Suchergebnisse

According to the 1867 constitution the Habsburg Monarchy's armed forces consisted
of the common army, the navy, the Austrian Landwehr and the Landsturm. The armed forces
had authority over three ministries and were themselves subject to the rule of three parliamentary
institutions. From the beginning the growth of the armed forces had not kept pace
with that of the population as a whole. There was a low volume of conscripts and poor training
of reservists. This resulted in a relatively small army both in peace time and during war and
meant that by the spring of 1918 Austria-Hungary had practically exhausted its available human
resources. This was exacerbated by the high number of losses, both through death and capture.
On the battlefield the number of deaths is thought to have been between 905,000 and 1,200,000
with 1.8 million injured. At the same time the number of deaths and illness in the hinterland
increased while the rate of fertility dropped. In order to resolve this the government applied
a number of measures: the upper age limit of conscription increased, the necessary standards
for recruitment were lowered, training period was shortened, more use of weapons, factory
workers were replaced with women, prisoners of war and workers from the occupied territories.
However at this time the importance of the "war economy" was also growing which resulted in
an increase in firms requesting the release of their employees from military service. In 1918 the
Habsburg Monarchy had not only exhausted its human resources but was also on the brink of
economic collapse.

This article is an attempt to present further results in the author's continuing qualitative
field work among the historical war re-enactment societies of the fortress towns of Josefstadt and
Theresienstadt (from 2010). Michael Foucaults Heterotopic theory of places is used to shed light
on a wide range of ritualised social behaviour, centred around key symbols from the monarchical
military culture of the Enlightenment. New categories for the analysis of local context have been
created which are clearly compatible with Braudel's theory of longue-duree, that is isophenomenological
historic-social objects, maintaining and transferring the original meaning of heterotopic
social-disciplination.

This historical essay describes Emperor Franz Joseph's visits to the Czech lands. Both the Monarch's image and the people's attitude to his stays in Bohemia and Moravia during his long reign (1848–1916) were prone to change. Following his coronation the young ruler dissolved the Constituent Assembly and returned Austria to Absolute Rule. His popularity declined sharply even though the Czechs supported the Habsburgs during the 1848/49 revolutionary uprising. He was welcomed in Bohemia after his wedding in 1854 but this was fuelled by the hope that the current harsh rule would grow more lenient. Once constitutional rule was reinstated, Czech politicians attempted to entice Franz Joseph to hold his coronation ceremony in Bohemia. In this they did not succeed. During the final decades of his rule the emperor acquired the benign image of an "Old Monarch" and this despite the fact that Czech attachment to the monarchy had weakened considerably over time. Nevertheless the Czech people sincerely liked their Emperor and his visits were always occasions for national celebration. During these visits the aged Monarch would address old war veterans and young children and these meticulously recorded conversations formed an integral part of his official cult.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 was accompanied by mass enthusiasm. This
wave of enthusiasm (Kriegsbegeisterung) was particularly high in Austro-Hungary. In the regions
where the German population was significantly large crowds thronged the streets singing patriotic
songs such as "Wacht am Rhein", "Heil Dir im Siegeskranz", "The Radecky Marsch", "Prince
Eugene Marsch". They also arranged tributes in front of monuments, state buildings and military
headquarters. Despite the fact that the operation to mobilise the Czech military went smoothly
the German public noticed the lack of enthusiasm amidst the Czech soldiers and consequently the
Czechs were seen as indifferent and even hostile. There was an attempt to promote demonstrations
in Prague as an expression of Czech-German reconciliation. However as these were organised by
the German minority in Prague the Czechs continued in their lack of fervour and viewed the war
as a German one rather than Czech.

The featured observations represent selected viewpoints of World War I, highlighting
background events that led to the war. They present the situation in Austro-Hungary for whom the
war was a tool to solve its political problems and further demonstrate how the war actually made
the aforementioned country's relations with national groups more complicated. The observations
also focus on the image of the war, distorted by propaganda, and the situation on both the front
line and in the hinterland. Last but not least they deal with the war from the Czech viewpoint,
unique for many reasons including the fact that at this time the Czechs were escalating their
attempts at creating their own state.

Violent conflict is very old in human society. The development of military technology brought with itself the worst tragedies loss of human live and material devastation in the second half of 20th century in the Horn of Africa. This region is one of the centers of various political violent conflicts in the world, according to length of these violent conflicts, the number of death of people, mainly civilian, refugees and internal displaced persons (IDP). This study elucidates the root causes of long wars in the Horn of Africa focusing mainly on South Sudan and Somalia. It also illustrates how the Super Powers during the Cold War helped their client states to prolong the suffering of people in the region. When Socialist system disappeared from Eastern Europe, Mengistu Haile Mariam's and Siyad Barre's regime ignominiously collapsed. In Ethiopia Amhara power elite, who ruled the Empire state from 1889 to 1991 lost their state power and Tigrian guerrilla fighters captured it through the power of the gun, Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia, South Sudan is emerging from long heinous war to independence. The violent conflict in Somalia transformed after the old regime demise in 1991 and the new leaders unable to build new central government. Somalia is fragmented and became the good example of failed state in the theory of contemporary political sociology. The paper tries to explain these complex violent conflicts in this part of Africa.

"This study deals with historic cultural contacts between Europeans and the Benin Empire, one of the most significant native African cultural centres between the 15th and the 17th century. The study focuses particularly on the development of the Benin Empire on the background of acculturation and diffusion of European cultural elements and complexes. The study describes the first contacts between Europeans and the Benin Empire and the subsequent business activities, including slave trade. Special attention is paid to European colonial expansion that culminated in the 1897 British invasion which led to the conquest of the Benin City. The aim of the study is to draw attention to the role of the exogenous cultural change and acculturation processes, which caused the fall of once a socially, economically, politically and culturally stable African empire." (author's abstract)

The Czech Republic is comprised of different regions at the sub- national level. These are the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia, & (part of) Silesia, small ethnographic regions, & administrative units. Their objective hierarchy derives from their former historical role, from their administrative function today, & their regional importance. In this article the authors attempt to describe the subjective hierarchy of these regions in the minds of their inhabitants, drawing on a survey of 1203 respondents from throughout the Czech Republic conducted in 2003 by the Centre for Public Opinion Research. The historical lands of Bohemia & Moravia are two regions whose existence Czechs recognize without question, while Silesia is in a weaker position & garners only two- thirds of the level of recognition accorded the other two historical lands. The cultural or ethnographic regions & the administrative units are on an approximately equal level, which is distinctively lower than that of the three Czech historical lands. More of these small regions are located in Moravia than in Bohemia or Silesia. The best known Czech regions are: Wallachia, Moravian Slovakia, Hana (all of which are in Moravia) & the Region of Khods (Bohemia). The best known region that is neither ethnographical nor one of the administrative units is the former industrial region of Ostrava.