[link]
Relations between Germany and the regency of Miklós Horthy collapsed in Hungary in 1944. Horthy was forced to abdicate after German armed forces held his son hostage as part of Operation Panzerfaust. Hungary was reorganized following Horthy's abdication in December 1944 into a totalitarian fascist regime called the Government of National Unity, led by Ferenc Szálasi. He had been Prime Minister of Hungary since October 1944 and was leader of the anti-Semitic fascist Arrow Cross Party. In power, his government was a Quisling regime with little authority other than to obey Germany's orders. Days after the government took power, the capital of Budapest was surrounded by the Soviet Red Army. German and fascist Hungarian forces tried to hold off the Soviet advance but failed. In March 1945, Szálasi fled to Germany to run the state in exile, until the surrender of Germany in May 1945.
Norway (Quisling regime)[link]
In Norway, the national government, headed by Vidkun Quisling, was installed by the Germans as a puppet regime during the occupation, while king Haakon VII and the legal government were in exile. Quisling encouraged Norwegians to serve as volunteers in the Waffen-SS, collaborated in the deportation of Jews, and was responsible for the executions of members of the Norwegian resistance movement.
About 45,000 Norwegian collaborators joined the pro-Nazi party Nasjonal Samling (National Union), and some police units helped arrest many of Norway's Jews. However, Norway was one of the first countries where resistance during World War II was widespread before the turning point of the war in 1943. After the war, Quisling and other collaborators were executed. Quisling's name has become an international eponym for traitor.
Macedonia[link]
Ivan Mihailov, leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), wanted to solve the Macedonian Question by creating a pro-Bulgarian state on the territory of the region of Macedonia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . Romania left the Axis and declared war on Germany on August 23, 1944. and the Soviets declared war on Bulgaria on September 5. While these events were taking place, Mihailov came out of hiding in the Independent State of Croatia and traveled to re-occupied Skopje. The Germans gave Mihailov the green light to create a Macedonian state. Negotiations were undertaken with the Bulgarian government. Contact was made with Hristo Tatarchev in Resen, who offered Mihailov the Presidency. Bulgaria switched sides on September 8, and on the 9th the Fatherland Front staged a coup and deposed the monarchy. Mihailov refused the leadership and fled to Italy. Spiro Kitanchev took Mihailov's place and became Premier of Macedonia. He cooperated with the pro-Bulgarian authorities, the Wehrmacht, the Bulgarian Army, and the Yugoslav Partisans for the rest of September and October. In the middle of November, the communists won control over the region.[citation needed]
Belarus[link]
Main article: Belarusian Central Rada
The Belarusian Central Rada was established in Belarus after the region was occupied by invading German forces. The regime maintained local security forces, namely the Biełaruskaja Krajovaja Abarona. The state ended its existence in 1944 when the Red Army drove the retreating Nazi German forces from Belarus.
Province of Ljubljana[link]
In 1943 a small local government was established in German occupied Slovenia.
Joint German-Italian puppet states[link]
Independent State of Croatia[link]
Main article: Independent State of Croatia
Not to be confused with Federal State of Croatia.
On April 10, 1941, the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH) was declared to be a member of the Axis, co-signing the Tripartite Pact. The NDH remained a member of the Axis until the end of Second World War, its forces fighting for Germany even after NDH had been overrun by Yugoslav Partisans. On April 16, 1941, Ante Pavelić, a Croatian nationalist and one of the founders of the Ustaša – Croatian Liberation Movement, was proclaimed Poglavnik (leader) of the new state.
The Ustaše was actively supported by Mussolini's Fascist regime in Italy, which gave the movement training grounds to prepare for war against Yugoslavia, as well as accepting Pavelić as an exile and allowing him to reside in Rome. Italy intended to use the movement to destroy Yugoslavia, which would allow Italy to expand its power through the Adriatic. Hitler did not want to engage in a war in the Balkans until the Soviet Union was defeated. The Italian occupation of Greece was not going well; Mussolini wanted Germany to invade Yugoslavia to save the Italian forces in Greece. Hitler reluctantly submitted; Yugoslavia was invaded and the Independent State of Croatia was created. Relations between Germany and the NDH would improve as the Ustaše proved effective[citation needed] at violently repressing Serb Chetniks and the communist Yugoslav Partisans of Tito.
Pavelić led a delegation to Rome and offered the crown of Croatia to an Italian prince of the House of Savoy, who was crowned Tomislav II, King of Croatia, Prince of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Voivode of Dalmatia, Tuzla and Knin, Prince of Cisterna and of Belriguardo, Marquess of Voghera, and Count of Ponderano. The next day, Pavelić signed the Contracts of Rome with Mussolini, ceding Dalmatia to Italy and fixing the permanent borders between the NDH and Italy. Italian armed forces were allowed to control all of the coastline of the NDH, effectively giving Italy total control of the Adriatic coastline.
The platform of the Ustaše movement proclaimed that Croatians had been oppressed by the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and that Croatians deserved to have an independent nation after years of domination by foreign empires. The Ustaše perceived Serbs to be racially inferior to Croats and saw them as infiltrators who were occupying Croatian lands. They saw the extermination of Serbs as necessary to racially purify Croatia. While part of Yugoslavia, many Croatian nationalists violently opposed the Serb-dominated Yugoslav monarchy, and assassinated Alexander I of Yugoslavia, together with the Macedonian VMRO organization. The regime enjoyed support amongst radical Croatian nationalists. Ustashe forces fought against Serbian Chetnik and communist Yugoslav Partisan guerrillas throughout the war.
Upon coming to power, Pavelić formed the Croatian Home Guard (Hrvatsko domobranstvo) as the official military force of the NDH. Originally authorized at 16,000 men, it grew to a peak fighting force of 130,000. The Croatian Home Guard included an air force and navy, although its navy was restricted in size by the Contracts of Rome. In addition to the Croatian Home Guard, Pavelić was also the supreme commander of the Ustaše militia, although all NDH military units were generally under the command of the German or Italian formations in their area of operations. Many Croats volunteered for the German Waffen SS.
The Ustaše government declared war on the Soviet Union, signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941, and sent troops to Germany's Eastern Front. Ustaše militia were garrisoned the Balkans, battling the Chetniks and communist partisans.
The Ustaše government applied racial laws on Serbs, Jews, and Romas, and after June 1941 deported them to the Jasenovac concentration camp or to German camps in Poland. The racial laws were enforced by the Ustaše militia. The exact number of victims of the Ustaše regime is uncertain due to the destruction of documents and varying numbers given by historians. The estimates range between 56,000 and 97,000 [49] to 700,000 or more.
Ustaše never had widespread support among the population of the NDH. Their own estimates put the number of sympathizers, even in the early phase, at around 40,000 out of total population of 7 million.
Greece[link]
Main article: Axis occupation of Greece during World War II
Following the German invasion of Greece and the flight of the Greek government to Crete and then Egypt, the Hellenic State was formed in May 1941 as a puppet state of both Italy and Germany. Initially, Italy had wished to annex Greece, but was pressured by Germany to avoid civil unrest such as had occurred in Bulgarian-annexed areas. The result was Italy accepting the creation of a puppet regime with the support of Germany. Italy had been assured by Hitler of a primary role in Greece. Most of the country was held by Italian forces, but strategic locations (Central Macedonia, the islands of the northeastern Aegean, most of Crete, and parts of Attica) were held by the Germans, who seized most of the country's economic assets and effectively controlled the collaborationist government. The puppet regime never commanded any real authority, and did not gain the allegiance of the people. It was somewhat successful in preventing secessionist movements like the Principality of the Pindus from establishing themselves. By mid-1943, the Greek Resistance had liberated large parts of the mountainous interior ("Free Greece"), setting up a separate administration there. After the Italian armistice, the Italian occupation zone was taken over by the German armed forces, who remained in charge of the country until their withdrawal in autumn 1944. In some Aegean islands, German garrisons were left behind, and surrendered only after the end of the war.
Axis collaborator states[link]
France (Vichy regime)[link]
France and its colonial empire, under the Vichy regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain, collaborated with the Axis from 1940 until 1944, when the regime was dissolved.
The German invasion army entered Paris on June 14, 1940, following the battle of France. Pétain became the last Prime Minister of the French Third Republic on June 16, 1940. He sued for peace with Germany and on June 22, 1940, his government concluded an armistice with Hitler. Under the terms of the agreement, Germany occupied two-thirds of France, including Paris. Pétain was permitted to keep an "armistice army" of 100,000 men within the unoccupied southern zone. This number included neither the army based in the French colonial empire nor the French fleet. In French North Africa and French Equatorial Africa, the Vichy were permitted to maintain 127,000 men under arms after the colony of Gabon defected to the Free French.[50] The French also maintained substantial garrisons at the French-mandated territory of Syria and Lebanon, the French colony of Madagascar, and in French Somaliland.
After the armistice, relations between the Vichy French and the British quickly deteriorated. Fearful that the powerful French fleet might fall into German hands, the British launched several naval attacks, most notable of which was against the Algerian harbour of Mers el-Kebir on July 3, 1940. Though Churchill defended his controversial decision to attack the French Fleet, the French people were less accepting. German propaganda trumpeted these attacks as an absolute betrayal of the French people by their former allies. France broke relations with the United Kingdom and considered declaring war.[citation needed]
On July 10, 1940, Petain was given emergency "full powers" by a majority vote of the French National Assembly. The following day approval of the new constitution by the Assembly effectively created the French State (l'État Français), replacing the French Republic with the unofficial Vichy France, named for the resort town of Vichy, where Petain maintained his seat of government. The new government continued to be recognised as the lawful government of France by the United States until 1942. Racial laws were introduced in France and its colonies and many French Jews were deported to Germany. Albert Lebrun, last President of the Republic, did not leave the presidential office when he moved to Vizille on July 10, 1940. By April 25, 1945, during Petain's trial, Lebrun argued that he thought he would be able to return to power after the fall of Germany, since he had not resigned.[51]
In September 1940, Vichy France allowed Japan to occupy French Indochina, a federation of the French colonial possessions and protectorates roughly encompassing the territory of modern day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Vichy regime continued to administer the colony under Japanese military occupation. French Indochina was the base for the Japanese invasions of Thailand, Malaya, and Borneo. In 1945, under Japanese sponsorship, the Empire of Vietnam and the Kingdom of Cambodia were proclaimed as Japanese puppet states.
French General Charles de Gaulle headquartered his Free French movement in London in a largely unsuccessful effort to win over the French colonial empire. On September 26, 1940, de Gaulle led an attack by Allied forces on the Vichy port of Dakar in French West Africa. Forces loyal to Pétain fired on de Gaulle and repulsed the attack after two days of heavy fighting. Public opinion in vichy France was further outraged, and Vichy France drew closer to Germany.
Vichy France assisted Iraq in the Anglo–Iraqi War of 1941, allowing Germany and Italy to utilize air bases in the French mandate of Syria to support the Iraqi revolt against the British. Allied forces responded by attacking Syria and Lebanon in 1941. In 1942 Allied forces attacked the French colony of Madagascar.
There were considerable anti-communist movements in France, and as result, volunteers joined the German forces in their war against the Soviet Union. Almost 7,000 volunteers joined the anti-communist Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF) from 1941 to 1944, and some 7,500 formed the Division Charlemagne, a Waffen-SS unit, from 1944 to 1945. Both the LVF and the Division Charlemagne fought on the eastern front. Hitler never accepted that France could become a full military partner,[52] and constantly prevented the buildup of Vichy's military strength.
Vichy's collaboration with Germany was industrial as well as political, with French factories providing many vehicles to the German armed forces.
In November 1942 Vichy French troops briefly but fiercely resisted the landing of Allied troops in French North Africa, but were unable to prevail. Admiral François Darlan negotiated a local ceasefire with the Allies. In response to the landings and Vichy's inability to defend itself, German troops occupied southern France and Tunisia, a French protectorate that formed part of French North Africa. The rump French army in mainland France was disbanded by the Germans. The Bey of Tunis formed a government friendly to the Germans.
In mid-1943, former Vichy authorities in North Africa came to an agreement with the Free French and setup a temporary French government in Algiers, known as the French Committee of National Liberation (Comité Français de Libération Nationale, CFLN) , initially led by Darlan. After his assassination De Gaulle emerged as the French leader. The CFLN raised more troops and re-organized, re-trained and re-equipped the French military, under Allied supervision.
While deprived of armed forces, the Vichy government continued to function in mainland France until summer 1944, but had lost most of its territorial sovereignty and military assets, with the exception of the forces stationed in French Indochina. In 1943 it founded the Milice, a paramilitary force which assisted the Germans in rounding up opponents and Jews, as well as fighting the French Resistance.
Controversial cases[link]
States listed in this section were not officially members of Axis, but had controversial relations with one or more Axis members at some point during the war.
Argentina[link]
During the early years of World War II, Argentina maintained close relations with the Axis powers while officially remaining neutral. These close relations with the Axis irritated the United States, which cancelled weapons shipments to the country while increasing shipments to Argentina's neighbour, Brazil, in an attempt to pressure the Argentine government to abandon its ties with the Axis.[53] Newly elected president Ramón Castillo drew Argentina closer to the Axis; in 1942 Argentina approached Germany with a request to purchase airplanes, weapons, and other equipment.[54] Argentine General Domingo Martínez claimed that President Ramón Castillo was concerned over the country's relations with Brazil, with Argentina facing an ultimatum from the US.[54] The Argentine government feared a potential invasion by Brazil and Uruguay backed by the US.[55] Castillo was initially determined to resist, and openly joined the Axis, believing that Argentina's geography would allow it to withstand war.[56] Upon Brazil joining the Allied powers in August 1942, Argentina declared itself a non-belligerent, while still negotiating with Germany for weapons.[55] Castillo believed that the Axis would triumph in World War II.[57]
In 1943 a military coup overthrew the Argentine government. A military junta was established, led by Pedro Pablo Ramírez. In 1944 the United States government labeled the Argentine government as "fascist" and enacted financial and trade restrictions against the country, urging other countries to do the same.[58] British officials captured Argentina's envoy to Germany, creating a diplomatic disaster for Argentina.[59] In January 1944, under pressure from Britain and the United States, Ramírez agreed to break all ties with the Axis powers.[59] Argentine nationalists were alarmed by this concession and forced Ramírez to resign.[59] For the remaining year of the war, the United States continued to maintain sanctions against Argentina due to its pro-Axis leanings.[59] Argentina only declared war on Germany in 1945, about a month before the end of the war.
The close ties between Argentina and Nazi Germany proved controversial near the end of the war and afterwards, as Nazi personnel and capital began to arrive in Argentina in 1944.[60]
Denmark[link]
Main article: Occupation of Denmark
On May 31, 1939, Denmark and Germany signed a treaty of non-aggression, which did not contain any military obligations for either party.[61] On April 9, 1940, citing the intended laying of mines in Norwegian and Danish waters as a pretext, Germany invaded both countries. King Christian X and the Danish government, worried about German bombings if they resisted occupation, accepted "protection by the Reich" in exchange for nominal independence under German military occupation. Three successive Prime Ministers, Thorvald Stauning, Vilhelm Buhl, and Erik Scavenius, maintained this samarbejdspolitik ("cooperation policy") of collaborating with Germany.
Denmark coordinated its foreign policy with Germany, extending diplomatic recognition to Axis collaborator and puppet regimes, and breaking diplomatic relations with the governments-in-exile formed by countries occupied by Germany. Denmark broke diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941.[62]
In 1941 a Danish military corps, the Frikorps Danmark, was created at the initiative of the SS and the Danish Nazi Party, to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on Germany's Eastern Front. The government's following statement was widely interpreted as a sanctioning of the corps.[63] Frikorps Danmark was open to members of the Danish Royal Army and those who had completed their service within the last ten years.[64] Between 4,000 and 10,000 Danish citizens joined the Frikorps Danmark, including 77 officers of the Royal Danish Army. An estimated 3,900 of these soldiers died fighting for Germany during the Second World War.[citation needed]
Denmark transferred six torpedo boats to Germany in 1941, although the bulk of its navy remained under Danish command until the declaration of martial law in 1943.[citation needed]
Denmark supplied agricultural and industrial products to Germany as well as loans for armaments and fortifications. The German presence in Denmark, including the construction of the Danish part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, was paid from an account in Denmark's central bank, Nationalbanken. The Danish government had been promised that these costs would be repaid, but this never happened. The construction of the Atlantic Wall fortifications in Jutland cost 5 billion Danish kroner.[citation needed]
The Danish protectorate government lasted until August 29, 1943, when the cabinet resigned following a declaration of martial law by occupying German military officials. The Danish navy scuttled 32 of its larger ships to prevent their use by Germany. Germany seized 14 larger and 50 smaller vessels, and later raised and refitted 15 of the sunken vessels. During the scuttling of the Danish fleet, a number of vessels attempted an escape to Swedish waters, and 13 vessels succeeded, four of which were larger ships.[65][66] By the autumn of 1944, these ships officially formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile.[67] In 1943 Swedish authorities allowed 500 Danish soldiers in Sweden to train as police troops. By the autumn of 1944, Sweden raised this number to 4,800 and recognized the entire unit as a Danish military brigade in exile.[68] Danish collaboration continued on an administrative level, with the Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command.
Active resistance to the German occupation among the populace, virtually nonexistent before 1943, increased after the declaration of martial law. The intelligence operations of the Danish resistance was described as "second to none" by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery after the liberation of Denmark.[69]
Soviet Union[link]
See also: Soviet-German relations before 1941, German–Soviet Axis talks, and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
Relations between the Soviet Union and the major Axis powers were generally hostile before 1938. In the Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union gave military aid to the Second Spanish Republic, against Spanish Nationalist forces, which were assisted by Germany and Italy. However, the Nationalist forces were victorious. The Soviets suffered another political defeat when their ally Czechoslovakia was partitioned and partially annexed by Germany and Hungary via the Munich Agreement. In 1938 and 1939, the USSR fought and defeated Japan in two separate border wars, at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, the latter being a major Soviet victory.
In 1939 the Soviet Union considered forming an alliance with either Britain and France or with Germany.[70][71] The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 between the Soviet Union and Germany included a secret protocol whereby the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania were divided into spheres of interest of the parties.[10]
On 1 September, barely a week after the pact had been signed, Germany invaded Poland. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17 and on September 28 signed a secret treaty with Nazi Germany to arrange coordination of fighting against Polish resistance. The Soviets targeted intelligence, enterpreneurs, and officers, committing a string of atrocities that culminated in the Katyn massacre and mass relocation to Siberian concentration camps (Gulags).[72]
Soon after that, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,[73][74] and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. The Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, which started the Winter War.[75] Finnish defences prevented an all-out invasion, resulting in an interim peace, but Finland was forced to cede strategically important border areas near Leningrad.
The Soviet Union supported Germany in the war effort against Western Europe through the 1939 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement and the 1940 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement, with exports of raw materials (phosphates, chromium and iron ore, mineral oil,grain, cotton, and rubber). These and other export goods transported through Soviet and occupied Polish territories allowed Germany to circumvent the British naval blockade.
In October and November 1940, Nazi-Soviet talks about the potential of joining the Axis took place in Berlin.[76][77] Joseph Stalin later personally countered with a separate proposal in a letter later in November that contained several secret protocols, including that "the area south of Batum and Baku in the general direction of the Persian Gulf is recognized as the center of aspirations of the Soviet Union", referring to an area approximating present day Iraq and Iran, and a Soviet claim to Bulgaria.[77][78] Hitler never returned Stalin's letter.[79][80] Shortly thereafter, Hitler issued a secret directive on the eventual attempts to invade the Soviet Union.[78] [81]
Germany ended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.[11] That resulted in the Soviet Union becoming one of the main members of Allies.
Germany then revived its Anti-Comintern Pact, enlisting many European and Asian countries in opposition to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and Japan remained neutral towards each other for most of the war by the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact. The Soviet Union ended the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact by invading Manchukuo on August 8, 1945, due to agreements reached at the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt and Churchill.
Spain[link]
Main article: Spain in World War II
File:Franco-Mussolini-Serrano-1941.jpg
Francisco Franco (centre) meeting with Benito Mussolini (right) in Italy in 1941.
Caudillo Francisco Franco's Spanish State gave moral, economic, and military assistance to the Axis powers, while nominally maintaining neutrality. Franco described Spain as a member of the Axis and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941 with Hitler and Mussolini. Members of the ruling Falange party in Spain held irredentist designs on Gibraltar.[82] Falangists also supported Spanish colonial acquisition of Tangier, French Morocco and northwestern French Algeria.[83] Spain also held ambitions on former Spanish colonies in Latin America.[84] In June 1940 the Spanish government approached Germany to propose an alliance in exchange for Germany recognizing Spain's territorial aims: the annexation of the Oran province of Algeria, the incorporation of all Morocco, the extension of Spanish Sahara southward to the twentieth parallel, and the incorporation of French Cameroons into Spanish Guinea.[85] In 1940 Spain invaded and occupied the Tangier International Zone, maintaining its occupation until 1945.[85] The occupation caused a dispute between Britain and Spain in November 1940; Spain conceded to protect British rights in the area and promised not to fortify the area.[85] Even during the midst of World War II, the Spanish government held expansionist plans towards Portugal that it made known to the German government. In a communiqué with Germany on May 26, 1942, Franco declared that Portugal should be made part of a Greater Spain.[86]
Franco won the Spanish Civil War with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, which were both eager to establish another fascist state in Europe. Spain owed Germany over $212 million[citation needed] for supplies of matériel during the Spanish Civil War, and Italian combat troops had actually fought in Spain on the side of Franco's Nationalists.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Franco immediately offered to form a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion. This was accepted by Hitler and, within two weeks, there were more than enough volunteers to form a division – the Blue Division (División Azul) under General Agustín Muñoz Grandes.
The possibility of Spanish intervention in World War II was of concern to the United States, which investigated the activities of the Spain's ruling Falange party in Latin America, especially Puerto Rico, where pro-Falange and pro-Franco sentiment was high, even amongst the ruling upper classes.[87] The Falangists promoted the idea of supporting Spain's former colonies in fighting against American domination.[84] Prior to the outbreak of war, support for Franco and the Falange was high in the Philippines.[88] The Falange Exterior, the international department of the Falange, collaborated with Japanese forces against US forces in the Philippines.[89]
Sweden[link]
Main article: Sweden during World War II
The official policy of Sweden before, during, and after World War II was neutrality. It had held this policy for over a century, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. However, the Swedish neutrality during World War II has been much debated and challenged.
In contrast to many other neutral countries, Sweden was not directly attacked during the war. It was subject to British and Nazi German naval blockades, which led to problems with the supply of food and fuels. From spring 1940 to summer 1941 Sweden and Finland were surrounded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
This led to difficulties in maintaining the rights and duties of neutral states in the Hague Convention. Sweden violated this, as German troops were allowed to travel through Swedish territory between July 1940 to August 1943.
In spite of the fact that it was allowed by the Hague Convention, Sweden has been criticized for exporting iron ore to Nazi Germany via the Baltic and the Norwegian port of Narvik. German dependence on Swedish iron ore shipments was the primary reason for Great Britain to launch Operation Wilfred and, together with France, the Norwegian Campaign in early April 1940. By early June 1940 the Norwegian Campaign stood as a failure for the allies. Nazi Germany could obtain the Swedish iron ore supply it needed for war production despite the British naval blockade by securing access to Norwegian ports by force.
German, Japanese and Italian World War II cooperation[link]
German-Japanese Axis-cooperation[link]
Main article: German-Japanese relations
Germany's and Italy's declaration of war against the United States[link]
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the naval bases in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. According to the stipulation of the Tripartite Pact, Nazi Germany was required to come to the defense of her allies only if they were attacked. Since Japan had made the first move, Germany and Italy were not obliged to aid her until the United States counterattacked. Hitler ordered the Reichstag to formally declare war on the United States.[90] Italy also declared war.
Hitler made a speech in the Reichstag on December 11, saying that:
The fact that the Japanese Government, which has been negotiating for years with this man (President Roosevelt), has at last become tired of being mocked by him in such an unworthy way, fills us all, the German people, and all other decent people in the world, with deep satisfaction ... Germany and Italy have been finally compelled, in view of this, and in loyalty to the Tri-Partite Pact, to carry on the struggle against the U.S.A. and England jointly and side by side with Japan for the defense and thus for the maintenance of the liberty and independence of their nations and empires ... As a consequence of the further extension of President Roosevelt's policy, which is aimed at unrestricted world domination and dictatorship, the U.S.A. together with England have not hesitated from using any means to dispute the rights of the German, Italian and Japanese nations to the basis of their natural existence ... Not only because we are the ally of Japan, but also because Germany and Italy have enough insight and strength to comprehend that, in these historic times, the existence or non-existence of the nations, is being decided perhaps forever.[91]
Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that this declaration of war against the United States was one of the most disastrous mistakes made by the Axis powers, as it allowed the United States to join the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in war against Germany without any limitation.[92] Americans played a key role in the strategic bombardment of Germany and the invasion of the continent, ending German domination in Western Europe. The Germans were aware that the Americans had drawn up a series of war plans based on a plethora of scenarios, and expected war with the United States no later than 1943.[93]
Hitler awarded Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany Hiroshi Ōshima the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle (1st class) after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On this occasion he said:
You gave the right declaration of war. This method is the only proper one. Japan pursued it formerly and it corresponds with his own system, that is, to negotiate as long as possible. But if one sees that the other is interested only in putting one off, in shaming and humiliating one, and is not willing to come to an agreement, then one should strike as hard as possible, and not waste time declaring war.[94]
See also[link]
- Axis leaders of World War II
- Axis power negotiations on the division of Asia during World War II
- Axis victory in World War II
- Expansion operations and planning of the Axis Powers
- Foreign relations of the Axis of World War II
- Greater Germanic Reich
- Greater Italy
- Greater Japanese Empire
- Hakkō ichiu
- List of pro-Axis leaders and governments or direct control in occupied territories
- New Order (Nazism)
- Participants in World War II
- Zweites Buch
Citations[link]
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This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise. |
- ^ Hakim 1995, p. [page needed].
- ^ a b Sinor 1959, p. 291.
- ^ Hill 2003, p. 91.
- ^ a b Harrison 2000, p. 3.
- ^ Harrison 2000, p. 4.
- ^ Harrison 2000, p. 10.
- ^ Harrison 2000, p. 10, 25.
- ^ a b c d e f Harrison 2000, p. 20.
- ^ Harrison 2000, p. 19.
- ^ a b c d Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 1939.
- ^ a b Roberts 2006, p. 82.
- ^ Dull 2007, p. 5.
- ^ a b c Asada 2006, pp. 275–276.
- ^ Lowe & Marzari 2002, p. 289.
- ^ a b McKercher & Legault 2001, p. 40–41.
- ^ McKercher & Legault 2001, pp. 38–40.
- ^ a b c McKercher & Legault 2001, p. 40.
- ^ a b c d McKercher & Legault 2001, p. 41.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 1131.
- ^ Montgomery 2002, p. [page needed].
- ^ Senn 2007, p. [page needed].
- ^ a b Corvaja 2008, p. 161.
- ^ Thailand and the Second World War
- ^ Kirby 1979, p. 134.
- ^ Kirby 1979, p. 120.
- ^ Kirby 1979, pp. 120–121.
- ^ Kennedy-Pipe 1995, p. [page needed].
- ^ Kirby 1979, p. 123.
- ^ Seppinen 1983, p. [page needed].
- ^ British Foreign Office Archive, 371/24809/461-556.
- ^ Jokipii 1987, p. [page needed].
- ^ "San Marino Ends Old War On Reich to Fight Britain". The New York Times, 18 September 1940.
- ^ "Southern Theatre: San Marino In". Time Magazine, 30 September 1940.
- ^ "San Marino Army of 900 Enters War Against Reich". The New York Times, 23 September 1944.
- ^ Jabārah 1985, p. 183.
- ^ Lebra 1970, p. 49–54.
- ^ Kaplan 1998.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 31.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 32.
- ^ a b Cohen 1996, p. 33.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 34.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 35.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 38.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. various pages.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. [page needed].
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 61.
- ^ Sarner 1997, p. [page needed].
- ^ Shoah Research Center – Albania
- ^ Jasenovac United States Holocaust Memorial Museum web site
- ^ Bachelier 2000, p. 98.
- ^ Albert Lebrun's biography, French Republic Presidential official website[dead link]
- ^ Paxton 1993.
- ^ Potash 1969, p. 169.
- ^ a b Potash 1969, p. 170.
- ^ a b Potash 1969, p. 172.
- ^ Potash 1969, p. 171.
- ^ Potash 1969, p. 179.
- ^ Lewis 2001, p. 94.
- ^ a b c d Lewis 2001, p. 95.
- ^ Walters 2009, pp. 109–110.
- ^ "Den Dansk-Tyske Ikke-Angrebstraktat af 1939". Flådens Historie. (Danish)
- ^ Trommer, Aage. ""Denmark". The Occupation 1940–45". Foreign Ministry of Denmark. Archived from the original on 2006-06-18. http://web.archive.org/web/20060618002436/http://www.um.dk/Publikationer/UM/English/Denmark/kap6/6-15.asp. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
- ^ Lidegaard 2003, pp. 461–463.
- ^ "Danish Legion Military and Feldpost History". http://axis101.bizland.com/DanishFeldpost.htm. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
- ^ Søværnets mærkedage – August
- ^ Flåden efter 29. august 1943
- ^ Den danske Flotille 1944–1945
- ^ Den Danske Brigade DANFORCE – Den Danske Brigade "DANFORCE" Sverige 1943–45
- ^ "Jubel og glæde". befrielsen1945.dk. (Danish)
- ^ Nekrich, Ulam & Freeze 1997, pp. 112–120.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 495–496.
- ^ http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/sesupp1.htm
- ^ Senn 2007, p. [page needed].
- ^ Wettig 2008, pp. 20–21.
- ^ Kennedy-Pipe 1995, p. [page needed].
- ^ Roberts 2006, p. 58.
- ^ a b Brackman 2001, p. 341–343.
- ^ a b Nekrich, Ulam & Freeze 1997, pp. 202–205.
- ^ Donaldson & Nogee 2005, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Churchill 1953, pp. 520–521.
- ^ Roberts 2006, p. 59.
- ^ Wylie 2002, p. 275.
- ^ Rohr 2007, p. 99.
- ^ a b Bowen 2000, p. 59.
- ^ a b c Payne 1987, p. 269.
- ^ Preston 1994, p. 857.
- ^ Leonard & Bratzel 2007, p. 96.
- ^ Steinberg 2000, p. 122.
- ^ Payne 1999, p. 538.
- ^ Kershaw 2007, p. 385.
- ^ German Declaration of War
- ^ Kershaw 2007, Chapter 10.
- ^ United States Navy and WWII[dead link]
- ^ Nuremberg Trial transcripts, December 11, 1945. More details of the exchanges at the meeting are available online at nizkor.org
References[link]
Print sources
- Asada, Sadao (2006). From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-042-7.
- Bachelier, Christian (2000). Azéma & Bédarida. ed. L'armée française entre la victoire et la défaite. 1. Le Seuil
- Bowen, Wayne H. (2000). Spaniards and Nazi Germany: Collaboration in the New Order. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1300-6.
- Brackman, Roman (2001). The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life. London; Portland: Frank Cass. ISBN 978-0-7146-5050-0.
- Leonard, Thomas M.; Bratzel, John F. (2007). Latin America During World War II. Lanham Road, Maryland; Plymouth, England: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-3740-8.
- Churchill, Winston (1953). The Second World War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-395-41056-1.
- Cohen, Philip J. (1996). Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. College Station, Tex: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-760-7.
- Corvaja, Santi (2008) [2001]. Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York: Enigma.
- Donaldson, Robert H; Nogee, Joseph L (2005). The Foreign Policy of Russia: Changing Systems, Enduring Interests. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1568-8.
- Dull, Paul S (2007) [1978]. A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941–1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
- Hakim, Joy (1995). A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509514-2.
- Harrison, Mark (2000) [1998]. The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78503-7.
- Hill, Richard (2003) [2002]. Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor: Why the United States Declared War on Germany. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
- Jabārah, Taysīr (1985). Palestinian leader, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem. Kingston Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-940670-10-5.
- Jokipii, Mauno (1987) (in Finnish). Jatkosodan synty: tutkimuksia Saksan ja Suomen sotilaallisesta yhteistyöstä 1940-41 [Birth of the Continuation War: Analysis of the German and Finnish Military Co-operation, 1940-41]. Helsinki: Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-08799-1.
- Kaplan, Jeffrey (1998). "Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Occult Neo-Nazism". Nova Religio (University of California Press) 2 (1): 148–149. DOI:10.1525/nr.1998.2.1.148. OCLC 361148795.
- Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline (1995). Stalin's Cold War: Soviet Strategies in Europe, 1943 to 1956. New York: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-4201-0.
- Kershaw, Ian (2007). Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1-59420-123-3.
- Kirby, D. G. (1979). Finland in the Twentieth Century: A History and an Interpretation. London: C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 978-0-905838-15-1.
- Lebra, Joyce C (1970). The Indian National Army and Japan. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 978-981-230-806-1.
- Lewis, Daniel K. (2001). The History of Argentina. New York; Hampshire: Plagrave MacMillan.
- Lidegaard, Bo (2003) (in Danish). Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Historie, vol. 4. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. ISBN 978-87-7789-093-2.
- Lowe, Cedric J.; Marzari, Frank (2002) [1975]. Italian Foreign Policy, 1870–1940. Foreign Policies of the Great Powers. London: Routledge.
- McKercher, B. J. C.; Legault, Roch (2001) [2000]. Military Planning and the Origins of the Second World War in Europe. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood.
- Montgomery, John F. (2002) [1947]. Hungary: The Unwilling Satellite. Simon Publications.
- Nekrich, Aleksandr Moiseevich; Ulam, Adam Bruno; Freeze, Gregory L. (1997). Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922–1941. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10676-9.
- Paxton, Robert O (1993). J. P. Azéma & François Bédarida. ed. La Collaboration d'État. Paris: Éditions du Seuil
- Payne, Stanley G. (1987). The Franco Regime, 1936–1975. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-11074-1.
- Payne, Stanley G. (1999). Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-16564-2. <
- Potash, Robert A. (1969). The Army And Politics in Argentina: 1928–1945; Yrigoyen to Perón. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11204-1.
- Preston, Paul (1994). Franco: A Biography. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02515-2.
- Rodao, Florentino (2002). Franco y el imperio japonés : imágenes y propaganda en tiempos de guerra. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés. ISBN 978-84-01-53054-8.
- Rohr, Isabelle (2007). The Spanish Right and the Jews, 1898–1945: Antisemitism and Opportunism. Eastbourne, England; Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press.
- Sarner, Harvey (1997). Rescue in Albania: One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from the Holocaust. Cathedral City, Calif.: Brunswick Press.
- Senn, Alfred Erich (2007). Lithuania 1940: Revolution From Above. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-2225-6.
- Seppinen, Ilkka (1983) (in Finnish). Suomen ulkomaankaupan ehdot 1939–1940 [Conditions of Finnish Foreign Trade 1939–1940]. Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura. ISBN 978-951-9254-48-7.
- Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.
- Sinor, Denis (1959). History of Hungary. Woking; London: George Allen and Unwin.
- Steinberg, David Joel (2000) [1982]. The Philippines: A Singular and A Plural Place. Boulder Hill, Colorado; Oxford: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3755-5.
- Walters, Guy (2009). Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. New York: Broadway Books.
- Wettig, Gerhard (2008). Stalin and the Cold War in Europe. Landham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-5542-6.
- Wylie, Neville (2002). European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents During the Second World War. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64358-0.
Online sources
- Halsall, Paul (1997). "The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939". New York: Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
Further reading[link]
- Dear, Ian C. B.; Foot, Michael; Richard Daniell (eds.) (2005). The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280670-X.
- Kirschbaum, Stanislav (1995). A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-10403-0.
- Roberts, Geoffrey (1992). "Infamous Encounter? The Merekalov-Weizsacker Meeting of 17 April 1939". The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press) 35 (4): 921–926. DOI:10.1017/S0018246X00026224. JSTOR 2639445.
- Weinberg, Gerhard L. (2005). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (2nd ed.). NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85316-3.
External links[link]
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Look up Axis Powers in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Axis History Factbook
- Full text of The Tripartite Pact
- Silent movie of the signing of The Tripartite Pact
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