Adolf Hitler*

A Life in Vienna

Hitler had hoped to become an artist but was rejected as unqualified by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in October 1907. His mother died in 1908, and Hitler pretended to continue his studies in Vienna in order to receive an orphan’s pension. In reality, he mostly wandered about the city admiring its public buildings and frequently attending operas, especially those of Richard Wagner, whom Hitler adored for his heroic portrayals of German mythology.

When he had exhausted his inherited funds, Hitler, unwilling to take a job, ended up in a homeless shelter. It was there that he was first exposed to extreme political ideas, particularly the racial concepts of Lanz von Liebenfels. Liebenfels published a periodical about the supposed superiority of Aryans, an ill-defined race that included Germans, and the inferiority of other races, especially Jews. At the same time Hitler acquired a hatred for socialism and came to equate it with the Jews.

Between 1910 and 1913 Hitler’s life improved when he began to paint and sell postcards and pictures for a living, copying famous paintings and drawing public buildings. He debated ideas with others in the hostel in which he lived, developing the beginnings of his public speaking style. Failure to register for conscription in Austria led him to flee for Munich, Germany, in 1913 to escape the Austrian authorities. He was extradited to Austria but was found physically unfit to serve in the military. He then returned to Munich.

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B World War I

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 came as an opportunity for Hitler, as his money was running out. He volunteered for a Bavarian unit in the German army and served the whole war. Though repeatedly decorated for bravery, he was never promoted beyond private first class. In a war of very high casualties, this is difficult to explain. Perhaps officers considered him a loner who could carry messages and perform other dangerous duties but who was unsuited to commanding men.

Hitler saw trench warfare as a form of the struggle for survival among races, a struggle that he was coming to see as the essence of existence. At the same time, his anti-Semitic feelings were growing extreme. When Germany was defeated in 1918, Hitler was lying in a military hospital, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. He decided Jews had caused Germany’s defeat and that he would enter politics to save the country.

Hitler returned to Munich after the war. He was selected to be a political speaker by the local army headquarters, given special training, and provided with opportunities to practise his public speaking before returning prisoners of war. His speaking successes led to his selection as an observer of political groups in the Munich area. In this capacity, he investigated the German Workers' Party—one of the many nationalist, racist groups that developed in Munich in the post-war years.

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Adolf Hitler*

C Beginnings of the Nazi Party

The German Workers' Party, later renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (abbreviated to NSDAP or Nazi Party), became Hitler’s political focus. Here he found an outlet for his talents in political agitation and party organization. The party espoused essentially the same ideas Hitler had picked up in Vienna: violent racial nationalism and anti-Semitism. He also shared the Nazis’ opposition to the liberal democracy of the German Weimar Republic, which had been established after the war.

Though still in the army, Hitler quickly became the new spokesman for the party. His talent for public speaking and the use of the local army's resources to generate publicity drew large audiences to events sponsored by an organization that had only 100 to 200 members. When he presented the party's official programme to a gathering on February 24, 1920, there were almost 2,000 present.

Hitler was discharged from the army the following month, and he soon attained dominance in the Nazi Party. He was the party’s most effective recruiter and, thanks to paid attendance at his speeches, its most successful fundraiser. When opposed within the party, he found ways to push out rivals and dissenters. Several times he did so by threatening to leave the party himself. Hitler obtained enough support to have himself chosen as Führer (absolute leader) of the party on July 29, 1921.

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Adolf Hitler*

III RISE TO POWER

Hitler appealed to a wide variety of people by combining an effective and carefully rehearsed speaking style with what looked like absolute sincerity and determination. He found a large audience for his programme of national revival, racial pride in Germanic values, hatred for France and of Jews and other non-German races, and disdain for the Weimar Republic. Hitler asserted only a dictatorship could rescue Germany from the depths to which it had fallen. His views changed only minimally in subsequent years and attracted increasingly larger audiences.

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A Economic Collapse

At the end of World War I, the Allies had demanded that Germany pay reparations—that is, payments for war damages. The government refused to pay all that was demanded by the Allies. When Germany failed to pay enough, France and Belgium occupied the coal mines in the Ruhr industrial area in west-central Germany in January 1923.

In protest, the German government halted all reparation payments and called for passive resistance by all the workers in the Ruhr area. This resistance took the form of a general strike, with labourers throughout the Ruhr refusing to work. To pay the striking workers, and to make up for money lost due to the stoppage of coal production, the government printed huge amounts of new money. This vast increase in the money supply triggered runaway inflation, as the German currency rapidly lost value. People saw their savings become worthless, while the price of goods skyrocketed.

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Adolf Hitler*

B The Beer Hall Putsch

Faced with massive inflation and growing civic unrest, the German government abandoned passive resistance and attempted to work out a new agreement with the Allies. At this point, Hitler decided the time was right to start a revolution. His followers were becoming restless, and he feared that the opportunity to launch a coup might pass if the government worked out an agreement and ended inflation.

On November 8, 1923, Hitler and 600 armed members of the Sturmabteilung (or SA, a Nazi paramilitary force) made their move. They marched on a Munich beer hall where Gustav von Kahr, head of the provincial Bavarian government, was addressing a public meeting. Hitler took von Kahr and his associates hostage and declared in von Kahr's name the formation of a new national government. Von Kahr was then released, and he immediately retracted the statement, outlawed the Nazi Party, and ordered the Bavarian police to crush Hitler’s revolution.

Undaunted, Hitler and his men led a march to the centre of Munich the following day. State police halted the march, shooting started, and 16 of Hitler's followers were killed. Lacking mass support, Hitler had no chance against the police and military power of the Bavarian government. The so-called Beer Hall Putsch (revolt) had failed. Hitler fled but was soon arrested and tried. In court he practically took over the proceedings, denouncing both the Weimar Republic and the Bavarian government. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for treason, but was released after less than one year.

Even though the putsch failed, it proved useful to Hitler. He received a great deal of publicity and learned an important lesson about the way to destroy democracy. It was not to be destroyed by outside force, but by working within its system to build up popular support, always avoiding a confrontation with its police and military power

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Adolf Hitler*

C Mein Kampf

While in prison, Hitler dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”, translated 1939); after his release he continued with a second volume. This work contained many of his basic ideas. Hitler believed that history was the record of struggles among races. He held that the superior Aryan race, centred in Germany, would be the final victor and would rule the world. But to win this struggle, Germany would have to be ruled by a dictator and would have to be racially aware. Racial awareness would come through a process of mobilizing the masses with propaganda that appealed to their feelings, not their reason, and aroused their hatred for all other allegedly inferior races, especially Jews. No class or other distinctions in German society mattered.

Another of Hitler’s major ideas was the concept of Lebensraum (living space). He denounced as hopelessly stupid those German political parties and movements that wanted to reverse the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and reclaim what Germany had then lost. Instead, Hitler argued that Germany needed large amounts of territory in which to expand, a need that he would meet by conquering territory and expelling or killing the local populations. Such measures naturally required wars, but not for political or economic objectives. Hitler’s wars would be fought to win vast stretches of land on which German settlers would raise large families. Eventually more land would be needed, but the population would have grown sufficiently to provide the soldiers needed to replace the losses caused by war and to conquer more land. What would happen when the German settlers met on the other side of the globe was not explained.

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D Reorganization of the Nazi Party

During his time in jail, Hitler had turned over direction of the party to Alfred Rosenberg. Rosenberg edited the party's newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (Popular Observer), but had no administrative ability. As a result, Hitler easily resumed complete control of the party upon his release in December 1924. In the years from 1925 to 1930, he built up a network of local party organizations over most of Germany, and reorganized the SA. At the same time he organized the black-shirted Schutzstaffel (defence corps), or SS, to protect him, supervise and control the party, and perform police tasks.

In this process of extending National Socialist power, Hitler was assisted by several men who had worked with him before 1923. Hermann Göring was a World War I fighter pilot who saw to the reorganization of the SA and was Hitler's closest confidante. Rudolf Hess, also a former pilot, became Hitler's secretary and played a major role in party organization. Joseph Goebbels was an aspiring author who came to worship Hitler and developed the Nazi propaganda techniques that swayed more Germans to join in that worship. Ernst Röhm was an army officer whose involvement increased army support and who built up the SA; he was killed on Hitler's orders in 1934 when Hitler felt that Röhm was becoming a threat to his plans. Heinrich Himmler, who had studied agriculture, began his work in the party in a secretarial capacity but moved into the SS, which he later headed. Max Amann had been Hitler's immediate superior in World War I and was placed in charge of the party's newspaper and publishing firm, which he turned into profitable businesses.

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Adolf Hitler*

IV INCREASING POPULARITY

In 1928 Hitler began his attempt to build the power of the party by democratic means. In the 1928 election the Nazi Party received just under 3 per cent of the vote, but during the campaign it had gathered a strong base. In 1929 a new settlement of the war reparations question, the Young Plan, was adopted, opening up the possibility of an early end to the remaining foreign occupation of a portion of Germany. Such an event might stabilize the republic, and in fear of this, the republic’s opponents organized a national initiative against the plan. This initiative, which was financed by the German nationalist Alfred Hugenberg, provided Hitler with opportunities to speak throughout Germany. The initiative to stop the Young Plan failed, but Hitler had recruited new followers who not only believed his message but were also willing to finance the Nazi Party.

In late 1929 the first effects of the worldwide economic depression (see Great Depression) were felt in Germany. The last government of the Weimar Republic based on a majority in the Reichstag (the German parliament) was not able to cope with the crisis and fell in March 1930. President Paul von Hindenburg appointed a new government led by Heinrich Brüning as chancellor. However, Brüning and the Reichstag could not agree on how to resolve the crisis. Hindenburg dissolved the legislature and operated the government by emergency decree, rather than through the normal legislative procedure. In new elections held that September, the Nazis scored a great electoral breakthrough, increasing their representation in the Reichstag from 12 to 107.

The victory of the Nazi Party, which had campaigned vigorously for the repudiation of all of Germany's financial obligations, caused foreign investors to withdraw their money from Germany, and the German banking system collapsed due to lack of capital. As economic conditions worsened, the appeal of the Nazis was far more effective than that of other parties: the Nazis were the one group that claimed to have all the answers. In a short time, the other political parties lost voters to the Nazis. Unemployment rose dramatically, and in this time of great economic hardship many who had never voted before were drawn to the Nazi Party, which offered simplistic but appealing solutions to the country’s problems and was not tied to one class or interest group. Consequently, many believed the party could establish a government that would be more effective than the republic. In elections held in 1932, the Nazis received more votes than any other party, and Hitler demanded that President Hindenburg appoint him chancellor.

Though Hindenburg at first refused, a small group of men around the president urged him to do so. They felt that Hitler could be controlled and his popularity and talents could be used to further the interests of the government. As the year progressed, Brüning's successor Franz von Papen grew unpopular as his attempts to revive the economy failed. Hindenburg replaced him with the political leader of the army, Kurt von Schleicher. Von Papen took revenge on Schleicher by joining forces with Hitler and Alfred Hugenberg. They talked the elderly Hindenburg into making Hitler chancellor of a Cabinet in which von Papen would be vice-chancellor and most other ministers would be non-Nazis. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of Germany. Those who disliked the republic had persuaded the president to turn over authority to its sworn enemy.

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Adolf Hitler*

V THE NAZI REGIME

Immediately upon becoming chancellor, Hitler moved to consolidate his power. He persuaded Hindenburg to issue a decree suspending all civil liberties in Germany. A subservient legislature passed the Enabling Act, which permitted Hitler's government to make laws without legislative approval. The act effectively made the legislature powerless. Hitler then installed loyal Nazis in important posts in the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the German provincial governments. He replaced all labour unions with the Nazi-controlled German Labour Front and banned all political parties except his own. The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought under Nazi authority. An individual's livelihood was made dependent upon his or her political loyalty. Thousands of anti-Nazis were taken to concentration camps—the existence of which was widely publicized—and all signs of dissent were suppressed. A massive propaganda campaign celebrated the end of democracy in Germany, and huge, staged demonstrations gave the impression that everyone supported Hitler.

Existing social, economic, and professional organizations were quickly taken over by individuals either already in the party or who would quickly join it. For the most part, leaders of Germany’s Protestant and Catholic churches rallied to the new government. Schools taught Nazi ideology. Soon the spare time of the young was absorbed by the Nazi Party as well—boys were drawn into the Hitler Youth, and girls became members of the Nazi-led League of German Girls. The goal was to indoctrinate people into the party starting at a young age. By the summer of 1933, the Nazi Party was in complete control of the country.

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A Hitler’s Racial Policies

In 1933 Hitler initiated polices to rid the Aryan race of undesirable elements and eliminate other races that he considered inferior and dangerous to the Germans. First, the government approved marriage loans to the “right kind” of Germans—those whose ancestors and appearance measured up to the Nazi’s standard of Aryan purity. These loans were repaid as the newlyweds produced babies. To discourage the propagation of the “wrong kind” of people, a law required the compulsory sterilization of men and women deemed likely to have defective children, primarily those with physical or mental handicaps. By 1945 some 400,000 Germans had been sterilized.

The first discriminatory laws against Jews also came in 1933. These laws barred Jews from government employment and restricted their admission to universities. In subsequent years, the anti-Semitic laws became increasingly harsh, as Jews were deprived of citizenship, excluded from more and more jobs, forbidden to own cars, thrown out of public schools, and stripped of their property. These events culminated in Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass”), the night of November 9, 1938, when Nazi mobs killed dozens of Jews, smashed thousands of windows in Jewish neighbourhoods, and set fire to almost all Jewish houses of worship throughout Germany. Following Kristallnacht, the Nazis sent more than 30,000 Jews to concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of others fled the country.

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Adolf Hitler*

B Rearmament of Germany

Starting in 1933, Hitler began the process of German rearmament and militarization that would eventually lead to World War II. Hitler’s plans for conquest consisted of four distinct wars. The first war would be against Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia). He was certain that the Czechs would put up little resistance and Czech territory and resources could then be used to further his continuing plans for conquest. Hitler’s second war would be against Britain and France. He expected this to be the most difficult conflict, as these countries had defeated Germany during World War I. Hitler prepared for this war during the 1930s.

The third war would be against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), where Hitler planned to seize huge portions of territory for German settlement. However, Hitler badly miscalculated when he assumed the conquest of the USSR would be simple. His assumption was based on his belief that the Soviet people, many of whom were of Slavic descent, were an inferior race controlled by the Jews under the guise of socialism. As a result, Hitler made no military preparations for that war and counted on a quick victory to provide Germany with the resources, especially the oil, needed for the fourth war, which was to be waged against the United States. Hitler felt that actually fighting the Americans would be easy, but technical preparations for the conflict had to be made well in advance because the United States was far away and had a large navy.

These military preparations with their enormous construction projects accelerated the economic recovery in Germany that had begun in 1932. Soon Germany faced a labour shortage instead of unemployment. As rearmament shifted into high gear, Hitler found he was short of money to buy foreign materials. This fact, combined with a desire to rely on domestic resources, led Hitler to inaugurate the Four-Year Plan in 1936. The plan called for Germany to be self-sufficient and ready for war in four years. Once the production of weapons for war against France and Britain was under way, Hitler in 1937 ordered the design and production of weapons for war with the United States. These arms included bombers that could reach America and a fleet of superbattleships that Hitler planned to be the core of a dominant navy.

In response to Hitler’s call for German self-sufficiency, German steel producers protested that the quality of domestic ores was too poor to use. When industry leaders refused to process the low-grade domestic ores, Hitler forced them to pay for a government-owned company that would. German industry was producing synthetic oil by 1933, and synthetic rubber and other substitutes followed. Hitler insisted that German workers be treated carefully and generously because he believed that domestic unrest caused by the hardships of war had brought about Germany’s defeat in World War I. During World War II, this policy required German armies to loot occupied territories, which resulted in the German people having the highest wartime rations in Europe.

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Adolf Hitler*

C Military Alliances

Despite Hitler’s drive for German self-sufficiency he knew that Nazi forces alone could not overcome the major European powers—at least not at first—and he began to seek allies. Hitler had long hoped to win the support of Italy in any coming war. He admired Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose nationalistic and militaristic policies mirrored his own. This admiration was reciprocated, and in 1936, Hitler and Mussolini established the Rome-Berlin Axis. Hitler then turned to Japan as a possible ally against Britain and France. In 1940 the Rome-Berlin Axis was extended to include Japan and became the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.

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VI BUILDUP TO WAR

A Anschluss

One of Hitler’s primary goals had always been to unite all German-speaking peoples in Europe. To this end, Hitler strongly pursued Anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria. The latter country was the primarily German-speaking remnant of the old empire of Austria-Hungary, which had been dissolved after World War I. The union of Germany and Austria had been forbidden by the treaty that ended World War I, a restriction deeply resented in both countries. Hitler, himself an ethnic German of Austrian birth, had always expected to incorporate Austria into his German empire—an empire he named the Third Reich. Union with Austria would increase Germany’s population, strengthen its army, and open an avenue to south-eastern Europe.

Efforts to accomplish Anschluss by external pressure and an internal coup failed in 1933 and 1934. These heavy-handed tactics considerably dampened Austrian enthusiasm for union with Germany. By 1937 Hitler was openly threatening the Austrian government and massing troops along the Austrian border. In March 1938 the Austrian chancellor resigned and was replaced by a member of the Austrian Nazi Party. On March 12, Hitler ordered his army to march into Austria. It met no resistance, and the following day in Vienna, Hitler proclaimed the official union of Austria and Germany.

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Adolf Hitler*

B Czechoslovakia

In early May 1938 Hitler decided to begin the first of his wars, that against Czechoslovakia. Hitler planned to crush Czechoslovakia, use its sizeable ethnic German population to enlarge his army, and expel or kill its non-German inhabitants. To build support for this plan, the Nazis organized a massive propaganda campaign in Germany, which portrayed ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia as victims of repression and discrimination at the hands of the Czechs. This campaign was unsuccessful—too many Germans remembered the horrors of the last war, and too few hated the Czechs. In addition to this lack of domestic support, there was unexpected foreign pressure against an invasion. Mussolini urged Hitler to negotiate, and Britain took a firm stand in support of Czechoslovakia.

Hitler called off the invasion in favour of negotiations, which ended in the Munich Pact. By the terms of this agreement, Czechoslovakia ceded to Germany portions of its land that were inhabited by ethnic Germans—primarily the area in western Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. Hitler accepted this agreement against his better judgement; he really wanted a war that would destroy Czechoslovakia. For the rest of his life, he considered this his worst mistake, and he was determined never to be cheated of war again.

In the winter of 1938 and 1939 Hitler believed the time had come for war with France and Britain. Those countries hoped war could be avoided; the experience of World War I had convinced them that even a victorious war would not be worth the cost. As a result, leaders in London and Paris had worked hard to settle whatever international issues might arise and to escape war if at all possible. The idea that anyone might actually want war was inconceivable to them. The signs that Germany was looking for further expansion even after Munich, however, led the British and French governments to decide in early 1939 that if Germany took action against any other country and that country resisted, they would go to war. Germany’s breaking of the Munich Pact by occupying most of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 pushed the bulk of the British and French peoples behind this agreement.

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Adolf Hitler*

C Final Preparations

Before attacking in the west, Hitler needed to secure two things: a quiet front on Germany's eastern border and allies against Britain and France. The first of these meant subordinating Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland to Germany. A change of government in Hungary favoured Hitler’s aims. He then successfully intimidated Lithuania into submitting to the Germans and annexed the former German region of Memel, which had been ceded to Lithuania after World War I. The Poles, however, were unwilling to surrender without a fight. Hitler decided to conquer Poland first and then turn to the west. As for securing allies, Italy was willing but Japan hesitant. Japan was interested only in an ally against the USSR, not against France and Britain. In a reversal of his former anti-Communist stance, Hitler turned to the USSR.

The Soviet Union had made offers of agreements in prior years, but Hitler had turned them away. Now, in Hitler’s eyes, the Soviet Union could help destroy Poland and then provide Germany with supplies while Nazi forces defeated Britain and France. Then, in turn, Hitler would crush the Soviet Union. Consequently, concessions made to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin made no difference to Hitler—they would all be taken back later. Hitler offered Stalin whatever he wanted to get an agreement signed. Inducements included a plan to split Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union, and a promise that the USSR need only remain neutral in case of a German conflict with another nation, instead of having to fight on the German side. The deal, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, was signed on August 23, 1939. Germany's ambassadors to London, Paris, and the Polish capital of Warsaw were recalled from their posts. On Hitler’s orders, the invasion of Poland began on September 1, 1939. Almost immediately, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

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Adolf Hitler*

VII WORLD WAR II

Polish resistance was no match for the German army, and the country quickly fell. Hitler had originally hoped to attack in the west in late 1939, but bad weather forced postponement. In the meantime the German navy urged an occupation of Denmark and Norway and war with the United States. Hitler agreed to the first stage, an operation conducted in April 1940, but preferred to postpone war with the United States until he could either complete construction of a navy large enough to fight the Americans or could acquire an ally who had one. In May and June of 1940, Hitler’s forces routed the armies of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Although Hitler failed to subdue Britain, he felt that by driving all resistance off the European continent he had effectively won the war in the west. He immediately accelerated the preparations for war with the United States and decided to attack the USSR in the fall of 1940. The British refusal to surrender confirmed his decision to attack the USSR; advice from the military led him to delay the invasion until late spring of 1941. Hitler believed the United States would come to Britain’s aid, and a German invasion of the USSR would encourage Japan to attack the Americans before they had a chance to help the British. He also encouraged a Japanese attack by promising to join Japan in a war against the United States. Japan had the large navy Hitler felt he needed.

The invasion of the USSR was launched in spite of Stalin’s attempts to prevent it. Even though Hitler had been massing troops on the border with the USSR for several weeks prior to the invasion, Stalin insisted that Soviet forces should take no action that could provoke the Nazis. His policies proved futile, and the attack began on June 22, 1941. The Germans seriously underestimated the USSR, however, especially the ability of its government to control and mobilize the country’s resources. The Soviet army halted and then defeated the Germans in 1941 and crushed subsequent German offensives in 1942 and 1943.

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Adolf Hitler*

A The Holocaust

As his armies were rolling through Polish resistance, Hitler stepped up the elimination of peoples he saw as inferior to Germans. Shortly after their 1939 conquest of Poland, the Germans began killing thousands of Poles and driving thousands more out of their homes to make way for German settlers. The Nazis also herded Jewish Poles into city ghettoes, killing thousands of them and condemning the rest to starvation. Within Germany, Hitler ordered a programme to systematically kill handicapped Germans, and over 200,000 were eventually murdered.

The German authorities planned to kill all Jews in the portions of the USSR they occupied and began the process in the summer of 1941. In late July 1941, Hitler decided to extend the systematic killing of Jews to all of German-occupied Europe. After the renewed German offensive in the USSR in October 1941 appeared to make great progress, he decided the time had come to go even further: all Jews on Earth would be killed. However, the Nazis found that German police and soldiers who did the killing were often traumatized by the experience. To make the slaughter faster and less stressful, the Germans built specially designed death camps, primarily in occupied Poland, to which Jews and other prisoners from all over Europe were transported. These camps contained large gas chambers where hundreds of prisoners at a time could be quickly, easily, and impersonally murdered by poison gas.

In his public speeches, Hitler repeatedly referred to the killing of Europe's Jews but without detailing the process. Because the Allies halted Germany's forces, Hitler's global ambitions were not realized; however, of the approximately 18 million Jews in the world, one-third were killed in what came to be known as the Holocaust. The great majority of European Jews perished, a fact that Hitler boasted of in his last testament.

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Adolf Hitler*

B The End of the War

By the time of the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy (see Normandy Campaign), in northern France, in June 1944, the war was going very badly for Hitler. A series of losses to the Allies and failure to defeat the Soviet Union had left Hitler’s armies severely weakened. Hitler's Germany had also changed a great deal. British and American bombers were devastating its industries and cities. The Germans who had reservations about Hitler’s regime had begun to find some recruits. However, most of the population still supported the regime and especially Hitler; consequently, those opposed to him saw his assassination followed by a military takeover as the only way to topple the dictatorship. Several assassination attempts, beginning in March 1943, miscarried. A bomb was placed in Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenberg in East Prussia (modern Poland) on July 20, 1944 (see July Plot), but did not kill him. The conspirators tried to launch their coup anyway, but with little support the effort failed. Hundreds involved in the coup attempt were executed, and Hitler maintained control of the country.

Underestimating the Americans, Hitler launched his last reserves west into the Ardennes country of Belgium and Luxembourg in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945). He felt that despite massive Allied gains, a hard blow would cause popular support for the war in America to collapse, and would lead to the disintegration of the coalition arrayed against him. All he accomplished, however, was to draw away troops needed in the east, allowing the Soviet army's winter offensive to roll all the way to the gates of Berlin. Hitler decided to remain in the city, hoping to inspire its defenders and anticipating a breakup of the Allies’ alliance. When neither of these hopes were realized, he appointed Karl Dönitz, the head of the navy and a devoted Nazi, as his successor. He then married his mistress Eva Braun and committed suicide in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

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Adolf Hitler*

VIII EVALUATION

Hitler left Germany and much of Europe in ruins. Over 60 million people died worldwide in the war, and tens of millions more lost their health and homes. Certain that they did not want to fight the Germans a third time, the Allies insisted on an unconditional surrender. They occupied all of Germany and divided it into British, French, American, and Soviet zones. Even after the western zones were joined into the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the country remained divided until 1990.

The German people discovered for the first time the extent to which modern warfare could destroy a country. World War I had not been fought to any great extent on German soil. The events of the war also demonstrated to many Germans the problems of dictatorship. Increasing numbers were now prepared to try a different, democratic, path at home, as well as an attempt at reconciliation with their neighbours. Both projects would take time, but they were major departures in the history of Germany and of Europe.

The war also brought the Soviet Army into central Europe and provided the Soviet regime with legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, a new empire in eastern and south-eastern Europe, and superpower status in the world. The world role of the United States was also enhanced in spite of the American preference for remaining isolated. Outside of Europe, the war hastened the end of colonial empires and the emergence of the new Jewish state of Israel. It also brought about the creation of new international organizations like the United Nations that might prevent such wars in the future.

Ironically, these developments were the exact opposite of what Hitler had hoped for. His ambition to make Berlin the capital of the world was not realized, and the enormous buildings he started designing for it in the 1920s were never built. Hitler combined organizational and manipulative talents with great cunning. He was simultaneously obsessed with fantastic visions and blinded to reality by those very visions. However, many Germans shared at least a portion of those visions. This support made it possible for Hitler to utilize the resources of Europe's second largest population and most advanced economy to pursue his ends. The result was an outburst of destruction that consumed the lives of millions and transformed the world.

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Adonai - Jehovah

Jehovah, name of the God of the Hebrew people as erroneously transliterated from the Masoretic Hebrew text. The word consists of the consonants JHVH or JHWH, with the vowels of a separate word, Adonai (Lord). What its original vowels were is a matter of speculation, for because of an interpretation of such texts as Exodus 20:7 and Leviticus 24:11, the name came to be regarded as too sacred for expression; the scribes, in reading aloud, substituted “Lord” and therefore wrote the vowel markings for “Lord” into the consonantal framework JHVH as a reminder to future readers. The translators of the Hebrew, not realizing what the scribes had done, read the word as it was written down, taking the scribal vowel markings as intrinsic to the name of their God rather than as a mere reminder not to speak it. From this came the rendition Jehovah. The evidence of the Greek Church fathers shows the forms Jabe and Jao to be traditional, as well as the shortened Hebrew forms of the words Jah (see Psalms 68:4, for example) and Jahu (in proper names). It indicates that the name was originally spoken Jaweh or Yahwe (often spelled Yahweh in modern usage). Etymologically, it is a third person singular, imperfect, probably of the verb hawah (or hajah), signifying “to be”. The older interpreters explain the verb in a metaphysical and abstract sense; the “I am” of Scripture is “He who is”, the absolutely existent.

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Adoration of the Cross

Adoration of the Cross, devotion paid to the Cross as the instrument effecting Jesus's sacrificial death for the sins of the world. Two festivals of early origin have been observed in honour of the Cross. The first, the Invention of the Cross, was celebrated on May 3 in memory of a reported finding of the True Cross by St Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, but the feast was eventually suppressed in 1960. It was replaced in the Western Church by the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross held on September 14, which was already observed within the Orthodox Church. Special devotions to the Cross often mark the services of Good Friday, the anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Adoration of the Cross
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Adrian IV

Adrian IV (c. 1100-1159), pope (1154-1159), the only Englishman to ascend to the papacy.

Born Nicholas Breakspear near St Albans, Hertfordshire, he entered the monastery of St Rufus near Avignon, France. He was successively appointed abbot of the monastery (1137), cardinal bishop of Albano (1150), and papal legate to Scandinavia (1152-1154), where he reorganized the Church hierarchy. When he returned to Rome, he was unanimously elected pope upon the death of Anastasius IV (pope 1153-1154).

Adrian almost immediately confronted Arnold of Brescia, the Italian monk and reformer who opposed the temporal power of the papacy. At Adrian's request, the German king Frederick I seized Arnold and turned him over to the Roman Curia for trial as a political rebel. After Arnold's execution in 1155, Adrian crowned Frederick Holy Roman emperor.

Adrian is said to have been called upon by Henry II of England to grant permission for the subjugation of Ireland. Because the popes claimed the “islands of the sea” by virtue of the Donation of Constantine, Adrian denied Henry absolute possession, but permitted him to occupy the island as a papal fief. The facts of the matter are uncertain, but the papal bull Laudabiliter, attributed to Adrian, may have been a forgery. The term Vicar of Christ began to be used to describe the pope during Adrian's brief pontificate.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Adrian IV
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Adventists

I INTRODUCTION

Adventists, members of a number of related Protestant denominations that stress the doctrine of the imminent second coming of Christ. Adventism received its clearest definition and most earnest support under the leadership of an American Baptist preacher, William Miller. Miller and his followers, known initially as Millerites, proclaimed that the second coming would occur between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. The failure of this prediction was called the First Disappointment, and many left the movement. Following this, a second date—October 22, 1844—was set, and many Adventists disposed of their property in anticipation of the event. The movement was widely ridiculed after the day passed uneventfully. Thereafter many Adventists lost faith and returned to their former Churches. Those remaining split into four main bodies, which continue to flourish.

II SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS

By far the largest group is the Seventh-day Adventists, with about two million members worldwide in 1990. The Church originated between 1844 and 1855 under the leadership of three American Millerites, Joseph Bates and James and Ellen White, but was not formally organized until 1863. Two tenets are prominent in the Church's theology: belief in the visible, personal second coming of Christ at an early but indefinite date and the observance of Saturday as the sabbath. Members accept the Bible as their sole religious authority, placing special trust in the literal interpretation of prophetic passages. They hold that grace alone is sufficient for salvation; they administer baptism by immersion and practice foot washing in connection with observance of the Lord's Supper.

Holding that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Seventh-day Adventists put great stress on health and avoid eating meat and using opiates and stimulants. They maintain more than 360 hospitals and clinics around the world. The denomination also conducts missionary, educational, and philanthropic programmes supported by a voluntary system of tithing (contributing a tenth of one's income) and by freewill offerings. Church activists are maintained in all parts of the world, and denominational publications are printed in 197 languages and dialects. The Church conducts one of the largest school systems of any Protestant denomination.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Adventists
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Adventists - Part II

III OTHER ADVENTIST CHURCHES

The Advent Christian Church, first known as the Advent Christian Association and then the Advent Christian Conference, was first organized in 1860 in Salem, Massachusetts. It preached a doctrine of “conditional immortality”, according to which the dead remain in an unconscious state until the resurrection, which would take place at the second coming after the millennium. The Church observes the sacraments of baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper. Although organized into regional and central groups (the central group is the Advent Christian General Conference of America), each church governs itself independently. According to recent statistics, membership in the United States and Canada neared 30,000. The Church supports missionary work in Mexico, Malaysia, Japan, India, and the Philippines. In 1964 the Life and Advent Union, founded in 1848, merged with the Advent Christian Church.

The Church of God (Abrahamic Faith) developed from several smaller groups of similar faith (some dating from 1800); some of them had organized in 1888 under the name Church of God in Christ Jesus. The churches, however, did not function as a unit until 1921, when a national conference was established and the name Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith was adopted. Acceptance of the Bible as the supreme standard of the faith results in a literal interpretation of the biblical references to the kingdom of God; the premillennial coming of Christ, the belief that the return of Christ will precede the millennial kingdom of God predicted in Revelation 20:1-6, is central. The members maintain that the dead are merely asleep; at the second coming the righteous will be resurrected. Acceptance of these doctrines, repentance, and purification through baptism by immersion are requirements for admission to the Church. The individual churches are autonomous; recent figures indicate 9,500 members. Missionary work is carried on in India, Mexico, and the Philippines.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Adventists
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African Religions

II THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN RELIGIONS

While the earliest forms of African religion remain unknown, art, particularly rock paintings, some dating from thousands of years ago, and archaeological discoveries provide a glimpse of the cosmology and the rituals of certain African societies prior to the beginnings of Christianity and even further back than that. The rock paintings of southern Africa (see African Art and Architecture) indicate that the indigenous peoples of that region, the pastoralist Khoikhoi and foraging San (no longer very numerous and now spread over the modern states of Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa), practised shamanic rites.

These paintings suggest that the early ancestors of the Khoikhoi and San staged ceremonial dances in which the leader would experience the presence of a sacred power in his body, one that certain animals, among them the eland, were also believed to experience. He would then fall into a deep trance during which he would be empowered both to embody and control cosmic powers. These are probably not the earliest paintings of formal religious ritual practices in Africa. The subject matter of these rock paintings is likely to have changed over time, as it clearly did in the rock paintings found in the Sahara and elsewhere.

It is likely that not only shamanism was widely practised across Africa from the earliest times of formalized religion, but also the cult of the serpent. Among the south-eastern Bantu, the python spirit symbolizes the coolness thought essential to cosmic equilibrium, and ceremonies are performed in his honour. Among the Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Zulu of South Africa, he is associated with terrestrial waters; in Luba belief, as the rainbow, he burns rain, while in Zulu belief his actions are beneficial. The Fon of Benin (Dahomey) likewise have long venerated the serpent known as Danbala. The serpent is also worshipped in Haitian voodoo, where it is equated with St Patrick.

Archaeology has done much to improve our understanding of African traditional religion and to enable the development of an historical perspective. The terracotta Janus heads found among the prehistoric sculptures of the Nok Culture of Nigeria, which were produced over 2,000 years ago, suggest the practice of fertility and ancestral rites. In south-western Nigeria, the Ife bronze heads of the 12th to 14th centuries possibly continue the Nok tradition and may point to the belief that the head (ori) of the king was destined to be the container of sacred power. The bronze heads produced in the Kingdom of Benin in the 15th century served as burial chambers of the kings.

In southern Africa the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, dating from the early 12th century, point to the existence in the region of a royal ancestor cult. Today the traditional religion of the Shona of Zimbabwe is focused on the spirits of ancestors, ancient heroes, and the land.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, African Religions
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African Religions

III CREATION MYTHS, THE SUPREME BEING, AND THE TRICKSTER

From creation myths we learn that humans were once immortal and enjoyed the status of gods, a state disrupted by an act of disobedience often committed by a woman. God then withdrew to live alone: Ngai, the High God of the Kikuyu, dwells on Mount Kenya and on lesser mountains in the Rift Valley region, leaving the world in the care of his ministers, the lesser gods, and humans with the memory of what it is like to live in paradise. Creation myths tell of the relations between people and wild and domestic animals, between people of different races and societies, the origins of fire and cooking, of hunting and farming, and the ties and obligations of descent, age, sex, and rank. They function as important philosophical and psychological systems in explaining why sickness, toil, and death are fundamental to human life.

While most traditional religions express a belief in a creator god who is omnipotent, eternal, and beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals, the idea persists that this god is largely irrelevant to daily life and that it is the lesser gods and ancestors with whom people engage. In practice, therefore, African religions are considered polytheistic.

Nevertheless, they can be seen as both monotheistic and polytheistic depending on the angle from which they are viewed. The High God among the Nuer of the Sudan is known as Kwoth (spirit), and kwoth is also the term used for spirits, such as Deng kwoth (“son of kwoth”), that proceed directly from him. Thus the Supreme Being in these faiths is best interpreted as being both one and many. He can, nonetheless, be sacrificed to as creator and judge, and prayed to as a father. Among the Ibo of eastern Nigeria he may be asked to be the guardian of a child, or, among the Zulu, to divert a thunderstorm from a village.

These personal approaches to the Supreme Being for specific kinds of help should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that he is generally seen as operating on a large scale, as the one concerned with the world as a whole, and with life in its entirety, while the lesser gods function mostly on a smaller scale, and are best understood as “forces of nature”. Their concern is with the wind, the lightning, the thunder, the creeks, the fresh water and the fish, and other fauna therein. Providing that they are properly served, they will protect the hunter, guard the rivers and the highways, and help their devotees to fulfil their destinies. Their assistance does not, however, always guarantee success, and, like charismatic leaders, they are not expected to act in a consistent and predictable manner.

The trickster god prominent in African traditional religious belief and ritual expresses primarily the widespread notion that life is basically uncertain and ambiguous. The trickster is not always an active deity and may only exist in the context of a story; in the folklore of the Akan-Asantie of Ghana he is a spider, and in eastern and southern Africa a hare. Through various stratagems, manoeuvres, tricks, and games, the trickster embodies and plays out the belief that evil cannot be completely overcome, that good can come from setbacks, that life can come from death, and that wholeness consists of integrating opposites.

The actions of the trickster god are double-edged. Ogo, the trickster god of the Dogon of Mali, destroyed the original plans of the creator god Amma for a perfect world and was capable of restoring them only partially, yet by means of divination Ogo helps human beings to discover the unforeseen dangers of human life.

In the Yoruba tradition, divination and sacrifice, two of the most effective means of uniting the human and the divine, cannot succeed without the intervention and intercession of the apparently capricious trickster deity Eshu, nor can any Candomble, Santería, or voodoo ritual performed to call in the gods from Africa succeed if Eshu is not first appeased in the manner to which he is accustomed.

The powers of the gods to do good or inflict harm on their disciples is counterbalanced by the power that the latter have over their gods, the relationship between them being one of reciprocity and interdependence. Each needs the other in order to achieve a meaningful existence, which for the devotee consists of taking on the character of the god, and for the god in making this possible, hence the Yoruba proverb “character is a god”.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, African Religions
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Afro-Asiatic Languages

Afro-Asiatic Languages, phylum or super-family (formerly known erroneously as Hamito-Semitic) that contains almost 400 languages, spoken by more than 200 million speakers across the northern third of Africa and south-west Asia. There are six major families—Ancient Egyptian (extinct), Semitic, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic, plus one unclassified branch. Ancient Egyptian survived (as Coptic) until the 14th century AD. Important Semitic languages include the many regional varieties of Arabic, spoken by over 100 million speakers within (North) Africa itself in addition to many more millions in the Middle East and also as a second language; Hebrew, 5 million speakers (including second language speakers) in Israel and a few other countries; and the Ethio-Semitic languages Amharic (21 million speakers in Ethiopia and other countries), and Tigrinya (5 million in Ethiopia and Eritrea). Amharic and Tigrinya are written in the ancient Ethiopic script (Ge'ez). Prominent Semitic languages that are now extinct include Akkadian and Phoenician (varieties of Aramaic still survive).

Berber languages, for example Tamazight (3.5 million), are spoken mainly in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, in addition to scattered communities in the south-western Sahara, and Berber-speakers colonized the Canary Islands. Some Berber languages are written in the Arabic script. Chadic languages are spoken to the east, south, and west of Lake Chad in West Africa. The most important is Hausa, spoken by upwards of 39 million people mainly in northern Nigeria and southern Niger (the largest number of any sub-Saharan African language), and also widely used as a lingua franca. Hausa was first written using a system (ajami) based on the Arabic script. Some Chadic languages have fewer than a thousand speakers. The Cushitic family includes languages spoken in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, including all varieties of Oromo (17 million people in Ethiopia and Kenya), and Somali (9 to 10 million in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya). Omotic languages, for example Wolaytta (1 to 2 million), are spoken in western Ethiopia.

Afro-asiatic languages display complex morphology, including affixation, reduplication, and adjustments in tone and vowel length. Distinctive features include shared pronominal paradigms and common patterns indicating masculine/feminine/plural demonstratives; agential, instrumental, and locative nouns, noun plurals, and feminine gender. A subject-verb-object basic word order is common in the Chadic family, and subject-object-verb order is common in Ethio-Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages.

Selected statistical data from Ethnologue: Languages of the World, SIL International.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Afro-Asiatic Languages
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Agent Orange

I INTRODUCTION

Agent Orange, name given to the most deadly herbicide used by United States forces in extensive spraying operations in the Vietnam War. The intention was to deprive the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army of jungle cover and crops; it was later shown to be deadly to human health.

Over 86 million litres (19 million gallons) of herbicide were dispersed in South Vietnam between 1961 and 1970. A vast area was denuded of foliage, and tens of thousands of soldiers and innumerable Vietnamese civilians were exposed.

The process used in the manufacture of Agent Orange (a 50:50 combination of 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) also created extremely toxic by-products known as dioxins, which subsequent research has shown contribute to severe birth defects and certain rare cancers in humans. The many different combinations of chemicals were all known by different names according to the colour of the barrel in which they were shipped, such as Agent Blue and Agent White.

II HISTORY

Use of defoliants was hugely controversial. Developed by the United States in World War II for potential use against Japan’s rice crop, they were not employed because military officials considered them a form of chemical warfare, banned under international agreements. Britain used them successfully in the war against Communist insurgents in Malaya in the 1950s. Consequently, in the 1960s, the administration of President John F. Kennedy was persuaded by the US Army to approve their use, beginning in 1961.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Agent Orange
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Agent Orange Part II

III HOW THE EFFECTS WERE REVEALED

Agent Orange penetrated the waxy covering of leaves to poison the entire plant, and after being sprayed widely, made many areas of Vietnam look like the “no-man’s-land” of World War I. In 1969 a South Vietnamese newspaper reported that thousands of rural villagers had become sick with strange symptoms, including stillbirths and birth deformities. That same year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest organization of scientists in the United States, voted to conduct a study of the ecological and medical effects of herbicide spraying in Vietnam. Scientists consider dioxin to be one of the most toxic substances known. In 1970 it was revealed that one of the chemicals in Agent Orange caused birth defects in laboratory animals. Faced with mounting pressure, the administration of President Richard Nixon abruptly halted herbicide missions in that year. Shortly afterwards, the AAAS team in Vietnam showed that considerable levels of dioxin were present in fish, a principal staple of the Vietnamese diet, and in human mother’s milk.

Throughout the 1970s numerous court battles were fought to limit civilian use of herbicides containing dioxin for agricultural and forestry purposes. In 1975, President Gerald Ford announced that the United States would no longer employ such defoliants during “offensive operations”. By 1978 the Veterans Administration (VA) was besieged with complaints from thousands of ex-servicemen of skin rashes, liver disorders, and rare cancers (soft-tissue sarcomas, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Hodgkin’s disease).

In 1984 the seven major manufacturers of Agent Orange agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $180 million after being sued by Vietnam ex-servicemen, rather than face legal judgment about whether they knew Agent Orange contained dioxin before selling it to the government. A trust fund was set up by the court to disburse monies to ex-servicemen claiming dioxin-induced illnesses.

By 1986 over 210,000 claims had been filed. Studies conducted by the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, and the US air force concluded that a strong relationship existed between exposure to Agent Orange and birth defects like spina bifida and cleft lip. Studies in Vietnam indicate a prevalence of liver cancers and reproductive abnormalities. Though the VA insisted that no causal connections could be proved between Agent Orange exposure and specific illnesses, the growing body of epidemiological evidence, and pressure from ex-servicemen’s organizations, prompted the US Congress to act in 1991 by passing a bill that provides disability payments to Vietnam ex-servicemen suffering from soft-tissue sarcomas and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By 2000 claims were being made in Vietnam that illnesses and birth defects caused by Agent Orange could be passed on to a third generation of victims, with dioxins infecting foetuses through the placenta and infants through breast milk.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Agent Orange
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Agnosticism

Agnosticism, doctrine that the existence of God and other spiritual beings is neither certain nor impossible. The term, derived from the Greek agnostikos (“not knowing”), was introduced into English in the 19th century by the British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley. The agnostic position is distinct from both theism, which affirms the existence of such beings, and atheism, which denies their existence.

Although usually regarded as a form of scepticism, agnosticism is more limited in scope, for it denies the reliability only of metaphysical and theological beliefs rather than of all beliefs. The basis of modern agnosticism lies in the works of the Scottish philosopher David Hume and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, both of whom pointed out logical fallacies in the traditional arguments for the existence of God and of the soul. Like agnosticism, logical positivism rejects both atheism and theism, and maintains that metaphysical statements are meaningless.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Agnosticism
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Aikido

Aikido (Japanese, ai,”union, harmony”; ki,”vital breath, energy”; do,”way”), a martial art denoting the way of harmony with the universal energy. It was developed from 1931 onwards by Ueshiba Morihei with the creation of his first dojo (school), the Kobukai, where he taught his techniques and philosophy. In 1948 the Aikido Association was founded. Contrary to methods of ju-jutsu, Morihei rejected hand-to-hand combat techniques, in order to avoid close contact with a potential attacker. He preserved the swift and precise movements and the decisive mind (kime) necessary for defending oneself against armed or unarmed attack.

Aikido depends particularly on two categories of movement: those of control (katame-waza) and those of throwing an opponent (nage-waza). There are over 700 movements belonging to these two waza. All more or less derive from the basic kata (forms), which are freeing oneself from grips (te-hodoki), throwing an opponent to the ground by pressure on the limbs (rofiwe), and immobilizing the opponent by pressure on the joints (kansetsu-gaeshi). These three series of movements are the foundation of all self-defence movements.

In his philosophy Morihei emphasizes the importance of attaining harmony between ki (breath) and tai (the body) combined with nature. There is equal emphasis on harmony between shin (the mind) and ri (moral outlook) and this is symbolized by the do—the way to be followed to reach self-perfection.


Contributed By:
Charles Cuddon

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Aikido
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Aisha

Aisha (c. 614-678), third of the Prophet Muhammad's wives, and his favourite after Khadija. She was the daughter of one of the Prophet's most loyal followers, Abu Bakr. She was under eight years of age when her father gave her in marriage to Muhammad. The Prophet's first wife, Khadija, was pre-eminent, but her early death left room for Aisha to become Muhammad's principal wife, and later widow. Whereas all of Muhammad's several wives enjoyed a high status within the community and were acknowledged as “mothers of the Believers”, this title usually referred to Aisha alone. It was significant that the dying Muhammad chose to spend his last days in her chamber and to be buried under its floor after his death. Having kept herself aloof from politics during the caliphates of her father Abu Bakr and his successor Umar, Aisha was among the growing opposition to the third caliph, Uthman. On the latter's assassination, however, she demanded that his murder be avenged. This led her to ally herself with Talha and Zubayr—two former companions (sahaba) of the Prophet—in ad 656 and rebel against the fourth caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib. After this revolt was crushed by Ali at the “battle of the Camel”, near Basra in Iraq, Aisha was captured and treated generously by Ali, who pardoned her and sent her to Medina where she lived for over 20 years until her death in 678.

Muslims professing Shiism generally view Aisha negatively as a jealous and spiteful opponent of Ali and his wife Fatima: Imami Shiites in particular tend to see her as an enemy of God and thus as a figure to be dissociated from and ritually cursed in public (baraa). Sunni Muslims, on the other hand, regard her as a paragon of piety, a transmitter of hadith (sayings and exemplary actions of the Prophet) and an authority on the readings of the Koran.


Contributed By:
Adam Jacobs

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Aisha
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Aladdin

Aladdin (Arabic Alâ'-ad-Dîn), in folklore, the hero of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” in the collection of stories known in English as the Arabian Nights. In most versions of the story, Aladdin is the lazy son of a poor Chinese tailor. After his father's death, he meets a magician who poses as his uncle and persuades Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful lamp from a hidden cave. When Aladdin fails to give the lamp to the magician before emerging from the cave, the magician becomes enraged and seals the cave, leaving Aladdin to die. In his misery Aladdin weeps and wrings his hands, releasing a genie from a ring the magician had given him. The genie frees Aladdin, who soon discovers that the lamp also produces powerful genies when rubbed. They grant Aladdin his every wish, and he eventually becomes immensely wealthy and marries the daughter of the sultan. The magician returns to steal the lamp, but is defeated, as is his evil brother who also tries to obtain the lamp. Free of these enemies, Aladdin lives a long, happy life and succeeds the sultan to the throne.

The tale of Aladdin reflects the formal, stylistic, and functional characteristics of the Märchen, or magic tale: it is adventurous, filled with the supernatural and unrealistic, has multiple episodes, and is told for entertainment. It illustrates common fairytale themes such as the conflict between good and evil and the triumph of the weak. The 18th-century French writer Antoine Galland added the story of Aladdin to his translation of the Arabian Nights. Galland's text was derived from Arab oral traditions (probably Syrian), and the tale still exists in Arab folktales. The literary version of the Aladdin story is known worldwide, especially in Europe and the Americas, and has been the inspiration for many artistic works.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Aladdin
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All Saints' Day

All Saints' Day, also Allhallows or Hallowmas, Christian festival celebrated on November 1 in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in honour of God and all his saints, known and unknown. It became established as a Church festival early in the 7th century when the Pantheon in Rome was consecrated as the Church of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs. Pope Gregory IV (died 844) gave the custom official authorization in 835. November 1 may have been chosen because it was the day of one of the four great festivals of the pagan nations of the north, and it was Church policy to supplant pagan with Christian observances.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, All Saints' Day
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All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day, in the Roman Catholic Church, a festival falling on November 2, the object of which is, by prayers and alms-giving, to assist souls in purgatory. First instituted in the monasteries of Cluny in 998, the observance soon became general, without any ordinance at large on the subject. Among European peasants, All Souls’ Day became an occasion for reviving many pre-Christian folk customs. Roman Catholic priests are permitted to say three masses for the dead on this day.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, All Souls' Day
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Alpha Particle

Alpha Particle, positively charged nuclear particle, symbol a, consisting of two protons bound to two neutrons. Alpha particles are emitted spontaneously in some types of radioactive decay. They consist of completely ionized helium-4 atoms (see Ionization).

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Alpha Particle
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Altaic Languages

Altaic Languages, family of 65 languages spoken by about 167 million people in around 23 different countries, in a vast area of Eurasia extending from Turkey in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. It consists of three main subfamilies or groups: Turkic (by far the largest), Mongolic, and Tungus.

Foremost among the Turkic languages is Turkish or Osmanli (Turkey, the Balkans) spoken by about 61 million people in Turkey and surrounding areas. Other Turkic languages include Azerbaijani (Azerbaijan and north-western Iran), Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan), Tatar (Turkey, the Balkans, the former USSR, and China), Uighur (Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China), and Yakut (mainly north-eastern Siberia). The Mongolic languages include Buriat (Mongolia, China, Russia), Kalmuk-Oirat (chiefly the Kalmuk autonomous region), and the most widely spoken of the group, Mongolian (Mongolia, Russia, China). Among the Tungus group, Manchu (Dongbei in China) had the greatest number of speakers and was formerly a lingua franca between China and the outside world for over 200 years, but is today practically extinct. Other languages of this group include Evenki (China and the former USSR), and Even (Russia, near the Sea of Okhotsk). The first Altaic linguistic records date from the 8th century ad and there is evidence that a variety of writing systems were used, the first being that of the Turkic peoples.

Altaic languages are generally characterized by an agglutinative type of suffixation, and by vowel harmony (that is, only vowels of the same colouring can occur in the same word); the vowels of the suffixes are altered so that they agree with the colour of the root vowel. Altaic languages lack grammatical gender, articles, and prepositions. They have a rich variety of vowels, but a relatively meagre selection of consonants. Many of these features are shared by Japanese and Korean, which, for this reason among others, are believed by many linguists to be distantly related to the Altaic family. However, the exact origins of these two languages remain unknown. Some scholars group the Altaic languages together with the Uralic languages in a larger Ural-Altaic grouping; recent researchers, however, increasingly believe that too little evidence exists to support such a grouping.

Certain Altaic-speaking peoples are important historically, for example, the nomadic Huns and Mongols, who invaded Europe between the 4th and 13th centuries ad, and the Manchus of the Qing dynasty who ruled China from 1644 to 1912. Turkish has been written with various scripts since the 8th century; the Mongolian script was in use by the 12th century.

Since World War I there have been significant changes in the Altaic languages, brought about primarily by the need for modernization to accommodate political changes and increasing literacy. These changes have been particularly notable in Turkey where an essentially new literary language has been developed, based on the existing national language.

Selected statistical data from Ethnologue: Languages of the World, SIL International.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard, CD-ROM, Altaic Languages
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Altar

Altar surface or structure upon which a religious sacrifice is offered. Although the term is sometimes used simply to designate a centre for religious ritual or for the worship of the gods, and although in many non-literate societies sacrifices are offered without an altar, altar and sacrifice are generally connected in the religious history of humanity.

The earliest and most reliable evidence of an altar, dating from about 2000 bc, is a horned limestone altar excavated at the ancient Palestinian city of Megiddo. Although common in many cultures, the altar is not universal. It is rarely found in indigenous religions of South America and Africa, and Islam seems to be the only world religion that does not use it. Altars vary in size, shape, and construction. A mound of earth; a heap of stones; one large slab of stone, wood, or metal; or a trench dug into the ground, like the vedi (altar) of ancient India, have all served as places of offering or sacrifice.

The altar has been ascribed deep religious and symbolic significance. It has been considered a holy and revered object, a place hallowed by the divine presence, where contact and communication with deities and other spirits could be achieved. So sacred was its power, often protected by taboos, that it served, at times, as an asylum for those seeking refuge. At the heart of all altar symbolism lies the idea that it is the centre or image of the universe. The Greeks regarded it as the navel of the Earth, out of which all life emerged. The cosmic significance of the altar was fully explored, especially in India. The ancient sages saw its different parts as representing the various sections of the universe and concluded that its construction was a repetition of creation. The altar, as a heaped-up mound of earth, also symbolized the sacred mother; its very shape could be compared with the body of a woman.

In Christianity the altar held far-reaching religious meaning. Starting as a simple communion table, it became a symbol of Christ and was marked with five symbolic wounds at its consecration. By the Middle Ages, the Christian altar had become a richly decorated throne on which lay the host (consecrated bread) for the purpose of adoration in the sacrament of the Eucharist. As in many other religions, the altar table in Christianity has been the focal point of unity, reverence, prayer, and worship.

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Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing, in computer graphics, the smoothing of the jagged, “stairstep” appearance, known as aliasing, in graphical elements such as diagonal lines, curves, and circles. Because aliasing occurs when the resolution of an image is too coarse to achieve the appearance of a smooth line or curve, one approach to anti-aliasing is the use of higher-resolution display modes or hardware. In addition, anti-aliasing software routines can blur the roughness of a jagged line by shading or colouring neighbouring pixels to make the transition between light and dark (or between two colours) less distinct and therefore less immediately visible. See also Dithering.

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Anti-Semiticism

I INTRODUCTION

Anti-Semitism, political, social, and economic hatred, agitation, and activities directed against Jewish people. The term is used to include speech and behaviour that is derogatory to people of Jewish origin, whether or not they follow the Jewish religion (Judaism).

The word “Semitic” was originally applied to all descendants of Shem, the eldest son of the biblical patriarch Noah, and it refers to a group of peoples of south-western Asia, including both Jews and Arabs. In later usage, it has come to be associated specifically with Jewish people. The word “anti-Semitism” was coined around 1880 to denote hostility towards Jews only.

II JEWS AS SCAPEGOATS

Many explanations of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism have been advanced. One theory, widely accepted by social scientists, suggests that anti-Semitism, and racism generally, is nurtured in periods of social and economic instability and crisis, such as those existing in Germany in the 1880s and in the era preceding World War II. Passions and frustrations engendered during such periods are theoretically deflected on to scapegoats; as an available and often isolated minority, the Jewish community has historically been a frequent target.

III PERSECUTION IN WESTERN EUROPE: CHRISTIANITY

Anti-Jewish agitation has existed for several thousand years. In the ancient Roman Empire, for example, the devotion of Jews to their religion and special forms of worship was used as a pretext for political discrimination against them, and very few Jews were admitted to Roman citizenship. Since the 4th century ad (and possibly before), Jews have been regarded by Christians as the killers of Jesus Christ. With the rise and eventual domination of Christianity throughout the Western world, discrimination against Jews on religious grounds became universal, and systematic and social anti-Judaism made its appearance. Jews were massacred in great numbers, especially during the Crusades, and were segregated in ghettos, required to bear identifying marks or wear recognizable garments, and economically crippled by the imposition of restrictions on their business activities.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, which witnessed the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, increasing separation of Church and State, and the rise of modern nation-states, Jews experienced less religious and economic persecution and gradually integrated themselves into the economic and political order; however, acceptance of them by the non-Jewish majority was superficial and ran in cycles, depending on economic and social conditions.

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Anti-Semiticism

IV RACIST THEORIES OF ANTI-SEMITISM

In Germany, the process of Jewish emancipation was completed with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. Although legal reforms put an end to discrimination on religious grounds, hostility, based on racism, grew. Racist theories that had been formulated during the preceding decades provided the basis for a new grouping of anti-Semitic political parties after the Franco-Prussian War and the economic crash of 1873. The German political scene was marked by the presence of at least one openly anti-Semitic party until 1933, when anti-Semitism became the official policy of the government under National Socialism (Nazism).

Anti-Semitic hostility became justified by the racist theory, first developed in Germany in the middle of the 19th century, that peoples of so-called Aryan (Sanskrit, “noble”) stock are superior in physique and character to those of Semitic stock. The Nazis subsequently used the term “Aryan” to mean white and non-Jewish. Although the theory was rejected by all responsible ethnologists, widely read books incorporating anti-Semitic doctrines were written by such men as the French diplomat and social philosopher Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and the German philosopher and economist Karl Dühring. The theory of racial superiority was used to justify the civil and religious persecution of Jews that had existed throughout history.

The pattern of German anti-Semitism was followed in other parts of Western and Central Europe. In Austria, for example, a Christian Socialist Party advocated anti-Semitic programmes. In France, anti-Semitism became an issue in the larger problem of the separation of Church and State. Clerical and royalist factions generally adopted anti-Semitic principles based on the racist theories formulated in Germany, and fostered in part by the publication of numerous anti-Semitic publications, notably the newspaper La Libre Parole, started in 1892 by the French anti-Semitic journalist and author Édouard Drumont. Anti-Semitism in France culminated in the Dreyfus Affair between 1894 and 1906, when Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was imprisoned for alleged treason. With the liberation of Dreyfus, anti-Semitism almost disappeared as a political issue in France, but has been re-generated in recent years by right-wing political parties, such as the National Front of Jean-Marie le Pen.

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Anti-Semiticism

V PERSECUTION IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE POGROMS

Medieval traditions in Eastern Europe isolating the Jews as an alien economic and social class were never broken, and the process of Jewish emancipation characteristic of Western Europe did not occur there. Indeed, impediments imposed on Jews since the Middle Ages became increasingly severe. In Russia, measures were adopted to prevent Jews from owning land and to limit the number of Jews admitted to institutions of higher education to between 3 and 10 per cent of the total enrolment.

The persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe culminated in a series of organized massacres, known as pogroms, that began in 1881. Some of the worst outbreaks occurred in 1906 in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 1905 revolution in Russia. Involving about 600 villages and cities, the pogroms resulted in the slaughter of thousands of Jews and the looting and destruction of their property.

Historians agree that the pogroms were the product of a deliberate government policy aimed at diverting the discontent of Russian workers and peasants into religious bigotry. They were stirred up by a new type of mass propaganda, including a notorious forged publication known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to reveal details of an international Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. First published in Russia in 1905 and circulated continuously thereafter, it contained material clearly traceable to fictional accounts not even concerned with Jews. Such deliberate distortions were used during the pogrom after the 1917 Russian Revolution, which claimed hundreds of thousands of victims.

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Anti-Semiticism

VI ORGANIZED POLITICAL ANTI-SEMITISM: THE NAZIS

During the period between World War I and World War II, anti-Semitic sentiments persisted internationally. In Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, anti-Semitism exploded under the National Socialist (Nazi) regime led by Adolf Hitler.

The content of Nazi propaganda was varied, consisting of racist doctrine but also including elements of religious hatred, and the identification of Jews with both capitalist and communist elements in Germany and elsewhere. Moreover, the virulent anti-Semitic campaign within Germany was supplemented by movements in Europe and the United States organized by Nazi agents and their sympathizers.

More immediately threatening than this psychological campaign, however, was the physical persecution of the Jewish community. This systematic persecution of Jews, along with that of homosexuals and people with physical or mental disabilities, correlated with a revival of Nazi interest in the theory and practice of eugenics, itself a popular notion in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark. Shortly after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, special legislation was enacted that excluded Jews from the protection of German law. The property of Jews was legally seized, and concentration camps were set up in which Jews were summarily tortured, executed, or condemned to slave labour. Sporadic and local massacres culminated in a nationwide pogrom in 1938, officially organized by the National Socialist Party.

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Anti-Semiticism

VII THE HOLOCAUST

After the outbreak of World War II, the tempo of anti-Semitic activities increased appallingly. Throughout Europe, puppet, dependent, or military governments of such areas as France, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine were induced by Germany to adopt anti-Semitic programmes. Within Germany, Hitler announced a “final solution of the Jewish problem”: the merciless slaughter of the Jewish community named the Holocaust, a type of crime now recognized under international law as genocide. By the end of the war, about 6 million Jews, totalling two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, had been exterminated by massacre, systematic execution, and starvation. Homosexuals, Gypsies, and political prisoners were also murdered in large numbers in the concentration camps.

After the war the strong reaction against the revealed horrors of the Nazi death camps resulted in the framing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United NationsGeneral Assembly in 1948. At the international war crimes trials, which opened in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945, many Nazi officials were prosecuted for administering the racial laws of the party and implementing the extermination of Jews and other people in the concentration camps. The government of West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany) continued such prosecutions through the 1950s and 1960s and made some restitutions for property, pensions, and estates taken from Jews. In the 1990s campaigns continued to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. In East Germany some Nazi war crimes trials did take place, overseen mainly by the Russians, and some death sentences were passed. However, no restitutions for property were made because the East German state did not, unlike its West German neighbour, regard itself the legal heir of the Reich.

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VIII ANTI-SEMITISM AFTER WORLD WAR II

The official position of the united Germany is strongly against anti-Semitism. However, outbreaks of violence and hostility have occurred sporadically against Jews in post-war Germany (see below). In the other Western democracies, the example of Nazi extremism brought anti-Semitism to a low ebb in post-war years. Nonetheless, in the 1990s violent prejudice has manifested itself in small but militant reactionary and racist parties in Britain, France, and other countries of Europe and the Americas.

Outbreaks of acts of vandalism such as defacing or setting fire to synagogues and the desecration of Jewish graves occur periodically in several countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Small groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists have been primarily responsible for anti-Semitic propaganda and violence against Jews. Beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1990s in the United States, a new phase of anti-Semitism, involving the antagonism of some African-Americans towards Jews, has emerged in a series of urban incidents.

In general, Christian religious policy has reflected a reaction against the Nazi experience and a desire to eliminate the religious bases of prejudice. During the post-war period, cooperation between Christian and Jewish organizations increased, and at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Roman Catholic Church formally repudiated the charge that all Jews are responsible for the death of Christ and condemned genocide and racism as un-Christian.

In Latin America, the chosen refuge of many members of the Nazi Party after World War II, occasional anti-Semitic incidents have occurred. Some of the most serious demonstrations were triggered by the Israeli seizure of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in Argentina in 1960. Eichmann was subsequently tried in Jerusalem for crimes against Jews, and was convicted and hanged.

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Anti-Semiticism

IX COMMUNIST AND POST-COMMUNIST ANTI-SEMITISM

In the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the imperial Russian legacy of anti-Semitism apparently survived into the post-war period. As a religion, Judaism was unacceptable to orthodox Soviet Communism, as was Zionism, whether religious or secular. The Jewish press was suppressed, leading Yiddish writers were silenced, and educational opportunities for Jewish youths were curtailed. Emigration of Jews was made almost impossible; those applying for permission met with severe discrimination.

The political upheavals in the USSR and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s made it much easier for Jews to emigrate, however, but the upsurge of nationalism that accompanied the breakup of the USSR and the decline of Communism have been linked to a rise in anti-Semitic agitation in the early 1990s.

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Antichrist

Antichrist, opponent or antagonist of Christ; also, a false Christ. In the Bible, the word is used only in the Epistles of St John, but the concept of an opponent of the Messiah appears in the Old Testament. Its earliest form is probably that of the warrior King Gog in the Book of Ezekiel. The term “Antichrist” was variously applied by the early Christians to any opponent or enemy of Christ, whether a person or power, or to a false claimant of the characteristics and attributes of Christ. The “false Christs” were predicted by Jesus to precede the coming of the Son of man (see Matt. 24). Opposition to Christ's teaching on the part of the anti-Messiah was also prophesied (see 1 John 2:18). The development of this conception of active hostility is apparent in the Epistles of St Paul, who bore the brunt of Jewish opposition (see 1 Thessalonians 2:15). The “man of sin”, as Paul saw him, was a Jew, because he would regard the Temple at Jerusalem as the seat of God's worship (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4).

In the Book of Revelation, Antichrist is identified with paganism. Different interpreters have at various times identified the Antichrist with the Roman emperors Nero, Diocletian, Julian, and Caligula; with the Samaritan sorcerer Simon Magus (see Acts 8:9-24); and with Muhammad, the founder of Islam. At the time of the Reformation, Protestants quite generally held the pope to be the Antichrist, and Roman Catholics regarded Martin Luther similarly. In the controversy between the Roman Church and the Greek Church, the name was applied, by those who opposed them, to popes and Byzantine emperors.

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Antipope

Antipope, pontiff elected in opposition to one canonically chosen. See Papacy; Pope.

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Anti-Trust Legislation

Trusts, corporate monopolies organized via the device of trust under common law for the purpose of eliminating competition in an area of business and of controlling the market for a product. Specifically, a trust was a particular technique developed especially in the United States in the late 19th century to consolidate firms and acquire control in a variety of industries. The widespread use and abuse of trusts during this period ultimately gave rise to a series of antitrust laws that continue to be in effect.

A trust is a legal arrangement in which the voting stock of different companies is brought together under the direction of a board of trustees, which then issues trust certificates in exchange for all the shares or a controlling number of shares of the individual companies. This arrangement permits the trustees to manage and direct a group of companies in a unified way, in effect, creating a single cartel out of competing firms.

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Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra, tragedy written by William Shakespeare c. 1606-1607, which contains some of his most sensuous poetry.

Mark Antony, war hero of the Roman Republic, is lingering at Alexandria, enraptured by the beauty of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Forced to return to Rome by political intrigue and the death of his wife Fulvia, Antony cynically secures a pact with his fellow triumvir Octavius (Octavian, later Augustus) by marrying his sister Octavia; but soon afterwards the allure of Cleopatra and their luxurious life in Egypt draw him back there.

In the ensuing war, Antony's uncharacteristic lack of judgement and Cleopatra's panic give the victory to Octavius. Tricked by Cleopatra, Antony believes she is dead and falls on his sword. Discovering she is still alive, Antony is carried to her and dies in her arms. With Antony gone, and unwilling to be part of an ignominious parade of captives in Rome, Cleopatra dresses herself in her royal finery and presses a poisonous asp to her bared breast.

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Anzac

I INTRODUCTION

Anzac, acronym formed from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and first used in World War I, by extension designating all Australian and New Zealand units or servicemen participating in overseas conflicts. Both Anzac nations lost many men in the Gallipoli campaign during World War I, and in both countries Anzac Day on April 25 (the date of the landings at Gallipoli) is marked by ceremonies in honour of Australian and New Zealand war dead.

II EARLY INVOLVEMENTS

At the advent of the Federation of the Australian colonies on January 1, 1901, Australians were on active service in South Africa as part of a vast British Empire army which had been fighting the South African Wars since the end of 1899. Some 16,175 Australians fought in South Africa, the vast majority as members of colonial contingents; only the last two drafts of men went to the war as members of an Australian Army in the newly raised Australian Commonwealth Horse, and of these a number arrived too late to see any fighting. Total casualties were 120 officers and 1,280 men, of whom 518 were killed. Along with the men of various other colonial and dominion contingents, the Australians had impressed British observers with their apparent aptitude for soldiering, although Australian officers were generally held in lower regard.

The initial enthusiasm for the commitment displayed at home quickly waned, while the guerrilla nature of the war in its last two years, and the revelations concerning the deaths of Boer civilians in concentration camps, tarnished such lustre as it had otherwise attained. At the turn of the century the colonies of New South Wales and South Australia also committed small contingents to aid the international force raised to suppress the Boxer rebellion in China; their experiences, while exotic, were relatively uneventful.

New Zealand faced many of the same defence problems as did the Australian colonies in the early part of the 20th century, although its solutions were not always the same as those of its larger Pacific neighbour. Like all the colonies of settlement, New Zealand sent forces to South Africa to fight the Boers, some 6,495 men in ten contingents. Proportionate to population this was a greater military effort than Australia's.

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Anzac III WORLD WAR I

Involvement in World War I provided one of the defining moments in modern Australian history, and shaped the nature of Australian society more profoundly than almost any other single event. Australian troops were first combined with New Zealanders into a single combined corps, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps or Anzac Corps, and were then separated in early 1916. Australian divisions fought in the Gallipoli campaign, on the Western Front and as a significant proportion of the mobile arm in Sinai and Palestine, while smaller forces helped take control of Germany's Pacific territories in late 1914, formed part of the unsuccessful expedition against the Turks in Mesopotamia, and at the war's end formed detachments for service against the Bolsheviks in north Russia and Transcaspia. Ships of the Royal Australian Navy, only formed in 1911, reverted to Admiralty control at the war's outbreak, and helped first to contain and then sink the German Pacific Squadron in 1914 before seeing service in the Mediterranean and North Sea for the rest of the war. Alone of the self-governing dominions, Australia had formed a military aviation service, the Australian Flying Corps, before the war (in 1913), and, as part of the army, this fielded four squadrons for duty in the Middle East and on the Western Front.

Australia's major contribution however was the Australian Imperial Force. Some 331,000 men, and a few women, enlisted for service overseas in its ranks, and along with the much tinier contribution from South Africa it remained the only army raised entirely by voluntary enlistment for the duration of the war, an achievement which brought penalties of its own in terms of the proportion of the force killed or wounded, when volunteers dried up in the last two years of the war. Of its ranks, 58,961 were killed or died of other causes, 254,667 wounded or sick, and 4,098 became prisoners of war. With a casualty rate of 64.98 per cent, the Australians paid the highest price for their commitment of any combatant force in the war.

At the outbreak of war in 1914 the New Zealand Expeditionary Force sailed to Egypt in convoy with the Australians, consistent with pre-war planning, which had envisaged a combined force in the event of a major war. The New Zealand infantry regiments and mounted rifles duly took part in the Gallipoli campaign as part of the Anzac Corps, and like the Australians were then split up at the beginning of 1916; the infantry contingent was expanded to a full division and sent to France as part of II Anzac Corps, while the mounted units were combined with the Australian light horse and stayed in the Middle East to fight the Turks. Losses in France were heavy—in one month of the First Battle of the Somme in 1916 the 1st New Zealand Division suffered 7,000 casualties—and this led to the introduction of conscription in November the same year. More than 100,000 New Zealanders served overseas, suffering a 58 per cent casualty rate: nearly a third of the male population between 20 and 40 was killed or wounded in the war.

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Anzac IV WORLD WAR II

A tiny number of Australians, almost entirely on the political left, volunteered for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the raising of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force, not without some hesitation because of uncertainty over Japanese intentions. Three divisions (6th, 7th, and 9th) served in the Mediterranean theatre, against the Italians and Germans in Libya, Greece, and Crete, and the Vichy French in Syria, while ships of the Royal Australian Navy joined Royal Navy squadrons in the Mediterranean, North Sea, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic, and (mostly) young aircrew entered the Empire Air Training Scheme for ultimate service in Bomber and Coastal Commands, in which a high proportion of them were killed. A further division (the 8th) was split between southern Malaya and the islands to Australia's north where, following the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the overwhelming majority were killed, captured, or murdered following capture. The 9th Division stayed in North Africa until the beginning of 1943, taking a leading part in the British 8th Army's decisive victories at El ’Alamein, while the 6th and 7th returned to Australia early in 1942 to defend their country against the Japanese.

The brunt of the first Japanese onslaught in New Guinea was borne by young, under-equipped, and generally ill-trained militia soldiers, and these, with a stiffening of experienced AIF men, gradually forced the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track in the last months of 1942. Thereafter the Australian Army, AIF, and militia alike, gradually cleared New Guinea of the enemy in a succession of gruelling campaigns throughout 1943-1944, although Australian formations were still containing Japanese armies in New Guinea and the islands at the war's end. Australian casualties were far lighter in this war, with 33,826 killed, 180,864 wounded, and 23,059 prisoners of war, although the trauma of the thousands captured and brutalized by the Japanese, with their attendant high death rate, introduced a new and distinct element to Australians' experience of war.

The 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force was raised and sent to the Middle East in 1940 and fought in Greece and Crete, where it lost heavily. The 2nd New Zealand Division remained in the Mediterranean theatre throughout the war, fighting right through the North African campaign as part of the British 8th Army, and on into the Italian campaign, where it played a leading role in the costly battles for Monte Cassino. In May 1942 the New Zealand government raised the 3rd Division, of two brigades, for service in the Pacific against the Japanese, and this formation fought alongside the Americans in the Solomon Islands before being disbanded in October 1944. Like their Australian counterparts, New Zealanders also played a leading part in the costly aerial campaign over Europe as members of the RAF's Bomber Command. A total of 150,000 New Zealanders served in World War II, suffering some 12,000 dead and approximately 17,000 wounded.

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Anzac V POST-WAR INVOLVEMENTS

Both Australia's and New Zealand's post-war military involvements were largely undertaken in pursuit of diplomatic and strategic ends, and the commitments, while sometimes significant in military terms were generally somewhat token. After taking a leading role in the Commonwealth occupation of Japan from 1946, Australia sent some 10,657 service personnel to the Korean War and its aftermath between 1950 and 1955. These served in Commonwealth formations as part of the American-dominated United Nations Command; 339 were killed, 1,216 wounded, and 29 taken prisoner. New Zealand withdrew from the Japan occupation force in 1948, and its commitment to Korea was somewhat smaller. New Zealand contributed just 5 per cent of the strength of the 1st Commonwealth Division (compared to Australia's 14 per cent), and lost 33 dead, 79 wounded, and 1 prisoner of war. From late 1955, and in consequence of the liquidation of the Korean commitment, Australians and New Zealanders served in Malaya as part of the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve and in action against the Communist terrorists during the Malayan Emergency, which ended officially in mid-1960, although operations along the Thai border continued into 1964. That same year Australians were in combat against Indonesian infiltrators who had staged landings in peninsular Malaya as part of Indonesia's campaign of “Confrontation” against Malaysia, which had begun in early 1963. In 1965-1966 Australian and New Zealand battalions were deployed to Borneo, the main theatre of Indonesian military activity, to conduct operations, including clandestine CLARET forays into Indonesian territory. A total of 15 Australians were killed and 27 wounded during the Emergency, and seven and eight respectively during Confrontation; while New Zealand casualties were seven dead and seven wounded in Malaya and two dead and two wounded in Borneo.

Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1962 with the dispatch of a team of 30 advisers to assist the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. These were increased in 1964 and the following year a regular infantry battalion group was sent to operate with an American airborne brigade in Biên Hòa province. In mid-1966 this force was increased to a two-battalion task force (a brigade group), and conscripts were sent for overseas service, which caused considerable, and growing dissent at home. The 1st Australian Task Force reached a strength of 8,300 by 1968, and operated largely, though not exclusively, in its own province, Phuoc Tuy, south-east of Saigon. This was Australia's longest war, and probably its most divisive: 501 Australians were killed, with 3,131 wounded or sick, although disaffected veterans claimed that many of the war's wounded only became apparent in its aftermath with manifestation of psychological damage. New Zealand's commitment began with the dispatch of a group of engineers in June 1964, followed by an artillery battery which accompanied the first Australian regular infantry battalion in May 1965. New Zealand units served as part of the 1st Australian Task Force from May 1966, with New Zealand gunners firing in support of Australian infantry and two infantry companies were attached to an Australian battalion to form a composite Anzac battalion. A total of 3,890 New Zealanders served in Vietnam, and although there was anti-war agitation in New Zealand it proved less traumatic than in Australia because only volunteers served overseas. Overall, 35 New Zealanders were killed and 187 wounded..

The Gulf War of 1990-1991 occasioned a small commitment, largely naval, from Australia. Two Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates (FFGs) and a supply ship were dispatched for service in the Persian Gulf, and small detachments of air force and army personnel served in specialist attachments. There were no Australian casualties. Nor was there any New Zealand contribution to “Desert Storm”. Increasingly, in recent years, the Australian Defence Force has found itself reoriented towards peacekeeping missions, often but not always under United Nations aegis. In 1993 a battalion was sent for duty with an American-sponsored force in Somalia, while specialist sub-units were dispatched to Cambodia to supervise elections there as part of a UN force, command of which was invested in an Australian senior officer. New Zealanders have played their part in UN missions also, but increasingly New Zealand has recently embarked on a semi-isolationist defence policy, evidenced by its withdrawal in 1985 from the long-standing ANZUS defence relationship with Australia and the United States.

Contributed By:
Jeffrey Grey

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