Colonial Background
Such colonies may have been located overseas or in areas dominated by neighbouring land powers such as China or Russia. Colonial troops have been used by Imperial powers whether ancient, such as Rome, or modern, such as Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Sometimes they have been recruited under local leaders, as auxiliaries, at other times directly under pay and officers from the colonial power. They must in turn be seen as part of larger systems of power projection, which may also contain chains of overseas bases and refuelling stations, ships, aircraft, alliance systems and fiscal strength.
Read more about this topic: Colonial Troops
Famous quotes containing the words colonial and/or background:
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)