British Foreign Relationships
Beginnings
The first time that the British came into contact from outside people since the disappearance of the land bridge connecting the British Isles to mainland Europe occured in the year 43 A.D. This was the year that Ceasar send a Roman expeditionary force under the command of Aulus Platius to the British Isles. Although the indigenous Celtic tribesmen put up heavy initial resistance, superior armed and trained Roman Legionnairies were able to subdue them and successfully occupy Great Britian all the way up to the border of modern day Scotland.
Over the course of the next 367 years, Great Britian experiences an era of relative peace under Roman rule. Celtic and Roman culture coalesced into a unique society, and Christianity was introduced to Britain. The year 410 A.D. brought about great change though, when Rome withdrew all of its occupation forces from Britain in order to fight the Goths in western Germany. This abandonment left the British people very vulnerable, and almost immediately afterwards various Scandanavian and Germanic tribes began raiding the seemingly defenseless British Isles. Three of these groups, the Anglos, the Saxons, and the Jutes, began establishing permanent settlements along England's southern coast (the word England actually descends from the country's ancient name Angliland, or Anglo Land.) After years of widespread ethnic conflict, the Anglo-Saxons had driven the indigenous Britons back to modern day Scotland and Wales, and came to dominate most of the main island.
Towards the end of the first century another group begins to plunder the British Isles, they called themselves the Vikings but were known as the Danes to the Anglo-Saxons.
Violent conflict erupted as the Vikings pillaged, looted, and terrorized coastal Britain. At one point, the Vikings under the leadership of King Harrod came close to actually taking over the entire island but were defeated at the battle of Dover.
The British people, now united under a single government, continued to repel Viking invasion attempts until 1066, when William of Normandy defeated an exhausted and ill equiped British army at the battle of Hastings. William went to London and made himself the new king of Britain. Massive change resulted from Norman rule, establishing a new ruling class. During this period, King William, and King Henry II expanded their empire into France and Britian became a powerful nation in Europe.
After the death of king Henry though, social unrest arose, which eventually manifested itself into civil war, causing British holdings in mainland Europe to erode away in a period of time known as "The war of the Roses".
Boudicca lived and died in the first century, a time when the Roman Empire was continuing to expand. Although the Romans first expedition to Briton (modern day Britain) was carried out by Julius Caesar in 55 BC it was nearly one hundred years later that the Romans under Emperor Claudius in 43 AD that a full scale invasion was launched.
Although there are many examples of extreme factors that contributed to instability of England. Other historians talk say that the loss of Normandy did have a huge effect on England and English rule at the time and still is the major contributor to the Battle of St. Albans which would be the start of War of the
In “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong,” Rat Kiley recounts the time when Mark Fossie brought in his girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, from Ohio to Nam. Mary Anne is a curious and very friendly seventeen-year- old girl who just graduated from high school. She constantly asks questions about the war. Tension grows between Mary Anne and Mark when Mary Anne starts to become more involved in the war. She helps with taking care of the injured soldiers and learns how to operate an M-16. Mark suggests that the two of them go back home, but Mary Anne refuses. She begins to return to the camp late at night, or not at all. One day in the early morning, Mark cannot find Mary Anne and panics, only to discover that she is out on an ambush with the Green Berets. Mark has a talk with Mary Anne in which they make plans to get married. However, over the next several weeks, an undeniable tension grows between the two. Mary Anne suddenly disappears after Mark starts to make plans for her return home. After about three weeks, Mary Anne returns to the camp and disappears into the Special Forces area, and Mark waits for her there. He hears a woman, Mary Anne, chanting along with strange music and bursts into the hootch to confront her. O’Brien uses disturbing imagery to emphasize how the war takes away one’s innocence and changes one forever.
The "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is a story of many things when looked at from the right perspective. The validity of the story actually has nothing to do with its main purpose, which is to explain how Vietnam changed the American soldiers who were a part of the conflict. O'Brien's purpose is to inform his readers of the effect that Vietnam had on American GI's. Told by Rat Kiley, the "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" can be seen as a touching love story; sweethearts united even during a war. However, the true focus of the story is not love but change and desertion.
“And then one morning, all alone, Mary Anne walked off into the mountains and did not come back” (110). Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” presents an all-American girl who has been held back by social and behavioral norms – grasping for an identity she has been deprived the ability to develop. The water of the Song Tra Bong removes Mary Anne’s former notion of being as she, “stopped for a swim” (92). With her roles being erased Mary Anne becomes obsessed with the land and mystery of Vietnam and is allowed to discover herself. Through the lenses of Mark Fossie and the men in the Alpha Company, Mary Anne becomes an animal and is completely unrecognizable by the end of the story. Mary Anne, however, states she is happy and self-aware. The men of the Alpha Company argue for virtue in that Mary Anne was “gone” (107) and that what she was becoming “was dangerous… ready for the kill” (112). They did not want to accept a woman becoming something different from what women always were. In “How Tell to a True War Story” we are told that a true war story “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior” (65). Mary Anne did not truly become ‘dark’, because to her this is not a story about war; this is a story about a woman attempting to overcome gender roles and the inability of men to accept it.
Mary Anne is initially introduced to the audience, narrated by Rat Kiley, as an innocent and naïve young woman present in Vietnam solely to visit her boyfriend, Mark Fossie. She arrives in “white culottes” and a “sexy pink sweater” (86), and is deemed by the other soldiers as no more than a happy distraction for her man. As Mary Anne settles in though, her abundant curiosity of Vietnam and the war heighten, and she soon enough possesses as much interest in the war as many of the men. Forward, Mary Anne’s transformation into a soldier begins as she leaves her sweet femininity behind. No longer caring for her vanity, she falls “into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, [and] cut her hair short” (94). Mary Anne’s lost femininity is also evident when she handles powerful rifles like the M-16. Not only does the weapon literally scream out masculi...
Twenty years after the invasion, Britain was feeling oppressed by the Roman Empire, none more so than the Iceni tribe. Their late king, Prasutagus, had left the Icenian land to the Romans in his will, but on certain conditions. Upon his death, the Romans took over without abiding by any of these conditions, treating the land as if it was theirs by right of conquest. There was looting and tyranny, the king’s family was abused and the Romans savagely ruled over the Iceni. Another factor in aggravating the Britons was that the occupiers began to recall large loans which had been forced upon unwilling Britons. Some Britons were conscripted into the army, the Roman procurators wanted to extract as much wealth as could be had from the latest addition to the empire.
When the Hundred Years’ War began in 1337, the strength of the French empire declined and the English possessed most of France. Although the war began in 1337, tensions between France and England started centuries earlier. In 1066, William of Normandy, duke of France, defeated the English and became king of England. A century later, conflict arose when Henry II, a great grandson of William, came into power in 1154 and wanted to add to his empire, known as the Angevin Empire, by taking over French territories. Friction mounted as the fighting between Angevin and French territories continued. Finally, King Edward III of England claimed the throne of France in 1328 but was refused, causing war to break out in 1337. The French suffered huge losses in the first period of the Hundred Years’ War. The French cavalry was decimated at Crecy in 1347, the fortress of Calais was lost in 1347, the French army was crushed at Poitiers in 1356, and King John II handed over ⅓ of the French kingdom to the English by the Treaty of Bretigny. Although the French drove out the English b...
U.S. energy dependence is higher today than it was during the oil shock of the 1970's, and oil imports are projected to increase. Passenger vehicles alone consume 6 million barrels of oil every single day. If just 20 percent of cars used full cells, we could cut oil imports by 1.5 million barrels every day. 10,000 fuel cell vehicles running on non-petroleum fuel would reduce oil consumption by 6.98 million gallons a year.
King William's War, which occurred from between 1689 to 1697, was the first of a series of colonial conflicts between France and England for supremacy in North America. It started when King William III of England allied himself with the League of Augsburg; certain German states, Spain, Sweden, Austria, and the Netherlands,; to oppose French expansion. In America, King William¡¯s War, or otherwise called The War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was fought between the English and its Indian allies and the French and its Indian allies. The first major conflict occurred on February 9, 1690 when the French and Indian forces from Montreal attacked and burned Schenectady, New York. The English responded by the seizure of Port Royal on May 11, 1690. However, it was recaptured a year later by the French. The city of Quebec was also attacked by English forces in their first major military operation of King William's War, but they were obstructed by the French troops. The war ceased in a stalemate and officially ended with the Treaty of Ryswick, which ended the fighting in America and Europe, and returned all colonial possessions to their prewar status.
Britain in the 800’s was much different then than it is now. The people of Denmark, called Danes or Vikings, attacked Britain and started a war between the two countries. Britain was helpless at the time because of their lack of leadership from their king. When King Alfred came to power, Britain turned the war around and found a king worthy of the title. Because of King Alfred’s reign, Britain was shaped to be what it is today.
The rise of Great Britain began in the early 16th century and lasted until the mid-19th
To begin with, there was a great loss of human lives. Beginning in 1643 England, the closest absolute king Charles I attempted to storm and arrest parliament. His actions resulted in a civil war between those who supported the monarchy, Royalists, and those who supported the parliament, Roundheads, which did not end until 1649. Estimates for this war put the number of casualties at 200,000 for England and Wales while Ireland lost approximate...
In the earliest years of the Vikings, there was little history recorded due to the polytheistic views that they followed. After the Vikings converted to Christianity, there were eventually written documents created pertaining to their existence. In Viking Warfare, I.P. Stephenson states that the Vikings “first described attack took place in AD 789”(11). The Vikings were also known as Norsemen. They were great storytellers, and that is perhaps how society knows so much about them today. The stories that the Norsemen told were called Sagas. Today, Vikings are often depicted as murderous savages, but while they were not pillaging villages they were actually quite a peaceful civilization. There were three countries that Vikings evolved from; Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Although it may seem that all Vikings were on the same side, they quarreled with each other as well. Despite the fact that Viking battles were bloody and gruesome they were also known to be the most hygienic out of many of the earlier civilizations. There was not a huge percentage of Vikings that went out and raided but when they did they made a huge impact on what Vikings are now known for. The success of Viking warfare and raids relied primarily on the uses of armor, weapons, long ships, and battle tactics.
The Angles were a Germanic tribe that occupied the region which is now Scleswig-Holstein, Germany. With their fellow ethnic groups, they formed the people who came to be known as the English. The Saxons were a Germanic people who first appeared in the beginning of the Christian era. The Saxons were said to have lived in the south Jutland Peninsula in the north of what is now Germany, but the fact has not been proven. They attacked and raided areas in the North Sea throughout the third and fourth centuries. By the end of the sixth century, the Saxons had taken all of the Roman territory within north-west Germany, as far as the Elbe River. The Angles joined the Saxons in the invasion of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. British resistance to the 'Anglo Saxon' invaders in the second half of the fifth century ended with the Anglo Saxon’s victory at the battle of Mount Badon. After the British were defeated, though, the Angles and the Saxons continued to fight over their religion for many years (Irvin, Vacca, Probst, Beers, p.46).