Showing posts with label French Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Army. Show all posts

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Friday, June 4, 1943. Giraud takes command.

Henri Giraud was appointed Commander In Chief of the Free French Forces.

Giraud was a career French Army officer, as we would of course expect, who had entered the army in 1900.  He was serving with the Zouave's in North Africa when World War One broke out and was badly wounded leading a Zouave charge earlier in the war, resulting in his capture by the Germans after he'd been left for dead.  He'd escaped German captivity posing as s circus roustabout after his recovery.

He was captured by the Germans a second time in May 1940, and escaped again in November 1942, as we discussed here:

Saturday, November 7, 1942. Giraud escapes France.

The British submarine Seraph smuggled French general Henri Giraud out of France.


Giraud was an opponent of the Vichy regime and had escaped German captivity, for Switzerland, back in April.  Vichy tried to lure him back, but he demurred.

While all in anticipation of Torch, the submarine took Giraud to Gibraltar, where he remained until November 9.  Relationships between the Free French officers were always highly complicated and tense, in part because their legitimacy was really legally questionable, which their organization, supported by the Allies, reflected. The Allies always tried to split the difference between outright firebrand rebels, like DeGaulle, and those who still held some ties to Vichy as the legal government.  Those in a position in between, like Giraud, were in an odd spot.

He received Allied support as the leader of the Free French following the assassination of Admiral Darlan. At the time, the Allies were trying to balance the personalities in the French leadership which varied from DeGaulle, who had gone into rebellion against Vichy from the onset, to individuals like Darlan who had not been sympathetic with the Nazis but who were unwilling, at first, to rebel against the established legal government.  Giroud appeared to be a good compromise between the two.  In that, he may have been misread.  An early sign of that was when Gen. Eisenhower asked him to take command of French troops in North Africa during Operation Torch, and he declined at first as he felt his honor demanded command of Torch itself, although he soon relented.

As it was, French forces in North Africa refused to recognize Giraud and instead continued to follow the orders of Admiral Darlan.  Darlan was accordingly recognized by the Allies as the head of French forces in North Africa, in spite of his association with Vichy.  Giraud's position was thereafter under Darlan.  Upon Darlan's assassination, Giraud's overall leadership of the French forces was forced through by the Allies.

Giraud had not been, however, a perfect choice, as he wished to retain French racial laws and he had made comments sympathetic to the accomplishments of Nazi Germany.  He'd ultimately fell when he acted independently of the Allies in sending French ships to help French resistance movements in Corsica in September without informing the Allies.  At this point, it was learned that he was maintaining an independent intelligence service.  This led to his wartime retirement.  

He served in the Assembly after the war, and died in 1949 at age 70.

Argentina's government fell in a coup d'etate which removed Ramon Castillo, who had maintained a strict neutrality position over World War Two, in favor of Gen. Arturo Rawson, who yielded nearly immediately to Gen. Pedro Ramirez, who continued the neutrality policy.  As this might demonstrate, the coup and Argentine politics were in a highly confused state, and would remain that way for many years.  Its military was clearly a danger, however, to civilian leadership of the country.

Belle and Kermit Roosevelt.

Kermit Roosevelt, serving as a Major in the U.S. Army, but also suffering from years of illness and alcoholism, committed suicide in Alaska.  He was 52 years old.

Adventuresome, like his father, but subject to alcoholism like his uncle.  He served in the British and American armies during World War One.  He'd accompanied his father on the legendary River of Doubt expedition in South America before the war, an event which contributed to Theodore Roosevelt's late in life declining health.  Like his father, Kermit Roosevelt nearly died during the expedition and also like his father, a branch of the river was named for him.

He served a second hitch in the British Army early in World War Two, participating in the Battle of Narvik.  He resumed heavy drinking after an injury in that battle, which he had previously given up, and was plagued by liver problems that was compounded by malaria. He was subsequently medically discharged from British service.  His drinking was so bad that Archie Roosevelt sought to place him in a sanitarium for a year upon his return, and he agreed to a four-month stay.  He took a commission in the U.S. Army as a major at that time and was stationed at Ft. Richardson, Alaska.

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Easter Sunday, April 1, 1923

Members of the Wasatch Mountain Club members on the porch of the Hermitage, Ogden Canyon, Utah, Easter Day, 1923

It was Easter Sunday for 1923. 



The silent classic Safety Last!, starring Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis, premiered.   The movie is famous for its harrowing stunts, which were preformed by Lloyd.

The United Kingdom began numbering its highways.

France reduced the compulsory military service period from two years, to 18 months.

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Friday, February 26, 1923. The Porajmos

The Afrika Korps launched Unternehmen Ochsenkopf in Tunisia with the goal of gaining control of Medjez el Bab, Béja, El Aroussa, Djebel Abiod and a position known as Hunt's Gap. This was directed at British forces. Operation Unternehmung Ausladung, directed at French forces, was launched on the same day.
The Germans gained ground in this operation, but with devastating losses that made the effort a Pyrrhic victory, which was all the more the case as none of the principal objectives were taken..

Particularly notable was the massive loss of German armor, including Tiger Is. The loss rate was approximately 90%.

Auschwitz opened the Zigeunerlager, a section just for Gypsies.

The brown triangle, which Gypsies (Romani) were forced to wear by the Third Reich.

The Porajmos, the Holocaust of the Gypsies, is difficult to grasp as it's difficult, at least from the American prospective, to grasp the level of European hatred of Gypsies.  Just as with Anti-Semitism, hatred and distrust of the Romani was widespread, crossed cultures, and predated the war.  As with the Jews, the Romani became the focus of German repression leading to massive Romani loss of life, although cataloging it is nearly impossible as their numbers in Europe were really unknown.

The Romani are a semi nomadic people who migrated from Central Asia.  Perhaps because they are semi nomadic, and have their own language and customs, they've have long been subject to contempt.

Perhaps an example of synchronicity, Tehodor Eicke of the SS, a principal figure in the development of concentration camps, was shot down while flying in a Storch over the Eastern Front, an easy target for Red Army ground based anti-aircraft guns.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Thursday, January 11, 1923. The French and Belgians Occupy the Ruhr

In one of the most condemned moves of 20th Century history, French and Belgium troops (the Belgians are often forgotten as having a role in this) started their occupation of the Ruhr by crossing into Essen into 0445.

French troops in Dortmund.

100,000 French soldiers were in the Ruhr by the end of the week.

Forgotten in this is that the French were a far more stable political entity at the time than the Germans, and the Germans had breached the Versailles Treaty.  If the French had shown similar backbone in 1936, they would have stopped Hitler cold, caused him to lose the chancellorship, and he'd have been luck to have not ended up in the ground that year.

The Germans get a lot of sympathy here they really don't deserve.

Hitler did use the occasion to attack, in a speech, the German republican government.

Secy. of Labor Davis delivering the opening address at first meeting of the Nat'l Industrial Women's Conference, Jan. 11, 1923, at the Nat'l Museum.

Greek King Constantine 1 died in Italy in exile at age 54.  He reigned, and abdicated, twice, losing his second regnum due to the war with Turkey.

Very oddly, his successor, two intervening kings in between, Constantine II died yesterday at age 82 in Athens.  He was Greek's last king.

Monday, November 7, 2022

Saturday, November 7, 1942. Giraud escapes France.

The British submarine Seraph smuggled French general Henri Giraud out of France.


Giraud was an opponent of the Vichy regime and had escaped German captivity, for Switzerland, back in April.  Vichy tried to lure him back, but he demurred.

While all in anticipation of Torch, the submarine took Giraud to Gibraltar, where he remained until November 9.  Relationships between the Free French officers were always highly complicated and tense, in part because their legitimacy was really legally questionable, which their organization, supported by the Allies, reflected. The Allies always tried to split the difference between outright firebrand rebels, like DeGaulle, and those who still held some ties to Vichy as the legal government.  Those in a position in between, like Giraud, were in an odd spot.

Stalin issued his Order of the Day proclaiming, on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, that Germany had "yet to feel the weight" of the Red Army, a promise which turned out to be true.

The Australians flanked the Japanese on the Kokoda Track.

Johnny Rivers, blues influenced rock musician, was born in New York City.

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Sunday, June 8, 1941. The British Commonwealth invades the French Empire

On this day in 1941, Commonwealth forces and Free French forces invaded French Syria.

Today in World War II History—June 8, 1941

Britain invades French occupied Syria

The campaign is remarkable for a variety of reasons, including the use of cavalry by both sides.  The action was made necessary by legitimate British fears that Vichy would allow the Germans to occupy Syria, a threat made credible, if only from the Allied prospective, by the airborne invasion of Crete which had just occurred and by Vichy allowing the Luftwaffe airport rights in Syria.  Indeed, the action had been proceeded by Royal Air Force strikes on French airfields and retaliatory French raids on British ones in Transjordan.

The campaign was short, but it was marked by notable French resistance to the Commonwealth invasion and a decline of an offer of German Luftwaffe assistance.  The action overall is one of several that cast some legitimate doubt on the common concept of all Frenchmen being pro Ally at the time.

Surprisingly, the action did not result in a Vichy declaration of war against the United Kingdom and in fact Vichy's forces in Syria fairly rapidly fell in spite of their stout resistance.  The British had battlefield superiority, but this required diversion of Commonwealth forces from Libya, where their loss was keenly felt.  The action also, however, saw the deployment of Free French forces in what might be regarded as a near civil war being fought, and really for the first time, in a French colony.

The Free French were given military administration of Syria and Lebanon following the Allied victory, something that more or less made it clear that the British at least were recognizing a rival claim to the governance of France.  That administration, in keeping with the spirt of the age, recognized the independence of Lebanon and Syria, with Lebanon achieving a real measure of independence that Syria did not.  Lebanon declared war on the Axis powers in 1943.

DeGaulle, who was effectively the head of the Free French state by the war's end, was not sympathetic to Syrian independence and as with Algeria, the end of the war brought on demands for immediate statehood. Demonstrations in Damascus turned violent in May, 1945 which resulted in French troops being deployed inside of Syria to quite the demonstrations.  This didn't work and the British intervened with their troops having authorization to fire on the French if necessary, which it did not turn out to be, one of two instances of the British intervening in favor of a post war independence movement against a European colonial power (the other being in the Dutch East Indies).  This ended with the French leaving and the British briefly staying, until they were able to withdraw.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

December 9, 1920. People at their occupations.

Frank Ferera and Anthony Franchini making a recording with vocalist The Crescent Trio, December 9, 1920.

On Wednesdays I try to post a "Mid Week At Work" item, but I don't always do it.  Indeed, I miss that feature more often than not.  Yesterday, oddly enough, I looked for a photograph of a professional singer to post for that theme, getting my days of the week messed up for the second week in a row.

Today, I just happened to stumble across the photo posted above, which is 100 years old, today.

Frank Ferera was a professional musician and was Portuguese Hawaiian.  For those who might not know, the Portugese were and are an important demographic in Hawaii.  Ferera came to the mainland in 1915 and remained there as a musician thereafter.  He died at age 66 in 1951.  While Ferera would always remain a guitar player, he quit being a professional musician, at leat for a time, abruptly in 1927, at which time steel guitars were supplanting conventional guitars in Hawaiian music, which was his genra.

Anthony Franchini was an Italian born guitar player who partnered with Ferera and, even though he was an Italian by birth, he too specialized at first in Hawaiian music.  He'd come to the US as a boy with his immigrant family and was self taught.  He was a veteran of World War One, having served as an artilleryman, and having joined the Army prior to becoming a U.S. citizen.

He continued on with a long and prolific music career after Ferera quit.  He served in the Army again as a Drill Instructor, at which time he became a U.S. citizen.  Late in life he moved to Nevada and re arranged The Star Spangled Banner, with Nevada backing his arrangement in several bills in Congress in an attempt to have them officially adopted.  During this period he was active in Republican politics.  He died 1997 at age 99.

Dr. Oliveira de Lima and his wife Flora on this date in 1920.  He was just 53 years old at the time this photograph was taken, which says something about aging in earlier eras.

Dr. Oliveira de Lima, a Brazilian retired diplomat, was photographed on this day in 1920.   This same year he was the donor of a major Hispanic book collection to the Catholic University of America.


Dr. Olieveira would live until 1928.  Flora until 1940. The book collection remains at the Catholic University.

Freshman members of Congress, December 9, 1920.  Heck, with the average age of American politicians being what it is, these guys are probably all still there.

A new Congress was rolling into Washington D. C.  It's notable that at this point in the nation's history, the Presidential inauguration was still in March.  Given this, this wasn't a lame duck Congress, but they had a lame duck President still for months.

At this point in time visiting delegations from the French and British militaries were still quite common in the wake of the Great War, and the French were still giving decorations to American military figures.


U.S. Army General Peter C. Harris receiving decoration from visiting French delegation.

Gen. Peter C. Harris received one such award on this day.  

Harris had entered the U.S. Army in 1888, after graduating from West Point, and first served as an infantry officer.  He'd been at Kettle Hill during the Spanish American War and was, at the time of this photograph, the Adjutant General.  He would live until 1951.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

September 27, 1920. Last Game for the Black Sox.

Chicago White Sox players "Shoeless Joe Jackson", Charles "Swede" Risberg and Buck Weaver played in their final professional major league baseball game of their career.

Joe Jackson.

The next day they were to be indicted due to the Black Sox Scandal.

Risburg, left and Weaver, right, during their trial.

Risburg, a shortstop, had received $15,000 for his role in fixing the World Series.  He played semi pro baseball for a decade and ended up owning a bar in his later years.  During his career he'd been spiked during a game and the injury never healed, resulting in the eventual amputation of his leg.  He remained a baseball fan throughout his life and died in California at age 81 in 1975.

Buck Weaver.

Weaver wasn't part of the scandal and fought, unsuccessfully, to be reinstated.  He was bitter about receiving the same penalty as the players who were guilty.  He successfully sued to receive his 1921 pay, but he never got back into professional baseball even though he tried for years to do so.  Often missed in his story, however, is that he knew that the fix was going on and, while not part of it, he didn't report it.

1919 White Sox.

Like other Black Sox team members, Weaver did play semi pro ball for years.  He remained in Chicago and also worked odd jobs to support a large extended family.  At one point he owned a series of six drug stores with his brother in law in Chicago and both men were offered partnerships in Walgreens, which they declined. All the stores were lost in the Great Depression.  Weaver died at age 65 in 1956 in Chicago.

Joe Jackson in 1919.

Often portrayed as a simple man, and he was indeed illiterate, Jackson twice refused the bribe money before another player threw the money on his hotel floor, after which he attempted to do what Weaver did not, get an audience with Cominsky, the team owner.  Cominsky refused to see him.  He was never present at any of the conspirators meetings and he played a good World Series.  Because of his illiteracy its difficult to tell what his view was of what was occuring, but it does seem to be likely that he knew the conspiracy was going on, and tried to do something about it, after which he may have refused to participate by playing a good Series.

Jackson and his wife Katie on their wedding day in 1908.

Jackson would manage and play in semi pro baseball for some time before moving to South Carolina where he and his wife ran a number of small businesses, including a dry cleaning shop, a barbecue restaurant and a liquor store.  He died of a heart attack at age 64 in 1951, making him the first of the Black Sox players to pass away.

On the same day some dignitaries from the French Army arrived in New York.

Major General Robert Lee Bullard and Marshal Marie Émile Fayolle at Fayolle's arrival at Governors Island, New York, September 27, 1920. 



Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Paths of Glory

I just reviewed 1917 here the other day, although that review won't appear here until tomorrow, and the viewing of which caused me to recall the trench scenes of this film, Paths of Glory.

Paths of Glory is a black and white film directed by Stanley Kubrik and featuring Kirk Douglas as a French lawyer serving as an officer during the Great War.  The movie is a fictionalized account of an actual event in which French soldiers were tried for cowardice for their actions during a 1916 advance.  More than half the movie concerns their fate in French legal proceedings so the film is both a legal drama as well as a war picture.

Considered an anti war drama in typical reviews, the film contains one of the best filmed depictions of trench warfare ever made, surpassed only recently by the depictions in the English movie 1917.  The film was regarded as so critical in this regards that the French managed to put pressure on United Artists not to release the film in France for nearly twenty years.  Release in Germany and Switzerland was delayed so as to not offend the French, and the film was not released in Spain until 1986.  U.S. military establishments would not show the film.

In modern terms the film is mild as an anti war film compared to films on the Vietnam War.  And the degree to which any antiwar film is successful in conveying that message is always debatable.  At any rate, as a drama and a depiction of World War One trench warfare, the film does well.

In terms of material details, the film is a good one, accurately portraying uniforms and equipment of the French Army of the Great War.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

April 25, 1919. Anzac Day, J'Accuse, Canadians return.


On this day in 1919, the French film J'Accuse was released.  

J'Accuse can legitimately be regarded as one of the very first anti war movies ever made.  The message of the film was made all the more potent by the fact that the director had used actual French soldiers for its filming while the war was still on.  Reportedly 80% of the soldier extras in the film were killed in action before the war was over.

The movie famously features the ghosts of the dead in accusation, but it also features a somewhat complicated betrayal by a love interest plot fairly typical of early films.

Also on this day, Australian soldiers marched for ANZAC Day parades in several cities, but those in Sidney were cancelled due to the Spanish Flu.  Contrary to widespread popular claim, this was not the first ANZAC Day. The official date had been established in 1916.  This was the first post war ANZAC Day.

While Empire troops were marching in Australia, they were arriving in New York on their way home to Canada as well.

Canadian officers Sir Henry Worth Thornton (president of the Canadian National Railway in civilian life) and Air Commodore Alfred Cecil Critchley arriving in New York City on the Aquitania.  Both general officers are wearing classic examples of British officer dress.

The troop ship Aquitania arrived with Canadian soldiers on their way home, greeted by at least one British dignitary.

Gen. Thornton with Sir James Benjamin Bell, Timber Comptroller for the British government.

Ranger Texas, April 25, 1919.

Ranger Texas was photographed.

Ranger was where famous western historian Walter Prescott Webb went to school, being from a nearby farm.

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Some Gave All: Pro Patria, French War Memorial

Some Gave All: Pro Patria, French War Memorial:

Pro Patria, French War Memorial


As with many French memorials, this war memorial was originally for the dead of World War One but was later added to so that those of World War Two could be additionally included.

MKTH photo.

Monday, January 28, 2019

Saturday, January 26, 2019