The Evolution of War-time Counter-Intelligence From World War II to Today

During World War II, psychological warfare was an incredibly important, yet under-appreciated aspect of strategic combat that played an essential role in the Allied Powers’ victory. Whether it was used to misinform enemies with propaganda, or incite fear with inflatable vehicles and dummies, psychological warfare was used by both the Allied Powers and the Axis Alliance during World War II. In the modern day, psychological warfare is still used to intimidate; however overtime, methods and applications have evolved.

Christopher Cho explains.

An inflatable dummy tank based on the M4 Sherman tank.

One of the smartest tactics used by the allied forces were inflatable tanks and paradummies. Developed by a special task force known as, “The Ghost Army,” made up of the most intelligent soldiers and best artists, the Allied Powers utilized a variety of mediums to trick the Nazis, including, “inflatable tanks and vehicles, fake radio traffic, sound effects, even phony generals.” (Ghost Army) Because they were inflatable, these tanks were light enough to be carried by four men across a battlefield and gave the illusion of a much larger military presence. Paradummies, also known as Operation Titanic, were dolls used in place of real paratroopers in order to distract enemies and would often combust upon landing.

Planned by Ralph Ingersoll and Billy Harris and led by Colonel Harry L. Leeder, the Ghost Army and their devices gave the Allied Powers huge advantages during the war and would play a pivotal role in sowing key information for the D-Day invasion. To deceive Germany about the whereabouts of the invasion that would ultimately happen at Normandy, the Ghost Army placed inflatable tanks and military jeeps, where the battles were supposed to take place. Paradummies were dropped along with rifle simulators and SAS (Special Air Service) men to further deceive German soldiers.

The Allied forces had a lot of smart ways of using psychological warfare against their enemy. However, the Nazis and the Axis Powers also had their own forms of psychological warfare. The Axis Alliance were also quite successful when it came to their strategy in psychological warfare, but unlike the allies, they used propaganda as psychological warfare to further their ideological objectives, instead of trying to trick the enemy with fake soldiers and vehicles in order to win military battles. While the Allies tried weakening the Axis, the Axis convinced their soldiers to believe that the systematic extermination of many groups would restore order, using propaganda. Using the radio and other media outlets, Hitler had made the German population believe the Allies (mostly Great Britain and the United States of America) were under the control of Jewish people, creating nationwide antisemitism and justifying the murder of millions solely based on their identity.

Modern day

Though many psychological warfare strategies used during World War II were very successful, most of these strategies have become obsolete in modern day because of advancements in technology. For example, if a country tried to use inflatable tanks or paradummies, modern surveillance technology would easily detect a ruse. Modern day examples can be seen in the Russo-Ukraine war, during Russian protests. Whereas the radio allowed Nazi Germany to disseminate its propaganda in ways never imagined, social media allows the dissemination of propaganda and brings psychological warfare individualized directly to particular tastes. Social media propaganda could be used to make people believe whatever its creator wanted them to believe. Competing interests have simultaneously made citizens of Russia go against Putin and his need for war, but also have been used to further Russian objectives. Many citizens of Russia have started protests, which “... have emerged as the core of Russia’s antiwar movement. This effort includes hundreds of online communities and projects that have sprung up overnight to resist specific war-related government initiatives,” (Olimpieva) Consequently, there are reports of many Russian soldiers who didn't want to fight but were drafted and forced to. This is only one of many examples of psychological warfare being used in modern day, as Russian propaganda has had to work overtime to explain unexpected military losses and to stifle dissent at home.

D-Day was necessary for victory in World War II and the psychological tricks used were essential to the success of the mission. In contrast, the Nazis used their psychological warfare to further their ideological objectives and were also successful in doing this. As Russia continues to employ its psychological warfare to bolster propaganda for their war, the cost of that choice just might be paid in retreat, casualties and more propaganda to explain the failures of the Ukraine invasion to an increasingly sceptical Russian public.

What do you think of wartime counter-intelligence and psychological warfare? Let us know below.

Works Cited

https://www.history.com/news/ghost-army-world-war-ii

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/blog/2013/10/04/old-wwii-d-day-paradummy-found-residing-in-garden-shed#:~:text=Paradummies%20were%20used%20as%20a,movie%20'The%20Longest%20Day'

Collapse of the Qing Dynasty: Was the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 an Immediate Reason?

From being a minority to building one of the biggest empires in the world, the Qings have left behind an impressive mark on not only the history of China but of the world. Although not all of it is glorious, the tale of how the Manchus came to be the Qings, the consolidation of power, and their humiliating final years after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 - surely is a spectacle.

If you missed it, you can read Disha’s article on the First Sino-Japanese War here.

A portrayal of the last Qing Emperor, Puyi. He became emperor at 2 years’ old.

China under Qing Rule

The Manchus were skilled warriors and had already been a formidable force during the Ming dynasty. After uprooting the rule of the Mings, they laid the foundation of an empire that boasted of being the fourth largest in the world at the time. The clan was born in 1636 but it was in the year 1644 that they came to be the ruling dynasty of China.

The seventeenth century was the golden age of Qing imperial rule. Under the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors, China prospered and the period is referred to as the High Qing or shengshi. The empire expanded to an unparalleled size. The rule of the Qianlong Emperor was praised in Europe (1). Art and literature proliferated with special attention towards poetry. The Peking Opera also developed during this era.

After the Qianlong Emperor, the dynasty began its descent into infamy.

The population had increased dramatically towards the end of the eighteenth century. This led to the drainage of revenues (2). Migrations occurred in huge numbers as the landless population shifted towards less crowded areas. These added to the government's predicament in effectively administering the people (3).

Groups like Hans, Manchus, Tibetans, Mongols, and Uyghurs formed a multi-ethnic population. But they did not exist in harmony. At times, the non-Hans suffered intolerance from both the people and the administration leading to conflicts (4). This diverted the focus on repressing the conflicts rather than working towards integrating their cultural differences. The rulers, who were Manchus, were still viewed as "outsiders". Throughout their reign, the Qings faced numerous rebellions and uprisings that sought to overthrow them.

The administration during the later Qing era was riddled with corruption. The government did little to encourage trade and modernization. Whatever efforts were done in that field were done by private investors who did not have much power (5). The ritual practices of the period also acted as an impediment to the process of modernization. The ceremonies were ostentatious and the state was reluctant to stop them for changes made in matters of tradition could prove to be disastrous (6).

The bureaucratic system granted excessive power to non-Han officials. Higher-up positions were reserved for Manchus so that they could keep their Han subordinates in check.

Moreover, there had been no attempts to centralize the military out of the fear of giving too much power in the hands of the Han officials (7) and repeating history. The Manchus had seized power from the then-reigning Mings (if the short-lived Shun dynasty is to be excluded). The Ming dynasty was the last dynasty of China to be ruled by Hans. This paranoia could have been a factor in the difficulties in effective management.

Some of the societal facets which existed before the coming of the Qings continued during their reign, somewhat emboldened even. For example, the tradition of the civil service examination that had commenced back in the sixth century by the hands of the Sui dynasty was used to fill positions in the administration. Voltaire applauded this system stating no government could be better than the one in China (8). While it served the noble purpose of hiring qualified people in the government, it also widened the gap between the elite and the commoners. The society was marked with strict demarcations dividing the "respectable" and the lower classes. Those considered inferior were not allowed to give the civil service exam. Many endeavors were made to assimilate the different sections of society but one thing still withstood these changes. The disparity between the high society and the common man prevailed.

At the advent of the 1860s, the world had begun witnessing important events like the American Civil War, the unification of Germany and Italy, etc. This period overlapped with China's failed attempt at restoring the dynasty's declining domination, known as the Tongzhi Restoration, engineered by the Empress Dowager Cixi (9).

The Unequal Treaties

Treaties have been a crucial part of international law. Whether they are signed to end wars or form an alliance, the important fact that's solidified with a treaty is that the states have entered into an agreement. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, several western powers made Asian and African states sign treaties that were unjust as they were advantageous for only one of the parties involved. It, however, has been argued that only the first three treaties were "unequal" and the later ones were more considerate toward China (10).

The Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the unequal treaties, gave extraterritorial rights to Britain by granting them Hong Kong. The Qing officials were ignorant of the meaning of these treaties. Apparently, they had no problem with the unfair clauses of the treaty and giving up their territories to a foreign country but were outraged that the name of their emperor was listed along with the monarch of the ‘barbarians' (11).

A major blow to the dynasty came with the Taiping Rebellion in 1850. Already undermined by their defeat in the First Opium War, the state of the Qing empire kept on deteriorating. During this period of political unrest, several rebellions ensued that weakened the integrity of the Qing rule even further. The emperor had to ask for help from regional leaders. These leaders had their own armies (12) and depended on the emperor for nothing, which questioned the superiority of the monarch.

For many years, imperial China had remained isolated. The people were not knowledgeable about the ways of other states, say of the West, that were busy colonizing. Russian officials saw an advantage in the tumultuous state China was in and used this vulnerability to acquire no small area of land along the Russo-Chinese border. The land they amassed was more than the size of Japan (13). Given all these circumstances, it was clear that the age of the High Qing was nearing its end.

After the First Sino-Japanese War

Anti-Manchu sentiments had started brewing since the end of the First Opium War but the defeat in the war of 1894 fanned it to an alarming extent (14). The dynasty had lost its glory earned during the High Qing era. The loss incurred by the empire by the Treaty of Shimonoseki was immense. Having to let go of the Liaodong peninsula in southern Manchuria, the homeland of the Qings, added insult to injury (15).

The political crises occurring in China distressed a scholar named Kang Youwei. Having lived in Hong Kong in his youth, he was impressed by the Westernization there. Taking the example of the modernization in Japan and Hong Kong he, along with Liang Qichao and some similar-minded people, advised the emperor to carry out similar reforms. In 1898, they started the Hundred Days' Reform but their suggestions were not to the liking of Empress Dowager Cixi. She declared herself regent and put the emperor under house arrest (16), thus putting a stop to the development of the movement.

A famine struck China in 1908 that took the lives of about 25 million people and was recorded as one of the worst in human history. This increased the people's dissatisfaction with the imperial rule. What followed was a series of revolts that would be called the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Eventually, the Qing dynasty saw its last emperor abdicate in 1912 - putting an end to a reign that extended for about three centuries. While the war with Japan might have spurred the process of decline of the Qings but the fall of the dynasty was the culmination of years of resentment towards their rule.

What do you think of the impact of the War of 1894? Let us know below.

Now read Disha’s article on the Hitler Youth here.

Bibliography

Detter, Ingrid. “The Problem of Unequal Treaties.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1966): 1069–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/757143.

Fairbank, John K. “Introduction: the Old Order.” Chapter. In The Cambridge History of China, edited by John K. Fairbank, 10:1–34. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Hsu, Immanuel C. Y. “Late Ch'ing Foreign Relations, 1866–1905.” Chapter. In The Cambridge History of China, edited by John K. Fairbank and Kwang-Ching Liu, 11:70–141. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Paine, S.C.M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Rowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

Smith, Richard J. The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.

Wang, Dong. “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern China.” Pacific Affairs 76, no. 3 (2003): 399–425. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40023820.

References

1 S.C.M. Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy, 'The Decline of the Old Order in China and Korea', 23-24

2 Ibid.

3 John Fairbank, “Introduction: the Old Order.”, The Cambridge History of China Vol. 10, 16

4 Richard J. Smith, The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture, 'The Qing Political Order', 89

5 Ibid., 'The Late Qing and Beyond, 1860-2014', 390

6 Ibid., 391

7 Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy, 'The Decline of the Old Order in China and Korea', 32

8 Ibid., 'The Reversal in the Far Eastern Balance of Power', 13-14

9 Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, “Late Ch'ing Foreign Relations, 1866–1905”, The Cambridge History of China Vol. 11, 85

10 Ingrid Detter, “The Problem of Unequal Treaties”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/757143

11 Dong Wang, “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern China”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40023820

12 Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy, 'The Decline of the Old Order in China and Korea', 26

13 Ibid., 32

14 William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing, 'Chinese Responses to Imperialism, 1895-1900', 236

15 Ibid., 'Imperialism in Fin de Siècle China', 234

16 Ibid., 'Chinese Responses to Imperialism, 1895-1900', 242

The 1919-20 Palmer Raids in the US - And Who they Targeted

The Bolsheviks’ toppling of the Russian government during the Russian Revolution of 1917 led to 30,000 Russians coming to the United States. Then, in the late 1910s, a series of bombings that some called the ‘Red Scare’ ensued. The U.S. Attorney General retaliated with several actions, including what has come to be known as the Palmer Raids.

Janel Miller explains.

Men arrested in during the Palmer Raids are shown here on Ellis Island, New York awaiting deportation hearings in January 1920.

Bombs Sent to Politicians

To start with, in the days leading up to May Day (May 1), 1919, bombs were sent to at least 23 United States addresses. Some of the recipients were politicians. One of these attacks injured the housekeeper of a Georgia lawmaker.

Another round of bomb attacks on United States judges, politicians and law enforcement officials occurred about a month later. One of the attacks occurred on June 2 in front of the home of 1920 presidential hopeful and the U.S. Attorney General during part of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, A. Mitchell Palmer. The nation’s top lawyer immediately called for an investigation to determine who was responsible.

This investigation suggested that individuals often called radicals in the press were responsible. Subsequently, Palmer used that information, along with the 1918 Sedition Act (which limited free speech), to seek and persecute these individuals.

1919 Raids Targeted Radicals

The Kansas City Times reported that on November 7, with the intent of abating a nationwide plan "to defy governmental authority”, the federal government conducted raids and searches in roughly two dozen municipalities.

One of the raids that day took place in New York, where 200 people that federal authorities called radicals were arrested and another 50 alleged radicals were scheduled for deportation. Other raids, most of them with fewer arrests, took place around the same time in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Philadelphia. At least some of these searches yielded printed materials discussing the nationwide plan, making bombs and/or producing counterfeit documents. In Johnstown, Pennsylvania, no arrests were made, but a group of business leaders banished two people said to be labor organizers from the city. These actions coincided with the second anniversary of the birth of the Bolshevik government that so many Russian immigrants had tried to flee.

Not convinced the threat posed by those he called radicals was over, Palmer called for a law that, among other things, would allow radicals to be arrested even if they acted alone (at the time of Palmer’s request, only radicals working in groups of two or more could be arrested). He also claimed some of the 222 United States newspapers published in foreign languages encouraged violent overthrows of the U.S. government.

Palmer also asked for enhanced Justice Department facilities and the creation of a parole board that would relieve some of the Justice Department’s work burden and he also oversaw the deportation of 249 radicals via the U.S.S. Buford on December 21.

Raids Also Occurred in 1920

On January 2, 1920, another round of raids occurred in large United States municipalities such as Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as smaller ones such as Cortland, New York; Nashua, New Hampshire; Olneyville, Rhode Island; and Lynn and Brockton, Massachusetts. These January raids resulted in 10,000 individuals arrested who federal authorities said were members of the Communist and Communist Labor parties.

The following month, in an essay Palmer authored titled “The Case Against the Reds,” he stated his actions would prevent the “horror and terrorism of bolshevik tyranny” that was underway in Russia from occurring in the United States. Soon after the essay’s publication, Palmer claimed that radical-led attacks would occur on May Day, 1920, just as they had the year before.

Palmer Had His Detractors

Support for Palmer’s actions was not universal. For example, Francis Fisher Kane, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, resigned rather than follow Palmer’s directives. Also, an essay published by future United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound discussed what the authors felt were the many legal problems with Palmer’s raids and other actions.

In addition, there were a few immigration inspectors who refused to follow instructions that Palmer authorized or approved. The Lewiston Daily Sun openly sought lawmakers willing to "expose the hollowness of the Palmer holler." The newly formed American Civil Liberties Union claimed Palmer’s actions were based on opinions, not laws.

The Des Moines News stated that the Attorney General was "intimating that the labor department was letting off the reds and failing to deport them.” The newspaper reported that in contrast, members of the Labor Department accused Palmer of "deliberately framing up cases upon perfectly innocent foreigners and endeavoring to make a record by wholesale arrests on the flimsiest kind of evidence and in many cases without proper warrants.”

The attacks of May Day, 1920 that Palmer predicted failed to come to fruition, further damaging his credibility. The one-time 1920 presidential hopeful received 267 nominating votes for president that year, but Republican Warren G. Harding was ultimately elected president and Palmer left office rather than serve with his administration. Although Palmer would remain active in Democratic causes for the rest of his life, his hopes of becoming United States president were never realized.

In Context

Parallels can be drawn between this chapter in United States history and several events that preceded and followed it. For example, four-year-old Dorothy Good faced accusations of being a witch during the hysteria known as the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s because her mother was accused of witchcraft. In 2015, after the killing of a Californian woman by a man in the United States illegally, then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump said that Mexico was sending the U.S. people with “lots of problems,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

What do you think of the Palmer Raids? Let us know below.

References

“Russian Beginnings.” https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/polish-russian/russian-beginnings. Library of Congress. Accessed October 22, 2022.

Palmer Raids. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/palmer-raids. FBI. Accessed October 11, 2022.

Blumberg, Jess. “A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/. Published Oct. 23, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2022.

Hennessey, Kathleen. “Trump Takes On Mexican Government In Comments On Immigrants.” https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-mexican-immigrants-20150706-story.html. Published July 6, 2015. Accessed Oct. 23, 2022.

“Nation Wide Hunt for May Day Bombs.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/837246919. Holyoke Daily Transcript, page 1. Published May 1, 1919. Accessed October 23, 2022.

Palmer Raids. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/palmer-raids. FBI. Accessed October 11, 2022.

Attorney General: Alexander Mitchell Palmer. https://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/palmer-alexander-mitchell. U.S. Department of Justice. Accessed October 11, 2022.

Palmer Raids. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/palmer-raids. FBI. Accessed October 11, 2022.

Boyd, Christina L. “Sedition Act of 1918.” https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1239/sedition-act-of-1918. The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Accessed October 11, 2022.

“’Reds’ In Raid Net.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/654292552. The Kansas City Times,  page 1. Published November. 8, 1919, Accessed October 22, 2022.

“Raid Radicals In 18 Cities.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/614412771. The York Dispatch, page 1. Published November 8, 1919. Accessed October 22, 2022.

“Must Have Laws to Curb Radicals Palmer Declares.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/825798158. The Macon Daily Telegraph, page 1. Published November. 16, 1919. Accessed September 28, 2022.

“Palmer’s Report on the Reds and Their Work.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/552827864. The Gazette and Daily, page 8. Published Dec. 9, 1919. Accessed September 28, 2022.

“Second Ark to Leave.” https://newspaperarchive.com/ogden-standard-dec-22-1919p-1/. The Ogden Standard, page 1. Published December 22, 1919. Accessed October 23, 2022.

Williams, David. “The Bureau of Investigation and Its Critics, 1919-1921: The Origins of Federal Political Surveillance.” The Journal of American History. (68): 560-579. Accessed October 15, 2022.

“100 More ‘Reds’ Taken In New England Raids.”. New York Tribune, page 2. Published January 4, 1920. Accessed Oct. 23, 2022.

“130 Raid Prisoners in Philadelphia District to Be Held For Hearing.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/78218686. New York Tribune, page 2. Published January 4, 1920. Accessed October 23, 2022.

“’Perfect Cases’ Against 2,616 Taken In Raids Is Claim of Federal Agents.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/542621138. The Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune, page 1.  Published January 3, 1920. Accessed October 23, 2022.

Palmer, Mitchell A. “The Case Against the ‘Reds.’” Forum 63 (1920): 173–185. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4993/. Accessed October 23, 2022.

“Department of Justice Agents Chosen for Assassination.” https://newspaperarchive.com/biloxi-daily-herald-apr-30-1920-p-1/. The Daily Herald, page 1. Published April 30, 1920. Accessed October 23, 2022.

“Kane Quit Because of Palmer’s Raids to Catch Radicals.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/162305073. Evening Public Ledger, page 1. Published January 23, 1920. Accessed September 28, 2022.

NCC Staff. “On This Day, Massive Raids During the Red Scare.” https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-massive-raids-during-the-red-scare. The Constitution Center. Published January 2, 2022. Accessed October. 11, 2022.

Williams, D. “The Bureau of Investigation and Its Critics, 1919-1921: The Origins of Federal Political Surveillance.” The Journal of American History. (68): 560-579. Accessed October 15, 2022.

“Editorial.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/828299251. The Lewiston Daily Sun, page 4. Published January. 24, 1920. Accessed September 28, 2022.

ACLU History. https://www.aclu.org/about/aclu-history. American Civil Liberties Union. Accessed October. 11, 2022.

“Impeachment.”. https://newspaperarchive.com/des-moines-news-apr-23-1920-p-6/. The Des Moines News, page 6. Published April 23, 1920. Accessed October 23, 2022.

“On This Day, Massive Raids During the Red Scare.” https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-massive-raids-during-the-. The Constitution Center. Published January 2, 2022. Accessed October. 11, 2022.

Attorney General: Alexander Mitchell Palmer. https://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/palmer-alexander-mitchell. U.S. Department of Justice. Accessed October 11, 2022.

Warren G. Harding. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/warren-g. whitehouse.gov. Accessed October 23, 2022.

“A. Mitchell Palmer.” https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1273/a-mitchell-palmer. The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Accessed October 26, 2022.

The Anti-Suffrage Movement in the UK

In the study of the suffrage movement, historiographical focus has remained on individuals such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett. This focus on notable individuals and the dramatic actions of the suffragettes means that one aspect of this history has been largely under-researched: the anti-suffrage movement. The anti-suffrage movement was prominent throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century and was supported by high-profile individuals including the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, and Octavia Hill, the co-founder of the National Trust. Contesting women’s right to vote and gaining both opposition and support, the anti-suffrage movement is an important historical event.

Isabel King explains.

An anti-suffrage postcard. Source: LSE Library, available here.

Why did the anti-suffrage movement develop?

The fight for women’s right to vote, otherwise known as the suffrage movement, began in the 1870s, and was a popular and well-supported movement by the early 1900s. Millicent Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) had both garnered great support and attracted a lot of attention to the cause. However, lack of media publicity and the slow-paced nature of the suffrage fight led the suffragettes to adopt the motto ‘deeds not words’ and they began a more militant approach to campaigning. The emergence of the anti-suffrage movement coincided with this increased militancy, as more and more people started to fight back against the idea of women voting.

Why did people oppose women’s suffrage?

Much of the negative sentiment towards women’s right to vote was focused on issues of ‘gender reversal’. In the early 20th century, there were strict gender roles – men went out to work and were responsible for financial and political decisions, while women stayed at home and took on domestic duties and childcare. Many people involved in the anti-suffrage movement were concerned that allowing women to participate in politics would result in a breakdown of these gender roles as women would spend too much time focusing on their political opinions and neglect their families. The concern over women entering the ‘masculine’ sphere of politics was intensified by the suffragettes’ ‘masculine’ militant campaigning. As well as worries surrounding the conflation of domestic and political spheres, some opponents simply thought women were not capable of making political decisions.

Anti-suffrage postcards

One of the main ways that supporters of the anti-suffrage movement spread their message was through postcards – a very popular method of dissemination in the early twentieth century. There were several features of anti-suffrage propaganda that appeared consistently. The postcards often focused on the subversion of gender roles, the physical and mental ridicule of women, the incitement of violence towards women, and fearmongering an imagined future. Postcards would warn people about how women would neglect their duties as mothers, how women were too stupid and weak to be politicians because of their maternal, feminine instincts, and would often threaten women who wanted the vote.

Did these postcards have much of an impact on the anti-suffrage movement? It’s difficult to tell, because though they were widespread and popular, so was suffrage propaganda. In fact, satirical postcards created by supporters of women’s suffrage often used anti-suffrage tactics in reverse to ridicule their opponents and gain support. Where anti-suffrage propaganda may show women who were interested in politics as embittered spinsters, postcards created by suffragettes showed women in as independent, but in ‘feminine’ contexts such as being a good wife and mother, but also involved in political activity. These tactics were used to emphasise that being feminine and a feminist were not mutually exclusive. These postcards and other anti-suffrage propaganda give us a lot of insight into the deep-rooted issues that women involved in the suffrage movement, and their supporters, faced during the struggles for women’s voting rights.

Why is the anti-suffrage movement not as well-known?

Many people won’t have even heard of the anti-suffrage movement, let alone been taught about it. Why? This is most likely because, put simply, the anti-suffrage movement (at least in the UK) just didn’t last. World War One had a large role to play in this – when the men went to war, and the women took over their jobs while they were away, women showed how capable they were of doing ‘masculine’ tasks. Following the war, the majority of women were expected to leave the roles they had filled during the war years as men returned, but socially, nobody could (successfully) deny women’s worth anymore. The war had shown that what anti-suffragists had been saying was wrong. Women had been doing men’s jobs, during a war no less, and still maintaining their family units and domestic duties. So, with women’s capabilities highlighted, and the ever-growing support for the suffrage movement across the country – from both men and women – the anti-suffrage movement began to suffer greatly. While groups such as the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage continued to fight against the enfranchisement of women, once the Representation of the People Act 1918 had been passed – granting propertied women over the age of 30 the vote – it was clear that the anti-suffrage movement was a lost cause. A lot more change was to come for women, but the first step been taken.

Although it isn’t studied as much, or as well-known, the anti-suffrage movement was hugely significant. Looking at it allows us to see why people were concerned about women getting the vote and the obstacles that suffragists and suffragettes encountered along the way. Analysing opposition to the suffrage movement and the way in which those fighting for the vote rose above it highlights the great success of women (and their supporters) in the years leading up to 1918, without whom, millions would not be able to vote today.

What do you think of the importance of the anti-suffrage movement? Let us know below.

References

Linda Fleming, ‘Understanding the Opposition: The Anti-Suffrage Movement in Scotland’ https://womenssuffragescotland.wordpress.com/main-sections/understanding-the-opposition-the-anti-suffrage-movement-in-scotland/

Julia Bush, ‘The anti-suffrage movement’ (2018) https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/the-anti-suffrage-movement

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kedleston-hall/features/no-votes-thank-you---lord-curzon-of-kedleston-and-the-anti-suffrage-movement

https://historyoffeminism.com/anti-suffragette-postcards-posters-cartoons/

Lauren Alex O’Hagan, ‘Contesting Women’s Right to Vote: Anti-Suffrage Postcards in Edwardian Britain’, Visual Culture in Britain, 21:3 (2020) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14714787.2020.1827971

A Brief History of Policy Towards Minorities in China

Minority groups in China have frequently found their way into the news cycle in the last several decades and especially in the last few years.  These issues are not new and have their roots in the major changes in the way China organized itself over a century ago.  Despite the massive Han majority, China is not an ethnically homogeneous country and has had to continually address issues of cultural and ethnic diversity.  Integration of ethnic minorities into China has ranged from open embrace to violent resistance for much of the 20th century.  What follows is a quick history of minority policy in China that has led to some of the contemporary issues that make their way into the news cycle.

Jonathan Moody explains.

A Uyghur prince. Source: Tilivay, available here.

The Qing Dynasty

To find the roots of contemporary minority policy, we must travel back to the end of the Qing dynasty.  The Qing stormed their way into power in the 17th century and succeeded in both conquering the Ming Empire and expanding the borders and influence of their empire to encompass the vast majority of East Asia and large sections of Central Asia.  On a map, the Qing Empire is a giant but drawing geographical borders around historic political entities with contemporary map standards can be deceiving and is often more of a reflection of modern ideas of the way states look. The Qing, like their predecessors and many contemporary political institutions of the time, was an empire and not the modern version of a state that much of the world lives under today. ‘Modern states’, while obviously not all the same, have embraced a high degree of political uniformity (i.e. passports, laws, national militaries , etc.) within set boundaries that often border other politically autonomous states.  Unlike a modern state, territories under Qing control could vary vastly in how they were governed or exactly how much control Beijing was able to wield and the line between Qing territory and non-Qing territory was not always clear.  For example, most eastern parts of the empire were full provinces with viceroys and the full application of the Qing law while in the peripheries (Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, etc.), Beijing would give titles to local leaders and rely on these leaders to keep the peace.  Beijing’s involvement was not uniform in many of these areas but, in general, Qing law and influence was limited to almost non-existent depending on the place.  Also, unlike many states today, uniformity of political control was not a main priority.  Attempts to make periphery areas into full provinces only happened at the tail end of the dynasty from fears of outside influence and most of the periphery was highly, if not completely, autonomous.  This loose or lumpy system was by no means utopian but for most of the life of the empire, it worked to both bolster the dynasty’s political power in the center and co-opt potential threats in the periphery to become nominal allies.

Modern China

When the Qing fell, the Republic of China claimed these disparate territories and pursued bringing them into the fold of a new modern state that had stronger centralized control over its territory.  Part of state creation for the early republic was determining who was a member of a Chinese nation-state and what their position was in that state.  For many outside of China, words like Chinese people and Chinese language can be deceptively oversimplifying in the diversity they cover.  The majority ethnic Han population is classified as a single ethnicity but many Han dialects are mutually unintelligible and there is plenty of cultural diversity across the Han regions.  The non-Han ethnic groups speak a variety of languages (Tibetan, Mongolian, Uyghur, etc.) and have their own cultural diversity as well.  One of the problems faced by the early Republic of China was how to incorporate the politically and ethnically diverse empire of the Qing into a state that did not want to continue the loose relationships of the past, especially when regions like Tibet and Mongolia rejected any political connection with the Republic and pursued a more independent path. The Republic, under the Kuomintang (KMT), eventually embraced a policy that there was only one ethnicity in China, the zhonghua minzu. The zhonghua minzu were compared to a tree where the Han were the trunk and other ethnicities were merely branches that grew from the Han tree.  The KMT dominated Republic of China avoided questions of diversity with this program and embarked on Sinicization programs to teach the branches how to embrace their true national identity.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the other hand, took the exact opposite approach, especially early in the life of the party.  With a combination of Marxists/Leninist/Stalinist ideologies and later time spent among non-Han communities, the CCP rejected notions that Tibetans or Mongolians were nascent Hans and promised recognition of various ethnic groups and specialized policies for these ethnicities.  The party even embraced the idea of self-determination for these regions early on but backtracked by the time they took power in 1949. Self-determination gave way to fostering patriotic minority identities that allowed for a non-Han identity loyal to the state.  

CCP

After 1949, the CCP adopted an approach to minority populations that had strong Soviet influences (i.e. titular or recognized nationalities/ethnicities) and was aimed at incorporating these people into a modern socialist state while allowing varying degrees of autonomy in specified national minority areas.  Much of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first century can be seen as a mixture, and at times conflict, between hardline and accommodationist approaches.  Accommodationists have advocated a slow and welcoming approach to minorities by offering special benefits, at times with the opposition from some of the Han population, to convince hesitant minority populations that inclusion in the PRC is more beneficial than independence.  These policies have included exemptions from the one-child policy and preferential placements in the competitive university process.  Hardliners have been less sympathetic toward differences and have advocated an approach that has little space for dissent and exemptions. Many of the issues we see today have been as a result of hard liners pushing policies that take a more forceful approach to minority incorporation.

Most countries today have consider ethnic diversity and how to include different populations in one political entity. China is no exception and has been dealing with this issue with varying levels of success. The issue of minorities in China very much stems from a change in the way the state was organized and how different groups fit into this modern vision of a state. This change in state organization and vision renegotiated looser affiliations and has led to many of the issues that make their way into the news today.

What do you think of minority policy in China? Let us know below.

Further reading

Goldstein, Melvyn C., and Gelek Rimpoche. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2007.

Khan, Sulmaan Wasif: Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy. China's Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Westad, Odd Arne. Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750. Basic Books, 2015.

The Second Sino-Japanese War and its Legacy: A National Trauma and a Family Tragedy

I was 12 when I went to my great-grandfather's grave in Anhui province, China. Buried under thick undergrowth, the stone coffin bespoke of age with discolouration and cracks. My mother told me that he was a hero, and I didn't know that until I saw the exhibition at a nearby pavilion, detailing his deeds.

Here Jiaxin Liu explains his family’s story amid the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai in 1937.

Born to a well-to-do family in 1919, my great-grandfather came of age when the Japanese invaded China during World War 2. The Chinese theater was brutal — the Japanese broke through Chinese defense with their technological prowess and committed some of the most unspeakable atrocities. The Yangtze region — where Anhui was situated — was quickly subjugated, and my great-grandfather became a personification of resistance as he led his forces in guerilla battles throughout the countryside. He threatened Japanese control, and a bounty of 8,000 yuan was administered for his capture, dead or alive. In 1942, my great-grandfather was betrayed, resulting in a protracted torture session that resulted in death. Refusing to surrender, my great-grandfather was strapped to the tiger chair, repeatedly whipped, and had his shoulder pierced by screws. It was a storybook sacrifice, and he was memorialized as a local martyr whose valor should be emulated by future generations.

Invasion

Tense relations characterized the war's prelude as a result of Japanese imperialist policy and weakening Chinese authority from civil strife. After controlling Manchuria, the Japanese launched a full scale invasion of China in 1937 after a skirmish at the Marco Polo Bridge. Beijing and Tianjin soon fell, and Chiang Kai-Shek—then leader of the Republic of China (ROC)—declared a full-on resistance movement. The Japanese responded by sieging Shanghai, where they encountered heavy air, sea, and naval opposition as the best Chinese troops were stationed there. Failing to achieve air dominance, the battle dragged on for 3 months until overwhelming Japanese firepower overtook the Chinese, who were often poorly equipped with small arms. Nanjing was next, where a brutal massacre of civilians revealed the utmost depravity of mankind. Yet, advances stalled as the Japanese had insufficient manpower to take over key inland cities such as Chongqing, and the mountainous terrain of Western China provided the natural setting for guerilla warfare as the Chinese decided to "trade space for time", engaging in a war of attrition. This was not easy—concurrently, the ROC were battling the Communists, and the temporary alliance of the Second United Front to fight against the Japanese was tenuous at best. My great-grandfather was under the Communist's wing, and there was little cooperation as he conducted raids on an independent scale. It was a messy period in China's history, one that was characterized by internal and external strife. However, like our nonchalance towards ongoing wars in Yemen and Ethiopia in comparison to the Russo-Ukrainian war, most modern audiences in the West are unfamiliar with this immense conflict. Behind Russia, China accrued the greatest number of war casualties, yet people only hear of Bulge and Dunkirk, not of Nanjing or Shanghai.

Animosities towards the Japanese ran deep after the "Asian holocaust" the Japanese committed in China, most notably expressed in the Rape of Nanking, where the Imperial Japanese Army massacred more than 200,000 civilians. Looting, rape, and mass burials were characteristic behaviours of the "Kill All, Burn All, Loot All" policy of Emperor Hirohito. My great-grandfather's death was a personal anecdote that revealed the ultra-aggressive militarism and coercion which dominated Japanese rule. Such hatred is entrenched—to this day, my grandmother is unable to shake off an innate disaffection towards the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War has embedded deeply into the Chinese psyche. Being the last major foreign invasion to take place in contemporaneity, older generations can personally recount this "darkest age" of Modern Chinese history. In a wider context, it was a climatic coda to the Century of Humiliation — a period of foreign interference in Chinese affairs — that tore down a 5,000 year tradition of imperial dynasties. In a sense, the Second Sino-Japanese war ushered in the conscience of Modern China. China had to become a modern nation subscribed to the Western-centric international order, not a civilization that believed in its unequaled superiority of being the "middle kingdom of the universe". The brutal Japanese invasion was the latest in a string of wake-up calls that made the Chinese question their fall from grace. It was an unforgettable lesson.

Turning

By 1939, the tides had turned with Chinese victories at Changsha and Zaoyi. The aftermath of the victory left China's economy in shambles and civil war between the Nationalists and Communists continued. The Communists, who won the heart of the populace with their indefatigable tenacity of grassroots mobilisations, drove the Nationalists to Taiwan, and the conflict remains till today. Their dominance could not have been possible without the Sino-Japanese war, and the invocation of this pivotal event remains etched in state propaganda and TV shows.

The Chinese victory has recently passed its 77th anniversary on September 3rd. The newer generation worries more about housing prices and job opportunities rather than death by gunfire. To many of my younger cousins in China, Japan is viewed positively with its huge cultural influence of anime and manga. Times change, and so do perceptions. Yet, the horrors of war—while distant—materializes itself in those late-night conversations I had with grandparents. In their trembling tone, they narrated a life much different from ours: instead of seeking to thrive, they merely wished to survive. My paternal grandfather remembered peeking from behind a bush at a Japanese execution of the village elders. My maternal grandfather told me of air raids that seemed like armageddon. The war left an indelible mark on Chinese history, and even people like me, more than half a century after the war, can obtain a first-hand account. Its subtle influence should be preserved, and it is now my generation’s duty to remind posterity that peace is not an a priori condition we take for granted, but an outcome we should work towards.

What do you think of the impact of the Second Sino-Japanese War? Let us know below.

Biography

My name is Jiaxin, and I am currently residing in Singapore. I am passionate about history, especially cultural history, as well as interactions between civilizations. In my free time, I enjoy playing strategy games such as Europa Universalis IV, as well as playing sports and going to the gym.

The Industrial Revolution: Shaping American History

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in America, and it had many important and lasting impacts. Here, Andrew Kim considers some of the most important themes: inequality, the power of big companies, and gender issues.

A Ford Model-T assembly line in the early 20th century.

After the Civil War came the Industrial Revolution, which changed the way that America functioned in many ways. Before this time period, the majority of Americans lived more localized lives, producing much of their own food and goods. However, with the rise of industrialization, people began moving away from farms and into cities. Along with the rise of industrialization came the rise of big corporations and businesses, which took advantage of people working these new factory jobs. People were paid little and had very poor working conditions. Because pay was so low, many women and children also worked in these factories. This led to the emergence of reform movements to improve the quality of American life. By 1920, these movements achieved better working conditions for the working class, supervision of business typhoons, and monumental strides in women’s rights.

Inequality

With the rise of industrialization came the growing gap between the rich and poor. While the rich indulged in elaborate and excessive riches, the working class suffered some of the worst living and working conditions. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, detailed these awful working and living conditions through the experiences of a man named Jurgis, who worked in a meat packing factory. Almost everyone in Jurgis’s family was forced to work, often from early morning to late at night in hazardous conditions without any breaks. Clara Lemlich, also an author and women’s rights activist, brought attention to this issue in an article she wrote about the conditions of a shirtwaist factory, stating that the young girls that worked there would work a total of 13 hours with only a half an hour break. Under these working conditions, it is no surprise that many people died in factories. And not only were these working conditions terrible, but after work, many people would come home to poor living conditions as well, furthering mortality rates. Jacob Rilis, a Danish-American journalist and social activist, documented these poor living conditions in a photograph he took of two newsboys sleeping fully clothed on the ground of the pressroom where they worked. In the end, these people and countless other reformers and activists would bring enough attention to the issue to bring about reform laws for workers, including minimum wage, industrial accident insurance, child labor restrictions, and improved factory regulation.

Industrialization also made big companies extremely influential and powerful, and they were often able to avoid regulation by the government, often by making deals with corrupt government officials. Andrew Carnegie, a mogul of the steel industry, negotiated a deal with the railroad companies in order to lessen transportation costs, which angered farmers. Many people saw how corporations could influence the government and were motivated to do something about it. People began advocating that railroads and banks be operated by the government instead of private corporations, because they were services of the people, and not big businesses. Reformers used many different methods to limit the power that corporations had over the government including referendums, primary elections, and recalls. Eventually in 1913, the 17th amendment was passed, stating that each state would have 2 senate votes, and each senator could hold office for six years. Because of the efforts of the reformers and activists, people were able to regain their voice in government and prevent corporations from taking over.

Gender

In the late 1800s, there was a big inequality gap between men and women; women lacked the human rights that men had, and were treated as lower than men. Women were not allowed a voice in almost every aspect of life, from government, to home life, to religion, to education. Elizabeth Stanton, a women’s rights reformer, advocated for women's rights by detailing the limitations women faced in the Declaration of Sentiments in 1846, which was largely ridiculed after its release. However, by the 1900s, the purposes and plans of the National Women’s Association were represented by 26 states, and in places like Alabama, more and more women sought an education, as written in the Southern Workman, monthly journal published by the Hampton Institute Press. In the 1920s, women celebrated a huge victory with the signing of the 19th Amendment, which legalized women’s suffrage.

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in America. With the tremendous growth of large corporations and subsequent government corruption came the necessity for regulation and reform for the protection of the rights of the American people, which perhaps brought to light the question of women’s rights. These movements certainly shaped the trajectory of American society for years to come, and also made way for future revolutions and reform, including the Civil Rights Movement.

What do you think of the American Industrial Revolution? Let us know below.

The Age of in Reform in Japan and Ryokichi Minobe

One of the defining characteristics of Japan has been the consistency of its national politics, which since 1955 has been almost continuously dominated by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Here, Vittorio Trevitt looks at this in the context of Ryokichi Minobe.

Ryokichi Minobe in 1967.

In most liberal democracies, voters have become accustomed to alternations in power between parties of diametrically opposed ideological persuasions. This feature of democracy is alien to Japan, where there have been only two occasions since the first LDP government (originally from 1993-94 and again from 2009-2012) when opposition parties were able to form administrations. Neither of them, however, succeeded in breaking the LDPs long-term stranglehold over national politics. But on a regional and local level a different picture has often existed, where opposition figures have on multiple occasions held sway. Such a trend was particularly prevalent during the Sixties and Seventies, when several prefectures and councils elected progressive reformers dedicated to policies of reform and innovation often different from those pursued by the hegemonic LDP.  One of the most important of these was the governor of Toyko, Ryokichi Minobe.

A socialist of the Marxist tradition, Minobe had previously served in various government positions while also working as an economics professor. He became a known television personality, with a popular economics show where he discussed economic issues in an accessible way for people, while also conveying a positive image. When an election was held in 1967 for the position of Tokyo governor, Minobe stood as an independent candidate backed by the Socialist and Communist parties, winning a plurality against the LDP-backed incumbent. Minobe was the first progressive governor of the country’s leading metropolis to be elected to this post, one he would hold for the next 12 years.

Power

Minobe’s ascension to power, as historic as it was, was not a unique phenomenon. Instead, it was a reflection of the electorate’s appetite for fundamental change after decades of LDP rule. During the Sixties and Seventies more than 200 mayors supported by a socialist-communist alliance were elected, with more than 50% of Japanese by the end of Sixties already living under either a progressive mayor or governor, or even both. Progressives presided over measures such as the establishment of new social security benefits and (in the case of Kawasaki) compensation for victims of pollution, while also fighting successfully for the right to increase taxes on corporations; one that all local governments came to enjoy.

The rise of the Left on a local and prefectural level was in many ways the LDP’s own making. In the decade following its formation, the LDP had presided over a strong economy together with big rises in living standards. Nevertheless, they failed to prevent problems such as city overcrowding and pollution, while also failing to overcome deficiencies in housing, public transportation, and facilities for child care and the elderly. These contradictions provided fertile ground for reformers to build electoral support and tackle these problems headlong. In a speech he made following his election as governor, Minobe highlighted these contradictions by noting that ownership of TVs and electric washers existed alongside unpaved streets, an incomplete sewage system and cases of drinking water being shut-off. This was the situation that Minobe inherited; one that his administration offered the hope of rectifying. The legislative environment was favourable for Minobe, who had the benefit of working with a reformist majority made up of left-wing parties in Tokyo’s legislature. This included not only members of the Socialist and Communist parties, but also the Democratic Socialists (a moderate progressive force) and Komeito; a religious Buddhist party that supported improvements in amenities and welfare services, amongst other goals. This provided a strong basis for Minobe to put his ideals into practice. Free municipal transport passes and medical care for those aged 70 and above were introduced (the latter measure being one that other localities would subsequently adopt), together with nurseries for mothers at work, allowances for children and facilities for handicapped residents. Pensions were also expanded, while efforts were made to elevate conditions in Sanya, a slum area in Tokyo, with more up-to-date flophouses constructed and better waste collection. An emergency shelter for separated wives with children in the process of divorce was also established; the first of its kind in Japan.

Living standards

These programmes reflected Minobe’s belief in the universalistic “civil minimum system,” in which facilities existed that were essential for the maintenance of minimum living standards for citizens. Much of Minobe’s reform agenda focused on environmental matters, with pollution control standards adopted that were more stringent than those in place nationally. He also backed national legislation in 1970 that led to the introduction of 14 ordinances aimed at tackling pollution in the Tokyo area. “Pedestrian paradises” were also set up, in which cars were barred from some of Tokyo's major shopping and amusement areas on Sunday afternoons; an initiative which improved air quality for Tokyoites. In addition, pay was increased for welfare institution workers, the rights of sanitation workers (a discriminated against group) were improved, and a training school was set up to help senior citizens make a living past retirement. Government sponsorship of race tracks was also brought to an end, reflecting Minobe’s view of gambling being an unofficial tax on poor individuals. Minobe also believed in getting people involved in decisions that affected their lives, conversing directly with residents in town hall meetings in the belief that Tokyo’s residents could become managers of their own city.

Minobe’s reforms had an impact on the LDP, who introduced on a nationwide basis several of the measures that Minobe and fellow progressives across Japan had inaugurated. When Tokyo’s government announced plans in 1971 for free medical care for children who had cancer, the national administration adopted its own plan. Two years later, the national government introduced new entitlements including indexed pensions and free medical care to the over-70s. Kakuei Tanaka, the prime minister who presided over these policy decisions, interpreted Minobe’s victory as a reflection of people’s frustration with overcrowding in big cities, and his government also initiated laws making it hard for large plants to be constructed in metropolitan areas while incentivising firms to locate new manufacturing facilities in the countryside. Arguably, the LDP’s decision to introduce several of the social programmes launched by local progressives on a nationwide basis was a reflection of their realisation of the electoral implications that such schemes could have on their incumbency. Indeed, it enabled the LDP to overcome the challenge that local progressives posed to them, who had taken the initiative in tackling issues concerning welfare and the environment. It also demonstrates how far Minobe’s influence, and by extension that of his progressive counterparts across Japan, went beyond local and regional boundaries in shaping that country’s social and economic development. Minobe was also a popular figure. When re-elected four years later, he did so with 65% of the vote and three-quarters of the electorate casting a ballot; a record at that time.

Historic continuity

It is arguable that Minobe’s agenda represented a historic continuity with the reform efforts of past leftist leaders, the lasting impact of which reverberated throughout Japanese society. During the Twenties and Thirties Japan was led on two separate occasions by the liberal Kensekei and Rikken Minseitō parties. Although the former presided over a tough law allowing for individuals that the government viewed as subversive to be imprisoned, and the latter for carrying out economic austerity during the Great Depression, they nevertheless delivered tangible results for ordinary citizens in the passage of visionary measures including a widening of the franchise, factory reform, health insurance, and legislation aimed at helping tenant farmers. Similar reforms were carried out under the socialist-led coalition of Tetsu Katayama that briefly led Japan in 1947, such as the granting of organisational and collective bargaining rights to workers and a Ministry of Labor which promoted the rights of not only workers, but also those of women and children in postwar Japan. The policy agendas of Minobe and other local progressives were part of this reform tradition in Japanese history, and offered the prospect of the Japanese Left replacing the LDP as the dominant force in national politics. But this was not to be.

The one factor that helped stem the progressive tide was the 1973 oil shock, which saw Japan’s Gross National Product fall for the first time since the war. This lowered the rise of tax revenue for local governments, which in turn limited the ability of progressives to fund imaginative reforms. Bureaucrats and the LDP rallied against welfare, associating it with societal problems including crime and divorce, and progressive local governments were criticised by the LDP “for throwing around money for welfare.” Such scaremongering helped conservatives score major gains locally. During the late Seventies several progressives either stood down or were defeated, replaced by figures from the political Right. Although Minobe was elected to a third term in 1975, he did so by a narrow margin. His tenure also had its shortcomings. Reflecting his belief in popular democracy, Minobe espoused a “philosophy of the bridge,” vowing that he wouldn’t construct a bridge if it faced opposition from just one resident. Although there were instances of local policy decision making working well, this philosophy had unfortunate consequences. Public housing projects, for instance, were delayed in the face of opposition from certain residents, with cuts in the number of new homes built despite the need for the latter in the face of a housing shortage. In a way, Minobe’s own ideas backfired and worked against his own agenda. In 1977, Minobe lost his majority in the Tokyo legislature, and two years later the LDP and Komeito teamed up to prevent a Socialist-Communist candidate from winning that year’s gubernatorial election. The following year only four opposition figures were left that held the post of governor. The golden age of local progressivism in Japan, which for a time seemed likely to usher in a new dawn in national politics, had finally ended.

Although Minobe and his fellow progressives failed to replicate their electoral successes nationally by becoming a viable, long-term alternative to the established LDP, the fact that they achieved so much on behalf of their communities is not only indicative of the pivotal role that local reformers have played in changing Japan for the better, but it also gives an idea of what the Japanese Left can accomplish if it were to attain national power. The growth in income inequality in recent years, together with surveys showing widespread public dissatisfaction with the existing democratic system, offers fertile ground for such a seismic shift in Japanese politics to take place. For Japanese progressives who hope to achieve their aims of electoral victory and a more egalitarian society, the Minobe era is a model worth emulating.

What do you think of Ryokichi Minobe? Let us know below.

Murders in a Nazi Prisoner-of-War Camp - And Canada's Last Mass Execution

Here Nathan M. Greenfield tells us about his book: Hanged in Medicine Hat: Murders in a Nazi Prisoner-of-War Camp, and the Disturbing True Story of Canada's Last Mass Execution (Amazon US | Amazon UK).

Medicine Hat railway station in the early 20th century.

On 5 March 1946, 16-year-old Joyce Reesor played truant from her high school in Medicine Hat, Alberta –to watch the end of what would ultimately be six of the most unique trials in Canadian history.  In each, a German POW, some former Afrika Korpsman others who had belonged to Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe, stood on trial for his life for the killing of two other POWs, one in 1943 and one in 1944.  The denouement of Rex v. Werner Schwalb that Reesor witnessed – Judge Howson’s saying of the ancient words, “and shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul”–was hardly a surprise.  Hamstrung by the lack of character witnesses, defence attorney Louis S. Turcotte declined to mount a defence, and had been reduced to sniping at the case presented by Alberta’s deputy attorney journal, H. H. Wilson, QC, who appointed himself crown prosecutor.

Turcotte landed a few blows, successfully arguing on the first day for the case against the three POWs accused of killing Private August Plaszek in 1943 to be split into separate trials.  He forced the pre-war lawyer Hans Schnorrenpfeil to growl “Nein” when pressed on his previous statement that he had actually seen the men secreted behind a screen in a POW hut whose job it was to take down the testimony of men being interrogated for treason against Germany.  He led the court through a mind-numbing excursus on whether Boden meant clay or earth, which Howson ended by declaring, “ ‘clay’ is earth and earth is ‘clay’ ” and Plaszek was struck in the head by a large clod wielded by a POW.

Camp 132

But in the end the six men on the jury believed the story that began with around 5 p.m. on July 22, 1943, Private Reginald Back of the Veterans Guard saw a man waving a white cloth and running toward the warning wire of Camp 132. But no soccer ball had bounced out of bounds. No one was playing soccer when Back looked down from his perch in Tower No. 7. Rather, he saw that the man waving the white cloth was being chased by hundreds of angry, shouting inmates. Once the desperate POW crossed the warning wire, his pursuers halted, knowing that without white flags they risked being shot. To ensure that the mob respected the boundary, Back ostentatiously aimed his rifle.

From their vantage points on Towers 7 and 4 respectively, Back and Sergeant Frederic C. Byers struggled to make out which of the prisoners was being dragged backward away from them, and the faces of the two men who were doing the dragging.

The tower guards could see Plaszek being taken toward the west recreation hall. Back called the guard room asking for scouts to return to the enclosure, make their way to the recreation hall and free the man.  Byers also called the guard room with the same request. In an effort to deter the four men manhandling Plaszek, Back called the sentries in Tower No. 6 and ordered them to fire shots over the men’s heads, but for reasons unknown, the men in this tower did not follow Back’s orders. After ten minutes, with no sign of the scouts re-entering the enclosure, Back called the guard room again. By this time, he “felt the man would be dead because of the delay.”

The first senior POW to hear of what happened to Plaszek after he was dragged to the recreation hall appears to have been Dr. Nolte, who saw “a body hanging by the west wall.” The rope had been passed around the victim’s neck twice and drawn so tight it cut into his flesh by about an inch. After pushing his way through the crowd, Nolte felt for a pulse but “found no sign of life” and ordered Plaszek’s body to be cut down.

Plaszek’s body was a horrible sight. Said Royal Army Medical Korps Captain W. F. Hall: “[The] face of the deceased was very swollen—the tongue was sticking out slightly and there was blood from the nostrils and mouth and also from the back of the head.”

*****

As would be true during their investigation of the killing of Dr. Karl Lehmann on DATE, the RCMP and Military Intelligence faced something approaching a wall of silence enforced by the camp Gestapo; when the cases were broken after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Canadian authorities discovered that Lehmann’s murder had been ordered by the Gestapo.  Slowly, however, POWs came forward and the RCMP charged men with Plaszek’s murder and the four men charged with killing Lehmann.  One of the key pieces of evidence against Adolf Kratz was his swagger: another was boast after the killing, as he ate a hard-boiled egg “The egg tastes that much better because I have helped hang a traitor.”  Lehmann’s killers had each signed a confession, which provided little more than a tied ribbon at the end of the story of the bloody killing of a fellow Afrika Korpsman.

*****

In the end, for killing Plaszek, one man was found innocent and two guilty, this second being Schulz.  Just before the trap door opened and his body fell, he called out, “My Fuhrer, I follow thee.”  The four men charged with killing Lehmann were hanged on 18 December 1946, the last mass hanging in Canadian history.

Today

Now an appellate court would almost certainly declare each of these trails a mistrial. We need look no further than the contentious use of evidence of homosexuality by both the Crown and the defense, each an POWs sexual past in an attempt to shake the jury’s belief in the evidence he presented: perhaps the most egregious statement being “Let us step a little deeper into the mire” in defense attorney Rice’s questioning of Wilhelm Wendt, who had been camp 132’s Man of Confidence, i.e., the leader of the POWs and, secretly, a lead Nazi.

Even in the context of 1946, the trials and their outcome are highly debatable.  As was argued in detail in the appeal of the convictions for killing Lehmann, the trials took place in the wrong venue. Both the War Measures Act and the Geneva Convention called for such important charges to be adjudged in military –not civilian – court.

Notwithstanding Judge Howson’s statement from the bench, “I am of the opinion that the land comprised in the Prisoner of War Camp, No. 132, at Medicine Hat, is part of the Dominion of Canada,” things were not the clear cut.  Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war remain under the military law of their home army, which is why the Convention recognizes the right of a POW to try to escape when his home army makes that a duty, as both the German and British military codes did.  The Convention also recognized that, for example, in the case of POW Camp 132, German military law prevailed within the wire.  Accordingly, once, following the failure of the Bomb Plot in 1944 Hitler gave the order to liquidate traitors, German soldiers in Canada had reason to consider themselves bound to do so: Lehmann was suspected of treason (and, in fact, did give Canadian authorities information).  Indeed, in a similar case in South Africa, the judge ruled against the death penalty saying that the German POWs feared for their lives if they did not carry out the orders of their camp’s Gestapo.

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The Italian Front in World War One

When conjuring up images of the First World War one may visualize the iconic and murderous trenches of the Western Front. Or perhaps the epic dogfights fought between intrepid pilots in rickety machines when aircraft was only in its infancy.  But the global nature of the war witnessed fighting on a massive scale from the frigid waters of the North Sea to the scorching deserts of the Middle East and the mountains of the Alps where. In the Alps close to 700,000 Italians and half as many Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) combatants would ultimately lose their lives in a brutal meat grinder in which combat was at times the not even the most dangerous contender.

Brian Hughes explains.

An trench of the Austro-Hungarian Army at the peak of the Ortler in 1917.

On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary thus abandoning her initial neutrality. It had been nine months since the largest war in European history had begun, starting in August of 1914 when the other Great Powers of Europe, Great Britain, France, and Russia (The Entente) went to war against Germany and her ally Austria-Hungary (The Central Powers) in a complicated yet lethal system of alliances with one of the main aims of the Entente being to check the rising power of Germany on the continent. Italy, like the other belligerent nations, entered the war with the goal of “reclaiming” regions inhabited by Italian speaking peoples such as the Trentino in the Alps and Trieste on the Adriatic Coast, then in the possession of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy had only been unified as a cohesive nation in 1861, the first time in which they entire peninsula had coalesced under one government since the Roman Empire. The Entente hoped that by opening a brand-new front especially one so close to the heartland of Austria-Hungary would significantly relive the immense pressure in which the Central Powers had been administering to their foes in the Eastern and Western Fronts respectively.

Italy’s initial plan at the start of war was to begin a major offensive through the mountains of the Trentino in the Alps. Their objective was simple. Utilizing an overwhelming advantage in manpower the massive army would slice through the undermanned and poorly equipped Austro-Hungarian defenses like a hot knife through butter. Exploiting the gaps created by the enormous offensive thrust, the Italians would not only quickly retrieve the much sought-after Trentino region but simultaneously open roads to Ljubljana in present day Slovenia and Vienna, the Imperial Capital. But not everything went according to plan.

For starters, the Italian Peninsula is not ideally poised for offensive military operations to her northeast given that the mountain ranges of this region are amongst the highest in Europe. This gave the Austro-Hungarian defenders a significant advantage in that they could subsequently negate the numerically superior adversaries. Another factor was the lack of combat experience in the Italian Armed Forces. Prior to the outbreak of World War One Italy had fought a series of colonial wars in Africa against the Ottoman Empire. These engagements were comparatively small and drastically differed in men, material, and terrain now present on the Italian Front. This, combined with the outdated and draconian leadership within the Italian Army embodied especially by Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna would yield disastrous results.  It seemed that the Italian High Command did not seem to notice or comprehend the brutality in which industrialized warfare enabled horrific carnage in France, Belgium, and the Eastern Front throughout the first year of the war. In addition to this, recent Central Power successes in Galicia enabled additional troops with valuable combat experience to be moved to the new front.

War at altitude

Prior to the 1984 Siachen dispute between Indian and Pakistani troops battles had for the most part never been waged in as high of altitudes such as in places like the Julian Alps of the Italian Front where peaks rise to an average height of 1300 meters. When fighting in these conditions an enemy’s bullet or stray shell could sometimes be less deadly than the environment itself. Soldiers had to contend with avalanches, rockslides, frostbite, freezing temperatures, and razor-sharp rocks to name just a few of the appalling hazards do not present in other theatres of the Great War. In order to tactically operate under these harsh conditions both Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies fielded units of specially trained Mountain soldiers who maintained the proper skills for conducting warfare in the mountains. The Alpini, on the Italian side were formed in 1872 and were the oldest “mountain corps” in the world. Recruited from the towns and villages along the Italian Alps, the Alpini were adept climbers, skiers, and hunters who were familiar with the latest innovations in mountaineering equipment and could sustain themselves for prolonged periods of time in hazardous mountainous surrounding as often they found themselves perched upon dangerous precipes and slopes in which they had to bivouac. The Habsburg Army confronted the Alpini with their own specially trained mountain corps knowns as the Alpen Kaiserjager. Like the Alpini, these men were recruited from mountainous regions throughout the Empire such as the Carpathians, Tatras, and Balkans. Heroic clashes and counter attacks between these elite units would become a trademark of the war.

The Isonzo (Soca) River Valley would become the major geographical focal point of the conflict, witnessing twelve major Italian Offensives all of which yielded horrific casualty rates. Once again, the Italian High Command did not seem to notice or even care about the difficulties exasperated by the terrain and poor quality of their troops. These murderous offensives would eventually culminate in October 1917 at the Battle of Caporetto, one of the deadliest battles of the Great War in which a combined Habsburg-German army valiantly resisted and ultimately routed a major offensive push by the newly equipped and colossal Italian Army. Caporetto would ultimately be the worst defeat suffered by the Italian Army throughout the war. Roughly 280,000 prisoners were taken in addition to the mass desertions of near 350,000 and some 40,000 killed or wounded.

Recovery

Despite these detrimental setbacks the Italians remarkably recovered. Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna would ultimately be sacked and was replaced with General Armando Diaz. The war would continue for another year until eventually the Habsburg Army who had held out for years undergoing unimaginable stress and demoralization from near constant shelling, hunger, cold, and the despair of losing friends and comrades would lay down their war weary arms. The last major chapter of the Italian Front occurred on October 23, 1918, in which finally a massive Italian artillery barrage accompanied by an equally formidable offensive finally routed the Austro-Hungarian army forcing an armistice on November 3rd, 1918.

World War One displayed loss of life and unimaginable suffering not yet seen in the course of human history. Despite the inconceivable numbers of men, animals, and materials lost the Italian theatre remains to this day one of the more obscure fronts as ultimately it became yet another stalemate in which old fashioned commanders ordered suicidal charges indifferent to the casualty rates just as on the more famous Western Front. The major difference being the terrain in which the soldiers fought. Instead of the mud in Flanders tit was the snows of the Alps where countless numbers of young men from all over Europe fought, died, and now rest under the placid valleys and dazzling peaks of one of the most beautiful corners of the continent.

What do you think of the Italian front in World War One? Let us know below.

Sources

Websites 

Siachen dispute: India and Pakistan’s glacial fight - BBC News

Caporetto, Battle of | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1) (1914-1918-online.net)

Books 

Gooch, John: The Italian Army and The First World War Cambridge University Press

Macdonald John: Caporetto And The Isonzo Campaign and Sword Military 

Thompson Mark The White War Life and Death on The Italian Front 1915-1919 Basic Books