Did the German, French, and British troops on the western front in 1914 join in a spontaneous ceasefire directly on the battlefield to celebrate Christmas?

World War I

The truce at Christmas 1914

The first World War lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. It was one of the largest and deadliest conflicts in human history. Almost 70.000.000 soldiers were engaged. At the end of the war, more than 19 countries were directly involved in military action, but many more were affected. 

Around 10 million soldiers died. To that is added the death of around 8 million civilians. At the end of the war and immediately after, the Spanish flu caused millions of casualties around the globe. The worldwide spreading of the disease could largely be blamed on the war. Soldiers living close together, under unhealthy conditions, staying in field hospitals, and then being transferred home or back to the front. The Spanish flu caused between 17 and 100 million deaths worldwide. 

The War of the Trenches

World War I was in many locations a war of the trenches. In continental Europe. especially on the western front, in northern France, the battles were fought dug in. At the beginning of the 20th century, the firepower of the artillery had reached modern warfare capacity. But the mobility of the military units had not. They had cannons, but no tanks. Because of this, the defense was much more efficient than the attack. 

The trenches between the German, French and British armed forces were heavily armed, dug deep, and reinforced by concrete and barbed wire. 

The area between two such trench lines was exposed and full of mines. This made warfare extremely static. The fronts were fixed and the battles went on for months, even years, without any side gaining terrain.

In the trenches, the conditions were often disastrous. It was wet, cold, and otherwise very unhealthy with diseases and malnutrition. In fact, in the first months in many regiments, there were more deaths caused by gangrene, trench foot, and frost than from enemy fire.  

Chemical warfare

The war was also a breeding ground for new ways to kill. Chemical warfare was developed and in the very static positions in the trenches, gas was something many military leaders put great hope in. But for various reasons, it never changed the way war was fought.

Launching sufficient quantities and gaining a concentration at enemy lines enough for it to be lethal, was all very difficult. In fact, the gas was not at all as efficient as first believed, and it wasn’t until the infamous Mustard-gas was introduced in late 1915, that it started to be of any concern at all. In 1914 no gas attacks had yet been successful. 

The truce at Christmas 1914 – The background.

• In the first period of the war, the hostility between the Germans and the Allies hadn’t yet become as bitter as it would develop, later on in the war. 
• The soldiers were to a large degree volunteers who had been promised that the war should be over by Christmas. 
• At the end of 1914, it was evident that it would last much longer, and that this was just the beginning. There could have been second thoughts about why they had enrolled in the first place.
• Although the superiors tried to maintain the morale, the men often got reluctant to see the enemy as evil. The desperate situation provoked resignation rather than aggression. 
• Many British soldiers didn’t regard the Germans with as much aversion as did the French. The truce was more frequent between the Germans and the British than between the Germans and the French. 
• The war in the trenches slowly turned into a job-like activity. No man can fight 24/7, so the fighting needed a schedule, start and stop times, pauses, etc. 

How was it possible?

Already in November, there had been occasions where the soldiers stopped fighting. F.ex. in some locations the soldiers stopped shooting for a period after nightfall. This was the time when food rations were distributed and it was a mutual agreement that everybody should be able to at least eat in peace. Sometimes they agreed on letting the soldiers get out of the trenches to pick up their dead and bring them back for a short funeral. 

These accords happened every now and then. Between the French and the Germans, the tension was stronger but even they sometimes tried to get along in these matters. And not only in the west but also between the Russians and the Hungary-Austrians there were spontaneous truces. 

As the army lines were reasonably close. Being defended by the trench and heavily dug in, the soldiers could speak to one another. News, sports-results, and even singing were shared across the front line.  

Where and when did it happen?

In fact, in some locations, the truce at Christmas 1914 started out as a concert. Allied soldiers heard the Germans singing their Christmas songs. The Christmas trees were lit. This was at the time a tradition that was not widely spread in Britain and the British soldiers ventured out of the trenches to get a look and to hear the singing. 

The Truce at Christmas 1914 was a mutual, spontaneous ceasefire. The soldiers traded cigarettes, food, alcohol, and souvenirs. British soldiers narrated that they cut off buttons from the German uniforms as a token. They sang together and talked about their homes and their loved ones. There are even stories about football games between the Germans and the British. In many locations, it was also a possibility for bringing back the dead from the battlefields. 

In some places, it was just a ceasefire but without encountering. The soldiers just stopped shooting during the holiday. 

What happened was a phenomenon of 1914 and only 1914. Already in 1915 the bitterness and hostility between the armies didn’t permit ceasefires to the same extent. In some locations at the front tentatives were made to do something similar. The officers on both sides had gotten strict orders to prevent any repeat of the previous Christmas’ event, though.

Around 100.000 soldiers participated in the truce at Christmas 1914. 

What can we learn from spontaneous peace like the one in 1914?

The truce at Christmas 1914 wasn’t unique. All through the war agreements were made here and there between fighting soldiers. Often just to be able to bury the dead or to rest for an hour or two from the obscenities of the war. In spring 1915 a spontaneous truce was held between Bulgarians and Greeks, as well as between Australians and Turks. 

And in many other wars, these very small windows of fraternization have occurred. It’s as if we in front of the really big issues in life, the questions about life and death, learn something, and can see the very existence for what it is. The too young men in the trenches understood the issue, that we often have such difficulty grasping… That the real enemy is War itself.

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sources

• Neue Zürcher Zeitung / Weihnachtsfrieden 1914
• Encyclopaedia Britannica / Christmas truce
• Wikipedia / Christmas truce

Did the Polish cavalry attack German tanks at the beginning of WW2? 

Was the Polish army so outdated, unprepared, and misinformed?

Polish Cavalry WW2.

World War II started on September 1, 1939, at 4.40 am. The German Airforce, Luftwaffe, attacked the city of Wieluń, southwest of Warsaw, Poland. Five minutes later the German Battleship, Schleswig-Holstein, started firing at Westerplatte in Gdansk. Immediately after that, the Germans initiated a full-scale invasion. 1,5 million soldiers matched across the border together with 2859 tanks, 1107 airplanes, and 5805 artillery pieces. 

The Polish had a reasonably big army of 700.000 men. But just like every other European country in the late 30s, they were poorly equipped. Europe was not prepared for the German aggression in 1939. As an example, the US army could mobilize 187.000 men at the beginning of the war.

Still, the Polish army inflicted strategic losses on the German army. And they had anti-tank guns that could penetrate the armor of the lightweight German Panzer tanks. The Polish airforce, though out of date, and outnumbered, still managed to add large losses to the Luftwaffe.

As if fighting the German Wehrmacht wasn’t enough…

When the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, on September 17, the battle was definitely lost. The Polish commander Edward Rydz-Igmigły ordered his troops to not fight the Soviets but to retreat to Hungary and Romania. The day after the Government left the country. The resistance continued though, and it took the Germans considerable force to defeat the defenses of Warsaw. The German-Polish war didn’t end until October 5, after the battle of Kock. 

Poland was attacked on both sides by powerful neighbors. Then they were betrayed by the allied forces in Europe who had promised to assist them if Germany would attack. Great Britain and France did not honor that commitment.

Krojanty Cavalry charge

On the first day of the war, September 1, outside the village of Krojanty southwest of Gdansk, the 18th regiment of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade spotted a battalion of german foot-soldiers. The Polish commander, Colonel Kazimierz Mastalerz, decided to charge the Germans with a surprise attack.

At 19 pm, Squadron-commander Eugeniusz Świeściak led two cavalry squadrons, about 250 soldiers, in an attack with a saber charge. The attack was successful and the Germans were overrun and defeated. 

Immediately after that, a German motorized infantry unit closed in from the nearby road and attacked the Poles. These were not Tanks but heavy machine gun vehicles, and they swiftly changed the outcome. 

The Poles were exposed and tried to take refuge behind a nearby small hill. About one-third of the Polish soldiers died, including the two commanders.

How it became a news story all over the world.

Later German correspondents together with two Italian journalists arrived. At that point, German Panzer Tanks were on site and the journalists got the impression that the Polish cavalry had charged against the tanks. One of them, Indro Montanelli, wrote an article describing the heroic Polish horse-riders attacking the impenetrable German tanks with sabers. The story, with the photos of the dead soldiers, horses, sabers, and tank tracks was frequently used in German and Soviet propaganda.  

This myth about the Polish cavalry attacking German tanks lingered on and, incredible as it may seem, is still told today in all sorts of literature in various parts of the world.

The truth is that the Polish army took the very first blow alone, and they had to single-handedly fight both Germany and the Soviet Union without any help from anybody. The exiled Polish army took part in the defense of France, the battle of Britain and the battle of the Atlantic, the invasion of Italy, and the counter-offensive in Normandie, Operation Overlord. In Poland, the Polish put up resistance during the full duration of the war and thus pinning down a significant amount of german soldiers that could have been used elsewhere. 

Ben MacIntyre, Historian, and correspondent for The Times: 

“The Polish contribution to Allied victory in the Second World War was extraordinary, perhaps even decisive, but for many years it was disgracefully played down, obscured by the politics of the Cold War.”

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Sources:

• War history online
• FP / No, Polish Cavalry Never Attacked Nazi Tanks…
• Wikipedia / Charge at Krojanty

The Marshall Plan was an economical aid from the US to help rebuild Europe after World War II. But was it aimed at Germany?

World War II

What was the Marshall Plan for?

After the second world war, most of Europe lay in ruins. Much of the industrial capacity was destroyed, and the factories that still stood up often had turned to produce material for the military. The infrastructure; streets, bridges, and railroads weren’t practicable in many places or simply didn’t exist anymore. In Germany, the destruction was bigger than elsewhere, for obvious reasons. 

To all this came a desperate lack of men, especially in Germany. Calculating casualty is a difficult task, but some historians estimate that Germany lost 40 – 50% of its male population in deaths and prisoners of war. These men were in productive age, and the ones left behind, still living were mostly youngsters and elderly. 

All this together made the post-war recovery slower and weaker in Germany than in other European countries. In the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, by the end of 1947 production had already been restored to pre-war levels. Italy and Belgium reached pre-war levels by the end of 1948, while Germany had to wait until the end of 1949. 

The Marshall Plan was an American initiative for foreign aid to Western Europe. 

On the planning- and negotiation stage, it was supposed to be offered also to the Soviet Union, Poland, Tchekoslovakia, and other east-European countries, but after uncertainty about how much influence the US would gain over east-Europe by financially assisting them, the Soviets refused and convinced their allies to refuse as well. The Soviet Union then introduced the Molotov plan as compensation to help out their allies.  

The United States transferred over $12 billion in economic recovery programs to Western European economies. The sum equals around $125 billion in today’s value. The aim was to promote economic recovery programs in Western European economies. It operated for four years beginning on April 3, 1948.

But who was George Marshall?

George Marshall was the Army Chief of Staff of the USA from 1939 to 1945. He was the main organizer of Operation Overlord; the embarking in Normandie and the counter-offensive of the allied forces against Germany. When Marshall returned to the U.S.after the war, President Truman appointed him Secretary of State. As such he became essential for the restoration of Europe, as the suffering countries depended much on aid from allies outside of Europe. And the only powerful ally that still had its economy and industrial capacity city in reasonable order, was the USA. George C. Marshall Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

But, the money went mostly to Germany, right?

Actually, it didn’t. The beneficiaries were all of the west-European countries. Even Sweden and Switzerland, which had most of their industry intact, were aided. 

Here’s a list of the countries and how much they got: 

As you can see, the biggest payout went to the United Kingdom, then to France with Germany in third place. Obviously, Germany was in great need and the reasons for holding back on the country could be found in a general caution, especially from France and other European allies, in German industrial capacity and if it once again possibly could result in a military build-up.

The “level of industry” plan, signed by the Allies in 1946 put a cap on German steel production to 25% of pre-war production, on Car production to 10% of the pre-war levels, and all other heavy industry to 50% of pre-war capacity. 

So did the Marchall plan work?

It’s not easy to say what would have happened if it hadn’t been implemented. One strong reason why the USA wanted to aid their European allies, was the influence of the, geographically close by, Soviet Union. The Marshall plan was something of a shield against the communist threat, and this could be one motive why the republican controlled Congress finally voted in favor. From this point of view, it definitely worked.

Europe as a whole had incredible growth in the 50s and the 60s. There are many reasons for this, and the Marshall plan could at least have been one contributing factor. It was a crucial help in a very dark period and without it, people in many countries would have had a much harder time at the beginning of the post-war era. 

Did it help Germany?

Many think that the major motive behind the plan was to rebuild Germany specifically and make Germany the engine that could pull the whole continent towards the post-war industrial boom. The fact is, though, that Germany was strongly penalized for mainly two reasons, 

1. The Germans were responsible for the destruction of half the world, they had killed 6 million Jews as well as Roma, Homosexuals, Communists, POWs, and more or less anyone who had a different idea about the German Reign, than them.   
2. To the victors, Germany was a deadly threat. It had more or less single-handedly started and fought two world wars in a little more than 20 years, and it was of great importance that it would not happen again. 

Germany got less aid per capita than other European countries. In addition, the Allies continued the exploitation of German production capacity and intellectual property during the years following the end of the war. The German exportation was in the hands of the allies, and they promoted a complete change in direction from heavy industry to light industry and agriculture. The occupying countries gained huge trading advantages by selling underpriced German merchandise to themselves. 

In 1948, Germany replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark. This reform halted rampant inflation. Together with tax reforms that same year, the German economy finally started to take off. 

All remaining restrictions were only lifted when the Allied occupation of West Germany ended on May 5, 1955.

Conclusion

All this boils down to the Marshall plan as an important step to rebuild Europe. But it was not aimed at Germany. Instead, the Allied victory penalized Germany in many ways during the years immediately after the war, and the part of the Marshall plan that went to Germany was inferior to that of the other countries. The reasons for the economical boom of West Germany have to be found elsewhere.  

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sources

• Marshall Plan / Wikipedia
• The Marshall Plan / History
• Planet Wissen / Nachkriegszeit

The biggest empire ever.

The Achaemenid, or Persian Empire, was the biggest empire in history in terms of population at its time. It stretched across three continents and included territories in Asia, Africa, and Europe. At its peak, the Achaemenid Empire ruled over 44% of the world’s population, making it the largest empire ever to exist.

The biggest empire ever.

Human civilization arose in the Euphrat/Tigris valley. These two rivers along with a stable and healthy sun made the territory ideal for agriculture. Some of the earliest state structures and some of the biggest empires in history are from this region… Sumer, the Assyrians, the Babylonians. This was the center of the universe 5000 years ago.  

The Persians were an ancient people that migrated into the Mesopotamian region around 1000 BC, probably from the north through Kaukasus, but we do not know for certain. They formed a civilization in a part of what is today’s Iran but soon extended their borders. At the beginning of the first millennia BC, the dominant power in the region was the Assyrians. When they were defeated in 609 BC, they left space and possibilities for others to take their place. After a few decades of Median domination, in 550 BC, the Persian King Cyrus defeated them and started a territorial expansion that had, until then, never been seen. 

When the Persians ruled the world.

The biggest Empire ever was the Achaemenid/Persian Empire under the rule of King Darius (550–486). It included territories of modern-day Iran, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, much of the Black Sea coastal regions, northeastern Greece and southern Bulgaria, northern Greece and North Macedonia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya, Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia, parts of the United Arab Emirates and Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and much of Central Asia. It was huge.

But how do you measure greatness? 

Talking about countries and empires, there could be many ways to define what’s the greatest. The two most common are: Biggest in population, and biggest as surface. Then there’s the question of relativity… You could count in absolute numbers or you could put the numbers in context. 

As an example. The roman empire was in its time a world superpower. The Romans ruled everything, and outside of their hemisphere, there were only the outskirts, the periphery, and barbarians… At least from a European/African perspective. It held somewhere between ¼ and ⅙ of the world’s population. Still, the Roman population at its peak was smaller than that of today’s Italy.

Measuring the total population of an empire doesn’t permit a comparison between ages, between now and then, but if you put the numbers in relation to the total number of people who lived in the world at that time. In that case, the Achaemenid- or Persian Empire was the biggest Empire that ever existed.

King Darius the great

At its peak, under King Darius, it had a population of about 50 million. It was actually smaller than the Roman Empire in absolute figures. And it was even smaller than today’s Iran. But since the total world population in 500 BC was about 113 million, 50 million made up 44% of them. That is by far the highest percentage of all the world’s people that any country or empire has ever had. 

If we ask which was the biggest Empire ever, but define big in other ways, we get other results:

• The biggest Empire ever as the total surface was the British Empire.
• The biggest Empire ever as the total contiguous surface was the Mongol Empire.
• The biggest Empire ever in the total population is the People’s Republic of China.

So what happened to the Persians?

A Macedonian general by the name of Alexander the Great, maybe the greatest military strategist that ever lived, conquered the biggest empire in history in 330 BC. He then never returned to Greece but stayed as the ruler of the Persians until his death in 323 BC. The once so glorious empire was then divided among his generals, his half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus, and those who promoted Alexander’s unborn child to become the next heir. Wars between the various factions emerged and so, the Achaemenid central power was shattered, and the biggest empire the world has ever seen was no more.

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Sources:

• Achaemenid Empire / Wikipedia
• Guinness world records

Was King Richard III of England a limping hunchback?

King Richard III of England, of the house of York, was born on October 2, 1452, and died on August 22, 1485. He was the Regent from 1483 till 1485, Duke of Gloucester, and the last Yorkist king in England. From his death, the Tudors held the crown until the death of Queen Elisabeth I in 1603.

Richard’s reign could have been much more insignificant from a historical point of view if it hadn’t been for the play by William Shakespeare. The famous artist probably wrote his masterpiece somewhere around 1592 or 1593, more than a hundred years after the death of the King.

In his play, Shakespeare describes Richard as a hunchback with a limp and a withered arm. And from this point on, the King has always been described as someone with a deformed stature, small, and maybe with difficulty moving.

Shakespeare probably based his play on other literature from the 16th century, f.ex. History of King Richard III by Thomas More, Chronicles of England, Scottland, and Ireland by Raphael Holinshed, and others. 

What all these books have in common is that they are all very pro-Tudor. Shakespeare was depending on patronage, and one of his patrons was Ferdinando Stanley, also known as Lord Strange. Ferdinando was a direct descendant of Thomas Stanley, who played an important role in defeating Richard and putting the crown on Henry VII’s head. Apart from Shakespears obvious reasons to portray Richard in a way that pleased his employer, the general rule of history is that it is written by the winners, not by the losers. 

Richard III of England died in the battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death signified the end of the Wars of the Roses and marked the start of the Tudor age. He was also the last English King to die in battle in England. His successor was his opponent, Henry VII Tudor.

… But was he a hunchback or not?

In 2012 during excavations under a parking lot in Leicester, England, a skeleton was found that later was confirmed through DNA-tests to be that of the King. The curve of the KIng’s spine was immediately obvious to the researchers. It had a right-sided, spiral-shaped curve that peaked at thoracic vertebrae 8 and 9. The curve was well balanced, meaning that it got back in line by the time it hit his pelvis. As a result, his hips were even, and he should have had no problems breathing or moving.

He would have been of average length by that time, 5 feet, 8 inches (1.7 meters), but the curved spine would have taken a few inches off, thus making him shorter than average, but not much so. 

He would also have had his shoulders uneven so that his right scapula was slightly higher than the left one. The trunk was short in comparison to the length of his legs. 

The King probably didn’t have a limp and didn’t have a withered arm. The only thing you would have noticed was the uneven shoulder part, as the shorter trunk could easily have been disguised by clothing style and good tailors. He shouldn’t have been significantly obstructed in living an active life, something his participation in battles, as well as what we know about his biography, suggests.  

For once, the great Maestro, William Shakespear was completely wrong. Still, the play is a masterpiece, and it doesn’t necessarily picture the last York-King, but any political predator ready to sacrifice anything for his personal winning. It’s an important play today more than ever.

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Sources:

• Richard III / Wikipedia
• Richard III was no hunchback after all / Reuters