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ACHINESE WAR
The Achinese War was a war between Dutch colonial forces and the Muslim kingdom of Achin in northern Sumatra, lasting from 1873 to 1904. By the Sumatra Treaty of 1871, the British
recognized Dutch hegemony over Sumatra in return for Dutch claims to the Gold Coast, Africa. The Dutch subsequently moved against the Achinese in 1873, who had long resisted Dutch control and were actively engaged in piracy. The Dutch defeated the sultan of Achin that year, but local leaders carried on a protracted and costly guerrilla war, which lasted until 1904. The First Anglo-Afghan War took place between 1838 and 1842 when the British invaded Afghanistan from India, deposed the Afghan ruler Dost Muhammad and installed their own puppet ruler. A rebellion against the British broke out in 1841 which forced their retreat from Kabul, and ended in a massacre of British troops in 1842. Dost Muhammad was restored in 1842. The Second Anglo- Afghan War took place from 1878 to 1880 between Britain and Afghanistan. Concerned about Russia's increasing influence in Afghanistan, the British again invaded from India and in 1879 forced the Afghan ruler to accept the Treaty of Gandamak. A rebellion against the British broke out on September the 3rd 1879. A new emir quelled the rebellion and, though he did not challenge the 1879 treaty, he continued to counter British influence by befriending Russia. The Third Anglo-Afghan War took place between May the 10th and August the 8th 1919 when the Afghans attempted to invade British India. Hoping to end British influence in Afghanistan, Afghan emir Amanullah launched a religious war. His plan to provoke Muslims in India to an uprising against the British failed, and his forces were soon forced out of India. Amanullah succeeded, however, in negotiating the Treaty of Rawalpindi on August the 8th, by which the British
recognized Afghan independence. The Arab-Israeli Wars were a series of wars between Israel and various Arab states in the Middle East since the founding of the state of Israel 1948. The first Arab-Israeli War occurred between the 15th of May 1948 and March 1949. As soon as the independent state of Israel had been proclaimed by the Jews, it was invaded by combined Arab forces. The Israelis defeated them and went on to annex territory until they controlled 75% of what had been Palestine under British mandate. The second Arab-Israeli War broke out on the 29th of October 1956 and lasted until the 4th of November. After Egypt had taken control of the Suez Canal and blockaded the Straits of Tiran, Israel, with British and French support, invaded and captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew under heavy US pressure after the entry of a United Nations force. The third Arab-Israeli War (known as the Six Day War) occurred between the 5th and the 10th of June 1967. It resulted in the Israeli capture of the Golan Heights from Syria; the eastern half of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan; and, in the south, the Gaza Strip and Sinai peninsula as far as the Suez Canal. The fourth Arab-Israeli War (known as the 'October War' or Yom Kippur War, so called because the Israeli forces were taken by surprise on the Day of Atonement, a Jewish holy day) took place from the 6th to the 24th of October 1973. It started with the re- crossing of the Suez Canal by Egyptian forces who made initial gains, though there was some later loss of ground by the Syrians in the north. The war had 19,000 casualties. From 1978 the presence of Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon led to Arab raids on Israel and Israeli retaliatory incursions, hostilities which are known as the fifth Arab-Israeli War, but on the 6th of June 1982 Israel launched a full-scale invasion. By the 14th of June Beirut was encircled, and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Syrian forces were evacuated (mainly to Syria) during August, but February 1985 there
was a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the country without any gain or losses incurred. Israel maintains a 'security zone' in southern Lebanon and supports the South Lebanese Army militia as a buffer against Palestinian guerrilla incursions. The Barons' War occurred following the signing of the Magna Carta from 1215 to 1217, with many barons still defying King John, and some offered the crown to Prince Louis of France. After the death of John, the barons' army supported by the French was routed at Lincoln in May 1217, and the war ended by the Treaty of Kingston-on- Thames signed in September 1217. The Boer War or South African War was fought between the British and the Outlander populations in South Africa who wanted a degree of political equality and independence from Britain. The war lasted from 1899 to 1902. The first conflict occurred when the Boers attacked a column of 4000 men under General Penn Symons guarding the railway at Dundee. The Boers eventually surrendered at Pretoria on 31st of May 1902. The Chaco War was between Bolivia and Paraguay from 1932 to 1935 over boundaries in the north of Gran Chaco. It was settled by arbitration 1938. The Fifth Crusade was led by a French boy called Stephen, and embarked from Marseilles in 1212. After a series of maritime disasters the survivors were captured and sold into slavery in Egypt. The Cold War was the name given to the stand-off between the Soviet Union and her allies (The Warsaw Pact) and the USA and her allies (NATO) following the end of the Second World War. As the Second World War ended America wanted to continue through Germany and invade the USSR, replacing the Communist government with one more harmonious with American economic interests. This desire for invasion and regime change continued for many years, with the Soviets developing more and more nuclear weapons as a
deterrent (aided by hundreds of sympathizers - spies - in Britain, Germany and America who supplied technology secrets to the Soviets, not for money but out of sympathy for the Soviet ideals) until America achieved her aims with the 'peaceful' collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s - which subsequently led to civil wars in the former Soviet Republics, the emergence of large gangs or
organized criminals and anything but peace in the former Soviet Union. War was probably avoided by the
colossal intelligence gathered by both sides during the standoff, the Soviet KGB having spies within the British MI6 and CIA and the British and Americans having spies within the Soviet KGB. The Creek War was a war between the Creek Indians and the US government fought between 1813 and 1814. The Creek, who had been British allies in the War of 1812, were stirred up by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and began the war in August 1813 by massacring some 500 Americans at Fort Mims, Georgia. General A Jackson was sent with some 5,000 soldiers to subdue the Creek. After winning initial battles, Jackson put an end to the war by his decisive victory on March the 27th 1814 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The Creek subsequently signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson on August the 9th 1814, giving up most of their tribal lands. The Crimean War was conducted between Russia on one side and Turkey, Britain, France and Sardinia on the other and was occasioned by a conflict over the supposed right of a Tsar to protect all Christians in the Sultan's dominions. In 1853 a Russian army invaded the principalities of Moldavia and Walachia and Turkey declared war. England followed her traditional policy of protecting Turkey against possible dismemberment and of trying to prevent an expansion of Russia that might threaten British interests in India. France under Napoleon III joined in with the intention of increasing her prestige and diverting attention away from domestic issues. Of the British casualties of 20,000 men only 12 percent were due to combat, the remaining 88 percent died through disease and famine. The Crusades (or Wars of the Cross) were Military expeditions in the Middle Ages to the Holy Land, originally sanctioned by the Church. Their objective was two fold - to ensure the safety of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and to recover the Holy Land for Christendom. The first Dacian War took place between Rome and Dacia in 101 until 102, the second Dacian War between 105 until 106. They were fought under the Roman Emperor Trajan, and resulted in Dacia becoming a Roman province. The English Civil War was an armed struggle between the supporters of the king (known as Cavaliers) and Parliamentarians (known as Roundheads), which erupted in 1642 and continued, with an interruption, until 1648. It arose from constitutional, religious, and economic differences between Charles I and the Members of the Long Parliament. Of these the most decisive factor was religion since the attempts of Laud to impose liturgical uniformity had alienated substantial numbers of clergy, gentry, and craftsmen. All sections of society were affected, though many in the localities desired peace not war, and sometimes families were divided by conflicting allegiances. The king's primary objective in 1642 was the capture of London, a Parliamentary stronghold. After an indecisive engagement at Edgehill, he eventually had to take refuge in Oxford, which became his wartime capital. His plan in 1643 to bring together Cavalier armies from Oxford, Newcastle, and the south-west, followed by a march on London, was not
realized. Meanwhile the balance was tipping toward the Roundheads, for by the Solemn League and Covenant they secured Scottish assistance, of value in 1644 at Marston Moor. Charles's attempt to march on London in 1644 was frustrated at the battle of Newbury. With the formation of the New Model Army, the Roundheads were able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Cavaliers at the Battle of Naseby in 1645. Charles, having rejected terms previously offered him at the Uxbridge negotiations, eventually surrendered to the Scots near Newark in 1646 after Oxford had fallen. Charles' subsequent attempts to profit from divisions between the Parliamentary factions prevented a settlement from being reached in 1647. His escape to the Isle of Wight and 'Engagement' with the Scots sparked off the second phase of the war in 1648. This consisted of unsuccessful Cavalier risings in Wales, Essex, and Kent, and a Scottish invasion which came to grief at the Battle of Preston. Pride's Purge of
Parliament then cleared the way for the trial and execution of the king and the establishment of the English Commonwealth. The English-Spanish Naval War was fought from 1585 to 1604 between England and Spain, and was due in no small part to religion, Elizabeth of England being protestant, Philip II of Spain catholic. Philip had delayed attacking England for thirty years because he was not anxious to rush into a conflict, of which the result might be doubtful, and which would in any case involve considerable expense. However, the English sailors had, for over twenty years, been conducting piratical raids on Spanish ships and Spanish ports, the climax of which was Sir Francis Drake's destructive raid on the West Indies in 1585. Elizabeth's interference in the Netherlands had become intolerable. And the Pope was urging Philip to embark on a war which he regarded as a crusade to destroy a heretic government. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots in February 1587 removed whatever doubts remained in Philip's mind. He had always questioned the wisdom of placing Mary on the English throne, for Mary was French, not Spanish, by upbringing and sympathy. Besides this, her son, James VI of Scotland, who was presumably the heir to both kingdoms, was a Protestant. But Mary had, not long before her death, disinherited James, and passed on her claims to the English throne to Philip himself. After that, Philip hesitated no longer. He gave orders for a great Armada to be prepared in all the ports of Spain. It was while these preparations were being made that Drake made the Raid on Cadiz. The result of this raid justified the boast of Fenner (Drake's friend) that twelve of Her Majesty's ships were a match for all the galleys in the king's service. But all his countrymen did not share Fenner's confidence. To many, perhaps to most, the danger seemed appalling. England was without allies, a small country, with no regular army, standing alone against the might of the greatest empire in the world, an empire on which, it was boasted, 'the sun never set'. Philip was the master of the New World, and
a portion of the Old. By annexing Portugal in 1580 he had absorbed the dominions of his only serious rival in America and the Indies. The famous Spanish infantry were thought to be unbeatable. And it was these very soldiers, commanded by one of the greatest generals in history - the Duke of Parina - who were waiting to invade England. Philip' s plan was to conquer England from the Netherlands, where Parma's army, 30,000 strong, was mustered. Parma built flat-bottomed boats at Antwerp in sufficient numbers to convey his army to England. When the Dutch blockaded the mouth of the Scheldt he caused a canal to be dug, so that the boats could be moved to Dunkirk. But, as Parma well knew, to cross to England was impossible without a protecting fleet. It was for this purpose that the Armada was provided. It was thought that a large Spanish fleet could easily dispose of a smaller number of English vessels, and that then the way would be clear for Parma to invade England. But this plan of invasion was never carried into effect, for the Spanish fleet, though slightly superior in numbers, was hopelessly inferior in every other respect. The English fleet was smaller than the Armada, but comprised of real ships of war, all heavily armed with guns. The Armada entered the English Channel on Saturday the 20th of July 1588 and on Monday the 29th of July, was fought the Battle of Gravelines. The English naval war with Spain continued until after Elizabeth's death, when peace was made by James I in 1604. Elizabeth knew that war is very costly. But, in the first flush of the victory over the Armada, the war party, led by Walsingham and Drake, was in the ascendant. Early in 1589, therefore, the offensive was taken against Spain with the Expedition to Portugal. In 1591 Admiral Lord Thomas Howard was sent to the Azores, with Sir Richard Grenville as second in command. Arriving there, the Admiral learnt that the Spaniards had mustered a large battle fleet to escort their treasure-ships home. He wisely decided to retreat, as he was completely outnumbered. Sir Richard Grenville, however, in the Revenge, remained - to wage his immortal fight with one ship against the whole Spanish fleet. So formidable were the English guns that the Revenge put up a fight lasting a day and a night before she surrendered. Then a storm arose which sank the Revenge together with over a hundred of the enemy- warships and treasure-ships. The years 1595 to 1597 saw a vigorous revival of the prosecution of the Spanish war. Elizabeth, alarmed at the news that Philip was preparing another Armada, sent once more for her old sailors. Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake undertook a raid on the Spanish possessions in the West Indies in 1595, but it was a failure. As he once more sailed his ship on Nombre de Dios Bay, Drake found that the Spaniards were considerably stronger than in the great days of his youth. Hawkins died at sea, and soon afterwards Drake himself died of a sickness which had already carried off large numbers of his men. He was buried at sea, in the waters that washed the Spanish Main, where his name had been a word of terror for a generation. The next year another fleet sailed from England under Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord Thomas Howard, and Sir Waiter Ralegh. Essex commanded the army of 8000 men which it carried. This fleet destroyed the shipping in Cadiz
harbor; Essex and his men landed and took the town, which they gave to the flames. Philip swore vengeance, and, against the advice of his captains, dispatched another Armada to England in the late autumn of 1596. It was, however, destroyed by a storm and never even sighted the English coast. The next year Essex and
Raleigh went off on the 'Islands Voyage' - to the Azores. They missed the Spanish treasure-fleet by a few hours,
quarreled bitterly, and returned home empty- handed to face a wrathful queen. By way of reply Philip, who was now a dying man, ordered a third Armada to sail, but it suffered the same fate as its predecessor. The Islands Voyage was the last effort of the war as far as Elizabeth was concerned, though English privateers continued to attack Spanish merchant ships. The damage they did was considerable, and the main Spanish fleet from America could only cross the Atlantic with a large convoy of warships. The Fifteen Years War was fought between Austria and the Ottoman Empire between 1591 and 1906. After initial Turkish advances against the Austrians, Bathory, prince of Transylvania, in 1595 allied with Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The Turks invaded Transylvania but were driven out. The Habsburgs occupied Hungary, but then Bocskay, with Turkish aid, fomented a revolt in Transylvania and drove the Habsburgs from Hungary in 1606. The war marked the ascendance of Transylvania as a political power, and demonstrated a decline in Ottoman imperial power in Europe. The First Crusade occurred was due to take place in 1096 led by Adhemar Bishop of Puy. The various parties were due to assemble at Constantinople, but some arrived early and others were wiped out on the way. The First Crusade proper took place in 1097 led by Godfrey of Bouillon and others. They invaded Asia Minor and in 1098 captured Antioch after a long siege and Jerusalem in 1099. The Fourth Crusade was intended as a war to conquer Egypt. However, en route the Crusaders were persuaded to take part in a civil war in Constantinople and to restore emperor Isaac Angelus to his throne. They stormed Constantinople in 1204 and established the Latin empire of Romania. The Franco-German War broke out on July 19th 1870 between France and Prussia following French feelings over Prussia's support for a Hohenzollern prince likely to become king of Spain. South Germany joined with Prussia in the war, while Austria and Italy remained neutral. With the French army in chaos, three German armies invaded France and made great headway resulting in Napoleon giving himself up to the king of Prussia and ending the Second Empire. Revolt shook Paris and the empress fled. A government of National defence was set up which eventually capitulated to the Germans on January 28th 1871 and peace was signed on May the 10th 1871 in which France ceded Alsace- Lorraine, Metz and Strassburg and a war indemnity of œ200,000, 000 imposed on France. The Franco-Prussian War was fought from 1870 to 1871 and was one of the most important wars of the 19th century. It was fought between France and Germany, with peace concluded in 1871 with France ceding Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and paying a huge indemnity. The French and Indian War, fought between 1754 and 1763, was the last of four North American wars waged from 1689 to 1763 between the British and the French, with their respective Indian and colonial allies, for domination in the New World. Britain's eventual victory stripped France of its North American empire, thus concluding the series of conflicts which were known collectively as the French and Indian Wars. Although the war began in America, it expanded during 1756 to 1763 into Europe as the Seven Years' War, and into Asia as the Third Carnatic War. The war originated in the breakdown of a three-way balance of power, in which the Iroquois Confederacy had occupied the middle ground between French and British colonies and had successfully excluded both from the strategically critical Ohio Valley. The Iroquois had rendered all previous conflicts indecisive by playing off French against British interests and maintaining their own freedom of action. During the last years of King George's War, however, English traders had penetrated deeply into the Ohio country and established relations with tribes that had previously traded only with the French. Also in the late 1740s, the Ohio Company, a land-speculating syndicate based in Virginia, began making efforts to found a settlement at the forks of the Ohio. These developments convinced the governors- general of Canada that in order to protect their own strategic interests in the American interior they would have to dominate the Ohio Valley militarily. Thus, in 1753 the French began building a chain of forts from Lake Erie to the forks of the Ohio, where in 1754 they built Fort Duquesne. This created a situation that Gov. Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia could not ignore. In 1753 he tried unsuccessfully to warn them of their intrusion into English territory; the next year he sent an armed force under the command of George Washington to expel them. The French defeated Washington's troops at the Battle of Fort Necessity on the 3rd and 4th of July 1754, and sent them back to Virginia. The French and Indian War had begun. In 1755 the British general Edward Braddock was sent to America to take Fort Duquesne. In July, however, near the fort, a French and Indian force badly defeated Braddock's British regulars and colonial troops. The British won a small victory in Nova Scotia and repulsed a French and Indian attack in New York at the Battle of Lake George in 1755, but these were their last victories until 1758. Meanwhile, the British government sought to impose central control on the war effort in America and to compel the colonists to pay for the campaigns against Canada; these measures only alienated the Americans. For the Anglo-Americans the years 1755 to 1757, therefore, were distinguished by defeats and friction between British and colonial soldiers, while the French and their Indian allies won battle after battle. England's dismal performance ended when William Pitt rose to political power in 1757. Pitt, who made victory in America his top priority, initiated a series of well-coordinated campaigns and appointed able commanders to lead them. More importantly, he began treating the Americans as allies rather than subordinates. The result was a major reversal. In 1758 Anglo-American forces seized the fortress of Louisbourg, the key to the St. Lawrence River; destroyed Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, severing the supply lines of the Ohio forts; and captured Fort Duquesne. A force under General James Wolfe defeated the French main army at Quebec in 1759, and the following year General Jeffrey Amherst completed the conquest by forcing the surrender of the last defenders of Canada at Montreal. The Treaty of Paris signed in 1763 ended the French control in Canada, which went to Great Britain. France also ceded all its territories east of the Mississippi River to the British. In compensation for the territories west of the Mississippi given by France to Spain a year earlier in a secret treaty, Spain had to give Florida to the British. The war determined that English rather than French ideas and institutions would dominate North America. Thus, in terms of importance, the French and Indian War
rivals the American Revolution and the American Civil War. In winning the war, the British government had virtually doubled its national debt and acquired more territory than it could control. Attempts by British politicians to reform the administration of the empire and to raise revenue by taxing the colonies soon
antagonized the colonists and eventually precipitated the American Revolution. France's desire to avenge its humiliating defeat launched a policy of support for the American rebels that the monarchy could ill afford; it helped bring on the fiscal crisis that climaxed, in 1789, with the French Revolution. The Gallic Wars were a series of campaigns conducted by Julius Caesar between 58 and 51 BC leading to the Roman conquest of Gaul. The wars began when Caesar moved against the Helvetii, who attempted to move into southern Gaul. In 57 BC Caesar defeated the tribes in what is now Belgium, and in 56 defeated the Veneti in Brittany, and conducted a punitive invasion in 55 into Germany. In 54 BC he invaded Britain for the second time and defeated the Britons under King Cassivellaunus but returned to Gaul soon after. He subsequently put down a rebellion of all Gaul in 52 BC, led by Vercingetorix, and the following year reduced all resistance to Roman authority in Gaul. The campaigns gave Caesar immense power and prestige. As commander of a strong army he was able to contest Pompey's authority as leader of Rome. The Ghurka War was fought from 1811 until 1816 between the British and the Ghurkas after the Ghurkas encroached onto British territory. The Great War, commonly referred to as WWI in the
USA, was a war between the Central European Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and allies on one side and the Triple Entente of Britain and the British Empire, France, and Russia and their allies (including the USA which entered in 1917), on the other side between 1914 and 1918. An estimated 10 million lives were lost and twice that number were wounded. It was fought on the eastern and western fronts, in the Middle East, in Africa, and at sea. The underlying causes of the war were nationalism and trade barriers. By the early 20th century, the countries of Western Europe had reached a high level of material prosperity. However, competition for trade markets and imperial possessions world-wide had led to a growth of nationalistic sentiment. This nationalism created great political tension between the single-nation states such as France and Germany, and threatened the stability of multi-nation states such as Austria-Hungary. These tensions were reflected in jingoistic propaganda, an arms race between the major powers, and trade barriers and tariffs which exacerbated tensions further. The outbreak of war occurred following the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the 28th of June 1914 by a Bosnian student, Gavrilo Prinzip, backed by the Serbian nationalist Black Hand
organisation. The Austro-Hungarian government sought to punish Serbia for the crime and Germany promised support, despite the danger of involving Russia, ultimate patron of the Balkan nationalist movements. Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with an ultimatum on the 23rd of July, requesting a reply within 48 hours. Serbia, on Russian advice, agreed to all the demands except two which conflicted with its authority as a sovereign state. Austro-Hungarian armies near the Serbian border were
mobilized and Russia mobilized its forces against Austria- Hungary on the 29th of July. On the same day Austrian artillery bombarded the Serbian capital, Belgrade, while the German High Seas
it was transferred from the Baltic to the North Sea. News of the
Russian mobilization reached Berlin on the 31st of July and Germany demanded that the Russian
mobilization should cease, and asked France for a notification by 1 p.m. the following day that it would remain neutral in the event of a Russo- German war, despite treaty obligations to Russia.
Long established German war plans envisaged a crushing blow against France as a precursor to
concentration against a Russian invasion. The first Greco-Turkish War was fought between April and May 1897 between Greece and Turkey over control of the island of Crete, then under Turkish rule. A rebellion on Crete in 1896 and a call for union with Greece led to Greek military intervention in 1897 on the island. Halted by a blockade established by the European powers, Greece then attacked Turkey in April 1897. After one month of war and several severe defeats, Greece accepted an armistice. The second Greco-Turkish War was fought between 1921 and 1922 between Greece and Nationalist Turks, led by Kemal Atatuerk, who refused to
recognize terms of the Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920, between Greece and the Ottoman Turkish government. Greece invaded Anatolia and, after initial Greek victories, the Turks under Atatuerk drove the Greeks out. The war was ended by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Greece gave up eastern Thrace, and the two countries exchanged minority populations. The Greek War of Independence was a revolt fought from 1821 to 1832 against the Ottoman Empire. After centuries of Turkish domination, Greeks in the Peloponnesus rebelled on March the 25th 1821 and proclaimed Greek independence in January 1822. The revolt spread, attracting popular support in Europe and such volunteers as Lord G. Byron, and the Turks were forced in 1824 to seek aid from Egypt. The Egyptians and Turks soon occupied much of the southern Peloponnesus, but their advance was slowed by intervention of European powers: first at the Battle of Navarino in October 1827, in which the Egyptian naval forces were routed; then by the outbreak of the Russo- Turkish War in 1828. The London Conference of 1830 to 1831 of European powers set the final terms of Greek independence in the London Protocol signed on February the 3rd 1831, and Otto I was designated king in 1832 by the Treaty of London. The Ottoman Turks
recognized the independent kingdom of Greece by the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832. The Herero Wars were a series of campaigns from 1904 to 1908 waged by German colonialists against the Herero people in German south-west Africa. A Herero rebellion resulted in the near- extermination of the population by the Germans, their numbers falling from over 100,000 to 15,000. The survivors were resettled in the inhospitable desert land of contemporary Hereroland in Namibia. The Hussite Wars were a series of conflicts within the Catholic church and the Holy Roman Empire,
centered in Bohemia between 1419 and 1436. The burning at the stake of John Huss at the Council of Constance in 1415 aroused violent indignation among his Bohemian followers, the Hussites . Subsequently, when King Wenceslas tried to uproot them from among the clergy and city councilmen, Bohemians rose in revolt. The rebellion acquired a nationalistic character after the death of the king, when his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, claimed the Bohemian throne. Hussites, holding Sigismund responsible for Huss's death, rejected the emperor's claim. Pope Martin V declared a crusade against the Hussites in 1420, and Sigismund invaded Bohemia with a German army. The army was thoroughly routed. The Hussites, however, were split, not only on religious matters, but also along class lines. The moderate Utraquists, or Calixtines, were recruited mainly from the nobility and the bourgeoisie, and the radical Taborites were mostly peasants and villagers. The two were united only in their opposition to Sigismund, and together they defeated another imperial invasion in 1421. Their army was led first by the Taborite general John Zizka and then after his death, by Procopius the Great, a priest who defeated three more Catholic crusades in 1426, 1427, and 1431. After this, the Council of Basel initiated negotiations with the Hussites, and in 1433 compromise was reached under which the Utraquists were reunited with the church, although the Taborites continued to fight. The Utraquist nobles, by now themselves alarmed by the Taborite forces, then joined with the Catholics to defeat them at Lipany, near Prague, in 1434; Procopius was killed in that action. A precarious peace was restored, and Sigismund assumed the throne in 1436. In the end, despite military superiority, the Hussites were the losers. The Utraquists were granted little of their demands, and even those were revoked by the church in 1437; the Taborite villagers and peasants were worse off than before. The wars, however, profoundly influenced Czech national
consciousness and significantly altered the social structure of Bohemia by shifting power in the cities to the Czech bourgeoisie from the immigrant Germans, who were driven out during the fighting. The Iran-Iraq War between Iran and Iraq lasted from 1980 to 1988, and was claimed by Iran to have begun with the Iraqi offensive on the 21st of September 1980, and by Iraq with the Iranian shelling of border posts on the 4th of September 1980. It was occasioned by a boundary dispute over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, it fundamentally arose because of Saddam Hussein's fear of a weakening of his absolute power base in Iraq by Iran' s encouragement of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq to rise against the Sunni government. King George's War was the third of four North American wars, waged by the British and French from 1744 to 1748, and corresponding to the European War of the Austrian Succession. During the period of peace after Queen Anne' s War, irreconcilable conflicts arose between the French and British for control of North America. In 1744 the French captured and destroyed a British fort at Canso, Nova Scotia, and carried the prisoners to the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, fearing French invasion, appealed to the other colonies for aid. A force of about 4000 militiamen was raised and placed under the command of Sir William
Pepperell, a Maine merchant. In April 1745, the colonial troops sailed in British ships from Boston against Louisbourg. On June the 15th, after seven weeks of attack, the colonials captured the supposedly impregnable fortress at Louisbourg. The next year France sent a fleet to retake Louisbourg and attack Boston, but the fleet was scattered by a storm. In 1747 a second fleet sent for the same purpose was intercepted and defeated by a British squadron. At the end of the war in 1748, Louisbourg was returned to the French by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in return for British control of Madras, India. The settlement disgruntled the colonists, and the British only partly placated the colonists by bearing the entire expense of the Louisbourg expedition. The question of colonial control was later resolved in the French and Indian War. King William's War was the first of four North American wars, waged by the English and French from 1689 to 1697, and part of a larger European war fought by the Grand Alliance against France over the succession to the throne of England. The French and English colonists, aided by Indians, raided each other's settlements. Following a series of English raids in Canada, the French governor of Canada, Comte de Frontenac, planned counterattacks on New York City and Boston in 1690. As initial steps in his campaign, the French and their Indian allies burned Schenectady, New York, laid waste Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, and destroyed Fort Loyal, Maine, while French privateers based in Nova Scotia harried New England shipping. The New England colonists raised an
expeditionary force and placed it under the command of the new governor of Massachusetts, Sir William Phips. This force captured Port Royal in Nova Scotia and unsuccessfully attacked Quebec. For the rest of the war the French and their Indian allies ravaged the northern frontiers of the English colonies. The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 restored Port Royal to the French but left the colonial problem unresolved. Hostilities resumed in 1702 in Queen Anne's War. The Korean War was fought between North Korea and China on one side, and South Korea, the USA, and United Nations forces on the other, from 1950 to 1953. From the time of their foundation in 1948, relations between North and South Korea were soured by rival plans for unification, and on 25 June 1950 war finally broke out with a surprise North Korean attack that pushed American and South Korean forces far south towards Pusan by September. In the temporary absence of the Soviet representative, the Security Council asked members of the UN to furnish assistance to South Korea. On 15 September American and South Korean forces, under the command of General
MacArthur, launched a counter- offensive at Inchon, and by the end of October UN forces had pushed the North Koreans all the way back to the Yalu River, the frontier with the People's Republic of China. Chinese troops then entered the war on the northern side, driving south to recapture the South Korean capital of Seoul by January 1951. After months of fighting, the conflict
stabilized in near- deadlock close to the original boundary line (the 38th parallel). Peace negotiations, undertaken in July 1951 by General M. B.
Ridgeway (who had succeeded MacArthur in April of that year), proved difficult, and it was not until 27 July 1953 that an armistice was signed at Panmunjom and the battle line was accepted as the boundary between North and South Korea. The Macedonian wars were a series of conflicts fought between Rome and Macedonia in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. In the first war from 211 to 205 Philip V was opposed by an alliance of Rome, Aetolia, and Pergamum, but with Rome also deeply involved in the second of the Punic wars he was able to force Aetolia to accept terms, and then to agree
favorable ones with Rome itself. But war broke out again in 200 and this time Philip was defeated decisively at Cynoscephalae in 197. Philip's son Perseus came to the throne in 179, and set about winning influence and friends in Greece. This caused Roman suspicion, the outbreak of a third war, and another Roman victory, this time at Pydna in 168. Macedonia was divided into four republics. In 149- 148 Andriscus, claiming to be a son of Perseus, attempted to set himself up as king but was defeated and Macedonia became a Roman province. The Maratha Wars (fought from 1774 to 1782, 1803 to 1805 and from 1817 to 1818) were wars between the Maratha peoples and troops of the English East India Company in India. By the late 18th century the Maratha Hindus, divided into over ninety clans, had formed an uneasy confederacy which became a significant force in northern and central India. Rivalries between chiefs were exploited by the British. In the Second War Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) won the battles of Assaye and Argaon. The Charter of the East India Company was renewed in 1813, when no further British acquisitions were envisaged, but in 1817 Company troops under Lord Hastings invaded Maratha territory to put down Pindari robber bands supported by Maratha princes, and finally made British power dominant within the sub- continent. The Napoleonic wars were a series of European wars between 1803 and 1815 involving Napoleon and his conquests of Europe. The Nine Years War (also known as the War of the Grand Alliance), was a conflict fought from 1688 to 1697, resulted from French aggression in the Rhineland, and subsequently became a power struggle between Louis XIV of France and William III of Britain. In 1688 when French armies invaded Cologne and the Palatinate, the members of the League of Augsburg took up arms. Meanwhile William had driven James II from the throne of England and in 1689 a Grand Alliance of England, the United Provinces, Austria, Spain, and Savoy was formed against France. The French withdrew from the Palatinate. James II, supported by French troops, was defeated in Ireland at the battle of the Boyne. In 1690 the French navy won a victory off Beachy Head, but in 1692 was defeated at La Hogue, though their privateers continued to damage allied commerce. The French campaigns in north Italy and Catalonia were successful, but the war in the Spanish Netherlands became a stalemate as one lengthy siege succeeded another. William's one success was the retaking of Namur. The war was a severe defeat for France, despite a good military performance, because its financial resources were not equal to those of Britain and the United Provinces. Peace was finally concluded by the Treaty of Ryswick. The first opium war was the war between Britain and China, lasting from 1839 to 1842, brought on by the confiscation by the Chinese Government of British opium stores in Canton and the murder of a Chinese by British sailors. The British victory led to five Chinese ports being opened to British trade and residence. A second opium war occurred from 1856 to 1860 between Britain and France, on one side, and China on the other. The allied victory opened further ports to western trade. The Peloponnesian War raged through the Greek world on land and sea between the Spartans and their allies against Athens and her allies from 431 BC to 404 BC. The underlying cause was Athenian imperialism and the fear this produced in the chief mainland city-states, notably Corinth and Sparta. The two sides were equally balanced and the war only ended when the Persians intervened on the side of the Spartans and resulted in the dismantling of the Greek empire and the installation in Athens of a Spartan-backed puppet regime. Queen Anne's War was the second of the four North American wars, waged by the British and French between 1702 and 1713. Queen Anne's War arose from the issues left unresolved at the end of King William's War and the struggle corresponded to the European War of the Spanish Succession fought between the allied forces of Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire on one side and France and Spain on the other. The principal events of Queen Anne's War were the capture and burning in 1702 by English colonists of Saint Augustine, then a Spanish possession; the capture and burning of Deerfield, and the massacre of many of the inhabitants of the town in 1704 by French troops and their Indian allies; unsuccessful expeditions in 1704 and 1707 by troops from New England against Port Royal; the conquest of Acadia in 1710 by colonists supported by a squadron of British ships and commanded by the British colonial administrator Sir Francis Nicholson and the failure in 1711 of a large British and colonial joint military and naval expedition against Quebec and Montreal. The war was ended in 1713 by the Peace of Utrecht, which also brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession. By terms of this treaty the French ceded Acadia to the British, as well as Newfoundland and the Hudson Bay territory. The French retained Cape Breton Island. The Russian civil war was a bitter conflict of nearly three years lasting from 1918 1921 which followed Russian setbacks in the Great War and the upheavals of the 1917 Revolution. In December 1917 counterrevolutionary armies, the 'Whites', began to
organize resistance to the October Revolution of 1917. The Red Army (Bolsheviks), improvised by Leon Trotsky, opposed them and civil war resulted. Hostilities continued for nearly three years with the Bolsheviks being successful. The war was fought in the regions of the Caucasus and southern Russia, the Ukraine, the Baltic, northern Russia, and Siberia. The Bolsheviks also had to fight against the armies of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. In northern Russia the British and French landed troops at Murmansk in June 1918, seized Archangel, and set up a puppet government. There continued outbursts of fighting against the Bolsheviks until October 1919. In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak, with the assistance of a Czech legion (composed of prisoners of war) and of Japanese forces that had landed at Vladivostok established a 'White' government at Omsk. Kolchak was captured and executed by the Bolsheviks in February 1920. While each of the 'White' armies was engaged in an isolated operation, the Soviet forces were waging a single war. Trotsky was an active agent for the Bolsheviks in all the crucial operations of the war. The Bolsheviks put down peasant risings in 1920 and a mutiny by sailors at Kronstadt in 1921. The Bolsheviks were far superior to the Whites in both organisation and propaganda. The last foreign forces left Soviet soil in 1922 when the Japanese evacuated Vladivostok. The Soviet government was
recognized by Britain in 1924, and by the USA in 1933. The Russo-Japanese war took place between 1904 and 1905 over a dispute between Russia and Japan over Russia's occupation of part of China. Russia, seeking a port free from ice all the year round, secured a lease of Port Arthur from China in 1896. Soon the Siberian railway extended into the town; the
harbor was deepened; building operations were begun at Dalny, which it was intended to make the great port of Asia; and schemes were broached for elevating Russia into the position of a naval power in the Pacific. In midsummer 1900 Russia took over the reins of power in the Amur province. She then tried to induce China formally to
recognize the military occupation of the province. Both Great Britain and Japan flatly refused to consider the proposal. The following spring Russia promised to withdraw her troops within six months from part of Mukden and south Manchuria, as well as to restore the railway to China; to evacuate Mukden and Kirin altogether within the following six months; and to withdraw from Chinese territory finally within a third period of six months. Russia didn't keep her promise, and in June 1903 Japan proposed an agreement with Russia by which both parties would respect the integrity of China and Korea. Russia refused and in February 1904 Japan withdrew her minister at the Russian capital and three days later attacked the Russian fleets at Chemulpo and Port Arthur and landed troops at Chemulpo. Japanese troops in Korea occupied Seoul and marched north to Pingyang. The Japanese general attacked the opposing Russians on April the 30th on the Yalu, and completely routed them. Russia was defeated, and peace was finally secured by the treaty of Portsmouth (USA) signed on August the 29th 1905. By the treaty the island of Sakhalin was divided between both parties. Russia lost control in Manchuria to Japan, and both parties evacuated China leaving it to China. The Second Carlist War was the most significant of the Carlist wars in Spain and occurred in 1873 when the abdication of King Amadeo and the proclamation of a republic afforded an opportunity. The Carlists were finally suppressed in 1876 after which the Basque provinces were deprived of the last of their autonomous privileges. The Second Crusade set out in 1100 to rescue Bohemund who had been captured during the First Crusade. By now the Crusades had become all out war between the Muslims and Christians and the Second Crusade was a disaster. The Second World War was a war between the axis forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan on one side, and the allies of Britain, the Commonwealth, France, the USA, the USSR, and China on the other. It was fought between 1939 and 1945 killing an estimated 55 million people. The war was fought in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. Germany surrendered in May 1945 but Japan fought on until the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The war started through rising tensions in Europe throughout the 1930s as Nazi Germany first broke virtually all of its treaty obligations and then embarked on a programme of aggressive expansionism, including invading Poland in 1939. The Seventh Crusade was directed against Egypt and led by Louis IX of France. The Crusaders captured Damietta but after the battle of Mansourah in 1250 Louis and his army were captured. The Sixth Crusade was one of the most successful of the Crusades, but took place against the wishes of the Pope - thereby not making it a true Crusade at all. It took place from 1228 until 1229 and was led by Frederick II. The successes of the Sixth Crusade came mainly from diplomacy, and achieved Jerusalem and south Palestine. However, the diplomatic agreement broke down and Jerusalem was lost in 1244 at the battle of Gaza. The Spanish Civil War took place from 1936 to 1939 and was precipitated by a military revolt led by General Franco against the Republican government. Inferior military
capability led to the gradual defeat of the Republicans by 1939, and the establishment of Franco's dictatorship. Franco's insurgents (Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany) seized power in the South and north-west, but were suppressed in areas such as Madrid and Barcelona by the workers' militia. The loyalists
(Republicans) were aided by the USSR and the volunteers of the International Brigade, which included several writers, among them George Orwell. The Spanish-American War broke out between Spain and America in 1898 following the revolt of the Cubans against Spanish misrule which aroused the sympathy of the Americans. An American battleship, the Maine, was blown up in Havana
harbor, and the Americans blaming the Spanish demanded the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba, meanwhile the American ambassador in Madrid was expelled. The Americans blockaded and then invaded Cuba and in July the Spanish sued for peace and agreed to the cession of Porto Rico, Cuba and other West Indian possessions to the USA. The Tai-Ping Rebellion was a civil war which took place in China from 1850 to 1866. The rebellion was led by Hung Siu-tsuan, who proclaimed himself the founder of a Tai-ping dynasty. The Forty-five was the second Jacobite Rebellion. It took place in 1745 under Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. After marching as far south as Derby he was forced to retreat and was finally defeated by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden on April 16th 1746. The Franco-Austrian War was fought in 1859 between France and Austria over the question of Italian unity. The Fronde was the name given to the civil war in France between 1648 and 1653 during the Regency of Anne of Austria. The Frondeurs were opposed to the rule of Mazarin on account of his rapacity and employment of foreigners. The movement was at first led by the parliaments, which wished to regulate taxation, especially the Parliament of Paris, but their forces were defeated by Conde in 1649, and what was called the Old Fronde was brought to an end. Thereafter the Fronde resolved itself into a feud between a faction of discontented nobles headed by Conde and Mazarin, which continued with varying success, at one time Conde being imprisoned, and at another Mazarin having to retire from the capital. In the end victory rested with Mazarin, and the Fronde, which originally aimed at consolidating the powers of the Parliament and relieving the burdens of the people, had the effect of establishing more firmly the absolute monarchy of France. The Third Crusade was led by the Kings of England and France and the German Emperor. They agreed to meet outside Acre, which eventually fell in July 1191 after being besieged for two years. During the Third Crusade Cyprus was conquered by the English King and sold to Guy de Lusignan. The Thirty Years War occurred from 1618 until 1648 and was due partly to politics and partly religion, and took place in Bohemia and Germany between France, Sweden, Austria and Spain against the Germans, Dutch and Italians. Generally the squabble was over German territory and the rights of the German Princes. The Tirah Campaign was a campaign organized in 1897 by Sir William Lockhart against the Afridis and the Orakzais in the Tirah Valley on the north west Indian frontier. Chief among the brilliant incidents of the campaign was the engagement at Dargai, where a difficult height was scaled and captured under heavy fire, the Gordon Highlanders specially distinguishing themselves in this action. The Treaty of Frankfort marked the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, and was signed on May 10th 1871 by Bismark representing Germany and Thiers representing France after the surrender of Paris. It provided for the cession of Alsace and part of Lorraine and the payment of an indemnity of 200 million pounds to Germany. The Treaty of Ryswick in September 1697 brought to an end the Nine Year' s War, in which France had been opposed by a strong European coalition, including England, Spain, Holland and the Empire. It was the first decisive check that Louis XIV received, and marked a decline in the prestige of France. France
recognized William III and the Protestant succession in England, ceded many towns in the Netherlands, as well as Luxembourg, and of all the gains she had made kept only Strassburg. The Treaty of Trianon took place on June 4th 1920 between the Allies and Hungary at the end of the Great War. By the treaty Hungary was considerably reduced in size, and lost about 3 million Magyars. The War of Jenkins' Ear was a war between Britain and Spain in 1739 and merging into the War of the Austrian Succession. The war started because of Anti-Spanish feeling in Britain fuelled by claims that Captain Jenkins had an ear cut off by Spanish coastguards in the Caribbean. The Wars of the Roses occurred between the Lancastrians (who chose the red rose as their emblem) and the Yorkists (who chose the white rose) from 1455 to 1485. The wars ended following the marriage of Henry VII to princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV in 1486.
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