Tuesday, November 24, 1914. Kicked out.

Mussolini was kicked out of the Italian Socialist Party.

Last edition:

Monday, November 23, 1914. End of the US occupation of Veracruz.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Battle of Veracruz, Blog Mirror, German Army, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Veracruz), Occupation of Veracruz, Vera Cruz Mexico, World War One

Thursday, November 13, 1924. Polish Orthodox Church.

The Polish Orthodox Church was created as an autocephalous Orthodox Church by the signing of the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos by Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople, recognizing the situation that had been created by the Russian Revolution and Poland's independence.

Mussolini introduced a bill to grant women the franchise in Italy.

Last edition

Thursday, November 12, 1914. Wanted horses.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, British Army, Equine Transportation, Maritz Rebellion, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, South Africa, South African Army

Thursday, July 20, 1944. The July 20 Plot.

Henning von Tresckow, who was the real mastermind behind the plot.  He'd been opposed to the Nazis as early as 1934.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-130-53 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5482859.

Conservative German politician Carl Friedrich Goerdeler who was to have been the new German Chancellor.  He did not hold up under questioning.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1993-069-06 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483573

The best known, and last known, attempt on Hitler's life took place.  In this instance, as had been the case for the attempt a few days earlier, the effort was part of a full blown coup attempt centered around Claus von Stauffenberg placing a bomb in a location calculated to kill Hitler, while the German Home Army was deployed to arrest Nazi officials and decapitate the SS, while similar efforts took place in various locations occupied by Germany.

Hitler shaking hands with Bodenschatz, accompanied by Stauffenberg (left) and Keitel (right) on July 15, 1944, when von Stauffenberg had attempted a prior effort as part of the same plot. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1984-079-02 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483227

The effort centered on von Stauffenberg setting a bomb off in a bunker at the Wolf's Lair, but upon arriving, he found that it had been moved to a meeting room due to the high heat of the day.

At 12:30 p.m. von Stauffenberg, excused himself to ostensibly use a washroom at the Wolf's Lair, where a meeting with Hitler was taking place, basing his request on his sweat soaked shirt.  He there crushed the time pencils on one of two bombs he had with him, returned to the meeting room, and placed a satchel with the bombs in it under a heavy desk.  

A co conspirator called for him, and he left the room.  The bomb detonated at 12:42.  A stenographer was killed and 20 officers injured, with three later dying.  Hitler was unharmed.

General der Nachrichtentruppe Erich Fellgiebel, who was in on the plot and in charge of communications from the Wolf's Lair.  He informed the plotters that Hitler had not been killed.  Hitler had never trusted Fellgiebel, but he was an expert at communications technology and had urged the adoption of the Enigma machine.  He was arrested and tortured due to his role in the plot, but did not reveal the names of his co conspirators.  He was executed in September 1944. He was 57 years old.

Fritz Thiele, whom Fellgiebel nformed of Hitler's survival in a somewhat coded call.  He wanted to call the coup attempt off after the call.  He also was executed due to his role in it.

Von Stauffenberg, believing Hitler dead, departed the scene and boarded a HE 111 for Berlin at 13:00.  It reached Berlin at 16:00.  Gen. Erich Fellgiebel had already phoned the plotters that Hitler had survived, which von Stauffenberg contradicted upon his landing.  Orders went out for Operation Valkyrie to commence, which should have gone out hours earlier, that being the deployment of the Reserve Army and other units, to arrest the SS and take control of the government.  Gen. Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, military governor of occupied France, disarmed the SD and SS and captured most of their leadership. He then travelled to Field Marshal Günther von Kluge's headquarters and asked him to contact the Allies but was informed instead that Hitler was alive. 

Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel. He tried to convince von Kluge to go ahead with the coup even after learning of Hitler's survival, but upon being unsuccessful tried to kill himself unsuccessfully.  In his delirium, he was heard to mutter "Rommel", which lead to Rommel being suspected. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R63893 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5368444

Himmler then countermanded the orders enacting Valkyrie, while at the same time the coup was in charge of much of Berlin, as was as Vienna and Prague.

Chief of Staff of the German Army and central figure in the coup, Friedrich Olbricht. (By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1981-072-61 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483096.

By 18:10 the coup began to fall apart. At 19:00 Hitler placed phone calls that he had survived.  He then took to the radio, which was practically necessary, so that there was audio proof of his survival.  In his short address, he stated:

My fellow Germans! Yet another of the countless attempts on my life has been planned and carried out. I am speaking to you for two reasons:

1. So that you can hear my voice and know that I myself am not injured and well.

2. So that you can hear the details of a crime without parallel in German history.

A very small clique of ambitious, unscrupulous, criminal and stupid officers formed a conspiracy to do away with me and at the same time to wipe out virtually the entire staff of the German High Command.

The bomb which was planted by Colonel von Stauffenberg exploded two meters to my right. It seriously injured a number of my colleagues who are very dear to me; one has died. I myself am completely unhurt apart from a few minor skin abrasions, bruises and burns. I interpret this as confirmation that Providence wishes me to continue my life's mission as I have in the past. For I can solemnly state in the presence of the entire nation that since the day I moved into the Wilhelmstraße my sole thought has been to carry out my duty to the best of my ability. And from the time when I realized that the war was unavoidable and could no longer be delayed, I have known nothing but worry and hard work; and for countless days and sleepless nights have lived only for my People!

At the very moment when the German armies are engaged in a most difficult struggle, a small group formed in Germany, as happened in Italy, which thought that as in 1918 it could now deliver the stab in the back. However, this time they totally miscalculated. The claim by these usurpers that I am no longer alive, is at this very moment proven false, for here I am talking to you, my dear fellow countrymen. The circle which these usurpers represent is very small. It has nothing to do with the German armed forces, and above all nothing to do with the German army. It is a very small clique composed of criminal elements which will now be mercilessly exterminated. I therefore give the following orders with immediate effect:

1. That no civilian agency is to obey an order from a government agency which these usurpers claim that they command.

2. That no military installation, no commander of a unit, no soldier is to obey any order by these usurpers. On the contrary, any person conveying or issuing such an order is to be immediately arrested or, if they resist, shot on the spot.

In order to restore complete order, I have appointed Minister of the Reich Himmler to be Commander of the Home Forces. I have drafted into the General Staff General Guderian to replace the Chief of the General Staff who is at the moment absent due to illness, and have appointed a second proven leader from the Eastern Front to be his aide.

In all the other agencies of government within the Reich everything remains unchanged. I am convinced that with the departure of this small clique of traitors and conspirators, we will finally create the atmosphere here at home, too, which the soldiers at the front need. For it is intolerable that at the front hundreds of thousands and millions of brave men are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, while here at home a small clique of ambitious, despicable creatures constantly tries to undermine this attitude. This time we will settle accounts as we National Socialists are accustomed to. I am convinced that at this time every decent officer, every honest soldier will understand that.

Few people can begin to imagine the fate which would have overtaken Germany had the assassination attempt succeeded. I myself thank Providence and my Creator not for preserving me - my life consists only of worry and work for my People - I thank him only for allowing me to continue to bear this burden of worry, and to carry on my work to the best of my ability.

It is the duty of every German without exception to ruthlessly oppose these elements, and either to arrest them immediately or, if they resist arrest, to shoot them on the spot. These orders have been issued to all military units. They will be carried out to the letter with the discipline typical of the Germany army.

Once again I take this opportunity, my old comrades in arms, to greet you, joyful that I have once again been spared a fate which, while it held no terror for me personally, would have had terrible consequences for the German People. I interpret this as a sign from Providence that I must continue my work, and therefore I shall continue it.

The inclusion of what was an order that offices continue to follow the Nazi regimes orders were telling.  There was obviously remaining concern that the coup would go forward.

Nazi elements regained control of Berlin.  Fromm, who had been aware of the plot but vacillated, had von Stauffenberg shot.  By midnight the coup was over.

Friedrich Wilhelm Waldemar Fromm, commander of the Replacement Army.  He was aware of the plot and agreed to have a role in it, but betrayed his comrades when things began to go badly.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1969-168-07 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5482524.

The plot had almost worked.

Had it succeeded, German resistance to the Allies would have necessarily rapidly collapsed.

Mussolini Hitler shortly after the bomb blast, taking his survival as a sign that victory was assured.  It was the last time the two would meet.

A Red Cross club opened up in Cherbourg.

First sailors to sign the guestbook in the American Red Cross "Victoire" club. L to R: T2/C Dave Romber, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Y2/C Ralphe Peloquin, Berlin, N.H.; and Y1/C Joe Zeigovits, Coplay, Pennsylvania.  July 20, 1944.

Fighting continued unabated in Normandy.

Infantry in Saint-Lô, , July 20, 1944.

U.S. replacements being issued K Rations prior to assignment to combat units.   The replacement system during World War Two meant that these men would go out in many instances as individual replacements.

The Battle of Auvere began as part of the Battle of Narva.

Franklin Roosevelt addressed the Democratic National Convention remotely.  He was in San Diego. He announced he would not campaign.

Marines on Saipan, July 20, 1944.

Marine Corps gun crew cleaning 105 howitzer, July 20, 1944.

The HMS Isis sank off of Normandy after hitting a mine.

Actress Mildred Harris, a native of Cheyenne Wyoming and 16 year old first bride of Charlie Chaplin, died of pneumonia at age 42.  Her life had been, overall, sad and tragic.

An annular solar eclipse was visible in Asia.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 19, 1944. The start of the Democratic Convention.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, 1944 Election, Army, Battle of Saint-Lô, Blog Mirror, boats and ships, Caen France, Canadian Army, Infantry, Italy, Latvia, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Red Army, Waffen SS, World War Two

Sunday, March 23, 1924. Noise.

 

"The Curse of Noise" Hearst's New York American.  March 23, 1924.

Speaking of noise, Mussolini led a fascist march and gave a campaign speech at the end of it, on this day in 1924.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, March 20, 1924. Barbarity Codified.

Monday, January 28, 1924. Plaintiff Shoeless Joe Jackson, Petition for release, Teapot fallout, Federals seek to retake Vera Cruz, Lenin boxed and warehoused, Far Right Figure gives extreme speech about election, the last King of Sine

Shoeless Joe Jackson's suit against the Chicago White Sox for back pay went to trial on this day in 1924.  The trial was held in Milwaukee.

A delegation headed by Illinois Sen. William B. McKinley and former servicemen present spooled petition to Otto Wiedfeldt, the German Ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C. to release Hooven Griffis.

Hooven Griffis?

Yes, he was part of a party of men that had sought to kidnap Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, notorious WWI slacker, from a hotel in Germany, take him to Paris and turn him over to authorities so he could be court-martialed for desertion.

The party was caught.

The headlines all speak for themselves.

Mussolini addressed 10,000 Blackshirts in the Palazzo Venezia predicting a complete election victory and stating that they were "ready to kill or die".

Vanity Fair, December 1923.

Hmmm. . . sort of a lot like what we're hearing now.

Mahecor Joof was crowned as the last King of Sine in Senegal, where he'd be allowed limited power until his death in 1969.

Monday, December 10, 1923. Mexican rebels and cheese empires advance.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has not been ratified, was first introduced in Congress.

At the time, many suffragettes opposed it out of fear that it would eliminate statutory protection of female laborers, which it likely would have.

Rebels were advancing on Mexico City.

Coolidge was encouraging commercial aviation, and running for reelection.

The National Dairy Products Corporation was founded by a merger of Thomas H. McInerney's Hydrox Corporation and Edward E. Rieck's Rieck—McJunkin Dairy Company. In 1930, it would acquire Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company, and then rebrand itself in 1969 as Kraftco Corporation and then Kraft, Inc.

It is now Kraft Heinz as of this very year.

Kraft cheese is, in my opinion, hideous.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. that only it, in appropriate Federal questions, could review state supreme court decisions.

The Italian parliament was prorogued, i.e., dissolved, by King Victor Emmanuel III at the request of Benito Mussolini.

Turkey and Albania signed a treat of friendship.

When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

Yeoman's Fifth Law of History.  When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

When nations start a war, they have a "war aim."  But that aim rarely determines when a war ends.  Wars are over when the party that is attacked decides that the war is over.

The Germans, during World War Two, thought that the war in the West was over when they knocked France out of the war, but the British did not believe that, so it did not end. In the East, the Germans thought advancing to the Volga meant victory over the USSR.  The Soviets, however, had no such concept so the war went on.  Conversely, the Imperial Russians in World War One gave up long before they were really defeated.  They just gave up.  Wars end when the party that was attacked decides that they are over.

This is about to be played out in spades.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and followed with the invasion of France in 1940, the war was supposed to end. The British, however, didn't agree, and by 1945 Germany was finished as a fascist power.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 Japan figured on. . .well figured on something. They didn't figure that by 1945 the Allies would end the Japanese Empire for eternity and two cities would lay in nuclear ruins.

When the South attempted to depart from the Union in 1860 and laid siege to Ft. Sumter, it didn't figure on Sherman marching across the South in 1865.

And when Hamas invaded Israel earlier this week, it didn't figure on an Israeli invasion of Gaza that would end Gaza as a Palestinian entity.

But that is likely to happen, replete with all the human tragedy that will accompany it.

Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the thousands resorting to invasion on the theory it achieves something are the blistering ignoramuses of history.  Later this week, the news will feature wailing Palestinian women lamenting the deaths of their loved ones, many of whom intellectually sided with the entity which committed horrors on their neighbors and who have no better solution than to follow the sword.  Many outside their support, and some who had not given it, and indeed most fit into this category, will be innocent victims of the death their political leaders invited to rain down upon them.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Human beings seem incapable of learning this lesson. 

Some seem less capable of learning it than others.

Any ignoramus can start a war.  Wars end, when those who were hit first, decide to quit hitting back.  Almost as often as not, that last blow is struck by those hit first.

September 23, 1943. The Italian Social Republic, the Holocaust reaches further.

On this date in 1943, the puppet fascist Italian Social Republic was founded. Venice was its capital, wih most of its government offices in the resort town of Salò.

And so Mussolini would consign Italy to a species of civil war over a doomed cause.

The Holocaust expanded with Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt issuing an order for the deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied nations (Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Romania) and to negotiate for the same in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Turkey, none of which would comply.

As if there was any doubt, 80 years later, as of its true focus, as the fortune of the Nazi regime faded, it grasped for complete murderous annihilation of Europe's Jews.

Kaltenbrunner was an Austrian SS official during the war who was a major figure in the murder.  He was tried and executed in 1946.

On the same day, the Germans began the removal of Jewish residents of Vilnius.

The Red Army took  Poltava.

The Free French took Bonifacio, Corsica.

The British 10th Corps, part of the US 5th Army, began clearing the passes to Naples.

Wednesday, September 15, 1943. Bazooka.

The United States Army revealed the AT M-1 rocket launcher, the bazooka, to the press.

M1 bazooka.

Like the PIAT, the new anti-tank weapon was first used in North Africa, but would come into its own in Europe.

The Red Army captured Nizhyn.

Mussolini announced he was returning to power, which in the context of his situation, meant returning to figurehead power of an Italian puppet rump state.  On the same day, the Germans announced the death penalty for Italians caught with firearms.

German paratroopers advanced on the Vatican at St. Peter's Square.

British paratroopers occupied Cos in the Aegean.

Former internee James Tanaka working in the New York City studio of a movie cartoon producer.

Tuesday, September 14, 1943. Mussolini at the Wolf's Lair.

Mussolini was flown to the Wolf's Lair for a meeting with Hitler, who informed Il Duce that it was imperative that he form a new fascist government.  Mussolini, at this point, would likely have preferred to go into retirement in a neutral country.

Following up on a string of Luftwaffe successes in recent days, the HMS Warspite was badly damaged by another Fritz X.  It would be back in action before Operation Overlord.

Taking advantage of the Italian surrender, German collaborators Ibrahim Biçakçiu, Bedri Pejani and Xhafer Deva declared Albania independence from Italy.

The Germans began the Viannos massacres on Crete which would result in 500 civilians being murdered in two days.

Sunday, September 12, 1943. The Germans spring Mussolini

Italian Social Republic poster.

German commandos under the command of Otto Skorzeny rescued Benito Mussolini from Italian imprisonment at the Campo Imeriale Hotel in the Abruzzi Mountains.  A less than enthusiastic Mussolini was spirited away as a passenger on a Fieler Storch after the combined glider/paratrooper raid.

The raid allowed Mussolini to be installed in a puppet fascist state called the Italian Social Republic, which would not have a happy end for Il Duce.  While in photos of this event, he's all smiles, he was a shadow of his former bombastic self by this time.  His fascistic state embedded within a monarchy had been destroyed and was going to be defeated no matter what was done at this point.  Italian troops were now fighting the Germans, although not terribly effectively.  A partisan movement was developing. The sympathies of the Italian people had gone over to an Allied peace.

The raid itself, while regarded as quite a feat of arms, emphasized the sad state of the Axis war effort itself by this point.  Mussolini could be regarded as nothing other than a puppet with an Axis alliance that was basically down to one power and associates.  Some of those associates, such as Romania and Finland, had concluded the Axis cause was doomed and were looking for a way out of the war.

Patriarch Sergius was installed as the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such formal installation since the Russian Revolution.

Sunday, September 9, 1923. Greece takes it on the chin.

 

Greece accepted the humiliating suggestions of the Allied Commissioners. What else could it do, having just lost a war to Turkey and having undergone a quasi violent change in government.

Of course, this was a step towards World War Two.

Monday, April 6, 1923. Mourning Harding.

 Harding's train had passed through Cheyenne the prior day.

Mussolini appeared on the cover of Time.

On G. K. Chesterton and his Anti Semitism.

The Catholic blogosphere has been having a war over G. K. Chesterton, the late English writer and polymath.  Some of it, were I not so tired and worn out, would be heartbreaking, as former fans of his, particularly converts, have discovered his anti-Semitic views and come around to condemning him. At the same time, hard right wing Catholics, whom are I supposing a separate interlocking circle that crosses over into the Trads and Rad Trads, but don't include all of those bodies by any means (I suspect most of them do not know who Chesterton is) may be over adopting him.

All this exists, moreover, in the bizarre context of our times in which the left doesn't see a biological or social construct that it doesn't want to attack, which makes in some ways Chesterton a perfect man for our times, as he warned of so much of this.  That's why, to our recent surprise, we saw, and it caused a lot of comment, Giorgia Meloni quote the English writer to the effect:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

She stated that in support of her hard right conservative views.

A lot of this debate over Chesterton, both from the right and the left, really misses the point, in my view.

Whenever dealing with a great man, we have to ask ourselves a series of questions.  Ironically, in some ways, we have to ask one that has been recently examined by the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom. "Was he a saint?"  But beyond that, do we require great mean with huge thoughts to be saints?  And do we always require them to be right in order to consider these ideas?

In some ways, this is frankly why ancient philosophers get so much more of a pass than modern ones.  We don't even think much of their private lives, really.  We know that Socrates was married at least once, to Xanthippe, and might have had a second wife as well. We also know that Xanthippe might have been 40 years younger than Socrates, which would cause all sorts of Twitter twittering today, but we just don't think of it.  And he's a philosopher that we know a lot about.

Chesterton, on the other hand, we know boatloads about, as he's a relatively recent figure.  His cause for canonization, which failed, resulted in all sorts of commentary about him in various forms, including some people who claimed he couldn't be a saint as he was fat, so therefore he must be a glutton, and an "alcoholic", based on his exhibiting the typical English pub culture of the time.  Much more serious, however, are his anti-Semitic utterances.

So let's start there.

They exist.

Now, I'm not able to really go into detail on them, as unlike true Chestertonians, I've read very little of Chesterton.  Like a lot of people who fit broadly into his fan base, so to speak, I've read the various pithy quotes you are able to find, and up until a recent bizarre Twitter episode, I hadn't read any of the anti-Semitic ones.  I'd heard them referenced, and excused, but I'm not going to try to do that as they seem to go beyond what we might expect, although at the same time a person can't really deny that there is evidence that cuts the other way as well.  The year following his death, for example, you find American Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, making this comment:

Indeed, I was a warm admirer of Gilbert Chesterton. Apart from his delightful art and his genius in many directions, he was, as you know, a great religionist . . . I deeply respected him. When Hitlerism came, he was one of the first to speak out with all the directness and frankness of a great and unabashed spirit. Blessing to his memory!

That's hard to square with the claim that Chesterton was an unabashed anti Semite.  In contrast, some point out that Chesterton said something like there was some good in Hitlerism and some of that was in Hitler himself.  He both condemned Nazism while saying that part of the reason that it came about was because of a "Jewish problem", a fairly astounding claim from an educated man who should have known better, although that was a fairly widespread belief in Europe at the time, and it surprisingly still has much more retention in Europe today, in spite of everything, than it should.  In some ways, Chesterton on this topic gives us a really odd example of a person really forcibly trying to take the middle ground by advocating both sides of it, on a topic in which there really is no middle ground.

But here's the thing.

Having bad, even horrible, views, doesn't discredit your other views which are not so tainted, and they don't define the person unless the person adopts them to the extent that they do.

Hitler was a tremendous opponent of smoking.  He hated it.  He was right to hate it, but beyond anything else, he hated cultures that he regarded as non-Germanic, with the Jews, followed by the Slavs hated to the point of murder. That's why Hitler and his followers are defined by their murderous beliefs, and not by their opposition to tobacco or their construction of the autobahn.

In contrast, I suppose, Thomas Jefferson wrote profoundly on the rights of man.  At the same time, he was shacked up with his dead wife's half sister, who was an enslaved black woman. The relationship started, following his wife's death, when the slave was quite young, probably still in her teens. That's really icky.  The children of that illicit union, we'd note, were held in bondage as well, which is exceedingly weird.

That latter example gives us an example closer to what we find with Chesterton.  Jefferson was a brilliant man, and wrote in opposition to slavery, none of which kept him from having an illicit unmarried long-lasting and deeply strange relationship to his sister-in-law.  Should we discount his writings?

Probably not.

And here I guess is the uneasy measure.  People are full of vices, some of them exceedingly serious.  Some people let their hatreds and vices define them.  That is what they come to stand for, by their own actions.  Hitler's perverted view of German superiority defined his political party and what it stood for, and came to define what Germany of the 30s and 40s stood for.  Lenin and Stalin's malevolent view of  the "class struggle", which lead to mass murder, came to define them.  

Franklin Roosevelt's long-lasting extramarital affair did not come to define him, however. And while he's not now regarded as a good President, Warren G. Harding's two affairs have not come to define him.  Actor Pat Morita's alcoholism did not define him.  Jimi Hendrix's drug consumption, which helped kill him, didn't define him.  Caravaggio's murdering a man over a tennis match has not come to define him.  Django Reinhardt's alcohol consumption diminished his abilities over his lifetime, but that has not come to define him, nor has Richard Burton's alcoholism defined him.  Churchill was known to have made utterances sympathetic to Mussolini prior to World War Two, and even after World War Two Churchill made a surprising remark about the rise of Hitler, which he warned against, having made sense in the context of desperate Germany of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

It's problematic, of course, when we are faced with a character like Chesterton, who serous failing was in print and therefore not really possible to ignore and not legitimately subject to being excused.  Nor are that a self-destructive personal vice, like alcoholism.  It's much closer to Jefferson's bedroom hypocrisy.  It's different from that, of course, in that Chesterton's views were openly stated, whereas Jefferson's actions were kept hidden.  A person could debate which was worse, I suppose, in that context, but for a brilliant writer, that's all the more problematic.

Some of it was the context of the times and culture, to be sure.  Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained in European culture and remains pretty potent today.  But Chesterton actually stood principally against his culture, which makes this failing more difficult to accept.

So where to land?

Like Caravaggio's paintings, his works are too valuable to ignore.  The adoption of them by fringe elements of the far right today, including the far right in religious circles, does not change that, and indeed chances are high that Chesterton would levy his sharp tongue against many of them today.  It means, however, that he's a flawed hero, and in at least one serious way, which makes him a pretty typical hero at that.  There are, to my layman's eyes, reasons not to canonize him which are both theological and political, none of which is to say that he did not find salvation.  Indeed, we ought to be careful about our own souls, with many of the critics and readers of all kinds no doubt, like Jefferson, harboring secret or open vices.

So the troubling writings should not be excused or diminished.  Not everything the man said or did was right.  But by the same token, the writings of Jefferson's pen in aid of the infant United States are not rendered a nullity by his long-running bizarre home behavior.  The character of the works must be measured in the main, with those that fail being noted as failures, even evil failures, which does not mean that the rest cannot be considered.  It also does not mean that the man can be adopted in the main, safely, for those with modern radical causes.

The key may be the question whether the failings define the man, or are a horrific exception to his definition.  Hitler's failings defined him.  Jefferson's did not.  Chesterton's, serious though they were, do not seem to define him either, which is not to excuse them.

Sunday, July 29, 1923. Ptomaine poisoning?

President Harding's physician reported his condition had worsened and that the rest of the Voyage of Understanding was cancelled.  He was checked into a hospital in San Francisco.

The press was still reporting the incident as an instance of food poisoning.

Benito Mussolini received thousands of letters congratulating him on his 40th birthday.

A German Communist called Red Sunday failed to bring out much of a turnout.

Sunday, July 25, 1943. The surreal end of Mussolini's Premiership.

Having been voted out of office the night prior, Mussolini left the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council that had voted to remove him, he went to award prizes at a farm festival and carried on business as usual.  The Fascist Grand Council reported its decision to King Victor Emmanuel III, who ordered Mussolini to report and asked him to resign.  Mussolini asked for more time and was arrested.

Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed Premier.

Badoglia had been Chief of Staff of the Italian army from 1925 to 1940, but had resigned following the disastrous performance of the Italian Army in Greece.

On the same day in the same country, Ubaldo Pugnaloni won the Giro d'Italia.

The Navy commissioned the USS Harmon, a destroyer named after Leonard Roy Harmon, a mess attendant who had been killed at Guadalcanal saving a fellow shipmate.  It was the first ship named after an African American in the U.S. Navy.

Harmon's citation reads:

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty in action against the enemy while serving on board the Heavy Cruiser U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38), during action against enemy Japanese naval forces near Savo Island in the Solomon Islands on the night of on 12–13 November 1942. With persistent disregard of his own personal safety, Mess Attendant First Class Harmon rendered invaluable assistance in caring for the wounded and assisting them to a dressing station. In addition to displaying unusual loyalty in behalf of the injured Executive Officer, he deliberately exposed himself to hostile gunfire in order to protect a shipmate and, as a result of this courageous deed, was killed in action. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, maintained above and beyond the call of duty, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

 

Saturday, July 24, 1943. The fall of Mussolini.

Lesser coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy.

The Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 7 to remove Mussolini from power and restore full authority to the crown.

Dino Grandi, who had been a hard line fascist, but who also had opposed anti-Semitism and who had been critical of the war, organized beforehand Mussolini's downfall.  The Grand Council's statement following the decision read:

Grandi's Order of the Day

The Grand Council of Fascism,

meeting in these hours of utmost trial, turns all its thoughts to the heroic fighters in every corps who, side by side with the people of Sicily in whom shines the unequivocal faith of the Italian people, renewing the noble traditions of strenuous valor and the indomitable spirit of sacrifice of our glorious Armed Forces, having examined the internal and international situation and the war's political and military leadership,

proclaims

the sacred duty for all Italians to defend at all costs the homeland's unity, independence, and freedom, the fruits of sacrifice and the efforts of four generations from the Risorgimento to the present, the life and future of the Italian people;

affirms

the necessity of moral and material unity of all Italians in this serious and decisive hour for the nation's destiny;

declares

that to this end the immediate restoration of all state functions is necessary, assigning to the Crown, to the Grand Council, to the government, to the Parliament, and to the corporate groups the duties and responsibility established by our statutory and constitutional laws;

invites

the government to beseech His Majesty the king, to whom turns the loyal and trusting heart of the whole nation, to assume effective command of the Armed Forces of land, sea, and air for the honor and salvation of the homeland, under article 5 of the Constitution, the supreme initiative that our institutions assign to him, and which have always been throughout our nation's history the glorious heritage of our august House of Savoy.

Dino Grandi

While Mussolini seemed to accept the results at the time, he very quickly started acting as if they were not legally binding.

Mussolini had been in power for seventeen years, being the first of the fascist dictators to assume power.  While Italy's defeat in the field brought his end about, his removal did not automatically take the Italians out of the war.

Grandi would flea to Spain after the complete fascist collapse in August, not returning to Italy until 1960.  He died in 1988 at the age of 92.

Operation Gomorrah, the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force bombing campaign on Hamburg, began. Window was deployed for the first time.

Monday, July 19, 1943. Hitler haranges Mussolini, Allies bomb Rome.

Benito Mussolini met with Adolf Hitler at Feltre.  The purpose of the meeting was an Italian withdrawal from the war, but Mussolini apparently never brought it up.  Instead, the discussion turned to forming a defensive line across the Italian peninsula upon the inevitable upcoming Allied invasion, a strategy which ignored Italy's long coasts and the fact that the Italian Army was beaten in the field in Sicily, and the Italian people rapidly switching their allegiances towards the Allies.  It did, however, take advantage of Italy having rough terrain and only being 75 miles wide, for the most part.

It further was never more than a plan for a defensive withdrawal, with a defensive war not being winnable.

U.S. troops advancing in Sicily, July 19, 1923.

The meeting featured a long harangue by Hitler on the many virtues of war which Mussolini, well aware the war was lost, mostly endured silently, a fact aided by his poor understanding of German.  Hitler, for his part, had already ordered his General Staff to make plans for the occupation of Italy in the event of an Italian surrender or armistice.  Mussolini, however, assured the Germans that the Italians would continue fighting on.

The Allies bombed Rome.  The raid went on for two hours.

Pope Pius XII left the Vatican for the first time since 1940 to observe the bombing damage.  He attempted to comfort the wounded, resulting in his white soutaine being bloodstained. A statue in his honor was later erected on the location.  

The Pope's actions became a symbol of opposition to the violence of war. The bombing itself, however, shocked Romans, even though it was directed at military targets (rail yards) of the era.  The bombing helped accelerate the already increasing Italian abandonment of Mussolini.

The War Department ordered that difficult German POWs and those with Nazi ideology be kept at Camp Alva in Alva, Oklahoma.

Konzentrationslager Warschau was opened in Warsaw.

Shirley Slade, a WASP pilot trainee, although the WASPs were at that time the WAFS, appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in a photo that would go on to have cult status.  After training, Slade ferried Bell P-39 Airacobras and Martin B-26 Marauders, the latter of which was a notoriously difficult aircraft nicknamed "The Widowmaker".  She moved to Chicago after the war and married Major William Berkeley, an Air Force veteran and later Eugene "Gene" Lafitte Teer.

She passed away in 2000 at age 79. 

The first New York Fashion Week was held, with the object of giving women an alternative to French fashions.

The Army's news flyer warned troops of potential German use of poison gas, something the Germans did not, in fact, resort to in World War Two.

Friday, July 16, 1943. Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà.

Italy's Fascist Grand Council, concerned by the arrival of Allied troops on Italian soil, convened for the first time since 1939.  On the same day, Allied aircraft dropped leaflets over the Italian mainland that read "Morire per Mussolini e Hitler, o vivere per l'Italia e per la civiltà" (Die for Mussolini and Hitler, or live for Italy and for civilization).  

Radio broadcast a joint message to the Italian people from Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

Italy, as a fascist state, was coming undone.

The British Air Ministry approved the use of "Window", aluminum strips, as a radar countermeasure.

Effect of Window on radar signature.

The Germans ordered the deportation of 13,000 Jews living in Paris to the Drancy detention center, a way stop for them on the way to Auschwitz.

Yitzhak Wittenberg, a Jewish Lithuanian resistance leader, surrendered to the Gestapo in Vilnius in exchange for an agreement that the Vilnius ghetto would not be liquidated.  He did shortly there after in an undetermined fashion.

The ghetto was liquidated by the Germans in September 1943.

In an event which tends to be misreported, Père Marie-Benoît (Padre Maria Benedetto), a Capuchin Franciscan friar who successfully rescued 4,000 Jews during the war, met with Pope Pius XII in an effort to advance his plan to try to transfer approximately 30,000 French Jews to North Africa, in order to remove them from danger.  The Italian portion of the plan ultimately fell apart when the Germans occupied northern Italy following the collapse of Mussolini's government, but the Spanish portion, which did result in the rescue of 2,600 French Jews on the somewhat ironic pretext that they were Jews of Spanish ancestry, which is the cover that Franco's government operated under. 

He died in 1990 at age 95.

The Battle of Mount Tambu began on New Guinea between the Imperial Japanese Army and American and Australian forces.

The Batman character appeared in film for the first time, this being in a fifteen-minute serial episode before major features.  In the original series, he was called "The Batman", with the first episode being "The Electrical Brain".

Wednesday, April 7, 1943. An uncomfortable meeting.

Hitler and Mussolini met at Schloss Klessheim.

Mussolini was sick and Hitler babbled on.  Il Duce suggested that perhaps the pair approach Uncle Joe about a separate peace, but Hitler would have none of it.

The Japanese conducted massive air raids in the Solomons on this day, although they were not a complete surprise due to American radio intercepts.  Marine Corps pilot James E. Swett would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.  His citation reads:

FIRST LIEUTENANT JAMES E. SWETT

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, as a division leader in Marine Fighting Squadron TWO TWENTY-ONE in action against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the Solomon Islands Area, April 7, 1943. In a daring flight to intercept a wave of 150 Japanese planes, First Lieutenant Swett unhesitatingly hurled his four-plane division into action against a formation of fifteen enemy bombers and during his dive personally exploded three hostile planes in mid-air with accurate and deadly fire. Although separated from his division while clearing the heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire, he boldly attacked six enemy bombers, engaged the first four in turn, and unaided, shot them down in flames. Exhausting his ammunition as he closed the fifth Japanese bomber, he relentlessly drove his attack against terrific opposition which partially disabled his engine, shattered the windscreen and slashed his face. In spite of this, he brought his battered plane down with skillful precision in the water off Tulagi without further injury. The superb airmanship and tenacious fighting spirit which enabled First Lieutenant Swett to destroy eight enemy bombers in a single flight were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Swett, far right.

Born in 1920, Swett was a prewar private pilot before joining the Navy, and then transferring following flight school to the Marine Corps.  Swett remained in the Marine Corps following World War Two but left for the reserves folloiwng the Marine Corps' decision not to deploy him to Korea during the Korean War as he was a Medal of Honor recipient.  He died in California in 2009 at age 88.

The British government published a report by John Maynard Keynes about the global postwar economy, proposing an international monetary fund.

Allied forces prevailed at Wadi Akarit

Bolivia declared war against the Axis powers.

There were still a fair number of foreign language newspapers in the U.S., even in languages which had been officially unpopular during the prior World War.  This one printed in German fraktur, which interestingly was now officially prohibited in Germany itself.

Today In Wyoming's History: April 7: 1943. On this day, the sale of coffee was banned in Cheyenne and Casper due to violations of wartime rationing restrictions.