No man's land is wasted, unowned land, an uninhabited or desolate area that may beunder dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define acontested territory or adumping ground for refuse betweenfiefdoms.[1] It is commonly associated withWorld War I to describe the area of land between two enemytrench systems, not controlled by either side.[2][3] The term is also used metaphorically, to refer to an ambiguous, anomalous, or indefinite area, regarding an application, situation,[4] or jurisdiction.[5][6] It has sometimes been used to namea specific place.[3]
According toAlasdair Pinkerton, an expert inhuman geography atRoyal Holloway,University of London, the term is first mentioned inDomesday Book (1086), to describe parcels of land that were just beyondLondon's city walls.[7][8] TheOxford English Dictionary contains a reference to the term dating back to 1320, spellednonesmanneslond, to describe a territory that was disputed or involved in a legal disagreement.[3][1][9] The same term was later used as the name for the piece of land outside the north wall of London that was assigned as the place of execution.[9] The term is also applied in nautical use to a space amidships, originally between theforecastle, the living quarters of ordinary sailors, and the masts in asquare-rigged vessel where various ropes, tackle, block, and other supplies were stored.[3][10] In the United Kingdom, several places called No Man's Land denoted "extra-parochial spaces that were beyond the rule of the church, beyond the rule of different fiefdoms that were handed out by the king … ribbons of land between these different regimes of power".[7]
TheBritish Army did not widely employ the term when theRegular Army arrived inFrance in August 1914, soon after the outbreak ofWorld War I.[11] The terms used most frequently at the start of the war to describe the area between thetrench lines included 'between the trenches' or 'between the lines'.[11] The term 'no man's land' was first used in a military context by soldier and historianErnest Swinton in his 1908 short story "The Point of View".[12][1] Swinton used the term in war correspondence on theWestern Front, with specific mention of the terms concerning to theRace to the Sea in late 1914.[11] The Anglo-GermanChristmas truce of 1914 brought the term into common use, and thereafter it appeared frequently in official communiqués, newspaper reports, and personnel correspondences of the members of theBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF).[11]
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In World War I, no man's land often ranged from several hundred yards to less than 10 metres (33 ft), in some cases.[13] Heavily defended bymachine guns,mortars,artillery, andriflemen on both sides, it was often extensively cratered byexploded shells, riddled withbarbed wire, and littered with rudimentaryland mines; as well as the corpses and wounded soldiers who were unable to make it through thehailstorm of projectiles, explosions, and flames. The area was sometimes contaminated bychemical weapons. It was open to fire from the opposing trenches and hard going generally slowed any attempted advance.[14]
Not only were soldiers forced to cross no man's land when advancing, and as the case might be when retreating, but after an attack thestretcher-bearers had to enter it to bring in the wounded.[15] No man's land remained a regular feature of the battlefield until near the end of World War I when mechanised weapons (i.e.,tanks andairplanes) made entrenched lines less of an obstacle.
Effects from World War I no man's lands persist today, for example atVerdun in France, where theZone Rouge (Red Zone) containsunexploded ordnance, and is poisoned beyond habitation byarsenic,chlorine, andphosgene gas. The zone is sealed off completely and still deemed too dangerous for civilians to return: "The area is still considered to be very poisoned, so theFrench government planted an enormous forest ofblack pines, like a livingsarcophagus", comments Alasdair Pinkerton, a researcher at Royal Holloway University of London, who compared the zone to thenuclear disaster site at Chernobyl, similarly encased in a "concrete sarcophagus".[7]
During theCold War, one example of "no man's land" was the territory close to theIron Curtain. Officially the territory belonged to theEastern Bloc countries, but over the entire Iron Curtain, there were several wide tracts of uninhabited land, several hundred meters (yards) in width, containing watch towers, minefields, unexploded bombs, and other such debris. Would-be escapees from Eastern Bloc countries who successfully scaled the border fortifications could still be apprehended or shot on sight by border guards in the zone. One notable incident was thekilling of Peter Fechter, shot whilst attempting to cross theBerlin Wall into West Berlin.
TheU.S. Naval Base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba is separated fromCuba proper by an area called theCactus Curtain. In late 1961, theCuban Army had its troops plant a 13-kilometre (8.1 mi) barrier ofOpuntia cactus along the northeastern section of the 28-kilometre (17 mi) fence surrounding the base to prevent economic migrants fleeing from Cuba from resettling in the United States.[16] This was dubbed the "Cactus Curtain", an allusion toEurope'sIron Curtain[17] and theBamboo Curtain inEast Asia. U.S. and Cuban troops placed some 55,000land mines across the no man's land, creating the second-largest minefield in the world, and the largest in theAmericas. On 16 May 1996, PresidentBill Clinton ordered the U.S. land mines to be removed and replaced withmotion and sound sensors to detect intruders. The Cuban government has not removed the corresponding minefield on its side of the border.[citation needed]
From 1949 to 1967the border between Israel and Jordan contained a few small regions that were considered "no man's land" because neither side had jurisdiction. The1949 Armistice Agreements betweenIsrael andJordan were signed inRhodes with the help of UN mediation on 3 April 1949.[18] Armistice lines were determined in November 1948. Between the lines territory was left that was defined as no man's land.[19][20] Such areas existed inJerusalem in the area between the western and southern parts of theWalls of Jerusalem andMusrara.[21] A strip of land north and south ofLatrun was also known as "no man's land" because it was not controlled by either Israel or Jordan between 1948 and 1967.[22]
The no man's land regions werede facto eliminated when Israel conquered them during theSix-Day War.
Trench warfare became common as theWar in Donbas escalated in late 2014 and early 2015, as bothUkrainian andRussian separatists reinforced their positions with trench networks and deep bunkers in order to assert their territories. After theMinsk peace agreements,the conflict was frozen and lines didn't move, with a large no man's land forming between the Ukrainian and Russian proxy forces.[23][24]
After the initialRussian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022 ended, the frontlines stabilized into trenchlines. With extremely high casualties, costly ground assaults with very little ground gained, and shell-pocked landscapes, volunteers, media, and government officials alike compared fighting to battlefield conditions on the western front of World War I.[25][26] RetiredU.S. Marine Corps ColonelAndrew Milburn, an eyewitness to theBattle of Bakhmut, compared conditions in the Bakhmut countryside toPasschendaele and the city itself toDresden in World War II.[27]
The No Man's Land area between Russian and Ukrainian lines was dubbedGray Zone.[28][29][30]
The further proliferation ofdrone warfare by 2023 and 2024 dramatically altered the nature of the Ukrainian no man's land. Constant surveillance from cheap, widely deployed reconnaissance and attack drones made movement across open ground extremely hazardous, turning the Gray Zone into what observers described as a “kill zone.” Drones allows both sides to detect, track, and strike enemy troops far beyond the line of sight, erasing many of the protective qualities trenches once provided. Soldiers are often unable to move more than a few meters without risking detection, forcing units to rely heavily on camouflage, underground shelters, and rapid movement between covered positions. As a result, no man’s land in Ukraine evolved from a static buffer of craters and debris into a hyper-lethal, drone-dominated space where exposure for even a few seconds could be fatal.[30]
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