Battle Deaths Research Articles

Ideas of Statecraft in Philip Sidney’s <i>The Defense of Poesy</i>

Philip Sidney was a famous courtier, soldier, poet and patron in Elizabethan England. As the best work of literary criticism in the English Renaissance, Sidney’s <i>The Defense of Poesy</i> not only contains rich poetic, philosophical and aesthetic values, but also permeates with comments and suggestions on current politics, implying advanced ideas of statecraft. Studying <i>The Defense of Poesy</i> in the context of social, political and cultural anxiety in England in the late 1570s and early 1580s, this article attempts to reveal Sidney’s creative motive and governing ideology. The adherence to ethical values shows his belief in “building the state with political virtue”; the praise of the heroic epic reveals the determination to “protect the state with military force”; the prospect of national poetics presents the vision of “strengthening the state with national culture”. Sidney reinterpreted the function of poetry and the responsibility of poets at the time of national crisis. Discussing politics in the name of poetry, Sidney expressed his efforts to create a political poetics aiming to serve the state, and demonstrated the beautiful political vision of building a “golden world” of heroic, solidary, independent, and united England. Throughout his life, Sidney turned the ideas of statecraft into an act of serving the country. After his early death in battle, he was hailed as the cultural icon and national hero of England.

Exploratory Analysis of Changes in Global Parameters Around Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have long been associated with earthquakesand other geophysical occurrences and are seen by government agencies in the UnitedStates and elsewhere as possibly significant to national security. Despite that, themechanisms driving UAP are unclear. This study contributes to their better understandingby looking at UAP as more than sighting reports and conducts an atheoretical, data-driven review that seeks to identify their statistical associations with global geophysicaland anthropomorphic parameters. The analysis covers the period 1995-2020and includes 19 variables with annual and monthly frequency. UAP sightings are fromNUFORC and mainly cover North America, which encompasses 17 percent of Earth’sland area and is a sample of global data. Here we show that reports of UAP sightings arepreceded by changes of the same sign in stock prices and of the opposite sign in airlinercrashes, atmospheric carbon dioxide, and earthquakes. UAP sightings are then accompaniedor followed by changes of the same sign in airliner crashes, battle deaths, earthquakes,global temperature, sunspots, and volcanic eruptions; and by changes of theopposite sign in atmospheric carbon dioxide, cosmic radiation, mental health deaths,natural disasters, and tropical storms. This analysis highlights a potentially importantscientific gap whereby UAP are associated with diverse global parameters, and providesa basis for further study.

War and Nationalism: How WW1 Battle Deaths Fueled Civilians’ Support for the Nazi Party

Can wars breed nationalism? We argue that civilians’ indirect exposure to war fatalities can trigger psychological processes that increase identification with their nation and ultimately strengthen support for nationalist parties. We test this argument in the context of the rise of the Nazi Party after World War 1 (WW1). To measure localized war exposure, we machine-coded information on 7.5 million German soldiers who were wounded or died in WW1. Our empirical strategy leverages battlefield dynamics that cause plausibly exogenous variation in the county-level casualty fatality rate—the share of dead soldiers among all casualties. We find that throughout the interwar period, electoral support for right-wing nationalist parties, including the Nazi Party, was 2.6 percentage points higher in counties with above-median casualty fatality rates. Consistent with our proposed mechanism, we find that this effect was driven by civilians rather than veterans and areas with a preexisting tradition of collective war commemoration.

Asymmetric Effects of Positive and Negative Commodity Price Shocks During Civil Wars

ABSTRACT Economic shocks, including shocks to commodity export prices, have often been related to civil conflict. However, the literature usually assumes that commodity prices have linear effects. In this paper, we hypothesize that negative and positive commodity export price shocks can have asymmetric effects: while negative shocks are likely to increase conflict, positive shocks can have a smaller conflict-reducing effect or even increase conflict. We test this hypothesis in a dataset for battle deaths during ongoing civil wars. Consistent with the hypothesis, negative price shocks increase battle deaths, but positive price shocks also have a positive effect. The positive effect is concentrated and becomes significant in countries with weak pre-conflict institutions that experience positive price shocks to fossil fuels. We conclude that a combination of institutional reforms, economic diversification, and price stabilization might reduce battle deaths in fuel-dependent countries with weak institutions.

Poetika smrti u pesništvu Branka Radičevića

The poetry of Branko Radičević is filled with both lyrics honoring the joy of life and contemplations on death. Contrary to Jovan Skerlić's belief, the notion of death will not only serve as a marker in the early works of Radičević but will persist throughout many of his different phases. In addition to its constant presence, the idea of transience and death will undergo changes in characteristics and tone. Simultaneously, the implication with which it is expressed will evolve. The concept of death in his work matures from the glorification of a heroic death in battle, which, in the eyes of romanticists, was more respected than a shameful death in a hospital bed. This evolution continues with the demolition of the same idea, a result of contemplating the true meaning of heroic death. Ultimately, it leads to lamenting the innocence of transience and death that awaits us all. According to Dušan Ivanić, one of the most recurring themes in Serbian Romanticism is the topos of heroic death, commonly noted in the poetry of Branko Radičević. This concept of the ideal 'beautiful death' dates back to the Middle Ages when the idea of death served in favor of ideologies and the elite. Igor Borozan notes that a subsequent interpretation of death emerged during Romanticism (Borozan, 2006, p. 895). Research shows that the topos of heroic death will not only be deconstructed in the poetry of Branko Radičević, but also the mere meaning and expediency of war will be dismantled. This confirms Igor Borozan's thesis on the 'beautiful death' as an ideological construct of the country and the family (Borozan, 2006, p. 897). Apart from the idealistic heroic death, Radičević also presents death as an eternal human trauma in his poetry. This is related to 'Cemetery Poetry', which was popular among Serbian poets, including Branko Radičević, in the first half of the 19th century. The trauma of dying manifests most intensely through the poetics of space, as dying in foreignness is equally as mournful as dying in a hospital bed. Furthermore, Slobodan Vladušić studied in detail the topos of the dead loved one in the poetry of Branko Radičević. As Dušan Ivanić notes in his research, Radičević connects death in his poetry with elements such as water. Similarly, it is often hinted at, induced by, or followed by sound and auditory sensations.

Adaptive Audacity: Uncovering Queer Attachments and Re-evaluating Marriage Narratives in John William De Forest's Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

Adaptive Audacity: Uncovering Queer Attachments and Re-evaluating Marriage Narratives in John William De Forest's <i>Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty</i>

Цезарь о принятии решений в условиях гражданской войны

Introduction. This article investigates the situations of decision making described in Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Civil War”. Methods and materials. The information about decisions of Caesar, Pompey and their supporters is investigated by the comparative method. Analysis. According to Caesar, the commander’s decisions must be independent, rational, and directed to the common good. If the making peace by way of the parley is impossible, the victories with minimal casualties for both battling armies are this good. Caesar shows, that his own decisions corresponded always to this demands unlike Pompey, who was guided by his emotions and the opinions of others. Caesar criticizes slightly and justifies decisions of Curio who was his supporter. In his work, Pompey’s commanders arrive at the decisions in their interests hastily and are ready to abandon their troops for take flight. Curio’s decisions were also ill-advised and hasty, but, unlike Pompey’s commanders, he preferred death in battle to the disgraceful flight. The decisions of the military council and the soldiers of Pompey’s army are in Caesar’s work more rational, than the decisions of their commanders, and are directed to making peace as soon as possible. Results. The descriptions of the situations of decision making in Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Civil War” are not numerous, but they execute an important propagandistic function. Caesar does not criticize his adversaries, but he shows to the readers, that Pompey and his commanders with their ill-advised, egoistic, wrong and hasty decisions were guilty of the unleashing this civil war, its duration and the numerous victims.

Strategic Allocation of Development Projects in Post-Conflict Regions: A Gender Perspective for Colombia

We know little about the general geographic allocation of development projects in post-conflict regions, and specifically of gender-focused projects. In this study, we explore whether donor agencies prefer to work in “safe” places or dare to operate in conflict-affected zones. Using Colombia as a case study, we combine data on battle deaths from the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (1994–2004) with georeferenced information on the location of development projects from the Colombia AIMS dataset (2006–2013) and manually geocode data for German-funded development projects (2012–2018) with gender as a significant objective. Using count models (N = 1120), we find a statistically strong and positive relationship: an increase in battle deaths increases the number of development projects (with and without gender-focus) in a municipality. Interaction models further reveal an amplification of this relationship for regions with a large proportion of female-headed households, as well as a high number of formally employed and literate women. A context-sensitive interpretation of our findings suggests that (1) development projects in general, and German-funded gender-focused projects in particular, dare to operate in post-conflict settings; (2) women may play an active role as community leaders and mobilizers to influence the allocation of development programs to certain regions.

The History of Memory and Education Concerning Death in Battle: Focusing on the Details and Background of the Establishment of the Naval Aviator Preparatory Course Trainee Monument

The History of Memory and Education Concerning Death in Battle: Focusing on the Details and Background of the Establishment of the Naval Aviator Preparatory Course Trainee Monument

The idea of a beautiful death in Italian literature of the Great War

AbstractThrough the comparative reading of Italian literature of the Great War (letteratura di guerra) published between 1915 and 1940, it will be shown that both among veterans of the conflict and civilian writers there existed a standardised image of falling ‘beautifully’ in combat that entailed specific components relating to location, time, final gestures and last invocations, and which aimed to make death in battle more militarily and culturally palatable for Italian audiences. At the same time, the letteratura di guerra presented naturalistic descriptions of the anonymous mass death of peasant soldiers and, thereby, created a pathos of beauty and suffering that made the Italian literature of the Great War prototypical for a new kind of spiritual realism that became one of the mainstreams of cultural expression in Fascist Italy.

Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection by Richard Hunter

Reviewed by: Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection by Richard Hunter Sara Kaczko Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection. By Richard Hunter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics). 2022. Pp. 294. The volume provides a commentary on eighty-one private inscribed funerary Greek epigrams from the archaic period through later antiquity. The texts are organized by gender consistent with Hunter's focus on the Hellenistic and imperial periods, with eleven epigrams down to the fifth century b.c.e., a dozen from the fourth century b.c.e., three dozen from the Hellenistic period, and twenty-two from the imperial era. In fact, epigrams down to the fifth century b.c.e. seldom show gendered differences in style or formulation (aside from references to death in battle). Public inscriptions are excluded, partly owing to Hunter's emphasis on poetic language celebrating the "ethical" and familial virtues of the deceased, though this language is characteristic of epigrams from the Hellenistic period onwards, with intimations of it in the fourth century b.c.e., rather than being an original defining characteristic of the genre. Also, public inscriptions, often being stylistically more elaborate than coeval private inscriptions, would offer valuable comparanda (e.g., CEG 4, 6, and 10 for Athenians fallen in battle; SEG 56.430, the new epitaph for the fallen at Marathon; and SEG 41.540, the polyandrion at Ambrakia). At any rate, anthologies require selection, and these are the criteria used for this volume. Five introductory chapters precede the commentary. The first provides definitions and context, including the differences between inscribed and literary funerary epigrams and the size of the corpus relative to that of prose funerary inscriptions, and describes the scope of the book. The second chapter addresses stylistic considerations, focusing on poetic models from Homer to tragedy (especially in fourth-century b.c.e. Attica) and on their language. This language is described as a negotiation between, as well as a blend of, poetic models (again, mostly Ionic-epic) and epichoric features. Hunter's remarks on the ostensibly limited local flavor of the dialect include the observation that Hellenistic epigrams favor the contemporary koine and seem not to display a marked Doric language, unlike the Doric of Theocritus' idylls. However, in the archaic and classical periods, Homeric features were adapted to the epichoric dialect precisely because of the strength of the local context. Also, the Doric flavor of Theocritus' verse was a literary mannerism in a period when the koine was, in many areas, including Doric ones, the "local" dialect, i.e., the language in common use. In other words, the expectation of a strong Doric flavor in a poetic composition is valid for some literary texts, but not for both literary and epigraphic poems. Overall, the chapter rightly stresses that in epigrams the linguistic and dialectal features vary, and that Doric features are found in both verse-inscriptions and literary funerary poems in non-Doric and Doric areas. The third chapter addresses the authors of the epigrams, whether they were members of the family or friends of the deceased. Alternatively, stonemasons may have provided the services of professional poets or ready-made poems for adaptation to individual circumstances, and pattern books, which have been invoked to explain strong similarities in funerary epigrams across the centuries and parts of Greece,1 may also have been in use. [End Page 368] In any case, Hunter correctly stresses the importance of oral memory and transmission. Also considered here is how the stonecutter received instructions regarding the epigram to be inscribed, whether directly from the poets, from intermediary figures (entrusted with the ordinatio), or from patrons, and whether these instructions were in written or in oral form, scenarios that may have consequences for the accuracy of the text. The extent of the errors in the inscribed epigrams and the claim that literary epigrams are more accurate both seem somewhat overstated. In inscribed epigrams there are, indeed, instances of correction, which indicate that accuracy was valued, and mistakes are also found in the literary transmission. For instance, the dialectal features of epigrams and of archaic and classical poetry are often banalized, especially when the...

Crossing Battle Death Lines: Why Do Some Insurgent Organizations Escalate Violence to Higher-Intensity Armed Conflicts?

Why do some insurgent groups escalate violence to higher-intensity insurgencies or civil war? We explore this question among 140 insurgent groups worldwide across various thresholds of armed conflict. We argue that the main drivers of escalation are insurgent networks and domestic resource mobilization. Findings show that territorial control and engagement in criminal activities to finance operations are key factors associated with insurgent-inflicted battle deaths. The number of insurgent alliances, however, is the strongest determinant of higher-intensity armed conflicts. State counterinsurgency strategies also play an important role. Many of these insights support an exploratory look at rising insurgent violence in West Africa’s Sahel region.

Prensa y los españoles separatistas en los albores de la guerra independentista de Cuba

Este artículo tematiza sobre el papel de la prensa durante la lucha independentista cubana, en relación a la participación de españoles en la contienda a favor de la emancipación de Cuba. La fuente principal de este estudio es el periódico Patria fundado por José Martí, al que consideramos principal exponente de la prensa cubana revolucionaria en tiempos de preparación de la guerra anticolonial. El objetivo específico consiste en analizar el discurso que el medio dirige particularmente a la comunidad hispana, observando los modos de interpelación y argumentos discursivos que desarrolla para convencer a los propios españoles de apoyar la independencia de la Gran Antilla y su separación de España. Al mismo tiempo, se plantea un diálogo imaginario, un debate periodístico e ideológico, entre Patria (prensa revolucionaria) y la prensa peninsular oficial (liberal-conservadora), que, a través de argumentos contrarios, también se disputaba la participación de la comunidad ibérica en la guerra de Cuba. El recorte temporal que se selecciona (1892-1895) se ancla en los años inmediatamente anteriores al estallido de la denominada Guerra Necesaria (1895-1898), etapa vital de adoctrinamiento y organización de la revolución, que a su vez coincide con el período en que Martí dirige el periódico, hasta su muerte en batalla.

Battle Deaths Over Time: What does the Data Say?

Battle Deaths Over Time: What does the Data Say?

Change Point Analysis of Historical Battle Deaths

SummaryIt has been claimed and disputed that World War II has been followed by a ‘long peace’: an unprecedented decline of war. We conduct a full change point analysis of well-documented, publicly available battle deaths data sets, using new techniques that enable the robust detection of changes in the statistical properties of such heavy-tailed data. We first test and calibrate these techniques. We then demonstrate the existence of changes, independent of data presentation, in the early to mid-19th century, as the Congress of Vienna system moved towards its collapse, in the early to mid-20th century, bracketing the World Wars, and in the late 20th century, as the world reconfigured around the end of the Cold War. Our analysis provides a methodology for future investigations and an empirical basis for political and historical discussions.

Home or Away: Homecoming, Glory, and the Good Death in Homer'sOdyssey

This article examines the overlapping themes of the good death ( euthanasia), glory ( kleos), and homecoming ( nostos) as they are deployed in Homer's Odyssey. On both a thematic and a structural level, I argue that the text stages a confrontation between homecoming and glory – between death at home and death in battle – and that this tension is a sustaining force throughout the text. In contrast to the received interpretation that sees the Odyssey as a straightforward tale of nostalgia, I argue that in Homer's epic the relation to homecoming turns out to be surprising and complex – an event that is at once painfully desired and perpetually deferred.

Verbs of falling in Tigrinya

The paper gives a survey of verbs of falling in Tigrinya (an Ethio-Semitic language spoken in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia). The employment of each verb related to the situation of falling down is illustrated with phrasal examples. The Tigrinya data is further compared with Geez, a closely related extinct language. A special subsection deals with metaphorical use of the basic verb ‘to fall’ in Tigrinya. Tigrinya possesses one basic verb of falling, wädäḳä, which is applied to describe the downward movement of a solid object through the air or a loss of vertical position of a vertically oriented object. Falling of a solid, heavy object, either through the air or, less typically, along an oblique surface, can also be referred to by a special verb ṣädäfä. In all situations deviating from this default situation of falling in Tigrinya, special verbs are employed. Thus, the verbs tägälbäṭä ‘to be overturned, to topple’ or tägämṭälä ‘to be turned over’ are used to describe the situation of toppling, overturning which does not involve physical falling from a higher level to a lower one. Detachment of an object which had been fi rmly fi xed to another object, is usually denoted by the verb moläḳä ‘to slip off ; to become detached’. Falling to pieces of buildings or other built structures is described by the special verbs färäsä ‘to collapse, crumble, to fall’ or ʕanäwä ‘to collapse’ (but ṣädäfä can also be used in such contexts). Detachment of parts of body or plants due to natural reasons is denoted by the special verb rägäfä ‘to fall off (leaves), to break off , break loose (fruit, leaf), to shed a coat (livestock)’ (although the physical falling which is caused by such a detachment can well be described by the verb wädäḳä ‘to fall’). Furthermore, with respect to teeth, a special verb goräfä ‘to lose milk teeth, to have one’s tooth pulled out’ is used, with the possessor of the tooth encoded as the subject, and the tooth itself, as the object. Downward movement of liquids is denoted by a wide range of verbs, such as wäḥazä ‘to fl ow’, näṭäbä ‘to fall in drops, to drop (water), to drip (water)’, fäsäsä ‘to be spilled, poured (out) (water, grain, etc.), to fl ow (liquid, stream), to run (water), to fall (water)’, ṣärär bälä ‘to ooze, exude’, läḥakʷä ‘to drip, run (water along a wall after leaking through a roof), lo leak, to seep, fi lter through (intransitive)’. The verb wärädä ‘to descend’ is also used to describe the movement of liquids from a higher level to the lower. Spilling of granular material is denoted by fäsäsä ‘to be spilled, poured (out) (water, grain, etc.)’. Rolling down is denoted by the verb ʔankoraräyä/ʔankoraräwä ‘to roll’. Downward movement in water is described by the verb ṭäḥalä ‘to sink, to submerge’. Intentional losing of vertical position is described by the verb bäṭṭ bälä ‘to lie down’,and intentional movement from a higher level to the lower is described by wärädä ‘to descend’. The metaphors of falling include the employment of the verb wädäḳä to describe an abrupt, unexpected (and often unpleasant) change. This involves decrease in a measure, loss of interest, the destruction of a social power, arriving of a sudden calamity. A separate group of metaphorical employment is the verb wädäḳä as the standard predicate of such nouns as “lottery” and “lot”, presumably by extension from the situation of dice falling to the ground. Finally, death in battle is also denoted by the verb wädäḳä. The Geez cognate of wädäḳä likewise functions as the basic verb ‘to fall’, whose employment is very similar to, although not identical with, its Tigrinya equivalent. Similarly, Geez ṣadfa does not display any signifi cant diff erence from Tigrinya ṣädäfä in its semantics and usage.

Вооруженные конфликты начала XXI века: типология и направления трансформации

The fact that, in 2015&ndash;2018, the world faced roughly the same peak number of state-based conflicts as 30 years earlier, during the collapse of the bipolar system, does not mean it faced the same conflict patterns. In the early 21st century, the main patterns of armed conflicts evolved significantly, to the point that it is fair to claim: the war of the industrial age &ndash; large-scale, direct confrontation between conventional armies of two or more states &ndash; all but faded away. While the article briefly reviews long-term decline in old challenges (share of major wars, number and share of inter-state conflicts, battle-related deaths), its main focus is on new types and patterns of armed conflict that either did not clearly manifest themselves, or had no parallels or analogues in the 20th century. On the basis of analysis of lead academic datasets on conflicts and other types of violence linked to and widespread in conflict areas, a typology of contemporary conflicts is formulated and several main trends are indentified. To a varying extent, these trends affect and permeate all three main types of conflict of the early 21st century. The first, widespread type is comprised by localized state-based conflicts of limited intensity, mostly on the periphery of functional states that keep overall control of the national territory. 3/4 of such conflicts are not internationalized; most respective states are strong enough to contain escalation of violence, but often not enough to afford a decisive crackdown, which leaves such peripheral violence hovering at a low level. In contrast, the second type is comprised of very few larger, more intense, heavily transnationalized civil wars, mostly in weak, failed, dysfunctional or proxy states, with major external interventions (such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, or Yemen). These conflicts produce a lion&rsquo;s share of battle-related deaths worldwide. The same conflict areas also account for the bulk of terrorist attacks and fatalities. In a 30-year period since 1989, conflicts of the third type fought between non-state actors comprised almost half of all armed conflicts. While shorter, less intense and often linked to and co-located with the type two conflicts, non-state conflicts started to systematically outnumber state-based conflicts in the 2010s. The article identifies several disturbing new challenges. Two out of three main types of contemporary conflict &ndash; internationalized civil wars and non-state conflicts &ndash; and related battle deaths are on the rise. Armed non-state actors multiply, diversify and play a growing role in both combat and other armed violence (one-sided violence against civilians, including terrorism, predatory violence). Violence in armed conflicts becomes more fragmented, in more ways than one, and transnationalized at the same time. New variations of conflict, by type of contested incompatibility and by combination of actors and location, emerge and spread. They include: conflicts fought between state and foreign non-state actor, in one of their two countries or in a third country; conflicts between non-state actors, one or none of which originates from the country where they are fighting; the phenomenon of violent, often cross-border, localized power-play that can last longer than the main conflict dyad(s). High rates of conflict recurrence are closely linked to prevalence of unstable and inconclusive &ldquo;no war, no peace&rdquo; conflict outcomes. While conflicts of the early 21st century are on average less intense, they are harder to manage by either traditional military means and structures, or through negotiations, or by a combination of the two.

BAD NEWS FROM THE FRONT AND FROM ABOVE: BOMBING RAIDS, MILITARY FATALITIES AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN NAZI GERMANY

We examine how the decision‐making of political elites respond to an imminent external threat to the existence of the state in times of war. To do so, we exploit exogeneous variation in exposure to battle deaths and bombing raids to estimate the effect of variation in the intensity of war on the probability that individuals charged with treason and/or high treason in Nazi Germany received the death sentence. A doubling of the number of military fatalities as well as bombing raids in the same week in which a defendant was sentenced increased the likelihood of receiving the death penalty by about 10 percentage points. (JEL K14, N44)

Urban Concentration and Civil War

The explosion of cities and megacities has increased scholars’ and policy markers’ attention to the effects such changes might have on conflict: increasingly, urban environments may alter the nature of warfare but not necessarily the incidence of intrastate war. We argue that high levels of urban concentration—the concentration of populations in one or relatively few urban centers—increases both the likelihood of civil wars and their intensity. Urban concentration limits the ability of the state to project power across space, exacerbating grievances in rural areas, easing rebel control of territory, and enhancing their military strength. At the same time, cities become high-value loci of contestation even as urban warfare constrains conventional state military strength. The result is more symmetrical fighting producing more battle deaths. Cross-national regressions show that urban concentration exerts a crucial effect on the likelihood, nature, and intensity of intrastate warfare.