The Londoner

1778 On February 6, 1778, France and America concluded an alliance by signing two treaties, a treaty of amity and commerce and a military alliance.  The nations exchanged ambassadors, and France and England were soon at war.  Parliament soon passed bills calling for reconciliation with America and sent a peace commission to Philadelphia to try to achieve a settlement.  The Americans, however, refused to accept the commission and declared that any person who met with the commission would be branded an enemy of the United States.  Congress responded that the only basis for reconciliation would be a full withdrawal of all British troops from American soil and recognition of American independence.  The war would continue. The Battle of Monmouth In May Sir Henry Clinton replaced General Howe and, hearing that a French fleet was en route to America, decided to move his army back to New York.  The Americans reoccupied Philadelphia on June 18, and Washingto

The Finnish Army was raised in the revolutionary year of 1918. On the 16th of January 1918, General Lieutenant Carl Gustav Mannerheim was commissioned by the Finnish senate to unite all the home guard (Suojeluskunta) units and to form an army for the new republic. At that time, Finland was divided into two parts, White Finland and Red Finland. Red Finland was controlled by mostly left wing Socialists from the former Finnish Autonomous Republic of Russia, while White Finland was striving to create a relatively democratic state, independent from Soviet Russia. White Finland was decidedly anti-Communist, and Mannerheim and his newly formed troops sided with them. Nearly 200,000 Finns took part in this war and about 18,000 were killed, including civilians. Also on the side of the Whites, was the German Baltic Division lead by Rüdiger von der Goltz (12,000 men) which landed in Hanko, Finland. There were still Russian troops in Finland when the war betwen the Reds and Whites began, and abou

They fought side by side with the Germans during World War II , but Finnish war veterans say they were no enemies of the west - they simply wanted land back from the Russians. Ninety-two-year-old Tauno Viiri still has vivid memories of the first day of what would be known as the Finnish Winter War. The Finns had been expecting a Russian attack, but the Russian artillery assault that occurred November 20, 1939 was devastating. "The whole southern sky was ablaze, like thunderballs all over it," said Viiri, who immigrated to Canada in the 1950s and now lives in Vancouver. "An awful din. I've never seen anything like that - I've seen thunderstorms, alright, but this was quite different." The Russians, whose army outnumbered the Finns by two to one, thought Finland would be a pushover and expected to be marching through the streets of Helsinki in two weeks

One morning in Sarajevo Sep 4th 2008 From The Economist print edition THE rebellious Slav subjects of the sclerotic Habsburg monarchy called it the “graveyard of nations”. However, for most people in the east and south of the Austro-Hungarian empire the early years of the 20th century were, in retrospect, a golden age: peaceful and law-governed in a way that contrasts poignantly with the totalitarian decades that followed. The great pity is that Emperor Franz Josef II, who ruled the empire from 1848 to 1916, enjoyed robust good health, living to the overripe old age of 86 and blocking the changes that modernity required of his country. Under a different monarch with a more reformist bent, the empire might have survived for many happy decades more. The shots that killed the heir-apparent to the imperial throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914 unleashed the destruction of the Habsburg empire, the most advanced multicultural and multi-ethnic s

Western historians have tried to extol the cultural aspects of Alexander's invasion and to exaggerate the extent of its impact on the East. The truth of the matter is that he was a destroyer of civilizations and in this respect was no better than Changez or Hulagu. He annihilated the greatest civilization of the time flourishing in Persia under the Achaemenians, effaced the finest cultural monuments erected by the great monarchs of that dynasty and by setting fire to the capital city of Persepolis and several other towns and cities, left Iran desolate and deserted. It took Iran more than six centuries to revive and resuscitate itself from the devastation wrought by Alexander's armies. Iran rose again and regained its lost power and prestige under the Sassanians in the 3rd century A.D. In Pakistan also Alexander and his forces carried out large-scale massacres. In lower Sind alone 80,000 people are said to have been put to the sword and innumerable men and women sold as slaves.