title: Regia Marina

text: The warships of the "Regia Marina" had a general reputation as being well-designed. Italian small attack craft lived up to expectations and were responsible for many successful actions in the Mediterranean. Though Italian warships lacked radar, this was partly offset in fair weather by good optical rangefinder and fire-control systems.


title: Regia Marina

text: The Italian Navy lacked a fleet air arm. The high command had reasoned that since the Italian navy would be operating solely in the Mediterranean, their vessels would never be far from an airfield, thus the time and resources needed to develop a naval air arm could be directed elsewhere. This proved problematic on a number of occasions. Though the Italians did have the aircraft carriers and under construction at the start of the war, neither one was ever completed. Lastly, the lack of natural oil reserves and subsequent shortage of oil precluded extensive fleet operations.


title: Regia Marina

text: The "Regia Marina" and the Royal Navy engaged in a two-and-a-half-year struggle for control of the Mediterranean. The "Regia Marina"s primary goal was to support the Axis forces in North Africa while obstructing the supply route to Alexandria and cutting off supplies to Malta. The Royal Navy's major effort was to maintain supply to the military forces and people of Malta, and secondarily to interdict convoy shipments to North Africa. The first major action occurred on 11 November 1940 when the British aircraft carrier launched two waves of Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bombers in a surprise raid against the Italian Fleet moored at the naval base of Taranto. The raid came in undetected, and three battleships were sunk. Another major defeat was inflicted on the "Regia Marina" at Cape Matapan, where the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy intercepted and destroyed three heavy cruisers (, and ; all of the same class) and two s in a night ambush, with the loss of over 2,300 seamen. The Allies had Ultra intercepts, which uncovered the Italian movements, and radar, which enabled them to locate the ships and range their weapons at distance and at night. The better air reconnaissance skills of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and their close collaboration with surface units were other major causes of the Italian debacle.


title: Regia Marina

text: On 19 December 1941, the battleships and were damaged by limpet mines planted by Italian frogmen, knocking both out of the conflict for almost two years. This action, coming on the heels of the loss of the "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse" in the South China Sea, significantly weakened the surface strength of the Royal Navy, making it difficult for them to challenge Italian control of the eastern Mediterranean.


title: Regia Marina

text: On the night of 19 December, Force K, comprising three cruisers and four destroyers based at Malta, ran into an Italian minefield off Tripoli. Three cruisers struck mines, with the cruiser lost, along with the destroyer . In addition, another destroyer was seriously damaged. All told 800 seamen were lost, and Force K, which had been effectively interdicting Axis convoys, was put out of action. This series of successes allowed the "Regia Marina" to achieve naval supremacy in the central Mediterranean. Coupled with an intensive bombing campaign against Malta, the Axis supply routes from southern Europe to North Africa were almost untouched by the Royal Navy or its allies for the next several months.


title: Regia Marina

text: The Italian fleet went on the offensive, blocking or mauling three large Allied convoys bound for Malta. This led to a number of naval engagements, including the Second Battle of Sirte in March 1942, Operation Harpoon and Operation Vigorous, (known as the "Battle of Mid-June") and Operation Pedestal (the "Battle of Mid-August"). All of these engagements ended favourably for the Axis. Despite this activity, the only real success of the Italian fleet was the surface attack on the Harpoon convoy, supported by Axis aerial forces. These attacks sank several Allied warships and damaged others. Only two transports of the original six in the convoy reached Malta. This was the only undisputed squadron-sized victory for Italian surface forces in World War II.


title: Regia Marina

text: Despite the heavy losses suffered by the merchantmen and escorting forces of convoy Pedestal, the oil and supplies brought through allowed the near starving island of Malta to continue to hold out. With Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, in November 1942, the fortunes of war turned against the Italians. Their sea convoys were harassed day after day by the aerial and naval supremacy of the Allies. The maritime lane between Sicily and Tunisia became known as the "route of death". After years of back and forth, the Axis forces were forced to surrender in Tunisia, bringing the campaign for North Africa to a close.


title: Regia Marina

text: The "Regia Marina" performed well and bravely in its North African convoy duties, but remained at a technical disadvantage. The Italian ships relied on speed but could easily be damaged by shell or torpedo, due to their relatively thin armour. The fatal and final blow to the Italian Navy was a shortage of fuel, which forced its main units to remain at anchor for most of the last year of the Italian alliance with Germany.


title: Regia Marina

text: From 10 June 1940, submarines of the "Regia Marina" took part in the Battle of the Atlantic alongside the U-Boats of Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine". The Italian submarines were based in Bordeaux, France at the BETASOM base. While more suited for the Mediterranean Sea than the Atlantic Ocean, the thirty-two Italian submarines that operated in the Atlantic sank 109 Allied ships for a total of 593,864 tons.


title: Regia Marina

text: The "Regia Marina" even planned an attack on New York Harbor with midget submarines for December 1942, but this plan was delayed for many reasons and was never carried out.


title: Regia Marina

text: Initially, Italian forces enjoyed considerable success in East Africa. From 10 June 1940, the "Regia Marina"'s Red Sea Flotilla, based at Massawa, Eritrea, posed a potential threat to Allied shipping crossing the Red Sea between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. This threat increased in August 1940 with the Italian conquest of British Somaliland, which allowed the Italians the use of the port of Berbera; in January 1941, however, British and Commonwealth forces launched a successful counterattack in East Africa and the threat posed by the Red Sea Flotilla disappeared.


title: Regia Marina

text: Much of the Red Sea Flotilla was destroyed by hostile action during the first months of war or when the port of Massawa fell in April 1941. However, there were a few survivors. In February 1941, prior to the fall of Massawa, the colonial ship and the auxiliary cruisers and broke out and sailed to Kobe, Japan. While "Ramb I" was sunk by the Royal New Zealand Nazy cruiser off the Maldives, "Eritrea" and "Ramb II" made it to Kobe. As the port of Massawa was falling, four submarines—"Guglielmo", "Gauleo Ferraras", , and —sailed south from Massawa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and ultimately sailed to German occupied Bordeaux, France. One or two Italian merchant ships from the Red Sea Flotilla made it to Vichy French-controlled Madagascar.


title: Regia Marina

text: On 10 June 1941 the British launched Operation Chronometer, landing a battalion of troops from the British Indian Army at Assab, the last Italian-held harbour on the Red Sea. By 11 June, Assab had fallen. Two days later, on 13 June, the Indian trawler "Parvati" became the last naval casualty of the East African Campaign when it struck a moored mine near Assab.


title: Regia Marina

text: In May 1942, at German request, the "Regia Marina" deployed four 24-ton torpedo motorboats ("Motoscafo Armato Silurante", MAS), six s, five torpedo motorboats, and five explosive motorboats to the Black Sea. The vessels were transported overland to the Danube River at Vienna, Austria, and then transported by water to Constanța, Romania. The flotilla had an active and successful campaign, based at Yalta and Feodosia.


title: Regia Marina

text: After Italy quit the war, most of the Italian vessels on the Black Sea were transferred to Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine". In early 1944, six MAS boats were transferred to the Royal Romanian Navy. By August 1944, they were ultimately captured by Soviet forces when Constanța was captured.


title: Regia Marina

text: The "Regia Marina" operated a squadron of four MAS boats on Lake Ladoga during the Continuation War (1941–1944). As part of Naval Detachment K, German, Italian, and Finnish vessels operated against Soviet gunboats, escorts and supply vessels during the Siege of Leningrad between 21 June and 21 October 1942. The Italian vessels were ultimately turned over to Finland.


title: Regia Marina

text: The "Regia Marina" had a naval base in the concession territory of Tientsin in China. The primary Italian vessels based in China were the mine-layer "Lepanto" and the gunboat . During World War II, Italian supply ships, auxiliary cruisers and submarines operated throughout the waters of the Far East, often in disguise. The Italians also utilized Japanese-controlled port facilities such as Shanghai, China, and Kobe, Japan.


title: Regia Marina

text: Seven Italian submarines operating from France were converted by the Italians into "transport submarines" in order to exchange rare or irreplaceable trade goods with Japan. The submarines , , , , , , and were converted for service with the "Monsun Gruppe" ("Monsoon Group"). The name of "Comandante Cappellini" was changed to .


title: Regia Marina

text: Twelve additional R-class blockade running transport submarines were specifically designed for trade with the Far East, but only two of these vessels were completed before Italy quit the war. Both of these submarines were destroyed by Allied action almost as soon as they were launched.


title: Regia Marina

text: In 1943, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was deposed and the new Italian government agreed to an armistice with the Allies. Under the terms of this armistice, the "Regia Marina" had to sail its ships to an Allied port. Most sailed to Malta, but a flotilla from La Spezia headed towards Sardinia. This was intercepted and attacked by German aircraft and the battleship was sunk by two hits from Fritz X guided glide-bombs. Among the 1600 sailors killed on board "Roma" was the Italian Naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Carlo Bergamini.


title: Regia Marina

text: As vessels became available to the new Italian government, the Italian Co-Belligerent Navy was formed to fight on the side of the Allies. Other ships were captured in port by the Germans or scuttled by their crews. Few "Regia Marina" crews chose to fight for Mussolini's new fascist regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic ("Repubblica Sociale Italiana", RSI). Mussolini's pro-German National Republican Navy ("Marina Nazionale Repubblicana") hardly reached a twentieth the size attained by the co-belligerent Italian fleet. In the Far East, the Japanese occupied the Italian concession territory of Tiensin.


title: Regia Marina

text: There was little use for the surrendered Italian battleships and there was doubt about the loyalties of the crews, so these ships were interned in Egypt. In June 1944, the less powerful battleships ("Andrea Doria", "Duilio" and "Giulio Cesare") were allowed to return to Augusta harbour in Sicily for training. The others, and "Italia" (ex-), remained at Ismaïlia in the Suez Canal until 1947. After the war, "Giulio Cesare" was passed to the Soviet Union.


title: Regia Marina

text: In the Co-belligerency period, until "VE" (Victory in Europe) Day, Italian light cruisers participated in the naval war in the Atlantic Ocean with patrols against German raiders. Smaller naval units (mainly submarines and torpedo boats) served in the Mediterranean Sea. In the last days of war, the issue of whether Italian battleships and cruisers should participate in the Pacific War was debated by the Allied leaders.


title: Regia Marina

text: There were also Italian naval units in the Far East in 1943 when the new Italian government agreed to an armistice with the Allies. The reactions of their crews varied greatly. In general, surface units, mainly supply ships and auxiliary cruisers, either surrendered at Allied ports ("Eritrea" at Colombo, Ceylon) or, if in Japanese controlled ports, they were scuttled by their own crew ("Conte Verde", "Lepanto", and "Carlotto" at Shanghai). "Ramb II" was taken over by the Japanese in Kobe and renamed "Calitea II". Four Italian submarines were in the Far East at the time of the armistice, transporting rare goods to Japan and Singapore: , (), , and . The crew of "Ammiraglio Cagni" heard of the armistice and surrendered to the Royal Navy off Durban, South Africa. "Comandante Cappellini", "Reginaldo Giuliani", and "Luigi Torelli" and their crews were temporarily interned by the Japanese. The boats passed to German U-boat command and, with mixed German and Italian crews, they continued to fight against the Allies. The German navy assigned new officers to the three submarines. The three were renamed , and and took part in German war operations in the Pacific. "Reginaldo Giuliani" was sunk by the British submarine in February 1944. In May 1945, the other two vessels were taken over by the Japanese Imperial Navy when Germany surrendered. About twenty Italian sailors continued to fight with the Japanese. "Luigi Torelli" remained active until 30 August 1945, when, in Japanese waters, this last Fascist Italian submarine shot down a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber of the United States Army Air Forces.


title: Regia Marina

text: After the end of hostilities, the "Regia Marina" started a long and complex rebuilding process. At the beginning of the war, the "Regia Marina" was the fourth largest navy in the world with a mix of modernised and new battleships. The important combat contributions of the Italian naval forces after the signing of the armistice with the Allies on 8 September 1943 and the subsequent cooperation agreement on 23 September 1943 left the "Regia Marina" in a poor condition. Much of its infrastructure and bases were unusable and its ports mined and blocked by sunken ships. However, a large number of its naval units had survived the war, albeit in a low efficiency state. This was due to the conflict and the age of many vessels.


title: Regia Marina

text: On 2 June 1946, the Italian monarchy was abolished by a popular referendum. The Kingdom of Italy ("Regno d'Italia") ended and was replaced by the Italian Republic ("Repubblica Italiana"). The "Regia Marina" became the Navy of the Italian Republic ("Marina Militare").


title: Regia Marina

text: On 10 February 1947, a peace treaty was signed in Paris between the Italian Republic and the victorious powers of World War II. The treaty was onerous for the Italian Navy. Apart from territorial and material losses, the following restrictions were imposed:


title: Regia Marina

text: The treaty also ordered Italy to put the following ships at the disposals of the victorious nations United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Albania as war compensation:


title: Regia Marina

text: The convoy escort ultimately became the Yugoslav Navy yacht . "Galeb" was used by the late President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Marshal Josip Broz Tito on his numerous foreign trips and to entertain heads of state.


title: Orlando (film)

text: Orlando is a 1992 British period drama fantasy film loosely based on Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel "", starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando, Billy Zane as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I. It was written and directed by Sally Potter, who also co-wrote the score with David Motion.


title: Orlando (film)

text: Potter chose to film much of the Constantinople portion of the book in the isolated city of Khiva in Uzbekistan and made use of the forest of carved columns in the city's 18th century Djuma Mosque. Critics praised the film and particularly applauded its visual treatment of the settings of Woolf's novel. The film premiered in competition at the 49th Venice International Film Festival, and was re-released in select U.S. cinemas in August 2010.


title: Orlando (film)

text: The story begins in the Elizabethan era, shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. On her deathbed, the queen promises an androgynous young nobleman named Orlando a large tract of land and a castle built on it, along with a generous monetary gift; both Orlando and his heirs would keep the land and inheritance forever, but Elizabeth will bequeath it to him only if he assents to an unusual command: "Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old." Orlando acquiesces and reposes in splendid isolation in the castle for a couple of centuries during which time he dabbles in poetry and art. His attempts to befriend a celebrated poet backfire when the poet ridicules his verse. Orlando then travels to Constantinople as English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and is almost killed in a diplomatic fracas. Waking seven days later, he learns something startling: He has transformed into a woman.


title: Orlando (film)

text: The now Lady Orlando comes home to her estate in Middle-Eastern attire, only to learn that she faces several impending lawsuits arguing that Orlando was a woman all along and therefore has no right to the land or any of the royal inheritance that the queen had promised. The succeeding two centuries tire Orlando; the court case, bad luck in love, and the wars of British history eventually bring the story to the present day (i.e., the early 1990s). Orlando now has a young daughter in tow and is in search of a publisher for her book. (The literary editor who judges the work as "quite good" is portrayed by Heathcote Williams—the same actor who played the poet who had, earlier in the film, denigrated Orlando's poetry.) Having lived a most bizarre existence, Orlando, relaxing with her daughter, points out to her an angel.


title: Orlando (film)

text: My task...was to find a way of remaining true to the spirit of the book and to Virginia Woolf's intentions, whilst being ruthless with changing the book in any way necessary to make it work cinematically...The most immediate changes were structural. The storyline was simplified [and] any events which did not significantly further Orlando's story were dropped.


title: Orlando (film)

text: The film contains some anachronisms not present in the novel. For example, upon Orlando's arrival in Constantinople in about the year 1700, England is referred to as a "green and pleasant land", a line from William Blake's "Jerusalem", which in reality was not written until 1804. Also, Orlando receives a gift to celebrate the new century from Queen Anne, who had in fact not yet succeeded to the throne.


title: Orlando (film)

text: Potter argued that "whereas the novel could withstand abstraction and arbitrariness (such as Orlando's change of sex), cinema is more pragmatic." She continued,There had to be reasons—however flimsy—to propel us along a journey based itself on a kind of suspension of disbelief. Thus, Queen Elizabeth bestows Orlando's long life upon him...whereas in the book it remains unexplained. And Orlando's change of sex in the film is the result of his having reached a crisis point—a crisis of masculine identity.At film's end, Orlando has a daughter, whereas in the novel she had a son. Potter said that she intended Orlando's breaking the fourth wall to be an equivalent to Woolf's direct addresses to her readers, and that this was her attempt at converting Woolf's literary wit into a more 'cinematic' humour. One obvious similarity remained, however: The film ends in its present day, 1992, just as Woolf's novel ends in its present day, 1928.


title: Orlando (film)

text: When first pitching her treatment in 1984, Potter was told by "industry professionals" that the story was "unmakable, impossible, far too expensive and anyway not interesting." Nevertheless, in 1988 she began writing the script and raising money.


title: Orlando (film)

text: Potter saw Swinton in the Manfred Karge play "Man to Man" and said that there was a "profound subtlety about the way she took on male body language and handled maleness and femaleness." In Potter's words, Quentin Crisp was the "Queen of Queens...particularly in the context of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending politics" and thus fit to play the aged Queen Elizabeth.


title: Orlando (film)

text: Before "Orlando"s release in the United States in June 1993, Vincent Canby wrote in an effusively positive review:This ravishing and witty spectacle invades the mind through eyes that are dazzled without ever being anesthetised. Throughout Ms. Potter's "Orlando", as in Woolf's, there [is] a piercing kind of common sense and a joy that, because they are so rare these days in any medium, create their own kind of cinematic suspense and delightedly surprised laughter. "Orlando" could well become a classic of a very special kind—not mainstream perhaps—but a model for independent film makers who follow their own irrational muses, sometimes to unmourned obscurity, occasionally to glory.Canby, however, cautioned that while the novel stands on its own, he was not sure if the film does. He wrote, "Potter's achievement is in translating to film something of the breadth of Woolf's remarkable range of interests, not only in language and literature, but also in history, nature, weather, animals, the relation of the sexes and the very nature of the sexes."


title: Orlando (film)

text: By contrast, Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described Orlando as "hollow...smug...and self-satisfied" and complained that "any kind of emotional connection to match [Orlando's] carefully constructed look...is simply not to be had."


title: Orlando (film)

text: By 2010, "Orlando" was received as part of Potter's successful oeuvre with Matthew Connelly and had one critic affirming in the first line of his review that "Rarely have source material, director, and leading actress been more in alignment than in "Orlando", the 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel, directed by Sally Potter and starring Tilda Swinton...Watching "Orlando" some 17 years after its U.S. theatrical run, however, proves a welcome reminder of just how skillfully they [Potter and Swinton] marshalled their respective gifts here, how openly they entered into a dialogue with Woolf's playful, slippery text."


title: Orlando (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes scored the film positively at 84% based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10 and the consensus: ""Orlando" can't match its visual delights with equally hefty narrative, but it's so much fun to watch that it doesn't need to."


title: Orlando (film)

text: The film grossed $5.3 million in the United States and Canada. It also grossed $2 million in the United Kingdom; $1.9 million in Italy; $1.6 million in Germany and over $1 million in Australia. By October 1993 it had grossed $13 million.


title: Orlando (film)

text: "Orlando" was nominated for Academy Awards for Production (Ben Van Os, Jan Roelfs) and Costume Design (Sandy Powell). The film was also nominated for the 1994 Independent Spirit Awards' Best Foreign Film award. At the 29th Guldbagge Awards, the film was nominated for the Best Foreign Film award.


title: Orlando (film)

text: In 2017, the film was screened multiple times as part of a multi-media arts project "Orlando: The Queer Element". The project explored issues of science and gender through history and was organised by the theatre company Clay & Diamonds, in association with organisations such as the BFI and the National Trust, with funding from the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.


title: Orlando (film)

text: A one-off immersive performance using five actors—some from the LGBT community—took place on Friday 24 March at the , alongside a 25th Anniversary screening of the film.


title: Orlando (film)

text: A separate series of performances was mounted in June by Clay & Diamonds with over 30 actors from the performance training company Fourth Monkey. Together they created a site-specific piece that was performed at the National Trust venues Hanbury Hall and Knole house (the home of Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lover, and the inspiration for "Orlando"). These performances were made for both the public and school audiences, with many of the performances featuring a screening of the film. The event also served part of the National Trust's "Prejudice and Pride" programme, which marked 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the United Kingdom with the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 1967.


title: Orlando (film)

text: The project also featured the screening of a number of short art films created by Masters in Design students at the Royal College of Art as well as a series of scientific workshops and lectures.


title: Orlando (film)

text: "Orlando", both the film and the novel, was the primary inspiration for both the 2020 spring exhibition of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 2020 Met Gala. The exhibition, entitled "About Time: Fashion and Duration", was specifically inspired by the "labyrinth" scene in "Orlando", where Tilda Swinton runs through the labyrinth dressed in an 18th-century gown before she reappears dressed in mid-19th century garb. Using that scene as the initial inspiration, curator Andrew Bolton took "Orlando’s concept of time and the manner in which she/he moves seamlessly through the centuries" to "trace more than a century and a half of fashion, illustrating how garments of the past influence the present." Although the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the Met Gala, the opening of the exhibition itself was postponed until October 2020.


title: Lola Montez

text: Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld (17 February 1821 – 17 January 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez (), was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Gräfin von Landsfeld (Countess of Landsfeld). At the start of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, she was forced to flee. She proceeded to the United States via Austria, Switzerland, France and London, returning to her work as an entertainer and lecturer.


title: Lola Montez

text: Eliza Rosanna Gilbert was born into an Anglo-Irish family, the daughter of Elizabeth ("Eliza") Oliver, who was the daughter of Charles Silver Oliver, a former High Sheriff of Cork and member of Parliament for Kilmallock in County Limerick, Ireland. Their residence was Castle Oliver. In December 1818, Eliza's parents, Ensign Edward Gilbert and Eliza Oliver, met when he arrived with the 25th Regiment. They were married on 29 April 1820, and Lola was born the following February, in the village of Grange in the north of County Sligo, refuting persistent rumours that her mother was pregnant with her at the time of the wedding. The young family made their residence at King House in Boyle, County Roscommon, until early 1823, when they journeyed to Liverpool, England, and later departed for India on 14 March.


title: Lola Montez

text: Published reports differ regarding the actual date of Eliza's birth. For many years, it was accepted that she was born in the city of Limerick, as she herself claimed, possibly on 23 June 1818; this is the year that was graven on her headstone. However, when her baptismal certificate came to light in the late 1990s, it was established that Eliza Rosanna Gilbert was actually born in Grange, County Sligo, in Connacht, Ireland, on 17 February 1821. At the time of her birth, all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. She was baptised at St. Peter's Church in Liverpool, England, on 16 February 1823, while her family was "en route" to her father's post in India.


title: Lola Montez

text: Shortly after their arrival in India, Edward Gilbert died of cholera. Her mother, who was then 19, married Lieutenant Patrick Craigie the following year. Craigie quickly came to care for the young Eliza, but her spoiled and half-wild ways concerned him greatly. Eventually, it was agreed she would be sent back to Britain to attend school, staying with Craigie's father in Montrose, Scotland. But the "queer, wayward little Indian girl" rapidly became known as a mischief-maker. On one occasion, she stuck flowers into the wig of an elderly man during a church service; on another, she ran through the streets naked.


title: Lola Montez

text: At the age of ten, Eliza was moved again – this time to Sunderland, England, where her stepfather's older sister, Catherine Rae, set up a boarding school in Monkwearmouth with her husband. Eliza continued her education there. Eliza's determination and temper were to become her trademarks. Her stay in Sunderland lasted only a year, as she was then transferred to a school in Camden Place (now Camden Crescent), Bath, for a more sophisticated education.


title: Lola Montez

text: In 1837, 16-year-old Eliza eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James, and they married. The couple separated five years later, in Calcutta, India, and she became a professional dancer under a stage name.


title: Lola Montez

text: When she had her London debut as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer" in June 1843, she was recognized as "Mrs. James." The resulting notoriety hampered her career in England, so she departed for the continent, where she had success in Paris and Warsaw. At this time, she was almost certainly accepting favours from a few wealthy men, and was regarded by many as a courtesan.


title: Lola Montez

text: In 1844, Eliza, now known as Lola Montez, made a personally disappointing Parisian stage debut as a dancer in Fromental Halévy's opera "Le lazzarone". She met and had an affair with Franz Liszt, who introduced her to the circle of George Sand. After performing in various European capitals, she settled in Paris, where she was accepted into the city's literary Bohemia, becoming acquainted with Alexandre Dumas, with whom she was also rumoured to have had a dalliance. In Paris she would meet Alexandre Dujarier, "owner of the newspaper with the highest circulation in France, and also the newspaper's drama critic." Through their romance, Montez revitalized her career as a dancer. Later on, after the two had their first quarrel over Lola's attendance at a party, Dujarier attended the party and, in a drunken state, offended Jean-Baptiste Rosemond de Beauvallon. When Dujarier was challenged to a duel by de Beauvallon, Dujarier was shot and killed.


title: Lola Montez

text: In 1846, she arrived in Munich, where she was discovered by and became the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. There was a rumour that when they first met, Ludwig asked her in public if her breasts were real. Her response to the question was to tear off enough of her garments to prove that they were. She soon began to use her influence on the King and this, coupled with her arrogant manner and outbursts of temper, made her extremely unpopular with the Bavarian people (particularly after documents were made public showing that she was hoping to become a naturalised Bavarian subject and be elevated to nobility). Despite opposition, Ludwig made her Countess of Landsfeld on his next birthday, 25 August 1847, and along with her title, he granted her a large annuity.


title: Lola Montez

text: For more than a year, she exercised great political power, which she directed in favour of liberalism, anti-Catholicism, and in attacks against the Jesuits. Her ability to manipulate the King was so great that the Minister of State, Karl von Abel, was dismissed because he and his entire cabinet had objected to Lola being granted Bavarian nationality and the title of Countess. The students at Munich University were divided in their sympathies, and conflicts arose shortly before the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848, which led the King, at Lola's insistence, to close the university.


title: Lola Montez

text: In March 1848, under pressure from a growing revolutionary movement, the university was re-opened, Ludwig abdicated in favor of his son, King Maximilian II, and Montez fled Bavaria. Her career as a power behind the throne was permanently at an end. It seems likely that Ludwig's relationship with Montez contributed greatly to his forced abdication despite his previous popularity.


title: Lola Montez

text: After a sojourn in Switzerland, where she waited in vain for Ludwig to join her, Lola made one brief excursion to France and then removed to London in late 1848. There she met and quickly married George Trafford Heald, a young army cornet (cavalry officer) with a recent inheritance. But the terms of her divorce from Thomas James did not permit either spouse's remarriage while the other was living, and the beleaguered newly-weds were forced to flee the country to escape a bigamy action brought by Heald's scandalized maiden aunt. The Healds resided for a time in France and Spain, but within two years, the tempestuous relationship was in tatters, and George reportedly drowned in 1856. In 1851 she set off to make a new start in the United States, where she was surprisingly successful at first in rehabilitating her image.


title: Lola Montez

text: From 1851 to 1853, Lola performed as a dancer and actress in the eastern United States, one of her offerings being a play called "Lola Montez in Bavaria". In May 1853, she arrived on the west coast in San Francisco where her performances created a sensation, but soon inspired a popular satire, "Who's Got the Countess?" She married Patrick Hull, a local newspaperman, in July and moved to Grass Valley, California, in August. Her marriage soon failed; a doctor named as in the divorce suit brought against her was murdered shortly thereafter.


title: Lola Montez

text: Lola remained in Grass Valley at her little house for nearly two years. The restored property went on to become California Historical Landmark No. 292. Lola served as an inspiration to another aspiring young entertainer, Lotta Crabtree, whose parents ran a boarding house in Grass Valley. Lola, a neighbor, provided dancing lessons and encouraged Lotta's enthusiasm for performance.


title: Lola Montez

text: In June 1855, Lola departed the U.S. to tour Australia and resume her career by entertaining miners at the gold diggings during the gold-rush of the 1850s. She arrived in Sydney on 16 August 1855.


title: Lola Montez

text: Historian Michael Cannon claims that "in September 1855 she performed her erotic Spider Dance at the Theatre Royal in Melbourne, raising her skirts so high that the audience could see she wore no underclothing at all. Next day, the "Argus" thundered that her performance was 'utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality'. Respectable families ceased to attend the theatre, which began to show heavy losses."


title: Lola Montez

text: She earned further notoriety in Ballarat when, after reading a bad review of her performance in "The Ballarat Times", she attacked the editor, Henry Seekamp, with a whip. Although the "Lola Montes Polka" (composed by Albert Denning) is rumoured to have been inspired by this event, the song was published in 1855 and the incident with Seekamp occurred months later in February 1856. At Castlemaine in April 1856, she was "rapturously encored" after her Spider Dance in front of 400 diggers (including members of the Municipal Council who had adjourned their meeting early to attend the performance), but drew the wrath of the audience after insulting them following some mild heckling.


title: Lola Montez

text: She departed for San Francisco on 22 May 1856. On the return voyage her manager was lost at sea after going overboard.


title: Lola Montez

text: Lola failed in her attempts at a theatrical comeback in various American cities. She arranged in 1857 to deliver a series of moral lectures in Britain and America written by Rev. Charles Chauncey Burr. She spent her last days in rescue work among women. In November 1859, the "Philadelphia Press" reported that Lola Montez was:


title: Lola Montez

text: living very quietly up town, and doesn't have much to do with the world's people. Some of her old friends, the Bohemians, now and then drop in to have a little chat with her, and though she talks beautifully of her present feelings and way of life, she generally, by way of parenthesis, takes out her little tobacco pouch and makes a cigarette or two for self and friend, and then falls back upon old times with decided gusto and effect. But she doesn't tell anybody what she's going to do.


title: Lola Montez

text: By 1860, Lola was showing the tertiary effects of syphilis, and her body began to waste away. She died at the age of 39 on 17 January 1861. She is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where her tombstone states: "Mrs. Eliza Gilbert | Died 17 January 1861 | Æ. 42". (“Æ.” abbreviates "aetate", Latin for “at the age of.”)


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba is the capital and largest city of Chiba Prefecture, with other major cities including Funabashi, Matsudo, Ichikawa and Kashiwa. Chiba Prefecture is located on Japan's eastern Pacific coast to the east of Tokyo, and is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Chiba Prefecture largely consists of the Bōsō Peninsula, which encloses the eastern side of Tokyo Bay and separates it from Kanagawa Prefecture. Chiba Prefecture is home to Narita International Airport, the Tokyo Disney Resort, and the Keiyō Industrial Zone.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The name of Chiba Prefecture in Japanese is formed from two kanji characters. The first, , means "thousand" and the second, means "leaves". The name first appears as an ancient "kuni no miyatsuko", or regional command office, as the . The name was adopted by a branch of the Taira clan, which moved to the area in present-day Chiba City in the late Heian period. The branch of the Taira adopted the name and became the Chiba clan, and held strong influence over the area of the prefecture until the Azuchi-Momoyama period. The name "Chiba" was chosen for the prefecture at the time its creation in 1873 by the , an early Meiji-period body of prefectural governors that met to decide the structure of local and regional administration in Japan.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The compound word , which refers to the Tokyo-Chiba region, is formed from the second character in Tokyo (), and the second character in Chiba (), which can also be pronounced "kei" and "yō" respectively. This compound is used in terms such as the Keiyō Line, Keiyō Road, Keiyō Rinkai Railway Rinkai Main Line, and the Keiyō Industrial Zone.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture was settled in prehistoric times, as evidenced by the Jōmon period remains in every part of the region. The prefecture holds the largest "kaizuka" sea shell mounds in Japan, evidence of a large population in the prefecture that relied on the rich marine products of the Pacific Ocean and Tokyo Bay. Kofun burial mounds are found across the prefecture, with the largest group being in Futtsu along Tokyo Bay.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: In the Asuka period (538 – 710), under the Taika Reform of 645, the administrative structure of present-day Chiba Prefecture changed significantly. The historical province of Fusa Province, which may have covered much of Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures, was divided into two provinces: Shimōsa Province (also called Shimofusa) in the north and Kazusa Province in the southern area. Awa Province at the south of Chiba Prefecture, was separated from Kazusa Prefecture in 718. These administrative units existed until they were abolished and merged into Chiba Prefecture after the Meiji restoration. The central government established a "kokubunji" provincial temple in each province.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The imperial court gradually extended its authority over the three provinces in the Nara (710 – 794) and Heian (794 – 1185) periods. Shōen feudal estates were established across the three provinces, and the region became an important source of tax revenue, sending agricultural and other products to the capital in Kyoto. As the Heian period progressed, however, the kokushi provincial governors came to exert military power independent of the central government in Kyoto. The Chiba clan broke entirely with the imperial court and was instrumental in the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture and Inba Prefecture. The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused widespread destruction in Chiba Prefecture, most notably in the southernmost part of the Bōsō Peninsula, where 1,300 residents were killed. Areas of the prefecture adjacent to Tokyo saw much damage, and mob violence against Koreans and other ethnic minorities occurred in the chaos after the earthquake in Funabashi, Ichikawa, and other areas. Koreans in several neighborhoods of Yachiyo were killed, and a tower was erected in 1972 near Yachiyodai Station to memorialize those killed in the incident. The militarization of Chiba Prefecture dates to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Coastal fortifications were built along Tokyo Bay as far south as Tateyama to protect the capital of the Japanese Empire from attack. In the 1930s the north and central areas of the prefecture became a center of large-scale military production, and military bases and fortifications were constructed in most coastal areas of the prefecture. After the United States took control of Saipan the northern part of the prefecture, most notably the city of Chiba and Chōshi, was firebombed. Much of the industrialized north of the prefecture was destroyed. Operation Coronet, one of two parts of Operation Downfall, was the planned land invasion of Tokyo in March 1946 by the United States. Coronet planned Kujūkuri Beach as one of two initial landing bases, the other being Hiratsuka via Sagami Bay. The U.S. First Army would enter at Kujūkuri, sweep across the Bōsō Peninsula, and meet the U.S. Eighth Army at Tokyo. The plan was not carried out since Japan surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: During the Occupation of Japan (1945–1952) Chiba Prefecture was controlled by American forces from the second floor of the prefectural capitol building in the city of Chiba. Numerous other cities in the prefecture, including Chōshi to the north and Tateyama to the south, were used as bases of the occupation. The rich agriculture areas across the prefecture protected the region somewhat from the level of food shortage and starvation immediately following the war. The immediate post-war period was characterized by carefully planned industrial expansion in the north of the prefecture and the significant increase of agricultural production after land reforms across the prefecture. The Keiyō Industrial Zone brought together smaller industrial areas along the entirety of the western coast of Chiba Prefecture, and the industrial zone became and remains an important center of heavy industrial production and large-scale port facilities in Japan. Cities to the northeast of the prefecture in close proximity to Tokyo were connected by rail to the capitol, and became and remain bedroom communities to Tokyo. Narita International Airport began operation in 1978 in Narita after much protest to replace the overcrowded Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport). The majority of international air traffic enters Japan via Chiba Prefecture. The cultivation of rice and vegetables to feed the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area expanded greatly and became a source of income to the northeast and central areas of the prefecture. The expansion of agriculture in the central and southern regions of the prefecture was in contrast to the depopulation of these areas as a significant part of the population moved to the northeast of the prefecture as a result of the urbanization of Japan, a process that continues into the 21st century.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster also affected areas as far south as Chiba Prefecture. While the loss of life and damage to housing and industry was far less than in the Tōhoku region, 20 people were killed in Chiba Prefecture, mostly from the tsunami that hit Asahi to the northeast of the prefecture and caused 13 deaths. An oil refinery fire broke out at the Cosmo Oil Chiba Refinery in Ichihara and was widely covered in the news media following the earthquake. Large liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks burned from March 11–21, 2011. Soil liquefaction in areas of reclaimed land across the northern and western areas of Chiba Prefecture caused damage, primarily to housing. Chiba City, Funabashi, Narashino, and especially Urayasu were greatly affected. As a result of permanent damage to housing stock due to soil liquefaction and evidence of radioactive materials, the population of Chiba Prefecture fell for the first time since 1920.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north at the Tone River, Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture to the west at the Edo River, the Pacific Ocean to the east and Tokyo Bay around its southern boundary. Most of Chiba lies on the hilly Boso Peninsula, a rice farming region: the east coast, known as the Kujūkuri Plain, is an especially productive area. The most populous zone, in the northwest of the prefecture, is part of the Kantō region that extends into the urban agglomeration of Tokyo and Saitama. The Kuroshio Current flows near Chiba, which keeps it relatively warm in winter and cooler in summer than neighbouring Tokyo.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: With the exception of the large-scale Keiyō Industrial Zone in the northeast, the entirety of the coast of Chiba Prefecture is protected as two quasi-national parks and one prefectural natural park under the national park system of Japan. As of 1 April 2012, 6% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture has designated and maintains eight prefectural natural parks to protect both natural and cultural areas, namely the Inba Tega, Kasamori Tsurumai, Kujūkuri, Mineokasankei, Ōtone, Takagoyama, Tomisan, and Yōrō Keikoku Okukiyosumi Prefectural Natural Parks. Cities, towns, and villages in the prefecture also have designated and protected parklands. These parks are maintained for environmental protection as well as providing local recreational facilities.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Since 2010, Chiba consists of 54 municipalities and since 2013, they are 37 cities, 16 towns and one village.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: With the introduction of modern municipalities (cities/towns/villages) in 1889, Chiba's districts were subdivided into 43 towns and 315 villages. The first city was created in 1921 when Chiba Town from Chiba District became district-independent as Chiba City. The postwar/1950s Great Shōwa mergers reduced the number of municipalities in Chiba to 101 by 1960, including 14 cities by then. The early 3rd millennium Great Heisei mergers created the current 54 municipalities by 2010.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture is home to one of Japan's largest industrial areas. Prior to World War II manufacturing in the prefecture was centered on the brewing industry, specifically the production of soy sauce, sake and mirin sweet cooking sake. The manufacturing sector expanded greatly after the war. The prefecture was chosen as the site for a major Kawasaki Steel factory in 1950. In the same period the prefectural government embarked on a large-scale land reclamation program to dredge large plots of waterfront property. The large-scale construction of factories, warehouses, and docks on this reclaimed land around the Tokyo Bay area ultimately formed the Keiyō Industrial Zone. Chiba Prefecture is now 6th in Japan in industrial output with the bulk of the industry focused on the petroleum, chemical, and steel and machine industries. Together, these industries account for forty-five percent of the prefecture's exports. In recent years, the government has funded more than eighty industrial parks to bring development further inland as well.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The prefecture also boasts Japan's overall second-highest agricultural output. Among all the prefectures, only Hokkaidō produces more agricultural products, and Chiba leads Hokkaidō in vegetable production. Peanuts are considered a specialty product of Chiba: 78 per cent of the country's peanuts are produced in the prefecture.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture leads the nation in the production of several vegetables, including carrots; cabbage; daikon radish; "negi", the ubiquitous Japanese cultivar of the Welsh onion; loquat; nashi, the Japanese cultivar of the pear, which has a two hundred-year history of cultivation in the prefecture; tomatoes; and spinach It is the nation's second largest producer of corn. Rice is also grown, and seaweed, specifically "nori", is harvested in large quantities from Tokyo Bay.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba's population is one of the wealthiest in Japan due to the prefecture's strong commercial and industrial sectors. Per capita GDP is ¥3.1 million, the fifth-highest in the country. 70% of the population is employed in the service sector, with 25% in industry and 5% in agriculture.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen "Cfa") with hot, humid summers and mild, cool winters. The "tsuyu" rainy season occurs for approximately 50 days from June to July. According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the average of annual temperature is . The average high is , and the average low is .


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The Chiba Prefectural Board of Education oversees municipal school districts in the prefecture. The board also directly operates the prefecture's public high schools.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefecture is home to one national-level museum and several prefectural and local museums. The National Museum of Japanese History is located in Sakura and focuses on the history, archaeology, and folk culture of Japan. The Chiba prefectural museums consist of a main museum, the Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba in the central Chuō-ku ward of Chiba City, and six branch museums throughout the prefecture. The Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art is in Chiba City. The Chiba Prefectural Boso-no-mura in Sakae focuses on the local culture of the late Edo period, and the Chiba Prefectural Otone Museum in Katori focuses on the culture of the Tone River basin. The reconstructed Japanese castles of Sekiyado and Ōtaki host regional historical museums. The Chiba Museum of Science and Industry is located in Ichikawa on the site of a former factory, and the Coastal Branch of Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba in Katsuura focuses on the marine environment of the Pacific Ocean coast. Numerous other municipalities in the prefecture also host museums.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The Chiba Prefectural Library consists of three libraries. The Chiba Prefectural Central Library is located in the central Chuō-ku ward of Chiba City directly southwest of Chiba Castle and in close proximity to the City of Chiba offices. The Central Library houses a general collection as well as the central research collection for the prefecture. The


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Chiba Prefectural West Library is located in Matsudo next to the Matsudo Museum, and houses a research collection focused on natural history and the fine arts. The Chiba Prefectural East Library is located in Asahi, and houses a research collection focused on the literature and history of the prefecture. The Chiba Prefectural Archives are located across the Miyako River from the City of Chiba offices. The archive maintains a collection of rare books and materials from across the prefecture, as well as materials related to the administration of Chiba Prefecture. Each municipality in the prefecture maintains a local libraries, and many shrines and temples maintain archival collections related to their institutions.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The traditional diet of Chiba Prefecture is not fundamentally different than that of the rest of Japan. Chiba Prefecture produces prolific quantities of rice across all areas in the prefecture, vegetables in the northern area of the prefecture, and fish, seafood, and shellfish along the coastal areas of the prefecture. Chōshi has been a major center of worldwide soy sauce production since the Edo period, and the prefecture remains the top producer in Japan. Kikkoman is headquartered in Noda in northwestern Chiba Prefecture. These are all important components of Japanese cuisine.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Certain local products, however, are grown in abundance and have resulted in several dishes unique to the areas. Peanuts, grown in great quantities in the prefecture, appear fresh in markets in the prefecture and are eaten boiled as a snack. Miso paste mixed with peanuts is also produced in Chiba. "Takenoko", whole bamboo shoot, are harvested in the central part of the Bōsō Peninsula. The takenoko of Ōtaki lack the concentration of arsenic typically found in uncooked bamboo shoots, and as such, are uniquely eaten raw in the area as "takenoko sashimi". "Futomaki" or "futomakizushi", literally "fat roll", is a large version of the sushi roll. The futomaki popularly made in Chiba Prefecture is up to 10 centimeters in diameter. Futomaki in Chiba Prefecture often utilize various ingredients to form a pattern, such as a flower or a kanji character, when the roll is cut and served.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The prefecture plays host to two major events in the Japanese athletics calendar: the International Chiba Ekiden and the Chiba International Cross Country.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Most Tokyo-bound visitors arriving on international flights land in Narita International Airport, which is situated in Narita in the north of the prefecture, and connected to Tokyo by the East Japan Railway's "Narita Express" and the Keisei Electric Railway's "Skyliner".


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The Tokyo Disney Resort is located in Urayasu near the western border of the prefecture. The Kamogawa Sea World is located in Kamogawa. There are also a number of tourist sites on the Chiba peninsula, such as Nokogiriyama; Kujūkuri Beach; and Onjuku beach.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: Since 2009, the prefectural governor is Eiji Suzuki, better known under his stage name as Kensaku Morita, former actor, member of the House of Representatives (LDP/Independent – Tokyo 4th district) and member of the House of Councillors (Independent – Tokyo). He was reelected overwhelmingly to a second term as governor in the March 2013 election against only a Communist challenger and a minor, unaffiliated independent.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: The assembly of Chiba Prefecture has a regular membership of 95, elected in 45 electoral districts, currently still in the unified local election cycle of 1947 (last round 2011). As of July 2014, it is composed as follows: LDP 52 members, DPJ 13, Kōmeitō 7, JCP 4, Shimin Net/SDP/Independents 4, Your Party 3, four other caucuses with 5 members in total.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: In the National Diet, Chiba is represented by 13 members from single-member districts in the House of Representatives, and six members (three at-large per election) in the House of Councillors. After the most recent Diet elections of 2010, 2012 and 2013, the prefecture is represented by eleven Liberal Democrats and two Democrats in the House of Representatives, and three Liberal Democrats, two Democrats, and one Your Party member in the House of Councillors. Current Diet members from Chiba include former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda (H.R., DPJ – 4th district) and former ministers Kuniko Inoguchi (H.C., LDP – class of 2010) and Motoo Hayashi (H.R., LDP – 10th district).


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: As of 2014, Chiba is divided into 54 contiguous municipalities (see list above): 37 cities, 16 towns and one village, as in all of postwar Japan each with a directly elected mayor and assembly. The most populous and Chiba's only designated major city is the capital Chiba City. Two cities, Funabashi and Kashiwa, are core cities. After late 20th century mergers, much of the rest of the prefecture is also organized in independent cities: Of the (today purely geographical) counties, only six remain, four of which have only one or two remaining towns or villages. – After the reorganization of county and municipal governments in all prefectures in 1889/1890, there had initially been 12 counties and no city in Chiba; Chiba town in Chiba county became the first municipality in Chiba to be elevated to city status in 1921.


title: Chiba Prefecture

text: While by far not as large as that of neighbouring Tokyo, Chiba's police force is among the country's ten largest at more than 10,000 members (including the Narita airport police). As in every prefecture, the police are supervised by the public safety commission; its five members are appointed by the governor with approval by the assembly.


title: Veteran

text: A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military.


title: Veteran

text: A military veteran that has served directly in combat in a war is further defined as a war veteran (although not all military conflicts, or areas in which armed combat took place, are necessarily referred to as "wars").


title: Veteran

text: Military veterans are unique as a group as their lived experience is so strongly connected to the conduct of war in general and application of professional violence in particular. Therefore, there are a large body of knowledge developed through centuries of scholarly studies that seek to describe, understand and explain their lived experience in and out of service. Griffith with colleagues provides an overview of this research field that addresses veterans general health, transition from military service to civilian life, homelessness, veteran employment, civic engagement and veteran identity as recurrent investigative topics in the field.


title: Veteran

text: Military veterans often receive special treatment in their respective countries. War veterans are generally treated with great respect and honour, although negative feelings towards veterans may be held in certain situations: veterans of unpopular or lost conflicts may be discriminated against. In some countries (e.g., Germany after 1945), veterans are neither honoured in any special way by the general public, nor have their dedicated Veterans Day, although events are sometimes orchestrated by minority groups.


title: Veteran

text: The way veterans are portrayed in the media is likely to contribute to public attitudes. A small scale survey in 2020 indicated several ways in which veterans themselves feel that their representation in the media could be improved, by avoiding certain stereotypes.


title: Veteran

text: Many countries have longstanding traditions, ceremonies, and holidays to honour their veterans. In Commonwealth member states, Remembrance Day is held on November the 11th and is focused mostly on the veterans who died in service. A red or white Poppy is worn on the lapel (for remembrance or for peace, respectively) in the weeks up to the date, and wreaths and flowers laid at memorials to the dead.


title: Veteran

text: In Russia, a tradition was established after World War II where newly married couples would on their wedding day visit a military cemetery. In France, for instance, those wounded in war are given the first claim on any seat on public transit. Most countries have a holiday such as Veterans Day to honour their veterans, along with the war dead.


title: Veteran

text: In Zimbabwe, the term "veteran" is used for political purpose and may not actually refer to someone that participated in a war, but rather to someone who feels entitled to some benefit because of association with a cause for which there had been an actual war.


title: Veteran

text: Ex-service is British terminology for veterans, which refers to those who have served in the British Empire or Commonwealth Armed Forces.


title: Veteran

text: Britain, with its historic distrust of standing armies, did little for its veterans before the 19th century. It did set up two small hospitals for them in the 1680s. In London and other cities the streets teemed with disabled or disfigured veterans begging for alms.


title: Veteran

text: The First World War focused national attention on veterans, especially those who had been partly or wholly disabled. The King's National Roll Scheme (KNRS) was an employment program for disabled veterans of the First World War. Kowalsky says it was practical, innovative, and ahead of its time and was the most important piece of legislation enacted for disabled veterans in interwar Britain. In addition to direct aid, it stimulated a national discussion regarding the need for employment programs for disabled veterans and the responsibility of the state, setting up a future demand for more benefits.


title: Veteran

text: In the 21st century, Britain has one of the highest densities of veterans in a major country, with 13 million in 2000, or 219 per 1,000 population.


title: Veteran

text: Some veterans from the Belgian commitment of the Congolese to WWII live in communities throughout the Congo. Though they received compensation from the government during the rule of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, after his overthrow they no longer receive pensions.


title: Veteran

text: In the United States, a "veteran" is a person who has served in the armed forces (including the Reserve and certain members of the United States National Guard) and was discharged under conditions other than dishonorable. A common misconception is that only those who have served in combat or those who have retired from active duty can be called military veterans.


title: Veteran

text: In 1990, 40% of young Americans had a veteran for a parent; this decreased to 16% in 2014. In 2016, of the veterans who were born outside of the United States, Mexican and Filipino Americans made up the two largest populations, with 3% of all veterans having been born outside of the United States. As of 2017 there are some 21 million American veterans.


title: Veteran

text: According to the Pew Research Center, "Among men, only 4% of millennials [born 1981-96] are veterans, compared with 47%" of men in their 70s and 80s, "many of whom came of age during the Korean War and its aftermath."


title: Veteran

text: President Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address in 1865 towards the end of the American Civil War, famously called for good treatment of veterans: "[T]o care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan". The American Civil War produced veterans' organizations, such as the Grand Army of the Republic and United Confederate Veterans. The treatment of veterans changed after the First World War. In the years following, discontented veterans became a source of instability. They could quickly organize, had links to the army and often had arms themselves. The Bonus Army of unemployed veterans was one of the most important protest movements of the Great Depression, marching on Washington, D.C. to get a claimed bonus now that Congress had promised them decades in the future.


title: Veteran

text: Each state of the United States sets specific criteria for state-specific veterans' benefits. For federal medical benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, prior to 7 September 1980 the veteran must have served at least 180 days of active duty, after the above-mentioned date the veteran must have served at least 24 months. However, if the veteran was medically discharged and receives a VA service-connected disability stipend, the time limits are not applicable.


title: Veteran

text: After the Second World War, in part due to the experience of the First World War, most of the participating states set up elaborate veterans' administrations. Within the United States, it was veterans groups, like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars organization, that pushed for and got the G.I. Bill enacted. These gave veterans access to free or subsidized education and health care. The newly educated GIs created a significant economic impact, and with the aid of VA loans were able to buy housing and establish themselves as part of a growing American middle class. The explosion of the suburbs created sufficient housing for veterans and their families.


title: Veteran

text: Many veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom have had to face challenges unique to warfare in the 21st century. One significant difference between OEF and OIF and previous wars is a greater dependence on reservists and repeat deployments. Up to 80% of troops deployed at the beginning of OEF were part of the National Guard and Reserve and about 40% of currently serving military members have been deployed more than once. This has meant that many deployed troops, not being as "steeped in military culture" have had more difficult transitions into military life, and for many the increased redeployment rate has meant more transitions, more uncertainty, longer terms, and shorter dwell times, all of which contribute to greater stress.


title: Veteran

text: Due to medical advances, warfare in the 21st century tends to yield more survivors with severe injuries which soldiers in previous wars would have died from. This means that, though fewer service members die, more return from war with injuries more serious, and in turn more emotionally devastating, than ever before. Among these injuries is the increasingly common traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the effects of which can range from a mild concussion to amnesia and serious neurological damage.


title: Veteran

text: Women have served in the United States military for over two hundred years. Some female veterans perceive themselves as discriminated against by their male counterparts and, as such, women who have served in the armed forces have sometimes been known as "the invisible veterans". Women were not fully recognized as veterans until after WWII, and prior to this they were not eligible for VA benefits. The current percentage of U.S. Veterans who are women is more than 8 percent. Women make up nearly 11.6 percent of OEF/OIF/OND Veterans. A tri-state (Washington, Idaho, Oregon) women veterans conference in Pendleton, Oregon, in April 2008, attracted 362 women veterans, according to the "East Oregonian" newspaper. A growing number of states are recognizing June 12 as Women Veterans Day, either through proclamation or legislative action.


title: Veteran

text: On August 5, 2011, Erica Borggren was appointed Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and has been "creating a new Women Veterans Program to help address the issue that women veterans often do not self-identify as veterans and do not take advantage of veterans’ benefits to the same extent as their male peers." She gathered in a webcast panel moderated by Stacey Baca with Dr. Rebecca J. Hannagan and Kimberly Mitchell at the Pritzker Military Library on January 24, 2013, to discuss important issues facing female veterans in today's military.


title: Veteran

text: African Americans have participated in every war fought by or within the United States. Black veterans from World War I experienced racial persecution on returning to the U.S. from overseas, particularly in Southern cities.


title: Veteran

text: Black veterans from World War II continued to be denied equality at home despite President Harry S. Truman's desegregation of the military after World War II. Black veterans went on to play a central role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The National Association for Black Veterans is an organization that provides advocacy and support for African American and other minority veterans.


title: Veteran

text: The effect of active military service can be profound and lasting, and some veterans have found it difficult to adjust to normal life again. Figures from 2009 showed that twice as many veterans were in prison than there were British troops currently in Afghanistan. Homelessness, street-sleeping and relationship breakdown are also commonly reported. Research done by the UK homelessness charity CRISIS (1994) and the Ex-Services Action Group (1997) both found that a quarter of homeless people had previously served in the armed forces. The "Times" newspaper reported on 25 September 2009 that in England and Wales the number of "military veterans in jail has more than doubled in six years". Another "Times" article of the same date quoted the veterans mental health charity Combat Stress as reporting a 53% increase in referrals from doctors.


title: Veteran

text: In Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S., military veterans of all ages carry a substantially elevated suicide risk relative to the general population, particularly younger veterans.


title: Veteran

text: In Canada, Denmark, the U.K., and the U.S., deployment to a war zone (unless in a combat role) has not been associated with an increased risk of suicide. A study of the U.S. army found that the career stage carrying the greatest risk was initial military training.


title: Veteran

text: Research in several countries has found that the personnel most at risk include those who: had a troubled childhood; are of low rank; have close-combat roles in war; and/or leave service soon after joining. Other risk factors common to military life include depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, alcohol misuse, bullying and sexual harassment.


title: Veteran

text: An article in the London "Metro" on 28 January 2010, 'Veterans prone to suicide"'," cited a report by the Mental Health Foundation saying that more needed to be done to care for UK veterans of the Afghanistan War. Many had "plunged into alcohol problems, crime and suicide" upon their return.


title: Veteran

text: In the U.S., the suicide rate among veterans is 300% the national average. They account for 30% of the suicides in the US annually.


title: Veteran

text: According to a 2015 report by the Japanese Ministry of Defense, 56 Japan Self Defense Force members had committed suicide after serving in overseas missions to Iraq and the Indian Ocean. Defense officials stated that 14 deaths were due to mental illness, 13 to family or financial problems and three to official duties.


title: Veteran

text: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition that affects a significant number of veterans. Studies involving veterans with combat-related PTSD indicate that between 4-17% of United States veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD. Their United Kingdom counterparts, however, have significantly lower numbers of just 3-6%.


title: Veteran

text: New treatment programs are emerging to assist veterans suffering from post-combat mental health problems such as depression and PTSD. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), is becoming an important method for the treatment of mental health issues among veterans, and is currently considered the standard of care for depression and PTSD by the United States Department of Defense. CBT is a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to change the patterns of thinking or behavior that responsible for patient's negative emotions and in doing so change the way they feel. It has been proven to be an effective treatment for PTSD among war veterans. Recently, online programs that pair CBT with therapist interaction have also proven effective in treating mental health problems among veterans. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is also an effective and noninvasive, drug-free treatment for PTSD, although it has not been tested against specific military traumatic exposure for efficacy.


title: Veteran

text: Veterans under the age of 25 are at higher risk for PTSD than veterans older than 25. Younger veterans with severe PTSD are at higher risk for metabolic syndrome and suicide.


title: Veteran

text: Music therapy provides veterans with a way to express themselves, escape from anxiety, and helps them cope with their PTSD. In Mike Lawson “Music and Science Meet…Music Therapy”, Lawson explains “Modern music therapy became a norm in the Veteran's Administration hospitals during and after both World Wars. In its most basic form the playing of recordings on the Victrola in WW I, hospitals had measurable positive effects on the wounded and shell-shocked patients. This began the use of a somewhat primitive music therapy in all American military hospitals.”


title: Veteran

text: Veterans are at higher risk than the general population for several disorders, especially younger veterans (those younger than 25). Younger veterans are at increased risk for substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder, and mental illnesses in general.


title: Veteran

text: Necessity has resulted in a number of sources of help being made available for veterans. Many of these are independent, charitable organisations, and in some countries the aftercare and rehabilitation services provided by Governments have been inadequate. This may be because they do not wish to give attention to the negative effects of military service and the difficulties of readjustment to civilian life for it may have an adverse impact upon recruitment for their armed forces. Nevertheless, help is available and veterans should feel able to make contact and ask for assistance or advice to the broad network of organizations, and to appropriate legislators, without feeling that this is a weakness. Military service can be a profoundly unnatural experience and it is likely that some help may be needed in debriefing and rehabilitation into the community, whether it be medical, psychological, practical or financial. There were an estimated 57,849 homeless veterans in the United States during January 2013, accounting for 12 percent of all homeless adults. Just under 8 percent of homeless U.S. veterans are female.


title: Disaccharide

text: A disaccharide (also called a double sugar or biose) is the sugar formed when two monosaccharides are joined by glycosidic linkage. Like monosaccharides, disaccharides are simple sugars soluble in water. Three common examples are sucrose, lactose, and maltose.


title: Disaccharide

text: Disaccharides are one of the four chemical groupings of carbohydrates (monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides). The most common types of disaccharides—sucrose, lactose, and maltose—have 12 carbon atoms, with the general formula CHO. The differences in these disaccharides are due to atomic arrangements within the molecule.


title: Disaccharide

text: The joining of monosaccharides into a double sugar happens by a condensation reaction, which involves the elimination of a water molecule from the functional groups only. Breaking apart a double sugar into its two monosaccharides is accomplished by hydrolysis with the help of a type of enzyme called a disaccharidase. As building the larger sugar ejects a water molecule, breaking it down consumes a water molecule. These reactions are vital in metabolism. Each disaccharide is broken down with the help of a corresponding disaccharidase (sucrase, lactase, and maltase).


title: Disaccharide

text: The formation of a disaccharide molecule from two monosaccharide molecules proceeds by displacing a hydroxy group from one molecule and a hydrogen nucleus (a proton) from the other, so that the now vacant bonds on the monosaccharides join the two monomers together. Because of the removal of the water molecule from the product, the term of convenience for such a process is "dehydration reaction" (also "condensation reaction" or "dehydration synthesis"). For example, milk sugar (lactose) is a disaccharide made by condensation of one molecule of each of the monosaccharides glucose and galactose, whereas the disaccharide sucrose in sugar cane and sugar beet, is a condensation product of glucose and fructose. Maltose, another common disaccharide, is condensed from two glucose molecules.


title: Disaccharide

text: The dehydration reaction that bonds monosaccharides into disaccharides (and also bonds monosaccharides into more complex polysaccharides) forms what are called glycosidic bonds.


title: Disaccharide

text: The glycosidic bond can be formed between any hydroxy group on the component monosaccharide. So, even if both component sugars are the same (e.g., glucose), different bond combinations (regiochemistry) and stereochemistry ("alpha-" or "beta-") result in disaccharides that are diastereoisomers with different chemical and physical properties. Depending on the monosaccharide constituents, disaccharides are sometimes crystalline, sometimes water-soluble, and sometimes sweet-tasting and sticky-feeling. Disaccharides can serve as functional groups by forming glycosidic bonds with other organic compounds, forming glycosides.


title: Disaccharide

text: Maltose, cellobiose, and chitobiose are hydrolysis products of the polysaccharides starch, cellulose, and chitin, respectively.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headquarters. The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries. In 2016, it employed around 6,500 people; 10% of them are military personnel who are formally employed by the Office for Military Sciences. The BND is the largest agency of the German Intelligence Community.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The BND was founded during the Cold War in 1956 as the official foreign intelligence agency of West Germany, which had recently joined NATO, and in close cooperation with the CIA. It was the successor to the earlier Gehlen Organization, often known simply as "The Organization" or "The Org", a West German intelligence organization affiliated with the CIA whose existence had not been officially acknowledged. The most central figure in the BND's history was former Wehrmacht general Reinhard Gehlen, the leader of the Gehlen Organization and later the founding president of the BND, who was regarded as "one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters." From the early days of the Cold War the Gehlen Organization and later the BND had an intimate cooperation with the CIA, and often was the western intelligence community's only eyes and ears on the ground in the Eastern Bloc. The BND is also regarded as one of the best informed intelligence services in regards to the Middle East from the 1960s. The BND was quickly established as the western world's second largest intelligency agency, second only to the CIA. Both Russia and the Middle East remain important focuses of the BND's activities, in addition to violent non-state actors.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The BND today acts as an early warning system to alert the German government to threats to German interests from abroad. It depends heavily on wiretapping and electronic surveillance of international communications. It collects and evaluates information on a variety of areas such as international non-state terrorism, weapons of mass destruction proliferation and illegal transfer of technology, organized crime, weapons and drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal migration and information warfare. As Germany's only overseas intelligence service, the BND gathers both military and civil intelligence. While the '(KSA) of the also fulfills this mission, it is not an intelligence service. There is close cooperation between the BND and the KSA.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The domestic secret service counterparts of the BND are the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (', or BfV) and 16 counterparts at the state level ' (State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution); there is also a separate military intelligence organisation, the "" (MAD, "Military Counterintelligence Service").


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The predecessor of the BND was the German eastern military intelligence agency during World War II, the " or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by Major General Reinhard Gehlen. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. After the war Gehlen worked with the U.S. occupation forces in West Germany.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the Gehlen Organization or simply "The Org" He recruited some of his former co-workers at Gestapo Trier: Dietmar Lermen, Heinrich Hädderich, August Hill, Friedrich Walz, Albert Schmidt, Friedrich Heinrich Busch. Many had been operatives of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris' wartime (counter-intelligence) organization, but Gehlen also recruited people from the former " (SD), SS and Gestapo, after their release by the Allies. The latter recruits were controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many Nazi atrocities during the war.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: On 1 April 1956 the "Bundesnachrichtendienst" was created from the Gehlen Organization, and was transferred to the West German government, with all staff. Reinhard Gehlen became President of the BND and remained its head until 1968.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: Several publications have criticized Gehlen and his organizations for hiring ex-Nazis. An article in The Independent on 29 June 2018 made this statement about some of the BND employees: "Operating until 1956, when it was superseded by the BND, the Gehlen Organisation was allowed to employ at least 100 former Gestapo or SS officers. ... Among them were Adolf Eichmann's deputy Alois Brunner, who would go on to die of old age despite having sent more than 100,000 Jews to ghettos or internment camps, and ex-SS major Emil Augsburg. ... Many ex-Nazi functionaries including Silberbauer, the captor of Anne Frank, transferred over from the Gehlen Organisation to the BND. ... Instead of expelling them, the BND even seems to have been willing to recruit more of them – at least for a few years".


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The authors of the book "A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe" state that Reichard Gehlen simply did not want to know the backgrounds of the men that the BND hired in the 1950s. The American National Security Archive states that "he employed numerous former Nazis and known war criminals".


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: On the other hand, Gehlen himself was cleared by James H. Critchfield of the Central Intelligence Agency who worked with the Gehlen Organization from 1949 to 1956. In 2001, he said that "almost everything negative that has been written about Gehlen, [as an] ardent ex-Nazi, one of Hitler's war criminals ... is all far from the fact," as quoted in "The Washington Post". Critchfield added that Gehlen hired former Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS) men "reluctantly, under pressure from German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to deal with 'the avalanche of subversion hitting them from East Germany'"


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: From 2011 to 2018, an independent commission of historians studied the history of the BND in the era of Reinhard Gehlen. The results are published in comprehensive studies. So far (as of April 2020) eleven volumes have been published.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: During the first years of oversight by the State Secretary in the federal chancellery of Konrad Adenauer of the operation in Pullach, Munich District, Bavaria, the BND continued the ways of its forebear, the Gehlen Organization.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The BND racked up its initial east–west cold war successes by concentrating on East Germany. The BND's reach encompassed the highest political and military levels of the GDR regime. They knew the carrying capacity of every bridge, the bed count of every hospital, the length of every airfield, the width and level of maintenance of the roads that Soviet armor and infantry divisions would have to traverse in a potential attack on the West. Almost every sphere of eastern life was known to the BND.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: Unsung analysts at Pullach, with their contacts in the East, figuratively functioned as flies on the wall in ministries and military conferences. When the Soviet KGB suspected an East German army intelligence officer, a lieutenant colonel and BND agent, of spying, the Soviets investigated and shadowed him. The BND was positioned and able to inject forged reports implying that the loose spy was actually the KGB investigator, who was then arrested by the Soviets and shipped off to Moscow. Not knowing how long the caper would stay under wraps, the real spy was told to be ready for recall; he made his move to the West at the appropriate time.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The East German regime, however, fought back. With still unhindered flight to the west a possibility, infiltration started on a grand scale and a reversal of sorts took hold. During the early 1960s as many as 90% of the BND's lower-level informants in East Germany worked as double agents for the East German security service, later known as Stasi. Several informants in East Berlin reported in June and July 1961 of street closures, clearing of fields, accumulation of building materials and police and army deployments in specific parts of the eastern sector, as well as other measures that BND determined could lead to a division of the city. However, the agency was reluctant to report communist initiatives and had no knowledge of the scope and timing because of conflicting inputs. The erection of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 thus came as a surprise, and the BND's performance in the political field was thereafter often wrong and remained spotty and unimpressive.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: There was a great success for the Federal Intelligence Service during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, the BND was the first Western intelligence service to have information about the stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles on the caribbean island and passed it on to the United States. Between 1959 and 1961, Reinhard Gehlen called on Washington several times in vain to "insert the dangerous communist bastion, which at the same time represents an excellent starting point for the communist infiltration of Latin America, into the [USA] sphere of power by rapid access." Gehlen's influence on the US government should not be underestimated, because the BND was able to regularly provide the CIA with detailed information about Soviet arms deliveries through its very good sources in Cuba. There are indications that the secret service was also informed about military actions against Cuba. Ten days before the Bay of Pigs invasion, Gehlen reported to Bonn: "Within a relatively short period of time, large-scale military operations to defeat Fidel Castro will begin." In 1962, the BND also found out from its sources, the Cuban exiles living in Miami, that Cuba was also trying to get hold of weapons through German dealers. According to a BND report, Cuba was also able to recruit four former Waffen-SS officers as instructors for the Cuban armed forces. However, the identity of the men was blacked out in the report.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: "This negative view of BND was certainly not justified during … [1967 and] 1968." The BND's military work "had been outstanding", and in certain sectors of the intelligence field the BND still showed brilliance: in Latin America and in the Middle East it was regarded as the best-informed secret service.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The BND offered a fair and reliable amount of intelligence on Soviet and Soviet-bloc forces in Eastern Europe, regarding the elaboration of a NATO warning system against any Soviet operations against NATO territory, in close cooperation with the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces).


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: One high point of BND intelligence work culminated in its early June 1967 forecast – almost to the hour – of the outbreak of the Six-Day War in the Middle East on 5 June 1967.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: According to declassified transcripts of a United States National Security Council meeting on 2 June 1967, CIA Director Richard Helms interrupted Secretary of State Dean Rusk with "reliable information" – contrary to Rusk's presentation – that the Israelis would attack on a certain day and time. Rusk shot back: "That is quite out of the question. Our ambassador in Tel Aviv assured me only yesterday that everything was normal." Helms replied: "I am sorry, but I adhere to my opinion. The Israelis will strike and their object will be to end the war in their favor with extreme rapidity." President Lyndon Johnson then asked Helms for the source of his information. Helms said: "Mr. President, I have it from an allied secret service. The report is absolutely reliable." Helms' information came from the BND.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: A further laudable success involved the BND's activity during the Czech crisis in 1968; by then, the agency was led by the second president, Gerhard Wessel. With Pullach cryptography fully functioning, the BND predicted an invasion of Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia. CIA analysts on the other hand did not support the notion of "fraternal assistance" by the satellite states of Moscow; and US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Llewellyn Thompson, quite irritated, called the secret BND report he was given "a German fabrication". At 23:11 on 20 August 1968, BND radar operators first observed abnormal activity over Czech airspace. An agent on the ground in Prague called a BND out-station in Bavaria: "The Russians are coming." Warsaw Pact forces had moved as forecast.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: However, the slowly sinking efficiency of BND in the last years of Reinhard Gehlen became evident. By 1961, it was clear that the BND employed some men who were Soviet "moles"; they had come from the earlier Gehlen Organization. One mole, Heinz Felfe, was convicted of treason in 1963. Others were not uncovered during Gehlen's term in office.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: Gehlen's refusal to correct reports with questionable content strained the organization's credibility, and dazzling achievements became an infrequent commodity. A veteran agent remarked at the time that the BND pond then contained some sardines, though a few years earlier the pond had been alive with sharks.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The fact that the BND could score certain successes despite East German communist Stasi interference, internal malpractice, inefficiencies and infighting, was primarily due to select members of the staff who took it upon themselves to step up and overcome then existing maladies. Abdication of responsibility by Reinhard Gehlen was the malignancy; cronyism remained pervasive, even nepotism (at one time Gehlen had 16 members of his extended family on the BND payroll). Only slowly did the younger generation then advance to substitute new ideas for some of the bad habits caused mainly by Gehlen's semi-retired attitude and frequent holiday absences.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: Gehlen was forced out in April 1968 due to "political scandal within the ranks", according to one source. His successor, Bundeswehr Brigadier General Gerhard Wessel, immediately called for a program of modernization and streamlining. With political changes in the West German government and a reflection that BND was at a low level of efficiency, the service began to rebuild. Years later, Wessel's obituary in the "Los Angeles Times", reported that he "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists".


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: Reinhard Gehlen's memoirs, "The Service, The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen" (English title), were published in 1977, (World Publishers, New York). A Review of the book published by the CIA makes this comment about Gehlen's achievements and management style: "Gehlen's descriptions of most of his so-called successes in the political intelligence field are, in my opinion, either wishful thinking or self-delusion. ... Gehlen was never a good clandestine operator, nor was he a particularly good administrator. And therein lay his failures. The Gehlen Organization/BND always had a good record in the collection of military and economic intelligence on East Germany and the Soviet forces there. But this information, for the most part, came from observation and not from clandestine penetration".


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The agency's second president, Gerhard Wessel, retired in 1978. According to his obituary in the "Los Angeles Times" in August 2002, the "former intelligence officer in Adolf Hitler's anti-Soviet spy operations" ... "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists". "The New York Times" News Service obituary lauded the BND's many successes under Wessel but noted that there had been "a number of incidents of East Germans infiltrating the West German government, particularly intelligence agencies, on Gen. Wessel's watch".


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich was a watershed event for the BND, following early warnings from other countries, because it led the agency to build counter-terrorism capabilities.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: In 1970 the CIA and the BND bought the Swiss informations and communication security firm Crypto AG, for $5.75 million. Already in 1967 the BND tried, together with the French intelligence service, to buy the company from its founder Robert Hagelin. This deal though fell through due to Hagelin, who was already cooperating with the CIA, refusing. The CIA at the time did not cooperate with the French. In 1969, after negotiations with the US, the BND approached Hagelin anew and bought the company together with the US intelligence service. Crypto AG produced and sold radio, Ethernet, STM, GSM, phone and fax encryption systems worldwide. Its clients included Iran, Libya, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. The BND and the CIA rigged the company's devices so they could easily decipher the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: In 1986, the BND deciphered the report of the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin regarding the "successful" implementation of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: According to an interview with Stasi defector Col. Rainer Wiegand, BND agents were assigned to use the anti-Stasi protests in East Germany in order to covertly obtain files from Building No. 2, which houses the counterespionage directorate. Wiegand assisted by providing the blueprints of the building and indicated which offices the agents should prioritize.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: In 2005, a public scandal erupted (dubbed the "Journalistenskandal", journalists scandal) over revelations that the BND had placed a number of German journalists under surveillance since the-mid 1990s, in an attempt to discover the source of information leaks from the BND regarding the activities of the service in connection with the war in Iraq and the "war against terror". The Bundestag constituted an investigative committee ("Parlamentarischer Untersuchungsausschuss") to investigate the allegations. The committee tasked the former Federal Appellate Court (Bundesgerichtshof) judge Dr. as special investigator, who published a report confirming illegal BND operations involving and targeting journalists between 1993 and 2005. As a consequence, the Chancellery issued an executive order banning BND operational measures against journalists with the aim to protect the service.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: The committee published a final report in 2009, which mostly confirmed the allegations, identifying the intent to protect the BND from disclosure of classified information and finding a lack of oversight within the senior leadership of the service but did not identify any responsible members from within the government.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: In 1990, BND gave the Finnish Security Intelligence Service the so-called Tiitinen list—which supposedly contains names of Finns who were believed to have links to Stasi. The list was classified and locked in a safe after the Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, Seppo Tiitinen, and the President of Finland, Mauno Koivisto, determined that it was based on vague hints instead of hard evidence.


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: On 5 February 2003, Colin Powell made the case for a military attack on Iraq in front of the UN Security Council. Powell supported his case with information received from the BND, instead of Mr. Hans Blix and the IAEA. The BND had collected intelligence from an informant known as Rafid al-Janabi alias CURVEBALL, who claimed Iraq would be in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, apart from torturing and killing over 1,000 dissidents each year, for over 20 years. Rafid was employed before and after the 2003 incident which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq. The payments of 3,000 Euros monthly were made by a cover firm called Thiele und Friedrichs (Munich).


title: Federal Intelligence Service

text: As a result of the premature cancellation, al-Janabi filed a lawsuit at the Munich labour court and won the case.