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A bamboo curtain descended on Upper Burma in May 1942. Little news filtered in or out. The warp and weft of everyday civilian life during the Japanese occupation is something of a mystery. In 1945 Rev. Stanley Vincent compiled an important booklet, Out of Great Tribulation , containing the wartime recollections of Burmese Methodists. 1 Two army chaplains (Acheson and Brown-Moffett) wrote brief accounts of separate visits they had made to the Chin States during 1944. In August 1945 Rev. U Po Tun wrote a long
of the occupation/liberation will be applied to some issues relating to the Allies’ campaign in Italy: the unconditional surrender of Italy, the problems experienced by Italian civilians in their everyday lives (bombings, food shortages), and the relations between the Allies and the Resistance. The analysis of some programme extracts will show that, in this case also, the rhetoric of the liberation was often in contrast with the actual military interests of the Allied forces. The forty-five days and Italy's unconditional surrender
4 The burdens of occupation Over the course of the early modern period, a clear evolution took place in the way occupied territories were treated by conquering powers, particularly in terms of the material and financial burdens imposed on the territory, and of civil-military relations. While military occupations of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century were usually horrific for the affected populations, those in the eighteenth century tended towards lighter exactions and better discipline.1 Louis XIV’s personal rule can be seen as
2 Occupation and its discontents The military defeat and subsequent occupation of France in 1940 by the Germans represent the greatest national disaster to affect the country in modern times. The devastation, chaos and loss of life caused as the French armies were ignominiously routed by the invading German forces in May and June, and the government abandoned the capital and took refuge in Bordeaux, were followed by the signing of an armistice which effectively left the Germans in control of two-thirds of the country and fully able to exploit its economic
3 The structures of occupation A number of territories bordering on France were subject to military occupation during Louis XIV’s personal rule. If strategic necessity dictated that the French army occupy a territory, it was up to the king and his ministers to devise a suitable system to administer it. Chapter 2 identified France’s strategic aims in the occupied territories and how these aims changed over time; this chapter analyses the way these aims were manifested in administrative policy. Conquest brought the need to replace or adapt the existing regime
7 Sit-ins and factory occupations: a case study of Cammell Laird’s shipyard The mid-1980s proved to be a pivotal period in British labour history and the trade union movement in particular. The crux of Thatcher’s Employment Acts had become clear to most trade union leaders by this time, and many saw no way around their far-reaching tentacles. The Miners’ Strike was lumbering along in 1984, and while the miners were still holding on, many trades unionists foresaw a bleak future for organised labour. Pessimism was on the rise, and much of the old fire which was
10 Remembering the Japanese occupation massacres: mass graves in post-war Malaysia Frances Tay The violence visited upon British Malaya during the Japanese occupation of December 1941 to August 1945 has prompted several historians to evoke comparisons with the atrocities that befell Nanjing.1 During this time, numerous civilians were subjected to mass killings, summary executions, rape, forced labour, arbitrary detention, and torture. In particular, the shukusei (cleansing) or daikensho (big inspection) operation of February to April 1942 – known locally as the
This study considers the ways in which locals of the occupied Nord responded to and understood their situation across four years of German domination, focusing in particular on key behaviours adopted by locals, and the way in which such conduct was perceived. Behaviours examined include forms of complicity, misconduct, disunity, criminality, and resistance. This local case study calls into question overly-patriotic readings of this experience, and suggests a new conceptual vocabulary to help understand certain civilian behaviours under military occupation.
Drawing on extensive primary documentation – from diaries and letters to posters and police reports – this book proposes that a dominant ‘occupied culture’ existed among locals. This was a moral-patriotic framework, born of both pre-war socio-cultural norms and daily interaction with the enemy, that guided conduct and was especially concerned with what was considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Those who breached the limits of this occupied culture faced criticism and sometimes punishment. This study attempts to disentangle perceptions and reality, but also argues that the clear beliefs and expectations of the occupied French comprise a fascinating subject of study in their own right. They provide an insight into national and local identity, and especially the way in which locals understood their role within the wider conflict.
This book will be useful to undergraduates, post-graduates and academics interested in an understudied aspect of the history of modern France, the First World War, and military occupations.
15 From work and occupation to occupational therapy: The policies of professionalisation in English mental hospitals from 1919 to 1959 John Hall From the early nineteenth century, some form of regular and meaningful occupation for patients in English mental hospitals had been seen as central to their management, for at least three reasons: first, as a continuing legacy of the humanitarian ideals of moral treatment; second, since a pattern of regular daily activity was seen as conducive to less disturbed behaviour (not necessarily as therapeutic); and, third, as
, the story of a factory occupation set in May 1972, during which the characters played by Montand and Fonda are locked in with the boss by striking workers. Accusing the strikers of being ‘contaminated’ by May ’68, the boss renders explicit the political symbolism of the factory occupation, after which the protagonists, like France itself, appear to return to the status quo . The strike is not filmed, however, as