World history, 1815-1920

Front matter

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Book I. General Observations— The Point Of Departure Chapter

I. The Last Hundred Years as a Period in the History OF THE World 3

II, The Geographical Organization of the World in

III. The New Economic System 7

IV. The Economic Consequences of the French Revo-

lution II

V. The "Panic of the French Revolution" . . 16

VI. HUMANITARIANISM 1 9

BOOK II. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNA- TIONAL ALLIANCE AGAINST REVOLUTIONARY TENDENCIES

VII. The Solidarity of International Conservatism 25 VIII. The Establishment of Independent States in

Central and South America 29

IX. The Independence of Greece 36

X. The Conservative Alliance and Italy ... 44

XI. The Conservative Intervention in Spain . . 52 Xll. The Collapse of the Conservative System in

France 57

XIII. Breaches in the Conservative System in the

Other States of Europe Resulting from the July Revolution (Belgium and Poland) . . 69

XIV. The Collapse of the Old Regime in England . . 82

iii iv , CONTENTS

BOOK III. FROM THE OLD COLONIAL POLICY TO THE NEW CHArriB PAGE

XV, European Settlement in the United States 103

XVI. The Founding of a French Colonial Empire in

North Africa 112

xvii. russla and the european advance in central

AND Eastern Asia 129

XVIII. The English Policy in India and the Colonial

Wars with China 140

XIX. The First Europeanization of a Non-European

People (Japan) 154

XX. The Outcome of an Attempt at Colonization IN Europe (The History of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century) 165

Book IV. The Struggle Against The Fourth Estate, And The Formation Of New

NATIONAL STATES IN EUROPE

XXI. The Social Revolution in France . . .189 XXII. The Crimean War. Russia and the Eastern

Question 212

XXIII. The Panic Over Socialism After the February

Revolution ... 223

XXIV. The War of Secession in the United States . 228 XXV. The Founding of a Liberal National State in

Italy 248

XXVI. Germany Under Austro-Prusslan Rule . . 261 XXVII. The Struggle Betvi^een Prussia and Austria;

Prussla's Conquest of Germany . . . .285

Book V. Economic Imperialism

XXVIII. New Economic Problems 317

XXIX. The New Colonial Policy: I. Africa . . 325 XXX. The New Colonial Policy: II. Asla and Australasia 352

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XXXI.

III. The Anglo-

V

PAGE

The New Colonial Policy:

Saxon Empires 361

XXXII. The Socialist Movement and the Attitude of

Governments Toward It 381

XXXIII. The Struggle Between Austria and Russia for

the Balkans 403

XXXIV. The World War, 1914-1918 423

Index 475

WORLD HISTORY. 1815-1920

INTRODUCTION. THE CONCEPTION OF WORLD

HISTORY

What has hitherto been called "universal history" or "world history" (Weltgesckichte) has been nothing but a conglomeration. People believed they were writing world history if they articulated together in a formal fashion the events of various continents. Writers have been satisfied with a mere juxtaposition of narratives, when in fact they ought to have shown the interdependence of occurrences taking place in widely separate localities.

The present work has an altogether different purpose. It will attempt to survey the history of the last hundred years from a really universal point of view. It will not aim at a schematic treatment of different continents as of equal importance. A world history which should devote the same attention to the chance happenings of a tribe of African negroes and to the development of the British Empire would be as unworthy of the name as a history of Italy in the nineteenth century which treated in equal detail the Duchy of Parma and the Kingdom of Sardinia. On the contrary, events shall be so selected as to bring into the foreground those which have universal significance; the criterion of importance shall be, not the local, but the universal importance. Europe and the European nations will indeed be given first place; but only those phenomena shall be set forth in detail which have exercised a wide influence beyond old Europe.

A brief exposition like the present is better adapted to this aim than a detailed narrative. If one has to refrain from discussing many interesting details it is all the easier to make clear the major lines of development and the connecting threads in the history of lands and peoples. The outline of the background will stand forth all the more clearly if the number of decorative figures in the foreground of the landscape is restricted to the most significant and essential ones.

The intelligent reader must console himself if a popular and conventional anecdote, or a name dear to him, is either briefly mentioned or passed over entirely. For he will say to himself: What

2 INTRODUCTION

the present needs above all else is a grasp of history from the standpoint of a world outlook and not a collection of anecdotes. Far too long has the conventional historical instruction in the schools treated the history of Europe as an isolated development. It is high time this should cease. And also from practical reasons. A century and a half ago, when the historians of the Aufklarung, or Age of Enlightenment, undertook for the first time to write real universal history, their work was little more than a by-product of speculation in the field of the philosophy of history. Now, in the twentieth century, problems of world politics and world economics are no longer mere academic questions. History must adapt itself to this new situation if it is to be seriously considered as an introduction to political and economic thought. This is particularly true of the period which is to be treated in this book— for reasons which will be explained in the next chapter.

Chapter I The Last Hundred Years As A Period Of World History

It has often been said, even by great philosophers, that history simply repeats itself ; that, though to a superficial view much changes, and though names and forms vary, nevertheless fundamentally the same driving forces of history remain ever and immutably the same.

This view is mistaken. Naturally certain fundamental problems are always recurring. Human nature has certain needs which must always be satisfied in much the same way. The conflicts which arise from individuals living together and from states existing side by side show kindred traits from century to century. But so soon as the observer raises himself above these identical phenomena of a primitive nature, mighty are the differences which are revealed from century to century and between one quarter of the globe and another. Although the basic principles of human society may alter but little, nevertheless the conditions under which these principles act change greatly. A mere quantitative change in conditions may have enormous consequences. Think, for instance, of the rapidity of communication which we owe to steam. Theoretically, the modern steamship and railway serve the same needs as the sailing-vessel and the ox-cart of olden times ; but the possibility of quicker communication with distant parts of the world has brought with it consequences which would make it ridiculous to regard the difference between the present and the past merely as a shortening of the time necessary for the transportation of goods.

Now it is the aim of history to call attention to these changes and shifting conditions, and to consider their consequences. No period is so well adapted to this as the nineteenth century. For in this century there took place one of those great changes which permit us to differentiate one age sharply from another. This change was the spread of European civilization, including European science and knowledge as well as European colonization, over the whole earth. Naturally, here also, one can cite analogies or at least similar phenomena from earlier periods. For instance, there are close resemblances to the conquest of South America by Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. But even if such events of an earlier period seem essentially similar from a superficial point of view, there remains, nevertheless, the great difference which results from the far broader extent of the modern movement. No event of the past century (1815-1920) has exercised so powerful an influence upon the future of mankind — and not least on the European states themselves — as this Europeanization of the world. Compared with this, how slight was the importance for their own age of European colonial policy in previous centuries!

The plan of the present work will, therefore, place in the foreground those events which are connected with this most important development. It will seek first to describe the point of departure — the world as it was in 18 15 — and then the material and intellectual conditions out of which resulted the conquest of the world by the European nations and by European civilization.

Chapter II The Geographical Organization Of The World In 1 815

To-day the world is an economic unit. Economic disasters and great revolutions which occur in one part of the world are quickly felt everywhere else. A hundred years ago it was quite otherwise.

In 1 81 5 the world was still divided into three parts. One of these was virtually isolated from the other two; and these two traded with one another regularly only in certain products.

The part which was virtually isolated and which, because of its isolation, was not at all progressive, was the vast region of Eastern Asia. Here Japan was completely inaccessible to foreigners, and China had opened the door only a crack. Foreign ships were allowed to touch at only one Chinese port (Canton). Even those foreign traders who wanted to export Chinese tea were forbidden to make regular settlements or to travel freely inland. Furthermore, even this limited opportunity was exploited to only a small extent. The direct trade of European nations (especially of the English) was quite unimportant. And although China at that time was still inferior to the European nations in the science of war, the Europeans did not yet think of intervening with an armed hand for the benefit of their traders.

The second division of the world from an economic point of view consisted of Europe and those parts of America settled by Europeans. The third area comprised the numerous remaining regions which had come within the sphere of European colonial influence. In these latter regions Europeans had secured for themselves privileges for exploiting "colonial wares" which could not be produced in Europe at all, or at least only under unfavorable conditions, because of the climate. There was, as yet, no question of settlements to provide for an overflow population (aside from the scattered penal settlements). A surplus population did not yet exist in Europe in 181 5. At that time no European nation thought of reserving unoccupied regions outside Europe as places of settlement; even in the case of England, the country in which an excess population first began to appear, the

igration prior to 1825 was altogether insignificant. Europe's contact with the colonies was limited therefore to the regulation and retention of trade; even if expeditions were made into the interior for commercial purposes, these aimed only at the protection of the commercial settlements on the coast.

Thus the colonial policy of the European nations in 1815 was in theory still the same as during the three preceding centuries. But the wars of the eighteenth century and of the Napoleonic Age had brought a fundamental change in the relative strength of the various nations. While in the earlier periods the various naval powers had waged bitter strife for commercial advantages in the colonies, in 181 5 only one great sea power survived. To be sure, remnants of the earlier conditions still existed in the shape of Dutch, French, or Portuguese colonies. But the most dangerous rival of the British colonial empire, the French dominion in Asia and America, had been definitely destroyed and had fallen into the hands of the more powerful competitor. And there was no likelihood that the situation would soon change, because great sea power had been necessary for the conquest of these overseas regions, whose products were so much desired; and in 181 5 England alone possessed such sea power. The French navy was gone, the Spanish fleet decayed, and even the Dutch shipping had sunk into insignificance. Any immediate revival of the old rivalry on the sea was out of the question. The only cases in which European nations might extend over new territories outside Europe were cases where there was a land connection, or where sea communication offered only slight difficulties, as in the expansion of Russia over Siberia and Central Asia, the creation by France of a colonial empire in Algeria, or, to a certain extent, the addition of new lands to the South and West by the United States.

England's dominant position was further strengthened by the fact that, true to her policy for four centuries, she refrained from acquiring territory on the continent of Europe. The nation which possessed the only great sea power of the time could, if she desired, also concentrate her whole attention upon an overseas policy, because in Europe she claimed no territory which bordered on a continental military power.

Chapter III The New Economic System

Now it chanced that the only nation which possessed the necessary sea power for extending European authority over the world was also at the same time the nation which first developed the modern industrial system and thereby inaugurated the period of great emigration. In this its own citizens naturally had at first the greatest share. Here we must glance back a little into the past.

In the course of the eighteenth century, the factors which gave the impulse to the rise of the modern factory system, namely, the substitution of power-driven machinery for manual labor and the application of steam to industry, were in part the result of the new scientific speculation which arose in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century. But, in the main, certain specific needs of the time and the country led to the inventions which were to revolutionize the industrial life of the whole world. Thanks to the unequaled quality of her wool and the wealth of her mines, England had already secured a leading position in the textile and iron industries. This development modified the whole social structure of the country. The lucrative extension of sheep-raising decreased the number of agricultural laborers and furnished industry with an imusually large amount of cheap labor. But at the beginning of the eighteenth century one branch of industry was threatened with destruction. The forests of England which had supplied the fuel for smelting iron and making steel began to be exhausted. Unless the metal industries were to migrate to Sweden or Russia, where forests abounded, coal must be substituted for charcoal. To pump the water from the coal mines, some mechanical contrivance was necessary which could work more effectively than hand-pumps. This led to the invention of the steam engine by James Watt. Soon the new machine began to be applied to other purposes than pumping water from coal mines. In the textile industries steam-driven machinery was soon installed. A few decades later followed the two inventions which placed the steam engine at the service of commerce — the steamship and the railway. About the same time there occurred also in America the invention of the cotton-gin, which placed at the disposal of English industry a hitherto undreamt-of supply of cotton, for which in turn new uses were discovered.

This introduction of manufacturing on a large scale, known in England as the "Industrial Revolution/' taken all in all, was the most important event of the nineteenth century. Thanks to the new means of communication, commerce and industry were now for the first time organized on a really world basis. Hitherto, European trade with the overseas regions had been limited to the importation of luxuries and raw materials which could not be produced in Europe; henceforth food supplies from other parts of the world could be imported more cheaply by the industrialized European nations than they could be raised at home. The industrialization of a country, that is, the employment of propertyless workingmen in factories at the expense of home agriculture and the multiplication of factory employees far beyond what the soil at home would feed, could now be carried on to an extent and with an intensity undreamt-of in former times. Masses of men, who formerly would either have starved or through recurrent under-nourishment have been subject to epidemics and heavy mortality, could now not only live, but even enjoy relative comfort with a lower mortality rate than had ever been heard of before. The importation of food from parts of the world outside Europe, made possible by the new means of transportation, assured not only cheapness but also regularity of supplies, so that local crop failures no longer resulted in famine. Likewise, as there was no longer any geographical limitation upon the exportation of manufactured goods, and as goods could be sold in distant countries, there was nothing to prevent great expansion in manufacturing. The Malthusian theory had declared that population tended constantly to outrun food-supply, and that if the birthrate were not voluntarily checked, famine or war or some other disaster must keep it within bounds. Now the Malthusian theory — formulated under the influences of the first phases of the industrial change in England — seemed contradicted.

This optimistic view, however, which perhaps reached its height in the second half of tiie nineteenth century, lost sight of the fact that the solution which it supposed it had found could hold good only for a brief and unusually favorable period. It forgot that the overseas regions could come to the aid of Europe's excess population only so long as these regions themselves remained thinly populated. However, this is not the place to consider in detail the question of overpopulation nor that of the social and political consequences of the rise of an industrial proletariat; these can best be

THE NEW ECONOMIC SYSTEM 9

treated later in the chapter on English History (ch. xiv). Here it need only be pointed out that the new economic organization of trade on a world basis was not merely a cause, but just as much a consequence, of the increase of population which resulted from the Industrial Revolution.

Manufacturing on a large scale, with the aid of steam-power, made far less demands on the strength of the individual worker than had the old manual labor. Children, women, and unskilled' workmen could be used to tend many machines just as well as grown men and technically trained workers. Particularly in the first period, prior to the legislation for the protection of children, factory employees became self-supporting while still very young and could begin to raise families. As wages varied arbitrarily and were relatively high when times were good, workingmen became careless and made no effort to limit the number of children, particularly as the children did not have to divide up an inheritance but merely shared in the opportunity to work. Only a few leaders warned the workingmen to keep their families small in order to limit the number of those competing for places to work. And since, in spite of the unhygienic conditions under which the working population for the most part lived, a regular supply of imported food tended to reduce mortality, the population of the industrial countries grew in numbers to an extent which has no parallel in earlier centuries.

It soon appeared that for an amelioration of the evils which arose from this, particularly for the evil of unemployment in normal times, there was but one remedy: emigration. If all the people who lived exclusively by manual labor but were unable to find work at home could move away to thinly settled or unoccupied regions, especially outside Europe, the increase of population which was caused and kept up by the Industrial Revolution could be borne without inconvenience. This was at first the case. After 181 5 great areas stood open for settlement, particularly in North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, that is, in territories which were not unsuited to white men. Furthermore, the economic situation was such that this emigration of European labor not only relieved the mother country from the burden of feeding those who departed, but also positively contributed to the support of those who remained. Distant lands, which could produce practically no necessaries of life so long as they remained hunting-grounds in the hands of wild native tribes, became in the hands of white settlers great granaries from which the industrial masses of Europe could be fed, and to which the manufactured products of European factories could be sold. Apparently an equilibrium had been established. Thanks to the new economic organization on a world basis, the enormously increased population of the world could be fed, in fact better fed, than was possible in previous centuries. But this was only a temporary and provisional situation. Scarcely a hundred years had passed before it became evident that the conditions on which the economic equilibrium rested no longer existed; then came to an end, one may say, the Age of the Industrial Revolution and the Expansion of Europeans over the World.

Chapter IV The Economic Consequences Of The French Revolution

The Industrial Revolution which took place in England had as its counterpart in much of the rest of Europe the revolution in property rights and business relations which arose from the spread of the French conception of legal equality. Here also we must glance back into the past.

Up to the end of the eighteenth century, in nearly all the countries of Europe (but less in England) institutions were in existence which aimed to protect the privileged classes who possessed inherited wealth from the competition of new elements struggling upwards from the bottom of society. Almost everywhere the law took care that the families which had secured possession of considerable property (particularly landed property), or of a good government office (one of the most fruitful sources of income in those days), should be enabled to defend their property against competitors from the lower social ranks, even when the latter were more capable and energetic. Various legal privileges reserved a great part of the government offices for members of a definite social class. Various laws took care that the property of the favored families could not be divided, lest individual members of the family might be in danger of being depressed into the ranks of the poor. In general, the legal system worked in such a way that all the landed property of a family passed to the eldest son and was kept together in his hands; the younger sons and daughters were provided for by being given a place in the army, the government, or the church. Usually, therefore, the rank of officer in the army, the lucrative appointments in the government, and the rich ecclesiastical endowments (in which ladies also might share) were reserved for the "nobility," i. e., for the wealthy class. In the city republics the rights of the ruling bourgeois aristocracy were protected in the same way; the rest of the people, whether rich or poor, were excluded from all important positions and often even from the exercise of certain trades ; here also election to most of the offices was restricted to the members of a few families, who were thus assured of appointment to offices which they often

II could not have won on a basis of ability and free competition. To these privileges must be added that of exemption from taxation for nobility, clergy, and the ruling bourgeois aristocracy, which likewise assured a mighty financial advantage to the favored few.

During the French Revolution this system of privileges was replaced by the principle of legal equality for all. All the limitations which had reserved the numerous places of profit for inheritors of wealth disappeared. Now a commoner could be an army officer, a poor man a justice, and even a very poor man a bishop. Primogeniture was abolished; a law of inheritance was introduced which gave younger and elder children an equal share, so that no family's wealth was protected by the state from being divided up. The privileges of the guilds were set aside, so that the exercise of certain trades was no longer reserved for the benefit of a few families. Separate tribunals for the nobility, with their partiality for the rich, were abolished. Many of the factors which made preferment according to social position possible simply disappeared. The most important examples of this were the secularization of mucli of the church property, such as the monasteries and other ecclesiastical foundations which served no practical religious purpose, and the cutting down of the revenues of those establishments which were permitted to continue in existence, such as bishoprics. The income of the ecclesiastical offices which survived was now so moderate that even if they had been reserved as formerly for the children of the nobility, they would not have sufficed for their support.

Friends and opponents of the French Revolution have too often judged this system of equality from the standpoint of the city bourgeoisie. In reality, however, its significance is far greater as regards agricultural land in the country districts. Any one who wants to judge the results of the French Revolution must begin with the changes which took place in the condition of the peasants and in the division of the soil.

The principle of equality of inheritance, for evident reasons, is not nearly so important in the case of movable property as in that of real estate. The joint management of a concern by brothers, the provision of compensation for retiring members, the adaptation of an organization to a greater or less number of participants, above all, the expansion of business — these are all matters which are easier to arrange in a commercial or industrial undertaking than in agriculture. In agriculture, particularly if a country is already so thickly populated that it is difficult to enlarge an inherited estate or buy new lands, serious consequences arise from laws compelling

CONSEQUENCES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION 13

the heirs to share the land equally or make an equivalent provision. Even if some of the heirs withdraw from the land, the situation is no better, since those who remain on the property are heavily burdened financially by the compensation which they have to provide for those who withdraw. Now if there happens to come a natural increase in the population and a decrease in the death rate (as was the case in the nineteenth century as a result of the new means of communication, better hygiene, and long periods of peace), only two alternatives are open to countries already thickly settled: either a subdivision of the land into smaller parcels, with all the technical difficulties in cultivation which this involves, or an artificial limitation of the birth rate (provided, of course, that the law of equal inheritance is not modified). This is the dilemma, as is well known, which the French saw clearly, and solved admirably, at least from an economic point of view, by choosing the second alternative.

If a country avoids the evil consequences of legal equality by such a restriction of population, and remains, so to speak, in the first phase of the revolution, it secures a social structure whose solidity is scarcely equaled by any other form of economic organization. The bulk of the population does not consist of homeless, propertyless workingmen, nor of a crowd of day laborers whose families live physically and mentally almost like cattle under a few great landlords; it consists of a body of peasant proprietors who are hardworking and thrifty, because out of their own experience they know the value of property, and because they labor for themselves and their families and not for absentee landlords.

It has been necessary to examine a little more in detail the historical significance of this idea of "equality," inasmuch as scarcely any other historical event has been so much misrepresented as the proclamation of this principle by the French Revolution. From the outset, amateur philosophers of history have taken special delight in holding it up to reproach, repeating the platitude that Nature herself knows no equality, and that men are never equally endowed at birth. This is undoubtedly true; but, looked at closely, this very fact is an argument, not against, but in favor of the abolition of the pre-revolutionary class privileges. The advantages which the members of the propertied class enjoyed before the Revolution did not give free play to ability, but on the contrary acted as a shield to the incompetent, who could not otherwise have withstood the competition of talented rivals from the lower ranks of society. As to "the rule of the fittest," whatever such an indefinite, theoretical phrase may mean, certainly there was a closer approach to this

Utopian conception under the legal equality introduced by the French Revolution than under the earlier system of privileges for certain families and classes. Historical events have also proved that another theory, by which the privileged classes tried to justify their position, is no longer tenable; namely, the theory that only scions of the nobility possessed the necessary qualities to make good military officers. The very wars of the French Revolution proved this to be nothing but a legend. Every one knows that some of the most successful French generals came from the lower ranks of society; diis was the time when it was said that every soldier, even the humblest born, carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack.

Of course the principle of equality in inheritance is open to serious criticism, and the historian would be the last person to assert that there is nothing but good in it. Writers in England, that is, in the country where primogeniture has been retained within certain limits in combination with general freedom of testamentary disposition, have with some justice called attention to the bad effects in France of extreme subdivision of agricultural land. One might add also that a class of independent large landlords can render to the state valuable services which cannot be had easily in any other way. But these are matters which have nothing to do with that favorable recognition of talent which is supposed to have been destroyed by the doctrine of equality. For the innovations of the French Revolution had precisely the result that the man who was poor but talented henceforth need struggle only against the disadvantages due to his poverty, but not against those due to the political and legal privileges of the rich.