From Cambodia’s poorest regions into tough, disciplined and ruthless troops. Yet, suspicious of their Vietnamese allies, obsessed with ethnic purity and riven by factionalism, they exterminated cadres suspected of pro-Hanoi sympathies, depopulated the cities, and imposed a reign of terror on that part of the population that had not lived in “liberated areas” before 1975. Up to one million Cambodians died in the terror before the Vietnamese invaded in December 1978. The Khmers Rouges survived, with Chinese and Thai support, as a guerrilla movement based in refugee camps along the Thai border. They were militarily the most effective of the three components of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea resisting the Vietnamese occupation. WST.
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruholla
(1900-89). Iranian. Religious leader and prophet of the Iranian Revolution. He led riots against the Shah’s land reforms in 1963; exiled 1964—79; returned to Iran in February 1979 as Mahdi Bazar-gar, or religious leader.
Kiel mutiny (1918). On October 28 1918, the German High Seas Fleet was ordered to sortie from Kiel on a supposed “death ride” against the British Grand Fleet. War-weary and aroused by socialist agitators, the crews of several of the 19 battleships and 5 battlecruisers mutinied. By November 3, Kiel was controlled by a “Sailors’ Soviet” and the High Seas Fleet had ceased to be a fighting force.
Kiev, Battle of (1941). Four weeks into the invasion of Russia, the German army had achieved some stunning successes but some doubt existed as to its main objectives. Hitler ordered von Rundstedt’s Army Group South to destroy the Soviet forces occupying a substantial salient around Kiev in the Ukraine. While the capture of Leningrad also remained a vital priority, the advance on Moscow was halted. Although most of his commanders expressed their reservations at this new strategic turn. Hitler’s directives were implemented. Three German infantry armies, the Second, Sixth and Seventeenth were to attack around
Kiev while Guderian and von Kleist’s panzer groups at the north and south of the salient were to execute a great pincer movement to prevent any Russian withdrawal. The German plan was greatly assisted by the ineptitude of the Soviet commander. Marshal Budenny, and Stalin’s insistence that there be no retreat. By September 11 even Budenny had grasped what was happening as the Germans closed in around Kiev. Meanwhile the panzers continued their advance and, on September 16, the northern and southern columns met at Lokhivit-sa. Belatedly the Soviet High Command authorized a withdrawal but it was now impossible for the defenders to escape. On September 19 Kiev fell and by the end of the month more than half-a-million Soviet prisoners had been taken. Although the Germans had accomplished a majestic tactical achievement and the Red Army had suffered grievous losses, Soviet military power remained unbroken and Moscow and Leningrad were still in Russian hands. MS.
Kiloton (KT). A release of energy equivalent to 1,000 tons of tnt. Purely fission nuclear weapons are always in the kiloton range and most fusion weapons nowadays are also “only” a few hundred kilotons in yield rather than up in the megaton range. This is sufficient yield for most purposes.
Kimberley, siege and relief of
(October 15 1899-February 16 1900), Second Boer War. Kimberley, Cape Province, was invested by Orange Free State forces (maximum strength cl0,000) commanded first by Gen C J Wessels and then by Cronje. The garrison consisted of 500 regulars and 3,500 militia under Col Robert Keke-wich; the town’s 50,000 civilians included 13,000 Europeans, among them Cecil Rhodes, whose bombastic appeals for action contributed to the unfortunate relief attempts by Methuen, repulsed at the Mod-der river and Magersfontein.
Boer bombardment was heavy but ineffective; only 21 persons were killed by an estimated 8,500 shells; total military casualties amounted to 134. Disease and starvation were largely limited to the non-white population, of whom cl,500 died. Arriving on the Mod-der river in February 1900, Roberts flung forward 5,000 cavalry under Maj Gen Sir John French. Sweeping aside weak Boer resistance with a massive cavalry charge at Klip Drift on February 15, French entered Kimberley next day. The retreating Cronje was trapped at Paardeberg. RO’N.
Kim II Sung (b. l912). Korean. The North Korean leader during the Korean War. He was born when Korea was a Japanese colony and his father was jailed for nationalist activities in 1919. Kim joined the Chinese Communist Party in Manchuria, and after Japan’s seizure of Manchuria, 1931, spent ten years as a partisan on the Korean/ Manchurian border, retreating into Russia in 1940. He returned to Korea in September 1945 after its liberation by the Red Army and in February 1946 became chairman of the North Korean Interim People’s Committee which emerged as a separate administration in the Soviet occupation zone. In November 1948, he became premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (dprk) and in 1949 Chairman of the Korean Workers Party, formed by a fusion of the northern and southern wings of the communist movement. In 1949 he decided to reunite Korea by force, a plan launched in June 1950. Despite his failure to achieve this goal during the Korean War, Kim remained in power. CM.
Kimmel, Adm Husband E (18821968). US. See pearl harbor.
Kimura, Lt Gen Heitaro, (b. l888). Jap. Vice Minister of War, 194143 Commander, Burma Area Army, 1944—45.
World History
