The Crimean War (1854-56) started because of an argument between the French and Russian religious fraternities over who should have access and right to holy areas in the Middle East, Nazareth and Jerusalem. It seems that religion has a lot to answer for when it comes to war, because inevitably discussions turned to arguments, which turned to violence, which resulted in death on both sides. The whole debate had been escalated to a level beyond all reason. The situation was compounded when the Russians, under the directive of Tsar Nicholas I, moved troops into the area, supposedly in order to shield the sacred grounds.

Links

http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/six_day_war_timeline.htm

http://www.sixdaywar.org/timeline.asp

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/chron.html

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/famous_battles_of_world_war_two.htm

http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/wwiibattles.htm

The Crimean War

The Crimean War (1853-1856) was fought between several great European powers in the years just before our Civil War.  It is important for Civil War re-enactors and historians to know about this event because it happened so soon before our time period.  Many of the things learned by the Europeans during the Crimean War were observed by American military personnel, and applied to the Civil War.  This war was widely read about in the United States and was extremely popular.  Many of the things done during the American Civil War were copied from the British and French during the Crimean War.

Events leading up to the Six Day War

1956-1968 1956: Immediately following the Sinai War, Arab unrest spreads across the region, while anti-Israeli activity begins to develop across the Syrian and Jordanian borders. The Syrians regularly shell Israel from the Golan Heights, attacking fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee, shelling villages and agricultural workers in a demilitarized zone in the Hulah valley. 1957: Israel withdraws from Sinai and Gaza in March. A United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) moves in. 1960: Egypt notifies the United Nations forces in the Gaza Strip that a war with Israel is possible. They amass forces in Sinai, but retreat two months later without any action taken. The Egyptian army and greater Arab world claim they have deterred a massive Israeli attack on Syria. 1964: The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is officially formed and recognized at the Arab Summit Conference. The PLO immediately begins launching terrorist raids against Israel. 1966: Syria regularly sends saboteurs via Jordan and Lebanon to carry out terrorist raids, thus provoking Israeli attacks on the villages around Hebron where many of the terrorists were based. 1966: On November 11, three Israeli soldiers are killed by a mine planted by the PLO's Fatah organization. On November 13, before a letter sent by King Hussein of Jordan condemning Fatah's terrorist act on the 11th, reached the Israeli government, Israel launched a retaliatory raid, killing 15 Jordanian soldiers. 1967: 22 February: Syria announces it is time to move from "…defensive positions to offensive positions…"  7 April: Syria steps up its shelling, increasing attacks on border villages, leading to an air fight between the Syrians and the Israeli Air Force (IAF). 12-13 May: A Russian report alleges that Israel is amassing troops along the Syrian border. Israel denies the build-up. U.N. Secretary General U Thant reports that UNTSO observers on the Syrian border "... have verified the absence of troop concentrations and absence of noteworthy military movements on both sides of the [Syrian] line."   According to the Soviet media, the Russian accusations were part of a coordinated "Zionist-imperialist" plot to undermine the revolutionary regimes in the Middle East. Today it is understood that this Soviet report, used to deliberately incite Egypt and Syria to form an active military alliance against Israel, was in fact, false. 14-15 May: Syria requests Egypt act to deter an Israeli attack, invoking a mutual defense treaty. Egyptian Field Marshal, Abd al-Hakim Amer orders the Egyptian Army in Sinai "To raise the level of preparedness to a full alert for war, beginning 14.30, 14 May 1967.   At the same time Israel clarifies that it does not have aggressive intentions against Egypt or any other Arab state.  18-19 May: Egypt requests that U.N. forces withdraw. U.N. Secretary General, U Thant orders a complete withdrawal of U.N. forces without consulting the U.N. General Assembly or Security Council 20 May: Egypt dispatches at least 100,000 troops to Israel's southwestern border, leading to a sweep in Arab nationalism against Israel 22 May: Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and any international assistance promised to Israel in case of such a violation in the region never materializes. Arab troops continued to gather on Israel's borders, reaching estimated levels of 450,000 or more. 26-27 May: Israel learns of an Egyptian and Syrian plan to launch a war of annihilation against Israel within the next 48 hours. The initial Egyptian military offensive, dubbed "The Dawn," was essentially a march straight to Jordan, cutting Israel in half and planned by Egyptian general, Abdul Hakim Amer. Only minutes before the attack was intended to begin, pressure by the United States and the Soviets, convinced President Nasser to call it off.  30 May: Egypt, Syria and Jordan sign a mutual defense pack, solidifying their alliance and putting Jordan's military under Egyptian command.

Events of the Six Day War

The Six Day War

Israel was in war with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. There's been lots of press about the political legacy of the war. Everyone agrees it was a stunning victory for Israel and humiliating defeat for the Arab regimes; and there's an emerging concensus that Israel's territorial gains were a mixed blessing.
The historical significance of the Six-Day War is a bit more involved. Here are some points:

• It put an end to Arab certainty that Israel could be wiped off the map if only the Arab states put their will and armies together. The Yom Kippur War put an end to such a near-term scenario. But we'd be fools to think that pan-Arabists have given up this idea as a long-term solution to their humiliation.
• It isolated the Palestinians' cause from the rest of the Arab world's, all talk of solidarity aside. Sadat started the Yom Kippur war to regain some Arab pride and solidify his own political future, but less was done from 1967 to 1973 to strengthen the Palestinian cause than had been done from 1949 to 1967. As a result, Arafat rose as an independent, renegade Palestinian leader.
• This led to a further evolution of terrorism as a means of fighting an assymetric war. And it led to this strange collective psychosis that there's something heroic about sending naifs to blow themselves up with civilians, if the cause seems noble enough.
• Because the US sided with Israel in the standoff that followed, Israel became the most durable of all left-wing targets, especially in Europe. Someone, probably the USSR, found in Israel's territorial gains the means to launch a neo-colonialist narrative that got incredible play in the radical foreign policy set with a rather romanticized view of liberation struggles.
• In gaining military legitimacy, Israel lost sight of the need for political legitimacy. The strange thing about Israel is that while Israelis (speaking broadly) are deeply cynical in some ways, they are often incredibly naive in others. In particular, since it seems self-evident to them that the Six-Day War was a war for survival, taking over the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and Sinai constituted an absolutely justifiable way of assuring that survival, strategically, militarily and most importantly, morally.

More Pre-World War II Events

The Invasion of Ethiopia

The Invasion of Ethiopia, also known as the second Italo-Ayssinian War was a colonial was between Ethiopia and Italy that took place between October 1935 and May 1936 which resulted in an Italian territorial victory.


Benito Mussolini and Fascist Blackshirt youth in 1935 in Rome.


Italian soldiers recruited on 1935 in Montevarchi to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War