bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Schlieffen, Field Marshal Alfred von (1833–1913)
Authors: Seligmann Matthew S. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract

Alfred von Schlieffen was appointed chief of the Great General Staff of the Prussian army in 1891 and held the post until his retirement at the end of 1905. Schlieffen was an officer of considerable military skill, who might legitimately have aspired to rise to the top of his profession. However, he would not have anticipated achieving this as soon as 1891. This came about because of several
faux pas
by his predecessor, Alfred von Waldersee. Waldersee, who succeeded the elder Moltke in 1888, was a politically active general of reactionary views, who saw his role as both leading the army and guiding the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, of whom he was a confidant of long‐standing, to ever more conservative policies both domestically and internationally. In the process, Waldersee expected to become a powerful behind‐the‐scenes figure in the German Empire. It was not to be. Waldersee's political meddling put him in conflict with Germany's responsible political leaders; while his attempts to guide the kaiser eventually overstepped the bounds into active criticism, most notably during the 1891 maneuvers. Accordingly, after just three years in post, Waldersee was dismissed. Schlieffen was chosen as his replacement not only because of his proven tactical acumen, but also because he held no political ambitions. He was a military technocrat unlikely to interfere in areas outside his sphere. In short, he was the antithesis of Waldersee.
Scipio Africanus (236–183 BCE)
Authors: Sage Michael 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Publius Cornelius Scipio belonged to one of the leading patrician families in Rome during the third century BCE. His father was Publius Cornelius Scipio, consul in 218, and his mother was Pomponia. There is little reliable information about his early life, which was soon obscured by legend. He saved his father at the Battle of the Ticinus against Hannibal in 218 at the start of the Second Punic War (218–201). He then saw service as a military tribune at the Battle of Cannae in 216 and helped rally the survivors at Canusium.
Sekigahara, Battle of (1600)
Authors: Swope Kenneth M. 
Published: November 2011

AbstractConsidered by many to be the most important battle in Japanese history, this engagement was the critical episode in the unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), who would subsequently found the last of the Japanese shogunal governments based at Edo (Tokyo) in 1603. The battle has its origins in the arrangements made by Ieyasu's predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, for the regency of his young son, Hideyori. Having spent his final years directing a fruitless invasion of Korea, Hideyoshi established a regency of fivedaimyo(used here to denote provincial warlords, though under the Tokugawa shoguns the term denoted samurai lords whose annual income was at least 10,000koku, or bushels of rice) to secure his infant child's inheritance. Tokugawa Ieyasu was the most powerful of these regents but his power was checked somewhat by the others and by another layer of five commissioners, who theoretically ranked below the regents. The most prominent of the latter group was Ishida Mitsunari, who would later head the coalition that opposed Ieyasu at Sekigahara. Disputes had broken out among the various lords even before Hideyoshi's death, as some had opposed thetaikô's decision to evacuate all troops from Korea after their thrust in the autumn of 1597 had been checked south of Seoul. Upon their return from Korea it was also clear that there were serious flaws in Hideyoshi's plans to preserve his patrimony. Even though an accord had been reached, Ishida Mitsunari continued to agitate against Ieyasu, arguing (correctly in fact) that Ieyasu was violating his vows to the late Hideyoshi by conducting marriage alliances and otherwise seeking to entrench himself in a superior position vis‐á‐vis the other regents. Ishida's intrigues were thwarted and he even unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Ieyasu on two occasions, after which he was confined in his own strong hold in Sawayama in Ômi province. The death of fellow regent Maeda Toshiie in May 1599 allowed Tokugawa Ieyasu to further consolidate his own position and rise above his fellow regents.
Selim I (“the Grim”) (1465–1520)
Authors: Baumgartner Frederic J. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Ninth Ottoman sultan of the Turks. Born on October 10, 1465 (possibly 1466), he was the third son of Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) and Ayse Hatun, a Greek woman known as Gülbahar Sultan after her marriage. Bayezid was the least aggressive among the sultans in the first two centuries of Ottoman rule, but his son was the most, earning him the tag “the Grim.” Selim was described as tall and broad shouldered with an impressive moustache. Fond of poetry, he wrote poems in Turkish and Persian, and he respected intellectuals more than generals and bureaucrats. He married Ayse Hafsa Sultan, a Christian who was probably from Georgia; they had one son and four daughters.
Shaka kaSenzangakhona Zulu (ca. 1787–1828)
Authors: Laband John 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The Zulu people revere King Shaka as the founder of their nation and internationally he is celebrated as a military genius. Yet remarkably little is known for certain about his life, or even his appearance. As an iconic figure he has spawned many legends which popular biographies and television series have uncritically recycled as apparent fact (Faure 1986). The conventional historical evidence we do possess is limited and problematic. Self‐serving eyewitness accounts of white adventurers in Zululand, who portrayed Shaka as a savage, pathological mass‐killer, while also being seduced by his powerful personality, are one category of source (Stuart and Malcolm 1969; Isaacs 1970; MacLean 1992). The other comprises Zulu oral histories recorded several generations after Shaka's death that present conflicting and partisan information (Webb and Wright 1976–2001).
Sherman, General William T. (1820–1891)
Authors: Crosswell D. K. R. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
With his friend Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman emerged as the outstanding general of the American Civil War. Never winning much success as a tactical commander—at First Bull Run in command of a brigade; at Shiloh a division; at Chickasaw Bluffs a corps; at Chattanooga an army—Sherman excelled at the operational, strategic, and conceptual levels of war. A master of maneuver warfare, Sherman's taking Atlanta provided the decisive turning point in the war.
Siberian Intervention
Authors: Isitt Benjamin 
Published: November 2011

AbstractBetween 1917 and 1922 approximately 125,000 soldiers belonging to armies from ten states deployed to Siberia and the Russian Far East, part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Aimed at replacing V. I. Lenin's Bolshevik government with a White Russian administration more sympathetic to Allied interests, the operation failed. This reflected domestic opposition in Allied capitals, divisions among the Allies and the White Russians, and a robust partizan guerilla insurgency. The Siberian Intervention, like Allied operations in other Russian theaters, revealed the hot origins of the Cold War, demonstrating tensions between Soviet Russia and the West that shaped the course of twentieth‐century world history.
Singapore, Fall of (1942)
Authors: Farrell Brian P. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Singapore was conquered by the armed forces of Imperial Japan on February 15, 1942, after a seventy day campaign in which the Japanese 25th Army advanced from southern Thailand, through Malaya, onto Singapore island. Prime Minister Winston Churchill forever labeled the defeat by calling it “the worst disaster in British military history” (Churchill 1950: 81). Churchill's rhetoric did not match the military facts. Defeat at Singapore was painful and consequential, but the Allies defeated Japan and won the Pacific War. From another point of view, British defeat in North America in 1781 led to far greater consequences for world history. But Churchill nevertheless identified an important point. Japanese victory at Singapore not only made World War II longer and more difficult, it was also a devastating psychological and political blow to British power and empire, with lasting consequences. The main reason was not the fact but the manner of the fall of Singapore. And the main cause was the way Britain tried to defend its empire after World War I.
Slim, Field Marshal William, 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970)
Authors: Mackenzie S. P. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The military reputation of “Uncle Bill” Slim rests on his command of 14th Army during the struggle for control of Burma in World War II. In marked contrast to previous British senior commanders facing the Japanese, he managed in 1944–1945 to defeat enemy offensives and launch ones of his own that led to the destruction of the opposing forces. Physically robust and mentally adaptable, Slim was humane enough to inspire great affection among those who served under him.
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
Authors: Farrell Brian P. 
Published: November 2011

AbstractThe Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was a military alliance created to defend Southeast Asia against communist aggression and subversion during the Cold War. SEATO was the organization formed in 1955 to implement the Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty, also known as the Manila Pact, signed in Manila in September 1954. Signatory members included Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (US). The roots of SEATO can be found in one of the main events of the Cold War: communist victory in the civil war in China, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949. SEATO's declared purpose was to organize collective security to deter, or if necessary defeat, Chinese communist aggression in the region. The treaty and the organization it produced were the direct response to the military victory won by the communistled Vietminh in their war to expel French power from Vietnam. The struggle to contain communism in Vietnam defined SEATO from start to finish; massive American military intervention sidelined SEATO in 1965. This led many scholars to dismiss SEATO as an abject failure. This is hasty, but it does stem from something central: the relationship between the nature of the alliance and the problems it confronted.
Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Authors: Murphy Christopher J. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created in July 1940, bringing together three existing bodies that had been developed to deal with covert operations: Section D of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6); MI (R), a research unit at the War Office; and Electra House, a propaganda unit within the Foreign Office. Under the Minister of Economic Warfare (initially Dr. Hugh Dalton, later Lord Selborne), SOE's role was to encourage and develop resistance movements throughout Axis‐occupied Europe, both to prepare to support eventual Allied landings and, in the meantime, to carry out specific, targeted acts of sabotage that would hinder the Axis war effort. SOE's reach also extended beyond Europe, with a mission in Algiers and regional headquarters in Cairo and New Delhi (where SOE was known as Force 136). SOE was divided into geographical “country” sections that took responsibility for operations in a given area. These were supported by a number of ancillary sections that dealt with such matters as false documents and special devices.
Standard, Battle of the (1138)
Authors: Stewart Bachrach David 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
In 1138, King David of Scotland (1124–1153) and his military commanders undertook three campaigns into northern England in an effort to secure territorial gains south of the border in Northumberland. David also sought to aid Mathilda (d. 1167), the mother of King Henry II (1154–1189) and David's niece, in her struggle against King Stephen (1135–1154). In the first campaign, David marched into Northumberland, where he captured the strategically important castle at Norham on Tweed, which was held by a garrison provided by Bishop Geoffrey Rufus of Durham (1133–1140). King Stephen marched north in February and drove off the Scottish army, but failed to engage King David in battle.
Submarine warfare
Authors: Sturma Michael 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
While underwater craft were the subject of fantasy and experimentation for centuries, submarine warfare only became a reality in the twentieth century. Although some designers promoted their commercial potential, submarines were conceived primarily as weapons. With the ability to attack from beneath the sea, they created a new dimension in naval warfare. During both world wars, submarines posed a huge threat to both warships and commerce shipping. In more recent years, submarines are capable of missile attacks on both targets at sea and on land.
Suez Crisis (1956)
Authors: Witty David M. 
Published: November 2011

AbstractOn July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the internationally controlled Suez Canal. The resulting war was an attempt by Anglo‐French and Israeli forces to take control of the canal and remove Nasser from power. Pressure from the United States and the United Nations (UN) forced a ceasefire in the conflict and the withdrawal of the attacking forces. The crisis was an important milestone in the anti‐colonial movement. Great Britain suffered a diplomatic defeat and was permanently weakened, while Nasser emerged as the leader of the Arab world.
Sun Zi (Sun Tzu) (ca. fourth century BCE)
Authors: Morillo Stephen 
Published: November 2011

Abstract

Sun Zi is the name of the purported author of
The Art of Warfare
, a classic Chinese text from the Warring States Era (476–221
BCE
). Historical information about Sun Zi (“Master Sun,” whose given name is Wu according to the tradition about him) is scarce enough that many scholars doubt that such a person really existed, especially as early as the Spring and Autumn period (722–476
BCE
) to which the tradition ascribes his life: he is supposed to have been a general serving under the king of the state of Wu around 500
BCE
. But details of style, anachronisms in content, and the later existence of a thriving genre of military treatises more fully revealed by recent archaeological discoveries make a date of composition in the 300s
BCE
much more likely. And “compilation” may be more accurate than “composition,” even for the core text and certainly for the heavily annotated full text that is known to history. Whatever the details about its authorship, there is no question as to the historical significance and influence of the
Art of Warfare
, or the
Sunzi
, as it is sometimes called.
Taira Masakado insurrection (939)
Authors: Karl Friday 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
In the eleventh month of 939, the very middle of the Heian period (794–1185) — the self‐professed era of “Peaceful Tranquility”—the imperial court's gentle self‐complacence was ripped by reports of a warrior rebellion in the eastern provinces: Taira Masakado (?–940) had seized control of the government offices in Hitachi province. This incident, and the events that followed, rank among the most dramatic episodes in the early history of the samurai. Coinciding with earthquakes, rainbows, and lunar eclipses in the capital, uprisings in the north, and pirate disturbances in the west, it threw the court and the capital into a panic and earned Masakado the worst sort of moralizing opprobrium. And it climaxed, according to most versions of the story, with the protagonist's claiming for himself the title “New Emperor.”
Tanks
Authors: Kenneth Estes w. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
A tank is a fully armored and enclosed tracked vehicle, capable of operating in various forms of rough terrain and using multiple weapons of varying caliber to destroy most types of targets found on the land battlefield. Through most decades of the twentieth century, the tank served as an icon for the increasingly lethal and impersonal mechanization of warfare, reflecting as well the more costly industrial and human requirements of total warfare.
Terrorism, War against
Authors: Miller Seumas 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The phenomenon of terrorism is not new: any authoritative history of terrorism (e.g., Laqueur 1977) would include, for example, references to anti‐state terrorism of groups such as the Narodniki (Populists) in nineteenth‐century Russia (e.g., assassination attempts on the tsars), the state terrorism of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security during the so‐called Reign of Terror in the late eighteenth‐century French Revolution, and anti‐colonialist terrorism in Africa (e.g., Algeria) and elsewhere in the post‐World War II period (Whittaker 2003). Moreover, counterterrorism, including police and military counterterrorism strategies, is a well‐developed field of study (Hewitt 1984). However, the idea of a war against terrorism is quite recent. It has come into vogue primarily, it seems, as a consequence of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC by al‐Qaeda operatives. The person most famously associated with prosecuting what he called a “war against terrorism” was US President George Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 (Coady and O'Keefe 2002). The idea brings together two prior notions, that of war and that of terrorism, both of which are somewhat vague and subject to ideological manipulation.
Teutoburg Forest, Battle of (9CE)
Authors: Hoyos Dexter 
Published: November 2011

AbstractThis battle annihilated the main Roman army occupying Roman Germany beyond the Rhine and effectively ended Roman rule there. After 90 years of intermittent hostilities, the emperor Augustus had begun a sustained drive to subjugate Germany beyond the Rhine in 15bce. By 7cethe lands between the Rhine and Elbe were under military occupation, although the main Roman armies always returned to winter in their Rhineland camps, with garrisons left behind in forts. These were chiefly along the line of the Lippe River in northwest Germany and the Main River further south: the best known is at Haltern on the Lippe, 50 km east of the Rhine. Augustus' able stepsons Tiberius and Drusus, and other generals, were the military governors (officially titled “legates of Augustus”) who achieved this. Around 3bcethere was even a tentative advance beyond the Elbe.
Togo Heihachiro, Admiral (1848–1934)
Authors: Farrell Brian P. 
Published: November 2011

AbstractTogo Heihachiro began his naval career in 1866 in a fleet raised by the Satsuma daimyo, or samurai clan. He retired in 1913 as a national icon, the most celebrated commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Western journalists called him “the Nelson of the East.” The nickname captures a career, a navy, and a nation during an era in which the transformation of Japan was defined by comparison to, and through its relationships with, the Great Powers of the West.
Togo Shigenori (1882–1950)
Authors: Farrell Brian P. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Togo Shigenori served as foreign minister of Japan from 1941 to 1942 and again in 1945. A career diplomat, Shigenori was heavily involved in the controversial decisions to go to war against the Western Powers in December 1941 and to surrender unconditionally in August 1945. Togo's career reflected the character of the government of imperial Japan—and the confusion that led it to disaster.
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616)
Authors: Boyd James 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the most politically astute samurai commanders of the late sixteenth century. While not always victorious in battle, he was a patient man who learned from his mistakes and was gifted when it came to choosing his allies. His greatest achievement was the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate that unified Japan and oversaw two and a half centuries of peace.
Tondibi, Battle of (1591)
Authors: Reid Richard 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The Battle of Tondibi, fought in March 1591 on the northeast bend of the Niger River, is regarded as a pivotal moment in the political and military history of western Africa. It was fought between a Moroccan force of cavalrymen and musketeers and the horsemen and infantry of the Songhay empire, then the major power of the western savannah. The clash brought about a significant shift in the balance of power across the region, as Songhay's defeat meant the end of the era of the great savannah empires, dominant for close to a thousand years. Nonetheless, recent revisionism has suggested that the military impact of the Moroccan invasion — in particular, the impact of the introduction of firearms — has been exaggerated, and that the Moroccan victory was far from total, as previously believed.
Touré , Samori (ca. 1830–1900)
Authors: Bruce Vandervort 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
A famous West African soldier and empirebuilder of the late nineteenth century, Samori was known to his French enemies as “The Bonaparte of the Sudan.” French soldiers considered him the most formidable military opponent they faced in West Africa, while historians have also stressed his role as a force for dynamic political and social change in the region, as progenitor of what has been called the “Dyula Revolution,” seen by some as an African equivalent to the “bourgeois revolution” that had transformed European politics and society.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536/7–1598)
Authors: Swope Kenneth M. 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
Japanese warlord; best known as the second of the Three Unifiers of sixteenth‐century Japan. Considered by many to have been the most significant figure in Japanese history, Hideyoshi was born of humble origins in Owari province. Although the accounts vary, most suggest that his father was a very low‐ranking soldier in the service of the Oda clan. He was in fact so poor that he most likely did not have a surname and Hideyoshi would actually adopt several names over the course of his long career, not assuming the moniker by which he is best known until it was bestowed upon him by the imperial court in 1586. Very little is known of his early career, but it appears that Hideyoshi began around the age of 15 as a page in the service of Imagawa Yoshimoto. Within a few years, however, he transferred his allegiance to Yoshimoto's rival, Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), and most likely participated in the latter's dramatic victory over the Imagawa at Okehazama in 1560. He then rose through the Oda ranks over the next several years, emerging most notably in 1567 when he allegedly facilitated the conquest of the Saito clan at Inabayama by virtue of his construction of the fortress of Sunomata in a single night. Three years later he led one of Nobunaga's columns against another rival, the Asai, eventually receiving a fief in Omi province when the Asai were finally crushed. During these years Hideyoshi gained an appreciation for forceful, surprising strikes into enemy territory and for the efficacy of firearms in battle.
Troupes
de
Marine
Authors: Vandervort Bruce 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
A popular British encyclopedia informs us that marines are “Soldiers raised and trained for service on board warships and to provide landing parties for offensive operations.” This being the case, the only genuine marines are Britain's Royal Marines and the US Marine Corps. The marine corps of other countries, we learn, are only “so‐called marines” because their real functions are colonial warfare or coastal defense.
Truceless War, the (241–237
BCE
)
Authors: Hoyos Dexter 
Published: November 2011

Abstract
The Truceless War, or Mercenaries' War, pitted Carthage against her own mutinous mercenaries and North African (“Libyan”) subjects when the First Punic War with Rome ended in a Carthaginian defeat. The only complete narrative is Polybius' short account in Greek some eighty years later, which is disappointingly sparse with names and even more so with dates.