5 days after the conflict between the countries of Russia and Georgia began with the invasion of Georgia, a truce has been made. Now around 200 EU observers have entered the buffer zone around South Ossetia to monitor the truce, and to make sure Russian troops pull out of Georgia.
Sources:BBC World News, msnbc
Georgia-Russia conflict-BBC World News
EU monitors enter Georgia
Georgia ceasefire under scrutiny
I love to learn about War History, so I read books on it, watch movies. Playing Age of Empires II teaches some too, probably because it has a whole history section : ) . Well, in my studies of War History I come across many interesting sayings. The one I currently like a lot is from the movie TROY. The saying is,
“Old men talk about wars, and young men fight wars …”
While I was at Hunter College this week I found a little plastic army man just sitting on a desk. I like army men and was interested, and intrigued by the little soldier.I asked myself Do college students play with army men too? I went over and picked it up. I turned the soldier over and saw a sticker on the bottom reading “BRING ME HOME” and a website mouthswideopen.
The thing with these little men is a project to put them all over the world as a reminder that there is a war in Iraq, people are dying, and a large price is being paid by many. The project is being promoted by mouthswideopen because many people forget about these facts, and a whole section of the website is dedicated to these little toy soldiers.
In this post I will list some of the causes of the Revolutionary War in Briton’s 13 colonies in America. The French and Indian War was a major contributor to the revolution. The French and Indian War cost the British lots of men, money, and equipment. The British needed some way to get some of the money back, so they decided to tax the colonies for the war, and expenses of having additional royal officials in the colonies. The king of England only expected the colonists to pay for half the war. The king thought the colonists would have an easy time paying all the taxes, but he didn’t know how hard life really was in the colonies. Colonists felt they were being treated unfairly, which on some levels they were. Colonists had a hard time building lives in the America. Colonists didn’t start out with much when they first came, so they had to start from scratch. Building a totally new life was costly enough, so when the king started taxing the colonies, colonists didn’t have much to live on. Colonists tried every way they could to get the king to reduce the taxes, but the king wouldn’t listen. After their many attempts at trying to neogotiate with the king, colonists decided to declare themselves independent from the crown with the Declaration of Independence. This infuriated the king, so he sent soldiers to the colonies to maintain “order”. Colonists did not enjoy having to give soldiers housing, and having them there to keep them bothered.
Evauntually colonists started making weapons, expecting a war. British soldiers were sent to seize and destroy any weapons they found in Concord. the War started when a group of 800 British soldiers crossed the Charles river in Boston and headed towards Concord, MA. When British soldiers arrived at Lexington about 70 MA militiamen stood ready to defend the town, someone fired a shot (the shot heard around the world). The musket fire killed 8 militiamen and wounded 10. Only one British soldier died, but his death was the start of the revolutionary war.
War interests me because of its different battle formations, tactics, weapons, types of troop divisions. It would be interesting to discuss these topics. War started in the very beginning era of man. Individual tribes wanted land and resources, and the way to get them seemed to be by hurting someone else. The concept of pooling resources and knowledge arrived on the scene later. In the meantime, war became very popular (so to speak) between feuding tribes. Perhaps there were less reasons for making war as man and societies evolved, but by the Medievil era war had become just another accepted part of life. Man started making more advanced weapons, and also started to plan more tactically in their military manouvres. There are many similarities between war during the Medievil era and this century’s World Wars I and II. Medieval weapons for close combat such as the mace, club (spiked or not), sword and other arms were still in use during the 20th century world wars when attacking enemy trench lines. By using these weapons men savagely killed each other face to face.
During the world wars newer technologies were discovered, like the tank and airplane. Newer technologies make it possible for weapons to be used without getting close to the enemy. In the most modern warfare all that remains in common with Medievil wars is the killing other living things. The element of knowing your enemy has been removed from the combat equation. Although knowing your enemy still helps commanders in their decisions, because you know when they will want to fight, what they know, etc.. During WW2 a Nazi commander was in control of Paris, and he knew the Allies would be coming to take the city, he thought Paris was so beautiful that he surrendered without a fight, to preserve the city
During the Medieval Era, kings, queens, barons, knights and the Pope ruled over Europe. Most people that owned land derived from noble birth and were extremely wealthy. Many kings had castles strategically positioned in different areas of their kingdom to show their authority and help them with ruling over the land and inhabitants. All nobles loved to wage war, and for similar reasons: as sport, diversion, for glory and to add the spoils of victory to their personal fortunes. War was also the Medieval nobility’s expansion apparatus, a means of increasing their lands and income from taxation of tenants acquired by soundly beating the opponent. Besides fighting, nobles enjoyed recreation – playing chess, hunting, feasting, training in the military arts, mock battle tournaments, and planning military strategy and actions.
The base of a castle was always strong. It had a solid foundation underneath. When a king dined, his wife always sat beside him. Castles housed several structures within their inner walls: the chapel (or church), the king’s personal chapel, the stable, courtyard, smithy [blacksmith forge], dining hall. All castles had cellars for keeping perishable foods cool and preserving wines, and some also had underground dungeons, or lonely rooms high in turret towers, for imprisoning enemies of the king. Entire communities flourished within the area inside and adjacent to a castle, and when the castle fell under siege, all of the residents would be housed within the castle’s walls for protection and to help prevent its walls from being overrun.
Outer walls were a strong defense for warding off attack. Moats encircled most castles and provided access to friendly visitors by means of a drawbridge. When a castle fell under siege, its strong stone walls kept the inhabitants safe. Catapults, trebuchets, ballistas, siege rams and siege towers were the war machines of that era. They were effective against the structures and arms of that period but fell into disuse after the creation of gunpowder. Gunpowder created a whole new era of warfare. Along with its creation came cannons and guns. Cannons blew through thick castle walls like a stampede of oxen through a wooden building.
With cannon smashing through their walls, castles were not the safe havens they had formerly been. They were abandoned by community residents and eventually by their noble owners as well. The reason being that scociety became less hostile, so there was no more need for massive protective area. They became replaced by less costly wooden forts. With the smashing end of castles came the crashing end of the Medieval Era.