229-228 B.C. 1st Illyrian War Roman army crushes Illyrians. (ancient ancestors of Yugoslavs. The Illyrian language is regarded by some linguists as the ancestor of the modern Albanian language)

219 B.C. 2nd Illyrian War Roman punitive expedition smashes Illyrians.

34 B.C. Illyricum (Latin for Illyria) pacified by Romans.

395 A.D. Roman Empire divided into West and East (Byzantine), Easterners adopt Eastern Orthodox religion; those in West, Roman Catholicism.

441-443 A.D. Attila the Hun invades Illyricum, last bulwark of Western culture in the ancient world.

650 A.D. Southern Slavs fully occupy the former Illyria, driving out the original inhabitants.

1235-1239 A.D. Hungary-Bosnia War Ends inconclusively.

1254 A.D. Serbia is defeated by Hungary and loses Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1349-1352 A.D. Bosnia is invaded and partially annexed by Serbia.

1363 A.D. War with Hungary and revolt of the Bosnian nobles against central authority.

1376 A.D. Bosnia annexes western Serbia.

1386-1388 A.D. Turks invade Bosnia and are defeated at the Battle of Bileca.

June 20, 1389, Battle of Kosovo Southern Slavs defeated by Ottoman Turks who hold sway over Balkans for next 490 years.

1415 A.D. Bosnians defeat Hungarians at Doboj.

1443-1444 A.D. Bosnians take part in last Crusade which is defeated by Moslems.

1460-1463 A.D. Bosnian-Turkish War Bloody battles are fought. Herzegovina is not totally subdued until 1482. Christian peasants' sons are forcibly recruited into the Turkish corps of janissaries. Turkish rule lasts 415 years until 1878.

June 20, 1593, Battle of Sissek Austrian army annihilates Ottoman force of Bosnia.

1688, 1690, 1693 & 1697 A.D. Austria invades Bosnia. Mass migration of Bosnian Christians. Sarajevo captured in 1697.

September 18, 1739, Treaty of Belgrade Austria abandons portions of Bosnia.

1787 Austrians occupy Bosnia during Turkish War.

June 17 & 27, 1788, Naval Battles of the Liman John Paul Jones (yes, the American Admiral), commanding the Russian Black Sea Fleet, obliterates Turkish flotilla: 3,000 die.

1789 Austrians repulse Turkish invasion of Bosnia. Two years later, Austria receives a strip of northern Bosnia.

1821 Bosnian Moslem aristocracy revolts against the "infidel" sultan of Istanbul.

1828 A second Bosnian Moslem revolt is quelled with much bloodshed during the Russo-Turkish War.

1821-1828 Greek War of Independence Adams administration refuses to intervene, fearing losing "the power of extraction". 120,000 lives are lost (88% Greek civilians).

October 4-November 7, 1827 U.S. Mediterranean Squadron patrols Aegean Sea to combat pirates. USS Warren & USS Porpoise engage in seven actions. 44 sailors of the Porpoise kill 40 pirates while recapturing an English brig in Doro Passage.

1831 Bosnian Moslem nobles wage holy war against "traitor" Ottoman authorities.

1837-1839 & 1841 Bosnians rebel against Turkey. 3,000 civilians are killed.

1850 Turkish army crushes Moslem aristocracy of Bosnia. Sarajevo becomes new capitol.

1858 Christian peasantry rebels in northern Bosnia.

1861-1862 Revolt in Herzegovina. 2,000 Christian civilians are killed.

1875-1877 Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina rebel against Turks. Entire Balkan rebellion claims 30,000 lives (66% civilian). Russian volunteers come to the aid of their Slavic "little brothers".

July 13, 1878, End of Turkish Rule in Bosnia / Treaty of Berlin Austria occupies Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo occupied August 19, 1878. Moslems wage guerrilla resistance until October. Vienna is forced to mobilize an army of 200,000 men for duty in Bosnia.

1881-1882 Insurrection in Herzegovina is sparked by introduction of Austrian draft.

October 7, 1908 Austria formally annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina outright.

1912-1913, 1st & 2nd Balkan Wars Ottoman Empire loses more tha 80% of its Balkan territories and 70% of its European population. Retains Thrace. Total military deaths: 143,000. President Taft refuses to intervene.

June 28, 1914, World War I Bosnian terrorist assassinates Austrian Archduke, igniting WWI. On September 6, Serbs invade Austrian-held Bosnia. Serbs mobilize 707,343 troops during war; 45,000 killed in action, 80,000 non-battle deaths, 131,148 wounded in action. Serbia suffers 650,000 civilian dead.

December 1, 1918 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formed (includes Bosnia). Bosnian Moslems are 32.4% of population.

November 20, 1918-March 28, 1919, U.S. Occupation of Dalmatia Members of U.S. Army 332nd Infantry Regiment deploy to Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast to keep peace between Slavs and Italians. Units occupy Montenegro (2nd Battalion), Treviso (1st Battalion) and Fiume (3rd Battalion).

September, 1919, Siezure of Fiume Six months after U.S. troops depart, and Italian mercenary force occupies Fiume (Rijeka) for three months. Touches off international crisis.

1929 Yugoslavia is created from six republics.

April 6-17, 1941, World War II Operation 25, Germany invades Yugoslavia. Zagreb (April 10) and Sarajevo (April 15) fall. Unconditional resistance ends April 17. Guerrilla warfare begins.

1941-1945 A three-way war is waged between Germans/Ustashe, Partisans and Chetniks. Yugoslavia mobilizes 3,741,000 (305,000 killed an action & 425,000 wounded in action) during WWII. Civilian dead: 1,355,000. Germans sustain 15% casualties.

October 21, 1943-April 12, 1945, U.S. Bombing Campaign over Yugoslavia Begins at Skopje, Macedonia and ends at Maribor, Slovenia. OSS teams assist in rescuing 500 downed U.S. airmen. 80 killed airmen are buried in Belgrade American Cemetary during war.

March 27-September 15, 1944, U.S. Air Supply Missions Flown by 60th Troop Carrier Group; 34 crewmembers are lost in action. 7th and 51st Troop Carrier Squadrons participate.

November 7, 1944 U.S. 82nd Squadron fighters mmistakenly shoot down three Russian planes over Nis, Yugoslavia, and kill 32 Russians in convoy.

November 29, 1945 Communist rule begins.

May 4, 1945-October 24, 1947, U.S. Mans Morgan Line in Venezia Giulia Province First units are 91st, 10th Mountain, 85th & 34th divisions and II Corps. 88th division takes over October 3, 1945.

December 24, 1945 Private William Shinn of E Company, 349th Infantry is shot to death by two Yugoslav partisians.

July 12, 1946 7 man squad from L Company, 351st Infantry is ambushed near Ursina. Firefight kills two Yugoslavs. On July 16th, Private First Class Walter L. Kagawa is ambushed and killed on the highway between Gorizia and Trieste along the Adriatic coast.

August 9 & 19, 1946, Shoot Down of U.S. Planes Brought down by Yugoslav air force near Bled. Seven crewmembers held (later released) in first incident. Downing of C-47 claims 5 lives; Captains Schreiber, Claeys & Freestone and Corporals Comko and Lower.

1947-1954, U.S. Occupation of Trieste Core formed by 351st Infantry. 5,000 GIs at Opicinia. 120,000 GIs eventually serve there and in environs.

January, 1948 Marines dispatched to Adriatic Sea in response to Tito's belligerent gestures.

October, 1953 Warships of the U.S. 6th Fleet are dispatched to the upper Adriatic Sea.

October 24, 1954 Last GIs depart Trieste.

I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that most readers will be familiar with the recent events in the Balkans. If not, investigation will show them to be depressingly similar to those noted above.

I would imagine that there were political "discussions" in the Roman Senate not too different from those in the American Senate.

What was that line to the effect that those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it?

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), March 30, 1999

Answers

Hardliner,

Don't forget that the US was running black ops to support anti- Communist partisans throughout eastern Europe immediately after WW2. That fighting sputtered on for years. Also, one of the neonatal CIA's first "missions" was to insert agents into Albania. It was a mission inherited from the Brits, who very thoughtfully provided a liason officer from their own well developed spookery. The Brits had never sucessfully infiltrated an agent, and somehow the Agency never did either. Oh, did I mention the Brit liason officer's name was Kim Philby, who shortly thereafter retired to a vacation dacha in the USSR???

-- (li'ldog@stillontheporch.com), March 30, 1999.

li'ldog,

You can bet that neither the OSS nor the Abwehr, which both operated in Yugoslavia extensively during WWII and later joined to become the CIA, lost touch with their Balkan contacts.

Between them and the KGB, there's probably enough "spook" material on the Balkans to fill a library. . .

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), March 30, 1999.

Hardliner: simply amazing. (and this was just off the top of your head?) As quoted elsewhere--never get in a war with a country that celebrates a defeat in 1389 as a national holiday.

-- Spidey (in@jam.com), March 31, 1999.

Spidey --- That is VERY funny. And true.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 31, 1999.

Spidey,

I just wish I had a head that I could take all that off of the top of! Most of the material came from the February, 1996 issue of VFW Magazine. The staff of the magazine compiled a list of events for the same purpose that I used it here (although it was somewhat longer); to provide a perspective on the Balkans.

That was on the occasion of our sending the first of 32,000 ground troops into the Balkans as "peacekeepers". The same megalomaniac that sent our troops into that "pit of vipers" and promised that they'd be "home by Christmas" (Christmas, 1996, and some of them are still there), is now making war on Serbia.

As the editors of VFW Magazine put it, "(our)Soldiers are about to become entangled in a web of ancient animosities. Bosnia has had a fearsome reputation as a battleground since time immemorial. During the Middle Ages, it was so uninviting of a land that it was regarded by some as a country 'overgrown with thorns and nettle and a breed of vipers'. GIs will find themselves amidst several species of vipers, all with fangs plenty full of venom."

As you can see, the Roman Senators, Turkish Sultans, Austrian Kings, Attila the Hun (who BTW, was the most successful of all), Adolf Hitler, Soviet Premiers and American Presidents have all "had a go" at dealing with the Balkans.

The smart ones, like John Quincy Adams and William Howard Taft, kept their hands off!

Does anyone really believe that "The Hero of Zippergate" packs the gear to even be playing in this league?

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), March 31, 1999.

Samuel Clemens toured Europe in his day. When he came back, he wrote,

"Europe is a place which generates more history than it can consume locally."

(I'm quoting from memory here...)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 31, 1999.

Hardliner, thank you very much for posting this. History. It is amazing anybody is alive in that region at all. Quicksands of sucking quagmire indeed.

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 01, 1999.

Another who knew enough to not get involved in the Balkans was Napoleon. (Although he did foolishly try to take Moscow)

-- Spidey (in@jam.com), April 01, 1999.