document_title: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

question_text: trans siberian orchestra the ghosts of christmas eve songs

text: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

text: Plot[edit]

text: The songs are presented in such a way as to form a storyline about a runaway who takes refuge in an abandoned theatre on Christmas Eve,[3] and experiences the musical performances as ghostly visions from the theatre's past. Ossie Davis as the caretaker, Allie Sheridan as the runaway, and Jennifer Sheridan and TSO vocalist Tommy Farese as the runaway's parents are used to fill out the narrative.[2] The special was filmed at the historic Loew's Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, New Jersey.

tag: p

text: It premiered on Fox Family on December 14, 1999 as part of their 25 Days of Christmas programming block. On November 13, 2001, it was released on DVD[4] with the Timeless Version of Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 included as a bonus track.

text: The lost child, Allie Sheridan, would go on to perform with TSO during their 2003 tour.

text: This story was performed live for the 2015 and 2016 tours and was announced as the story once again for the 2017 tour.[5]

text: List of songs[edit]

text:
"O Come All Ye Faithful / O Holy Night"
"Good King Joy"
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (featuring Jewel)
"Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24"
"Christmas Canon"
"O Holy Night" (featuring Michael Crawford)[2]
"Music Box Blues"
"Promises to Keep"
"This Christmas Day"
"First Snow"

tag: ol

text: Reception[edit]

text: The New York Times reviewed said, "the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has carried out a mission to create powerful artistry in music through the webbing of songs together by means of storytelling...artists like Jewel and Michael Crawford bring their own unique twists to a musical exploration of art and the Christmas spirit."[1]


document_title: Kofi Abrefa Busia

question_text: who overthrew the government of kofi busia and established military rule in ghana in 1972

root

text: Kofi Abrefa Busia

text: Early life[edit]

text: Busia was born a prince in the kingdom of Wenchi, in the Brong Ahafo Region, one of the four Gold Coast Territories, then under British rule and now called Ghana.[2]

text: Education[edit]

text: He was educated at Methodist School, Wenchi, Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, then at Wesley College, Kumasi, from 1931 to 1932. He later became a teacher at Achimota School and Wesley College. He gained his first degree with Honours in Medieval and Modern History from the University of London, through correspondence during this period. He then went on to study at University College, Oxford, where he was the college's first African student. He returned to the Gold Coast in 1942.[3]  He took a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (1941, MA) 1946) and a DPhil in Social Anthropology in 1947 at Nuffield College, Oxford, with a thesis entitled "The position of the chief in the modern political system of Ashanti: a study of the influence of contemporary social changes on Ashanti political institutions."

text: Career[edit]

text: He served as a district commissioner from 1942 to 1949, and was appointed first lecturer in African Studies. He became the first African to occupy a Chair at the University College of the Gold Coast (now the University of Ghana). In 1951 he was elected by the Ashanti Confederacy to the Legislative Council. In 1952, he was Leader of Ghana Congress Party,[4] which later merged with the other opposition parties to form the United Party (UP).

text: As leader of the opposition against Kwame Nkrumah, he fled the country on the grounds that his life was under threat. In 1959 Busia became a Professor of Sociology and Culture of Africa at the University of Leiden near the Hague, Netherlands. From 1962 until 1969, he was a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford.

text: He returned to Ghana in March 1966 after Nkrumah's government was overthrown by the military to serve on the National Liberation Council of General Joseph Ankrah, the military head of state;[1] and was appointed as the Chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the NLC. In 1967/68, he served as the Chairman of the Centre for Civic Education. He used this opportunity and sold himself as the next Leader. He also was a Member of the Constitutional Review Committee. When the NLC lifted the ban on politics, Busia, together with friends in the defunct UP formed the Progress Party (PP).[4]

text: In 1969, the PP won the parliamentary elections with 104 of the 105 seats contested. This paved the way for him to become the next Prime Minister. Busia continued with NLC's anti-Nkrumaist stance and adopted a liberalised economic system. There was a mass deportation of half a million Nigerian citizens from Ghana, and a 44 percent devaluation of the cedi in 1971, which met with a lot of resistance from the public.

text: While he was in Britain for a medical check-up, the army under Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong overthrew his government on 13 January 1972. Busia remained in exile in England and returned to Oxford University, where he died from a heart attack in August 1978.[3]

text: Along with J. B. Danquah and S. D. Dombo, Busia's name is associated with Ghana's political right. The New Patriotic Party has claimed the Danquah-Busia-Dombo mantle in the Fourth Republic.

text: The author Abena Busia, actress Akosua Busia are his daughters & yoga guru, Kofi Amaniampong Busia, is one of his sons. He left behind four sons and four daughters: Kwasi Osei, Afua Safoa, Nana Gyasi, Yaw, Abena, Kofi, Nana Frema and Akosua Busia.

text: Bibliography[edit]

text:
The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti. London, 1951 (Orig. Dissertation Oxford)
The Sociology and Culture of Africa. Leiden, 1960[5]
The Challenge of Africa. New York, 1962
Purposeful Education for Africa. The Hague, 1964
Urban Churches in Britain. London, 1966
Africa in Search of Democracy. London, 1967

tag: ul

text: Notes[edit]

text:
^ Jump up to: a b Martin, G. (23 December 2012). African Political Thought. Springer. ISBN 9781137062055. [permanent dead link]

Jump up ^ "Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia, Ex-Prime Minister: 1969 – 1972". ghanaweb.com. Archived from the original on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2016.

^ Jump up to: a b Lentz, Harris M. (4 February 2014). Heads of States and Governments Since 1945. Routledge. p. 320. ISBN 978-1-134-26490-2.

^ Jump up to: a b "Ghana:Political Parties". Encyclopaedias of the Nations. Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 15 April 2007.

Jump up ^ Leiden 1960 inaugural lecture open access online[permanent dead link]


document_title: I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside

question_text: who wrote oh i do like to be beside the seaside

text: I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside

text: This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

tag: table

text: "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" is a popular British music hall song. It was written in 1907 by John A. Glover-Kind[1] and made famous by music hall singer Mark Sheridan who first recorded it in 1909.[2] It speaks of the singer's love for the seaside, and his wish to return there for his summer holidays each year. It was composed at a time when the yearly visits of the British working-class to the seaside were booming.

text: It was, for a long time, used as a signature tune by Reginald Dixon MBE, who was the resident organist at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool between 1930-70.

text: Lyrics[edit]

text:
Now everybody likes to spend their summer holiday
down beside the side of the silvery sea.
I'm no exception to the rule, in fact, if I'd me way,
I'd reside by the side of the silvery sea.

text:
But when you're just the common or garden Smith or Jones or Brown
at business up in town, you're got to settle down.
You save your money all the year 'til summer comes around.
Then away you go to a place you know, where the cockle shells are found.

text:
Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside!
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play, "Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"

text:
So just let me be beside the seaside!
I'll be beside myself with glee
and there's lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside, beside the seaside,
beside the sea!

text:
Now William Sykes for burglary been out to work one night,
and filled his bag with cash and jewels and plate.
And Constable Brown felt no surprised when William hove in sight.
Said he, "The hours you're keeping are far too late."
So he grabbed him by the collar and lodged him safe and sound in jail.
Next morning looking pale, Bill told a tearful tale.
The judge said, "For a couple of months I'm sending you away!"
Said Bill, "How kind! Well if you don't mind, Where I spend my holiday!"

text: References in culture[edit]

text:
Cavalcade (1933), starring Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook, shows the song being performed by seaside entertainers in a scene set in 1909.
Sylvia Scarlett (1935), starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Bank Holiday (1938), starring Margaret Lockwood and Hugh Williams. The tune is used as a theme several times during the film.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), starring Basil Rathbone, involves a heavily disguised Holmes singing the song. An anachronism, as the film was set in 1894 thirteen years before the song was written.[citation needed]
Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939), starring Peter Lorre and George Sanders. The antagonist's (Ricardo Cortez) ventriloquism act features a dummy singing the song while he drinks a glass of water and smokes a cigarette.[citation needed]
Carry On... Follow That Camel (1967): when the foreign legionnaires become lost in the North African desert they sing the song.[citation needed]
Oh What a Lovely War (1969) features a pierside scene where Sir Douglas Haig is trying to recruit for the First World War, with the words of the song changed to “I do to like to see a lot of soldiers”.[citation needed]
The Doctor Who episodes Death to the Daleks and The Leisure Hive feature the song. In the first it was sung by the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) while in the second it was part of the music score of the episode.
The opening two sentences in the chorus are included at the end of the song Seven Seas Of Rhye (1974) from Queen. It is also whistled at the beginning of the song "Brighton Rock" from the Album Sheer Heart Attack.
The Goodies episode Holidays (1982) features the song as part of the "Victorian musical evening", at first sung only by Tim Brooke-Taylor, before Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie join in, and it becomes a punk rock song.
An Awfully Big Adventure (1994), starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, includes a scene where two theatre troupes sing the chorus of the song while riding a bus to a football game.[citation needed]
Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service Season 7 Episode 18 (2010), starring David McCallum, includes a scene where he is walking by the seaside singing the song.
In Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned the song is sung near the end of "Off Route" mission by cannibalistic serial killer Curtis Stocker.
Thomas & Friends episode Thomas the Quarry Engine (2014) ends with Mavis, Salty, Cranky, Thomas, and Porter singing the song. It is also sung in the episode "Toad and the Whale" (2015).
Mr. Bean (animated TV series) episode Holiday for Teddy ,Mr Bean sings the song.
The Vicar of Dibley, Dawn French, sings the chorus while intoxicated in the "Merry Christmas" episode .
In the Outlander (TV series), the song is sung by Claire Fraser to her stillborn child, Faith, in episode 207, "Faith" (2016).


document_title: List of Premier League highest scoring games

question_text: whats the highest score in the premier league

text: This is a summary of the highest scoring games and biggest winning margins in the Premier League since its establishment in the 1992–93 season. The record for the biggest win is Manchester United's 9–0 victory against Ipswich Town at Old Trafford on 4th March 1995. Tottenham Hotspur are the only other club to have scored nine goals in a Premier League game - in their 9–1 victory over Wigan Athletic at White Hart Lane on 22 November 2009. This game also boasts the record number of goals scored by both teams in one half of Premier League football (nine), and by one team in one half of Premier League football (eight, by Tottenham). Manchester United also hold the record for the biggest winning margin away from home with an 8–1 victory over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground in Nottingham on 6 February 1999.

text: The highest scoring game is Portsmouth's 7–4 win against Reading at Fratton Park in the 2007–2008 season

text: Highest scoring games[edit]

text:
Goals
scored
Date
Home team
Result
Away team
Goal scorers
Ref

11
000000002007-09-29-000029 September 2007

Portsmouth

7–4

Reading

Benjani 7', 37', 70', Hreiðarsson 55', Kranjčar 75', Ingimarsson 81' (o.g.), Muntari 90' (pen.)
Hunt 45', Kitson 48', Long 79', Campbell 90' (o.g.)
[1]

10
000000002007-12-29-000029 December 2007

Tottenham Hotspur

6–4

Reading

Berbatov 7', 63', 73', 83', Malbranque 76', Defoe 79
Cissé 16', Ingimarsson 53', Kitson 69', 74'
[2]

10
000000002009-11-22-000022 November 2009

Tottenham Hotspur

9–1

Wigan Athletic

Crouch 9', Defoe 51', 54', 58', 69', 87' Lennon 64', Bentley 88', Kranjčar 90'
Scharner 57'
[3]

10
000000002011-08-28-000028 August 2011

Manchester United

8–2

Arsenal

Welbeck 22', Young 28', 90+1', Rooney 41', 64', 82' (pen.), Nani 67', Park 70'
Walcott 45+3', Van Persie 74'
[4]

10
000000002012-12-29-000029 December 2012

Arsenal

7–3

Newcastle United

Walcott 20', 73', 90+2', Oxlade-Chamberlain 50', Podolski 64', Giroud 84', 87'
Ba 43', 69', Marveaux 59'
[5]

10
000000002013-05-19-000019 May 2013

West Bromwich Albion

5–5

Manchester United

Morrison 40', Lukaku 50', 81', 86', Mulumbu 81'
Kagawa 6', Olsson 9' (o.g.), Büttner 30', Van Persie 53', Hernández 63'
[6]

9
000000001994-04-09-00009 April 1994

Norwich City

4–5

Southampton

Robins 37', Goss 49', Sutton 56', 64'
Ullathorne 44' (o.g.), Le Tissier 58', 63' (pen.), 73', Monkou 90'
[7]

9
000000001995-03-04-00004 March 1995

Manchester United

9–0

Ipswich Town

Keane 15', Cole 19', 37', 53', 65', 87', Hughes 55', 59', Ince 72'
[8]

9
000000001996-10-26-000026 October 1996

Southampton

6–3

Manchester United

Berkovic 6', 63', Le Tissier 34', Østenstad 45', 85', P. Neville 90' (o.g.)
Beckham 41', May 56', Scholes 89'
[9]

9
000000001997-08-26-000026 August 1997

Blackburn Rovers

7–2

Sheffield Wednesday

Gallacher 2', 7', Hyde 10' (o.g.), Wilcox 20', Sutton 24', 74', Bohinen 53'
Carbone 8', 47'
[10]

9
000000001999-02-06-00006 February 1999

Nottingham Forest

1–8

Manchester United

Rogers 6'
Yorke 2', 67', Cole 7', 50', Solskjær 80', 88', 90', 90'
[11]

9
000000002000-02-12-000012 February 2000

West Ham United

5–4

Bradford City

Sinclair 35', Moncur 43', Di Canio 65' (pen.), Cole 70', Lampard 83'
Windass 30', Beagrie 44' (pen.), Lawrence 47', 51'
[12]

9
000000002000-03-11-000011 March 2000

Tottenham Hotspur

7–2

Southampton

Richards 28' (o.g.), Anderton 39', Armstrong 41', 64', Iversen 45', 78', 90'
Tessem 26', El Khalej 33'
[13]

9
000000002004-11-13-000013 November 2004

Tottenham Hotspur

4–5

Arsenal

Naybet 37', Defoe 61', King 74', Kanouté 88'
Henry 45', Lauren 55' (pen.), Vieira 60', Ljungberg 69', Pirès 81'
[14]

9
000000002008-05-11-000011 May 2008

Middlesbrough

8–1

Manchester City

Downing 16' (pen.), 58' Alves 37', 60, 90', Johnson 70', Rochemback 80', Aliadière 85'
Elano 87'
[15]

9
000000002010-01-16-000016 January 2010

Chelsea

7–2

Sunderland

Anelka 8', 65', Malouda 17', A. Cole 22', Lampard 34', 90', Ballack 52'
Zenden 56', Bent 90'
[16]

9
000000002013-12-14-000014 December 2013

Manchester City

6–3

Arsenal

Agüero 14', Negredo 39', Fernandinho 50', 88', Silva 66', Touré 90'
Walcott 31', 63', Mertesacker 90'
[17]

9
000000002014-03-22-000022 March 2014

Cardiff City

3–6

Liverpool

Mutch 9', 88', Campbell 25'
Suárez 16', 60', 90', Škrtel 41', 54', Sturridge 75'
[18]

9
000000002014-08-30-000030 August 2014

Everton

3–6

Chelsea

Mirallas 45', Naismith 69' Eto'o 76',
Costa 1', 90', Ivanović 3', Coleman 67' (o.g.), Matić 74', Ramires 77'
[19]

9
000000002016-01-23-000023 January 2016
Norwich City
4–5
Liverpool
Mbokani 29', Naismith 41' Hoolahan 54' (pen.), Bassong 90+2'
Firmino 18', 63', Henderson 55', Milner 75', Lallana 90+5'
[20]

9
000000002016-11-26-000026 November 2016
Swansea City
5–4
Crystal Palace
Sigurðsson 36', Fer 66', 68', Llorente 90+1', 90+3'
Zaha 19', Tomkins 75', Cork 82' (o.g.), C. Benteke 84'
[21]

9
000000002017-02-04-00004 February 2017
Everton
6–3
AFC Bournemouth
Lukaku 1', 29', 83', 84', McCarthy 24', Barkley 90+4'
King 59', 70', Arter 90'
[22]

9
14 October 2017
Manchester City
7–2
Stoke City
Jesus 17', 55', Sterling 19', Silva 27', Fernandinho 60', Sane 62', Silva 79'
Diouf 44', Walker 47' (o.g.)

[34]

text: Biggest winning margin[edit]

text:
Goals
margin
Date
Home team
Result
Away team
Goal Scorers
Ref

9
000000001995-03-04-00004 March 1995

Manchester United

9–0

Ipswich Town

Keane 15', Cole 19', 37', 53', 65', 87', Hughes 55', 59', Ince 72'
-
[8]

8
000000001999-09-19-000019 September 1999

Newcastle United

8–0

Sheffield Wednesday

Hughes 11', Shearer 30', 33' (pen.), 42', 81', 84' (pen.), Dyer 48', Speed 78'
-
[23]

8
000000002009-11-22-000022 November 2009

Tottenham Hotspur

9–1

Wigan Athletic

Crouch 9', Defoe 51', 54', 58', 69', 87', Lennon 64', Bentley 88', Kranjčar 90'
Scharner 57'
[3]

8
000000002010-05-09-00009 May 2010

Chelsea

8–0

Wigan Athletic

Anelka 6', 56', Lampard 32' (pen.), Kalou 54', Drogba 63', 68' (pen.), 80', A. Cole 90'
-
[24]

8
000000002012-12-23-000023 December 2012

Chelsea

8–0

Aston Villa

Torres 3', David Luiz 29', Ivanović 34', Lampard 59', Ramires 75', 90+1', Oscar 79' (pen.), Hazard 83'
-
[25]

8
000000002014-10-18-000018 October 2014

Southampton

8–0

Sunderland

Vergini 12' (o.g.), Pellè 18', 69', Cork 37', Bridcutt 63' (o.g.), Tadić 78', Wanyama 79', Mané 86'
-
[26]

7
000000001995-11-18-000018 November 1995

Blackburn Rovers

7–0

Nottingham Forest

Shearer 20', 57', 68', Bohinen 28', 76', Newell 82', Le Saux 89'
-
[27]

7
000000001997-10-25-000025 October 1997

Manchester United

7–0

Barnsley

Cole 17', 19', 45', Giggs 43', 56', Scholes 59', Poborský 80'
-
[28]

7
000000001999-02-06-00006 February 1999

Nottingham Forest

1–8

Manchester United

Rogers 6'
Yorke 2', 67', Cole 7', 50', Solskjær 80', 88', 90', 90'
[29]

7
000000002005-05-11-000011 May 2005

Arsenal

7–0

Everton

Van Persie 8', Pirès 12', 50', Vieira 37', Edu 70' (pen.), Bergkamp 77', Flamini 85'
-
[30]

7
000000002006-01-14-000014 January 2006

Arsenal

7–0

Middlesbrough

Henry 20', 30', 68', Senderos 22', Pirès 45', Silva 59', Hleb 84'
-
[31]

7
000000002008-05-11-000011 May 2008

Middlesbrough

8–1

Manchester City

Downing 16' (pen.), 58' Alves 37', 60, 90', Johnson 70', Rochemback 80', Aliadière 85'
Elano 87'
[15]

7
000000002010-04-25-000025 April 2010

Chelsea

7–0

Stoke City

Kalou 24', 31', 68', Lampard 44' (pen), 81', Sturridge 87', Malouda 89'
-
[32]

7
000000002013-11-02-00002 November 2013

Manchester City

7–0

Norwich City

Johnson 16' (og), Silva 20', Nastasić 25', Negredo 36', Touré 60', Agüero 71', Džeko 86'
-
[33]


document_title: Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

question_text: prague spring involved the warsaw pact invasion of

question_tokens: prague spring involved the warsaw pact invasion of

text: Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

text: Background[edit]

text:
Eastern Bloc
Soviet Socialist Republics[show]
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Byelorussia
Estonia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kirghizia
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldavia
Russian SFSR
Tajikistan
Turkmenia
Ukraine
Uzbekistan

Allied states[show]
Hungarian People's Republic
Polish People's Republic
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
Socialist Republic of Romania
German Democratic Republic
People's Republic of Bulgaria
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(to 1948)
People's Socialist Republic of Albania(to 1961)
Republic of Cuba
People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada
People's Republic of Benin
People's Republic of the Congo
People's Republic of Angola
People's Republic of Mozambique
People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Somali Democratic Republic(to 1977)
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Mongolian People's Republic
People's Republic of China(to 1961)
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Lao People's Democratic Republic
People's Republic of Kampuchea

Related organizations[show]
Cominform
COMECON
Warsaw Pact
World Federation ofTrade Unions (WFTU)
World Federation ofDemocratic Youth (WFDY)

Dissent and opposition[show]Forest Brothers in Lithuaniain Latviain Estonia Operation "Jungle"
Ukrainian Insurgent Army
Goryani movement (Bulgaria)
Romanian anti-communism
Polish Cursed Soldiers
1953 uprisings in Plzeňin East Germany
1956 protests in Georgiain Poznań
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Novocherkassk massacre (Russia)
1968 events Prague SpringInvasion of CzechoslovakiaRed Square demonstration
Charter 77 (Czechoslovakia)
Solidarity (Poland)
Jeltoqsan (Kazakhstan)
Braşov Rebellion (Romania)
January Events (Lithuania)
The Barricades (Latvia)
April 9 tragedy (Georgia)
Black January (Azerbaijan)

Cold War events[show]
Marshall Plan
1948 Czechoslovak coup
Tito–Stalin split
Berlin Blockade
1961 Berlin Wall crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
1980 Moscow Olympics

Decline[show]
Singing Revolution
Polish Round Table Agreement
Revolutions of 1989
Fall of the Berlin Wall
January 1991 in Lithuaniain Latvia
Breakup of Yugoslavia
Yugoslav Wars
End of the Soviet Union
Fall of communism in Albania
vte

text: Novotný's regime in the late 1950s and early 1960s[edit]

text: The process of de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia had begun under Antonín Novotný in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but had progressed more slowly than in most other states of the Eastern Bloc.[18] Following the lead of Nikita Khrushchev, Novotný proclaimed the completion of socialism, and the new constitution,[19] accordingly, adopted the name Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The pace of change, however, was sluggish; the rehabilitation of Stalinist-era victims, such as those convicted in the Slánský trials, may have been considered as early as 1963, but did not take place until 1967.

text: In the early 1960s, Czechoslovakia underwent an economic downturn. The Soviet model of industrialization applied poorly to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was already quite industrialized before World War II and the Soviet model mainly took into account less developed economies. Novotný's attempt at restructuring the economy, the 1965 New Economic Model, spurred increased demand for political reform as well.

text: 1967 Writers' Congress[edit]

text:
As the strict regime eased its rules, the Union of Czechoslovak Writers cautiously began to air discontent, and in the union's gazette, Literární noviny, members suggested that literature should be independent of Party doctrine.
In June 1967, a small fraction of the Czech writer's union sympathized with radical socialists, specifically Ludvík Vaculík, Milan Kundera, Jan Procházka, Antonín Jaroslav Liehm, Pavel Kohout and Ivan Klíma.
A few months later, at a party meeting, it was decided that administrative actions against the writers who openly expressed support of reformation would be taken. Since only a small part of the union held these beliefs, the remaining members were relied upon to discipline their colleagues.  Control over Literární noviny and several other publishing houses was transferred to the Ministry of Culture, and even members of the party who later became major reformers – including Dubček – endorsed these moves.

text: Prague Spring[edit]

text: The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.

text: The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia-Silesia and Slovakia, Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.[20] This was the only formal change that survived the end of Prague Spring, though the relative success of the nonviolent resistance undoubtedly prefigured and facilitated the peaceful transition to liberal democracy with the collapse of Soviet hegemony in 1989.

text: The reforms, especially the decentralization of administrative authority, were not received well by the Soviets, who, after failed negotiations, sent half a million Warsaw Pact troops and tanks to occupy the country. A large wave of emigration swept the nation. A spirited non-violent resistance was mounted throughout the country, involving attempted fraternization, painting over and turning street signs (on one occasion an entire invasion force from Poland was routed back out of the country after a day's wandering, another force went around in a circle), defiance of various curfews, etc.  While the Soviet military had predicted that it would take four days to subdue the country the resistance held out for eight months, and was only circumvented by diplomatic stratagems.  There were sporadic acts of violence and several suicides by self-immolation (such as that of Jan Palach), but there was no military resistance. Czechoslovakia remained controlled until 1989, when the velvet revolution ended pro-Soviet rule peacefully, undoubtedly drawing upon the successes of the non-violent resistance twenty years earlier.  The resistance also became an iconic example of civilian-based defense, which, along with unarmed civilian peacekeeping constitute the two ways that nonviolence can be and occasionally has been applied directly to military or paramilitary threats.

text: After the invasion, Czechoslovakia entered a period of normalization: subsequent leaders attempted to restore the political and economic values that had prevailed before Dubček gained control of the KSČ. Gustáv Husák, who replaced Dubček and also became president, reversed almost all of Dubček's reforms. The Prague Spring inspired music and literature such as the work of Václav Havel, Karel Husa, Karel Kryl, and Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

text: Brezhnev's government[edit]

text: Leonid Brezhnev and the leadership of the Warsaw Pact countries were worried that the unfolding liberalizations in Czechoslovakia, including the ending of censorship and political surveillance by the secret police, would be detrimental to their interests. The first such fear was that Czechoslovakia would defect from the bloc, injuring the Soviet Union's position in a possible war with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Not only would the loss result in a lack of strategic depth for the USSR,[21] but it would also mean that it could not tap Czechoslovakia's industrial base in a potential war.[22] Czechoslovak leaders had no intention of leaving the Warsaw Pact, but Moscow felt it could not be certain exactly what Prague's intentions were.

text: Other fears included the spread of liberalization and unrest elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact countries feared that if the Prague Spring reforms went unchecked, then those ideals might very well spread to Poland and East Germany, upsetting the status quo there as well. Within the Soviet Union, nationalism in the republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine was already causing problems, and many were worried that events in Prague might exacerbate those problems.[23] KGB chairman Yuri Andropov and Ukrainian leaders Petro Shelest and Nikolai Podgorny were the most vehement proponents of military intervention.[24]

text: In addition, part of Czechoslovakia bordered Austria and West Germany, which were on the other side of the Iron Curtain. This meant both that foreign agents could potentially slip into Czechoslovakia and into any member of the Communist Bloc and that defectors could slip out to the West.[25] The final concern emerged directly from the lack of censorship; writers whose work had been censored in the Soviet Union could simply go to Prague or Bratislava and air their grievances there, circumventing the Soviet Union's censorship.

text: Dubček's rise to power[edit]

text: As President Antonín Novotný was losing support, Alexander Dubček, First Secretary of the regional Communist Party of Slovakia, and economist Ota Šik challenged him at a meeting of the Central Committee. Novotný then invited Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev to Prague that December, seeking support; but Brezhnev was surprised at the extent of the opposition to Novotný and thus supported his removal as Czechoslovakia's leader. Dubček replaced Novotný as First Secretary on 5 January 1968. On 22 March 1968, Novotný resigned his presidency and was replaced by Ludvík Svoboda, who later gave consent to the reforms.

text: Early signs of change were few.[citation needed] When the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) Presidium member Josef Smrkovský was interviewed in a Rudé Právo article, entitled "What Lies Ahead", he insisted that Dubček's appointment at the January Plenum would further the goals of socialism and maintain the working class nature of the Communist Party.

text: Socialism with a human face[edit]

text: On the 20th anniversary of Czechoslovakia's "Victorious February", Dubček delivered a speech explaining the need for change following the triumph of socialism. He emphasized the need to "enforce the leading role of the party more effectively"[26] and acknowledged that, despite Klement Gottwald's urgings for better relations with society, the Party had too often made heavy-handed rulings on trivial issues. Dubček declared the party's mission was "to build an advanced socialist society on sound economic foundations ... a socialism that corresponds to the historical democratic traditions of Czechoslovakia, in accordance with the experience of other communist parties ..."[26]

text: In April, Dubček launched an "Action Programme" of liberalizations, which included increasing freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement, with economic emphasis on consumer goods and the possibility of a multiparty government. The programme was based on the view that "Socialism cannot mean only liberation of the working people from the domination of exploiting class relations, but must make more provisions for a fuller life of the personality than any bourgeois democracy."[27] It would limit the power of the secret police[28] and provide for the federalization of the ČSSR into two equal nations.[29] The programme also covered foreign policy, including both the maintenance of good relations with Western countries and cooperation with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations.[30] It spoke of a ten-year transition through which democratic elections would be made possible and a new form of democratic socialism would replace the status quo.[31]

text: Those who drafted the Action Programme were careful not to criticize the actions of the post-war Communist regime, only to point out policies that they felt had outlived their usefulness.[32] For instance, the immediate post-war situation had required "centralist and directive-administrative methods"[32] to fight against the "remnants of the bourgeoisie."[32] Since the "antagonistic classes"[32] were said to have been defeated with the achievement of socialism, these methods were no longer necessary.  Reform was needed, for the Czechoslovak economy to join the "scientific-technical revolution in the world"[32] rather than relying on Stalinist-era heavy industry, labour power, and raw materials.[32] Furthermore, since internal class conflict had been overcome, workers could now be duly rewarded for their qualifications and technical skills without contravening Marxism-Leninism. The Programme suggested it was now necessary to ensure important positions were "filled by capable, educated socialist expert cadres" in order to compete with capitalism.[32]

text: Although it was stipulated that reform must proceed under KSČ direction, popular pressure mounted to implement reforms immediately.[33] Radical elements became more vocal: anti-Soviet polemics appeared in the press (after the abolishment of censorship was formally confirmed by law of 26 June  1968),[31] the Social Democrats began to form a separate party, and new unaffiliated political clubs were created. Party conservatives urged repressive measures, but Dubček counselled moderation and re-emphasized KSČ leadership.[34] At the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in April, Dubček announced a political programme of "socialism with a human face".[35] In May, he announced that the Fourteenth Party Congress would convene in an early session on 9 September. The congress would incorporate the Action Programme into the party statutes, draft a federalization law, and elect a new Central Committee.[36]

text: Dubček's reforms guaranteed freedom of the press, and political commentary was allowed for the first time in mainstream media.[37] At the time of the Prague Spring, Czechoslovak exports were declining in competitiveness, and Dubček's reforms planned to solve these troubles by mixing planned and market economies. Within the party, there were varying opinions on how this should proceed; certain economists wished for a more mixed economy while others wanted the economy to remain mostly socialist. Dubček continued to stress the importance of economic reform proceeding under Communist Party rule.[38]

text: On 27 June Ludvík Vaculík, a leading author and journalist, published a manifesto titled The Two Thousand Words. It expressed concern about conservative elements within the KSČ and so-called "foreign" forces. Vaculík called on the people to take the initiative in implementing the reform programme.[39] Dubček, the party Presidium, the National Front, and the cabinet denounced this manifesto.[40]

text: Publications and media[edit]

text: Dubček's relaxation of censorship ushered in a brief period of freedom of speech and the press.[41] The first tangible manifestation of this new policy of openness was the production of the previously hard-line communist weekly Literarni noviny, renamed Literarni listy.[42][43]

text: The reduction and later complete abolition of the censorship on 4. March 1968 was one of the most important steps towards the reforms. It was for the first time in Czech history the censorship was abolished and it was probably the only reform fully implemented, albeit only for a short period. From the instrument of Party's propaganda media quickly became the instrument of criticism of the regime.[44][45]

text: Freedom of the press also opened the door for the first honest look at Czechoslovakia's past by Czechoslovakia's people. Many of the investigations centered on the country's history under communism, especially in the instance of the Joseph Stalin-period.[42] In another television appearance, Goldstucker presented both doctored and undoctored photographs of former communist leaders who had been purged, imprisoned, or executed and thus erased from communist history.[43] The Writer's Union also formed a committee in April 1968, headed by the poet Jaroslav Seifert, to investigate the persecution of writers after the Communist takeover in February 1948 and rehabilitate the literary figures into the Union, bookstores and libraries, and the literary world.[46][47] Discussions on the current state of communism and abstract ideas such as freedom and identity were also becoming more common; soon, non-party publications began appearing, such as the trade union daily Prace (Labour). This was also helped by the Journalists Union, which by March 1968 had already convinced the Central Publication Board, the government censor, to allow editors to receive uncensored subscriptions for foreign papers, allowing for a more international dialogue around the news.[48]

text: The press, the radio, and the television also contributed to these discussions by hosting meetings where students and young workers could ask questions of writers such as Goldstucker, Pavel Kohout, and Jan Prochazka and political victims such as Josef Smrkovský, Zdenek Hejzlar, and Gustav Husak.[49] Television also broadcast meetings between former political prisoners and the communist leaders from the secret police or prisons where they were held.[43] Most importantly, this new freedom of the press and the introduction of television into the lives of everyday Czechoslovak citizens moved the political dialogue from the intellectual to the popular sphere.

text: Czechoslovak negotiations with the USSR and other Warsaw Pact states[edit]

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text: The Soviet leadership at first tried to stop or limit the impact of Dubček's initiatives through a series of negotiations. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks to be held in July 1968 at Čierna nad Tisou, near the Slovak-Soviet border.[50]

text: At the meeting, with attendance of Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov and others on the Soviet side and Dubček, Ludvík Svoboda, Oldřich Černík, Josef Smrkovský and others on the Czechoslovak side, Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. The KSČ leadership, however, was divided between vigorous reformers (Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík, Josef Špaček and František Kriegel) who supported Dubček, and conservatives (Vasil Biľak, Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka) who represented an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb "anti-socialist" tendencies, prevent the revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press by the re-imposition of a higher level of censorship.[50] In return the USSR agreed to withdraw their troops (still stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June 1968 maneuvers) and permit 9 September party congress.

text: On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, People's Republic of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia met in Bratislava and signed the Bratislava Declaration.[51] The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and declared an implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology and all "antisocialist" forces.[52] The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in a Warsaw Pact country if a bourgeois system—a pluralist system of several political parties representing different factions of the capitalist class—was ever established.[53] After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders.[52]

text: As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the USSR began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite states to subordinate their national interests to those of the Eastern Bloc (through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.[53]

text: NATO[edit]

text: The United States and NATO largely turned a blind eye to the evolving situation in Czechoslovakia. While the Soviet Union was worried that it might lose an ally, the United States had absolutely no desire to gain it. President Lyndon B. Johnson had already involved the United States in the Vietnam War and was unlikely to be able to drum up support for a potential conflict in Czechoslovakia. Also, he wanted to pursue an arms control treaty with the Soviets, SALT. He needed a willing partner in Moscow in order to reach such an agreement, and he did not wish to potentially risk that treaty for Czechoslovakia.[54] For these reasons, the United States made it clear that it would not intervene on behalf of the Prague Spring, giving the USSR a free hand to do as it pleased.

text: Invasion and Intervention[edit]

text: At approximately 11 pm on 20 August 1968,[55] Eastern Bloc armies from four Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union, Bulgaria,[56] Poland and Hungary – invaded Czechoslovakia. That night, 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country.[5] The total number of invading troops eventually reached 500,000.[6] Romania did not take part in the invasion,[57] nor did Albania, which subsequently withdrew from the Warsaw Pact over the matter.[58] The participation of the German Democratic Republic was cancelled just hours before the invasion.[1] The decision for the non-participation of the East German Army in the invasion was made on short notice by Brezhnev following requests by high-ranking Czechoslovak opponents of Dubcek who feared much larger Czechoslovak resistance if German troops were present on Czechoslovak territory, due to previous Czech experience with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.[59]

text: The invasion was well planned and coordinated; simultaneously with the border crossing by ground forces, a Soviet airborne division (VDV) captured Prague Václav Havel Airport (at the time called Ruzyne International Airport) in the early hours of the invasion. It began with a special flight from Moscow which carried more than 100 plain clothes agents. They quickly secured the airport and prepared the way for the huge forthcoming airlift, in which An-12 transport aircraft began arriving and unloading Soviet airborne troops equipped with artillery and light tanks.

text: As the operation at the airport continued, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting no resistance. The bulk of the invading forces were from the Soviet Union supported by other countries from the communist bloc. Among them were 28,000 troops[60] of the Polish 2nd Army from the Silesian Military District, commanded by general Florian Siwicki, and all invading Hungarian troops were withdrawn by 31 October.[61]

text: During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 137 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia)[62] and hundreds were wounded. Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken to Moscow along with several of his colleagues. Dubček and most of the reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August, and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary until he was forced to resign in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots.

text: The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total).[63] Western countries allowed these people to immigrate without complications.

text: Failure to prepare[edit]

text: The Dubček regime took no steps to forestall a potential invasion, despite ominous troop movements by the Warsaw Pact. The Czechoslovak leadership believed that the Soviet Union and its allies would not invade, having believed that the summit at Čierna nad Tisou had smoothed out the differences between the two sides.[64] They also believed that any invasion would be too costly, both because of domestic support for the reforms and because the international political outcry would be too significant, especially with the World Communist Conference coming up in November of that year. Czechoslovakia could have raised the costs of such an invasion by drumming up international support or making military preparations such as blocking roads and ramping up security of their airports, but they decided not to, paving the way for the invasion.[65]

text: Letter of invitation[edit]

text: Although on the night of the invasion, the Czechoslovak Presidium declared that Warsaw Pact troops had crossed the border without the knowledge of the ČSSR Government, the Soviet Press printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces".[66] At the 14th KSČ Party Congress (conducted secretly, immediately following the intervention), it was emphasized that no member of the leadership had invited the intervention. At the time, a number of commentators believed the letter was fake or non-existent.

text: In the early 1990s, however, the Russian government gave the new Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel, a copy of a letter of invitation addressed to Soviet authorities and signed by KSČ members Biľak, Švestka, Kolder, Indra, and Kapek. It claimed that "right-wing" media were "fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism, and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis". It formally asked the Soviets to "lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal" to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic "from the imminent danger of counterrevolution".[67]

text: A 1992 Izvestia article claimed that candidate Presidium member Antonin Kapek gave Leonid Brezhnev a letter at the Soviet-Czechoslovak Čierna nad Tisou talks in late July which appealed for "fraternal help". A second letter was supposedly delivered by Biľak to Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest during the August Bratislava conference "in a lavatory rendezvous arranged through the KGB station chief".[67] This letter was signed by the same five as Kapek's letter, mentioned above.

text: Internal plot[edit]

text: Long before the invasion, planning for a coup was undertaken by Indra, Kolder, and Biľak, among others, often at the Soviet embassy and at the Party recreation centre at Orlík Dam.[67] When these men had managed to convince a majority of the Presidium (six of eleven voting members) to side with them against Alexander Dubček's reformists, they asked the USSR to launch a military invasion. The USSR leadership was even considering waiting until 26 August Slovak Party Congress, but the Czechoslovak conspirators "specifically requested the night of the 20th".[67]

text: The plan was to unfold as follows. A debate would unfold in response to the Kašpar report on the state of the country, during which conservative members would insist that Dubček present two letters he had received from the USSR, letters which listed promises he had made at the Čierna nad Tisou talks but had failed to keep. Dubček's concealment of such important letters, and his unwillingness to keep his promises would lead to a vote of confidence which the now conservative majority would win, seizing power, and issue a request for Soviet assistance in preventing a counterrevolution. It was this formal request, drafted in Moscow, which was published in Pravda on 22 August without the signatories. All the USSR needed to do was suppress the Czechoslovak military and any violent resistance.[68]

text: With this plan in mind, the 16–17 August Soviet Politburo meeting passed a resolution to "provide help to the Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force".[68] At 18 August Warsaw Pact meeting, Brezhnev announced that the intervention would go ahead on the night of 20 August, and asked for "fraternal support", which the national leaders of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland duly offered.

text: Failure of the plot[edit]

text: The coup, however, did not go according to plan. Kolder intended to review the Kašpar report early in the meeting, but Dubček and Špaček, suspicious of Kolder, adjusted the agenda so the upcoming 14th Party Congress could be covered before any discussion on recent reforms or Kašpar's report. Discussion of the Congress dragged on, and before the conspirators had a chance to request a confidence vote, early news of the invasion reached the Presidium.[66]

text: An anonymous warning was transmitted by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Hungary, Jozef Púčik, approximately six hours before Soviet troops crossed the border at midnight.[66] When the news arrived, the solidarity of conservative coalition crumbled. When the Presidium proposed a declaration condemning the invasion, two key members of the conspiracy, Jan Pillar and František Barbírek, switched sides to support Dubček. With their help, declaration against the invasion won with a 7:4 majority.[67]

text: Moscow Protocol[edit]

text: By the morning of 21 August, Dubček and other prominent reformists had been arrested and were later flown to Moscow. There they were held in secret and interrogated for days.[69]

text: The conservatives asked Svoboda to create an "emergency government" but since they had not won a clear majority of support, he refused. Instead, he and Gustáv Husák traveled to Moscow on 23 August to insist Dubček and Černík should be included in a solution to the conflict. After days of negotiations, all members of the Czechoslovak delegation (including all the highest-ranked officials President Svoboda, First Secretary Dubček, Prime Minister Černík and Chairman of the National Assembly Smrkovský) but one (František Kriegel)[70] accepted the "Moscow Protocol", and signed their commitment to its fifteen points. The Protocol demanded the suppression of opposition groups, the full reinstatement of censorship, and the dismissal of specific reformist officials.[68] It did not, however, refer to the situation in the ČSSR as "counterrevolutionary" nor did it demand a reversal of the post-January course.[68]

text: Reactions in Czechoslovakia[edit]

text: Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance. In Prague and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Every form of assistance, including the provision of food and water, was denied to the invaders. Signs, placards, and graffiti drawn on walls and pavements denounced the invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborationists. Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared in the streets. Citizens gave wrong directions to soldiers and even removed street signs (except for those giving the direction back to Moscow).[71]

text: Initially, some civilians tried to argue with the invading troops, but this met with little or no success. After the USSR used photographs of these discussions as proof that the invasion troops were being greeted amicably, secret Czechoslovak broadcasting stations discouraged the practice, reminding the people that "pictures are silent".[72] The protests in reaction to the invasion lasted only about seven days. Explanations for the fizzling of these public outbursts mostly centre on demoralisation of the population, whether from the intimidation of all the enemy troops and tanks or from being abandoned by their leaders. Many Czechoslovaks saw the signing of the Moscow Protocol as treasonous.[73] Another common explanation is that, due to the fact that most of Czech society was middle class, the cost of continued resistance meant giving up a comfortable lifestyle, which was too high a price to pay.[74]

text: The generalised resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust the First Secretary. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of 20 August, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. It was agreed that Dubček would remain in office, but he was no longer free to pursue liberalisation as he had before the invasion.

text: On 19 January 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest the renewed suppression of free speech.

text: Finally, on 17 April 1969, Dubček was replaced as First Secretary by Gustáv Husák, and a period of "Normalization" began. Pressure from the Soviet Union pushed politicians to either switch loyalties or simply give up. In fact, the very group that voted in Dubček and put the reforms in place were mostly the same people who annulled the program and replaced Dubček with Husák. Husák reversed Dubček's reforms, purged the party of its liberal members, and dismissed the professional and intellectual elites who openly expressed disagreement with the political turnaround from public offices and jobs.

text: Reactions in other Warsaw Pact countries[edit]

text: Soviet Union[edit]

text: On 25 August, at the Red Square, eight protesters carried banners with anti-invasion slogans. The demonstrators were arrested and later punished, as the protest was dubbed "anti-Soviet".[75][76]

text: One unintended consequence of the invasion was that many within the Soviet State security apparatus and Intelligence Services were shocked and outraged at the invasion and several KGB/GRU defectors and spies such as Oleg Gordievsky, Vasili Mitrokhin, and Dmitri Polyakov have pointed out the 1968 invasion as their motivation for cooperating with the Western Intelligence agencies.

text: Poland[edit]

text: In the People's Republic of Poland, on 8 September 1968, Ryszard Siwiec immolated himself in Warsaw during a harvest festival at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in protest against the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia and the totalitarianism of the Stalinist government.[77][78] Siwiec did not survive.[77]

text: Romania[edit]

text: A more pronounced effect took place in the Socialist Republic of Romania, which did not take part in the invasion. Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was already a staunch opponent of Soviet influence and had previously declared himself on Dubček's side, held a public speech in Bucharest on the day of the invasion, depicting Soviet policies in harsh terms. This response consolidated Romania's independent voice in the next two decades, especially after Ceauşescu encouraged the population to take up arms in order to meet any similar manoeuvre in the country: he received an enthusiastic initial response, with many people, who were by no means Communist, willing to enrol in the newly formed paramilitary Patriotic Guards.

text: East Germany[edit]

text: In the German Democratic Republic, the invasion aroused discontent mostly among young people who had hoped that Czechoslovakia would pave the way for a more liberal socialism.[79] However, isolated protests were quickly stopped by the Volkspolizei and Stasi.[80]

text: Albania[edit]

text: Albania responded in opposite fashion: already feuding with Moscow over suggestions that the country should focus on agriculture to the detriment of industrial development, and concerned that Moscow was becoming too liberal in its dealings with Yugoslavia (which, by that time, Albania regarded as a threatening neighbor and had branded in propaganda as "imperialist"), it withdrew from the Warsaw Pact entirely. Economic fallout from this move was mitigated somewhat by a strengthening of Albanian relations with the People's Republic of China, which was itself on increasingly strained terms with the Soviet Union.

text: Reactions around the world[edit]

text: The night of the invasion, Canada, Denmark, France, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, and the United States all requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.[81] That afternoon, the council met to hear the Czechoslovak Ambassador Jan Muzik denounce the invasion. Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik insisted the Warsaw Pact actions were those of "fraternal assistance" against "antisocial forces".[81] The next day, several countries suggested a resolution condemning the intervention and calling for immediate withdrawal. US Ambassador George Ball, suggested that "the kind of fraternal assistance that the Soviet Union is according to Czechoslovakia is exactly the same kind that Cain gave to Abel".[81]

text: Ball accused Soviet delegates of filibustering to put off the vote until the occupation was complete. Malik continued to speak, ranging in topics from US exploitation of Latin America's raw materials to statistics on Czech commodity trading.[81] Eventually, a vote was taken. Ten members supported the motion; Algeria, India, and Pakistan abstained; the USSR (with veto power) and Hungary opposed it. Canadian delegates immediately introduced another motion asking for a UN representative to travel to Prague and work for the release of the imprisoned Czechoslovak leaders.[81] Malik accused Western countries of hypocrisy, asking "who drowned the fields, villages, and cities of Vietnam in blood?"[81] By 26 August, another vote had not taken place, but a new Czechoslovak representative requested the whole issue be removed from the Security Council's agenda.[citation needed]

text: Although the United States insisted at the UN that Warsaw Pact aggression was unjustifiable, its position was compromised by its own actions. Only three years earlier, US delegates to the UN had insisted that the overthrow of the leftist government of the Dominican Republic, as part of Operation Power Pack, was an issue to be worked out by the Organization of American States (OAS) without UN interference. The OAS accepted adherence to Marxism–Leninism as an armed attack justifying self-defense by the United States.[81] American involvement in the Vietnam War led UN Secretary-General U Thant to draw further comparisons, suggesting that "if Russians were bombing and napalming the villages of Czechoslovakia" he might be more vocal in his denunciation.[81]

text: The United States government sent Shirley Temple Black, the famous child movie star, who became a diplomat in later life, to Prague in August 1968 to prepare to become the first United States Ambassador to a free Czechoslovakia. Two decades later, when Czechoslovakia became independent in 1989, Temple Black was finally recognized as the first American ambassador to a truly free Czechoslovakia.[82]

text: In Finland, a neutral country under some Soviet political influence at that time, the occupation caused a major scandal.[83]

text: Communist parties worldwide[edit]

text: Reactions from communist parties outside the Warsaw Pact were generally split. The Eurocommunist parties of Italy and Spain firmly denounced the occupation,[84] and even the Communist Party of France, which had pleaded for conciliation, expressed its disapproval about the Soviet intervention,[85] thereby publicly criticizing a Soviet action for the first time in its history.[citation needed] The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) suffered a major split over the internal disputes over the Prague Spring,[84] with the pro-Czech faction breaking ties with the Soviet leadership and founding the Eurocommunist KKE Interior. The Eurocommunist leadership of the Communist Party of Finland denounced the invasion as well, thereby however fuelling the internal disputes with its pro-Soviet minority faction, which eventually lead to the party's disintegration.[86] Others, including the Portuguese Communist Party, the South African Communist Party and the Communist Party USA, however supported the Soviet position.[84]

text: Christopher Hitchens recapitulized the repercussions of the Prague Spring to western Communism in 2008: "What became clear, however, was that there was no longer something that could be called the world Communist movement. It was utterly, irretrievably, hopelessly split. The main spring had broken. And the Prague Spring had broken it."[84]

text: Normalization (1969–1971)[edit]

text: In the history of Czechoslovakia, normalization (Czech: normalizace, Slovak: normalizácia) is a name commonly given to the period 1969–87. It was characterized by initial restoration of the conditions prevailing before the reform period led by Alexander Dubček (1963/1967 – 1968), first of all, the firm rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and subsequent preservation of this new status quo.

text: "Normalization" is sometimes used in a narrower sense to refer only to the period 1969 to 1971.

text: The official ideology of normalization is sometimes called Husakism after the Czechoslovak leader Gustáv Husák.

text: 1969–1971 (Removing the reforms and reformers)[edit]

text: When Gustáv Husák replaced Alexander Dubček as leader of the KSČ in April 1969 after the military intervention of Warsaw Pact armies, his regime acted quickly to "normalize" the country's political situation. The chief objectives of Husák's normalization were the restoration of firm party rule and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia's status as a committed member of the socialist bloc. The normalization process involved five interrelated steps:

text:
consolidate the Husák leadership and remove reformers from leadership positions;
revoke or modify the laws enacted by the reform movement;
reestablish centralized control over the economy;
reinstate the power of police authorities; and
expand Czechoslovakia's ties with other socialist nations.

text: Within a week of assuming power, Husák began to consolidate his leadership by ordering extensive purges of reformists still occupying key positions in the mass media, judiciary, social and mass organizations, lower party organs, and, finally, the highest levels of the KSČ. In the fall of 1969, twenty-nine liberals on the Central Committee  of the KSČ were replaced by conservatives. Among the liberals ousted was Dubček, who was dropped from the Presidium (the following year Dubček was expelled from the party; he subsequently became a minor functionary in Slovakia, where he still lived in 1987). Husák also consolidated his leadership by appointing potential rivals to the new government positions created as a result of the 1968 Constitutional Law of Federation (which created the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic).

text: Once it had consolidated power, the regime moved quickly to implement other normalization policies. In the two years following the invasion, the new leadership revoked some reformist laws (such as the National Front Act and the Press Act) and simply did not enforce others. It returned economic enterprises, which had been given substantial independence during the Prague Spring, to centralized control through contracts based on central planning and production quotas. It reinstated extreme police control, a step that was reflected in the harsh treatment of demonstrators marking the first anniversary of the August intervention.

text: Finally, Husák stabilized Czechoslovakia's relations with its allies by arranging frequent intrabloc exchanges and visits and redirecting Czechoslovakia's foreign economic ties toward greater involvement with socialist nations.

text: By May 1971, Husák could report to the delegates attending the officially sanctioned Fourteenth Party Congress that the process of normalization had been completed satisfactorily and that Czechoslovakia was ready to proceed toward higher forms of socialism.

text: Later reactions and revisionism[edit]

text: The first government to offer an apology was Hungary, on 11 August 1989. The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party publicly published its opinion on the fundamentally wrong decision to invade Czechoslovakia. The House of the National Assembly of Poland in 1989, on the 21st anniversary of military intervention, adopted a resolution condemning the armed intervention. Another apology was issued by the People's Assembly of East Germany on 1 December 1989, where they apologized to the Czechoslovak people for their involvement in the military intervention. An apology from Bulgaria came on 2 December 1989.[87]

text: On 4 December 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev and other Warsaw Pact leaders drafted a statement calling the 1968 invasion a mistake. The statement, carried by the Soviet news agency Tass, said that sending in troops constituted "interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign Czechoslovakia and must be condemned."[88] The Soviet government also said that the 1968 action was "an unbalanced, inadequate approach, an interference in the affairs of a friendly country".[89]

text: This acknowledgement likely helped to encourage the popular revolutions that overthrew Communist governments in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania at the end of 1989 by providing assurance that no similar Soviet intervention would be repeated were such uprisings to occur.[citation needed]

text: The invasion was also condemned by the newly appointed Russian President Boris Yeltsin ("We condemn it as an aggression, as an attack on a sovereign, stand-up state as interference in its internal affairs").[87] During a state visit to Prague, on 1 March 2006, also Vladimir Putin said that the Russian Federation bore moral responsibility for the invasion, referring to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin's description of 1968 as an act of aggression: "When President Yeltsin visited the Czech Republic in 1993 he was not speaking just for himself, he was speaking for the Russian Federation and for the Russian people. Today, not only do we respect all agreements signed previously – we also share all the evaluations that were made at the beginning of the 1990s... I must tell you with absolute frankness – we do not, of course, bear any legal responsibility. But the moral responsibility is there, of course".[90]

text: On 23 May 2015, Russian state channel Russia-1 aired Warsaw Pact: Declassified Pages, a documentary that presented the invasion as a protective measure against a NATO coup.[91][92][93] Slovakia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the film "attempts to rewrite history and to falsify historical truths about such a dark chapter of our history."[94] František Šebej, the Slovak chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council, stated that "They describe it as brotherly help aimed to prevent an invasion by NATO and fascism. Such Russian propaganda is hostile toward freedom and democracy, and also to us."[95] Czech President Miloš Zeman stated that "Russian TV lies, and no other comment that this is just a journalistic lie, can not be said".[96] Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek said that the film "grossly distorts" the facts.[93][97] Russian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sergei Kiselyov, has distanced himself from the film and stated that the documentary does not express the official position of the Russian government.[98] One of the most popular Russian journals, Gazeta.ru, has described the document as biased and revisionist, which harms Russia.[99]


document_title: Battle of Fort Sumter

question_text: who took the first step in the uprising of the civil war by opening fire at fort sumter

text: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Background

text: Secession

text: On December 20, 1860, shortly after Abraham Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860, South Carolina adopted an ordinance declaring its secession from the United States of America and, by February 1861, six more Southern states had adopted similar ordinances of secession. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. A February peace conference met in Washington, D.C., but failed to resolve the crisis. The remaining eight states declined pleas to join the Confederacy.[5][6]

text: The seceding states seized numerous Federal properties within their boundaries, including buildings, arsenals, and fortifications. President James Buchanan protested but took no military action in response. Buchanan was concerned that an overt action could cause the remaining slave states to leave the Union, and while he acknowledged there was no constitutional authority for a state to secede, he could find no constitutional authority for him to act to prevent it.[7][8]

text: The Forts of Charleston

text: Several forts had been constructed in Charleston's harbor, including Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, which were not among the sites seized initially. Fort Moultrie on Sullivan Island was the oldest—it was the site of fortifications since 1776—and was the headquarters of the U.S. Army garrison. However, it had been designed as a gun platform for defending the harbor, and its defenses against land-based attacks were feeble; during the crisis, the Charleston newspapers commented that sand dunes had piled up against the walls in such a way that the wall could easily be scaled. When the garrison began clearing away the dunes, the papers objected.[9][10][11]

text: Major Robert Anderson of the 1st U.S. Artillery regiment had been appointed to command the Charleston garrison that fall because of rising tensions. A native of Kentucky, he was a protégé of Winfield Scott, the general in chief of the Army, and was thought more capable of handling a crisis than the garrison's previous commander, Col. John L. Gardner, who was nearing retirement. Anderson had served an earlier tour of duty at Fort Moultrie and his father had been a defender of the fort (then called Fort Sullivan) during the American Revolutionary War. Throughout the fall, South Carolina authorities considered both secession and the expropriation of federal property in the harbor to be inevitable. As tensions mounted, the environment around the fort increasingly resembled a siege, to the point that the South Carolina authorities placed picket ships to observe the movements of the troops and threatened to attack when forty rifles were transferred to one of the harbor forts from the U.S. arsenal in the city.[1][12][13][11]

text: In contrast to Moultrie, Fort Sumter dominated the entrance to Charleston Harbor and, though unfinished, was designed to be one of the strongest fortresses in the world. In the fall of 1860 work on the fort was nearly completed, but the fortress was thus far garrisoned by a single soldier, who functioned as a lighthouse keeper, and a small party of civilian construction workers. Under the cover of darkness on December 26, six days after South Carolina declared its secession, Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, ordering its guns spiked and its gun carriages burned, and surreptitiously relocated his command by small boats to Sumter.[14][15]

text: President Buchanan and the Star of the West

text: South Carolina authorities considered Anderson's move to be a breach of faith. Governor Francis W. Pickens believed that President Buchanan had made implicit promises to him to keep Sumter unoccupied and suffered political embarrassment as a result of his trust in those promises. Buchanan, a former U.S. Secretary of State and diplomat, had used carefully crafted ambiguous language to Pickens, promising that he would not "immediately" occupy it.[16] From Major Anderson's standpoint, he was merely moving his existing garrison troops from one of the locations under his command to another. He had received instructions from the War Department on December 11, written by Major General Don Carlos Buell, Assistant Adjutant General of the Army, approved by Secretary of War John B. Floyd:[16][17]

text: ... you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on or attempt to take possession of any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.[18]

text: Governor Pickens therefore ordered that all remaining Federal positions except Fort Sumter were to be seized. State troops quickly occupied Fort Moultrie (capturing 56 guns), Fort Johnson on James Island, and the battery on Morris Island. On December 27, an assault force of 150 men seized the Union-occupied Castle Pinckney fortification, in the harbor close to downtown Charleston, capturing 24 guns and mortars without bloodshed. On December 30, the Federal arsenal in Charleston was captured, resulting in the acquisition of more than 22,000 weapons by the militia. The Confederates promptly made repairs at Fort Moultrie and dozens of new batteries and defense positions were constructed throughout the Charleston harbor area, including an unusual floating battery, and armed with weapons captured from the arsenal.[N 1]

text: President Buchanan was surprised and dismayed at Anderson's move to Sumter, unaware of the authorization Anderson had received. Nevertheless, he refused Pickens's demand to evacuate Charleston harbor. Since the garrison's supplies were limited, Buchanan authorized a relief expedition of supplies, small arms, and 200 soldiers. The original intent was to send the Navy sloop-of-war USS Brooklyn, but it was discovered that Confederates had sunk some derelict ships to block the shipping channel into Charleston and there was concern that Brooklyn had too deep a draft to negotiate the obstacles. Instead, it seemed prudent to send an unarmed civilian merchant ship, Star of the West, which might be perceived as less provocative to the Confederates. As Star of the West approached the harbor entrance on January 9, 1861, it was fired upon by a battery on Morris Island, which was staffed by cadets from The Citadel, among them William Stewart Simkins, who were the only trained artillerymen in the service of South Carolina at the time. Batteries from Fort Moultrie joined in and Star of the West was forced to withdraw. Major Anderson prepared his guns at Sumter when he heard the Confederate fire, but the secrecy of the operation had kept him unaware that a relief expedition was in progress and he chose not to start a general engagement.[22][23][24][1]

text: In a letter delivered January 31, 1861, Governor Pickens demanded of President Buchanan that he surrender Fort Sumter because, "I regard that possession is not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of South Carolina."[25]

text: Preparations for war

text: Conditions at the fort were difficult during the winter of 1860–61. Rations were short and fuel for heat was limited. The garrison scrambled to complete the defenses as best they could. Fort Sumter was designed to mount 135 guns, operated by 650 officers and men, but construction had met with numerous delays for decades and budget cuts had left it only about 90 percent finished in early 1861. Anderson's garrison consisted of just 85 men, primarily made up of two small artillery companies: Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery, commanded by Capt. Abner Doubleday, and Company H, commanded by Capt. Truman Seymour. There were six other officers present: Surgeon Samuel W. Crawford, First Lt. Theodore Talbot of Company H, First Lt. Jefferson C. Davis of the 1st U.S. Artillery, and Second Lt. Norman J. Hall of Company H. Capt. John G. Foster and First Lt. George W. Snyder of the Corps of Engineers were responsible for construction of the Charleston forts, but they reported to their headquarters in Washington, not directly to Anderson. The remaining personnel were 68 noncommissioned officers and privates, eight musicians, and 43 noncombatant workmen.[1]

text: By April the Union troops had positioned 60 guns, but they had insufficient men to operate them all. The fort consisted of three levels of enclosed gun positions, or casemates. The second level of casemates was unoccupied. The majority of the guns were on the first level of casemates, on the upper level (the parapet or barbette positions), and on the center parade field. Unfortunately for the defenders, the original mission of the fort—harbor defense—meant that it was designed so that the guns were primarily aimed at the Atlantic, with little capability of protecting from artillery fire from the surrounding land or from infantry conducting an amphibious assault.[26][27][28]

text: In March, Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard took command of South Carolina forces in Charleston; on March 1, President Jefferson Davis had appointed him the first general officer in the armed forces of the new Confederacy,[29] specifically to take command of the siege. Beauregard made repeated demands that the Union force either surrender or withdraw and took steps to ensure that no supplies from the city were available to the defenders, whose food was running low. He also increased drills amongst the South Carolina militia, training them to operate the guns they manned. Ironically, Major Anderson had been Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point; the two had been especially close, and Beauregard had become Anderson's assistant after graduation. Both sides spent March drilling and improving their fortifications to the best of their abilities.[30]

text: Beauregard, a trained military engineer, built-up overwhelming strength to challenge Fort Sumter. Fort Moultrie had three 8-inch Columbiads, two 8-inch howitzers, five 32-pound smoothbores, and four 24-pounders. Outside of Moultrie were five 10-inch mortars, two 32-pounders, two 24-pounders, and a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore. The floating battery next to Fort Moultrie had two 42-pounders and two 32-pounders on a raft protected by iron shielding. Fort Johnson on James Island had one 24-pounder and four 10-inch mortars. At Cummings Point on Morris Island, the Confederates had emplaced seven 10-inch mortars, two 42-pounders, an English Blakely rifled cannon, and three 8-inch Columbiads, the latter in the so-called Iron Battery, protected by a wooden shield faced with iron bars. About 6,000 men were available to man the artillery and to assault the fort, if necessary, including the local militia, young boys and older men.[31]

text: Decisions for war

text: On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president. He was almost immediately confronted with the surprise information that Major Anderson was reporting that only six weeks of rations remained at Fort Sumter. A crisis similar to the one at Fort Sumter had emerged at Pensacola, Florida, where Confederates threatened another U.S. fortification—Fort Pickens. Lincoln and his new cabinet struggled with the decisions of whether to reinforce the forts, and how. They were also concerned about whether to take actions that might start open hostilities and which side would be perceived as the aggressor as a result. Similar discussions and concerns were occurring in the Confederacy.[32][33]

text: After the formation of the Confederate States of America in early February, there was some debate among the secessionists whether the capture of the fort was rightly a matter for South Carolina or for the newly declared national government in Montgomery, Alabama. South Carolina governor Pickens was among the states' rights advocates who thought that all property in Charleston harbor had reverted to South Carolina upon that state's secession as an independent commonwealth. This debate ran alongside another discussion about how aggressively the installations—including Forts Sumter and Pickens—should be obtained. President Davis, like his counterpart in Washington, preferred that his side not be seen as the aggressor. Both sides believed that the first side to use force would lose precious political support in the border states, whose allegiance was undetermined; before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, five states had voted against secession, including Virginia, and Lincoln openly offered to evacuate Fort Sumter if it would guarantee Virginia's loyalty.[N 2]

text: The South sent delegations to Washington, D.C., and offered to pay for the Federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with the Confederate agents because he did not consider the Confederacy a legitimate nation and making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. However, Secretary of State William H. Seward, who wished to give up Sumter for political reasons—as a gesture of good will—engaged in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed.[35]

text: On April 4, as the supply situation on Sumter became critical, President Lincoln ordered a relief expedition, to be commanded by former naval captain (and future Assistant Secretary of the Navy) Gustavus V. Fox, who had proposed a plan for nighttime landings of smaller vessels than the Star of the West. Fox's orders were to land at Sumter with supplies only, and if he was opposed by the Confederates, to respond with the U.S. Navy vessels following and to then land both supplies and men. This time, Maj. Anderson was informed of the impending expedition, although the arrival date was not revealed to him. On April 6, Lincoln notified Governor Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the fort."[36][37][38][39][1]

text: Lincoln's notification had been made to the governor of South Carolina, not the new Confederate government, which Lincoln did not recognize. Pickens consulted with Beauregard, the local Confederate commander. Soon President Davis ordered Beauregard to repeat the demand for Sumter's surrender, and if it did not, to reduce the fort before the relief expedition arrived. The Confederate cabinet, meeting in Montgomery, endorsed Davis's order on April 9. Only Secretary of State Robert Toombs opposed this decision: he reportedly told Jefferson Davis the attack "will lose us every friend at the North. You will only strike a hornet's nest. ... Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."[40]

text: Beauregard dispatched aides—Col. James Chesnut, Col. James A. Chisholm, and Capt. Stephen D. Lee—to Fort Sumter on April 11 to issue the ultimatum. Anderson refused, although he reportedly commented, "I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter us to pieces, we shall be starved out in a few days." The aides returned to Charleston and reported this comment to Beauregard. At 1 a.m. on April 12, the aides brought Anderson a message from Beauregard: "If you will state the time which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree in the meantime that you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you." After consulting with his senior officers, Maj. Anderson replied that he would evacuate Sumter by noon, April 15, unless he received new orders from his government or additional supplies. Col. Chesnut considered this reply to be too conditional and wrote a reply, which he handed to Anderson at 3:20 a.m.: "Sir: by authority of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time." Anderson escorted the officers back to their boat, shook hands with each one, and said "If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next."[41][42][43][44]

text: Bombardment

text: At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Lt. Henry S. Farley, acting upon the command of Capt. George S. James,[45][46] fired a single 10-inch mortar round from Fort Johnson. (James had offered the first shot to Roger Pryor, a noted Virginia secessionist, who declined, saying, "I could not fire the first gun of the war.") The shell exploded over Fort Sumter as a signal to open the general bombardment from 43 guns and mortars at Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson, the floating battery, and Cummings Point. Under orders from Beauregard, the guns fired in a counterclockwise sequence around the harbor, with 2 minutes between each shot; Beauregard wanted to conserve ammunition, which he calculated would last for only 48 hours. Edmund Ruffin, another noted Virginia secessionist, had traveled to Charleston to be present for the beginning of the war, and fired one of the first shots at Sumter after the signal round, a 64-pound shell from the Iron Battery at Cummings Point. The shelling of Fort Sumter from the batteries ringing the harbor awakened Charleston's residents (including diarist Mary Chesnut), who rushed out into the predawn darkness to watch the shells arc over the water and burst inside the fort.[47][N 3]

text: Major Anderson held his fire, awaiting daylight. His troops reported for a call at 6 a.m. and then had breakfast. At 7 a.m., Capt. Abner Doubleday fired a shot at the Ironclad Battery at Cummings Point. He missed. Given the available manpower, Anderson could not take advantage of all of his 60 guns. He deliberately avoided using guns that were situated in the fort where casualties were most likely. The fort's best cannons were mounted on the uppermost of its three tiers—the barbette tier—where his troops were most exposed to incoming fire from overhead. The fort had been designed to withstand a naval assault, and naval warships of the time did not mount guns capable of elevating to shoot over the walls of the fort. However, the land-based cannons manned by the Confederates were capable of high-arcing ballistic trajectories and could therefore fire at parts of the fort that would have been out of naval guns' reach. Fort Sumter's garrison could only safely fire the 21 working guns on the lowest level, which themselves, because of the limited elevation allowed by their embrasures, were largely incapable of delivering fire with trajectories high enough to seriously threaten Fort Moultrie. Moreover, although the Federals had moved as many of their supplies to Fort Sumter as they could manage, the fort was quite low on ammunition, and was nearly out at the end of the 34-hour bombardment. A more immediate problem was the scarcity of cloth gunpowder cartridges or bags; only 700 were available at the beginning of the battle and workmen sewed frantically to create more, in some cases using socks from Anderson's personal wardrobe. Because of the shortages, Anderson reduced his firing to only six guns: two aimed at Cummings Point, two at Fort Moultrie, and two at the Sullivan's Island batteries.[49][50]

text: Ships from Fox's relief expedition began to arrive on April 12. Although Fox himself arrived at 3 a.m. on his steamer Baltic, most of the rest of his fleet was delayed until 6 p.m., and one of the two warships, USS Powhatan, never did arrive. Unbeknownst to Fox, it had been ordered to the relief of Fort Pickens in Florida. As landing craft were sent toward the fort with supplies, the artillery fire deterred them and they pulled back. Fox decided to wait until after dark and for the arrival of his warships. The next day, heavy seas made it difficult to load the small boats with men and supplies and Fox was left with the hope that Anderson and his men could hold out until dark on April 13.[51]

text: Although Sumter was a masonry fort, there were wooden buildings inside for barracks and officer quarters. The Confederates targeted these with Heated shot (cannonballs heated red hot in a furnace), starting fires that could prove more dangerous to the men than explosive artillery shells. At 7 p.m. on April 12, a rain shower extinguished the flames and at the same time the Union gunners stopped firing for the night. They slept fitfully, concerned about a potential infantry assault against the fort. During the darkness, the Confederates reduced their fire to four shots each hour. The following morning, the full bombardment resumed and the Confederates continued firing hot shot against the wooden buildings. By noon most of the wooden buildings in the fort and the main gate were on fire. The flames moved toward the main ammunition magazine, where 300 barrels of gunpowder were stored. The Union soldiers frantically tried to move the barrels to safety, but two-thirds were left when Anderson judged it was too dangerous and ordered the magazine doors closed. He ordered the remaining barrels thrown into the sea, but the tide kept floating them back together into groups, some of which were ignited by incoming artillery rounds. He also ordered his crews to redouble their efforts at firing, but the Confederates did the same, firing the hot shots almost exclusively. Many of the Confederate soldiers admired the courage and determination of the Yankees. When the fort had to pause its firing, the Confederates often cheered and applauded after the firing resumed and they shouted epithets at some of the nearby Union ships for failing to come to the fort's aid.[52][53]

text: Surrender

text:
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Major Anderson's telegram announcing the surrender

text: The fort's central flagpole was knocked down at 1 p.m. on April 13, raising doubts among the Confederates about whether the fort was ready to surrender. Col. Louis Wigfall, a former U.S. senator, had been observing the battle and decided that this indicated the fort had had enough punishment. He commandeered a small boat and proceeded from Morris Island, waving a white handkerchief from his sword, dodging incoming rounds from Sullivan's Island. Meeting with Major Anderson, he said, "You have defended your flag nobly, Sir. You have done all that it is possible to do, and General Beauregard wants to stop this fight. On what terms, Major Anderson, will you evacuate this fort?" Anderson was encouraged that Wigfall had said "evacuate," not "surrender." He was low on ammunition, fires were burning out of control, and his men were hungry and exhausted. Satisfied that they had defended their post with honor, enduring over 3,000 Confederate rounds without losing a man, Anderson agreed to a truce at 2:00 p.m.[54][55]

text: Fort Sumter raised Wigfall's white handkerchief on its flagpole as Wigfall departed in his small boat back to Morris Island, where he was hailed as a hero. The handkerchief was spotted in Charleston and a delegation of officers representing Beauregard—Stephen D. Lee, Porcher Miles, a former mayor of Charleston, and Roger Pryor—sailed to Sumter, unaware of Wigfall's visit. Anderson was outraged when these officers disavowed Wigfall's authority, telling him that the former senator had not spoken with Beauregard for two days, and he threatened to resume firing. Meanwhile, General Beauregard himself had finally seen the handkerchief and sent a second set of officers, offering essentially the same terms that Wigfall had presented, so the agreement was reinstated.[54][56][57]

text: The Union garrison formally surrendered the fort to Confederate personnel at 2:30 p.m., April 13. No one from either side was killed during the bombardment. During the 100-gun salute to the U.S. flag—Anderson's one condition for withdrawal—a pile of cartridges blew up from a spark, mortally wounding privates Daniel Hough and Edward Galloway, and seriously wounding the other four members of the gun crew; these were the first military fatalities of the war. The salute was stopped at fifty shots. Hough was buried in the Fort Sumter parade ground within two hours after the explosion. Galloway and Private George Fielding were sent to the hospital in Charleston, where Galloway died a few days later; Fielding was released after six weeks.[58][59] The other wounded men and the remaining Union troops were placed aboard a Confederate steamer, the Isabel, where they spent the night and were transported the next morning to Fox's relief ship Baltic, resting outside the harbor bar.[60]

text: Anderson carried the Fort Sumter Flag with him North, where it became a widely known symbol of the battle, and rallying point for supporters of the Union.[61] This inspired Frederic Edwin Church to paint Our Banner in the Sky, described as a "symbolic landscape embodying the stars and stripes." A chromolithograph was then created and sold to benefit the families of Union soldiers.[62]

text: Aftermath

text: The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the first military action of the American Civil War. Following the surrender, Northerners rallied behind Lincoln's call for all states to send troops to recapture the forts and preserve the Union. With the scale of the rebellion apparently small so far, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for 90 days.[63] Some Northern states filled their quotas quickly. There were so many volunteers in Ohio that within 16 days they could have met the full call for 75,000 men by themselves.[64] Other governors from border states were undiplomatic in their responses. For example, Gov. Claiborne Jackson wrote, "Not one man will the state of Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade", and Gov. Beriah Magoffin wrote, "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states."[65] The governors of other states still in the Union were equally unsupportive. The call for 75,000 troops triggered four additional slave states to declare their secession from the Union and join the Confederacy.[66] The ensuing war lasted four years, effectively ending in April 1865 with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomatox Courthouse.[67]

text: Charleston Harbor was completely in Confederate hands for almost the entire four-year duration of the war, leaving a hole in the Union naval blockade. Union forces conducted major operations in 1862 and 1863 to capture Charleston, first overland on James Island (the Battle of Secessionville, June 1862), then by naval assault against Fort Sumter (the First Battle of Charleston Harbor, April 1863), then by seizing the Confederate artillery positions on Morris Island (beginning with the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, July 1863, and followed by a siege until September). After pounding Sumter to rubble with artillery fire, a final amphibious operation attempted to occupy it (the Second Battle of Fort Sumter, September 1863), but was repulsed and no further attempts were made. The Confederates evacuated Fort Sumter and Charleston in February 1865 as Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman outflanked the city in the Carolinas Campaign. On April 14, 1865, four years to the day after lowering the Fort Sumter Flag in surrender, Robert Anderson (by then a major general, although ill and in retired status) returned to the ruined fort to raise the flag he had lowered in 1861.[68]

text: Two of the cannons used at Fort Sumter were later presented to Louisiana State University by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was president of the university before the war began.[69]

text: Tributes

text: The U.S. Post Office Department released the Fort Sumter Centennial issue as the first in the series of five stamps marking the Civil War Centennial on April 12, 1961, at the Charleston post office.[70]

text: The stamp was designed by Charles R. Chickering. It illustrates a seacoast gun from Fort Sumter aimed by an officer in a typical uniform of the time. The background features palmetto leaves akin to bursting shells. The state tree of South Carolina, the palmettos suggest the geopolitical area opening Civil War hostilities.[71]

text: This stamp was produced by an engraving and printed by the rotary process in panes of fifty stamps each. The Postal Department authorized an initial printing of 120 million stamps.[71]

text: Footnotes