scholarly journals A Szabad Francia Légierő tevékenysége Afrikában

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-3.) ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Krisztián Bene
Keyword(s):  
Air Force ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
Equatorial Africa ◽  
Second World ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
De Gaulle

The Free French Air Forces were the air branch of the Free French Forces during the Second World War from 1940 to 1943 when they finally became part of the new regular French Air Forces. This study aims to present the activity of this special and little-known air force over the territory of Africa during this period.After the French defeat in June 1940 General Charles de Gaulle went to England to continue the fight against the Axis Forces and created the Free French Forces. Several airmen of the French Air Forces rallied to General de Gaulle which allowed the creation of the Free French Forces on 1st July 1940 under the command of Admiral Émile Muselier. The Free French commandment wanted to deploy their units during the reconquest of the French African colonies, so they were sent to participate in the occupation of French Equatorial Africa in 1940. Other flying units struggled in East and North Africa together with British troops against the invading Italian armies. These forces were reorganized in 1941 and continued the fight in the frame of fighter and bombing squadrons (groupes in French). Most of them (five of seven) were created and deployed in Africa as the Lorraine, the Alsace, the Bretagne, the Artois and the Picardie squadrons.From 1940 to 1943 5,000 men served in the ranks of the Free French Air Forces, which is a modest number if we compare with the power of the air forces of the other allied countries. At the same time, the presence and the activity of these forces were an important aid to Great Britain during a hard period of its history, so this contribution was appreciated by the British government in the end of the war at the political scene.

scholarly journals Herosi czy ofiary? Kapitał moralny Polaków w narracji Muzeum II Wojny Światowej w Gdańsku

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-190
Author(s):  
Barbara Markowska
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Heroic Narrative ◽  
Second World ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
Moral Capital

The author analyzes the narrative of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk using the category of moral capital, which is defined as a supply of moral stories influencing the moral status of the collective entity described as perpetrator or victim of a given event. The author considers that the decision, in 2008, to create the museum was one of the most important initiatives of Polish historical policy. From the beginning, the idea of the museum was the source of disputes, primarily concerning the shape of the Polish narrative about the war. Discussions on the subject and divisions in the political scene led to a spectacular “takeover” of the museum shortly after its opening in 2017. The management was changed and numerous alterations to the main exhibitions were made. The first version of the exhibition stressed the universalism of the experiences of civilians, including Poles, as victims of war-time terror, poverty, fear, occupation, forced labor, or extermination. After analyzing the narrative content of the exhibition opened in March 2019, the author of the article claims that in the modified version we can observe the (re)construction of a heroic narrative, aimed at reinforcing the moral capital of Poles.

scholarly journals From Gaullism to Anti-Gaullism: Denis Saurat and the French Cultural Institute in Wartime London

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Faucher
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Second World ◽  
De Gaulle

This article explores the case of the French cultural institute in London which found itself at the nexus of Gaullist as well as anti-Gaullist networks during the Second World War. By analysing the support that the institute’s director, Denis Saurat, brought to Charles de Gaulle in the early days of Free France, the article contributes to our understanding of the formation of Free French political thought. This study analyses Saurat’s shifting position in the movement, from being Gaullist to becoming an active partisan of anti-Gaullism. The examination of Saurat’s networks and politics helps to re-appraise further trends of anti-Gaullism caused by leftist views not least regarding the lack of democratic principles that characterized Free France in 1940–2. Finally, Saurat’s anti-Gaullism was also prompted by his refusal to put the French cultural institute in London at the service of de Gaulle and support Free French propagandist, cultural and academic ambitions in the world. Overall this article argues for a reassessment of London-based leftist anti-Gaullism understood not just through issues of personalities and democracy but also through the prism of cultural diplomacy and propaganda.

French Interests in the Levant and Their Impact on French Immigrant Policy in West Africa

Itinerario ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-32
Author(s):  
Chris Bierwirth
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
Second World War ◽  
West African ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
Immigrant Policy ◽  
Second World ◽  
De Gaulle

Prior to the Second World War, the French government had been highhanded in its administration of the Levantine Mandates and severe in the treatment of Levantine immigrants in its West African colonies. This imperious behaviour would change abruptly in 1944. As part of their effort to rebuild French power, General Charles de Gaulle and the Comité Français de la Liberation Nationak (CFLN) sought to maintain France's longstanding position of diplomatic and cultural influence in the Levant, even after promising Lebanese and Syrian independence. With this in mind, French authorities grew more sensitive to the immigrant connection between Damascus and Dakar. In particular, the CFLN began to understand that complaints by Levantine immigrants in Afrique Occidentale Française (AOF) regarding their treatment by colonial officials had immediate repercussions on the French ‘mission’ in Syria and Lebanon. As a result, in the last year of the war – and at the direct instigation of the CFLN's representative in the Levant – sweeping policy changes were instituted to mitigate the treatment of Levantine immigrants in West Africa in order to restore France's prestige and position in the Middle East.

Development of the Concepts for Providing Close Air Support

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
Hristov Manush
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe main objective of the study is to trace the perceptions of the task of an aviation component to provide direct aviation support to both ground and naval forces. Part of the study is devoted to tracing the combat experience gained during the assignment by the Bulgarian Air Force in the final combat operations against the Wehrmacht during the Second World War 1944-1945. The state of the conceptions at the present stage regarding the accomplishment of the task in conducting defensive and offensive battles and operations is also considered. Emphasis is also placed on the development of the perceptions of the task in the armies of the United States and Russia.

scholarly journals Will the World’s Glass after the Coronavirus Pandemic Be Half-Empty or Half-Full?

Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-281
Author(s):  
Dubravka Stojanović
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Great Crash ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

AbstractThe author comments on the political and economic options in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that started at the beginning of 2020. She revisits responses to the crises of the First World War, the Great Crash of 1929, and the Second World War, sorting them into ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ responses, and outlining their respective consequences.

scholarly journals SPIRITS, POWER AND THE POLITICAL IMAGINATION IN LATE-COLONIAL GABON

Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial administration and Gabonese auxiliaries in an era of pre-independence liberalization. Thus, regional political events in the 1950s rehearsed later configurations of power, including presidential politics, on the national stage.

The ‘Northern Dominator’ and the Mare Nostrum: Fascist Italy's ‘Cultural War’ in Malta

Modern Italy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Baldoli
Keyword(s):  
Air Force ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Italian Government ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Military Activity ◽  
Second World

Within the wider attempt to transform Italian communities abroad into Fascist colonies, the Italian Fasci Abroad sought to build nationalist propaganda in the Mediterranean. The irredentist activities and the propaganda of the Fasci in Malta alarmed the British governors on the island, the British government and MI5. This article analyses the cultural conflict organised in Maltese schools, bookshops and universities by the Italian nationalists against the British protectorate–a conflict the British suspected could be followed by military activity, in particular when Italy began building its empire in Ethiopia. The nationalist offensive was supported in the 1920s and, more vigorously, in the 1930s by the Fasci, the Italian consulate on the island and, ultimately, the Italian government. Not even the Second World War and the bombing of Malta by the Italian air force concluded the conflict between Italian and British imperialism on the island.

War Tourism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertram M. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Tourist Destination ◽  
French Economy ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
The Press ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Second World ◽  
De Gaulle

Second World War tourism in France includes two main components: tourism by the Germans and French during the war and memory tourism to war sites thereafter. Contrary to what is often assumed, tourism in France did not stop with the war. Thousands of German military personnel were given tours in occupied France and French civilians continued to take vacations as well. Many turned out with tourist gazes to watch General de Gaulle march down the Champs-Élysées at the time of the Liberation and sites frequently acquired new significance as in Normandy where Arromanches changed from a spa village to a war tourist destination. Based on French and German archival materials, memoirs, films, the press, and personal interviews, this book addresses the conflicts and competition between the 19th and early 20th century French tourism narratives and the German-dominated tourism version of the Second World War that replaced it, followed by the Gaullist/Resistance accounts after 1944. Although the Germans hardly treated the French kindly during the war, France was not relegated to the position of occupied Poland. Paris was spared the fate of Warsaw during the war. Postwar memory tourists brought home memories of Normandy and other sites that informed their own understandings of war. Narratives changed but war tourism remains a significant contributor to the French economy.

Vom Nachkrieg zum Vorkrieg

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World

The historical consciousness of the peoples of Europe is still being shaped by their own national histories. The question of the political order that prevailed during the interwar years has remained a perennial issue among historians. The dominant hallmark of this prelude to the Second World War was the rise of dictatorships and the question of whether we can characterise this period as one of uninterrupted crisis. This collection of studies examines the quest for a new European order and the interconnections between domestic and foreign policy during the 1920s and 1930s. It collates different national perspectives in a single volume and asks searching questions about the consequences of the decisions made during the period under examination. With contributions by Dragan Bakić, Maciej Górny, Kurt Hager, János Hóvári, Georg Kastner, Miklos Lojko, Markus Meckel, Ulrich Schlie, Christian Schmidt, Thomas Weber and Werner Weidenfeld.

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