Corinthian War: Spartan vs Coalition of four allied states (395–387 BC)

In 404 BC a Spartan led alliance that included Thebes and Corinth had finally defeated Athens, ending the Great Peloponnesian War. Sparta's domineering attitude soured its relations with its allies, and in 399 BC the Spartan–Persian alliance collapsed.

Athens was forced to dismantle her walls, lost her empire, was only allowed a tiny fleet and the democracy was dismantled. For a brief time, Sparta became the dominant Greek naval power, although most of her ships came from allies.

King Agesilaus and Lysander (the admiral who had been responsible for Athens' defeat) started Sparta's reign as hegemon with lots of support from the other Greek city-states.

However, Sparta claimed all of the plunder from the Peloponnesian War and it had totally disregarded the wishes and interests of her allies. Sparta had pursued a policy of aggressive expansion in the Peloponnese, central and northern Greece and the Aegean which had at times seemed directed specifically against them.

In 394 BC coalition of four allied states coalition of four allied states. assemble near Corinth. They sought to destroy the ascendancy of Sparta after its victory in the Peloponnesian War. The Corinthian War, an ancient Greek conflict was lasting from 395 BC until 387 BC, pitting Sparta against a coalition of four allied states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos; which were initially backed by Persia. The name called Corinthian War (395–386) because much of it took place on Corinthian territory.

The war was fought on two fronts, on land near Corinth and Thebes and at sea in the Aegean. Sparta had two land victories over Athenian allied states and a severe naval defeat at Cnidus by a combined Athenian and Persian fleet.

Virtually Spartan’s entire fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Cnidus, leaving Athens and Persia in control of the seas. This brought about an effective stalemate, although skirmishes, intrigue, plotting, and counter-plotting preceded apace.

Sparta eventually won the war, but only after the Persians had switched support from Athens to Sparta.

With its powerful ally as guarantor, Sparta was able to dictate the terms of the so‐called King's Peace in 386 BC. This treaty declared that Persia would control all of Ionia, and proclaimed that all other Greek cities would be "autonomous", in effect prohibiting Greek cities from forming leagues, alliances or coalitions. Sparta was to be the guardian of the peace.
Corinthian War: Spartan vs Coalition of four allied states (395–387 BC)

Battle of Chaeronea

In 338 BC, the Macedonian army, led by King Philip II (c. 382–336) and his young prince Alexander III, marched against a coalition of Greek city-states led by Athens and Thebes. The site of this clash was near the Boeotian city of Chaeronea, which guarded the entry into the northern plain of Boeotia.

The battle of Chaeronea essentially marks the start of the Macedonian domination in the political affairs of Greece that lasted almost a century. The particular battle is also of great interest from a military point of view, clearly demonstrating the superiority of the Macedonian phalanx against the previous corresponding types of military positioning of other city-states.

This battle was the culmination of Philip’s military campaign during the years 340-338 to build a coalition of loyal Greek cities through various “settlements,” which ultimately led to the League of Corinth (the Hellenic League) against Persia.

King Philip II

The battle was a disaster for Athens, Thebes, and their allies. More than 1,000 Athenians were killed and over 2,000 captured.

Philip’s victory at Chaeronea and his military endeavours throughout Central Greece clearly demonstrated the ingenuity of his leadership and the capability of his army. Philip used the victory and the “settlements” which followed as a means of expanding his influence throughout Greece.

Following the battle of Chaeronea and confined to the conditions of the League of Corinth, it is generally accepted that Athens had a relatively peaceful fifteen-year period. This was certainly so when compared to the turmoil of the Peloponnesian war and its aftermath.
Battle of Chaeronea

The Battle of Didgori in 1121

The first Christian colonies appeared as far back as the 1st century AD and like the representatives of other religions they were not persecuted. The country had to meet new challenges in the 4th century AD, after the official adoption of Christianity in 326.

With the adoption of Christianity as the official religion, Georgia found itself in a difficult position: the collapse of Byzantium turned the Christian country into the only outpost in a Muslim milieu. For that reason it was troubled endlessly by the Arab, Persian and Turk invaders.

On August 12, 1121, in the Didgori battle near Tbilisi, Georgian troops of 56 000 warriors defeated a 300,000 strong Moslem coalition army. Georgia repelled an invasion by Seljuk Sultan of Baghdad (subordinate to the Eastern Great Seljuks) at Didgori, and acquired Tbilisi.

In Georgian history it is known as dzleva sakvirveli the “wonderful history”. Five hundred citizens were tortured to death, and much of the city burned. Tbilisi became a royal town, the capital of Georgia and in time los its self-governing status.

The capture of Tbilisi by David IV the Builder in 1121 constituted one of the most significant events in Georgian history. The significance of the liberation of this major east-Georgian city from the five-century-long Muslim domination was not limited to the mere territorial expansion, but heralded quite unequivocally Georgia’s de-facto status of the major3 Christian nucleus of power in the Caucasus, at times providing “the second front” diversion for the Crusaders’ foes in Palestine and Syria.

 David the Builder died in 1125, leaving Georgia as a great power. His successor Demetrius I (1125-1156) maintained it as such, but followed a status quo policy.
The Battle of Didgori in 1121

Attack of the Ottoman Turks on Moldavia

In the fourteenth century, the Ottomans of Asia Minor attacked the Balkan Peninsula. Wallachia had fallen under Ottoman control, while Moldavia had become an appanage of the great Jagellon dynasty of Poland-Lithuania.

In January 1475 a huge Ottoman army invades Moldavia. Stephen the Great engages the Turks south of Vaslui in a swampy area surrounded by forest. The Ottoman troops, led by Sultan Mehmet II, are trounced by the numerically inferior Moldavians.

In 1484, new Turkish attack on Moldavia. Moldavia’s seashore and southern defenses crumble. In 1538, the Ottoman Empire invaded Moldavia and Sultan Suleiman I crushes the Moldavian army and seizes Suceava.

The Turks, who practiced the Islamic religion, allowed Romanian princess to continue rule their territories. But the princesses were forced to pay tributes every year to the Ottoman sultan..

In 1600 Wallachia and Moldavia were briefly united with Transylvania under Mihai Viteazul at Alba Iulia. In order to fight Ottoman rule, he joined forces in 1594 with the ruling princess of Moldavia and Transylvania against the Turks, attacking strongholds and massacring Turks.
Attack of the Ottoman Turks on Moldavia

The Second Defenestration of Prague

Throwing people out of windows has along legacy in Prague a true scandal on Bohemia. In each major incident but the last, rebelling Protestants tossed entrenched Catholics out of their strongholds.

On 23 May 1618 Defenestration of Prague, saw the Holy Roman Emperor’s two regents in Prague, Jaroslav Martinic and Vilem Slawata, together with their scribe, Philip Frabricius, thrown out of the high windows of the Council Room of Hradcany Castle by Count Heinrich von Thurn, titular head of the anti-Habsburg Protestant faction, and his allies.

This hasty execution however was not fatal to then three victims; it is said form height of forty feet, neither of the three was killed by the fall and some of their friends having pulled them out of the mud which they had sunk. The three men landed in a manure heap and survived, with Fabricius later being ennobled by the Emperor under the intentionally ironical name of von Hohenfall.

This second Defenestration of Prague led to the beginning of the Thirty Years War. The War of the Thirty Years was the last struggle sustained for the cause of the reformed religion, which for a hundred years, had served as a pretext for all the trouble that had overwhelmed Europe, from the revolt of the peasants of Swabia under Charles V to the peace of Westphalia.
The Second Defenestration of Prague

The Congress of Vienna 1814-1815

The Congress of Vienna is the landmark in the history of international negotiation. It did not meet to create peace de novo, but to carry out the terms of a preliminary agreement, which was embodied in no less than seven treaties, between France and its various allied opponent.

At the congress the victorious European powers (Austria, Britain, Prussian and Russia) set about bringing peace and order to the continent by reviving the principle of monarchic legitimacy and taking steps to forestall future French expansion.

The territorial settlement of the Congress of Vienna was composed of three agreements signed between 1814 and 1815.
*Treaty of Paris (30 May 1814)
*Final Act of the Congress of Vienna (9 June 1815)
*Second Treaty of Paris

In common understanding, the Congress of Vienna, the peace conference at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, established the principle of the ‘balance of power’. All agreed that no European state should threaten to dominate the continent as France had done.
The Congress of Vienna 1814-1815

Biography of Otto von Bismarck (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898)

Otto von Bismarck unified Germany under a conservative government and altered the balance of power in nineteenth century Europe. He founded the German Empire in 1871 and served as its chancellor for 19 years.

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen to the Junker family of Prussia in 1815, the year peace was restored to Europe after the tumultuous Napoleonic Wars.

He was the fourth of six children – four sons and two daughters - of whom the eldest was born in 1807 and the youngest in 1827.

In his youth he preferred drinking and duels to his law studies in Berlin and his later duties as a civil servant.

In 1847, desirous of more excitement and power than he could find in the country, he reentered public life. Four years later he began to build a base of diplomatic experience as the Prussian delegate to the Parliament of the Germanic Confederation.

In 1849, the Prussian king arrested the Frankfurt Assembly, Bismarck expressed his approval. His support of the Prussian monarchy won him a post in the government and in 1862 he was appointed chancellor.

When he took office, Prussia was widely considered the weakest of the five European powers, but under his leadership Prussian won a war against Denmark in 1864, the even Weeks’ War in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71).

Through these wars he achieved his goal of political unification of a Prussian-dominated Germane Empire.

He was not a political gambler but a moderate who waged war only when all other diplomatic alternatives had been exhausted and when he was reasonably sure that all the military diplomatic advantages were on his side.

In 1890 William II dismissed Bismarck. In 1898 the frustrated ‘Iron Chancellor’ died.
Biography of Otto von Bismarck (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898)

Carthaginians in Spain

Pottery remains from Spain may be the earliest of all those at Carthage for they date to the first half of the 8th century. The occasion of the Carthaginians first landing in Spain, was to assist the inhabitants of Cadiz, who were invaded by the Spaniards.

That city, as well as Utica and Carthage, was a colony of Tyre, and even more ancient than either of them. The success of this first expedition of the Carthaginians, made them desirous of carrying their arms into Spain.

The Carthaginians did not only establish themselves in Spain about this time, but were endeavoring also to subdue the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, but the natives calling in the Romans to their assistance, the Sicilian war proved a very long and bloody one, and Carthaginians were in the end driven from thence.

Carthaginians forces campaigned in south Spain under Hamilcar Barca from 237 BC until his death in battle 229 or 228 BC.

In 237 BC Carthage founded the city of Carthage Nova or New Carthage in the southeast coast, which served as the major Carthaginians sup0ly base on the Iberian Peninsula in a northward expansion.

When Hamilcar Barca was establishing a Carthaginian empire in Spain, the Romans acted the part of mere spectators. On his arrival in Spain, the Carthaginians posses only the coast of Granada and Murcia; but under his administration, Andalusia and the greater part of Valencia seems to have been added to their dominions.

In 206 BC Scipio destroyed the Carthaginians in Spain at Ilipa. The Romans took the war directly to the Carthaginians when, in 204 BC, Scipio invaded North Africa. Hannibal rushed back to defend Carthage and met Scipio at Zama in 202 BC.
Carthaginians in Spain