Sunday, September 10, 1944. Reaching Germany, Freeing Luxembourg, Continuation War lost.

The US 3d Armored Division occupied St. Vith and accordingly reached the German border.  St. Vith is in the German speaking border region of Belgium.

Luxembourg was liberated.

Gen. Eisenhower approved what would become Operation Market Garden, Field Marshall Montgomery's concept for an airborne assault in the Netherlands.

The U-20 and U-23 were scuttled in the Black Sea.

The Red Army attacked German forces holding a suburb of Warsaw.

The RAF launched Operation Paravane, an attempt to sink the Tirpitz.

Finland signed a formal armistice with the Soviet Union which restored the 1940 borders and required reparations to be paid by Finland.  Finland had, accordingly, lost the Continuation War, but the Soviet terms were remarkably generous.

"Soldiers from Co. A, 145th Inf., 37th Div., in position on a hillside where they had the Japs surrounded.Bougainville. 10 September, 1944."

Last edition:

Saturday, September 9, 1944. A coup in Bulgaria.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, 1980s, 1986, 1990, 1990s, Aircraft, Armor, Army, Artillery, Belgium, Buchenwald, Bulgaria, Burma Road, Cheyenne, Cheyenne Wyoming, Communism, Nationalist Chinese Army, World War Two, Wyoming (Cheyenne)

Thursday, January 24, 1924. Different reactions to the use of power.

Oilman Edward L. Doheny testified that he had loaned Senator Albert B. Fall $100,000, when Fall was Secretary of the Interior under Harding, breaking open the Teapot Dome Scandal.

New Mexico Senator Albert B. Fall.

Fall's political career would soon come to an end, and he'd serve a year in prison.

Doheny would be indicted, but acquitted.

Khiva fell to the Red Army.

Sister Marie of the Poor, the former Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde of Luxembourg, died of ill health and influenza at age 29.  She had been the last royal of that country to wield real power, which caused her to abdicate after World War One due to her decision to try to steer the country clear of active resistance to the Germans.  Following that, having never married, she had become a nun.

Tuesday, September 28, 1943. George Ferdinand Duckwitz. Sometimes it takes only one righteous man.

German diplomat George Ferdinand Duckwitz warned the Danish resistance that Berlin had ordered Danish Jews to be deported starting on October 1.  The information allowed the Danish resistance to help 8,000 Danish Jews, nearly the entire Danish population of the country, to leave the country, 7,200 of whom were taken by Danish fishermen to Sweden.

Duckwitz was a career German diplomat and remained in West Germany's service after the war, first as ambassador to Denmark and later to India.  He became Secretary of State in the Foreign Office in 1966.  Israel accorded him the honor of Righteous Among the Nations in 1971.  He died in 1973 at age 68.

Luxembourg was declared "cleansed of Jew" by the Germans after the deportation of its remaining 674 Jewish residents.

The British 10th Corps, an element of the U.S. 5th Army, broke into the Plain of Naples at Nocera.  The U.S. 6th Corps advanced towards Avelino.

Monday July 25, 1921. Ignoring the vote and things not being what they seem.

On this day, a century ago, the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union's treaty was signed in spite of national opposition to it, which was expressed in the form of a "no" vote during a referendum on the topic.

I suppose the fact that the people didn't want it, and they got it anyway, is a lesson in more than one way.

The treaty united the economies of the two countries.

Princess Fatima of Afghanistan secured an audience with President Harding through the offices, oddly enough, of notorious imposter Stanley Clifford Weyman.

The princess, her family, and Weyman, in Naval uniform, with another imposter, in top hat, we discussed recently.

Well, in actuality nobody was who they seemed to have been, except President Harding.  And as we've discussed before, even Harding wasn't completely who he seemed to be in some ways.

Anyhow, Fatima wasn't really a princess.  In spite of her best efforts to secure an audience with Harding, she hadn't received one, which is no surprise as Afghanistan, at that time, was far from an American concern. The distant country had just received its independence and was of very little interest to the distant United States.

Fatima wanted, apparently, to be a princess  and secure positions for her three sons.  Weyman took note and posted as a Naval officer and actually secured an audience for her.  Be that as it may, it didn't achieve anything for her or anyone in this photo, except perhaps for Weyman who secured some notoriety.

Weyman went on to sting of later such false flag type of acts before being shot to death attempting to stop a robbery in 1960.  The police detective at the time noted that he knew Weyman's history, but what he actually did in his final act was brave.

Of note, one of the things that the New York Times reported on, regarding the would be Princess Fatima, is that she had a diamond stud in her nose, which was regarded as very exotic at the time.

The November 11, 1918 Armistice.

 Foch with fellow Allied officers after the execution of the armistice.

It occurred to me that we've been referencing the big November 11, 1918 even that brought an end to the Great War a lot, but we never published it. 

Here, before the century mark on that fateful year passes, is the entire text:

Between MARSHAL FOCH, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies,
acting in the name of the Allied and Associated Powers, with ADMIRAL WEMYSS, First Sea Lord, on the one hand, and HERR ERZBERGER, Secretary of State, President of the German Delegation, COUNT VON OBERNDORFF, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary,  MAJOR GENERAL VON WINTERFELDT, CAPTAIN VANSELOW (German Navy),

duly empowered and acting with the concurrence of the German Chancellor on the other hand.
          An Armistice has been concluded on the following conditions:

CONDITIONS OF THE ARMISTICE CONCLUDED
WITH GERMANY.

A. - CLAUSES RELATING TO THE WESTERN FRONT.
          

I. - Cessation of hostilities by land and in the air 6 hours after the signing of the Armistice

II. - Immediate evacuation of the invaded countries - Belgium, France, Luxemburg, as well as Alsace-Lorraine - so ordered as to be completed within 15 days from the signature of the Armistice. German troops which have not left the above-mentioned territories within the period fixed shall be made prisoners of war.     

Occupation by the Allied and United States Forces jointly shall keep pace with the evacuation of these areas.

All movements of evacuation and occupation shall be regulated in accordance with a Note (Annexe1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

III. - Repatriation, beginning at once, to be completed within 15 days, of all inhabitants of the countries above enumerated (including hostages, persons under trial, or condemned).
          

IV. - Surrender in good condition by the German Armies of the following equipment:-
          5,000 guns (2,500 heavy, 2,500 field).
          25,000 machine guns.
          3,000 trench mortars.
        1,700 aeroplanes (fighters, bombers - firstly all D.7's and night-bombing machines).
          

The above to be delivered in situ to the Allied and United States troops in accordance with the detailed conditions laid down in the Note (Annexe 1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

V. - Evacuation by the German Armies of the districts on the left bank of the Rhine. These districts on the left bank of the Rhine shall be administered by the local authorities under the control of the Allied and United States Armies of Occupation.

The occupation of these territories by Allied and United States troops shall be assured by garrisons holding the principal crossings of the Rhine (Mainz, Coblenz, Cologne), together with bridgeheads at these points of a 30-kilometre (about 19 miles) radius on the right bank, and by garrisons similarly holding the strategic points of the area.
          

A neutral zone shall be reserved on the right bank of the Rhine, between the river and a line drawn parallel to the bridgeheads and to the river and 10 kilometres (6¼ miles) distant from them, between the Dutch frontier and the Swiss frontier.
          

The evacuation by the enemy of the Rhine districts (right and left banks) shall be so ordered as to be completed within a further period of 16 days, in all 31 days after the signing of the Armistice.
          

All movements of evacuation and occupation shall be regulated according to the Note (Annexe 1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

VI. - In all territories evacuated by the enemy, evacuation of the inhabitants shall be forbidden; no damage or harm shall be done to the persons or property of the inhabitants.
          

No person shall be prosecuted for having taken part in any military measures previous to the signing of the Armistice.
          

No destruction of any kind to be committed.
          

Military establishments of all kinds shall be delivered intact, as well as military stores, food, munitions and equipment, which shall not have been removed during the periods fixed for evacuation.
          

Stores of food of all kinds for the civil population, cattle, &c., shall be left in situ.
          

No measure of a general character shall be taken, and no official order shall be given which would have as a consequence the depreciation of industrial establishments or a reduction of their personnel.
          

VII. - Roads and means of communications of every kind, railroads, waterways, roads, bridges, telegraphs, telephones, shall be in no manner impaired.
          

All civil and military personnel at present employed on them shall remain.
          

5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons, in good working order, with all necessary spare parts and fittings, shall be delivered to the Associated Powers within the period fixed in Annexe No. 2 (not exceeding 31 days in all).
          

5,000 motor lorries are also to be delivered in good condition within 36 days.
          

The railways of Alsace-Lorraine shall be handed over within 31 days, together with all personnel and material belonging to the organization of this system.
          

Further, the necessary working material in the territories on the left bank of the Rhine shall be left in situ.
          

All stores of coal and material for the upkeep of permanent way, signals and repair shops shall be left in situ and kept in an efficient state by Germany, so far as the working of the means of communication on the left bank of the Rhine is concerned.
          

All lighters taken from the Allies shall be restored to them.
 

A couple of comments.

If this seems surprisingly short, there were annexes that provided a great more detail.  These are referenced above, but I haven't included them.

Secondly, there's a certain sort of debate that occurs between historians, amateur and professional, about whether the armistace was as surrender or if we have to wait until the Versailles Treaty to get that.  Certainly that's how the Germans sot of came to view it, but looking at the text, while the armistice wasn't a treaty of peace in the diplomatic sense, it was a surrender.  

The territorial concessions alone would have made it that. But the laying down and surrendering of a designated number of arms effectively gutted the Imperial German Army as a field force capable of waging a resumed war against the Allies (and made it difficult for the same army to suppress the ongoing domestic insurrection, which played into something we'll be seeing shortly.  But the surrender of material items beyond that, which predated any such condition in the Versailles Treaty, made that all the more clear.

The end of wars can be messy, and certainly most are.  We're so used to the concept of total victory, even though we have achieved it only twice in our own history, that we tend to think of it in that fashion.  Most wars end with an armistice with a peace treaty to follow, or more rarely with a peace treaty followed by an armistice.  The November 11, 1918 armistice followed the historic norm.  It was a German surrender.

November 30, 1918. Americans enter Germany for the first time, Villa threatens Juarez, Wyomingites get Reserve Plates, Teenage Bride Mildred Harris Chaplin rumored to be planning a visit home, No beer for New Years.

The first Americans to cross into Germany, November 30, 1918.  1st Division.  Wormeldauge Luxembourg to Winchrenger Germany.

On this date in 1918 the U.S. Army entered Germany from Luxembourg.

Gen. Campbell King, left, in Luxembourg on this date in 1918.  King was Harvard educated before attending becoming a lawyer in Georgia.  He entered  the Army in 1897 as a private and was commissioned an officer in 1898.  He was a Major entereing World War One and was breveted the rank of Brigadier General and served as Chief of Staff of the Third Army.  He retired as a Major General in 1932 and lived until 1953.  The officer on the right is an unidentified Marine Corps officer.  Note the much darker uniform and the different pattern of overseas cap, with that type being the type that would later become the service wide pattern after the war.

Headquarters for the occupation force remained, on this day, in Luxembourg itself.

Cheyenne residents read Gen. Pershing's address to his troops and the Governor was demobilizing the Home Guard.

And Wyoming was introducing its coveted "reserve plates" for motor vehicles, in which you could get the same license plate number every year (at a time in which you received new plates every year. . . which was the case at least into the 1970s).

In the other Cheyenne paper readers learned that yes, Villa was threatening Juarez again. So he'd returned from near defeat back to threatening and was back on the very top of the front page yet again. . . just as he had been prior to World War One.

Mildred Harris Chaplain at approximately this time. Her stardom was in ascendancy at the time but her life was is in turmoil.  She's married much older Charlie Chaplain at only age 16, something that would have wrecked both of their careers in and of itself in the present age, under the false belief that she was pregnant.

Cheyenne was hoping for a visit, we also learned, from Mildred Harris, now Mrs. Mildred Chaplin, who had turned 17 years old only the day prior.

In Casper the headline, like on many other papers, dealt with Woodrow Wilson's decision to lead the American peace delegation, something that was not a popular decision with Congress.  Casperites also read of the terrible massacre of the Jews in Lemberg (Lvov) by the Poles.

Casperites also were reading of the disbandment of UW's military training unit.

Casperites also read, in the other paper, Pereshing's Thanksgiving day address.

They also read that the Kaiser was that no longer.

And suds for New Years would be no longer as well. The committee that had suspended brewing as of the first of the year declined to rescind its order now that there was peace.

Boxing match in Archangel Russia between enlisted U.S. and French servicemen, November 30, 1918.

November 21, 1918. Marching through Luxembourg on the way to Germany

Crossing borders, November 20, 1918.

Advance guard of the 18th Infantry crossing the border line of France and Luxembourg near Aumetz Lux, Lorraine, November 20, 1918.  The 18th was part of the 1st Division and had been in action from the start of American combat participation until the end of the war.  Note that this group of soldiers is entirely equipped with garrison caps and that one of the soldiers is carrying a Chauchat automatic rifle.

Arrival of the first American troops in Belgium, Arlon, Belgium, November 20, 1918.  This street scene is interesting, among other reasons, in that a couple of the men are wearing the type of fedora you'll occasionally see claimed to have not existed until the 1920s. This type shows up in other photos earlier than this, but this photograph gives a good example of them.

Sunday, August 2, 1914. First French and German casualties of the Great War.

Germany invaded Luxembourg and demanded passage through Belgium.

German cavalry crossed into France in a local action resulting in at least two deaths in a clash with French militia, those being  Jules-André Peugeot, the first French military casualty of the war, and Albert Mayer, the first German casualty.

The countries were not yet at war.

Mayer was in command of the cavalry patrol and opened hostilities by first charging a sentry and then firing at Corporal Peugeot, who ordered him to stop and indicated the illegally present patrol was under arrest.

Mayer fire upon and killed Peugeot and the died when the French troops opened up on him. The illegal border crossers then retreated.

The patrol should not have been in France.

Germany signed a secret alliance with the Ottoman Empire.  It stated:

Constantinople, August 2, 1914

1. The two contracting parties agree to observe strict neutrality in regard to the present conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.

2. In case Russia should intervene with active military measures, and should thus bring about a casus foederis for Germany with relation to Austria-Hungary, this casus foederis would also come into existence for Turkey.

3. In case of war, Germany will leave her military mission at the disposal of Turkey. The latter, for her part, assures the said military mission an effective influence on the general conduct of the army, in accordance with the understanding arrived at directly between His Excellency the Minister of War and His Excellency the Chief of the Military Mission.

4. Germany obligates herself, if necessary by force of arms ... [ cipher group lacking] Ottoman territory in case it should be threatened.

5. This agreement which has been concluded for the purpose of protecting both Empires from international complications which may result from the present conflict goes into force as soon as it is signed by the above-mentioned plenipotentiaries, and shall remain valid, together with any similar mutual agreements, until December 31, 1918.

6. In case it shall not be denounced by one of the high contracting parties six months before the expiration of the term named above, this treaty shall remain in force for a further period of five years.

7. This present document shall be ratified by His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia, and by His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans, and the ratifications shall be exchanged within a period of one month from the date of its signing.

8. The present treaty shall remain secret and can only be made public as a result of an agreement arrived at between the two high contracting parties. In testimony whereof, etc.

BARON v. WANGENHEIM

SAID HALIM

WANGENHEIM 

The German Navy bombarded Liepaja, Lativa, part of the Russian Empire.

St. Pope Pius X issued what would be his last public pronouncement, which stated:

EXHORTATION

DUM EUROPA

OF POPE PIUS X

TO CATHOLICS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD

While nearly all Europe is being dragged into the storm of an extremely gruesome war, of which no one can foresee the dangers, the massacres, and the consequences without feeling oppressed by the sorrow and by the horror, also We could not but be concerned and could not but feel Our soul torn by the most poignant pain for the safety and for the lives of so many individuals and peoples for whose welfare We are supremely solicitous.

Amidst these upheavals and dangers, We absolutely feel and realize that Our fatherly charity and Our apostolic ministry demand of Us to direct the minds of all the Christian faithful to Him from Whom alone help can come, towards Christ, we say, the Prince of Peace and the all-powerful Mediator between God and men.

Therefore, We exhort the Catholics of the entire world to turn to His throne of grace and mercy, first of all the clergy; that they, under their Bishops, institute special public supplications in their respective parishes so that God, touched by piety of these prayers, may take away as soon as possible the disastrous scourge of war and inspire those who preside over the commonwealths to think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction.

From the Vatican, August 2, 1914

The Scandinavian Monetary Union between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark ended due to the outbreak of war.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 1, 1914. Germany declares war on Russia.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Austro Hungaria, Economics, France, German Kriegsmarine, Germany, Italy, Poland, Royal Navy, Russia, Switzerland, Triple Alliance, World War One