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Joseph Joffre

Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre, (12 January 1852 – 3 January 1931) was a French general who served as Commander-in-Chief of French forces on the Western Front from the start of World War I until the end of 1916. He is best known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in September 1914.

His political position waned after unsuccessful offensives in 1915, the German attack on Verdun in 1916, and the disappointing results of the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme in 1916. At the end of 1916 he was promoted to Marshal of France, the first such elevation under the Third Republic, and moved to an advisory role, from which he quickly resigned. Later in the war he led an important mission to the United States.

Early career
Joffre was born in Rivesaltes, Pyrénées-Orientales, into a family of vineyard owners. At a young age, he was a studious student, excelling at mathematics, descriptive geometry, and drawing. In 1870, he entered the École Polytechnique and became a career officer. He first saw active service as a junior artillery officer during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War. After the war he underwent further training at the École Polytechnique before transferring to the génie (engineers). Joffre subsequently spent much of his career in the colonies as a military engineer, serving with distinction in the Keelung Campaign during the Sino-French War (August 1884 – April 1885). As a major, he led a column from Ségou to Timbuktu in Mali, where he recovered the remains of Lt. Col. Bonnier, who had been killed on a recent expedition. His mission killed over a hundred Tuareg and captured fifteen hundred cattle. He was promoted as a result. He served under Joseph Gallieni in Madagascar and was promoted to Général de brigade while serving there.

After returning to France in 1903 to command the 19th Cavalry Brigade, he then moved to the War Ministry in Paris as Director of Engineers in 1904. The next year he was promoted to Général de division, the highest rank in the French Army at the time. Subsequently, he commanded the 6th Infantry Division and served as Inspector of Military Schools. Joffre commanded the 2nd Army Corps from 1908 until 1910 when he was appointed to the Conseil supérieur de la guerre.

The Minister of War Adolphe Messimy reorganized the high command of the French Army in July 1911. General Victor-Constant Michel, the Vice President of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre and Commander-in-Chief designate, was sacked after proposing a defensive strategy in the event of war with Germany. Messimy took the opportunity to merge the office of vice president with the Chief of the General Staff and create a single professional head of the Army. The newly enhanced post was first offered to Gallieni and Paul Pau, who both declined, leading to Joffre's appointment.

With the revival of the army and a purge of "defensive-minded" officers, he adopted the strategy devised by Ferdinand Foch, the deployment plan known as Plan XVII. He was selected to command despite never having commanded an Army, even on paper, and "having no knowledge whatever of General Staff work." After a left-wing government came to power in 1914, he was due to be replaced by Maurice Sarrail in the autumn, but war broke out before this could take place.

Battle of the Frontiers
At the outbreak of war, the French plan clashed with the German Schlieffen Plan, much to the detriment of the French. On 15 August, after German cavalry had been spotted at Dinant on the Meuse, and after repeated warnings from Charles Lanrezac of the Fifth Army, Joffre issued his Instruction Particuliere No 10, stating that the main German effort would come through Belgium.

Although Joffre was aware (8am on 18 August) that as many as fifteen German corps were moving through Belgium (in fact it was sixteen, and twenty-eight if the German Fourth and Fifth Armies are also included), he believed that only a few of these would come west of the Meuse, where he believed they could be held by the British and Belgians. The French Third and Fourth Armies were preparing to attack into the Ardennes, and he wanted Lanrezac's Fifth Army to attack the bulk of the German right wing on its west flank as – it was assumed – it attacked the left flank of French Fourth Army.

The French First and Second Armies attacked into Alsace-Lorraine on 19 and 20 August and were beaten back with severe loss by German forces, which were preparing for a counteroffensive. Joffre believed (20 August) that Liège was still holding out (in fact the last of the Liège forts had fallen on 16 August), and hoped that Lanrezac would be able to reach Namur, which was expected to hold out for even longer. The Germans entered Brussels that day, but Joffre was convinced, after the defeat in Alsace-Lorraine and air and cavalry reports of strong German forces in Belgium, that the German centre in the Ardennes must be weak. On 21 August the French Second Army was pressed by a German counterattack. Édouard de Castelnau asked for permission to abandon Nancy and its fortified heights, but Joffre forbade him to do so.

With the French Third and Fourth Armies now attacking into the Ardennes, and the infantry outpacing their horsedrawn artillery, von Bülow's German Second Army attacked Lanrezac and forced bridgeheads across the Meuse. The Fifth Army was also now attacked on its right by Max von Hausen's German Third Army; although these attacks were held, Lanrezac asked Joffre for permission to retreat. On 23 August the Fifth Army was attacked again.

On 23 August Joffre reported to Adolphe Messimy, the French war minister, that his Fourth Army was pressing into the Ardennes with (he believed, wrongly) local numerical superiority, despite the fact that he had already received reports of French defeats in this sector on previous days. The German Fourth and Fifth Armies were in fact advancing against the French forces in front of them rather than moving westwards as Joffre believed. In his memoirs Joffre later admitted that he had been mistaken (he was also unaware of the fall of Namur and of the extent of the fighting at Mons and Charleroi on his left), but at the time he demanded that the French Fourth Army resume the offensive and provide lists of unsatisfactory officers for dismissal. Messimy fully supported Joffre in his purge of unsuccessful generals, even suggesting that, as in 1793, some of them simply ought to be executed.

Retreat
On 25 August, rejecting the advice of his staff officer General Berthelot that Lanrezac be ordered to attack westwards against the inside of the German right wing, he instead had Major Maurice Gamelin draw up plans for a French concentration at Amiens, with many of the troops drawn from the French right wing in Alsace, and with regret also ordered the successful counterattacks of the Third Army and the Army of Lorraine be called off. Michel-Joseph Maunoury was put in command of the newly formed Sixth Army, which initially assembled near Amiens and then fell back toward Paris (26 August).

Concerned at reports (which later turned out to be exaggerated) that the British had been defeated at Le Cateau and would need French protection to recover cohesion, early on 27 August Joffre gave Lanrezac a direct written order to counterattack as soon as his forces were on open ground, where they could use their artillery, which Lanrezac had told him was the key factor. After Lanrezac spent the day arguing against the order, Joffre visited him at 8.30 am on 28 August and ordered him to attack to the west. After a "heated" discussion, Joffre had Gamelin draw up a written order and signed it in Lanrezac's presence.

Fernand de Langle de Cary's Fourth Army, originally intended to be the spearhead of the attack into the Ardennes, was a strong force and had made several counterattacks, but Joffre now ordered it to cease counterattacking and to send a detachment under Ferdinand Foch to cover the gap between Fourth and Fifth Armies; this became the new Ninth Army.

Joffre turned up at Lanrezac's headquarters to supervise his conduct of the Battle of Guise (29 August), willing if necessary to sack him there and then. In the event he was impressed by Lanrezac's cool demeanour and handling of the battle. As a result of the battle, Alexander von Kluck's German First Army broke off its attacks on Maunoury's Sixth Army and swung south-east, inside of Paris.

The Marne
Messimy, the war minister, ordered Joffre to provide three active corps to defend Paris on 25 August, but Joffre, regarding this as interference with strategy, ignored him. On 26 August René Viviani formed a new government (the Union sacrée), and on 27 August the new war minister, Alexandre Millerand, who had replaced Messimy largely because of the poor state of the Paris defences, visited Joffre. The general promised to provide the three corps for Paris if Maunoury's attack near Amiens failed.

On 30 August Joffre recommended that the French government evacuate Paris and learned of the Russian disaster at Tannenberg, although he was aware that two German corps were still headed east as reinforcements for East Prussia. On 1 September the Fifth Army retreated across the Aisne in some confusion, and Joffre issued his Instruction Generale No 4, placing Maunoury's Sixth Army under the command of Joseph Gallieni as military governor of Paris and forming a new cavalry corps under Louis Conneau to fill the gap between the Fifth Army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). At this stage his mind was still leaning towards Berthelot's old suggestion that the Fifth Army attack westwards against the inside of the German right wing.

On 2 September, the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan, the government left Paris for Bordeaux. That day Joffre placed Maunoury under Gallieni's direct command as the "Armies of Paris" and had Millerand place Gallieni under his own command. Joffre planned to retreat behind the Seine before counterattacking. He envisaged "a battle", probably to take place around 8 September, "between the horns of Paris and Verdun.". He sacked Lanrezac on the afternoon of 3 September, replacing him with the more aggressive Louis Franchet d'Espèrey.

On the night of 3–4 September Joffre sent a handwritten note to Gallieni, wanting Maunoury to push east along the north bank of the Marne, although not specifying a date. This was in line with his modification of Instruction General No 4 (2 September), envisaging a giant pocket from Paris to Verdun, of which he enclosed copies to Gallieni. At 9.45 am on 4 September Gallieni, who had learned from Paris aviators the previous day that Kluck's German First Army was marching south-east across Paris, had the first of a series of telephone calls, conducted through aides, as Joffre would not come to the phone, and Gallieni refused to speak to anyone else. Gallieni proposed, depending on how much further the Germans were to be allowed to advance, to attack north of the Marne on 6 September or south of the Marne on 7 September.

Joffre's reply saying he preferred the southern option (which would take a day longer as it forced the Sixth Army to cross to south of the Marne, but would keep the Sixth Army and BEF from being separated by the river) arrived too late to reach Gallieni, who had left for a meeting with the BEF chief of staff, Archibald Murray. That same afternoon, Henry Wilson, the BEF sub-chief of staff, was negotiating separate plans with Franchet d'Espèrey, on the British right, which envisaged the Sixth Army attacking north of the Marne.

In the absence of news from Franchet d'Espèrey, Joffre ordered Gamelin to draft orders for Maunoury to attack south of the Marne on 7 September. This intention was also passed on to Sir John French. While Joffre was having dinner with the British liaison officer, Sidney Clive, and two visiting Japanese officers, neither of whom appeared to understand a word of French, a message arrived from Franchet d'Espèrey saying that he would be ready to attack on 6 September. At this point Gallieni, who returned to Paris to find Joffre's message from earlier in the day and a message from Wilson, insisted on speaking to Joffre personally on the telephone, informing him that it was too late to cancel the movement of Maunoury's army. Joffre agreed to bring forward the Allied offensive to 6 September and to have the Sixth Army attack north of the Marne instead, later writing that he had done so reluctantly as Maunoury would probably make contact with the Germans on 5 September, but that an extra day would have left the Germans in a more "disadvantageous" position. Tuchman argues that he may simply have been swayed by the dominant personality of Gallieni, his former superior. At 10 pm Joffre issued General Order No 6, ordering a General Allied Offensive.

On 7 September Gallieni, who had been going over Joffre's head and speaking to the war minister and President Raymond Poincaré, was ordered not to communicate directly with the government. This left Joffre "all-powerful" (in Gallieni's description), as he had sacked so many generals, leaving Gallieni his only serious rival. By early December 1914 Gallieni was being mooted as a potential commander-in-chief in Joffre's place, or minister of war, or both.

Spring offensive
On 7 January 1915, over Joffre's opposition, President Poincaré came out in favour of the proposal of Franchet d'Espèrey, Gallieni and justice minister Aristide Briand for an expedition to Salonika, which he hoped would detach first Turkey then Austria-Hungary, leaving Germany "doomed."

Joffre fought a further major offensive in the Artois in spring 1915. He told Wilson (23 March) that "by the end of Apr[il] he would be in a condition to attack & break (underline) the line." On 4 May "he talked of getting to Namur & the war being over in 3 (months)."

Further promotion
With Viviani's government in trouble following the resignation of Theophile Delcasse as foreign minister, the unsuccessful autumn offensive and the entry of Bulgaria into the war, Viviani asked Joffre, who had told him that nine out of ten generals would make poor ministers of war, whether Gallieni would be a good replacement for Millerand. Joffre replied, "Perhaps," then, after a pause for thought, "Maybe." In the event, Briand formed a new government on 29 October 1915, with Viviani as vice-president of the council of ministers (deputy prime minister) and Gallieni as war minister.

As far back at 29 July 1915 Joffre had demanded that he be appointed commander-in-chief over all French forces, including those at the Dardanelles. By November he was again lobbying Poincaré that either a strong minister of war, backed by a strong chief of staff (e.g. Castelnau) be given strategic direction of the war—Joffre did not favour this option, believing that governments rose and fell too frequently for this to be sensible—or else that Joffre himself be appointed commander-in-chief over all fronts. Poincaré was persuaded of the latter option, and persuaded Briand, who arranged for Joffre and Gallieni to meet and shake hands.

At the meeting of the Superior Council of Defence (24 November 1915) Joffre had Briand address the demarcation of his own and Gallieni's authority, and objected to the council discussing operational matters, threatening to resign if they attempted to interfere with his "liberty.". Joffre met with Poincaré and Briand both before and after the meeting to discuss the issue. Gallieni, who favoured a strong war ministry with his own operational staff, complained bitterly in his diary about the politicians' unwillingness to stand up to Joffre. On 1 December Poincaré and Briand met with Gallieni, who agreed that Joffre be commander-in-chief, with Castelnau—who was soon sidelined—as his chief of staff, although under the war minister's orders. A presidential decree of 2 December made Joffre "Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies" (generalissimo). After considerable discussion this was approved by the Chamber of Deputies by 406–67 on 9 December. In practice, Joffre now took command over both Salonika and the Western Front, but not Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. There was also friction over Gallieni's assertion of his right to appoint generals, Joffre's practice of communicating directly with the British generals rather than going through the war ministry, and Gallieni's maintaining contacts with generals whom Joffre had replaced.

In autumn 1915 Colonel Émile Driant, commander of a chasseurs brigade and a member of the Army Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, complained to Gallieni of how Joffre had been removing guns and garrisons from Verdun and even preparing some forts for demolition. Joffre was furious and disputed Gallieni's right to comment. The council of ministers discussed his reports, and Poincaré asked Gallieni to investigate. Gallieni wrote to Joffre (16 or 18 December 1915), expressing concern at the state of trenches at Verdun and elsewhere on the front; in fact, matters were already being taken in hand at Verdun.

Verdun
The British government accepted the need to maintain the Salonika bridgehead to keep the French happy, despite being sceptical about the idea that it would bring Greece into the war on the Allied side, but British military opinion did not favour any more commitment than necessary. Argument continued with Joffre throughout the year. Late in March 1916 Joffre and Briand blocked a proposal by Lord Kitchener and Sir William Robertson to gradually withdraw five British divisions from Salonika as the Serb troops arrived.

After months of discussion, Haig and Joffre agreed on 14 February 1916 to an Anglo-French offensive on the Somme, although the British were not pleased at Joffre's suggestion that the British engage in "wearing out" attacks prior to the main offensive. The German attack on Verdun began on 21 February, reducing the planned French commitment to the Somme.

The French General Staff had decided in August 1915 to partially disarm all the Verdun forts, under the erroneous assumption that they could not resist the effects of modern heavy artillery, and the Germans initially made good progress against fortifications that had had their guns removed. Fort Douaumont, the keystone of the system of Verdun forts, had been given up without a fight, becoming a shelter and operational base for German forces just behind their front line. In the words of one French divisional commander, its loss would cost the French army a hundred thousand lives.

Joffre's political position had already weakened after the enormous losses of 1915, and now rumours circulated in Paris that Joffre had ordered the abandonment of Verdun when the Germans first attacked. Gallieni demanded to see all paperwork from the period, but Joffre had made no such order in writing, merely despatching Castelnau to assess the situation.

The political atmosphere had become poisonous. Gallieni presented a highly critical report to the council of ministers on 7 March—read in his usual precise way—criticising Joffre's conduct of operations over the last eighteen months and demanding ministerial control, then resigned. It is unclear whether he was specifically trying to have Joffre ousted as Poincaré believed. With the survival of the government at stake, General Roques was appointed minister of war after it had been ensured that Joffre had no objections. Joffre himself had been mooted for the job.

The Somme
Early in 1916 Joffre asked the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, to put in a good word with Lord Bertie, the British ambassador in Paris, so that it would get back to the French government. General Haig wanted to delay the Anglo-French offensive at the Somme until 15 August to allow for more training and more artillery. When told of this Joffre shouted at Haig that "the French Army would cease to exist" and had to be calmed down with "liberal doses of 1840 brandy." The British refused to agree to French demands for a joint Anglo-French offensive from the Salonika bridgehead. Eventually, perhaps influenced by reports of French troop disturbances at Verdun, Haig agreed to attack at the start of July. This was just in time, as it later turned out that Philippe Pétain, commander at Verdun, was warning the French government that the "game was up" unless the British attacked.

Joffre was successfully lobbied by Robertson, and at the second Chantilly Conference (15–16 November 1916) they agreed to concentrate on the Western Front in 1917 rather than sending greater resources to Salonika.

Fall from power
The fall of Bucharest (6 December 1916) not only ruled out a Russo-Romanian attack on Bulgaria, but also made possible a Central Powers attack on Salonika. One of Joffre's last official duties (11 December) was to order Maurice Sarrail to cease his offensive and establish a strong defensive position, from which further offensives might be launched in the future. To Briand's and Joffre's surprise, Roques, the minister of war, returned from a fact-finding mission to Salonika recommending that Sarrail be reinforced and that he no longer report to Joffre. Coming on the back of the disappointing results of the Somme campaign and the fall of Romania, Roques's report further discredited Briand and Joffre and added to the parliamentary deputies' demands for a closed session. On 27 November the council of ministers met to debate rescinding the decree of 2 December 1915, which had placed Sarrail under Joffre; Briand proposed that Joffre be effectively demoted to commander-in-chief in North-East France, reporting to the war minister along with the commander-in-chief at Salonika, although he withdrew this proposal after Joffre threatened resignation. During the closed session (28 November – 7 December) Briand had little choice but to make concessions to preserve his government, and in a speech of 29 November he promised to repeal the decree of 2 December 1915 and in vague terms to appoint a general as technical adviser to the government. He met Joffre on 3 December 1916—according to Joffre, promising to appoint him Marshal of France and to give him a staff of his own and "direction of the war".

On 13 December Briand formed a new government, which that day survived a vote of confidence by only thirty votes. Joffre was appointed "general-in-chief of the French armies, technical adviser to the government, consultative member of the War Committee", with Robert Nivelle as commander-in-chief of the Armies of the North and Northeast. It is unclear exactly what Briand had told Joffre about his role; he commented, "This is not what they promised me," when reading the newspaper on the morning of 13 December and was put out to be described as "general-in-chief" rather than "commander-in-chief." He departed at once for Paris, but was persuaded to accept by Briand. On 17 December, he told the British liaison officer, Sidney Clive, "I am the commander-in-chief and I intend to command effectively." However, he soon found that he had no real power—the acting war minister (Admiral Lacaze, as General Lyautey had not yet returned from North Africa to take up the position) forbade him even to approve units' being granted the fourragère—and on 26 December, the day he was promoted Marshal of France, he asked to be relieved. Joffre was still popular and was the first man to be promoted Marshal under the Third Republic.

Post-command career
On 1 April 1917 Prime Minister Ribot asked Joffre to go on Viviani's mission to the United States. There was already a similar British mission being prepared, led by Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary and a former Prime Minister. The French along with the British had been preparing to do so since February after the announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany, in the expectation that an American declaration of war against Germany was imminent. He was initially reluctant to go as the Nivelle Offensive was underway. On 6 April the United States Congress declared war on Germany. The main problem for their new army would be training men and, especially, officers. Joffre initially considered recommending the incorporation of US companies and battalions into the French and British armies, but realised that the Americans would never accept this.

The party sailed to the US on the Lorraine II, making an effort to cultivate reporters on board, who noticed how busy Joffre kept his small staff. While at sea he learned of the failure of Nivelle's offensive. He landed on 24 April at Hampton Roads, where he was welcomed by Admiral Henry Mayo, commander-in-chief of the US Atlantic Fleet, Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt. He arrived in Washington the following morning, where he met Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Arthur Balfour. Joffre stayed in Washington for ten days, and addressed both Houses of Congress individually. On 27 April he met Army Chief of Staff Hugh Scott and his deputy, Tasker Bliss. Joffre recommended sending a single American unit to France at once and requested that the Americans send railroads, automobiles and trucks for the French Army. On 30 April the British Major-General Tom Bridges lobbied for US troops to be used to reinforce the British Army, arguing this would lessen the language and food differences. Joffre left a paper arguing for a separate American force, then on 4 May began a week's tour of the eastern US. In full view of the press, he waited his turn in a barber's shop in St. Louis for a haircut, visited the hometowns of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Illinois) and Ulysses Grant, laid wreaths at the statues of Joan of Arc and Lafayette, and visited West Point. He returned on 10 May to find that the US authorities agreed with the recommendations in his paper. The 1st US Infantry Division, mainly regulars, was to be sent at the start of June. On the last day of his visit to Washington, Newton D. Baker, the secretary of war, introduced him to General John J. Pershing, just selected to command the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Joffre told him that "he can always count on me for anything in my power."

On 13 June Pershing, who had landed at Boulogne that morning, met Joffre, Paul Painlevé (war minister), Viviani and Foch (chief of staff) in Paris. Joffre recommended that an American unit be rushed to France to show the flag. 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment was sent, and was reviewed by Joffre and President Poincaré as it marched up the Champs-Élysées on 4 July. Pershing rejected Painlevé's suggestion that Joffre head the liaison group of French officers who were helping to set up his supply lines; Pershing insisted on using the Atlantic ports of Brest, St Nazaire and Rochefort.

Joffre became leader of the Supreme War Council in 1918. That same year, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. When he retired in 1919, he was made a member of the Académie française and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1920 he presided over the Jocs Florals in Barcelona, a Catalan literary certamen (he was born in French Catalonia and his mother tongue was Catalan).

In 1922 he was welcomed in Broadway, New York with a ticker-tape parade, a few months after Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander during World War I.

Death
Joffre died at the age of 78 in Paris on 3 January 1931. His body was buried on his estate at Louveciennes. His memoirs, in two volumes, were published posthumously in 1932.

Personality and assessments
Joffre was initiated into Freemasonry in 1875, at the lodge Alsace-Lorraine. According to British author Alan Palmer, many French generals were of the generation educated in the Catholic teaching which had grown up after the Loi Falloux and therefore, unlike Joffre, suspected of hostility to the Third Republic.

Joffre was generally taciturn and a man of impenetrable calm, sometimes interspersed with furious anger. He would sometimes turn up at a unit's headquarters, listen to reports, and then depart having said hardly a word, to the consternation of the officers he had just inspected. At the time of the Battle of the Marne, he was heavily dependent on his deputy chief of staff, General Henri Mathias Berthelot. Sir John French, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, thought highly of him. Georges Boillot, winner of the French Grand Prix 1912 and 1913, was Joffre's personal driver in 1914, and Joffre's car tearing along roads became a familiar sight.

General Hubert Lyautey thought Joffre a better logistician than strategist. His major positive contributions in 1914 were his sustained calm under pressure and the calculated reasoning of an alumnus from École Polytechnique, his ruthless dismissal of unsuccessful generals (three army commanders, ten corps commanders and thirty-eight divisional commanders, replacing them with combative men like Foch, Franchet d'Espèrey and—more junior at that stage—Petain and Nivelle), and his outstanding logistical handling of French infantry divisional movements and artillery ammunition supplies during and after the French retreat of August 1914.

Doughty writes of the Marne: "Gallieni's role was important, but the key concept and decisions lay with Joffre." Joffre recovered from the initial disastrous attacks into Lorraine and the Ardennes and redeployed forces to the west. He kept his cool when the initial attempt to have Maunoury envelop the German west flank at Amiens failed, requiring a retreat on Paris. While the Battle of the Marne was going on, he handled the problems faced by Foch's Ninth Army at the St Gond Marshes, by de Langle's Fourth and Sarrail's Third near Verdun and by Castelnau's Second in the Nancy area.

John Eisenhower writes that Joffre's "personality had a profound effect on the course of history" and he became a household name in the United States.

French

 * Legion of Honour:
 * Knight – 7 September 1885;
 * Officer – 26 December 1895;
 * Commander – 11 July 1903;
 * Grand Officer – 11 July 1909;
 * Grand Cross – 11 July 1914.

 * Médaille militaire – 26 November 1914.
 * Croix de guerre 1914–1918 with Palm
 * Commemorative medal of the 1870–1871 War
 * Tonkin Expedition commemorative medal – March 1887
 * Officer of the Order of the Dragon of Annam – 1887
 * Colonial Medal – Senegal, Sudan (1894)
 * Jade Scepter of Emperor Khải Định of Annam – 1922

Foreign

 * 🇲🇦 Morocco: Grand Cross of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite of Morocco
 * United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB)
 * undefined: Order of Merit (OM)
 * 🇺🇸 united states: Distinguished Service Medal
 * Russian Empire: Order of St. George 2nd class
 * Russian Empire: Order of St. George 3rd class
 * 🇹🇭 Siam: Knights Grand Commander (First Class) of the Order of Rama (Senangapati, 22 December 1921, Thailand)
 * Portugal: Doctor honoris causa (Harvard University), and of the University of Porto and University of Coimbra
 * :Order of Karađorđe's Star with swords (Kingdom of Serbia)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal

Homages
The Joffre class of steam locomotives was a French Decauville design built by Kerr Stuart under contract during 1915 and 1916.

A French aircraft carrier bearing Joffre's name was under construction at the start of World War II but was never completed due to France's rapid fall in 1940.

When he visited Romania in 1920, the Casa Capșa, purveyor to the Royal Court of Romania, created the Joffre cake in his honour.

The following landmarks were named in Marshal Joffre's honour:

(a) France

 * Place Joffre, Avenue de la Motte-Piquet, Paris, with bronze statue of mounted subject.
 * Avenue du Maréchal Joffre located in Verdun, France
 * Rue du Maréchal Joffre located in Nice, France
 * Boulevard Maréchal Joffre in Dijon, France
 * Avenue du Maréchal Joffre in Chantilly, France

(b) Canada

 * Mount Joffre, a mountain located on the Continental Divide on the border of British Columbia and Alberta.
 * Joffre Peak, a mountain in the Lillooet Ranges of southwestern British Columbia
 * Joffre Street, located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.
 * Rue Joffre (Joffre Street), located in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada.
 * Avenue Joffre, located in Quebec City, Canada.
 * Parc Maréchal-Joffre, located in Lévis, Québec, Canada.
 * Joffre Avenue, located in Renfrew, Ontario, Canada.
 * Pont Joffre (Joffre Bridge), located in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

(c) United States of America

 * Joffre Street in Lowell, Massachusetts.
 * Joffre, Pennsylvania, zip code 15053 (Latitude 40.4 degrees north; Longitude 80.4 degrees west).
 * Joffre Avenue, located in Milltown, New Jersey, US.

(d) Australia

 * Joffre Street, located in Pascoe Vale, Victoria, Australia.

(e) China (Mainland)

 * Avenue Joffre (now Huaihai Road), located in the former French Concession of Shanghai, China.

(f) Romania

 * Marshal Joffre Street (formerly Ion Mihalache Street), located in Timișoara, Romania.

In 1918, Mount Joffre on the Continental Divide in Western Canada was named after him. Summits with the names of other French generals are nearby: Cordonnier, Foch, Nivelle, Mangin, and Pétain.

title: Joseph Joffre


text:
Brian Hannon

'''

Brian Desmond Anthony Hannon (5 October 1936 – 10 January 2022) was a Church of Ireland clergyman, who was Bishop of Clogher from 1986 to 2001. He was also the father of the singer and songwriter Neil Hannon, lead member of The Divine Comedy.

Hannon was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in 1962. His first post was a curacy in Clooney, County Londonderry; after which he was the incumbent at Desertmartin, County Londonderry. He ministered in Derry, County Londonderry, from 1969 to 1982, during the time of The Troubles. He then moved to the Church of Ireland Diocese of Clogher, as rector of the Cathedral Parish of Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, and became Dean of Clogher in 1985. He was raised to the episcopate as Bishop of Clogher in 1986.

He retired on 5 October 2001, his sixty-fifth birthday. Hannon died on 10 January 2022, at the age of 85.

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title: Brian Hannon


text:
Web Accessibility Initiative

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities. People with disabilities encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web. Since they often require non-standard devices and browsers, making websites more accessible also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources. According to a US government study, 71% of website visitors with disabilities will leave a website that is not accessible.

The W3C launched the Web Accessibility Initiative in 1997 with endorsement by The White House and W3C members. It has several working groups and interest groups that work on guidelines, technical reports, educational materials and other documents that relate to the several different components of web accessibility. These components include web content, web browsers and media players, authoring tools, and evaluation tools.

Organization
WAI develops guidelines and other technical reports through the same process as other parts of the W3C. Like other W3C initiatives, the WAI consists of several working groups and Special interest groups, each with its own focus. Only working groups can produce technical reports that become W3C recommendations. A working group can sometimes delegate specific work to a task force, which then presents its results back to the working group for approval. Interest groups may produce reports (for example, as W3C Notes), but not recommendations. Each of these types of groups (working group, task force, interest group) can have one or more mailing lists. They meet through conference calls at regular intervals (typically every week or every other week) and sometimes use web-based surveys to collect input or comments from participants. They can also meet face to face (one to five times per year).

In 1997 Judy Brewer has been the director of the WAI. In this role she has championed improving accessibility of the web for people with disabilities and older users.

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (ATAG WG)
The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and supporting resources for tools that create web content, ranging from desktop HTML editors to content management systems. The accessibility requirements apply to two types of things: the user interface on the one hand, and the content produced by the tool on the other. The working group consists of representatives from organizations that produce authoring tools, researchers, and other accessibility experts. The working group produced the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 in 2000 and completed Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 in 2015. A supporting document, Implementing ATAG 2.0, provides additional explanation, examples and resources for ATAG 2.0. It also published a document on Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility.

Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG)
The Education and Outreach Working Group develops materials for training and education on Web accessibility. This working group has produced documents on a wide range of subjects, including:
 * Accessibility Features of CSS
 * Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
 * Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility, a suite of documents about subjects such as conformance evaluation, evaluation approaches for specific contexts, involving users in web accessibility evaluation, and selecting web accessibility evaluation tools
 * Planning Web Accessibility Training
 * Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
 * How People with Disabilities Use the Web, a document that describes various fictitious characters with disabilities and how they use the Web in different scenarios
 * many introduction pages on the WAI website.

Currently, the working group has a task force to support the work done in the WAI-AGE project. This project published a document that reviews literature about the needs of older users and compares these needs with those of people with disabilities as already addressed in WAI guidelines.

The Education and Outreach Working Group can also review working drafts produced by other WAI working groups.

Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group develops technical specifications that support the accessibility evaluation and repair of Web sites. It also maintains a database of tools for evaluating Web sites and for making them more accessible ("repair", "retrofitting"). The working group consists mainly of developers of such tools and researchers. Current work focuses on
 * Evaluation and Report Language (EARL): a language for expressing evaluation reports in a machine-readable way
 * HTTP Vocabulary in RDF, which specifies how HTTP requests and responses can be expressed in RDF
 * Representing Content in RDF, which specifies how content (retrieved from the Web or a local storage device) can be represented in RDF
 * Pointer Methods in RDF, early work on how locations in and parts of online documents can be expressed in RDF.

Protocols & Formats Working Group (PFWG)
The Protocols & Formats Working Group reviews all W3C technologies for accessibility before they are published as a recommendation. It has also published a note on accessibility issues of CAPTCHA, a paper on natural language usage for people with cognitive disabilities, and initial work on accessibility requirements for XML-based markup languages (XML Accessibility Guidelines).

In 2006, the working group started development of a set of document and specifications for accessible rich internet applications: WAI-ARIA.

Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG)
The goal of the Research and Development Interest Group is
 * to increase the incorporation of accessibility considerations into research on Web technologies, and
 * to identify projects researching Web accessibility and suggest research questions that may contribute to new projects.

This interest group has seen very little activity since 2004. Its current charter expired at the end of 2006.

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG)
The User Agent Accessibility Guideline Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and other documents to promote the accessibility of user agents: browsers and plug-ins. The working group consists mainly of organizations that develop user agents, researchers, and other accessibility experts. UAWG published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0 in December 2015. Supporting documentation includes: UAAG 2.0 Reference and UAAG Mobile Examples. The working group published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0) as a W3C Recommendation in 2002.

WAI Interest Group (WAI IG)
The WAI Interest Group is an open group with a mailing list to which anyone can subscribe. W3C staff post announcements of new WAI documents to this mailing list to invite reviews and comments. Members of the list also post announcements of relevant events and publications, and ask advice on issues related to web accessibility. The language of the mailing list is English; there are no parallel mailing lists in other languages.

Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG)
The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (formerly the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group) produces guidelines, techniques and other supporting documents relating to the accessibility of Web content. Web content refers to any information you may find on a Web site: text, images, forms, sound, video, etcetera, regardless whether these were produced on the server side or on the client side (with a client-side scripting language such as JavaScript). Thus, the guidelines also apply to rich internet applications.

The working group consists of representatives from industry, accessibility consultancies, universities, organizations that represent end users, and other accessibility experts.

The working group published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) as W3C Recommendation in 1999, followed by techniques documents in 2000. In 2001, the working group started work on WCAG 2.0, which became a W3C Recommendation on 11 December 2008.

WAI Coordination Group
The WAI Coordination Group co-ordinates that activities of the WAI working groups (and interest groups). Its activities are not public.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (known as WCAG) were published as a W3C Recommendation on 5 May 1999. A supporting document, Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published as a W3C Note on 6 November 2000. WCAG 1.0 is a set of guidelines for making web content more accessible to persons with disabilities. They also help make web content more usable for other devices, including mobile devices (PDAs and cell phones). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are recognized as a de facto standard and have served as a basis for legislation and evaluation methodologies in many countries.

The WCAG working group published WCAG 2.0 as a Recommendation on 11 December 2008. WCAG 2.0 is based on very different requirements from WCAG 1.0: The combination of more general applicability and higher precision proved very challenging.
 * the guidelines needed to be technology-neutral, whereas WCAG 1.0 was strongly based on HTML and CSS;
 * the guidelines needed to be worded as testable statements instead of instructions to authors.

In 2018, the WCAG working group published WCAG 2.1. This remains fundamentally similar to the guidance in WCAG 2.0, with some additional recommendations made in particular areas:
 * Mobile device accessibility
 * Low vision users

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
Developed by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the ATAG 2.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 24 September 2015. ATAG is a set of guidelines for developers of any kind of authoring tool for Web content: simple HTML editors, tools that export content for use on the Web (for example, word processors that can save as HTML), tools that produce multimedia, content management systems, learning management systems, social media, etc..

The goal is for developers to create tools that:
 * are accessible to authors regardless of disability;
 * produce accessible content by default;
 * support and encourage authors to create accessible content.

Implementing ATAG 2.0 is a companion document that provides guidance on understanding and implementing ATAG 2.0. It gives an explanation of the intent of each success criterion, examples of the success criterion, and additional resources. Implementing ATAG 2.0 recommendations can reduce the costs for accessibility because authors are given the tools they need to create accessible content.

List of authoring tools looking to implement ATAG 2.0:
 * CKEditor
 * Drupal

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published in 2000 by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group.

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)
Developed by the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the UAAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 17 December 2002. The UAAG is a set of guidelines for user agent developers (such as web browsers and media players) aimed at making the user agent accessible to users with disabilities. Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published as a W3C Note on the same day; it provides techniques for satisfying the checkpoints defined in UAAG 1.0. Working group members also produced other supporting documents, including initial notes on How to evaluate a user agent for conformance to UAAG 1.0; this document was not formally approved by the working group. No user agents have been reported as fully conforming to UAAG 1.0.

The working group is currently working on a new version of the guidelines. The first public draft of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was published on 12 March 2008.

XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG)
The XAG explains how to include features in XML applications (i.e. markup languages conforming to the XML specification) that promote accessibility. Work on these guidelines stopped in 2002; the guidelines are still a working draft.

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA)
WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a technical specification which became a W3C Recommended Web Standard on 20 March 2014. It allows web pages (or portions of pages) to declare themselves as applications rather than as static documents, by adding role, property, and state information to dynamic web applications. ARIA is intended for use by developers of web applications, web browsers, assistive technologies, and accessibility evaluation tools.

title: Web Accessibility Initiative


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Talk:Uninterruptible Power Supply

Previous wording was:

 * Device, which can provide power on temporary power cut, usually consists of battery and watchdog. When the power goes off, battery gives the power, when the power is on, battery is recharged.

Now redirected to a better explanation. - kiwiinapanic 10:12 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Uninterruptible Power Supply


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Secret police

Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. They protect the political power of a dictator or regime and often operate outside the law to repress dissidents and weaken political opposition, frequently using violence. They may enjoy legal sanction to hold and charge suspects without ever identifying their organization.

Uganda
In Uganda, the State Research Bureau (SRB) was a secret police organisation for President Idi Amin. The Bureau tortured many Ugandans, operating on behalf of a regime responsible for more than five hundred thousand violent deaths. The SRB attempted to infiltrate every area of Ugandan life.

Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) was the secret police of President Robert Mugabe who is responsible for detaining, torturing, mass beating, raping and starving thousands of civilians on the orders of Mugabe.

China
In East Asia, the jinyiwei (Embroidered Uniform Guard) of the Ming dynasty was founded in the 1360s by the Hongwu Emperor and served as the dynasty's secret police until the collapse of Ming rule in 1644. Originally, their main functions were to serve as the emperor's bodyguard and to spy on his subjects and report any plots of rebellion or regicide directly to the emperor. Over time, the organization took on law enforcement and judicial functions and grew to be immensely powerful, with the power to overrule ordinary judicial rulings and to investigate, interrogate, and punish anyone, including members of the imperial family. In 1420, a second secret police organization run by eunuchs, known as the dongchang (Eastern Depot), was formed to suppress suspected political opposition to the usurpation of the throne by the Yongle Emperor. Combined, these two organizations made the Ming dynasty one of the world's first police states.

The Ministry of State Security in modern China controls a network of provincial and local State Security Bureaus, integrated with local Public Security Bureaus which make up part of the policing system of China. State security agents are People's Police officers with the dual function of law enforcement and repressing political dissent. State security bureaus and public security bureaus are functionally co-located within the same buildings as each other. The MSS and the Ministry of Public Security control the overall national police network of China and the two agencies share resources and closely coordinate with each other.

Hong Kong
In British Hong Kong, the Special Branch was established in 1934 originally as an anti-communist squad under MI5 with assistance from MI6. The branch later joined the Crime Department of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in 1946 and focused on preventing pro-KMT rightists and pro-CCP leftists from infiltrating the colony.

The National Security Department in the current HKSAR is a secret police agency created after the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law. The NSD has accused and arrested dissenting voices in Hong Kong for "endangering" the national security, including pro-democracy politicians, protestors, and journalists. Some websites were also reportedly banned by the department, including Hong Kong Watch.

Iraq
In the Middle East, located in Baghdad. Shurta was one of the most both powerful intelligence and secret police organizations of the Abbasid era which was led by the Abbasids in the 8th and 9th centuries during the Golden Age of Islam.

Japan
In Japan, the Kenpeitai existed from 1881 to 1945 and were described as secret police by the Australian War Memorial. It had an equivalent branch in the Imperial Japanese Navy known as the Tokkeitai. However, their civilian counterpart known as the Tokkō was formed in 1911. Its task consisted of controlling political groups and ideologies in Imperial Japan, resembling closer the other secret police agencies of the time period. For this it earned the nickname "the Thought Police".

South Korea
The Korean Central Intelligence Agency or KCIA was a secret police agency which acted extra-judicially and was involved in such activities as kidnapping a presidential candidate and the assassination of Park Chung-hee, among other things.

Taiwan
In Taiwan, the National Security Bureau, established in 1954, is the regime's main intelligence agency. The Taiwan Garrison Command acted as a secret police/national security body which existed as a branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces. The agency was established at the end of World War II and operated throughout the Cold War. It was disbanded on 1 August 1992. It was responsible for suppressing activities viewed as promoting democracy and Taiwan independence.

Europe

Secret police organizations originated in 18th-century Europe after the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna. Such operations were established in an effort to detect any possible conspiracies or revolutionary subversion. The peak of secret-police operations in most of Europe was 1815 to 1860, "when restrictions on voting, assembly, association, unions and the press were so severe in most European countries that opposition groups were forced into conspiratorial activities." The Geheime Staatspolizei of Austria and the Geheimpolizei of Prussia were particularly notorious during this period. After 1860, the use of secret police declined due to increasing liberalization, except in autocratic regimes such as Tsarist Russia.

Germany
In Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, the Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police, Gestapo) and Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police, GFP) were a secret police organization used to identify and eliminate opposition, including suspected organized resistance. Its claimed main duty, according to a 1936 law, was "to investigate and suppress all anti-State tendencies". One method used to spy on citizens was to intercept letters or telephone calls. They encouraged ordinary Germans to inform on each other. As part of the Reich Security Main Office, it was also a key organizer of the Holocaust. Although the Gestapo had a relatively small number of personnel (32,000 in 1944), "it maximized these small resources through informants and a large number of denunciations from the local population".

After the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, Germany was split into West and East Germany. East Germany became a socialist state and ruled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. It was closely aligned with communist Russia and the Soviet Union. It had secret police, commonly referred to as the Stasi, which made use of an extensive network of civilian informers. From the 1970's, the main form of political, cultural and religious repression practiced by the Stasi, was a form of 'silent repression' called Zersetzung ("Decomposition"). This involved the sustained use of covert psychological harassment methods against people, which were designed to cause mental and emotional health problems, and thereby debilitate them and cause them to become socially isolated. Directed-energy weapons are considered by some survivors and analysts to have also been used as a constituent part of Zersetzung methods, although this is not definitely proven.

Hungary
The House of Terror museum in Budapest displays the headquarters for the Arrow Cross Party, which killed hundreds of Jews in its basement, among other targets considered "enemies of the race-based state". The same building was used by the State Protection Authority (or ÁVH) secret police. The Soviet-aligned ÁVH moved into the former fascist police headquarters and used it to torture and execute state opponents.

Italy
In the Fascist Italy (1922-1943) and the Italian Social Republic (RSI), OVRA were a fascist Italian secret police organization.

Russia
Ivan the Terrible implemented Oprichnina in Russia between 1565 and 1572. In the Russian Empire, the secret police forces were the Third Section of the Imperial Chancery and then the Okhrana. Agents of the Okhrana were vital in identifying and suppressing opponents of the Tsar. The Okhrana engaged in torture and infiltration of opponents. They infiltrated labor unions, political parties, and newspapers. After the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union established the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, and MVD. Cheka, as an authorized secret police force under the rule of the Bolsheviks, suppressed political opponents during the Red Terror. It also enacted counterintelligence operations such as Operation Trust, in which it set up a fake anti-Bolshevik organization to identify opponents. It was the temporary forerunner to the KGB, a later secret police agency used for similar purposes. The NKVD participated in the Great Purge under Stalin.

Cuba
In Cuba, President Fulgencio Batista's secret police, known as the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (or BRAC), suppressed political opponents such as the 26th of July Movement through methods including violent interrogations.

Under the Communist Party of Cuba, the Ministry of the Interior has served a number of secret policing functions. As recently as 1999, the Human Rights Watch reported that repression of dissidents was routine, albeit harsher after heightened periods of opposition activity. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under the US State Department reported that Cuba's Ministry of the Interior utilizes a network of informants known as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (or CDR) to monitor government opponents. Secret state police have operated in secret among CDR groups, and most adult Cubans are officially members. CDR are tasked with informing on other Cubans and monitoring activity in their neighborhoods.

Mexico
During the Truman Doctrine, Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés created DFS to combat communist opposition. The agency was later replaced by DISEN in 1985 after DFS agents were working for the Guadalajara Cartel. In 1989, it was replaced by CISEN.

United States
In Mississippi, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (or "Sov-Com") was a state agency given unusual authority by the governor of Mississippi from 1956 to 1977, to investigate and police private citizens in order to uphold racial segregation. This authority was used to suppress and spy on the activities of civil rights workers, along with others suspected of sentiments contrary to white supremacy. Agents from the Sov-Com wiretapped and bugged citizens of Mississippi, and historians identify the agency as a secret police force. Among other things, the Sov-Com collaborated with the Ku Klux Klan and engaged in jury tampering to harass targets. The agency ceased to function in 1973, but was not officially dissolved until 1977. The Sov-Com served as a model for the Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission and the Alabama State Sovereignty Commission.

In private writings in 1945, President Harry S. Truman wrote that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (under Director J. Edgar Hoover) was tending towards becoming a secret police force:"We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F.B.I. is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandles [sic] and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at local law enforcement officers."Yet in spite of these sentiments, Truman took no action to try to abolish the FBI, or even more modest reforms. Beginning a decade later in 1956, Hoover's FBI began the COINTELPRO project, aimed at suppressing domestic political opponents. Among other targets, this included Martin Luther King Jr.

Brazil
During the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, between 1930 and 1946, the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS) was the government's secret police.

During the military dictatorship in Brazil, DOPS was employed by the military regime along with the Department of Information Operations - Center for Internal Defense Operations (or DOI-CODI) and the National Intelligence Service (or SNI), and engaged in kidnappings, torture, and attacks against theaters and bookstores.

Chile
The National Intelligence Directorate, or DINA, was a powerful secret police agency under the rule of Augusto Pinochet, which was charged with killings and torture related to repression of political opponents. Chilean government investigations found that over 30,000 people were tortured by the agency.

Venezuela
During the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the Seguridad Nacional secret police investigated, arrested, tortured, and assassinated political opponents to the Venezuelan government. From 1951 until 1953, it operated a prison camp on, which was effectively a forced labour camp. The Seguridad Nacional was abolished following the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez on 23 January 1958.

During the crisis in Venezuela and Venezuelan protests, Vice Presidents Tareck El Aissami and Delcy Rodríguez have been accused of using SEBIN to oppress political demonstrations. SEBIN director and general Manuel Cristopher Figuera reported that SEBIN would torture political demonstrators during interrogation sessions.

Functions and methods
Ilan Berman and J. Michael Waller describe the secret police as central to totalitarian regimes and "an indispensable device for the consolidation of power, neutralization of the opposition, and construction of a single-party state". In addition to these activities, secret police may also be responsible for tasks not related to suppressing internal dissent, such as gathering foreign intelligence, engaging in counterintelligence, organizing border security, and guarding government buildings and officials. Secret police forces sometimes endure even after the fall of a totalitarian regime.

Arbitrary detention, abduction and forced disappearance, torture, and assassination are all tools wielded by secret police "to prevent, investigate, or punish (real or imagined) opposition." Because secret police typically act with great discretionary powers "to decide what is a crime" and are a tool used to target political opponents, they operate outside the rule of law.

People apprehended by the secret police are often arbitrarily arrested and detained without due process. While in detention, arrestees may be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment. Suspects may not receive a public trial, and instead may be convicted in a kangaroo court-style show trial, or by a secret tribunal. Secret police known to have used these approaches in history included the secret police of East Germany (the Ministry for State Security or Stasi) and Portuguese PIDE.

Control
A single secret service may pose a potential threat to the central political authority. Political scientist Sheena Chestnut Greitens writes that: "When it comes to their security forces, autocrats face a fundamental 'coercing dilemma' between empowerment and control. ... Autocrats must empower their security forces with enough coercing capacity to enforce internal order and conduct external defense. Equally important to their survival, however, they must control that capacity, to ensure it is not turned against them."Authoritarian regimes therefore attempt to engage in "coup-proofing" (designing institutions to minimize risks of a coup). Two methods of doing so are:

 * Increasing fragmentation (i.e., dividing powers among the regime security apparatuses to prevent "any single agency from amassing enough political power to carry out a coup") and
 * Increasing exclusivity (i.e., purging the regime security apparatus to favor familial, social, ethnic, religious, and tribal groups perceived as more loyal).

title: Secret police


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Berserker

In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers (berserkir) were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word berserk (meaning 'furiously violent or out of control'). Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources.

Etymology
The Old Norse form of the word was berserk (plural berserkir). It likely means "bear-shirt" (compare the Middle English word '', meaning 'shirt'), "someone who wears a coat made out of a bear's skin". Thirteenth-century historian Snorri Sturluson interpreted the meaning as "bare-shirt", that is to say that the warriors went into battle without armour, but that view has largely been abandoned due to contradicting and lack of supporting evidence.

Early beginnings
It is proposed by some authors that the northern warrior tradition originated from hunting magic. Three main animal cults appear to have developed: the cult of the bear, the wolf, and the wild boar.

Germani mercenaries in the Roman army
The bas-relief carvings on Trajan's column in Rome (completed 113 AD) depict scenes of Trajan's conquest of Dacia in 101–106 AD. The scenes show his Roman soldiers plus auxiliaries and allies from Rome's border regions, including tribal warriors from both sides of the Rhine. There are warriors depicted as barefoot, bare-chested, bearing weapons and helmets that are associated with the Germani. Scene 36 on the column shows some of these warriors standing together, with some wearing bearhoods and some wearing wolfhoods. Nowhere else in history are Germanic bear-warriors and wolf-warriors fighting together recorded until 872 AD with Thórbiörn Hornklofi's description of the battle of Hafrsfjord when they fought together for King Harald Fairhair of Norway.

Migration Period depictions
In 1639 and 1734 respectively, two vastly decorated horns made of sheet gold, the Golden Horns of Gallehus, were discovered in Southern Jutland, Denmark. As part of its decoration, the first horn, the larger of the two, depicts two armed animal headed men facing each other. Dated to the early 5th century, these depictions could represent bearserkers or thereof.

In the spring of 1870, four Vendel era cast-bronze dies, the Torslunda plates, were found by Erik Gustaf Pettersson and Anders Petter Nilsson in a cairn on the lands of the farm No 5 Björnhovda in Torslunda parish, Öland, Sweden, one of them showing what appears to be a berserker ritual.

In 1887, the graves of two 7th century Alemanni men were found during construction work in the immediate vicinity of the St. Gallus Church in the Gutenstein district of the city of Sigmaringen, Germany. One of the graves contained, among other things, a silver sword scabbard, the. Highly ornate, it features a warrior figure with a wolf's head, holding a sword and a spear. It is thought this depicts an ulfheðinn (wolf warrior), as pre-Christian Central Europe was part of the same tradition as the Norse.

Other animal headed figures have also been found, such as an antlered figure on the Gundestrup cauldron, found on northern Jutland, Denmark, in 1891, which has been dated from 200 BC to 300 AD.

Berserkers – bear warriors
It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once widespread across the northern hemisphere. The berserkers maintained their religious observances despite their fighting prowess, as the Svarfdæla saga tells of a challenge to single-combat that was postponed by a berserker until three days after Yule. The bodies of dead berserkers were laid out in bearskins prior to their funeral rites. The bear-warrior symbolism survives to this day in the form of the bearskin caps worn by the guards of the Danish monarchs.

In battle, the berserkers were subject to fits of frenzy. They would howl like wild beasts, foam at the mouth, and gnaw the rims of their shields. According to belief, during these fits, they were immune to steel and fire, and made great havoc in the ranks of the enemy. When this fever abated, they were weak and tame. Accounts can be found in the sagas.

To "go berserk" was to "hamask", which translates as "change form", in this case, as with the sense "enter a state of wild fury". Some scholars have interpreted those who could transform as a berserker as "hamrammr" or "shapestrong" – literally able to shapeshift into a bear's form. For example, the band of men who go with Skallagrim in Egil's Saga to see King Harald about his brother Thorolf's murder are described as "the hardest of men, with a touch of the uncanny about a number of them ... they [were] built and shaped more like trolls than human beings." This has sometimes been interpreted as the band of men being "hamrammr", though there is no major consensus. Another example of "hamrammr" comes from the Saga of Hrólf Kraki. One tale within tells the story of Bödvar Bjarki, a berserker who is able to shapeshift into a bear and uses this ability to fight for king Hrólfr Kraki. "Men saw that a great bear went before King Hrolf's men, keeping always near the king. He slew more men with his fore paws than any five of the king's champions."

Ulfheðnar – wolf warriors
Wolf warriors appear among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and Native American cultures. The Germanic wolf-warriors have left their trace through shields and standards that were captured by the Romans and displayed in the armilustrium in Rome.

Frenzy warriors wearing the skins of wolves called ulfheðnar ("wolf-skin-ers" or possibly "wolf-heathens"; singular ulfheðinn), are mentioned in the Vatnsdæla saga, the Haraldskvæði and the Grettis saga and are consistently referred to in the sagas as a group of berserkers, always presented as the elite following of the first Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. They were said to wear the pelt of a wolf over their chainmail when they entered battle. Unlike berserkers, direct references to ulfheðnar are scant. Egil's Saga features a man called Kveldulf (Evening-Wolf) who is said to have transformed into a wolf at night. This Kveldulf is described as a berserker, as opposed to an ulfheðinn. Ulfheðnar are sometimes described as Odin's special warriors: "[Odin's] men went without their mailcoats and were mad as hounds or wolves, bit their shields...they slew men, but neither fire nor iron had effect upon them. This is called 'going berserk'." In addition, the helm-plate press from Torslunda depicts a scene of a one-eyed warrior with bird-horned helm, assumed to be Odin, next to a wolf-headed warrior armed with a spear and sword as distinguishing features, assumed to be a berserker with a wolf pelt: "a wolf-skinned warrior with the apparently one-eyed dancer in the bird-horned helm, which is generally interpreted as showing a scene indicative of a relationship between berserkgang ... and the god Odin".

"Jǫfurr" – proposed boar warriors
In Norse poetry, the word jǫfurr, which originally meant "wild boar", is used metaphorically for "a prince, monarch or warrior", which probably stems from the custom of wearing boar's heads as helmets or boar crested helmets in battle.

Swine played a central role in Germanic paganism, featuring in both mythology and religious practice, particularly in association with the Vanir, Freyr and Freyja. It has been proposed that similar to berserkers, warriors could ritually transform into boars so as to gain strength, bravery and protection in battle. It has been theorised that this process was linked to the wearing of boar helmets as a ritual costume.

Attestations
Berserkers appear prominently in a multitude of other sagas and poems. Many earlier sagas portrayed berserkers as bodyguards, elite soldiers, and champions of kings. This image would change as time passed and sagas would begin to describe berserkers as boasters rather than heroes, and as ravenous men who loot, plunder, and kill indiscriminately. Within the sagas, Berserkers can be narrowed down to four different types. The King's Berserkr, the Hall-Challenging Berserkr, the Hólmgangumaðr, and the Viking Berserkr. Later, by Christian interpreters, the berserker was viewed as a "heathen devil".

The earliest surviving reference to the term "berserker" is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem composed by Thórbiörn Hornklofi in the late 9th century in honor of King Harald Fairhair, as ulfheðnar ("men clad in wolf skins"). This translation from the Haraldskvæði saga describes Harald's berserkers:

"I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood, Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated, Those who wade out into battle? Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle They bear bloody shields. Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight. They form a closed group. The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men Who hack through enemy shields."

The "tasters of blood" (a kenning) in this passage are thought to be ravens, which feasted on the slain.

The Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) wrote the following description of berserkers in his Ynglinga saga:

"His (Odin's) men rushed forwards without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild oxen, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon them. This was called Berserkergang."

King Harald Fairhair's use of berserkers as "shock troops" broadened his sphere of influence. Other Scandinavian kings used berserkers as part of their army of hirdmen and sometimes ranked them as equivalent to a royal bodyguard. It may be that some of those warriors only adopted the organization or rituals of berserk Männerbünde, or used the name as a deterrent or claim of their ferocity.

Emphasis has been placed on the frenzied nature of the berserkers, hence the modern sense of the word "berserk". However, the sources describe several other characteristics that have been ignored or neglected by modern commentators. Snorri's assertion that "neither fire nor iron told upon them" is reiterated time after time. The sources frequently state that neither edged weapons nor fire affected the berserks, although they were not immune to clubs or other blunt instruments. For example:

"These men asked Halfdan to attack Hardbeen and his champions man by man; and he not only promised to fight, but assured himself the victory with most confident words. When Hardbeen heard this, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions. It is doubtful whether this madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity. Then with the remaining band of his champions he attacked Halfdan, who crushed him with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victory and life; paying the penalty both to Halfdan, whom he had challenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violently ravished..."

Similarly, Hrolf Kraki's champions refuse to retreat "from fire or iron". Another frequent motif refers to berserkers blunting their enemy's blades with spells or a glance from their evil eyes. This appears as early as Beowulf where it is a characteristic attributed to Grendel. Both the fire eating and the immunity to edged weapons are reminiscent of tricks popularly ascribed to fakirs. In 1015, Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway outlawed berserkers. Grágás, the medieval Icelandic law code, sentenced berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 12th century, organised berserker war-bands had disappeared.

The Lewis Chessmen, found on the Isle of Lewis (Outer Hebrides, Scotland) but thought to be of Norse manufacture, include berserkers depicted biting their shields.

Theories
Scholar Hilda Ellis-Davidson draws a parallel between berserkers and the mention by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (CE 905–959) in his book De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies of the Byzantine court") of a "Gothic Dance" performed by members of his Varangian Guard (Norse warriors in the service of the Byzantine Empire), who took part wearing animal skins and masks: she believes this may have been connected with berserker rites.

The rage the berserker experienced was referred to as berserkergang ('berserk fit/frenzy' or 'berserk movement'). This condition has been described as follows:

"This fury, which was called berserkergang, occurred not only in the heat of battle, but also during laborious work. Men who were thus seized performed things which otherwise seemed impossible for human power. This condition is said to have begun with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and chill in the body, and then the face swelled and changed its colour. With this was connected a great hot-headedness, which at last gave over into a great rage, under which they howled as wild animals, bit the edge of their shields, and cut down everything they met without discriminating between friend or foe. When this condition ceased, a great dulling of the mind and feebleness followed, which could last for one or several days."

When Viking villages went to war in unison, the berserkers often wore special clothing, for instance furs of a wolf or bear, to indicate that this person was a berserker, and would not be able to tell friend from foe when in "bersærkergang". In this way, other allies would know to keep their distance.

Some scholars propose that certain examples of berserker rage had been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom or massive amounts of alcohol. This is much debated but the theory is further supported by the discovery of seeds belonging to the plant henbane Hyoscyamus niger in a Viking grave that was unearthed near Fyrkat, Denmark in 1977. An analysis of the symptoms caused by Hyoscyamus niger are also similar to the symptoms ascribed to the berserker state, which suggest it may have been used to generate their warlike mood. Other explanations for the berserker's madness that have been put forward include self-induced hysteria, epilepsy, or mental illness, among other causes.

One theory of the berserkers suggests that the physical manifestations of the berserker alongside their rage was a form of self-induced hysteria. Initiated before battle through a ritualistic performance meant for effect, which included actions such as shield-biting and animalistic howling.

Jonathan Shay makes an explicit connection between the berserker rage of soldiers and the hyperarousal of posttraumatic stress disorder. In Achilles in Vietnam, he writes:

"If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. My clinical experience with Vietnam combat veterans prompts me to place the berserk state at the heart of their most severe psychological and psychophysiological injuries."

It has been suggested that the berserkers' behavior inspired the legend of the werewolf.

In popular culture

 * J.R.R. Tolkien draws heavily on Norse mythology in his Middle Earth tales, including The Hobbit. There, the berserker Beorn can transfigure into a massive bear, dangerous to both friend and foe.
 * In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, berserkers appear as humans that have transformed into bears.
 * In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, berserkers are mentioned throughout the game and the pre-order bonus quest "The Way of the Berserker" is centered around a berserker named Bjorn.
 * A "berserker" class appears in Path of Exile.
 * Gears of War features an enemy known as the Locust. Within the Locust caste are drones, with the females named berserkers.
 * Thor Odinson has been depicted with a berserker rage like state called "Warrior's Madness" which enhances his strength, speed, durability and stamina for months though Thor has very little control in this state. A 'Berserker staff' is featured in the Marvel TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
 * Falling Skies is a science fiction series produced by Steven Spielberg where a post-massacre remnant society of humans offers armed resistance to an alien invasion. A small faction of mercenary fighters within the human cohort that is at the center of the series' action is known as The Berzerkers.
 * In the 2022 film The Northman, the main character Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) is raised as part of a group of berserkers. A berserker ritual is also featured in the film.

title: Berserker


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Berserker (novel series)

The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.

These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as the need arises. The Berserker hypothesis, formed as a possible solution to the Fermi paradox, takes its name from the series.

The Berserker stories (published as novels and short stories) depict the fight between Berserkers and the sentient species of the Milky Way Galaxy: Homo sapiens (referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" humans, or as "Solarians") which is the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers.

First appearances
The first story, "Without a Thought" (originally published as "Fortress Ship") (1963), is a puzzle story, whose protagonist must find a way to simulate intelligence to fool an enemy trying to determine whether there was any conscious being present in a spaceship.

Saberhagen came up with the Berserker as the rationale for the story on the spur of the moment, but the basic concept was so fruitful, with so many possible ramifications, that he used it as the basis of many stories. A common theme in the stories is of how the apparent weaknesses and inconsistencies of living beings are actually the strengths that bring about the killer machines' eventual defeat.

The second story, "Goodlife" (1963), introduces human traitors or collaborators who cooperate with the Berserker machines to stay alive for a little longer.

Backstory
The original Berserkers were designed and built as an ultimate weapon, by a race now known only as the Builders, to wipe out their rivals, the Red Race, in a war which took place at a time corresponding to Earth's Paleolithic era. The Builders failed to ensure their own immunity from Berserker attack, or they lost those safeguards through an unknown malfunction that changed the Berserker programming, and they were exterminated by their own creation very shortly after the demise of the Red Race. The Berserkers then set out across the galaxy to fulfill their core programmed imperative, which is now, simply, to destroy all life wherever they can find it.

A similar premise, though on a much smaller scale, was previously introduced by Walter M. Miller, Jr., in the 1954 short story "I Made You", described by reviewer N. Samuelson as "A pure 'sorcerer’s apprentice' sketch, about a war machine on the moon which kills anyone who comes within its range, including one of its programmers, because its control circuits are damaged."

List of species
The Berserker stories features many different characters originating from many different species, human and alien. These include:

Berserkers
The Berserkers are intelligent machines, created by an organic race in the past, as a doomsday weapon, a group of robots with one goal: to destroy all organic life. They turned on their own creators, wiping them out.

The Berserker brain is based on the decay of radioactive elements, to enable their moves to be unpredictable in the event that some race should ever 'crack their source code' and be able to predict perfectly their battle strategies. In rare instances, the unpredictable nature of Berserker decision making has actually worked in humans' favor.

Berserkers exist in a multitude of shapes, sizes and forms. The most common Berserkers are large spherical interstellar spacecraft, heavily armed and armored, equipped with self-replicating factories, and capable of producing numerous scout craft, foot soldiers, and other weapons of war.

Little is known of the Berserkers' history other than that they were created to destroy the Red Race, who are now extinct. The creators of the Berserkers are known as the Builders, who were also later destroyed by the Berserkers.

The Builders
The Builders were a precursor race, of whom little is known other than they created and were later destroyed by the Berserkers. Saberhagen describes them thus:

The Builders created the Berserkers in a genocidal war with the Red Race, which ended in both races' extinction by the Berserkers.

Carmpan
The Carmpan are a patient and peaceful species; their culture is one of logic, reason, pacifism, and philosophy. They lend what support they can to the Humans, but in non-martial forms. They are incapable of direct aggression, but they do possess one special power, a telepathic ability to speak to other sentients across the stars, a method of communication that the Berserkers cannot spy on. Their most effective help to ED (Earth Descended) Solarians is the 'Prophecy of Probability' in which they can give information on future events. This prophecy is very taxing and can even cause the death of a Carmpan.

Although their bodies are described as boxy and machine-like, the Carmpan are also a biological lifeform and thus a target for the genocidal programming of the Berserkers. As such, they have allied themselves with the human race against the Berserkers.

The first stories in the series are related by an individual Carmpan, the "3rd Historian", who seeks to chronicle life in the Galaxy and the struggle against the Berserkers.

Goodlife
The Berserkers are known to cooperate with each other, most of the time. They sometimes spare the lives of human (or other organic) traitors or collaborators, known as "goodlife", who are willing to cooperate to help destroy other lifeforms.

Humanity
Homo sapiens, referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" Humans, or as "Solarians", is the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers.

The Berserkers have severely threatened human civilizations and wiped out billions of humans and other more exotic species. The remnants of human civilization have learned to be wily in order to survive. Berserker technology is much more advanced than that of any known human society. The survivors are disparate and lack the ability to act as a united foe to the Berserkers. While ED humans have massed powerful fleets on many occasions, bickering and strife between factions both political and cultural have often blunted the Solarian Armadas' effectiveness, ironically furthering the power of their machine foes, the Berserkers.

Qwib-qwib
Later stories involve the Qwib-qwib, an anti-Berserker berserker. Quib-quib's full name was "quibbian-qwibbian-kel." "Qwibbian" was the name the alien red race used for Berserkers.

Red Race
The Red Race was another precursor race, of which little is known other than that their extinction was the Builders' purpose in creating the Berserkers millennia ago.

Adaptations

 * A board game based on the series was produced by Flying Buffalo Inc in 1982.
 * A comic book adaptation is being created by Fan-Atic Press.
 * The play-by-mail game Starweb uses the term "Berserker" with permission of Fred Saberhagen; Saberhagen returned the favor by using a fictionalized Starweb game as a backdrop for the novel Octagon.

Related concepts
Other examples of science fiction stories containing replicators bent on the destruction of organic life include:
 * Cylons, robotic antagonists bent on destroying all humankind.
 * "The Doomsday Machine", a Star Trek episode about a planet-eating machine from another galaxy.
 * the Festival, a civilization of uploaded minds with strange designs on Humanity, in Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.
 * the Hypotheticals, intelligent Von Neumann machines with strange designs on Earth, in Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, although the Hypothetical's goal is to save Mankind and other sentient species, not destroy them.
 * the Inhibitors, in the fiction of Alastair Reynolds: a formerly organic race, completely converted over to machine form, who are non-sapient, and describe themselves as "post-intelligent".
 * the Killers, a civilization of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators, in The Forge of God and sequel Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear.
 * Reapers, machine intelligences bent on the destruction of organic life, in Mass Effect.
 * Necrons, an ancient race of skeleton-like robots in Warhammer 40,000.
 * Skynet, an artificial intelligence bent on the destruction of mankind, and its agents the Terminators, in the movie The Terminator and its sequels.
 * the Xymos Nanoswarms in Prey by Michael Crichton.
 * the (!*!*!), a machine intelligence/civilization bent on the extermination of organic life, from the Bolo universe stories about a fictional type of artificially intelligent super-heavy tank.
 * the Replicators of the Stargate universe
 * the Claws, self-replicating, self-improving killer robots from the Philip K. Dick story Second Variety, which were designed by the United Nations following a devastating nuclear war with Russia, and intended to kill any human not wearing a special wristband. The book was adapted into the 1995 film Screamers
 * the Artificial Machine Intelligence that evolved from Starfleet's Section 31 Threat Analysis AI "Control" destined to eradicate all organic life in Star Trek: Discovery. The cyclical rise and defeat of similar past and future Genocidal AI's later becomes a key plot point in Star Trek: Picard.
 * the machines from the board game Legions of Steel. They emerge at the edge of the galaxy, take over planets on which they create factories to replicate themselves and mount attacks on the factions of the Milky Way.
 * Berzerk (1981) by Stern Electronics and Robotron: 2084 (1982) by Williams Electronics Games take cues from the novels as players fight robots bent on destroying humanity.

title: Berserker (novel series)