By 1936, disquiet amongst Palestine’s Arab population had reached breaking point. The influx of Jewish settlers was constant and had begun to seriously affect the Arabs’ ability to earn a living as land was bought up by Jewish settlement funds and Arabs were excluded from employment opportunities. On 15 April,... More
As Turkish nationalist factions grew in strength following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, other ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire began to be sidelined. The Arabs, who constituted around 60 per cent of the Ottoman Empire’s population, were marginalized by new policies aimed at Turkification. The Arabs had traditionally... More
Increasing discontent across the Arab world boiled over in early 2011, resulting in a series of uprisings and conflicts across the region against the existing structures of government. The Arab Spring started in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, after a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December,... More
On the eve of World War I, there were 2 million Armenians in the declining Ottoman Empire. By 1922, there were fewer than 400,000. In 1908 the Young Turk movement of discontented junior army officers seized power, determined to modernise and nationalise the Empire. In 1914 they entered World War... More
At the outset of World War I, Germany had seven armies arrayed along the western front supported by five cavalry brigades. Facing them were five French armies, the Belgian Army and, soon, the British Expeditionary Force. The German and French armed forces were well matched numerically (840,000 versus 761,000), but... More
The Armistice was designed to achieve an immediate cessation of hostilities between Germany and the Allied Powers; its provisions did not address the disposition of German colonies, Austria-Hungary or the Ottomans. In respect of the western front it stipulated that German troops should immediately withdraw from France, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine and... More
In early October 1918, with the war lost, the German chancellor made informal overtures for peace, citing US President Woodrow Wilson’s even-handed proposals from his ’14 Points’ speech in January as a template. After over four years of ruinous war, the Allies – Britain, France and Italy, who had joined... More
Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine as the first bishop ‘to the Irish believers in Christ’, so presumably the religion had some foothold prior to his arrival. St Patrick was hot on his heels, arriving from Britain the following year (432 CE), and was reinforced by the Saints Auxilius (Patrick’s... More
In c. 671 BCE the Iron Age Mesopotamian empire of Assyria was controlled by Ershaddon (r. 681–669) and dominated Assyria, Phoenicia, Babylonia, Elam and, after 671 BCE, Egypt. During his reign, Ershaddon suppressed a rebellion in Babylonia and countered attacks from the Cimmerians (horse-riding peoples from the southern shores of... More
In 824 BCE, the long reigning emperor, Shalmaneser III, died. His reign of 35 years consisted of constant military campaigns, with Shalmeneser III determined to expand his kingdom’s frontiers. Although he successfully conquered Babylonia and expanded his empire to the borders of the Taurus Mountains and received tribute from the... More
In 480 BCE the Achaemenid Persians had launched a second attempted invasion of Greece, but the Greeks, led by the Athenian and Spartan armies and navies, had fought them off in a series of land and sea battles (Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Mycale, Plataea), the last of which had seen the... More
General Sherman’s invading army In Georgia held a 2:1 numerical advantage over General Johnston’s Confederate defending forces, but rather than attempting to steamroller them, he elected for a game of cat and mouse, using Generals Thomas and Schofield (Armies of the Cumberland and Ohio) to engage the Rebels frontally, while... More