He was known as “The Dean” of city council.  During his almost 40 years as a Cleveland Councilman, Carr had seen many Mayors acome and go and political figures retire and become extinct.

There was hardly a democratic and even some republican politicians that he did not help to win public office during his active political career.  At all levels of government, candidates would vie for his support in seeking public office.  City, county, state and federal office seekers came to him for his support in gaining votes, finances and direction in making their campaigns successful.

Throughout his career, Carr had been concerned about one thing, his people.  He had been held in high esteem by all who knew him.  Once in a newspaper article, George Forbes, former Cleveland City Council President revealed that in his early days in council, it was Carr he had to rely on to keep city council in hand.

Charles Car was a democrat when it was unpopular to be a democrat.  His efforts and loyalty to the democratic party resulted in his being labeled  as a left winger since at the time Black people were still embracing the party of Lincoln.  By the early 1960’s he was named the majority leader.  Charles Carr had become like a roman gladiator in the field of politics.  He was a notable name in the Kennedy administration, which had considered him for an ambassador’s slot.

Think also of the good he did for the Black community as President and Chief Executive Officer of the old Quincy Savings and Loan Association.  As such, he saw to it that Black homeowners were able to obtain mortgages that they had heretofore been denied.  The many Black churches he helped save by providing them with the funds for building, they so desperately needed and were unable to obtain otherwise.

He obtained scholarships and grants for many young people and assisted others in the rehabilitation they needed who had criminal records.

As a major stockholder and Chief legal council for Supreme Life Insurance Company he saw to it that his company’s money assistsed the Black community on a regional scale.  He provided protection and funds to Blacks that were not obtainable elsewhere.

While serving on the Board of the Regional Transit Authority, Carr saw to it that minority contractors be given a fair share of the regional contracts.  Some of those contracts exceeded 20% to minorities.

It was Charles V. Carr who almost single handedly stopped the Cleveland Police Department from running wild in the Black community by inappropriately frisking women and breaking into homes without warrants for search and siezure.

It was Charles V. Carr who walked the picket lines with some of the better white community leaders insisting that Blacks get jobs in the Woodland Market, the Quincy Movie Theater, The Ohio Bell telephone Company and the East Ohio Gas Company.

Charles Carr withstood the test of his times and repeatedly rose victorious against countless opponents.  For his efforts and example, he had streets and buildings named after him, and sat on the board of many major corporations.

“Charlie” Carr, a name he never liked but tolerated as being politically expedient, was a highly skilled parlimentarian.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer even acknowledged that, “He knows all the players and comes up with the decisions that will work, he’s the Old Fox, there’s no one better.”

Ohio State Supreme Court Judge Lloyd O. Brown said, “It can truly be said that he beat the odds in his climb to the top.  Many of us can identify with the handicaps caused to one with black skin.  However, not too many persons did or could have climbed to the heights this man did.  Charles Carr, who has walked with kings and yet had been a servant to even the poorest of people, was a councilman for over 30 years.  His major weapon was his mind and his dedication to serving Black people.  As a lawyer and a master politician he has beaten the greatest of odds.”

A sometimes controversial figure, Charles V. Carr had always been able to change with the times.  His life, his struggles, his cause, his commitment can give us all hope, added dimension, better insight and higher goals to achieve.  Believe it or not, there is much more to this great mans public, religious and private life.  I have only highlighted some of my proudest moments here.   Let us honor Charles V. Carr, the man and the legend.

Published by Mirror Mirror Production

“Many believe this to be the nation’s first Civil Rights Legislation.”

Rufus J. Allen

Registered Public Accountant

He fought hard for a legislation until 1946 when the Euclid Beach Mandate was passed prohibiting any amusement center in the city from racial segregation and discrimination with the loss of license as the penalty…”

Cleveland Plain Dealer

On Monday, September 16,  1946 Atty. Charles V. Carr introduced an emergency ordinance designed to outlaw discriminatory practices in Cleveland amusement parks at a council meeting.

This action grew our of a series of assaults and battery charges brought before city courts against Euclid Beach  policemen.  Car took the matter up with Mayor Thomas E. Burke, and his Amity Council, in the Mayor’s office and suggested the ruling that will be applied to all public parks.

“Many believe this to be the nation’s first Civil Rights Legislation.”

Rufus J. Allen

Registered Public Accountant

Mr. Bergey corrected our essays by recording his feedback. I thought it was a great way making us learn from out mistakes because most of us receive our essays without looking at the feedback and without looking for a way to improve our essays, and instead we focus on the final result or grade of our essay. This way of grading makes us improve our writing, because we understand what he is thinking about when he is correcting our essay. 

I also enjoyed this form of correcting our essays because it was different than the usual red-pen marks all over our essay and getting our grade, in this case we listened to the teachers corrections and as we listened we went back in our essays and corrected the mistakes we made. 

I hope this form of writing is continued in the future, because I noticed what I need to work on and I really have to improve my writing, and this is helping.

“In the 21st century, we still fundamentally believe that the future will be brighter than the present.”

Brenna Cunningham

20^th century history

October 15^th, 2008

Modernity

Modernity as a Positive or a Negative

       Modernity is best described as the modern era, but it could also be referred to as a cultural and intellectual movement. Some say the movement was from about 1630-1940, others say from the beginning of the 20^th century, or the Industrial revolution. There were many outspoken critics of modernity, namely; Engels, Marx, Gandhi, and movie producer Fritz Lang. At the turn of the 20th century, authors disagreed about whether modernity will lead to social progress.

         Many authors believed that modernity was defective, and would be harmful to the future. Friedrich Engels explains in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific: “But the perfecting of machinery is making human labor superfluous.” He deciphers that labor is becoming abundant and unnecessary because of machinery and it displaces manual labor throughout. He also quotes Marx saying that “the machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class”. Another persuasive author that clearly states he is utterly against modernity and developed civilizations is Gandhi. In his Hind Swaraj he compares the differences in the lifestyle of a modern and a former society some of his arguments being: “Formerly, only a few men wrote valuable books. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons peoples minds…Men will not need the use of their hands and feet…Everything will be done by machinery… People lack real physical strength or courage.” As one can see, Gandhi strongly believes that the modern civilization is becoming immoral and is destroying traditional customs. Gandhi explains that with machinery becoming the new form of labor, people don’t need to work anymore and they become lazier and not as active. To Gandhi and Engels, modernity is destroying society.

            Though many authors thought modernity was contemptible, others believed that the future would always be brighter than the past. In Vol. IX of the Economist, it states that “We look upon the Part with respect and affection as a series of steppingstones, to that high and advanced position which we actually hold and from the Future we hope for the realization of those dreams, almost of perfectibility, which a comparison of the Past with the present entitles us to indulge in”. This defines what a significant amount of important philosophers and authors believed in; which basically is that people look towards future as an opportunity for improvement and to create a perfect society. An author who thought alike was Walt Whitman, who wrote an optimistic poem about the upcoming future and the progress it would bring to society. In his poem he mentions “I see Freedom, completely armed and victorious and very haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other”. He strongly believed that the future would be different and progress to more equal and developed ways, as his poem, Years of the Modern, contains his expectations of a brighter society in the future.

          Humanity could improve throughout time and it could progress. However, one cannot be sure. As far as Gandhi, Engels, and many other authors are concerned, humanity could be doomed, due to the effects and growth of modern society. Humans are on a path they cannot avoid, a path of evolution, for the better or for the worse. Society will constantly be growing intellectually and culturally, new creations will be developed, and more machinery will be formed to make daily tasks easier, but the question is, is all of the change beneficial?

Roughly a dozen years ago, my aunt and uncle picked up and moved from San Diego to a ranch in nearly the middle of nowhere Kansas. They wanted something different. Now, he keeps a small herd of cattle and she makes soap…really. They are having the time of their lives and I have to say that after visiting and seeing their place, the expanse of land, the dramatic thunderstorms, I think I could be happy there, too. I had forgotten that my first interest in history began with the idea of the pioneer family, primarily because I’d read all the Little House Books - long before Michael Landon brought some of those stories to TV (I never did like all the stuff he changed, but that’s another story).

Anyway, my aunt got interested in the history of the “spread” they purchased, learned about the family, even met some of the descendants. Along the way, she heard about a woman named Mary Frances McKinney, a Kansas farm wife who wrote editorial articles for the Emporia Gazette from 1932 to 1962. My aunt decided to read the articles and enjoyed them so much, she transcribed many of them and self-published the collection, including a brief reminiscence from McKinney’s daughter, to be sold locally. She gave me a copy and I must say that they revived my old interest, even tho they’re beyond the timeperiod I usually like to study.

To make a long story short, I think the transcripts would make an excellent base to a website about life in rural Kansas. McKinney wrote about everything - life in small ways and large - on her farm, in Kansas, and in the US. Her articles were widely read, even printed in other newspapers, yet there’s nothing about her or her work online. No Wikipedia article, and no mention about her and her relationship with William Allen White (owner and editor of the EG), either.

I just gotta ask my aunt what she thinks of the idea. It would make sense to start with her Word file transcriptions. They’d need a lot of work, and there’s no annotation yet, but there’s lots of images and potential for expansion…I think she’d be pleased.

What I can remember of starting to care about politics, would probably be after September 11^th, people started getting very critical about the Bush administration and I started to understand how American political parties and groups were formed and how they are different from each other. I’ve always been very liberal and I always knew that about myself, and after going to the MUN in BFIS and learning more about current events, then started to understand why some people would be conservative, and understanding more about the different points of view, and why there is such a huge conflict to begin with. This is probably about when I started paying attention to politics, then I could overhear my parents talking about it, and I felt intelligent when I knew what they were discussing. Now, the presidential elections in the United States are occurring, and it has been the most diverse, competitive and interesting presidential race and it’s really entertaining to watch each running mate slam each other on the media.

Whereas world events, I started to understand the importance of them when I was in seventh grade and I did the MUN. We learned about the news everyday, and what was going on in the world, something I hadn’t done previously, and it’s much more interesting than most people probably think. Most of the news can scare people because a lot of it is tragic and the topics cover disasters, but it makes you appreciate more in life. Also, I think that debates about certain cultural or territorial issues such as the Israeli and Palestinian conflict is really interesting to debate about, because many people usually make a first impression on the topic and pick sides, but when all the details are researched then people can really understand why its such an importance to many people, or why some governments are more strict on certain issues than other countries.

Most of the issues that happen in the world are really interesting to me, however I don’t pay as much attention as I should be doing and some topics and events I find more meaningful than others.

The theories of Basil H. Liddell Hart emphasized the importance of maneuver, surprise, and technology in combat.  These concepts were developed by Hart into a concept of warfighting termed the indirect approach.  His theories were proved with overwhelming success by Israel in the Six Days War against the combined strength of Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces.  After achieving overwhelming initial surprise against the enemy, the Israelis built on their momentum and maneuvered their forces to gain territory and cripple the various Arab militaries against which they were arrayed.  The successful adaptation of Liddell Hart’s theories of warfare allowed the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to achieve an overwhelming strategic and tactical victory against its enemies, redefining the regional balance of power in the Middle East in Israeli’s favor. 

Liddell Hart’s theories were inspired by the devastation of the Great War, which  led to a rethinking of military strategy in an attempt to circumvent the carnage of the frontal attack.  After a brief initial period of maneuver, the Great War remained static and enormously costly in manpower and equipment for four years.  General officers, incapable of adequately adapting to the modern battlefield, clung to Napoleonic strategies while sacrificing a generation of men in constant frontal attacks against fixed positions.  Moving away from the 19^th Century theories of Jomini and Clausewitz, discredited by the realities of modern warfare, new theorists emerged, challenging the status quo.  The classical theorist Jomini had demanded that overwhelming force brought to bear at a decisive point, the failed tactic of the Western Front.  Clausewitz had theorized that the nation must seek to reign in political, popular and military support under a great leader who would seek decisive victory on the battlefield.  These theories were now unacceptable in the face of modern weaponry and combined arms.  The new theorists focused on the advantages of technology and the use of maneuver in combat.  Basil H. Liddell Hart, a British officer and veteran of the Great War, was the foremost military strategist of the interwar period.  Highly influential before and after the Second World War, Hart’s theories on mobility in war would influence combat operations and strategy throughout the 20^th Century.  His concepts of maneuver warfare distill into three components: the use of grand strategy and tactics to paralyze the enemy, the adopting of the indirect approach, and the importance of technology in combat (Wheeler 2).  

Liddell Hart, drawing on his experiences from the Great War, believed that technology made the defense superior to the offense, rendering the massive frontal attack obsolete.  However, he believed armored or mechanized forces brought to bear against the enemy in a moment of surprise could achieve a breakthrough if the enemy was unable to adequately maneuver (Bond 612).  The necessity of surprise, coupled with maneuver, would build momentum in combat, paralyzing the enemy in indecision (Carver 797).  After the Second World War, Hart believed that the attack would be successful if the indirect approach was adopted, which not only focused on surprise and maneuver, but on the psychological dimension of warfare.  Wheeler summarizes Hart’s focus on the mental side of war:

That the dimension in which wars are really won or lost is essentially a psychological dimension.  Wars reflect conflicts that grow out of human relationships, and human relationships are but a manifestation of the influences which human beings exert, one upon the other.  So far as a study of war is concerned, then, the central truth implied by this state of affairs is that ‘the real target in war is the mind of the enemy commander, not the bodies of his troops.’ (Wheeler 2)

The theory of the indirect approach had expanded from avoiding a frontal attack, to the use of surprise and maneuver to overcome the inherent strength of the defensive position.  Once maneuver was employed and surprise achieved, the enemy would be psychologically devastated, paralyzed into inaction by the momentum built through the application of the indirect approach (Danchev 313-315).  

After the Second World War, Liddell Hart’s writings came to terms with the new reality of nuclear deterrence.  He believed that the overwhelming destructive capability of nuclear war would prevent a resumption of total war, as was experienced in the First and Second World Wars.  Therefore, nations faced the reality of limited war, where attacks would be conventional and likely limited or restrained by the superpowers (Carver 781).  Limitations would force belligerents to use conventional forces in combat, reinforcing the importance of the indirect approach.  Furthermore, the fear of escalation and the potential that the Great Powers could be drawn into an expanding limited war implied that conflict would be quickly restrained by the superpowers, likely through the United Nations or direct pressure from the United States or the Soviet Union. 

Liddell Hart theorized that technological achievements would allow a nation to employ the indirect approach against an enemy force.  Advances in technology could overcome the power of defensive positions, aid the achievement of surprise and increase the effectiveness of maneuver.  Shortly after the conclusion of the First World War, Hart recognized the enormous potential of tactical air power, writing in 1922:

In view of the transcendent value of aircraft as a means of subduing the enemy will to resist, by striking at the moral objective, the question may well be asked: Is the air the sole medium of future warfare? That this will be the case ultimately we have no doubt, for the advantages of a weapon able to move in three dimensions over those tied to one plane of movement are surely obvious to all but the mentally blind (Wheeler 2).

Airpower, in Hart’s belief, possessed the enormous strength of mobility, the potential to strike behind the enemy’s lines, and the opportunity to cooperate with ground forces.  However, he identified fatal flaws in the employment of airpower as well, pointing to the extreme weakness of aircraft on the ground, the inability to fly undetected, and a very limited hitting power.  Ironically, while being one of air power’s greatest initial proponents and a believer in the value of technology in modern warfare, Hart greatly underestimated the ability of technology to overcome all the weaknesses he identified(Wheeler 2).  In fact, the Israeli ability to evade radar, use precision bombing, and seize on the weakness of Egyptian aircraft on the ground, led to the greatest demonstration of Hart’s theories, the achievement of surprise through maneuver, to build momentum and psychologically devastate the enemy into ineffectiveness.  

            In 1967, a state of open hostility and perpetual crisis existed between Israel and its surrounding Arab neighbors.  Nasser, the President of Egypt, champion of Arab-unity and leader of the strongest Arab power, had moved his country into the Soviet sphere.  The Soviet Union had increased its aid to the Egyptians since 1965, realizing the importance of the Suez Canal to the supply effort of its communist ally, North Vietnam.  Cynically, the Soviet Union sought to counter Western support to Israel by bolstering Egyptian and Syrian arms, turning a blind eye to nationalistic ideology even to the point of ignoring Ba’athist suppression of local communist parties (Smith 195).  Nasser had taken advantage of Soviet sponsorship to equip the Egyptian military with modern Soviet fighters, bombers, and SA-2 GUIDELINE surface-to-air missile systems.  Egypt possessed the largest Air Force in the region.  However, in armor and mechanized infantry capabilities, the Egyptians lagged behind Israel, relying on mainly ill-equipped and poorly led infantry units.  Military officers in Egypt had been promoted more for political reliability than for professional abilities or leadership qualities.  The Egyptian Army numbered between 150,000-180,000 soldiers, fielding approximately 900 tanks and 800 artillery pieces. The Egyptian Air Force boasted 242 fighter aircraft but suffered from a shortage of trained pilots and maintenance difficulties (Morris 312).  Low altitude radar coverage was poor, focused on the approaches to Cairo across the Sinai Peninsula.  Exasperating early warning deficiencies, the Egyptian intelligence services were focused domestically on bolstering the regime’s power, with limited focus on Israeli military operations. 

            Syria and Jordan possessed much smaller militaries than their Egyptian ally, 70,000 and 56,000 troops respectively.  The Jordanians possessed 264 tanks, reinforced with an Iraqi brigade adding an additional 30 tanks, and less than 200 pieces of artillery.  The Jordanian Air Force consisted of 24 British Hawker Hunter fighter aircraft.  The Syrians possessed 300 tanks, 265 artillery pieces, 92 Soviet fighter aircraft and two bombers.  Both the Syrian and Jordanian Armed Forces suffered from reliance on unmechanized infantry units, poor training, and politicized leadership (Morris 312-313). 

            The IDF numbered 250,000 troops, with the vast majority being reserve units and conscripts.  However, the IDF was highly professionalized, well equipped and well trained.  In 1967, the Israeli Air Force had 192 fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft, plus an assortment of combat-capable trainers.  The IDF maintained a ratio of three trained pilots per aircraft, excellent maintenance, and coordinated command and control.  The ground forces were all armored or mechanized, fielding 400 artillery pieces and over 1,100 tanks (Morris 311-312). 

            Through the spring of 1967, Nasser used increasingly violent and extreme rhetoric against Israel, calling for the reestablishment of the 1948 borders, before the nation of Israel had been carved out of the Eastern Mediterranean littoral.  Nasser requested that United Nations peacekeepers, which had maintained a presence in the Sinai Peninsula since the Suez Crisis in 1956, withdraw from Egypt.  Surprised that the United Nations would comply with his demands, Nasser found himself once again in control of Sharm-el-Sheikh, a strategic port located on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, and promptly closed the Straits of Tiran to shipping bound for Israel (Nye 190-191).  It is likely Nasser aimed at securing a political victory and was not aiming for war with Israel in 1967.  However, with the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers from the Sinai, Nasser was forced to make good on his many threats and close the Straits of Tiran (Gat 609).  The closing of the Straits on 22 May 1967, publicly declared by Israel to be a casus belli, in conjunction with strident Syrian and Egyptian war rhetoric and troop movements, led the Israeli government to believe war was inevitable (Morris 306).  On 30 May 1967, King Hussein of Jordan signed a mutual defense pact with Egypt.  This was quickly followed with the deployment of two Egyptian Commando Battalions to Jordan, an Iraqi tank brigade reinforcing the Jordanian positions, and an Egyptian General assuming command of the Jordanian armed forces (Morris 309). 

The Israeli government and general staff, seeing the combined Arab forces arrayed against them and mindful that mobilization, which had recently been ordered, had brought the Israeli economy to a halt, decided to initiate the war on 5 June with a massive surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force to seize air superiority (Smith 199).  The IDF intended to attack the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, a few hours after dawn, when the bulk of Egyptians fighters were completing their morning combat air patrols.  The Israelis would fly over the Mediterranean Sea, and attack the Egyptians from the northwest at low altitude, exploiting the poor Egyptian radar coverage, which was trained north and eastward, over the Sinai Peninsula and towards Israel.  Every Israeli fighter, save 12 which maintained a patrol over Israeli air space, participated in the attack, which achieved complete surprise.  Six Egyptian air bases were made inoperable, eight radar stations eliminated, and 197 aircraft were destroyed, 189 of which were still on the ground.  The second wave of Israeli attacks would destroy an additional 107 aircraft. 75 percent of the Egyptian Air Force was destroyed within a few hours.  Later in the day, the Israeli Air Force attacked Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian aircraft.  Half of the Syrian Air Force was eliminated on the ground or shot down, all 28 Jordanian fighters were destroyed, and 10 Iraqi aircraft were brought down as well (Morris 316-318).  The Israelis achieved complete surprise against their enemies and secured air superiority over the Eastern Mediterranean and Sinai within a few hours of the opening of hostilities.  The momentum of these first air attacks would propel the ground forces over the next five days into an assortment of victories in the Sinai, West Bank and Golan Heights securing territory while assisted by Israeli air dominance. 

After the initial air campaign, Israeli strategy called a ground assault into the Sinai Peninsula to destroy the Egyptian ground forces, their greatest threat. Since the Israelis were aware that the international community would most likely force a ceasefire on the belligerents shortly, they would focus on the Jordanian and Syrian ground forces after the destruction of the Egyptian Army.  Beginning on 5 June 1967, and continuing through the imposed ceasefire on 11 June, Israeli armor units, supported by air-to-ground fire and mechanized forces, conducted several breakthroughs in the Egyptian lines.   36 hours into the conflict, the Egyptian Army ordered a general retreat across Sinai, while senior leadership authorized units to cross the Suez Canal if necessary (Morris 319).  The success of the initial attack, followed by the relentless armored drive through the poorly trained and largely unmechanized Egyptian forces, led to panic within the Egyptian government.  The general order to retreat demoralized the Egyptian units still fighting. Egyptian forces suffered enormous casualties, further demoralizing forces and degrading their ability to maintain an effective defense.  The Egyptian leadership was paralyzed by indecision as the surprise and momentum of the IDF advance allowed Israel to seize the Gaza Strip on 7 June and reach the Suez Canal on the fourth day of the war (Morris 320-321). 

Despite the fact that Israeli planning had called for defensive actions against Jordan and Syria, the overwhelming success of the 5 June air and ground operations led the army to assume the offensive and attack Jordanian and Syrian positions by the end of the first day.  The initial success of the war presented the opportunity to secure the West Bank and Jerusalem, psychologically important territory for Israel, about which Labor Minister Allon wrote before the war, “In… a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence [the 1948-49 War] and must not cease fighting until we achieve total victory, the territorial fulfillment of the Land of Israel (Morris 321).”  Mindful of the international consequences, Israel now pursued seizing East Jerusalem and the West Bank, protected by the Israeli Air Force which brought withering fire on the Jordanians and their Egyptian and Iraqi allies.  Despite the protests of the director of the Mossad, General Amit, who foresaw the political and demographic implications of the occupation of the West Bank, the government, flush with success, ordered the complete conquest of all territory to the Jordan River.  By 7 June, Jerusalem was secured and the Jordanian governor surrendered the city to the IDF (Morris 324-325).  Aware that the United Nations Security Council was pressing Jordan to accept an imposed ceasefire which King Hussein accepted on 8 June, the IDF hurried to secure the West Bank (Smith 200).  At the end of 8 June, Nablus, Hebron, Jericho and Bethlehem were secured.  On 9 June the bridges over the Jordan were demolished by Israeli engineers, psychologically severing the West Bank from Jordan (Morris 324-325). 

With Egypt and Jordan incapable of waging offensive actions, the decision was made on 9 June to begin ground operations against Syria in the Golan Heights.  Despite strong defensive positions, the Syrians had been under constant Israeli air and artillery bombardment since 5 June.  Furthermore, they knew that Egyptian and Jordanian forces were routed and effectively out of the war which further demoralized the Syrian troops.  Syrian resistance quickly crumbled, and on 10 June, with an imposed ceasefire imminent, the IDF raced as far east as possible, securing the Golan Heights for Israel (Morris 326).

At sea, the Israeli Navy held back Egyptian and Syrian vessels, with limited combat taking place.  The IDF Navy sunk an Egyptian missile boat at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal and conducted commando raids on Egyptian ports.  To the regret of Israel and the United States, on 8 June, USS LIBERTY, an intelligence collection vessel assigned to the US Sixth Fleet was mistakenly attacked by Israeli forces, leading to the death of 34 US sailors (Morris 327).  The Six Days War was overwhelmingly an air and ground campaign.  The Egyptian naval blockade of the Straits of Tiran, so instrumental in the beginning of the war, was broken not by Israeli sea power, but ground forces taking the city from the Sinai desert. 

On 10 June, as the Israelis were consolidating their hold on the Sinai, West Bank, and the Golan Heights, a ceasefire was imposed by the United Nations Security Council at the behest of the United Sates and Soviet Union which did not want the war to escalate any further (Nye 191).  By November, United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 ambiguously demanded the return of the occupied territories, which Israel now was prepared to do in response to recognition by the Arab States and permanent peace.  The Israeli success in the Six Days War ended the imminent threat of Egyptian regional hegemony and afforded Israel large amounts of territory, some of which it would later return to Egypt for peaceful recognition in the Camp David Accords, after the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War.   The occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, along with the dislocation and expulsion of more than a hundred thousand Palestinians, continues to cause instability in the region today.  Furthermore, the overwhelming victory of the Six Days War and the occupation of spiritually important Jerusalem and the West Bank immediately began to take on a religious aspect in Israel, leading to a resurgence of right-wing Zionism (Jones 30-31).  Finally, the humiliation of the Arab regimes in 1967 would lead to their rearmament and the subsequent Wars of Attrition and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

The Israeli victory in the Six Days War successfully demonstrated the military theories of Liddell Hart in practice.  The indirect approach, theorized by Liddell Hart, called for a military force to achieve surprise through indirect methods, paralyzing the enemy into inaction while leveraging technology and maneuver to secure strategic goals.  Liddell Hart described the indirect approach in his work, Strategy: “Throughout the ages, effective results in war have rarely been attained unless the approach has had such indirectness as to ensure the opponent’s unreadiness to meet it.  The indirectness has usually been physical, and always psychological (Danchev 315).”  The Israelis, in meeting the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian threat with the overwhelming 5 June air strikes, assured air superiority while destroying the air forces of the Arab States.  In so doing, the Israelis achieved surprise and were able to maintain the initiative throughout the Six Days War.  Psychologically decimating the enemy, the Israelis immediately followed the successful air strikes with ground operations into the Sinai Peninsula, using maneuver units, supported by uncontested air cover, to maintain the momentum.  Within a few days, the Israeli armor and mechanized infantry units had eliminated the ability for the Egyptian forces to coordinate an effective defense, driving to positions along the Suez Canal.  Liddell Hart theorized that a force adopting the indirect method would achieve surprise, and then use the momentum and psychological devastation of surprise to pursue and defeat the enemy.  The Israeli Air Force flying well into the Mediterranean Sea, before turning south to strike its initial targets in Egypt while avoiding radar coverage, recalls Liddell Hart’s maxim on maneuver warfare where “the longest way round is often the shortest way home (Danchev 315).” 

The psychological element of the indirect approach is to shock the enemy into a state of ineffectiveness or indecision.  The Israelis used their surprise air strikes to force the Egyptians into an immediate defensive posture, which by the end of the first day became a disorganized retreat.  Hart wrote in the 1930s, “As the submarine was primarily an economic weapon, so was the aeroplane primarily a psychological weapon (Wheeler 4).” He recognized at an early stage in the development of airpower that the airplane, with the power to strike deep into the rear areas of enemy territory, could have an enormous psychological impact on the enemy’s ability to maintain momentum and stage an effective defense. 

At the end of the Great War, Liddell Hart began to theorize on the power of tactical aircraft to allow an armed force to achieve the indirect approach in war.  He identified two essential strengths in air power: unrivaled mobility and cooperation with ground forces.  In spite of the inherent strengths air power possessed, Hart identified several weaknesses: poor defensive position while on the ground, ease of detection, and inaccurate or ineffective firepower (Wheeler 2).  The Israelis capitalized on Hart’s identified strengths, while mitigating the weaknesses.  They exploited gaps in the Egyptian radar coverage over the Mediterranean to overcome the difficulty of flying undetected across the Sinai.  They flew at very low altitude to further reduce Egyptian radar effectiveness and eliminating the threat posed by the SA-2 GUIDELINE surface-to-air missile system by staying beneath its minimum attack altitude.  The Israelis took advantage of improvements in air-to-ground attack capability to destroy runways, stranding the Egyptian aircraft on their tarmacs.  Finally, the IDF capitalized on the great weakness of aircraft identified by Hart as vulnerability on the ground, to destroy the Egyptian Air Force while stranded.  Hart wrote in 1934, “The large ground organization of a modern air force is its Achilles’ heel,” which the Israelis capitalized upon to devastating effect (Wheeler 6).

Maneuver warfare, described by Liddell Hart, is necessary to achieve surprise and paralyze the enemy.  The seizing of land for the sake of making territorial gains was to be avoided, for holding positions is worthless if it does not participate in defeating the enemy.  Hart wrote in 1925, “We are far too much absorbed with the idea of ‘positions’ both of taking them and of occupying them.  Navies have always commanded vital arteries without occupying them; is there any reason why the mobile armies, the land navies, of the future should not do the same (Danchev 318)?” The Israelis, although conquering an enormous amount of territory in the Six Days War, initially did not seek territorial gains.  The strategy was to destroy the war fighting ability of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armed forces, eliminating the combined Arab threat to Israel.  Israeli armored and mechanized units, fighting against the largely unmechanized Arab units, were initially able to force the Sinai based Egyptian forces into a general retreat.  The initial surprise achieved by the IDF, supported by almost continuous air-to-ground attacks against the Egyptians, allowed the Israelis to maintain the momentum against the Egyptians while expanding the fight to the West Bank and Golan Heights.  The ground combat in the Six Days War pressed by the Israelis was overwhelmingly armored, mechanized, and coordinated with artillery support and constant air supremacy.  The Israelis followed Hart’s theories, ignoring the taking of territory to focus on the destruction of the enemy’s forces through the indirect approach.  The taking of enormous amounts of territory was a byproduct of the destruction of the enemy’s forces and a result of the successful strategy adopted by the IDF.  

Hart believed that the reality of a bipolar world, in a fragile balance of nuclear deterrence, was limited warfare.  The fear of escalation to nuclear conflict was too great to allow combat to rage among the superpower’s client states (Carver 781).  Israel, aware that offensive actions would be seen by the superpowers as escalatory and destabilizing, moved quickly to destroy the three armed forces arrayed against them.  Almost immediately after the beginning of the Six Days War, the international community was pushing for a ceasefire.  This drove the Israelis to destroy the fighting capability of the Arab States as quickly as possible, before the imposing of a ceasefire, fulfilling Hart’s prediction.

Liddell Hart developed his concept of the indirect approach decades before the Six Days War.  However, the combat operations begun by Israel fulfilled Hart’s calculation that maneuver units could leverage technology to achieve surprise against the enemy.  Once surprise was achieved, momentum could be brought constantly to bear, paralyzing the enemy into a state of ineffectiveness.  The overwhelming success of Israel in the Six Days War and the subsequent humiliation of the Arab regimes, would define the strategic situation in the Middle East to the present day.  The seizing of Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, and Palestinian territory, with the following displacement of several hundred thousand Palestinians from newly acquired land, significantly altered the political reality of the Israeli-Arab Conflict.  The 1973 Yom Kippur War would later show the Arab recognition of Liddell Hart’s indirect approach, when in a surprise attack the reequipped Arab forces initially decimated the IDF, securing the momentum for a time early in the war.  It was only after the Yom Kippur War that the Israel’s abandoned the 1967 inspired reliance on the offensive and readopted a more flexible strategy, again similar to Hart’s theories which were so successful in 1967 (Finkel 790-793).  This redefinition of the strategic picture led to several more wars, the eventual land for recognition agreements which arose from the Camp David Accords, and a Middle East Peace Process which continues with limited success to the present day.

© J.B. Wilgus 2008

Works Cited:

Bond, Brian and Martin Alexander. “Liddell Hart and De Gaulle: The Doctrines of Limited Liability and Mobile Defense.” Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Ed. Peter Paret.  New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.  598-623.  

Carver, Michael. “Conventional Warfare in the Nuclear Age.”  Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Ed. Peter Paret.  New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.  779-814.

Danchev, Alex. “Liddell Hart and the Indirect Approach.” The Journal of Military History.  63.2 (1999): 313-337.

Finkel, Meir. “Flexible Force Structure: A Flexibility Oriented Force Design and Development Process for Israel.” Israeli Affairs. 12.4 (2006): 789-800. 

Gat, Moshe. “Nasser and the Six Day War, 5 June 1967: A Premeditated Strategy or an Inexorable Drift to War?” Israeli Affairs. 11.4 (2005): 608-635.

Jones, Clive. “Ideo-Theology: Dissonance and Discourse in the State of Israel.” From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel’s Troubled Agenda. Ed. Efraim Karsh. Portland: Frank Cass, 1997. 28-46.

Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. Understanding International Conflicts: an Introduction to Theory and History. 6^th Edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.

Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 3^rd Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Wheeler, Captain Michael O. “The Employment of Tactical Air Power: A Study in the Theory of Strategy of Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart.” Air University Review. Sep.-Oct. 1973. <http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1975

/sep-oct/wheeler.html>

Morgan Meis, at The Smart Set, discusses Niall Ferguson’s documentary, War of the World, aired on PBS over three weeks in late June and early July:

Ferguson’s unconventional arguments strike me as a sign of a greater attitudinal shift happening now in the early part of the 21st century. The assumptions of the century past don’t seem so obvious anymore. We’re more inclined to look backward in dispassion and perhaps a little melancholy. The German critic Walter Benjamin once came up with a startling image he called the Angel of History. Here’s the passage:

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. It shows an angel who seems about to move away from something he stares at. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look. His face is turned toward the past. Where a chain of events appears before us, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm.

We are starting to be able to see the 20th century as that catastrophe, that pile of wreckage linking our most recent past to all the other centuries that have piled up man’s folly. Surely it is the only thing we’ve got and there is a strange beauty to the wreckage. But it becomes impossible to look back at the 20th century without a sense of tragedy.

It is only fitting, then, that WWII should become a centerpiece of contention. WWII has always been the success story of the 20th century, the war that everyone can feel good about even while recognizing its terrible costs. Suddenly, though, it is possible to wonder whether such a horrific orgy of destruction could ever be called “good.” Even the once unchallengeable claim that it was “The Necessary War” has recently come under fire. Patrick Buchanan — hardly a marginal figure — has recently come out with a book called Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. Buchanan comes to many of the same conclusions about the Allies’ responsibility for the war as the Left pacifist Nicholson Baker does in his recent book Human Smoke. (I wrote specifically about Nicholson’s book in these pages a short time ago.) Buchanan writes:

“Victory at all costs” proved costly indeed. Yet, horrendous as the cost was, it had to be paid. So we are told. For Hitler, as Henderson wrote, was out to “rule the earth.” But if he was out to rule the earth, and war was the only way to stop him, we must ask: Where did Hitler declare his determination to destroy the British Empire and “rule the earth”? How was a nation of Germany’s modest size and population to conquer the world? Was there no way to contain Hitler but declare a war in which, as Chamberlain told Joe Kennedy, millions must die?

The fact that we have three analysts — Ferguson, Buchanan, and Baker — coming from such different political standpoints and all raising such similar questions about the hitherto almost universal opinions about WWII is telling. Once again, at the beginning of a new century we are looking forward to a new era with as much uncertainty as ever. The concrete truths we stood upon to survey the world just a few years ago suddenly melt beneath our feet. The cost of historical understanding comes at the expense of surety.

In the last episode of The War of the World documentary (covered in the epilogue of the book) Ferguson makes the point that the second half of the 20th century wasn’t much less bloody than the first half. The areas of conflict simply shifted from Europe to the Third World. Ferguson closes with the following thought:

[W]e remain our own worst enemies. We shall avoid another century of conflict only if we understand the forces that caused the last one—the dark forces that conjure up ethnic conflict and imperial rivalry out of economic crisis, and in doing so negate our common humanity. They are forces that stir within us still.

It is a strange conclusion for Ferguson to draw when he has spent so much time showing us the overwhelming force of history as against the relatively pathetic human attempts to consciously control it. The more realistic conclusion to be drawn is that historical understanding works only in one direction: backward. Like Benjamin’s angel of history, we only get to view the catastrophe once it has already happened. In that sense, our knowledge is frustratingly impotent. The 20th century found its own special and remarkable ways to be the bloody mess that it was. There is little reason not to assume that the 21st century, too, will add to the carnage of history. A new perspective on the 20th century merely confirms our essential uncertainty. But as an old man once mentioned after visiting the Oracle at Delphi, there is wisdom in knowing how much you don’t know. 

Read the whole thing

One point of major disagreement:  there is nothing inevitable or “beyond us” about historical understanding, and an understanding of the world today is not beyond us either.  There are powerful forces waging war in our world, but they are not absolutely beyond human control.  There are people today, as there were people, “yesterday”, who see and understand the depth and range of the many powers that operate against progress and peace.  I remain hopeful that, one day, there will be enough such people to change the future.  Though it is getting awfully late in the day.

Hails of Wrath

            This blog entry is from Al Tarrar, an Iraqi man that describes the current situation in the city of Baghdad. Al Tarrar is horrified by what he sees everyday in the streets of his city, and wants to communicate the instability and violence that Baghdad is suffering. He describes how people that are suspected to be somewhat weaker, such as a “dirty southerner”, is shot instantly. Innocent civilians are being killed constantly and it is becoming a normal scene to see people dead in the middle of the streets. The city is devastated and although some men still work, most of the activity in the city has stopped.

            I believe this blog is reliable. Al Tarrar is not only explaining how horrible life in the city of Baghdad is becoming, but he is proving it with many true facts. He states small details that happen that provide evidence of how dangerous and unstable the streets of his city are. His only purpose is to let everyone know what is happening and why it is a very concerning subject. The author seems like an ordinary Iraqi man that is worried about the situation that his people is living and is suffering from the terrible consequences of the war.

            This blog entry is written by an Iraqi civilian so therefore it is obviously biased towards the people that suffer from the war, but his words are very objective and uses a lot of facts to prove that his statements are true. Al Tarrar has not omitted any information to benefit himself, and he obviously can’t say all the information possible. He is just explaining the situation of Iraq and only writes what he sees in the streets of Baghdad.

The Rape of Sabrine

            This blog entry is written by an Iraqi civilian that is also describing the current situation in Iraq by explaining everyday events that provide evidence for this instability and violence. It was written in 2006, which was thought to be the worst year of violence in Iraq. It tells the story of an Iraqi woman that was captured by the American-trained security forces and raped by more than three different men. While the CNN was too busy talking about the economic crisis in the US after the Iraq War, the Al-Jazeera channel was telling the story of Sabrine, a woman that had lost all her hope in that someday Iraq would become a stable and safe country to live in.

            This blog is reliable, because it tells the true story of the experiences of a woman, and it was broadcasted on television so it is not lying in any of the information stated. The author seems to be concerned about the situation and is only trying to communicate to the readers that it is a very crucial and it must be solved now.

            It is biased towards the victims that live in Iraq, because he obviously is also being affected from the situation and is concerned about what is happening. You can tell that he is against the US and specially the media, because it criticizes the fact that while such terrible things are happening in Iraq, they prefer to talk about the economic crisis. It is not omitting any important information, but it is being subjective and giving his opinion about what is happening both in Iraq and in America.

We’re looking at the common experiences of Kiwis travelling on their Big OE since 1965. We’re specifically looking for people who used London as their base. We’re focusing on four time periods:

1965–1975

The Hippy Trail – were you one of these, and did you end up in London?

1975–1985

Last of the drifters – did you drift on your OE or were you guided? Let us know.

1985–1995

Peak period – were you one of the masses in the largest wave to leave New Zealand?

1995–2000

Virtual OE – did your organise your trip online before you left?

We want to hear about your stories and treasures / taonga from your Big OE.

• Do you have photographs of yourself in front of famous monuments and sites in London?
• Did you specifically take anything from New Zealand which reminded you of home?
• Did you take anything from New Zealand which identified you as a Kiwi?

We’re particularly interested in people who travelled to London between 1965 and 1985, or in the later 1995–2000 period. If you would like to share your story, objects, or photographs, please contact us on nzhistory@tepapa.govt.nz.

Is nuclear deterrence morally defensible? 

It is hard to morally defend nuclear deterrence, but, to follow the realist train of thought, nuclear weapons exist and are now an established part of the security dilemma faced by the world’s great and regional nuclear powers (US, Russia, China, India, France, Britain, Israel, and Pakistan).  The threat of the annihilation of not only a foreign military, but the people, infrastructure, cities, culture – as former Secretary of Defense R. McNamara often expresses – the destruction of nations is not morally defensible.  I believe it is an unwinnable argument to try and convince others that the annihilation of a people is morally defensible.  However, the defense of one’s own people is morally defensible, it is absolutely necessary for the survival of a nation.  Therefore, offensive nuclear use is morally repugnant, but the maintenance of a nuclear deterrence in response to the threat of another nuclear nation is defensible. 

However, Iran is furiously working towards the development of a nuclear capability because of the threatening language (Axis of Evil) we continue to use against them.  I would propose that it is not morally defensible to blatantly threaten other nations, to the point of threatening pre-emptive nuclear force (remember, Secretary Rumsfeld brought up the use of low-yield “bunker busting” nuclear weapons as permissible to use in the “new age” post-September 11, with a not too-veiled threat aimed at Iran).  However, as Schelling wrote, “And before brute force succeeds when it is used, whereas the power to hurt is most successful when held in reserve.  It is the threat of damage, or of more damage to come, that can make someone yield or comply.”

I would also argue that some strategies of nuclear deterrence are more ethical than others.  Currently, I work for NATO and the current strategy we hold, in regards to nuclear weapons, is flexible response.  Despite what we see in popular culture, NATO, since the 1960s, has never intended a conflict to be settled through the immediate launching of all first-strike weapons – devastating the entire Warsaw Pact territory, followed by sea-launched, and land based second-strike weapons.  The doctrine of flexible response dictates a proportional use of force.  For example, if there had been an invasion of West Germany during the Cold War, we would have fought conventionally while using tactical (read: smaller, less damaging) short range nuclear missiles against military targets.  In response to a strike against a city like Brussels, where NATO head quarters is located, we would have destroyed a capital city of a Soviet Satellite state, example, Prague, or Budapest.  I realize it is very gut-wrenching to even think about what flexible response involves in terms of horrendous loss of life and destruction, but it does not involve the immediate launching of everything, and the wonton destruction of the entire northern-hemisphere.  I don’t believe flexible response is very morally defensible, but it is an attempt to rationalize the unfathomable and to put some sort of proportionality to nuclear deterrence. 

Question: I am writing about Cold War military strategies, but this is all changing now that we face global terrorism.  What if a nuclear terrorist attack took place in the US, or Europe against one of our allies, with ten-of-thousands of casualties, maybe more, in my opinion, “flexible response” is useless against a non-state actor.  How do we deter this?  What would be our response?  Shawn wrote earlier, in describing morality, that morality is conforming to standards of right or just behavior.  Does that same concept of morality apply when we are certain our enemies (terrorists) would not only not abide by these standards, but use them to their advantage?

To what extent can the outbreak of World War II be attributed to the personalities of the leaders involved? 

The personalities of the Great Powers in the years preceding the Second World War directly influenced events that led to conflict.  While systemic failures took place in the international system, such as the failure of Collective Security best exemplified by the League of Nation’s ineffectiveness in preventing conflict, which led to conflict, it was the personalities of world leaders that took the Great Powers to war.  Hitler, following a deranged ideology of racial superiority and anti-Semitism, led Germany to slowly dismantle the punitive measures of the Versailles Treaty which ended the First World War, then rearmed, and eventually sought territorial expansion at the expense of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Finally, his personal ambitions for lebensraum (living space) in the East led to the invasion of Poland, and the greater European conflict in 1939.  Hitler moved beyond realist international theories of maximizing power, it was his undoubted oratorical excellence, coupled with a diabolic plan of a single, armed, militant state, marching to war against lesser races, conquering and subjugating nations and people.  Many nations go to war, but unbridled aggression, a fascination with struggle and dominance, racism and the holocaust are uniquely the product of Hitler’s Germany. 

Mussolini, bandwagoning with the hegemonic Germany to form the Axis pact, used his Charisma and forceful personal leadership to drag Italy into the Second World War by attacking France in 1940.  Already losing his popular grip forged in the 20s, it took the single party state and its terror apparatus, dreamed up by Mussolini and his black shirts to force Italy into an unpopular conflict in 1940. 

Other leaders led their nations into the Second World War as well.  FDR’s oil embargo on the Japanese, though in response to Japanese aggressiveness and atrocities committed in building the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”, was a determining factor in the Japanese military hierarchy’s decision to invade the oil rich Dutch East Indies while simultaneously attacking the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii territory.  FDR’s forceful policy pushed the Japanese to make desperate decisions leading to war.  Interestingly, the Japanese were not led by one personality bent on conquest, despite the vilification of Emperor Hirohito and General Tojo at the time, but by a collaborative group of military leaders. 

Finally, Stalin, always paranoid and Machiavellian, was willing to sign the Pact of Steel in 1939, carving up Poland with Germany, the ideological counterbalance to communism.  This pragmatic move, inspired Hitler to dismantle Poland, leading to the declarations of war by Great Britain and France. 

Personal decisions by leaders had an enormous effect on Germany, the UK, the USSR, and the US in the beginning of the Second World War.  My question is this: With greater media coverage of world events, the internet and free flowing information around the world, are leaders now more limited in their ability to manipulate populations to their own decisions?  Have vibrant democracies in the west made the risk of conflict based on personality less likely?

Some of the topics we’re exploring in the 20th Century History exhibition relate to major local and international events, some are aligned with social or technological changes, and some revolve around personalities.

One of New Zealand’s most memorable personalities was Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. Muldoon dominated public life in the 1970s and early 1980s in a way that few politicians before or since have managed. When we spoke with members of the public about the exhibition early in 2007, Muldoon was the politican who seemed to have left the most vivid impression, even among those who were very young at the time.

One of the factors contributing to Muldoon’s cultural survival is probably his ubiquity in the media. Not only was he one of the first politicians to make effective use of television (you can view the National Party’s notorious 1975 ‘Dancing Cossacks’ TV ad on nzhistory.net), but his distinctive features were eminently caricaturable. Every political cartoonist had their own Muldoon, and he was also impersonated on television (most memorably by David McPhail on the satirical shows A Week of It and McPhail and Gadsby). We’ve found this great toby jug bearing the unforgettable Muldoon countenance!

We’re very impressed and gratified by the response so far to our World War One Memorial Project. Since its launch last month, we’ve had 95 images of New Zealand memorials contributed from all over the country.

The towns and cities so far represented are: Akaroa, Alexandra, Auckland, Cambridge, Eastbourne, Glenorchy, Hawera, Hokianga, Hunterville, Levin, Makara, Mangaweka, Matamata, Maxwell, Nelson, Opunaki, Pahiatua, Palmerston North, Patea, Picton, Pihana, Pirongia, Porirua, Portage, Rotorua, Shannon, Taihape, Te Aroha, Waverley, Wellington (National War Memorial, Brooklyn, Ataturk Memorial), and Woodville.

Have a look at the images on our Flickr site.

Many thanks to everyone who has participated to date. This is a long-term project, so we hope you’ll keep photographing New Zealand’s war memorials and posting them on Flickr, particularly if you live in an area that hasn’t been represented yet.

Not all war memorials are monumental or made from marble. While I was reading Ann Beaglehole’s Eastbourne: A History of the Eastern Bays of Wellington Harbour, I discovered details of trees planted by the community to remember World War One (WWI) and those who lost their lives.

In July 1916 two pohutukawa trees were planted on the corner of Oroua and Rata Streets to mark the landing of Anzac troops at Gallipoli. The one tree that survived became known as Eastbourne’s Anzac Memorial Tree, and is regarded as the oldest Gallipoli memorial in New Zealand.

Eastbourne’s Anzac Memorial Tree on the corner of Rata and Oroua Streets. Photograph by Michael Fitzgerald, 13 April 2008.

Two other memorial trees - kauri - were planted in private gardens in nearby Nikau Street, to mark the deaths of local men. One was for Second Lieutenant Harry Oswald Furlong Marsden, killed in action in October 1917 during the Battle of Broodsiende, in Belgium, part of the Passchendaele offensive.

The other memorial kauri tree was planted for Sergeant Hubert Earle Girdlestone. He lost his life in August 1918 during the Battle of Bapaume, in France. The battle was part of the successful initiative that broke through the German trench system.

If anyone has photos of these memorial trees, we’d love you to add them to our WWI memorial project at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ww1memorialsproject/

Brooklyn War Memorial, Wellington

One of the topics we’ll be exploring in the upcoming 20th Century History exhibition will be the impact of First World War deaths on New Zealand society.

More than 18,000 New Zealand soldiers died overseas during the war, but very few of their bodies came back, so the way in which their sacrifice was memorialised was very important for their family and friends back home. All over New Zealand, communities responded by building memorials to their local dead: more than 500 statues, obelisks, arches, civic buildings, and other monuments were dedicated to their memory.

We’d like to commemorate the spirit behind these memorials by asking communities of today to photograph their local World War One memorials. We will then present these photos - as a large-scale slideshow - in the 20th Century History exhibition.

If you’d like to contribute a photograph of your local World War One memorial to the exhibition, it’s easy.

To make the memorials look their best, the images need to be high-resolution (the minimum is 1024×768 pixels; more would be even better), in portrait format, preferably on their own, without people (though you’re welcome to send us lots of other kinds of shots as well). The photo above is an example of what we’re looking for. You can find your local memorials listed on nzhistory.net’s Memorials Register. And if you know of a World War One memorial that’s not on the register, please let us know.

We’ve created a group dedicated to the World War One Memorial Project on the photo website Flickr. More information about the Project can be found there, along with other examples of the kind of images we’re looking for. You can post your photos on the site and tell us about your experience of taking them. The forums attached to this Flickr group can be used to organise your photo session with other people in the area. You can also get in touch with your local RSA for information about local memorials and Anzac Day activities.

Although Anzac Day is a great time to memorialise your memorial, you can take your photo any time. At the end of April, we’ll let you know how it’s gone and what memorials (if any!) we would still like photographed.

If you have any questions about this project, post a response here, or contact us at: nzhistory@tepapa.govt.nz

Hi, and welcome to Te Papa’s 20th Century History blog.

Te Papa is currently working on a major new long-term exhibition focussed on New Zealand in the 20th century, scheduled to open in late 2009.

This blog will let you know how the exhibition development is going, share experiences we’ve had putting it together, and ask your opinion about stories and objects we’re including. From time to time we’ll also be asking for your help in contributing stories, pictures or objects to the exhibition.

Very soon we’ll be announcing our World War One Memorial project, in which we’ll be asking you to document your local war memorial for inclusion in the exhibition. Check this page again next week for full details of how you can contribute.

We’ll try to post something new here at least once a week, so check in regularly for the latest information.

If you’ve got any questions about the 20th Century History exhibition, or there are topics you’d like to see discussed in this blog, you can email us at nzhistory@tepapa.govt.nz

It’s 1901. Queen Victoria will die on January 22. Winston Churchill, returned from the Boer War a celebrity due to his bravery, his newspaper dispatches, and his escape from a Boer prison, is sitting in his first term in Parliament. On April 10, W. E. B. Du Bois will refuse Booker T. Washington’s  offer of a position at Tuskegee. The grandson of Emperor Meiji, given the name Hirohito, will be born 29 April, and sent away from his parents to be raised “unselfish, perservering in the face of dificulties, respectful of the views of others, and immune from fear.” On September 14, Theodore Roosevelt will become president.  Tolstoy will be excommunicated this year, protesting against the theft of civil liberties in Russia. Socialism seems on the rise around the world as 140,000 steel workers strike against the United States Steel Corporation. In Stockholm, the first Nobel Prizes will be awarded.

And I’m just getting started in my next reading project — to surf through the 20th century in these fine books, one chapter at a time, keeping them all fairly even in time.

W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race (Owl Books)

Churchill: A Life

History of the Twentieth Century, A, Vol I: Volume One: 1900 - 1933

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Theodore Rex

I didn’t buy them with this in mind — they are just books that I happened to be planning to read. But the idea has appeal, and I’ll see how it goes. Unfortunately, Du Bois is starting out behind — I’m up to 1900 in Churchill, and the others all start at 1900 or 1901, but he’s back in 1868, with 238 pages to get even with the others — nearly half the volume.

The only one I’ve read much of is this excellent biography of Churchill that my son Robin got me for Christmas this year — it happens to be written by Martin Gilbert, the author of the 3-volume history of the twentieth century (one volume pictured above) that I’ve had for most of this century, so I thought I’d get some historical context by reading the two together, then inspiration struck this afternoon — I’d read these other biographies from my shelf of future reading at the same time!

I’ll let you know how it goes — and, please, feel free to suggest other biographies that I can pick up along the way so I can make it all the way to 2000 in one big Cowabunga!