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BOOK OF
Publishing Director
Aaron Asadi
Head of Design
Ross Andrews
Editor in Chief
Jon White
Production Editor
Fiona Hudson
Written by
Richard Overy
Printed by
William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT
Distributed in Australia by
Gordon & Gotch Australia Pty Ltd, 26 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest, NSW, 2086 Australia
Tel +61 2 9972 8800 www.gordongotch.com.au
Disclaimer
The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or damaged in the
post. All text and layout is the copyright of Imagine Publishing Ltd. Nothing in this bookazine may
be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publisher. All copyrights are
recognised and used specifically for the purpose of criticism and review. Although the bookazine has
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This bookazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
This bookazine is published under licence from Carlton Publishing Group Limited.
All rights in the licensed material belong to Carlton Publishing Limited and it
may not be reproduced, whether in whole or in part, without the prior written
consent of Carlton Publishing Limited. ©2016 Carlton Publishing Limited.
The content in this book has appeared previously in the Carlton book The Second World War
All About History Book Of World War II Third Edition © 2016 Imagine Publishing Ltd
ISBN 9781785463433
Part of the
bookazine series
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World War II
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CONTENTS
08 - Introduction 78 - The Siege of Leningrad
10 - Operations map 1931–1941 80 - Operation “Typhoon”
12 - Operations map 1941–1942 82 - Defeat in North Africa
14 - Operations map 1942–1944 84 - The Allied Invasion of Iraq & Syria
16 - Operations map 1944–1945 86 - The Atlantic Charter
18 - Forging the Peace 88 - Operation “Crusader”
20 - Japan’s War in China 90 - Pearl Harbor
22 - Italy’s Wars 92 - Blitzkrieg in Asia
24 - Germany destroys Versailles 94 - Lend-Lease
26 - Arming for War in the 1930s 96 - The Wannsee Conference
28 - The Munich Crisis 98 - The Fall of Singapore
30 - The Occupation and Break-up 100 - Commando Raids: Norway to St Nazaire
of Czechoslovakia 102 - The Siege of Malta
32 - The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 104 - Corregidor: Fall of the Philippines
34 - Germany invades Poland 106 - Japan conquers Burma
36 - Britain and France declare War 108 - The Battle of Coral Sea
38 - The Soviet-Finnish war 110 - Operation “Ironclad”
40 - The Battle of the River Plate 112 - The First Thousand-Bomber Raid
42 - The Invasion of Norway 114 - Oil
44 - Churchill takes over 116 - Operation “Blue”
46 - Germany invades in the West 118 - The Battle of Midway
48 - Dunkirk 120 - Crisis in Egypt
50 - The Fall of France 122 - The Battle of the Atlantic
52 - Germany’s New Order 124 - Into the Caucasus
54 - The Battle of Britain 126 - Battle for the Solomons
56 - The East African Campaigns 128 - The Dieppe Raid
58 - Operation “Sealion” 130 - The tide turns in North Africa
60 - The German Blitz on Britain 132 - The Battle for Stalingrad
62 - The Tripartite Pact 134 - Second Alamein
64 - Naval War in the Mediterranean 136 - Operation “Torch”
66 - Operation “Compass”: 138 - Guadalcanal
Defeat of Italy in North Africa 140 - Operation “Uranus”
68 - German Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece 142 - Defeat at Stalingrad
70 - The German conquest of Crete 144 - The Casablanca Conference
72 - Sinking the Bismarck 146 - Operation “Longcloth”: Chindits in Burma
74 - Hitler turns East 148 - The end of the Axis in Africa: Tunisia
76 - Operation “Barbarossa” 150 - The Dambusters raid
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152 - Rationing: The war for food 220 - Behind Barbed Wire: The Fate of POWs
154 - The Battle of Kursk 222 - The Battle of the Bulge
156 - Operation “Husky”: Invasion of Sicily 224 - Soviet Advance on Germany:
158 - The Bombing of Hamburg Vistula-Oder Operation
160 - The French Resistance 226 - The Yalta Conference
162 - From Kharkov to Kiev: 228 - Iwo Jima
the Red Army breaks through 230 - The Firebombing of Tokyo
164 - Italy: Invasion and Surrender 232 - The Western Advance into Germany:
166 - Operation “Cartwheel”: War for New Guinea From the Rhine to the Elbe
168 - Island-hopping in the Pacific: 234 - Okinawa
Gilbert and Marshall Islands 236 - Liberation of the Camps
170 - The Big Three: The Teheran Conference 238 - Victory in Burma
172 - Partisan War 240 - Battle for Berlin
174 - Battle of the North Cape 242 - Last Days in Hitler’s Bunker
176 - The Battle for Anzio 244 - Victory in Italy
178 - The Battle for Monte Cassino 246 - The German Surrender
180 - The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Deception 248 - The Atomic Bombs
182 - Battle for India: Imphal and Kohima 250 - The Japanese Surrender
184 - Japan’s War in China: Operation “Ichi-Go” 252 - The Casualties
186 - D-Day 254 - The War Crimes Trials
188 - Battle for Normandy 256 - From World War to Cold War
190 - The V-Weapons Campaign 258 - Credits
192 - The Marianas: Defence to the Death
194 - Battle of the Philippine Sea
196 - Operation “Bagration”
198 - Defeat of the Luftwaffe
200 - Stalemate in Italy
202 - July Plot: The Coup that Failed
204 - Breakout: Operation “Cobra”
206 - The Warsaw Uprising
208 - The End of Vichy France:
Operation “Dragoon”
210 - The Liberation of Paris
212 - Operation “Market Garden”
214 - Yugoslavia: Liberation from within
216 - The Recapture of the Philippines
218 - The Battle of Leyte Gulf
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INTRODUCTION
he Second World War was the largest and of the Allies and the re-establishment of a more
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World War II
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OPERATIONS 1931–1941
etween September 1939 and May 1941 alone, was under growing threat in North
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World War II
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OPERATIONS 1941—1942
rom May 1941 to summer of the following
Glasgow
Edinburgh
U N I O N O F S O V I E T IRELAND
The Battle of the Atlantic, S O C I A L I S T R E P U B L I C S
U N I T E D
January 1942– March 1943 GREAT Dublin
BRITAIN
C A N A D A
GERMANY
Liverpool Manchester
FRANCE SEE RIGHT
The Atlantic Charter, Cork
9–12 August 1941 ITALY K I N G D O M
J A PA N
Birmingham
U N I T E D S TAT E S SEE BOTTOM RIGHT C H I N A
OF AMERICA
A T L A N T I C I N D I A
P A C I F I C London
O C E A N F R E NC H W E S T Plymouth
AFRICA O C E A N
A t l a n t i c Portsmouth
E n g l i s h C h a n n e l
O c e a n Cherbourg
IN DIAN Lill
B R A Z I L
O CEAN SEE BOTTOM LEFT Brest The Dieppe Raid,
Caen
19 August 1942
Se
A U S T R A L I A ine
Operation “Ironclad”: Paris
Commando Raids:
S OU T H
the Allied conquest of Madagascar, from Norway to St. Nazaire,
AFRICA
5 May–5 November 1942 3 March 1941–27 March 1942
Lo
Nantes ire
F R A N C E
GENERAL MAP KEY — TO SPREAD MAPS MID EAST MAP KEY M O N G O L I A M AN C HUR I A
Singapore
Military types Vichy (named) AXIS STATE, 1942 Borneo
Celebes Hollan
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Operations 1941—1942
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which after initial rapid advances stalled outside series of lightning assaults, pushing the paralysed the War, and, though Japan’s forces pushed the
Moscow in the winter snow, and, despite reaching British forces out of the Malay peninsula and Americans out of the Philippines and a series of
into the Caucasus the next spring, never quite capturing the vital strategic position of Singapore. other island positions in the Pacific, a serious
succeeded in defeating the Soviets. In eastern The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December naval check at Midway showed their over-
Asia, the Japanese joined the conflict, launching a 1941, however, brought the United States into extended perimeter’s vulnerability.
N O R W A Y FINLAND
Oslo Helsinki Leningrad
ol
ga
Gorkiyatov
Gothenburg Pskov
N o r t h Vladimir
S e a Riga Moscow
L A T V I A Operation “Typhoon”:
Dv the Battle for Moscow,
ina
DENMARK B a l t i c Dünaburg
30 September–14 December 1941
L I T H U A N I A
Ryazan
Tula
Copenhagen S e a
Smolensk
Wilna U N I O N
Königsberg REICHSKOMMISSARIAT
Danzig
Hamburg Mogilev Orel
EAST OSTLAND Tambov
Dnieper
NETHERLANDS Bremen PRUSSIA Briansk Saratov
Stettin
a
tul
Amsterdam Minsk
Vi s
Rotterdam Berlin
Hanover
The Wannsee Conference
and the “Final Solution”, Kursk
The Thousand- Elbe 20 January 1942 Gomel
Bomber Raid: Warsaw Brest
Brussels Oder
e Cologne,
30 May 1942 Leipzig Lodz GENERAL
BELGIUM U K R A I N E
GOVERNMENT
Breslau
Frankfurt Operation “Barbarossa”, Kharkov Stalingrad Vo l g a
Kiev
LUXEMBOURG G R E A T E R G E R M A N Y 22 June–30 September 1941
Operation “Blue”:
Prague Cracow REICHSKOMMISSARIAT the German advance to Stalingrad,
Metz
Dni 28 June–19 August 1942
Stuttgart BOHEMIA Lemberg UKRAINE epe
r
MORAVIA
ine
Strassburg be
Danu
Rh
Dnepropetrovsk
n
Munich SLOVAKIA Dni Do
est
er Taganrog Rostov-on-Don
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OPERATIONS 1942—1944
he years 1942–1944 were the turning point
IRELAND
U N
Dublin
Cork
K I N
Rationing:
the War for Food
I N DI AN
B R A Z I L
Bordeaux
O C E AN
SEE BOTTOM RIGHT
A U S T R A L I A
Bilbao
Toulouse
L
SOUTH Eb
AFRICA ro
A
Do
ur
G
o
T U
Ta g u
s Madrid
R
P O Barcelona
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Operations 1942—1944
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of the German attack in the winter of 1941–2, a point on the Allies began to organise an effective invaded in 1943 and surrendered in September
renewed campaign in southern Russia brought defence and then begin a slow programme of of that year, and the Red Army reached into the
German forces to the Volga and the Caucasus offensives in the Pacific islands, in the North Ukraine by the end of 1943. By the middle of 1944
mountains. In North Africa by mid-1942 Axis African desert and deep inside Soviet territory the stage was set for the final desperate struggle
forces were deep in Egyptian territory. From this which pushed the Axis forces back. Italy was for Europe and the Far East.
S W E D E N Vladimir
Riga Moscow
I T E D L A T V I A
Dv S O V I E T
N o r t h DENMARK ina
B a l t i c L I T H U A N I A Dünaburg
Liverpool
S e a Ryazan
Manchester Tula
Copenhagen S e a
G D O M The Bombing of Hamburg: Wilna Smolensk
Birmingham
Operation “Gomorrah”,
24–25 Jul. 1943
REICHSKOMMISSARIAT U N I O N
Danzig Königsberg Mogilev Orel
The Secret War: Hamburg OSTLAND Tambov
Dnieper
spies, codes and EAST
NETHERLANDS Bremen PRUSSIA Briansk
a
Rotterdam
Hanover Berlin
Portsmouth Defeat at Stalingrad,
C h a n n e l Kursk 19 Nov.– 2 Feb. 1943
Elbe Partisan War
Warsaw Brest Gomel
Brussels Oder The Battle of Kursk,
Lille The Battle for Stalingrad
Dambusters, Leipzig Lodz 5–13 Jul. 1943
BELGIUM 7 May 1943 GENERAL U K R A I N E 19 Aug.–19 Nov. 1942
Caen GOVERNMENT Don
Se
G E R M A N E M P I R E Kiev
LUXEMBOURG Stalingrad
Paris
From Kharkov to Kiev:
Cracow REICHSKOMMISSARIAT the Red Army Breaks Through,
Metz Prague
Dni 23 Aug.– 6 Nov. 1943
Lo Stuttgart BOHEMIA Lemberg UKRAINE ep
er
ine
Genoa
C R O A T I A
T
Marseille
M O N G O L I A MANCHURIA
A
Corsica
L
Rome
C H I N A KO R E A J A PA N
The Battle for
Y
Tripoli
Dera
N
TINE
SJO
Alexandria
TRAN
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OPERATIONS 1944—1945
he last eighteen months of war saw the
Dublin
IRELAND
Liverpool
Cork Manchester
U N I T E D
K I N G D O M
Birmingham
Se
A FR IC A 25 July–25 August 1944
ine
Battle for Normandy, Paris
7 June–24 July 1944 The Liberation
I N DI AN of Paris,
B R A Z I L 19–25 August 1944
O C EAN
SEE BOTTOM RIGHT Lo
Nantes ire
A U S T R A L I A
SO UT H
AF RI CA
F R A N C E
Vichy
e
Rhôn
Toulouse
XXXX
Army Italian
XXX
FAR EAST MAP KEY The End of Vichy France:
Japanese Eb Operation “Dragoon”,
ro
Corps JAPANESE EMPIRE, 14 August–14 September 1944
XX United States 1942
Division Marseille
JAPANESE ALLIED
X British STATES
Brigade
Soviet LIMIT OF JAPANESE S P A I N
III EXPANSION, 1942
Regiment Barcelona
French
II
Battalion Romanian
I
Company Finnish EUROPE MAP KEY
Military types Vichy (named) AXIS STATE, 1942
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Operations 1944—1945
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slow up the narrow, mountainous peninsula. In the island. The army attacked through the Philippines,
east, Soviet armies pushed into Poland by August the US Navy through the islands of the central
1944, and into Germany itself by the start of 1945. Pacific, finally seizing Okinawa by June 1945
Berlin was captured in May. In the Pacific, Japanese and paving the way for possible invasion. Atomic
resistance had to be worn down slowly, island by bombs ended the war in the Pacific in August 1945.
Riga
Moscow
S W E D E N
L A T V I A
DENMARK
Dvin
a
B a l t i c
L I T H U A N I A Dünaburg
S e a
N o r t h Copenhagen
Dnieper
NETHERLANDS Bremen Lüneburg PRUSSIA
ula
Stettin
Vi s t
Liberation of thecamps: Bergen-Belsen,
Amsterdam 15 April 1945 Minsk
Rotterdam Operation “Market Garden”,
17–26 september 1944 Hanover Berlin
Defeat of the Luftwaffe,
March–September 1944
Soviet Advance on Germany:
Vistula–-Oder offensive, S O V I E T
Battle for Berlin, 12 January–2 February 1945
16 April–2 May 1945
G E R M A N Last days in Hitler's bunker,
1 April–2 May 1945
Warsaw Brest Gomel
Brussels The Western Advance From World War to The Warsaw Uprising,
into Germany: from the Cold War, 1945–1949 Oder 1 August–2 October 1944
BELGIUM Rhine to the Elbe,
Leipzig
Lodz
U N I O N
El
Wroclaw
LUXEMBOURG Behind Barbed Wire:
the Fate of the POWs GENERAL
Frankfurt Kiev
The Battle of the Bulge, GOVERNMENT
16 December 1944–
7 February 1945 E M P I R E Prague Cracow
Dnie
Metz Nuremberg per
Liberation of the
The War Crimes Trials, BOHEMIA
ine
Camps: Auschwitz,
Stuttgart 1945–1949 Lemberg
Rh
MONGOLIA MANCHURIA
Kunming
Hong Kong
T
I N D I A BURMA
Formosa
Battle of the Philippine Sea, Hawaiian
Victory in Burma, 19–21 June 1944 Mariana Wake Island
Islands
A
Marshall
Ceylon Islands
Rome The Recapture of the Philippines
MALAY STATES 20 October 1944–14 August 1945
Gilbert
Anzio Islands
Singapore
Borneo Hollandia
Celebes
DUTCH EAST INDIES New Guinea Rabaul
Solomon
Naples Jakata Islands
Sardinia Timor Port Moresby
I N D I A N O C E A N
AUSTRALIA
Cagliari
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FORGING THE PEACE
28 JUNE 1919 10 JANUARY 1920 1 DECEMBER 1925 10 SEPTEMBER 1926 29 OCTOBER 1929 9 JULY 1932
Treaty of Versailles League of Nations Locarno Treaty Germany is admitted Wall Street Crash Lausanne conference
Western Europe.
he formal end of hostilities in the First BELOW: The building assigned to the League of Nations in Geneva.
THE “PEACEMAKERS”
The victorious powers met in Paris in the first half of 1919 to decide the fate
of the defeated nations, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The
discussions were dominated by Britain, France and the United States. Russia,
recently plunged into revolution, was not invited despite the great losses
suffered at German hands during the war. Italy and Japan were also victors, but
ABOVE: Lloyd George, felt cheated by the results of the conference. Italy failed to get the territory
Georges Clemenceau and promised to her as the price of joining the war in 1915. Japan resented the second-
Woodrow Wilson at the class status accorded her as a non-white power. The final settlement, signed on ABOVE: A brigade of the new Red Army parades through Kharkov
Versailles Conference, 1919. 28 June 1919 at the Palace of Versailles, sowed the seeds of future crisis. in 1920 during the Russian Civil War, which ended with Communist
victory a year later.
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Forging the Peace
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The League of Nations was also flawed from the
start. The American Senate rejected the Versailles
Treaty in 1920, and the League opened its sessions
in 1920 without the world’s richest and potentially
most powerful state, while Russia and Germany
were excluded from the League. The organization
was dominated by Britain and France, but it
was never clear how the cluster of small states
represented in the League could really prevent
future conflicts, and general war-weariness meant
that it was never really tested in the 1920s. In 1926,
Germany was finally admitted, but remained
resentful of the failure of other states to disarm
as they had promised under the terms of the
covenant of the League. These resentments were
exacerbated by the problems of economic revival
after the war; a brief American-led boom in the
mid-1920s masked a deeper economic malaise. movement in Germany led by Adolf Hitler ABOVE: Anxious shareholders stand outside the New York Stock
Hyper-inflation in Germany, Austria and the states had become the largest party in the German Exchange on 24 October 1929, a few days before the disastrous
Wall Street Crash which precipitated the world slump.
of eastern Europe peaked in 1923–24, leaving an parliament, arguing for an end to reparations and
embittered and impoverished middle class whose the overturning of the Versailles settlement. In
savings were wiped out. Trade failed to reach Japan the slump provoked another nationalist
pre-war levels and even victor countries in Europe backlash and, in 1931, army leaders launched a
were saddled with high war debts. Economic crisis campaign in northern China to seize economic
provoked social unrest and political polarization resources to aid the Japanese economy. The
which made it difficult to maintain democracy. League did nothing to halt the economic slide or
In Italy, Benito Mussolini, leader of a new radical the emergence of a violent nationalism, and by the
nationalist Fascist Party, was made premier in 1930s war was once again a strong possibility.
1922 and had created a one-party dictatorship by
1926. In 1923, a coup brought a military dictator in
Spain, General Primo de Rivera; three years later BELOW: The veteran British paciist George Lansbury pictured
in 1929. He helped to lead the widespread anti-war movement in
the Polish Marshal Pilsudski led an army coup Britain in the 1920s and 1930s.
in Poland. The newly-created Soviet Union was a
one-party state almost from the start.
The shift to authoritarian rule was accelerated ABOVE: Signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war, Paris, 27
by the economic slump that followed the Wall August 1928. Although Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR signed
Street Crash in October 1929. The crisis of the the Pact they all resorted to war in the 1930s.
GERMAN DISARMAMENT
The Versailles settlement was supposed to
produce a general disarmament even among the
victorious powers. As the principal defeated
protagonist, Germany was compelled to disarm.
Its main arms and aircraft factories and naval
dockyards were destroyed or converted to
peacetime production. The large numbers of
aircraft left over in 1919 were scrapped (shown
above); German frontier fortifications were blown
up. The German fleet had to be surrendered to the
British even before the treaty was signed. Although
Britain and France did reduce their military forces
and budgets, they failed to honour the pledge to
produce universal disarmament, provoking strong
resentment at Germany’s unequal treatment, and
encouraging a wave of German nationalism.
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JAPAN’S WAR IN CHINA
FEBRUARY 1933 FEBRUARY 1936 25 NOVEMBER 1936 29 JULY 1937 13 DECEMBER 1937 20 AUGUST 1939 12 OCTOBER 1940
The League of Nations “The February Anti-Comintern Pact Japan occupies Japan attacks the Soviet forces The Imperial Rule
30 NOVEMBER 1939 censures Japan Incident” – Young signed between Beijing and US gunboat Panay attack Japanese Assistance Association
12 MARCH 1940 for occupation of
Manchuria following a
army oicers
murder opponents
Germany and Japan
to unite in combatting
begins an eight
year war with
on the Yangtse River
creating a temporary
in Mongolian-
Manchurian
is founded to force
political parties into a
League mission under of militaristic the Moscow-based China. crisis in US-Japanese border incident single nationalist bloc.
Lord Lytton. nationalism in Tokyo. Communist International. relations. at Nomanhan.
LEFT: Two
Japanese soldiers
stand guard on
top of a train in
Manchuria in
December 1931
to warn of the
approach of
Chinese bandit
forces following
the seizure of
the province in
September
that year.
20 WorldMags.net
Japan’s War in China
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the rise of Chinese nationalism – directed at the
Japanese presence – and the catastrophic effects THE “RAPE OF NANKING”
of the 1929 world slump on Japan’s economic
On 13 December 1937, the Japanese army captured
prospects were used as excuses for the Japanese
Chiang Kaishek’s capital at Nanjing. What followed
army, largely independent of the government in was one of the most horrific episodes in the long
Tokyo, to embark on a programme of military Sino-Japanese conflict. Japanese forces were
expansion in Asia. allowed weeks of uninhibited violence against the
defenceless population while their commander,
In September 1931, the Kwantung Army staged General Iwane Matsui, proved powerless to stop
a clumsy fake attack on a Japanese-controlled them. Post-war estimates suggest that between
railway near Mukden in Manchuria, and the 260,000 and 350,000 Chinese were murdered,
most of them amid scenes of terrible cruelty. All
incident was then used to justify the rapid
90,000 Chinese soldiers taken prisoner were
Japanese occupation of much of the province. killed, some in beheading competitions. Tens of
The incumbent Chinese warlord, Chang Hsueh- thousands of Chinese women of all ages were raped
liang, was driven out and a new puppet state of and then killed. The Japanese army, Matsui told an
American journalist a few days later, was “probably
Manchukuo created in 1932, nominally ruled the most undisciplined army in the world”.
by the “last emperor” Pu Yi, while Manchuria’s
rich mineral and food supplies were brought RIGHT: Japanese soldiers using stripped and bound Chinese
men as live targets for bayonet practice after the capture of
under Japanese control. Although they were a
the Chinese capital in December 1937.
member of the League, Japan’s aggression was not
reversed by the other powers, and in 1933 Japan
left the organization. stationing one of their garrisons in the old imperial serious threat to the Japanese invaders. By 1939,
Over the next three years, Japan’s army capital city of Beijing. Japan dominated most major cities and arteries of
pushed into northern China, taking control of Growing Chinese resistance sucked the Japanese communication, from the southern Yangtze River
the provinces of Jehol, Chahar and Hopeh, and army into further aggression: a small incident at to the northern province of Inner Mongolia.
the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing on 7 July rapidly The sudden expansion of Japanese imperial
BELOW: Communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai during escalated. On 27 July, the Japanese prime minister, power destroyed the unified Chinese state Chiang
the Long March of Chinese Communists in 1934 to the Chinese Prince Konoye, declared that Japan was now going Kaishek had tried to create. It brought Japan into
interior province of Yan’an. Around 100,000 trekked the 5,000
to create a “New Order” in Asia. Within weeks, a conflict with Western powers, which tolerated
miles to escape Chinese Nationalists.
full-scale war began between Chinese Nationalist Japanese aggression only because there was no
and Communist forces and the Japanese army effective way of expelling Japan’s army except
of occupation, which ended only with Japan’s at the cost of a major war that they had neither
surrender eight years later. Using the railways the will nor resources to begin. When Japanese
and river valleys, Japanese forces spread rapidly expansion did pose a direct threat to Soviet
into central China, capturing Shanghai in October interests in Mongolia, two short campaigns
1937, the Chinese Nationalist capital Nanjing in resulted, at Changkufen in 1938 and at Nomonhan
December – after which Chiang Kaishek retreated in 1939, both won by the Soviet Red Army. Japan’s
to a new capital at Chungking – and Canton on the government and armed forces preferred to look
south China coast in October 1938. Communist south to the oilfields and minerals of old European
guerrillas under Mao Zedong dominated the empires for the next stage of the construction of
remoter regions of northwest China, but posed little the Asian New Order.
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ITALY’S WARS
15 JULY 1933 14–15 JUNE 1934 11 APRIL 1935 MARCH 1936 OCTOBER 1936 6 NOVEMBER 1938 22 MAY 1939
Four-Power Pact signed Hitler and Agreement to League agree Rome-Berlin Mussolini Pact of Steel signed
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Italy’s Wars
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usually known as the “Rome–Berlin Axis”. In
November 1937, Italy also joined the German–
Mussolini saw a victory for Franco in Spain as
essential for his own ambitions. In February 1939,
RIGHT: The
Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact, so creating the trio he told Fascist leaders that Italy had to control Garibaldi
of expansionist states that was to fight the Second the Mediterranean, which meant defeating or Brigade march
World War under the general title of the “Axis”. expelling the British and French. The first step to Guadalajara,
March 1937.
In July 1936, army rebels in Spain launched an was taken on 7 April, when Italian forces invaded
attempted coup against the republican regime in and occupied the Balkan state of Albania.
Madrid. At first Mussolini, who was sympathetic A few weeks later, Mussolini asked Hitler for a
to the rebel leader, Colonel Francisco Franco, sent more solid agreement between them. The “Pact
some limited assistance, but from December 1936 of Steel”, which was signed on 22 May 1939,
a full military force was sent to Spain, complete irrevocably tied Italy to standing side by side
with tanks, artillery and aircraft, to help the with Germany in any future showdown with the ITALY IN THE
nationalist cause. Italian propaganda made a great Western powers. SPANISH CIVIL WAR
deal of Italian victories in Spain, but the conquest
Italians fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil
of Malaga in February 1937 was achieved against a BELOW: A poster from the Spanish Civil War calls on War. To aid Franco’s nationalist rebels Mussolini
weak and disorganized republican force. supporters of the republican government to “Rise against sent General Mario Roatta and 75,000 soldiers,
the Italian Invasion in Spain”. airmen and militia. By 1938, there were more than
The next month, at Guadalajara, Italian forces
300 Italian aircraft in Spain. On the republican
suffered a humiliating defeat. With 36,000 men, side, brigades of Italian anti-Fascists were formed,
81 tanks and 160 artillery pieces against a weak which fought against fellow Italians as part of
republican defensive line, the Italian commander the wider European civil war between fascism,
communism and democracy. The most famous was
Roatta attacked on 8 March. The Italian line broke
the “Garibaldi Brigade” named after the legendary
and by 18 March retreated, a catastrophic blow guerrilla fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had
to their prestige from which the Italian forces helped to create the Italian nation in 1860–61.
didn't recover. Mussolini continued to aid Franco
– over 75,000 Italians served in Spain – but the
nationalist victory by March 1939 owed more to
Franco’s new Spanish army than it did to their
Italian assistance.
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GERMANY DESTROYS VERSAILLES
30 JANUARY 1933 27 FEBRUARY 1933 24 MARCH 1933 16 OCTOBER 1933 18 JUNE 1935 2 AUGUST 1936 18 OCTOBER 1936 4 FEBRUARY 1938
Hitler appointed A ire in the “Enabling Bill” Germany Anglo- Hitler fuses Four-Year Plan Hitler assumes
BELOW: German troops march across a bridge over the Rhine in Cologne on 7 March 1936 in deiance of the Versailles Treaty natural resources. Like Japan and Italy, Germany
which had insisted on the demilitarization of the German Rhineland provinces.
regarded itself as a victim of the international
economic and political system. Hitler was
dedicated to the idea that the “master race”, in
other words the Aryan Germans, should win its
rightful place through conquest. “Empires are
made by the sword,” wrote Hitler in 1928.
Hitler was too shrewd a politician to act
too quickly and so rearmament was carefully
concealed while he consolidated his domestic
position. Only in 1935 did Hitler feel confident
enough to declare Germany’s formal rejection
of Versailles: on 16 March 1935 conscription was
re-introduced in Germany, and the new German
Air Force officially created. The following March,
at the height of the crisis over the Italian invasion
of Abyssinia, Hitler decided to remilitarize the
Rhineland provinces along the French frontier,
an action proscribed under the 1919 Treaty.
On 7 March 1936, German troops re-entering
the prohibited zone faced no international
hen Hitler was appointed German from office and prohibiting marriage or sexual
24 WorldMags.net
Germany destroys Versailles
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BELOW: HItler makes his way to the speaker’s podium during the
1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. He is lanked by members of
the Sturm Abteilung (SA).
ABOVE: An election campaign meeting in Graz, Austria on 1 April 1938. On Hitler’s right sit Arthur Seyss-Inquart, later ruler of the occupied
Netherlands, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the concentration camp system.
obstruction. Buoyed up by this success, Hitler horrors of what was now called “total war”, a
began to look outside the borders of the German conflict waged against civilians as well as soldiers.
state or “Reich”. In July 1936, he offered his help to On 5 November 1937, Hitler called his military
the Spanish rebel leader Franco, who needed the commanders together to tell them of his plans
use of planes to move his forces from Morocco to to unite his Austrian homeland with Germany
the mainland. in the near future, and to take action against
A small number of aircraft and pilots, the Czechoslovakia, the only remaining democratic
Condor Legion, fought alongside the Spanish state in eastern Europe, and home to exiled
nationalists. On 26 April 1937, German planes opponents of the Hitler regime. In March
ABOVE: “The whole people say Yes on 10 April.” A German poster
to encourage support for a national plebiscite on the union of bombed and destroyed the Basque city of 1938, after months of agitation by Austrian
Austria and Germany. It was claimed that 99 per cent said “yes”. Guernica, an act which came to symbolize the National Socialists, the Austrian Chancellor
Kurt von Schuschnigg was compelled under the
circumstances to accept the entry of German
forces or risk bloodshed. On 13 March, the
Anschluss, or union, of Austria with Germany
was completed, and the enlarged state was now
called “Greater Germany”. Austrian opponents
of Anschluss were murdered or imprisoned and
Austrian Jews driven from their professions.
Throughout the period in which Hitler
destroyed Versailles, the other major states
did very little. Hitler took Germany out of the
League in October 1933. Over the next four years
Germany’s growing economic and military
strength was viewed with mounting alarm by
democratic Europe, but although efforts were
made to find some way of blunting the German
threat by recognizing her grievances, no real
concessions were made that could satisfy Hitler.
By 1938 his run of “bloodless victories”
produced a wide popular consensus at home.
What Hitler wanted now was a small successful
ABOVE: Prisoners in the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 6 January 1939. By the end of the 1930s there were 21,500 war to bloody his troops and prepare for the
prisoners in the camps. struggle for “living space”.
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World War II
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ARMING FOR WAR IN THE 1930s
FEBRUARY 1932 16 MARCH 1935 MARCH 1936 1938–9 JANUARY 1939
Disarmament Hitler announces British German West Wall Hitler launches
1930–1939 Conference
convenes at
Geneva but fails to
German
rearmament and
reintroduction of
government
launches “four-
year plan” for
(“Siegfried Line”)
fortiications built
along the German–
“Z-Plan” for
large-scale naval
rearmament.
reach any general conscription. rearmament. French border.
agreement.
MARSHAL MIKHAIL
TUKHACHEVSKY
(1893–1937)
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a number of
young officers from the former tsarist army were
rapidly promoted to build up the newly formed
Communist Red Army. Mikhail Tukhachevsky
made his mark in the 1920s with new ideas about
fast, mobile warfare conducted by thousands of
tanks and armoured vehicles. He was appointed
Chief of Armaments in 1932 to oversee the Soviet
Union’s rearmament drive, and in 1936 was made
Deputy Defence Commissar. Perhaps jealous of
Tukhachevsky’s popular reputation and evident
ambition, Stalin authorized his arrest and trial in
ABOVE: A Soviet poster shows an urgent Stalin summoning June 1937. He was executed on 11 June along with ABOVE: The French Socialist premier Leon Blum at a mass rally
aircraft from a Soviet factory in 1935. By 1932 the dictator had seven other top military commanders. for peace in Paris in September 1936. Blum’s government in fact
thrown his support behind a gigantic programme of rearmament. authorized a 14-billion-franc arms programme the same month.
26 WorldMags.net
Arming for War in the 1930s
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increase in military spending of 40 per cent a
year; two-thirds of industrial investment went to
of expenditure, so that by 1939 Britain was
producing almost as many aircraft as Germany.
fuel the new military machine. Both Hitler and In France, emphasis was put in the 1930s on
MODERNIZING
Stalin thought in terms of large-scale and long- the construction of a solid defensive wall – the BRITAIN’S ARMY
distance war, and in January 1939 Hitler approved Maginot Line – to face the German threat and The idea of using tank forces as the armed fist of
a “Z-Plan” for a new ocean-going battle fleet; four provide France with real security against attack. the army, striking in mass against the enemy’s
years before this, Stalin had approved work on In 1936, the French government authorized a large front line was developed in the inter-war period
by two British military thinkers, Captain Basil
a similar Soviet flotilla, which by 1939 involved three-year rearmament programme, and began Liddell Hart and Major-General John Fuller. Efforts
plans for 15 battleships against the six projected to build some of the best tanks and aircraft of the were made to develop a fast modern tank and to
by the German Navy. time. Political problems and disputes with labour organize armoured divisions, but there was much
conservative resistance to the idea. By 1939,
The military build-up in Britain and France held up progress, but France, like Britain, was
Britain had only one armoured division ready for
was more modest, though both countries better armed for conflict in 1939 than the myth the war in Europe, and British tanks failed to match
already possessed a large military establishment of “too little, too late” suggests. Only the United the standards set by the other major land armies.
even before the onset of rearmament. Britain States remained aloof from the arms build-up. Here light Mark V and Mark VIA tanks of the 9th
Queen’s Royal Lancers are on manoeuvre in 1937.
began expanding its armed forces in 1934, and Geographically secure and with a powerful
accelerated the programme in 1936. Emphasis pacifist lobby, there was no pressure to arm in the
was put on creating a large new modern air 1930s and its soldiers went on manoeuvres with
force, and the RAF received around 40 per cent dummy tanks.
BELOW: British troops cross a drawbridge into a fort on the BELOW: Prototype of the Supermarine Spitire single-seater
Maginot Line in November 1939. The French fortiications were ighter in 1936. The aircraft became the standard RAF ighter and
begun in the late 1920s and completed only by the outbreak of war. played a key role in the Battle of Britain.
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World War II
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THE MUNICH CRISIS
13 MARCH 1938 20–21 MAY 1938 28 MAY 1938 11 JULY 1938 28 AUGUST 1938 9 NOVEMBER 1938
Austria united “Weekend Crisis” Hitler orders Japanese and Runciman Mission German pogrom
28–30 with Germany sees Czech armed forces to Soviet forces spark draws up plans against the Jews
SEPTEMBER 1938 in a Greater
German Reich.
mobilization
against a possible
prepare “Case
Green” for
frontier clash at
Changkufeng, on
for Sudeten
autonomy.
on the “Night of
Broken Glass”.
German strike. invasion of the Manchurian
Czechoslovakia. border.
ABOVE: Neville Chamberlain marches past an SS guard of honour at Oberwiesenfeld airport on his way
to the Munich Conference on 29 September 1938 surrounded by National Socialist Party leaders.
G E R M A N Y
Dresden Breslau
Od
ABOVE: Adolf Hitler signing the Munich Agreement in the early hours of 30 September 1938 after a S U er
P O L A N D
D E
dozen hours of negotiation. Behind him are Chamberlain and Mussolini, to his left Daladier. T
E
Elbe N
L
S U
Prague A Krakow
Pilsen N
P R OT E C TO R AT E
D E
A N D M O R AV I A er
German
N
D an N 1938
ub
crisis was a statesman of wide experience. Beneš e D S L O V A K I A
Kassa
had been active in the Czech independence Passau German military
occupation, 1938
movement during the First World War and Linz RUTHENIA
Vienna Bratislava
was rewarded in 1918 with the post of Foreign
Minister in the newly independent Czechoslovak Salzburg
Danube
Debrecen
Republic. In 1935, he became the country’s Budapest
president, by which time Czechoslovakia was the A U S T R I A ROMANIA
Graz H U N G A R Y
only genuinely democratic state left in central
and eastern Europe. In 1938, he realized that
his country was vulnerable to German pressure Munich Agreement, October–December 1938 Annexations, 1939
and had little confidence that his allies would
support him. He went into exile abroad in Czechoslovakia, To Germany To Poland To Germany
October 1938 and returned to be president again early 1938 Independent
To Hungary Czechoslovakia,
between 1945 and his death three years later. Dec. 1938 To Hungary
28 WorldMags.net
The Munich Crisis
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victorious war. In February, he had scrapped the
War Ministry and taken over supreme command
of the armed forces himself. The fight against the
KONRAD HENLEIN
Czechs was a way of making his mark as a military (1898–1945)
leader, and an opportunity to improve Germany’s The Germans who inhabited the so-called
“Sudeten” provinces of Czechoslovakia were
economic and strategic position in central Europe.
former German subjects of the Habsburg
The crisis could not be isolated: as pressure built empire. Many wanted to live in a larger
up on the Czech government to make concessions German state and they formed the Sudeten
to the Sudeten German minority, Britain and German Party to campaign for autonomy
and to agitate for union with Germany. Their
France both acted to try to find a negotiated leader was the former bank clerk Konrad
political solution. France had treaty obligations Henlein. By 1938, the party had 1.3 million
to help the Czech state, and the Soviet Union was members out of a population of only three
million. Henlein co-operated secretly with
also committed to intervening, as long as France
the Hitler government in 1938, refusing the
did so too. concessions made by the Czech government
In neither state was there much enthusiasm and increasing tension in the province. He
for the prospect of war. Britain, meanwhile, had became the first Gauleiter (district leader)
of the Sudetenland in 1939, and committed
no treaty obligations, but the Prime Minister,
suicide at the end of the war.
Neville Chamberlain, hoped to use his influence
to bring about a negotiated settlement as part
of his strategy of “appeasement” of Germany. In this time the atmosphere was quite different, with suggestion of a summit conference in Munich,
August 1938, the British politician Lord Runciman Hitler insisting that he would occupy the Sudeten to which the Soviet Union was not invited. Hitler
was sent on a League of Nations mission to the areas no later than 1 October. Chamberlain was sulky and ill at ease throughout the Munich
Sudetenland and returned arguing that major returned home to a cabinet now determined not discussions, which ended on 30 September with
concessions should be made by the Czech to concede. France and Britain both prepared for an agreement for the cession of the Sudeten
government to the German community. war and on 26 September, Chamberlain sent his areas to Germany and a timetable for German
Hitler stuck to his guns. German leaders personal envoy, Sir Horace Wilson, to see Hitler occupation. Unlike Japan in Manchuria and
attacked the Czechs in the press and on the and on the following day he made it absolutely Italy in Abyssinia, Hitler’s plan for a short war of
platform. By the beginning of September, it clear that German violation of Czech sovereignty conquest was frustrated. Munich is usually seen
seemed likely that Hitler would launch the would mean war. as a humiliating defeat for the British and French,
military campaign in the near future. To avert On 28 September, Hitler, with great reluctance, but in reality it was a defeat for Hitler’s plan for
this, on 15 September Chamberlain took the gave in. Under pressure from his party leaders and war. His frustration was to make it impossible to
dramatic step of flying to meet Hitler at his aware that German public opinion was strongly negotiate away the next crisis in 1939 over the
mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. Chamberlain against a European war, he accepted Mussolini’s City of Danzig.
conceded the need for self-determination, while
Hitler promised not to make war on the Czechs,
but he had no intention of honoring his word.
Chamberlain flew again to meet the German
leader on 22 September at Bad Godesberg, and
WorldMags.net 29
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
when I was poor; but were I to become rich and successful, they
would receive me with open arms, and introduce my wife and myself
to circles as exclusive and as far beyond the stray third-rate noble
paupers who prey on your—your good-nature and—pardon me—
your ignorance as the moon is above the earth. I speak plainly.”
“You do, sir, and with a vengeance!” said Mr. West, a little
overawed by the other’s imperious manner, for Mr. Wynne had said
to himself, why should he be timid before this man, who at most was
a bourgeois, whose father—best not seek to inquire into his history—
whose forefathers had gone to their graves unwept, unhonoured,
and unsung, whilst he, Laurence Wynne, though he boasted of no
unearned increment, was descended from men who were princes at
the time of the Heptarchy!
“You value good birth, I see, Mr. West,” holding out his hand as if
to convey the fact that he had scored a point. “And you value
success. I am succeeding, and I shall succeed. I feel it. I know it—if
my health is spared. I have brains, a ready tongue, an indomitable
will; I shall go into Parliament; think what a vast field of possibilities
that opens out! Which of your other would-be sons-in-law aims at
political life? Look at Levanter, the reputation he would bring you.”
Laurence shuddered as he spoke. “Do not all honest men shun him?
What decent club would own him? Look at Montycute, what has he
to offer, but his ugly person, his title, and his debts? He and others
like him propose to barter their wretched names and, as they would
pretend, the entrée to society—not for your daughter’s personal
attractions, of which they think but little, but her fortune, of which
they think a great deal!”
“Young man, young man!” gasped Mr. West, inarticulately, “you
speak boldly—far too boldly.”
“I speak the sacred truth, and nothing but the truth,” said Wynne,
impetuously. “I offer myself, my talents, my career, my ancient
lineage, and unblemished name for your daughter. As to her fortune,
I do not want it; I am now an independent man. Give me your
answer, sir—yes or no.”
Many possibilities floated through Mr. West’s brain as he sat for
some moments in silence revolving this offer. Levanter and
Montycute were all that this impetuous young fellow had described.
He had good blood in his veins; he was handsome, clever, rising,
whilst they were like leeches, ready to live upon him, and giving
nothing in exchange but their barren names. This man’s career was
already talked of; he could vouch for one success, which had
agreeably affected his own pocket, and, with the proverbial gratitude,
he looked in the same direction for favours to come. He had an
eloquent tongue, a ready pen, and a fiery manner that carried all
before it. He would go into the House, he would (oh! castle-building
Mr. West) be one of the great men—Chancellor of the Exchequer—
some day. He shut his eyes—he saw it all. He saw his son-in-law
addressing the House, and every ear within its walls hanging on his
words. He saw himself, a distinguished visitor, and Madeline among
the peeresses.
Laurence Wynne, keen and acute, was convinced that some
grand idea was working in his companion’s mind, and struck while
the iron was hot.
“May I hope for your consent, sir?” he asked quickly.
“Well, yes, you may, if you can win her. You are welcome, as far as
I am concerned. Yes!” holding out his rather short, stubby hand, with
one big diamond blazing on his little finger. “It’s time she was settled,
and I’m afraid she will never be what she was, as regards her looks.
I did hanker after a ready-made title, but one can’t have everything! I
like you. You are tolerant of an old man’s whims; you don’t laugh at
me under my own roof, and think I don’t see it like some young cubs;
you are a gentleman, and I give you Maddie and welcome, now that I
have talked it over; but the hitch, you will find, will be the girl herself.
She is, as you may see, utterly broken down and altered, and in no
mind to listen to a love-tale; but, well or ill, I must tell you honestly
that I would not give much for your chance.”
“What would you say, sir,” said Laurence, now becoming a shade
paler, “if I were to tell you that I had won her already?”
Mr. West looked at him sharply.
“The deuce you have! And when?”
“More than three years ago.”
“What! before I came home? when she was at Harpers’? Were
you the half-starved fellow that I heard was hanging about? Oh,
never!”
“I don’t think I was half-starved, but I was most desperately in love
with her.”
“Oh, so it’s an old affair?”
“Yes, an old affair, as you say, Mr. West. And you have given me
Madeline if I can win her, have you not?—that is a promise?”
“Yes,” rather impatiently. “I never go back on a promise.”
“Well, now,” leaning forward and resting his head on his hand, and
speaking more deliberately, “I am going to tell you something that I
am certain will surprise, and I fear will incense you; but you will hear
me out to the end. We have been married for more than three
years!” He paused—not unnaturally nervous—awaiting the result of
this tardy announcement.
“Why! what—what—what the devil do you mean?” stammered Mr.
West, his little eyes nearly starting from their sockets. “What do you
mean, sir? I—I don’t believe you, so there!—don’t believe a word of
it!” breathing hard.
“If you will only listen to me patiently, you will believe me. I am
going to tell you many things that you ought to have been made
acquainted with long ago.”
Mr. West opened his mouth. No sound came. He was speechless.
And his son-in-law proceeded very steadily. “Four years ago you
were said to be bankrupt, if not dead. Mrs. Harper gave you no law
when your bills were not paid. You have never heard that Madeline,
from being the show-pupil and favourite, sank to be the shabby
school drudge—half-fed, half-clothed, and not paid for the work of
two governesses. This went on for a whole year. I saw her at a
breaking-up affair, when she played all night for her schoolfellows to
dance. I fell in love with her then. Miss Selina hated us both, and, to
satisfy her hate and malice, managed—one night in the holidays—to
leave us both behind at Riverside, late for the last train. We had all
been to the theatre. The affair was planned. We waited where we
were desired to wait, and lost the train. Next morning I called to
explain to Miss Harper; but Madeline’s character was gone—she
was turned out, dismissed without mercy. She had no friends, no
salary, no reference. I had, at least, bread-and-cheese—so I took her
to London and married her.”
He stopped and looked at Mr. West, who was livid, and who cried
out in a loud, strange voice—
“Go on, sir—go on—and get it over, before I go mad!”
“I was poor. We lived in lodgings; but we were very happy. After a
time poverty and sickness knocked at our door. I had typhoid fever. It
was an unhealthy season, and I nearly died. I have sometimes since
thought that it would have been well if I had died, and thus cut the
Gordian knot, and released Madeline. However, I hung on, a
miserable, expensive, useless invalid. In the middle of all this a child
was born.”
Mr. West started out of his chair; but subsequently resumed it.
“It was a boy——”
“A boy! Where is it?” demanded his listener, fiercely.
“You shall hear presently,” said his son-in-law, gravely. “Madeline
was the kindest of wives, nurses, mothers.”
“Madeline—my Madeline?” said her father, in a tone of querulous
incredulity and shrill irritation.
“We had no money—none. I had kept aloof from many
acquaintances since I married, and my relations dropped me with
one consent. We pawned all we had, save the clothes on our backs.
We were almost starving. In those days Madeline was a model of
courage, cheerfulness, endurance, and devotion. When I recall those
days, I can forgive her much.”
“Forgive her! Madeline pawning clothes! Madeline starving!” cried
her father, so loudly that a sleepy cabin-steward looked in.
Mr. Wynne signed to him to go away, and continued, “Ay, she was.
We could barely keep the wolf out. Then came your letter to the
Harpers, and they advertised for Madeline. She saw the message,
and pawned her wedding-ring to go to them. And they, never
dreaming that she was married, received her with rapture as Miss
West. She had no tell-tale ring, and Mrs. Harper heard that she had
been in a shop in London, in the mantle department. In an evil
moment Madeline saw your letter wherein you spoke very strongly
against a poor love affair, and possible marriage. So, in desperation,
and to get money and bread for her child and for me, she deceived
you. Later on, when the influence of wealth and power and luxury ate
their way into her soul, she still deceived you—and forgot us. I must
speak the truth.”
Mr. West nodded.
“She put off the dreaded day of telling you all, and I was out of
patience. She would not allow me to break the news. You remember
one evening that I called in Belgrave Square, and we went to look at
a picture together? It was then that I made my last appeal.”
“She gave you up, then?” he asked abruptly.
“She did.”
“And the child?” eagerly. “My grandson, my heir!”
“You remember the great ball you gave last June?”
“Of course—of course,” irritably. “It will not be forgotten in a hurry.”
“He died that night,” said Mr. Wynne, slowly.
“Eh! what did you say? Nonsense!”
“He died of diphtheria. Madeline came too late to see him alive. It
was from the child she caught the infection. Yes, I believe she kissed
him. He was a lovely boy—with such a bright little face and fair hair.
We kept him at a Hampshire farmhouse. Many a time I told Madeline
that the very sight of him would soften you towards us; but she would
not listen. She made promises and broke them. She feared you too
much.”
“Feared me!”
“Since his death, I have had nothing to say to her; but I heard that
she was very ill in London; and I used to find how she was going on
from various people, including yourself, as you may remember. I
thought my heart was steeled against her, but I find it is not. I am
ready to make friends. I heard accidentally that she was in a most
critical state—that day I saw you at the club—and I threw up all my
briefs and business and took a passage.”
“And so she is your business in Sydney?”
“She—she is most woefully changed. When I first saw her under
the lamp, I—I—I—cannot tell you——” He paused, and drew in a
long, slow breath, which said much.
“Poor girl! No wonder she looks as if she had seen great troubles.
I wonder she is alive. Well, I’ll not add to them! She treated me
badly; but she has treated you worse. And afraid of me! Why, every
one knows that my bark is worse than my bite—in fact, I have no
bite. And you stuck to her when she had no friends! Oh what a
treacherous old serpent was that Harper—harridan. Steady payment
for nine years. And to treat my daughter so! And I actually gave that
sour old maid a present for her kindness to Maddie. They did not
know you were married to her?”
“No; scarcely any one know.”
“And what’s to be done! How is it to be declared, this marriage.
How is the world to be told that Madeline has been humbugging
them for the last two years as Miss West?”
“The wedding can easily be put in the paper as having taken place
in London, with no date. It will only be a nine-days wonder. We can
send it from the first place we touch at.”
“Ah, you are a clever fellow, Wynne. Hallo! the lights are going out,
and we shall be in darkness.”
“But you are no longer in darkness respecting me.”
“Well, I feel in a regular fog. And so you’re my son-in-law!”
“Yes; there is no doubt about that.”
“It’s odd that I always cottoned to you.”
“You will not be harsh with Madeline, will you?”
“Do you take me for a Choctaw Indian, sir? I’ll say nothing at
present. Board ship is no place for scenes. She’s very shaky still,
though better.”
“Yes, I think she is a shade better now she is on deck all day.”
“It was an awful pity about the little boy, Wynne, and——”
Here the electric light suddenly went out, and Mr. West had to
grope his way as best he could to his own cabin. He lay awake for
hours, listening to the seas washing against the side of his berth,
thinking—thinking of what he had been told that night, thinking of
Madeline and Wynne in a new light, and thinking most of all of the
little fair-haired grandchild that he had never seen.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HEARTS ARE TRUMPS.
“Dear Madam,
“I hope, in remembrance of old times, you will excuse my writing;
but I am very hard set just at present, and would feel obliged if you
could spare me a small matter of twenty pounds, Kane being out of
employment since Easter Monday. I hope Mr. Wynne and your dear
baby are well. The baby must be a fine big fellow by this time—two
last winter—and a great amusement. Has your pa ever found out the
trick as you played—how, when he thought you was snug at school,
you were a whole year living in London in this house?
“I hope you won’t disappoint me regarding the money, as having
your own interests to consider as well as I have mine.
“Yours affectionately,
“Eliza Kane.”
The postmark on the envelope was dated two days before they
had left Brighton. And this was what Mrs. Leach meant by her hints
and looks. This stolen letter was to be her trump card.
The next morning, when Madeline left her cabin, she was met by
Laurence. He was, as usual, waiting, hanging about the passage
and companion-ladder. At last a tall, slight figure in black appeared,
a figure that walked with a firmer and more active step, and that no
longer crawled listlessly from cabin to deck. It was Madeline, with a
faint colour in her face, she accosted him eagerly.
“Oh, Laurence!” she began, “I have something to tell you. Come
into the music-room; it is sure to be empty.”
And then, in a few hurried sentences, she unfolded her discovery
and placed Mrs. Kane’s nice little letter in his hands.
“Of course, now I shall speak. Of course, I seem a miserably
mean, cowardly creature! It is only when forced by circumstances
that I open my lips at last. Mrs. Leach has long guessed that I had a
secret and a past—but, strive as she would, she could never find out
anything definite.”
“This is very definite,” said Laurence, dryly.
“It is, indeed. I could not understand her intense scorn for me
latterly. Laurence, I meant to have told my father immediately after—
after last June, but I was ill; and then, as I used to lie thinking,
thinking, I said to myself, I may as well carry the secret to the grave,
for now the child is gone, and Laurence is gone, what is the use of
speaking?”
“But you see that Laurence is not gone!” he exclaimed
expressively; “and we will let bygones be bygones instead. I am
before both you and Mrs. Leach. I told your father last night. He took
it, on the whole, surprisingly well! I have not seen him this morning,
though. He won’t allude to it at present. Board ship is no place for
scenes, he says; and I am entirely of his opinion; so, my dear, you
need not look so ghastly. Now, come along on deck. We shall soon
sight Tarifa. Ah! here is Mr. West at last.”
The music-room was pretty full as the little man came slowly
towards the pair, who sat apart on a couch at the end of it. He looked
unusually solemn, and he had discarded his ordinary blue bird’s-eye
tie for a black one. He avoided his daughter’s glance, and fixed his
attention on her mourning-gown, as he said—
“Well, how are you to-day, Madeline, my love?”
“I feel better—much better.”
“That is good news! Then come on deck and see the Spanish
coast?”
He sat next to her—their steamer chairs placed closely side by
side—in silence for a long time, smoking, and apparently buried in
thought; then, as he suddenly noticed Wynne’s signet-ring on her
wedding finger, he leant forward, took her fragile hand in his—it
trembled, for he held it long and contemplated it intently—and at last
released it with surprising gentleness.
“Madeline,” he said, “I know you’ve had enough trouble. I’m not
going to say one word; but I’m greatly cut up about what happened—
last summer;” and Madeline drew her veil over her face to hide her
streaming tears.
After they had crossed the notorious Gulf of Lyons, Mrs. Leach
appeared, with languid airs, expecting attention, solicitude, and
sympathy. Alas! for expectations. What a change was here! Mr. West
was entirely engrossed with Madeline, and was positively curt and
gruff (he had heard the history of the letter in the bag); and when at
last she found an opportunity of talking to him privately, and began
with little preamble about “dear Maddie—such a marvellous sailor—
so much better—getting away from some dreadful hold on her—and
influence—seems to have transformed her into a new creature!” Mr.
West looked at the speaker keenly. The sea-breeze is searching,
and the southern sun pitiless. Ten days’ sickness had transformed
Mrs. Leach into an old creature! She was fifty-five or more, with her
sunken cheeks, and all those hard lines about her mouth and eyes.
What did they signify?
“Do I see Mr. Wynne on board?” she asked, with a tragic air
—“over by the boats? How strange, how audacious!”
“Do you think so? He is Madeline’s husband, and a great friend of
mine.”
Mrs. Leach gasped! The wind had been taken out of her sails.
“Then you know all about it?”
“Yes, I know all about it,” said Mr. West collectedly.
“You have not known it for long—not when we sailed?”
“No, not quite as long as you have, Mrs. Leach”—looking at her
expressively.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for one thing, that I obtained my information through a
legitimate channel; that, as you are such a victim to the sea, it will be
only humane to land you at Naples. It would be cruel to take you on
to Melbourne; and Madeline has a companion entirely to her taste in
Laurence Wynne.”
“And oh what a tale for London!” she exclaimed with a ghastly
sneer. “I am feeling the motion a good deal—perhaps you will be
kind enough to assist me to get below? I find I must lie down.”
To tell the truth, she had been completely bowled over—thanks to
a strong breeze and a strong opponent.
Mrs. Leach landed at Naples and enjoyed an exceedingly pleasant
winter in Rome—due to a handsome cheque which she had received
from Mr. West, nominally as a return for her kind interest in his
daughter, and really as a golden padlock for her lips.
Mr. West, once in Sydney, contrived to pull a good many chestnuts
out of the fire, and returned to England as wealthy as ever,
purchased the old estate of the Wynnes, and restored the half-ruined
house in a style in keeping with its ancient name.
Madeline and her husband spend a great deal of their time at
Rivals Wynne, though their headquarters are in London, and some
day the old home will descend to the old race. The children are
beautiful; another little Harry is the picture of the one that is lost, but
not forgotten, as fresh white wreaths upon a certain grave can testify.
Mr. Clay, the rector, has seen Mrs. Wynne placing them there with
her own hands. She made no secret of it now.
“It is the grave,” she explained, “of our eldest little boy. I will bring
his brother and sister here by-and-by.”
The rector, when he takes strangers round the churchyard, and
points out the most noticeable tombstones, halts for a good while
before a certain marble cross, and relates the story of a mysterious
young couple who visited the grave separately, but who now come
together, with other children in their train.
Mr. Laurence Wynne continues to “rise.” He is in Parliament, and a
man of such note that Mr. West no longer casts a thought on
Madeline’s lost coronet. Lord Montycute has married a rich widow
twenty years older than himself. Lord Tony is happily settled, and
Lady Tony and Madeline are fast friends. Lady Rachel is little
Madeline’s godmother. She is a pretty child, sufficiently spoiled by
her father, but ruined by her doting grandpapa. She is an imperious
little person, but obedient and docile with her mother. It is only poor
grandpapa whose miserably scanty locks she puts into curl papers,
whom she drives about in a pair of long red reins, and whom she
rules with a rod of iron.
THE END.
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