Operation Baytown
Operation Baytown was an Allied amphibious landing on the mainland of Italy that took place on 3 September 1943, part of the Allied invasion of Italy, itself part of the Italian Campaign, during the Second World War. The attack was made by Lieutenant-General Miles C. Dempsey's British XIII Corps, which had under command the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the British 5th Infantry Division. XIII Corps was part of the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery. XIII Corps crossed the Straits of Messina from Sicily to Reggio di Calabria, covered by a heavy artillery barrage from Sicily and air cover from the Desert Air Force operating from Sicilian airfields; the intent was to tie down German forces in the area and gain an Allied foothold at the'toe' of Italy. Montgomery had objected to Baytown as ineffective, preferring to prioritise Operation Avalanche, but followed orders and prepared to carry it out anyway. However, when essential landing craft and naval resources were diverted to Avalanche he complained again.
The German commander, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, his staff did not believe the Calabria landing was the main Allied attack, which they expected at Salerno, or north of Naples, or near Rome. He therefore ordered General der Panzertruppe Traugott Herr's LXXVI Panzer Corps, part of the German 10th Army under Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff to pull back from engagement with the Eighth Army and delay them by the demolition of bridges and other infrastructure. A single German regiment was left to defend 17 miles of coast. Montgomery's objections were proved correct: German troops refused battle and the Eighth Army tied down none of them; the main obstacle to the Allied advance was German demolitions. Opposition to the landings was light, because the few German troops in the area withdrew northward. Italian troops on the coast, belonging to the coastal divisions, were poorly equipped, demoralized by the political situation and the massive Allied bombardment. An exception was the 184th Airborne Division Nembo, which provided more determined resistance on the Aspromonte massif, but was overcome on 8 September 1943 Operation Baytown was followed by Operation Slapstick, with the British 1st Airborne Division, Operation Avalanche, the main landings at Salerno by elements of Lieutenant General Mark Clark's U.
S. Fifth Army. Both operations took place on 9 September, following the Italian surrender the day before; the surrender had been agreed on 3 September, but was not publicly announced until 8 September, had no direct effect on Baytown. Allied invasion of Italy order of battle Anon, Lewisham Gunners: A Centenary History of 291st Field Regiment R. A. 2nd Kent R. G. A. Chatham: W & J Mackay, 1962. Brig C. J. C. Molony, History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series: The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol V: The Campaign in Sicily 1943 and the Campaign in Italy 3rd September 1943 to 31st March 1944, London: HMSO, 1973/Uckfield, Naval & Military Press, 2004, ISBN 1-845740-69-6; the Memoirs of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, London: Collins, 1958. Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and Second World War
Italian Civil War
The Italian Civil War is the period between September 8, 1943, May 2, 1945 in which the Italian Resistance and the Italian Co-Belligerent Army joined the allies fighting Axis forces including continuing Italian Fascist Italian Social Republic. Claudio Pavone's book Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza, published in 1991, led the term Italian Civil War to become a widespread term used in Italian and international historiography. Although the term had been used before, in the early 1990s it became accepted; the confrontations between the factions resulted in the death of many civilians. During the Italian Campaign, partisans were supplied by the Western Allies with small arms and explosives. Allied forces and partisans cooperated on military missions, parachuting or landing personnel behind enemy lines including Italian–American members of OSS. Other operations were carried out by secret service personnel. Where possible, both sides avoided situations in which Italian units of opposite fronts were involved in combat episodes.
In rare cases, clashes between Italians involved fascists of various armed formations. The first groups of partisans were formed in Bosco Martese. Other groups composed of Slavic and communist elements sprang up in Venezia Giulia. Others grew around Allied Yugoslav and Soviet prisoners of war, released or escaped from captivity following the events of September 8; these first organized units soon dissolved because of the rapid German reaction. In Boves, the Nazis committed their first massacre on Italian territory. On September 8, hours after the radio communication of the armistice, several antifascist organizations converged on Rome, they were Ivanoe Bonomi and Amendola, De Gasperi, La Malfa and Fenoaltea and Romita, Casati. They formed the first Committee of National Liberation. Bonomi took over the presidency; the Italian Communist Party was anxious to take the initiative without waiting for the Allies:...è necessario agire subito ed il più ampiamente e decisamente possibile perché solo nella misura in cui il popolo italiano concorrerà attivamente alla cacciata dei tedeschi dall'Italia, alla sconfitta del nazismo e del fascismo, potrà veramente conquistarsi l'indipendenza e la libertà.
Noi non possiamo e non dobbiamo attenderci passivamente la libertà dagli angloamericani. - "... It's necessary to act and as and decisively as possible, because only if the Italian People contribute to push out Germans from Italy and to defeat Nazism and Fascism, it will be able to get independence and freedom. We can not and must not passively expect freedom from the British and the Americans." The Allies did not believe in the guerillas' effectiveness, so General Alexander postponed their attacks against the Nazis. On 16 October the CLN issued its first important political and operational press release, which rejected the calls for reconciliation launched by Republican leaders. CLN Milan asked "the Italian people to fight against the German invaders and against their fascists lackeys". In late November, the Communists established task forces called Distaccamenti d'assalto Garibaldi which would become brigades and divisions whose leadership was entrusted to Luigi Longo, under the political direction of Pietro Secchia and Giancarlo Pajetta, Chief of Staff.
The first operational order dated 25 November ordered the partisans to: attack and annihilate in every way officers, material, deposits of Hitler's armed forces. Shortly after the Armistice, the Italian Communist Party, the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica or GAP, established small cells whose main purpose was to unleash urban terror through bomb attacks against fascists and their supporters, they operated independently in case of betrayal of individual elements. The success of these attacks led the German and Italian police to believe they were composed of foreign intelligence agents. A public announcement from the PCI in September 1943 stated: To the tyranny of Nazism, that claims to reduce to slavery through violence and terror, we must respond with violence and terror; the GAP's mission was claimed to be delivering "justice" to Nazi tyranny and terror, with emphasis on the selection of targets: "the official, hierarchical collaborators, agents hired to denounce men of the Resistance and Jews, the Nazi police informants and law enforcement organizations of CSR", thus differentiating it from the Nazi terror.
However, partisan memoirs discussed the "elimination of enemies heinous", such as torturers and provocateurs. Some orders from branch command partisans insisted on protecting the innocent, instead of providing lists of categories to be hit as individuals deserving of punishment. Part of the Italian press during the war agreed that murders were carried out of most moderate Republican fascists, willing to compromise and negotiate, such as Aldo Resega, Igino Ghisellini, Eugenio Facchini and the philosopher Giovanni Gentile. Women participated in the resistance procuring supplies and medicines, anti-fascist propaganda, maintenance of communications, partisan relays, participated in strikes and demonstrations against fas
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy was a state which existed from 1861—when King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy—until 1946—when civil discontent led a constitutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italian Republic. The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866 and received the region of Veneto following their victory. Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, thereby ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, following strong disagreements with France about the respective colonial expansions; however if relations with Berlin became friendly, the alliance with Vienna remained purely formal as the Italians were keen to acquire Trentino and Trieste, corners of Austria-Hungary populated by Italians.
So in 1915, Italy accepted the British invitation to join the Allied Powers, as the western powers promised territorial compensation for participation, more generous than Vienna's offer in exchange for Italian neutrality. Victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. "Fascist Italy" is the era of National Fascist Party government from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government. The fascists imposed totalitarian rule and crushed the political and intellectual opposition, while promoting economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church. According to Payne, " Fascist government passed through several distinct phases"; the first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, albeit with a "legally-organized executive dictatorship". Came the second phase, "the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper, from 1925 to 1929"; the third phase, with less activism, was 1929 to 1934.
The fourth phase, 1935–1940, was characterized by an aggressive foreign policy: war against Ethiopia, launched from Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, which resulted in its annexation. The war itself was the fifth phase with its disasters and defeats, while the rump Salò Government under German control was the final stage. Italy was an important member of the Axis powers in World War II, battling on several fronts with initial success. However, after the German-Italian defeat in Africa and Soviet Union and the subsequent Allied landings in Sicily, King Victor Emmanuel III placed Mussolini under arrest, the Fascist Party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders was shut down; the new government signed an armistice on September 1943. German forces occupied northern Italy with Fascists' help, setting up the Italian Social Republic, a collaborationist puppet state still led by Mussolini and his Fascist loyalists; as conseguence, the country descended into civil war, with the Italian Co-belligerent Army and the resistance movement contended the Social Republic's forces and its German allies.
Shortly after the war and the liberation of the country, civil discontent led to the constitutional referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the present-day Italian state; the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which covers present-day Italy and more. The development of the Kingdom's territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870; the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which were annexed in 1919 and remain Italian territories today. The Triple Entente promised to grant to Italy – if the state joined the Allies in World War I – several territories including former Austrian Littoral, western parts of former Duchy of Carniola, Northern Dalmazia and notably Zara and most of the Dalmatian islands, according to the secret London Pact of 1915. After the compromise was nullified under pressure of President Woodrow Wilson with the Treaty of Versailles, Italian claims on Northern Dalmazia were voided.
During World War II, the Kingdom gained additional territory: it gained Corsica and Savoia from France after its surrender in 1940, territory in Slovenia and Dalmazia from Yugoslavia after its breakup in 1941 and Monaco in 1942. After World War II, the borders of present-day Italy were founded and the Kingdom abandoned its land claims; the Italian Empire gained territory until the end of World War II through colonies, military occupations and puppet states. These included Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, Ethiopia, British Somaliland, Tunisia, Kosovo, Montenegro and a 46-hectare concession from China in Tianjin; the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch; the legislative branch was a bicameral Parliament comprising an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdom's constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the former governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, by this time it was impossible for a king to appoint a government of his ow
Bombing of the Vatican
Bombing of Vatican City occurred twice during World War II. The first occasion was on the evening of 5 November 1943, when a plane dropped bombs on the area south-west of Saint Peter's Basilica, causing considerable damage but no casualties; the second bombing, which affected only the outer margin of the city, was at about the same hour on 1 March 1944, caused the death of one person and the injury of another. Vatican City was neutral throughout the war. Both Allied and Axis aircraft crews were commanded to respect its neutrality when bombing Rome. On 25 July 1943, after Allied forces had conquered the Italian possessions in Africa and had taken Sicily, the Fascist Grand Council removed Benito Mussolini from power; the Kingdom of Italy at first remained an ally of Nazi Germany, but in less than two months secured an armistice with the Allies, signed on 3 September and announced on 8 September. Germany, which had discovered what was afoot intervened and took military control of most of Italy, including Rome, freed Mussolini and brought him to the German-occupied area to establish a puppet regime known as the Italian Social Republic.
Both bombings occurred. An undated eyewitness account written by Monsignor Domenico Tardini in 1944 states: The bombing of the Vatican occurred on 5 November 1943 at 20:10, it was a clear and cloudless evening. The moon made visibility excellent. For over half an hour an aeroplane was heard circling insistently over Rome and the Vatican. At about 8:10, while an Allied squadron passed over the Vatican, the aeroplane that until had been circling over Rome dropped four bombs and flew away; the bombs fell in the Vatican Gardens: the first near the receiving Radio, another near the Government building, a third on the mosaics workshop, the fourth near the building of the Cardinal Archpriest. If they had fallen a few metres off, they would have hit the Radio, the Government building, that of the Tribunals, that of the Archpriest, they caused considerable damage. There were no human casualties; the future Cardinal continued: General opinion, general indignation, blamed the Germans and more, the Republican Fascists.
The latter view was reinforced by notes about a telephone conversation of Barracu that a telephone operator gave to the Holy Father. However, some months Monsignor Montini received from Monsignor Carroll, an American of the Secretariat of State, in Algiers to organize an information service for soldiers and civilians, in which it was stated that the bombs had been dropped by an American. 5 November is for England, Father Hughes told me, an anti-Pope day. When Monsignor Carroll came to Rome in June 1944, he answered a question of mine by telling me that the American airman was supposed to have acted either to make a name for himself or out of wickedness. Monsignor Carroll did not know. We will know, when the war is over, what happened; the message from Monsignor Walter S. Carroll that Monsignor Tardini spoke of as addressed to Monsignor Montini was in reality addressed to Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione, it read: "In a conversation with the American Chief of Staff during the past week I was informed confidentially that they feel that the bombing of the Vatican is attributable to an American pilot who lost his way.
The General expressed his sincere regret and gave assurances that strict precaution would be taken to avoid a repetition of this incident "Official assurance that no American plane had in fact dropped bombs on Vatican City was given by the United States authorities. The German and British authorities gave similar assurances regarding aircraft of their countries. Aware that the bombs used were British, the British pointed out that this proved nothing as they could have been taken from captured ordnance, used for that purpose. Augusto Ferrara's 2010 book 1943 Bombe sul Vaticano, declares that the attack was orchestrated by leading Italian Fascist politician and anti-clericalist Roberto Farinacci; the aim was to knock out Vatican Radio, suspected of sending coded message to the Allies. The aircraft that delivered the bombs was a SIAI Marchetti S. M.79, a three-engined Italian medium bomber known as the "Sparviero", which had taken off from Viterbo, some 80 kilometres north of Rome. One piece of evidence on which Ferrara bases his account of the responsibility of Farinacci was a telephone call from a priest called Giuseppe to the Jesuit Pietro Tacchi Venturi.
In fact, a note on page 705 of volume 7 of the Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale cites Eitel Friederich Moellhausen as stating that rumours in Rome blamed Farinacci and spoke of Viterbo as the base from which the plane must have flown. Tardini's note quoted above says that, from the start, it was the general opinion that the Italian Republican Fascists were to blame, a view that Tardini himself discounted on the basis of the information given by Monsignor Carroll. Owen Chadwick reported that Farinacci was rumoured in Rome to have arranged the raid from the Viterbo airfield, something that Farinacci, killed together with Mussolini on 28 April 1945, never denied, but Chadwick considered the story "very unlikely". In Ferrara's account, five bombs were dropped. According to the Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale, the report of an examination carried out by Vatican authorities after the event spoke
Battle of Monte Cassino
The Battle of Monte Cassino was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the Winter Line in Italy held by Axis forces during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The intention was a breakthrough to Rome. At the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Winter Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido-Gari and Garigliano valleys and some of the surrounding peaks and ridges. Together, these features formed the Gustav Line. Monte Cassino, a historic hilltop abbey founded in AD 529 by Benedict of Nursia, dominated the nearby town of Cassino and the entrances to the Liri and Rapido valleys. Lying in a protected historic zone, it had been left unoccupied by the Germans, although they manned some positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey's walls. Repeated pinpoint artillery attacks on Allied assault troops caused their leaders to conclude the abbey was being used by the Germans as an observation post, at the least. Fears escalated along with casualties and in spite of a lack of clear evidence, it was marked for destruction.
On 15 February American bombers dropped 1,400 tons of high explosives. The raid failed to achieve its objective, as German paratroopers occupied the rubble and established excellent defensive positions amid the ruins. Between 17 January and 18 May, Monte Cassino and the Gustav defences were assaulted four times by Allied troops. On 16 May, soldiers from the Polish II Corps launched one of the final assaults on the German defensive position as part of a twenty-division assault along a twenty-mile front. On 18 May, a Polish flag followed by the British Union Jack were raised over the ruins. Following this Allied victory, the German Senger Line collapsed on 25 May; the German defenders were driven from their positions, but at a high cost. The capture of Monte Cassino resulted in 55,000 Allied casualties, with German losses being far fewer, estimated at around 20,000 killed and wounded; the Allied landings in Italy in September 1943 by two Allied armies, following shortly after the Allied landings in Sicily in July, commanded by General Sir Harold Alexander, the Commander-in-Chief of the 15th Army Group, were followed by an advance northward on two fronts, one on each side of the central mountain range forming the "spine" of Italy.
On the western front, the American Fifth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, which had suffered heavy casualties during the main landing at Salerno in September, moved from the main base of Naples up the Italian "boot" and on the eastern front the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, advanced up the Adriatic coast. Clark's Fifth Army made slow progress in the face of difficult terrain, wet weather and skillful German defences; the Germans were fighting from a series of prepared positions in a manner designed to inflict maximum damage pulling back while buying time for the construction of the Winter Line defensive positions south of the Italian capital of Rome. The original estimates that Rome would fall by October 1943 proved far too optimistic. Although in the east the German defensive line had been breached on Montgomery's Eighth Army Adriatic front and Ortona was captured by the 1st Canadian Division, the advance had ground to a halt with the onset of winter blizzards at the end of December, making close air support and movement in the jagged terrain impossible.
The route to Rome from the east using Route 5 was thus excluded as a viable option leaving the routes from Naples to Rome, highways 6 and 7, as the only possibilities. Highway 6 ran through the Liri valley, dominated at its south entrance by the rugged mass of Monte Cassino above the town of Cassino. Excellent observation from the peaks of several hills allowed the German defenders to detect Allied movement and direct accurate artillery fire, preventing any northward advance. Running across the Allied line was the fast flowing Rapido River, which rose in the central Apennine Mountains, flowed through Cassino and across the entrance to the Liri valley. There the Liri river joined the Gari to form the Garigliano River. With its fortified mountain defences, difficult river crossings, valley head flooded by the Germans, Cassino formed a linchpin of the Gustav Line, the most formidable line of the defensive positions making up the Winter Line. In spite of its potential excellence as an observation post, because of the fourteen-century-old Benedictine abbey's historical significance, the German C-in-C in Italy, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, ordered German units not to include it in their defensive positions and informed the Vatican and the Allies accordingly in December 1943.
Some Allied reconnaissance aircraft maintained they observed German troops inside the monastery. While this remains unconfirmed, it is clear that once the monastery was destroyed it was occupied by the Germans and proved better cover for their emplacements and troops than an intact structure would have offered; the plan of the Fifth Army commander, Lieutenant General Clark, was for the British X Corps, under Lieutenant General Richard McCreery, on the left of a thirty-kilometer front, to attack on 17 January 1944, across the Garigliano near the coast. The British 46th Infantry Division was to attack on the night of 19 January across the Garigliano below its junction with the Liri in support of the main attack by U
Walter Bedell Smith
General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 during World War II, he was Eisenhower's chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in the campaign in Western Europe from 1944 through 1945. Smith enlisted as a private in the Indiana Army National Guard in 1911. In 1917, during World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918. After World War I, he was a staff officer and instructor at the U. S. Army Infantry School. In 1941, he became Secretary of the General Staff, in 1942 he became the Secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, his duties involved taking part in discussions of war plans at the highest level, Smith briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters. Smith became chief of staff to Eisenhower at AFHQ in September 1942.
He acquired a reputation as Eisenhower's "hatchet man" for his brusque and demanding manner. However, he was capable of representing Eisenhower in sensitive missions requiring diplomatic skill. Smith was involved in negotiating the armistice between Italy and the Allies, which he signed on behalf of Eisenhower. In 1944, he became the Chief of Staff of SHAEF, again under Eisenhower. In this position, Smith negotiated for food and fuel aid to be sent through German lines for the cold and starving Dutch civilian population, opened discussions for the peaceful and complete German capitulation to the First Canadian Army in the Netherlands. In May 1945, Smith met representatives of the German High Command in Reims, France, to conduct the surrender of the German Armed Forces, he signed the German Instrument of Surrender on behalf of General Eisenhower. After World War II, he served as the U. S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948. In 1950, Smith became the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies in the United States.
Smith reorganized the CIA, redefined its structure and its mission, he gave it a new sense of purpose. He made the CIA the arm of government responsible for covert operations, he left the CIA in 1953 to become an Under Secretary of State. After retiring from the State Department in 1954, Smith continued to serve the Eisenhower Administration in various posts for several years, until his retirement and his death in 1961. Walter Bedell Smith was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 5 October 1895, the elder of two sons of William Long Smith, a silk buyer for the Pettis Dry Goods Company, his wife, Ida Francis née Bedell, who worked for the same company. Smith was called Bedell from his boyhood. From an early age he was nicknamed "Beetle", or "Beedle" or "Boodle", he was educated at St. Peter and Paul School, public schools #10 and #29, Oliver Perry Morton School, Emmerich Manual High School, where he studied to be a machinist. While still there, he took a job at the National Motor Vehicle Company, left high school without graduating.
Smith enrolled at Butler University, but his father developed serious health problems, Smith left university to return to his job and support his family. In 1911, at the age of 16, Smith enlisted as a private in Company D of the 2nd Indiana Infantry of the Indiana National Guard; the Indiana National Guard was called out twice in 1913, for the Ohio River flood and during the Indianapolis streetcar strike. Smith was promoted to corporal and sergeant. During the Pancho Villa Expedition he served on the staff of the Indiana National Guard. In 1913, Smith met Mary Eleanor Cline, born in 1893 and died in 1963, they were married in a traditional Roman Catholic wedding ceremony on 1 July 1917, their marriage childless. Smith's work during the Ohio River flood of 1913 led to his nomination for officer training in 1917, he was sent to the Officer Candidate Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana for officer indoctrination. Upon his graduation on 27 November 1917, he was directly commissioned as a second lieutenant.
He was assigned to the newly formed Company A, 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry, part of the 4th Infantry Division at Camp Greene, North Carolina. The 4th Infantry Division embarked for Europe embroiled in World War I, from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 9 May 1918, reaching Brest, France, on the 23rd of May. After training with the British and French Armies, the 4th Division entered the front lines in June 1918, joining the Aisne-Marne Offensive on 18 July 1918. Smith was wounded by shell fragments during an attack two days later; because of his wounds, Smith was returned to the United States for service with the U. S. Department of War's General Staff, he was assigned to the Military Intelligence Division. In September 1918, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the regular army of the United States. Smith was next sent to the newly formed 379th Infantry Regiment as its intelligence officer; this regiment was part of the 95th Infantry Division, based at Ohio. The 95th Infantry Division was disbanded following the signing of the Armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918.
In February 1919 Smith was assigned to Camp Dodge, where he was involved with the disposal of surplus equipment and supplies. In March 1919 he was transferred to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, a regular unit based at Camp Dodge, remaining there until November 1919, when it moved to Camp Sherman; the staff of the 2nd Infantry moved to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, in 1921. In 1922, Smith became aide de camp to Brigadier General George Van Horn Moseley, the c
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as a means to control German and Italian aggression. At the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France and the United Kingdom, as well as their dependent states, such as British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. After the start of the German invasion of North Europe until the Balkan Campaign, the Netherlands, Belgium and Yugoslavia joined the Allies. After first having cooperated with Germany in invading Poland whilst remaining neutral in the Allied-Axis conflict, the Soviet Union perforce joined the Allies in June 1941 after being invaded by Germany; the United States provided war materiel and money all along, joined in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
China had been in a prolonged war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, but joined the Allies in 1941. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942. However, the name United Nations was used to describe the Allies during the war; the leaders of the "Big Three"—the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States—controlled Allied strategy. The Big Three together with China were referred as a "trusteeship of the powerful" were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in the Declaration by United Nations and as the "Four Policemen" of the United Nations. After the war ended, the Allied nations became the basis of the modern United Nations. Members The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I and cooperation of the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles; the new Weimar Republic's legitimacy became shaken. However, the 1920s were peaceful. With the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, political unrest in Europe soared including the rise in support of revanchist nationalists in Germany who blamed the severity of the economic crisis on the Treaty of Versailles.
By the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the immediate cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria, German-populated territories of Czechoslovakia; the likelihood of war was high, the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement. In Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933. After four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China; the League of Nations initiated sanctions on Japan. The United States, in particular, was sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, demonstrating that the appeasement policy was a failure. Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war.
On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country. The French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921; the Soviet Union sought an alliance with the western powers, but Hitler ended the risk of a war with Stalin by signing the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact in August 1939. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of Eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. A Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and defeated Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Britain and its Empire stood alone against Mussolini. In June 1941, Hitler broke the non-aggression agreement with Stalin and Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
In December, Japan attacked the Britain. The main lines of World War II had formed. During December 1941, U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the Allies and proposed it to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he referred to the Big Three and China as a "trusteeship of the powerful", later the "Four Policemen". The Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942 was the basis of the modern United Nations. At the Potsdam Conference of July–August 1945, Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, proposed that the foreign ministers of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States "should draft the peace treaties and boundary settlements of Europe", which led to the creation of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the "Big Five", soon thereafter the establishment of those states as the permanent members of the UNSC. Great Britain and other members of the British Commonwealth, most known as the Dominions, declared war on Germany separately from 3 September 1939 with the UK first, all within one week of each other.
British West Africa and the British colonies in E
