Invasion

Invasion (pronounced in-vey-zhuhn)

(1) A military action consisting of armed forces of one (usually geopolitical) entity entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of conquering territory & altering or overthrowing an established government.

(2) The entrance or advent of anything troublesome or harmful, as disease; the entry without consent of an individual, group or species into an area where they are not wanted.

(3) Entrance as if to take possession or overrun.

(4) Infringement by intrusion.

(5) In pathology, the spread of cancer from its point of origin into surrounding tissues.

(6) In Botany, the movement of plants to a new area or to an area to which they are not native.

(7) In surgery, the breaching of the skin barrier.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, From the Middle French invasion from the Late Latin invāsiōnem, accusative of invāsiō, from invāsus, past participle of invādō, the construct being in- (in, into) +‎ vādō (I go, rush).  Invāsus was the past participle of invādere + -iōn-.  The noun was from the mid-fifteenth century Middle English invasioun (an assault, attack, act of entering a country or territory as an enemy), from the twelfth century Old French invasion (invasion, attack, assault), from the Late Latin invasionem (nominative invasio) (an attack, invasion), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of invadere (to go, come, or get into; enter violently, penetrate into as an enemy, assail, assault, make an attack on), the construct being in- (in) from the primitive Indo-European root en- (in)) + vadere (to go, to walk, go hastily) from the primitive Indo-European root wadh- (to go) (source also of the Old English wadan (to go) and the Latin vadum (ford).  Of the meanings in the extended senses, of diseases it referred to "a harmful incursion of any kind; with reference to rights etc, it was about "infringement by intrusion, encroachment by entering into or taking away what belongs to another".

The later noun incursion (hostile attack) dates from the early fifteenth century, from the fourteenth century Old French incursion (invasion, attack, assault) or directly from the Latin incursionem (nominative incursio) (a running against, hostile attack), the noun of action from past participle stem of incurrere (run into or against, rush at).  Although in practice often synonymous with invasion, “incursion” is often in a specifically military context used to distinguish a operation which is either a prelude to or a distinct part of an invasion.  It’s a practice of historians rather than a convention of use and is one of a number of words used to describe the mechanics of an invasion including: aggression, assault, breach, infiltration, infringement, intrusion, offensive, onslaught, raid, violation, entrenchment, foray, infraction, inroad, irruption, maraud, offense & transgression.

The (second) Italian invasion of Ethiopia

Italy’s invasion in of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 was a curious business.  Conceived by the Duce (Benito Mussolini (1883-1945, prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) as the means by which his country might acquire a colony of note, a rightful thing he thought denied by the ineptness of previous regimes in Rome and the unfairness of the treaty of Versailles from which Italy had gained so little from the spoils of victory to which she’d made a slight contribution.  In his mind too was the memory of the last Italian adventure in East Africa when in 1896 the Ethiopians had inflicted upon the would-be conquerors from Europe a brutal defeat on the battlefield at Adowa, seared in the memory of the Italian army as the headline “Ten-thousand dead and seventy-two cannon lost”.  Looking first at the map of the old Roman Empire, then the splendid possessions held by Britain and France and finally the few sparse deserts which made up “his” empire, the Duce decided on an African conquest.  Even in 1935 it was seen in other European capitals as an unfashionable venture, the idea of the conquest of other people’s lands no longer the respectable thing to do and there was an increasing awareness that nor was it any longer the profitable thing to do.  Mussolini however was convinced and embarked on what proved to be imperialism’s last great set-piece crusade.

David Low (1981-1963), 1936.

The world of 1935 however was a different place than that of the nineteenth century.  Not only was Ethiopia internationally recognized (including by Italy) as a sovereign, independent state but it was also a member of the League of Nations (1920-1946), the predecessor of the United Nations (UN), formed in an attempt to ensure there could never be another world war, the mechanisms of resolving conflict listed in its covenant. Central to the covenant was collective security and the settling of international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.  The League’s approach did not much commend itself the Mussolini who announced Ethiopia presented a military threat to the neighboring Italian possessions of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and that anyway his historic destiny was to fulfil a civilizing mission which would “…help Africa to progress from its primitive state.”

David Low, 1936

Obviously the League of Nations could not countenance one of its members invading another and the Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare (later Viscount Templewood, 1880–1959; UK Foreign Secretary 1935), making what may have been the finest speech the unfortunate assemble ever heard, declared the UK was wholly committed to the principle of collective security and that acts of unprovoked aggression strenuously would be resisted.  Hoare’s principled stand lasted as long as the next cabinet meeting in London and as quickly it became clear that member nations of the League would not be imposing any economic or diplomatic sanctions which had any substantive effect, let alone threaten a military response, Mussolini invaded.  Able to deploy aircraft, chemical weapons, heavy artillery, tanks and other armored vehicles, the Italians slowly secured victory, culminating in the battle of Amba Aradam, the biggest and bloodiest battle of the imperial era.

David Low, 1936.

By then Hoare had been forced from office by the public outcry over his back-channel deal with the palindromic Pierre Laval (1883–1945, French prime minister 1935-1936 and later executed for his role in the Vichy administration (1940-1944)) which, although in the tradition of the League’s earlier acts of conciliation in the far east, is better remembered as a preview of the later techniques of appeasement which so failed to satisfy Hitler.  What Hoare and Laval had agreed was a deal under which two-thirds of Ethiopia would be ceded to Italy in exchange for the Ethiopians being granted a land-corridor to a nearby port.  Both the belligerents actually anyway rejected the deal and Hoare was the sacrificial scapegoat for a plan which had the cabinet’s support.

The affair revealed the European democracies as divided and the League of Nations as ineffectual and doomed.  Although the League would continue to talk, few now listened as Europe drifted to war and after hostilities began, the organization went into abeyance except for a skeleton administrative structure which ticked-over until the League was dissolved in 1946.  Of the many speeches made after the Italian invasion, the only one still remembered is that made in June 1936 the Emperor Haile Selassie I (1892–1975; Emperor of Ethiopia 1930-1974) in which he condemned the league for its inaction, prophesized war and warned the assembled delegates “It is us today.  It will be you tomorrow.”

Sabre

Sabre (pronounced sey-ber)

(1) A stout single-edged cavalry sword, having a curved blade.

(2) A sword used in fencing, having a narrow V-shaped blade, a semicircular guard, and a slightly curved hand.

(3) In historic military slang, a cavalry soldier.

(4) To injure or kill with a sabre.

1670s: From the French sabre (heavy, curved sword), an alteration of sable (dating from the 1630s), from the 1630s German dialectal Sabel & Säbel, from the Middle High German sebel, probably from the perhaps from the fourteenth century Hungarian (Magyar) szabla (rendered laser as száblya) (saber, literally "tool to cut with" from szabni (to cut) and it’s thought the spread of the Hungarian word to neighboring languages occurred during the Ottoman wars in Europe of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.  The origin of the Hungarian word is mysterious.  It was long thought most likely from the South Slavic (the Serbo-Croatian сабља or the Common Slavic sablja) which would mean the ultimate source is Turkic but more recent scholarship suggests it may ultimately be from the Tungusic, via the Kipchak Turkic selebe, with later metathesis (the letters transposing l-b to b-l) and apocope changed to seble, which would have changed its vocalization in Hungarian to the recorded sabla (perhaps under the influence of the Hungarian word szab- (to crop; cut (into shape).  It was cognate with the Danish sabel, the Russian са́бля (sáblja) and the Serbo-Croatian сабља.  The Balto-Slavic words (Russian sablya, Polish and Lithuanian šoblė) may have come via German, but the Italian sciabla is said to have been derived directly from Hungarian.  The US spelling since the late nineteenth century was saber but sabre is also often used by those who prefer the traditional spellings for archaic nouns (eg theatre is in learned use sometimes used to distinguish live high-culture performances from popular forms).  Sabre is a noun and verb and the (omninous sounding) sabring & sabred are verbs; the noun plural is sabres.

Sabrage is the opening of a bottle, traditionally champagne, by striking with a sabre, the annulus (the donut-shape ring of glass between the neck and cork) of the bottle, held at an angle of about 30^o, slicing off the bottle's neck.  The trick is said to be to ensure the bottle is as cold as possible and the practice is claimed to be safe, any shards of glass being propelled away under pressure. For those for whom a sabre might not conveniently fall to hand, another heavy-blade can be used, even a meat-cleaver.  The sabre-tooth tiger, dating from 1849, is but one of a species of saber toothed cats from the genus Smilodon, noted for the pair of elongated teeth in the upper jaw although “sabre-tooth tiger” is often incorrectly used to describe all of the type, correctly known as saber-tooth cats and them a subset of a number of extinct groups of predatory therapsids with the famous teeth.  Saber-toothed mammals roamed the planet for over forty-million years until driven to extinction, presumably by modern humans, towards the end last period of glacial expansion during the ice age, an epoch which, by one definition, remains on-going.

Although some sources maintain “saber-rattling” (ostentatious or threatening display of military power; implied threat of imminent military attack; militarism) is derived from certain interactions between civilian government and the military in South American in 1924, the phrase had been in the English newspapers as early as 1879, spreading across the Atlantic early in the next century.  However, even before “saber-rattling” emerged as such an enticingly belligerent semantic mélange, the elements were often in close proximity usually as “the rattling of sabres”, used to describe the clatter a sabre in its scabbard is wont to make as its wearer proceeds on foot or horseback.  The use dates from a time when in many a European city a sword-carrying soldier was not an uncommon sight and bother phrases are used to describe bellicose posturing but only “sabre rattling” is exclusive in this sense.  It’s the sound which matters rather than the particular bladed weapon; the phrase “mere sword rattling” is attested in a US publication in 1882 and, strictly speaking, the use of naval forces in a threatening manner should presumably be “cutlass rattling” but that never caught on.  The figurative use could presumably exist in just about any dispute but seems most documented when threatening legal proceedings, often in cases of alleged defamation.

The strong association of sabre rattling with events in Chile in 1924 has led some to suppose the phrase dates from this time and place; that’s not so but what happened in Santiago was one of the few occasions when the sabers were literally rattled.  It was a time of heightened political conflict between the government and one of the few laws which seemed likely to proceed was a pay-rise for the politicians.  This wasn’t received well by most of the population, including the army officers who had long be denied any increase in their salaries.  Accordingly, several dozen officers, mostly subalterns, attended the congressional session at which the politician’s pay was listed for discussion, sitting in the public gallery.  Among the politicians, their presence caused some disquiet and the president of the chamber, noting the air of quiet intimidation, ordered the public gallery cleared, as the discussion was to be secret.  As the officers departed, they rattled the scabbards (chapes) against the floor, interpreted as a threat of military intervention.  The fears were not unfounded and by September that year, a military Junta had been established to rule the country and not until 1932 would it relinquish power to a civilian government.

Sabre rattling and Mr Putin.

As a set-piece of sabre-rattling, the Kremlin’s deployment of around eight army divisions to the Ukraine border and six amphibious ships with a supporting flotilla to the Black Sea, is the loudest heard since the end of the Cold War yet it has the curiously nineteenth century feel of those old stand-offs between two colonial powers, squabbling over some patch of desert somewhere, building seemingly towards a war which never quite happened.  Perhaps the true state of tension was revealed by a statement a German military spokesperson: “We are ready to go”, the Luftwaffe remarked of their deployment of three Eurofighter aircraft.

Still, few know Mr Putin’s (Vladimir Putin, b 1952; leader of Russia as president or prime-minister since 1999) thoughts on how the crisis should be encouraged to unfold although the Western political establishment is making sure the possibilities are spelled out.  The US president has his motives for doing this as does the British prime-minister and, to be fair, there is some overlap and imaginative suggestions have included the trick the Nazis in 1939 used to trigger Fall Weiss (plan white), the invasion of Poland, Germany staging a fake “attack” by the Poles, complete with German “victims”, the corpses conveniently available from the nearby concentration camps.  Quite whether there are many well-informed politicians who actually believe Russian armored divisions will be unleashed across the Ukrainian border isn’t clear but the alacrity with which many have been beating a path to Mr Putin’s door (or screen), certainly suggests they've reacted well to a growing crisis, the Russian president, in a nice touch, conducting some of the meetings in Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Palace, the last neoclassical Imperial pile built by the Tsars.  Thought pragmatic rather than romantic, conventional wisdom would suggest Mr Putin will be not much be attracted to a massed invasion, even one with a bit of pretext, but the rebel regions in the east are attractive building blocks for the construction of a land bridge to the already annexed Crimean peninsular and from there, it's not that far to Odesa and the tantalizing prospect of sealing off Ukraine from the Black Sea, a more with critical economic and strategic implications.  Political recognition would be a handy prelude and one likely to provoke only a manageable reaction, the West probably as enthusiastic about sanctions which might be self-harming as they were in 1935 when League of Nations tried to do something about Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and it may be when things settle down a bit and the sabre rattling subsides, the Kremlin's strategy will remain the same but the tactical emphasis will switch.  As thinkers of such diverse subtlety as the wickedly clever Talleyrand (Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1754–1838; French diplomat whose career lasted from Louis XVI to Louis-Philippe) and the slow-witted Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) understood, between some states there's always a war going on; sometimes with guns and bombs, sometimes by other means and there are more "other means" than once there were.  Still the concerns about an invasion (which presumably would be styled a "state of armed conflict" rather than a "war") are not unfounded and the recent success of the Russian military in the Crimea and Belarus are probably as encouraging as the subdued Western reaction to these adventures.  How "prompt, resolute and effective" would be the response to invasion by the Ukrainians is the subject of speculation in many capitals, the professional military opinion seemingly that if the pattern of battle is an old-style contest of artillery and armor (Battle of Kursk) then the advantage will lie with the attacker but if fought street by street (Battle of Stalingrad), with the defenders.

Advanced in technology have meant that most uses of the phrase “sabre rattling” are now figurative and even when used in the context of the threat of armed force, “sabre” is acting not literally but as a synecdoche for “military power”.  Other figurative use can be more remote still, including the threat of litigation.  Although her dabbling in cryptocurrency markets would later attract the interest of US regulators, it’s believed Lindsay Lohan's name has been mentioned only once during the hearings conducted by the US Senate’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and that was in October 2017.  During that hearing, Senator John Kennedy (b 1951; junior senator from Louisiana (Republican) since 2017), searching for a phrase to illustrate the inappropriateness of a US$7.25 million IRA (Internal Revenue Service) for identity verification services being awarded to a Equifax (a company which had just suffered a massive hack resulting in the release of sensitive data belonging to 145 million people), settled on it being akin to “giving Lindsay Lohan the keys to the mini-bar.”  Richard Smith (b circa 1961; chairman and chief executive officer of Equifax 2005-2017), after pausing to digest the analogy, replied to the senator: "I understand you point."

Quickly, Lindsay Lohan’s parents declared the comment an “inappropriate, slanderous and unwarranted” and indicated they were seeking legal advice, labelling the senator “unprofessional”.  Whether the pair were serious wasn’t clear but their legal sabre rattling was said by experts to be an “empty threat” because (1) the protection available under the first amendment (free speech) to the US Constitution, (2) the immunity enjoyed by senators during committee hearings and (3) Ms Lohan being a living adult of full mental capacity, her parents would not enjoy the legal standing to litigate on her behalf.  Ms Lohan didn’t comment on the matter and no legal proceedings were filed.  

Replica of 1796 British light cavalry saber with steel scabbard.

The saber gained fame as a cavalry sword, having a slightly curved blade with a sharp edge, ideal for slashing from horseback.  They were first employed in the early sixteenth century by the hussars, a crack cavalry formation from Hungary and so obvious was their efficiency in the charge or the melee they quickly were adopted by armies throughout Europe.  Union and Confederate cavalries carried sabers during the US Civil War (1861-1865) although, with the advent of heavy artillery and rapid-fire weapons (including the limited use of the 600 rounds per minute (rpm) Gatling gun, while still deadly, they were no longer often a decisive battlefield weapon.  The glamour however lingered and sabres remain part of many full-dress military uniforms worn on ceremonial occasions.

North American F-86 Sabre.

Built between 1948-1957, the North American F-86 Sabre was the first US, swept-wing, transonic jet fighter aircraft.  A revision of a wartime jet-fighter programme and much influenced by the German air-frames and technical material which fell into US hands at the end of World War II, the Sabre was first used in combat after being rushed to the Far East to counter the threat posed by the sudden appearance of Soviet-built MiG-15s (NATO reporting name: Fagot) in the skies.  The Sabre was outstanding success in the Korean War (1950-1953), credited with nearly eight-hundred confirmed kills for little more than a hundred losses and the pedigree attracted the interest of many militaries, the Sabre serving in more than two dozen air-forces, the last aircraft not retired from front-line service until 1997.  Capable beyond its original specification (it could attain supersonic speed in a shallow dive), it was upgraded throughout its production with modern radar and other avionics and there was even a naval version called the FJ-3M Fury, optimized for carrier operations.  One footnote the Sabre contributed to feminist history came in 18 May 1953 when Jacqueline Cochran (1906-1980) became the first woman to break the sound barrier, accomplished in a Canadair F-86E.  The combined Sabre and Fury production numbered nearly ten-thousand, including 112 built under licence by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation in Australia.  It was replaced by the F-100D Super Sabre.

The big Sabre

Napier Sabre H-24.

The Napier Sabre was a H-24 cylinder, liquid-cooled, aero engine, designed by the British manufacturer Napier before, during and after World War II.  Although there were many teething problems, later versions evolved to become one of the most powerful piston aero-engines, rated at up to 2,400 horsepower (1,800 kW) while prototypes with advanced supercharger designs yielded in excess of 3,500 horsepower (2,600 kW).  The H-24 configuration (essentially two flat-12s one atop the other and geared together) was chosen because it offered the chance to increase the cylinder count without the excessive length a V-16 or V-24 would entail and, combined with the combination of a short stroke and big bore, permitted high engine speeds, thereby yielding more power without the need greatly to increase displacement and this was vindicated in early testing, the Napier Sabre in 1938 generating 2,400 horsepower (1,800 kW) with a 2,238 cubic inch (37 litre) capacity whereas the early Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 produced just over 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) from a 1,647 cubic inch (27 litre) displacement.

1945 Hawker Tempest powered by Napier Sabre H-24.

Problems however soon emerged, related mostly to quality control in the hurried development and manufacturing processes of wartime and inadequacies in the metallurgy used in the complex cylinder liners required by the sleeve valves.  Once these issues were solved, the Napier Sabre proved an outstanding power-plant, powering the Typhoon, the definitive British ground-attack fighter of the war.  Development continued even after the problems had been solved with the intention of using a redesigned supercharged to produce an engine which could power a high-altitude interceptor but the days of the big piston aero-engined fighters was drawing to a close as the jet age dawned.  Physics also intervened, whatever power a piston engine could generate, the need to use a spinning propeller for propulsion was a limiting factor in performance; above a certain speed, a propeller is simply torn off.

The little sabre

The short stature of Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) with (left to right), with Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia (Rome, 1943), with Albert I, King of the Belgians (France, 1915), with his wife, Princess Elena of Montenegro (Rome 1937) & with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), observing navy manoeuvres (Gulf of Naples, 1938).  Note his sometimes DPRKesque hats.

Technically, Victor Emmanuel didn’t fit the definition of dwarfism which sets a threshold of adult height at 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m), the king about 2 inches (50 mm) taller (or less short) and it’s thought the inbreeding not uncommon among European royalty might have been a factor, both his parents and grandparents being first cousins.  However, although not technically a dwarf, that didn’t stop his detractors in Italy’s fascist government calling him (behind his back) il nano (the dwarf), a habit soon picked up the Nazis as der Zwerg (the dwarf) (although Hermann Göring was said to have preferred der Pygmäe (the pygmy)).  In court circles he was know also, apparently affectionately as la piccola sciabola (the little sabre) a nickname actually literal in origin because the royal swordsmith had to forge a ceremonial sabre with an unusually short blade for the diminutive sovereign to wear with his many military uniforms.  His French-speaking Montenegrin wife stood a statuesque six feet (1.8 m) tall and always called him mon petit roi (my little king).  It was a long and happy marriage and genetically helpful too, his son and successor (who enjoyed only a brief reign) very much taller although his was to be a tortured existence.  Still, in his unhappiness he stood tall and that would have been appreciated by the late Duke of Edinburgh who initially approved of the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer (1960-1997) to the Prince of Wales (b 1948) on the basis that she “would breed some height into the line”.

From Sabre to Sabra

The early (left) and later (right) frontal styling of the Reliant Sabre.  The catfishesque recalled the Daimler SP250 (1959-1964) and was revised later in 1962, the update conceptually to that used by both MG and Triumph.  With the facelift, the bizarre and rather lethal looking dagmars were also retired.

The origins of the Reliant Sabre (1961-1964) were typical of many English sports which emerged during the 19450 & 1960s as designers with alacrity began to exploit the possibilities offered by fibreglass, a material which had first been used at scale for larger structures during World War II (1939-1945).  The Sabre was thus the marriage of a chassis from one manufacture with the body of another; that’s how things sometimes were done at a time when there were few design rules or safety regulations with which to conform.  The era produced a few successes and many failures, the =attraction being with only small amounts of capital, what would now be called “start-ups” could embark on small-volume production of cars which could be shown at motor shows alongside Aston Martins and Mercedes-Benz.

Reliant, a Stafford-based niche manufacturer since the 1930s, were contracted to handle the production and in the normal manner such things were then done, the parts-bins from many places (not all automotive) provided many components from engines & transmission to door handles.  As a roadster, the Sabre was launched in 1961 and while on paper the specification was attractive, it had many of the crudities and foibles which afflicted many of the low-volume products and it was slightly more expensive than the more refined, better equipped MGA and later MGB.  Taking a traditional approach to the problem, Reliant in 1962 released the Sabre Six, fitted with a 2.6 litre (156 cubic inch) straight-six in place of the 1.7 litre (104 cubic inch) four.  That resolved any performance deficit and the new car was as fast as anything in its price bracket but it remained in many ways crude and sales were always sluggish; of the 77 produced, all but two were coupés.

1963 Autocars Sabra Sport GT advertisement with corporate tsabár logo.  Note the woman driver, something then done quite selectively in advertising in the West.

So the Sabre was a failure but the chassis was fundamentally sound and it was used as the basis for the Scimitar coupé, a better developed vehicle with enough appeal to remain available until 1970 but it was as a shooting brake, released in 1968 the car found great success, available in a number of versions until 1986.  A quirkier second life for the Sabre however came in Israel where in 1961 it entered production as the Autocars Sabra, the Autocars company the operation behind the Reliant version.  Sabra was from the Hebrew צַבָּר (tsabár) (prickly pear cactus), the word re-purposed in Modern Hebrew to mean “a Jewish person born in Israel”.  In this context, sabra predated the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 and use was widespread during the British mandate for Palestine (1922-1948).  Etymologists tracing the history suggest it was used originally as a derogatory term, those from recent waves of immigration were “rough and lacked social polish” but by the 1950s, it had become positive, the new settlers lauded as being like the prickly pear, “tough on the outside, sweet under the skin”.  For Autocars, the emphasis was on the “born in Israel” aspect, a bit of a leap considering the international origin of the design and much of the componentry but Autocars (founded in 1957), was at the time the country’s only manufacturer of passenger vehicles so it was something to emphasize.  The tsabaassociation of the cactus with such people was intended to be something positive.  The tsabár (in the sense of the cactus) also provided the inspiration for the corporate logo.

Goth

Goth (pronounced goth)

(1) A member of an East Germanic people from Scandinavia who settled south of the Baltic early in the first millennium AD. They moved on to the Ukrainian steppe, first raiding and later invading many parts of the Roman Empire between the third and fifth centuries.

(2) In historic slang, a person of no refinement; barbarian.

(3) A genre of rock music, first popular in the 1980s and characterized by morbid themes and dreary melodies.

(4) A person part of a sub-culture favoring this style of music and whose tastes tend to be dark and morbid.

(5) In fashion, a descriptor of dark (usually black or purple) clothing and heavy make-up intended to create a ghostly appearance.

Pre-900: From the Middle English Gothe and Late Latin Gothī (plural); which supplanted the Old English Gota (plural Gotan), cognate with Gothic Gut (as in Gut-thiuda (Goth-people)).  Word in Greek was Gothoi.  In the nineteenth century, use in English became common to describe both architecture (often written as Gothick) and the literary style of certain novels; an adherent of either style was sometimes called a Gothicist.  Modern use to describe the fashion and music emerged in the 1980s, considered still a fork of the punk aesthetic.

The Visigoths

The Visigoths were the western branches of the old nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths.  These tribes flourished and spread throughout the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, an era known as the Migration Period.  It was the Visigoths under Alaric I who sacked Rome in 410, an act which made Europe’s descent into medievalism inevitable although there are historians who dispute the detail of that.

The term Visigoth was a geo-etymological error made by Cassiodorus (Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, circa 485–circa 585).  Always known as Cassiodorus, he was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and a bureaucrat in the administration of the Ostrogoth king, Theoderic the Great.  Confusingly for students of the epoch, Senator was part of his surname; he was not a member of any senate.  His mistake was thinking Visigoth meant "west Goths".  Visigoth is from the Latin Visigothus, probably deriving from the Proto-Germanic Wīsagutô, a construction of wīsaz (wise, knowledgable) +‎ gutô (a Goth) or from the primitive Indo-European wesu (good).

Battle of Guadalete, circa 1890, by Salvador Martínez Cubells (1845–1914)).

It happened in what is now southern Spain but it’s not known exactly where the Battle of Guadalete was fought and even the date is disputed, most sources saying it was in 711, others a year later although all agree it lasted, on and off, for days.  There had been earlier engagements but Guadalete, fought between the Umayyad Caliphate and Roderic, Visigothic King of Hispania, was the first major battle of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania.  Against the Christian Visigoth army under Roderic, the invading force of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate was comprised mostly of Berbers and a smaller number of Arabs.  The significance of the battle, not wholly realized at the time, is that it was a set-piece culmination of the earlier skirmishes which had weakened the structure and lines of communications of the Visigoth army.  The Umayyad victory marked the beginning of their conquest of Hispania,  Roderic and many of his generals killed in the battle, opening the way for the capture of the Visigothic capital of Toledo.

Modern-sounding geopolitical concepts like political economy were important influences in the Islamic expansion in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.  North African politics and economics influenced the early Muslims’ decision to cross the Strait of Gibraltar because the Arab armies which had conquered North Africa found themselves drastically outnumbered by the Berbers (Amazigh), many of whom were either Christian or somewhere in the pagan tradition and the invaders’ rules were unambiguous: Christians, a “People of the Book,” were expected to pay the jizya, an additional tax not imposed on Muslims while pagans were offered the choice of conversion or the blade of the sword.

Clear though the theocratic rules may have been, the realities of an small occupying force attempting to exploit a local population which was hostile and greatly outnumbered the conquerors meant the triumph of politics over ideology, both the collecting of tax and conversions of heathens soon haphazard.  But, the lands of North Africa were vast and their defense and administration required money and if it couldn’t locally be collected, it would have to come from the spoils of war new conquests will bring.  To the south lay the seemingly endless deserts of the Sahara and to the north, the waters of the Mediterranean and whatever dangers lay in the sea-crossing to Iberia, they were preferable to attempting to push through the Sahara.

Some toxicity in Visigothic politics was also a factor in the invasion.   The Visigoths had ruled almost all of Hispania since 415 when they drove out the Vandals who taken control of the province from Rome; ironically it was to North Africa the Vandals fled.  The Visigoth king had once been elected but, as happens in kingdoms, dynastic habits evolved and had become the practice for the crown to be passed to a son although, that inheritance was subject to the veto of the aristocracy.  Usually the nobles concurred but not always and in 710, upon the death of a king, they intervened to replace the dynasty with new blood.  Conflict between the clans ensued and, although in battle the new king prevailed, it appears part of the settlement was the division of the kingdom.

At that point, matters cease to be history and become the stuff of myth and legend.  From Arabic sources is the story that the Muslims invaded Hispania at the behest of Count Julian of Ceuta, the last Christian governor in North Africa. Ceuta lies on the African coast just south of Gibraltar and Julian, who may have been Berber, or Germanic, or Greek and was either a vassal of the Visigoths or a Byzantine governor of North Africa, the records to establish the truth are lost.  Julian had somehow succeeded in holding Ceuta against the Muslim advance and, secure in his city, sent his daughter to Toledo to study at the court of Roderic, the new Visigoth king, which seemed a good idea at the time but within months, Julian was told she was pregnant with Roderic’s child.  Enraged, in 710 Julian approached his former enemies and suggested an invasion of Hispania.  Improbable though this may be, the PR machines on the Muslim and Christian sides were cranked up and offered their own embellishments, the former saying the evil Roderic had raped the poor girl, the latter that the little harlot had seduced poor Roderic.

Julian, it is said, provided provisions, logistical support and intelligence for the assault but little more is known other than it was the name of the general leading the invasion force, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād (طارق بن زياد in the Arabic) from which the Rock of Gibraltar gained its name, Jabal Ṭāriq (جبل طارق), meaning “mountain of Ṭāriq”.  The invasion was a success but the scale of the military operation is uncertain, medieval writings mentioning forces on both sides in the hundreds of thousands but most historians believe the Muslims had no more than 20,000 troops and the Visigoths perhaps twice that number.

Whatever the numbers, the Visigoths were defeated, Roderic killed in battle.  After the fog of war cleared, the fog of history drifted in and there are many tales to explain how a big army with all the advantages which accrue to defenders could be defeated by a smaller expeditionary force.  Some suggest Roderic didn’t enjoy the loyalty of all his men, many unhappy at his usurpation of the throne but this is contradicted by those who claim the old king was despised by all and that Roderic’s enthronement had been widely celebrated.  Apart from the legal point about the nobles exercising their right to elect a king so it could hardly be said to be a usurpation, the truth of any of this is unknown.  Nor is much known about the battle, military historians tending to conclude the most likely reason for the Arab success was the deployment of fast, mobile, cavalry against static defencs lines in an unrelenting succession of attacks which simply overwhelmed the Visigothic army.

After victory at Guadalete, Ṭāriq didn’t pause, marching on to the Visigothic capital, Toledo before his enemy had time to regroup.  At that point, Musa bin Nusayr, Ṭāriq’s commanding officer, shocked at the rapidity of the advance and anxious to grab for himself the glory of victory, assembled “reinforcements” and hastened across the strait to assume personal command.  Musa didn’t long get to bask in the glow of Ṭāriq’s triumph, the Caliph, Ibrahim ibn al-Walid (ابراهيم ابن الوليد بن عبد الملك‎), soon recalling them both to Damascus where they would live out their days.  This narrative, though widely told, is disputed, some claiming the two soldiers had a harmonious relationship and some saying that while there were disputes, they were later reconciled.  Again, it’s all lost to history.

One military legacy of the conquest of their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was one hardly noticed at the time and dismissed as insignificant by those who did.  The one area which did not fall to them was the tiny northern kingdom of Asturias and it was from this postage stamp of a renegade province that one day would form the political and geographic base for the Reconquista, the eventual re-imposition of Christian control over Iberia.

American Sapphic, Lindsay Lohan & former special friend Samantha Ronson by Ben Tegel after American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood (1891-1942).

Prevent & preempt or pre-empt

Prevent (pronounced pri-vent)

(1) To keep from occurring; avert; hinder, especially by the taking of some precautionary action.

(2) To hinder or stop from doing something.

(3) To act ahead of; to forestall (archaic).

(4) To precede or anticipate (archaic).

(5) To interpose a hindrance.

(6) To outdo or surpass (obsolete).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English preventen (anticipate), from the Latin praeventus, past participle of (1) praevenīre (to anticipate; come or go before, anticipate), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + ven- (stem of venīre (come)) + -tus (the past participle suffix) and (2) praeveniō (I anticipate), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + veniō (I come).  In Classical Latin the meaning was literal but in Late Latin, by the 1540s the sense of “to prevent” had emerged, the evolution explained by the idea of “anticipate to hinder; hinder from action by opposition of obstacles”.  That meaning seems not to have entered English until the 1630s.

The adjective preventable (that can be prevented or hindered) dates from the 1630s, the related preventability a decade-odd later.  The adjective preventative (serving to prevent or hinder) is noted from the 1650s and for centuries, dictionaries have listed it as an irregular formation though use seems still prevalent; preventive is better credentialed but now appears relegated to be merely an alternative form.  The adjective preventive (serving to prevent or hinder; guarding against or warding off) has the longer pedigree (used since the 1630s) and was from the Latin praevent-, past-participle stem of praevenīre (to anticipate; come or go before, anticipate).  It was used as a noun in the sense of "something taken or done beforehand” since the 1630s and had entered the jargon of medicine by the 1670s, and under the influence of the physicians came the noun preventiveness (the quality of being preventive).  The noun prevention came from the mid-fifteenth century prevencioun (action of stopping an event or practice), from the Medieval Latin preventionem (nominative preventio) (action of anticipating; a going before), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of the Classical Latin praevenīre.  The original sense in English has been obsolete since at least the late seventeenth century although it was used in a poetically thus well into the 1700s.  Prevent is a verb, preventable (or preventible), preventive & preventative are adjectives, preventability (or preventibility) is a noun and preventably (preventibly) is an adverb.  The archaic spelling is prævent.

Many words are associated with prevent including obstruct, obviate, prohibit, rule out, thwart, forbid, restrict, hamper, halt, forestall, avoid, restrain, hinder, avert, stop, impede, inhibit, bar, preclude, counter, limit & block.  Prevent, hamper, hinder & impede refer to so degree of stoppage of action or progress.  “To prevent” is to stop something by forestalling action and rendering it impossible.  “To hamper” or “to hinder” is to clog or entangle or put an embarrassing restraint upon; not necessarily preventing but certainly making more difficult and both refer to a process or act intended to prevent as opposed to the prevention.  “To impede” is to make difficult the movement or progress of anything by interfering with its proper functioning; it implies some physical or figurative impediment designed to prevent something.

Preempt or pre-empt (pronounced pree-empt)

(1) To occupy (usually public) land in order to establish a prior right to buy.

(2) To acquire or appropriate before someone else; take for oneself; arrogate.

(3) To take the place of because of priorities, reconsideration, rescheduling, etc; supplant.

(4) In bridge, to make a preemptive bid (a high opening bid, made often a bluff by a player holding a weak hand, in an attempt to shut out opposition bidding).

(5) To forestall or prevent (something anticipated) by acting first; preclude; head off.

(6) In computer operating systems, the class of actions used by the OS to determine how long a task should be executed before allowing another task to interact with OS services (as opposed to cooperative multitasking where the OS never initiates a context switch one running process to another.

(7) In the jargon of broadcasting, a euphemism for "cancel” (technical use only).

1830: An invention of US English, a back formation from preemption which was from the Medieval Latin praeēmptiō (previous purchase), from praeemō (buy before), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + emō (buy).  The creation related to the law or real property (land law), to preempt (or pre-empt) being “to occupy public land so as to establish a pre-emptive title to it".  In broadcasting, by 1965 it gained the technical meaning of "set aside a programme and replace it with another" which was actually a euphemism for "cancel”.  Preempt is a verb (and can be a noun in the jargon of broadcasting and computer coding), preemptor is a noun and preempted, preemptory, preemptive & preemptible are adjectives.  The alternative spelling is pre-empt and the (rare) noun plural preempts.

In law, broadcasting and computer operating system architecture, preempt has precise technical meanings but when used casually, it can either overlap or be synonymonous with words like claim, usurp, confiscate, acquire, expropriate, seize, assume, arrogate, anticipate, commandeer, appropriate, obtain, bump, sequester, take, usurp, annex & accroach.  The spelling in the forms præemption, præ-emption etc is archaic).

Preemptive and Preventive War

A preemptive war is a military action by one state against another which is begun with the intent of defeating what is perceived to be an imminent attack or at least gaining a strategic advantage in the impending (and allegedly unavoidable) war before that attack begins. The “preemptive war” is sometimes confused with the “preventive war”, the difference being that the latter is intended to destroy a potential rather than imminent threat; a preventative war may be staged in the absence of enemy aggression or even the suspicion of military planning.  In international law, preventive wars are now generally regarded as aggressive and therefore unlawful whereas a preemptive war can be lawful if authorized by the UN Security Council as an enforcement action.  Such authorizations are not easily gained because the initiation of armed conflict except in self-defense against “armed attack” is not permitted by the United Nations (UN) Charter and only the Security Council can endorse an action as a lawful “action of enforcement”.  Legal theorists suggest that if it can be established that preparations for a future attack have been confirmed, even if the attack has not be commenced, under international law the attack has actually “begun” but the UN has never upheld this opinion.  Militarily, the position does make sense, especially if the first two indictments of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) assembled at Nuremberg (1945-19465) to try the surviving Nazi leadership ((1) planning aggressive war & (2) waging aggressive war) are considered as a practical reality rather than in the abstract.

Legal (as opposed to moral or ethical) objections to preemptive or preventive wars were not unknown but until the nineteenth century, lawyers and statesmen gave wide latitude to the “right of self-defense” which really was a notion from natural law writ large and a matter determined ultimately on the battlefield, victory proof of the ends justifying the means.  Certainly, there was a general recognition of the right forcibly to forestall an attack and the first legal precedent of note wasn’t codified until 1842 in the matter of the Caroline affair (1837).  Then, some Canadian citizens sailed from Canada to the US in the Caroline as part of a planned offensive against the British in Canada.  The British crossed the border and attached, killing both Canadians and a US citizen which led to a diplomatic crisis and several years of low-level clashes.  Ultimately however, the incident led to the formulation of the legal principle of the "Caroline test" which demands that for self-defense to be invoked, an incident must be "…instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation".  Really, that’s an expression little different in meaning to the criteria used in many jurisdictions which must exist for the claim of defense to succeed in criminal assault cases (including murder).  The "Caroline test" remains an accepted part of international law today, although obviously one which must be read in conjunction with an understanding of the events for the last 250-odd years.

The "Caroline test" however was a legal principle and such things need to be enforced and that requires both political will and a military mechanism.  In the aftermath of the Great War (1914-1918), that was the primary purpose of the League of Nations (LON), an international organization (the predecessor of the UN) of states, all of which agreed to desist from the initiation of all wars, (preemptive or otherwise).  Despite the reputation the LON now has as an entirely ineffectual talking shop, in the 1920s it did enjoy some success in settling international disputes and was perceived as effective.  It was an optimistic age, the Locarno Treaties (1925) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) appeared to outlaw war but the LON (or more correctly its member states) proved incapable of halting the aggression in Europe, Asia and Africa which so marked the 1930s.  Japan and Italy had been little punished for their invasions and Nazi Germany, noting Japan’s construction of China as a “technical aggressor” claimed its 1939 invasion of Poland was a “defensive war” and it had no option but to preemptively invade Poland, thereby halting the alleged Polish plans to invade Germany.  Berlin's claims were wholly fabricated.  The design of the UN was undertaken during the war and structurally was different; an attempt to create something which could prevent aggression.

There have been no lack of examples since 1939.  Both the British and Germans staged preemptive invasions of Norway in 1940 though the IMT at Nuremberg was no more anxious to discuss this Allied transgression than they were war crimes or crimes against humanity by anyone except the Nazis.  The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941 proceeded without undue difficulty but that couldn’t be said of the Suez Crisis of 1956 when the British, French and Israelis staged an war of aggression which not even London was hypocritical enough to claim was pre-emption or preventive; they called it a peace-keeping operation, a claim again wholly fabricated.  The Six-Day War (1967) which began when Israel attached Egypt is regarded by most in the West as preemptive rather than preventive because of the wealth of evidence suggesting Egypt was preparing to attack although the term “interceptive self-defense” has also be coined although, except as admirable sophistry, it’s not clear if this is either descriptive or helpful.  However, whatever the view, Israel’s actions in 1967 would seem not to satisfy the Caroline test but whether “…leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”, written in the age of sail and musketry, could reasonably be held in 1967 to convey quite the same meaning was obviously questionable.

Interest in the doctrine of preemption was renewed following the US invasion of Iraq (2003).  The US claimed the action was a necessity to intervene to prevent Iraq from deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) prior to launching an armed attack.  Subsequently, it was found no WMDs existed but the more interesting legal point is whether the US invasion would have been lawful had WMDs been found.  Presumably, Iraq’s resistance to the attack was lawful regardless of the status of the US attack.  The relevant sections (Article 2, Section 4) of the UN Charter are considered jus cogens (literally "compelling law" (ie “international law”)).  They prohibit all UN members from exercising "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state".  However, this apparently absolute prohibition must be read in conjunction with the phrase "armed attack occurs" (Article 51, Section 37) which differentiates between legitimate and illegitimate military force.  It states that if no armed attack has occurred, no automatic justification for preemptive self-defense has yet been made lawful under the Charter and in order to be justified, two conditions must be fulfilled: (1) that the state must have believed that the threat is real and not a mere perception and (2) that the force used must be proportional to the harm threatened.  As history has illustrated, those words permit much scope for those sufficiently imaginative.

Mr Putin (Vladimir Putin (b 1952; prime-minister or president of Russia since 1999)), although avoiding distasteful words like "aggression" “war” or “invasion”, did use the language associated with preemptive and preventive wars in his formal justification for Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine.  Firstly he claimed, Russia is using force in self-defence, pursuant to Article 51 of the Charter, to protect itself from a threat emanating from Ukraine.  This threat, if real, could justify preemptive self-defence because, even if an attack was not “imminent”, there was still an existential threat so grave that it was necessary immediately to act (essentially the same argument the US used in 2003).  This view met with little support, most holding any such theory of preemption is incompatible with Article 51 which really is restricted to permitting anticipatory self-defence in response to imminent attacks. Secondly he cited the right of collective self-defence of the Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” although neither are states and even if one accepts they’ve been subject to a Ukranian attack, the extent of Russia’s military intervention and the goal of regime change in Kyiv appear far to exceed the customary criteria of necessity and proportionality.  Finally, the Kremlin claimed the special military action was undertaken as a humanitarian intervention, the need to stop or prevent a genocide of Russians in Eastern Ukraine.  Few commented on this last point.