The last thousand years of Balkan history is a tale of three powers pulling on the limbs of an infant, as in the Biblical parable of Solomon’s wisdom. The Balkan baby is yanked first toward Austria, then toward Russia, and all the while the Ottoman Empire is pulling steadily on its legs. The arguments between …
Comrades, today is the day when we should show our devotion to our viceroy by reacting and destroying the Ethiopians for three days. For three days I give you carte blanche to destroy and kill and do what you wan to the Ethiopians. —Federal Secretary Guido Cortese On 19 February, which is Yekatit 12 in the …
The provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be occupied and administered by Austria-Hungary…Austria-Hungary reserves the right to maintain garrisons and to have military and trading roads over the whole area of that portion [the Sandjak of Novi Pazar] of the ancient Vilayet of Bosnia. The diplomatic coda to the Pig War of 1906-1908 became, like …
On the front of Westminster Abbey in London are the statues of the 20th Century Martyrs. Amongst them is a Ugandan Archbishop who refused to leave his post to save his life and fell victim to one of the most savage regimes of the 20th Century. His death proved the turning point in the regime …
Very rarely is a shooting war in the Balkans about the subject which everyone claims was the Cassius Belli. Sometimes it is about a political slight related the the topic, but usually it’s about money. The same is true of economic wars. The Great European Imperial Spheres of Influence criss-crossed the Balkans, and frequently collided …
On 1 March 1906 Austria-Hungary decided they had enough of what they considered Serbia’s perfidy and decided to hit the Balkan country back where it would hurt – by denying Serbian products entry into the Austro-Hungarian market. This decree hit one economic sector in particular, and it is that sector that gave this crisis its …
When the pre-eminent Russian poet Alexander Pushkin died on 10 February 1837, it was in a tragic echo of an incident of the life of his great-grandfather, Avram Petrovich Gannibal (also written as Hannibal). Pushkin was killed by his brother-in-law in a duel over Pushkin’s wife Natalya, a parallel to the first marriage of Gannibal, …
As is emblematic of Balkan countries, when the Greek Prime Minister and head of the Fourth of August Regime, Ioannis Metaxas, died of septicemia from a throat abscess on 29 January 1940 there were whispers of a dark conspiracy of assassination. The whispers seemed to converge on the arrival of a British medic who …
On 25 January 1971, Idi Amin seized power in Uganda. Amin’s rise through the ranks of the British Colonial Military had been meteoric, and his speedy journey through the Ugandan ranks was no less so. Within five years of independence he was head of the army. Within ten, the head of the military. From …
It was pretty much a requirement that politicians of a certain age in Yugoslavia have served as Partizans during World War II, and Džemal Bijedić was no exception to that rule. Raised by Muslim parents in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by 1939 Bijedić had joined the League of Communists. He was arrested at least four …
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