1.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
2.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
5.
Free France
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It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa and it was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn merged with de Gaulles rival general Henri Girauds command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation. Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, the Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as a force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic. Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, the French Army of Africa switched allegiance to Free France, and this caused the Axis to occupy Vichy in reaction. On 1 August 1943, LArmée dAfrique was formally united with the Free French Forces to form LArmée française de la Liberation. By mid-1944, the forces of this army numbered more than 400,000, and they participated in the Normandy landings, the Free French government re-established a provisional republic after the liberation, preparing the ground for the Fourth Republic in 1946. Historically, an individual became Free French by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the arm of the Committee. In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice, postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this ministerial instruction of July 1953, only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940, between 27 May and 4 June, around 200,000 British soldiers and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from the beaches to safety in England. General Charles de Gaulle was a minister in the French cabinet during the Battle of France, as France was overwhelmed by the stunning German victory, he found himself part of a small group of politicians who argued against a negotiated surrender to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That same day, the new French President of the Council, former First World War Marshal Philippe Pétain, De Gaulle briefly travelled to Bordeaux to continue the fight but, realising that Pétain would surrender, he returned to London on 17 June. On 18 June, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio, urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis and she has a great empire behind her. Together with the British Empire, she can form a bloc that controls the seas and she may, like England, draw upon the limitless industrial resources of the United States. In Vichys case those reasons were compounded with ideas of a Révolution nationale about stamping out Frances republican heritage. On 22 June 1940, Marshall Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, followed by a one with Italy on 24 June. After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, despite de Gaulles call to continue the struggle, few French forces, at least initially, pledged their support
6.
Polish Armed Forces in the West
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The Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. After the fall of France, in June 1940, the formations were recreated in the United Kingdom, making a large contribution to the war effort, the Polish Armed Forces in the West was composed of army, air and naval forces. The Poles soon became shock troops in Allied service, most notably in the Battle of Monte Cassino, during the Italian Campaign, where the Polish flag was raised on the ruined abbey on May 18,1944. The Polish Armed Forces in the West were finally disbanded, after the war, in 1947, after Polands defeat in September-October 1939, the Polish government-in-exile quickly organized in France a new fighting force originally of about 80,000 men. Their units were subordinate to the French Army, in early 1940 a Polish Independent Highland Brigade took part in the Battles of Narvik in Norway. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in the French Mandate of Syria, the Polish Air Force in France comprised 86 aircraft in four squadrons, one and a half of the squadrons being fully operational while the rest were in various stages of training. Two Polish divisions took part in the defence of France, while a Polish motorized brigade, at the capitulation of France, General Władysław Sikorski was able to evacuate many Polish troops—probably over 20, 000—to the United Kingdom. I Corps was under the command of Scottish Command of the British Army. While in this area the Corps was reorganised and expanded, meanwhile, Polish fliers had an important role in the Battle of Britain. From these a 75, 000-strong army was formed in the Soviet Union under General Władysław Anders and this army, successively gathered in Bouzoulouk, Samarkand, was later ferried from Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea to the Middle East where Polish II Corps was formed. By the end of the Second World War, they were 195,000 strong, after the German Instrument of Surrender,1945, Polish troops took part in occupation duties in the Western Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. A Polish town was created, it was first named Lwow, Polish troops were incorporated into the 1945 top secret contingency plan, Operation Unthinkable, the hypothetical attack on the Soviet Union that would have led to an independent Poland. By 1945, there was growing sentiment in Britain, particularly among the trade unions which feared competition for jobs from Polish immigrants. At the same time, there was British and American concern about a state being built in Poland. Argentina and Brazil were also reported ready to offer them homes, Anders argued that he could not advise the soldiers to return to Poland unless the Polish Government promised elections this spring. Bevin, too, wanted immediate Polish elections, but both men knew that the chances were becoming slimmer, in Poland the split between the Communist-Socialist groups and shrewd Stanislaw Mikolajczyks Polish Peasant Party was deepening. Security Police raids on Peasant Party headquarters were reported last week, nevertheless, Bevin argued that, elections or no, the Poles in Anders army should go home. In January 1946 Bevin protested against killings by the Polish provisional government, in February 1946, Time reported Britains Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin told a tense House of Commons last week that terror had become an instrument of national policy in the new Poland
7.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
8.
Dominion of New Zealand
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The Dominion of New Zealand was the historical successor to the Colony of New Zealand. It was a monarchy with a high level of self-government within the British Empire. New Zealand became a separate British Crown colony in 1841 and received responsible government with the Constitution Act in 1852. New Zealand chose not to part in Australian Federation and became the Dominion of New Zealand on 26 September 1907, Dominion Day. Dominion status was a mark of the political independence that had evolved over half a century through responsible government. Just under one million lived in New Zealand in 1907 and cities such as Auckland. The Dominion of New Zealand allowed the British government to shape its foreign policy, the 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate their own political treaties and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 the New Zealand government made its own decision to enter the war, in the post-war period, the term ‘Dominion’ has fallen into disuse. Full independence was granted with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, after much debate over lexicon, the term ‘Dominion’ was decided upon. Dominion status was anticipated to be a house between colonial status and full independence. The adoption of the designation of ‘Dominion’ would, raise the status of New Zealand stated Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward, Ward also had regional imperial ambitions. He hoped the new designation would remind the world that New Zealand was not part of Australia and it would dignify New Zealand, a country he thought was the natural centre for the government of the South Pacific. A royal proclamation granting New Zealand the designation of ‘Dominion’ was issued on 9 September 1907, on 26 September the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, read the proclamation from the steps of Parliament, Edward R. & I. And We hereby give Our Commands to all Public Departments accordingly, given at Our Court at Buckingham Palace, this ninth day of September, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seven, and in the seventh year of Our Reign. God save the King Letters patent were issued to confirm New Zealands change in status, declaring that, there shall be a Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Our Dominion of New Zealand. Control over defence, constitutional amendments, and foreign affairs remained with the British government until the Statute of Westminster was adopted in 1947, Ward had thought that New Zealanders would be much gratified with the new title. However, Dominion status was received with limited enthusiasm and indifference from the general public, the shift from colony to Dominion was viewed as a change of name only. The general public were unable to discern any practical difference, Dominion status was symbolic and recognised the countrys shift to self-governance, but this change had been accomplished with the first responsible government in the 1850s
9.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
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The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state in Southeast Europe and Central Europe, that existed during the interwar period and first half of World War II. It was formed in 1918 by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats, the Kingdom of Montenegro had united with Serbia five days previously, while the regions of Kosovo, Vojvodina and Vardar Macedonia were parts of Serbia prior to the unification. For its first eleven years of existence, the Kingdom was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia by King Alexander I on 3 October 1929. The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević, which ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I from 1903 onwards. Peter I became the first king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1921 and he was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who had been regent for his father. He was known as Alexander the Unifier and he renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia in 1929 and he was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, during his visit to France in 1934. The crown passed to his then-still under-aged son Peter and his cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941, when Peter II would come of age. The royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers, in April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and, later, in 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government. This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić, Trumbić faced initial hostility from Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, who preferred an enlarged Serbia over a unified Yugoslav state. In 1916, the Serbian Parliament in exile decided on the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at a meeting inside the Municipal Theatre of Corfu. The Kingdom was formed on 1 December 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, on 1 December 1918, the new kingdom was proclaimed by Alexander Karađorđević, Prince-Regent for his father, Peter I of Serbia. The creation of the state was supported by pan-Slavists and Serbian nationalists, for the pan-Slavic movement, all of the South Slav people had united into a single state. For Serbian nationalists, the goal of uniting the majority of the Serb population across south-eastern Europe into one state was also achieved. Furthermore, as Serbia already had a government, military, and police force, the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes participated in the Paris Peace Conference with Trumbić as the countrys representative. Almost immediately, it ran into disputes with most of its neighbours, Slovenia was difficult to determine, since it had been an integral part of Austria for 400 years. The Vojvodina region was disputed with Hungary, Macedonia with Bulgaria, a plebiscite was also held in the Province of Carinthia, which opted to remain in Austria. Austrians had formed a majority in this region although numbers reflected that some Slovenes did vote for Carinthia to become part of Austria, the Dalmatian port city of Zadar and a few of the Dalmatian islands were given to Italy
10.
Kingdom of Greece
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The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 at the Convention of London by the Great Powers. It was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Constantinople, where it also secured full independence from the Ottoman Empire and this event also marked the birth of the first, fully independent, Greek state since the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century. The Kingdom succeeded from the Greek provisional governments after the Greek War of Independence, in 1924 the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was established. The restored Kingdom of Greece lasted from 1935 to 1973, the Kingdom was again dissolved in the aftermath of the seven-year military dictatorship, and the Third Republic, the current Greek government, came to be. Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, the Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by victory over the Serbs to its north. This was followed by a draw in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, with no further threat by the Serbs and the subsequent Byzantine civil wars, the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453 and advanced southwards into Greece, capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, the mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670, the Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans, and remained primarily under the rule of Venice. In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire, following a protracted struggle, the autonomy of Greece was first recognized by the Great Powers in 1828, full independence was recognized in 1830. Count Ioannis Kapodistrias became Governor of Greece in 1827, but was assassinated in 1831, at the insistence of the Powers, the 1832 Treaty of London made Greece a monarchy. Pedro of Braganza, Prince Royal of Portugal, Brazil, Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King. Otto arrived at the capital, Nafplion, in 1833 aboard a British warship. Ottos reign would prove troubled, but managed to last for 30 years before he and his wife, Queen Amalia, left the way they came, nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, in addition, the new Kingdom tried to eliminate the traditional banditry, something that in many cases meant conflict with some old revolutionary fighters who continued to exercise this practice. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution, Greek discontent grew until a revolt broke out in Athens in September 1843. Otto agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November, the new constitution created a bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly and a Senate. Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. Greeks dreamed of liberating them all and reconstituting a state embracing all the Greek lands and this was called the Great Idea, and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, particularly Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia
11.
Vargas Era
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The Vargas Era is the period in the history of Brazil between 1930 and 1945, when the country was under the dictatorship of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas. The Brazilian Revolution of 1930 marked the end of the Old Republic, Federal intervention in State governments increased and the political landscape was altered by suppressing the traditional oligarchies of São Paulo and Minas Gerais states. The Estado Novo period, that began when, in order to perpetuate his rule, Vargas imposed a new, authoritarian Constitution in a coup détat, and shut down Congress, assuming dictatorial powers. The tenente rebellion did not mark the revolutionary breakthrough for Brazils bourgeois social reformers, Brazils vulnerability to the Great Depression had its roots in the economys heavy dependence on foreign markets and loans. Despite limited industrial development in São Paulo, the export of coffee, days after the U. S. stock market crash on October 29,1929, coffee quotations immediately fell 30% to 60%. Between 1929 and 1931, coffee prices fell from 22.5 cents per pound to 8 cents per pound, as world trade contracted, the coffee exporters suffered a vast drop in foreign exchange earnings. The Great Depression possibly had a dramatic effect on Brazil than on the United States. The coffee planters had grown dangerously dependent on government valorization, for example, in the aftermath of the recession following World War I, the government was not short of the cash needed to bail out the coffee industry. But between 1929–30, world demand for Brazils primary products had fallen far too drastically to maintain government revenues, by the end of 1930, Brazils gold reserves had been depleted, pushing the exchange rate down to a new low. The program for warehoused coffee collapsed altogether, Government of President Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa faced a deepening balance-of-payments crisis and the coffee growers were stuck with an unsellable harvest. Since power ultimately rested on patronage system, wide-scale defections in the balance of regional interests left the regime of the Washington Luís vulnerable. Government policies designed to favor foreign interests further exacerbated the crisis, despite capital flight, Washington Luís clung to a hard-money policy, guaranteeing the convertibility of the Brazilian currency into gold or British sterling. Once the gold and sterling reserves were exhausted amid the collapse of the valorization program, a populist governor of Brazils southernmost Rio Grande do Sul state, Vargas was a cattle rancher with a doctorate in law and the 1930 presidential candidate of the Liberal Alliance. He came from a region with a positivist and populist tradition, Vargas built up political networks, and was attuned to the interests of the rising urban classes. In his early years Vargas even relied on the support of the tenentes of the 1922 rebellion, using such insights, he gradually established such mastery over the Brazilian political world that he stayed in power for 15 years. During this time, as the stranglehold of the agricultural elites eased, new urban industrial leaders acquired more influence nationally, along with the urban bourgeois groups, Northeastern sugar barons were left with a legacy of longstanding grievances against the paulista coffee oligarchs of the South. Northeastern landowners opposed Washington Luís 1930 discontinuance of the relief projects of his predecessor. The decay of established sugar oligarchies of the Northeast had begun dramatically with the drought of 1877
12.
Kingdom of Italy
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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, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, 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 rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the 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 Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms 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 are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals
13.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
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Italian Social Republic
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The Italian Social Republic, informally known as the Republic of Salò, was a state with limited recognition that was created during the later part of World War II, existing from 1943 until 1945. Mussolini had originally intended to call his new republic the “Italian ‘Socialist’ Republic. ”It was the second and last incarnation of the Fascist Italian state and was led by Duce Benito Mussolini and his reformed Republican Fascist Party. The state declared Rome its capital, but was de facto centered on Salò, a town on Lake Garda, near Brescia, where Mussolini. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern and central Italy, but was dependent on German troops to maintain control. The new government began peace negotiations with the Allied powers. When the Armistice of Cassibile was announced in September, Germany was prepared, Germany seized control of the northern half of Italy, freed Mussolini and brought him to the German-occupied area to establish a satellite regime. The RSI was proclaimed on 23 September 1943, although the RSI claimed most of the lands of Italy as rightfully belonging to it, it held political control over a vastly reduced portion of Italy. The RSI received diplomatic recognition from only Germany, Japan and their puppet states, around 25 April 1945, Mussolinis republic came to an end. In Italy, this day is known as Liberation Day, on this day a general partisan uprising alongside the efforts of Allied forces, during their final offensive in Italy, managed to oust the Germans from Italy almost entirely. At the point of its demise, the Italian Social Republic had existed for more than nineteen months. On 27 April partisans caught Mussolini, his mistress, several RSI ministers, on 28 April the partisans shot Mussolini and most of the other captives. The RSI Minister of Defense, Rodolfo Graziani, surrendered what was left of the RSI on 2 May when the German forces in Italy capitulated, this put a definitive end to the Italian Social Republic. On 24 July 1943, after the Allied landings in Sicily, the next day, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini from office and ordered him arrested. The failed war effort left Mussolini humiliated at home and abroad as a sawdust Caesar, the new government, under Marshal Pietro Badoglio, began secret negotiations with the Allied powers and made preparations for the capitulation of Italy. These surrender talks implied a commitment from Badoglio not only to leave the Axis alliance, while the Germans formally recognised the new status quo in Italian politics, they intervened by sending some of the best units of the Wehrmacht to Italy. This was done both to resist new Allied advances and to face the predictably imminent defection of Italy, on 8 September, Badoglio announced Italys armistice with the Allies. German Führer Adolf Hitler and his staff, long aware of the negotiations, acted immediately by ordering German troops to control of northern. The Germans disarmed the Italian troops and took all of the Italian Armys materials
15.
Vichy France
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Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. In particular, it represents the southern, unoccupied Free Zone that governed the southern part of the country, from 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of France as a whole, Germany militarily occupied northern France. Thus, while Paris remained the de jure capital of France, following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy. The Vichy government remained in existence, but as a de facto client and it vanished in late 1944 when the Allies occupied all of France. After being appointed Premier by President Albert Lebrun, Marshal Pétain ordered the French Governments military representatives to sign an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, Pétain subsequently established an authoritarian regime when the National Assembly of the French Third Republic granted him full powers on 10 July 1940. At that point, the Third Republic was dissolved, calling for National Regeneration, the French Government at Vichy reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, with central planning a key feature. Labour unions came under government control. The independence of women was reversed, with a put on motherhood. Paris lost its status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and stressed virulent anti-Semitism, and, after June 1941, the French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory, but had effective full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern zone libre. It had limited and only civil authority in the zones under military occupation. The occupation was to be a state of affairs, pending the conclusion of the war. The French Government at Vichy never joined the Axis alliance, Germany kept two million French soldiers prisoner, carrying out forced labour. They were hostages to ensure that Vichy would reduce its forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food. French police were ordered to round up immigrant Jews and other such as communists. Public opinion in some quarters turned against the French government and the occupying German forces over time, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and resistance to them increased. Most of the legal French governments leaders at Vichy fled or were subject to show trials by the GPRF, thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local communists and the Resistance in so-called savage purges. The last of the French State exiles were captured in the Sigmaringen enclave by de Gaulles French 1st Armoured Division in April 1945, in 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a First World War hero, the victor of the battle of Verdun
16.
Adriatic Campaign of World War II
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Considered a somewhat insignificant part of the naval warfare in World War II, it nonetheless saw interesting developments, given the specificity of the Dalmatian coastline. On 7 April 1939, Mussolinis troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, naval operations in the Adriatic consisted mostly of transport organisation through the ports of Taranto. The Greco-Italian War lasted from 28 October 1940 to 30 April 1941 and was part of World War II, Italian forces invaded Greece and made limited gains. At the outbreak of hostilities, the Royal Hellenic Navy was composed of the old cruiser Georgios Averof,10 destroyers, several torpedo boats, faced with the formidable Regia Marina, its role was primarily limited to patrol and convoy escort duties in the Aegean Sea. Nevertheless, the Greek ships also carried out limited offensive operations against Italian shipping in the Strait of Otranto, the destroyers carried out three bold but fruitless night-time raids. The main successes came from the submarines, which managed to sink some Italian transports, also, on 28 November, an Italian squadron bombarded Corfu, while on 18 December and 4 March, Italian naval units shelled Greek coastal positions in Albania. The Invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941 and ended with the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April. The invading Axis powers occupied and dismembered the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, when Germany and Italy attacked Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, the Yugoslav Royal Navy had available three destroyers, two submarines and 10 MTBs as the most effective units of the fleet. One other destroyer, the Ljubljana was in dry-dock at the time of the invasion and she, the remainder of the fleet was useful only for coastal defence and local escort and patrol work. The Yugoslav forces launched their attack on 9 April, but by 13 April the Italian forces -under the orders of General Vittorio Ambrosio- had counter-attacked and were in Benkovac by 14 April. The maritime patrol float-planes of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force flew reconnaissance and attack missions during the campaign and this event is considered to be the foundation of the Yugoslav Navy. After the Italian capitulation of 8 September 1943, following the Allied invasion of Italy, on 26 October, the Yugoslav Partisans Navy was organized first into four, and later into six Maritime Coastal Sectors. The task of the forces was to secure supremacy at sea, organize defense of coast and islands. It comprised the provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pula, Rijeka, on 28 September 1944, these units were redesignated XCVII Armeekorps. Soon also German marine units were formed, Royal Navy engagement was also on the rise. Vizeadmiral Joachim Lietzmann was Commanding Admiral Adriatic, initially, the area of operation ranged from Fiume to Valona, and the area of the Western coast was under the jurisdiction of the German navy for Italy. One of the first operations was Operation Herbstgewitter and this consisted of landing German troops on the islands of Krk, Cres and Lošinj in November 1943. The Germans used some old ships such as the cruiser SMS Niobe, during the action, the islands were cleared of partisan forces and Niobe with two S-boats managed to capture a British military mission on the island of Lošinj
17.
North African Campaign
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The North African Campaign of the Second World War took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco, the campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe, the United States entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942. Fighting in North Africa started with the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, on 14 June, the British Armys 11th Hussars crossed the border from Egypt into Libya and captured the Italian Fort Capuzzo. Information gleaned via British Ultra code-breaking intelligence proved critical to Allied success in North Africa, victory for the Allies in this campaign immediately led to the Italian Campaign, which culminated in the downfall of the fascist government in Italy and the elimination of a German ally. On 10 May 1940, the Wehrmacht had started the Battle of France, one month later, it was plain to see that France would have to surrender within two weeks. On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany and declared war upon France, British forces based in Egypt were ordered to undertake defensive measures, but to act as non-provocatively as possible. However, on 11 June they began a series of raids against Italian positions in Libya, following the defeat of France on 25 June, Italian forces in Tripolitania—facing French troops based in Tunisia—redeployed to Cyrenaica to reinforce the Italian Tenth Army. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Tenth Army to invade Egypt by 8 August, two days later, no invasion having been launched, Mussolini ordered Marshal Graziani that, the moment German forces launched Operation Sea Lion, he was to attack. The battle plan was to advance along the road, while limited armoured forces operated on the desert flank. To counter the Italian advance, Wavell ordered his forces to harass the advancing Italians, falling back towards Mersa Matruh. Positioned on the flank was the 7th Armoured Division, which would strike the flank of the Italian force. By 16 September, the Italian force had advanced to Maktila, around 80 mi west of Mersa Matruh, in response to the dispersed Italian camps, the British planned a limited five-day attack, Operation Compass, to strike at these fortified camps one by one. The British Commonwealth force, totalling 36,000 men, attacked the forward elements of the 10-division-strong Italian army on 9 December, following their initial success, the forces of Operation Compass pursued the retreating Italian forces. In January, the port at Bardia was taken, soon followed by the seizure of the fortified port of Tobruk. Some 40,000 Italians were captured in and around the two ports, with the remainder of the Tenth Army retreating along the coast road back to El Agheila. Richard OConnor sent the 7th Armoured Division across the desert, with a reconnaissance group reaching Beda Fomm some ninety minutes before the Italians. Although desperate attempts were made to overcome the British force at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the Italians were unable to break through, and the remnants of the retreating army surrendered
18.
East African Campaign (World War II)
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Ethiopian irregulars, the Free French and Belgian troops of the Force Publique also participated. The East African Campaign was the first Allied strategic victory in the war but was overshadowed by the British defeats in Greece and Crete. Italian belligerence also closed the Mediterranean to Allied merchant ships and endangered British supply routes along the coast of East Africa, the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Egypt, the Suez Canal, French Somaliland and British Somaliland were also vulnerable to invasion, in the summer of 1940 Italy was far from ready for a long war or for the occupation large areas of Africa. Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, was appointed Viceroy and Governor-General of the AOI in November 1937, with a headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. On 1 June 1940, as the commander in chief of Comando Forze Armate dellAfrica Orientale Italiana and Generale dArmata Aerea, Aosta had about 290,476 local, by 1 August, mobilisation had increased the number to 371,053 troops. About 70 percent of Italian troops were locally recruited Askari, the regular Eritrean battalions and the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali were among the best Italian units in the AOI and included Eritrean cavalry Penne di Falco. Most colonial troops were recruited, trained and equipped for colonial repression, although the Somali Dubats from the borderlands were useful light infantry and skirmishers. Irregular bandes were hardy and mobile, knew the country and were effective scouts and saboteurs, although confused with Shifta. Due to the isolation of the AOI from the Mediterranean, the Italians had very little opportunity for reinforcements or supply, leading to severe shortages, especially of ammunition. On occasion, foreign merchant vessels captured by German merchant raiders in the Indian Ocean were brought to Somali ports, there were 183 first line aircraft and another 140 in reserve, of which 59 were operational and 81 were unserviceable. On the outbreak of war, the CAAOI had 10,700 t of fuel,5,300 t of bombs and 8,620,000 rounds of ammunition. The Italians had reserves for 75% of their strength, but lacked spare parts. The quality of the units varied, the SM.79 was the only modern bomber and the CR.32 fighter was obsolete, but the Regia Aeronautica in East Africa had a cadre of highly experienced Spanish Civil War veterans. The Regia Marina maintained the Red Sea Flotilla at Massawa in Eritrea on the Red Sea, the port was a link between Axis-occupied Europe and the naval facilities in the Italian concession zone in Tientsin in China. There were also limited port facilities at Assab, in Eritrea, the flotilla also had two local defence destroyers, the Orsini and Acerbi, a squadron of five Motoscafo Armato Silurante and eight submarines. When the Mediterranean route was closed to Allied merchant ships in April 1940, Allied convoys had to sail via the Cape and up the east coast of Africa, as Italian fuel supplies in Massawa dwindled, opportunities for the Red Sea Flotilla to attack Allied shipping declined. The British had based forces in Egypt since 1882 but these were reduced by the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936
19.
Military history of Gibraltar during World War II
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In addition to its commanding position, Gibraltar provided a strongly defended harbour from which ships could operate in both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. During the course of the war, Gibraltar came under bombardment from Vichy French aircraft. Additionally, the fortress was the focus of attacks by the Italian Royal Navy commando frogman unit. This Italian unit was based on the interned Italian ship SS Olterra in the nearby Spanish harbour of Algeciras, a number of attacks were also carried out by Spanish and Gibraltarian agents acting on behalf of the German Abwehr. Inside the Rock of Gibraltar itself, miles of tunnels were excavated from the limestone, masses of rock were blasted out to build an underground city. In huge man-made caverns, barracks, offices, and a fully equipped hospital were constructed, complete with an operating theatre, Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942, was coordinated from the Rock. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was given command of the operation, following the successful completion of the North African campaign and the surrender of Italy in 1943, Gibraltars role shifted from a forward operating base to a rear-area supply position. The harbour continued to dry docks and supply depots for the convoy routes through the Mediterranean until V-E Day in 1945. World War II dramatically changed the lives of Gibraltarians, the decision to enforce mass evacuation in order to increase the strength of the Rock with more military and naval personnel meant that most Gibraltarians had nowhere to call home. Only those civilians with essential jobs were allowed to stay but it gave the community a sense of being British by sharing in the war effort. In early June 1940, about 13,500 evacuees were shipped to Casablanca in French Morocco, the opportunity soon arose when 15 British cargo vessels arrived under Commodore Crichton, repatriating 15,000 French servicemen who had been rescued from Dunkirk. Once their own rescued servicemen had disembarked, the ships were interned until they agreed to take all the evacuees. Although Crichton was unable to obtain permission to clean and restock his ships, just beforehand, the British fleet had destroyed a number of French warships at Mers el-Kebir in order to prevent them ending up in German hands. British conservative politician Oliver Stanley agreed to accept the evacuees in the United Kingdom, the Governor, he declared, had given the number of evacuees first as 13,000, then as 14,000 and finally as 16,000. The situation, replied General Liddell on 19 July, is that this is a fortress liable to heavy and immediate attack, the 13,000 was the number sent to Morocco, and more would have been sent had the situation there not altered. In London the evacuees were placed in the hands of the Ministry of Health, concern for them in Gibraltar mounted as the air raids against London intensified, coupled with the arrival of harrowing letters, describing the circumstances in which the evacuees were living. After much contention, it was decided to send a party directly from Gibraltar to the island, however petitions followed and the demands were met, partly for strategic reasons and the lack of available shipping. The situation at the end of 1940, therefore, was that approximately 2,000 evacuees were in Jamaica, construction of a solid surface runway began in late 1939 and in 1940 it was proposed to extend the existing runway to a length of 1,550 yards
20.
Siege of Malta (World War II)
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The Siege of Malta was a military campaign in the Mediterranean Theatre of the Second World War. From 1940–42, the fight for the control of the important island of Malta pitted the air forces and navies of Italy and Germany against the Royal Air Force. The opening of a new front in North Africa in mid-1940 increased Maltas already considerable value, British air and sea forces based on the island could attack Axis ships transporting vital supplies and reinforcements from Europe. General Erwin Rommel, in de facto command of Axis forces in North Africa. In May 1941, he warned that Without Malta the Axis will end by losing control of North Africa, the Axis resolved to bomb or starve Malta into submission, by attacking its ports, towns, cities, and Allied shipping supplying the island. Malta was one of the most intensively bombed areas during the war, the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica flew a total of 3,000 bombing raids over a period of two years in an effort to destroy RAF defences and the ports. Success would have made possible a combined German–Italian amphibious landing supported by German airborne forces, in the event, Allied convoys were able to supply and reinforce Malta, while the RAF defended its airspace, though at great cost in material and lives. By November 1942, the Axis had lost the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Axis diverted their forces to the Battle of Tunisia, and attacks on Malta were rapidly reduced. The siege effectively ended in November 1942, in December 1942, air and sea forces operating from Malta went over to the offensive. By May 1943, they had sunk 230 Axis ships in 164 days, the Allied victory in Malta played a major role in the eventual Allied success in North Africa. Malta was a military and naval fortress, being the only Allied base between Gibraltar and Alexandria, Egypt, in peacetime it was a way station along the British trade route to Egypt and the Suez Canal to India and the Far East. When the route was closed Malta remained a base for offensive action against Axis shipping. Owing to its position close to Italy, the British had moved the headquarters of the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet from Valletta, Malta in the mid-1930s to Alexandria in October 1939. Malta is 27 km ×14 km with area of just under 250 km2 and it had a population of around 250,000 in June 1940, all but three or four per cent of them native Maltese. According to the 1937 census, most of the inhabitants lived within 6.4 kilometres of Grand Harbour, where the population density was more than six times that of the island average. Amongst the most congested spots was Valletta, the capital and political, military and commercial centre, across Grand Harbour, in the Three Cities, where the dockyards and the Admiralty headquarters were located,28,000 people were packed into 1.3 km2. It was these areas that suffered the heaviest, most sustained and concentrated aerial bombing in history. There were hardly any defences on Malta because of a conclusion that the island was indefensible
21.
Bombing of Bahrain in World War II
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The bombing of Bahrain in World War II was part of an effort by the Italian Royal Air Force to strike at the British interests wherever possible in the Middle East. While the mission caused little damage, it was successful in forcing the diversion of already-limited Allied resources to a theater originally thought to be safe. On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy declared war on the French Republic, the Italian invasion of France was short-lived and the French signed an armistice with the Italians on 25 June, three days after Frances armistice with Germany. This left the British and the forces of the Commonwealth of Nations for the Italians to contend with in the Middle East. In summer 1940, the Italian leader and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini received a plan to destroy the oil fields in Bahrain in order to disrupt the oil supplies to the British Navy, the plan was suggested by the Italian test pilot, Air Force Captain Paolo Moci. Early on October 19,1940, four Italian SM. 82s bombers attacked American-operated oil refineries in the British Protectorate of Bahrain, the raid also struck Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, but causing only some minor damage. Each aircraft carried a load of 1,500 kg and this long-range action was successful, taking the target totally by surprise, and the SM. 82s landed without problems at Zula, Eritrea. The Italian airplanes started their flight from Europe, attacked refineries in Asia, during the attack were dropped 132 bombs of 15 kgs, that heavily damaged 2 refineries The raid caused the Allies some concerns, forcing them to upgrade their defences. This, more than the amount of damage caused, further stretched Allied military resources. The Italian Command intended to employ the special SM82s to bomb the English oil plants of Manama, in the Persian Gulf and it was a long and difficult mission involving a 4,000 kilometre flight. During the very long flight, the role of Mutis SM82 pathfinder proved its essential function in leading the squadron. As bombardier Raina later told the operation of spotting the target was easy thanks to the illumination of the extractive. Alberto Rosselli Rome declared that their bombers had set a new distance record, american Magazine Time wrote that the Italians insisted that the planes had been refueled from submarine tankers though in actuality, the planes had simply been loaded with fuel. Ettore Muti, Party Secretary of the National Fascist Party, took part in the Bahrain raid and this caused the British considerable logistical problems but also forced them to divert resources to defend the Middle East which were badly needed elsewhere. It also helped relieve the threat to the lanes in the Mediterranean. Even a commercial aerial trip was done between Rome and Tokyo in summer 1942, Italian Royal Air Force Bombing of Palestine in World War II Lembo, Daniele. Parma, Italy, West-ward Edizioni,2002, p. 10-31
22.
Balkan Campaign (World War II)
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The Balkan Campaign of World War II began with the Italian invasion of Greece on 28 October 1940. In the early months of 1941, Italys offensive had stalled, Germany sought, by deploying troops to Romania and Bulgaria, to aid Italy by attacking Greece from the east, while the British landed troops and aircraft to shore up Greek defences. A coup détat in Yugoslavia on 27 March caused Hitler to order the conquest of that country, the invasion of Yugoslavia by Germany and Italy began on 6 April, simultaneously with the new Battle of Greece. On 11 April, Hungary joined the invasion, by 17 April the Yugoslavs had signed an armistice and by 30 April all of mainland Greece was under German or Italian control. On 20 May Germany invaded Crete by air and by 1 June all remaining Greek, although it had not participated in the attacks in April, Bulgaria occupied parts of both Yugoslavia and Greece shortly thereafter for the remainder of the war in the Balkans. After World War I, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There were attempted backroom negotiations that ultimately failed, however, after 1925, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928, Albania became a kingdom under Zog I, who was a clan chief, Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in Albanian internal affairs. On 7 April 1939, Mussolinis troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, the Italian invasion of Greece lasted from 28 October 1940 to 30 April 1941 and was part of World War II. Italian forces invaded Greece and made limited gains, but soon the Greeks counter-attacked and the Italians were repulsed and driven back into Albania. The Italians spent much of the winter stabilizing a line which left them in control of only about two-thirds of Albania, a much anticipated Italian offensive in March 1941 failed to make sufficient progress. Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, intervened in April and invaded Greece after an invasion of Yugoslavia. The invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941 and ended with the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April. The invading Axis powers occupied and dismembered the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, by cobbling together Bosnia and Herzegovina, some parts of Croatia, and Syrmia, the Independent State of Croatia was created by Germany and Italy. Montenegro remained under Italian occupation, and Bulgaria was permitted to annex eastern areas of Yugoslavia, Hitler began planning to invade Greece in November 1940, after the British occupied Crete and Lemnos. He ordered the German Invasion of Greece — code-named Unternehmen Marita by Germany — on 13 December 1940 for execution in March 1941, the stated aim of the operation was to prevent the British from getting air bases within striking range of the Romanian oilfields. On 6 April 1941, the German Army invaded northern Greece, breaking through the Yugoslav lines in southern Yugoslavia allowed Germany to send reinforcements to the battlefields of northern Greece. The German army out-flanked the Greek Metaxas Line fortifications and, despite the assistance provided by a British expeditionary corps, on 20 May 1941, German paratroopers were dropped over the airfields of northern Crete to occupy the island
23.
World War II in Yugoslavia
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Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, Croatian fascist Ustaše and Home Guard, as well as Slovene Home Guard troops. Both the Yugoslav Partisans and the Chetnik movement initially resisted the occupation, however, after 1941, Chetniks extensively and systematically collaborated with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation, and thereon also with German and Ustaše forces. The Axis mounted a series of offensives intended to destroy the Partisans, coming close to doing so in the winter, despite the setbacks, the Partisans remained a credible fighting force, gaining recognition from the Western Allies and laying the foundations for the post-war Yugoslav state. The human cost of the war was enormous, the number of war victims is still in dispute, but is generally agreed to have been at least one million. Non-combat victims included the majority of the countrys Jewish population, many of whom perished in concentration and extermination camps run by the client regimes, the Croatian Ustaše regime committed genocide against Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-Fascist Croats. The Serbian Chetniks pursued genocide against Muslims and Croats and Partisan Serbs, the Wehrmacht carried out mass executions of civilians in retaliation for resistance activity e. g. the Kragujevac massacre. In the same time, the country was destabilized by internal tensions, however, rather than reducing tensions, the agreement only reinforced the crisis in the countrys governance. These events resulted in Yugoslavias geographical isolation from potential Allied support, Air force officers opposed to the move staged a coup détat and took over in the following days. These events were viewed with great apprehension in Berlin, and as it was preparing to help its Italian ally in its war against Greece anyway, the plans were modified to include Yugoslavia as well. On 6 April 1941 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded from all sides by the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, during the invasion, Belgrade was bombed by the German air force. The invasion lasted little more than ten days, ending with the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April. Besides being hopelessly ill-equipped when compared to the German Army, the Yugoslav army attempted to defend all borders, also, large numbers of the population refused to fight, instead welcoming the Germans as liberators from government oppression. Two of the constituent national groups, Slovenes and Croats, were not prepared to fight in defense of a Yugoslav state with a continued Serb monarchy. The only effective opposition to the invasion was from units wholly from Serbia itself, the Serbian General Staff was united on the question of Yugoslavia as a Greater Serbia ruled, in one way or another, by Serbia. On the eve of the invasion, there were 165 generals on the Yugoslav active list, of these, all but four were Serbs. The terms of the capitulation were extremely severe, as the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia, mussolinis Italy gained the remainder of Slovenia, Kosovo, and large chunks of the coastal Dalmatia region. It also gained control over the Italian governorate of Montenegro, and was granted the kingship in the Independent State of Croatia, Hungary dispatched the Hungarian Third Army to occupy Vojvodina in northern Serbia, and later forcibly annexed sections of Baranja, Bačka, Međimurje, and Prekmurje. The government in exile was now recognized by the Allied powers
24.
Anglo-Iraqi War
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The Anglo–Iraqi War was a British military campaign against the rebel government of Rashid Ali in the Kingdom of Iraq during the Second World War. The campaign resulted in the re-occupation of Iraq by the British Empire, the Kingdom of Iraq was governed by the United Kingdom under a League of Nations mandate, the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, until 1932 when Iraq became nominally independent. Before granting independence, the United Kingdom concluded the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, the conditions of the treaty were imposed by the British to ensure control of Iraqi petroleum. Many Iraqis resented these conditions because Iraq was still under the control of the British Government, after 1937, no British troops were left in Iraq and the government had become solely responsible for internal security. The Royal Air Force had been allowed to retain two bases, RAF Shaibah, near Basra and RAF Habbaniya, between Ramadi and Fallujah, the bases protected British petroleum interests and were a link in the air route between Egypt and India. At the beginning of the Second World War RAF Habbaniya became a base, protected by No.1 Armoured Car Company RAF, Iraq Levies and locally raised Iraqi troops. In September 1939, the Iraqi Government broke off relations with Nazi Germany. In March 1940, the nationalist and anti-British Rashid Ali replaced Nuri as-Said as Prime Minister of Iraq, Rashid Ali made covert contacts with German representatives in Ankara and Berlin, though he was not yet an openly pro-Axis supporter. In June 1940, when Fascist Italy joined the war on the side of Germany, the Italian Legation in Baghdad became the chief centre for Axis propaganda and for fomenting anti-British feeling. In this they were aided by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Grand Mufti had fled from the British Mandate of Palestine shortly before the war and later received asylum in Baghdad. In January 1941, Rashid Ali resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Taha al-Hashimi amidst a political crisis, public opinion in Iraq became less favourable to Italy after it suffered defeats in Greece, Albania, North and East Africa during 1940. On 31 March, the Regent of Iraq, Prince Abd al-Ilah, learnt of a plot to arrest him, from Habbaniya he was flown to Basra and given refuge on the gunboat HMS Cockchafer. On 1 April, Rashid Ali, along with four army and air force officers, seized power via a coup détat. The Golden Square deposed Prime Minister Taha al-Hashimi and Rashid Ali again became Prime Minister of Iraq, Ali did not overthrow the monarchy and named a new Regent to King Faisal II, Sherif Sharaf. Faisal and his family took refuge in the home of Mulla Effendi, the leaders of the National Defence Government began to arrest pro-British citizens and politicians but many managed to escape through Amman in Transjordan. The new regime intended to further concessions to Britain, retain diplomatic links with Fascist Italy. The putschists considered Britain to be weak and that its government would negotiate with the Golden Square, on 17 April, Ali, asked Germany for military assistance in the event of war with the British. Ali also tried to restrict British rights under Article 5 of the 1930 treaty when he insisted that newly arrived British troops be quickly transported through Iraq, the RIrA was composed of approximately 60,000 men, most in four infantry divisions and one mechanized brigade
25.
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
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The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, also known as Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia, was the invasion of the Empire of Iran during World War II by Soviet, British and other Commonwealth armed forces. The invasion lasted from 25 August to 17 September 1941 and was codenamed Operation Countenance and its purpose was to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure Allied supply lines for the USSR, fighting against Axis forces on the Eastern Front. In 1925, after years of war, turmoil and foreign intervention, Persia was unified under the rule of Reza Khan. Later, in 1935, he asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran and he set on an ambitious program of economic, cultural, and military modernisation. Iran, which had been a divided and isolated country under the rule of the Qajar Dynasty, was now evolving into a modern industrial state. Reza Shah also made improvements, such as building infrastructure, expanding cities and transportation networks. He also set forth on a policy of neutrality, but to finance and support his ambitious modernisation projects. For many decades, Iran and the German Empire had cultivated ties, partly as a counter to the ambitions of Britain. Trading with Germany appealed to Iran because the Germans did not have a history of imperialism in the region, unlike the British, Iranian embassies in occupied European capitals rescued over 1,500 Jews and secretly granted them Iranian citizenship, allowing them to move to Iran. The British began to accuse Iran of supporting Nazism and being pro-German. of the profits, following Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union became formal Allies, providing further impetus for an Allied invasion. British and Soviet planners recognised the importance of railway and sought to control it. As increasing U-boat attacks and winter ice made convoys to Arkhangelsk dangerous, the Soviets wanted to make Iranian Azerbaijan and the Turkmen Sahra part of the Soviet Union or even turn Iran into a communist state. The two Allied nations applied pressure on Iran and the Shah, which led only to increased tensions, the British described the protests as being pro-German. Irans strategic position threatened Soviet Caucasian oil and their armies rear, demands from the Allies for the expulsion of German residents in Iran, were refused by the Shah. A British embassy report in 1940, estimated there were almost 1,000 German nationals in Iran. According to Irans Ettelaat newspaper, there were actually 690 German nationals in Iran, however, the Iranians also began to reduce their trade with the Germans under Allied demands. Reza Shah sought to remain neutral and anger neither side, which was becoming increasingly difficult with the British/Soviet demands on Iran, British forces were already present in sizeable numbers in Iraq as a result of the Anglo-Iraqi War earlier in 1941. Thus, British troops were stationed on the border of Iran prior to the invasion
26.
Allied invasion of Sicily
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The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II, in which the Allies took the island of Sicily from the Axis powers. It was an amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign and was the beginning of the Italian Campaign. Husky began on the night of 9/10 July 1943, and ended on 17 August, the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was toppled from power in Italy and the way was opened for the Allied invasion of Italy. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, canceled a major offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy, resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front. The plan for Operation Husky called for the assault of Sicily by two Allied armies, one landing on the south-eastern and one on the central southern coast. The amphibious assaults were to be supported by gunfire, as well as tactical bombing, interdiction. As such, the operation required a complex structure, incorporating land, naval. The overall commander was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces in North Africa, British General Sir Harold Alexander acted as his second-in-command and as the 15th Army Group commander. The American Major General Walter Bedell Smith was appointed as Eisenhowers Chief of Staff, the overall Naval Force Commander was the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. The Allied land forces were from the American, British and Canadian armies, the Eastern Task Force was led by General Sir Bernard Montgomery and consisted of the British Eighth Army. The Western Task Force was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the two task force commanders reported to Alexander as commander of the 15th Army Group. Seventh Army consisted initially of three divisions, organized under II Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley. Middleton, sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria, the 2nd Armored Division, under Major General Hugh Joseph Gaffey, also sailing from Oran, was to be a floating reserve and be fed into combat as required. On 15 July, Patton reorganized his command into two corps by creating a new Provisional Corps headquarters, commanded by his deputy army commander, Major General Geoffrey Keyes. The two divisions of XIII Corps, the 5th and 50th Infantry Divisions, commanded by Major-Generals Horatio Berney-Ficklin and Sidney Kirkman and this request was granted by the British, displacing the veteran British 3rd Infantry Division. The Red Patch Division was added to Leeses XXX Corps to become part of the British Eighth Army, in addition to the amphibious landings, airborne troops were to be flown in to support both the Western and Eastern Task Forces. To the east, the British 1st Airborne Division, commanded by Major-General George F. Hopkinson, was to seize vital bridges and high ground in support of the British Eighth Army. The initial plan dictated that the U. S. 82nd Airborne Division, Allied naval forces were also grouped into two task forces to transport and support the invading armies
27.
Italian Campaign (World War II)
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The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. It is estimated that between September 1943 and April 1945, some 60, 000–70,000 Allied and 60, overall Allied casualties during the campaign totaled about 320,000 and the corresponding German figure was well over 600,000. Fascist Italy, prior to its collapse, suffered about 200,000 casualties, mostly POWs taken in the Allied invasion of Sicily, including more than 40,000 killed or missing. Besides them, over 150,000 Italian civilians died, as did 15,197 anti-Fascist partisans and 13,021 troops of the Italian Social Republic. The campaign ended when Army Group C surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 2,1945, the independent states of San Marino and the Vatican, both surrounded by Italian territory, also suffered damage during the campaign. Even prior to victory in the North African Campaign in May 1943, the British, especially the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, advocated their traditional naval-based peripheral strategy. The United States, with a larger army, favoured a more direct method of fighting the main force of the German Army in Northern Europe. The ability to such a campaign depended on first winning the Battle of the Atlantic. There was even pressure from some Latin American countries to stage an invasion of Spain, the British argued that the presence of large numbers of troops trained for amphibious landings in the Mediterranean made a limited-scale invasion possible and useful. A contributing factor was Franklin D. Roosevelts desire to keep US troops active in the European theatre during 1943 and it was hoped that an invasion might knock Italy out of the conflict, or at least increase the pressure on them and weaken them further. A combined Allied invasion of Sicily began on 10 July 1943 with both amphibious and airborne landings at the Gulf of Gela, the land forces involved were the U. S. Seventh Army, under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the original plan contemplated a strong advance by the British northwards along the east coast to Messina, with the Americans in a supporting role along their left flank. The defending German and Italian forces were unable to prevent the Allied capture of the island, but succeeded in evacuating most of their troops to the mainland, the Allied forces gained experience in opposed amphibious operations, coalition warfare and mass airborne drops. Forces of the British Eighth Army, still under Montgomery, landed in the toe of Italy on 3 September 1943 in Operation Baytown, the armistice was publicly announced on 8 September by two broadcasts, first by General Eisenhower and then by a proclamation by Marshal Badoglio. Although the German forces prepared to defend without Italian assistance, only two of their divisions opposite the Eighth Army and one at Salerno were not tied up disarming the Royal Italian Army, on 9 September, forces of the U. S. Fifth Army, under Lieutenant General Mark W, although none of the northern reserves were made available to the German 10th Army, it nevertheless came close to repelling the Salerno landing, due mainly to the cautious command of Clark. As the Allies advanced, they encountered increasingly difficult terrain, the Apennine Mountains form a spine along the Italian peninsula offset somewhat to the east, the rivers were subject to sudden and unexpected flooding, which constantly thwarted the Allied commanders plans. This would make the most of the natural geography of Central Italy, whilst denying the Allies the easy capture of a succession of airfields
28.
Dodecanese campaign
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Operating without air cover, the Allied effort failed, with the whole of the Dodecanese falling to the Germans within two months, and the Allies suffering heavy losses in men and ships. The Dodecanese campaign, lasting from 8 September to 22 November 1943, the Dodecanese island group lies in the south-eastern Aegean Sea, and had been under Italian control since the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. During Italian rule, the strategically well-placed islands became a focus of Italian colonial ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean, Rhodes, the largest of the islands, was a major military and aerial base. After the Battle of Greece in April 1941 and the Allied defeat in the Battle of Crete in May, Greece and its many islands were subjected to the Axis occupation of Greece. The British envisaged an operation to capture the Dodecanese and Crete, to deprive the Axis of excellent forward bases in the Mediterranean and this would serve a favorite idea of Churchills, of a route through the Dardanelles to Russia as an alternative to the Arctic Convoys. In the Casablanca Conference, the initial go-ahead was given and Churchill ordered his commanders to have ready for 27 January 1943. Operation Accolade, called for an attack on Rhodes and Karpathos. Landings at Crete, which was too well fortified and had a strong German garrison, were dropped and this challenge was further exacerbated by the demands of the upcoming Allied invasion of Sicily. The Americans were skeptical about the operation, which they regarded as aiming mostly at post-war political benefits for Britain and they refused to support it, warning the British that they would have to go on alone. A force based on the 8th Indian Infantry Division assembled and American assistance in the form of P-38 Lightning long-range fighter squadrons was requested. On the announcement of the Armistice, the Italian garrisons on most of the Dodecanese Islands either wanted to change sides, anticipating the Italian surrender, German forces, based largely in mainland Greece, had been rushed to many of the islands to gain control. The German forces were part of Army Group E commanded by Luftwaffe General Alexander Löhr, the most important German force in the Dodecanese was the 7, 500-strong Sturm-Division Rhodos. This division had formed during the summer in the island of Rhodes. Because of this, Rhodes was the military objective for both the Allies and the Germans. On 8 September, the Italian garrison on the island of Kastelorizo surrendered to a British detachment, which was reinforced during the following days by ships of the Allied navies. The next day, a British delegation, headed by Lord Jellicoe, was dropped by parachute on Rhodes, to persuade the Italian commander, Admiral Inigo Campioni, the swift action of the German forces forestalled the Allies. Without waiting for the Italians to decide, Kleemann attacked the 40, 000-strong Italian garrison on 9 September, the loss of Rhodes dealt a critical blow to Allied hopes. The government of the Kingdom of Italy surrendered and many Italian soldiers in the Aegean were tired of the war and had opposed to Mussolini
29.
Italian occupation of Corsica
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Italian-occupied Corsica refers to the military occupation by the Kingdom of Italy of the island of Corsica during World War II. It lasted from November 1942 to September 1943, on 8 November 1942, the Allies landed in North Africa. In response, Nazi Germany formulated Operation Anton, as part of which Italy occupied the island of Corsica on November 11, the Italian occupation of Corsica had been strongly promoted by the Italian irredentist movement during Italys Fascist period. The occupation force initially included 30,000 Italian troops and gradually reached the size of nearly 85,000 soldiers and this was a huge occupation force relative to the size of the local population of 220,000. The VII Army Corps of the Regio Esercito was able to occupy Corsica, because of the initial lack of perceived partisan resistance and to avoid problems with Marshal Philippe Pétain, no Corsican units were formed under Italian control. The Corsican population initially showed some support for the Italians, partly as a consequence of irredentist propaganda, the Italian troops grew to encompass two Army Divisions, two coastal Divisions, eight battalions of Fascist Militia, and some units of Military Police and Carabinieri. The Italian troops were commanded by General Mondino until the end of December 1942, then by General Carboni until March 1943, also some Corsican military officers collaborated with Italy, including the retired Major Pantalacci, Colonel Mondielli and Colonel Simon Petru Cristofini. Cristofini, who even met Benito Mussolini in Rome, was a supporter of the union of Corsica with Italy. He closely worked with the famous Corsican writer Petru Giovacchini, who was named as the potential Governor of Corsica had the Kingdom of Italy annexed the island, indeed, there was a mild support of the Italian occupation from most of the Corsican population until summer 1943. Social and economic life in Corsica was administered by the original French civil authorities, i. e. the préfet and four sous-préfets in Ajaccio, Bastia, Sartene and Corte. On 14 November 1943, the préfet restated French sovereignty over the island, the French Resistance was initially limited, but it started taking shape immediately in the aftermath of the Italian invasion. Under the chief of the mission Roger de Saule, they coordinated various groups that merged in the Front national, communists were most influential in this movement. The R2 Corse network was formed in connection with the London-based forces immediately under General de Gaulle in January 1943. Its leader Fred Scamaroni failed to unite the movements and was captured and tortured. In April 1943 Paulin Colonna dIstria was sent by Charles de Gaulle from Algeria, by early 1943, the Resistance was organized enough that it requested arms deliveries. The Resistance leadership was reinforced and the morale was boosted by six visits by Casabianca carrying personnel and arms. This allowed the Resistance to increase its activities and establish greater territorial control, in June and July 1943 the OVRA and the fascist Black Shirts paramilitary groups started a large-scale repression. According to General Fernand Gambiez,860 Corsicans were jailed and deported to Italy, on 30 August, Jean Nicoli and two French partisans of the Front national were shot in Bastia by order of an Italian Fascist War Tribunal
30.
Operation Dragoon
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Operation Dragoon was the code name for the Allied invasion of Southern France on 15 August 1944. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the French High Command pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops, as a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August. The goal of the operation was to secure the ports on the French Mediterranean coast. After some preliminary commando operations, the US VI Corps landed on the beaches of the Côte dAzur under the shield of a naval task force. Hindered by total Allied air superiority and an uprising by the French Resistance. The Germans decided to withdraw towards the north through the Rhône valley, Allied mobile units were able to overtake the Germans and partially block their route at the town of Montélimar. The ensuing battle led to a stalemate, with neither able to achieve a decisive breakthrough, until the Germans were finally able to complete their withdrawal. While the Germans were retreating, the French managed to capture the important ports of Marseille and Toulon, the Germans were not able to hold Dijon and ordered a complete withdrawal from Southern France. Army Group G retreated further north, pursued by Allied forces, the fighting ultimately came to a stop at the Vosges mountains, where Army Group G was finally able to establish a stable defense line. After meeting with the Allied units from Operation Overlord, the Allied forces were in need of reorganizing and, facing stiffened German resistance, Operation Dragoon was considered a success by the Allies. The captured French ports were put into operation, allowing the Allies to solve their supply problems soon after, during planning stages, the 1942 operation was known as Anvil, to complement Operation Sledgehammer, at that time the code name for the invasion of Normandy. Subsequently, both plans were renamed, Sledgehammer becoming Operation Overlord, and Anvil becoming Operation Dragoon, the original idea of an invasion of Southern France had come from General George Marshall, the U. S. Army Chief of Staff already in 1942. Operation Dragoon was controversial from the time it was first proposed, the American military leadership and its British counterparts disagreed on the operation. When first planned, the landings were to take place simultaneously – Overlord in Normandy and it soon became clear that a dual landing was impossible to conduct with the available forces. The expansion of Overlord from a three- to a five-division front required many additional LSTs, at the same time, another Allied amphibious landing in Italy at Anzio had gone badly. All of these resulted in the postponing of Anvil by the Allies, after the landing at Normandy, a revival of Anvil became increasingly attractive to the Allied planners. These factors led to a reconsideration of the plan, despite Churchills objections, the operation was authorized by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff on 14 July and then renamed Dragoon on 1 August
31.
Club Run
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Club Run was an informal name for aircraft supply operations to the besieged island of Malta during the Second World War. Malta was the object of determined Axis attempts from 1941–1942 to either force the British military authorities to surrender or to destroy its effectiveness as a military base, the islands significance was as a forward base from which Axis supplies to their north African armies could be attacked. It is a measure of Maltas importance that Britain reassigned fighter aircraft from home defence and its Mediterranean operations were called Club Runs. It was deemed to be a club of the most efficient warships in the Royal Navy. A mythical regimental tie was designed for members of The Club, consisting of a Mediterranean grey field, Maltas air defences were essential and aircraft reinforcements and replacements were a constant need. Fighters and torpedo bombers were required but they lacked the range to fly direct from the British base at Gibraltar, the solution was for aircraft carriers to move within range and then fly-off fighters to land at a Maltese airfield. In July 1940, he insisted that Hurricanes be flown in at the earliest moment and this led to the first Club Run, Operation Hurry, using the old carrier HMS Argus. The Axis air forces developed measures to counter the Club Runs, attacking the aircraft while in transit, in their turn, the carriers became prime targets and required more heavily protected and complex operations to ensure success. Despite this, the British carrier HMS Ark Royal was sunk, additional capacity was created by transporting aircraft in crates and assembling them at Gibraltar or on board carriers. In this way, one run from Britain would deliver enough aircraft for two flying-off operations. From early 1942, Spitfires were necessary to counter the more modern German fighters that outclassed the robust, on several occasions there were faults with the external fuel tanks that were needed to give the required range. The failure to rectify a fault over several deliveries for a purpose in hazardous circumstances is unexplained but was described as embarrassing. From October,1942, modified Spitfire Mk VCs with additional internal and external fuel tanks, the modifications were reversed in Malta. This removed the need for Club Runs, may 1942 - Operation LB,17 Spitfires flown off Eagle,6 Albacores again failed to fly off June 1942 - Operation Style,32 Spitfires flown off HMS Eagle. Twenty-eight of them arrived safely, four shot down en route
32.
Malta convoys
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The Malta Convoys were Allied supply convoys of the Second World War. The convoys took place during the Siege of Malta in the Mediterranean Theatre, Malta required supplies for the civilian population and military reinforcements, food and fuel for the air and naval forces based on the island. The desert war was fought in Libya, Egypt, the Suez Canal, the strategic value of Malta was so great that the British risked many merchant vessels and warships to maintain the island and the Axis made determined efforts to starve out the population. The destruction of the Italian 10th Army in Egypt and Libya during Operation Compass, German bombers and submarines joined the blockade to neutralise and then invade Malta. The British assembled large flotillas to escort convoys and sent fast warships, to make runs to the island. After the Axis victory in the Battle of Gazala, the capture of Tobruk and pursuit into Egypt, Hercules was postponed, Malta, an island of 122 square miles, had a population of 275,000. In the 1940s, Maltese agriculture could feed only one-third of its population, Malta had been a British colony since 1814. Only two weeks after the Italian declaration of war, the Second Armistice at Compiègne ended British access to French Mediterranean Sea bases, the attack on Mers-el-Kébir hardened French antipathy towards Britain. Axis support of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War caused concern about security of British Gibraltar, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Libya dominated the central Mediterranean and Italian conquest of Egypt would link Abyssinia, Italian Somaliland and Eritrea. The September 1940 Italian invasion of Egypt was followed by Operation Compass, germany sent the Afrika Korps to Libya in Unternehmen Sonnenblume which, with Italian reinforcements, recaptured Cyrenaica. Fliegerkorps X of the Luftwaffe was sent to Sicily in Unternehmen Mittelmeer to protect the Axis supply routes past Malta, fliegerkorps X was transferred to Greece in April 1941 and the 23rd U-boat Flotilla was based at Salamis in September. Resources available to sustain Malta were reduced when Japan declared war in December, Malta ceased to be an effective anti-convoy base in early 1942. Several warships were sunk in harbour and others were withdrawn, supplies dwindled with the loss of convoys. An Axis invasion of Malta was planned as (Operation C3 and Unternehmen Herkules, in the Battle of Calabria, Regia Marina escorts of an Italian convoy engage battleships HMS Warspite, Malaya and Royal Sovereign and the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. Cruisers and destroyers covered convoys MF1 with El Nil, Knight of Malta and Rodi and MS1 with Kirkland, Masirah, Novasli, Tweed and Zeeland, twelve Hurricanes were flown off the carrier HMS Argus to Malta in the first Club Run to reinforce the air defences. Club Runs would continue until it was possible to fly the aircraft directly from Gibraltar, the Mediterranean Fleet escorted fast convoy MF2 of three transports from Alexandria and collected another convoy from Gibraltar. En route, Italian airbases were raided, the Regia Marina had superior forces at sea but missed the opportunity to exploit their advantage. Four ships of convoy MF3 reached Malta safely from Alexandria and 3 ships returned to Alexandria as convoy MF4, the convoys were part of Operation MB6 and the escort included four battleships and two aircraft carriers
33.
Axis powers
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The Axis powers, also known as the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II against the Allied Powers. The Axis agreed on their opposition to the Allies, but did not completely coordinate their activity, the Axis grew out of the diplomatic efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step was the treaty signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936, Mussolini declared on 1 November that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term Axis. The almost simultaneous second step was the signing in November 1936 of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Italy joined the Pact in 1937. At its zenith during World War II, the Axis presided over territories that occupied parts of Europe, North Africa. There were no three-way summit meetings and cooperation and coordination was minimal, the war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of their alliance. As in the case of the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, at the time he was seeking an alliance with the Weimar Republic against Yugoslavia and France in the dispute over the Free State of Fiume. The term was used by Hungarys prime minister Gyula Gömbös when advocating an alliance of Hungary with Germany, when Mussolini publicly announced the signing on 1 November, he proclaimed the creation of a Rome–Berlin axis. Italy under Duce Benito Mussolini had pursued an alliance of Italy with Germany against France since the early 1920s. He believed that Italy could expand its influence in Europe by allying with Germany against France, in early 1923, as a goodwill gesture to Germany, Italy secretly delivered weapons for the German Army, which had faced major disarmament under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. General Hans von Seeckt supported an alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union to invade and partition Poland between them and restore the German-Russian border of 1914. The discussions concluded that Germans still wanted a war of revenge against France but were short on weapons, however at this time Mussolini stressed one important condition that Italy must pursue in an alliance with Germany, that Italy must. Tow them, not be towed by them, the French government warned Italy that it had to choose whether to be on the side of the pro-Versailles powers or that of the anti-Versailles revanchists. Grandi responded that Italy would be willing to offer France support against Germany if France gave Italy its mandate over Cameroon, France refused Italys proposed exchange for support, as it believed Italys demands were unacceptable and the threat from Germany was not yet immediate. In 1932, Gyula Gömbös and the Party of National Unity rose to power in Hungary, Gömbös sought to alter Hungarys post–Treaty of Trianon borders by forming an alliance with Austria and Italy, knowing that Hungary alone was not capable of challenging the Little Entente powers. At the meeting between Gömbös and Mussolini in Rome on 10 November 1932, the question came up of the sovereignty of Austria in relation to the rise to power in Germany of the Nazi Party. Mussolini was worried about Nazi ambitions towards Austria, and indicated that at least in the term he was committed to maintaining Austria as a sovereign state. Italy had concerns over a Germany which included Austria laying land claims to German-populated territories of the South Tyrol within Italy, Mussolini said he hoped the Anschluss could be postponed as long as possible until the breakout of a European war that he estimated would begin in 1938
34.
Battle of the Espero Convoy
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The Battle of the Espero Convoy was the first Second World War surface engagement between Italian and Allied warships. The Italian warships were bound from Taranto to Tobruk, carrying an army unit to North Africa. On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France, the Italian High Command expected a British Army advance into Cyrenaica led by armoured forces, and decided that an anti-tank unit should be moved to Tobruk as soon as possible. The unit comprised ten anti-tank guns,120 short tons of ammunition, the Italians chose three Turbine-class destroyers to transport the anti-tank unit, for their high speed and loading capacity. The three chosen were Espero, Zeffiro and Ostro, the Italian flotilla was commanded by Capitano di Vascello Enrico Baroni. Two smaller WWI-era escort vessels, the Pilo and the Missori, at the same time, three Allied convoys—two from Malta and another from Greece—were to be brought to Alexandria, covered by seven cruisers and 16 destroyers. The British warships were commanded by Vice-Admiral John Tovey, the Allied operation was supported by Short Sunderland flying boats from Alexandria and Malta. The Italian destroyers were found at noon by two Sunderlands some 50 mi west of Zante island and they were within striking range of Tovey’s 7th Squadron, so he ordered them to intercept the Italians in two divisions. He therefore decided to sacrifice Espero in order to enable the two to escape, Espero laid smokescreens and conducted evasive manoeuvres. Zeffiro and Ostro headed safely to the southwest at full speed, despite heavy firing, Espero was not hit until 19,20, when the range had closed to 14,000 yd. By this time, Tovey had given up the chase of the two destroyers. The 7th Squadron expended about 5,000 shells before Espero was sunk, a single Italian 4.7 in shell hit HMS Liverpool just 3 ft above the waterline, but caused little damage. HMAS Sydney rescued 47 men from the Italian destroyer, and six others were found alive by an Italian submarine almost 20 days later. Captain Baroni died aboard his ship, and was awarded the Medaglia d´oro al valor militare. Zeffiro and Ostro both reached Benghazi the next day and arrived at Tobruk shortly after, two-thirds of the convoy had been saved. The smaller Pilo and Missori also arrived safely with their valuable cargoes, conversely, the massive expenditure of shells by the British cruisers exacerbated a shortage of ammunition at Alexandria so that the planned Malta convoys were postponed for two weeks. The British cruisers had fired nearly 5,000 rounds at the Italian destroyers, there were lessons learned by both sides after this battle. For the Allies, the battle showed that a naval action at long range was unlikely to be decisive when the enemy units outmatched ones own speed
35.
Battle of Calabria
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The Battle of Calabria, was a naval battle during the Battle of the Mediterranean in World War II. It was fought between the Italian Royal Navy and the British Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, the battle occurred 30 miles to the east of Punta Stilo, Calabria, on 9 July 1940. It was one of the few pitched battles of the Mediterranean campaign during World War II involving large numbers of ships on both sides, both sides claimed victory, but in fact the battle was a draw and everyone returned to their bases as soon as possible. On 6 July a convoy of four merchant ships left Naples on their way to Benghazi, the transports carried 2,190 troops,72 M11 tanks,232 vehicles,10,445 tons of supplies and 5,720 tons of fuel. Finally, the battle group consisted of two battleships, eight light cruisers and another 16 destroyers. A substantial number of the Italian destroyers didnt take part in the due to mechanical problems. Meanwhile, the Allies were involved in a similar convoy action, the fleet sailed from Alexandria bound towards Malta where the destroyers would deliver supplies and a limited number of specialist reinforcements. Two convoys were arranged to take off fleet stores and civilians from Malta to Alexandria, two groups of merchantmen sailed, a fast convoy at 13 knots and slow one at 9 knots. One of them, Imperial, had to return to Alexandria with a burst steam pipe on the hours of 8 July. All were under the direction of Admiral Andrew Cunningham. At 14,40 on 8 July two Italian Cant Z.506 from Tobruk spotted the British fleet and shadowed it for four hours. Admiral Campioni ordered his fleet to defend the convoy by turning eastward, the Italian Supreme Command, however, was reluctant to risk its warships in a night-time encounter, and they ordered the fleet to avoid contact. In order to make up for losses, another destroyer group was summoned from Taranto. At this point, the Italian fleet had 16 destroyers, meanwhile, the Allies were having problems as well. From 10,00 to 18.40,72 land-based bombers of the Italian Royal Air Force from the mainland attacked their fleet. Unlike the dive-bombers favored by the Germans, Italian bombers operated in formations at high altitudes during the stages of the war. While scores of bombs were dropped by the Italians, a hit on HMS Gloucester represented the outcome of two major attacks. This was a hit on the bridge, killing the captain, six officers. In addition, three officers and six ratings were wounded, the forward fire control and the steering equipment was destroyed, and for the rest of the battle, she would be commanded from the emergency station
36.
Battle of Cape Spada
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The Battle of Cape Spada was a naval battle during the Battle of the Mediterranean in Second World War. It took place on 19 July 1940 in the Mediterranean Sea off Cape Spada, the battle occurred when an Allied squadron patrolling the Aegean encountered two Italian cruisers transferring from Tripoli to Leros, at that time an Italian colony in the Dodecanese Islands. The Italian 2nd Cruiser Division was commanded by Vice Admiral Ferdinando Casardi and consisted of the light cruisers Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. When the Italians encountered the Allied destroyers at about 07,30, Sydney, the other destroyers led the Italian cruisers on a chase northwards to give Sydney time to come to the rescue. Sydney sighted the Italians at 08,26, opening fire at 08,29, in the running battle which followed, Bartolomeo Colleoni was hard hit by Sydney and after a shell hit the boilers at 09,23 she stopped dead in the water. She fought on but was unable to manoeuvre or use the battery, despite the fire from her 100 mm guns. Sydney continued to fire against Bande Nere and she was hit in the funnel by a single Italian shell, but managed to hit Bande Nere at least twice, killing eight in the bow and the hangar. Later, Sydney disengaged because she was short of ammunition and Giovanni delle Bande Nere returned to Benghazi, shadowed by the battleship HMS Warspite,555 survivors of Bartolomeo Colleoni were rescued,121 died. The British destroyers were bombed by Italian aircraft in the aftermath, resulting in damage to HMS Havock, a floatplane from Warspite, which was searching for Bande Nere, ditched in the sea and was lost near Tobruk. The crew was captured by the Italians, Allied convoy AN.2 was ordered to sail back to Port Said and remain there until it was eventually known that Bande Nere had reached Benghazi. This gave the Australian cruiser the chance to close the range, the light armour of Colleoni and Bande Nere was unable to defeat Sydney´s rounds. The lack of aerial reconnaissance was another factor contributing to the successful Allies chase, the Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943. Struggle for the Middle Sea, The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, the Royal Navy and the Mediterranean. ISBN 0-7146-5179-6 Action off Cape Spada Scontro di Capo Spada
37.
Battle of Cape Passero (1940)
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It took place in the aftermath of a British supply operation to Malta. In October 1940, the Mediterranean Fleet mounted an operation to Malta from Alexandria. The convoy had four ships escorted by two anti-aircraft cruisers and four destroyers. The screening force was led by Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Cunninghams flagship, HMS Warspite, the only remarkable incident during the convoy was some damage to the destroyer HMS Imperial when she ran into a minefield. The merchantmen reached their destination on 11 October, until then, bad weather had prevented the intervention of the Italian Fleet. An aircraft spotted the ships shortly after they had left Malta. Meanwhile, HMS Ajax was detached from the other cruisers for a scouting mission, the Italian commander—Admiral Inigo Campioni—ordered a force of destroyers to Cape Bon, in case the British warships were going to Gibraltar. In Campionis view, it was too late for the Italian battleships, a flotilla of four destroyers and three torpedo boats was, at the same time, patrolling between 35° 45’ N and 35° 25′N, at about 3 nmi apart, in full moonlight. The Italian destroyers—all Soldati-class—were the Artigliere, Camicia Nera, Aviere, the torpedo boats were the Spica-class Ariel, Alcione, and Airone. At 01,37, Ajax was sighted by Alcione, steaming eastward,19,600 yd away on the port side, at 01,48, the three torpedo boats were closing the British cruiser at full speed. The cruiser was completely unaware of the enemy approach, at 01,57, Alcione fired two torpedoes from a range of 1,900 yd. Captain Banfi, commander of the Italian formation, ordered the flagship Airone to open fire on the enemy with her 100 mm guns, three rounds hit home, two on the bridge and the third 6 ft below the waterline. Ajax realised she was under attack and opened fire on the nearest torpedo boat—Ariel—while at full speed, Ariel was shattered by the salvos and sank 20 minutes later, although she may have been able to fire a torpedo. Captain Mario Ruta, his second in command, and most of the crew were killed, Airone was the next Italian ship to be hit. She managed to launch two torpedoes before being disabled, catching fire almost immediately, her bridge and upper deck machine-gunned by Ajax at short range and she sank a few hours later. Then Alcione—the only Italian warship undamaged—broke contact at 02,03, meanwhile, after manoeuvering during the fighting, Ajax resumed her course to the eastward. At 02,15, her radar detected two Italian destroyers, whose commander—Captain Carlo Margottini—had sighted the firing from the south. A radio malfunction had prevented Margottini from attacking in full strength, Aviere was battered by a sudden broadside from the British cruiser, forestalling a torpedo attack, and was forced to withdraw southwards, heavily damaged
38.
Operation MB8
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Operation MB8 was a British Royal Navy operation in the Mediterranean Sea during 4–11 November 1940. It was made up of six forces—totalling two aircraft carriers, five battleships,10 cruisers and 30 destroyers, including much of Force H—protecting four supply convoys. It consisted of several phases, Operation Coat, Operation Crack, Convoy MW3, Convoy ME3, Convoy AN6, Operation Coat was a reinforcement convoy from Britain to Malta, carrying troops and anti-aircraft guns. The convoy was made up of the battleship HMS Barham, heavy cruisers HMS Berwick and Glasgow, Convoy MW3 was made up of three empty merchantmen bound for Malta from Alexandria, plus an Australian destroyer and the monitor HMS Terror bound for the base at Suda Bay. The convoy was escorted by the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Coventry, accompanied by three destroyers, the 11.5 knots convoy left Alexandria on 4 November and reached Malta on 10 November. Convoy ME3 comprised four merchantmen sailing in ballast from Malta to Alexandria, under escort of the battleship HMS Ramillies, Coventry, the convoy sailed from Malta on 10 November and arrived in Alexandria on 13 November. Convoy AN6 consisted of four slow tankers bound for Greece from Egypt, in support of the British expedition there, all three would rejoin to form Force X for an 11/12 November raid on the Otranto Strait. Operation Crack was an attack on Cagliari by aircraft from Ark Royal, en route to Malta, Operation Judgement—under the overall command of Admiral A. B. Cunningham—was executed by aircraft from the carrier HMS Illustrious, escorted by battleships Ramilies, Warspite, Valiant and they met the heavy cruisers HMS Gloucester and York and three destroyers, then escorting Convoy MW3, and provided cover. Then the Barham group from Operation Coat was to be met, with Illustrious, Gloucester, York, the Italians were aware of sorties from Alexandria and Gibraltar by 7 November, and sent nine submarines to attack a Malta convoy detected on 8 November. Bombers failed even to pinpoint the Judgement force, and when Force H was detected headed back toward Gibraltar on 9 November, Italian confusion arose when Barham, Berwick, Glasgow, and their destroyers were detected 10 November off Lemnos. The correct deduction—they had detached from the Gibraltar-bound force—was not accompanied by a correct guess they would join with Cunningham, the same day, Ramillies, Coventry, and two destroyers protecting ME3 were detected, and again, bombers failed even to locate them. The very complexity of Operation MB8, with its various forces and convoys, while Italian reconnaissance was characteristically bad, in the end, the Italians had only failed to keep track of Illustrious. That the Italians expected the British to behave in what was, at the time, Battle of the Mediterranean Malta Convoys Force H Hague, Arnold. The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943, Sea Battles in Close-up, World War 2, Volume 1, pp. 37–9
39.
Battle of Taranto
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The attack struck the battle fleet of the Regia Marina at anchor in the harbour of Taranto using aerial torpedoes despite the shallow depth of the water. The devastation wrought by the British carrier-launched aircraft on the large Italian warships was the beginning of the ascendancy of naval aviation over the big guns of battleships. Long before the First World War, the Italian Regia Marinas First Squadron was based at Taranto, in that period, the British Royal Navy developed plans for countering the power of the Regia Marina. Blunting the power of any adversary in the Mediterranean Sea was an ongoing exercise, plans for the capture of the port at Taranto were considered as early as the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. In 1940–41, Italian Army operations in North Africa, based in Libya, the British Armys North African Campaign, based in Egypt, suffered from much greater supply difficulties. Since the latter was a long and slow route, this put the Italian fleet in an excellent position to interdict British supplies. The Italian fleet at Taranto was powerful, six battleships, seven heavy cruisers, Pound ordered his staff to re-examine all plans for attacking Taranto. He was advised by Arthur LStG Lyster, the captain of Glorious, indeed, the Fleet Air Arm was then the only naval aviation arm capable of it. Pound took Lysters advice and ordered training to begin, security was kept so tight there were no written records. Just a month before the war began, Pound advised his replacement, Admiral Andrew Cunningham and this came to be known as Operation Judgment. The fall of France and the consequent loss of the French fleet in the Mediterranean made redress essential, the older carrier, HMS Eagle, on Cunninghams strength, was ideal, possessing a very experienced air group composed entirely of obsolescent Swordfish aircraft. Three Sea Gladiators were added for the operation, firm plans were drawn up after the Italian Army halted at Sidi Barrani, which freed up the British Mediterranean Fleet. Operation Judgment was just a part of the overarching Operation MB8. It was originally scheduled to take place on 21 October 1940, Trafalgar Day and this minor fire spread into something more serious that destroyed two Swordfish. Eagle then suffered a breakdown in her system, so she was eliminated. When the brand-new carrier HMS Illustrious, based at Alexandria, became available in the Mediterranean, she took on board five Swordfish from Eagle, the 24 attack Swordfish came from 813,815,819, and 824 Naval Air Squadrons. The small number of attacking warplanes raised concern that Judgment would only alert, Illustrious also had Fairey Fulmar fighters of 806 Naval Air Squadron aboard to provide air cover for the task force, with radar and fighter control systems. Half of the Swordfish were armed with torpedoes as the strike aircraft, with the other half carrying aerial bombs
40.
Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1940)
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The Battle of the Strait of Otranto was a minor naval action during the Battle of the Mediterranean in World War II. It took place in the Strait of Otranto in the Adriatic Sea, the battle occurred when an Allied squadron entered the Adriatic Sea looking for Italian naval targets. Although they did not know it at the time the real purpose was to help draw enemy attention from a major action against the main Italian fleet base at Taranto. V. c. Giovanni Barbini and the auxiliary cruiser Ramb III commanded by C. F, the ships were travelling darkened without navigational lights. The Allied ships proceeded north during the night of 11 November, twenty minutes later, the raiders encountered six darkened enemy ships, including what they thought were two destroyers and four merchantmen. The enemy vessels passed across their front and were making for the Italian mainland, HMS Mohawk opened fire at 01,27, and action became general. In a confused night action, HMAS Sydney attacked the leading freighter at a range of 11 km. Over the next 23 minutes, the three merchantmen were either sunk or damaged and left burning. Fabrizi was hit and heavily damaged and retired toward Valona with 11 dead and 17 wounded, Ramb III after an initial exchange of 19 salvoes broke off the action unscathed. The merchantmen were all sunk in the engagement, the Allies suffered no damage or casualties, although a torpedo narrowly missed Sydneys stern at 01,40. The Regia Marina suffered casualties totalling 36 dead and 42 wounded, the Italians retaliated by sending aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica to locate the British naval squadron, however, the CANT flying boats which eventually located the naval squadron were shot down. The day after the battle, two Italian torpedo boats—Curtatone and Solferino—rescued a total of 140 sailors
41.
Operation White
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Operation White was a British attempt to deliver 14 aircraft—12 Hawker Hurricane fighters and two Blackburn Skua dive bombers—to Malta from the aircraft carrier HMS Argus, on 17 November 1940. The operation was thwarted by the presence of the Italian Fleet at sea, which prompted a premature take-off of the fighters, White was one of several so-called Club Runs that supplied short-range fighters for the defence of Malta. The first unit to be transferred by carrier was 418 Flight and they accomplished a successful mission on 2 August 1940 from the old carrier HMS Argus, escorted by the fleet carrier HMS Ark Royal, three battleships, two cruisers and 10 destroyers. Three Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 medium bombers attacked the convoy, all the British fighters reached the airstrip of Luqa at Malta, although two planes crash-landed. The first engagement of the new arrived aircraft took place on the night of 13 August, by 16 August 418 Flight and the original Malta units were merged into 261 Squadron. Following this success, both the Navy and the RAF were encouraged to repeat the mission in November. Again, the aircraft were to be delivered by HMS Argus, escorted by the battlecruiser HMS Renown, the carrier HMS Ark Royal, the convoy—under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville—departed from Gibraltar at dawn on 15 November. The Italian naval headquarters, was informed of the ongoing operation four hours later, earlier the same day, a report was passed to Somerville about the deployment of the Italian fleet south of Naples, with the apparent intention of intercepting the British squadron. He then decided to launch the fighters as soon as possible, the British convoy was 400 mi west of Malta when the first wave of fighters took off from Argus at 06,15. Given the correct speed and the best cruise-range, the Hurricanes would have left with just 45 minutes of fuel after reaching the coast of the island. But they lost a third of this reserve while scrambling and forming up, the fighters flew at 150 mph at a height of 2,000 ft, far from the ideal height and speed intended for their best range. The second wave was launched an hour later, as the turned back at full speed. The wind backed from southwest to southeast, hampering the eastward path of the aircraft, near the Galite Islands, a Short Sunderland flying boat met them to lead the formation to Malta. Two Hurricanes were lost after running out of fuel at 09,08 and 09,12, one of the pilots was rescued by the Sunderland, the other was never found. Eventually, the four remaining Hurricanes and the Skua landed at Luqa at 09,20, the second wave missed the Sunderlands assistance when the flying boat failed to take off from Gibraltar to escort them. They also missed the Galite Islands and a bomber sent from Malta to replace the Sunderland, one by one, the Hurricanes ran out of fuel and ditched in the sea, with the loss in all cases of both pilots and aircraft. One Skua managed to crash-land near Syracuse, Sicily, just before its fuel tanks became empty, the two-man crew was taken prisoner. Admiral Somerville privately assessed the operation a frightful failure, the loss of experienced fighter pilots was particularly painful
42.
Battle of Cape Spartivento
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On the night of 11 November 1940, the British incapacitated or destroyed half of the Italian fleets battleships in a daring aerial assault as they lay at rest at Taranto. The British were warned of their approach and immediately turned about and returned to Gibraltar, one Skua and eight Hurricanes were lost at sea, as they ran out of fuel well before arriving at their destination, with the loss of seven airmen. The Italians success in disrupting the reinforcement of Malta cast serious doubt upon British plans to send a convoy to supply the island. However, the convoy was attempted, with increased support, including ships from Gibraltar-based Force H, the convoy was spotted by the Italian intelligence service, and once again the Italian fleet sailed out to intercept it. The first Italian naval unit to make contact with the convoy was the torpedo boat Sirio. After launching two torpedoes from long range, which missed their target, Sirio reported seven enemy warships heading to the east, the British, aware of the Italian fleets movements, sent their forces north to intercept them before they could come anywhere near the cargo ships. At 09,45 on 27 November, an IMAM Ro.43 reconnaissance floatplane from the heavy cruiser Bolzano discovered a British squadron steaming to the east,17 nmi north of Chetaïbi. Force D had not yet arrived from Alexandria and the British were outgunned, but 15 minutes later, Force D was spotted and the tables turned. However, the Italian admiral Inigo Campioni had been orders to avoid combat unless it was heavily in his favour. Meanwhile, and even further to the south, Ark Royal was preparing to launch its complement of Fairey Swordfish, however, by this point, the lead cruiser formation had already angled toward the British and was beginning to engage them in battle. At 12,22, the groups of both cruiser forces came into range and Fiume opened fire at 23,500 metres. Rapid fire between the two continued as the distance between them closed, but as the range shortened Italian firepower began to put pressure on the outgunned British. The arrival of the battleship HMS Ramillies on the British side helped to even the odds, four minutes later, Vice Admiral Angelo Iachino, commander of the Italian cruiser group, received orders to disengage, although the battle had swung slightly in their favour. Iachino ordered an increase in speed to 30 kn, laid smoke, at this time, the Italian destroyer Lanciere was hit by a broadside from HMS Manchester and seriously damaged, although she was towed to port after the battle. The heavy cruiser HMS Berwick was hit at 12,22 by a single 203 mm shell, a second hit at 12,35 destroyed the after breaker room and cut power to the ships aft section, including the remaining aft turret. For the next few minutes, the tables turned in favour of the British when the battlecruiser HMS Renown closed the distance on the Italian cruisers, the Italian cruiser was hit by splinters. This advantage was negated, however, when at 13,00. Vittorio Veneto fired 19 rounds in seven salvoes from long range and that was enough for the now outgunned British cruisers, in fact, as giant water-spouts erupted around Berwick and Manchester, Holland ordered smoke, and his ships fled southeast to close with Renown
43.
Operation Excess
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Operation Excess was a series of British supply convoys to Malta, Alexandria and Greece in January 1941. The operation encountered the first presence of Luftwaffe anti-shipping aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea, all the convoyed freighters reached their destinations. However, the destroyer Gallant was disabled by Italian mines, and Axis bombers severely damaged the cruiser Southampton, the Royal Navy had held the eastern Mediterranean and France the western Mediterranean but the Second Armistice at Compiègne removed the French navy from the alliance on 25 June 1940. From bases at Gibraltar and Alexandria, the Royal Navy attempted to convoy supplies to sustain Malta as a base in the central Mediterranean, Convoy MC4, Four freighters waited at Gibraltar. Convoy MW5, Freighters Breconshire and Clan Macaulay waited at Alexandria with material for Malta, Convoy ME6, Nine freighters waited at Malta for passage to Alexandria. Force A, HMS Warspite, Valiant, Nubian, Mohawk, Dainty, Gallant, Greyhound, Griffin, Jervis and Illustrious would sail from Alexandria to cover convoys MC4, MW5 and ME6 east of the Skerki Banks. Force B, HMS Gloucester, Southampton, Ilex and Janus would carry five hundred soldiers and airmen from the Aegean to Malta, Force C, Convoy MW5 would be screened by HMS Calcutta, Defender and Diamond. Force F, Convoy MC4 would be screened by HMS Jaguar, Hero, Hasty, Hereward and Bonaventure carrying four hundred soldiers and airmen to Malta. Five hundred anti-shipping aircraft of Fliegerkorps X were being transferred from Norway to Sicily to protect Axis convoys to North Africa, Convoy MC4 left Gibraltar, feinting toward the Atlantic, before turning toward Malta after darkness concealed them from the view of Axis agents near Gibraltar. Force H sailed from Gibraltar to cover convoy MC4, Force A, Force D and convoy MW5 with Force C sailed from Alexandria and Force B sailed from the Aegean toward Malta. Force A was located by Italian air reconnaissance that afternoon, Force B landed its passengers in Malta and proceeded west to meet convoy MC4. Vickers Wellingtons bombed Naples damaging Giulio Cesare with three near misses and causing the only operational Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto to retreat from the approaching convoys. Two SM. 79s were shot down by Fairey Fulmars from Ark Royal, Force H left convoy MC4 that afternoon after Ark Royal launched six Swordfish for the defense of Malta, Force A joined convoy MC4 at dusk. Italian ships from La Spezia failed to find Force H, Italian submarine Settimo and torpedo boats Circe and Vega launched torpedoes against convoy MC4 but missed. Bonaventure and Hereward sank Vega six miles south of Pantellaria at 0830, Bonaventure was slightly damaged and two men killed,75 per cent of her ammunition was expended in the engagement. Right after the engagement, which pushed the British convoy too much south of their route, the bow was destroyed and 65 men were killed. Mowhawk took Gallant in tow toward Malta while the Force B cruisers provided protection from air attacks, Convoys MC4 and MW5 arrived at Malta and convoy ME6 departed for Alexandria. Fulmars from Illustrious shot down an Italian aircraft shadowing Force A at 0930, Valiant avoided torpedoes launched by two SM. 79s approaching under the radar horizon at 1230
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Operation Grog
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The operation was originally scheduled to start on 31 January 1941, but the ships didnt leave Gibraltar until 6 February. Four destroyers carried out an anti-submarine sweep while the ships carried out a feint to deceive Italian and German observers into thinking they were supporting a convoy. Genoa harbour was bombarded on 9 February, with the force sinking four cargo ships, a salvo from HMS Malaya landed between 200 and 50 yards short of the Italian battleship Caio Duilio, undergoing repairs in dry dock north of Molo Giano, no damage was reported. A targeting error by an officer on board HMS Malaya led to an armour-piercing round hitting Genoa Cathedral. Ark Royals aircraft attacked Livorno and mined La Spezia, an attempt by the Italian fleet to intercept the British force failed, and all ships returned to Gibraltar on 11 February. There were 144 civilian dead and 272 wounded at Genoa as result of the shelling
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