Chapter 4
Country-by-country analysis of avoidable mortality in European countries
“Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered” )
Julius Caesar 1
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
Napoleon Bonaparte 2
“If the public knew the truth, the war would end tomorrow. But they don’t know and they can’t know.”
Lloyd George to Manchester Guardian editor C.P. Scott, 1914 3
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
George Orwell 4
“I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Albert Einstein 5
4.1 Introduction – matching excess mortality with foreign occupation
A huge historical work would be required to precisely match post-1950 events with changes in excess mortality and under-5 infant mortality for every country in the world. However it is useful to at least sketch some of the salient events (especially those involving violent foreign occupation of countries) in relation to changes in mortality. In doing so we will again go from the best region to the worst region in a systematic fashion. In Chapters 4-7 “potted histories” are provided to simply and succinctly document the historical background to the glaringly obvious reality described in Chapter 3 of post-war avoidable mortality correlating with violent pre- and post-1950 First World impositions on victim countries. Readers are simply invited to inspect this succinctly presented historical record, assess the excess mortality statistics and then consider their own conclusions.
Of course post-1950 avoidable mortality does not only relate to concurrent foreign occupation of a country - thus prior colonial occupation and the violence of such occupation will have a big impact. By way of example, British occupation of Australia commenced in 1788 and by 1900 the indigenous population had dropped from about 1 million to 90,000 through dispossession, violence and introduced disease. Two centuries after the commencement of this genocide, the indigenous death rate is 3 times greater than in Australia as a whole and this yields an excess mortality of about 4,000 - 8,000 annually. 6
Accordingly, pre-1950 violent foreign occupations over the last half millennium or so are also briefly summarized at the end of each of the snapshot accounts given below, together with (simplified) pre-1950 foreign military presence, post-1950 foreign military occupation, post-1950 foreign military presence and 1950-2005 excess mortality and 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality in millions (m) and also expressed as percentages (%) of the 2005 population.
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As you go through this sad testimonial in the following 4 Chapters, think of the extreme situations that scientists call the “boundary conditions” i.e. consider the best and the worst outcome countries. Thus the “Overseas European” countries, which have the lowest avoidable mortality, have not been occupied by foreigners ever, let alone in the post-1950 era – and, conversely, have all invaded and occupied non-European countries during that era. At the other extreme, nearly all of the countries of non-Arab Africa have been subject to violent European occupation for a substantial part of the post-1950 era, none have invaded non-contiguous states and nearly all continue to suffer horrendous avoidable mortality.
Specifically, the democratic state of Israel has not ever been occupied by foreign forces since independence, but has militarily attacked 10 other countries, has violently occupied 5 of them for substantial periods, continues to occupy 2 of them and has one of the best excess mortality outcomes; the entry below for Israel concludes thus (m = million): foreign occupation: none (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.095m/6.685m = 1.4%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.091m/6.685m = 1.4%. At the other extreme, Timor Leste was occupied by brutal colonial powers both before and after 1950, has attacked no other country and has one of the very worst excess mortality outcomes: foreign occupation: Portugal, Japan (pre-1950); Portugal, Indonesia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Portugal, Indonesia, UN peace-keeping forces; 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.0.694m/0.857m = 81.0%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.236m/0.857m = 27.5%.
4.2 Overseas Europe – internal democracy, external violence
After the victory of the Allies over the Axis powers in World War 2 (WW2) there was a major shift of global power from Western Europe to the US and the USSR (the Russian Empire). The Anglo-Celtic countries of Overseas Europe (Australia, New Zealand and Canada) continued their close military and intelligence association with the US and the new state of Israel has become the key US-backed satellite in the Middle East. All of these societies have a blind-spot in common with the people of their patron and ally, the US – an inability to see the immense world-wide carnage in which they have variously been complicit in the post-war era. Briefly outlined below are the stories of some of the world’s most prosperous, healthy and aggressive societies.
Australia: inhabited by indigenous people for some 50,000 years before European invasion; 17th century, Portuguese, Spanish, British and Dutch explorers (named New Holland); 1642, Tasman discovered Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land); 1770, Cook explored and claimed Australia; 1788, penal settlement at Port Jackson (Sydney); 1803, settlement of Tasmania; 19th century, agriculture initially using convict labour; Merino sheep introduced for wool; later pastoralists used aboriginal labour; Melanesian slaves (Kanakas) brought to Queensland sugar cane plantations; violent genocide and introduced disease reduced the indigenous Australian population from about 0.75 million to 0.1 million in 100 years; indigenous populations also declined catastrophically in New Zealand and the Pacific; mid-19th century, gold rushes opened up Victoria; other colonies were founded; 1901, Federation of the States as independent Australia; commencement of the racist White Australian Policy; 19th-20th century, mostly Anglo-Celtic Australians actively participated in British wars, namely the Sudan Campaign, the Boer War, WW1 (notably in France, Palestine and Gallipoli in Turkey), WW2 (the fall of Singapore - with 8,000 out of 22,000 Australian prisoners of war dying in captivity – and the crucial US war effort led to victory over the Japanese and to ANZUS, the post-war Australian and New Zealand alliance with the US); post-war, mass immigration from Europe; participation in UK and/or US wars, namely the Malaya Emergency, Korean War, Confrontation with Indonesia, Indo-China War, Gulf War, Iraq Sanctions, Iraq War and Afghanistan War; 1967, “legitimation” of aborigines as citizens to be counted and covered by federal laws; late 1960s, cessation of an extensive genocidal policy of child-removal from aboriginal mothers; 1973, White Australia Policy effectively revoked by anti-racism legislation; 1975, conservative, pro-US Governor-General dismissed the elected Labor Government; 1975, Papua New Guinea independence; assisted PNG forces in Bougainville; peacekeeping troops to East Timor; Australian military to the Solomon Islands; 21st century, continuing prosperity but one of the oldest continuing democracies brought in imprisonment without charge for refugees (indefinite) and for terrorism-related suspects (2 week stretches). Australia is the big country with the highest annual per capita carbon dioxide pollution, the world’s biggest coal exporter and refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol or reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Foreign occupation: Britain (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US (ships, nuclear defence, communications), UK (nuclear tests); 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.587m/20.092m = 2.9%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.202m/20.092m = 1.0%.
New Zealand: 1000AD, settled by Polynesian Maoris from Pacific Polynesia; 1642-1643, Dutch Tasman discovery; 1769-1770, Cook exploration; 1792-1849, European settlements for sealing and whaling; 1815-1840, tens of thousands died in intertribal wars; 1840, settlement of Wellington by Wakefield’s New Zealand Company; separated from New South Wales (Australia); Treaty of Waitangi with Maoris; British settlement; 1860-1872, British-Maori Wars, indigenous defense (notably pa earth defenses); the Maori population dropped from 0.1-0.2 million in 1800 to 42,000 in 1893, mostly through disease, dispossession and war; 1852, self-government; 1907, independent as Dominion of New Zealand; 1947, final separation from UK by confirming the1931 Statute of Westminster; New Zealand participation in Anglo-American Wars including WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War and Gulf War and member of ANZUS treaty with Australia and the US; 1986, ANZUS suspended after New Zealand opposition to visits by US nuclear-armed ships; opposition to French nuclear tests (Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior sunk by French agents); did not join the US invasion of Iraq.
Foreign occupation: UK (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.143m/3.932m = 3.6%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.054m/3.932m = 1.4%.
Canada: pre-colonial Inuit and Amerindians from about 15,000BC; about 1000, Vikings settled transiently in Vinland (Eastern Canada); 1497, English Cabot landed; 1534, Cartier claimed Canada for France; 1605, French settlement at Port Royal (Annapolis Royal); 1608, French founded Québec; 1629, 1632 British captured and then lost Québec; 1670, British Hudson’s Bay Company formed; 18th century, world-wide Anglo-French wars; 1759, 1760, Québec and Montréal fell to the British; 1763, Treaty of Paris, Louisiana went to Spain and East of the Mississippi to Britain; 1775, US invasion of Canada repulsed; 1784, New Brunswick created for loyalists; 1791, separation of Ontario (Upper Canada) and Québec (Lower Canada); 1789-1793, Mackenzie explored to the Arctic and Pacific regions; War of 1812, US invasion repulsed; 1846, Oregon boundary finalized; 1867, federation of the Canadian Provinces; Canadian participation in WW1, WW2 and the Korean, Gulf and Afghanistan Wars; 1949, joined NATO; 1960s onwards, increasing French separatism (provocative “Québec libre” call by Charles De Gaulle of France); maple leaf flag; bilingualism encouraged; 1992, Charlottetown Accord to pacify separatism; 1998, apology to indigenous people; 1999, large Inuit territory of Nunavut granted; 1994, North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the US and Mexico; 2001, Canada in Afghanistan War but not in the subsequent Iraq War.
Foreign occupation: UK (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US (nuclear early warning); 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.428m/31.972m = 1.4%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.442m/31.972m = 1.4%.
United States of America: 15,000 BC, Mongoloid Amerindians; 1492, Columbus discoveries; 16th century, European invasion and settlement; 1565, Spanish settled in Florida and thence in the South West and California; French settlement at Quebec, Montreal and Louisiana; 1607, English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia; 1620, Plymouth settlement by the Pilgrim Fathers; 17th-19th century, African slave trade and the plantation economy in the South; 1775-1783, American Revolution against Britain under Washington; Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence (equality of man and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness); American constitution, democracy and the rule of law; independence from Britain also allowed genocidal invasion of Indian lands to the West; 1803, Louisiana Purchase from France; 1812, War with Britain; 1812, Monroe Doctrine opposing European interference in the Americas; 1819, Florida obtained from Spain; Westward spread with extermination of Indians through disease, dispossession and violence; 1836-1846, settlement of Texas and war with Mexico culminating in acquisition of Texas, the Southwest and California; 1853, Gadsden Purchase and acquisition of the Northwest; 1848, California gold rush; 1861-1865, Civil War between pro-slavery Southern Confederacy and the industrial, abolitionist North under Lincoln; defeat of the South but retention of de facto suppression of Afro-Americans for over a century; late 19th century, Westward expansion and final dispossession of Indians; acquisition of Hawaii (1898) and American Samoa (1899); 1898, Spanish-American War with acquisition of Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines and Latin American hegemony; early 20th century, US imperialism rampant: 1899-1902, Philippines War (1 million Filipinos died), Panama Canal, US-controlled Canal Zone and repeated military interventions in Panama (1864-1989), Cuba (1898-1920), Dominican Republic (1916-1934), Haiti (US occupation forces 1919-1934) and Nicaragua (1912-1915); WW1 (1917-1818); “acquired” the Virgin Islands from Denmark (1917); between-wars depression, prohibition, gangsterism, Roosevelt New Deal and a massive international arms race; WW2 (militarist Imperial Japan squeezed into war; US pre-knowledge of Japanese attack realized at Pearl Harbor; industrial warfare; high-gear commencement of the highly profitable military-industrial complex, total air war against civilians e.g. Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden); post-war economic, cultural and military domination of world by an immensely rich, technologically-advanced USA; 1970s, improved Afro-American civil rights; 1990s, final victory over the USSR in the Star Wars segment of the post-war Cold War that had involved megaton hydrogen bombs, ICBMs, nuclear-armed submarines, nuclear “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) and East- and West-supported armed conflicts throughout the world; major post-war invasions and occupations: Korean War (1950-1953), Vietnam War (1954-1975), Dominican Republic (1965), Cuba (1961; economic sanctions, 1964-present), El Salvador (US-backed coup, death squads and civil war, 1972-1992, 30,000 killed), Guatemala (via US-armed and backed military from Honduras, 1954-1990, 0.5 million refugees), Nicaragua (via US-armed and backed Contras from Honduras, 1982-1990), Panama (1989), Grenada (1983), Columbia (US military involvement in the civil war since 1964), Afghanistan (Soviet invasion and US-backed resistance and civil war, 6.3 million deaths), Afghanistan (2001- present), Iran (overthrow of democracy, 1953-1979; military raid, 1979; backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988, 1.5 million dead), Iraq Gulf War and Sanctions war (1990-2003; 1.7 million deaths), Iraq War (2003- March 2007 1.0 million avoidable deaths); 1994, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, US and Canada; 2001, 9/11 atrocity and subsequent post-Reichstag-style, open-ended “War on Terror”; 2001-March 2007, 2.4 million post-invasion excess deaths in Afghanistan War; 2003-March 2007, 1.0 million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq War; 2005, Hurricane Katrina further exposed US establishment callousness to the massive underprivileged population; 2001-2005, 50,000 US opioid drug deaths linked to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed opium industry in Afghanistan.
Foreign occupation: none (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 8.455m/300.038m = 2.8%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 4.473m/300.038m = 1.5%.
Israel: 3000-2000BC, Arabian Semitic Canaanites settled Palestine and founded Jerusalem; Hebrew/Jewish co-occupation with Samarians, Philistines and other groups from 1200BC until Jewish expulsion in 135AD; 135, Jews [partly] expelled; Palestine subsequently ruled successively by Romans and Byzantines; 611, Persian occupation; 634, Muslim Arab conquest (Jerusalem site of Mohammed’s ascension into Heaven); 11th -13th century, periodic and partial Crusader occupation; 1516, Ottoman Turkish conquest; 1917, Turks defeated by British-Arab coalition; 1917, Balfour Agreement (Jewish Home provided no detriment to Arabs); 1922, League of Nations Mandate to Britain; 1900-1939, Jewish population from 50,000 to 300,000; 1936, Palestinian general strike; guerrilla war between Arabs and Jews; 1939, British White Paper constraining Jewish immigration; 1939-1945, illegal immigration of Jews fleeing Nazis; 1947, UN partition Plan; 1948, British left, UN recognized State of Israel, war between Israel and Arabs; Deir Yassin massacre; 0.7 million Arabs fled; 1956, Israeli war against Egypt in collusion with UK and France; 1964, Palestine Liberation organization (PLO) formed; 1967, Israel attacked neighbours (and USS Liberty) with occupation of the Sinai (Egypt), Gaza (Egypt), the West Bank (Jordan), Jerusalem (Jordan) and the Golan Heights (Syria); Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons; 1973, Yom Kippur War (Egypt-Israel); 1974, PLO leader Arafat addressed UN; 1979, peace with Egypt; 1982-2000, Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon; 1982, Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres (3,000 Palestinians murdered) in Israeli-occupied Beirut; 1987, first Palestinian Intifada; 1988, Arafat eschewed terrorism and recognized Israel; 1993, Oslo Agreement for Palestinian self-government permitted arming of Palestinians; continued seizure of Arab lands; 2000, renewed Intifada; 21st century, US-backed Israeli occupation, illegal settlements and violence with continuing violent responses from Palestinians; millions of displaced Palestinians in neighbouring countries and around the world (6 million Palestinian refugees, 4 million registered with the UN); 2005, Israel pull-out from Gaza but border control, continued air attacks and retention of an increasingly diminished Palestinian West Bank; 1967-2007 excess mortality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 0.3 million.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Britain (pre-1950); none (post-1948); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; 1950-2005 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.095m/6.685m = 1.4%; 1950-2005 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.091m/6.685m = 1.4%.
4.3 Western Europe – participation in colonial, neo-colonial and US-led “democratic imperialist” wars
Western Europe generally has essentially the same level of prosperity and survivability as the Overseas European countries. However while none of the Overseas European countries have ever been occupied, all Western European countries (with the exceptions of Ireland, Britain, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) have suffered from foreign occupation within the last 60 years i.e. within one human lifetime. However universal domestic peace and high technology have enabled auto-compounding prosperity. This prosperity has also been associated in many cases with past imperialism and colonialism that has variously spilled over into the post-1950 era. WW1 took some 16 million lives (9 million military and 7 million civilian). WW2 took some 35 million lives in Europe. Nazi racism, disregard and mass murder resulted in 6 million deaths in Poland and 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union. The Nazis deliberately exterminated about 0.5 million Gypsies (Rom) and over 5 million Jews (a further 1 million Jews dying from deprivation). Estimates by Gilbert (1969) of the numbers of Jews killed out of the Jewish population left in 1941 are included in the relevant entries below e.g. the murder of 60,000 out of 70,000 Austrian Jews is denoted as 60,000/70,000. 6
Post-war, the Marshall Plan permitted reconstruction, NATO provided security and the rise and continuing extension of the European Union (EU) finally provided sanity in a continent that had seen 2 catastrophic world wars in one century. Major colonial powers surrendered their empires (while retaining neo-colonial economic hegemony in many cases). The hope that the world had seen the end of European colonial wars was dashed by Anglo-American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan with the active (if token) support of many Western European and Eastern European countries. Thus, as with the Overseas European countries, for many Western European countries (with the notable exceptions of Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and Greece) internal decency was coupled with criminal support for military violence in a distant land.
Austria: pre-Roman Celtic and Suebi people; 15BC-10AD, Roman conquest and Roman provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum and Upper Pannonia; 5th century, successive Huns, Ostrogoth and Lombard invasions; 6th century, Slav settlement of Styria, Lower Austria and Carinthia; 788, conquest by Charlemagne, Christianizing; 9th century, occupation by Moravians and Magyars; 955, conquered by Otto I, part of the Holy Roman Empire; 976, Leopold of Babenberg; 11th-12th century, feudalism and Danube commerce exploiting entrance to Europe from the Danubian plain and to Italy (via the Brenner Pass); 1251-1269, under Ottocar II of Bohemia; 1273, Rudolph I (Hapsburg); 14th century, expansion to Tyrol (1363) and Trieste (1382); 1438, Albert II (Hapsburg) Holy Roman Emperor; 1526, Austria, Bohemia and Hungary under Ferdinand I; 1524-1526, Peasants’ War; 1526, Vienna besieged by Turks; 16th-17th century, Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter Reformation; 1618-1648, Thirty Years War; 1620, Protestant Bohemia and Moravia taken by Catholic Austria after the Battle of the White Mountain; 1648, Peace of Westphalia, Hapsburg Empire; 1683, Turkish siege of Vienna relieved with Polish help and longer-range diplomatic consequences (e.g. accession to the English throne of William of Orange); 1687, Turks ceded Hungary to Austria; 18th century, conflict with Prussia: Charles VI (1711-1740) succeeded by Maria Theresa; War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War, loss of Silesia to Prussia; Austrian gains from successive Polish Partitions (1772-1775); 1792-1815, Napoleonic Wars; Austria defeated at Austerlitz (1805) and Wagram (1809); 1806, Holy Roman Empire dissolved; 1814-1815, Congress of Vienna, Austria lost Netherlands and Baden possessions but gained Lombardy, Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia; 1809-1848, Metternich foreign minister, repression of subject nationalism; 1848, revolutionary period; Hungarian revolt suppressed; rebellions in Galicia, Italy and Bohemia; 1859, Italian war, Lombardy lost; 1856, defeated in Austro-Prussian war; Venetia ceded to Italy; 1867, Ausgleich (compromise) established Austro-Hungarian monarchy under Emperor Joseph; 1914-1918, WW1, precipitated by Sarajevo assassination of Franz Josef by a Serbian nationalist; Austria and Germany defeated; 1919, Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Versailles Treaty forbade any union with Germany; Austro-Hungarian Empire split up; inter-war poverty and conservative-socialist political dichotomy; 1934, socialist revolt put down by army; 1938, annexation by Germany (Anschloss); 1939-1945, WW2, alliance with Germany; 60,000/70,000 Jews killed; finally occupied by US and Soviet forces; 1955, full sovereignty, neutrality and UN membership; conservative-socialist democratic politics; President Waldheim linked to Nazi atrocities; 1999, EU sanctions over the involvement in government of the right-winger Freedom Party of Haider; did not join US occupation of Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Germany (pre-1950); US, USSR (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US, USSR; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.734m/8.120m = 9.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.142m/8.120m = 1.7 %.
Belgium: 1st century BC, Celtic Belgae tribe conquered by Romans; 3rd century, Franks invaded; 9th-12th century, part of Charlemagne’s empire (Christian), Lotharingia and thence Lower Lorraine; 12th century, medieval Duchies of Brabant and Luxembourg and Bishopric of Liège; 15th century -18th century, Burgundian rule followed successively by Spanish and Austrian Hapsburg rule; 1797, French rule; 1815, Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon defeated by an Anglo-Prussian coalition; Belgium became part of the Netherlands through the Congress of Vienna; 1830, language and religious concerns led to Belgian rebellion; 1838-1839, London Conference finalized peace and Belgian independence under Leopold I (from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha); mid-19th century-early 20th century, industrialization; brutal exploitation of the Belgian Congo – 10 million Congolese died from Belgian rubber collection and related atrocities; 1914-1918, WW1, nearly all of Belgium occupied by the Germans; 1919, Belgian mandate over Ruanda and Burundi in former German East Africa; 1921, Belgium-Luxembourg economic association; 1939-1945, WW2, German occupation; Leopold III surrender; 28,000/85,000Jews killed; final German counter-offensive in the Battle of the Bulge; 1950, compromised Leopold III returned and abdicated in 1951; 1958, Benelux Union with Netherlands and Luxembourg; EU foundation; Brussels seat of EU bureaucracy and NATO headquarters; 1960, Congo independence but followed by 2 decades of French and Belgian military intervention; 1970s-1990s, ethnic tensions involving French, Flemish and German groups were resolved by autonomy arrangements.
Foreign occupation: France, Netherlands, Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.749m/10.359m = 7.2%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.162m/10.359m = 1.6%.
Cyprus: 6000-3000BC, Neolithic culture; 1500BC onwards, Greek influences; 800BC, Phoenician settlement; subsequent Assyrian, Egyptian and Persian rule; 333BC, conquered by Alexander the Great; subsequent Ptolemaic Egyptian territory; cult of Aphrodite; 58BC, Roman conquest; 395, Byzantine rule; 1191, British conquest under Richard I and then given to the French; 1489, Venetian rule; 1571, Turkish conquest; 1878, British rule; 1914, formal British annexation; 1955, Greek EOKA terrorist campaign launched; 1960, independence under Archbishop Makarios; subsequent Greek union, EOKA and Turkish minority tensions; 1974, Makarios overthrown; Turkey invaded; 200,000 Greeks displaced from the Turkish enclave; Cyprus joined EU.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Britain (pre-1950); UK, Turkey (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: UK, Turkey; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.054m/0.813m = 6.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.017m/0.813m = 2.1%.
Denmark: 7th century, conversion to Christianity; 9th-11th century, Viking (Norsemen) raids on Western Europe, notably France and Britain; 1018-1035, Denmark, England and Norway under King Canute (Knut); 1397-1523, union with Sweden; 1658, southern Sweden relinquished by treaty but retention of Iceland and Greenland; 17th century, Danish Virgin islands acquired (sold to the US in 1917); 18th century, traders to India (Bengal); Greenland settled; 1814, defeated by British and Norway surrendered; 1849, democratic monarchy; 1848-1850, 1863-1864, wars with Prussia and final loss of Schleswig-Holstein; WW1, neutral; 1920, recovered northern Schleswig through plebiscite; 1940-1945, occupation by Germany; most of Danish Jews escaped to Sweden but 100/6,000 were killed; 1949, joined NATO; 1972, joined EU; 1944, Iceland independence; 1948, home rule to Faeroes; 1979, home rule to Greenland; 2003, joined US Iraq occupation.
Foreign occupation: Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US (Greenland base); post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.203m/5.386m = 3.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.059m/5.386m = 1.1%.
Finland: 8th century, Finns displaced Lapps to far north; 11th century, Christianized; 13th century, Swedish conquest; 16th century, Lutheranism; 1581, Grand Duchy; 16th-19th century, Russian-Swedish conflict; 1696, famine killed 1/3 of population; 1721, 1743, progressive Russian acquisitions; 1808-1809, final Russian conquest; 19th century, Finnish autonomy, democracy and nationalism; Russification opposed; 1917, independence declared; 1917-1920, civil war (Soviet-assisted Red Guards versus German-assisted White Guards) culminating in independence; 1939-1945, allied with Germany, war with USSR, loss of territory to USSR with 0.4 million Finns displaced, post-war reparations; 1956, Porkkala returned to Finland; post-war Communist, Social Democrat and Conservative electoral contests; 1991, collapse of USSR had a big economic impact; subsequent excellent economic growth.
Foreign occupation: Sweden, Germany, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (partial) post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.024m/5.224m = 0.5%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.064m/5.224m = 1.2%.
France: pre-Roman Basques in southwest and Celtic Gauls; 7th century BC, Phoenician and Greek Mediterranean settlements; 2nd century BC, Roman settlement of Provence; 1st century BC, Roman conquest; 1st century, Christianity introduced; Germanic invasions by Visigoths, Franks, Burgundii and Huns; 486, Frank Clovis defeated Roman gaul; 6th-7th centuries, Merovingian kings; 800, Charlemagne crowned Emperor; spread his rule and enforced Christianity; 8th-10th century, Norse invasions; 911, Rollo, Duke of Normandy; 11th-15th century, Norman kings of England; 13th century Crusades; 1208-1226, Albigensian crusades; massacre of Béziers, destruction of the Cathars and establishment of the Inquisition to eliminate heresy, 1337-1453, Hundred Years War between England and France; 14th century, Black Death; French defeats at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and at Agincourt (1420); 16th century, Protestant Reformation; 1572, Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestant Huguenots; 1594; Protestant Henry of Navarre converted, became Henry IV, first Bourbon king; 1598, Edict of Nantes for religious tolerance; 1610, Henry IV assassinated; 1643-1715, Louis XIV; Richelieu and Mazarin advisers; stunning Versailles Court; colonial expansion; Edict of Nantes revoked (1685), persecution of Huguenots and loss through emigration of skilled artisans; war of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) constrained French hegemony; 1715-1774, Louis XV, unsuccessful wars, loss of Indian and Canadian possessions to British; 1774-1792, Louis XVI, supported American revolution (1775-1783); 1789, French revolution; Louis XVI beheaded (1792) and reign of terror under Robespierre; 1799-1815, Napoleon Bonaparte; sophisticated administration; conquered Europe; French Army devastated by the Russian campaign; key British victories at the Nile (Aboukir Bay, 1798), Trafalgar (1805), the Iberian Penisular (1810) and Waterloo (1815); 1814-1815, Congress of Vienna restored monarchy under Louis XVIII; 1830-1838, Algeria conquered under Louis Philippe; 1848, February Revolution; 1852, Napoleon elected president of the Second Republic and thence became Napoleon III by coup; Second Empire colonial expansion in Africa and Asia; 1870-1871, Franco-Prussian war; 1870-1940, Third Republic; brutal French colonial expansion into North Africa, West Africa, North Africa and Indochina; Triple Entente of England, France and Russia against Germany and Austria; 1914-1918, WW1; prolonged trench warfare; millions died; Treaty of Versailles exacted reparations, Alsace and Lorraine returned; 1923-1925, France reoccupied the Ruhr; appeasement of Nazi Germany; 1939-1945, WW2; German invasion; evacuation of 0.3 million mainly British forces from Dunkirk; Petain headed collaborationist Vichy Government; Free French government (de Gaulle) and resistance; 65,000/300,000 Jews were killed with Vichy complicity; 1944, Allied Normandy landings and liberation; 1946, Fourth Republic; 1954, loss of Dien Bien Phu and thence of Indochina; 1960, became a military nuclear power; war in Algeria led to a right wing military coup in Algiers; 1958, Fifth Republic established under Charles de Gaulle; Algerian independence despite French OAS terrorism; African decolonization albeit with considerable neo-colonial control; 2002-2003, France opposed illegal UK-US invasion of Iraq; 2004, heat wave killed 11,000 mainly elderly people over one month; 2005, Muslim riots throughout France.
Foreign occupation: England; Germany (pre-1950); none post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 3.275m/60.711m = 5.4%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.857m/60.711m = 1.4%.
Germany: Neolithic and thence Celtic tribes; 2nd century BC, German tribes; 1st century BC-1st century AD, Roman conquest; 4th-5th century; German tribes invaded Roman Empire; 6th century, Angles, Saxons and Jutes dominated England; Franks dominated France and South Germany; 751, Pepin deposed Merovingians and started the Carolingian line; 800, Charlemagne crowned Emperor; 9th-12th century, invasions by Norsemen (coastal), Slavs (Eastern) and Magyars (Danubian plain); 962, Holy Roman Empire under Otto I; 1152-1190, Frederick I (Barbarossa) split Saxony and Bavaria leading to decentralized rule until 19th century unification; 12th-13th century, wars against Slavs in the East led by the Teutonic Knights; 13th-15th century, Hanseatic League and Baltic commerce; 16th century, Protestant Reformation; Martin Luther; 1524-1526, Peasants’ War; 17th century, Counter Reformation; 1618-1648, Thirty Years War devastated Germany; 1648, Peace of Westphalia and administrative division; 18th-19th century, Prussian Empire; 1740-1786, Frederick II, Prussian power and anti-Semitism; 1796-1815, Napoleonic dominance; 1806, end of Holy Roman Empire; 1815, Battle of Waterloo, British (Wellington) and Prussians (Blucher) defeated France; 1814-1815, Congress of Vienna, Prussia and Bavaria expanded and a German Confederation; 1848, revolutionary year; 1862-1890, Bismarck generated German Empire; Austro-Prussian war (1866); Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871); seizure of Schleswig-Holstein from Danes; Alsace and Lorraine made part of Germany; William I crowned Emperor of Germany; 19th century, rise of liberalism and nationalism; German colonies in the Pacific, East Africa and South West Africa; 1900-1905, German genocide of 0.1 million Namibian Hereros; 1914-1918, WW1; prolonged trench warfare, tanks, gas and aircraft; 1917, Russian revolution and Treaty of Brest Litovsk with Russia; millions died; 1919, Treaty of Versailles, loss of territory and punitive reparations for defeated Germany; 1919-1933, Weimar republic; mass unemployment, recession and rise of Nazism; 1933, Hitler exploited Reichstag fire and fear of Communism and gained bare parliamentary majority; Enabling Act, Nazi dictatorship (Third Reich); 1933-1945, Nazi era; Hitler Youth, Gestapo, SS, repression, violence, anti-Semitism and mass Jewish emigration; 1934, President and Chancellor positions combined as Fuhrer; 1935, Nuremberg Laws against Jews; concentration camps for Jews, homosexuals, socialists and dissidents; re-armament; economic prosperity; autobahns; 1936-1939, interference in the Spanish Civil War (e.g. Guernica bombing); 1938, Austria annexed (Anschloss); Munich Pact with Britain and France (“peace in our time”); 1939, annexed Sudetenland and thence Czechoslovakia; nonaggression pact with USSR; blitzkrieg on Poland; 1939-1945, WW2: 1939, invasion of Europe 1940, British evacuation at Dunkirk and Battle of Britain; 1941, invasion of Russia, mass extermination of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs; 180,000/250,000 German Jews were killed; Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and war with USA; 1942, defeated in North Africa, held at Stalingrad and Leningrad; 1942-1945, UK-US bombing of German cities; 1943, surrender at Stalingrad; defeat at Kursk; Allies invaded Italy; 1944, Allied Normandy landings; France liberated; 1945, Berlin captured; Yalta Agreement and Potsdam Conference; post-war Allied Zones in East and West Germany and Berlin, loss of territory to France, Poland and USSR; war crimes trials; US Marshall Plan for reconstruction; Allied airlift to Allied-occupied Berlin; Federal Republic of Germany, liberal democracy with Christian Democrat and Social Democrat dichotomy, joined NATO (1955), joined EEC (EU) (1958); German Democratic Republic: Communist police state, Stasi secret police, the Berlin Wall prevented movement of people; 1989, popular dissent and New Forum, Honecker resigned and the Wall came down; 1990, formal reunification; 1993, all-Germany elections; 1994, last Russian soldiers left; 2002-2003, opposition to US invasion of Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Austria, France, Russia, Britain, US (pre-1950); France, Russia, Britain, US none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: France, Russia, UK, US; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 7.061m/82.560m = 8.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 1.292m/82.560m = 1.6%.
Greece: Neolithic cultures; 3rd-2nd millennia BC, Bronze age Mycenaean and Minoan (Crete) civilizations; 14th-13th century BC, Greek Achaeans into Peloponnesus; Aeolian, Dorian and Ionian groups; about 1000BC, Ionian settlement of Aegean islands and Asia Minor; 8th-6th century, Greek colonies in Black Sea region, Bosphorus, Aegean, Sicily, Italy and Balearic Islands; formation of Greek city states (e.g. Athens and Sparta); 499-449BC, Persian wars; 495-429BC, era of Pericles in Athens; 5th-4th century BC, Golden Age of Greece with huge impact on Western philosophy, science, literature, art, music, ethics and society; 431-404 BC, Athens defeated in Peloponnesian War; 338BC, Athens defeated by Macedonia under Phillip II; 336-323BC, Alexander the Great, conquered Persians, Babylonians and Egyptians; Greek hegemony as far as India; Hellenic Empire divided e.g. Ptolemy dynasty ruled Egypt; 146BC, Roman conquest; 395AD, Roman Empire divided into Western (based on Rome) and Eastern (Byzantine) Empires; 378, Visigoth victory; 867-1025, Macedonian dynasty of Byzantine emperors based on Constantinople; 11th century, mounting Seljuk Turk incursions; 12th-13th century, disruption by Crusaders; much of Greece under French and Italian rule; 1261-1453, restored Byzantine Empire; 15th century, Turkish invasion; 1453, fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Turks;
1821, Greek War of Independence; Western European and Russian support; 1832, Greek independence under Bavarian king; 1862, Danish king George I, constitutional reforms; 1912-1913, Balkan Wars with Albania; WW1, Greek neutrality until 1917; alliance with Allies yielded territorial gains; 1921, Greek invasion of Anatolia defeated; 1923, Treaty of Lausanne; 1923, 1.5 million Greeks left Asia Minor and 0.8 million Turks and 80,000 Bulgarians left Greek territory; massacres of Greeks in Asia Minor; 1936, Metaxas dictatorship; 1939-1945, WW2; 1939, Greece neutral; 1940, Italian invasion; 1941, German invasion, Allies defeated; 60,000/67,000 Jews killed; 1941-1944, guerrilla war against Germans by Communist EAM-ELAS; 1944-1945, Allied attacks on guerrillas; 1947-1949, British and US war against Communist guerrillas; 1967-1974, US-complicit coup followed by military rule and human rights abuses; 1974, democracy restored; continuing Greco-Turkish tensions over Cyprus and Greco-Macedonia tensions over the name “Macedonia”.
Foreign occupation: Turkey (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.027m/10.978m = 0.2%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.273m/10.978m = 2.5%.
Iceland: 9th century, Norse settlers with mainly female Irish and Scottish slaves; 930, Althing assembly; 10th century, Christianized; 12th-14th century, civil conflict and increasing control by Norway; 1380, Danish rule; 1539-1551, Lutheranism imposed; 17th-18th century, English, Spanish and Algerian pirates; vulcanism; small ice age?; 1602, Danish private trade monopoly; 1690s, “small Ice Age” and famine; 1771, Danish royal trade monopoly; 1786, trade open to Danes and Norwegians; 1800, Althing abolished; 1843, re-establishment of the Althing; 1874, home rule; 1918, sovereign state in union with Denmark; 1944, independence; 1946, NATO membership; 1951, US base; 1958-1961, 1972-1973, 1975-1976, “Cod Wars” with UK over fishing culminating in UK recognition of 200 mile fishing limit; 1973, continuation of US airforce base; Helgafell volcanic eruption; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Norway, Denmark (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.003m/0.294m = 1.1%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.003m/0.294m = 1.0%.
Ireland: Neolithic cultures; 3rd century BC, Celtic invasions; 5th-6th century, Irish settlement in Scotland; 5th century, Christianizing, Saint Patrick, monasteries and missionaries; 8th century-12th century, Norse depredations; 1014, Brian Boru defeated Norsemen; 12th century-15th century, English conquest; 1537, Henry VIII confiscated monastic lands and introduced Protestantism but Ireland remained Catholic; rebellions cruelly suppressed under Elizabeth I; Ulster settlement with Protestants under James I; 1641-1650, rebellion suppressed by Cromwell (hundreds of thousands killed); 1649, Drogheda Massacre; 1690, Battle of the Boyne, victory of William I over James II; 1798, rebellion by Wolfe Tone suppressed; 1829, Daniel O’Connell activism led to Catholic Emancipation Act; 1845-1850, Potato Famine; mass starvation despite grain exports; 1 million died; 1.5 million emigrated (many perishing in transit or in the first North American winter); 1905, Sinn Fein founded; Home Rule enacted in 1914 but WW1 intervened; 1916, Easter Sunday uprising; leaders hanged; 1918, Sinn Fein electoral victory; formed Dáil Éireann and declared independence; 1919-1921, war involving notorious British Black and Tans; 1922, Irish Free State; 1948, Irish Republic; 1970s-1990s, IRA war in Ulster; 2005, IRA disarmament; EU membership; Irish prosperity.
Foreign occupation: Britain (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US (in transit to Iraq); post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.389m/4.050m = 9.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.071m/4.050m = 1.8%.
Italy: 9th-4th century BC, Etruscans; 4th century BC, Etruscans attacked by Gauls from the North and Samnites from the South; 5th century BC, growth of Rome; Punic wars eventually destroyed Carthage; Roman Empire at its peak stretched from Britain to Persia; 5th century AD, successive invasions by Visigoths, Huns, Heruli and Ostrogoths; 476, last Western Empire Emperor deposed; 493, Ostrogoth Theodoric took Ravenna; 593, Lombard rule; 800, Frank Charlemagne crowned in Rome; German Otto I invaded Italy; commencement of Holy Roman Empire; 11th century, Norman rule in South and Sicily; 12th -15th century, cultural and commercial flowering of the major medieval and Renaissance city states (notably Milan, Florence, Venice, Siena and the Papal states); Renaissance after fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks; 16th-18th century, invasions by Spain, France and Austria; 1796-1815, Napoleonic conquests; 1814-1815, Congress of Vienna restored Austrian power; Risorgimento led by Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel triumphed in 1861 with constitutional monarchy under Victor Emmanuel; Italian colonial expansions in Somalia (1889) and Eritrea (1890); 1896, Ethiopians defeated Italians; Libya and Dodecanese conquered (1911-1912); 1914-1918, WW1; initially neutral, Italy entered the war on the Allied side and gained territories from Austria-Hungary; 1922, Mussolini made premier; 1935-1935, conquered Ethiopia; 1936-1939, intervened in Spanish Civil War; 1939, invaded Albania; 1940-1943, allied to Germany; 9,000/120,000 Jews killed; Allied victories in North Africa followed by invasion of Italy; 1943, Italy surrendered; 1944, Rome liberated from the Germans; 1945, Mussolini killed; post-war, Italy lost its colonial acquisitions in Europe and Africa; resumption of mass migration; joined NATO, 1949; joined EEC (now EU) in 1958; numerous Italian governments with Christian Democrats, Communists and Socialists as major parties; 2003, joined US in Iraq (withdrawal by the end of 2006).
Foreign occupation: France, Austria, Germany, Britain, US (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none US?; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.846m/57.253m = 1.5%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 1.227m/57.235m = 2.1%.
Luxembourg: major medieval and Holy Roman Empire duchy with rulers variously from Bohemia, Burgundy and the Hapsburgs of Austria and Spain; 1797, French occupation; 1814-1815, Congress of Vienna, grand duchy in union with Netherlands but simultaneously a member of the German Confederation with Prussian occupation; 1830-
1839, joined Belgian revolt against the Netherlands; a large part became part of Belgium; 1866-1867, sale to France by Netherlands William III provoked Franco-Prussian crisis; Prussians left; Luxembourg declared neutral; 1890, no male heir of William III; Grand Duke Adolph succeeded; WW1 and WW2, occupied by Germany; 1946, joined UN; 1949, joined NATO; 1958, joined with Belgium and Netherlands in Benelux Union; founding member of EEC (EU).
Foreign occupation: Netherlands, Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.050m/0.465m = 10.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.006m/0.465m = 1.2%.
Malta: prehistoric Neolithic cultures; rock-cut tombs; successive Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian and Roman rule (Melita); 870, Arab rule; 1090, Sicilian Norman conquest; 1530, Hapsburg Charles V granted Malta to the Knights Hospitalers; 1565, withstood Ottoman Turkish siege; 1798, Napoleonic French conquest; 1800, British conquest; 1814, British crown colony; 19th-20th century, key shipping and naval port, especially after the Suez Canal opening (1869); 1921-1936, some self-government; 1942, withstood huge Italian and German bombing; 1947-1959, constitutional development; 1964, independence; 1974, republic; 1971-1987, Labor government; 2004, joined EU.
Foreign occupation: Spain, France, Britain (pre-1950); UK (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: UK; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.019m/0.397m = 4.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.009m/0.019m = 2.3%.
Netherlands: 1st century BC, Batavi and Northern Frisians; Roman conquest of Lower Germany; 4th-8th century, Franks invaded; 9th century, part of Holy Roman Empire; 14th-15th century, Hanseatic League prosperity, rule by Dukes of Burgundy and thence by Hapsburg Emperors Maximilian I, Charles V and Philip II of Spain; 1562-1648, national and religious tensions led to wars for independence from Spain; Thirty Years War (1618-1648); 1648, Treaty of Westphalia; independence of the United Provinces (the Netherlands); 1602, Dutch East India Company formed and thence often egregiously violent exploitation of East Indies; Dutch West India Company (slavery, Caribbean possessions); Jews (from Spain and Portugal) and Huguenots (from Catholic France) promoted prosperity; Anglo-Dutch wars (1652-1654, 1664-1667); 17th-18th century wars against France; 1668, Triple Alliance with England and Sweden against Louis XIV; 1672, dikes opened to halt French invasion; War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697); War of the Spanish Succession involving England, Austria and the Dutch versus France (1701-1714); 1794, revolutionary French conquest; Congress of Vienna, independence of Low Countries under William I; 1839, Belgian independence; WW1, Dutch neutrality; inter-war polder development; 1940-1945, WW2, German occupation; extermination of 104,000/140,000 Jews; 1945-1949, conflict with Indonesians ending with Indonesian independence; 1953, North sea storms and flooding; 1962, West Irian ceded to Indonesia; 1975, Suriname independence; 1981-1982, US cruise missile base controversy; 1991, Gulf War participation against Iraq; 1995, Dutch UN peacekeepers stood by during Serbian massacres of Bosnians in Srebrenica; 2003, participation in US occupation of Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Spain, France, Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.000m/16.300m = 0.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.163m/16.300m = 1.0%.
Norway: 9th–11th century, Norsemen raided Western Europe; the Shetlands, Orkneys, Iceland, Greenland and coastal Britain and France under Norse rule; 14th century-18th century, Norway ruled by Denmark; 1814, British defeated the Danes and Norway united with Sweden; 19th century, major migration to the US, shipping expansion and growing nationalism; 1905, overwhelming plebiscite vote and separation from Sweden as a democratic monarchy; WW1, neutral; the period between wars saw increased social welfare; 1940-1945, German conquest and rule by Quisling; 1992, international controversy over Norwegian whaling; 1972 and 1994, rejection of EU association; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Denmark, Sweden, Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.032m/4.570m = 0.7%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.047m/4.570m = 1.0%.
Portugal: 1000BC, Celtic Lusitanians; 1st century BC, Roman conquest; 5th century, Visigoth conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsular; 6th-7th century, Byzantine rule in south; 711, Moorish invasion; 8th-15th century, Christian conflict with Moors; 1143, Portuguese independence; 15th century, exploration and conquest: Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope (1488), Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain dividing New World (1494), Vasco da Gama sailed to India (1497-1498); Portuguese acquisition of Brazil (1500), Goa (1510), Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515); 15th-19th century, African slave trade; 17th-18th century, Portuguese involvement in Spanish, French and British Iberian wars; 1807, French occupied Portugal; 1811, French expelled by British under Wellington; 1822, liberal revolution; Brazil declared independence under Emperor Pedro; 19th century, Portuguese conquest of Angola and Mozambique; WW1, Portugal neutral and then joined the Allies (1916); 1933-1968, Salazar dictatorship; WW2, pro-Allied neutrality; 1961, Goa seized by India; 1960s, rebellions in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea; 1968, Salazar had a stroke; replaced by Caetano; 1974, Captain’s Revolution and democracy; 1975, Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and Cape Verde independent; East Timor invaded by Indonesia; 1986, EU membership; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: France (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.429m/10.080m = 4.3%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.577m/10.080m = 5.7%.
Spain: prehistoric Neolithic people; early Basque settlement followed by Celtic invasion; 9th century, Phoenician settlements; later Carthaginian settlements; Greek settlements in the Balearic Islands; 3rd century BC, Carthaginian conquest; 218-201BC, Romans defeated Carthaginians in 2nd Punic War; 1st century, Spain Roman; progressively Christianized; 409, Suevi and Vandal invasions; 419, Visigoth invasion; 507, Franks expelled Visigoths from Gaul (France); 6th century, Visigoth conquest of most of Spain; 6th-7th century, Byzantine rule in the South; 711, Muslim Berbers invaded; Moors dominated Spain except for northern Basque and Visigoth strongholds; 8th-11th century, flowering of Jewish and Moorish culture; 1212, Moors defeated by Castilians; 1478, Spanish Inquisition; 1492, Moor Granada captured by Ferdinand and Isabella and Moors and Jews expelled from Spain; 1492, Columbus discovered America; 1494, Treaty of Tordesillas divided the New World between Portugal and Spain; 16th century, conquest of Central and South America; 1494-1559, Italian Wars with France yielded Milan and Naples; 1516, Charles I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), first of Hapsburg rulers; 1556, Phillip II ruled Spain, parts of Italy and the Netherlands; 1588, failed Spanish Armada attack on England; 1609, final expulsion of Christian Moors; 1618-1648, Thirty Years War; 1701-1714, War of the Spanish Succession, Bourbon line established; 18th century, attempted reforms; 1808, French occupation; 1814, final British and Spanish victory over the French in the Peninsular War (scorched earth policy); 1825, most of Latin America had gained independence; 1833-1868, violent period under Isabella II; 1868, constitutional monarchy; 1898, Spanish American War, loss of the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico; WW1, neutral; 1936-1939, Spanish Civil War; conservative insurgents (with German and Italian help) defeated socialist Loyalists; 1939-1975, Franco dictatorship; WW2 neutrality; 1953, US bases; decolonization of Spanish Morocco (1956), Spanish Equatorial Guinea (1968), Ifni (1969) and Spanish Sahara (1976); 1975, constitutional monarchy; 1970s-present, ETA Basque terrorism; 1982, joined NATO; 1986, joined EU; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, Madrid terrorist bombing followed by withdrawal from Iraq by the newly elected government.
Foreign occupation: France (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 1.049m/41.184m = 2.5%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.964m/41.184m = 2.3%.
Sweden: 1st century, the Sveare (Suiones) occupied Svearland; 6th century, conquered Götar; 9th-12th century, Christianized; 10th century, Varangians (Swedes, Norsemen and Vikings) spread through Russia to the Black Sea; 1319, Sweden and Norway united; 1397-1523, Sweden, Norway and Denmark united; 1520, Stockholm massacre of nobles; 1523, Gustavus I, founded modern the Swedish state, broke Hanseatic League Baltic control, established the Vasa dynasty and made Lutheranism the state religion; 1561, conquered Estonia; 1611-1632, Gustavus II (Gustavus Adolphus); major victories in Poland and Germany made Sweden a European power; 1648, Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War with West Pomerania, Wismar and Bremen going to Sweden; 1660, southern provinces secured from Denmark; 1720-1721, Baltic conquests relinquished to Hanover, Prussia and Russia; 1809, Finland ceded to Russia; constitutional monarchy; 1813-1814, war against Napoleon; Congress of Vienna gave Norway to Sweden; 1905, Norway independent; WW1 and WW2, neutrality; post-war, continued prosperity as a democratic welfare state.
Foreign occupation: Denmark, (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.249m/8.895m = 2.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.070m/8.895m = 0.8%.
Switzerland: 58BC, Helvetii conquered by Romans; 5th century, invaded by the Alemanni and Burgundii; 6th century, Franks invaded; 9th century, dominated by Swabia and Southern Burgundy; 1033, part of Holy Roman Empire; 13th-14th century, successful coalition against Habsburg power; 15th century, victories against Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire; 1499, effective independence; 1515-1516, defeated by French leading to “perpetual alliance” with France, neutrality and Swiss employment as mercenaries; 16th century, Protestant Reformation; 1618-1648, Swiss essentially uninvolved in the Thirty Years War; 1648, independence recognized by the Treaty of Westphalia; 1798-1803, Helvetic Republic formed by Napoleonic French invaders; 1815, Congress of Vienna and Pact of Restoration; 1815, Treaty of Paris guaranteed independence; economic recession, migration and moves for centralization; 1848, federal state constitution under the Radical Party; WW1 and WW2, armed neutrality; 1979, Jura became the 23rd canton of the Swiss Confederation; 1971, women’s suffrage and candidature; 1986, rejected UN membership; 1990s, criticism over WW2 Nazi and Jewish Holocaust victim assets in Swiss Banks; 2000, closer links to EU; 2002, approved UN membership.
Foreign occupation: France, (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.076m/7.157m = 1.1%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.077m/7.157m = 1.1%.
United Kingdom: prehistoric Neolithic culture; 5th century BC, Celtic metallurgical culture; 54BC-2nd century AD, Roman conquest; 410, Roman withdrawal; 5th century, Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded; Christianizing; 8th–9th century, Norse Viking raids; Vikings notably opposed by King Alfred; 1016, King Canute (Knut) ruled both England and Denmark; 1066, Norman conquest under William the Conqueror; 1171, Norman invasion of Ireland; 1215, nobles constrained arbitrary royal power by Magna Carta; 13th century, invasions of Wales and Scotland; 1237-1337, Hundred Years War with France; 1348, devastating Black Death (plague); 14th century, Wars of the Roses culminating in Tudor rule of Henry VII and administrative sharpening; Henry VIII confiscated Church lands and instituted Protestant Reformation; Elizabeth I, consolidation of Protestantism; defeat of Spanish Armada (1588); commencement of maritime exploration and American settlements; founding of British East India company (1600); 17th century, Stuart period; conflict with Parliament; English Civil War between Puritans and Royalists; Charles I beheaded; habeus corpus and increased Parliamentary power; Cromwell republic and atrocities in Ireland; restoration of Charles II but defeat of Catholic James II by William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne (1689); 18th century, Britain emerged as a major world power; 1707, act of union with Scotland; Hanoverian succession; 1701-1714, War of the Spanish Succession against France; 1756-1763, Seven Years War against France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America and India; African slave trade; 1745, Scots finally defeated at the Battle of Culloden – last battle on British soil; 1757, Bengal conquered and rapaciously taxed; 1769-1770, Bengal famine killed 10 million; 1776, American independence; 1788, settlement of Australia;19th century, Napoleonic Wars with defeat of Napoleonic France at Trafalgar under Nelson (1805) and finally at Waterloo under Wellington (1815); industrialization fed by Empire; further conquest in India, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific; 1845-1850, Irish famine (1 million dead; 1.5 million fled overseas), Indian cholera epidemics (25 million victims) and famines (tens of millions of victims); 1854-1856, Crimean War with Russia; Queen Victoria and the British empire; late 19th century, conquest of Southern Africa and victory over the Dutch Afrikaaners in the Boer War; 20th century, arms race; 1914-1918, WW1, horrendous casualties, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires dismembered; post-war, Irish independence; womens’ suffrage; oil and British power in the Middle East; 1929, Wall Street collapse followed by depression and European re-armament; 1939-1945, WW2, Nazism eventually defeated, Europe temporarily wrecked; Eastern Europe enslaved by Russia; post-war, British technological advance, welfare state, civil nuclear power and nuclear arms; UN and decolonization; colonial and neo-colonial Asian and African wars; 1982, Falklands Island War against Argentinian invaders; increasing political conservatism under Thatcher (Thatcherism) and then under right-wing Labor under Blair; decades of IRA terrorism in Ulster and England followed by political accommodation; UK-US democratic imperialism and invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; 2005, IRA disarmament; Muslim-origin London bombings followed by strengthened anti-terror laws.
Foreign occupation: none since Danes in 11th century (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: US; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 4.411m/59.598m = 7.4%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.777m/59.598m = 1.3%.
4.4 Eastern Europe – Communism, foreign occupation and tyranny but peace and good social services
Aside from Muslim Albania and the major Muslim populations of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria and the Kosovo region of Serbia-Montenegro, the formerly Communist-ruled Eastern European group countries (conveniently including Armenia and Georgia for the purposes of this analysis) have a Christian background. Eastern European nationalist desires that surged in the 19th century were largely thwarted by the Turkish, German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires but realized in some cases (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia) between WW1 and WW2. The cataclysm of WW2 destroyed the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe, and killed some 20 million Soviet citizens and 6 million Poles. Red Army victory delivered all these countries to Russian Communist control – with the exceptions of Albania and Yugoslavia, which nevertheless were ruled by Communist regimes. The collapse of Communism in 1989-1991 finally led to self-determination for the Eastern European peoples under relatively democratic systems but with perturbations ranging from electoral fraud to civil war in the Balkans, Moldova and Chechnya. The post-war Communist system provided good education, health and full employment coupled with repression and eventual economic decline and crisis. Actual Soviet military intervention occurred in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). The welfare state circumstances produced avoidable mortality outcomes that were good by world standards but not as good as those obtaining in Western Europe. Indeed in some Eastern European countries (notably Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Russia and the Ukraine and also in Germany and Austria, countries which were subject to partial post-war Soviet occupation) there were small but marked elevations in excess mortality from about 1970 onwards that may possibly be linked to smoking, alcoholism, pollution, non-reported radiological contamination and tensions of life in repressed societies. 8
Albania: ancient Illyrian and Thracian peoples; Illyria and Epirus; 3rd century, independent kingdom; 395, division of Roman Empire; 7th century, Serbia invaded the north; 9th century, south taken by Bulgaria; 1014, Byzantines retook south; 11th century, Venice founded coastal towns; 1272, Norman Charles I of Naples King of Albania; 14th century, Serb conquest; resistance to Turks under Scanderbeg supported by Venice and Naples; 1478, Ottoman Turkish rule; Islamic conversion; 1877, Treaty of San Stefano, Albanian territory handed to Serbia; 1912, First Balkan War, Albanian independence; loss of territory to Serbia, Montenegro and Greece; 1920, independence accepted; 1924-1928, machinations culminating in invasion and installation of King Zog; 1939, Italian invasion; partisan opposition lead by Hoxha; 1946, Communist government under Hoxha; 1961-1977, friendship with China, hostility to the US and the USSR; 1991, elections; 1997, rebellion in southern Albania; aid and security provided by international European forces; 1998-1999, refugees from Kosovo; impoverished country; 2003, joined the US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Serbia (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: European peace-keeping force; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.251m/3.220m = 7.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.301m/3.220m = 9.3%.
Armenia: 8th century BC, Armenian settlement; 6th-4th century BC, Persian tributary; 330BC, conquered by Alexander; subsequently part of Seleucid Syria; 190BC, Roman conquest of Syria; Armenian independence; 69-67BC, Roman conquest; 1st century, Christian conversion (the oldest Christian state); 3rd century, conquered by Sassanid Persians; 387, partition between Roman and Persian spheres; 4th century-9th century, successive war and occupation by Byzantines, Huns, Khazars and Arabs; 886-1046, independent; 1046, Byzantine conquest; 1071, Seljuk Turk conquest; 1080-1375, Little Armenia; 1236-1243, Mongol invasion; 1375, conquered by Mamluks; 1386-1394, Timur invaded Greater Armenia and exterminated most of the population; 1405, Ottoman Turks invaded; 16th century, under Turkish rule; 1828, Russia took Eastern Armenia from Persia; 1894, Turkish massacres; 1915, commencement of the Armenian Genocide, coinciding with the Anglo-French Dardanelles invasion at Gallipoli; 1 million Armenians were killed or died from deportation (still denied by Turkey); 1921, Russo-Turkish Treaty; Armenia part of USSR; 1988, devastating earthquake; 1988, fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian region of Azerbaijan; 1991, Armenian independence; continuing Turkish and Azerbaijan blockades.
Foreign occupation: Persia, Turkey, Russia (pre-1950); Russia; post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.091m/3.043m = 3.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.289m/3.043m = 9.5%.
Belarus: 5th-6th century AD, Slavic settlement; 9th century, part of Kievan Rus; 13th century, Mongol invasion; 14th century, Lithuanian conquest; significant Jewish settlement; 1569, part of merged Polish-Lithuanian state; 1772, 1793 and 1795 partitions of Poland left Belarus part of the Russian Empire; 1812, devastated during the Napoleonic retreat from Moscow; 19th century, anti-Semitic pogroms and Jewish emigration to the US; 1914-1917, WW1, major zone of Russo-German fighting; 1918, Belarussian republic declared in Minsk; 1919, Red Army occupied Minsk and Belarus; 1919-1920, Polish-Russian War; 1921, Treaty of Riga, Western Belarus to Poland; 1922, Byelorussian republic within the USSR; 1939, USSR occupied Western Belarus; 1941, German invasion; horrendous destruction and mass extermination of Jews; 1945, member of the UN; 1991, independence from Russia and joined the CIS; 1994, Lukashenko elected president and subsequently re-elected repeatedly in controversial elections; post-independence, close economic and other links with Russia but mounting protests over unfair elections and human rights abuses.
Foreign occupation: Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Germany (pre-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.375m/9.809m = 3.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.269m/9.809m = 2.7%.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: 1st century AD, Roman Illyricum; 7th century, Slavic Serb settlement; 12th-15th century, an independent entity with Hungarian hegemony; 1148, Duchy of Hum autonomous as Herzegovina; 1463, Turkish conquest of Bosnia; 1482, Herzegovina conquered by Turks; major conversion to Islam; 15th-19th century, backward, isolated society; 1875, peasant uprising; 1877-1878, Russo-Turkish War; Congress of Vienna, under Austrian administration and occupation but with formal Turkish sultan sovereignty; 1908, annexed to Austria-Hungary; increased Serbian nationalism; 1914, assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb in Sarajevo led to the catastrophic WW1 (total death toll about 16 million); 1918, part of Yugoslavia; 1941-1945, WW2, Italian and German occupation; gross human rights abuse and exterminations; anti-fascist partisan activity; 1946, part of Yugoslavia; 1992, Croatians and Bosnians declared independence from Serbia; 1992-1995, horrendous civil war; isolation and shelling of multi-ethnic Sarajevo; immense war crimes and ethnic cleansing (e.g. 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 men and boys by Serbs); 200,000 dead; 1995, Dayton Accord, Croat-Bosnian and Serb autonomous regions; NATO forces supervised peace; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, EU peace-keeping; continuing war crimes trials at The Hague, notably of Serb leader Milosevic and others.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Austria, Hungary, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (pre-1950); multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, Croatia, Serbia, NATO, EU (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, Croatia, Serbia, NATO, EU;
post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.230m/4.209m = 5.5%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.275m/7.763m = 3.5%.
Bulgaria: ancient Thrace and Moesia; 6th century, Slavic settlement; 679-680, Eastern Bulgars settled; Slavic culture continued; 8 th-9th century, Bulgarian power; Bulgarian Orthodox Church; St Cyril and writing; 809, Khan Krum captured Sophia; 811, defeated Byzantines and besieged Constantinople; 865, adopted Christianity; 893-927, Czar Simeon; 1018, annexation by resurgent Byzantium; 10th century, Pecheneg and Cuman invasions; 1186-1396, second Bulgarian empire; 1218-1241, Czar Ivan extended Bulgarian power over all the Balkans except Greece; 1330, Macedonia conquered by Serbia; Turkish Balkan victories at Kosovo (1389) and Nikopol (1396); Turkish rule until 1908; repression of Bulgarian Church and culture; 1876, rebellion suppressed violently; Turkish responsibility for Bulgarian atrocities prompted further Russian Balkans involvement; 1877-1878, Russo-Turkish War; Eastern Rumelia autonomous; Macedonia under direct Turkish rule; 1885, Eastern Rumelia taken by Alexander (Battenberg, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, as with much of European royalty); defeated Serbia; 1908, Ferdinand declared independence; 1911-1912, First Balkan War, defeated Turkey; 1913, Second Balkan War, lost most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece; 1915, supported Germany over the Macedonia issue; 1918, lost Aegean outlet; 1923, coup and subsequent authoritarian rule; 1940, WW2, supported Germany; 1944, USSR invaded; Bulgarian coup and declaration of war on Germany; 40,000/48,000 Jews killed; 1946, Communist republic; 1951-1952, 160,000 Turkish citizens deported to Turkey; mid-1980s, Bulgarization campaign against 0.8 million ethnic Turks; 1990, non-Communist Zhelev elected; 2003, part of US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, joined NATO.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Greece, Serbia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.769m/7.763m = 9.9%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.275m/7.763m = 3.5%.
Croatia: 1st century BC, Roman Pannonia; 7th century AD, Slavic Croat settlement; 9th century, Christianized (Catholicism); 10th, Dalmatia conquered; 11th century, conflict with Venice; 1091, conquest by Hungary; 1526, Battle of Mohács, much of Croatia under the Turks; 1527, alliance with Habsburgs against the Turks; 16th century onwards, Croatian mercenaries; 19th century, Magyarization; 1848-1849, Jellacic led Croatians against revolutionary Hungarians; 1867, Austro-Hungarian monarchy; Croatia and Slavonia linked to Hungary; Istria and Dalmatia linked to Austria; 1918, independence together with Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia as Yugoslavia; 1939, autonomous Croatian state; 1941, German invasion; Croatian independence under Italian and German military control and led by fascist Ustaše under Pavelic; genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies – Jasenovac was the 3rd biggest death camp in Nazi Europe (0.2 million victims murdered); Croatian Communist Tito led partisans against the Germans; 1945-1991, semi-autonomous part of Yugoslavia; post-war US- and Vatican- complicit Ustaše-sympathetic migration and thence international activism and terrorism; 1980, Tito died; 1991, Croatian independence under Tudjman; war against Serbs and Bosnian Muslims; huge war crimes including “ethnic cleansing”; 1998, final peace agreements.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Austria, Hungary (pre-1950); multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: multi-ethnic Yugoslavia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.291m/4.405m = 6.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.191m/4.405m = 4.3%.
Czech Republic: Boli Celtic tribe in Bolohaemia of Roman times; 1st-5th century AD, Slavic Czech invasion; 7th century, overcame Avar occupation; 9th century, Christianized; part of Moravia; 920-929, Wenceslaus resisted the Germans; 950, autonomous part of Holy Roman Empire; 1253-1278, Ottocar II extended Bohemian domains to Adriatic; 1415, Jan Hus burnt at the stake; 1415-1439, Hussite Wars; 16th century, Reformation; 1526, Emperor Ferdinand I re-established Catholicism; Protestant opposition; 1609, Emperor Rudolph gave freedom of religion; 1618, countermanding of religious freedom by Emperor Matthias; Protestant defenestration of 2 imperial regents from Hradčany Castle in Prague - they survived but this precipitated the Thirty Years War and European devastation; 1618-1648, Thirty Years War involving major powers of Europe; 1620, Protestants crushed at the Battle of the White Mountain; 1648, Treaty of Westphalia, Germanization, taxation, absentee landlords; 18th-19th century, increasing industrialization; 19th century, increasing Czech nationalism; 1867, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; 1914-1918, WW1; 1918, Czechoslovakian independence under T.G. Masaryk; 1938, Germany seized Sudetenland; 1939-1945, WW2; 1944, extermination of 60,000/81,000 Czechoslovakian Jews; Theresienstadt concentration camp (holding Jews prior to Auschwitz extermination); Churchill spared Prague from Allied bombing; 1945, fall of Prague to the Red Army; Potsdam Conference, 3 million Germans expelled; Ruthenia handed to the USSR; 1946, Communist political dominance; death of foreign minister Jan Masaryk (likely murder by defenestration); 1948, new constitution; Beneš resigned; Communist dictatorship and purge trials; 1953, riots followed by some liberalization; 1968, Prague Spring under Dubček; suppressed by USSR and Warsaw Pact invasion; severe repression; 1977, Charter 77, human rights declaration; 1989, massive demonstrations in Prague; Velvet revolution, non-Communist government elected under Havel; 1991, last Russian troops left; 1993, separate Slovak and Czech republics; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Persia, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 1.087m/10.216m = 10.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.142m/10.216m = 1.4%.
Estonia: 1st century BC, occupied by Aesti; 13th century, conquered by Danes and German Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Teutonic Knights); 1219, Tallinn founded by Danes; 1346, Danes sold northern Estonia to the Knights; major Hanseatic commerce; 1561, Teutonic knights defeated; north to Sweden; south to Poland; 1629, Polish-Swedish war, all of Estonia ruled by Sweden; 1710, Peter the Great conquered Livonia; 1721, Russian rule confirmed by Treaty of Nystad; German aristocracy commercially dominant; 19th century, Russification and emigration; 1905, reprisals for Estonian participation in the Russian revolution; 1917, Russian revolution; puppet Communist regime; 1918, independence; German occupation; 1918, German collapse; Russian invasion repelled; 1920, Russian recognition; 1934, dictatorship installed; 1939-1940, Russian occupation; 60,000 Estonians killed or deported; 1941-1944, Estonian support for Germans; 1944, Russian victory; mass deportation and killing of Estonians; 1991, independence; 1994, last Russian troops left; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, Estonia joined NATO and the EU.
Foreign occupation: Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Germany (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.166m/1.294m = 12.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.032m/1.294m = 2.5%.
Georgia: Colchis of Ancient Greeks (land of the Golden Fleece); 4th century BC, kingdom; 3rd century, Persian Sassanid rule; 4th century, Christianity; 6th-13th century, Georgian independence except for a period of Seljuk Turk rule in the 11th century; 13th century, Mongol invasion; 1386-1403, invaded by Timur; 1555, divided between Persia and Turkey; 1773, accepted Russian protection; 1801, king abdicated and ceded to Russia for protection from Persians; 1803-1829, Russia seized Georgian territories from Turkey; 1918, independence; 1921, Soviet republic; Stalin a Georgian; 1941-1943, part-occupied by Germans; 1945, Stalin deported hundreds of thousands as collaborators; 1991, independence; 1992, violence involving pro-Russian South Ossetia separatists and Abkhazia rebels wanting independence; 1993, Georgia joined CIS; Russian bases and concerns over Chechen rebel use of Georgian territory; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Persia, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.281m/5.026m = 5.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.166m/5.026m = 4.6%.
Hungary: 1st century, Pannonia and Dacia Roman provinces; successive invasions by Huns (4th century), Avars (6th century) and Magyars (9th century); 1055, Magyar defeat by Holy Roman Empire at Lechfeld; 1001-1038, Stephen Christianized Hungarians; 1172-1196, Bela increased Western contacts; 1222, nobles demanded Golden Bull constraining royal authority of King Andrew; 1241, Mongol invasion; 14th century, Hungarian expansion met Turkish expansion; Hungarian and allied losses to the Turks at Kosovo (1939), Nikopol (1396) and Varna (1944); 1456, Hungarian victory at Belgrade under John Hunyadi; 1458-1490, King Matthias; 1526, critical defeat by Turks at the Battle of Mohács; Ferdinand of Austria claimed Hungarian throne versus John Zapolya; Great Plain under the Turks; 16th century, Protestant Reformation; 1557, religious tolerance (largely Catholic, one fifth Presbyterian); 1683, siege of Vienna marked furthest extent of Turkish power; 1686, Budapest liberated from Turks; 1687, recognition of Austrian Habsburg claim to the Hungarian throne; Peace of Kalowitz, Turks ceded Hungary and Transylvania to Austria; 1711, defeat of Francis II Rákóczy by Austrians; 1718, Austrians seized the Banat from the Turks; 18th century; German and Slav immigration into Hungary; 19th century, increasing Hungarian nationalist activism; 1848, Hungarian parliament passed laws for liberal monarchy; 1848, war on Hungary by Francis Joseph; 1849, Kossuth declared an independent republic; Russians helped Austrians crush the revolt; 1866, Austrians defeated by Prussia; 1867, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy set up by the Ausgleich agreement; Emperor Joseph crowned King of Hungary (incorporating Transylvania, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Croatia, Slovenia and the Banat region of south-east Hungary); 1914-1918, WW1; Hungary fought with Austria and Germany; post-war loss of territory; 1919, Bela Kun communist government removed by invading Romanians; 1920, Horthy made regent; 1920, Treaty of Trianon, stripped Hungary of much territory; 1938-1944, Hungary temporarily regained much territory; 1944, the Germans occupied the country when Hungary sought to protect its Jewish population; 200,000/710,000 Jews killed; 1944-1945, liberation by the Russians; 1948, Communist takeover engineered; collectivization and nationalization; 1955, Hungary joined Warsaw Pact and the UN; 1956, anti-communist revolution; Nagy appealed to the UN; Russians invaded, 0.2 million fled; as many as 0.1 million deported or killed; 1989, opened border with Austria; 1990, multi-party democracy; 1991, departure of last Russian troops; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Austria, Germany, Romania, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 1.363m/9.784m = 13.9%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.288m/9.784m = 2.9%.
Latvia: 1st millennium AD, Letts occupied Baltic Lettland; 13th century, Christianized by Livonian Brothers of the Sword; 1629, Sweden conquered Livonia; 1721, Livonia conquered by Russia; 1817-1819, emancipation of the serfs; 1885, landowner and economic élite German replaced by Russian as the official language; 1905, Russian Revolution; subsequent punishment of Latvian participants; 1914-1918, WW1, massive destruction as zone of major Russo-German conflict; 1918, independence; 1920, peace with Russia; 1922, constitutional democracy; 1936, dictatorship; 1939, bases granted to the USSR and the German minority transferred to Germany; 1940, Russian occupation; 1941-1944, German invasion and occupation with Latvian support; horrendous extermination of 70,000/100,000 Jews with Latvian participation; 1944, the Russians expelled the Germans; hundreds of thousands of Latvian were deported to suffering or death in Siberia; extensive Russian settlement followed in subsequent decades; 1990, independent; 1991, independence recognized by Russia; UN membership; 1994, last Russian soldiers left; mounting discrimination against the substantial Russian minority; 2003, joined the US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, member of NATO and EU.
Foreign occupation: Sweden, Russia, Germany (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.288m/2.265m = 12.7%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.053m/2.265m = 2.3%.
Lithuania: 1500BC, Liths settled Nemen River region; 13th-15th century, Lithuanians fought Germanic Knights (Livonian Brothers of the Sword and Teutonic Knights); Lithuania expanded to include Belarus and parts of Russia and Ukraine to the Black Sea; 1386, Jagiello became Ladislau II of Poland-Lithuania; 1410, Teutonic Knights defeated at Tannenberg; 1569, Lithuania joined with Poland and became Polonized; 1772, 1793 and 1795, successive Polish partitions between Prussia, Austria and Russia; 19th century, Catholic clergy-led cultural revival and nationalism; 1914-1918, WW1; 1918, Lithuanian independence; 1920-1927, war with Poland; dictatorships; 1939, Vilnius returned from conquered Poland; 1940, USSR occupation; 1941-1944, German invasion and occupation; extermination of 104,000/140,000 Jews; 1944, Russian return; anti-Communist guerrillas; huge deportations to Siberia; 1950s-1990s, severe repression; improved circumstances after 1956 with USSR under Krushchev; 1990, Lithuanian independence opposed militarily by Russia; 1991, independence recognized; 1993, last Russian troops left; 2003, joined NATO; joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, joined EU.
Foreign occupation: Russia, Poland, Germany (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.143m/3.401m = 4.2%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.107m/3.401m = 3.1%.
Macedonia: Classical Macedonia, Thrace and Epirus encompassed present-day southern Serbia, Macedonia, southern Bulgaria and northern Greece; 8th century BC, first Macedonians; 5th century BC, adopted Greek language; 359-336BC, Philip expanded Macedonia; 336-323 BC, Alexander the Great expanded his empire to the Indus river, encompassing Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria and Persia; post-Alexander Hellenic era; 2nd century BC, Roman province; 395, Division of Roman Empire; Macedonia under Byzantium; 9th century, conquered by Bulgarians; 12th century, re-conquest by Byzantium; 1204, invasion by the Fourth Crusade and period of contestation; 1261, Byzantine control re-established; 14th century, Serbian conquest; late 14th century, Ottoman Turkish rule until the late 19th century; 1877-1878, Russo-Turkish War, most of Macedonia went to Bulgaria; 1912-1913, Balkans Wars, Greece and Serbia dispossessed Bulgaria of most of Macedonia; thousands of Macedonians fled to Bulgaria; 1914-1918, WW1; 1923, population exchanges between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria; Slavic and Turkish people in Greek Macedonia were replaced by refugees from Asia Minor; 1925-1926, hostilities between Bulgaria and Greece; 1939-1945, WW2; Axis-linked Bulgaria occupied Macedonia; 1945-1947, restoration of pre-war status; 1946, Macedonian autonomous region in Yugoslavia; 1945-1949, Greek Civil War, Yugoslav-Greek tensions and Hellenization in Northern Greece; 1990, Macedonian independence; Greek hostility and insistence on “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” nomenclature; Kosovo ethnic cleansing, huge influx of Muslim Kosovo refugees and subsequent Albanian agitation and guerrilla action in Macedonia; ethnic Albanian and Macedonian accommodation; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (pre-1950); multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: multi-ethnic Yugoslavia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.145m/2.076m = 7.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.221m/2.076m = 10.6%.
Moldova: 14th century AD, Moldavia independent; 16th century, Ottoman Turkish conquest; 1791-1793, East Moldavia conquered by Russia; 1812, Russian occupation of Bessarabia; 1914-1918, WW1; 1918, Romanian acquisition of Turkish Moldavia and Bessarabia; 1924, USSR established a constituent Moldova republic; 1939-1945, WW2; 1941, annexed by Romania; 1944, reconquest by Russia; 1991, Moldova independence; joined the CIS; rebellion of the heavily Russian Trans-Dniester region; 1997, peace with more autonomy and safeguards for ethnic Russian and Turkish regions; 1999, most Russian troops left but with some remaining in the Trans-Dniester region; continuing Communist support in post-independence democratic elections; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Romania, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.254m/4.259m = 6.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.239m/4.259m = 5.6%.
Poland: 9th-10th century AD, Slavic Polians dominant, Wend communities; 1410, Polish-Lithuanian army defeated Teutonic Knights at Tannenberg; 1386-1572, Polish-Lithuanian Jagiello dynasty founded by Ladislaus II; 1462, Teutonic Knights crushed; 1569, union of Lithuania and Poland; 16th-17th century, wars against Turks, Sweden and Russia; 1655, Swedish victories; North Livonia lost; 1677, Ukraine lost to Russia; 1683, John Sobiewski defended Vienna from the Turks; 18th century, increasing Russian domination; successive 1772, 1793 and 1795 partitions distributed Poland between Prussia, Russia and Austria; 1794, revolt by Kosciusko; mass emigration; 1807, Napoleonic Treaty of Tilsit, Grand Duchy of Warsaw; 1815, Congress of Vienna, “Congress Poland” linked to Russia, Western Poland to Prussians, Galicia to Austria and Krakow independent; 1830 November Revolution, eventually defeated by Russians; 1848, Galician revolt suppressed and Krakow annexed; 1848, rebellions in Prussian and Austrian Poland; 1863, January Revolution in Russian Poland; subsequent Prussian area Germanification and Russian area Russification; WW1, Poland under Piludski initially against the Russians; 1917, Germans imprisoned Piludski; 1918, Poland independent; 1919, Treaty of Versaille, return of Silesia and a Polish Corridor to the Baltic; 1920-1921, war with Russia; 1926, coup; increasing anti-Semitism; 1939, German-USSR non-aggression treaty; September 1 1939, German Blitzkrieg on Poland; WW2 commenced; Russians later invaded from East; 1941, Germany attacked Russia; Jewish Warsaw Ghetto revolt; 6 million Poles died including 2.6 million/3.0 million Jews; industrial killing at Auschwitz killed 1 million; 1943, Germans revealed Russian Katyn Massacre of 10,000 Polish officers (admitted by the Russians in 1990); 1944, the Russians permitted the Germans to crush the Warsaw revolt; 1945, Potsdam Conference, Prussia East of the Oder and Neisse Rivers to Poland and Germans expelled; 1947, “elected” Communist government; 1949, joined COMECON; 1955, Warsaw Treaty Organization; 1956, Poznan riots; 1960, Gomulka denounced Stalinist excesses and freed Cardinal Wyszynski but revived anti-Semitism and practised repression; 1968, Poland assisted in the invasion of Czechoslovakia; 1978, Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II (Pope from 1978-2005); 1980, economic privation; Gdansk strikes, Solidarity Movement led by Lech Walesa; 1989, Solidarity legalized, won elections; 1990, Walesa president; 2003, Poland joined US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Sweden, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Germany (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.677m/38.516m = 7.8%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 1.368m/38.516m = 3.6%.
Romania: 2nd-3rd century AD, Roman Dacia; Roman language and Christianization; successive invasions by Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Magyars; 13th century, Mongol invasion and occupation; 1417, Wallachia submitted to Ottoman Turkish hegemony; 16th century, Moldavia taken by Turks; Transylvanian Hungarian hegemony; 1601, Michael the Brave of Wallachia ruled most of Romania; 1711, Turkish domination; Constantinople Greek (Phanariot) governors; 1774, increased Russian influence by treaty in Wallachia and Moldavia; 1821, Romanian and Turkish expulsion of Greeks from Moldavia; 1822, Turkish concession of Romanian governors; 1828-1829, Russo-Turkish War; 1848, Romanian rebellion suppressed by Turks and Russians; Moldavia and Wallachia under Turkish hegemony, South Bessarabia to Moldavia; 1859-1866, Cuza ruled Wallachia and Moldavia, relieved peasantry; 1866, constitution; 1877, joined Russia against the Turks; 1878, Congress of Berlin, Romanian independence; 1881, constitutional monarchy; 1914-1918, WW1; 1916-1918, defeated by Austria-Germany; 1918, annexed Bessarabia (from Russia), Bukovina (from Austria) and Transylvania (from Hungary); 1919, put down Bela Kun communist régime and installed Admiral Horthy in Hungary; 1920s, anti-Semitism and persecution and massacres of Hungarians; 1930s, rise of fascist politics and the Iron Guard; 1939-1945, WW2; 1940, Russia seized territories; 1941-1944, Romania allied with Germany; 750,000/1million Jews killed and the survivors largely went to Israel post-war; 1945, Communist government; 1947-1965, Gheorgiu-Dej Communist dictator; 1965- 1989, Ceauşescu Communist dictatorship increasingly independent of the Soviet line; 1980s, increasing poverty; 1989, Ceauşescu and his wife captured and executed; 1990, constitutional democracy; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, joined NATO.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 1.133m/22.228m = 5.1%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 1.029m/22.228m = 4.6%.
Russia: 7th century BC, Celtic Scythians; 3rd century, Sarmatians; successive invasions by Goths (3rd century), Huns (4th century), Avars (6th century), Khazars (7th century) and Eastern Bulgars (8th century); 9th century, extensive Slav settlement; Varangians (Norse Viking traders and soldiers from Scandinavia) founded Novgorod and Kiev; 10th century, Orthodox Christianity; 12th century, Kievan Rus empire; 13th century, devastating Mongol (Tatar) invasion; 1237-1480, Tatar Empire of the Golden Horde; 14th century, Belarus, Ukraine and part of Russia ruled by Lithuania-Poland; 14th-16th century, rise of Moscow-based Russian state; progressive defeat of Tatars; 1533-1584, Ivan the Terrible, defeated Tatar Khanates, began colonization of Siberia and broke the power of the nobles (boyars); 17th century, defeat of Polish invaders; commencement of the Romanov dynasty; establishment of peasant serfdom; 1689-1725, Peter the Great Westernized; conquered Ingria, Livonia, Estonia, Karelia and Finland; controlled the Church; 1762-1796, Catherine the Great defeated Poles; Russia occupied Belarus, Ukraine, Crimea , Eastern Poland and Lithuania; 1812, the Napoleonic invasion army was virtually destroyed by the Russian winter; 19th century, massive Russian expansion into Finland, Siberia, the Far East, the Caucasus, the Balkans and Central Asia; industrialization; emergence as a dominant European power; expansion of liberal views; anti-Semitic pogroms led to mass Jewish migration to America; 1854-1856, Crimean War against Britain and Turkey; 1861, liberation of the serfs; 1860, Vladivostok founded; 1892, Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia; 1904-1905, defeated by the Japanese; 1905, Revolution suppressed; continuation of anti-Semitic pogroms; 1914-1918, WW1, Russia fought the German-Austrian alliance; 1917, Russian Revolution., 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, loss of Baltic states and Eastern Poland; 1917-1922, civil war between Red and White Armies; Russian famine; 1920s-1930s, Lenin; Stalin; massive industrialization and collectivisation; Ukrainian deportations, killings and famine (7 million dead); Stalinist purges (1 million killed); 1939, non-aggression pact; 1939-1945, WW2; 1941, German invasion; siege of Leningrad (St Petersburg) (1941-1944); Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943); Battle of Kursk (1943); Battle for Berlin (1945); 20 million war dead; 13 million military deaths; 750,000/2.5 million Soviet Jews killed; 1945, Yalta Conference of Allies; Potsdam Conference of Allies; 1945-1990, USSR control over Eastern Europe; installed communist regimes; Cold War with support notably for Cuba, Egypt, Vietnam; 1956, de-Stalinization under Kruschev; 1963, Cuban missile crisis; 1960s, lead in Space race; 1968, invasion of Czechoslovakia; 1956, invasion of Hungary (0.1 million Hungarians killed or deported; 1979-1990, invasion of Afghanistan (15,000 Russian deaths; Afghan excess mortality 2.7 million); 1986, Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster; 1980s, USSR lost the Star Wars race; 1991, Yeltsin, democratic Russian leader; Gorbachev resigned; break-up of the USSR, independence for various republics, formation of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States); 1990s, continued rapprochement with the West, immense, corrupt privatization of Russian assets and rise of the Russian Mafia; 1999, under Putin Russian forces invaded Chechnya (the war has so far killed 0.2 million); 2004, Beslan atrocity; agreements with China.
Foreign occupation: Germany (pre-1950); none (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: none; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 11.897m/141.553m = 8.4%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 5.093m/141.553m = 3.6%.
Serbia & Montenegro: 6th-7th century AD, settlement by Slav Serbs; 9th century, Christianization (Orthodox); Rascia; conflict with Hungarians and Bulgarians; 1159, Stephen Nemanja founded Serbian dynasty; 1219, Serbian Orthodox Church; 1371, Maritsa River defeat by the Turks; 1389, defeat by the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo Field; subsequent tribute to the Turks; 1459, annexation by the Turks; 1521 Hungarian-held areas captured by the Turks; 16th-19th century, Serbia under oppressive Turkish rule, disarmament and nobles eliminated; 1804, Karageorge (Karadjordjević) led rebellion; Belgrade liberated; 1812, Treaty of Bucharest, temporary Serbian autonomy agreed; 1812, Milos Obrenović rebellion, Karageorge assassinated; 1842, Alexander Karadjordjević took power; Congress of Paris, Serbia under European protection but Turkish hegemony; Milos Obrenović returned; 1867, Turks left; liberal constitution under Milan Obrenović; 1876, war on Turkey, Serbs defeated and Russian involvement; 1878, Congress of Berlin, Serbian independence recognized; 1882, Milan Obrenović made king; 1903, assassinations of the last Obrenović rulers; Peter Karadjordjević as king; 1980, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina; Serbian instigated Balkan league (Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece) to counter Austro-Hungarians and Turks; 1912, defeated Turkey; 1914, Serbia defeated Bulgaria and acquired Macedonia; 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, precipitating Russian involvement and WW1; 1914-1918, WW1; 1915, Bulgaria joined Austria-Hungary and Germany and Serbia was defeated; 1918, Yugoslavia formed; 1940, Germany invaded; Mihajlovic nationalists and Tito Communists fought the Nazis; 58,000/70,000 Yugoslav Jews killed; 1946, Yugoslavia with 6 constituent republics under Tito; 1980, Tito died; 1986, Milosevic Serbian leader; 1989, Kosovo autoonomy ended; 1992-1995, Balkans war; 200,000 dead; war crimes and ethnic cleansing; 1995, Dayton Accord; NATO peacekeepers; 1999, Serbian and Kosovo Liberation Front violence in Kosovo, NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo; hundreds of thousands of Muslim Kosovans were deported or fled to Macedonia or Albania; 2002, Milosevic handed over to war crimes commission; assassination of Djindjic.
Foreign occupation: Turkey, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany (pre-1950); multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, NATO, US, UK and German air forces; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.388m/10.513m = 3.7%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.620m/10.513m = 5.9%.
Slovakia: 5th-6th century AD, Slavic settlement; 9th century, part of Moravia and Christianized; 10th century, Magyar (Hungarian) conquest; 10th century-1918, major Hungarian domination; 1526, Turkish victory over the Hungarians at Mohács; Slovakia came under greater Hungarian and Austrian Habsburg control; 19th century, increasing Magyarization and increased Slovak nationalism; 1920-1938, Slovakia (with a big Hungarian minority) was a province of Czechoslovakia; 1938-1944, largely Catholic Slovakia was an autonomous state of Czechoslovakia under Catholic Father Tiso during German occupation; extermination of Jews and Gypsies; 1944, liberated by USSR; 1945, again a province of Czechoslovakia; 1948, Communist government in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia; 1968, Soviet invasion to crush the Dubček-led “Prague Spring”; 1969, increased autonomy; 1989, fall of Communism; 1993, independent Slovakia; 2003, joined US Coalition in Iraq; 2004, became a member of NATO and of the EU.
Foreign occupation: Austria, Hungary, Germany, Russia (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.130m/5.411m = 2.4%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.119m/5.411m = 2.2%.
Slovenia: Illyrian and Celtic tribes; 1st century BC, Roman Pannonia and Panicum; 6th century AD, Slav Sarno society; 788, conquered by Franks; Christianized under Charlemagne; 843, under Bavaria; 1335-1918, Carinthia, Carniola and Styria regions part of Austria; 1918, part of Yugoslavia; 1939-1945, WW2; 1941, divided between Italy, Germany and Hungary; 1945, part of Yugoslavia; 1990, elected non-Communist government under Kučan; 1991, declared independence; Yugoslav forces entered for several weeks and then withdrew; “money for blood” Yugoslav debt reconciliation deal brokered by Austria; 2004, member of NATO and the EU.
Foreign occupation: Austria, Austria-Hungary, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, Italy, Germany (pre-1950); multi-ethnic Yugoslavia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: multi-ethnic Yugoslavia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 0.032m/1.979m = 1.6%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 0.038m/1.979m = 1.9%.
Ukraine: pre-Christian era Celtic Scythians and then Sarmatians; 1st-4th century AD, successive Goth, Hun and Avar invasions; 4th-7th century, Slavic consolidations; 7th century, part of Khazar Empire; 9th century, Varangians (Norse Vikings from Sweden and Scandinavia) defeated the Khazars and established the Kievan Rus; 1019-1054, Yaroslav lead Kiev-based empire; 13th century, conquest by Mongols; 14th century, Lithuanian and Polish expansion into Ukraine; 1478, Tatar Khanates of Crimea became part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire; 1596, Catholic persecution of Orthodox Christianity led to Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church recognizing Papal authority; 16th-17th century, Cossack rebellions against Polish rule; 1654, Cossack Chmielnicki reached accommodation with Moscow-based Russians; 1667, Russo-Polish War, Ukraine split around the Dnieper River, west to Poland, east to Russia; 1709, Mazepa in alliance with Swedes was defeated by Russians under Peter the Great; 18th century, Catherine the Great consolidated Russian control over the Ukraine; 1783, Crimea annexed; 1772-1795, partitions of Poland re-joined western and eastern Ukraine under Russian rule; 19th century, industrialization and increased nationalism, especially in Galicia; 1918, Ukraine independence under Petlura; 1922, final Soviet victory; 1920s and 1930s, state terror, forced collectivization, deportation and murder of Ukrainians; 1930-1933, Stalin-made Ukrainian famine, 7 million perished; 1941-1944, German invasion; extermination of Jews (e.g. the Babi Yar atrocity near Kiev); slave labour of Ukrainians; killing of prisoners of war; USSR war dead about 20 million; extensive Ukrainian collaboration as well as opposition by partisans; post-war payback: killing of Ukrainian collaborating soldiers returned by Allies; Crimean Tatars exiled to Siberia; Russification resisted by Ukrainians; 1986, Chernobyl nuclear disaster contaminated huge areas of Ukraine and Byelorussia; 1990, declaration of sovereignty; 1991, independence; member of CIS; 1994, signed Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; 1996, completed nuclear arsenal transfer to Russia; tensions over the Black Sea fleet; 2003, Azov Sea agreement with Russia; 2004, “Orange Revolution” over pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine political corruption; new election gave victory to pro-Western Yushchenko (non-fatally poisoned by secret agents before the election); Ukrainian forces joined the US Coalition in Iraq.
Foreign occupation: Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Germany (pre-1950); Russia (post-1950); post-1950 foreign military presence: Russia; post-1950 excess mortality/2005 population = 5.279m/47.782m = 11.0%; post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population = 1.480m/47.782m = 3.1%.
4.5 Summary
Europe was successively settled by Celtic and Germanic tribes. Early sophisticated urban civilizations flourished in Mediterranean Italy, Spain and Greece. Western and Southern Europe were incorporated into the Roman Empire which finally succumbed to Germanic invaders. Slavic invaders occupied most of Eastern Europe with particular areas dominated by Letts, Wends, Estonians, Finns and Hungarians. Muslim Moorish civilization flowered in Spain. Charlemagne forcibly spread Christianity to Central Europe. Norse invaders from Scandinavia impacted on Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Russia. The so-called Dark Ages led to a prosperous Medieval period that was temporarily crushed by the Black Death 25 million deaths). Constantinople and the Balkans fell to the Ottoman Turks with the consequent cultural Renaissance in the West and ultimately the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. Major Medieval and Renaissance states included England, France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire (variously including Spain, the Netherlands, German states, Bohemia, Austria and Hungary), the Italian city states, the Hanseatic League, Denmark-Sweden, Poland-Lithuania and Russia.
After the expulsion of the Moors, Spain and Portugal variously invaded the Americas, Africa and South East Asia. Britain and France consolidated and colonized North America. The decimation of indigenous Indian populations in the Americas was followed by importation of African slaves. Holland seized the East Indies, Britain defeated the French and took India, Canada and Australia. The independent United States seized the American West and incorporated French and Spanish North American possessions. The 19th century saw the final carve up of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Russian expansion into Central Asia, Latin American independence and ultimately US hegemony over South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Enlightenment and the industrial revolution were followed by increasing liberal and nationalist sentiment in the 19th century.
The catastrophe of WW1 led to the Russian revolution and transient independence for Eastern European countries. The German Nazis conquered most of Europe, killed 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians but were finally defeated after the industrially-dominant US entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Post-war, Western Europe re-built and finally consolidated peacefully and rationally into the European Economic Community (EEC) and thence the European Union (EU). Eastern Europe had nearly half a century under Communism with all but Albania and Yugoslavia under Soviet hegemony behind the Iron Curtain. Western European countries formally surrendered their colonial empires after a short era of colonial wars. However the US exercised military power globally with major Asian wars and occupations, Latin American invasions, surrogate violence and Cold War African conflicts. Other Overseas European countries variously participated in the Asian wars of the US Empire and Israeli colonialism involved repeated wars with its neighbours. US victory over Russia in the Arms Race and the incipient Star Wars led to the collapse of Communism, freedom for Eastern European and Central Asian republics and domination of the world by an increasingly violent and unilateralist US. Violent world domination by the “democratic imperialism” of US Empire is in marked contrast to the immediately post-WW2 era of UN oversight of a peaceful world.
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