3rd Division (United Kingdom)
The 3rd Division is a regular army division of the British Army. It was created in 1809 by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, as part of the Anglo-Portuguese Army, for service in the Peninsular War, was known as the Fighting 3rd under Sir Thomas Picton during the Napoleonic Wars; the division fought at the Battle of Waterloo, as well as during the Crimean War and the Second Boer War. As a result of bitter fighting in 1916, during the First World War, the division became referred to as the 3rd Division, or the Iron Division or Ironsides. During the Second World War, the division fought in the Battle of France including a rearguard action during the Dunkirk Evacuation, played a prominent role in the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944; the division was to have been part of a proposed Commonwealth Corps, formed for a planned invasion of Japan in 1945–46, served in the British Mandate of Palestine. During the Second World War, the insignia became the "pattern of three" — a black triangle trisected by an inverted red triangle, created by Bernard Montgomery to instil pride in his troops.
The division was part of the Allied British and Portuguese forces that took part in the Peninsular War. It fought at the Battle of Bussaco in September 1810, the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro in May 1811 and the Battle of El Bodón in September 1811, before further combat at the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812, the Siege of Badajoz in March 1812 and the Battle of Salamanca in July 1812, it fought at the Siege of Burgos in September 1812 and the Battle of Vitoria in June 1813. It pursued the French army into France and saw action at the Battle of the Pyrenees in July 1813, the Battle of Nivelle in November 1813 and the Battle of the Nive in December 1813. After that it fought at the Battle of Orthez in February 1814 and the Battle of Toulouse in April 1814. According to Picton, the fighting by the 3rd was so intense at the Battle of Vitoria, that the division lost 1,800 men having taken a key bridge and village, where they were subjected to fire by 40 to 50 cannons, a counter-attack on the right flank.
The 3rd pushed on with other divisions to capture the village of Arinez. The 3rd Division was present at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo in the Waterloo campaign under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Alten K. C. B.. The 3rd Division took part in the Crimean War and fought in the Battle of Alma and the Siege of Sevastopol, it was under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Richard England. During the Second Boer War the division began under the command of General Gatacre. In 1902 the army was restructured, a 3rd Infantry division was established permanently at Bordon as part of the 1st Army Corps, comprising the 5th and 6th Infantry Brigades. During the First World War the 3rd Division was a permanently established Regular Army division, amongst the first to be sent to France at the outbreak of the war as part of the British Expeditionary Force; the 3rd Division served on the Western Front in France and Belgium for four years, from 1914 to 1918. During this time, it was nicknamed "The Iron Division".
Its first commander during the war, Major-General Hubert Hamilton, was killed by shellfire near Béthune in October 1914. The division served in many major battles of the war, including the Battle of Mons and the subsequent Great Retreat, the First Battle of Ypres. After the end of the First World War, the division was stationed in southern England where it formed part of Southern Command. In 1937, one of its brigades, the 9th Infantry Brigade, was commanded by Brigadier Bernard Montgomery, he assumed command of the 3rd Division shortly before Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939. The 3rd Infantry Division, under the command of Major General Bernard Montgomery, was sent overseas to France in late September 1939, just under a month after the outbreak of the Second World War. There the division became part of Lieutenant General Alan Brooke's II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force. However, unlike in the First World War, where the division was immediately engaged in desperate fighting, there was no action.
Montgomery began training the men of his division in a tough training regime. As with most of the rest of the BEF, training was hampered by a shortage of modern equipment. In May 1940, after several months of relative inactivity, the German Army launched its attack in the west which resulted in the BEF being split up from the French Army, evacuated from Dunkirk. Due to Montgomery's strict training regime, the 3rd Division suffered comparatively few casualties and earned a reputation as one of the best British divisions in France. During the evacuation Montgomery was promoted to temporary command of II Corps and Brigadier Kenneth Anderson took temporary control of the division before, in July, Major General James Gammell assumed command. For over a year after Dunkirk the composition of 3rd Division remained unchanged. In September 1941, the 7th Guards Brigade was transferred to help create the Guards Armoured Division, and, in November, the 37th Infantry Brigade Group joined the 3rd Division and was renumbered 7th Brigade with the following composition: The brigade anti-tank companies were disbanded during 1941 and 92nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery the 7th Battalion, Loyal Regiment, joined the division in March 1942.
In June 1942, 3rd Infantry Division was re
Pécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the economic centre of Baranya County. Pécs is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pécs; the city Sopianae was founded by Romans at the beginning of the 2nd century, in an area peopled by Celts and Pannoni tribes. By the 4th century, it became the capital of Valeria province and a significant early Christian center; the early Christian necropolis is from this era which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in December 2000. Its episcopate was founded in 1009 by Stephen I, the first university in Hungary was founded in Pécs in 1367 by Louis I the Great.. Pécs was formed into one of the cultural and arts center of the country by bishop Janus Pannonius, great humanist poet. Pécs has a rich heritage from the age of a 150-year-long Ottoman occupation, like the mosque of Pasha Qasim the Victorious on Széchenyi square. Pécs was a multi-ethnic city where many cultural layers were encrusted melting different values of the history of two thousand years.
In 1998 Pécs was given the UNESCO prize Cities for peace for maintaining the cultures of the minorities, for its tolerant and helping attitude toward refugees of the Yugoslav Wars. In 2007 Pécs was third, in 2008 it was second Livable city in the category of cities between 75,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. In 2010, Pécs was selected to be the European Capital of Culture sharing the title together with Essen and Istanbul; the city's motto is: "The Borderless City". After receiving the title major renewal started in the city. Renewed public places, streets and neighbourhoods, new cultural centers, a concert hall, a new library and center and a cultural quarter were designed; the earliest name for the territory was its Roman name of Sopianæ. The name comes from the plural of the Celtic sop meaning "marsh". Contrary to the popular belief, the name did not signify a single city, there are no traces of an encircling wall from the early Roman era, only from the 4th century; the medieval city was first mentioned in 871 under the name Quinque Basilicae The name refers to the fact that when constructing the churches of the city, the builders used material from five old Christian chapels.
In Latin documents the city was mentioned as Quinque Ecclesiae The name Pécs appears in documents in 1235 in the word Pechyut. In Turkish "beş" means 5; the name is first recorded after the Mongol invasion of Europe. In other languages: in Latin, Quinque Ecclesiae. Pécs is located in Central Europe, in the Carpathian Basin, in a southern Hungarian county, center of Baranya, it is bordered by Mecsek from the north, a plain from the south. Pécs has a significant mining past. Mecsek dolomitic water is famous for its high density of minerals at constant poise; the city of Pécs is located near to the border of Croatia. Its southern part is rather plain, it has a favorable climate by the border of a still flourishing woody area. During the hot summer nights a cooling air streams down from Mecsek to clean the air of the city. Pécs is open from the south. Mecsek lifts up to 400–600 meters from the Pécsi plain of about 120–130 meters. Jakab-hill, located in western Mecsek, is 592m high, straight above Pécs, is 612 m, Misina is 535 m.
Higher parts of the city climb up to 200–250 m Pécsbánya, Szabolcsfalu and Somogy. Graveyards pulled back to a small area. Woody areas start from about 300 m height. Mecsek is divided by several valleys which have key role in ameliorating the climate of the city without lakes and rivers. Waters coming down from Mecsek are collected by Pécsi water under the east-west rail road leading them to the Danube; the area has been inhabited since ancient times, with the oldest archaeological findings being 6,000 years old. Before the Roman era the place was inhabited by Celts; when Western Hungary was a province of the Roman Empire, the Romans founded several wine-producing colonies under the collective name of Sopianae where Pécs now stands, in the early 2nd century. The centre of Sopianae was; some parts of the Roman aqueduct are still visible. When Pannonia province was divided into four administrative divisions, Sopianae was the capital of the division named Valeria. In the first half of the 4th century, Sopianae became an important Christian city.
The first Christian cemeteries, dating back to this age, are inscribed on the World Heritage List. By the end of the century, Roman rule weakened in the area due to attacks by Barbarians and Huns; when Charlemagne arrived in the area, it was ruled by Avars. Charlemagne, after conquering the area, annexed it to the Holy Roman Empire, it belonged to the Diocese of Salzburg. A document written in Salzburg in 871 is the first document mentioning the early medieval city under the name Quinque Basilicae. During the 9th century, the city was inhabited by Slavic and Avar peoples and was part of the Balaton Principality, a Frankish vassal state. According to György Györffy's theory from
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's Headquarters are located in Haren, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium. Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 29; the most recent member state to be added to NATO is Montenegro on 5 June 2017. NATO recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Ukraine as aspiring members. An additional 21 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs; the combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total.
Members have committed to reach or maintain defense spending of at least 2% of GDP by 2024. On 4 March 1947 the Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of a possible attack by Germany or the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II. In 1948, this alliance was expanded to include the Benelux countries, in the form of the Western Union referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organization, established by the Treaty of Brussels. Talks for a new military alliance which could include North America resulted in the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 by the member states of the Western Union plus the United States, Portugal, Norway and Iceland; the North Atlantic Treaty was dormant until the Korean War initiated the establishment of NATO to implement it, by means of an integrated military structure: This included the formation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in 1951, which adopted the Western Union's military structures and plans.
In 1952 the post of Secretary General of NATO was established as the organization's chief civilian. That year saw the first major NATO maritime exercises, Exercise Mainbrace and the accession of Greece and Turkey to the organization. Following the London and Paris Conferences, West Germany was permitted to rearm militarily, as they joined NATO in May 1955, in turn a major factor in the creation of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War. Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defense against a prospective Soviet invasion – doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966. In 1982 the newly democratic Spain joined the alliance; the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989–1991 removed the de facto main adversary of NATO and caused a strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature and focus on the continent of Europe.
This shift started with the 1990 signing in Paris of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe between NATO and the Soviet Union, which mandated specific military reductions across the continent that continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. At that time, European countries accounted for 34 percent of NATO's military spending. NATO began a gradual expansion to include newly autonomous Central and Eastern European nations, extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not been NATO concerns. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989, the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and Yugoslavia in 1999 during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, most of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF.
The organization has operated a range of additional roles since including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked five times following incidents in the Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, annexation of Crimea; the first post-Cold War expansion of NATO came with German reunification on 3 October 1990, when the former East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance. As part of post-Cold War restructuring, NATO's military structure was cut back and reorganized, with new forces such as the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps established; the changes brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union on the military balance in Europe were recognized in the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, signed in 1999. The policies of French President Nicolas Sarkozy resulted in a major reform of France's military position, culminating with the return to full membership on 4 April 2009, which included France rejoining the NATO Military Command Structure, while maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent.
Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional co
Serbia
Serbia the Republic of Serbia, is a country situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe in the southern Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. The sovereign state borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, Montenegro to the southwest; the country claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia's population is about seven million, its capital, ranks among the oldest and largest citiеs in southeastern Europe. Inhabited since the Paleolithic Age, the territory of modern-day Serbia faced Slavic migrations to the Balkans in the 6th century, establishing several sovereign states in the early Middle Ages at times recognized as tributaries to the Byzantine and Hungarian kingdoms; the Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by the Vatican and Constantinople in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the short-lived Serbian Empire. By the mid-16th century, the entirety of modern-day Serbia was annexed by the Ottomans, their rule was at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire, which started expanding towards Central Serbia from the end of the 17th century while maintaining a foothold in the north of the country.
In the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. Following disastrous casualties in World War I, the subsequent unification of the former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina with Serbia, the country co-founded Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples, which would exist in various political formations until the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro, peacefully dissolved in 2006. In 2008, the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of the UN, CoE, CERN, OSCE, PfP, BSEC, CEFTA, is acceding to the WTO. Since 2014 the country has been negotiating its EU accession with perspective of joining the European Union by 2025. Serbia dropped in ranking from Free to Partly Free in the 2019 Freedom House report. Since 2007, Serbia formally adheres to the policy of military neutrality.
An upper-middle income economy with a dominant service sector followed by the industrial sector and agriculture, the country ranks high on the Human Development Index, Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index. The origin of the name, "Serbia" is unclear. Various authors mentioned names of Serbs and Sorbs in different variants: Surbii, Serbloi, Sorabi, Sarbi, Serboi, Surbi, etc; these authors used these names to refer to Serbs and Sorbs in areas where their historical presence was/is not disputed, but there are sources that mention same or similar names in other parts of the World. Theoretically, the root *sъrbъ has been variously connected with Russian paserb, Ukrainian pryserbytysia, Old Indic sarbh-, Latin sero, Greek siro. However, Polish linguist Stanisław Rospond derived the denomination of Srb from srbati. Sorbian scholar H. Schuster-Šewc suggested a connection with the Proto-Slavic verb for "to slurp" *sьrb-, with cognates such as сёрбать, сьорбати, сёрбаць, srbati, сърбам and серебати.
From 1945 to 1963, the official name for Serbia was the People's Republic of Serbia, which became the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990. Since 1990, the official name of the country is the "Republic of Serbia". However, between the period from 1992 to 2006, the official names of the country were the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Archeological evidence of Paleolithic settlements on the territory of present-day Serbia are scarce. A fragment of a human jaw was believed to be up to 525,000 -- 397,000 years old. Around 6,500 years BC, during the Neolithic, the Starčevo and Vinča cultures existed in or near modern-day Belgrade and dominated much of Southeastern Europe. Two important local archeological sites from this era, Lepenski Vir and Vinča-Belo Brdo, still exist near the banks of the Danube. During the Iron Age, Thracians and Illyrians were encountered by the Ancient Greeks during their expansion into the south of modern Serbia in the 4th century BC.
The Celtic tribe of Scordisci settled throughout the area in the 3rd century BC and formed a tribal state, building several fortifications, including their capital at Singidunum and Naissos. The Romans conquered much of the territory in the 2nd century BC. In 167 BC the Roman province of Illyricum was established; as a result of this, contemporary Serbia extends or over several former Roman provinces, including Moesia, Praevalitana, Dalmatia and Macedoni
Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton–Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, United States, on 1 November 1995, formally signed in Paris, France, on 14 December 1995. These accords put an end to the 3 1⁄2 - one of the Yugoslav Wars. Though basic elements of the Dayton Agreement were proposed in international talks as early as 1992, these negotiations were initiated following the unsuccessful previous peace efforts and arrangements, the August 1995 Croatian military Operation Storm and its aftermath, the government military offensive against the Republika Srpska, conducted in parallel with NATO's Operation Deliberate Force. During September and October 1995, world powers, gathered in the Contact Group, applied intense pressure to the leaders of the three sides to attend the negotiations in Dayton, Ohio; the conference took place from 1–21 November 1995.
The main participants from the region were the President of the Republic of Serbia Slobodan Milošević, President of Croatia Franjo Tuđman, President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović with his Foreign Minister Muhamed Šaćirbeg. The peace conference was led by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, negotiator Richard Holbrooke with two Co-Chairmen in the form of EU Special Representative Carl Bildt and the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov. A key participant in the US delegation was General Wesley Clark; the head of the UK's team was Pauline Neville-Jones, political director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UK military representative was Col Arundell David Leakey. Paul Williams, through the Public International Law & Policy Group served as legal counsel to the Bosnian Government delegation during the negotiations; the secure site was chosen in order to remove all the parties from their comfort zone, without which they would have little incentive to negotiate.
Curbing the participants' ability to negotiate via the media was a important consideration. Richard Holbrooke wanted to prevent posturing through early leaks to the press. After having been initiated in Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November 1995, the full and formal agreement was signed in Paris on 14 December 1995 and witnessed by Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, French President Jacques Chirac, U. S. President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin; the agreement's main purpose is to promote peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to endorse regional balance in and around the former Yugoslavia, thus in a regional perspective. The present political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its structure of government were agreed upon, as part the constitution that makes up Annex 4 of the General Framework Agreement concluded at Dayton. A key component of this was the delineation of the Inter-Entity Boundary Line to which many of the tasks listed in the Annexes referred.
The State of Bosnia Herzegovina was set as of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and of the Republika Srpska. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a complete state, as opposed to a confederation. Although decentralised in its entities, it would still retain a central government, with a rotating State Presidency, a central bank and a constitutional court; the agreement mandated a wide range of international organizations to monitor and implement components of the agreement. The NATO-led IFOR was responsible for implementing military aspects of the agreement and deployed on 20 December 1995, taking over the forces of the UNPROFOR; the Office of the High Representative was charged with the task of civil implementation. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe was charged with organising the first free elections in 1996. On 13 October 1997, the Croatian 1861 Law Party and the Bosnia-Herzegovina 1861 Law Party requested the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to annul several decisions and to confirm one decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, more to review the constitutionality of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina since it was alleged that the agreement violated the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a way that it undermined the integrity of the state and could cause the dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Court reached the conclusion that it is not competent to decide the dispute in regards to the mentioned decisions since the applicants were not subjects that were identified in Article VI.3 of the Constitution on those who can refer disputes to the Court. The Court rejected the other request: the Constitutional Court is not competent to evaluate the constitutionality of the General Framework Agreement as the Constitutional Court has in fact been established under the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to uphold this Constitution The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted as Annex IV to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there cannot be a conflict or a possibility
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of the two political entities that compose Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Situated in the northern and eastern parts of the country, it is defined by its rich natural heritage, encompassing dense forests and rivers, its largest city and de facto capital, on the river Vrbas, is Banja Luka. The territory that now makes up Republika Srpska subject to Illyrian and Celtic settlement, was invaded by the Slavs in the 6th and 7th centuries and, in the mediaeval era, it was variously ruled by the Byzantine Empire, mediaeval Serbian states, the Frankish Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Bosnia, the mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary and, by the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire. After centuries of Ottoman-Habsburg conflict, the area became a part of the Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes in 1918 following World War I. Following World War II, it became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as part of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The creation of the modern entity of Republika Srpska dates to 1991, when six Serb Autonomous Regions united during the Yugoslav Wars. It achieved international recognition following the Dayton Accords and the end of the Bosnian War in 1995. Today, Republika Srpska maintains a parliamentary-style government, with the National Assembly holding legislative power within the entity. Republika Srpska is centralised, although it is split into 2nd-level administrative units, or opštine, of which there are 56; the legislature holds 83 seats, the current session is the ninth since the formation of Republika Srpska. Republika Srpska translated from Serbo-Croatian, means'Serb Republic'. Although the name Republika Srpska is variously glossed in English as'Serb Republic','Bosnian Serb Republic', or'Republic of Srpska', the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and English-language news sources such as the BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian refer to the entity by its untranslated name. According to Glas Srpske, a Bosnian Serb daily, the modern entity's name was created by its first minister of culture, Ljubomir Zuković.
Archaeological evidence in Republika Srpska, as well as bordering areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, attest to settlement since the Paleolithic. In 1976, near the modern-day town of Stolac in the then-relatively hospitable Neretva basin, archaeological artifacts in the form of cave engravings in Badanj and deer bones in the area were discovered to show hunter-gatherer settlement from as far back as 14,000 to 10,000 BC. Within the wider region of Herzegovina, similar discoveries tie the region's early settlement to Montenegro and coastal Croatia. With the Neolithic, came more permanent settlement; this occurred along the rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as farming spread from the southeast. A variety of idols of female character, were found in the Butmir site, along with dugouts. With the Indo-European migrations of the Bronze Age came the first use of metal tools in the region. Along with this kurgans. Remains of these mounds can be found in northwestern Bosnia near Prijedor, testament to not only denser settlement in the northern core of today's Republika Srpska but Bronze Age relics.
With the influx of the Iron Age, the Glasinac culture, developing near Sokolac in eastern Republika Srpska, was one of the most important of the country's long-standing Indo-European inhabitants, the Illyrians. These Illyrians—the Autariatae—were influenced by the Celts after the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. With the end of the Illyrian Wars, most of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska came under Roman control, within the province of Illyricum. In this period, the Romans consolidated the region through the construction of a dense road network, the Romanisation of the local population. Among these roads was the Via Argentaria, or the'Silver Way', which transported silver from the eastern mines of Bosnia to Roman population centres. Modern placenames, such as the Una river and the Sana river in the northwest, have Latin origins, meaning "the one" and the "healthy", respectively; this rule was not uninterrupted, however. Following 20 AD, the entirety of the country was conquered by the Romans and it was split between Pannonia and Dalmatia.
The most prominent Roman city in Bosnia was the small Servitium, near modern-day Gradiška in the northern part of the entity. Christianity spread to the region late at least due to the countryside's mountainous nature and its lack of large settlements. In the fourth century, the country began to be Christianised en masse. With the split of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires in 395, modern-day Republika Srpska fell under the Western Roman Empire. Testament to its and Bosnia and Herzegovina's religious polarization, it was conquered as a frontier of the Eastern Roman Empire, a harbinger for religious division to come. With the loosening of Roman grip on the region came the Migration Period which, given Republika Srpska's position in southeastern Europe, involved a wide variety of peoples. Among the first was the invasion of Germanic peoples from the east, the territory became a part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 476. By 535, the territory was taken once again by the Byzantine Empire. At this time, the Empire's grip was once again loose, Slavs, including the Serbs and the Croats, invaded the s
Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight was a North Atlantic Treaty Organization operation that began on 12 April 1993 as the enforcement of a United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina. The United Nations and NATO expanded the mission of the operation to include providing close air support for UN troops in Bosnia and carrying out coercive air strikes against targets in Bosnia. Twelve NATO members contributed forces to the operation and, by its end on 20 December 1995, NATO pilots had flown 100,420 sorties; the operation played an important role in shaping both the Bosnian War and NATO. The operation included the first combat engagement in NATO's history, a 28 February 1994 air battle over Banja Luka, in April 1994, NATO aircraft first bombed ground targets in an operation near Goražde; these engagements helped show that NATO had adapted to the post-Cold War era and could operate in environments other than a major force on force engagement on the plains of Central Europe. Cooperation between the UN and NATO during the operation helped pave the way for future joint operations.
Although it helped establish UN-NATO relations, Deny Flight led to conflict between the two organizations. Most notably, significant tension arose between the two after UN peacekeepers were taken as hostages in response to NATO bombing; the operations of Deny Flight spanned more than two years of the Bosnian War and played an important role in the course of that conflict. The no-fly zone operations of Deny Flight proved successful in preventing significant use of air power by any side in the conflict. Additionally, the air strikes flown during Deny Flight led to Operation Deliberate Force, a massive NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia that played a key role in ending the war. In October 1992, at the beginning of the Bosnian War, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 781; this resolution prohibited unauthorized military flights in Bosnian airspace. Following the resolution, NATO began Operation Sky Monitor during which NATO forces monitored violations of the no-fly zone, without taking any military action against violators.
By April 1993, NATO forces had documented more than 500 violations of the no-fly zone. In response to these "blatant" violations of Bosnian air space, implicitly of resolution 781, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 816. While Resolution 781 prohibited only military flights, Resolution 816 prohibited all flights in Bosnian air space, except for those expressly authorized by the UN Flight Coordination Center in Zagreb; the resolution authorized UN member states to "take all necessary measures... to ensure compliance" with the no-fly zone restrictions. In response to this resolution, NATO commenced Operation Deny Flight on 12 April 1993. Deny Flight was intended only to enforce the no-fly zone; the US had taken unilateral actions to aid civilians caught in the conflict by dropping humanitarian supplies into Bosnia under Operation Provide Promise, many US officials argued for the use of military force. These officials were eager to expand US air operations through Deny Flight, hoping that an aggressive no-fly zone and possible air strikes would end the conflict more quickly.
NATO forces suffered its first loss on the second day of operations, when a French Mirage 2000 crashed in the Adriatic Sea due to mechanical failure. The pilot ejected safely. After its adoption, Operation Deny Flight was successful in preventing fixed-wing aircraft from flying over restricted air space in Bosnia. During the monitoring phase of Operation Sky Monitor, unauthorized fixed-wing flights averaged twenty per month, but during Deny Flight, the average was three. During the conflict, there were only an estimated 32 fixed-wing military aircraft in Bosnia, all of them former Yugoslav National Army planes under the control of the Bosnian Serbs. Thus, NATO needed to prevent incursions into Bosnian airspace from Croatia and Serbia; the first serious violation to the no-fly zone came on 28 February 1994, when six Serb J-21 Jastreb jets bombed a Bosnian factory. US Air Force F-16s shot down four of the six Serb jets over Banja Luka; this engagement was the first combat engagement of Operation Deny Flight, its only significant air-to-air combat engagement.
More the Banja Luka incident was the first combat engagement in the history of NATO. The Serbs acknowledged the loss of a fifth aircraft in the incident. While Deny Flight was successful in stopping flights of fixed-wing aircraft, NATO forces found it difficult to stop helicopter flights, which presented a more complicated challenge. All sides in the conflict used helicopters extensively for non-military purposes, some of these flights were authorized by the UN. Under the operation's rules of engagement, NATO fighters were only authorized to shoot down helicopters that committed a hostile act. Otherwise, NATO fighters issued orders to "land or exit", in other words, land the aircraft or leave the no-fly zone. Helicopters in Bosnian airspace complied with these orders by landing, but took off again after NATO forces departed. None of the parties in the conflict respected the ban on helicopter flights, as evidenced when Ratko Mladić responded to a BBC journalist's question about his violation of the ban with the statement, "The commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces does not ride on a donkey."Deceptive markings on helicopters further complicated matters for NATO pilots.
Many of the combatants painted their helicopters to look like those of organizations that the UN's Zagreb Flight Coordination Center had authorized to fly in restricted spa
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