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Podróż króla Stanisława zimą 1708 roku
The article discusses the journey of King Stanisław Leszczyński from Toruń, which he left on 10 Jan 1708, to Vilnius, where he arrived on 22 March 1708. The journey to Lithuania was forced by the Swedish sovereign Charles XII, who was accompanied by Leszczyński from the autumn of 1706. The question is whether the journey of King Stanisław launched in the winter of 1708 was a rational decision. It strengthened the position of Leszczyński in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Still his position predominantly depended on the Sapieha family, who were supported by Charles XII. During his few personal meetings with Charles XII, Leszczyński failed to convince Charles XII to approve of his political concepts. It still remained unknown whether the Polish monarch should accompany Charles XII in his journey into Russia or whether he should return to Poland and try to appease people at home. The closest collaborators of King Stanisław were skeptical (with the exception of the Sapiehas) of the political and military plans of Charles XII; they also disapproved of the conduct of the Swedish troops in Poland. The Swedes treated Poland as a conquered state imposing very high contributions and induced the delivery of food and pasture for horses.
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The debate about the shape of the future secret services, which became increasingly heated at the turn of 1989 and 1990 in the Polish Parliament and in the media, revealed a major number of experts, journalists and politicians of various backgrounds who were advocates of radical reforms. The differences among them consisted in the election of one of the two possible ways of introducing the reforms: the “zero option” or “continuation” of the hitherto applied solutions through their adaptation for the needs of the democratic state. However, it turns out that there were many other possible solutions. The “zero option” and “continuation” constituted two contradictory types between which there existed many more gradual forms. Their position was determined by such factors as: “the manner of breaking away with communism”, the level of the government’s experience and knowledge about the reform of the secret service, the involvement of the governing group in this field. Having analyzed all the factors, it becomes possible to sort out the solutions in terms of their organizational structure, their position in the structure of the state authorities, methods, change of the personnel (including the executive staff). The aim of this work is to present the solutions applied in Poland in 1989 in relation to the factors which determined them.
More...Uwagi na temat budownictwa warownego zakonu niemieckiego w późnośredniowiecznych Prusach
The article constitutes a collection of remarks concerning military aspects of the construction and functioning of the Teutonic castle in Bezławki (Bayselauken, Bäslack) in the last decades of the 14th century. Speculations included in the article refer to opinions expressed by the authors of the collective monograph about the late medieval settlement complex in Bäslack published in 2013. It presents the findings of archeological research in the castle and the village in the years 2008-2012. Remarks presented in the article concern three out of six problems which are considered the most essential. While it goes beyond doubt that the castle played an important defensive role, the hypothesis of it being a “fortified camp” for the army during military actions of the Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians and Ruthenians has been undermined. It is not possible to consider it to play a military role on a significant strategic level, as do the authors of the monograph of 2013. In the second part of the article the author undermines the hypothesis about the “systematic” character of the complex of fortifications situated on the eastern Prussian border. If the castle in Bäslack was indeed part of some defensive system, it could operate on the local level and consist of an insignificant number of elements including longitudinal fortifications constituting the so called “Landwehr”. The next issue addressed by the author was a problem of the typology of the term “wildhaus”. As in the 14th century the term connoted the location of the fortification on the border of the forest, the author shows a far-reaching morphological diversity of fortifications on the eastern outskirts of the Prussian state, which were or could be classified as “wildhauses”. Thus, a “wildhaus” cannot be classified as a morphological type of a fortification. The typology of fortifications based on the morphological criteria cannot be connected with the typology based on the administrative and terminological criteria. Archeological examination of the Bäslack fortification evinces its major cognitive potential and makes us aware of how little is known about the functioning of minor fortifications in late medieval Prussia. Further research in this field belongs to one of the most important elements of historical science in the Prussian regional dimension and related branches of science.
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The paper presents the report of members of the Sanitary Commission of the American Red Cross about the situation in Serbia and Macedonia in December 1915, prepared on the request of Lewis Einstein, chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in Sofia. The members of the American mission pointed to a potential humanitarian disaster following the Bulgarian occupation and the need to implement urgent humanitarian measures in the occupied areas. The report is kept in the National Archives in Washington, as an annex to the letter sent to State Secretary Robert Lansing. Its importance is reflected in the fact that it sheds light on the circumstances in which the civilian population found themselves in the territory occupied by the Bulgarian army. However, the American doctors’ reports are perhaps all the more important as they significantly influenced further activities of the American Red Cross in war-torn Europe, particularly in Serbia during the First World War.
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Aerial bombardment during World War Two hit every part of the Sarajevo city area. Most of the victims were civilians as bombs fell on the buildings and areas which had no military significance. First attacks were executed by the Nazi Germany Luftwaffe, while from the end of 1943, the bombing was carried out by the Allied air forces. Both tactical and strategic forces operated over Sarajevo dropping bombs from 50 to 1800 kilograms. Through comparison of the data collected from the available archives of the aviation units which did the bombings and military and civilian authorities from Sarajevo, including previous researches of the air war, this article compiles the war effort put in the bombings, aimed targets, city areas which were stricken, the goals and the outcomes. It also puts the bombings into a historical context, to shed light on the reasons which led to the devastating consequences for the city and its citizens.
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One of the political letters, deemed worthy to be cited and copied by Pope Pius II (olim Enea Silvio Piccolomini) in his Commentaries, was the message allegedly sent by Vlad III the Impaller(Dracula), voivode of Wallachia, to Sultan Mehmed II on November 7, 1462. The missive was the textual embryo of Book XI, chapter 12 (Iohannis Dragule immanis atque nefanda crudelitas, eiusque in regem Hungarie deprehensa perfidia, et tandem captivitas), covering over a fifth of the chapter. The Dragula chapter was placed between the depiction (in chapter 11) of the Viennese conspiracy against Albert VI of Habsburg, the rival brother of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg (April 1462), and the emphatic presentation (in chapter 13) of the royal anti-Ottoman request sent by Stephen Tomašević, the new king of Bosnia, to Pius II (roughly a year earlier, in the late summer of 1461, a date the pope failed nevertheless to mention, though he extensively quoted both the oration of Tomašević's envoys and the subsequent papal response). The case of John Dragula explicitly linked chapters 11 and 13. Frequently overlooked, the chapters bordering the infamous deeds of the voivode of Wallachia formed its logical political context, founded on Matthias Corvinus. The son of John Hunyadi, who had executed John Dragula's father, Vlad II Dracul (just Dragula according to the pope), was (as recorded also by Pius II): (1) the overlord (i.e. suzerain) of John Dragula, (2) the archrival of Frederick III, and (3) the challenged suzerain of Stephen Tomašević. Prior to the Dragula issue of 1462, Pius II had loyally served Frederick as his secretary and envoy (from late 1442 until he was elected pope in August 1458) and had sent a crown for Stephen Tomašević's royal coronation on Christmas Day 1461 (against the opposition of Matthias, whose Bosnian rights Pius II claimed however, in his Commentaries, to have defended). Starting with the case of John Dragula, the most famous Wallachian in Enea's/ Pius' writings, the study focuses on the actual case at hand: that of humanist/ pope and his designs for an continent and a faith in turmoil.
More...Pereklad ì komentarì Leontìâ Vojtoviča. Bìla Cerkva: Oleksandr Pšonkìvsʹkij, Pokažčik, 2019, ss. 244
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The rise, fall and expansion of most kingdoms in pre-colonial Africa were credited to the activities of warfare. To sustain war efforts, various societies and warlords in pre-colonial Africa evolved unique military complexes, strategies and tactics, which they deployed during war times. The blacksmith was the fulcrum of pre-colonial war armory and strategy. The knowledge of iron metallurgy was the exclusive domain of the blacksmith. The knowledge of metallurgy made the blacksmith indispensable in actual execution of wars, hence he fashioned the weapon, went with the army to the battlefield to ensure adequate supply of weapons and repair of worn-out weapons for the reinforcement of the armies in the battleground. All these functions combined, made the blacksmiths an invaluable party in the preparation and actual execution of wars in pre-colonial Africa.
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The occupation of the Suwałki Region by the Germans in years 1915-1919 is an often forgotten period in the history of this region. It is all the more amazing that the activities of the occupation forces were aimed at plunder and repression of the local population. In those years, the Polish-Lithuanian conflict also intensified, which resulted in the outbreak of the Sejny Uprising, which was victorious for Poles. When Warsaw, Kraków, or Poznań exulted with regaining their independence - terror was still going on in the Suwałki region. That is why I wrote this article, to revive the memory of those events. The impulse to write the text was that I became acquainted with the minutes of the session of the Peace Court in Sztabin, which was held on 11th June 1919. On that day, German soldiers entered the building where the court was sitting. They started beating the people who were there and they almost took Judge Leopold Zatryb's life. The angry soldiers first wanted to stab him with a bayonet and then smash the judge's head with a metal crucifix. Only the reaction of the German officer prevented more bloodshed. The mentioned minutes is the most important source that I have used. It is in the collection of the State Archives in Suwałki, along with the rest of the documents relating to the activities of German soldiers. Moreover, the memories of Jakób Rółkowski - the parish priest in Sztabin, who was persecuted by the Occupant, were also very helpful. I also used the works of, among others, G. Ryżewski and S. Buchowski.
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Crimes of desertion and self moving away has been a problem since armed forces have been existing. In the past, crime of desertion mostly had been punishable by the death penalty and in combat situations, combat officers could even kill a deserter without any criminal trial or disciplinary proceedings. When progressive humanitarianization was in progress, penalties for discussed crimes were gradually liberalized in the entire world. Those acts have negative influence not only on the morale of the army and its strength as a consequence, but it can also be bad for society. On the other hand, the very important thing is the severity of the sanction for those prohibited acts in time of peace, in warpath and in combat situations. The next important thing is changes of criminal sanction in legislations of those two socialist countries for previously mentioned acts. In this article it was indicated, that both crimes of desertion and self moving away were similar, the difference between them was indicated and there is notice that act of desertion is more harmful and punished more severely than self moving away. The goal of this article is to show material and legal basis of penal responsibility for crimes of desertion and self moving away in USSR and Polish Peoples Republic.
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The Treaty of Versailles was signed after several months of deliberations at a peace conference convened to Paris after the end of World War I on 28 June 1919 in Paris by Germany and the Entente countries. It entered into force on 10 January 1920, i.e., on the day of its ratification. Delegations of 27 winning countries participated in the peace conference in Paris. The treaty completely changed the map of Europe and the prevailing political order. Many small countries found their place on the map, including the Republic of Poland re-emerging on the maps of Europe, although in smaller territorial ownership than before the Partition of Poland. The Polish delegation, including among others: Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Roman Dmowski, tried their best to restore the Poles to their lands. Lands which, as a result of the Partition, came under the rule of three powers, namely: Prussia, Austria, and Russia. However, the peace conference in Paris showed much reluctance on the part of the Big Five, which decided about the fate of post-war Europe towards Poland. Expectations of the Poles that their case would be supported by friendly British, American, or French politicians turned out to be deceptive. Especially the French, who seemed very favourable to Poland, at the peace conference completely obeyed the will of the British, who even intended to prevent the Poles in their quest to restore the pre-partition Polish borders. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who turned out to expose his unfavourable attitude towards the Polish cause, was so uncompromising in his position that no arguments invoked by the Polish delegation appealed to him.
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In participating in the Croatia's war of independence, a part of the soldiers remained completely or partially blind (blind or visually impaired). Such individuals needed to be trained for living in the new circumstances. For this purpose, they have undergone a process of rehabilitation in order to master certain skills related to the independent mobility technique. Since some of the blind veterans manifested distinct features of PTSP, it was necessary to consider this fact. For establishing the correlation between the rehabilitation and the mastering of the independent mobility technique robust discriminative analysis was implemented.
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August Marić, born in 1885, served as a junior general staff officer in the Austro-Hungarian army before and during the World War I. In 1919 he joined the royal army of the new Yugoslav state. He achieved a successful career and became a general. This was unusual because he was a former Austro-Hungarian officer and Croat, and the royal Yugoslav army was dominated by officers of the former royal Serbian army. Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941. General Mari was captured by Germans, although Yugoslav forces under his command fought well against more powerful German forces. Marić joined the regular army of the newly proclaimed Independent State of Croatia (NDH), becoming the chief of its general staff. Soon he was kicked out of the army and accused of helping Serb and communist uprising against the NDH. In fact, Marić was obviously a victim of the power struggle among senior Croat officers. He was soon rehabilitated because of his good relations with general Glaise von Horstenau, the German army representative in Croatia, whose friendship with Marić dated since the days when they both served in the Austro-Hungarian army. After the war many senior NDH officers were executed or imprisoned by the Yugoslav communists, but Marić successfully presented himself as a victim of the Ustasha regime. He died in 1957.
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Review of: Mario Jareb - GEORGE LEPRE, HIMMLER'S BOSNIAN DIVISION. THE WAFFEN SS HANDSCHAR DIVISION 1943-1945, Schiffer Military History (Schiffer Publishing Ltd.), Atglen, PA, SAD, 1997., 378 str.
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The 1950 commission investigating the number of victims of the National Struggle for Liberation established numbers which confirmed those recorded earlier by the Commission for war damages in 1946 and those recorded later by the Commission for investigating victims of the Second World War in 1964. However, up until now, the results made by the 1950 Commission have been unjustifiably neglected by researchers. They were never officially published, but were kept secret and the materials were unavailable to researchers at the Archive of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. The results of the 1946 Commission were unacceptable to authorities because the number of victims registered for the "anti-fascists" were smaller by half than the figures established for the deaths of "enemies of the people." The 1950 Commission investigated only the number of losses suffered on the side of the Movement for National Liberation. For Croatia, 159 193 deaths were counted. The list of victims was tabulated with respect to place, manner, and year of death, nationality, gender, occupation, and age.
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This article provides an overview of archival holdings and collections of the civic and military institutions of the para-state of the rebel Serbs in the Republic of Croatia in the period from 1990 to 1995, that is to say the archival records set up in the occupied territory of the Republic of Croatia as well as those of the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army). At issue are the materials that were the result of the work of the “Republic of Serbian Krajina”, of its parliament, government, ministries, judicial authorities and governing bodies at the local level as well as that of the political parties and associations, the corps of the Serbian Army of Krajina and its predecessors (zone headquarters). In other words, on the basis of stored archival materials, a review of the activities of the JNA, of its transformation and role during the aggression against Croatia is provided. The contents of the archival holdings of the institutions of the “Republic of Serbian Krajina” indicate the intention of their creators and their focus on the partition of the territory of the Republic of Croatia and annexing a part to the Republic of Serbia and Yugoslavia. The materials were collected after the military-police liberating operations Bljesak and Oluja, and then transferred to the Croatian State Archive and at the end of 2005 to the Croatian Memorial-Documentation Centre of the Homeland War.
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There is a phrase they say was written at the entrance to the University of Cordoba: “Four pillars hold up the world: the wisdom of the wise, the justice of the powerful, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave.” This is the measure of an honourable life in a fair and healthy society. The most difficult, but also the most important test of government and the state is unconditionally upholding these principles in difficult times – times of aggression, siege, crisis, epidemic, natural disaster, etc.
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I am eighty years of age and still enjoy the privilege of writing, as this text is witness. Ever since my wife died almost four years ago, I have lived by myself in a large apartment in an Austro-Hungarian building constructed on the eve of the Great War and located on the most popular street in Sarajevo, Ferhadija, a pedestrian zone in the centre of town. The windows in the two largest rooms have a view of Trebević, a legendary hill that enfolds the southern side of the city. It’s spring, but I cannot feel its scent because a tiny virus from Wuhan has me under house arrest, which the authorities have merely legalised through regulations requiring all citizens older than 65 to remain in so-called self-isolation. I don’t feel lonely. On nice days I open my windows wide, and, exposed to the beneficent action of the sun, I watch the rare passers-by in their masks and gloves. The isolation itself is bearable and for many even welcome. People are taking stock and dealing with things outstanding for years.
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