This poetically named W. Eugune Smith photo has very little romance to it. Taken as US Marine Demolition Team Basting out a cave on Hill 382, Iwo Jima, 1945, the photo, LIFE magazine which portrayed a cropped version on its April issue wrote, not only “captures an instant of violence with an almost dreamlike clarity, but also silently reminded the American public that, after four long years of a war fought halfway around the world, American troops still faced (and administered) daily, relentless destruction”. 

Patton and Montgomery



Generals Montgomery and Patton shake hands. The laughing faces of the two man can be deceiving–two heroes of the WWII didn’t get along very well at all. Two massives egos and two different opinions of how to defeat the germans meant they were always arguing. Montgomery was pompous, Patton reckless–this prevented both men from leading the Allied Land Invasion of Europe.
They turned natural rivalry into deadly competition to see who would or could get to Berlin first. In Sicily, both recklessly pushed their man to get of Massena first (After two weeks of fighting, Monty arrived just two hours after Patton relieved the city). On their push towards Berlin, Monty complained that he had been fighting harder than Patton whereas Patton complained that Montgomery’s 21st Army group got priority on the supplies. Both overlooked the fact that Monty was leading the main thrust (although both thought each other’s army was doing main thrust).




American Generals during WWII



1945. The rare family photograph of the American generals: (seated left to right) William H. Simpson, George S. Patton, Jr., Carl Spaatz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Courtney H. Hodges, and Leonard T. Gerow; (standing l. to r.) Ralph F. Stearley, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Walter Bedell Smith, Otto P. Weyland, and Richard E. Nugent.



Paris Peace Conference

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For six months between January and July 1919, Paris was the center of the world–men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam.

Soon ideals and prejudices formed. The Russians were invited nominally but when their new Bolshevic Government chose to not participate, the Allies were much relieved. Millions were taken from their Ottoman and German colonial masters and given over to the French and British. The United States was offered a Mandate over the Kurds but refused it as Wilson did not want to get involved in middle east colonialism. The West did not want to accept Japan’s proposed “racial equality clause” so it instead decided to give Japan a slice of Chinese territory. 

In sessions, they discussed what seems eerily similar to our present-day issues: the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, of a homeland for the Jews, as well as Henry Cabot Lodge and Republican proposal to form a “League of Democracies”. 

Above, Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd-George leave the Trianon Palace, Versailles




The Treaty of Versailles











The Queen and the Pope



In 1980, Queen Elizabeth II made history by becoming the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.* Since the Vatican prohibits any non-Catholic women from wearing anything except black, Her Majesty was dressed in a long black taffeta gown. The pope welcomed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the door of his private library.
Thus met two greatest non-elected statesmen of 20th century. In 1982, John Paul would be welcomed by Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace during a historic visit to Great Britain. [However, it was made clear this would not be a state visit but one "to the Roman Catholic community in Great Britain"].  The Queen visited the Vatican again in 2000 to mark the 20th anniversary of their first meeting.
*She meet Pope Pius XII as a princess and Pope John XXIII on a state visit to Italy.