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FORCE 136 IN “BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI”

Administrator — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:23:23 +0000

Force 136 and “Bridge on the River Kwai”

In the 1957 movie classic, “Bridge on the River Kwai,” the Jack Hawkins character, “Major Warden” recruits William Holden (“Shears”) to go with his commando group trained at the British commando school in Ceylon, back to the Kwai Bridge, to blow it up.

“Major Warden” mentions something called Force 316 several times.

This was a movie renaming of Force 136, an actual team.

Force 136

Force 136 was the general cover name for a branch of the British World War II organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The organisation was established to encourage and supply resistance movements in enemy-occupied territory, and occasionally mount clandestine sabotage operations. Force 136 operated in the regions of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II which were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945.

Although the top command of Force 136 were British officers and civilians, most of those it trained and employed as agents were indigenous to the regions in which they operated. British, Americans or other Europeans could not operate clandestinely in cities or populated areas in Asia, but once the resistance movements engaged in open rebellion, Allied armed forces personnel who knew the local languages and peoples became invaluable for liaison with conventional forces. In Burma in particular, SOE could draw on many former forestry managers and so on, who had become fluent in Burmese or other local languages before the war, and who had been commissioned into the Army when the Japanese invaded Burma.

History

SOE was formed in 1940, by the merger of existing Departments of the War Office and the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Its purpose was to incite, organise and supply indigenous resistance forces in enemy-occupied territory. Initially, the enemy was Nazi Germany and Italy, but from late 1940, it became clear that conflict with Japan was also inevitable.

Two missions were sent to set up (and assume political control of) the SOE in the Far East. The first was led by a former businessman, Valentine Killery of Imperial Chemical Industries, who set up his HQ in Singapore. A scratch resistance organisation was set up in Malaya, but Singapore was captured on 15 February 1942, soon after Japan entered the war.

A second mission was set up in India by another former businessman, Colin Mackenzie of J. and P. Coats, a clothing manufacturer. Mackenzie’s India Mission originally operated from Meerut in North West India. Its location was governed by the fear that the Germans might overrun the Middle East and Caucasus, in which case resistance movements would be established in Afghanistan, Persia and Iraq. When this threat was removed late in 1942 after the battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein, the focus was switched to South East Asia.

The India Mission’s first cover name was GS I(k), which made it appear to be a record-keeping branch of GHQ India. The name, Force 136 was adopted in March 1944. From December 1944, the organisation’s headquarters moved to Kandy in Ceylon, and cooperated closely with South East Asia Command which was also located there.

Force 136 was wound up in 1946, along with the rest of SOE.

Operations

Malaya

The Oriental Mission of SOE attempted to set up “stay-behind” and resistance organisations from August 1941, but their plans were opposed by the British colonial governor, Sir Shenton Thomas. They were able to begin serious efforts only in January 1942, after the Japanese Invasion of Malaya had already begun.

An irregular warfare school, STS 101, was set up by the explorer and mountaineer Freddie Spencer Chapman. Chapman himself led the first reconnaissances and attacks behind Japanese lines during the Battle of Slim River. Although the school’s graduates mounted a few operations against the Japanese lines of communication, they were cut off from the other Allied forces by the fall of Singapore. An attempt was made by the Oriental Mission to set up an HQ in Sumatra but this island too was overrun by the Japanese.

Malayan Communist Party

Before the Japanese attacked Malaya, a potential resistance organisation already existed in the form of the Malayan Communist Party. This party’s members were mainly from the Chinese community and implacably anti-Japanese. Just before the fall of Singapore, the party’s Secretary General, Lai Teck, was told by the British authorities that his party should disperse into the forests, a decision already made by the party’s members.

In isolation, the Communists formed the Malayan Peoples’ Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). Their first arms and equipment were either donated by STS 101 before they were overrun, or recovered from the battlefields or abandoned British Army depots. The MPAJA formed rigidly-disciplined camps and units in the forest, supplied with food by networks of contacts among displaced Chinese labourers and “squatters” on marginal land. Chapman had remained in Malaya after Singapore fell, but had no radio or means of contacting Allied forces elsewhere. Nevertheless, the MPAJA still regarded Chapman as the official British authority, and Chin Peng was appointed as liaison officer with Chapman.^[1]

Singaporean World War II hero Lim Bo Seng had returned to Malaya from Calcutta in 1942, and recruited some agents who had made their way to India by 1943. Force 136 attempted to regain contact with Chapman in Operation Gustavus, by infiltrating parties which included Lim Bo Seng and former STS 101 members John Davis and Richard Broome by sea into the area near Pangkor Island. Their radio was unable to contact Force 136 HQ in Ceylon and the MPAJA contacts on Pangkor Island were betrayed to the Japanese.

The radio brought in by Gustavus was finally made to work in February 1945. Chapman was able to visit Force 136 HQ in Kandy and report. By this time, Force 136 had substantial resources, and in the few months before the end of the war, they were able to send 2,000 weapons to the MPAJA and no less than 300 liaison personnel. About half of these were British who had worked or lived in Malaya before the war, the others were Chinese who had made their own way to India or who had been taken there by Force 136 for training. With these resources, the MPAJA was built up to become a substantial guerilla army with about 7,000 fighters.^[2] However, Japan surrendered before it had a chance to stage a major uprising.

In isolation in jungle camps for several years, the MCP and MPAJA had purged themselves of many members suspected of treachery or espionage, which contributed to their post-war hard-line attitude and led in turn to the insurgency known as the Malayan Emergency.

Kuomintang

The Kuomintang also had a widespread following in the Malaysian Chinese community in the days before the War, but were unable to mount any significant clandestine resistance to the Japanese. Partly, this was because they were based among the population in the towns, unlike the MCP which drew much of its support from mine or plantation workers in remote encampments or “squatters” on the edge of the forest. Most of the KMT’s supporters and their dependents were therefore hostages to any Japanese mass reprisal.

When Lim Bo Seng and other agents from Force 136 attempted to make contact with Kuomintang networks in Ipoh as part of Operation Gustavus, they found that the KMT’s underground actions there were tainted by corruption or private feuding.^[3]

Malayan resistance

The force also collaborated with many Chinese Malayan villages. As a multi religious and multi-racial country, the population of Malaya was also strongly divided along communal and religious lines, with some portion of the populace loyal to the Allied forces, while others loyal to Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan. Thus, agents risked the constant threat of being betrayed.

Even though the Malays (who are Muslims) and Indians were not badly treated by Japanese forces in the beginning of the occupation, later they too felt the hardship of life under the occupation and this was magnified by the brutal treatment of anyone who was suspected of being anti-Japanese (although hardly any atrocities were inflicted on them). Thus the SOE found a suitable backing among a few Malays and sent their officers to train local resistance forces famously known as Harimau Malaya Force 136 (Tigers of Malaya of Force 136). However, certain individuals in Malaya were strong supporters of the Japanese, and were actively involved in the notorious Kempeitai “mopping up” operations and other atrocities.

It was due to these ill-treatment that prompted the local populace’s involvement in Force 136. The main base for this group was near Gerik, a district in the state of Perak. The force’s main task was to form an intelligence-gathering network and, should prospects be favourable, to establish a resistance movement in northern Malaya. The force also arranged the reception of other parties of Force 136 who landed by parachute, providing them with guides and local contacts in the areas of their planned operations.

A novel loosely based on the exploit of the resistance force was produced in late 1980s and there were several known figures in the book including Lt. Colonel Peter Dobree, a well known commander of the force.

China

From 1938, Britain had been supporting the Republic of China against the Japanese, by allowing supplies to reach the Chinese via the Burma Road running through Burma. SOE had various plans regarding China in the early days of the war. Forces were to be sent into China through Burma and a Bush Warfare School under Michael Calvert was established in Burma to train Chinese and Allied personnel in irregular warfare. These plans came to an end with the Japanese conquest of Burma in 1942.

Strictly speaking, SOE was not tasked to operate inside China after 1943, when it was left to the Americans. However, one group, the British Army Aid Group under an officer named “Blue” Ride did operate near Hong Kong, in territory controlled by the Communist Party of China.

In Operation Remorse, an unscrupulous businessman named Walter Fletcher carried out dubious operations such as trying to obtain smuggled rubber, currency speculation and so on, in Japanese-occupied China. As a result of these activities, SOE actually returned a financial profit of GBP 77 million in the Far East. Many of these funds and the networks used to acquire them were subsequently used in various relief and repatriation operations, but critics pointed pointed out that this created a pool of money that SOE could use beyond the oversight of any normal authority or budget.

Thailand

On 21 December 1940, a formal military alliance between Thailand under Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram and Japan was concluded. At noon on 25 January 1942, Thailand declared war on the United States and Great Britain. Some Thais supported the alliance, arguing that it was in the national interest, or that it was better sense to ally oneself with a victorious power. Others formed the Free Thai Movement to resist. The Free Thai Movement was supported by Force 136 and the OSS, and provided valuable intelligence from within Thailand. Eventually, when the war turned against the Japanese, Phibun was forced to resign, and a Free Thai-controlled government was formed. A coup was being planned to disrupt the Japanese occupying forces in 1945, but was forestalled by the ending of the war.

Burma

Burma was the theatre in which the major Allied effort was made in South East Asia from late 1942 onwards, and Force 136 was heavily involved. Initially, it had to compete with regular formations such as the Chindits and other irregular organizations for suitable personnel, aircraft and other resources. It eventually played a significant part in the liberation of the country by slowly building up a national organization which was used to great effect in 1945.

Two separate sections of SOE dealt with Burma. One concentrated on the minority communities who mainly inhabited the frontier regions; the other established links with the nationalist movements among the majority Bamar peoples in the central parts of the country and the major cities. It has been argued that this division of political effort, although necessary on military grounds, contributed to the inter-community conflicts which have continued in Burma (Myanmar) to the present day.

There were Indians and Afghans who were part of Force 136 and were heavily involved in Burmese operation, like C. L. Sharma, an Indian Professor of Linguistics at British Army Headquarters in India who later became an active member of Force 136 and spent almost 6 years mainly in various missions of the Force in Burma.

Karens, Chins, Arakanese and Kachins

The majority community of Burma were the Bamar. Among the minority peoples of Burma, including Chins, Karens and Kachins, there was a mixture of anti-Bamar, anti-Japanese and pro-British sentiments. In 1942, the pro-Japanese Burma Independence Army raised with Japanese assistance, attempted to disarm Karens in the Irrawaddy River delta region. This created a large-scale civil conflict which turned the Karens firmly against the Japanese.

The Karens were the largest of the minority communities. Although many lived in the Irrawaddy delta, their homeland can be considered to be the “Karenni”, a mountainous and heavily forested tract along the border with Thailand. They had supplied many recruits to the Burma Rifles (part of the British forces in Burma during the early part of the war), and in the chaos of the British retreat into India, many of them had been given a rifle and ammunition and three months’ pay, and instructed to return to their home villages to await further orders. The presence of such trained soldiers contributed to the effectiveness of the Karen resistance.

A few British army officers had also been left behind in the Karreni, in a hasty attempt to organise a “stay-behind” organisation. In 1943, the Japanese made a ruthless punitive expedition into the Karenni, where they knew a British Officer was operating. To spare the population, a British liaison officer, Hugh Seagrim, voluntarily surrendered himself to the Japanese and was executed along with several of his Karen fighters.

However, Force 136 continued to supply the Karens, and from late 1944 they mounted Operation Character, which organised large-scale resistance in the Karenni. In April 1945, Force 136 stage-managed a major uprising in the region in support of the Allied offensive, which prevented the Japanese Fifteenth Army forestalling the Allied advance on Rangoon. After the capture of Rangoon, Karen resistance fighters continued to harass Japanese units and stragglers east of the Sittang River. It was estimated that at their moment of maximum effort, the Karens mustered 8,000 active guerrillas (some sources claim 12,000), plus many more sympathisers and auxiliaries.

SOE had some early missions to Kachin State, the territory inhabited by the Kachins of northern Burma, but for much of the war, this area was the responsibility of the American-controlled China-Burma-India Theater, and the Kachin guerrillas were armed and coordinated by the American liaison organisation, OSS Detachment 101.

The various ethnic groups (Chins, Lushai, Arakanese) who inhabited the border areas between Burma and India were not the responsibility of Force 136 but of V Force, an irregular force which was under direct control of the Army. From 1942 to 1944, hill peoples in the frontier regions fought on both sides; some under V Force and other Allied irregular forces HQ, others under local or Japanese-sponsored organisations such as the Chin Defence Force and Arakan Defence Force.

Burmese political links

The Burma section of Force 136 was commanded by John Ritchie Gardiner, who had managed a forestry company before the war and also served on the Municipal Council of Rangoon. He had known personally some Burmese politicians such as Ba Maw who had later formed a government which, although nominally independent, collaborated through necessity with the Japanese occupiers.

In 1942, when the Japanese invaded Burma, the majority Bamar (Burman) people had been sympathetic to them, or at least hostile to the British colonial government and the Indian community which had immigrated or had been imported as workers for newly-created industries. Bamar volunteers flocked to the Burma Independence Army which fought several actions against British forces. During the years of occupation, this attitude changed. The Burma Independence Army was reorganised as the Burma National Army (BNA), under Japanese control. In 1944, Aung San, the Burmese nationalist who had founded the BIA with Japanese assistance and had been appointed Minister of Defence in Ba Maw’s government and commander of the Burma National Army, contacted Burmese communist and socialist leaders, some of whom were already leading insurgencies against the Japanese. Together they formed the Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO) under the overall leadership of Thakin Soe. Force 136 was able to establish contact with this organisation through links with Burmese communist groups.

During the final Allied offensive into Burma in 1945, there were then a series of uprisings in Burma against the Japanese, which Force 136 supported although it had little control or even influence over the rebellious BNA and its supporters. The first rebellion involved a locally recruited force known as the Arakan Defence Army turning on the Japanese in Arakan. The second involved an uprising by BNA units near Toungoo in Central Burma, beginning on 8 March 1945. The final uprising occurred when the entire BNA changed sides on 27 March.

The forces of the AFO, including the BNA, were renamed the Patriotic Burmese Forces. They played a part in the final campaign to recapture Rangoon, and eliminate Japanese resistance in Central Burma. The BNA’s armed strength at the time of their defection was around 11,000. The Patriotic Burmese Forces also included large numbers of communists and other irregulars with loyalty to particular groups, and those Karens who had served in the BNA and Karen resistance groups in the Irrawaddy Delta.

In arranging the acceptance of Aung San and his forces as Allied combatants, Force 136 was in direct conflict with the more staid Civil Affairs Service Officers at South East Asia Command‘s headquarters, who feared the postwar implications of handing out large numbers of weapons to irregular and potentially anti-British forces, and of promoting the political careers of Aung San or the communist leaders. The AFO at the time of the uprising represented itself as the provisional government of Burma. It was eventually persuaded to drop this claim after negotiations with South East Asia Command, in return for recognition as a political movement (the AFPFL).

Indian National Army

Another force operating under Japanese command in Burma was the Indian National Army, a force composed of former prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Singapore and some Tamils living in Malaya. However, Force 136 was prevented from working with anyone in the Indian National Army, regardless of their intentions. The policy towards the INA was formed and administered by British India Command, a British rather than Allied headquarters.

Field Operations

Force 136 was also active in more conventional military-style operations behind Japanese lines in Burma. Such an operation could comprise a group of up to 40 infantry with officers and a Radio Operator, infiltrating Japanese lines on intelligence and discretionary search and destroy missions. Such missions, which could last several weeks (supplied by C47 transport aircraft) kept close wireless contact with operational bases in India, using high-grade ciphers (changed daily) and hermetically-sealed wireless/morse sets.

Every day (Japanese permitting) at pre–arranged times, the Radio Operator (with escorts) climbed to a high vantage point, usually necessitating a gruelling climb to the top of some slippery, high, jungle-clad ridge, and sent the latest intelligence information and the group’s supply requests etc., and received further orders in return. The Radio Operator was central to a mission’s success and his capture or death would spell disaster for the mission. To avoid capture and use under duress by the Japanese, every SOE operative was issued a cyanide pill.

One such Radio Operator was James Gow (originally from the Royal Corps of Signals), who recounted his first mission in his book “From Rhunahaorine to Rangoon.” In the summer of 1944, the Japanese push toward India had been stopped at the Battle of Kohima. In the aftermath of the battle, Japanese forces split up and retreated deep into the jungle. As part of the initiative to find out if they were reforming for a further push, he was sent from Dimapur with a 40-strong group of Gurkhas, to locate groups of Japanese forces, identify their strengths and their organised status.

Discretionary attacks on isolated Japanese groups were permitted (no prisoners to be taken), as was destruction of supply dumps. One particular Gurkha officer under whom James Gow operated was Major William Lindon-Travers, later to become Bill Travers, the well-known actor of Born Free fame.

Other

SOE’s French Indo-China Section (1943-1945)

Force 136 played only a minor part in attempts to organise local resistance in French Indochina, led mainly by Roger Blaizot, commander of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (FEFEO) and General Eugène Mordant, chief of the military resistance. From 1944 to 1945 long-range B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft attached to Force 136 dropped 40 “Jedburgh” commandos from the French intelligence service BCRA, and agents from the Corps Léger d’Intervention also known as “Gaur“, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Huard, into Indochina. However Indochina was not originally part of the South-East Asian theatre, and therefore not SOE’s responsibility. Notable French Force 136 members dropped in Laos in 1945 include: Jean Deuve (January 22), Jean Le Morillon (February 28), Jean Sassi (June 4)^[4], Bob Maloubier (August)^[4]

There were also American reservations over restoring the French colonial regime after the war, which led the Americans eventually to support the anti-French Viet Minh.^[5] Together with the complexities of the relationships between the Vichy-leaning officials in Indochina, and the rival Giraudist and de Gaullist resistance movements, this made liaison very difficult. SOE had few links with the indigenous Viet Minh movement.
Dutch East Indies & Australia
Except for the island of Sumatra, the Dutch East Indies were also outside South East Asia Command’s area of responsibility until after the Japanese surrender. In 1943, an invasion of Sumatra, codenamed Operation Culverin, was tentatively planned. SOE mounted some reconnaissances of northern Sumatra (in the present-day province of Aceh). In the event, the plan was cancelled, and nothing came of SOE’s small-scale efforts in Sumatra.

Another combined Allied intelligence organisation, Special Operations Australia (SOA), which had the British codename Force 137, operated out of Australia against Japanese targets in Singapore, the other islands of the Dutch East Indies, and Borneo. It included Z Special Unit, which carried out a successful attack on shipping in Singapore Harbour, known as Operation Jaywick.

Communications

Until mid-1944, Force 136′s operations were hampered by the great distances involved; for example, from Ceylon to Malaya and back required a flight of 2,800 miles (4,500 km). Such distances also made it difficult to use small clandestine craft to deliver supplies or personnel by sea (although such craft were used to supply the MPAJA in Perak late in the war). The Royal Navy made few submarines available to Force 136. Eventually, converted B-24 Liberator aircraft were made available to parachute agents and stores.

In Burma, where the distances involved were not so great, C-47 transport aircraft could be used. Westland Lysander liaison aircraft could also be used over shorter distances.

Notes

1. Bayly and Harper, p.262

2. Bayly and Harper, p.453

3. Bayly and Harper, p.348

4. ^a ^b Le Journal du Monde news, Patricia Lemonière, 2009

5. Silent Partners: SOE’s French Indo-China Section, 1943–1945, MARTIN THOMAS, Modern Asian Studies (2000), 34 : 943-976 Cambridge University Press

Sources

Aldrich, Richard James (2000). Intelligence and the war against Japan: Britain, America and the politics of secret service. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521641869.
Allen, Louis. Burma: the longest War. J.M. Dent and sons. ISBN 0-460-02474-4.
Bayly, Christopher; Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-029331-0.
Chapman, Freddie Spencer. The Jungle is neutral. Lyon Press. ISBN 1-59228-107-9.
Christie, Arthur. Mission Scapula: Special Operations Executive in the far east. ISBN 0-9547010-0-3.
Cruikshank, Charles (1983). SOE in the Far East. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-215873.
Dear, Ian. Sabotage and Subversion: SOE and OSS at War. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-35202-0.
Foot, M. R. D. (1984). SOE. BBC Publications. ISBN 0-563-20193-2.
Hedley, John. Jungle Fighter. Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-871085-34-9.
Latimer, Jon (2004). Burma: The Forgotten War. John Murray. ISBN 978-0719565762.
Smiley, David (1994). Irregular Regular. Michael Russell. ISBN 0 85955 202 0.

HEMINGWAY AND THE BATTLE OF CAPORETTO: “A FAREWELL TO ARMS”

Administrator — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 03:58:29 +0000

Battle of Caporetto

The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo or the Battle of Karfreit as it was known by the Central Powers; Slovene: Čudež pri Kobaridu), took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid (now in Slovenia), on the Austro-Italian front of World War I. The battle was named after the Italian name of the town of Kobarid (known as Karfreit in German).

Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army.^[1]

The battle

The German offensive began at approximately 02:00 on 24 October 1917. Due to the inclement weather that morning, particularly the mist,^[2] the Italians were caught by complete surprise. The battle opened with a German artillery barrage, poison gas, and smoke, and was followed by an all-out assault against the Italian lines.^[3] The defensive line of the Italian Second Army was breached almost immediately. The German forces made extensive use of flamethrowers and hand grenades as a part of their infiltration tactics, and were able to tear gaping holes in the Italian line, especially in the Italian strongholds on Mount Matajur and the Kolovrat Range. By the end of the first night, von Below’s men had advanced a remarkable 25 km (16 mi). German and Austro-Hungarian attacks from either side of von Below’s central column were less effective, however. The Italian Army had been able to repel the majority of these attacks, but the success of von Below’s central thrust threw the entire Italian Army into disarray. Forces had to be moved along the Italian front in an attempt to stem von Below’s breakout, but this only weakened other points along the line and invited further attacks. At this point, the entire Italian position on the Tagliamento River was under threat.

Realizing his forces were ill-prepared for this attack and were being routed, Capello requested permission to withdraw back to the Tagliamento. He was overruled by Cadorna, however, who believed that the Italian force could regroup and hold out against the attackers. Finally, on 30 October, Cadorna ordered the majority of the Italian force to retreat to the other side of the river. It took the Italians four full days to cross the river, and by this time the German and Austro-Hungarian armies were on their heels. By 2 November, a German division had established a bridgehead on the Tagliamento. About this time, however, the rapid success of the attack caught up with them. The German and Austro-Hungarian supply lines were stretched to breaking point, and as a result, they were not able to launch another concerted attack. Cadorna took advantage of this to retreat further, and by 10 November had established a position on the Piave River.^[2]

Failures of German Logistics

Even before the battle, Germany was struggling to feed and supply its armies in the field. Erwin Rommel, who, as a junior officer, won the Pour le Mérite for his exploits in the battle, often bemoaned the demands placed upon his “poorly fed troops”.^[4] The Allied blockade of the German Empire, which the Kaiserliche Marine had been unable to break, was responsible for food shortages and widespread malnutrition in Germany and allied countries. When inadequate provisioning was combined with the gruelling night marches preceding the battle of Caporetto (Kobarid), a heavy toll was extracted from the German and Austro-Hungarian forces. Despite these logistical problems, the initial assault was extremely successful. However, as the area controlled by the combined Central Powers forces expanded, an already limited logistical capacity was overstrained. By the time the attack reached the Piave, the soldiers of the Central Powers were running low on supplies and were feeling the physical effects of exhaustion.^[4] As the Italians began to counter the pressure put on them by the Central Powers, the German forces lost all momentum and were once again caught up in another round of attrition warfare.

Aftermath

Italian losses were enormous: 11,000 were killed, 20,000 wounded and 265,000 were taken prisoner – morale was so low among the Italian troops, mainly due to Cadorna’s harsh disciplinary regime, that most of these surrendered willingly. Furthermore, roughly 3,000 guns, 3,000 machine guns and 2,000 mortars were captured, along with an untold amount of stores and equipment.^[5] In addition, a large number of Italian soldiers deserted the army following the battle. Austro-Hungarian and German forces advanced more than 100 km (62 mi) in the direction of Venice, but they were not able to cross the Piave River. Although to this point the Italians had been left to fight on their own, after Kobarid (Caporetto) they were reinforced by six French infantry divisions and five British infantry divisions as well as sizeable air contingents. The Piave served as a natural barrier where the Italians could establish a new defensive line, which was held during the subsequent Battle of the Piave River and later served as springboard for the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, where the Austro-Hungarian army was finally defeated after 4 days of stiff resistance.

The battle led to the conference at Rapallo and the creation of a Supreme War Council, with the aim of improving Allied military co-operation and developing a unified strategy.^[5]

Luigi Cadorna was forced to resign after the defeat. The defeat alone was not the sole cause, but rather the breaking point for an accumulation of failures, as perceived by the Italian Prime Minister, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Throughout much of his command, including at Kobarid (Caporetto), Cadorna was known to have maintained poor relations with the other generals on his staff.^[6] In addition, he was detested by his troops as being too harsh.^[7] He was replaced by Armando Diaz and Pietro Badoglio.

This led governments to the realization that fear alone could not adequately motivate a modern army. After the defeat at Kobarid (Caporetto), Italian propaganda offices were established, promising land and social justice to soldiers. Italy also accepted a more cautious military strategy from this point on. Just one fifth of the total 650,000 Italian casualties during the war occurred after Kobarid (Caporetto), a marked improvement.

After this battle, the term “Caporetto” gained a particular resonance in Italy. It is used to denote a terrible defeat – the failed General Strike of 1922 by the socialists was referred to by Mussolini as the “Caporetto of Italian Socialism”. Many years after the war, Caporetto was still being used to destroy the credibility of the liberal state.^[6]

Popular culture

The Battle of Caporetto has been the subject of a number of books. The Swedish author F.J. Nordstedt (e.g. Christian Braw) wrote about the battle in his novel Caporetto.

The bloody aftermath of Caporetto was vividly described by Ernest Hemingway in his novel A Farewell to Arms.

References

1. Seth, Ronald (1965). Caporetto: The Scapegoat Battle. Macdonald. p. 147

2. ^a ^b Stearns, Peter; Langer, William (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History (6th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 669. ISBN 0395652375.

3. Dupuy & Dupuy (1970), p. 971

4. ^a ^b Macksey, Kenneth (1997). Rommel: Battles and Campaigns. Da Capo Press. p. 16–21. ISBN 0306807866.

5. ^a ^b Simkins, Peter; Jukes, Geoffrey; Hickey, Michael (2003). The First World War. Osprey Publishing. p. 312–313. ISBN 1841767387.

6. ^a ^b Townley, Edward (2002). Collier, Martin. ed. Mussolini and Italy. Heinemann. p. 16. ISBN 0435327259.

7. Morselli, Mario (2001). Caporetto, 1917: Victory Or Defeat?. Routledge. p. 133. ISBN 0714650730.

Further reading

Connelly, O. On War and Leadership: The Words of Combat Commanders from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf, 2002 ISBN 069103186X
Dupuy R. E., & , Dupuy, T. N., The Encyclopedia of Military History, (revised edition), Jane’s Publishing Company, 1970, SBN 356 02998 0
Morselli, M. Caporetto 1917: Victory of Defeat?, 2001 ISBN 0714650730
Reuth, R. G. Rommel: The End of a Legend, 2005 ISBN 1904950205
Seth, Ronald: Caporetto: The Scapegoat Battle. Macdonald, 1965
see also – not listed as a source for this article: Wilks, J., Wilks, Eileen “Rommel and Caporetto,” 2001 ISBN: 0850527724 EAN: 9780850527728

Kobarid

Kobarid (Italian: Caporetto, German: Karfreit) is a town and a municipality in the upper Soča (Italian Isonzo) valley, western Slovenia, near the Italian border.

Kobarid is known for the famous Battle of Caporetto, where the Italian retreat was documented by Ernest Hemingway in his novel A Farewell to Arms. The battle is well documented in the museum in the centre of Kobarid. The museum won a Council of Europe award in 1993. The adjacent Tonocov Grad archaeological site has remains of 5th century Roman buildings.^[2]

History

Kobarid has been inhabited since pre-historical times. Archeological remains from the Hallstatt period have been found in the area. In the 6th century, it was settled by Slavic tribes, ancestors of modern Slovenes. During the Middle Ages, it was first part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, and later of the Tolmin County, before being included in the Habsburg Monarchy in the 15th century, like the majority of Slovene-speaking territories.

With the exception of a brief period between 1809 and 1813, when it was included under the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, it remained under the Austrian rule until 1918.

In the mid 19th century, it became an important center of the Slovene national revival. During World War One, the whole area was the theatre of the Battles of the Isonzo, fought between Italy and Austria-Hungary. The town was almost completely destroyed between 1915 and 1917. After the end of the war in 1918, it was occupied by the Italian Army, and in 1920 it was officially annexed to Italy, and included in the Julian March region. Kobarid was a comune of the Province of Gorizia (as Caporetto), except during the period between 1924 and 1927, when the Province of Gorizia was abolished and annexed to the Province of Udine. Between 1922 and 1943, Kobarid and the neighbouring villages, which had an exclusively Slovene-speaking population, was submitted to a policy of violent Fascist Italianization. Many locals emigrated to the neighbouring Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The town became one of the crucial centres of recruitment and activity of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR, which carried out an underground fight against the Italian Fascist regime. During the Italian administration, Kobarid also became an important symbolic place of the Fascist regime because of its role in World War I. An Italian military sanctuary was built on the hill above the town, and Benito Mussolini visited Kobarid in 1938. Several military memorials were built in the area.

Immediately after the Italian armistice in September 1943, Kobarid was liberated by a Partisan uprising, and became the center of large liberated area of around 2,500 square kilometers, known as the Kobarid Republic, administered by the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. During this period, almost all Italian families that settled in Kobarid during the twenty five years of Italian administration left the town. In early November 1943, Nazi German forces took over the town and established their rule until May 1945, when the town was finally liberated by the Yugoslav People’s Army.

In early June 1945, Kobarid came under joined British-U.S. occupation and placed under Allied temporary military administration until the establishment of a final border between Italy and Yugoslavia. The so-called Morgan Line, which divided the Allied military occupation zone from the Yugoslav one, ran just eastwards of the town, along the Soča river.

In September 1947, the Paris Peace Treaties gave the town to Yugoslavia, namely to the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. Several hundred inhabitants, especially from the Breginj area, chose emigration to Italy rather than becoming citizens of a Communist state.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Kobarid emerged as an important tourist center. Light industry also developed.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Kobarid became part of the independent Slovenian state.

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway concerning events during the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The book, which was first published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as an Lieutenant (“Tenente”) in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.^[1]

A Farewell to Arms works on two literary levels. Firstly it is a story concerning the drama and passion of a doomed romance between Henry and British nurse, Catherine Barkley. But secondly, it also skilfully contrasts the meaning of personal tragedy against the impersonal destruction wrought by the Great War. Hemingway deftly captures the cynicism of soldiers, the futility of war, and the displacement of populations. Although this was Hemingway’s bleakest novel, its publication cemented his stature as a modern American writer.^[2]

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked A Farewell to Arms #74 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It was first adapted to film in 1932, with further versions in the following decades.^[3]

Plot summary

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Henry to Catherine Barkley; Henry attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine’s relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long after, the Austro-Germans break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the “battle police” where officers are being interrogated and executed for the “treachery” that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after hearing the execution of a Lt.Colonel, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowing boat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labour. After a long and painful labour, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.

Characters

Frederic Henry, often simply called “Tenente” (“Lieutenant”), is the narrator of the story. Henry is a volunteer ambulance driver from the United States. In Henry, we see the beginnings of what comes to be called Hemingway’s “Code Hero”: Henry is stoic under duress or pain; he modestly deflects praise for his contributions to the war; he is unflappable under fire; he does his work. He is a “man’s man,” in that his thoughts revolve on women (“girls”) and drink. He participates in and seems to enjoy the banal, everyday conversation between the soldiers. He is attracted to the simple goodness of the priest, who, like Henry (who is not religious), sticks to his beliefs despite the war’s constant presence. Henry is most characterized throughout the novel by his passionate love and dedication to Catherine Barkley.
Catherine Barkley is a British Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse. She loves the males so much that she started to write a short story about her love affairs with her fiance, who since has passed away. She volunteered in the war at the same time her fiance of eight years joined the army. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme. She is originally from Scotland, emotional, and dependent upon Henry’s love for her. Her sexual desires and her simple desire for companionship are sometimes at odds with her needs to tend to the ill. Like the code hero, she handles conflicting needs with grace, giving to both, but shorting none. Feminist thinkers will see in Catherine, Hemingway’s perfect woman: wise and cynical in many ways, her wisdom cannot contain her desire. As Henry gives his health and youth to the war effort, Catherine’s chief heroism is to accept the pain and death of childbirth stoically. Barkley has been “consistently ignored” as a code hero, probably because she is a woman^[4]
Rinaldi is a physician through whom Hemingway draws his idea of an Italian male. Sketched somewhat jingoistically, Rinaldi is unfailingly exuberant, ignoring small details that would stop his large and giving gestures. He loves women and alcohol, bearing a bottle of the latter and tales of the former to his friend Henry as Henry recovers from his wounds. He enjoys performing surgery, seeing it as an enjoyable challenge; he greets his friend Frederic Henry with a formal European-style kiss. He usually refers to Henry as “baby”. Rinaldi is a form of the code hero as well. He allows Hemingway to explore another, non-Anglo-American, way of being male, of facing even a difficult world, an injured Italy, with joie de vivre, ignoring all danger, giving himself. Henry reunites with a tired and syphilitic Rinaldi in the middle of the novel, illustrating the flaws of this approach to the war and to life.
The Priest The chaplain in Henry’s unit. Baited by the other officers, he is befriended by Henry, to whom he offers spiritual advice. The last time we see this character, his faith is wavering. Can also be interpreted as a “Code Hero”.
Helen Ferguson Catherine’s friend and fellow nurse, who expresses a strong distaste for Henry, because he impregnated her outside of marriage and during wartime. Hemingway based her on Kitty Cannell (1891 – 1974), an acquaintance of his who was a Paris-based American dance and fashion correspondent for major U.S. papers and periodicals.
Passini and Bonello Ambulance drivers serving under Henry.
Manera, Gavuzzi, Gordini, Piani and Aymo Other ambulance drivers.
Mrs. Walker An American nurse at the American hospital in Milan.
Miss Gage Another American nurse, sympathetic to Henry and Catherine’s affair.
Miss Van Campen The unsympathetic nursing superintendent at American Hospital in Milan.
Dr. Valentini A surgeon who is highly competent and full of joie de vivre.
Meyers A gloomy American expatriate.
Ettore Moretti An Italian-American Officer from San Francisco serving in the Italian army.
Ralph Simmons An American student of opera and Henry’s friend.
Count Greffi An old but vigorous Italian whom Henry knows from Stresa and who serves as a mentor to Henry.

Censorship

In print, the words “shit“, “fuck” and “cocksucker” were replaced with dashes (“—-”).^[5] There are at least two copies of the first edition in which Hemingway re-inserted the censored text by hand, so as to provide a corrected text. One of these copies was presented to Maurice Coindreau; the other, to James Joyce.^[5] Hemingway’s corrected text has not been incorporated into any published edition of the novel.

Autobiographical details

The novel was based on Hemingway’s own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a real nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.^[6] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Publication history

The novel is believed to have been written at the home of Hemingway’s in-laws in Piggott, Arkansas^[7] and at the home of friends of Hemingway’s wife Pauline Pfeiffer W. Malcolm and Ruth Lowry home at 6435 Indian Lane, Mission Hills, Kansas while she was awaiting delivery of their baby.^[8] His wife Pauline underwent a caesarean section as Hemingway was writing about Catherine Barkley’s childbirth.^[9]

The book was published at a time when many other World War I books were also appearing on the market. These included Frederic Manning‘s Her Privates We, Erich Maria Remarque‘s All Quiet on the Western Front, Richard Aldington‘s Death of a Hero and Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves. It was serialized in Scribner’s Magazine from May 1929 to October 1929. The book was published in September 1929 with a first edition print-run of approximately 31,000 copies.^[10]

The success of A Farewell to Arms made Hemingway financially independent.

Adaptations

The novel was adapted for the stage by Laurence Stallings in 1930.^[11]
The 1932 screen adaptation was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay was written by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Benjamin Glazer. It was directed by Frank Borzage and features the music of Richard Wagner. The movie stars Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou.^[12]

A Farewell to Arms was presented in five radio productions: December 1938 for CBS; during World War II for NBC; August 1948 for NBC; June 1949 for CBS; and October 1950 for NBC.

A 1957 remake starring Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones and Vittorio De Sica was directed by Charles Vidor and John Huston. De Sica was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.^[3]
The BBC broadcast an abridged adaptation – written by Giles Cooper, directed by Rex Tucker and starring Vanessa Redgrave and George Hamilton – on February 15, 1966.^[13]
The 1996 film In Love and War, starring Sandra Bullock and Chris O’Donnell, is loosely based on the novel. O’Donnell plays “Ernie”, a Red Cross ambulance driver stationed in Italy during World War I.

References

1. “George Peele: A Farewell to Arms (To Queen Elizabeth)”. The Day Poems Poetry Collection. http://www.daypoems.net/poems/104.html. Retrieved 2008-05-19.

2. Mellow 1992, p. 378

3. ^a ^b A Farewell to Arms (1957) at the Internet Movie Database

4. Catherine Barkley and the Hemingway Code: Ritual and Survival in “A Farewell to Arms.” Spanier, Sandra Whipple and Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: A Farewell to Arms; 1987, p131-148, 18p.

5. ^a ^b Hemingway, Ernest. “A Farewell to Arms.” (New York: Scribner, 1929). James Joyce Collection, the Poetry Collection (State University of New York at Buffalo), item J69.23.8 TC141 H45 F37 1929

6. Villard, Henry Serrano & Nagel, James. Hemingway in Love and War: The Lost Diary of Agnes von Kurowsky: Her letters, and Correspondence of Ernest Hemingway (ISBN 1-55553-057-5 H/B/ISBN 0-340-68898-X P/B)

7. “Hemingway-Pfeiffer Home Page”. Arkansas State University. http://hemingway.astate.edu/. Retrieved 2007-01-30.

8. “A Writer’s Haunts: Where He Worked and Where He Lived”

9. Meyers 1985, pp. 216–217

10. Oliver, p. 91

11. Oliver, p. 92

12. A Farewell to Arms (1932) at the Internet Movie Database

13. A Farewell to Arms (1966) at the Internet Movie Database

Sources

Baker, Carlos (1972). Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (4th ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01305-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=yP-cgVNr55wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:0691013055&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
Meyers, Jeffrey (1985). Hemingway: A Biography. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-42126-4.
Mellow, James R. (1992). Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-37777-3.
Oliver, Charles M. (1999). Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work. New York: Checkmark. ISBN 0-8160-3467-2.

DEFENSE STRATEGIC PLANNING FORUM: FEBRUARY 24 2011 WASHINGTON DC

Administrator — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:34:16 +0000

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600

Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: February 24th, 2011

Please mark your calendar for the 6th Annual Defense

Strategic Planning Forum, Thursday,

February 24th, 8:00AM-11:30AM, at the University Club,

Washington, DC.

This highly popular panel of defense industry strategists will offer their views on the latest DoD budget request and the major challenges facing the industry in the future. Please note the forum is not open to the press and is intended for industry contractors and government personnel only. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions of the panelists.

The Future of the Defense Industry: Panel Discussion

Moderator: Mr. Pierre Chao, Managing Partner, Renaissance Strategic Advisors
- Mr. Doug Belair, Sr. Vice President, Strategy and Planning, BAE Systems, Inc.
- Mr. Bill Bonadio, Vice President, Strategic Development, Boeing Defense, Space & Security
- VADM John G. Cotton, U.S. Navy (Retired), Senior Vice President, Maritime and Air Warfare Strategic Plans and Programs, DRS Technologies, Inc.
- Mr. Larry Edelman, VP Strategy & Operations, Northrop Grumman Information Systems
- Ms. Margaret Thompson, Vice President, Strategy Development, Rockwell Collins Government Systems
- Mr. Glenn Weissinger, Vice President, Strategic Planning, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

To register, go to
http://click.techamerica.us/?qs=a30918dc173923f5ab1279224d8f913c983d2c53a842d894e4320cb327e157e7
http://click.techamerica.us/?qs=a30918dc173923f5ab1279224d8f913c983d2c53a842d894e4320cb327e157e7

Vision Conference CD and Complimentary Registration to Defense Strategic Planning Forum!

The TechAmerica Foundation Vision Conference CD is available. The annual TechAmerica Foundation Vision study provides a rich, comprehensive and widely referenced analysis of federal spending and business opportunities for the future. The DoD presentations provide a ten-year outlook for U.S. defense spending, with the Federal IT focusing on agency presentations dedicated to forecasting the next five years of federal civilian information technology spending. This analysis is a “must-have” for strategic planning, market analysis and business development efforts within the federal government marketspace.

The CD includes twenty-six industry presentations that were made on October 20-21, 2010 during the 46th Annual Vision Conference. This is a result of a team effort that included over 300 industry volunteers dedicating over 14,000 man-hours of research and analysis.

DoD Day: Macroeconomic and DoD Topline Forecast, C4ISR/IT, Cybersecurity, Services & Support, NASA, Aircraft, Space, Ships, Vehicles, Missile Defense/Precision Munitions, Industry Outlook, and Military Health System. Federal IT Day: Federal IT Forecast, Game Changers, DHS, GSA, Federal Health (Health IT, HHS, VA), Treasury, Transportation, USDA, Justice, State, Commerce, Energy, and Cross Cutting Analysis of Contract Vehicles

Please refer to
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joanp@techamericafoundation.org

joanp@techamericafoundation.org (703) 284-5314 for assistance.

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600 Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600

Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: February 24th, 2011

Please mark your calendar for the 6th Annual Defense Strategic Planning Forum, Thursday,

February 24th, 8:00AM-11:30AM, at the University Club, Washington, DC.

The Future of the Defense Industry: Panel Discussion

Vision Conference CD and Complimentary Registration to Defense Strategic Planning Forum!

www.techamericafoundation.org/vision-cd or contact Joan Piccariello

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joanp@techamericafoundation.org (703) 284-5314 for assistance.

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600 Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600

Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: February 24th, 2011

Please mark your calendar for the 6th Annual Defense Strategic Planning Forum, Thursday,

February 24th, 8:00AM-11:30AM, at the University Club, Washington, DC.

The Future of the Defense Industry: Panel Discussion

Vision Conference CD and Complimentary Registration to Defense Strategic Planning Forum!

Please refer to
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Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600 Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600

Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: February 24th, 2011

Please mark your calendar for the 6th Annual Defense Strategic Planning Forum, Thursday,

February 24th, 8:00AM-11:30AM, at the University Club, Washington, DC.

The Future of the Defense Industry: Panel Discussion

Vision Conference CD and Complimentary Registration to Defense Strategic Planning Forum!

www.techamericafoundation.org/vision-cd or contact Joan Piccariello

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joanp@techamericafoundation.org (703) 284-5314 for assistance.

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600 Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning

Forum: Final Panel Announced

Jim Serafin jim.serafin@techamericafoundation.org

Tue, 11 Jan 2011

TechAmerica

601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600

Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: February 24th, 2011

Please mark your calendar for the 6th Annual Defense Strategic Planning Forum, Thursday,

February 24th, 8:00AM-11:30AM, at the University Club, Washington, DC.

The Future of the Defense Industry: Panel Discussion

Vision Conference CD and Complimentary Registration to Defense Strategic Planning Forum!

Please refer to
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joanp@techamericafoundation.org

joanp@techamericafoundation.org (703) 284-5314 for assistance.

Defense Strategic Planning Forum

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601 Pennsylvania Ave NW North Building STE 600 Washington, DC 20004 UNITED STATES

TechAmerica Foundation Defense Strategic Planning Forum: Final Panel Announced

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Tue, 11 Jan 2011

CAMBRIDGE FORECAST GROUP ESSAY: COMMENT ON “SHOCK OF THE GLOBAL” BOOK

Administrator — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:01:02 +0000

Cambridge Forecast Group Essay:

“The Shock of the Global” “The 1970s in Perspective”

The American defeat in Vietnam in 1975 and the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, accompanied by the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, all occurred as Bretton Woods died and “stagflation” took over, leading to an imperial crisis of confidence in the US which continues into 2011.

The American political elite eventually, in this weakened state, surrendered leadership to the Zionist neocons which led to the Iraq war and the global financial imperial schemes (“neoliberalism”) of Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Arthur Levitt, Alan Greenspan, Bernanke, which two panicky stratagems combined have led to the current financial/economic crisis in the US and globally.

The conniving at the Israeli blocking of a Palestine settlement and the blocking of Brooksley Born of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) by these leaders of the Wall Street/Treasury Complex, are two sides of an impractical and wilfully blind imperial coin. One imperialism is that of military conquest and “shock and awe”, the other financial imperialism with the World Bank and the IMF as the system’s “policemen” and the conquest of the world by U.S. finance.

These megatrends are not really understood in the following exemplary book, which sees some of the trees but not the forest.

The Shock of the Global

The 1970s in Perspective

Edited by Niall Ferguson

Charles S. Maier

Erez Manela

Daniel J. Sargent

Harvard University Press

Book Details:

448 pages

6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

4 graphs, 9 tables

Belknap Press

March 2010

From the vantage point of the United States or Western Europe, the 1970s was a time of troubles: economic “stagflation,” political scandal, and global turmoil. Yet from an international perspective it was a seminal decade, one that brought the reintegration of the world after the great divisions of the mid-twentieth century.

It was the 1970s that introduced the world to the phenomenon of “globalization,” as networks of interdependence bound peoples and societies in new and original ways.

The 1970s saw the breakdown of the postwar economic order and the advent of floating currencies and free capital movements. Non-state actors rose to prominence while the authority of the superpowers diminished. Transnational issues such as environmental protection, population control, and human rights attracted unprecedented attention. The decade transformed international politics, ending the era of bipolarity and launching two great revolutions that would have repercussions in the twenty-first century: the Iranian theocratic revolution and the Chinese market revolution.

The Shock of the Global examines the large-scale structural upheaval of the 1970s by transcending the standard frameworks of national borders and superpower relations. It reveals for the first time an international system in the throes of enduring transformations.

Comment:

Niall Ferguson is an “empire nostalgia’ theorist and neocon and therefore he cannot see the structural upheaval he senses.

As a passionate Israel supporter, Professor Charles Maier has the parallel problem.

The megapoint is that the global system wants to achieve post-Zionism while they want either global military violence or global ”financial violence” to subjugate the Third World, a total misreading of the global situation from the 1970s till the present.

We use the word “Zionomics” to describe a worldview where American violence and the overfinancialization of the world economy serve as a convenient opportunity for Israel to annex Palestine.

The point is that the global system needs the supercession and transcending of Zionomics. The issue is not how does Israel see the world but rather, how does the world see Israel?

Washington, in its imperial panic, doesn’t see this, though Obama, with his Muslim-friendly speeches in Cairo and Djakarta, vaguely senses this.

Zionomics—the cluster of imperial views explained above—is part of the West/Third World/Israel historical traffic jam in the world, economically and politically.

EARLY COLONIAL GLOBALIZATION AND THE SPANISH “SYSTEM OF CASTES”

Administrator — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 23:08:28 +0000

Sistema de Castas (1500s-ca. 1829)

Sistema de Castas (System or Society of Castes)

Sistema de Castas (System of Castes) was a porous racial classification system in colonial New Spain (present-day Mexico).

It was a “hierarchal ordering of racial groups according to their proportion of Spanish blood.” In this system, notable categories with significant meaning were espanol (Spaniard), castizo, morisco, mestizo, mulatto, indio (Indian), and negro (black). At the sistema de castas most extreme, there were more than forty classifications, with espanol being the most desirable and negro being the least desirable for sociopolitical purposes. Race, color, physical features, occupation, and wealth in this society mattered as Spanish officials attempted to control every aspect of a person’s life from employment to regulating dress codes and friendships.

Within the Castas, most persons of African descent were categorized between Spaniard and Negro, and identified as mulatto or racially intermingled hispanicized citizens of predominant African heritage. Socially, blacks were marginalized in Colonial Spanish affairs and were systematically victimized by an institutional discrimination designed to quell civil unrest through assimilating them as ladinos (Spanish speakers) and integrating them into a feudal caste society.

This pattern of customary and legal oppression led to many persons of African descent choosing to move to the frontier of New Spain (what is now Northern Mexico and the Southwest United States). From 1531 to 1800, Afro-Mexicans came to the Southwest from Mexican states on the Northern frontier like Vera Cruz and Coahuila and, after 1700, from states on the Pacific Coast such as Sinaloa and Michoacán de Ocampo. The initial recruits for frontier settlements like San Jose, California, were lighter-complexioned Spanish colonists, many of whom declined to participate because of “low pay, poor uniforms, antiquated weapons, insufficient housing, extended absences from families, and the overall unattractiveness of the Spanish military” and settlement. Bearing the brunt of what awaited on the frontier were mestizos/as and mullatos/as who served in the place of these lighter-complexioned colonists usually identified as espanoles and criollos (i.e., persons of near-Spanish descent born in the Americas). As a result, multiracial settlements from San Antonio to Los Angeles had large black populations ranging from 20 to 55 percent.

Moreover, because of the scarcity of Spanish-speaking women on the frontier, racial intermingling with Native American women and smaller numbers of African women was a wide-spread practice, which populated the newly conquered region with a new race of people identified as Latin American.

The fluid nature of the Castas did allow for a few persons of African descent to attain a socioeconomically elevated status more frequently on the Colonial Spanish frontier than in the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. Mulatto Pedro Huizar, for example, was able to become a Don (Spanish nobleman) at Mission San Jose and thus change his status to espanol in 1793. Huizar was born and raised at Aguascalientes, Mexico, acquiring many skills in the arts and building trades. Around 1778, he journeyed north, first to San Antonio de Bexar, and finally, el Pueblo de San Jose, where he worked as a sculptor, mission carpenter, and surveyor. As Huizar’s changed racial status shows, racial lines became so blurred through biological and occupational miscegenation that they became useless to Spanish census takers and other Iberian officials by 1800.

The Castas was officially dismantled by the 1830s, following the wars of independence raging throughout Latin America in the 1810s-1820s.

Sources:
R. Douglas Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994); Lawrence B. De Graaf, Kevin Mulroy, and Quintard Taylor (et al.), Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001); Ilona Katzew, Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); Douglas Monroy, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Leslie B. Rout, The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the West, 1528-1990 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998).

Ruffin II, Herbert G.
Syracuse University

SUGAR AND SLAVES IN EARLY GLOBALIZATION: “THE MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY” MOVIE

Administrator — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:04:40 +0000

What we call globalization is partly ushered in by European transplanting of slaves, sugar and other botanical sources of wealth, around the globe, as shown by the various movies based on the “Mutiny on the Bounty” events. European imperial and business rivalries are themselves the backcloth to this global ‘rejiggering.”

The Mutiny on the Bounty: A Chronology

September 9, 1754

William Bligh is christened in Plymouth, England.

September 25, 1764

Fletcher Christian is born in Cumberland, England.

February 1775

The West India Committee, a group of merchants and property owners, proposes introducing breadfruit, first discovered in the South Pacific in 1748, to the West Indies.

1776

William Bligh serves as sailing master aboard the Resolution on Captain Cook’s final voyage to Tahiti, new Zealand, and other points in the Pacific.

February 14, 1779

William Bligh witnesses the murder of Captain Cook by natives on Hawaii.

1783

Fletcher Christian has his first sea experience as master’s mate on the Eurydice, a warship sailing to India.

February 1787

Prime Minister Pitt formally announces to the West India Committee that the British government will sponsor an expedition to the South Pacific to retrieve breadfruit for eventual transplanting in the West Indies.

June 1787

Secretary of State Sydney announces the purchase of a ship, to be called “the Bounty” and to be commanded by Lt. Bligh, which will voyage to the South Pacific.

August 16, 1787

William Bligh’s commission as commanding officer of the Bounty commences.

October 9, 1787

The Bounty is taken out of the River Thames by a pilot on the first leg of what will prove to be an historic journey.

Early November, 1787

Bligh arrives in Spithead, England to await sailing orders for the vessel Bounty.

November 28, 1787

Bligh takes the Bounty out to sea, but is forced to anchor on the Isle of Wight because of bad winds.

December 23, 1787

After weeks of delays, the Bounty finally departs England.

February 17, 1788

While in Tenerife (Canary Islands), Bligh sends a letter to Joseph Banks, the man most responsible for organizing and supporting the Bounty’s voyage.

May 24, 1788

After a futile attempt to round the stormy Cape of Good Hope, the Bounty arrives at Cape Horn, on the southern tip of Africa.

October 26, 1788

The Bounty arrives in Tahiti. Bligh soon sets about his mission of arranging for the gathering of breadfruit. Most of the men of the Bounty soon are taken into the homes of Tahitians and settle into routines.

January 5, 1789

Three crewmen of the Bounty desert. The three men are eventually rounded up and, upon Bligh’s orders, flogged on February 2.

April 5, 1789

The Bounty, under Bligh’s command and loaded with breadfruit plants, leaves Tahiti en route for England.

April 21, 1789

Bligh and Fletcher Christian exchange harsh words. Christian tells Bligh, “I have been in hell for weeks with you.”

April 27, 1789

Bligh confronts officers, who he blames for taking coconuts from the Bounty’s stash. Bligh, according to one eyewitness account, tells Fletcher Christian and other officers, “I’ll sweat it for you rascals. I’ll make half of you jump overboard before we get through Endeavor Straits.”

April 28, 1789

The mutiny on the Bounty: Around dawn, Bligh is seized while sleeping by a gang of mutineers. Bligh and other loyalists are set to sea in a 24-foot launch. For the next 48 days, Bligh and his men will battle hostile natives, ferocious storms, and dwindling provisions before arriving in Coupang, Dutch East Indies.

May 24, 1789

The Bounty anchors off Tubuai (350 miles south of Tahiti) with its crew intending to stay there, but sails again a week later for Tahiti, then returns again to Tubuai, where it remains for three months.

July 1789

Bounty mutineers fight with Tubuaians over women and property, leaving 66 Tubuaians dead.

August 20, 1789

Bligh and his entourage leave Coupang in a purchased schooner, the Resource, bound for Batavia in Java. After making their way to Batvia on October 1, Bligh and his entourage will, two weeks later, board the Dutch East Indiaman, the Vlijt, bound for the Cape of Good Hope and Holland.

September 21, 1789

The Bounty, under the command of Fletcher Christian, drops 16 shipmates at Matavai Bay, Tahiti, and then departs Tahiti for the last time.

January 15, 1790

The Bounty, with 9 mutineers and 11 Tahitian women, six Tahitian men, and one child arrive at Pitcairn Island. After possessions and goods are removed from the Bounty, it is set on fire.

March 13, 1790

William Bligh returns to England and word of the mutiny on the Bounty begins to spread around the nation.

Early November 1790

The ship Pandora, commissioned to journey to the South Pacific and retrieve as many of the Bounty mutineers as possible, departs England.

March 23, 1791

The Pandora arrives at Matavai Bay, Tahiti, where a large group of mutineers remain.

April 3, 1791

The last of fourteen fugitives in Tahiti are rounded up and broad on board the Pandora.

May 8, 1791

The Pandora leaves Tahiti with the Resolution, a schooner belonging to the mutineers, in tow. For the next three months, the Pandora travels around the South Pacific in a futile search for the other party of mutineers.

August 29, 1791

The Pandora, on its way back to England, hits ground and sinks on a reef between New Guinea and Australia. The surviving men take to lifeboats and begin sailing toward Coupang in the Dutch East Indies.

September 16, 1791

The survivors of the Pandora’s sinking, after drinking the blood of birds and their own urine, arrive in Coupang.

October 6, 1791

Captain Edwards (formerly commander of the Pandora) and his crew and prisoners depart Coupang on a Dutch ship.

October 30, 1791

The ship carrying the captured Bounty mutineers arrives on the north coast of Java where, miraculously, the Resolution, the ship built by mutineers and which had been lost with a small crew four months earlier in stormy seas, is found.

December 25, 1791

The Dutch ship Vreendenburg leaves Batavia with 27 officers and men of the Pandora and ten surviving captured mutineers.

April 5, 1792

Captain Edwards, some of his crew, and the captured mutineers board the British man-of-war, the Gorgon, at the Cape of Good Hope for the final leg of the voyage back to England.

May 1, 1792

A prayer book (with “not a leaf of it defaced”) belonging to a convict is found in the belly of a shark caught off the side of the Gorgon. [Not critical to the chronology, but interesting, don't you think?]

June 19, 1792

The Gorgon, carrying the ten men who will soon face charges of mutiny, anchors at Spithead, England.

September 12, 1792

The court-martial of ten Bounty mutineers begins on the Duke in Portsmouth, England.

September 18, 1792

Twelve post-captains return their verdicts in the Bounty court-martial. Six of the ten are convicted and sentenced to be “hanged by the neck.” Mercy is recommended for two (Peter Heywood and James Morrison). Four other defendants (Morman, Coleman, McIntosh, and Byrn) are acquitted.

October 26, 1792

Heywood and Morrison learn that they have received a full and unconditional pardon from the king.

October 29, 1792

Three convicted mutineers (John Millward, Thomas Ellison, and Thomas Burkett) are hanged on the Brunswick.

1793

According to one plausible account, Fletcher Christian is murdered by a Tahitian male while digging in his field on Pitcairn Island. (Other accounts place Christian’s murder somewhat later–as late as 1797.)

February 1808

An American sealer, the Topaz, lands on mischarted Pitcairn Island. A double canoe with three young English-speaking men come to greet the ship. Pitcairn Island is discovered to be home to a colony of 35 persons–the widows and offspring of Bounty mutineers and one surviving mutineer, Alexander Smith.

December 7, 1817

William Bligh dies at the age of 64.

1829

Mutineer John Adams dies at age 66 on Pitcairn Island.

1834

William Purcell, the last surviving officer of the Bounty, dies.

1841

Mauatua, the Tahitian wife of Fletcher Christian, dies on Pitcairn Island.

The Mutiny on the Bounty: A Chronology

Historical Context:

What we call globalization is partly ushered in by European transplanting of slaves, sugar and other botanical sources of wealth, around the globe. European imperial and business rivalries are themselves the backcloth to this global ‘rejiggering.”

In the 18th and early 19th centuries the British colonies in the Caribbean were of considerable value to Britain as a result of the wealth created from slave‐grown sugar and other tropical produce, and from the profits of the ‘African trade’, which supplied the Caribbean plantations with their slaves.

This wealth made it possible for those with financial interests in the Caribbean colonies, either as owners of land and slaves (whether residents in the colonies or absentee owners living in Britain), or as merchants in Britain trading in colonial produce, to influence the political process in Britain in various ways. The effect of all this, and the individuals involved, were collectively referred to as the ‘West India interest’.

From the late 17th century the various colonies in the Caribbean began to appoint what were called ‘colonial agents’ in Britain, a system that continued until the middle of the 19th century. The colonial agents were paid lobbyists acting on behalf of the local legislatures of their respective colonies, legislatures that largely consisted of, and represented the interests of, members of the plantation‐owning class. The agents’ function was to keep the British government, and people of influence in Britain, mindful of the importance of the sugar colonies, and to ensure that any British legislation that affected them did so in a manner that was as favourable to the plantation owners as possible.

The agents were often members of the British Parliament. This was made possible, as was the presence of significant numbers of other MPs at Westminster with Caribbean connections, by the structure of British politics in the 18th century.

While members of the House of Commons were in theory the elected representatives of the people, the right to vote was severely limited by property qualifications, and in most constituencies only a small proportion of adult males enjoyed the right to vote. For historical reasons, there were a number of constituencies with very few or even no voters at all, and these so‐called ‘pocket boroughs’, or ‘rotten boroughs’, were effectively the property of the most influential local landowners (who were thus in a position to nominate the MPs), or could be bought and sold. Even in constituencies with a wider franchise, a sufficiently wealthy candidate could normally secure election by bribing the voters. Once in Parliament, the MP was in a position to trade his vote for influence on issues that interested him, or for the fruits of government patronage. It was a system that openly acknowledged the power of money to buy political influence, and in the 18th century some of the richest men in Britain (like William Beckford and his son) were ‘West Indians’, a term which in the period normally referred, not to the black slave, but to the white owner of slave‐cultivated plantations in Britain’s Caribbean colonies.

In 1764, at what was probably the high point of their influence, a contemporary (the agent for Massachusetts) estimated that there were between 50 and 60 West Indian members of the House of Commons, who were able to swing any vote whichever way they pleased. Their wealth, and the political power this gave them, allowed the West Indians to marry into the established British aristocracy, so that there also came to be members of the House of Lords who either owned Caribbean plantations themselves, or were closely related to those who did.

“GOD CRIED”: TONY CLIFTON BOOK ON THE SIEGE OF BEIRUT IN 1982

Administrator — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:42:12 +0000

God Cried

Tony Clifton (Author)

Catherine Leroy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Recounts the 1982 siege of Beirut by the Israeli Army and describes the pain and suffering caused by the fighting.

This review is from: God Cried (Hardcover)

Tony Clifton’s book “God Cried,” represents the main body of published photographic documentation of the Israeli terror-bombing of downtown Beirut, Lebanon in the summer of 1982, when clearly marked schools, hospitals and apartment blocs were deliberately and mercilessly bombed.

Tens of thousands of civilians died in this now forgotten holocaust. There is still some discussion of Sabra and Chatila, the September massacre of Palestinians by the Phalange under Israeli direction, but the far more horrid and extensive massacre represented by the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of the civilian sectors of Beirut is almost completely forgotten, seemingly even by many Lebanese, and certainly by the US media.

But until the last copy of “God Cried” is stamped out, the truth will out.
–Michael Hoffman, co-author, “The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians.”

This shocking book reveals the pure, unadulterated terror the State of Israel inflicted on this sad land. Both the pictures and the prose bring home the brutality of what Israel did (and is doing) to the Palestinian people.

Some of the conclusions, written in 1982/83, hauntingly resonate today with a clarity that only those which have withstood the test of time can. Clifton, an award-winning journalist with Newsweek and photographer Cathrine Leroy (also winner of numerous prestigious prizes) have put together more than a documentary account of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent siege of Beirut and the massacres of Sabra and Shatila. With unquestionable evidence they have produced a scathing commentary on Israel‘s brutal war of terror waged against an innocent people.

This review is from: God Cried (Hardcover)

This book gives its readers a glimpse into the suffering the Palestinian and Lebanese people have had to endure, under the merciless assault of the Israeli Army, that seems to get away with all its terror with full Western backing, especially American.

Product Details:

· Hardcover: 141 pages

· Publisher: Quartet Books (UK) First Edition

· October 1983

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0704323753

· ISBN-13: 978-0704323759

God Cried

Tony Clifton (Author)

Catherine Leroy (Author)

“STRATEGIC ASIA 2010-2011″

Administrator — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:31:19 +0000

THE NATIONAL BUREAU of ASIAN RESEARCH

The National Bureau of Asian Research (nbr@nbr.org)

Wed 9/15/10

New Publication Release

STRATEGIC ASIA 2010-11

Asia’s Rising Power and America’s Continued Purpose

Ashley J. Tellis, Andrew Marble, and Travis Tanner, eds.

The tenth anniversary volume in the annual, edited Strategic Asia series takes stock of where the Strategic Asia region stands a decade after the first volume in the series was published in 2001.

Strategic Asia 2010-11: Asia’s Rising Power and America’s Continued Purpose
Ashley J. Tellis, Andrew Marble, and Travis Tanner, eds.
ISBN 978-0-9818904-1-8 | 356pp. | Paperback: $34.95
Volume PDF: $19.95 | Chapter PDF: $4.95

Purchase the PDF format or order the book now.

Download the Strategic Asia 2010-11 Executive Brief.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click on the titles listed below to read each Executive Summary.

OVERVIEW

Strategic Asia: Continuing Success with Continuing Risks
Ashley J. Tellis
Carnegie International Endowment for Peace

CHAPTERS

The Geopolitics of Strategic Asia, 2000-2020
Aaron L. Friedberg
Princeton University

Asia and the World Economy in 2030: Growth, Integration, and Governance
Peter A. Petri
Brandeis University

Military Modernization in the Asia-Pacific: Assessing New Capabilities
Richard A. Bitzinger
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University

The Rise of Energy and Resource Nationalism in Asia
Mikkal E. Herberg
NBR & University of California San Diego

The Implications of Expanded Nuclear Energy in Asia
Charles D. Ferguson
Federation of American Scientists

Asia’s Security and the Contested Global Commons
Abraham M. Denmark
Center for a New American Security

Climate Change and Environmental Impact
Richard A. Matthew
University of California, Irvine

Asia-Pacific Demographics in 2010-2040: Implications for Strategic Balance
Nicholas Eberstadt
American Enterprise Institute

Politico-Economic and Radical Islamic Challenges to Democracy
Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi
University of Indiana, Bloomington

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Strategic Asia Book Launch Event

Featuring a keynote presentation by:

Kurt M. Campbell

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Sept. 29, 2010
9:00-11:30 a.m.

Please join us for a book launch marking the release of the Strategic Asia 2010-11 volume at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, Kenney Auditorium, on September 29.

Select contributors to the volume will present key research findings that provide a continent-wide net assessment of the core trends and issues affecting the region.

RSVP by Friday, September 24. Space is limited. For further information, contact Melissa Colonno.

Strategic Asia Program

The Strategic Asia Program produces annual studies intended to contribute toward more effective U.S. policy, and is equally concerned with creating a scholarly product of enduring value.

Previous volumes in the Strategic Asia series have become standing reference works in the policy, governmental, intelligence, and academic communities.

THE NATIONAL BUREAU of ASIAN RESEARCH

The National Bureau of Asian Research (nbr@nbr.org)

Wed 9/15/10

FRENCH COLONIALISM AND THE MODERN WORLD-SYSTEM

Administrator — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:01:52 +0000

French Colonial Warfare and the Emergence of the

Modern World-System

France’s “new colonial expansion” began in June 1830 when an expeditionary force of 37,000 men was landed near Algiers, their purpose being “to avenge an insult to the consul of France by the local ruler, the bey of Algiers.”

In the military classic, Makers of Modern Strategy [1],

Chapter 10 is entitled: Bugeaud, Gallieni, Lyautey: The Development of French Colonial Warfare.

The author of this chapter, Jean Gottmann, a teacher in the Army Specialized Training Program at Princeton when this collection of essays on the development of military theory appeared, tells us by way of introduction:

“Colonial warfare is quite different from what is commonly known as continental warfare. It is generally fought in remote countries over large areas of unknown territory, against a foe superior in number and in his knowledge of the terrain but inferior in material organization and in means of supply from abroad. In colonial wars quality must therefore balance a probable inferiority in quantity, and a colonial war is, by its very nature, fought between adversaries of strikingly different levels of civilization.”

By levels of “civilization,” the author obviously means levels of technological development.

Expounding the theory of colonial warfare, Gottmann notes that “as far as possible,” the campaign “must avoid destruction.” One reason is “to preserve the productive potential of the theater of operations,” but more importantly “because the conquered country is to be integrated immediately after the conquest into the ‘imperial’ whole, politically as well as economically.”

“Preserving” the Enemy

Thus it is “desirable” that “the territory should be in the best possible condition when conquest has been effected. The problem is not so much ‘to defeat the enemy in the most decisive manner’ as to subordinate him at the lowest cost and in a way to guarantee permanent pacification.”

French imperialism learned how to do this in practice before it developed the body of military theory which still governs thinking in the domain of colonial conquest.

The French forces quickly took Algiers but they ran into difficulty in extending their conquest into the interior.

“The native forces were at home; their chief weapon was mobility. Gathering suddenly at unexpected points, they attacked columns, raided convoys, set French establishments afire; they attacked columns on the flanks and from the rear, inflicting heavy losses, destroying or stealing equipment. Then they disappeared, melting away into the landscape before the heavy European military machine had a chance to re-form and resume operations.”

For ten years the French “generally met disaster,” until in 1840 Marshal Thomas Bugeaud was appointed governor general and commander in chief in Algeria. In six years he pacified the country. He discarded the Napoleonic concepts of warfare that had been perfected in Europe and set out to increase the mobility of the French colonial army, converting it into a force proficient in counterguerrilla war.

One of his primary aims was to strike fear in “the natives.” “In this and many other respects Bugeaud followed the lines of the ancient Roman strategy in Africa.” As with the Romans, Bugeaud took as his principal aim not so much to defeat the indigenous population as to “subdue” them “so that after a defeat they will not attempt to reorganize for battle at another time and place.” This required the employment of economic and political means as well as the force of arms. We see that the concepts operative in modern colonial war do have a respectable age if they are not so respectable in other ways.

Bugeaud, in Gottmann’s opinion, knew how to make his study of history pay off:

“This restoration of the tactics of ancient Rome in the nineteenth century proved wise and successful: Since the epoch of Jugurtha, in defiance of time, neither the terrain nor the tactics of the natives had changed. The methods used by the Romans to conquer the province of Africa was [sic] used by the French with equal success. The thorough training in the classics given in French colleges thus proved an incalculable aid to French generals in Africa.

“Bugeaud, utilizing the Roman battle formation of the square, did not forget the importance of political action in the ancient techniques of empire building. He endeavored to weaken the enemy by internal discord and division, playing on the antagonisms between varied interests, groups, and leaders. Political warfare remained for the French, and for all other expansionist powers, one of the main weapons. Thus Bugeaud laid the foundation of a new school of military thought which developed even more in the following half century. In the ranks of the French armies he was the first soldier of the nineteenth century to renounce Napoleon’s teaching as unsuited to every particular environment. He revived old Roman methods which had yielded good results.”

Bugeaud’s concepts were further developed by Marshal Joseph Gallieni, who became famous among colonial butchers for his skill in “pacification” work in Indochina at the turn of the century, above all in Tonkin, whose capital, Hanoi, is now a familiar name even to children barely old enough to turn on a television switch. Gallieni succeeded in pacifying rebellious Tonkin in four years (1892-96). He was then transferred to Madagascar where his good works gained him even greater renown.

In Indochina Gallieni trained a younger officer from Paris, Louis-Hubert Lyautey, whom he later called to Madagascar for additional experience. Lyautey in time gained an independent niche in the history of imperialist conquest as the pacifier of Morocco. It is mainly to Lyautey that military theory owes the codification of French experience in subduing Indochina, Madagascar and North Africa. In a “brilliant article” published in 1900 Lyautey expounded these concepts.

The first concept is “progressive occupation.” Instead of columns thrusting like spears into the countryside, the front should be a “regularly progressing tide” of occupying forces.

“There was no intention, of course, of suppressing completely the column of attacking troops: Such an operation is generally indispensable at the outset to impress the enemy with his inferiority to the military force of the colonizing power,” Gottmann explains. “But no definite and lasting achievement results from the ‘coup de force’ alone, occupation must follow and here we have Lyautey’s famous statement: ‘Military occupation consists less in military operations that in an organization on the march’.” [Emphasis in original.]

And what does “an organization on the march” mean?

“It is an organization of the conquered territory set up, not behind the active front, but marching step by step with the armies as they advance. This organization must not be simply a new hierarchy imposed on the area but a network covering it, worked out in advance in the most minute detail and with the greatest care.”

General Duchemin, an ardent disciple of Gallieni, drew the following vivid analogy in describing how to handle “pirates” – as guerrilla fighters were called in those days by the imperialist bandits:

“The pirate is a plant which grows only on certain grounds … The most efficient method is to render the ground unsuitable to him … There are no pirates in completely organized countries. To pluck wild plants is not sufficient: One must plough the conquered soil, enclose it, and then sow it with the good grain, which is the only means to make it unsuitable to the tares. The same happens on the land desolated by piracy: Armed occupation, with or without armed combat, ploughs it; the establishment of a military belt encloses and isolates it; finally the reconstitution and equipment of the population, the installation of markets and cultures, the construction of roads, sow the good grain and make the conquered region unsuitable to the pirate, if it is not the latter himself who, transformed, cooperates in this evolutionary process.”

The language of this official 1895 report to the governor general of Indochina sounds rather quaint now.

Besides “an organization on the march,” a correct political approach is an absolute essential. This was stressed by Gallieni himself in instructions issued May 22, 1898, at Madagascar:

“The best means for achieving pacification in our new colony is provided by combined application of force and politics. It must be remembered that, in the course of colonial struggles, we should turn to destruction only as a last resort and only as a preliminary to better reconstruction. We must always treat the country and its inhabitants with consideration, since the former is destined to receive our future colonial enterprises and the latter will be our main agents and collaborators in the development of our enterprises.

“Every time that the necessities of war force one of our colonial officers to take action against a village or an inhabited center, his first concern, once submission of the inhabitants has been achieved, should be reconstruction of the village, creation of a market, and establishment of a school. It is by combined use of politics and force that pacification of a country and its future organization will be achieved. Political action is by far the more important. It derives its greater power from the organization of the country and its inhabitants.” [Emphasis in the original.]

This really has a modern ring! Our first concern must be reconstruction-once submission of the inhabitants has been secured … What else but such topics did Johnson discuss with his protégé Ky at Honolulu?

“As pacification gains ground,” continued Gallieni, “the country becomes more civilized, markets are reopened, trade is re-established. The role of the soldier becomes of secondary importance. The activity of the administrator begins. It is necessary, on the one hand, to study and satisfy the social requirements of the subject people and, on the other hand, to promote the development of colonization, which will utilize the natural resources of the soil and open the outlets for European trade.”

That should now read “American” trade, of course.

Besides “progressive occupation,” and “organization on the march,” Lyautey stresses the conversion of the colonial army into an administrative setup in which the police function is relegated to “special troops, the military and civilian police.”

From Terror to Reconstruction

In other words, the troops that invade a country marked for imperialist victimization deliberately aim in their first moves to strike the deepest possible fear and terror in the indigenous population by demonstrating an implacability and military superiority that appear absolutely invincible.

Then through a series of transitional stages this same occupation force moves toward reconstruction, toward the conversion of leading indigenous figures into servile agents (the “anti-Communists” of today), and finally toward domination of the country’s economy, complete control of its politics, and – in the good old days of imperialism – outright administration.

With this pattern clearly conceived from the very beginning, the imperialist conquerors try to keep their tactics supple so as to facilitate passing over into the successive stages as smoothly as possible. In fact, they seek to combine them where it can be done. “Pacification” is viewed as part and parcel of military action – the positive component of the war of conquest.

In 1903 Lyautey was sent to western Algeria where Moroccan tribes were giving the French imperialists “trouble.” His assignment was to “pacify” Morocco. This took many years, the climax coming after 1912 when he was made the resident general and commander in chief of the country, a post he kept until 1925. In a letter to Gallieni dated November 14, 1903, Lyautey outlined his objectives. Gottmann describes them as follows:

“Two points in particular deserve special comment for they were to remain the bases of Lyautey’s Moroccan strategy and policy. 1. In the field of diplomacy he advocated a loyal alliance with the sultan’s government and representatives. No action was to be taken in Moroccan territory except in agreement with the official Moroccan authorities and with their help. This ‘entente cordiale’ was the basis of the protectorate.

“2. In the field of strategy one paragraph of the letter is fundamental: ‘In fact, the final establishment of the system of protection that I project will be accomplished very gradually; it would be impossible for me to assign even an approximate date for its realization, although I incline to believe that the result can be achieved more rapidly than most people think. It will advance not by column, nor by mighty blows, but as a patch of oil spreads, through a step by step progression, playing alternately on all the local elements, utilizing the divisions and rivalries between tribes and between their chiefs.’ The strategy of the ‘oil patch,’ the famous ‘tâche d’huile,’ will take its place in history as the phrase which best characterizes the French penetration and pacification of Morocco.”

Lyautey’s work in Morocco “is now reputed to be the masterpiece of French colonization,” according to Gottmann. In 1912, when Lyautey began final operations, the country was in “complete revolt.” In two expeditions Lyautey re-established control of the main cities.

“Those were swift and daring blows, frequently studied since and described by colonial and military historians as models. The speed of the initial success was largely due to Lyautey’s policy with respect to the natives which was put into effect from the first day. Its ultimate success depended, of course, on the period that followed.”

The secret was to combine the military blows with “organization on the march … To support the advancing front, a large scale and costly policy of economic development was immediately started in the rear: The hostile tribes had to be convinced of the advantages of French rule. In two years appreciable results were obtained.” Lyautey called it the “policy of the smile.”

In the final stage the tactic of the “oil patch” was used to conquer the mountain fastnesses where tribes lived that “accepted no rule, not even that of the sultan, and they were determined to fight to death against the foreigners.” Lyautey’s sophisticated strategy proved sufficient to subdue them – at least for a time.

Technological Advances

Since Lyautey’s day, the imperialist military theory of colonial war has made no basic advance.

“The principal improvements added to Lyautey’s strategy and tactics after 1925,” Gottmann notes, “were largely due to the extensive use by his pupils of the newest weapons which advancing military technology put at their disposal: the motor car and the airplane. Both fitted admirably into the Moroccan picture, for the dominant trend of colonial warfare was toward increased mobility.

Henceforth the tools were at hand. Motorization of the columns and of the services of supply greatly increased the speed and effectiveness of encircling movements and surprise blows. Bombing from the air robbed the natives of their chief trump card: fire from dominating positions in the mountains.

These modern methods were especially employed in the last steps of the Moroccan pacification of 1931-1934.”

In his Instruction Generate, issued February 19, 1932, General Huré summed up the directives for the employment of motorized columns.

“It shows,” says Gottmann, “the application of both Bugeaud’s and Lyautey’s lessons: Attack is made on large fronts ensuring the safety of the rear; in the mountains, action is through parallel or convergent valley; attack is by surprise from bases carefully prepared in the rear and progressing with rapidity. The terrain is conquered by auxiliary units, artillery and air force, then occupied by the regular troops (native troops have a better knowledge of the terrain and a greater mobility but, as they are unable to hold the area taken, this is done by the regular troops which thus will have to fight only in defensive positions). The terrain must be organized as soon as conquered – shovels and pick axes are as necessary as rifles and guns; every conquered position must be linked to the rear by a road as soon as possible; it is by means of roads that the country is controlled.”

How little has been changed in the basic concepts of colonial war since Lyautey’s time was indicated by the “New York Times” commentator Hanson Baldwin on Vietnam in the late sixties.

Lyautey’s writings still constituted the Pentagon’s bible and Naldwin’s basic analyses in the general strategy of colonial war in Vietnam.

It was a considerable error to think that in Vietnam what can be expected is a repetition of French experience in conquering Indochina, Algeria, Madagascar and Morocco with American military prowess compensating for the handicaps involved in pacifying “natives” who have already been “pacified” many times.

Revolutionary Expertise

Second, the accumulated experience of the Vietnamese people counted heavily in the scales in the conflict with American imperialism. They were no longer the same kind of people as those on whom Gallieni and Lyautey first tested out their concepts. Besides their early experience with French imperialism, the Vietnamese added the experience of the struggle with the Japanese imperialist invaders and then the invasion mounted by the French once more after World War II.

In each case the imperialist invaders followed the same basic concepts-the concepts of Bugeaud, Galliéni and Lyautey, right down to the “oil spot” technique, the use of economic blandishments and the support of venal types in the national political arena willing to betray their people and serve as puppets.

Lyautey’s modern disciples.

Footnote

1. This book, edited by Edward Mead Earle, was published in 1944 by Princeton University Press.

Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age

Peter Paret (Editor)

Gordon A. Craig (Editor)

Felix Gilbert (Editor)

Makers of Modern Strategy , first published in 1943, deserved and demanded updating. The 28 essays in the new volume offer 7 more than in the original and range from excellent to outstanding. They reflect the skills of a cross-section of leading military historians. But re viving a classic is a difficult task. Some original contributions were discarded, some rewritten, some left virtually in tact. Old and new frequently coexist awkwardly, as when Hajo Holbom and Gunther Rothenberg compete for 19th- century Germany. The editors’ reluctance to impose a common format added to an intellectual diffusion most visible in a split between biographic and thematic approaches. As a result, this revision cannot equal its predecessor’s status as a standard text. As an antholo gy, however, the work is brilliantly successful and that is no mean achievement.

Review

[The essays] are authoritative and convincing. Taken together, they demonstrate the complexity of strategy and the importance of it being closely integrated with politics. — Review

Product Details:

· Hardcover: 566 pages

· Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr. 1st Ed.

· June 1943

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0691069077

· ISBN-13: 978-0691069074

Product Details:

· Paperback: 942 pages

· Publisher: Princeton University Press

· March 1 1986

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0691027641

· ISBN-13: 978-0691027647

French Modern:

Norms and Forms of the Social Environment

Paul Rabinow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This path-breaking book opens up topics for some new, contemporary analysis of modernity that go well beyond its immediate occasion in the colonial city…. It is a stimulating and exciting performance.”

—Fredric R. Jameson

Product Description

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described.

Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.

Product Details:

· Paperback: 464 pages

· Publisher: University Of Chicago Press

· December 1 1995

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0226701743

· ISBN-13: 978-0226701745

The idea that colonies were laboratories of modernity has become a central tenet of foucauldian studies (Foucault’s own theoretical perspective was centered on the archeology of Western knowledge, and he didn’t devote much attention to colonies and empires). According to this line of thought, the creation of norms and forms suitable for the government of society, the disciplining of bodies, and the constitution of selves owes much to the colonial experience, where these norms and disciplines were first tested and implemented.

This axiom has generated many academic studies (works by Timothy Mitchell or Ann Laura Stoler come to mind). However, it raises several questions. First, how is it to be reconciled with the view, standard in French historiography, that the two world wars and particularly the Vichy episode were formative eras during which most elements constitutive of French modernity were laid down?

In other words, are the origins of the French modern to be found in colonies and imperial rule, or in wartime governmentality and European centers of power?

Second, the scholar needs to turn his or her attention to colonial officers who experimented with new modes of coercion and subjectification of populations. Most of them came from the higher layers of French society, and had received their education and training prior to their assignments to the empire’s outposts. If there was indeed an enormous amount of knowledge produced in and for the colonies, these ideas and techniques did not come fully armed from the minds of almighty colonial administrators. They had their origins in metropolitan France, where they were first conceived and made intelligible in a certain social and intellectual context.

Third, techniques of government tested in the colonies were not directly applicable to metropolitan France. In order to apply to the French context, they had to undergo a profound transformation that made them fit the domestic social environment. Empires employed raw force abroad but were subject to democratic rule domestically. Consequently, the modalities of power used by imperial rule in the colonies were very different from Foucault’s own definition of power, which consists of very subtle forms of interrelation that do not always follow hierarchical patterns. Scholars who apply Foucault to the colonial context therefore need first to clarify and adapt his conceptual tools, which were designed with a different domain in mind.

This being said, Rabinow’s French Modern is a valuable study of the origins of French modernity from the 1830s to the 1930s that applies the intellectual method pioneered by Michel Foucault (as the book shows, this method owes much to Foucault’s own teacher Georges Canguilhem). The author takes as his starting point the triumph of urban planning in postwar France. ‘Villes nouvelles’ sprang up, housing projects were built, and there was–at least until 1968–a remarkable consensus among professionals on how French cities should be remodeled.

As a later chapter makes it clear, it was in Morocco, under Hubert Lyautey’s leadership around the time of the First World War, that France‘s first comprehensive experiment with urban planning took place. According to Rabinow, “the modernity of Casablanca and Rabat in terms of equipment, specialization of quarters, and circulation planning surpassed anything in France.” And “even the harshest critics of Lyautey’s colonial aims concede that Rabat‘s extension was an aesthetic success.”

Lyautey’s other, more contentious achievement was the military pacification of Morocco. He spelled out his doctrine as follows: “Vex not tradition, leave custom be. Never forget that in every society there is a class to be governed, and a natural-born ruling class upon whom all depends. Link their interests to ours.” It is important to remind here that colonialism was first and foremost a military enterprise, and therefore combined the two laboratories of modernity–colonial exploitation and the war economy–identified in the first half of the twentieth century.

According to Rabinow, the theory of pacification and the rise of modern planning share a common perspective: the shift from the moral to the social, and the realization that the management of social antagonisms rested not on the cultivation of virtue among the protagonists, but on the manipulation of social norms that could be scientifically derived. The author find this shift’ starting point in the cholera epidemic of 1832: housing and social conditions, not topographic proximity, proved to be the primary variable in the localization of the disease.

Rabinow tracks this emergence of social norms in a number of fields, with architecture and the birth of urban planning providing a common thread. The emergence of norms as the privileged means of understanding and defining society was reflected in new scientific discourses, new administrative practices, and new conceptions of social order, ushering in a long period of experimentation with what would later form welfare policies. New concepts emerged, such as ‘amenagement’, ‘equipement’, ‘milieux’, ‘conditions de vie’, ‘agglomerations’, etc. Empirically quite disparate, they nonetheless reveal a certain commonality, and together they formed the discursive space which would be filled during and after World War II in a more substantial and enduring manner.

The book’s narrative turns in part around a series of individuals, some well-known like Saint-Simon, Le Play and Lyautey, others long forgotten like the architects Tony Garnier and Henri Prost.

Described successively as “technicians of general ideas”, “specific intellectuals” and “unbureaucratic bureaucrats”, they were the forerunners of the technocratic society which emerged in France after the Second World War. Echoing Barres’ call for “Experimentation–that is what all Frenchmen of good faith should demand–social laboratories”, members of one of these key circles said of themselves: “we tried to be irreproachable technicians.”

These figures were the real heroes of the laboratories where modern France was conceived.

French Colonial Warfare and the Emergence of the Modern World-System

“DOMINANCE BY DESIGN”: MICHAEL ADAS BOOK ON AMERICAN TECHNOCENTRISM AND ITS DANGERS

Administrator — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives

and America‘s Civilizing Mission

Michael Adas (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

If only I could send two or three thousand choice subjects to a “re-education camp” consisting entirely of a close reading of Adas’s Dominance by Design, a sweeping, powerful indictment of American technological hubris from the first European settlers to the Gulf Wars.
–James C. Scott, Yale University (20070401)

Adas has identified the leitmotif of American empire: not democracy, globalization, or “soft power,” but technology. Technology sanctions conquest and justifies projects to reshape the lives, habits, and environments of distant peoples. Adas has given us an arresting, comprehensive narrative that will change the way we think.
–Nick Cullather, Indiana University

Dominance by Design is a wonderful piece of synthesis — smart, fluent, and wide-ranging. Michael Adas traces the arc of U.S. history and highlights what he calls technocentrism as a major source of American economic, military, and environmental mastery. This argument deserves a readership as broad as the scholarship on which it is based.
–Michael Hunt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In this extraordinary, and extraordinarily important, book, Michael Adas not only gives us a fascinating historical overview of American technology but how faith in that technology’s power shaped (or tragically misshaped) American religion, fine art, race relations, engineers and engineering, and views of Islam.
–Walter LaFeber, Cornell University

Few scholars have so fully grasped the profound connection between exceptionalism, expansionism, and technological evangelism in American history. No one who seeks to understand this country’s past, present, or future can afford to ignore this masterful book.
–Paul N. Edwards, University of Michigan

In the past few years, bookstores have been deluged with books critical of American foreign policy, and specifically condemning he actions of the Bush administration in the Middle East. In Dominance by Design, Michael Adas carries that critical interpretation of American policy into the past, arguing that throughout history the attitudes and actions of Americans toward non-Western peoples have been characterized by condescension, arrogance, and violence…Adas attributes the moral blindness and overweening arrogance of the American people toward non-Western peoples to the powerful technologies they have adopted or developed.
–Daniel R. Headrick (Journal of World History )

[This] book is a compelling, well-written indictment of our “techno-hubris” that should be required reading for this and subsequent presidents as well as historians of U.S. culture, politics, and technology.
–Carolyn De La Pena (American Historical Review )

Michael Adas has written an excellent and most timely study of the oft-forgotten role of technology in enabling and then justifying European colonization of North America, the westward expansion of the United States, and ultimately the emergence of the United States as a global power.
–John H. Morrow (Technology and Culture )

Product Description

Long before the United States became a major force in global affairs, Americans believed in their superiority over others due to their inventiveness, productivity, and economic and social well-being. U.S. expansionists assumed a mandate to “civilize” non-Western peoples by demanding submission to American technological prowess and design. As an integral part of America’s national identity and sense of itself in the world, this civilizing mission provided the rationale to displace the Indians from much of our continent, to build an island empire in the Pacific and Caribbean, and to promote unilateral—at times military—interventionism throughout Asia. In our age of “smart bombs” and mobile warfare, technological aptitude remains preeminent in validating America’s global mission.

Michael Adas brilliantly pursues the history of this mission through America’s foreign relations over nearly four centuries from North America to the Philippines, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. The belief that it is our right and destiny to remake foreign societies in our image has endured from the early decades of colonization to our current crusade to implant American-style democracy in the Muslim Middle East.

Dominance by Design explores the critical ways in which technological superiority has undergirded the U.S.’s policies of unilateralism, preemption, and interventionism in foreign affairs and raised us from an impoverished frontier nation to a global power. Challenging the long-held assumptions and imperatives that sustain the civilizing mission, Adas gives us an essential guide to America’s past and present role in the world as well as cautionary lessons for the future.

Product Details:

· Hardcover: 480 pages

· Publisher: Belknap Press

· January 20, 2006

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0674018672

· ISBN-13: 978-0674018679

Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America‘s

Civilizing Mission

Michael Adas (Author)