major wars of 20th century

Years 1904 1905 Battle deaths 151,831 The Russo Japanese War (1904 1905) was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperialist ambitions of Imperial Russia and Japan in Manchuria and Korea. It resulted in a surprise victory for Japan, establishing Japan as a major world power.Popular discontent in Russia following the defeat led to the Russian Revolution of 1905. The war ended with mediation by the United States. There was discontent among Japanese over the lack of territorial gains; this led to an erosion of good feelings towards the United States.

The defeat of Russia was met with shock both in the West and especially across Asia. That a non Western country could defeat an established power in such a large military conflict was particularly inspiring to various anti colonial independence movements around the world. After the conclusion of World War II, some Japanese historians would look back upon the war with nostalgia, especially those who have sought to portray Japans conduct in the first half of the century as one of leadership in a sustained effort to liberate oppressed Asian peoples and thereby downplay Japans own imperialistic ambitions throughout the period.

ORIGINS OF THE WAR In the late 1800s and early 1900s, various Western countries were competing for influence, trade, and territory in East Asia and Japan struggled to be a modern great power. Japans location encouraged it to focus on Korea and northern China, putting it in competition mainly with its neighbor, Russia. The Japanese effort to occupy Korea led to the Sino Japanese War, and Japan secured a peace in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) by which China abandoned its own claims to Korea, as well as ceding Taiwan and L

Years 1904 1907 Battle deaths 24,200 The Aceh War, also known as the Dutch War or the Infidel War (1873 1914), was an armed military conflict between the Sultanate of Aceh and the Netherlands which was triggered by discussions between representatives of Aceh and the United States in Singapore during early 1873. The war was part of a series of conflicts in the late 19th century that consolidated Dutch rule over modern day Indonesia.

In 1903, the main secular Acehnese resistance leaders including Sultan Muhammad Daud, Tuanku Raja Keumala, Mahmud and Muda Perkasa capitulated. By 1904 most of Aceh was under Dutch control, and had an indigenous government that cooperated with the colonial state. The Dutch consolidated their control over Aceh by practising a policy of religious tolerance as a means of dissuading the Acehnese from taking up an armed struggle. Nevertheless, episodes of marked Dutch military cruelty still occurred during this period. Photographs of a Dutch slaughter in Koeto Reh village taken during a Dutch military expedition in Acehs Gayo and Alas regions in 1904, for example, indicate that killings of large groups of civilians occurred on some occasions. Estimated total casualties on the Aceh side range from 50,000 to 60,000 dead, and over a million wounded. The destruction of entire communities also caused 10,000 Acehnese to flee to neighbouring Malaya.

In the Netherlands at the time, Van Heutsz was considered a hero, named the

Years 1905 1906 Battle deaths 8,840 As a result of the so called Scramble for Africa among the major European powers in the 1880s, Germany had ended up with several colonies on the Dark Continent. These were German East Africa (currently Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique), German Southwest Africa (present day Namibia), Cameroon, and Togoland (today split between Ghana and Togo).They had a relatively weak hold on German East Africa, but they did maintain a system of forts throughout the interior of the territory and were able to exert some control over it. Since their hold on the colony was weak, they resorted to using violently repressive tactics to control the population.

They began levying head taxes in 1898, and relied heavily on forced labour to build roads and accomplish various other tasks. In 1902 the governor also decided to force villages to grow cotton as a cash crop. Each village was charged with producing a common plot of cotton. The Headmen of the village were left in charge of overseeing the production; a position that left him vulnerable to criticism and rage from the population. The use of regular villagers, who had other things to do, to produce cotton was extremely unpopular across Tanzania. In many places the villagers simply refused to work the land, or refused payment.

These German policies were not only unpopular, they also had serious effects on the lives of Africans. The social fabric of society was being changed rapidly. Gender and social roles were being changed to face the needs of the communities. Since men were forced away from their homes to work, women were forced to assume some of the traditional male roles. Not only that, but the fact that men were away strained the resources of the village and the peoples ability to deal with their environment and remain self sufficient. These effects, combined with Germanys violent forays into the area combined to create a lot of animosity against them amongst the people of the future Tanzania. In 1905 a drought threatened the region. This, combined with the animosity to German agricultural and labour policies, led to open rebellion against the Germans in July.

Some historians believe that Africans turned to magic to drive out the German colonizers and used it as a unifying force in the rebellion. A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo. Ngwale began calling himself Bokero and developed a belief that the people of German East Africa had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. He gave his followers war medicine that he said would turn German bullets into water. This war medicine was in fact water (maji in Swahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds. Empowered with this new liquid, Bokeros followers began what would become known as the Maji Maji Rebellion. However, some historians believe that the use of maji water was in fact more agriculturally related, and that German observers misinterpreted its significance. The rebellion The followers of Bokeros movement armed themselves rather poorly, fighting only with cap guns, spears, and arrows. However, wearing millet stalks around their foreheads, they started from the Matumbi Hills in the southern part of what is now Tanzania and attacked German garrisons throughout the colony. Nonetheless, the Germans used their superior firepower to their advantage. At Mahenge, several thousand Maji rebels (led by another spirit medium, not Bokero) marched on the German cantonment there and hundreds were cut down by machine gun fire.

While this was the apex of the Rebellion, the Ngoni people decided to join in the revolt with a force of 5,000. German troops, armed with machine guns, departed from Mahenge to the Ngoni camp, which they attacked on 21 October. The Ngoni soldiers retreated, throwing away their bottles of war medicine and crying, The maji is a lie! The Germans had succeeded in quenching the revolt.

Aftermath and interpretationThe Maji Maji Rebellion was the greatest affront to German colonial rule in Africa. The violence and ruthlessness of the German suppression changed the history of southern Tanzania. The native Africans had not previously seen such upheaval as occurred after the revolt. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people died or were displaced from their homes. In the wake of the rebellion, the imperial government instituted important administrative reforms.

Years 1905 1906 Battle deaths 1,500 On January 22 (January 9), 1905, the day known as Bloody Sunday, there was a protest march in St. Petersburg that was put down by armed force with more than 1,000 killed or injured.This event was the needed spark for many groups in Russian society to move into active protest. Each group had its own aims and even within similar classes there was no overall direction. The main protestors were the peasants (economic), the workers (economic, anti industrialist), intelligentsia and liberals (civil rights), the armed forces (economic), and minority national groups (political and cultural freedom).

The economic situation of the peasants was appalling, but leaderless each splinter sought its own objectives. Unrest was spread across the year, reaching peaks in early summer and autumn before culminating in November. Renters wanted lower rents, hirelings wanted better wages, land holders wanted bigger plots of land. The actual activities were land seizures, sometimes followed by violence and burning; looting the larger estates and illegal hunting and logging in the forests. The level of animosity displayed had a direct link to the condition of the peasants the landless of Livland and Kurland attacked and burned, while the better off in the neighbouring Grodno, Kovno and Minsk took little destructive action.

However, after the events of 1905, peasant unrest returned in 1906 and lasted until 1908. The government concessions were seen as support for the redistribution of land, so there were attacks to force landlords and non peasant land holders to flee. Believing a country wide redistribution was imminent, the peasants took the opportunity to pre empt the decision makers. They were strongly suppressed.The workers act of resistance was the strike. There were widespread strikes in St. Petersburg immediately after Bloody Sunday; over 400,000 workers were involved by the end of January. The action quickly spread to other industrial centres in Poland and the Baltic coast. In Riga 70 protestors were killed on January 13 (J), and in Warsaw a few days later over 100 strikers were shot on the streets. By February there were strikes in the Caucasus and by April in the Urals and beyond. In March all higher academic institutions were forcibly closed for the remainder of the year, adding radical students to the striking workers. In October the ephemeral St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers Deputies, a Menshevik group, organized over 200 factories to strike, the Great October Strike. This action quickly spread to Moscow and by October 13 (J) there was almost no active railway in all Russia. With the unsuccessful and bloody Russo Japanese War with Japan there had been unrest in army reserve units since 1904. In February 1905 the Russian army was defeated at Mukden, losing almost 90,000 men in the process, in May Port Arthur was lost and the Russian fleet mauled at Tsushima. Witte was quickly dispatched to make peace, negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (signed September 5). In 1905 there were naval mutinies at Sevastopol, Vladivostok and Kronstadt, peaking in June, with the mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin some sources claim over 2,000 sailors died in the restoration of order. The mutinies were disorganized and quickly crushed. The armed forces were largely apolitical and remained mostly loyal, if dis satisfied, and was widely used by the government to control the 1905 unrest. Non Russian national groups had been angered by the Russification undertaken since Alexander II. The Poles, Finns, and the Baltic provinces all sought autonomy, and also freedom to use their national languages and promote their own culture. Moslem groups were also active, the First Congress of the Moslem Union took place in August 1905. Although certain groups took the opportunity to settle differences with each other rather than the government. Some nationalists undertook anti Jewish pogroms, possibly with government aid.

Years 1906 1906 Battle deaths 2,080 In 1906 a large Mahdist revolution began outside of the city of Sokoto in the village of Satiru, a combined force of the British and the British appointed Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Attahiru II, destroyed the town and killed most residents involved. After 1907 there were fewer revolts and use of military force by the British and the focus of the High Commissioner turned toward taxation and administration.

Years 1906 1906 Battle deaths 1,000 After toppling Sierra, Bonilla, a conservative, imprisoned ex president Policarpo Bonilla, a liberal rival, for two years and made other attempts to suppress liberals throughout the country, as they were the only group in the country with an organized political party. The conservatives were divided into a host of personalist factions and lacked coherent leadership, but Bonilla made some efforts to reorganize the conservatives into a national party.Bonilla proved to be an even greater friend of the banana companies than Sierra had been. Under Bonillas rule, companies gained exemptions from taxes and permission to construct wharves and roads, as well as permission to improve interior waterways and to obtain charters for new railroad construction. He would also successfully establish the border with Nicaragua and resist an invasion from Guatemala in 1906. After fending off Guatemalan military forces, Bonilla sought peace with the country and signed a friendship pact with both Guatemala and El Salvador.

Nicaraguas powerful President Jose Santos Zelaya saw this friendship pact as an alliance to counter Nicaragua and began to undermine Bonilla. Zelaya now supported liberal Honduran exiles in Nicaragua in their efforts to topple Bonilla, who had established himself as a dictator. Supported by elements of the Nicaraguan army, the exiles invaded Honduras in February 1907. With the assistance of Salvadoran troops, Manuel Bonilla tried to resist, but in March his forces were decisively beaten in a battle notable for the introduction of machine guns into Central American civil strife. After toppling Bonilla, the exiles established a provisional junta, but this junta would not last.

Years 1906 1906 Battle deaths 2,356 In the years following the Anglo Boer War white employers in Natal had difficulty recruiting black farm workers because of increased competition from the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. The colonial authorities introduced a ?1 poll tax in addition to the existing hut tax to encourage black men to enter the labour market. Bambatha, who ruled about 5,500 people living in about 1,100 households, was one of the chiefs who resisted the introduction and collection of the new tax.The government of Natal sent police officers to collect the tax from recalcitrant districts, and in February 1906 two white officers were killed near Richmond, KwaZulu Natal. In the resulting introduction of martial law, Bambatha fled north to consult King Dinizulu, who gave tacit support to Bambatha and invited him and his family to stay at the royal homestead.

Bambatha returned to the Mpanza Valley to discover that the Natal government had deposed him as chief. He gathered together a small force of supporters and began launching a series of guerrilla attacks, using the Nkandla forest as a base. Following a series of initial successes, colonial troops under the command of Colonel Duncan McKenzie set out on an expedition in late April 1906.Once they succeeded in getting face to face with and surrounding the rebels at Mome Gorge, the British victory in the unequal battler was inevitable, given the vast disparity of forces. As the sun rose, colonial soldiers opened fire with machine guns and cannon, on rebels mostly armed only with traditional assegais (spears), knobkerries (fighting sticks) and cowhide shields.

Bambatha was killed and beheaded during the battle; however, many of his supporters believed that he was still alive, and his wife refused to go into mourning. Bambathas main ally, the 95 year old Zulu aristocrat Inkosi Sigananda Shezi of the amaCube clan (cousin and near contemporary of the Zulu king Shaka) was captured by the colonial troops and died a few days later.Between 3,000 and 4,000 Zulus were killed during the revolt (some of whom died fighting on the side of the Natal government). More than 7,000 were imprisoned, and 4,000 flogged. King Dinizulu was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment for treason.

Years 1907 1907 Battle deaths 1,000 After toppling Sierra, Bonilla, a conservative, imprisoned ex president Policarpo Bonilla, a liberal rival, for two years and made other attempts to suppress liberals throughout the country, as they were the only group in the country with an organized political party. The conservatives were divided into a host of personalist factions and lacked coherent leadership, but Bonilla made some efforts to reorganize the conservatives into a national party.Bonilla proved to be an even greater friend of the banana companies than Sierra had been. Under Bonillas rule, companies gained exemptions from taxes and permission to construct wharves and roads, as well as permission to improve interior waterways and to obtain charters for new railroad construction. He would also successfully establish the border with Nicaragua and resist an invasion from Guatemala in 1906. After fending off Guatemalan military forces, Bonilla sought peace with the country and signed a friendship pact with both Guatemala and El Salvador.

Nicaraguas powerful President Jose Santos Zelaya saw this friendship pact as an alliance to counter Nicaragua and began to undermine Bonilla. Zelaya now supported liberal Honduran exiles in Nicaragua in their efforts to topple Bonilla, who had established himself as a dictator. Supported by elements of the Nicaraguan army, the exiles invaded Honduras in February 1907. With the assistance of Salvadoran troops, Manuel Bonilla tried to resist, but in March his forces were decisively beaten in a battle notable for the introduction of machine guns into Central American civil strife. After toppling Bonilla, the exiles established a provisional junta, but this junta would not last.

Years 1907 1907 Battle deaths 2,000 The 1907 Romanian PeasantsRevolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners. The revolt began on the lands administered by one lessor, Mochi Fischer, in the village of Fl?manzi (the name seems predestined, as it literally means hungry men) due to Fischers refusal to renew the leasing with the local peasants. The Austrian Jewish family of Fischer used to lease about 75 percent of the arable land in three Romanian counties in Moldavia (the so called Fischerland). The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and, more importantly, without food, began to act violently. Mochi Fischer was scared and fled to a friend of his in Cern?u?i, leaving the peasants without signed contracts. The fear of remaining out of work, combined with the activities of some alleged Austro Hungarian instigators, led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia, with several landownersproperties destroyed and many lessors killed or wounded. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldnt handle the situation and resigned, and the Liberals (Partidul Na?ional Liberal) of Dimitrie Sturdza assumed power.On 18 March a state of emergency was declared, then general mobilization, with 140,000 soldiers being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing on the peasants; thousands of peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested.

Years 1907 1908 Battle deaths 1,400Quote from Balagan.org.uk An Arab ex court scribe, Jilali ben Dris, revolted against the Sultan (Fleming, 1991; Furneaux, 1967; Woolman, 1968). Jilali ben Dris was popularly known as El Rogui (the Pretender) or Bu Hamara (literally the man who rides on a female donkey but referring to a Djinn trickster in local myth). El Roguis movement lasted from late 1901 until Sep 1908. The rebellion started in the Taza region to the south of the Rif, but spread to cover the area from the Algerian border to Fez. In 1907 El Rogui invaded the Rif Mountains and promptly sold mining concessions to European companies. This action offended the Beni Urriaguel and other central Riffi tribes. The Elder Adb el Krim raised a Riffi army, crushed the interlopers in battle, and drove them back south to Taza (1908). The Sultan captured El Rogui in 1909, paraded him through Fez in a cage and then had him shot.