The history of Kosovo dates back to pre-historic times when the Starčevo culture, Vinča culture, Bubanj-Hum culture, and Baden culture were active in the region. Since then, many archaeological sites have been discovered due to the abundance of natural resources which gave way to the development of life.

In antiquity the area was part of the  Kingdom of Dardania. It was annexed by the Roman Empire toward the end of the 1st century BC and incorporated into the province of Moesia. In the Middle Ages, the region became part of the Bulgarian Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Serbian mediaeval states. In 1389 the Battle of Kosovo was fought between a coalition of Balkan states and the Ottoman Empire, resulting in a Serbian decline and eventual Ottoman conquest in 1459.

Kosovo's modern history can be traced to the Ottoman Sanjak of Prizren, of which parts were organised into Kosovo Vilayet in 1877. This was when Kosovo was used as the name of the entire territory for the first time. In 1913 the Kosovo Vilayet was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbia, which in 1918 formed Yugoslavia. Kosovo gained autonomy in 1963 under Josip Broz Tito's direction. This autonomy was significantly extended by Yugoslavia's 1974 Constitution, but was lost in 1990. In 1999 UNMIK stepped in. On 17 February 2008, representatives of the people of Kosovo unilaterally declared Kosovo's independence and subsequently adopted the Constitution of Republic of Kosovo, which came into effect on 15 June 2008.

Prehistory

In prehistory, the succeeding Starčevo culture, Vinča culture, Bubanj-Hum culture, Baden culture were active in the region.
The area in and around Kosovo has been inhabited for nearly 10,000 years. During the Neolithic age, Kosovo lay within the areal of the Vinča-Turdaş culture which is characterised by West Balkan black and grey pottery. Bronze and Iron Age tombs have been found in Rrafshi i Dukagjinit.

The favourable Geo-strategic position, as well as abundant natural resources, were ideal for the development of life since the prehistoric periods, proven by hundreds of archaeological sites discovered and identified throughout Kosovo, which proudly present its rich archaeological heritage. The number of sites with archaeological potential is increasing, this as a result of findings and investigations that are carried out throughout Kosovo but also from many superficial traces which offer a new overview of antiquity of Kosovo.

The earliest traces documented in the territory of Kosovo belong to the Stone Age Period, namely there are indications that cave dwellings might have existed like for example the Radivojce Cave set near the spring of the Drin river, then there are some indications at Grnčar Cave in the Viti municipality, Dema and Karamakaz Caves of Peja and others. However, life during the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age is not confirmed yet and not scientifically proven. Therefore, until arguments of Paleolithic and Mesolithic man are confirmed, Neolithic man, respectively the Neolithic sites are considered as the chronological beginning of population in Kosovo. From this period until today Kosovo has been inhabited, and traces of activities of societies from prehistoric, ancient and up to mediaeval time are visible throughout its territory, whereas, in some archaeological sites, multilayer settlements clearly reflect the continuity of life through centuries.

Vlashnjë and Runik are two of the most significant Neolithic sites which have been found and excavated in a series of expeditions. Vlashnjë is a multi-layered settlement and site area. Archaeological excavations have identified habitation and use of the area since the Neolithic era. The rock art paintings at Mrrizi i Kobajës (late Neolithic-early Bronze Age) are the first find of prehistoric rock art in Kosovo. In late antiquity, Vlashnja was a fortified settlement part of the fortification network which Justinian I rebuilt along the White Drin in Dardania. Crkvina near Miokovci, Serbia and Runik have been identified as the two oldest settlements of the Starčevo culture. They are statistically indistinguishable to each other and have been dated to ca. 6238 BC (6362–6098 BC at 95% CI) and ca. 6185 BC (6325–6088 BC at 95% Cl).

Antiquity

During the Neolithic age, Kosovo lay within the area of the Vinča-Turdaş culture, Starčevo and Baden culture, which is characterised by West Balkan black and grey pottery. Bronze and Iron Age tombs have been found only in Rrafshi i Dukagjinit which is located in Kosovo.

In classical antiquity, the area of Kosovo was part of Dardania. The name comes from the Dardani, a tribe that lived in the region and formed the Kingdom of Dardania in the 4th century BC.  In archaeological research, Illyrian names are predominant in western Dardania (present-day Kosovo), while Thracian names are mostly found in eastern Dardania (present-day south-eastern Serbia). The eastern parts of the region were at the Thraco-Illyrian contact zone. Thracian names are absent in western Dardania; some Illyrian names appear in the eastern parts. The correspondence of Illyrian names – including those of the ruling elite – in Dardania with those of the southern Illyrians suggests a "thracianisation" of parts of Dardania. The Dardani became one of the most powerful Illyrian states of their time under their king Bardylis. Under the leadership of Bardylis, the Dardani defeated the Macedonians and Molossians several times, reigning over upper Macedonia and Lynkestis. Bardylis also led raids against Epirus. Along with the Ardiaei and Autariatae, the Dardani are mentioned in Roman times by ancient Greek and Roman sources as one of the three strongest "Illyrian" peoples

In addition, an ancient funeral inscription of the Albanoi was found near Skopje, corresponding to the ancient Dardania region.

In 1854, Johann Georg von Hahn was the first to propose that the names Dardanoi and Dardania were related to the Albanian word dardhë ("pear, pear-tree"), stemming from Proto-Albanian *dardā, itself a derivative of derdh, "to tip out, pour", or *derda in Proto-Albanian. A common Albanian toponym with the same root is Dardha, found in various parts of Albania, including Dardha in Berat, Dardha in Korça, Dardha in Librazhd, Dardha in Puka, Dardhas in Pogradec, Dardhaj in Mirdita, and Dardhës in Përmet. Dardha in Puka is recorded as Darda in a 1671 ecclesiastical report and on a 1688 map by a Venetian cartographer. Dardha is also the name of an Albanian tribe in the northern part of the District of Dibra.

The region of Illyria was conquered by Rome in 168 BC, and made into the Roman province of Illyricum in 59 BC. The Kosovo region probably became part of Moesia Superior in AD 87, although archaeological evidence suggests that it may have been divided between Dalmatia and Moesia.

After 284 Diocletian further divided Upper Moesia into the smaller provinces of Dardania, Moesia Prima, Dacia Ripensis, and Dacia Mediterranea. Dardania's capital was Naissus, previously a Celts settlement. The Roman province of Dardania included eastern parts of modern Kosovo, while its western part belonged to the newly formed Roman province of Prevalitana with its capital Doclea. The Romans colonised the region and founded several cities.

The Hunnic invasions of 441 and 447–49 were the first barbarian invasions that were able to take Eastern Roman fortified centres and cities. Most Balkan cities were sacked by Attila, and recovered only partially if at all. While there is no direct written evidence of Hunnic invasion of Kosovo, its economic hinterland will anyway have been affected for centuries. Justinian I, who assumed the throne of the Byzantine Empire in 527, oversaw a period of Byzantine expansion into former Roman territories, and re-absorbed the area of Kosovo into the empire.

Slavic migrations

Slavic migrations to the Balkans took place between the 6th to 7th centuries. The region had been part of the Roman and Byzantine empires until the first major Slav raids took place in the middle of Justinian's reign. In 547 and 548 the Slavs invaded the territory of modern Kosovo, and then got as far as Durrës on the Northern Albanian coast and reached all the way down to Greece. The overwhelming number of municipalities in modern-day Kosovo being Slavic in their toponymy suggests that these Slavic raiders either assimilated, or expelled the local non-Slavic populations inhabiting the region of Kosovo prior to their arrival. The plague of Justinian had killed millions of native Balkan people and as a result many regions had become depopulated and neglected by the government, this gave the Slavs a chance into settle in the Balkans.

According to some historians, although some Slavs did spread out through these areas, there is one intriguing argument that suggests Slavic settlement in Kosovo and the Southern Morava Valley was weak in the first one or two centuries of Slavic settlement. According to some historians and linguists, if Slavs had spread evenly in this part of the Balkans it would be hard to explain the clear linguistic division that occurred between the Bulgarian-Macedonian and Serbo-Croat language. The scholar who first proposed this theory also noticed in the area that divided the early Serbs and the Bulgarians many Latin place-names in these areas survived long enough to be eventually adapted into Slavic ones, such as Naissus (Nis), Lypenion (Lipljan), Scupi (Skopje) etc.

According to De Administrando Imperio, the ancestors of Serbs and Croats were part of the Slavic migrations into the Balkans, the Croats settled in modern Croatia and Western Bosnia whereas the Serbs in the rest of Bosnia, Travunija, Zahumlje and Duklja, lands situated North-West of Kosovo.

Middle Ages

According to historian Noel Malcolm the Vlach-Romanian and Aromanian languages originated in the region and surrounding areas from Romanised Illyrians and Thracians, possibly a contact zone between the Albanian and Romanian language.

The region of Kosovo was incorporated into the Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Khan Presian (836–852). It remained within the borders of Bulgaria for 150 years until 1018, when it was retaken by the Byzantine Empire under Basil II (r. 976–1025) after half a century of campaigning. According to De Administrando Imperio of the 10th century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Serbian-populated lands lay to the north-west of Kosovo and the region was Bulgarian.  One of the historical cities of Kosovo, Prizren is mentioned for the first time in 1019 in the form of Prisdriana. In 1072, the leaders of the Bulgarian Uprising of Georgi Voiteh traveled from their center in Skopje in the area of Prizren and held a meeting in which they invited Mihailo Vojislavljević of Duklja to send them assistance. Mihailo sent his son, Constantine Bodin with 300 of his soldiers. Dalassenos Doukas, dux of Bulgaria was sent against the combined forced but was defeated near Prizren, which was extensively plundered by the Serbian army after the battle. The Bulgarian magnates proclaimed Bodin "Emperor of the Bulgarians" after this initial victory. They were defeated by Nikephoros Bryennios in the area of northern Macedonia by the end of 1072. After the Byzantine Empire fully re-established itself, the region became part of the Byzantine Empire again and stayed under Byzantine rule until the 12th century.

Stefan Nemanja had seized the surrounding area along the White Drin in 1185–95 and the ecclesiastical split from the Patriarchate in 1219 was the final act of establishing Nemanjić rule in Prizren and Kosovo. Prizren and its fort were the administrative and economic center of the župa of Podrimlje (in Albanian, Podrima or Anadrini). Demetrios Chomatenos is the last Byzantine archbishop of Ohrid to include Prizren in his jurisdiction until 1219. Kosovo was fully annexed by Serbia during this period  and was part of the Serbian Empire (1346-1371). From the mid-13th century to the end of the century, the Nemanjić rulers had their main residences in Kosovo. Large estates were given to the monasteries in Western Kosovo (Metohija). The most prominent churches in Kosovo – the Patriarchate of Peć at Peja, the church at Gračanica and the monastery at Visoki Dečani near Deçan – were all founded during this period.  Kosovo was economically important and mining was an important industry in Novo Brdo and Janjevo which had its communities of émigré Saxon miners and Ragusan merchants. In 1450 the mines of Novo Brdo were producing about 6,000 kg of silver per year. The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period included Serbs, Albanians, and Vlachs along with a token number of Greeks, Croats, Armenians, Saxons, and Bulgarians, according to Serbian monastic charters or chrysobulls.

In 1355, the Serbian state fell apart on the death of Tsar Stefan Dušan and dissolved into squabbling fiefdoms. The timing fell perfectly within the Ottoman expansion. This enabled Albanian chieftains to create small principalities who had revolted several times with the aid of the Catholic Western powers. The First Battle of Kosovo occurred on the field of Kosovo Polje on June 28, 1389, when the ruling knez (prince) of Serbia, Lazar Hrebeljanović, marshalled a coalition of Christian soldiers led by Serbs that also included Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Magyars and a troop of Saxon mercenaries. Sultan Murad I also gathered a coalition of soldiers and volunteers from neighbouring countries in Anatolia and Rumelia.  Although the battle has been mythologised as a great Christian defeat, at the time opinion was divided as to whether it was a Christian defeat, a stalemate or possibly even a Christian victory. Murad I was killed, according to tradition by Miloš Obilić, or Kobilić as he was always called until the 18th century. Serbian principalities continued their existence, usually as vassals of the Ottomans, and maintained sporadic control of Kosovo, until the final extinction of the Despotate of Serbia in 1459, following which Serbia became part of the Ottoman Empire. The fortress of Novo Brdo, important at the time due to its rich silver mines, came under siege for forty days by the Ottomans during that year, capitulating and becoming occupied by the Ottomans on June 1, 1455. The Battle of Kosovo of 1389 had completely disorganised the Serb state, and left the field open to the most dynamic local lords, including among them the Albanian princes of the North and the Northeast. One of them was Gjon Kastrioti, the father of Skanderbeg, from the high region of Mati. At the end of the fourteenth and the start of the fifteenth century he managed to carve a principality from Ishmi to Prizren at the heart of region of Kosovo. Part of western Kosovo was part of the Albanian principality of Dukagjini after which western Kosovo is known in Albanian as Dukagjin.

Stefan Lazarević, Lazar's son, became a loyal ally of Bayezid, and contributed significant forces to many of Bayezid's future military engagements, including the Battle of Nicopolis, where Vuk Branković another Serbian magnate who ruled in parts of Kosovo had joined the anti-Ottoman coalition. As a reward for his contribution to the Ottoman victory, Lazarević was given a large part of Branković's lands, including the lands he held in Kosovo (1396-97). Branković himself died as an Ottoman prisoner, although in all later "Kosovo myth" narratives first created by Stefan Lazarević, he is portrayed as a betrayer of the Christians. The Second Battle of Kosovo was fought over two days in October 1448, between a Hungarian force led by John Hunyadi and an Ottoman army led by Murad II. John Hunyadi joined forces with Albania's Skanderbeg. The Albanian army under Skanderbeg was delayed as it was prevented from linking with Hunyadi's army by the Ottomans and their allies. It is believed that the Albanian army was delayed by Serbian despot Đurađ Branković. The Serbs had declined joining Hunyadi's forces following an earlier truce with the Turks. As a result, Skanderbeg ravaged Brankovic's domains as punishment for the Serbian desertion of the Christian cause. After Mehmed's death in 1421, Lazarević was one of the vassals who strongly supported the coalition against the future Mehmed the Conqueror who ultimately prevailed. This move led Mehmed to punish the Serbian and all other vassals who supported the other claimants to the throne by campaigning against them to directly annex their lands.

Ottoman Period

Western Kosovo had a significant reservoir of a native Albanian population by the time of the full Ottoman take over. According to Malcolm, a major part of the Albanian demographic growth was the expansion of an indigenous Albanian population within Kosovo itself.

While Serbian scholars may have come to the conclusion that the defter from 1455 indicates an overwhelmingly Serbian local population, other scholars have other views. Madgearu instead argues that the series of defters from 1455 onward "shows that Kosovo... was a mosaic of Serbian and Albanian villages", while Prishtina and Prizren already had significant Albanian Muslim populations.

The Ottoman officials noted which heads of families were new arrivals in their places of residence; in the Sanjak of Prizren in 1591 only five new arrivals out of forty-one bore Albanian names. In the nahiye of Pec in 1485, the majority of new arrivals had Slavic names. In several Kosovo towns in the 1580s and 1590s; twenty five new Albanian immigrants were recorded and 133 immigrants with Slav names, several of them described coming from Bosnia.

In 1557 the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć was re-established and many new Orthodox churches were built. Orthodox Serbs gained the status of Millet, a religious community that enjoyed high levels of autonomy. By the time the Patriarchate had been re-established in 1557 at Peja, the town of Peja may have gained a majority Muslim population. The growth of Islam in early Ottoman Kosovo was mostly urban and from native people in the region converting to Islam.

According to Frederick Anscombe, the town of Gjakova was Albanian since its founding in the late 1500s. Antonio Bruni, writing in the late 1500s, stated that part of Dardania was inhabited by Albanians. Lazaro Soranzo wrote of Albanians who lived as Catholics in the 1500s and noted that they inhabited the city of Prizren. Catholic bishop Pjetër Mazreku noted in 1624 that the Catholics of Prizren were 200, the Serbs (Orthodox) 600, and Muslims, almost all of whom were Albanians, numbered 12,000. In his 1662 work, Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi noted that the residents of Vushtrri were mostly Albanians. Celebi described Western and parts of Central Kosovo as inhabited by Albanians. According to sources from 17th century Kosovo, those in Western Kosovo spoke Albanian while those in Eastern Kosovo spoke Serbo-Croatian.

Around the 17th century, there is a mention of some Catholic Albanians moving from the mountains of Northern Albania and into the plains of Kosovo. These families moved because they had fled blood feuds or they had been punished under the Kanun of Lek Dukagjin. However, the number of these people migrating into the area was, compared to the already existing Albanian population in Kosovo, extremely small.

Albanian Catholic Gregor Mazrreku reported in the year 1651 that in Western Kosovo there had previously been many Catholics but converted to Islam in order to avoid taxes and impositions. In Suha Reka where there had been previously 160 Catholic households, all the men had gone over to Islam. Many Catholics in Kosovo also converted to Islam due to lack of priests, pressure from Ottoman authorities and the Orthodox church. The Catholic church in Kosovo was poor and Catholics were pressured to pay taxes to the Orthodox Church. According to Malcolm, compared to the Catholic church, the Serbian Orthodox church was larger, richer, more established and more privileged which led to less conversion to Islam.

Kosovo in the Great Turkish War (1683-1699)
In 1689 during the Austrian-Ottoman wars, the Albanian Catholic Pjeter Bogdani organised a pro-Austrian movement and a resistance against the Ottomans in Kosovo together with the Albanian Catholic Toma Raspasani that included both Muslims and Christians. An English embassy in Istanbul in 1690 reported of Austrians having made contact with 20,000 Albanians in Kosovo that had turned their weapons against the Turks. A great deal of Albanians and Serbs alike joined the Austrians, while others fought on the side of the Ottomans. Ultimately the Austrians were driven back through the Danube, resulting in an influx of refugees and atrocities against the civilian population. Toma Raspasani, writing in 1693 about the Catholics of Kosovo, observed that many of them had gone to Budapest where most of them died, some of hunger, others of disease.

Aftermath
Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević travelled to Belgrade which had been under Austrian rule and led 30,000 - 40,000 refugees to Hungary. According to Malcolm, most of the refugees that had gathered were from Niš and Belgrade area, along with a smaller number of Serb refugees from Eastern Kosovo that had managed to escape. This event is known as the Great Migrations of the Serbs. Malcolm believes that the historical evidence does not support a sudden mass exodus of Serbs out of Kosovo in 1690. If the Serb population was depleted in 1690, it looks as if it must have been replaced by inflows of Serbs from other areas. Such flows did happen and from many different areas. There was also a migration of Albanians from the Malsi but these were slow, long-term processes rather than involving sudden surges of population into a vacuum.

Modern
During the period of Ottoman rule, several administrative districts known as sanjaks ("banners" or districts) each ruled by a sanjakbey (roughly equivalent to "district lord") have included parts of the territory. Despite the imposition of Muslim rule, large numbers of Christians continued to live and sometimes even prosper under the Ottomans. A process of Islamisation began shortly after the beginning of Ottoman rule but it took a considerable amount of time – at least a century – and was concentrated at first on the towns. A large part of the reason for the conversion was probably economic and social, as Muslims had considerably more rights and privileges than Christian subjects. Christian religious life nonetheless continued, while churches were largely left alone by the Ottomans, but both the Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and their congregations suffered from high levels of taxation.

From the Establishment in 1757 until its dissolution following a War with the Ottomans in 1831, most of Kosovo was ruled by the Pashalik of Scutari and its Albanian dynasty under Kara Mahmud Pasha. He conquered parts of Southern Albania and much of Kosovo.

In 1877 the Vilayet of Kosovo was formed by the Ottoman administration. This was when Kosovo was used as the name of the entire territory for the first time, a derivation from the Serbian word "Kos" (which means black bird). It is shortened from Kosovo Polje meaning "Field of the Blackbirds", where the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 was fought.

The vilayet was one of four with Albanian inhabitants that formed the League of Prizren. The League's purpose was to resist both Ottoman rule and incursions by the newly emerging Balkan nations.

In 1910, an Albanian insurrection, which was possibly aided surreptitiously by the Young Turks to put pressure on the Sublime Porte, broke out in Pristina and soon spread to the entire vilayet of Kosovo, lasting for three months. The Sultan visited Kosovo in June 1911 during peace settlement talks covering all Albanian-inhabited areas.

Albanian National Movement

The Albanian national movement was inspired by various factors. Besides the National Renaissance that had been promoted by Albanian activists, political reasons were a contributing factor. In the 1870s the Ottoman Empire experienced a tremendous contraction in territory and defeats in wars against the Slavic monarchies of Europe. During and after the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims, mostly Albanians, were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet. Furthermore, the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano marked the beginning of a difficult situation for the Albanian people in the Balkans, whose lands were to be ceded from Turkey to Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.

Fearing the partitioning of Albanian-inhabited lands among the newly founded Balkan kingdoms, the Albanians established their League of Prizren on June 10, 1878, three days prior to the Congress of Berlin that would revise the decisions of San Stefano. Though the League was founded with the support of the Sultan who hoped for the preservation of Ottoman territories, the Albanian leaders were quick and effective enough to turn it into a national organisation and eventually into a government. The League had the backing of the Italo-Albanian community and had well developed into a unifying factor for the religiously diverse Albanian people. During its three years of existence the League sought the creation of an Albanian vilayet within the Ottoman Empire, raised an army and fought a defensive war. In 1881 a provisional government was formed to administer Albania under the presidency of Ymer Prizreni, assisted by prominent ministers such as Abdyl Frashëri and Sulejman Vokshi. Nevertheless, military intervention from the Balkan states, the Great Powers as well as Turkey divided the Albanian troops in three fronts, which brought about the end of the League.

Kosovo was yet home to other Albanian organisations, the most important being the League of Peja, named after the city in which it was founded in 1899. It was led by Haxhi Zeka, a former member of the League of Prizren and shared a similar platform in quest for an autonomous Albanian vilayet. The League ended its activity in 1900 after an armed conflict with the Ottoman forces. Zeka was assassinated by a Serbian agent in 1902 with the backing of the Ottoman authorities.

Balkan Wars

The demands of the Young Turks in early 20th century sparked support from the Albanians, who were hoping for a betterment of their national status, primarily recognition of their language for use in offices and education. In 1908, 20,000 armed Albanian peasants gathered in Ferizaj to prevent any foreign intervention, while their leaders, Bajram Curri and Isa Boletini, sent a telegram to the sultan demanding the promulgation of a constitution and the opening of the parliament.

The Albanians did not receive any of the promised benefits from the Young Turkish victory. Considering this, an unsuccessful uprising was organised by Albanian highlanders in Kosovo in February 1909. The adversity escalated after the takeover of the Turkish government by an oligarchic group later that year. In April 1910, armies led by Idriz Seferi and Isa Boletini rebelled against the Turkish troops, but were finally forced to withdraw after having caused many casualties amongst the enemy.

A further Albanian rebellion in 1912 was the pretext for Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria beginning the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire. Most of Kosovo was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbia, while the region of Metohija () was taken by the Kingdom of Montenegro. Kosovo was split into four counties: three being a part of the entity of Serbia (Zvečan, Kosovo and southern Metohija); one of Montenegro (Northern Metohija).

The Albanian revolt of 1912 weakened the Ottoman Empire and resulted in an Albanian victory. This further persuaded other Balkan states that it was time for an anti-Ottoman war. The Ottomans had been so fatally weakened by the Albanian revolt of 1912 that the war was quickly won.

Serbia took advantage of the Albanian rebellion after seeing a weakened Ottoman Empire and annexed Kosovo. The Albanians organised a resistance under the leadership of Isa Boletini. Serbia eventually managed to fight through and suppress the rebels. During the conflicts a number of massacres took place by the Serbian army and paramilitaries. Almost half of Albanian inhabited lands, including Kosovo, were left outside of what then formed as Albania and which were annexed by Montenegro and Serbia.

During this period, the majority of the population of Kosovo was Albanian and did not welcome Serb rule.

According to historian Noel Malcolm, the region was conquered, but not legally annexed, by Serbia in 1912 and remained occupied territory until 1918 when it became part of a Yugoslav kingdom.

Many Albanians still kept resisting Serbian army and fought for the unification of Kosovo with Albania. Both Isa Boletini and Idriz Seferi continued fighting. Other well known rebels at the time were Azem Galica, also known as Azem Bejta, and his wife Shote Galica.

Interbellum Period

The 1918–1929 period of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians witnessed a rise of the Serbian population in the region and a decline in the non-Serbian. In 1929, Kosovo was split between the Zeta Banovina in the west with the capital in Cetinje, Vardar Banovina in the southeast with the capital in Skopje and the Morava Banovina in the northeast with the capital in Niš.

Serbian troops attempted to alter the region's demographic structure through murders and mass expulsions. Between 1918 and 1945, over 100,000 Albanians left Kosovo

Albanian schools and language were prohibited. Tens of thousands of Serbs were settled in the region and land was confiscated from Albanian villagers.

In 1938, more than 6000 people, in 23 villages, in the Drenica region of Kosovo were deprived of their land
The colonisation had put the Serb population at less than 24% in the start to 38%. It was proposed to bring another
470,000 Serbs and expel 300,000 Albanians but the outbreak of World War II prevented it from being put into effect.

Second World War

After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, most of Kosovo was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania, with the rest being controlled by Germany and Bulgaria. A three-dimensional conflict ensued, involving inter-ethnic, ideological, and international affiliations, with the first being most important. Nonetheless, these conflicts were relatively low-level compared with other areas of Yugoslavia during the war years, with one Serb historian estimating that 3,000 Albanians and 4,000 Serbs and Montenegrins were killed, and two others estimating war dead at 12,000 Albanians and 10,000 Serbs and Montenegrins. "We should endeavor to ensure that the Serb population of Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible ... All indigenous Serbs who have been living here for centuries should be termed colonialists and as such, via the Albanian and Italian governments, should be sent to concentration camps in Albania. Serbian settlers should be killed." Mustafa Kruja, the then Prime Minister of Albania, declared in June 1942. The persecution of Serb and Montenegrin settlers by Albanian collaborationists resulted in thousands killed while between 70,000 and 100,000 were expelled or transferred to concentration camps in Pristina and Mitrovica.

During the New Year's Eve between 1943 and 1944, Albanian and Yugoslav partisans gathered at the town of Bujan, near Kukës in northern Albania, where they held a conference in which they discussed the fate of Kosovo after the war. Both Albanian and Yugoslav communists signed the agreement, according to which Kosovo would have the right to democratically decide whether it wants to remain in Albania or become part of Serbia. This was seen as the Marxist solution for Kosovo. The agreement was not respected by Yugoslavia, since Tito knew that Serbia would not accept it. Some Albanians, especially in the region in and around Drenica in central Kosovo revolted against the Yugoslav communists for not respecting the agreement. In response, the Yugoslavs called the rebels Nazi and Fascist collaborators and responded with violence. The Albanian Kosovar military leader Shaban Polluzha, who first fought with Yugoslav partisans but then refused to collaborate further, was attacked and killed. Between 400 and 2,000 Kosovar Albanian recruits of the Yugoslav Army were shot in Bar.

Yugoslavian Period

Following the end of the war and the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia, Kosovo was granted the status of an autonomous region of Serbia in 1946 and became an autonomous province in 1963. The Communist government did not permit the return of all of the refugees.

With the passing of the 1974 Yugoslavia constitution, Kosovo gained virtual self-government. The province's government has applied Albanian curriculum to Kosovo's schools: surplus and obsolete textbooks from Enver Hoxha's Albania were obtained and put into use.

Throughout the 1980s tensions between the Albanian and Serb communities in the province escalated. The Albanian community favoured greater autonomy for Kosovo, whilst Serbs favoured closer ties with the rest of Serbia. There was little appetite for unification with Albania itself, which was ruled by a Stalinist government and had considerably worse living standards than Kosovo. Beginning in March 1981, Kosovar Albanian students organised protests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests rapidly escalated into violent riots "involving 20,000 people in six cities" that were harshly contained by the Yugoslav government. The demonstrations of March and April 1981 were started by Albanian students in Priština, protesting against poor living conditions and the lack of prospects (unemployment was rampant in the province and most of the university educated ended up as the unemployed). In addition, calls for a separate Albanian republic within Yugoslavia were voiced.

Serbs living in Kosovo were discriminated against by the provincial government, notably by the local law enforcement authorities failing to punish reported crimes against Serbs.  The increasingly bitter atmosphere in Kosovo meant that even the most farcical incidents could become causes célèbres. When a Serbian farmer, Đorđe Martinović, turned up at a Kosovo hospital with a bottle in his rectum after claiming to have been assaulted in his field by masked men (he later admitted the bottle ended up in his rectum through a mishap during masturbation), 216 prominent Serbian intellectuals signed a petition declaring that "the case of Đorđe Martinović has come to symbolise the predicament of all Serbs in Kosovo."

Perhaps the most politically explosive complaint levelled by the Kosovo Serbs was that they were being neglected by the Communist authorities in Belgrade. In August 1987, Slobodan Milošević, then a rising politician, visited Kosovo. He appealed to Serb nationalism to further his career. Having drawn huge crowds to a rally commemorating the Battle of Kosovo, he pledged to Kosovo Serbs that "No one should dare to beat you", and became an instant hero of Kosovo's Serbs. By the end of the year Milošević was in control of the Serbian government.

In 1988 and 1989, dominant forces in Serbian politics engaged in a series of moves that became known as the anti-bureaucratic revolution. The leading politicians of Kosovo and the northern province of Vojvodina were sacked and replaced, and the level of autonomy of the provinces started to be unilaterally reduced by the Serbian federal authority. In protest, the Kosovo Albanians engaged in mass demonstrations, and Trepča miners began a hunger strike.

The new constitution significantly reduced the provinces' rights, permitting the government of Serbia to exert direct control over many previously autonomous areas of governance. In particular, the constitutional changes handed control of the police, the court system, the economy, the education system and language policies to the Serbian government. It was strongly opposed by many of Serbia's national minorities, who saw it as a means of imposing ethnically based centralised rule on the provinces.

The Albanian representatives in provincial government largely opposed the constitutional changes and abstained from ratification in the Kosovo assembly. In March 1989, preceding a final push for ratification, the Yugoslav police rounded up around 240 prominent Kosovo Albanians, apparently selected based on their anti-ratification sentiment, and detained them with complete disregard for due process. When the assembly met to discuss the proposals, tanks and armoured cars surrounded the meeting place. Though the final vote failed to reach the required two-thirds majority threshold, it was declared as having passed.

Kosovo War

After the constitutional changes, the parliaments of all Yugoslavian republics and provinces, which until then had MPs only from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, were dissolved and multi-party elections were held for them. Kosovo Albanians refused to participate in the elections and held their own, unsanctioned elections instead. As election laws required turnout higher than 50%, the parliament of Kosovo could not be established.

The new constitution abolished the individual provinces' official media, integrating them within the official media of Serbia while still retaining some programmes in Albanian. The Albanian-language media in Kosovo was suppressed. Funding was withdrawn from state-owned media, including that in Albanian in Kosovo. The constitution made creating privately owned media possible, however their functioning was very difficult because of high rents and restricting laws. State-owned Albanian-language television or radio was also banned from broadcasting from Kosovo.  However, privately owned Albanian media outlets appeared; of these, probably the most famous is "Koha Ditore", which was allowed to operate until late 1998 when it was closed after it published a calendar which was claimed to be a glorification of ethnic Albanian separatists.

The constitution also transferred control over state-owned companies to the Serbian government (at the time, most of the companies were state-owned). In September 1990, up to 12,000 Albanian workers were fired from their positions in government and the media, as were teachers, doctors, and workers in government-controlled industries, provoking a general strike and mass unrest. Some of those who were not sacked quit in sympathy, refusing to work for the Serbian government. Although the sackings were widely seen as a purge of ethnic Albanians, the government maintained that it was simply getting rid of old communist directors.

The old Albanian educational curriculum and textbooks were revoked and new ones were created. The curriculum was basically the same as Serbian and that of all other nationalities in Serbia except that it had education on and in Albanian. Education in Albanian was withdrawn in 1992 and re-established in 1994. At the Pristina University, which was seen as a centre of Kosovo Albanian cultural identity, education in Albanian was abolished and Albanian teachers were also sacked en masse. Albanians responded by boycotting state schools and setting up an unofficial parallel system of Albanian-language education.

Kosovo Albanians were outraged by what they saw as an attack on their rights. Following mass rioting and unrest from Albanians as well as outbreaks of inter-communal violence, in February 1990, a state of emergency was declared, and the presence of the Yugoslav Army and police was significantly increased to quell the unrest.

Unsanctioned elections were held in 1992, which overwhelmingly elected Ibrahim Rugova as "president" of a self-declared Republic of Kosovo; however these elections were not recognised by Serbian nor any foreign government. In 1995, thousands of Serb refugees from Croatia settled in Kosovo, which further worsened relations between the two communities.

Albanian opposition to sovereignty of Yugoslavia and especially Serbia had surfaced in rioting (1968 and March 1981) in the capital Pristina. Ibrahim Rugova initially advocated non-violent resistance, but later opposition took the form of separatist agitation by opposition political groups and armed action from 1996 by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA; Alb. Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës or UÇK).

The KLA launched a guerrilla war and terror campaign, characterised by regular bomb and gun attacks on Yugoslav security forces, state officials and civilians known to openly support the national government, this included Albanians who were non-sympathisers with KLA motives. In March 1998, Yugoslav army units joined Serbian police to fight the separatists, using military force. In the months that followed, thousands of Albanian civilians were killed and more than 10,000 fled their homes; most of these people were Albanian. Many Albanian families were forced to flee their homes at gunpoint, as a result of fighting between national security and KLA forces leading to expulsions by the security forces including associated paramilitary militias. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that 460,000 people had been displaced from March 1998 to the start of the NATO bombing campaign in March 1999.

There was violence against non-Albanians as well: UNHCR reported (March 1999) that over 90 mixed villages in Kosovo "have now been emptied of Serb inhabitants" and other Serbs continue leaving, either to be displaced in other parts of Kosovo or fleeing into central Serbia. The Yugoslav Red Cross estimated there were more than 130,000 non-Albanian displaced in need of assistance in Kosovo, most of whom were Serb.

Following the breakdown of negotiations between Serbian and Albanian representatives, under North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) auspices, NATO intervened on March 24, 1999, without United Nations authority. NATO launched a campaign of heavy bombing against Yugoslav military targets and then moved to wide range bombings (like bridges in Novi Sad). A full-scale war broke out as KLA continued to attack Serbian forces and Serbian/Yugoslav forces continued to fight KLA amidst a massive displacement of the population of Kosovo, which most human rights groups and international organisations regarded as an act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the government forces. A number of senior Yugoslav government officials and military officers, including President Milošević, were subsequently indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes. Milošević died in detention before a verdict was rendered.

The United Nations estimated that during the Kosovo War, nearly 40,000 Albanians fled or were expelled from Kosovo between March 1998 and the end of April 1999. Most of the refugees went to Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, or Montenegro. Government security forces confiscated and destroyed the documents and licence plates of many fleeing Albanians in what was widely regarded as an attempt to erase the identities of the refugees, the term "identity cleansing" being coined to denote this action. This made it difficult to distinguish with certainty the identity of returning refugees after the war. Serbian sources claim that many Albanians from Macedonia and Albania – perhaps as many as 300,000, by some estimates – have since migrated to Kosovo in the guise of refugees.

Independence

The war ended on June 10, 1999, with the Serbian and Yugoslav governments signing the Kumanovo Agreement which agreed to transfer governance of the province to the United Nations. A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province following the Kosovo War, tasked with providing security to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). In the weeks after, as many as 164,000 non-Albanians, primarily Serbs but also Roma, fled the province for fear of reprisals, and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse. The Roma in particular were regarded by many Albanians as having assisted the Serbs during the war. Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, attacks and a wave of crime after the war as KFOR struggled to restore order in the province.

Large numbers of refugees from Kosovo still live in temporary camps and shelters in Serbia proper. In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro reported hosting 277,000 internally displaced people (the vast majority being Serbs and Roma from Kosovo), which included 201,641 persons displaced from Kosovo into Serbia proper, 29,451 displaced from Kosovo into Montenegro, and about 46,000 displaced within Kosovo itself, including 16,000 returning refugees unable to inhabit their original homes.
Some sources put the figure far lower; the European Stability Initiative estimates the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with another 40,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo, though this would leave a significant proportion of the pre-1999 ethnic Serb population unaccounted-for. The largest concentration of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo is in the north of the province above the Ibar river, but an estimated two-thirds of the Serbian population in Kosovo continues to live in the Albanian-dominated south of the province.

On March 17 and 18, 2004, unrest in Kosovo led to 19 deaths (11 Kosovo Albanians and 8 Kosovo Serbs), the burning of at least 550 homes and the destruction of 27-35 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province after Albanian rioting targeted Serbs. Several thousand more Kosovo Serbs have left their homes to seek refuge in Serbia proper or in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo.

Since the end of the war, Kosovo has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry has been fuelled by NATO forces in Kosovo.

International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which ended the Kosovo conflict of 1999. Whilst Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognised by the international community, a clear majority of the province's population sought independence.

The United Nations-backed talks, led by UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, began in February 2006. Whilst progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself. In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution which proposes 'supervised independence' for the province. As of early July 2007 the draft resolution, which is backed by the United States, United Kingdom and other European members of the Security Council, had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty.  Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, has stated that it will not support any resolution which is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.

On 17 February 2008 Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence, and subsequently adopted the Constitution of Republic of Kosovo, which came into effect on 15 June 2008. Some Kosovo Serbs opposed to secession boycotted the move by refusing to follow orders from the central government in Pristina and attempted to seize infrastructure and border posts in Serb-populated regions. There have also been sporadic instances of violence against international institutions and governmental institutions, predominantly in Northern Kosovo (see 2008 unrest in Kosovo).

On July 25, 2011, Kosovan Albanian police wearing riot gear attempted to seize several border control posts in Kosovo's Serb-controlled north trying to enforce the ban on Serbian imports imposed in retaliation of Serbia's ban on import from Kosovo. It prompted a large crowd to erect roadblocks and Kosovan police units came under fire. An Albanian policeman died when his unit was ambushed and another officer was reportedly injured. Nato-led peacekeepers moved into the area to calm the situation and Kosovan police pulled back. The US and EU criticised the Kosovan government for acting without consulting international bodies.

Some rapprochement between the two governments took place on 19 April 2013 as both parties reached the Brussels Agreement, an agreement brokered by the EU that allowed the Serb minority in Kosovo to have its own police force and court of appeals. The accord was ratified by the Kosovo assembly on 28 June 2013.

In April 2021, Kosovo parliament elected Vjosa Osmani as new president for a five-year term. She was Kosovo's seventh president, and the second female president, in the post-war period. Osmani had the backing of the left-wing Self-Determination Movement (Vetevendosje) of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, which won the February 2021 parliamentary election.

In September 2021, Serbs from Kosovo's north had blocked two main roads, protesting a ban on cars with Serbian licence plates entering Kosovo without temporary printed registration details. Two interior ministry buildings in northern Kosovo, including a car registration office, were attacked. Serbia began military manoeuvres near the border and started flying military jets above the border crossing. Kosovo's NATO mission stepped up patrols near border crossings. On September 30, 2021, an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia was reached to end the stand-off. Kosovo agreed to withdraw police special forces. In late July 2022 tensions flared up again when the Kosovo government declared that Serb-issued identity documents and vehicle licence plates would be invalid, prompting Serbs in North Kosovo to protest by blocking roads. The decision on the part of Kosovo authorities was seen as a reciprocal move given that Kosovo documents are rejected in Serbia. In August, EU-mediated talks resulted in an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo whereby Serbia would abolish special document requirements for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo would not introduce them for Serbian ID holders. In November, ethnic Serbs resigned en masse from Kosovo state institutions in protest and tensions continued through the end of the year.

See also
 Demographic history of Kosovo
 Albanian nationalism in Kosovo
 Rulers of Kosovo
 History of Albania
 History of Serbia
 History of Ottoman Albania
 History of Yugoslavia
 History of the Balkans
 History of Europe
 Serbian historiography
 Destruction of Serbian heritage in Kosovo

References

Sources

 Baker, Catherine. "Between the round table and the waiting room: Scholarship on war and peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo after the 'Post-Cold War'." Contemporary European History 28.1 (2019): 107–119. online

External links

 Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo – Human Rights Watch (Online book)
 Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan War (1914)
 Richard Jansen: Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo:  An Abbreviated History
 Tim Judah: Kosovo History, bloody history
 Dušan T. Bataković: The Kosovo Chronicles
 Serbian Orthodox Church: History of Kosovo, articles, studies
Bloody Struggles from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

History of Kosovo


Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (born 15 May 1970) is a British politician and former British Army Officer who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wyre and Preston North, formerly Lancaster and Wyre, since 2005.

Before becoming involved in politics, Wallace was a captain in the Scots Guards. He was elected in 1999 as a Conservative list Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Scotland, serving until 2003. He subsequently resigned from the Scottish Parliament, moved to Lancashire and sought selection for a Westminster constituency in England. First elected to the UK Parliament in 2005, Wallace served as a backbencher for nearly five years. From 2010 to 2014, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke. Wallace served as a party whip from July 2014 to May 2015.

Following the 2015 general election and the formation of the majority Cameron government, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Ireland Office. In 2016, he was appointed Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime by Theresa May, holding the position until she left office in July 2019. A supporter of Boris Johnson, Wallace was promoted to the senior cabinet role of Secretary of State for Defence, after Johnson became Prime Minister. He continued the role under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, making him the longest serving member of the Cabinet to serve continuously in the same position until he left office.

In July 2023, he announced that he intended to resign as Secretary of State for Defence at the next Cabinet reshuffle, and that he would not be seeking re-election as an MP at the next general election. In August 2023, Wallace formally resigned as Secretary of State for Defence.

Early life
Wallace was born on 15 May 1970 in Farnborough, Kent. His father was a soldier in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards and served in Malaya.

Wallace was educated at Millfield, a private school in Somerset. While at school, he attended a young officers' course for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, and after leaving school was interviewed by the Regular Commissions Board. He then spent some time as a ski instructor at the Austrian National Ski School in the village of Alpbach in Austria.

Military career
After training as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in June 1991 Wallace was commissioned into the Scots Guards as a second lieutenant, with a short service commission. From 1991 to 1998, he served in Germany, Cyprus, Belize, and Northern Ireland. In April 1993, he was promoted lieutenant, and later that year was mentioned in dispatches for an incident in Belfast where the patrol he was commanding captured an entire IRA active service unit (ASU) attempting to carry out a bomb attack against British troops. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) later said that no one arrested as a result of the patrol was prosecuted. In 1996 he was promoted captain.

Wallace was on duty on the night of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was a member of the party sent to Paris to bring home her body.

In June 1998, Wallace transferred from the Active List to the Regular Army Reserve of Officers as a captain, thereby ending his active service and beginning a period of call-up liability. He later explained that he had decided against seeking to become a regular officer and to continue after the age of thirty, as the part of the work he had really enjoyed was commanding soldiers, and this was likely to diminish after that point.

Wallace is a member of the Royal Company of Archers, a ceremonial unit that serves as the Sovereign's bodyguard in Scotland. As such, he participated in the vigil over the Queen's coffin as she lay in state in Westminster Hall on 15 September 2022.

Political career

Scottish Parliament
Wallace entered politics after leaving the army, citing as a reason for this decision the experience he had commanding men from some of the UK's most economically deprived areas, which he averred could be improved by promoting a more aspirational society. Wallace became a Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, as a list MSP for North East Scotland. He did not seek re-election at the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, as he sought selection for a Westminster constituency in England. Wallace was the Scottish Conservatives' shadow health spokesman during that time.

From 2003 to 2005 he was overseas director of the aerospace company QinetiQ, the UK's former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA).

Member of UK Parliament
Wallace was elected as Member of Parliament for the Lancaster and Wyre constituency at the 2005 general election. He gained the seat from Labour with 22,266 votes and a majority of 4,171 (8.0%).

Wallace faced local criticism after it was revealed that in 2008 he had made the fourth-highest expenses claim of any MP, claiming £175,523 on top of his £63,000 salary. However, he defended this by arguing that his constituency had an electorate that was nearly 20% larger than the average one in England.

His constituency was abolished for the 2010 general election, and Wallace was instead returned for the new seat of Wyre and Preston North with 26,877 votes and a majority of 15,844 (30.9%). He was re-elected at the 2015, 2017, and 2019 general elections, with majorities suggesting he now held a safe seat for his party.

Wallace does not intend to remain in Parliament beyond the next general election, and his constituency will be abolished by boundary changes at the next general election.

From 2005 to 2010, Wallace was a member of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons. From 2006 to 2010 he was also the Shadow Minister of State for Scotland and was Chairman of the British–Iran Parliamentary Group from 2006 to 2014. He was awarded Campaigner of the Year in the annual Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian Awards in 2008, for his work promoting transparency of MPs' expenses.

Junior ministerial roles and EU referendum
Following his re-election to Parliament in 2010, Wallace was appointed as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the then Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, and later minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, Kenneth Clarke. On 4 September 2012, Wallace turned down a position as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury during the cabinet reshuffle to remain Clarke's PPS. He voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

In July 2014, as Clarke returned to the back benches, Wallace was again offered a job in Government as a whip. This time he accepted.
Also in 2014, he became an early supporter of a future leadership bid by Boris Johnson, who was not then in parliament.

In May 2015, Wallace was promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland Office.

Early in 2016, with the approach of the European Union referendum, Boris Johnson was wavering between Leave and Remain, and Wallace advised him strongly to support Remain, as taking the Leave side would mean being allied with "clowns". Wallace himself supported the Remain side before the referendum. After it had been won by Leave, David Cameron resigned as party leader. Johnson at once launched a leadership campaign run by Wallace and Lynton Crosby. However, a week later, after Michael Gove had decided to stand as well, Johnson withdrew.

The new Prime Minister, Theresa May, promoted Wallace to Minister of State for Security in the Home Office. He voted for her Brexit withdrawal agreement in early 2019, and against any referendum on that agreement.

In December 2017, Wallace's ministerial portfolio was extended to include economic crime. He was Security Minister during the terror attacks of 2017 and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Wallace was appointed to the Privy Council for his role in coordinating the government response to the 2017 Westminster attack.

Secretary of State for Defence

On 24 July 2019, Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and immediately appointed Wallace as Secretary of State for Defence, replacing Penny Mordaunt, who was left out of the new government.

In August 2019, Wallace was overheard discussing Johnson's controversial prorogation of parliament with Florence Parly, the French Armed Forces minister. He suggested that the reason for the prorogation for five weeks was to prevent MPs from blocking the government's Brexit plans, rather than the government's official position that it was to introduce a new legislative agenda. 10 Downing Street responded to his comments by admonishing him and stating that he had "misspoken". This prorogation was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court on 24 September 2019.

On 13 October 2019, in a NATO meeting, Wallace defended the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria. He commented, "Turkey needs to do what it sometimes has to do to defend itself". His comments were condemned by other delegates at the meeting.

On 12 January 2020, in an interview with The Sunday Times, Wallace said that the UK "must be prepared to fight wars without the US", one of the UK's key allies. He stated that the upcoming defence review "should be used to make the UK less dependent on the US in future conflicts". His comments were made in response to US President Donald Trump's "America First" isolationist policies. Wallace also said that the next defence review would be the "deepest review" of Britain's defence and foreign policies since the end of the Cold War in 1991.

On 15 March 2021, as part of the Integrated Review, Wallace released a command paper titled Defence in a Competitive Age, in which he detailed "a mission to seek out and to understand future threats, and to invest in the capabilities to defeat them," promising an expenditure of £188 billion on defence over the next four years.

In July 2021, Wallace said that the United States had left Britain in a "very difficult position" following the withdrawal of most US troops from Afghanistan. Soon after the withdrawal of US troops had started, the Taliban had launched an offensive against the Afghan government, quickly advancing in front of a collapsing Afghan Armed Forces. Wallace said the UK would be ready to work with the Taliban should they come to power provided they adhere to certain international norms.

On 16 August 2021, during a radio interview on LBC about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Wallace was asked by an LBC interviewer, "why do you feel it so personally, Mr Wallace?" He replied with emotion: "because I'm a soldier ... because it's sad, and the West has done what it's done and we have to do our very best to get people out and stand by our obligations".

Wallace was the minister responsible for the British evacuation from Kabul, Operation Pitting. He was involved in a controversial decision to allow Pen Farthing – who ran an animal sanctuary in Kabul – to evacuate 71 people and more than 100 animals from Kabul to the UK. Wallace said Ministry of Defence staff had suffered abuse from some of Farthing's supporters, who alleged the government had initially abandoned Farthing.

In December 2021, Wallace met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss cooperation in various fields, especially defence, having discussed similar matters the previous year with Saudi Arabia's vice defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman.

In 2022, at an event to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War, Wallace declared Britain's determination to "stand up to bullies". His words were decried as "belligerent threats" and "denigrating references" by Argentina.

Wallace met Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Minister of Defence in Moscow on 11 February 2022. Shoigu reiterated a denial of any Russian intentions to invade Ukraine. The following day, Wallace said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was "highly likely", and British citizens were being told by the Foreign Office to evacuate while commercial means were still available. Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, said Wallace's comparison of diplomatic efforts with Russia to the appeasement policies of the 1930s was unhelpful, saying now is the wrong time to "offend our partners". On 23 February 2022, Wallace was filmed saying that the Scots Guards "kicked the backside" of Nicholas I of Russia during the Crimean War, and could do so again. Russia invaded Ukraine the following day.

On 21 March 2022, clipped footage of Wallace in a prank call by Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus was released online. The duo (suspected by the British government to have links to Russian security services or of being Russian state actors) impersonated the Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal saying that Ukraine wished to promote its own nuclear deterrent to protect itself from Russia, a false claim made by the Russian government during the Russo-Ukrainian War and the invasion of Ukraine. Wallace was believed to be on a Microsoft Teams call with the duo for ten minutes. That day, Wallace announced plans to reduce the number of British Army personnel from 76,500 to 72,500.

Wallace was perceived as responsible for initial British reluctance to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine in March 2022, saying that the idea "wouldn't work". Boris Johnson and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz agreed on 8 April that both European allies would withhold their Western-designed main battle tanks from the fray. Johnson instead chose to backfill the Polish Army, thus allowing them to send their obsolete T-72s to Ukraine, while they waited for their order of South Korean K2 Black Panther replacements. Despite a planned reduction of the British tank fleet from 227 Challenger 2 tanks to 148 upgraded Challenger 3 tanks, there were no plans to send British tanks to the Ukrainians. Wallace later announced that the number of Challenger 3 tanks required by the UK was under review. In January 2023, the British position was reversed, and Challenger 2 tanks were supplied to Ukraine in March 2023.

Boris Johnson announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in July 2022 following a series of mass resignations from his government. Wallace was seen as a contender to succeed him as party leader and thus Prime Minister, but on 10 July he ruled himself out from entering the contest. In a statement on Twitter, he said his focus was on his current job and "keeping this great country safe". He later endorsed Liz Truss in the election. Following the appointment of Truss as Prime Minister, Wallace was reappointed to his post on 6 September. He retained his post when Rishi Sunak became prime minister on 25 October.

On 7 November, Wallace announced that the competition to build a new national flagship yacht would be scrapped with immediate effect.

On 21 June 2023, Wallace ruled himself out of the running to become the next NATO Secretary-General after rumours spread that the US were in favour of Jens Stoltenberg staying in post.

Speaking at a NATO summit in Lithuania on 11 July, Wallace said that Ukraine should offer more gratitude to Western allies of the country, following the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's frustration at not being given a formal invitation to join the NATO alliance. Wallace also said that American and British lawmakers felt that Ukraine was demanding an Amazon-style wishlist of demands in military aid.

On 15 July 2023, Wallace announced his intention to resign as Secretary of State for Defence at the next Cabinet reshuffle and confimed that he would not be seeking re-election as an MP at the next general election. By length of tenure, he was the longest-serving Conservative Secretary of State for Defence on record. Wallace was also the longest-serving participant in the current UK Cabinet by continuous service; attending without interruption since his 2016 appointment as Minister of State for Security. On 31 August 2023, Wallace formally resigned as Secretary of State for Defence.

Personal life
Wallace married Liza Cooke in 2001. They met when she was a researcher in the Scottish Parliament and Wallace was an MSP. His wife worked as a part-time parliamentary assistant in his office until 30 April 2019.
They have since separated. He has described the burden of his job on his private life as one of the regrets of his political career.

The couple have two sons and a daughter. His children were divided on whether Wallace should have made a pitch for the Conservative leadership in 2022.

Wallace divides his time between Lancashire and London. Outside politics, he lists his recreations as skiing, sailing, rugby and horse racing. He is a member of the Third Guards club.

Honours

References

External links

 Ben Wallace MP  Conservative Party profile

News articles
 Yobs in June 2005
 Iris scanning in January 2007
 Explaining his expenses in February 2008

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1970 births
Living people
20th-century British Army personnel
British military personnel of The Troubles (Northern Ireland)
Conservative MSPs
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English people of Scottish descent
Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Members of the Royal Company of Archers
Members of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003
People educated at Millfield
People from Farnborough, London
Recipients of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 2nd class
Secretaries of State for Defence (UK)
Scots Guards officers
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present

Ben Wallace (politician)


Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal is the fourth and final solo album by Vivian Stanshall. It is a return to the largely spoken-word, solo comedy format of Stanshall's second album Sir Henry at Rawlinson End and is a sequel to the same work.

Background

Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal continues the story of the dissolute aristocrat and explorer Sir Henry Rawlinson, this time dealing with his attempts on behalf of the "Geographic Society" to locate a lost tribe of Zulus in South Africa. In contrast to Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, it is almost entirely spoken word, with only one song included. The album is predominantly a parody of the colonial manners and attitudes of the British Empire, using Sir Henry as a mouthpiece for various ridiculous and sometimes racist philosophies which Stanshall could spoof. It has been described as "a contradictory mix of Sir Henry's belief in racial superiority and (Stanshall's) genuine affection for African culture."

The album was recorded at a low point in Stanshall's life following his separation from his second wife Ki Longfellow and their young family, during which he was suffering from severe alcohol and prescription medicine abuse. Stanshall was unhappy with the album's unpolished content, editing and low production values and subsequently disowned it. The producer, Glen Colson, has defended the release and his own work on it by protesting that Stanshall's depressed and intoxicated state diminished his creative input and that Colson himself was obliged to finish the album as best he could.

Although Stanshall would continue to produce one-off recordings, advertisements and the comic opera Stinkfoot, Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal is his final album.

Stanshall later recorded music and narration intended to form an album by linking together material from his final three John Peel BBC sessions, recorded in 1988-1991. However, this project was not completed at the time of his death. It was not until 2023 that Michael Livesley, with the assistance of Andy Frizell, did so under the title Rawlinson's End.

Track listing

 "Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal" - 51:42

Personnel

Vivian Stanshall - vocals and narration, trumpet, percussion
Suzie Honeyman - violin
Sean Oliver - bass guitar
Jon Glyn - saxophone
John Scott - footsteps
Bruce Smith - drums
Mario Tavares - producer
Simon The Lodger - unexplained contribution
Ralph Steadman - artwork

References

1984 albums
Vivian Stanshall albums
Spoken word albums by British artists

Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal


The Swinomish Channel is an  long salt-water channel in Washington state, United States, which connects Skagit Bay to the south and Padilla Bay to the north, separating Fidalgo Island from mainland Skagit County. The Swinomish Channel is the smallest of the three entrances to Puget Sound—the other two being Deception Pass and Admiralty Inlet.

The Swinomish Channel is partly natural and partly dredged. Before being dredged, it was a collection of shallow tidal sloughs, salt marshes, and mudflats known as Swinomish Slough. The United States Army Corps of Engineers used dredging and diking to create a navigable channel, completed in 1937 during the Great Depression.

The channel is heavily used by fishing boats, tugs, recreational craft, and shallow-draft freight vessels.

To maintain navigable depths, the Swinomish Channel must be dredged at least every three years. Dedicated federal funding for continued dredging was eliminated in the 1990s. A study in 2004–2008 determined that sedimentation would render the channel's north end impassable for virtually all vessels by 2015, and its south end by 2019. The channel was dredged again in 2008. In 2012 the Army Corps of Engineers received funding from Congress for another dredging project, which was finished in January 2013. The channel was most recently dredged in 2018.

References

Channels of the United States
Bodies of water of Skagit County, Washington
Bodies of water of Washington (state)
Washington placenames of Native American origin

Swinomish Channel


Francis Alfred Tarrant (11 December 1880 – 29 January 1951) was an Australian cricketer whose first-class career spanned from 1899 to 1936, and included 329 matches.

From Melbourne, Tarrant began his career with Victoria in Australia's Sheffield Shield, but found fame playing in England, with a long career as an all-rounder for Middlesex in the County Championship. After the First World War, he was mostly active in India, appearing for the Europeans in the Bombay Quadrangular tournament. Tarrant played his final first-class match at the age of 56, during the 1936–37 season. He had also umpired in two England–India Test matches (and several first-class games) several seasons earlier. Considered one of the best players never to play at Test level, Tarrant scored almost 18,000 runs and over 1,500 wickets during his long career, and completed "the double" of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season on eight separate occasions.

Biography
A nephew of ex-Victoria player Ambrose Tarrant, Tarrant first played for Victoria in 1898/1899, and met with little success either as a batsman or a bowler then or in 1900/1901.

However, he moved to England in 1903 to join the Lord's ground staff and played a number of matches for the MCC while qualifying for Middlesex. In these, he showed himself developing into a left-arm spinner of above average pace but with nothing beyond steadiness when pitches did not help him. In 1904, he showed development as a solid right-handed batsman, and in 1905, when fully qualified, he was a valuable aid to Middlesex. his superb batting on a difficult pitch to draw the game with Essex at Leyton showed he was a player of exceptional resolution during the most difficult crisis.

In 1906, while his bowling was impotent on the rock-hard wickets prevailing in the Home Counties for most of the season, Tarrant was unplayable on rain-affected pitches at Old Trafford and in Yorkshire, and he scored 1000 runs for the first time.

1907 saw Tarrant take a leap into cricket's elite, with his batting, at least for three months, marking him as a player of remarkable patience even if he failed to use all the strokes he was capable of playing. Though he lacked sting when pitches were hard, on rain-affected pitches Tarrant could turn the ball extremely quickly from a perfect length. This was seen at its clearest when he took nine for 59 against Nottinghamshire at Lord's – some of the batsmen said they "had never seen a finer piece of bowling". For the whole season Tarrant took 183 wickets for 15.70 each and scored 1552 runs with an average of 32.

That winter, Tarrant returned to Australia and in six matches scored 762 runs for an average of 76, including 159 against the touring MCC team and 206 against New South Wales at the SCG. Between 1908 and 1914, he was always one of the best all-rounders in the game – a safe catcher, a skilful opening batsman (who formed with Pelham Warner one of the best opening partnerships in the game), and a deadly bowler when the wicket was helpful and steady when it did not. His batting also grew beyond the purely defensive as he developed his on-side strokes – so much that against Surrey at Lord's in 1911 he scored 89 in seventy minutes when Middlesex wanted quick runs for a declaration. That year he achieved the rare feat of scoring 2000 runs and taking 100 wickets, and carried his bat for 207 against Yorkshire. His performance of taking 16 for 176 followed by 101 not out against Lancashire in 1914 remains one of the greatest all-round feats in county cricket. That same year, he scored a brilliant 250 not out at Leyton after Johnny Douglas had put Middlesex in to bat on a rain-affected pitch. As he scored 200 against Worcestershire in the following match, he accomplished the remarkable feat of scoring two successive double-hundreds. With J.W. Hearne he forged a partnership that, almost single-handed, allowed Middlesex to come second to Surrey.

During the war, Tarrant played in India, and his bowling was unplayable on the matting wickets against weak batting.  In 1918/1919 he achieved the incredible feat of scoring a century and taking all ten wickets in an innings.

Tarrant continued to organise touring teams to India after the war, and only played rarely outside India. However, he managed to make 78 in one match as late as 1936/1937, when he was fifty-seven, and he umpired England's first two Tests on Indian soil, as well as several other MCC matches on that tour. Tarrant and his son Louis stood together in the match between MCC and Southern Punjab, which provides one of the few instances when a father and son umpired in a match, and later also appeared together in a first-class match during the 1935–36 season.

On 26 August 1909, playing for Middlesex against Gloucestershire, Tarrant did the double by taking a Hat-trick and carrying his bat in the same match; he is the only cricketer to do so.

References

External links

First-class batting
First-class bowling

1880 births
1951 deaths
Australian cricketers
Australian expatriate cricketers in the United Kingdom
Australian expatriate sportspeople in India
Australian Test cricket umpires
Europeans cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
Middlesex cricketers
Patiala cricketers
Players cricketers
Cricketers from Melbourne
Victoria cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
S. H. Cochrane's XI cricketers
Australian expatriate sportspeople in England
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
North v South cricketers
L. G. Robinson's XI cricketers
Lord Londesborough's XI cricketers
P. F. Warner's XI cricketers
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People from Fitzroy, Victoria

Frank Tarrant


The siege of Louisbourg was a pivotal operation of the Seven Years' War (known in the United States as the French and Indian War) in 1758 that ended the French colonial era in Atlantic Canada and led to the subsequent British campaign to capture Quebec in 1759 and the remainder of French North America the following year.

Background
The British government realized that with the Fortress of Louisbourg under French control, the Royal Navy could not sail up the St. Lawrence River unmolested for an attack on Quebec. After an expedition against Louisbourg in 1757 led by Lord Loudon was turned back due to a strong French naval deployment, the British under the leadership of William Pitt resolved to try again with new commanders.

Pitt assigned the task of capturing the fortress to Major General Jeffery Amherst. Amherst's brigadiers were Charles Lawrence, James Wolfe and Edward Whitmore, and command of naval operations was assigned to Admiral Edward Boscawen.  The chief engineer was John Henry Bastide who had been present at the first siege of Louisbourg in 1745 and was chief engineer at Fort St Philip, Minorca, in 1756 when the British had surrendered the fort and island to the French after a long siege.

As they had in 1757, the French planned to defend Louisbourg by means of a large naval build-up. However, the British blockaded the French fleet sailing from Toulon when it arrived in Cartagena, and defeated a French relief force at the Battle of Cartagena.

The French consequently abandoned their attempt to reinforce Louisbourg from the Mediterranean, and only 11 ships were available to oppose the British off Louisbourg. Most of the cannons and men were moved inside the fort and five ships (Appolon, Fidèle, Chèvre, Biche, Diane) were sunk to block the entrance to the harbour.
On 9 July, Echo tried to slip out of the harbour under the cover of a dense fog, but was intercepted and seized by
HMS Scarborough and HMS Junon. This left the French with only five half-empty ships in the harbour : Célèbre (64), Entreprenant (74), Capricieux (64), Prudent (74) and Bienfaisant (64).

British forces assembled at Halifax, Nova Scotia where army and navy units spent most of May training together as the massive invasion fleet came together. After a large gathering at the Great Pontack, on 29 May, the Royal Navy fleet departed from Halifax for Louisbourg.

Order of battle

The fleet consisted of 150 transport ships and 40 men-of-war.  Housed in these ships were almost 14,000 soldiers, almost all of whom were regulars (with the exception of four companies of American rangers).  The force was divided into three divisions:  Red, commanded by James Wolfe, Blue, commanded by Charles Lawrence and White commanded by Edward Whitmore.  On 2 June the British force anchored in Gabarus Bay,  from Louisbourg.

The French commander (and governor of Île-Royale (New France)), the Chevalier de Drucour, had at his disposal some 3,500 regulars as well as approximately 3,500 marines and sailors from the French warships in the harbour. However, unlike the previous year, the French navy was unable to assemble in significant numbers, leaving the French squadron at Louisbourg outnumbered five to one by the British fleet.  Drucour ordered trenches to be prepared and defended by some 2,000 French troops, along with other defences, such as an artillery battery, at Kennington Cove.

British forces

British forces were commanded by General Jeffery Amherst (appx. 11,000 regulars and 200 American rangers (colonials)).
 3 companies of Rogers' Rangers
 Gorham's Rangers (only 1 company) – Colonial Massachusetts
 Louisbourg Grenadiers (composite, made up of grenadiers from the 22nd, 45th, and 40th regiments)
 Commander Artillery & Engineers
 Captain Ord's Company, Royal Artillery
 11 Miners
 11 Engineers
 100 Carpenters
 Royal Train of Artillery (324 men)
 Brigadier Whitmore's Brigade under Brigadier General Edward Whitmore
 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot
 22nd Regiment of Foot
 40th Regiment of Foot
 48th Regiment of Foot
 3rd Battalion, 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot
 Brigadier Wolfe's Brigade under Brigadier General James Wolfe
 17th Regiment of Foot
 35th Regiment of Foot
 47th Regiment of Foot
 2nd Battalion, 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot
 Brigadier Lawrence's Brigade under Brigadier General Charles Lawrence
 15th Regiment of Foot
 28th Regiment of Foot
 45th Regiment of Foot
 58th Regiment of Foot
 78th Regiment (Fraser's Highlanders)

French forces

Ground troops
The French garrison based within the Fortress of Louisbourg was commanded by Augustin de Boschenry, Chevalier de Drucour.  Between 1755 and the time of the siege, the French garrison expanded from 1,200 troops to around 6,000 troops.  Troops forming the garrison included:
 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Artois – 2éme Bataillon du Régiment d'Artois (520 Troops)
 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Burgundy – 2éme Bataillon du Régiment de Bourgogne (520 Troops)
 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Cambis – 2éme Bataillon du Régiment de Cambis (650 Troops), Battalion arriving just before the siege, based in Port-Dauphin and marched to Louisbourg due to the town being blockaded by the Royal Navy
 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Foreign Volunteers – 2éme Bataillon du Régiment des Volontaires Étrangers (660 Troops)
 1,000 Compagnies Détachées (mostly from the Compagnies Franches de la Marine)
 120 gunners from Bombardiers de la Marine
 700 "burgher militia"
 Tribe of unknown Natives
 Crews from the French fleet

Naval forces & reinforcements
Many naval forces were sent from France to Louisbourg, but the majority of them did not arrive in time.  The divisions and squadrons sent to assist included:
 Naval Division of the Marquis Charry des Gouttes (departed from Île-d'Aix on 9 March, arrival date in Louisbourg unknown)
 74 Gun Ship-of-the-Line Prudent – Captured then set on fire 26 July
 64 Gun SoL Raisonnable – Collided with Messager on 13 March, captured after a brief fight 29 April
 56 Gun SoL L'Apollon, only 20 or 22 cannons – Scuttled 28 June
 24 Gun Frigate Diane – Scuttled 29 June
 24 Gun Frigate Mutine – Fate unknown
 24 Gun Frigate Fidèle – Scuttled 28 June
 24 Gun Frigate Galatée – Captured in April by the English as it left Bordeaux, escorting a convoy of twelve transports to supply the town but all captured
 6 or 12 Gun Fluyt Messager – Collided 13 March with Raisonnable probably later returned to Rochefort
 10 Gun Fluyt Chèvre – Scuttled 28 June
 Naval Division of Beaussier de l'Isle (departed Brest 10 April, unknown arrival date)
 74 Gun Ship-of-the-Line Entreprenant – Burned 21 July during the siege by flaming debris projected by the explosion of Celebre
 64 Gun SoL Bizarre – Left Louisbourg on 8 June to help during the siege of Quebec to bring food and ammunition and joined Du Chaffault division.  Separated from other ships on 24 September on return, returned to France alone, docked in Lorient
 64 Gun SoL Célèbre – Exploded 21 July after being hit by English bomb during siege
 64 Gun SoL Capricieux – Exploded 21 July by flaming debris from the explosion of Célèbre
 64 Gun SoL Bienfaisant – Captured during the night of 25/26 July during raid, integrated into Royal Navy
 30 Gun Frigate Comtète – Left Louisbourg at start of the siege, then returned to France alone
 28 Gun Frigate L'Echo – Sent to Quebec to advise arrival of the English squadron in front of Louisbourg, captured by two English frigates on 25 May

Siege
Weather conditions in the first week of June made any landing impossible and the British were only able to mount a bombardment of the improvised shore defences of Gabarus Bay from a frigate.  However, conditions improved, and at daybreak on 8 June Amherst launched his assault using a flotilla of large boats, organized in seven divisions, each commanded by one of his brigadiers.  French defences were initially successful and after heavy losses, Wolfe ordered a retreat.  However, at the last minute, a boatload of light infantry in Wolfe's division (i.e., members of Rogers Rangers) found a rocky inlet protected from French fire and secured a beachhead.  Wolfe redirected the rest of his division to follow.  Outflanked, the French retreated rapidly back to their fortress.

Continuing heavy seas and the difficulty inherent to moving siege equipment over boggy terrain delayed the commencement of the formal siege. In the meantime, Wolfe was sent with 1,220 picked men around the harbour to seize Lighthouse Point, which dominated the harbour entrance.  This he did on 12 June.  After eleven days, on 19 June, the British artillery batteries were in position and the orders were given to open fire on the French.  The British battery consisted of seventy cannons and mortars of all sizes.  Within hours, the guns had destroyed walls and damaged several buildings.
On 21 July a mortar round from a British gun on Lighthouse Point struck a 64-gun French ship of the line, Le Célèbre , and set it ablaze. A stiff breeze fanned the fire, and shortly after Le Célèbre caught fire, two other French ships, L'Entreprenant and Le Capricieux, had also caught fire. L'Entreprenant sank later in the day, depriving the French of the largest ship in the Louisbourg fleet.

The next major blow to French morale came on the evening of 23 July, at 10:00.  A British "hot shot" set the King's Bastion on fire.  The King's Bastion was the fortress headquarters and the largest building in North America in 1758. Its destruction eroded confidence and reduced morale in the French troops and their hopes to lift the British siege.

Naval action
Most historians regard the British actions of 25 July as the "straw that broke the camel's back". Using a thick fog as cover, Admiral Boscawen sent a cutting-out party to destroy the last two French ships in the harbour. The British raiders eliminated these two French ships of the line, capturing  and burning Prudent, thus clearing the way for the Royal Navy to enter the harbour. James Cook, who later became famous as an explorer, took part in this operation and recorded it in his ship's log book.

Capitulation
On 26 July the French surrendered.  Having fought a spirited defence, the French expected to be accorded the honours of war, as they had given to the surrendering British at the Battle of Minorca.  However, Amherst refused, tales of the atrocities supposedly committed by France's native allies at the surrender of Fort Oswego and Fort William Henry probably fresh in his mind. The defenders of Louisbourg were ordered to surrender all of their arms, equipment and flags. These actions outraged Drucour, but because the safety of the non-combatant inhabitants of Louisbourg depended upon him he reluctantly accepted the terms of surrender. The Cambis regiment refused to honour the terms of surrender, breaking its muskets and burning its regimental flags rather than hand them over to the British victors. Brigadier-General Whitmore was appointed the new Governor of Louisbourg, and remained there with four regiments.

Aftermath
Louisbourg had held out long enough to prevent an attack on Quebec in 1758. However the fall of the fortress led to the loss of French territory across Atlantic Canada.  From Louisbourg, British forces spent the remainder of the year routing French forces and occupying French settlements in what is today New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The second wave of the Acadian expulsion began. The British engaged in the St. John River Campaign, the Cape Sable Campaign, the Petitcodiac River Campaign, the Ile Saint-Jean Campaign, and the removal of Acadians in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign (1758).

The loss of Louisbourg deprived New France of naval protection, opening the Saint Lawrence to attack. Louisbourg was used in 1759 as the staging point for General Wolfe's famous siege of Quebec ending French rule in North America. Following the surrender of Quebec, British forces and engineers set about methodically destroying the fortress with explosives, ensuring that it could not return to French possession a second time in any eventual peace treaty. By 1760, the entire fortress was reduced to mounds of rubble. In 1763 the Treaty of Paris saw France formally cede Canada, including Cape Breton Island, to the British. In 1768 the last of the British garrison departed along with most of the remaining civilian inhabitants.

Royal Navy fleet throughout the siege

See also

 France in the Seven Years War
 Great Britain in the Seven Years War
 Louisburgh, County Mayo, a town named after the battle
 Military history of Nova Scotia
 Louisbourg Garrison

References
Primary sources
 Gordon's journal of the siege
 The Daily Journals, Diaries, Letters, and Accounts of Louisbourg and Isle Royale (1713–1768)
 Journal of John Wolcott
 Memoirs of de Johnstone
 Chapter III of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African at Wikisource includes a brief witness account of the battle
 Guerre du Canada. 1756–1760. Montcalm et Lévis.(in French)
Endnotes

Bibliography

 Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War (2000) pp 250–256
 Brumwell, Stephen. Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe. Hambledon Continuum, 2007
 Chartrand, Rene Louisbourg 1758
 Hough, Richard. Captain James Cook: a biography. Hodder & Stoughton, 1995
 Fowler, William M. Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle For North America.  Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2005
 Hitsman, J.  McKay and C.C.J. Bond.  "The Assault Landing at Louisbourg, 1758," Canadian Historical Review (1954) 35:314–330.
 A.J.B. Johnson, Endgame 1758:The Promise, the Glory and the Despair of Louisbourg's Last Decade, Sydney, NS: Capre Breton University Press, 2008
 McLennan, J.S (2000, originally 1918). Louisbourg: From its Foundation to its Fall, 1713–1758. Halifax: The Book Room Limited.
 Warner, Oliver.  With Wolfe to Quebec. Toronto: William Collins Sons and Company Ltd., 1972

 James Cook's participation at the Siege of Louisbourg. Royal Geographical Society of South Australia

Conflicts in Acadia
Military history of New England
Military history of the Thirteen Colonies
Conflicts in New Brunswick
Acadian history
Sieges involving France
Sieges involving Great Britain
Battles of the French and Indian War
1758 in France
Conflicts in 1758
1750s in Canada
1758 in New France
Conflicts in Nova Scotia
Amphibious operations involving the United Kingdom

Siege of Louisbourg (1758)


HellWood is the fourth studio album by Polish heavy metal band Hunter. It was released on April 14, 2009 by Mystic Production.

A music videos have been made for the songs "Labirynt Fauna" and "Strasznik" directed by Dariusz Szermanowicz and Mateusz Winkiel, respectively.

The album landed at number 9 on Polish Albums Chart, and dropped out five weeks later.

Track listing

Credits

References

2009 albums
Hunter (band) albums
Mystic Production albums
Polish-language albums

HellWood


Abdulhadi Khalaf (, born 1945) is a Bahraini leftist political activist and senior lecturer in the Sociology department at Lund University. He is regarded as a specialist in the politics of the Persian Gulf region.

Biography
He received his primary and secondary education in Bahrain, then went abroad for college. He obtained a doctorate in sociology from Sweden's University of Lund in 1972.  Returning to Bahrain, he became a candidate for the country's first National Assembly and was elected in December 1973. The assembly was an advisory body with limited powers to approve laws drawn up by the government. Several months after the National Assembly convened, Khalaf was expelled and arrested on charges of supporting one of several banned political groups that called for a constitutional monarchy. He was released from prison in 1975, then rearrested in 1976, again because of his political activities on behalf of democratic government.

Between 1975 and 1990, Khalaf was worked as a consultant for a number of institutions including UNECWA (now UNESCWA). In 1990, he accepted an appointment to teach sociology at the University of Lund and moved to Sweden.  He continues to write articles about Bahrain's politics and society for Arabic and English publications across the Middle East. He has also written and published multiple books on the region.

Bibliography
Conditions and needs of Working Women in Bahrain, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Manama, in 1983.
Civil Resistance: Schools and forms of Mass Action, Arab Research Institute, Beirut, in 1988.
Contentious Politics and State-Building in Bahrain, Research Reports in Sociology, 2000:1, Dept of Sociology, U. of Lund,  in 2000.
 Contentious Politics and State-Building in Bahrain,  An Arabic translation published in 2000. Reprinted in 2004.
Constitutional Reform and Political Participation in the Gulf, co-edited by Giacomo Luciani, Gulf Research Center, Dubai, 2006, .

See also
 Majeed Marhoon
 Ali Rabea
 Layla Fakhro

References

Bahraini dissidents
Bahraini left-wing activists
Bahraini prisoners and detainees
Prisoners and detainees of Bahrain
Bahraini academics
Members of the National Assembly (Bahrain)
Living people
1945 births
Academic staff of Lund University
Baharna

Abdulhadi Khalaf