In the first part:

https://rdrama.net/h/erstory/post/310720/the-mitfords-bonglands-most-dramapilled-family

We learned about Tom the Jap-bashing bussy-blaster, Diana the super-smart-and-witty-but-repeatedly-cucked fascist and Decca the communist proto-redditor. Let's continue our look at the dramafull Mitford family...

Deborah

'Debo' was the baby of the family and the longest-lived. She only died in 2014. She lived long enough to hear Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday- imagine that.

_{I'm only putting this here because it'll totally frick with people who just scroll through this post to see the images}

Debo married into serious money and position and became the Dutchess of Cavendish. She and her husband were Nazi sympathisers, but much more circumspect and low-key about it than Tom, Diana or Unity. Nevertheless, Decca still felt the need to rat them. These facts never really came to light until the couple decided, after decades of keeping their heads down, to suddenly enter politics and campaign for the newly-formed Social Democratic Party* in the 1980s. The official reports on them and their family, including salacious details provided by Decca, were circulated in the press. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party, the Libs kicked the Cavendishes to the curb. The Liberals have a habit of attracting embarrassing supporters...

_{*Minor note on the SDP: this party was formed by five prominent members of the Labor Party who quit after the party took a hard-left turn in the late 70s. They merged with the Liberals and disappeared. This is ironic because, under Tony Blair, the Labor Party effectively became the SDP. Their leader, David Owen, flapped around helplessly as a European envoy to Bosnia during their horrible war, eventually getting recalled after a vote of no-confidence by the Euro Parliament. He got a peerage and became 'Lord Owen' for doing what everyone does in the politics of Europe- frick all.}

There's not much else to say about Debo except that her very recent death might explain why nobody's ever tried to make a TV show about the Mitfords.

Pamela

Pamela lived in the country and briefly married the physicist Derek Jackson. Jackson married 5 other women and blasted many a bussy although he went to Rugby school and served in the RAF so Tom was not one of them. Jackson was famed for his work in atomic spectroscopy (how atoms absorb and emit radiation- useful for a whole bunch of things in medicine and science), his riding career- including riding a horse in the Grand National and the enviable amount of fricking he got done. His biographer Simon Courtauld describes him as a "rampant bisexual". He shacked up at one point with two half-sisters and was banging both at the same time.

Behold the King:

After her break-up in 1951 Pamela lived with Italian horse-rider Giuditta Tommasi. The nature of their relationship was never disclosed but Decca described her, somewhat chuddily, as a 'You-Know-What-Bian'. Diana's letters reveal she thought their relationship was platonic but was not bothered one way or another. Make of that what you will.

Nancy

Nancy was the nearest thing to the normal one, which is darning considering this is a longpost about a Dramapilled family. She was also, apparently, a decent writer. Like many of her sisters, she had a nickname... 'Woman'. Yes, her sisters called her 'Woman'. Not 'The Woman' just 'Woman'. This was because she was the eldest and the most sensible. Nancy managed to stay on good terms with her whole family- despite a brief falling out with Diana during WW2. She was smart, sensible, good at what she did and got along well with others. What a crushing bore- let's move on to the most dramapilled of them all...

Unity

As a child, Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford was the Jan Brady of the Mitfords. Her sisters were smarter than her, better looking than her and more socially adept than her.

In the words of Diana's biographer Jan Dalley:

"Unity found life in her big family very difficult because she came after these cleverer, prettier, more accomplished sisters."

While another biographer, David Pryce-Jones, added:

"If you come from a ruck of children in a large family, you've got to do something to assert your individuality, and I think through the experience of trying to force her way forward among the sisters and in the family, she decided that she was going to form a personality against everything."

So, in short, she became a Dramatard.

What could she do to stand out?

How could she make herself special?

Who could help to really make everyone notice poor little Unity?

Hitler was to Unity what stickyposts were to Masterlawlz.

"I think the desire to shock was very important, it was the way that she made herself special. When she discovered Nazism and discovered that it was a fantastic opportunity to shock everybody in England she'd discovered the best tease of all."

-Jan Dalley (Diana's Biographer)

Her younger sister, Decca, with whom she shared a bedroom, was (as we saw in the previous episode) a dedicated communist. The two drew a chalk line down the middle to divide the room. Decca's side was decorated with hammer and sickles and pictures of Vladimir Lenin, while Unity's was decorated with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler.

Unfortunately neither had the common sense to realise this was childish larping. Decca had a long life to do so... Unity did not.

In 1934, Unity had enrolled in a German language school close to the Nazi headquarters in Munich. She was determined to stalk Hitler and, as it happened, this was pretty easy to do.

One of the great lies that always gets told is that we, the good guys, are virtuous simple folk while our enemies are decadent and addicted to opulence. Hence Hitler is always presented in stately rooms with high-ceiling, wearing shining jackboots and a crisp uniform while sitting upon cushioned luxury chairs. Some of the Nazis definitely were like that but in the early 30s, when not attending official functions, Hitler generally wore an old tweed jacket with a crumpled fishing hat stuck on his head. He often drank coffee and ate strudel at the same restaurant he had visited years ago before the Great War. He walked around Munich without guards and would speak to any passerby who spoke to him, even if they were critical of him and his party.

Unity was literally able to just sit in the same place Hitler took his breakfast. She didn't approach him, however: like Landlord Messiah hanging around a slutty-and-used-up-but-strangely-likeable pornstar, she just sat there and stared. Eventually- after months of this shit- Hitler asked her over. They spoke for over 30 minutes- Hitler paid her bill.

She wrote to her father; "It was the most wonderful and beautiful [day] of my life. I am so happy that I wouldn't mind a bit, dying. I'd suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world. For me he is the greatest man of all time"

Hitler was taken by this strange Bong girl too and fascinated by her middle name- Valkyrie. Turned out that Unity's grandmother had been a friend of Richard Wagner who was, of course, Hitler's fav. He was very superstitious- a trait later used to justify fantastic theories of how he intended to dispell Christianity and reintroduce worship of the Germanic gods- or worshipping the Warlords of Atlantis... or the Ark of the Convenant but less Jewish. Or maybe some other shit, IDK. Aliens probably. Anyway, he thought Unity was destined to be in his life.

The big question is whether she got a taste of the old meat-and-one-veg.

Well, there was one person who definitely saw it as a possibility...

Eva Braun was intensely jealous of the attention her boyfriend was suddenly paying to this Bong strumpet. She wrote to a friend;

"She is known as the Valkyrie and looks the part, including her legs. I the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and the whole world, I sit here waiting while the sun mocks me through the window panes."[

Hitler would spend days away, apparently with Unity. He often did not come home at night and would claim he had business at the office doing Nazi stuff when Eva would demand to know where he had been.

Eventually Eva did what most foids would do in this situation and tried the old attempted suicide trick. This got Hitler to cut back on his time spent with the Bong. As Wikipedia puts it, Unity "learned from this that desperate measures were often needed to capture the Führer's attention."

Unity knew there was one thing Adolf loved more than blondes and that was ragging on Da Joos. She attended the Hitler Youth festival in Hesselberg with Hitler's friend Julius Streicher, where she gave the kind of speech about God's Chosen People that would get standing ovations in many American universities today. She subsequently repeated these sentiments in an open letter to Streicher's paper, 'Der Stürmer', which read:

"The English have no notion of the Jewish danger. Our worst Jews work only behind the scenes. We think with joy of the day when we will be able to say England for the English! Out with the Jews! Heil Hitler!

P.S. please publish my name in full, I want everyone to know I am a Jew hater."

This caused an outrage in some parts of the Bong media, but Hitler rewarded her with an engraved golden swastika badge, a private box at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and a ride in a party Mercedes to the Bayreuth Festival. So the first part of "Operation: Sit on the 'Dolf Peepee" had been accomplished.

She was inducted into the inner circle of the Nazi Party, appearing on the balcony with Hitler when he declared the Anschlauss and she was sent on a mission to meet with pro-Nazis in Prague where she was arrested.

A 1936 MI5 report called her "more Nazi than the Nazis."

In 1938, Hitler gave her a choice of four apartments in Munich. Unity visited one apartment to discuss her decoration and design plans while the soon-to-be-dispossessed residents, a Jewish couple, sat in the kitchen crying. She was given special treatment even Hitler's closest confidants did not have. Albert Speer wrote that nobody was allowed to talk about politics to the Furher except Unity.

Although Hitler told Unity many times that an alliance with Bongland was unlikely, she kept pressing for it and even drew up plans with lists of potential allies. Some of the names that were mentioned were Lord Halifax (Churchill's Tory rival to lead the coalition government) and eccentric Scottish soceror and self described "sensual adventurer" Aleister Crowley. Both men expressed horror when they were told of Unity's beliefs that they might be pro-Nazi. Crowley, who the Daily Mail called "the wickedest man in the world" seems very unlikely to have supported Hitler.

In 1939 Unity and Diana were in Germany when Hitler told them both that they should leave as soon as possible because he believed war with Bongland would follow within weeks. Diana left, Unity didn't.

Diana said later: "She told me that if there was a war, which of course we all terribly hoped there might not be, that she would kill herself because she couldn't bear to live and see these two countries tearing each other to pieces, both of which she loved."

After war was declared, the fate of Unity was initially unclear. She had visited the office of the Bavarian governor to ask if she would be detained as a enemy alien. He told her she would not be but was concerned enough about her mrntal state to mention her visit to Hitler who, apparently, did not look up from his papers when Unity was mentioned. There are some stories that Unity tried to see Hitler and even resorted to calling Eva Braun to try and get Adolf's atrention.

Rumors started trickling through to Bongland that Unity had been arrested and shot by the Nazis. This was only half true- she had shot herself.

Fricking ineptly, as it happens. She used a pearl-handled pistol given to her before her mission to Prague by Hitler himself. He visited her several times in hospital despite the huge amount of work he had organising a fricking world war. She remained unaware throughout that he was beside her.

Despite the war, the Germans and British cooperated to have her repatriated. She was initially sent to Bern in Switzerland where her mother and Debo went to collect her. Debo said in an interview many years later:

"We were not prepared for what we found – the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost 2 stone [almost 29lbs], was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull. The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said. She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke. Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know. We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train. Every jolt was agony to her."

She arrived in Bongland in January 1940:

Showing she still had a bit of the old dramatard in her she declared she "was glad to be back in England even though I'm not on your side."

Her mental age was likened to that of a 10-year-old, or a "sophisticated child" as James Lees-Milne (cousin of Winnie the Pooh creator and a bussy-buddy of Unity's brother Tom) called her. She had a tendency to talk incessantly, had trouble concentrating her mind, and showed an unusually large appetite with sloppy table manners. Lees-Milne observed her to be "rather plain and fat, and says she weighs 13+1⁄2 stone [189lbs- fricking Bongs and their weird weights]". She did however, retain at least some of her devotion to the Nazi party; her family friend Billa Harrod recalled Unity stating that she wished to have children and name the eldest Adolf.

In 1941 she was caught banging an RAF pilot and MI5 reported that she had been seen trying to solicit other airmen around an RAF base. The men said she would ask them "intelligent questions" about their planes and missions. The pilot she was banging was reassigned to the supersonic propellor tests in the north of Scotland (fly your Spitfire up really high and dive towards the ground- see if you can break the sound barrier). He died, believe it or not.

Unity Valkyrie Mitford died of meningitis after the area around the bullet in her head began to swell. It was impossible at that time to remove the bullet.

She, was buried at Saint Mary's Church in Swinbrook Oxfordshire. Her sisters Nancy and Diana would join her later.

I hope you enjoyed this overview of the Mitfords:

Tom, Diana, Decca, Debo, Pamela, Nancy and Unity.

And let's not forget the amazing suppporting cast which included Oswald Mosely, King Edward and Queen Wallis, numerous bussy-blasting pals of Tom, Derek 'Action' Jackson, Tay Zonday, The British SDP/Liberal Alliance Party and, of course, Adolf Hitler himself.

Goodbile.

"Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur"

-The Times

History

The Mitfords were an aristocratic family from Northumberland in the far north of In-Gurr-Land, right on the border with Haggis-stan. Their ancestors had been 'border reivers' which is a fancy way to say cattle rustlers who were occasionaly paid money to fight in the wars between the two nations- they were the kind of soldiers you paid when you wanted whole farms and whole farmer's families to conveniently disappear. Other prominent reiver families were the Armstrongs, the Nixons, the Bells and the Elliots. An alarming number of Burgers with those surnames are descended from the reivers as many of them were forced to flee Bongland when Scotland and England merged and they suddenly found themselves criminals on both sides of the border.

The Mitfords had managed to get themselves a peerage tho- the Barony of Redesdale- so they were legit and no-one could touch them. Here is their family crest...

Those are supposed to be moles. I thought they were duck-billed platypuses but moles are still a bit weird.

Many members of the family served as something called 'High Sherrif of Northumberland' but, far away from Sherwood Forest, their exploits against Ye Merrie Men of Yore are not recorded.

Daddy Mitford and his Daughters

Skip forward several centuries to the early 20th Century

David Freeman-Mitford, Baron of Resedale and the Lady Sydney...

...have one son, Tom, and six daughters who were- oldest first- Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. They were, in the jargon of the time, 'debs' of some note at their coming of age- that is debutants. Debutants were young girls 'coming out' into society- needless to say, coming out meant something very different back then. This was often accompanied by a big party where young eligible men of the right breeding were invited to gawk at them. If this sounds like a meat market you would be right, but the Mitford girls were very sought-after marriage-material. They were rich, from a storied came-over-with-the conqueror Anglo-Norman heritage, and some of them (Diana particularly) were considered good-looking. In roaring 20s London they were the talk of the town and that was before they even did any of the fricked-up things they would later do. Many of them had strident views on politics and, going into the thirties, some of them would go on to create international scandals which would echo down the ages. We will start with poor old Tom who had to cope with a young life of everyone he knew wanting to frick his sisters- this might explain how he turned out.

Tom

Tom had his bussy blasted at Eton, like many Bongs of his class. His famous butt-buddies included his sister Nancy's future fiancée and the cousin of Winnie the Pooh creator A. A. Milne.

He once pretended to be an artist called Bruno Hat and took part in an art hoax which will seem very familiar as variations of it keep getting repeated to this day.

He later straightened out somewhat and banged some foids. One of whom wrote about him in a book (as we will see, foids producing mediocre literature is not a new thing) where she described him as "the handsomest man she'd ever met" and, less flatteringly, a "minature version of his father".

When war broke out in 1939 he joined up and was eventually sent to North Africa. There was some concern about sending him, you see, because of his professed Nazi sympathies- and the actions of some of his sisters, but we'll get to that.

When the war with Japan began in 1942 he was happy to be reassigned to Burma to have a crack at The Nip. He died about four months before the WHOLLY JUSTIFIED ATOMIC STRIKES ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI, when a bunch of half-starved Japanese soldiers decided to commit suicide-by-Bong and charged his position.

Over 50 Sunrise-Islanders were killed and Tom was the only Bong casualty. He was found beneath the body of a Jap soldier he had apparently killed before succumbing himself to a bullet wound in his neck.

Diana

We'll tackle Diana next because her story intertwines with many of her sisters. When they were young, her younger sister Jessica was her best friend and the two were inseparable. This will become very ironic later.

Remember what I said about 'coming out'? Well Diana made a mini-scandal by engaging and eloping with a son of the Guiness beer family when she was 17.

This is the couple in Sicily. Daddy was not pleased that his daughter had had her guts pushed in by an Irishman but, as Diana was now spoiled goods, he had no choice but to agree to the wedding. Especially when he found out how much money this beer-peddling Irishman had.

They had two sons but the marriage was headed for the rocks. Little known to the boozy Potato-neighbor, his wife was being watched by eyes other than his... cold, blue eyes which watched and waited and drew their plans against him...

Nah, actually Oswald Mosely didn't have to plan against Guiness because he had been banging his wife pretty much throughout their marriage. Mosely was pretty set-up on Diana but he was married to the great-granddaughter of Lord Curzon, the first Viceroy of India, and it would be awkward for him to divorce as his in-laws had got him his peerage. His wife was also the one who got him started in politics and had previously served with him as a Labour Party MP.

In case you've never seen Peaky Blinders, Oswald Mosely was the leader of the British Union of Fascists which was founded out of the ruins of his previous organisation The New Party which was built out of the ruins of the organisation he had stolen from Rotha Lintorn-Orman, a female WW1 ambulance driver who had repeatedly ran out into No Man's Land, to rescue wounded Bongs. Before you say, 'ah, relying on the Krauts not shooting a foid right?' this is what she looked like in 1916:

She actually deserves her own effortpost because she was pretty remarkable. Died aged 40 of booze, s*x (with both men and women) and drugs (opium being a favorite). Chaddette Chuddette manifest.

Anyway, in 1933 Lady Mosely died suddenly of peritonitis. Before you jump to any conclusions, Oswald was heartbroken and even Diana could not console him. Fortunately, his wife's younger sister could, and Ossie fricked the pain away with a younger, tighter version of his dead wife.

Then he married Diana straight after she finally divorced that dreadful Irishman.

_{Diana did not look happy with the outfit her husband asked her to wear that day}

Diana's marriage to Mosely strained her relationship with most of her family. Her parents considered the two to be 'living in sin'. Jessica couldn't get over Mosely's politics and learned to hate her sister for them too. Nancy despised Mosely too but learned to get along with him for the sake of her relationship with Diana- Nancy would never make a good Redditor. She did eventually ruin things by writing about Mosely in her book Wigs on the Green and she and Diana stopped speaking until after the war. The rest of the family got along very well with Ossie- history does not record if Tom tried to get his bussy blasted the fascist leader.

In 1934 Diana's sister Unity took her to Nazi Germany. After they attended a rally- just for funsies, you know- Unity asked Diana if she'd like to meet 'her new friend Adolf'. Diana would return with her husband the following year. Unbeknown to them, they were being watched by other eyes... cold, blue eyes which watched and waited and drew their plans against them...

Well, not Winston Churchill actually- Churchill had behaved far too Chuddy during the Great Depression- wanting to turn the army loose on protesting miners, that kind of thing- so Stanley Baldwin kicked him out the government. But MI5 and MI6 both had their eyes on the Moselys.

Diana and Oswald were married in 1936 at the home of Josef Goebbels. Diana had never expressed any antisemitic sentiment and the BUF had largely avoided ragging on the hebes until after their visits to Nazi Germany. Clearly Hitler must've had an impression on them because they came back determined to act like an American college student in 2024. The resulting carnage when BUF blackshirts attacked a Jewish part of London was known as "The Battle of Cable Street" and was a massive PR disaster for all things Chud in Bongland. Rising fear of Hitler and the danger of him igniting a new war meant that the Moselys' trips to the Third Reich looked increasingly bad. Mosely tried to rebrand his party as the 'British Union', dropping the F-word, but when war finally broke out, Churchill's new coalition government decided that Ossie and Diana should probably spend the war under lock and key. An MI5 document from the time described Diana:

"Diana Mosley, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, is reported on the 'best authority', that of her family and intimate circle, to be a public danger at the present time. Is said to be far cleverer and more dangerous than her husband and will stick at nothing to achieve her ambitions. She is wildly ambitious."

When the filth came to arrest her she stuffed a signed photo of Hitler under her newborn son Max's cot. Max, btw, would become the chief executive of Formula 1 motor racing in later life and successfully sued the News of the World for this headline:

Not because it wasn't true he was into bondage and hookers but because it "wasn't in the public interest" to know he was into bondage and hookers.

Anyway... initially the Moselys were held separately but Churchill would personally allow them to stay together after 1941 in Holloway prison. They were moved to house arrest in 1943 and released in 1945 although they were denied passports until 1949. Mosely was not stripped of his knighthood.

Evelyn Waugh, a friend of Tom (buttsecks not confirmed but heavily implied), said Diana wore a diamond swastika upon her release from prison.

Post war Ossie tried to revive the Union but failed. The couple moved to France for a while where they were neighbors of the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor...

Yeah, them. Here's charming old Uncle Edward & Auntie Wallis with their neices Elizabeth and Margaret...

Oswald continued to frick around throughout his marriage to Diana. She said of this; "I think if you're going to mind infidelity, you better call it a day as far as marriage goes. Because who has ever remained faithful?"

He died in 1980. She died in 2002. Of Hitler and the holocaust here are some of her remarks:

"I didn't love Hitler any more than I did Winston [Churchill]. I can't regret it, it was so interesting."

"Well, of course, horror. Utter horror. Exactly the same probably as your reactions." However, when asked about having revulsion against Hitler for this, she said that "I had a complete revulsion against the people who did it but I could never efface from my memory the man I had actually experienced before the war. A very complicated feeling. I can't really relate those two things to each other. I know I'm not supposed to say that but I just have to."

And a couple of stories about her and God's Chosen People:

The journ*list Paul Callan remembered mentioning that he was Jewish while interviewing her husband in Diana's presence. According to Callan, "I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish—at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room ... No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend: 'A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes.'"Diana offered to entertain her teenage half-Jewish nephew, Benjamin Treuhaft, on a trip to France. The offer was refused by Benjamin's mother, Jessica, who remained estranged from Diana over the latter's political past.

"Maybe instead they [European Jews] could have gone somewhere like Uganda: very empty and a lovely climate"

Jessica

Everyone called Jessica 'Decca' and I'm doing the same cos it's easier to type. The way some people around here act, you'd think people like Decca were invented by social media but that's not true. Long before reddit, twitter and all these other 'spaces', Decca hated her parents (because they were fascists), hated her country (because it was fascist), hated the media (because it was fascist) but didn't hate her sister Diana until she married an actual fascist. Some would say that points to Diana being far more influenced by her husband and her pal Adolf than any ideas in her own horsey-nosed blonde head but that doesn't really scan with her later life.

Wikipedia insists that Decca rejected her father's wealth and status but, of course, that was only true after she copied her sister and ran off with a wallet... I meant man- her cousin actually. They ran off to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell's wife apparently hated Decca after the latter enthusiastically supported the Red Terror, where the Soviet-aligned Brigades purged the Marxist-Anarchist Brigades to which the Orwells were members. I recommend Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia if you want the full story on that shit-show.

So, a privileged foid with daddy-issues and very left-wing politics who turns authoritarian at the drop of a hat...

Burgerland was the obvious destination for such a lady.

Her Cousin-Husband dead in the war (officially MIA but I think we can now- in 2024- confidently say he died), she would marry Jewish American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft with whom she joined the Communist Party of America. She had literally been in the country for less than six months. Incredible people complain about modern immigrants. In their defence, they both left the party in 1958 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Along with her husband, and a bunch of other leftie celebrities, she campaigned against the r*pe conviction of Willie MacGee

_{wearing t-shirts over your suit was the 40s equivalent of taking the knee}

In the 50s, Decca and her husband refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and she wrote a book pooping on her new homeland:

And a book pooping on her family:

She wrote other things and her letters are published. It's all exactly what you'd expect. Wikipedia insists they're 'classics'. Remember that MI5 document talking about 'best authorities' on Diana's character? Yeah, that was almost certainly Decca. Her last meeting with Diana was around the deathbed of their sister Nancy. Of Decca, Diana said this:

"I quite honestly don't mind what Decca says or thinks. She means absolutely nothing to me at all. Not because she's a Communist but simply because she's a rather boring person, really."

She was also a shitty mother surprise, surprise.

Decca died in California, like all good communists.

This has turned into a bigger thing than I thought. If enough people show an interest, I will write up on the final four Mitford girls- Debo the Dutchess, Pamela the (alleged) lesbian chicken farmer, Nancy the 'Woman' and Unity...

Yeah, Unity is really something else.

!historychads !anticommunists the whole purpose of the CIA funneling money, weapons, and ammo to them with the help of the Pakis was to give the Soviets a hard time.

Do you think the dead ziggers and trillions of rubles bled were worth it?

Pics of Red Army soldiers during the Soviet-Afghan War

!historychads

In 1400,after a 18-day siege of Sivas,the Ottoman garrison surrendered on the promise of Timur that 'no blood would be spilled upon surrender'. To keep his promise,he had the Ottoman garrison buried alive. pic.twitter.com/sHZC3h2jlK

— Ayush Kumar Singh (@AyushKumar291) December 29, 2024

(Reply to this post)

@Redactor0 grandpa confirm what I got wrong

Nothing fam. Just like I expect from you. Let's see if there's a few points I can elaborate on slightly.

USA Navy forces were not immediately aware of the ramifications the Battle of Midway would have upon the momentum of the Pacific Theatre

Keep in mind that both sides didn't even know how what ships the other had. They were getting bullshit intelligence from their own pilots all the time, so for example the Japanese were overestimating how many carriers they had sunk and had no idea we still had 3 left in the Pacific at that time.

the sheer dominant magnitude of the influence an aircraft carrier would as a weapons platform would supercede even the wildest prewar speculations

I gotta push back on this just slightly. Battleships were going obsolete but it wasn't completely over quite yet. Notice how important they were at Leyte Gulf on both sides and that was near the end of the war. This is one thing where I actually got some insight from computer games. Like so often, that comes in the form of actually getting the geometry involved. A battleship at flank speed could get about as far overnight as a carrier-based plane could fly (I'm oversimplifying here, but you get it). So you could actually dash in and catch them with a little luck. Especially if there were a few clouds out.

But it was really marginal. At the end of the war the proximity fuze for AA shells came out which helped the battleships a lot but also jet engines and guided bombs. And just planes that could fly farther. So it was really obvious by 1945 that within a few years they would be totally useless for fighting other ships.

the Royal Palace in hue

The bastards got there before Old Man Redactor could take pictures of it. But there was a lot of beautiful stuff left in Hue even after the battle.

this upcoming deafeat would be the greatest blow dealt to the US for the entire war

That's a really good way of putting it. You must have some angloid DNA.

It was the single greatest massacre of VC forces to the extent that they literally ceased to fricking be a political power within the communist sphere in Vietnam entire and Cambodia. From then on the North Vietnamese had near absolute control of military operations.

The VC were never really an independent force. At least not at the top level. There were lots of commies in South Vietnam at the beginning of the war of course, but the leadership was always directed from Hanoi. What was really changed by Tet is that all these low-level commies native to the South got killed off. After that, there was no longer any pretense that this was a guerilla war. By the time the old man got there (I think 1970) it was completely a conventional war between the North and the South fought with advanced high-tech weapons. He wasn't hauling an M-16 around when he was on his photography trips to old historical buildings in Hue because there weren't any guerillas to be scared of. Those people were all dead.

The Phoenix Program was also very helpful here. Just using basic 1960s police and office work they rooted out the commies in the villages. This was basically just turning the tables on them. Going after everyone who is on the enemy side. Except we didn't use terrorism the way the VC did, chopping off the head of the mayor's kid and shit like that. The cops just arrested people in 90% of cases. (Statistics on the Phoenix Program are quite interesting, something to go into more detail about someday.)

The US and ARVn performance was absolutely spectacular, perhaps one of history's great battles like fricking Cannae or Waterloo or something

Let's not suck our peepees too hard here. Old Man tells me a story second hand of a guy who had been in some big base around Saigon during Tet. He complained that he never got to shoot anybody because they were all slaughtered by .50 cal machineguns before they even got close enough. This wasn't Hannibal or Wellington we were dealing with.

us Air Cavalry (helicopter troops)

My dad will swear up and down that he hated everything about the Army but this is exactly the kind of comment that would draw him out. The 101st was airborne, it was NOT cavalry!

the lies and deception of the military a and 2 administrations about how good the war went

That's what the real crisis was. If it wasn't Tet it would have been something else to trigger it. They kept saying the war is about to end and they were clearly lying. This is a generation that wasn't beyond sacrifices. Everyone's parents had been in WW2 in some shit job sweeping asbestos off the floor of a shipyard or on the side of the world fighting. A lot of them never came back. But there was a purpose. People will sacrifice a lot for a purpose, but if they're getting jerked around, they notice real fast.

Old Man's story about this is listening to the radio where Nixon is saying that we're not bombing Laos and he's looking up in the sky and there's planes above him heading west. It didn't take fricking Descartes to guess where they were going.

unexpectedly brought low USA civilian morale to continue to send their sons overseas into the meatgrinder

A lot of the conventional wisdom about this isn't always right. We had something like half our casualties after Tet. (One third, I dunno.) And popular support for the war wasn't really eroded all that much if you look at the polling data.

Keep in mind that there's a certain class of people who dominate the discussion of the Vietnam War. Specifically: Guys who dodged the draft so they didn't have to go there and know anything about it. There's an extreme level of self-serving bullshit they claim. Like that the "Anti-War Movement" (lol you sure cared about the Vietnam-Cambodia war) had any impact at all on anything other than being so disgusting they helped get Nixon elected in 1968. These are the last fricking people on Earth you should ever believe. I trust the guys fighting on the other side 1000x more than them.

By the time 2023 arrived the most critical munitions would be basic artillery shells

So my two things I was saying going into this is ATGMs are gonna be important (because of experience in the Middle East in previous decades) and basic b-word artillery shells. There was this cult of precision munitions from Desert Storm. The thing I never heard anybody explain is: What if you don't know exactly where the enemy is tho?

Unironic WW1 bunkers and trenches also came to dominate the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine from Donbass to Crimea, with static artillery war and massed charges for both sides being the most popular strategy, on a grinding stalemate similar as to the ending phase of 1952s Korea War.

The last full-scale war we had between two opponents that was a fair fight was the Iran-Iraq War and it was a heck of a lot like this. I keep telling everyone, but nobody believes little old Redactor. I guess I gotta post more Chronicles of Victory.

!historychads !anticommunists

!historychads @DWHITE_CHRISTMAS_DYNAMITE

Alexander the Great, whose tomb has been missing for nearly 2,000 years, could be buried in Broome in Western Australia, a Perth man says.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-03-20/hunt-for-alexanders-tomb-greece-egypt-persia-india/1625070

AUSTRALIA IS THE PLACE OF BURIAL OF THE BEST BUSSY BLASTER ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Merry Christmas from the politics long post man! I bought a grass award and now I'm broke, so I'm "regifiting" something I wrote for thanksgiving! Happy holidays!

The White House is full of cheesy, sweet, mostly useless traditions done for fun. The Family Christmas cards , calling kids on Christmas , and my favourite trick and treating at the White House . But there's none as cheesy as the turkey pardon, where the President is given a turkey and grants it a pardon - so that first turkey goes back to a farm to be killed later, and the President eats a second turkey that's killed earlier. A pretty strange tradition when broken down like that (though what tradition isn't when broken down), it's history is disputed. Most attribute the start of the tradition Harry Truman being sent several turkeys, but I assure you that cheap bastard didn't pardon shit. And besides that, Presidents have been gifted turkeys before then - who started pardoning turkeys? And when did it become a tradition?

The First Turkey Gift

There are rumours that Lincoln was the first man to pardon a turkey, coming from an 1865 report about the President's actions in 1863. There seems to be some truth in the matter, but it was far from a tradition or spectacle - Lincoln's son Tad had grown attached to the bird, so Abe decided to spare it . Additionally, the tradition usually involves pardoning an animal sent to the President - that wasn't a tradition until 1873, when a rather intelligent poultry farmer figured out a trick.

Gifts to the President were nothing new. He's the most powerful man in one of the most powerful nations - if the President says he enjoys something, such as the product or service he had received as a pleasant gift, then you can be sure that will become a fashionable item.

The first noted turkey farmer to figure that out was Horace Vose (pictured above), the "Turkey King of Rhode Island" . Every year, the Turkey King would send a dressed turkey to the President. Cracks showed in Vose's final thanksgiving, when Representative South Trimble also sent President Wilson a turkey, certain that it would be better than the Turkey King's turkey (historical record as to which turkey was better doesn't exist, what a fricking oversight). When Vose passed away that December, offering the President turned into all out war - Warren Harding , for example, was sent turkeys every year - even in 1920 when he was both not President and not in America.

But a grand tradition was established that year. In addition to the turkeys Harding was swarmed with, he and President Wilson were both sent live turkeys from Texas - it's unknown what Harding did with the turkey, but Wilson ate the poor thing. Coolidge , the fun police, briefly stopped the practise because he opposed having wild animals in the White House. Thankfully, he was pressured into restoring the practise, and was sent just a bunch of wild animals as penance that year. One such animal was a raccoon. Rather then eat her, Grace Coolidge adopted her and named her Rebecca. And as you can see, she was just a sweet heart.

So for Roosevelt era, the tradition was that during Thanksgiving, the White House would be swarmed by animals in an attempt to get some national advertising or to show support. Things would change in Truman's day.

The First Presentation

In autumn 1947, Truman and the food administration called for "Poultryless Thursdays", a voluntary measure made to try and save food to give to the Europoors after WW1 Poultry farmers were fricking pissed - that year, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all happened to take place on Thursday, so Truman's woke war on turkeys really fricked them over.

This led to the first public Turkey Presentation, where the turkey magnates made a big show of giving Truman a turkey which did lead to Truman taking Turkey off the "pls don't eat list".

This was the first time that the President being given a turkey was given attention with a show made out of it, and it was a lobbying effort, god bless America. The establishment of this tradition is likely why President Truman is credited with the other tradition, the pardon, but as the Truman library notes - this turkey was not at all spared. The guy was a massive cheapskate, he 100% ate that turkey

Instead, the first turkey spared was in 1963, when President Kennedy declined to have the turkey he was presented with on a whim.

On November the 19th, President Kennedy sarcastically said "We'll just let this one grow" (it was 55 lbs). Why he didn't want to eat this turkey isn't clear - he ate bacon every day and loved oysters, so it's not like he was a vegetarian. And he kind of died 10 days later, so we couldn't exactly ask him why he did this. Some have speculated that it was kind of power play over the more "macho" Lyndon Johnson , but he didn't have a problem with the 1961 or 1962 turkeys. More likely, in my opinion, is that Kenney was just feeling silly. He was prone to just doing silly, whimsical things - it was why the press liked him so much.

So, mystery solved. President Kennedy was the President that established the Turkey Pardon, and he did it for shits and giggles.

The issue with this is that it wasn't repeated for some time. LBJ did not fricking spare a single bird, if the press wasn't present in that photo he'd unhinge his jaw and eat that bird then and there, and Nixon ate a few birds - while he did send some Turkeys to a petting zoo (and the Carters sent every bird to a petting zoo), that wasn't part of the tradition at all. More critically, President Kennedy, Nixon and Carter didn't "pardon" the turkey. He just sent it back home, he didn't use his powers for it. So, when was the first time that a President pardoned a turkey?

The First Pardon

1987, Ronald Wilson Reagan's second to final year. His landslide victory in 1980 and 1984 may suggest that he's a massively popular and unifying president. And perhaps in 1984, he was.

But in truth, the Iran-Contra scandal is boiling Reagan's administration alive. More and more top officials are being exposed as committing high treason, illegally selling guns to Iran to illegally fund right wing counterrevolutionaries the Contras . While being grilled by the press on whether Reagan will pardon Oliver North, a lead architect behind the scheme, the gears in his addled mind turn. It's a difficult question to answer - so he won't answer it. Putting on his movie star grin and giving Charlie the turkey a pet, he smiles, ignores the question, and says he will indeed be pardoning this turkey.

Unlike Kennedy's clemency, Reagan's pardon wasn't spur of the moment. He had only had one turkey, in 1981, and had afterwards sent the birds to petting zoos as well. But this was the first time the idea of a pardon was introduced to a turkey presentation field. That's right, the first example of this silly show was covering up massive corruption at the very top of American power. God bless America!

Like Kennedy, this wasn't the start of a tradition for a reason - Reagan didn't do it again in 1988. Instead, the tradition was started in 1989, during the first Bushs' first year.

"Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone's dinner table, not this guy. He's granted a presidential pardon as of right now."

For some reason, the President that oversaw an end to the Cold War didn't have why he pardoned turkeys a lot noted for history. It's like he had no idea what's important. It could be that he wanted to try and legitimise the first pardon, but after Reagan didn't have a pardon ceremony in 1989, that strikes me as unlikely. Bush wasn't exactly a vegetarian, so I can only arrive at the conclusion he thought he thought it was neat.

Or, rather his team thought it was neat. He didn't give a frick either way, saying of the affair "'Reprieve', 'keep him going', or 'pardon': it's all the same for the turkey, as long as he doesn't end up on the president's holiday table."

Nonetheless, it was a cute tradition established and actually followed up on, as Clinton pardoned his turkey - citing the tradition as going back to Lincoln and Truman, which is likely why there's some confusion. Slick Willie, you scamp!

Addendum - what happens to the turkeys after the pardon?

They die.

John Stossel did a report on it. The turkeys are bred to be eaten, not enjoy life. Fed a grain-heavy diet of fortified corn and soybeans to increase their size, what typically happens is that the flesh grows so fast that their bones and organs can't match the overgrown flesh, so they just die.

This isn't unique to the presidential turkeys - this applies to the vast majority of turkeys chosen to be slaughtered. The only difference between the presidential turkeys and normal turkeys is that the presidential turkeys are trained to handle crowds, before dying slowly from their forced mutations.

Yeah I ended the longpost with vegan propaganda. Deal with it cute twinks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wik/Josiah_Harlan

Greetings dramatards

A Country in Turmoil

It's time for the part 2 of our story. Taking from last post, Salvador Allende is the President of Chile and in 1971 the Unidad Popular got big wins on the municipal elections (getting 49% of the popular vote), however because Allende and the commies activated the money printer inflation skyrocketed in Chile leading to a stronger opposition.

As mentioned in the other post, General Viaux along members of the right-wing paramilitary group "Patria y Libertad" and CIA glowies assassinated the commander of the army, General René Schneider.

The so-called "Schneider Doctrine" was a non-intervention principle by which the Armed Forces were to remain loyal to the constitutional order. The Chilean Armed Forces are composed by 3 branches, the army , the navy , and the Air Force . Then you have the "Carabineros de Chile", the carabineros are the National Police but they're highly militarized and more akin to the French "Gendarmerie"

After taking office in 1970, Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as the new head of the army.

General Prats was a fierce adept of the Schneider Doctrince.

In terms of the economy the currency reserves of Chile went from 394 million dollars in 1970 to 163 million dollars in 1971. In terms of trade the balance went from a surplus of 95 million dollars to a deficit of 90 million dollars after an abrupt fall in copper prices (Chile's main export abroad).

The raising of wages along the freezing of prices led to shortages of good, and by 1971 a black market had risen.

By 1973 the amount of money circulating rose from 173% in 1972 to 413%. Inflation went from 225% in 1972 and reached 606% in 1973. On the streets violent clashes occurred between sympathizers of Allende and the Unidad Popular and right-wingers/other members of the opposition.

The government blamed shortages on sabotaging by enemies of the people, however even unions engaged and benefited from the black market activities. They would oftentimes charge their remunerations in goods so they could trade them in the black market. Very wholesome and stable government

By 1972 the government created the "Junta de Abastecimientos y Precios", which were local "people's" committees to deliver basic food goods and combat the shortages.

A pic from the breadlines

On October 9th 1972 the National Confederacy of Trucker's Owners went on a strike along with other trucker's associations. They had the backing of newspapers like "El Mercurio" (known conservative newspaper) and our glowie friends

On October 10th the government responded by arresting the truckers leaders, by October 12th the truckers responded by blocking the main roads of the country which led Allende to declare a National Emergency. By October 13th some 300 people had been arrested all over the country. In the following days other organizations joined the strike, among them the Confederation of Commerce and Production, the Confederation of Small Industry, the Association of minibuses drivers, the association of taxi drivers. By October 17th they were joined by the Medical Association of Chile (basically all doctors), the Federation of High School students of Santiago and all the Lawyers, engineers, and dentistry organizations. Then port workers, pilots, teachers, by October 18th the country was completely paralyzed.

The associations formed the "National Command" and published their demands on "El Mercurio", they asked for the end of nationalizations, end of expropriations, restitution of expropriated property, end of radio censorship and limiting the President's powers. The strike peaked on October 24th, a day known as "Día del Silêncio",

During the strike, 2 truckers, one soldier and a worker are killed.

The strike ended on November 5th after Allende appointed members of the Armed Forces to cabinet. Carlos Prats took over as Minister of the Interior, Rear Admiral Ismael Huerta as Minister of Public Works and General Sepúlveda as Minister of Mining. This cabinet lasted up to the midterm elections of march 1973 where the Unidad Popular got 44% of the votes vs 55% of the Confederacy for Democracy (all opposition parties ranging from the PDC to rightoids together).

By 1973 Allende tried to re-aproach the PDC, however Eduardo Frei Montalva and Patricio Aylwin demanded military ministers which would have left the UP out of too many ministries.

By April 17th 1973 a miners strike began at "El Teniente" triggering street violence and lasting for 74 days. By 1973 over 100 people had been killed because of political violence. There was a risk of Civil War by then. Meanwhile the Coup d'Etat was already being planned by the high command of the Chilean Navy.

On June 27th 1973, General Prats was being driven through an intersection in the fancy neighborhood of "Las Condes" in Santiago when his car was approached by a red Renault. The people inside the car begin to insult Prats who was paranoid about what happened to Schneider 3 years earlier. So Prats took his gun and told them to stop, they didn't so Prats opened the window and shot the Renault . Both cars stopped and the driver was a woman accompanied by her young nephew, a crowd then surrounded Prats, he apologized and everyone begin to insult him and threaten him. They proceeded to break his car apart and flatten his tires, a taxi driver passed by took Prats away, told him to get in or he would be lynched. On that same day Prats went to Allende's office and presented his resignation. On June 29th however a coup attempt happened when Lt. Colonel Roberto Souper rebelled along his regiment. The attempt known as "Tanquetazo" was quelled by Prats himself. 22 people died.

By mid 1973 the Soviet Union was supposed to send weapons to Chile as part of an agreement with Allende, however they decided not too as they could see the writing on the wall, Allende wasn't going to make it so the Russians didn't want to risk arming rightoids.

On the Other front there was an institutional crisis going on. The mayors of the Unidad Popular along the central government were carrying out nationalizations and expropriations based on laws passed by a failed socialist regime in Chile which lasted for a few months in 1932.

By 1972 the courts were ruling against the expropriation as unlawful and unconstitutional. Between January and May 1973 the Supreme Court passed a number of resolutions asking the government to comply with the laws and abide by the courts instead of ignoring them, citing a constitutional breakdown.

presenting to the President for "the umpteenth time the illegal attitude of the administrative authority in the illicit interference in judicial matters

The government goons replied with a campaign calling judges "viejos de mierda" (old shits).

Prats took over as Minister of Defense on August 9th. On August 21st in front of Prats house a crowd of angry military wives gathered to protest. On that afternoon Allende along his ministers and Prats second in command, General Augusto Pinochet, arrive in place to show their support. The crowd proceeds to boo them all. By August 23rd Prats resigns. He recommends Allende to appoint Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, a longtime apolitical officer with no affiliations, as new head of the army.

On August 22nd the Chamber of Deputies of Chile passed a resolution of the Institutional and Legal Breakdown of Chile. This resolution accused the government of totalitarian practices, ignoring the courts and attempting against basic liberties. They called upon the Armed Forces to act. The Medical Association also signed a letter demanding Allende's resignation.

In the Navy almost everyone in the upper echelons was part of the coup's conspiracy. A similar phenomenon in the Air Force except for General César Ruíz, the head of the branch. However after Allende appointed him as Minister of Public Works and Transportation, General Gustavo Leigh, a plottist, became the new head of the Air Force. In the Carabineros (Police) General César Mendoza was part of the conspiracy. The wild card was Pinochet.

In September 7th Admiral Merino sent a letter to Leigh and Pinochet asking them to dispose their forces on September 11th at 6:00am in Valparaíso.

Augusto Pinochet

Augusto Pinochet was born on November 25, 1915, in Valparaíso, Chile, to Augusto Pinochet Vera and Avelina Ugarte Martínez. He grew up in a middle-class family in a port city that was then a cultural and commercial hub. Pinochet was the eldest of six children and was raised in a devout Catholic household, which instilled in him a sense of discipline and hierarchy that would shape his later military career.

In 1933, Pinochet enrolled at the Chilean Military School, where he demonstrated a strong sense of ambition but was not particularly distinguished academically. After graduating in 1937 as a second lieutenant, he began a slow ascent through the ranks of the Chilean Army. Over the years, he developed a reputation as a competent and methodical officer, although he remained relatively unknown outside military circles.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Pinochet served in various units across Chile, gaining experience in different terrains and military operations. He married Lucía Hiriart Rodríguez in 1943, and the couple would go on to have five children. His family life was characterized by Lucía's strong influence on his personal and political decisions.

Pinochet's career advanced during the 1960s, a time when Chile was undergoing significant political and social changes. He continued his education by attending the War Academy, where he specialized in military strategy and geopolitics. By the mid-1960s, Pinochet had become a professor at the academy, known for his lectures on counterinsurgency, reflecting the military's growing focus on internal security during the Cold War. His academic contributions included a strong emphasis on maintaining order and combating Marxist ideologies, which were gaining traction in Chile and across Latin America.

In 1968, Pinochet was promoted to brigadier general, a significant milestone in his career. He was posted to various key roles, including commanding units in Chile's north and south. His administrative skills and ability to maintain strict discipline earned him recognition among his peers, though he remained apolitical, rarely voicing opinions on the country's political turmoil.

At this point in 1973, Pinochet's public image remained that of a quiet, professional soldier. Few suspected that within weeks, he would become the leader of a coup that would overthrow Allende's government and mark the beginning of his nearly 17-year rule as the head of a military dictatorship.

THE COUP

Pinochet took 2 days until he replied to Merino that he was in. There's some irony on this famous tyrant becoming a dictator by chance, he wasn't even part of the conspiracy up until a few days before as they didn't know if he could be trusted. On September 9th Allende announced a plebiscite to solve the institutional crisis, but it was pretty much too late.

On September 10th Pinochet sent his family away to the South near the border with Argentina, in case they needed to escape.

In the early hours of September 11, 1973, military units began mobilizing across Chile. Communication networks and transportation hubs were placed under surveillance or neutralized. Key military figures, including Pinochet and Merino, coordinated from secure locations, ensuring that their forces were synchronized. The coup's success depended on swift control of Santiago, the nation's capital, where La Moneda Palace, the seat of government, symbolized Allende's authority.

At approximately 6:00 a.m., the coup began in earnest. Army units in Santiago and other cities occupied key military installations, broadcast stations, and transportation hubs. The Navy took control of Valparaíso, Chile's main port city, ensuring that reinforcements or communications from outside the country could not interfere. This action effectively isolated Chile diplomatically and physically.

One of the earliest moves was the seizure of radio and television stations, which were critical for controlling the narrative. Military forces occupied Radio Agricultura and other major broadcasters, replacing regular programming with martial music and announcements. At 7:00 a.m., a public declaration by the military junta was broadcast, announcing their intent to "restore order" and accusing Allende of undermining democracy. This marked the first public acknowledgment of the coup and was designed to disorient Allende's supporters.

Simultaneously, troops began moving toward critical infrastructure in Santiago, including airports, bridges, and major roadways. By 8:00 a.m., the military had effectively paralyzed the city, cutting off avenues for resistance or escape. These early operations ensured that opposition forces were unable to mobilize effectively, granting the coup leaders uncontested control over Santiago's strategic points.

La Moneda Palace became the focal point of the coup as Salvador Allende and his closest aides barricaded themselves inside. By 7:30 a.m., Allende had arrived at the palace, determined to resist the military's demands for his resignation. Armed with a small contingent of loyal security personnel and a few supporters, Allende rejected offers of safe passage out of the country, declaring that he would defend his presidency to the end.

The military issued an ultimatum to Allende at approximately 8:30 a.m., demanding that he surrender unconditionally. Allende refused, famously addressing the nation via Radio Magallanes around 9:10 a.m., in what would become his final speech. In his broadcast, Allende reaffirmed his commitment to the Chilean people, denouncing the coup as a betrayal of democracy and a tool of foreign imperialism.

By mid-morning, tanks and infantry units surrounded La Moneda, cutting off all access to and from the palace. Snipers were positioned on rooftops, while artillery was prepared to breach the building's defenses. The Air Force contributed by deploying fighter jets, a decisive move that underscored the junta's overwhelming firepower.

At 11:00 a.m., after another ultimatum was ignored, the military began bombarding La Moneda with heavy artillery. Hawker Hunter fighter jets strafed the palace, delivering precision strikes that caused significant damage. The psychological effect of the airstrikes was immense, as the explosions reverberated across the city, signaling the coup's seriousness and ruthlessness.

The Fall of La Moneda

By noon, La Moneda was engulfed in smoke and flames. The small contingent inside, including Allende, was running out of ammunition and options. The military intensified its assault, with ground forces breaching the palace's lower levels. Despite the hopeless situation, Allende refused to surrender. Around 1:30 p.m., with the palace in ruins and his presidency effectively over, Allende reportedly took his own life with an AK-47 rifle gifted to him by Fidel Castro.

The military secured La Moneda shortly after 2:00 p.m., raising the junta's flag over the smoldering ruins. Troops conducted a sweep of the building, detaining any survivors and seizing documents. The junta immediately announced that Allende was dead, framing his death as a suicide to delegitimize any potential martyrdom or rallying cry for resistance.

While the siege of La Moneda dominated the events in Santiago, the military worked to consolidate power across the country. In major cities like Valparaíso, Concepción, and Antostragasta, military units detained leftist political leaders, trade unionists, and suspected supporters of Allende's Popular Unity coalition. By the afternoon, stadiums, schools, and other large facilities were repurposed as detention centers, where thousands of individuals were interrogated, tortured, or executed.

The military junta issued decrees banning political parties, unions, and public assemblies. A curfew was declared, and military patrols roamed the streets, enforcing martial law. The use of propaganda continued, with radio broadcasts proclaiming the success of the coup and the beginning of a "new era" for Chile. By the end of the afternoon, resistance had been effectively crushed, and the junta was in full control of the country.

The new Junta de Gobierno was composed by Augusto Pinochet, Gustavo Leigh, Tobías Merino, and César Mendoza. With Congress closed now they ruled Chile becoming effectively the executive and legislative power.

So begins the Dictatorship

!historychads !anticommunists !neolibs