Category Archives: Inter-war years

The Amritsar Massacre – a summary

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In February 2013, David Cameron, UK prime minister, paid his respects at the scene of the 1919 Amritsar massacre, one of the bloodiest massacres in British history. Rupert Colley offers a summary of the occasion:

On Sunday 13 April 1919, the occupants of the city of Amritsar, in the Punjab, were preparing to celebrate the Sikh New Year. Three days previously, six Britons had been indiscriminately killed by an Indian mob and the British, fearful of further violence during such a potentially volatile occasion, sent in a man ‘not afraid to act.’ That man was 54-year-old Reginald Dyer, and act he did.

Reginald DyerDyer (pictured) issued a proclamation banning any gatherings of four or more men and imposing an eight o’clock curfew. Those failing to comply risked being shot. Yet word reached Dyer that a gathering of about 5,000 men, women and children (Dyer’s estimate) had converged in a square at Jallianwala Bagh for a public meeting. The square was accessible only via a narrow gateway and otherwise was surrounded by walls. Dyer approached with a unit of about 90 soldiers, mainly Indians and Gurkhas. Although the gathering was unarmed and, it seemed, peaceful, Dyer feared that his small contingent of men would, if things got out of hand, soon be overwhelmed. Deciding attack was the best form of defence, he ordered, without warning, his men to open fire. Bedlam ensued.

With the only entrance blocked, there was no escape from the withering fire that lasted an entire quarter of an hour. People hid behind bodies, others were killed in the circling stampede. Dyer only ordered a stop when he feared his men would run out of ammunition. Without sanctioning any medical aid, Dyer ordered his men out. 379 were left dead, over 1,200 wounded. Dyer did not stop there; in the days that followed, Dyer subjected miscreants, as he saw them, to public flogging.

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The Battle of Cable Street – a summary

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The Battle of Cable Street was only a brief moment in the grand scheme of history. It lasted for less than one day, and was not fought by noble, princely leaders on the field of battle, but was instead fought by ordinary people on the streets of East End London. However, it is this which makes the Battle of Cable Street so emotive, and which gives it the power to strike a chord even in the present day.

On Sunday 4th October 1936, when the British Union of Fascists (BUF) tried to march down Cable Street, they met a crowd which had adopted the revolutionary motto ‘they shall not pass’ as their battle cry. The crowd had blocked and barricaded the street. They refused to budge. As a result of their determination, the BUF were forced to call off the march. The day was a victory for all who disagreed with fascist ideology.

This article will examine the background circumstances of the Battle of Cable Street, the events of the day, and the aftermath which followed.

The Rise of the BUF

While the 1920s had, on the whole, been a period of excitement and prosperity, the 1930s were the reverse. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 had caused stock markets to crash around the world. Soon after, both America and Europe were in the grip of the Great Depression.

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Amelia Earhart – the Lost Aviatrix

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On 2 July 1937, American aviatrix Amelia Earhart departed from Lae, New Guinea on the penultimate leg of her record-breaking attempt to fly around the globe equatorially. Her next destination was Howland Island, a strip of land in the Pacific Ocean less than two miles long, where she would refuel her Lockheed Electra airplane. Amelia never arrived at Howland. The US Navy mounted a massive search and rescue operation, but neither Amelia nor her plane was ever found. Seventy-five years after she disappeared, her final fate remains one of the greatest historical mysteries of the last century.

Learning to Fly

By the time of her world flight attempt, Amelia Earhart was a prominent name in aviation circles and one of America’s most famous women. Born in Kansas in 1897, she first took to the air as a passenger for ten minutes in 1920, a trip that cost her father Edwin ten dollars. This experience prompted Amelia to save money for flying lessons, which she began under the tutelage of Anita Snook in December 1920.

She purchased her first plane, nicknamed ‘the Canary’ in July 1921 and became only the sixteenth woman to be granted a pilot’s licence. The Canary was later sold due to financial difficulties, but Amelia continued to pursue flying opportunities, undertaking numerous part-time jobs to fund her passion. Aviation was neither a reliable nor viable career path, however, and eventually Amelia settled as a social worker in Boston, still taking to the air whenever time and money allowed and becoming a well-known figure around the local air fields.

Putnam and Publicity

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The Bombardment of the Four Courts

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It was on 28 June 1922 that the newly formed army of the Irish Free State opened cannon fire upon the Four Courts, a large neoclassical building dominating the quayside in central Dublin. Their aim? To dislodge former colleagues from the Irish Republican Army who had occupied the building. The attack on the Four Courts was the beginning of the Irish Civil War.

Why did former comrades turn on each other? The answer can be found in divisions over the agreement that ended the Irish War of Independence — the guerilla war that the Irish Republican Army had been fighting against the British authorities in Ireland since 1919. It was a bloody and brutal conflict, marked by many atrocities and civilian casualties, but one which had brought about no clear resolution. A truce was agreed in July 1921 and a delegation from Sinn Féin (the Irish republican party that had won the overwhelming number of Irish seats in the 1918 general election) was sent to London to negotiate with the British government.

Anglo-Irish Treaty

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Edward VIII – a brief summary

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Prince Edward was the eldest child of King George V and his wife, Queen Mary of Teck.  Born on 23 June 1894 at White Lodge in Richmond Park, Surrey, he was baptized three weeks later, on 16 July, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  His given names were Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David – but he was known to his family simply as ‘David’.

Edward was educated at home until he was 13, and then spent two years at Osborne Naval College on the Isle of Wight, before progressing to Dartmouth Naval College.  He did not, however, complete his two-year course at Dartmouth – he left in 1910 when he became Prince of Wales after his father’s ascension to the throne (although his official investiture did not take place on 13 July 1911).   Nonetheless, he did serve as a staff officer in the Grenadier Guards during World War I.

As Prince of Wales (pictured in 1919), he enjoyed widespread popularity, thanks in large part to his numerous visits to economically deprived areas of the country and his successful trips overseas.  He was also the first in a long line of royals to become a qualified pilot.

However, David had little patience for protocol and the formality of royal occasions greatly bored him, a fact which greatly upset his father.

Edward and Mrs Simpson

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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.

George Mallory was obsessed with becoming the first person to conquer the untouched Mount Everest.

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.

Hindenburg disasterBuilt 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.

Rupert Colley’s novella, My Brother the Enemy, set during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, is now available.

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 on 28 October 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-shoulder 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, and Mussolini the Socialist.