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Chapter 8. War in Africa and Europe
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor woke the “sleeping giant.” Americans could not wait to go after and defeat Japan. However, FDR and America’s greatest ally Great Britain led by Winston Churchill believed that the real threat to the United States was Hitler’s Germany. While FDR did not publicly proclaim it, he took a “Europe First” strategy and relegated the Pacific War to a “Second Place” status in strategy and support. The United States spent much of the first few years of war preparing to invade and liberate Europe from Hitler’s grasp and offering assistance to the Allies in war materiel and food. This meant, that for the majority of America’s involvement in the war, 1941-1945, American boots were not on the ground in Europe. Part of the reason for this, was that the United States was not in immediate threat from invasion from Germany. A second reason for this was the importance the Western culture of America placed on life. FDR did not want to risk American life until he was sure that the United States would win. The Allies believed their best chance in defeating the Axis Powers was in In North Africa. In May 1942, the Axis Powers controlled Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Vichy France, the Nazi Germany collaborationist France, controlled Morocco and Algeria. Italy controlled Tunisia. Great Britain controlled Egypt and with it the Suez Canal. The Allies wanted to defeat Italy, turn the Vichy France North Africa over to the Allies, and secure that the Suez Canal would not fall under the Axis Powers. From June 11, 1940 – May 13, 1943, the Axis and Allies fought over North Africa. Great Britain provided the leadership and most of the manpower, with the Free French and the United States assisting. In 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France and the Italians attacked Egypt. After initial losses, the English counterattacked and captured 130,000 Italians. Hitler sent General Ernst Rommel and the German Afrika Corps. Over the next years, the Germans and the British alternated between advancing and retreating. After the United States joined the war, in November, 1942, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed his forces in Morocco and Algeria. After initially fighting, the Vichy French agreed to not fight against the Allies. Eisenhower was victorious at Oran, Algiers, and Casablanca. The Americans and British coordinated their attacks against the Axis Powers and encircled the Germans and Italians in Tunis. On May 12, 1943, 250,000 German and Italian troops surrendered. Of the victory, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The Battle of the Atlantic The United States of America fought World War II in America, Hawaii, Europe, Africa, in the Pacific Islands, Asia, and on the oceans. A key part of this war was winning control of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was the passageway for soldiers and war materiel and food from the United States to Great Britain and then onto Europe. As an island country, Great Britain was dependent on imports. During the war, it required more than a million tons of imports per week to survive and fight. The Allies used Great Britain as a staging ground for the invasion of Europe. Without control of the Atlantic, there would be no Allied victory. The Battle of the Atlantic was essential in winning the war. It pitted the English Navy and American merchant ships against the Germany Navy, which primarily consisted of surface warships and their very successful submarines, known as U-boats. Germany had great naval successes in the first years of World War II. U-boat crews called June 1940-February 1941 “The Happy Time.” U-boat crews hunted their prey in "wolf packs," attacking shipping as a team. U-boat crews sunk over 500 Allied ships. The British lost the French fleet, the fourth strongest in the world, when Germany conquered France in the summer of 1940. Germany had decoded British messages, and U-boat crews were able to estimate where Allied ships were. Radar still had not developed enough to aid the Allies to see where the U-boats were. After America joined the war, the Germans sent five U-boats to the east coast of America. In less than a month from January 13 to February 6, 1942, U-boats had destroyed 156,939 tons of shipping without loss. By mid-1942, Allies had developed strategies that eventually won the Battle of the Atlantic over the next year. The Royal Navy used the convoy system to accompany merchant ships across the Atlantic. Allied warships protecting merchant ships could defend against the U-boats. Allies developed radar to see underwater, using this new technology on ships and in airplanes. In 1942, Allies captured the Enigma, the German secret code machine used by the U-boat commanders. Allies knew when and where U-boats were sent out to sea, and it was easier to hunt them. The Eastern Front The country that experienced the most deaths in World War II was the one most responsible for destroying the battle-hardened and technically capable German Army. Adolf Hitler shocked Joseph Stalin when he launched a war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Germans and Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact, but Hitler just used that to avoid a two-front war. After Germany conquered France in six weeks, he fully believed he would quickly take Russia. Over the next six months, German Armies advanced on an 800-mile front east. Once winter set in, however, and the Russians regrouped, Germany saw devastating losses at the Battles of Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, and in the long retreat back to Germany. Throughout the war, the Soviet Union fought 75-80% of German forces. The Jupiter Complex The Axis and Allied Powers introduced a new way of fighting in World War II: massive aerial bombing. Germany was first to begin this tactic, hitting civilian locations in Poland, the Low Countries, France, and then Britain. But as the war continued, the Allies used its superiority of industry and technology to inflict massive damage on the enemy. A British historian named this war strategy the “Jupiter Complex,” because as the Roman god reigned lightning on humans, the Allied war machines reigned bombs. As soon as it could, the Americans and British ran non-stop bombing raids over Axis positions. Americans bombed during the day and the British bombed at night. Once the war turned in favor of the Allies, the devastation wrought on the Axis Powers was hard to fathom, but it is also important to note it would have immediately stopped if Germany would have surrendered. Instead, Hitler seemed intent on fighting until Germany was obliterated. Total war dead from bombing is as follows: Allies: 749,940 – 1,305,029 Axis: 790,509-1,693,374 China: 260,000-351,000 Germany: 353,000-635,000 Soviet Union: 51,526-500,000 United States: 79,265 airmen/personnel Poland: 50,000 France: 67,000 The Tehran Conference, November 1943 By November, 1943, it was clear the Allies would defeat the Axis Powers in Europe. The Russians were chasing the Germans in retreat, albeit slowly and with great casualties. The British, Americans, and Free French had won North Africa, and the invasion of Italy was underway. The Allies had the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic. American superiority in war materiel production was affecting every front of the war, as it supplied Allies with arms, food, clothing, and all war materiel. To plan the rest of the war, the “Big Three,” which were Great Britain’s Winston Churchill, the United States’ FDR, and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, met it Tehran, Iran. At the Tehran Conference and two later meetings, negotiations and decisions among these three leaders spelled disaster for much of the post war world. Churchill had a complete and correct understanding of Communist Soviet Union’s and Stalin’s ruthlessness. He tried in vain to educate FDR. FDR, however, as historian Paul Johnson writes in A History of the American People, “tended, like many intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals of his time, to take the Soviet Union at its face value – a peace-loving People’s Democracy.” FDR distrusted his American advisors who reported negatively about Stalin. Stalin had, in fact, been responsible for the murder of tens of millions of Russians and was one of the world’s most brutal dictators. FDR, though, surrounded himself with pro-Communist and pro-Stalin advisors, notably his ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies, and his personal advisor, Harry Hopkins. FDR represented the strongest power, and Churchill had to go along with his decisions. At Tehran, the Big Three decided a number of items. Great Britain and the United States would open a Western Front, as soon as possible. (Churchill wanted the largest invasion to go through the Balkans to save Eastern Europe from Stalin. FDR disagreed). After the war, the Big Three agreed on the following: The Soviet Union would take eastern Poland and Poland would take a portion of eastern Germany, America would leave Europe two years after the war, the Soviet Union would hold free elections in all the countries they occupied, and then would withdraw.
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Counter-Revolutionary Classical Education
From our Online Academy teacher, Adam De Gree Our schools, universities, and media have been captured by a cult. We need a counter-revolution that replaces the revolutionary dogmas of DEI with what has always been at the core of a good education. 1. The Good 2. The True 3. The Beautiful At Classical Historian, we uphold these eternal values. Our materials are apolitical, and we welcome dialogue with anyone who honestly seeks the truth. But that doesn't mean that we don't see what's happening to our country. According to a comprehensive survey by The Institute for Citizens & Scholars, only 27% of people under the age of 45 have "a very basic understanding" of history. In the words of esteemed historian David McCullough, Americans are suffering from collective amnesia. The result? A people that has no defense against would-be revolutionaries. As of 2024, it's clear that radicals dominate nearly every institution that Americans rely on to learn about the world. Prestigious universities tolerate vicious antisemitism in the name of social justice. The head of NPR claims that truth is subjective and brags about working with the CIA to censor Wikipedia. Federal agencies conspire with Big Tech to suppress dissent. Men give birth, left is right, up is down, war is peace. The American way of life is under attack. We believe that the best way that ordinary people can protect their traditions is to ensure their children receive a genuine, rigorous, and classical education. As James Madison wrote, "The advancement and diffusion of knowledge...is the only guardian of true liberty." Parallel Education System Since so many schools have been captured by ideologues, Americans have started building a parallel education system. This system, comprised of charter schools, private classical schools, and homeschools, exists side-by-side with traditional institutions. In it, students and families are receiving a better education than in mainstream schools. This isn't the first time this has happened. Czechoslovak dissidents like Vaclav Havel faced a similar situation in Czechoslovakia in the late 1970s. Seeing that the Communist Party had corrupted every social organization, they started forming what they called the parallel polis, or parallel society. Czechoslovak dissidents founded an underground university, scouting groups, Christian communities, theater associations, and printing presses. They fundraised for those who had been "cancelled" out of a job for speaking the truth. Most importantly, they created the opportunity to live a normal life in a revolutionary regime. And as N.S. Lyons writes: "In doing so they did far more than keep up morale with pleasant intellectual diversions. They built a resilient base of organization from the ground up. They forged an experienced leadership cadre. They created a flexible underground network-state. And, when the weakened Communist state collapsed, they found themselves poised to quickly step in and fill the vacuum. Suddenly their parallel polis became the polis. Much of the chaos that other post-Communist states faced was thereby peacefully avoided." The parallel education system we're now seeing shoot up across America is built upon time-tested principles. If public schools can't be saved, they don't need to be. We have an alternative. Educating American Leaders Americans know enough about traditional public education to know that they've had enough of it. Homeschooling is growing at a record pace, and in 2024, more than 1 in 20 American schoolchildren learn at home. Moreover, the number of charter schools has grown by about 50 percent over the last ten years. Excitingly, there are likely over 1 million students receiving a classical education right now. And with 34 percent of students set to benefit from school choice in 2024, that number is growing fast. Critics might point out that this still leaves the vast majority of students in the public school system. That's certainly true. But consider this: 54% of American adults read at or below the sixth-grade level. Moreover, a full 21% of adults are illiterate. Are these ill-served Americans likely to form the next generation of leaders? That seems unlikely. On the other hand, students in the parallel education system consistently outperform those in mainstream schools. Homeschoolers earn significantly higher test scores than public school students, and they have higher than average social, emotional, and psychological development. More importantly, they enjoy more professional success, participate in more community service activities, and internalize the values of their parents at higher rates than the public schooled. The burgeoning charter school movement is seeing similar results. According to a comprehensive study of over 6,000 charter schools, 83 percent of charter school students perform at or better than their peer cohort in reading, and 75 percent perform the same or better in math. And while studies on classical school performance are few and far between, early research shows that classical school graduates have huge advantages over public school students. This indicates that the future leaders of America won't be coming from public schools. They will have had the great advantage of learning in the parallel education system. Raising Critical Thinkers How is any of this counter-revolutionary? Here's what John Adams had to say on this topic: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Knowledge is a prerequisite for self-government. If we lose our knowledge, we will lose our ability to govern ourselves. But that does not mean that there will be no government. It simply means that the government will no longer be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead, it will be a government of the powerful, by the powerful, and for the powerful. But it's not just that an uneducated populace cannot govern itself. It's that people who have been cut off from their heritage make easy prey for ideological radicals. If they do not understand the many catastrophes of history, people will not appreciate the civilization that sustains them. To the contrary, they will be manipulated by those who want to tear it down. Just consider the scenes unfolding across college campuses in 2024. As students with no knowledge of world history or geography chanted, "From the River to the Sea" without knowing which river or what sea they were referring to, America's enemies must have been deeply satisfied. The empty heads of American youth served as fertile soil for explicitly Marxist propaganda. Counter-Revolutionary Classical Education Revolutionary regimes have always preyed on the ignorant. People who have no critical thinking skills have formed the backbone of totalitarian societies from Czechoslovakia to Ethiopia and from China to Cuba. Ironically, many have supported oppression in the name of social justice and humanitarian principles. Classical education stands as an obstacle to those who would destroy their own country. Rather than raising the useful idiots of tomorrow, it cultivates critical thinkers who know a rat when they see one. Students who have grappled with the great ideas of Western Civilization will not jump on the bandwagon and call for an end to America. Instead, they will be drawn towards Truth, Beauty, and Goodness like a deer is drawn to running water. Thanks to them, we can have hope in our nation's future. We provide classical history curriculum, history games, online discussion courses, and educator resources for the counter-revolution. Join us. It’s Personal When our co-founder Zdenka went to school in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, teachers had to teach Communist ideology in the classroom. Anyone caught teaching counter to this thinking could be turned into the authorities. Good Czechoslovak Communists, they said, would report any counter-revolutionary activities to the relevant authorities. When Zdenka was in her early 20s, Czechs and Slovaks rose up peacefully to overthrow the Marxists. She joined protests and passed out pamphlets calling for freedom. Some of her friends were arrested and beaten by police for their "counter-revolutionary activities." Luckily, the counter-revolution carried the day. Ordinary people stood up to state violence and said that they didn't want to live in a revolutionary regime. They wanted a return to normalcy. Growing up in a totalitarian society, Zdenka used to look to America as an example of freedom. Yet after living in California for over 20 years, she knows that many Marxists have brought their revolution here. Americans still enjoy freedoms that are rarely protected in other countries. But as time goes on, it's becoming more difficult to live a normal life in the US. Everywhere you look, you see people trying to replace normalcy with revolutionary ideas. Not at Classical Historian. We offer a traditional historical perspective, one that rejects revolutionary dogmas. We believe in good old ideas like beauty, truth, and goodness. Our materials promote the virtues required for self-government. And yes, we're proud to be an American company. If these are counter-revolutionary ideas, then we're proud to be counter-revolutionary educators. But really, we just think we're normal Americans. |
John De GreeJohn De Gree writes the current events with a look at the history of each topic. Articles are written for the young person, aged 10-18, and Mr. De Gree carefully writes so that all readers can understand the event. The perspective the current events are written in is Judeo-Christian. Receive Articles and Coupons in Your EmailArchives
June 2024
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