Current Events Summary 12/20

Although not widely talked about in the American News, the eastern portion of Africa is facing a great deal of strife and conflict. Many people are aware that there is some sort of genocide in Darfur, perpetuated by the Sudanese government. More than 200,000 people have died since the beginning of the war, four years ago. The UN has begun to take steps to help the situation, by planning to send a peacekeeping force, 26,000 strong. They are also implementing stages to give aid to the Darfuri that need it most. The Sudanese government agreed to the UN's suggestions, but then did everything in its power to prevent them from happening. Violence has gotten so bad in some areas that the UN's children's fund has called for the set up of 'child safety zones' at the cost of 1.5 million dollars. It is estimated that 60% of Mogadishu's residents have fled their homes. Malnourishment, high risk of infection, exhaustion, and emotional trauma are very common cases of children in Somalia. Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.
In Ethiopia, locals accuse soldiers of fighting an insurgency by burning villages, raping woman, and killing people "like goats". Ethiopia's prime minister says the soldiers are fighting a separatist movement, and denies that the soldiers have committed such atrocities. Little other information is available because the government gave explicit orders not to talk to international reporters. In Tanzania, the government is accused of ignoring the killing of albinos, with four deaths in the past three months. There are about 270,000 albinos in Tanzania's population of 35 million. Some witch doctors believe they can make a person rich by using albino body parts. It is also believed that albinos are strange ghost like creatures. One body was exhumed and found to be missing limbs.
Sudan's former southern rebels say that they will rejoin the national coalition government, ending a two decade long war, but experts say the possibility of war still remains. The fact that despite the massive amounts of violence and death and destruction, two previously opposing parties can come to some sort of agreement, no matter how temporary it is expected to be, shows that there is still a small glimmer of hope for the warring nations in East Africa.

Storm of Steel

War has a massive effect on civilians, soldiers, and land. Civilians have an awkward spot in time of war. If they are on side of the invading nation, civilians have less to worry about, but if they are not, many flee their homes to avoid the artillery shells and general destruction. The soldiers usually raid the homes of anything considered valuable in times of war. The civilians may end up dead or at best homeless. Soldiers have much more death to face. Obviously being soldiers in a war means that death is likely. The soldiers had to deal with artillery, bullets, disease, infection, capture, and many other types of unfavorable conditions. Since communication was very slow in 1914, many times soldiers would have to sit around waiting for orders, much like the soldiers in Storm of Steel. War is very devastating to land because the gigantic holes that are made by artillery shells. The artillery shells contain a lot of chemicals that aren't very good for the earth. The digging and digging of the trenches scar the earth.

World War I

World War I was caused by a plethora of reasons. The most common cited reasons are Nationalism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Militarism. Many more reasons can be extracted as combinations of the four. Alliances are cited to be a cause because major European powers were making alliances left and right during the late 18th- late 19th century. The alliances started to be defensive at first, yet as time went on, became more aggressive in nature. The Dual Alliance of 1879 between Germany and Austria-Hungry was strictly defensive and said aid would be sent in anything were to occur. Just 32 years later with the formation of the Triple Entente in 1907, was much more aggressive in nature and called for Britain, France, and Russia to be allied against Germany and Austria Hungry. Many of the alliances were not stated publicly, and this caused much confusion and suspicion to arise, and countries could not trust each other. This caused much strife and conflict between already tense foreign relations.
Imperialism's role in the formation of the war was mainly evident in the Balkans. Austria-Hungry, France, Russia, Turkey, and the individual nations in the Balkans were all fighting for control or influence of the area. Turkey was forced to retreat from the control of the area and this began a race for control. Austria-Hungry wanted Bosnia and Herzegovina and asked Russia if they could have it. Russia said they would help if given control of some kind of warm water port. Austria-Hungry jumped the gun and took Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this caused the nearby country of Serbia to fear its imminent annexation. Serbia asked for Russia's help because Russia assumed Serbia to be their slavic brothers. Germany forbade Russia from helping Serbia. Imperialism is cited to be a cause because Austria-Hungary began taking more and more aggressive means of acquiring Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia's fear of annexation caused even more strife than was normal. This political stress caused the assassination of the Austrian Arch-Duke Frans Ferdinand. Nationalism is also a big part of the war formation because every nation located in the Balkans hates each other. They have no problem with the constant violence and death. Serbia is located among these perpetually fighting countries. Serbia desperately wants to be left alone by Austria-Hungary, and when Austria-Hungary took bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia feared what would come next. It was the massive amount of diehard nationalistic pride that motivated Serbia to assassinate. Militarism was more of a factor for the larger European countries. Britain had the greatest navy in the world at that time, and Germany hated her for that. Germany built some ships and increased her navy, but nowhere near the size and magnitude of Britain's. Germany increased the size of her army more readily because, not being surrounded by water, a large navy wasn't the most grave of concerns. Conflict began to arise ust prior to actual outbreak of war when Russia began to mobilize her troops, and Germany ordered her to stand down, but this time, Russia did not. Militarism aids in adding to conflict because now that all the countries are armed to the teeth, the slightest breeze could set them off and cause the war to begin.

Pg. 124 # 2-6

2.) Being a relatively new country, Germany had an immense desire for power. This massive demand for power made neighboring countries fearful for their safety. France had a long and hateful past with Germany, and felt that if Germany had enough power, they would not think twice as to attack France. As a result of fear, Britain continued to increase the size of her navy. Russia had been warned not to mobilize by Germany, yet had done so anyway. Germany felt this to be a threat.

3.) Military chiefs played a large part in the development and outbreak of the war. THe military chiefs were the one who were in-charge of the mobilization of the vast numbers of troops. This was very apparent in Russia, where mobilization is a bit more difficult. Russia is very big. Being very big coupled with having very few railroads means that it takes much more time to mobilize the same number of troops as, say, Germany. Military chiefs not only influenced the size of the war, but the actual war itself, because when neighboring countries started to mobilize, Germany felt very threatened, and this might lead to war.

4.)Western is of the opinion that the cause of the war was because of vast amount of nationalism contained within Austria- Hungary. All the little countries that Austria-Hungary annexed hated each other. They hated each other enough to fight violently and passionately. Russia had offered to help Serbia, identifying them as slavic brothers. Ferro is of the opinion that the Austro- Serbian conflict provoked all the other countries into war. Russia felt that they had to intervene in the conflict while Britain felt they had to be a moderator of sorts, in order to prevent war.

5.)War seemed very inevitable in the early 20th century, because of the massive amount of conflict over the Balkans, and Germany's insatiable appetite for power. Germany seemed to do anything it could to test the limits of how far it could go before the other countries intervened.

6.) Tracing history is rather difficult for a modern historian because the historical records of countries have a habit of not mentioning the negative aspects of that particular country. This makes it very difficult to evaluate and judge the actions of political leaders.

Chapter 12 GR

1.)Lord Melbourne of Great Britain said that the governments only role was to prevent crime and preserve contracts. His view of the government was one that didn't interfear with the people, it only pretected them. Louis Blanc of France said that the government should be regarded as the supreme director of production and be invested with great strength to accomplish its task. The government accourding to him would be a benevolent organization which helpswith the production of goods.

2.)Laissez-faire - Belief that the government should interveen as little as possible.

3.)The governement realized that staying out of issues became more and more difficult as time went by and if became increasingly difficult to maintain the level of 'laissez-faire'ness.

Foreign Relations of the Middle East.

Foreign relatons in the Middle East is a very controversial topic. The policies countries have adapted have changed drastically as of the War on Terror. As with any war, countries become very quick to fight and little, if any, discussion occurs. Times are very violent in the Middle East with attacks on villages occuring weekly. September 16th, Militants loyal to al Qaeda attacked a Shiite villages killing 14 people, including 3 children. Not only are citizens targeted, but government officials as well. A key Sunni sheik has been assassinated. The sheik was an ally of U.S. forces and shows the degree of seriousness political opinions are taken in the Middle East. Syria is known to fire at Israeli planes just for violating airspace restrictions.
Not all is straight out violence, most things that occur are just really tense political actions that are leding up to violence. Iran has constantly stated that it can help stabalize Iraq, and that Israel was evil and didn't deserve to exist. To further tensions, the U.S. holds Iranian prisoners in Iraq. All this shows the escalation of events in Iraq and surrounding countries. War continues as does the violence towards citizens.

2 and 3

Major developments in military technology in 1815-1854 include the rifle and artillery, and advancements in non-militant technology include the electric telegraph and railways.
Rifles gain quite a bit of technological advancement in the development of the percussion cap. The percussion cap greatly increased the reliabilty for the gun going off. Previous flintlock muskets would misfire due to wind or moisture. The percussion cap increased infntry firepower. The development of the Minie Bullet also was a direct result of industrialization. In a standard musket, forcing the ball down the barrel was a big time consuming problem. The Minie Bullet solved this by being small at first, but would expand when shot. The accuracy was to 600 yards, they were also cheaper to produce. The Dreyse rifle was a great inovation because it was a slot chamber. It could fire and load about 5 times faster than previous rifles. It could also be loaded while in the prone position which could be potentally lifesaving. The same principes were later applied to artillery, but on a larger scale.
Non-Military technology also advanced not because of weapons, but from transportation and communication. Railways allowed countries to deliver armies quicker, and at a greater number of troops. It also allowed the ability to keep those troops supplied for longer, plus the over all health of the troops increased now that they did not have to march places. The electric telegraph first was used by newspapers to report on front-line events quicker.This allowed and achievements or failures to be known instantly.


The Crimean War lasted from 1854-1856. The war was fought between France, Britain, Turkey and Austria against Russia. The war served as a sowcase for all the new technological advancements made. The British and French had greater range and firepower capabilities. The Russians were not overwelmed though, because the British had many problems with leadership and organization. Russia did however have a serious gap in lack of industrialization and were technologically far behind. With all the advance ments in technology, casualties were high. Russia lost 500,000 while Britain and France combined lost about 300,000.