Category Archives: Inter-war years

King George V

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Sinead Fitzgibbon summarises the life of Britain’s King George V, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.

Grandson of Great Britain’s Queen Victoria and second son of Edward VII, Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert was born on 3 June 1865.

At the age of 18, George entered the Royal Navy, an occupation he retained until the unexpected death of his elder brother, Albert, from pneumonia in 1892.  With Albert’s passing, George became second-in-line to the throne.

In 1893, George became engaged to his dead brother’s fiancée, Mary of Teck. The couple would go on to have six children.

Following Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, the throne passed to George’s father, Edward VII. However, Edward’s reign was not destined to be a long one – he died just nine years after becoming king, and the Crown passed to George V.

‘The King is a very jolly chap’

George, essentially a shy man, preferred shooting and stamp collecting than being in the company of politicians or intellectuals. Nor were politicians and intellectuals terribly impressed by the new king – during his coronation in 1911, the English writer and caricaturist, Max Beerbohm, dismissed George V as ‘such a piteous, good, feeble, heroic little figure’. And David Lloyd George, at the time the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on first meeting the king, said, ‘The King is a very jolly chap… thank God there is not much in his head’.

The House of Windsor

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George Mallory – death on Mount Everest

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Altitude Films presents THE WILDEST DREAM: CONQUEST OF EVEREST. This stunning feature documentary directed by Emmy® award winning filmmaker Anthony Geffen retraces British explorer George Mallory’s final attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1924 and become the first person to conquer the world’s highest peak.

Dressed in gabardine and wearing hobnailed boots, Mallory risked everything in pursuit of his dream. He was last seen alive just 800 feet below the mountain’s peak, before the clouds closed in and he disappeared into legend. Mallory’s death stunned the world. In 1999, renowned mountaineer Conrad Anker discovered Mallory’s frozen body high in the mountain’s “death zone” and his life became intertwined with Mallory’s story. Remarkably, all Mallory’s belongings were found intact on his body. The only thing missing was a photograph of his wife, Ruth, which Mallory had promised to place on the summit if he succeeded. Haunted by the story, Anker returned to Everest to solve the enduring mystery surrounding the ill-fated expedition and the disappearance of one of the world’s greatest explorers.

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The Hindenburg Disaster – “Oh, the humanity”

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On 6 May 1937, took place a tragedy, caught on film, that haunted the American consciousness for decades.

Built in Germany in 1935 the 800-foot long Zeppelin airship, the Hindenburg, was considered the height of sophisticated travel. It may only have travelled at 80 mph but it was akin to being on a luxury liner and had already made hundreds of journeys across the Atlantic from Germany to Brazil.

It was named after the last president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, who had appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933 and who died in August 1934.

The Hindenburg‘s last journey

On its last, fateful journey, the Hindenburg had departed from Frankfurt on May 3, 1937,and was due to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the morning of May 6. But poor weather had delayed its landing by about twelve hours. The captain, Max Pruss, kept his passengers entertained by flying over New York City. The Hindenburg had a capacity for about 70 passengers but on this trip there were only 36 passengers plus 61 crew.

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The Rape of Nanking – a summary

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On this day, December 13, in 1937, saw the start of one of the most horrific acts of brutality of the Second World War, the Rape of Nanking.

In Britain or the US we may consider the war to have started in 1939 or 1941, but many modern historians consider this to be too Eurocentric and that the war had really started in 1937 with the outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan.

Manchuria

Six years earlier, in 1931, Japan had invaded Manchuria, brushing aside Chinese resistance, and setting it up as an independent state, naming it Manchukuo. Only Germany and Italy formally recognised this enclave of Japan on Chinese soil and despite the incursion war was averted. China appealed to the League of Nations who duly condemned the Japanese aggression but did nothing.

China at the time was embroiled in a protracted civil war between Mao Zedong’s communists and the nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek. Then, in July 1937, a skirmish between the Chinese and Japanese took place near Beijing which soon escalated into full-scale war. The Japanese advance was rapid – taking Beijing, Shanghai and the capital, Nanking (or Nanjing), and forcing Chiang Kai-shek out of the city and a thousand miles up the river Yangzi.

The Rape of Nanking

The 150,000 Japanese soldiers who took Nanking were given licence to murder and rape on a massive scale. Marauding through the streets they killed the men and raped the women and children for sport. “When we were bored,” testified one Japanese soldier years later, “we had some fun killing Chinese. Buried them alive or pushed them into a fire or kill by other cruel means.” “We stabbed and killed them,” said another, “like potatoes in a skewer. I thought then, it’s been only one month since I left home… and 30 days later I was killing people without remorse.”

Figures vary but over a period of six weeks up to 300,000 Chinese had been murdered. The atrocity earned Japan worldwide condemnation which the Japanese government shrugged off in a such is war attitude.

United Front

The Chinese communists and nationalists gave up their war to join forces and formed the ‘United Front’ to defeat the Japanese. The Chinese were to suffer 15 million deaths up to the Japanese surrender in August 1945, almost 30% of global fatalities throughout the war. The huge contribution to the American war effort is often overlooked – the Chinese kept a large part of the Japanese army busy, men that could have been deployed in the Pacific War against the US.

With Japan’s surrender, the United Front, always a fragile being, collapsed entirely and the civil war resumed with the eventual victory, in 1949, of the communists.

There is today a memorial museum in the city of Nanking commemorating the tragic, barbaric events of 1937. Details can be found on the website: http://www.nj1937.org/english/default.asp

Rupert Colley
Read more about the war in World War Two In An Hour.

The March On Rome

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The March on Rome was the grand name given to the events that led to Mussolini’s seizure of power this day, 28 October, in 1922.

The Italian King

The threat of civil war in Italy loomed large and Mussolini and his fascist party decided to stage a coup despite knowing they were no match for the Italian army. Indeed, Luigi Facta, the Italian Prime Minister, asked the king, Victor Emanuel III, to declare a state of martial law and to allow the use of the army to squash Mussolini and his followers. The king initially agreed and then, fearing that such an action would spark a civil war, changed his mind. Appalled, Facta resigned.

20,000 fascists began the March On Rome but stopped 30 kilometres north of the capital where half of them promptly returned home. Mussolini himself joined the march at various stages to have his photograph taken and be seen as marching shoulder-to-should with his men. The photos show Mussolini with his jaw jutting, his chest inflated and his steely eyes fixed on his destiny. But there was only so much marching Mussolini wanted to do and he arrived in the capital by express train.

The King and His New Prime Minister

The king believed it was better to have Mussolini within his government than causing unrest from the outside so he offered the fascist leader a role in his government. But Mussolini refused everything but the top job. The bluff worked, and on 28 October 1922, the king duly appointed Mussolini Prime Minister.

The following day the march did take place but the victory had already been won, so this was more of a celebratory stroll than a revolutionary march.

The Murder of a Socialist

Eighteen months later, Mussolini’s government won convincingly at the polls. When the socialist politician, Giacomo Matteotti, spoke out against the election, claiming that fraud and intimidation had won it for the fascists, he paid for his outspokenness with his life. Matteotti’s murder caused a national outcry but there was no proof of Mussolini’s involvement and the king stood by him. In disgust, politicians of all persuasions withdrew from parliament, which allowed Mussolini opportunity to consolidate his power and form his dictatorship.

Rupert Colley
See also Mussolini’s execution

The Munich Agreement: Peace For Our Time

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The nation of Czechoslovakia, created in 1919, had amongst its diverse ethnic groups 3.5 million Germans living on the Czech-German border, the Sudetenland. When the Czechoslovakian president, Eduard Benes, visited Hitler in Germany he was subjected to one of Hitler’s harangues about oppression and the Sudeten German’s right to self-determination. Hitler wanted to use the Sudetenland as a pretext to invade Czechoslovakia despite his generals cautioning him against the idea.

Czechoslovakia: the “last major problem”

On September 15, 1938, Neville Chamberlain (pictured), Britain’s Prime Minister since May 1937, visited Hitler at his home in Berchtesgaden and listened as Hitler proclaimed that Czechoslovakia was the “last major problem to be solved”. Despite his generals’ advice and nervousness, Hitler threatened war unless the Czech and British governments accepted his demands that the Sudetenland be peacefully incorporated into the Reich.

Chamberlain was not unsympathetic. Like many British politicians before him, he felt that the post-WWI treaty signed at Versailles had been unnecessarily unjust against Germany and the French’s determination to impose the Treaty to the letter overly harsh. Furthermore, a strong Germany, the British felt, would act as a useful buffer against the Soviet Union. Therefore, Chamberlain listened to Hitler and purposefully pursued a policy of appeasement.

When Chamberlain relayed Hitler’s demands to Benes, the Czechoslovakian president knew he had no choice. Neither Britain nor France would come to his rescue, despite their alliances, and his country could not face going to war single-handedly against the might of Germany. Reluctantly, Benes agreed to Hitler’s demands.

Chamberlain returned to Hitler, satisfied that, through his diplomacy, he had averted a war. But Hitler was now demanding more, namely the right to the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.

Chamberlain was again prepared to accept these new demands but his government was not. A stalemate had been reached. Europe seemed on the brink of war until the unlikely figure of Mussolini stepped in as mediator and suggested a meeting between himself, Hitler, Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier. The Czechoslovakian government was not invited.

The Munich Agreement

The four powers met for the one day in Munich on September 29, 1938. Germany, it was agreed, could have the Sudetenland in return for a guarantee that Hitler would make no further territorial demands – which would secure the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler agreed. Hitler and Chamberlain also signed a declaration of Anglo-German friendship, as “symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”

“Peace For Our Time”

Benes protested but was firmly reminded that no one would go to war over Czechoslovakia. The triumphant Chamberlain, meanwhile, returned to Britain, waving the infamous piece of paper in his hand, declaring that the Munich Agreement had guaranteed “peace for our time.” Two days after the conference, the German army marched into the Sudetenland.

Hitler however was far from satisfied with the outcome of Munich: “That senile old rascal Chamberlain,” he complained, “has ruined my entry into Prague.” But six months later Prague would be his and the calamitous conflagration of the Second World War drew a significant step nearer.

Rupert Colley
Read more about the coming of war in Nazi Germany In An Hour

The League of Nations – toothless?

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Following the end of the First World War US President, Woodrow Wilson, proposed a programme of Fourteen Points to be presented at the Paris Peace Conference. The fourteenth point suggested the formation of an international body to help maintain peace and arbitrate over disputes. The exact wording was as follows:

‘A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.’

Endorsed by the peace conference, the League of Nations was founded on 28 June 1919, with 44 founding members, and held its first meeting in Paris on 16 January 1920. Its HQ, however, was in Geneva and a British diplomat, Sir Eric Drummond, its first (of three) Secretary-General.

Member states came and went but 63 nations belonged to the league at one time or another, the most notable exception being the US. In 1919, an increasingly isolationist US refused to ratify it and never joined as a member despite the efforts of Woodrow Wilson. For a brief five months period (September 1934 to February 1935) there were a record 58 members.

Dogged

However the League was dogged almost from the start.

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