No man's land
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No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dumping ground for refuse between fiefdoms.[1] It is commonly associated with World War I to describe the area of land between two enemy trench systems, not controlled by either side.[2][3] The term is also used metaphorically, to refer to an ambiguous, anomalous, or indefinite area, regarding an application, situation,[4] or jurisdiction.[5][6] It has sometimes been used to name a specific place.[3]
Origin
According to Alasdair Pinkerton, an expert in human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, the term is first mentioned in Domesday Book (1086), to describe parcels of land that were just beyond the London city walls.[7][8] The Oxford English Dictionary contains a reference to the term dating back to 1320, spelled nonesmanneslond, to describe a territory that was disputed or involved in a legal disagreement.[3][1][9] The same term was later used as the name for the piece of land outside the north wall of London that was assigned as the place of execution.[9] The term is also applied in nautical use to a space amidships, originally between the forecastle and the booms in a square-rigged vessel where various ropes, tackle, block, and other supplies were stored.[3][10] In the United Kingdom, several places called No Man's Land denoted "extra-parochial spaces that were beyond the rule of the church, beyond the rule of different fiefdoms that were handed out by the king … ribbons of land between these different regimes of power".[7]
Examples
World War I
The
In World War I, no man's land often ranged from several hundred yards to less than 10 metres (33 ft), in some cases.
Not only were soldiers forced to cross no man's land when advancing, and as the case might be when retreating, but after an attack the stretcher-bearers had to enter it to bring in the wounded.[14] No man's land remained a regular feature of the battlefield until near the end of World War I when mechanised weapons (i.e., tanks and airplanes) made entrenched lines less of an obstacle.
Effects from World War I no man's lands persist today, for example at
Cold War
During the Cold War, one example of "no man's land" was the territory close to the Iron Curtain. Officially the territory belonged to the Eastern Bloc countries, but over the entire Iron Curtain, there were several wide tracts of uninhabited land, several hundred meters (yards) in width, containing watch towers, minefields, unexploded bombs, and other such debris. Would-be escapees from Eastern Bloc countries who successfully scaled the border fortifications could still be apprehended or shot by border guards in the zone.
The
Israel–Jordan
From 1949 to 1967
The no man's land regions were eliminated when Israel conquered them during the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
The battle of Bakhmut, during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has been labeled as one of the bloodiest battles of the 21st century, with the battlefield being described as a "meat grinder" and a "vortex" for both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries.[22][23]
With extremely high casualties, costly ground assaults with very little ground gained, and shell-pocked landscapes, volunteers, media, and government officials alike compared fighting in Bakhmut to battlefield conditions on the western front of World War I.[24][25]
Retired
Current no man's land
- The Agreement on Disengagement signed by Israel and Syria after the Yom Kippur War in 1974 established a United Nations Disengagement Observer Force-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, including Quneitra.
- United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus (The Green Line) and abandoned Varosha has acted as a no man's land between Cyprus and Northern Cyprus since 1974.
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ a b c Persico p. 68
- ^ Coleman p. 268
- ^ a b c d "no man's land". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. 256795. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ "No-man's land definition and meaning". www.collinsdictionary.com.
- ^ "Definition of No-Man's-Land". www.merriam-webster.com.
- ^ "Portraits of No-Man's-Land". artsandculture.google.com.
- ^ a b c "Adventures in No Man's Land". BBC News. Archived from the original on 30 September 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
- ^ "Nomansland". Open Domesday. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ a b Levenback p. 95
- ^ Hendrickson, Robert Facts on File Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (2008)
- ^ a b c d Payne, David (8 July 2008). "No Man's Land". Western Front Association. Archived from the original on 29 October 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2009.
- ISBN 1-57765-916-3
- ^ Weapons of the western front. National Army Museum. (n.d.). https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/weapons-western-front
- ^ Dunleavy, Brian (April 23, 2018) [April 26, 2021]. "Life in the Trenches of World War I". History. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
- ^ "Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Ecological Crises". Trade and Environment Database. American University. Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ "Yankees Besieged". Time. 1962-03-16. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28.
- ^ "S/1302/Rev.1 of 3 April 1949". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2017-06-28.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2012-09-22.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-10-08. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Hasson, Nir (30 October 2011). "Reclaiming Jerusalem's No-man's-land". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 9 February 2014.
- ^ "Palestinians for Peace and Democracy". www.p4pd.org. Archived from the original on 2014-11-11.
- from the original on 28 November 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
- ^ "Maria Senovilla: 'Bakhmut is the blackest point of the Ukrainian war. Up to 400 Ukrainian soldiers a day are being killed'". Atalayar. 12 December 2022. Archived from the original on 12 December 2022. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
- ^ Altman, Howard (29 November 2022). "Ukraine Situation Report: The Bloody Battle For Bakhmut". The Drive. Archived from the original on 2 December 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
- ^ Ellyatt, Holly (30 November 2022). "Trenches, mud and death: One Ukrainian battlefield looks like something out of World War I". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2 December 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
- ^ "Notorious Wagner Group Targeting Volunteers in Ukraine, U.S. Trainer Says". Newsweek. 7 December 2022. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ "Fighting for Soledar and Bakhmut is the 'Bloodiest' of the War". Kyiv Post. 11 January 2023. Archived from the original on 16 February 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
- ^ "Fighting in Soledar and Bakhmut comparable to Battle of Verdun, Zelenskyy's chief-of-staff says". Yahoo News. 13 January 2023. Archived from the original on 7 May 2023. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ How Long Should Ukrainian Forces Defend Bakhmut? Lessons From Stalingrad (Archive)
- ^ Horrifying stories of Ukraine war by Wagner’s convicts (Archive)
- Bibliography
- Coleman, Julie (2008). A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries. Vol. 3. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954937-5.
- Persico, Joseph E. (2005). Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax. Random House. ISBN 0-375-76045-8.