Thursday, January 18, 1923. French Toast.

France's Rhineland High Commission ordered French troops in the Ruhr to seize customs receipts and mine taxes and to take over the forests.  France seized German coal trucks, and French and Belgian authorities banned singing German patriotic songs, displaying flags, or wearing the national colors in buttonholes.

Meanwhile a massive riot broke out in the French Chamber of Deputies over the topic of suspending French Communist leader Marcel Cachin in order that he could be arrested for treason.  Cachin had denounced occupying the Ruhr and Morocco.

Monday, January 15, 1973. Ceasefire and air strikes in Vietnam, independence for Comoro, Watergate plea bargains.

President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive actions in North Vietnam, effective January 27, in anticipation of a successful conclusion of the Paris Peace Talks.  Effectively, this was the declaration of an impending ceasefire.  The U.S. Navy, however, hit fourteen North Vietnamese bridges on this day.

VFA-25 insignia. VFA-25 carried out today's' raids.

France signed a treaty with the Comoro Island guarantying them independence with five years, subject to a referendum approving the same.

Comoro flag at the time.

Four Watergate defendants accepted plea bargains.  Remember, this was a trial regarding an even that had happened quite recently, showing that justice really did move a lot more swiftly in the pre late Bomber era.

Monday, December 28, 1942. Funding the Manhattan Project.

President Roosevelt authorized a major expenditure on the Manhattan Project, effectively significantly funding the project for the first time.

Hitler issued Directive No. 47.  This directive concerned the war in the southeast, and more particularly the Balkans and Crete, now that Allied attacks on those locations were a possibility.

On the same day, the costly but effective Tatsinskaya Raid ended in the East.

According to Sarah Sundin:

Today in World War II History—December 28, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Dec. 28, 1942: French Somaliland switches allegiance from Vichy to Free French, the final French territory in Africa to do so.

She also reports that the Germans began to experiment with sterilization of female prisoners at Buchenwald. 

Tuesday, December 8, 1942. Kalibapi formed, Bizerte taken.

The collaborationist Kalibapi party was formed in the Philippines, where it was organized to be the sole, Japanese friendly, political party.  While it did serve in that role, its nationalistic policies led it to refuse to declare war on the US and UK, causing the Japanese to form a second collaborationist party in 1944.

The Germans took Bizerte.

Bizerte is the northernmost city in Africa.  France, valuing its deep water port, retained the city after Tunisia secured independence, leading to a brief undeclared war between the countries in 1961.  In October 1963, the French turned the city over to Tunisia, following a great deal of international pressure to do so.

The Mexican Claims Act of 1942 settled American claims, some dating back sixty years, against Mexico for property losses.

Friday, October 13, 1922. Release of the last German POW held by the French from World War One.

France released the last German Prisoner of War that it had been holding from the Great War.

I wish I had more details on this, such as who he was, and what became of him.

France also founded the Colony of Niger on this day.  France controlled the territory used to form the colony long before this, but had not organized it into a political entity until this date.

Niger would remain loyal to Vichy until its collapse during the Second World War.

Friday, July 25, 1941. The U.S. Freezes Assets, Churchill Plans a Trip, Germany Advances Horrors.

Franklin Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States, with the immediate cause of this being the Japanese occupation of French Indochina.

The Japanese entering Saigon. Bicycles were a common means of conveyance in most armies at the time, with the U.S. being a real exception.

It'd be a mistake, of course, to view that as the sole cause, but it was instrumental in it.  Japan was getting more aggressive in its expansion, having now moved its military into Indochina.  It technically had French acquiescence to this, but as a practical matter, Vichy had little it could do about it.  Japan had already intervened militarily in the northern part of Indochina a year prior, so they were already there.   That had in fact resulted in fighting between the Vichy French and the Japanese, but Japanese occupation was a fact.  Indeed, Japan had already secured permission to garrison troops in southern Indochina.

Free French poster criticizing the Vichy administration's collaboration with Japan.

It hadn't because it remained concerned about the Soviet Union.  It's presence in Indochina had been ancillary to their war with China, but with increasingly difficult relations with the United States, and the United Kingdom, that focus changed once Germany invaded the Soviet Union.  The Japanese correctly guessed that the Soviets wouldn't interfere with them in any fashion while they were fighting the Germans.  Given that, Imperial Japan set its sights on the Dutch East Indies, and its oil, and war with the United States.

While Japanese occupation of Indochina was already a fact, the formal change is something that really couldn't be ignored by the U.S.  It was one step closer to war by both parties.

Oddly, China's assets were also frozen, and this by request of Chiang Kai Shek, the leader of Nationalist China.  While not exactly knowing why, this may be because Chiang had concerns about Chinese assets being used by the Japanese and, of course, he also faced a domestic competitor in the form of the Chinese Communist Party, which was contesting the Nationalist for control of China.

Also, on this day King George VI gave permission for Prime Minister Churchill to travel to the United States to meet with Roosevelt.  Permission was a formality, of course.

Not a formality was the growing relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, often described as a friendship but in reality a species of alliance.  Churchill's visit was to be a secret and was part of the building of that alliance.

Germany established Reichskommissariat Ostland, the administrative unit for the occupied Baltics and Belarus, on this day.  The plan for the region was to Germanize the Baltics and to settle it with Germans.  The region was regarded as "European" by the Germans due to the prior influence of Germany, Sweden and Denmark.  The Belarusians were regarded as hopelessly backwards peasants who would be exploited.  Jews, of course, were to be killed.

Germany began to act on these plans immediately, which is somewhat of a surprise in context.  Not only did the Germans begin to slaughter Jewish residents of the area, along with Communists, but it also began to move German settlers into the areas it had taken.  Indeed, while he has said little about it, one individual I know had a grandfather who had moved into the Eastern lands, resulting of course in his status as a refugee later on.

Friday July 23, 1921. Standing Inspection.

 The Virginia National Guard stood for inspection on this date at Camp (now Fort) Meade.

The Virginia National Guard wasn't the only group of men, and they were all men at the time, tenting, or at least camping of a sort.

President Harding, Thomas A. Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone also were on this day in 21.

The men had been a camping circle for years, styling themselves the Vagabonds.  It gave them a chance to get away, and discuss stuff.

On this day the Chinese Communist Party met for the first time.  It had 57 members and adjourned from a room meeting to one on a boat, which was safer.  The meeting was in the Chinese French Concession in Shanghai, which remains an area of China that features French architecture.

On the same day, also in China, Sun Yat-sen announced that his self-declared government was ceasing relations with the government in Beijing.

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.

May 19, 1941. Allied Victory In Ethiopia

Italian forces in Ethiopia surrendered.

Today in World War II History—May 19, 1941

This would stand as the first major Allied victor of World War Two.   Amazingly, Italian bitter enders carried on a guerilla campaign against the British until 1943, something which is little remembered, particularly in the context of general Italian ineffectiveness during the war.

The British took Fallujah in Iraq. 

On the same day, anticipating what was coming, the RAF withdrew from Crete.

In Japanese occupied Indochina, Vietnamese nationalist and communists formed the Viet Minh.  The movement was Communist dominated, although at this point it did include some other nationalist elements.  In some ways it was a revival of an organization that had been formed in the mid 1930s, in China, to oppose the French, but Japanese occupation sparked its immediate renewal.

The organization would go on to oppose the French after the war and would become solidly Communist by that time.

March 27, 1921. Imperial struggles.

On this day in 1921, deposed Austro Hungarian Emperor Charles I arrived at his former palace in Hungary and attempted to persuade the regent, Admiral Horthy, to return the thrown of Hungary back to him.  Horthy declined.  Charles would try again, and fail, later that year.

Charles I as an archduke.

There's some interesting religious elements to this in the background, although they are in the background.

Charles I, who came to power in 1916 and who worked for peace while the Emperor, was a devout Catholic and a cause for his sainthood has been established (he has been declared "blessed" by the Church).  Horthy was a protestant and from a prominent Hungarian protestant family, in a country not associated with protestantism.  Indeed, two of his sons, in exile after World War Two, would be associated with Catholic scouting organizations even though they were also protestants.

Horthy was being realistic in his assessment of the times and while there are those who at the time accused him of treason, in reality, the country had endured a civil war against Communist only three years prior and the status of the government was not so well established that a return of a king was realistic.

On the same day, an earthquake in Tokyo destroyed 1,000 buildings.

Moroccan independence leader Mouha ou Hammou Zayani died in battle.  While he was famous for fighting the French, the battle in which he died was against forces under the command of his son, who has surrendered the forces under his control to the French.

March 1, 1941. The Free French in North Africa, the Chinese in Henan, Himmler at Auschwitz, FM Radio.

British Commonwealth and Free French forces, the latter technically in rebellion against the legal government of their country, took Kufra in Libya.

The Free French had been organized as an entity in June, 1940.  In North Africa FFF units were fighting alongside the British Commonwealth forces even as the colonial administration of much of the French Empire in Africa remained loyal to the legal government in Vichy, making for an interesting quasi civil war aspect to the fighting there.

In China, the Battle of South Henan saw a victory for the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, or as normally referred to, the Nationalist.

Heinrich Himmler, head of the German SS organization, visited Auschwitz and ordered it expanded in order to take an additional 30,000 prisoners.  Orders were also given for the construction of another camp nearby designed to take 100,000 Soviet prisoners.

Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact and became part of the Axis.  You can read more on that here:

Day 548 March 1, 1941

Today in World War II History—March 1, 1941

Also in that item, you ca read about the creators of the Captain American cartoon requiring and receiving police protection.

W47NV (also mentioned above) started commercial FM radio broadcasting, becoming the first radio station to do so.  The station still exists, and is located, perhaps predictably, in Nashville, Tennessee.