Next chapter coming; Chapter 799: The League of Nations Resolution; a Manchurian Mess
will shed some light on why and how TTL the League of Nations goofed up during the Mukden Incident, Manchurian Crisis and occupation of the territory by Japan leading to the Chinese Civil War, Asian War, Pacific War and then the Second Great War in parts.
 
Chapter 799: The League of Nations Resolution to Manchuria, or the Manchurian Mess
Chapter 799: The League of Nations Resolution to Manchuria, or the Manchurian Mess
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Many later Generations in America and Britain will point out the failures of the League of Nations Resolution regarding the Mukden Incident, the Manchurian Crisis and the occupation of the territory by the Japanese that ultimately lead to the expansion of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Chinese Civil War, the Asian War, the Pacific War and ultimately the Second Great War. To understand the later heavily debated decision, one has to understand the history of Manchuria that lead to said decision. It all started with the Later Jin Later Jin (1616–1636), the Manchu state which would later become the Qing Empire, under which the northeastern provinces of the Qing Empire were initially reserved for use by the ruling Manchu people of the Qing Dynasty. This was the foundation the later Manchu nation-state of Manchukuo, known to many as the puppet state of Imperial Japan, or even Northeast China, made up by the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning originally. The Jurchen people that had traditionally lived in Manchuria were then divided into three tribes, the most powerful of which during the Ming dynasty was called Jianzhou Jurchens, living around the Changbai Mountains. In order to attack and suppress the Northern Yuan dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor sent military commissions to gain control of the Jurchen tribes in Manchuria. The Ming government divided the Jianzhou Jurchens into three wei, a military subdivision during the Ming dynasty, collectively known as the "Three Wei of Jianzhou". The leaders of the Jurchen tribes were usually chosen as commanders of the wei. The northern tribe Wild Jurchens were strong at that time, and attacked the Jianzhou Jurchens. Mengtemu, commander of the Jianzhou Wei, was killed. The Jianzhou Jurchens were forced to move southwards, and finally settled at Hetu Ala. Nurhaci, a Jurchen khan, promoted the unification of the Jurchens living in Manchuria at the beginning of the 17th century. He organized the so called "Banners", military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into a unified entity, that would be renamed "Manchu" in 1635 by Hong Taiji, completing the establishment of the new state in 1616. This marks the start of the Later Jin dynasty.

Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, took a hostile attitude towards the Ming for favoritism and meddling in the affairs of the Jurchen tribes. In 1618, he proclaimed his Seven Grievances (nadan amba koro; 七大恨) which effectively declared war on the Ming dynasty. He occupied Fushun, Qinghe (清河) and other cities before retreating. The death of the Ming Vice-General Zhang Chengyin (張承蔭) during the Battle of Fushun stunned the Ming court. In 1619, he attacked the Yehe (葉赫) in an attempt to provoke the Ming. The Ming responded by dispatching expeditionary forces led by Military Commissioner Yang Hao along four routes to besiege Hetu Ala. In a series of winter battles known collectively as the Battle of Sarhū Nurhaci broke three of the four Chinese Ming armies, forcing the survivors and the fourth to retreat in disorder. This caused the power sphere of the Later Jin to extend over the entire eastern part of Liaoyang. Relocating his court from Jianzhou to Liaodong provided Nurhaci access to more resources; it also brought him in close contact with the Khorchin Mongol domains on the plains of Mongolia. Although by this time the once-united Mongol nation had long since fragmented into individual and hostile tribes, these tribes still presented a serious security threat to the Ming borders. Nurhaci's policy towards the Khorchins was to seek their friendship and cooperation against the Ming, securing his western border from a powerful potential enemy. The unbroken series of military successes by Nurhaci came to an end in January 1626 when he was defeated by Yuan Chonghuan while laying siege to Ningyuan. He died a few months later and was succeeded by his eighth son, Hong Taiji, who emerged after a short political struggle amongst other potential contenders as the new khan. Although Hong Taiji was an experienced leader and the commander of two Banners at the time of his succession, his reign did not start well on the military front. The Jurchens suffered yet another defeat in 1627 at the hands of Yuan Chonghuan. As before, this defeat was, in part, due to the Ming's newly acquired Portuguese cannons.

To redress his technological and numerical disparity, Hong Taiji in 1634 created his own artillery corps, the ujen cooha (Chinese: 重軍) from among his existing Han troops who cast their own cannons in the European design with the help of defector Chinese metallurgists. One of the defining events of Hong Taiji's reign was the official adoption of the name "Manchu" for the united Jurchen people in November 1635. In 1635, the Manchus' Mongol allies were fully incorporated into a separate Banner hierarchy under direct Manchu command. Hong Taiji conquered the territory north of Shanhai Pass by Ming Dynasty and Ligdan Khan in Inner Mongolia. In April 1636, Mongol nobility of Inner Mongolia, Manchu nobility and the Han mandarin held the Kurultai in Shenyang, recommended the khan of Later Jin to be the emperor of the Great Qing empire. One of the Yuan dynasty's jade seals was also dedicated to the emperor (Bogd Sécén Khaan) by nobility. When he was said to be presented with the imperial seal of the Yuan dynasty by Ejei Khan, Hong Taiji renamed his state from "Jin" to "Great Qing" and elevated his position from Khan to Emperor, suggesting imperial ambitions beyond unifying the Manchu tribes, and marking the formal end of the Later Jin period. This was followed by the creation of the first two Han Banners in 1637, increasing to eight in 1642. Together these military reforms enabled Hong Taiji to resoundingly defeat Ming forces in a series of battles from 1640 to 1642 for the territories of Songshan and Jinzhou. This final victory resulted in the surrender of many of the Ming dynasty's most battle-hardened troops, the death of Yuan Chonghuan at the hands of the Chongzhen Emperor, who thought Yuan had betrayed him, and the complete and permanent withdrawal of the remaining Ming forces north of the Great Wall. Hong Taiji died suddenly in September 1643 without a designated heir. His five-year-old son, Fulin, was installed as the Shunzhi Emperor, with Hong Taiji's half brother Dorgon as regent and de facto leader of the Qing dynasty. In 1644, Shun forces led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. Rather than serve them, Ming general Wu Sangui made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Banner armies led by Dorgon, who defeated the rebels and seized the capital. Remnants of the Ming imperial house remained in control of southern China as the Southern Ming dynasty.

The Qing dynasty therefore was founded not by Han Chinese, who form the majority of the Chinese population, but by a sedentary farming people known as the Jurchen, a Tungusic people (that would become the later Manchu) who lived around the region now comprising the Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. Although the Ming dynasty held control over Manchuria since the late 1380s, Ming political existence in the region waned considerably after the death of the Yongle Emperor. What was to become the Manchu state was founded by Nurhaci, the chieftain of a minor Jurchen tribe in Jianzhou in the early 17th century. Originally a vassal of the Ming emperors, Nurhaci started to take actual control of most of Manchuria over the next several decades. In 1616, he declared himself the "Bright Khan" of the Later Jin state. Two years later he announced the "Seven Grievances" and openly renounced the sovereignty of Ming overlordship to complete the unification of those Jurchen tribes still allied with the Ming emperor. After a series of successful battles against both the Ming and various tribes in Outer Manchuria, he and his son Hong Taiji eventually controlled the whole of Manchuria. Soon after the establishment of the Qing dynasty, the territory of today's Primorsky Kray was made part of the Government-general of Jilin, and along with the lower Amur area was controlled from Ninguta. However, during the Qing conquest of the Ming in the later decades, the Tsardom of Russia tried to gain the land north of the Amur River. The Russian conquest of Siberia was accompanied by massacres due to indigenous resistance to colonization by the Russian Cossack's, who savagely crushed the natives. At the hands of people like Vasilii Poyarkov in 1645 and Yerofei Khabarov in 1650 some peoples like the Daur were slaughtered by the Russians to the extent that it is considered genocide. The Daurs initially deserted their villages since they heard about the cruelty of the Russians the first time Khabarov came. The second time he came, the Daurs decided to do battle against the Russians instead but were slaughtered by Russian guns. The indigenous peoples of the Amur region were attacked by Russians who came to be known as "red-beards". The Russian Cossacks were named luocha (羅剎), after demons found in Buddhist mythology, by the Amur natives because of their cruelty towards the Amur tribes people, who were subjects of the Qing. The Russian proselytization of Orthodox Christianity to the indigenous peoples along the Amur River was viewed as a threat by the Qing. This was eventually rebutted by the Qing during the Sino-Russian border conflicts in the 1680s, resulting in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 which gave the land to China.

Since the region was considered the homeland of the Manchus, Han Chinese citizens were banned from settling in this region by the early Qing government but the rule was openly violated and Han Chinese became a majority in urban areas by the early 19th century. During Qing rule there was an massively increasing amount of Han Chinese both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han Chinese peasants to rent on their land and grow grain, most Han Chinese migrants were not evicted as they went over the Great Wall and Willow Palisade, during the eighteenth century Han Chinese farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courtier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands, in garrisons and towns in Manchuria Han Chinese made up 80% of the population.

Han Chinese farmers were resettled from North China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation. Wasteland was reclaimed by Han Chinese squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords. Despite officially prohibiting Han Chinese settlement on the Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia so that Han Chinese farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s. The Qianlong Emperor allowed Han Chinese peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740-1776. Chinese tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu Bannerlands in the area. Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking Jinzhou, Fengtian, Tieling, Changchun, Hulun, and Ningguta was settled by Han Chinese during the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and Han Chinese were the majority in urban areas of Manchuria by 1800. To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing sold formerly Manchu only lands along the Sungari to Han Chinese at the beginning of the Daoguang Emperor's reign, and Han Chinese filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s according to Abbe Huc. However, the policy for banning the Han Chinese citizens from moving to northern part of Manchuria was not officially lifted until 1860, when Outer Manchuria was lost to the Russians during the Amur Acquisition by the Russian Empire. After that, the Qing court started to encourage immigration of Han Chinese into the region, which began the period of Chuang Guandong, later called the Great Betrayal in Manchuria.

After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as Zhongguo ("中國"), and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu. "China" thus referred to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs. The lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to "China" (Zhongguo, Dulimbai gurun) in Qing edicts and in the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. "Manchuria" however is a translation of the Japanese word Manshū (满洲), which dates from the 19th century. The name Manju (Manzhou) was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group, however, the name "Manchuria" was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland. According to the Japanese scholar Junko Miyawaki-Okada, the Japanese geographer Takahashi Kageyasu was the first to use the term (满洲, Manshū) as a place-name in 1809 in the Nippon Henkai Ryakuzu, and it was from that work where Westerners adopted the name. According to Mark C. Elliott, Katsuragawa Hoshū's 1794 work, the "Hokusa bunryaku", was where the term "Manshū" first appeared as a place name was in two maps included in the work, "Ashia zenzu" and "Chikyū hankyū sōzu" which were also created by Katsuragawa. "Manshū" then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and Yamada Ren, and these maps were brought to Europe by the Dutch Philipp von Siebold. According to Nakami Tatsuo, Philip Franz von Siebold was the one who brought the usage of the term Manchuria to Europeans, after borrowing it from the Japanese, who were the first to use it in a geographic manner in the eighteenth century, while neither the Manchu nor Chinese languages had a term in their own language equivalent to "Manchuria" as a geographic place name. According to later historicans, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location and it is not a genuine geographic term. The term Manchuria or Man-chou was a modern creation used mainly by westerners and Japanese at first. The term Manchuria is imperialistic in nature and has no "precise meaning", since the Japanese deliberately promoted the use of "Manchuria" as a geographic name to promote its separation from China while they were setting up the state of Manchukuo there. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria. Manchuria however was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression at first.

In Manchuria in 1800 the rich Han Chinese merchants stood at the top of the social ladder, just below the high-ranking banner officers, with whom they had many social, cultural and business relationship - merchant and officers often meeting one another on terms of equality. Han Chinese society in Manchuria was an uprooted society of immigrants, most of whom, except in Fengtian (Liaoning), had lived where they were for only a number of decades. Although the settlers had come mainly from Zhili, Shandong and Shanxi and had brought with them many of the social patterns of those provinces, the immigrants derived from the poorer and less educated elements of society, with the result that at the beginning of the nineteenth century a "gentry" class of the type known in China proper - families of education, wealth and prestige who had exercised social leadership in a given locality for generations - had only recently come into being in Fengtian province and cannot be said to have existed in the Manchurian frontier at all. At the bottom of the society were the unskilled workmen, domestic servants, prostitutes and exiled convicts, including slaves. One of the capacities in which Manchuria, especially Jilin and Heilongjiang, had served the Qing Empire was as a place of exile, not only for disgraced officials but also for convicted criminals. The worse the crimes and the more hardened the offenders, the farther north the Qing judicial system generally sent them. Many of these criminals took up crafts or small businesses, eventually becoming dependable members of society, but their presence in increasing numbers added to the lawless, rough-and-ready character of Manchurian frontier society.

Manchuria from the early to middle Qing period was governed by the military governors of Fengtian, Jilin and Heilongjiang. In both Jilin and Heilongjiang, most of whose territories were not easily accessible, there lived a considerable Han Chinese outlaw population. The numbers of these outlaws had grown rapidly in the eighteenth century, and continued to grow in the nineteenth. Some of them, especially the goldminers and bandits, formed organized communities with rudimentary local governments. Groups of outlaw ginseng-diggers, known as "blackmen", in the forests and mountains beyond the reach of the Manchurian authorities, so disturbed the tribal frontier areas that in 1811 the military governor of Jilin had to send troops into the mountains to drive them out. By the opening decade of the nineteenth century the sinicization of Manchuria was already irreversibly advanced. Fengtian province had for some time been essentially Han Chinese and part of China, and the military governors of Jilin and Heilongjiang, though charged with the duty of upholding the supremacy of the banner element in society, had failed to preserve the status quo. The bannermen, who lacked the industry and technical skills of the Han Chinese settlers, were concerned only with holding on to what they had. Despite repeated government measures, the bannermen were rapidly becoming pauperized, and they grew increasingly dependent upon subsidies from the Qing government. The culturally dynamic example, which more and more of them began to emulate, was that of the Han Chinese. As time went on, not only the bannermen but also many of the tribal peoples began to adopt Chinese culture and fall into the orbit of Han tastes, Han markets and Han ways of doing things. Only the cold and sparsely populated Amur basin, which had not attracted settlers from China, remained essentially outside the Chinese sphere.

After the loss of the Outer Manchuria to the Russians and the Russo-Japanese War, Manchuria was eventually turned into provinces by the late Qing government in the early 20th century, similar to Xinjiang which was converted into a province earlier. Manchuria became officially known as the "Three Northeast Provinces" (東三省), and the Qing established the post of Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces to oversee these provinces, which was the only Qing viceroy that had jurisdiction outside China proper. This ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as "China" (中國, Zhongguo; or "Central Realm") and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu. The Qing equated the lands of the Qing state (including later Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas) as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas, proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (中國人 Zhongguo ren; Manchu: Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing. The lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to "China" (Zhongguo, Dulimbai gurun) in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

During the Qing dynasty, the area of Manchuria was known as the "three eastern provinces" (三東省; Sān dōng shěng) since 1683 when Jilin and Heilongjiang were separated even though it was not until 1907 that they were turned into actual provinces. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907. Since then, the "Three Northeast Provinces" (traditional Chinese: 東北三省; simplified Chinese: 东北三省; pinyin: Dōngběi Sānshěng) was officially used by the Qing government in China to refer to this region, and the post of Viceroy of Three Northeast Provinces was established to take charge of these provinces. As the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free (such as Kashgar) or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the northern lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a huge tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War. But Russia was not satisfied and, as the Qing Dynasty continued to weaken, they made further efforts to take control of the rest of Manchuria. Inner Manchuria came under strong Russian influence in the 1890s with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok.

The far right wing Japanese ultra-nationalist Black Dragon Society supported Sun Yat-sen's activities against the Manchus, believing that overthrowing the Manchu Qing Dynasty would help the Japanese take over the Manchu homeland and that Han Chinese would not oppose the takeover. The far right wing Japanese ultranationalist Gen'yōsha leader Tōyama Mitsuru believed that the Japanese could easily take over Manchuria and Sun Yat-sen and other anti-Qing revolutionaries would not resist and help the Japanese take over and enlargen the opium trade in China while the Qing was trying to destroy the opium trade. The Japanese Black Dragons supported Sun Yat-sen and anti-Manchu revolutionaries until the Qing collapsed. Toyama supported anti-Manchu, anti-Qing revolutionary activities including by Sun Yat-sen and supported Japanese taking over Manchuria. The anti-Qing Tongmenghui was founded and based in exile in Japan where many anti-Qing revolutionaries gathered. The Japanese had been trying to unite anti-Manchu groups made out of Han people to take down the Qing. Japanese were the ones who helped Sun Yat-sen unite all anti-Qing, anti-Manchu revolutionary groups together and there were Japanese like Tōten Miyazaki inside of the anti-Manchu Tongmenghui revolutionary alliance. The Black Dragon Society hosted the Tongmenghui in its first meeting. The Black Dragon Society had very intimate relations with Sun Yat-sen and promoted pan-Asianism and Sun sometimes passed himself off as Japanese. That had connections with Sun for a long time. Japanese groups like the Black Dragon Society had a large impact on Sun Yat-sen. According to an American military historian, Japanese military officers were a direct part of the Black Dragon Society. The Yakuza and Black Dragon Society helped arrange in Tokyo for Sun Yat-sen to hold the first Kuomintang meetings, and were hoping to flood China with opium and overthrow the Qing and deceive Chinese into overthrowing the Qing to Japan's benefit. After the revolution was successful, the Japanese Black Dragons started infiltrating China and spreading opium and anti-Communist sentiment. The Black Dragons pushed for the takeover of Manchuria by Japan in 1932.

As a direct result of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japanese influence replaced Russia's in Inner Manchuria. During the war with Russia, Japan had mobilized one million soldiers to fight in Manchuria, meaning that one in eight families in Japan had a member fighting the war. During the Russo-Japanese War, the losses were heavy with Japan losing a half-million dead or wounded. From the time of the Russian-Japanese war onward, many Japanese people came to have a proprietary attitude to Manchuria, taking the viewpoint that a land where so much Japanese blood had been lost in some way now belonged to them. In 1906, Japan established the South Manchurian Railway on the former Chinese Eastern Railway built by Russia from Manzhouli to Vladivostok via Harbin with a branch line from Harbin to Port Arthur (Japanese: Ryojun). Under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Kwantung Army had the right to occupy southern Manchuria while the region fell into the Japanese economic sphere of influence. The Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad company had a market capitalization of 200 million yen, making it Asia's largest corporation, which went beyond just running the former Russian railroad network in southern Manchuria to owning the ports, mines, hotels, telephone lines, and sundry other businesses, dominating the economy of Manchuria. With the growth of the South Manchuria Railroad (Mantetsu) company went growth in number of Japanese living in Manchuria from 16,612 Japanese civilians in 1906 to 233,749 in 1930. The majority of blue collar employees for the Mantetsu were Chinese, and the Japanese employees were mostly white collar, meaning most of the Japanese living in Manchuria were middle-class people who saw themselves as an elite. Between the First Great War and the Second Great War Manchuria became a political and military battleground between Russia, Japan, and China. Japan moved into Outer Manchuria as a result of the chaos following the Russian Revolution of 1917. A combination of Soviet military successes and American economic pressure forced the Japanese to withdraw from the area, for the time being, and Outer Manchuria returned to Soviet control by 1925.

During the Warlord Era in China, the warlord Marshal Zhang Zuolin established himself in Inner Manchuria with Japanese backing. Later, the Japanese Kwantung Army found him too independent, so he was assassinated in 1928. In assassinating Marshal Zhang, the "Old Marshal" the Kwantung Army generals expected Manchuria to descend into anarchy, providing the pretext for seizing the region. Marshal Zhang was killed when the bridge his train was riding across was blown up while three Chinese men were murdered and explosive equipment placed on their corpses to make it appear that they were the killers, but the plot was foiled when Zhang's son Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal" succeeded him without incident while the cabinet in Tokyo refused to send additional troops to Manchuria. Given that the Kwantung Army had assassinated his father, the "Young Marshal", who unlike his father was a Chinese nationalist, had strong reasons to dislike Japan's privileged position in Manchuria. Marshal Zhang knew his forces were too weak to expel the Kwantung Army, but his relations with the Japanese were unfriendly right from the start. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japanese militarists moved forward to separate the region from Chinese control and to create a Japanese-aligned puppet state. To create an air of legitimacy, the last Emperor of China, Puyi, was invited to come with his followers and act as the head of state for Manchuria. One of his faithful companions was Zheng Xiaoxu, a Qing reformist and loyalist. On 18 February 1932 Manchukuo ("The Manchurian State") was proclaimed, officially founded on 1 March. It was recognized by Japan on 15 September 1932 through the Japan–Manchukuo Protocol, after the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. The city of Changchun, renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xinjing; lit.: 'New Capital'), became the capital of the new entity for now. Chinese in Manchuria organized volunteer armies to oppose the Japanese and the new state required a war lasting several years to pacify the country.

The Japanese initially installed Puyi as Head of State in 1932, and two years later he was declared Emperor of Manchukuo with the era name of Kangde (康德, Kang-te, "Tranquility and Virtue"). Manchukuo thus became Manchutikuo ("The Manchurian Empire"). Zheng Xiaoxu served as Manchukuo's first prime minister until 1935, when Zhang Jinghui succeeded him. In the 1934 Tokio Conference Korea became “independent” once again in and Puyi relocated the capital to the traditional Manchu Mukden, trying his best to wrestle more authority from the hands of the Japanese military officials and Japanese Zaibatsu conglomerates. The Manchu ministers who before all served as front-men for their Japanese vice-ministers, who made all decisions slowly, but steady started to take over more parts of the government. In this manner, Japan formally detached Manchukuo from China over the course of the 1930s. With Japanese investment and rich natural resources, the area became an industrial powerhouse. Manchukuo had its own issued banknotes and postage stamps. Several independent banks were founded as well. The conquest of Manchuria proved to be extremely popular with the Japanese people who saw the conquest as providing a much needed economic "lifeline" to their economy which had been badly hurt by the Great Depression. The very image of a "lifeline" suggested that Manchuria, which was rich in natural resources, was essential for Japan to recover from the Great Depression, which explains why the conquest was so popular at the time and later why the Japanese people were so completely hostile towards any suggestion of letting Manchuria go. At the time, censorship in Japan was nowhere near as stringent as it later become, and the American historian Louise Young noted: "Had they wished, it would have been possible in 1931 and 1932 for journalists and editors to express anti-war sentiments". The popularity of the conquest meant that newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun which initially opposed the war swiftly changed to supporting the war as the best way of improving sales.

In 1935, Manchukuo bought the Chinese Eastern Railway from the Soviet Union. Until the Chinese Civil War the Chinese Republic and most Chinese warlords did not recognize Manchukuo but the two sides established official ties for trade, communications and transportation. In 1933, the League of Nations adopted the Lytton Report, who got blinded by Manchurian claims to their traditional own lands and traditions, opposing the Han Chinese settlements the Quing had started before and could be convinced that Manchuria was a independent of China, even if maybe not fully rightfully and legal becoming so, a sentence in the note that the Japanese heavily protested, while the overall outcome of the Report would lead Japan to increase such agitations in other parts of China and East Asia. The Manchukuo case however was not completely accepted in the United States and after the Italian Annexation of Abyssinia/ Ethiopia, creating the so-called Stimson Doctrine, under which international recognition was withheld from changes in the international system created by force of arms. Something heavily supported by the American public and people once the Germans and Italian National Monarchists and Fascists Royalists steamrolled over Europe, while the Japanese Coprospists did the same with East Asia. Because of the Lague of Nations decisions, many nation states accepted the new state of Manchukuo, especially many later puppet or depending states of the Axis Central Powers and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Upon signing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, the Soviet Union recognized Chosen, Manchukuo and Mengjiang de jure in exchange for Japan recognizing the integrity of the neighboring Mongolian People's Republic. The USSR did maintain five consulates-general in Manchukuo initially, although in 1936–37 these were reduced to just two: one in Harbin and another in Manzhouli. In exchange Manchukuo opened consulates in Blagoveshchensk (September 1932) and in Chita (February 1933).

The Manchurian State, officially the Manchurian Empire convinced most of the world with their own independent government. It was made up by Xie Jieshi, a cabinet minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, strong Puyi supporter, who helped with Taiwanese Chinese and other Taiwanese minority migration to Manchukuo in a attempt to to further Japanize Taiwan and at the same time boost Manchukuos own population, later he would be the Minister of Industry as well. Then there was Yu Zhishan, the Army Minister in the Manchukuo Cabinet and commander-in-chief of the First Manchurian Army. Yuan Jinkai of the Constitutional Commission of Manchukuo, member of the Senate of Manchukuo, and member of the cabinet as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. Li Yuan, the consulate general of Manchukuo in the Soviet Union in 1933, who afterwards served in Yankoku in 1936 to grow both Co-Prosperity Sphere member and nation sates trade and diplomatic relations. Yuyan a member of the Imperial Manchu Court, Zang Shiyi the Governor of Fengtian Province, as well as Prime Minister of Manchukuo, Speaker of the Manchukuo Senate and Vice Minister for Home Affairs. Zhang Yanqing, the early Industry Minister of the Empire of Manchukuo, a strong monarchist, one of the directors of the Concordia Association, later becoming the official Manchurian Foreign Minister. Zheng Xiaoxu, first Prime Minister of Manchukuo, who hoped for Qing Rule to once again spread over all of China from their once again secured power base in Manchuria. Ruan Zhenduo, the Chief Secretary for Fengtian Province, head of the Manchukuo Youth League, who also served on the General Affairs State Council as Director of the Construction Bureau, was on the cabinet-level posts of the Minister of Education, the Minister of Transportation, as well as the Minister of Finance and the Foreign Minister, during his time in the government. Li Shaogeng, head of the Manchurian Eastern Railway, who rose to the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors and President, Minister of Transportation for the Empire of Manchuria and Foreign Minister of Manchukuo during his career. Lü Ronghuan, the chairman of Harbin city assembly, Governor of Harbin Special Municipality, Governor of Binjiang Province, Minister of Civil Affairs of the Empire of Manchukuo, Minister of Wasps, until that post was merged into the Ministry of Industries, Minister of Industries, Minister of Civil Affairs, later he became the special envoy to Imperial National Han Chinese Nation State. Luo Zhenyu, a monarchist, the chairman of the Japan-Manchukuo Cultural Cooperation Society, a preserved Chinese antiques and leading man to increase Japanese settlement and overall Japanezation of Manchuria as some form of Japanese Colony. Ding Jianxiu, the Director of the Transportation Department from March 1932 to March 1934, who continuing his service in what was essentially the same duties as Minister of Transportation of the Empire of Manchukuo from March 1934 to March 1935. From May 1935 to May 1937 he served as Minister of Enterprise. In May 1937 he retired from public service. However, in May 1940 he was appointed to serve on the Privy Council, and helped organize the celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of Manchukuo in 1941. In December 1942 he was appointed a member of the committee oversee the construction of the Manchukuo National Shrines. He died of illness in 1944 at the age of 59. Pujie, the younger brother of the Manchu Emperor, first in line to succeed his brother as the emperor of Manchukuo, honorary head of the Manchukuo Imperial Guards who took over as Emperor during the last years of the Second Great War. Together with the Japanese noblewomen Hiro Saga (known as Aishin Kakura Hiro or Aucin-Jueluo Hao in Manchur and Chinese), who gave birth to Pujie's children, Huesheng (or Eisei), the later Empress of Manchuria in 1938 and Husheng (or Kosei) in 1940.
 
Chapter 800: The Canadian Spirit and Divison
Chapter 800: The Canadian Spirit and Divison
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The history of Canada during the Second Great War began with the declared of war on Germany, the country's first independent declaration of war, because of the British deceleration of war just shortly before. It would be the beginning of Canada's participation in the largest combined national effort in its history. Canada's military was active mainly in Africa, Western Europe, and the North Atlantic during the Second Great War. Over the course of the war, 1.1 million Canadians would serve in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Of these more than 92,000 lost their lives and another 98,000 would be wounded. The financial cost of the war was $21,786,077,519.13, between the 1939 and 1950 fiscal years, leading together with the financial burden on Great Britain, the British Empire and the other Dominions to their inability to repay the War-Bonds and Loans given to the Americans, resulting in the overall American and British economic and financial collapse of what would be known as the Second Great Depression or Anglo Depression (often used in combination of the overall moral and value degeneration of the Anglo world following their loss in the Second great War as well). At the end of the War, Canada had the world's fourth largest air force, and third largest navy for a short period of time. The Canadian Merchant Navy completed over 25,000 voyages across the Atlantic. Most of the Canadian ships would end up being sold to Germany, France, Spain and Italy during their naval expansion programs, when local and even foreign yards were unable to keep up with the Axis Central Power demands, while the majority of the Canadian Merchant Navy would end up in Japanese or other Co-Prosperity Sphere hands. Many Allied pilots were also trained in Canada during the war. Canadians also served in the military's of various Allied countries. Canadian forces deployed to the United Kingdom in 1939. One Canadian corps fought in the African campaign while the other fought Northwest Europe during the Normandy landings in 1943. The surviving parts of this 1st Canadian Army division would see the End of the war on German soil as prisoners of war, while two Canadian division fought in Africa, another in the Middle East and one in India and the Pacific against the Japanese.
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The Canadian nation itself would during the Second Great War become subject to direct attacks in the Battle of the St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the German Commando Raid on the coast of New Brunswick by mainly the Germans and in the shelling of coastal towns in British Columbia by Japanese submarines and later airplanes. Because of this events, as well as Axis Central Power agitation, the Second Great War would have a significant cultural, political and economic effects on Canada, including the conscription crisis, the French Empire and German Empire backed and supported French-Canadian and Quebecers independent movement in the 1960ies that would result in local protests, uprisings (some violent) and a referendum that would see a 62% victory for Quebec Independence under Quebecois Party(Parti Québécois) Leader René Lévesque. While most Quebecois (51,3%) hoped for full internal autonomy and sovereignty of their province, some more radical elements (12,6%) supported for Quebec to become a independent state closely linked to the French Empire and the French speaking world. Some Quebec Monarchists even supported linking Quebec to the French Emperor and his crown, much like Canada was linked to the British Crown, with a Viceroy-General serving as a direct link between the French Crown and Empire towards the independent Nation State of Quebec. The Canadian Nation outright opposed full autonomy, as doing so would have meant to lose northeast Canada and with it most major industries, trade routes and trade connections to the rest of the world, as well as a huge part of the overall Canadian population (5,259,211of 17,906,655people). While Quebecois conservatives (Union Nationale with 78 seats, ruing Quebec since 1944) and liberals (Quebec Liberal Party) joined forces with other local parties and split with their larger Canadian variants, the Canadian government cracked down hard on the French-Canadians and French speaking Canadians (together around 31,6% of the whole Canadian population in the 1962 Official Culture and Language Act (French: Loi sur le culture et langue officielle) that declared English the only official language and Anglo-Canadian or English Canadian the official culture with preferred status in law over all other cultures and languages in Canada. This leat to a growing, partly even militia and terroristic opposition by Quebecois/ French-Canadians who formed a agressive civil resistance and opposition (La Ségrégation).
 
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Chapter 801: Teutonic Order Division Number Four: Terra Mariana (Medieval Latin for "Land of Mary")
Chapter 801: Teutonic Order Division Number Four: Terra Mariana (Medieval Latin for "Land of Mary")
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The division was formed in 1939 out of part of the former Ordnungspolizei or Orpo (uniformed national police). While all German police organizations were controlled by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in his capacity as Chief of German Police in the Interior Ministry, after the 1938 military Coup against the Nazi's they had not at this time considered to be part of the SS, nor was the Polizei Division on par with the other Waffen-SS divisions. Therefore this Teutonic Order Division under the Generalleutnant der Polizei (Major-General) Eduard Strauch, Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and Arthur Mülverstadt was mostly made up by members of the German Police. This status was reflected in the quality of the equipment they were issued and their retention of police insignia and rank structure. The division was transferred to the Teutonic Order in 1940 and was upgraded to a Panzergrenadier division and tasked with training the Baltic Landwehr or Baltische Landeswehr ("Baltic Territorial Army") as well as the Baltic Police forces of the new United Baltic Duchy. The division itself was formed when thousands of members of the Ordnungspolizei were drafted and placed together with artillery and signals units transferred from the army. These men were never enrolled in the SS and remained policemen, retaining their Orpo rank structure and insignia. They did not have to meet the racial requirements imposed for the SS. The Germans purpose in forming the division was twofold: in a period of heated bureaucratic infighting and competition for manpower, it permitted them to get around the recruitment caps the Wehrmacht had, but it also provided a means for his policemen to satisfy their military obligation and avoid army conscription. The first commander was Generalleutnant der Polizei (Major-General) Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, a career police commander who had been a general staff officer during the First Great War; simultaneous with his appointment he was also commissioned as an SS-Gruppenführer. The division was equipped largely with outdated Polish and Baltic materiel and underwent military training in the Baltic Forest combined with periods on internal security duties in the Baltic Duchy. The division, at this time an infantry formation with horse-drawn transport, was held in reserve during the Finnish-Soviet War, were it was heavily involved in the fighting's at Sortavala and the river retread of Vartsila, fighting the Red Army. Because of this experience they not only helped build up the Finnish Police and later the White Ruthenian Police like they had helped build up the Baltic Police as well, but were send to the Eastern Front to partake in the Eastern Crusade. Part of Army Group North and Army Group Center it fought heavily in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) were the division lost over 2,000 soldiers, including their initial commander. Fighting in swampy, wooden and frozen terrain. Because of this losses it would accepted catholic and protestant Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish and partly even White Ruthenian Police members to reinforce their ranks, but no orthodox White Ruthenians or Russians at all.

Their heavy fighting against the Soviet 2nd Shock Army lead to increasing losses as the Red Army attempt to recapture St. Petersburg and Tsar Vladimir, resulting in the Land of Mary Division to be upgraded to a Panzergrenadier Division in 1943. Parts of the division were now transported behind the frontlines in the northern and central part of the Eastern Front, were they would partake in anti-partisan operations. On orders of the German General Staff and their own nationalistic Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish and White Ruthenian elements they would participate in the often forceful displacement of Russian ethnic minorities from the United Baltic Duchy, Finnland and partly White Ruthenia to even further decrease the Russian ethnic, religious orthodox and overall cultural influence in these Eastern European territories after the Second Great War, so that the Russian Empire would not be able to take them back so easily. When the White Russian State and the local Military and Police opposed the removal of it's citizens east, even if they were of Russian ethnicity, the local Police and White Russian Army got in a firefight with the Land of Mary Division, resulting in the so called Vitebsk Massacre. The Vitebsk massacre saw the killing of around 2,635 Russians in Vitebsk and supported by nationalist Baltic, Finnish and White Russian elements would result in the killing or forceful removing of around 134,000 ethnic Russians from the United Baltic Duchy, Finland and partly even White Russia. According to survivors, the Teutonic Order Division Land of Mary and their local ethnic militia and police helpers, bayoneted babies in their cribs, stabbed pregnant women, and beheaded the man, while the village priests were burned at the stake. Elements of this division later participated in Operation Red Cross (referring to the Crusaders, not the international humanitarian movement) (5–31 August 1944), an attempt to eradicate partisans in the Dnieper and Duna region, killing even more civilians and destroying whole (mostly Russian) villages and cities. This often lead to them opposing local partisans, militia, police and military, sometimes even those fighting on German side and in a few circumstances even lead to elements of the division alongside Baltic, Finish and White Ruthenian elements opposing, or outright fighting elements of the Imperial German Army, or the Imperial Russian Army, who tried to stop their forced displacements or massacres. During and after the Second Great War, the Divisions atrocities soured the relations between White Russia and the Teutonic Order/ the United Baltic Duchy/ Finland, as well as between Russia and the Teutonic Order/ the United Baltic Duchy/ Finland to a more or less open hostility.
 
Chapter 802: Ecuador in Battle
Chapter 802: Ecuador in Battle
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In Equator the time of the Second Great War is remembered for having initiated a protracted confrontation with the United States-based South American Development Company over the terms of its Ecuadorian concession and the wages it paid its Ecuadorian employees. The company refused to comply with the Ecuadorian Governments entreaty that more of the profits from its mining operations stay in Ecuador, and it won the support of the United States Department of State. The Ecuadorian government continued its demands despite United States pressure. In 1940 the United States, hoping to obtain Ecuadorian cooperation in its anticipated war effort, ended its support for the mining firm. Ecuadorian President Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Río, in turn, proved generous in his cooperation with the Allies, allowing the United States to build a naval base on the Galápagos Islands and an air base at Salinas on the Ecuadorian mainland. In addition to being a genuine friend and admirer of the United States, Arroyo del Río was the leader of the PLR and a representative of the Guayaquil-based "plutocracy." He came to power constitutionally in November 1939 upon the death of his predecessor, but he continued in office in January 1940 through fraudulent elections that were universally believed to have been won by Velasco, and continued in power later, through repression. Despite such antipopular methods of ruling, he managed to remain in office for almost four years, thanks to economic support by the United States and the recuperation of Ecuador's export markets as worldwide economic depression gave way to recovery during the Second Great War. Arroyo del Río's undoing was the disastrous 1941 Ecuadorian–Peruvian War. Although the prior sequence of events, the breakdown of talks aimed at resolving the boundary issues in 1938, followed by repeated border skirmishes, had given ample warning of a possible outbreak of large-scale hostilities, Ecuador was unprepared to meet the July 5 Peruvian invasion. Furthermore, the president's fear of being left unprotected from his opponents led him to keep the nation's best fighting forces in Quito while Peruvian troops continuously attacked the nation's southern and eastern provinces until a ceasefire went into effect on July 31.
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Peru's occupation ended only after January 1942, when the two nations signed the Protocol of Peace, Friendship, and Boundaries while attending the Third Conference of Foreign Ministers of the American Republics in Rio de Janeiro. Under the terms of the Rio Protocol, the informal name of the agreement, Ecuador renounced its claim to some 200,000 square kilometers of territory. Shortly afterward, the Rio Protocol was ratified by a bare plurality of the Ecuadorian legislature. The Ecuadorian government quickly regretted having become a party to the Rio Protocol. The protocol became the focus of a surge of Ecuadorian national pride and concomitant opposition to Arroyo in a new coalition, the Democratic Alliance. The coalition brought together a wide array of Ecuadorian politicians dedicated to replacing the president who had been unable to defend the national honor. Arroyo's rejoinder that he would remain in office the full four years, neither one day more nor one day less and his being prominently hailed in Washington as "the Apostle of Pan-Americanism " only increased his political isolation. A persistent inflation that whittled away at the purchasing power of salaried workers was a further cause of popular resentment against Arroyo. In May 1944, following an uprising in Guayaquil that pitted the military and civilian supporters of José María Velasco Ibarra against Arroyo's police, the president finally resigned. The military handed power to the Democratic Alliance, which in turn named Velasco, whose electoral candidacy had recently been vetoed by Arroyo, as the popularly acclaimed president of the republic. The populist master returned triumphantly from exile in Colombia, greeted by throngs of enthusiasts during a three-day journey to Quito, to assume the presidency for the second time Ecuador would allow the Untied States to use a naval base in the Baltra Island. In a political alliance between the Conservative Party (Spanish: Partido Conservador (PC) and the fascist royalist Alianza Revolucionaria Nacionalista Ecuatoriana (ARNE) in 1948 the populist Velasco would become a Ecuadorian dictator and reestablish political and trade relations with the Empire of Japan and the Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1948-1954.
 
Chapter 803: The Hundred Days War
Chapter 803: The Hundred Days War
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With the Fascist Royalist French Empire and the Allied Democratic British Empire fighting and bombing one another, both sides drew propaganda and inspiration from conflicts they had before, including the Hundred Years War or the Normannic Invasion of the British Isles. The French would start using fighters and bombers against the British that had originally been build to fight the Germans or Italians with. One of these fighters, the VG.33 had been suthorized for production in late 1941 under German authorities and was used as a complementary for the similarly performing D.520. The majority of VG.33s (87 vs 126 total produced), based in Algeria at the time of Operation Torch, combated the FAA/USN's F4F-4 Wildcat/Sea Hurricanes and the RAF/USAAF's P-40E/Spitfire Mk. IX. Superior to the F4F-4 and the Sea Hurricane Mk. IIc, the former due of it's speed and the latter due of the Merlin's float controlled carburettor, which basically seized up the engine while in a dive. It was inferior to the Mk. IX in speed and armament and the P-40E in armament, but other than that it was superior to the three. During the Battle for Britain and the defense of French airspace and cities around 42 of the VG.33s were lost to enemy aircraft, anti-air guns, and accidents in exchange for 64 victories against allied, mainly American and British fighters. Around 39 ended in the hands of the Free French and fought against the Fascist French and other Axis Central Powers in Britain, France and North Africa. The bombing of mainland French infrastructure, factories and overall cities led to a run of volunteers in Fascist French to become fighter and bomber pilots, let alone crews for their anti-airplane and radar installations. Most of these however were installed in Northern and Eastern France not with the intent to secure mainland France, but nearby Germany from Allied bombings. Some of these French fighters were also sold to Bulgaria, Romania and the Hellenic Kingdoms were they would help equip the local air forces with better fighters to secure their own nations against allied air scouting and bombing raids alike.
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Another major French airplane was the Fascist French Imperial taken over Fw-200 Condor that was authorized by the German authorities, the SNCASE began production of the militarized variant of the civilian SE-161 with a B.7 designation. Changes made included a glazed nose with a pair of 7.5mm MAC-1934 machine guns in the nose-tip/ventral position, a 20mm HS.404 cannon in the dorsal turret, and a 13.2mm M1929 Hotchkiss heavy machine-gun in the tail. Bomb payload was a maximum of 3,725kg in a internal bomb-bay, with provisions for external hardpoints such as torpedo's, depth charges, or mines. First flight of the modified SE-161 was in 7 February 1941. Most of the SE-161s produced were based in Algeria and Morocco as maritime patrol bombers, keeping eyes on British forces, especially in Gibraltar were they would help the Spanish Nationalists and Germans conquer the city. When the Americans came to northern Marocco with Operation Torch, several Fw-200 bombed allied ships and many of them were destroyed in the air, or on the ground by fighters, and some were even seized by the Allies, who proceeded to hand most of the fighters and bombers captured to the Free French, who used them as transports and cargo planes, but also to fight in southern and eastern Fascist French controlled French West Africa. Around 39 of them therefore would see service in Action after entered the Allied service this way and were involved in operations against Axis Central Powers supply shipping, positions and enemy forces, seeing some victories by sinking Axis Central Powered supply ships full of vehicles, including tanks and planes, as well as destroying Axis Central Powers vehicles along the frontlines when encountering them. Soon feared by the already limited supplied Axis Central Powers, both French Factions increasingly started to see the other as traitors to the French nation, people and way of life, often shooting their fellow French brothers when they and not the Allies or Axis Central Powers found them.
 
Chapter 804: Operation I-Go
Chapter 804: Operation I-Go
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Operation I-Go (い号作戦, I-Go sakusen) was an aerial counter-offensive launched by Imperial Japanese forces against Allied forces during the Solomon Islands and New Guinea Campaigns in the Pacific Theater of the Second Great War. Taking place from 1–18 March 1943, during the operation, Japanese aircraft from Imperial Japanese Army and Navy units alike, under the command of Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto and Jinichi Kusaka, attacked Allied ships, aircraft, and land installations in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Solomon Sea. The goal of the operation was to halt the Allied offensives in New Guinea and the Solomons and to give Japan time to prepare a new set of counter-offensives to finally cut of Australia from Allied supply lines in response to recent Allied operation in New Guinea and the Bismarck Sea. The operation consisted of several massed aerial attacks by Japanese bomber and fighter aircraft, based mainly at Rabaul, Bougainville, and the Shortland Islands, against Allied targets on and around New Guinea and the Solomons. Although the Japanese sank many Allied transports and warships, the attack failed to inflict the serious, crippling damage on Allied forces the Imperial Japanese High Command had hoped for. Based on inaccurate and unintentionally exaggerated reports from the involved aircrews, Yamamoto halted the attacks on 18 March, believing the operation to be a huge success. The operation, however, did not significantly cripple the Allied preparations for further defenses and planned offensives in the South Pacific area. Following the s set backs at New Guinea, the Japanese sought to delay the Allied advance in the central Pacific while they strengthened their southern flank in the Pacific. In early March, the Japanese suffered medium losses at the hands of Allied aircraft during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. In light of this, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy decided to change their strategy in the region and bring in reinforcements for their air assets in the region. On 15 February 1943, the Japanese high command in Tokyo issued orders for a new defensive strategy in the central Pacific, based upon building a strong perimeter around their base at Rabaul and extending their outer Defense Perimeter.

The offensive campaign in the Solomons would be placed under the Imperial Japanese Navy, while the main focus of the Imperial Japanese Army operations focused on New Guinea. In order to set the conditions for this strategy, the Japanese planned a short air offensive in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea focused upon four key locations: Guadalcanal, Oro Bay, Port Moresby and Milne Bay. The Japanese designated this Operation 'A', or Operation I Go Sakusen. Allied forces in the Pacific at the time were commanded by General Douglas MacArthur (South-West Pacific) and Admiral William Halsey (South Pacific). Responsibility for the operation was given to the air fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Throughout February, Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto and Jinichi Kusaka established their headquarters in Rabaul and began planning the offensive. Preliminary planning determined that the offensive would be undertaken in two phases, with the first effort concentrating on the Solomon Islands. They subsequently began building up air power around Rabaul, concentrating aircraft from the land-based aircraft of the 11th and 12th Air Fleets along with aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy's remaining aircraft carriers. The carrier-based aviation units contributed over 320 aircraft, including 182 fighters, while the 11th and 12th Air Fleet provided 172 fighters, as well as 144 medium bombers, 54 dive bombers and a 36 torpedo bombers. After initially concentrating around Rabaul these aircraft were dispersed to several fields around Buka and Kahili, on Bougainville, and at Ballale in the Shortland Islands. By briefly boosting the Japanese air force at Rabaul with naval carrier aircraft, Yamamoto gathered a little over 500 planes together to achieve formidable striking power with the intention of countering Allied air power and defenses over a number of days at various critical locations. Overall, it was to become their most substantial aerial assault undertaken in the area. Due to operational losses the Imperial Japanese Navy had over the preceding months, many of the Japanese crews were inexperienced. Allied air defenses in the area were predominately provided by U.S. fighter squadrons, reinforced by several Australian units. In April, a New Zealand fighter squadron, No. 15 Squadron RNZAF, was also deployed to New Guinea, Renell Island and Vanatu Island, reinforcing the New Zealand bomber/reconnaissance squadron that had deployed to the area in late 1942.

Allied reconnaissance aircraft detected increased Japanese air activity around the upper Solomons on 1 March 1943. That day, as a preliminary part of the operation a fighter sweep of 116 Mitsubishi A6M3 Zeros was dispatched to draw out Allied fighters defending the area and destroy them ahead of the main aerial assault. The Japanese fighter sweep was met by 41 Allied fighters, consisting of a variety of types including Wildcats, Corsairs and Lightnings from Rear Admiral Charles P. Mason's AirSols command. The Japanese aircraft were intercepted over the Russell Islands while they were en route to San Christobal. The aerial battle that followed claimed 14 Zeros at the cost of 12 Allied aircraft. In the days that followed the carrier-based aircraft began arriving at Rabaul from Truk in preparation to begin the air strikes of the offensive. Some elements were delayed by low cloud, and a few of the Japanese aircraft did not arrive at Ballale until early on 7 March. The first attack of the Japanese offensive was launched on 7 March against Renell Islands and New Guinea. This was the largest raid of the operation, and consisted of 124 Aichi D3A2 "Val" dive bombers escorted by 220 Zeros and was met by 76 Allied fighters. The raiding aircraft were organized into twelve elements: four fighter sweeps preceded eight waves of dive bombers. The first fighter sweep, consisting of aircraft from the 253rd Kokutai, departed around midday under the command of Saburo Saito. It was followed by the second sweep consisting of aircraft from the 204th Kokutai. The waves of dive bombers were drawn from the carriers Zuikaku, Suiho, Hiyo and Junyo. 19 Japanese aircraft were lost; the Allies lost 14. The raid resulted in the sinking of two US destroyers, a New Zealandian corvette and cruiser, and three Allied tankers, as well as in the destruction of two Allied airfields and one harbor. Nevertheless, the Allies were able to evacuate their bombers from some of the airfields so that they escaped damage thanks to their radar. The main Allied air assets scrambled came from the US Thirteenth Air Force and included a variety of aircraft including Wildcats, Lightnings and Airacobras. Australian aircraft from No. 77 Squadron RAAF, based out of Gurney Field at Milne Bay, took part in the Allied response. Flying Kittyhawk fighters, one of their pilots, Flying Officer John Hodgkinson, was responsible for downing one of the Japanese fighters. One US Marine Corps pilot, Lieutenant James E. Swett, was later awarded the Medal of Honor after shooting down five Japanese aircraft.
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A three-day lull followed before the Japanese launched their second strike. On 11 March, a force of 44 "Vals" and 144 Zeros attacked shipping at Oro Bay, near Buna. A total of 50 Allied fighters scrambled from Dobodura and intercepted the force, shooting down four Japanese aircraft while loosing two themselves. The Allied squadrons committed to the fight included the 7th, 8th and 9th Fighter Squadrons flying Lightnings and Warhawks. These aircraft were controlled by an Allied radar station, which attempted to guide the defending fighters into position, but initially misdirected some of them to Cape Sudest. Anti-aircraft fire from ships in the bay also contributed to the defense and ultimately only limited damage was inflicted on one Allied merchantman. An attack on Port Moresby took place on 12 March. A force of 264 Zeros of the 253rd Kōkūtai and air groups of the carriers and 86 Mitsubishi G4M2 "Betty" medium bombers of the 751st and 705th Kōkūtai were assigned to the airstrike. Their targets were the Allied aircraft dispersed at the five airfields located around the town and the transports in the harbor. The raid was detected by the U.S. radar station at Paga Hill 38 minutes prior to their arrival, allowing the Allies time to scramble their fighters. Opposed by 44 Allied fighters, mainly from the US 39th, 40th and 41st Fighter Squadrons, the attack resulted in four Allied and five Japanese aircraft lost. The Japanese bombers were able to penetrate the Allied fighter screen which was outnumbered by their Japanese rivals, and they were able damage a medium number of ships in the harbor. They also damaged or destroyed several Allied aircraft on the Port Moresby airfields. Losses on the ground included six U.S. Mitchell medium bombers and two Australian Beaufort. Luckily for the Allies, no large Allied ships were damaged in the attack.

On 14 March 1943, the Japanese air offensive was nearing its conclusion when they launched an attack against Milne Bay, where six Allied troop transports were anchored, having been re-routed there from Port Moresby due to the earlier raid. After receiving advanced warning of the attack, the Australian harbor master, Commander Geoffrey Branson, ordered the vessels to disperse. The raid involved 276 aircraft from the 705th and 751st Kokutais as well as the carriers. Eight Lightnings from the U.S. 9th Fighter Squadron scrambled from Dobodura, resulting in three Japanese and six U.S. aircraft being shot down. In addition, between 24 and 36 Royal Australian Air Force Kittyhawks from No. 75 and 77 Squadrons also intercepted the attacking force. The Milne Bay area had a low cloud base for most of the year and the nearby mountains could make flying a dangerous proposition. The experiences of one Australian pilot during the raid highlight these dangers and were captured in an official report in the National Archives of Australia. Just after midday, Pilot Officer Norman Houghton was flying as part of a flight of five aircraft, inbound towards Samarai. He observed a close formation of about 60 Japanese bombers slightly right of his heading. The Japanese escort consisted of four elements, two of seven fighters above and behind bombers, the other two of between seven and eight fighters, which were about 2,000 feet (610 m) above them to the north. As the Australian fighter aircraft attempted to engage, Norman turned too tight at 150 miles (240 km) per hour and his aircraft went into a spin. After recovering, he experienced engine trouble and eventually he crash landed on a reef on Sideia Island near the village of Gotai. The Japanese bombers attacked in several waves. Initially, high level bombers dropped at least one hundred bombs on the anchorage. These were followed half an hour later by dive bombers. As a result of the raid on Milne Bay, three ships were beached after being hit by several bombs, which set it ablaze. Another cargo ship was also bombed and set on fire, before the blazes were extinguished. Near misses damaged three other ships and four Australian minesweepers. Eight Allied servicemen and 24 merchant seamen were killed in the air raid, while 136 were injured. Meanwhile, overhead, a significant air battle took place, during which both Australian squadrons shot down four enemy aircraft each. This represented the highest number of aerial victories for the RAAF in a single day in the Pacific. The U.S. Lightning pilots also shot down two Japanese aircraft.

The Japanese commander, Yamamoto, concluded the operation on 16 March. At the time, he believed that Allied losses were much heavier than they actually were and that the operation had been successful in completely crippling the remaining Allied forces in New Guinea and the Solomones Island area, therefore the Japanese carrier-based aircraft subsequently returned to their ships. Japanese claims amounted to 250 aircraft shot down, as well as 56 ships sunk, including two cruiser and four destroyers. In reality, total Allied losses during the operation only amounted to twenty ships of various types and up to 50 aircraft. The Japanese lost 45 aircraft in total. In the wake of the operation, Yamamoto decided to travel to the Solomons to congratulate his aircrews. While the Allies would have loved to knew that information to kill him, the new codes and frequencies used by parts of the Imperial Japanese Navy prevented this information from getting into their hands before the Admirals visit had already happened. The Japanese operation did significantly delay Allied preparations for further offensives in the South Pacific area and U.S. operations in the Solomons were set back about 20 additional days with bombing and mine laying sorties being postponed as well to hold back aircraft to respond if further Japanese air strikes were launched. After the raids in March Japanese air activity in New Guinea tapered off, even if a few raids continued in the area until 30 Jule when the Allies planned to launch their own counter-offensive in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. This action was designated Operation Vengeance and was focused on the Solomon Islands; it formed part of the wider Operation Cartwheel. While the Japanese showed problems in faulty intelligence, dispersal of effort and failure to follow up these attacks as many fighters and bombers were redirected across the Pacific, the Japanese operation would be no total failure, as it delayed American plans and reinforcements and lead to the Japanese Imperial Army offensive in New Guinea that would catch the Allied front-line and entrenched bunker positions unprepared, leading to massive Allied troop losses and their overall evacuation from New Guinea later on to save at least a few of the Allied Forces there that had survived to secure Australia with them.
 
I have returned, (probably very forgotten).

Jesus I have much to catch up but while I was gone my knowledge of the entire Japanese military in WW2 has expanded by 180% thanks to the RTS game turn based strategy game that takes 3 or 4 years to play...

But RL is distracting me from posting my knowelege, (actually it's a party).
 
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Chapter 805: Hitler's former Cabinet – A tale of Rudolf Hess
Chapter 805: Hitler's former Cabinet – A tale of Rudolf Hess
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Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; born 26 April 1894) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess served in that position until the German Military Coup of 1938. He would later become famous once again, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom during the Second Great War. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace, serving a life sentence until his suicide in 1987. His military career began, when Hess enlisted as an infantryman at the outbreak of the First Great War. He was wounded several times over the course of the war and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator, but he saw no action in that role. He left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. In 1919 Hess enrolled in the University of Munich, where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer, a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum ("living space"), which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology. Hess joined the Nazi Party on 1 July 1920 and was at Hitler's side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. While serving time in jail for this attempted coup, he assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf, which became a foundation of the political platform of the Nazi Party. After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party in April. He was elected to the Reichstag in the March elections, was made a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party in June and in December 1933 he became Minister without Portfolio in Hitler's cabinet. He was also appointed in 1938 to the Cabinet Council and planend to be transferred to the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich, when the German Military Coup happened against the Nazi's. Chancellor Hitler decreed later in 1940 that Hermann Göring would be his official successor within the NSDAP should any coup or attempt on his life happen again and named Hess as next in line. In addition to appearing on Hitler's behalf at speaking engagements and rallies, Hess had before signed into law much of the government's legislation, including the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped the Jews of Germany of their rights as German citizens and would be reversed after the military coup of 1938. Because of this he did not hold any higher office again after the military coup of 1938.
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On 10 April 1941, Hess made a solo flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed to be a prominent opponent of the British government's war policy. The British authorities arrested Hess immediately on his arrival and held him in custody until the end of the Second Great War, when he was returned to Germany in a prisoner exchange and had to stand trialfor treason against the German Empire like many Nazi's again after the DNVP had taken over the government control from the NSDAP for good during the Balkan Campaign, so Hess was trialed for treason against the government of the German Empire, treason against the German people and major war-criminals in 1946. During much of the trial, he claimed to be suffering from amnesia, but he later admitted this was a ruse. The Court convicted him of crimes against peace and of conspiracy with other German Nazi leaders to commit crimes against the German Reich and the German people, including. He served a life sentence in Spandau Prison. Where the German Military, German Aristrocrats, German Conservatives and German Liberals alike, either together, or seperate from one another blocked repeated attempts by family members and prominent politicians to archive his early release. While still in custody in Spandau, he died by hanging himself in 1987 at the age of 93. After his death, the prison, even more do then many other sides were former Nazi leaders had been killed, died or outright commited suicide like him, became a shrine for becoming a post-Nazi shrine. To many Hess even more so then other Nazi's sometimes even more then Hitler the peacefull unifyer of the German Reich represented the innosence of National Socialism in harsh contrast to the German Military and Aristrocratic Coup that after 1938 had reestablished the German Reich and lead to the Second Great War in the eyes of many post-Nazi's. Post Nazi's, or after Nazi's were Fascists and National Socialists opposing Fascist Royalism and National Monarchism alike in spirit of the old racist, populist and authoritarian rule of the Nazi's between 1932 and 1938, opposing the democratic and parliamend democratic German Reich that had formed after 1938.
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Germany needs no Nazis. It needs only the Kaiser.
True but I would assume some form of Nazi revanchism and relativism would keep around TTL for sure even if they will never become to influential. After all no Holocaust and Nazi's can claim the Kaiser and Military started the Secodn Great War not them, therefore I believe a few of them would be quit realistic. And yes the post-Nazi's will be TTL neo-Nazi's in a way.
 
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Chapter 806: Fiji Fighting
Chapter 806: Fiji Fighting
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Because Fiji was a British colony during the Second Great War, the Fiji Defence Force served with New Zealand Army formations, under the Allied Pacific Ocean Areas command. The Fiji Infantry Regiment fought in the Solomon Islands Campaign against the Japanese, Taikoku and Koreans of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Fiji also constructed many facilities such as airfields for Allied bombing runs, barracks and training grounds. When the Second Great War broke out many Fijians volunteered for military service with the Fiji Military Forces which was commanded by a New Zealand Army officer under a 1936 agreement with the British that New Zealand assume responsibility for the defence of Fiji. Two Fiji infantry battalions and commando units saw service with US Army units in Guadalcanal and Bougainville. After the beginning of the Pacific War, Fiji people volunteered to fight alongside the Allies. Japanese submarines launched seaplanes that flew over Fiji; Japanese submarine I-25 on 17 February 1942 and Japanese submarine I-10 on 30 October 1941. Because of its central location, Fiji was selected as a training base for the Allies. An airstrip was built at Nadi, the later base of the international airport, and gun emplacements studded the coast. Fijians gained a reputation for bravery in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea campaign, with one war correspondent describing their ambush tactics as "death with velvet gloves." Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, of Yucata, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, as a result of his bravery in the Battle of Bougainville. Indo-Fijians, however, generally refused to enlist, after their demand for equal treatment to Europeans was refused, giving ideal fuel for later Imperial Japanese and Coprospist Propaganda. The Fijians disbanded a platoon they had organized, and contributed nothing more than one officer and 70 enlisted men in a reserve transport section, on condition that they not be sent overseas. The refusal of Fijians to play an active role in the war efforts become part of the ideological construction employed by Fijian ethno-nationalists to justify interethnic tensions and opposition against the British rule of the islands.
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Those Fijians that had already been send to the Solomone Islands and New Guinea would not hear of this insurgency on Fiji, as the Allies limited news going to New Guinea nearly as much as news coming from the entrenched hell of New Guinea, as they knew this would undermine their war support on the homefront. The few Fijians that were captured by the Japanese during their commando raids operations behind enemy lines, or during the regular foghting on the shifting front on New Guinea would unlike captured American and Eruopean forces not be forced to build roads and railways trough the jungles of New Guinea under harsh, deadly conditions for the Japanese. Seen as fellow Asians, like all Oceanians and American Indians were in the racial theories and ideology of the Coprospist, pan-Asian view of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, they were isntead treated relatievly good and equal to other captured fellow Asian Forces in Alleid service. Later when New Guinea was liberated by the Co-Prosperity Sphere army on the island, the Fijians like Burmese, Malayan, Javan, Chinese or Idnians before were attempted to get enlisted inside the Imperial Japanese and Co-Prosperity Sphere army forces. When the Imperial Japanese Navy later would reach their highest extent in the Pacific during the Second Great War, some of those Fijians that had switched sides to them would serve as a early collaborational government, as well as a early Fijian police and militia to recruit more forces to help the Japanese conquer the islands from Allied control and establish Fijian independence on them. Some Fijians would support this collaborational government in hopes that the Japanese would threat them more equal and just then the Americans, British and overall the Allies had done before. A hope that would not be completely fulfilled by the Imperial Japanese navy who would remain a strong presence on Fiji, using it as a major naval and air base for the South Pacific, like Rabaul before. Still udner the Japanese the Fijians had nearly complete internal independence and could finaly govern themselves directly, even if their trade, defences and outer diplomacy completely relied on the Co-Prosperity Sphere they became a part of udner their new, independent government.
 
What’s the Japanese war aim for Australia?

I would imagine it's more like the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians. Never to conquer, it's too much and too far. Just simply occupy portions and dig in to draw Allied forces from more important fronts for maybe more surprise attacks, demoralize them and try to push for peace while they slowly bleed them of troops, even if it is basically a massive suicide mission for any CPS troops sent there. Though I'd imagine some radical expansionists in the war cabinet believe Japan can simply invade and annex all of the continent, more sane members will shut these fools up. Australia will probably slowly end up in the economic orbit of Japan and the CPS in the aftermath of the Great War once Japan's hegemony has been truly set and Britain is no longer looked on as a reliable defender for its role in WW2, post-war troubles, and the USA going kaputt in the Second American Civil War. Same with New Zealand i'd also imagine.
 
What’s the Japanese war aim for Australia?
Yeah basically that:
I would imagine it's more like the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians. Never to conquer, it's too much and too far. Just simply occupy portions and dig in to draw Allied forces from more important fronts for maybe more surprise attacks, demoralize them and try to push for peace while they slowly bleed them of troops, even if it is basically a massive suicide mission for any CPS troops sent there. Though I'd imagine some radical expansionists in the war cabinet believe Japan can simply invade and annex all of the continent, more sane members will shut these fools up. Australia will probably slowly end up in the economic orbit of Japan and the CPS in the aftermath of the Great War once Japan's hegemony has been truly set and Britain is no longer looked on as a reliable defender for its role in WW2, post-war troubles, and the USA going kaputt in the Second American Civil War. Same with New Zealand i'd also imagine.
No one seriously wished to conquer the world back then in Japan, they viewed WW2 simply as a war that would alllow them to create the basis of power for doing so some 20-40 years later. In reguards to Australia, yes the Japanese forces there are in a suicide mission and will most likely never be returned during the war, their mission is to redirect Allied forces from New Guinea to surround and cut off Australia, maybe even force it out of the war to have the South secured. After the war however Australia as well as Western America are like Manchukuo, China and South East Asia, places the Japanese see as possible grounds for settlement and colonisation to keep up with the massive overpopulation in their home islands, especially Australia with it's large land but small population, many Japanese did not truely know that was mainly because the terrain sucked anc much of it was dryland or desert, so they plan to settl 2, 4, 6, 8 ... million Japanese there to make it a majorly Japanese continent (the first and still most likely more easiest to archive that goal, as Australia only has a population of 7,109,898 to 7,465,157 back then, compared to Japan that had 73,075,071 people living on the Home Island Alone). So all the Japanese planners having plans for Australia see is free real estate:
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Chapter 807: Teutonic Order Division Number Five: Nordic Cross
Chapter 807: Teutonic Order Division Number Five: Nordic Cross
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The 5th SS Teutonic Order Division "Nordic cross" (German: 5. TO-Panzerdivision „Nordisches Kreuz“ or „Nordic Knights of the Cross“) was a Panzer division among the Teutonic Order. It was recruited from Imperial Germans as well as mainly from foreign volunteers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, United Baltic Duchy (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and the United Netherlands under the command of German officers. During the course of the Second Great War, the division served on the Eastern Front in the Eastern Crusade. It had been formed by the Teutonic Order after the German Invasion and securing of Scandinavia in 1940, when the Teutonic Order opened up to foreign volunteers as well, even those not yet under direct control of the German Empire and the Axis Central Powers, for the „crusade against Bolshevism”, the “Liberation of Christian Tsarists Russia”. The enrollment began in April 1940 with the creation of two regiments: the Teutonic Order Regiment Nordland (for Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, as well as a few Finnish volunteers), and the Teutonic Order Regiment Westland (for Dutch and Flemish volunteers). The Nordic formation, originally organized as the Nordische Division, was to be made up of Nordic volunteers mixed with ethnic German Teutonic Order personnel. The SS Infantry Regiment Germania of the Teutonic Order Division, which was formed mostly from ethnic Germans, was transferred to help form the nucleus of a new division in late 1940. In December 1940, the new Teutonic Order motorized formation was to be designated as Teutonic Order Division Germania, but after its formative period, the name was changed, to Teutonic Order Regiment Germania in January 1941. The division was formed around three motorized infantry regiments: Germania, Westland, and Nordland; with the addition of an artillery regiment. Command of the newly formed division was given to Felix Steiner, the former commander of the Verfügungstruppe SS Regiment Deutschland. After formation, the division was sent to Rostock in Germany for training; by March 1941, it was ready for combat. The division was ordered east in mid-April, to take part with Army Group Centers advance into White Ruthenia during the Crusade-like invasion of the Soviet Union. In May 1941, the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Teutonic Order was formed from volunteers from that country. This unit was attached to the Teutonic Order Regiment Nordland of the division. About 860 Finns who fought in the Winter War alongside German Army and Teutonic Order volunteers served within the Teutonic Order Division Nordic Cross in the Eastern Crusade since the beginning of the Liberation of Tsarists Russia. Most Finns however directly joined their own armed forces to conquer Karelia. During that same timeframe, parts of the previous Regiments were removed to help form the core of the growing, new Teutonic Order Division. They were replaced by other Scandinavian and Baltic Volunteers. The division took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, advancing through White Ruthenia onward to Moscow. In May the division fought for the bridgehead at Orsha across the Dvina River. Later, the division took part in the heavy fighting for Smolensk before retreating to Dvina River line in October to wait for regular German, Baltic and Russian Army reinforcements.

In the summer of 1942, the unit took part Army Group Center's offensive, aimed at capturing Moscow. In late August 1942, Nordic Cross participated in the operation aimed to capture the city of Kalnn, alongside a German Panzer Division. The division captured Kalnn on 6 September, but the objective of surrounding Moscow and taking the Russian Capital was not achieved during the First Battle of Moscow. The division took part in the attempt to seize Kalomna soon after. The Soviet winter counter-offensice, the encirclement of the some Axis Central Powers Armies, brought any further advances against Moscow to an hold for now. Nordic Cross was among many forces that would be saved by the Polish Hussars that held of the majority of this Red Army counter-attack. Send north again to help with preparations for capturing Moscow in another battle once the winter was over, Nordic Cross then was send back behind the Frontlines to help with increasing insurgencies and partisan activities in between White Ruthenia and Moscow. With the Axis Central Powers Front stabilized the Nordic Cross Division participated in the Second Battle of Moscow, when parts of it were removed from within the Division to help with the creation of additional Teutonic Order Forces. The remnant of Nordic Cross would once again be used behind the Frontlines to fight Soviet and Communist Partisans, hunt down former Commissaries and other political and military leaders or sympathizers of the Soviet Union that tried to hide in Axis Central Powers occupied territory. Following the shooting death of Hilmar Wäckerle, one of the division’s officers, in the city of Smolensk, Russian who opposed to the Tsarist Government in the area were rounded up by members of the division’s logistics units led by Obersturmführer Braunnagel and Untersturmführer Kochalty as supposedly Communist Saboteurs and Agents. A gauntlet was then formed by two rows of soldiers. Most of these soldiers were from the Nordic Cross's logistics units, but some were members of the German, Baltic and Finnish Battallions Division. The supposedly Russian Communists were then forced to run down this path while being struck by rifle butts and bayonets. At the end of this path stood a number of Teutonic Order and army officers who shot the Russians as soon as they entered a bomb crater being used as a mass grave. About 1,500 or 1,600 innocent civilian Russians of Smolensk were killed in this manner. Because of this the Nordic Cross division was send northwards to hep German, Russian and Finnish forces push onto Arkhangelsk, while their anti-partisan duties in the area were taken over by a Jewish Division of White Ruthenia formed out of volunteer Jewish militia in Eastern White Ruthenia (the Mogilew Jewish Militia), the former Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
 
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