bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cold War
Authors: Kangas Roger
Published: November 2011

The period between World War II (1939–1945) and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is considered by many scholars and policy officials to be that of the Cold War, which was ostensibly a conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, their respective allies, and affiliated security organizations. On a grander scale, the Cold War was also a relationship that pitted competing political ideologies and views of the world against each other. Each had its own view of human nature and the future state of politics and international relations. That they denied the legitimacy of the other, and felt threatened in the process, was demonstrated in the pursuit of military might and exemplified in proxy wars. While the two sides never technically engaged in military combat with each other, their cyclical tension spawned a variety of conflicts and political crises throughout the world and shaped other nations' actions. Without question, this relationship was also one of power—defined in terms of how the competing sides could exert political, economic, and military influence. One cannot look at the military history of the second half of the twentieth century without considering the influence of the Cold War.
Commemorating the Dead
Authors: Ankersen Christopher
Published: November 2011

Ever since wars have been fought, human beings have strived to remember those who died in them. While that is most certainly true on an individual level, what is also true is that the collective practices of commemorating the dead in war have varied across time and cultures. It can be tempting to try and impose a teleology, or pattern of progress, on the evolution of commemorative practices, but the historical record is replete with twists and turns—practices and ideals that were once thought to be outdated often recur much later in different contexts.
Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland (1649–1653)
Authors: Morgan Rhys
Published: November 2011

The attempt by the English parliament to reestablish control over Ireland following the Civil Wars was a pivotal episode in the long and bloody history of Anglo‐Irish relations. Led initially by Oliver Cromwell, a parliamentarian army defeated an alliance of royalists and Catholic Irish rebels through several years of siege warfare, followed by the brutal repression of Irish guerilla forces. War, disease, and famine killed up to a fifth of the Irish population, and English victory allowed a vast land confiscation that transformed Irish society. The horrors of the conquest left an indelible mark on Irish politics and forever blackened Cromwell's reputation.
Crusade, Third (1189–1192)
Authors: Nicholas Morton
Published: November 2011

The Third Crusade was one of the largest military undertakings of the medieval period. It was launched to recover the city of Jerusalem, which had been captured by the Muslim leader Salah ad‐Din al‐Ayyubi (“Saladin”) (1138–1193) in 1187. The campaign did not achieve its stated goal, but did succeed in regaining some of the lands and cities that had fallen previously to the forces of Islam.
Davout, Louis Nicolas
Authors: Gallaher John G.
Published: November 2011

Louis Nicolas Davout was born into an aristocratic family (D'Avout) in Burgundy, France. He entered the king's army in 1788 with the rank of second lieutenant. Serving in the armies of the north during the Wars of the French Revolution, he rose to the rank of general of brigade (1793). Napoleon named him marshal of the empire in 1804, and Davout served in the major campaigns of the empire, seeing action at Austerlitz, Auerstadt, Eylau, Wagram, and Borodino. He served as minister of war during the 100 Days.
Declarations of War
Authors: Baumgartner Frederic J.
Published: November 2011

A declaration of war is a formal proclamation by one state that war now exists between that state and another. It is probably the oldest form of diplomacy. Since warfare as practiced by those stone‐age tribes that survived into historical times usually requires a ritual of inaugurating a war, it is logical to suppose that it was true for tribes in the distant past. The earliest example of declaring war is found in the Bible (Deuteronomy 20). The ancient Hebrews were told to offer terms of peace to a town that they were approaching to attack. Those who accepted would be enslaved; those who resisted would be put to the sword, and their women, children, and property taken as booty.
De Valera, Eamon (1882–1975)
Authors: Eoin O'Neill
Published: November 2011

Eamon de Valera was an Irish revolutionary, politician, and statesman. He was one of the most dominant political figures in Ireland during the first fifty years of independence, though his legacy–especially in relation to the Irish Civil War (1922–1923)–remains controversial.
Edward, the Black Prince (1330–1376)
Authors: Mcglynn Sean
Published: November 2011

Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, was the eldest son of Edward III, the famous warrior king of England. Earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall, prince of Wales, and prince of Aquitaine, Edward inherited all his father's martial abilities and more, but never inherited the greatest title of all, dying a year before the old king. Acknowledged by contemporaries as an outstanding soldier and a paragon of chivalrous virtue, he was arguably the foremost general in the first part of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and the most successful, earning his renowned reputation on the field of battle, with famous victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Nájera (1367), but also through his infamous
chevauchées
(ravaging expeditions) such as in 1355–1356, and his sheer ruthlessness, as displayed at Limoges in 1370.
Epameinondas (ca. 418–362BCE)
Authors: Singor H. W.
Published: November 2011

Epameinondas, general of the city of Thebes in central Greece, enjoyed lasting fame in antiquity for his victory at Leuctra in 371 BCE over the Spartans that put an end to more than a century of Spartan military hegemony in Greece. In modern times Epameinondas has been credited with highly innovative tactics in hoplite warfare, paving the way for further tactical development in the age of Philip and Alexander. This assessment seems to be exaggerated. In fact, Epameinondas' reputation grew only a generation or so after his lifetime, whereas our best contemporary source, Xenophon, has nothing to say about him, let alone his innovations, regarding the Battle of Leuctra, and has simple words of praise for him as an inspiring leader, not a tactical innovator, at the occasion of his death in 362. Only later sources such as Diodorus and Plutarch provide the information on which a picture of far‐reaching tactical innovations has been construed.
Foch, Marshal Ferdinand (1851–1929)
Authors: Greenhalgh Elizabeth
Published: November 2011

Ferdinand Foch is caricatured, wrongly, as the unthinking apostle of the offensive, preaching before World War I to a generation of French officers who, having absorbed his ideas, inflicted huge casualties on the French army. Yet, in March 1918, during the last year of World War I, he was appointed to coordinate the Allied armies on the Western Front with the title “General in Chief of the Allied Armies.” He was elevated to the dignity of marshal of France in August 1918 in recognition of his success in halting the German offensives of that year.
Former Nine Years' War (1051–1062)
Authors: Friday Karl
Published: November 2011

The Former Nine Years' War, waged by Minamoto Yoriyoshi (995–1082) against Abe Yoritoki (?–1057) and his son Sadatō (1019–1062), was the longest single conflict of the Heian (794–1180) period. The exploits of Yoriyoshi and his son Yoshiie (1041–1108) in this and the subsequent Latter Three Year's War of 1083–1087 helped forge the martial reputation of the Seiwa Genji line that founded the Kamakura shogunate, Japan's first warrior regime, a – century later.
French Wars of Religion (1562–1598)
Authors: Baumgartner Frederic J.
Published: November 2011

A series of civil wars in France motivated by religious divisions, political rivalries, and economic problems. Although they are called wars of religion, other factors were important, and it is often impossible to determine the major motive why a Frenchman would choose to take up arms for one side or the other. Despite the reputation of Henry II (r. 1547–1559) as an ardent defender of Catholicism, Protestantism grew rapidly during his reign. The Huguenots, as French Protestants were called, constituted about 10 percent of the French population, some 1.6 million persons, in 1560. The appeal of Protestantism was strongest among the urban bourgeoisie, and Protestants were most numerous in the cities, especially those of the southwest. Crucial for the coming civil wars were the many French nobles who became Protestants, including several of the highest‐ranking men of the realm. Constable Anne de Montmorency's three nephews provided crucial leadership for the Huguenots, especially Gaspard de Coligny, whom Henry II named admiral in 1552. Of even higher rank were Antoine de Bourbon and his brother Louis de Condé, who as members of a cadet branch of the royal family were princes of blood. Antoine married Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, who converted him to Protestantism, but he vacillated in his commitment; Condé was more ardent in his new faith.
Fronde (1648–1653)
Authors: Bonney Richard
Published: November 2011

Contemporaries called the period of civil disturbance in France known to historians as the Fronde a period of “troubles” akin to a civil war. The term
Fronde
literally means “sling.” A famous contemporary engraving shows an image of David (figuratively representing the opposition) armed with a sling (
fronde
), apparently having triumphed over Goliath (that is, the chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin) (Carrier 1989: ii, 251). The Fronde was a collective protest against a long foreign war (France had been fighting Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor since 1635) and an increasingly heavy burden of taxation. There were secondary, but important, objections to continuing the foreign war in a period of royal minority (the infant Louis XIV succeeded his father as king on May 14, 1643) and the autocratic style of government exercised by Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister and favorite of the queen regent, Anne of Austria. There were few coherent constitutional alternatives to the absolutist style of government that had been exercised by Louis XIII, however. In particular, the 27 reform proposals of the Parisian sovereign courts in the summer of 1648, had they been accepted by the crown, would have forced France to make peace with its enemies on disadvantageous terms. In many respects, the military campaigns fall into the category of what “might have been” rather than actual events of significance. Thus, Turenne's invasion force from the Spanish Netherlands was decisively defeated at Rethel by the royalist army under Marshal du Plessis Praslin on December, 15 1650—one of only two defeats in Turenne's career. Had the outcome of this battle gone the other way, the Frondeur opposition would have taken over the government of the kingdom.
Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO)
Authors: J.Stapleton Timothy
Published: November 2011

While most European powers were granting independence to their African colonies in the late 1950s and 1960s, the autocratic regime of Antonio Salazar in Lisbon refused and maintained that its African territories were overseas provinces of Portugal. In reality, Portuguese colonial rule had been particularly oppressive and exploitive, and in June 1960 security forces massacred five hundred demonstrators at Mueda in northern Mozambique. In 1962 three African nationalist groups from Mozambique, exiled in newly independent Tanzania, where they enjoyed the support of President Julius Nyerere, combined to form the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) under the leadership of American‐educated Eduardo Mondlane, who had been working for the United Nations (UN). Given increasingly violent Portuguese repression at home, FRELIMO launched a guerilla war in 1964 using Tanzania as a staging area to infiltrate northern Mozambique. FRELIMO received Soviet and Chinese military assistance, its humanitarian programs were funded by Scandinavian countries, and it was also aided by the anti‐colonial Organization of African Unity (OAU). As a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Portugal was supported directly and indirectly by the West.
Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols
Authors: Bugnion François
Published: November 2011

Since the adoption of the first Geneva Convention on August 22, 1864, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols have been the main legal instruments for the protection of the civilian population and non‐combatants against the effects of hostilities and arbitrary treatment by the enemy. They are the bedrock of contemporary international humanitarian law.
Goering, Hermann (1893–1946)
Authors: Ryan Joseph W.
Published: November 2011

The incandescentbon vivantof the Third Reich, Hermann Wilhelm Goering oversaw vast areas of the Nazi economy, commanded the Luftwaffe, and was second only to Hitler. He was also the highest ranking Nazi defendant at Nuremberg, where he escaped the hangman's noose only through suicide.
Greek Warfare (Ancient)
Authors: Singor H. W.
Published: November 2011

The ancient world (i.e., geographically the areas around the Mediterranean and the adjacent Near East, including Iran, and historically the period of roughly 3000bceto 600 CE) produced virtually all possible modes of warfare before the age of firearms and brought some of these to perfection.
Guibert, Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de (1743–1790)
Authors: Tallett Frank
Published: November 2011

Guibert was a French soldier and one of the most eminent military theoreticians of the eighteenth century. His writings reflected contemporary concerns about France's poor military performance, notably in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), as well as embodying the Enlightenment ideal that all areas of human activity, including warfare, should be subjected to rational scrutiny. Like other lumières, Guibert claimed in his writings that he was articulating fundamental and unchanging principles. While these claims were certainly exaggerated, his ideas did have a lasting significance. Many of his views on tactics would find their way into French military manuals during the Revolutionary Wars; Napoleon declared that only an ass would fail to carry an extract from Guibert's works with him when going into battle; and his later influence can be seen in the theories of T. E. Lawrence, de Gaulle, and Liddell Hart in the twentieth century.
Hastings, Battle of (1066)
Authors: Morillo Stephen
Published: November 2011

The Battle of Hastings took place on October 14, 1066 between the forces of Harold Godwinson, the king of Anglo‐Saxon England, and an invading army under the command of William, duke of Normandy. At the end of the day, William was “the Conqueror” rather than “the Bastard,” having not only defeated his opponents but killed Harold, two of his brothers, and a good many of the Anglo‐Saxon ruling class. On Christmas Day, 1066, after a cautious approach to London, he was crowned king of England.
Hoche, General Louis Lazare (1768–1797)
Authors: Vandervort Bruce
Published: November 2011

Hoche is the classic example of the private soldier in revolutionary France with a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Born the son of a groom near Versailles in 1768, he ended life as a major general in command of the Army of the Sambre‐et‐Meuse, one of the great armies of the French Revolution. En route, he became one of the most accomplished practitioners of counterinsurgency warfare in recent military history.
Howe, Admiral Richard, 1st Earl Howe (1726–1799)
Authors: Conway Stephen
Published: November 2011

Richard Howe, 4th Viscount Howe and then 1st Earl Howe, was a prominent British naval officer in the War of American Independence and the conflict with revolutionary France. He was born on March 19, 1726, the second son of Emanuel Scrope Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe, and his wife Mary Sophia Charlotte, the daughter of Baron von Kielmansegg. Richard's older and younger brothers joined the army, but Richard himself was destined for a career at sea. He appears to have served on a merchant ship before entering the navy in July 1739. Howe was actively employed in the war against Spain that began that year; he was involved in the operations against the Spanish Central American coast in 1743. Howe also was engaged against the Jacobites in Scotland, receiving a wound in the head in an action with French privateers in 1746. By the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, he was a flag‐captain in the West Indies. Howe was with Admiral Boscawen's fleet off the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in June 1755, and was therefore present in the first naval action of the next Anglo‐French struggle, the Seven Years' War. He distinguished himself in 1757 in the unsuccessful expedition against the French port of Rochefort, by attacking the fort on the Isle d'Aix at close range. Howe was also employed in the attacks on Saint‐Malo and Cherbourg the following year. He served at the British victory at Quiberon Bay in 1759, and then on blockade duties helping to confine the shattered French navy to its ports.
Ibn Saud (Abd al‐Aziz ibn Abd al‐Rahman Al Saud) (ca. 1880–1953)
Authors: Hughes Matthew
Published: November 2011

Abd al‐Aziz ibn Abd al‐Rahman Al Saud was born to the Al Saud family — in reality a clan of thousands of people — in Riyadh in the Najd region of central Arabia. He is known in the West as Ibn Saud,ibnbeing Arabic for “son”; for Arabs, Abd al‐Aziz. He reasserted the power of the Saud family and, for the first time since the early Islamic era, unified most of the Arabian Peninsula in the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia, created in 1932. He was the greatest of all Saudi rulers. The new state was forged in war as Ibn Saud crushed his rivals, 1902–1929. With the discovery of vast oil reserves in 1937–1938—income from which did not fully come on‐stream until after Ibn Saud's death—Saudi Arabia became one of the world's richest states and after 1945a key player in the politics of the Middle East. US oil companies exploited Saudi oil reserves, beginning a long relationship with the United States, solidified when Ibn Saud met US President Franklin Roosevelt in Egypt in 1945. By the time that the two men met, Saudi Arabia was on her way to becoming one of the world's largest oil producers, with drilling and extraction led by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).
Jackson, General Thomas J. “Stonewall” (1824–1863)
Authors: Crosswell D. K. R.
Published: November 2011

After Lee the most mythologized Confederate general of the Civil War, Jackson died shortly after leading one of his trademark idiosyncratic flanking attacks at Chancellorsville. Not yet 40 and at the pinnacle of his fame—and with the Army of Northern Virginia's reputation for invincibility intact—Jackson's death won him a lasting, if not wholly deserved, reputation as master of mobile offensive operations.
Just war
Authors: Bonney Richard
Published: November 2011

Proponents of a just war theory do not necessarily believe that a war can ever be completely just or justifiable, but that there should be some moral guidelines to determine in what circumstances a war should be declared, how it should be conducted, and how it should be ended. “Just war” is about applying moral restrictions, limits, and the guidance of “justice” to acts of sustained violence, which may otherwise become unrestricted, limitless, and barbaric. Those who seek to apply such limits are to be distinguished from realists, who contend that considerations of morality have no place in an anarchic system of competing states. However, it can be argued that some “realist insights draw our attention to ‘lesser evil’ issues and force us to confront the basic proposition that abstract moral principles influence behavior only when actors use them to guide their actions” (Bellamy 2006: 117–118). Such insights are discussed in the conclusion to this article.
Kargil War (1999)
Authors: Gill John H.
Published: November 2011

The Kargil War was a limited conflict fought between India and Pakistan along the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir during the spring/summer of 1999. The conflict takes its name from the principal town in the combat zone on the Indian side of the LOC. Although observers debate whether Kargil constituted the “Fourth India–Pakistan War,” the conflict represented the first open fighting between India and Pakistan as declared nuclear‐weapons states and had significant repercussions for both.
Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865)
Authors: Nolan Cathal J.
Published: November 2011

Wartime president of the United States, 1861–1865. The death of close relatives and friends was all around Abraham Lincoln over the course of his life, yet his only direct military experience was a few months as a volunteer militiaman in the Blackhawk War (1832), in which he saw no combat. An extraordinary autodidact, during his only term as a Whig in the House of Representatives he spent his spare time in the Library of Congress. A lifelong habit of rigorous self‐education served him well when he became a war president. To better evaluate and argue with his generals, Lincoln read deeply until he gained a respectable command of military theory, tactics, and strategy. In his mature writing and speeches he displayed a discriminating and keen intellect that penetrated more deeply than most to the root of important issues.
Little Big Horn, Battle of (1876)
Authors: Lookingbill Brad D.
Published: November 2011

Also called the Battle of Greasy Grass, the Battle of Little Big Horn is the most famous event of the Sioux Wars. On June 25 and June 26, 1876, the 7th Cavalry of the US Army battled with the Lakota Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne at the Little Big Horn River in what today is the state of Montana. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, commander of the 7th Cavalry, died in the battle.
Mahan, Captain Alfred T. (1840–1914)
Authors: Kuehn John T.
Published: November 2011

Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan is among the most influential and important figures in modern history. Any discussion of naval theory must account for his immensely successful book
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
. Mahan was a product, and a reflection, of his time. Naval officer, historian, and Christian evangelist, Mahan was an American entering a century which witnessed a global explosion of the United States' power and culture. The United States did not become a world power because of Mahan or sea power, but it was certainly shaped as a world power in no small part due to the influence of Mahan's ideas. For many, Mahan's message conveyed a sense that real national power could only come with an associated maritime empire—like the British.
Matilda of Canossa (1046–1115)
Authors: Edgington Susan B.
Published: November 2011

Also known as Matilda of Tuscany; an Italian heiress, a military leader in support of the papacy, and influential in the theory of holy war.
Mexican–American War (1846–1848)
Authors: Bonura Michael
Published: November 2011

The Mexican–American War was the first successful expansion of the United States through the use of force against a foreign government. It resulted in the loss of Mexico's northern provinces.
Mfecane (1815–1840)
Authors: Laband John
Published: November 2011

During the first decades of the nineteenth century turbulent migrations of peoples violently tore apart most of the pre‐colonial societies of southern Africa and reached as far away as East Africa. Widespread warfare, devastation, and the formation by conquest or incorporation of newly militarized and centralized states accompanied these migrations. Historians later applied the term “Mfecane” to this complex and revolutionary period, and as an explanatory concept it gradually assumed the status of an entrenched historical orthodoxy. Popularly, the Mfecane is associated most closely with the military reforms and conquests of Shaka, the first Zulu king. In recent decades historians have questioned the very idea of the Mfecane and the Zulus' central role in it.
Military law
Authors: Noone Michael F.
Published: November 2011

Military law refers to a system of regulations for the government of the armed forces. Some of these regulations are administrative in the sense that they govern promotions, the award of decorations, and so forth. Others involve a criminal justice system regulating persons in military service. The criminal justice system sets norms, e.g., Absence Without Leave, which may not have a parallel in civilian life. It also sets procedures, e.g., the court‐martial, for determining whether a norm has been violated, and establishes punishments for violations. This entry will focus on the criminal justice system.
Miranda
y
Rodríguez
,
Sebastián
Francisco
de
(1750–1816)
Authors: Racine Karen
Published: November 2011

Often called the precursor of Latin American independence, Francisco de Miranda grew up in Caracas. At the age of 14 he entered the Royal and Pontifical University, claiming to have received a bachelor's degree in 1767 although there is no official record that he ever graduated. In 1772 Miranda's father purchased a junior commission for him in the Princess's Infantry Regiment in Spain. He was inducted into the forces and sent to a frontier garrison in Melilla, North Africa. Unlike many of his peers, Miranda had a healthy respect for his Moorish opponents, even sympathy for their efforts to oust a foreign presence from their land. He took the time to read the Quran and continuously offered unsolicited advice and criticism to his superior officers. In 1774 Miranda applied to join Alejandro O'Reilly's corps that was destined for Spanish America, but he was refused. Three years later, however, he was jailed in Cádiz for disobedience and confined again the next year for insubordination. He was transferred to the Regiment of Aragón and sailed for Havana in April 1780 as a supernumerary officer.
Mitchell
,
William
(“Billy”) (1879–1936)
Authors: Gentile Gian P.
Published: November 2011

In America in the 1920s and 1930s Brigadier General William (Billy) Mitchell was a crusader for the use of the airplane as a winning weapon in war, which came to be known as airpower. Mitchell combined an intense desire for personal success, a wealth of battlefield experience in World War I as one of the first American combat aviators, and a supreme knowledge of the technology of the airplane to shape his convictions toward a US defense centered on the airplane and an independent air force to the exclusion of the army and navy. Although in many ways he was a visionary and some of his predictions actually came true in World War II, he was also a stubborn and opinionated man who did not suffer well the ideas of others when they disagreed with his. This abrasive quality combined with his radical views on airpower, which he often stated publicly, led to his being tried by the army in a court‐martial in 1926.
Mongols in the Middle East
Authors: Amitai Reuven
Published: November 2011

The Mongols under Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khan, d. 1227) entered the Islamic world (then roughly what today is called the Middle East) in 1219, and over the next thirty years brought Iran and many of the surrounding countries under their control. Hülegü, Genghis Khan's grandson, conquered Baghdad in 1258 and exterminated the Abbasid Caliphate, moving on to north Syria in 1260; his forces, however, were checked by the Mamluks of Egypt at the famous Battle of ‘Ayn Jalut in northern Palestine in September of that year. Subsequently, Mongol rule continued in Iran and the neighboring regions until 1335; this state is known to historians as the Ilkhanate, after the titleIlkhan(usually translated as “submissive khan or ruler”) that was often used by Hülegü and his descendants. Over the years, the Ilkhans continued their war with the Mamluks, now also ruling Syria, and fought with the Mongol rulers of both southern Russia (the so‐called Golden Horde) and Central Asia (the Chaghatayid Khanate). For a generation after 1335 and the disintegration of their state, Mongol princes and generals influenced the political and military life of the region, and after 1370, there was the increasing impact of Timur or Tamerlane (Timur‐i Leng), a Turkic‐speaking leader of Mongol descent from the area today known as Uzbekistan.
Mtyela Kasanda (“Mirambo”) (d. 1884)
Authors: Lamphear John
Published: November 2011

Adapting to outside forces exceptionally well, Mirambo created a new mode of warfare in parts of East Africa and brought a considerable area under his control. In recognition of his military skill, H. M. Stanley (1872) dubbed him the African Bonaparte.
Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)
Authors: Selanders Louise C.
Published: November 2011

Florence Nightingale, an Englishwoman, developed the foundational philosophy of modern nursing and was a Victorian leader in sanitation reform. Her most famous position was as superintendent of female nursing in the military hospitals in Turkey based at Scutari during the Crimean War. The time in the Crimea provided Nightingale with the experience, political contact, and public fame to create significant and lasting social reform following the war.
Nixon, Richard M. (1913–1994)
Authors: Small Melvin
Published: November 2011

Richard M. Nixon, who was president of the United States from 1969 to 1974, was born into a Quaker family in 1913. That heritage caused him concern when he decided to enlist in the navy in 1942 during World War II. Stationed in the South Pacific, he had no direct combat experiences. As a Republican from southern California, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and the Senate in 1950, where he developed a reputation as an ardent Cold Warrior. He came to national attention when he spearheaded the congressional investigation of Alger Hiss, a government official accused of spying for the Soviet Union.
Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
Authors: Smith Craig Bruce
Published: November 2011

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials were a series of legal proceedings administered by the Allied nations after World War II to levy judgment on Nazi leaders, officials, and organizations accused of war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of 13 inquiries that took place in Nuremberg, Germany, over three years. The trials became an instant media spectacle, featuring prominent journalists such as Walter Cronkite and William Shirer, before their completion in 1948. The best‐known trial, the Major War Criminals trial, began on November 20, 1945, under the International Military Tribunal (IMT)—a collection of judges from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union specifically created for the occasion. This constituted the first instance of an international criminal court and the only example of combined Allied justice after the war, especially in light of the mounting tension of the Cold War. These trials brought into public knowledge and committed into incontestable history the horrors of the Holocaust, the Nazi conspiracy of aggressive war, and the atrocities committed against soldiers and civilians during World War II. The Nuremberg Trials resulted in the conviction of Nazis with sentencing varying from prison terms to death by hanging. In addition, the trials set a precedent for future cases of international justice and the judiciary protocol surrounding cases of genocide and war crimes more broadly.
Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582)
Authors: M. Swope Kenneth
Published: November 2011

Japanese daimyo; best known as the first of the Three Unifiers of seventeenth‐century Japan. Nobunaga was born in the relatively small, but strategically located province of Owari. At the time, Japan was in the midst of its Warring States (1477–1573) or Sengoku era. The Oda family was beset by enemies from all sides and riven by clan divisions when Nobunaga succeeded his father Nobuhide in 1551. Over the next several years, despite a reputation for erratic and outrageous behavior, Nobunaga gradually eliminated challengers for authority within his clan and built up a loyal following of retainers, several of whom would serve him loyally until his death. He also developed an appreciation for aggressive, mobile warfare and the value of arquebus guns in battle. These weapons were allegedly introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders in 1543. Nobunaga was confirmed undisputed head of the Oda family by the Ashikaga shogun in 1559 and entered the national scene the following year by virtue of his surprising victory over the formidable Imagawa Yoshimoto in the Battle of Okehazama. Although outnumbered by perhaps as much as eight to one, Nobunaga used spies, subterfuge, and misdirection to ambush the Imagawa forces in a narrow valley.
Operation Barbarossa (1941)
Authors: Glantz David M.
Published: November 2011

Operation Barbarossa (Red Beard), the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, began on June 22, 1941 and ended in defeat in early December 1941. Planned by Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of the German Third Reich, and other senior Wehrmacht (armed forces) officers between July 1940 and January 1941, the operation's objectives were to defeat and destroy the Soviet Union's Red Army, seize the cities of Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev, overthrow the Soviet Union's communist government, and exploit Soviet territory for the benefit of Germany. Plan (
Fall
) Barbarossa's most important assumption was that the Soviet Union would collapse if the Wehrmacht could destroy the bulk of the Red Army in the border region of the western Soviet Union, specifically, west of the Western Dvina and Dnepr rivers. The plan's most significant flaw was the sharp disagreement between Hitler and many of his generals regarding Barbarossa's objectives, specifically, the German Fü hrer's fixation on economic objectives and attacking on a broad front to destroy the bulk of the Red Army in the field and his generals' concern for seizing Moscow in a rapid advance characterized by a series of spectacular encirclement battles (
Kesselschlacht
). The chief weaknesses of the opposing Red Army in June 1941 were its lack of experienced senior commanders capable of displaying necessary command initiative due to the military purges the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, orchestrated during the late 1930s; the army's faulty and vulnerable defensive dispositions in the western Soviet Union resulting from its occupation of eastern Poland in September 1939; and its failure to complete the military reform program it began in the wake of the Soviet–Finnish War (1939–1940).
Opium Wars (1839–1842, 1856–1860)
Authors: Reist Katherine
Published: November 2011

The Opium Wars include a series of skirmishes as well as the major engagements of the two official wars. The major opponents were the British, representing western interests in the China trade, and the Chinese government. The apparent cause of the first war was the illegal importation and sale of opium by the western traders. In fact, the restrictive trade system begun in 1759 to deal with the increasing western trade, the “Canton System,” was a major factor, which coupled to the resulting trade imbalance aggravated the western frustration. Western sale of opium, although illegal, helped offset the trade losses, creating a profit for the West. Clashes over the opium sale and the frustration with trade conditions brought about the wars.
Ottoman conquests
Authors: ÁGoston GÁBor
Published: November 2011

The small Ottoman principality of Turkic semi‐nomads was formed in the last decades of the thirteenth century in western Asia Minor (Anatolia), near a place known todayas Söğüt, between the weakened Seljuk sultanate and the shrinking Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. The designation “Ottoman” is corruption fromOsman, the name of the founder of the dynasty, Osman (d. 1324?). Ottoman tradition credited Ertugğrul, Osman's father, with leading his band of Turkish nomads into western Anatolia in the second part of the thirteenth century. Osman's small polity was but one among the many Turkic or Turkoman principalities that emerged in the power vacuum caused by the Mongols' destruction of the empire of the Seljuk Turks (1243), who had ruled most of Asia Minor from the late eleventh century. The rise of the House of Osman to prominence was neither foreseeable at around 1300 nor unchallenged in the decades and centuries to come. Ottoman rule was contested by the neighboring Turkic principalities, brothers, sons, and uncles of the reigning Ottoman sultans, and popular uprisings, as well as by regional powers, both Christian (Byzantium,
Peacekeeping
Authors: Macqueen Norrie
Published: November 2011

From the middle of the twentieth century and particularly since the end of the Cold War, peacekeeping has become increasingly important as a means of conflict management and resolution. It remains a very difficult activity to define precisely, however. Although peacekeeping has long been a key activity of the United Nations (UN) (more than sixty operations have been undertaken since the late 1940s), the term does not appear in the organization's charter. Its utilization as a response to conflict accelerated after it became clear that the UN's much more ambitious plan for a comprehensive system of collective security by enforcement was unachievable in the polarized world of the Cold War. Yet peacekeeping was not a UN innovation. The general technique had been employed by the League of Nations and other international actors in the interwar years, and multinational security operations had already been pursued in the nineteenth century. Peacekeeping has been undertaken by a number of regional organizations and other coalitions although the role of the United Nations has remained dominant.
Peter I of Russia (“the Great”) (1672–1725)
Authors: Stevens Carol B.
Published: November 2011

Viewed in historical perspective, the reign of Peter I represents a pivotal moment, as Russia achieved a reorientation of its government and culture that had been in the making for nearly a century. Peter's first years on the throne were titular; he shared the throne with his sickly elder brother, Ivan, while power was wielded by his regent, his sister Sofia, and her supporters. After Sofia was deposed in 1689, Peter continued to rule jointly with Ivan until the latter's death in 1696, and then alone until Peter's own death in 1725. Most famously, under Peter's leadership, the Russian army and navy triumphed over the Swedish Empire in the long Great Northern War (1700–1721). Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 presaged its eventual triumph in the war itself. This upset was a precondition for Russia's growing acceptance thereafter as a major European Empire.
PhilipIIof Spain (1527–1598)
Authors: Turner Blair
Published: November 2011

Devout, determined, domineering, and dangerous (to non‐Catholics), Philip was “King of Two Worlds,” as one historian put it, and the single most powerful ruler of his day (Grierson 1974). He was at one time or another King of Naples, Duke and Count Palatine of Burgundy, King of Spain, King of England and Ireland and, with all that, by explicit papal donation, ruler of the New World and the Philippines. His career was marked by continual and costly warfare to maintain his domains. Protestant Europe, especially Elizabethan England, made him the epitome of the backward, cruel, autocrat, thus launching the Black Legend of Spanish wickedness, which still has purchase in some parts of the Americas to this day. However, his defense of Christendom against Islam and his efforts at reform of Catholicism, not to mention Spain's contribution to the culture of the New World, vindicate him in the eyes of others.
Pitt, William, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778)
Authors: Schweizer Karl
Published: November 2011

William Pitt was born on November 15, 1708, the second son of Robert and Harriet Villiers Pitt, daughter of Viscount Grandison. His grandfather was the famous Governor Pitt of Madras—known as “Diamond Pitt,” from whom he likely inherited the masterful and volatile temperament that so impressed and intimidated contemporaries. In 1719 Pitt proceeded to Eton and in 1726 to Trinity College, Oxford. He left after only a year for the University of Utrecht, which he attended briefly studying law, but not seriously preparing for a professional career. By 1730 he was back at the family estate at Boccanoc in Cornwall. In 1731 he secured a coronetcy in the King's Regiment of horse and two years later made an extended trip abroad, including visits to Switzerland and France.
Praetorian Cohorts
Authors: Bingham Sandra J.
Published: November 2011

The praetorian guard of imperial Rome served primarily as the emperor's bodyguard. Instituted by Augustus in 27BCE, it was modeled after the type of unit associated with generals in the late Republic, and had both military and administrative functions. Prior to the establishment of the principate, troops had not been allowed in the capital; the presence of soldiers in Rome sent a signal to the Senate and to the people that a new regime had begun. The main modification that Augustus put in place was an expansion of the ways in which such a sizable force would be used in the capital, where it could be seen to represent the power of the emperor. To classify the praetorian guard as merely a bodyguard, therefore, only tells part of the story; they did much more.
Psychological Warfare
Authors: Badsey Stephen
Published: November 2011

The most straightforward description of psychological warfare is propaganda directed against an enemy in wartime in order to gain a military advantage, particularly when directed at his armed forces. More generally, psychological warfare is the institutionalized, deliberate, and systematic generation and use of ideas, words, and images by one side in a war, aimed at lowering the morale of its enemies, especially enemy armed forces, and their ability to fight. Psychological warfare may function solely on the battlefield, or throughout all aspects of an enemy's war effort.
Queen Anne's War(1702–1713)
Authors: Mclay K.A.J
Published: November 2011

Queen Anne's War was the name given to the War of the Spanish Succession within the English, French, and Spanish colonies on the North American continent, ranging from
La France Septentrionale
(New France or French Canada) in the Northwest to Spanish Florida in the Southeast, with the main English colonies within New England and the Province of Carolina lying in between. The war was the second of three colonial conflicts spanning the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (the other two were King William's War, 1688–1697, and the French Indian War, 1754–1763) fought principally between France and Britain alongside their native Indian allies for continental supremacy. The origins and progress of each war are found in a confluence of European events and local circumstance. In the early eighteenth century there was considerable anxiety among the English colonists that under the terms of the deceased (November 1701) and childless Spanish King Carlos II's will, the French Bourbon inheritance through Louis XIV's grandson, Philip, duc d'Anjou, of the Spanish throne and empire threatened a Franco‐Spanish trading bloc which would not only render the settlements vulnerable locally but also tip the continental balance of power in France's favor. Such European events overlay a history of frontier clashes and tension between the various colonists which had continued — albeit mainly through the respective native Indian proxies — since the conclusion of King William's War.
Reprisals
Authors: Neff Stephen C.
Published: November 2011

The term reprisal has been used in a host of different ways since the Middle Ages, its earliest uses being unconnected to war. At the outset, though, it may be said that one crucial feature has been central to reprisals at all times: their role as a law‐enforcement measure, albeit of a self‐help variety. They are therefore to be contrasted with sanctions inflicted by a sovereign authority. More specifically, a reprisal is an action which is inherently unlawful but which is permitted, exceptionally, as a means of counteracting a prior violation of law.
Roman‐Macedonian Wars (third‐second centuriesBCE)
Authors: Hoyos Dexter
Published: November 2011

These were three conflicts between the Roman republic and the kingdom of Macedon (215–205, 200–196, 172–167BCE): the first was indecisive, but the second ended Macedon's dominance in Greece and the Aegean and the third her existence as a state. The year 167 completed the five decades identified by the contemporary historian Polybius as those in which Rome moved from being one among many powers to be the mistress of the Mediterranean world, “an event not to be found in previous history.”
Roman warfare
Authors: Jonathan Mark Eaton
Published: November 2011

According to the poet Vergil, the gods granted Rome power “without limit in time or space” (Aeneid1.279). From a small city‐state, Rome grew to control an empire covering most of western Europe. This phenomenal growth was achieved by Roman martial prowess. The Roman army developed from a small militia to a highly professional force which dominated the western world for centuries. This development was a gradual process, with major reforms instituted periodically as a response to political or strategic crises. As the army won new territories for Rome, it also came to play a fundamental role in the shaping of Roman society.
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919)
Authors: Eden Douglas
Published: November 2011

Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty‐sixth president of the United States, serving from September 1901 to March 1909. He was elected vice president in 1900, succeeded William McKinley as president following McKinley's assassination in September 1901, and was elected president in his own right in 1904. He saw active service in the Spanish–American War of 1898, but was otherwise involved more in preventing than prosecuting war.
R
oot,
E
lihu (1845–1937)
Authors: Allsep, L. Michael
Published: November 2011

Elihu Root served as US secretary of war from 1899 to 1904, secretary of state from 1905 to 1909, and senator from 1909 to 1915. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace for 1912. During his years in public life he was not only a capable administrator, but also created institutions and a tradition of disinterested public service that profoundly influenced American defense and foreign policy during the twentieth century.
Rossbach‐Leuthen, Battle of (1757)
Authors: Bonura Michael
Published: November 2011

The battles of Rossbach and Leuthen in 1757 demonstrated all of the components of Frederick the Great's system of warfare. He perfected a system of discipline and drill that maximized the potential of eighteenthcentury linear warfare. These twin victories established his reputation across Europe, and prevented an early end to the Seven Years' War.
Russo‐Japanese War (1904–1905)
Authors: Van Der Oye David Schimmelpenninck
Published: November 2011

This was a major war in Manchuria and the surrounding waters fought for dominance in northeast Asia. Although Japan was unable decisively to defeat Russia on land, its naval victories together with revolutionary unrest in Russia enabled the island empire to prevail. Japan's victory marked the first significant defeat of a leading European power by a non‐European in the modern age.
Schutzstaffel (SS)
Authors: Estes Kenneth W.
Published: November 2011

The elite security arm of the German Nazi Party grew to supersede the party as one of the most important organizations of the wartime Third Reich. The Security Squadron (SS) formed in 1925 from a combination of the guards of the party Stabswache with the Hitler Stosstruppe bodyguard in order to extend protection to the leadership and guard against internal and external threats to their rule. In 1929 this small battalion of 280 men began to take on the character of a Praetorian Guard under its new leader Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945), who began to use the title of “Reich Leader of the SS” personally and later raised it to a senior military rank. Raised to a 52,000‐man corps by 1933 and wearing a distinctive black uniform, the SS served Hitler well in the suppression of the larger and more radical party militia, the SA (Sturmabteilung) Stormtroopers, which threatened his hegemony.