Sergeants 3: The Rat Pack & Gunga Din

This 1962 western is really a remake of 1939's "Gunga Din," made by RKO Pictures, but this movie changes the setting from late 1800's India to the American West of the 1870s. I saw this picture three times at a movie theater when it was released in 1962: with my dad and with my older brother. The third time was with my mother, my grandmother and 2 of my great aunts, all of whom were taken with Frank Sinatra in those times. As in "Gunga Din," "Sergeants 3" is a drama with numerous bits of comedy injected. The main cast of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop were part of what had come to be known as, "the Rat Pack." The group often performed on stage together in Las Vegas and elsewhere, as well as being featured in some films together. 

The basic plot involves a group of Indians rallying to a call by a religious leader to unite to defeat U.S. army personnel and settlers in the region. The movie opens with a raid by a group of Indians on a small town. The town's telegraph office is able to send a message to the army stationed in a fort some miles away, prompting the fort's commander to decide to send three sergeants and a small troop of men to the town to investigate what has happened. The three sergeants are close friends and we first meet them at a fight in a saloon (see "Word History," below). Sergeant Mike is played by American actor and entertainer Frank Sinatra, Sergeant Chip is played by American actor and entertainer Dean Martin and Sergeant Larry is played by English born actor Peter Lawford.* Larry is planning to leave the army when his soon to expire enlistment runs out. He'll then marry Amelia, played by Canadian born actress Ruta Lee.** Mike and Chip plan to keep the trio together by finding some way to get Larry to sign a new enlistment form. At the saloon we also meet Jonah, a former slave who is a trumpet playing entertainer at the saloon, who wants to be in the army. Jonah is played by American actor and entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. The sergeants are all rounded up at the saloon by Sergeant Boswell, played by American actor and entertainer Joey Bishop.

The three sergeants lead a troop of men to the town that was attacked, only to come under attack by Indians themselves. The Indians are called to attack by one of their religious leaders, played by American actor Henry Silva. Later, we learn that this Indian leader is the son of the main leader and medicine man, Watanka. The troops hold off the attack and return to the fort, only to be ordered back to the town, but without Larry, whose enlistment is nearly over. The commander orders Sergeant Boswell to replace Larry, a thought Mike and Chip find repulsive, as Boswell is a proper soldier, all spit and polish. So Mike and Chip proceed to get Boswell drunk, and thus, sick. Larry is ordered back with his pals until his enlistment runs out. Later Chip and Jonah slip off to try to discover just where the Indians are located. They find a large cave where the Indians hold religious ceremonies. While there, the Indians show up, led by Watanka, played by Australian actor Michael Pate, and Chip is captured, even though he comically tells the Indians that he is arresting them in the name of the President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant.*** Hahahaha! Meanwhile, a disguise and the diversion of Chip's capture help Jonah to escape and he returns to the town to alert Mike and Larry about Chip's plight. Mike is under strict orders from the unit's commander, Colonel Collingwood, played by American actor Dick Simmons,**** not to get involved in any other mission except to garrison the town. Mike tells Larry he can't go on any rescue mission, because he's now a civilian, but that he can go along to help Chip if he signs another enlistment form, which he does, and Mike puts the signed form into his pocket. Mike, Larry and Jonah set out to free Chip. The three men arrive at the cave and find Chip tied up. Watanka, his son and many other Indians emerge and take the three wannabe rescuers prisoner. Watanka tries to make Mike tell him where the colonel is with the main body of soldiers. Mike grabs the knife of one of his captors and holds it to the throat of Watanka's son, bringing Watanka and his men to go down the mountain, leaving his son as a captive of the soldiers. (Note: One of the Indians in the group is Eddie Little Sky, a true Oglala Lakota, who was born on a reservation in South Dakota. He appeared in many films and television shows over the years.)

Watanka has assembled a large force to attack Colonel Collingwood's column of troops. Two of Watanka's scouts gallop up and tell him the Colonel and his men are approaching. Mike gets Watanka's son and tells the medicine man to disburse his men, or he will kill his son. The son tells his father to go ahead with the attack and he jumps off the cliff and plunges to his death. Without the medicine man's son as hostage, the sergeants and Jonah are now in peril. Some Indians ascend the mountain path and take the men prisoner again, but Jonah is severely wounded and left for dead and Chip is knocked unconscious. Watanka has Mike and Larry brought over to watch as the Colonel and his men are attacked. Jonah looks over and sees his trumpet. He takes the trumpet and goes into the cave, where there is a small opening in the upper part of the cave. Jonah struggles and climbs to the opening and then outside. He stands and blows the trumpet, alerting the Colonel and the column. He is then hit with an arrow.

The Indians attack, but the element of surprise is now gone. A large battle takes place, with much hand to hand fighting, but the soldiers are able to deploy artillery they have and the Indians turn in retreat, only to finally surrender. Up on the mountain, Chip has regained consciousness, and he comes at Watanka from behind and knocks him off the cliff, as Larry knocks one of the other captors off of the cliff. Larry now schemes to get his reenlistment paper from Mike's shirt pocket by pretending to be seriously hurt. When Mike kneels down to help him, Larry reaches into Mike's shirt and gets the reenlistment form.

The scene shifts back to the fort where Colonel Collingwood reads a special citation to honor the three sergeants and private citizen Jonah, who has been granted a place in the army with the rank of private. Jonah is shown with bandages on his wounds, but in his new uniform. Larry and Amelia get ready to leave, and Chip takes Larry's reenlistment paper from Larry's possession and tears it up, making Larry think everything is clear for him to leave. BUT... Chip had concealed a blank piece of paper in his hand, and that was what he had destroyed. When Larry and Amelia drive off in a buggy, Chip hands the real form to Mike, who then orders Sergeant Boswell to, "Arrest that man.... he's a deserter."    


* Though Peter Lawford was born in England, he spent much of his adult life in the United States, where he became a citizen. He became well known in the U.S. when he married the sister of then Senator John F. Kennedy, who would later be elected president of the United States.

** Ruta Lee was born in Canada, but her family moved to the United States, where she later became a citizen. Her parents were immigrants to Canada from Lithuania.

*** Grant was president from March of 1869 until March of 1877. Until the Constitution was changed by the 20th Amendment in 1933, presidents and vice presidents assumed office on March 4 following a presidential election of the previous November. The amendment moved the assumption of office to January 20.

**** Those who can remember the 1950s may not remember Simmons' name, but you will likely recall the television show, "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon." Well it was Dick Simmons, also known by his proper name, Richard Simmons, who played Sergeant Preston. The show also "starred" the Sergeant's faithful dog, "Yukon King." Simmons is not to be confused with exercise promoter and entertainer, Richard Simmons, who later became popular on television, more so in the 1980s and thereafter. 


 Photo is of the 2008 MGM DVD ...

WORD HISTORY: 
Salon (Saloon)-"Salon" goes back to Indo European "sel," which had the notion of, "settlement, living area." This gave Old Germanic "salaz," with the meaning, "living area, living quarters." This gave Lombardic (also known as: Langobardic) "sala," meaning, "abode, large room." This was borrowed by Latin (or the developing northern Italian dialects?) as "sala," meaning, "large room/hall." This then became Italian "salone," with the same meaning and this was borrowed by French as "salon," with the meaning, "room for receiving guests." English borrowed the word from French circa 1700 with the meaning, "large room, often in a palace or in the residence of well to do people, used for entertaining guests." The meaning expanded to include dining and entertainment rooms on ships, especially in first class sections. Later still, the term was often used for the dining car on trains. "Saloon" was initially simply a variation in the spelling of "salon," but by the mid 1800s it had come to be used as a term for a public tavern/bar in American English, where its meaning has remained ever since. NOTE: The Old Germanic form was passed to its offspring in various forms, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sele" (house, large hall, often used for dining and entertainment). German still has "Saal" (large hall for dining and entertainment, and also a large room for displays of art or other collections), East Frisian "soal" (large hall), Swedish "sal" (ward). Low German had "sel'/"sal," but seems to have borrowed "Saal" from standard German in more modern times.       

Berlin Style Liver (Leber Nach Berliner Art)

This is a pretty well known dish from Berlin, although it is certainly served outside of Berlin, just as Wiener Schnitzel is served outside of Vienna (Wien in German). It is usually made with calves liver, but you can use beef or pork liver and Bismarck's ghost won't get you with his spiked helmet.

"Yeeeooow! What the hell? Medic! I'll have to finish typing this while I'm standing up."

Anyway, it is not uncommon to find Berlin style liver in German-American restaurants. In Berlin it is commonly served with mashed potatoes, but you can serve whatever you like and Bismarck's ghost ... well, never mind about Bismarck's ghost. I'm not going through that again.

Ingredients (about 4 servings):

1 1/2 pounds liver, sliced, but not too thickly
2 baseball size onions, peeled and sliced into 1/3 inch rounds (you can use white, yellow or red onions)
2 apples (like red delicious or golden delicious), typically peeled, but I leave the skin on, cored then cut into round slices 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick
4 or 5 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon ground white or black pepper
butter/canola oil mix (about 3 or 4 tablespoons butter and the same amount of oil)

Heat 2 tablespoons each of butter and oil in a skillet over low heat. Dust the liver slices with flour and set aside. Add the onion slices to the pan and saute until lightly browned (the slices will naturally come apart). Remove the onions to a dish and keep them warm. Add the apple slices to the pan and cook until they too are somewhat browned, remove and keep warm. Add more butter and oil to the skillet, then add the liver slices. Brown on both sides and cook until they are just cooked through. Season the cooked liver with salt and pepper after removing it from the heat. Serve with mashed potatoes and with some onion and apple rings next to the liver.

WORD HISTORY:
Stroll-The history of this word is a bit uncertain, although it looks pretty logical to me. It was borrowed by English in the very early 1600s from German, which had "Strolch," a word from Alemannic German dialect^ which meant, "a vagabond, a rogue, a mischievous boy." This seems to have developed from Alemannic dialect "strollen," which meant, "to wander around aimlessly" (Alemannic also had the noun "Stroll," meaning "vagabond"). While not a complete certainty, these German forms seem to have developed as an abbreviated form of Italian "astrologo," which meant "astrologer, stargazer;" thus also, "interpreter of the stars and their relationship to events, a prophet," and which passed into Lombardic, the language of the Germanic Lombards who settled in northern Italy (the region of Lombardia is named for them), as "strolegh," which then became "strolago," and meant, "vagabond, traveling entertainer who uses tricks to deceive his audience." This seems to have passed into Alemannic in the 1400s from Swiss (German) and Swabian mercenary soldiers serving in northern Italy.

^  Alemannic is a group of German dialects tracing back to the Germanic tribe the Alemanni. Alemannic is pretty much concentrated in the southwestern area of the German-speaking area and includes Switzerland, extreme western Austria, Liechtenstein, Alsace in eastern France and southwestern Germany, including a part of Bavaria. Alemannic is the general name for the dialect, but it breaks down further into numerous regional and local dialects. Not all Alemannic speakers can necessarily understand one another.

Ship of Fools

This 1965 film, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer,* and with an international cast, was nominated for a number of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it won two Academy Awards: for Best Art Direction, Black and White and for Best Cinematography, Black and White. It is a difficult picture to explain in an easy way, but you won't likely be on the edge of your seat waiting to see what will happen next. It's not that kind of story. The movie is based on a 1962 best selling book of the same name by Katherine Anne Porter, who took more than twenty years to write her book. She based her story on people she had met while on an ocean voyage she had taken from Mexico to Germany in 1931. Keep in mind, in 1931, many parts of the world were floundering around in the Great Depression, with the United States and Germany being especially hard hit. The Nazis had been gaining strength in German elections and, since Spain is involved in the book (and the movie), the Spanish king had abdicated and a "republic" had been declared in Spain; thus, there was lots of turmoil in the world. The movie changes the time of the voyage to 1933, when the Nazis had just taken power in Germany, but the worldwide economic depression continued and political tensions in Spain would lead to the Spanish Civil War.

"Ship of Fools" deals with several of the ship's passengers and how some of these people interact with other passengers, with the overall destination of the ship, Nazi Germany, and its potential for evil, hanging over the whole story. I've decided to deal with the movie by picking out a few of the characters and leaving things at that.

Mary Treadwell (played by Vivien Leigh, in her last movie), a recently divorced American, who is downcast about growing older and losing the beauty of her younger days. She tells how her former husband once struck her and how she then, "took every penny he had." The thing is, she has money, but no one to enjoy life with, she is lonely and bitter. After she tells one man how she envies, what she assumes to be, his near perfect marriage, the man says, "Nothing is perfect, Mrs. Treadwell." In real life, Vivien Leigh suffered with bipolar disorder (called manic depression, back then), and she had difficulty during the filming, verbally abusing some of the other cast members.

Bill Tenny (played by Lee Marvin), a former American baseball player from Texas who is downtrodden by his failure to be able to hit a curve ball over the outside corner of the plate; thus leading to his exit from professional baseball. One of the others tells him that for something that troubles his life so much, many people in the world wouldn't even know what "curve ball over the outside corner" means. ** Tenny tells his cabin mates how a Mexican immigration clerk had gotten offended because he called him, " 'Pancho,' you know, just being friendly like. You know, like back home we call a taxi driver 'Mack.' " As he proceeds with his story, he calls the Mexican clerk, "that little Nigger;" saying that he's been told that a lot of Mexicans have "mainly Nigger blood in them." Later, when seated for lunch with Mrs. Treadwell, Tenny asks her what the Nazis have against the Jews. He tells her, "Back home (in Texas) we don't have anything against the Jews. Hell, I never even saw a Jew until I was fifteen." In a great retort, she says, "Maybe you were too busy lynching Negroes to take time out for the Jews." Tenny's mouth drops open.  

Siegfried Rieber (played by José Ferrer), a Nazi and hater of those seen by him as being different. He tells others during dinner, "We must expunge foreign influences from Germany," and when asked what he means by "foreign influences," Rieber looks directly over at a table with a solitary man, Lowenthal (see Julius Lowental, below). Rieber talks of the need for "the extermination of all the  'unfit:' " useless children with birth defects, the old, Jews, mixed race people and whites who have committed serious crimes, but all of this is to be done "painlessly, of course," as if that makes mass murder reassuring. The ship's captain then asks, "Who will be left?" Rieber wears striped pajamas, very much like the clothing of Nazi concentration camp inmates, but he is the prisoner of his own hatred.

La Contesa (played by Simone Signoret, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress), a countess with drug addiction problems on her way to a Spanish prison. Her addiction and her destination surround her with the air of doom, but she receives some consoling affection from the ship's doctor (see below) in some of the great scenes of the film.

American couple David and Jenny (played by George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley), both artists, with David unhappy with his inability to earn enough money from being an artist, even having to rely on Jenny for money at times. His depressed state of mind leads the young couple to often quarrel. Jenny wonders if the two have anything going for them, beyond sex.  

Karl Glocken (played by Michael Dunn), a cigar smoking dwarf who also introduces and ends the film. He is, in many ways, tied to fellow passenger, Herr Lowenthal (see below).

Julius Lowenthal (played by Heinz Rühmann), a German Jew and dealer in religious jewelry. Excluded by the others to sit at the main table, he eats his dinner alone at a separate table, but he is then joined by Glocken, the dwarf. Lowenthal asks Glocken, "Are you Jewish?" And he tells Lowenthal, "I have my own minority group." The two become "comrades in exclusion." Lowenthal accepts his exclusion, and Glocken comments that Jews have 2000 years of suffering behind them. Later, another German passenger, Freytag (played by Swedish actor Alf Kjellin), joins the two, as he has now been excluded from the main table, because it is found out that his wife is Jewish. He goes to the main table and tells them, "I saw some of you praying in the chapel this morning, pretending you are good people, but you can't even exist without your prejudices. You don't even recognize what you are." Lowenthal must share a room with Nazi Rieber, who abruptly sweeps Lowenthal's shaving materials and toiletries from the sink. Lowenthal divides the space on the sink between the two of them. When Rieber tells Lowenthal that the Jews are the misfortune of Germans, he responds, "Yes, the Jews and bicycle riders." Rieber says, "Why bicycle riders?" Lowenthal answers with his own question, "Why the Jews?" 

Dr. Willi Schumann (played by Oskar Werner, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), the ship's philosophical doctor. He sees injustice and he wants to remedy it, but he's disillusioned by life. When the ship takes on hundreds of Spanish farm workers in Cuba, they are forced to live in terrible conditions, although Schumann tries to help them. He's the antithesis to the Nazis, but with his disillusionment and his own medical condition (serious heart problem), can he last? He helps La Contesa, but she also helps him, a man who could die at any moment, but even if he lives, he is heading home to Germany, a country now in the hands of people he loathes.

* Stanley Kramer is known for a number of films, two of my favorites being, "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

** In the 1930s, baseball and its terminology was heavily American, not yet spread to many other parts of the world. 

Photo is from the 2003 Mill Creek Entertainment DVD

WORD HISTORY:

Fool/Foolish-This word, believe it or not, is distantly related to "belly" and to "bellows" (device for squeezing air out with force, often associated with a forge), both from the Germanic derived form from Indo European. "Fool" goes back to Indo European "bhel/bhelg," which meant, "to swell." This gave Latin "follis," as the Latin form used the "f" sound, instead of "b," and meaning, "bellows, air filled bag." From this meaning also came the notion of, "head filled with air;" thus, "stupid, silly person." Old French, a Latin-based language, had "fol," meaning, "madman" ("folle"="madwoman"), also used as an adjective for "mad," and the less severe, "silly" (modern French "fou"). English borrowed the word in the early 1200s as "fol." The verb form came along about a hundred years later with the meaning, "to cheat or trick someone;" that is, "make a fool of someone," but also, used of jesters, "to act like a fool." "Foolish," meaning, "lacking in good judgment," also developed in the 1300s. The "ish" ending, originally "isc" in Old English (also the same spelling in Old High German), is from a common Germanic suffix used for adjectives, and close English relatives, German, Low German and Dutch have "isch" (the spelling "isch" was also used by some in English). This Germanic form also influenced the "esque" of French and the "esco" of Italian by way of Lombardic (also called "Langobardic"), a Germanic language now extinct. The French form "may" have been reinforced by Frankish, the Germanic language of the Franks, who conquered Gaul and much of western Europe.    

Potato Salad With Olives and Roasted Peppers

With late spring here, and summer not far off, there's nothing better than a good potato salad, although it's actually good all year long

Ingredients:

1 pound small red potatoes (available in microwaveable packages)
1 pound small Yukon Gold potatoes (available in microwaveable packages)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (reduced fat type is fine)
2 tablespoons seasoned salt (whatever brand you use)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
12 green olives, halved
12 black olives, halved (I often use Kalamata olives)
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 cup roasted peppers, chopped  (store bought is fine, I used a mixture of red and yellow peppers)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 sweet gherkins, chopped
1 tablespoon black pepper
paprika for dusting

Cook the potatoes by whatever method you prefer. The microwaveable packages are great. Let the potatoes cool a bit,* then cut them into pieces, adding the potato pieces to a large dish. Since the potatoes differ in size, I generally quarter the smallest ones, and then try to cut the larger ones into similar size pieces. Add the onion, garlic, olives, celery, gherkins, and roasted peppers, plus the seasoned salt and black pepper, then add the extra virgin olive oil and mayonnaise, and thoroughly mix for a couple of minutes or more to get all the potato pieces coated. Dust the potato salad with sweet paprika, cover with plastic wrap or a lid and chill.

* When the potatoes are a little warm, they will absorb the flavors of the other ingredients much better, than if cold.

WORD HISTORY:                                                                                                                                 

Celery-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, but it goes back to Greek "sélinon," which meant "parsley." This was borrowed by Latin as "selinon," meaning "parsley," but "seemingly" also, "celery" (celery and parsley are closely related). This gave the northern Italian dialect of the Lombardy region, "seleri," ^ which was borrowed into French as "céleri," and this was borrowed into English as "celery" in the mid 1600s. Close English relative, German, also borrowed the word in the 1600s as "Sellerie;" however, there "may" have been influence directly from the northern Italian dialect, which borders on the German speaking region of central Europe. Likely though, French was the "main" contributor to the German borrowing, with one reason being that French was quite popular in those times, especially among the nobility and well educated of Europe.

^ The Italian dialect "Lombard" is not the same as "Lombardic," a Germanic dialect of old, spoken by the Germanic tribe the "Lombards," after whom the Italian region was named. Lombardic died out centuries ago, as these Germanic settlers of northern Italy gradually became Italian speaking.    

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twenty-Eight

Foreign policy and military actions during Clinton's two terms were important, as always, but they were also highly complex, making them beyond the scope of these articles. I'm just going to barely touch on some subjects which should be familiar to some degree with most readers, but there is plenty of information available elsewhere for those subjects of interest to you. The point isn't for me to do an entire detailed history, but to provide a general background as to what went on during the various administrations, while occasionally providing somewhat more detail, and to see how they or opponents formed or maintained coalitions.
  
During Clinton's two terms he deployed troops to Somalia, where there were American casualties, and the bodies of dead American troops were dragged through the streets there, an incident which brought the withdrawal of U.S. forces.* In the Balkans, the fall of communism had brought ethnic conflict to the region, as, very generally speaking, some ethnic groups (Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians) desired independence from the weakened Yugoslavia, while the Yugoslav government, dominated by Serbs, tried to retain the other regions under its control.** The U.S. military, along with NATO forces, primarily provided air units. In the late 1990s, the Albanian population, centered in the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia, wanted independence from Yugoslav, and thus Serbian, control. Long time animosities grew into armed conflict, and the United Nations and NATO wanted intervention to protect the civilian population (mainly Albanian) and its increasing number of refugees from the Yugoslav military and the exposure of the refugees to the elements. Eventually NATO authorized bombing attacks on Yugoslavia and these attacks were under the overall command of U.S. General Wesley Clark. Further, the end of the Gulf War provided for containment and monitoring of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, and U.S. forces were still deployed in the region to assist in that mission, and indeed, some Iraqi installations were bombed during Clinton's time in office due to violations of the agreement which ended the war. 

The deployment of U.S. troops (and troops from other nations), primarily to Saudi Arabia for the war against Saddam Hussein under President Bush (Sr.), had stirred some Muslim extremists to retaliate for violation of what they considered to be religious lands of Islam and for interference in the affairs of Muslim countries, although other reasons also certainly existed, primarily U.S. support for Israel. Shortly after Bill Clinton took office, the World Trade Center in New York City was bombed by Muslim extremists, killing several people and injuring hundreds. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, had established himself in Sudan, but he later was forced to leave, and he went to Pakistan. Bin Laden "declared war" on the United States and plans were formulated to attack various U.S. installations both inside the U.S. and elsewhere, culminating in simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa, killing a dozen Americans and 200-300 Africans, and injuring hundreds more. This brought the FBI to place bin Laden on its list of most wanted and the President ordered missiles fired at targets in Afghanistan and Sudan; the latter missile strike was supposedly based upon erroneous intelligence information and destroyed a prescription drug maker's building, although the U.S. has maintained to this day that the building was used to produce chemical weapons. Further, a truck loaded with explosives was detonated outside a complex with American military personnel in Saudi Arabia killing 19 Americans and wounding a couple of hundred more. Then just before the 2000 election, a terrorist attack occurred on the destroyer USS Cole while it refueled in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding dozens more. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility, with bin Laden calling for more such attacks.

Next, "Sex Scandal and Impeachment"

*  There was a civil war in Somalia and the U.N. and the U.S. tried to provide aid to the suffering population.

** The Balkans has long been a hotbed for conflict, with the "South Slav" (Yugoslav) areas being in the forefront of such conflict. That area had several "ethnic/nationalist" groups, often, but not always, divided over religion, as generally, Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins were Orthodox, Croats and Slovenes were Roman Catholic, and Bosnians were Muslim. Add in other groups living in the area, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Germans, and you can see the potential for conflict. Much of the region was dominated by the Turks for quite some time, thus the Muslim affiliation (an overall minority, but with a majority in certain areas) of part of the population. The (Austro-German) Habsburg family had controlled other parts of the region, and indeed, ethnic tensions there were the immediate cause of the outbreak of World War One (notice I said "immediate cause," not the only cause), as the heir to the Habsburg family, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, along with his wife, were assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914. During World War Two, the Germans and Italians occupied the area, but found it difficult, if not impossible, to control, which led to the rise of Marshal Tito and his eventual postwar rule. During the war, however, there was almost always an air of civil war, and many an atrocity was committed by one group against the other, and that's not counting anything done by the Germans or the Italians. 

WORD HISTORY:
Race-This is the noun for "group of people of common heritage," and that was the meaning until more recent times, when it became more specifically about skin color. If you read some old history books, authors often referred to a particular group as a "race," a term more commonly replaced today by "tribe" (or ethnic group), as in, "The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes that founded England," as it would sound odd to us today to call the Angles and Saxons races. You might think the history of this word is an easy one, but its origin is very much in question; so, rather than trace it forward from ancient times, I'm going to go backwards in its history. English borrowed the word in the late 1400s or very early 1500s from French "razza," which seems to have also been spelled "race," by some, and meant "group of people of common heritage, breed (used for animals)." This was derived from Italian "razza," with the same general meanings. The original English word for "race," in the general sense "people," was "theode," and the derived "theodisc," which also referred to language, and which is the ancestor of both "Deutsch" ("German") and "Dutch." Now things get sticky on "race," as no one really is certain where Italian got the word "razza." Attempts to connect it to Arabic and Hebrew (both "Semitic" languages^) seem tempting, but improbable. Connections to Germanic are "possible," as Lombardic, an old Germanic dialect, had "raiza," which meant "line," the implication being "bloodline," and the Lombards did conquer and settle in northern Italy in the mid 500s A.D., giving their name to the northern Italian region "Lombardia," but even if correct, where Germanic got the term is unknown. Whatever the case, the word spread to other European languages, including English relatives German, which has "Rasse," Low German Saxon, which has "Raass," and Dutch "race."

^ Semitic is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. Besides Arabic and Hebrew, Semitic also includes, for example, Syriac and Aramaic.