Tuesday August 5, 1941. Trends in the East.

The siege at Smolensk ended with the Germans taking 300,000 Red Army prisoners.

On the same day, the Provisional Government of Lithuania, frustrated in its hopes to secure an independent government for the country, disbanded.

June 25, 1941. The Continuation War, Murder and Executive Order 8802

Finland declared war on the Soviet Union with the goal of reclaiming territories lost in the Winter War.  It's goals were limited in the war to the recovery of territory lost to the Soviets, which it advanced into, took strategic positions, and then stopped.  This date is noted here:

Today in World War II History—June 25, 1941

The action put the Finns in bed with the Germans, and it wasn't a spur of the moment decision.  The Finns knew that Barbarossa was coming, and had agreed to the prestaging of German troops on its soil.  It was a calculated move betting on a German victory in the war, or at least on Germany obtaining a sufficiently advantageous result such that Finland would regain the territories it had lost.

Dealing with the Continuation War has always been a bit of a problem for Western historians as it does cut slightly against the grain in regard to the story of World War Two. Finland, with one slight exception, is the big exception to the rule regarding the Axis. Finland protected its Jewish population, with the exception of 8 individuals, and refused to hand them over to the Germans.  It halted its advance and went on the defensive as soon as it regained the territory it had lost, which in context was probably a strategic failure as it could have gained ethnic Finnish ground in the far north which would have also choked off Murmansk to Allies, which would be a port of resupply to the Soviets during the war.

Finland gambled incorrectly, of course, and would pay the price, albeit not as much of a price as a person might have suspected it would receive from the Soviets.

Symbol of the German Army's 163d Infantry Division.

On the same day Sweden agreed to allow the Germans to transport the German 163rd Infantry Division across its territory from Norway into Finland. The request had been made several days prior and had provoked a crisis in the Swedish government in which the King intervened with the request that it be allowed. The motivations for allowing it are complicated but tied to aiding its neighbor.  It's an example of how the neutrals of the Second World War not only were neutral, but frankly made significant concessions to nearby belligerents none the less.

The 163d spent most of the war with the Finns, being transported back to Germany late in the war.  It was destroyed by the Red Army in Pomerania in March, 1945.

Anti Jewish pogroms broke out in Lithuania. Centered in Kovno, the murders were conducted by Lithuanian civilians, not the Germans, at first, as the Germans had not yet reached the city. Upon their reaching it the killing would continue under their direction.

In Serbia, the Utashi opened the Slana camp, an island concentration camp, and began transporting Jews, and later Serbian and Croatian communists, to the island to be murdered.  The killing would stop when the Italians would occupy the island.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which read:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8802

Reaffirming Policy of Full Participation in the Defense Program by All Persons, Regardless of Race, Creed, Color, or National Origin, and Directing Certain Action in Furtherance of Said Policy

WHEREAS it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders; and

WHEREAS there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in defense production solely because of considerations of race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and of national unity:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

And it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. All departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for defense production shall take special measures appropriate to assure that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

2. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

3. There is established in the Office of Production Management a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which shall consist of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the President. The Chairman and members of the Committee shall serve as such without compensation but shall be entitled to actual and necessary transportation, subsistence and other expenses incidental to performance of their duties. The Committee shall receive and investigate complaints of discrimination in violation of the provisions of this order and shall take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid. The Committee shall also recommend to the several departments and agencies of the Government of the United States and to the President all measures which may be deemed by it necessary or proper to effectuate the provisions of this order.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
June 25, 1941

Australia formed its Naval Auxiliary Patrol.

Sunday, June 22, 1941. The German invasion of the Soviet Union commences.

Horse drawn German artillery crossing Soviet border marker, June 22, 1941.

On this day in 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, commenced.  It was a Sunday, expressing the recent German preference for commencing offensive operations on the traditional Christian sabbath and day of rest.

Crowded road with German armor.

German preparations for the invasion had been going on nearly all year and upwards of 3,000,000 German troops and 690,000 other Axis troops, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Finnish, had been mobilized for the assault that commenced on this day.  The original D-Day had been set for May 15, but delay was created by the German invasion of Yugoslavia brought about by its determination to aid the Italian campaign in Greece.  Indeed, between May 15 and this date, Yugoslavia had been invaded, the Germans had conducted their own offensive in Greece, and Crete had been invaded by air.  The Germans had also engaged in major offensive operations in Libya.

During the month long interim the invasion plan was changed a bit, as Finland was brought into it and four German divisions pre-staged there.  Romania was also brought into it.  Italy had ultimately been brought into it as well, in spite of an abysmal combat performance in Greece and North Africa.  Whether it reflected a dawning realization of how difficult the operation was going to be or not, the net result was that what had originally been planned as a German offensive had actually taken on the character of a truly Axis one, albeit one which was by far dominated by the Germans.  

It would significantly omit, however, the one Axis power which had the potential to really greatly compound Soviet difficulties, that being Japan, which was at that time focused on plans to bring the sole remaining major neutral on the globe into the war, that being the United States.  Japan was aware of the German intent, but did not reformulate its own plans.

Slovak soldiers taking Soviet prisoners.

The German army made massive initial gains, although there were problems with the vast territorial campaign right from the onset.  Nonetheless, even its allies, whose forces were far inferior to the Germans, did well in the offensive.

The invasion committed Germany and its allies to a war against a massive well armed enemy in a campaign of conquest that depended upon speed, surprise and Soviet incompetence.  At first, all three of those were realized, but the speed alone required to defeat the Red Army by the winter of 1941, which was the goal, was something that even conceptually is difficult in retrospect to imagine as being possible.  Much about the German campaign seemed to rely on hubris combined with the assumption that reaching certain landmarks equated with victory.  Perhaps they may be somewhat excused for their assumptions by their defeat of the Imperial Russian Army in 1917 and the subsequent collapse of Red opposition to the Imperial German Army in 1917-1918, but the Soviets of 1941 were not the same opponent, in any sense, that had been faced during the First World War.

The invasion itself was accompanied by German, Italian and Romanian declarations of war.  Hitler issued a speech with justifications for the war, but the initial German public reaction was shock and fear.  Stalin also went into shock and near seclusion, being effectively paralyzed by the invasion.  Upon being visited by his minions he reacted with surprise that they had not come to execute him.  Indeed, given the typical Soviet penalty for failure, that Stalin wasn't summarily shot is amazing.  Winston Church also addressed the Allies, noting that the Soviets were now Allies.  Privately Churchill was overjoyed by the German invasion realizing, far in advance of others, that it would lead to German defeat.

Whether the German invasion could have been successful if only this or that had occurred has often been debated by armchair generals, but frankly no Nazi conquest of the Soviet Union was possible.  Nazi ideology guaranteed that a Russian population that initially welcomed the Wehrmacht would soon despise it, and no German invasion of the Soviet Union would have occurred but for Hitler.

On the same day, and not coincidentally, a rebellion broke out in Lithuania that sought to restore that country to its independence.

Lithuanian insurrectionist with Soviet prisoner.

The Lithuanian insurrection would result in the proclamation of a provisional government, but in order for it to survive, it would have needed German support, which it lacked. The Germans quickly operated to make it moot and it dissolved, under protest, on August 5.  Lithuania then joined the ranks of occupied countries, having switched Soviet occupation for German occupation.

The German reaction to the Lithuanian rebellion was telling in numerous ways. The Germans had come not as liberators but rather as conquerors and territorial extirpators.  The Nazi plan for the East was to expand into it, resettle the territory with Germans, and to make slaves of its surviving Slavic occupants.  Initially, it planned to incorporate large portions of  the Baltic states as well as a large portion of Ukraine into the the German Reich, basing those settlements on areas that German minorities had lived in prior to 1918, or still did.  Indeed, Germans living in those areas would soon find themselves liable for conscription, something that many would come to regret.  Ultimately the grain growing belt of the East would have been entirely German, if the Nazis had managed to pull the invasion successfully off.

Given the utter chaos of the Nazi government throughout its existence, and the pressures of the war, the Germans never fully implemented their postwar plans and, beyond that, they never fully formulated them.  They did commence to do so, however, murdering Slavic residents of the region.  Long-term plans that were developed called for the extermination of the Poles, and the expulsion of the Lithuanians, Latvians and many other Slavs.  Starving the Ukrainians to death was planned and commenced.

It should be noted that it is sometimes the case to make Operation Barbarossa a demarcation point for German conduct in the war and to almost excuse their conduct prior to that.  This is really not possible, however.  It is true that German conduct grew worse after Barbarossa, but all of the elements of German barbarity were already present.  Germany was already engaging in mass murder in Poland and it was already rounding up the Jewish population of regions it occupied and pressuring the same from those states which it influenced.  Germany was not about to commence murder, it was already doing it had had been doing so since September, 1939.

All of this makes German conduct all the more inexcusable following this date.  In spite of what some may later wish to claim, every German was aware by this date that its government was homicidal and racists.   German troops had been ordered into murder in Poland already and had shot civilians, under the pretext of their being franc tireurs, in Crete. At home the Nazi government was exterminating the mentally impaired and had recently banned the Catholic press, with which it was having difficulty.  Germany massed 3,000,000 men for the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and very few of those men could have had any realistic doubt about the nature of the regime they were marking for.

Because of all of these horrors, and more, historians have often wondered how it was that a nation that had seemed so cultured could have fallen so low.  No really acceptable answer has ever been provided.  Comparisons to the Soviets and the Japanese have largely failed.  Both Japan and Russia had populations that were much less technologically advanced and much less in communication with each other, let alone the outside world, which seems, perhaps to put them in a different category.

Hilaire Belloc, the great English writer, once expressed the opinion that the English in the Reformation had fallen into a unique category as, in his view, the northern tier of Europe that had gone into the Lutheran sphere had never really been Christianized and the Christianity there merely a thin veneer.  It's tempting to look at the events of the Second World War as proving that true, but there's more than a little reason to doubt that, including that the Scandinavians were never attracted to Nazi barbarity and had been many examples of devotion to the principals of Christianity both before and after the 1500s.  Something, however, went deeply wrong with Germany of the 20th Century in ways that are almost indescribable. 

Operation Barbarossa has been rightly noted as a major turning point in the war for a lot of reasons.  By this point in the war the Japanese had already commenced planning to strike the United States, so an entry of the US into the war, which likely would have tipped the balance permanently in favor of the Allies, was already in the works, but invading the Soviet Union guaranteed a German defeat.  The Russians were impossible for the Germans to defeat without the Russians agreeing they were beaten, and unlike 1914-1918, the Moscow government did not have an internal enemy that was organized and conspiring for its overthrow.  Indeed, the barbarity of the German invasion guaranteed that would not occur.

Of course, major German defeats on land were all in the future. And the German army had won victory after victory.  But even here, it's hard to wonder why things didn't give them pause.  If the Germans hadn't been defeated yet on land in any major engagement, the British army had proven again and again to be highly resilient even in defeat.  If the British hadn't defeated the German in North Africa, they had defeated the Italians and the Vichy French, and they had proven that on the defense they were capable of resisting the Germans in Libya.  The British had, moreover, won in the Battle of Britain and while the Luftwaffe continued to bomb the United Kingdom at night, the Blitz was over.  The Royal Air Force, moreover was hitting Germany itself from the nocturnal air.  The Royal Navy had ended the Kreigsmarine U-boot "happy time", even if it hadn't won the Battle of the Atlantic, and the U.S. Navy was already somewhat of a problem for the Germans.  The United States, under Franklin Roosevelt, was getting as close to combat with the Germans as it could, without declaring war, and the Germans could not afford to declare war on the US.  

All in all, the Germans not only had to hope for a short victorious war against the Soviet Union, having invaded it, they had utterly no choice but to win one.  Failing to defeat the Soviets by the winter would force Germany into a long protracted bloodletting it couldn't win and should know that it couldn't win.  So the gamble was not only that it could defeat the USSR, but that it would do so well before the end of the year.

That was a foolish thing to plan on. But the Germans having followed Hitler into Poland in 1939 had guaranteed a war against the Soviets soon thereafter.  Germany couldn't win a long war against multiple opponents and the Nazis couldn't avoid attacking the USSR.

Some Threads Elsewhere:

Day 661 June 22, 1941

Barbarossa – The invasion of Russia begins

Today in World War II History—June 22, 1941

Uncle Mike's Musings: A Yankees Blog and More

Saturday, June 14, 1941. The Soviets commence mass Baltic deportations.

On this day in 1941 the Soviet Union, which was mere days away from being attacked by Germany, which was receiving warnings from its own intelligence as well as the United Kingdom, started mass deportations of its perceived internal enemies in the Baltic States.

Mass deportations in Estonia

Today in World War II History—June 14, 1941

Given the horrors of the Second World War, and coming so close in time to Germany's invasion, this event has largely been forgotten outside of the Baltic States. There the day is a national day of mourning in the three countries which were impacted.

Deportations were on a mass scale with the victims largely sent to Siberia.  Most never returned and many died quickly.  The Soviets were already massively unpopular in the Baltic States, which had been independent following the Russian Revolution until overrun by the USSR in 1939, but the deportations would have an impact that would find immediate anti Soviet expression within a few days, given the time at which they came.

 As the second item there notes, the US also froze German and Italian assets in the U.S., as well as the assets of certain other Axis powers and countries now occupied by Germany or the Soviet Union, b y way of an executive order issued by President Roosevelt.

It read:

By virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in me by Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 415), as amended, by virtue of all other authority vested in me, and by virtue of the existence of a period of unlimited national emergency, and finding that this Order is in the public interest and is necessary in the interest of national defense and security, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do prescribe the following:

Executive Order No. 8389 of April 10, 1940, as amended, is amended to read as follows:

SECTION 1. All of the following transactions are prohibited, except as specifically authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury by means of regulations, rulings, instructions, licenses, or otherwise, if (i) such transactions are by, or on behalf of, or pursuant to the direction of any foreign country designated in this Order, or any national thereof, or (ii) such transactions involve property in which any foreign country designated in this Order, or any national thereof, has at any time on or since the effective date of this Order had any interest of any nature whatsoever, direct or indirect:

A. All transfers of credit between any banking institutions within the United States; and all transfers of credit between any banking institution within the United States and any banking institution outside the United States (including any principal, agent, home office, branch, or correspondent outside the United States, of a banking institution within the United States);

B. All payments by or to any banking institution within the United States;

C. All transactions in foreign exchange by any person within the United States;

D. The export or withdrawal from the United States, or the earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency by any person within the United States;

E. All transfers, withdrawals or exportations of, or dealings in, any evidences of indebtedness or evidences of ownership of property by any person within the United States; and

F. Any transaction for the purpose or which has the effect of evading or avoiding the foregoing prohibitions.

SECTION 2. A. All of the following transactions are prohibited, except as specifically authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury by means of regulations, rulings, instructions, licenses, or otherwise:

(1) The acquisition, disposition or transfer of, or other dealing in, or with respect to, any security or evidence thereof on which there is stamped or imprinted, or to which there is affixed or otherwise attached, a tax stamp or other stamp of a foreign country designated in this Order or a notarial or similar seal which by its contents indicates that it was stamped, imprinted, affixed, or attached within such foreign country, or where the attendant circumstances disclose or indicate that such stamp or seal may, at any time, have been stamped, imprinted, affixed, or attached thereto; and

(2) The acquisition by, or transfer to, any person within the United States of any interest in any security or evidence thereof ' if the attendant circumstances disclose or indicate that the security or evidence thereof is not physically situated within the United States.

B. The Secretary of the Treasury may investigate, regulate, or prohibit under such regulations, rulings, or instructions as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, the sending, mailing, importing, or otherwise bringing, directly or indirectly, into the United States, from any foreign country, of any securities or evidences thereof or the receiving or holding in the United States of any securities or evidences thereof so brought into the United States.

SECTION 3. The term "foreign country designated in this Order" means a foreign country included in the following schedule, and the term "effective date of this Order" means with respect to any such foreign country, or any national thereof, the date specified in the following schedule:

(a) April 8, 1940 —Norway and Denmark;

(b) May 10, 1940 —The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg;

(c) June 17, 1940 —France (including Monaco);

(d) July 10, 1940 —Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania;

(e) October 9, 1940 -Rumania;

(f) March 4, 1941 —Bulgaria;

(g) March 13, 1941 —Hungary;

(h) March 24, 1941 —Yugoslavia;

(i) April 28, 1941 —Greece; and

(j) June 14, 1941 —Albania,

Andorra, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Finland, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The "effective date of this Order" with respect to any foreign country not designated in this Order shall be deemed to be June 14, 1941.

SECTION 4. A. The Secretary of the Treasury and/or the Attorney General may require, by means of regulations, rulings, instructions, or otherwise, any person to keep a full record of, and to furnish under oath, in the form of reports or otherwise, from time to time and at any time or times, complete information relative to, any transaction referred to in Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 415), as amended, or relative to any property in which any foreign country or any national thereof has any interest of any nature whatsoever, direct or indirect, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters, or other papers, in connection therewith, in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed; and the Secretary of the Treasury and/or the Attorney General may, through any agency, investigate any such transaction or act, or any violation of the provisions of this Order.

B. Every person engaging in any of the transactions referred to in Sections 1 and 2 of this Order shall keep a full record of each such transaction engaged in by him, regardless of whether such transaction is effected pursuant to license or otherwise, and such record shall be available for examination for at least one year after the date of such transaction.

SECTION 5. A. As used in the first paragraph of Section 1 of this Order "transactions [which] involve property in which any foreign country designated in this Order, or any national thereof, has... any interest of any nature whatsoever, direct or indirect," shall include, but not by way of limitation (i) any payment or transfer to any such foreign country or national thereof, (ii) any export or withdrawal from the United States to such foreign country, and (iii) any transfer of credit, or payment of an obligation, expressed in terms of the currency of such foreign country.

B. The term "United States" means the United States and any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof; the term "continental United States" means the States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Alaska.

C. The term "person" means an individual, partnership, association, corporation, or other organization.

D. The term "foreign country" shall include, but not by way of limitation,

(i) The state and the government thereof on the effective date of this Order as well as any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof or any territory, dependency, colony, protectorate, mandate, dominion, possession, or place subject to the jurisdiction thereof,

(ii) Any other government (including any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof) to the extent and only to the extent that such government exercises or claims to exercise de jure or de facto sovereignty over the area which on such effective date constituted such foreign country, and

(iii) Any person to the extent that such person is, or has been, or to the extent that there is reasonable cause to believe that such person is, or has been, since such effective date, acting or purporting to act directly or indirectly for the benefit or on behalf of any of the foregoing.

E. The term "national" shall include,

(i) Any person who has been domiciled in, or a subject, citizen, or resident of a foreign country at any time on or since the effective date of this Order,

(ii) Any partnership, association, corporation, or other organization, organized under the laws of, or which on or since the effective date of this Order had or has had its principal place of business in such foreign country, or which on or since such effective date was or has been controlled by, or a substantial part of the stock, shares, bonds, debentures, notes, drafts, or other securities or obligations of which, was or has been owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, such foreign country and/or one Or more nationals thereof as herein defined,

(iii) Any person to the extent that such person is, or has been, since such effective date, acting or purporting to act directly or indirectly for the benefit or on behalf of any national of such foreign country, and

(iv) Any other person who there is reasonable cause to believe is a "national" as herein defined. In any case in which by virtue of the foregoing definition a person is a national of more than one foreign country, such person shall be deemed to be a national of each such foreign country.

In any case in which the combined interests of two or more foreign countries designated in this Order and/or nationals thereof are sufficient in the aggregate to constitute, within the meaning of the foregoing, control or 25 per centum or more of the stock, shares, bonds, debentures, notes, drafts, or other securities or obligations of a partnership, association, corporation, or other organization, but such control or a substantial part of such stock, shares, bonds, debentures, notes, drafts, or other securities or obligations is not held by any one such foreign country and/or national thereof, such partnership, association, corporation, or other organization shall be deemed to be a national of each of such foreign countries. The Secretary of the Treasury shall have full power to determine that any person is or shall be deemed to be a "national" within the meaning of this definition, and the foreign country of which such person is or shall be deemed to be a national. Without limitation of the foregoing, the term "national" shall also include any other person who is determined by the Secretary of the Treasury to be, or to have been, since such effective date, acting or purporting to act directly or indirectly for the benefit or under the direction of a foreign country designated in this Order, or national thereof, as herein defined.

F. The term "banking institution" as used in this Order shall include any person engaged primarily or incidentally in the business of banking, of granting or transferring credits, or of purchasing or selling foreign exchange or procuring purchasers and sellers thereof, as principal or agent, or any person holding credits for others as a direct or incidental part of his business, or brokers; and, each principal, agent, home office, branch, or correspondent of any person so engaged shall be regarded as a separate "banking institution."

G. The term "this Order," as used herein, shall mean Executive Order No. 8389 of April 10, 1940, as amended.

SECTION 6. Executive Order No. 8389 of April 10, 1940, as amended, shall no longer be deemed to be an amendment to or a part of Executive Order No. 6560 of January 15, 1934. Executive Order No. 6560 of January 15, 1934, and the Regulations of November 12, 1934, are hereby modified in so far as they are inconsistent with the provisions of this Order, and except as so modified, continue in full force and effect. Nothing herein shall be deemed to revoke any license, ruling, or instruction now in effect and issued pursuant to Executive Order No. 6560 of January 15, 1934, as amended, or pursuant to this Order; provided, however, that all such licenses, rulings, or instructions shall be subject to the provisions hereof. Any amendment, modification, or revocation by or pursuant to the provisions of this Order of any orders, regulations, rulings, instructions, or licenses shall not affect any act done, or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal case prior to such amendment, modification, or revocation, and all penalties, forfeitures, and liabilities under any such orders, regulations, rulings, instructions, or licenses shall continue and may be enforced as if such amendment, modification, or revocation had not been made.

SECTION 7. Without limitation as to any other powers or authority of the Secretary of the Treasury or the Attorney General under any other provision of this Order, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and empowered to prescribe from time to time regulations, rulings, and instructions to carry out the purposes of this Order and to provide therein or otherwise the conditions under which licenses may be granted by or through such officers or agencies as the Secretary of the Treasury may designate, and the decision of the Secretary with respect to the granting, denial, or other disposition of an application or license shall be final.

SECTION 8. Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended, provides in part:

". . . Whoever willfully violates any of the provisions of this subdivision or of any license, order, rule or regulation issued thereunder, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both."

SECTION 9. This Order and any regulations, rulings, licenses, or instructions issued hereunder may be amended, modified, or revoked at any time.

Occupied Croatia joined the Axis powers.

Colliers magazine ran an article on Pearl Harbor which termed it "impregnable".  The reporter who wrote the admiring piece had been invited by the Navy to examine and review the installation.

October 12, 1920. First and Lasts.

 Cleveland brought home the 1920 World Series victory.  It was their first.

Man O War beat Sir Barton at Windsor, Ontario.  A highly anticipated race, it was his last.

Sir Barton would spend his retirement years in Wyoming:

The three year old was ridden in the race by Johnny Loftus.

Sir Barton raced again in the 1920 season and set a world's record for the 1 3/16 miles dirt race that  year.  On October 12 of that year he was defeated by Man o' War in a match race at Kenilworth Park in Windsor Ontario.  He was retired and put to stun in 1921.  In 1932 he was sold into the Army Remount Service and stood at Ft. Royal, Virginia and Ft. Robinson, Nebraska.  He was then assigned to Wyoming rancher J. R. Hylton who was part of the Remount program.  The Remount Service at that time assigned out studs to ranchers in the program. 

In 1937 he died of colic and was buried on Hylton's ranch outside of Douglas.  His remains are now in Douglas' Washington Park where a memorial for the horse exists.

An armistice between Poland and the Soviet Union was entered into which was leading up to what would become the Treaty of Riga.  It would go into effect on October 18, 1920.  On the same day, Polish forces under the false flag of mutiny declared the existence of the Republic of Central Lithuania, which would be incorporated into Poland after a decent interval.

The settling conflicts involving a restored Poland contained seeds of future discord, although given its giant neighbor, the Soviet Union, and ultimately failing neighbor, Germany, that can't be really blamed for what occur to Poland in 1939.  The forming peace, however, left Poland with Polish territory in Lithuania, which made ethnographic sense but which caused Lithuanian discontent, and it also left Poland with large areas of Ukrainian and Belorussian territory which contained those ethnicities who were discontent with the results.

October 9, 1920 Contests.

October 9, 1920, cover of the Saturday Evening Post  I actually thought this was a Leyendecker rather than a Rockwell when I first saw it as it strongly resembles the former's work.

In the1920 World Series Game 4, the Brooklyn Robins went down to defeat, scoring 1 as opposed to the Cleveland Indians' 5 runs.

David Lloyd George declared in a speech that the British would not allow for Irish home rule and expressed British resolve to prevail in the Irish troubles.

Vilnius fell to Polish "mutineers" and Austria transferred South Tyrol to Italy, which retains it to this day, although it is an autonomous self governing Italian region. 

Fire Prevention Week was inaugurated in the United States and Canada.

Potomac Park including Hains Point, as well as the Naval Air Station Anacostia (upper left) and the Army Air Service's Bolling Field. October 9, 1920.

October 8, 1920 Start of Żeligowski's Mutiny

On this day in 1920 Poland surreptitiously commenced a "mutiny" in Lithuania under General Lucjan Żeligowski.  Just the day prior Poland and Lithuania had entered into an agreement fixing their borders. The rebellion was a successful Polish effort to redraw those borders before the agreement even went into effect.

1920 Ethnographic map of Lithuania.

Like many of the post World War One wars, the war between Lithuania and Poland was ethnic in character, resulting from the blend of ethnicities in the pre war European Empires where such matters were largely secondary in nature.  Poland may best exemplify this in some ways as in modern times it had bee split between the German and Russian Empires, with Poles themselves living in regions that extended out into both empires.  When Polish independence came following World War One the two  halves of the country united and then struggles began to unite to the country those Poles who lived outside of its borders, but in neighboring areas.  This lead to wars with neighboring regions as well as to rebellions in neighboring regions.

Poles were heavily represented in Lithuanian border regions following the independence of both countries and in spite of forced population relocations after World War Two, Poles are still heavily represented in some areas of Lithuania.  Unlike with Poles and Ukrainians, however, Poles and Lithuanians are ethnically distinct.  Medieval Poland had at one time ruled Lithuania, which made this more complicated, and Marshall Pilsudski was born in Vilnius.  Contrasting with this, at one time the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been the largest state in Europe, and had stretched all the way to the Black Sea.  The relationship between the two countries was complicated, with Poland at one time having a Lithuanian king and Lithuanian figures being prominent in regional efforts to defend both countries against the Russians.  To complicate matters further, Lithuania had seen a significant German colonization, as had the other Baltic states, leading to a sizable German minority.

While before World War One these various ethnicities had managed to get along in recent times, with there even being confusion between their identities, the nationalistic feelings everywhere following World War One changed that.  Poland worked to incorporate all of the regions bordering it where Poles were located, not without some justification.  This lead to clashes with Lithuania, which like Poland was simultaneously fighting the Soviet Union, and which was a very small state.  It also lead, in Poland's case, to a war with much larger Ukraine.

By October 1920 the Poles were exhausted from fighting the Russians and didn't not wish to continue any of the post World War One wars.  It did, however, regard Vilnius as critical and therefore sponsored this clandestine effort flying the false flag of being a rebellious Polish unit.  The Poles would win and the region would declare itself to be independent and then join Poland in 1922, an act which was not recognized by Lithuania.

October 8 was a travel day in the 1920 World Series.

In the far north, near Mount McKinley, a Caterpillar Tractor was towing freight.

October 7, 1920. False diplomacy, wishful thinking, and the Robins take game three.

 

Attendees at the Suwałki Conference.

At Suwałki  the Poles and the Lithuanians, under pressure from the League of Nations, entered into a treaty defining their border. The Polish government entered into it disingenuously.  The treaty put Vilnius in Lithuania.

The Brussels Conference sitting in that city issued a report urging all nations to balance their budgets, reduce armaments, form an international credit association, and reform currencies.

The Brooklyn Robins beat the Cleveland Indians in game three of the World Series, 2 to 1.

February 2, 1920. Changes.

Siberian girls pose for camera, February 2, 1920.   Their world was in a state of massive change at the time this photograph was taken.

Monday, February 2, 1920, saw the implementation of changes here and there. Some great, some small, in context, and others temporary.

Chief Clerk R.M. Reese of the Dept. of Agriculture administering the oath of office to Edwin T. Meredith the new Sectary today. On Mr Meredith's right is Mr Houston former Sectary.  Meredith is wearing a decidely modern type of suit showing how the patterns of Edwardian suits were taking a modern form.  The U.S. was slipping into a major depression lead by a major decline in the agricultural section as this photo was snapped.

A new Secretary of Agriculture was sworn in for the United States.

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the gallant, or self sacrificing, Guy Spiker traveled with his sister in law to meet with Emily Knowles.  Knowles, we are now informed, appeared here for the first time two days ago when she was described as a girl whose relationship with the married Lt. Pearly Spiker had resulted in her pregnancy.

While she was earlier a "girl", we now know that she was a member of the British Women's Auxiliary service, a type of wartime British quasi military body formed to relieve men of some of the service roles they held  normally, thereby relieving them for service elsewhere.  That more easily explains how Lt. Spiker and Miss Knowles met, and as we learned from the entry the other day, it would also explain how she met the man she would, a year later, leave Guy Spiker for, and also abandon her association with her infant as a result of that.  So she turns out, at least, not to be as young as we might fear.

The Casper paper also reported on a perennial problem, that being that graduates of the high school in Casper were expressing a desire to take off as soon as they graduated.  Wyoming continues to suffer this problem today.

In 1919 they could hardly be blamed in some ways.  Casper was a boom town with that boom (about to be a bust) all centered on oil production.  It was busy, dirty, and dangerous, and featured a large district dedicated to vice of the classic types.

In far off Central Asia the Russian protectorate Khanate of Khiva came to an end when its last hereditary ruler abdicated.

The deminished Khiva in 1903

It had existed since 1511.

Khiva (Karasm) in the 18th Century.

Khiva had fallen to Russian aggression in the early 18th Century after which it became a protectorate, becoming increasingly smaller, until the Soviets just wiped it out as an entity entirely.

On the same day as the last Khan resigned in Khiva, the Soviets recognized the independence of Estonia.

Signing of the treaty recognizing Estonian independence.

The Soviets would get over that in 1940.

In the same region, under the Treaty of Versailles, the French occupied Memel, the eastern most region of East Prussia.

Memel was effectively the German frontier in the Baltic's and had long had a mixed population.  Given the German influence in the Baltic's, that in and of itself was a problem of sorts.  The French occupation would have given some time for these issues to be sorted out and in fact an Memel independence movement, an odd thought given its small size, developed during the brief French occupation.  However, in 1923 it became Lithuanian by way of a Lithuanian revolt in the region which the French did not suppress.  Indeed, the French were on their way out due to their occupation of the Ruhr at the time.  The region would become German again in March 1939 when the Nazi German state demanded its return and the Lithuanians acquiesced.  It changed hands again as a result of World War Two and it remains Lithuanian today, with its formerly significant German population having been largely expelled by the Soviets following the war.

August 23, 1919. Exhibitions in Toronto, Trouble for the Motor Transport Convoy in Utah, Fighting in Mexico, Lithuania and Ireland.

While the U.S. Army was testing its recent wartime vehicular acquisitions in a cross country trek, Toronto was enjoying a victory related exhibition.

Vehicle attrition was beginning to set in with the transcontinental Motor Transport Convoy.

While better progress was made on this day, for the second time this week a vehicle was pulled out to be shipped by rail.  On this occasion, the vehicle was pulled out entirely and taken back to Ft. Douglas, Utah, which is just outside of Salt Lake City.

Officer's quarters, Ft. Douglas, Utah.

Things were not going as well as hoped for, for the Army, further south.

And violence was erupting elsewhere as well.

In Ireland, fifteen year old Francis Murphy, a member of Fianna Éireann, an Irish Nationalist Youth organization, was shot dead in his home by British soldiers in what amounted to sort of a drive by shooting.  The shots were believed to have been fired in retaliation for recent violent nationalist activities.

Fianna Éireann members in 1914, practicing aiding the wounded.  The organization was a nationalist youth organization with scouting elements.  Note the kilts, which aren't really an Irish thing.  Note also the Montana Peak type hats which were associated with scouting at the time.  Photograph courtesy of the Irish Library via Wikipedia Commons.

And in the East, fighting between Poles and Lithuanians broke out in the city of Sejny over the question of who would control the city. The Germans, upon evacuating the region in May, had left it in the hands of Lithuania, which is not surprising in light of German support for German freikorps fighting there.  The Poles in the city objected.  Ultimately the region would remain in Lithuania.

Polish cavalry in Sejny.

Saturday was the day the nation's magazines tended to come out, although its doubtful anyone we discussed above read this weeks. Maybe soldiers on the convoy might have acquired some late.

Country Gentleman, perhaps in the spirit of the time, portrayed aggressive roosters on its cover.

The Country Gentleman from August 23, 1919.

The Saturday Evening Post had a less than inspiring Leyendecker illustration depicting a life guard, perhaps in tribute to the hot month of August, which was about to become the cooling month of September.

April 19, 1919. Opening Day, April flowers, Poles advance, Rebuilding the churches, Red Cross in action, Belgians on the stage.

The fateful 1919 baseball season opened on this day in 1919, with the Brooklyn Robbins (what the Dodgers were before they were called that) defeating the Boston Braves twice in a double headers.

J. C. Leyendecker graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post with a spring centered illustration.  Easter Sunday for 1919 was the following day.

Easter was directly recalled on the cover of The Country Gentleman, but with an illustration featuring a little kid with chicks.  This is a traditional Easter theme, but one I've always found a bit odd.

On this day in 1919, Polish forces entered Vilnius in an event that wasn't Easter focused by any means.

Vilnius in some ways symbolizes the nature of post war Eastern Europe, and indeed to some extent Europe in general.  The Poles entered it as part of their war against the Russian Reds.  The town had been of course in the Russian Empire.  It's population was both Polish and Lithuanian and nationalist from both countries saw it as theirs.  In the context of Russian imperial rule, its mixed population hadn't created nationalist problems, but now it was.

Pilsudski took quick steps to try to make it plain that the sovereignty of the region would be determined by plebiscite which he hoped would result in support for a federal union he envisioned which would have included Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, as well as some other regions in some versions of the plan.  The Poles and the Ukrainians are in fact very close in ethnicity, although they are somewhat religiously divided. The Poles and the Lithuanians, however, are largely Catholic, but the Lithuanians were not close to the Poles in ethnicity.  A newly independent Ukrainian government was horrified by the thought of the town being anything but Lithuanian, and Polish nationalist weren't keen on that thought.  The right to include the city within respective national boundaries lead to the Polish Lithuanian War shortly thereafter.  Ironically, it was only Polish success in the Russo Polish War which kept Lithuania from being invaded by the Soviets and at the conclusion of the Russo Polish War it was included within Poland.  The Lithuanians, however, never accepted that fact and did not establish diplomatic relations with Lithuania until 1938.

Today Vilnius is the capitol of Lithuania, but that reflects the results of World War Two.  After the invasion of Poland by the Germans and the Soviets in 1939, the city was turned over to Lithuania but then shortly thereafter Lithuania was invaded by the Red Army.  It was subsequently invaded by the Germans in Operation Barbarossa, and during their occupation most of the large Polish population and the Jewish population was removed from the city. Today its ethnically a Lithuanian city, the result of German oppression of the Poles and Jews.

The ruins of St. Albain Nazaire in France.

On this day in 1919, the Holy See announced plans to raise funds to repair the 1,300 churches in France damaged during the Great War.

How odd that this would fall so close to current events.

Class in Plainfield, New Jersey, snipping filling for pillows for the Red Cross.

The Red Cross was still at work in Europe and of course in Russia and therefore efforts to support it kept on.

Red Cross headquarters in Archangel.

In Washington D. C. Belgian troops who had been in the United States in support of a Victory Loan campaign paraded to the Keith Theater in Washington D. C.

Lithuania declares independence, 1918

The Council of Lithuania declared its independence on this day, in 1918.

It would retain independence until invaded by the Soviet Union in 1940, was occupied by the Germans in 1941, was reoccupied by the Soviets late in World War Two, and then regained independence in 1990.