Vichy, France after defeat in World War II

Vichy France, officially known as the French State  was the government of France from July 1940 to September 1944 during World War II. It was headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain and named after the city of Vichy, which served as its seat of government.

 

After the defeat of France by Nazi Germany, the Franco-German Armistice of June 22, 1940 divided France into two zones: one under German military occupation and one left to the French in full sovereignty, at least nominally. The unoccupied zone comprised the southeastern two-fifths of the country, from the Swiss frontier near Geneva to a point 19 km east of Tours and thence southwest to the Spanish frontier, 48 km from the Bay of Biscay.

 

The Vichy regime adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany and implemented policies that were aligned with those of the Nazis, including anti-Semitic laws and the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. The regime was eventually overthrown by the Allied forces in September 1944.

 

The public reaction to the policies of the Vichy regime varied. Some people supported the regime and its policies, while others were opposed to it. There was a cult of personality around Marshal Philippe Pétain, the leader of the Vichy government, and many people saw him as a hero who could save France. However, as the war progressed and the true nature of the Vichy regime’s collaboration with Nazi Germany became more apparent, public opinion began to shift. Many people became disillusioned with the regime and its policies, and opposition to it grew.

 

There has been much debate over the years about the extent to which the Vichy regime was a willing collaborator with Nazi Germany or a puppet government. Some historians argue that the Vichy government actively collaborated with the Nazis and implemented their policies, while others believe that the regime was forced into collaboration by the circumstances of the war. Regardless of this debate, it is clear that many people in France were opposed to the Vichy regime and its policies, and that opposition to it grew over time.

 

After World War II, many officials of the Vichy regime were put on trial for their actions during the war. Some were convicted and sentenced to prison, while others were acquitted or received lesser sentences. Marshal Philippe Pétain, the leader of the Vichy government, was convicted of treason and sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life in prison due to his advanced age. Pierre Laval, who served as Prime Minister of the Vichy government, was also convicted of treason and executed in 1952. Many other officials of the Vichy regime were also tried and punished for their actions during the war.

Anti-Komintern Pact and World War II

The Anti-Komintern Pact, officially known as the Agreement against the Communist International, was an anti-communist pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936. The pact was directed against the Communist International (Comintern) and, by implication, specifically against the Soviet Union. The document was relaunched and signed again on November 25, 1941, after Germany invaded the USSR3. In the document, the signing nations pledged to take measures to safeguard themselves from the threat of the Communist International or Komintern, led by the Soviet Union.

 

Several other countries signed the Anti-Komintern Pact. Italy joined the pact in 19371. Spain and Hungary joined in 1939. During World War II, several other countries joined the pact, including Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, China-Nanjing, Denmark, and Croatia in 1941.

 

The pact was sought by Adolf Hitler, who at the time was publicly inveighing against Bolshevism and who was interested in Japan’s successes in the opening war against China. For propaganda purposes, Hitler and Benito Mussolini were able to present themselves as defenders of Western values against the threat of Soviet Communism.

 

On August 23, 1939, Japan, outraged by the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, renounced the Anti-Komintern Pact but later acceded to the Tripartite Pact (September 27, 1940), which pledged Germany, Italy, and Japan “to assist one another with all political, economic and military means” when any one of them was attacked by “a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Sino-Japanese Conflict” (i.e., the Soviet Union or the United States)

 

The Anti-Komintern Pact played a role in shaping the alliances and diplomatic relations leading up to World War II and thereafter during the war. It helped to solidify the alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, which became known as the Axis Powers.

The Cossacks

Russian and Ukrainian people

 

The Cossack, Russian Kazak, (from Turkic kazak, “adventurer” or “free man”), was a  member of a people dwelling in the northern hinterlands of the Black and Caspian seas. They had a tradition of independence and finally received privileges from the Russian government in return for military services. Originally (in the 15th century) the term referred to semi-independent Tatar groups, which formed in the Dnieper region. The term was also applied (by the end of the 15th century) to peasants who had fled from serfdom in Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy to the Dnieper and Don regions, where they established free self-governing military communities. In the 16th century there were six major Cossack hosts: the Don, the Greben (in Caucasia), the Yaik (on the middle Ural River), the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Zaporozhian (mainly west of the Dnieper).

 

Polish kings in the early 16th century began to organize the Zaporozhian Cossacks into military colonies to protect Poland’s borders. Throughout the 16th century and the first half of the 17th, those Cossacks retained their political autonomy, briefly forming a semi-independent state under Bohdan Khmelnytsky (c. 1649). Threatened by Polish domination, the Zaporozhian Cossacks signed a treaty with Russia in 1654, under which their autonomy was to be respected. The Russians likewise used the Cossacks first as defenders of the Russian frontier and later as advance guards for the territorial extension of the Russian Empire. Internally, the Cossacks regained a greater degree of their cherished liberties under the Russians than they had known under the Poles. The Russian throne reserved the right to approve Cossacks’ negotiations with the Poles and the Turks, the peoples with whom Russian relations were the most sensitive. Otherwise, the chief ruler, or hetman (ataman), of the Cossack army had a free hand in foreign policy. Thus, in exchange for some military obligations, the Cossacks had restored some of their autonomy—in the short term. Over the years, however, Russia increasingly came to dominate the Cossacks.

 

Under the Russian umbrella, the Cossacks expanded eastward from their home in the Don and were early colonizers of Siberia. Indeed, Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich became a Russian folk hero for his role in the conquest of that region. By the end of the 19th century, the number of Cossack groups had expanded to 11, including the Don, Kuban, Terek, Orenburg, and Ussuri Cossacks.

When their privileges were threatened, the Cossacks revolted, their most-famous rebel leaders of the 17th and 18th centuries being Stenka Razin, Kondraty Bulavin, and Yemelyan Pugachov. Hetman Ivan Mazepa contributed 5,000 Cossacks to the cause of Charles XII of Sweden during the Second Northern War. As a result, they gradually lost their autonomous status. By the late 18th century, all Cossack males were required to serve in the Russian army for 20 years, and, although each Cossack village (stanitsa) continued to elect its own assembly, the hetman was appointed by the central government. The Cossacks’ social structure, which had traditionally been based on equality and communal landholding, deteriorated, particularly after 1869, when Cossack officers and civil servants were allowed to own land privately and rent it to outsiders.

 

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Russians used Cossacks extensively in military actions and to suppress revolutionary activities. During the Russian Civil War (1918–20), the Cossacks were divided. Those in southern Russia formed the core of the White armies there, and about 30,000 fled Russia with the White armies. Under Soviet rule Cossack communities ceased to function as administrative units. In the 21st century, under Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, Cossacks resumed their historical relationship with Moscow. Cossack auxiliaries bolstered local police forces within Russia, most notably at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, but their use of harsh tactics and enforcement of a conservative moral code sparked concerns among human rights organizations, Cossack paramilitary groups fought alongside Russian troops during the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and they participated in Russia’s armed annexation of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea in 2014 as well as the subsequent Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine. According to the 2010 Russian census, some 68,000 people identified themselves as ethnic Cossacks.

The Battle of Yarmouk , the rise of the Arab Caliphate

The Battle of Yarmouk  was a major battle between the army of the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in August 636, near the Yarmouk River (also called Hieromyces River), along what are now the border, the rise s of Syria–Jordan and Syria-Israel, southeast of the Sea of Galilee. The result of the battle was a complete Muslim victory that ended Byzantine rule in Syria. The Battle of the Yarmouk is regarded as one of the most decisive battles in military history, and it marked the first great wave of early Muslim conquests after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, heralding the rapid advance of Islam into the then-Christian Levant.

 

After the devastating blow to the Sassanid Persians at Firaz, the Muslim Arab forces, under the command of Khalid ibn al-Walid, took on the army of the Christian Byzantine Empire at Yarmouk near the border of modern-day Syria and Jordan. The major battle was to continue for six days. Seeking to halt Muslim expansion, the Byzantines rallied all available forces. Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, the victor of Nineveh, allied himself with the Sassanids, the two empires seeking to pool their depleted resources to stop the Arab advance. The Muslim army was commanded by Khalid ibn al-Walid, while the Byzantine army was commanded by Vahan of Armenia.

 

The consequences of the Battle of Yarmouk cannot be understated.  Emperor Heraclius, who had overseen the general strategy from Antioch but had not participated in any military actions, simply abandoned Syria, attempting to consolidate the Roman defenses in Anatolia and Egypt. However, the Muslim tide would sweept aside the Roman defenses in Egypt

 

The Second French Empire and Napoleon III

The Second French  Empire  was an 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III between the Second Republic and the Third Republic in France. The period lasted from 14 January 1852 to 4 September 1870. The empire was authoritarian in its early years but enjoyed economic growth and pursued a favorable foreign policy. Liberal reforms were gradually introduced after 1859, but measures such as a low-tariff treaty with Britain alienated French businessmen, and political liberalization led to increased opposition to the government. In 1870 a new constitution establishing a quasi-parliamentary regime was widely approved, but France’s defeat at the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War was followed by an uprising in Paris on Sept. 4, 1870. This resulted in the overthrow of the government, the abdication of Napoleon III, and the end of the Second Empire.

 

Napoleon III, whose full name was Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, was the first President of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 until he was deposed in absentia on 4 September 1870. He was a nephew of Napoleon I and cousin of the disputed Napoleon II. He was the first person elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, and he seized power by force in 1851 when he could not constitutionally be reelected. He later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French and founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870.

 

Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French overseas empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and personally engaged in two wars. Napoleon III also promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made the country an agricultural exporter. He negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Free Trade Agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France’s other European trading partners. In Italy, Napoleon III supported the efforts of Victor Emmanuel II, king of Piedmont-Sardinia, to unify Italy. The French armies defeated the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino. In exchange for his help, France was given the Savoy and the County of Nice.

Frederick the Great

Frederick II, also known as Frederick the Great, was the King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. He was born on January 24, 1712, in Berlin, Prussia (now Germany) and died on August 17, 1786, in Potsdam, near Berlin. He was a brilliant military campaigner who greatly enlarged Prussia’s territories and made Prussia the foremost military power in Europe through a series of diplomatic stratagems and wars against Austria and other powers. Frederick was an enlightened absolute monarch who favored French language and art and built a French Rococo palace, Sanssouci, near Berlin. He ranks among the two or three dominant figures in the history of modern Germany. Under his leadership, Prussia became one of the great states of Europe.

 

 Frederick is known for his military victories, his reorganization of Prussian armies, his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment, and his success in the Seven Years’ War. He seized parts of Silesia during the War of the Austrian Succession, strengthening Prussia considerably. He invaded Saxony in 1756 and marched on into Bohemia. Frederick was almost defeated in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), until his admirer Peter III signed a Russo-Prussian peace treaty that lasted until 1780. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 led to enormous territorial gains for Prussia.

 

In addition to modernizing the army, Frederick also espoused the ideas of enlightened despotism and instituted numerous economic, civil, and social reforms. He modernized the Prussian bureaucracy and civil service, and pursued religious policies throughout his realm that ranged from tolerance to segregation. He reformed the judicial system and made it possible for men of lower status to become judges and senior bureaucrats. Frederick also encouraged immigrants of various nationalities and faiths to come to Prussia, although he enacted oppressive measures against Catholics in Silesia and Polish Prussia.

 

Frederick’s greatest achievement was perhaps the creation of an effective government bureaucracy, which became the model for the nineteenth century, and laws establishing religious and social freedoms, which were fundamental in defining the concept of liberty. Under Frederick’s leadership, Prussia became one of the great states of Europe, with vastly expanded territories and impressive military strength.

 

Frederick the Great’s reign ended with his death on August 17, 1786, in Potsdam, near Berlin. Frederick was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia, declaring himself King of Prussia after annexing Royal Prussia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772. He was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II.