Military Talents Research Articles

Familia Vaida de Giarmata (1400-1550) / The Vaidas of Gyarmat (1400-1550)

Due to the small number of written documents available, the destiny of the Vaida family has not been researched comprehensively. Based on testimonies, various aspects can be reconstructed: the origin and names of the family members, family connections, real estate properties, dignities and functions and religion. Yet, it is more difficult to find information about their culture.For over a century and a half only 13 men and one woman are mentioned. e genealogy of the family can be traced back through 5 – 6 generations. e fortune of the family consists of 20 possessions scattered in Arad and Timiș counties. ey were sufficient to ensure the noble rank and living of the former family of Romanian voivodes.e social-political evolution of Banat in the the 15th century showed a complex nobility pattern, in a continuous dynamics and adaptation. Documents illustrate a rare example of successful transformation of a family belonging to the traditional Romanian elite into a noble lineage, fully integrated into the feudal/ medieval structure of the Hungarian Kingdom. e voivodes of Giarmath, as the other inhabitants of Banat and Transylvania, used all the opportunities and chances offered by the epoch in order to obtain a privileged status, the recognition of the inherited possessions or their multiplication using diverse methods.e factors which led to social ascension of the family were their military talent and administrative positions. e limited information from the chancellery acts from the middle of the 15th century firmly suggested that the loyalty and military courage gestures were rewarded by the royalty. e documents issued by the royal chancellery during Sigismund of Luxemburg’s rule and of his successors recognized courage, bloodshed and loyalty of Vaida nobles from Banat who had been participants, beside the king and other high officials, in the fights within the frontier area in the first half of the 15th century.e honour of these military, administrative, judicial privileges brought them material benefits and the increasing of the social prestige in the aristocracy’s ranges, but especially at the level of the Temes county where they came from. Participation in the general assemblies of the nobles is an example of the influence enjoyed by the family.After the Ottoman conquest of the Banat plain in the summer of 1552, the family lost their estates and left the province forever.

ENGLAND'S WAR AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLICS PART II

Moving into the Second Phase of the CampaignThe lifting of the siege of Ladysmith and the occupation of Bloemfontein marked the ending of the first phase of the campaign, which lasted exactly five months, during which the Allies blockaded three towns, - in one of which, moreover, the garrison was much more numerous than the besiegers - in the hope of forcing them to surrender. At the same time they tried to hold up the advancing English columns which were moving to their rescue. Besides, holding up the advance, the Allies counted on gaining time, during which the blockaded towns would be forced to surrender, rather than on preventing the enemy from invading the republics. Doing so, and in spite of the English superiority of numbers, they wished while moving as little as possible, and not shifting their camps to keep pace with the movements of English columns, to bar all probable ways of approach to them. As an unavoidable result of this they were obliged to hold positions far away from each other and not very well defended. They did not use reserves but applied the cordon system. But the final failures proved to the Allies the utter uselessness of this system. During the Krygsraad session of March 17th in Kroonstad, while the allied troops serving in the Orange Free State were home on leave this opinion was expressed by President Steyn and it was supported by all the most outstanding military commanders. Simultaneously a new system of resisting the invading enemy was proposed. This consisted in an increase of activity carried out by small mobile detachments, mainly in the flanks and the rear of the enemy. But in order to put the new system to the test of practice it was essential that its expedience should be recognised not only by the commanders but by the rank and file as well. These were as a rule very much inclined to open discussions and criticism of the orders issued by their superiors. The recent failures would only provide new material to strengthen this tendency. The other condition which would make people be prepared to experiment with a new, more vigorous course of action - is confidence in one's leaders. At that point of the campaign such confidence was already bestowed upon the Generals, Botha, De la Rey and partially, De Wet, who not yet had the opportunity to demonstrate his military talents fully. The first among them, having been appointed by general Joubert as the Commander in Chief of all the forces gathered on the line Dundee-Glencoe, had, after the retreat from Ladysmith, tried on two occasions to persuade the commanders under him, to undertake an offensive movement against General Buller's troops. But having met with an unsympathetic attitude among them, had been forced to give up his intentions of an active conduct of the war on the Natal theatre.

The Monk versus the Philosopher: From the History of the Bulgarian-Byzantine War 894-896

The article is devoted to a few problems: 1 how Symeon and Leo the Philosopher looked at the Bulgarian-Byzantine war of 894–896; 2. what place it took in their life experiences; 3 how it was inscribed in the concept of relations between countries whose inhabitants follow the same religion. The war of the years 894–896 showed that Symeon was not only a cabinet scholar and a former monk, but a statesman, a gifted leader, skillful and ruthless negotiator. This war made him realize his own strength and gave him an opportunity to test his skills as a leader and a ruler. The war also demonstrated to the Byzantines that the Bulgarians, although they were Christians, were still dangerous opponents. Leo VI, a wise man and a scholar suffered a great defeat in dealing with just as scholarly but much more determined and gifted with military talents Bulgarian ruler. The former Monk defeated the Philosopher.

Winning All the Battles

Winning All the Battles Robert L. O'Connell (bio) In 264 B.C. Carthage, the most economically dynamic polity in the Mediterranean basin, blundered into war with Rome, the region's most relentlessly militaristic power. It was a terrible mistake. For unlike in our own time when power is a complex equation of economic, cultural, and coercive factors, military strength then inevitably trumped wealth, and after a succession of three Punic wars, lasting over a century, Carthage would be utterly obliterated, virtually expunged from the face of history. Had the city quit after the first war, essentially a naval extravaganza lasting twenty-three years, Rome might well have acquiesced to Carthage's continued existence. But it was the fate of the city, which had previously been dominated by merchants and agro-businessmen, to suffer an unexpected outcropping of military talent, and this sealed its doom. They were the Barcids, a clan of generals in a town of admirals, a family whose abilities, aggressiveness, and, above all, hatred of Rome allowed them to dominate Punic politics and keep the suicidal grudge match going. The first prominent member, Hamilcar, had been the best Carthaginian general in the initial conflict with Rome. But, unhappy with the peace terms, he abandoned his mercenary army, which then revolted against Carthage, leading to a terrible civil war that ended only after their original commander annihilated the rebels. Likely now a controversial figure in Carthage, Hamilcar received permission to march his new army across North Africa to Spain, where he would establish a family enclave based on local gold and silver mines. Accompanying him was his nine-year-old son Hannibal, from whom he extracted an oath of eternal enmity against Rome—a curse that would chart the boy's future. For it was this Hannibal in 218 B.C. who led the army he inherited from his father across one of the highest passes in the Alps and invaded Italy. Staging the assault from his family's base in Spain, now an empire within an empire, he dragged Carthage into an entirely problematic war with Rome, one that would have been destined for a quick and disastrous end had it not been for one factor: Hannibal himself. Almost immediately he gathered his bedraggled, freeze-dried near-wreck of an army and led them to two sharp victories over the Romans, the last one at the River Trebia wiping out most of a major consular army. He followed that up the next spring by luring another consular army into a trap set along the shores of Lake Trasimene, staging the most lethal single ambush in Western military history. By now he had Rome's full attention. The hyperwarlike city on the Tiber, destined soon to rule the Mediterranean world, responded by fielding a crusher of a field force, basically four consular armies welded haphazardly together, and invited Hannibal to fight that. With breathtaking guile on August 2, 216 B.C., he surrounded it on a plain near the abandoned town of Cannae, and then over the course of an afternoon chopped it to bits, killing that day more men than the United States lost in combat during the entire Vietnam conflict. Click for larger view View full resolution From William O'Connor Morris, Hannibal (London, 1897). For the first and only time he had a chance to win the war. Maharbal, his audacious cavalry commander, urged him to march on Rome immediately, arriving before the shock from Cannae could subside, but the boss hedged and the moment was lost. Instead, Hannibal assumed that the authorities on the Tiber would be ready to talk terms and sent a delegation, only to have them thrown back in his face. Rome was just getting started. The battlescarred veterans who ran the Senate had faith in their alliances and understood Rome's central advantage. In the words of Fabius Maximus, the city's shrewdest military leader: "We are carrying on war in Italy, in our own country … Hannibal, on the other hand, is in a foreign and hostile land.… Do you doubt that we shall get the better of a man who is growing weaker by the day?" So Rome kept...

Comparison study on the vocational value of graduates choice for military occupation and military university students

[摘要] 目的探讨军事择业大学生与军校大学生的职业价值观的异同,为部队选拔人才提供理论参考.方法采用凌文辁等人编制的职业价值观问卷[1],结合访谈法,对两所军事院校256名新入伍的地方大学毕业生以及两所军校大学生400名进行个别访谈与集体问卷测试.结果①军事择业大学生与军校大学生的职业价值观因子分析后均分为3个因素--声望地位因素、保健因素与发展因素;②军事择业大学生与军校大学生都认为择业时最重视的因素依次是发展因素、保健因素与声望地位因素,且无显著差异;③军事择业大学生与军校大学生择业最重视因素的选择中前5项仅有1项不同.结论军事择业大学生与军校大学生的职业价值观基本相同.从大学毕业生中选拔军事人才是可行的。

Lawrence E. Scheving, Ph.D.: Chronobiology pioneer, “Full Bird” colonel, and native son

Lawrence E. Scheving, Ph.D.: Chronobiology pioneer, “Full Bird” colonel, and native son

The Confederate Spin on Winfield Scott and George Thomas

A tape-recorded message informs visitors to the Robert E. Lee Museum on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery that in 1861 other choice was possible for Lee except to fight for the South. The museum's conclusions re- garding Lee's decision survive as vestige of Confederate propaganda. Ap- proximately 190,000 Southerners, black andwhite, obscure and illustrious, chose differently than Lee, going so far as to don blue uniform and fight for the Union. Determined to forge new nation, secessionists successfully depicted Southern Unionists as disreputable and unprincipled. No honorable man, they said, could bear arms against his native land. The Confederacy proscribed as insurrectionaries freedmen who fought for the North and decried as outlaws and tories ordinary white Southerners who took up Federal arms. Secessionist publicists particularly targeted Winfield Scott and George Thomas, two of the most important Southerners who remained loyal to the Union. Attacks on Scott occurred primarily in 1861, while the most serious effort to discredit Thomas took place shortly after his death in 1870. During the war, men like Scott and Thomas were dangerous to secessionists because of their military talents and their example of steadfast loyalty to the United States. After- wards, Lost Cause apostles continued to vilify Southern Unionists onthe grounds that honorable men had no other choice than to support the Confederacy. ' Several weeks after Virginia's secession, J. E. B. Stuart expressed desire to hang George Thomas. In June 1861 the hue and cry against Scott was so severe that Catherine Edmonston called for halt: I wish we would cease this lamen- tation first & abuse now of General Scott. Edmonston believed Scott a hoary headed traitor, but thought the apostasy of an old vain, inflated bag of wind would do little damage to the cause of Southern independence. At the

The Elder Seneca and Spain

The Seneca family came to Rome from Spain, the province that Rome took from Carthage in the Second Punic War, acquiring thereby great mineral wealth, splendid soldiers, and a war of conquest that took nearly two centuries to complete. Rome's motive in acquiring Spain was strategic, yet she had been impressed by the wealth that had recently sustained Hannibal's armies and with the abilities of the Spanish troops that both sides had used. But nothing so impressed the Romans with the military talents of the Spaniards as the resistance they put up to their rule. By the second half of the second century Baetica was already pacified, so that the main trouble there came from the raids of Lusitanian brigands; at that time horrific stories were being told of the Celtiberians who fought at Numantia; they in their turn were becoming τογᾶτοι when similar tales were being told, more than a century later, of the Astures and Cantabri with whom Augustus had to deal.

War Department Research and Development

WORLD War II has convinced the military authorities that the future of our military strength is dependent upon the achievements and discoveries of our scientists. Already the weapons of this war are obsolete and present research and engineering programs in the fields of atomic energy, radar, guided missiles, and bacteriological warfare are certain to revolutionize future strategy and tactics. The War Department realizes that to keep the Army equal or superior to any other military force in the world the field of scientific and technological development must be fully exploited, and that this can be accomplished only by close integration of civilian and military talent in peacetime. The responsibility for achieving this integration has been consolidated and organized under the War Department General Staff as the Research and Development Division, which operates as an equal with the other G divisions such as Intelligence, Operations, and Supply. The director, Maj. Gen. Henry S. Aurand, has complete ...