Wars

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 B.C., was an Ancient Greek war, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens’ subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens’ empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens’ fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.

The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war’s beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta was established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in the Greek world.

Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth-century-B.C. golden age of Greece.

Punic Wars

The Punic Wars is a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 to 146 BC. They were probably the largest wars yet of the ancient world. The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning “Carthaginian”, with reference to the Carthaginians’ Phoenician ancestry.

The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy, but lacked the naval power of Carthage. By the end of the third war, after more than a hundred years and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage’s empire and razed the city, becoming the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the Macedonian Wars — which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars — and the defeat of the Seleucid King Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Syrian War (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and one of the most powerful cities in the classical world.

The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the fifth century AD.

Hundred Years’ War

The Hundred Years’ War (French: Guerre de Cent Ans) was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou. The House of Valois claimed the title of King of France, while the Plantagenets from England claimed to be Kings of France and England. Plantagenet Kings were the 12th century rulers of the Kingdom of England, and had their roots in the French regions of Anjou and Normandy. French soldiers fought on both sides, with Burgundy and Aquitaine providing notable support for the Plantagenet side.

The conflict lasted 116 years but was punctuated by several periods of peace, before it finally ended in the expulsion of the Plantagenets from France (except the Pale of Calais). The war was a victory for the house of Valois, who succeeded in recovering the Plantagenet gains made initially and expelling them from the majority of France by the 1450s.

The war was in fact a series of conflicts and is commonly divided into three or four phases: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), the Lancastrian War (1415–1429), and the slow decline of English fortunes after the appearance of Joan of Arc (1412–1431). Several other contemporary European conflicts were directly related to the conflict between England and France: the Breton War of Succession, the Castilian Civil War, and the War of the Two Peters. The term “Hundred Years’ War” was a later term invented by historians to describe the series of events.

The war owes its historical significance to a number of factors. Though primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of both French and English nationality. Militarily, it saw the introduction of new weapons and tactics, which eroded the older system of feudal armies dominated by heavy cavalry. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry. For all this, as well as for its long duration, it is often viewed as one of the most significant conflicts in the history of medieval warfare. In France, the English invasion, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines and marauding mercenary armies (turned to banditry) reduced the population by two-thirds. Shorn of its Continental possessions, England was left an island nation, a fact which profoundly affected its outlook and development for more than 500 years.

Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars between supporters of the rival houses of Lancaster and York, for the throne of England. They are generally accepted to have been fought in several spasmodic episodes between 1455 and 1487 (although there was related fighting both before and after this period). The war ended with the victory of the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, who founded the House of Tudor, which subsequently ruled England and Wales for 116 years.

Thirty Years’ War

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The war was fought primarily (though not exclusively) in Germany and at various points involved most of the countries of Europe. Naval warfare also reached overseas and shaped the colonial formation of future nations.

The origins of the conflict and goals of the participants were complex and no one cause can accurately be described as the main reason for the fighting. Initially the war was fought largely as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, although disputes over the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire played a significant part. Gradually the war developed into a more general conflict involving most of the European powers. In this general phase the war became more a continuation of the Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, and in turn led to further warfare between France and the Habsburg powers, and less specifically about religion.

A major impact of the Thirty Years’ War was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies (bellum se ipsum alet). Episodes of famine and disease significantly decreased the populace of the German states and the Low Countries and Italy, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. While the regiments within each army were not strictly mercenary in that they were not guns for hire that changed sides from battle to battle, the individual soldiers that made up the regiments for the most part probably were. The problem of discipline was made more difficult still by the ad hoc nature of 17th century military financing. Armies were expected to be largely self-funding from loot taken or tribute extorted from the settlements where they operated. This encouraged a form of lawlessness that imposed often severe hardship on inhabitants of the occupied territory. Some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for a much longer time. The Thirty Years’ War was ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, part of the wider Peace of Westphalia.

English Civil War

The English Civil War (1641–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son, Charles II, and replacement of English monarchy with first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53), and then with a Protectorate (1653–59), under Oliver Cromwell’s personal rule. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent, although this concept was legally established only with the Glorious Revolution later in the century.

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was fought among several European powers, principally the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Portugal, and the Duchy of Savoy, against the Kingdoms of France and Spain and the Electorate of Bavaria, over a possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under a single Bourbon monarch. Such a unification would have drastically changed the European balance of power. The war was fought mostly in Europe but included Queen Anne’s War in North America, and it was marked by the military leadership of notable generals including the duc de Villars, the Jacobite Duke of Berwick, the Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene of Savoy. It resulted in the recognition of the Bourbon Philip V as King of Spain while requiring him both to renounce any claim to the French throne and to cede some Spanish possessions in Europe among the Holy Roman Empire, Savoy, and Great Britain.

In 1700, the last Spanish Habsburg King, Charles II of Spain, died without issue, bequeathing his possessions to Philip, duc d’Anjou, grandson of his half-sister and King Louis XIV of France. Philip thereby became Philip V of Spain, and since he was also the younger son of the Dauphin of France, Philip was therefore indirectly in the line of succession of the French throne. The specter of the multi-continental empire of Spain passing under the effective control of Louis XIV provoked a massive coalition of powers to oppose the Duc d’Anjou’s succession.

The war began slowly, as Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, fought to protect the Austrian Habsburg claim to the Spanish inheritance. As Louis XIV began to expand his territories more aggressively, however, other European nations (chiefly England, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic) entered on the Holy Roman Empire’s side to check French expansion. Other states joined the coalition opposing France and Spain in an attempt to acquire new territories, or to protect existing dominions. Spain itself was divided over the issue of succession, and fell into a civil war.

The war was centered in Spain and West-Central Europe (especially the Low Countries), with other important fighting in Germany and Italy. Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough distinguished themselves as military commanders in the Low Countries. The war was fought not only in Europe, but also in colonial North America, where the conflict became known to the English colonists as Queen Anne’s War, and by corsairs and privateers along the Spanish Main. Over the course of the fighting, some 400,000 people were killed.

The war was concluded by the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714). As a result, Philip V remained King of Spain but was removed from the French line of succession, thereby averting a union of the two kingdoms. The Austrians gained most of the Spanish territories in Italy and the Netherlands. As a consequence, France’s hegemony over continental Europe was ended, and the idea of a balance of power became a part of the international order. However, Philip quickly revived Spanish ambition; taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Philip announced he would claim the French crown if the infant Louis XV died, and attempted to reclaim Spanish territory in Italy, precipitating the War of the Quadruple Alliance in 1717.

War of the Austrian Succession

The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) involved nearly all the powers of Europe (except for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire). The war began under the pretext that Maria Theresa of Austria was ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg thrones, because Salic law precluded royal inheritance by a woman, though in reality this was a convenient excuse put forward by Prussia and France to challenge Habsburg power. Austria was supported by Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, the traditional enemies of France, as well as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Saxony. France and Prussia were allied with the Electorate of Bavaria. The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. The most enduring military historical interest and importance of the war lies in the struggle of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchs for the region of Silesia.

Seven Years’ War

The Seven Years’ War lasted between 1754 and 1763 and involved all of the major European powers of the period. The war pitted Prussia and Britain and a coalition of smaller German states against an alliance consisting of Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony. Russia temporarily changed sides in the later stages of the war.

Portugal (on the side of Great Britain) and Spain (on the side of France) were drawn into the conflict later, and a force from the neutral Netherlands was attacked in India. Because of its global nature, it has been described as the “first World War”. It resulted in some 900,000 to 1,400,000 deaths and significant changes in the balance of power and territories of several of the participants.

The war began with Frederick the Great of Prussia’s invasion of Saxony. Fighting between Britain, France and their respective allies in North America had broken out in 1754, two years before the general conflict, as part of an Imperial rivalry. The fighting in North America is sometimes considered a separate war, the French and Indian War.

Despite being the main theatre of war, the European conflict resulted in a bloody stalemate which did little to change the pre-war status quo, while its consequences in Asia and the Americas were wider ranging and longer lasting. The war ended France’s position as a major colonial power in the Americas (where it lost most of its possessions on the mainland of North America, in addition to some West Indian islands). Prussia confirmed its position in the ranks of the great European powers, retaining the formerly Austrian province of Silesia. Great Britain strengthened its territories in India and North America, confirming its status as the dominant colonial power.

American War of Independence

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also sometimes known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen united former British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists rejected the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation, claiming that this violated the Rights of Englishmen. In 1775, revolutionaries gained control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and formed a Continental Army. Petitions to the king to intervene with the parliament on their behalf resulted in Congress being declared traitors and the states in rebellion the following year. The Americans responded by formally declaring in 1776 their independence as a new nation, the United States of America, claiming sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy. Although France had been providing supplies, ammunition and weapons to the rebels beginning in 1776, the Continentals’ capture of a British army in 1777 led France to formally enter the war on the side of the United States in early 1778, which evened the military strength with Britain. Spain and the Dutch Republic – French allies – also went to war with Britain over the next two years.

Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lived) largely eluded them because of the relatively small size of their land army. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading at Yorktown in 1781 to the surrender of a second British army. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts involving Napoleon’s French Empire and changing sets of European allies and opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe, but collapsed rapidly after France’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon’s empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile the Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain’s hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Latin America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century.

No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. Possible dates include 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power in France with the coup of 18 Brumaire; 18 May 1803, when a renewed declaration of war between Britain and France ended the only period of peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814; and 2 December 1804, when Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor.

The Napoleonic Wars ended following Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 and the Second Treaty of Paris.

War of 1812

The War of 1812, between the United States of America and the British Empire (particularly Great Britain and British North America), lasted from 1812 to 1815. It was fought chiefly on the Atlantic Ocean and on the land, coasts and waterways of North America.

There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S. declaration of war: first, a series of trade restrictions introduced by Britain to impede American trade with France, a country with which Britain was at war (the U.S. contested these restrictions as illegal under international law); second, the impressment (forced recruitment) of U.S. citizens into the Royal Navy; third, the British military support for American Indians who were offering armed resistance to the expansion of the American frontier to the Northwest. An unstated but powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honor in the face of what they considered to be British insults (such as the Chesapeake affair).

American expansion into the Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin) was impeded by Indian raids. Some Canadian historians in the early 20th century maintained that Americans had wanted to seize parts of Canada, a view that many Canadians still share, while others argue that inducing the fear of such a seizure had merely been a U.S. tactic designed to obtain a bargaining chip. Some members of the British Parliament at the time and dissident American politicians such as John Randolph of Roanoke claimed that land hunger rather than maritime disputes was the main motivation for the American declaration. Although the British made some concessions before the war on neutral trade, they insisted on the right to reclaim their deserting sailors. The British also had the long-standing goal of creating a large “neutral” Indian state that would cover much of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. They made the demand as late as 1814 at the peace conference, but lost battles that would have validated their claims.

The war was fought in four theatres: on the oceans, where the warships and privateers of both sides preyed on each other’s merchant shipping; along the Atlantic coast of the U.S., which was blockaded with increasing severity by the British, who also mounted large-scale raids in the later stages of the war; on the long frontier, running along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, which separated the U.S. from Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec); and finally along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. During the course of the war, both the Americans and British launched invasions of each other’s territory, all of which were unsuccessful or gained only temporary success. At the end of the war, the British held parts of Maine and some outposts in the sparsely populated West while the Americans held Canadian territory near Detroit, but these occupied territories were restored at the end of the war.

In the United States, battles such as New Orleans and the earlier successful defence of Baltimore (which inspired the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner) produced a sense of euphoria over a “second war of independence” against Britain. It ushered in an “Era of Good Feelings,” in which the partisan animosity that had once verged on treason practically vanished. Canada also emerged from the war with a heightened sense of national feeling and solidarity. Britain, which had regarded the war as a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars raging in Europe, was less affected by the fighting; its government and people subsequently welcomed an era of peaceful relations with the United States.

Mexican–American War

The Mexican–American War was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico claimed ownership of Texas as a breakaway province and refused to recognize the secession and subsequent military victory by Texas in 1836.

In the U.S. the conflict is often referred to simply as the Mexican War and sometimes as the U.S.–Mexican War. In Mexico, terms for it include Intervención Estadounidense en México (American intervention in Mexico), Invasión Estadounidense de México (American Invasion of Mexico), and Guerra del 47 (The War of ’47).

The most important consequences of the war for the United States were the Mexican terms of surrender under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which the Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México were ceded to the United States. In Mexico, the enormous loss of territory following the war encouraged its government to enact policies to colonize its remaining northern territories as a hedge against further losses. In addition the Rio Grande became the boundary between Texas and Mexico, and Mexico never again claimed ownership of Texas.

Crimean War

The Crimean War (October 1853–February 1856) was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Most of the conflict took place on the Crimean Peninsula, but there were smaller campaigns in western Turkey, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea.

The war has gone by different names, in Russia is also known as the “Oriental War”, Vostochnaya Voina) and in Britain at the time it was sometimes known as the “Russian War”.

The Crimean War is notorious for the logistical and tactical mistakes that plagued both sides. Nonetheless, the War is sometimes considered to be the first “modern” conflict as it “introduced technical changes which affected the future course of warfare,” including the first tactical use of railways and the telegraph. It is also famous for the work of Florence Nightingale, who pioneered modern nursing practices while caring for wounded British soldiers. The Crimean War was the first war to be extensively documented in photographs.

American Civil War

The American Civil War (1861–1865), also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). Led by Jefferson Davis, they fought against the United States (the Union), which was supported by all the free states and the five border slave states. Union states were loosely referred to as “the North”.

In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing and incoming US administrations rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state, leading to declarations of secession by four more Southern slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal, and dissuaded the British from intervening. Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in the east, but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back after the Battle of Gettysburg and, in the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg, thereby splitting the Confederacy. Long-term Union advantages in men and material were realized in 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee, while Union general William Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and marched to the sea. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

The American Civil War was the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the United States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877, and brought changes that helped make the country a united superpower.

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War (19 July 1870—10 May 1871) was a conflict between France and Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The complete Prussian and German victory brought about the final unification of Germany under King Wilhelm I of Prussia. It also marked the downfall of Napoleon III and the end of the Second French Empire, which was replaced by the Third Republic. As part of the settlement, almost all of the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was taken by Prussia to become a part of Germany, which it would retain until the end of World War I.

The conflict was a culmination of years of tension between the two powers, which finally came to a head over the issue of a Hohenzollern candidate for the vacant Spanish throne, following the deposition of Isabella II in 1868. The public release of the Ems Dispatch, which played up alleged insults between the Prussian king and the French ambassador, inflamed public opinion on both sides. France mobilized, and on 19 July declared war on Prussia only, but the other German states quickly joined on Prussia’s side.

The superiority of the Prussian and German forces was soon evident, due in part to efficient use of railways and impressively superior Krupp steel artillery. Prussia had the fourth most dense rail network in the world; France came fifth. A series of swift Prussian and German victories in eastern France culminated in the Battle of Sedan, at which Napoleon III was captured with his whole army on 2 September. Yet this did not end the war, as the Third Republic was declared in Paris on 4 September 1870, and French resistance continued under the Government of National Defence and later Adolphe Thiers.

Over a five-month campaign, the German armies defeated the newly recruited French armies in a series of battles fought across northern France. Following a prolonged siege, Paris fell on 28 January 1871. The siege is also notable for the first use of anti-aircraft artillery, a Krupp piece built specifically to shoot down the hot air balloons being used by the French as couriers. Ten days earlier, the German states had proclaimed their union under the Prussian king, uniting Germany as a nation-state, the German Empire. The final Treaty of Frankfurt was signed 10 May 1871, during the time of the Paris Commune uprising of 1871.

Chinese – Japanese War (1st)

The First Sino-Japanese War (1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a war fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over the control of Korea. Aside from the direct political and military results of the Sino-Japanese War, it served to show how the Qing Dynasty had been weakened (both physically and in prestige) in the previous century (especially by the Opium Wars) and to demonstrate that modernization had been successful in Japan since the Meiji Restoration as compared with the Self-Strengthening Movement in China. Other major results were a shift in regional dominance in East Asia from China to Japan and a major blow to the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese classical tradition. These trends would later manifest in the 1911 Revolution.

Spanish-American War

The Spanish–American War was an armed military conflict between Spain and the United States that took place between April and August 1898, over the issues of the liberation of Cuba. The war began after American demands for the resolution of the Cuban fight for independence were rejected by Spain. Strong expansionist sentiment in the United States motivated the government to develop a plan for annexation of Spain’s remaining overseas territories including the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

The revolution in Havana prompted the United States to send in the warship USS Maine to indicate high national interest. Tension among the American people was raised because of the explosion of the USS Maine, and the yellow journalist newspapers that accused the Spanish of oppression in their colonies, agitating American public opinion. The war ended after victories for the United States in the Philippine Islands and Cuba.

On December 10, 1898, the signing of the Treaty of Paris gave the United States control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Boer (South African) War

The Second Boer War (Dutch: Tweede Boerenoorlog, Afrikaans: Tweede Boereoorlog), commonly referred to as The Boer War and also known as the South African War (outside of South Africa), the Anglo-Boer War (among most South Africans) and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (“Second War of Liberation”), or the Engelse oorlog (English War) was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902, between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics of the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State.

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War (10 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were Southern Manchuria, specifically the area around the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, and the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea.

The Russians were in constant pursuit of a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean, for their navy as well as for maritime trade. The recently established Pacific seaport of Vladivostok was only operational during the summer season, but Port Arthur would be operational all year. From the end of the First Sino-Japanese War and 1903, negotiations between the Tsar’s government and Japan had proved futile. Japan chose war to maintain exclusive dominance in Korea. All European countries expected that Russia would ultimately win.

The resulting campaigns, in which the fledgling Japanese military consistently attained victory over the Russian forces arrayed against them, were unexpected by world observers. These victories, as time transpired, would dramatically transform the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan’s recent entry onto the world stage. The embarrassing string of defeats increased Russian populace’s dissatisfaction with the inefficient and corrupt Tsarist government and proved a major cause of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

First World War

World War I (abbreviated as WW-I, WWI, or WW1), also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict that embroiled most of the world’s great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. More than 70 million military personnel were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. The main combatants descended into a state of total war, pumping their entire scientific and industrial capabilities into the war effort. More than 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history.

The immediate or proximate cause of war was the assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist. Austria–Hungary’s resulting demands against the Kingdom of Serbia activated a sequence of alliances. Within weeks the major European powers were at war; their global empires meant that the conflict soon spread worldwide.

By the war’s end in 1918, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated, with the last two ceasing to exist as autonomous entities. The revolutionized Soviet Union emerged from the Russian Empire, while the map of central Europe was completely redrawn into numerous smaller states. The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war, the repercussions of Germany’s defeat, and the Treaty of Versailles would eventually lead to the beginning of World War II in 1939.

Chinese-Japanese War (2nd)

The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany (until 1938) and the Soviet Union (1937-1940). After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front in the Pacific Theatre. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the twentieth century.

Although the two countries had fought intermittently since 1931, full-scale war started in earnest in 1937 and ended only with the surrender of Japan in 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily to secure its vast raw material reserves and other resources. At the same time, the rising tide of Chinese nationalism and notions of self determination stoked the coals of war. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements in so-called “incidents”. Yet the two sides, for a variety of reasons, refrained from fighting a total war. In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Imperial Japan’s Kwantung Army followed the “Mukden Incident”. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of full scale war between the two countries.

Abyssinian War

The British 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia was a punitive expedition carried out by armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire. Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, also known as “Theodore,” imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government. The punitive expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizable military force hundreds of miles across mountainous terrain lacking any road system. Harold G. Marcus described the action as “one of the most expensive affairs of honour in history.”

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d’état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña. The nationalist insurgency was supported by the conservative Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, or C.E.D.A), monarchists known as Carlist groups, and the Fascist Falange (Falange Española de las J.O.N.S.). The war ended with the victory of the rebel forces, the overthrow of the Republican government, and the founding of a dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco. In the aftermath of the civil war, all right-wing parties were fused into the state party of the Franco regime.

Republicans (republicanos) were supported by the Soviet Union and Mexico, while the followers of the rebellion, Nationalists (nacionales), received the support of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, as well as neighbouring Portugal. Although the United States was officially neutral during the conflict, major American corporations such as Texaco, General Motors, Ford Motors and The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company greatly assisted the Nationalist rebels with their constant supply of trucks, tires, machine tools and fuel.

The war increased international tensions in Europe in the lead-up to World War II, and was largely seen as a proxy war between the Communist Soviet Union and Fascist states Italy and Germany. In particular, new tank warfare tactics and the terror bombing of cities from the air were features of the Spanish Civil War which played a significant part in the later general European war.

Tierney, Dominic.FDR and the Spanish Civil War: Neutrality and Commitment in the Struggle That Divided America, pp. 67-8, Duke University Press, 2007

The Spanish Civil War has been dubbed as “the first media war”, with the writers and journalists covering it wanting their work “to support the cause”. Foreign correspondents covering it included Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell and Robert Capa. Like most civil wars, it became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, and for atrocities committed on both sides of the conflict. The Spanish Civil War often pitted family members, neighbors, and friends against each other. Apart from the combatants, many civilians were killed for their political or religious views by both sides, and after the war ended in 1939, Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists.

Second World War

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world’s nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of “total war”, the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over seventy million people, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The start of the war is generally held to be September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by most of the countries in the British Empire and Commonwealth, and by France. Subsequently, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east side. Many countries were already at war before this date, such as Ethiopia and Italy in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and Nationalist China and Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and many who were not initially involved joined the war later, as a result of events such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), and the attacks on Pearl Harbor and British colonies and subsequent declarations of war on Japan by Dutch and British Commonwealth.

In 1945 the war ended in a victory for the Allies. The Soviet Union and the United States subsequently emerged as the world’s superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The acceptance of the principle of self-determination accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration.

Korean War

The Korean War is a war that started between North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK) on 25 June 1950 and paused with an armistice signed 27 July, 1953. To date, the war has not been officially ended through treaty, and occasional skirmishes have been reported in the border region.

The Korean peninsula was politically divided as a legacy of the geopolitics of defeating the Japanese Empire on the peninsula in 1945. Soviet forces fighting the Japanese advanced up to the 38th Parallel, which later became the political border between the two Koreas. Despite talks in the months preceding open warfare, continual cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel, and the political frustration of failed all-Korea elections in 1948, escalated to warfare. The reunification negotiations ceased when North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.

The United States and the United Nations intervened on the side of the South. After a rapid UN counteroffensive reversing the initial North Korean invasion, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) intervened on the side of the North. The fighting ended with an armistice that approximately restored the original border between the Koreas and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a 2.5 mile wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on 27 May 2009.

During the war, both North and South Korea were sponsored by external powers, thus facilitating the war’s metamorphosis from a simple civil war to a proxy war between power involved in the larger Cold War.

From a military science perspective, the Korean War combined strategies and tactics of World War I and World War II — swift infantry attacks followed air bombing raids. The initial mobile campaign transitioned to trench warfare, lasting from January 1951 until the 1953 border stalemate and armistice.

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other nations.

The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The North Vietnamese Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.

The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. Military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s and combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive.

After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.

The Case-Church Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the anti-war movement, prohibited direct U.S. military involvement after August 15, 1973. U.S. military and economic aid continued until 1975. The capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese army, in April 1975, marked the end of Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.

The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers.

Six-Day War

The Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967 was a war between the Israel army and the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms. At the war’s end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.

Following numerous border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbours, particularly Syria, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser expelled the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the Sinai Peninsula in May 1967. The peacekeeping force had been stationed there since 1957, following a British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt which was launched during the Suez Crisis. Egypt amassed 1,000 tanks and nearly 100,000 soldiers on the Israeli border and closed the Straits of Tiran to all ships flying Israeli flags or carrying strategic materials, receiving strong support from other Arab countries. Israel responded with a similar mobilization that included the call up of 70,000 reservists to augment the regular IDF forces.

On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack on Egypt and Syria. Israel has always considered this a preemptive attack. This claim is, however, disputed by Arab countries, who assert Israel’s strike was an act of aggression. Jordan, which had signed a mutual defence treaty with Egypt on May 30, then attacked western Jerusalem and Netanya.

It is also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, Six Days’ War, an?Naksah (The Setback), or the June War.

Nigerian Civil War

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.

Pakistani Civil war

The Bangladesh Liberation War Muktijuddho) was an armed conflict pitting West Pakistan against East Pakistan (two halves of one country) and India, that resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the independent nation of Bangladesh. The war broke out on 26 March 1971 as army units directed by West Pakistan launched a military operation in East Pakistan against Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, and armed personnel who were demanding separation from West Pakistan. Members of the East Bengal Regiment, East Pakistan Rifles, East Pakistan police and other Bengali military and paramilitary forces, and armed civilians revolted to form guerilla groups and forces (generally termed as the Mukti Bahini) to fight against the army of West Pakistan. During the following months, India provided economic, military and diplomatic support to the Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan. On December 3, 1971, (West) Pakistan launched a pre-emptive attack on the western border of India, which marked the commencement of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Finally, on December 16, 1971, the allied forces of the Indian army and the Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Army) decisively defeated the (West) Pakistani forces deployed in the East resulting in the largest surrender, in terms of the number of POWs, since World War II.

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War, also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states backing Egypt and Syria. The war began with a joint surprise attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. Egypt and Syria respectively crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, which had been captured and occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Attacking across the Suez Canal, the Egyptians were successful during the first four days of the war, following which the front settled into a stalemate. After a disastrous Egyptian attempt to renew the offensive, the Israelis counterattacked, striking at the seam between two Egyptian armies. In over a week of heavy fighting, the Israelis crossed the Suez Canal (where the old ceasefire line had been), and eventually cut off elements of the Egyptian Third Army after a United Nations cease-fire had failed. The Syrian attack on the Golan Heights achieved modest gains during the first 24–48 hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel’s favor. By the second week of the war, the Syrians had been pushed out of the heights as the Israelis launched their own counterattack.

The war had far-reaching implications for many nations. The Arab World, which had been humiliated by the lopsided defeat of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance during the Six-Day War, felt psychologically vindicated by its string of victories early in the conflict. This vindication paved the way for the peace process that followed, as well as liberalizations such as Egypt’s infitah policy. The Camp David Accords, which came soon after, led to normalized relations between Egypt and Israel—the first time any Arab country had recognized the Israeli state. Egypt, which had already been drifting away from the Soviet Union, then left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely.