Italy's earlier intervention in Assab set off tensions with Ethiopia which had territorial aims on Assab and Italy's official annexation of Ethiopian-claimed Massawa in 1888 increased tensions further.

Hitler repeatedly declared that "Germany had no further territorial aims".

The decoding requires a grasp of the political and territorial aims that shape the seemingly spontaneous acts of age-old ethnic hate committed by drunken fanatics and terrified boys.

Though Italy had initially larger territorial aims that extended from the Velebit mountains to the Albanian Alps, Mussolini decided against annexing further territories due to a number of factors.

Yet, as Mr. Gilbert shows, from the war's outset the sheer numbers involved and the inclusiveness of popular enlistment stirred mass emotions that could not be constrained within the bounds of traditional dynastic and territorial aims.

When Menachem Begin became leader of the broad Likud coalition and, soon Prime Minister, he considerably modified Herut's expansive territorial aims.

Tvrtko's last territorial aims were at Zadar, and he failously requested ships from Venetia to take the city.

Bosnia's Serbs, who hold 70 percent of the land in that former Yugoslav republic, have achieved their basic territorial aims, and President Milosevic has shown no sign of wishing to bring them to heel.

But neither Krajina nor Slavonia Province has yet satisfied its announced territorial aims, and each has enough firepower to continue the fighting.