The Korean War 1950-1953
All wars are bloody, some are found to be unnecessary after the event. The Great War (1914 – 18) was unnecessary and could have been avoided, if the politicians involved had had the least interest in...
View ArticleThe U.S.S.R.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the Soviet Union) used to occupy all the northern part of Asia, and a substantial part of Eastern Europe. Under that name, what was before, and is...
View ArticleIndo-China; some history
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the words Indo-China did not mean much to the average European. Map draughtsmen knew the word was applied (by the French) to five dependencies in south-east...
View ArticleWhat is Isolationism?
Well, very soon we will know what it is. And I might add it is a great pity there is not more of it around. Loss of it caused the Korean and Vietnam wars; too much of the opposite caused Britain,...
View ArticleRussians versus the Japanese (1904) & the Turks (4 times in the 19th century)
The fight between the Japanese and Russia was (and is) significant because it was all about control of both Manchuria and Korea. The Japanese launched an unexpected and unheralded assault on Russian...
View ArticleWar in the air Part III: the Pacific
The carrier-based Japanese air force began the war in the air over the Pacific Ocean by attacking without prior warning the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. The damage to American capital ships and the...
View ArticleCommodore Perry & the ‘Unequal Treaties’
Matthew Galbraith Perry was born into the American ruling class in 1794. He entered the Navy in his teens and was soon a naval officer. It was as a Commodore (a rank with meaning in the American navy,...
View ArticleMore thoughts on that Yalta Conference
In February, 1945, the second ‘Big Three’ conference took place at Yalta in the Crimea. The first had been in Teheran in Persia. What was agreed at Yalta changed the face of Europe, prepared the ground...
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