Battle of Valmy in the French Revolutionary Wars

The Battle of Valmy was fought September 20, 1792, during the War of the First Coalition (1792-1797). Armies and Commanders French General Charles Franà §ois DumouriezGeneral Franà §ois Christophe Kellermann47,000 men Allies Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick35,000 men Background As revolutionary fervor wracked Paris in 1792, the Assembly moved towards conflict with Austria. Declaring war on April 20, French revolutionary forces advanced into the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium). Through May and June these efforts were easily repulsed by the Austrians, with the French troops panicking and fleeing in the face of even minor opposition. While the French floundered, an anti-revolutionary alliance came together consisting of forces from Prussia and Austria, as well as French à ©migrà ©s. Gathering at Coblenz, this force was led by Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. Considered one of the best generals of the day, Brunswick was accompanied by the King of Prussia, Frederick William II. Advancing slowly, Brunswick was supported to the north by an Austrian force led by the Count von Clerfayt and to the south by Prussian troops under Fà ¼rst zu Hohenlohe-Kirchberg. Crossing the frontier, he captured Longwy on August 23 before advancing to take Verdun on September 2. With these victories, the road to Paris was effectively open. Due to revolutionary upheaval, the organization and command of the French forces in the area were in flux for most of the month. This period of transition finally ended with the appointment of General Charles Dumouriez to lead the Armà ©e du Nord on August 18 and the selection of General Franà §ois Kellermann to command the Armà ©e du Centre on August 27. With the high command settled, Paris directed Dumouriez to halt Brunswicks advance. Though Brunswick had broken through the fortifications of the French frontier, he was still faced with passing through the broken hills and forests of the Argonne. Assessing the situation, Dumouriez elected to use this favorable terrain to block the enemy. Defending the Argonne Understanding that the enemy was moving slowly, Dumouriez raced south to block the five passes through the Argonne. General Arthur Dillon was ordered to secure the two southern passes at Lachalade and les Islettes. Meanwhile, Dumouriez and his main force marched to occupy Grandprà © and Croix-aux-Bois. A smaller French force moved in from the west to hold the northern pass at le Chesne. Pushing west from Verdun, Brunswick was surprised to find fortified French troops at les Islettes on September 5. Unwilling to conduct a frontal assault, he directed Hohenlohe to pressure the pass while he took the army to Grandprà ©. Meanwhile, Clerfayt, who had advanced from Stenay, found only light French resistance at Croix-aux Bois. Driving off the enemy, the Austrians secured the area and defeated a French counterattack on September 14. The loss of the pass forced Dumouriez to abandon Grandprà ©. Rather than retreat west, he elected to hold the southern two passes and assumed a new position to the south. By doing so, he kept the enemys forces divided and remained a threat should Brunswick attempt a dash on Paris. As Brunswick was forced to pause for supplies, Dumouriez had time to establish a new position near Sainte-Menehould. The Battle of Valmy With Brunswick advancing through Grandprà © and descending on this new position from the north and west, Dumouriez rallied all of his available forces to Sainte-Menehould. On September 19, he was reinforced by additional troops from his army as well as by the arrival of Kellermann with men from the Army du Centre. That night, Kellermann decided to shift his position east the next morning. The terrain in the area was open and possessed three areas of raised ground. The first was located near the road intersection at la Lune while the next was to the northwest. Topped by a windmill, this ridge was situated near the village of Valmy and flanked by another set of heights to the north known as Mont Yvron. As Kellermanns men began their movement early on September 20, Prussian columns were sighted to the west. Quickly setting up a battery at la Lune, French troops attempted to hold the heights but were driven back. This action did buy Kellermann sufficient time to deploy his main body on the ridge near the windmill. Here they were aided by Brigadier General Henri Stengels men from Dumouriezs army who shifted north to hold Mont Yvron. Despite the presence of his army, Dumouriez could offer little direct support to Kellermann as his compatriot had deployed across his front rather than on his flank. The situation was further complicated by the presence of a marsh between the two forces. Unable to play a direct role in the fighting, Dumouriez detached units to support Kellermanns flanks as well as to raid into the Allied rear. The morning fog plagued operations but, by midday, it had cleared allowing the two sides to see the opposing lines with the Prussians on the la Lune ridge and the French around the windmill and Mont Yvron. Believing that the French would flee as they had in other recent actions, the Allies began an artillery bombardment in preparation for an assault. This was met by return fire from the French guns. The elite arm of the French army, the artillery, had retained a higher percentage of its pre-Revolution officer corps. Peaking around 1 PM, the artillery duel inflicted little damage due to the long distance (approx. 2,600 yards) between the lines. Despite this, it had a strong impact on Brunswick who saw that the French were not going to break easily and that any advance across the open field between the ridges would suffer heavy losses. Though not in a position to absorb heavy losses, Brunswick still ordered three assault columns formed to test the French resolve. Directing his men forward, he halted the assault when it had moved around 200 paces after seeing that the French were not going to retreat. Rallied by Kellermann they were chanting Vive la nation! Around 2 PM, another effort was made after artillery fire detonated three caissons in the French lines. As before, this advance was halted before it reached Kellermanns men. The battle remained a stalemate until around 4 PM when Brunswick called a council of war and declared, We do not fight here. Aftermath of Valmy Due to the nature of the fighting at Valmy, the casualties were relatively light with the Allied suffering 164 killed and wounded and the French around 300. Though criticized for not pressing the attack, Brunswick was not in a position to win a bloody victory and still be able to continue the campaign. Following the battle, Kellermann fell back to a more favorable position and the two sides began negotiations regarding political issues. These proved fruitless and the French forces began extending their lines around the Allies. Finally, on September 30, Brunswick had little choice but to begin retreating towards the border. Though the casualties were light, Valmy rates as one of the most important battles in history due to the context in which it was fought. The French victory effectively preserved the Revolution and prevented outside powers from either crushing it or forcing it to even greater extremes. The next day, the French monarchy was abolished and on September 22 the First French Republic declared. Sources: History of War: Battle of ValmyBattle of Valmy

The Elections Process And The American Election Process

For a citizen that follows and contributes to the American election process, one of the most important things to them is that they are being represented properly. The whole reason a person votes in the first place is so that they can be represented in decisions being made within the government. If it were not the job of elected officials to represent the people’s word then voting would never happen. This is a hot topic because everyone wants to make sure they are being represented fairly. There have been issues with how minorities, women, and even people of certain beliefs have been represented. This paper is going to focus on the election process and how minorities are being represented in both negative and positive ways. One way that representation can be diminished is through what is called â€Å"Minority Vote Dilution†. Meaning, â€Å"it was harder for minorities to gain representation† (Bowler Segura. 2012.). A way to cause this is through the movement of d istrict boundaries to make the votes unequal from district to district. One way that this happens is through â€Å"Cracking† which is when particular voters are â€Å"spread among a series of districts in order to keep them as small vote blocs within each seat† (Bowler Segura. 2012.). What it really does is cause a certain minority group to seem smaller than they actually are in the population make up. Another way to diminish a groups voting ability is by â€Å"packing† a certain unit of people. According to Bowler Segura this is aShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Election Process in American Politics1875 Words   |  8 PagesThe election process is a long, drawn out one that incorporates numerous stages from the initial steps taken in trying to find a viable candidate for office to the end result that comes out of the Electoral College. The American system is one that is complex and very controversial as the readings have shown. 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History Of The Computer Industry In America (2573 words) Essay Example For Students

History Of The Computer Industry In America (2573 words) Essay History of the Computer Industry in AmericaOnly once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. A machine that has done all this and more now exists in nearly every business in the U.S. and one out of every two households (Hall, 156). This incredible invention is the computer. The electronic computer has been around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000 years. However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society. From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of peoples lives for the better.The very earliest existence of the modern day computers ancestor is the abacus. These date back to almost 2000 years ago. It is simply a wooden rack holding parallel wires on which beads are strung. When these beads are moved along the wire according to program ming rules that the user must me! morize, all ordinary arithmetic operations can be performed (Soma, 14). The next innovation in computers took place in 1694 when Blaise Pascal invented the first digital calculating machine. It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by turning dials. It was designed to help Pascals father who was a tax collector (Soma, 32). In the early 1800Os, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage designed an automatic calculation machine. It was steam powered and could store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built in to his machine were operations that included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was programmed byand stored data oncards with holes punched in them, appropriately called punch cards. His inventions were failures for the most part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of demand for such a device (Soma, 46).After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances! in mathematics and physics that began to rekindle the interest (Osborne, 45). Many of these new advances involved complex calculations and formulas that were very time consuming for human calculation. The first major use for a computer in the U.S. was during the 1890 census. Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers , developed a new punched-card system that could automatically read information on cards without human intervention (Gulliver, 82). Since the population of the U.S. was increasing so fast, the computer was an essential tool in tabulating the totals.These advantages were noted by commercial industries and soon led to the development of improved punch-card business-machine systems by International Business Machines (IBM), Remington-Rand, Burroughs, and other corporations. By modern standards the punched-card machines were slow, typically processing from 50 to 250 cards per minute, with each card holding up to 80 digits. At the time, however, punched cards were an enormous step forward; they provided a means of input, output, and memory storage on a massive scale. For more than 50 years following their first use, punched-card machines did the bulk of the worlds business computing and a good portion of the computing work in science (Chposky, 73). By the late 1930s punched-card machine techniques had become so well established and reliable that Howard Hathaway Aiken, in collaboration with engineers at IBM, undertook construction of a large automatic digital computer based on standard IBM electromechanical parts. Aikens machine, called the Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all four arithmetic operations. Also, it had special built-in programs to handled logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from prepunched paper tape. Output was by card punch and electric typewriter. It was slow, requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a multiplication, but it was fully automatic and could complete long computations without human intervention (Chposky, 103). The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate need for computing capability, especially for the military. New weapons systems were produced which needed trajectory tables and other essential data. In 1942, John P. Eckert, John W. Mauchley, and their associates at the University of Pennsylvania decided to build a high-speed electronic computer to do the job. This machine became known as ENIAC, for Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator. It could multiply two numbers at the rate of 300 products per second, by finding the value of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory. ENIAC was thus about 1,000 times faster than the previous generation of computers (Dolotta, 47).ENIAC used 18,000 standard vacuum tubes, occupied 1800 square feet of floor space, and used about 180,000 watts of electricity. It used punched-card input and output. The ENIAC was very difficult to program because one had to essentially re-wire it to perform whatever task he wanted the compu ter to do. It was, however, efficient in handling the particular programs for which it had been designed. ENIAC is generally accepted as the first successful high-speed electronic digital computer and was used in many applications from 1946 to 1955 (Dolotta, 50). Mathematician John von Neumann was very interested in the ENIAC. In 1945 he undertook a theoretical study of computation that demonstrated that a computer could have a very simple and yet be able to execute any kind of computation effectively by means of proper programmed control without the need for any changes in hardware. Von Neumann came up with incredible ideas for methods of building and organizing practical, fast computers. These ideas, which came to be referred to as the stored-program technique, became fundamental for future generations of high-speed digital computers and were universally adopted (Hall, 73).The first wave of modern programmed electronic computers to take advantage of these improvements appeared in 1947. This group included computers using random access memory (RAM), which is a memory designed to give almost constant access to any particular piece of information (Hall, 75). These machines had punched-card or punched-tape input and output devices and RAMs of 1000-word capacity. Physically, they were much more compact than ENIAC: some were about the size of a grand piano and required 2500 small electron tubes. Loyalty definition paper EssayA new revolution in computer hardware was now well under way, involving miniaturization of computer-logic circuitry and of component manufacture by what are called large-scale integration techniques. In the 1950s it was realized that scaling down the size of electronic digital computer circuits and parts would increase speed and efficiency and improve performance. However, at that time the manufacturing methods were not good enough to accomplish such a task. About 1960 photoprinting of conductive circuit boards to eliminate wiring became highly developed. Then it became possible to build resistors and capacitors into the circuitry by photographic means (Rogers, 142). In the 1970s entire assemblies, such as adders, shifting registers, and counters, became available on tiny chips of silicon. In the 1980s very large scale integration (VLSI), in which hundreds of thousands of transistors are placed on a single chip, became increasingly common. Many compani es, some new to the computer field, introduced in the 1970s programmable minicomputers supplied with software packages. The size-reduction trend continued with the introduction of personal computers, which are programmable machines small enough and inexpensive enough to be purchased and used by individuals (Rogers, 153). One of the first of such machines was introduced in January 1975. Popular Electronics magazine provided plans that would allow any electronics wizard to build his own small, programmable computer for about $380 (Rose, 32). The computer was called the Altair 8800O. Its programming involved pushing buttons and flipping switches on the front of the box. It didnt include a monitor or keyboard, and its applications were very limited (Jacobs, 53). Even though, many orders came in for it and several famous owners of computer and software manufacturing companies got their start in computing through the Altair. For example, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer, built a much cheaper, yet more productive version of the Altair and turned their hobby into a business (Fluegelman, 16).After the introduction of the Altair 8800, the personal computer industry became a fierce battleground of competition. IBM had been the computer industry standard for well over a half-century. They held their position as the standard when they introduced their first personal computer, the IBM Model 60 in 1975 (Chposky, 156). However, the newly formed Apple Computer company was releasing its own personal computer, the Apple II (The Apple I was the first computer designed by Jobs and Wozniak in Wozniaks garage, which was not produced on a wide scale). Software was needed to run the computers as well. Microsoft developed a Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) for the IBM computer while Apple developed its own software system (Rose, 37). Because Microsoft had now set the software standard for IBMs, every software manufacturer had to make their software compatible with Microsofts. This would lead to huge profits for Microsoft (Cringley, 163). The main goal of the computer manufacturers was to make the computer as affordable as possible while increasing speed, reliability, and capacity. Nearly every computer manufacturer accomplished this and computers popped up everywhere. Computers were in businesses keeping track of inventories. Computers were in colleges aiding students in research. Computers were in laboratories making complex calculations at high speeds for scientists and physicists. The computer had made its mark everywhere in society and built up a huge industry (Cringley, 174). The future is promising for the computer industry and its technology. The speed of processors is expected to double every year and a half in the coming years. As manufacturing techniques are further perfected the prices of computer systems are expected to steadily fall. However, since the microprocessor technology will be increasing, its higher costs will offset the drop in price of older processors. In other words, the price of a new computer will stay about the same from year to year, but technology will steadily increase (Zachary, 42). Since the end of World War II, the computer industry has grown from a standing start into one of the biggest and most profitable industries in the United States. It now comprises thousands of companies, making everything from multi-million dollar high-speed supercomputers to printout paper and floppy disks. It employs millions of people and generates tens of billions of dollars in sales each year (Malone, 192). Surely, the computer has impacted every aspect of peoples lives. It has affected the way people work and play. It has made everyones life easier by doing difficult work for people. The computer truly is one of the most incredible inventions in history.

The President Paper Essays - United States, Government,

The President Paper America election in 2000 raised a debate between democrat and republican and ultimately the American human beings selected a modern chief Mr. George w. Bush. President Bush in reality defined foreign policy desires and goals. I've seen and pay attention our pricey President Bush foreign coverage after Sep 11. Following this, Bush has installed its pinnacle priorities in overseas coverage. He claims that an acts in the authorities to beautify the global community via negotiation and cooperation. Likewise President Bush observation "it is to inspire and be inspired by way of unique countries to artwork collectively within the course of a nonviolent and rich destiny" (BBC data). Bush, in addition to our society, feels the president ought to be robust- especially in international politics and policies. At the same time as the United States became attacked Sep 11, 2001, the humans appeared to the president to guide, and in essence, are seeking out revenge. Executive power is vested in the President by Congress with the advice and consent of the Senate so that he may preserve protect and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States. The principal responsibility of the President is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." By using these words, the Constitution does not require the President to personally enforce the law; rather, officers subordinate to the President may perform such duties. The Constitution, empowers the President to ensure the faithful execution of the laws made by Congress. Congress may itself terminate such appointments, by impeachment, and restrict the President. The President's responsibility is to execute whatever instructions he is given by the Congress. Bodies such as the War Claims Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commissionall quasi-judicial often have direct Congressional oversight. Congress regularly writes regulation to restrain the government officials to the overall performance in their duties as criminal through the laws Congress passes. In INS v. Chadha (1983), the high-quality courtroom determined (a) the prescription for legislative motion in artwork. requiring all legislative powers to be vested in a Congress including a Senate and a house of Representatives and requiring every invoice exceeded via the residence and Senate, earlier than becoming law, to be provided to the President, and, if he disapproves, to be repassed thru -thirds of the Senate and residence -- represents the Framers' choice that the legislative electricity of the Federal authorities be exercised in accord with a unmarried, finely wrought and exhaustively taken into consideration system. This method is a crucial part of the constitutional layout for the separation of powers. Further rulings clarified the case; even each houses acting collectively can't override executive vetoes wi thout a 2/3 majority. Law can also constantly prescribe policies governing authorities' officials. So as to complete the challenge. The U.S. national security method "is primarily based on a fairly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our countrywide hobbies. The aim of this method is to help make the world no longer simply safer but better" (US, 1). While handling topics of foreign coverage, results within the makings of a defense coverage, which is taken into consideration as a subset of overseas coverage. Sturdy navy capability is an important manner in managing overseas coverage because of the reality that nations along with North Korea, China, and Russia all pose an ability danger to ruin the use of "weapons of mass destruction."(new York Times) while danger is placed on U.S. fatherland safety and someplace else, America defense coverage can step in; however; protection policy can grow to be high priced due to reality of utilizing the army will result in more navy spending in order to to complete the mission. ReferencesACHARYA, U. D. (2012). Denver Journal of International Law Policy. INTERNATIONAL LAWLESSNESS, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROBLEM OF TERRORISM: A CONUNDRUM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, 144-166. Bidden, V. (2007). The 9/11 Terror Attacks. Mankato, MN: The Creative Company. Brydon, S. (2004)