In the quarter of a century between 1890 and 1914, Germany provoked or escalated numerous crises, but after reading a lot about events like the Moroccan crisis, I'm still unsure as to what Germany really wanted to get out of them. I've read things about prestige and Weltpolitik, but they seem extremely nebulous concepts for a Great Power to base its entire foreign policy on.

What did Germany hope to gain out of the numerous crises it engineered or helped to fan at the turn of the 20th century? Was the German government simply unable to come up with a coherent foreign policy and blundered from crisis to crisis, or did they have some over arching strategy?

There are too many different informations about this. Mostly propaganda from different sides. Can somecone give some good information about this? Thanks!

A friend of mine told me this, not sure if it's true. Are there actually any fact that prove this?

I'm interested in the "usual" process of the foundation of a city by a traveling army such as Alexander's. However, since I imagine every foundation is different in terms of location, purpose and availability of materials and manpower, let's maybe take Alexandria (the one founded 331 BCE) as an example.

Wikipedia states (citing Arrian) Alexander sketched the plan out with grain, left a few month after its foundation and installed his "viceroy" as administrator. It doesn't go into more detail, perhaps due to a lack of sources? What is the current historians' view on the subject?

Some questions I came up with:

• How large was the settlement at its beginning?
• Was it planned to be a larger city from the beginning, or did it start as an outpost that attracted more and more merchants and people?
• Where did those people come from?
• What did the construction process look like?
• Did soldiers have to help, or did they hire workers from "the next town over"?
• Did Alexander leave behind a large force to continue constructing and defending the settlement?
• I take it there were architects in Alexander's entourage. Did they stay with the settlement and help expand it? Or did they leave with Alexander? If they stayed, who constructed the next city?
• Where did the construction materials come from?
• How long did the entire process take until people thought of it as a city, and no longer a new, perhaps only temporary settlement?

I have been reading about WW2 specifically about Generals and Strategy. The beginning of the War in the Middle East/Mediterranean is especially interesting to me. Its the first place the British can (potentially) really stop the Axis and start fighting back.

Looking at the different troupes and were they were deployed and mostly I understand why some things were done, and others not. However one things that I never fully grasped, was the conquest of Italian East Africa.

Important divisions, specially 4th Indian were redeployed in the middle of an offensive.

What I don't understand is, why attack at all? I had a number of suspicions but, non are convincing. My main thought was that it was all about the sea route threw the Red Sea, but the Italian Red Sea Flotilla seams relatively weak and could have been dealt with by the RN. They did not have the Oil anyway.

Why not just contain the area? They did not show have a hole lot of potentially for further attack. Even should they have tried, their were reserves already in Egypt that could have been redeployed.

Seams that North Africa, Syria, Persia, Iraq, Greek (even if it should have), Crete, Rhodes should all have far higher priority.

Why start a large offensive their that takes months to complete, when you are fighting desperately in Greek and North Africa?

I've heard people complaining that in media presenting Medieval Europe as nearly white only. Would I walk through a busy town or city in many cities and spot someone who wasn't white? I'm aware of Othello presenting an African as in some position of influence and having a white wife, but I have no idea if this is something that the audience would have considered very unlikely or completely outlandish.

I just came back from the most fascinating trip around Italy, including several amazing days in Rome. I have always been interested in Roman history but it is something really special to actually visit Rome, essentially an open museum. Several of the tour guides mentioned x was built on top of y which was built on top of z etc. I don't understand why this was? It sounded like the level of the city kept rising as they would rebuild over something else? Apparently this happened all over the Forum, but another example is the amazing Basilica of San Clemente, which is a 12th century basilica, built on top of a 4th century basilica, built on top of a 2nd century mithraeum, built on top of a 1st century nobleman's house!! I don't really understand why they built on top of things in this way?

Due to spains geographical position, it seems like a extremely precious location for both axis and allied forces during the war. Why did they remain neutral and not get invaded by either of the forces during WW2?

*Or anywhere not in New York. I'm asking in terms of the broad travel of the news.

Edit: Assuming the hypothetical worker is male or female is fine; I'm not sure if that would impact the answer.

I saw a few old photos of gliders WW2. Is there any reason why they were used in WW2 considering they were very vulnerable?

The secessio plebis seemed like a pretty effective way to get radical change done, yet they seemed to die out after only a handful of uses.

What prevented more usage, especially after Rome became an empire and the people lost much influence on the laws?

Bonus question, how about after the Roman empire? Did the idea spread further?

I'm curious as to how lower class passengers on ships like the Titanic and Lusitania were kept from accessing the amenities of higher classes? Were the areas physically inaccessible, were there passes that were checked at the doors, what were the logistics?

Thanks!

I'm entirely unfamiliar with contemporary historical research and how it works. So I'm curious about how historians view "progress" in their discipline. Certainly it's not like curing cancer or discovering alien life. Or is it? What constitutes progress for historians? What goals (if any) drive the discipline?

I've always wondered how exactly major decisions concerning economic and political policies were made in the Soviet Union from the time of Stalin's death until the fall of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Did the Politburo make all major decisions alone or was there other input from various other parts of the state and Communist party apparatus (ie: Central Committee, KGB, Soviet Military)?

If a major decision affected only one republic (for example the role of the Ukrainian language) was the decision made in Moscow or would someone like a Volodymyr Shcherbytsky (the Ukrainian party boss) have the final say? In general, how much authority did local party bosses at the Republic or Oblast level have to chart their own courses?

Peter Wilson, in his book, The Thirty Years' War: Europe's Tragedy, states that many scholars and Germans view the Thirty Year' War as the most destructive event in German history, and it eclipsed the devastation brought on by the Second World War. In addition, I've read that many Polish scholars consider The Deluge was also more destructive than WWII.

How are historians able to come to these conclusions? How are they able to compare the devastation by two wars hundreds of years apart? Population growth would make the difference in casualties than an unfair comparison. And what about the physical damage? How would one compare that, especially considering the fact reports could be exaggerated?