PROGRAMMING NOTE: To everybody who’s been emailing to ask where the voiceovers are I’m afraid I can’t make it any clearer than I did on Sunday that I’m recovering from the flu and voiceovers will resume when I am physically able to resume them. I know nobody likes to read anything anymore but I’m somewhat at a loss as to how I can convey this sort of information to newsletter readers if they’re not reading the newsletter.
TODAY IN HISTORY
January 9, 1822: Prince Pedro of Portugal, Brazilian regent for his father King João VI, rejects an order from Portugal to dissolve Brazil’s government and return home. The order had been arranged by Portuguese general Jorge de Avilez, who wanted to force Pedro out of Brazil so that he could govern the country himself, but when Avilez subsequently mutinied he and his forces were defeated and forced to leave Brazil. This incident kicked off the series of events that led to Pedro’s coronation as Emperor Pedro I of Brazil in October and the subsequent Brazilian War of Independence.
January 9, 1916: World War I’s famous Gallipoli Campaign ends after more than eight months and some 500,000 casualties on both sides. Repeated Allied efforts to gain ground after their initial landings around the Dardanelles Strait failed, and Bulgaria’s entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers in October made the Allies’ already tenuous position in the region completely untenable.
January 9, 1917: The Battle of Rafah ends with the UK defeating the last Ottoman defenders in Egypt. Rafah drove the Ottomans out of Egypt and marked the close of the Sinai portion of World War I’s Sinai/Palestine Campaign, which began with an Ottoman attack on the Suez Canal in late January 1915 and would end with the Allied capture of Aleppo in October 1918.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The Syrian government declared a ceasefire in its ongoing conflict with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces fighters in Aleppo on Friday morning, but conflict had resumed by evening. The ceasefire went into effect at 3 AM local time and included a six hour deadline for armed Kurdish factions to leave the neighborhoods of Ashrafiyah, Bani Zaid, and Sheikh Maqsoud. There’s been no evacuation and a local Kurdish council in Ashrafiyah and Sheikh Maqsoud rejected the government’s ultimatum. At last check the Syrian army had announced a new operation in Sheikh Maqsoud and there were reports of fighting in the town of Deir Hafer to the east of Aleppo. The SDF has claimed that government forces killed a 10 year old girl in Deir Hafer but that’s the only casualty report I’ve seen since the fighting began again.
