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A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION

First Published in 1922

A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION

Europe in 1789

1. The Old Régime

REPORT has it that Louis XV once said, “Après moi le déluge.” In making this historic observation, however, he displayed no very startling powers of prevision, and his reading of the signs of the times might have been endorsed by any contemporary of average intelligence and education. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it must have been quite obvious that Europe had outgrown her institutions and that changes of a radical nature were perforce approaching, although the extreme imminence of the cyclone was perhaps a subject of general miscalculation. She was palpably oppressed by the survival of an obsolete civilization; her organization was still that of the Middle Ages, her society was still impregnated with the ancient principles of Feudalism and Catholicism, and she had not yet discarded practices and conventions which had lost their utility. Her institutions, which collectively are termed the Old Régime, were out of date, since they failed to meet the conditions and needs of the age. Consequently, the interest of the century lies in the growth of criticism and opposition. An attack was made on the practical machinery and on the underlying ideas of existing institutions, which, gaining in strength through the century, culminated in the political and social upheavals of the French Revolution. In practice, the rising generation demanded the introduction of newer and more efficient methods into administration; in theory, a war was waged upon two of the fundamental ideas of the Old Régime, the principles of autocracy and privilege.

The greater number of European States were, in the eighteenth century, absolute monarchies. Their princes, bound by custom rather than by law, and regarding their dominions as so much private property, looked upon good government as a duty owed to God rather than to their people. They were not infrequently accustomed to consult their subjects on political matters in some kind of popular assembly, of which the French States General is a good example, but they were seldom bound to follow the advice thus given, so that, in effect popular opinion and criticism, could only find expression in rebellion and the use of violence.

England was exceptional in possessing a constitutional government; her King could not make laws without the consent of Parliament, a body of men empowered to discuss and legislate. The lower house of Parliament was composed of the representatives of the people, while the upper house represented the hereditary and privileged nobility. England was not a democracy and the masses of the people still had no power to vote for members of the House of Commons; but, in the measure of popularity secured to her legislature, she was more democratic than any other large European State. The executive and administrative power was lodged in the King and his ministers; but these were responsible to Parliament for their acts, so that the executive was, in fact, subordinate to the legislature.

England had peculiar advantages in other directions. She had an equal law for all men, which did not differentiate between noble and peasant, soldier and civilian, government official and private citizen. No Englishman could be arrested and kept in prison without public trial. The English Press was free, and any man could publish what he pleased without having to obtain the licence of a censor. For these, and for other liberties which the British Constitution secured to the individual, was England admired on the Continent, despite the fact that she stood in need of radical reforms, possessed little religious toleration, an unfairly distributed taxation, and an imperfectly representative legislature. In the minds of those who criticized the Old Régime, the demand for personal liberty became involved in the demand for constitutional government.

Another salient characteristic of the Old Régime was class privilege. The old feudal nobility, which had once done good service to the monarchy, retained all its former privileges but had lost its political utility. The nobles were no longer employed in the administration, for the monarchs, growing jealous of them and distrustful of their power, preferred to govern through middle-class officials. A series of bureaucracies, dependent on the princes, grew up, and the landed nobility became idle and useless.

This was nowhere more apparent than in France, where the nobles retained all the rights which had been theirs when they were entrusted with the task of defending the State, without justifying their existence by the performance of any political or social duty. They monopolized the landownership and lived on the labour of others; they were exempt from taxation and from many forms of public service; they were given all the higher posts in the army and the Church. The peasants were practically their slaves, though in this respect the peasants of France were not so badly off as those of Austria and Germany. In some parts of Germany they might not marry or leave their lord’s estate without permission, they had to pay heavy tolls and dues and devote much free labour to his land. It was just because the French peasant was rather better off that he had the spirit to resent the privileges of an aristocracy which did no work.

In the same way the Catholic Church, which had in times past contributed so much to the civilization of Europe, retained in the eighteenth century a position which it no longer ostensibly justified. Its great wealth ministered to the selfishness of the aristocratic class rather than to the maintenance of Christianity, for the lower clergy and the parish priests, who were drawn from the peasant class, lived in bitter penury, while the higher ecclesiastical posts were monopolized by the younger sons of the nobility, who frequently lived the most unclerical and licentious lives, often professing open unbelief. The Church was hated also by all critics of the Old Régime for its intolerant opposition to all intellectual progress and reform. It monopolized education, censored literature, and offered unfailing hostility to innovation. Most of the greatest books of the century were banned, and few leading thinkers escaped ecclesiastical censure. In some countries the Inquisition was retained. Current political speculation became, in consequence, infused with hostility towards religion, especially towards Catholic Christianity. Most of the leaders of European thought were agnostic, and, in Catholic countries, many were definitely anti-Christian.

2. The Critics of the Old Régime

Under these conditions a party of opposition grew up and, by the middle of the century, clamours for reform were heard. Men began to speak of democracy and of the sovereignty of the people. These were no new ideas, but they had heretofore been preached only by the intellectual few and had small attraction for the average man. European practice had taken the opposite direction. A series of terrific wars had caused the peoples of the Continent to cast themselves upon the mercies of any capable rulers, to submit to any tyranny, provided that they were protected from their neighbours. For three centuries Europe had sustained that class of emergency which forms the excuse for despotism. Criticism slept until the comparative calm of the eighteenth century, and when it at length awoke, it was, at first, largely destructive.

The leader of the attack, the most able exponent of the universal unease, was, undoubtedly, the French writer Voltaire, 1694-1778. Under his not very distinguished family title of Arouet, mention is made of Voltaire, early in the century, in the voluminous memoires of the hidebound and conservative St. Simon, a typical noble of the Old Régime. The serene contempt with which the aristocrat refers to the man of letters, as a negligible person of mean origin who is somehow managing to attract attention, is interesting, when it is remembered that, twenty years later, Voltaire was to become a leading figure, not only in French, but in European literature. He was one of the Olympians of the age, and his influence went far to form the minds of his successors. He launched an attack, powerful if estimated on the score of literary excellence alone, upon the outstanding evils of the day. To his mind, the bane of society, the canker which must be exterminated, was the influence of “persecuting and privileged orthodoxy,” the fanaticism which sent him into exile and which confiscated his books. He was greatly roused by the fate of Calas and other unfortunate Protestants who were persecuted for their religion, and against Catholicism the sharpest barbs of his derision were directed. Politically also he was a critic and a thinker, and a prominent figure among those who admired the British Constitution. Against religion, authority, and tradition, he turned the powerful weapon of his ridicule, and, though he preached no revolt, though he outlined no constructive programme, he exposed the hollow mockeries of those sacred things which had hitherto inspired awe. An absolute monarchy must perforce be founded upon sanctions other than military power; all real absolutisms are supported by religion and the authority of cherished traditions. Where faith in these is destroyed a revolution will soon follow.

Europe was for forsaking her ancient gods, but new ones were lacking as yet. These Voltaire had no power to supply. His works were framed to appeal to a limited circle, and they could only rouse enthusiasm among the privileged and educated classes. They were not calculated to stir on to performance the more active sections of the community. If criticism were to be transmuted into revolt, a solvent stronger than ridicule must be discovered.

This need was met by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), the son of a Geneva watchmaker. Rousseau’s literary activity, like that of Voltaire, was exercised in various directions. As “a describer of the passions of the heart and the beauties of human nature” he was, to a certain degree, the precursor of that Romantic Movement which revolutionized European literature at the end of the century. Politically, however, the importance of his great work “The Social Contract” outweighs all other. Here he painted an idealized society, a perfect democracy, in which men had cast off their bonds and acknowledged no law but that of the “General Will”. No startling or original truths are set forth, but the book possesses a quality of forcefulness, a specious appearance of lucid argument, which appealed to a very large section of contemporary European opinion. Therein lay its strength and its danger. The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, useful in former days only to obscure jurists, became the fashion, when it had been thus elaborated by a popular and imaginative writer. An era of boundless optimism set in, and the disciples of Rousseau declared their complete faith in the perfectibility of human institutions. This view was based on a belief in the essential nobility of man in his primitive and savage condition; the “state of nature” was generally accepted as the Golden Age. The faults and vices of human nature were attributed to the corruption of imperfect institutions, the institutions against which Voltaire had inveighed. But Voltaire had never suggested that human nature, under any institutions whatsoever, would be other than faulty. The impetus to reform came from the more hopeful political philosophy of Rousseau. It seemed that a very few measures, the destruction of a small number of mediæval survivals, would ensure the return of humanity to the Golden Age. The maxim, moreover, that all men are born free and equal tended to undermine a social order based upon privilege and class distinction, and transmuted into “natural rights” those personal liberties, already secured to the individual under the British Constitution, which the followers of Voltaire had admired.

The influence of Rousseau was reinforced by the Declaration of Independence in America. Here a great republic was admittedly founded upon the principles of the “sovereignty of the people” and the “rights of man.” The most optimistic of European Reformers had despaired of imitating the British Constitution, so baffling were its intricacies in the eyes of the political student. But the American Constitution was simple; it required no very protracted study, and, in a single document which could be mastered in an hour, it enumerated all the principal institutions of the State and laid bare to the reader a whole political system. It was a constitution which could be copied, and the rising generation began to think that their goal must be a written constitution, setting forth the principles of Rousseau and checking monarchical power.

3. Practical Reform and the Enlightened Despots

The growth of opposition to the theory of autocracy was, however, only part of the reforming movement of the eighteenth century. There was, in addition, a universal advance in material progress, and a sweeping away of obsolete and antiquated methods. Kings and princes, though they might exclude their subjects from political power, were frequently indefatigable in their efforts to promote the general welfare. Frederick II of Prussia was their great exemplar; for his extraordinary success in encounters with other States was generally explained by his industry in internal reform; and his conquered opponents were determined to copy him. Progress and enlightenment became the fashion. Joseph II of Austria, Catherine of Russia, Charles III of Spain and his minister Aranda, the Portuguese minister Pombal, Gustavus III of Sweden, Leopold of Tuscany, Ferdinand of Naples and his minister Tanucci, the Duke of Parma and his minister Du Tillot, Bernstorff the Danish minister, the King of Sardinia, the Elector of Bavaria, and a legion of German princelings, all appeared to be tireless in their efforts to do good. They founded banks, established national credit, reorganized taxation and finances, encouraged mining and industry, improved agriculture, swept away the old tolls and dues which were injuring transport, codified the laws, abolished torture, and undertook educational reform. In some cases, of which Baden and Denmark are examples, they abolished serfdom and taxed the nobles. They studied political economy from a scientific point of view, and encouraged scientific research in their new universities. The movement frequently aroused the hostility of the Church, which invariably resisted innovations in education; consequently there was, in many countries, a contest between Church and State, of which the universal suppression of the Jesuit order, one of the mainstays of Catholic education, is symptomatic.

Not all these reforms were accomplished in any one State, but, generally speaking, improvement of some sort was attempted almost everywhere, and even the Pope was reported to have drained some marshes. In France alone was this movement of “Enlightened Despotism” a conspicuous failure. Turgot, the most progressive minister of Louis XVI, was dismissed before he could mature his policy of improvement. The Queen disliked him and resented his attempts to restrain the extravagance of the court. Had he succeeded, it is difficult to say how far the Revolution of 1789 would have gone: a wise king reconciles his people to despotism, it is the incompetent tyrant who demonstrates the evils of autocracy. The failure of Louis XVI to keep pace with the rest of Europe and to accomplish those reforms which had been undertaken by nearly every other monarch was one of the most prominent features in history immediately before the explosion of 1789.

The French Revolution was thus in two respects the culmination of eighteenth-century movements; it was a crisis in a general movement towards practical reform, and it was a manifestation of the impact of current political theory upon obsolete institutions. Some of the men who sat in the first “National Assembly” cared very little for the doctrines of Rousseau, and desired merely to secure for France the reforms undertaken by all the other States of Europe. Others were fighting for political liberty, believing that other good would follow. Both parties were inspired by an extreme optimism and an inordinate faith in the power of human reason to solve all social perplexities, and both were decidedly anti-Catholic in character. The influence of both is seen in the constitution of 1791, a production which is, in its essence, the outcome of eighteenth-century thought. In its unifying, reforming, codifying, and educative aspect, it is reminiscent of the work of contemporary benevolent despots; but the influence of current political theory is manifested in the abolition of class privilege, the prodigal bestowal of political liberties, and the declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

4. The Political Map of Europe

Before a closer examination of the movement begun in 1789 can be attempted, it is necessary to summarize the political features of Europe, as they were at the beginning of the Revolution. Such a sketch will show how many and varied were the ambitions and jealousies of the Old Régime, and will explain why events in France attracted, at first, so little attention. Europe was more interested in the final partition of Poland, and in the difficulties of the Emperor Joseph II, than in the politics of the National Assembly. The Holy Roman Empire was the most singular mediæval survival in 1789. It was a monument to the ancient idea that all the States in Christendom should owe homage to one Emperor, as all the Churches were united under one Pope. In the eighteenth century the Empire was merely a confederation of the States of Central Europe, exclusive of Switzerland. Germany consisted of a great many large and small States and free towns, each ruled by a sovereign prince, lay or ecclesiastical. All were members of the Empire, under the direction of a Diet, and of an Emperor, elected for life. The Archduke of Austria was generally elected Emperor, though the office was not hereditary in the Hapsburg family. There was a growing tendency among the rulers of the larger States of the Empire, such as Bavaria and Saxony, to absorb the smaller and thus to consolidate their dominions. Of these, the most rapacious had been Prussia, the rival of Austria. This kingdom had, under the able rule of the house of Hohenzollern, risen from insignificance to a position of prominence and power. She had lately, however, under King Frederick William, adopted the part of protectress of the small States against the aggressions of Austria.

The Hapsburg dominions consisted of the Archduchy of Austria, the kingdom of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and a medley of Slav and Croatian provinces stretching from the Carpathians to the Adriatic, the fruit of piecemeal conquests from the Turks. Some of these provinces were part of the Empire, and some were outside it; their only bond of union lay in the person of the Archduke of Austria, their common ruler, who also possessed the Milanese in Italy, and the province of Belgium in the north. The Archduke had a difficult position, amid the conflicting races and religions of his inheritance. In 1789 the Emperor Joseph was attempting to introduce some kind of order and uniformity into his unwieldy patrimony. Everywhere, however, he met with opposition and obstruction, especially in Belgium, where local prejudices were very strong.

To the east of Austria lay Russia, a vast, unknown, and savage country, which had till recently lain outside the sphere of European politics. Under the Empress Catherine, however, an aggressive policy had been pursued. In the south the Russians were gradually approaching Constantinople, while in the north they coveted the Swedish Province of Finland, and intended to dominate the Baltic. In central Europe their ambition was to absorb Poland, an ancient kingdom lying between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, which had fallen into helpless anarchy and decay. Russian greed in this direction was a trifle restrained by the attitude of Prussia and Austria, who demanded compensation for Russian annexations. Hence a series of Partitions took place in 1772, 1793, and 1795, which ended in the complete extinction of the Polish kingdom. Russia and Austria had further causes for dispute in the Balkan Peninsula, where the crumbling power of Turkey affected them vitally. Each hoped for Balkan expansion when the subject Christian races, the Greeks, the Roumanians, and the Serbs, should finally throw off the Turkish yoke.

Among the Scandinavian powers of the North, the kingdom of Denmark and Norway was the most important. Holland, a little Republic under the Prince of Orange as hereditary Stadtholder, had a certain amount of prestige, owing to her commercial and maritime development and her colonial connexions. She was, together with Portugal, the permanent ally of England, an arrangement conducive to their common maritime interests.

France, under the house of Bourbon, had lost much of her ancient importance, owing to the incompetence of the Crown. Under the well-meaning but stupid Louis XVI, she had lost most of her weight in European politics and was fast approaching national bankruptcy. She acquired, however, some reflected glory from her alliance with Austria and Spain. Louis XVI had an Austrian Queen, the sister of Joseph II; and France had made, in 1761, a family compact of alliance with Spain, which also possessed a line of Bourbon kings. Spain was, however, a poor and backward country, petrified by the intolerance of a bigoted Church, and offering little encouragement to her reforming King, Charles IV.

Italy, divided into many small States, was torn by the rival ambitions of Austria and France. To the French group belonged the Bourbon King of Naples and Sicily, the Duke of Parma, and the King of Sardinia, whose dominions included Piedmont, Savoy, and Nice. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, on the other hand, was the brother and the eventual successor of the Emperor, and the Duchess of Modena was their sister-in-law. There were besides three independent Republics—Venetia, destined to become the prey of Austria, Genoa, coveted by Sardinia, and Lucca. The Papal States, in central Italy, owed their homage to the Pope as sovereign prince.

The conflicting interests here outlined persisted throughout the revolutionary wars, so that by 1815 we shall find that the small Italian Republics have disappeared, that Poland is completely partitioned, that Russia has annexed Finland, and that nearly all the smaller States of Germany have become the prey of the larger. These movements received impetus from the outbreak of war against revolutionary France, and they constantly reappear amid all the new motives and ideas which come into play. They supply material for the matchless diplomacy of Napoleon, and are manifested in the settlement of 1815. To contemporary eyes the wars of the Revolutionary Period might well have appeared as a continuance of the struggles of the Old Régime, as offering no break in the story of European ambition, and as a phase of international politics in which the fortunes of revolutionary France played but a secondary part.

The Revolutionary Period

1. The States General and its Work

The meeting of the States General, which marked the opening of the revolutionary drama, attracted little attention in contemporary Europe, and was not regarded as a very startling or unusual step. According to ancient custom, the King of France could, in times of danger or difficulty, consult representatives elected by the three orders or estates of his realm, the clergy, the nobles, and the people. France was divided into electoral units, each of which elected a deputation of four members, of whom one was chosen by the clergy, one by the nobles, and two by the rest of the population. The Assembly thus elected did not resemble the English Houses of Parliament in function, for it could only offer advice and tender petitions, and it had no power to legislate. It was summoned and dissolved at the King’s will. For many years no States General had met, but in 1789 the King, on the advice of his minister, Lomenie de Brienne, determined to invite the co-operation of his people in the reorganization of the finances of the country.

His subjects, however, did not regard this step as a mere financial measure. A large section of the community was exasperated by the continual mismanagement of a Government which was, apparently, incapable of reform. The progressive party ascribed this to the fact that the middle classes, the merchants and the townspeople, had no voice in the administration. The nobles and the clergy exercised political power indirectly in other spheres, but the great majority of the people could only express their views through their elected deputies in the States General, which had not been consulted since 1614. They were now determined to take an active part in the reconstruction of the country and elected, as their deputies, the most distinguished and public-spirited men in the nation. Though these represented the middle class rather than the peasants, they had, generally speaking, the sympathy of the poorer people, who hoped, in a vague and inarticulate way, that prices might be reduced and the general misery relieved.

When the States General met on 5 May, 1789, the deputies elected by the nobility and the clergy withdrew into separate halls, on the understanding that each Order was to sit separately. To this the deputies elected by the Third Estate refused to agree. They took, from the beginning, a firm stand. They denied that they represented a mere section of the people, but announced themselves to be a “National Assembly” representing the nation as a whole, and they invited the other deputies to join them. In an excited meeting on the Tennis Court of Versailles they swore that they would not separate till they had given a constitution to France.

The National Assembly had the support of a section of the clergy and of a small band of enlightened nobles, of whom the Marquis de Lafayette, an ardent supporter of constitutional reform, who had fought in the American War of Independence, is typical. The Assembly, though steeped in the political creed of Rousseau, and anxious to put into immediate practice the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, was, at first, perfectly loyal to the King, desiring only to co-operate with him in the abolition of abuses. But Louis, though finding it advisable to submit to their policy, was influenced by the views of the reactionary party, and of Marie Antoinette, his Austrian wife. He could not bring himself to trust his people, and his wavering policy alarmed the populace of Paris. It was feared that he might attempt to disperse the National Assembly by force. Serious rioting took place and, on 14 July, a Parisian mob took the Bastille, the great fortress of Paris, where the political prisoners were kept. This event was acclaimed throughout Europe by all lovers of liberty, as the signal of the downfall of absolute monarchy in France. Nor were the people slow to seize the power thus tasted. In the provinces the peasants rose and sacked the castles of the nobles, believing that the days of feudal oppression were ended. The Paris mob, exasperated by repeated rumours of the King’s intended flight to Austria, marched to his palace at Versailles, and forced the royal family to return with them to the capital. Thus, by 5 October, Louis XVI was virtually a prisoner in Paris.

The National Assembly, or the Constituent Assembly as it was now called, had meanwhile drawn up a constitution for France. All kinds of class privilege had been abolished, religious toleration had been proclaimed, the old Provinces were replaced by eighty uniform departments, juries were instituted in criminal cases, a codified law was projected, and all public careers had been opened to men of talent, irrespective of birth. These reforms were to be a lasting tribute to the men of 1789; they were destined to remain when much of the work of later revolutionaries was swept away, and even in the reaction after 1815 they were maintained, to the permanent benefit of the nation. The new constitution, which was completed in 1791, gave political power to the middle classes rather than to the masses, since it excluded from the vote all “passive citizens” or those who did not contribute a certain sum to the direct taxation of the country. The democratic element was more distinctly manifested in the prevalence of elective offices, for all public functionaries, even judges and clergy, were to be elected. This provision demanded a very high level of public spirit and political education from the ordinary citizen, since the election of so vast a number of public men required sacrifices of time and trouble. The people of France did not prove themselves equal to this privilege, and elections soon fell into the hands of cliques and factions, especially in Paris, where a large number of political clubs had sprung up. The new executive was to be very weak, for the Assembly had a deep distrust of executive power. The laws, made by a single legislative chamber composed of the representatives of active citizens, were to be carried out by the King and his ministers. These were to be the servants of the State; they could be criticized by the Legislative Assembly, but they might not sit in it. Only one man realized the dangers latent in this provision. This was Mirabeau (1749-91) who had been elected as deputy for the Third Estate for Aix and Marseilles, although he belonged by birth to the nobility. This great statesman, by virtue of his outstanding ability, had soon become the leader of the National Assembly. During a long residence in England he had made a thorough study of the British Constitution, and he was anxious that France should follow the English model, whereby ministers are drawn from the Parliamentary majority. Thus, he thought, could she obtain a strong government, supported, and not impeded, by the popular will. But the Assembly did not realize that good laws are so much waste paper without a strong power to enforce them. They did not see, as he saw, that France was drifting into anarchy while they discussed the details of an ideal constitution. They did not dread, as he dreaded, the menace of foreign war. He placed all his hopes on the monarchy, and on the fund of loyalty latent in the nation. He strove to effect an alliance between the Court and the Assembly, using all his influence to persuade the King to trust his people. He recommended Louis to quit Paris for some provincial town like Rouen, whence an appeal could be issued to the loyal forces of the nation. Paris, he said, wanted money, while the Provinces demanded laws. But his efforts were vain. His moderation was misunderstood, and he was distrusted by the Court and the Assembly alike. He died in 1791, having been unable to secure the safety of his country or to avert those evils which he foresaw for her.

The final breach between the King and the Assembly was hastened by the flight of the royal family to the frontier, where the Queen’s brother, the new Emperor Leopold, was massing troops. They left behind them a declaration disavowing all the work done by the Assembly. At Varennes, however, they were overtaken and compelled to return. It was no longer possible to preserve the fiction that the King and the Assembly were in agreement, and the issue now lay between the two parties in the Assembly, those who wished to preserve the monarchy, if possible, and those who demanded a Republic.

2. The Outbreak of War

The flight to Varennes proved to Europe that the King was an unwilling prisoner, and Leopold began to think that he must intervene on behalf of his relatives. He hoped, however, that threats would suffice, and, in conjunction with the King of Prussia, he published an aggressive declaration, which effectually exasperated the people of France without giving any real help to Louis and his Queen.

At this critical moment the Assembly dissolved itself, and a new Legislature, elected according to the provisions of the Constitution, took its place. Unfortunately an article in the Constitution prevented any member of the Constituent Assembly from re-election to the new Legislature; a self-denying clause inserted by the men originally elected by the Third Estate, in order to prove that their constitution-making was not merely an attempt to perpetuate their own power. The effect, however, was disastrous, for it meant that the new Assembly was composed of untried and inexperienced men. The Constituent Assembly represented the fine and disinterested element in France, and no second body of men as good could be found. The new legislators were the second best, the ambitious, the fanatics, and the platform politicians. The two leading parties in the Legislative Assembly were the Jacobins and the Girondins. The Jacobins, inspired by Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, feared the outbreak of war as likely to increase the power of the King. The Girondins, led by the republican journalist Brissot, desired a war which would force the King into open opposition. They favoured the promulgation of laws against the clergy who would not take an oath of allegiance to the new constitution, and against the nobles who had fled from France and were enlisting foreign support. These laws would, they knew, be an outrage both to the King’s religious scruples and to his family feeling, since his own brothers were among these émigrés, or fugitive nobles.

The Emperor meanwhile showed signs that he would pass from threats to action. He was not only concerned for the safety of his sister, but he was alarmed at the aggressive policy of the Assembly, which had abolished the feudal rights of princes of the Empire who held estates in the French province of Alsace. These rights the Emperor was bound to defend. Germany, moreover, was endangered by the unrest of the peasants who felt the contagion of the French example. The cause of peace was still further imperilled in 1792 by the death of the cautious Leopold and the succession of his son, Francis II, a young and inexperienced man. Dumouriez, the French minister, believed that war was inevitable, and pursued an aggressive policy, in accordance with popular demand. In April, 1792, France declared war on Austria, not realizing that Prussia would most certainly co-operate with the Emperor; and the struggle between the Old Régime and the Revolution took on a new and more sinister aspect.

The first campaign spread panic in France. The disorganized French army could not withstand the Prussian advance on Paris, and the King and Queen were suspected of treachery. On 19 August an insurrection took place in which the King was suspended from office and imprisoned with his family. The climax of panic and danger was reached in September, when the terrified mob, driven mad by their fear of traitors, massacred many people in the prisons. On 20 September, however, came the news that the Prussian army had been driven back at Valmy, and the most pressing danger was over.

A National Convention, elected by universal suffrage, proclaimed France a Republic and embarked on vigorous war measures. Troops were recruited and trained and the standard of military efficiency raised. In consequence the French were able to occupy Savoy and Nice, to overrun the Austrian Netherlands and to score rapid successes in the Rhine Provinces. These conquests were not unacceptable to the conquered peoples; Belgium, Savoy, and the Rhine Provinces were filled with revolutionary enthusiasm and regarded France as a Liberator, rejoicing when the National Convention announced their annexation. The war was no longer defensive, and waged to free French soil from the foreign invader, but had become aggressive. The first object of the revolutionary armies was to extend French territories to their natural frontiers, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the second was to spread revolutionary doctrines throughout Europe. The people, intoxicated by their success, believed themselves destined to carry their new principles to all lands and to wage war on all monarchical governments.

Europe, shocked by this universal defiance, was still further horrified by the execution of Louis XVI in 1793; and France gradually became involved in war with the whole of Europe, with the exception of a few small States, such as Venice and Sweden. Spain, Portugal, Tuscany, Naples, and the Empire joined the coalition against her. England, neutral as long as the issue merely concerned the internal affairs of France, was involved in war owing to the question of the Netherlands. England has never liked to see any strong power in the Low countries, and France had annexed Belgium and attacked Holland. France suffered reverses during the campaigns of 1793, and was only preserved by the fact that the allied commanders quarrelled and would not co-operate. Few of the allies were prepared to make sacrifices, and Austria and Prussia were distracted by their extreme interest in the second and third partitions of Poland, 1793-95. They succeeded, however, in driving the French out of Belgium, while Spain attacked in the rear. The insecurity of France was augmented by the rising of La Vendée, which began as a protest against conscription, but which turned into a royalist movement, under clerical direction. Civil war was fomented by the Girondins, who had lost their power in the Convention.

3. The Terror

This combination of dangers convinced the National Convention of the need for a strong Government. A Committee of Public Safety was formed which exercised supreme arbitrary authority through the country, and achieved efficiency by concentrating power into a few hands. It was, in effect, a restoration of the old supremacy of the Executive so much dreaded in 1789, for the Convention soon submitted entirely to the Committee and registered its edicts without comment.

This period is commonly called the Reign of Terror. Under the guidance of Robespierre the Committee organized a system by which the people were terrorized into submission by Revolutionary Tribunals. According to the law of suspects, any man denounced as an enemy to the Republic could be arrested. The death sentences in Paris rose from three a week in April, 1793, to 196 in July, 1794. Marie Antoinette was executed in October, 1793, and many nobles shared her fate. Similar tribunals in the provinces sent their quota of victims to the guillotine, and many thousands of innocent people perished. Anyone who criticised the rule of the Committee was struck down, including such revolutionary leaders as Hébert, who denounced it as unconstitutional, and Danton, who protested against such wholesale slaughter.

Such a system was the outcome of panic, engendered by military defeat, civil war, and internal treachery. Though many of the nobles were innocent, yet it must be remembered that others were in league with the enemies of France and actually fighting against her. The whole of the clergy were in opposition, which accounts for the fierce attacks made by the terrorists upon religion. Churches were closed, all forms of worship were forbidden, and the priests went in danger of their lives.

The horror of such a Government was accepted by the people on account of the success with which it suppressed civil war and repelled the invading armies. All that was best in France was at the Front, where efficient men were rising from the ranks and the untried soldiers of 1793 were gaining experience. The whole strength of France lay in her army. No sooner was the worst danger over than a popular reaction against the terror took place (signalized by the fall and execution of Robespierre), and the succeeding Government, called the Thermidorians, was composed of more moderate men. The Committee of Public Safety was retained, but the number of executions decreased and several of the most violent terrorists were guillotined.

4. The Treaties of Basle and the Directory

The spectacle of a Nation in Arms was not without its effect at the Front, and the success of the French persisted. The conquest of Holland, which was formed into the Batavian Republic, on the French Model, deprived England of the only base to which she could send an army, and reduced her to a sea blockade and an attack on the French colonies. The allies were tiring of a war which proved difficult beyond expectation; Prussia especially, who had least at stake, was willing to make a separate peace.

On 5 April, 1795, the Treaty of Basle was signed, making peace between France and Prussia, in which the Northern States of Germany were protected from French invasion by a fixed line of demarcation. Other countries followed the lead of Prussia and the first coalition was broken up. Peace was the more possible because, with the fall of the terrorists, the programme of a revolutionary mission had been abandoned, and the Thermidorians were sincerely anxious for a satisfactory settlement.

On the conclusion of the Treaties of Basle, a new Constitution was drawn up for France. It showed that the politicians had learnt, by their previous mistakes, that the administration of Government cannot be carried on by a legislative Assembly. An attempt was made to secure the efficiency of the Committee of Public Safety without its tyranny. Government was carried on by five Directors, chosen by the legislature, a new one each year. They appointed ministers, controlled administration, foreign policy, the army and navy, and were, in fact, the supreme Executive authority. Legislation and taxation appertained to two assemblies, the Council of Ancients, and the Council of Five Hundred, elected by a wide, but not a universal, suffrage. Most of the reforms of 1791 were retained, but many elected officials were now appointed by the Directors. The first aim of the new Government was to make peace, for the whole country desired it. England, Austria, Sardinia, Portugal, and the Empire were, however, still irreconcilable, and must be conquered before peace could ensue.

Against Austria and Sardinia the main offensive of 1796 was flung. Napoleon Bonaparte, a young Corsican General, divided the Sardinian from the Austrian troops in a brilliant campaign, forcing the former to abandon the combat and defeating the latter at the battles of Castiglione, Arcola, and Rivoli. Austria was forced to agree to the Peace of Campo Formio, 17 October, 1797, yielding the Milanese to France, and all the territory on the left bank of the Rhine including Belgium. As compensation she annexed Venice, and was in addition secretly promised Bavaria, which she had long coveted, if she would evacuate all the fortresses of the Empire which she garrisoned in the Rhine district. In doing this she sacrificed German interests and abandoned her position of protectress of the Empire. Campo Formio was Bonaparte’s peace, dictated and accomplished by him, and at the same time he reorganized Northern Italy into the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics, on the French Model.

England and Portugal were now the sole enemies of France, and a defensive alliance between the Directory and Spain was made against them; but the hopes founded upon this were shattered by the defeat of the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, 1797. The Dutch fleet were likewise defeated off Camperdown and Great Britain retained her supremacy at sea. Napoleon despaired of a successful English invasion and thought that the Mediterranean and Egypt offered better chances for an offensive, since they were the road to India and the East and consequently of great importance to England. The Directory were not sorry to dispatch him to Egypt for they feared his power, and knew that he was the idol of the people. He reached Cairo, and there at the battle of the Nile (1798) the French fleet was defeated by Nelson, and Napoleon was cut off from home.

It was not long before he was sorely needed in France. England, encouraged by his absence, was endeavouring to erect a second coalition. Prussia refused to abandon her neutrality, but Austria was anxious to avenge the treaty of Campo Formio. Moreover, Paul, the young Czar of Russia, objected to Napoleon’s annexation of the Ionian Islands, 1797, a move which might compromise Russian interests in the East. France, on the other hand, had inflamed public opinion against her by behaviour of the most aggressive kind. Without the slightest justification she had invaded Switzerland and founded the Helvetian Republic, while in Italy she had attacked the Pope and the King of Naples and established the Roman and Parthenopean Republics in their dominions. She also attacked Piedmont and Tuscany.

These aggressive symptoms were countered by a declaration of war from Russia and Austria, and the French were driven from Italy. At this point, however, Napoleon escaped from Egypt and returned to the country which demanded him. A contemporary, “who was living a retired life in a remote corner of the Bourbonnais,” recorded in his memoirs that “. . . every peasant I met in the fields, the vineyards and woods stopped and asked me if there was any news of General Bonaparte, and why he did not come back to France. No one enquired after the Directory.”^[1]

The futility of the Directory was indeed obvious, and the disputes between the Directors and the Councils unceasing. Bonaparte represented the hope of military glory, of energetic reconstruction, and of a determined and successful policy. Small wonder then that the country applauded when his troops surrounded St. Cloud, dispersed the Councils and dismissed the Directors. Commissions were appointed to draw up yet another Constitution for France, and a Provisional Government was formed, consisting of three Consuls. These were Napoleon, and his accomplice, the Abbé Sieyès a late Director, and one Roger Ducos, a jurist. As a democratic movement the Revolution was over, and the people of France again submitted to an autocrat.

Napoleon Bonaparte

1. The Napoleonic State

The Napoleonic Constitution, or the Constitution of the year VIII, abandoned the principles of 1791 and frankly acknowledged the supremacy of the Executive. Government was vested in three Consuls, of whom the first Consul possessed by far the greatest authority. They appointed a Senate and a Council of State, which originated the laws and carried on administration. The laws were submitted to a Tribunate which could discuss but not sanction them, and to a Legislature which could sanction but not discuss. Both of these bodies were appointed by the Senate from a “National List” elected by taxpayers. Senate, Tribunate, and Legislature were but an empty tribute to an imaginary element of popular representation in the Government, and masked the fact that the Constitution of the year VIII was a new form of autocracy. In 1802 Napoleon was made first Consul for life, and in 1804 he became Emperor of the French, by a decision of the Senate which was ratified by the people in a majority of over 3,000,000 votes. Here we have the keynote of the Napoleonic State; it was an autocracy founded on popular support, an Empire built on a plebiscite. The people voluntarily abdicated their claim to govern themselves. Nor was their new tyranny a light one, for representative government was not the only ideal of 1791 which was abandoned. The subjects of Napoleon purchased a Government unprecedented in its efficiency by submission to a police supervision unprecedented in its rigour. Freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, liberty of thought, and of the Press were disregarded. The Old Régime had never produced an autocracy so effectual and so far-reaching in practical politics.

In return for their renunciation of political freedom, the French people received good government. They enjoyed more practical liberty in their private lives than they had possessed during the democratic disorder of the Terror. They were secure in domestic peace and the tranquillity necessary to the development of trade and industry, which had suffered greatly from the recent internal disorganization and anarchy. The Napoleonic wars, with their continual drain on the manhood and resources of the country, were not acutely felt as disadvantages until a decade had gone by. A uniform code of law was drawn up whereby all citizens had access to a justice which was both cheap and simple. The life of the country was reorganized, roads and hospitals were reconstructed, commercial credit and the currency restored, the bands of robbers who infested the highways were suppressed, the corruption of the official class was checked and a thorough system of secondary education was inaugurated. The people, in yielding to the rule of Napoleon, had to count these and many other material advantages against the idealist and apparently unfulfilled promises of 1791. Popular religion was restored, for Bonaparte did not ignore its political value and recognized it as a power in the lives of men which should be exploited, not defied. He knew that the monarch who outrages the religious sentiments of his people will soon lose the buttress of popular support. He saw in religion a force wherewith to enslave men, and he made use of it accordingly, his attitude thereon being best described by himself when he said, “Religion is not made for philosophers. If I had to make a religion for philosophers, it would be very different from that which I supply to the credulous.” He offered to restore the Catholic Church and established friendly intercourse with the Pope, concluding in 1801 a concordat with him which settled the relations between Church and State and constituted a State-paid and State-supervised clergy. Thus he transmuted a rebel priesthood into a powerful support, and in an impressive ceremony paid recognition to the newly reinstated Deity, incidentally drawing the public attention to his own magnificence.

“On Easter Sunday,” writes an eye witness,^[2] “all the world assembled at Notre Dame to witness the resurrection of the public faith. . . . The aisles were all hung throughout with Gobelins tapestry, and in the most conspicuous parts were erected two canopies of crimson and gold towering with plumes of white feathers. After the priests had burnt incense before him on his entrance, Bonaparte appeared under one of these canopies with the two consuls attending, guarded by a host of generals; the cardinal Caprara, the Pope’s Legate, occupied the other, encircled by Bishops, Archbishops, priests, and deacons. . . . All the bishops were installed and solemnly sworn at the foot of Bonaparte. . . .”

This is truly illustrative of the Napoleonic methods. No man knew better how to capture public opinion and to direct it into desirable courses. Spectators on that memorable Easter were never allowed to forget, in a contemplation of the greatness of the Church, the equally impressive magnificence of Napoleon Bonaparte.

In the same way he built up an aristocracy, knowing that the pomp and pageantry of the Emperor and his court would appear to the people as the symbol of his greatness. He knew also that the ambition of human nature to rise in the world and to acquire superiority of status was another force which an enlightened despot could utilize. Émigrés were allowed to return, if they would swear allegiance to him, and he surrounded himself with a new nobility composed of all those who had served him well.

Thus he poured a new spirit into the old forms of autocracy. He was the founder of modern enlightened despotism, a far more scientific and far-reaching tyranny than any of the custom-bound mediæval monarchies of the Old Régime. The State, under him, was the moulding spirit of the people, training the citizens how to think, forming public opinion, monopolizing education, and rewarding the efficient and obedient. It encouraged its docile subjects by material benefits such as canals, harbours, roads, bridges, public gardens, and fortresses. It is an ideal based upon the study of the baser side of human nature, of man’s more slavish qualities, his greed, his fear, his jealousy, his ignorance, his stupidity, his ambition, his superstition, and his love of ease.

Both in its strength and in its weakness it offers a complete contrast to the State theory of 1789, which laid undue emphasis upon man’s noble qualities, his passion for liberty, his capacity for reasoned altruism, self-sacrifice, and service, his ceaseless quest after truth. Bonaparte’s ideal made a profound impression upon the autocrats of Europe; it was so profound that, though they at length defeated him, they were in turn defeated by his ideas; and the collapse of his Empire within fifteen years did not serve as an omen or a warning to those who, later in the century, sought to build on his foundations.

2. Napoleon and Europe

Bonaparte extended the benefits of efficient government and the evils of despotic bureaucracy to all the States conquered by France in Europe. These increased in number till, in 1807, the majority of Western European States were included in his Empire or acknowledged his influence. England alone persisted in unconquered hostility, so that the history of his conquest of Europe eventually became the history of his duel with England, a duel which was carried on with unflagging zeal until 1815, with the exception of one short interval. The peace of Amiens, in 1802, marked a brief truce, but none of the real issues had been settled and war broke out again in 1803. England had frequently to fight France alone. Austria and Russia soon withdrew from the second coalition, and Austria agreed to the Treaty of Lunéville, in 1801, yielding up all her interests in Italy, except Venetia. Soon afterwards the reconstruction of Germany was carried out, the Holy Roman Empire came to an end, and Francis II took the title of Emperor of Austria. France took all the territory on the left bank of the Rhine, having bribed the larger German States to permit this by allowing them, in turn, to absorb their smaller neighbours. Hence the States of Germany became fewer, larger, more powerful, and more consolidated.

In 1805 Austria and Russia tried their fortunes again, and joined England in a third coalition. But they were no match for Napoleon, who completely defeated them at Austerlitz, 2 December, and forced Austria to sign the Treaty of Pressburg (26 Dec., 1805), whereby she ceded all her remaining Italian provinces to France and some of her German possessions to Bavaria. Napoleon was free to deal with Prussia, who had suddenly abandoned the neutrality which she had steadily preserved ever since 1795. She had profited by this policy; she had secured peace when the rest of Europe was at war, and she had considerably extended her territory in the recent reorganization of Germany. She had also preserved the peace of North German States, by the Treaty of 1795; but in attacking Hanover, a possession of the King of England, France had recently broken the treaty, and Frederick William III was inclined to resent it. Russia and England urged him to declare war, and he was influenced by a powerful anti-French party at court, led by his beautiful Queen, Louisa, and Stein, a prominent minister. The army, too, living on its past glories in the time of Frederick the Great, clamoured for war. But Frederick William did not join the coalition until after the battle of Austerlitz, and he made no attempt to co-operate with Russia. The Prussian army was overmatched and absolutely defeated at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt (Oct., 1806), and the French occupied Berlin.

Bonaparte was now free to deal with Russia, in which task he was assisted by the sympathetic attitude of the Poles, who hoped that he would restore their kingdom. After the defeats of Eylau and Friedland, the Tsar, Alexander I, was ready to come to terms, and in the peace of Tilsit, which followed, Napoleon obtained all his objects. In an interview in June 1807, he made suggestions which completely altered the Tsar’s policy, and converted him to friendship. He argued that there was no real rivalry between France and Russia, but that their interests coincided, and that he and the Tsar might divide the world between them in two great Empires. Alexander was won, and agreed to a peace which gave him easy terms, abandoning thereby the cause of his unfortunate ally Prussia, who had to pay huge indemnities and yield her Polish and Westphalian provinces. Napoleon did not reconstitute the kingdom of Poland, but he made the Prussian Polish province into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, under the King of Saxony, a measure which was represented to the unfortunate Poles as a partial realization of their hopes.

So in 1807, the greater part of Europe was organized into subject States dependent on France. Of the vassal Republics of the Directory, Switzerland alone remained, the rest were changed into vassal kingdoms. Holland was given to Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother; Venetia, Lombardy, Modena, Parma, Bologna, and Ferrara were united into the kingdom of Italy, of which Eugène Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson, was vice-regent. Another brother, Joseph, was made King of Naples, which had been attacked by Napoleon in an attempt to strike at the English supremacy in the Mediterranean; all the rest of Italy, including Illyria and the Ionian Islands, was directly joined to France, and only Sicily held out against the Gallic tide, fortified by an English garrison.

Germany, no longer a “congeries of feudal principalities,” was now organized into the Confederation of the Rhine, all the members of which were the allies and protégés of France, bound to her by gratitude and interest. Many princes were connected with Napoleon by marriage, and in the North, a third brother, Jerome, ruled the kingdom of Westphalia, which was composed of Hanover and the provinces taken from Prussia.

Spain, Denmark, and Sweden were the allies of France, Russia was friendly, and Austria and Prussia broken. Great Britain remained an implacable foe, secure in her maritime and commercial supremacy, and able to sustain an untiring warfare until the tide should turn.

3. The Seeds of Revolt

Fate, however, was already knocking at the door, and the first murmurs of enslaved Europe were audible. Signs were not wanting that the conquered peoples would not for ever endure tamely an alien domination. The subject States had originally found compensations in the Napoleonic rule; both in Italy and Germany the people had benefited considerably by the possession of an efficient Government. Napoleon wrote to Jerome in Westphalia: “. . . It is necessary that your subjects should enjoy a degree of liberty, equality, and well-being unknown to the people of Germany. This will be a more powerful barrier against Prussia than the Elbe or fortresses. . . .” In Europe, as in France, Bonaparte justified autocracy by an untiring pursuit of the welfare of the people. But, as the war developed into a life or death duel with England, the mask of altruism was torn away, and the conquered peoples were sacrificed. They became aware that they were exploited for the military purposes of France; huge war contributions were wrung from them, and they were forced to support enormous armies. These evils began to outbalance the excellencies of the French administrative system. This was especially apparent when, in the Berlin and Milan decrees, 1806-7, Bonaparte ordered all British merchandise to be seized, and confiscated any ship of any country which had touched at a British port. By this measure he hoped to reduce England by a maritime blockade, and with the navies of Europe at his back he thought he could starve her out and wrest her world carrying-trade from her. But Britain was protected by a powerful fleet and her supremacy in trade persisted; the countries of Europe had too much need of the goods brought in English ships to obey the decrees. The principal effect of the “Continental System” was to raise prices and increase the general discontent.

The Napoleonic Empire suffered, besides, from the evils common to all autocracies. Degeneration was apparent in the public life of France under a system which discouraged independence of spirit, resource, and initiative. Napoleon had few subordinates whom he could trust, for efficiency and docility are not the most valuable qualities in a sudden crisis. He had incurred too much responsibility for a single man, but owing to his autocratic methods he could delegate none of it. And France was not the France of 1793; she was no longer fighting for freedom. Her antagonists fought for freedom now. For it was not financial and economic injuries alone which caused the people of Europe to rise against Napoleon. In fashioning the whole of Europe upon the same political mould, he had done wrong in a subtler, more indefinable direction. He had disregarded the nature and spirit of nations. From Spain to Warsaw he had modelled his States upon French principles, and the non-Gallic peoples, especially the Teutons, resented it. It was an attempt to enforce a uniform state idea upon all countries, in disregard of the fact that a people’s institutions are the product of its history. It gave impetus to the growth of national opposition which was originally manifested in Spain, of all European countries the most insensible to the benefits of French administration.

Napoleon had deposed Charles IV, his ally, and had given Spain to his brother Joseph. This was the signal for a violent revolution against the French, and the Spanish insurgents were strengthened by English support. An English army had recently been sent to Portugal, to protect her from attack by the French, and these forces, under Sir John Moore, made a diversion in order to give the Spaniards time to organize their defence. Napoleon hastened to the scene of battle, and, having effectually quelled the rebellion and driven the English back on Lisbon, he departed for Austria, under the impression that the Peninsular War was nearly over. He underrated the tenacity of the Spanish people, where their national feelings were aroused, nor did he foresee the genius of Sir Arthur Wellesley in the subsequent English campaign. The war dragged on, a constant drain on the resources of the Empire, until Spain was reconquered and freed for ever from the French domination.

Austria meanwhile, fired by the Spanish example, was determined to try her fortunes once more. Stadion, her new minister, believed that Bonaparte could be defeated if an appeal were made to the patriotic sentiment of the people, but that he must be met by citizens fighting for their fatherland, not by the paid soldiers of an autocrat. He tried to rouse the patriotic feeling of Germany as a whole, and the attempt met with great response in the German provinces of Austria. The movement was premature, however, as regards the rest of Germany; Austria was unsupported, and her efforts aroused the hostility of Russia. After the disastrous Wagram campaign, she was again defeated by France and was forced to sign the Treaty of Vienna, yielding still more territory to Warsaw, Bavaria, and France. Stadion fell from power and was replaced by Metternich.

This remarkable diplomat (1773-1859), though possessing few of the qualities of a great statesman, was destined to affect the politics of Europe to a profound degree for nearly forty years. By birth an exclusive aristocrat and by temperament a rigid Conservative, his ruling passion was a hatred of innovation. He condemned the Revolution and all its works, especially the demand for representative government; he distrusted all Nationalist Movements as arising indirectly from revolutionary sentiments; he upheld throughout his career the principles of autocracy and legitimism. The violences, the disorders, and the miscarriages of justice which had discredited the revolutionary era gave ample and concrete illustration to political views which would, under any circumstances, have been his. If the Revolution had been successful, it is unlikely that he would have regarded it with any degree of favour. But in that case his attack upon it would have been robbed of much of its force and justification. It was the apparent failure of so-called liberal reform which gave to his policy a logic and a strength which enabled him to do battle successfully with men of far finer temper and sounder statesmanship. He had all the assurance of a single-minded individual pitted against opponents who are divided within themselves. He had all the strength of one who trusts no intelligence but his own.

His hope was that Europe might be restored as nearly as possible to the conditions of the Old Régime. As a supporter of autocracy he had none of the hatred for Napoleon which inspired the policy of England and Prussia. As a minister of the Hapsburg Empire, which owed its existence to the suppression of racial differentiations, he had little sympathy with the Nationalist element in the uprising against Bonapartism. He relied very little upon the possible conquests of future coalitions, preferring rather to trick his adversary by peaceful diplomacy than to trust again to the fortunes of war.

In 1808, therefore, his aim was to win for Austria the friendship and alliance of France. A marriage was arranged, which took place in 1810, between Marie Louise, the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, and Napoleon, who had recently divorced Josephine, his first wife. The National Movement, instituted by Stadion, was abandoned, and a new order prevailed in Austria.

The German National Movement, however, disowned by Austria, found new strength in Northern Germany. The defeat of Jena had taught all clear-sighted Prussians an unforgettable lesson. They saw that the new France could never be conquered by the old Prussia, and that the kingdom must be reorganized and a quantity of ancient abuses swept away. This work was largely undertaken by two great ministers, Stein and Scharnhorst.

Stein (1757-1831) belonged by birth to the Free Knights of Germany. Thus, though he served the King of Prussia from his youth up, he was naturally inclined to consider the interests of Germany as a whole, rather than from the point of view of any one German State. He was free from that separatist and particularist attitude which was the bane of German patriotism; he thought as a German rather than as a Prussian. He was one of the first to contemplate a real German unity, and this unity must, he saw, come from below rather than from above. He hoped to lay the foundation-stone of a German Empire by making Prussia a free representative State, and in preparation for this he wished to introduce a fuller measure of local self-government. He saw that people who can govern successfully their own towns and villages are the better fitted to rule the State. As an ardent German Nationalist he had always resented bitterly the Gallic domination, and had cast all his influence against the powerful Court party which had upheld Prussian neutrality in 1805. The defeat of Jena in no way changed his convictions, but he became increasingly sure that all hopes for the future must be based upon internal reform rather than upon the intervention of foreign coalitions. For a time it seemed as though the King would take his advice. Serfdom was abolished, and the privileges of the nobility curtailed. Reforms in local government were introduced. The army was reorganized by Scharnhorst. But Napoleon, realizing the perilous import of these reforms, demanded the dismissal of the two ministers. The King was forced to comply and reactionaries were appointed in their places.

The torch they had lighted was not extinguished. Throughout Germany resentment against the French domination was intense, and opposition was forming. As in Italy, the recent territorial rearrangements, the disappearance of so many ancient landmarks and State barriers, had destroyed old and local prejudices and the rising generation found no difficulty in canvassing the interests of Germany as a whole. With the disappearance of the old Empire, corporate feeling became stronger; it was felt that the Teutonic mind differs essentially from the Latin, and that the German State should be organized in accordance with German ideas. This movement to shake off an alien culture, foreshadowed in the romantic revival in literature, was soon to become a political reality. But Austria, who had sacrificed German interests at Campo Formio and again at Lunéville, was no longer regarded as a leader. It was to Prussia that the young Nationalists looked.

The War of Liberation and the Settlement of 1815

1. The Fall of Napoleon

This, then, was the temper of Europe when, in 1811, Napoleon quarrelled with the Tsar. Alexander, watching the treatment of Charles IV of Spain, had begun to doubt the Emperor’s faithfulness to his allies. He saw in the erection of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw a menace to his Polish provinces, and he resented the disastrous economic effects, in Russia, of the blockade of Great Britain. It seemed as though he were to be excluded from European affairs and pushed back into Asia. By May, 1812, war was imminent. Alexander knew that France had the active alliance of Austria and Prussia, each being forced to send an army to the help of Napoleon; but he knew how slight were the real bonds of friendship between these countries. Stein, who since his dismissal had become the Tsar’s adviser, apprised Alexander of the strength of feeling against France in Prussia and Germany, and of the ease with which a coalition might be formed, should occasion arise.

Napoleon invaded Russia at the head of a magnificent army. The Russians retreated before him, drawing him on into the heart of the country, and he reached Moscow September, 1812. His position there, cut off from supplies in a desert land, with the winter coming on, was untenable. He embarked on a disastrous retreat through wintry Russia, harassed continually by enemy attacks in the rear. The food supplies gave out and the retreat became utterly disorganized. A shattered remnant of his vast army returned to Warsaw to be greeted by the news of Wellington’s victory at Salamanca. Sweden, whom Bonaparte had trusted to make a diversion in the Russian rear, remained neutral, waiting upon events; and on 14 February, 1814, Prussia threw over her alliance and joined Russia. The French were driven out of Prussia, whereupon Sweden turned against France and attacked Denmark, Napoleon’s ally, with the object of seizing Norway from her.

Austria now declared herself, and joined the coalition at the Convention of Reichenbach. She was followed by several of the smaller States of Germany, who thought that they had better make their peace with the winning side, lest their former relations with Bonaparte should be remembered against them. The alliance of Austria was not won without conditions. Metternich stipulated that there should be no attempt to rouse the general national feeling of Germany against France, a course which had hitherto, by Stein’s advice, formed part of the Tsar’s programme. This was, to Metternich, a revolutionary and dangerous plan, likely to lead to the supremacy of Prussia in a united Germany. The war, if he supported it, was to be no national rising, but an old-fashioned coalition of princes. Russia and Prussia perforce agreed, and at Reichenbach the first step was taken of that great reaction which lasted, under the auspices of Metternich, until 1848.

Upon the news of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig and of Wellington’s victory at Vittoria, Holland and the kingdom of Naples also joined the coalition. Napoleon could, perhaps, have divided his opponents, had he been willing to accept the peace terms offered to him at Frankfort and, later, at Chatillon. Some members of the coalition, especially Austria, feared a repetition of 1793 if France herself was invaded. They did not desire to see the complete destruction of the Napoleonic Empire. But France would never yield Belgium, a condition which was England’s “sine qua non;” and so the war was continued. France was invaded, and, despite the heroic defence made by Napoleon and his shattered army, the country as a whole showed little enthusiasm for his cause. There was no national response like that of 1793. The allies occupied Paris in April, 1814, and a provisional Government was hastily formed, which, following the suggestion of Talleyrand, the Foreign Minister, determined on a restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. In this way, the cause of Napoleon would be separated from that of France; he alone would be the defeated enemy and the allies would be forced to mitigate the terms they dealt out to a King with whom they had no quarrel. Napoleon agreed to abdicate, and was given a large income, with the Island of Elba as an independent principality, and the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza for his wife and little son. So Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, returned to his people. He promised representative government, self-taxation, responsible ministers, equality before the law, and freedom of religion and of the Press. His first step was to sign the Treaty of Paris, 30 May, 1814, with the allies, on behalf of France. This reduced her to the frontiers of 1789, with a few additions, and restored most of her colonies. The final settlement was to be made by a great Congress of all the Powers, assembled at Vienna. The vengeance demanded by Prussia was not wreaked, and France had the advantage of sending her plenipotentiary to the Congress upon a peace footing.

2. The Congress and Treaty of Vienna

The advantage of this was obvious as soon as the Congress opened. Since the fate of France was already settled, her representative at the Congress, Talleyrand, was able to stand out disinterestedly as the champion of small States, threatened by the greed of great Powers. He built up a party round France and, supported by Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, and Bavaria, he frustrated the policy of the four great Powers, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who had intended to force upon Europe the terms they had previously arranged among themselves. He absolutely refused to be treated as the representative of a conquered country and insisted that a coalition formed against Bonaparte could have no quarrel with Louis XVIII. He further strengthened his position by fanning the smouldering dissensions between the allies, and playing upon the English jealousy of Russia and the Austrian fear of Prussia. In this way he broke up the solidarity of the enemies of France and brought his country out of that diplomatic isolation which is generally the lot of a recently defeated people.

Under these conditions the final Treaty of Vienna was drawn up. In spirit it represented the views of Metternich, for it completely disregarded the claims of nationalism. It stood for legitimacy and autocracy tempered by the greed of powerful individuals; that is to say, the despotic dynasties of the Old Régime were restored; but, in the case of small and insignificant States which had been absorbed by their stronger neighbours, this was occasionally impossible, especially in Germany and Italy. National ties of race and religion were disregarded, and the treaty expressed the Metternichean view of the State as possessing solidarity only in the person of its ruler.

According to the main clauses of the treaty, Germany was organized into a confederation of thirty-eight independent States, of which Austria, Prussia, Denmark, and the Netherlands were members, for their German provinces. Austria and Prussia had equal weight in the Diet or ruling body of the confederation, and Austria fully intended to use her influence to prevent any closer form of union which might lead to the supremacy of Prussia. Belgium and Holland were united under the Prince of Orange as a strong barrier kingdom against French aggression in the North. Switzerland was guaranteed by all the Powers as a neutral and independent confederation. Poland was repartitioned. The old dynasties in Spain and Italy were restored, save that Venetia went to Austria, Genoa to Sardinia, and Parma and Piacenza to Napoleon’s wife. Sweden yielded Finland to the Tsar and annexed Norway.^[3] England took Malta, Heligoland, Mauritius, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Trinidad, and the Protectorate of the Ionian Islands.

This settlement was not affected by the return of Napoleon from Elba on 1 March, 1815, but, after his final defeat at Waterloo, the conditions with regard to France were revised and she received less favourable terms. The fact, however, that the French people, who had witnessed with apathy his abdication a year before, should have greeted his return with so great an enthusiasm might have been regarded as a gloomy omen for the Restoration. In the years that followed, France, chafing under the misrule of a reactionary clique, came to remember the good that Bonaparte had done and to forget the evil. It was remembered that on his return from Elba he had declared fullest adherence to the principles of liberty and had called round him those revolutionary leaders whom he had mistrusted in the days of his absolutism. In time he became, in the popular mind, the representative of the Revolution, rather than the inspired expositor of modern autocracy, and a belief arose that he had always intended to crown his Empire with political freedom and representative institutions. Through the unromantic years of the “July Monarchy” the legend of “Bonapartism” grew up, and the idea of a military empire with liberal institutions, a new domination of Gallic culture, found fresh strength. Of this idea Napoleon’s nephew, who took the administrative helm in 1848, claimed to be the true expositor. Napoleon might spend his exiled days on St. Helena, but Bonapartism was a living European force, and one of the moulding influences of the future.

The Age of Transition

(a)
Social and Economic Changes

1. The Rise of a Middle Class

The immediate effect of great events upon the lives of the multitude is often exaggerated, when viewed in retrospect. The way of life, the habits of thought of the large masses of the people are slow to change. While wars and rumours of wars shook the Continent, while hundreds perished daily at the guillotine, while the greatest army in history froze on the banks of the Beresina, millions continued in the calm pursuit of their ordinary avocations, vitally affected, indeed, by these happenings, but never completely shaken out of the round of custom. Summer after summer the harvest was got in and the petty trade of country towns persisted. Yet into the lives of the small shopkeeper, of the peasant at the plough, of the village schoolmaster at his desk, new elements were penetrating. Social changes are slower and less dramatic than political mutations but, when they have arrived, they are permanent. The statesmen at Vienna might restore dynasties and abolish Constitutions, but they could never replace the society of 1815 by that of 1789, or remove the influences which had formed the character of the rising generation.

In France the social organization of the Old Régime had almost disappeared. It had, indeed, received a severe shock throughout the Continent and would in all probability never completely recover its old vitality. Society in 1789 had been largely built up on the relations between noble and peasant. A middle class, or bourgeoisie, existed, but its political influence was small. During the revolutionary period however, the importance of status was diminished. The idea that one class are born to be masters no longer found general acceptance. The feudal distinctions had vanished, and the middle class, especially in France, had developed in importance. It had profited by the spread of education and the redistribution of wealth. Under Napoleon, who was accustomed to choose his officials from among its ranks, it had acquired administrative experience.

In the history of democracy the position of the middle class is important. When political power is snatched from the privileged few, it depends upon the strength and education of the middle class whether that power is immediately abused by the ignorant many. The French middle class demonstrated its weakness in 1789; it failed to exercise power with discretion. England has been fortunate in the possession of a large, powerful, and representative middle class, well able to guide her through the transitional stages of democracy. The growth of the continental bourgeoisie, and its gradual acquisition of weight and independence, is an important feature of the Revolutionary Period, for it is from this class in particular that the Liberals of the nineteenth century were drawn.

2. The Industrial Revolution

The rise of the middle class is closely connected with great industrial and economic changes which, already accomplished in England by 1815, were to transform the Continent in the near future.

A country which turns from agriculture to industrial production and manufacture is generally said to be undergoing the Industrial Revolution. England suffered acutely from the social and economic effects of this change in the period 1789-1815. The conditions then prevalent were reproduced in France in the thirty years following the Treaty of Vienna; they reappear in Russia and Germany towards the close of the century. Consequently some analysis of the English Industrial Revolution will cast light upon the general effects of the same process in other countries.

Production in the early part of the eighteenth century was organized upon a comparatively small scale. Each little village and town provided for its own needs. Many towns and districts specialized of course, even then, in the manufacture of goods for foreign export, and large scale production was on the increase. But this was limited by the inadequacy of communication and transport, which forced nations, towns, and hamlets to be more or less self-sufficient. There were, generally speaking, no large factories; goods were made on old-fashioned hand machines, worked by the people in their own homes. The village blacksmith, the village weaver, the shoemaker and the dyer, these were the principal producers of the country. They met the needs of a small district. Nor was industry necessarily divorced from agriculture, and bound up with urban life. These village craftsmen might well possess a cow or two, or a small farm, while spinning and knitting was a by-industry in many an agricultural labourer’s cottage. Most skilful craftsmen worked for themselves, not for an employer; the weaver owned his loom, the blacksmith his forge, and the potter his wheel; and though the more prosperous might have journeymen and apprentices under them, these looked forward to becoming independent in their turn, when they had learnt their trade.

This kind of production, by a host of small workers, could only meet a very limited market. But, as the century advanced, fresh markets were found for English industries, owing to our increased naval power and the acquisition of fresh colonies. These demanded a much larger production, which, in its turn, required newer and more efficient methods of manufacture. The old hand machines were replaced by newer inventions, and this transformation received impetus from the discoveries of science. The application, by Watt, of steam power to mechanics had a revolutionary effect upon industry, since a machine driven by steam could do the work of a hundred handicraftsmen.

The poor people could not afford to buy these new, elaborate, and expensive machines, nor could they compete against a system which produced goods at a much cheaper rate. They were thus forced to become the servants of the new machine owners who were rich men, and production was concentrated into the hands of a few large producers. The poor man, who tended a machine which was not his property, could no longer hope to rise to be a manufacturer, and the great increase of wealth which these new methods brought into the country all went to enrich his employer, so that as the rich grew richer the poor seemed to become poorer.

Town and country became more divided, for the workers were naturally gathered together near the machines, not spread abroad in many villages. New towns sprang up in the coal and iron districts, towards which the population gravitated. Large numbers of people were thrown out of employment and were glad to take the most miserable wages, if they could get work. As Mr. Marvin has said: “Man’s power of production and of controlling nature had outrun his moral powers and his social organizations . . . the machine controlled the man.” At the end of the century England was a very wealthy country, and the foremost manufacturing, industrial, and commercial power in the world, but her working classes were suffering from a considerable depression. The rich owned the means of production and the raw material, while the poor owned merely their capacity to labour, a commodity which was cheap because overplentiful. The mass of the people had no education and lived at starvation level, while the laws discouraged any attempt on their part to better their own condition. In the nineteenth century other European countries followed the example of England and began to produce on a large scale for world markets, with the same disastrous effect from the point of view of the working class; and, as the movement became more universal, the tenor of social grievances lay no longer in the relation of landlord and peasant but between capital and labour.

Until 1815, however, England had a practical monopoly of the new industrial machines, and she consequently supplied the markets of Europe with her manufactures. This was the secret of her success in fighting Napoleon, who, for all his Milan Decrees, was aware that the majority of his subjects were glad enough to purchase English goods.

After peace was declared, this specialization of industry became a moving force in that solidarity and interdependence of European interests which forms so large a feature of nineteenth-century history. Nations became less self-sufficient as each strove to produce, not for its own needs, but for a world market. The capital invested in the development of the natural resources of backward countries often came from richer neighbours; and the scientific inventions of the century, the railways, telegraphs, telephones, and aeroplanes were the inheritance of all alike. War became a more shattering thing, and a breach between nations more fatal to social and economic life. Europe became an economic unit, despite the gradual development of the separatist tendency known as nationalism. During the Revolutionary Period there is thus a distinct manifestation of that dualism, that interplay between national and international forces, which constitutes so dominating a characteristic of subsequent history.

(b) European Literature

It is in literature especially, and in the general development of European thought, that the unity of Western culture and the interdependence of ideas may be discerned. The give and take of literary inspirations during the years 1789-1815 is at startling variance with the fact that Europe was at war nearly all the time. Scientific research receives tremendous impetus, and a group of great thinkers, unconcerned by national disputes, and linked by a common aim, reap the rich fruits of the toil of earlier scientists. The effect, upon social life, of the application of scientific research to industrial mechanics has already been mentioned. The Revolutionary Period witnesses the earliest among a great series of inventions which were to transform human existence in the following century. Nor was the sphere of scientific speculation and original enquiry neglected. The early nineteenth century was the Golden Age of scientists. The foundations of electrical research were laid by Galvani and Volta; Lamarck prepared the way for Darwin; Lavoisier and Cavendish opened new avenues in the study of chemistry. Between these Titan leaders there existed a constant interchange of ideas, establishing, in the words of Lavoisier, a community of opinion “so close, that the separate intellectual property of each was all but completely merged in the general stock.” Bonaparte, fully appreciating the lustres of reflected glory, was anxious to become the friend and patron of this European group. Volta, a native of Como, was called to Paris in 1801 in order to show his experiments in electricity, and was afterwards made a senator in the kingdom of Lombardy. Sir Humphry Davy was invited to lecture on his work in Paris, at the very height of the war between England and France. Cavendish, who died in 1810, was made one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France. The consequent impression upon the European mind was not without its effect. It was remembered that Lavoisier, the founder of modern chemistry, had perished at the guillotine, and that the Committee of Public Safety had replied to a petition for his reprieve, “The Republic has no need of Savants.” The obvious contrast was calculated to reconcile many erstwhile republicans to an Emperor who could appreciate the value of intellectual progress. The domination of French culture was winning fresh strength from its association with international science.

In another direction, however, in the field of pure literature, France was losing ground. In the Romantic movement she gained little from the mutual reaction of National inspirations, until after the close of the Napoleonic era. This movement, beginning in the Teutonic countries and spreading by degrees to the Latin, is indicative of much more than a revolt against literary form. It is expressive of a new attitude of mind. All art and literature express, directly or indirectly, man’s view of himself and his relation to the world around him; and this is especially true of the literature of the eighteenth century, of its poetry in particular. It is permeated with the spirit of the age, a spirit which, on the Continent, is signified by the domination of French culture and of French conventions of form. In England it finds expression in that classicism which is the foundation of the French convention. The works of Pope, Goldsmith, and Voltaire depict with fair accuracy the state of mind of educated people in the middle and upper classes. They are a self-satisfied community, essentially town-dwelling, with an intense appreciation of their own superiority to the barbarous rustic. Nature, and scenes from nature, are described from the point of view of the urban tourist, whose eye “roves from joy to joy” with the complacency of the landscape gardener. Their attitude to the past, with the exception of the Augustan past of the classics, is one of contempt for the unenlightened habits of their “rude forefathers.” Towards religion they manifest a heavy approbation or a polished scepticism. They are creatures of wit and sentiment rather than passion, morally reflective rather than emotional. They are a society thoroughly satisfied with their own achievements, with a superb belief in the possibilities of human enlightenment, an optimism which received concrete expression in the events of 1789. The revolt against this domination of a uniform culture came first from the non-Latin races. It was partly a revolt against accepted literary form, against the polished and stilted diction of the classics, the heroic couplets of English, the Alexandrines of French convention. Beauty was sought in new methods of technique, in unconventional rhythms and verse forms. But the young Romantics would not thus have sought for new ways in which to express themselves, had they not been stirred by thoughts which could not be expressed in the language of Pope and Voltaire; thoughts which, existing before the Revolution, received considerable impetus from events at the end of the century. Man, seen in the light of the revolutionary wars, became a creature of passion rather than of reason, a victim rather than a conqueror. The imagination of the poet could no longer dwell with complete complacency upon the achievements of collective culture, but was penetrated by a realization of the sufferings of the individual. A literature grew up expressive of the conflicting emotions of troubled times, the passionate melancholy of shattered illusions. Poets who, like Wordsworth, had witnessed with such joy the downfall of the Bastille, in that dawn of their hopes “when to be young was very heaven,” were forced to seek for new ideals. Some found refuge in cynical gloom; others, of greater metal, achieved a new optimism, based rather on faith in the ultimate purposes of God than on the present triumphs of mankind. Religion in its emotional appeal became once more a living reality to the poets, for a sense of the incomprehensible had come back to man. A new love of nature and of natural beauty permeated literature, no longer finding expression in the catalogued scene of the set description, but as a force of mystery and imagination, above and beyond human life. The supernatural and the uncanny acquired a new value in literature; ghosts once more pervaded poetry and fiction, for the Romantics, with their love of the mysterious past, fully realized their dramatic appeal. From history the new movement drew enormous inspiration, recognizing the effectiveness of mediævalism, with its picturesque settings and its vivid human interest. Knights and ladies, robber barons and hooded friars became, in the hands of lesser luminaries, a procession of brilliant puppets; but from the pen of a master like Scott they come to us as vital portraits, suggesting the unity of human emotions, the eternal kinship of human nature, which, despite progress, culture, and civilization, remains for ever the same. The literature of the past was ransacked, and the older forms of verse, the ballads and folk-lore of the people, became fresh sources of inspiration. The sphere of the antiquary was invaded and the new generation found there

The immortal poetry of traditional folk legends was rediscovered, and the possibilities of the popular dialect in lyrical poetry were developed. In England, Bishop Percy published a Collection of Ancient Poetry, 1760-65, containing many fine old ballads, which had an enormous influence upon continental literature. Another equally important English work, from the European point of view, was Macpherson’s “Ossian,” purporting to be a translation of a collection of old Celtic poetry, which, though a fake, inspired many a German poet to research in the ancient literature of his country. Scott followed upon the efforts of Percy with his “Border Minstrelsy,” and in his own use of the ballad form shows the influence of Bürger and other German Romantics. This was a time when translations were fashionable, though the literary movement took an individual form in each country, the poets and critics of each group found their chief inspiration in the study of their contemporaries elsewhere. In Shakespeare is to be found the greatest influence of all; his works in this period were eagerly studied and translated into most European tongues.

The German Romantic Movement, while bearing witness to all these influences, has an especial significance of its own. It is part of the revolt of a people, part of the attempt to liberate Teutonic thought from the Latin domination. In the time of Frederick II the cultured classes of Germany habitually spoke French, and despised their own tongue as barbarous. They could only admire the masters of French literature; classicism to them meant the supremacy of Gaul. The literary revolt, with its emphasis on the romance latent in the historic past, its researches into the folk-lore, the ballad songs, the traditional legends of the people, and its quest for verse forms which would set forth the peculiar beauty of the German tongue, was essentially a national revolt. Language and literature are binding forces in a nation, and in Germany a literature had to be created. The common aim of the German Romantics was to provide expression in thought and literature for a purely German consciousness, which had its origin in this period, and which found practical expression in the war of liberation. The way was prepared by Lessing (1729-81), in whose play, “Minna von Barnhelm,” reflecting as it did the spirit of Germany at the close of the Seven Years’ War, the first links of German nationality were forged. Moreover, Lessing’s warm appreciation of pure classical beauty had no small influence on his disciples, and in this respect he was more important as a critic than as a creator. He prepared the way for that union of Romance and Classicism which gives so potent a charm to the German school. The classicism of Lessing and Goethe lent an enduring strength to their work, and reflecting, as it did, the ideals of Greece rather than of Rome, a return to Hellenic rather than Latin inspirations, it had no power to rob German literature of its essentially national character.

There grew up a school of poets and men of letters, mostly associated with the ancient town of Weimar, who set before themselves the great task of creating a German literature. Of this group, Goethe (1749-1831) was the commanding figure, the master mind. In him the German people possessed their first great national poet, and they owe as much to him as the Anglo-Saxon races owe to Shakespeare.

An early and important influence upon Goethe’s art was that of Herder, whom he met in 1779. Herder had already won fame as an authority upon national poetry; he had collected traditional ballads all over Europe, even among the Serbs, the Lapps, and the Finns. He called the attention of the young poet to Ossian, awakened in him an appreciation of Shakespeare, and roused him to a realization of the superiority of Homer over his Latin imitators. These influences are all manifested in Goethe’s later work. His first masterpiece, “Götz von Berlichingen,” is the history of an imperial knight in the Middle Ages, and shows a complete picture of Germany in the sixteenth century. It was an exposition of the historical side of the Romantic movement, and it was the first appeal to the German spirit and to that national courage which is founded upon the memory of a glorious past. The classical element in his inspiration, on the other hand, found expression after his journey to Italy in 1788, when he wrote “Iphigenia,” a work of great beauty, permeated by the purest classical ideals. After his return from Italy, Goethe met Schiller, and there grew up between them a historic friendship, rich in literary fruit. It was after meeting Goethe that Schiller’s masterpieces, “Maria Stuart,” “William Tell,” “The Maid of Orleans,” and the “Bride of Messina,” were written, and Goethe, during the period of their friendship, wrote “Egmont,” “Hermann und Dorothea,” and “Wilhelm Meister,” fulfilling his early promise and giving to the world a sublime exposition of the soul of a nation. The whole of Germany lives in these magnificent works, as Elizabethan England is immortalized for us in the plays of Shakespeare.

After the death of Schiller in 1805 Goethe wrote “Faust,” a work upon which he had brooded for the greater part of his life. It presents that titanic struggle of good and evil within the human heart, common to all time, the psychological drama, to which the mediæval setting is but an accessory. “Faust” was an expression of the philosophy of one who had seen the rise, zenith, and decline of the revolutionary movement, and who had discovered that, in all the mutations of collective humanity, the initial problems of the individual are essentially the same.

France, as a Latin country, and as the home of the classical tradition in literature, did not succumb to the Romantic movement until after the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1789 French culture dominated Europe and French literature expressed an attitude of mind which, in things political, took shape in the Revolution. The reaction against classicism did not affect her until the next generation, and her Romantic poets, who had mostly lived in exile, returned to her with the Monarchy. The most popular literary works, on the eve of the Revolution, were steeped in the traditions of the eighteenth century and contained no hint of the Romantic revolt. The History of “Paul and Virginia,” by Bernardin de St. Pierre, which took France by storm, described the lives of two children brought up on a desert island, in whose lofty sentiments the fashionable view of the “noble savage” is embodied. The impossibly artificial “state of nature” here set forth was one to which only a highly civilized and town-dwelling population could give credit. The comedies of Beaumarchais, on the other hand, especially his inimitable “Marriage of Figaro,” carry on the best traditions of French satire. They paint the society of the Old Régime with its cynicism and its lack of ideals, and in scarcely veiled attacks upon the privileges of the nobility they are significant of the prevailing social discontent. Literature did not flourish during the revolutionary era, except in pamphlet and journalistic form. Classicism still prevailed in the Napoleonic State, modelled as it was upon Latin precedents, with its consuls, its senators, and its toga clad officials. Even in women’s dress the classical vogue was apparent where each outdid her neighbour in her efforts to imitate the draperies of classical statuary, and “many in Juno’s bright tiara and leopard mantle assumed the goddess, and decked themselves with cameo Joves.” In this society the inspirations of Romance found no place. Moreover, literature of any kind languished under Napoleon. Although he cherished a personal enthusiasm for “Ossian,” a work which he kept under his pillow, the Emperor did not, by his methods of government, encourage the production of great poetry. Of this he was apparently aware, for he is reported to have said that he had heard there was no literature and that he must speak to the Minister of the Interior about it.

The most brilliant French writers lived in exile, during the latter part of the first Empire. Madame de Staël, the daughter of Necker, having written a book in praise of German literature, received the following communication from the chief of police: “. . . it appears to me that the air of this country does not agree with you, and we are not yet reduced to seek for models among the nations you admire.” This police supervision explains the sterility and lack of inspiration in the literature of the period. The Romantic movement was still a non-Latin, and in some respects an anti-Latin, revolt, and such is its historical significance. It is typical of the reaction against the ideals of the eighteenth century, and marks the transition to modern thought. But it is not until the succeeding period that the full import of this transition can be appreciated.

Nationalism and Liberalism

A POPULACE which has acquired the habit of revolution does not easily recapture its old reverence for long-established authority. It will assuredly fail to do so in mere obedience to an international treaty, and this the reactionary statesmen of 1815 were soon to discover. Exiled kings might return to their capitals with much pomp and circumstance, and the Mass might again be sung in a hundred cathedrals; but the peoples of Europe, though they might, for the sake of peace, acquiesce in the Restoration, retained as yet their memories of other days. They had seen kingly and priestly power laid low in the dust; it appeared to them by no means impossible that such scenes might be repeated in the future. Metternich and his colleagues had succeeded in restoring most of the forms of the Old Régime. But they could not reinspire these antiquated practices and policies with any vital idea. The animating spirit of the mediæval past was gone beyond recall.

Yet, despite all opposition, Metternich succeeded in maintaining for thirty-three years the system which he had forced upon Europe, and he continued to be the guiding spirit of continental politics until 1848. His strength was founded on the weakness of the opposition. His system might be atrociously bad and his principles entirely unsuited to the needs of the age, but, during the early years of the Restoration, no other constructive programme was forthcoming. The people of Europe, though aware of continual political and social irritation, did not at first clearly discover the source of their discomfort. The political creeds of 1791 had become obsolete and they had no other wherewith to oppose Metternich. Hence their tacit submission to institutions which they had long outgrown, and hence also the unorganized and inarticulate character of the first popular uprisings. Constructive opposition grew but slowly, for it stood, in 1815, in dire need of new men and of new ideas. Not till a decade had passed was there any attempt at the formulation of a programme, among the rising generation; and this programme was eventually constructed upon the nineteenth century principles of Nationalism and Liberalism.

Liberalism, as a practical political creed, took the place of the abstract and philosophic democracy of the eighteenth century. It represented a compromise between the realities of European politics and the ideals which had inspired the Revolution, the ideals of individual liberty, political freedom, and self-government. It was, like all compromises, unromantic, and it was the product of sober thought rather than of emotion. In 1815 the ideas of 1791 had been discredited by a series of appalling crimes committed in the name of liberty, by the excesses of the Jacobins, and by the tyranny of Napoleon. It had become apparent that the past could never be eliminated by the construction of new constitutions on paper, and that human nature could no longer be regarded as approaching perfection. These realities weighed heavily upon would-be democrats: to many they justified the restoration of the Old Régime.

In time, however, a new generation grew up to whom the horrors of the Terror were merely history, and who found the fallacies of the Restoration a most distressing reality. Young Europe began to ask itself whether the failure of France to realize her ideals in 1789 constituted a sufficient argument against all progress and reform whatsoever. Absolute democracy might be a Utopian dream, but that was no proof that the Government might not become more popular with advantage. Crimes might have been committed in the name of liberty, and the principles of freedom of religion, of speech, of the Press, and of public meeting might have been abused; yet these things might remain essentially good. A party arose who demanded that the principles of 1789 might be allowed, in a modified form, to influence European politics. Some Liberals demanded more radical changes than others, but all were united in looking to the future rather than to the past, and all believed in the progress if not in the perfectibility of the human race. They took their stand upon the axiom that it is, on the whole, better and safer for a democratic people to make mistakes in the attempt to govern itself than to submit blindly to the rule of an autocrat, though he be the wisest and best man upon earth. They admitted the risks of democracy, but they maintained that the risks of autocracy were greater and its ultimate downfall more complete. It is this principle which distinguishes the Liberals of the nineteenth century from their predecessors, the disciples of Rousseau, who would never have admitted the capacity of a democracy to make mistakes. The chief merit of “the general will” in the eyes of the men of 1789 had lain in its supposed infallibility.

The development of the principle of Nationalism is closely connected with the rise of Liberalism as a political creed. In the preceding period the origins of the nationalist movements of the century were discernible; in the years 1815-48 they took shape and found powerful exponents. The treaties of Vienna had ignored certain natural bonds among the races of Europe, bonds of religion, language, history, and tradition, which form an essential part of the spirit of unity in a nation, and which demand recognition from any intelligent State-maker. In 1815 Catholic Belgium was united to Protestant Holland under a Dutch King; Catholic and Celtic Ireland was part of Protestant England; Greece and the other Christian Balkan races were still under the Turkish yoke; Poland was partitioned among three Powers; the Slav and Magyar peoples in the Hapsburg dominions were entirely dominated by the Germans; and the national ambitions of Italy and Germany were completely frustrated.

These wrongs to the spirit of peoples demanded remedy before there could be any hope of democratic or liberal reform, since no country could be truly democratic where the national ambitions of the people were continually thwarted. Such a condition presupposes an element of despotism in the Government, and Nationalism and Liberalism are both founded ultimately upon the view that a people has a right to choose its own rulers. So much they have in common, though subsequent history suggests that a Nationalist need not necessarily be a Liberal and that the two creeds are not always sympathetic. The most ardent Nationalists are often prompt to deny freedom to other countries, a fact which became clear in 1848, when the champions of Magyar freedom would grant no concessions to the Southern Slavs, and German patriots wasted their opportunities in their eagerness to check the Nationalist movement in Bohemia. Nationalism is often the best friend of autocracy, and many a country has renounced political freedom in her struggle to satisfy her Nationalist ambitions.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, however, most Nationalists were Liberals, for Metternich united the two creeds by his opposition to both. Of this earlier type of Liberal-Nationalist the Italian Mazzini is a good example, uniting, as he did, a cosmopolitan Liberalism and a sympathy for the struggle for freedom in all nations with an intensely Nationalist devotion to his own country. Nationalism was, with him, a religious principle. He looked upon the nation as related to humanity as the family is related to the State . . . “a divinely constituted group with a special mission of its own, to be pursued independently, though in association with the groups around it.” “To break up a nationality,” he said, “was to deny to it the right of free and natural self-development.”

This view of the rights of peoples presents a strange contrast to the cynical Nationalism of the end of the century, which substitutes reciprocal egoism for the idea of mutual service. Though first and foremost an Italian, Mazzini did not cease to think as a European and to remember continental interests as a whole. And he never lost the conception of duty in his struggle for national and liberal rights. Born in 1805, he was, as early as 1821, penetrated by “the idea of an existing wrong in my own country, against which it was a duty to struggle, and the thought that I too must bear a part in that struggle.” In 1830 he was exiled and spent the greater part of his life away from his beloved country, yet always working in her service. Mazzini was the type of Liberal-Nationalist who was conquered in 1848. In that year the champions of progress and reform raised the standard against Metternich and the reactionaries, and saw their cause lost and their hopes ruined. Despite the fall of Metternich, the fatal year ended in the apparent triumph of Austria, and the principles of autocracy, clericalism, and anti-nationalism, which she represented. The revolutionary party failed because its creed was still indefinite. Aware during the crisis of the discrepancy between the aims of Nationalism and Liberalism, the insurgents did not know how to choose. The people of Germany hesitated between a liberal confederation and national unity under a monarchy, until it was too late. The same problem confounded the revolutionaries in Italy. The Magyars were more eager to fight the Southern Slavs than to secure their own liberty. The energies of revolutionary Europe were wasted because they were undirected. It was not until the next generation that men arose who organized these dispersed forces and who definitely pointed out to the people the objects of their pursuit. And these men did not preach the creed of Mazzini. They moulded Europe, but not on the sure foundations suggested by the man who wrote:—

The Holy Alliance

1. The Holy Alliance and the Quadruple Alliance

Before leaving Paris in 1815, the principal Powers assembled there signed two important documents. The first, drawn up by the Tsar Alexander, constituted a kind of league of benevolent despots, and was intended to introduce a moral principle into international relations. The Tsar, in whom a strong religious feeling had recently been excited, had come to realize that, so long as the foreign policy of each State was based upon mere expediency without reference to the common good, very little hope could be entertained of an ultimate and lasting peace. The Holy Alliance was a monarchical confession of faith, in which the signatories declared their intention of basing their policy solely on “the sublime principles of the Christian religion” and of rendering brotherly help to each other in so doing. The scheme sums up the desire, probably strong in Europe, of avoiding the calamity of war in the future. Alexander rightly diagnosed national egoism as a principal cause of war, and hoped to substitute association and co-operation for antagonism and competition. His ideas were those of a true pacifist; but the other statesmen, who, to please him, signed the Alliance, saw in French ambition the sole cause of the disasters which had lately befallen Europe, and sought to render war impossible by crippling France and restoring the Old Régime. Thus they sowed the seeds of future wars, and the Holy Alliance was doomed at the outset by the attitude of those who regarded France as “the enemy.” It became a weapon in the hands of reactionaries rather than a harbinger of peace, and its history exemplifies very clearly the difficulties besetting any international league after a great war. It bound no power to any definite course of action, since it was not a treaty. Most statesmen derided it secretly, though they signed it out of compliment to the Tsar. England was the most important of the dissenting Powers; Castlereagh thought the language of the document too ambiguous, and could not imagine how he was to explain it to the House of Commons. The Prince Regent, however, wrote a letter expressing warm sympathy with the lofty aims of his brother sovereigns.

England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia also signed a second equally important document, which constituted a complete exposition of their secret intention to continue the coalition which had conquered Napoleon and to maintain their supremacy in Europe. In the formation of the Quadruple Alliance the four Powers hoped to safeguard the Treaty of Vienna against revolutionary outbursts and against renewed hostilities on the part of France. The return of Napoleon, the Hundred Days, and the Waterloo campaign had bred so profound a distrust of the French people in the minds of the Allies that some sort of coalition against France was still regarded as necessary, although Europe was nominally at peace. The four Powers agreed to meet occasionally in order to discuss means and methods suitable to their policy, a provision which led to a series of congresses which Metternich, by skilful diplomacy, exploited for his own ends. Russia and Prussia supported him, and England gradually drew away from the three absolute monarchies, as it was inevitable that she should. She could not, with a Parliamentary Government, join wholeheartedly with Metternich in his campaign against constitutionalism.

2. The Policy of Metternich

Metternich lost no time in organizing a complete reaction in the Hapsburg dominions. The clerical power was reinstated, the universities controlled, the Press censored, and a strict police and spy system was set up. His avowed aim was to stifle all demands for constitutional government. He could not, however, carry out his policy if Liberalism triumphed in other countries. Hence his eagerness to impose his system upon the whole of Europe, and especially upon Germany. The entire programme of the German Liberals was abhorrent to his Austrian sensibilities. It was to the interest of Austria to keep the German confederation as loose as possible, so that she could exert influence upon individual States. She dreaded the idea of a united Germany, as being likely to lead to the supremacy of her rival Prussia. National unity was one of the watchwords of the Liberal Party in Germany, and the idea of a closer confederation of the German States was bound up with the idea of constitutional government. Many South German Princes, in particular those of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Nassau, and Baden, had granted constitutions to their people, in order to win popular support against the aggressions of Austria and Prussia. Metternich was anxious to crush this Liberal movement, but he could not do so without the help of the Tsar and the King of Prussia. Frederick William was easily won; he was sufficiently converted when he saw what difficulties beset the reforming princes as soon as they tried to put their new constitutions into practice. The Tsar, however, who cherished liberal views, proved more stubborn a convert. He had always sympathized with France, and had granted a measure of constitutional home rule to Russian Poland, an action which highly alarmed Metternich, who feared that Russia might be going to break away from the Quadruple Alliance.

In course of time, however, the Tsar changed his policy, largely in consequence of two incidents. In 1817 a Student Society with liberal aims, called the Bundeschaft, which had branches in most of the German universities, met together in a great congress at Wartburg. Proceedings were, as a general rule, orderly and patriotic, but some of the wilder young men, in a fit of high spirits, resolved upon a demonstration against the reactionary policy of certain German rulers, and made a bonfire of various symbols of autocracy, including a copy of the Prussian code of Police Law. It was a piece of schoolboy mischief, but the German Governments took a very serious view of it as an example of the revolutionary spirit of the younger generation. In 1819 the murder of Kotzebue, a journalist and a Russian spy, was considered to be another expression of the spirit of anarchy. The Tsar became alarmed, and began to listen to Metternich. Consequently Austria, supported by Russia and Prussia, was able to force a reactionary policy on the German Diet. A series of conferences was held at Carlsbad, and, in defiance of legal procedure, the Diet was compelled to pass the famous Carlsbad Decrees. No discussion was permitted and no time was given for protest. The Carlsbad Decrees continued to be the law of Germany until 1848 and a determining factor in her political history. Princes were forbidden to grant representative institutions to their people. All student societies were suppressed, and the universities were strictly controlled. The Press was censored and all teachers were forced to possess a State licence. Liberalism was to be crushed by a system of severe persecution carried out by spies and police. Reaction triumphed in Germany, and the hopes of the Liberals appeared to be vain.

3. Reaction in Europe

Throughout Europe meanwhile the violently reactionary policy of the restored monarchies had given rise to disturbances. Ferdinand of Spain had abolished the Constitution granted to his people on his restoration. The Jesuits were brought back, the Inquisition revived, and Liberalism was bitterly persecuted. In 1820 Revolution broke out. The King had gathered an army at Cadiz to reconquer his colonies in America, which were in revolt from Mexico to Cape Horn. Secretly encouraged by England and the United States, they had decided to claim independence from Spain. The King’s Army never sailed, for, under the leadership of Riego, a colonel, the soldiers mutinied and demanded the Constitution of 1812. The virtues of this Constitution existed largely in retrospect. It was, indeed, very weak and quite unworkable; but the fanaticism of the King’s policy lent it a lustre in the Spanish memory. It became the rallying cry of Spanish Liberalism. The revolt was mainly military, since the masses of the people were too ignorant and too inert to participate in the struggle. But the King’s forces were disorganized, and he was compelled to yield and to grant the Constitution to his people.

Events in Spain strengthened the Revolutionary Party in Italy, which was suffering cruelly from the reactionary policy of Austria, the Pope, and the Kings of Sardinia and Naples. All those who hoped for a united Italy and who demanded Constitutional Reform were treated as criminals. The dissatisfied classes in Naples formed a secret society called the Carbonari, which aimed at the destruction of the Restoration Governments by insurrection and by conspiracy. The Society, of which Mazzini was at one time a member, soon spread to all Italian States. In 1820 the news of the Spanish Revolution caused an outburst in Naples, leading to an insurrection in which the King was forced to grant a Constitution on the Spanish model. A kindred revolution broke out in Piedmont.

These revolutions gave forcible illustration to the doctrines of Metternich. Such disturbances were, he said, infectious, and no European Power could lead an isolated life, since its internal conditions might at any time become a source of danger to others. Indeed, a State which set up Liberal institutions must immediately be bullied into submission by the other Powers. This view was set forth by Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the Congress of Troppau, in 1820. It was agreed that intervention in Naples had become necessary, and the right of the King of Naples to grant revolutionary changes in his own kingdom was denied. England and France would not concur in this policy; they challenged the right of intervention as a principle, though they agreed that Austria had a right to interfere in this particular case, if she really believed that events in Naples were threatening her security in Northern Italy. At the Congress of Laibach, in 1821, the three reactionary Powers agreed to enforce the right of intervention. An Austrian Army occupied Naples, suppressed the Revolution, and restored the Old Régime. The insurrection in Piedmont was also suppressed, and Italy was reduced to submission.

The Spanish Question was dealt with at the Congress of Verona, in 1822. France, now also won over to reactionary policy, joined the party for Intervention, leaving England in solitary protest. A French army invaded Spain, crushed the insurgents, and restored Ferdinand in all his absolute powers. The Congress of Verona marks the highest point of Metternich’s success. Thereafter his policy received a series of rebuffs, and his diplomatic supremacy could no longer be regarded as unquestioned. Both in the South American Question and in the War of Greek Independence he was frustrated.

4. The South American Question and the Monroe Doctrine

Reaction was confined to Europe. Metternich had desired to interfere in South America, and to restore to Spain and Portugal their rebellious colonies. England, however, refused to countenance this scheme and recognized the independence of Brazil. Hoping that the freed colonies would prove good markets for her manufactured goods, she hinted that she would oppose any steps on the part of the Holy Alliance to force reaction upon South America. Since she controlled the sea, this was tantamount to ensuring the independence of South America. She was, in this respect, supported by the United States. In 1825 President Monroe, in a message to Congress, declared that the United States would regard as a hostile act any European interference in American affairs. This principle has been maintained ever since. During the Civil War, 1864-66, France took the opportunity to send troops to Mexico; but she was forced to abandon the enterprise as soon as the American War was over, and the United States was in a position to protest.

5. The War of Greek Independence

A revolt had broken out meanwhile among the Greeks against their Turkish rulers. The Greeks were not, on the whole, badly off. They had a large measure of local self-government, they were prosperous, and they had considerable religious toleration. But, while they had privileges, they had no rights. The Turks were their absolute masters and could treat them as slaves if they wished. In the early years of the century a great Hellenic revival took place, beginning, as many national movements begin, with a literary renaissance, and a renewed enthusiasm among the Greeks for their ancient language and history. This developed rapidly into a racial, religious, and political movement; racial, because built upon the memory of the glorious past of the Hellenes; religious, in that it was a Christian movement against Mohammedanism; and political, because inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution.

In 1814, when it became clear that the Congress of Vienna would do nothing for Greek nationalism, the Hetairia Philike was founded at Odessa. This was a secret society which aimed at the expulsion of the Turks from Europe and the revival of the ancient Greek Empire. The Turks did not greatly trouble themselves over this society, and it grew apace. It was thought that Russia, the protectress of the Greek Church and the historic enemy of Turkey, might intervene if an insurrection took place. In 1821 Hypsilanti, a Greek and a major-general in the Russian Army, endeavoured to begin a revolution by invading Moldavia with a small army of volunteer Greek exiles. The Tsar, however, regarding this as a revolutionary outburst, was persuaded by Metternich to disown Hypsilanti, and the attempt failed. But the insurrection spread to the Morea and the Islands, where it was more successful. The Greeks suddenly rose and massacred the Turks, and a terrible war of reciprocal massacres began. At first the Turks suffered from the weakness of their fleet, which had been manned chiefly by Greeks; but in 1823 they were able to borrow the fleet and army of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt. These were efficient and well-equipped, and the fortunes of war turned against the Greeks. If they were to survive, some European Power must come to their aid.

The cause of the Greeks had long aroused liberal and nationalist sentiment in Europe, and from many countries sympathizers had sent help by private enterprise. Metternich, however, tried to prevent the Governments from taking part in the struggle. He was jealous of Russian influence in the Balkans, and feared a Russo-Turkish War. He declared to Europe that the war was “beyond the pale of civilization.” England replied to this by recognizing the insurgent Greeks as belligerents. Her Foreign Minister, Canning, was afraid that Russia might go to war with Turkey and become the protectress of Greece. It was the historic policy of England to combat Russian influence in the Balkans, and Canning was determined that, in the Greek Question, Russia should not be allowed to act alone. He believed that the Greeks would win their independence, but he did not wish to see them the satellites of Russia. France supported the policy of England. A Russo-Turkish War was the more likely since Alexander had died in 1825, and was succeeded by his brother Nicholas, who was determined not to ignore the various grievances which Russia had against Turkey.

In 1827, therefore, England, Russia, and France signed the Treaty of London, in which they agreed to suggest to the Sultan an armistice and the concession of Home Rule to Greece. The Sultan refused, and the allied fleets made a naval demonstration which was intended to frighten him into submission. It led, however, by a series of accidents, to the battle of Navarino, in which the Turkish fleet was annihilated. This was somewhat of a blow to England, who had no real wish to go to war with Turkey. Canning died in 1827, and his decisive policy was abandoned. Russia was allowed, after all, to fight Turkey alone, for England shrank from further hostilities. After a campaign of varying fortune, Russia forced Turkey to sign the Treaty of Adrianople, in which she agreed, among other concessions, to the terms of the Treaty of London. England and Austria, however, insisted that Greece should be made an independent kingdom, since if she were dependent at all upon Turkey she would always be subject to Russian influence. As an independent kingdom she would owe a debt of gratitude to England and Austria as well.

In 1830-33, therefore, Greece, the Morea, and the Islands were erected into an independent kingdom under Otto, second son of the King of Bavaria. The Greek aspirations were not fully satisfied, for Thessaly, Macedonia, and Epirus were still part of Turkey, and she did not get the Ionian Islands until 1863. The settlement is important as marking the first crisis in the Eastern Question in its nineteenth-century form. Before long the other Christian subjects of Turkey began to follow the example of Greece. Their struggles for freedom, their bitter rivalries, and the ambitions of the great Powers who supported them are the main themes in the drama of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, and reappear in the explosions of 1878 and 1913. The Independence of Greece has additional importance in that it is the first victory of Nationalism over the policy of Metternich. It was followed, in 1830, by another and a sharper blow, the triumph of Liberalism in France and the downfall of the Restoration Monarchy.

The Revolutions of 1830

1. France under the Restoration

The return of Louis XVIII to France in 1815 did not imply a complete revival of the Old Régime. The King granted a Constitutional Charter and intended to rule by it. Legislative power was exercised by two chambers. The House of Peers was appointed by the King, and the House of Deputies, which controlled taxation, was elected by the people. Suffrage, from which the masses of the people were excluded, depended on property qualifications, and political power appertained chiefly to the middle and upper classes. The King, who had the supreme executive power, proposed the laws, which could not be amended without his consent.

This Constitution was not democratic, but, if Great Britain is excepted, it was the most liberal in Europe at the time, and the most practical ever possessed by France. The Legal Codes, the centralized administrative system, the Concordats and the Nobility of Napoleon were maintained, together with many of the reforms of 1791, such as equality before the law, equality of opportunity in the civil and military services, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of the Press and of religion. These concessions won popular support for the Restoration.

The safety of France was, however, imperilled by the sharp divisions between political parties. The clergy and the returned émigrés thirsted for vengeance. They hoped to destroy all traces of the Revolution and to restore the Old Régime intact. They would suffer no compromises. Under the direction of the Count of Artois, brother to the King and heir to the throne, they constituted the party of the Extreme Right, or the Ultras, having for their main object the destruction of the Charter. In this they were in agreement with the Left, composed of Bonapartists and Republicans. The large Centre Party, which lay between these two Extremes, upheld the Charter and the policy of conciliation. Of these, the Right Centre regarded the Charter as the limit of their liberalism, while the Left Centre hoped for further democratic reforms. In 1815 an Ultra majority was returned to the Chamber of Deputies, and a savage policy of vengeance was begun. The King, however, saved the country by dissolving the chamber and appealing to the people. A more moderate chamber was returned, and, with the support of the Centre Party, the King pursued the path of reconciliation. His ministers, Richelieu and Decazes, paid off the immense war indemnity which France owed to the Allies, freed her territory from the foreign army of occupation, and reorganized her military forces. But they depended entirely upon the support of the Moderate Centre Party, which showed signs of splitting. Events had occurred which alarmed the Right Centre so much that it drew away from the Left Centre and began to join the Ultras. Evidences were not wanting of an increase in the power of the Extreme Left, for the elections of 1817, 1818, and 1819 favoured that party. In 1820 the Duke of Berri, younger son of the Count of Artois, was assassinated by a republican. All this frightened the Moderate Conservatives, and the control of the Government began to pass to the Right. The Ultra reaction was renewed, and much of the work of the Moderates was undone. The electoral law was altered and the freedom of the Press rescinded, while an army was sent to restore absolutism in Spain, at the bidding of the Holy Alliance.

Louis XVIII died in 1824 and was succeeded by his Ultra-Royalist brother, Charles X. All attempts at reconciliation were completely abandoned. The Jesuits returned, education was largely handed over to the Church, and a revival of clerical power was encouraged. In 1825 a law was passed giving compensation to those nobles who had lost property in the Revolution. The National Guards were dissolved, and attempts were made to control the Press and to revive the laws giving privileges to elder sons. These, though failures, made the King extremely unpopular throughout the country.

The effect of this policy upon public opinion was seen in the elections of 1827, when a substantial majority was returned against the Government. The King, however, did not regard himself as bound to choose his ministers from the Parliamentary Majority, and, in defiance of the Liberal Chamber of Deputies, he appointed Polignac, an Extreme Reactionary, as his chief minister. In 1830 he dissolved the chamber, but another crushing Liberal majority was returned. This expression of public opinion he ignored, for he would not dismiss Polignac, declaring that Louis XVI had lost his life through making concession. He was determined to force his policy on the country, and, in July, 1830, he published four Ordinances, silencing Press opposition and dissolving the newly elected Chamber of Deputies. The franchise was altered so as to exclude from power the middle class, from which the Liberal Party was mostly drawn. The political power of the Conservative nobility was thus increased. These measures were in direct defiance of the Charter. Charles X believed himself to be empowered to alter the Charter if the safety of the State demanded it, and this he regarded as his justification. The French people saw that, if they allowed the Charter to be broken, they would submit to absolutism and no institutions would be safe. Charles thought an insurrection unlikely, since very few people had the vote or would be affected by the changes he had made. He underrated the political experience of the workpeople of Paris. On 28 July revolution broke out there, under the direction of Democrats like Lafayette, and inspired by Liberal journalists and editors such as Thiers. Charles X was forced to abdicate, and the crown was offered by Thiers and his party to Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, representative of a younger branch of the Royal House, who was known to have Liberal views. The Monarchy was thus preserved and the dangers of anarchy avoided. Lafayette and the Republican Party agreed to this compromise, since they were far too loyal to plunge their country into civil war. The Chamber of Deputies, representing the will of the sovereign people, called Louis Philippe to the throne.

Though this revolution was carried out by Paris rather than by the nation, the country as a whole accepted it. It constituted a triumph for the Liberal middle classes; it was, besides, a proof to Europe that France was capable of conducting a revolution without a relapse into anarchy, and it measures the advance of the whole nation in political education since its first crude efforts in 1789.

2. Revolutions in Europe

The effect, in Europe, of the July Revolution was profound. Popular movements were stimulated everywhere, especially where national grievances prevailed. The people of Russian Poland immediately rose and demanded an independent kingdom. The Poles had received a measure of Home Rule from Alexander. They had Parliamentary Government, freedom of religion, and of the Press. Polish was the official language and Poles were appointed to all the chief military and civil posts. Their privileges, however, existed rather on paper than in actual fact, for Russian toleration never came up to its pretensions. The Poles were dissatisfied and used their privileges to criticise and obstruct the Tsar’s policy. Nicholas, the successor of Alexander, soon quarrelled with them, for his principles were those of a thorough absolutist. His repressive measures drove the Poles on to rebellion. They expected help from France and England, such as the Greeks had received. But none came. Louis Philippe, newly elected to the French throne, would not endanger his position by an immediate war with Russia. Austria and Prussia, the champions of absolutism, feared the effects of the Polish insurrection in their own Polish possessions. England would not act alone. Left to their own resources, the Poles were no match for Russia. The rising was suppressed, Home Rule abolished, and Poland became a Russian province. Strict measures were taken to obliterate the marks of Polish nationality.

Italy, weighed down by Austrian oppression, and partitioned among a crowd of reactionary princes, did not escape the shock of revolution. There were insurrections, in 1831, in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States. These were swiftly suppressed by Austria. Here again, Louis Philippe would not intervene for fear of compromising himself. The movement was stamped out and the Old Régime was restored. But it is important to note that, while the revolutions of 1821 were mainly military, those of 1831 had strong support among the middle and working classes. Liberalism was beginning to make its appeal. But it was even more bitterly persecuted. Thousands of loyal patriots were exiled, among them Mazzini, though he was guilty of no political crime. “The Government are not fond,” his father was told, “of young men of talent, the subject of whose musings are unknown to them.” Living in exile, however, he built up the society of “Young Italy,” which replaced the destructive organization of the Carbonari. He saw the necessity of a constructive programme, and he realized that Liberalism must present a united and international front before it could hope to combat the combined forces of reaction. “Young Italy” aimed at Italian Unity, and kept in touch with the democratic parties in other countries.

There were several indications of Liberal sentiment in Germany, but these were instantly dealt with by Metternich. The Carlsbad decrees were strengthened, and in 1832 six new articles were forced through the Diet, which forbade princes to grant liberal concessions.

3. The Independence of Belgium

The Liberal and National movements of 1830 are thus to be accounted as failures as far as Germany, Italy, and Poland are concerned. They contributed, nevertheless, to the success of the revolutions in France and Belgium, since they occupied Russia, Prussia, and Austria to an extent which prevented them from interference in the interests of reaction.

The Union of Belgium and Holland had not been a success. It was an artificial arrangement, patched up in the days when fear of France was a dominant political motive in Europe, and it was designed to form a strong barrier State on the French frontier. There was no solidarity or national feeling between the two countries. They differed in language, religion, history, tradition, and industries. A working compromise might have been reached if the King had granted Home Rule to Belgium, but he insisted upon treating the two countries as a single State. The Belgians never accepted the constitution which he gave them, which, in parliamentary representation, put them on a level with Holland. To this they objected, since Holland was the smaller country. They complained of the undue use of the Dutch language, they considered that too many official posts were given to Dutchmen, they disliked the system of taxation, and they thought that their religion was threatened.

Insurrection broke out in 1830, and the revolutionaries formed a provisional Government declaring Belgium an independent State. They decided on a Liberal monarchy as their future Constitution and offered the Crown to Prince Leopold of Coburg. Russia, Austria, and Prussia contemplated intervention; but Belgium was saved by the attitude of England and France. Louis Philippe, knowing that public opinion in France was strong on the side of the Belgians, let it be understood that he would brook no intervention on the part of the Eastern Powers. England acted with France, because she feared that Louis Philippe might gain an undue influence in Belgium if left to himself. So she supported French policy and suggested that a settlement might be reached by all the Powers in conference. Russia, Austria, and Prussia, paralysed by revolutions at home, were forced to agree. At the Conference of London, 1832, the separation of Belgium and Holland was recognized, and Belgium was guaranteed by all the powers as a neutral and independent kingdom. Leopold, King of the Belgians, promised to defend his neutrality against any Power which might attempt to violate it, a promise which was kept by his grandson in 1914.

Although the independence of Belgium was an accomplished fact, the King of Holland did not recognize it till 1839. It was, like the July Revolution in France, a compromise. It was a direct defiance of the treaties of 1815, and a consecration of the principles of nationality and the right of a people to chose its own Government. But, since the monarchy was preserved, and political power remained in the hands of the middle classes, it was no triumph for democracy. The democratic element in the advancing tide of European Liberalism was not fully felt until 1848, when a second Revolution in France set the Continent ablaze.

The Explosion of 1848

1. France under the July Monarchy

The position of Louis Philippe was of necessity far from secure. He was invited to the throne by the Chamber of Deputies, and was acclaimed as King by Paris, but the nation as a whole had no voice in the matter. It did no more than acquiesce, tacitly, in the July Revolution. The new monarchy had all the lack of glamour and all the insecurity of a compromise. It was threatened by the intrigues of Republicans, Bonapartists, and Legitimists, or supporters of Charles X and his heirs. The partisans of the Government were divided among themselves. The Party of Movement hoped for greater democratic reforms, and wished to support Liberal movements abroad. The Party of Resistance, which soon dominated the Government, thought that democracy had gone quite far enough, and feared to excite the revolutionary passions of the working classes. It declared for non-intervention in foreign affairs. This party was subdivided into the Right and Left Centres, led by Guizot and Thiers respectively, the subject of difference being the constitutional obligation of the King to choose his ministers from the Parliamentary majority.

In foreign policy Louis Philippe received several rebuffs. France had long wished to establish firmly her influence in the Mediterranean, and hoped to do so by dominating Egypt. Having conquered Algiers, she made an alliance with Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who was engaged in waging war upon his overlord, the Sultan. This policy Louis Philippe was forced to renounce owing to the combined action of the other Powers, who insisted upon a mediation between Turkey and Egypt and forced Mehemet Ali to make terms. A few years later, in 1846, the friendship which had existed between England and France was wrecked over the Spanish marriage question, and it was felt that Louis Philippe, in his intrigues over the marriages of the young Queen of Spain and her sister, had sacrificed to his own family ambitions the honour and the interests of France. Consequently he lost prestige both at home and abroad.

As regards domestic policy, he maintained a strictly constitutional Government, adhering to the letter of the Charter. But he secretly dominated the Chamber of Deputies by the free use of bribery. He ignored demands for Parliamentary reform, for an increased electorate, and for measures against the corruption of deputies.

Political discontent was aggravated by increasing social and economic unrest. France was, in her turn, undergoing the Industrial Revolution, and she was suffering all the evils incident to the change. Economic distress was terrible, and the oppressed workers were beginning to revolt against their capitalist employers. The July monarchy, resting as it did upon middle-class support, made no attempt to remedy these conditions by social legislation on behalf of the workers. All the laws favoured the employers and the people, unable to combine to secure their own interests, had no protection. Clear-sighted men, reviewing these facts, realized that political freedom is of very little use to a people who are economically slaves. A new set of economic doctrines grew up, later known as Socialism, concerning the organization of industry and the relations of capital and labour. It was felt that democracy could not be complete without some form of social and economic revolution which might very probably entail the abolition of private ownership of capital. Only thus, to many minds, could effective liberty and equality be obtained.

All these conditions produced widespread opposition to the policy of the Government. This opposition centred round the demand for Parliamentary reform. Under the direction of the poet Lamartine, a great demonstration was held in Paris in 1847, which led to the resignation of Guizot, the chief minister of Conservatism. The Republicans and Socialists then took matters into their own hands and inflamed the people of Paris to the pitch of insurrection. Louis Philippe fled to England and a Republic was declared. In the provisional Government which was set up several Socialists were included. This is of importance, since it is indicative of the new aspects in French politics which had arisen since 1815. The problems with which France had been confronted in 1789 were still, to all appearance, unsolved. They had instead become more complicated, by the introduction, during the past fifty years, of the economic question. The people of France had a dual task before them, and this at a time when the whole of Europe was in conflagration.

2. Europe in 1848

Events in France were, as usual, as a spark to gunpowder. Revolution broke out all over Europe, and the system of Metternich was powerless before it. The storm centred round Austria, so long the champion of reaction. The people of Vienna rose and demanded a constitution. Metternich fled. All the confused nationalities of the Hapsburg dominions began to clamour for Home Rule. The Magyars of Hungary led the way, inspired by Kossuth. Bohemia demanded recognition for the rights of the Czechs, and the Southern Slavs and Croats called for national privileges and for local self-government. In Italy the work of Mazzini bore fruit. Lombardy and Venice threw off the Austrian yoke, and the other Italian States, Tuscany, the Papal States, and Naples, compelled by popular demand, sent troops to help them. All the peoples of Italy rushed to arms and forced their rulers to join in a national crusade against Austria, under the leadership of Charles Albert, King of Piedmont and Sardinia.

The Liberal-Nationalists of Germany rose and compelled their princes to permit the election of a national Parliament at Frankfort, which should draw up a new constitution for Germany, substituting a close union for the futile confederation of 1815. It seemed likely that the King of Prussia, who had granted a liberal constitution to his own people, would lead this movement after the manner of Charles Albert in Italy.

3. The Triumph of Austria

Austria was thus faced with a threefold problem. She must suppress revolution at home, reduce Italy, and re-establish her influence in Germany. Her advantage lay in the deep-seated rivalries of the insurgent parties. Within the Hapsburg Empire Magyars could be played off against Slavs, and Germans against Czechs, for none of these peoples were ready to accord toleration to one another, nor had they the wit to unite against the common oppressor. Neither in Germany nor in Italy had the revolutionaries a definite object or a clear programme. Not all Nationalists were Democrats, many aimed merely at national unity under a monarchy. Others, on the contrary, rated the achievement of Liberal institutions above national unity, should the choice be forced upon them. This duality of aim was their ruin. Nor were they fortunate in their leaders. Charles Albert and Frederick William were men of vacillating characters. Neither was ready to commit himself to any serious concession to democracy. Frederick William hesitated to make terms with the Frankfort Parliament until it was too late, and Charles Albert failed to attack Austria at the crucial moment, when she was weakest, because he feared the progress of democracy at home.

Austria was thus enabled, with German help, to crush the revolt in Bohemia. She then defeated Charles Albert at Custozza, on 25 July, profiting by the recent defection of the Papal and Neapolitan troops. She fomented the disputes between Magyar and Slav in Hungary, thereby postponing the peril of a Hungarian Republic. This new decisiveness in her policy is a tribute to the ability of Schwarzenberg, a very competent minister who had recently been appointed. It was he who persuaded the old Emperor to abdicate in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph, and it was he who enlisted the aid of the Tsar in the Austrian cause, a move which eventually enabled him to crush the Hungarian revolt.

The intervention of Russia alarmed the King of Prussia to such an extent that he definitely withdrew his support from the Frankfort party, and refused the terms offered him by the German Liberals. He hoped to seize the hegemony of Germany by agreement with her rulers rather than with her people, and he not only sanctioned a reactionary policy in his own dominions, but encouraged the Kings of Saxony and Hanover to do likewise. The Frankfort Parliament meanwhile, deprived of the support of Prussia, came to an ignominious end. Austria had temporized over the Italian Question, until she had dealt with Hungary; an armistice had been made with Charles Albert after the battle of Custozza, but this was merely a breathing-space, and Austria fully intended to renew the war. Revolutions had meanwhile taken place in Rome and Tuscany, whence the Pope and the Grand Duke were forced to fly. Republics were set up both in Rome and Florence, but this blow to Austria was of little use to Charles Albert, who hesitated to compromise himself by alliance with Republicans. He was, therefore, forced to begin the war again without the support of these possible allies, and he suffered a crushing defeat at Novara in March, 1849. The cause of Italy was thus lost through want of unity of purpose. Charles Albert abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel, who was forced to make a humiliating peace.

Austria was now all triumphant, only the Roman Republic, inspired by Mazzini and Garibaldi, defied her power. But the two patriots could not uphold Italian freedom in the face of a reactionary Europe. Their work was undone, the Roman Republic suppressed, and the Pope restored by the very nation which should have had most sympathy with Republican aims. The president of France, in 1849, was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon the first, who looked for support to the Catholic party in France. With this motive he sent French troops to Rome to protect the interests of the Pope, a measure which outraged all French Liberals. France was thereby pledged to an indefinite occupation of Rome, since the Pope could not maintain his power there for a single day without the support of French troops. The president, on the other hand, could not withdraw from the position he had taken up without alienating the French Catholic party. He thus became involved in the reactionary policy of Pope Pius IX which eventually brought him into conflict with all the Liberal forces of Europe.

So ended the Revolutions of 1848, and the apparent failure of Liberalism and Nationalism heralded another restoration of the status quo. Europe was forced to reassume the outworn trappings of 1815 and to submit again to the system of Metternich. Though the man himself was gone, his spirit still breathed in the political systems of Europe.

Great changes had, nevertheless, taken place during this period, though their full effect in political history is somewhat disguised by the triumph of reaction. New and momentous forces had arisen affecting powerfully the trend of European thought. A generation grew up, inspired by new ideals, preaching new creeds and striving for new ends. During this period, for instance, the Carbonari of 1821 were transmuted into the young Italians of 1848. The young student members of the Bundeschaft, who made bonfires in 1817, grew up into German Liberals, talking largely of Parliaments and Nationalism in 1848. These men were inspired by the current popular ideas of their day. By an examination of their inspirations and opinions the student may form an idea of the extent and force of the new influences moulding European thought and modifying social custom, influences which are manifested in spheres other than political, and which bear fruit alike in literature, art, religion, economics, and social life.

Changing Europe

1. Literature

France has always been the workshop of European ideas, the mirror of contemporary continental thought; if, during the First Empire, the mirror became a trifle dim, the eclipse was short, and the French people soon resumed its accustomed place in the comity of European nations. The great changes supervening in French literature in the years 1815-50 are but typical of a transformation of ideas which was affecting the whole Continent. The Romantic movement entered upon its later phases of development, and a second generation of creators were to feel the impact of Romantic inspirations. Their work, when compared with that of their predecessors, is instructive both in similarities and in differences. It is Romantic Literature, but it is clearly of the nineteenth century.

French writers, during the First Empire, followed the classical ideals of the eighteenth century. There were, however, a few brilliant exceptions, among whom Lamartine and Chateaubriand are prominent figures. Of them it is necessary to say a few words, for in the work of both the transition from Classicism to Romance is abundantly apparent. Lamartine, 1790-1867, was a lyric poet, and his art is of interest to the historical student as reflecting all the tendencies and interests of the age. It bears traces of the revived power of Catholicism and religion, of the new glamour cast around republicanism and legitimist monarchy alike, of the nature-worship and sentimentalism of Rousseau and Bernardin de St. Pierre, of the mediævalism of Scott and the Weimar group, and of the egoism of Byron. This reflective quality, combined with much of artistic talent, was of service in bringing France again into contact with the literary currents of other nations. Chateaubriand, 1768-1848, was another type of the age. By birth a Breton, he imparted to his work a little of that Celtic glamour, which, since the publication of Ossian, had played so large a part in the Romantic movement. After the execution of Louis XVI he lived for some years as an emigrant in England, and became conversant with contemporary English literature. In 1802 his publication of “The Genius of Christianity,” coinciding as it did with the restoration of Catholicism in France, won for him the favour of the Emperor. The work was a masterpiece of eloquence and of literary art, a defence of Catholicism from the emotional and sentimental standpoint, appealing to every faculty in the reader other than that of rational criticism. It gave voice, in poetic prose, to the popular reaction against the philosophic free thought of the preceding century. Chateaubriand might well have continued to sun himself in the beams of Imperial approval, but after the murder of the Duc d’Enghien he drifted into opposition again. In 1814 he championed the Royalist cause, and his “Bonaparte and the Bourbons” was declared by Louis XVIII to be worth a million men to him. Much of the fame of Chateaubriand was due to the dramatic timeliness of his publications, and his facility in speaking “the word of the moment.” He was among the first of those egotistical Romantics, of whom Byron was the great type and example. The poets of the eighteenth century, whether in Weimar, Paris, or London, had regarded themselves as part of a literary circle, and had written for the admiration of their friends. The artist was hardly complete without his clique of admirers, in coffee-room or salon. Even such prose essays in self-revelation as Rousseau’s “Confessions,” or such expositions of human sensibility as Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther” suggest, in their essence, the applause of a mutual admiration society. With the new century the production of poetry ceased to be a social grace. Under the tutelage of Chateaubriand and Byron the conception was formulated of the poet as a creature misunderstood, apart, finding self-expression in literature for the sufferings of a sensitive temperament tortured by contact with a Philistine world. The avowed object of the poet was no longer to please his friends but to solace himself.

With the Restoration a new era of French literature began. A new generation of literary men returned from exile and set themselves to break down that “Chinese wall” complained of by Madame de Staël, which separated French culture from that of other nations. One and all they were imbued with the spirit of Romance and steeped in the literature of Germany and England. Translations abounded; Barante translated Schiller, Constant and Remusat, Goethe, and Pichot, Shakespeare. In the early days of the German Romantic movement Lessing and Herder prepared the ground by their recognition of new canons of criticism and their contributions to the science of literature; the foundations of the Romantic triumph in France were laid, in the same way, by three eminent professors, Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. In the constructive criticism of Villemain was to be found that admixture of romantic and classical ideals which had proved so beneficial an influence in the early German critics. Under Guizot, who translated Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” the scientific treatment and imaginative interpretation of history made inestimable progress, and his lectures on “The History of Civilization in France and in Europe” (1828) were an epoch-making event in the intellectual life of France. Cousin, philosopher and metaphysician, student of Kant and Hegel, did great service to France in the cause of primary education. He had studied carefully the educational experiments of Prussia, and it was upon his recommendation that, under the July Monarchy, the first law of primary education was passed in France, following up the excellent system of secondary education established under the First Empire. This may be considered as his great work, but more famous were his lectures on philosophy, given in Paris, which drew the student-world to a degree unparalleled since the days of Abelard.

This renewed and vigorous pulsation of the intellectual life of the country had many and diverse effects. It is discernible in a transformation of creative art and a sudden rebellion against the classical standards of poetic and dramatic form. A band of young and talented men championed the cause of the Romantic revolt, and proved, in the words of Mr. Lytton Strachey,^[5] “that the French tongue, so far from having exhausted its resources, was a fresh and living instrument of extraordinary power.” Already the new spirit had been manifested in the works of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, but it was left to a younger generation to break the bonds of classical form and to free literature completely from the restraints of hidebound tradition. The transition from Classicism to Romanticism was not, as in England and Germany, gradual and continuous, it was sudden and violent. The whole of France was divided into opposing literary camps. The appointment of Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin to professorships in 1828 was regarded as a signal victory for liberal and modern ideas. The crisis of the conflict centred round the performance of Victor Hugo’s play “Hernani” in 1830, when, after a fierce battle, the Romantics finally established their position and vindicated their claim to a place in literature. The dispute in 1830 was upon questions of style rather than of subject-matter. The Romantics claimed the right to introduce new words into the poetic vocabulary, and they upheld the innate beauty of new rhythms and metres. In the preceding century a revolution in style had followed naturally upon a transformation of artistic perception. Poets adopted new ways of expressing themselves because they had discovered new things to express. They had ideas which could not be set forth in the language of the Classics. Coleridge, for instance, did not, in all probability, write the “Ancient Mariner” in order to exhibit the artistic possibilities of ballad form; having conceived his subject he evolved a mode of expression suitable to it. And in this he is typical of all the first generation. But the literary clique who acclaimed “Hernani” in 1830 were not of the metal of their predecessors. Théophile Gautier with his flaming waistcoat; the delicate and pessimistic Alfred de Vigny, withdrawn in his “ivory tower” from the shocks of a rude world; De Musset, with his exaggerated similes and his half-expressed doubts as to the eventual triumph of Romanticism, compare but ill with their models, the robust and full-blooded poets of the early Romantic revolt. All were touched with the “Maladie du Siècle,” with the egoism which found supreme expression in Victor Hugo, the greatest of the group. They were a second generation; they were disciples, not pioneers. The artistic ideals which had originally inspired the Romantic movement stood in no further need of champions. Like the great political principles of 1789, they were, in 1830, already canonized. They had passed insensibly into the currency of popular thought, and they were accepted without question. It was left for the second generation to dispute upon points of dogma, and to exaggerate the importance of the letter at the expense of the spirit.

It is perhaps for this reason that the French Romantic movement, despite the genius of Hugo, makes no very startling contribution to European poetry. The Weimar group was continental in its importance; it inspired creation in countries other than Germany. The movement of 1830 was purely French, as far as poetry was concerned. After the performance of “Hernani” Romance became fashionable in Paris, but the early inspiration is not felt so forcibly. “Hernani” itself is not a good play. As with many other great movements, victory meant the beginning of decay. Of the triumph of the French Romantics M. Faguet has said: “In 1800 a few great minds protested against the domination of eighteenth-century ideals; in 1815 many brilliant minds; in 1830 a crowd of mediocre minds.”

It is not among the poets of France that a representative of the age is to be found. If any poet summed up in himself all the tendencies of the day, that man would be Heine, the cosmopolitan Radical, who was at once lyricist, philosopher, and political pamphleteer. Heine wrote poetry in German and political treatises in French, but in the land of his birth his works were, significantly enough, forbidden. Although he lived in Paris for twenty-five years, and despite his deep affection for the Fatherland, he was, in spirit, neither French nor German. Racially a Jew, his mental outlook can best be described as European. Through his work there breathes that mixture of satire and romance which marks the rise of realism. In his politics and in his lyrics he speaks for youthful Europe.

In French prose, especially in fiction, the impact of new inspirations is far more discernible. The poetic achievements of the period follow paths already travelled. It is the prose writers who supply creative impetus to the literature of other countries. From their work may be traced the new ideas which were gradually penetrating the European mind. They bear witness to an outburst of life and vigour, affecting all branches of thought and closely connected with the political movements of the day. This connexion is manifested in the political careers of many leading men of letters, of whom Victor Hugo and Lamartine are notable examples. It is the antithesis of the condition of France in 1800, when political repression contributed to the sterility of literature. Fifty years later political ferment and literary inspiration went hand in hand.

In the novels of the period may be discerned the first traces of that realism which dominated European literature later in the century. The inspirations of Romance had not yet run their course, but already dramatic exposition of the emotions was replaced by critical analysis, though the scientific precision, which became the keynote of realism, was partially lacking. In the novels of Hugo, De Vigny, and Dumas Romance still held its place; the picturesque appeal of the past was still given its full scope. But Balzac and Stendhal are prophets of the new order.

Balzac (1799-1858) witnessed the rise, zenith, and decline of the Romantic movement in France. But, though he was inspired by the same influences, he never entirely belonged to it. He is typical of his age in that his work ranges from the most intense realism to the most extravagant romance. The element of fantasy in the mediæval past had attractions for him, but his handling of this material was never successful. It was as the interpreter of his own day that he won laurels, as “the secretary of society, drawing up an inventory of vices and virtues.” His best works are those of “La Comédie Humaine,” in which he paints a complete picture of Parisian life in the early nineteenth century. In his detached analysis of the motives and passions of everyday life, in his minute attention to detail, in his broad tolerance of the “littleness” of the average human being he is as far as possible removed from the Romantic standpoint, and earns his place as the first of the realists.

It is less easy to place the delicate and subtle genius of Beyle (1783-1842), who wrote under the name of Stendhal. In his novels, “Le Rouge et le Noir” and “La Chartreuse de Parme” he was a realist of so advanced an order that his own generation could scarcely comprehend him; indeed he said himself that he should not be appreciated until 1880. In “Racine et Shakespeare” he did good service, as a critic, to the cause of Romanticism. Like all great men, he was himself rather than the representative of any school. But, though he has never achieved a wide popularity his influence upon his successors was inestimable, and to some the inspiration of his work is still a living force.

2. The Rise of Socialism

Socialism is a word of many meanings. No two economic writers use it in exactly the same way. To many people it suggests merely a systematic attempt to improve the condition of the working class and to secure greater equality in the distribution of wealth. As such it has existed for centuries, and is not particularly characteristic of the nineteenth century.

There is a form of Socialism, however, which has its origin in the peculiar economic conditions prevalent in Europe after the Industrial Revolution. During the nineteenth century certain factors of modern life, vitally affecting a large part of the community, came into existence for the first time. A new and powerful capitalist class arose, possessing the means of production, together with a large labouring class or proletariat, which possessed nothing but its capacity to work. The Socialists of the nineteenth century may be defined, roughly, as those economists who considered this system of production to be radically wrong and who hoped to replace it by some kind of collective ownership of land and capital. They are to be distinguished from social reformers, who hoped, by the organization of labour and by legislation, to secure fairer conditions and a more equal distribution for the working classes, but who had no wish to do away with the private ownership of land and capital.

The future of this newly created propertyless proletariat forced itself with peculiar urgency upon economists on account of the appalling conditions prevalent among the working classes of England and France in the period 1800-1850. The old small industries were gone; they had been replaced by great factories. The craftsmen, the spinners, weavers, and potters of old times were now merely required to drive the machinery which had supplanted them. They owned neither the machine nor the manufactured article. The new prosperity, resulting from the development of this large scale machinery production, benefited only the rich factory owners, it brought no relief to the community as a whole. The cheapness of manufactured goods did not compensate for the fall in wages. Mr. Sidney Webb has pertinently remarked: “It seemed of small advantage to the Lancashire coal-miner of 1842 that he might get his clothes cheaper by means of perfect freedom of competition, if this meant also that he found himself driven to work excessive hours, under insanitary conditions, in mines where precautions against accidents were omitted because they were expensive to the employer, and for wages which the employer’s superiority in economic strength inevitably reduced to the barest subsistence level. It was a poor consolation to the Bolton cotton-spinner of 1842, that he could buy more cheaply the coal used by his wretched household, when the cotton mill, equipped with the latest mechanical inventions for diminishing human toil, was compelling him and his wife and his little children to labour for fifteen hours a day under revolting insanitary conditions. . . . All the discoveries of physical science, and all the mechanical inventions in the world have not lightened, and by themselves never will lighten, the toil of the wage-earning class.”

During the first twenty years of the century the position of labour in England was most miserable. The laws protected the rich rather than the poor. Prices were rising, owing to the war, but wages did not rise with them. The population, herded together in the great new manufacturing towns, increased rapidly, and unemployment was frequent. This was worse when the war was over, and hordes of discharged soldiers were added to the number of men competing for work. The factory owners, bent only on accumulating profits, beat wages down to starvation level and forced the people to labour for terribly long hours. Women and children were employed in the mines and factories under the most disgraceful conditions. In some cases children were bought like slaves from their parents and from the poor law guardians. Three-quarters of the people were entirely illiterate. Nor were they able, by joining together, to force higher terms from their employers. The law forbade any combination of working men, to protect themselves against the rapacity of the capitalists. There were no trades unions, and strikes were heavily punished.

Similar conditions prevailed in France a few years later. Under the Restoration and the July Monarchy industrial development proceeded apace, and the population gravitated to the coal and iron districts and the manufacturing towns. The Industrial Revolution had the same depressing effect upon the French labouring class as upon the English, and it was impossible for clear-sighted people to ignore so much practical misery and pitiless exploitation.

The expedients suggested by economists bear distinct traces of a kinship with the political ideas latent in the French Revolution. Socialism is, in a way, the economic corollary of democracy. They are both expressions of the same fundamental idea, they suggest that the ideal of civic communities must be the exercise of freedom by the many. Socialists would argue that political freedom in itself is not enough, if economic freedom is not secured as well. It was of no avail to sweep away the tyranny of the old feudal class if the people were to be left groaning under the sway of the new capitalist class. Real liberty, equality, and fraternity could not exist between a grasping employer and a starving workman. Unless the conditions prevalent since the Industrial Revolution were modified by some drastic reform, the state of the people would become infinitely more miserable than it had been under the Old Régime.

These arguments were countered by the supporters of “Laissez-Faire,” a school which exerted much influence during the earlier part of the century. Its principles were founded upon a fundamental distrust of State interference. It was believed that “man is the best judge of his own interests,” that he is harmed, not helped, by grandmotherly legislation, and that the best State is that which interferes least in the lives of private citizens. It was true that a clean sweep of many petty and outworn regulations had proved beneficial to both countries. The Industrial Revolution had to run its course, and it was greatly impeded by obsolete forms of State interference. Greater freedom was needed in the economic sphere, in this age of private enterprise, individual initiative, and ruthless competition. The capitalist class benefited greatly by the exercise of “Laissez-Faire;” it only asked to be left to its own devices.

But it was difficult to prove that the working classes had similarly benefited, and that laws made to protect them and shorten their hours of work would inevitably do them more harm than good. People who maintained that man is the best judge of his own interests failed to consider the number of factories which employed little children, who were quite incapable of judging for themselves. This incongruity led many people who, on principle, supported “Laissez-Faire” and distrusted State interference, to make an exception in favour of the first Factory Acts, which dealt with child labour.

The easy optimism of those who were inclined to dwell solely on the golden side of the Industrial Revolution was further shaken by the publications of another economist, Malthus, who pointed out that “population tends to outrun supply” and that the working class would soon increase beyond all means of subsistence. Malthus proved to be an alarmist, and history has not borne out the more sinister of his prophecies; but his teaching roused England to a realization of the terrible condition of her working population and the need for practical remedies.

The first Reformers were inclined to believe that a fuller measure of popular government would remedy these evils. The belief in purely political nostrums died hard. The Liberal Party in England was for some years much influenced by the writings of Jeremy Bentham, and the principle that the best State is that which is organized for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It was obvious, both in England and in France, that constitutional and political organization fell far short of this standard, and in both countries a popular campaign for constitutional reform took place in the years 1830-32. In this conflict the social Reformer and the moderate Liberal fought side by side, and the Reform Bill of 1832 is, like the July Revolution, the joint achievement of both parties. But during the next decade it became clear that economic improvement would not automatically follow upon political reform. The middle classes, now firmly established in power, did not intend to part with any of their newly won prosperity. Consequently, the more advanced among social Reformers began to contemplate economic revolution as the only possible remedy; for they judged that, even if complete democracy were achieved, the material condition of the workers would remain the same if the factory system were allowed to continue.

Robert Owen was the most famous of the early English Socialists, and in France the leading figures are St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, and Louis Blanc. Robert Owen, 1771-1850, came from the lower middle class. He rose to be a factory owner, and in 1800 he began his famous experiment at New Lanark. He formed a company which was content to receive 5 per cent. return on its capital, and the rest of the profits were expended for the benefit of the people working at the factory. Short hours and healthy conditions were secured, schools were built for the children, and pension societies and co-operative supply stores established. But Robert Owen was not exactly a Socialist in the modern sense of the word. He thought that the capitalist employers, far from ceasing to exist, should lead the way to reform and become the benefactors, not the oppressors, of the people. Factories would become patriarchal communities and the employers would be benevolent despots.

He was therefore a firm supporter of the Reform Bill of 1832 which placed the middle classes in power, and he was proportionately disappointed in the results. He saw that other manufacturers would not follow his lead, and he consequently turned his attention to the remedy of State interference, and to the protection of labour by factory legislation. Two other experimental communities which he patronized were both failures.

St. Simon, 1760-1825, was also a patriarchalist, and hoped to see the new captains of industry in the place of the old feudal aristocracy, as leaders of the people. He spent his entire fortune in attempts to establish experimental communities. His theories had a great influence upon young French Economists, and by 1830 a regular school of St. Simonists had grown up, of whom Bazard was the most acute thinker. He saw clearly the points at issue between capital and labour and realized that St. Simon’s benevolent capitalist was a Utopian figure. He definitely proposed that the community should become the sole owner of the means of production and that the laws of inheritance should be abolished.

The Socialism of Owen and St. Simon was too optimistic and too theoretical. It was based upon a profound belief in the axiom that “man is the creature of his surroundings,” and that the faults of human nature are entirely due to environment and to removable causes. The remedies which they suggested could be carried out only by a society purged of every selfish passion and inspired by pure altruism. They ignored the elemental selfishness of mankind, which nothing can cure, and they expected quick results. That is why they were so eager to try experiments. They believed, as the optimists of 1789 believed, that they had only to show the way and the world would follow. They appealed to the leisured and educated classes, rather than to the workers themselves; they preached no gospel of revolt to the working man, and in fact their whole tone of mind was coloured by philosophy rather than by economics.

The year 1830, however, marks a turning-point in the history of Socialism. We have already seen how important this epoch was in European affairs, marking as it did the end of so many survivals of the eighteenth century and the rise of much that was new. Under the July Monarchy and the Reform Parliament the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat became more apparent. They were no longer bound by a common desire for political reform. The theoretical Socialism of the middle classes lost its appeal and the Socialism of the working class began to take its place. Crude and cynical though the new Socialism was, it was both practical and powerful. Its first exponent in France was Louis Blanc, a practical reformer and no dreamer of attractive dreams. His book, “The Organization of Labour,” written in 1839, was intended to appeal to working men. He sets forth in it his proposals for the establishment of workshops, owned and controlled by the workers, which should gradually supersede factories owned by individuals.

A very unsatisfactory trial was given to his suggestions under the Second Republic in 1848. The workshops were superintended by men who did not approve of the plan and wished to discredit it. The lamentable failure of the whole scheme cast a shadow upon French Socialism for a time. France entered upon a Conservative epoch. Socialism spread in the towns, but in the country it made no headway, for the peasants disliked the idea of a communal ownership of land. They were content with dire poverty as long as they were left in undisturbed possession of their little farms.

English Socialism also suffered a considerable decline after the failure of the Chartist movement in 1848. Many of its supporters found other remedies for the evils of the working classes. The reaction against “Laissez-Faire” gathered strength, and more people were converted to the necessity for factory legislation. A series of laws were passed 1840-50 dealing with labour in mines, and the work of women and children was prohibited in certain employments. In 1844, their hours in all employments were reduced by law. In 1850 a ten-hour day came in. These measures were the first of an enormous code of labour laws dealing with protection against dangerous machinery, cleanliness of factories, insurance of workmen, etc., which became more complicated and far-reaching year by year. State education was also begun, the criminal laws reformed, and wiser poor laws passed.

Labour, on the other hand, became more able to protect itself and to improve its own condition. The laws against trades unions were abolished and the working men were able to combine to force their employers to give them better wages and shorter hours. Thus a dual movement towards reform was begun, by social legislation and by the organization of labour; and to the English mind, which has a horror of abstract ideas, these gradual but certain improvements appeared more attractive than a Socialist Utopia upon paper. Hence the doctrine of social revolution made little progress in England in the middle years of the century.

But, while it languished in France and Italy, it found fertile soil in less progressive countries, especially in those where the Industrial Revolution did not take place until after 1850. During the succeeding epoch the centre of interest in the history of Socialist development may be said to shift from the west to the east of Europe; the home of Socialism is no longer to be found in France and England, but in Germany and Russia. And in these countries the development of Socialist theory is vitally influenced by the political events of the years 1850-70, an epoch which witnesses the triumph of the principles of Nationalism, and the comparative defeat of Liberalism as a political force.

The Failure of Liberalism

THE year 1848 marks a turning-point in the history of Europe. It marks the advent of new men and new policies. The age of Metternich, of Louis Philippe, of Lamartine, Proudhon, and Mazzini had come to an end; the age of Cavour, Bismarck, Louis Napoleon, Darwin, and Karl Marx was about to begin. The old creeds, the catchwords, and the ideals, both of Liberals and of reactionaries, were modified to suit new conditions.

The ensuing period sees a partial triumph for the cause of Nationalism. The wrongs of smaller nations are not, indeed, redressed; but the racial ambitions of Germany and Italy are fulfilled, and they become united nations. Italy, moreover, did not achieve national unity at the expense of Liberalism. Her salvation was wrought by Cavour, a great and Liberal statesman, who sought in monarchy and Parliamentary Government a solution to Italian problems. His legacy to posterity was a united and progressive nation.

The fate of German Liberalism was not so kind. The inadequacy of the Liberal party had been sufficiently exhibited at Frankfort, and it soon lost the support of the Nationalists. Bismarck, the founder of German Unity, was no Cavour. He dealt the final blow to the lingering European superstition that Liberalism is necessarily or naturally the ally of Nationalism. Himself an ardent German Nationalist, his hatred of popular government was so profound that he would countenance no form of German Unity which involved a compromise with Liberalism. For this reason he besought his master, in the crisis of 1848, to act with Austria, the hated rival of Prussia, rather than listen to the proposals of the Frankfort Parliament. In the Empire of 1871 Liberalism had no place. It was not an affair of plebiscites and agreement among the peoples of Germany, as the Union of Italy had been. It was rather the submission of princes to a dominating power. German Unity was, to Bismarck, the supremacy of Prussia. His solution was founded upon the belief that Prussia’s good was necessarily Germany’s good. For nearly fifty years the German people submitted to Prussian domination, identifying Nationalism with Imperialism, and sacrificing their Liberalism to their hopes of a world power.

The years 1850-70 are disappointing. They do not fulfil the bright hopes raised by the preceding period. The successful achievement of German and Italian Unity lend it, indeed, a somewhat meretricious glow of romance, but in reality lasting wounds are inflicted upon the solidarity and civilization of European nations, the hope of progress, and the common work for good.

Liberalism, in many countries, is still persecuted. This is disastrous, since the idea of Liberal democracy has become one of the motive forces of the age. The history of the period demonstrates the ultimate futility of any attempts to suppress it. In countries where such a policy is pursued the day of reckoning, inevitable in any case, is the more bitter, since persecuted Liberalism is liable to lose its reasoned and compromising character and to become revolutionary and fanatical. In States where all healthy forms of expression are denied to public opinion, where the Press is not free, where education is supervised, and where public meeting and speech are shackled, popular criticism of the Government is likely to take unhealthy forms. Opposition becomes sedition, and the cause of progress falls into the hands of cranks, fanatics, and martyrs. In no country is this more evident than in France. The French people again fall under the fatal spell of Bonapartism, Imperialism, and Catholicism. They again renounce their freedom and their place among the Liberal nations. They are, for a second time, overtaken by dire calamity.

Although the principles of Nationalism find, during this period, many and powerful advocates, the rights of small and weak nations are disregarded in an unprecedented fashion. In the cases of Poland, Denmark, and Alsace-Lorraine national rights are consistently disregarded. England, withdrawn in insularity, fails to protest with any adequacy, although these injuries to public justice tend, inevitably, to involve her in the greatest of all wars. The Slav nations in the Austrian Empire are anew crushed under a German and Magyar tyranny, in the compromise of 1867. The natural collapse of the Ottoman Empire is checked, and Turkey finds new champions in England and France. The unfortunate Balkan races see their hopes of freedom fade, when a congress of Christian Powers guarantees, in 1856, the integrity of the Turkish Empire and admits Turkey as a member of the Concert of Europe.

The trend of international politics during this period is such as to present a state of war as natural between nations, and peace as an unnatural interlude, artificially created by diplomatists. Mazzini’s idea of international co-operation, of associated free development, is submerged. The things of war flourish and the things of peace are discredited. The hope of reciprocal free trade between European nations receives its death-blow, since it was founded on the hope of lasting peace. Socialism becomes more revolutionary, for, since the State in most countries becomes identified with a war policy, the mass of the people, whose interest must always suggest the maintenance of peace, and who are bound to suffer by war, become dissociated from the State. Their hope lies in overthrowing it. The seeds of bitterness and struggle are sown in political, social, and economic life, and a belief in the use of force as a solution to all problems is encouraged. Not only Germany, but all Europe founds a new creed upon the Bismarckian dogma that “Not by speeches and majority votes are the great questions of the day settled, but by blood and iron.”

France under the Second Republic and the Second Empire

1. The Second Republic

The Republic declared in France in 1848 lasted about five years. The first provisional Government was torn by the dissensions between Republicans, like Lamartine, who desired no great social changes, and Socialists, like Louis Blanc, who regarded the Republic as a means to an end, and who aimed at the reorganization of society in the interests of the working class. They hoped to abolish the private ownership of capital and to carry on production by means of great co-operative workshops and factories owned and managed by the workers themselves. This was far too radical a programme to be acceptable to the majority of people in France, and it was especially disliked by the bourgeois class, who feared the confiscation of their property.

The provisional Government declared the freedom of the Press, and in consequence a large number of cheap Socialist newspapers were published, which were read with avidity by the working classes. A Commission of Labour was set up to enquire into and improve the conditions of work. This Commission immediately reduced the twelve hours’ working day to ten, but, as it had no power to enforce its decisions, this regulation was universally disregarded by the employers. The result was increased discontent among the poor people, whose hopes had been thus fruitlessly raised. National workshops were established which were supposed to be on the model of Louis Blanc’s scheme for productive co-operative societies. But they did very little justice to his ideas and were a distinct failure. They offered no opportunity for skilled labour, but massed together large numbers of men on unskilled and unproductive work. The pay was wretchedly bad, and there was not sufficient work to go round.

The effect of this fiasco was apparent in the elections to the new Constituent Assembly, in May, 1848. There had been a great reaction against Socialism in the country and the Republicans had a large majority. The new Executive included Lamartine and four others, all anti-Socialist in their views. Their refusal to form the Commission of Labour into a Ministry of Labour caused a riot among the workpeople of Paris, which hastened the decision of the Government to close the national workshops. This led to street fighting of the most appalling kind between the supporters of the Government and the men thus thrown out of employment. A military dictatorship, lasting until October, was the only means by which order could be restored. The middle classes were all alienated from the Republic, for they thought that it would never give security to property and stability to business. The peasants feared that the Socialists would seize their land. The new taxes whereby the Government hoped to establish French credit were very unpopular in all quarters. Thus, before the first presidential election, the strength of the Republican Party in France was much impaired.

2. The First President

The new Constitution drawn up by the Assembly gave to France a legislative body of 750 members, elected for three years, by universal suffrage. The President was elected, also by universal suffrage, for four years, and was then not eligible for re-election for another four years. He had great powers. He commanded the Army and the Navy, made all official appointments, had the power to propose legislation, and controlled foreign policy. On 10 December, 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the first Emperor, was elected President by an enormous majority. He was but an insignificant adventurer at the beginning of the year, but his name acted as a charm with the ignorant peasants who, under universal suffrage, formed the greater part of the electorate. “How should I not vote for this gentleman,” said one, “when my nose was frozen at Moscow?”

Since Bonaparte’s political views were at that time unpronounced and supposedly moderate, he experienced no very bitter opposition from any one political party. Of the other candidates, Lamartine and Cavaignac were opposed by the Socialists, and Ledru Rollin by the Republicans. Louis Napoleon was tied to neither party and was, moreover, supported by the Monarchists, who preferred him to any other candidate.

The character of the Legislative Assembly elected in 1849 demonstrated the effect of the June days upon the minds of the people. It was largely anti-Republican, and it proceeded, under the direction of the President, to destroy the Republican Constitution under which it had been elected. The leaders of the Republican Party were removed and arrested, and, in 1850, the franchise laws were altered in such a way that the labouring classes were largely excluded from the vote. The Press was restricted, and many of the cheaper newspapers were suppressed.

Meanwhile, Louis Napoleon filled all civil and military offices with satellites of his own, and in 1851 he felt strong enough to strike a blow at the Legislative Assembly, which would not, he knew, support him in any attempt to increase his independent power. On 2 December, all the leaders of Republican and Monarchist opinion were arrested, and the Legislative Assembly was dissolved. All attempts at opposition were put down by military force. Having destroyed organized protest, Louis Napoleon asked the country to vote on the changes which he proposed in the Constitution. He was to hold office for ten years; the Senate and the Council of State were to be revived. It was, practically, the Napoleonic Constitution of 1801. A huge majority of the people voted for these changes, which really made the President into an autocrat. It was, indeed, only a matter of time before the Second Empire was proclaimed. After again referring to the people, Louis Napoleon took the title of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, on 2 December, 1852.

3. The Second Empire

France under the Second Empire was no longer free. Parliament and the Press were shackled by the most elaborate precautions. The ministers were not responsible to the Legislative Assembly, which had no real control over taxation and could only discuss the bills laid before it by the President. Elections were largely manipulated by the Government in its own interests. Debates were not published except by official report. The public were not encouraged to take an interest in politics.

Yet Napoleon III was not, on principle, an enemy to Liberalism. He considered that his first duty was to build up an orderly and prosperous State; but he intended eventually to crown his Empire with liberal institutions. He did not regard autocracy as a permanent condition, but he looked to the consummation of his work in a great “Liberal Empire,” which was to be achieved when France was sufficiently strong and educated to incur the risks of popular government. She was meanwhile to be treated as though she were under age.

This explains certain apparent inconsistencies in his foreign policy. Though he was an autocrat at home, he regarded himself as the friend and ally of Liberalism and Nationalism in Europe. He supported oppressed peoples rebelling against autocracies. He wished to see France surrounded by free and united nations who owed to her aid their freedom and their unity, and who were indeed her spiritual children. Just as the first Napoleon ringed France round with vassal republics and satellite kingdoms, so his nephew hoped to re-establish the supremacy of France among liberal nations.

Louis Napoleon believed himself to be the true successor of Napoleon I, and the logical exponent of Bonapartism as a political creed. He repeated the experiment of founding an autocracy upon a plebiscite, and he preached the hybrid doctrine of Liberal Imperialism peculiar to his uncle’s declining years. It will be remembered that on his return from Elba Napoleon I made his terms with the Republican Party. He declared that it had always been his intention to grant Liberal institutions to France when a fit occasion arose, and that he had merely retained her in a temporary tutelage. Only the unremitting hostility of England and the wars forced upon him had prevented the fulfilment of his Liberal intentions. This fiction, carefully cherished, became a leading principle in Napoleonic ideas, as conceived by Napoleon III.

It found little favour with French Liberals. They demanded free institutions at once, and objected to autocracy, temporary or otherwise. Their opposition, increasingly formidable as the years went on, threw the Emperor into the arms of the Clerical Party, which, under the direction of Pope Pius IX, was daily becoming more hostile to the principles of modern progress and Liberalism. This party had the support of the Empress, a Spaniard, and a devout Catholic. The alliance of Napoleon with a reactionary Church increased the antagonism of the Liberal Party, and when, in 1868, the reforms of the Liberal Empire were carried through, the day of reconciliation was past.

Nor did the Emperor’s foreign policy meet with a better fate. His attitude towards the national ambitions of Germany and Italy was founded upon a misconception of their real problems. He thought that the forces of national revolt, once liberated, could be chained up again, when he saw fit. In Italy he hoped to see a confederation of Independent States led by Sardinia; in Germany a similar confederation led by Prussia; but in both cases the process of unification went much further than he had expected, and neither the Kingdom of Italy nor the North German Confederation proved very grateful allies to France.

As an autocrat, Napoleon III tried to do his duty. Economic development was stimulated, railroads and canals were constructed, and the resources of France were materially increased. The condition of all classes improved, and this went far to reconcile the people to his sway. But though he announced from the beginning that his policy was peace, he was forced into warlike courses. Since he had deprived France of liberty, he was, like his uncle, obliged to dazzle her with military glory. “He needed a war;” and it was his military enterprises which largely contributed to his ruin.

4. The Crimean War

The Crimean War, the first of the conflicts in which the Second Empire became involved, is important from the point of view of European diplomacy rather than as marking a stage in the development of the Eastern Question. It began indeed with an attempt on the part of the Tsar Nicholas to extend his power in the Balkans and to dominate Turkey. In 1853 he sent an ambassador, Prince Menschikoff, to Constantinople, ostensibly to negotiate in a dispute which existed between Russia and France over the Holy Places in Palestine, which both countries claimed the right to protect. This dispute, however, was soon settled, and the real object of the mission became evident. Prince Menschikoff suddenly demanded that Russia should have a right of protection over all Christians living in Turkish dominions. This would give the Tsar an endless right of interference in Turkish affairs, and would practically make the Sultan his vassal. Turkey, urged by the English and French ambassadors, refused. The Tsar occupied the Turkish Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and war began. England and France felt that they could not behold unmoved the triumph of Russia in the Balkans. On 27 March, 1854, therefore, they formed an alliance and declared war on the Tsar. They drove the Russians out of the Principalities and embarked upon an expedition to the Crimea.

The death of the Tsar Nicholas in March, 1855, followed in September by the fall of Sebastopol, caused Russia to reduce her demands. The new Tsar, Alexander II, was anxious for peace; so also was Louis Napoleon, who had been alarmed at the recent mobilization of Prussia. At the Treaty of Paris in March, 1856, the Black Sea was declared to be neutral and opened to the merchant vessels of all nations. No armed ships might be kept there. The free navigation of the Danube was secured under an international commission. Turkey was admitted to the Concert of Europe, her dominions were guaranteed, and the Powers renounced any claim to interfere with her internal affairs. She, in return, promised to reform her treatment of her Christian subjects. The immediate objects of the allies were attained, and the ambitions of Russia were thwarted. It was obvious, however, that she would take the first opportunity to throw over the treaty. Turkey did not, of course, reform her ways, and the treaty made it difficult for Europe to insist upon her doing so. Her Christian subjects still fought for freedom. Moldavia and Wallachia, encouraged by Russia and France, and despite the protests of Austria and England, effected a union, and in 1862 became the principality of Roumania. Other Balkan races hoped soon to follow their example. But the hopes of these people met with the consistent opposition of England, who had constituted herself the protectress of Turkey, and who refused to believe in the disadvantages of the Turkish rule in the Balkans.

The results of the war in non-Eastern politics were more permanent. It hastened a breach between England and France, for England had wished to continue the war. Russia and Austria, formerly close allies, were alienated. Russia had expected that Austria would join with her, or at least display a benevolent neutrality, and considered that she had lent far too much support to the allies. Austria had been frightened into this policy by the alliance of England and France with Victor Emmanuel, King of Piedmont and Sardinia, who had always been her chief rival in Italy. She feared that it would mean a re-opening of the Italian Question. But, though she would not compromise herself against them, she would not support the allies sufficiently to earn their gratitude, and by the end of the war she had succeeded in irritating both sides and in isolating herself. This proved admirably convenient to her German rival, Prussia, as she discovered to her cost in the ensuing years. Without allies and without friends she was forced to face the increasing difficulties of her situation in Italy.

The Union of Italy

1. Victor Emmanuel and Cavour

The States of Italy, ever since the collapse of the Roman Republic in 1848, had been subjected to a policy of savage reaction. Liberals were persecuted everywhere, especially in the Papal States and in Naples. Their only hope lay in Victor Emmanuel, who had refused to abolish constitutional government in Piedmont and Sardinia, though Austria had tried to force him to do so. He gave countenance to Liberalism and to the demand for Parliamentary institutions and for a United Italy. Patriots throughout the Peninsula regarded him as their champion.

In 1850 he appointed Count Camillo de Cavour as his Prime Minister. This great statesman had been interested for years in political and economic questions. He had a strong belief in the value of constitutional freedom and desired to see a Parliamentary system established in Italy. But, unlike Mazzini and Garibaldi, he was no Republican, and he hoped to preserve the monarchical form of government, as it has been preserved in England. In 1847 he edited a Liberal paper in Piedmont, called the “Risorgimento.” He was elected to the first Piedmontese Parliament in 1850. On becoming Prime Minister he immediately set himself to reorganize Piedmont and to render it as prosperous and modern a State as possible, in view of the great struggle with Austria which the future would inevitably bring. He trained and equipped a large army, stimulated education, built railroads, and encouraged agriculture and commerce. Liberalism in the other Italian States was encouraged by the founding of the “National Society” with the motto “Independence, and down with the Pope and Austria.” Many who had been Republicans now felt that the Union of all the States in a single monarchy, under Victor Emmanuel, was the best hope for Italy.

Cavour knew that Piedmont could not fight Austria without allies. It was for this reason that Victor Emmanuel had joined in the Crimean War. He had no quarrel with Russia, and no interest in the fate of Turkey, but he hoped to win the friendship of France and England. The presence of Sardinia at the Conference of Paris in 1856 was a moral victory for Cavour. He took the opportunity to lay the grievances of Italy before the great Powers, and spoke tentatively of the need for reforms, indicating Austria, the Pope, and the King of Naples as the chief obstacles to Italian progress.

2. Cavour and Napoleon III

The Emperor of the French was not disinclined to become the ally of Victor Emmanuel. He resented the accusation, brought against him by many Italians, of treachery towards Italy in 1849. He believed in the principles of nationality, and hoped to add to the lustre of his crown by assisting in the formation of a free Italian confederation, bound by gratitude to France. This confederation should, he thought, consist of the Kingdoms of Naples, Central Italy, and Northern Italy. The Pope should be president, a provision calculated to reconcile the Holy Father to the annexation of some of the Papal States to the Kingdom of Central Italy, which the Emperor destined for his cousin Prince Napoleon. Northern Italy, including Piedmont, Venetia, and Lombardy, was to go to Victor Emmanuel, who was to cede Savoy and Nice to France, as the price of this aggrandizement. The Emperor did not see that this scheme would never satisfy the demands of the Italian Nationalists, who would, in all probability, continue the war until they had achieved complete political unity.

He realized, however, that war with Austria was inevitable, and he faced the prospect with equanimity, as that country had been isolated since the Crimean War. In deepest secrecy, therefore, he met Cavour at Plombières on July 21, 1858, and came to an understanding with him. It was agreed that France and Sardinia should bring about a war with Austria. Cavour gave the Emperor to understand that he concurred with his plans for the reorganization of Italy. Secretly he did not agree at all, for he hoped to unite the whole of Italy under Victor Emmanuel. But this was not revealed until later. Cavour was resolved to wait upon events, and to keep the alliance of France through the war, before he risked a disagreement with Napoleon III.

3. The War of 1859

By inimitable diplomacy, Cavour avoided the dangers of a European mediation and forced Austria into war. She seemed to be the aggressor, and Napoleon III was able to declare that his ally had been unjustly attacked. In June, 1859, the battles of Magenta and Solferino were fought and won by the French and Italian armies, and the Austrians were driven from Lombardy. The prospects of Italian Nationalism grew bright. But suddenly, in the height of success, and without even consulting his ally, Napoleon made peace with Austria. He had realized the true objects of Cavour’s policy; he had become aware that Italy would never be contented with a confederation. The States of Central Italy, Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Papal possessions in the Romagna had revolted, had turned against their rulers, and were clamouring for annexation to Piedmont. Other States might follow their example. Napoleon III did not want a united Italy. A strong party in France objected to the idea, for they thought that Italy would be a dangerous rival to France in the future. The Catholic party, his chief support and stay, disliked a war which would rob the Pope of his possessions. The French victories, moreover, had cost much in troops and munitions, and the Austrians still occupied a strong position. Prussia, too, was massing troops on the Rhine, as she had done in 1855, a cause of alarm to Napoleon III.

Austria, on the other hand, was glad enough to make any peace which might check the process of Italian unification. The Preliminaries of Villafranca, 11 July, 1859, created an Italian Confederation under the presidency of the Pope, ceded Lombardy to Victor Emmanuel, and restored the States of Central Italy to their princes. Venetia, still an Austrian province, was included in the confederation, and Austria hoped thereby to dominate Italy. Napoleon III expected to force this settlement on his unwilling ally and to check the movement towards a closer unity.

This was a cruel blow to Victor Emmanuel, but, despite the entreaties and the eventual resignation of Cavour, he accepted it. In this he showed his wisdom, for he could not fight Austria alone and to refuse would be to imperil all that he had won. He would, in any case, ensure the possession of Lombardy, and it was very possible that the provisions of the treaty as regards Central Italy might prove impracticable. So he agreed to the terms of Villafranca at the Treaty of Zurich, 10 November, 1859.

4. Italy in Revolt

It soon became evident that the treaty could not be carried out in Central Italy. Only force could restore the deposed princes, and the mutual jealousy of France and Austria was so great that neither would allow the other to send troops for the purpose. England, moreover, protested against such a proceeding. Lord Palmerston had a lively sympathy with the aims of Italian Nationalists and declared that the people of Italy had a right to choose their own rulers. Napoleon III began to realize that the treaty was impossible. Cavour, moreover, who had returned to office in 1860, alarmed him by prophesying that Central Italy would certainly become an independent Republic, if not annexed by Piedmont. He determined to give way. But, resolved to retrieve his credit by gaining some sort of advantage for France, he demanded from Piedmont the cession of Savoy and Nice. Victor Emmanuel yielded the provinces, realizing that France would thereby be compromised and unable in future to object to any further annexations which he might make. He felt the cession of the provinces to be worth while, since it reduced France from the position of an arbiter to that of an “accomplice.”

The annexation took place in 1860. England and Austria, despite their protests, did not dislike the arrangement, for they knew that it would prove to be a bone of contention between France and Italy. Modena, Parma, Tuscany, and the Romagna were soon afterwards annexed to Piedmont, when the people had, by a plebiscite, expressed their wishes. Thus the right of a people to choose their Government was maintained, in defiance of the principles of 1815. But the union of Italy was not yet accomplished. Venetia, Naples, Sicily, and the greater part of the Papal States were still under foreign rule. In 1860, however, a revolt against the Neapolitan Government broke out in Sicily, and the famous soldier, Garibaldi, who had fought for the Roman Republic in 1848, went to the aid of the insurgent Sicilians. He had for years lived the life of a hunted exile, always struggling for Italian freedom, and in 1859 he had fought heroically against Austria. He sailed for Sicily with a thousand volunteers. He was not openly recognized by Cavour, who could not risk the censure of Europe by an open attack on the King of Naples, with whom Victor Emmanuel was nominally at peace. Secret encouragement was, however, given to the expedition, for Cavour knew that he could reap some profit from it, if it proved successful.

Garibaldi and his thousand triumphed in the face of the most appalling odds. The King of Naples had 24,000 troops in Sicily, but they were badly commanded and offered little resistance. Garibaldi quickly mastered the Island, with the aid of the native insurgents. He then crossed to the mainland, and conquered the kingdom of Naples in the course of a few weeks. He was welcomed as a liberator upon all sides, for the rule of the Neapolitan Government had been intolerable. King Francis II fled, and Garibaldi set up a provisional Government in Naples and Sicily. His intention was to proceed to Rome and to liberate the Papal States.

Cavour felt that it was now time for Victor Emmanuel to intervene. He feared that Garibaldi, a convinced Republican, might establish a Republic in Naples and Sicily, and possibly in Rome, a proceeding which would tend to divide Italy rather than to unite her. He knew also that an attack on Rome might lead to the intervention of France on the side of the Pope. Garibaldi must be allowed to go no further. The Piedmontese army therefore entered the Papal States, defeated the Papal Legion at Castelfidardo, and crushed the remaining Neapolitan forces at Capua. Napoleon III was induced to allow this by a guarantee that Rome should be left unmolested.

Plebiscites were taken in Naples and Sicily, resulting in an overwhelming demand for annexation to Piedmont. Garibaldi, though he had wanted a Republic, was too loyal to resist the popular wish, and handed over the government to Victor Emmanuel. The Papal States of Umbria and the Marshes were also annexed, but, in accordance with Cavour’s promise to the Emperor, the patrimony of St. Peter and the small strip of territory immediately round Rome were left for the Pope.

The first Italian Parliament met at Turin in 1861, when Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy “by the Grace of God and the Will of the People.” The same year saw the death of the master-statesman who had led his country to unity and greatness. Cavour left behind him a nation united save for the province of Venetia, which was still held by Austria, and for Rome, which was garrisoned by the French. But the hour of Austria’s weakness was at hand, and the crisis of her struggle with Prussia was fast approaching. Italy took advantage of her rival’s misfortunes, and Venetia was added to the kingdom of Italy in 1866. Rome could not be won until the Emperor of the French should abandon his pro-Catholic policy. Upon the downfall of the Second Empire in 1870 “the Eternal City” became the capital of Italy.

Germany and Austria

1. Bismarck

The general reaction against Liberalism, after the explosion of 1848, was pronounced in all German States, and especially so in Prussia. That country had a Constitution, but its Parliament was largely manipulated by the King in his own interests, and had no control over the Executive. Liberals were universally persecuted and kept from professional advancement. The Press was strictly censored, police and spies were active, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, even the use of torture, were not infrequent. Government was carried on by the Junker class of landed nobility, who had also the monopoly of the higher posts in the army.

A great economic and industrial transformation was meanwhile apparent in Germany. Railways, factories, and mines were under construction, and the country was rapidly becoming industrial. This led, as usual, to the rise of a capitalist middle class who had little sympathy with the narrow and conservative views of the Junkers. This class, together with the literary, scientific, and intellectual classes, looked to a closer unity of the German States as the high road to the best kind of economic and intellectual achievement. The recent events in Italy greatly stimulated the German impulse towards unity, and indicated for Prussia the same rôle as Sardinia had played in the years 1859-60.

The weak and timid Frederick William IV of Prussia was succeeded in 1861 by his brother William, a man of strong character and decided policy. He was determined to dominate Germany, and meant to do it by his army. He immediately embarked on extensive reforms of the Prussian military system, but was baffled by the opposition of his Parliament, which, with unwonted spirit, refused to grant him the necessary supplies. A deadlock ensued in which he very nearly abdicated. In 1862, however, he appointed to the presidency of the ministry Count Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen, whose support proved invaluable.

Bismarck had always been the enemy of Liberalism, especially of German Liberalism. He believed that Prussia had achieved greatness through her Kings, and not through her people, and he identified Prussia with Germany. He thought that any form of popular government would eventually ruin Germany, and that Prussia would be committing suicide if she seized the hegemony of Germany at the price of such concessions. He urged his sovereign to reject the proposals of the Frankfort Liberals in 1848, for he thought that if Germany was to be united under Prussia it must be done by conquest rather than by popular agreement. He was convinced that Prussia must eventually fight Austria and drive her out of the confederation, but he considered that common cause must first be made against Liberalism.

Encouraged by Bismarck, the King pursued his quarrel with Parliament with unflagging vigour. For four years did Parliament refuse to grant the necessary money; but the King ignored this and collected the taxes without Parliamentary sanction. In this course he was supported by the Upper House, which was composed of Junkers. Parliament was not formally abolished, but it was ignored and its protests were in vain. The army reforms were carried through and the whole military system was thoroughly reorganized by the able general, Helmuth von Moltke, who had studied deeply the relation of war to the modern means of communication and transport. Every effort was made to render the Prussian army thoroughly and scientifically efficient. Bismarck meanwhile defied German Liberalism, and in foreign politics laid the foundations of that career of subtle and forcible diplomacy which won him his laurels.

The Polish insurrection of 1863 gave him an opportunity of gaining the friendship of Russia. The Poles, fired by the example of Italy, and driven to extremity by the harshness of the Russian rule, struck a last blow for national liberty. Their cause was hopeless unless they could win foreign support. None came. Bismarck immediately made an alliance with Russia to crush the rising, thereby breaking up an understanding between Russia and France which had for some time disturbed European statesmen. The position of Napoleon III was difficult, since the cause of Poland had excited great sympathy among French people of all classes. Forced by public opinion to make a protest in favour of the Poles, which entirely alienated the Tsar, his late ally, he was afraid to intervene actively when he saw that Prussia was supporting Russia. While England, France, and Austria disputed as to the extent of their possible intervention, Russia put down the rising with extreme brutality, and the hopes of the unfortunate Poles were finally extinguished. Bismarck felt assured of the reciprocal support of Russia in the Schleswig-Holstein question, which, ever since 1848, had troubled the peace of Europe.

2. The Schleswig-Holstein Question

The Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, lying between Hanover and Denmark, had for centuries belonged to the King of Denmark. The population of Holstein was wholly German, that of Schleswig was partly Danish. They did not form a part of Denmark, however, any more than Hanover could be called a part of England in the days when the Kings of England were Electors of Hanover. Holstein was a member of the German Confederation, and the King of Denmark, as hereditary Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, was represented at the Diet of Frankfort. The Germans in Schleswig wanted Schleswig also to join the confederation, and this was strongly supported by the German Nationalist party. On the other hand, the Danish population hoped to see Home Rule abolished in the Duchies; they wished to be united to Denmark. Prussia had, in 1848, adopted a menacing attitude on behalf of the rights of the German Confederation, but the great Powers had intervened and the question had apparently been settled by the Treaty of London in 1852. An agreement was reached concerning certain legal complications which had arisen in the order of the Danish succession. The integrity of the Danish monarchy and the succession of the Danish Crown were guaranteed by all the powers. The rights of the confederation were maintained in Holstein, and the King of Denmark promised to preserve Home Rule in the Duchies and relinquished the attempt to unite them with the rest of his dominions.

In spite of the treaty, however, he took advantage of the Polish insurrection to ignore his promise. On 13 November, 1863, he gave a new Constitution to Denmark, incorporating Schleswig with the monarchy. Upon his death, which occurred two days later, his successor, Christian IX, had to choose between two evils. If he ratified the new Constitution he would break the treaty made by Denmark in 1852; if he did not, he would outrage popular sentiment in Denmark. He preferred to conciliate his people and adhered to the policy of his predecessor. Nationalist feeling was rampant in Germany at this outrage to the rights of the confederation, and the troops of Hanover and Saxony were ordered to occupy Holstein.

Bismarck did not openly support the action of the confederation, since he intended to act independently. He did not wish to appear as an aggressor, or to seem to break the treaties of 1852, for he did not want the other Powers to intervene. He was sure of the co-operation of Austria, who would be too jealous to allow Prussia to act alone. The two Powers therefore occupied Schleswig, declaring their intention of upholding the rights of the King of Denmark and of maintaining the treaty of 1852. Bismarck then presented an ultimatum which he knew the Danes could not accept, and forced them to declare war. As soon as a state of war existed he declared that the treaty of 1852 was at an end. After a short campaign the King of Denmark was forced, by the Treaty of Vienna (Oct., 1864), to yield the Duchies to Austria and Prussia. England and France, as signatories to the treaty of 1852 guaranteeing the integrity of Denmark, might have protested against this breach of treaty obligation; but they were unable to co-operate in any attempt at mediation, for, as in the case of the Polish insurrection, their mutual distrust was so great that neither Power would compromise herself for fear of treachery on the part of the other.

By the Convention of Gastein, August, 1865, it was settled that the Government of Holstein was to be carried on by Austria and that of Schleswig by Prussia, while the succession question, re-opened by the collapse of the settlement of 1852, was being debated. The little Duchy of Lauenberg was annexed by Prussia. This treaty was a triumph for Bismarck, as it ignored the claims of the German Confederation to dispose of the Duchies. It did not preclude a further settlement and left the way open for Prussia to annex the Duchies when a fit opportunity arose. It would supply endless causes of dispute, whenever Prussia might wish to pick a quarrel with Austria.

Bismarck next sought the alliance of Italy. In his approaching struggle with Austria he intended that Italy should attack her in the rear and seize Venetia. He secured the neutrality of France by hinting that she might annex something on the Rhine frontier, in the event of war. No formal engagement was made and no definite promise was given, but, after interviewing Bismarck at Biarritz (Oct., 1865), the Emperor of the French encouraged Italy to make the alliance with Prussia. In April, 1866, a secret treaty was signed between Prussia and Italy, agreeing on the latter’s participation in the war should it occur within three months. Napoleon III would attach himself definitely to neither side. He thought that Austria would probably win, but he expected the war to be long and exhausting. On both points he was mistaken.

3. The War of 1866

Bismarck was now almost ready for war. In order to conciliate Liberal opinion in Germany during the coming struggle, he proposed various reforms in the constitution of the confederation, including the establishment of a popular chamber elected by universal suffrage. This is typical of the way in which he could, on occasion, exploit the Liberal Party. His power of “using the Revolution” distinguishes him from all the earlier reactionaries. Despite the protests of Austria, his proposals won the Liberal Party, temporarily, to the side of Prussia.

Secure of Liberal support, he picked a quarrel with Austria over her administration of Holstein, and accused her of having broken the Convention of Gastein. Austria asked the Diet of the Confederation to send troops to protect Holstein, which was threatened by a Prussian invasion. Bismarck declared that such an act on the part of the Diet would be considered by Prussia as a declaration of war. When the Diet granted the request of Austria, he announced that the federal pact was broken and the German Confederation dissolved, since it was illegal for its members to declare war on one another.

The war which began on 16 June, 1866, lasted only seven weeks. Austria was supported by Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt, in the south, and Hanover, Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau, in the north. This was, to all appearances, a formidable coalition, but its internal weaknesses were great. Prussia first invaded and conquered North Germany. The States of South Germany might have held her up, but they failed to co-operate; each petty prince was afraid of falling a victim to Austria’s selfishness. Having isolated South Germany, Bismarck risked the chance of a French attack upon the Rhine provinces, and concentrated all his forces upon Austria. A brilliant campaign was crowned by the victory of Königratz or Sadowa, 3 July, which counterbalanced the Italian defeat at Custozza on 24 June.

Bismarck knew that France might intervene; Napoleon III was vacillating distractedly between two policies. At one moment he favoured an alliance with Prussia, at another he would decide that Austria was more likely to permit him to annex the Rhine provinces. It was to Prussia’s interest to make peace before he had made up his mind. For this reason the terms offered to Austria by Bismarck were such as she was glad to accept. At the Preliminaries of Nikolsburg, 26 July, 1866, Venetia was ceded to Italy and the German Confederation was dissolved. The States north of the river Main were to be united in a confederation under the leadership of Prussia. The Southern States were to be independent. Austria agreed to the annexation, by Prussia, of Hanover, Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Schleswig-Holstein, and the city of Frankfort. These annexations were made by right of conquest, without any attempt at plebiscites. They constituted the first step in the “blood and iron” policy which was to unite Germany.

The North German Confederation included practically all the German States except Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and part of Hesse-Darmstadt. It was ruled by a President (the King of Prussia), a Bundesrath, or Federal Council, and a Reichstag, or Parliament, elected by universal suffrage. This concession to democracy was, however, more apparent than real, for the Reichstag was almost entirely subordinated to the Federal Council. This was composed of the forty-three delegates of the princes of the confederation, of whom the majority were in some way dependent on Prussia. It was divided into seven departments, under the Presidency of Bismarck. Its debates were secret, and its members had the power of sitting and speaking in the Reichstag. No laws could be made without its consent. Prussia alone exercised the powers of war, peace, and diplomacy, and she immediately began to organize a large army for the confederation. When the Preliminaries of Nikolsburg were signed, Napoleon III suddenly demanded of Prussia the Bavarian and Hessian Rhine provinces, as compensation for the neutrality of France during the recent war. Bismarck professed himself to be too good a German to allow France to annex the Rhine provinces, and suggested Belgium instead. But he made use of Napoleon’s efforts to terrify Bavaria and Hesse. Armed with written proof of the Emperor’s designs, he succeeded in frightening the States of South Germany. He convinced them that France was their secret enemy, and, by offering them easy terms of peace, he induced them to make secret treaties of offensive and defensive alliance, which practically rendered them the satellites of Prussia. Consequently, the clause in the Treaty of Prague, stipulating that the States of South Germany should be independent, was broken before it was made.

Bismarck continued to dazzle Napoleon III with offers of Belgium, well aware that such an annexation would always arouse intense opposition in England. When the final peace was signed with Austria at Prague, 23 August, he broke off negotiations with France and said that he could not assist Napoleon in any schemes of annexation. Cheated and baffled, the Emperor of the French began to think that war with Prussia was the only means by which his position could be improved and his European prestige restored.

The Franco-Prussian War and the Union of Germany

1. The Liberal Empire

The policy of Napoleon III had become increasingly unpopular in France. The Italian War pleased no one but the ultra-Democrats. The Catholics disapproved of the attack on the Pope, the Monarchists were opposed to annexations by plebiscite, and the patriots disapproved of the rise of a new State on the French frontier, as likely to be prejudicial to French interests. The Democrats, on the other hand, were not completely satisfied, since Napoleon continued to garrison Rome and to protect the Pope; but he could not abandon this policy without alienating the Church Party. His position was a false one, and he could not extricate himself.

His commercial policy was condemned by a large financial party in France, especially in the case of a treaty with England which made some advance towards free trade. His position was still further endangered by the Mexican fiasco, the most disastrous of his many undertakings. He had, in 1861, taken advantage of the American Civil War and, in disregard of the Monroe Doctrine, had embarked upon the conquest of Mexico, which was at that time a Republic. He hoped to establish French influence in Central America and to conciliate the Catholic Party, which was much scandalized at some recent anti-clerical legislation of the Mexican Republic. He intended to bestow the country, when he had conquered it, upon some satellite of his own, and in 1864 he offered the Mexican crown to Maximilian, brother of the Emperor of Austria. But he found the task more difficult than he had expected. The whole country rose against the French, and the United States, at the close of the civil war, indignantly resented this disregard of the Monroe principles and insisted on the withdrawal of the French troops. The whole attempt was a failure. It wasted Napoleon’s resources, both in men and money, damaged his European reputation, and prevented his intervention in the wars of 1864-66.

Under these successive blows he turned to the Liberal Party for support. France was at length endowed with liberal institutions. In 1860 the powers of the Legislature were enlarged, the full publication of debates was permitted, and it was decreed that the ministers representing the Executive should defend and explain its policy before the Assembly. In 1867 the Legislature acquired the right to question ministers at any time as to their acts. The Press was largely freed in the following year. In 1870 the Senate was deprived of much of its power, the Legislature was given full Parliamentary privileges, and a Liberal Ministry was formed. But these concessions came too late. They did not reconcile the Liberal Party, they merely afforded it greater opportunities for opposition. Under the direction of Gambetta, a Republican Party grew up which made use of its Parliamentary privileges to attack Napoleon’s position and policy. These movements were stimulated by the liberated Press. Nor was it a safe time for France to be divided against herself, for war with Prussia was fast approaching. Yet the Republican Party bitterly opposed the Emperor in his attempts to prepare and strengthen the French Army.

2. The Quarrel between France and Prussia

Bismarck and Napoleon III both wanted war. The Emperor thought that a successful war against Prussia would retrieve his credit in France. He resented bitterly the way in which Bismarck had tricked him in 1866, and he realized that Prussia would never favour his schemes of annexation. Bismarck, on the other hand, knew that he could not complete the unity of Germany while France stood in the way. Napoleon III was anxious to check the progress of German nationality, as he had tried to stifle Italian aspirations at the peace of Villafranca; he would never permit the inclusion of the South German States in the German Confederation. Bismarck had to rouse Teutonic feeling, which was mostly race hatred of France, before he could complete the union of Germany. In the glory of a victorious war with France he thought that national unity would finally be consummated. But, in order to rouse the German animosity to France, he must make Napoleon III seem to be the aggressor. He must also provoke the war soon, in order to justify the heavy armaments prepared by Prussia, which were already causing discontent in North Germany. Also he must act before South Germany had time to rebel against the Prussian domination.

Under the circumstances Napoleon should have sought alliances at any cost. He should have secured the friendship of Austria and Italy. But France and Austria were mutually distrustful, each fearing to be compromised for the other. The price of the Italian Alliance was, of course, the evacuation of Rome. On this point the Emperor would not give way. He came to the conclusion that he did not need allies; he was convinced that his army was prepared, “down to the last gaiter button,” and he had no idea that South Germany would probably support Prussia.

Bismarck’s opportunity arose when a revolution took place in Spain, resulting in the flight and exile of Queen Isabella and the vacancy of the throne. The Spanish provisional Government offered the crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a kinsman of the King of Prussia. France demanded that the candidature should be withdrawn, as prejudicial to her interests. King William, who did not quite follow the war views of Bismarck, yielded to the pacific persuasions of Austria, England, and Russia, and agreed to advise his kinsman to withdraw his candidature. It seemed as if the matter might end peacefully, which would have been a severe blow to Bismarck’s policy. But the French Ministry, in its utter folly, played into his hands and, supported by the Paris War Party, sent an emissary to demand a promise that Prussia would refrain from any support of the candidature in future. King William courteously refused. Bismarck, seizing his opportunity, published an account of the interview in which all expressions of courtesy were omitted. It seemed as if the King had rudely dismissed the French envoy. France, upon this publication, was roused to fury, for she believed herself insulted. Thiers, who besought the Assembly to make sure of the truth of the account before going to war, was shouted down as a pro-German. The nation as a whole was rushed into hostilities by the court and the clamorous War Party in Paris. France declared war on Prussia.

3. The Franco-Prussian War

France found herself isolated. The whole of South Germany, thinking that France was the aggressor, supported Prussia. Austria and Italy had agreed to remain neutral, Russia was friendly to Prussia, and intended to take the opportunity of a European conflagration to throw over the Black Sea treaties. England, having been furnished with written proof of Napoleon’s recent designs upon Belgium, had little sympathy with his misfortunes. Indescribable confusion reigned in France, where a disorganized and utterly unprepared army offered little resistance to the Prussian troops. The French had expected to invade Germany; but it was the Prussians who invaded France. Upon 1 September the battle of Sedan was fought, the French army surrendered, and the Emperor was taken prisoner. The Empress fled to England, a Republic was declared, and a provisional Government was appointed.

The Government of National Defence, as it was called, had to face almost impossible conditions. It was composed of inexperienced men who had grown old in opposition. It had no diplomatists who could cope with Bismarck. It did not immediately take a plebiscite and secure the support of the people, a mistake which was useful to Prussia, for Bismarck refused its offers of peace, declaring that it was an illegal Government. Since its headquarters were in Paris, it was cut off from the rest of the country, as soon as the siege of that city began. Ignorant of the course of events in the provinces, it insisted upon carrying on the Government for the whole of France.

The Germans advanced on Paris and began to besiege it. The city made an heroic defence, enduring four months of terrible famine. Gambetta, who escaped in a balloon, formed a delegacy of the Government of National Defence at Tours, which organized the armies of the provinces. This delegacy, always handicapped by its want of communication with headquarters, organized and equipped armies which fought desperately, but which failed to relieve Paris. The German tide swept on, and Strassburg surrendered (28 Sept.) with 19,000 men. In October Metz fell, and 172,000 men with huge stores of armaments and munitions were taken. Thiers meanwhile had made a tour of Europe, endeavouring to win allies for France. But, though the aged patriot roused in all countries the deepest sympathy, he was too openly despondent about the future of his country to induce foreign Governments to befriend her. Paris fell at last, and, on 28 January, 1871, the Government of National Defence consented to an armistice. Unfortunately Jules Favre, who acted for the Government, agreed to the suspension of warfare all over France. He did not know of the progress of the provincial armies and ordered them to retire to places indicated by Prussia. Bismarck, who knew all the military positions, saw to it that the French forces were isolated and rendered helpless. France was thus compelled to make peace with no military strength at all, and she could not refuse the terms offered to her by Germany, however bitter they might be.

At a general election in February, 1871, a huge majority for peace was returned, and, as the Republican Party desired the continuation of the war, the first Assembly elected under the Third Republic was anti-Republican and Monarchist. Meeting at Bordeaux, on 12 February, it appointed Thiers, as Chief of the Executive, to treat at once with Prussia for a definitive peace. He had a terrible task. A Socialist revolution broke out in Paris which enabled Bismarck to raise his demands, pretending to disbelieve in the stability of the new Government. At length, on 10 May, 1871, the Treaty of Frankfort was signed, by which France yielded her provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany, and undertook to support a German Army of Occupation which should be withdrawn gradually while the indemnity of £200,000,000 was paid off in instalments.

4. Europe and the War

Italy and Germany had, meanwhile, completed their unification. Italy had taken the opportunity to seize Rome, which became her capital, 20 September, 1870. On 18 January, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed first German Emperor at Versailles. The German Empire included the Southern as well as the Northern States, and its constitution was similar to that of the North German Confederation. Bismarck was right in thinking that the enthusiasm of a victorious war with France would charm the German people into accepting the Prussian ideal of national union. In their hatred and fear of the “hereditary foe” the States of Germany momentarily forgot their mutual jealousies, their separatist traditions, and their dislike of Prussia. Bismarckian principles were crowned with the most radiant success, and the creed of blood and iron no longer needed an apologia in European politics. Russia had lost no time in denouncing the Black Sea treaties, and, despite the protests of England and Austria, she was able to carry her point. She was secure of the secret support of Prussia, and at a conference held in London in 1871 the treaties were revised in her favour. Although the principle of the inviolability of treaties was nominally maintained, this incident served as a most baneful precedent, impairing as it did the sacredness of treaty obligations; the action of Russia is but characteristic of the general principles governing European politics in this epoch of force and fraud.

The Age of Science

1. Scientific Progress

If the student of History finds the political events of the period 1850-70 a disappointing record, he will, in another field, discover ample evidence of advance in human civilization. This epoch, so barren in democratic progress, witnesses startling victories in another direction. Inestimable advances are made in man’s knowledge of, and control over, nature and the world around him. The scientific development of the age becomes a dominant factor in the social history of Europe, leaving its mark alike upon political institutions, literature, economics, and religion.

Mention has already been made of the series of inventions with which the century opened; inventions which had a transforming effect upon transport, industry, and communication. These were, throughout the period, followed up and amplified by the best thinkers of Europe. The use of steam was supplemented by that of electricity; steamboats and railways were followed by telegraphs and cables, and these, at the end of the century, were reinforced by automobiles, aeroplanes, telephones, and wireless telegraphy. Countless varieties of the earth’s resources were pressed yearly into the service of man, from the oil wells of Texas to the rubber plantations of Sumatra. New and undreamed of comforts and luxuries were introduced into the homes of civilized people. This great advance was built up on the patient toil and labour of a vast army of nineteenth-century workers, mechanicians, engineers, scientists, and explorers, men famous and men obscure, all co-operating in the same tremendous task.

Of the work of these men, of the various stages of their progress, of their triumphs and failures, this is no place to speak in detail.^[6] But a little must be said of the effects, taken as a whole, of their achievement upon society. Politically their work is of extreme importance. The advance in transport and communication served to increase the bonds of union between European nations, despite the racial and national animosities which still divided them. Europe was soon covered with a network of railways and telegraph posts, which all served as so many links between one nation and another. This advance in the use and knowledge of the natural resources of the world was made by all civilized nations in common, and the benefits accruing were shared by all alike. The movement was truly international and intercontinental. From every country pioneers were recruited, who worked in co-operation not for any individual race or people, but for the benefit of mankind. This growing tendency of the scientist to think internationally cannot be over-emphasized, since, as the century proceeds, the scientist becomes the leader of the people. As goods, manufactured by new processes, became more plentiful and varied, the countries of Europe became more dependent upon one another; just as, in the history of any individual country, towns and villages, formerly independent and self-sufficing, became more interdependent with the growth of civilization. Countries began to specialize in the goods they produced; labour became more fluid and international, following in the wake of employment. Many industries depended for their existence upon raw material imported from other parts of Europe. The great industrial towns of Northern Italy, for instance, depended entirely upon imported coal. The complicated relations between the German foundries and the supplies of iron in Alsace-Lorraine became a leading factor in the international dispute concerning these provinces.

The whole of this international production depended upon the maintenance of peace and the preservation of the status quo. A war of any magnitude would shatter it. Such a calamity would not only involve disaster to the people living directly within the area of hostilities, it might mean that whole nations could be cut off from some, at least, of the necessities of life. We have seen how, in the Napoleonic wars, the internationalization of European economics had already begun; the people of Europe depended upon English goods. As each country passed through the phases of the Industrial Revolution it became, automatically, dependent upon the rest, and this unity of economic interest became especially binding in the forty years of peace which succeeded the Franco-Prussian War. While the seeds of war were sown by short-sighted statesmen, the peoples of Europe were swiftly becoming one economic civilization.

The consequent rise in general standards of comfort and decency was, of course, only partial. The position of a large portion of the community deteriorated, as we have seen, with the progress of the Industrial Revolution. The very poor did not immediately share the benefits of the new order to an extent which compensated for their losses; but a new ideal was set up, a new standard of what ought to be. Many difficulties and dangers besetting human existence, formerly regarded as inevitable, had been removed by scientists. This encouraged men to attack remaining evils with higher courage and fiercer energy. Nothing seemed to be absolutely impossible to human effort, and consequently no evil appeared to be tolerable. The effect of this new form of collective effort is seen in the rapid progress of medical science, the rise of a new crusade against pain and suffering. Investigations were made in the use of anæsthetics, in consequence of which mankind was saved a world of agony. Simpson, of Edinburgh, first used chloroform in 1846, following the work of Wells and Morton in the United States. Pasteur, 1822-95, developed Jenner’s experiments in vaccination, and made far-reaching investigations into the germ theory of disease; he was followed by Lister, who revolutionized the science and practice of surgery, making operations safe and possible by the discovery of new precautions against septic poisoning. It is in medical science that we have, in particular, an illustration of the growth of international co-operation. In the Great War of 1914-18, when Europe as a political unit had ceased to exist, the moral and social unity of the nations was singularly exemplified in the work of the Red Cross, the greatest of all international societies. This society, founded by a series of international agreements, measures the moral progress of a hundred years; it emphasizes the growth of humanity and civilization in the popular mind; it marks the protest of society against human suffering, against the consequences of war, and against the forcible exploitation of any one section of the community.

The inventions which thus transformed the face of society were, for the most part, the fruit of applied science. They were founded upon the great principles evolved by earlier thinkers, upon the work of Galileo, Newton, Linnæus, and Lamarck. Applied science, however, does not fill the measure of the achievements of the nineteenth century; this period is also fruitful in the growth of scientific theory. The new truths evolved, the new investigations pursued are still, at the present day, the subject of discussion. Their full bearing upon human life has yet to be disclosed; but it is certain that they, in their turn, will be rich in benefits to mankind. Immeasurably important in the history of scientific theory is the growth of the idea of evolution, and its effect upon the modern sciences of human life, such as biology, anthropology, psychology, and sociology.

In 1858 Darwin published “The Origin of Species.” His greatness does not lie in his originality. He formulated into scientific propositions ideas which had been “in the air” for some time; indeed Wallace simultaneously came to the same conclusions in consequence of entirely independent observations. But, by patient and untiring labour, by minute enquiry and far-reaching investigations, Darwin transformed a vague and indefinite theory into a working hypothesis. According to Huxley, the quintessence of Darwinism is to be found in “. . . the suggestion that new species may result from the selective action of external conditions upon the variation from the specific type which individuals present.”

“During the last 150 years,” says another eminent scientist,^[7] “the whole conception of the natural universe has been changed by the recognition that man, subject as he is to the same physical laws and processes, cannot be considered separately from the world around him, and the assurance that scientific methods of observation and experiment are applicable, not only to the subject-matter of pure science, but to all the many and varied fields of human thought and activity.”

Man, in the light of evolutionary theory, was seen as the creature of the past, as modified by environment, and as transmitting these modifications to his children. This conception of human life had, naturally, a profound effect upon political science and upon the study of history. Political institutions, religious beliefs, art, and literature were studied from a new point of view, and the laws governing their development and variation became the subject of scientific investigation and enquiry. The functions of the State acquired a new importance. The Ideal State was no longer regarded as static, the product of a universal formula, but as that which suits the requirements of a particular people at a given stage of its development. An illustration of the effects can be seen in the new treatment of criminals and paupers as the accidents of a faulty environment rather than as inevitable pests. This treatment becomes consistently more scientific and more humane, and tends to prevent crime and poverty by striking at the cause.

In these ways evolutionary theory has already influenced State action and legislation. Its influence upon religion and social life was at once more direct and more definite. Upon religious beliefs, and upon the growing theories relative to social reform, the searchlight of scientific enquiry was now turned, and the results were of immense importance, both to Catholicism and to Socialism.

2. Science and Religion

The latter half of the century witnessed a distinct conflict between scientific theory and accepted religious belief. Scientific theory was based upon a view of truth as progressive and upon the development of human reason; religious belief regarded it as static and based on revelation. A large number of people who believed literally in the first chapter of Genesis, and who supposed that species were created separately and distinctly, found, in the teaching of Darwin, a contradiction to accepted dogma. Christianity was criticized from a new standpoint, and a new philosophy of religion was evolved, based upon the investigations of archæologists in Palestine, Asia Minor, and elsewhere, and reinforced by comparative studies of early religions by anthropologists. The scientific analysis of religion aroused bitter resentment among the orthodox, especially in Catholic countries. One of the most eminent of the new critics, Renan, was prohibited by the French Imperial Government from lecturing at the Collège de France after the famous disquisition in which he described Christ as:

The consequence of this obstructive spirit is seen in a quarrel between the Catholic Church and the pioneers of modern thought, which proved to be incalculably disastrous to society. This quarrel was made the more bitter in that it coincided with the triumph of Nationalism and Liberalism in Italy, in spite of the fierce opposition of the Papacy.

Pius IX had begun his career as a reformer. But the events of 1848 taught him a sharp lesson and bred in him a profound distrust of modern movements. Henceforth he stood for the cause of reaction, and all his energies were directed in a powerful campaign against modernism. He replied to the clamours of Liberalism and Democracy by increasingly emphatic statements of Papal authority. In 1864 his comment upon the recent events in Italy is to be found in the Encyclical Quanta Cura, in which he declared war against modern ideas, liberties, and institutions, and solemnly condemned those who dared to maintain:

The declaration of Papal Infallibility, which occurred in 1870, coincides naturally with the fall of Rome and the completion of the Kingdom of Italy. With the loss of the last of his temporal possessions, Pius IX made good his highest claim to spiritual supremacy.

The consequences of this uncompromising attitude were most unfortunate for Europe. A secularist and anti-religious spirit grew up among the pioneers of modern thought. It was felt that Catholicism and Liberalism are of necessity irreconcilable, and that a religion based upon authority and tradition could not be tolerated in a State where democracy was practised. In many countries, especially in France and Germany, an attack was made upon religion, in which the Catholic Church was actually persecuted. The educated middle classes ceased, to a large extent, to order their lives in accordance with the principles of religion, and social and democratic movements suffered from the loss of those higher spiritual elements which co-operation with the Church might have lent them. The effect of this general weakening of religious discipline was manifested to many thinkers, in the catastrophe of 1914, when all the inventions and discoveries of science, all the powers of the human intellect, all the virtues of democracy and of the altruism bred of social reform failed to avert the calamity of war.

The Papacy, however, after the death of Pius IX, adopted a policy of concession. Under Leo XIII many of the principles of modern science were recognized and adopted, and Catholic education was brought more into line with modern requirements. Although the principle of infallibility was maintained, the policy of the Encyclical was ignored, and reconciliation appeared to be no longer impossible.

3. Science and Socialism

In the history of Socialism the manifestations of the influence of scientific methods of thought are even more interesting. Socialist theory was, after 1850, developed chiefly in Germany, where it acquired an abstract and logical form calculated to appeal to the Teutonic mind. The English and French Socialists of the early part of the century had combined their theory with numerous measures of practical social reform, to be carried out immediately. This practical and experimental element was eliminated from the development of Socialism after 1850. The stream of social reform flowed on, but it existed apart from the growth of Socialist theory. And this despite the fact that social reformers aimed at removing those evils and injustices against which the Socialists had most loudly protested. The gradual organization of Trades Unions, the increase of popular education, and the growth of co-operative movements enabled the proletariat to secure better conditions, while factory legislation, sanitary regulations, compulsory insurance, and the like, forced the capitalist class to take into consideration the well-being of the working man.

Socialists, however, influenced by the current economic theories of the day, would lend but little support to such measures. In the middle of the century all economists were very much influenced by the theory of the “Iron Law of Wages,” based upon the ideas of Ricardo. It was believed that wages, under the capitalist system, could not rise far above subsistence level. The employer, having paid the labourer just enough to keep him alive, pockets all the remainder of the wealth produced, and thereby robs labour of the fruits of its toil. According to this theory, any attempt to force up wages in one trade would only lead to their decrease in another. Efforts to decrease the cost of living, by means of co-operative and insurance societies, etc., would merely lower the subsistence level and cause a fall in wages.

Socialists, influenced by these ideas, came to the conclusion that the only way to reform must lie in the abolition of the entire capitalist system. They would not encourage reforms and modifications by which a state of things might be prolonged which seemed to them to be radically wrong. They did not, naturally, wish to do away with capital (i.e., wealth used in production), but they wished to put an end to the private ownership of capital by the non-labouring classes. They were, therefore, distrustful of labour legislation and of the work of Trades Unions. They despised the social programme of the German Liberals, who aimed at gradual reform by means of voluntary unions, worker’s associations, and co-operative societies. The German Socialists would not compromise with the Liberal Party, or work with them, to gain any common ends. They preferred to keep their principles intact and to forego any form of practical experiment.

Lassalle (1825-64) was the first great German Socialist. He definitely broke with the Liberal Party. In 1863 certain working men, discontented with the Liberal programme, met at Leipzig in a Working Men’s Congress. They decided that Labour ought to form a separate political party. A “German Working Men’s Association” was founded under the auspices of Lassalle with the immediate object of securing universal suffrage. It was thought that complete democracy would lead as a matter of course to the reorganization of society in the interests of the proletariat; but the results of universal suffrage when, in 1870, it became the law of the German Constitution, were disappointing, and ministered to the general feeling that the democratic State is not necessarily the Socialist State. Under the guidance of Lassalle, Socialism became an affair of class antagonisms; its programme involved a seizure of power on the part of the proletariat rather than a genuine effort on the part of the whole community to rectify the inequalities of distribution. Socialists refused to participate in the existing Government, or to countenance reforms in existing institutions; they preferred to wait until the proletariat, fully aroused by their teaching, should rise and sweep away the capitalist system. Socialism, in consequence, has a slender political record during this period. Its influence is not to be estimated from the study of Parliamentary records. But the new spirit is obvious, even as early as 1847, when the first “Communist Manifesto” was published by Karl Marx and his friend Engels.

Karl Marx (1818-83) developed to its fullest extent the theory of class war and the conflict between labour and capital. In his thesis on the evolution of capital he presents history anew from the economic standpoint. He traces the exploitation of human labour from the days of slavery, through the Middle Ages, when a feudal aristocracy appropriated the labour of a serf population, to the nineteenth century and the exploitation of the industrial proletariat by the capitalist bourgeoisie. His whole theory of capital is founded upon his idea of surplus value, which he regards as the accumulated booty stolen by the rich from the poor. Penetrated by the thought of evolution, he regards capitalism as a necessary stage in social development, doomed to give place, eventually, to Socialism. The capitalist bourgeoisie, like the feudal aristocracy, had performed certain functions useful to society. It had organized industry upon the large scale necessitated by modern production and consumption; by its very selfishness and greed it had accumulated large quantities of capital very necessary to commercial prosperity, which would one day, become the heritage of the working class. According to Marx, however, the usefulness of the bourgeoisie was already declining, and its fate was sealed by its selfishness, its ruthless competition, and its disregard for the consumer; it was becoming harmful to society. It was responsible for great economic evils, cheap wares, adulteration, waste in advertising, sweated labour, and artificial gluts and scarcities.

Socialism was to be the next stage towards which Europe was inevitably tending. No reaction could permanently prevent this. When the proletariat had seized political power, society would be composed of gigantic syndicates representing a number of productive associations. The product would be divided equally, a certain part being set aside for further production. The State, as known in the nineteenth century, would disappear, being merely an organization by which the bourgeoisie maintained its power. As soon as the “class war” had disappeared, representative political institutions would no longer be needed.

Marx spent much of his life in exile, for he had to leave Germany after the disturbances of 1848, in which he took a prominent part. He fled from France to England, where, often in great poverty, he devoted his life to the cause of Socialism. He was largely instrumental in drawing up the “Communist Manifesto,” in which the principles of social revolution are set forth. He was, however, too great a man to ignore completely facts which would not square with his theories. His attitude towards the seizure of the power by the proletariat became modified as the years went on. He admitted that in some countries this might not be necessary. In 1872 he said that “he would not deny that there were countries like America and England, and, so far as he knew its institutions, Holland also, where the workmen could attain their goal by peaceful means.” The failure of the French Socialists in 1871 to establish a republic of Federated Communes, upon Marxist lines, had a great influence upon him. He was led to deprecate revolutions carried out by minorities, for he felt that the French fiasco had been due to the fact that the majority of the proletariat were not yet converted to Socialist principles. Revolution must wait until the majority were behind it. After 1871 he was unwilling that the “Communist Manifesto” should be republished. Engels, in his preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” says: “The time for small minorities to place themselves at the head of ignorant masses and resort to force to bring about revolutions is gone.”

The Marxist school, however, retained all the rigid dogmatism so congenial to the Teutonic mind. Marxists found fertile ground in Russia also: Marxism pure and undiluted had a longer lease of life there than in Germany and became the gospel of a party subsequently known as the Bolsheviki, who professed all the most revolutionary principles of Marx and admitted none of his later concessions.

Marx appealed to the working classes, and in doing so preached a far more powerful gospel than did the early French Socialists, whose cultured philosophy appealed mainly to the educated. He was the author and founder of International Socialism. The Communist League of 1847 was the first attempt at an international society of working men. It aimed at: “The overthrow of the Bourgeoisie, the rule of the Proletariat, the abolition of the old society resting on class antagonisms, and the founding of a new society without classes and without private property.”

In 1864 a meeting was held in London, attended by working men from all countries in Europe. They determined to form an International Association which should include all existing Socialist societies and form a common bond. Mazzini was originally entrusted with the task of drawing up the constitution for this society; but he was too much of a statesman to recognize the necessity of the class war, and Marx eventually took his place. Annual conferences were held and matters of common interest were discussed. It was agreed that Trades Unions and Co-operative Societies should be encouraged as temporary measures; an eight-hour day was advocated; an elaborate scheme for the education of the people was drawn up; and the advisability of the nationalization of land, mines, forests, transport, etc., was decided upon.

International Socialism was, in the days of Marx, premature, and accomplished little. The peoples of Europe could not fight together in their great economic struggle while they were still divided by serious political issues. But the movement is of importance as marking that growth of internationalism which becomes, in the succeeding period, so marked a feature, and as a proof of the spirit of solidarity existing among Europeans, despite so many forces which make for disunion.

The Armed Peace

THE period immediately succeeding the Franco-Prussian War is generally known as the Armed Peace. Save in the ever-troubled Balkans, Europe enjoyed an uneasy calm for forty-three years. Her battles were fought out in Asia and Africa, but not on European soil. Not until 1914 was a generation inexperienced in the realities of war to learn afresh its grim lessons. This prolonged peace did not, however, bring any great sense of security to the peoples of Europe. It was not the result of greater friendliness and co-operation between the nations; it was rather the product of elaborate, skilful, and secret diplomacy. The distrust between the great Powers, the equivocal position of the small ones, did not diminish. In spite of peace, greater preparations were made for war as the years went on. Huge armies were trained and equipped, armaments were prepared upon increasingly large scales. All the resources, all the new discoveries of science were pressed into the service of war; in this period the submarine, the torpedo, and the aeroplane came into being. The cost of this was appalling; ruinous to the large countries, and annihilating to the small ones. In 1910 the whole amount of the yearly war budgets of European nations reached a sum 50 per cent greater than that exacted from France by Germany in 1871. Well might M. de Staal, the Russian delegate at the Hague Conference, exclaim: “Armed peace to-day causes more considerable expense than the most burdensome war of modern times.”

Diplomats could only postpone the conflict. They could not remove those causes of strife which were yearly rendering catastrophe more inevitable. Not one war but a series of wars seemed to menace the peace of Europe. Bismarck had ensured for his country the undying hatred of France. He himself had realized the probability of war should France ever find herself in a position to take revenge. But he calculated that she would never be strong enough unless she had allies, and he trusted to German diplomacy to maintain her in isolation. But in the course of time Germany made other enemies and found other rivals. Her Eastern policy, especially in the Balkans, aroused the hostility of Russia, while her commercial, colonial, and industrial expansion brought her into collision with England. For some years her diplomats succeeded in keeping her enemies apart and preventing their combination against her. But the recognition of their common peril and of the danger of isolation drew them at length together, and in 1914 Germany was forced to fight the triple war of which the armed peace had been but a prolonged preparation.

It is clear that Europe was not entirely unconscious of the direction in which she was drifting. Some attempts were made to stem the tide. There was, on the part of certain Powers, a real movement towards international agreement, indicative of a desire for mutual co-operation. These attempts, though they did not succeed in averting war, yet in some measure succeeded in ameliorating its conditions. From 1863 onwards there had been a movement, beginning with the Geneva conventions, to secure international privileges for war nursing; this led to the establishment of the Red Cross Society and the recognition of its neutrality. Better and more humane provisions were made as to the treatment of prisoners, and these regulations were, by most countries, observed during the war, 1914-18.

The most important, however, of all attempts to avert the impending horror were those made in the two Hague Peace Conferences. The Tsar Nicholas suggested, in 1898, an international conference on the question of a general limitation of armaments, and he issued to European States a paper which contained the following statements:—

In accordance with the wishes of the Tsar, a conference was held at the Hague in 1899, at which twenty European Powers were represented, and also the United States, Mexico, China, Persia, Siam, and Japan. The conference could not agree upon any measures for the limitation of armaments owing to the strenuous opposition of Germany. It succeeded, however, in establishing a permanent court of arbitration at the Hague, in the hope of preventing international disputes. Good work was done in smoothing over small quarrels, especially in the case of the Dogger Bank dispute between England and Russia. The Russian Baltic Fleet fired on some British trawlers in the North Sea during the Russo-Japanese War of 1906. In the subsequent quarrel the two countries were brought to the verge of war, but, by an agreement on both sides to submit the dispute to the Hague Tribunal, peace was preserved. A second Hague Conference, held in 1907, also failed to check the preparations for war, but succeeded in making several conventions for the humanizing of warfare and for securing certain advantages to non-combatants.

The failure of these attempts to avert disaster finds a partial explanation in the fact that the people of Europe, as a whole, gave them little support. Some nations were united in their will to war; others did not love peace sufficiently to be ready to make sacrifices to secure it. All trusted to chance rather than to organized effort, and all paid, in 1914, the forfeit for their long sojourn in a fools’ paradise.

The Formation of Alliances

The international politics of the armed peace depended generally upon the relations between France and Germany. Bismarck’s aim was to isolate France, so that she could never take her meditated revenge. For this reason he cultivated a cordial understanding with Russia and Austria, although, owing to their rivalry in the Balkans, an impartial friendship towards both was not easy to maintain. The Russo-Turkish War of 1878 forced him to betray his secret partiality for Austria; he supported her at the subsequent Congress of Berlin and helped her to rob Russia of the fruits of victory. The closer association of the two Powers was signalized in 1879 by the formation of the Dual Alliance, when each promised support to the other in the case of an attack from Russia, and neutrality in case of attack by any other Power.

In 1882 the Dual Alliance became the Triple Alliance, and Italy joined the Central Powers. In this she was moved rather by fear of France than by love of Germany and Austria. She had recently quarrelled with France over their respective spheres of influence on the North Coast of Africa, and her fear and jealousy were manifested in a bitter tariff war. Despite her increasing discontent, Italy remained a member of the Triple Alliance until 1914. But she felt that, by so doing, she was sacrificing her hopes of expansion on the Adriatic, a renunciation demanded by Austria, and was gaining nothing in return. In 1914 she broke with the Triple Alliance definitely and in 1915 threw in her lot with the other side, hoping thereby to secure the possession of the Adriatic territory which the Central Powers would not guarantee to her. The war of 1914-18 was to Italy, as were the wars of 1866 and 1870, an opportunity for territorial expansion.

Germany had thus secured two allies in 1882, and France had none. Any union between England, France, and Russia seemed unlikely, for they were divided by serious disputes. England and Russia were opposed over the Balkan problems, for England had, in 1878, constituted herself the protectress of Turkey, as she had done in 1856. England’s policy was based on the determination that “Russia shall not have Constantinople.” In Asia the two Powers had causes of dispute in Persia, Thibet, and Afghanistan, and England regarded Russian expansion with a jealous eye, as prejudicial to the British supremacy in India.

Great Britain and France, on the other hand, were embittered towards each other over the question of Egypt. England had acquired a special interest in this country by the purchase, in 1875, of half of the Suez Canal shares. The subsequent extravagance of the Khedive having endangered Egyptian finances, England and France sent out a commission, in 1878, to enquire into the matter and to control the revenue. In an outburst of native resentment, a massacre of Europeans occurred at Alexandria, and England invited France to a joint intervention. Upon the refusal of France, she intervened alone, bombarded Alexandria, and defeated the insurgent Egyptian forces at Tel-el-Kebir, in 1882. She was, however, forced to prolong her military occupation of Egypt indefinitely, owing to the unsettled state of the country, and France accused her of having purposely schemed to obtain the entire control of Egyptian affairs. Nor was the hostility of the two Powers allayed by the problems arising out of the division of Africa among European nations. The colonial dispute had indeed acquired formidable dimensions. Its increased importance was largely due to the rapid development of communication and transport. To every large Power which had undergone, or was undergoing, the Industrial Revolution, colonies were no longer luxuries, they were necessities. They supplied raw material to the new industries which were springing up in Europe, they furnished good markets for European manufactures, and they met the needs of a surplus population. The recent discoveries in Africa had opened up the new possibilities of the “Dark Continent” to the nations of Europe, and in a series of treaty agreements England, France, Germany, Portugal, and Italy divided the spoils between them (1880-90). In this lottery Great Britain obtained the best prizes, a fact which was bitterly resented by Germany in after years. The Germans had joined too late in the struggle for colonial expansion; the best parts of the world had been appropriated before they began to look for colonies. Australia offered no openings and South America was barred from them by the Monroe Doctrine. Russia and England already dominated the greater part of Asia; while the German hopes of expansion at the expense of China collapsed after the Russo-Japanese War of (1904-5), when Japan indicated her intention of establishing a Monroe Doctrine of her own, where the Celestial Empire was concerned. Only in the Pacific Islands had Germany a sphere of operations; moreover, the colonies which she possessed were a disappointment to her and failed to satisfy her economic ambitions. Yet she could not add to them without the risk of war with England, France, or possibly America. There remained to her the possibility of supremacy in the near East. She might establish herself in Asia Minor, whence she could dominate Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Persian Gulf, a scheme closely bound up with the construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railway. But the way to the Middle East lay through the Balkans, and here she was bound to encounter the opposition of Russia. It seemed as though she must either forego her ambition to become a first-class Power, or adopt an aggressive policy towards one or more of her rivals.

With the year 1890, which marks the dismissal of Bismarck from the chancellorship, begins the German policy of world domination. The new Emperor, William II, abandoned the Bismarckian system of defensive alliances for a programme of determined aggression. Though he cultivated peace and friendship with the other Powers of Europe, he followed an ambitious colonial policy, which he intended to carry out by means of a powerful navy. But he was not as successful as Bismarck had been in his attempts to separate the possible enemies of Germany. Russia and France began to come together, and the foundations of an understanding were laid by the granting of large loans by France to Russia. These enabled the latter Power to carry out her long-cherished scheme of a trans-Siberian railway.

England and France, however, were still divided, and in 1898 they quarrelled over their respective claims to the Upper Nile, a dispute which reached its climax over the Fashoda incident, when the two countries were brought to the verge of war. The eyes of England were opened shortly afterwards, however, and she began to realize the dangers of isolation and her great need for allies. The open hostility of Germany during the Boer War of 1899-1901 convinced Great Britain that France was not her only rival in Africa, and she was further alarmed by the rapid growth of the German Fleet. In 1904 she settled her differences with France, and the Dual Entente was established. France agreed to the British occupation of Egypt, and she received, in return, the promise of a free hand in Morocco. The disputes of the two Powers in Nigeria and Newfoundland were likewise arranged.

This agreement caused much irritation in Germany, and the Kaiser replied by a violent campaign against French interests in Morocco. He declared that German interests were prejudiced by the Anglo-French Entente, hoping thereby to drive France to reprisals which might shake the newly cemented friendship with England. The moment was opportune, for Russia could not help France; all her energies were employed by the Japanese War. France, however, weathered the danger by her moderate behaviour, submitting the whole dispute to a conference held at Algeciras in 1906. Great Britain firmly supported her ally at this conference, and their friendship survived the crisis.

In 1907, moreover, an understanding was at last established between England and Russia, and their differences in Thibet, Persia, and Afghanistan were settled. A leading cause of dispute between Russia and England had been eliminated by the gradual alteration of the British policy towards Turkey. England was abandoning her position of protectress of the Ottoman Empire, and it had become evident that Germany was taking her place.

The reply of the Triple Alliance to the Entente between Russia, England, and France was the annexation, in 1908, of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the Treaty of Berlin, in 1878, Austria had been given the protectorate of these provinces, but it was understood that she should not annex them. Hence her action was in flagrant breach of the treaty. Serbia and Russia protested, but, since Austria had the full support of Germany, the annexation was accomplished. A second blow aimed at the Triple Entente was not so successful. In 1911 Germany sent a battleship to seize Agadir in Morocco, declaring again that the French policy was compromising German interests. Great Britain, however, supported France and insisted that the ship must be removed. France adopted a conciliatory attitude, and yielded up a small portion of the French Congo, as compensation to Germany; but the war party in Germany was not satisfied, and, indeed, very indignant at the pacific action of the Emperor in consenting to withdraw the ship.

It had become clear that a large party in Germany desired war with France and England and, possibly, with Russia. But it was not clear how far this party represented the wishes of the Emperor or how far it controlled his policy. Events, however, were impending in the Balkans which hastened the issue. The formation of the Balkan League and the rapid collapse of the Ottoman Empire spelt ruin to the Emperor’s cherished schemes in the near East and forced the choice of war upon him. In the Austro-Serbian quarrel of 1914 there arose a crisis with which the diplomats of Europe were unable to deal, and the armed peace came to an end. Europe had become organized into two enormous camps, and it was impossible for either member of the Dual Alliance to be at war with a member of the Triple Entente without involving the whole Continent. Each party depended too entirely upon its allies, and separation upon both sides appeared to involve ruin. England and France could not with equanimity behold the downfall of Russia, for they knew that their turn might come next. Their participation in the struggle altered its character. It was no longer merely a Balkan dispute. It was the long-expected, greatly dreaded day of reckoning between the Central Powers and the Triple Entente.

The Eastern Question, 1870-1914

1. The Problem of the Balkans

The Eastern Question of the nineteenth century centres around the division of the Turkish Empire. The greed and ambition of the great Powers plays no small part in the drama; of equal importance are the internal rivalries of the Balkan races. The Turkish rule was one of conquest, not of assimilation, and after centuries of subjection the peoples of the Balkans still retained their racial and religious characteristics. Once released from the power of Turkey, they cherished among themselves hatreds and rivalries as bitter as any to be found on the Continent.

The Bulgarians were originally a Mongolian race, dwellers on the River Volga. They did very little to secure their own freedom, which was won for them by Russia and secured at the Treaty of Berlin. Their chief national tie, indeed, is a hatred of the Greeks, with whom they dispute the right to Macedonia. The Greeks, on the other hand, fought with much heroism for their national freedom in the early part of the century. They are a mongrel race, chiefly Byzantine in origin. They aspire to the revival of the whole of the ancient Empire of Greece, including the Islands, Epirus, and most of Albania. The Roumanians are a Latin race, the descendants of a band of Roman colonists. Unlike the other Balkan races, which are of the Greek Church, they are Roman Catholics. Their ruling classes, however, are mainly Greek in origin, the descendants of the official class who administered the State under Turkish rule. The outlook for Roumanian nationality is, therefore, not so encouraging. In the latter part of the century the great ambition of Roumanian patriots was the annexation of Transylvania, a province of Hungary, whose population belongs to the Roumanian group in racial and national characteristics. The most interesting of the Balkan groups are the Serbs. These are a Slav race and, owing to the unequal pressure of the Turkish rule, they have never entirely lost their national consciousness. Their State is organized much after the fashion of a peasant democracy, and they resemble very nearly the Montenegrins, a Highland race, who never really submitted to the Turks. Serb Nationalists hoped to group all the Southern Slav races into a Greater Serbia, an ambition which brought them into conflict with Austria and with Bulgaria.

For the greater part of the century, England sought to arrest the Balkan problem by preventing the further decline of Turkey and by maintaining the status quo. This was her policy in 1856 and in 1878. In 1870 the greater part of the Balkan peninsula was still under Turkish rule, with the exception of Greece and Roumania. Serbia enjoyed a comparatively ample measure of Home Rule. In 1875, however, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina rose against the Turks. Kindred excitement was manifested in Bulgaria, which alarmed the Turks to such a degree that a series of frightful massacres took place and shocked the whole civilized world. Serbia and Montenegro rose against Turkey, and Russia, deeply affected, appealed to England for a joint intervention. To this England, true to her policy, would not agree. Russia and Roumania therefore declared war on Turkey in 1877, and, under pressure of Russian victories, the latter Power was forced to sign the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. The independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and Roumania was recognized. Bulgaria was constituted as a self-governing tributary State with very ample frontiers, including almost the whole of Macedonia, a provision which aroused the jealousy of Serbia and Greece. Still less were England and Austria satisfied, for they both regarded with jealousy the increased prestige of Russia in the Balkans and looked upon Bulgaria as her satellite. They intervened and insisted that the Eastern Question must be settled by the Concert of Europe. A conference was accordingly held at Berlin.

The Treaty of Berlin, 1878, made Montenegro, Serbia, and Roumania into separate and independent States, but divided Bulgaria, as constituted by the Treaty of San Stefano, into three parts. Bulgaria proper became a self-governing tributary State, Eastern Rumelia was given Home Rule under the Sultan, while Macedonia was again yielded to Turkey. Austria was to “occupy” the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and administer their government, but she was not to annex them. This was a disappointment to Serbia, who had hoped to annex them herself and, together with Montenegro and Northern Macedonia, to form a United Kingdom. Roumania was forced to yield Bessarabia to her “ally” Russia and to receive in return the inferior district of the Dobrudja, and Russia gained also considerably in Asia Minor. Greece received part of Epirus and Thessaly, an extension which fell far short of her hopes. Turkey was compelled to permit England to occupy Cyprus, as a reward for her support at the conference. The treaty was thus a disappointment to everyone. Allies quarrelled and considered themselves betrayed. The hostilities of the Balkan Powers were in no wise allayed. Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia were all determined to claim Macedonia, should an opportunity arise, and their rivalries were played upon and fomented by Turkey. In the background was Austria, supported by her ally Germany; her ambition to dominate Serbia and to extend her sphere of influence towards the port of Salonika was soon to become a factor in the Teutonization of the Middle East.

In the Turkish Revolution of 1908 the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire was apparently checked, and a more vigorous policy inaugurated. The Sultan abdicated, and the young Turkish party, which dominated the Government, professed a policy of progressive reform. But the young Turks were, in reality, a military clique, bent on establishing a strong and centralized State in Turkey. The racial problems of the Balkans they hoped to solve by a rigid system of Turkification. Races within the Empire, which could not be assimilated and which would not become Turkish, must be wiped out; a primitive solution of Nationalist problems which has since been adopted in Armenia.

Austria seized the occasion of the Revolution of 1908 to announce her intention of annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first step on the road to Salonika. The control of this port was of great importance to her, since her own seaboard was all upon the Adriatic and subject to attack from Italy. The great Powers protested against this breach of treaty obligations, and Serbia and Montenegro prepared for war, regarding the annexation of the provinces as a blow to their cherished Nationalist schemes. England suggested a conference, but this was rendered impossible by the intervention of Germany. On 13 October the German Imperial Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, notified Sir Edward Grey that “Germany could not, any more than Austria-Hungary, allow the discussion of the annexation at a conference.” At the same time, Germany persuaded Turkey to agree to the annexation, in return for a substantial compensation, and the foundation was laid for that alliance of Turkey with the Central Powers which so largely influenced the crisis, 1912-14. Serbia would have declared war had Russia supported her, but the Tsar, exhausted by his recent struggle with Japan, would not take the risk. He had received a distinct intimation from the Kaiser that, in the case of war, Germany would throw in her lot with Austria. The annexations were recognized, and Serbia was forced to submit, since England and France, though outraged at this breach of treaty obligation, would not fight on a question which did not touch their own interests.

This crisis marks a stage in the development of the Austro-Serb quarrel and it manifests the nature of Germany’s Eastern policy. In 1897 Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, one of Germany’s ablest men, was sent to the Porte, in order to strengthen German interests in Turkey. Two years later the Kaiser made a visit to Jerusalem, during which he announced: “The 300,000,000 Mohammedans that are scattered about the globe can be assured of this, that the German Emperor will be their friend at all times.” Since he had no Mohammedan subjects, this statement was calculated to interest Russia, France, and England. In the same year the Berlin to Baghdad railway was begun. Lichnowsky has written: “It was our political ambition to dominate on the Bosphorus.” The railway would be a highway to India and the rich corn-fields of Mesopotamia. It would become the pivot of the economic life of the Near East, and it could be used as a weapon against England and Russia. But the whole scheme, which depended on the exploitation of Turkey, involved the maintenance of Turkish integrity. It also meant that Bulgaria and Serbia, lying as they did between Germany and the Bosphorus, must be dominated. Brailsford, in “Turkey and the Roads to the East,” remarks that “. . . so long as an independent Serbia remains free to ally herself with the Western Powers and with Russia, the Berlin to Baghdad line does not exist as a strategical road. The Serbian Question is the key to the mastery of the East.”

It was this fact which led Germany to support Austria in the crisis of 1908 and in her subsequent quarrels with Serbia. These quarrels became more acute with the development of the racial crisis in Austria-Hungary.

2. The Problems of Austria-Hungary

The effect of Nationalism in Germany and Italy had been to unite; its effect in Austria-Hungary was rather to divide. Germany and Italy, by nature single States, were artificially dissected in the Treaties of Vienna; the Hapsburg dominions, on the contrary, were composed of a variety of races and interests forcibly united. The past history of Austria-Hungary had been the record of the dynastic prosperity of the Archdukes of Austria. The Hapsburg family had, by conquest and by marriage alliances, extended their patrimony in three directions. They had spread south and east along the Danube and had become Kings of Hungary, adding to their dominions piecemeal conquests from the Turks. They had aspired to become German potentates, and had established their position in Central Europe by the acquisition of Bohemia and a part of Poland. Of their ambition to dominate Italy and the Adriatic, sufficient illustration is afforded by the records of the early nineteenth century. Kingdom, Province, and Duchy were thus added to their dominions by purely dynastic ties, till, at the opening of the twentieth century, the Hapsburg Empire included twelve main nationalities, ten principal languages, and five religions. The following table will partially indicate the complexity of the race problem:—

The only tie among these confused races existed in their common ruler, the Emperor of Austria.

In the days of Metternich purely Teutonic interests had prevailed and the demands of the non-German peoples within the Empire were ignored. But, after her defeats of 1860-66, Austria definitely renounced her ambition to become a German power. She could no longer resist the rising tide of Nationalist grievances, and she knew that her internal divisions had been a source of weakness. The Emperor therefore compromised with the Magyars of Hungary, the strongest Nationalist party in his dominions. The Magyars, though they had long demanded recognition for Hungarian nationality, had never been very ready to accord toleration to the other races. They were particularly jealous of the Southern Slavs, of the Slovenes and the Serbo-Croats, a jealousy which Austria had exploited in 1848. The Compromise of 1867 was in reality an agreement between the German and the Magyar elements of the Hapsburg dominions upon the establishment of a joint dominion over the Slavs and the Latins. A dual system was set up, in which the Slavs were divided. Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Istria, Dalmatia, and Carniola were included in the Austrian Empire, while Transylvania and the other Slav provinces formed part of the kingdom of Hungary. Each moiety of the Empire had a Parliament and a Diet and was in fact a separate State. A joint ministry, provided from a committee of delegates from each Parliament, was responsible for war, finance, foreign affairs, etc. In Austria, where some attempt at racial toleration was made, the efficiency of the central Government was soon crippled by the Slav opposition, especially after 1907, when the suffrage was reformed, in accordance with the continual demands of the Democratic party. The Czecho-Slavs became as obstructive as the Irish party in the British House of Commons in the days of Parnell. It was impossible to accomplish any useful legislation, and the German clique could neither dominate the Slav element nor co-operate with it. Austria, as she became weaker, was forced to depend more and more upon Hungary, on whom she relied to suppress the Czech demand for a separate Czecho-Slovak State in Bohemia and Moravia. Hungary, the dominant partner in the Empire, made no attempts at racial toleration, and admitted no rights to the non-Magyar peoples. Mr. Seton Watson, in “The Racial Problems of Hungary,” has written of the Magyar Régime, 1906-9:—

The effect of this treatment was to create disloyalty among the Southern Slavs. The demand for Home Rule within the Austrian Empire became a movement for complete separation. The Croats, the Serbs, and the Slovenes began to dream of national unity. Of the 10,000,000 Southern Slavs, about 2,000,000 were under Austria, 3,000,000 under Hungary, 2,000,000 were in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 3,000,000 in Serbia and Montenegro. They began to resent their national subjection and to demand union in one great kingdom. Serbia did not discourage this movement.

The internal problems of Austria-Hungary acquired, therefore, an international importance, involving the welfare of many countries. In addition to the agitations among the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs, the integrity of the Empire was threatened by the ambitions of Roumania to absorb the kindred State of Transylvania. Any reconstruction of the kingdom of Poland would rob Austria of Galicia; Dalmatia and Istria were coveted by Italy as part of the “Italia Irredenta” of Nationalist ambition. It seemed as though the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary was at hand, for the discontented races could no longer be placated by a compromise in the form of federation.

The possibility of an internal collapse in Austria was as great a peril to German policy, as was the impending downfall of Turkey. Bismarck and his successors, having once driven Austria out of Germany, had aimed at making her their ally, a bulwark for Teutonic interests in the Balkans. Germany’s route to the East lay through a friendly Austria and a submissive Turkey, and the collapse of either might spell ruin to her plans. The establishment of a strong Southern Slav kingdom might entirely block her way, and must be prevented at all costs, if Germany was to dominate the Bosphorus.

After the annexations of 1908 the Austro-Serbian quarrel developed rapidly. Austria accused Serbia of fomenting discontent and encouraging sedition in her Slav provinces, and, after the Friedjung trial, in March, 1909, friendly relations between the two States became almost impossible. Forged documents, implicating Serbia in a Southern Slav conspiracy, were discovered, which were alleged to proceed from the Austro-Hungarian legation at Belgrade. It seemed that, even if Serbia were not guilty, Austria was determined to prove her so and, by picking a quarrel and forcing the issue, to annihilate her. Under the circumstances the rapid development of the Serbian army is scarcely surprising, for it was obvious that she would have to prepare for war.

The events of 1911-13 precipitated the Austro-German policy in the East. It seemed likely that Turkey would collapse altogether, after a disastrous war with Italy in 1911, in which the latter Power had annexed Tripoli. The young Turkish Government was weakened by insurrections in Macedonia and Albania and was, in addition, threatened by the Balkan League. Turkey had always been saved, in former crises, by the jealousies of her enemies; but in the years 1911-13, owing to the labours of four very able statesmen (King Nicholas, M. Pasisch, M. Gueschoff, and M. Venizelos), Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece succeeded in sinking their differences. A League was formed for the conquest and division of European Turkey. These schemes were assisted by the policy of wholesale massacre pursued by the Turkish Government, which roused the people of Macedonia and Albania to revolt. The Balkan League, encouraged by the success of Italy, declared war against Turkey in October, 1912. The fortunes of war favoured them, but they were not allowed to make their own peace. The great Powers insisted that the settlement must be made at a conference held in London. All the previous arrangements, made by the members of the League for the division of their spoils, were disregarded, and the slender chance of a peaceful settlement vanished altogether.

The Balkan States had agreed among themselves that Serbia and Greece were to divide Albania. On 13 March, 1912, Bulgaria and Serbia had settled the difficult question of their respective frontiers in Macedonia. These arrangements proved to be fruitless owing to the diplomacy of Austria, who insisted on the creation of an independent Albania. She hoped thereby to prevent Serbia from gaining access to the sea, and, by robbing Serbia and Greece of the fruits of victory, to embroil the Balkan Powers in a fresh war. Serbia demanded a revision of her treaty with Bulgaria which should give her compensation in Macedonia for her loss of Northern Albania. Bulgaria, at the instigation of Germany and Austria, refused, and the second Balkan War broke out in 1913. Germany and Austria, who had watched with dismay the progress of the first war, hoped to see the victory of Bulgaria and the defeat of Serbia. But it was Bulgaria that was defeated by Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and Roumania, and on 29 July, 1913, she was forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest. She was shorn of all her gains, save a portion of Western Thrace and some of Eastern Macedonia, and she could only bide the time sullenly till an opportunity for revenge arose.

It became evident that Germany and Austria must take prompt steps if the expansion of Serbia was to be checked.

War and Peace, 1914-1918

1. The Outbreak of War

There is some evidence that Austria intended to settle scores with Serbia in 1913, but was dissuaded by the joint protests of Germany and Italy. In 1914, however, the position for war, on the part of the Central Powers, was improved and the need more urgent. Heavy armament bills had recently been carried through, strengthening the German army and navy, and the internal situation of the Empire was becoming increasingly insecure with the development of social democracy. The Triple Entente, on the other hand, appeared to be suffering from an accumulation of internal weaknesses. Russia was suffering from acute industrial conflict and severe strikes; France was torn in two by a great syndicalist campaign; and England was, to European eyes, threatened with civil war in Ireland. The moment, therefore, was favourable to a settlement of the Balkan question which would satisfy the Central Powers.

The murders at Serajevo, 28 June, 1914, furnished Austria with an excellent “casus belli,” since they alienated the sympathies of Europe from Serbia. The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, was assassinated with his wife at Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The murderers were Austrian subjects, and the crime took place on Austrian territory; but they belonged to a secret society for spreading pro-Serb propaganda in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many Serbian Government officials were members of this society, and Austria accused the Serbian foreign office of complicity with its designs. She was determined to put an end to pro-Serb propaganda. Serbia, on the other hand, knowing that Russia would support her, was equally determined to resist aggression. For nearly a month, however, no further developments aroused the anxiety of Europe, and the chief indication of coming war was to be found in the clamours of the war parties at Vienna and Belgrade.

On 23 July an ultimatum was suddenly presented by Austria to Serbia which left no doubt as to Austria’s ultimate intentions. Serbia could not possibly have remained an independent State had she agreed to it. The rumour that it had been accepted caused keen disappointment in Vienna, on the following day, since it was never intended for anything but a provocation to war. Nor would Austria increase the time limit allowed for an answer beyond forty-eight hours, despite the entreaties of England, France, and Russia. Serbia, however, urged by these Powers, replied in as conciliatory a manner as possible. Sir Edward Grey, commenting on the Serbian reply, has said: “It seemed to me that the Serbian reply already involved the greatest humiliation to Serbia that I have ever seen a country undergo.”

Upon the reception of the Serbian reply the Austrian minister immediately left Belgrade, nor would Austria consent to enter upon any European discussions of the matter. On 26 July Sir Edward Grey, with the concurrence of France, Italy, and Russia, suggested a European Congress; but this suggestion was opposed by Germany. He then asked Germany to state any other form of mediation which she would prefer, but received no reply. The German White Book admits that Germany definitely supported Austria and undertook to fulfil her obligations as an ally in the event of war with Russia. Owing to statements made by the Russian ambassador on 27 July, both Germany and Austria must have known that war with Russia was imminent. War was declared on Serbia on the 28th. Although a state of war did not exist between Austria and Russia until 5 August, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August, on the pretext of a Russian attack upon Austria. The participation of Russia in the conflict involved her ally France, and the neutrality of England acquired an extreme value for the Central Powers. Sir Edward Grey had made it clear that England was not going to war for Serbia, and that public opinion in his country would not support him if he joined in the struggle of Teuton against Slav. The attitude of England was, however, changed by the altered aspects of the war in the first days of August. Both honour and interest forbade her to watch calmly an attack on her ally, France, or to permit the invasion of Belgium whose neutrality she was by treaty obliged to defend.

On 2 August the Belgian Government received a note from Germany stating that, in view of an impending attack from France in that quarter, the Germans were compelled, for reasons of self-defence, to anticipate it by invading Belgium first. They demanded passage for their troops. Belgium, however, refused, saying that she would regard herself as bound to defend her own neutrality if it was violated by France. The German Chancellor, speaking in the Reichstag on the necessity for the invasion of Belgium, said:—

But it was difficult for Europe to believe in the contrition with which the Germans invaded the “rightfully protesting” Belgium, in view of their subsequent behaviour when occupying that country, and their treatment of the persons and property of non-combatants. The justification of a sudden and unexpected necessity is also impaired by the fact that, for several years past, strategic railways leading to the Belgian frontiers had been under construction in Germany. These, which could have no obvious use save for the transport of troops, had for some time alarmed the Belgian Government. Even if the Germans had not invaded Belgium, it would have been difficult for England to pursue the path of neutrality with wisdom or with honour. The French Fleet had departed to the Mediterranean, leaving the North Coast of France unprotected, on the understanding that the British would protect the Entente interests in the North Sea. England could not therefore have permitted Germany to make any naval attack against France, without betraying her ally. Moreover, though she did not want a war, England knew that Germany was her rival, and it was suicidal to allow herself to be isolated by the annihilation of all her friends. But there is some evidence that Germany hoped to break the back of the French resistance before England should wake up to these realities.

The invasion of Belgium, however, hastened this awakening. England, as a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, was forced to protest. Upon 4 August, when the Germans had refused to withdraw their invading armies, she declared war. The Teutonic incapacity to grasp the national psychology of other peoples had involved Germany in war with the entire Triple Entente. The Germans were probably counting on the fact that, during the last fifty years, treaties had been broken in Europe without causing war. Over the Danish Question in 1864, over the Black Sea treaties in 1871, and over the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, England had protested, but she had not supported her protests by force. She had never gone to the length of war over the breach of a treaty of which she was signatory. Germany consequently overrated the British capacity to ignore treaty obligations; she did not read aright the lessons of history, and she did not remember that England has never allowed a Great Power to dominate Belgium. She counted too far upon that insular sense of security which might prevent the British people from realizing their peril until too late.

2. The World at War

The autumn of 1914 saw the oncoming tide of the German army sweeping over Belgium and Northern France. The British and French retreated before it, until, on 5-10 September, the invasion was checked at the battle of the Marne and the first peril averted. The invaders were driven back across the Aisne and into trenches. From Nieuport to Switzerland the long line stretched, and the war became a struggle for small tactical positions; its victories and defeats were counted in yards, its battles were fought round villages, until the second great German advance in the spring of 1918.

The decisive battle on the sea, which might have decided the fate of the war at once, was never fought. The German Fleet remained shut up in Kiel Harbour, and Great Britain succeeded in transporting her large colonial armies to the field of battle before the danger from submarines became very great. On the Eastern Front meanwhile the successes of Russia in East Prussia were balanced by the victories of Hindenburg; but the Serbs and the Montenegrins succeeded in driving back the Austrians. On 3 November, however, Turkey threw in her lot with the Central Powers, and consequently Asia Minor, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Egypt were brought within the arena of conflict. Japan, on the other hand, joined the Entente on 23 August.

In the spring of 1915 Germany made an unsuccessful attack, in which poison gas was first used, upon the French line. Upon her failure to break through, she abandoned the plan of crushing France first, and turned her full attention to Russia. The Russians were driven from East Prussia and, by June, Poland, Lithuania, and Kurland were overrun. The concentration of the struggle upon the Eastern Front magnified the importance of the attitude of the remaining Balkan Powers. An attempt was made by the Entente to secure Constantinople, and the British tried to force the Dardanelles. Landings were made on Gallipoli, but the attempt was a failure and in December it was abandoned. It was impossible that all the Balkan Powers, divided as they were by mutual jealousies, should be united upon one side. In October, Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, who were now linked with their ally Turkey. The fate of Serbia was sealed, since Greece would not support her. She was again overrun and completely crushed, and, in January, 1916, Montenegro also was invaded. Italy, on the other hand, joined the Entente in May. She had negotiated for some time with the Central Powers, but had failed to extract any definite promise from Austria. She therefore came to the conclusion that alliance with the Entente was the most likely course to secure to her the coveted provinces on the further shores of the Adriatic.

The year 1916 saw a renewed German offensive on the French line, and from February till October a series of terrific blows were aimed at Verdun. An Anglo-French attack was made on the Somme in July, which drew the German forces off Verdun and from the Eastern Front. The Russians were still further relieved by an Italian attack upon Austria. The cause of the Balkans, however, seemed to be lost with the defeat of Roumania, who had joined the Allies in August.

In naval warfare, the Jutland Battle (May, 1916) was not ostensibly a victory for the Allies, but it had the effect of keeping the German Fleet in Kiel Harbour till the end of the war. In 1917, however, the Germans announced a vigorous submarine campaign whereby they hoped to starve England into surrender. Any ship found within a certain zone of British shores might be sunk with entire disregard for the lives of neutrals or non-combatants. This measure, and the subsequent horrors of submarine warfare, contributed largely to the alienation of American sympathy from the cause of the Central Powers. Germany had calculated that the United States was profiting far too well, financially, by its neutrality, to abandon it for any cause whatsoever. She again displayed a complete incapacity to grasp the temper of a nation. America could not disregard the contempt with which Germany treated her neutrality, she resented the loss of life among her citizens through submarine action, and she could not contemplate with equanimity the German methods of warfare. She declared war in April, 1917, and her example was followed by Cuba, Panama, Siam, Liberia, China, and Brazil. The war was now waged by nations in all the five Continents and it had become a world struggle. A Revolution took place in Greece, June, 1917, in which King Constantine was deposed and Greece joined the Allies.

These triumphs for the Entente were, however, counterbalanced by events in Russia. A Revolution had taken place in which the Tsarist Government was overthrown, and which led to the eventual triumph of the Pacifist Party and the collapse of the Russian army. By the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk peace was made between Russia and Germany, and all the German troops employed upon the Russian Front were set free for operations elsewhere. Poland, Lithuania, Kurland, Livonia, and Esthonia were surrendered to Germany, and the Ukraine and Finland were made into separate States. The effect of the defeat of Russia was felt in Italy during the following autumn. The enemy troops on the Italian Front were reinforced, and the munition factories in the Plains of Lombardy were threatened. It seemed as though Italy might be forced to make a separate peace. But she succeeded in holding the line of the Piave. The Entente, moreover, pursued with increasing vigour the attack on the Eastern Front. An expedition was sent to Mesopotamia in order to ensure the safety of Egypt and India. Kut and Baghdad were recaptured. Another expedition was despatched to Palestine, and Jerusalem was taken. The Central Powers risked all on the chance of crushing the Anglo-French troops on the Western Front before America could get her men across the Atlantic. In March, 1918, the great German attack began. Its objective was Amiens, where the British and French lines met. In April a tremendous blow was struck at the British at Ypres, but they managed to hold out until French reinforcements arrived. A month later another attack was made on the French at Soissons, and their line broken. By June the Germans had again reached the Marne. They were taken by surprise, however, by a sudden counter-offensive in July, and the French and American troops drove them back across the Aisne. During the whole of August they retreated.

Simultaneously the fate of the East was determined. The British, under Allenby, drove right up through Palestine to Aleppo, cutting off the Turks in Mesopotamia. In September, Bulgaria was forced to terms, and Turkey and Austria soon followed her example.

On 7 November, 1918, a Revolution broke out in Germany and the Emperor abdicated. Four days later an armistice was signed between Germany and her enemies, providing for the immediate evacuation of all invaded territory, the occupation of the Rhine districts by an allied army, the abrogation of the Treaties of Peace made with Russia and Roumania, the surrender of an enormous quantity of guns and aeroplanes, a considerable number of locomotives, all submarines, and a large part of the German navy. These terms made it sufficiently impossible that Germany should renew the conflict, and the victors were able to concentrate their undivided attention upon the creation of a permanent peace.

3. The Peace, 1918-1919

For seven long months the Allied and Associated Powers sat in conclave at Versailles, near Paris, endeavouring to determine a fit consummation of this “war to end war.” The Peace Conference was not, like that of Vienna, a discussion between all the belligerents in the recent war; it was a consultation between the victors as to the terms which they should impose. Germany was not represented at the conference, nor were the terms presented to her until the Allies had settled their differences. There was to be no German Talleyrand in 1918. The Allies had, indeed, a sufficiency of difficulties. It was understood that Poland must be reconstituted as a separate State, and that the Nationalist demands of the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs must be recognized. Transylvania must go to Roumania, and some at least of “Italia Irredenta” must be given to Italy. The disputes of Italian and Jugo-Slav upon the Adriatic must be arranged, and the relations between the conference and the existing Government of Russia must be determined.

The men upon whose shoulders this colossal burden had fallen were not, for the most part, trained diplomats. They were chosen because they commanded the confidence of an electorate. Mr. Lloyd George, the British representative, could understand no language save English and his native Welsh. President Wilson, owing to similar limitations, could establish no direct communications with M. Orlando, the Italian representative. This was not, of course, universally the case; the conference benefited by the attendance of some brilliant diplomatists, including the forceful and inconspicuous Baron Makino, the representative of Japan.

The usual conventions of diplomatic procedure were not followed. There were no protocols and no signed notes. Business was conducted in informal discussion between the “Big Four”—M. Clemenceau, President Wilson, Mr. Lloyd George, and M. Orlando—with the aid of their interpreters. Consequently, the first conference of the “people’s representatives” is wrapped in greater mystery than any proceedings in the old days of secret diplomacy. Nothing was vouchsafed to Europe until the treaty in its entirety was presented to the world.

The definitive peace was signed in June, 1919, by the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Czecho-Slovakia, the Serbo-Croat-Slovene State, Siam, and Uruguay on the one hand, and by Germany on the other.

The first part of it sets forth the constitution of the League of Nations, a device whereby President Wilson, a democratic Alexander, hoped to give the sanction of international right to public law, and to prevent wars in the future by the concentration of force behind the moral decisions of public opinion. The second part of the treaty contains specific remedies against renewed aggression on the part of Germany, in case the League of Nations should prove an insufficient safeguard for the peace of Europe.

The Covenant of the League was made between the Allies and their associates, but they announced their intention of inviting the Argentine, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Paraguay, Persia, Salvador, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela to join them. Other States might join the League if two-thirds of the existing members agreed to their admission. Thus a little door was left whereby a reformed Russia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, or Germany might eventually be admitted. The League was to be ruled by an Assembly of Representatives, each member having one vote. There was also to be a Council representing Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and four of the other members. This Council was to nominate a Secretary, who must be approved by the Assembly, and he was to appoint the other officials of the League. The seat of the League was to be at Geneva, where all officials and representatives were to have diplomatic privileges. In the Council unanimity was necessary for any decision, and in the Assembly a majority. The business of the League was to arbitrate in international quarrels, to limit armaments, and to give mandates to nations to administer certain backward countries, etc. It was to supervise labour, transport, quarantine, and other affairs of international importance.

This institution impinged, in theory, upon the sovereign rights of all nations. It gave to international law a constitutional sanction. From the date of the Covenant of the League, the right of its members to do exactly what they pleased ceased to exist. If the provisions of the League were to become effective, they must henceforth submit to a higher power. In practice, however, this curbing influence was only likely to be exercised upon the smaller States, not represented at the Council, and upon non-members of the League. The provision which stipulated unanimity in the Council enabled any of its members effectually to obstruct such of its decisions as might be disagreeable to them.

The remainder of the treaty dealt with the dismemberment of Germany. She yielded Alsace-Lorraine to France, also the coal-fields of the Saar Basin, in compensation for the damage done to the mines of Northern France during the German occupation. These were to be worked by France for fifteen years and then repurchased by Germany, if the population should desire it.

Polish Prussia was given up to the new Polish State, and Schleswig was to be returned to Denmark, after the wishes of the population had been discovered by a plebiscite. Lower Silesia was to go to the new Czecho-Slovak State. All claims to Luxemburg were renounced, and some frontier territories were ceded to Belgium. The left bank of the Rhine was to be neutral and the harbours of Heligoland were to be destroyed. Dantzig was to be a free city. Germany renounced her intention to unite with the diminished province of Austria, a blow at nationalism and self-determination which is not in harmony with the general ultranationalist tone of the treaty. All German colonies were yielded, and the German army, navy, and air forces were severely limited. Germany pledged herself to hand over to trial, by the Allies, William II and a specified list of Germans accused of heinous breaches of international law.

Germany also agreed to pay reparation for damage done in the war. This could not, of course, be paid entirely, since the whole loss to the Allies was incalculable and far beyond the paying capacities of Germany. But an approximate sum was to be named, before May, 1921, by a commission especially appointed for the purpose. Germany agreed, in any case, to pay 20,000,000,000 marks in gold at once; she ceded all her mercantile marine over 1600 tons, half her vessels over 1000 tons, and a quarter of her fishing boats. She agreed to build ships for five years, as a form of reparation, if required to do so by the Allies. She yielded 5000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons. By a special provision of the treaty it was stipulated that, in all territories and colonies ceded by Germany, the private property of Germans might be taken from them and handed over to the Reparation Commission as part payment of the indemnity. This meant that all German enterprise in the ceded districts would be discouraged. Germany agreed also to hand over to the Reparation Commission, if she was so commanded, the property of any of her subjects living in allied districts, in Russia, China, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and in the new States created by the treaty. Thus the possibilities of German industrial and commercial competition were reduced, and the development of the resources of these countries was assured to the non-German peoples.

The Reparation Commission, which was to supervise the payment of the indemnity, was composed of the representatives of Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, Japan, Serbia, and Belgium. Its duty was to ensure the correct payment of the sums due and to decide, during the next thirty years, the form which payments should take. It was to enquire into the finances and taxation of Germany and supervise them in such a way that she would be able each year to pay as much as possible. It was, in fact, to supervise German finance, as the creditors of a bankrupt administer his estates. Its decisions were to be supported by force, since, by Article 430 of the treaty, it could, at any time during the next fifteen years, appeal to the allied armies to occupy Germany, should she refuse to observe her financial obligations. The Reparation Commission was thus a unique body, without precedent in history. It was created by unique circumstances. Never before had the question of reparation achieved so prominent a place in a peace treaty. The indemnity exacted from France by Germany in 1871 had been intended to crush her and to embarrass her financially for a term of years; but the celerity with which she paid off the sum gave warning to the Powers in 1918. The objects of the Allies could not be attained by the exaction of any fixed sum. The establishment of a Commission which had power, for an entire generation, to check any form of German enterprise by the confiscation of profits as part payment of reparation, was the safeguard which they eventually evolved. A couple of decades will demonstrate its efficacy as a weapon, and will reveal its true relation to the League of Nations.

A criticism of the treaty of 1919 would pass from history into prophecy. Time alone can prove its justice and its wisdom. But one thing is clear. It is founded upon an optimistic view of European finance and economics. It ignores the fact that the entire industrial organization of Central and Eastern Europe has broken down, or, rather, it treats this disaster as a temporary collapse. It expresses the view of the pre-war capitalist, and it contains no suggestion of the possibility that the Continent is on the verge of social revolution. Its merits and its defects depend alike upon its applicability to the social and economic conditions of 1920-60, with reference to the growth of the Socialist problem during the period of the Armed Peace.

The Growth of the Socialist Problem

THE years 1870-1920 saw the rise and consummation of a great crisis between the nations of Europe. A series of economic and national disputes led to an explosion which involved nearly the whole world in the catastrophe of war. This colossal drama throws somewhat into the shade the evolution of another great crisis, affecting the internal politics of most European States.

The development of Socialism however is, in its way, as important as the growth of the international dispute; posterity may decide that it is more important. The full force of the Socialist movement has not yet been felt in Europe, nor has it reached any logical consummation. Combustible material is, in 1921, still in process of accumulation, and the future alone can decide how far the recent events in the East of Europe are the harbingers of social revolution in the West.

The internal history of most States suggests that, in 1914, some sort of reorganization of society, in the interest of the proletariat, was imminent. In some countries, especially in England, the transformation had begun in the shape of a series of changes which were gradually affecting the whole of the social structure. The approach of a New Régime was heralded by the rapid development of the power and organization of the Trades Unions, by increased taxation upon invested incomes, and by an abundance of legislative measures, such as Old Age Pensions and Compulsory Insurance, all of which tended to lessen the economic gulf separating the middle classes from the proletariat. On the other hand, in backward and half-civilized countries like Russia, where a reactionary Government opposed Socialist measures, the symptoms of impending upheaval were of a more alarming description. The possibilities of a peaceful settlement were small in States where political freedom was non-existent, and where social reform was closely bound up with the unfought cause of democracy.

In England and France the factory system had come to its maturity, and the Industrial Revolution had run its full course before the rise of the great Socialist prophets. In the East of Europe this was not so. The Industrial Revolution was in its infancy in 1870. It was only during the period of the Armed Peace that Russia and Germany underwent all the economic changes consequent upon the introduction of the factory system. Socialism as a fully developed creed, stated in terms expressly intended to appeal to the working classes, had come to its zenith in the middle of the century. In 1820 the wage slaves of England and France, oppressed by all the miseries of the early factory system, made extraordinarily little effort to free themselves from their bondage. They saw no way of escape. No alternative was presented to them and they submitted. The proletariat of Russia and Germany, on the other hand, had a gospel and a prophet. Karl Marx had suggested to them a way of escape, and it was improbable that they would suffer with resignation or in silence.

The social problems of every country differed, of course, in degree. But the future of the capitalist class was, in 1914, already in the balance. Economists had begun to ask themselves how long the proletariat would permit one section of the community to monopolize the means of production. Some foresaw in the near future a radical change to some kind of collective ownership of capital. Others maintained that the proletariat would be content to leave the existing system of production untouched; they believed that the aim of the masses was rather to secure a larger share of the product and to obtain fairer conditions of work. They did not think that the working man wished to abolish the private ownership of capital; they merely credited him with a very human desire to do less work for more money. But, even if this were the case, it was not improbable that the share demanded by labour might prove to be so large that the capitalists would not be able to afford it. The existing system might be ended in a deliberate revolution or it might die of inanition. In either case the ultimate issue was the same. The economic order of the future was veiled in mystery. No country had, as yet, made Socialist or Communist experiments upon a large scale, since the disastrous experiment of the French Communists in 1871 was too premature, and attempted under too unfavourable circumstances, to serve as a precedent, and cast little light upon the economic problems of the day.

The War of 1914-18 stimulated the Socialist movement in some countries and checked it in others, according to circumstances. In England the inequalities of distribution were, for a time, still further diminished. The rise in wages, which outstripped even the rise in prices, and the increased taxation upon capital ministered to this. Consequently, at the end of the war, a large majority of the middle class were considerably poorer, and an even larger proportion of the working class was much better off. The subsistence level of the whole nation went up, and the increased prosperity of the working class was manifested in many ways. Workhouses were empty and the demands upon poor relief were unprecedentedly small. The capitalist system was, however, left untouched in principle, and the new conditions impoverished the small investor rather than the large one. Nor were there many indications of an overwhelming demand for social revolution, though, of course, the claims of labour, as regards work and wages, were far from satisfied. This phase was, however, too good to last. During the years 1918-20 increased popular indignation against the “profiteers” and the growth of a demand for the nationalization of mines and railways, supported by strikes, are an indication of a partial attack on the capitalist system itself, while the unemployment consequent upon the war cancelled to a certain degree the improvement effected by the rise in wages.

Russia and the Bolsheviki

In most continental countries the danger of national annihilation was, during the war, so great that Socialist and internal problems were, for a time, thrust into the background. But they were not forgotten, and they were doomed to reappear with a more urgent insistence in post-war politics. In Russia the social crisis outweighed any other event in importance; and occurrences in Russia were, in their turn, to colour the development of Socialism in every other country. The economic problems of the Continent had become so interdependent that revolution in one country spelt upheaval in all.

It is still uncertain how far the natural development of Socialism was deflected and modified by the Great War; that is a question which will, in all probability, never find an answer. But one thing is certain. Owing to the peculiar conditions prevalent in Russia consequent upon the war, a form of Socialism known as Bolshevism, which may or may not be the true Slav solution of the social problem, acquired an importance which cannot be overestimated. Russian Communism may affect the East, and indeed the whole of Europe, to a profound degree, or it may disappear within the course of a few years, but no estimate of the Socialist problems of 1920 would be complete without some considerable study of the rise and development of the Bolshevik party, and an analysis of the circumstances which ministered to its easy triumph. Russia was the spirit which troubled the waters of Europe in 1920, and upon Russia in consequence the chief attention of the historical student must be concentrated.

Russia, 1860-1920.

The social problems of Russia entered upon their most modern phase with the emancipation of the serfs. Alexander II, after his defeat in the Crimean War, set his mind to putting his house in order, hoping thereby to remove these causes of weakness which were sapping the strength of his Empire. The greater part of Russia consisted of estates owned by the nobles and by the Crown. One half of each estate was cultivated by the owner for his own profit, and the other half was cultivated collectively by the serfs, who lived together in a village community called a Mir, and who paid rent for their share of the land. They did not own it, but they had the right to use it, and they were obliged to do free work upon their lord’s estate. In the years 1858-62 all the serfs in Russia were made personally free. But a difficulty arose as to the question of landownership. To give the peasants their freedom without land was a mockery; but to give them the land would ruin the aristocratic class. As a compromise, half the land was kept by the nobility, each peasant was to possess his own house, and the rest of the land belonged to the village collectively. Compensation for his loss was, however, to be paid to the landlord, and, as the peasants had not sufficient money for this, the State advanced a sum which was to be refunded in the course of the next fifty years. This was a disappointment to the peasants, who had come to believe that they were the owners of the land and hoped to obtain it for nothing. In many cases they were obliged to pay a higher rent than they had done before, and, although they were free in theory, in practice they were tied to the land more closely than ever. The difficulties of the settlement increased with the growing population, and the condition of the people grew worse instead of better.

Alexander endeavoured also to establish a certain amount of local self-government. Assemblies called Zemstvos were to be elected in the provinces by the nobles, the townspeople, and the peasants, which were to help in the administration, to superintend education, and maintain highways and hospitals. These Zemstvos did much good work, and afforded a certain amount of political education to men who would otherwise have had none. Their decisions, however, could at any time be quashed by the governor of the province, should he think fit. Thus did Alexander hope to guard against Liberalism.

This era of reform came to an end in 1864. Alexander was disappointed at the discontent of the peasants. The Polish Revolution of 1863 made a great impression upon him; he would no longer trust the people and fell back upon a policy of stern reaction and repression. The disillusionment and discontent of young Russia took the form of “Nihilism” or an attack upon all existing institutions. A great attempt was made in the years 1870-75 to spread Nihilist doctrines among the peasants, but they were too much oppressed and too ignorant to respond to the appeal. The more energetic Nihilists then resorted to a policy of terrorism and assassination. This was only stimulated by the increased activity of the police, and culminated in repeated attempts against the life of the Tsar. In 1881, at the very moment when he was about to yield to the demand for constitutional Government, Alexander fell a victim to the hand of the assassin, and his reactionary son, Alexander III, reigned in his stead.

The new Tsar believed that the decadence of Russia was due to the corruption of Western ideas. He thought that his Empire might be saved if her rulers moulded their policy upon historical Russian traditions, and he regarded absolutism and the Orthodox Greek Church as the two pillars of Tsarism. He set himself to undo the work of his father; as the protector of the Greek Church he countenanced a savage persecution of the Jews; he strengthened the power of the police, and launched a fierce campaign against Nihilism. Politically his reign is barren and devoid of event, but certain features in it point to the approach of a great upheaval. Russia was on the eve of her Industrial Revolution. Under Sergius de Witte, the able Minister of Finance, the industry and commerce of the country were developed; foreign capitalists were invited to spend their money in building railways and factories, and in opening up the huge resources of the Empire. De Witte hoped, by stimulating industrial progress, to lighten the pressure upon the land, providing new outlets for the peasants and thereby simplifying the agrarian problem; but, with the growth of the factory system, Russia began to suffer from new labour troubles. An industrial proletariat grew up, gathered together in the towns, who were more ready than the peasants to listen to revolutionary doctrines. A new middle class came also into existence, which regarded with disfavour the rule of the hidebound aristocracy; while between capital and labour there sprang up the same grim dispute which poisoned the social life of other countries.

Nicholas II, who succeeded Alexander in 1894, pursued the policy of reaction. The persecution of intellect was especially severe. All places of education were rigorously supervised, students were punished on the mere suspicion of Liberal views, and many thousands were exiled to Siberia. Indeed, in one year, as many as one-fifth of the students of Moscow are said to have disappeared. A strictly censored Press stifled any attempt at Liberal propaganda. Manifestations of rebellion and discontent were thus suppressed, but nothing was done to avert the approaching crisis by removing its causes.^[8]

In 1904 a disastrous war with Japan precipitated the explosion. The war was at the outset extremely unpopular, and the Government was openly blamed for the defeat of Russia. The assassination of Von Pleyve, the reactionary Minister of the Interior, was only a symptom of the general discontent. Reformers began publicly to demand constitutional government and the recognition of those liberties and rights which had for many years been secured to the individual in Western Europe. On 22 January, 1905, the conflict was embittered by the catastrophe of “Bloody Sunday,” an event never forgotten in the annals of Russian revolutionaries. A procession of people, led by a priest, who were marching peacefully to offer a petition to the Tsar, were fired upon by the police and many were killed. This move on the part of the Government was followed by a fierce attack on the Zemstvos, not because they were in any way revolutionary, but because they were representative and savoured of constitutional government. For the same reason the Nationalist aspirations of the Poles, the Letts, the Finns, and the Armenians were disregarded and stifled.

Opposition to this policy was organized in all classes, and strikes, mutiny, and assassination gave ample evidence of the anarchy towards which the country was drifting. It was evident that a great political struggle was taking place simultaneously with a great economic crisis. All classes were united in the demand for political reform, but the dispute between the middle classes and the proletariat, upon industrial questions, was bitter, and the landowners were strenuously resisting the demand for an equal division of land among the peasants.

“Strikes which began over questions of wages and hours became political demonstrations in favour of a Constitutional Assembly. On the other hand, political demonstrations became transformed, without any conscious effort on the part of any body, into strikes for immediate economic betterment.”^[9] Such was the parlous condition to which Russia had been reduced by her reactionary Government. The political and economic questions which had occupied the attention of the rest of Europe for more than a century had become in this case inextricably involved. Any attempt at political reform would open the floodgates to economic reorganization; but those who would improve the condition of the industrial classes could not do so without committing themselves to democratic concessions.

In August, 1905, the Tsar issued a manifesto promising an Advisory State Council, elected on a very limited suffrage. But the people desired a Parliament, and in October they resorted to the expedient of a general strike. At this time councils of workmen and soldiers, called Soviets, were first formed, which afterwards became famous in the history of Russia. A Soviet was originally a Council of Deputies, each elected by a group, and no innovation in Russian custom. During the strike of 1905, however, these councils acquired great importance, for they represented, more nearly than any other body, the opinion of Labour, and the people were ready to obey their orders. They directed the strike proceedings, and their policy emphasized the discrepancy, already considerable, between the middle class Liberals and the working class Socialists. These two elements in the opposition now became distinct. For instance, the Petrograd Soviet proclaimed an eight hour working day, despite the bitter opposition of the middle class, who argued that such a reduction of hours must be carried out in co-operation with other great manufacturing towns, if Petrograd was not to be outstripped by them in industrial production. The middle-class capitalists began to look to the Government for protection, and it became increasingly improbable that capital and labour would co-operate to secure constitutional reform.

The Tsar, however, was forced at last to make concessions, and he promised the people a Duma or Parliament, which should have power to consent to the laws. With the establishment of the Duma, absolutism was ended and the reign of law began. But Nicholas dreaded lest his new Parliament should become a weapon of Liberalism, and immediately began to take precautions. He appointed an Imperial Council, composed of representatives of the official class, which must give its consent before the Duma could pass laws. He also proclaimed a number of “Fundamental Laws” which the Duma could not touch. The first Duma, elected in 1906, had a short lease of life. It was divided among four parties, the Reactionaries, the Octobrists, the Constitutional Democrats, and the Socialists. The Octobrists were those who were satisfied with the reforms already achieved and wished for no others. The Constitutional Democrats, or the Cadets, represented Liberal, middle class, and non-socialist opinion; they were in a majority, and it was their programme which was placed before the Duma. This included full political freedom, an amnesty for political prisoners, the abolition of the Imperial Council and of martial law, democratic elections, Home Rule for Poland and Finland, the division of land among the peasants, and a variety of social reforms. The Duma was speedily dissolved, and its successor met with a similar fate.

The Third Duma, elected in 1907, showed the effect of some sweeping changes made by the Tsar in the electoral law. More power was given to the landowning class, and the reactionaries were in the majority. As a weak consultative institution, this Parliament lasted till 1912; but by its very futility it discredited Parliamentary institutions in the eyes of Russian reformers.

The Socialist party, meanwhile, had been weakened by a split in its ranks. The Menscheviks, who generally followed the leadership of Plechanov, believed that Russia would have to go through the Industrial Revolution before she could become a Socialist State. They based this idea upon the Marxian theory of historic evolution; they thought that the foundations of democracy must be laid by a powerful capitalist middle class, as in England and France. Until Russia had been through this stage, the working class could not hope to carry out its own programme. The Menscheviks therefore were inclined to concentrate upon political issues, as the prologue to economic and social revolution. They wished the Socialist party to join with the Cadets in overthrowing the autocracy, and they voted for participation in the work of the Duma.

The Bolsheviks on the other hand would brook no co-operation with the middle class, and preferred the immediate seizure of political power by the proletariat in a violent revolution. They thought that Russia could skip the stage of capitalist production, and they did not believe in Parliamentary Government, since it suggests the principle of majority representation. The Bolsheviks wished to rule by a minority. The majority in Russia were the peasants, who formed 85 per cent. of the population; but these were not included by the Bolsheviks in the industrial working class, since their economic existence depended upon the private, not the communal, ownership of land. For the same reason the Bolsheviks did not believe in that gradual education of the people which is the safest preparation for democracy. They did not want democracy, they looked to a dictatorship of the small minority of “class conscious” industrial workers. They refused to participate in the activities of the Duma or to compromise themselves with the Cadets. Bolshevik doctrines were eagerly spread by Government spies and provocative agents, who were only too pleased to split the Socialist party and render it impotent.

The war, 1914-18, however, struck a fatal blow at Tsarism. Germany was the natural ally of Russian autocracy, and, in the face of the rising tide of Social Democracy, the Kaiser and the Tsar should have stood together. Their alliance to suppress Liberalism had been historic; it dated from the Holy Alliance. The Houses of Hohenzollern and Romanov were closely related, and the Russian official class was largely Germanized. Ever since 1878, however, it had appeared that the two Empires would, sooner or later, become embroiled over the Eastern Question; and in 1914 neither Government realized that this was to be the final struggle between democracy and autocracy. The Imperialist party in Russia plunged into war and then realized their mistake. A small but powerful minority, which had influence at Court, foreseeing the probable downfall of Tsarism if the war were continued, began to work for a separate peace.

In their desire to end the war the Germanophil bureaucracy were in accordance with their extreme opponents, the Bolsheviks. The latter insisted that the defeat of Tsarism was the best thing which could happen to Russia, and that one capitalist Government was no worse than another. The bureaucracy had therefore all the more reason to spread secretly the Bolshevik views. The great majority of Russian people, on the other hand, supported the war. The capitalist class feared the trade rivalry of Germany. She had done her best to stultify and retard the industrial development of Russia, keeping her a backward and agricultural country and a fruitful source of raw materials for German industries. Imperialists felt that the German policy in the East must be checked. Most Democrats and Socialists regarded Germany as the enemy of Liberalism and thought that the downfall of the Kaiser would herald the triumph of democracy in Germany and Russia. Soon after the beginning of the war a Socialist manifesto was issued, bearing, among other signatures, the name of the veteran Plechanov. It ran as follows:—

To Labour the manifesto declares:—

As the Government became more lukewarm in its support of the war, the whole energy of the country became centred upon voluntary effort. Thousands of associations for war work sprang up, of which the chief was the Union of Zemstvos, organized at Moscow by Prince Lvov. This society strove to do all the things which the Government had failed to accomplish. It clothed and fed a large part of the army, started munition works, developed transport, ran hospitals and canteens, and cared for refugees, etc. Moreover, all this was done in the teeth of actual obstruction on the part of the Government. Such an object lesson could not be lost, even upon the conservative Fourth Duma, which was gradually being driven to Radicalism by the reactionary policy of the bureaucrats. All honest Conservatives were driven over to the other side, and in 1915 a progressive Bloc was formed in the Duma including persons of all political parties. Demands were made for a new coalition Government, responsible to the Duma, and composed of people enjoying the confidence of the country. Other items in the programme of the Bloc were equally radical; the freer exercise of voluntary work, the release of political prisoners, the end of religious persecution, and concessions to Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Galicia, and the Jews.

These demands, however, met with but little response from the Prime Minister, Goremykin, a reactionary of the sternest order. Nor was his successor, Sturmer, more likely to be acceptable to the Duma, for his Germanophil tendencies were well known. His appointment was a direct challenge to Russian Liberalism. The loyal and patriotic Sazonov was removed from the Foreign Office and Sturmer took his place. Aided by Protopopov, the Minister of the Interior, and Kurlov, a well-known organizer of massacres, Sturmer inaugurated a regular campaign for a separate peace. Propaganda was everywhere dispersed among the troops, frequently couched in the most violently Socialist terms and, by expatiating on the hopelessness of the Russian cause, calculated to shake their morale. Spies and provocative agents urged the people on to mutinies, revolts, and strikes which would impede the progress of the war. Every kind of obstruction was put in the way of the National Union of Zemstvos in order to prevent voluntary war work. Food supplies were shortened to create a famine. In this way Sturmer hoped to urge the people on to a revolution, which would of course be suppressed by the troops, but which would give the Tsar a pretext for making a separate peace.

The country meanwhile had become uneasy. Rumours of treachery were persistent. Generals like the Grand Duke Nicholas, who had scored obvious successes, were removed from their posts. Sinister stories were told of the Government, of plots for a separate peace, and of the activities of the “dark forces” of Russia, the spies and police agents, the criminal army employed in the horrible pogroms, or massacres of the Jews.

On 14 November, 1916, the Duma met and the great struggle began. Rodzianko, formerly a Conservative, attacked Sturmer roundly. Miliukov, the leader of the Cadets, pointed out how delighted Germany had been at the minister’s appointment. Sturmer was eventually forced to resign, but Protopopov remained, and the policy of the Government was not altered. Even the Imperial Council, that pillar of Tsarism, supported the Duma in its demands for a change of Government. To this Protopopov replied by prohibiting altogether the meetings of the National Union of Zemstvos.

On 30 December certain individuals struck at a prominent figure among the “dark forces.” Gregory Rasputin, a peasant monk, was believed to have influence of the most sinister kind in the highest circles at court; it was said that he was in German pay and was one of the chief agents for betraying the country. He was known to be the friend of Protopopov. After his murder, Protopopov felt that no time must be lost in bringing about a rebellion. On 3 March, 1917, M. Konovalov presented to the Duma irrefutable proof of the intention of the Government to produce a rebellion. The only labour leaders who had escaped arrest had framed an appeal to the people imploring them not to strike. This appeal had been suppressed by Protopopov. The police, moreover, were hiding food supplies in Petrograd, and prices rose to famine rates. On 8-10 March a general strike ensued.

The Government, however, had miscalculated in two things. It had expected the people to be disorganized and it had depended on the soldiers to restore order. But the workers of Petrograd, remembering the procedure of 1905, elected a Soviet, or Council of Workmen and Soldiers, to direct their affairs. This body organized the efforts of the people. The soldiers, moreover, sympathized with the revolutionaries and would not fire upon them. On 12 March the soldiers and the people took the arsenal and the great fortress of Peter and Paul. The police were shot down if they attempted to resist. On the same afternoon the Duma, which had till then been sitting inactive, appointed a “Duma Committee of Safety,” which issued a proclamation calling for a Constituent Assembly. By 14 March the Revolution was over and the authority of the Duma was proclaimed in all the corners of Russia. The following day the Duma and the Council of Deputies, sitting together, appointed a provisional Government. It is said that the Duma did not contemplate the deposition of the Tsar, but that the Soviet flung all its influence against the Monarchy. The Tsar was forced to abdicate and retired with his family to virtual imprisonment at Tzarskoie Selo. They were afterwards removed to Ekaterinberg, where, in July, 1918, the whole family and several attendants were murdered secretly by the Bolsheviks. The full details of this revolting crime are as yet unrevealed, and the fate of the unhappy Nicholas was wrapped in mystery for many months after his death.

The provisional Government was a coalition. Its chief minister was Prince Lvov, the organizer of the Union of Zemstvos. Miliukov, the leader of the Cadets, was Minister for Foreign Affairs. Guchkov, who had done well in war industries committee work, was Minister for War. Kerensky, a member of the Soviet, and the only Socialist in the Government, was Minister for Justice. The Revolution had been popular and democratic. The provisional Government was aristocratic. It ignored the fact that the people had been led by the Soviet, and not by the middle class. Its programme included political democracy but very little economic innovation, and represented very fairly the views of the Cadets. But the Soviet, though agreeing to the formation of a central Government, had not given up its control of affairs. It declared, in a proclamation on 16 April, that: “So far the provisional Government has faithfully carried out its promises,” and recognized “the necessity of exercising over the provisional Government an influence which would keep it up to a more energetic struggle against the anti-revolutionary forces, and . . . which will ensure its democratizing the whole Russian life and paving the way for a Peace without annexation or indemnities.”

This proclamation displays the arrogant assurance of the Soviet and its conviction that it commanded the obedience of the masses of the people. The Duma had little support. The Tsar’s electoral laws had made it an aristocratic institution and not a representative Parliament.

The Soviet at Petrograd was not at this time dominated by the Bolshevik party, its recognized programme was very moderate, and it fully intended to co-operate with the Constituent Assembly which was to be elected. But disputes soon arose concerning the peace terms and the obligatory force of the treaties made by the Tsar with his Allies. On 13-16 May Guchkov and Miliukov resigned, and the split between the Soviet and the provisional Government became evident. The Bolshevik party had organized itself meanwhile. Its leaders, Lenin and Kameneff, had returned from their exile in Switzerland, expedited through Germany with unusual speed. They vetoed the suggestions for a new provisional Government, including more Socialists, and they proposed that the Soviet should seize political power without further compromise. They wished to abandon the idea of a Constituent Assembly, since Democracy and Parliamentary Government were, according to Lenin, reactionary and middle-class ideas. They urged the Soviet to make an immediate peace with Germany, and to abandon all the engagements made by the Tsar with his Allies.

Bolshevik ideas were enthusiastically spread by all the German agents and spies who had worked formerly under the bureaucracy. They aimed especially at the demoralization of the army. The discipline of the troops was already relaxed in consequence of the unfortunate Order No. 1 issued by the Soviet, which abolished the death penalty and absolved soldiers from the duty of obeying their officers unless their Soviet approved the orders given.

Upon the resignation of Miliukov, the Menscheviks wished to appoint a new provisional Government. An appeal was issued, signed by every member of the Soviet exclusive of the Bolsheviks, urging the soldiers to be faithful to the cause of Russia. On 17 May the Soviet decided, 41 votes to 19, to support the formation of a new provisional Government. This measure was strongly approved by the all-Russian Peasant Congress, which met at this time and which strongly rejected Bolshevik ideas.

The new Government included seven Cadets, two Octobrists, and six Socialists. M. Kerensky was made Minister of War, and he began an energetic campaign to reorganize the army. But demoralization had gone too far. On 19 July the Bolsheviks made an attempt to seize the Government, which was successfully resisted by Cossack troops. Prince Lvov resigned on the following day, and M. Kerensky, as Prime Minister, took stern measures to check the corruption of the Army. But the industrial anarchy into which the country had slipped made the task of provisioning and munitioning the troops an impossibility. In September a new German offensive coincided with a quarrel between Kerensky and Kornilov, the ablest of the Russian Generals. The troops were defeated everywhere and refused to fight further. Panic seized the nation, and, on 6 November, the Bolsheviks were able to bring off a successful stroke at the Government. Filling Petrograd with “Red Guards” they arrested the entire Ministry, and Lenin and Trotsky took upon themselves the direction of affairs. The people would seem to have acquiesced in any Government that would give them peace.

The Bolsheviks, however, delayed in making terms with Germany, hoping to see a kindred revolution there too. In this, however, they were disappointed, and, on 2 March, 1918, they were forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia gave over all her Baltic Provinces, Poland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine to German protection, and yielded Armenia and the Caucasus to the Turks.

The Bolsheviks were now free to establish their own power at home. All over Russia the “Red Guards” fought the Cossacks, and the problem was complicated by the fact that the Entente did not look upon the Bolsheviks as a legal Government and supported the “Whites.” The Allies could not afford to recognize the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and, once embroiled in the support of the anti-Bolshevik forces of Russia, they found their position difficult. They could not abandon the “Whites” without ensuring their security, a fact which led to the continuance of warfare in Russia after the Peace Treaty of 1919; it was a civil war, made the more bitter by the intervention of foreign Powers. The consequences were highly disastrous, since the natural development of the Russian Revolution was retarded and perverted, and the possibilities of any real expression of public opinion were indefinitely postponed. The future will show how far Russia, as a whole, supports the Bolshevik Government. Terrible outrages are ascribed to both sides, in the course of the conflict, but these reports do not, on the whole, exceed in horror the long tale of massacre and oppression under Tsarism. In estimating the present condition of Russia it is always necessary to remember how bad were the evils from which she has freed herself. Barbarous atrocities and fanatical extremes are bound to occur in a country where civilization has been retarded and stifled.

When the stress of warfare is over, it may be discovered that the Russian people really support the Bolshevik rule. Certain it is that Bolshevism is anti-democratic. It never pretended to be anything else. The first act of the Bolsheviks was to countermand the Constituent Assembly, and to dissolve all those Soviets, throughout the country, which were not Bolshevik. Lenin indeed, in the New International for April, 1918, says:—

In claiming thus that his autocracy is justified by the fact that he is governing for the good of the governed, Lenin reveals himself in a very familiar guise, none other than that of the old-fashioned “Enlightened Despot.” As our period opens, so it closes, with the claim of a minority to dominate a majority in the interests of the general good. History has witnessed a great revolt against this claim, when it was made by the landowning aristocracy; it remains to be seen whether similar pretensions on the part of the industrial proletariat will meet with similar opposition. But at present Article II, Chapter V, of the Constitution of Russia under the Bolshevik rule states that:—

It may be, of course, that Lenin is right, and that democracy is an outworn ideal. And this may be true of Russia, even if it does not apply to Western Europe. It is not to be supposed that the democratic ideals of the nineteenth century are the final revelation of social good, and that no further developments of political theory and civic practice lie in store for us. In Latin and Teutonic countries it would indeed seem that, on the whole, the movement towards democracy has not entirely lost its impetus. But, for the Slavonic peoples of Eastern Europe, it may not have the same attractions. Nothing is more fatal than the tendency, particularly strong in the Anglo-Saxon, which leads men to regard a specific set of institutions, which, in a specific country, at a specific time, have proved highly beneficial to a certain race, as the best possible formula for all nations at all times. “What is good for us will be good for you” is a non-sequitur which has led many worthy men astray.

It is possible that Russia may find in undemocratic communalism a solution to her problems. It is possible that her institutions may serve as a model to the other Slavonic races. These institutions may be highly uncongenial to the temper of Western Europe, to the Teutons, and to the Latins. It is, on the other hand, possible that Western Europe may be able to borrow something from Russia. Another hundred years may see the whole Continent reorganized upon the Soviet model. Many decades must elapse before it will be possible to decide how much there is of permanence and universality in Bolshevism.

In one respect, however, Russian Socialism already reflects the Socialism of Europe as a whole. It is urban, not rural. The largest occupation of Europe is still that of agricultural labour; but Socialism has grown up in the towns, and has been thought out by townspeople to meet their own needs. The whole life of the continental peasant depends upon the ownership of his land, and this puts him beyond the pale of Socialism, which aims at the collective ownership of the means of production. Great difficulties must be overcome before a Socialism can be evolved which will meet the needs of agricultural labour.

In the case of Russia, the Bolshevik theory is plain enough; but it is not yet clear how far that theory has been put into practice. In the towns, communalism may have been introduced; but Russia is very large and the Bolsheviks are few. Many villages which are self-supporting and independent may be still quite unaffected by the change of Government. The peasants have always been used to collective self-government, and in many places they may have restored their old Mirs under the name of Soviets. A despotism is only galling when it is efficient and well organized, so that it interferes in every branch of the life of the people. If, when Russia is again at peace, the Bolsheviks are able to organize themselves to such an extent that they can apply their theories, impartially, over the whole country, Europe will have an opportunity of judging how far they are really supported by the people.

It is unfortunate that decision was first forced on the other European Powers at a time when very little was clearly known as to the internal conditions of Russia. To the plenipotentiaries of the Peace Conference at Paris, 1918-19, it was first given to decide upon the attitude which the rest of Europe should adopt towards their Communist neighbour. They had to determine whether Bolshevism is really the Russian method of solving Russian problems, or whether it is merely a hotch-potch of German theory preached by a Jewish clique as a justification of their own despotism.

The decisions of the peacemakers were a little inconsistent. In their refusal to have any dealings with the Bolsheviks, who were not permitted to send representatives to the conference, the allied Powers betrayed their conviction that Lenin and his followers were but the temporary rulers of Russia and had no legitimate mandate from the people to represent them. The inference was that the Bolsheviks would soon be overthrown. But, in the other provisions made with regard to Russia, a supposition is evinced that she will, for a considerable time at any rate, remain Bolshevik. She was treated like a conquered country and was freely partitioned. Finland, Esthonia, Livonia, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Georgia were taken from her and made into independent States. These measures were hardly calculated to dispose the anti-Bolshevik party in Russia to look upon the Powers assembled at Paris in the light of friends and rescuers. Everything was done to erect a “Chinese wall” between Russia and the rest of Europe, so great was the fear of Communism among the post-war Governments of the West. They feared it as men in a powder magazine fear fire. Imminent as the social crisis had been in 1914, Russia was as yet the only country in which an explosion had taken place, and the dread of an international conflagration lay heavy upon the other members of the Concert of Europe. Victors and vanquished alike beheld in Bolshevism an outstanding menace, as can be seen from a short study of the conditions prevalent in France and Germany since 1870.

The Third French Republic

In the years immediately succeeding the war of 1870-71, France occupied herself mainly with the problems of consolidation and reconstruction. It was not until after 1906 that the underlying friction of classes, the great economic struggle, became apparent. Socialism was for a time discredited by the events of 1871, when the whole country was brought to the brink of ruin by civil war between the Republicans and the Communists. Paris demanded that France should become a federation of independent Communes, each with the right of self-government, a suggestion which was abhorrent to the ardently nationalist temperament of the majority of the people.

Beset thus with difficulties, President Thiers undertook the task of reconstruction. He reorganized the army, and paid off the indemnity due to Germany with a rapidity which astonished Europe and which came as an unpleasant shock to Bismarck and his colleagues. It was evident that France had not been stricken beyond recovery. The work of Thiers was carried on by his successor, Jules Grévy, and internal reforms were broached with energy. Railways and harbours were built, compulsory education was established, the freedom of the Press secured (1881), and Trades Unions were legally sanctioned (1884).

France was, however, still regarded with distrust by the other nations of Europe. It was thought that she would never achieve stability and that her politics would always be corrupt. A succession of incidents in the years 1887-1906 ministered to this impression. From 1886-89 the whole of Europe was much disturbed by the agitations centred round the person of a certain General Boulanger, the French Minister of War, and leader of a Jingoist campaign of revenge against Germany. Boulanger was the merest man of straw, an imposing figure-head and nothing more, but he kept Europe in a state of tension. Many sensible people believed that he might become a second Napoleon, leading the French people on to a campaign of aggression. He was, however, tried for treason in 1889, and was discovered to be in communication with the Royalist party. He fled from France and committed suicide in 1891.

The Panama scandal, in 1892, revealed a shocking state of corruption in high places; while the assassination of President Carnot, in 1894, ministered to the general impression of lawlessness and unrest in the country. It was the Dreyfus case, however, which most discredited France in the eyes of her possible allies. Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army who was accused of having betrayed military secrets to a foreign Power. He was tried by court-martial, condemned, and imprisoned. His cause was, however, championed by many eminent men who believed him innocent, including M. Zola, the novelist, and M. Clemenceau; and it was eventually proved that the evidence against him had been forged. This case, and the picture it afforded of corruption in the army aroused a great distrust of France in other countries, particularly in Great Britain, and effectually delayed a Franco-British understanding.

In consequence of this case also, many clear-sighted Frenchmen were led to the conclusion that some element in the condition of France was poisoning the whole life of the country. The majority of the progressive party blamed the Catholic Church, which had been very violent against Dreyfus, and which had excited popular animosity against him as a Jew. The Church had supported the army and was connected, in the French mind, with militarism. Many people, of whom Zola is a good representative, regarded the Church as a corrupting influence, disseminating, in its educational institutions, disloyalty to the French Republic. From 1901-6 the combined energies of the Republican and of the Socialist parties were directed against this evil. Education was taken out of the hands of the religious orders, many of which were suppressed by the new Laws of Association. In 1903 anti-clerical feeling was embittered by a quarrel with Rome. The Church was entirely separated from the State and partially disendowed. The return of a large Radical majority in 1906 is significant of the entire approval with which the nation at large regarded these measures.

Thus it was not till after this year that the full attention of the Socialist party was turned to economic legislation. In 1905 a United Socialist party had been formed by the union of two dissenting branches. During the Church crisis, and over the Dreyfus case, this party had joined forces with the Republicans, who wished for political democracy, but who did not adhere to the Socialist programme of economic reorganization through revolution and class war. The two parties now became distinct, and the problem became complicated by the rise of a Syndicalist party which vetoed all co-operation with the existing Government and which intended to work by direct action, such as strikes, etc. A Federative Union of Co-operative Trades Unions was established. Many Socialists, of whom M. Briand, who became Minister in 1909, was one, were driven into opposition to their party by the Syndicalist use of the strike weapon. The elections of 1910, however, marked a defeat of the United Socialists, showing that the country, as a whole, preferred constitutional reform to revolution.

The first round of the conflict was fought out in the same year, when the Syndicalists organized a railway strike, not as an economic dispute, but as a political blow, the initial step of a revolution. M. Briand adopted the stern expedient of placing the strikers under military discipline. This measure sufficed, thenceforth, to prevent any attempt at a paralysing general strike; but its efficacy was liable to be impaired at any time should a conflict arise on a question in which the masses of the people did not support the Government. For a Government which does not command the confidence of the people, it is a dangerous weapon.

Such were the general conditions in France when, in 1914, a sudden and overwhelming peril thrust internal economics into the background. For four years all the energies of the country were devoted to one end, that of the struggle for national existence. But this does not imply that the Socialist problem could indefinitely be shelved. It was, rather, driven underground and rendered the more bitter; with the close of the war it regained its old importance, and the bitterness of the proletariat towards the bourgeoisie had not been decreased by the evolution of a new class of war profiteers, a phenomenon not peculiar to France. Nor were general conditions favourable to a peaceful settlement. In addition to the ordinary tasks of reconstruction which confronted all belligerent nations, France was impeded in 1919 by a considerable diminution of her natural resources, consequent upon the disastrous effects of the German occupation of the north-east area. Mines had been put out of order, factories destroyed, and orchards cut down. Only a united nation, under a strong Government, could hope to surmount such difficulties.

But post-war France is not united and her Government is not strong. Its incapacity to tax the people proves the extent of its instability. The people of France show a distinct inclination to rely upon huge war indemnities from Germany as a means of restoring their credit, and they have, up to the year 1920, shirked the necessity, frankly faced by England, of paying for the war by heavily increased taxation. The future of all capitalist enterprise, moreover, is seriously compromised by the menace of International Socialism, a danger as real to the Latin races as to the Teutons and the Slavs, as was proved by the insurrections, in 1920, among the factory-workers of Northern Italy.

The capacity of France to weather this crisis depends entirely upon the capacity of her individual citizens for sacrifice—for that extraordinary patriotism which, again and again, has saved her in her direst need, causing her to rise like a phœnix from the fires of peril and disaster. Of the marvellous recuperative powers possessed by the French nation our period has afforded abundant illustration; it has a power of maintaining its national entity in the face alike of foreign defeat and of internal sedition; and never has so great a demand been made upon these powers as will be made in the years immediately succeeding the War.

The German Empire and its Fall

If the problems of France are involved, they are nothing to those confronting the people of Germany. The confusion here created by bankruptcy, internal disorder, diminished resources, and a bitter class war is enhanced by the consequences of defeat and the conditions of a severe Peace Treaty. A great autocracy has fallen into ruins, and the Germans are learning their first lessons in self-government at a time when government of any kind is supremely difficult. The social democratic opposition, which has been growing in Germany for the last fifty years, has come into power at a moment of crisis unparalleled in the history of any people. It has perhaps come too late. As long as Bismarck directed the course of German affairs, the history of the Empire was tranquil enough. He spent the first ten years after the Franco-Prussian War in a careful organization of the Empire and in conducting a campaign against the Catholic Church. The fight between Church and State arose mainly in consequence of the Pope’s assumption of infallibility. The Empire contained many Catholic subjects and they had a large party in the Reichstag. The dispute turned upon the right of the Pope to interfere in the civil affairs of the State. That right was fiercely denied by Bismarck, and a series of anti-clerical laws ensued. The Jesuits were expelled from Germany in the year 1872. Bismarck believed that the Church was opposed to German unity and the contest was political rather than religious. Civil marriage was made compulsory, and the education of the priests was largely controlled. Many religious orders were suppressed and education was taken out of their hands. But persecution only strengthened the resistance of the Catholics, and the anti-clerical campaign embittered the life of the whole country for fifteen years. Compared with the similar movement in France it differs in this respect. It was not the work of the whole community, but a series of measures taken by an autocracy against an institution which threatened its supremacy. In 1878 Bismarck relaxed his policy of persecution. The death of Pius IX and the conciliatory attitude of Leo XIII made an agreement easier. Moreover, the Chancellor needed the support of the Catholics in his new financial policy and in his campaign against Socialism. He had recently changed from a policy of free trade to one of protection, and in doing so he was forced to break with the national Liberals, who were free traders, and to rely upon the Conservative party, who were landowners and protectionists. This change in policy was largely due to his wish to protect the growing German home industries. He had noted the prosperity of those nations which had adopted a protective policy, and he considered that England alone could flourish upon the free trade system, on account of her leading position in industry at the beginning of the century. A considerable development of German industry and an increase of commercial prosperity certainly followed upon this change in policy; but factors other than protection contributed to this. Germany had embarked upon her Industrial Revolution and was fast becoming a manufacturing country.

The Socialist party in Germany increased in strength with the growth of the industrial population. A large number of Socialist members were sent to the Reichstag. Bismarck disliked this party because they had opposed the North German Confederation, the war with France, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and the constitution of the German Empire. He feared their economic principles and he hated their democracy. In 1878 he made a deliberate attempt to crush them. Making use of an outburst of popular sentiment aroused by the attempt of two Socialist extremists to murder the Emperor, he passed a ferocious law forbidding all Socialist societies, all Socialist publications, and all meetings with the object of criticizing existing social conditions. Large powers of espionage and interference were given to the police, enabling the officials to expel from Germany anyone suspected of being a Socialist. As in the case of religious persecution, the ardours of Socialism were not extinguished, though its activities were driven underground.

Although he suppressed Socialist doctrine, Bismarck was at some pains to carry out certain legislative measures of social reform. He thought that the doctrines of Socialism would never prevail if the amelioration of the condition of the people were undertaken by the State. His experience of mankind had led him to believe that the masses would be content to live for ever under an enlightened despotism, provided they were comfortable. He inaugurated, therefore, a policy of working men’s insurance against accident, sickness, and old age, as part of a system of State Socialism. These measures were not supported by the Socialists, who regarded them as an attempt to tinker up a system which should be entirely done away with.

The Emperor William died in 1888 and was succeeded for a few weeks only by his son, Frederick, a liberal and moderate man, who might, had he lived, have changed the course of German history. But he died almost at once, and his son, William, became Emperor. William II immediately began to quarrel with Bismarck. Both were determined to rule Germany, and at last, in 1890, the Emperor dismissed the Chancellor and embarked upon a personal guidance of affairs. His policy was faithfully carried out by his four Chancellors, Caprivi, 1890-94, Hohenlohe, 1894-1900, Von Bülow, 1900-1909, and Bethmann-Hollweg, 1909-17.

Under William II the prosperity of Germany developed marvellously. In commerce and industry she became the rival of England and America. The policy of protection was not abandoned, but larger markets were gained for German goods by reciprocity treaties made with other nations. The army and navy were considerably increased, the latter advancing in strength with wonderful rapidity until it became second only in importance to the British fleet. The Kaiser was convinced that a great sea trade and a Colonial Empire must be supported, as in the case of Great Britain, by a dominant navy. The cession of Heligoland gave Germany a good base for the defence of her East Coast and a new command of the North Sea.

The reign of William II was disturbed by the conflict between the Social Democrats and the Pan-German militarists. The Pan-German party preached a gospel of world domination and of world Teutonization. Its policy is illustrated by the treatment dealt out to Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. Everything was done to Germanize these countries. Not until 1910 was Alsace-Lorraine given a Diet, such as all the other States of the Empire possessed. The German language was made compulsory everywhere, and German officials were employed. This policy aroused fierce criticism among the Social Democrats. The programme of the militarist party also included war with Great Britain. It is still not clear how far the Emperor was in agreement with this party, and how far he was sincere in his attempts to avoid war. The final verdict of history may be that his hand was forced. In the Moroccan crisis of 1911 he certainly incurred great unpopularity by taking the side of moderation.

It is the militarist party which must bear the brunt of the blame for the War, 1914-18. It could not, however, have carried out its programme had not the country as a whole been inclined to accept militarism. This was the inevitable fruit of Bismarck’s policy. Germany, by the very essence of her being, was forced to be a militarist country. She had incurred the undying hatred of France, and as long as she kept Alsace-Lorraine she was forced to maintain a large defensive army. But a large army will never stay merely defensive. A point must come when it will either become aggressive or sink into inefficiency. The Pan-German programme of a world war grew out of the necessity for keeping guard against France.

On the other hand, the peace of the Empire was threatened by the growing menace of social democracy. William II had originally relaxed the Bismarckian laws against Socialism; but he soon grew to fear it. The Social Democratic party contained, besides Socialists proper, all those who desired constitutional reform, the responsibility of ministers, and the reduction of the heavy taxation necessitated by the maintenance of increased armaments. This was the fault of Bismarck, who had united all the progressive elements in Germany into a common opposition against the existing Government. The Social Democrats continually gained power in the Reichstag, and used every means to discredit the militarists, who began to feel that a great war was the only remedy. Victory would stifle the development of Socialism, just as Liberalism had been stifled in 1870. In March, 1914, the Social Democrats organized a great national demonstration, and the war party felt that they must act soon. Their prophecies were, to some extent, justified, when the war broke out in August. The Social Democrats rallied to the side of the Government, believing, as the huge majority in Germany did believe, that Russia had attacked their country and that a Cossack invasion was imminent. The war seemed to be one of self-defence and, much as they disliked Prussianism, they preferred it to conquest by Russia. The leader of the Social Democrats said, in the Reichstag, on 4 August:—

The following years witnessed the gradual disillusionment of the people and the breakdown of the war party. The victories, which should have given a fresh lease of life to Kaiserism, were of short duration. Four years of dogged struggle against an ever-increasing array of enemies, against famine, against that exhaustion of morale and resources which only a protracted life-struggle can produce, compelled the war party to admit its failure. On 9 November, 1918, two days before the signature of the armistice which ended the war, the Emperor abdicated, and the people of Germany were forced to find for themselves new rulers.

In a way their position resembled that of the French in 1870. But in some respects it was less favourable. The opposition party, which now came into power, had even less political experience than the men of 1871. The Social Democrats had held together in opposition, but when in power they split into opposing factions. Middle-class Liberals became sharply differentiated from Socialists. A party grew up which aimed at government by the working classes, through Councils, modelled on the Russian Soviet system. No strong majority supported any one constructive programme, and the only class which had any experience of the art of government was the old bureaucracy. This class had not in reality been removed from office, but continued to carry on the administration of the country. It was easier for Germany to draw up a Liberal Constitution on paper than to attain, within a few weeks, the habit of freedom. Much of the machinery of Kaiserism was left.

The Socialists themselves were divided. The Majority Socialists, led by Scheidemann and Ebert, desired the immediate election of a Constituent Assembly and the formation of a provisional Government. The Minority Socialists, or Independents, wished to introduce the Council system of Government. It was by the junction of the Majority Socialists and the Liberal Democrats that a Majority was formed strong enough to carry through the election of a Constituent Assembly. This Assembly sat at Weimar and, on the whole, represented middle-class democracy. It appointed a Coalition Government containing Majority Socialists and Liberal Democrats.

The Independents, however, were making headway in the industrial towns, and the general strike in Berlin, March, 1919, is indicative of the discontent of the people with the bourgeois programme of the Constituent Assembly. The people became more revolutionary as they grew hungrier, since, during the interval between the armistice and the Final Peace, the Allies kept up their blockade of Germany and cut off her food supplies. In May, 1919, at the Congress of Councils held in Berlin, the trend of public opinion is indicated as turning towards the Independent and Spartacist parties. As the people became more revolutionary, the Government became more reactionary. All indications of popular discontent were suppressed with severity and machine-guns, after the manner of the Old Régime. Disturbances in the provinces were made the excuse for raising troops, which could, on occasion, be used for a reactionary coup d’état. In several provincial towns, such as Brunswick and Munich, attempts at Council Government were suppressed. The peace terms did not, naturally, render the Government more popular in the country. A storm of rage and disappointment shook the people. According to the general view, the economic clauses of the treaty were calculated to annihilate the economic existence of Germany. Public opinion fully endorsed the comments made on the treaty by the German delegate at Versailles:—

The treaty, if enforced, spelt ruin to the capitalist middle class, the class which stood as a bulwark against Imperialism and Bolshevism, and upon which, as we have seen, the development of transitional democracy so largely depends. The future of Germany turns upon the issue of the struggle between Communists and Reactionaries; and it is hardly rash to predict that the winning party will be that which holds out to the German people the brightest hopes of escape from the treaty terms.

Europe in 1919

In considering the general condition of Europe in 1919 it is necessary to distinguish between the inevitable effects of the recent war and the probable effects of peace. In both aspects of the question the economic situation is so grave and fraught with such disaster that it overshadows, to a certain extent, points of a purely political importance. Many new nations have sprung into existence since the Peace Treaty. The last thirty years have been favourable to the doctrine of Nationality, so scorned at the opening of the nineteenth century. The historic ambitions of Czecho-Slavs, Jugo-Slavs, Poles, Roumanians, Italians, and Alsatians find recognition in the treaties of 1919. Ancient wrongs have been righted, and in the unsatisfied Nationalism of the Irish and the thwarted Teutonism of the German population of Austria are to be found the chief remaining monuments to the spirit of 1815. The fundamental axioms of Nationalism have been recognized. It has been admitted that man cannot live by bread alone, and that humanity does not, like the beasts of the field, submit to any master who will provide food. But this truth is, in 1919, overshadowed by the equally important fact that, without bread, man cannot live at all. Questions of governments, of nationalities, and of democracy are thrust into the background by the all-important problem of existence on any terms. A colossal economic crisis has followed upon the war, which the peacemakers have, as yet, failed to solve.

1. Europe and the War

Despite the political dissension which rent her, Europe has, ever since 1870, become yearly a more united civilization. This is the obvious result of forty years of comparative peace. The population increased very rapidly, and production kept pace with it. The economic life of the Continent depended upon a highly organized international system based upon the supplies of coal, iron, transport, and raw material. This system was built up by the capitalist class. Before the war economists occupied themselves with finding remedies for the inequalities of the capitalist system, without disturbing the elaborate mechanism upon which modern production is founded. Mr. Keynes, in his “Economic Consequences of the Peace,” has pointed out the following facts:—

Since the war these conditions have partially disappeared. Labour in future will demand more, and capital will consume more. The economic beliefs of pre-war society are shattered. The peoples of Europe, despite their attacks on the capitalist, had formerly a lingering respect for the economic functions which he performed. He was at least accumulating wealth, which would, one day, become the heritage of the community. Their awakening was bitter. Much of the vast stores of wealth accumulated by the capitalists was doomed to be dissipated in a burdensome and unproductive war, costing many millions a day, which, in the words of Mr. Keynes, “disclosed the possibility of consumption to all and the vanity of abstinence to many.” The justification of the capitalist had, in the eyes of the masses, disappeared. To what end, enquired the proletariat, should capital be accumulated, if it is liable to be employed thus? Does it not enable wars to be waged on a larger scale? Is not this a capitalists’ war?

Alternative methods of production, socialist and syndicalist, were, before the war, experimental and theoretical. They existed in the region of half-realized probabilities. By 1918 they had acquired a new importance. One great State had admittedly embarked upon the adventure of Communism, and, to make matters worse, this State happened to be the least civilized and the least European of the Christian States of Europe. The fact that Russia was the first country to put Socialist principles into practice is so important that it cannot be overestimated.

The pre-war methods of production may thus be impossible in the future. But, in addition to this, production itself has received some crushing blows. International credit has disappeared, and currencies which have no value in exchange retain their purchasing power at home. The economic services of Germany have, for a time, been lost to Europe. Russia, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria have lost their best customer. Great Britain, Sweden, and Denmark have lost their second best. The pre-war investments of Germany, spent in developing the resources of Austria, Russia, and the Balkans, amounted to £1,250,000,000. These are gone, and her power of supplying capital is crippled for some time to come. The general productivity of the Continent has enormously fallen off. Much fixed capital has been destroyed. Factories have fallen into disrepair, mines have been flooded, and transport has broken down. In the shambles of Belgium and the Balkans large quantities of efficient labour have been lost. Especially disastrous is the decrease in the production of coal and iron.

The people in many parts of Europe are, consequently, starving and in a condition which would tax the resources of an old and long-established Government. Especially is this the case in Germany, Poland, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slavia, and Jugo-Slavia, where the Government has recently changed hands. The effects of misery and starvation are manifested in the prevalence of internal disorder and in conditions which favour militarism and absolutism, whether in a Bolshevist or an Imperialist form. Nationality and democracy, in Central and Eastern Europe, are threatened with death by exhaustion in the very hour of victory. Europe is an house divided against itself; worse than all the material disasters of war is the loss of unity of spirit. The war has left a legacy of hatreds between nation and nation and between class and class, of mutual distrust, and a yearning for vengeance in the minds of the vanquished.

2. Europe and the Peace

The Peace Treaty of 1919 was presented to Europe as a partial solution of the difficult questions raised by the war. Generally speaking, it represents the views current among the victors in the recent struggle, and a sharp distinction must be drawn, in any estimation of the probable effects of the treaty terms, between the victors and the vanquished.

Germany will either refuse to carry out the treaty, a proceeding which will probably cause another war, or she will comply with it and embark upon an economic slavery unheard of in the history of any nation. The latest estimate made by the Allies of the reparation due amounts to a sum of £11,000,000,000, payable in instalments during a period of forty-two years. It is difficult to imagine a people who, for nearly half a century, will be content to toil and not to reap, to labour for others, to pay taxes for no communal object, to show enterprise and to gain no reward. But, supposing this unprecedented miracle is achieved, the consequences to German economic life will be disastrous. It was not easy, before the war, to induce the people to work, in order that the capitalists of their own country might become richer; it will be still more difficult to induce them to labour for the profit of other nations. It is possible that Germany, under the circumstances, may find attractions in the programme of international Socialism.

The Allies, on the other hand, are to gain large quantities of wealth, handed over to them by Germany for a period of years. This will go in direct indemnity to France and Belgium, and, indirectly, to England and America, in payment of the large sums which these countries have loaned to their Allies. The effect of these high hopes is already felt. France and Italy have, as yet, made no systematic attempt to repair their damaged financial position. They seem to hope that the money taken from Germany will relieve them from the necessity of hard work and raised taxes. While the taxation of Great Britain has nearly trebled, that of France has hardly gone up 7 per cent., and the currency is dangerously inflated. In Italy, moreover, the State expenditure is three times that of the revenue, all the industrial undertakings of the Government are run at a loss, the exports are a fifth of the imports, and the military expenditure in one month is greater than it was annually before the war. When the indemnity is paid, the markets of Europe will, presumably, be flooded with German goods, produced and handed over to the Allies for nothing. This is hardly likely to stimulate production in the rest of Europe. The free labour in Allied countries will have to compete against the slave labour of Germany. Nor will the Allies find in Germany a market for their own goods, since the Germans will be able to make annual payments only by diminishing their imports and increasing their exports.

A discussion of the deserts of Germany does not lie within the scope of this book. To the Allies it appears unjust that a country which they believe to be responsible for the disaster of 1914 should not be forced to make reparation for the colossal damage inflicted. But economic laws have, unfortunately, very little connexion with the principles of human ethics. The fate of the innocent has become inextricably involved with that of the guilty. The European nations have become, during the past half-century, an economic unit; if it were ever possible for one member of the group to be treated as an outcast, it is so no longer. The future of the whole Continent depends upon the fate of the peoples of Central Europe.

This fact has been disregarded by the Treaty of Paris. The developments of the past fifty years have been ignored. As the men of 1815 would not take into account the recent growth of nationalism, so the men of 1919 have disregarded the rise of internationalism. But they cannot eliminate the economic unity of European interests from the realities of history, any more than Metternich could quench in a treaty the ardours of the War of Liberation. It is not easy for us in England, wrapped in an insularity which even the greatest of all wars has not entirely pierced, to realize the full gravity of the position of Europe. But it is necessary that we should. Owing to the part which we played in the war, we hold a position of great importance among the concert of nations, and our actions will vitally affect the future of the whole Continent. We must not betray the power which has been given to us. We must not sink into insular indifference, nor must we permit ourselves to be carried away by the catchwords and the emotionalism of war politics. Only by concentrated and dispassionate study, by clear thought, and by determined self-sacrifice, on the part of every individual in our great democracy, can we justify ourselves in that path of honour to which we have been called.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN

The name Jules Favre was corrected in the Index, and the entry repositioned.

Hyphenation of words was changed to the predominant form. The use of accents on names was made consistent.

The footnotes have been renumbered sequentially throughout the entire book.

[The end of A Century of Revolution 1789-1920 by Margaret Kennedy]