War and Civil Conflict - AP World History: Modern

Charlemagne worked very closely with the Papacy, and both believed the expanding Muslim influence to be a threat to Christendom. In the Mid-Eighth Century, Charlemagne began a war with the Muslims under the Umayyad Caliphate to stop their expansion.

Genghis Khan's empire stretched from China to Western Asia but his advance into Africa was arrested by Mamluks, a group of slaves who freed themselves and then immediately fought off the Mongol army.

The Red Guards were young Maoists during the Cultural Revolution in China, they existed hundreds of years after Genghis Khan's empire had already collapsed.

The Vietcong were Communist Vietnamese in the 20th century who fought against the United States, they existed hundreds of years after the Mongol empire had already collapsed.

The Confederates were a group of southern planters and soldiers who attempted to break away from the American union in order to protect their slavery based economy.

The Boxers were 19th century anti-Western fighters, they existed long after the Mongol empire had already collapsed.

The War of the Roses was one of many bloody civil wars fought over the issue of succession. After the death of Henry V in 1422, the lack of a strong Lancaster heir (the crowned successor, Henry VI, was an infant) led to a conflicting claim by Richard, Duke of York. After some initial successes by the House of York, the Lancasters eventually won out and reclaimed the throne.

The Persian Gulf War was the first attempt to stop Saddam Hussein from invading neighboring country Kuwait. It was mainly United States led, with the support of NATO and the UN.

The Warring States Period led to the Establishment of the Qin Dynasty.

Genghis Khan conquered the Seljuks, a Turkish tribe predominant in Anatolia from the 11th to the 13th centuries, and the Persians in the 13th century.

The Battle of Talas was fought between the Islamic forces of the Abbasid Caliphate and the forces of Tang China in 751. It halted the eastward expansion of the Abbasid Caliphate and the westward expansion of Tang China.

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE, specifically disobeying the Senate and practically declaring war on the Republic. Pompey was one of Julius's allies, although he himself did not cross the river along with Caesar. Augustus and Antony were allies, and then subsequently enemies, after the fall of Julius, however they too did not participate in the historic crossing. Ovid famously authored the Metamorphoses, but he was not a general, so he would not be a good choice.

While not an official slogan the slogan most commonly associated with the purpose behind the American Revolution is no taxation without representation. This highlights the Colonists desire to not be taxed without an elected official representing their interests in Parliament.

The Battle of Talas was fought between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty in 751 CE. Prior to the battle, Chinese forces had been spreading rapidly westward and facing little opposition; however, at the Battle of Talas, they were defeated by the Arab forces, and Chinese expansion was halted for several centuries. The battle is considered important for transferring control over the “Silk Road” from Chinese to Arab hands and for turning back the massive forces of the Tang Dynasty. Also, it is sometimes said that Arabs learned the art of paper making from the Chinese prisoners they captured in the battle, thus spreading paper-making technology to the Middle East and eventually Europe.

In retaliation to the British changing laws to make the American Colonists buy a higher percentage of their goods from Britain by restricting foreign ships from colonial ports, the Sons of Liberty staged the Boston Tea Party. The Seven Years’ War was a European conflict that took place from 1754-1763; the major combatants were France and Britain. The Battle of Waterloo was a major battle that occurred in 1815.

The American Revolution (1775-1783) officially ended with the agreement of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Janissaries were a highly trained elite fighting force of the Ottoman Empire. All the soldiers were Slaves of the state. Christian families were required to give one son to Islam, while they were held against their will they received extensive education, and the most elite were trained to become Janissaries.

The Landsknecht were famous for using arquebuses, pikes, and broadswords. Pikes were usually used to stop enemy cavalry, broadswords were used to repel enemy pikes, and arquebuses were used to gain advantage over enemies (especially the Swiss) who did not use firearms.

The Sarissa, small shields, and daggers were hallmarks of Alexander the Great's ancient invasion of Perisa, not the medieval Landsknecht.

The Landsknecht were not known to use axes, and muskets hadn't been invented yet.

Punt guns were used in the 19th century to hunt waterfowl, not by the medieval Landsknecht in combat.

Landsknecht never used Japanese katanas.

The Peace of Augsburg, which first took effect in 1555, put an end to the battles that had been waged between various Protestant armies against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V over a period of nearly thirty long years. The Peace included various conflict resolutions but its most important term was the adoption of the principle that from now on, the leader of each Western European region (from Switzerland to Denmark to Germany) was able to freely choose the religious allegiance of his own region. No outside influence or external force was allowed to interfere with this freedom and any region’s dissenters were permitted to immigrate to another area in which their religion had been selected as the official norm. Under the Peace of Augsburg, Lutheranism was officially granted legal protection and the regional split between Protestantism and Catholicism was therefore firmly established.

With the ending of the bloody Thirty Years War, in which one third of Europe's population died, the Peace of Westphalia was signed which established the concept of sovereignty or the authority of a state to govern itself or another state. Additionally, this concept remains the foundation of contemporary international politics and provides the backbone for state interaction.

As the sixteenth century drew to a close, the nature of religious conflict in Western Europe experienced a dramatic shift. The Treaty of Augsburg (1555) was successful in resolving the disputes between the Catholic Church and Lutheranism. Specifically, it was the Treaty’s provision which allowed the leader of each regional/national territory to independently decide the dominant religion of their domain that enforced this new peace. While the Treaty had officially made Lutheranism a protected religion, it offered no such security to Calvinism. Naturally, Calvinists found this unfair and intolerable and so the focus of religious conflict shifted, as Calvinists arrayed themselves in fierce, vocal (and sometimes physical) opposition to the Catholic Church. This struggle, Calvinists against Catholics, was especially strong in Scotland, France, the Netherlands, and England.

The late sixteenth century was a time of great religious turmoil in France. The French government and monarchy were staunchly Catholic but the country also had a growing population of Protestants, who were known as Huguenots. Religious conflict was deeply intertwined with political conflict, especially because many French nobles who had been excluded from positions of power by King Francis II found Protestantism’s advocacy of decentralized control to be perfectly suitable to their political ambitions. The French monarchy officially began an Inquisition against Huguenots in 1540. In response, aristocratic Protestants, such as the prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny, began to create their own Protestant militias, which were well-armed and lived inside fortified towns. This intermarriage between politics and religion created a dangerous climate in the country, one which could erupt at any moment. The final push into outright conflict came right after the King’s death; because his heir, Charles IX, was too young to rule, his mother, Catherine de Medici, became Queen Regent. Although she was a devout Catholic, Catherine didn’t want to see her nation torn apart by religious infighting, but she was unable to restrain her fellow Catholic nobles, many of whom had also assembled their own militias. The conflict came to a head in March 1562, when the Catholic duke of Guise and his militia burst into a Protestant church in Champagne and massacred many of the worshippers. The brutality of the attack, especially the duke’s invasion of a church and his acts of violence within a sacred space, convinced the Huguenots that they couldn’t tolerate any future aggression and the French civil war of religion soon began.

The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is the most infamous moment in the entire course of the French religious war between the Catholics and Huguenots. The Massacre occurred on August 24th, 1572, after religious conflict had been ravaging the nation off and on for the last decade. Queen Catherine de Medici had heard rumors of a planned Huguenot attack against her, as retaliation for her role in the attempted assassination of Admiral Coligny, one of the Huguenot’s main military leaders. Driven to desperation, Catherine decided that she and her Catholic forces, led by the duke of Guise, had to strike back before the Huguenot plot could occur, and so she persuaded her son, King Charles IX, to agree to a pre-emptive assault. On August 24th (aka Saint Bartholomew’s Day according to the Catholic Church calendar), Catholic forces murdered Coligny and three thousand other Huguenots in the streets of Paris. This first massacre was followed by a series of coordinated attacks all across the country, during which Catholic soldiers killed twenty thousand more Huguenots. The Massacre did not have the effect that Catherine and the other Catholic leaders had planned, however. Instead of convincing the Huguenots to back down and sue for peace, it convinced nearly every Huguenot that they had to intensify their military campaign against the French monarchy and the Catholic militias. The French religious war became a literal fight to the death, with the Huguenots more determined than ever to fight for their survival.