Information about No Man's Land

No Man's Land may refer to the following:

Places

• No man's land, a term for land between two opposing positions that is not occupied
• Terra nullius, land not claimed by any recognised sovereign state.
• Nomans Land (Massachusetts), an island in the U.S.
• Nomansland, Devon, a village in Devon, England
• Nomansland, Hertfordshire, a common in Hertfordshire
• No Man's Land, Cornwall a hamlet near Looe in Cornwall
• Nomansland, Wiltshire, a village on the border of the English counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire
• Neutral Strip (Oklahoma), known as "No Man's Land"
• Sabine Free State (Louisiana), known as "No Man's Land"
• No Man's Land, Falkland Islands
• No Man's Land Fort, a sea fort located off the coast of England.

Culture

• No Man's Land (1984 film), a 1984 western starring Stella Stevens
• No Man's Land (film series) A series of adult films
• No Man's Land (1987 film), a 1987 dramatic crime thriller, starring D.B. Sweeney and Charlie Sheen
• No Man's Land (2001 film), a 2001 war drama, Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film
• No Man's Land (play), by Harold Pinter
• No Man's Land (comics), a crossover DC Comics' Batman titles
• No Man's Land (record label), a now defunct record company that was based in Würzburg, West Germany.
• No Man's Land (Stargate Atlantis), a season 3 episode of Stargate Atlantis
• No Man's Land (Doctor Who audio), a Doctor Who audio drama
• Several songs, by
• Billy Joel, from his album River of Dreams
• John Michael Montgomery, from his album John Michael Montgomery
• Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle
• Sufjan Stevens, from his album The Avalanche
• Syd Barrett, from his album The Madcap Laughs
• Soul Asylum, from their 1986 album While You Were Out
• Beverley Knight, from her 2007 album, Music City Soul
• Mike Oldfield on his Tres Lunas album
• Download, from their 1995 album, Furnace
• No Man's Land (book), a book by Susan Bartoletti
• No Man's Land (book), a book by Simon Watson
• No Man's Land (sculpture), a relief sculpture by Charles Sargeant Jagger
• No Man's Land (album), an album by Souls of Mischief
• No Man's Land (Lene Lovich album, an album by Lene Lovich

In Military Tactics

'No man's land' can also be used to refer to a position deliberately cleared of any cover in a system of fortifications. Such positions are useful when put into a place where an enemy will have to traverse to get to a target of value, and increase in utility when targeted by emplacement weaponry.

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This article discusses the term referring to the unoccupied land between two opposing forces. For other meanings of the phrase, see No Man's Land. For corresponding psychological and religious concepts, see liminality and limbo.

No man's land is a term for land that is not occupied or more specifically land that is under dispute between parties that will not occupy it because of fear or uncertainty. During war (especially World War I), it is a term used as the area of land between two enemy trenches that neither side wishes to openly move on or take control of due to fear of being attacked by the enemy in the process. It is also a term for the stretch of land between two border posts, when one exits one country at their border post and when one enters the next country at their border post, usually just a few metres away, though at some (usually remote) border crossings it can be measured in kilometres.

History

Although most associated with World War I, the term no-man's-land goes back to the early 14th century. The term was first used for a vast wasteland outside the north walls of London where criminals were executed. Often the rotting bodies of these hanged, impaled, and beheaded criminals were left in the open in full display, as a warning to potential lawbreakers. This area came to be known as no-man's land since no one would seek to claim this land for ownership. Roughly 400 years later, the term was applied to a little-used area on ships called the forecastle, a place where various ropes, tackle, block and other supplies were stored.

The term was first applied in a military sense in about 1900 where its meaning referred to the area between hostile entrenched lines. The phrase probably gained wide usage during World War I after it was used in a dispatch that was printed in the Times newspaper by (Colonel) E Swinton, who was writing under the pseudonym "Eyewitness." No man's land would be one of the definitive phrases that characterized the horrors of World War I, a "neutral" area between opposing trenches that saw fierce fighting and large scale human carnage.

No man's land was often a hellish experience for soldiers, ranging from several hundred yards to in some cases as short as 15 yards. Heavily defended by machine guns and riflemen on both sides, they also were often riddled with land mines and barbed wire, as well as corpses and wounded soldiers who were not able to make it back to their own trenches. Intense bombing and artillery often blanketed the no man's land in a sea of explosions and fire. The area was usually devastated by the warfare, leaving little to no foliage or cover of any sort. The artillery left only disturbed ground and craters. It was open to fire from the opposing trenches and hard going generally slowed down any attempted advance. However, 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 the stretcher bearers would need to go out into it to bring in the wounded.

British poet Wilfred Owen, later killed in action during the war, wrote in a couple of letters:

"No Man's Land is pocketmarked like the body of foulest disease and its odour is the breath of cancer...No Man's Land under snow is like the face of the moon, chaotic, crater-ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness."

"Hideous landscapes, vile noises....everything unnatural, broken, blastered; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug-outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth."

The hell of the no man's land remained largely impenetrable until near the end of World War I, when tanks were able to cross it with little opposition and break the defenders in their trenches.

Cold War

During the Cold War, no man's land was the territory close to the Iron Curtain. Officially the territory belonged to the Eastern Bloc countries, but over the entire Iron Curtain there were several wide tracts of uninhabited land, several hundred meters in width, containing watch towers, minefields and such.

Yugoslavia

During the Yugoslav wars, no man's land was Bosnia, disputed between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.

Palestine

Historical Palestine has been treated as a no man's land after the WWI, this helped greatly in the establishmenet of Israel in 1948.

See also

• List of disputed or occupied territories

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