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CHARLES II. VISITING WREN DURING THE BUILDING OF ST. PAUL'S
From the painting by Sayaour Lucu, R.A., in th« poisuiion of Mn. W. C. King, BilUnghurst
The Book of History
m Ibistot^ of all flations
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT
WITH OVER 8000 ILLUSTRATIONS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
/ VISCOUNT BRYCE, p.c, d.c.l.. ll.d., f.r.s.
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
W. M. ninders Petrie, LL.D., F.R.S.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
Hans F. Helmolt, Ph.D.
EDITOR, GERMAN " HISTORY OF THE WORLD "
Stanley Lane-Poole, M.A., Litt.D.
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
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UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN
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OXFORD UNIVERSITY
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AUTHOR, "MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE"
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THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
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ESSAYIST, POET, PHILOSOPHER
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UNIVERSITY OF ST. PETERSBURG
Arthur Mee
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UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
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And many other Specialists
Volume Xr
WESTERN EUROPE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Age of Louis XIV and XV
The Restoration
Great Britain and the American Revolution
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEONIC ERA
Europe After Waterloo
NEW YORK . X/THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON . THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI
CHARLES (I VISITING WREN DURING THE BUILDING OF ST PAULS . FRONTISPIECE
SIXTH GRAND DIVISION {continued)
THE REFORMATION AND AFTER
THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV
PAGE
The Grand Monarque ........... 4393
Austria and the Empire ........... 4405
England and the Netherlands .......... 4417
France's Wars of Aggression .......... 4431
The Problem of the Spanish Throne ........ 4446
War of the Spanish Succession .......... 4453
England's Restored Monarchy . . . . . , . . . . 4465
Denmark's Despotic Monarchy .......... 4492
The Great Northern War ........... 4495
THE ENDING OF THE OLD ORDER
The Bourbon Powers and Great Britain
Great Britain under the Whigs .
The Great Hapsburg Monarchy
The Development of Prussia
Frederic the Great ....
Great Britain and the American War
German Powers after the Peace
The Bourbon Powers and the Approach of the Revo
Denmark's Great Era of Progress
Sweden's Time of Strife .
Great Dates from the Reformation to the Revolution
ution
45ot
4509
4S2I
4533
4539
4547
4558
4563
4577
4580
4583
THE COMMERCE OF WESTERN EUROPE
Eflfects of the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries ...... 4585
International Capitalism ........... 4593
Competition for the World's Commerce ........ 4609
British Maritime Supremacy .......... 4615
The Development of France .......... 4621
The Rise of European Trade .......... 4625
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEONIC ERA
Plan of the Fifth Division 4635
Map of Europe during the Revolutionary Era ...... 4636
Napoleon the Great ......... Plate facing 4636
General Survey of the Period .......... 4637
The Flight of the King 4649
V
2073288
THE BCX)K OF HISTORY
7AGE
The Revolution Triumphant 4659
Under the Reign of Terror .......... 4667
The Conquering General of the Directory ....... 4679
Napoleon in Portraiture ........... 4695
France under the New Despotism ......... 4701
Napoleon on the Battlefield in Victory and Defeat ...... 471 1
Napoleon as Emperor of the French ........ 4725
How Trafalgar changed the Face of the World ...... 4735
The Awakening of Nationalism ......... 4739
The Rising of the Nations .......... 4753
The Settlement of Europe .......... 4761
Great Britain and Ireland in the Napoleonic Wars ..... 4769
THE REMAKING OF EUROPE
Plan of the Sixth Division .......... 4777
General Survey of Europe since 1815 ........ 4779
Map of Modern Europe ........... 4788
EUROPE AFTER WATERLOO
The Great Powers in Concord ......... 4791
The British Era of Reform .......... 4797
The Reaction in Central Europe ......... 4825
-^
THE GRAND MONARQUE
AND HIS LONG DOMINATION OF EUROPE
'X'HE conclusion of the Peace of West-
-*• phalia is an important point of
departure in the pohtical and economic
development of Europe ; it is marked both
by the firm establishment of the monar-
chical principle, and also by the rising
predominance of the mercantile system.
Moreover, it marks the end of political
feudalism, on which the powers and
functions of the mediaeval body politic
had been founded. Survivals of the feudal
system may, no doubt, be noted even now ;
but its spirit ceased to be a moving force
in European civilisation from that time,
and the personal ties which held it together
had lost their strength.
The struggles of individualism for recog-
nition had been checked by the corporate
character of mediaeval life, but are of much
earlier origin. Individualism came to
birth with the revival of learning and the
Renaissance, and had wholly won its way
in the departments of science and art even
during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies. But it was not before its victory
had been decisive there that the underlying
principle, now sure of recognition, could be
developed in another direction, that of the
individuality of the state. New forces
were brought into being by this movement,
Th B" tK essentially opposed to the forces
- 1, " which had produced the feudal
of Great , ^^Vf -i
w . system. The more the powers
Movements -> , , . • ^
of the corporations were re-
stricted, the wider became the field for
"individual activity, and rulers were en-
couraged to grapple with those duties and
responsibilities which had been previously
undertaken by numerous corporations
working to a common end. The assault
delivered by the Reformation upon the
greatest and the most powerful of all
international corporations, the papacy,
had not been hnally decisive during the six-
teenth century. This success was attained
only in the Thirty Years War, where the
efforts of Catholicism to secure universal
supremacy were proved to be incapable of
jj. . realisation. The recognition
»k » . » » of the equahty of all Christian
the r rotestant j • ^i. t-» /-^
States creeds m the Romano-Ger-
man Empire, the political
rise of the Protestant states— England,
Sweden, and Holland — to the level of others
which had remained Catholic, the sanction of
the Pope given to "Christian," "Catholic,"
and " Apostolic " kingdoms — these were
facts which nullified once and for all, that
possibility of a universal Christian com-
munity upon which the greatest minds
and the boldest politicians had once
speculated. The results of these facts
became manifest as well in Catholic as in
Protestant states. Catholicism became a
political force, but states were no longer
founded with the object of realising the
Catholic idea.
The House of Hapsburg gained great
advantages from an alliance with the
papacy, but it had, and has, no hesitation
in renouncing the alliance, if by so doing
it could further its political ends. Of this
we have instances in the nineteenth century
as well as in the eighteenth. In the policy
of the French Bourbon and Napoleonic
governments such instances are even more
striking. The chief task of every govern-
ment is to unify the powers under its
control, and to turn them to account with
a view to throwing off any external yoke
and to consolidating the. internal relations
between the territories composing the state.
4393
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Por the accomplishment of this purpose
a change in the miUtary system was
imi)eratively demanded. During the fif-
teenth century the vassal's duties were by
no means co-extensive with the mere
defence of the country. Feudal armies
were no longer equal to the demands made
upon them by their overlords, who were
anxious to increase their dominions,
though the great city corporations of
Italy were able to cope with the increasing
difficulties of their policy, using only the
military strength of their own citizens.
Pay and recruiting became the sole
methods of creating an army. Professional
soldiers fought for
dynasties and towns,
overthrew and
founded states. The
German military
orders were pro-
foundly national in
their rules and regu-
lations ; but they
were of no service to
the national welfare,
as there existed no
general authority nor
political bond. War
became a business, in
which the man Who
invested his capital
was most likely to
succeed. During the
sixteenth century
dynastiesand political
parties, such as the
League in France,
were content with
this military instru- He was only fL™ of ag^whel i^^.f^lfhf became Subordination ofthcsc
ment, which was Kmg of France. With Cardinal Mazarin as her Minister, eXCCUtivepOWerS Were
J f L J i Louis' mother, Anne of Austria, acted as regent, but in ■ j ^ i_ 11
passed from hand, to loei the great cardinal died, and the king becoming sole Camcd OUt Wfiolly
hand, and came into ruler made himself an absolute monarch. He died in 1715. ^pQ^ the basis of
the service of hostile lords for so long a sovereignty, and the creation of this
all, special districts became responsible
for the enlistment of particular bodies of
troops — regiments, in fact ; then, if the
numbers were too scanty, a further enlist-
ment might be demanded ; and, finally,
the ruling power grew strong enough to
grasp the right of calling out soldiers, or
recruiting, an arrangement which would
have been impossible before 1500, because
it was incompatible with the conception
of feudal sovereignty. This is a concep-
tion that has disappeared in modern states.
The constitutional system of the nineteenth
century would replace it with the con-
ception of " personal freedom ; " but this
is an idea which has
been greatly limited
by the respect de-
manded for "state
necessities" and
" state welfare."
In domestic ad-
ministration, bureau-
cratic influences con-
stantly grew stronger.
The ruling power
gradually claimed for
itself those rights
which had hitherto
been bound up with
territorial possession,
or had formed part of
municipal privileges.
Such rights were ex-
ercised by individuals
exclusively depend-
ent upon the ruler or
his representatives.
The arrangement and
time as their operations should continue.
But the great convulsion of the Thirty
Years War opened the way for a new
military organisation. It made possible
the formation into standing armies of the
yeomen who had been enlisted as occasion
arose, and with these the state sought
to advance its own political aims.
It was only in the second half of the
seventeenth -century that the idea gained
ground in Germany and in France that
the several territorial districts, and not
the feudal vassals, had to undertake the
responsibility of providing material for
the war power of the overlord. First of
4394
bureaucratic hierarchy occupied atten-
tion even during the eighteenth century,
until it degenerated and was found in-
capable of completing the domestic organi-
sation of the state, when it became ob-
viously necessary to admit the co-operation
of the people, who had been temporarily
excluded from all share in administrative
functions. However, standing armies and
the bureaucracy are the distinguishing
features of that political system which
succeeded feudalism — a system of which
we cannot even now observe the develop-
ment in its totality, and the duration of
which it is impossible to estimate.
A PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XIV.. SHOWING THE KING IN HIS ROYAL ROBES
From an engraving of the painting by Hyicinthe Kigaud
It also became necessary to support the
newly organised state by reconstituting
its domestic economy, a process which
was carried out upon the principle of
separating districts and centralising the
productive forces within them. In the
second half of the seventeenth century the
mercantile system spread in every direction.
Its essential feature consists in the fact
that the ruling power proposed to make the
work of all the members of the state useful
to the state itself, to put pressure upon
them in order that as large a share as
possible of their profits might become
available for state purposes. Of state
necessities, the chief were the' army and
the. fleet, which implied vital power and
the possibility of self-aggrandisement.
The territorial community therefore now
takes the place of the municipal. The aim
of governments, is now to increase the
productive powers of their peoples, not
4395
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The Process
of Political
©nly because individual producers and
civic corporations are thereby benefited,
but also because the capacity for bearing
taxation is thereby increased. Govern-
ments struggle for colonial possessions,
and support the formation of great trading
companies, which are not now indepen-
dent corporations, but must
submit to State control and
jj . accommodate themselves to
eve opmen ^^^ political relations of their
rulers with other powers. There we have the
real origin of the conception of the national
strength as a uniform activity, directed by
the sovereign in power. It is when
domestic economy takes a commercial
direction that the distinguishing features
of political economy, are
plainly seen, and hence
arises an entirely new set
of ideas concerning the
nature and extent of
national power.
This process did not
come to fulfilment at the
same time in every Euro-
pean nation ; it was most
quickly carried out in
cases where political unity
had already been attained,
and where the central
power had emerged victo-
rious from the struggle
with the independent
corporations. It is the
historian's task to explain
those circumstances
no answer to the question : What form of
political and economic cbnstitution will
have that permanent importance for man-
kind which the forms of feudalism had
for a thousand years ? We do not know
whether any grade of development yet
remains for our entry which is likely to
last so long, whether the rapid change of
productive conditions is likely to influence
conceptions of rights, and thereby to pro-
duce more rapid changes in the social
organism. But the firm conviction is
borne in upon us that the rise of those
marvellously complex political organisms
which we call Great Powers has exer-
cised the highest degree of influence upon
the historical life, not only of Europe,
but of the whole world.
Nationalism is not suffi-
ciently intellectual to give
an impulse to the creation
of fresh bodies politic
differing in essentials from
those now existing, and
thus far has contributed
merely to assure the
position of the Great
Powers ; and it seems at
the moment as if the
great problems which
mankind will have to
solve in the near future
could be taken in hand
only with the help of
the powerful machinery
of the great states.
NICHOLAS FOUCQUET jo offcr further con-
, . 1 . 1 , , Under Mazarin, Foucquet became Procureur- . . r > -i
which exercised a retard- O^n^ral and Minister of Finance, and in these JCCturCS UpOU futUrC dc-
ing or an accelerating positions acquired much wealth. He hoped to vclopmcnts is uot the
influence upon state succeed the great cardinal, but Louis ordered busiuCSS of history, which
formation. Economic his apprehension, and he died in prison mieso. ^j^^^j^ ^^^-^ political
life is wholly dependent upon external
circumstances and the political situation,
and therefore it is necessary first to ex-
amine the political history, and to expound
the most important series of related facts,
before entering upon an examination of
national progress.
A history of civilisation, which would
examine the immediate condition of peoples
living under similar circumstances, and not
confine itself merely to the intellectual side
of development, to art and science, can be
written only upon the basis of political
history. Alone and unaided, it can gain no
insight into the motive forces of civil and
political life, for this is information which
the science of political history alone can
provide. Even at the present day we have
4396
hypotheses to the utmost of its power ; but
it is the duty of the historian to examine
into the rise of those great political organ-
isms with which lies the ultimate decision
of all questions now involving the exercise of
force. It is from this point" of view that we
propose to follow the course of history and
Th H "t ^^ pursue our investigations,
of the cleT ^^^^"S special prominence to
Cardinals ^^^^^ P°^^* ^^^^^ "^^^ ^^^"^'
trate that remarkable and
most important subject, the position of the
Great Powers in the nineteenth century.
When Louis XIV. began to extend and
to build upon the foundations which the
two cardinals had laid, his government
attained in every department of public
business a degree of independence and
THE GRAND MONARQUE
influence of which none of his confidential
advisers could ever have dreamed. How
could anyone have expected that the
means which might have been success-
fully employed to set up a tyranny in
some humble little principality would be
set in operation in a kingdom which was
the home of the proudest nobility in
Europe, and where the highest law courts
could insist upon the enforcement of
law and custom as against the crown ?
Louis was convinced of the fact that a
monarch who could make all the forces of
the state subservient to himself, and
could turn them to the state advantage
at his will and pleasure, was in a position
to undertake far heavier tasks than any
Minister, however gifted.
The effort to realise his
theory was a real pleasure
to him, and he had suffi-
cient ambition and also
intellectual power to
enable him to devote his
life to this great task. A
royal task it was in very
truth, and he brought it
to completion, for his was
a royal nature through
and through, eminently
chosen and adapted to
show mankind to what
height of power and of
purely personal influence
a strong character can
attain when supported
Villeroi and several Secretaries of State
at a later period. Special knowledge,
capacity for some particular business,
alone decided the king's choice : birth and
wealth no longer constituted a right to a
place in the royal council. The king was
the sole representative of the royal family,
J.. , the House of Bourbon with its
c ing s (jjffgj-gj^^ branches. In him were
g"^"* conjoined both the will of the
nation and the interests of the
dynasty. By the side of the young
monarch the great Conde was but a poor
figure : he never rose above the position
of governor and general, and after him
no other prince of the blood attempted
to lay claim to a share in the government.
However, where there
was the will to govern,
it was also necessary that
there should be a way.
Louis XIV. directed his
particular care to this
end : he looked carefully
into the business of the
" Partisans," the tax-
farmers and public credi-
tors, for it was above all
things necessary to pro-
tect the state from these
vampires. He made a
beginning with Nicholas
Foucquet, the Procureur-
General and Minister of
Finance, who had con-
ducted this department
by great traditions, in- The ill^LTprTnle^ a^'nd^hflntry of the state mth great
spired with the spirit of a generally, were in a sad condition when Col-
highly gifted people and ^'^ became the chief Minister of Louis XIV.
devoting for half a' Cen- i" ^*^'^- "f instituted many reforms and in
. ° rr 1 -I to years the revenue was more than doubled.
tury its every effort and
exertion to increase and to extend the
possessions which belonged to the nation.
The extraordinary political talent of the
king became apparent at the outset of
his reign in the security with which he
proceeded to organise his government.
He was himself his first and only Minister,
^. . assisted by several admirable
Ministers jntellects, for whom he, as
L * XIV ni^ster, appointed the several
departments in which their
activity was to be operative ; these were
Colbert, Le Tellier, Louvois, father and son,
and Lionne. In cases of necessity others
were called in from time to time to the
state councils, which were invariably held
under the king's presidency. At first
Turenne was often one of these, as were
adroitness under Mazarin,
but had also gained un-
bounded wealth for him-
self. Colbert had made the
king acquainted with all the underhand
dealings and falsifications of Foucquet, and
the king had definitely decided upon his
dismissal at the moment when Foucquet
was under the impression that he could take
Mazarin's place, and rule both king and
country as Prime Minister. He based his
calculations upon the young man's love of
pleasure, which had already become obvious
— so much so as to convince the court that
the society of the Fronde, which had laid
no restraint upon the freedom of inter-
course between ladies and their cavaliers,
would here also be thrown into the shade.
But a peculiar feature in Louis'
character, a mark both of his royal and
tyrannical nature, was the fact that he
never allowed his personal desires to
4397
4ov^:
THE GRAND MONARQUE
influence his political judgment, that his
interests in official life and government
were never thrust out of their place by
conversation and love affairs, and that he
always found time for .everything which
could busy a mind with so wide an
outlook over human hfe as his. Foucquet
was arrested on September 5th, 166 1, a
short time after he had enchanted the
king with an extraordinarily brilliant and
expensive entertainment in his castle of
Vaux, at Melun, and thought that he had
won him over entirely. The king placed
him on his trial,
and insisted upon
a heavy punish-
ment, although
public opinion
was in favour of
the clever finan-
cier who had been
adroit enough
to circulate the
guldens which
he had extorted
by his oppres-
sion among a
wide circle of de-
pendents and
parasites, and
also to reward
therewith good
and useful ser-
vices. Colbert, as
ministerial offi-
cial, who had
undertaken the
business of work-
ing up the most
varied " cases "
with inexhaust-
ible zeal, was
very well ac-
national credit without further imposi-
tions, although the revenues had been
pledged from the beginning of his adminis-
tration until 1663. He entirely removed
the taille, or poll tax, which was a burden
only upon peasants and citizens, for the
clergy, the nobility, and the upper-class
citizens, in fact everyone who bore a
title, had been exempted. On the other
hand, he raised the indirect taxes,
especially the gabelle, or salt tax, which was
remitted only in exceptional cases, and
bore more heavily upon the large estab-
lishments than
upon the small.
With the re-
form of taxation
began that great
economic cen-
trahsation of the
mercantile sys-
tem, which is of
no less import-
ance than the
formation of the
state. Colbert
had no prece-
dent for his
guidance, but
none the less he
formed the suc-
cessive economic
developments of
previous reigns
into a firm and
sound national
system, even as
his lord and king
followed the
steps of Henry
IV. and Riche-
lieu in his foreign
MARIA THERESA, THE QUEEN OF LOUIS XIV. p O 1 i C y. The
nnQin + ^/l «n+V. This portrait of the queen of Louis XIV. is reproduced from the rpcnilatinn<; hv
quaintea Wltn painting by Velasquez. Maria Theresa was the eldest daughter of regUiailons uy
the methods bv P^il*? '*• "^ Spain, and was married to the French king in 1660. which Louis XI.
by
which the partisans had gained their
great wealth, and supported the king in
his resolve to demand restitution to the
state of the gold that had been unjustly
extorted. A special court of justice was
entrusted with the examination of the
defalcations, and ordered confiscations in
the case of five hundred persons to the
amount of no millions of livres, which
were poured into the state chest.
By means of this influx, and also by
lowering the rate of interest which the
state paid to its creditors, Jean Baptiste
Colbert was enabled to maintain the
had opposed the entrance of foreign manu-
facturers into the kingdom, the institution
of free trade in corn within the limits of
the kingdom by the edict of 1539, the
bestowal of special rights upon the com-
mercial and manufacturing classes by the
goverfunent after 1577 and 1581, the
creation of a French fleet under Richelieu
— these measures were first necessary
before the policy of economic protection,
the removal of the. customs duties of
the provinces, could enable the general
interests of the state to gain a victory
over the individual aspirations of separate
4399
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
provinces and towns. The States-General
could no longer be summoned, because
such a measure would have renewed the
struggle between the orders and the
central power, and have taxed the entire
strength of the government. It became
necessary to place limits on the operation
of the provincial assemblies, as no con-
_, , sideration for the general
rance s necessities could be expected
Economic r .-, t-i ^ ,
Pj. j. from them There was also
the danger to be reckoned
with, as the event proved, that these
assemblies would use their privileges to
secure their putative advantages within
the narrow limits of their local adminis-
tration, and would place every obstacle in
the way of the government, which invaded
the rights of the individual in its zeal to
further the aims of the public economy.
In the course of only six years (1667-
1673) successive royal edicts had laid
the foundations of a uniform adminis-
tration throughout France, without which
the country could never have provided the
government with the enormous amount
of military material required for the war
against neighbouring states, whereby the
" natural " boundaries of France were to
be reached. Before the state could exert
its power as a whole, the national resources
had to be centralised. Economic progress
became the foundation of political power.
There was but one method of increasing
the prosperity of the citizens, and so
making it possible for them to bear the
burden of national undertakings, and this
method consisted in attracting them to the
production of staple articles of consumption,
in persuading them to trade on their own
account and so to reserve to themselves the
profits which foreigners had previously ap-
propriated, in putting all the available
money in the country into circulation, and,
by a steady reduction of the influx of
foreigners, excluding foreign countries from
all participation in the advantages gained
_. _ ^, through trade and manu-
The Government s r , ° t-, • ,
_ . factures. 1 his change m
Encouragement • j ^ • i i_ j
, ^ mdustnal concerns had
of Commerce , , ^ 1 r j
almost to be forced upon
the citizens of France by the government ;
of themselves, they contributed but little
to that result. Not only did Colbert
exercise his influence to bring about the
erection of new manufactories, not only
did he procure foreign experts and place
them as instructors in the workshops, but
even the smallest technical details were
4400
carefully examined by the authorities,
Directions upon the weaving and dyeing
of hundreds of fabrics were issued by
them, and disregard of their regulations
was punished. In the department of
manufactures the energy of the govern-
ment was rewarded by brilliant success.
The dexterity and the good taste of the
population displayed itself in their manu-
factures, which were, in part, new creations
or were modified to meet an existing demand,
as in the case of the lace manufacture.
The trade, however, which it was hoped
that the West India, East Africa, East
India, Northern, and Levant companies
would establish by no means fulfilled the
general expectations. The French were
not capable of world-wide commercial
undertakings. They rarely desired to
push their influence in far distant coun-
tries ; they were not fitted, as their king
had supposed, to enter into commercial
rivalry with Holland and England. Several
times France gained a footing in North
America, and each attempt proved her
want of capacity for the task of colonisa-
tion. At the present day France has neither
_, influence nor colonists in the
^ ^'^ . northern continent of the New
ncapaci y in ^^^.j^ . ^j^ggg have passed to
the British race. The capital of
these companies was provided by private
subscription, in which the higher officials
had to take a share " at the king's desire."
The best business of all was done by the
Levantine company, which monopolised the
trade between the western Mediterranean
and ports of the Turkish kingdom, after
numerous attempts at intervention by the
Dutch merchants. Great hopes had rested
upon the completion of the Canal du Midi,
as it was thought that merchantmen of
heavy tonnage could avail themselves of
this new route from the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean ; at any rate, it made mani-
fest the talents of the French for engineer-
ing work, and gave flatterers — among whom
Pierre Corneille was conspicuous — the
opportunity of magnifying the king above
Charlemagne and all his predecessors. But
the new passage did not become an im-
portant trade route ; the canal affected
the trade merely of the surrounding
districts — that is to say, of Languedoc.
The rearrangement of financial affairs,
wherein, according to the report of the
Venetian envoys, material improvement
would be rapidly brought about by the
influx of bullion from abroad, enabled the
4401
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
king to reorganise the army, which was
hardly equal to any enterprise of diffi-
culty in its present form, under which it
had emerged from the most recent wars.
The system of yeomanry enlistment, the
swindling practised by the authorities,
whose returns invariably claimed pay for
a larger number of men than were actually
under arms, the small number of real
fighting troops as compared with the
growing train of camp followers, the entire
dependence of military operations upon
the exigencies of winter quarters and har-
vesting— these and many other causes of
weakness could only be swept away
when the king took the interests of the
officers and men directly under his control,
when the middleman was no longer respons-
ible for their equipment, and when pay
could be disbursed as it fell due.
Hitherto the governors of the provinces
had been a serious check to the power of
the king over the army, since they had
command of the fortress garrisons, and
could call out the " arriere ban " of the
nobles and levy the mihtia, Standing
cavalry regiments had never been kept up,
as they were found to be unavailable for
purposes of regular warfare. Louvois
was the first to make use of the militia
— with some reluctance — during the War
of the Spanish Succession, when lack of
men became a serious problem. For this
purpose contributions were exacted from
the nobility and the towns, which were
employed for purposes of recruiting.
It was not a national army that Louis
XIV. employed to secure his predominance
in Europe, but an army of professional
soldiers, of which scarce two-thirds were
Frenchmen. The infantry of the " Maison
du Roi," which was 6,000 strong, was half
foreign ; in the life-guards, 800 mounted
troops of noble origin, Frenchmen were in
the majority. The " infantry of the line "
counted forty-six regiments, of which
fourteen, including fifty so-called free
companies, were composed of Swiss,
RENEWAL OF THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND, NOVEMBER 16Tir, 1663
4402
LET AT, CEST MOI!'. THE FAMOUS DECLARATION OF LOUIS XIV.
The imperious temper of the youthful King of France, ever impatient with opposition, led Louis on one occasion to
take stern measures with the Paris Parlement While he was hunting, word was brought to him regarding the
interference of the Parlement with his edicts ; he galloped straight to Paris, entered the Palais de Justice and Hall
of Parlement in his hunting habit, and sternly'rebuked the astonished legists. " L'Etat, c'est moi ! "—The State, it is I—
is the saying attributed to him, and in this, phrase is embodied the policy which he so zealously pursued.
Germans, Irishmen, Italians, and Walloons.
The cavalry amounted to eighty-two
regiments, with 12,000 horses ; in their
case foreigners made up an eighth part of
the whole, and were looked upon as the
flower of the service, and received higher
pay than the native-born soldiers.
The rise of the French nation to the
position of a great power was not the result
of any great national movement, but was
due solely to the victory of the system of
centralisation and monarchical absolutism,
which lofty aims were prosecuted by
capable statesmen and a monarch of first-
rate capacity. These aims were national.
They corresponded to that inner conscious-
ness of power with which the nation was
inspired ; but they were not laid down
as being the direct expression of the
.national will. The kingly policy had to
undertake the task of accustoming the
nation to ihat point of view. In the Ger-
man Empire exactly the contrary was the
case. There the necessities and the just
demands of the nation were discussed in
tracts and essays, which went the round
of the educated classes. But the move-
ment gained no consideration ; neither
the emperor nor the diet was able to unite
the German forces, either for defence against
attack, or for the enforcement of justice,
or contractual obligations, or for a stand
against oppression. Had not this dis-
similarity of conditions existed in her
neighbour, France would never have been
able, even under the strongest absolutism,
to attain a position wholly out of pro-
portion to her natural resources and to the
just claims of her people.
Centralisation at home was followed
by extension abroad, by conquest, the
unlimited extent of which could not fail
to become a source of danger to the
nation. There can be no doubt that Louis
XIV. was induced to undertake his wars
of spoliation by the legend of Austrasia
and the so-called right of natural boun-
daries, which were to include the Rhine ;
4403
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
but it is equally certain that after his
marriage with the Infanta of Spain he had
entertained the hope of winning the Spanish
kingdom, or at least a large portion of its
territory. In so doing he transgressed to
his eventual ruin the limits of the classical
system of French policy which had been
founded by Henry IV. and built up by the
. , cardinals. He excited the greed
p^!*." . for possession in the French,
o icy o ^^^ fostered their pohtical
Aggression ., i_,i_ rijj.-
pride; but he failed to inspire
them with that sense of unconditional
devotion to the state, with that spirit of
cheerful obedience to the ruhng house,
which is alone able to sustain the shock
of severe repulse. The excess to which
the centralisation of the state was
carried brought about consequences so
disastrous to the nation that all the cruel
blood-letting of the Revolution could not
effect a permanent cure.
The first step which betrayed the young
king's intentions was directed against
Lorraine. This province had already
passed into the French sphere of influence,
as a result of the rights, acquired in 1659,
to a military road which crossed the
province in the direction of the Rhine.
Diplomatic quibbles and finally the em-
ployment of force gained the whole district
with the exception of one fortress, Maral.
The ducal family of the House of Guise
were again obliged to attempt to protect
their property by joining hands with
the Hapsburg pohcy ; but they obtained
no material support from the emperor.
The second step had for its object the
acquisition of the Spanish " Burgundian "
dominions. Louis XIV. was ready to sup
port his father-in-law, Philip, against Port-
ugal— for Philip had designs of uniting
Portugal with the country of its origin —
provided that he would agree to declare
that the renunciation made by his elder
daughter, Louis' wife, was invalid, and
that she might accordingly lay claim to
the inheritance of Franche-
e "nc Comte and some Nether-
Claims on Great 11, -, t ■ > ■
„ . land territory. Louis in-
tentions were helped by the
fact that the Netherland jurists established
the fact of the existence of so-called rights
of escheatage as regards Brabant, whereby
Maria Theresa could lay definite claim
to an important part of Great Burgundy.
When Philip died, in 1665, Louis came to an
understanding with Charles II. of England
upon certain acquisitions which Charles was
4404
to obtain, concluded a compact with the
Rhenish princes for the security of the
passage of the Rhine against any contin-
gents of the imperial troops, and then
ordered the Marshals Antoine d'Aumont
and Turenne to advance into Flanders
and push on to Brabant.
The Spaniards were not so completely
taken by surprise as had been hoped in
Paris. Brussels was too well prepared to
be captured by any sudden attack. Den-
dermonde, the most important strat eg cal
point on the Scheldt, was in an excellent
position of defence, and could have with-
stood a siege. But Charleroi, Douai,
Courtrai, and Lille were seized before the
powers, who had been surprised by this
unexpected breach of the peace on the part
of France, could agree upon any common
action. Louis issued the information that
he desired to gain the Franche-Comte, Lux-
emburg, and certain places on the Nether-
land frontier, and that if these were left to
him he would renounce all claims to any
further rights which his wife might acquire
by inheritance, Conde, who was entrusted
with the conquest of the Franche-Comte,
• viv ' succeeded in this task with
°j'fi. I' '• 1 surprising rapidity but this
and the Triple -11 u- u
.... was the sole success which
fell to the king as a result
of this first act of aggression. Sweden
joined the convention which had been
brought about between England and the
states of Holland, resulting in the Triple
Alliance on January 23rd, 1668, which
recognised the claims of Louis to what he
had already seized, on the condition that
he should renounce all future attempts at
aggrandisement .
The king agreed ; he restored the
Franche-Comte to Spain, and retained his
conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to which
Spain was obliged to conform, confirmed
this settlement on May 2nd, 1668, without
raising any discussion as to Maria Theresa's
rights of inheritance. Louis' Ministers had
urgently advised him not to entangle the
finances of the country by prosecuting a
war, in which Spain would undoubtedly
have found allies against him. Before
it was possible to resume the policy of
conquest, the work of centralising the
forces of the state must be vigorously
prosecuted. Meanwhile, the task before
French diplomacy was to split up the
Triple Alliance and to prevent any future
imion of the so-called " sea powers."
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
AND GERMANY'S FALL FROM GREATNESS
""THE German Empire, the old Holy
■*• Roman Empire of the German
nation, once the greatest power of western
Christendom, had renounced its position
as a great power by the Peace of West-
phalia. It had been deprived of territory,
population, and wealth, its economic
resources were inadequate, and its moral
strength proportionately weakened.
Moreover, its constitution had undergone
changes, which entirely removed the possi-
bility of that union of national force, that
civil centralisation, by which alone national
strength can manifest itself in action.
The feudal system had in this case run
a course entirely different from that taken
in England and France. The throne was
based upon election by the freemen ;
and though the power of election was
limited to a constantly diminishing
body, yet it could not be entirely set
aside by any member of the royal house,
, . ... .. which, both on the nearer
plwey'of ^^'^ ^"^*^^'" ^'^^ ""^ *^^ ^^P^'
n. \M L maintained the exercise of the
the Monarch , , . -.i -i
royal prerogatives with the
consent and the support owed by law from
the great vassals. When finally the princes
who had the right of choice — that is, the
electors — received the commission to place
a ruler on the throne under conditions
contractual in their nature, then their rights
and their peculiar position gained a con-
stitutional sanction, and the power of the
monarch was so far limited that he could
never attain to absolute sovereignty.
The classes excluded from the electorate
were also protected from oppression, for
on the one hand they were indispensable
to the bearer of the crown as a counter-
poise to the electors, and, on the other
hand, the latter might find their help
useful should the sovereign meditate any
attack upon their own political exist-
ence. The many-sided interests which
»king and emperor were bound or found
occasion to represent claimed their whole
power and attention. The inadequacy of
the revenue which the head of the empire,*
as such, had at his command made them
dependent upon the goodwill of their
vassals ; and whenever the latter gave
their assistance they found opportunity to
increase their rights and to strengthen
Ti. ^k t. their influence upon the life of
Stron ^^^ nation. Nowhere was the
• g"* position of the Church so inde-
erma&y pgj^^jgj^^ qj- endowed with such
high temporal powers as in Germany ;
nowhere without the German Enjpire
could ecclesiastical princes be found
with the position of an Archbishop of
Mainz or Cologne, a Bishop of Wiirzburg
or Miinster, bishops who could style them-
selves Dukes of Franconia or Westphalia.
The Reformation had diminished their
number, but the property of the dis-
possessed had not accrued to the crown,
as might very well have been the case
if the head of the empire had been able to
guide the movement directed against the
constitution of the Church. A Protestant
emperor who could have been a national
emperor at the same time might have
emerged in triumph from the battle with
the feudal powers, which apparently fled for
protection behind the sheltering bulv/arks
of the old belief ; the ally and voluntary
steward of the papacy handed over the
portion of the empire which had been torn
from the old Church to the princely houses,
which thereby enriched themselves and
assured their political position.
The Thirty Years War had shown that
this state of affairs was impossible. It
should, however, be observed that the
_ , German religious wars might
rITioL^ have had a different result if
e igious ^ tax-gatherer had held the
rugg es |.^j.Qj^g jj^ place of Charles V., or
if Ferdinand II. had been inspired with the
spirit of a Henry of Navarre, or even if this
weak-minded pupil of the Jesuits of the
Ingol towns had had at least the moral
strength to use the talent and the merci-
lessness of a Wallenstein in the interests
4405
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of a ruling imperialism based upon force
of arms. As a matter of fact, that strong
personality, which might have changed
the semblance of imperial power into the
reality, was not forthcoming from the
House of Hapsburg ; in spite of the Divine
assistance officially promised by the suc-
cessors of St. Peter, it was equally incapable
_. _ . of performing the task laid
The Paradox -j. u R. 4.u
f G ' "P°" ^^ ^y ^^® papacy — the
o ermany s syit)ig(>^JQj^ Qf ^J^g schismatics
• Sovereign- A . .i t^
m the empire to the Roman
Church. Indeed, the ecclesiastical princes
themselves contributed not a little to retard
the progress of the army of the Catholic
emperor ; they went over to the side of
Maximilian of Wittelsbach when at Regens-
burg he had wrested the order for the
release of the Friedlander from the emperor.
The certainty was then made absolute that
Germany could not be a monarchy.
And Philip Boguslav of Chemnitz was
entirely justified, in 1640, when in his
famous " Dissertatio de ratione status
in imperio nostro romano-germanico "
he described the form of the German
monarchy as essentially aristocratical, en-
trusting certain departments of adminis-
tration to the supervision of a monarch ;
the monarch, however, had no special
rights appertaining to him as princeps,
except such as his colleagues in the
administration were willing to concede to
him. " This person of supreme rank
bears the old Roman title of ' Kaiser,'
but the title does not express the position
which a monarch holds in other states.
Sovereignty or majesty is not to be found
with the Kaiser, but only with the general
assembly of the members of the empire
crowned in the Reichstag."
In accordance with this conception of the
state, representatives of the German Reichs-
tag carried on negotiations for Miinster
and Osnabriick, and by the Peace of West-
phalia the sovereignty of every component
member of the empire was recognised,
from the electors and dukes
^ ^^ 1 . to such towns as Dinkelsbiihl
iLiiBpire l^eased j t-> n t^i.
c- . and Bopiingen. 1 he empire
as a State , , r o j ■ , ^
thereupon ceased to be a
state. It no longer corresponded to the
demands of a feudal state ; for in such the
vassals were not and could not be equal
with the overlord, but must be in personal
subjection to and dependence upon him.
But the empire was also incapable of
providing from its own resources for the
protection of its people against enemies
4406
from without or injustice within, and still
more incapable of carrying out the organ-
isation necessary for culture and prosperity.
The fulfilment of these obligations
belonging to the state devolved upon the
Orders, the owners of territory, who were
forced to develop gradually into separate
states or to disappear ; as the decision
upon the religion to be adopted lay in
their hands, they were in possession of
the most important of all instruments for
moulding the social spirit of their territory.
But the German Orders differed greatly
in extent of dominion, in composition, and
in power of action, and, in consequence,
only a small number of them was capable
of forming a political unity, there being
158 members of the Reichstag, whereas
there existed nearly 300 governors with
forms of administration peculiar to each.
During the period from the Peace of
Westphalia to the dissolution of the old
kingdom the history of Germany embraces
not only the struggle of the Orders to
maintain their sovereignty as against the
attempts of the emperor to limit it, but,
even more, the struggle for means to found
_. _ ^ a body politic — that is, for
The Fate , , -^ t . • . ■ r
fW k ^^f^^t 01 territory, increase of
jj .. the population, and strengthen-
ing of internal relations.
A process of centralisation embracing
the whole empire was impracticable, being
excluded by the existing scheme of dis-
union and disruption ; such centralisa-
tion was possible only within the narrow
boundaries of territorial lords, and was
therefore confined to the German princi-
palities. Strong and fortunate dynasties,
where vigorous personalities could make
their mark, succeeded in founding states
with vital force sufficient to enable them
to preserve their independence in spite of
every collapse or political bankruptcy.
The remainder met with the inevitable
fate of the weak who oppose the will of
the strong — namely, destruction ; or else
they maintained a very modest existence,
having no greater extent or power than the
estates of a private landowner, and owing
their continuance to the silent forbearance
of their neighbours, and to a respect for
tradition, which had long since been void
of all political content, and had no meaning
save for the historical antiquarian.
Of all the royal houses of Germany,
that of Hapsburg stood first in importance
and external power ; but its possessions
and interests had come to it from without
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
the boundaries of the empire ; the Casa
d' Austria had been of and by itself a world
power. It is true that Charles V. was the
only ruler to govern the whole of the
immense territory which he had inherited ;
the division into the Spanish and German
lines resulted from the fact that the two
geographical groups were inevitably forced
asunder by the necessities of their very
existence, and the immediate cause of
the separation was the exercise of those
family rights which had brought the union
to pass in the face of every political and
economic law.
The Spanish
state with its
Italian and Bur-
gundian depen-
dencies and
its American
colonies had been
unable to main-
tain its position
as a great power,
and had been
forced to yield
to Holland and
France. The
claims of the
reigning dynasty,
which thought it
unnecessary to
set any bounds
to its ambition,
and had frittered
its strength away
on every battle-
field during the
Thirty Years
War, diverted
attention from
home affairs, so
that ruin came
upon the king-
dom of Philip 11.
both from with-
out and from
within. The fact that the brothers Rudolf
and Matthias left no children prevented
the otherwise unavoidable subdivision of
the German line ; Spanish influence
enabled Ferdinand II. to become sole
ruler, Spanish money supported the army
with which the Austrian defended his terri-
tory. But the consequence was that the
German Hapsburgs found themselves
obliged to take up the heavy and embar-
rassing burden of the emperor's crown.
The looseness of connection between the
different members of the Roman Empire
within the German nation must have
proved a help to a reigning dynasty which
attempted to unify the subject states by
means of personal government and a
uniform administration ; especially was
this true of the House of Hapsburg, which
had been able to reinforce its rights of
possession by the further influence resulting
from uniformity of religion. The spiritual
bond of union between the Hapsburg
territories, which now began to receive
the general name of Austria, and the chief
centres of culture
in the rest of
Germany, had
been almost en-
tirely destroyed
by the counter-
reformation in
the Alpine terri-
tories, by the
victory over the
Bohemian dis-
turbances, and
by the conse-
quent subjection
of intellectual
and moral edu-
cation to the
control of the
Jesuit orders.
Economic rela-
tions between
t he two countries
were also cut off
at their very
source by the
stoppage of trade
and intercommu-
nication conse-
quent upon the
poverty in which
the Thirty
Years War had
280
THE GERMAN EMPEROR LEOPOLD I.
He succeeded his father, the Emperor Ferdinand III., in 1658, and
ruled his Hungarian subjects with such severity that they rebelled.
The War of the Spanish Succession broke out during his reign as
a consequence of the struggle between him and Louis XIV. of left the COUntry.
P'rance for the heirship to the crown of Spain. Leopold died in 1705. ThuS Samuel
Pufendorf, writing in 1667, under the
pseudonym of Severinus de Mozambano,
" De statu imperii gertnanici," had spoken
of the constitution of the Roman Empire
as irregular and monstrous, and instanced
the position of the Casa d' Austria, which
had been able to separate from the empire
without difficulty and to set up as inde-
pendent on its own account. Upon this fact
he founded the opinion that the House
of Hapsburg must be supported in its
imperial position, because, if the crown
4407
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
went to another family of princely rank
the Hapsburg territories would inevitably
be separated from the empire, which would
thus be weakened and risk suffering the
fate which had come upon Italy. More-
over, no other house was then in a position
to bear the expense of keeping up the im-
perial court and ceremonial in proper form.
_ .. The inference was so inevit-
* erdinand ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ j^^^^ ^^
Mari& Declines ,, <■ j i,
Q the empire was found who
would have accepted the
crown when Louis XIV. was looking out for
a fresh candidate after the death of Fer-
dinand III. in 1657. When Count Egon
of Fiirstenberg made the proposal in the
name of the French government to the
Elector Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria, he
declined it with the remark that he was
not disposed to receive the imperial
position as a favour from France, and that
he did not care to endanger the security
and permanence of his young electorate
for the sake of the unstable and transitory
dignity of the emperor's crown.
It was Brandenburg that finally decided
the choice of Leopold I., an election
vigorously opposed by France. With the
exception of this elector and Bavaria, all
the electors and their Ministers were
silent. The ambassadors Gramont and
Lionne, who were sent out to attend the
election, had received credit from Mazarin
to the amount of 15,000,000 dollars, and
considerable sums from this source found
their way into the pockets of influential
personages at the courts of Cologne,
Mainz, Treves, and Heidelberg. Austrian
and Spanish money was also readily
accepted, and the latter commanded
great influence in Dresden. In any case, to
take presents from both sides was to be
under obligations to neither,
Frederic William of Brandenburg en-
joyed a reputation greater than any that his
forefathers had possessed. When Sweden,
Poland, and Austria were struggling for the
_ p supremacy in Eastern Europe
, _, .^ . they could not afford to leave
of Frederic ,. -^ ^ r .■< • 1
^ . J . . his power out of their calcu-
lations ; within the empire his
neighbours had to be careful how they
opposed a coahtion of which he was a
member. Before the meeting of the
electors, Frederic William plainly de-
clared his opinion in a despatch to the
Elector of Cologne, and spoke in favour
of the Austrian candidate, for he was of
Pufendorf's opinion as to the welfare of the
4408
empire, and therefore laid it down as
necessary in view of the threatening
state of affairs " again to elect such a
house as is capable by its own power of
upholding the Roman Empire."
However, when it became necessary to
draw up the terms of election and to lay
down the principles upon which the
chosen emperor would have to conduct
the policy of his government, Branden-
burg declared decisively for that party
which was opposed to any amalgamation
of German and Spanish affairs, and was
anxious that the emperor should not
involve the empire in a quarrel with its
western neighbour on account of the
Franco-Spanish war. In brief, the desire
of this party was that if the House of
Hapsburg took the German crown, it
should not employ the additional power
thus gained to avert the fall of Spain.
Co-operation by the courts of Vienna and
Madrid invariably favoured Catholicism,
a religion which Brandenburg had no
inclination to strengthen. The majority
in the college of electors was gained by
the adherence of the Palatinate under
. ... the influence of the ecclesiastical
E^^'t^d * princes of Cologne and Mainz,
p, who were brought over to his
side by the dependence upon
France, whereas Protestant Saxony seceded
through her jealousy of the Catholic
parties — Bavaria and Treves ; however,
the fact remains that the position assumed
by Brandenburg materially helped to
secure the safety of Protestantism.
Leopold was obliged to undertake to
abstain from any interference in the
wars which France was waging in Italy
and Burgundy, to give no help to her
opponents, and further to work in the
interests of peace between France and
Spain. If the emperor as head of the
empire desired to enter into alliance
with foreign powers, the consent of the
electors must first be obtained, and this
not by writing, but after full discussion
in the electoral assembly.
For the execution of an imperial decree
in the case of any one state of the empire
the general consent was also necessary. The
electoral character of the empire was thus
most strongly emphasised by the election
of Leopold L, and the terms of election
which explained the main features of the
constitution were practically an amplifica-
tion of the Golden Bull in the year 1356.
The election of the House of Hapsburg
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
had been a concession to the necessities
of the general pohcy of the empire ; it
imphed uo greater coherence in the
relations of the imperial princes to the
emperor and his house. The republic of
princes had chosen a wealthy and excellent
representative, and had laid additional
obligations upon the state, which was
desirous of preserving the balance between
the powers influential in the south-east
of Europe ; but the several members of
the empire were entirely convinced that
the imperial dominions and the voluntary
union of the German rulers did not together
constitute any political unity, and that they
were severally at liberty to pursue their own
course of policy regardless of the emperor.
This idea found open expression in
the formation of a confederacy of the
princes on the Rhine, a movement which
followed almost immediately upon the
election. If we consider merely the formal
wording of the convention concluded
upon August 14th, 1658, we may call
the confederation a movement of the
friends of peace — with such emphasis is
the statement made that " the con-
p . federates, whether differing in
-, . . religion or not, will provoke no
, p foreign power to hostihties, but
will preserve the friendship
now existing among themselves, and
will use the remedies of law to remove
any causes of quarrel that may occur."
However, this organisation could not be
considered as remarkably formidable,
inasmuch as the whole of the standing
forces which the members were able to
provide amounted to only 4,700 infantry
and 2,370 cavalry.
Beside the electorates of Mainz,
Cologne, and the Palatinate of Neuburg,
the Liineburgers of Brunswick and the
Landgrave of Hesse also joined the con-
federation, which was modified conform-
ably to its convention with France.
France undertook to protect the rights and
possessions of the confederates, who on
their part promised to maintain the Peace
of Westphalia together with the conces-
sions then made to France, and held
themselves in readiness to help the king
with their military contingents if he should
be attacked in any of the territories
which had been assured by the peace.
The estimate of troops mentioned in the
French proposals was sufficiently modest,
amounting to 1.600 infantry and 800
cavalry ; the political confederates were
bound to act only in cases when the
German princes reckoned upon French
help ; they were not concerned with the
rights of France to represent her own
interests with such means as might seem
necessary to her within the territory of the
confederates. In the war against Spain
and the States-General, Louis XIV. had
_ gained considerable advantage
jj. . by making practical use of
f M°™**^"^ these rights, which had been
established in theory by the
dexterous diplomacy of Mazarin. Branden-
burg also took part in the early stages of the
negotiations, but she abstained from join-
ing in the compact ; she made many changes
of front which were not compatible
with the policy of reinsurance against
the growing power of the empire adopted
by a number of petty German states.
Brandenburg- Prussia had already become
a body politic which was quite capable
of leading an alliance, but could never
have been an earnest, loyal member of a
confederation under French guidance.
The imperial court fully recognised that
the formation of the Rhine confedera-
tion was directed immediately against
its position in the empire, and foreboded
an interference on the part of France in
the affairs of the empire which might
become extremely serious. The emperor
therefore did his utmost to sever the
constitutional representatives of the pro-
vinces, who made up the assembly of
deputies when the Reichstag was not
sitting, from such influence as the Rhine
princes might exert. There was some
dispute upon the question whether the
assembly of deputies should be held in
Frankfort or in Regensburg ; and the
Rhine confederates demanded the sum-
moning of the Reichstag, which had been
prorogued for two years in 1654.
The German Reichstag, which was in
correspondence with the assembly for
maintaining the Peace at Nuremberg, might
, have extended its activity
Germaays j^ ^^ unusual degree. It
°* _, .,. might have dealt with the
Opportunities ° r ,• • ,,
means of reahsmg the prm-
ciples of the imperial constitution as laid
down in the Peace of Westphalia, with
measures necessary for securing the
frontiers, with the organisation of the
imperial army, with the means desirable
for increasing the prosperity of the
country, for revivmg trade and industry.
However, one of the most remarkable
4409
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
phenomena among the consequences of
the Thirty Years War is the fact that all
the misery and all the losses which had
befallen Germany during that period
could not arouse the people to the absolute
necessity of co-operation for the protection
of their real interests. In wide sections
of the population some dull sense of that
necessity may have remained,
ir* .... millions of sufferers may have
of German ^°P^^ ^^^* ^^^P ^^"^^"^ ^^""^
ermany ^^^^^ ^^iq emperor and the
empire, but of these desires no outward
manifestation ever came to be expressed in
political action.
The truth of the saying that " poverty
brings weakness" was never so strikingly
illustrated as in the case of the German
Empire, which the great war had deprived
of half its inhabitants, four-fifths of all
its domestic animals, and of building
materials and articles of daily use to
an incalculable extent. Starving men,
in whom all feeling for the benefits of
society is dead, who have sunk to the
degradation of cannibalism, as was con-
stantly the case towards the end of the war,
cannot be expected to fight for political
rights ; they are utterly incapable of
grasping the connection between political
rights and their own struggle with the
stern necessities of nature. The misery
of the masses merely promotes the wealth
and the power of a few self-aggrandising
selfish natures, who know how to possess
themselves of those means by which
political power can be grasped and held.
In the sixteenth century, when the
demand for the Christian community of
property arose over a great part of
Germany, and became almost a war cry,
the German peasants were generally in a
state of prosperity which amounted almost
to luxury, and were thus capable of striving
for social equality with the territorial
lords ; even after the subjection of the
bloody revolt in Thuringia and Swabia,
they did not lose so much
German Lands ^^ -^^ ^^ pohtical rights
under the Rule ',, ^ j. j • it. ^
, e , . . as they lost durmg the two
of Soldiers , j-'. i_-i_ . i_° r-
decades m which the German
lands were under the rule of soldiers,
and suffered alike from friend and foe.
Within the land-owning class great
changes had taken place ; many ancient
families had been extinguished, had been
driven out from castle and court, or had
found themselves unable to keep up their
establishments, owing to want of capital
4410
and scarcity of labour ; their place had
been taken by the military aristocracy,
which had appropriated to itself most ol
the hard cash in the country. " The new
masters had no mercy upon the pool
dependents, for they had not learned to
know them by centuries of life among
them. The rights and privileges which
the old families had left undisturbed were
now altered, and altered in favour of the
masters, with the help of adroit masters of
Roman jurisprudence, who were always
ready to lend a hand in any doubtful
business for cash payment ; free courts
were broken up or suppressed."
But the men who had in this manner be-
come great landowners could not forthwith
give up the habits and vices which they
had indulged during the long period of
war. In the castles, which were restored and
splendidly furnished with foreign money, a
wild life went on ; drunkenness and gaming
were unbounded, and were interrupted
only by the rough pleasures of the chase.
In the villages the disbanded soldiers who
tramped the country took from the
peasants the little which they had been able
A A f *^ wring from the soil with their
n «« o inadequate appliances. In many
d Po rt P'^^^^ there was neither priest
over y ^^^ schoolmaster ; the rich
intellectual treasure which scholars had
spread abroad throughout the hearths and
homes of the people had vanished entirely.
Ignorance, superstition, the belief in
witchcraft, dominated their minds ; habits
of begging had destroyed even their sense
of shame.
In consequence of the want of money
among the lower and middle classes,
wages and the prices of raw stuffs were
lowered in every part of the country ;
industrial activity was limited to the pro-
duction of such articles as were absolutely
necessary, capital was wanting for the
maintenance of artistic manufactures ;
capital in the hands of a limited number
of rich men went abroad in exchange for
an increase of imports, which came in
chiefly from France, but also from Amster-
dam, London, Lisbon, and Venice. " From
the courts, great and small, ecclesiastical
and civil, in which had been heaped the
plunder of the generals and captains of
every nation and creed, the taxes paid by
the vassals flowed into the coffers of the
Parisian manufacturers, who then laid
down the fashion of the day for the whole
of the Continent. Thus it was that
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
France s economic triumphs increased her
political advantage, and thus Germany's
misfortunes conduced to the enrichment
of her western neighbour." Dutch and
English had absorbed the trade which was
once the mainstay of the Hanseatic
houses ; trade in South Germany was
absolutely dead. Many of the powerful
patrician famihes had become counts and
landed lords, others took official posts as
a possible sop to their ambition, most
had disappeared altogether. There was
no incitement to the spirit of enterprise ;
in trade over seas the name of Germany
was almost unknown.
This state of affairs did not, however,
weigh heavily upon the councillors and
syndics who represented their rulers at
Regensburg, and spent most of their time
in the presentation of extensive reports
upon fruitless negotiations
and in the study of injunc-
tions, which generally con-
tained occasion for setting
aside any proposition which
might have been generally
beneficial. The " Recess of the
Imperial Diet," which was the
name given to the collective
report of the resolutions
passed, contains the text of
the Peace of Westphalia and
the practical resolutions of
the Nuremberg assembly, a
decree concerning the reform
of the imperial chamber court,
some proposals for improve
FREDERIC OF WALDECK
This count, who had great influence
upon the imperial policy of the
ceming imperial taxation, upon the regular
payment of which the imperial party
rightly laid great stress ; should the elector
submit, " instead of being a king's equal,
he would become a dependent, a treasure-
bringing — that is, a tributary — lord, of less
. power and resource than a
ermany in j^j^^jg^j^ proprietor of Bohemia
th*'*!'*'^ k'°" °^ Poland." In view of the
experience which Ferdinand
III. had had of the Reichstag, Leopold
could not expect to gain very much
by re-opening negotiations with the
states of the empire, for he could hardly
expect any great support of his own
interests from them. It was only the
recurrence of the danger of an attack by
the Turks upon the territory which he had
inherited which had induced him to
summon the Reichstag. The territory of
the House of Hapsburg, great
though it was, had not yet
been organised as a state, and
lacked the internal strength
which would have enabled it
successfully to resist the
powerful force which the
Sultan could bring against it ;
< icrman money and German
troops were necessary for its
defence, for it was justly to
be considered as a bulwark
of the kingdom against the
East. The kingdom of the
Magyar nationality had
proved unequal to this task ;
since the disaster of Mohacs
ment in the division of the Elector of Brandenburg, advised it had fallen into disruption
empire into circles, and unim- w™ not to submit to the de- and had become the scene
portant regulations upon the crees concerning imperial taxation, ^f ^^^y Conflicts, which
payment of outstanding debts. The parties
had been fighting under arms for thirty
years, and continued to regard one another
with mutual distrust ; the general welfare
of the nation was neglected in spite of the
fact that public opinion, as shown by a
stream of political pamphlets, had set in
steadily in the direction of a more enlarged
and enlightened policy. The fear that
—. -, ,. . the emperor would attempt to
The Nation » , j u •
,„ „ extend his powers was so over-
Welfare ■ J.U J. ij
N I t d powering that none could
eg ec e recognise the unifjdng force of
resolutions by the majority in the college
of electors. Count George Frederic of Wal-
deck, who obtained at that time greater
influence upon the imperial policy of the
Elector of Brandenburg, warned him not
to submit in any way to the decrees coij-
greatly facilitated the Ottoman advance.
It is possible that affairs in Hungary
would have run a different course if the
powerful dynasty of the Hunyadis had
remained in power ; but even then it
would have been impossible to say with
any certainty that the Magyar feudal
nobility would have been ready as a whole
to make the heavy sacrifices demanded for
a long war with the Turks. Since the
Ottomans had possessed themselves of the
Balkan Peninsula, thoughtful Magyars
were no longer set upon preserving the
complete independence of their kingdom ;
they recognised the advisability of forming
a close alliance with neighbours who were
powerful, and considered personal union to
be the surest guarantee of confederations.
This opinion came to open expression
4411
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
in the compacts with Hapsburg, in 1463
and 1491, and also in the election of the
Bohemian king Vladislav ; the Reichstag
at Ofen, 1527, also took the same point of
view, after the terrorism of John Zapolya
and his dependents had been crushed.
The nationalists, who passed the resolu-
tion in 1505 that no foreigner should be
J, elected king, never seriously
ungary jjQpgjj fQj- ^j^g absolute inde-
Two Evils pendence of Hungary. Having to
choose between two evils, they
preferred dependence upon the House of
Hapsburg to dependence upon Turkey. The
position adopted by Hungary, the centre of
the opposition, was largely influenced by
the religious policy of the Hapsburgs, whose
permanent union with the papacy and the
Jesuits formed a continual danger to the
freedom of Protestantism, which had taken
root both in the Carpathian highlands and
in the plains of the Theiss. The national
movements under Bocskay, Bethlen, and
the Rakoczy were in each case attempts to
protect Protestantism, and gained strength
from union with the corresponding religious
parties in Germany. The House of Haps-
burg had hoped to be able to make its
territories coherent by the maintenance
of religious unity. But its stern opposition
to the fundamental principle of religious
freedom hindered the internal coherence
of the population, shattered all confidence
in the respect for justice which had been
attributed to the dynasty, and secured the
adhesion of the religious fanaticism, which
was very strongly developed among the
Magyar Calvinists, to the political parties.
The policy of the Hapsburgs was not
founded on religious intolerance in itself ;
the grandsons of Maximilian I. regarded
the Reformation from a political point of
view. Resistance to the Reformation was
a matter that touched neither heart nor
conscience in their case ; they thought
that they could not afford to lose the
support of the ecclesiastical princes and the
TK CK* f clergy against the encroach-
_, . .^ ments of the secular Orders
Factor in r xu tt
A » • • r t of the empire. However,
Austria s Fate ,.^. , . ^ ,11
political views are unstable ;
they have to be adapted to change of cir-
cumstances and a proof of this fact is to be
seen in the altered attitude of Ferdinand I.
and MaximiUan H., and even in the case
of Rudolf and Matthias. The fate of
Austria largely depended upon the supre-
macy of the inner Austrian hne, in which
the Bavarian Wittelsbach blood and
44X3
temperament of the Archduchess Maria had
become preponderant. We must leave
the investigators of the psychology of
families and races to decide why it was
that Jesuit Catholicism should have gained
so strong a hold upon the Bavarians in
particular ; at any rate, its influence
during a period of 400 years is unmis-
takable, and cannot be neglected if we
would understand the history of Austria.
The Jesuits were the primary founders
of that system of centralisation which
affected the different countries possessed
by the Hapsburgs in their natural develop-
ment to a strongly organised federal state,
brought about hostility between the
several populations, and set their interests
in opposition to the interests of the state.
In the countries of the Bohemian crown
the Jesuits exercised a Germanising influ-
ence ; on the other hand, in the duchies
of the Alpine districts, the acquisition and
the union of which had formed the kernel
of the power of the Hapsburg family, Jesuit
influence prevented any close sympathy
on the part of the people for their blood
relations in the Protestant territories.
_ - The consequence was the
I V^i °t 1 ^^"^°^t entire destruction in
-, . those countries of that intel-
lectual culture which had been
a splendid characteristic of the thirteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Phrase-making,
empty and superficial, was the dominant
feature in literature ; in countless cases
the spirit of intellectual society was broken,
subservience was praised as a virtue,
sycophancy and jealousy became habitual.
At the instance of his Bavarian relatives,
and with the help of Jesuit advice,
Ferdinand H. proceeded to oppress the
Protestant Orders, and was resisted with
empty words instead of strong action ; in
cowardice and hesitation the Protestant
landowners retired within their castle
walls before a few gangs of peasants, and
quietly looked on at the process of turning
shopkeepers and peasants into Catholics.
Until the edict of restitution in 1629, they
had at least succeeded in preserving the
right of freedom of worship in their own
homes ; but after that period their
liberties were nearly blotted out.
The Roman clerics advanced, secure of
victory, and with them the overbearing
bands of Friedlander soldiers, while dis-
tinguished families who would not renounce
their faith, retreated before them, and
left their houses, courts, and country, to
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
await the time when the German Empire
and their Christian fellows could assure
them religious freedom and enable them
to return to the possession of their ancient
inheritances. With unparalleled obstinacy
the Emperor Ferdinand III. fought
against the attempt, during six years of
negotiation at Miinster and Osnabriick,
to extend the conditions of religious tolera-
tion to his own territories ; during that
period he failed to avail himself of many
favourable opportunities, as he was em-
ployed in offering an obstinate opposition
to the attack made by Sweden in favour
of the Austrian Protestants.
After the peace the chief power in the
empire was concentrated in the person of
an emperor who was chief only in name ;
but the religious unity of the territories
of the House of Austria had been pre-
served. The Protestant Orders made
further attempts to remove or to lighten
the heavy yoke laid upon their Austrian
co-religionists ; but these efforts were
unsuccessful, the more so as they were
never seriously prosecuted. The Reichs-
tag and the election of Leopold as
-^. . emperor would have provided
ere e opportunity for the exertion
Empire r i. u i.
W k ^ greater pressure ; but no
one took the trouble to
seize the occasion, because no one took
any permanent interest in the fate of the
Austrian territories. Nowhere was the
weakness of the empire more conspicuous
than at that point where the emperor
was also a territorial prince ; the imperial
support, which had been so earnestly re-
quested and desired, about which so many
words and documents in the Reichstag
had been spent in vain, bore a miserable
appearance upon the frontiers and could
make no impression upon the land-owners,
who were alarmed at the incursion of the
Turks, from which they had suffered loss.
The custom grew of considering the
title of emperor as one attaching ipso
facto to the local prince, and no special
stress was ever laid upon the fact that the
prince's lords were part of the Roman
Empire of the German nation. The only
people to take any real part in imperial
affairs were the high nobility, who were
aiming at paid official posts under the
empire, or whose social position would
be improved by admission into the colleges
of imperial princes and counts. The
Austrian could no longer entertain the
idea that he was himself " within the
empire " ; the phrase " beyond the
empire " began to grow more and more
habitual. The separation of the Haps-
burg possessions from the rest of Germany
has been a steadily growing fact since the
Peace of Westphalia, so much so that
the legislation establishing their separate
existence in the eighteenth and nineteenth
-,. , J . centuries was brought
The Independeace i , ■., - j-rc il
^j .. about without difficulty,
German Princes and the full significance
of the step was probably
never realised by the majority of the popu-
lation. The common action necessary to
meet the attack of the Turks was no check
upon this process of alienation ; the German
princes, with whom the emperor nego-
tiated in the Reichstag for some means
of support, had no intention of demanding
that the ties uniting the empire should be
further strengthened by way of recom-
pense for their aid ; nor did they attempt
to insist that the Reichstag should have
more power to deal with affairs within
the Hapsburg territories.
On the contrary, their efforts were
concentrated entirely upon the task of
making themselves more independent of
the emperor by their wealth, their
troops, and their personal service in
war ; thus they were in favour rather of
weakening the cohesive power of the em-
pire. The more they could free them-
selves from subjection to a superior power,
the less they regarded the efforts of the
emperors to make their own territory, by
the introduction of all kinds of adminis-i
trative measures, a self-contained province
separate from the empire. Federal rela-
tionship was the natural result of the
circumstances of the time ; imperial
federation had no real existence.
However, the manifestations of popular
feeling were of a totally different charac-
ter ; the nation had been roused by the
reports disseminated concerning the cruelty
of the Turks in Transylvania and Upper
„ Hungary, and would gladly have
Raid'Y^ joined in offering a vigorous
by Turks resistance to their hereditary
foe. The heroic defence of
Grosswardein in the summer of 1660
increased the interest which the people took
in the fate of their co-religionists in Hungary
and Transylvania. But the court of Vienna
had no ears for popular outcry, and not
the smallest desire to turn the crusading
spirit to account, as it might lead only to
the further strengthening of Protestantism.
4413
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
In spite of the many difficulties in the
way, the diplomacy of the time continued
to discuss the questions of equipment and
defence. For six months had the Arch-
bishop of Salzburg, as the emperor's chief
commissioner, awaited the arrival of the
Th A' f provincial ambassadors in
the*" ur*on Regensburg ; in January, 1663,
J p . ,, when the session of the Reichs-
tag could be opened, it became
plain that not only the special desires of
the electors would require consideration,
but that an opposition to the princely
houses had been set on foot, and an oppo-
sition which offered its assistance on con-
ditions impossible to accept. It was due
to the concurrence of France, ready to
pull the strings of any number of intrigues,
that William Philip of the Neuburg
Palatinate, together with Brunswick,
Hesse, and Wiirtemberg, had
founded the " union of
princes," which was directed
against the preponderance of
the electoral families ; their
chief demand was that . the
council of princes should be
allowed to partake in the
election of the emperors, a
privilege which had hitherto
been claimed by the electors
alone. So this party desired
to make their help against
been tapped; whereas the co-operation of
troops in the campaigns proposed would
be contingent upon conditions constantly
changing, and in the last resort excuses
might always be found for the recall of
the troops. During the debates on the
subject of " emergency help." a proposal
emanated from the Court of Brunswick to
the effect that in future special provisions
should be made for the security of the
empire ; this business occupied the atten-
tion of the Reichstag to the end of the
session, and many well-meaning proposals
were brought forward. However, no defi-
nite military scheme was evolved, as it was
found impossible to guarantee the measure
of support necessary for this purpose.
In the course of the summer of 1663
the Turkish intentions became plain ;
they had invaded Transylvania, and pro-
posed to use the party
struggles brought about by
the Rakoczy family for the
purposes of a great campaign,
and to secure their power on
the Central Danube by a
crushing blow to be directed
against the Austrian territory.
The Grand Vizir Ahmed
Koprili led one hundred and
twenty thousand men to the
Waag, giving out that he
proposed to march directly
upon Vienna. Fortunately for
the Turks conditional upon ^„„„.^ „^x,.,.r-^,,^,,,». .
,, ,. • U.U COUNT MONTECUCCOLI -, . - i • ■^^.
an alteration m the con- count Raimund Montecuccoii, the that town, his military inca-
stitution, which the emperor imperial fieid-marshai, who entered pacitv was equalled Only by his
1 J , , the Austrian service in 1625, dis- -j • ^j r j •
had no power to grant tinguished himself against the pride ; instead of advancing
upon his own initiative, '^"'"''s "> ^^^ thirty Years War. straight upon his mark, he
At length the union of princes was halted until September 27th, 1663, to
overruled ; it was decided to make an
immediate grant of fifty " Romermonate,"
there was to be exemption for no one,
and the ten imperial departments were all
included in the demand for 6,400,000
guldens — in reality, only the half of them.
The next question was how this sum
should be raised. The imperial towns,
which had long been groaning under the
weight of the payments imposed upon
them, now demanded a revision of the
imperial rolls ; moreover, the members of
the Rhine confederacy, upon the advice of
France, declined to limit their action to a
monetary payment, but desired to resume
their original character of imperial auxili-
aries by sending contingents of troops.
France considered that such pecuniary
resources would always be entirely at the
emperor's disposal when once they had
4414
besiege the fortress of Neuhausel, which
made a heroic defence under Adam
Forgach ; upon the capitulation of the
place he retired to Gran, and there sent
his troops into winter quarters.
The imperial field-marshal. Count Rai-
mund Montecuccoii, was one of the
foremost strategists of the age ; he
was careful and cunning as well, and
he had so cleverly manoeuvred his scanty
., ^ .. forces as to give the Grand
Montecuccoii -tr- ■ i. n
^ . . Vizir a wholly erroneous im-
a Match r "li- • i_
* it T 1. pression of their numbers ;
for the Turks *^ , ., t- 1 ,•
and the lurks accordingly
hesitated to attack the imperial position
at Altenburg. Hungary herself took but
little share in the defence of her own
territory. The militia, the levies of the
nobles and comitati, amounted to 11,000
rrien, who wer^ of pse only in ^errilla
AUSTRIA AND THE EMPIRE
operations, and would not stand firm
in the open field. Not only were the
operations of the imperial field-marshal
inadequately supported, but supplies of
provisions and men for the auxiliary
forces were diminished by the self-seeking
of individuals. The town of Pressburg
declined to admit Montecuccoli within
its gates, and only garrisoned the walls
when the enemy were in sight of them.
The Landtag declined to permit the
imperial army to enter Hungarian territory
before the militia had assembled, and the
authorities were obliged to transport their
reinforcements from Vienna by the Danube
to the points threatened by the enemy.
The emperor was convinced that Ahmed
Koprili would renew his attack in the
following year, and appeared in person at
Regensburg in December, 1663, being
most anxious to secure the vigorous
support of the imperial provinces. He
found a zealous partisan in the Elector of
Brandenburg, who further placed at the
emperor's disposal such of his own troops
as he could spare from the forces in pre-
paration against Sweden and Poland,
_ Bavaria, Saxony, and Mainz also
• *N™*a^f contributed. The Rhine con-
. federation supplied a body of
7,200 men under the command of
Count Hohenlohe, who was not, however,
permitted to join in any operation until
the emperor should have consented to
the junction with the French division.
Brandenburg brought foward a proposition
in the Reichstag that an imperial army
should be raised amounting to 60,000
men. But the other provinces would not
pledge themselves to a special number of
troops ; they agreed to the so-called Trip-
lum — that is, the triple computation of the
rolls of Maximilian or of Worms — which
would theoretically have produced an
effective force, but had never yet done so.
During the winter of 1663- 1664 the
Rhine confederates had marched on their
own initiative to the Drave, and had under-
taken an aimless attack upon Essek,
which had ended in heavy losses to them-
selves. Naturally, the emperor, in spite of
his disinclination, could no longer refuse
the help of the French contingent, and in
view of the approach of the numerous
bodies of the enemy was forced to accept
any help which offered itself. Monte-
cuccoli would have been very glad to
form a central force of 50,000 men and
124 guns on the Danube. But the coimcil
The Turks
Badly
Beaten
of war at Regensburg demanded the for-
mation of three armies ; one for Upper
Hungary and Transylvania, under Louis
Rattwich, Count of Souches, another on the
Drave under Strozzi and Nicholas Zrinyi
for the conquest of Kanizsa, and a third
under Montecuccoli on the Danube and
Lake Platten with no special object in view.
The Turks left their real line
of attack to relieve Kanizsa,
and Montecuccoli found time
to effect a junction of his own
army with the Rhine confederates and the
French troops on the Raab, and gave
battle on August ist, 1664, at Sankt
Gotthard, which ended in the defeat of
the Turks with the loss of 14,000 of
their best troops.
The Grand Vizir was obliged to give up
the attack, as the condition of his troops
was not such as to inspire confidence.
At Altenburg, Montecuccoli brought 40,000
men and sixty guns against him, and
might have been able to take the
offensive had the imperial troops and the
French been willing to place themselves
unconditionally under his command. In
order to bring the Turkish war to
a victorious conclusion, French and
Spanish affairs should have been left
temporarily to themselves, and Branden-
burg, the best armed of the German
states, should have been brought over
by co-operation in Silesia. Eastern Hun-
gary and Transylvania wOuld have had to
be propitiated with the full recognition of
religious freedom.
But such energetic measures proved
too extreme for the authorities, and it
seemed preferable to conclude the Peace
of Vasvar, Eisenberg, with Turkey, on
August loth, 1664, a dishonourable peace
which was really no more than an armis-
tice of long duration. It brought con-
tentment neither to the empire nor to
Hungary. A few years after the con-
clusion of peace the conspiracy of Zrinyi,
„ , Nadasdy, Frangipani, and
ungary s Ta,ttenbach broke out, the
e .. object of which was the dis-
Separation ■",. <• tt r
ruption of Hungary from
Hapsburg. The conspiracy was dis-
covered and the leaders punished with
death, but dissatisfaction in Hungary
only increased in consequence.
Turkey could count now, as previously,
upon the adhesion of the magnates. It
was for her to say when the war
should be renewed.
4415
44i6
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
AGE OF
LOUIS XIV.
Ill
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH LOUIS XIV.
r^URING their eighty years' war of
'-^ liberation against Spain the Protes-
tant people of the Netherlands had not
only struggled for religious freedom and
political independence, but they had
also become the greatest merchants and
capitalists of the world. The struggle
between the Romance and Teutonic races
had lasted a thousand years, and after
the seventeenth century it was not only a
leading feature in European history, but
was also an important factor in the
political changes which took place in
every habitable part of the globe ; and
during that struggle there is no more
brilliant example of Teutonic superiority
in the spirit of business enterprise, in
boldness of commercial designs, and in
determination to make the most of any
advantage, however small, than is pre-
sented by the rise of Dutch commercial life.
_ . . After Spain and Portugal had
jj*^ "''"*"**' begun, the era of geographical
y. . discovery, it was the merchants
of Holland who were the
first to grasp the commercial advantages
opened by the discovery of the ocean
routes to both Indies, and to draw full
profit from them ; for the great influx of
precious metal, which had given Spain so
long a period of political power, was to be
proved by no means a necessity, and very
possibly a danger, to national prosperity.
It is possible that the Germans would
have anticipated Holland by absorbing
a large portion of the world's trade, or
have become a commercial power contem-
porary with her ; but German relations
with Portugal, who had begun her East
Indian commercial career upon capital
borrowed from the Fugger, Welser, Vohlin,
Hochstetter, and others, had been inter-
rupted by the opposition of Hapsburg
interests and the first religious wars, which
had exercised a destructive influence upon
commercial activity in Southern Gennany.
The political condition of the German
Empire after Charles V. was totally
incompatible with mercantile develop-
ment, and the Netherlands had, therefore,
no competition to fear in this direction.
On the other hand, they were utterly beaten
by the Hanseatics in the competition for
the Baltic trade. The latter obtained
»j . their imports at so cheap a rate
H Id b th *^^^ *^^y could afford to under-
jj^ ^ . * bid any middleman ; they sup-
ported Russia in her wars with
Poland by shipments of guns and military
stores, in return for which they exacted
enormous quantities of raw material at
ridiculously low prices. As they were
always ready to pay cash down, they
easily outstripped all competitors in the
Baltic corn-markets ; they monopolised
the herring fisheries on the Scotch coasts
by their greater cleverness in the curing of
the fish, their methods being unknown
to the English.
In 1642 a special board was appointed
for the development of trade in the Levant.
Venice and Genoa, who had been working
for that trade for centuries, now had to put
a good face on the matter and try to secure
their retail trade in dried fish and colonial
produce by means of special conventions.
Venetian textile goods, which had been so
famous, and for which Smyrna was a
special market, were now entirely ousted
by Dutch and French productions. French
goods were carried in Dutch
vessels to every European
coast; in the year 1658 their
value was estimated at
$210,000,000. The discoveries on the coast
of the AustraUan continent, in New Guinea,
and New Zealand must not be forgotten,
together with the settlements in North
America, where corn-growing and horse-
breeding made great progress in a short
time. The brilliancy of the Ufe of the aristo-
cracy, the self-coDU&dence of the citizens,
4417
Commerci&l
Triumphs
of France
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
have been immortalised in the Dutch
school of painters, who attained to a
higher pitch of artistic power
during those days of com-
mercial and political ascen-
dency than any of their con-
temporaries. The admirable
likenesses of their councillors
and merchants bring before
our eyes those men who
exercised for half a century a
domination which extended
over every part of the world.
However, their power was
but short-lived ; at the moment
when they seemed to have
reached the highest point
they were already tottering to
their fall. The settlements,
which their sea-power had
enabled the Dutch to found
after a hard struggle, lay
open on the landward side to any attack,
and extraordinary efforts were demanded
to make their
defence secure ;
but the nation
of whom these
efforts were
demanded was
incapable of any
further develop-
ment. They had
brought their
carrying-trade to
the highest
possible pitch,
but they were
not sufficiently
populous to
become a pro-
ducing people,
and to add to the
body of calculat-
ing, speculating
merchants a
creative, manu-
facturing class,
which might have
given the state a
reserve of power ;
for no such
reserve was to
be found among
the clever but
narrow - minded
individuals who
sat in the council chambers of the " Staden."
The unbounded pride displayed by the
' 4418
JACOB FUGGER
He was a member of a Swabian
family famous for its commercial
enterprise and prosperity, and
whose grants of money made the
development of trade possible.
THE PORTRAIT OF A DUTCH NOBLEMAN
From the painting by Franz Hals in the National Gallery, Edinburgh
capitalists towards the landed proprietors,
who took no share in commerce, eventually
deprived the city aristocracy
of all co-operation on the part
of the nobles in the further
development of the state ;
the House of Orange, which
had raised the standard of
freedom and independence
during the hardest periods of
the fight, was thereby deprived
of that position in v/hich it
had been able to render the
greatest services to the
common fatherland. The
young stadtholder and cap-
tain-general, WilUam H., was
carried off by an untimely
death on November 6th, 1650 ;
and it was not till a week
after his funeral that his heir
was born to the English
Princess Mary, on November 4th, 1650.
This event gave the " aristocracy of
wealth," as the
regents of the
state of Holland
called themselves,
the opportunity
they had desired
for establishing
their sole supre-
macy, which
rested upon two
main principles :
first, that the
Orange party
should be ex-
cluded from any
share in the
government ; and,
secondly, that the
freedom of the
small towns and
the poorer classes
of the population
should be with-
drawn.
There is no
pride like the
pride of the busi-
ness man who has
made his own
way in the world,
and there is no
administration so
selfish and op-
pressive as that which would provide for the
good of individuals and the welfare of the
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
state upon the principles demanded for
the working of a counting-house. With
unmitigated hypocrisy, the members,
of the new repubhc compared their state
to the Jewish kingdom of antiquity. But
when, in order to find some cogent reason
for the abohtion of the hereditary ofhce
of stadtholder, the repubhcans began to
add up the account of what the House of
Orange had cost the state, not forgetting
the presents made to the children of their
generals and statesmen, then it was that
the peddling soul of the Dutchman showed
all the characteristics of the Jewish
money-lenders who had increased abun-
carried off the first vessels of the astounded
British under the very guns of the Tower.
The fortresses on the frontier were in a
sad condition by contrast with this display
of vigour. The internal dissensions and
jealousies of the two parties ruined the
spirit of the army, and destroyed the zeal
of the officers, whom the government
refused to pay because they were suspected
of Orange inclinations.
However, the chief councillor of Holland,
Jan de Witt, a dry, calculating machine, a
man of some common-sense but with all the
passionate narrow-mindedness of the re-
publican citizen, was of the opinion that
THE SYNDICS: REMBRANDT OF A GROUP OF DUTCH MERCHANTS
In the seventeenth century Holland rose to :. ^ _^:i _;. ; „ at commercial supremacy, the domination of its enterprising
merchants lasting for half a century and extending to every part of the world. The above picture, reproduced from
Rembrandt's painting, shows us what type of men they were who made their country famous in the world of commerce.
dantly in previous centuries, and proved
that their political ideas were absolutely
devoid of that element of greatness which
was always a feature of the home and
foreign policy of the chosen people during
their period of prosperity.
During the wars with England, which
were the natural result of commercial
rivalry, the Dutch fleet had in no way
tarnished the reputation of the Low
German seafarers ; the final triumph of
the heroic spirit of the great Orange period
took place when De Ruyter, in 1667, made
a descent upon the Thames, and burned or
his lofty wisdom had saved the state
from all danger when he had succeeded
in forming the Triple Alliance with England
and Sweden against Louis XIV. His
mathematical knowledge had brought him
the reputation of a savant, but had not
enabled him to grasp the political combi-
nations which the King of France set on
foot when he found it necessary to break
up this confederation of the maritime
powers. De Witt thought that he had
firmly bound the interests of England to
those of his own country, and that he
would be able to execute that great
4419
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
political design which was reserved for the
powers of the Prince of Orange, whom he '
bitterly persecuted, and whom he was
anxious to reduce to the position of a
mere dependant upon the " aristocracy of
wealth." But the design became possible
only when the positions of the actors had
been reversed, when the
ng an s English people had come to
ccovery rom ^ ^^jj development of their
Republicanism i-,- i '^ -,
political power, and were
able to take the lead in the movement to
save the Teutonic world from subjection to
the great King of France. At the moment
when Louis XIV. was making trial of his
diplomatic skill in his preparations to deal
a crushing blow against the Netherlands,
the condition of affairs in
the British Isles was not
such as to justify any ex-
pectation that the salva-
tion of European freedom
might be expected from
that source.
England had speedily
recovered from her attack
of republicanism, which
was short though sharp,
for the population which
was represented in the
two Houses of Parliament
was composed of far
hffppier elements than that
of" the Dutch states. But
when she restored the
monarchy which Cromwell
had removed, she had
been unfortunate in setting
up an utterly worthless
ruler, and was conse-
quently not in a position
to take that place in the
political world which belonged to her by
right. One of the hardest trials of -a people
to whom monarchy is a necessity, and who
are inspired with the sense of its dignity, is
to see a worthless ruler upon the throne, a
man who is personally incapable of dealing
with the responsibilities of his office.
The Stuart Charles II. had no conception
of the relations that should subsist between
the state and its ruler, between the
monarchy and the representatives of the
people ; in his opinion, the government of
England was a possession that was natu-
rally his, which might afford him the oppor-
tunity of leading a life of debauchery.
Of national pride or of ambition he had
nothing. So it was not difficult for
4420
WILLIAM II„ PRINCE OF ORANGE
Ruler of the United Provinces, William II.,
Prince of Orange, married Mary, the daughter
of Charles I . of England, and their son, born
after his father's death, in 1650, subsequently
ascended the English throne as William III.
From the paintinyf by Honthorst
Louis XIV. to bend and turn him to
his own purposes ; Charles was more
than willing to sell his country for the gold
which his Parliaments would not provide
with sufficient lavishness, and which
alone might finally enable him to dispense
with ParHament altogether. The royal
civil list had been drawn up by the Con-
vention Parliament, which had made its
stipulations with the Stuart before the
Restoration, and the king's allowance did
not err on the side of generosity ; how-
ever, though $6,000,000 would have been
quite enough to keep up all the necessary
splendour of the court, it would not suffice
to satisfy the excessive demands of the
king's mistresses, who surpassed each
other in the extravagance
of their requests. Business
between Charles II. and
Louis XIV. began with the
sale of Dunkirk, for which
France paid $2,000,000
partly in cash, partly in
bills, from the discounting
of which King Louis
probably profited.
The so-called Cavalier
Parliament, which had
been returned in 1661,
was as loyal and devoted
as any monarch could
desire ; but it held
tenaciously to the im-
portant powers of voting
supplies and controlling
expenditure, and by
voting separately the
amounts required for
special purposes it was
able to preserve some
proportion of authority in
the several departments of public business.
The vicious and unscrupulous character of
the king enabled the Parliament to exercise
its legislative powers without restraint, and
to mould the growing kingdom as it pleased.
As regards the centralisation of power, the
„ ,. , strong hand of the Puritan
Parliament j- . ? n n 1 j
. p. . dictator Cromwell had accom-
the Dictator pli^hed a great deal, and his
place was now taken by the
Parliament, which looked into religious as
well as economic affairs, and also worked
carefully to maintain the relations of Britain
with foreign powers and to raise her prestige
in Europe, for which task the house of
Stuart had shown itself wholly incapable.
The religious party of the Parliament
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
was intolerant to the point of cruelty.
Crime and constant judicial murders were
the result ; dissent was persecuted with a
severity almost unexampled even during
*he fiercest struggles of the Reformation.
The supremacv of the Anglican Church was
considered so inseparable from the unity of
the state, and the uniform subjection of
every citizen to the civU authority, that
ecclesiastical supremacy was therefore
especially protected by legislation, and any
attempt of Papists or Presbyterians to
overthrow it was immediately checked by
the enforcement of the severest penalties.
By the Act of Uniformity in the year
1662 every form of worship was forbidden
which differed from that of the established
Episcopal Church ; holders of livings were
dispossessed if they refused compliance,
and 1,800 dissenting clergy
were driven into poverty.
The king,who had leanings
to Catholicism, did his best
to check the Papist per-
secutions; but terrifying
rumours of conspiracies,
which readily found
credence among the
people, kindled the fire
anew ; death - warrants
were issued against
members of the nobility,
against whom the . most
groundless suspicions were
entertained. All this,
however, was not the
doing of Charles; these
acts marked the rapid
growth of the centralisa-
tion of the civil power in
the hands, not of the
crown but of an intolerant ParUament.
At the same time the spirit of com-
mercial enterprise began to make itself
apparent. The example of the Nether-
lands had exercised a reviving and stimu-
lating influence upon English commercial
activity, which had progressed but little
„ . J since the voyages of Walter
as a G t ^^^^i^^ ^^ the time of Queen
Se ort Elizabeth. With the exception
of London there was but one
seaport with any extensive trade — namely,
Bristol, which was in constant communica-
tion with Virginia and the Antilles. Man-
chester imported every year for her textile
industries only 2,000,000 pounds of raw
wool, which was brought from Cyprus and
Smyrna ; among the largest imports were
THE CONSORT
Mary survived her
the wines of Spain and Portugal, for the
wine trade became important by reason
of the reaction to luxury which followed
upon the stern morality of the Puritan
government. In no case had manufacture
risen to a higher level ; British products
could not compete with those of France
_ . or Belgium either in quantity
t'^fh*'* or quality. Even the best
J. . .. hardware was then imported
from abroad. The output of iron
was restricted by the scarcity of coal, and
amounted to little more than 10,000 tons.
In the North American colonies were
some 30,000 settlers, who were working
with energy and forethought for the
development of their community, without
concern for the party conflicts of the
mother country ; but their economic
development had not
sufficiently advanced for
the mother country to
derive , any advantage
from them.
At the period of the
Restoration the landed
nobility were still the
ruling class in England ;
they were but seldom in
communication with the
capital, as the badness of
the roads made travelling
both expensive and
dangerous. As regards
education and culture,
they were probably on the
same level as the petty
i nobles of Auvergne or
, ,i^ ,s Limousin ; even in the
remoter districts of Ger-
many men might be found
of greater experience of the world and with
better knowledge of the manners of the best
European society than any of the nobility
in Somersetshire or Yorkshire. Scarce more
than half of the level land of the kingdom
was under agriculture, but the products
were valuable and were sufficient to main-
tain the middle-class farmers, whose require-
ments were generally of a moderate nature.
However, even the richest nobles had
but a very modest capital at their disposal ;
among them incomes of 100,000 dollars
were tne exception rather than the rule.
After the fall of the Puritan tyranny
and the' disbanding of the Parliamentary
army, with which Cromwell had main-
tained his power, it became possible to
make special efforts to increase the pros-
4421
OF WILLIAM II.
husband by ten years,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
perity of the country. The lords and city
aristocracy formed business companies,
which were to develop commercial and
carrying trade upon the principles which
had been successful in Holland. Much
of the carrying trade had already been
captured by the Navigation Act of 165 1.
The East India Company was already
in existence, and an African
J * " *^ Company was now formed with
f*E°"l d ^^® object of providing the
ng an ^j^^jjigg ^j^j^ negro slaves.
Gold dust was imported from Guinea, and
with this the first guineas were coined.
But wherever the English ships appeared
they found jealous enemies in the Dutch,
who did their utmost to spoil the English
trade. In 1664 surprises and attacks
had occurred in the distant seas, though no
open declaration of war between the two
states had yet been made.
The interruption of friendly
relations and the formal
declaration of war in the
year 1665 were only the in-
evitable recognition of that
hostility which had originated
in state rivalry and had long
ago broken out in the colonies.
Upon several occasions during
the war the English fleet was
able to display its excellence
in brilliant and successful
actio as ; but it was unable
to maintain a permanent pre- jan de witt
were burned by the Dutch," writes the
good Royalist Admiralty official Pepys in
his diary, " the king did sup with my
Lady Castlemaine at the Duchesse of
Monmouth's — the wife of his natural
son, whom he had legitimised — and they
were all mad in hunting of a poor moth."
By the Treaty of Breda in 1667 England
made peace with the Dutch ; she determined
to limit rivalry with Holland to the sphere
of commerce ; she recognised the common
danger threatened by France who had
now freed herself from the anxiety of
the war with Spain, and therefore she
readily agreed to the conclusion of the
Triple Alliance. Charles II. cared nothing
whatever for the political and moral forces
which were working within the people.
The direction of party movements which
might happen to be popular with the city
magnates or the county
members was nothing to him,
except in so far as he might be
able to use it to increase his
income. He and his brother,
James, Duke of York, contri-
buted, it is true, to the capital
which was raised for the re-
organisation of the African
Company, which had become
bankrupt during the war ;
but this action was not the
result of the desire to set a
good example, and to pro-
mote the spirit of enterprise
dominance over the Dutch. "« ^^^ ^^^ ''^'^^ councillor of among the moneyed classes ; it
'ru tc^- „ „-c j.u„ _ Holland, and succeeded in forming • n j i .
The efficiency of the navy the Triple Alliance with England was impelled by cove tousness
declined considerably during and Sweden against Louis XIV. and the instinct of speculation,
the war, although Parliament He tried to avert war with England, jhe investment of $25,000
showed no parsimony in voting naval in the African Company was a very small-
supplies, however little inclined it might
be to improve the land forces or to take
in hand the organisation of a standing
army. But of the $6,250,000 which was
voted for purposes of the war, $2,000,000
went into the king's private purse, and
money was lacking to provide the ship-
wrights with proper timber and materials
for building. The favourites of the king's
mistresses became naval commanders,
capacity or experience being disregarded.
After De Ruyter's last attack on
Gravesend and Chatham, the hope of
inflicting a humiliation on their bold
rivals was abandoned. It was recognised
with bitter disappointment that a man
had been chosen for king who had no
particular interest in the fate of the
country. " On the night when our ships
4423
Finaacial
Schemes of
deposit for a king, one of whose mistresses
lost $125,000 in one night at cards. Such
insignificant sums went for nothing in his
financial plans, even though there were
times when he had not money enough to
buy himself new underclothing. The
Stuart king's respect for the new-made
Triple Alliance and for the
Constitution of his country
Char7eVll! ^^^ "°* strong enough to
prevent him from entering upon
the course of political dealing proposed
to him by Louis XIV., by which he was
the more attracted as the propositions of
Louis promised him a far greater and
surer reward than did the trade in spices
and negro children. His royal cousin
of France also displayed considerable
politeness and prudence in entrusting the
28x
4423
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
final conclusion of this piece of business
to the hands of two ladies, Henrietta of
Orleans, Charles's sister, and her com-
panion, Louise de Querouaille, who became
Duchess of Portsmouth, and gained an
influence upon the king nearly as strong as
that which the Countess of
Castlemaine had up to that
time exercised.
In the convention of Dover,
on May 22nd, 1670, Charles
II. promised to go over to
the Roman Catholic Church,
to dissolve the Triple Alliance,
and to form a confederation
with France against Holland ;
in return for this, Louis
promised him an immediate
present of $1,000,000, and
further support by way of
so-called yearly war subsidies Henrietta of Orleans
took banking business ; to these they
refused repayment of the capital which they
had borrowed. Charles also issued a
declaration of indulgence removing the
penalties to which Catholics and Presby-
terians were liable. By these acts the
powers of the Prerogative
were exceeded, and suspicions
of Catholicism began to be
aroused. The seed of further
discord had thus been sown
and was rapidly germinating
when Louis XIV. raised his
hand to deliver the blow which
he had long prepared against
the Netherland states, in
order that he might destroy
the opposition of the most
dangerous enemy to his plans
of expansion.
Sweden had also been
to the amount of $1,500,000. She was the youngest child of bought by France ; she had
Six thousand French troops fe'^/^^^L^STheTariaTiedt undertaken to enter into the
were also to proceed to Phiiip, Duke of Orleans, the only War with 16,000 men on the
England should the king brother of Louis XIV. of France, side of France if the emperor
find it necessary to dejfend his royal pre- or the empire should espouse the cause
rogatives against the Parliament. More-
over, Louis did not confine his operations
merely to securing the king's adhesion;
he gave large sums of money to be spent in
bribery, the division of
which among Ministers
and members of Parlia-
ment was entrusted to
Colbert's brother.
In England the king
had dismissed the grave
and unpopular chancellor
Clarendon, and so stifled
criticism upon the in-
creasing immorality of
court life ; public opinion
was entirely at fault
concerning the intentions
of the government, which
was now carried on by the
so-called Cabal Ministry
— Clifford, Arlington,
Buckingham, Ashley, and
of Holland ; the price for this promise was
400,000 thalers in the event of peace,
600,000 in case of war. The Emperor
Leopold I. had already come to an agree-
ment with Louis XIV. in
the year 1668 concerning
the future division of the
Spanish monarchy, by
means of his Alinisters
Auersperg and Lobkowitz.
Auersperg was possessed
with the idea that if he
were made cardinal he
would be a statesman not
inferior to Richelieu and
Mazarin, and he required
the support of the King
of France to obtain his
preferment at Rome ;
Lobkowitz hated the
Spaniards, who lorded it
over him at the court of
Vienna, although they no
Lauderdale. The Cabal the duchess of Portsmouth longer had at their "dis
r'btainedSl2 "^OO OOofrnm T^^ companion ofHenrietta of Orleans, Louise T-.r,co1 +V.o Tnr.r.Q.7 t,,UU
uuciiiicu^i^^uu.uuuiium jjg Querouaille, afterwards the Duchess of POSal tnc mOUey With
Parliament tor purposes Portsmouth, became a favourite of Charles which SOmC thirtv Or
Of coast defence in the "•' ^""^ ""'''"'^ ^^^^^ -«-"- -- ^-- forty years previously they
event of a war between Holland and France,
and then prorogued the assembly. As there
was thus no Parliament in session, they
seized the opportunity of defrauding the
creditors of the Treasury, in particular
tne London goldsmiths, who then under-
4424
had brought over privy councillors, princes
of the Church, and generals, to their interests.
The German House of Hapsburg had
acquiesced in the gains which France had
made during the " war of escheatage." It
had, moreover, concluded a secret conven-
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
tion with France, which is first mentioned
by Grimoard in the " (Euvres de Louis
•XIV.," published in 1806; this convention
was to the effect that, when the Spanish
Une became extinct, France should have
the Franche-Comte, Navarre, Naples and
Sicily, the Philippines, and the fortresses
on the African coast, while the emperor
was to receive Spain, the West Indies,
Milan, Sardinia, the Balearic and Canary
Islands. Louis XIV. never had any
intention of holding to the conditions of
this convention ; but he had obtained a
general recognition of the possibility of
dividing the Spanish possessions, the
throne of which was likely to become
vacant, and he had obviated for a long
duke from his territory, occasioned no
change in the emperor's attitude, though
it increased the opposition of the Spanish
party at the Vienna court.
Of the German states whose attitude
towards the French army in its operations
against Holland might have been of
importance, Cologne, Bavaria, the Pala-
tinate, and the warlike Bishop of Miinster
had been won over to the side of France ;
of the Guelfs, John Frederic of Hanover
was induced to entei into a compact of
neutrality at the price of a monthly
subsidy of 10,000 thalers. Celle and
Osnabriick stood aside and waited ;
Mainz declared that all resistance to the
French military power was quite hopeless.
itic PKciNi-H CAVALRY FoKi^iiNG iric. i^AssAGE OF THE RHINE ON JUNE 12Tir, 1672
time to come, any opposition on the part
of tlje Vienna court to his undertakings
against Holland. On November ist, 1671,
a compact was signed for the emperor by
Lobkowitz, in which the emperor promised
to take no part in any war of France which
should be waged outside the Spanish and
German dominions, and to afford no other
assistance to the powers attacked by
France than the continuance of friendly
relations with them.
Consequently, the efforts of the Austrian
ambassador to the Dutch states to persuade
the emperor to intervene on behalf of
Holland remained without result for the
moment. The occupation of Lorraine by
French troops, and the expulsion of the
The Elector of Brandenburg, Frederic
William, who had always been regarded
with mistrust by the Dutch regents as
being the uncle and guardian of the young
Prince of Orange, perceived the serious
complications which the victory of France
over Holland would produce in the
kingdom ; he declared that " in the eyes
of the present and future generations it
would appear an eternal disgrace to sur-
render the freedom not only of Germany,
but of the whole of Christendom." He
would neither comply with the requests
made to him by the French ambassadors,
nor would he shrink before any threats. He
was very anxious to form a confederation
with the Dutch government ; but, dazzled
4425
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
jewels and works of art, fled to Hamburg,
Denmark, or even into hostile England ;
after the flight of the garrisons the citizens
seized the power in the towns, in order to
save their property by capitulating with the
enemy, even at the loss of their freedom.
The government of the aristocratic
republicans had ended in anarchy ; destruc-
tion menaced the existence of the state,
the constitution of which was not national,
and was, moreover, entirely subversive of
freedom, being intended solely to secure the
domination of the insolent Mynheer. But
the deep feeling of the unspoiled classes,
who still clung to the old faith and the old
traditions, found expression in the cry
for the strong guidance of a royal person-
ality, and for the reinstatement of the last
survivor of the House of
Orange in the hereditary
office of stadtholder and
captain-general. To the
great historical events
which contributed to
strengthen the belief in
the importance of the
individual, an addition
has now to be made ; the
assurance and the hope
which impelled that cry
for guidance were ad-
dressed to a personality
worthy of the confidence
reposed in him. In the
towns and marshes of the
Low German mariners
proof of their old prowess William hi., prince of orange there was but one man
under the eyes of the The son of wiiuamii.. Prince of Orange, and who posscssed the Special
ruler of the United Provinces, he married, in „, i.-i- „ ^r „r-u;^u 4-U^
1677, Mary, daughter ofjames, Duke of York, quallt CS of whlch the
afterwards King James II. He was subse- fatherland had need — firm
quently called to the throne of England, conviction, Unshakcn
by the power and financial resources of
Louis, they hesitated for a long time to
accept the conditions which Frederic
William was obliged to impose in view of the
resources of his territory. But early in 1672
the Netherland ambassadors requested
to know the meaning of the French
L • XIV preparations, and received the
ouis V. sj^oj-t answer from the king that
J^ith Holland ^.^ ^°"^^ complete his prepara-
tions and use them as he
thought proper. Then at length they made
an agreement for the putting of 24,000 men
into the field ; but for their maintenance
they paid only 8,000 thalers a month, and
not the 100,000 demanded by the elector.
Two months later, Louis took the field
with 140,000 men. After a short halt
before Maestricht, two
armies under Turenne
and Conde diverged
towards the Rhine,
marched through the
territory of Cologne, and
took possession of the
fortresses on the Holland
frontier, which were in
the worst possible con-
dition and garrisoned
with helpless, cowardly
troops. At the custom-
house on the Schenken-
schanze, the passage of
the Rhine was forced by
the French cavalry, who
were anxious to give
king. Meanwhile, the
Bishops of Cologne and
Miinster made the most
cowardly excuses for withdrawing their
troops into Friesland and Oberyssel, and
permitted the occupation of a number of
towns, among them Deventer, Zwolle,
Harderwijk ; the province of Oberyssel
readily submitted to the protectorate of
the Bishop of Miinster. The English fleet
under the Duke Of York, with very in-
sufficient support from the French, had
meanwhile, on June 7th, 1672, fought an
action with De Ruyter in Southwold Bay,
the result of which was indecisive ; the
proposed landing of the English in Zealand
was fortunately frustrated by an unusually
low tide and a violent storm. None
the less, affairs in the seven provinces were
in an unsettled condition. The rich
merchants with their families and treasures,
4426
courage, strong faith, devotion to the idea
of German independence ; and this man
was no other than the young Prince
William of Orange, now twenty-two years
of age, whose princely heart and nature had
not been spoiled, despite the endeavours
to that end of his republican guardians.
As is invariably the case when the
passions of the masses have been aroused
by some unexpected calamity, the mani-
festations of love for their national leader
were accompanied by outbursts of hatred
against the enemy and the oppressor. A
few weeks after the States-General jhad
removed the Permanent Edict by which
the brothers De Witt in- the year 1668
hoped to have made the restoration of the
House of Orange for ever impossible, this
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
feeling broke out in wild rage against the
brothers, who were tortured and murdered
by a furious mob on August 20th, 1672.
Historians with leanings to republicanism
reproach the Prince of Orange for not
having used his popularity to save them ;
but they forget that at that moment the
stadtholder had to unite all the forces
which were then freely offered for resist-
ance against the enemy, that at no price
could he have afforded to permit the
growth of discord among those men who
were ready to sacrifice person and purse
to save their country.
Thus in Holland the impression made
by the resolution of the prince restored
the confidence of the nation in its own
power ; inundations caused by breaking
down the dykes put a
stop to the advance of
the French army, which
had already gained
possession of Utrecht.
Meanwhile the opinion
began to gain ground
among the European
ipwers that it was not
wholly wise on their part
to remain passive specta-
tors of the conquest of the
republican states and the
victory of France. In
Spain the war party
gained the upper hand,
and used all possible
leverage to induce the
emperor to break with
that the former should be recognised as
the ruling power in evangelical North
Germany, and the latter in South and West
Germany, which were Catholic ; but the
plan proved to be wholly premature, and it
was impossible of discussion with men like
Lobkowitz and Hocher, the vice-chancellor
of the empire, who considered it impossible
to renounce all hope of resuming the
struggle against Protestantism.
None the less, Frederic William thought
that he ought to lay great stress upon the
importance of the emperor's co-operation
in the campaign against France ; through
John George of Anhalt in Vienna he
vigorously pushed the proposal for an
offensive alliance. On June 12th, 1672, it
was agreed that each party should march
with 12,000 men to pro-
tect the boundary of the
kingdom and repel the
French from German soil ;
also that the provinces of
the empire and the Kings
of Spain and Denmark
should be invited to join
the alliance. But both
parties approached the
subject with intentions
and from points of view
exactly opposed. The
French party at the
Vienna court was con-
vinced that they would
gain far greater gratitude
from the King of France
if Austria joined the
France. In the German T.!^*pS;.,.^?,r.k??.r..°fwSi., alliance and thereby
tmpire the Elector of represents Mary when she was the Princess obtamed the right and
Brandenburg consulted of Orangre. She ascended the EngUsh throne the Opportunity to place
the general feeling in the f^t ^^'^""^^^"f' '^'"j*'° m.. after her obstacles in the path of
T^ , , , , • 1 lather, James II., had lost ms crown. ,, t^, , , ^^^^ ,
Protestant countnes, and ^^^~^ ^ u —
also his own inclinations and political prin-
ciples, when he determined to take up arms
in favour of his nephew. However, he con-
sidered that it would be useless for him
to take the field alone with his own troops,
as the French armies would be able to
prevent his junction or even his co-opera-
tion with the forces which the Prince of
Orange had collected ; from the other
princes of North Germany he could expect
no assistance worth mentioning. Thus the
only remaining resource was to remind the
head of the empire of his duties, and to
induce .him to lead a general mihtary
operation of the German people. The
elector desired an alliance between Bran-
denburg-Prussia and Austria, on condition
the Elector of Branden-
burg, than they would if she were to
decline alliance with the elector and
thereby force him to act upon his own
initiative. Frederic William, however,
considered that he would be able to induce
the Austrian forces to make some sort
_, . of strategical movement, and
_,' " .. would thereby draw off the
Troops o& the , , ,• r A t _-
Rhine attention of the larger part
of the French army. The
imperial marshal Raymond, Count of
Montecuccoli, was at first by no means
disinclined to fall in with the '^elector's
plans and to operate on his side against
the French upon the Rhine ; however,
even during the march to the proposed
scene of action he was obliged to observe
4427
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the instructions which he had received
from Vienna — namely, to avoid any
possible collision with the enemy whom it
was intended to befriend. The duty
imposed on him was to await the attack
of Turenne, to whom the defence of the
Lower Rhine had been entrusted, and on
no account to begin hostilities on his side.
, Although Frederic William
Turenne' s ^^^j^ ^^^ Induce MontecuccoH
to advance with him even as far
Success in
Westphalia
as Coblenz, a movement which
he had especially recommended to the
Prince of Orange, he insisted upon the
union of the two armies. But it became
impossible to join hands with the Dutch
and Spanish troops which were stationed
at Maestricht, as Montecuccoli declined to
cross the Rhine with the elector. When,
toward the end of the year 1672, the alhes
marched to Westphalia, Turenne followed
them and cut off their union with the
Netherlands troops, which had gained a
position in East Friesland.
The elector was no longer in receipt of
subsidies from the States-General, as he
had not fulfilled his obligations at the seat
of war ; he did not venture to make any
attack on Turenne' s strong position at
Soest, and, lest he should find himself the
object of an overwhelming assault, deter-
mined to conclude an armistice with
France. In view of the emperor's waver-
ing policy and the weakness of the con-
tingents furnished by him — Montecuccoli's
successor, Bournonville, had scarcely 10,000
men all told — this step was for the moment
the best that could have been taken, for in
no other way was it possible to avoid defeat.
By the Peace of Saint-Germain, on
April loth, 1673, Frederic William
engaged to enter into hostilities neither
against France nor against her allies —
England, Cologne, and Miinster. In the
Convention of Vossem, on June i6th, the
King of France promised him $4,000,000
by way of compensation for the loss of the
g . payments from Holland ; there
^"^*'°'^. was, however, no stipulation
-i^.-j. against his fulfilling his duties
to the empire in the event of an
imperial war. When the Dutch ambassadors
made reproaches to Frederic William for his
secession, he plainly informed them that
his retirement was entirely due to the
premature cessation of the war subsidies
which they had been paying ; that,
should they fail to bring about a general
peace, he would be ready to renew his
4428
action on behalf of the states. The fact
that it was his action and his influence
upon the emperor which had alone pre-
vented the destruction of the Dutch
republic is in no way affected by the Peace
of Saint-Germain.
The retirement of Brandenburg from the
scene of operations, though but temporary,
was unavoidable in view of events in
Poland ; it implied only a momentary
interruption in the foreign policy of the
elector and inflicted no permanent damage
upon the cause of the Netherlands. On
the contrary, it obliged the emperor to
give up his temporising policy, and to
show greater decision in defending the
independence of his empire and in pre-
serving the security of his frontiers, if he
did not wish to run the risk of entirely
losing in the eyes of the empire a prestige
which was in any case greatly impaired.
A convention was arranged on August
30th,i673, between the United Netherlands,
the emperor, and Spain, whereby a monthly
subsidy of 95,000 thalers for the army
was assured to the emperor. Monte-
cuccoli again took the command, and
„ E I a Turenne, who had penetrated
S°^d H^ ^^ ^° Rotenburg on theTauber,
c • t T J was forced back to the Rhine
Spanish Trade , c . , ■ ■>
by a series of strategical
movements. William of Orange besieged
and took Bonn, after obliging the marshal
Luxemburg to abandon the right bank of
the Rhine. When the winter brought
operations to a close, France had lost her
advantage and was acting upon the defen-
sive. She was, moreover, unable to pre-
vent the secession of her allies ; England,
who had not added to her reputation in the
maritime war with the Dutch, was obliged
to conclude the Peace of Westminster on
February 19th, 1674, as she would other-
wise have lost her Spanish trade ; her
example was followed by Miinster and the
electorates of Cologne and Mainz.
The campaigns of the year 1674 were
fraught with great dangers to Louis XIV.,
who was now confronted by a strong con-
federation of European powers, and heavy
subsidies had to be paid to keep England
from joining their number. Conde de-
fended the northern frontier of the king-
dom from a foreign invasion in the bloody
battle of Seneffe in the Hennegau, on August
nth, 1674, which was fought against
the Dutch, Spanish, and imperial troops.
Turenne' s military powers had never
been displayed to greater advantage.
ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS
but all that he could do was to preserve
Alsace, upon which the main attack of the
imperial army had been directed. The
Elector of Brandenburg had also appeared
in that direction with 16,000 men under
the general field-marshal George of Derf-
flinger, for Louis XIV. had delayed the
payment of his subsidy, and the elector
had gladly seized the opportunity of treat-
ing the convention of Vossem as dissolved.
The German troops, among which
those of Liineburg and Bninswick were
distinguished by the excellence of their
equipment and by their bravery, were
unable to inflict any decisive defeat upon
upon Miilhausen towards the end of the
year 1674, and, surprising the allies, who
had gone into winter quarters, he scattered
and drove them back. After the inde-
cisive battle of Tiirkheim, on January 5th,
1675, the allies were forced to give up
Alsace and to retreat once more to
the right bank of the Rhine.
Disputes had broken out between the
imperial generals and those of Branden-
burg, as a consequence of the constant
failures in the handling of the army. The
elector's son Emil had succumbed to
typhus fever in Strassburg during the cam-
j)aign. The elector himself withdrew his
THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLE BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND DUTCH AT AGOSTA IN 1676
In this naval battle between the French and the Dutch, fought on April 2nd, 1676, the latter gained a notable victory,
but lost their commander, De Ruyter, the hero of many fights and a tower of strengfth to his country in its wars.
the enemy ; the miserable cowardice of
their leader, Alexander, Duke of Bournon-
ville, who was thought to be treacherous
as well as incapable, entirely neutralised
the excellence of the forces at his disposal.
In November, 1674, Turenne was forced
by the superior strength of his opponents
to retreat from Alsace to Lorraine. There
he obtained reinforcements to the extent
of 13,000 men, which brought his army to
the number of 30,000, and by dividing
it into several columns he succeeded
in reaching Belfort unobserved ; from
that point he suddenly swooped down
troops no farther than Franconia, in order
that he might be able to take his share in
the general plan of campaign upon the
resumption of hostilities. During the
winter he was hard at work at Cleves with
the Prince of Orange, arranging plans, and
inducing the emperor to place a proper
proportion of fresh troops in the field.
But, though the Minister Lobkowitz had
fallen, there was no inclination in Vienna
to great sacrifices or vigorous measures ;
the government hesitated even to make
fitting preparations to protect Branden-
burg and Pomerania against the attack of
4429
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the Swedes, who had again become allies
of France. On May 30th, 1675, these
restless neighbours actually began the cam-
paign against Brandenburg by invading
the Mark, and the only course of action
open to the elector was to withdraw his
contingent and its reinforcements from its
position in Franconia, to return to his
_ own country by way of Magde-
KuT^ burg, and to concentrate his
■ * B tti efforts upon the task of defend-
ing his frontier. After the
departure of the Brandenburg forces, the
imperial army on the Rhine would have
been reduced to the worst extremities
had not Turenne, whose strategical talent,
experience and daring made him a host
in himself, been killed in the fight of
Sasbach in Baden on July 27th, 1675.
From that time onward the progress of
the war in the Palatinate and in the Breis-
gau was marked by no special occurrence,
though the important fortress of Breisach
was captured. In the Spanish Netherlands,
the French under Luxemburg made great
progress, defeating the Prince of Orange
at Saint Omer, and capturing Ghent and
Ypern. The king ordered Vauban to
extend and complete the fortifications
of Conde, Valenciennes, and Cambray, and
in his hands these places became first-
class strongholds ; it was plain that he
had no intention of surrendering them.
But the greatest surprise was excited by
the appearance of France as a great naval
power ; her gifted admiral, Abraham,
Marquis du Quesne, beat the united fleet
of the Dutch and Spaniards at the Lipari
Islands and at Catania ; in a previous
conflict, the battle at Agosta, on April 2gth,
1676, in which they were victorious, the
Dutch had lost their famous naval
hero De Ruyter. The preponderance
thus gained by France in the Mediter-
ranean, and her acquisitions in the Spanish
Netherlands, created a most painful im-
pression in England. After a lapse of fifteen
^ . months, Parliament was again
f W'lr'^"**'* summoned in the year 1677,
J Q and obliged the king, whom
range Lo^jg XIV. was Still sub-
sidising, to form a new alliance with
Holland, and to agree to the marriage
of the daughter of the Duke of York,
who had been brought up in the Protestant
faith, with William of Orange. The
personal attitude of Charles towards
Holland had changed when the power
passed into the hands of his nephew
4430
William, the son of his sister Mary.
The reserve funds of the French state
had now been expended, its credit was
strained to the utmost, and Colbert was
most earnestly urging upon the king the
necessity of putting an end to the war ;
Louis, therefore, after protracted negotia-
tions at Nimeguen, came to an understand-
ing with the republican party and the
leaders of the English Parliament as to the
principles which should form the basis
of a pacific settlement.
Louis' aims were, on the one hand, to
relax the close union existing between
the Prince of Orange and the " States,"
and, on the other, to put an end to the
highly inconvenient demands of the Stuart
for further subsidies. In these objects he
was successful, for he induced the Dutch to
abandon Spain, and to allow France to
indemnify herself at the expense of Spain
in the Spanish Netherlands and in
the Franche-Comte. On August loth,
1678, the treaty between France and the
Republic was concluded ; on September
17th, Spain was forced to agree to the
disadvantageous conditions imposed upon
„ , her ; in February of the follow-
France s • .■, r^''
_ . .. mg year the German emperor
Q .. . also accepted the peace. The
Elector of Brandenburg, with the
support of Denmark, had won victory after
victory in his war with Sweden ; he had now
to bear alone the full brunt of the attack
of the whole French army, which advanced
to Minden in June and proceeded to march
upon Berlin. Brandenburg was obliged
to give up her conquests in Pomerania,
and to agree to the distribution of territory
settled by the Peace of Westphalia. Louis
XIV. had gained his desire; but it was easy
to perceive that of all his adversaries he
had the greatest respect for Frederic
William, and before the year 1679 had
expired he had won him over to alliance.
As the ruler of Brandenburg had been
abandoned by the emperor and the empire
and above all by his Guelf neighbours, so
was the Prince of Orange abandoned by
the Hollanders and by the regents of
the states, which he had preserved from
disruption and loss. In the days of Nime-
guen, Europe bowed to the will of the
monarch who purposed to restore to the
French the position that the Franks had
held under Charlemagne. It seemed that
with the exception of the Padishah of
Stamboul there was to be but one great
power in Europe — the French kingdom.
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
^fP
^
li^
^
THE AGE
REFORMATION
TO THE
^
m
ifvf
P
Liri
OF
LOUIS XIV.
REVOLUTION
a
'^f.'^^
'^^T
IV
FRANCE'S WARS OF AGGRESSION
AND THE STAR OF GERMANY IN ECLIPSE
p\URING the two final decades ot the
^-^ seventeenth century the seeds
lying dormant in the historical life of
the European peoples gradually came
to maturity ; the ground had already
been cleared for the most important
changes in the territorial areas and
in the mutual relations of the powers.
In this light we must regard the con-
quests of France and her repeated
attacks upon the German Empire, the
eastern developments of the German-
Hapsburg policy which were brought about
b}^ the favourable result of the Turkish
war and the recovery of Hungary and its
neighbouring territory ; the War of the
Spanish Succession ; the renewal of com-
plications in the East through the rivalry
of Sweden and Poland ; and finally the rise
of Brandenburg- Prussian influence and the
recognition of her sovereigri position, which
was marked by the rise of Prussia to the
_,. _ , status of a kingdom. The
The Doom of , r r r, ,• r
.. , .^. . transference of the policy of
the Lithu&nian ,, tt c /~\ i t<
J.. . the House of Orange to Eng-
Kingdom 1 J J i.u i
land and the permanent con-
nection of that country with Holland must
be regarded as an additional factor in the
problems under consideration. A new
member entered the European political
world in the Russian state, whose mission
was to educate healthy and vigorous Slav
races to take their share in the struggle
for the blessings of civilisation in the stead
of the Polish Lithuanian kingdom, which
was hastening to its inevitable fall.
Immediately upon the conclusion of
the Peace of Nimeguen Louis XIV. began
to take new steps for the acquisition of
that territory which, as he was firmly
convinced and as French patriots believed,
was indispensable for the completion of
his kingdom ; he proposed a set of en-
tirely new principles as the basis of his
national and historical right to what he
claimed. In the name of the bishops of
Metz, Toul, and Verdun he advanced his
demand that the feudal rights of these
bishops to lands and possessions within
the German Empire must be revived,
though they had lain obsolete for cen-
turies, and that the supremacy of France
should extend over the districts in ques-
tion. Upon the conclusions of the Peace
_ , ot Westphalia concerning
rass urg s ^j^^ withdrawal of the
Forced Homage . , • j r A^
to Louis XIV Austrian wardens from the
Alsatian towns he placed
such an interpretation that it was possible
for France to claim the whole country,
including Strassburg. The representations
of the emperor and the Reichstag did not
prevent him from annexing, piece by piece,
the country which he claimed ; at the
close of September, 1681, he surprised the
old imperial town of Strassburg, and obliged
the citizens to do him homage, after he
had been informed that the emperor was
proposing to garrison the town.
It is superfluous to spend time in pointing
out the absence of justifiable reason for
these " reunions." Justice is dumb when
questions of national interest are at stake ;
the most brazen injustice, the most out-
rageous demands, are acclaimed as
righteous by patriots so long as they can
thence draw food for their vainglory.
This is a fact of which the historian as
well as the politician must take account,
for he will generally find himself in the
wrong if he attempts to account for state
policy on principles other than " might
is right." Louis XIV. continued to
proclaim that his state must be increased
just so long as he found himself able to
brush aside all resistance to his will ;
„ _ his example was followed by
now France ^ j- .
Treated her ^^^^^ succeeding government
«, . . . in France, whether monarch-
Neighbours . , 11- .■^ J.V.
ical or republican, until the
neighbours whom she had trampled on
trampled on her in their turn.
Not for a single moment was the im-
perial court incUned to compliance, nor
did anyone imagine that the arts of
diplomacy would ever induce Louis XIV.
4431
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
no M&tch
for France
to retire from his advantageous position.
The only possible course of action was to
gain time to prepare for the struggle and
to find alHes against France. Of alliances,
however, the prospect was exceedingly
small. It now became clear how fatal had
been the mistake committed in neglecting
Brandenburg, for without her troops the
^. -, . collective forces of the empire
-_ t«f ?*'* were no match for the French
king's army. It cannot be
denied that the change in the
Great Elector's poUcy after the Peace of
Nimeguen was largely the cause of the
" reunion " movement, but it is equally
certain that King Louis would have had
far less hesitation in aggrandising himself
at the expense of the empire if Branden-
burg had exhausted her strength in a
hopeless war against Sweden and France,
and had sacrificed to no pur-
pose the army which she had
iust created. The mere fact
of her existence as an ally on
one side or the other was a
ground of security for the
empire in the last extremity.
Moreover, Frederic William
would have been quite ready
on proper- terms to throw in
his lot again with the em-
peror. But he was anxious,
first of all, to see for himself
that the emperor was capable
who had been in the service of
Holland since 1672. He was confident
that he could undertake the military
organisation of the empire after he had
secured the adherence in 1679 of some of
his compeers from the Central Rhine,
from the Wetterau, Westerwald, and
Eifel, to a scheme for their mutual defence.
This " union " was joined by Hesse-Cassel,
Hesse-Darmstadt, Fulda, Bamberg-Wiirz-
burg, and the Frankish district, and
shortly afterwards by Saxony-Gotha.
Waldeck was able to create such a
strong impression in Vienna of the im-
portance of his scheme of mutual defence
that the emperor, on June loth, 1682,
concluded the " Laxenburg Alliance "
with the " union," and it was hoped that
others of the imperial provinces might
be induced to join. They were to take up
the defence of the empire,
"^ of which scheme the main
features had been sketched
out by the Reichstag at
Regensburg, which had now
become a permanent assembly.
However, their intentions did
not issue in practical results.
Of more importance was the
union of Bavaria and Haps-
burg, which was closely
cemented by the marriage in
July, 1685, of the young
elector. Max Emanuel — Ferdi-
of taking up the war with John george hi. nand Maria had died on May
France ; then he demanded J.}l^,^^^^^°l °I. Saxony from leso ^eth, 1679— with the Arch-
^ . ' ^. till 1691, John George III. played a , ,' v* • a j. ■ 4.u
certain compensation in re- leading part in the struggles of the duchess Maria Antonia, the
turn, the cession of districts period, and his secession from the daughter of the emperor ; im-
in Silesia, where the rights of French party was a sore blow to it. portant, too, was the secession
inheritance possessed by the Hohen- of the Elector of Saxony, John George III
zollerns were not wholly secure. The
Vienna court did not think it necessary
to meet these advances half way ; it
looked to other sources of help.
The members of that mighty confedera-
tion which resisted the foundation of a
universal supremacy of France in later
years existed side by side, even at that
period ; but they were not then sufficiently
developed and had not the resources
necessary to enable them to withstand
the energy and the will of the French king.
Around William of Orange was grouped
a number of Dutch and German statesmen,
who were constrained by necessity to
thwart the ever-widening plans of Louis
XIV. ; among them was also to be found
George William of Waldeck, sometime
minister and general of Brandenburg,
443a
(1680-1691), from the French party, and
the readiness of the Duke of Hanover,
Ernest Augustus I., to send an army of
10,000 men to the Rhine to support the
imperial troops. Leopold and his council,
which was then led by the Freiherr von
Strattmann, were consequently obliged
to admit that the interests of
the House of Hapsburg with
New Turkish
War
Th A respect to Spain demanded an
unconditional resistance to the
encroachments of France ; to this they
remained firm, even though the danger of
a new Turkish war grew more imminent.
The Hungarian policy of the Vienna
court was invariably unfortunate. The
leaders did not appreciate the necessity
of smoothing over religious differences by
gentle treatment of the non-Catholics;
4435
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
their treatment of personal and family
affairs was also ill-considered. The claims
of th^ Rakoczy family, to which the Tran-
sylvanian, magnate Emerich Tokoly be-
longed, had been set aside by timely offers of
compensation, bestowal of titles, and op-
portune marriages ; but time had never been
found for proper attention to these affairs,
Th T k and the attitude of rejection that
O *th ^' * ^^^ ^°^ often adopted helped to
W P th ^"^S powerful adherents to the
opposition. Stern and harsh in
time of peace, weak and careless in time of
war, the Austrian House did not gain either
the respect or the confidence of the Magyars.
After their fruitless war with Poland and
Russia the Turks thought that they had
found a haven of rest upon the Danube,
and the state of affairs in Transylvania
and Upper Hungary seemed eminently
suited to further their aims. The Grand
Vizir Kara Mustapha required to secure
his position by some military success, and,
having persuaded the sultan to permit
the further chastisement of the infidel,
he marched in person upon Vienna at
the head of an army of 200,000 men.
The Vienna statesmen had actually brought
matters to such a pass that Austria
found herself obliged at one and the same
time to carry on the war against France
upon the Rhine, and to resist the attack
of an enormously superior power upon the
hereditary territories of the ruling house.
The unprincipled Elector of Branden-
burg took the opportunity to advocate
the conclusion of an armistice with France,
which would imply the temporary aban-
donment of the " reunion " problem ; if
some such arrangement could be made
with Louis XIV., his ally, he was ready to
send 16,000 men and more to Hungary.
But in the course of these negotiations
he again advanced his claims to Jagern-
dorf, and the emperor declined to accept
help from Brandenburg, which appeared
the less indispensable as the King of
Poland had promised to lead his army
against the common enemy without any
stipulation of reward. The Pope Innocent
XI. persuaded Louis XIV. to cease for
a time the hostilities which he had
already begun against the House of
Austria, and the king complied with
his request in the expectation that in
case of necessity his help would be
THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES AS IT WAS IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV.
From the painting by J. B. Martin in the Museum of Versailles
4434
THE WOMEN WHO INFLUENCED LOUIS XIV.
The morals of Louis XIV. were notorious. In 1685 he was privately married to Madame de Maintenon, a woman who
was under the influence of the Jesuits, but was no mere courtesan ; the Duchess de la Vallifere bore the king: four
children, and retired into a convent when she was supplanted in the royal affections by Madame de Montespan.
demanded, and that when he had saved
the country from the Turks he might,
with the assent of Brandenburg, make
any terms he pleased for himself.
The magnificent defence of the imperial
capital offered by Count Riidiger of
Starhemberg, the endurance of his troops
and of the more sensible part of the
population of Vienna, and finally the
glorious battle which raised
the siege on September 12th,
1683, in which Kara Mustapha
was utterly beaten by the
Polish army under John
Sobieski, entirely upset Louis'
calculations and raised the
emperor's prestige to an un-
expected height. The supreme
command had been given by
agreement to the Polish king,
but the real conduct of the
battle was claimed by Duke
Charles of Lorraine ; and
on this memorable day two
German electors, John George
in. of Saxony and Maximilian
Emanuel of Bavaria, had
COUNT RUDIGER
Count Riidiger of Starhemberg
" armed provinces," in which the Prankish
district was included as well as the
electors. Hitherto standing armies had
been set on foot only in such North
German territories as were forced to
protect themselves ; besides the Elector
of Brandenburg, who was more powerful
than any other German prince, the dukes
of Brunswick and the Bishop of Miinster
had troops on a war footing
at their disposal, capable of
being used for independent
operations. The system of
individual armament now
began to prevail throughout
the empire, so that military
affairs entered upon a new
phase of development.
It was a considerable
advantage to the greater
territorial princes always to
have their own troops ready,
and to send them beyond their
provinces only upon special
occasions of concerted action.
But the maintenance of these
voluntarily placed themselves Vienna while it was undergoing Ordinary expense, and one
under the orders of the duke, the siege of the Turks, which was which could not be met from
also had the imperial /^'"^'^ °" September 12th. i683. ^j^^^j. ordinary sources of
as
field-marshal, the Count of Waldeck.
This was Poland's last intervention in
European politics. The emperor had not
succeeded in raising an imperial army ;
the empire had. not yet found time to
take the measures necessary for the fulfil-
ment of military exigencies. The help
which had averted the fall of Vienna had
been given to the emperor by the allied
sources
income ; princes were therefore ready to
employ their troops outside the somewhat
narrow sphere of their own interests,
and lent them to other powers, which
were armed insufficiently or not at all,
in return for corresponding pecuniary
returns, which went into their war chests.
This was a business which had been
carried on by the captains of regiments
4435
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
during the period of vassalage, and during
the Thirty Years War, by such great
" contractors " as Mansfeld, Christian of
Brunswick, Wallenstein, Bernhard of
Weimar, and others. It now passed into
the hands of the princely war lords, who
gained far greater profit from it and were
less easily exposed to the danger of a
_ J conflict of political interests.
o icrs -pj^g complaints concerning the
Who were n j << i x - v ^ >
L t O t so-caUed sale of the country s
children " first arose at a later
period, and resulted from the failure to
appreciate the close connection between
the fundamental idea of " armament "
and the arrangements for defence existing
in earher times. In most cases the soldiers
who were thus lent out were themselves
entirely convinced that in no other manner
could the special military qualities which
made their services of value be kept at a
high level of perfection.
The smaller provinces of the empire,
which did not possess sufficient territory or
population to enable them to embark upon
such undertakings, generally came to some
arrangement with the " armed " powers,
if they were ordered to prepare for war
by the empire or their allies ; districts
in which there was no lord of dominant
power formed compacts offensive and
defensive and added to the number of
the armed powers. But such a movement
was for the most part of short duration.
As soon as the most pressing danger was
over, these imperial districts withdrew
their contingents, because their mainten-
ance, was not imperative upon them as
upon their more powerful neighbours,
and because the expenses of war had an
effect upon their home life more immediate
and heavier than in the case of a populous
state, where there were many shoulders
to bear the burden. From 1670 to 1680 and
through the following decades German
military strength was represented by the
forces of the " armed " provinces. Alliance
TK T \ A ^"^ convention were the only
Th* ^^ * means of calling great national
Of History ^"^i^^s into existence. The
policy of the emperor and the
statecraft of every dynasty that strove to
attain success abroad resolved itself into a
series of attempts to effect alliances with
the armed provinces of the empire ; con-
sequently the threads of the diplomatic
history of the period became so tangled,
owing to schemes and plots, that during
no (Jther epoch have we the same difficulty
4436
in unravelling their confused complexity.
The defeat of the Turks at Vienna
induced Louis XIV. to renew and to increase
the pressure upon the two Hapsburg
courts and upon the German Empire.
In addition to Strassburg he had quickly
annexed two other important strategical
points — Casale on the Po on September
30th, 168 1, and Luxemburg on June 4th,
1684. He now demanded an armistice
for thirty, or at least twenty-five, years, the
status quo to be maintained. During
that period the empire would be able to
devote her whole energy to the struggle
with her hereditary enemy. The Elector of
Brandenburg exerted his influence in
Vienna and in Regensburg to secure the
acceptance of this proposal, as it offered
him personally a possibility of escape from
the embarrassing position into which his
relations with France had brought him.
It was clear to him that he could not safely
take up a position of hostility to the em-
peror at a moment when the majority of the
Germans looked upon the continuance of
the war with Turkey as a national duty.
He had cynically admitted the difficulty
, . , of his position to the French
,, . . . . , ambassador, the Vicomte de
r riendshipfor T-> '1 j 1 j 1 i
the Elector Rebenac, and had appealed
through him to the generosity
of Louis XIV., asking him not to make
capital out of the " desperate necessities
of the empire." Rebenac was in full pos-
session of the elector's confidence, and it
was through his ready influence that
the king was induced to confer a special
mark of friendship upon the elector, which
consisted in the raising of his subsidy to
100,000 livres per annum, a sum which
was to be doubled in the event of war,
and did not include personal presents.
The elector was ever vigilant when his
personal interests were concerned.
The views entertained at the court of
Vienna underwent a change during the
progress of the campaign. A few weeks
after he had marched into his sore-tried
capital the emperor's confidence in his
Polish ally was seriously shaken. Sobieski,
who despised the German time-servers,
as he called them, considered that his Polish
nobles had suffered disproportionate losses
in the battle of Parkany on October 9th,
1683. At the storming of Gran on October
27th, he allowed them to take no active
share in the operations, and afterwards
marched them home. If the war in Hun-
gary was to be continued it was necessary
4437
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
to procure more and more reliable troops,
and such Germany alone could provide.
If war were to break out with France
in the following spring, there would be
very small numbers of German troops,
perhaps none at all, at the emperor's
disposal. Thus the Emperor Leopold
was confronted with the dilemma whether
J., f, . , he should again conclude an
e mpire s m^sa^isf^ctory peace with the
Armistice t i j ^i.
•«k m Turks, and resume the
with France ^ ', .^, t-
struggle with r ranee, or
should put oft^ the solution of the French
question and at once undertake the conquest
of Hungary. On the one side the position of
the whole House of Hapsburg as a European
power was at stake ; on the other, the
special interests of the German ruling line.
Leopold decided in favour of the latter.
The Hungarian campaign of the year
1684 was carried on with inadequate
forces, and led to no definite result.
The mission of an ambassador-extra-
ordinary. Count Lamberg, in February,
1684, to buy ofi Brandenburg from
France, had been a failure, and for these
reasons the emperor gave his consent to
the conclusion of an armistice for twenty
years with France, which was concluded
on August 15th, 1684, at Regensburg.
This event marks a turning-point in the
relations of the two hostile parties, because
from that time begins the gradual separa-
tion of the Great Elector from Louis XIV.
A number of other occurrences in the year
1685 contributed to set him against
French policy, and to prepare the way for
that great federation which was destined
eventually to ruin the far-reaching plans
against the freedom of Europe which
Louis XIV. had conceived. Of these the
most important were the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, the suppression
of the Huguenots and of religious tolera-
tion in France, and the accession of the
Stuart James II. in England, who had
become a Catholic and openly introduced a
„ . . , counter - reformation into
Brandenburg s -r^ 1 j r i_-
Open Door for England, SO far as lus
the Huguenots opportunities allowed.
Frederic William threw open
his territory to his exiled co-religionists,
the refugees, and came to a close under-
standing with William of Orange to the
effect that Louis must be conquered, as
his obvious intention was to disturb the
balance of the different Christian creeds
which the Peace of Westphalia had deter-
m.ined. Though he was quarrelling with
4438
the Pope, the king was considered still the
most dangerous opponent of the Protestant
powers. His efforts to build up a national
French policy had been attended with
complete success. But the ruinous dis-
sension which eventually shook France to
her very foundations proceeded from the
king's fatal opinion that the centralisation of
the constitutional power was incompatible
with the existence of different religious
creeds, and that universal toleration would
impair the strength of the kingdom.
As soon as the Great Elector had made
up his mind to dissolve his connection
with France, in spite of the subsidies which
had been paid to him through Rebenac
since the year 1680, he entertained no
scruples about rejoining the emperor and
supporting him in his undertakings He
could not have failed to recognise that
Louis was desirous of keeping him in
restraint, and even in impotency. He had
at one time expected to increase his terri-
tory with the aid of France, at the expense
of Brunswick-Hanover or of Sweden, and
this hope he was now obliged to renounce.
None the less, the negotiations with the im-
_, . perial government would have
isappoin e j-gg^j^g^^ unfavourably had not
opes o ^^^ Electoral Prince Frederic,
Hopes
the Elector
a declared enemy of France,
devoted his energy to removing the chief
obstacle. His father insisted upon the
fact that an inconsiderable accession of
territory was owing to himself in view of
his hereditary claims to Jagerndorf and
some other Silesian estates — the so-called
Schwiebus district. What was the loss of
twenty-four square miles of territory and
a few thousand inhabitants, for the most
part Protestants, to the powerful Hapsburg
House, which was desirous of conquering
the kingdom of Hungary at that moment ?
A rigid insistence upon their rights
prevented the Vienna statesmen from
making a sacrifice which was valueless in
comparison with the important alliance it
would have brought. Schwiebus was
formally alienated from the emperor
during the lifetime of the elector. The
electoral prince was obliged to undertake
to restore the district upon his accession.
For this he received a special subsidy of
10,000 ducats, a not unwelcome addition-
to his impoverished treasury. This piece
of baseness was successfully concealed
from the old elector ; until his death he
firmly believed in the uprightness of the
Austrian House and of the prince. Pi»e
aSi
4439
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
emperor eventually exacted the return of
his twenty-four square miles from the
elector's successor ; however, he had pro-
vided an excuse for Frederic the Great
to declare that the promised renunciation
of the Silesian
principalities by
his predecessor
was not binding
upon himself,
and so to give
a quibble of
legality to his
conquest of it.
On September
2nd, 1686. the
fortress of Ofen,
the central point
of the Turkish
Simmern family on behalf of his brother
Philip of Orleans, husband of the Princess
Elizabeth Charlotte, the sister of the late
elector. The possession of this territory
would have made the French ruler a prince
of the empire.
In the contest for
the archbishopric
of Cologne he
had espoused the
cause of William
Egon of Fiirsten-
berg in opposi-
tion to Prince
Joseph Clemens
of "Bavaria, and
this action had
embarrassed the
interests of Aus-
tria and Bavaria
. THE DUKE OF SAVOY AND CHARLES OF LORRAINE
rule in Hungary, victor Amadeus, the Duke of Savoy, fought against the French in
was stormed by the battle of Staffarda in 1690, and was overthro*'n by Catinat; and the rights of
the Cerman and Charlesof Lorraine commanded the imperial army, and died in 1690. A.Ug PoDC who
imperial troops. In this brilliant feat had decided in favour of Joseph Clemens
of arms some share was taken by the
Brandenburg contingent of 8; 200 men,
and after a lapse of 145 years the emperor
was again put in possession of the Hungarian
Konigsberg. The Brandenburger then
undertook the defence of the Lower Rhine,
and co-operated with the Dutch against
. France, his late ally, while Max
' . *" Emanuel of Bavaria and Charles
o mpoT &n ^^ Lorraine won the battle of
Mohacs on August 12th, 1687,
and took Belgrade on September 6th, 1688,
for the first time, thus breaking down the
resistance which the Turks annually
renewed. The Field-Marshal von Barf us
rendered important service at the battle
of Slankamen on August 19th, 1691, with
the Margrave of Baden, Lewis William,
and helped to win a brilliant victory,
which permanently strengthened the posi-
tion of the imperial troops in Hungary,
which had received a heavy blow in the
previous year by the loss of Belgrade.
Meanwhile, an open breach with France
had come to pass. Louis XIV. could not
behold the recovery of the Hapsburg
power in the East and the rise of the
imperial prestige among the imperial
princes without raising fresh claims on his
side, and attempting to assert his pre-
ponderance by interference in German
affairs. With the death of Charles the
Elector of the Palaitinate on May i6th, 1685,
the line of Simmern of Wittelsbach became
extinct, and Louis seized the opportunity
to claim the allodial territory of the
4440
None the less. Innocent XI. made every
possible effort to induce the king to
accept some peaceful solution of the
question at issue, and to restrain him
from appealing to force of arms. His
efforts were not successful. Louis felt
himself threatened on two sides, and
was determined to anticipate the for-
mation of a confederacy against him by
striking a rapid blow at his enemies.
He considered himself as especially threat-
ened by the alliance of Augsburg, whereby
the emperor, Spain and Sweden, as allied
powers, the Frankish and Bavarian dis-
tricts, and also certain princes, had pledged
themselves to provide a federal army of
more than 46,000 men for the defence of
the empire until its military organisation
should have been perfected. Still more
serious was the discord which had broken
out between the English and King James
II., and the alliance now imminent be-
tween the leaders of Protestantism in
England and Wilham of Orange, who could
now reckon upon the consent
of the States- General to such
The Plans
of William
of Orange
steps as he might consider
needful to secure the Protestant
character of the government in England.
The Prince of Orange had been forced
for a long time to postpone the execution
of his great plans, as he was invariably
confronted with the suspicions of the
States-General ; the time was now at
hand when he was to gain a powerful
position, enabling him to undertake the
FRANCE'S WARS OF AGGRESSION
war with the despot upon the Seine who
was threatening the freedom of Europe in
general, and of the Protestant states in
particular. William III. had married his
first cousin, Mary, a daughter of James II.,
who had been baptised in the Protestant
faith, of which she was a warm supporter :
as her husband, he was summoned by
England to bring into order the troubled
and confused affairs of that country.
The Whigs had formed the forefront of
the opposition to James II. ; the majority
of the Tories and the whole of the clergy
joined them with the object of overthrow-
ing the Papal rule, to which the whole
nation was resolutely opposed. It was the
impenetrable stupidity of James II. which
brought about this revolution, the extent
and the radical consequences of which no
one could have foreseen. He made easy
martyrs of the bishops, destroyed the
discipline of his troops by amalgamating
the Irish with the English and Scotch regi-
ments, sneered at the well-meant advice
of his protector on the French throne,
and rewarded his liberality with ridiculous
displays of haughtiness. Finally, his dis-
regard of the prescribed court ceremonial
gave rise to the rumour that the Prince
of Wales, born on August loth. r688. was
a mere changeling, whose existence was
to destroy all possibility of a Protestant
successor. A long series of similar provo-
cations forced the opposition to resort
finally to resistance, and
their decision was taken
_ only with the greatest re-
Supremacy luctance, in view of the
universal loyalty that the Restoration had
at first evoked. The personal stubbornness
of the king and of his Catholic followers
played a large part in this change of govern-
ment in England, which was so important
in its influence upon the destinies of
Europe ; so far reaching were its conse-
quences, that even Lecky, a historian
avowedly concerned with tracing " the per-
manent characteristics of national life," is
England's
Fear of Catholic
A. SCENE AT VERSAILLES IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV.
From the painting by J. B. Martin in the Museum of Versailles
4441
HISTORY OF THE WORLX)
obliged to draw the attention of his readers
to the fact that " that issue of the com-
phcated drama was brought to pass more
by the action of individuals and by chance
circumstances than by general causes."
After ' the flight of his father-in-law
had laid the road open, William III.
did not place his wife in the position
,„.„. , of ruler, but succeeded in
William of J.J.- -L- ir J
Q gettmg himself recognised as
E 1 d' K' full sovereign and as the ruler
whom the will of the nation
had called forward. This was the real
occasion upon which the Whig spirit
first broke its bonds ; the prestige
of the Parliament was secured, and the
highest intellect of a nation provided with
the most admirable political capabilities
was called to the management of its own
affairs. With the passage of the Prince
of Orange from his native land
to EngUsh soil the histori-
cal importance of Holland
was also transferred to Eng-
land. The Netherland States
had exhausted their ideals and
their political strength in the
struggle for the victory over
Spain, and sank from their
former high position in pro-
portion as England rose in the
world to a height for which
past history affords no pre-
cedent and no standard of
comparison. It is true that
a usurper on the throne of England ; if
he would maintain his position, he was
obliged to prefer his new country before
the old. The heavy English customs
duties remained unchanged, the Naviga-
tion Act was carried out in the colonies ;
under the rule of the Diitch king two great
financial powers arose, the Bank of Eng-
land and the new East India Company,
which proved ruinous to Dutch trade. In
the friendly rivalry between the allied
peoples England's preponderance rapidly
became manifest ; the name of " sea-
power " became a collective noun among
diplomatists, and soon implied, as Frederic
the Great was ill-natured enough to
remark, " the English man-of-war with
the Dutch jolly-boat towing behind."
The change of rulers in England would
not have come to pass so quickly as it did,
would perhaps never have
been brought about at all, if
Louis XIV., in September,
1688, just before the landing
of William of Orange, had not
declared war upon the German
Empire, a war generally known
as the third war of aggression.
He proposed to strike terror
into South Germany by de-
livering a vigorous blow, and
to oblige the emperor, whose
best generals and troops were
perforce employed in the
Turkish war, to permit the
only in the eighteenth century prince eugene of savoy armistice to be ratified as a
did England take the step Refused acommission in the army of definite peace, which would
from the place of a European ^:^^^^l^:::^ have secured him in the
power to that of a world ofEmperor Leopold, distinguishing pOSSCSSlOU of the ReUUlOnS.
power ; but it was in the himself in the wars against France. His actiou was successful f rom
seventeenth century that the foundations a military point of view, though, by
for that step were laid. Elizabeth, Crom-
well, William form the constellation which
has lighted the proudest and the most for-
tunate of all the Germanic nations upon a
path which has progressed upwards without
interruption for over two hundred years.
William III. himself recognised that
England would become the leader of the
maritime powers ; he devoted his every
care and effort and his unusual political
capacities to making the United Kingdom
equal to the performance of his splendid
task. The distrust of the English toward
their new ruler on account of his presumed
leanings to Holland speedily proved as
groundless as did those insular suspicions
of Coburg" influence which last century
saw. William III. was a stranger and
4442
releasing Holland from immediate danger,
it set William free to secure the English
crown. The admirably equipped French
armies penetrated into the Palatinate as
far as Heilbronn, overran the Wiirtemberg
territory, devastated the fertile country
on the Rhine, blew up the
castle of Heidelberg on March
2nd, 1689, and by the end
of the year collected over
2,000,000 livres in forced contributions.
But no member of the empire had any
intention of being thus bullied into a
disgraceful peace. The emperor resolved
to undertake the war upon both frontiers
simultaneously ; his closer allies, Bavaria,
Saxony, and Brandenburg, and also
Hanover and Hesse, joined the " Concert
Devastating
French Armies
in Germany
4443
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of Magdeburg," which had been concluded
by the armed provinces on October 22nd,
1688. Moreover, the Regensburg assembly
determined to support the imperial war.
Twenty thousand Brandenburg troops were
speedily before Bonn, which Cardinal
Fiirstenberg had betrayed to the French ;
Charles of Lorraine, who commanded the
y. . armies of the empire, retook
*^. ' Mainz on September 8th, 1689,
P . after eight weeks' fighting, and
Bonn fell shortly afterwards —
on October 13th. During the succeeding
years the war in Germany made no de-
cisive progress ; the further advance of
the enemy was repulsed, but nothing more
was accomplished. The Margrave Lewis
William of Baden succeeded Charles of
Lorraine in the command of the imperial
army after his death, on April i8th, 1690.
At the seat of war in the Netherlands,
Prince George Frederic of Waldeck lost the
battle of Fleurus on July ist, 1690, and
the French took Mons in April, 1691, and
Namur in July, 1692. At the battle of
Steinkirke, in Hennegau, on August 3rd,
1692, William of Orange was unable to
gain any decisive advantage. On the
other hand, at the battle of Staffarda,
Catinat won a victory over the Duke of
Savoy, Victor Amadeus, to whose support
Max Emanuel marched across the Alps,
but was unable to bring about that change
of fortune in Upper Italy for which the
allies were anxiously longing.
Thus the French armies had the advan-
tage on every side. But on May 29th,
1692, at La Hogue, their fleet was defeated
by the combined English and Dutch
Navies, under Russell ; this was the first
of that series of defeats, the almost in-
variable persistence of which during the
next 200 years seems to prove that the
Romance nations are no match for the
Germanic in naval warfare. Louis XIV.
could not flatter himself with the hope of
being able totally to overpower the forces
H -A IK opposed to him in the field ;
^ei e erg ^^ ^^^ unable to concentrate
his power and to break down
the resistance of his enemies
at any one point. On May 22nd, 1693,
he laid Heidelberg waste for the second
time, and utterly ruined the castle, that
wonderful monument of the German
Renaissance ; but this could not be con-
sidered a success. The Margrave of
Baden drove the devastators back across
the Rhine, and found himself able to
4444
Castle
in Ruins
renew his plans for establishing himself
in Alsace. The allies of the Golden Horn
also did not accomplish as much as Louis
had expected ; during the years following
the departure of Baden from the seat of
war in Hungary the imperial troops gained
no advantage, but the operations of the
Moslems were of a slow nature. As soon as
Louis could with any certainty foresee the
possibility of dissolving by diplomatic
measures the federation of his enemies,
without himself making any dispropor-
tionate sacrifice, he accepted the inter-
vention of Sweden, which had been
repeatedly proffered, and entered upon the
negotiations begun at Ryswick, from which
Spain and the emperor, on October 30th,
1697, were unable to withdraw, after he
had secured the consent of the sea-powers.
The recognition of the Prince of
Orange as King of England was an
indispensable preliminary to which Louis
agreed with a heavy heart, after pre-
viously assuring himself that there was no
possibility of forming a party within the
United Kingdom for the later restora-
tion of the Stuarts. The death of Queen
Spain's ^^^y' °" J^""a'"y 7th- 1695, in
_ . noway weakened her husband's
Polsestions Position ; the Whig principle,
that the Parliament might
bestow the crown outside of the direct line
of succession, remained in force. Holland
was easily satisfied by the concession of
certain commercial privileges. Calculating
upon a future understanding, Louis showed
himself very accommodating towards
Spain, to which Luxemburg and Barcelona,
taken during the last stages of the war,
were restored. The empire had to bear
the cost of the peace. Strassburg, which
might have been retaken at the eleventh
hour by a rapid assault, had to be aban-
doned. As a set-off, the Austrian House
regained Freiburg and Breisgau, the
empire gained Kehl and Philipsburg.
The Cologne question was set at rest ;
the Bavarian prince got his principality;
the question as to the Palatinate succession
was solved by a moderate payment on th^
part of the Palatinate Neuburg.
The peace concluded at Ryswick on
October 30th, 1697, was but an armistice
between France and the House of Haps-
burg, which had been struggling for
European predominance for 200 years ;
the division of the Spanish inheritance, a
question which was shortly to demand
solution, would bring about a resumption
FRANCE'S WARS OF AGGRESSION
of hostilities all along the line. Louis
XIV. required time and breathing-space
in order to arrange the situation to suit
his own interests by means of his un-
rivalled political insight and diplomatic
capacity.
The emperor did not venture, though
the peace allowed him to turn the whole
of his military power against the Turks,
to embark upon a wearisome war in
the Balkan states and to make a deter-
mined effort to crush his hereditary foe ;
and yet, even at that moment, circum-
stances at the seat of war in Hungary had
taken an unexpectedly favourable turn.
During the years 1695 and 1696 the
progress of affairs in Hungary had been
most unsatisfactory. The departure of
the Margrave of Baden, Lewis William,
had proved almost as disastrous as an
actual defeat ; his successor, the Elector
of Saxony, Frederic Augustus L, had
been unskilled and unlucky in every
operation which he undertook ; the
emptiness of the treasury could no
longer be concealed, and the discipline
and courage of the troops deteriorated
accordingly. But a rapid and far-reaching
Tk MTt change in the state of affairs
e 1 1 ary ^^^^ brought about by the
Oenius of . , . " . r r t
„. r nommation m iD9Dof acom-
Princc Eugene , ^ ■ t ■' ■\_
mander-m-chief who was
only thirty-three years of age, Prince
Francis Eugene of Savoy-Carignan, the
youngest son of Mazarin's niece, Olympia
Mancini, and the Count of Soissons. Since
the election of the first Rudolf the House
of Hapsburg could congratulate itself upon
no more fortunate occurrence, certainly
none more opportune or richer in result,
than the fact that the "petit Abbe,"
whom Louis XIV., with his usual arbitrari-
ness had wished to drive into the cloister,
applied to the court of Vienna, following
the example of his brother Lewis Julius,
for a post in the imperial army.
" Who can venture to say," justly
observes Alfred von Arneth, " how the
history of Europe would have been changed
if the prince had applied to Spain instead
of to Austria, if he had never fought
against the Turks, if he had been on the
side of Philip of Anjou instead of agamst
him during the War of the Spanish Sac-
cession, if he had fought for instead of
against France ? " The prince had long
enjoyed the full confidence of the imperial
veteran troops, and in a few months had
so thoroughly reorganised the army that
he was able to oppose the powerful force
with which the Sultan Mustapha 11.
(1695-1703) was advancing in person
during the month of August, 1697, for the
delivery of a crushing blow. On September
nth he attacked the Turks at Zenta on
the Theiss ; they had been turned back
from Peterwardein, and proposed
to cross the river and invade
Turkish
Rout
- Transylvania. They were so
utterly defeated as to be unable
to recover themselves. A large number of
their best officers and 30,000 men were left
on the field of battle or drowned in the
Theiss ; 80 guns, 423 standards, and seven
" horse-tails" fell into the hands of the con-
querors, who paid but the moderate price
of 1,500 dead and wounded for their
victory. When the larger part of his army
had been sent into winter quarters, Eugene
made his famous incursion to Serajevo with
4,000 cavalry, 2,600 infantry, and 12 guns,
proving to the Turks that the mountains
of the Balkan peninsula, which they had
regarded as a sure line of defence against
Western armies, were not inaccessible to
Austrian cavalry and even to guns. The
Porte's strength was broken ; not only
Austria, but also Poland, had gained con-
siderable advantages. Moreover, Venice
under Francesco Morosini, who died in
1694, had overrun the Morea, had taken
Athens — when the Parthenon was
destroyed on September 26th, 1687 — and
had proved her superiority at sea. After
the heroic struggle for Candia in 1669, the
republic seemed to have lost her dominant
position on the Levant, but in 1685 the
banner of St. Mark triumphed once more,
and the position of Venice as the chief
Mediterranean power was vindicated.
Peace was concluded at Carlowitz on
January 26th, T699 ; Austria obtained
the kingdom of Hungary with the
exception of the Banat, Transylvania, and
Slavonia ; Poland was given
the Ukraine arid Kamanez-
Podolsk ; Russia obtained the
harbour of Asov, and Venice
the Morean peninsula, with ^gina and
Santa Maura, Cattaro, and some smaller
places on the coast of Dalmatia. Europe
seemed to have entered upon a breathing
space for rest and recovery, the dura-
tion of which depended upon the life of
the last Hapsburg King of Spain, which
was slowly ebbing away in Madrid.
Europe's
Rest
After War
4445
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
^
THE AGE
gl^
OF
LOUIS XIV.
V
THE PROBLEM OF THE SPANISH THRONE
PREPARING FOR THE COMING WAR
AT the outset of the eighteenth century
■**■ the conception of the state as an entity
had not been dissociated from that of the
ruling dynasty. National rights were
only tentatively brought forward in sup-
port of dynastical objects. The surest
,„ , mode of extending political
Women s ■ j ■ ^i r
o- Kt power remained in the forma-
. '\ *. tion of family ties, the creation
^^^^ of hereditary rights, and the
enjoyment of them when they fell due.
Consequently, upon the extinction of a
ruling dynasty of such territorial power as
was the Spanish line of the Hapsburgs, a
European war was inevitable as being the
only way of deciding whether some one
European power was to become definitely
predominant, or whether the balance of
power could be maintained.
In the Spanish kingdom women could
usually inherit, failing men. In the House
of Hapsburg the rights of female succession
and of primogeniture were also recognised.
The possessions of the Spanish line and also
the estates of the Austrian line formed
inheritances, which had passed undivided
to the testator's eldest son or to the male
representative next in succession, so long
as any such survived. For the last two
generations the daughters of the Spanish
line had intermarried only with Bourbons
and the German Hapsburgs, so that these
were the only families affected by the
failure of male heirs. A point in favour
of the Bourbon claims was the fact that
the elder Infanta had always married into
the French line. Louis XIV. 's mother,
Anna Maria, was older than Maria Anna,
_ . „ the mother of the Emperor
Lh^ked °"*** Leopold. Of the sisters of
by Marriage Charles II., the last of the
Spanish Hapsburgs, the elder,
Maria Theresa, born on September loth,
1638, was the wife of Louis ; the younger,.
Margaret Theresa, born on July 12th,
1651, was the first of Leopold's three wives.
Maria Theresa, however, had solemnly
renounced her right of succession, whereas
4446
Margaret Theresa had been specially ap-
pointed to the succession by her father's
will, in default of male issue. Conse-
quently at the court of Vienna there was
no doubt whatever that the succession in
Spain must fall to the Emperor Leopold,
and that his rights were beyond question.
But at the outset of the War of Succession
Louis XIV. had already found a pretext
for declaring that his wife's renunciation
was invalid. In this position he naturally
remained firm, declared himself to be the
only legitimate successor to the Spanish
throne, and pretended an especial desire
to consult the interests of Europe at large
by entering into negotiations for the
division of the Spanish inheritance.
The German House of Hapsburg was
at a disadvantage compared with the
Bourbons, because its efforts to increase
its territory rested upon no national
basis and no conception of the state as a
. whole. The Hapsburgs were
The Summit i^^^^^^ to a dynastic policy,
tl^tilr ^"^ ^^^'' territorial power
" ' * had no natural solidarity.
To them the imperial throne of the German
kingdom was the summit of their ambition,
as it was in fact the most dignified position
in the Christian world. But it was a
position which gave no increase of power,
and there wa:s no future before it.
The Peace of Westphalia had made any
union of the several German powers under
a Catholic emperor wholly impossible. No
political genius, however powerful, could
have dreamed of successfully accom-
plishing the task of imperial reform with
a view to general centralisation. The con-
ception of an Austrian state was non-exist-
ent. Hence neither the ruling dynasty nor
the privy council ever troubled themselves
to consider in what direction their territory
could and ought to be extended with a
view to the gradual formation of a state.
The Hapsburgs had been forced into
the practice of a universal policy by the
unexpected reversion to themselves of
THE PROBLEM OF THE SPANISH THRONE
immense inheritances. They had thus
been unable to devote their attention to
the formation of a strong confederacy of
the lands upon the Danube, or to the
introduction of a uniform administration
throughout the possessions which had
been given into their hands. Their eyes
were invariably fixed upon some possible
advantage which might be won upon the
outskirts of their empire. They frittered
away their great resources in fruitless
undertakings, and put off the ordering of
their house at home, which would have
brought them wealth and power. The
conclusion of the
Turkish war, the
conquest of Hungary
and Transylvania,
had been successfully
brought about, and
room for colonial
expansion was thus
provided for at least
a century. The
greatest problems of
political economy
were awaiting solu-
tion ; treasures lay
ready to hand such
as no other dynasty
in Europe possessed.
The Balkan territories
lay open to the
imperial armies, anr'
never afterwards wei
the conditions so
favourable for a rapid
success. The Vene-
tian Republic had
recovered its strength,
and might have been
brought over to
alliance ; its objects
coincided with those
of the Hapsburgs in every respect ; its
growth would have implied no loss, but a
great increase of prosperity throughout the
inner Austrian domains, for the exchange
of products and of labour was necessary,
natural, and inevitable. The more harbours
the Venetians could have gained upon the
coasts of Greece, Macedonia, and Albania,
the easier and the more advantageous
would have been the realisation of the
products of the territories under the
Austrian rule. The eastern portion of
the Mediterranean might have regained
its commercial importance; for, of the
thousand threads which had united the
PHILIP v., FIRST BOURBON KING OF SPAIN
He was the second son of the Dauphin Louis, and in
Levant to the Adriatic in earlier ages,
all had not yet been torn away, and
many might have been reunited.
The death of Charles II., the last prince
of the blood in possession of Spain,
Naples, Milan, the Catholic Netherlands,
and " both Indies," was a misfortune for
the Hapsburg House, because it again
entangled them in a web of European
politics, in which they had but little
success in the days of Maximihan and
Charles V. Moreover, this event averted
their attention from very pressing neces-
sities at home, which they would probably
have recognised and
dealt with had they
been allowed the
leisure to do so. All
these considerations
did not affect the
Emperor Leopold.
He considered the
Hapsburg tradition
as implying special
duties which he must
fulfil at all costs.
His unshajcen con-
fidence in Divine
Providence had been
increased by his
victories over the
infidels. He beheved
in his rights and in
the divine nature of
the call which bade
him cling to those
rights. His deter-
mination was in no
way influenced by
political considera-
tions or practical
1700, when Duke of Anjou, was bequeathed the crown of statecraft. Otherwise
Spain by Charles II. But it was not till 1713 that, by
the Peace of Utrecht, he was left in possession of the
throne, after a long struggle with the Archduke Charles.
it must have dawned
upon him that the
only successful course open to him was
to come to some pacific arrangement with
Louis XIV. to divide the Spanish inherit-
ance, and to unite with Louis in resisting
any foreign interference. Leopold, how-
fever, did not take this course, and troubled
himself very little about the precautions
which other powers were taking in the
event of the demise of the crown of Spain.
It had long ago been plain to WilUam
of Orange that it would be most conducive
to the peace of Europe if neither Bourbon
nor Hapsburg should receive so consider-
able an accession of power, and if the
Spanish monarchy could be kept intact
4447
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
and independent. There was, moreover,
an heir whose rights could be justified
with but little trouble, the Electoral Prince
Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, the son of
the Elector Max Emanuel's marriage with
the Archduchess Maria Antonia, the only
daughter of Leopold I. and the Infanta
Margaret Theresa of Spain. If the female
_. , , line of succession in the House
^. . f o*^ Spam was to be mamtamed,
c then Joseph Ferdinand was the
Successor , . •' ^ , , . ,,
legal successor to his mother,
who had died in 1692. Louis XIV.
discussed the terms of a compact of divi-
sion with the Prince of Orange on October
nth, 1698, whereby the electoral prince
was to have Spain, the Catholic Nether-
lands (Belgium), and the colonies ; the
French dauphin, Naples and Sicily ; the
second son of the emperor (Charles), the
duchy of Milan, which was in any case a
fief of the German crown. But on Novem-
ber 14th, 1698, Charles II. of Spain signed
a will wherein he named the electoral prince
as his successor. Louis then declined to
recognise the prince, and waited the course
of events, confining himself to putting in
a word for the choice of his grandson
Philip from among the Spanish grandees.
Once again it would have been highly
advantageous for the emperor, who was
supporting the hereditary rights of the
electoral prince and the testamentary rights
of the dying sovereign, to have come to an
understanding with Louis XIV. on the
subject of a division. Such a course of
action might have proved extremely
profitable, even if they had taken the
Elector of Bavaria into their confidence,
for he would have been ready to give up
Bavaria in return for Belgium. Thus
German territory might have been
acquired, influence in Germany might
have been strengthened, Milan and Naples
claimed a^ a secondary inheritance for the
Archduke Charles, and Spain given up to
the Bourbons in return. The Austrian
_ . . House, instead of expending
ppor uni les ^^^ power in the War of the
Lost by the o • u o i_
A * • « Spanish Succession, wherein
Austri&n House ./ ,11 ■ ^ , •,,
it actually gained a still
smaller success, would have been free to
take the offensive against the Turks and to
plant colonies on the Lower Danube and
in the north of the Balkans.
But before any course of action had been
decided upon, or the first step to negotia-
tions with Spain had been taken, the whole
position was altered by the sudden death
4448
of the Bavarian electoral prince, on
February 6th, 1699, as he was about to
take ship from Amsterdam to Spain.
In March, 1700, Louis proceeded to
discuss further propositions for division
with William of Orange, with the inten-
tion of keeping him from union with the
emperor. The latter was calculating upon
the choice of a Spanish relative, which
would have been favourable to his house,
of whose recognition by the sea-powers
he had no doubt. The Spanish population
declined to entertain any proposals for
dismembering the kingdom, and for this
reason it might have been possible to
secure the succession of a German Haps-
burg if he had appeared in the kingdom
with a force of troops sufficient to offer
vigorous resistance to the invasion of the
French army, which was to be expected
upon the death of the king. But the Em-
peror Leopold did not think the expense
advisable, and in any case the undertaking
would have been difficult. He therefore
agreed to Louis' proposal that they
should mutually agree not to undertake
any military operation in Spain during
_^ _ . the king's lifetime. The ad-
e y"»8 vantages of this arrangement
t^M* d"'d' ^^re entirely upon the side of
France for upon receipt of the
news of the king's death she could bring an
army to the Ebro in as many days as the
emperor would require weeks to land a
regiment at any Spanish port.
Under these circumsta.nces it was in vain
for the dying Hapsburg at Madrid to form
the heroic resolve of naming his relative
at Vienna as his successor in defiance of his
powerful neighbour's desires ; for the
peace party in his own country, and chief
among them the Archbishop of Toledo,
urged upon him that the whole of Spain
would be occupied by the French troops
long before any German claimant could
appear in the field to defend his rights.
Under pressure of these considerations
was signed the will of October 3rd, 1700,
wherein the hereditary rights of the In-
fanta Maria Theresa were recognised,
and her descendants were called to the
succession ; in the first place was the
second son of the dauphin, Philip, Duke of
Anjou ; and if he should obtain the French
throne, his brother Charles of Berry.
After the Bourbons the German Hapsburgs
were to inherit, and after them the
Savoyards, who were descended from a
sister of Philip III. The inheritance thus
THE PROBLEM OF THE SPANISH THRONE
provided for fell vacant on November ist,
1700 ; on that day Charles II., the last
representative of that race which for a
century had wielded the greatest power
in Europe, sank into his grave.
A fortnight later Louis XIV. greeted the
Duke of Anjou as Philip V., King of
Spain, and gave him immediate possession
of all the powers united under that title.
He thought that he now had the game
entirely in his own hands, for he knew that
neither England nor Holland was inclined
to further military undertakings or to
great expense. He considered that if he
could succeed in a very short space of time
such step ; he brought all his influence to
bear upon the emperor, urging him to
commission Prince Eugene to open the
campaign in North Italy with all possible
speed. The determination displayed by
the German Hapsburgs was due to the
consciousness that they could place an
important general at the head of troops
then marching to attack, but still more to
the fact that they had on their side an
ally who was ever ready to strike, whose
infantry and cavalry squadrons were the
admiration of Europe, the Elector of
Brandenburg and King of Prussia.
Frederic III., the Great Elector's son
THE STRONGLY FORTIFIED CITY OF BERLIN AS. IT WAS IN THE YEAR 1688
From a copperplate print of the period
in getting all the Spanish territories into his
possession, the sea-powers would have little
opportunity of stirring them up against him.
As to the emperor's power, he thought he
would not be able to keep in the field the im-
posing armies which he was able to summon.
The Emperor Leopold naturally could
not recognise his brother-in-law's will ; on
the contrary, as head of the kingdom and
as representing the rights of his family, he
was bound to offer a forcible opposition
to the occupation of Spain by the French
, troops. His eldest son, Joseph, " King of
the Romans,'.' with all his dependents at
the Vienna court, had long been fully
convinced of the necessity for taking some
and successor, did not possess his father's
moral and intellectual qualities. He was
a weak ruler, fond of disj^lay, of but
scanty political talent ; but he added a
showy exterior to the edifice which his
father had built up, by obtaining a formal
recognition of its rank as a second-rate
European power. For the moment this
action appeared onh' as an attempt
to satisfy personal vanity, but in later
times it proved a valuable step on the road
to further development. It is a point of
some importance that this step was taken
at a time when the imperial house had
made the greatest sacrifices to the old
plans of a universcd foreign policy. If the
4449
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Hapsburg had not been on the eve of the
decisive struggle with the Bourbon rival,
it is certain that consent would never
have been given to the foundation of a
German kingdom, and without the em-
peror's consent such a kingdom would
never have obtained recognition.
In another direction there was an at-
tempt to make capital out of
.^^'w-L "'*' the elector's earnest desires :
on the Throne i • i , i 1 1
, p J . his electoral colleague,
Frederic Augustus I. of
Saxony, had been elected King of Poland
on June 27th, 1697, at the price of his
Protestantism, his recantation being made
at Baden near Vienna, on June ist, 1697;
he would have been glad to see another
imitator of his secession, and would have
rejoiced if the Brandenburger had requested
his advancement to the kingly title from
the Pope. For this purpose
conversion to Catholicism
would have been an in-
dispensable preliminary.
The Bishop of Ermeland,
Andreas Chrysostomus Za-
luski, had already arrived at
Berlin with a letter from Pope
Innocent XII., which unre-
servedly announced the
readiness of the Curia to
assent to the bargain. But
on this occasion the Elector
Frederic showed that he was
made of sterner stuff than his
portant preliminary, and was a guarantee
of recognition on the part of other powers
who would naturally adopt the emperor's
attitude. The change might have been
brought to pass by wholly different means
in the confusion of the approaching wars.
Brandenburg might have seized some
suitable piece of territory and have been
able to adopt the title of kingdom.
Frederic's was the sure and certain way,
and the one proportioned to his capacities.
It cost some sacrifice ; but this was com-
paratively small when compared with the
benefits which resulted. On July 24th,
1700, the emperor's privy council had
practically given its assent to the negotia-
tions upon this matter; on November i6th
the affair was concluded. Brandenburg
renounced any obligation of feudal depend-
ency to the emperor as his " creation " ;
in return for the imperial
promise to greet the king
after every coronation, he
undertook to serve the em-
peror in the war for those
parts of the Spanish inherit-
ance situated within the
limits of the empire— tacitly
including the duchy of Milan
— with 8,000 men, for whose
maintenance nothing should
be paid in time of peace and
100,000 thalers in time of war.
The elector further promised
to renounce all claim to
AUGUSTUS OF POLAND
usual manner of life appeared Frederic Augustus I., Elector of arrears of subsidy due from
to indicate ; not for a moment lofan"/ 'on^june Inh^feo?^ t"akin°i Austria, and to transfer from
did he entertain any thought the title of Aug:ustus 11. 'He was his successors to the Roman
of changing his religion, but '^^'^^'^'^ ^""^ dethroned m 1702. g^^pg^or the electoral power
he allowed the Poles to speculate upon the of an archduke. On the other hand, the
possibility of such change so long as he
thought their opposition might hinder the
advancement of Prussia. He saw that as
Protestant champion he would give his house
a more assured position while placing his
own loyalty to principle in contrast with
the facile conduct of the King of Poland.
Frederic had also recognised correctly
that he could not ask the crown he desired
from the hand of France. Not dependence,
but independence, was to be the meaning
of this crown; it was to oblige the sove-
reigns of Europe to treat with him as with
an equal. The new Prussian kingdom
was to rise from the Holy Roman Empire
not as its enemy, but as a new expression
of the power which was yet dormant in
that antiquated organism. For that reason
the emperor's consent was the most im-
4450
emperor promised the new king the inherit-
ance of Orange after William's death.
On January i8th, 1701, Frederic and
his wife ascended the kingly throne in
Konigsberg, and the duchy of Prussia,
which had been acquitted of all feudal
obligations since the compacts of Labiau
and Wehlau, was thus raised to
the status of a kingdom. The
Elector of Brandenburg became
King of Prussia, even as the
Elector of Saxony became King of Poland,
as the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein became
King of Denmark, and the Elector of
Hanover, a decade later, became King of
England. The form of personal union and
the constitutional relations of the empire
to these independent monarchies was the
same in all of these cases ; but the actual
Prussia
Becomes a
Kingdom
THE PROBLEM OF THE SPANISH THRONE
course of events produced many practical
differences. Only the Elector of Branden-
burg had become a German king ; his royal
residence was BerHn, and not Konigsberg.
The help of Brandenburg-Prussia was
all the more important to the emperor, as
the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland,
who was closely united to him, was now
unable to fulfil his promises in the event of
a war with France. He was the disturbing
cause of a war for the possession of the
Baltic territories, which occupied the
attention of Europe for a full decade
simultaneously with the War for the
Spanish Succession — the Second, or Great,
Northern War ( 1700-172 1). Of this war,
it suffices at this point to say that the
impetuous youth upon the Swedish
throne, after overthrowing Denmark,
attacked 40,000 Russians on the Narwa
with 8,000 men ^ .^
on November
30th, 1700, and
beat them
utterly ; but
Peter was not
to be turned
from the prose-
cution of his
designs. This
defeat taught
him the abso-
lute necessity of
completing his
military organi
sation rind hp
, ' - Born in 1657, Frederic succeeded to the Electorate of Brandenburg in
understood very the year leSS. On January 18th, 1701, Frederic and his wife Sophia
well that " his Charlotte ascended the kingly throne in Konigsberg, and the duchy
ineXDerie need **^ Prussia was raised to the dignity and status of a kingdom.
youths were bound to yield before an
army so old, so experienced, and so well
equipped." The ridicule of Europe at
the Muscovite incompetency, of which the
most incredible reports emanated from
Sweden, was of no long duration. The
tsar was able to reorganise his military
administration, to found cannons out of
„ , ., church bells, to devise new
Poland s c ■ J •
Q . . sources of income, and m a
J,. *° short time to take the offensive
again. Meanwhile Charles XII.
interfered in the affairs of Poland, marched
his army up and down the Vistula valley,
and by his partisanship of Stanislaus
Leszczynski as opposition king in 1704,
accentuated the party divisions among the
J^olish nobility, in which the kingdom
expended the remainder of its strength.
These Northern complications considerably
increased the emperor's difficulties in
obtaining a force of troops from his
German allies sufficient in number to
protect the Rhine boundary ; they did
not, however, prevent him from making
an appeal to arms to secure his rights.
His decision to send an army into Upper
Italy under the command of Prince
_ Eugene, for the reconquest of
Move of ^^® ^^^^y ^^ ^^^^"' ^^^^^ ^^^
I °^^ \A I ^^^ been taken over by the
eopo . prench, was one of the best-
advised moves which Leopold I. ever
made in the course of his long reign.
Eugene's success greatly increased the
prestige of the House of Austria, and
contributed to encourage .those states
which were hesitating whether to take any
part in the struggle or to allow the Spanish
Kingdom to p;iss without opposition to
Louis XIV.'s
grandson. A
general feeling
of astonishment
was created by
the information
that Eugene
had taken over
the army under
Marshal Nicolas
Catinot, which
was waiting in
readiness in the
fortresses on the
Itsch, that he
had arrived in
Venetian terri-
tory by detours
through almost
PRUSSIA AND
QUEEN
impassable Alpine tracks, and that his
attack upon the enemy's flank in the
battle of Carpi, on July gth, 1701, had
obliged the French to retreat behind the
Oglio. The imperial field-marshal then
awaited the counter attack of Villeroi at
Chiari, on September ist, and inflicted
considerable loss. upon the French. Then
the open and the secret enemies of France
rejoiced aloud, and began to consider the
possibility of forming a new confederacy
against the king, who was striving to
become the master of Europe.
Louis XIV. was not anxious for the out-
break of a general conflict, and thought that
Holland, which delayed to recognise the
position of Philip of Anjou, might be
tempted into neutrality, and restrained
from any thoughts of hostility which she
might have entertained. In February,
4451
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
1701, he ordered Marshal Boufflers to
cross the frontier of the Spanish Nether-
lands, and to demand the surrender of
those fortresses in which Dutch garrisons
were stationed, in accordance with the
terms of a "Barrier Treaty" with Spain.
Max Emanuel of Bavaria, who ruled in
Brussels as Spanish stadtholder had
P , _ already ordered the com
ranee s rong j^ajjdg.nts to hand over the
n&nd on J- . i T- J
♦k n i u ai i fortresses to France, and
the Dutch States . ,, 1, , , ,1
m the result twenty-three
Dutch battalions became French prisoners.
The Dutch States were now obliged to
recognise Philip whether they would or not,
in order to stave off the further advance
of the French, against whom they were
entirely defenceless for the moment ; but
their suspicions had been aroused to the
highest pitch, and of this fact they made
no concealment to the English Parliament.
The Parliament determined to send an
ambassador to the negotiations which had
been opened at the Hague to discuss the
conditions necessary to the maintenance
of peace. Louis XIV. struggled to prevent
the protraction of the negotiations which
was thereby involved, but at length gave
in, whereupon the States and England
went a step further, and demanded power
to co-opt an ambassador from the em-
peror. The danger which France now had
to face was lest the execution of the will
of Charles II. of Spain should be placed
in the hands of a European congress.
While the progress of diplomacy between
the House of Bourbon and the sea-powers
was thus opportunely coming to a head,
public opinion in England was gradually
swinging to the opposite extreme. The
Tories were afraid of losing their influence
if they attempted to stem the tide ; they
therefore withdrew their opposition to the
Hanoverian succession.
The news from Italy, and the prospect
that England would take a vigorous share
in the coming war, produced an immediate
g. effect in Holland. William of
i^f * ^ • Orange arrived in his native
of the Coming 1 j ? „ ^ , ,
y^ ^ land m September, 1701, and
concluded the Great Alliance,
which declared itself unable to acquiesce
in the French prince's possession of the
Spanish monarchy. To the emperor was
guaranteed at least the possession of the
Catholic Netherlands, Milan, Naples, and
Sicily, as well as the Spanish islands in
the Mediterranean. On their side the sea-
powers claimed the right to annex such
4452
portions of the Spanish West Indian
colonies as were most suitable for their
commerce and carrying trade. Spain and
France were never to be united, and in no
case was the King of France to be ruler
also of Spain. It remained open to the
Archduke Charles, to whom the kingdom
had been devised by his father, to secure
possession of it, if he could ; but the
allies were not bound to support him.
The formation of this alliance did not
absolutely preclude the possibility of a
peaceful solution ; if Louis XIV. had
recognised the critical nature of the situa-
tion, an equal partition might un-
doubtedly have been agreed upon. But
his political programme was of far too
ambitious a character to admit of any
demands for the placing of reasonable
limits to the French power. The
compact that was concluded on March
gth, 1701, with Maximilian Emanuel II.
of Bavaria, whose brother Clemens of
Cologne was already dependent upon him,
might easily have deceived him with
» J- .- regard to the situation in Ger-
Indiscretions ° , , ,• 1 . j
J . many, and have stimulated
p . ,,. the hopes which he entertained
French King r ,, ^ t i. j r
of the emperor. Instead of
making overtures to the sea-powers, and
requesting their mediation with the
emperor with a view to settlement, he made
the breach with England irreparable by
recognising as king the thirteen-year-old
James (III.) upon the death. of his father
James II., on September 17th, 1701 ; at
the same time he provoked the emperor
to the bitterest resistance by giving per-
mission to Philip to assume the title of
Count of Hapsburg and Duke of Austria.
William of Orange survived this change
in the relations of the European powers
only a few months ; he died on March 19th,
1702. His great achievement, the alliance
against Louis XIV., remained unimpaired.
His sister-in-law, Anne, was bound to sup-
port it because her position as ruler was
founded upon the general opposition to
her relatives who were maintained by
France. John Churchill, Earl of Marl-
borough, the husband of her friend Sarah
Jennings, was anxious for a war and
therefore busied himself in gaining the
strong support of the English Parliament,
and also in maintaining the policy of the
Prince of Orange in the States, where
he found an enthusiastic dependent and
a loyal supporter of William's actions in
the Council Pensionary, Anthony Heinsius.
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
AND THE GREAT TRIUMPHS OF MARLBOROUGH
T GUIS XIV.'s hopes with regard to the
*-^ German Empire remained unfulfilled.
The two Wittelsbachs found no party. The
associated armed districts of the empire
had certainly fallen into the Bavarian
trap, and had concluded an agreement of
neutrality with him. But they perceived
in due time that they were then entirely
without defence against the protector of
Max Emanuel, and so rejoined the
emperor, on whose behalf the Margrave
Lewis William of Baden undertook the
defence of the Rhine. Hanover and
Liineburg placed 6,000 men at the
disposal of Holland, and 10,000 men at
England's service in return for the
necessary payments. The King of Prussia
gave the sea-powers 6,000 men, besides
the auxiliary troops which he was pledged
to furnish to the emperor.
In the spring of 1702 the war began
upon the Rhine and in the Netherlands.
At the same time Max Emanuel openly de-
„ clared for France, overpowered
^ * . the imperial town of Ulm,
Movements j , • r n
* th W ^^ ^ possession of Regens-
burg. His task was to maintain
his position on the Danube until a French
army could advance through the Schwarz-
wald and unite with him. Then it was
proposed to march upon Vienna. How-
ever, it was not until May 12th, 1703, that
the Bavarian army, in the pay of France,
succeeded in joining Marshal Villars, and
even then the leaders did not feel them-
selves strong enough to march upon
Vienna until they were secured against
the possibility of a diversion from the
Tyrol. Max Emanuel also had a subsidiary
plan. He desired to get possession of the
land which seemed well suited for his
retirement in the event of peace negotia-
tions, or even for exchange against Naples
or Belgium. He therefore pressed on to
unite with the Duke of Vendome, who
was operating in Northern Italy.
Prince Eugene had been so feebly sup-
ported from Vienna that he had been able
only to prevent the duke from advancing
further north at the bloody battle of Luz-
zara on August 15th, 1702, and could 'not
inflict a decisive defeat upon him. The
Bavarians got possession of the upper and
lower Inn valley, took Innsbruck, and
pressed on across the Brenner Pass. Then
the Tyrolese brought their militia against
them, which they had kept on foot since
J- . the LandlibeU of 1511, and
Def t d t drove them back to the Brenner,
Laadeck ^^ter defeating them at Landeck .
The elector's attempt was a
complete failure, for Vendome did not press
his advance upon the Etsch with sufficient
vigour. Lewis of Baden had been in
position for the Danube for a long time,
confronting the French army under Villars
with a superior force, and if he had grasped
the situation and made the best use of his
advantage. Max Emanuel, whose strength
had already been broken, would have been
in a critical position, and would have been
forced to make a separate peace with the
emperor. However, he and Villars very
cleverly extricated themselves from their
perilous situation, and on September 20th,
1703, they even won a victory at Hoch-
stadt over the imperial troops under the
Austrian Count Hermann Otto Styrum.
The emperor's cause was in a bad way,
mainly through lack of money for the pay
and equipment of the troops. Prince
Eugene was, it is true, summoned to court
to preside over the council of war ; but
his most zealous attempts to make the
necessary provision for the armies re-
mained without result from the time that
_^ _, .^ , it became necessary to carry
The Fruit of ■ tt t u'
jj .. . on war m Hungary. Leopold s
e igious domestic policy of religious in-
tolerance now brought forth its
fruit. Religious toleration should have
been granted to the kingdom upon its re-
conquest, and after the hereditary rights
of the Hapsburgs had been recognised in
the Presburg Reichstag of 1687 a modicum
of self-government should have been
granted to the country. Instead of spend-
ing time upon religious imiformity, the
4453
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
administration should have encouraged
colonisation, have built roads and ships,
settled German peasants and artisans in
the country, supported the Saxons and the
Zipfer, and furthered their material in-
terests. Had this been done, the yearning
SI* K A ^°^ ^^^ °^^ state of things under
ips o Turkish administration would
. °^'^°^^^ not have been hot enough to
ungftry ^^^^^ ^j^g ambitious plans of
the Bethlen and Rakoczy, who were
now able to satisfy their desire for
insurrection with French money. Govern-
ment business in Hungary was carried
on principally through the " army Jew,"
Oppenheimer, with such careless and
unsound methods that the credit of the
Austrian House was
absolutely rotten. The
pledging of the crown
jewels often produced
insufficient amounts to
cover the expenses of the
most necessary diplomatic
missions. Any regular
payment of troops, any
proper commissariat, or
recruiting to supply the
losses of regiments in the
field, was entirely out
of the question.
The commander of the
Italian army. Count Guido
Starhemberg, was so
poorly supported from
Vienna as to fall into the
delusion that his previous
commander had purposely
Dom Pedro II. of Portugal had also
joined the Great Alliance. At his request
an Anglo-Dutch fleet conveyed to Lisbon
the Archduke Charles, in whose favour the
emperor had resigned his rights of succes-
sion to the Spanish monarchy. Though
there were not resources sufficient for a
vigorous campaign into the Spanish
peninsula, yet an important part of the
French army was there held in check.
Marshal Rene de Froulai, Count of
Tesse, began in 1705 a siege of the rock
fortress of Gibraltar, which cost him
nearly 10,000 men. The fortress had been
captured by an English naval squadron
under Rooke and Cloudsley Shovel.
Louis XIV. still had before him the
prospect that the war
would turn entirely in his
favour, if Max Emanuel
with his Bavarian French
army could penetrate to
Vienna and seize the
imperial capital. He had
already obliged Passau to
surrender at the beginning
of 1704, and was advanc-
ing toward Linz. The
positions of the several
combatants at that time
form a truly remarkable
picture, and the surprising
union between these army
corps thus scattered about
with no apparent connec-
tion is one of the most
interesting features in the
history of this war. They
were placed as follows :
him in the most difficult this great general won brilliant victories at Max Emauuel in Upper
circumstances in the face Blenheim^ ^?_}l^t' ^*. ^f ""^!!f ^" }'^^^,l^^ Austria, with 16,000 men ;
Marshal Marsin, with
20,000 to 22,000 French, in Augsburg,
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH
J J. f • 1 1 fi Coramander-in-Chief of the English and Dutch
and out 01 jealousy left forces in the War of the Spanish Succession ;
of an enemy of over
Oudenarde in 1708, and at Malplaquet in 1709.
powering strength. However, he pro-
vided plenty of occupation for his
opponent, who had undertaken to join
Max Emanuel at Trient, a movement
which proved unsuccessful ; and at the
outset of the year 1704 he began his famous
flanking march along the right bank of
the Po, crossing the Appennines and the
mountainous country of Montserrat to
Turin, where he joined Duke Victor
Amadeus II. of Savoy, who had gone
over to the emperor's side. From this
time forward there were two separate
seats of war in Northern Italy — one
at Mincio, Lake Garda, and in the
Brescian Alps ; the other on the Upper
Po, around Chivasso and Crescentino.
4454
between Iller and Lech, to which must
be added some 10,000 Bavarians as
garrison troops in Munich, Ingolstadt,
Ulm, and many smaller places.
Opposed to these were about 10,000
Austrians in Upper Austria and on the Tyrol
. frontier, and an imperial
c '■™>** army under Field-Marshal
Engaged in the ~i .y j .1 t-v ^^ i_
r^ T^iT Thungen and the Dutch
Great War /- 1 r- • ,i_
General von Goor, m the
Bodensee district, with Bregenz as their
headquarters ; their strength was 21,000
men, but the- departure of 9,000 electorate
Saxons brought them down to 12,000. In
Franconia was an imperial army under
the Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Christian Ernest — imperial regiments,
Prankish troops and Prussians under
Leopold of Dessau, not more than
14,000 men altogether.
Marsin's troops were in poor condition,
and greatly in want of recruits to com-
plete their strength. To bring these up was
the task of Marshal Tallard, who was on the
Upper Rhine with 30,000 men.
T^'^ " . *^ In the Moselle district were
Dutch in the -^ , j /- 1■
N th i d ^4'O00 trench under Coli;^ny.
Against him and Tallard, the
Margrave Lewis William of Baden, whose
headquarters were at Aschaffenburg, could
oppose 30,000 men, consisting of troops
from the emperor and the empire, and
from Hesse-Darmstadt and Liineburg in
Dutch pay. He held the so-called Stoll-
hofen line in the Rhine plains, opposite
Strassburg and the Schwarzwald passes.
In the Netherlands the English-Dutch
army, under the command of Marl-
borough, had been standing for a year
in almost complete inaction, confronted
by the French under Boufflers and
Villeroi. The Dutch commissaries, who
interfered in all military affairs as soon as
a single company paid by them had taken
the field, placed insuperable obstacles in
the way of any comprehensive plan of
campaign. They were accustomed to
wage war on the principles of commercial
calculation. They were but feeble, nervous
merchants opposed to any undertaking
requiring audacity ; and so, whenever
an attack was proposed, they hesitated
and discussed until the advantage had
slipped through their fingers.
Under these circumstances, it became
plain that the respective superiority of the
combatants must be decided upon the
Danube. Perhaps the most striking proof
of Marlborough's strategical powers is the
fact that he recognised this necessity, and
at once determined to act upon it. As in
all great events, personal ambition here also
exercised a most fortunate influence, for
Th E 1" h ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ which drove John
e ng IS Churchill to seek a sphere for
Leaders , . .,., • ^ 1 • 1
Q * k A t' military energies in which
success and honours were to be
won. To the Dutchmen he left their own
troops and no inconsiderable portion of the
auxiliaries hired by England to carry on
some unimportant sieges and covering
movements in the Netherlands, while he
himself executed a surprise movement
across Germany with 20,000 English troops.
The imperial court also recognised that
4456
Austria must be protected on the Rhine
and in the Schwarzwald, and sent Prince
Eugene into the empire. He undertook
to cover the Upper Rhine, while Lewis
William of Baden claimed the personal
command of the imperial army, which
was operating against Max ' Emanuel
and Marsin. The Elector Max retired
from Upper Austria to the Lech on hearing
that the Schwarzwald passes were more
strongly held and that the army was
advancing from Franconia towards the
Danube. He was afraid, and with reason,
that his junction with Tallard might prove
impossible of execution, and saw himself
already in a desperate position.
If the timid Margrave had been in the
least degree competent to perform his
duties, the elector would most probably
have been taken prisoner before the arrival
of the French reinforcements, which were
marching in the direction of Freiburg and
had already reached Villingen. On May
20th he took over reinforcements from
Tallard to the number of 10,000 men, \vith
a long train of supplies, guns, uniforms,
and 1,300,000 livres. Tallard then re-
M IK h' turned to the Rhine. How-
S V d'd°"^ * ever, thanks to the Margrave
„ ^"^ . of Baden's disinclination to
eginni&g ggj^^^ ^j^g Franco-Bavarian
army escaped from its dangerous position
at Stockach, and proceeded to fall back
upon Ulm on June ist, 1704.
Shortly afterwards Marlborough's troops
passed through Swabia without moles-
tation, joined hands with the margrave's
main army, and a plan of campaign became
possible. Prince Eugene also took part
in the deliberations, and agreed with
Marlborough as to the necessity of attack-
ing Max Emanuel, while their forces
were still superior to his. Marlborough
and the margrave held the command
upon alternate days. On July 2nd Marl-
borough gave battle with the united
Anglo-German army on the Schellenberg
at Donauwerth, and in spite of heavy
losses — among them Field- Marshal Styrum
and General Goor — won a victory over
the Franco-Bavarians, who were forced
to retire across the Danube and to
concentrate upon Augsburg. The elector's
hopes of victory were now dashed to the
ground; he showed an inclination to
listen to the emperor's proposals for
peace. Marsin was greatly annoyed at
this, and was forced to throw all kinds
of obstacles in the way to prevent him
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
from negotiating with a view to throwing
up the cause of Louis XIV. Tallard and
Villeroi were opposing Prince Eugene on
the Rhine with three times his strength,
but did not venture to attack their
dreaded adversary.
Tallard, at the call of Marsin, now
marched through the Schwarzwald to the
_ . helpof the elector with 25,000
rop^ing ^^^ ^^^ forty-five guns. As
the Margrave t, ■ t- 1 j
f B a soon as Prmce Lugene learned
this, he collected all the
troops which could by any possibility be
spared from the defence of the Stollhofen
lines, and made his way to that point
where the fortunes of the Great Alliance
were to be decided — to the Danube. He
made a secret agreement with Marlborough,
that the Margrave of Baden, who was
nothing but a hindrance to their opera-
tions, should be left behind to carry on the
siege of Ingolstadt, while the two generals
confronted the enemy in the open field.
Meanwhile Marsin had induced Max
Emanuel to march with him from
Augsburg in a north-westerly direction
to the Danube, and to cross to the left
bank of the river. There they joined
hands with Tallard's troops. Marlbor-
ough had been covering the retirement of
the imperial army at Rain, and now
hastened through Donauwerth to the sup-
port of the prince, who had been for some
days in a dangerous position, as he was
liable to be driven out of his post upon
the Kesselbach by the Franco-Bavarians,
who were vastly superior in numbers.
The Frenchmen were anxious to await
the arrival of the Bavarian reinforce-
ments, for they thought it dangerous
to weaken their own forces before
the arrival of this accession of strength ;
the Bavarians, however, did not arrive
at the proper time. When Marl-
borough's battalions appeared on the
Kesselbach, the positions of the re-
spective parties for the battle of
_. _ . Hochstadt were already deter-
The French ■ j ^^ j.i_ • r
-j^. . . mmed. On the mornmg of
f ** H^ 1 August 13th, 1704, the allies
* ** advanced: Prince Eugene, with
eighteen battalions and seventy-eight
squadrons — 9,000 infantry and 9,360
cavalry — undertook to make a march on
the right wing for the purpose of delivering
a flank attack, and at three o'clock in the
afternoon advanced upon the position of
Max Emanuel and Marsin at Lutzingen.
The former had five battalions and
4458
twenty-three squadrons under his com-
mand, while Marsin had thirty-seven
battalions and sixty squadrons. Tallard had
thirty-six battalions, forty-four mounted
squadrons and sixteen on foot, with which
to meet Marlborough, who commanded
forty-six battalions, 23,000 men and eighty-
three squadrons, with 10,560 cavalry. The
allied forces, as a whole, numbered 57,000
men with fifty-two guns, against 56,000
French and Bavarians with ninety guns.
- The brilliant victory gained by the allies
was due to the complete agreement of the
two commanders as to the general idea
of the battle and the accurate execu-
tion of the movements proposed. Marl-
borough was twice repulsed by Tallard
on the right, while he prepared his
unexpected main onset on the centre,
but was able to rally for a third onset,
while Eugene held the enemy's left wing
so firmly that Marsin dared not send a
single battalion to Tallard's support. The
battle in this quarter was finally decided
by the " indescribable valour " with which
the ten Prussian battalions under Leopold
of Anhalt-Dessau stormed the position of
_ . Lutzingen, after the imperial
,,rV - cavalry had retreated before
. .'. the Franco- Bavarian horse.
Max Emanuel and Prince
Eugene fought in the hottest part of the
attacks. Tallard did not understand how
to make the best use of his superiority in
infantry ; the greater part of them he
placed in Blenheim to defend the place,
and kept only nine battalions and 1,200
dismounted cavalry for use in the open
field. Marlborough made the utmost use
of his masses of cavalry ; 109 squadrons
were employed in the tremendous charge
at Oberglauheim in the centre of the line
of battle between Lutzingen and Blenheim.
Having broken the centre completely,
Marlborough was now able to envelop
the French right and destroy it.
At nine o'clock in the evening the allies
were masters of the field ; they had lost
12,600 men, a quarter of the forces with
which they had marched out to battle.
The Elector Max and Marsin retreated with
half of the Franco- Bavarian forces, having
lost 17,000 dead and wounded, and 11,000
prisoners, among whom were 1,500
officers. The battle of Blenheim marks the
beginning of modern warfare, which seeks
to decide the contest by destroying the
adversary on the battlefield, and not by
merely winning the ground or capturing
4459
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
fortresses. The strategical principles of
Marlborough and Eugene were further
developed by Frederic the Great and
Gneisenau, and brought to perfection by
Moltke. However, at that time the art of
following up a success was not understood.
A vigorous pursuit, of which the nume-
rous German cavalry would have been
quite capable, would have com-
BatuVof P^eted the destruction of the
„, . . French army before Villeroi could
Blenheim , . ^i. • • -
have come to their assistance.
But it was contrary to the custom of war
to refuse the troops a pause for rest at
the conclusion of a great action ; more-
over, it was thought that the objects of
the war might be obtained by diplomacy
and continued negotiation with Bavaria.
These hopes were not fulfilled. The
remnant of Marsin and Tallard's army,
together with some thousands of Bavarians
sent by Villeroi, reached the left bank
of the Rhine and went into winter quarters
on the Moselle and in Alsace.
Max Emanuel resumed his post as stadt-
holder in Brussels, while his troops kept up
a guerrilla warfare in their native land with
the Austrians, until Prince Eugene occu-
pied Bavaria in the emperor's name,
brought about the disbandment of the
electoral battalions, and came to an
agreement with the Electress Therese,
who had remained in Munich, whereby
she was assured a maintenance, but
deprived of all influence upon the govern-
ment of the country. However, the
extortions of the Austrian administration
and the conscription of recruits excited a
revolt of the peasants in the following year,
which was repressed only on Christmas
Day by the battle of the Sendling Gate.
On May 5th, 1705, Leopold died, and
Joseph I. ascended the throne without
hindrance. The Great Alliance was now
able to take the offensive, but the war
made no great progress during this year.
The French lines in the Netherlands were
_ , stormed by Marlborough on
Death of j^j jg^j^ ^^ August i6th
the Emperor f. .•' i^ ' r ?,
, /\ Prince Eugene fought an in-
decisive battle with Vendome at
Cassano. It was not until the year 1706
that Marlborough's victory over Villeroi at
Ramillies in Brabant on May 23rd made
the occupation of the Spanish Netherlands
possible. The corresponding victory of
Turin on September 7th, where Leopold's
Prussians again displayed their admir-
able inilitary capacities under Eugene's
4^60
leadership, drove the French out of the
north of Italy. On June 27th, 1706,
Madrid was won for Charles III. by an
Anglo -Portuguese army, but was soon
afterwards retaken. Valencia now became
the seat of the Hapsburgs, until the
defeat of Almanza, which Lord Galway
suffered on April 25th, 1707, at the hands
of the French marshal — natural son of
James II. — James Fitzjames, Duke
of Berwick. The southern provinces then
fell into the hands of Philip V.
Louis XIV. attempted a change of
policy by entering into an alliance with
Charles XII. of Sweden, who had advanced
upon Saxony from Poland in 1706, and
obliged the Elector Frederic Augustus I.
to renounce his claims to Poland at
Altranstadt on September 24th, 1706.
This was a serious matter for the allies,
because the Swedes had made demands
upon the emperor with which he was not
likely to comply, and an adventurous
spirit such as Charles might very well have
initiated a Swedish attack upon the
imperial territory. Had Charles possessed
the smallest capacity for diplomacy, the em-
„ . barrassments of France would
France in , j j i • -.v.
.... have provided him with a
Alliance , ,fj ^ ■. r
with Sweden splendid opportunity for its
exercise. But his action was
inspired by the humour in which he hap-
pened to be, not by fixed principles ; his mili-
tary success was a surprise for the moment,
but it did not contribute to establish the
Swedish power, the importance of which
was almost everywhere over-estimated.
Thanks to the personal intervention
of Marlborough, Charles was induced
to throw in his lot with the allies
in April, 1707. His quarrel with the
emperor was not successfully patched up
until August 30th, 1707, when the emperor
was led to make certain concessions in
favour of the Silesian Protestants. During
his stay in Saxony, Charles XII. had
collected an army of 40,000 men and nearly
100,000 horse, and with this force he
might have imposed any terms upon
Germany as the ally of Louis ; for the
empire had no army capable of resisting
him at its disposal. When this army again
marched eastward, in September, 1707, it
was felt that the terrible suspense of the
situation had been relieved. It was
marching to its downfall. Charles was
persuaded by the revolted Cossack hetman,
Ivan Stephanovitch Mazeppa, to make an
incursion into the Ukraine, instead of
446i
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
first reconquering the Balkan districts
which the Russians had occupied. The
battle of Poltava, on July 8th, 1709,
resulted in the annihilation of the Swedish
army, forced the king to take flight into
Turkish territory, and by 'securing Peter
the Great in the possession of Ingria (Saint
Petersburg) gave him the foundations for
his future position as a European power.
It was only at the cost of the greatest
efforts that Louis XIV. could
provide means for the con-
tinuation of the war. The
defeats of Oudenarde on July
nth, 1708, and of Malplaquet on September
nth, 1709, obliged him to open negotia-
tions for peace, wherein he showed himself
disposed to renounce his claims upon Spain,
if Philip were to be compensated with
Naples. The Hague conference arrogantly
demanded guarantees on the part of Philip
of Anjou for the evacuation of Spain by
the French troops. Louis never proved
himself better capable of representing the
Louis XIV
Works
for Peace
interests of his people than when he
rejected this proposal, and determined to
continue the war, relying upon the devotion
and the nobility of the French.
France was now no longer to be feared.
In Spain, also, her influence was gone.
The national party clung to Philip of
Anjou because he consulted their interests
in declaring for the independence of the
monarchy. All the advantages which the
sea-powers demanded for their trade
might have been conceded forthwith.
There was no reason why Europe should
put herself to further loss on account of
the kingdom of Charles III. ; on the con-
trary, the ground had been cleared for a
peaceful settlement, which might have led
to a universal pacification. But one
obstacle to this was the " barrier treaty "
which Holland had concluded with
England, on October 29th, 1709, without
informing the other members of the alli-
ance of the agreement. By this conven-
tion the States were to receive a number
THE BATTLE OF VILLA VICIOSA IN THE YEAR 1710
This battle, which was fought after the withdrawal of the great Marlborough from the operations of the war,
resulted in a victory for the French over the Austrian party, and did much to revive the hopes of Louis XIV.
From the painting by Alaux at Versailles
4462
THE FRENCH VICTORY AT THE BATTLE u: DL.NAIN IN K „
The success of the French at the battle of Denain is said to have saved the kingdom, French writers swelling it into
comparison with Ramillies. Prince Eugene besieged Landrecies, and the French commander, Villars, pretending
to assault the besieging army, made a sudden side march and advanced upon Denain. The French oflBcers
called for fascines to fill up the ditch. "Eugene will not allow you time," cried Villars, "the bodies of the first
slain must be our fascines." Then storming the camp, the Frenchmen carried it before Prince Eugene could arrive.
From the painting by Alaux at Versailles
of fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands,
together with Liege, Bonn, and Guelders.
Thus the division of the Spanish inherit-
ance v»^as affected before the heirs had
come to any agreement. As soon as Louis
learned this fact, he perceived that the
Alliance must split asunder. His new
peace proposals w^ere offered merely with
the object of initiating negotia-
tion ; when once the negotiations
The Tories
in Power
VIA ^^^ heen got under way, he felt
"^^ *"* confident that the relations ol
the powers would change in his favour.
This change began in the course of the
year 17 lo, owing to the fall of Marl-
borough's party in England, and the fact
that the Tories gained nearly a two-thirds
majority in the Parliamentary elections.
Queen Anne had broken with the proud
Duchess Sarah and assured the allies of
the continuance of her support ; but she
was anxious to see the conclusion of peace,
in order that Marlborough might be
removed from his position as commander
on the justifiable plea that there was no
further need for his services.
Affairs in Spain had taken a course which
precluded any prospect of Philip's removal.
Vendome, who had taken up the com-
mand of his army, was more than a
match for any forces which Charles had
at his disposal. He had forced Charles to
evacuate Madrid, which he had occupied,
and on December loth, 1710, at Villa
Viciosa, he had defeated the Austrians
under Starhemberg. Charles was driven
back upon Barcelona and some fortresses
on the shores of Catalonia. It was not to
be supposed that he would ever succeed
in getting possession of the kingdom. If,
therefore, Philip was left in possession of the
country of which he was, in any case, virtual
4463
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
toaster, favourable conditions in other
respects might be expected from France.
The road to peace was thus cleared when
the Emperor Joseph I. died, on April
17th, 1711, leaving no son, so that the
Hapsburg claimant to the Spanish throne
became heir to the inheritance of the
German line and to the imperial crown.
_. , This entirely unexpected event
ugcne s — ^j^^ emperor died of small-
wUh"ra'c P°^ — sealed the fate of the
Great Alliance. The Minister
in charge of English foreign policy, Henry
St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, imme-
diately entered into secret negotiations
with Louis XIV., without giving the
queen full information as to his intentions.
He deceived the emperor's ambassadors
and the Dutch by a pretended attitude
of firm adherence to existing compacts
and to the peace proposals of 1709. But
he would guarantee no subsidies, and
supported no plan of military operations.
Prince Eugene himself paid a rapid visit to
London to urge the continuance of the
war, but was coldly dismissed. The Duke
of Marlborough, who could do as he pleased
with the army, might have put an end to a
situation intolerable to himself had he
determined, on his own responsibility, in
conjunction with Eugene, to invade France,
which was now quite defenceless.
A special agreement with France on
October 8th, 171 1, made England's with-
drawal an accomplished fact. All that was
required of Louis was a solemn declaration
that Philip of Anjou renounced his claim
to the French throne, and some general
promises with regard to the indemnity
payable to the combatants. When England
invited the Dutch to consider negotiations
for peace, the latter did not venture to
shake off the Tory yoke and to take up
the ideals of the great Prince of Orange.
The troops of all the allied princes,
the Prussians, Hanoverians, and Danes,
marched out of the English encampment.
-^ Eugene was at the head of 122
Great W battahons and 273 squadrons,
at & E d ^^^ ^^^ ready to march upon
Paris ; but the Amsterdam
merchants were no longer inspired with that
spirit which had raised their maritime
state to the position of a European power.
The War of the Spanish Succession was at
an end. Louis XIV. dictated the con-
ditions of peace, which was concluded
on April nth, 1713, in Utrecht without
the emperor's concurrence. Louis XIV.
4464
recognised the succession of the House
of Hanover in England, left to England
the Hudson Bay territories— in modern
British North America — gave Holland
a number of " barrier " fortresses on
the French-Netherland frontier, and gave
the kingdom of Prussia part of the Orange
inheritance, the principahty of Neuchatel
in Switzerland, the counties of Mors and
Lingen and parts of Guelders. As to
Spain and her colonies, a new Bourbon
dynasty was founded by Philip V. and
his descendants. Portugal obtained the
land on the Amazon, the Duke of Savoy
got the kingdom of Sicily. To the
emperor were left Naples, Milan, and the
rest of the Spanish Netherlands. Sardinia
and Luxemburg, with Namur and Charle-
roi, were evacuated in favour of the
Elector of Bavaria until his native
dominions should be restored.
It was the hardest of all conditions that
the emperor and the kingdom should be
obliged to receive into favour the Wittels-
bach arch-traitor, that they should have to
restore to him the lands which had been
justly confiscated. The emperor was
unable to continue the war. Of this fact
p . Prince Eugene was well
r V ij aware, and after continuing
Eugene Yields ,, ,, tju-
. -, the war upon the Khme
to France , 1 1 j .
for a year, he bowed to
the will of France, and concluded the peace
negotiations of Rastadt and Baden on
March 7th and September 8th, 1714. Of
these, the main points were the recognition
of the Peace of Utrecht and the reconcilia-
tion of Max Emanuel with the emperor.
A project of exchange had been seriously
considered by these two — the kingdom of
the Netherlands with Luxemburg in return
for Bavaria. In spite of the protestations
of his brother, Joseph Clemens of Cologne,
Max Emanuel would have been ready to
close with the bargain, preferring to stay
amid the gaiety and wealth of Brussels
to returning to Munich. It is worth while
to remember that affairs in South Ger-
many might have run a very different
course from what they actually took. At
that time Prussia could never have enter-
tained the remotest idea of thwarting
the growth of the Austrian power in
South Germany. Fifty years later, when
the proposal for exchange was renewed,
Frederic the Great was able to prevent its
accomplishment by force of protest, with-
out appealing to force of arms.
Hans von Zwiedineck-SIjdenhorst
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
AGE OF
LOUIS XIV.
VII
ENGLAND'S RESTORED MONARCHY
THE REVOLUTION AND THE UNION
Monk and
the Rump
Parliament
ON the death of the Protector his office
was conferred by Parharaent upon
his son, Richard Cromwell, a well-meaning
country gentleman who had nothing but
his name to recommend him for the first
position in the state. The army, however,
was determined to assert itself in the settle-
ment. Finding that Richard Cromwell
would not ^llow the military power to claim
equality with the civil government, it forced
him to abdicate, and invited the Rump
to assemble. Forty-two of those whom
Cromwell had rejected in 1653 responded
to the summons, but were soon discovered
to. be no more tolerant of military rule
than they had been six years earlier.
A council of officers expelled the Rump
for the second time, and made a shift
to govern by the commissions which they
held from the late Protector. The general
indignation of civilians warned them that
this system could not be main-
tained, and once more, on
December 26th, 1659, the
Rump was brought back to
Westminster. All was confusion and
uncertainty when Monk, the ablest and
most moderate of Cromwell's lieutenants,
made his appearance on the scene leading
the troops with which the Protector
had supplied him for the maintenance of
order in Scotland.
Monk's intentions were a mystery to
others, and possibly what passed for
supreme duplicity on his part was in fact the
result of genuine perplexity. He confined
himself to assurances that he would
maintain the supremacy of the civil power,
and took steps to procure a Parliament
which would command the general support
of the nation. He induced the Rump to
recall the Presbyterian members who had
been expelled by Pride's Purge ; he induced
the Presbyterians to give their votes for the
final dissolution of the Long Parliament. The
stage was thus cleared of the body which
had so long pretended, without justice,
to represent the wishes of the people.
284
A new Parliament, composed of two
Houses, was summoned, and the Commons
were chosen once more by popular election.
The two Houses met on April ;25>tJl.:,.,T)^y
contained a strong Royafist triajohty ;
for the arbitrary acts of Charles L had
been obliterated from memory by the
still more arbitrary conduct of the Long
_,. P Parliament, the Protector, and
-. , .. the Majors-General. Within a
Declaration , , -" ^ , ,. ,,
of B eda ^^ days of assemblmg, the new
Parliament— called a conven-
tion, because summoned without royal writs
— had before it a manifesto from Charles IL,
who was then living under the protection
of the United Netherlands. This docu-
ment, the famous Declaration of Breda,
removed the last fears of those who had
resisted the late king. It promised a free
pardon to all persons who should not be
expressly excepted from the amnesty by
Parliament. It promised to tender con-
sciences such liberty as should be con-
sistent with the peace of the kingdom,
and expressed the king's willingness to
accept an Act of Toleration. It referred
to Parliament all the disputes concerning
the lands which had been confiscated
in the late troubles. Without delay the
two Houses voted unanimously for the
restoration of the monarchy. In May,
1660, Charles II. returned to his own
amid scenes of the wildest exultation.
The promises which he had made were
indifferently fulfilled, for, as it turned
out, no protection for Puritans or Common-
wealth men was to be obtained
from Parliament ; the promises
which Charles had made of
submitting to the arbitration
of Lords and Commons left him free from
all but moral and prudential restraints.
The Convention Parliament, which con-
tained many moderate men, was dissolved
on the king's return, on the pretext that
it was irregularly constituted, but in
reality because it wished to protect the
Presbyterian ministers who were in
4465
Charles II.
on
the Throne
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
possession of church benefices, and to make
an equitable provision for the purchasers
of lands which had been confiscated.
The Cavaher Parhament, which met
immediately afterwards, was
filled with hot-headed Cava-
liers and Episcopalians. It
allowed all Royalists who had
been punished with confisca-
tion to recover the whole of
their estates by ordinary
process at law. It declined to
hear of any compromise in
religious matters, and pro-
ceeded to pass a number of
disabling Acts which were
religion, disqualified for preferment all
who had not received episcopal ordination,
prohibited dissenting conventicles of every
description, and forbade nonconforming
ministers to come within five
miles of a city or chartered
borough. With cynical dis-
regard for the expectations
which the Declaration of
Breda had excited, the king
gave his assent to all these
measures. His conduct was
the more odious because he
was himself out of sympathy
with the victorious Anglicans.
At heart a Catholic, he
levelled ''against the Puritan The son of the great Protector, he secretly intended to secure
clergv and laity. This so- J^eeTn^el'ThSh hi fuctlded toleration for his co-religionists
called Clarendon Code— which his father as Protector, he quietly at the first Opportunity. He
took its name from the king's "^'»""^^^'' '" ''^ Restoration. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ p^ ^^ benefit
chief adviser— excluded all Dissenters from them, and incidentally the Dissenters, by
municipal office, imposed a more rigid issuing a declaration of indulgence to
test of uniformity upon ministers of suspend the operation of the penal laws.
GENERAL MONK DECLARING FOR A FREE PARLIAMENT . ^u
This able soldier, realising the condition of anarchy into which the country was falling, proceeded *« London where the
Romp Parliament had resumed its sittings, and on February 16th. 1660, openly declared himself to ^em favour of a free
Parliament. The Long Parliament came to an end a month later, and the restoration of the monarchy soon foUowed.
From the painting by E. M. Ward, R. A., by permission Qf th? A'\ Vn'on Qf Uondon
4466
THE MONARCHY RESTORED: CHARLES II. RETURNING TO ENGLAND
The son of the il^fated King Charles I., Charles II. was born at St. James's, London, in 1630. On Januarv 1st 16S1
he was crowned King of Scot and at Scone, and invaded England some months later at thel^^ad of i^arr^ of 10 00(
men. Cromwell met and defeated him at Worcester, and after some adventures he escaped to FrancT Whenit
was resolved to restore the monarchy, he was recalled to England and placed upon the throne of his father
From the painting by C. M. Padday, by permission of the Religious Tract Society
other prerogative
courts. Parliament
voted the king a
hberal income, but
for additional sup-
plies he was entirely
dependent on the
Commons ; nor were
they inchned to vote
subsidies without
demanding a strict
account. The experi-
ence of the Civil War
made the name of a
standing army
odious, and it was
with difficulty that
Charles contrived to
retain a few regiments
of Monk's army. In
the debates of both
Houses the king's
policy and his Mini-
sters were sharply
criticised. It is from
this reign that we
date the formation of
But when Parliament
protested against this
stretch of the preroga-
tive, he at once with-
drew the obnoxious
manifesto. He feared,
as he said, to be sent
again upon his
travels; the prospect
of committing or
conniving at injustice
had no fears for him.
Despite the exuber-
ant loyalty of Parlia-
ment, there were
many respects in
which the power of
Charles II. was more
limited than that of
his father. The legis-
lation of 1641 re-
mained for the most
part unrepealed. It
was out of the
question to think of
reviving the Star
Chamber and the
KING CHARLES
He was dissolute and utterly untrustworthy, and while a
Koinan Catholic m heart,he did his best to conceal from his
subjects hjs adhesion to that faith. His reign was a failure.
4467
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
a parliamentary opposition well organised
and skilfully led ; for the opposition in
the Long Parliament had soon passed
beyond the limits of party war and had
become a revolutionary caucus. The king
had therefore to walk warily.
The objects which he cherished — inde-
pendence for himself, toleration for Roman
Catholics — were repugnant to the majority
in Parliament and the nation. He therefore
looked abroad for help, and like Cromwell,
but with very different motives, made a
French alliance the pivot of his foreign policy.
England, as a part of Catharine's dower,
Bombay and a firmer foothold in India —
formed a new link with France, which had
long affected to support the cause of
Portuguese independence. Immediately
afterwards the king sold Dunkirk to Louis
for a round sum of money. The new
understanding encouraged Charles to de-
clare war against Holland in 1665, and
English commercial jealousy was gratified
at the same time that Louis received a
proof of the value of an English alliance.
Louis at first played a double game.
THE LANDING OF CHARLES IL AT DOVER ON MAY 26th, 1660
From the painting by E. M. Ward, R.A.
The old commercial feud between
England and the Netherlands supplied
him with a partial justification. The
Navigation Act was renewed in 1660 with
the express object of damaging Dutch
trade. This facilitated friendly relations
with Louis XIV., who had long cherished
the idea of absorbing in his dominions
the heretical and republican Dutch. In
1662 Charles married Catharine of Bra-
ganza, a Portuguese princess. The mar-
riage— otherwise notable, because it gave
4468
England stood in the way of his schemes
for the extension of French trade and the
establishment of French supremacy at
sea. For a time he assisted Holland
against England ; but in 1667 he was won
over to a secret treaty with Charles, under
which the latter agreed, in return for
French neutrality, to further the designs
of Louis upon the Spanish Netherlands.
The Dutch war, in which the rival fleets
had fought desperate battles with alter-
nating fortunes, was then wound up. It
4469
THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON IN THE YEAR 1666
Following: the Great Plag:ue in 1665, when 100,000 of the city's inhabitants died from the scourge, London, in 1666,
was the scene of a terrible conflagration, which cleansed the city of the dregs of disease. The city was practically
reduced to ruins, 13,200 houses being burned, and 200,000 people rendered homeless. The above view represents
Ludgate, St. Paul's, and, in the extremity of the scene, the ancient and beautiful tower of St. Mary-le-Bow.
had served its purpose, and Charles made
no attempt to revenge the disgrace which
he experienced from a Dutch raid upon the
shipping in the Thames and Medway.
On the contrary, in 1668 he consented to
the formation of a triple alliance with
Sweden and Holland, by which he pledged
himself to resist the French designs upon
Tk S t ^^^ Spanish Netherlands. But
_, ,. , the secret obiect was still to
Dealings of . , . 1 .,1 r
Ch 1 II ^^^s^ "^s value m the eyes 01
France, and an alliance with
Louis was effected in 1670 by the secret
Treaty of Dover. Louis, swallowing his
resentment at the trick which had been
played upon him, promised Charles a con-
siderable pension on condition that he
should have the help of English troops
against the Netherlands. Charles undertook
to avow himself a Cathohc at a convenient
opportunity, and was promised in that
case the support of a French army.
Only one or two of the king's most
trusted advisers were admitted to a full
knowledge of these provisions, and Charles
never fulfined the undertaking to declare
himself a Catholic. But for the remainder
of his reign he was the pensionary of Louis,
and in European politics England usually
figured as the satellite of France. In
1672 the English navy supported a French
4470
invasion of the Netherlands, and in 1673
bore the brunt of a severe battle in the
Texel. The land operations of Louis were
foiled by the constancy of William of
Orange . The French alliance was thoroughly
unpopular, and Charles bowed to the wishes
of his subjects so far as to conclude peace
with Holland and to bestow on William
the hand of his niece Mary of York in 1674.
But the secret understanding with Louis
remained unbroken. Three years later
Charles refused to support the Dutch
against a new French invasion ; and if at
times he appeared to humour the popular
desire for a war with France, his object,
was merely to obtain more subsidies.
On the other hand, he refrained from
entangling himself top deeply in the plans
of Louis, and his main efforts were de-
^ voted to a conflict with the
rown an opposition, led by Shaftesbury.
Commons ^i_^ , , , -^ ,1
• C tv t P^^rty manager had
been at first a Cavalier, then
a supporter of Cromwell, then an ardent
advocate of the Restoration and a member
of the Cabal Ministry which was formed
in 1668 after the fall of Clarendon. Sus-
picion of Charles' designs and disappointed
ambition soon drove Shaftesbury to resign
his office. From 1673 to 1681 he led every
attack of the Commons upon the Crown,
ENGLAND»S RESTORED MONARCHY
and spared no artifice to discredit the
Ministries through which the king
worked tortuously towards an absolutism.
In 1678 the revelations of Titus Gates
served Shaftesbury as a pretext to spread
the alarm of an alleged Catholic plot formed
to destroy Anglicanism by introducing
French troops into England. It made
little difference to the unscrupulous party
leader that a number of innocent Roman
Catholics were in consequence condemned
to death. He followed up the attack upon
the king's religion by impeaching Danby,
the chief Minister, and Danby was saved
only by the dissolution of Parliament.
In 1679 the
opposition
secured a more
hono urable
triumph in
forcing upon the
king the Habeas
Corpus Act, by
which the tradi-
tional remedies
against arbitrary
arrest and deten-
tion were made
more effectual.
Finally an Ex-
clusion Bill was
introduced to
prevent the
king's brother,
James of York,
from succeeding
to the throne.
James, unlike
Charles, was a
conscientious
Catholic. There
was a probability
that he would
do his utmost
to procure not
merely tolera-
tion but ascend-
ancy for the
oppressed
Catholics ; and
the dangers of a
Catholic reaction
seemed grave
enough to give
Shaftesbury the
support of many moderate politicians. But
there can be little doubt that private aims
determined his conduct. He knew that
from James he had nothing to hope and
LONDON'S CITIZENS ESCAPING FROM THE GREAT FIRE
From the painting by Stanhone A- Forbes. A R.A., by permission of Messrs.
Hildcsheim^r & Co.
much to fear. His complicity in the outcry
against Catholicswould never be forgiven by
the heir presumptive. On the other hand,
there was every prospect that if Parliament
should follow Shaftesbury's wishes and
confer the succession upon Monmouth, an
illegitimate but favourite son of the king,
and the chief hope of the Anglican party,
the Protestant demagogue might reason-
ably aspire to the post of chief Minister.
The question of the succession was the
all-absorbing topic in the next three
Parliaments. Shaftesbury's influence
procured innumerable signatures to
petitions calling on the king to disinherit
his brother ; and
the Protestant
faction were
nicknamed
"Petitioners,"
in contradistinc-
tion to the
"Abhorrers,"
who supported
the king. But
the king de-
fended his
brother's right
with tenacity.
The old instincts
of loyalty re-
asserted them-
selves in the
country, and
after the abortive
Parliament of
Oxford in 1681
Shaftesbury fled
into exile, a
beaten man. He
had laid the
foundations of
the great Whig
party, but his
rash precipita-
tion discredited
his followers ; in
the last two years
of the reign they
were exposed,
without popular
disapproval, to a
merciless perse-
cution. London
and other Whig
cities were adjudged to lose their charters,
and all municipal offices were filled with
royal nominees. Russell and Sidney were
executed on a charge of conspiracy in 1683.
4471
USS
4472
ENGLAND*S RESTORED MONARCHY
Never had the establishment of abso- The growth of scientific interests,
lutism seemed more probable than in the attested by the foundation of the Royal
latter years of Charles. Reaction is the Society in 1660, was in part a continuation
dominant note in the domestic history of . of the native movement which Bacon had
England between 1660 and 1684, and initiated, and was largely due to the
Parliament in its own way was not less interest excited by his writings. But the
reactionary than the Crown. work of Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is
In more than one sense, however, the closely related to the mathematical re-
Restoration marks the beginning of searches of Descartes and Pascal on the one
modern England. The intellectual atti- hand, and to the astronomical discoveries
of Galileo on the
tude of the
nation was alter-
ing. Some great
Puritans lived
and wrote under
the last two
Stuart kings ;
but Milton and
Bunyan, Penn
and Baxter, are
the glorious sur-
vivors of a van-
quished cause.
The satirist and
the comedian
the
are now
EARL OF SHAFTESBURY AND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
A Royalist colonel, who afterwards went over to the Parliament, the
other. Newton
and his contem-
porary Robert
Boyle, the father
of English
chemistry, were
in the highest
degree original ;
but their en-
thusiasm for
natural science
and their concep-
tion of method
were affected by
the example of
^V.o^^^^-or,'c. + ;^ Earl of Shaftesbury was one of the commissioners sent to Breda to ff^roicrn <:m)n'nt<i
characteristic invite Charles 11. back to England; he died in I683. The Duke of lOrClgn SUVaniS
fiefUreS of the Buckingham had the repu:ation of bein^ the most wicked man at Meanwhile, the
v? the court of Charles II. His sad end is pictured on page 4477. ^„^^^„+;i-
literary move- mercantile
ment. Dryden and the dramatists of the
Restoration bear witness to the triumph
of French influence over older modes
of thought and style. Their work was
more than the mere effect of reaction —
it was inspired by the ambition to recover
touch with the artistic and intellectual
society of the Continent, from which
England had been entirely estranged by
twenty years of fanaticism and warfare.
classes were developing new fields of
enterprise and laying the foundations of
a great commercial supremacy.
The one title of Charles II. to the
reputation of a national statesman is to
be found in his care for trade, and for
the colonies, upon which the hopes of
trade depended. He gave up Nova Scotia
to the French colony of Canada in 1668,
and suffered the island of St. Kitts to
Arlington
THE NOTORIOUS
CABAL
Clififord
MINISTRY
Lauderdale
THREE MEMBERS OF
John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, taken prisoner at Worcester in 1651, lay a prisoner for nine years in the Tow;er,
at Windsor, and at Portland; at the Restoration he became Scottish Secretary of State; he died in 1682. Like
Lauderdale, the Earl of Arlington was a member of the Cabal Ministry, and earned for himself an evil reputation
as a betrayer of trust. The scar on his nose, seen in the portrait, was received at Andover during the Civil War.
A Catholic member of the Cabal, Thomas Clififord was, in 1672, created Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. He died m 1673.
4473
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
be conquered by the navy of Louis XIV.
in 1666. But England gained a pre-
dominant position in the West Indies ;
the American colonies of the Dutch were
annexed and retained at the conclusion of
the Peace of Breda in 1667. Charters were
granted to a private com-
pany for the exploitation of
Hudson's Bay, and to
Penn, the Quaker, for the
settlement of Pennsylvania
in 1680, while the name of
the Carolinas records the
fact that they were first
colonised in this reign.
From the Bay of Fundy t(
Charlestown, the whok
east coast of North America
was now in English hands.
At the same time the
decline of the Dutch mari-
time power, shattered by
Commons showed an unexpected degree
of loyalty. Fear of civil war had brought
all moderate men into the Tory party ;
the king's demands were satisfied without
murmuring or hesitation. This success
was immediately followed by others of a
less peaceful kind. The
rising of Argyle in Scot-
land and that of Monmouth
in the South of England
were both crushed with
ease, and James beheved
that the Protestant party,
in whose interests these
rebellions had been raised,
was now at his mercy.
Not content with a savage
persecution of Monmouth's
partisans, who were con-
demned and executed by
scores in the course of
Judge Jeffreys' Bloody
LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL
continual wars and unde/- 7^'^Av°n-°^ *p^ ^^^u ^^'' ''^^ b^'^.''"'-'!' Assize, the king took steps
, , - T.T • Lord William Russell was a prominent ', /--.Vt i i
mmed by the Navigation politician in the reign of Charles 11.; his to give the Catholics a legal
Acts, prepared for the fate is depicted on the following page, equality with Protestants,
growth of an English empire in India,
which had hitherto been the battle-
ground of Dutch, French and Portu-
guese. The East India Company profited
by the exhaustion of competitors and
threw out new tentacles. As early as 1639
it had acquired Fort St. George (Madras) ;
and in 1668 it took over from the king the
equally important station of Bombay.
In 1686, shortly after the
death of Charles, Calcutta in
the Ganges delta was acquired
by a treaty with the Great
Mogul. Sensualist and dilet-
tante though he was, Charles
watched the growth of trade
and colonies with an enlight-
ened interest ; he formed
within the Privy Council a
special committee to handle
all questions connected with
these interests.
The death of Charles II.,
in 1685, was followed by the
peaceful accession of his
in the expectation that it would then be
possible to place the administration
entirely in the hands of his co-religionists.
The Test Act of the last reign had provided
that every public servant should make a
declaration against transubstantiation, and
receive the Sacrament according to the
Anglican rite. In defiance of the Act,
James gave military commissions to
Catholics, and met the re-
monstrances of Parliament
by a prorogation. The
judges decided a test case in
favour of the king's power
to dispense from the opera-
tion of the penal laws;
whereupon James issued a
declaration of indulgence in
favour of both Catholics
and Protestant dissenters.
This arbitrarj' suspension
of the laws provoked a storm
of indignation. Even the
Dissenters sided with the
ALGERNON SIDNEY
The second son of the second . . ^ _ . _^_ ^
Earl of Leicester, he was charged Opposition, lor LOUIS XiV.,
brother, James of York. The with complicity in the Rye House by his recent Revocation of
new king had every intention f •?*' /"^ ^^^ condemned, and ^j^g Edict of Nantes, had
t J.- • 1 • r .1 . beheaded on December 7th, 1683. , . . t
of continuing his brother s aroused suspicions of a
autocratic system. But the revenue general Catholic conspiracy against Pro-
which Parliament had granted to Charles testants. Petitions against the declaration
was not, for the most part, hereditary,
and it was therefore essential that the
new king should meet Parliament at the
first opportunity. The new House of
4474
poured in upon the king. He endeavoured
to repress the agitation by means of the
law courts. The Archbishop Sancroft
and six of his suffragans, who had joined
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4475
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
with him in signing such a petition, were
put on their trial for seditious hbel. But
they were acquitted by the jury, and
received a popular ovation when they left
the court. There were fears that James
would now resort to force,
for he had taken over
Catholic troops from Ireland,
and had quartered them at
Hounslow in the neighbour-
hood of London. But the
majority were prepared to
wait in patience for the
accession of Mary of Orange,
a Protestant princess and
the wife of the man who
had so successfully upheld
the cause of the Dutch Pro-
testants against Louis XIV.
These hopes received a
rude shock when it was
announced that the queen,
Mary of Modena, had given
birth to a son. The Princess
of Orange and her husband professed to
regard the child as supposititious, a belief
for which no plausible foundation could be
discovered. But admitting his legitimacy,
it was still certain that he would be
educated as a Catholic, and the nation
was thus confronted with the prospect
of a dynasty hostile to the Anglican
Church. The Church had restored
Charles IL ; it now expelled his brother.
The survivors of the Whig
party found themselves at
the head of so numerous a
following that they had no
hesitation in summoning
William of Orange to come
and seize the throne by
force. The stadtholder
was willing enough to seize
the opportunity of bringing
England into the European
league which he had built
up against the aggressive
designs of France. But
Holland was already at war
with France, and it was
difficult to leave the theatre
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
This great natural philosopher did much
to widen the bounds of knowledge. The
fall of an apple in his garden in 1665 r -tj x- r\ i
started the train of thought that led to of military Operations. Only
the discovery of universal gravitation, ^j^g mistakes of JameS and
Louis made it possible for the prince to
cross the Channel. James in his blind
infatuation refused the troops which were
offered by his ally; Louis, instead of direct-
ing his march against the Netherlands.
THE TRIAL OF ALGERNON SIDNEY ON A CHARGE OF HIGH TREASON IN 1683
Algernon Sidney was brought to trial at the King's Bench Bar, four months after the execution of Lord William
Russell, for a treasonable libel wherein he asserted the power to be originally in the people and delegated by them
to the Parliament, to whom the king was subject, and might be called to accoiint. Though he had not printed,
published or circulated his writing, he was condemned to death, and executed on Tower Hill on December 7th, 1683.
From the picture by F. Stcphanolf
447b
THE MISERABLE END OF THE GAY DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
Foremost among- the courtiers who surrounded Charles II. and participated in his vices was George Villiers, Dnke of
Buckingham, whose gay life came to an unlooked-for end. Broken in health and in fortune by his career of extravaganc ;
and dissipation, the reckless nobleman retired to a country mansion at Helmsley, in Yorksnire, and in that neighbour-
hood, in the house of a tenant, he died in 1684. Fever was brought on as a result of sitting on damp ground after a
long run with the bounds, and Buckingham seems to have died comfortless and unattended, without a friend neau: him.
From the picture by A. L. Egg, R.A.
allowed his attention to be diverted to
the Rhine. The Prince of Orange was
therefore able to leave Holland unpro-
tected ; he landed at Torbay
without molestation, and
began his march on London.
Ever5rwhere he was greeted
with enthusiasm. James was
deserted by soldiers, officers.
Ministers, and private friends.
He attempted to leave the
kingdom by stealth, but was
apprehended by a mob of
hostile Kentishmen and
brought back a prisoner to
London. It was only with the
connivance and at the sugges-
tion of William, to whom
succession
supporters. Both Houses resolved that the
throne was vacant and that a Catholic
was incompatible with the
national safety. There were
some who wished to restore
James on conditions ; and
others who would have pre-
ferred to leave him the
kingly title, appointing
Wilham of Orange as regent
with the full powers of a
king. But these proposals, the
work of Tories, were speedily
dismissed. The Whigs desired
to name Mary as queen and
leave her husband in the
position of a prince consort,
but the objections of William
proved an obstacle. The final
such a captive would have the poet dryden
been a source of great embar- John Dryden, bom in i63i, wrot- decision was to recognise the
rassment, that the king ulti- fh°l?o^on\t^'on of'SkT i1",\nd prince and princess as joint
mately made good his escape, was the author of many satires sovereigns. But they were
A convention parliament °" ' * p" '*= ™^" ° * ® "°^- elected only on condition that
assembled after the flight of James to they accepted the Declaration of Right in
discuss the future settlement. For the which the principal abuses of the preroga-
moment the Stuart cause had few tive for which the last two Stuarts had
4477
■4478
ENGLAND'S RESTORED MONARCHY
been responsible were enumerated and
condemned. The Declaration— afterwards
confirmed, with modifications, as the Bill
of Rights — settled the crown on William
and Mary, with remainder to
the survivor; then on the
heirs of Mary, then on Mary's
sister Anne and her heirs,
and in the last resort upon
the heirs of William. These
arrangements emphasised the
elective character of the royal
dignity and the supremacy of
Parliament. It is, however,
remarkable that no steps were
taken to provide new means
of asserting parliamentary
control. The Revolution was
but the first step in the rqbert boyle
process of constitutional re- The father of English chemistry,
William III. in 1702 the strife between the
king and Parliament was bitter and almost
continuous. The Dutch prince was, in
his own fashion, not less arbitrary than
the Stuarts, and his preten-
sions might have produced
his expulsion if England could
have spared him ; for even the
Whigs, to whom he owed the
throne, complained that he
would not be entirely guided
by their advice. He was deter-
rnined to be the slave of no
one party in the state, and in
foreign policy to act as his
own jNIinister. Whatever the
motives of this independence,
the results were good. He
saved the Tory party from
proscription ; he would not
the Dissenters to be
form, which continues for more Robert Boyle distinguished himself allow
than a century after 1688 '^X:::^,^^:^^ cheated of the toleration
From l689Untll the death of pump. Bom in 1 627, he died in 1691.
which they had loyally refused
THE NOBLE REBEL: THE LAST HOURS OF ARGYLE BEFORE Hib EXECUTION
The Earl of Argyle, associating himself with the Monmouth rebellion, put himself at the head of a Scottish rising,
but bis followers, dismayed at the increasing force of the enemy, gradually fell away from him. Falling into the hands
of his enemies, the brave nobleman was convicted of high treason and beheaded at Edinburgh on June 30tb, 168&
From the fresco by £, M. Ward, R.A., in the Houses of Parliament
447Q
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
recair.
to accept from James II. ; and although
his persistent hostiUty to France was
censured, the event proved that he had
gauged the ambitions of Louis XIV. more
correctly than Enghsh
politicians.
His path, however, was
smoothed by the existence
of perils which he alone
could face. There was a
rebellion in Scotland
which promised, but for
the death of the leader
Dundee, to spread
through all the Highlands.
Dundee fell in the hour of
victory at Killiecrankie
in 1689, but the High-
lands were not pacified
for another two years.
The resentment caused
by the massacre of king tames ii
Glencoe in 1692, and by He was the second son of Charies I., and o^ the succession,
the commercial jealousy succeeded his brother, Charles II., in 1685- Meanwhile the position
of England towards the <?"•*« alienating himself from his people, and of William in England
• • ° -u i 1 t losing his throne, he ultimately fled to France- „ „ •
rising merchant class of ' grew more precarious.
Scotland, made the northern kingdom a A number of the prominent Whig lords had
source of constant anxiety. In Ireland long corresponded with the exiled king in
there was a more prolonged war. The his refuge at St. Germains. Parliament
Catholics rallied to James II. ; London- persistently opposed the maintenance of a
m 1691 not only averted invasion — it
inflicted a blow on the French fleet which
Louis could not or would not afford to
Henceforth the ambitions of the
Grand Monarque were
concentrated upon the
land war. In this, too,
England's interests were
nearly concerned, since
the dynastic revolution
had linked her fortunes
with those of the Low
Countries, and she was
now a party to the
League of Augsburg. This
danger lasted longer than
the rest. The final settle-
ment was delayed till
1697. But in that year,
by the Treaty of Ryswick,
France recognised the
Revolution settlement
derry, the chief strong-
hold of the Ulster Pro-
testants, had to endure a
three months' siege; the
signal victory which
William achieved over
French and Irish forces
at the Boyne in 1690
drove James II. from the
island, but left his sup-
porters in the field. It
was only late in 1691
that the Irish Catholics
laid down their arms
and the French auxili-
aries of Sarsfield de-
parted, under the Treaty
of Limerick
At sea, the French
fleet 'which Colbert's
genius had produced
THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH
Said to be the illegitimate son of Charles II
challenged the English ^e was created Duke of Monmouth in 1663.
naval supremacy, when King James II. came to the throne.
Admiral Torrington was Monmouth asserted his own right to
disgracefully beaten off *•»* "°''"' ''"* ^^^ defeated and beheaded
Beachy Head in 1690, and the south coast
experienced a foretaste of the terrors of
invasion. But this danger, too, was met.
The great victory of Russell at La Hogue
4480
standing army, and would
pass only an annual
Mutiny Bill, voting
the necessary supplies
from year to year. In
spite of the financial
reforms of Godolphin and
Montague, the credit of
the government was bad.
The foundation of the
Bank of England in 1694,
one of the most notable
measures of the reign,
was a device of Montague
for raising a loan which
otherwise could have
been obtained only with
difficulty ; and the growth
of the national debt,
though an inevitable
consequence of the French
war, provided the oppo-
nents of the new regime
with an effective argu-
ment. The Toleration
Act in 1689 was but a mutilated measure ;
William was foiled by the Houses in his
scheme for abolishing the tests, so far as
they affected Protestants. The Triennial
ENGLAND'S RESTORED MONARCHY
Act of 1694, providing that a new-
Parliament should be summoned at least
every three years, was a limitation of
the prerogative which the king accepted
with great reluctance. After the death, in
1694, of his wife, whose per-
sonal popularity had stood
him in good stead, William
was compelled to put himself
in the hands of the Whigs.
More than once he was driven
in these years to protect him-
self by the use of the veto,
and by threatening that he
would retire to Holland if
further pressed. After the
Treaty of Ryswick he re-
luctantly acquiesced in a
considerable reduction of the
army and dismissed his "^"^ infamous Jeffreys
favourite Dutch Guards; but, tereTe^;Jr.^^ei:^'.^Jn^^^^^^
m spite of these concessions, F'^'J^^y which can find no garallel
the opposition insulted him
by examining and partially cancelling the
grants of confiscated lands which he had
bestowed upon his partisans in England
and Ireland. His cold manner, his foreign
extraction, his preference for Dutch friends,
and his indifference to English
party questions, were con-
tributory causes to his
unpopularity. But with the
Tories the chief motive of
attack was their repentance
for the desertion of James,
while the Whigs felt that
Parliament had not attained
that paramount position to
which it was rightfully en-
titled. The Act of Settlement
in 1 70 1, which was primarily
intended to bring the Hano-
verians into the succession
after Anne and her heirs,
expressed in a series of new
in history. He died in the'Toveri , . • .
where he lay a prisoner, in 1689. limitations the mistrUSt which
RICHARD BAXTER BEFORE THE DREAD JUDGE JEFFREYS
Lord Chief Justice in the reign of James II., Judge Jeffreys delighted in cruelty, and so inhuman was his treatment of
the unhappy people dragged before him that his name became a byword throughout the land. He sent hundreds to
death in connection with the Monmouth rebellion in the West of England. This picture represents the learned
Dissenter, Richard Baxter, before the bar of the dreaded judge, who, with the view of gaining favour with the newlv-
ascended monarch, James II., is heaping insults upon the head of the preacher, whom he afterwards committed to prison.
28^
4481
4482
»i.2J.t{
2 £003
5"g.s 2
bg2|
O 4>
"? 2Z_
KING WILLIAM III. AND QUEEN MARY
When the nation became weary of t.ie tyranny of Kinj James II.. an invitation to j;o to England and redress their
grievances was extended to William III. of Orange, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, whose wife was the daughter
of the English king He landed at Torbay on November 5th, 1688, with an Knglish and Dutch armv of 15,000 men ; sJl
parties quickly flocked to his standard, and the throne, which aftT the overthrow and flight of James was declaxed
vacant by the Convention Parliament, was offered to William and Mary.
From the portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
the Whigs felt for the prerogative. These
precautionary measures were somewhat
modified in the next reign, 1706, but the
Act in its final shape demanded that the
sovereign should adhere to the Church of
England ; that no war should be opened
for the defence of foreign territory with-
out the consent of Parliament ; that no
alien should sit in Parliament or the Privy
Council ; that the judges
should hold office during
good behaviour.
In the last months of
William's life a closer union
between himself and his
subjects was created by the
opening of a new French war.
It was ostensibly undertaken
to prevent the European
balance from being over^
thrown by the union of the
French and Spanish Crowns
in the Bourbon family. This
was a danger which William
had long foreseen and feared.
The schemes of partition by
which he had attempted to
avert it have been elsewhere described.
The smaller powers of the Continent
concurred from the first in the general
principle that the balance of power
should be maintained bv a division of
VISCOUNT DUNDEE
the Spanish heritage. English politicians
were not agreed as to the necessity
^oP enforcing such an arrangement by
an armed demonstration ; Somers and
Montague, the chief of the king's advisers,
narrowly escaped an impeachment for
their share in the treaties of partition.
But the merchants were clearer-sighted
than the politicians. It was soon per-
ceived that a Bourbon dynasty
in Spain would strain every
nerve to exclude English
trade from the Spanish ports
in the New World.
There was considerable ex-
citement when Louis accepted
the Spanish inheritance for
Phihp of Anjou in November,
1700. But it was an accident
that induced the whole nation
to take up the quarrel of the
mercantile interest. James II.
died in September, 1701. On
He relentlessly carried out the his death-bed he received a
sio^n'oi^fhT crentVe'l fn'Ico?: visit from the King of France,
land, and was fatally wounded at and the latter, in a moment
the battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. ^^ chivakoUS impulsC, an-
nounced his intention of recognising the
exile's son as the lawful King of England.
This was an open insult to England and a
violation of the Peace of Ryswick. In
Parhament and in the nation it produced
MONMOUTH'S BID FOR THE THRONE: THE REBEL BEFORE THE KING
After the death of Charles II., in whose reign he had been exiled, the Duke of Monmouth, natural nephew of King:
James II., returned to England, and placing himself at the head of a rebellion against the reigning sovereign, soon had
a following of 6,000 men. Meeting the king's forces at Sedgemoor, in Somersetshire, he was defeated after a desperate
struggle and took refuge in flight. Discovered later on disguised as a peasant, Monmouth, with his arms bound behind
him, was brought before James and threw himself at the king's feet. He ended his life on the scafFold.
Irrrni the paintiniE by John Pettie, R.A.
THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE, THAT SEALED THE FATE OF JAMES II.
Forsaken by his people, who turned with enthusiasm to welcome William of Orange, James II. fled to Ireland, where he
could still count upon the support of the Roman Catholics. On July 1st, 1690, was fought the famous battle of the
Boyne between the armies of King William III. and the ex-King James, his father-in-law. The troops of the latter
gave way before the powerful onslaught of the new king's forces, and when James, viewing the battle from a
neighbouring hill, witnessed the defeat of his cause, he rode towards Dublin. A few days later he escaped to France.
From the painting by Benjamin West, R. A-. by perwissigo of Messrs. Henry Crav^ & Cg.
4487
A LOST CAUSE: THE FLIGHT OF JAMES H. AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE, IN 1690
From the painting by Andrew C Gow, R.A., in the Tate Gallery
an outburst of passionate indignation
which the excuses offered, upon maturer
dehberation, by the King of France were
powerless to calm. William at once
proceeded to utilise the
favourable opportunity.
His life was cut short by
a fall from his horse in
the spring of 1702 ; but
the Grand Alliance was
already formed, and his
position as the general of
the allies devolved upon a
successor who was tho-
roughly fitted to continue
his work both in diplomacy
and on the field of battle.
It may even be questioned
whether William could have
of Anne. The husband and wife had sacri-
ficed all other considerations to identify
themselves with the fortunes of the future
queen, and they now reaped their reward.
Marlborough became cap-
tain-general of the military
forces ; his friend Godolphin
received the white staff of the
treasurer and the supreme
control of home affairs.
Tories by conviction, they
sacrificed their party feeling
to the exigencies of the war.
Their Ministry contained
from the first a number of
the Whigs, with whom the
war was especially popular
because declared by Wil-
EARL OF GODOLPHIN liam ; and after 1708 the
achieved the great success Though this nobleman stood by James two chicf Ministers decided
which fell to the lot of when the Prince ofOrange landed in Eng- ^^ j.g| altogether OU that
., T-v 1 r ■««• 11 -1 land, the new king reinstated him as First •' ,^, '-'.,.
the Duke of Marlborough. Commissioner of the Treasury; he also party. The military cveuts
The new queen had been held office under Anne. He died in 1712. of the struggle with France
a cipher at the courts of her father, her are related elsewhere. It lasted with
sister, and her brother-in-law, and a
cipher she remained, except for the fact
that upon her favour the ascendancy of
Marlborough depended. Marlborough's
wife was for many years the chief confidant
4488
little interruption until 1711. The Low
Countries, the valley of the Danube, the
Spanish peninsula, and the Lombard plain
were the chief theatres of the war ; but
the dt^cisive operations were confined to
ENGLAND'S RESTORED MONARCHY
the first two of these, and are closely
associated with the name of Marlborough.
The balance of power, which meant little
to England, gave Marlborough more con-
cern than her commercial interests, which
meant much. He showed a greater
anxiety to damage the French than to
benefit his own country-
men, and he continued the
war long after Louis had
signified his willingness to
concede everything that
England had a right to
expect. That Marlborough
made war in order to make
money was a vulgar slander.
The sums which he received
from contractors and foreign
powers were perquisites of a
kind which all generals of
the age felt themselves at
liberty to take. But the
duke undoubtedly reflected
that his position would be
precarious when peace was
once concluded, and^ it is
probable that he would have been more
pacific if his doubts on this head could
have been satisfactorily set at rest.
It was a court revolution which led at
length to England's withdrawal from the
war. When the Tories had parted com-
pany with Marlborough
they gradually coalesced to
form a compact opposition,
of which Harley was the
manager and Henry St.
John the controlling mind.
Both had been members of
the Marlborough and Godol-
phin Ministry ; both were
evicted in 1708 to make
room for Whigs. Thirsting
for vengeance, they turned
to Anne, in whom they saw
the key of the situation. An
ardent Anglican, the queen
had quarrelled with the
Whigs because they offered
opposition to the Occa-
CHARLES MONTAGUE
A Chancellor of the Exchequer and
a great financier, be instituted the
Bank of England ; he later became
Earl of Halifax, and died in 1715.
of the war party, which was, in the mean
time, discredited with the electorate by
the furious attacks of Swift and other
Tory pamphleteers. The Whigs, to crown
all, made the mistake of prosecuting a
popular Tory preacher, one Dr. Sache-
verell, who had used his sermons as a
vehicle for criticisms of the
Revolution and the defence
of the doctrine of Non-
resistance. The majority
of the electorate were High
Churchmen, and in theory
devoted to the principles
of the divine right of
kings. The Triennial Act
made it impossible to pre-
vent Parliament from
changing in composition with
all the changes of popular
opinion. The elections of
17 10 produced a Tory
House of Commons; and
although, in the undeveloped
state of political theory, the
queen would have been
justified in standing by Marlborough and
the Whigs, the elections gave her the
opportunity of asserting her personal and
religious prejudices. Harley, now Earl
of Oxford, and St. John, now Viscount
Bolingbroke, came into office. Marlborough
was recalled in 171 1, de-
prived of all his offices, and
threatened with charges
of embezzlement.
The change of govern-
ment entailed a change of
foreign policy. The Tories
had for some time past
denounced the war as
needless, unwarrantable,
and ruinously expensive.
They could not continue it
without employing Marl-
borough, and they were
eager to appropriate the
fruits of his victories.
Accordingly they opened
behind
LORD CHANCELLOR soMERS negotiations behind the
sional Conformity Bill ««d"con"stitu^°IS'i''ia"rMn*^692"he backs of the other parties
(1702-1706), a measure de- became Attorney -General, and was to the Grand Alliance. In
signed to prevent Dissenters ^""^ ChanceUor from 1697 till 1700. ^^^^^ eagerness for a settle-
from evading the sacramental tests.
Repeated quarrels with the Duchess of
Marlborough had strained the queen's
friendship to breaking point. A new
favourite and kinswoman of Harley was
therefore able to undermine the position
ment they overreached themselves. The
King of France took advantage of their
haste to demand terms more favourable
than those which he had offered two
years previously, and the Treaty of
Utrecht in 1713 conceded nearly all that
4489
HISTORY OF THE WORLO
complete the execution of his designs.
Up to the last he had been hampered by
the vacillation of Oxford, who would
have preferred to make terms with the
Whigs. Oxford was at length dismissed,
but only a few days before the queen's
death. The accession of George I. was
accordingly followed by a proscription
of the Tory party. They were accused
of corresponding with the Pretender.
Bolingbroke fled the country, Oxford
was impeached and imprisoned. All offices
were put into
the hands of the
Whigs, and the
monopoly thus
acquired by one
party in the
state was retained
until 1761.
The union with
Scotland, though
an episode but
s lightly con-
nected with the
general course of
events, is, from
our modern point
of view, the most
momentous re-
sult of Queen
Anne's reign.
The union of the
Parliaments had
been projected by
James L, and,
for a moment,
realised by Crom-
well. Cromwell's
experiment had
QUEEN ANNE, LAST OF THE STUART SOVEREIGNS been aCCOm-
OVer who would Thedaughterof James 11., she was the last of the Stuart sovereigns, -panied bv the
c;nrrpprl Annp succeeding: to the throne in 1702, on the death of William III., who pc+pKli^bTnpnf of
bUCCeeu /\mie died without issue. Her husband, to whom she was married in 1683, ebldUnblimtJlU Ui
under the Act of was Prince George of Denmark. The political troubles of the free trade
he demanded. The territories ceded to
England were inconsiderable, and the
trade privileges — the Asiento Contract for
the monopoly of supplying the Spanish
colonies with slaves, and the right of
sending one merchant ship a year to
Portobello— were equally insignificant. It
was natural that such terms should pro-
duce intense dissatisfaction with the
government which accepted them. Boling-
broke hoped to appease the mercantile
classes by arranging a supplementary
treaty of com-
merce with
France; he
actually obtained
the assent of
Louis to a recip-
rocal reduction
of tariffs. But
the interests
threatened made
their protests
heard in Parlia-
m e n t , and the
commercial
treaty was re-
jected. It was
suspected that the
Ministers forced
on the peace
negotiations in
order- to leave
their hands free
for Jacobite
intrigues. This
was not alto-
gether true. The
Tories knew, in-
deed, that the
Elector of Han-
Parliament,
time gave the queen little rest, and she died on August 1st, 1714.
garded them with implacable suspicion.
But it would have been madness to think
of forcing the Pretender upon the country.
His religion alone put him out of the
question as a possible successor. Boling-
broke accepted the Hanoverians as an
unpalatable necessity; he used the time
of grace to strengthen the Tory hold upon
central and local administration. He
hoped, by a skilful use of patronage, to
fortify his position so strongly that the
elector would be forced to accept a Tory
Ministry. The death of the queen oc-
curred before Bolingbroke had time to
4490
be-
tween the two
countries, a measure which went far
towards making the Scots content with
the loss of national autonomy. But
Cromwell's policy was reversed at the
Restoration. Tauderdale and the other
members of the clique which managed
Scotland for the last two Stuarts were
opposed to any measure of union, because
it Would diminish their power and emolu-
ments; nor was it difficult to create a
prejudice against union in the mind of
the Scottish Parliament. But the com-
mercial classes suffered by their exclusion
from English and colonial trade ; the
ENGLAND'S RESTORED MONARCHY
of securing union by the grant of free
trade. The great difficuhy that lay in the
way was to induce the Scottish Parlia-
ment to vote for its own annihilation.
Fortunately there had been no general
failure of the Darien scheme in 1695, a
project for establishing a Scottish colony
on the isthmus of Panama, proved that
the Scots could not hope to obtain a
share in the trade of the New World
except under the shelter
of the English flag. Many
causes combined to pre-
vent them from accepting
the. union as a commercial
necessity. The Glencoe mas-
sacre in 1693, a romantic
loyalty to the house of
Stuart, resentment against
the jealous spirit which
England had shown in all
commercial dealings, the
fear of increased taxation,
the certainty of dimini-
shed national dignity, were
obstacles which it took
years to overcome. In 1703
the English Act of Succes- ^^^ ear^ of oxford and viscount bolingbroke
Sion, which disposed of the skUled in parliamentary law, Robert Harley was appointed Speaker in 1701 ;
crown of Scotland without in 1710 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was created Earl of
reference to the wishes of Oxford. On a charge of high treason in connection with the Treaty of Utrecht
fVif. C^rntticVi DPnnlp nrn he was committed to the Tower, but was released in 1717. Henry St. John,
tne OCUlllbll pcupic, pi^" ^as created Viscount BoUngbroke in 1712. He held office in various ministries.
voked a storm. Scotland
retaliated by an Act of Security in 1704, election since the Revolution ; the Anglo-
which provided that on the death of phile element was larger in the legislature
Anne the Scottish succession should be than in the nation. A judicious use of
settled bv the national legislature, and si:ch inducements as peerages strength-
ened the party of the union.
The fears of Presbyterians
were removed by emphatic
assurances that their Church
should under no circum-
stances be disestablished.
The Highland chiefs were
pacified by the guarantee
of their hereditary jurisdic-
tions. In the matter of
taxation Scotland was liber-
ally treated, knd she received
a sum of S2,ooo,ooo with
which to pay off her debt
and to compensate the
sufferers of the Darien
scheme. Last, and most im-
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH AND SARAH JENNINGS portaut, equality in trade
The military exploits of the Duke of Marlborough have been descrihed in the ^ j noTrJcrafirin \\ra<i crrctntf^A
preceding chapter. His wife, Sarah Jennings, fc ad almost boundless influence ^UQ navigdllOll Wdb gidiiLcu
over Queen Anne, which she employed to procure the professional advance- tO Scotland. Un tiiese terms
ment of her husband. Her power came to an end in 1711, when she was 1\iq Act of UnioU WaS paSScd
superseded in the queen's favour by her own cousin, Mrs. Masham. j^ 1707 It provided for the
that the successor to the English crown representation of Scotland in the united
should be ineligible unless Scotland were
in the meantime admitted to full rights
of trade and navigation. The English
Parliament was thus taught the necessity
Parliament by forty-five commoners and
sixteen elected peers, for the fusion of the
executives, for the lasting union of the
H. W. C. Davis
crowns.
4491
WESTERN
EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
AGE OF
LOUIS XIV,
VIII
DENMARK'S DESPOTIC MONARCHY
THE NATION'S FAILURE TO ATTAIN GREATNESS
\T the close of the Swedish war in 1660,
**■ Denmark was in a sad plight. She
had lost some of her most valuable pro-
vinces ; her finances were in complete
chaos ; the whole country had been pil-
laged and laid waste ; poverty and distress
reigned everywhere. As a first step
towards remedial measures a diet was
summoned to Copenhagen in 1660, where
representatives of the nobility, the clergy,
and the burgess class met together. The
burgesses and the clergy had for some time
_ , been growing more and more
cnmar s gj^]^)j^^gj-g(j against the nobles.
N^bT?" '* '^^^y w^re indignant at their
^ selfishness and despised them
for the poor role they had played during
the war, while the burgesses, and especially
those of Copenhagen, were proud of their
vaUant defence of the capital. At first all
efforts to improve the condition of the
country' were frustrated by the opposition
of the nobles, who were unwilliag to
surrender any privilege or to pay any tax.
Then the burgesses and the clergy, who
had capable leaders in the persons of the
burgomaster Nansen and Bishop Svane,
joined forces.
Seeing that the privileges of the nobility
would have to be abolished before any pro-
gress could be made, Nansen and Svane,
in collusion with the king — who
was apparently neutral, though
both he and the queen in
reality kept secretly in touch
with the non-privileged classes
— brought forward, in October
1660, the proposal to consti-
tute Denmark a hereditary
monarchy. The burgesses and
clergy immediately accepted
the proposal ; and though the
Rigsraad opposed, it was forced
to give way, whereupon the
ceremony of taking the oath
the throne were now annulled, and the next
step was to work out a new constitution.
The diet was, however, unable to come to
an agreement, and Svane therefore pro-
posed that the king should be empowered
to draw up the constitution. Owing to
the king's great popularity, which he
had gained during the siege of Copen-
hagen by his courage and self-sacrifice, the
proposal was readily accepted.
Soon afterwards the diet was dissolved,
and the king issued a document in which he
claimed absolute power for himself. This
document was circulated for signature by the
representatives, and a despotic monarchy
was thus approved by the nation. By
the " Kongelov," or King's Law, of Novem-
ber 14th, 1665, which was to be looked on
as an unalterable and fundamental law
_. „. for bothof Frederic's kingdoms,
Ah* "** ^^^ ^^^S was placed above
„ , human laws and given the
Human Laws ,t rr ■ r
supreme power m all anairs of
both Church and State. The only con-
ditions imposed upon him were that he
must be a member of the Lutheran
Church, and that he might neither divide
his possessions nor alter the constitution.
The new constitution resulted in a
change of administration. The Rigsraad
was dissolved and the management of
affairs transferred to six
government boards, whose
presidents formed the king's
council of state. Feudal tenure
was abolished, and the country
was divided into districts
managed by paid officials, the
" Amtmoend." The parishes
were deprived of their rights
of patronage, and the town
councils and burgomasters
were appointed by the Crown.
By reason of these changes
the nobles lost not only their
KING CHRISTIAN V
of allegiance to the hereditary The first king of the oidenburg political power, but, owing to
sovereign was celebrated with Dynasty, christian v. succeeded the confiscation of their fiefs,
great splendour. ^ The con- Z^^^ll^^^^^^^ their most important sources
ditions of Fredenc s election to success. He died in the year 1699. of levenuc, and were no longer
4492
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
entirely exempted from taxation. Finding
themselves unable to accommodate them-
selves to the new order of things, they
gradually withdrew from the
court and the state service.
The old nobility had played
its part and made way for a
new court nobility, consisting
for the most part of Germans.
To this new nobility, whose
function it was to lend splen-
dour to the throne and support
to the king, were accorded
even greater privileges than
to the old. On his estates the
nobleman was almost a king ;
he administered justice, had
the rights of ecclesiastical
period deserve great credit for their legis-
lation— the Danish and Norwegian Laws
of 1683 and 1687 enacted by Christian V. —
and their administration ol
justice. They also supported
the University, encouraged
popular education, and
worked for the improvement
of economic conditions, especi-
ally in the spheres of com-
merce and manufacture. But
their legislation was not
always a success ; they fre-
quently lacked the necessary
insight. Moreover, they were
biassed by the prejudices of
AnMiDAi Micro TTTCT their time. Unable to refrain
ADMIRAL NIELS JUEL r ■ ^ e ■ n t
He^ commanded the naval forces ^^Om inter fcrHlg in all dirCC-
, " 1 • J J 1 "^ commanaea tne naval forces -•■^•■•^^ x»»..v^i »v,i«ij5 ixx cixi vj.ii.>^vy
patronage, levied taxes, and ofDenmarkinthe"ScanianWar," tions and making rules and
raised troops. The Danish r„"''st/S"Ue?e^Te'"anl"h1^ laws for all cirLmstances.
despotism was, on the whole, a ™^° '^^'^^ welcomed as liberators, they prevented a free and
benevolent one, for the king looked upon natural development, and the effect of this
himself as the father of his people, and was especially marked in the case of manu-
was always anxious for their welfare. factures, which they endeavoured, in a
Among other things the kings of this strictly protectionist spirit, to assist by
THE FALL OF THE LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR : GRIFFENFELD ON HIS WAY TO PRISON
Count Griffenfeld, whose real name was Peder Schumacher, was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Christian V., and
nsmg rapidly from one dignity to another he eventuaUy became Lord High Chancellor. He opposed the war with
^Z u^ 'k ^Pu? r n • ^^^L^'^^K *"® king was in favour of it, and soon after the outbreak of hostilities his enemies
Drought about his fall in 1676. Accused of high treason, he was condemned to death, but on the scaffold this sentence
was commuted to imprisonment for life. After twenty-two years in prison he was set free, but died shortly afterwards.
From the painting by F. C. Lund
4493
DENMARK'S DESPOTIC MONARCHY
high tariffs and all kinds of prohibitions
with regard to imports. It was only
towards the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury that this policy was changed. The
maintenance of a costly court, the
expenditure on the army and navy, which
the sovereigns always strove to keep in
an effective condition, and the financial
assistance given to manufacturers and
trading companies, swallowed up large
sums of money ; and in order to meet this
drain — the taxes, heavy as they were,
being insufficient for the purpose — the
government was compelled to have re-
course to various measures, not always of
the wisest, such as hiring out their troops
to foreign princes, selling the churches,
and the demesnes, etc. But it was all of
no avail ; the financial position in the
eighteenth century was anything but
satisfactory, and the kings
frequently found themselves
in difhculties.
It was long before the
kings of Denmark could
resign themselves to the loss
of Scania, and Frederic's
son. Christian V. (1670-
1699), renewed the war with
Sweden (the " Scanian
War," 1675-1679). The
Minister of Foreign Affairs
was at this time Count
Griff enf eld. His real name fk
was Peder Schumacher, and
he was the son of a German
OF
DENMARK
He succeeded his father, Christian V., in
out his enemies compassed Griffenfeld's
fall in March, 1676. In spite of his great
gifts he had grave failings. He was mer-
cenary, not above bribery, and arrogant.
He was accused of high treason, and the
king, weary of tutelage, withdrew his favour.
He was condemned to death, but on the
scaffold this sentence was commuted to im-
prisonment for life. After spending twenty-
two years in prison he was set free, but
died soon afterwards on March 12th, 1699.
The war with Sweden did not fulfil the
cherished hopes of the Danish king,
although Sweden, as the ally of France,
was at the same time involved in war
with Brandenburg. At the end of the
century Christian's son, Frederic IV.
(1699-1730), concluded an alliance with
Russia and the combined kingdom of
Saxony and Poland against Sweden. This
led to the great Scandina-
vian war of 1700-1721.
Frederic began operations
by an attack on Duke
Frederic IV. of Gottorp,
brother-in-law of the King
of Sweden, but was obliged
by Charles, who had effected
a landing on Zealand, to
make peace in 1700.
When, however, Charles
was defeated in 1709 at
Poltava by Peter the Great,
Frederic renewed his
alliance with Peter and
Augustus II., declared war
against Sweden, and landed
wine-merchant in Copen- He ^u'^^ed^d his\
hagen. He had the good 1699, and the eariieTijart"of''iiTs" reign in Scauia. Hewas, neverthe-
fortune to attract the ^„%*„ll-77,f .Xi^S'^^^^^^^ less, compelled to retire after
notice of Frederic III. and who was a good friend of the peasants, suffering heavy losses, and
to win his confidence, was made Royal had to renounce his claim to Scania, while
Librarian in 1663, and in 1665 was com-
missioned to draw up the king's Law.
Under Christian V. he rose rapidly from
one dignity to another, was ennobled in
1671, and made Lord High Chancellor in
1673. He was a gifted and well-informed
man, energetic and capable in his ad-
ministrative work ; and it was he who
carried through the changes resulting from
the new form of government and estab-
lished absolutism on a firm basis. As
Minister of Foreign Affairs he was opposed
to the war and wished to maintain peace
between the Scandinavian states. But
at court there was a war party, which was
hostile to Griffenfeld, and the king himself
was in favour of war. After war broke
Sweden paid him an indemnity of 600,000
thalers, surrendered the exemption from
tolls in the Sound granted her at Bromsebro,
and undertook not to assist the Duke of
Gottorp to recover his possessions in
Schleswig, which Frederic had confiscated
on account of the duke's breach of neu-
trality during the war. By the Treaty of
Frederiksborg the long-standing disputes
between Denmark and Sweden were
brought to an end. Denmark's struggle to
become a great power had brought her
nothing but loss. Sweden's power had also
been broken in the last war, but Denmark
gained nothing thereby. The chief power
in the Baltic now passed into the hands
of twQ new powers, Russia and Prussia.
f494
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE AGE
OF
LOUIS XIV,
IX
THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR
SWEDEN'S BRAVE STAND UNDER CHARLES XII.
""THE Regency which became responsible
*■ for the government of Sweden on
the death of Charles X. did little to
improve the state of the country, and
totally neglected the education of the
young king. The resumption of crown
lands was not continued ; the regents con-
sidered only their own interests and those
of the nobles. In their foreign policy they
were irresolute and lacking in independ-
ence, and even accepted bribes from foreign
powers. The Estates were at variance.
At the beginning of 1668 Sweden
joined the Triple Alliance against France.
Soon after, however, Louis XIV. suc-
ceeded in dissolving this alliance and in
attracting Sweden to his side by the promise
of large subsidies. When Louis made an
attack on Holland, in 1672, Sweden was also
implicated in the war. As Louis hoped,
the Swedes attacked Brandenburg at the
moment when the elector was fighting
against the French on the
r, . "i 1:.. . Rhine. Every such attempt
Elector s Finest r .1 <- j- 1 .
J. J .. of the Swedish government
to aggrandise itself at the
expense of Brandenburg was bound to fail
because there was no personality at the
head of the government combining, as
did Charles Gustavus, political talent with
military experience, capacity, and boldness.
This attack became the occasion for
the Great Elector's most brilliant and
most popular exploit — the battle of
Fehrbellin. " It was not a cheerful
moment in the prince's life, a life that
was a constant succession of care and
struggle, disappointment and danger ;
his eldest son had just died ; one of his
campaigns had come to a disgraceful ter-
mination, and his every opponent was
pointing to him as the cause of the disaster ;
he was tormented by the gout and could not
leave his bed ; his wife was nearing
her confinement ; the subsidies had not
come which he required for the pay of
his brave troops, upon whom, as ever,
depended the future of his house and his
position in the Councils of the German
princes; yet, in spite of all, there was
no weakness and no timidity." Frederic
William relied so firmly upon himself
and his comrades that he must have
seen that the Swedes had delivered
„ , themselves into his hands. It
U J " was soon clear to him that he
X n „. could expect but little help from
at Bellm ., • ^ • , , xt j.-
the imperial court. Negotia-
tions with Holland were protracted to a
wearisome length, although William of
Orange kept true faith with the Elector.
Denmark was ready to help, but wanted
money ; only Brunswick was ready and
willing to bring up help at once.
Frederic William did not wait. With
5,000 horse, 8,000 dragoons, 1,200 infantry,
and fourteen guns he hastened into the terri-
tory occupied by Sweden, surprised Colonel
von Wangelin in Rathenow, and pressed
so hard upon General Waldemar Wrangel,
the brother of the field-marshal of Charles
Gustavus, that he was obliged to give
battle at the Ferry of Bellin. The battle
opened with a splendid cavalry charge
led by Prince Frederic of Hesse-Homburg
with an impetuosity perhaps excessive,
but, fortunately for the elector, success-
ful in its purpose, for the Swedes, though
they made a brave defence, were no
match for the troops of Brandenburg.
The old Marshal Derfflinger, whose Upper
Austrian origin did not prevent him from
showing the utmost fidelity to the Mar-
grave of Brandenburg, completed the
defeat of Wrangel by his clever tactical
dispositions, and so overwhelming wa3
_ , that defeat that the marches
Germany s x j r ^i, i,
p . . . were freed from the enemy by
th El ct r ^^^^ ^^® blow. The Germai
people felt that this victory
of the Brandenburger was a national
exploit, a relief from the weight of a
foreign domination which had been borne
with growing discontent even by the
strongest partisans of Protestantism.
Brandenburg was considered for the first
44Q5
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
numerous
defended
Succession
of Swedish
Disasters
time as an integral part of the nation
and its elector was looked upon as the man
and the prince for whom the heart of
Germany had long been yearning. In
pamphlets Protestant writers
his action in defeating the
Swedes, who were no longer the
champions of the faith. The
defeat encouraged the Danes
also to declare war against
Sweden. For three successive years the
Swedes suffered disaster upon disaster.
At the battle of Bornholm, on June nth,
1676, their fleet was almost entirely
destroyed by the allied Dutch and Danish,
among whom a few Brandenburg ships
were to be found ; a Danish army occupied
Schonen ; the elector penetrated to the
coast line, and at length, on December
22nd, 1677, took Stettin after a siege
which was carried on with
splendid tenacity by both
sides. The Swedish kingdom
was saved from destruction
only by the battle of Lund,
which the young but dis-
creet King Charles XI. won
against the Danes.
The negotiations which
Louis XIV. had in the mean-
time entered upon at Nime-
guen concluded the war in
the north by the Peace of
Saint-Germain with Branden-
a royal council, which the king summoned
at his pleasure ; the king had the power to
enact laws without consulting the Riksdag.
The Estates still kept some qpntrol
over the granting of taxes. At the same
time the members of the regency were called
to give an account of their administration
by decree of the Estates in 1680, who
also directed their efforts to a second
resumption. The regents were sentenced
to pay heavy fines, the resumption of
crown lands was effected on a much greater
scale, and with the utmost rigour, not only
in Sweden itself but also in the Baltic
provinces and in the older Danish and
Norwegian provinces. These measures
resulted in completely revolutionising the
conditions of land ownership, and destroyed
the power of the nobility by levelling the
barriers of privilege which had separated
the counts and barons from
the inferior nobility, and by
securing freedom for the
peasants. Property was more
evenly divided, and the
public revenues increased
enormously. The resumption
of crown lands had, however,
this drawback, that great
indignation was aroused in
many places by the severe and
arbitrary measures through
which it was effected. In the
Baltic provinces the king's
burg on June 29th, 1679, and charles xi. of Sweden conduct almost occasioned a
the Peace of Lund with
Denmark on September 26th,
1679. The elector had to
give up Pomerania. Sweden
sustained only the loss of her pro-
vinces on the east bank of the Oder.
The war had, however, greatly injured
the domestic prosperity of Sweden.
The country was impoverished and in-
volved in debt, the provinces on the
frontiers were devastated, and the state
Was helpless to cope with the general
distress. The king and his confidential
advisers were agreed that the one effectual
remedy was to remodel the political and
social organisation of the country. The
first task of Charles was to reduce the power
of the council and the upper nobility ; he
succeeded in accomplishing this with the
help of the other Estates and of the gentry.
The Estates sanctioned a new constitu-
tion in 1680 and 1682, by which Sweden
was practically transformed into an
absolute monarchy. The Riksdag became
4496
The only child of Charles X. he was
under a council of regency untjl
1672. He fought with success
against the invading Danes, and
proved himself a wise and able ruler
Charles XL
revolt ; there his contempt for
private rights was the cause
of a fatal resentment.
The abundant means which
now had at his disposal
were appropriated exclusively to im-.
proving the political, military, and
economic condition of his country. The
land was strengthened against attack
by the formation of a navy, and the
erection of fortresses and a new naval
port at Karlskrona. The reorganisation
of the army, which had been begun
by Charles IX. and Gustavus Adolphus,
and which has partially re-
mained in effect up to the
present day, was completed. It
was decided that in future the
soldiers should be billeted on the estates of
the peasants, who in return were exempted
from military service in times of peace.
Certain crown estates were freed from
taxation on condition that they defrayed
the expenses of the cavalry, while the
The Swedish
Army
Reorganised
THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR
officers received their maintenance from the
crown lands. At the same time Swedish
soldiers were levied to defend the foreign
provinces. The finances and
the administration were sub-
jected to the careful revision
which they so urgently re-
quired . Charles also turned his
attention to all branches of in-
dustry. Although his own edu-
cation had been so deficient, he
knew the value of learning,
and interested himself espe-
cially in the education of the
people. He strongly impressed
upon the clergy the necessity of
teaching the peasants to read.
New life was also infused
into every branch of litera-
of the House of Vasa took a keen interest in
the development of the language and litera-
ture and tried to advance scholarship in
every way. The earliest Swe-
dish literature was entirely
designed for edification, and
consisted of devotional and
theological controversial trea-
tises. The most celebrated
writers were the reformers
Olaus and Laurentius Petri,
who also made some attempts
at writing history from the
Protestant standpoint ; while
the Catholic point of view was
represented by the ex-bishops
Johannes and Olaus Magnus.
These last wrote in Latin,
which remained for along time
CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN
Succeeding his father in 1697, he
was faced by an alliance of Russia,
ture. As early as the sixteenth ?he°ehei^Tthetreti Northern the language of literary men
century the literary activity of War,whichiastedfronii70otoi72i. jn the seventeenth century
Sweden, which up to that time had been literature lost its devotional character and
unimportant, received an impetus from became more remarkable for beauty of
^the Reformation, especially as the kings thought and diction. This transformation
THE CAPTURE OF THE TOWN OF MALMO BY COUNT MAGNUS STENBOCK
A distinguished general, Count Magnus Stenbock took part in the earlier campaigns of Charles XI 1., and had a large
share in the victories of the Swedish arms. In 1709 he captured the town of Malmo, and had other equally noteworthy suc-
cesses. He ended his life in a Danish dungeon in 1717, after being defeated by the combined Russians, Danes and Saxons.
284
4497
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
was due chiefly to G. Stjernhjelm, who died
in 1672, " the father of Swedish poetry,"
who modelled his writings on the ancient
classics and popularised the old metres.
After the death of Charles XI., on April
15th, 1697, his son, Charles XII., became
king, and although not yet fifteen years
old was declared of age at the end of 1697.
_. .... Charles had enioved a good
Characteristics 1 .• t -i "u- x j.\,
. ,. .. education. Like his father
of the New , . j r ,
V ^t 1 vri he was noted tor an earnest
King Charles All. . , j , • ■■ 1 •,
piety and strict morality ;
his mode of life was temperate and simple.
As a child he exhibited that love of honour
and audacity, along with that obstinacy
and perversity, which characterised him
throughout his life. It was generally con-
sidered that he possessed only moderate
abilities, because he seemed to devote his
time only to bear hunts and other equally
dangerous pastimes. Accordingly his
neighbours, who were jealous of the power
of Sweden, thought that this was the best
opportunity to recover what they had lost.
Russia, Denmark, and Poland formed an
alliance, and immediately began the great
Northern War (1700-1721).
Once again in this struggle the Swedish
military success flared up like some brilliant
firework. At one time it might have been
thought that under a new hero-king the
Gothic peoples were to regain the high
prestige which Gustavus II. Adolphus and
Charles X. Gustavus had won for them.
But fate decided otherwise ; in Sweden's
stead a new great power arose in Eastern
Europe, a Slav kingdom under the
guidance of the Russians, the neighbours
of the Poles — a people gifted with admir-
able political capacities. Having no sus-
picion of their historical destiny, the
Russians, through the agency of a wise
prince, were raised in the course of but
one generation to a position which enabled
them to participate in the constitutional
progress which Central and Western
Europe had gradually achieved, and to
TK R A create a vigorous constitutional
e api organisation for themselves. It
Progress of . ° ,
.. g . IS true that, even to the present
day, their state is based on
the will of the Tsar ; the limited capacity
of the Slavs for constitutional progress is
obvious in the case of the mightiest
kingdoms of Slavonic nationality.
Take away the personality of Peter the
Great, and who can conceive the transition
from unimportant Muscovy to the Russian
Empire ? Who can separate the fate of
4498
the monarchy which he created from the
actions of his successors ? Palace revolu-
tions, revolts, military conspiracies, assas-
sinations— these have been the deeds of
special parties in particular cases ; they
were in no case the expression of national
will. The progress of an administration,
which could have advanced but very
slowly during two centuries if it had not
served to strengthen dynastical power, has
invariably consisted of borrowings from
foreign constitutions.
It was foreigners who were Peter's
teachers and demonstrators ; in foreign
countries he acquired the ideas upon which
he constructed his state. The mingling of
Romanoff blood with that of Holstein-
Oldenburg and Askanien-Thuringen pre-
served the ruling house from a relapse into
the Muscovite character of a Fedor, Ivan, or
Alexei, and gave it a European stamp. It
was its princes that have made Russia the
European power in which the Slav nations
have become great and strong. The useful
qualities of the Russians have been their
capacity for subordination, their obedience,
and their invincible confidence in the Tsar
as God's vicegerent upon
earth. These characteristics
have made them superior to
the Poles ; by these they have
been made equal to their great share in the
world's history, which the Tsar Peter I.
recognised as theirs, and took upon him-
self and laid upon his successors.
The immediate result of this recognition,
which was matured during Peter's travels
in Western Europe, was his share in the
attack directed against Sweden by Frederic
Augustus of Saxony-Poland, which gave
him the opportunity of gaining a seaboard
on the Baltic. In spite of his victory at
Asov in 1696, which his conquest of the
Crimea would have enabled him to turn to
account by employing means similar to
those with which he had to fight the
Swedes, he was ready to conclude peace
with the Porte on July 2nd, 1700, in order
to have a free hand for his undertakings
in the north, for he was well aware that
connection with the east was of no use
to him, but that the opening up of
communication with the west would
secure the stability of his internal reforms
and advance the entry of Russia into the
ranks of the European powers.
Denmark attacked Holstein ; the Duke
of Holstein, Frederic IV., had married
Hedwig Sophia., the sister of Charles.
Peter the
Great's Work
for Russia
4499
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Peter attacked Esthonfa, and Augustus
sent an army against Livonia. Charles
refused all attempts at reconciliation,
and declared that he would not enter
upon an unjust war nor would he end
a just one before he had humbled his
enemies. He first of all directed his
attention to Denmark. King Frederic IV.
_ , was compelled oy the Peace
o an s ^j Travendal, on August i8th,
„'^* J 1700, to retire from the
Dethroned 11 ■ j - 1 i j
alliance and to acknowledge
the independence of the Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp. In the same year he
inflicted a severe defeat upon Peter at
Narva on November 30th ; but instead of
following up his victory he first attempted
to crush his cousin Augustus, whom he
bitterly hated. He accordingly advanced
through Courland and Lithuania and
conquered Warsaw and Cracow. Augustus
was declared to have forfeited the crown
of Poland and Stanislas Leszczynski
was proclaimed king in 1704.
In the meantime Peter had been success-
ful in the Baltic provinces, and had founded
St. Petersburg in Ingermanland. Charles,
however, remained several years in Poland
in order to establish Stanislas in his king-
dom, and then pressed on into Saxony,
where Augustus the Strong was compelled
by the Peace of Altranstadt in 1706 to
renounce the Polish crown for himself and
his descendants, to acknowledge Stanislas,
and to withdraw from all his alliances.
Charles stood now at the height of his
glory. Louis XIV. made every endeavour
to gain his assistance in the War of the
Spanish Succession.
Charles, however, wished to overthrow
Peter, the Tsar of Russia, But instead of
advancing to St. Petersburg he marched
towards the Ukraine to ally himself with
the Cossack hetman Ivan Mazeppa, and
afterwards to proceed to Moscow. With-
out waiting for reinforcements, which were
on the way, he entered South Russia. The
_ , , . Russians had in the meantime
Defeat and 1 • j j. xu j. j
p.. . J laid wa'^te the country and
-,/* , ° v-ii defeated the general, Lewen-
Ckarles XII. , . , ° 1 ,
haupt, who was to have
brought up the Swedish reinforcements ;
Mazeppa, however, whose treachery was
discovered, came as a fugitive to the Swedish
army. In spite of this Charles continued
his march, and arrived at Poltava in spring.
Peter hurried to the relief of the town,
and gained a brilliant victory over Charles
on July 8th, 1709 ; the king escaped with
4500
difficulty, and fled with 500 followers
across the Dnieper and the Bug into Turkish
territory. The battle of Poltava decided
the fate of the North ; Russia had taken
the place of Sweden as a great power.
The power of Sweden had begun to
decline even before 1709. After the battle
of Poltava, Frederic III. and Augustus 11.
renewed their alliance with Russia.
Augustus drove Stanislas out of Poland.
The Danes landed in Scania, which, how-
ever, they were soon compelled to leave.
Peter, who had completed the conquest of
the Baltic provinces, devastated Finland,
while his fleet threatened the coast of
Sweden. The majority of the German pos-
sessions had been lost. In this desperate
situation the Council of State, in spite of the
prohibition of the king, summoned the
Riksdag, where dethronement was seri-
ously considered. On hearing this, Charles,
who had been in Turkey for five years,
decided to return home. As " Captain
Peter Frisch " he rode in sixteen days
through Hungary and Germany, and
arrived on November 22nd, 1714, at Stral-
sund, which was the last possession of
the Swedes in Pomerania.
In the meantime Prussia,
which was anxious to obtain
Pomerania, and Hanover,
which had bought Bremen and Verden — a
conquest from the Danes — had attached
themselves to the enemies of Sweden.
After a heroic defence Charles was obliged
to surrender Stralsund, which was be-
sieged by the allies, and return to Sweden.
He assembled an army, which he took to
Norway, in 1716, but he was compelled to
return to Sweden. Two years later he
made a second attempt to conquer Norway,
and advanced against the fortress of Fred-
eriksten near Frederikshald in Southern
Norway. There, on the evening of Decem-
ber nth, 1718, a bullet from the fortress put
an end to his restless life. The siege was
at once raised, and his brother-in-law,
Frederic of Hesse, led the army back to
Sweden. In spite of the misfortunes into
which Sweden was plunged by his obsti-
nacj' Charles became the favourite national
hero on account of his morality and his
heroism, his contempt of death, and his
marvellous victories. During his stay on
the continent, and also after his return
home, he worked zealously at reforming
the government, and these reforms bear
witness to his impartial sagacity.
Hans von Zwiedineck-Sudenhorst: >■
Charles the
National Hero
of Sweden
The ending op the OLD ORDER
THE FIFTY YEARS AFTER LOUIS XIV.
THE BOURBON POWERS AND GREAT BRITAIN
'T'HE Treaty of Utrecht and the death of
■*• Louis XIV. mark a definite epoch. For
half a century France had pursued an
aggressive policy which, if completely
successlul, would have made her the
dictator of Europe. In spite of the
disasters of the last great war, Louis so
far achieved his primary object that a
Bourbon instead of a Hapsburg was
seated on the Spanish throne ; the old-
time fear of a great Hapsburg domination
in Europe had given place to the fear of a
Bourbon domination. But a Bourbon
Union would never come forward as the
champion of the papacy ; the transition
was. completed by which commerce was to
replace religion as the explicit motive in the
contests of nations. Again, in achieving the
hegemony of Europe,France had of necessity
found the Hapsburgs her great rivals : in
maintaining the hegemony, it was now
Great Britain which threatened her power.
It was largely the accident of the
ejection of the Stuarts from England,
the accession of the Dutch stadtholder,
and the support Louis gave to his exiled
cousins, that had involved France and
England in war ; for the next century
the most fundamental antagonism was to
... be that between French or
p f Bourbon and British interests.
£^^ There remained, indeed, sundry-
bones of contention, mainly
in Italy and the Mediterranean, between
Austria and Spain — the German Haps-
burg power may now be definitely
associated with the name of Austria
— but the vital struggle was to be
concerned with trans-oceanic supremacy.
At the outset, however, the new con-
ditions were not realised. The death of
Louis, in 1715, placed on the throne his
great-grandchild, Louis XV., a sickly
infant. In spite of renunciations, no one
could feel any certainty that his uncle,
now Philip V. of Spain, would not, after
all, assert his claim to the succession if
the child died ; while under the existing
instruments, Philip, Duke of Orleans, now
^1. I' vi J regent, was the heir-presump-
The Troubled ,- ° <-, 1 , f,- , -^
f, .... tive. Urleans wanted his claim
Condition J • .L o • ii_
Q, J, secured as against Spain ; the
Hanoverian king of Great
Britain wanted his secured against a
Stuart restoration by French help ; so
the two governments mutually agreed to
support each other. The dynastic con-
nection between the two Bourbon thrones
did not become a bond of political union
till the prospect of an attempt to make
them one had disappeared ; and even
then the helm of state in France, as in
Britain, was in the hands of a Minister
who had no mind to decide political issues
by the arbitrament of war.
The recent struggle had borne much
less heavily on the island power than on
either France or Spain ; but, for all three,
peace and financial reorganisation were
needed. In England both these ends were
procured with success ; for five-and-
twenty years her warfare consisted in an
abortive Jacobite rising and in occasional
naval demonstrations, in the course of
one of which she incidentally annihilated
the Spanish fleet. From 1720 to 1739
Walpole persistently maintained a policy
which treated the financial prosperity of
the country as outweighing all other con-
siderations, and the national wealth was
immensely increased. In Spam, on the
other hand, the marriage of King Philip
4501
History Of the worli)
Britain's Check
To Spain's
Naval Ambitions
to Elizabeth Farnese introduced a spirited
foreign policy directed primarily against
Austria in Italy. The Minister Alberoni
endeavoured at the same time to revive
the Spanish sea power, but his efforts were
wrecked by a premature collision with
the British squadron in the
Mediterranean, off Cape
Passaro. In consequence of
this war, the Sicilies passed
under Hapsburg dominion in 1720 ; though
a few years later, in the course of territorial
exchanges springing from the war of the
Polish succession, a branch of the Spanish
Bourbons was established on the Nea-
politan throne. But this general mis-
direction of Spanish activities did not
tend to strengthen
resources which required
to be carefully husbanded.
Meanwhile, France, like
Great Britain, was avoid-
ing wars of an exhausting
kind. The Orleans regime
was demoralising to the
character of the upper
classes from its extreme
licentiousness; the
noblesse was very dis-
tinctly on a downward
grade, and in this respect
matters were not im-
proved when the king
himself was old enough
to become the real centre
of the court. About 1727,
the septuagenarian
Cardinal Fleury became
first Minister. In con-
junction with Walpole,
Fleury directed his efforts
to maintaining European peace, but he was
less successful than the English Minister
in keeping his country entirely clear of
war. He, however, accomplished the rap-
prochement with Spain which was
expressed in the secret Family Compact of
1733, directed against Austria and Great
Britain, of which the primary design,
based on the knowledge of Walpole's
intense aversion to war, was to act diplo-
matically or otherwise against Austria,
and then take in hand an isolated England.
It was fortunate for the latter that the
fundamental necessity of overwhelming
her sea-power escaped the Bourbon plotters.
Consequently, when the violence of
popular excitement forced the govern-
ments of Great Britain and Spain into war
against their will in 1739, Great Britain
was always able to hold her own, with the
more security, because this naval " War of
Jenkins' Ear " was soon merged into a
Continental struggle — the " War of the
Austrian Succession," which absorbed most
of the energies of France, wherefrom the
naval power reaped the usual advantage.
The opportunity for attacking Austria
came first through the question of the
succession to the crown of Poland. The
monarchy of that country was elective.
Stanislas Leszczynski, the father of the
French king's wife, was the popular can-
didate ; Augustus of Saxony, the son of
the last king, was favoured by Austria and
Russia. Louis consequently had a personal
interest in the question,
while Spain had none, so
far as Poland was con-
cerned ; but the Bourbons
might gain something
from a war with Austria,
which, if it did nothing
else, would loosen the
bond between Austria
and Great Britain, since
Walpole might be safely
relied upon to abstain
from active intervention.
The war was carried
on without energy or
marked ability in any
quarter, but not without
a considerable drain on
the resources of the
armies of all the com-
batants, while Walpole,
content to exercise mere
LOUIS XV. OF FRANCE
He was little more than an infant when the
death of his g^reat-grandfather, Louis XIV., in
1714 left to him the throne of France. He
lived a life of excess and debauchery, and diplomatic prCSSUrC,
he died from an attack of smallpox in 1774. husbaudcd the national
wealth of Great Britain. The ultimate
result was that the Austrian candidate got
Poland, and Austria got from the powers
a perfectly valueless guarantee of the
" Pragmatic Sanction," which was to
secure the whole of the Hapsburg succession
to the emperor's daughter Maria Theresa. In
Italy, however, she transferred the Sicilies
g . to a Bourbon dynasty, and
_." *"''*^ received Parma and Piacenza;
rop an j^^g^^g^j^y ^g^g transferred to
the Duke of Lorraine, Maria
Theresa's husband. He in exchange handed
Lorraine over to Stanislas by way of
compensation for the loss of Poland, and
France got so much of clear profit, since
this meant that she acquired Lorraine.
The time was certainly not yet ripe for
4502
THE BOURBON POWERS AND GREAT BRITAIN
the Bourbons to make an open attack on
Great Britain ; but events proved too
strong for the governments concerned.
The colonial and commercial policy initi-
ated by Colbert early in the reign of Louis
XIV. had planted French settlements in
rivalry to those of the British, both in
That the
India and in North America
competition in India would
be brought to the decision
of the sword had hardly
occurred to French or English
statesmen, though in America
that event was growing more
and more conspicuously im-
minent. Holland had already
fallen out of the race, and an
acute observer might have
recognised that a decisive
struggle between France and
Great Britain was as inevit-
able as any political event
can be. On the other hand,
the causes of friction between
Spain and England were more
obvious and palpable, though in their
nature there was nothing new. From the
days of Elizabeth, Spain had maintained
her monopoly in South America by re-
strictions and regulations which English
sailors had always endeavoured to evade
or defy. There was an eternal cross-fire
of charges and counter-charges,' of illegal
trading by Englishmen, of
illegal exercise of powers by
Spanish officials.
The diplomatists in 1739
found themselves face to face
with an outburst of popular
sentiment in both countries
which they were wholly
unable to control. Walpole,
in spite of his apprehension
that Spain would be joined
by France — information had
reached him of the Family
Compact — and his conviction
that the combination would
who were able to make use of the in-
comparably superior material of the British
Navy, and to ensure its ascendancy ; but
it was well for England that Fleury
had neglected to make the French fleet
capable of effective intervention.
In fact, French attention was absorbed
by events in another quarter. The
Emperor Charles VI. died ;
according to the Pragmatic
Sanction, his daughter was to
succeed to all the Hapsburg
dominions, and it had been
the emperor's aim to secure
the election to the imperial
crown also for her husband.
But the Elector of Bavaria
claimed the succession to
Bohemia and became a candi-
date for the empire. The
rending of Austria would
DUKE OF ORLEANS j -i r
PhUip of Orleans became regent provide SpOlls for VanOUS
when the crown of France fell pOWCrS, whO fouuduo difficulty
to LouU Xy., and remained in in producing technical CXCUSCS
for breaking their pledges.
The attack was opened by Frederic of
Prussia, who seized Silesia on a flimsy
pretext. France promised her support to
the Bavarian Elector. British and Han-
overian interests alike brought Hanoverian
troops and British subsidies to the
support of Maria Theresa ; Spain, of
course, took her stand on the other side.
The events of the war need
not be detailed. From a
British point of view, the
complete success with which
Commodore Martin imposed
neutrality upon Naples, and
the gallantly fought battles of
Dettingen and Fontenoy, are
its most interesting episodes,
apart from the last Jacobite
rising in 1745, which is
described elsewhere. The
heterogeneous combination
against Austria had no
common aims. Frederic of
that office till his death in 1723.
CARDINAL FLEUKY
be too strong for Great ment into his own hands, Fleury Prussia left the aUies when
Britain, was forced to declare became his chief adviser. Against Maria Theresa abandoned
war, amid national jubilation. |Vf *'"'• •?« ""^^ ^^^J" '"*» the Silesia to him. In the early
War of the Austrian Succession. . , . -r^ , -^
campaigns neither French nor
Great as a peace Minister,
he was wholly unfitted to grapple with the
conduct of a war, and the naval operations
were marked by an inefficiency which was
not absolutely disastrous only because the
Spanish inefficiency was equally conspicu-
ous. The process of " muddling along "
gradually brought to the front commanders
Bavarian armies generally distinguished
themselves, though in the later stages of
the war the French Marshal Maurice of
Saxony, commonly known as Marshal Saxe,
showed himself perhaps the ablest of the
commanders after Frederic of Prussia.
It is curious to observe that until 1744
4503
2-5 o
_ fl rt
4504
THE BOURBON POWERS AND GREAT BRITAIN
France and Great Britain were not
nominally at war with each other, while
each took the field as " auxiliary " of one
of the principal combatants. In that year
Frederic again joined the allies, to desert
them again before the close of 1745.
The French arms were persistently
successful under Marshal Saxe in the
Netherlands, and those of Austria in Italy.
The assertion of British naval predominance
brought about the capture of Louisburg on
the St. Lawrence, and would probably have
had decisive effects on the struggle which
Dupleix had begun in' India if the powers,
all alike weary of the war, had not ter-
minated it in 1748 by the Peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle. Frederic had won Silesia, and
Maria Theresa had lost it. Otherwise, the
peace practically restored all conquests on
all hands. There had been an enormous
expenditure of life and of money with
insignificant result. Before a decade had
passed, another conflagration was raging
which concluded very differently. The
War of the Austrian Succession had decided
nothing except the facts that Prussia was
a first-class military power, and that there
would be no more attacks on
the estabUshed dynasty in Eng-
land. The combinations of the
Powers, however, were to be on
entirely new lines. In the first place, Spain
retired altogether under a pacific king,
Ferdinand ; the aggressive influence of
Elizabeth Farnese came to an end with his
accession. In the second place, the exhibition
of Prussia's developed power had created
alarm and jealousy, while the loss of Silesia
had filled Maria Theresa with vengeful
feelings, and Frederic's personality had
excited the keen animosity of two other
important dames — the Tsarina, and Mme.
de Pompadour, who now ruled Louis.
In the third place, the issue between
French and British, both in India and in
America, grew more and more acute. Hence
it became certain that when war did break
out France and Great Britain would be
on opposite sides, and Austria and Prussia
would be on opposite sides. How the
partners would pair off, however, remained
uncertain. But while Great Britain, under
the incompetent Newcastle, merely drifted
into alliance with Frederic, Austria deli-
berately sought the French alliance, in
defiance of all tradition, while Louis was
influenced thereto partly by the Pompa-
dour, partly by the superstition that he
could square the account with Heaven for
The Balance
of Power
in Europe
his private vices by supporting the Catholic
Austria against the Protestant Prussia.
Here we are concerned mainly with
those aspects of the Seven Years War
which especially affected the Franco-
British rivalry ; and even among these,
the events which took place actually in
India or in America have been or will be
g. . treated at length in other
f i^ "^\ parts of this work. But while
d B *f h *^^ details in various fields of
the great struggle can best be
thus dealt with in isolation, we shall
also find it most convenient to set forth
here the relation in which the several
contests stood to each other.
French and British had to finish in India
a duel, the result of which had already
become a foregone conclusion, while the
French and British governments had been
at peace and the rival companies were
fighting out their quarrel as auxiUaries of
rival native potentates. Nothing but the
mastery of the seas could now have given
the victory to France. The genius of
Montcalm and the lack of organised co-
hesion among the British Colonies in
America made the issue there more doubt-
ful, until British naval superiority cut the
French off from aid out of France.
The one chance for France in the duel was
to devote her whole energies to matching
her rival on the sea. But her energies were
divided, while those of Great Britain were
concentrated. England's wealth enabled
her to supply her ally Frederic with the
sinews of war of which he was sorely in
need. Thus aided, his genius enabled him
to make head against the seemingly over-
whelming circle of his foes ; France ex-
hausted her resources in launching against
him the great armies which were shattered
by him or by his lieutenant Ferdinand of
Brunswick at Rosbach and Crefeldt and
Minden. The quality of the French
armies, and especially of its aristocratic
commanders, had grievously degenerated
p. , since the days of Louis XIV.
J * . .' On the other hand, when the
nspinng g^-^pj^j incompetence under which
Great Britain entered on the
war was replaced by the inspiring genius of
Pitt, officers and men by land and by sea
showed themselves worthy of the highest
traditions of the nation. France had
created a navy during the years of peace,
but the two great fleets from Toulon and
Brest were both annihilated in 1759 off
Lagos and at Quiberon ; the British
4505
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
squadrons swept the seas unchallenged.
Even if Wolfe had failed before Quebec,
British reinforcements would ultimately
have prevailed over Montcalm in his isola-
tion. When it was altogether too late, a
new king in Spain returned to the prin-
ciples of the Bourbon Family Compact in
support of France, but the only effect was
_ . . . to place the Spanish settlements
^"i * ** * at the mercy of British fleets.
Mistress t^ j i
»»!. c it seemed merely a question
of the Seas , ,. , , -^ ^t- i
of time before every l^rench
or Spanish island should fall a prey to the
mistress of the seas, when the new king,
George III., and his Minister, Bute, resolved
to terminate the war at the price of the
most recent conquests, and to leave their
stubborn Prussian ally deserted — for
which he never forgave them. Fortu-
nately, however, some of his foes had
already retired, and the rest were too
exhausted to continue a struggle in which
their superior numbers had been repeatedly
overmatched by Frederic's genius.
The character of the Seven Years War,
which opened with the successful attack of
the French upon Minorca in 1756, and ended
with the Treaties of Paris 'and Huberts-
burg in 1763, was determined mainly by
two factors. First, Great Britain deliber-
ately and consciously fought, not for the
balance of power in Europe, which had
dominated international politics since the
days of Wolsey, but for trans-oceanic
empire, conditioned by naval supremacy ;
whereas France divided her energies.
In the second place, the problem of the
balance of power had itself changed, be-
cause the Hapsburgs no longer dominated
Central Europe ; Prussia had appeared as an
effective rival— so effective that France
was ready to help her old rival to recover
her old predominance in order to crush
the new Power. But a third feature was
that Russia now began to play a much more
direct and prominent part in the affairs
of Western Europe than she had hitherto
_ . , done — a position from which
ussia s ^ ^i^g ^^g ^^^ again to recede.
vance m Incidentally also the fact was
marked that Spain, Holland,
and Sweden would thenceforth be unable
to take more than subordinate places.
The result of the war was decisive in favour
of Great Britain as concerned the supremacy
of the British race — though subsequently
divided — beyond and upon the seas ; and
in favour of Prussia as securing her equality
with Austria ; while France was further
4506
than ever from that hegemony of the west
which Louis XIV. had seemed to attain.
The " Grand Monarque " appeared to
have achieved his object when the Spanish
crown was accepted for his grandson
Philip on the death of Charles " the Be-
witched " of Spain, and he could declare
that " the Pyrenees no longer existed."
The war of the succession would have
taken a different course if he had not
proceeded to convert England into a
most energetic, instead of a very doubtful
opponent, by his recognition of the Chevalier
as James III., an act which dispelled the
apathy of England as a nation to the war,
for the recollection of their unhappy con-
dition under James II. and his predecessor,
Charles, made the people determined to
resist to the utmost any attempt to restore
the Stuarts to power ; and, disastrous as
the war proved, it left the Bourbons in
possession of Spain as well as of France.
Circumstances, however, prevented the
Bourbon combination from becoming a
consolidated force. The Bourbon was
King of Spain, but its ruler was Elizabeth
Farnese, whose horizon was limited by her
_ , , Italian ambitions and her desire
pain s ^^ secure a great inheritance not
„ for her stepsons, the heirs of the
Spanish throne, but for her own
offspring. A Spain perpetually plunging
into every war which gave her a pretext
for attacking Austria had no chance of
restoring her finances and reorganising her
administration so as to play an ambitious
part with any effect. It was not till
Elizabeth's stepson Ferdinand ascended
the throne, and her influence was lost, that
Spain, in a decade of peace, was able to
make real material progress. Hence, the
Family Compact was, in fact, infinitely less
dangerous to either of the powers against
which it was aimed than it might have
been made by cool-headed statesmanship.
But the main fabric which Louis XIV.
had built up, grandiose, magnificent to
outward view, was deficient in real strength.
Building on Richelieu's foundations, he
had concentrated the state in the monarchy.
The power of the crown was absolute beyond
all European precedent, and administra-
tion had been in the hands of men selected
by their king — whether judiciously or
othenvise — on account of their fitness, not
on account of their birth. Louis XIV. had,
in fact, inclined to follow the precedent of
the Tudors in England, in giving a prefer-
ence to servants who did not belong to the
4507
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
old aristocracy. Under his successor,
Louis the Well-beloved, the aristocracy,
to a great extent, recovered their hold
on administration, whereby efficiency was
greatly impaired. Thus, the chiefs of the
armies which took the field against Frederic
11. and Ferdinand of Brunswick were of a
type utterly inferior to that of the antagon-
P^ ^^ , ists of William III. and Marl-
D ht t ' borough. Again, sheer absolutism
p. can be successful only when
the monarch himself is either a
man of high capacities or is endowed with
a happy faculty for selecting able Ministers.
Louis XIV. was tolerably qualified in
both respects, Louis XV. in neither. It
is true that France owed a good deal to
Fleury, though the close. of his career was
marked by ill-success very much like
Walpole's in England ; but Louis was a
mere boy when he bestowed the office of
first Minister on his aged tutor, whom he had
enough intelligence to love and respect.
After Fleury died, at the age of ninety-
three, Louis tried to emulate his great-
grandfather and be his own first Minister,
of which the practical outcome was that
the king's mistress — the most important of
the series was the Pompadour — ^was vir-
tually the mistress of France ; though the
king might, and frequently did, carry on
political intriguing of his own behind her
back, while she was intriguing behind the
backs of Ministers. It was a curious freak
of popular favour which gave him the title
of Bien-aime, the " Well-beloved," on his
recovery from an illness, while he was still
a young man — in his later years the epithet
would have been fitted to him only in
bitter irony. The crown, with no dim-
inution of its absolutism, was already being
rendered contemptible ; the series of national
fiascoes and disasters which reached their
culminating stage between 1758 and 1763
ruined its prestige. In France, even the
large element of bombast and theatricality
which characterised Louis XIV. had rather
increased than diminished the force with
which the Monarchy appealed to the
popular imagination ; but the splendours of
Louis XV. were palpable tinsel. The
prestige of the aristocracy, which had stood
-.. ^. , high under the old king, when
The imsel ° ■. • ■, j j
_ , . , merit was m demand, was de-
Splendours of , J T_ -1 • J.
L * XV stroyed by the mcompetence,
and more than incompetence,
of conspicuous members of the order, when
merit ceased to count.
The better men among the noblesse were
alive to the decadence, but were unable to
counteract it. The reign of Louis the
Well- beloved was sapping the foundations
both of monarchy and of aristocracy, and
was making France ready for the Revolution.
THE VICTORIOUS FRENCH AFTER THE BATTLE OF FONTENOY
Marshal Saxe, who is shown seated on his white palfrey in the picture, was in command of the French army at the battle
of Fontenoy in 1745, ag^ainst which the Duke of Cumberland and his British and Hanoverian troops marched in vain.
From the painting by Horace Vernet
45o§
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
i^g2
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
GREAT BRITAIN
II
GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE WHIGS
AND THE EARLIER GEORGIAN PERIOD
'X'HE German prince who succeeded Anne
•'• on the British throne, and his son after
him, were rripn of narrow understanding,
unpopular ib their adopted country, and
more interested in the fortunes of Hanover
than in those of the kingdom to which
they were indebted for wealth and con-
sideration. Owing to ignorance of the
English language they dropped the custom
of personal attendance at the meetings
of the Cabinet, which thus acquired a new
independence and consideration. Their
power was shown chiefly in the choice of
Ministers. Although the practical im-
possibility of ruling without a parlia-
mentary majority was now admitted,
the king had still considerable freedom
in choosing between the rival leaders of
the predominant party. At an early
date the Whigs broke up into groups,
which were held together by family
influence or personal considerations. By
a skilful use of the jealousies which
Th K* ' separated these groups, the
D'Vk^'^^f' ^^^S could often assert his
theEngHshP^^^^onal ideas^ George I. did
not care. He disliked the
English ; he asked nothing better than
to be left to his mistresses and his pota-
tions. He would have nothing to do with
the Tories ; but he was content with any
Whig Ministers who could secure him
in the enjoyment of an ample civil
list, and his family in the succession to
the Crown. Such a Ministry, however,
he did not obtain at the first attempt.
That formed in 1714, under the leadership
of Townsend and Stanhope, contained
but one man of marked ability ; and
Robert Walpole was at first only the Pay-
master of the Forces. He rose, however,
in 1715, to be Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and the real brain of the administration.
The stolid acquiescence of the country
at large in the establishment of the
Hanoverian dynasty was sufficiently
demonstrated by the apathy with which
an attempt at a Jacobite restoration was
received in this year. The death of
Louis XIV. destroyed any possible pros-
pects of French assistance ; nevertheless,
the Earl of Mar raised some of the clans
in Scotland, and some county gentlemen,
headed by Thomas Forster and the Earl
of Derwentwater raised the Jacobite
_ standard in England. The
0° Jacobite English rising collapsed igno-
„. . miniously at Preston ; on the
isings same day Mar fought a drawn
battle with Argyle at Sheriff Muir, after
which the Scottish rising also fell to pieces.
The Cabinet, having weathered the in-
surrection, provided against any sudden
reaction of popular feeling in England and
Scotland by the Septennial Act in 1716,
which extended the maximum duration of
Parliament from three years to seven.
The Act was so worded as to cover the
Parliament by which it was passed, and
a general election was thus postponed to
quieter times. But a personal quarrel
between Walpole and Stanhope led to
Walpole's secession ; he became the leader
of the Parliamentary Opposition.
In 1720 the Government was fatally com-
promised by the failure of the South Sea
Bubble, a scheme for vesting the English
rights of trade with the Spanish colonies
in a single chartered company. The
South Sea Bubble was the outcome of
one of those manias for speculation to
which commercial communities are par-
ticularly liable in the first stages of their
development ; and France suffered in
this same year from a financial crisis
... , produced by the collapse of
a po e s Laws' Mississippi Company.
T,. , n • But the English Government,
Time of Panic , . ° , r • ^ i J
or certain members of it, had
connived at the tricks by which the
price of the South- Sea stock was in-
flated to excess ; their conduct incurred
the greater odium because the company
had been founded under the protection and
guarantee of the State. They fell ignomini-
ously ; and Walpole, admittedly the first
4509
KING GEORGE I. IN HIS CORONATION ROBES
A great-grandson of James I. of England, George I., who had been Elector of Hanover since 1698, was proclaimed
King of Great Britain, according to the Act of Settlement, on the death of Queen Anne in 1 7 1 4. Though king he took
little part in the government of the country, the affairs of which were in the able hands of Sir Robert Walpole,
and, his affections remaining with Hanover, he lived there as much as possible. He died at Osnabriick in 1727.
Walpole took the first step towards free
trade. His power was in danger at the
financier of the age, was called into power
that he might minimise the consequences
of the crisis. The skill with which he wound
up the company assured his popularity.
Walpole earned further gratitude from
the commercial classes by a policy of
peace and retrenchment, and by reform-
ing to some extent the customs tariff.
The country had inherited from the
past a number of import duties of which
the majority impeded trade without in-
creasing the revenue. By abolishing these
4'iIO
death of the old king, in 1727, for although
the Prince of Wales and Walpole had
acted together when Walpole was in oppo-
sition, their friendship had been destroyed
by Walpole's rise to power. But there
was no other Whig who fulfilled the
necessary conditions for the first place in
the Cabinet. Walpole was continued in
office, not through choice, but of necessity,
until he succeeded in capturing the ear of
a, 4) « S*
_eJ3 L^ H
4511
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Caroline, the queen of George
II. The king's marital in-
fidelities were gross and
numerous ; but the influence
of the queen was supreme in
political affairs, and her
alliance with Walpole, con-
tinued without a break until
her death in 1737, secured
the Minister against court
intrigues. Walpole is the first
Prime Minister in the modern
sense of the word. In practice
he discarded the theory that
all Ministers of the Crown
is unfair, for the House of
Commons had been corrupt
before the Revolution, and
still more so in the reign
of William III. Walpole's
bribery was more remarkable
for success than for origin-
ality, and the sums which
he spent on this purpose have
been grossly exaggerated.
Even in the early eigh-
teenth century the opinions
GREAT WALPOLE °^ '^^^ House of Commous
Sir Robert Walpole was the fi?st >were largely influenced by
o7'tTe'5;otd'^''A5vhe'„\T'lltrreTL'l^^ State of public feeling.
THE
were on an equality, and en- 1742 he was "created Eari of Orford. The votes for which Walpole
titled to differ
as they pleased
upon political
questions. In his
Cabinet Walpole
would have none
but subordinates.
One by one his
ablest colleagues
were forced to
leave the Minis-
try because they
would not bow
to his wishes, and
in time the novel
spectacle was to
be seen of a
Whig govern-
ment suffering
from the attacks
of aWhig Opposi-
tion. Carteret
andPulteney,the
chief of these dis-
appointed rivals,
were abler
speakers and
more brilliant
politicians than
the Minister. But
Walpole rested
secure in the
confidence of
the commercial
classes and in the
possession of a
parliamentary
majority. He has
been reproached
with inventing a
system of parlia-
mentary corrup-
tion. The charge
4512
GEORGE H. OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
The earlier years of the reiprn of this monarch ha ve been described as
"the most prosperous period that England had ever known." He
succeeded his father, in 1727, as King of Great Britain and
Ireland, and died suddenly at Kensing^ton on October 25th, 176(1.
After the painting by K. £. Pine
paid in cash and
places were only
his while he re-
mained popular
out of doors. In
the end he lost his
majority through
the opposition of
the merchant
class, whose
Minister he had
been in a peculiar
sense. For this
class peace and
retrenchment
might do much,
but a part of
what they desired
could be secured
only by war.
Spain resented
the commercial
clauses in the
Treaty of
Utrecht, the
more so because
English traders
in American
waters contrived
to extract from
the treaty larger
advantages than
theframersofthe
treaty had ever
contemplated.
Stanhope and
Sunderland had
guarded againsx
Spanish designs
by a Triple Alli-
ance with France
and Holland, in
1716. Walpole
4513
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
endeavoured to continue this policy, and
believed that he might count implicitly
upon the pacific intentions of the French
Minister, Cardinal Fleury. But Fleury's
influence was not always supreme in the
councils of Louis XV. ; and in 17.^^ a
family compact was secretly
concluded between the Bour-
bons of Spain and France
with the direct object of
curtailing the maritime sup-
remacy of England.
The result ot the compact
was soon apparent in more
vigorous attempts on the
part of Spain to repress the
trade which English smugglers
had developed with the
Spanish colonies. The Spanish
government began to assert
the right of searching English
ships on the high seas, and
but the usual tendency had been to regard
these objects as subordinate to the time-
honoured aim of preserving the European
balance. In the period now to be surveyed
the balance is still a consideration ; with
Carteret and George II. it was the decisive
consideration. But it rapidly
fell into the background, and
the attention of the middle
classes and of the ablest
Ministers was soon concen-
trated upon North America
and India. In British history
the period of colonial wars
includes a struggle between
the component parts of the
constitution. There is an
attempt to reverse the Revo-
lution settlement and to
restore the old predominance
J of the king over Parliament.
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE This struggle is in part
treated suspected crews with ^ supporter of Waipoie, he sue- responsible for the reverses
unjustifiable severity. The ^fp^emtr i^JS "HTre^frelT^ which Britain experienced
story of a certain Captain 1756, but became Prime Minister insthc colonial period ; and
Jenkins, who had lost an ear again in 1757, and died in 1768. the loss of America caused it
in an affray with Spanish coastguards, to be terminated in favour of Parliament.
raised a tempest of indignation in the
country. Walpole, though convinced that
the war would be disastrous, since he
believed that the country would be unable
to cope with the expected combination of
the French and Spanish powers, bowed
to the will of the country
and undertook the manage-
ment of the war. But he was
vigorously denounced in the
Press by Bolingbroke, whom,
with rare forbearance, he had
permitted to return to Eng-
land, and in Parliament by
the rival Whigs whom he
had evicted from office. He
showed no ability as a War
Minister ; his great mainstay,
Queen Caroline, was dead ; the
hostile forces were united in
their animosity towards him.
There is, therefore, a close connection
between foreign policy and domestic
history, but it is a connection which
becomes intimate only when the struggle
with France is far advanced. At the
beginning of the period British history is
merely the history of a war.
Carteret, the successor of
Walpole, was unique among
the politicians of the day in
his mastery of the German
situation. This gained him
the ear of George ll., and the
two combined to involve the
country in the War of the
1 Austrian Succession. Public
feeling was with them because
they took the side opposed to
that of France. But their
object was to shield Hanover
against France and Prussia,
CAPTAIN ANSON to preserve the integrity of
For these reasons his party
dissolved. He resigned in 1741; Like another Drake, this famous the Austrian dominions, and
and the management of the ZTrLrrtl^rh'ttnl^s to maintain the balance in
war devolved on his successor and merchant fleets. In 1761 he Germany; the nation, on the
Carteret (1742-1744). became Admiral of the Fleet, other hand, regarded the
The retirement of Walpole inaugurates war chiefly in its colonial bearings
a new phase in British foreign policy; we
may call it the colonial phase. Colonies,
sea power, and sea trade had been among
the objects for which Engand fought in
the Stuart • and revolutionary epochs ;
4514
Hence the subsidies which the Minister
lavished upon German princes soon
occasioned biting criticisms, and William
Pitt won his spurs by attacking Carteret
in the House of Commons. " This great,
GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE WHIGS
this powerful, this formidable kingdom,"
said the future confederate of Frederic II.,
" is now considered only as a province to
a despicable Sectorate." The victory of
Dettingen, in 1743, more creditable to the
personal gallantry of George II. than to his
skill as a general, did not
pacify the Opposition. Car-
teret, though a brilliant
debater, failed to convince
the country that his plans
were sound, and failed also
to redeem their defects
by discovering successful
generals. He was forced
to retire in 1744, and the
management of affairs
passed to his former col-
leagues, the Pelhams. The
Pelhams were poor diplo-
mats, and as War Ministers
beneath contempt. But
their enormous influence
THE OLD PRETENDER"
country. Under the Pelhams nothing wasj
effected at sea except the capture of Cape
Breton, in 1745, and the destruction ot
two French squadrons. The commerce of
France suffered by the war, but her losses
were of a temporary character. Both
army and navy had de-
teriorated under thfe peace
administration of Walpole,
and the government was
further hampered by the
Scottish rebellion. Hence,
little was gained by the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in
1748. England and France
resigned their conquests,
the Pretender was expelled
from France, and the French
recognised the Hanoverian
Succession. It was a truce
rather than a peace. But
the Pelhams made the mis-
The son of James II. of England and of , , ^ , .
his second queen, Mary of Modena. take of COUntlUg UpOU a
and their skill in party james Francis Edward faUed in his lengthy peace, and began
management enabled them efforts to win back the throne from ^q reduce the strength of
which his father had been driven. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^
to keep a working majority.
Henry Pelham, the Prime Minister,
took into the government all the Tories
who might have been dangerous. The
opposition which he had to encounter
came chiefly from his fellow Ministers,
and mattered little, since his brother,
the Duke of Newcastle,
kept the Commons well
in hand. The chief care
of the brothers was to
extricate themselves from
the war. They helped
Austria with subsidies
alone, and, in 1745, con-
cluded a separate peace
with Prussia which com-
pelled Maria Theresa
to acquiesce in the loss
of Silesia.
But the war with France
continued, and went badly.
An English army was de-
feated at Fontenoy in
1745, and the Duke of Cum-
berland shared with the
allies the humiliation of
Lauffeld in 1747 ; nor were
the successes of the navy conspicuous.
The remarkable voyage in which Captain
Anson (1740-1744) circurhnavigated the
globe, like another Drake, plundering the
Spanish colonies and merchant fleets, was
a feat of more brilliance than profit to the
In Great Britain, the most important
feature of a war, otherwise lacking in
significant results, was the episode of
" the Forty-five." Jacobitism made its
last serious attempt in that year, led by
the young " Pretender " {i.e., claimant),
Charles Edward Stuart.
Without hope of foreign
aid, the prince landed
almost alone, in the west
of Scotland. The passionate
loyalty of chiefs and clans-
men placed him at the
head of an army of High-
landers. Edinburgh fell into
his hands; the camp of
the government com-
mander. Sir John Cope, was
surprised and his forces
were put to ignominious
rout. A few weeks later,
Charles was over the Border,
marching on London, where
„^„„^„^- w^^^ panic prevailed. But
cessfui as his father in his attempts upon whcu he reached Derby!,
the Crown, though he aroused the love COUnSCls of prudcnce oi*
and enthusiasm of the Scottish people, despair triumphed. The
Enghsh Jacobites had not risen ; the
gathering armies of the government were
bound to annihilate his force if he
advanced, unless something like a miracle
happened. From the moment the retreat
began, the cause was hopelessly lost.
4513
"THE YOUNG PRETENDER"
Prince Charles Edward Stuart, son of
" the Old Pretender," was quite as unsuc
CHARLES EDWARD STUART, "BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE"
There is no more romantic story in history than that of the young Stuart prince who fought in vain for the throne of his
forefathers. If the devotion and enthusiasm of friends could have achieved the triumph of his cause, then " Bonnie
Prince Charlie " would have succeeded ; but the nation as a whole had no desire to bring: back the Stuart dynasty.
Prince Charles landed in Scotland from France in 1745, held court at Holyrood. defeated Cope at Prestonpans, and
with 6,500 men marched into England. At Culloden on April 16th, 1746. his cause received its death-blow.
i^rom the paiating by John Pettie, R.A.. photographed by CaswaU Smith
4516
GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE WHIGS
In spite of a severe defeat inflicted
on General Hawley, at Falkirk, Charles
had to withdraw into the Highlands.
Thither the Duke of Cumberland pursued
hip- • the last hopes of the Stuarts were
extinguished on the Field of Culloden,
and with them the last hopes of the
Scottish patriots who still hankered for
separation from England. The govern-
ment, indeed, aroused considerable indig-
nation even among loyalists by the
severity of the treatment which it meted
out to the rebels. But the Highlands,
where alone a new rebellion might be
From 1746 the history of Scotland was
one of increasing prosperity and of brilliant
intellectual development. The historian
and philosopher Hume ; Adam Smith, the
founder of economic science ; James Thom-
son, the poet of Nature ; Macpherson, the
editor and forger of the Ossianic poems —
these are perhaps the best known figures of
this northern renaissance. But they were
supported by other writers and thinkers of
more than respectable merit ; and the day
was not far distant when Burns and Scott
were to express in their different manners
the quintessence of the national character.
AFTER CULLODEN: PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD A FUGITIVE IN THE HIGHLANDS
Defeated by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden, " the Young Pretender" fled to the Western Highlands, where,
surrounded by loyal friends, chief among whom was the heroine Flora Macdonald, he evaded capture. After five months'
wandering, he escaped to France. The above picture represents the Stuart prince sleeping in a cave on the hillside,
while his faithful Highlanders stand by on guard, a reward of $150,000 having been offered for his capture.
apprehended, were disarmed ; and the
power of the chiefs was undermined by
an act abolishing their jurisdictions.
The clansmen murmured against the new
rule of peace and law, but the only possible
escape lay in emigration to the New World,
or enlistment under the colours of the
British army. Both courses were ex-
tensively adopted ; and if, on the one hand,
emigrants contributed to the bitterness of
the feud between England and the colonies,
on the other hand, the Highland regiments,
raised by the elder Pitt, became a most
valuable element in the British army.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle separated
England from Austria, the one ally to
whom she had been bound by all the ties
of interest ; for Maria Theresa bitterly
resented the pressure which the Pelhams
had put upon her to secure her concurrence
in the European settlement. And France
presumed upon English isolation. Both
in North America and in India the
pioneers of French colonisation waged
unremitting war upon the interests of
England. In the New World attempts
were made to form a cordon of French
forts extending from Canada to Louisiana,
4517
History of the world
in order that the British might be con-
fined to the eastern httoral ;
and the colonists of Nova
Scotia had cause to com-
plain of French aggressions.
Meanwhile Dupleix, the
French representative in
India, used the feuds and
dynastic wars of native states
to extend his country's in-
fluence throughout the Pro-
vince of Madras. In 1751
there was open war between
the British and French for
the ascendancy in the Carnatic.
The crisis brought Robert
The war he was incapable of managing.
His nominee, General Brad-
dock, was defeated and killed
on the way to Fort Duquesne
in 1755 ; the Ohio and Missis-
sippi seemed to be lost
for ever. Outside Parliament
there was the greatest readi-
ness to help the Ministry by
private effort. A loan of
$5,000,000 was subscribed
three times over as soon as
floated ; large bounties were
paid for recruits out of
voluntary subscriptions.
Newcastle hit by accident
was verv
enced the legislation of the period.
with
^1- - ., f , J r ADAM SMITH , ,
Clive to the front, and after a Scottish political economist, he upon the popular means of
his achievement at Arcot Natu*e'"L^/clures"o"t^e Wealth satisfying popular demands.
British predominance in the of Nations "—a book wWch influ- In 1756, by concluding
Prussia an agreement
which was
really, though
not avowedly,
directed against
France, he pre-
pared an ade-
quate resistance
to the coalition
of France and
Austria, which
was forming
under the
auspices of Kau-
nitz. But the
failure of Byng
at Minorca, the
capture of
south of India
soon assured.
This success,ho w-
ever, momentous
as it proved in
the future, did
not allay the
anxiety of the
British Par-
liament. The
interests of com-
merce formed at
this time the all-
engrossing topic
of debate. There
was a general
feeling of insecu-
rity. Ministers These brave seamen reasserted the maritime supremacy of England
f\\A nnf rnm- by the victories of Quiberon and Lagos, the destruction of Cherbourg, Ocwpcrr. Fnrf h^r
aia not com- and the bombardment of Havre. Rodney was created a peer with '-^SWCgO rOrtOy
mand the con- a pension of §10,000 a year. Lord Hawke, in 1766, was appointed First Montcalm the
Lord of the Admiralty, and in 1768 became Admiral of the Fleet '
TWO FAMOUS ADMIRALS: RODNEY AND HAWKE
fidence of the
country, or eyen of the
members who voted for their
measures. Many critics as-
serted that the Whig system
of government by corruption
had sapped the national
morale and energy. Nothing,
it was thought, but a great
war, conducted by a man of
genius, could save the country
from the fatal lethargy which
had overtaken it. War broke
out in America in 1754, and
found Ministers unprepared.
The death of Henry Pelham
fall of Calcutta
before Sura j ah Dowlah in
1756, were events which
seemed to stamp his ad-
ministration as hopelessly
inefficient, and to seal the
doom of the colonial policy.
At this juncture he dis-
covered in William Pitt the
necessary War Minister. Pitt
had been Paymaster of the
Forces for a time, but his
voice had been chiefly heard
in opposition. He was with-
out private influence or
PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM ofifirial PYnpHpnrp • Vip wac
- , , William Pitt, the great statesman, OmCiai experience , UC WaS
left Newcastle confused and made his mark in the government kuowu chicfly as a brilliant
irresolute. He could barely ofitsfilt"ory."H"e^i^a"raU!ed'to"he debater and rhetorician. But
manage the selfish groups into peerage as Lord Chatham in 1766. jjg commanded the confidence
which the Whig party was dissolving, of the people, and soon showed that
451&
ADMIRAL RODNEY BOMBARDING THE FRENCH TOWN OF HAVRE IN 1759
Anchoring before Havre in the month of July, Admiral Rodney bombarded the town, setting it on fire in several places.
their confidence
was justified.
Ruling the House
of Commons by
the influence
which he bor-
rowed from
Newcastle, he
was, neverthe-
less, a demo-
cratic leader, who
boasted that he
had received his
mandate from
the country, and
would render his
account to the
people rather
than to the
Crown. His suc-
cesses were
doubly welcome,
because they
were felt to be
won in the face
of a corrupt party
system and an
unsympathetic
sovereign. Pitt
had two great
and obvious
KING GEORGE III.
Born in London in 1738, he succeeded to the throne in 1760, and, not
content to leave the atfairs of the country in the hands of his
defects as a
statesman — he
was impatient of
detail, and he
spent money with
unnecessary pro-
fusion. He had
an invincible love
of the theatrical,
which appeared
not merely in
his private be-
haviour, but also
in his public
policy. On the
other hand, he
grasped the Eu-
ropean situation
at a glance ; and
the help, both in
money and in
men, which he
lavished upon
Frederic the
Great proved the
soundest of in-
vestments. Pitt
boasted, and with
good reason, that
ministers, took a leadmg part in its government. He has been described he WOUld COUQ UCr
as "brave, honest, and religious," and as representing the "type of » • ,i
the ordinary Englishman." In 1811 he became permanently insane. Amcnca On tlie
4519
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
banks of the Elbe ; for France found
herself involved in a desperate Continental
wal", which left her powerless to watch the
interests of Canada. The Indian victories
of CUve and Eyre Coote (1757-1761) owed
little to Pitt's direct
assistance ; but it was
^he European war
^hich enabled Clive
to crush Surajah
Dowlah, and Coote
to destroy the
settlement of Pondi-
cherry in 1761.
' The events of Pitt's
war ministry can be
mentioned only in the
briefest way. Hawke
and Rodney and Bos-
cawen reasserted the
maritime supremacy
of England by the
yictories of Quiberon
and Lagos, the de-
struction of Cher-
bourg, and the bom-
bardment of Havre.
In 1762 the French West Indies were one
by one annexed, and the accession of Spain
to the side of France was avenged by the
capture of Havana and the Philippines.
On land Wolfe and Amherst were no
less successful in their
attacks npon Canada.
The former pierished, in
the moment of victory, at
Quebec in 1759, but the re-
duction of the colony was
completed by his colleague
in the following year.
But Pitt's successes
were brought prematurely
to an end by a change of
sovereigns. The old king
died in 1760; and the
successor, his grandson,
George III., mounted the
throne with a fixed resolve
to free the prerogative
from the trammels of the
Whig ascendancy. The
principles of Toryism,
QUEEN CHARLOTTE
In 1761, the year after he ascended the throne of Great
Britain and Ireland, George III. married Charlotte Sophia
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whose portrait is given above.
LORD BUTE
After the retirement of Pitt and Newcastle,
the King's tutor, Lord Bute, was called to the
head of the administration, and his first act
was to renounce the Prussian alliance and to
He died in 1792.
discredited in the country conclude the Treaty of Paris
and banished from Parliament, had found pended,
an asylum in the royal family. The new
king had been trained in the theories of
Bolingbroke, who from his retirement had
consistently preached the specious doctrine
that a king should be above all parties,
4530
and should choose his Ministers without
reference to their connections. The odium
which corruption had brought upon the
party system emboldened George III.
to apply these lessons without loss of time.
--^ He sowed dissension
in the Cabinet of Pitt
and Newcastle, per-
suaded the majority
to vote against the
opening of war with
Spain, and in 1761
d ove Pitt to seek
refuge for his morti-
fication in retirement.
Newcastle was ousted
in 1762 and the king's
tutor, Lord Bute, was
called to the head of
the administration.
Bute's first act was
to renounce the Prus-
sian alliance and to
conclude the Treaty
of Paris in 1763. The
treaty could not fail
to be advantageous,
but less was gained than the successes of
Pitt had entitled the country to expect.
Havana and the Philippines were restored
to Spain, as having been taken after the
conclusion of peace; Guadeloupe, the
wealthiest of the West
Indies, and Pondicherry,
the chief of France's In-
dian settlements, were
abandoned without any
valid reason. France sur-
rendered Canada, Cape
Breton, Grenada, the
Leeward Islands, and
Minorca ; but she re-
tained St. Pierre and the
Miquelons, with valuable
fishing rights on the New-
foundland coast, and on
the mainland she kept
her foothold in Louisiana.
The peace was sharply
criticised in England.
Bute and the queen-
mother, upon whose
favour he mainly de-
became the most unpopular
persons in the country. Bute retired,
and a new double constitutional struggle
was inaugurated between the king and
Ministers, and between mother country
and colonies. Arthur D. Innes
WESTERN EUROPE
^df^Mlk
WR^t
THE
FROM THE
wSm^ mSf^J^
B^^B-Jp '^^^fctf
J^^ i/ll-"~
ENDING
REFORMATION
1 1 •. jfd^^^a^^
^MJpK^^HM^^^^y
OF THE
TO THE
1 \4'\ Sd %^
w \'3^^^^^^^ .
OLD ORDER
REVOLUTION
6^^^^^
III
THE GREAT HAPSBURG MONARCHY
AND THE SUCCESSION OF MARIA THERESA
"T^HE decision of the question of the
'• Spanish succession, the conquest of
Hungary, the fact that since the Peace of
Westphalia the so-called German inherit-
ance had unceasingly shown a tendency
to separation from the empire, made it
imperative that there should be some
formal constitution of the Hapsburg
possessions, a first tentative effort for the
formation of a comprehensive state.
There was no Austrian state in existence,
there was merely a family property, a union
of kingdoms and countries, with or without
constitutional ties, with or without common
interests, brought into mutual relation only
through the person of the monarch, pos-
sessing the most varied privileges and
burdened with the most diverse obliga-
tions. The circumstances which had
favoured the formation of a great dynastic
power proved so many obstacles to the
creation of a united kingdom. Many
Th Sf f attempts have been made to
n ^ ^ Vl^^ date the first beginnings of the
Point of the 1 . J T^, ° *=• , .
J. . kmgdom. 1 he permanent union
of Bohemia and Hungary to
the German Alpine territory, dating from
1526, has been considered a starting point ;
so have the attempts made at the outset of
the seventeenth century to form a general
conference of Landtag delegates. The
recognition of the hereditary monarchy of
the Hapsburgs in the lands of the Hun-
garian crown in 1687 has been indicated
as showing the need for closer connection
between the several parts of the Hapsburg
estate. But all these phenomena are to
be explained as results of the growing
power of the nobles, and have, moreover,
merely proved the general fact that the
formation of independent kingdoms from
the several parts of the Hapsburg territory
was an impossibility.
The resumption of the plan of uniting
Bohemia, Moravia, and the Silesian prin-
cipalities under a foreign rule split upon
the rock of religious discord, and the
Catholic powers were obliged to intervene
to secure the hereditary rights of Ferdinand
II. The battle of the White Mountain
put an end to the Bohemian constitution ;
that is, to the idea of the Bohemian
countries as an independent unity, with
their own government, their own military
and financial system. Bohemia
th* Wh*t ^^^ ^'^^'^ closely united to the
^ . . German Empire through the
Mountain <• ^i f, ^
person of the pnnce. Had
the Palatinate ruler maintained his ground,
he would have been reduced to strengthen-
ing to the best of his power the ties which
united Germany to the empire and to
securing the support of the Protestant
orders by making concessions to the
empire. In that case the Germanisation
of the Czechs would have been brought
about through the identity of their Church
with that of the pure German countries.
The Catholic reaction had been carried
out against the revolutionary Protestant
parties without any consideration for the
direction taken by the tide of national
movements. Catholicism neither needed
nor desired assistance from German
sources, as its strength was based upon the
Romance and Slavonic, not upon the
German peoples. The conquest of Hun-
gary would certainly have been impossible
without the help of Germany and her
armed provinces ; but the empire had
allowed the House of Hapsburg without
protest to grasp the advantages gained,
because it was itself unable to extend its
supremacy over so large and so far distant
a country, owing to the lack of an organised
administration and of a standing imperial
_ army. The means employed
s ac es ^y Brandenburg-Prussia for
aps urg the amalgamation of its differ-
Administratton , °. ■ . , ,
ent provmces mto one state
were impracticable for the House of Haps-
burg. It was impossible to introduce a
uniform administration for Hungary,
Bohemia, and a dozen German duchies and
counties with the same rapidity and success
as Prussia had attained. The royal House
4521
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of Austria was involved to a far greater
extent than were the Hohenzollerns in
every European quarrel and compacation.
For many decades it could have found no
opportunity to turn its attention to
domestic organisation, leaving aside
questions of European importance and
abandoning a foreign policy which made
for disunion and disruption.
Only critics without historical
The Victorious
Army of
Prince Eugene
training,who would judge the
past by the alien conceptions
of the present, wouldsuppose that adominat-
ing position could ever have been attained
by the so-called idea of constitutional
totality in old Austria, conceived from the
point of view of a Roman emperor, who
was at the same time King of Hungary,
and thought it his duty to uphold his
claims of succession to Spain and Naples,
to Milan and to the Netherlands.
A common unity is to be seen for the
first time in the army of Prince Eugene.
However, it was not the Austrian, but the
" emperor's " army which he led from
victory to victory. This, compared with
the " imperial " army, was a uniform
whole, whether fighting in Italy or in the
Netherlands. Within the empire it was
often subdivided. Troops from special
provinces and districts were joined to its
regiments, and were commanded by
generals who were paid by the empire
and not by the emperor. The armed
provinces of the empire were far readier
to protest against the division of their
contingents than was the emperor in the
case of his own forces ; consequently we
can speak of the Brandenburg-Prussian,
of the Bavarian, even of the Hanoverian
army before we can employ the term
" Austrian " army. The diplomatic
service of the German Hapsburgs acted
in the name of the emperor, as more
privileges were thus to be enjoyed. As
regards revenue, receipts came in from
the most varied sources — feudal aids.
At f 1.1 grants from the Landtag,
An Insoluble ° , •,• ,.,, , , <="
p . J subsidies, tithe?, general taxes
• «♦ » ft — so that it would have been
impossible to draw up a
separate balance-sheet for the state
revenue of Austria alone.
The creation of a state without national
union, without even a leadership sup-
ported by a majority capable of great
exertions, could not possibly be the work
of a few generations ; it is a problem in
statecraft which has remained insoluble
♦522
to the present day. The first steps which
brought the solution somewhat nearer
could proceed only from the ruling house
itself ; they consist in the constitutional
recognition of the ruling power as a unity
and in the securing of the succession in
order to obviate disruption.
Ferdinand I. could see no special danger
to the power of the ruling house in the
disruption and dissolution of his dominion
into separate principalities ; he considered
that the position of the imperial monarch
was of overpowering predominance. The
master of the inner Austria territories,
Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, the Count
of Tyrol and the possessor of the Swabian
and Upper Rhine frontiers, could only
pursue the policy marked out by their
imperial brother or cousin. The " fra-
ternal quarrel," the party differences be-
tween Rudolf and Matthias, show the
possibility of strong opposition between
the members of one and the same house.
Spanish interest in the strength of the
German family, and also the interest which
the Catholic Church had in the mainten-
ance of Catholicism in the Alpine and
_ _ household territories, were
r r j"* J' the motive causes of the
of Ferdm&nd s , ^^ ,. j tt
c supremacy of Ferdinand 11.
Supremacy -v. r ^i.
over the possessions oi the
German House of Hapsburg. The special
position of the Tyrol under his brother
Leopold was a concession to personal and
private rights of inheritance, an indul-
gence which left no permanent effect upon
the constitution, as the Tyrol branch
became extinct in the second generation.
Neither Ferdinand II. nor Ferdinand
III. had the opportunity of settling the
succession to the collective inheritance
according to family regulations, as they
had only one successor capable of govern-
ment. Leopold I., however, contributed
to the regulation of the succession
when he and his eldest son Joseph re-
nounced the Spanish succession in favour
of the second son, the Archduke Charles.
The emperor then made an openly ex-
pressed agreement with his sons, that the
succession in the two lines should go by
primogeniture ; that is to say, that Charles
and his descendants should inherit the
undivided German Hapsburg lands upon
the extinction of the male line in Joseph's
family, and similarly Joseph and his descent
were to have the whole Spanish monarchy
should the Spanish line now founded by
Charles become extinct. Should the male
THE GREAT HAPSBURG MONARCHY
issue fail in both lines simultaneously — that
is, before the descendants of either could
succeed — then the right of primogeniture
was to pass to the daughters in Joseph's
line, these also preceding Charles's female
issue as regards the Spanish succession
This pact as to the mutual succession
was attested by the three parties con-
cerned on September 12th, 1703, and
declared by them to be the expression of
a custom previously subsisting in the
House of Hapsburg. It was further ex-
tended by the will of Leopold I., dated
April 26th, 1705, by which he secured his
son Charles in the possession of the Tyrol
and the land on its frontier, though
" without the right of making alliance or
war," in case nothing should come down
to him of the whole of the Spanish succes-
sion. The Emperor Joseph I. died in the
prime of life without male
issue and without making
definite arrangements for his
daughters. According to the
Pact of 1703, Charles VI.
was sole heir to all the Haps-
burg possessions, both Ger-
man and Spanish. He
actually entered into pos-
session of both, inasmuch as
he extended his power over a
considerable portion of the
Spanish dominion. Joseph's
daughters yielded precedence
to his own. For the former,
the emperor was bound"
The Famous
Pr&gmatic
Sanction
as the
Emperor
undivided in like manner and according
to the order and right of primogeniture,
to the legitimate surviving daughters."
Only upon the failure of such legitimate
issue of the ruling emperor was the right
of succession to pass to the daughters of
Joseph, also by primogeniture.
This transaction and the
emperor's explanation were
embodied in a protocol known
Pragmatic Sanction of the
Charles VI., which is to be
considered as one of the constitutional
foundations of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. The comparatively few words
which express the contents of the docu-
ment determine the permanent union of
the territory of the German Hapsburgs in
the form of a great power, which union is
founded upon the exercise of a uniform
government throughout the
kingdoms and provinces
which compose that territory.
The uniformity consists not
only in the supremacy of the
one monarch, but also in his
exercise of the governmental
]iowers vested in himself.
These powers proceed, it is
true, from his relations with
individual kingdoms and
provinces, but they are con-
joined in personal executive
power possessed by the
EMPEROR CHARLES VI. pouarch, and are expressed
He was declared emperor in 1711 in decrees of Uniform applic-
merely to provide according j " a^lfd^'lddld^'ljns'iderab? ^°o^^ ability. "The right of war,
to the custom of his family, territories. The Pragmatic Sane- of peace and of alliance" — that
Joseph's sudden death had_"°" ""^^ "»« "''J*^' °^ ^'^ P^^'^y- is to say, the entire foreign
is subject to the exclusive will of
thrown the imperial Privy Council into
some perplexity as to the fate of his
kingdom. They sent a request to Charles,
who was still in Spain, asking him for a
definite explanation. This explanation
was not given until April 19th, 1713,
before an assembly of court dignitaries
and of the highest officials of Lower
Austria. The emperor had the " Pact of
mutual succession " read aloud, and then
„ . . delivered a speech, wherein he
CUimed'" ^^^^ ^°^" *^^* ^y *^^ arrange-
CK*"?* wi ment all kingdoms and terri-
■ tories possessed by the Emperors
Leopold and Joseph passed to himself,
and that " these territories should remain
undivided, passing to the male issue of his
body in primogeniture so long as such issue
should exist ; upon the extinction of the
said male issue the succession should pass,
policy-
the general ruler of the whole area ; he
alone has the right to raise an army by
means of the supplies granted by the king-
doms and provinces, and with this his
army to defend the interests of his house
and of all the territories in the possession
of that house.
The uniformity and universality of the
ruling power cease at this point. Nothing
is recognised by the Pragmatic Sanction as
common to or binding upon the whole
state except that which can be immediately
deduced from the sovereignty ; hence the
dynastic powers of the German Haps-
burgs were not constituted as a state by
the Pragmatic Sanction, although they did
constitute a " great power," in view of the
influence which they were able to exer-
cise upon the course of European affairs.
4523
4524
THE GREAT HAPSBURG MONARCHY
In the solemn desJaration of Charles VI.
no account was taken of the relations
of the sovereignty to individual provinces,
for this would have implied the raising
of constitutional questions and complica-
tions ; naturally, the destiny of the whole
empire could not be made contingent upon
the ultimate issue of these. The numerous
provincial bodies politic were by no means
on an equality in point of strength, and
a compacted agreement with them would
not have produced a statute of so funda-
mental a nature as could be brought
about by a simple expression of will on the
part of a number of kings, dukes, and
princes. By far the easier course was to
obtain a supplementary consent from the
several Landtags to the emperor's declara-
tion which was laid before
them. Negotiations for
this purpose were begun
in the year 1720, on the
infant Archduke Leo-
pold's death. He was the
emperor's son, born in
1716, and there was no
other male issue surviving.
When the Pragmatic
Sanction was delivered
to the Landtags, letters
were also sent, speaking
for the first time of the
" object " of the Sanction.
Upon the " union " of the
kingdom and provinces
(so ran the wording) de-
pended the prosperity of
economic interests in common, particularly
the question of resistance to the Turks ;
and in this way their constitutional ties
with Hungary threatened to grow relaxed.
In Bohemia and in the other hereditary
provinces assent to the Pragmatic Sanction
. was given without difficulty,
xi^'n" *. stress only being laid upon the
the Pragmatic • , -^ P,, ■ r, ,,
c ^. mamtenance of privileges
Sanction , , . . , *^ , ^9
and of provincial regulations.
In Bohemia it was thought unnecessary
to make special mention of the peculiar
rights of either one of the two nationalities
under the empire; but the town of Eger,
before which care had been taken to lay
the proposals for regulating the succession,
associated itself and its territory with the
assent given by the Bohemian Lan4tag,
" without detriment to
the privileges granted in
respect of the Eger pawn-
money by the Roman
emperors and the kings
of Bohemia." The Tyrol
provinces regretted that
they were deprived of the
prospect of having a resi-
dent prince of their own,
and demanded that the
future reigning lo'rd should
be of " German blood."
In Hungary, provincial
representation was a
national and constitu-
tional institution, and
had lost but Uttle of the
power which it had
possessed in previous
the kingdom and the the empress maria theresa
" peace of the populations, '^^^ daughter of the Emperor charies VI.. she centuries ; hence \he dis-
^ . 1 1 II was appointed by her father heir to his heredi- • i x i
provinces, and vassals, tary thrones, and at his death, in 1740, be- cussious lu the Landtag
Within the government came Queen of Hungary and of Bohemia and
area the proposal was Archduchess of Austria " —
She died in 1780.
issued for the calling of a " congress of the
provinces." The Landtag of Lower Austria
urged the advisability of an " hereditary
alliance," whereby the provinces as a whole
should mutually guarantee their interde-
pendence. Although Prince Eugene was
apparently in favour of this method of
. .._ introducing the general repre-
f th °''*^'^*** sentation of the provinces, yet
„ ^ „ the government declined to
Provinces ere i ^
agree, for fear of encroachment
and confusion. Proceedings of this kind
might arouse misgivings in such cases as that
of Hungary, for since 171 2 the Croatian
provinces had begun to form a closer con-
nection with the provinces of Ijiner Austria,
with which they had many political and
of 1722-1723 have a
greater importance than
any which took place elsewhere in the
Hapsburg territories. As early as 171 2
Hungary had demanded that every
province of the empire should enter into
a special convention to recognise their
common ruler under any circumstances,
and to contribute a fixed sum for the
maintenance of the military frontier guards
and the garrisons in the Hungarian for-
tresses, since Hungary was conscious of
its position as buffer state between the
Turks and the hereditary territories and
Bohemia, and therefore desired a guarantee
of continued support. Moreover, in the
statute wherein the Landtag formulated
its decision upon the question of the
succession the condition was laid down
4525
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
that the heir or heiress of the Hapsburg
House, whom they were ready to recognise
as monarch, was to enter upon the posses-
sion of an " indissoluble whole," composed
of the totahty of the Hapsburg territories.
No portion of the hereditary territory was
to be alienated by division or in any other
^ j.^. manner; it was to form a
Conditions , j •. v i i j-
»4i. w u hereditary whole, mcludmg
of the Hapsburg ., i • j r tt
Succession ^^^^ kingdom of Hungary
and its adjoining territory.
Thus the Hungarian Landtag of 1722-
1723 displayed a dualism in its conclu-
sions, and described its relations to the
ruling house and to the non-Hungarian
possessions of that house with a clearness
and accuracy which gave it an indisputable
advantage in all constitutional difficulties
over the Germanic-Slavonic-Roman terri-
torial group, which had hitherto been
heavily burdened by the difficulty of
assimilating certain districts.
In Hungary the constitutional value of
the Pragmatic Sanction was far more highly
estimated than in the other countries, whose
representatives had accepted the rules for
the succession without being fully informed
of the importance of the step they were
taking, and had missed the opportunity
of anticipating the agreement with Hun-
gary by first procuring a settlement of
their own affairs and mutual rights and
duties. In this case they would have
been able to propose conditions to the
Hungarian state, under which they would
have been prepared to guarantee the
desired support. In like manner, unfamili-
arity with the historical development of
the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, an
astonishing lack of general political educa-
tion and of real constitutional knowledge,
is the reason why the German liberals of
the nineteenth century have made claims
upon the common kingdom which it can
never hope to meet by reason of its origin
and organisation.
Charles VI. and his council were not
incUned to attach too much importance
_ , to the expressions of assent re-
j."?? "t * ceived from the Landtags of the
.. p . hereditary territories. They
, were by no means penetrated
with the idea that the unity of the kingdom
and the provinces was wholly indispensable.
From the territories over which they ruled
they did not think it possible to evolve
a state capable of developing sufficient
strength to secure its existence against
aggression. Only one man believed in this
4526
possibility, even as he believed in the high
capacity of the imperial army — namely.
Prince Eugene, known as the" Savoyard,"
although he was a true Austrian. It was
against his desire that the emperor had
subordinated his entire policy to the one
object of securing the recognition of his
rules for the succession by the European
powers. From the Peace of Rastat
onwards there was no congress, no treaty,
no conclusion of peace — and there was a
remarkable number of these during his
reign — into which he did not foist some
clause upon this point.
The guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction
by the empire was of the highest import-
ance, because the withdrawal of the
German-Austrian territory from the
empire was thus made possible, and the
Hapsburg House gained the right of
uniting into a constitutional whole such
of its possessions as belonged to the
empire, the imperial provinces, and the
kingdom of Bohemia, which was " con-
joined " to the empire with its neighbour-
ing territory, together with an independent
state, such as Hungary. During the
. ^ . . negotiations carried on in
Austria and ^^ , ,, • , • .
. -, Regensburg upon this subject
_, . the German Empire declared
itself entirely on the side of the
imperial house, recognised the necessity for
the existence of an Austrian monarchy, and
showed the connection of the empire with
it. " This declaration of assent may be
considered as the first compact of the
German Empire with Austria, for the
Reichstag treats with the House of
Hapsburg as with an independent power,
for the maintenance of which the empire
came forward in its own clearly recognised
interests."
The credit of securing this guarantee
belongs to Frederic William I., King of
Prussia, who had become the emperor's
ally by the compacts of Konigswuster-
hausen on October 12th, 1726, and of
Berlin on December 23rd, 1728. It was
through his powerful influence that ths
proposals were carried in the Reichstag in
spite of the opposition of Bavaria and
Saxony. The tour which he made in 1730
round certain German coasts which had as
yet taken no share in the discussions was
undertaken with the object of gaining their
support for the emperor and of recom-
mending them to concur in the guarantee.
Bavaria and Saxony opposed it in vain.
Notwithstanding the wavering attitude
MARIA THERESA APPEALING FOR HELP TO THE HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT
The death of the Emperor Charles VI. was followed by the accession of his daughter Maria Theresa to the Hapsburg
territories and by the claims of other powers for a share in these great possessions. Terrified at the approach of the
allied army to Vienna, Maria Theresa, with her infant son, who afterwards became Joseph II., fled to Hungary, where
she was received with enthusiasm. Appearing before the Hungarian ParUament at Presburg with her son m her arms,
she called upon the nation to defend her against her enemies, and, stirred by her appeal, the whole assembly rose, and,
drawing their swords, exclaimed, ' ' Our lives and our blood for your Majesty ! We will die for onr king, Maria Theresa 1
From the picture by Laslett J. Pott
4527
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of the Palatinate, they were unable to
secure a majority in the college of electors ;
consequently, the only course open to
them was to protest against the resolution
of the Reichstag and to declare that it
was not binding upon themselves.
In consequence, the imperial govern-
ment could certainly conclude that, not-
_ withstanding the numerous
pposi ion ^^^g ^^ diplomacy which they
to Fem&le i j x 4.u
c . employed to secure the guaran-
Succession . ^ -^ , i • i. ^i,
tees, a struggle agamst the
female succession in the House of Hapsburg
would inevitably ensue, for the two pro-
testing electors proceeded to lay claim to
certain portions of the inheritance upon the
strength of their connection with the
imperial family. Joseph I.'s eldest daughter,
Maria Josepha, had married Frederic
Augustus II. of Saxony on August 20th,
lyiq, and her sister, Maria Amalia, had
married Charles Albert of Bavaria on
October 30th, 1722. Hence the obvious
course of a clever politician would have
been to cleave at all costs to the strongest
supporter, Prussia, and to bind that country
to the interests of the imperial house even
at the price of voluntary concessions.
But Austria during the last few years had
been slackening the bond between herself
and Prussia. Though she had to thank
Prussia, and no one else, for the passing
of the guarantees, she declined to continue
the support which she had previously
promised to the king in the matter of the
Juliers-Cleves inheritance. Ttt ask that
the Austrian statesmen of the period
should have clearly foreseen that the
foundation of an independent monarchy
was incompatible with a permanent sove-
reignty of the empire would be to ask over-
much of them, although we now can
see that to break away from the narrow
limits of the provinces of the empire and
at the same time to claim supremacy
among them was impossible. The time
had come when it would be necessary to
^1. rk *!. struggle for influence with the
The Death •••1.1. x ,1.
- _ rismg military power of the
Q. "^ * VI ^o^th German state. But from
the standpoint of practical
politics it may be asserted that the neglect
of Prussia was inspired by false conceptions
of the strength of the respective parties,
and that the loss of the Prussian support was
not to be counterbalanced by the dearly
bought assent of France to the guarantee.
With the death of the Emperor Charles
VI., on October 20th, 1740, that royal
4528
family became extinct which had been
iounded by Rudolf I. and carried by
Charles V. to the highest pitch of earthly
power. The countries which the Prag-
matic Sanction had declared to be a political
whole were now obliged to act for the
maintenance of that measure. It was
now to be decided whether the position
of the German Hapsburg house should
be assumed by the Hapsburg-Lorraine
family, which rested on the alliance
— May 13th, 1717 — of the eldest daughter
of Charles VI., Maria Theresa, with
Francis, Duke of Lorraine ; whether that
family should continue to hold in connec-
tion the territory of the Hapsburgs in
all that wide extent which had made it
the equal of powers founded upon a
national basis.
The division of the territory was de-
manded by the Elector of Bavaria, Charles
Albert, over whose youth the Emperors
Leopold and Joseph had watched with
true paternal care during the proscription
of his father Max Emanuel. In 1722 he
had been privileged to marry the latter
emperor's second daughter. He based
_ . his claims upon numerous
th ^H** °b points of relation to the family,
e aps urg ^j^gjjj^pQj-j-^nceof which seemed
Territories , ^ ■ -, , r 1 -c
^ to be 'increased by a lalsin-
^ cation fti'fitfie wiil' of Ferdinand I. of
-^^avaria. He claimed all the family
"territory, ajid, declared Maria Theresa to
be Queen of Hungary only.
The threats of Charles Albert would
have be^n of li«ttle moment if Bavaria
had not had numerous supporters in"
Austria itself, and if Maria Theresa had had
only this opponent to deal with. But a
far more dangerous enemy arose in the
person of King Frederic II. of Prussia,
who succeeded to the throne in the year
of Charles VI. 's death. He denied the
validity of the guarantee given by Prussia,
as the deceased emperor had not made
the return which he had promised. He
claimed compensation for the principality
of Jagerndorf, which had been lost to his
family owing to the collapse of the Winter
kingdom, and also for the Schwiebus
district, which his grandfather, Ferdinand
I., had been forced to cede.
In either case the question of the justice
of the claim was to him a matter of indiffer-
ence. Frederic grasped at the chance of
recovering these districts for which there
had been so much strife, for he con-
sidered that he required Lower Silesia to
TIffi
GREAT HAPSBURG MONARCHY
CHARLES ALBERT VH.
He was elected and crowned
Holy Roman Emperor on January
round off his possessions on the Oder, and
had no intention of letting sHp an oppor-
tunity so favourable for his own aggran-
disement. He offered Maria Theresa his
support against Bavaria, and was ready to
vote for the election of her husband as
emperor ; further, he was prepared to
guarantee her German posses-
sions and to pay a subsidy of
2,000,000 thalers for military
preparations if Silesia as far
as Breslau was ceded to him.
It was not an impossible
bargain for Austria, and a
far-sighted politician would
probably have recommended
it ; but Frederic did not wait
for any acceptance. In the
middle of December, 1740,
he poured 20,000 men into
Silesia. At no matter what
cost, the Austrian court
declined to recognise the
legality of an act of mere
marauding on a grand scale. 2«h, 1742, although he possessed
The young Archduchess "° t«"itory. He died in 1745,
and Queen of Hungary, wit)i; all the
warmth of that ardent character which
makes her so attractive a personality,
assented to the counsel of the passionate
Bartenstein, who declared against the
Prussian proposals. She was actuated by
indignation against infidelity, real or
supposed, by a natural dislike
to giving up land or property,
and, finally, by the firm con-
viction that it was her duty
to cling to the heritage which
she had taken up at all costs.
The Hapsburgs were never
covetous, but were obstinate
in their defence of their rights.
Maria Theresa's stand
against Prussia is an act
rather of moral worth than
of political importance. Her
courage and her obstinacy,
which proceeded from an ^^^^^ ^^^^ oftuscany
mvinClDle trust m God, Francis ofLon-aine, afterwards the
virtues of the German wife and mother, a
mistress both dignified and gentle, a stern
commander at need, of strong determina-
tion, thorough and true in hate and love
alike, endowed with that splendid beauty
which stirs enthusiasm, it was not only in
her native land that she won her people's
hearts ; even by hostile
nations she was speedily
known as the " Great Em-
press." Uncertainty and
vacillation, the two deadly
enemies to monarchical
power, were unknown to her.
She may have been deceived
as to the forces which she
had at her disposition, but
she was well aware of the
special characteristics of her
empire. It was plain to her
that Hungary's independent
administration must be pre-
served, whereas the adminis-
trative power was to be
centralised in the " German
and Bohemian hereditary
land." Though consenting to coronation,
she did not permit the Bohemian con-
stitutional privileges to grow larger, and
kept a careful watch upon the uniformity
and equality of the administration. Her
full appreciation of the value of proper
administration fitted her to walk in the
ways which lead to the form-
ing of states. With Maria
Theresa begins the difficult
transition from dynastic to
constitutional power, which
has continued to our own
time. It should have come
to an earlier conclusion, but
the unjustifiable concessions
made by liberalism to the
form of the constitution have
hindered its consummation.
Under Maria Theresa the
relations of the ruling house
to Bohemia partook for the
second time of the character
of a supremacy based on
enabled her people the more Grand Duke of Tuscany, married
readily to see in her hoxise the ^^"^ Theresa in 1736, and in 1745 conquest^ The kingdom had
natural continuation of the ^** * **^ ^ ° ^ °™*" mperor. ^^ ^^ conquered by force of
old royal family whose sorrows and joys
they had shared for the last 500 years.
They shared also in her unjustifiable hatred
against Frederic, and gave her their
'genuine sympathy as to one oppressed and
persecuted. German from the crown of her
head to the sole of her foot, with all the
288
arms after it had already submitted to
the imperial government. In November,
1741, the Elector of Bavaria invaded
Bohemia from Upper Austria, of which he
had already gained possession. Prague
surrendered almost without resistance, and
there he received homage to himself as
4529
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
kingon November 25th. The constitutional
representatives of Bohemia then surren-
dered the rights of the Hapsburg House
without scruple. No fewer than 400 mem-
bers of the Bohemian orders — among them
men who bore honoured names — took the
oath of allegiance in person, although no
irresistible pressure was put upon them.
The Bavarian " peoples " would have been
considerably embarrassed if the Bohemian
nobles, who were ever ready to boast
of their dependency upon the imperial
house, had remained in their castles and
organised a guerrilla warfare instead of
hastening to Prague to kiss the hand of
the Elector of Bavaria.
It was not until Maria Theresa had made
peace with Prussia that she found her
power equal to driving the Bavarians out
of the country, together with the French;
who were supporting them.
These latter felt no pricks of
conscience in thus breaking
the guarantee which they
had given to the Pragmatic
Sanction. Beaten in the two
battles of Mollwitz, on April
loth, 1741, and of Chotusitz,
north of Caslan, on May 17th,
1742, she agreed to give up
Silesia with the exception of
the principalities of Troppau
and Teschen and the larger
part of Jagerndorf. On the
other hand, she was also
obliged to sacrifice Glatz—
of importance as being indis-
pensable to the agreement
with Frederic. However, the
treaties of peace concluded at Breslau on
June nth and at Berlin on June 28th, 1742,
were not made in an honourable spirit.
Hardly had Maria enjoyed the benefits
of the pacification, reconquered Bavaria,
and convinced the world that her
empire was a living reality, when she
began to make plans for revenge upon
Prussia. She was not attracted by the
possibility of gaining Bavaria in place of
Silesia, a proposition which might have
been mentioned early in the negotiations,
the motive being the utter cowardice of
Charles Albert VII., who had been elected
and crowned Roman Emperor on January
24th, 1742, although he possessed no terri-
tory— Maria Theresa's husband would have
had to cede Tuscany to the Wittelsbacher
as his share of the bargain. By the Peace of
Fussen,on April 22nd, 1745, she gave back
4530
Bavaria together with the upper Palatinate
to the Elector Maximilian Joseph III.,
the son of the Emperor Charles VII.,
who had died on January 20th, 1745.
She recognised the imperial position of
his father, and entered into negotiations
with Saxony, Russia, and France.
Frederic II. had been already convinced
that Austria's alliance with these powers
wouJd cost him not only Silesia but
also his position in Europe, and made,
therefore, his second invasion at the end
of August, 1744. At Hohenfriedeberg,
on June 4th, and at Soor, on September
30th, 1745, he beat the Austrians, and
also the Saxons at Kesselsdorf on Decem-
ber 15th, 1745, and secured his possession
of his acquisitions by the second treaty of
peace, which was concluded in Dresden
on Christmas Day, 1745. Austria gained
thereby the recognition of
Maria Theresa's husband, the
Grand Duke of Tuscany,
Francis, as Roman Empercr.
His election had taken place
on October 4th, and the con-
sent of the Bohemian elec-
torate was obtained through
Brandenburg-Prussia.
The Queen of Hungary and
Bohemia thus became em-
press as the consort of the
emperor. In the eyes of
posterity the imperial dignity
PRINCE VON KAUNiTZ ^^1^^ encirclcs her is not
Ministerunder the Empress Maria merely the reflection of the
rheresa.Kaunitz failed to advance somCwhat tamished CrOWU
the development of the Austrian . , i • i i i i
state and only checked it by With WhlCh ShC SaW her huS-
renewing hostifities with Prussia. ^^^^ adomcd in Fraukfort.
During her reign a remarkable phenomenon
comes to pass, in that her empire gained
a title wholly different from that which
usually attaches to the word. Maria
Theresa really begins the succession of the
Austrian emperors, and with her is bound
up the conception of an Austrian state.
If after the second Silesian war
Austria had considered her quarrel with
Prussia as terminated she would have
been able to make far greater progress in
respect of her internal development. Apart
from this fact, a renewal of the alliance with
Prussia would have brought about the
complete downfall of the Bourbons, and
perhaps have made possible the acquisition
of Naples. The Minister Kaunitz, upon
one occasion — in 175 1 — put forward these
ideas, but relinquished them in face of the
opposition of the empress. The policy of
THE ^GREAT HAPSBURG MONARCHY
Kaunitz was as disastrous as that of
Metternich. Not only did Kaunitz fail to
advance the development of the Austrian
state, but he checked and interrupted it
by renewing hostilities with Prussia. How
much might have been attained with the re-
sources which were squandered and wasted
in the Seven Years War, under such
adroit and prosperous guidance as Maria
Theresa displayed in the regulation of her
home affairs ! In any case, it would not
have been necessary to subordinate every
requirement of Hungary to the settlement
of constitutional relations with neighbour-
historic antagonism of Hapsburg and
Bourbon was lost in the personal anta-
gonism of the two German sovereigns. The
empress had found herself compelled to
acquiesce in the act of deliberate robbery
by which Silesia had been torn from her
dominion ; but she could not forgive it.
The formation of a league for the over-
throw of Prussia became a passion with
her. There were German states which
entirely sympathised, and the Russian
Tsarina had her own grudge against
Frederic, which made her a probable ally.
Under existing conditions, neither Spain
THE MARKET PLACE OF VIENNA IN THE TIME OF MARIA THERESA
From the painting by Belotto ^
ing countries, and with Croatia in par-
ticular. The commercial undertakings of
Charles., VI. might have been renewed.
The persecution of the Protestants in the
Alpine territories, which were already
sufficiently depopulated, whereby valuable
productive forces were destroyed, would
not have been thought necessary by Maria
Theresa had she not thought to discover
supporters of the hated Prussian king
even among her co-religionists at home.
Maria Theresa was, in fact, so com-
•pletely possessed by her antipathy for
Frederic that it absolutely dominated
every other political consideration. The
nor Sweden was likely to dffect European
military combinations materially, but it
was certain that Great Britain and France
would be drawn into the vortex. It is
scarcely surprising that Maria Theresa
sought the French in preference to the
British alliance. As a military power on
the Continent, France was prima facie the
more effective ; her armies counted for
more than British subsidies, and the
incapable Newcastle was at the head
of the British Government, France
joined the league, while Newcastle was
surprised to find himself in the sahie
galley with Frederic.
4531
FREDERIC WILLIAM I. AND THE CROWN PRINCE: MEETING BETWEEN FATHER AND SON
For a time the relations between Prussia's great king, Frederic William I., and the Crown Prince were not of the
happiest, the treatment which the son received from his father being of a harsh and humiliating character. But a
better understanding was arrived at, and in the above picture an affectionate meeting between father and son is
depicted. Towards the end of May, 1 740, the king became so unwell that the Crown Prince was summoned, but before
his arrival Frederic William had slightly recovered and was able to be wheeled out in front of the palace, where
he witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of a new building. The king died three days later— on May 31st.
4532 _ -- -
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
ENDING OF
THE
OLD ORDER
IV
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRUSSIA
THE KINGDOM UNDER FREDERIC WILLIAM I.
TTHE fate of a state is sometimes de-
■^ pendent upon the individuality of its
princes. Even in republics it is im-
possible for mediocrities to hold the reins
of power without inflicting permanent loss
upon the nation. Monarchies vary in
importance with the capacities of their
rulers. Prussia has to thank the Hohen-
zollerns for the rapidity of her rise. In
modern times we look in vain for a
family which had produced four important
statesmen endowed with creative powers
within two centuries. These were the
Elector Frederic William and the first
king of the same name, and the kings
Frederic II. and William I. ; and of these
four Zollerns, the Great Elector and the
great Fritz were men of genius.
It was a long time before Frederic
William I. (1713-1740) gained the reputa-
tion of a really great king. The period
of the Declaration, with its many false
p . , ideas upon the nature of the
russia a state, did not point him out
Debt to her r • t^ ^ 1 u •
G t K" for praise. It took his own son
a considerable time to appre-
ciate his merits. But we from our point
of view can see clearly how much Prussia
and the German nation owe to him.
We see that he strengthened the state,
without which there could have been no
German unity, and made it able to struggle
for its existence ; that his son would
never have become " the Great " had
he not been educated as he was.
I fit be true that the German schoolmasters
prepared the way for the great victories
of the nineteenth century, then Frederic
William was their prototype— the greatest
schoolmaster who ever educated a people
and made them equal to the tasks of life.
Education of this kind he had none. At
the court of his parents there was no one
to sympathise with the lofty aspirations
which rose in him, and what he saw
there filled him only with repugnance.
The extravagance which he could not
curb incited him to habits of economy,
which his mother considered miserly,
and condemned in no measured terms.
In his early youth he had learned to
keep an eye upon every department of
business, a training which enabled him
successfully to track embezzlement to
its source. When he returned from the
P . Netherland campaign of 1710,
WuiiViTas ^^*^ energy and insight fully
Refor r "latured, he overthrew the
system of Sayn- Wittgenstein
and Wartenberg, whereby the public funds
had been irresponsibly squandered. To
his action is al'^o to be ascribed the
banishment of these two untrustworthy
Ministers from couit a id country.
When he entered his royal office,
Frederic William I. astounded the whole
world by the rapidity and the radical
nature of his reforms. The Prussians
looked upon him as a tyrant, the outside
world laughed at him and considered him
as scarce responsible for his actions. A
strange kind of court, where the state
horses were sold, the silver plate melted
down, the highest dignitaries fined or
treated as common criminals for in-
accuracy in their accounts ! Was it seemly
for a king to rise betimes and spend hours
over deeds and accounts, revise expendi-
ture and drill recruits ? Should he walk
into the houses of the Berlin citizens at
dinner-time, taste the food as it was placed
on the table, and inquire how much each
dish cost ? The valuable results of his
energy were lost sight of in the considera-
tion of his more obvious demerits — a
„ furious and unbridled temper,
„f * bursts of undiscriminating pas-
ing was sion, an exasperating suspicion
Slandered , ' , r ^u r i t
of members of the family as of
officials — demerits concerning which the
most sinister rumours went about. His
wife, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, was
largely to blame for the false reports of
Frederic William which were to be heard
at almost every court in Europe. She
objected to the primitive manners which
4533
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
R&dic&I
Reforms
the king favoured, and considered the
lack of etiquette and the painful stinginess
of the court economy as insulting and
degrading to herself. The elder children,
Frederica Sophia Wilhelmina, who became
Countess of Bayreuth in 173 1, and the
Crown Prince — born January 24th, 171 2 —
TK K* ' ^^^^ materially mfluenced by
^ e mg s ^j^g exasperation of their
mother at their father's ap-
parent sternness and cruelty.
However, at the end of the first decade
of the new government it could not be
denied that this extraordinary monarch
with his corporal's cane had completed a
great task. Debts had been paid, the
treasury was full, a standing army was
in existence the like of which was not to be
seen anywhere in Europe, and a centralised
system of government had been intro-
duced, which was invariably
reliable and accurate in its
working and was equal to any
demands upon it. The Prus-
sian king was not confronted
with such great, difficulties as
those which hampered Joseph
II. in his no less ardent zeal
for reform. But it must not
be forgotten that the Great
Elector had already done away
with the claims and privileges
of the provinces, that the
position of the Hohenzollerns
in Prussia was utterly unlike
that of the Hapsburgs in
Hungary, that the lords of
PRUSSIA'S GREAT KING
Prussia will ever be indebted to
Frederic William I. He accom-
plished a great work and astounded
officials, and on December 20th, 1722, he
fesolved upon the (institution of a General
■'Directory, which should henceforward
control the whole of the financial business.
The advantages of this centralisation soon
became obvious to the taxpayers.
Especially beneficial in their effects were
the clearness and simplicity of the
judicial administration, and the certainty
of obtaining justice, which was felt by
every one of the king's subjects, no matter
what his position. The confidence of the
subject was gained by the keen super-
vision maintained by the king himself
over every official and every department.
He knew the needs of his people from
his own experience and from his frequent
interviews with representatives of the
most varied classes of society. No social
question was ever overlooked or neglected
by him. He provided for the
support of the poor, drove
gipsies and vagabonds out of
the country, opposed the en-
croachments of the privileged
citizen classes in the towns,
and freed handicrafts from
the restrictions imposed by
the guilds. What the com-
mon-sense and supervision of
one man could do for the
discovery and reform of abuses
was done by this king ; he
had no theoretical training to
guide him, but he had an un-
usual power of appreciating
economic conditions, and was
Cleves and of the Mark could be the whole world by theVapidTty and therefore able to free the pro-
routed with even less expendi- the radical nature of his reforms. ductivC forCCS of his realm
ture of force than was needed to deal with
the Belgian communes, and, finally, that
a common faith and nationality made a
secure foundation for the construction of
a uniform system of administration.
In spite of these advantages, Frederic
William I.'s early attempts to introduce
this wonderfully organised administration
were not entirely successful. He made
mistakes, and often saw his hopes frus-
trated. A separate financial department
for civil and for military necessities
proved to be an impracticable arrange-
ment. " The fact that the duties of the
officials were often coincident or conflicting
occasioned confusion, and laid unneces-
sary burdens upon the subject." The king
readily admitted this fact ; he brought the
causes of distress in the several districts
before the notice of the government
4534
from restrictions and to make them in
the highest degree serviceable.
Frederic William was not a " soldier
king," although he considered himself to
be such, as indeed he was called by the
numbers of curious visitors who arrived
from all parts to see the giant grenadiers
at Berlin and to marvel at the complicated
_ . . manoeuvres which were then
Prussia in j.- j v. x j.\.
ff ^ r practised by every arm of the
j^ . service. At any rate, he attached
™^ the highest importance to the
Prussian military forces. He knew per-
fectly well how it was that his grandfather
had been able to turn an influential
province into a European monarchy. He
recognised that the new German kingdom
must compensate for the small extent of
its territory by the strength of its arma-
ment. As he desired a large and powerful
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRUSSIA.
army, he concentrated his poUtical talents
upon questions of administration, for he
saw correctly that a great military power
can be founded only by a well-built and
carefully administered state. His father
had had scarcely 30,000 men under arms,
and even with these had been able to play
a very considerable part in the great War
of Succession. But he dared not pursue
his advantages to the uttermost, because
he was unable to cope with an alliance of
foreign powers. So early as 1725, Frederic
William was able to call out an army of
that a supply of recruits and of material
for further levies was guaranteed. Even
in the first year of his reign Frederic II.
was able to raise the number of battalions
from sixty-six to eighty-three. And
all these troops were armed on a uniform
system, admirably drilled, trained in quick-
firing, and able to be in marching order
within twelve days. When Maria Theresa
came to the throne the effective strength
of the Austrian army was 107,000 infantry
and 32,000 cavalry. But the concentra-
tion of these forces was a matter of great
PRUSSIA'S VIGOROUS KING, FREDERIC WILLIAM, VISITING A BOYS' SCHOOL
When Frederic William I. ascended the Prussian throne he immediately instituted reforms, some of which were so
radical and thorough-going as to astonish the whole world. He made himself acquainted not only with the details of
government but also with the condition of his people, visiting the homes of the Berlin citizens at dinner-time, tasting
their food and inquiring what each dish cost. In the above picture the king is seen paying a visit to a boys' school
64,000 men at shorter notice than any
other power, and his troops were better
equipped and trained than the Austrians
or the French. At his death, the standing
army consisted of 66 battalions of infantry,
114 squadrons with 18,560 horse, six com-
panies of field artillery, four companies of
garrison artillery, and 43 engineer officers.
This was the army of a great power.
By the canton regulation of May ist
and September 15th, 1733, service in the
royal regiments was made compulsory
upon the larger part of the population, so
difficulty ; the various items of equipment
were by no means complete, the commis-
sariat was hampered by lack of funds.
Hence the Austrian forces were by no
means superior to the Prussian.
However, Frederic WiUiam's attention
was not concentrated solely upon in-
creasing the numbers and improving the
efficiency of his army ; he was also able to
secure a higher social position for his
officers than was held by the officers of any
other Continental army. He was the first
ofiEicer upon the throne. In the Prussia of
4535
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
his time the officer's uniform became the
king's state dress, and gained a high
prestige from that custom. Under him
the nobihty of his territories, especially
those east of the Elbe, became permanently
connected with the army, as only by
military service could they come under
the king's special notice or lay claims to
AN s • •* sp^c^^^ distinction. Notwith-
• th^A *"" standing the roughness with
*^ n* '^^ which Frederic William was
of Prussia , , . , .
pleased to express his senti-
ments, he raised the standard of honour
among his officers, and strictly maintained
it at a high level. The officer was obliged to
obey his superior without question, but to
this obedience the condition was attached
that his " honour should remain intact."
Such a spirit was infused into the rank
and file that a soldier upon furlough
would parade his connection with the army
before his village companions with pride.
The military forces which Frederic
William left to his son were permeated
by a strong sense of their common unity.
He never himself employed the weapon
which he had forged. In 1715, when he
began the Pomeranian campaign against
Charles XII. of Sweden, in which he
gained Further Pomerania as far as the
Peene, Usedom, and Wollin, the principles
of his military organisation had not
brought forth their fruit and his great
work had hardly been begun. In later
years he succumbed to the influence of the
diplomacy peculiar to the period, with its
restless striving after alliance, its intricate
complexity of compacts and guarantees ;
and even when his claims were entirely
justified, he hesitated to throw his power
into the political balance. We may well
ask what would have been the position of
the Great Elector in Europe if he had
had money and troops at his disposal to
the same extent as his grandson.
Frederic William's last days were sad-
dened by a bitter disappointment. He had
« . . •.«.... concluded the Convention
VV^^"\u of Berlin with Austria,
Disa oiltment ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ brought
isappoin men about by the dexterity of
Count Seckendorff, on December 23rd,
1728, in the conviction that the interests of
the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg
were at one. He had fulfilled his promises,
and it was through his efforts that the
Pragmatic Sanction had been recognised
throughout the empire. But the conviction
was forced upon him that the emperor
4536
would not help him to his rights in the
matter of the Juliers inheritance, the ac-
quisition of Berg and Ravenstein. He was
unable to free himself from the network of
intrigue with which he was surrounded.
However, after long doubts and years of
devouring anxiety, he at length became
convinced of the inspiriting fact that in his
son he could behold "his future avenger."
The education of this son, the struggle
with his weaknesses, real or imaginary,
the painful cure which he imposed for the
feeble spirit, the vacillating will of this
youth, whose more refined disposition
seemed to his father to arouse wishes
incapable of accomplishment, even foolish
and immoral — the whole of this story might
form the basis for a powerful drama. It
was not a cruel amusement in which the
father indulged at the expense of a child
whom he could not understand ; it was
the execution of a duty which he felt in-
cumbent upon himself as king, which was
forced upon him by his theory and con-
ception of the monarch's position. The
tendencies to distraction, to study of
current literature and art, the desire for
_ J.. , comfort and display, which
„ * . '^* ' . . Frederic William observed
Harsh Treatment • ,i_ /^ t^ • ^n j
, . . c in the Crown Princer filled
of his Son , . .., , ' , .
him with anger, drove him
to abuse and chastise the young man
striving for independence, whom he
thought it his duty to hate, though he had
a warm love for him in the depths of his
heart. His father's degrading treatment
and the contempt which he showed towards
him before all the courtiers and before
his military suite drove Frederic to
attempt flight at the beginning of August,
1730, in his eighteenth year.
Desertion was the king's name for this
unfortunate plan, which was nothing more
than an effort for self-help. A court-
martial was appointed to determine the life
or death of the future king. In durance
vile, Frederic was obliged to await their
decision upon his future. On November
6th, 1730, he was forced to behold the
execution of his confidential friend, Hans
Hermann of Katte, and to have upon his
conscience the terrible burden of the death
of a true, courageous, and devoted man.
After the inconceivable anguish of these
events, it became possible for him to
find consolation and renewed pleasure in
life by working at the study of the
administration in the Kiistrin military
and departmental offices. The king's
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRUSSIA
expectations of him are shown by his few
words to the Seneschal von Wolden : " He
is to do exactly as I desire, to get French
and English ways out of his head, and
anything else that is not Prussian ; he is
to be loyal to his lord and father, to have a
German heart, to cease from foppery and
from French, political, damnable falsity;
he should pray diligently to God for His
grace and keep the same ever before him,
for then will God so dispose all things as
to be opportune and eternally serviceable
to him." The change in the king's
temper, the renewal of his confidence in
his son, was brought about by the latter's
straightforward repentance and confession
that he had done wrong and had led astray
the accomplice in his attempted flight.
Then followed the heavy trial of marry-
ing a wife he did not love, whom his father
had chosen for him, the Duchess Ehza-
beth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern. This
great sacrifice was made on June I2th,
1733. In the end he was able to live with
his wife, if not in complete happiness, at
, any rate without disagree-
_f ^^i*x ment. and at times with some-
, ^*?*' a" ^^ thing of sympathy. His
to his Son , ^, ° , -^ 1 J
father, too, no longer opposed
his mental development, his philosophical
and scientific studies, his interest in art;
for he recognised that Frederic was a
thoroughly efficient officer and an excellent
regimental commander. Upon his death-
bed, on May 31st, 1740, Frederic William
could say to the officers whom he had
summoned to take leave of him : " Has
not God been gracious to me, in giving me
so brave and noble a son ? " In the dreams
which came to this son, when he found him-
self opposed to the armies of Europe, he
once met his father, as Reinhold Koser
relates, at Charlottenburg. He had been
fighting against Marshal Daun. " Have I
borne myself well?" he asked. And
Frederic William replied : " Yes." " Well,
then, I am satisfied ; your approval is worth
more to me than that of the whole world."
The foundations for the rise of Prussia
to the status of a great power had been
laid by Frederic William. Frederic II.
(1740-1786) recognised the full extent of
what had been done, and put the state to
that proof of its strength which was to
make its importance manifest to Europe
at large. This importance consisted in
its capacity for carrying out the intentions
which had been declared in the foundation
of its system — namely, effective resistance
to a superior number of great powers.
However, the immediate object was the
„ . aggrandisement of Prussia in the
th^'^R'"^ f Oder district, the strengthening
p . of the central district, in
which the electorate itself had
risen, the strengthening of the Marks on
the Havel and the Spree, the securing of
Berlin by pushing forward the frontier
toward the south-east. There lay the
Silesian principality with a Protestant popu-
lation closely related to that of the Marks.
For 300 years the Hohenzollems had
been turning their eyes in this direction.
In 1523 they had bought the Duchy of
Jagerndorf ; in 1537 they had concluded
an hereditary alliance with Frederic II.,
the Duke of Liegnitz, Brieg, and Wohlau,
whereby the Great Elector in 1686 had
fondly hoped to acquire the Schwiebus
district. He had been deceived, as his
son had promised to restore this in-
significant strip of territory to Austria
after his father's death.
In 1694 Austria insisted upon her rights,
and did not spare the elector — to whom she
was afterwards obhged to concede the title
of king — the shame of this compulsory
transference. She was formally within her
rights ; but it was an act of indiscretion
which led to disastrous results. By statutes
and j udgments a state can be neither created
nor upheld. Moreover, the period had
long since passed when the affairs of the
individual, and especially personal claims
to the inheritance and amalgamation of
territories, could be of decisive importance
in such questions as these. Such claims
. . were made only as a means of
A u proposing those demands which
p. j^j a state was obliged to make by
virtue of its own necessities.
The conception of " rounding off territories
as was expedient " was bound up with the
practice of " adjustment of conflicting
interests," which had become naturalised
in every court since the time when the
European powers had bid against one
another for the Spanish inheritance.
4537
4538
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
ENDING OF
THE
OLD ORDER
V
FREDERIC THE GREAT
THE SILESIAN AND SEVEN YEARS WARS
/^N October 20th, 1740, a few months
^^ after Frederic had ascended the
throne, the male Hne of the Hapsburgs
became extinct. He had no objection to
seeing the Hapsburg territories pass un-
divided to the successor ; he was even
ready to lend the support of his army ;
but he demanded a quid pro quo, a cession
of territory, which would have enabled
his own state to carry on an independent
policy regardless of its powerful neigh-
bours. He desired the immediate cession
of Lower Silesia, and in return for this
he was ready to waive those rights
to the Juliers inheritance which his
father had so highly valued. A tech-
nical excuse was found in the proofs,
sound or otherwise, which the old pro-
fessor, Johann Peter von Ludewig, put
together in Halle in favour of the Branden-
burg rights to the four Silesian princi-
palities. The question was neither simple
. , nor straightforward, and both
re^ ene s gj^gg j^^^y j^^yg ^gH believed in
c-, . the justice of their respective
on Silesia , . -• r, . ■. u x
claims. But it was enough for
Frederic that his demands were dictated
by political necessities. If he thought of
" rights " at all, it was of the moral claims,
arising out of his help to his neighbour, to
whom his house had rendered important
services, which he had recently declared
himself ready to continue to the same or
even greater extent.
We can easily understand the king's
anxiety to turn a favourable political
situation to the best advantage. It is no
less easy to understand his resolution to
secure himself in the possession of Silesia
by force of arms, before the negotiations
with Austria had begun, because the polit-
ical talent which has conceived a plan at
once begins to calculate the means avail-
able for carrying it into execution, and
# because, of all the possible means whereby
territory may be acquired, seizure is un-
doubtedly the easiest and the most certain.
Frederic II. could not but presume that his
Time for
Prussia
invasion of Silesia on December i6th, 1740,
would almost inevitably lead to war. But
for war he was prepared if Austria should
reject his demands.
As a matter of fact, he was obliged to
employ the whole of the yet untried power
A T t- of his state to gain possession
t:«*M^* of Silesia, and therefore ex-
posed himself to the danger of
collapse and total ruin. His
action is not to be justified by the intrinsic
worth of Silesia, but by the enormous
importance attaching to the accomplish-
ment of his own will and the maintenance
of the claims which he had preferred. The
three Silesian wars are something more
than a struggle for Silesia. They are the
struggle for the success of Prussian policy —
that is, the creation of a new German great
power. Of final importance for the result
were the solidarity of the Prussian system
of government, the loyalty and capability
of its people in all the emergencies of
war and of peace, the moral strength and
military qualifications of the king. As a
leader the great Fritz not only saved his
Prussian kingdom from destruction, but
also won the hearts of the Germans.
For how long a time had there been no
warrior to rejoice the heart of every honest
German ? Not since Warsaw and Fehrbellin.
The little Savoyard had dealt hard blows,
Starhemberg had directed many a fierce
charge, splendid songs were sung of Marl-
borough, but none of these possessed the
popularity which Frederic the Great
enjoyed. What made so deep an impression
was the fact that the fate of the king
_^ - himself was wholly contingent
e cere ^pQJ^ ^^g j-esult of his battles.
of Frederic s T-f ,
p J .. The same phenomenon recurs
opu an y .^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Napoleon I.
Moreover, it was a new art of war which
Frederic had learned, an art which in
some respects developed before the eyes
of his contemporaries as he practised it.
No poet and no painter has yet escaped
the critic's censure, and the truth holds
4539
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
good of every general and strategist.
" Strategy is not a science," as Prince
Kraft of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen shows ;
" it is an art, which must be inborn."
Strength of character, power of decision,
are elements indispensable to strategical
capacity. Study may improve a man's
powers, but it cannot make him a strate-
gist. To this he must be born. Frederic
the Great was a born strategist. He cer-
tainly did not gain much advantage by
study ; he learned the art of war by
waging it. It is by no means generally
admitted that he was a master in the art
of war. His nearest relation, his brother
Prince Henry (1726-1802), has given vent
to the severest stricture upon his methods,
without consideration for
the fact that such criticisms
recoiled upon himself
Now, he is said to have
been always ready to give
battle ; again, we are told
in confidence that he was a
coward at heart. The con-
temporaries of Frederic the
Great never realised the
great strides which the art
of war made under him.
Napoleon was the first to
give him his due merit.
Frederic abandoned the
system of keeping the
enemy occupied by a number
of concurrent operations, of
inflicting a blow here and
there, of driving him out of
his positions and so gradu-
ally gaining ground. The
Prussia's
Successful
Campaign
FREDERIC THE GREAT
He succeeded his father as King of
Prussia in 1740. On the death of the
Emperor Charles VI., he claimed part of
and the Franco-Bavarian attempt in
Bohemia. The Field-Marshal Schwerin
won the battle of Mollwitz on April loth,
1741, owing chiefly to the admirable
manoeuvring powers and the excellent
firing drill of the Prussian infantry. At
Czeslau, on May 17th, 1742,
it was the king's generalship
which brought the campaign
to a favourable issue. He it
was who decided upon the timely retreat
from Moravia; he personally carried out
the opportune junction with the younger
Leopold (Maximilian H.) of Anhalt-Dessau.
The battle was decided by the invincible
steadiness of the Prussian battalions.
Surprising had been the rapidity of the
king's attack upon Silesia,
and no less surprising to the
allies was the one-sided
Peace of Breslau, in which,
for the first time, the pos-
session of Silesia was pro-
mised to him. In calm
confidence as to his own
strength, he paid no atten-
tion to the irritation and the
reproaches 'of France. He
knew that his co-operation
in the general war would
meet with glad approval
should he find himself again
obliged to take up arms.
The conventions which
Maria Theresa concluded
with Great Britain, Saxony,
and Sardinia aroused his
anxiety for Silesia. On
June 5th, 1744, he con-
destruction of his enemy's Siiesia, and, invading that province, cluded a frcsh alliance with
~„;„ iU^ ^u: — J. defeated the Austnans. He died m 1786. t? j • j„j t>„
main power was the object
which he invariably kept in view.
"Throughout the Seven Years War," says
Bernhardi, " in every one of the battles
which he planned — battles far more decisive
than any of Napoleon's combinations — the
object in view was the uttei destruction
of the hostile army. Such especially was
the case at Prague and at
Leuthen, where the plan of
destruction proved entirely
successful. So, also, at Zorndorf,
at Kunersdorf, and even at Kolin ; to a
less extent at Rossbach, where it was
necessary to take immediate advantage
of a sudden favourable opportunity,
produced by instantaneous decision."
The first Silesian war coincided with
the Bavarian invasion of Upper Austria
4540
Frederic's
Genius
in Battle
France, and invaded Bo-
hemia, this being the second Silesian war.
In the autumn he was obliged to evacuate
the country. However, by a brilliant
victory at Hohenfriedeberg on June 4th,
1745, he shattered the hopes of his destruc-
tion which had been entertained by the
quadruple alliance — Austria, Saxony, Great
Britain, and Holland. The decision and
the simplicity of his arrangements had
revived the confidence of the army in the
leader whom they did not yet understand.
He was able quietly to observe the
advance of the Austrian and Saxon armies
over the mountains, until he made a night
march from Schweidnitz and attacked the
enemy before they could concentrate.
The Saxons were overthrown at Striegau
before the Austrians could get into line
FREDERIC THE GREAT
of battle. They began the fight when they
had completed this operation, with their
customary loyalty and bravery, but could
not resist the fury of the Prussian cavalry ;
the dragoon regiment " Bayreuth," under
Gessler, made a wonderful charge. The
victories of Sooron September 30th, and of
Kesselsdorf on December 15th, so decisively
proved the superiority of the Prussian
arms that the empress was again forced
the compact concluded between Austria,
France, and Russia — the compact of Ver-
sailles, signed at Jouy, on May ist, 1756 —
aimed at war with Prussia under any
conditions, so that Frederic was forced
to anticipate the attack of an overwhelm-
ing force, or whether Frederic made the
existence of an alliance which in no way
threatened himself an excuse for carrying
out the conquest of Saxony, upon which
THE YOUTHFUL FREDERIC THE GREAT AT RHEINSBERG
From the painting by W, Amberg
to yield Silesia in the Peace of Dresden
on December 25th, 1745. Frederic did
not attempt to disturb the position of the
Austrian House in Germany, and recog-
nised the imperial dignity of Francis I.,
the husband of Maria Theresa.
Even till recent times the most divergent
opinions have been held upon the outbreak
of the Seven Years War, which Prussia
began by invading Saxony on August
28th, 1756. The question is, whether
he had determined long before. On J anuary
i6th, 1756, the compact of Westminster
was concluded at Whitehall between
Prussia and Great Britain, which it was
hoped would bring about a rapproche-
ment with Russia, at that time in alliance
with England. Even Frederic could
hardly have foreseen that the only result
of the compact would be to arouse Eliza-
beth's dissent and to cause the with-
drawal of Russia. Nor would anyone
4541
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
maintain that if Frederic had not himself
anticipated the outbreak of hostiUties,
Prussia would have been left in undis-
turbed possession of Silesia, and that the
policy of Count Kaunitz would have made
it unnecessary for him to defend his ac-
quisition. It was impossible to pass by
this short cut through the protracted
operation of defining the internal relations
of Germany; and whether
How Fredenc ^-^^ ^^^ ^^^ entered earlier
Impressed (he ^^ j^^^^ -^ ^ question of
German Nation -^ ,
very mmor importance.
Entirely independent of this question
is the deep impression made by Frederic's
personality upon the German nation.
That impression is founded upon • the
fact that the great king and his loyal
people fought for seven years against- the
five greatest powers, who in mere -point
of numbers were far superior to them^^-
Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and the
German Empire — that they siirviveci the
bitter struggle, and were not crushed 'to
the earth. It does not detract from the
brilliance of Frederic's splendid resist-
ance to the circle of foes that it would
not have been possible without the gold
which Britain provided, together with
the fact that after 1757 his Anglo-
Hanoverian allies absorbed the attention
of France — an aspect of the question
dealt with in another chapter. Whether
Prussia had only herself to thank for
the war, or whether it was forced upon
her by her enemies, the fact remains that
it was a heroic fight of the weak against
the strong, which excites admiration and
has caught the fancy and imagination of
those contemporary with it. "A true
instinct guided the German people even
in paths where the way could not be
clearly seen or the landmarks noted ;
that instinct taught them that upon this
struggle their all was staked, that once
again the past, as in the Thirty Years
War, was summoning all her strength to
destroy the future of Germany. Every
mind which strove to cast away the narrow
trammels of German intellectual life at that
_ time, and to rise to a future
"th S°d"* of greater freedom, splendour,
°jp^ .* * and beauty, ranged itself upon
Frederic's side — the youthful
Goethe and the older Lessing, who had
now risen to the full height of his powers."
At the outset the war was brilliantly
successful. Saxony was occupied and its
army forced to surrender at Pirna,
on October i6th, 1756. By the victory of
A POPULAR KING: FREDERIC THE GREAT RECEIVING HIS PEOPLE'S HOMAGE
From the painting by Adolph Meniel
4542
FREDERIC THE GREAT
Lobositz on October ist, Frederic opened
the way for his march into Bohemia. On
May 6th, 1757, he defeated the Austrians
at Prague, ia which battle Schwerin was
killed, advanced to besiege he town,
and then turned upon the army which was
advancing to its relief under Daun.
At Kolin, on June iSth, 1757, his impetu-
ous advance received its first check. The
victory of the Austrians is to be ascribed
rather to the bravery and endurance of
their troops, es-
pecially those of
Saxony, than to
the combinations
of the general,
and principally
to the fact that
Prince Maurice
of Anhalt - Des-
sau misunder-
stood an import-
ant order from
the king, and
made a move-
ment which
thwarted his
plans. This vic-
tory speedily
freed Bohemia
from the enemy.
After the defeat,
which hadutterly
crushed the spirit
of his generals,
Frederic alone
retained his pers-
picacity and pre-
sence of mind.
He saw that
he must give up
the bold offen-
sive movements
which he had
hitherto carried
out, and act upon
a general method
of defence, to be maintained by offensive
measures upon occasion. However, he
did not give up the advantages to be
gained by keeping his troops in the enemy's
country until the last moment, and re-
mained in Bohemia until he was forced
to retreat upon the Lausitz by the advance
of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine
and Bar upon Silesia.
Frederic left his brother Augustus
William^the father of Frederic William
II. — in charge of the defence of the line
FREDERIC THE GREAT
From the painting
of the Oder, and having successfully
induced the Austrians to give battle at
Zittau, he crossed the Elbe at Dresden,
in order to repulse Soubise, who had
joined the imperial army. Their advance
upon the Elbe was an important move-
ment, in view of the fact that the Anglo-
Hanoverian army, under the Duke of
Cumberland, had been defeated by a
French army under Marshal Richelieu,
and had been forced to capitulate at
Closter Seven, on
September 8th.
Frederic, how-
ever, had already
determined to act
on the defensive
only against the
French, and to
attack the Aus-
trians, who were
making rapid
progress in
Silesia, when Sou-
bise gave him, on
November5th,
1757, the oppor-
tunity of fighting
the battle of Ross-
bach, one of the
most welcome
victories ever
gained by a Ger-
man army. Fred-
eric's intellectual
superiority made
it an easy task
for him to cut
through the slow
envelopingmove-
ment of his op-
ponents by a
single adroit
manoeuvre. The
brilliant charge
of the Seydlitz
cavalry then
routed and put to flight the 43,000 men
who were attacking 8,500 Prussians. The
French fled to Hesse and Frankfort, the
imperial troops to Franconia. The Anglo-
Hanoverian army, now placed under the
command of Ferdinand of Brunswick, held
the French attacks in check on the west
through the remainder of the war.
But the danger of losing the whole of
Silesia was now extreme, and a movement
was accordingly made 'in that direction.
A brilliant raid of the Austrian hussars
4543
ON THE
by Adolpli Mer
BATTLEFIELD
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
to Berlin had no real military importance,
but it showed with appalling clearness
how far the enemy's lines had been pushed
toward the capital. Two months later
the army commanded by the Duke of
Brunswick-Bevern had been several times
defeated by the Austrians
and driven back to the
walls of Breslau. On
November 22nd, 1757,
they were there attacked
in their entrenchments
and forced to retreat from
the right bank of the
Oder. As the king was
hastening from Saxony
to Silesia, he was met
by messages of misfortune
upon misfortune ; first,
the loss of the battle,
and two days later the
capture of the Duke of
Bevern and the surrender
of Breslau. without
attempt at resistance.
On December 2nd
Frederic joined the re-
mains of the defeated
army. His forces now
22,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, 96 light
battalion guns, and 71 pieces of heavier
artillery. The only possibility of saving
Silesia lay in striking a decisive blow.
Who before Fred-
eric would have
dared the ven-
ture ? However,
his mind was
m^de up, even
before the Aus-
trians had deter-
mined to march
against him.
Charles of Lor-
raine had urged
the policy of
attack, in spite leaders in the seven years
FREDERIC the GREAT IN OLD AGE
amounted to
and Bavarian contingents. On December
5th, 1757, the king saw from Heidau
the long battle line of his enemy, ex-
tended over the space of a mile. Before
their eyes Frederic concentrated almost
his entire force against the Austrian
left wing, after his own
left had made a successful
attack upon the Saxon
advanced guard, which
was not pushed home.
Daun and the Duke
Charles did not perceive
Frederic's plan when their
left wing was vigorously
attacked and thrown back
upon the centre at Leu-
then. When the duke
brought up reinforcements
from the right wing, the
cavalry were broken by
the charge of sixty Prus-
sian squadrons who had
been standing undercover.
There was no protection
for the centre, and an utter
rout was the consequence.
The Austrians lost 21,000
men (12,000 of them prisoners), 116 guns,
51 standards, and 4,000 waggons. The
price paid by the Prussians for the victory
was 6,300 men and 200 officers.
The result of the victory of Leuthen,
the most com-
plete and remark-
able which Fred-
eric ever gained,
was equalled only
by the skill with
which it had been
won. The king
had directed his
blow against the
hostile power so
as to drive it from
the Bohemian
line of retreat in
of the advice of EmstGideonBaronvonLaudon, whose portrait is first given, entered a north - easterly
+ 1->o /-anfimic the Russian service in 1732, but later exchanged into that of Austria. rliro^fir.n onrl +Vio
tne cautious Hg displayed great talent in the Seven Years War, and also as Q" eCtlOU, aUQ tnc
Daun, who would field-marshal in the war against the Turks. Hans Joachim von defeat COUSC-
have preferred to Zleten also distinguished himself greatly in the Seven Years War. quentlvproduccd
await the king in security at Breslau.
Charles seems not to have desired to
bring about a battle, but to have been
convinced that Frederic would be forced
to evacuate Silesia forthwith, when he
found the vastly superior Austrian army
in motion against him, consisting of
90,000 men, including the Wiirtemberg
4544
entire confusion. Charles of Lorraine
brought only 35,000 men back with him
across the mountains. Eighteen thousand
fled to Breslau, where they were forced to
surrender on December 21st. The whole
of Silesia was evacuated as far as
Schweidnitz. The action of a leader of
genius, who addresses himself to the heaviest
FREDERIC THE GREAT
tasks, and at the. decisive moment calmly
chooses the means calculated to produce the
required result, was never more brilliantly
displayed. The victor of Leuthen was hence-
forward indestructible. The campaign of
1757 is typical of the whole war. The king
acted prematurely in supposing that the re-
treat of the Russians from Prussia implied
their retirement from the alliance with
Austria. By calling up the division of the
old Field-Marshal Hans von
Lehwald he made the kingdom
the theatre of the war from
that time onward. In spite
of the redoubled attack of
Seydlitz, he was unable to
gain a victory at Zorndorf on
August 25th,
1758. Until
the autumn of
1760 Frederic
was able to
prevent the junc-
tion of the armies
of Laudon and
Daun. The amal-
gamation of these
forces would have
been his inevitable
ruin. On August
15th he succeeded
in checking Lau-
don at Liegnitz
On November 3rd fortune smiled upon
him at Torgau, where Zieten snatched
a victory from the Austrians which they
had thought within their grasp, and forced
Daun to retreat upon Dresden. In 1761,
ill-feeling between Laudon and Alexander
Borrissovitch Buturlin saved him from
being overwhelmed by 130,000 Austrians
and Russians at Bunzelwitz, from August
i8th to September 9th. There was no other
decisive battle. The war ran its course
until the death of the Empress Elizabeth,
on January 5th, 1762, and the definite
retirement of Russia brought its con-
clusion near, in spite of the defection of
England under Bute's administration.
The Peace of Hubertsburg on February
15th, 1763, caused no change in the
distribution of territory in Germany.
However, it secured Prussia for the third
time in possession of Silesia, and so'
paid her the price for which she had
spent her power. The imperial throne
was secured to the house of Maria
Theresa and with the assent of Branden-
burg her son was elected at Frankfort,
March 27th, 1764.
Frederic, King of Prussia, has become a
German national hero. He did not appre-
ciate the future open to the nation which
sang his praises ; but he made his will to
be law from the Baltic to the Alps.
Hans v. Zwiedineck-Sudenhorst
THE STANDARD-BEARER OF THE PRUSSIAN ARMY
289
4545
GREAT ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS FROM DEFOE TO GOLDSMITH
4546
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
VI
GREAT BRITAIN ?t!? AMERICAN WAR
THE REVOLUTION IN NATIONAL INDUSTRY
THE primary purpose which George III.
set before himself on ascending the
throne of Great Britain — a nation at last
united and loyal throughout to the
reigning dynasty — was to re-assert the
personal power of the monarch. The old
scheme of meeting the claim of parlia-
mentary rights with the claims of royal
prerogative was dead and done with. The
new scheme was for the Crown to acquire in
Parliament itself the ascendancy which the
exigencies of the Revolution had bestowed
upon the dominant Whig families. To
that end the two great obstacles were the
personality of Pitt and the remains of
solidarity among the Whigs. Out of a
further disintegration, the Crown might
hope to extract a dominant party of its own.
With the overthrow of Pitt, the king had
won the first battle for ascendancy. But
it was easier to break and disunite the
dominant party than to find another which
. should be at once submis-
n '•»»• * '*" J sive to the royal views and
Drifting towards . j • IIl tt x
-, . . respected m the House of
aCrisis „^ ^ ,
Commons. Several experi-
ments of an unsuccessful and sometimes
humiliating character had to be made
before George HI. discovered a Prime
Minister after his own heart. The great
parties of the past, those which had opposed
and supported the programme of the Revo-
lution, no longer existed. In their place
stood groups of politicians, united by
attachment to a great name or fortune,
returned to Parliament, as a rule, by the
patrons whom they followed, and more
concerned to secure a place or a pension
than to study the situation and needs of the
nation. The process which led to the victory
of the king caused England, between
ephemeral Ministries and a legislature
partly corrupt, partly apathetic, to drift
towards a crisis compared with which the
f last two wars were trivial. Lately the
arbiter of Europe, she was to be exposed
to humiliation at the hands of her own
colonies. The causes of friction between the
mother country and the American colonies
can be traced back to the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The different settle-
ments, which extended from Massachusetts
in the north to Georgia in the south, had
been founded at different times and by
_ . very various types of men.
F° tK Some had emigrated to escape
Old C from religious persecution ;
°'"* *^ some had left England burdened
with debt or the sense of failure in the
profession which they had originally
chosen ; others, again, were the younger
sons of landed families ; others felt the
desire for a life comparatively untram-
melled by convention. Not a few were
natives of Ireland or Scotland, whom the
real or fancied wrongs of their native
land had driven into exile.
But all the colonists, whether patriotic
or the reverse, whether they had
prospered or failed, whether they had
been well or ill treated in their mother
country, were moderately well contented
to remain dependent on the British
Crown so long as they were allowed to
manage their own affairs through elected
legislatures. In all the colonies, whether
proprietary or formed by independent
enterprise, there was a passionate love of
'^freedom ; all had imitated to some extent
the forms of English government, had
preserved the English common law, and
had Gherished the traditional English
mistrust of the executive. In each colony
the head of the executive was a governor
appointed by the Crown or the proprietor ;
and the acts of this official were watched
I . withthemore jealousy because
" ^"'^ *.'*. he represented an authority
p .. extraneous to the colonies
themselves. Hardly less acute
was the jealousy which each colony
entertained for its neighbours. It was
well nigh impossible to secure concerted
action between the colonial Parliaments.
Their members could hardly conceive of
co-operation except as entailing loss of
4547
THREE EMINENT STATESMEN IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.
The Marquess of Rockingham, as leader of the Whig Opposition, was called upon to form a Ministry in 1765. He
resigned in the following year ; in 1782 he again became Premier and died the same year. Burlce's introduction to
parliamentary life began in 1765 when he became private secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham, and his eloquence
soon won for him a high position in the Whig Party. During the American War Charles James Fox strongly opposed
the coercive measures of government ; when Pitt came into power a long contest between these two statesmen began.
independence. This was the more un-
fortunate because in the French power
they had a common enemy. The attempt
to connect Louisiana with the Great Lakes
had been an equal menace to all. Nor
could the danger have been averted but
for English help. The colonies contributed
less than was expected to the work of
conquering Canada. Now
that Canada had become a
British dependency they were
inclined to think of the
danger as finally removed ;
they resented the policy of
the home government in
maintaining a permanent
military force for their pro-
tection, and they were dis-
inclined to find money for
this object. They considered
that England derived from
the Navigation Laws sufficient
advantages to reimburse her
for whatever expense she had
incurred on their behalf ; and "'" P°"",<=*i ^/'■;«'' ^^^^": ^^«"
., . , ,, '. , he was elected for Aylesbury m
they resented even that de-
The prophecy was soon fulfilled. Gren-
ville, one of the Ministers whom George IIL
endeavoured to train in his own views,
resolved that the colonists ought to bear
a part of the burden represented by the
national debt. Finding that a more
rigorous collection of the customs at
colonial ports would not yield the sum
that he thought proper, and
having utterly failed to ob-
tain the promise of adequate
votes from the colonial legis-
latures, he persuaded the
English Parliament, in 1765,
to impose a stamp tax in the
colonies. There could be
no doubt that Parliament
possessed the legal right to
do this. But the colonists
treated the tax as the
opponents of Charles L had
treated ship money. They
denied the legality of the
Stamp Act, and roused in
the mother country a feeling
1757 as a supporterTf'pTtt'He of irritation which threatened
JOHN WILKES
gree of control to which they metwith varied fortunes during his to ovcrcomc all prudential
had been subjected from their Hfe, which came to an end in 1797. motives. The successors of
first foundation. " England," said Ver-
gennes, after the conquest of Canada,
" will soon repent of having removed the
^Jmly check which kept her colonies in
j,awe. She will call on them to contribute
towards supporting the burden they have
helped to bring upon her, and they will
answer by shaking off all dependence."
4548
Grenville's Ministry, the Rockingham
Whigs, saved the situation by repealing
the obnoxious Act before the quarrel had
become irreparable. But this concession,
in 1766, was accompanied by a Declaratory
Act asserting the abstract right of Parlia-
ment to levy taxes on the colonies as a
formal concession on the part of the
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN WAR
Ministry to offended national pride. No
practical consequences were intended to
follow from the declaration of right. But
the next Cabinet had the temerity, in 1767,
to impose a duty upon tea and
other goods imported into
America. It is one of the
ironies of history that Chat-
ham, the most vigorous
defender of colonial inde-
pendence, was the nominal
chief of this administration.
But he was incapacitated by
illness, and remained uncon-
scious of the hare-brained
scheme until the mischief had
been done. It is true that '
the right of England to
^;o + ;r,^+ DEFENDER
distmct .,, :__
troops-.
flushed with their recent victory. New
protests poured in ; there were squabbles
with governors and affrays with British
OF GIBRALTAR
the Continental
became necessary for the
Government of George III,
to choose between submission
and the use of force. The
government had now fallen
completely into" the king's
hands. During a series of
weak administrations he had
kept control of patronage,
and by systematic corruption
had organised in the House of
Commons a party of " King's
Friends," upon whom he
could rely for unwavering
support. It made Httle differ-
ence to him that Parliament
impose customs, as v^.oLm^L .,^
, ' . J .' i_ J , After serving m mc >.,u>ii.uiciii.ai
irom excise duties, had been wars, George Augustus Elliott was, had ceased to represent the
admitted in the past, and j^,t'Zr',''w1ll?h"he'he?oTcX°de°en''de'S nation, and that Middlesex,
that the new taxes were a against the French and Spanish, ^^e most important of the
flea-bite as compared with the restrictions
of the Navigation Laws, which the colonists
endured with patience. But American
suspicions had been aroused by the
Declaratory Act, and the colonists were
free constituencies, had twice returned to
Parliament a notorious profligate, John
Wilkes, for no better reason than to attest
their satisfaction at the virulent attacks
which his newspaper delivered on the
4^^i^^^mm
THE LAST SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
The scene represented in this picture took place in the old House of Lords— the Painted Chamber — on April 7th, 1778.
The Earl of Chatham, then in his seventieth year, had spoken against the recognition of the independence of the
American colonies, and when attempting to rise in order to reply to some criticism of his speech, he fell back in a.
convulsive fit and was carried from the House. He died about a month later and was buriad in Westminster Abbey.
From the painting by J. S. Copley, R. A., in the National Callecy
4549
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Government. Still less was the king
mo^lS by the satire and argument of
the constitutionalists. The letters of
Junius, an anonymous writer of no
common order, exposed every member and
measure of the Ministry to ridicule.
Edmund Burke published one of the most
famous pamphlets, the " Thoughts on the
Present Discontents," to prove that the
new system of personal government was
fatal to liberty and political morality. To
such attacks the king responded by bring-
ing into power Lord North, a man whose
The colonies were now in arms for the
principle that without representation there
should be no taxation. In 1773 a Boston
mob destroyed the cargoes of English tea
which were lying in their harbour. An
attempt to make the whole community of
Boston responsible led to the summoning
of an inter-colonial congress ; the cause of
Boston became that of all the colonies in
1774. North now began to think of retreat,
but it was too late. In 1775 a new congress
assembled to prepare for armed resistance ;
it was immediately followed by an attack
FATAL RIOTS IN LONDON STREETS :,, THE GORDON. RISING IN THE YEAR 1780
The passing of a Bill in 1 778 for the relief of Roman Catholics from certain disabilities gave rise to riots in the city of
^ondon. Headed by Lord George Gordon, 50,000 persons marched to the H'dtlse- of Commons.on June 2nd, 1 780, to
present a petition for its repeal. For five days dreadful riots took place, many Catholic chapels add houses being destroyed.
The troops were called out, the above picture showing the Honourable Artillery ^Cofljlpany, under Sir'' Barnard
Turner, in Broad Street. No fewer than 210 of the rioters were killed, 248 wounded, ISo^arrested, and 21' executed.
From the painting by Wheatley
genuine abilities, good humour, and polit-
ical experience were marred by a blind
deference to the wishes of his master. The
king and North might have assuaged the
popular indignation against the colonies.
They chose rather to inflame the mutual
ill-will of the disputants. At first they
preserved the appearance of conciliation
by repealing all the new duties except that
on tea. It did not make any practical
difference whether they excepted one tax
or left the whole number still in force.
4550
on British troops at' Lexington^rby the
siege of Boston, and by the repulse of the
besieging colonial army from their position
on Bunker's Hill. From these beginnings
blazed up the War of Independence (1775-
1781), of which the events will be'^related
in a later volume. It was a struggle in
every way discouraging to England
and damaging to the national prestige.
The British armies, separated by enormous
tracts of sea from supplies and reinforce-
ments, had a hopeless task before them ;
4551
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
for although the colonies decided to secede
only by the barest of majorities, the
loyalists had little power to help the royal
forces, and there was no one centre of the
rebellion at which a blow could be delivered
with fatal effect. But, allowing for these
disadvantages, the generals of George III.
made a poor use of their resources ; and
. , , the war revealed a portentous
c. , declme m the emciency of the
for Freedom "^7;^ ^^ "^^y i^^f «^ be said
that the war was lost at sea,
for, when France joined the cause of the
colonies, in 1778, her fleet patrolled the
coast of North America with such success
that no adequate communications could
be maintained with England, and the
West Indies were reconquered one by one.
Moderate statesmen urged that measures
of conciliation should be tried, Burke
arguing that no taxes cou'ld ever com-
pare with the profits of the colonial
trade, and that expediency must be con-
sidered before questions of abstract right
and justice, Chatham taking the line that
America had been treated like a slave,
and must be compensated with complete
acknowledgment of her freedom from
control. Had Chatham been recalled to
power this generous attitude and the
glamour of his reputation might have
prevented the final separation. But he
died in 1778, after delivering in the House
of Lords a last impassioned protest against
the royal policy ; and North remained in
power till the end of the war.
The struggle, so far as America was con-
cerned, closed with the surrender of Corn-
wallis at Yorktown in 1781. The national
pride was slightly soothed by the subse-
quent successes which Rodney gained at
sea over the French, and by Elliott's heroic
defence of Gibraltar against the Spaniards
in 1782. But it was obvious that the prize
for which Great Britain had fought must
be abandoned ; the more obvious because
Ireland, after well nigh a century of Pro-
„ . testant ascendancy and subjec-
_ * ''* * tion to the British Parliament,
St&tes . • ui J
. . . was visibly verging upon armed
rebellion. The Rockingham
Whigs, who had done their best to prevent
the war, were called into power that they
might bring it to an end. The negotia-
tions which they opened were terminated
by the death of their leader, the most
honourable and consistent party leader of
the eighteenth century ; but in 1783 the
Treaty of Versailles, with France and with
4552
the colonies, was at length concluded. The
colonies, under the title of the United
States, were recognised as independent.
France and Britain made a mutual re-
storation of conquests, except that France
retained Tobago and Senegal. Spain was
pacified with Minorca and Florida ; but
Gibraltar, of which the vast strategic
importance was now fully recognised,
remained in British hands.
The Tr,ea.ty of, ;P,cy"is left Great Britain
with an enii^ire which was sadly mutilated,
but still consid;'iahlc. It included in the
western hemisphere not only Canada, but
also Jamaica and some of the richer islands
of the West Indies. In the East the
governorships of Clive and Warren Hast-
ings had led to an expansion of the terri-
tories governed by the East India Com-
pany. The Calcutta settlement now formed
the capital of an immense province which
took in the whole valley of the Ganges as
far as Benares ; further to the south the
coast district of the Circars had been
annexed, and in the extreme south of the
peninsula, where the territory actually
under British rule was small, the British
name was respected far and
wide. The Regulating Act of
Founders
of the Indian
J, . 1773 had brought the company
"^^ ' under the control of the state,
and the appointment of the Governor-
General now rested with Parliament ; the
territories of the company might therefore
be considered as national dependencies.
The growing importance of India was
revealed by the conflict which arose be-
tween George III. and the Whigs in 1783
on the subject of the Indian government.
An India Bill, to place, for the time
being, the patronage of political appoint-
ments in the hands of a parliamentary
committee, gave rise to a feud between
the king and the coalition Ministry of
Fox and North which ended in the defeat
and retirement of the Ministers. But
Clive and Hastings were not yet recognised
as the founders of an empire. Both had
cause to complain of national ingratitude.
Clive died by his own hand, in consequence
of an. implicit censure by the House of
Commons on his Indian administration.
Warren Hastings, who retired from office
in 1785, was impeached for malversation
on the evidence of private enemies, and
the trial dragged on for years before it
ended in his acquittal. Only recently
have the characters of these great men been
vindicated from the aspersions which
A GROUP OF HAPPY PRINCESSES : THREE OF THE CHILDREN OF GEORGE III.
This picture, reproduced from the painting: by J. S. Copley, R.A., in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, shows
three pretty princesses, the children of King George III. The figure with the uplifted tambourine is the Princess Mary,
who afterwards became the Duchess of Gloucester. The Princess Sophia is behind the carriage, while the child in the
carriage is the Princess Amelia. She was the favourite child of the king, and it is said that her death, when she
was only twenty-seven years old, hastened, if it did not actually cause, the terrible malady which afiSicted him.
4553
THREE FAMOUS INVENTORS OF THE GEORGIAN PERIOD
Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom and other labour-saving: machines, was rector of Goadby-Marwood,
in Leicestershire, and received a grant of 850,000 from Government in recognition of his services to industry^and invention.
Richard Arkwright invented cotton-spinning machines and established a large factory in Derbyshire dnven with water
power ; while James Watt, by his discoveries in connection with the properties of steam, benefited the human race.
their contemporaries were too ready, in the
heat of party conflict, to accept as proved.
In 1783 all Britain's colonial possessions
seemed unimportant in comparison with
those lost. Adam Smith, whose great
work on
Prosperity
of English
Commerce
the " Wealth of Nations"
appeared during the American
war, was of the opinion that
the national prosperity had
been gravely compromised by
the mistake of developing trade with
America to the neglect of all other markets.
The monopoly secured by the Navigation
Acts and similar restrictive measures
had indeed produced an unhealthy infla-
tion of particular industries. Yet English
commerce survived the shock of the
American secession and continued to
prosper. The country had, in fact, already
developed its manufactures to such a
point that it was industrially in advance
of all its Continental rivals.
This development was of a compara-
tively recent* date. The era of the great
mechanical inventors began only in the
reign of George II. Kay, the inventor of
the flying shuttle, which effected a revo-
lution in the weaving industry in 1738,
was the pioneer of the new movement.
He made it possible to extend the trade
in manufactured woollens, and to open
that in cotton stuffs. Soon after 1760
there came in close succession a number
of further improvements. Hargreaves,
a native of the Lancashire town of Black-
burn, was led by the need for a more
regular and abundant supply of yarn to
4554
devise means of spinning by machinery.
In 1767 he produced the jenny, which
enabled one weaver to drive and super-
intend a number of spindles simultane-
ously. The neighbours of Hargreaves,
seeing their profits threatened, broke the
machine to pieces, and the hapless in-
ventor was all but killed in the riot.
His machine was, however, patented
in 1770. In 1769, Arkwright, also a
native of Lancashire and a barber by
trade, produced a roller machine for
spinning by water power. He, too,
had to contend against ' local perse-
cution, and his factory was burnt to
the ground ; but he rebuilt it, and lived
to double the prosperity of his native
place. In 1779 Samuel Crompton, a poor
weaver, invented the spinning-mule, so
called because it combined the principles
of Hargreaves' jenny and Arkwright's
water-plane. Finally, in 1785, Cartwright,
a clerg3'man, extended the use of
machinery to the process of weaving, and
produced a • power-loom.
But hitherto the only source of mechan-
ical power had been the water-wheel,
«r ... ^ . except that steam was used for
Watt s Great • -^ -, ,,t , .
_. . mining-pumps, J ames Watt
iscovcry o (discovered, in 1769, the means
steam Power j- . . • / v • ,-
of settmg a wheel in motion
by a steam-driven piston ; and a form of
steam power was thus produced which could
easily be applied to every sort of machine.
The introduction of machinery meant a
vast extension of the textile trades and the
growth 01 urban manufacturing centres.
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN WAR
The invention of the steam-engine decided
that the north of England, where coal
was chiefly to be found, should become
the headquarters of the new industrialism ;
and the north thus began to assume that
pre-eminent position which hitherto be-
longed to the south-eastern counties
and the weaving districts of the south-
west. New towns sprang up, and the
demand for a readjustment of parliamen-
tary representation naturally increased.
•But this was not the only change. The
introduction of machinery bore hardly
upon the less intelligent of the hand
labourers. It ruined many old centres
of industry. It elevated the skilful and
quick-witted, but it made the struggle for
existence harder and swelled the ranks
of the proletariat. It also complicated
the task of government, both in the
spheres of foreign and domestic policy.
The necessity of protecting industrial
interests became more obvious than ever ;
the danger of social agitation and revo-
lution was increased by the growth of
town populations imperfectly educated
and civilised, living under institutions
which had been framed for the government
of small communities and were inadequate
to control disorderly multitudes.
The tale of industrial development is
told by the statistics of English exports.
In 1793 their value was Sioo,ooo,ooo ;
in 1800 it had almost doubled; in 1815
it exceeded $250,000,000. This expansion
took place in the midst of great wars,
when England was fighting hard for the
mastery of the seas, and for a part of the
period under consideration, the normal
development of trade was impeded b)»
Th G th *^^ Continental system of
f N t°^ 1 Napoleon. The growth of
p . national prosperity was not
r sp ri y gj^^jj-gjy dependent upon new
manufactures. In agriculture also there
were great improvements. The enclosures
which had been made in the sixteenth
century for the sake of sheep-farming had
done much to destroy the old open-field
system of cultivation. The introduction
of " convertible husbandry " furnished
another incentive for the creation of
compact holdings in place of those com-
posed of scattered strips in the common
fields. But the open-field system still
dominated more than half of England.
JAMES WATT AS A BOY : DISCOVERING THE CONDENSATION OF STEAM
That the child is father of the man was wonderfully demonstrated in the case of James Watt, the discoverer of the
condensation of steam. As a boy he would sit by the fire watching the steam as it issued from the kettle, and wondering
whether this force could be put to any practical purpose. In the above picture he is shown holding a spoon to the mouth
of the kettle on the table in order that he may test the strength of the steam. In later years Watt became a great
inventor, his discoveries in connection with the properties of steam completely revolutionising the methods of travelling.
From the painting by Marcus Stone, R.A., by permission of Messrs. Craves & Son
4555
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
It was the growth of population con-
sequent upon industrial changes which
now accelerated the change from the
mediaeval to the modern methods of
agriculture. The native farmer was pro-
tected against foreign competition by an
import duty on corn. He was encouraged
to produce for exportation by a bounty
_ . system. And these artificial
u'd^'^N inducements, although taxing
M**.!. J the community for the benefit
Methods r 1 J- J V, A
« of a class, did much to
promote a more scientific agriculture.
About 1730 the experirrhents of Lord
Townsend led to the use of an improved
and more elaborate rotation of crops. The
breeding of stock was raised to a fine art
by the Leicestershire grazier, Bakewell.
An enormous number of private Acts
of Parliament were passed to sanction
the enclosure of particular localities. The
process was not completed before the
middle of the nineteenth century, but
upwards of a thousand Acts of this descrip-
tion were passed between 1777 and 1800.
The increased profits of farming under
the new methods went chiefly to those who
had the necessary capital for effecting
extensive improvements ; and one conse-
quence of the agricultural revolution was
the disappearance of the yeoman farmer.
Undoubtedly the growth of great estates
made for increased production of wealth ;
but with the yeoman vanished one of the
sturdiest and most valuable elements of
the population, which was ill replaced by
the class of tenant farmers.
Before this work enters on the new era
of European history opened by the French
Revolution, a brief survey of the literary
development of the eighteenth century
becomes necessary. It is not surprising
that this period — an age of great wars,
political tension, and economic develop-
ment— should produce a literature which
was polemical and often political in
character, or that with the old religious ideas
and the old social system the
e ugus an characteristic qualities of
Age of English . ^.v. 1 ^
-7 seventeenth-century poetry
and prose should evaporate
away. Poetry, in fact, almost ceased to
exist, for Alexander Pope (1688-1744),
though choosing verse for the medium of his
utterances, was by nature a critic, satirist,
and translator, a poet at moments only,
and, as it were, by accident. He is the
most characteristic figure of the so-called
Augustan age of English literature. All
4556
his best work is satirical. The " Rape of
the Lock " (1714) is a personal satire on
feminine foibles, the " Dunciad " (1728-
1743) a savage attack upon the professional
writers of Grub Street, from whose malice
Pope had received pin-pricks which he
was incapable of forgiving. The " Essay
on Man " (1734), though professedly a
philosophical poem, is redeemed from
oblivion chiefly by the passages in which
Pope analyses the failings of his con-
temporaries. Avowedly the pupil of
Dryden, he shows the influence of his
master, both in matter and style. But
he is less political than Dryden, and far
surpasses his model in the management
of their favourite metre, the heroic couplet.
A metre less fitted for poetry than
this, of which the whole effect depends
upon antithesis, neatness of phrase,
and compression of meaning, can hardly
be imagined. But for the expression
of a sarcastic common-sense, for the
scornful analysis of character, it is un-
rivalled. Pope's use of the heroic couplet
entitles him to rank among the great
masters of literary form. There is much
^ _ in common between Pope and
,1, * , Swift. But the latter chose to
Writers of l- ir • j
th P ■ d ^^Prsss himself in prose ; and
his satire was at once more in-
discriminate and more reserved than that
of Pope. Swift at his best is characterised
by a grave irony, and his thought is more
antithetic than his style. A Tory pam-
phleteer of no mean order. Swift is best
known for two satires of a perfectly general
character — the " Tale of a Tub," which
ridicules, under cover of an allegory,
the Reformation and the quarrels of the
Churches ; and the " Travels of Lemuel
Gulliver." In the latter work Swift
attacks humanity at large, and passes
gradually, under the influence of a melan-
choly bordering on mania, from playful
banter to savage denunciation, which
inspires, and is inspired by, loathing.
Swift died insane, and there is a morbid
element in his best work even from his
early years. The cynicism of his age
mastered, soured, and finally destroyed a
powerful nature. It could not sour Addi-
son and Steele, the two great essayists of
the Augustan age, whose contributions
immortalised the " Tatler " and " Spec-
tator," two otherwise ephemeral journals.
Like Pope and Swift, they are critics of
human life, but their criticism is tempered
with humour and a genial sympathy.
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN WAR
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is a critic in
a different vein ; for many years the
Hterary dictator of London society, he sat
in judgment on books and theories and
writers. He is typical of the second phase
in the literature of this period, a phase in
which literature becomes more impersonal.
But the writers of this phase still keep the
attitude of critics. In poetry they aim,
above all things, at the observance of rule
and proportion. In prose they devote
themselves to the delineation of character,
and are most successful in the new field
of the novel. Goldsmith, Sterne, Smollett,
Fielding, and Richardson, much as they
differ in other respects, are alike in their
realism ; their characters, however whim-
sical, belong to contemporary society.
The eighteenth century was character-
ised by a shallow rationalism. But every
age has its exceptions, and this produced
three philosophers of a profound and
penetrating genius. Berkeley (1685-1753),
an Irish dean and bishop, laid the founda-
tions of modern idealism in his works on
the " Theory of Vision " (1709) and on the
" Principles of Human Knowledge " (1710).
The crude scepticism which he demolished
was replaced by the more subtle specula-
tions of David Hume (1711-1776), whose
" Treatise of Human Nature " (1739-1740),
" Essays Moral and Political " (1741-
1742), and " Principles of Morals " (1751)
represent the last word of agnosticism in
metaphysics, and are memorable for having
provoked Kant to elaborate a system not
less critical, but more serious and more
stimulating, than that of Hume.
In political philosophy the period pro-
duced Burke's expositions of the organic
conception of society. A Whig politician,
member of ParUament, and Minister of
State, Burke (1729-1793) was originally
drawn to study abstract principles by his
dislike for the Toryism of Bolingbroke
and George III. The " Thoughts on
the Present Discontents " (1770) was
the first of a series of writings in which
Burke unfolded not only his conception
of the Enghsh constitution but also the
ideas and principles which underlie all
political societies whatever. Unsurpassed
as an orator and in the marshalling of
complicated facts, he is greatest when he
deals in generalisation. His speeches
on American taxation and on concilia-
tion with America are of lasting worth,
apart altogether from the occasion to
which they refer ; and the numerous
writings in which he attacked the French
Revolution (i 790-1 796) are the most com-
plete defence of the old c rder upon which
the Girondists and the Jacobins made war.
H. W. C. Davis
RETURNING THANKS FOR THE KINGS RECOVERY: SERVICE IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
This picture shows the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral during a Thanksgiving Service held in the famous building on
St. George's Day, 1789. The king, George III., bad been seriously ill, and this service took plac* on his recovery.
4557
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
VII
GERMAN POWERS AFTER THE PEACE
PRUSSIA'S RAPID FALL FROM GREATNESS
'X'HE Seven Years War had witnessed an
* altogether unprecedented combination
of the powers, in which the great but only
recently organised state of Eastern Europe
had joined with the traditional antagonists,
Austria and France, in an unsuccessful
attempt to crush another great but
recently organised state in Middle Europe.
At the end of the war, personal causes
detached Russia from a combination on
which her ruler had originally entered
mainly on personal grounds. France was
detached from it by the losses and the
exhaustion entailed by the maritime and
trans-oceanic triumphs of Great Britain.
The natural outcome was that Austria
should tend to reconciliation with Prussia,
and both to something like a common
understanding with Russia, the interests
which affected all three being centred
in Poland ; that Continental affairs
should virtually cease to interest Great
p . , Britain ; and that the Bour-
ru sia bons, so far as, they could
J p afford to make • their energies
felt outside their own king-
doms, should seek opportunities for
injuring Great Britain rather than for
interfering with the Germanic states.
For Frederic of Prussia, the first re-
quirement was peace. In territorial ex-
tent, in population, and in resources, his
kingdom was surpassed by each one of
the three chief powers which had united
for his destruction. At each one of them,
his infinite energy had enabled him to
strike blow for blow and something more.
But the strain had been terrific ; rest,
recuperation, reorganisation, were abso-
lutely imperative. It was quite necessary
to be ready to face a new war, in order to
make sure that there should be no new
war to face. The proffer of a Russian
alliance was welcomed .by. him as a guar-
antee of peace. If "Pitt in England had
returned to power effectively, as he did
nominally in 1766, the alliance of the
northern powers — Russia, Prussia, and
4558
Great Britain — as a counterpoise to the
existing association of Hapsburgs and
Bourbons, might have become a reality.
But even then the British Ministry,
absorbed in the process of irritating the
American colonies, gave no attention
Th C 'f 1 *° European questions ; and
- immediately after the Peace
of Poland °^ Hubertsburg, Frederic had
no inclination to rely on the
nation which had deserted him under
Bute's guidance, and showed no signs
of evolving a trustworthy or far-sighted
administration under the leadership of
Grenvilles and Bedfords.
Frederic and the Tsarina Catharine
understood each other, though their formal
alliance did not take place till March,
1764. The affairs of Poland were at a
critical stage, and Russian and Prussian
interests there could be pursued har-
moniously. The ulterior objects of the
two were indeed opposed. Catharine
would have liked to annex Poland, but,
failing that, wished for a government
there which would dance to her order.
Frederic wanted for himself Polish Prussia,
which intervened between Brandenburg
and East Prussia. But, in the meantime,
an election to the Crov/n of Poland was
imminent ; and it suited both him and
Catharine to oppose a candidate -of the
House of Saxony, now ruling, and. to
maintain within Poland the cause • of
religious equality. Austria, on the other
hand, favoured the Saxon dynasty and
the cause of Catholic domination, while
the recent policy of France had associated
p her with Austria and with
w>° *^ X J I. Saxony. But neither France
Dominated by \ j. • j
J. . nor Austria was prepared — as
Catharine was — to take a re-
solute line, and the Tsarina obtained the
election of her candidate, Stanislas
Poniatowski. Russian domination was.
secured, but the policy, when pursued,
alienated many of the Poles who had
at first supported her, and stirred Austria
THE GERMAN POWERS AFTER THE PEACE
and France to a more active hostility.
Both powers endeavoured to detach
Frederic from Russia; and here Frederic
found his own opportunity of detach-
ing Austria from France by a scheme
of partition to which Russia might be
prevailed upon to assent.
Now, it must be noted that the position
of Austria had become somewhat anoma-
lous. Maria Theresa was
queen, and continued
queen till her death in
1780. But her husband,
the Emperor Francis,
died in 1764, when
their son Joseph suc-
ceeded to the imperial
crown, his brother Leo-
pold becoming Grand
Duke of Tuscany, for
which Lorraine had been
exchanged some thirty
years before. Joseph
began operations as
emperor by a series of
attempts to reform the
imperial system, with-
out success ; nor could
EMPEROR JOSEPH
A second meeting took place between
Frederic and Joseph in the following
year, 1770 ; and this time a practicable
scheme was formulated. It seemed prob-
able at the moment that Russia might
establish herself in Roumania, a prospect
not at all to the liking of Austria. The
Porte appealed to the two powers to
mediate. If they insisted on Russia
resigning her conquests,
they must offer some
compensation : Poland
provided the where-
withal. Poland could
offer no effective resist-
ance, and she had
reached a stage of
political disintegration
which almost warranted
the doctrine that she
had forfeited her right
to a separate national
existence. But if Russia
was to have compensa-
tion in Polish territory
for resigning Roumania,
Prussia and Austria
might reasonably de-
he apply his reforming The son of Francis I and Maria Theresa, he ^ ^ • ^^
. t^F •' t- A was elected King of the Romans m 1764, and i_ • r
enthusiasm to the AUS- became Emperor of Germany in the next Spoils aS the priCe Of
trian dominions, where year, a feature of his reign was the their assent. If they
his mother still retained suppression of 700 convents. He died in 1790. agreed on a partition.
control. In foreign affairs, however, he
was able to exercise a leading influence,
although Kaunitz, Maria Theresa's
Minister, retained his position. Broadly
speaking, though the queen was less
impulsive and less warlike than of old,
her attitude to Prussia was never
friendly, and her inclination continued
to favour the French alliance. Joseph,
on the other hand, had a warm admira-
tion for his mother's great antagonist.
The overtures of France to Prussia were
received with extreme coldness ; those of
Austria, though made more or less at the
instigation of France, were much more
welcome. A friendly meeting was
arranged between Frederic and Joseph
in 1769, which had little direct result,
beyond estabyshing friendly personal re-
lations and impressing on Catharine of
Russia the importance of keeping on a
satisfactory footing with Frederic. She
was already involved in a war with
Turkey ; and the success which was
attending her arms increased the likeli-
hood of Austria wishing to intervene, and
therefore to associate herself with Prussia.
there was no one to say them nay. Great
Britain, under Lord North, had her hands
more than full with colonial troubles, and
France had no interests sufficiently strong
to rouse her to active intervention. So
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, after pro-
tracted negotiations, settled how much
of Poland each was to have, and how
much was to be left to the puppet king,
Stanislas, and the Polish Diet was
bullied and bribed into ratifying the
p . partition. Frederic got West
° Ci i"h Pru^si^' t^^ main object of his
, r . desire : Austria got Red Russia.
of Enemies _, ' . ° • j .
The provinces assigned to
Russia were larger though less populous ;
but what was left over as " independent "
Poland was virtually a Russian dependency.
The business was completed in 1772.
To Frederic, the acquisition of West
or Polish Prussia was of immense strate-
gical importance ; but the negotiations
revealed, and the partition brought nearer,
dangers against which it was necessary to
guard. The contact of the great Slav
power with Teutonic Europe and with the
Slavonic dominions of Austria was growing
4559
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
more intimate and, potentially at least,
more menacing. The menace could be held
in check if Austria and Prussia presented
a united tront ; but of this there was no
present prospect. Joseph's ambitions did
not harmonise with Frederic's require-
ments ; for Prussia it was a serious ques-
tion whether the aggression of Austria
or of Russia was the more to be feared,
while Joseph's aspiration for the extension
of power in Germany, to which Frederic
was necessarily opposed, distracted him
from the primary need of maintaining
PI guard against Russia. How-
* *ff,, ever, if Frederic was between
the upper and the nether
mill-stones, there was always
with him the chance that one or both
of the mill-stones would get the worst
of it. As regards Russia, Prussia's
present security lay in the dominant
attraction for that power in the direc-
tion of the Danube and the Crimea.
Joseph's original idea of strengthening
the imperial power by remedying abuses
in the imperial system had failed ; the
scheme had in effect been replaced by a
desire to extend and consoHdate the
Hapsburg territorial dominion so as to
tjive Austria a dictatorial ascendancy
of Prussia's
Security
throughout Germany. Joseph was not
actuated by a mere vulgar thirst for con-
quest. The successful politician is the
man who knows how to adapt the means
which he can control to the ends he has
in view. The successful politician rises
into the great statesman if the ends in
view are great ends ; the measure of his
idealism is the measure of his greatness.
But the idealist who fails to grasp the
relation between means and ends fails as
a statesman, though his failure may be
more admirable than a meaner man's
success. Joseph was an idealist who failed.
He was conscious of crying evils which he
wished to remedy. To apply the remedies,
he wanted despotic power ; but he found
himself unable either to apply the remedies
judiciously or to secure despotic power
effectively. It may be questioned whether
the remedies, even if he had been able to
apply them despotically, would have had
the desired effect. The benevolent despot
was, however, a favourite ideal with the
very considerable body of those who
identified political liberty with anarchy —
who were soon to point to the French
Revolution as a gruesome warranty for
their views. Unfortunately, in Joseph's
case neither the benevolence nor the
THE CORONATION PROCESSION OF THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II.
In this picture the magnificent coronation procession of the Emperor Joseph II. is seen passing through the inner court
of the royal residence at Vienna. The former residence of the chancellor of the empire stands in the baclcground.
4.S60
THE GERMAN POWERS AFTER THE PEACE
despotism was appreciated by his sub-
jects. Joseph, then, was fain to extend
his territories, while Frederic disapproved
unless he saw his way to an equivalent —
accession of strength for himself. An
opportunity presented itself at the be-
ginning of 1778. The electoral House of
Bavaria became extinct ; the succession to
the Duchy reverted to an elder
'* g" °'^ branch of the same stock — in
j\ ' . the person of Charles Theodore
the Elector Palatine. Charles
Theodore was elderly and childless ; he
was easily persuaded to recognise a very
inadequate Hapsburg claim to a large slice
of Bavaria. Only two German princes
were directly affected.
If Frederic raised an opposition, there
would be no great powers to support him.
Russia was busy with Turkey, England
with America, and France would side with
Austria, if with either. Nevertheless,
Frederic did oppose, successfully. The
chance of French support for Austria dis-
appeared, as France turned her energies to
helping the American colonies against Great
Britain ; and Russia showed symptoms of
intervening in spite of her Turkish war.
Maria Theresa was opposed to her son's
policy. Joseph found himself obliged to be
content with a small portion of what he had
claimed and to recognise the Hohenzollern
title to succession in Anspach and Baireuth.
In 1780 Maria Theresa died, and Joseph
could now follow his own course un-
fettered. Hitherto his mother had kept
the domestic rule of the Austrian domain
in her own hands, and had held in the main
by Hapsburg tradition, for which the son
showed no respect. Alive to the immense
success which had been achieved by the
organisation of Prussia which Frederic
had built up on the foundations very
thoroughly laid by his father and by the
Great Elector, Joseph tried to force a
similar system on his own diverse domi-
nions. The primary idea of Prussian
absolutism had been the rapid
e as er subordination of all pergonal and
, „ . class interests to the strength-
01 Prussia r Ai, i. i u- I.
ening of the state which
answered like a machine to the control
of the single master mind. But in Joseph's
dominions there were very powerful class
interests which had been established for
centuries, and declined to vanish at the
monarch's fiat. The nobles, the town
corporations, the clergy, in turn found
their privileges or endowments attacked
290
by the reformer, while elementary rights
of the peasantry were legalised. The
supremacy of the State over the
Church was emphasised, and general
toleration and religious equality before
the law were established.
All these things were in themselves
excellent ; but they not only excited the
classes who were directly affected, but
created the utmost alarm throughout the
principalities of the empire, the more so
as the Hapsburgs, or Lorrainers, now
dominated the college of princes in the
Imperial Diet. This end had been achieved
by the election of one of the emperor's
brothers as Archbishop and Elector of
Cologne. It appeared that the emperor
was not unlikely to force upon the minor
states reforms of the same nature as those
which he had been carrying out in his own
hereditary dominion. German liberties
were at stake ; not, that is, the liberties
of the bulk of the population, which had
never possessed any, but the right of each
petty ruler to rule within his own territory.
If the petty princes were to make head
against imperial aggression, they must
.«. *xi * . be leagued with some great
The Okstaele a 4.u 1 1
J K' power, and the only one avail-
? °f.*'* * able was Prussia. Now the em-
Ambitions , ^^ . ,
peror and Kaunitz recognised
in Prussia the great obstacle to Joseph's
ambitions within the empire. Frederic,
with a natural inclination to a league with
Austria to hold Russia in check, habitually
found himself forced towards a league
with Russia to hold Austria in check.
Russia, with a Turkish goal in view, had
on the whole a preference for an under-
standing with Austria rather than an
alliance with Prussia. Austria, with an
eye to Germany, was prepared for such an
understanding, which was, in fact, arrived
at very shortly after the accession of
Joseph to the Austrian throne.
Since France and Great Britain were
both still outside the mid- European
complications — since, that is, they were
absorbed in their own mutual relations
or domestic difficulties — Frederic was
isolated. He could not afford to appear
unsupported as the champion of the petty
princes, as in the recent Bavarian affair
he had posed as the champion of state
rights, as opposed to imperial aggression.
At that time the understanding between
Russia and Austria had not been estab-
lished. Now, however, Joseph provided the
occasion for uniting Germemy^-which had
4561
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
hitherto proved impossible. The Nether-
lands had passed decisively from Spain to
Austria at the Treaty of Utrecht, but
Austria had always found them trouble-
some rather than useful, for reasons which
a glance at the map makes obvious. They
were' exposed to French attack, and
difficult to defend. Joseph, foiled in his
previous attempt to acquire Bavaria from
the Elector Palatine, now proposed an
exchange. Roughly speaking, Charles
Theodore was to hand over Bavaria and
receive the Netherlands, which, with the
Lower Palatinate, were to form a recon-
stituted kingdom of Burgundy.
Such a scheme would involve danger to
the independence of more than the petty
principalities. To thwart it, Frederic
took the lead in the formation of a defen-
sive league, in which it was no longer a
matter of great difficulty to
induce practically all the
German states to join, a
league known as the Fiirsten-
bund. It had not, indeed,
the elements of permanency,
of German unity, but it
effected the immediate pur-
pose of putting a stop to
Austrian aggression within
the empire. The Fiirstenbund
fell to pieces after a brief
interval, but it had destroyed
the Bavarian scheme. What
EMPEROR LEOPOLD
predecessors, in spite of certain grotesque
characteristics. After Frederic, the great-
ness of Prussia fell to pieces; had there
come no Bismarck and no Moltke, it might
never have been restored in its fulness.
But at the least, Frederic's rule had
accomplished this, that even under incom-
petent rulers Prussia was not likely again
p . to become a negligible
,. i» J . . quantity in European poli-
after Frederic s 3 ^, ^ -F .
jj^j^.j^ tics. Ihree years and six
months after the Great
Frederic, Joseph also died. By this time
the French Revolution was in full career,
though most liberal-minded onlookers were
rejoicing in the expectation that its out-
come would be liberty in the sense of
constitutionalism. The Bastille had fallen,
but another year had to pass before the
death of Mirabeau. The monarchs of
Europe had not yet taken
alarm ; and Leopold, Joseph's
successor, was able to carry
out a policy which was at
once liberal and pacificatory.
He shared Joseph's progressive
ideas, but his intelligence was
eminently practical. Being
content to work patiently, he
had been able to work effec-
tively in his Duchy of Tuscany;
and in a reign which was all
too brief he succeeded in
conciliating the outraged in-
further effect it would have He became emperor in 1790 on the tcrcsts, and in reconciling'
had if Frederic had been deathofhisbrotherjosephii.,and both the Netherlands and the
succeeded in Prussia by an- proved himseifa powerful ruler. He Hungarian nobles to the
other king of the same quality o^ed two years after his accession. Austrian supremacy, without
is matter of conjecture. But he died in
1786, and his nephew and successor
Frederic William II., was no masterful
genius. Frederic died leaving the Ger-
man states united in a league of which
Prussia held the unquestioned hegemony.
But at that time no lesser man than
Frederic himself could have accomplished
what Bismarck was one day to carry out.
P . . , No man, we are told, is indis-
Work pensable. Nevertheless, history
. p . repeatedly presents us with the
truth that many a great man's
work has gone to pieces after his death
for lack of a successor of the same calibre.
Frederic had created a Prussia of tre-
mendous efficacy, but the efficacy depended
mainly on the competence of the man
who controlled the machinery. His
creation had been made possible by
the remarkable ability of two of his
4562
materially curtailing the practical benefits
which Joseph had thrust upon his unap--
preciative subjects. In a similar spirit, he
dropped his brother's aggressive policy,'
but his diplomacy recovered the German
hegemony which had passed to Prussia.
The change in the relative positions of the
two powers is a conspicuous illustration of
the importance of personalities. Frederic
had been replaced by Frederic William,
Joseph by Leopold. Within six months of
the latter event, the powers in general had
recognised the change in the situation,
and their moral support was transferred'
from Prussia to Austria. But in Franc 3
events were moving rapidly towards a
European catastrophe ; at the critical
moment, two years after his accession,
Leopold died, and with his death dis-
appeared the last chance of the catastrophe '
being, averted.
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
^
^i^J
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
VIII
tI
iiffi^(^
THE BOURBON POWERS AND THE
APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
FRANCE ON THE EDGE OF THE VOLCANO
THE pacific King Ferdinand of Spain
had been succeeded on the throne
by his half brother Charles III., the son of
Elizabeth Farnese, who had previously
managed to obtain for him the crown of
Naples, the third Bourbon kingdom.
Naples was now transferred to Ferdinand
VI., a younger son of Charles. The
accession was followed by that belated
revival of the Family Compact which
drew Spain into the Seven Years War at
a moment when the British dominion of
the seas had been completely established ;
and she had already lost Havanna and
the Philippines, and was in a fair way
to lose the rest of her insular possessions
when she was saved by the Peace of
Paris, which restored most of her losses.
During the reign of Charles, which
lasted till 1788, an enlightened domestic
policy was followed, which, like that of
Joseph II. in Austria, aimed
rancc an ^^ ^^ abolition of the privi-
pain uppor |gggg ^j ^j^g nobles and the
Church, with the double ob-
ject of benefiting the state as a whole, and
of strengthening the Crown in particular.
Charles's second intervention in interna-
tional politics for the humiliation of Great
Britain was no more successful than the
first had been. France took up the cause
of the American colonies in 1778 ; Spain
followed suit in the vain hope of recovering
Gibraltar, which successfully defied block-
ades and bombardments, and Rodney
shattered the French fleet at the battle of
The Saints, when it was on its way to the
rendezvous oft Hayti, where the Spanish
fleet was to join it and so create a com-
bined force which should wipe out the
British navy. The pleasing prospect was
dissipated by the overthrow of De Grasse,
and Spain got nothing by her intervention.
The domestic policy of Charles in Spain
had been anticipated by Portugal under
the able Minister Pombal, who achieved
The First
Blow at
the Jesuits
a practical dictatorship for many years
under King Joseph II. Again the
method adopted was that of benevolent
despotism, a war of the Crown against
class privileges, and the imposition of
salutary reforms by a despot — the principle
remaining the same whether
the despot happens to be the
monarch himself or an all-
powerful Minister. The
dictatorship, however, was ended by the
death of Joseph in 1777, when Pombal
was dismissed by his successor, and a
reactionary policy was inaugurated.
Portugal was without weight in the
European balance, though her friendly
relations with Great Britain were to prove
very valuable to the great naval power in
the course of the Napoleonic wars. Never-
theless, Pombal's activities were not only
a typical example of the theory of reform
by way of a monarchy ; in one particular,
he gave the other Western states a direct
lead. It was Portugal that first struck
hard against the Order of Jesuits, which
dominated the Catholic countries of
Europe. Their privileges were threatened
by the whole movement against privilege,
and their power made them particularly
formidable to the reformers.
The implication of the Jesuits in a sup-
posed plot against the king and his Minister
gave Pombal his opportunity. They were
deported, and their property confiscated
in 1759. The blow was followed up in
France, where the Jesuit organisation was
_^ . . condemned as illegal in 1761,
E * ii*d" * ^"^ ^^^ Order was suppressed
. '''** / . by edict three years later.
Before another three years had
passed, Spain had followed suit, and ex-
pelled the Jesuits ; and the third Bourbon
dynasty in the two Sicilies copied the
example set them. The death of Pope
Clement XIII., who had dcy^e everything
in his power to support the Order, was
4563
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
followed by the election of Clement XIV.,
who yielded to pressure and condemned it
in 1773, thereby according to the general
belief, sacrificing his own life, since his
death, in the following year, was attributed
to poison, and the poison was attributed to
the Jesuits, but the story proved to be
quite baseless.
The Seven Years War
had injured France more
than any of the other
powers, not only by the
greatness of her losses, but
by the destruction of her
prestige and the ruin of her
finances. Her army in thi
days of Louis XIV. had
been the best in Europe ;
her generals had been un-
surpassed until Marl-
borough and Eugene were
matched against them ; the
spirit of her troops had
remained indomitable to
the end. In the War of
the Austrian Succession a
marshal of the French army — albeit a
German — had been the ablest commander,
with the exception of Frederic of Prussia,
and the French soldiery had achieved
credit. But in the Seven Years War
the French commanders were worthless,
and their troops became de-
moralised. France was not
only defeated ; she was dis-
credited in the eyes of Europe,
and her rulers were discredited
in the eyes of her own people.
No respect could be com-
manded by a court where a
Pompadour was supreme, and
where the Pompadour herself
was later succeeded by the
Du Barry. No respect could
be entertained for a noblesse
which had failed in the one
field wherein it professed to
recognise
of arms ;
a duty— the field joseph ii
also as a cohesive social force, killing the
sense of public responsibility in the
seigneurs, while intensifying their arro-
gance as a caste. Louis XV. was not with-
out suspicions that a cataclysm must result
from such conditions, but he counted on
the system outlasting his time — and the
system suited him. His
despotism was complete ;
but if it was not exactly
tyrannical, neither was it
benevolent ; the grandson
who succeeded him was
benevolent enough, but
unfortunately was at the
same time both morally and
intellectually incompetent.
Choiseul, the Minister
into whose hands the prin-
cipal direction of affairs had
passed during the war, was
honest and capable, but no
genius. His interest was
absorbed in foreign affairs,
and he did not realise that
domestic reconstruction was
necessary before France could recover her
power and prestige. On the other hand,
he did realise that the downfall had been
brought about by the British sea-power ;
his policy was one primarily of preparation
for another contest with Great Britain,
which would demand a per-
sistent development of the
French navy. It would
demand also a persistent
abstention from expensive
continental complications — a
truth which had never been
grasped by the rulers of
France since Louis XIV. had
neglected Colbert for Louvois.
Choiseul did nothing to check
the coming revolution; but
France owed it mainly to his
policy in the sixties that when
she again challenged Great
oF PORTUGAL Britain, in 1778, the fleets met
CHARLES III. OF SPAIN
A younger son of Philip V., he succeeded
his half-brother, Ferdinand VI.. on the
throne of Spain in 1759. He died in 1788.
a noblesse which a war of the Crown against class ou terms of equality, for which
had sunk for the most part glJ^J^^^o^e'SieVinUt'e? PombS there was no precedent except
into parasites of the court ; achieved a practical dictatorship in the months between the
a noblesse which, outside '"••■"^nyye"''- Joseph died in 1777 ^^^^^jgg Qf Beachy Head and
of La Vendee and Brittany, had ceased La Hogue, ninety years before ; that
to be the leaders and rulers in their
own territories, where they were habitual
absentees. The monarchy, while preserving
certain social aspects of feudalism, had
destroyed it as a disintegrating political
force ; but in so doing had destroyed it
4564
her squadrons were able to operate
decisively in preventing the relief of
Yorktown and compelling Cornwallis to
surrender, thereby securing the American
victory ; and that even when Rodney
regained the all-but-lost naval supremacy
BOURBON POWERS AND APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
for England, Bailli Suffren still more than
held his own in Indian waters. Choiseul's
government came to an end in 1770,
when the king fell under the domina-
tion of Madame du Barry. His tenure of
office covered two events of
importance — the expulsion of
the Jesuits, and the annexa-
tion of Corsica. The islanders,
under the leadership of Paoli,
revolted against the dominion
of Genoa ; Great Britain, busy
with American demonstra-
tions and Middlesex elections,
declined the protectorate
offered her by the insurgents.
Genoa sold Corsica to France,
which established her govern-
ment there ; and Napoleon
Bonaparte was consequently
born a French subject in 1769.
been able to free themselves from the
conviction that the executive has the right
to override the law. The fall of the
Parlement was not a step in the direction
of liberty in this sense ; the privileges it
abolished were liable to mis-
use, but were not so likely
to be dangerous to liberty as
the control of the administra-
tion of justice by the Crown.
In ,1774 Louis the Well-
beloved went to the grave
unmourned. He was followed
by his grandson, Louis XVI.,
a well-intentioned monarch of
irreproachable character,
unique in respect of the
domestic virtues among the
Bourbon princes, but wholly
devoid of the qualities neces-
sary for grappling with a crisis.
The Maupeou government, ,^ eaSiefiife^^wfi'a^ supporter Hi^ wife, Marie Antoinette,
which followed the fall of of the Jesuits, but, yielding to was the daughter of Maria
Choiseul, carried non-inter- pressure, he condemned the Order. Thcrcsa, and the sister of
vention further than that "« 'i**'^.' '» ^"*' T** *^*^**'y Joseph II. ; endowed with
Minister himself ; had he re- attn ute o poison. charm, brilliancy, even
mained in office it is possible that the nobility of character, but young, impulsive,
Eastern powers would not have been left self-confident, and injudicious,
to partition Poland according to their own Maupeou and his colleagues were dis-
convenience. But Maupeou found enough missed ; Maurepas became chief Minister,
was in fact improved, but, the marquise de pompadour no statesman but a
instead of being a check For twenty years the public affairs of France second-ratc politician, in-
.1 tit were controlled by this woman, who was a mis- . . . i -a.
on the power of the tress of Louis xv. Her favourites were ap- tent ou present popularity,
Crown, the judiciary was pointed to high offices in the state ; her policy but without either insight
brought more under its was disastrous to the country, she died in i764. or foresight. Turgot was
control. The fundamental conception of a statesman with both insight and fore-
liberty in England has always been
the supremacy of the law over the execu-
tive ; European governments, whether
monarchical or democratic, have rarely
sight, but he was not a politician. He
relied on the intrinsic merits of his policy,
but was no adept at man«euvring for
influential support. It was only through
4565
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
LOUIS XVI., KING OF FRANCE
France was in a deplorable condition when, in
1774, Louis XVI. succeeded his grandfather,
Louis XV., on the throne. For a time he was
popular with the people, but evil days followed,
and he was brought to the guillotine in 179:i.
the despotism that his aims could
be achieved ; it was necessary to
him to strengthen rather than to
hmit the power of the Crown.
In a state in which the normal
expenditure very considerably ex-
ceeded the normal income, and the
masses of the population were
already taxed to the limit of en-
durance, Turgot recognised that
economy was a primary necessity;
He proceeded to cut down expenses
with great success, but to the,
extreme annoyance of the nobles
and others who had profited by
the extravagance. He was of the
economic school of the physiocrats
who held that all wealth comes out
of the land, and that all restrictions
and, burdens should be removed
from commerce and manufacture ;
from which it followed that the
incidence of taxation should be
altered. The noblesse who battened
4566
on their exemptions perceived that
they were likely to lose these privi-
leges and to become the victims.
The clergy were alarmed by the
ascendancy of a man who was
known to have contributed to the
Encyclopedic, and to be approved
by their declared enemy, Voltaire,
while he was supported by Males-
herbes, a friend of toleration, who
wished to see the Edict of Nantes
revived. Maurepas was afraid of
finding himself displaced by Turgot,
and the court was disgusted by
his economies. The scarcity result-
ing from bad harvests was attri-
buted, according to recognised rule,
to Turgot's reforms, which had been
initiated by the establishment of
free trade in corn within the king-
dom, and there were popular riots.
For a time Louis stuck to Tur-
got, and the Minister continued to
press- schemes of reform. The
corvee, or forced labour, was to be
abolished ; a tax on land was to
pay for the labour. Labour was to
be free to transfer itself from one
industry to another. There were to
be more economies. Protestant
MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE
The queen of Louis XVI., she became notorious for her pleasures.
In the horrors that came upon France with the Revolution she
exhibited wonderful courage, and in 1793 she died at the guillotine^
BOURBON POWERS AND APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
disabilities were to be removed. But the
pressure on the king became too strong. The
forces of reaction combined for the over-
throw of the innovator ; Turgot and Males-
herbes were both forced to resign in 1776.
Maurepas replaced Turgot, after an inter-
val of sheer incompetence,,
by the banker, Necker, who
hoped to restore the finances
not by changing the incidence
of taxation, but by borrow-
ing, which his financial re-
putation enabled him to do
on comparatively reasonable'
terms. So far, class interests
found him less dangerous
than his predecessor. But he
was a Protestant, and there-
fore distrusted by the clergy ;
he was an economist, and
therein was no improvement „. . , . . . .,
T-> , • ,L c Nicholas Augustin de Maupeou
upon Turgot in the eyes of became Chancellor of France in ,
the courtiers ; in the matter 1768, succeeding his father in that the British had hitherto been
of privileges he was in effect ^^«^ o^ce. He was dismissed on able to compensate the dis-
the death of Louis XV. in 1774
CHANCELLOR OF FRANCE
winning side. Benjamin Franklin was
welcomed in Paris with demonstrative
enthusiasm. Necker, who had to find the
money, was no more willing for a war
than Turgot had been, but the torrent of
sentiment was irresistible. France formally
recognised the independence
of the United States, and
adopted an alliance which was
equivalent to a declaration of
war with Great Britain.
The French navy took the
seas. Choiseul's naval policy
found its justification. A
fleet under D'Estaing sailed
for American waters which
was stronger than the fleet at
Lord Howe's disposal ; while
a second squadron was able
to fight a drawn battle with a
British squadron off Ushant.
By the command of the sea,
a reactionary, and so lost the
support of those who had applauded Turgot.
Nevertheless, his methods did actually
provide the immediate ways and means, in
spite of the fact that France now plunged
into a costly war. The moment had come
for dealing a blow to Great Britain.
The first skirmish on American soil be-
tween the colonial militia and the British
regulars had
taken place a
year before Tur-
got's retirement.
The younger
members of the
French aristo-
cracy, who had
begun to develop
enthusiasm for
liberty and the
rights of man,
were soon volun-
teering to help
the gallant Re-
publicans to cast
off the yoke of
the tyrant, and
THE REFORM MINISTER?, MALESHERBES & TURGOT
Both of these Ministers were reformers and were associated with
Maurepas on his becoming chief Minister of France. For defending
the king, Malesherbes was arrested in 1793 and gruillotined the follow-
advantage of carrying on their
operations in a remote and hostile terri-
tory; now that advantage was lost. A
year later, Spain followed the lead of
France, and the prolonged siege of
Gibraltar began The French fleet con-
tinued to keep the British fleet inoperative ;
when, in 1781, Cornwallis was shut up in
Yorktown, the French commander was
able to prevent
the British from
relieving him ;
Yorktown fell,
and with it the
last hope of
British success.
Six months
later, Rodney
shattered De.
Grasse's fleet in
the Battle of
the Saints by
the manoeuvre
known as
" breaking the
line" — anovelty
then, but there-
forminff a source ingyear. As Controller-General of France, Turgot was responsible after a favOU'"ite
„ 1 r ' for a great scheme of reform, but he was dismissed and died in 1781. -
perhaps, of more
embarrassment than advantage to George
Washington. When two years had passed,
the colonies were still unsubdued ; then,
in the autumn of 1777, the surrender of
Burgoyne at Saratoga produced a feeling
that the colonies were going to be the
method of attack
with the British naval commanders.
The attempt to overthrow the naval
supremacy had failed, but the purpose
with which France had entered upon the
war was achieved ; the Butish empire
had been decisively rent in twain. Neither
4567
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of the combatants had any wish to con- himself compelled not only to multiply
tinue the struggle, and the war ended economies, but to resort also to the applica-
with the Peace of Ver-
sailles in the year 1783.
From the French point
of view the best that can
be said for the French
intervention is that with-
out it the colonies might
possibly have been forced
into temporary submis-
sion ; and the Americans
had reason to be grateful
to the power which had
undoubtedly made their
task very much easier.
But the injury to Eng-
land was the only good
that France got out of
the war. It would never
have been entered upon
if the French Government
had suspected the impulse
tion of some other of
Turgot's principles. The
Interests began to com-
bine against him in his
turn, and the process of
borrowing was becoming
increasingly difficult.
Therefore, in 1781, he
issued the " Compte
rendu," or public finan-
cial statement, contrary
to precedent. For the
moment the tide of
opposition was stayed,
but it soon became
possible to point out
some of the fallacies on
which this proof of finan-
cial success nested, while
it exposed to the whole
world the extravagances
which it was to give to voltaire, poet and satirist ^^ich still survived.
the revolution in France One of the world's greatest satirists, v^^^^^ Maurepas and Vergennes
.. ,- _, - • 1 -x was born at Pans in 1694 and died in that city , , , j , • j " , •
itselt. 1 he financial situa- in 1778. From his versatile pen came numer- both determined on filS
tion had already been ous poems and satires, while in his later years downfall. Necker thought
sufficiently serious ; the ^'^ writings violently assaUed Christianity, himself strong enough to
large addition to the expenditure had defy them, and proffered his resignation,
necessitated heavy borrowing, and the The resignation was accepted, and
nation was threatened with insolvency. Maurepas had to find a new Finance
But beyond that, the |||_|^^__^_l^_l^gmilllll_^_l Minister. But the case
political order in France ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H for the reformers — the
was a pure despotism, ^^^^^^HHRHIii^^^^^^H case against the Govern-
the social order was ^^^^Br^ ,^^^^^^^H nient — was immeasur-
one of caste, and the ^^^^^M^S- "^^^^^^^^^m ^^^Y strengthened.
French Government had ^^^^BSR ^^^^^^1 After the death of
committed itself to ^^^RH^p ^„,,^ ^^^^^^^m Maurepas, in November
unqualified support of a ^^Hfp^S ^jSp fUJ^^^^^H ^^ ^^^ same year, 1781,
revolution which had ^^^K|^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^H ^^^ ^^^S did not appoint
proclaimed explicitly ^^^^^^K ""IH^^^^^H another Premier, and
that the rights of man ^^^^H^|fe^ *m^^^^^^^^ became more dependent
were its warrant and ^^^^^^V^%^^^^^^^^^H on the queen, who had
republicanism its ideal. ^^^^^^B ^^K^^^^^^^m i^^^ given birth to the
If the French Government ^^^^^Hk^ ■ -^^^^^^^^H ^^-^phin. Necker's im-
recognised the rights of ^^^^^^^^^^^6i^^^^^^| mediate successors, Joly
man, it confessed itself a ^^^^^^^^Hfefelk |^^^^| de Fleury and d'Ormes-
manif est monstrosity ; its ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^| son, held ofiice for a brief
approval of republican- ^^^^^^^^^^^^l^^^^^^l period, and on October
ism was an outrageous ^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^^b 3rd, 1783, the Marquis de
paradox enthusiasm ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H Calonne, a profligate and
for the bourgeois Frank- ^^HHHiHIHHIHiilHH spendthrift roue, became
lin was a grotesque the French writer, rousseau "controller general," or
absnrditv Out of its ^**° Jacques Rousseau was born in 1712, JC^ppfor of finance His
aOSUrauy. UUr OI us and his literary success began when, in 1750, QireCtOr 01 nuaUCe. niS
own mouth the old order he was awarded a prize by the academy Systcm Ot the mOSt mad
stood condemned. It had of Dijon, He began his famous " Confes- extravagance with an
pronounced its own doom, sion "in England, and died suddenly im 778. empty treasury at once
Long before the war was over, Necker satisfied the courtiers ; he called an un-
had followed Turgot. In fact, he had found bounded expenditure of money the true
4568
BOURBON POWERS AND APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
principle of credit, and scoffed at economy.
The parasites sang the praises of the
" ministre par excellence," for whom
millions were but as counters, while the
people received " panem et circenses"
(doles and shows) through his great public
works in Paris, Cherbourg, and elsewhere.
Calonne reduced Necker's sj^stem of
borrowing to a fine art. All money
melted in his hands, and in order to
obtain loans he was forced at once to
give up large sums to the bankers ; as
unconscientious as John Law in the second
decade of the eighteenth century, he
assembly of notables, by which order
could easily be established. He extolled
his administration before it, and attacked
Necker. This led to a paper war between
them resulting in the triumph of Necker.
When Calonne demanded a universal land
tax, he was met by shouts of " No "
from every side, and the notables insisted
on learning the extent of the deficit.
He admitted at last that it amounted
to 115,000,000 francs. The Archbishop of
Toulouse, Lomenie de Brienne, then
brought up the clergy to the attack, and
reckoned out a deficit ot 140,000,000. The
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AT THE COURT OF FRANCE IN 177«
Taking an active part in the deliberations which resulted in the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1778,
Benjamin Franklin visited Paris in order to secure foreign assistance in the war. The bitter feeling prevailing in France
at that time against England favoured the mission of the distinguished American, and France agreed to send help.
From the painting by Baron Jolly
court effected the fall of Calonne on April
9th, 1787, and the quack left France, while
the popular voice clamoured for the return
of Necker. The courtiers, however, per-
suaded Louis to summon the archbishop
who had overthrown Calonne, and actually
to nominate him " principal minister."
Lomenie de Brienne was an actor of
excep' ional versatility, a philos )phising
self-induljent place-seeker, who wished to
carry measures by the employment of
force, and yet was discourage^ at the least
resistance. When the notables refused him
the land tax, he dismissed them ; they
4569
courted bankruptcy. The scandalous affair
of the Diamond Necklace, into which the
queen's name Was dragged by vile calum-
niators, was a fitting product of Calonne's
age of gross corruption. When he was at
the end of his resources, he brewed a
compound of the schemes of Vauban,
Colbert, Turgot, and Necker, put it before
Louis in August, 1786, and requested him
to go back to the system of 1774, and to
employ the abuses to the benefit of the
monarchy. At the same time he induced
him to act as Charlemagne and Richelieu
had acted in their day, and summon an
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
now took back home with them full
knowledge of the abuses prevailing at
Versailles, and paved the way for the
Revolution. The archbishop had a very
simple plan by which to
meet the financial prob-
lem, but he was soon
involved in strife with
the Parlement. The
people sided with the
latter, clubs* sprang into
existence, pamphlets
were aimed at the court,
especially at " Madame
Deficit," the queen, and
her .'friend, the Duchess
of PoTignac, whose pic-
ture the mob - burnt,
together with that of
Calonne. The Parle-
ment, exiled to Troyes,
concluded after a month
a compromise with the
Government, but insisted
on the abandonment of
Brienne's stamp duty
and land tax.
Louis, who posed as an absolute
monarch,' 'splayed a sorry figure in the
" seance royale " of November 19th, in
which the Duke of Orleans won for himself
a cheap popularity, and
in the " lit do justice,"
or solemn' meeting of
Parlement, of May i8th,
1788. On this latter date
the Parlements were re-
duced to the level of
simple provincial magis-
trates, and a supreme
court, or " cour pleniere,"
constituted over them.
This was the most com-
prehensive judicial re-
form of the " ancien
regime " ; but the Crown
did not possess the power
to carry it out. The
courts as a body sus-
p e n d e d their work ;
Parlements, clergy,
nobility, and the Third
Estate leagued together
JACQUES NECKER
Occupying in turn the offices of Director of WhlCh granted
Treasury and Director-General of Finance, he niOnCV and
was responsible for many remedial measures. - ^ •^ ''
He added to his popul£.rity in 1788 by recom-
mending the summoning of the States-General.
against the centralising tlonary pamphlets were sold in the gardens
policy of the Crown ; "^ *^" ^"^^" ^°y^'' "'^ **""' '""'**^""
Breton nobles laid in Paris the foundation-
stone of what was afterward to be known
as the Jacobin Club ; the provinces,
especially Dauphine, were in a ferment ;
4570
and revolutionary pamphlets were sold in
the gardens of the Palais Royal, the resi-
dence of the Duke of Orleans. Louis, how-
ever, lived for the day only. The loyal
Malesherbes vainly con-
jured him not to under-
estimate the disorders,
and pointed out the case
of Belgium under Joseph
II., and of the American
colonies of Great Britain.
Louis was too engrossed
in hunting to read the
memorial.
The winter of 1788-
1789 brought France face
to face with famine.
Brienne was without
credit, and a suspension
of payments was immi-
nent. It was high tim^'e
to find an ally against
the privileged classe^,
him nb
Brienn.e
looked for one in the
nation. He invited every-
one to communicate with him on the sub-
ject of summoning the States-General,
which had not met for 170', years, offered
complete liberty of the Press on this
national question, and let
loose a veritable delugei;
2,700 pamphlets ap-
peared. Their utterances
were striking. First and
foremost there was the
pamphlet of the Abbe
Sieyes, vicar-general at
Chartres, entitled
'^ Qu'est-ce que le Tiers
Etat," a scathing attack
on clergy and nobility,
and a glorification of the
Third Estate, which
Sieyes emphatically de-
clared was the nation,
and as such ought to send
to the National Assembly
twice as many represen-
tatives as the two other
Thirty thousand
copies of this pamphlet
were in circulation in
three weeks.
Count d'Antraigues in his pamphlet
recalled the proud words with which
the justiciar of Aragon did fealty to
the king : " We, each of whom is as
PHILIP "EGALITE" OF ORLEANS
He became Duke of Orleans on the death of estates
his father, in 1785. He disseminated books and
papers advocating liberal views, and revolu
4571
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
great as thou, and who, combined, are
far more powerful than thou, promise
obedience to thee if thou wilt observe our
rights and privileges ; if not not." The
count attacked, with Rousseau, the dis-
tinction of classes, explained that no sort
of disorder is so terrible as not to be pre-
ferable to the ruinous quiet of despotic
_. „ . power, and called the heredi-
The Heaviest^ ^^^^ nobility the heaviest
courge o an g^^^^j-gg ^j^-j^ which an angry
ftgry eaven j^g^^gj^ could afflict a free
nation. Jean Louis Carra called the word
" subject " an insult as applied to the
members of the assembled estates, and
termed the king the agent of the sovereign
— that is, of the nation. Even Mirabeau,
who more than any other had suffered in
the fetters of absolute monarchy, took up
his pen, called upon the king to abolish
all feudalism and all privileges, and coun-
selled him to become the Marcus Aurelius
of France by granting a constitution and
just laws. His solution was " war on the
privileged and their privileges," but his
sympathies were thoroughly monarchical.
Louis then promised that the States-
General, which the popular voice de-
manded, should meet on May ist, 1789,
and dissolved the " cour pleniere." The
archbishop, on the other hand, sus-
pended the repayment of the national
debt for a year, and adopted such des-
perate financial measures that everyone
considered him mad. On August 25th
he was dismissed from office ; the mob
burnt him in effigy and called for Necker,
on whom the country pinned its last hopes.
When the arbitrary power of the Crown
had been exercised by a despot of ability
such as Louis XIV., resistance on the part
of the Interests had been crushed. When
they had been exercised by a ruler of
inferior ability to the social and pecuniary
advantage of the Interests, they had not
aroused the resistance of caste. But since
the accession of Louis XVI. things had been
o -1 ir« X different. The evil effects
Evil Effects r .1 (( / ■ ,,
- . 01 the ancien regime
. . „' . under Louis XV. had
Ancien Regime , , ,. ^^
reached a chmax. Every
Finance Minister in turn now found himself
compelled sooner or later to make demands
on the pockets of the privileged classes, to
attack their immunities, and to call the
arbitrary powers of the Crown to his aid
in doing so. Hence the privileged classes
found themselves in antagonism to the
arbitrary powers of the Crown ; and hence
4572
again they found themselves advocating
the limitation of these powers by the
summoning of the States-General — a con-
stitutional assembly of the three estates
of the realm, nobles, clergy, and commons,
which had not been summoned since 1614.
The idea, of course, was that the Third
Estate would count only when it was in
accord with the other two. That the
" Tiers Etat " was to capture the supre-
macy was not at all in the programme
of the Parlements or the clergy, or of one
section at least of the aristocrats who
supported the demand. On the other hand,
the demand itself was applauded by all
those who had learned to look upon the
British constitution as the best existing
model, by those who had fallen in love
with the American revolution, and by the
populace, which reckoned that in the
States-General it would become articulate.
Inevitable also was the recall of Necker ;
the reign of the series of amateurs
who had succeeded him had been ruin-
ously costly, and had not even saved
the privileged classes ; whereas the
honesty of Necker and his reputation as
a financial expert were still untarnished.
_ , Nevertheless, Necker was not
rance s ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ hour. The
n- problem for France was not
Disease ^ 1 ., . t
merely that of raismg money ;
that problem existed as a symptom of the
disease of the whole body politic. Until
the disease itself should be attacked,
that particular expression of it could find
only temporary alleviation, whereas in
Necker's eyes it was the whole disease.
He looked upon himself as indispensable ;
he saw that the States-General was in--
evitable ; but he did not see that it was
going to be master of the situation. In
fact, so little did he realise the enormous
importance which was going to attach to
that body that a fundamental question
as to its constitution was left for its own
decision when it should assemble. Were
the three orders to vote separately — that
is, were there to be three chambers of
equal weight — or were they, to vote
together, the majority in the aggregate
being decisive ? If the former course
were to be followed, the two privileged
orders could resist any attack ; if the
latter, privilege was doomed. For it
had been granted that the Third Estate
should have double representation, roughly
600 members as against 300 for each of the
others ; and there were enough reformers
BOURBON POWERS AND APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
among clergy and nobles to turn the scale
decisively. Necker left the point undeter-
mined, though the double representation
would be palpably meaningless unless it
gave the doubly-represented double
weight. With this preliminary issue before
it, the States-General met on May 5th, 1789.
Politically and socially, mediaeval
Europe was the outcome of two forces —
feudalism and clericalism. The mediaeval
passed into the first stage of the modern
when a third force, the individualism,
which was the essence of renascence, was
brought to bear upon these two ; the
resultant was the Western Europe of the
eighteenth century. When the third force
overwhelmed the other two in the French
Revolution, the second modern stage was
reached. The isolation of England had
saved her from being gripped like the
Continental nations by either feudalism
or clericalism ; hence she had acquired a
strong central government centuries before
any European nation had done so. A
rigid caste system had never established
itself; she had broken free from Rome
with hardly a struggle ; for five centuries
^i e. ^ her Commons had never been
The Steady • ,■ 1 . j r r
. . marticulate, and for four cen-
f E 1 d ^^^^^^ ^^^ labouring classes had
been free from villeinage. She
had been able to advance steadily without
a revolution at all. What she had called
revolution was little more than successful
resistance to attempted reaction. From
the time of King John the party of pro-
gress had invariably repudiated the charge
of innovation and appealed, not to
doctrines of abstract right and theories of
what ought to be, but to concrete rights
legally confirmed by charter, by statute,
or by ancient custom.
But during those centuries on the
Continent feudalism and clericalism had
reached their full development, though
not without a certain antagonism between
themselves. Feudalism must issue politi-
cally either in absolutism or in distinegra-
tion, or in a combination of the two. In
France Louis XI. was able to direct it
towards absolutism ; in the empire imperial
absolutism failed, and Germany became
a loose confederation of states ; but in
the separate states absolutism triumphed.
The political downfall of feudalism, how-
ever, did not destroy it socially. The
boundaries between class and class de-
veloped into almost impassable barriers
between hereditary castes. The law
strengthened the barriers and emphasised
the distinction by multiplying privileges
and immunities on the one side and intensi-
fying disabilities on the other. The new
force, individualism, hardly at the outset
attacked feudalism either on its political
side, where it was collapsing by its own
nature, or on its social side, where it had
«« . ox * not then reached its full
Western States j 1 j. n • 1 au
m# J 11 J XI. development. Prmianly the
Modelled on the , ^ , 1 . r • j- j
French Pattern great onslaught of individu-
alism was directed against
clericalism. Where clericalism made terms
with absolutism, it survived ; where it
did not, 'Protestantism was victorious.
The combination of political absolutism,
social feudalism and clericalism culminated
in the France of Louis XIV. And to that
model every one of the Western states
approximated, with modifications, except
Great Britain, Holland, and Switzerland.
Now, individualism — the spirit which
asserted itself in the Renaissance and the
Reformation — is at bottom the claim df
the individual to inquire, to judge, and
to act for himself, so far, at least, as his
doing so does not impede his neighbour's
power to do likewise. Absolutism is the
negation of the individual's right to act
for himself politically; caste or privilege
imposes artificial restrictions on one
class for the advantage of another,
socially. Clericalism is the negation of the
individual's right to inquire and judge
for himself intellectually. Each may serve
worthy ends in particular stages of
development, but each is in direct an-
tagonism to individualism.
Since inquiry and judgment precede
action, the demand for freedom of inquiry
and judgment became vigorously militant
before the demand for freedom of action.
It had been so far victorious as to sever
one half of Western Christendom from
Rome in the sixteenth century, and to
overthrow the Jesuits in the eighteenth.
But latterly the attack on clericalism had
V It • tK changed its character ; the
o aire e champions of the movement
Ch **t" 'tv w^re the intellectual descend-
ris lanity ^^^^ ^^ Erasmus rather than of
Luther. They were more logical than the
heroes of the Reformation; but they
were less moral, being actuated more
by contempt for the irrational and the
absurd than by positive religious con-
viction. Their protagonist ^as Voltaire,
who assailed clericalism as the intellectual
enemy with merciless ridicule and invective.
4573
4574
BOURBON POWERS AND APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION
But the movement had changed also in
another way. As the right to inquire
and to judge became decisively recognised,
inquiry applied itself more boldly to
the political and the social iields. Herein,
England gave the lead. She had worked
out her own salvation in practical fashion,
without much conscious theorising, and pre-
sented to the world the example of a state
in which the average individual possessed
a degree of liberty without other parallel
— in thought, in speech, and in action.
Hobbes had written his theoretical
justification of the absolutism which
broke down, and John Locke had pro-
vided a more or less logical basis for
the constitutionalism which succeeded.
Hobbes, and Locke after him, both based
their theory of the
structure of civil society
on the hypothesis of an
original contract by
which aggregates of men
had voluntarily subjected
themselves to a govern-
ing authority. Both also
recognised the existence
of certain fundamental
rights of the individual
which could not be abro-
gated by any contract.
The two conceptions, of
contract as the origin of
society and of the Rights
of Man, as postulates,
became the basis of ex-
tensive speculation cul-
minating in the emotional
propaganda of Jean
Jacques Rousseau. In
Rousseau's account, the
" contrat social " had been an insidious
device by which the few had been enabled
to domineer over the many, and he
demanded a new contract based upon the
Rights of Man. How such doctrines were
impregnating the whole atmosphere of
political speculation may be seen from
the explicit manner in which the apolo-
pointed to the British constitution as the
one under which the maximum of indi-
vidual liberty was actually to be found,
and attributed the fact to the separation df
the sovereign functions and to the balance
of political powers. ^ A -revolution on
Anglo-American lines Was made to appea'r
possible ; and with modifications borrowed
from the idealised republicanism of Ancient
Rome, appealed with considerable force
to the intelligent, the intellectual, and the
pedantic. In short, a. constitutionalisih
which was content to be monarchical in
form while republican in effect was pre-
sented as an attractive ideal, especially to
the younger generation, who were, or
wished to seem, progressive. Nevertheless,
such an ideal was quite incompatible with
Rousseauism, although
consistent enough with
the teaching of Diderot,
D'Alembert, and the
Encyclopedic. On thfe
practical side, immense
additional momentum
was given to the revoj-
lutionary movement be-
cause in its earlier stages
it found champions
among the best of the
intellectuals and of the
aristocrats, who did not
realise the uncontrollable
character of • the forces
that were being let loos^.
Those forces were, in
their origin, more social
than political. ^> A system
under which the wholie
were
and
JEAN LE ROND. D'ALEMBERT
This great mathematician and Encyclopaedist
was born in 1 71 7, and among l^'j^a^ writings
: books on philosophy, liter^. criticism weight of taxation rested
the theory of music. "He died in 1753. " i i- n
upon a population usually
at or below the hunger-line was endurable
only* so long as it was itresistible. The
population hitherto ^ had suffered- an(l
hated, but endured perforce. The suffering
and hatred were on the verge of becoming
not only articulate but clamorous as th^
people began to perceive that endurance
might not be necessary, that defiance
gists of the American revolt claimed the ^ might be possible, that the system might
Rights of Man as their justification.
Apart, however, from the emotional
expression of abstract theories, inquiry in
the political field had tal.en a new direction,
Montesquieu had undertaken the task of
analysing existing or formerly existing
institutions and comparing their working,
initiating the application of the historical
and comparative methods. He had
be shattered. The iniquities of privilege
were patent to all except the minority
who profited- by them ; even* amOrig the
minority there were not a few who fett
and deplored the injustice. '
The States-General had now been sum-
moned to deal with the problem. What
would the States-General do with it ?
Arthur D. Innes
4575
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CITY AS SEEN FROM ST. JOHN'S HILL
THE STORTHING, DENMARK'S IMPOSING HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
CHRISTIANIA. THE BEAUTIFUL CAPITAL OF NORWAY Photochrome
4576
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
i^m^a^fi.
f^HC
^s^
J
"•"■■' <Jl
^ M^ki
lE
r«
IfM^vA
^ *^
■K
mI
W^^
^
..
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
IX
DENMARK'S GREAT ERA OF PROGRESS
THE REVIVAL OF NORWAY'S PROSPERITY
A FTER the great Scandinavian war there
^~^ followed for Denmark a long period of
peace, which enabled the nation to recruit
its energies and which was of the utmost
importance for the internal development of
the country. Its intellectual life was greatly
influenced from abroad, not only from
Germany, as before, but also from Western
Europe. New ideas were introduced,
interest in public affairs grew stronger,
and gradually radical reforms were carried
out in various directions. Pietism, im-
ported from Germany, became widespread,
especially among the lower classes ; and
Frederic IV.'s son, Christian VI. (1730-
1746), influenced by this movement,
exerted himself to promote the intellectual
and spiritual welfare of his subjects.
In all parts of the kingdom schools were
erected where the children could be taught
religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Literature, too, now set itself the task of
^t .. » J • working for the enlighten-
PeriocT ' """^ "'^^^ ^"""^ education of the
• "n 1 people. In the Reformation
in Denmark ^ .^j ,. ,,.j. j.
period a national literature
had grown up which was of the greatest
importance for the development of the ver-
nacular as a literary language and for the
education of the masses. But soon there was
a return to Latin, and scholars were almost
ashamed to make use of their mother
tongue. It was the " academic period."
Science, it is true, had been studied with
success, and Denmark could boast of dis-
tinguished namej — the astronomer Tycho
Brahe ; Niels Stensen or Steno, the founder
of geology ; Thomas Bartholin, the well-
known anatomist ; and the physicist Ole
Romer, who became famous by his calcula-
tion of the velocity of light.
But the labours of these scholars were
without influence on the intellectual life
of the nation, for whose education prac-
tically nothing had been done. Even
poetry was the business of scholars — an
artificial product, in imitation of Germany.
Yet there were at this time a few poets not
2W
without originality, such as A. Arreboe,
who has been called the father of Danish
poetry; the Norwegian poet Peter Dass,
whose popularity has not even yet died
out, and Thomas Kingo, highly esteemed
as a writer of hymns. But, on the whole, the
, literary output was poor. It
o ergs was only with the appearance of
Influence on r j • tt lu /^o. --.\
the Nation Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754)
that Danish literature changed
its cnaracter and became the educative
force which it now is for the whole nation.
Holberg was influenced by the intellectual
life of Western Europe, and desired, like
the philosophers of the eighteenth century,
to " enlighten " his countrymen, to exter-
minate ancient prejudices and follies, and
to spread useful knowledge. His writings
are of many kinds, including satires,
comedies, and historical and philosophical
works. His purpose being to educate the
people, he wrote in Danish, in the develop-
ment of which as a literary language he
rendered valuable service, though he him-
self was actually a Norwegian. He had
several followers, who, as apostles of
" enlightenment " and " rationalism.,"
aimed at being useful to the state and the
nation, and worked through their writings
for the cause of "universal happiness."
The poets of the latter half of the eigh-
teenth century received strong stimuli
from abroad, from the English poetry of
Nature, from Rousseau and from German
sentimental and national literature, especi-
ally from Klopstock, who spent a consider-
able time in Denmark. The Danish poets,
the chief representative of whom was
Th P Johannes Ewald, followed the
f D °* 'k last-nanied direction, which
. j^ the Norwegians, influenced by
rway £j^gjjgj^ ^^^^ French literature,
opposed, openly showing their dislike to"
it by the formation in 1772 of the Nor-
wegian Society, the heart and soul of
which was J oh. Herman Wessel, The
new ideas continued to spread, and
bore fruit in the great reforms which
4577
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
KING CHRISTIAN VI.
He was the son of Frederic IV. , and,
ascending: the throne of Denmark
and Norway in 1730, applied him-
self to promoting the intellectual
and spiritual welfare of his subjects.
Both Frederic and his Ministers were in
favour of reform ; they took in hand a
number of Struensee's earher plans, but
proceeded with caution, and thus im])arted
strength and durabiUty to their measures.
The Press regained its freedom, the adminis-
tration of justice was im-
proved, and many of the
bonds that fettered commerce
and agriculture were unloosed,
for the state of the peasantry
was still disgraceful.
Frederic IV., it is true,
had abolished the old serf-
dom ; but under his successor
a new form of it had been
introduced. The regulation
had been made — partly to
facilitate conscription and
partly to ensure a supply of
labour for the landed proprie-
tors— that the peasantry were
not to be allowed to leave
their native place as long
as they were liable for
military service ; as a consequence they
were tied to the soil during the best part
of their lives, and abandoned to the
tyranny of the landowners, who harassed
them with claims of compulsory service
and with heavy taxation. Serfdom was
now abolished— in 1788, and in the duchies
in 1797 — and by this reform the peasantry
attained real
freedom. Their
condition was
also improved in
other ways, with
the result that
the landowners
were no longer
able to treat
them as they
liked. Agricul-
ture now made
rapid progress,
and the value of
land was quin-
Two FAMOUS DANISH ASTRONOMERS tuplcd between
Ole Romer, whose portrait is first given, a distinguished philosopher and 175*-^ and 180O.
astronomer, became famous by his calculation of the velocity of light. Pnrnmprrp and
Tycho Brahe, who belonged to an earlier period thanRomer, prosecuted '-'•Junilcicc d.IlU
his studies as an astronomer with great success, discovering serious shipping also
errors in the astronomical tables, and observing a new star in Cassiopeia. . j
entered upon an
era of prosperity. In the tariff law of
1797 the protectionist policy was given up ;
the embargoes on imports were for the
most part abolished and the duties were
reduced. With a view to encouraging
commerce, an agreement had been
characterise the last - decades of the
eighteenth century. The king who was
reigning at that time, Christian VII. (1766-
1808), was feeble-minded and incapable of
performing his duties, and was in con-
sequence soon obliged to leave the real
work of government to his
Ministers. In the early years
of his reign, Bernstorff, the
capable statesman who
brought the disputes with
Gottorp to a satisfactory con-
clusion, took the chief part in
the government ; but in 1770
he had to make way for the
German physician, Struensee,
who had known how to gain
the confidence of 'the king
and the affection of the
queen, the English Princess
Caroline Matilda.
Struensee was imbued with
the ideas of the age of enlight-
enment, and carried out
sensible reforms, such as
establishing the freedom of the Press,
abolishing the examination of prisoners
under torture, and so forth. But his
measures were introduced too hurriedly
and unsystematically, and many of them
aroused great opposition, besides which
he incensed the people by his lax morality
and his contempt for the Danish language.
At the court he
had numerous
enemies, and
they succeeded
in bringing about
his fall ; he was
arrested on Jan-
uary 17th, 1772,
accused of lese
majeste, and be-
headed on April
28th. Most of
his reforms were
cancelled by the
new govern-
ment, the most
influential mem-
ber of which was
Ove Hoegh-
Guldberg. O n
April 14th, 1784, the Crown Prince Frederic
took up the reins of government, and,
though still young himself, showed his
ability to select capable advisers, the most
prominent being Count Bernstorff, whose
moral reputation Avas without blemish.
4578
DENMARK AND NORWAY
concluded with Sweden and Russia — the
Armed Neutrahty of July, 1780 — even at
the time of the American War of Indepen-
dence ; and Bernstorff was able to prevent
Denmark and Norway from becoming
involved in hostilities. Danish and Nor-
wegian vessels sailed all the
seas without let or hindrance,
and carried on a profitable
trade with the belligerents.
After the extinction of the
old royal house in 1319 Nor-
way had become united first
with Sweden and then with
Denmark in 1380. From this
time the country rapidly
deteriorated ; it could not
maintain its independence in
the union. The prosperity of
the country was ruined by the
Hanseatic League, which was
steadily increasing in power ;
KING CHRISTIAN VII,
Itself very little at first about the country.
It was only towards the end of the six-
teenth century that Norway began to regain
its strength; Christian IV. (1588-1648)11!
particular worked zealously for its welfare.
The natural resources of the country were
turned to better advantage;
the power of the . Hanseatic
'League was broken. Com-
merce and navigation re-
vived. Forestry and mining
became more important ; the
towns increased in number
and size : Christiania was
founded in 1624. In addition
to the peasantry a class of
citizens and mariners was
springing up. The nobles
were not numerous and had
not so many privileges as in
Denmark ; neither did they
possess the power of depriv-
their
true
at the same time Norway Ferwe-minderand 'inclpabie' of ing the peasants of
was terribly devastated in performing: the duties of his posi- independence. It is
.■!„ f i. it. J. i_ tion, helefttheworkofg-overnment ,, . ,i i j rr j . i i
trie fourteenth century by to his ministers. He married the that the land suffered through
several pestilences. English Princess Caroline Matilda, ^j^g ^a,r between Denmark
The retrogression of the material wel-
fare of the country was accompanied by
a decline in the literary life ; after the
middle of the fourteenth century almost
all literary activity ceased. The Danes
made their way into the country and
obtained civic rights by intermarriage.
They brought with them the
Danish language, which dis-
placed old Norwegian as
the literary language, and
strongly influenced the col-
loquial language of the towns.
While Sweden had freed her-
self from Danish supremacy
and was entering upon a time
of prosperity, Norway was
treated almost like a pro-
vince of Denmark after the
" Counts' war "of 1536 ; it
is true it retained the title
of kingdom and had its own
laws, but it lost its Council of t-„-^„-^, ^ ^-. ncMMAot^
Ca i J 1 1 THE ORACLE OF DENMARK
btate; and was governed by count Bemstorfr was Danish Min-
the Danish Council of State 'Ster of Foreign Aflfairs from 1751
„^J -TV • 1- m ■ 1 T>i till 1770. By Frederic the Great this
and Danish officials. The ■■ ^
Reformation was introduced
in 1536 by peremptory decree; the
churches and monasteries were pillaged.
Little trouble was taken to instruct the
people of the country in the new doctrines ;
indeed, the Danish government concerned
and Sweden, and also lost the pro-
vinces of Herjedalon, Jemtland, and
Bohuslen ; but, on the whole, it made
quiet progress.
The situation improved still more after
1650, when an absolute government was
introduced into Denmark and Norway.
Norway was freed from the
Danish feudal lords and
stood directly under the
king, who interested him-
self just as much in Norway
as in Denmark. The adminis-
tration and judicature were
improved ; a new code of laws
was issued in 1687, and public
offices were often filled by
Norwegians. The Norwegians
soon became distinguished in
many departments of life.
Ludwig Hoi berg, " the Father
of Modern Danish-Norwegian
Literature," was a Norwegian.
Trade and commerce flouri-
shed. The last years of the
,_, U111//U. joy r reaenc tne oreat mis . , , .-, , -^
The capable statesman was character- eighteenth CCUtury WCrC par-
,r^A ised as "The Oracle of Denmark." ticularly fruitful; at that
time, during the revolutionary wars,
Denmark-Norway was able to preserve a
neutral 'attitude, and down to their time
there was no ill-feeling in Norway against
Denmark and the union.
4579
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
ENDING
OF THE
OLD ORDER
X
SWEDEN'S TIME OF STRIFE
THE BLOODLESS REVOLUTION UNDER GUSTAVUS IH.
/^N the death of Charles XII. without
^^ issue, his sister Ulrica Eleonora, who
had been married to Frederic, hereditary
prince of Hesse, was chosen queen, but
she was obliged to renounce the absolute
sovereignty in February, 1719. The war
soon came to an end in the new reign.
Hanover received Bremen and Verden,
_ - , . Prussia the southern part of
e imi e Nearer Pomerania, and Russia
Power of .V XT
. M K' provinces of Ingerman-
land, Esthonia, and Livonia,
with Viborg Len, from Finland. Denmark
was satisfied with 600,000 thalers ;
Sweden abandoned her claim to exemp-
tion from tolls in the Sound, and promised
not to protect the Duke of Gottorp.
Ulrica Eleonora resigned the crown
in March, 1720, in favour of her hus-
band ; Frederic received allegiance as
king. However, a new form of govern-
ment limited the power of the king still
more. The king became quite dependent
upon the Council of State and the Riksdag.
The supreme power was in the hands of
the Riksdag, which assembled every
three years and had the right of
supervising and altering all the decrees
of the king and of the Council of State.
National affairs were first discussed
in the standing committees, among which
the " secret committee " soon obtained
the greatest influence. The nobles
had the predominance in the Riksdag ;
they alone had a seat and a vote in the
Council of State and filled all the import-
ant offices. The period between 1720 and
. . , 1772 is generally called the
.. ~ ^ " time of liberty." For a long
of Liberty " ^^^^^ after the long and devas-
tating war the country was in a
most wretched condition ; the finances
were in the greatest confusion. However,
the situation improved more rapidly than
might have been expected, thanks princi-
pally to the Chancellor, Count Arvid
Horn. In order to further his country's
interests he preserved a wise and
cautious demeanour towards other nations.
4580
At home, also, there was plenty to do :
new laws were necessary, and the finances
had again to be set in order ; all branches
of industry required careful attention.
In a short time manufactures and mining,
commerce and navigation, revived.
With increased prosperity, however,
the voices of the malcontents made them-
selves heard. There was a certain section
of the people who could not reconcile
themselves to the loss of the Baltic pro-
vinces, and, goaded on by France, they
had become dissatisfied with Horn's
foreign policy ; they wanted war with
Russia in order to regain what they had
lost. They derisively termed Horn and
his followers " Nattmossor " (Night-caps),
while they called themselves " Hattar "
(Wide-awakes). In this way Sweden soon
became the scene of fierce party quarrels.
The contending parties had recourse to
any expedient which might injure their
I opponents, and by which they
St "f '^'^' could attract followers to their
. c . own side ; as both factions
in Sweden ,, ,
were equally venal, corruption
became more common. The neighbouring
nations watched the internal strife with
joy, for it promised advantage to them at
the expense of Sweden, and foreign am-
bassadors spared no money to prolong the
strife in the interests of their own states.
T*ne " Wide-awakes " received bribes from
France, the " Night-caps " from Russia.
In the year 1738 the " Wide-awakes,"
under the leadership of Charles, Count
of Syllenborg, succeeded in gaining the
upper hand. In 1741 they declared war
against Russia. The generals Wrangel,
Lewenhaupt, and Buddenbrock, were
defeated by the Russians, and at last were
forced to surrender. In the meantime
Sweden was engaged with the question of
the succession to the throne, as Ulrica
Eleonora had died childless in 1741. A
few, and among them the peasants, de-
sired the Danish Crown Prince (Frederic V.)
as successor. This was actively opposed
by Elizabeth, the Tsarina of Russia, who
SWEDEN'S TIME OF STRIFE
feared the power of a united North ;
she therefore promised easy conditions if
the Swedes would elect the Gottorp prince,
Adolphus Frederic, who enjoyed her
favour. The " Wide-awakes " succeeded
in effecting his election, and in the Peace
of Abo, on August 7th, 1743,
Russia gave back the greater
portion of Finland.
The "Wide-awakes" main-
tained their power for several
years. Like the "Night-caps,"
they aimed at promoting
national industries ; their
methods, however, were
extremely ill-advised and ex-
travagant. It is true, manu-
factures flourished, but in a
way which was unnatural and
injurious to other branches of
industry, especially to agri-
desired to extend the authority of the king.
However, her attempt to overthrow the
" Wide-awakes " failed so hopelessly that
the king and queen were still more humili-
ated. The king was not even able to
prevent the " Wide-awakes " from at-
taching themselves to the
enemies of Prussia in the
Seven Years War and
declaring war against
Frederic II. The war was
carried on so carelessly that
Sweden completely forfeited
her military reputation. It
also aroused such indignation
against the " Wide-awakes,"
with whose unsatisfactory
government the people were
already dissatisfied, that the
" Night-caps " succeeded in
overthrowing them and re-
culture. Commerce and navi- Frederic i. of Sweden gaining their influence. If the
gation were handicapped by Hereditary prince of Hesse, Fred- " Wide-awakes " had been
various prohibitions and by rj^Trottr'?h';^?efx^Tdi:d'^'th- too extravagant with public
heavy custom duties ; the out issue, she was chosen queen.but moucy, the " Night-caps "
finances were in disorder, resigned in favour of her husband, were too economical. They
and the national debt steadily increased, declined to give the manufacturers the
It must be admitted that the " Wide-
awakes " rendered great service to the
arts and sciences ; they founded an
academy of painting and sculpture and
another for science, and lived to see the
fruits of their labours. The
study of natural science
reached a high state of per-
fection ; its most celebrated
representatives were Linne
(Linnaeus), who died in 1778,
and the physicist, A. Celsius,
who died in 1744. The well-
known mystic E. Swedenborg
also belongs to this period.
Among other great men
should be mentioned the
historian S. Lagerbring, and
O. Dalin, and the philologist,
J. Ihre. In the cultivation of
poetry the Swedes took as
large loans and the assistance on which
many depended, with the result that they
were compelled to stop work. On account
of the consequent lack of employment and
distress, the " Night-caps " became so
unpopular that in 1769 they
were forced to give way to
the " Wide-awakes." Thus
the two parties continued
their struggles, without, how-
ever, allowing the phantom
king to take advantage of
their strife by increasing his
own power ; even the threat
of Adolphus Frederic that he
would resign his crown had
no effect. Russia, Prussia,
and Denmark, who had in
view the dismemberment of
Sweden, naturally sought in
every way to prevent any
great botanist
their models French and fn^ In^'^t'he'itanXTrcL^th: change in the constitution
English poets. Dahn, who science of botany. In 1742 he be- Thus Sweden was for a time
is mentioned above, wrote came professor of botany at Upsaia threatened with the same
epics, lyrics, satires, and University. He died in 1778. f^^.^ which soon afterwards
dramas ; he is recognised as the father overtook unfortunate Poland.
of modern Swedish aesthetic literature.
King Frederic I. died in 1751. His
successor, Adolphus Frederic, was a weak,
insignificant man, but his wife, Louisa
Ulrica, a sister of Frederic II. of Prussia,
who was both talented and fond of power,
Gustavus III., the son of Adolphus
Frederic, came to the rescue of the country.
He was on the Continent at the time of
his father's death, but on hearing the news
at once hurried back to Sweden, firmly
resolved to make an end of internal strife
4581
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
and to recover for the crown its former
splendour. He gained the approval of the
officers and soldiers for his plan. On
August iQth, 1772, by a coup d'etat he
arrested the councillors and the leaders of
the Estates, and on August 21st compelled
the Riksdag to sanction a new constitution,
by which the king received absolute power,
appointed the members of the
A Revolution q^^^^^^ ^^^i^h retained only
Without ,, { ■ ■ J • J
Bloodshed thepowerofgivmgadvice,and
shared the legislative power
with the Estates. This revolution was
received with joy by the people, and was
effected without bloodshed ; those who
had been arrested were set at liberty
without being prosecuted or punished.
The neighbouring nations were indignant
at the coup d'etat, and threatened war.
Gustavus took vigorous pre-
cautions, and the storm was
soon stilled.
In the years following his
coup d'etat Gustavus made
good use of his new powers.
He was talented, learned,
and affable, and having been
influenced by the liberal ideas
of the Encyclopaedists, which
were being diffused all over
Europe, he was strenuously
endeavouring to carry out
useful reforms. The law-
courts were improved, the
finances reformed, the free- gustavus in. of swkden
dom of the Press was intro- 7il^ f°" °^ ^'^ff^-^ flt'^^"%l"
1 771 he succeeded his father. The
side of his nature gained the ascendancy.
He was soon in want of money through
his love of splendour and extravagance,
and, in order to meet his necessities, he
took measures which aroused great dis-
satisfaction, especially among the lower
classes. It was the lower classes, however,
to whom he looked for support against the
nobility, who could never forgive him for
his coup d'etat. When he observed that
his popularity was declining, he thought
that he could recover it by a successful war.
In 1788 he found a pretext for declaring
war against Russia, and marched th'ough
Finland, across the Russian boundary,
while the fleet was instructed to sail
towards St. Petersburg at the same time.
But he was scarcely across the boundary
when the officers mutinied, and demanded
that he should summon a
Riksdag and conclude peace,
for he had acted unconsti-
tutionally in declaring war
without the consent of the
Riksdag. Gustavus hurried .
back to Sweden, where he
won the support of the
people, who were indignant
at the revolt, summoned the
Riksdag, and, on February
2 1st, 1789, carried the "Saker-
hetsakt," which granted him
almost unlimited power.
The war was continued,
but the favourable oppor-
tunity was lost, and the war
duced, and the fetters which early years of his reign were soou Came to an end on
impeded trade and other successful, but in 1792 he was August 14th, 1790, with the
branches of industry were ^^*^"y '^"""'^^'^ ^* Stockholm,
removed. Gustavus was especially inter-
ested in art and science ; he founded the
Swedish Academy in 1786, the Swedish
Theatre in 1773, and the Musical Academy
in 1771. The plastic arts were also making
progress, in particular sculpture. I. T.
Sergei, who died in 1814, was the greatest
sculptor of his age. In literature the French
style prevailed, and was adopted by
Gustavus, who was himself a dramatist,
and by several poets who had gathered
round him — namely, I. H. Kellgren and
K. G. af Leopold ; while others who kept
themselves free from French influence and
went their own way were K. M. Bellmann,
B. Lidner, and A. M. Lenngren.
Thus the first years of Gustavus's reign
were fortunate for Sweden, and the king
himself was very popular among the
people. Gradually, however, the worse
4582
Peace of Werela, which in
every respect confirmed the former state
of affairs. Gustavus desired to help his
friend Louis XVI. against the Revolution ;
and accordingly, in 1791, concluded a
treaty with Russia, and conceived the
plan of advancing into France at the
head of a Swedish and Russian army.
However, a conspiracy was formed among
Th K* SK ^^^ nobility, whose indigna-
e mg o ^.^^ j^^^ reached its height
M k d B 11 since the introduction of
the " Sakerhetsakt." At a
masked ball at Stockholm Gustavus was
mortally wounded on March i6th, 1792,
and died a few days later. Gustavus left
a son, Gustavus IV. (Adolphus, 1792-1809),
who was not of age, and the brother of
Gustavus, Charles, Duke of Sodermah-
land, undertook the government.
Hans Schjoth
GREAT DATES FROM THE REFORMATION TO
THE REVOLUTION
A.D.
1609 Henry VIII. king of England. Albuquerque
appointed Viceroy of tlie Indies
1511 I Holy League fonned against France
1613 Henry in Picardy. James IV. of Scotland killed
at Battle of Flodden. James V. succeeds.
Leo X. elected Pope. Rise of Wolsey. Swiss
Confederation completed
1515 Charles of Burgundy succeeds to the crowns of
Castile and Aragon. Francis I. king of France.
Battle of Marignano
1617 Martin Luther challenges Indulgences
1619 Charles succeeds to Hapsburg dominions and is
elected Emperor Charles V.
1520 Field of Cloth of Gold. Blood-bath of Stockholm.
Luther burns the Pope's Bull. Magelliaens passes
Straits of Magellan
1621 Diet of Wonus. Adrian VI. Pope. Cortes in Mexico.
War between Charles and Francis
1622 England joins the war. Knights' war in Germany
1623 Clement VII. Pope. Gustavus Vasa king of Sweden.
Frederic of Holstein king of Denmark
1624 German Peasants' War.
1626 Battle of Pavia
1626 Charles marries Isabella of Portugal
1627 Sack of Rome by Imperial troops. Crowns of
Hungary and Bohemia conferred on Ferdinand
of Austria, brother of Charles V.
1529 Peace of Cambrai. Protest of Spain. Turks before
Vienna. Fall of Wolsey.
1530 Confession of Augsburg. Formation of the Schmal-
1531 Death of Zwingli [caldic League
1582 Treaty of Nuremberg. Pizarro in Peru
1633 England repudiates Papal allegiance. Ascendancy
of Thomas Cromwell
1634 Paul III. Pope. Francis makes Turkish alliance
1636 Visitation of English monasteries. Charles V. in
Tunis
1636 Pilgrimage of Grace. War renewed between
1538 Truce of Nice [Charles V. and Francis
1640 I Order of Jesuits receives Papal sanction
1641 Calvin supreme at Geneva. Algerian expedition of
Charles V. Diet of Regensburg (Ratisbon)
1542 War renewed between Charles and Francis.
Scottish forces routed at Solway Moss. Death
of James V . and accession of infant Mary Stuart
1643 Henry joins Charles against France
1644 Peace of Crespy
1645 Council of Trent begins
1646 Death of Luther. Schmalcaldic War.
1647 Edward VI. king of England. Henry II. king of
France. Defeat of Protestants at Muhlberg. Rout
1648 Interim of Augsburg [of Scots at Pinkie
1649 Julius III. Pope. Fall of Somerset in England
1662 Maurice of Saxony heads German Protestants.
Peace of Passau
1653 Mary Tudor queen of England
1664 Mary marries Philip of Spain
1665 Beginning of Marian persecution. Pacification of
Augsburg. Paul IV. Pope
1568 Charles V. abdicates. Philip succeeds to Spain and
Burgundy, Ferdinand in German.v
1667 Lords of the Congregation in Scotland. War
between France and Spain.
1668 Loss of Calais. Mary Stuart marries Dauphin.
Ehzabeth qq^en of England
1659 Treaty of Cateau Cambresis. Francis II. king of
France. Religious settlement In England
1660 Treaty of Leith. Charles IX. king of France.
Ascendancy of Catharine de Medici
1661 Mary Stuart returns to Scotland
1662 Massacre of Vassy. Beginning of Huguenot wars
in France
1663 End of Council of Trent. Peace of Amboise
1664 Maximilian II. emperor
1565 Mary Stuart marries Damley
1666 Pius V. Pope
1667 Murder of Damley. Mary forced to abdicate
Huguenot wars in France. Alva in the Netherlands
1668 Mary Stuart takes refuge in England
1669 Suppression of insurrection of Northern earls in
England. Battles of Moncontour and Jamac
in France
1570 Treaty of St. Germains. Papal Bull deposing
Elizabeth. Assassination of Regent Moray
1672 Revolt of Netherlands. Gregory XIII. Pope.
Battle of Lepanto. Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Death of John Knox
1678 Alva recalled from Netherlands
A.D.
1576
1578
1679
1580
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1592
1593
1598
1600
1803
1604
1606
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1617
1618
1619
1320
1621
1621
1825
1626
l'?28
1329
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1838
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1656
1667
1668
1660
1661
1662
The " Spanish Fiu-y " of Antwerp. Don John sent
to the Netherlands. Pacification of Ghent.
Rudolf II. emperor
Death of Don John. Parma sent to Netherlands
Union of Utrecht
Annexation of Portugal to Spain. Desmond's
rebellion in Ireland. Drake completes his voj age
of circumnavigation
Death of William the Silent ;and of Anjou(Alencon),
making Henry of Navarre heir to French throne
Raleigh's first Virginia colony. Sixtus V. Pope.
■■ War of the Three Henries " in France
English in Netherlands. Babington's plot
Execution of Mary Stuart
Spanish Armada. Assassination of Henry of
Guise. Christian IV. king of Denmark
Henry IV. claims succession to Henry III.
Clement IX. Pope
Henry IV. accepts the Mass
Treaty of Vervins ; Edict of Nantes. Death of
Philip II. and Lord Burleigh. Philip III. king
of Spain
Charter of English East India Company
James I. of England. Union of English and
Charles IX. king of Sweden [Scottish crowns
Paul V. Pope
Twelve years' truce between Dutch and Spain.
Charter of Virginia
Henry IV. assassinated. Louis XIII. king of France
Gustavus Adolphus king of Sweden
Matthias emperor
Princess Elizabeth of England marries Elector
Palatine
Last States-General called in France till 1789
Ferdinand of Carinthia recognised as heir to
Matthias
Bohemian revolt begins Thirty Years War
Bohemians elect Frederic of the Palatinate.
Ferdinand becomes emperor
Battle of White Mountain. Voyage of Mayflower
Philip IV. king of Spain
Supremacy of Cardinal Richelieu in France begins
Charles I. king of England
Protestants under leadership of Christian of
Denmark. Wallenstein comes to aid of emperor.
Battle of Lutter
Petition of Right. Assassination of Buckingham
Withdrawal of Denmark. Emperor issues Edict
of Restitution
Dismissalof Wallenstein. Gustavus Adolphus lands
Gustavus wins victory of Breitenfeld
Wallenstein recalled. Gustavus killed at Lutzen
Wentworth in Ireland
Death of Wallenstein. Battle of Nordlingen
Claim of Ship-money. France at war with Spain
National League and Covenant in Scotland
Death of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. The Bishops'
War (Scotland)
Accession of Frederic William, the Great Elector
of Brandenburg. Meeting of Long Parliament
Execution of Strafford. Insurrection in Ireland
Beginning of Great Rebellion in England. Maz&rin's
rise to power in France
Louis XIV. king of France. Anne of Austria
regent. Solemn League and Covenant between
Parliament and Scots. Due d'Enghien (the
Great Cond6) defeats Spaniards at Rocroi
Battle of Marston Moor
Battle of Naseby
Peace of Westphalia. Beginning of war of the Fronde
Charles I. beheaded. Commonwealth in England.
Cromwell in Ireland
Death of Montrose. Battle of Dunbar
Battle of Worcester. Escape of Charles II.
Navigation Act
Anglo-Dutch war begins. War of the Fronde ends
Cromwell made Lord Protector
Charles X. king of Sweden. End of Dutch war
Cromwell at war with Spain
French alliance with Cromwell. Blake at Santa Cruz
Capture of Dunkirk. Death of Cromwell
Stuart Restoration in England. Louis XIV.
assumes government in France. Charles XI.
king of Sweden. Treaty of Oliva
Death of Mazarin. Colbert in France. Clarendon
in England
Charles II. of England marries Catharine of Bra-
ganza. Dunkirk sold to France
4583
GREAT DATES FROM THE REFORMATION TO
THE REVOLUTION
A.D.
1665
1667
1668
1670
167S
1878
1674
1676
1677
1678
1670
16S1
1682
1685
1686
1688
1689
1690
1692
1694
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1720
1721
1723
1724
1726
1726
Independence of Portugal under the house of Bra-
ganza recognised. Charles II. king of Spain.
Anglo-Dutch war begins
Hnd of Dutch war. Fall of Clarendpn. Beginning
of the " War of Devolution." Louis XIV.
invades the Netherlands
Cabal Ministry in England. Triple Alliance
(England, Holland, and Sweden)
Treaty of Dover between Louis and Charles
France and England attack Holland. Fall of the
Grand Pensionary and rise of William of Orange
(nephew of Charles II.)
European coalition
England withdraws from war. Turenne's campaign
in Alsace
Death of Turenne. Victory of Great Elector at
Fehrbellln
William of Orange marries Mary, daughter of Duke
of York
Treaty of Nimeguen. Titus Gates and the Popish
Plot in England
Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye. Rising of Scottish
Covenanters. Habeas Corpus Act
Louis seizes Strasburg
Accession of Peter the Great in Russia
James II. king of England. Louis revokes the Edict
of Nantes
William of Orange forms League of Augsburg
The Great Elector succeeded by Frederic III
Louis invades the Palatinate. William of
Orange lands in England
William III. and Mary accept Declaration of
Right. Battle of Killiecrankie. Grand Alliance
Battle of Boyne [formed
Massacre of Glencoe. Irish Penal Laws passed.
Battles of La Hogue and Steinkirk
Bank of England established
Treaty of Ryswick. Prince Eugene defeats Turks at
Zenta. Charles XII. king of Sweden. Party
government initiated by Whig Junto
First (Spanish) Partition Treaty
Collapse of Scottish Darien scheme. Second
Partition Treaty
Spanish Crown accepted by Philip (V.) of Anjou.
Northern war. Charles XII. defeats Danes and
Russians at Narwa
Louis acknowledges James Edward Stuart. England
joins Grand Alliance. Frederic III., Elector of
Brandenburg, becomes King Frederic I. of Prussia
Anne queen of England. War of Spanish succession
Charles XII. invades Poland
Marlborough and Eugene rout French at Blenheim.
Rooke takes Gibraltar
Joseph I. emperor
Marlborough wins battle of Ramillies. Eugene
wins battle of Turin
Defeat of allies by Berwick at Almanza. Treaty
of Union between England and Scotland united
as Great Britain
Battle of Oudenarde
Battle of Ramillies. Charles XII. defeated at
PoltAwa
Fall of Whigs in England. Conference of Gertruy-
denberg
Archduke Charles becomes Emperor Charles VI.
Fall of Marlborough
Treaty of Utrecht establishes Bourbon dynasty
in Spain. Frederic William I. king of Prussia
Treaty of Rastadt. George I. king of England.
Hanoverian dynasty begins. Philip V. marries
Elizabeth Farnese
Louis XV. king of France ; Orleans regent. Jacob-
ite rising of the " Fifteen "
Eugene overthrows Turks at Peterwardein
Great Britain, France, and Holland form Triple
Alliance ; later joined by Austria
Treaty of Passarovitz. Alberoni in Spain. Spanish
fleet destroyed at Cape Passaro. Death of
Charles XII.
End of Northern war. Promulgation of Pragmatic
Sanction by Emperor Charles VI. Collapse of
South Sea Bubble In England, and Law's Missis-
sippi scheme in France
Walpole's administration begins in England
Orleans regency ends in France
Ripperda in Spain
Catharine I. in Russia
Cardinal Fleury becomes First Minister In France
A.D.
1727 I George II. king of England. Walpole retains
1729 Treaty of Seville [power. Treaty of Vienna
1731 Second Treaty of Vienna
1733 Secret family compact between French and Spanish
Bourbons. War of Polish succession begins
1736 War of Polish succession ends. Bourbon dynasty
in the two Sicilies
1738 France guarantees Pragmatic Sanction
1739 I War of Jenkins' Ear begins between Spain and
Great Britain
1740 Frederic II. king of Prussia. Death of Emperor
Charles VI. ; Austrian succession claimed by
Maria Theresa under Pragmatic Sanction, chal-
lenged by Charles of Bavaria. Frederic occupies
Silesia ; first Silesian War
17^1 i War of Austrian succession
1742 1 Charles VII. of Bavaria emperor. Fall of Walpole
1743 ; Battle of Dettingen. Treaty of Fontainebleau
1744 Marshal Saxe in the Netherlands
1746 Francis I. of Tuscany (Lorraine), husband of Maria
Theresa, emperor. Charles Edward lands in
Scotland and invades England
1746 Jacobite cause crushed at Culloden. Opening of
Franco-British struggle in India. Dupleix and
La Bourdonnais capture Madras. Ferdinand
1747 French invade Holland [VI. king of Spain
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restores conquests
1751 Clive at Arcot
1764 Collisions of French and British colonists in
America
1758 Alliance of Great Britain and Prussia. League
against Prussia. French take Minorca. Frederic
invades Saxony. Seven Years War begins
1767 Pitt in power. Clive's victory at Plassey. Battles
of Prague, Kolin, Rosbach, and Leuthen
1758 Battles of Crefeld, Zomdorf and Hochkirch. Choiseul
in power in France
1769 Battles of Minden, Kunersdorf, Lagos, Quiberon
and Quebec. Pombal in power in Portugal.
Charles III. king of Spain
1760 Battles of Leignitz, Torgau and Wandewash.
I George III. king of England
1761 ! Bute predominant. Pitt retires
1782 i Spain joins France ; Russia becomes neutral
1763 i Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg
1'764 j Suppression of Jesuits in France. Stanislas
! Poniatowski king of Poland. Battle of Buxar
(Bengal)
1766 \ Joseph II. emperor. Grenville's Stamp Act
1'768 i Rockingham Ministry repeals Stamp Act. Pitt forms
I Grafton Ministry and becomes Earl of Chatham
1767 j Jesuits expelled from Spafti. Charles Townshend'a
Colonial taxes
1768 France acquires Corsica from Genoa. Middlesex
elections
1769 Meeting of Frederic and Emperor Joseph
1770 Second meeting. Fall of Choiseul in France. North's
Ministry in England
1771 Abolition of Parlement by Maupeou
1772 Partition of Poland. Gustavus III. king of Sweden
17'73 Jesuits condemned by the Pope. North's Indian
Regulating Acts
1774 Louis XVI. king of France. Maurepas sestores the
Parlement. Penal Acts against Massachusetts.
Warren Hastings Governor-General of India
1775 Turgot's reforms in France. Beginning of American
War of Independence
1'778 Necker in France. American Declaration of Inde-
pendence
1777 Joseph II. claims Bavarian succession. Burgoyne's
surrender at Saratoga
1778 France supports America
1779 Spain joins war
1780 First armed neutrality. Death of Jt^ria Theresa
1781 Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. Reforms
of Joseph II.
1782 Fall of North. Whig Ministries in England. Rodney's
victory of The Saints. Grattan's Parliament
established in Ireland
1783 Peace of Versailles. Independence of U.S.A. recog-
nised. Calonne in France. Coalition of Fox and
North ; the younger Pitt becomes Prime Minister
1784 Pitt returned to power ; remains till 1801
1786 Pitt's India Act. Frederic II. forms the Furstenbund
1786 Frederic William II. king of Prussia
1788 Revolt of Netherlands against Joseph's reforms.
Recall of Necker, and summoning of States-
General
4584
TNECOMMeCEofWESTERN EUROPE
S FROM THE REFORMATION TD THE REVOLUTION IS
THE EFFECTS OF THE SPANISH AND
PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES
TTHE permission obtained from the Pope
■*• by the rulers of Spain and Portugal to
extend their power over unknown or un-
trodden regions was a result of the long-
continued war with the Mohammedans,
which to the successors of Gregory VII.
and Urban II. was a continuation of the
Crusade policy of the papacy. The sove-
reigns of the Iberian Peninsula finally suc-
ceeded in driving oversea the enemy who
had come upon them in the eighth century.
The bloodshed of 700 years was brought
to a close by the conquest of Granada in
1492 . 1 1 now became necessary to render the
regained territory secure by occupying the
Mediterranean coast of Africa. In fact, both
Spain and Portugal undertook this task,
but with the means at their disposal success
Th St seemed very uncertain. It was
A * ■ t^ff^ ** ^^^ ^^^^ reason that Henry the
gams \e Navigator, who died in 1460,
Mohammedans , " ^ . r- ^
endeavoured to find a new
strategic base of operations, as well as
new allies and means, to be used against
the infidels. Colymbus and his patroness,
Isabella of Castile, were also inspired by
the same thought. Spaniards and Portu-
guese alike were filled with the idea of
making use of the treasures of India and
China in their struggle against the Moham-
medans. Yet neither Spain nor Portugal
was able to carry out its plans in respect
to the conquest of the Barbary States.
The Christians were able to capture and
hold only single points along the coast,
the so-called " presidios." The attacks
of Charles V. on Tunis and Algiers
were ineffectual, and Sebastian's cam-
paign against Morocco ended in 1578
with a defeat that was decidedly injurious
to the future influence of Portugal. The
kings of Spain were obliged to defend
the interests of their subjects against
the Mohammedans in the Eastern Medi-
terranean also — above all, the commerce
of the Catalonians, who, since the time of
j^ the Crusades, had been the
ap es a j-jyals of the Italians and Pro-
epen ency ^gj^^g^|g jj^ ^^le Levant. More-
***"* over, Sicily had been under the
dominion of Aragon for centuries, and
Naples became a dependency of Spain in
1504. It was necessary to defend political
and economic interests against the fol-
lowers of Islam in this region also.
Conditions in the Levant had become
completely altered since the end of the
Crusades. The Byzantine Empire was no
longer in existence, and the Mohammedan
kingdom of the Turks had arisen in its
place. There were no longer any Genoese
or Venetian settlements in the Black Sea
region. Anatolia was now a Turkish
province. Syria and Egypt had been
under the dominion of the Sultan of
Constantinople since the beginning of the
sixteenth century. The sole remains of
the colonial empire of Venice in the
Eastern Mediterranean were a few islands,
constantly threatened, and indeed con-
-^ -, quered piecemeal. In addition
-. . ,». to Spain and Italy, there
Empire of the f.,, , , .•' , . ,
jj . was still another region which
the Hapsburgs, on whose
empire the sun never set, were obliged
to defend against the Mohammedans.
This was Austria, their hereditary king-
dom. To be sure, dexterity and good
luck had enabled them in the year
1526 to establish the great union of
4585
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The Crescent's
Failure
at Vienna
nations from which the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy developed in later times ; but,
owing to the quarrels of the different
ruling factions in the lands of St. Stephen,
they were unable to avoid the loss of the
greater part of Hungary. It was greatly
to the advantage of the Hapsburgs that
the protection of German Austria was
looked upon as a com-
mon German, indeed as a
common European, cause.
Hence Suleiman H., accus-
tomed as he was to victory, failed to plant
the crescent on the walls of Vienna in 1529.
The most important part of the policy
of Spain, the repulse of the Turks at the
time of their final advance against Chris-
tendom, was greatly obstructed owing to
the fact that France, under Francis I.,
was all the while waging a war of self-
preservation against the Haps-
burgs. Feeling that the
existence of his monarchy
was threatened by the supre-
macy of Spanish power,
Francis had entered into
negotiations with the Porte
as early as 1525, when in
prison in Madrid. The Franco-
Spanish War of 1526-1529,
together with the contem-
porary attacks of Suleiman
on Hungary, compelled the
Hapsburgs to divide their
forces in order to protect
themselves on both sides. A
few years later, in 1535,
between the different parts of the Spanish
Empire, which were bound together only
by dynastic ties. In the meanwhile France
harvested the material fruits of her un-
christian alliance with the Mohammedan
East. A commercial treaty, drawn up
on very similar lines to the old Hanse
compacts, and offering a model for later
treaties, was concluded in 1535. It was
based on the principle of reciprocity as
against other powers. The French in the
East were to pay the same tolls and taxes
that the Turks themselves paid to their
government, and vice versa ; further, it
was agreed that the French should be
legally answerable to their own consuls
alone, and that they should be permitted
to worship according to their own religion
in Mohammedan lands. The French flag
succeeded to the privileges of the Venetian,
and was moreover displayed
by all vessels of other nations
sailing under French pro-
tection. In contrast to the
Spaniards, the Venetians did
not allow themselves to be
driven from their trade with
the Levant. As in earlier
times, they would now have
preferred to slip in between
the hostile powers of the West
and East ; but during the
sixteenth century it was
necessary for them to be
armed and on their guard
NAVIGATOR ^-gaiust both the sultan, who
HENRY THE —
The fourth son of John "rricrng dcsircd tO get pOSSCSSioU of
Francis I., fully conscious of °Lf°''*f^Hl'«.!i^J"''°on^^^l''°i?; the remains of their colonies,
.' •' agfes of discovery, and, at his '
the gravity of the step, own expense, fitted out important and the emperor, or, rather,
formed an alliance with the ^''P^'^'t'""^- «« ^ied in i46o. ^^^ ^^^^^ ^f Austria, whose
Turks. This was the first open union which
had ever been entered into by a Christian-
Latin power with the followers of the Pro-
phet. The Turks in re+urn put the French
king in possession of a Mediterranean fleet.
The Spaniards were not only prevented
from becoming the rulers of the Medi-
terranean, but, owing to their position
as champions of Christianity, were obliged
to forfeit the remains of their com-
merce in the Levant. In this the Cata-
lonians and the city of Barcelona were
the greatest sufferers.
The Castilians had nothing to lose in the
East, and were looked upon by the other
Spaniards as the founders of a world-policy
that appeared to be the height of madness.
The decline of commerce in the Levant
rendered more acute the antagonism
4586
sphere of interest in the plain of the
Po and beyond the Adriatic extended
dangerously near to the boundaries of
the territory subject to Venice. Although
the Continental possessions of Venice were
likely to draw her into serious complica-
tions, without the revenues from these
lands she would be unable to
provide the troops and ships
required for the defence of
her position in the East. The
false notion that the Oriental commerce
of the Venetians came to an end be-
cause of the discovery of an ocean route
to India, and that trade was wrested
from Venice by Portugal, is old and
seemingly ineradicable. In reality, Venice
continued to carry on traffic with the
Levant not only throughout the sixteenth
Eastern
Commerce of
Venetians
THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES
century, but until the beginning of the
eighteenth, so that at least seven or eight
generations passed before the commerce
in question entirely lost its earlier import-
ance. Had the Venetians been as stubborn
as the Hanseatics, there is no doubt that
they would have lost their Oriental trade
much earlier than they did.
When they saw that Alexandria was
declining for lack of an import trade,
because the Portuguese had closed up the
entrance to the Red Sea, they did not
hesitate for a moment to desert the former
mistress of the Eastern Mediterranean,
and transferred their headquarters to
Aleppo, for the reason that the Syrian
city had once more become a market for
the products of Asia. Arabs, Persians, and
Armenians brought merchandise thither
from India ; for the Portuguese, much as
they wished to do so, had not succeeded
either in closing the Persian Gulf perma-
nently, in blocking up the overland routes,
or in driving the Arabs from the Indian
Ocean. They had indeed been successful
in rendering the old commercial routes more
difficult of access, but they had by no means
_ . destroyed them. The fate of
usincss Venetian trade in the East
n crpris ^.^ ^^^ j.^ .^ ^^^ hands of the
Portuguese, but depended
upon the moods, peaceful or warlike, of the
sultan. How capable the Venetians were
of adapting themselves to adverse circum-
stances was shown by the fact that they
struck out an entirely new commercial
route, and one, moreover, for which the
chief instrument of their trade, their
mercantile marine, was practically use-
less ; this was the caravan road that led
diagonally across the Balkan Peninsula
from Constantinople to Spalato. All wares
that did not find purchasers in the last-
named city — where trade was entirely in the
hands of Venetian merchants — were sent to
the capital by ship. Thus Venice was still
able to supply her old customers outside of
Italy with merchandise from the Orient,
in spite of Lisbon and Antwerp, although,
to her great regret, she was not able
entirely to do away with their competition.
Both before and after the period of
discoveries the Upper Germans were the
most reliable customers of the Venetians.
It was an advantage to the South German
merchant, now reaching out more vigor-
ously than ever in all directions, that, in
spite of the south-east passage to India,
the Portuguese and the Netherlanders
were unable to monopolise the entire
trade in Asiatic products. The Germans
had their choice of Venice, Lisbon, and
Antwerp. There was no reason why they
should neglect Venice ; indeed, there was
a far better market for the sale of German
products there than in the newly-estab-
lished commercial centres of the West.
How was it, then, that Ven-
jj * .^ *. ice could have so suddenly,
ma oa ^^ ^^^ traditional formula pos-
uropc ^^j^^gg^ 2Qg|- jjgj. commanding
position in the world's trade ? Even
granting that the Orient had in reality
been hermetically sealed by the Portu-
guese and Turks, this would not have been
sufficient to destroy the trade of Venice, of
which one of the chief supports was her
domestic industry. During the sixteenth
century, the height of the Renaissance,
and until late in the seventeenth, Italy
dominated the artistic taste of all Europe.
The commercial language, customs, and
methods of Italians became widely diffused
over Northern and Western Europe for
the first time in the sixteenth century.
Indeed, the discoveries through which
tlie commerce of the Apennine Peninsula
is said to have been destroyed actually
contributed, if not to an increase in the
commercial power of Italy, at least to an
enlargement in its area of distribution ;
for Venetian and Genoese importers were
among the very first to supply Seville
and Lisbon with the merchandise that was
sent out to the Transatlantic possessions
in accordance with the Spanish and
Portuguese system of colonisation. The
older commercial races, the Italians and
the Germans, had no reason for fearing
the Spaniards and Portuguese ; the
English and the Netherlanders were far
more dangerous rivals. It was in the
North, along the line that divided Central
from Northern European commerce that
the Venetians were first compelled to
retire from competition. About the year
_, ,. 1560 they suspended the
Venetians 1 ■' i,- 1, iu
_ .. , regular sea voyages which they
Retire from , j i • li, u um. f
^ ..,. had been in the habit ot
Competition , . . -i. t /^ j. •
making to the Low Countries
and the British Isles ever since the year
1318, while, on the other hand, English
and Dutch navigators had become con-
stant visitors to the Mediterranean.
There can be no doubt that the centre
of gravity of the world's commerce gradu-
ally swung westward to the Atlantic coast
during the course of the sixteenth century,
4587
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
yet without bringing with it any sudden
destruction to German or Itahan trade.
Both Germany and Italy stretched forth
their tentacles over the Iberian Pen-
insula and the newly developing centres
of the world's trade. Adaptation to
altered circumstances was now possible,
inasmuch as the old and clumsy method of
11, . barter had in a large degree been
Wonders j j u ai, s
of th N superseded by the use of money
Wo Id ^^^ credit; consequently, geo-
graphical displacements of trade
were no longer of any great consequence.
The New World proffered her peculiar
flora and fauna to the conquistadores of
the sixteenth century in their entire
tropical profusion. The existence of a
strange race of human beings who lived
in other moral conditions was also of con-
sequence to the masters of the new
hemisphere, although phenomena of nature
and civilisation were of but minor interest
to men whose activities were almost
exclusively limited to the obtaining of gold.
However, it was at least necessary to
settle in the new continent, and to look
at it as a territory for residence and
subsistence. Had Europe, or even Spain,
suffered from excess of population during
the sixteenth century, the New World
would have been from the very first what
it really became only during the nine-
teenth century — a region of expansion
for such civilised nations of the world as
are lacking either in land or in means of
subsistence. Since at that time Europe,
and especially Spain, had too few rather
than too many inhabitants, the New World
was at the beginning an unlimited arena
for the deeds of adventurers, a fair field
for missionaries eager to make converts,
and a tremendous crown demesne for
the government, which bore and con-
tinued to bear the expenses of discovery
and conquest, and naturally, according
to the principles of government which
then prevailed, desired an immediate
_ _ reimbursement of its outlay.
g * *'^ But although emigration
. . ^ . from Europe to America did
in America , . A ±^
not at first assume any
Cc*nsiderable proportions, sporadic settle-
ments were made by eager, enter-
prising, and highly educated leaders,
lay and ecclesiastical, who sowed the
seeds of Mediterranean culture in the
New World, and, still remaining Euro-
peans, founded that system of hemispheric
division of production and distribution
4588
which was the keystone of commercial
policy for more than two centuries. The
transmission of European civilisation to
America, so beneficial to both hemispheres,
was dependent on the relations of the
colonists to the native races, who were
not thickly settled although sometimes
highly developed. Had the methods of
the conquistadores been adopted, the red
race would soon have been annihilated.
However, the influence of Church and
State tended to curb the unscrupulous
egoism of colonial, mining, and commercial
interests. As soon as ecclesiastical and
political government took the place of
previous anarchy, the native races could at
[east be rescued from extirpation, although
their civilisation was allowed to drift away
to destruction because of its heathen
origin. Only the more barbarous of the
Indians retreated beyond the sphere of
European influence, seeking refuge in the
forests and deserts. Their civilised breth-
ren did not shrink from the consequences
of association with the European intruders ;
marriage between Europeans and Indian
women also contributed towards the estab-
lishment of friendly relations. In this
«.ri . .1 VT way a race of half-breeds,
What the New \ir 4.-
„, , . _ . .or Mestizos, arose among
World Received ,, i i j j t-
r *i. r\ij the pure-blooded turo-
from the Old 1 t 1 ■ 1
pean and Indian peoples.
The Old World was far superior to the
New with regard to the possession of
domestic animals. The llama, the vicuiia,
and a few varieties of birds were all that
America had to offer to European settlers.
The great wealth of the new continent
in game was not taken into consideration
at all by the Spanish and Portuguese
colonists. Since practically all the
domestic animals of the New World are of
Old World origin, first having been im-
ported from Spain or elsewhere — this
applying not only to the tame but also
to the wild cattle and horses — it follows
that the exchange of civilisation favoured
America from a zoological quite as much as
it had from an anthropological point of view.
Although America was more fortunately
situated in regard to flora than to fauna,
nevertheless the New World received from
the Old more than it gave in the shape of
useful plants. Such American products
as maize, tobacco, potatoes, and Spanish
pepper can, indeed, be cultivated in the
more temperate regions of the Old World.
In like manner the pineapple, aloe, and
cactus have been introduced into the
THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES
sub-tropical zones ; and cocoa and vanilla,
together with some medicinal plants,
flourish in the tropics of the Eastern
Hemisphere. Even if we add to these
American dye-woods and timber, the
vegetable products that have been trans-
planted from the New World to the Old
fall a long way short both in number and
in importance of the total of species that
have crossed the Atlantic in the other direc-
tion ; in fact, the various kinds of grain,
wheat, barley, oats, and rye are of them-
selves sufficient to equalise the balance.
It would take too long to enumerate all
the varieties of fruits and vegetables,
fibrous plants and herbs used for dyeing,
which have been exported across the
ocean from the three older continents,
and have been found to thrive well in
North and South America. To these,
sugar-cane and coffee must also be added.
Even the two chief varieties of cotton cul-
tivated in America are of Old World origin.
Plants and animals were at first exported
across the ocean from one hemisphere
to the other without much attention being
paid to them. Perhaps centuries passed
before their useful qualities were discovered
Trade between ^"^ properly valued— the
potato, tor example. Dunng
"d^A* ■ ^^^ ^^^^ century or century
and a half after the discovery,
products of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms played a very small part in the
traffic between Europe and America. As
yet there was nothing from either to be
sent back to Europe as a return cargo
with which to pay for the importations of
European industrial products. Even the
quantity of West Indian sugar sent to
Europe in addition to dye-woods and
drugs from Central and South America
seems not to have been large ; the use of
sugar itself was ^et very limited. In
general, none of the products which in
later times received the name of " colonial
wares " had yet become well known as
luxuries. Not until the seventeenth cen-
tury did the manner of life of Europeans
alter to such a degree as to favour
trade in such products.
Nevertheless, permanent settlements
were soon established in America by
European immigrants, who required
regular importations of the products of
Old World industry, for they by no means
fell to the level of self-sufficing barbarism.
Next in importance to the possession
of an unlimited area for residence and
subsistence, the occurrence of the precious
metals was the foundation of the being
and prosperity of the Spanish-American
colonies. Ever since the sixteenth century
the gold and silver of the New World have
exerted a powerful influence on the
economic and political history of Europe.
Although the production of the precious
. . , metals in America can be
Amenc& s j • ■ .
««• » cf .expressed m approximate
First Shipment n i_ i f'^ • •
of B 11* figures, scholars have vamly
endeavoured to discover the
quantity of gold and silver on hand in
Europe previous to the year 1500, when
bullion was first shipped across the Atlantic.
Perhaps §625,000.000 worth is not too high
an estimate. However, there are other facts
which, in addition to being firmly estab-
lished, are of far more importance to the
history of European possession and coinage
of the precious metals. During the Middle
Ages silver was the chief medium of
exchange, but, owing to the untrustworthi-
ness of silver money, ever since the middle
of the thirteenth century wholesale trade
had become accustomed to the use of the
gold currency which had been employed
for many years back in the Levant,
within the Byzantine as well as the
Mohammedan sphere of civilisation. The
Florentine florins and the Venetian ducats,
or sequins, served as models for the gold
pieces of the Rhineland, France, and
Hungary. The smallness of the output
of gold in Europe prevented a further
extension of the use of a gold coinage.
On the other hand, the use of silver
greatly increased during the fifteenth
century, and rose still more rapidly during
the sixteenth. Over-production of silver
was rendered impossible, owing to the fact
that even in classic times there was a
constant flow of money, especially of
silver, into Eastern Asia ; this explains
the scarcity and high value of money, as
well as the favourable ratio maintained by
silver to gold. Apart from some temporary
fluctuations at the end of the
«e gf^ggjjj-j^ century the ratio of
g.. value of gold and silver was
11^ : I. During the course of the
sixteenth century the effects of the pro-
duction of the precious metals in America
were distinctly felt in Europe. Owing to
the continued preponderance of silver, the
ratio gradually became more and more
favourable to gold, standing at 15 : i
from about 1630-40 ; and this ratio was
maintained with but few interruptions
4589
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
until 1874, when 16 : i was exceeded, and
a rapid fall in the price of silver began.
The extraordinary increase in the supply
of precious metals during the sixteenth
century was by no means an unmixed
blessing from an economic point of view.
The joint production of precious metals
in Europe and America between 1493
. , and 1600 amounted probablv to
America s ^^^^^ $$385,000,000 in gold and
D ^V .- over $875,000,000 in silver — a
Production ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ $1,250,000,000.
The New World remained behind the Old
in the production of the precious metals
until 1544 ; this was due to the richness
of the mines in the Tyrol, Bohemia, and
Saxony, as well as to the superior methods
of mining and extraction employed in
Europe. But when the silver mines of
Potosi in Peru were discovered in 1545,
and those of Zacatecas and Guanajuato
in Mexico in 1548, when German miners
were sent to America, and one of them,
whose name is unknown, invented the
method of extracting silver from quartz
by the use of mercury, the production
of America soon surpassed that of the
Old World, and began to cause a fall in
the value of the precious metals.
Although the exact quantity of silver
and gold shipped from America to Europe
is not known, one can at least form some
idea of the increase from estimates of
the total supply of the precious metals
in Europe at different periods. Thus,
if the supply in 1403 is reckoned at about
$625,000,000, and that in 1600 at
$1,625,000,000, the increase during the
sixteenth century must have amounted
approximately to $1,000,000,000.
With a constant increase in the supply
of the precious metals, the purchasing
power of money must sink, just as
increase in the supply of any com-
modity is apt to cause a fall in its value,
once the normal demand is satisfied; it
follows that a fall in the value of money
_ is attended by a rise in prices
*!.* xl^t of all other commodities. A
the Value ... ,
of M general rise m prices must be
felt by all classes of society,
especially in cases where there is no increase
of income to correspond with the decrease
in the purchasing power of money. Ex-
perience shows that, as a rule, men who
are dependent upon wages and salaries
for their support are not able — certainly
not immediately — to increase their in-
comes proportionately to the increased
4590
cost of necessities of life. Hence, a crisis
in prices is usually accompanied by
economic phenomena, which are especially
destructive to the welfare of the poorer
classes. Workmen who received their
pay in currency were better off during
the fifteenth century, when wages were
relatively high, than during the sixteenth,
when, in addition to a fall in wages,
there was a decrease in the purchasing
power of money ; thus, the proletariat
grew in numbers in spite, rather than in
consequence, of the opening of the treasures
of the New World. The rise in the prices
of commodities had also a depressing
effect upon incomes derived from interest
or rent. On the other hand, producers or
dealers who were successful in bringing
about an advance in prices were able
to add to their wealth without the
slightest exercise of labour.
As has been proved by thousands of
independent statements, civilised Europe
underwent an economic crisis during the
sixteenth century. The effects of the
fall in the value of money and the general
advance in the prices of commodities
were felt in all directions— earlier in the
West than in the East — and
this state of affairs continued
until well into the seventeenth
century. Conditions did not
change until about 1650, when a slight
reaction set in, and not until the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century was there
another steady advance of prices.
The customary term, " revolution in
prices," is certainly very inappropriate
for the designation of movements that
are so slow as almost to remind us
of the gradual risings and fallings of
continents. Only the attempts of mer-
chants to effect a rise artificially, and the
clumsy financial policy of certain politi-
cians, have here and there given to these
slowly consummating crises the character
of revolutionary movements.
By turning the Cape of Good Hope,
the Portuguese discovered an ocean route
to India, the goal which the Spaniards
under Columbus had so unsuccessfully
endeavoured to attain. They set foot
in a region with which Europe had
been engaged in indirect trade for
thousands of years, a densely populated
country, abounding in its own peculiar
products, possessed of its own independent
civilisation, the very nucleus of the world's
commerce. Nevertheless, the inhabitants
Economic
Crisis
in Europe
THE SPAlSnSH AND PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES
of India had no wish to dominate the
world's trade, and wiUingly placed their
commerce in the hands of foreigners,
through whose activities a market was
secured that extended over the broadest
spheres of lands and peoples. The Arabs
were the masters of the intermediate
trade with the coasts of the Indian Ocean,
and from their hands the Europeans of
the Mediterranean region, the Venetians
leading, received the luxuries of India,
which then passed through a third, fourth,
and perhaps twentieth hand, each ex-
change aiding the merchants of the Latin
and, for a long time, the Byzantine sphere
of civilisation to secure the commercial
supremacy enjoyed by them for so
many years. Eastern Asia no less than
Western Europe depended upon India
for a large part of its commerce, which
extended even beyond Japan, losing
, itself at an indeterminable
c opes (jJ5^^j^(,g among the islands
"^n** » 1 of the Pacific. The Portu-
to Portugal , ,
guese were good seamen and
expert m war. Like the Spaniards, they
were old enemies of the Mohammedans,
whom they had already victoriously
followed into North Africa, and now en-
countered once more in the world of the
Indian Ocean. They took possession of
the hemisphere that had been granted
them by the Pope, nominally, rather than
in reality ; for a small, sparsely populated
country like Portugal could think neither
of colonisation nor of any serious effort
to subjugate the native inhabitants.
However, the hostile attitude of the
Arabs rendered it necessary for the Portu-
guese to occupy and fortify certain points
along the coast. In fact, the possessions of
Portugal both in Asia and in Africa have
never been more than coast settlements.
The two objects which Portugal set out
to attain — both far beyond her power —
were the monopoly of the spice trade in
Europe, and the driving away of Asiatic
competitors, who acted as middlemen in
the commerce with European nations.
Together with the spice trade at first hand,
the Portuguese carried on traffic in negroes,
which had grown to considerable propor-
tions since the introduction of slavery
_ into Spanish America ; the
f n*"*^^' gold of West Africa was also
of Portuguese '^ r .,,, ,
p J. a source of gam. Although
the undertakings of the Por-
tuguese were at first purely mercantile
enterprises, in which no greater expendi-
ture for materials of war had been entailed
than in the case of the ordinary traffic in
the Mediterranean in later times, the Por-
tuguese Crown was obliged to make great
military preparations, of which the ex-
pense increased from year to year. Like
the Spanish, the Portuguese colonial trade
was placed under strict state supervision
and all financial affairs organised, national-
ised, and put under crown control. A
direct participation of foreigners, once
permitted, was forbidden for the future.
King Manuel the Great concentrated
the East Indian trade in the Casa da India
at Lisbon, and finally declared it to be
an exclusive right of the crown. Cargoes
of spices had already been sent to England
and to the Netherlands ; a permanent
royal depot was now established at Ant-
werp. Once more the commerce of Western
Europe possessed two centres in Antwerp
and Lisbon. It was not long before
Itahan, Upper German, Spanish, and
French merchants took up their quarters
in the latter city. When the crown
handed over the rights of
* '*^ . * monopoly in the Indian trade
Fountain j. t i ^i
t\iT uu to farmers-general, the capi-
oi Wealth , 1- , r ?- 4 1
tahsts of Europe competed
for access to this fountain of wealth.
Lisbon was also an important centre of
the trade in grain and in shipbuilding
materials ; North and South German
merchants of Danzig as well as of Augsburg
shared in delivering the raw products.
4591
THE CUSTOMS HOUSE. IN im, SHOWING THE TOWER OF LONDON IN THE DISTANCE
THE BANK OF ENGLAND, THE BUILDING OF WHICH BEGAN IN 1734
NOTABLE COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS OF OLD LONDON
4592
VCESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
COMMERCE
OF
WESTERN EUROPE
II
INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM
MERCHANT PRINCES AND KINGS OF FINANCE
ORIGINS OF THE GREAT BANKS & EXCHANGES
/^NE of the most significant featuresof the
^^ economic life of the sixteenth century
was the introduction of Itahan and Upper
German capital into the sphere of Spanish
and Portuguese oceanic trade. However,
the finances of the sixteenth century, like
those of all other times, were not limited
to transactions founded on mere exchange
of goods. Whether they would or not,
merchants were forced beyond the bounds
of commercial affairs and drawn into the
currents of national policies, of which
money, particularly ready money, is an
indispensable factor. As yet, the machi-
nery of European states was not well
adapted to the requirements of an age
already based on financial principles.
The remains of ancient feudal institu-
tions, founded on a more primitive economic
system, were everywhere to be seen. Thus
a large part of the state revenues came
„. _ from the natural products of
The Source i j -r
» it c* . crown lands ; there was no
of the State , r re • i j. en
„ system of officials as yet sutfi-
ciently developed to be able
quickly to raise taxes in the form of money
and to accumulate them in a central
treasury. For all grants of money the
Crown was dependent on the estates of
the realm, which were acquainted only
with their own narrow class interests.
But the courts lived in an atmosphere
of far-reaching national and world policy.
It cost money, however, to carry out
any policy, whether of peace or of war,
especially since regiments of mercenaries,
and in some cases standing armies, had
come into use in place of the old feudal
levies. Governments not only looked
about for new sources of income, but
also made whatever use they could of
those who already possessed money ; and
sovereigns of the sixteenth century, the
period when royal power reached its height,
were as little backward in the first respect
292
as in the second. Financiers and mer-
chant princes were offered unbounded
privileges in return for financial services,
and one loan was apt to draw on ten
or a dozen others in its train.
The modern conception of great powers,
which arose at the end of the fifteenth
_ - century through the French
angers o jj^yg^gJQj^g ^f Italy and the
Q •♦ i- t development of the universal
monarchy of the Hapsburgs,
created the, modern centralised state, with
its military and financial systems, out of
the loosely bound confederation of more or
less independent units — the state of the
Middle Ages — and to this effect employed
capital, so far as it was already in exist-
ence and organised, as its tool. At the
same time the large capitalists were ex-
posed to dangers they would scarcely have
survived but for their private affairs being
linked together with state interests.
It is difficult to conceive that the events
of a whole period of the world's history
could have been so intimately connected
with mercantile interests, particularly the
affairs of an age which religious, dynastic,
and constitutional ideals seemed so to
dominate ; not only seemed — for Reforma-
tion and counter-Reformation, the duel be-
tween the Houses of Hapsburg and Valois,
and the war for the independence of the
United Netherlands, arose from no mere
_, , ,, , imaginary motives : their
Evolution of o -^ 4. 1 L J X
J, . . sources must have reached to
p .. the very depths of the human
soul, or at least have extended
far below the level of self-deception.
Before the most powerful of the mer-
chant princes of the sixteenth century,
the Augsburgers and Niirembergers, were
compelled by the natural development of
economic forces and the irresistible ten-
dency of the times to turn from dealings
in tangible commodities to speculation, to
4593
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
banking and exchange, and finally to
purely financial pursuits. The Italians had
already passed through all these transition
states, and had acquired an astonishing
aptitude in all branches of commerce.
Italian money-changers, Lombards and
Tuscans, followed the expansion of Italian
trade into all countries. They bought and
_. _ sold the precious metals,
Dt\ or"*"""* ^i^^^^ '^^^"^^ °^ ^^ bullion,
ays o ^.j^g of exchange, and pro-
Money-Lending ^ -i
missory notes ; they nego-
tiated loans for merchants, attended to
the financial affairs of the Roman Curia,
and loaned vast sums to monarchs.
Their activities developed an interna-
tional character, and they were therefore
constantly obliged to struggle against the
endeavours of the merchants of various
states who sought to nationalise the busi-
ness of money-lending. This the French
temporarily succeeded in doing in the
fifteenth century, at the time when the
Florentine rnoney-lenders were at the
height of their prosperity.
A citizen of Bourges, Jacques Coeur, the
foremost banker of his age, established
connections with the Government, and
delivered it from the hands of the inter-
national capitalists. But after the fall of
this great financier France once more
became dependent on the Italians in all
matters concerning banking, exchange, and
loans. The French kings of the sixteenth
century favoured the Florentines, for
political reasons, while, on the other hand,
the Hapsburgs turned to the Genoese.
The Upper German merchants also were
drawn into international finance through
their business connections with the House
of Hapsburg. A rapid rise, an overwhelm-
ing development of power, aild a lament-
able fall were the stages passed through
by German wealth in less than a century.
Long before the operations in banking
and credit of the merchant princes of
I th ' Upper Germany had attained
r^ ' . .. full sway the resentment of
Denunciation ,^ ^ -^ 1111
J jj the German people had been
aroused in full measure ; com-
plaints were showered upon the diet, and
the official spokesmen of the nation, Martin
Luther among them, thundered against all
doubtful commercial dealings and against
usury. The ecclesiastical law against the
taking of interest on loans was. still every-
where in force. The delusion of a just,
and therefore unalterable, price for every
sort of commodity still dominated the
4594
economic thought of the age. When the
Roman Catholic Church adopted a milder
attitude towards the practice of usury the
Protestants offered violent opposition,
and thus both Catholics and Protestants
were soon compelled to join hands with the
general public in their hostility against
mercantile life and affairs. The economic
policy which had arisen in the small city
communities of the Middle Ages — a policy
of low prices, of small dealers and con-
sumers, opposed not only to capitalism but
to competition — was likewise completely in
harmony with the ecclesiastical position.
It is not surprising that the masses of
the populations of cities were stirred to
their very depths when they beheld
speculators arising in their midst, who
advanced prices and carried on their
financial operations to a practically un-
limited extent. The most dangerous
phenomenon of all appeared to be the com-
bination of the already all-powerful single
houses into syndicates and rings. In order
to diminish the risks encountered in their
speculations, capitalists united into limited
liability companies that could be easily
dissolved, and the gains divided
in proportion to the original
contributions as soon as their
original object had been
attained. Such associations were fre-
quently able to create a local monopoly in
articles of commerce — spices or metals,
for example — ^and sometimes succeeded
in influencing prices even in the world
markets. However it may have come
about, it is at least certain that the copper
and pepper monopolies of the time shortly
before the outbreak of the great social
revolution — the Peasants' War — of 1525
served the popular agitators as a means
for awakening the indignation of the popu-
lace^a means that was only the more effi-
cacious the less the proletarians were able
to understand such complicated matters.
Nevertheless, it is remarkable how soon
the non-mercantile classes became recon-
ciled to the new method of making money
without labour, which they had at first
so violently opposed. Just as during the
nineteenth century the commercial crises
have neither assumed great proportions
nor caused vast desolation until the private
capital of the middle and lower classes has
been placed in the hands of stock-jobbers,
so was it at the time of the pepper rings.
Innumerable small capitalists, whose one
idea was the possibility of gain, and who
Revolt
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4595
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
not infrequently lost the whole of their
little fortunes when the undertaking col-
lapsed, became members of the associations
and companies of the sixteenth century — a
phenomenon which we have seen repeated
in our own time in the speculations on the
exchanges. Thus even peasants had a
share in the dealings of the Hochstetters of
—^ Augsburg, and when the leading
Hotse of' ^™ ^^^^^^' ^°^^ ^^^^'^ scanty
♦k^'f* ° savings. Had it not been for sup-
uggers ^YiQs, furnished by small sources,
the great masses of capital with which
commercial houses conducted their affairs
could never have been heaped together.
How German capital, and, in fact, all
capital that was employed in international
commercial operations, came to find itself
upon the plane down which it glided during
the course of the sixteenth century may
be learned from the history of the Fuggers,
the first mercantile house of the age.
In 1367 the founder of the family, Hans
Fugger, a weaver of fustian, settled in
Augsburg and attained to modest pros-
perity. His sons soon became distin-
guished wholesale merchants, and his
grandson, Jacob 11. , who died in 1526,
made the house famous throughout the
world. By furnishing the equipment for
the retinue of Emperor Frederic III. at the
time of his meeting with Charles the Bold,
Jacob Fugger opened relations with the
House of Hapsburg, which was just then
beginning to aspire to the position of a
power of the first rank. This connection
led to results important to both families.
Archduke Sigismund of the Tyrol granted
to the Fuggers, for the repayment of a
loan, the yield of the Tyrolese silver mines.
Henceforth they devoted themselves to
the mining operations, to which the rapid
growth of their fortune was due. The
copper mines at Neusohl in Hungary were
also acquired by the house, which was
now able to extend its trade as far as
Danzig and Antwerp, and even to control
_, ^ , .. the copper market of Venice.
East Indian t^, t- 1 ■ 1
Expedition of J^^ Fuggersalso journeyed
the Portuguese f.^^^f °"' ^^5/ *^7 ^^^^-
lished a depot for the spice
trade shortly after preparations had been
completed for the first East Indian expedi-
tion of the Portuguese. They shared in the
expenses of the great expedition of 1505,
contributing, together with other Upper
Germans, the sum total of 36,000
ducats. After the Indian-Portuguese trade
was placed under the control of the Crown,
4596
they repeatedly received large quantities of
spices, mostly as payments on loans at high
interest to the Portuguese Government.
But at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, both in Germany and in Italy,
dealings in commodities had ceased to form
the chief business of the merchant princes,
who now occupied themselves mainly with
the affairs of the money markets, and
devoted a large part of their energy to
contracting loans for the various govern-
ments. By the second decade of the
century of the Reformation the decision
of the most important questions in the
world's history lay in the hands of mer-
chants. The appearance of Luther in the
year 1517, and the election of Charles V.
as Emperor of Germany in 1519, were both
connected in a most extraordinary manner
with the affairs of the house of Fugger.
As early as 1500 the Fuggers possessed
a depot in Rome, where they executed
commissions entrusted to them by the
Pope and other ecclesiastical dignitaries.
Albert of Brandenburg, who had been
elected Archbishop of Mainz in 1517, bor-
rowed 21,000 ducats from the house in order
to meet the expenses con-
as Prince!" "^^*^^ ^^ *^^ ^^"^ ^^^^ *^®
as rince y bestowal of the pallium ; he
Money-Lenders , • j xu x
also received, on the payment
of 10,000 ducats — also loaned by the
Fuggers — the position of commissary-
general for Saxony of the jubilee pro-
claimed by Leo X. The archbishop
appointed priests to collect the money
from the vendors of indulgences, and to
hand it over to the agents of the Fuggers,
who accompanied them. One half of the
amount received by the agents was for-
warded to Augsburg towards payment of
the archiepiscopal debt ; the other half was
sent to Rome. It was over this business
that Luther and Tetzel were destined
finally to fall out. The flow of money to
Rome had been for many years a matter
of great annoyance to Germany, and the
recently introduced traffic in indulgences
furnished a welcome opportunity for de-
livering a simultaneous blow to the papacy
and the great commercial syndicates.
Although the Fuggers were only in-
directly involved in the causes which led
to the revolution in the Church, it was
certainly their money that procured the
victory of Charles V. over his competitor,
Francis I., at the election of an emperor,
following the death of Maximilian I., in
1519. AU such elections were notliing
4597
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
more or less than complicated acts of
bribery, the decision being inevitably
determined by the amounts expended.
The security offered by the Fuggers for
the Spanish candidate put an end to the
wavering of the electoral princes, for
Francis I. was unable to obtain equally
reliable guarantees. Of the 850,000 golden
_,. _ florins required by Charles
I'lllZZ y-' *he Fuggers supplied
the Hapsburgs •543,ooo,theWelsers 143,000,
and the Italians the rest.
From this time forth the merchant princes
themselves belonged to their puppets, body
and soul ; for it was necessary to retain
sovereigns on their thrones if any return
from the money already advanced, but
not yet repaid, was to be expected. More-
over, the Fuggers were still less able to
escape from bondage, inasmuch as they
were convinced partisans of the Hapsburgs
and of their Roman Catholic policy.
After the election of Charles V., in 1519,
Spain became the centre of gravity for
the house of Fugger, the creditors of the
emperor-king having been assigned shares
in the national income. " The Spanish
business" absorbed the entire strength of
the firm, and finally ruined the greatest
mercantile establishment of the age.
Among the enterprises of the Fuggers
in Spain, the leasing of the quick-
silver mines at Almaden, of great value
ever since the discovery of the use of
mercury in extracting silver and gold,
may be mentioned. German miners were
sent by the Fuggers to Spain, and often to
America. Inasmuch as the chief creditors
of the Government were constantly obliged
to grant new loans to the Crown in order
to secure their old claims, they were often
referred to the " silver fleets " returning
from the New World and in part laden
with the imperial " quinto," the 20 per
cent, share of the Crown. Since the expor-
tation of the precious metals from Spain
was forbidden by law, it became neces-
sary for the Fuggers and their
crman compatriots to obtain special
. *^" licences that they might be able
pain ^^ place their capital wherever
it was most needed. Even the Government
was obliged to maintain the strictest
secrecy in regard to this matter, or the
Spaniards would have forcibly prevented
the removal of gold from the country. In
this manner the stream of precious metal
from America flowed on past Spain into
the treasuries of the capitalists, Who had
4598
also succeeded in drawing to themselves an
additional share of the bullion of the New
World through the importation of commodi-
ties into the as yet industrially undeveloped
continent. The Fuggers, however, took
but little part in the latter activity ; their
attention was already sufficiently occupied
with the sale of the mining and natural
products of the Crown possessions that
had been yielded to them as pledges.
The Fuggers also maintained permanent
financial relations with the German line
of the House of Hapsburg. As Ferdinand I.
had vast domains in Naples, his chief credi-
tors extended their sphere of activity Over
the southern part of Italy. The Govern-
ment of the Spanish Netherlands also
constantly availed itself of the assistance
of Upper German and Italian capitalists.
After the death of Jacob II. the house of
Fugger reached the zenith of its power
and wealth under the guidance of his
nephew, Anton (1526-1560). It was
fortunate for the family that it had become
a tradition not to divide the wealth of
the various members, but to keep it
altogether in one mass, governing it
. from a central point, in strict
rinces monarchical fashion. Although
o uropean -^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ relatives co-
operated with the head of the
family, the most important affairs of the
house were, as a rule, under the exclusive
control of a single individual, who
transacted business even in the most dis-
tant countries by means of his factors and
agents. Augsburg was the residence of
these princes of European finance. Not
until after the middle of the sixteenth
century did the family ties begin to loosen.
Single members then withdrew their money
from the firm, and thus rendered it neces-
sary for the house to depart from one of
its most firmly established principles — that
is to say, if possible, never to put any
other capital, except that belonging to the
family, into an undertaking. The more
the use of outside capital increased
towards the end of the century, the more
difficult the position of the house became,
especially during critical times.
The turn in the fortunes of the firm
arrived during the period of its greatest
prosperity, and was brought about by the
Schmalcaldic War, 1546-1547. Anton
Fugger, who already at that time had
serious thoughts of winding up the affairs
of the house, must have had an instinc-
tive presentiment of the inevitable end ;
INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM
however, he was no longer able to do as he
wished, bound as he was by bands of iron
to the Hapsburgs. To hold his own against
the Protestant party in Augsburg it was
necessaiy for him to assist the Catholics
to victory. And when Charles V, fled
before Maurice of Saxony to Villach the
Fuggers were obliged to come to his aid
with 400,000 ducats — an unheard-of sum
at the time — in order not to lose for ever
the entire amount owed them by both
branches of the Hapsburg family.
So things went on until the outbreak
of the first great financial crisis, in the
year 1557 ! this was followed by a pro-
tracted cessation of business. The age
talented man, with a love for the fine arts,
but lacking in the true spirit of commerce,
who after a few years resigned his position
in favour of the sons of Anton, " Marx
Fugger and Brothers." The realty of the
family was divided and the business in
merchandise brought to a close. Thus, the
Spanish affairs remained the only enter-
prise of the house , which rendered necessary
constant communication with Antwerp,
the most important exchange of Europe.
However, the Spanish Government was in
such a bad way financially that it suspended
payment at the end of periods averaging
twenty years each, and resorted to com-
pulsory settlements with its creditors.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE BEAUTIFUL TOWN OF REGENSBURG
Photochrome
of decline had begun, not only for the
Fuggers, but for all the great capitalists
of Europe. The first period of inter-
national financial sovereignty was drawing
to a close, soon to give place to a national,
or at least territorial, economic and
financial policy, which was to continue
until the French Revolution and the great
wars at the beginning of the nineteenth
century prepared the way for the rise of
new international financial powers.
Many years passed after the first signs
of warning in the year 1557 before the
final bankruptcy came. After the death
of Anton Fugger, in 1560, the control of
the house passed mto the hands of Hans
Jacob, his nephew, a well-educated,
Although the Fuggers were favoured
more than other creditors of the state,
they were, nevertheless, forced to assent
to whatever conditions were imposed
upon them. The most burdensome of all
was the acceptance of certificates of
credit. As a result they did not receive
their loans back at full value, but in the
shape of interest-bearing, unredeemable,
"perpetual" debenture bonds that imme-
diately sank below par value,' and con-
sequently could not be converted into
specie without loss. Since the bankers in
turn paid their creditors and those who
had entrusted money to their keeping in
debenture bonds of the same description,
the result was a miserable series of law-
4599
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
suits, followed by the absolute ruin,
first, of the credit of Spain, and then of
that of the bankers. The position of the
Fuggers became unbearable after the
accession of Philip IV. (1621-1665) ; they
were now treated with disfavour by the
all-powerful Prime Minister, Olivarez, not-
withstanding the fact that in earher times
_ . _,. they had fared far better than
f " th *"*** *^^ other German capitalists,
P on account of their undeniable
"** '^ services. They were forced to
provide the sum of 50,000 ducats monthly
for the expenses of the court, in re-
turn for which they received worthless
assignments on the taxes.
After 1630 the house was many
times compelled to delay its payments,
and in 1637 ^^^ Spanish affairs of the
Fuggers were placed in the hands of
creditors, for the most part Genoese.
The deficit amounted to over half a million
ducats, despite the fact that the claims
on the Spanish Crown, which were as
good as worthless, had been included
among the assets. " The total loss," says
Ehrenberg, "sustained by the Fuggers
through their dealings with the Hapsburgs
up to the middle of the seventeenth cen-
tury could not have amounted to less than
8,000,000 gulden, Rhenish. It would not be
far from the truth to say that the bulk of
the earnings of the firm during its century
of activity disappeared in this way alone."
Nor did the other South German mer-
cantile houses which had ventured into
the sphere of international finance fare
much better than the Fuggers. The
Hochstetters, Paumgartners, Welsers,
Sellers, Neidharts, Manlichs, Rems, Haugs,
and Herwarts, all of Augsburg, were,
every one of them, obliged to suspend
payment in the course of the sixteenth
century, for the most part during the
critical years 1550-1570. The Hoch-
stetters, " the most hated monopolists of
their age," were the first to fail — in 1529.
_ „ The Welsers succeeded for
Collapse • J. ■ •
. _. . . many years in mamtammg a
Hoo'ser*"" position among the Upper
German firms second only to
the Fuggers. They were divided into two
branches, one in Nuremberg and the other
in Augsburg ; the former house wound up
its affairs in 1560. Bartholomew Welser,
the first and only German who made an
attempt to secure territory in the New
World, thereby for a short time arousing
hopes of German colonial possessions in
4600
America, was a member of the Augsburg
branch of the family. In contrast to the
Fuggers, who were so strongly inclined in
favour of the Hapsburgs, the Welsers
maintained a neutral position among the
contending parties, and even entered into
financial negotiations with the French
Government, thereby suffering not only in
consequence of the bankruptcy of Spain,
but also on account of the failure of the
national finances of France in 1557. Their
credit, however, remained unimpaired, and
subsequently the firm was even able to
contract loans for the EngUsh Crown.
The affairs of the house did not begin to
deteriorate until the end of the century,
but in 1614 the Welsers were bankrupt.
The Tuchers of Niiremberg, another
great business house of the century,
adopted the principle of never on any
account permitting themselves to become
entangled in the financial affairs of
sovereigns or princes ; hence they escaped
the crises of the seventeentn century
unscathed. The Imholfs, another large
firm involved in national finance, were
not absolutely ruined although forced to
- . retire with considerable losses.
^ . , With the exception of Augs-
Masters of , , t.,- 1 R.
Busi s o^^g ^^^ Nuremberg, the
cities of South Germany had
but little share in the international opera-
tions in capital and credit. The Italians,
who Were not only earlier in the field but
showed a greater mastery in all kinds of
business, had a longer career than the
High Germans, who did not desert the
traffic in commodities for that in money
until the end of the fifteenth century.
During the sixteenth century they were
represented chiefly by the Florentines and
the Genoese in the international markets.
After the Genoese had lost their position
as a commercial power in the eastern
Mediterranean, and had found it very
difficult to carry on traffic in the western
basin of the same sea because of the
Barbary pirates, the spirit of commerce
turned the surplus capital of the Ligurian
seaport into new channels, especially
into affairs of exchange and credit.
The Genoese had been commercially
connected with the Spaniards ever since
the thirteenth century ; their ability as
navigators and their capital had been of
great assistance to Spain in her occu-
pation of America. They also undertook
to supply a certain number of slaves
annually to the transatlantic colonies,
VIEW OF THE TOWN FROM THE RIVER SCHELDT, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL
itmi
s«c ■■■&
/^' '
j 1'
ANTWERP'S TEMPLE OF FINANCE : THE INTERIOR OF THE BOURSE
SCENES IN THE IMPORTANT SEAPORT TOWN OF ANTWERP Photochrome
4601
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
provided Seville with merchandise to
be sent to America, and furnished the
money necessary for the equipment of
expeditions. Single Genoese firms, such
as the Grimaldi, had already entered into
financial transactions with the Spanish
Government. A political alliance had
developed from the union of economic
_. -. interests. The desertion of
The Masses y^^^^-^^ j fo^ the cause of
N w N bilit Charles V. by the house of
ew o 1 1 y £)Qj.jg^ j^ j-^28 had a decisive
effect on the second Franco-Spanish war.
The governing party, called that of the
optimates, or the wealthy classes, was
divided into two branches, the old and the
new nobility, the former engaged chiefly
in financial affairs, the latter in dealings in
merchandise. The masses were in favour
of the new nobility, as trafiic in goods was
beneficial to the handicrafts, and hence to
the prosperity of the working classes.
Nevertheless, in 1549 ^^e new nobility,
under Giovanni Luigi de Fieschi, were
defeated by the older party led by the
Dorias, who now entered into a still closer
alliance with Spain. In return, the emperor,
and later his son, Philip II., granted them
a position of the first rank among his
financial advisers, the Fuggers being the
only other family which enjoyed the
same privileges. Among the Genoese
creditors of the Spanish Government,
the most distinguished were the firms
of Grimaldi, Spinola, Pallavicino, Lomel-
lino, Gentili, and Centurioni.
The higher they rose in the estimation
of the Spanish king, the more dangerous
became their position during these times
of regularly recurrent financial crises, for
the favour of monarchs was not to be had
for nothing ; in short, the Genoese, like the
Upper Germans, could not get any repay-
ment of their loans other than unredeem-
able debenture certificates and worthless
assignments of taxes. Nevertheless, they
continued to maintain their connection
Q with Spain until about the
„ * middle of the seventeenth
Possessions , t> .i. . .- ^^
. ^ J century. By that, time all
solvent nations had to a great
extent nationalised their economic and
political affairs, and thus the age of inter-
national financial operations was over in
any case. In the meanwhile the Genoese
capitalists had obtained possession of
vast territories in Naples through their
connections with the House of Hapsburg,
and consequently were able to view the
4602
complete prostration of their native city
with a certain measure of composure.
At about the middle of the seventeenth
century the Florentines severed their
connections with France, where monetary
affairs had been in their hands for over
a hundred years. During the early days
of Florentine finances, at the time of the
Baldi and Peruzzi in the fourteenth cen-
tury, France had been one of the clients
of the Tuscan bankers. These relations
were renewed in the fifteenth century,
when the Medici became the sovereigns
of the banking world. During the six-
teenth century, when, with the assistance
of the Hapsburgs, the Medici obtained
political dominion over Tuscany, the
Florentine plutocracy nevertheless took
the side of the Valois. Business with
France continued to flourish, although
financial relations ceased with England
and the Netherlands as soon as these
nations began to control their economic and
commercial affairs with their own capital.
The most distinguished Florentine capi-
talists of the sixteenth century were the
Frescobaldi, Gualterotti, Strozzi, Salviati,
„ .- Grfedagni, and Capponi ; and,
*"^ ■ in addition to the specifically
g , . Florentine houses, the Chigi of
Siena, the Buonvisi of Lucca,
the Ducci of Pistoia, and the Affaitadi of
Cremona may be mentioned. The first
crushing blow dealt to the Tuscan firms in
their relations with France was the bank-
ruptcy of Henry II. in the year 1557. The
Huguenot wars broke out not long after
this, and during their progress the finances
of France became completely disorganised.
One can only wonder at the rashness of
such bankers as Girolamo Gondi, who
still continued to transact business with
the French Crown. At the end of the reign
of Henry IV. the Florentines had dis-
appeared from France, although the
nation was obliged to make use of foreign
capital until the year 1660.
The modern exchange has developed
from the market of the old Frankish-
German Empire. The privilege of holding
fairs and markets, granted to suitable
districts by emperors and kings ever since
the time of the Carlovingians, was the
nucleus around which all the special rights
grew up which later constituted the con-
ception of municipal governments. In
the midst of the old village communities
the independent civilisation of the cities
arose, first in the Latin countries, later
INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM
in the Germanic, isolated it is true, and
not destroying the earlier form of social
liie adapted to the villages. From this time
forth village and town, peasant and citizen,
were permanently established side by
side as opposite types of civilisation ;
each was unable to attain economic
prosperity without the assistance of the
other, and for that reason they entered
into an organised system of traffic in-
vented by the town dwellers as the more
developed of the two types. The weekly
market and the precinct, or city boundary,
are the characteristic tokens of this mutual
adaptation of rural and urban interests.
The weekly market assured the city of a
supply of the natural products of the neigh-
bourhood, and guaranteed the country
dwellers a place for the sale of their goods
where prices would not be influenced by
the tricks of over and under bidding;
the precinct prevented the city industries
from being pursued beyond its own limits,
and thus assured it of the custom of its
peasant neighbours. The towns experi-
enced greater difficulty in their relations
with the heirs of the old feudal lords,
—^ _^ the landed nobility. Robber
.t .*" knights were a well-known
J phenomenon of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. The
civic estates, merchants and capitalists,
had become dangerously powerful and
prosperous relatively to the nobility of the
country. Robber knight and " pepper-
sack " — as the merchant was called in
derision — represented two distinct spheres
of interest, the agrarian and the indus-
trial-commercial ; and the war of social
interests embodied in the two classes
ended only in the sixteenth century with
the overthrow of the landed nobility.
Long before the state interfered in the
struggle between the industrial and
agrarian classes the municipal communi-
ties had succeeded in establishing their
positions firmly, although in complete in-
dependence of one another. The city, as a
whole, was looked upon as an association
of consumers," requiring protection
from the natural self-interest of the
producers. The inhabitants of a town
were all consumers to a certain degree,
even the merchants and craftsmen of the
city. But since in any town the special
interests of the producers were opposed
to the general interests of the consumers,
it was necessary for the economic policy
of the municipality to be one that strove
to institute a state of affairs acceptable
to both parties. The city government in
its endeavour to bring about harmony
found itself at least partially united with
the organised industries, the guilds, and
the various societies of craftsmen. It was
found necessary to reduce as far as possible
the rivalry between tradesmen, and to
„ ... exclude the competition of all
Benefits r ■ j . • o- xt.
J . foreign mdustnes. Smce the
_ ^ . city secured the home market
Town Fairs r •',, j x- r ■.
for the productions of its own
industrial classes, and at the same time
helped them in their outside competition,
it was, on the other hand, entitled to
look out for the general interests of
consumers through the introduction of
tariffs on prices and wages, and laws
regulating the quality of goods.
It was also to the general advantage of
town populations occasionally to intro-
duce the competition of strangers by
temporarily opening the city gates to all
comers. This object was served by the
annual fair, which brought profit to the
town by an influx of strangers, and,
though it exposed domestic industries to
a temporary competition, it also brought
them into touch with new circles of
customers. In addition to towns, churches
and monasteries often obtained market
privileges, for the reason that on certain
religious holidays they were much visited
by pilgrims and guests ; in this manner
a brisk traffic would arise out of nothing.
These fairs were of an international
type, and are still to be seen in the
Mohammedan, Brahmin, and Buddhist
countries. For example, the two chief
markets of Paris, the fairs of St. Denis
and St. Germain, were originally opened
for the custom of pilgrims. The same may
be said of what was once the greatest
annual fair in England, held on an open
field near Stourbridge Abbey. The con-
ceptions of market and annual fair soon
became one and the same, and it was a long
„ time before men grew accus-
°^ tomed to call the markets of
I owns
_ , . international significance that
Developed . , ° , ■•
were repeated several times
during the year by the special name of
" fairs." Cities could not, however, main-
tain an important position in commerce as
the headquarters of fairs alone. Staple
towns also developed, and sometimes one
town presented both aspects. Among staple
towns, with or without annual fairs, two
varieties, natural and artificial, may be
4603
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
distinguished. Natural markets arose independently of definite dates, often
at the termini of great commercial high- continuing throughout the year, or, at
ways, especially of sea routes. Such were least, during the most favourable seasons.
Venice, Genoa, Barcelona, and Bruges, Foreign merchants of the same city or
where goods sent from distant lands were country usually had their own staple
unloaded, and, in so far as they were not houses at such markets, as the Germans
needed for domestic con
sumption, were resold and
distributed. Every town
was not so situated, nor
did all cities produce to
such an extent, that com-
modities and purchasers
could be enticed to them
from all sides. Towns past
which the stream of com-
merce would have flowed
without stopping sought to
obtain by means of coercion
the same advantages that
grew up spontaneously in
natural staple markets. The
method of building up a
their Fondaco in Venice, or
the merchants of Regens-
burg their yard in Vienna ;
in case they possessed no
separate establishment,
they had their special
quarters in houses of the
townsmen, as a rule in
the neighbourhood of the
money - changers and
brokers.
Both in the permanent
marts and at the fairs,
besides the older trade in
commodities actually de-
livered and paid for in
cash, there grew up other
- SIR THOMAS GRESHAM
market by force, such as Founder of the Royal Exchange. He more elaborate commercial
was once to be seen at was elected Lord Mayor of London in transactions, in which the
Vienna, consisted in oblig- ^^^~- "« ^^^ knighted by Queen Eliza- Italians led the way. To
ing foreign merchants to ^eth in 1559, and died twenty years later. ^^^^^ ^^j^^^ ^^f ^^^
offer their goods for sale in the city for a methods designed to obviate the neces-
definite period, sometimes as long as six sity for the transportation of coined
or eight weeks. They were also forbidden money, so dangerous and costly in those
to make a circuit around such a market times, first and foremost among them
town, the only road open to them being being exchange and the whole system
that which led through the city itself. In connected with it. At the end of the
all markets a foreign traffic developed great fairs, when all transactions in nrtnal
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE OF LONDON, FOUNDED BY SIR THOMAS GRESHAM IN 1566
4604
SHOPKEEPER AND APPRENTICE:
SHOPPING IN THE TIME OF CHARLES I.
commodities were over, the money dealers
met and adjusted their various claims in
such a manner that only a final balance
remained to be paid in coin. If any money
was left over, it was frequently loaned
at advantageous rates of interest until
the time came for the next fair ; thus
^ . the money-lending system
j^ . . also was closely connected
f M h *t with the settlements of
accounts that followed at
the close of each temporary market.
In the permanent markets, the great
emporiums of European commerce, the
custom developed for merchants to meet
every day at an appointed place for the
purpose of obtaining information from
one another as to business affairs and of
attending to matters concerning goods,
money, and exchange. Business thus trans-
acted was frequently rendered valid by law
on the very spot by a notary, and con-
tributed not a little to the establishment
of fixed market prices for various classes
of goods. Thus the Venetian merchants
assembled on the, Rialto, the Florentines
in the arched hall, or loggia, of the Mercato
Nuovo, and the Catalonians in the Lonja
of Barcelona. In foreign countries, as in
Bruges, for example, the Italians usually
met in the houses of their consuls. The
word" bourse," which has been introduced
into almost every European language, was
first employed in Bruges for the usual
assemblies of merchants who met for com-
mercial ends. In this chief terminus of
the traffic between Northern and Southern
Europe there was a house owned by the
Van der Burse family, in which the Vene-
tians had held their meetings ever since
the fifteenth century. The house was
called " de burse " for short, and thus the
name of the Flemish family finally came
to signify a place where such mercantile
assemblies were held. The term ' ' bourse "
was already fixed in most European
languages when a great edifice with halls
and columns surrounding an open square
in which business was transacted was
. . , erected in Antwerp. In Eng-
on on s j^^^ ^^^y ^^g another term
j,°''^f employed, and the bourse
constructed in 1566 at the
instigation of Sir Thomas Gresham took
the name of " The Royal Exchange."
From the twelfth to the fourteenth
century the bulk of the business carried on
between the northern and southern com-
mercial regions of Europe was transacted
at the fairs of Champagne and Brie, at
4605
THE CITY AS SEEN FROM THE LOWER BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER MAIN
*^^NI^..'"
SACHSENHAUSEN QUARTER OF THE CITY CONNECTED BY BRIDGES WITH FRANKFORT
FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN: VIEWS OF THE FAMOUS PRUSSIAN CITY Photochrome
4606
INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM
Troyes, Lagny, Bar-sur-Aube, andProvins.
After the decline of the fairs at Champagne,
Geneva became an important market for
French, Italians, and Upper Germans.
Louis XI. endeavoured to entice traffic
back to French soil, and granted many
privileges to the four fairs of Lyons,
at the same time forbidding his subjects
to visit Geneva. The French kings made
Lyons the centre of their negotiations for
loans and the recruiting-place for their
armies when the policy of imperialism that
arose during the sixteenth century was
no longer to be satisfied by the earlier
methods of conducting financial affairs.
The succession of loans to the French
Crown continued its course from 1522 until
the fatal year 1557, when Henry II., con-
temporaneously with his opponent, Philip
IL, suspended all payment of debts.
Lyons completely lost its position during
the disturbances that followed the outbreak
of the Huguenot wars ; nor did it rise
again to importance until 1650, and then,
not as a scene of international finance,
but as one of the nationalised centres of
French industrial and commercial life.
^. , , As the French monarchs had,
The Lost r , • , • u J
p . . from obvious motives, barred
, , the money market of Lyons to
their Hapsburg opponents, it
was necessary for the Spanish Government
to seek out other places in which to trans-
act its financial business. Spain itself
possessed several towns holding regular
fairs, which had arisen in order to supply
the needs of domestic traffic in goods ;
and these cities gained importance also for
affairs of finance and exchange the more
the Spanish court and Spanish consumers
were compelled to turil to foreign lands for
their requirements. The end of each
fair at Medina del Campo, Villalon, and
Medina de Riosecco marked the arrival
of the term at which the foreign creditors
of Spain put in their claims and, as far
as possible, balanced their accounts.
In order to injure the fairs of Lyons,
Charles V. opened an opposition market
at Besangon in Burgundy, attended by
Genoese and Upper Germans, who as
subjects of the emperor did not possess full
commercial freedom in Lyons. However,
the Genoese, dealing in money alone, not
in merchandise, soon discovered localities
* more convenient for their purposes. The
so-called Genoese fairs were not held in
Genoa, but at first in small towns north of
the Alps, in Poligny and Chambery,
then further to the south, in Rivoli, Ivrea,
and Asti, from 1579 i^^ Piacenza, and
from 162 1 in Novi. At this time the
financial domination of the Genoese was
beginning to totter, that of the Upper
Germans having already fallen ; and with
the bankruptcy of the Spanish Government
in 1627 the last support of the international
r^ .^ r capitalism of the sixteenth cen-
Orowth of , ^ TD i M. • J.U
P . . tury gave way. But it was in the
w . north that commercial activity
most prevailed. The great fairs
and cloth markets grew apace. Even after
Antwerp had become a permanent staple
town, with a bourse in which financial
affairs were transacted, the old fairs
still retained their importance by marking
the time for the recovery of debts and
the balancing of accounts. As in Bruges
and Lyons, the native-born citizens were
not the great merchants and capitalists.
The commercial significance of the city
depended upon the foreigners, among
whom Upper Germans and Italians were
the most distinguished. They controlled
the mercantile trade and the traffic in loans,
therefore governments in need of money,
the municipality of Brussels, the kings of
Spain, Portugal, and England, had their
permanent agents in Antwerp. About the
middle of the sixteenth century business
was transacted to the average amount of
forty million ducats a year. When Antwerp
was practically destroyed as a commercial
centre by the wars and disturbances of
1568-1585, several heirs obtained shares in
the heritage of the ruined city.
The bulk of the world's commerce fell to
Amsterdam ; but the business of Frankfort-
on-Main also increased to such an extent
that this city became not only the first
market and exchange of Germany, but an
international centre of commerce, a posi-
tion that it retained until late in the
seventeenth century. The rise of Antwerp
marked a new period in the economic
history of the world. The great capitalists
of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, whose fortunes had
Antwe been made during the period of
Mediterranean commercial pros-
perity following the Crusades, turned from
trade to politics and adopted the imperial
policy of the period, which proved so
destructive to them. As states became
bankrupt the international capitahsts also
were ruined. Thus ended the first section
of the history of international capitalism
at the close of the sixteenth century.
4607
The Rise
of
THE NEW MARKET AND OLD WEIGH-HOUSE, BUILT AS A TOWN GATE ABOUT 1 tss
THE BUSY FISH MARKET, WITH THE WEIGH-HOUSE ON THE RIGHT
AMSTERDAM, THE COMMERCIAL CAPITAL OF THE NETHERLANDS Pho.ochrome
4608
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
COMMERCE
OF
\X'ESTERN EUROPE
III
DUTCH COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY
COMPETITION FOR THE WORLD'S COMMERCE
AT the end of the sixteenth century, a
^^^ hundred years after the time of
Columbus, Diaz, and Vasco da Gama, the
two hemispheres, which had been granted
to Spaniards and Portuguese by the Pope,
were united under one sceptre. The de-
velopment of the Iberian race, however,
had been at a standstill for two generations.
The Spaniards had reached the limit of
their requirements for growth at the point
where further possession of territory
seemed no longer desirable and colonisa-
tion no longer profitable enough for them
in the regions reckoned as being worthless
— that is, worthless according to the no-
toriously false notion of political economy
of the times, because they did not abound
in gold or silver or precious stones, and
possessed no large population adapted
for use as slaves. Portugal, dynastically
united with Spain since 1580, had
reached the limit of her capacity for deve-
. lopment years before — the fatal
, P*'"*'' * limit where profits cease and the
N W Id preservation of possessions al-
ready gained devours the entire
income derived from them. Further
progress was impossible ; moreover, it was
scarcely desired, and yet the rights of
monopoly in the ownership of the earth
still remained uncontested. No rival had
as yet seriously disturbed the Spaniards in
their sole possession of the New World, or
the Portuguese in their exclusive commer-
cial proprietorship of the East Indies.
When the sixteenth century came to an
end no European nation, with the excep-
tion of the Spaniards and Portuguese,
owned one square foot of territory on the
other side of the Atlantic Ocean. There
had been no lack of attempts to found
settlements in regions of the New World
not occupied by Spain, nor had induce-
ments such as the fisheries, the fur trade,
and the quest of a north-east passage been
wanting. Nevertheless, all endeavours of
the English and French to set firm foot on
the continents of America had, down to the
end of the sixteenth century, been miser-
293
able failures. Wars, want of the necessi-
ties of life, and lack of a marketable return
freight for ships bound east had destroyed
both colonies and colonists. It was far
more enticing to turn corsair, privateer, or
smuggler than to die of starvation in a
. squalid settlement or to be slain
xpansion ^^ Indians or angry Spaniards,
o uropean^j^^ resented the intrusion of
foreigners into what they con-
sidered their exclusive possessions. During
the years of the Anglo-Dutch war with
Spain, from 1568 onwards, it was more
profitable and more attractive to'prey upon
Spanish treasure-ships. From this time
forth the traffic with America which set
the Spanish monopoly at defiance became
a principle of European commerce, which
had no scruples whatever as to right and
wrong, lawfulness or unlawfulness. Smug-
gling led to the occupation of the unappro-
priated Lesser Antilles by Englishmen,
Hollanders, Frenchmen, and Danes, with
whom the native pirates, or filibusters,
readily associated themselves.
Before the attempts of non-Spaniards
to settle in America were renewed, the ban
that had apparently been laid upon the
East Indies was already broken. Dutch
ships cruised in the Indian Ocean, brought
home cargoes of spices with them, and
awoke in other nations the desire to
emulate them.
But the growth of the Western European
sphere of expansion and the increase of
Transatlantic traffic were not due wholly
or even chiefly to the participation of new
commercial peoples or to the rise of per-
manent colonies. Foreign trade and the
. development of distant terri-
**^ °" * th Tories depended, not only in the
fV ^d" seventeenth but in every other
° '^* * century, upon the necessities,
demand, and consumption of the mother
country or continent. The true inciting
motive to increased traffic between peoples
is not furnished by production alone,
whether of raw materials or of manufac-
tured articles, or of the portion of the
4609
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
completed products that falls to commerce ;
it is consumption, the direct expression of
human requirements and desires. The
consumer is master ; the producer is his
servant, and the middleman his go-be-
tween. The two latter may, it is true,
often entice the former to increase his
purchases, but, on the other hand, they
_^ must also await his pleasure.
Colmercc ^^^ ^^ "°* ^^^^ ^°'" *^® funda-
ommerc j^ental changes that came
of the World , , . *=■ J i
about m manners and customs
during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the commerce of the world would
not have overstepped its previous limits,
it would never have increased its rela-
tively small sphere of activity.
Since the very earliest times, from the
days of journeys to the Ophir of the
ancient Oriental peoples down to the
opening of the seventeenth century, the
world's commerce had been little more
than traffic in a few spices and luxuries of
South-eastern Asia, articles for which there
is so limited a market that they are
scarcely taken into account at the present
day, although the quantities dealt in are,
if anything, greater now than ever before.
Neither during the times of the Phoeni-
cians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the
Arabians, the Venetians, and the Genoese,
nor later in the days of Portuguese supre-
macy, did the character of the commercial
relations between the Old World civilised
nations of the temperate zone and the
lands of the tropics alter to any appreciable
extent. Even the discovery of tropical
and sub-tropical America did not at first
bring about any decided change in the
variety of articles handled in the world's
trade, for the acquisition of the precious
metals thrust every other form of commer-
cial activity into the background. The
cultivators of sugar-cane, however, soon
began to furnish a commodity capable of
attaining a largely increased consumption,
and not subject to the artificial prices of
monopoly, as was the case
oJIes't Article ^i|h spices. Sugar is the
- , oldest of the various articles
uxury ^^ luxury to which Trans-
atlantic trade was indebted for its
development. The plantation system of
cultivation, in later times adapted also
to the raising of other products, and
leading to negro slavery, from which in
turn developed a new branch of mono-
poly, originated in the production of
sugar-cane in Spanish America. But, as
4610
we have already stated, everything de-
pended upon the demand, upon the adop-
tion of an article by larger and larger
circles of consumers.
At about the time that the sugar-cane
of the East Indies found a new home
in the Western Hemisphere during the
sixteenth century, and sugar first became
an important article of commerce through
its importation into Europe from America,
American tobacco, on the other hand,
became diffused over the Old World, and
proved itself to be a herb no less easily
acclimatised than acceptable to mankind.
In tobacco, an article for wholesale con-
sumption and a commodity of the first
importance to commerce was acquired,
not to speak of the significance to hnance
attained in later days through Government
monopolies of this luxury, the use of which
was at first so sternly discountenanced.
Like sugar and tobacco, during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
cocoa, coffee, tea, indigo, and cotton
became articles of wholesale consumption,
and hence of the greatest importance to
natural production and commerce. Now
for the first time settlements and the
„ , acquisition of colonies became
Demand ^ ,• ,
- _, . . remunerative, and commerce
or ropica |^g^^ggj^ ^^le Old World and
Luxuries ,, xt 1 ,
the New assumed great pro-
portions, for prior to this time no truly
reciprocal traffic had been possible. Trade
was completely transformed, owing to its
marvellously rapid development. The rea-
son for all this lay in the fact that con-
sumption developed a tendency favourable
to foreign products. Europeans, indeed
the inhabitants of temperate regions in
general, were persistent in their demands
for luxuries from the tropics, and sup-
ported alien regions of production and
alien merchants, however greatly it may
have been to their own disadvantage from
an economic point of view.
The money paid by consumers for
stimulants containing alkaloids was not
wasted. These so-called stimulants have
in reality a quieting effect on the nerves ;
they support the nobler powers of intellec-
tual life, and, owing to their influence in
counteracting the brutalising tendencies
of alcoholism, have contributed not a little
to the civilisation of the European peoples.
The age of narcotic antidotes, which is
also that of enlightenment and humanity —
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries —
succeeded to the period— from the fifteenth
DUTCH COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY
to the seventeenth — of which the chief
characteristics had been drunkenness and
gluttony. Gentler manners and new cur-
rents of thought found their most active
upholders in precisely the circles in which
coffee, tea, chocolate, and sugar had to a
great extent taken the place of alcohol.
The first nation to flout the conse-
crated privileges of Spain and Portugal by
venturing into their closed territories was
the Dutch Republic. Holland had suc-
ceeded in freeing itself from the dominion
of Philip II. in 1579, and had now taken
upon its own shoulders the entire burden
of a war with the greatest power of the
age, the Southern Netherlands having
returned to Spanish rule. The Dutch had
already been successful in defending their
interests in the carrying trade of Europe
against both the German Hansa and the
merchants of England. Owing to the
geographical situation of their country
they had become the recognised middle-
men of the traffic between North and
South. Moreover, even after the outbreak
of the War of Independence, in 1568,
neither Spain nor Portugal excluded the
p , Hollanders, but allowed them
lip .s ^^ make their purchases of
P 1 A foreign products both in Lisbon
and Seville, for the King of
Spain regarded the revolutionary party
only, not the peaceful merchants of
Holland, as his enemies. But when the
seven northern provinces finally gained
their independence, and allied themselves
with powers hostile to Spain, then Philip II.
put an end to all free trade with the
Spanish as well as the Portuguese ports,
which were at that time subject to his
dominion.
After the fall of Antwerp, Amsterdam
was, beyond doubt, the most conveniently
situated spice market of Northern Europe.
The question was, where was Amsterdam
to obtain spices now that the ports of
Spain were closed to her merchants ? The
provinces and towYis of the new republic
had become very independent of one
another, owing to the absence of any
strong bond of common economic interests ;
and thus attempts were made by other
cities besides Amsterdam to procure on
their own account, and directly from the
regions of production, the various com-
• modifies which had been rendered unob-
tainable by the closing of the Spanish
and Portuguese harbours. Private com-
panies were formed in several towns for
organisation of the Dutch East India
Company, together with much that was
the purpose of importing merchandise
direct from India ; and by exchanging the
spices, etc., thus obtained for the products
of Northern Europe the promoters hoped
to supply the deficiency in commodities
indispensable to the traffic of the Continent.
D t K T A ^^^ most important of the
. . . ' small companies established
E t I a* to carry on a direct trade with
the East Indies was the
" Compagnie van Verre " (Company of the
Distant Lands), founded in 1594 ; and it
was in the interests of this firm that tlie
first Dutch voyage to Java, Bawean, and
Bali was undertaken in 1595, under the
command of Cornells de Houtman.
This company, like its rivals, scarcely
differed from the ordinary shipping associa-
tions, which possess a historical importance
from the fact that they were the precursors
of joint-stock companies. When the object
for which such an association had been
formed was attained, the cargoes were
divided among the partners, who hoped to
make a profit from the sale of the goods.
Through the influence of the great states-
man, Johan van Olden Barneveldt, all the
separate companies were incorporated into
one in 1602 ; and a new type of mercantile
association arose, which dominated and
characterised the commercial life of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The United East India Company was
a joint-stock association with rights of
monopoly. It obtained from the Dutch
Government the sole right of commerce
with the East Indies in the very widest
sense. Every Hollander was forbidden
even to sail beyond the Cape of Good
Hope, not to speak of carrying on trade,
without permission of the company ; on
the other hand, it was open to every
Hollander to become a shareholder and
partaker in all the company. 's rights and
privileges by paying a subscription. The
. originally unequal shares into
f -rfadin ^^^^^ *^^ capital of 6,600,000
o & ra mg ^^j-jj^g ^^^ divided could be
Association . , , -.i , . •
transferred without restric-
tion. Towards the end of the seventeenth
century a nominal value of 3,000 gulden
per share was established for the con-
venience of traffic in the bourses.
The affairs of the company, which was
divided into provinces, were managed by a
committee of seventeen members called
directors. There were many new features
4611
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
in the old and characteristic of the con-
stitutions of the guilds. Fundamentally
new, however, was the endowment of the
association with political rights of sover-
eignty exercised in the name and under the
supervision of the States-General of the
Netherlands. All subsequent trading
associations established after the model of
_, J ... the Dutch East India Com-
PoweV'to'' P'^'^y. ^""^ distinguished as
ower o political commercial associa-
Declare War f. o i, • u j
tions. Such companies had
the power to declare war and to enter
into negotiations and treaties ; legislation,
administration, and the enforcement of
justice were entrusted to them within
their spheres of activity ; and the Dutch
government exercised its rights of
sovereignty only in form so long as the
company was able to maintain itself
without assistance and remained solvent.
The Dutch East India Company formed
the basis of the colonial empire of Holland
in South-eastern Asia. The Portuguese
were driven out of important points
—Ceylon, Malacca, the Moluccas ; and
unclaimed regions, that is to say, territories
inhabited by indigenous races only, such
as Java, Sumatra, and Celebes, were occu-
pied. A depot in Java, which in 1619
received the name of Batavia, was the
residence of the governor-general, who,
when the Dutch colonies were at the zenith
of their prosperity, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, controlled as many as
seven provinces.
The sphere of influence of the Hollanders
extended as far as China and Japan,
although trade was exposed to many
serious difficulties in the Furthest East.
One of the company's servants, Abel
Jansz Tasman, circumnavigated Australia,
or New Holland, and discovered Van
Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, and New
Zealand in 1642. But these events, how-
ever important from a geographical stand-
point, had no immediate commercial result,
for the barren coasts of Aus-
Austraiia s ^^^j-^ j^. j^^ ^^ entice settlers.
Undiscovered , •, 1,, ,j
_ ,, m«- and its wealth in gold re-
Gold Mines j i-i i.u x i^/^ ir
mained, like that 01 Caliiornia,
undiscovered for over two hundred years.
The Hollanders carried on traffic in
spices in the same manner as the Portu-
guese had done : their one desire was to
obtain and to maintain the highest pos-
sible prices of monopoly. In spite of the
fact that spices were sold at auction in
the Amsterdam market, and consequently
4612
were exposed to free competition, prices
were kept constant through regulation of
the amounts of production. The cultiva-
tion of clove-trees was restricted to the
island of Amboina, that of nutmegs to the
Banda group ; superabundant harvests
were reduced by the destruction of all
products in excess of the quantity required
for exportation, which, as a rule, equalled
the average measure of consumption.
When, in 1621, the twelve years' truce
with Spain, which had been so beneficial
to the welfare of the Netherlanders, expired,
a second joint-stock association, also
furnished with rights of sovereignty, arose.
This was the Dutch West India Company.
Just as the Pope had once divided the
earth between Spain and Portugal, so the
Dutch government now apportioned it
between the East and West India Com-
panies. The Cape of Good Hope and Cape
Horn formed the boundaries of the hemi-
spheres subjected to their monopolies.
Although the Hollanders were unable to
lay claim to international recognition of
their proceedings, and although the orders
given by the Dutch government to its
subjects and commercial companies had
_^ „ nothing whatever to do with
w ?•. f " r the other Christian nations
Methods of r T- it- 1 iL
. jj . of Europe, nevertheless the
Dutch continued to act with
the utmost unscrupulousness toward
former possessors of the lands occupied
as well as later intruders.
During this same period the Dutch
theorists — the teachers of " natural right "
— Grotius, Salmasius, Boxhorn, and Dela-
court, were dogmatising on the mare
liherum, the freedom, or rather the open-
ness, of the sea to all men, a conception
quite in accordance with the spirit of the
time considering that the pretensions of
the Spaniards to monopoly were now
completely overthrown. However, these
patriotic philosophers made no mention
at all of the fact that, although the seas had
become open, their countrymen were
everywhere doing their utmost to close
them again to all competitors. Never-
theless, the Dutch thinkers proved that
theory — for the most part unconsciously —
declares that which is most advantageous
for one's own time or for one's own people,
even for one's own party, to be the best.
The theorists of the seventeenth century
developed the same principles of free trade
that were reahsed in England 150 years
later. It is remarkable that, without excep-
DUTCH COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY
tion, the economically stronger nations
have ever held forth to their weaker
neighbours on the blessings of free trade,
of unrestricted competition between states
as well as individuals. Although since the
end of the eighteenth century the free
trade theories of the British have con-
quered the world, and contributed not a
little to the commercial triumph of Eng-
land, the assertions of the Dutch jurists
of the seventeenth century in regard to
the same principles were almost wholly
ignored, although the economic practice
of the Dutch was a cause of violent re-
actions as time went on.
The West India Company conducted
itself even more offensively than did the
East India; it was in reality a joint-stock
association of pirates supported by the
state, whose robberies found a counter-
part only in the dealings of speculators in
company shares at the Amsterdam Bourse.
However, Holland has the West India
Company to thank for Surinam and some
of the Lesser Antilles ; other regions in
America occupied by the company — New
Netherlands and Brazil — were lost again
during the seventeenth century. In like
-, „ manner the little North Sea
, „ . " nation was unable to retain
of Modern ■. w? . m ■
St k ■ hh' West African possessions
later than the end of the
eighteenth century. Since the shares in
the two mercantile associations were the
first effects to be handled in conformity
with the regulations of a modern exchange,
the Amsterdam Bourse has a legitimate
claim to be considered the home of modern
stock-jobbing. The building was con-
structed in the year 1613, and from the
very beginning was the scene of an unre-
mitting struggle between " bulls " and
" bears." The time transactions of modern
days, the evil custom of buying on margins
— that is to say, purchase and delivery of
stock for which one has not paid, against
which laws have been enacted without
avail — the exchange tax, exchange list,
etc., were all either invented, or at least
brought to a high state of development, at
the Amsterdam Bourse. Inasmuch as the
rise and fall of dividends paid by the India
Companies depended upon events im-
possible to foresee, owing to the fact that
they were taking place in all quarters of
'the globe — the average dividend amounted
to 22 per cent. — speculation had the
character of a game of chance. The desire
for gambling became a national vice, as
was shown by the notorious tulip swindle
in the year 1630, a ridiculous parody of
exchange transactions, carried on outside
the bourse. Men sj eculated on the rise and
fall in the prices of real and imaginary tulip
bulbs, until finally the whole mad business,
tulips and all, disappeared with a crash.
Until the end of the seventeenth century
-^ the Amsterdam Bourse was used
f *T) t\ * ^^^ *^^ purpose of contracting
^' ."*^, loans by the Dutch govern-
ment, as well as by the execu-
tives of the provinces and the cities of the
Netherlands. Naturally, the promissory
notes and debenture bonds of public
authorities were, in these times of war and
disturbance, subject to great fluctuations.
There was no longer an international loan
market such as had once existed in
Antwerp, now that the Italian and Upper
German capitalists were bankrupts. Every
state endeavoured, if possible, to make
both ends meet with the aid of its own
capitalists. But when Holland was
forced out of the world market by the
national economic policies of England and
France, the capital thus set free accepted
such opportunities for investment as were
offered by the great industries which were
just beginning to develop. In spite of all,
however, capital became heaped up in the
land, which not only had sufficient for all
its needs, but was still gasping for more.
Wealthy men showed less and less desire
to take part in laborious or dangerous
undertakings; and preferred simply to put
their money out at interest Thus it
happened that after the beginning of the
eighteenth century impoverished sove-
reigns who were unable to obtain loans at
home sought out Holland as a place for
borrowing money. Amsterdam became
the scene of international money trans-
actions, and the Amsterdam Bourse the
international stock market, whose rates
of exchange were the standard followed
by all the other European stock exchanges
„ of the eighteenth century.
p * . Oncemore, after a long period
J of comparative inaction, an
element which has been of
like importance to the history of the
world and to the history of economics
made its appearance ; and although it was
badly adapted to its more or less hostile
environment, it nevertheless persevered,
looking forward to a better future.
Driven forth from all lands, and perse-
cuted ever since the time of the Crusades,
4613
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the Jews, even when tolerated for the good
of the treasury, had no share in either the
local or the international commercial
affairs of Northern and Southern Europe.
From the twelfth to the seventeenth cen-
tury they had managed to maintain a pre-
carious existence as money-dealers and
usurers on the very smallest scale. After
the conquest of Granada, in
* ^^^ 1492, they were expelled from
N N* Spain together with the Moors,
although a few who had been
converted to Christianity were permitted
to remain in the country, receiving the
name of Marannos. But like the con-
verted Moors, or Moriscos, they had the
reputation of being merely nominally
Christian, and in 1609- 161 1 they were
finally turned out of Spain and Portugal
neck and crop as conspirators and rebels.
A number of them found a place of refuge
in the Netherlands, the Dutch welcoming
their arrival as an opportunity for a demon-
stration of hostility to Spain. A Jewish
quarter grew up in Amsterdam, and no
hindrances were placed in the way of Jews
who wished to share in the commercial life
of the city. In a short time daughter com-
munities, like the one at Hamburg, deve-
loped from the main colony at Amsterdam.
Dutch-Portuguese Jews emigrated to
England when the kingdom, closed to
them since the time of Edward I., was once
more thrown open by Cromwell, in 1657.
Amsterdam was the door through which the
Jews again found entrance to European
civilisation. Scattered as they were over
all parts of the world, the Jews were the
connecting link of what was to be a new
development of international capitalism.
For all that the business in money and
credit and the non-European commerce
of Holland was so extensive, she owed
her wealth chiefly to her trade in merchan-
dise with the rest of the Continent.
During the seventeenth century the Dutch
»« -x- 'w^ 1 were the maritime carriers
Maritime Trade ■, ■ 1 ji r t^
_ . and middlemen of Europe ;
h th D t h three-fourths of the mer-
^ cantile marine of the world
belonged to them. The power of the
Hansa was gone ; the Thirty Years
War had effectually crippled Germany;
England was experiencing the greatest
crisis of her constitutional existence ;
France was still prevented from per-
ceiving or attending to her economic
interests owing to various political com-
plications ; in short, general conditions
were now as favourable to the Nether-
lands, though still feeble in themselves, as
they had been in former days to the Hansa.
Thus the Dutch were enabled to control
maritime trade until finally the tendency
of the world's history became unfavourable
to them, and the Great Powers vindicated
their natural rights of superiority.
In the meanwhile, however, Dutch mer-
chants and shipowners dominated the
commerce of the Baltic, and consequently
the grain trade of Europe. " Amsterdam
obtained possession of the great surplus
quantities of grain grown in the Baltic
countries, and thus supplied not only Hol-
land, but alsoWestern and Southern Europe.
According to a document of the year 1603,
a stock of 4,000,000 bushels — that is to say,
wheat enough to supply 800,000 people
for a year — was kept constantly on hand."
By closing the mouths of the Rhine and
the Schelde, the Hollanders destroyed the
trade of the Spanish Netherlands as well
as that of Western Germany. The latter
region, indeed, became economically
subject to them as far south as the Black
Forest, and they were already masters
of Eastern Germany beyond
the World^I Hamburg and Danzig, they
Commerce ^^d long been superior to all
competitors in Scandinavia and
on the northern seas, whether as merchants
or as fishermen, their connections extending
as far as the coasts of the White Sea.
Dutch navigators even, cruised about the
Arctic Ocean, striving to solve the mystery
of a north-east passage. Southern Europe
also had fallen into the net of their all-
embracing commerce ; they dominated the
Mediterranean, and after the conclusion of
peace in 1648 appeared once more in the
harbours of Portugal and Spain.
How great a burden the Dutch had been
to England and France was shown by
the violent reaction that arose against
them in both nations during the latter half
of the seventeenth century. In 165 1 the
English Navigation Acts were passed
by the Commonwealth Parliament. A
severe struggle now began for the freedom
of English maritime trade and for supre-
macy in the world's commerce, a struggle
in which the weaker nation finally sub-
mitted to the stronger, and sought by
means of an alliance at a propitious
moment with its former opponent to
save what it could of its earUer power.
4614
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
"pjrWTJ':"^^
THE
COMMERCE
OF
W ESTERN EUROPE
IV
THE BRITISH MARITIME SUPREMACY
EXPANSION OF THE NATION'S COMMERCE
IN the eleventh century England had
* fallen under the political and economic
dominion of foreigners. While the per-
manent foreign and native elements
were gradually becoming reconciled to
one another, the commercial dominion of
strangers, in spite of its nomadic character,
became still deeper rooted in the land.
Although England yielded an abundance
of natural products, there were no de-
veloped industries and no maritime traffic
or shipping capable of competing with
other countries, not to speak of any inde-
pendent foreign trade. Nevertheless, the
central government, in spite of all feudal
limitations, was powerful enough to main-
tain a firm and consistent national policy.
The kings sought to relieve the economic
difficulties of their subjects, and this at a
time when throughout Europe economic
policy lay almost exclusively in the hands
of municipal authorities, or, at the most,
_ , , . under the control of more
England under , r , • • i
«k V I, "^ '^ss powerful provmcial
ofForeine rulers. 1 he struggle ot Eng-
land to free itself from the
economic yoke of foreigners began with
the establishment of companies, such
as the Staple Guild and the Association
of Merchant Adventurers.
The accession of the Tudors, in 1485,
was followed by a change in economic
conditions that led to far-reaching results.
This was the substitution of " enclosure "
for the " open-field " system of agricul-
ture. The landed proprietors of Eng-
land no less than of the Continent
opposed the old order of economic life,
for the reason that it stood in the way of
various new and profitable means of
making money. When a large amount
of farming land was turned into
pasture for the sake of sheep-farming,
the large wool producers found that their
interests were injured by the small
properties of peasants scattered over their
estates, and that the common lands were
a great hindrance to their plans for
pasturage or for the alternate use of the land
as meadow and ploughed field. Hence
the large landowners turned their pro-
perty into pasturage, regardless of the
rights of occupants, enclosing common
lands, with the assistance of accommo-
. . . dating sheriffs and magis-
n 8« o trates, who belonged to their
Poverty and , ™, ''
,, , . own class. Ihus numerous
Unemployment r , u , ^
freeholders and tenants were
deprived of their land, and of these but
a small proportion were able to lease new
ground suitable for farming. As a result,
the country swarmed with paupers and
unemployed. Even the worse than in-
adequate relief of distress supplied by the
monasteries was ended by their abolition
under Henry VHI., without any substi-
tute being provided. It became a question
of vital importance to the nation, either
to promote or to create new forms of
industry with a view to the relief of
temporary want as well as the employment
of a future increased population.
One way to this object was discovered
by the economists of England in the
time of Elizabeth. Among the first
measures passed by the Elizabethan
government was the currency reform of
1560, which had become necessary
owing to the debasement of the coinage
brought about during the reign of Henry
Vni. The English Government was in
the fortunate position of never having
granted the right to coin money to
subordinate powers, as had happened else-
where in feudal Europe ; while, therefore,
one sovereign might cause a temporary
derangement of the cur-
rency, another was able to
reduce it to order, for the
good of the whole country,
which by this time was taking an intelligent
interest in the most important economic
questions. The measures passed by the
Government for general economic better-
ment were approved by the nation, the
advantage of state control in economic
4615
The Ensilish
Government their
own Coiners
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Erection
of the Royal
Exchange
matters having been exemplified in the case
of the currency. It is true that the Enghsh
government was unable to look to the public
for co-operation in regard to foreign affairs
— however much the national intelligence
had developed during the early Eliza-
bethan period — until the country was
threatened by a foreign invasion. Before a
state of complete understanding
between government and people
had been reached in 1588, at the
time of the Spanish Armada,
the Crown, anxious to avoid any extra-
ordinary taxation, had been obliged to
contract loans of very doubtful advantage.
At first the Tudors borrowed money in
Antwerp, where the celebrated Sir Thomas
Gresham occupied the position of financial
agent of the English government. But as
early as 1569, after the Duke of Alva had
arrived in the Netherlands, and Antwerp
had begun to decline, the financial require-
ments of the English Crown were supplied
by domestic capital. The government of
England had thus freed itself from the
dominion of international money-lenders,
and had thereby advanced several steps
in economic development.
The attainment of national independence
in all things pertaining to money and
credit found expression in the erection of
the Royal Exchange by Sir Thomas
Gresham in 1566 at his own expense. The
queen had already recognised the services of
this public-spirited financier by conferring
knighthood upon him in 1559 ; indeed,
it had long been the fashion for Conti-
nental governments to confer patents of
nobility on the various German and
Italian merchant princes who had been of
especial service to them as money-lenders.
The imperialist policy of the Tudors
was expensive, like that of the Hapsburgs
and Valois. In all lands sovereigns were
discovering that their incomes were no
longer sufficient to meet their expenses,
so much easier had it become to contract
_ . debts; and debts required
UvTd Beyond ° Settlement, or at least
Their Income, i"t^rest had to be paid on
them. 1 he populations of
all the countries of Europe resisted the
increasing demands of the governments ;
and as a result of undeveloped, badly
managed systems of assessment and collec-
tion, so much money was lost to the
national treasuries, that what finally found
its way into the cofiers of the state
amounted to very little indeed. However,
4616
necessity led to the invention of various
expedients for raising money, which were
not only independent of the concessions
of parliaments and popular assemblies, but
yielded far greater amounts than had any
previous source of income. This is the
financial aspect of the development of the
theory of Royal prerogative.
The German princes had assumed long
before, as heirs of the old Roman Empire,
exclusive possession of all the useful pre-
rogatives of royalty, such as the right
to coin money, to dig for precious metals,
to collect taxes, and to dispense justice ;
but as time passed these rights were
gradually transferred to lesser powers,
both temporal and ecclesiastical, and to
towns and corporations. The income of
a sovereign was limited to the yield of the
crown possessions, and had he lost these
also, he was powerless, as poor as the
German emperors who followed the
Hohenstaufen. Minor princes and cities
now took upon themselves the duties of
government, and in their restricted spheres
exercised the same rights of administra-
tion as had once been executed by the
sovereign himself over his
entire domain ; but with this
step the feebleness of the dis-
united towns a nd lesser rulers
increased, as was especially obvious when
looked at from the point of view of en-
tanglements with foreign powers.
Since the incomes derived by princes from
the crown lands proved insufficient, they
resorted to taxation ; but this resulted
only in making parliaments and assem-
blies more and more disinclined to
grant the demands of sovereigns. Con-
sequently the latter unearthed and ex-
tended their ancient and inalienable royal
prerogatives to relieve them of financial
embarrassments. The acceptance of
Roman law during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries greatly furthered the
designs of the rulers. Especially in
Western Europe regalism was soon in full
sway, and was pursued without the
slightest regard either to existing rights
or to the welfare of subjects. Princes of
the small states of Germany and Italy
followed the example of the sovereigns
of great kingdoms, if not with the same
favourable results to their own ends, at least
with the same thoroughness and rigour.
In England, the regulation of trade was
by general admission included under the
prerogative of the Crown, while taxation.
Western
Europe under
Regalism
THE BRITISH MARITIME SUPREMACY
avowedly for revenue was not. But the
Tudors found a convenient elasticity in
the admitted rights of the Crown, and
developed a system of granting mono-
polies^sometimes to favourites, but
generally receiving substantial considera-
tion for the grant — till the list of mono-
polies became formidable and burdensome,
at one time including currants, salt, iron,
gunpowder, playing-cards, cowhide, furs,
sail-cloth, potash, vinegar, whale-oil, coal,
steel, brandy, brushes, bottles, pots, salt-
petre, lead, oil, mirrors, paper, starch,
tin, sulphur, cloth, sardines, beer, cannons,
horn, leather, Spanish wool, and Irish
yarn. However, this system of conduct-
ing inland commerce was from the be-
ginning so imperfect and faulty that it
soon disappeared, leaving no trace behind.
It was left to the Stuarts to make their
vain attempt to extend the prerogative
into the field of taxation.
On the other hand, a Crown monopoly
of foreign trade was much easier to
enforce and to maintain, owing to the
fact that previous systems could be
brought into connection with it. Several
^ guild - like corporations,
Commerce n j n i 5 j
• .t. €5- * *i called regulated com-
m the Sixteenth • >> ■, r j r,
g . panics, and formed after
^"^ " ^ the model of the Merchant
Adventurers, were instituted with the
assistance of the government, which was,
of course, well paid for its good offices. The
names of these corporations alone are
sufficient to convey a vivid idea of the
extent of British commerce at the end of
the sixteenth century, although it is true
that they were not equally prosperous.
There was a Russian or Muscovite Com-
pany, founded in 1554, a Baltic Company
(1579), ^ Turkish Company (1581), a
Morocco or Barbary Company (1585),
and a Guinea trade monopoly. In addi-
tion to these, the merchants of Exeter and
Bristol organised themselves into guilds,
having constitutions similar to that of
the Mercers' Compan}^ of London. Finally,
in 1600, the East India Company, the
first joint-stock association to be formed
in England, was founded.
English policy during the time of
Elizabeth had already overcome the
German Hansa, one of the most powerful
enemies of national trade. England had
also succeeded in getting the upper hand
of the Italians, as was shown by the sus-
pension of the voyages of the Venetians
and Genoese. Consequently there remained
but one rival in the field — Holland,
the greatest of all ; but so long as the
Dutch were indispensable to the English
as allies in the war against Spain and
Portugal, the chief sea-powers of the time,
a conflict was not desirable. That
England was, however, already prepared
to take up arms against the Netherlands
_ . , „ „ mav be seen from the events
spam s Fall 1.^1 1 • ./i
, ^ .^. which occurred in 1504,
from Maritime , j. , , r .C
Q before the uprising of the
Dutch against Spain. England
and Holland then fought one another with
trade embargoes, and England finally
removed her cloth staple from Antwerp.
During the further course of events
England sought to ally herself with Holland,
as happened in reality one hundred years
later, at the time of William III. The
result of this attempt was the war
between Spain and England, which culmi-
nated in the destruction of the Invincible
yVrmada in 1588. In that great struggle
it was finally manifested that Spain was
deposed from the position of supreme
maritime power, though many years and
much hard fighting passed before her
fleets ceased to be dangerous.
Shortly after the accession of James I.,
who, as a Stuart, was friendly to Spain,
peace was concluded with Philip II. at
London in 1604. The Spaniards granted
the inhabitants of the now United King-
dom freedom of trade with all their
possessions, excepting the East and West
Indies. However, it was not long before
the English found a way of escaping the
latter difficulty. The question was. should
England permit the Hollanders, who had
already extended their trade to the Far
East, as well as to Arnerica, alone to retain
possession of the field ? F"ortunately,
the treaty of 1604 itself furnished a pretext
for intrusion into Spanish and Portuguese
domains, inasmuch as according to its
terms, the English were permitted to seek
out and, under certain conditions, take
_. , possession of any West or
Ex^'a'din ^^^^ Indian territory not yet
xpan mg Q^^^^pjg^ j^y Sp^in or Portu-
Commerce 1 ti ■ f j.- 11
gal. Thus international law
and national interests were — at least
in one case — brought into complete har-
mony with one another.
In spite of the expansion of England's
maritime trade, and notwithstanding the
wars into which the nation had been
plunged in order to secure freedom from
the economic dominion of strangers, the
4617
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
industrial activity of the English — so far
as foreign markets were concerned — was,
even during the time of the Tudors,
restricted to the manufacture of wool
products. Not until the first migration
of Flemish weavers to England during the
reign of Edward III. had the manufacture
of wool attained to a state of development
_ . . sufficient to warrant the ex-
Weicomld P"rtation of cloth. By the
. t,*^.™.^ middle of the sixteenth century
in Britain ... , r , ••<,
it became necessary to forbid
the exportation of sheep and wool, in order
that the domestic spinning and weaving
industries might not suffer for lack of raw
material. Soon afterwards the second
great immigration of Flemish weavers
took place. The fugitives, driven from the
Netherlands by the decrees against heretics
issued by Charles V. and Philip II., were
cordially welcomed by the British govern-
ment, to the great disgust of the domestic
industrial classes. From this time forth
the wool industry of the Netherlands
possessed no special feature that could
not easily be duplicated on the other
side of the Channel.
During the reign of Elizabeth the
important transformation in industrial
conditions that had already taken place a
century before on the Continent in several
branches of manufacture began to affect
the English wool trade. From its very
nature the wool industry could not well be
carried on as a handicraft, inasmuch as the
same material passed through many hands
— spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers — before
the cloth was complete and ready for use.
Nor did the finished product reach the
consumer until it had been exposed for
sale in the shops of wholesale and retail
dealers. No single establishment was able
to fulfil all these conditions. Dealers who
owned capital, and even the sheep farmers,
found it an easy matter to obtain control
of the craftsmen through advances of
raw material and wages ; and thus the
Th E cloth industry soon took the
« * V^t form of a capitalised system
Days of the r r ^ ^xr
»»r 1 T J of manufacture. Weavers,
Wool Trade , ,, , , , '
fullers, and dyers no longer
laboured directly for their customers, but
for a capitalist, who was the connecting
link between the different classes of pro-
ducers, and at the same time supplied the
markets with the finished product. The
wool trade did not at once become a great
industry, such as is pursued in factories,
but continued to be carried on in the
4618
homes of the weavers and in small work-
shops, for the government protected
house labour and prevented the introduc-
tion of factory industry — at least so far
as the manufacture of wool was concerned
— ^until late in the eighteenth century.
The control by the central government
of commerce and industry which in other
countries had gradually been won from
the central governments by independent
cities, companies, and territories, was
undisputed in England. The passing of
the Apprentices Act in 1562 had the effect
of determining the organisation of English
industr}^ for centuries. This Act was a
law dealing with the most important of
social questions — the time of apprenticeship
(seven years), and m.atters concerning
journeymen, contracts, time, and reward of
labour. The municipal authorities were
entrusted with its execution in towns, and
in the country, the magistrates.
The Act of Elizabeth remained in force
until 1814, although it had long ceased to
be observed in many particulars, since
new forms of industry and new branches of
commerce had sprung up to which it did not
The Stuarts f^^^y- Although the Tudors
P . .. had many times been per-
with Spain
mitted to take the law into
their own hands, and without
opposition, because their policy was in
harmony with the wishes of the British
nation, this was not the case with the
Stuarts, against whom an active resistance
that passed all previously known limits
developed in both people and Parliament.
Their friendly relations with Spain were
not popular, although it would have been
advantageous for England to ally herself
with this nation against Holland, her more
dangerous rival ; moreover, such an
alliance could not have been otherwise
than favourable to the importation of
English products into the Pyrenean
Peninsula and South America.
Thus, when the earlier Stuarts desired
to collect the money necessary for carrying
out their foreign policy they found neither
Parliament nor people disposed to give
them any assistance ; and since they
endeavoured to win their point by invoking
the aid of absolutism and divine right, the
consequence was that the opposition of the
nation increased. Parliament claimed the
right of distribution of monopolies in 1623,
withdrawing it from the Crown, and fought
the system of forced loans. When it
granted the taxes on tonnage and poundage
THE BRITISH MAIUTIME SUPREMACY
to the king, not for life, as to his pre-
decessors, but for a terni of one year
only, Charles I. endeavoured to govern
without a Parliament, and to collect taxes
without further authorisation than his
own will. Still, the English people were
not moved to action by economic motives
alone ; the question of religion, without
doubt, predominated, and, according to
popular opinion, political interests, in the
stricter sense of the term, were of greater
importance than economic affairs were.
the Parliament — Cromwell was not yet
Protector, but was occupied with the
Worcester campaign — by passing the
Navigation Act, threw down a direct
challenge to its commercial rival.
Already under the Tudors, and even at
the time of the Plantagenets, English mer-
chant vessels had been protected by means
of discriminating taxes, coasting ships in
particular having been favoured by various
reservations. In the Act of 165 1 all the
old regulations were renewed and supple-
INVENTOR OF THE STOCKING LOOM: THE ORIGIN OF THE GREAT DISCOVERY
Many of the world's greatest discoveries have been simply born, the invention of the stocking loom being- a case in point.
The Rev. William Lee, to whom the discovery of this epoch-making machine was due, derived the idea of his wonderful
creation from watching the movement of his wife's fingers while knitting. Constructing his machine, he removed it from
Claverton, in Nottingham, to London, and Queen Elizabeth made a personal examination of its working. On the
invitation of Henry IV., Lee tooK up his residence in France, but did not live to reap the reward of bis invention.
From thi picture by Alfred Elmore, R.A,
But just as the material desires of man
are expressions of an invincible natural
force that mocks all attempts at repres-
sion, so also in the lives of nations affairs
relating to material welfare invariably
press their claims whenever there is a
pause in the constant struggle in the
spiritual world. The war with the Nether-
lands for the independence of English
foreign trade and for the dominion of the
sea was postponed for many years ; but
when Holland decUned overtures for an
intimate, union with the English Republic,
mented. From that time no importation
of extra-European goods to England was
allowed except under the English flag.
Commodities of European origin could be
sent to England in English ships only, or
in vessels belonging to the nation in which
their cargoes were produced. It was also
determined that voyages should be direct,
from port to port, without any stop being
made at the Dutch intermediate stations.
The coasting trade was reserved to the
national flag, and, for the improvement of
the home fishing industry, the importation
4619
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of salted fish was forbidden. Directions as
to the manning of EngHsh merchant
vessels proved that Cromwell looked
upon the merchant marine as the training
school for the navy.
Although, owing to the relative weak-
ness of the English mercantile marine, it
was long before the Navigation Act had
D t K Sh* the favourable economic results
c" *t d'h' anticipated, its immediate
th^V'^V h*^ pohtical effect was a naval war
"^ " with Holland (1652-1654), in
which the English navy, under Robert
Blake, showed itself to be in no wise in-
ferior to the fleets of Holland manned by
crews of far greater experience in battle.
The great territorial expansion of the
Dutch made it possible to deal more
serious blows at them, and during the year
1653 the English captured over one thou-
sand Dutch vessels in various parts of the
world. According to the terms of the
peace of 1654, made on party grounds
by the anti-Orange oligarchy under the
leadership of the brothers De Witt,
Holland agreed to recognise the Naviga-
tion Act as well as the supremacy of the
British flag in English waters.
But the victory of the English under
Cromwell over their ancient enemies, the
Spaniards, was of far greater value to the
Englishman of the day than the successes
won against the Dutch ; not because the
colonial power of Spain was a hindrance to
British expansion, but for the reason that
the Spaniards represented Catholicism.
The result of the war was the acquisition
of Jamaica and the port of Dunkirk. The
latter might have been a foothold for
English power on the Continent, like
Calais in former days (1347-1558), but
Charles II. sold the city to Louis XIV.
in 1662. That the monarchy of the
Restoration had no intention of adopting
a commercial-political pohcy other than
that introduced by the Commonwealth
was shown by the renewal of the Navigation
^ . , Act in 1660 and 1664 — so
Commercial , , 1^1
-, . . to speak, a second and a
Concessions to , , ■ f , , , ■ ,
..-,,. third enlarged and improved
the Colonies ,., . r°,, • • 1 a ^
edition of the original Act.
In New England the long-wished-for
region of distribution and consumption
was acquired, a region which the English
sought straightway to close to the compe-
tition of foreign merchants. Each time
the Navigation Act was renewrd clauses
were inserted according to which the pro-
ducts of British colonies could be sent to
4620
English ports alone, even when intended
for another land, and European goods
could be exported to the colonies only on
English ships, and direct from England
and Wales. It was not till the Union of
1707 that English privileges became
British by their extension to Scotland. The
second naval war with Holland broke out
in 1664 as a result of a dispute with the
Dutch West India Company. During the
course of the hostilities New Amsterdam —
the New York of to-day — and Cape Coast
Castle in Guinea were captured by the
British. The first guineas were minted, at
this time, of gold brought on the vessels of an
English company from the Guinea Coast.
As the war had resulted in great
damage to English commerce, peace
negotiations were begun at Breda, which,
in spite of the sudden appearance of a
Dutch fleet in the Thames in 1667, were
definitely favourable to England. The
Peace of Breda granted permanent
possession of New Netherlands to the
English, who were now masters of the
entire Atlantic coast of North America
from Acadia to Florida. Considerable
light is thrown upon the
o an in dependence of German
Alliance with ^ ^ j.\,- j.- u
J, J . commerce at this time by
^^ '^^ the fact that, although con-
trary to the provis ons of the Navigation
Act, the Dutch were allowed to carry
German goods to England in their own
vessels.
A third naval war with the Dutch fol-
lowed (1672-1674), when England, in alli-
ance with France, supported Louis XIV.
in his attempt to annihilate Holland. Al-
though England gained no new territory
by the Treaty of Westminster, she neverthe-
less prevented Holland from carrying out
her intention of forming an alliance with
Spain, when the two former mistresses of
the sea saw that their interests were
equally prejudiced by the rapid develop-
ment of English maritime power. The
troubles with Holland finally ceased when
the House of Orange once more stood at
the head of the state in 1672, and renewed
their dynastic connection with the Stuarts.
The result was an adjustment of the
interests of the two nations. Holland,
satiated with wealth, desired rest and peace,
and after having estabHshed a permanent
alliance with England, contented herself
with opp sing the encroachments of the
French, who had now become dangerously
powerful in Europe as in the colonies.
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
M
.aK
THE
COMMERCE
OF
WESTERN EUROPE
V
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE
AND THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL INDUSTRIES
'X'HE wars between England and the
■*■ Netherlands were but a prelude to the
tremendous struggle with France between
the years 1688 and 1815. The new Hun-
dred Years War, that lasted with but
few intermissions from Louis XIV. 's third
war of conquest until the Congress of
Vienna, was, looked at from the point of
view of to-day, the final and decisive
contest for the dominion of the world's
commerce. Spaniards, Portuguese, Hol-
landers, French, and British — all had
striven for it in vain, and with insufficient
powers. What was this monopoly of the
world's commerce but a phantom tfiat
beckoned to each nation in turn, only to
vanish into air ? The unconquerable im-
pulse for independence and action displayed
by the nations of Western Europe, which
had been crowded together at an early day
by the migrations of peoples, would no more
permit the establishment of a commercial
-,. _ . , than a political world mon-
1 he Daughter u j ■ .1
J. . . archy ; and smce the very
the N W Id ^^^^ qualities were develop-
ing in the daughter nations
in the New World, their dependence on the
mother countries became constantly less
likely to continue. Yet the pursuit of this
phantom of exclusive commercial dominion
caused European civilisation to develop
more rapidly and to expand over wider
regions than any sober estimate of possi-
bilities would have anticipated. Private
economic and fiscal endeavours found firm
support in the governments and in the
colonial policy of nations, for the living
representatives of all these varied interests
breathed the same stirring atmosphere of
imaginary gains and advantages.
Of the five powers which at one time
or other entered on the rivalry for mari-
time supremacy — Spain, Portugal, Holland,
England, and France — the last named was
the last to take a part. After Philip H. had
made peace with France at Vervins, shortly
before his death, and the wars of the Hugue-
nots had also come to an end in 1598, one of
those pauses in the tumult of human affairs
ensued during which such peoples and
states as are possessed of vitality are able
quickly to recover their power, even though
a short time before they may have been
standing on the very brink of the grave. In
p. . .. France the monarchy took
^ . g ' . charge of the labour of civili-
Questions sation, and, moreover, en-
countered at first little or no
opposition. Henry IV., assisted by Sully,
succeeded, by the aid of commercial treaties,
colonising associations, the promotion of
industry, and, above all, by encouraging
agriculture, in guiding the French people
into the same tendencies of national
economic policy that had already led to
such great results elsewhere. Richelieu
himself, the powerful subduer of the feudal
nobility, in seeking to free the Crown from
their dishonouring tutelage, pursued the
same course, so far as his participation
in the Thirty Years War allowed him to
direct his attention to economic questions.
But it soon became apparent that the
French had been too late in entering the
ranks of colonial nations, and that only
the leavings of the Spaniards, Portuguese,
Hollanders, and English remained to them.
French colonists settled, it is true, on the
St. Lawrence, in the Antilles, in Guiana,
in West Africa, and in Madagascar, yet
without any very serious attempt to make
these territories their own, and their
attention was constantly being taken from
their new possessions by political entangle-
ments nearer home.
A new and bitter quarrel arose with Spain
_ , during the days of Richelieu
ranee s ^^^ continued long after the
W'th s"*"* close of the Thirty Years
P*'" War, lasting until the Peace
of the Pyrenees in 1659. ^t the same time,
in the disturbances of the Fronde, the last
struggle was fought between the three inde-
pendent and privileged powers, the clergy,
the nobility, and the parlements, and the
absolute monarchy, which threatened
4621
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
them all alike. This movement was
occasioned by the incredible mismanage-
ment of the national finances, which had
begun during the days of Richelieu, and
had gone from bad to worse during the
ministry of Mazarin, 1642-1661. Ever
since the national debts of France had
passed from the hands of foreign capi-
, talists into those of domestic
y. * *"* * money-lenders, the so-called
" P*^^ *i^*' " Partisans," the abuse had
cop e Yy^Qj^ current of farming out
the rates and taxes to the state creditors
in order that they might be able to repay
themselves from the sums collected. The
result was boundless oppression of the
masses, deception of the Government, and
enrichment of capitalists
A concerted attack, under the leadership
of the Parlement of Paris, was made on
the unlimited monarchy ; and the populace
of the capital joined in it. But as the
disturbances of the Fronde continued, to
the great injury of the industrial classes, a
reaction followed in Paris, and the king
and his all-powerful Minister finally ob-
tained the upper hand in this last struggle
of feudal institutions against unlimited
monarchical power.
A sequel to the events of the Fronde
followed, when, after the death of
Mazarin, the chief cause of the ruin,
his financial tool, Nicholas Fouquet,
who had outdone even the court of
Louis XIV. by the magnificence of his
household, was sent to prison. The same
judgment was passed on the entire tribe
of Partisans, although they had been a
power in the state — in fact, above the
state ; a precarious support to lawful
authority during times of disturbance,
and often rather an aid to princely
" condottieri " of the stamp of an Orleans
or a Conde, who had become more dan-
gerous to the King of France than Wallen-
stein had been to the Emperor Ferdinand.
Jean Baptiste Colbert, the new Finance
C lb t th Minister, whose influence had
Great Minittcr ^'^^^}y contributed to the
of Finance overthrow of the Partisans,
retained his difficult position
from 1661 until his death, in 1683. His
first great work was to consolidate the
state liabilities, which rested on a thousand
separate titles and bore high rates of
interest, into a single national debt, paying
interest at 5 per cent. This relatively
mild method of acknowledging the bank-
ruptcy of a nation was even then not new
4622
to France, and was often resorted to in
later times. But Colbert was obliged to
forgo the task of extinguishing the
national debt, as well as any attempt to
meddle with the privileges of the nobihty
and clergy, for upon them depended' the
foreign and domestic policy of Louis XIV.,
and the Minister of finance had no other
desire than to be his faithful servant. The
wars of this period caused many more
loans to be raised and the public finances
once more to be thrown into disorder.
The nobility and clergy were subdued and
transformed into court domestics, as it
were, by deference to their privileges and
the offer of certain personal advantages.
A significant change had taken place in
the policy of the sovereigns of Europe.
Previously kings had been able to keep the
privileged classes in check through alli-
ances with the third estate ; but now that
the kingship had attained to the zenith
of its power, it transformed clergy and
nobility into pillars of the Government,
not in order to oppose the masses, its
former ally — the latter had as yet no idea
of revolting — but merely that it might be
_ _ lifted above all bickerings
p ^ °^' with the privileged classes, and
. 2 th r^^^i^^ *^^ ^^^^ o^ ^ centralised
government, impartially look-
ing down upon the doings of men from
the heights of its absolute position. The
king had, in fact, become the highest
expression of governmental force, to
which all personal or class rights were as
nothing. This form of kingship, which
created the unity of the modern state out
of the welter of competing independent
jurisdictions, was by no means lacking
in a conception of its social mission ;
but the latter remained in the background,
certainly so long as the throne was
surrounded by troops of privileged cour-
tiers, whose chief office was to increase its
splendour and stability.
To be sure, now and then a law for the
improvement of economic and social affairs
made its appearance ; for example, Colbert
decreased the land-tax (taille) for the bene-
fit of the peasants, the most oppressed of all
the social classes. However, the tendency
of the unlimited monarchy was far more
in the direction of a general and in-
discriminate policy of national welfare
than in that of protection of the feeble and
oppressed. The power and, above all, the
military capabilities of the state were
to be augmented by an increase in the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE
prosperity of the people ; and in order to
heighten mihtary efficiency, all endeavours
were concentrated in the ideas of protec-
tion of the state from without, of increase
of territory, and of general expansion.
The fall of the Spanish Empire was looked
upon by France as an invitation to step
into that nation's place, and to seize the
position of supremacy in Europe, on the
high seas, and in all colonial spheres.
This vast political programme not only
contained within it the germs of renewed
struggles with the Spanish and German
Hapsburgs, at whose expense France
expected to acquire the " natural boun-
daries " previously denied her, but was a
cause of renewed war with Holland and
England, the sea powers of the age.
In no empire the world has yet seen
have nation and kingship reached such
a state of solidarity as in the France of
Louis XIV. All variances that arose
under his rule and under that of his
successors — the downfall of the old
monarchy, the great revolution, the
empire — had their foundations in the
defeats suffered by the French in the
struggle with the English. Just
^J^^.^ "* , as Spain, Holland, and England
the Time of , ir i j j jj x-
¥ • viv herself had done, so did 1:^ ranee
Louis XIV. .^ , 11 f
sacnfice hundreds of years
of her existence to the attainment of an
illusory dominion of the world, established
on a monopoly of the world's commerce.
In order that the French, who already
saw certain plunder before their eyes in
the fallen Spanish Empire, might drive the
Dutch and English from the seas, it
was necessary for them to mobilise all
their military strength and at the same
'time to open up all their economic re-
sources. The policy of imperialism re-
quired wealth such as was possessed by
Spain in her mines and by Holland in her
commerce. It was also necessary for
England, France's rival — in fact, for any
nation that expected to maintain itself
against Louis XIV. — to invent new means
for carrying on the struggle. The un-
directed pursuit of small economic in-
terests with limited spheres was certainly
not a means of creating such resources
as were needed by powers of the first rank
in their struggle for the world market.
However, the economic conditions of the
smaller circles, of corporations, cities,
territories and provinces, must at least
have suggested thoughts for the guidance
of a national policy based on a regard
for the public welfare. It was necessary
to transfer that which had already been
done on a small scale into a greater
sphere, to develop and to perfect it.
In fact, the mercantile system, or
Colbertism, as it has been called, after its
classic representative, merely consisted in
an extension in the use of economic-
C Ik f political measures that had
^ ^' *, long been employed in restricted
Mercantile ° a ^u i. ^
g areas. As soon as the stale
drew within its paternal protec-
tion economic affairs which had previously
been left to their own powers of develop-
ment, like every eager beginner it went
too far in the matter, without considera-
tion for the activities of natural produc-
tion. The latter are of a private, individual
nature, the sources of numerous economic
phenomena which gradually shade off
into the very highest spheres of national
and world economy. However, on the
whole, mercantilism stood the test of its
time ; that is to say, it succeeded in
Western Europe during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. It gave to
peoples and to states that which they had
not before possessed, indeed that which
they could not possibly have acquired
through the action of the unregulated
forces to which they had been accustomed.
Nothing short of the centralised power
of a modern nation was able to perform
that which neither cities, nor leagues
of cities, nor the provinces of Germany
and Italy, nor even the independent
provinces of larger states, had been
capable of effecting ; all of these were
obliged to waste a large amount of the
forces at their disposal in the conflict of
their special interests. Nations of the first
rank that included many lesser circles
within themselves did away with all internal
friction, and produced from the sum of the
forces out of which they had been evolved
effects of constantly increasing magnitude.
A description of the mercantile policy
of each single community
would lead to endless repeti-
How Colbert
Served
the State
tions ; let us, therefore, take
France as a representative ex-
ample. The organisation of the finances,
Which finally resulted in an annual revenue
of 100 million livres (600 million francs) with-
out any increase in the burden of taxation,
was, comparatively speaking, one of the
least of Colbert's services to the state.
Of far greater importance, both financially
and economically, was his policy in regard
4623
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
French
Industries
to the customs. The old provinces of the
north and west, Isle de France, Cham-
pagne, Burgundy, Picardy, Normandy,
Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine,
were, as soon as the former lines of
custom-houses had been done away with,
united into one revenue district ; the
newer provinces (provinces etrangeres),
_ . however, retained their own
Pr^nt""*^ special tariff rates, for various
financial reasons. The mercan-
tile principle of a protective
tariff against foreign nations was adopted in
the customs regulations of 1667. Through
keeping the products of foreign industries
out of the domestic markets by means of
excessive duties, French industry was
incited to greater activity, and money
that would otherwise have gone out of
France was retained in the country.
Industries still lacking to the nation
were artificially called into life and fur-
thered in every possible manner — for
example, the manufacture of looking-
glasses and laces previously made in Venice
only, of stockings knitted after the Enghsh
fashion, of cloth woven according to
methods employed by the Dutch weavers,
and of the same sort of brass and pewter
ware that had in earlier days been im-
ported from Germany.
In fact, Colbert did succeed in furthering
the technical capacities of the French to
an extraordinary degree. However, his
legislative works, such as the book of
commercial laws (Ordonnance du Com-
merce, 1673) and the Code Noir (slave
law in the colonies) proved to be of more
permanence as monuments to his fame
than his industrial regulations. In order
to bring money into the country, and to
render secure the economic foundations
of France, it was necessary that industrial
pxtivity should not be limited to the
production of articles for domestic con-
sumption, but that commodities for export
should also be manufactured, and conse-
Xh G quently that regard should be
.. had for commercial affairs.
of C lb t " Colbert, who was descended
from a family of merchants,"
says Ranke, " may perhaps have set too
high a value on the actual possession of
money, but he brought his mercantile
endeavours into complete harmony with
the chief interests of the state — the eleva-
tion of the lower classes, the unifying
of the nation, and the strengthening of
its position in the world." He furthered
4621
domestic traffic by means of highways,
canals, and posts. Foreign trade was
promoted by encouraging the exportation
of manufactured products and the im-
portation of raw materials, through the
construction of depots, harbours, and
naval arsenals. An efficient navy was
built, and the merchant marine increased
to such an extent that the services of
Dutch vessels were no longer required.
At the same time, however, in order that
the forests of France might be preserved,
merchants were allowed to purchase
ships built in foreign countries. Maritime
commerce was protected not only by the
monopoly of coast and colonial trade, but
by discriminative taxes favouring domestic
vessels. Colbert also hoped to ensure
the prosperity of trans-oceanic commerce
by means of monopolies modelled after
the Dutch India Companies. However,
such associations were formed with the
greatest difficulty, and as a rule their lives
were short ; none of them attained to the
importance of the Dutch and English cor-
porations. The Levantine Company (1670-
1690), whose headquarters were Marseilles
„ . and Smyrna, the chief trading
„ . . place m the East, where
. _, I J competition with the Dutch
and England jj ^ , . ■ u 1
did not present insuperable
difficulties, was the most prosperous. The
Northern Company experienced less good
fortune in the Baltic ; the East India
Company, though firmly established in
India, was ruined in its military struggles
with the British ; and the West India Com-
pany, active on both sides of the Atlantic,
existed for ten years only, from 1664-1674.
Colbert's mercantile policy, like that of
Cromwell, was directed against the
supremacy of Holland ; indeed, the very
existence of the Dutch nation was
threatened by the attack undertaken by
Louis XIV. in alliance with Charles II.
in 1672. However, freed from all danger
on the side of England by the Peace of
Westminster in 1674, and supported by
the Germans, the Netherlanders managed
to weather the storm, and even succeeded
in negotiating a favourable commercial
treaty in 1678. In order to avoid being
exposed to the same difficulties again,
WiUiam III. linked the fate of Holland
with that of England, thus causing the
rivalry between the two nations to subside.
After William ascended the English throne
in 1688, England and Holland were
companions in the struggle with France.
WESTERN EUROPE
FROM THE
REFORMATION
TO THE
REVOLUTION
THE
COMMERCE
OF
WESTERN EUROPE
VI
THE RISE OF EUROPEAN TRADE
AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE COMMERCE
OF THE WORLD
A SHORT time after Colbert's death, in
^*- 1683, the friendly relations which had
hitherto existed with England turned into
mutual hostility. Colbert had succeeded
in restoring France to the French people —
that is to say, he emancipated his country
from the mercantile dominion of foreigners,
and rendered it economically independent.
Louis XIV., however, was not content
with securing for the material existence
of France the isolation considered indis-
pensable to national development and
power; he also wished to establish the
same exclusiveness in respect to religion.
Since the Protestant minority stood in
the way of his idea of establishing a Galli-
can or national Church, the king revoked
the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and sought
to convert such of his subjects as were
members of the Reformed Church by
means of coercive measures. In spite of a
Th FV ht ^^^ forbidding emigration,
» D /*^ . . thousands of Protestants fled
of Protestants ,, , , , . r
From France ^^^ country and sought refuge
in Switzerland, Holland, Eng-
land, and Brandenburg. France was not
injured so greatly by the consequent
decrease of population as by the trans-
planting to foreign soil of French skill and
the capacity for producing articles of
French industry and culture — silk, cloth,
hats, gloves, glass, paper, ornaments, etc.
Just as in France, the spirit of religious
exclusiveness prevailed in England too ;
but in England no obstacle was placed
in the way of emigration. The colonies
in North America, with which the mother
country now possessed such a lucrative
trade monopoly, had been founded by
Nonconformists or Dissenters, including
Roman Catholics. James II. lost his
throne, and was obliged to seek refuge
at the court of Louis XIV. in 1688, as
soon as he ventured to interfere with the
Test Act. William III. of Orange now
became leader of the great league formed
294
for the purpose of resisting the encroach-
ments of France and of re-establishing
the European balance of power. From
this time forth, as already stated, England
and Holland were allies against France.
The French fleet, under Tourville, was
destroyed at La Hogue, on May 29th, 1692,
by the united English and Dutch squadrons
_^ _. under the command of Admiral
The French ^^^^^i Although superior to
Defeated on r, • a. 1 ■ 1
I J J c any of her enemies taken smgly,
Land and Sea „ -^ j r ^ j • iif
France was defeated in the
third predatory war on the sea, and in the
War of the Spanish Succession on land.
It is remarkable what far-reaching
effects were exerted by the war with which
the seventeenth century ended and the
eighteenth century began upon the
economic conditions of the two hostile
nations. The Bank of England was
established, and the National Debt con-
solidated amid the clash of arms ; and
during the same years the finances of
France were so utterly deranged that they
could not be put in order again until the
drastic settlement of all accounts at the
Revolution.
After the first public banks had been
established in Genoa and Venice — Italian
financiers had succeeded in putting into
circulation notes, or paper money, in the
place of specie, at the end of the sixteenth
century — the development of the banking
system was passed on to the Dutch. The
cheque bank of Amsterdam,
founded in 1608, became a model
for banks whose chief office
was to attend to the debit and
credit accounts of merchants, based on the
principle of a guaranteed deposit. In
London, the goldsmiths of Lombard Street
had long been engaged in banking, an
important branch of their trade being money
changing, from which large profits were
obtained during periods of a confused
currency. They also received deposits,
4625
London
Goldsmiths
as Bankers
HISTORY OP THF WORLD
1699. Not until the parliamentary union
of 1707 did Scotland succeed in bringing
the economic differences between the two
countries to a settlement ; but Ireland was
still excluded from the Union, and was
treated like a colony beyond seas.
The rivalry of France and Britain in
the Spanish and American markets was
the commercial basis of the War of the
Spanish Succession. Even during the war
itself France obtained, through commerce
with Spain and with Central and South
America, a large portion of the financial
power which enabled her to carry on the
struggle with England to a comparatively
favourable termination in spite of constant
defeats. Britain, however, was able to
prevent Spanish- American commerce from
becoming the exclusive possession of her
rival. The Spanish Empire was torn asunder
at the Peace of Utrecht, as
had ever been the desire of
Britain ; the Spanish Nether-
lands, Naples, Sardinia — ex-
changed for Sicily in 1720 —
and Lombardy passed into the
hands of Austria ; Britain
herself obtained two of the
most important posts in the
Mediterranean, Gibraltar and
Port Mahon in Minorca, and
across the Atlantic, Acadia,
now Nova Scotia.
The British considered the
Asiento agreement, through
which they, instead of the
poration formed of national An able "and'far-seeing* financier, French, were granted the
creditors received the right to blcomhf^ln'i^e^f on "'^M^^'fo^t exclusive right of supplying
carry on banking, to the directors. His Darien scheme of Spanish America with negro
exclusion, however, of all =°i°"is^tion proved
other mercantile affairs, and to issue notes
redeemable on presentation, as in the
which they put out at interest, and in ad-
dition negotiated loans for the Government.
When Charles II. suspended payment
of his debts in the year 1672 — the last
state bankruptcy in England — the gold-
smiths of Lombard' Street, to whom the
king owed six and two-thirds million
dollars, also became insolvent. Although
the establishment of a public
""g "if ° bank was immediately proposed,
f E ^ d *^^ project was not executed
ng an until the time of the third
French war of conquest, during the reign of
William III. It was with the greatest
difficulty that money was obtained for the
purposes of this war, owing to the lack of
a proper financial organisation, although
England had rather a superfluity than a lack
of capital . The Restoration period had been
a time of great occasional prosperity, and
capital had already turned to
seductive but unsafe schemes,
like the South Sea Bubble.
After the first five million
dollars of the consolidated
English national debt had
been subscribed for in 1692-
1693, the Government con-
tracted a new loan amounting
to six million dollars at the
rate of eight per cent.
According to the plan in-
troduced by William Pater-
son, a Scotsman, who took
the bank of St. George at
Genoa for his model, a cor-
WiLLlAM PATERSON
system alrieady in use among the gold-
smiths. In a short time the Bank of
England became an indispensable feature
of the financial life of the nation, and to
this day it remains one of the strongest
pillars of international finance and credit.
The Bank of Scotland was founded soon
after, in 1695. United dynastically with
England in 1603, Scotland had always
been treated very much hke a foreign
country so far as commercial matters were
concerned, and had no share in the privi-
leges due to it as part of the United Kingdom .
When the Scots made an independent
attempt at colonising in Darien, on the
Isthmus of Panama, the English took a
material part in frustrating their scheme in
4626
failure, gjaves, to be their greatest
success. The apparently insignificant
favour of being allowed to accompany each
fleet of slavers by two vessels of not more
than six hundred tons burden, and loaded
with other than living freight, was an im-
mediate source of illegitimate gain to British
merchants. Liverpool became enriched
. p . . through both the slave trade and
f W'7a veiled smuggling. When, after
c ... the close of the War of the
** " Spanish Succession, the British
Government farmed out the negro Asiento to
the South Sea Company^by South Sea, the
ocean on both sides of South America is
to be understood — a period of wild specula-
tion such as is usually terminated by a
catastrophe no less destructive than purify-
ing to the financial atmosphere followed.
Shares in the South Sea Company rose
THE RISE OF EUROPEAN TRADE
when the latter received the Asiento, and
were in great demand, since after the close
of the war, British capital was no longer
taken up by the Government ; in addition
the company wished to provide for the
extinction of the National Debt. The price
of South Sea shares, soon rising from $500
to $5,000, grew too high for the small
speculators. All sorts of tempting . but
fallacious associations were established,
and however unreasonable and absurd
they may have been, were subscribed to
with the greatest enthusiasm. Finally,
the frenzied speculation, which had its
the kingdom had very much the appear-
ance of a ball tossed to and fro by the
Whigs and the Tories ; and the many-
headed Parliament also seemed to stand at
a disadvantage when compared with the
closely-knit despotism that governed
France. But it was precisely the agree-
ment between Crown and Parliament
.which rendered possible the accumulation
of the largest funded debt that had yet
been known to history. So long as the
two forces had been hostile to one another,
the credit of the nation had remained at
a very low ebb — at such a low ebb, in
THt OLD MERCERS' HALL, WHERE THE BANK OF ENGLAND WAS FIRST ESTABLISHED
counterpart in France at the same period,
was ended by the bursting of the " bubble"
and the remedial measures desired by
Walpoie (1720). The South Sea Company
remained actually solvent, and managed
to continue its existence until after the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, when
it lost the Asiento.
The effects of the foreign affairs in which
Britain had been so successful soon
became apparent in the improved domestic
policy, which had been completely revolu-
tionised since the year 1688. To be sure,
fact, that a policy of expansion hke that
of William III. or of Anne would have
been out of the question.
The Whigs looked upon the Bank of
England as their creation, and they also
interested themselves in the national loans,
owing to the fact that Britain's partici-
pation in the War of the Spanish Succession
was to them a party issue. On the other
hand, the Tories prided themselves on the
advantageous terms of peace of 1713 and
1714 — master-strokes of their leader,
Bolingbroke. Nor did the economic
4627
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
antagonism of the two parties lead to a
narrow commercial policy. Although the
Tories were predominant among the land-
owning classes, and were the representatives
of agrarian interests, they did not annul the
protective tariffs and the restrictions on
imports and commercial privileges with
which the Whigs defended the interests of
_ . . , merchants and manufacturers.
^" **„ . On the contrary, the Tories
Great Foreign , . . , . -^ , •
^ obtamed mcreased mcomes
(commerce , I^ • , , \ r
from their estates by means of
these very tariffs, and thus had no such
cause for complaint against a national policy
of mercantilism as had the agriculturists
and landed proprietors of France. Conse-
quently there grew up a peculiar national
commercial policy in Britain, which has
been called " protective solidarity."
British foreign trade increased three-
fold during the century beginning with the
accession of William III. and ending with
the French Revolution — from an annual
value of 60,000,000 to one of 180,000,000
dollars. European trade was the most
important ; next followed American, then
Asiatic, and finally African. Had it not
been for a contemporaneous increase in
domestic industry, it would scarcely have
been possible for the British to have retained
the balance of trade in their favour.
The older system of industry was
adopted in England during the sixteenth
century, and it preponderated in all the
staple branches of manufacturing until the
close of the eighteenth. England remained
behind the rest of Europe throughout the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during
which period a new method of conducting
industries, the factory system, came into
vogue on the Continent. The origin of
factories cannot be traced. This much
only may be said with certainty — new
forms of industry were gradually intro-
duced into spheres over which the guilds
had no control, and such industries
were by their very nature adapted to
. -, . the methods employed by the
An Era of , i z -ri
-, large manufacturer. Paper-
Industries niaking — for which we have
evidence even in the fourteenth
century — smelting, carried on in establish-
ments attached to mines, cotton spinning
and weaving, for which the raw materials
were imported from the Levant, printing,
brewing, and sugar-refining, partook largely
of the nature of factory industries. The
establishments that were called into exist-
ence by Colbert and his imitators in order
4628
that articles which had previously been
imported might be produced at home by
domestic labour were organised through-
out after the manner of factories. Wherever
the mercantile system was introduced,
looking-glass, tapestry, silk, army-cloth,
porcelain, and tobacco factories were
erected, partly as state, partly as private
undertakings. Their prosperity depended
upon the nation into which they were
introduced and the skill of its inhabitants.
The manual dexterity of Italians, High
Germans, and French was not to be found
everywhere ; but owing to unfavourable
circumstances both Italians and Germans
were driven from competition in the world
market during the seventeenth century.
Until the eighteenth century, with the
exception of metal industries, which were
carried on outside the cities — the strong-
holds of the craftsman and the guild —
there was no factory organisation in Eng-
land. The introduction of the use of coal
in metal- founding seems to have been a
result of the experiments of Dud Dudley
about 1620. The most important trades,
such as wool and linen weaving, tanning,
_ , ,. and dyeing, still retained the
Revolution , c -c rx t j j
nature of house crafts. Indeed,
even the crafts that were
in the Cloth
Industry
taken into England by the
Huguenots, such as the manufacture of silk
in Spitalfields, were organised according to
domestic industrial methods. Although
there were cotton-weavers in England, this
branch of the textile trade was of little
importance, inasmuch as British manu-
facturers were unable to compete with
the West Indians. And yet the cotton
industry was destined one day to subject
the whole world to the industrial supre-
macy of England. This became possible
owing to the discovery of improved methods
for carrying on all branches of weaving —
a trade that had never fallen into the
hands of the guilds. The replacing of hand
labour in the workman's home by machine
labour in factories brought about a complete
transformation in the cloth industry.
A long series of inventions began witH
the spinning-machines of Watt, Hargreaves,
Arkwright, and Crompton, and the power-
looms of Kay and Cartwright. The fac-
tories of Richard Arkwright, built in 1768,
at first driven by horse and later by water
power, were a source of such wealth to
their founder that from this time forth
the employment of machinery in industry
was assured. In the meanwhile, James
THE RISE OF EUROPEAN TRADE
Watt had succeeded in inventing a steam-
engine capable of practical use ; and the
Boulton and Watt works at Soho, near
Birmingham, supplied the first machines
used in spinning and weaving establish-
ments, breweries, and mills. The making
of pottery and porcelain had also assumed
the proportions of a factory industry, as
exemplified by Josiah Wedgwood's estab-
lishment at Etruria in Staffordshire. In a
comparatively few years there was scarcely
an industry to which the new sources of
power had not been adapted — wool, linen,
and silk followed the lead of cotton.
During the sixteenth century the British
Isles still bore the yoke of foreign mer-
chants, although the burden had been much
decreased by the shaking off of the Hansa.
In the seventeenth century the English had
become equal to the Hollanders, and, after
having contributed their share in bringing
about the downfall of Spain, they began
the struggle with France for the possession
of the trans-oceanic colonies and various
commercial advantages. The commercial
struggle still hung in the balance, though
the colonial struggle had been brought
_ ., . _ to a decisive conclusion,
Britain Supreme v jj i ■ j.
. . when suddenly, owing to
Industrial World ^'} extraordinary growth
of national intelligence,
various new and improved methods of
manufacturing were introduced, which,
together with inventions of machines and
engines, secured to Great Britain the
supremacy of the industrial world.
The region of commercial conquest was
situated not only on the Continent of
Europe, but in other parts of the world,
especially in South-eastern Asia, where the
British East India Company had been at
work for 150 years, without achieving any
great success. It had maintained itself
with difficulty against Portuguese and
Dutch, and several times had been on the
verge of collapse, as, for example, during
the days of the Commonwealth. Later,
during the reign of William III., it was
threatened by an opposition company
established by Whigs, until finally the two
associations were united in 1701.
Prosperity came with the dissolution of
the empire of the Great Mogul. To be
sure, France began to compete at the
same time, but the French were so badly
supported and so abominably deceived by
their own Government that they were
unable to maintain their position. As
soon as the East India Company began to
extend its influence over India, the British
Government took the management into
its own hands, assuming the office of
superintendence on the passing of Lord
North's Regulating Act in 1773 and the
younger Pitt's East India Bill in 1784.
India, however, did not become a market
for manufacturers until freedom of trade
. . , . , was granted in 1814, when Brit-
Industnal • 1 1 • • j Z
p . ish machine industry was in a
tK°¥^^^ h position successfully to compete
with the hand labour of the East ,
despite the amazing cheapness of the latter.
In spite of the fact that, owing to the
War of the Spanish Succession and to the
Seven Years War, France had lost her
North American possessions, and was at
the same time obliged to retire from com-
petition with Great Britain in the East
Indies, nevertheless during the eighteenth
century the mercantile and industrial
progress of the French people was remark-
able. It is true that during the declining
years of Louis XIV. the finances of France
were in a wretched condition, and imme-
diately after the War of the Spanish
Succession the Government instituted
measures that had the effect of a bank-
ruptcy upon the nation. The evil results,
however, were chiefly felt by the successors
of the old Partisans, for whom there was
but little sympathy. But the misery of
the lower classes sank only the deeper into
the hearts of such patriots as were able to
look out beyond the narrow sphere of
class interests. Still, the wars had not been
a cause of misfortune to all classes. As soon
as peace was concluded, capital became
heaped up, as in Holland and England,
and hungry for profitable investments.
During the regency of the Duke of
Orleans the excited impulse for specula-
tion was furthered by the financial system
introduced by John Law, a Scotsman, who
founded two joint-stock companies — ^a bank
of issue in 1716, and a colonial association,
the " Compagnie d'Occident" in 1717, also
—^ ^ called the Mississippi Com-
, c '^ f .. pany, with which he united
for Speculation f, -^ r t- ^
. „ the remains of an East
in France t j- /-i • ^ j-
Indian-Chinese trading asso-
ciation under the name " Compagnie des
Indes" in 1719. The bank was supported
by the Government, Law himself receiving
the office of superintendent of finances, and
it finally pledged itself to pay the National
Debt. France was soon flooded with in-
convertible notes, and all the while specie
was gathered into the state treasury.
4629
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Inasmuch as the redemption of the notes
was impossible, they became worthless,
and were called in from circulation. The
shares in the Mississippi Company, of
very little value in themselves, became
" fancies," and were driven up from a
nominal value of 500 livres each to 20,000
livres ; and when, in order to moderate
. _. the extravagance of these deal-
*t. !!^j° • ings, the Government began to
the Ancten 1 .t u j
jj. . ,, lower the prices by degrees, a
egime sudden revulsion took place in
public opinion, and all men sought to get
rid of their shares, which finally resulted
in their being worth about twenty francs
apiece. John Law had fled in the mean-
time, and the winding up of the affairs of
his companies followed. For two generations
the effects of this lesson were visible in
France. The affair was not forgotten until
the days of the Revolution, and even then
the revolutionary leaders did not forget to
include Law's performances in the cata-
logue of the sins of the " Ancien Regime."
Misfortunes in war and finance had never
prevented the people of France from
realising to the fullest extent their private
economic advantages. Between the heights
where the privileged castes lived free from
earthly cares and sorrows, and the depths
in which the oppressed masses dragged
on their miserable existence, lay the great
middle class of craftsmen and trades-
men, scholars, to whom it was a matter
of regret that they did not possess a
position in the state worthy of their
material and intellectual significance.
The owners of industries had brought
French arts and crafts to a high state
of perfection, and the entire prosperity
of the export trade rested upon their
activity. In spite of domestic draw-
backs, the foreign commerce of France
had increased fivefold during the eigh-
teenth century ; and the traffic with the
colonies had grown to ten times its fonner
proportions, although the colonial area
, had diminished. But there
rancc s ^gj-e still valuable possessions
Colonial , , , ■ i_ • i_
« . among the colonies which
Possessions y, ° , , , . , .
Prance had managed to retain,
above all, San Domingo — the eastern part
of the Spanish Haiti, ceded to the French
in 1697 — Guadeloupe, and Martinique in
the West Indies, and Reunion in the
Indian Ocean. In 1789 the colonial com-
merce of the French exceeded that of
the British by about 150 million livres.
Once more during the eighteenth century
4630
the possibility of regaining their lost
colonies from the British was opened to
the French people, when during the
American War of Independence the three
nations that had been forced from the
sea by Britain — France, Holland, and
Spain — entered into an alliance with the
revolted colonies. In fact, at the Peace
of Versailles, in 1783, France was awarded
the Senegal region, Tobago and Pondi-
cherry, while Spain recovered Minorca
and Florida ; but the trade with the
United States was retained by Great
Britain, although they were now accessible
to merchants and ships of all nations.
During the last years of the eighteenth
century men began to look upon the
commerce of nations from a broader point
of view. Both the English Navigation
Act and the traditions of Colbert's system
in France had, at least in theory, lost
the greater part of their pristine lustre.
When France renovated the Bourbon
Family Compact in 1761, during the Seven
Years War, rights of reciprocity were
granted to all lands belonging to members
of the House of Bourbon — that is to say, to
- . . France, Spain, the Two Sicilies,
th'^'w ^d''" ^"^ Parma. In 1787, shortly
^ before the Revolution, the new
Commerce , . , ' . ,
conceptions of economic free-
dom having become common property,
Great Britain and France entered into a
commercial agreement, the so-called Eden
Treaty, in accordance with which the
high protective duties were decreased,
and prohibitions removed from many
articles of import. The Revolution, how-
ever, put an end to any further develop-
ment of commercial agreements, and
caused the old quarrel as to the supremacy
of the sea to burst forth anew.
While Holland, England, and France
were competing with one another and
increasing their powers in the struggle for
supremacy in the world's commerce,
national life was at such a low ebb in
Germany that the Holy Roman Empire,
which had itself once dreamed of world
dominion, became little more than a prey
to the dominant races of Western Europe.
As early as the end of the sixteenth
century signs of decay had become visible
in all directions ; the Hansa was gradually
approaching its final dissolution, and the
power of the Upper German capitalists
was broken. It was during this period
of enfeeblement that the Thirty Years
War began, and transformed Germany
THE RISE OF EUROPEAN TRADE
from the most densely populated and best
cultivated country in Europe into a
desert. Since agriculture began again for
the most part with the reclaiming of barren
land, and absorbed into itself almost the
entire working power of the people,
German industry was unable to break
through the limits of local demand without
the assistance of foreign capital, and as a
result German commerce became linked
to foreign interests by ties that could not
be broken. Western Germany on both
sides of the Rhine fell into the hands of the
Dutch, who barred the mouths of the
Scheldt and the Maas so effectually that
the Spanish — since 1714 the Austrian —
Netherlands, or Belgium, were also cut
off from traffic with foreign nations.
Since the end of the seventeenth century
French articles of luxury, art, and fashion
were imported into Germany from the
West, for ever since the accession of
Louis XIV. France had taken the place
of Italy in setting the fashions. The
decay of the fairs at Frankfort-on-
Main, which had possessed a Continental
importance during the sixteenth century,
Wh th ^^^ ^ token of the economic
_ . .'^ servitudeof Western Germany.
D J • 4 .The British were predominant
Predominated ^ tt 1 1 .1
from Hamburg, where the
Merchant Adventurers had established
themselves as early as the sixteenth cen-
tury, to Saxony and Silesia. Although
the North Sea cities retained their
character as depots for foreign trade
during the very worst years of the economic
dependence of Germany, and in the eigh-
teenth century were quite capable of
taking an independent share in the world's
commerce, the harbours of the Baltic were
deserted; Liibeck, once the queen of the
North, as well as the smaller ports.
Danzig alone — under the rule of Poland —
remained the great centre of the export
trade which was carried on from the richly
productive region of the Vistula ; yet even
Danzig, like Hamburg, was little more
than a link in the chain of Dutch and
English economic interests.
The more the principles of the mercan-
tile system were accepted by the various
German Governments, the worse became
the condition of the small principalities,
and especially of the industrial cities of
the empire, like Niiremberg ; for such
towns were so shut in on all points by
customs duties and prohibitions on trade
that they were compelled to forgo all
competition in foreign markets. There
was no unity in Germany such as is brought
about by a strong central government or
by the rigid application of the mercantile
system. Each of the minor states to which
complete independence had been granted
by the Peace of Westphalia imitated the
policy to which the great powers of
-.. Qj . Western Europe had come
Q through a long course of deve-
r- : - lopment, but this policy had
no meanmg whatever m a small
state. In Prussia and in Austria only
was it possible for the mercantile system
to be carried out to success ; there,
indeed, it attained to the most favourable
results, creating economic unity from
various dynastically joined provinces, and
transforming a heterogeneous mass into
an organised structure.
It is true that the old German Empire
still had an emperor, and even, since the
year 1663, a permanent Reichstag ; but
after the imperial modifications of the six-
teenth century, which had left both
imperial army and finances in a half-
organised state, so that not even such
beneficial measures as the regulations
respecting the coinage of 1524, 1551, 1558
could have any practical effect, a period of
complete inaction of all governmental
functions followed during the seventeenth
century. Even the atrocious disorder that
reigned in the currency at the beginning of
the Thirty Years War, due chiefly to the
activities of money-clippers, was insuffi-
cient to induce the imperial government
to take any steps towards establishing
order ; it merely renounced its rights in
favour of the lesser provincial rulers.
The wars with the Turks and the
French alone were of general interest
sufficient to keep alive a consciousness of
common life and aims in the German
people. It was all the more remarkable
that, after some fifty years of negotiations,
the empire actually passed a law in
regard to an economic-polit-
TheGennan j^^j matter. This was the
Empire Roused t ■ 1 t j ^ t r
... .. Imperial Industry Law of
Into Action ^ << t-l i_ j ti^ j
1731. The unheard-of had
occurred ; the German Empire, after a pause
of centuries, finally roused itself to the
enactment of a uniform legislative measure ,
through which the chief difficulty that
had previously stood in the way of
corporation reform was overcome. How-
ever, it immediately became evident
that uniform legislation without a uniform
4631
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The New
Economic Life
of Nations
executive is, in a certain sense, very
much like a wooden poker." In fact, the
organisation of the guilds, originating as
it did during the age of mediaeval city
states, was an anachronism in the days of
the mercantile system ; it was at least
necessary for it to adapt itself to the
requirements of the new economic life
of nations. Long ago, during
the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, craftsmen and
small merchants had united
into independent associations in order not
only to limit mutual and foreign com-
petition, but to overcome the supremacy
of the capitalists, who were members of
the more or less distinguished patrician
families of the towns.
The control of industrial affairs in the
cities gradually became transferred from
the guilds to the municipal authorities.
Then followed associations of the guilds
themselves, some of which extended their
power over the whole country — indeed,
beyond the boundaries of the empire.
Inasmuch as the trades corporations
represented the interests of the master
craftsmen alone — ^and of these only the
wealthier — ^journeymen and labourers were
compelled to form their own associations,
which from the end of the fifteenth until well
into the eighteenth century carried on an
embittered class struggle with the masters.
Such drawbacks to trade were legislated
against in France in the industrial
regulations of Henry III. in 1581
and of Henry IV. in 1597 ; here, as in
England, the central government sought
to control the guilds and associations of
craftsmen by means of legislative and
administrative measures. In Germany
also the ruling princes had the same
praiseworthy intention of putting an end
to the nuisance of constant industrial
quarrels so hurtful to the community ;
but, owing to the vast expansion of the
various associations of master-craftsmen
_. _ and journeymen, extending
The German xu j^i-u j- r
J, . far beyond the boundaries of
CnunMin their territories, the sovereign
princes were unable to accom-
plish their object until the imperial law
of 173 1 was passed, showing them a way
to help themselves out of the difficulty
through the introduction of uniform
measures. Improvements, of course, de-
pended on the goodwill, the intelligence,
and the power of the rulers, in whose hands
lay the weal and woe of the crumbling
4632
German Empire. The minor ruling princes
of Germany were able to accomplish
but little compared with what was done
in Prussia and Austria after these large
states had once adopted the mercantile
system — that is to say, at the end of the
seventeenth century. Both the external
and internal policies of the two nations
began to develop at the same time, as
did also their rivalry, when, by help of
the mercantile system of Western Europe,
their monarchs sought to increase the
productive capacity of their countries,
which were so much behind the times.
The Great Elector Frederic William
(1640-1688), the founder of the military
power of Prussia, who united Eastern
Pomerania and Prussia with Branden-
burg, was also the originator of an eco-
nomic policy that extended far beyond
the narrow limits of an ordinary German
territorial state. In his naval and colonial
plans he paid homage to the spirit of the
time. Unfortunately, he endeavoured to
hasten natural development too rapidly,
with the result that the colonies hurriedly
established on the Guinea Coast and on
the island of Arguin were com-
ai ure o pjg^g failures, while the Dutch
russian ^^^ ^^^ French looked upon
their new rivals with no friendly
eyes. The Great Elector occupies a brilliant
place in the history of commerce, inasmuch
as he was the originator of the Prussian
system of territorial posts and of the
canals that connect the rivers of Eastern
Germany. By means of the Miillrose
canal he guided the traffic between th"e
districts of the Oder and the Elbe through
his rapidly developing capital of Berlin.
His grandson, Frederic William I.,
laid the foundations of German bureau-
cracy, and showed how a government
could pay all claims, whether domestic or
foreign, without contracting a national
debt — indeed, could have a balance left
over at the end of each year to go towards
forming a state treasury. Seeing that since
the end of the Thirty Years War no posses-
sion was more necessary to the state than
inhabitants, he offered a refuge in his
dominions to some 20,000 Protestant
refugees who had been driven from Salsburg
by their intolerant archbishop, Firmian ; in
fact, the Great Elector had long ago begun
internal colonisation by welcoming Hugue-
not refugees, who transplanted various
branches of French industry to Prussian
soil, as well as Irish Catholics flying from
THE RISE OF EUROPEAN TRADE
Prussi&'s
Financial
Troubles
Protestant intolerance. In contrast to
the Huguenots, the Salsburgers settled
down as agriculturists, chiefly in East
Prussia. Hussites from Bohemia and
Swiss Protestants also found a second
home in Prussia, while the Irish swelled
the army. As an opponent of the ex-
portation of money, and consequently of
the importation of foreign manufactures —
cotton goods, for example — Frederic
William I. furthered the domestic cloth
industry. A " Russian Company " was
founded for the carrying on of traffic in
cloth with the Muscovite empire, and a
depot was erected at Berlin, where small
producers could offer their goods for sale
after they had been subjected to inspection.
After Frederic II. had used up in the
Silesian war the army
and treasure left him
by his father, he was
obliged to look out for
fresh supplies ; but not
until the interval of peace
that followed the Seven
Years War, in 1763, was
he able to carry out his
plans of economic im-
provement. And he, the
greatest sovereign of the
eighteenth century, clear-
sighted, intelligent, and
absolute in power, was
likewise a mercantilist ;
that is to say, he was an
instructor of an economi-
cally backward people in
certain theories of com- josiah wedgwood
the same was true of the calling of new
branches of industry into being. It was
only with great difficulty that Frederic II.
introduced silk-worm culture and silk-
weaving into his kingdom. Workmen
were needed for all these things, and he
enticed them into his dominions by means
of awards of money and grants
of land Especially when, after
the first partition of Poland,
West Prussia fell to his share,
agriculturists were necessary and were
supplied from the over-populated districts
of South-western Germany, particularly
from Wiirtemberg. Nevertheless, in 1785,
shortly before Frederic's death, Prussic^
possessed little over 5,500,000 inhabitants.
Such a small nation, one, moreover,
that was obliged to beai
the arms of a power 01
the first rank even in
times of peace, could not
preserve its status for any
great length of time
without suffering from
various financial troubles,
however much it hus-
banded its resources.
Frederic's administration,
particularly the methods
of government monopoly
and taxation for revenue,
organised by the French-
man, La Haye de Launay,
and caiTied out with the
assistance of French
financial experts, awak-
ened the hatred of his
merce. He attained the a native of Bursiem, he raised English pottery subjects. Thccoffeemono-
chief object of exterior *« * ^"« *^> ^"^ ™*'*« * fortune out of his poly was characteristic of
„„ • 1 ^^^^ „ works at Etruria. Borninl730, hediedinl795. t,- ..„:„-, . :j. T-..-o/^+i,^ollT7
commercial policy, a
balance of trade, with but little difficulty :
the value of imports was from four to five
million thalers less than the value of
exports annually. However, the king
was unable to establish successful trans-
oceanic connections, and the German-
Asiatic companies of Emden were failures
from the very beginning.
Prosperity
of Domestic
Institutions
Various domestic institutions,
such as the Bank of Berlin,
the Society of Maritime Com-
merce, and an institute of credit, formed
in order to prevent the families and
property of the nobility dwelling east
of the Elbe from falling into the hands
of usurers, were attended with far greater
prosperity. If it required the power of
the state to create these institutions,
his reign ; it practically
suppressed a commodity whose use took
large sums of money annually from the
kingdom. But in spite of all his peculi-
arities, Frederic the Great promoted the
economic prosperity of his kingdom.
When the Prussian government was
once more established after the troubles
of 1806-1807, the views and require-
ments of the people had so altered that
practical mercantilism could be looked
upon as a thing of the past. Prussia
adopted the principles of economic liberal-
ism earlier than did any other German
state, for the reason that throughout its
development attention had been paid
to the preliminary steps towards liberty.
The end of the Thirty Years War
failed to bring peace to the hereditary
4633
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
dominions of the House of Austria. French,
Turks, and insurgents rendered it necessary
for Leopold I. and his sons, Joseph I.
and Charles VI., constantly to engage
in wars, which had to be borne by the
already exhausted provinces of Old Austria
and Bohemia. Moreover, the once prosper-
ous trade with Italy had come to an end,
. . . and there was no market for
Pj ' "^ * '1^ the products of the fertile
-..„. ... Austrian soil. During the reign
Difficulties J. J ,,T 4.4. 4.
of Leopold I. attempts were
made towards building model workshops
and manufactories and establishing mono-
polies, but there was a lack, not only of
money, but of contractors and competent
officials. Escape from financial difficulties
was sought through foreign loans, raised in
Holland, England, Genoa, and the imperial
cities of Germany. By the foundation of the
City Bank in Vienna in 1706 the Govern-
ment secured a means of obtainmg money
without going abroad, and drew upon the
deposits there for the loans it needed.
Until the reign of Charles VI. there
was no consistent commercial policy, based
upon a developed mercantile system, in
Austria. The emperor desired Ostend to
be a point of departure for trans- oceanic
traffic, because of its favourable situation
in the Spanish — since 17 14 Austrian —
Netherlands, but the East India Com-
pany, established for this purpose in 1722,
soon fell a victim to the jealousy of
Holland and England in 1731. He was far
more successful in his endeavour to obtain
a share in Mediterranean commerce through
the Adriatic harbours of Trieste and
Fiume, free ports since 1719, as Venice
was no longer in a condition to offer any
opposition. On the other hand, the at-
tempt to further Eastern trade by means
of a great Oriental monopoly company was
a complete failure, and brought with it a
disaster similar to that which had resulted
from Law's companies in France. The
deliberate policy of centralisation adopted
_ „ . during the reign of Maria
eign jjjgj-ggg^ ^j^g g^jgQ directed
towards unifying the financial
and economic affairs of the
Bohemian and German provinces ; while,
on the other hand, the isolated condition
of the Hungarian, Italian, and Flemish
portions of the empire was allowed to remain
unaltered. In the first-named provinces
even the inland duties were removed and
the customs service regulated in 1775. In
like manner the national debt was consoli-
4634
of Maria
Theresa
dated, the currency set on a firm basis —
according to the twenty-florin standard
agreed upon with Bavaria in 1753 — and the
Vienna Bourse became a central point for
dealings in money, exchange, and stocks.
The reign of Joseph II. was also rich in
improvements. Among its failures may be
included the beginning of the indebtedness
of the Government in 1782, that unfortu-
nately lasted until 1889. In spite of many
protests, Joseph II. adopted in 1784 the
system of prohibition of various commodi-
ties for the sake of protection, which
remained in force until 1850. All foreign
goods that either were or could be produced
at home, or seemed to be superfluous, were
not permitted to be imported for sale. To
be sure, men were allowed to bring with
them over the frontier certain articles for
their own personal use, but heavy duties
were exacted. Under the protection of
this prohibitory system of Joseph II. the
industries of Austria began to develop
greatly ; a large export trade was carried
on with Hungary, which, until 1850, was a
separate customs district, and with the
Ottoman Empire. Joseph II. also sought
_ to transform the Austrian
ofThe""* Netherlands into a maritime
c II e^ < commercial country, but in
Small States „ ,, t-. . 1 r n
1785 the Dutch successfully
resisted all his attempts to break through
their blockade of the Scheldt.
Thus, during the eighteenth century,
notwithstanding that there were Prussian
and Austrian regions of production of con-
siderable extent, there was no distinctively
German sphere of commerce. Small states
and provinces were governed by no definite
policy, although, in spite of their weakness
and the amazing capacities for misgovern-
ment of some of their sovereigns, a few of
them attained to industrial and commercial
significance, as, for example, the Electorate
of Saxony. Most of them were content
with bringing forth an excess of population,
of which large numbers were sold to foreign
countries during the wars of the time by
unscrupulous rulers as food for cannon.
For this reason a great advance in
progress was shown when an excess of
population was first used for colonising
purposes : by Prussia in her eastern
provinces, and by Austria in Hungary
and Galicia. In most countries the
century was a mere parenthesis, and
Europe had at the beginning of the
nineteenth century to start afresh.
Richard Mayr
EUROPE
FIFTH DIVISION
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
AND NAPOLEONIC ERA
The French Revolution is an event— if we may legitimately
apply that term to a series of occurrences extending over
five years — which forms, perhaps, the most definite epoch,
the moment most pregnant of change, in European history
since the fall of the Western Roman Empire ; unless we
except the decade following Luther's challenge to Tetzel,
or the voyage of Columbus.
The French Revolution changed the social order of half the
continent immediately, though its work in that field is not even
yet completed. And it also caused, though it did not at once
effect, a fundamental change in the political order, the gradual
democratisation of governments, the ultimate control of
articulate Public Opinion over State policy. But besides
these permanent results it evoked that unique phenomenon,
the Napoleonic Empire ; and by doing so it drew the
Muscovite Empire more definitely than before into the main
current of Western history, so that the division into East
and West, which we have hitherto observed, of necessity
disappears.
Throughout the whole period of the Revolution, the militant
Republic, and the Empire, France, or France impersonated
by Napoleon, dominates the historic stage so completely
that the subdivisions of the narrative are fixed by French
events ; and we have only deviated from this principle so
far as to devote a separate section to the affairs of Great
Britain.
Thus in the succeeding pages the reader will follow the
story of the fall of the French Monarchy, the Terror, the
Rise of Bonaparte, the Military Dictatorship, the Empire and
its downfall ; to be followed hereafter by the story of the
European reaction, succeeded by the Nationalist reorganisation
and the social and political development of popular ascendancy.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
By Dr. J. Holland Rose
HISTORY: FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE
HUNDRED DAYS
By Arthur D. Innes, M.A.
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
By H. W. C. Davis, M.A.
HOW TRAFALGAR CHANGED THE FACE OF
THE WORLD
By Sir John Knox Laughton
4635
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE FIFTH DIVISION OF EUROPE
The fifth division of Europe differs from preceding divisions of our History in the fact that the territorial interests cease
to be localised, for with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era the whole continent comes up for general
treatment. In the four divisions of Europe with which we have dealt a distinction was maintained between the
eastern and western nations, but now, and to the end of the Grand Division, European history is treated as a whole ;
the point of view is chronological rather than geographical. The map shows the disposition of the countries of
Europe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, with the history of which this division of our work is concerned.
4636
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I-'
^H
l^'i-'^H
l^^^^H
^^'^i^^^l
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^V ^'- \ ;^*
1 _^H
»M«^^^^^^^^^^^H
^-^^H
^B IF^
_J
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "^^^^^^^^^1
NAPOLEON THE GREAT
From th« bust by Canora in the Pitti Gallery, Florence
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
By Dr. J. Holland Rose
IT used to be the fashion, in the genera-
* tion which was dominated by the
personahty of Thomas Carlyle, to dwell
in rhapsodic strains on the cataclysmic
character of the French Revolution.
Similes of the explosive order were worked
very hard, the result being that the
average reader, who too often confuses
similes with arguments, came to regard
that great event as an outcome of the
workings of the kosmos no less inevitable
and terrible than the periodic quakings
and rendings of the earth's crust, to which
it seemed to have some hidden relation.
But times have changed. The volcanic
or earthquake similes have worked them-
selves out. After all, they explain
nothing. They do not show why the revo-
lution broke out in France and
""r'^ during the reign of Louis XVI.,
g*. still less why it ran the course
which it did, only to be followed
by the ascendancy of Napoleon. The pre-
sent age is nothing if not scientific. History
is now recognised as a science, and not as
one of the inferior domains of literature,
to which Dr. Johnson contemptuously
assigned it. Historians seek to attract
not so much by glowing descriptions as by
presenting illuminating explanations of
the course of events, especially those which
affect the progress of the species.
They strive to bring their narratives down
from the misty heights of tragedy to the
lower levels whereon men act, not as demi-
gods, but as fallible creatures, where the
action ceases to be epic in order to be
human. What their story loses in pic-
turesqueness it partly regains in philosophic
interest. If the historian of to-day fails to
dazzle the imagination, he at least ought
to seek to enlighten the understanding.
Viewed from this standpoint, which may
be termed philosophical or evolutionary,
the French Revolution will be regarded,
not as an appalling explosion, but as the
greatest and most terrible of all the many
movements of modern times which have
_ , aimed at the emancipation of
Keasons for i • j r i.
.. „ . mankmd from outworn usages.
the French r^-, ^^
jj J .. Ihere were many reasons why
the outbreak should have
occurred first in France of all European
lands. We cannot imagine a great revo-
lution taking place in England in the year
1789, firstly, because feudalism and
monarchy never had been so deeply
S 'anted and so rigidly aeveloped there as
ey had been in France, and, secondly,
because the champions of political freedom
had won nearly all that they strove for in
the political revolution of 1688.
The century that elapsed after that event
was essentially conservative, and though
Britons had many grievances both against
George III. and the landed aristocracy,
yet there was no talk of dethroning the
king and expropriating the landlords even
_ u ^ ^^ ^^® close of that most disas-
•/'aI* 1"* *' trous War of American Inde-
its Absolute pendence. The apathy of the
Monarchy ^^^y^^^i in the years 1780-1789
was equally surprising and distressing to
professed reformers like Charles James Fox.
In France everything was different.
There were three forces that had long been
repressing the growth of the nation. The
first of these was the royal power, which,
in theory at least, was as absolute under
Louis XVI. as under Louis XIV., le grand
4637
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
monarque, who said, with perfect truth :
" L'Etat c'est moi." A second and far
more burdensome influence was that
exerted by feudal customs from which all
the life had gone. Defensible as many of
these had been in the Middle Ages, when
the barons were expected to protect their
peasants in return for the dues and
services which they exacted,
Imminence j^Q^hing could be urged in their
of N&tional i r • ^ u au
„ . defence m an age when the
rup cy gj-gg^^ lords neither defended
the realm at their own charges, nor
fulfilled the duties of landlords, but were
occupied mainly in acting as courtiers
at Versailles and Paris.
The third of these untoward influences
resulted largely from the extravagance of
the monarchs and the almost complete
immunity of the nobles and titled clergy
from taxation ; it was the imminence of
national bankruptcy. All the great powers
were in difficulties as a result of the many
wars of that generation ; and Great Britain
especially suffered severely from the
American War of Independence ; but after
its close she had the good fortune to gain a
statesman, William Pitt the younger, whose
careful husbanding of the nation's re-
sources soon brought her back to prosperity.
At the same time, in France the
extravagant policy of Calonne plunged
that nation deeper in the mire and led
to those conflicts between the king and
the old juridical bodies, the Parlements,
from which there seemed to be no
escape save by the summoning of the
States-General in May, 1789. This last
step furnished a humiliating proof of the
helplessness of King Louis XVI. in face of
a difficult but by no means hopeless situa-
tion. In theory an absolute monarch, he
had not the political foresight, the insight
into men, or the needed firmness of will, to
carry through by royal decree that most
necessary of reforms, the subjection of
the privileged orders to the national taxa-
, tion. Nowhere else in the world
ranee s ^^^ there the same financial
_*^. ° . need ; and nowhere did a great
ec oning ^^^^^ ^^j-jj^ g^ helplessly as
France after the American War of Inde-
pendence. Her participation in that
struggle was in reality a serious political
blunder. While dealing a deadly blow
at England, she stored up for herself a
day of reckoning. Her soldiers, after
helping those of Washington to found a
free commonwealth, became missionaries
4638
of democracy when, on their return to
France, they found the old abuses
rampant, the higher ranks of the service
more than ever closed to commoners,
and the pay of the rank and file falling
hopelessly in arrears.
The importance of this source of dis-
content has probably been underrated.
Writers have descanted on the revolu-
tionary forces let loose by Voltaire and
Rousseau ; and it is true that the cultured
classes, which had laughed at the mordant
ironies of the philosopher of Ferney and
had accepted the new social gospel pro-
claimed by the Genevese seer, thenceforth
for the most part allied themselves with
the critics and assailants of the old order
of things both in Church and State. But
the influence of these writers and of the
whole cohort of the Encyclopaedists did not
extend very far. The workmen of the
towns and the whole mass of the peasantry
were not moved by such writings, for the
simple reason that they could not read.
But they were aroused by the stories
told by the many thousands of French
troops who now knew what liberty was,
„ . . and looked on the old griev-
eginnings ^Lnces with eyes which had ,
„ ^ .. been enlightened. There indeed
Revolution .^r, ^ ■ -i 11
was an mfluence which worked
like leaven through the whole of the army
and permeated large parts of the indus-
trial population. The hitherto unavailing
efforts of the intelligencia to overthrow
the autocracy and bureaucracy in Russia
furnish an instructive commentary on
the beginnings of the French Revolution.
They show that the well-educated classes
alone cannot bring about a great political
change. The debacle can begin only
when the masses are set in motion, and
when the soldiery refuse to act for the
throne against their fellow citizens. Mazzini
has finely said that a revolution is the pass-
ing of an idea into actuality ; but to this
terse and suggestive statement we must
add the proviso that the brain which
conceives the idea must have full control
over the nerves and muscles of the body.
That controlling power which produced
the events of 1789 emanated very largely
from the troops that fought for the cause
of freedom in the New World.
Now, a brief comparison of the condition
of France with that of the other great
powers will show them to have been free
from the chief influences which made for
the overthrow of the French monarchy.
FRENCH REVOLUTION: GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
Nowhere else, except in England, had the
national consciousness been so vnvidly
aroused ; in no land, except Spain, was
the monarchy so all-pervading an institu-
tion. Germany and Italy were merely
geographical names, devoid of any polit-
ical significance ; in those picturesque
mosaics there was little cohesion and no
life. Russia was too barbarous, and
Spain too torpid to struggle for popular
liberty. In Great Britain the forces of
the time might have tended towards
revolution but for the timely reforms of
the Whigs and Pitt. Further, none of
these powers suffered from that concen-
tration of wealth at the capital which
left the country districts denuded, and
drew to Paris hunger-stricken throngs of
peasants in the hope of picking up
crumbs from the table of Dives.
The great thinker, Montesquieu, as far
back as the year 1748 had seen whereto
this was tending when he penned this
damning indictment of the policy of Louis
XIV. and Louis XV. : " Monarchy is
destroyed when the prince, directing
everything to himself, brings the country
to the capital, the capital to
on tlr ^^^ ^°"'"*' ^"^ ^^® ^^^^^ *° ^^^
r" ^1-1. own person." Add to the fore-
French Throne . ^ J .• iU
gomg considerations these
last : that this centralised monarchy was
now in the hands of a sovereign wholly
incompetent to bear the weight of respon-
sibility ; and that in France, far more
than in any other land, the body politic
had been infected by the virus of de-
mocracy— and the reasons of the political
outbreak which occurred in France in
1789 will be intelligible.
The reader who peruses the stories of
misgovernment, class favouritism, and
gross stupidity in the handling of finance,
will perhaps wonder why the outbreak
did not come sooner — say, during the
reign of Louis XV., a far worse ruler than
Louis XVI. We may reply that reasons
partly material and partly personal
brought the doom on the head of the more
innocent monarch. The financial strain
of the American War led to the financial
troubles which caused the convocation
of the States-General ; and the summer of
1788 was marked by a prolonged drought
which ended in a violent hailstorm. The
winter of 1788-1789 was also among the
severest ever known, the result being that
the elections for the States-General were
held amid scenes of want and excitement.
Nevertheless matters might have gone
smoothly had the king and his chief
Minister, Necker, possessed foresight,
initiative, and firmness. They lacked
these qualities, and the result was an
irritating indecision and vacillation on
the burning question of the constitution of
the States-General. For details the reader
_ _ , must consult the general nar-
c Uueen s j-^^ jyg Here we may note that
tvil Influence t ■ j. j-u u-
. n !•*• Louis was at one with his
in Politics , . . . i_ £ 1
subjects on the financial
and other practical reforms which were
so urgently needed ; but he resented the
step taken by the Tiers Etat, or Commons,
of declaring themselves to be the National
Assembly of France. Thereafter he gave
ear to his queen and to the other reac-
tionary advisers who led him to attempt
the feeble coup d'etat of July I3th-i4th.
Thus we may say that the final causes
of the popular outbreak, by which Paris
successfully defied the monarchy, are
traceable to the incompetence of the
king and to the spasmodic and ill-advised
interference of Marie Antoinette in polit-
ical affairs. That unfortunate queen
had the charm and spirit of her mother,
Maria Theresa, but none of her tact and
sagacity. In 1774 she induced Louis
XVI. to dismiss the great reforming
Minister, Turgot, because his economies
injured a court favourite ; and her beha-
viour in matters political was generally
the outcome of sentiment and passion.
Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau and
Bentham, went so far as to ascribe the
French Revolution solely to the failings
of the king and queen. This is defective
reasoning. To attribute a great and
complex event to a single cause, and that
a small one, is irrational. But we may
admit that those failings gave the final
tilt to events which resulted from other
and weightier causes.
To attempt to divide up into periods a
great movement like that of the French
■w^ n ... Revolution, which possesses an
The Bastille • •- ■■> u i
_ inner unity amid all its ex-
*'*J"^* 1 ^ ternal diversities, is a somewhat
opu ace j^|.jjg task. Even at the time
of the first defiance of the royal power by
the Tiers fltat in the latter half of June
there was seen the stern insistence on the
sovereignty of the people which rendered
compromise difficult, if not impossible.
The capture of the Bastille by the Parisian
populace on July 14th led to scenes of
violence both in the capital and the
4639
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
provinces, which showed the weakness of
the governing power and the strength of
the anarchic forces now coming to a head.
Nothing is more remarkable than the ease
with which feudaUsm and the absolute
monarchy were then struck down.
The abolition of agrarian abuses and
feudal privileges was decided in a single
sitting of the National Assembly
The Reign
of Terror
Begins
on August loth, 1789. The
prerogatives of the old mon-
. archy went by the board in the
debates on the royal veto and the outlines
of the future constitution. A few irritating
occurrences at Versailles, and the secret
use of the money of the Duke of Orleans
to stir up sedition at Paris, sufficed to
send forth the " dames des halles " and the
dregs of the populace in a turbid stream
westwards, which overbore the feeble
defences at Versailles and brought back
king, queen, and court to Paris, October
5th and 6th. The National Assembly soon
followed them ; and, in a limited sense,
we may say that the Reign of Terror had
its beginnings in the events which centred
around the capture of the Bastille, fhe
" jacquerie " of July- August, and the
victory of the maenads of Paris at Ver-
sailles. Thereafter the Government fell
more and more under the control of a
suffering and excitable populace.
Nevertheless, the final triumph of the
anarchic forces came slowly, and it might
possibly have been averted had the more
moderate leaders, whether Royalists or
Democrats, come to some understanding.
But it is one of the peculiarities of the
French Revolution, as that gifted woman,
Mme. Roland, finely remarked, that while
the movement was great, the men of the
time were mediocre. From this state-
ment we must except one truly inspiring
personality ; and Mirabeau, though pos-
sessing the width of vision and magnetic
gifts which mark the statesman, lacked
one of the essentials of a leader of men in
that he never inspired con-
.. .V *t**!! r fidence. The National Assem-
the Tribune of ,, u j j. ^^i.
- p J ,, bly showed a most unworthy
eop e jealousyof its ablest member
by passing a decree — November 9th, 1789 —
which shut out him or any member of
the House from the king's Ministry.
Excluded from all control of affairs,
Mirabeau finally drifted into ambiguous
courses, taking money secretly from the
king in return for advice — ^which Louis
very rarely followed — and yet posing
4640
before the world as the great tribune
of the people. In reality, his aims were
thoroughly sound — namely, to rid the
king of all reactionary tendencies, to make
him figure as leader in a popular move-
ment, and to strengthen the reformed
monarchy so as to enable it to defy the
Parisian demagogues. The scheme broke
down mainly owing to the suspicion which
his notorious vices inspired both in the
king and the Democrats ; but also because
men in authority, like Necker — the chief
Minister until September, 1790 — and Lafay-
ette, commander of the Parisian National
Guards, refused to act with him. The union
of these three men for the support of
moderate reforms and the renovated
monarchy might have stemmed the course
of anarchy. As it was, power passed from
the king's Ministry, even from the once
popular Lafayette, to the political clubs.
For while the friends of order remained
in disunion that very event which
Mirabeau most feared was coming to
pass — " anarchy was organising itself."
The Jacobin Club, at first a reunion of
nien of all parties, became both more
extreme in its views and more
fth'^s'^' powerful throughout France.
e ocia jyjg^ ^^ clear-cut theories and
incisive speech, like Robes-
pierre, there gained a hearing which the
National Assembly often denied to them.
The social gospel, first set forth by
Rousseau in his "Contrat Social" in 1762,
and now preached by " the sea-green
incorruptible," as Carlyle dubs Robes-
pierre, proved to be an impelling force of
the first magnitude. It was spread every-
where by newspapers and pamphlets
which reported the debates of the Jacobin
Club ; and the managers of that institu-
tion, with a foresight not to be found in
the royal counsels, affiliated to the mother
society in Paris the many thousands of
clubs which sprang up in the provinces.
The result was seen in the heightening
of democratic fervour which marked the
years 1790-1792. By the departmental
system, which came into force early in
1790, the French people gained local self-
government very nearly on the basis of
manhood suffrage. The summer of that
year saw titles of nobility abolished and
the Church of Rome in France compelled
to fit in with the new local organisation,
her bishops and priests being required to
submit to popular election and to take
an oath of allegiance to the civil power
FRENCH REVOLUTION: GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
which invahdated their allegiance to the
Pope. The attempt to enforce this mea-
sure— called " The Civil Constitution of
the Clergy " — led to a schism in the ranks
of the clergy. The pliable minority who
bowed before the civil power were termed
" constitutionals " ; those who refused to
take the oath were known as " non-jurors."
From that time we may date the beginnings
of a religious reaction against the Revolu-
tion which finally aroused the Royalist and
intensely Catholic west in a series of
desperate revolts.
This same ill-omened measure likewise
completed the disgust of the king at the
course of events ; and after the death of
Mirabeau, on April 2nd, 1791, the king
attempted to flee, not to Royalist Nor-
mandy, as Mirabeau had advised, but to
the eastern frontier, where he would come
into touch with the Austrians and the
bands of reactionary emigrant French
nobles assembling in the Rhineland. The
attempt failed miserably at Varennes at
midsummer of 1791, and the schism
between king and nation was now seen
to be complete. This date, therefore,
marks a fatal point in the
course of the Revolution. It
was impossible long to keep
at the head of affairs a
desired to run away to the
and thereafter a Republican
party began to form.
Nevertheless, an attempt was made by
all moderate men to avert anarchy by
bolstering up the royal power ; but it failed
in face of the passions which had been
aroused. The new National Assembly was
more extreme than its predecessor ; and
when Francis II. of Austria, nephew of
Marie Antoinette, seemed to imply that
he had the right of interference in French
affairs, the party of enthusiastic idealists,
known as the Girondins, who were now
uppermost in the Ministry of Louis XVI.,
pushed him on to declare war against
Austria. Prussia, Sardinia, and the Holy
Roman Empire thereafter declared against
France, which found herself beset by
alarming difficulties.
The outbreak of the war is perhaps the
most sinister event in the whole course of
the French Revolution. Imagine the fury
which would have been aroused in Eng-
land if before the outbreak of the Civil
War French troops had invaded that
country with the avowed object of rescuing
Charles I. and his consort Henrietta — ^a
295
France the
Centre of
Difficulties
king who
Austrians :
Failure
of the Royal
Scheme
French princess — and of putting down the
popular party. The instinct of nationahty
shows that this would immediately have
ruined the royal cause, and have led to a
general rising against a prince thenceforth
deemed a traitor to his people. Power
would at once have passed to the extreme
party, which demanded his deposition and
the adoption of the most
vigorous measures against the
common enemy. If, after his
deposition, the ranks of the
invaders had been strengthened by a
Spanish army with English nobles acting
as its vanguard, we can picture the rage
which would have fallen on all other
Royalists or their adherents. The agony
of the nation would have led to deeds of
violence impossible at ordinary times, and
to the ascendancy of any faction, however
desperate, which had vigour enough to beat
of^ the invaders and avenge the outraged
dignity of the nation. " Salus populi
suprema lex." At such a crisis desperadoes
figure as heroes, and even a massacre of
supposed traitors ceases to be odious.
Transfer this supposed case to France
in 1792, and the overthrow of the mon-
archy, the September massacres, the victory
of the extreme party at the polls, the pro-
clamation of the Republic by the Conven-
tion, the astounding military efforts which
beat back the Prussians and Austrians,
the execution of Louis XVI. as an accom-
plice of the invaders — ^all this becomes
intelligible. We pity the king, but there
can be little doubt that he secretly desired,
and even worked for, the declaration of
war in April, 1792, in the hope that this
would bring the forces of Central Europe
in triumph to Paris for the rescue of
himself and the confusion of his foes.
His conduct at every crisis was miser-
ably weak. Early on the morning of
August loth, which was to see his over-
throw, his bearing was so uninspiring
as to unman the defenders at the
Tuileries. A hero would have
_ * *** rallied round him the waver-
ppor uni y o ■ ^j^^^alions of the National
Louis XVI. i" ^ J J • J J.I.
Guard, and imposed on the
Marseillese and the populace. The queen
then showed that she was the daughter
of Maria Theresa ; but she soon came
to despair of success and gave her consent
to that tamest of surrenders by which a
Bourbon left his palace and sought refuge
with the National Assembly. Heroism
was shown on that day only by a few
4641
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Royalist gentlemen and by alien mercen-
aries, the Swiss regiment, which even in its
death agonies sought to protect the shield
of the fleur de lys. A little olive-cheeked
lieutenant of artillery who looked on at
that last struggle to uphold the honour
of the old monarchy believed that if the
Royalist troops at the Tuileries had been
well led they would have won
the day. Such was the judgment
Execution
of the
P . „. of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is
"^* needless to review here the
events of the republican wars and of the
Reign of Terror. My aim has been to point
out the meaning of events and the inter-
action of forces that brought France to that
awful year 1793, whicli Victor Hugo has
so vividly depicted. The fanaticism of
the Jacobins appeared in the energy with
which they pressed back the invader-s at
the close of 1792, and threw down the
gauntlet to England and Holland on the
question of the River Scheldt. Danton's
• gigantic phrase, " Let us fling down to
Europe the head of a king as gage of
battle," came to be literally true.
On February ist, 1793, eleven days
after the execution of Louis XVL, the
French Convention declared war against
England and Holland, and live weeks later
against Spain. This aggressive policy
led up to another sharp crisis, France
losing Belgium and having her north-
eastern districts invaded. But again the
emergency called forth all her energies.
The incompetent Girondins were flung on
one side ; the unscrupulous Jacobins
seized on power, and, discarding par-
liamentary forms, governed despotically
through two secret committees, those of
Public Safety and of General Security.
Little by little the " levee en masse,"
decreed by the Convention and organised
by Carnot, made headway against the
invaders on all the frontiers and crushed
the Girondin and Royalist opposition
in the south and west. At the same time
Robespierre and his colleagues sought
Th Gh tl *° P^^S^ France of her bad
_. f, *', ^ blood by systematically setting
Failure of uaIutd- ri-
Robespierre ^^°^^ *^^ ^^^^n of Terror,
the prelude, as he believed,
to the golden age foreshadowed in the
writings of Rousseau.
The experiment was a ghastly failure.
France fell back exhausted on the more
feasible of the schemes of the earlier re-
volutionists ; but the time of Robespierre's
ascendancy— from July, 1793, till July, 1794
4642
— led to one result, the importance of which,
perhaps, has not been sufficiently empha-
sised. The disillusionment and desj)air
which settled upon France at the end of the
Reign of Terror and led to a sharp Royalist
reaction a year later directly favoured the
supremacy of the army. That must always
happen when the political problem seems
insoluble, and when the army alone
wins decided successes.
To recur once more to English history,
the shortcomings of civilians at the close of
the Civil War and during the Common-
wealth made the supremacy of the greatest
soldier of the age inevitable. So, too, the
French Republic in 1794-1796, though
strong enough to crush the revolts of mal-
contents and Royalists, failed to harmonise
the claims of liberty and order, failed to
build up a durable constitution — that
of the Directory leading to constant
friction — and therefore failed to maintain
that equilibrium between the civil power
and the army which has ever been the
crux of French politics.
Now, too, there arose a mighty genius
who would perhaps in any case have
gained the mastery which Burke
ise o « jjj 1790 foretold would be the
g outcome of events in France.
^" The little Corsican, Napoleon
Bonaparte, had done much towards saving
the Republic in the great street fight of
Vendemiaire, October, 1795, at Paris, and
ere long men were to see the danger of
cutting the Gordian knot of French
politics by the sword. That same trenchant
sword ended the Austrian domination in
Italy, brought that fair land under the
control of France, and compelled the Haps-
burgs to sign the humiliating terms of the
Treaty of Campo Formio in October, 1797.
The conquest of Italy was the most
brilliant feat of arms of the eighteenth
century. Its results were incalculably
great. France, previously exhausted by
civil strifes, now gained wealth enough to
enter on a new cycle of war — not now for
the propagation of liberty, but for aggran-
disement or plunder. The Italians received
an impulse towards political freedom and
unity which they were never to lose. The
old European system received a shock
which brought about the mighty changes
of the nineteenth century.
But greatest, perhaps, of all Bonaparte's
conquests in 1796-1797 was his conquest
of France. The mind of that people,
baffled in the quest for liberty, disgusted
FRENCH REVOLUTION: GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
by the sordid strifes of parties at Paris,
now turned away from political affairs
and sought satisfaction in following the
career of the young general, who alone of
his compeers seemed able to extend the
bounds of freedom.
The man who has thrilled the imagi-
nation of France has always been in
reahty her master. At the close of the
Italian campaigns, Bonaparte felt the
need of keeping his prestige unimpaired,
and as he deemed the invasion of England
to be impossible, he entered on the
Egyptian expedition with the aim of
crippling her power in the East, and also
of throwing up in brilliant relief his
achievements against the petty and perse-
cuting conduct of the civihan Directors
at Paris. In a material sense, the expedi-
tion was a failure ; but the young general
fully realised the personal aim which has
just been noted. Returning to France in
the autumn of 1799, he was hailed with
delight as the conqueror of the East.
The real state of affairs in Egypt was not
known by Frenchmen ; all that they knew,
or cared to know, was that the Directory
had brought about further
Bonaparte wars in Europe, those of the
the Master Spirit , ii- u j 1 i.
. _ second coalition, had lost
Italy, and had made their
own countrymen miserable. Bonaparte's
"Coup d'etat" of Brumaire, November
9-ioth, 1799, brought about the overthrow
of the Directory. But it did far more ; it
put an end to parliamentary institutions
in France. The generals and malcontents
who helped him to scatter the elective
councils at St. Cloud paved the way for
military rule. The complicated constitution
of December, 1799, proposed by Sieyes
and approved by a " rump " of the
councils, proved to be easily adaptable to
his requirements ; and in most essentials
the future constitutions of the French
Empire of 1806 — 1814 were laid down in
secret conferences held at the close of 1799,
in which Bonaparte was the master spirit.
It is well to remember the salient
outlines of the constitutional history of
the decade 1789-1799. In the spring
and early summer of 1789 it seemed that
parliamentary institutions had for ever
prevailed over all forms of autocracy in
France. The triumph was consolidated
by the very democratic constitution of
* 1791, which left the monarchy with
functions little more than nominal, and
assigned the reality of power to a single
Assembly, elected on a very extended
franchise. With the disappearance of
monarchy a year later, democracy in an
extreme form seemed to be the only pos-
sible form of government in France. But
at that very time the crisis produced by
the war led to the strengthening of the
executive powers, and to the extension
F 11 f »K ^^ ^^® functions of committees
* ° * which supervised various de-
n*^** . partments of state. In the
Robespierre f •,, r ,■,
terrible emergency of the spring
and summer of 1793 these committees
began to trench on the sphere previously
reserved to the elective chamber ; and
during the Reign of Terror parliamentary
government was largely in abeyance.
After the fall of Robespierre the
Convention regained many of its functions
at the expense of those of the secret
executive committees. Nevertheless, in
the constitution of 1795 we find the
idea of a supervising committee acquiring
permanence. The five Directors, who were
charged with the supervision of the
Ministers of State and the general control
of the executive and of foreign policy,
were the lineal descendants of the secret
committees of the Reign of Terror. On
the collapse of the Directory in Bru-
maire, November, 1799, their powers de-
volved on three consuls, among whom
the First Consul alone, Bonaparte, had
the reality of power. He, therefore, as
First Consul, received the heritage be-
queathed by the terrible committees of
the Reign of Terror ; and if one examines
carefully the causes which brought about
this triumph of the one strong man over
the discordant parties around him, one
finds it to be due mainly to war.
A time of severe national crisis demands
a strong executive, and the general ex-
perience of mankind has been that at such
seasons the strongest of all governing com-
mittees is a committee of one. The eleven
members of the Robespierrist Committee
_. _ .of Public Safety were in 1795
^*^J^'°j^'^« ultimately replaced by five
opu ari y o J) jj-g^^^Qj-g^ and four years later
onapa e j-j^ggg [^ their turn handed
over their powers to three consuls, the
second and third of whom were merely
ciphers multiplying the power of the
First Consul. Shortly after the conclusion
of a most advantageous peace with England
— the Peace of Amiens, in March, 1802 —
Bonaparte gained so much popularity as
to be able still further to depress the
4643
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
legislative bodies and extend his own
authority. He now became First Consul
for life, with powers which were to be
virtually hereditary in his family. Thus,
by success in war, diplomacy, and the
handling of parties, he attained to
heights of power never reached even by
Louis XIV. ; and the change of title to
_ that of emperor in May, 1804,
onapar e ^^^ little more than nominal.
ecomes j^ ^^^ often been found that
** attempts to level down mankind
to a plane of safe mediocrity have brought
about a situation in which one able man
avenges the slights inflicted on genius, and
builds up a personal power far more
imposing than that which the would-be
reformers endeavoured for ever to destroy.
In a very real sense the Napoleonic
despotism is the Nemesis which dogged
the steps of the men of 1789-94.
Never were there faculties so varied and
transcendent concentrated in any one
man. Coming of a race which had been
toughened by clan strifes and family
vendettas in Corsica, he saw, as if by
instinct, the weak point of opponents
either on the field of battle, in the council
chamber, or the legislature. On his
father's side he traced his descent to
forebears who had played no small part
in the party feuds of mediaeval Florence ;
and their spirit lived on in the man who
threaded with ease and safety the mazes
of revolutionary politics that had led so
many promising leaders to death. He was
the able soldier whose advent Burke had
foretold and Robespierre had feared ; but
he was also by far the ablest statesman
France had found since the days of
Richelieu, and resources much greater
than those of the age of Louis XIII. were
now at his disposal.
In many respects he sought to bring
back revolutionary France to the customs
of the old monarchy. Indeed, the general
drift of his civil policy at the time of the
NaDoleon's Consulate (1799-1804) may be
_ , . , indicated by saying that it was
Policy of ■ u J. j_i_
a compromise between the
licy
Compromise
more feasible of the measures
passed in 1789-92 and the best of the
laws and customs of old France. This is
especially true of the Civil Code — after-
wards named the Code Napoleon — which
cleared away the perplexing growth of local
laws in favour of a code which was clear,
symmetrical, and, on the whole, very well
adapted to the needs of the French people.
4644
Though the work of redaction was due
mainly to skilled jurists, yet he superin-
tended it and in parts stamped it with his
own personality and genius. Later on, the
Code was extended to many parts of Italy
and Germany, and it forms the most
enduring tribute to his organising abilities.
The remark hazarded above is also
applicable to the Concordat, or treaty with
the Pope (1801-2). By it Bonaparte
officially recognised the Roman Catholic
system in France, ended the schism which
had begun in 1790, and bound her closely
to the Holy See. On the other hand, he
compelled the Church to forego its claims
to the tithes and lands confiscated in the
early part of the Revolution. Thus, while
restoring a state system of religion in
France, he also became the guarantor of
the agrarian settlement of the Revolution,
which all the peasants and farmers sought
to uphold. While spiritualising the life
of France in form, he materialised it in
essence. The strength gained by this
astonishingly clever compromise in what
had been an almost atheistical society
enabled him to carry through another
_, . . measure highly repugnant to
th°T *"^ ° Jacobins and progressives of all
c egion gj^g^^jgg -pjjjg ^^g ^jjg founding
of Honour r .1 t • r tt •
of the Legion of Honour, m
which he sought to include in several grades
of merit and reward all those who had
distinguished themselves in military or
civil affairs. The sequel was to show that
this institution was but a half-way house
on the road leading to the restoration of
titles of nobility abolished in 1790.
Besides discrediting philosophic specula-
tion, unbelief, and the passion of equality,
which had been so characteristic of the
period of Jacobin supremacy, Napoleon
favoured the return of the emigrant nobles,
sought to attract them to his court, and
gradually made it the most sumptuous
and brilliant in Europe. Now that pro-
sperity had returned under the enchanter's
wand, Paris fell back contented into
the . old pleasure-loving ways, and, as
long as their great ruler won battles and
gave panem et circenses, the quest of
liberty seemed an idle dream.
The restless activity and love of power
so characteristic of Napoleon were far
from exhausted by the immense task of
reorganising France after a decade of
upheaval. While the institutions of
modern France were rapidly taking shape
under his master-hand, he was spreading
FRENCH REVOLUTION: GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
her influence far and wide. During the
brief Peace of Amiens (1802-1803) schemes
were on hand for the extension of the
French colonial empire, both in the vast
district of Louisiana recently gained
from Spain, in India, and, if opportunity
admitted, in the central parts of New
Holland, or Australia. Undoubtedly he
desired to recover Egypt, with a view to
the ultimate conquest of India, always a
favourite plan with him. The beginnings
of his new Oriental policy undoubtedly
disturbed the Addington Cabinet at West-
minster ; and as they went hand in hand
with an almost prohibitive tariff system
wherever the tricolour floated, the exten-
sion of French influence threatened to
impoverish " the nation of shopkeepers,"
as he contemptuously termed the British.
These extensions of influence were also
threatening Europe. Piedmont and Elba
were annexed ; first Holland, and then
Switzerland became French satrapies.
Finally, the Addington Cabinet sent
demands — including the retention of Malta
by Britain for ten years — which were de-
signed to restore the balance of power in
« . . the Mediterranean. Bonaparte
" p"^ angrily refused, and declaimed
at w against Britain as the breaker
of treaties. War, therefore,
broke out in May, 1803. At first the
central powers remained neutral, but in
May-June, 1805, Napoleon's assumption
of the title King of Italy, and his annexa-
tion of the Ligurian (Genoese) Republic,
drove Austria and Russia to take up arms.
Pitt had been seeking to build up a coalition
of the Great Powers ; but he did not fully
succeed until these actions of the French
Emperor convinced the statesmen of
Vienna and St. Petersburg that peace was
more dangerous than war. It is note-
worthy that they entered upon this war
of the Third Coalition, not with the pur-
pose of dethroning Napoleon, but of
restoring the balance of power upset by
his acts of aggrandisement.
The ensuing campaigns, naval and
military, were marked by events of sur-
passing interest and importance. Nelson's
final triumph at Trafalgar synchronised
with an equally crushing victory gained
by the French Emperor over the Austrian
forces at and near Ulm, on the Upper
Dajjube. Pursuing his advantage, he
shattered the Russo-Austrian armies at
Austerhtz, on December 20th, 1805. com-
pelling the Tsar to retire crestfallen to
his own dominions, while the Hapsburg
Court consented to Napoleon's very
exacting demands. The net result of
the campaigns of 1805, then, was to
make Britain mistress of the seas and
Napoleon master of the Continent.
This sharp differentiation in character
between the two chief opponents deter-
, mined the main outlines of
Harmed * Napoleon's policy. Unable to
fj. . strike at England directly, as
ng aa ^^ ^^^ hitherto sought to do
from the chffs of Boulogne, he now
attempted to effect her overthrow in-
directly— that is, through the subjection
of the Continent to his pohtical and
commercial system. He framed what he
called the Continental system, with a view
to the financial ruin of his most persistent
opponent. All his allies, all his subject
states, were thenceforth rigidly to exclude
British goods, and all ships which had
touched at British ports. Prussia, Naples,
and Holland also felt the pressure of his
new policy. The House of Hohenzollern
was forced to bar out British goods from
the north-west of Germany, a proceeding
which, with other provocations, brought
about the Franco -Prussian War of 1806 and
the overthrow of the chief North German
power. The Bourbons of Naples were de-
throned, Joseph Bonaparte taking up the
reins of power in South Italy, and Louis
Bonaparte becoming King of Holland.
The occupation of Berlin by French
troops gave the great conqueror the
opportunity of launching, in November,
1806, his Berlin Decree against England
for the completion of his system, and the
great victory of Friedland enabled him
to throw the trammels of his commercial
pohcy over Russia. The ensuing Treaty
of Tilsit, on July 7th; 1807, saw him at
the height of his power.
The Tsar, Alexander I., previously his
bitterest enemy, now went over com-
pletely to his side, adopted the Con-
tinental system and promised
, D .!™* , to help in compelling the re-
of Britain s ■ ■ '^ ■ , ^j^ .2
jj mammg mdependent states,
Sweden, Denmark and Portu-
gal, to close their ports to British goods.
Equally significant were the secret articles
whereby the two potentates arranged
for the future partition of the Turkish
Empire with a view to eventual action
against Britain's Oriental possessions.
Britain was never in greater danger
than after the conclusion of this treaty;
4645
MiStORV OF THE WORLD
for her sole remaining ally, Sweden, was
soon to be coerced by Napoleon. It is
impossible not to feel admiration for the
skilful and forceful policy by which, in
two years, he utterly broke up the Third
Coalition, which Pitt had done so much
to form, and turned the tables on Britain.
The latter was now face to face with a
hostile world, and her industries
Denmark s ^^^^ ^^j^ ^^^ pressure of the
Fleet Seized , i
. _ . . great engme of war now per-
y ri ain fg^^^g^^ ]^y ^]^g French Emperor.
But though Pitt had succumbed to cares
of state in January, 1806, his pupil and
admirer, Canning, fortunately became
Foreign Minister in the spring of 1807.
He struck sharply at Denmark, seized
her fleet, and thus paralysed the naval
schemes which Napoleon was undoubtedly
maturing. A little later — namely, in
October-November, 1807 — the French
Emperor showed his hand in his cowduct
towards Portugal. By virtue of a secret
treaty with Spain in October, 1807, he
sent a strong column under Junot, which
received help from the Spaniards, to
seize the Portuguese fleet at Lisbon. In
this he failed. The royal family sailed
away to Brazil shortly before the French
entered their capital. Nevertheless, the
close of the year saw him everywhere
triumphant on the Continent. The
Iberian Peninsula was under his control ;
Italy, Switzerland, and the secondary
German states were his vassals ; Prussia
lay helpless under his heel ; and the
Tsar, Alexander I., abetted him in his
schemes for the domination of the world.
England alone resisted the autocrat, and
she showed signs of weariness and waver-
ing. A powerful section of the Whigs had
all along opposed the war and advocated
a friendly understanding with Napoleon.
His success seemed assured when, at the
close of the year, he launched the Milan
Decree against British commerce. But
now this great genius was to reveal the
weaker side of his nature. The
- * ** briUiance of his triumph and
po in ^j^g collapse of his enemies
Napoleon 1 j j ^ • 1 • . ,
hardened m him the con-
viction of his own invincibility and of
their stupidity and weakness. As we
have seen, his policy after Trafalgar was
directed mainly to the control of the
maritime states. Already he controlled
all the coasts from Cronstadt to Trieste ;
but now, as his commercial decrees against
England were not always enforced with
464b
the rigidity that he desired, he began in
all possible cases to substitute annexation
for mere control. This fact explains his
absorption of Tuscany and a large part of
the Papal States in 1808. It also explains
his virtual annexation of Spain.
The alliance of the Spanish Bourbons
was far from satisfying him. He owed
them a grudge for a warlike proclamation
made by Godoy, their Prime Minister,
at the beginning of the last war with
Prussia ; and, above all, resolved to have
the complete disposal of the Spanish
fleet and colonies. With this great ac-
cession of naval strength he trusted to
be able to make the Mediterranean a
French lake — the scheme of 1798 revived —
to partition the Turkish Empire in a
way highly favourable to France, and
then — as he phrased it in a letter to
the Tsar — " to crush England under the
weight of events with which the atmo-
sphere will be charged."
There is nothing in Napoleon's letters
of the spring of 1808 to show that he
expected any opposition for a moment
from the Spanish people. Their regular
, troops were largely in his
Ent r into" "P^^^'" ' ^ome of their northern
ih^ '^f''* ?a fortresses were held by French
regiments ; and the disgraceful
feuds in the royal family at Madrid gave
him an easy foothold, as it were, on the
walls of the central citadel.
The result is well known. Successful
in his dealings with a corrupt dynasty
and court, he entirely left out of account
the pride of the Spanish nation. Instead
of gaining profitable vassals and a vast
colonial empire, he turned allies into
irreconcilable foes. England, far from
being barred out from the Iberian Penin-
sula, secured the help of Portuguese and
Spaniards, and access for her commerce
to their vast colonies. Above all, the
British army now had a field whereon
they could fitly display their prowess.
The entry of Sir Arthur Wellesley, soon
to become Viscount WeUington, on a
scene of action pre-eminently suited to his
peculiar gifts gave to the national re-
sistance of Spaniards and Portuguese a
toughness which wore out the strength
of French armies and baffled the efforts
of all Napoleon's marshals. In the whole
career of Napoleon no miscalculation,
save, perhaps, one to be noted presently,
was more fraught with disaster. Struggle
and scheme as he might — and he did so
FRENCH REVOLUTION: GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
with brilliant success in the case of the
Austrian campaign of 1809, with its
diplomatic corollary, the Austrian mar-
riage— he could never rid himself of the
evil result of his " Spanish blunder."
The waste of men in that war told even
on his gigantic resources ; and when his
final annexations at the close of 1810 —
the north-west of Germany, etc. — brought
him to a rupture with the Tsar, one may
safely ascribe the determination of the
potentate of the east to his belief that the
overgrown empire of his rival was being
sapped at the other extremity.
For in and after the year 1808 a new
spirit was in the air. Peoples that had
previously lain torpid under French dom-
ination now began to awaken, and to
take heart as they saw the power of a
nation's resistance in Spain.
The power of armies is a visible thing,
Formal, and circumscribed in time and space.
But who the limits of that power can trace
Which a brave people into light can bring ?
Thus sang Wordsworth as he gazed at
the events in Spain. German thinkers
and patriots begun to prepare for the day
of revenge. And that day came
ic ims o ^jjgj^ Napoleon's Grand Army
Napoleon s a- r iu u x-
Q. . — Victims of the insane obsti-
s macy ^^^^y ^^j^ which he clung to
Moscow up to October 19th — succumbed
to the snows of the steppes. The succeed-
ing campaign of 1813 witnessed the defec-
tion first of Prussia, and then of Austria,
from his alliance. The three days' battle
around Leipzig completed his discomfiture.
The South German states turned against
him, and, while Wellington was invading
the south of France, Italy also fell away
from the Emperor's control. Even so he
struggled on, omitting to take advantage
of the offers of peace which the allies
made to him, first at Frankfort, in No-
vember, 1813, and next during the spring
campaign of 1814 in the east of France.
It is difficult to fathom his reasons for
this conduct. The evidence seems to prove
that even then, when he had scarcely
50,000 men wherewith to oppose the armies
of Russia, Prussia, and Austria in Cham-
pagne, and when Wellington had pene-
trated into Languedoc, the emperor
believed that he could beat the allies and
secure more advantageous terms. It was
# . the last of his mistakes. The allies declared
that never again would they have dealings
with him. His own marshals refused to
go on with the struggle ; and he abdicated
on April nth, 1814, at Fontainebleau.
His escape from Elba, his victorious
march to Paris, and the details of the
"Waterloo campaign and of his sojourn at
St. Helena, need not be recounted here.
His doom was sealed in the spring of 1814
when he succeeded in arousing the undying
distrust of the allied sovereigns
ofth M°°ht and of their Ministers. It will
At* '* ^ be more suitable to conclude
this brief survey by pointing
out some of the chief results of this
momentous period — 1789-1815 — in the life
of the European peoples.
First, we may notice that the extra-
ordinary upheavals of that time imparted
an impulse to the Continent which did not
wear away even in the time of exhaustion
and despair brought about by nearly a
quarter of a century of war. Further,
while the political results of feudalism
were thus almost obliterated in Central
Europe, the dead hand of the past was re-
moved from nearly all European peoples
in social and agrarian affairs. Northern
Italy in 1797 decreed the abolition of feudal
wars and services and the emancipation of
serfs. The Netherlands, the Rhineland,
and Switzerland soon took the same steps,
either of their own accord or at the bidding
of the French Republic. Prussia and Spain,
which resented Napoleon's ascendancy, on
their own initiative set free their serfs,
reformed their land laws, and thus laid
the basis for a healthier social life.
The reforms by which the Prussian
statesman Stein, in 1 807-1 808, founded
local self-government and unified the
governing powers of the state would alone
give significance to this era. The sense of
national unity is another of the signs of
awakening in this period. The mighty
upheavals of the Napoleonic wars brought
men everywhere face to face with ele-
mental facts ; and thus a strong sense of
racial kinship, which had grown up in
England and France during the Hundred
- Years War, now spread to
naugura ion Qgj-jjj^ns and Italians. This
?l ^^^^ awakening of the sense of
nationality, largely traceable to
the Spanish rising of 1808, is one of the
great events of world history; for it im-
pelled those peoples to struggle on against
the irritating restrictions imposed by the
Congress of Vienna, and thus to inaugurate
the great movements which brought about
Italian and German unity in the decade
1860-1870. J. Holland Rose
4647
4648
EUROPE:
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
AND
NAPOLEONIC
ERA II
THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
AND THE RISING TIDE OF REVOLUTION
By Arthur D. Innes, M.A.
"TTIE States-General met on. May 5th,
■■■ 1789, with the question of procedure
still unsettled. The Third Estate was in
the full sense representative. It had been
chosen by double election — that is, in
each area the mass of voters chose a
body of electors, and the electors appointed
their delegates, who received from them
instructions, a programme known as a
cahier. The delegates were for the most
part commoners, a large proportion being
lawyers ; but they included a few members
of the noblesse — notably Mirabeau — and
of the clergy, notably the Abbe Sieyes.
Among the body of the nobles there
were several who for good or bad motives
favoured reform : Lafayette, the hero of the
American War, and Philip " figahte " of
Orleans, the king's cousin, who had hopes of
getting Louis deposed, and of being made
king by popular favour. Among the clergy,
those of the higher ranks were almost all
of the ancien regime ; of the lower ranks,
a majority were with the reformers.
After the opening ceremony, when
Necker exhausted the audience by a
wearisome panegyric on himself, there
came a deadlock. The Third Estate, in
accordance with the instructions in their
cahiers, refused to recognise the separate
existence of the other two Estates.
Necker's proposal, that the three Estates
should be formed into two chambers on
the English analogy, the lower
clergy joining the commons,
National
Assembly
V .7V\ was ignored. At last, on June
Instituted ■ 1 T_ • u • • J u
17th, having been jomed by
a few of the lower clergy, the Third
Estate declared itself to be the National
Assembly, and proceeded to affirm that
the present taxes were authorised only
during the session of the Assembly,
and to take the question of food supply
into consideration. Two days later the
clergy formally joined the Third Estate.
Such an assumption of authority was
not part of the plan as understood by the
Court. The king and Necker had meant
the Third Estate to be supporters not
masters. Reform was good, but it was
to be granted with popular approval, not
enforced by the popular representatives.
When the Assembly gathered on the
» • n r. . 20th, it found the hall in the
Louis Defied 1 1 r 1
. hands of workmen, m prepara-
•rv- J r . » tion for a Royal Session. The
Third Estate , , , -', . u j *
delegates went in a body to
the Tennis Court, where they took a solemn
oath to continue their meetings where and
when they could, till the Constitution was
completed. Ousted from the Tennis
Court, they found a new place of meeting,
where they were joined by the majority
of the clergy on the 21st.
On the 23rd the Royal Session was held.
The king announced the reforms which he
would invite the Estates to approve ; but
they must act as separate Estates. If they
were recalcitrant, the king would make
the reforms by decree. King, clergy, and
nobles retired ; the Third Estate, swayed
by Mirabeau, refused to obey. Next
day the majority of the clergy rejoined
them, and also the reformers from the
nobles. The Crown's attempt was palp-
ably defeated ; so palpably that Louis
requested the rest of the clergy and
nobles to join the Assembly.
But the king now was not guided by
Necker, who had not lost his popularity,
but by his younger brother, the Comte
D'Artois — one day to become Charles X. —
and the extreme reactionaries. Their inten-
tion was to turn the tables by a coup d'etat.
The thing needed was force — an army
before which opposition should vanish.
But the Garde Frangaise was showing
insubordination, an excuse for summoning
more troops to the capital. They gathered,
a palpable menace ; excitement and
4649
History of the world
alarm ran high, with the less need, since
the insubordination spread quickly through
their ranks, except among the regiments
of foreign mercenaries. The climax came
when Paris heard, on July 12th, that
Necker and others had been displaced and
reactionary Ministers appointed. Muni-
cipal government was already at a stand-
still ; the body of " electors " to the
States-General formed themselves into a
provisional municipal government, and
began to enrol the Paris militia, which
was soon to turn into the National Guard,
with its counterparts all over the country.
The populace clamoured for arms, and
law. The fall appealed to the world as
signalising the ending of an ancient tale of
wrong. It was as though the walls of
Jericho had fallen at the trumpet blast.
The event was hailed with paeans of joy
by young enthusiasts ; its actual circum-
stances were enveloped in a cloud of myths.
As a matter of fact, what it mainly signi-
fied was that the people of Paris had no
master — was on the way to find out that
it was itself master ; and when that
became patent, half the young enthusiasts
were in a short time finding themselves as
passionately opposed to the revolution as
they had been passionately in its favour.
THE ILL-FATED RULERS OF FRANCE : MARIE ANTOINETTE AND LOUIS XVI.
Louis XVI. was King of France when the Great Revolution broke out, and he fell a victim to the wild passions of his
people. The queen, Marie Antoinette, who had supported the king in his fatal policy, also died by the guillotine.
turned itself to the manufacture of pikes.
There were scenes of violence, collisions
with the mercenaries ; on the 14th the
" Invalides " was seized, supplying muskets
and ammunition, Paris turned on the
Bastille ; the Garde Fran9aise joined the
mob ; the rest of the troops could not or
would not stir. When the little garrison
refused to capitulate, the mob stormed
the place with little difficulty. Though
the garrison surrendered, the comman-
dant and a few officers and soldiers were
murdered. The Bastille had fallen.
The Bastille was the symbol of the old
tyranny, of arbitrary rule, of ordered
force, which could override justice and
4650
The physical force was no longer on the
side of the existing order ; it had passed
to the side of the revolution.
Meanwhile, the Assembly was in session
at Versailles, expecting the coup d'etat
which was intended. The news arriving
that night meant the complete rout of the
Court party. The next day the king
announced to them the withdrawal of
the troops and the recall of Necker. A
band of the popular representatives —
Bailly the President, Lafayette, and others,
hastened to Paris with the joyful news, and
were received with acclamation. Bailly was
promptly nominated Mayor of Paris, La-
fayette was made General of the National
QJ rt a <<
■-' c ? o
2 3 ixi—'
S !->» J)
4651
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Guard. Necker's return through France —
he had left the country — ^was a sort of
triumphal progress. Louis himself, cou-
rageously enough, made a state entry into
the capital, and was greeted as the restorer
of French liberties. On the other hand,
Artois, and others of the most prominent
among the reactionary noblesse fled across
the border. The emigration had begun.
It was by no means the intention of the
Assembly to be simply destructive, nor
was it with de-
structive intent
that the new
Paris munici-
pality or the
National Guard
had been formed
— .both of which
found immediate
imitators all over
the country.
But the Paris
mob had tasted
blood ; there were
more lynchings,
and these found
their counterpart
throughout the
south - eastern
provinces in
risings of the
peasantry, burn-
ings of chateaux,
and the like. And
in Paris itself, the
Committee of
Electors, which
had taken upon
itself the task of
governing the
city, was dis-
placed by an
elected body, at
once less capable
and less inde-
pendent, its
members ready
to be swayed by
the dictation of the least responsible of
their constituents. There was no sign that
the fall of the Bastille was to initiate an era
of orderly self-government by the people.
The National Assembly, however, was
honestly zealous to find genuine remedies
for the prevailing evils. With a pathetic
behef in the enunciation of high principles
as a general curative, it was passing its
time in abstract discussion of the Rights of
4652
CAMILLE DESMOULINS AT THE PALAIS ROYAL
Desmoulins belonged to the extreme party of Revolutionists, and
the above picture shows him addressing an enthusiastic gathering
in the grounds of the Palais Royal. As a member of the National
Convention, he voted for the death of the king, in 1793. Desmoulins
was himself arrested, and died by the guillotine on April 5th, 1794.
From the drawing by C. M. Sheldon
Man, when it was roused to concrete action
by the reports of disorder and outrage.
On August loth it set itself to pass a series
of reforms, wiping out a host of privileges,
and earning for that day the title of
" St. Bartholomew of Property." The
feudal rights of the noblesse to personal
service, such as the corvee, and to juris-
diction were abolished; what We should
call the game laws went the same way.
These enactments were proposed not by
commoners, but
by members of
the noblesse. In
like manner, the
guild restrictions
on the practice
of trades and
crafts and the
transferability of
labour were done
away with.
In effect, feu-
dalism was sud-
den ly swept
away in a single
night by one
great wave of
emotion ; legal
rights which,
however evil,
had been part
and parcel of the
social fabric
were blotted out
in a moment
without compen-
sat ion — very
much as if
slavery had been
suddenly abol-
ished without
compensation to
slave - owners —
incidentally, of
course, with an
extremely dis-
quieting effect on
the contiguous
feudal provinces of the empire. Still more
serious, from the European point of view,
was the fact that in some frontier pro-
vinces actual treaty rights of German
princes were over-ruled by these measures.
The reforms of August 4th embodied
principles which were true and sound, but
their sudden, instead of gradual, appli-
cation to a system built up on totally
different principles necessarily involved ?iri
THE RISING TIDE OF REVOLUTION
immense amount of injustice, and intensi-
fied a hundredfold the instability of a social
and political fabric which was already
quaking. By this business of destruction
the way to construction was prepared, and
to this the "Constituent ' ' Assembly now de-
voted itself. The process divided the body
more definitely into parties — •the " right "
representing reaction, the centre modera-
tion, the left radicalism, with its various
types. The reactionaries were important
mainly from their readiness to combine
with one or another radical section in order
to carry out a policy of obstruction. The
and Lafayette. The combination was virtu-
ally impossible, because the three men were
incompatibles ; and Mirabeau could not
displace Necker, because the Court hated
him, and there was no political group
which either understood or trusted him, in
spite of his extraordinary power of swaying
both the Assembly and the populace.
The form of the new Constitution Wcis
the first question to be dealt with ; a
committee appointed thereto had drafted
a scheme. The executive was to remain
with the Crown. The legislature was to be
a representative chamber, a senate, and
THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE: THE MOB STORMING THE PRISON
To the people of France the Bastille was the symbol of the old tyranny, of arbitrary rule, of ordered force, which could
override justice and law, and when the nation rose in revolt the famous prison was fiercely attacked. When the
little garrison refused to capitulate, the mob stormed the place, efifected an entrance, and the Bastille was destroyed.
moderates included many men of ability,
who aimed at a constitution after the
British model, and saw with alarm that
the revolutionary forces were becoming
too powerful to be controlled. The radicals
included academics like Sieyes, enthusiasts
like Barnave, Duport, and Lameth, fana-
tics like Robespierre. And outside of all
the parties stood Mirabeau, the single
titanic personality, the one man who
might conceivably have given the revolu-
tion a different course, but whose only
chance of doing so lay in his displacing
Necker as Minister, or uniting with him
the Crown. The senate was not to
consist of hereditary peers, as in Eng-
land—which was, of course, the general
model — but of Crown nominees presented
by the departments. The Crown was
to have the power of veto. But the
senate did not suit the reactionaries, since
it was not to be aristocratic ; it did
not suit the extreme democrats, because
it was not representative. The two wings
combined to kill the second chamber.
Then arose the question of the royal
veto. The Rights of Man could not be
squared with an individual's right to veto
4653
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the demands of a nation — just as the
equality of all men could not be squared
with the theory of a senate. The ex-
tremists clamoured ; the mob shouted.
Despotism and slavery would be re-
stored ! The Assembly ended by adopting
the compromise of the arch-compro-
miser Necker. The Crown was granted
a suspensive veto. If a measure were
passed twice, the veto must lapse.
But while the Assembly debated the
creation of a constitution which had no
basis in the national history — thus
differing fundamentally from its supposed
model, the
British Constitu-
tion, which was
an organic his-
torical growth —
a fresh outside
force had been
developing : an
energetic and
vociferous Press,
which poured
out a flood of
newspapers and
pamphlets. The
winds of doc-
trine, blowing
from every
CO n c e i vable
quarter, pro-
duced wild tur-
moil in men's
minds, though as
yet in Paris, La-
fayette, with his
National Guard
o f respectable
citizens, kept
violence within
bounds. Much of
the most dan-
gerous agitation is attributed to the
sinister designs of Orleans and his allies ;
and a mob for whom it was still hard
enough to provide sufficient food was
an instrument which responded readily
to the agitator's touch.
Wild rumours as to the destruction of
food supplies by the aristocrats found
popular credence. A royalist banquet
was given at Versailles by the officers
of a newly arrived regiment ; it was re-
ported that the tricolour, the new national
badge, had been trampled under foot.
On October 5th an extraordinary mob,
the women of Paris, poured out to
4654
Versailles, to interview the king — ^not
without an attendant masculine mob.
Reluctant Lafayette, with the National
Guard, arrived at night from Paris and
restored some sort of order ; but in the
early morning rioters broke into the palace,
murdering the soldiers they found. Only
by the self-devotion of a few guards was
the royal family saved from probable
massacre, before Lafayette appeared with
the National Guard and cleared out the
rioters. But the mob was clamouring
without that the king and queen
must go back to Paris ; and the National
Guard, in spite
of Lafayette's
popularity, were
obviously in sym-
pathy with the
mob's demands.
The royal family
was carried off
to Paris ; the
Assembly trans -
f e rr ed itself
thither. Their
presence in the
capital was the
visible sign that
the promise of
the day of the
Bastille was
being fulfilled.
Paris was su-
preme in France,
and the mob was
all but supreme
in Paris.
For the time,
however, the
effect was in
favour of order,
more especially
as Orleans was
obliged to leave the country. The rnob
was not supreme yet, and some riots
were firmly dealt with. But several of
the moderates began to withdraw from the
Assembly, the grouping of parties began
to alter, and their differentiation to become
more definite. The organisation of the
groups took a new development through
the formation of political clubs. Of these
the most important was the Jacobin,
named from the quondam Jacobin monas-
tery where it met. From its original
character as an association of Breton
delegates it became a club which included
most of the reforming leaders. Now the
THE RISING TIDE OF REVOLUTION
preponderance of extremists drove
Lafayette, Sieyes, and others to secede
and form a new club of their own, leaving
the Jacobins to develop the extremist
organisation all over the country. The
reactionaries imitated the example set
them, and sundry other
clubs were started on
similar lines. And every
group held its own discus-
sions, ran its own jour-
nals, and issued its own
pamphlets.
It was in these altered
and altering circum-
stances that the Con-
stituent Assembly con-
tinued its work. The
moderates hoped to check
the swelling democratic
current through the old
provincial parlements,
with their traditions,
which were both anti-
monarchical and anti-
democratic. But the
Assembly proceeded to
MIRABEAU
Belong-ing: to the noblesse, he was the one
man who mig^ht have prevented the Revolution
suspend the parlements by reconcUlng the monarchy with the demo-
and reorganise provincial "^^^y- ''"* ^^ '^^^^ '" '^^^' before his task was
administration after the "mpleted, and the revolutionary tide swept on.
ideals of symmetrical and mathematical
perfection so dear to the brain of the Abbe
Sieyes, ignoring, just as it did in evolving
the scheme of the new Constitution, the
principle on which Burke in England
laid so much stress
— that the new
should be de-
veloped out of
the old, not sub-
stituted for it ;
that sound reform
is a process of
adaptation to
altered environ-
ment, not of ex-
periments in
search of ab-
stract logical
ideals. The divi-
sion of the country
into administra-
tive provinces had
LAFAYETTE AND BAILLY
Lafayette had taken part in the American War of Independence,
and proposed to the National Assembly a declaration of rigrhts
based on the American plan ; he formed the National Guard and
worked for order and humanity. Jean Sylvain BaiUy was President
of the National Assembly and Mayor of Paris ; losing his popu-
fiTOWn out of the l^^tyi he retired, but was seized, brought to Pciris, and guillotined.
old division of feudal areas, with correspond-
ing variations in the local system of govern-
ment. The provinces were abolished,
and the country was cut up into
" departments " on geographical lines,
approximating to a chessboard pattern.
All the departments were to be adminis-
tered on identical ideal lines, uniform and
symmetrical. The department was divided
into districts (arrondissements), and the
district into cantons. There was a council
of thirty-six, with five
executive officers for the
department as a whole ;
subordinate to this were
a separate council and
executive for each dis-
trict. The canton was a
merely electoral division.
The " citizens " — that is,
all who paid a minimum
amount in direct taxation
— in the canton chose
" electors " ; the electors
chose the councils and
officers for districts and
departments, and the de-
puties for the Assembly.
A higher " taxable " quali-
fication was required for
members of the councils,
and a higher still for
deputies. So far the re-
construction proceeded
palpably on middle-class
lines. But the canton itself was divided
into self-governing units called communes,
each having its own council and executive
elected directly by the people ; virtually a
purely democratic institution, which in a
very short time
was to fall com-
pletely under the
control of the
Jacobin clubs. The
judicial system
was reorganised on
the same local
basis, and the ap-
pointment of
judges, from
among the lawyers,
was transferred
from the Crown to
the " electors."
The Church, too,
had to be dealt
with ; her endow-
ments were tempt-
ing to an exnausted treasury, and the
distribution of Church property was suffi-
ciently scandalous. Necker in his necessity
had already obtained from the Assembly,
swayed by Mirabeau, a grant of one-fourth
4655
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of all incomes ; but even that had been
swallowed up by the enormous expenses
entailed in the process of reconstruction.
The theory was advanced that endow-
ments were the property of the nation,
only held in trust by the Church. The
state took possession, guaranteeing a
minimum income to every cure and the
cost of public worship. But since the
announcement that Church property be-
longed to the state failed to restore credit,
the next step was to issue a vast paper
currency (assignats) on the security of the
Church lands ; that is, the holder could
of the clergy retired, and became known
as non- jurors. The process of fixing the
limitation of powers under the new
Constitution was completed by the de-
bates and by resolutions on the question
whether the Crown should have the power
of making war and peace.
Mirabeau, who still hoped to create a
strong government by the combination of
a democratic legislature with a monarchical
executive, fought hard for the rights of
the Crown, and the result was a formula
asserting that the right belonged to " the
nation." War could be declared only
THE ARREST OF LOUIS XVI. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE FROM FRANCE
Unable any longer to delude himself as to the impending danger to the throne, the king decided to make his escape
from the distracted country. On June 20th, 1791, under the cover of darkness, Louis and Marie Antoinette secretly
took flight from Paris, but before they reached the border the king was recognised. The party was stopped at
Varennes and ignominiously brought back to the capital. On the king's return, his authority was suspended.
From tlie painting by T. F. Marshall
claim the equivalent in Church lands.
The plan proved a failure financially. It
was not till some months later — in the
middle of 1790 — that the " Civil Constitu-
tion of the Clergy " was completed.
The religious houses having already been
suppressed, the departments were turned
into bishoprics, and the bishops and parish
priests were to be chosen by the electors,
papal authority being ignored. Priests and
bishops were shortly afterwards required
to take an oath recognising the civil
supremacy, whereupon the greater part
4656
by a decree of the Assembly introduced by
the king. Finally, the unanimity and con-
cord of the nation was celebrated by a great
patriotic demonstration on the anniversary
of the fall of the Bastille, when king and
queen, the Assembly, delegates from all the
departments, and a huge assembled crowd
took the oath of loyalty to the new Consti-
tution, amid wild excitement and enthu-
siasm. Nevertheless, disorder continued.
A soldiery whose pay is not forthcoming
is a dangerous element, and in August
there was a serious mutiny at Nancy,
296
4657
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
suppressed only after fierce fighting. It
was at this juncture that Necker suddenly
melted out of politics and withdrew from
France, almost unnoticed. If the Court
would have frankly placed its confidence
in Mirabeau, it is conceivable that he
might have succeeded in attaining his
own ideal ; but the Court would not
denounce the Emigres, and
Mirabeau Mirabeau was now himself
enounce ^gjj^g j^otly denounced as a
"^ traitor by the Jacobins. Before
he had succeeded in converting Louis in
his favour, the tremendous strain of his
public energies, coupled with the excesses
of his private life, broke the great tribune
down, and he died in April, 1791. The
one man who might have reconciled the
monarchy with the democracy had gone.
In spite of July 14th demonstrations,
there had never yet been an approach to
mutual confidence between the Court and
the Assembly. Louis was sincerely
desirous of his people's good ; but his
whole entourage saw in the events of the
still uncompleted two years which had
passed since the convening of the States-
General nothing but a greedy and in-
sensate attack on privileges which they
regarded as rights inherently necessary
to the existence of social order.
Mirabeau had urged on the king that
his presence in Paris deprived him of all
independence and power of action, that
the vigorous initiative essential to the
recovery of confidence in the king's
capacity or sincerity could be displayed
only if he took up his residence at a
distance from the domineering and turbid
capital. But this was a very different
thing from the escape out of French
territory which the Court now contem-
plated. Knowing or fearing that any
departure from Paris would be forcibly
prevented, the king and queen took
flight secretly by night on June 20th.
But before they reached the border Louis
P t t i ^^^ recognised. At Varennes
FlTht" * *^® party was stopped and
of 'fh K" ignominiously brought back to
^^^ Paris. When the king's flight
was discovered, the Assembly promptly
took upon itself the whole of the
sovereign functions ; and when he was
brought back to Paris the suspension of
his authority was continued until the
Constitution should be actually and
formally completed. This caused a seces-
sion of royalists from the Assembly, while,
4658
on the other hand, the Jacobins began to
demand that the suspension should be
permanent and the Constitution altered
into a republic instead of a limited
monarchy.
For the time, however, this in
turn drove several of those who had
hitherto been looked upon as the chiefs
of the advanced party into alliance with
the moderates, Sieyes and Lafayette.
This left the thorough-going Jacobins,
among whom Robespierre, Danton and
Marat now exercised the principal in-
fluence, free to work on very extreme lines ;
and in the country, though not in the
Assembly, their organisation made them
far more powerful than the other sections.
The attitude of the Constituent
Assembly during these last months of
its career recalls that of the Long Parlia-
ment in 1649, and of the Rump after-
wards. It had done a great deal of work
very conscientiously ; it was thoroughly
satisfied with itself ; and it was unaware
that it had lost control, which had passed
to a very much more powerful organisa-
tion— 'in England, the army, in France,
the Jacobin club. Unconsciously it had
already sealed its own fate
r t r"^ ... and the doom of its own
of Lafayette s ,• , ■ a • ir
Influence P^^^^^ ^y registermg a self-
denymg ordmance. When
the Constitution was brought to com-
pletion, the Constituent Assembly was
to be dissolved and a new Legislative
Assembly called ; and members of the
old Assembly were to be barred from
sitting in the new one.
This, by the way, presents not a resem-
blance but a very strong contrast to the
Long Parliament and the Rump, which
were more inclined to perpetuate their own
powers. The new men were certain to be
largely Jacobin candidates, and without
the experience which the present dele-
gates had acquired. This was made the
more certain by a serious collision in
July between Lafayette with the National
Guard and a mob which had been set in
motion by the Jacobins. The Guard were
driven into firing on the mob ; Lafayette's
influence had rested mainly on his personal
popularity, which was destroyed by his
action on this occasion.
The Constitution was formally accepted
by Louis on September 14th ; on the
30th, the Constituent Assembly was dis-
solved. On October ist, the Legislative
Assembly opened.
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
"IT
*'^:^
■m*'-
III
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES, M.A.
THE REVOLUTION TRIUMPHANT
THE LAUNCHING OF THE FIRST REPUBLIC
DEFORE the career of the Constituent
^ Assembly was ended affairs in France
had produced in other countries an
attitude ominous of war. In England,
the section of Whigs headed by Charles
James Fox were enthusiastic* partisans
of the Revolution ; but Burke had broken
with them, and his splendid denuncia-
tions were exercising a powerful influence.
Still, however, and for some time to
come, the attitude of Pitt and his Ministry
was favourable rather than otherwise.
Nothing in the nature of intervention
was contemplated.
On the Continent, on the other hand,
the Tsarina Catharine II. was anxious
to embroil Austria and Prussia with
France in order to free her own action
in Poland, where her influence was
threatened ; while German states had
already received provocation — as noted —
by the proceedings of August 4th, 1790,
-, , . the princes looking upon the
Movement in „ ,■ re i iu „
P . . compensation offered them
.*^. ""^ B ' . for the deprivation of treaty
Ancien Regime ■ , , ^. , , , , -^
rights as inadequate ; the
Austrian Emperor was the French queen's
brother ; and the emigres, established at
Coblenz, were actively agitating for
foreign aid in restoring the ancien regime,
a project which Gustavus III. of Sweden
ardently advocated. In the brief period of
his rule the Emperor Leopold had already
acquired such prestige that it practically
lay with him to decide whether Europe
should or should not intervene ; and he
was too cool-headed to do so voluntarily.
Nevertheless, the predicament in which
the French monarchy placed itself by
the abortive flight to Varennes, com-
bined with the general pressure which
he had hitherto succeeded in resisting,
forced Leopold's hand, and in July he
invited the Powers to combine in sup-
port of the French monarchy. Until
the king was once more a free agent they
should refuse to recognise the authority
of the existing French Government,
and should prepare to enforce that point
of view in arms if necessary. At the same
time, he brought Prussia into close diplo-
matic accord with himself. At the end of
August he met Frederic William at Pilnitz,
where the two monarchs emphatically
L • XVI snubbed the Comted'Artois and
. . ■ the emigres, but issued a joint
.. ^ "^ declaration in favour of inter-
vention, provided the other
Powers were in agreement. It was by no
means Leopold's intention to carry out'the
threat, for he was well aware that Pitt
would stand aloof ; moreover, the actual
purpose of the declaration seemed to have
been effected when, a fortnight later, Louis
accepted the Constitution and became
king again. Leopold very promptly
announced that the raison d'etre of the
declaration had thus been removed, and
the declaration itself cancelled. It was
hoped that the crisis was passed.
In France, however, these proceedings
had not been recognised as what may be
called a manoeuvre to take the wind out
of the sails of the emigres and their
partisans ; they appeared in the light of
an insolent attempt to dictate to France
as to the conduct of her internal affairs.
The new Legislative Assembly met in a
spirit of aggressive defiance which boded
ill for the peace of Europe. The members
were without political experience — that
had been assured by the self-denying
ordinance of the Constituent Assembly.
Among them was a mere sprinkling of
Royalists, and only a small band of " Feuil-
lants," the name given to the supporters
... of the Constitution which the
ivisions j^g^ Assembly had been at such
mong e p^-j^g ^^ construct. The bulk
of the delegates fell into two
advanced sections, the Girondins, of whom
the nucleus was a group of enthusiastic
idealists, and the Jacobins, who gathered
round the fanatical extremists — the section
which came to be known as " the Moun-
tain," from the elevation of the seats
4659.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
which they occupied in the Assembly.
The Crown might have saved itself
before by placing itself in the hands of
Mirabeau. It might conceivably have
saved itself now by unqualified co-opera-
tion with a smaller man
than Mirabeau, La-
fayette, with the support
of the Feuillants. But the
queen hated Lafayette, as
she had long hated Mira-
beau ; Louis could not
shake off the definitely
reactionary influences,
and even at the best,
Lafayette's popularity
had waned, and a change
in the organisation of
the National Guard de-
prived him of his ex-
clusive control. Within
the Assembly, the Feuil-
lants were not a con-
spicuously able group,
whereas the Girondins— Robespierre
so named after the dis- a proniinent figure in the revolutionary times.
. . u" V. ^^* elected first deputy for Pans to the
tnct from Wnicri some National Convention, and became one of the
of their prominent rulers of France. He was popular for a time,
members Came^— were in- hut fell from favour and was guillotined in 1794.
tellectually brilliant as well as being for
the most part intensely in earnest. With
the Mountain, as with the Feuillants, the
real chiefs were outside the Assembly —
Robespierre and the other
heads of the Jacobin club.
The king's persistence in
relying on "royalist"
Ministers, who were almost
without supporters in the
Assembly, made harmonious
working practically impos-
sible. In November, edicts
were passed against the
emigres and against the non-
juring clergy, the former
being in arms on the frontier,
while the latter were foment-
ing civil outbreaks. There-
upon the king apphed the
veto. The constitutional
GENERAL DUMOURIEZ
Resigning the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to take command in the field,
he defeated the Prussians in 1792,
have been submitted to the Assembly by
the Crown. But by his action Louis
virtually challenged the Assembly, and
placed a weapon in the hands of the
Republicans of the Gironde and the
Mountain.
Moreover, on the ques-
tion of foreign relations,
the Feuillants were effec-
tively in agreement with
the Girondins. Lafayette
probably, and the
Girondins avowedly, ex-
pected to derive increased
political weight from a
patriotic war, and both
groups genuinely and not
unjustifiably resented the
pretensions of any foreign
power to interfere with
French domestic affairs.
That the Mountain
happened for its own
reasons to be more
pacifically inclined, and
so far in accord with the
Crown, was of no advan-
tage to the Crown. The
result was that the king
at the close of the year was compelled to
dismiss his War Minister, and appoint a
Feuillant, and to address to the Elector of
Treves and to the emperor demands for
the disbanding of the emigre
forces. The emigres refused
V to be disbanded, and Leopold's
answer was a virtual refusal.
Thereupon a large force was
massed on the frontier, and
an ultimatum sent to the
emperor on January 25th, re-
quiring a satisfactory answer
by March 4th. On this, Leo-
pold formed a close defensive
alliance with Prussia ; but
the direction of affairs was
snatched from his hands by
death, and he was succeeded
on the throne by his son,
Francis II., while Louis found
question was immediately and the Austrians in the following himself forced to reconstruct
^ . , 1 ., ., ■, -^ year. He died in England m 1823. ,.,,.., , ., ,
raised whether the decrees ^ ^
were technically laws to which the veto
could apply or executive measures fall-
ing within the control of the Assembly
absolutely. Probably the true position was
that they should have been regarded as
executive measures to prevent a civil and
perhaps a foreign war, which ought to
4660.
'" """"' his Ministry from the ranks
of the Girondins, Dumouriez becoming
Minister for War. The change did not
make for peace, and resulted in Louis
being compelled, on March 20th, 1791, to
propose to the Assembly, in accordance
with the forms of the new Constitution,
the declaration of war against Austria,
THE REVOLUTION TRIUMPHANT
where Francis as yet was not emperor.
War with Austria would mean . also war
with Prussia and Sardinia. Neither
Russia nor Great Britain certainly, nor
Spain probably, would take any part.
Gustavus III. of Sweden, who would have
eagerly joined in, to restore the old French
monarchy, had been assassinated a month
before. Dumouriez, though associated
with the Girondins, had aims analogous
to those of Mirabeau, and saw in a suc-
cessfully conducted war the prospect of
which constitute a " natural " barrier,
strategically defensible. Such a frontier
may be provided by the sea, by mountain
ranges or by rivers. On three sides and on
part of the fourth side France was already
all but girdled by the ocean, the Pjnrenees,
and the Alps ; it remained to make the
Rhine the completion of her boundary,
and to absorb Savoy on the south. The
expectation that the people of the Austrian
Netherlands would prefer association or
incorporp.tion with France to their existing
THE SONG OF THE REVOLUTION: ROUGET DE LISLE SINGING "THE MARSEILLAISE"
"The Marseillaise," the National Anthem of France, was born amid the tumult of the Revolution, being written
in a smg:.e night by an officer named Rouget de Lisle. In the picture De Lisle is seen singing the song to his friends.
establishing something like Mirabeau's
ideal of dividing the exercise of the
sovereign powers between a strong mon-
archy and a strong democracy ; and his
energies were concentrated on the war.
It was Dumouriez who now developed
a conception which became and remained
an important factor in French foreign
politics — that of acquiring for France her
" natural " frontier, which has its analogy
in Lord Beaconsfield's " scientific frontier "
for India ; a frontier fixed not by considera-
tions of homogeneity of race, language or
customs, but by geographical features
subjection to the Austrian monarchy,
against which they had very recently been
in open rebellion, encouraged a plan of
campaign which made those provinces
the immediate objective. Three armies
were sent to the front under Rochambeau,
Lafayette, and Luchner. But the first
engagejnent resulted in ignominious defeat,
the men. behaving so badly that Rocham-
beau resigned his command in disgust.
The soldiers, on their part, believed that
their officers were " aristocrats," who in-
tended to betray them, a distrust which
sufficiently accounted for their misconduct.
466IJ
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The suspicions of
treachery were no less
rife in Paris, where the
sympathies of the Court
were notoriously and in-
evitably on the side of
the enemy. The news of
the opening fiasco led to
the immediate formation
of a new armed force
of " pikemen " for the
capital, formed from the
lower classes — ^not from
the bourgeoisie, like the
National Guard, to whose
moderate tendencies the
pikemen served as a
counterpoise. The As-
sembly proceeded to
decree the formation,
outside Paris, of a camp
DANTON
Like so many of the leading men of the
time, Danton, who has been described as
were most closely con-
nected with the Gironde.
Dumouriez, conscious
that he would be power-
less if he severed himself
from his party, resigned
on Louis' refusal to
withdraw the veto.
Louis fell back on an
incompetent Feuillant
Ministry. Onjuneaoth,
the Paris mob, probably
with the connivance of
the Mayor, Petion, a
Jacobin, invaded the
Tuileries ; but although
the queen was insulted
and bullied, and Louis
himself was compelled to
wear the " red cap " of
the Liberty, he refused to
of volunteers from the greatest figure that feii in the Revoiution.ended be intimidated. When
departments, and the his life at the guillotine. He was an original, p^^tion himself appeared,
expatriation of the non- '^^'^^^' °^ ^^^ Committee of Public Safety. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ iuduccd tO
juring clergy. The king vetoed both retire. The riot produced a certain re-
decrees, and dismissed the Ministers who action, but the opportunity was wasted.
PARIS IN REVOLT : THE MOB IN THE PALACE OF THE TUILERIES
After their unsuccessful attempt to escape from France, the king and queen returned to the Palace of the Tuileries,
which was invaded by the mob on June 20th, 1792. Seeking refuge in an inner room, Marie Antoinette, with her
children and her sister Elizabeth, stood for hours behind a barricade of tables and chairs, exposed to the reviling?
of the crowd that poured through the royal residence, heedless of the queen's appeal to their better feelings*
From the painting by A. Elmore, R.A., by permission of the Art Unioh
4662
THE REVOLUTION TRIUMPHANT
Louis hoped that foreign intervention
would restore him unshackled by alliance
with any party. Lafayette hastened
from the front, in the hope that his pre-
sence might restore order ; but he found
both the court and the Assembly hostile,
and even his National Guard disaffected,
and could only withdraw again.
If anything was required to raise the
popular excitement to the explosive point,
it was provided by the Prussian declara-
tion of war in July, followed by the
manifesto of Brunswick, the Prussian
commander, threatening penalties on Paris
if the king or queen suffered harm. The
contingents of volunteers from the depart-
ments— the veto on the formation of the
defend him. He, with the royal family,
escaped to the Assembly, which promised
them protection. The Swiss Guard at the
Tuileries alone refused to desert their
posts, and after a desperate resistance
were cut to pieces; the mob massacred
every man they could find in the palace.
Not the Assembly, but the new Com-
mune was now completely master of the
situation, for the Commune not only
swayed the mob, but had captured the
material means of government. The
Assembly could only obey its orders. The
monarchy was suspended ; Danton was
made Minister of Justice. Lafayette, with
the army, proposed to march on Paris, but
neither the men nor the commanders
IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY' : ENROLLING VOLUNTEERS IN THE REPUBLICAN ARMY
camp had been withdrawn— arrived ; those
from Marseilles brought with them the
" Marseillaise," thenceforth to be the hymn
of revolution. The national celebration
of July 14th was virtually a Republican
demonstration. Even Lafayette and a too
royalist Assembly became the mark of
popular clamour. On the night of August
9th a rising was organised in Paris.
Arrangements were made to replace the
Paris government by a provisional com-
mune, with Danton at its head. The
commander of the National Guard was
put out of the way and replaced by a mob
leader. With the dawn of August loth
the volunteers were brought up, and the
king found that there were no troops to
would support him, Dumouriez declaring
that their business was with the threatened
invasion. Lafayette and his associates,
denounced as traitors by the Assembly
at the bidding of the Commune, retired
over the frontier, and vanished political!" .
In fact, Lafayette was captured by tlie
enemy and held in detention as a prisoner
of war for five years.
Meanwhile, the Prussians, under Bruns-
wick, were advancing. Lafayette and his
colleague, Luchner, were replaced by
Dumouriez and Kellerman. Longwy
capitulated ; on September 2nd, Verdun
fell, and the way to Paris was open. To
increase the desperate condition of affairs,
civil war broke out ; the peasants of La
4663
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Vendue, where, as previously noted, the
relations of the populace with the gentry
were of a patriarchal and friendly type,
rose in su})port of the Crown and the
clergy. For desperate circumstances,
Danton devised a more than desperate
remedy. There must be no shadow of risk
, that the action of the execu-
Xr'^'ht * f ^^^^ should be in any way
" s"* "t °" hampered by opposition ; it
uspec s j^yg^ |3g 3^g fj-gg from control
as the most absolute despotism ; to that
end sheer terror must be the means. On
the night of August 29th, commissioners,
nominally in search of arms, conducted a
house to house visitation throughout Paris,
and arrested and flung into prison some
four thousand "suspects." The mob was
taught' tliat the " aristocrats " were only
waiting for " patriots " to depart to the
front,, ia order to carry out a massacre.
When the news arrived of the fall of
Verdun, organised bodies were allowed to
enter the prison's, and for three days there
was a systematic slaughter. Similar
atrocities were carried out in other
cities ; the numbers of the slain were
reckoned in thousands.
But now at the front the situation
changed. While Frederic William and
Brunswick were discussing whether an
immediate advance should be made upon
Paris, Dumouriez was infusing a new spirit
of patriotic confidence into the French
troops, and when the Prussians attacked
them at Valmy they held their ground.
The Prussians retired, and from this
time the enemy realised, as did the
French troops themselves, that the
latter had once more become formidable.
Moreover, Russian action in Poland was
now demanding the serious attention of
Prussia, which could no longer afford
to let its armies be absorbed in a
monarchist crusade, and Brunswick drew
off his troops towards the Rhine.
The cannonade of Valmy — it hardly
claims to be called a battle — took place on
September 30th. In the mean-
time, the Assembly had con-
tinued its session, but, under
the orders of the Commune,
had fixed September 2ist as the date for its
own dissolution and for the assembling in
its place of a new National Convention,
to which the old self-denying ordinance
of the Constituent Assembly did not
apply, and for which the electorate
and the delegates Were freed from the
4664
France
Proclaimed a
Republic
former property qualifications. Its first
step on its opening day was to proclaim
that the monarchy was at an end, and
France was a republic.
The Constituent Assembly had been a
reforming body, in which men like Lafay-
ette, Mirabeau, or Sieycs had all bceii
reckoned as of the advanced party. Iii
the Legislative Assembly the ideas which
had dominated such men were regarded
as conservative and even as reactionary ;
the representative section of the advanced
party was to be found among the idealists
of the Gironde. In the Convention, the
republican Girondins were the party of
order, and their opponents were the revo-
lutionaries of the Mountain. From the
Second Assembly the Royalists had almost
vanished ; in the Third Assembly, a like
fate had befallen the Constitutionalists.
In the Convention, at the outset, the
preponderance lay with the Girondins ;
the members of the Mountain were much
fewer. But the very considerable body
known as " the Plain," which was attached
definitely neither to the Gironde nor to the
Mountain, was very soon under the prac-
tical control of the latter or of
c u '^°h t ^^^ leaders, who were in effect
,, ..... . the dictators of the Jacobin
Undisciplined . . • j r ^iT r> •
organisation and of the Pans
Commune. Theoretically, indeed, there
was no great difference between the
aims of the Gironde and the Mountain.
But the cultured intellectuals of the
Gironde shrank back with a shudder
from the merciless popular tyranny ex-
pressed in the September massacres, the
author of which they would willingly have
punished. Their own ranks, however,
were devoid of discipline, and their leaders
had no conception of political tactics.
They attacked Robespierre, Danton, and
Marat instead of seeking the alliance of
Danton, without having the evidence to
carry their charges home ; while the
centralising system of their opponents,
which concentrated all effective control
in the hands of a few men who knew
their own minds, gave those opponents
an enormous advantage.
Nevertheless, amid the contests of thf
Mountain and Gironde work was done by
committees of the Convention outside the
realms of party warfare which has re-
mained of permanent value — such as the
introduction of the uniform " metric "
system of weights and measures in place
of the old chaotic variety, the preparation
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Republican
Armies' Series
of Victories
of Condorcet's great scheme of systematic
national education, and the preliminary
work on the Civil Code, which made the
way ready for the Code Napoleon. A
curious aberration, however, was the in-
vention of a new Revolution Calendar,
starting the year One of the New Era from
September 21st, 1792. Cosmic laws un-
kindly forbade the perfect
application of the decimal
system, but logic substituted
for the old haphazard desig-
nations of the months titles connected with
their naturalistic associations, such asTher-
midor, Fructidor, Brumaire. The new cal-
endar was not put in force till October, 1793.
The armies of the Republic prospered
during the autumn. The population of
Savoy was quite ready for incorporation,
having no affection for the Sardinian
monarchy, and practically no resistance
was offered. In the Rhine provinces,
which the operations in the north had left
undefended, Custine advanced and cap-
tured Mainz and Frankfort without diffi-
culty. In the north, Dumouriez invaded
Belgium, where he inflicted on the Aus-
trians at Jemappes a defeat which caused
them to retire ; and here, too, the popula-
tion welcomed the invaders.
On the same day as the victory at
Jemappes the Convention took the aggres-
sive step of declaring the commerce of the
River Scheldt to be free, although the con-
trol of it had been guaranteed to Holland by
treaty. These proceedings, however, had
an important effect on the international
situation. Hitherto the French had, in
theory at least, been fighting in self-defence,
with every justification for resisting the
armed intervention of foreign powers in the
domestic affairs of France. Now, France
was assuming the aggressive, annexing
territories, ejecting governments, and
claiming by her own fiat to cancel treaties.
Two things were still wanting. The first
was supplied when, in December, the Re-
public issued a decree proclaiming that in
all districts^occupied by French armies the
existing governments and all privileges
were to be abolished, popular assemblies
summoned, and the country taken under
the protection of the Republic. The second
followed when, in Danton's phrase, the
Republic " flung down to the kings the
head of a king as the gage of battle."
The Jacobins saw in the slaying of the
king the opportunity of cutting France off
from her historic past, of appealing to the
passions of the Paris mob, and of denounc-
ing as traitors all who opposed the design.
The Girondins shuddered, detested, but
dared to offer only a qualified resistance.
A committee reported that the king might
lawfully be tried by the Convention. The
discovery of some of Louis's earlier corre-
spondence strengthened the clamour
against him. The Mountain began to
demand the summary execution of the
king without trial, on the principle that
the security of the people overrides all
law. To escape that extreme, the Giron-
dins assented to the trial ; to his eternal
honour, Malesherbes came forth from his
sixteen years of political retirement to
volunteer his services in the king's defence.
An attempt was made to withdraw the
decision from a court dominated by the
Paris Commune and the Paris mob, and to
refer it to the Departmental Assemblies.
• XVI '^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ opened in
jj?"" ■ December, the galleries being
G*^il r * crowded with an intimidatmg
mob. Under such conditions, on
January 14th, 1793, the verdict was given,
a majority of eleven voting in favour of
the guillotine. On the 21st Louis's head
fell. Within three weeks Great Britain was
added to the nations against whom the
Republic had declared war — a war which
was really to be ended only after two-and-
twenty years, on the field of Waterloo.
THE FRENCH VICTORY OVER THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF JEMAPPES IN 1792
4b66
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
IV
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES, M.A.
UNDER THE REIGN OF TERROR
AND THE COMING OF THE MAN OF DESTINY
HITHERTO France had been at war
with Austria, Prussia, the princes of
the frontier provinces, and Sardinia or
Savoy. Prussia was vacillating between
sympathy for the French monarchy and
distrust of Russia in Poland; between
aversion from the revolution in France
and an equally intense aversion from
the emigres. Austria was fighting at a
distance from her base, in conjunction with
an ally with whom she was by no means
in close accord. The other powers were
standing out of the quarrel, Pitt being,
indeed, rather disposed to recognise the
Republic and seek its alliance. But in the
closing months of 1792 and January, 1793,
some important changes had taken place.
Public opinion in England was turned
angrily against France by the September
massacres. The French Government,
with its successes in the field, was eager
R J ^*^ challenge the world in
,^^\ ** ^ arms, under the conviction
o Challenge ^^^^ -^ England, as well as
the World 1 u xu 1
elsewhere, the people were
groaning under the tyranny of a political
system which they were yearning to over-
throw. The Jacobins were zealous to
impose popular liberties as understood by
themselves on the nations of Europe. The
Girondins anticipated with alarm the
results of a peace which would scatter
over France 300,000 soldiers for whom the
existing industrial conditions would not
readily provide civil employment. On
the other hand, the foreign territories now
in French occupation were beginning to
realise that liberation, as interpreted by
the Republic, was not an unqualified bless-
ing. In Eftgland, though not in Ireland,
the demand for liberation was practically
non-existent, and it was soon to be proved
that Great Britain was the most im-
placable and also the most stable of all the
Powers challenged by the regicide Re-
public. The war had been forced upon a
Minister who, up to the last moment, had
done his best to avert it, but when once it
had begun did his best to maintain and ex-
tend the European coalition with a greater
zeal than that of any other of the Powers.
But the strength of coalitions depends
very much less on their aggregate mass
than on their sustained co-
c" dT^ operation and unity of aim.
of°PoIand Spain, Portugal Naples, and
Holland might be, and were,
all drawn into this coaHtion ; but at the
best these were only make-weights, and on
land Great Britain herself was little more
— as yet. The effective military powers
were Prussia and Austria. But Austria
and Prussia were not preparing to devote
their energies completely and decisively
to the repression of France.
At this crisis Prussia became absorbed
in a fresh partition of what remained of
Poland with the Tsarina, on lines the
reverse of satisfactory to Austria, whose
interest lay in the maintenance of an inde-
pendent Poland strong enough to serve as
a barrier against the westward advance of
Russia. Until the close of 1795 the Polish
problem perpetually distracted the two
German powers from the systematic
prosecution of the war against the French.
Under such conditions it is not surprising
that the coalition failed to strike decisive
blows in spite of the pressing difficulties
under which the French Government, still
nominally Girondin, was labouring. It
was only for a very brief moment that
the enormous odds which France had
raised against herself served to unite all
_^ _. parties in a determination to
e ir n ns j^gg^ ^jjgjn gf^g^tively. Huge
, " 1"*' new levies were raised, and
from Remorse ., , , ,■ ,1
the outstandmg cash prob-
lem was dealt with according to precedent
by the issue of more assignats. But the
strife between the Mountain and Gironde
revived with increased bitterness. Having
made themselves responsible for the death
of Louis, the Girondins could forgive
4667
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
neither themselves nor the antagonists who
had driven them into this false position.
Dumouriez, after visiting Paris, and offer-
ing a vain opposition to the regicide
policy, returned to the army in Belgium
with the immediate object of subjugating
Holland, which was not un-
Defeated vv^ining to overturn the rule of
Ambitions of -^ - -
Dumouriez
the Stadtholder, William of
Orange. The advance of the
Austrians into Belgium compelled him to
give them battle, and to suffer a defeat
at Neerwinden. Seeing only a dwindling
prospect of carrying out his own policy in
the character of a triumphant general —
the pohcy of restoring the monarchy in
the person of young Louis Philippe, the
son of " Egalite" Orleans — .he resolved to
do so with foreign aid.
His troops, however,
were still less disposed
to aid him in this pro-
ject than he had been
to aid Lafayette in the
past ; and he was
obliged to take flight
and follow Lafayette
out of effective polit-
ical life, though not
into captivity.
The Girondins had
refused to detach
Danton from the Jaco-
bins, to injure him by
charging him with com-
plicity in Dumouriez's
Orleanist plot ; but
thereby they only
hastened their own
downfall. A secret
succeeded in assassinating Marat, bat the
practical effect was to intensify the
ferocity with which the Jacobins pursued
their opponents. Had the antagonism
to the Paris Government been organised
instead of sporadic, it would have been
in the utmost peril. And had the members
of the coalition been working in concert,
they might have threatened Paris itself,
for, in every quarter, the French were
being worsted — by Spaniards, Pied-
montese, Prussians, Austrians, British.
The loyalists of Toulon handed over the
arsenal and harbour to the protection of
the British Fleet. The allies took Valen-
ciennes and recaptured Mainz. But each
of them was playing for his own hand with
the object of securing this or that piece
of territory out of the
dismemberment of
France. In the face
of these gathering
perils, the Committee
of Public Safety, now
armed with almost
unlimited powers,
directed its energies
with savage vigour to
the organisation of an
aggressive defence and
a ruthless crushing of
all resistance, potential
as well as active, sus-
pected as well as
proved, to the
"tyranny of Liberty."
The genius of Carnot,
the " organiser of
victories," was soon tri-
MARiE ANTOINETTE IN MOURNING umphautly associatcd
committee of nine. After the execution of Louis XVI. with the fanaticism of
known as the Committee of Public Safety, St. Just and the venom of Robespierre
was established by the Convention to
control the Girondin Ministry and the
commanders at the front, with almost
despotic powers. The Girondins made
unsuccessful rhetorical attacks on their
opponents, who organised a popular
hostility in Paris, which broke out in a
rising on June 2nd. The National Guard
had become an instrument of the Jacobins.
The Convention was surrounded in
force, and compelled to surrender most of
the prominent Girondins. Some of these
escaped, and proceeded to raise the pro-
vinces against Paris mob rule. La Vendee
had already for months been in active
insurrection, defying and destroying
Gbvernment forces. Charlotte Corday
4668
in directing the fate of France. Although
the Convention drew up yet another
Constitution, its adoption was deferred,
and practically all powers executive and
legislative were vested in the Committee,
and their commissioners ruled absolutely
in every department. Carnot raised
. three-quarters of a million
FMl d "-th* soldiers ; the revolts every-
"S* ^\ " where were crushed with mer-
uspec s pjjggg rigour. " Suspects,"
which might mean anyone who had
failed to display conspicuous energy
on behalf of the existing Government,
were flung into prison by the thousand.
The old commanders were displaced,
it might be on insufficient grounds ;
THE REIGN OF TERROR AND THE MAN OF DESTINY
but the new men were selected by
Carnot with extraordinary insight and
judgment, and they displayed a capacity
which invariably justified the selection.
In the north, Jourdan drove back the
combined British and Austrians — the
former were still in the stage when family
connections constituted the sole title to
important commands ; in the Rhine
destroying the French warships which lay
in the harbour. Yet these military
triumphs had an ugly background in the
Reign of Terror which was established —
not only in Paris. Names noble and
infamous were numbered in the death-
role — the queen and the sister of the
king, the mistress of the king's grand-
father, Mme. Roland, the soul of the
Girondin idealism, Philip
" figalite," generals who
had failed to satisfy, like
Custine and Houchard,
men once honoured as
reformers, like Bailly and
Barnave, amid an untold
number of forgotten
victims, while the
interested psychologist ob-
serves that Paris went
to the theatre as usual.
Even Robespierre was
disgusted at the obscene
profanities of the " feast
of reason " indulged in by
the foul Hebert and his
associates. Danton, and
those who were with him,
were now nicknamed the
" Indulgents " ; though re-
sponsible for the last
year's- September mas-
sacres, they had no part
in these abominations.
Danton struck without
mercy, but with definite
purpose ; the " Reign of
Terror " was a period of
indiscriminate slaughter,
almost without purpose,
hideous, sickening. Robe-
spierre, seeing the revulsion
It caused, allied himself
for a moment with the
THE DEATH OF GENERAL PICHEGRU IndulgCntS for the de-
Enlisting in the army of France, Charles Pichegju became a general of division, StrUCtlOn ot the HebertlStS,
and led his troops to victory in a series of important battles. In consequence wfiose heads fell beneath
of bis associating- himself with the Bourbons, the Directory superseded him , i miillotinp in March
by Moreau, and his Bourbon intrigues were continued after he became President o u + A
of the Council of Five Hundred in 1797. He escaped from France, but returned 1 hen KobeSpierre turneO.
to it in 1804, and on, the morning of April 6th, was found strangled in bed. on his rival. A fortnight
provinces, Hoche and Pichegru drove back after, Hebert, Danton and his associates
Austrians and Prussians. Before Toulon,
the genius of a young artillery officer,
Napoleon Buonaparte — .the more popular
form Bonaparte was adopted by him at
a later date — .secured over the besiegers a
position so commanding that the English
admiral. Hood, had to content himself with
taking off a number of the loyalists and
met the same doom. Robespierre's
supremacy was undisputed.
Robespierre was a complete fanatic ;
in his own eyes, the apostle and high
priest of perfect Rousseauism, whose
mission it was to inaugurate Rousseau's
millennium at the cost of a vast sacrificial
slaughter. He was also a complete egoist,
4669
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
perfectly satisfied that to secure his own
power all means were moral. He was a
convinced Deist ; and, in contrast to the
Hebertists with their nauseous " feast of
reason," which was an atheistic carnival,
he caused the Convention to affirm by
decree the exist- p
ence of the f
Supreme Being
and the immor-
tality of the
soul ; he insti-
tuted the Festi-
val of the
Supreme Being,
acting himself as
a sort of high
had been glutted and turned to nausea.
The overthrow had been effected by a com-
bination of Indulgents and Terrorists ;
but the victory lay with the Indulgents.
The personnel of the Committee of
Public Safety was necessarily changed,
though Carnot
remained. H e
cannot be ac-
quitted of re-
sponsibility for
the Terror ; but
his business had
been with the
exercise of ad-
ministrative
'unctions in
.mother sphere,
that of military
organisation, and
^_ for his astonish-
ST. JUST AND CARNOT
priest. But the
Terror went on;
it was to go on
till the " Reign
of Virtue was St. just was a follower of Robespierre, and at the Convention in 1792 ^^8 SUCCCSS in
established, came into notice by his fierce attacks on the king. He died by the this department
T^i J r guillotine, along with Robespierre, in 1 794. Carnot, a member of the t? j
ine i^aw Ol Committee of Public Safety during the Revolution, earned the title of rraUCC OWCQ
Prairial in Tune the " organiser of victory '; he raised no fewer than fourteen armies, him an CUOrmOUS
abolished the last semblance of legal pro-
cedure in the case of " suspects," and his
former coadjutors felt that their own
turn might come any day. While the
guillotine devoured its daily feast —
between forty and fifty victims on the
average, in Paris — enemies who had
learned their business as members of the
Committee of Public
Safety, enemies as ruth-
less as himself, were
plotting Robespierre's
downfall. There were
preliminary warnings, but
Robespierre counted on
his own influence. On
Thermidor 9th (July
27th), not six weeks after
the passing of the Law
of Prairial, the Conven-
tion turned upon Robes-
pierre and his associates,
St. Just and Couthon,
and decreed their arrest.
The troops of the Com-
mune were brought up
to effect a liberation, but
they offered no opposition
when the Convention in turn brought up
troops to carry out its order. The three
were dispatched to the scaffold. So
ended the Terror. Not because all the
new chiefs were less bloodthirsty, but
l)ecause they realised that the lust of blood
4670
debt. The new Government set about
the task of restoring something like
constitutional methods with vigour. The
Law of Prairial was repealed, and Robes-
pierre's instrument, the Revolutionary
Tribunal, was suspended. Much of the
power usurped by the Committee was
restored to the Convention. The Paris
Commune was abolished,
and replaced by com-
mittees nominated by the
Convention. Fresh forces
were organised to hold
the mob in check, com-
posed of members of the
well-to-do classes. The
remnant of Terrorists
were forced to resign
their places on the
various committees. The
remnant of Girondins was
recalled to the Assembly,
and the J acobin club was
JEAN PAUL MARAT closcd by a dccrcc of
A zealous revolutionary, he engaged in a the Convention. The
mortal struggle with the Girondins, and at his Termr wrac o Inrirl Kr^nh-
door has been laid the blame of the most in- A^rrOF Wdb a lUriQ OaCK-
famousof the massacres. He was the object of grOUnd tO the military
intense hatred, and was assassinated in 1793. i • . r j^i_ t-»
achievements of the Re-
publican armies. They were now led
almost entirely by men of great natural
talent, who had displayed conspicuous
ability and courage in the ranks and in
subordinate posts ; and the presence
at the front of commissioners of the
THE REIGN OF TERROR AND THE MAN OF DESIINY
Committee of Public Safety was a perpetual
reminder that failure, or even the
appearance of failure, might lead to the
guillotine, as it did with Custine and
Houchard. The Spaniards, who had met
with some success when they first joined
the coalition, were driven back, the
Pyrenees were pierced, and Spain itself
was invaded by the force which had
recovered Toulon. The previous successes
of the Piedmontese were reversed.
On the side of the Rhine and the Nether-
lands, the French improved upon the
advantages won in 1793. Prussia, intent
on subjugating her share of Poland, would
continue the French war only for hard
cash ; Austria would provide none, but
Pitt furnished the subsi-
dies demanded, in return
for which Prussia sent to
the Rhine 60,000 men,
whose commander,
Mollendorf, remained per-
sistently inactive. In the
Netherlands, the
Austrians at first co-
operated with the Duke
of York, and Landrecies
was taken ; but Pichegru
advanced at the head of
the French Army of the
North ; York was de-
feated at Turcoing;
further south, Jourdan,
after a series of minor
engagements, defeated the
Austrians at Fleurus,
while Mollendorf refused
to move to their support.
The Austrians retired be-
" Glorious
First
of June ' '
to which power, it may here be noted, he
very shortly ceded the protectorate of the
Dutch Colony at the Cape, which thence-
forth remained a British possession, except
during the brief interval of the "Peace of
Amiens. Holland itself was transformed
into the " Batavian Republic."
The revolt in La Vendee,
though it had extended to
Brittany, had been reduced
to warfare of an exclusively guenilla
character. For the coalition the record
of the year 1794 was })itiful. Great
Britain alone could find some consolation
in Lord Howe's naval victory of the
" glorious First of June " off Ushant —
a battle famous, among other things, for
the mythical heroism of
the crew of the Vengeur,
who, after a magnificent
fight, did not refuse to
strike their colours, but
surrendered before the
ship went down. The
legend, however, was in-
valuable as an inspiration
of dauntless defiance.
The situation was not
redeemed in the following
year. Austria, indeed,
impelled by the energy
of Pitt and the promises
of the Tsarina Catharine,
who was exceedingly
anxious to keep the em-
peror embroiled in the
west, maintained the war,
though without energy.
Great Britain did little
GENERAL HOCHE
General Hoche defended Dunkirk against the , .
Duke of York in 1793, and it was owing to his eXCCpt make an abOrtlVC
yond the Meuse, York fell ^Xht to an'ind'hf mt 'two yIa%"st%Thl attempt to set the emigres
back into Brabant, and inflicted several defeats on the Austrians. at the head of a Royalist
Pichegru made himself master of Belgium, rising in Brittany, which was foiled partly
In fact, with Austria, as with Prussia,
the French war had come to be regarded
as of minor importance as compared with
Poland, and Francis was hoping to be
compensated for the loss of the Nether-
lands by the acquisition of Bavaria as
- . the price of his assent to the
Succession „ ,•.• j u i.
P partition arranged between
... ^^ !^ Prussia and Russia. As the
Victories , j n j.i
year advanced, all the provinces
on tjje left bank of the Rhine were
occupied by the French ; Pichegru ad-
vanced into Holland, disregarding the
difficulties of a winter campaign ; the
Dutch fleet in the Texel was captured, and
the Stadtholder took flight to England —
by the miserable incapacity of the emigres
themselves, partly by the skill and energy
of Hoche, to whom Carnot entrusted the
command. Some seven hundred of them
were shot down in cold blood by the order
of TalUen — who was present as com-
missioner— not of Hoche, who proceeded
to pacify the country with a judicious
justice, which could be severe or lenient as
circumstances might demand. But the
coalition was broken up. Prussia, which
had taken no effective part since 1793.
made her own peace with the Republic
in April by the Treaty of Basle, sur-
rendering her territories on the left bank
of the Rhine, and receiving a provisional
4671
TRIAL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL
Marie Antoinette was brought for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal on October 14th, 1793. The proceedings lasted
for about twenty consecutive hours. The queen was perfectly calm throughout the long and terrible ordeal, and " did
not give the least sign of fea r or indignation, or weakness," even when the decree that sentenced her to death was read.
THE QUEEN OF FRANCE BEING LED TO EXECUTION ON OCTOBER Kjtii, 1793
The courage and fortitude exhibited by Marie Antoinette during her long trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal
did not forsake her in the closing hours of life, and she bravely met death by the guillotine on October Kith, 1793.
4672
THE GUILLOTINE'S DAILY TOLL: GIRONDINS ON THEIR WAY TO DEATH
The Girondins, at first allied with the Jacobins, were one of the chief revolutionary parties that arose during the
Revolution, but while they had apart in the overthrew of the monarchy they had no share in the infamous September
massacres. When the party were defeated in June, 1 793, many of their leaders and followers were led to the guillotine.
From the painting by Piloty
VICTIMS OF THE GUILLOTINE : A DAILY SCENE DURING THE REVOLUTION
Such scenes as that represented in the above picture were witnessed daily in the streets of Paris and other cities
during the Reign of Terror. In rough carts, men and women, amid the jeers and insults of the brutal mob, were
taken to the place of execution and beheaded by the guillotine, whose thirst for blood remained insatiable.
297
4673
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
promise of compensation on the right bank.
Spain followed suit in July, ceding her
portion in San Domingo. The Bourbon
monarchy was the less averse because the
young Dauphin, who had not been
guillotined, but kept a prisoner, suc-
cumbed in June under the severities of
his confinement.
It is not surprising that some two score of
pseudo-Dauphins were discovered at inter-
vals in the years to come. The legitimist
heir to the throne was now the late king's
brother, the Count of Provence, who
assumed in his exile the title of Louis XVIII.
Once more a new Government was on
another insurrection in May, which was
successfully put down by the Government.
The scales had turned against mob rule.
As usual, however, the remedy for dis-
content was sought in the promulgation of
a new Constitution. Two fundamental
vices were discovered as the cause of
failure in the past — the confusion of the
legislative and executive functions, and
the single chamber. The executive body
was now to have no control over legislation ;
the Legislature, divided into two chambers,
would have no control over the execu-
tive, save for the power of impeaching
Ministers, The deputies were to be chosen
THE ASSASSINATION OF MARAT BY CHARLOTTE CORDAY
Though of noble family, Charlotte Corday welcomed the Revolution, but was horrified at the acts of the Jacobins, and
resolved to destroy one of their leaders . On July 1 7th, 1793, she was admitted to the house of Marat on the plea that she
had important news to impart, and finding him in his bath stabbed him to the heart. She was executed a few days later.
l-roin the picture by H. Scheffcr
the verge of being formed in France. The
" Thermidorean " reaction was the expres-
sion of a strong national revulsion against
the excesses of the last two years, and
restored a considerable share of power to
the bourgeois element. But the distress
of the lower classes had found temporary
alleviation from the employment provided
by revolutionary committees, and from
the " maximum " law, which had fixed a
limit on the price of food and other articles ;
both these disappeared with the reaction.
The discontent of the mob was fanned by
the surviving Terrorists, and Paris saw
4674
by double election — the citizens who paid
taxes choosing electors, and the electors
choosing deputies. The younger deputies,
forming the larger body, were to submit
legislation to the elder, or Chamber of
Ancients. The two bodies were to nomi-
nate the five heads of the executive, the
Directory, who would appoint Ministers.
One of the Directory and one-third of each
of the other bodies were to retire annually.
An obvious weakness lay in the risk
of Directory and Legislature losing touch,
and crekting a deadlock with its attendant
dangers, which in England are obviated
HISTORY OP THE WORLD
by the system of party Cabinets. The fear,
however, of reaction, whether royahst or
revolutionary, taking effect at the coming
elections, inspired a further modifica-
tion— 'that in the first instance two-thirds
of the deputies must be chosen from
the members of the Convention itself.
There was no one in Paris to treat the
Convention as Cromwell
had treated the Rumj)
under somewhat similar
circumstances ; but the
Assembly was not so secure
of its own position as the
British Parliament which
prolonged its own life In
passing the Septennial
Act. An insurrection in
Paris of the discontented
factions was almost a cer-
tainty. The Government
appointed Barras to deal
with the emergency.
Barras turned to a young
artillery officer who had
recently been cashiered
for refusing to join the
army in La Vendee — the
same to whom the credit
for the capture of Toulon
was; "known to be due.
To him Barras entrusted
the command of the
troops. By the use of ar-
tillery,dexterously secured
by Murat, Bonaparte com-
pletely scattered the in-
surgents in the streets of
Paris on October 5th. The
Man of Destiny had set his
foot on the first rung of
the ladder. Before we
accompany him through
his tremendous career, his
rise to unexampled power
and the crash of his fall,
we must turn to the events
in Central Europe, which
have been glanced at only
from time to time in our
sketch of the first years of the first French
Republic. The special affairs of, G-reat
Britain are reserved for separate treatment.
The first partition of Poland had reduced
the area of that kingdom by transferring
border provinces to Russia, Prussia and
Austria respectively ; while the 'throne
itself had been secured for^ ■Stanislas
Poniatowski, a creature of the Tsarina.
4676
This subjection, however, was not to the
liking of the Poles themselves ; and
when, at the close of the 'eighties, Russia
became involved in a Turkish war the
hope was revived of recovering indepen-
dence and strengthening the Polish state.
Ideas of constitutional reform were
developed under the influence of the
MADAME ROLAND AT THE GUILLOTINE
The wife of Jean Marie Roland, Minis,ter of the Interior, was arrested and taken
to Sainte Pelagrie. On November 8th, 1793, she was brought to the guillotine.
" O Liberty,'' she said, addressing with her last breath the statue so-called, "what
crimes are committed in thy name ! "* Her husband afterwards stabbed himself
doctrines emanating from France in the
opening "Constituent*' stage of the Revo-
lution. In May, 179^, the succession to the
childless Stanislas was laid down in the
Saxony liiie, with a view to the estab-
lishment of a hereditary instead of an
electoral monarchy, and a Constitution
was promulgated. The liber um veto, or
right of any one noble to veto legislation,
THE CELEBRATION OF MASS DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR
From the pa;ntiiig by C. L. MuUer
was abolished, the executiv^e was placed in
the hands of the Crown, and the legislature
in the hands of a Senate and a represen-
tative Assembly. The plan suited Leopold
of Austria, who wanted a strong buffer
state to hold back Russia ; it was less
agreeable to Frederic William, who saw
his chances of acquiring Danzig and
Thorn vanishing ; and it did not suit
Russia at all, for obvious reasons. Leo-
pold, however, succeeded in establishing
his influence over the Prussian king,
_, and the two German monarchs
aIThct agreed, in July, 1790, and in
p . February, 1791, to guarantee a
"free constitution" for Poland.
Hence, Catharine's anxiety to obtain a
free hand for upsetting the new arrange-
ments by involving Austria ajid Prussia
in hostilities with France, and to bring
the TiH»kish war to a conclusion. With
the Peace o#^ Jassy, in January, 1792,
and the intense friction between France
and the Powers in those months, both
Catharine's immediate objects seemed to
be accomplished ; and she was aided by
the death of the shrewd emperor in March,
and by the dissensions among the Poles
themselves, the old nobility being very ill-
content with the new constitution, which
deprived them of their ancient and fatal'
" liberty " to make the central govern-
ment an unworkable farce. Frederic
William, no longer guided by a wiser
ruler than himself, disregarded the appeals
of the constitutionalists, and the tradi-
tional jgalousy and distrust between
Austria and Prussia revived, while Austria
herself was committed to the French war
in defence of the Netherlands. Catharine
sought to satisfy Prussia by meeting her'
demands for additional Polish territory,
while Austrian acquiescence was to be
secured by the old scheme of exchanging
the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria.
But Austria was not so easily satisfied.
With Dumouriez overrunning Belgium
at the end of 1792, the practicability of
the scheme of exchange was more than
doubtful ; moreover, Prussia would give
no active assistance in carrying it out,
and refused to accede to Austria's further
demands for the transfer to her of Anspach
and Baireuth. Catharine, however, praC'
tically twisted Frederic William to her
will ; arid in January, 1793, the two powers
made a secret treaty, arranging a parti'
tion, and leaving out Austria — except fo^
a joint undertaking to lend moral support
to her acquisition of Bavaria.- At the
same time, Prussia bound herself to con^
tinue the French war. How she jnter^
preted that obligation we have already
sefn. She took Ekt's subsidies, sent
Mollendorf to the Sthhie, . and remained
inactive. In Poland, however, both
4677.
History of the world
Prussia and Russia proceeded to carry out
their joint policy with energy. Both
invaded that country — to suppress dis-
order— and appropriated the respective
shares agreed upon, that of Russia, it may
be remarked, having double the population
and four times the area of the
Prussian portion. The effect
on Austria was to terminate
the policy of co-operation
with Prussia, which had
proved itself utteiHy untrust-
N.'orthy, and to bring into
power the anti - Prussian
Minister, Thugut. Neverthe-
less, the partition was con-
firmed in September, while
Stanislas, with what was left
of his kingdom, found himsell
a mere vassal of Russia.
Again the Poles rose against
the Russian dominion, in 1794,
under the leadership of Kos-
ciusko. The revolt had no
practical chance of success,
and it was perceived at Berlin that unless .
Prussia intervened the spoils would fall to
Russia. A Prussian invasion in June
resulted in the capture of Cracow, to
which prompt action would have added
Warsaw. But owing to the lack of it,
Warsaw was enabled to hold out tmtil
the Prussians found themselves obliged to
withdraw in order to suppress insurrec-
tion in their own new provinces. Russia
took up the task and completed it with
thoroughness. The successful general,
Suwarrow, defeated and cap-
tured Kosciusko, stormed
Praga, massacred its inhabi-
tants, and seized Warsaw.
Catharine could now afford
to disregard Prussia and con-
ciliate Austria. On January
3rd, 1795, the two Powers
completed the final partition
by a treaty to which Prussia
acceded a year later. A por-
tion, including Warsaw, went
to Prussia ; a larger portion,
including Cracow, to Austria J
and the lion's share to
TadetcrSsk?™Ithe f^^^'\ Poland had Vanished
national movement in Cracow after from the map of EuropC. An
the second partition of Poland, and „jj;+;„-,„i c-ar-rcx-^ +r-a'^+-,, Kq
was appointed dictator and com- auuiliondl becrei xrediy ue-
mander-in-chief, He died in 1817. tweCU Austria and RuSSia
never took effect, and did not, in fact, come
to hght till half a century had passed ; it
is of interest as throwing light on the
unscrupulous character of the designs and
the diplomacy of Thugut, but exercised
no practical effect whatever on history.
4678
THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF FLEURUS IN 1794
From the pa!ntin£ by Mauzaisse at Versaillus
THE FRENCH;
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
V
BY ARTHUR
D. iNNES. M.A.
THE CONQUERING GENERAL OF THE
DIRECTORY
BONAPARTE IN ITALY AND EGYPT
pONAPARTE, in the affair of " Vende-
*-' miaire" — i.e., October 5th — saved
the Repubhc from relapsing into anarchy.
The new Constitution came into immediate
force. The five Directors chosen — ^Carnot,
Barras, Rewbell, Letourneur, and La
Reveillere — ^were all members of the
regicide Assembly ; but their policy was
one of moderation, approved by the Legis-
lature, of which bodies, as we noted, two-
thirds were members of the Convention.
The government proved itself to be vigor-
ous and alert, as well as moderate, and the
sense of public security began to revive,
although the solution of the financial
problem seemed as remote as ever.
Domestic order, then, was restored.
But Great Britain and Austria combined
to reject peace overtures, and the con-
tinuation of the war led directly to the
establishment of some victorious general as
autocrat. The destined Caesar
was tlie man who had made
such excellent use of his chance
of deserving well of the new
Government. Barras had his own reasons
for pushing the young man who, amid his
ambitions, was consumed with passion
for the fascinating widow Josephine
Beauharnais. Carnot recognised a brilliant
military genius in the plan for an Italian
campaign which Bonaparte had sent in.
He was appointed to the Italian command,
married Josephine, and, after the briefest
of honeymoons, started for the front in
March, 1796. He was then six-and- twenty
years of age. He was one of several brothers,
of a leading Corsican family, French only
in the sense that Choiseul annexed Corsica
just before Napoleon was born.
For years past, Corsica, under the
leadership of the patriot Pasquale Paoli,
had been struggling for freedom from the
Genoese rule; and the struggle was re-
newed against the French. The young
Napoleon's sympathies were with the
patriots to an extent which occasionally
The Early
Genius of
Bonaparte
brought him into trouble while he was
pursuing his studies for a military career
in France. He attached himself, however,
to the revolution, and held an artillery
command at the siege of Toulon, where
he was on friendly terms with the Com-
_ , missioner of the Committee of
Career ' ^"^^^^ Safety, Robespierre's
, -» younger brother. After Robes-
In Danger •'. °, , „ ,, • ,-
pierre s fall, this connection
went near to destroying his career, and
he had been trying to obtain an appoint-
ment as organiser of the Turkish sultan's
artillery, when he was cashiered, and
then reinstated in order to " save the
Republic " in Vendemiaire.
According to the general plan of cam-
paign, two French armies, under Jourdan
and Moreau, were to enter Germany and
force their way to Vienna ; Bonaparte
was to force the King of Sardinia — ^who
had already lost Savoy and Nice, but
maintained a strong army in Piedmont —
to sever himself from the Austrian alliance,
and was to drive the Austrians out of Italy.
The new general had as subordinates
men who had already shown great abilities,
such as Massena and Lannes ; he was soon
to eclipse them. Advancing with some
40,000 men, he found the Austrian and
Piedmontese forces under Beaulieu dis-
posed in three divisions, prepared to dispute
his passage into Piedmont, and to cut his
communications if he proceeded along
the coast to Genoa. Bonaparte's move-
ments deceived Beaulieu, and he was
successful in completely routing the centre
division at Montenotte, and
Austnans ^ ^j^ting the right-^the Pied-
Defeated by j^^^^gsg on the west^from the
Bonaparte jeft, Beaulieu on the east. The
Austrians fell back to the north-east to
defend the hne of the Po, the Piedmontese
to the north-west, to cover Turin. But
the King of Sardinia, seeing that Piedmont
was now practically indefensible, came
to terms, and withdrew from the coalition.
4679
THE BOYHOOD OF NAPOLEON: HIS UNHAPPY SCHOOLDAYS AT BRIENNE
As a lad, the future Emperor of the French attended school at Brienne, and having but a scanty acquaintance with the
French language, his lot was anything but happy. He even felt so miserable that he attempted to escape, and it is said
that he offered himself as a sailor to the British Admiralty. The lonely youth seems to have been an object of amuse-
ment to his schoolmates, and Bonaparte's sensitive nature must have been deeply wounded by their unfeeling treatment.
I'roin the* painting by Realier Dumas
Bonaparte was free to deal independently
with the Austrians before April was ended.
Beaulieu took up his position behind the
Ticino ; again Bonaparte, by rapid move-
ments, completely outmanoeuvred him,
and effected the passage of the Po at
Piacenza. Beaulieu withdrew behind the
Adda. But the fury of the French assault,
headed by Bonaparte and Lannes in per-
son, on the narrow wooden bridge at
Lodi, carried the passage, and the Austrians
were routed. Beaulieu, however, managed
-to draw his scattered forces together
beyond the Mincio, and retreat to the all-
important fortress of Mantua.
Four days later Bonaparte entered the
Lombard capital, Milan. The hypothesis
that the Republican army was engaged on
a mission of liberation was rendered some-
what unconvincing by the toll which the
conqueror levied, not only in cash but in
works of art, which the Italians looked upon
as national treasures, and various local
insurrections of the populace took place
which were severely repressed.
Naples, the other Bourbon state which
was in the coalition — Spain had with-
drawn in the previous year — was terrified
into neutrality, and the Neapolitan con-
4680
tingent was withdrawn from the Austrian
forces. Leghorn was seized — though the
Duke of Tuscany, the brother of the
emperor, had left the coalition before
Prussia — and the British merchants and
shipping in that neutral port paid the
penalty. Bologna and Ferrara, at the
north of the Papal states, were occupied :
and the Pope bought respite at the price
of five million dollars, the surrender of
numerous works of art, and the cession of
Bologna, Ferrara, and Ancona. Further,
although Venice was neutral, Bonaparte
, found a pretext for occupying
BrntiLnt * Brescia, within the territories
_" '*? . of that republic, thereby
amp&igntng yjj.^y^j|y compelling Beaulieu
in turn to violate the Venetian neutrality
by occupying Peschiera, to cover Mantua.
Beaulieu was thereupon attacked and
driven north into the Tyrol, while a portion
of his army remained in Mantua.
The Directory, taking alarm at the sud-
den and startling prestige acquired in six
weeks of brilliant campaigning, proposed,
but did not venture to press, that Bona-
parte should leave half his army* under
command of Kellerman to deal with the
Austrians, and should proceed with the
THE CONQUERING GENERAL OF THE DIRECTORY
other half to coerce the Pope. The
proposal was negatived. The general went
on to begin the siege of Mantua, when
news came that Beaulieu was superseded
by Wiirmser, who was descending from the
Tyrol with his main army by the valley of
the Adige, in Venetian territory, while
9. second army was to pass on the west of
Lake Garda towards Brescia. Wiirmser
was soon to learn the unwisdom of splitting
up a force which was intended to operate
broken up, and Wiirmser only succeeded
in reaching Mantua with a force consider-
ably smaller than the number of men he
had lost in getting there.
Had the French campaigns in Germany
been successful, it would now have been
Bonaparte's business to leave North Italy
in its practically prostrate condition and
march through the mountains upon
Austria. The two columns under Moreau
and J our dan advanced on separate lines
into Germany, while the
Austrian commander, the
Archduke Charles, had his
forces depleted in order to
provide the troops for
Wiirmser's , descent into
Italy, Charles, however,
leaving only a small force
to hold Moreau in check,
threw himself on Jourdan,
and in a series of engage-
ments drove him back
over the Rhine. Moreau,
in danger of finding him-
self cut ofi and over-
whelmed, conducted a
masterly retreat ; but the
combined plan of campaign
was completely foiled.
Bonaparte could carry out
his own plans in Italy —
unless the Austrians could
prevent him. As an initial
step, he had on his own
responsibility ejected the
Duke of Modena, and con-
structed the " Cispadane
Republic " out of the
duchy and the recently
ceded estates of the papacy.
Austria, however, had
not yet thrown up the
cards, and in the late
BONAPARTE IMPRISONED AS A "SUSPECT" AT NICE autumu ucw armies were
On the downfall of Robespierre, Napoleon, as his brother's friend, fell under the rlpcrpnrlincr frnm +hp T\nT>l
suspicion of the authorities, and on a pretext being found for his arrest, he was uebceiiuiiig iiuni Liic a yiui,
placed in the prison at Nice, in August, 1794, and detained there for thirteen days, considerably Outnumbering
From the painting by E. M. Ward
against Bonaparte, who at once hurled
himself on the western force, put it to
flight, and then, in a rapid series of engage-
ments, broke up Wiirmser's main force,
driving it back into the Tyrol.
Receiving reinforcements, the stout old
Austrian again advanced — and again in
two divisions: — with the inevitable result.
One was shattered at Roveredo ; the
victor occupied the Austrian line of com-
munications. The second army was then
Bonaparte's forces. By
three days of desperate lighting at
Areola, Alvinzi was driven back to
the Tyrol in November ; yet once more
he renewed his advance in January, 1797,
only to be crushed at Rivoli and La
Favorita. These battles decided the fate
of Mantua, which surrendered at the
beginning of February ; Bonaparte was
sufficiently generous to allow Wiirmser and
the garrison to march out with the honours
of war. To complete the humiliation of
4681
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the papacy was now a simple process,
which had been deferred only till more
dangerous matters had been dealt with.
Ten days after the surrender of Mantua
the Pope was compelled to sign the Treaty
of Tolentino. The terms were unexpectedly
favourable ; beyond a further indemnity,
they amounted to little more than the
confirmation of the previous cession of
Ferrara, Ancona, and Bologna, which were
already incorporated in the Cispadane
Republic. To this were now to be added,
under the name
of the Cisalpine
Republic, the
conquered d is -
tricts of Lom-
bardy.
Southern Italy
did not demand
immediate atten-
tion ; Northern
Italy was com-
pletely in the
hands of the
French, though
Venice was still
to pay the pen-
alty for her
neutrality. But
France was pre-
paring to renew
her advance upon
Vienna, Hoche
replacing Jour-
dan — and Hoche
was the most dan-
gerous of Bona-
parte's rivals.
The C o r s i c a n
resolved to be
first in the field,
and to secure for
himself the ad-
vantage of die
portions of the Venetian territory. In
this last stipulation Bonaparte was
barely anticipating events, since no excuse
could be pretended for the partition of
Venice. The excuse came. The exactions
and the domineering of the French,
deliberately provocative, aroused the fury
of the population ; in Venice there was a
rising, and the French soldiers in the
hospital were murdered, the day before
the articles were signed at Leoben. The
Venetian Government humbled itself in
despairing mes-
sages, while col-
lisions continued.
Bonaparte r e -
plied by dictating
terms of submis-
sion, which were
accepted. The
Venetian o 1 i g -
archy abolished
itself, and was
replaced by a
popular • consti-
tution ; the alli-
ance with France
which Venice had
hitherto persist-
ently refused,
was adopted ; the
usual tribute in
works of art was
exacted.
The meaning
of these things
was revealed in
the d e fi n i t i V e
Treaty of Campo
F o r m i o with
Austria in Octo-
ber, when the
JOSEPHINE, THE WIFE OF BONAPARTE Venetian tcrri-
The widow of the Vicomte de Beauharnais, Josephine was married to tOriCS eaSt OI tne
Bonaparte in 1 796. Fond of pleasure, she gathered around her the Adige WCrC tranS
tatin? terms to ™ost brilliant society of France, and in this way assisted in the estab- fprrpd tO Austria
• , ". T lishment of her husband's power. Her marriage was dissolved in 1809. , . .^ '
Austria. In a
rapid campaign, in which he was ably
assisted by Massena and Joubert, he
forced the passage of the Alps, defeating
the Archduke Charles on the Tagliamento,
and reached Leoben early in April, while
Moreau's advance had been delayed by
deficiencies in the military suppUes. At
Leoben he was met by Austrian peace
commissioners, and the preliminaries of a
treaty were signed on April i8th. Austria
was to cede Belgium and Lombardy, and,
by way of compensation, was to receive
4682
while France
took possession of the Ionian Islands.
Venice was the price which Bonaparte was
willing to pay in order to secure from
Austria the promise of the Rhine provinces
in addition to the cessions of territory
arranged under the articles of Leoben.
Other events, however, had been taking
place while Bonaparte was winning his
position as the foremost of living soldiers.
Spain, after retiring from the coalition in
1795, had gone over to the French
alliance in 1796, and reinforced the French ,
THE CONQUERING GENERAL OF THE DIRECTORY
fleets; France already had that of the
Batavian Repubhc — that is, Holland — at
its disposal. Although Admiral Jervis
was in command of the Mediterranean
squadron, his orders reduced him almost
to impotency till he found his opportunity
in February, 1797. Off Cape St. Vincent
he caught a much larger Spanish fleet, on
the way from Cartagena to Cadiz ; but
being in two divisions, he was able to
crush the larger portion, partly owing to
an audacious disregard of orders on the
part of Commodore Nelson, which met
with the admiral's full approval. The
victory of Cape St. Vincent secured the
mastery of the seas when it seemed to be
threatened by the numerical strength of
the hostile combiaaiion.
Nevertheless, that mastery was again
endangered almost immediately after-
wards, first by a serious mutiny in the
fleet at Spithead, which was the outcome
of genuine grievances on the part of the
MARSHAL LANNES
Another of Napoleon's marshals, Jean Lannes, Duke of
Montebello, played a leading part in the campaigrns of
the French ; he was mortally wounded at Aspern in 1 809.
men. The justice of the. men's demands
was so manifest that they were conceded,
and the men returned to their duty. This,
however, was followed by a second
mutiny at the Nore, in which there is no
doubt that the ringleaders were inspired
by Jacobin doctrines. This trouble was
the more dansrerous because the fleet
NAPOLEON'S GREATEST MARSHAL .
Marshal Mass^na distinguished himself in the many
cam[)aig:ns in which Napoleon was engag^ed, and in 1807
was created Duke of Rivoli. He cast in his lot with the
Bourbons at the Restoration, and declined to follow
Napoleon on his return from Elba. He died in 1817.
was ill expectation of an engagement
with the Dutch squadron which was
being prepared in the Texel. This mutiny
was sternly suppressed with the aid of
the now loyal ex-mutineers of Spithead,
while Admiral Duncan was deceiving the
Dutch into a behef that the two or three
vessels which he could command were
mcFcly the leaders of his squaciron,_^d
so kept them from issuing out 'oj^W^lie
Texel in force. It was not till some months
later, almost at the moment when the
Treaty of Campo Formio was being signed,
that Duncan decisively vanquished the
Dutch fleet in the stubborn engagement
of Camperdown.
Affairs, however, had not in the mean-
time been going smoothly with the French
Government. It had not, indeed, been
shaken by Jourdan's failure in 1796, which
had been more than counterbalanced
by Bonaparte's Italian successes ; nor
.^683
THE ENTRY OF THE VICTORIOUS FRENCH INTO MILAN, MAY 15tii, 1796
After receiving the command of the army of Italy, Bonaparte started his campaign on April 12th, 1796, and
about a month later— oa May 15th — entered Milan in triumph as the conqueror of all Lombardy and Piedmont.
THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY Or iui-ENTINO BY THE POPE IN 1797
Having defeated the Austrians and driven them out of Italy, Napoleon marched into the Papal states, and ten
days after the surrender of Mantua, on February 19th, 1797, forced the Pope to sign the Treaty of Tolentino.
4684
BONAPARTE IN ITALY: REVOLT OF THE PEASANTS AT PAVIA
During: his Italian campaign the peasants in several quarters rose in revolt against the French. The disturbance
in Pa via was not suppressed until the town was takan by storm, and g^ven up to be plundered by the soldiers.
BUNAPAKit. AT THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY OF LEOBEN IN 1797
Forcing the passage of the Alps and defeating the Archduke Charles on the Tagliamento, Bonaparte reached
Leoben early in April, 1797, where he was met by the Austrian Peace Commissioners. There, on the 18th of that
month, were signed the preliminaries of peace between Austria and France embodied in the Treaty of Campo Formio.
4685
THE FRENCH IN EGYPT: BONAPARTE'S AMBITIOUS bCHKMK
During his EgfyptiaA campaig-n Bonaparte, discovering the remains of an ancient canal near Suez, contemplated the
formation of a waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and in the above picture his soldiers are seen
at the work of excavation. The scheme, however, was abandoned, the discovery being made on survey that there
was a difference of thirty, feet between the levels of the Mediterranean at low water and the Red Sea at high water.
From the painting by Grenier
was its position affected by the fact
that the latter general conducted affairs
in that country very much as if he
himself, and not the Directory, were
at the head of the state. But whereas
two-thirds of the delegates to the Assem-
blies were members of the Convention,
the majority of the remaining third, the
elected members, were reactionaries, many
of whom desired a monarchical restoration.
Among the Directors, Carnot and Letour-
neur both favoured the " Moderates."
The retirement of one-third, according
to the Constitution, in May, 1797, greatly
strengthened this party ; and although
Letourneur also retired, lay lot, his place
was taken by another moderate, Barthe-
lemy. A leading personage in the party
was Pichegru, who some time before had
followed t he example of Dumouriez in enter-
ing upon negotiations for a monarchical
restoration with the Austrians, though the
conspiracy had not been discovered. Still,
Pichegru's leanings were more than sus-
pected. The other three members of
the Directory, Barras, Rewbell, and La
Reveillere, with the old conventionists,
4650
trembled for their power. On the other
hand, Austria and Great Britain both saw
a prospect of a French Government which
would be comparatively amenable. Austria
in the past had refused to make peace
apart from her island ally ; she had just
assented to the articles of Leoben only
because a victorious army was within
eighty miles of her capital, and she began
to hope that she might evade the ratifica-
tion of those articles. The Moderates were
already showing their hand
by attacking the Italian
measures of Bonaparte. The
Triumvirate in the Directory
began to meditate a military coup d'etat,
to be carried through by Hoche, whose am-
bitions seemed to be of a less dangerous
type than those of Bonaparte. But
Hoche must be hoodwinked ; he Would
not be a tool of the Triumvirate, and was
not minded to play Caesar. The overtures
to Hoche proved unsuccessful. But
Bonaparte's wrath was aroused by the
Moderate attacks on him. From his
quarters at Montebello he called upon the
Triumvirate to crush the hypothetical
The Directory
in Dread
of Bonaparte
THE CONQUERING GENERAL OF THE DIRECTORY
conspiracy — he furnished proof, from
papers which had fallen into his hands,
of Pichegru's designs two years before — •
and he sent his lieutenant Augereau to
manage the military part of the business.
On September 4th the coup d'etat of
Fructidor established the Triumvirate in
power, drove Carnot froni the country,
and sent Pichegru and many others to
prison or exile. Moreau, as a friend
of Pichegru, was withdrawn from his
command on the Rhine, where
w-?k "^ V * h^ ^^^ ^^^ replaced by Hoche,
^„. , and on the death of Hoche, by
***"'*' Augereau. With Hoche dead,
and Moreau under the Government's sus-
picion, Bonaparte had no possible military
rival, and had no hesitation in letting
the Triumvirate feel that he certainly was
no less independent of the new Directory
than of the old.
Austria and England appreciated the
change in the situation. Pitt was as
stubborn as ever in his determination to
refuse a peace on unsatisfactory terms,
having failed to realise that the wealth
and resources of the Republic were now
rapidly increasing. Austria, on the other
hand, felt herself with no alternative
but to make the best bargain available,
in which Thugut was not likely to display
scrupulousness. Hence the Treaty of
Campo Formio in October left Great
Britain isolated, while Austria accepted
Venice as compensation for her losses
elsewhere, 9.nd acceded to Bonaparte's
demand for the German Rhine provinces.
The Directory raged, but found itself
compelled to the terms of Bonaparte.
Having settled the treaty, Bonaparte
returned to North Italy to complete the
organisation of the Cisalpine Republic, to
which was added the Valteline, hitherto
a canton subject to the Swiss Grison
League, from whose domination it had
just broken free. Thence, after a brief
visit to the congress at Rastadt, which
was engaged in settling some details of the
Treaty of Campo Formio, he betook him-
self to Paris. The Directors received him
with more fear than satisfaction ; but he
was not yet inclined to seize the military
THE PLAGUE AT JAFFA : AN INCIDENT IN BONAPARTE'S EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN
Plague was raging at Jaffa when Bonaparte and his army passed through Syria, and in this picture the great general
of the Directory is seen visiting the pestilence-stricken quarter and laying his hands on the sores of the afflicted
people. Apart from the heroism of the art, he thus showed his own belief in predestination, the sole article of his creed.
From the painting by Baron Gros
468;r
THE BRITISH VICTORY IN THE NAVAL BATTLE AT CAMPERDOWN
On October 11th, 1797, the fleets of the British and Dutch engaged in battle off Camperdown, Admiral Duncan
being in command of the British forces, while the Dutch fleet was under De Winter. The sanguinary action resulted
in a brilliant victory for the British who captured seven ships of the line, among them bemg the two flagships. In
the above picture the Dutch flagship is shown in a dismantled condition and about to surrender to Admiral Duncan.
From tie p.iiiitint; by D. Orinc
THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH AT THE BATTLE OF THE NILE
The Battle of the Nile, fought in Abonkir Bay on August 1st, 1798, between the British and the French fleets, was
won by the former. Nelson completely overthrowing the enemy, though his fleet was numerically inferior. The
picture given above represents the battle at the moment of the blowing up of the French flagship The Orient.
From the painting by De Loutherbourg
4688
NELSON'S CAPTURE OF SPANISH WARSHIPS AT THE BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT
On February 14th, 1797, a great naval eng-agement between Britain and Spain was fought off Cape St. Vincent, the
British admiral, Sir John Jervis, scattering the Spanish fleet. Nelson — at that time commodore — in the rear of the
line fought valiantly to prevent the reunion of the two divisions of the Spanish fleet, and when the victory was won he
boarded the Spanish ship, San Nicolas, and led his men across her deck to the San Josef, of which he also took
possession. In the above picture he is seen on board the latter vessel receiving the commander's sword.
From the painting by J. T. Barker
AFTER THE BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN : THE DUTCH ADMIRAL'S SURRENDER
This picture illustrates an incident after the defeat of the Dutch fleet by the British at Camperdown, Admiral de
Winter being shown yielding up his sword in acknowledgment of defeat to Lord Duncan on board the Venerable.
From the painting by D. Orme
208
4689
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
dictatorship which was within his grasp.
It was not as a Paris politician that he in-
tended to strike for the great world-empire
on which his imagination was dwelling.
The fact patent to everyone was that
Great Britain was the one Power which
stood out in resolute hostility to the Re-
public ; for, although Catharine of Russia
had died in 1796, her successor, Paul, had
not yet adopted an anti-French policy. To
humble England was an obvious policy, to
the adoption of which the Directory was
already avowedly committed. To that
end, again, a great invasion was a con-
spicuous means. The arsenals of France,
especially Toulon, were soon busy prepar-
ing armaments ; the victorious general was
to be hurled agaipst the tyrant of the seas.
The victorious general had every in-
tention of crushing the tyrant of the
seas ; but not, for the present, by that
particular method, to which the British
fleet might prove an obstacle. But
Great Britain was now an Oriental as
well as a European Power. Bonaparte
had conceived the idea of an Asiatic
empire which would not only rob Great
Britain of her Indian dominion, but would
provide overwhelming resources for turn-
ing back upon the West. The high-road
to Asia lay through Egypt ; and Egypt,
not the shores of England, was the objec-
tive of Bonaparte's designs, to which
the effusive Barras had no sort of ob-
jection. The general of the Republic
triumphing in London would be a portent
more alarming to the Triumvirate in Paris
than the general on his way
to India. England watched
and waited, expecting the
obvious. Bonaparte's secret
was kept ; but Admiral Nelson, on guard in
the Mediterranean, had his own intuitions.
At any rate, the armament would come out
of Toulon, and, whatever its destination,
he would have to account for it. But
weather drove him off ; the fleet had just
time to sail clear away before he could re-
appear, to find Toulon empty. Instinct
bade him make for Egypt in pursuit. He
reached Alexandria, but found no sign of
his quarry, which he had passed in a fog
Nelson on
the Track of
the French
BONAPARTE'S CLEMENCY WITH THE SLEEPING SENTRY
Bonaparte, at Areola, discovering a sentry asleep, quietly took his g^in and stood guard in his place. The man on
awakening was terror-stricken, for the penalty of his fault was death, but his general gave him only a few auiet words of
reproof. By acts such as this Napoleon gained the love and devotion of bis men, who were ever ready to follow him to deatlj.
469
10
BONAPARTE BEFORE THE DIRECTORY ON HIS RETURN FROM EGYPT
B^T^°*i*'* *^^* ^.^k'"? ^^^ come for him to return to France and assume decisive control, Bonaparte suddenlv ouitted
Egypt, leavmg: Kleber m command of the troops. On his arrival in Paris he presented himsel?SlthroLectoi^
and left behind engaged in securing Malta
from the Knights of St. John. Malta was
neutral ; Egypt, a dependency of Turkey,
was neutral.
Nelson started afresh in pursuit, but
again missed his prey, which reached
Alexandria on June 30th, the day after his
departure. Bonaparte and his forces were
landed ; he Was careful to proclaim that
they had come as Uberators— friends, in-
deed, of the sultan and the Mohammedan
religion-^to free Egypt from the yoke of
the Mamelukes. Alexandria was seized
without difficulty ; Bonaparte led his
murmuring forces across the desert, to
change their murmurs into vivalswhen they
shattered the splendid Mameluke cavalry
French ^" ^^^ Battle of the Pyramids.
Triumphs and P^^^Pft^^'^tered Cairo in
Disasters trmmph. On the top of tri-
umph came news of disaster.
' Nelson had got on the scent, and returned
to Alexandria on August ist. He found the
French battleships^thirteen in number —
, at anchor in Aboukir Bay, heading north-
west, with shoals on their left, where he
was told there was no room for ships to
pass. But Nelson held that where there
was room for French ships to swing there
was room for English ships to sail. He
bore down, late as it was, on a north-west
wind, his van passing down the French
left between the ships and the shoals, his
rear passing down the French right. Thus
he brought the French van between two
fires, while the French rear to leeward
could not come into action.
The battle raged far into the night ; the
French flagship. The Orient, was bloWd
up ; all but two of the battleships an3*J
couple of frigates were destroyed or cap-
tured. " It was not a victory, but a revolu-
tion." The battle converted the Mediter-
ranean into an English lake. Bonaparte
was isolated in Egypt, with no possibly
chance of obtaining supplies or reinforced
ments, or maintaining his communication^
with France. The Asiatic empire had
become an impossibility, though even now'
Bonaparte would not admit it to himself.
The attack upon Egypt forced the Porte
to declare war on France ; and Bonaparte,
after having organised an Egyptian govern-
ment, and having set the example, which
found followers among his army, of pro-
fessing Mohammedanism, anticipated the
Turkish attack by himself attacking Syria
early in 1799. His successes were checked
4691
HISTORY OF THg WOfeLD
before Acre, where Djezzar Pasha held out
stubbornly, his garrison being reinforced
by Sir Sidney Smith with some British
sailors and Bonaparte's siege artillery,
which they had captured en route from
Alexandria. All the French efforts to
carry the obstinate fortress were fruitless ;
Acre made mere futility of the Syrian cam-
paign. Bonaparte retreated into Egypt,
wiiere he annihilated a Turkish column ;
but also, in the course of communications
with Sir Sidney Smith, received a packet
of newspapers bearing momentous intelli-
gence concerning events of which his
isolation had kept him in ignorance.
Even before his departure from Toulon
the progress of the congress at Rastadt
had been ominous of trouble. The rulers
of the Rhine provinces were very ill-
pleased to find that Austria and Prussia
— now ruled by Frederic William III. — had
disposed of their territories to France.
Protestant Prussia was willing to compen-
sate them by the secularisation of the
ecclesiastical states in Central Germany ;
orthodox Austria was not. A Franco-
Prussian alliance seemed a probable
outcome of the quarrel, and Thugut
4
wS iK
d
%n
" S= 'S ^BmI'
i
BONAPARTE'S COUP D'ETAT: DISPERSING THE. EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE
The executive government of France, known as the Directory, was in the hands of five men, and because of his youth
Bonaparte was unable to join it. He resolved, however, on a bold stroke ; the Directory was unpopular, and he deter-
mined to overthrow it. With tht, assistance of Si6y6s, this was accomplished on November 9th, 1799. The two
Directors who refused to dissolve were placed under griard ; a tremendous scene was witnessed in the Council of Five
Hundred when Bonaparte was refused a hearing:, but the Chamber dispersed when the soldiery advanced upon iU
From the painting by Francois Bouchet in the Louvre
4692..
INSTALLATION OF THE THREE "CONSULS' OF FRANCE
This picture is a sequel to that on the preceding page. After the dissolution of the Directory, the Council of Ancients de-
creed the appointment of a provisional executive committee of three, nominating Si6yfes, Ducos, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
From the painting by Louder at Versailles
began to meditate a renewal of the war.
Moreover, the Tsar Paul, who, in con-
trast to Catharine, was already showing
himself a strong reactionary in domestic
affairs, took umbrage at the French seizure
of the island of Malta. In Italy, the
Directory deserted Bonaparte's policy of
leniency to the papacy, to which it had
objected from, the beginning ; it encour-
aged democratic insubordination, and in
the disturbances which arose found excuse
for marching upon Rome, removing the
old Po{)e from the Eternal City, and setting
up a Republic according to precedent.
Similar disturbances were fostered in
Switzerland, with similar results ; the
existing Government was abolished and
replaced by the " Helvetic Republic " on
the approved model. These proceedings
inspired universal alarm. The Neapolitan
monarchy felt itself particularly endan-
gered The battle of the Nile greatly
strengthened Pitt, and even his energies
were now surpassed by those of the Tsar
in the effort to form a new coalition.
Nelson and his fleet from the Nile arrived
at Naples and inspired fresh confidence.
The monarchy prematurely declared war
against the Republic, and an army
marched on Rome. Temporary success
was promptly followed by reverse. The
advance of French troops frightened the
royal family into flight to Nelson's ships.
Naples was forthwith converted into the
Parthenopean Republic, and the Sardinian
and Tuscan territories were occupied by
French troops in January, 1799.
The second coalition was already formed,
and Russia was pledged to support Austria
by sending an army into Italy under
Suwarrow. In March, 1799, several
hostihties were in full swing. Jourdan,
4693
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
advancing towards Vienna, was driven
back over tbe Rhine by the Archduke
Charles. Scherer was defeated at Magnano,
and replaced by Moreau. Massena, who had
begun an advance on Vienna from Switzer-
land, was paralysed. Suwarrow appeared
in Italy, outmanoeuvred Moreau, and on
the Trebbia cut to pieces General Mac-
. donald's smaller force from the
- * ^ south, which was attempting to
OS o e gjfjg^,^ ^ junction with Moreau,
who was obliged to retreat.
Suwarrow, however, was ordered to remain
in Italy, instead of pressing on to France,
While the Austrians secured Lombardy.
Joubert appeared on the scene with a
fresh French army, but was crushed and
himself slain by the combination of
Suwarrow with the Austrians at Novi. In
Naples, the Republic was easily overturned
and the Bourbons were restored — 'to avenge
the recent revolution in very sanguinary
fashion. The whole of Italy was lost to
the French, except Genoa. In the north,
a British force was landed in Holland, and
captured the Dutch fleet in the Texel,
though York, its commander, made no
further effective progress.
This record was serious enough for
France, but beyond this the central govern-
ment itself was in very precarious condi-
tion. The Directory, as established at
Fructidor, was aware of the uncertainty of
its own tenure of power, and in 1798
aroused indignant opposition by cancelling
the election of several unfavourable depu-
ties. In the following spring they again
lost ground in the elections ; Sieyes took
the place of Rewbell in the Directory itself,
and in June that body was practically
reconstituted, as concerned its personnel,
though without any tendency to royalism.
Such was the sum of the news which
convinced Bonaparte that the time had
come for him to return to Paris at all
costs and assume decisive control. Keeping
his designs secret till all was ready, he
succeeded in making sail from
onapa e Egypt jn company with trusted
I p comrades — Marmont, Lannes,
Murat, and Berthier — leav-
ing the indignant Kleber in command
of the troops, and at the head of the
administration. He landed in France on
October 9th, to find that the month of
September had seen a material improve-
ment in the military situation. In Holland,
Brune was on the point of forcing York to
capitulate at Alkmaar — an event which
4694
occurred ten days later. In Italy, SuWar*
row had found that Austria was merely
playing for her own hand, to secure not
only Lombardy but also Sardinian terri-
tory ; and he himself was ordered to join
his colleague, Korsakoff, in order to crush
Massena in Switzerland. When he suc-
ceeded in crossing the Alps he found that
Massena had already fallen upon Korsakoff
and crushed him. He himself had the
utmost difficulty in withdrawing his force,
which alone could not cope with Massena,
to a place of safety. Having effected this,
he threw up his command. The breach
between Russia and Austria was a most
serious blow to the coalition. Bonaparte
was hailed with acclamations as the
conqueror of Egypt. He hastened to
Paris, where he found affairs ripe for the
coup d'etat which he planned. The last
constitution had proved unworkable, owing
to the practical difficulty of maintaining
harmony between the Assemblies and the
Executive ; the indefatigable Sieyes was
ready with a brand new one, beautifully
and pyramidally symmetrical, though as
yet the secret of it was locked in his own
bosom. Sieyes was evidently the man
, to ally himself with, since
Bonaparte s j^^ represented the moderates,
C "*"itat ^^° ^^^^ dissatisfied with
oap e a ^^^ existing constitution.
Open identification with either Jacobins or
royalists would not result in the necessary
dictatorship. The existing constitution
forbade Bonaparte to join the Directory
on the score of his youth. The blow was
to be struck on November 9th (Brumaire).
Sieyes could command a majority in the
Chamber of Ancients ; Bonaparte's brother,
Lucien, was president of the other Chamber.
With his quartet of comrades from Egypt,
Bonaparte could make sure of most of the
important soldiers. On the fateful day, the
two Directors who refused to dissolve were
placed under guard ; there was a tre-
mendous scene in the Council of Five
Hundred, which was Jacobin in its sym-
pathies, and refused Bonaparte a hearing.
A harangue from Lucien, however, out-
side the Chamber, roused the soldiery to
advance on the Chamber, which dispersed ;
and the Council of Ancients decreed the
appointment of a provisional Executive
Committee of three — a. decree confirmed
by a few members of the other Chamber,
who nominated as the three " consuls "
Sieyes, Ducos (an assenting member of the
Directory), and Napoleon Bonaparte.
4^95
'-Q^:^i
feW/^
"c^Mj^^-^ v^^&-r<^
^^^^^^^'^^
IN HIS EARLY DAYS BEFORE THE
CONSULATE
From the painting by Philippoteaux
IN THE -UNIFORM OF A GENERAL M
WHEN FIRST CONSUL
I'-rom tl:
AN INTERESTING BUST OF THE
SAME PERIOD
From the i>ainting by Appiani
FAVOURITE PORTRAIT AS GENERAL
AND FIRST CONSUL
From the painting by Gerard
4695
THE EMPEROR IN THE YEAR 1805
Frum a contemporary engraving
DETAIL FROM A LARGE PAINTING
h'rom the painting by Baron Gros
4698
A CURIOUS PORTRAIT OF NAPOLEON, SHOWING TWO ASPECTS OF HIS FACE
From the painting by Girodet-Troison, entitled " \
^
M!MI!tt>JMJBi«MMMMSMUMMMI<W^J—
ON BOARD THE BELLEROPHON
Fr.jin the i),untiiit; bv C. L. Eastlake R.A.
THE EMPEROR
From the painting by Horace V'ernet in the National
^a^jg^^a^^g^^
^£^
4699
4700
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
VI
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES, M.A.
FRANCE UNDER THE NEW DESPOTISM
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AS FIRST CONSUL
IT had been understood among the con-
spirators of the coup d'etat that Sieyes
Was to introduce his final masterpiece of
constitution-making. It was very soon
understood that the masterpiece was to
be remoulded according to the require-
ments of Bonaparte. Sieyes had con-
structed his scheme on the metric system.
Five milhon electors were to choose
500,000, who were to choose 50,000,
who were to choose 5,000. Municipal
officers were to be appointed from the
half-million, departmental officers from
the 50,000, government officials, the
judicature, and the legislative assemblies
from the 5,000. The legislative assemblies
were to be three — the Council of State,
to initiate legislation ; the Tribunate, to
discuss and amend ; the Corps Legislatif,
to accept or reject. Above these came the
Senate, appointed for life, co-opting its
_ _ own members, nominating the
1 lic rowers _i 1 1 1 •
- . chambers, and vetomg uncon-
F' t C I stitutional legislation. Above
the Senate were two consuls,
wielding the executive power, and con-
cerned respectively with war and peace :
they were to hold office for ten years. At
the top was a Grand Elector, nominated
for five years but removable by the
Senate ; he was to nominate the two
consuls, and be the diplomatic figurehead.
Bonaparte offered trenchant criticism.
Everybody was checked by somebody else ;
no one could do anything. The Grand
Elector became the First Consul, wielding
the whole executive power ; the other two
consuls were to be merely advisers.
The First Consul was to nominate prac-
tically all Government officials, and also
the Council of State, thus virtually ac-
quiring the power of initiating legislation ;
' and the Senate might neither depose him
nor absorb him into its own ranks. In
effect, he was to be an autocrat, with all
the powers which had once been wielded by
the Committee of PubUc Safety. The First
Fiance under
Her New
Government
Consul was, of course, to be Napoleon
Bonaparte, A practically unanimous
plebiscite confirmed the new despotism.
As far as the central authority was
concerned, self-government and the
Sovereignty of the People vanished with
the paradoxical announcement : " Citizens,
the Revolution is fixed to the principles
which commenced it. It is
finished." All power was in
the hands of the First Consul's
nominees. It remained to
apply the principle to the self-government
by elective bodies in departments and
communes, which had been overridden by
the agents of the Committee of Public
Safety. tBy a law promulgated in 1800,
the Departments were placed under the
control of a Prefect and Sub-prefects, and
the Communes under a Mayor — all ap-
pointed by the central Government at
Paris. The representative bodies became
merely consultative. The entire system
was probably the most completely and
perfectly centralised on record. All the
sovereign functions were exercised at the
will of a single man, with no check save
the power of the legislature to reject
legislation. Even criticism was articulate
only in the chamber of the Tribunate.
The healing of old wounds was the policy
of the new Government. Amnesties for
past political offences, repatriation of
Emigres who were not of the irreconcilable
type, permission to celebrate public wor-
ship for priests who accepted
onap& e ^ formula of obedience to the
Government, were measures
the Advocate
of Peace
which removed sources of
disaffection. The next step was for the
First Consul to pose as the advocate of*
peace, which would certainly be popular.
It is improbable that the overtures
made by Bonaparte were genuine. They
threw the onus of rejection upon the
obstinately aggressive foes of France.
The continuation of war, if forced upon
4701
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the French, would give them oppor-
tunities for supplying the exchequer by a
renewal of the system of organised pillage
which Bonaparte had adopted in Italy.
Austria was mistress of North Italy, and
Great Britain was on the point of possess-
ing herself of Malta ; neither of these
Powers was disposed to resign the advan-
tages won. The First Consul knew that
his proposals would be unacceptable, and
he presented them in the irregular form of
letters addressed
personally to the i
Emperor and to
King George,
which ensured ;
their rejection. ^ .
It was easy to
rouse the right-
eous resentment
of France against
Austria and the
perfidious Pitt.
The war con-
tinued. The
superior Aus-
trian forces
under Melas split
the French army
of Italy, driving
Massena e a s t -
ward into Genoa,
and the rest west-
ward into Nice.
Moreau was
placed in com-
mand of the
Army of the
Rhine , with
orders not to
proceed further
thanUlm. Bona-
parte, with some
secrecy, prepared
a third army.
Moreau a d -
vanced on April
25th, passed the Rhine, and by a series
of victories drove the Austrian com-
mander, Kray, back to Ulm. If he had
pushed forward he would undoubtedly
have forced open the road to Vienna,
and have been able to dictate terms to
Austria ; the honours would have fallen,
not to the First Consul, but to Moreau.
But his orders condemned him to inaction
till Bonaparte had secured the admiring
attention of France. The First Consul
carried his army over the Alps by the
4702
MALTA'S SURRENDER TO THE BRITISH TROOPS
This island in the Mediterranean, an important port of call, was
captured by Bonaparte in 1798 ; two years later, in September, 1800,
as shown in the above illustration, it surrendered to the British.
From the drawing by R. Caton Woodville
St. Gothard pass, and swooped upon the
plains of Lombardy before Melas sus-
pected his approach at the end of May.
The dogged tenacity of Massena in Genoa
had served its purpose, though he was
obliged to surrender on June 4th. Strategy
is not sentiment, and Genoa was allowed
to fall in order that Melas might be
the more completely crushed.
Bonaparte proceeded to envelop Melas
at Marengo, near Alessandria; the Aus-
- I trian, for his
i part, was deter-
mined to cut his
way through. He
' very nearly suc-
ceeded, but a
French column,
detached under
Desain to Novi,
lieard the firing
and returned to
the field of battle
at the critical
moment —when
.Melas imagined
that the fight
was already won.
Desain stopped
the tide : a
brilliant cavalry
charge, led by
K e 1 1 e r m a n,
changed immi-
nent defeat into
decisive victory.
Melas felt his
position to be so
hopeless that he
agreed to the
cession of all
North Italy west
of the Mincio, by
the Convention
of Alessandria.
Marengo, on
June 14th,
though won almost by an accident,
covered the victor with glory. He returned
to Paris, leaving Massena in charge in
Italy. In the fortnight following Marengo,
Moreau, by threatening the Austrian com-
munications, forced them to evacuate Ulm,
defeated them at Hochstett, drove them
back on Bohemia, and captured Munich ;
then hostilities were suspended.
Negotiations with Great Britain and
Austria made no progress ; Marengo had
not been a fatal blow to th? latter power,
FRANCE UNDER THE NEW DESPOTISM
which pledged itself not to make a separate
peace before February, in consideration of
an English subsidy. But Bonaparte now
established friendly relations with the
Tsar, who had quarrelled completely with
Austria, and was possessed with an
infatuation for the First
Consul as the destroyer of
the Jacobin Republic ; and
Bonaparte was quite ready
to purchase his alliance by
promising the restoration of
.Piedmont to Sardinia, and of
Malta to the Knights of St.
John. From Spain, also, the
cession of Louisiana, the
colony on the Mississippi,
was obtained in return for a
promise that Tuscany should
be conferred as a kingdom
on the Duke of Parma. The
failure of the Austrian nego-
tiations led to a renewal of
hostilities and Moreau's crush-
ing victory at Hohenlinden on December
3rd, which forced Austria in effect to sue
for an armistice, and to adopt a new
tone in the negotiations at Luneville.
In February, 1801, the Peace of Lune-
ville was signed ; it was on the basis of the
earlier Treaty of Campo Formio. The
GENERAL MOREAU
A g:eneral in the French army, be
won manjr notable victories over
the Austrians, culminating^ in the
decisive battle of Hohenlinden.
Napoleon exiled him to America.
Adige was again the frontier in North
Italy; Tuscany was handed over to
Parma as promised. The Tsar saved the
kingdom of Naples, which promised to
close its ports to Great Britain, which
power had excited Paul's indignation by
refusing to give up Malta.
Once again the United
Kingdom — ^the Irish Act of
Union had just been passed —
stood alone, at the moment
when Pitt was retiring from
office on account of the
king's obstinate refusal to
concede the Catholic Emanci-
pation to which the Minister
was pledged.
This isolation was the more
serious because an anti -
British combination of the
maritime Powers was threat-
ening. Jervis, Duncan, and
Nelson had dealt with the
fleets of Spain, Holland and
France, so that the navies actually at the
service of France could not cope with
England. But her claims as to the treat-
ment of neutral vessels had been felt as
vexatious for a long time, and only twenty
years before had caused, or been made the
pretext for, the first league between th'
BRITAIN'S VICTORY AT THE SANGUINARY NAVAL BATTLE OFF COPENHAGEN
The institution of Napoleon's commercial conspiracy against Great Britain was met by prompt action on the part of
the latter, which determined to meet the Armed Neutrality. Early in 1801 a British fleet was dispatched to the Baltic,
and on April 2nd struck at the Danish fleet, which lay at anchor before Copenhagen, protected by the shoals. Nelson
was second in command under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, and disregarded the signals ordering his withdrawal
From the painting by Serres
4703
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
northern maritime powers, which took the
name of " the Armed Neutrality." The
main result of that league had then been
a declaration of war between Holland and
Great Britain, to the detriment of Holland.
Its unsuccessful aim had been to impose
a change of practice on the British. In
i8oo, as in 1780, the league was revived
f ^^ ^^^ instigation of Russia,
"th^A** a which was joined by Sweden,
M 1 i-^^" Denmark, and, under pressure,
Neutrality v •r. • <t-v • t
by Prussia. The occasion of
the Russian activity in the matter was
the Tsar Paul's resentment at the British
capture of Malta — in September, 1800 —
which Bonaparte had promised to place
under his protection. The renewal of the
league at the present crisis was a very
manifest threat.
The British practice had not, in fact,
materially differed from that of any other
naval power which had been strong enough
to exact similar claims ; but the rules of
international law were even less definitely
laid down for general acceptance than at
the present day, and there was no common
agreement as to their interpretation in
the courts of different countries. It was
common ground that neutral vessels
might not enter a blockaded port, and that
contraband of war was liable to capture on
neutral vessels ; but different views were
put forward as to what constitutes a
blockade, and what goods are covered by
the term " contraband." It had been the
standing practice to seize not only contra-
band, but also enemy's goods in general,
when carried in neutral vessels.
The Armed Neutrality claimed that
vessels under convoy of a neutral warship
should be exempt from search ; that goods
carried on neutral vessels should not be
treated as enemy's goods ; that the British
definition of contraband included goods
which ought not to be reckoned as contra-
band ; and that only an effective blockade,
not merely a paper one, should be recog-
_ ., , , nised. For a sea-power engaged
Britain s n.L xu i j
... . in a conflict with a land
Victory over , , , •
the Dane power, these claims were
manifestly disadvantageous.
The claims were regarded in England
merely as a pretext for forming a hostile
naval combination in the interests of
France, warranting hostilities. A British
fleet sailed for the Baltic, and on April 2nd
struck at the Danish fleet, which lay at
anchor before Copenhagen, protected
by the shoals. Nelson, who was second in
4704
command, carried the major part of his
fleet through the shoals ; and after a furious
engagement, in which he was subjected to
the hottest fire he had ever experienced,
but had disregarded the signals ordering
his withdrawal, he forced on the Danes
an armistice for three months, having
silenced the enemy's ships.
His intention was to deal with the
Swedes and Russians in detail after the
same fashion. But it was unnecessary. The
peculiarities and the violence of the Tsar
Paul had produced a conspiracy for his
deposition, which meant his assassination;
though this had not been realised by his
young successor, Alexander, who was privy
to the plot. Ten days before the Battle of
the Baltic he had been murdered, though
the fact Was not yet publicly known. The
new Tsar was a complete contrast to his
father, whose policy he was prompt to
reverse. In three months the Armed
Neutrality was dissolved. Great Britain
made some concessions, modifying the list
of contraband, acceding to the principle
of effective blockades, and abolishing the
right of search by privateers, though not
The French ^^ ^^^ ^^'^^'^ ^^'P^' "^^^^
jj . neutral vessels were under
f '"^ E convoy of a neutral warship.
rom gyp ^^^ TssiT withdrew his claim
in respect of Malta. Further successes
attended the British arms. In Egypt,
Kleber, the lieutenant whom Bonaparte
had left, proved eminently successful;
but his assassination placed the incompe-
tent Menon in command. At the end of
March a British force under Sir Ralph
Abercrombie landed at Aboukir Bay, and
completely routed the French, driving them
into Alexandria. Though Abercrombie
himself was killed, Cairo surrendered in
June, and Alexandria in August. The
French occupation was at an end.
With Malta and Egypt secured, and the
Armed Neutrality dissipated, Great Britain
was no longer averse from peace ; prelimin-
aries were signed in October, and the
definitive Treaty of Amiens in March, 1802.
For the first time in ten years France was
at last at peace. The Aldington Ministry
undertook to restore Egypt to Turkey,
Malta to the Knights of St. John, and
other conquests, with the exception < of
Ceylon and Trinidad. Even the Cape was
temporarily restored to the Dutch. On
the other hand, France was to retire from
the Papal states and from Naples, and
the Ionian Islands were to form an
FRANCE UNDER THE NEW DESPOTISM
independent Republican state. On all
hands peace was welcomed, though its
terms gave no security against an early
renewal of the war ; it was welcomed
even though before it was concluded
Bonaparte gave ominous premonitions of
continued aggression by imposing upon
the Batavian Republic modifications of
its constitution, which brought it still
more decisively under French control,
ignoring the express stipulation for its
independence in the Treaty of Luneville.
Similar treatment was applied to the
Ligurian Republic, as Genoa had now for
some time been named ; while the Cis-
alpine became the Italian Republic, with
Bonaparte for President. Piedmont, too,
was presently annexed, instead of being
restored to Sardinia, in accordance with
the promise to the Tsar. But in truth
Britain was so invulnerable at
sea, and France so invulner-
able on land, that neither
seemed able to inflict further
serious damage on the other,
unless through her commerce.
Between Hohenlinden and
Amiens, the First Consul had
been strengthening his own
position in France. In De-
cember, 1800, an attempt on
his life, which was soon proved
to be the work of some
Brittany Chouans, was made
attendance at Mass in Notre Dame at
Easter, 1802. The First Consul, though
personally absolutely indifferent to creeds
and forms, was thoroughly awake to the
uses of a concrete religion as a preservative
of order, and the inadequacy of abstrac-
tions to supply its place. He was ready
to call himself a Mohammedan in Egypt,
but in France he re-established the Roman
„ . Catholicism which the Revo-
n . CI- t. lution had deposed. Ihe
Re-establishes 1 • , j ^ i u • 1
«... bishops and archbishops
** ** were appointed or reap-
pointed by the First Consul, with the
confirmation of the Pope. The non-juring
clergy were to be restored, and the acting
clergy, regarded as renegades by the
orthodox, were to be received canonically
into ecclesiastical orders and subjected to
normal ecclesiastical discipline. On the
other hand, the Church lands
confiscated during the Revolu-
tion were not to be restored.
The concordat established the
Catholic Cnurch, but only as
subordinate to the State ;
instead of being antagonistic
to the Government, the
clerical organisation became
its powerful supporter.
Another law of the same
date gave security to all but
a few of the emigres and
PAUL I. OF RUSSIA " suspects " who wished to
an excuse for the deportation The second son of Peter III., he return to France. Thei. bulk
of several Jacobins who had Sl'r1nMnmt'AconS?rfor of them, though no doubt
no connection with it. He his deposition ended in his assas- they remained theoretical sup-
encroached upon the powers ''"^"°" ^"^ *"" °^'^" '° '*"'• porters of a Bourbon restora-
of the Corps Legislatif and the Tribunate.
The collection of taxes was transferred from
the innumerable local bodies to a single
central one. The fundamental fact became
continuously more obvious, that the French
people had lost all desire of practical par-
ticipation in the Xjovernment, and cared
only to have secured to them the material
_,. _. . advantages which had accrued
The Church r ,, " t^ 1 j.- t-
. . from the Revolution. Even
Q . the appointment of arbitrary
courts of justice at the First
Consul's disposal met with no opposi-
tion outside the Tribunate.
Another step was to seek to establish
favourable relations between the Govern-
ment and the Church, whose opposition
'had been a constant source of disaffection
in the past history of the Republic. The
new policy took shape in the concordat
with the papacy, ratified by an official
299
tion, were thus converted into practical
supporters of the de facto Government.
It remained to secure the position of the
First Consul himself, whose appointment,
though for ten years, instead of the five
originally proposed by Sieyes, was still
subject to the time limit, whence new
revolutionary intrigues and conspiracies
might not unreasonably be anticipated.
A proposal was made in the Senate for an
extension of ten years more, which was
amended into appointment for life, to'
be ratified by a plebiscite. More than
3,500,000 votes against less than 10,000
expressed the practically .unanimous ap-
proval of the French people. The other
two consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, were
then confirmed in office for life ; the First
Consul was authorised to appoint his own
successor, and he received further powers
of controlling the personnel of the Senate
4705
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
and the Legislature. From this time, the
First Consul adopted the monarchical
custom of using his first name instead of
his surname, and we may speak no longer
of Bonaparte, but of Napoleon.
An additional buttress of the new
Imperialism was the institution of the
Legion of Honour, which created a new
—^ . . aristocracy and new ranks in
e egion gQ(,jg|.y yvhose interest neces-
oF Honour 11 • j. ■ ■ ^i
I ft t d ^^^''y ^^y ^^ mamtammg the
regime under which they had
come into being. The new honours were
not hereditary ; in theory they were
bestowed in reward for public services.
But they were a very direct negation of
the abstract doctrine of universal equality.
Like his great prototype, Julius Csesar,
Napoleon was not only the mightiest of
the masters in the science and art of war,
and variegated legal system derived from
diverse local customs and procedures,
and to revise these into a universal code
based on those principles of equality
which the Revolution recognised. The
completion of this work was now entrusted
to a committee of four jurists, with the
occasional intervention of the First Consul
himself. The result of their labours was
the great civil code issued in 1804, which,
with certain subsequent modifications,
received in 1807 the name of the Code
Napoleon. The extensive application of
this code or of parts of it, not only to the
realms which at one time or another were
made subject to or dependent on the
French Empire, but also in independent
states such as Prussia and Spain, has
profoundly modified the law throughout
Western Europe. Similarly the work of
PREPARING FOR THE IWVAblON OF ENGLAND: NAPOLEON'S CAMP AT BOULOGNE
It was long the ambition of Napoleon to conquer Great Britain. In this illustration his camp at Boulogne is shown,
this being the point from which he intended to cross the Channel. There a huge flotilla was prepared for the
purpose of embarking an army of 120,000 men for the shores of England when the opportunity should present itsel£
and the most triumphant organiser of an
imperial system out of revolutionary
elements ; he displayed also an admini-
strative genius in social reorganisation,
and that acute perception of the moral and
material benefits of a wisely splendid
expenditure on public works which Pericles
had claimed ages before as specially
characteristic of the Athenian people.
Roads and canals, bridges and harbours,
public buildings and public institutions,
the splendours of the Louvre, bear lasting
witness to the vast range of his activities.
In his most monumental work, how-
ever, in the spheres of law and of educa-
tion, Napoleon built upon foundations
prepared by the idealists of the Revolu-
tionary era. Years before, a committee
of the Convention had been appointed
to introduce uniformity in the complex
47o5
Condorcet under the Convention supplied
the basis for Napoleon's scheme of universal
education. The elementary, secondary, and
advanced schools of Condorcet, however,
had lacked the necessary fostering care.
While leaving the elementary section
mainly to the control of local authorities,
Napoleon vigorously developed the second-
ary schools, especially with
a view to their use as
seminaries of militarism.
Technical schools also were
established, and in 1806 the educational
edifice was crowned by the seventeen
academies of the University of France. It
was a matter of course, under Napoleon,
that the whole educational system should
be subject to the control of the head of the
state, and should be conducted in accord-
ance with his ideas on the hues which
Nspoleon's
Encouragement
of Education
4707
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
would make it an instrument for strength-
ening the whole system of government.
While this reorganisation Was in progress
in France, another process of reconstruc-
tion was going on at the diet of Regens-
burg, which was working out that
problem of the German principalities
which had been left for settlement after
the Peace of Luneville. Ostensibly the
question was one of compensating the
princes dispossessed by the French ac-
quisitions of territory on the left bank of
the Rhine. Actually it was one of re-
distributing German provinces in the
manner most advantageous to French
interests. France, inviting the media-
torial aid of Russia, conducted private
negotiations with a num-
ber of the sovereigns
concerned, adapted its
general scheme to suit
the personal predilections
of Alexander, which hap-
pened to chime in with
French interests, and was
able to present to the diet
proposals the acceptance
of which was already a
foregone conclusion.
The prevention of any-
thing in the nature of
German 'consolidation or
the effective extension of
Hapsburg control may be
regarded as the primary
end of French policy. To
strengthen Prussia on the
TALLEYRAND
and consequently weakened Austria, which
only obtained some Church property in
the Tyrol, while her prospects of acqui-
sitions in Bavaria vanished. Prussian
gains were somewhat more substantial.
The princes of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg
were kinsmen of the Tsar, and French
diplomacy represented the favour shown
to those states as compliments to Alex-
ander. Further, the secularisations en-
abled the states which profited thereby
to improve their own individual organisa-
tions, and encouraged them to assert their
own individuality in preference to any
ideas of a German nationality, in which
they would be lost, and in preference
more particularly to subordination to the
Imperial House. It was
not difificult for the on-
looker to realise that in
fact the process going on
was that of preparing
them to become French
dependencies.
Napoleon appears at
this time to have been
considering schemes of
expansion in the Western
Hemisphere. That was
presumably his primary
intention in obtaining
Louisiana from Spain,
and in the expedition of
1802 to establish a French
government in San Do-
mingo, where the black
population had set up a
Baltic, as a counterpoise As Foreign Minister under the First Consul free republic Undcr the
to Austria, without allow- ^^raSlfe!b'ein|foTawtre1ei^^^^^^^^^ leader Toussaint
ing her influence over country. Later, lie became the leader of the L'Ouvcrture, of which an
West Germany to be ^""-Napoleonic faction, and died in 1838. ^ccouut appears in an-
extended, was a means thereto ; while the
main business was to make West Germany
really dependent on France. The com-
pensations for dispossessed sovereigns
could be obtained only by abolishing other
sovereignties. The scheme proposed the
secularisation of all the ecclesiastical states,
their absorption in lay principalities.
A corresponding fate was to befall
nearly all the free cities. Thus, the
secular princes of South and West Germany
would extend or consolidate their domin-
ions. Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden and
Hesse-Cassel in particular profited by
the secularisation, and were raised to the
position of imperial electorates. The
suppression of the ecclesiastical states
made a Protestant majority in the Diet,
4708
anti-Napoleonic faction, and died in 1838.
other volume. Toussaint was captured,
but no serious effort was made to retain
dominion. Similar vague dreams instigated
a peaceful expedition to Australia, where
the French ships were anticipated by the
British. Napoleon soon dropped such
schemes, and sold Louisiana to the United
States, having more palpable objects to
grasp at nearer home. The old dream of
an Asiatic empire had been dissipated
in Egypt, whereas the British hold on
India was tightening under the admin-
istration of the Marquess Wellesley, after-
wards Lord Mornington, who had just
overthrown the Mohammedan dynasty of
Mysore, and it was soon to be still more
decisively confirmed by the military skill
of Wellesley's younger brother Arthur.
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k
NAPOLEON CROWNING HIMSELF EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
In the troublous times that witnessed the struggle to reassert the power of the Bourbons an attempt was made on
the First Consul's life. The principal participators in it were punished with death, and all supporters of the new
regime felt that its perpetuity could be secured and the Bourbon decisively excluded only by the establishment of a
dynasty. Accordingly, the First Consul, on May 18th, 1804, was proclaimed Napoleon I., Emperor of the French.
From the painting by J. L. David in the Louvre
While. the First Consul was reorganising
France, and his Foreign Minister, Talley-
rand, was manipulating the
affairs of Germany, the hollow-
ness of the Peace of Amiens
was becoming daily more
apparent. The British were
carrying out their evacua-
tions of captured territory,
but without undue haste ; and
they found ample excuse for
prolonging the delay with
regard to Malta in the action
of France. She had not only
dealt in high-handed, fashion
with the Batavian and Italian
republics, but she continued
to keep troops in their terri- ^he duc d'enghien
tones ; and the formal annexa- when the Royalist movement in
ation of Piedmont took place t^e^ our^EfgWenl^r^ourbon '^ot. In March there was a
in September, i8o2. Formal prince, was kidnapped and shot " scene " in Paris between
diplomatic protests were '''*''°"' ^'*" ^'''^ condemned, j^^apoleon and the British
entered without effect, and in March, 1803, ambassador. In April what was in effect
Napoleon found excuse in the domestic a British ultimatum was presented, de-
discussions of the Swiss for intervening manding the withdrawal of French troops
as mediator and reorganising the Helvetic
Republic for the use of France.
In January was published
the report of Colonel Sebas-
tiani's " commercial mission,"
which concerned itself with
such matters of trade as the
annexation of the Ionian
Islands and the reconquest of
Egypt. The protests of the
British Foreign Office were
answered by protests against
the continued occupation of
Malta, angry complaints,
which were justifiable enough,
of scurrilous articles published
in England by the royalist in-
transigeants, and demands for
their extradition, which were
4709
HISTORY OF THE WORLO
Designs
on Britain
from the Batavian and Helvetic republics,
compensation to Sardinia for the loss of
Piedmont, and the retention of Malta by
England for ten years. France refused
the terms, and on May 17th diplomatic
relations were broken ofl. Napoleon at
once ordered the seizure of all British
property and the arrest of all British
, subjects in France ; the latter
n^J^t IT ' remained in captivity till 18 14.
It is further to be remarked
that during- the peace Napo-
leon had continued to maintain in
the ports of France and the dependent
republics a practical boycott of British
goods and British commerce.
The state of open war was renewed,
although, as at the time when the Peace
of Amiens was signed, it was difficult for
either of the mighty belligerents to strike
the other except through commerce.
But France could and did impose upon
Britain a tremendous burden by a per-
petual menace of invasion. A huge flotilla
was at once prepared at Boulogne, for
the purpose of embarking an army of
120,000 men for the shores of England
when the opportunity should present it-
self. Great Britain prepared to meet the
peril, and vast numbers of volunteers were
enrolled, drilled, and trained to answer the
call to arms'and face the dreaded invader.
And the British Fleet held the seas, while
the insuperable difficulties of effecting
the embarkation and transport with
sufficient swiftness to evade the fleet
made themselves apparent to Napoleon.
The two Powers were like wrestlers,
waiting to close, each watching for the
instant's relaxation or exposure on the
part of the other which should give the
chance of springing in for a fatal grip.
Neither could close with effect. England
renewed the process of capturing French
colonial possessions. France could not
strike at England, but she occupied the
English king's German electorate of Han-
over in spite of its neutrality,
counting on the immobility of
Prussia. Nevertheless, the act
stirred a fresh uneasiness in
Austria and Russia. On the other hand.
Great Britain, having learned that France
was in receipt of a Spanish subsidy,
brought Spain into active hostility by
seizing her treasure-ships. For Spain had
fallen upon evil days under the depraved
rule of the infamous and incompetent
Godoy, the worst type of court favourite
4710
The Evil
Days
of Spain
under a degenerate monarchy. But the
shock which brought about the Third
Coalition was administered by Napoleon
himself. With the renewal of the war
with Great Britain, the Royalists were
inspired with fresh hopes. George Cadou-
dal, the moving spirit of the Breton insur-
gents, and Pichegru, the degraded general,
concocted a conspiracy in conjunction with
the Comte d'Artois. The plot was known
and watched secretly. The conspirators
were allowed to visit Paris in February,
1804, and Pichegru interviewed his old
friend and comrade Moreau, the one
soldier whose rivalry Napoleon feared.
Moreau refused to join or to betray them.
Then the Government struck ; Moreiu,
Pichegru, Cadoudal, and others were
arrested. But this was not enough.
Charles of Artois was out of reach, but there
was a Bourbon prince residing at Baden,
the Due d'Enghien, the representative of
the House of Conde. The duke was kid-
napped and carried into French territory
at Vincennes for " trial " by a military
commission ; but his grave awaited him,
already dug, literally as well as metaphori-
cally. The duke pleaded to be
Napoleon brought before the First Consul
Emperor of , • °,r .1 • ■
. P . himself ; the commissioners
seconded the request. But
Savary, Napoleon's agent, with Murat,
knew the First Consul's will, and the duke
was shot without having been even con-
demned. Europe stood aghast at the crime.
In France, the crime does not appear to
have produced any corresponding shudder.
It presented itself as little more than a
deed which quite decisively barred any
possible reconciliation between the First
Consul and the Bourbons, the new system
and the old ; *the murdered prince was re-
garded as an accomplice in the plot against
Napoleon's life. Pichegru died in prison,
probably by his own hand. Cadoudal and
others were executed. Moreau could be
condemned only to two years' imprison-
ment, for which Napoleon substituted
perpetual exile, and the victor of Hohen-
linden was sent to America.
But the First Consul's life had been
threatened ; all supporters of the new
regime felt that its perpetuity could be
secured and the Bourbons decisively
excluded only by the establishment of a
dynasty. By senatorial decree, justified
by sundry petitions and addresses, the
First Consul was proclaimed Napoleon I.,
Emperor of the French, on May i8th 1804.
4711
4713
4714
THE RETURN OF THE FRENCH FROM SYRIA IN 1 T.'O
Bonaparte on foot while a wounded officer has the use of his horse
Hrijm the pa nn:iK' i'v Mciratc \'enict
4715
47^7
WOUNDED IN THE FOOT AT THE BATTLE OF REGENSBURG IN 1809
From the painting by Gautlierot
DEFEATING THE RUSSIANS AT THE BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND IN 1807 [
From ihe painting by Horace V'ernet
4719
4720
30O
4721
'ON THE GREAT ROAD"-THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW
From the painting by Verestchiii,'in by permission of the Berlin Pliotograpluc Co.
"KS14. AN EPISODE IN THE CAMPAIGN
From the painting by Meissonier
4723
4724
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
VII
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES, M.A.
NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR of the FRENCH
HIS DOMINATION OF EUROPE AND HIS
FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO CRIPPLE BRITAIN
TTHE month which saw the nominally
■•■ republican constitution of France
converted into an avowed hereditary auto-
cracy under a Corsican dynasty saw also
the return to active control of affairs in
England of Napoleon's most determined
antagonist, William Pitt. The murder
of the Due d'Enghien had already aroused
the indignation of Alexander I., whose
Court had been ordered into mourning.
From this time both Great Britain and
Russia were actively engaged in the en-
deavour to construct a new coalition.
The most enthusiastic advocate of
energetic measures was also the least im-
portant— Gustavus IV., of Sweden, who
had inherited his father's passion for sup-
porting the legitimate Bourbon monarchy
— whereas Great Britain was not in favour
of a forcible Bourbon restoration, and
Russia agreed with Great. Britain. The
Tsar was an idealist, whose
ideals were apt to drop into
a secondary position when the
aggrandisement of Russia was
he was a zealous adherent of
the principles of 1789 which the " Consu-
late for life " had virtually wiped out of
the French Constitution. He had designs
of reviving the Polish kingdom as a
constitutional monarchy \Vith Alexander I.
as its constitutionalking. Neither London
lior Vienna cared about the principles of
1789, and Vienna did not want a revived
Polish kingdom. Hints of an Austro-
Russian partition of Turkish territory
were equally unattractive in London,
where also the Tsar's suggestions for con-
cessions on the Armed Neutrality lines,
and for the restoration of Malta to the
Knights of St. John, were impossible of
acceptance. Prussia was not to be drawn
out of her own persistent neutrality ; she
suspected the existence of the Polish scheme,
and while Napoleon's occupation of Han-
over had alarmed her, the French Emperor
^dealism
of the Tsar,
of Russia
in question
Britain
Mistress of
the Seas
was willing to cajole her with promises that
Hanover would probably be transferred to
her. Hence nearly a twelvemonth passed
before the Powers could come to terms.
In April, 1805, the British and Russian
Governments came to an agreement.
Napoleon was to be required to withdraw
his forces from Holland,
Hanover, Switzerland, and
Italy, ■ and to restore Pied-
mont to Sardinia. At the
end of the war a European Congress was
to settle disputed points and establish a
European system. The accession of Sweden
and Austria soon followed, the latter being
overcome by the fear that Napoleon meant
to appropriate the whole of Italy ; and
war actually begun in September, 1805.
Throughout this period, of course. Great
Britain had been at opeti war, ruling the
seas while the menace of the Boulogne
flotilla still threatened her shores.
Napoleon's proceedings in the mean-
while leave little room for doubt as to his
intentions. The Holy Roman Empire
had become the shadow of a great name ;
Napoleon meant to incarnate the reality
in his own French Empire, of which
France was to be merely the , foundation.
The recognition of his title by .Prussia
and Austria gave him the necessary status,
while Francis weakened his own position
by adopting the title of " Hereditary
Emperor of Austria." Napoleon's theory
that he was reviving the empire of Charle-
-. magne was typified in his coro-
apo eon j^a.tion ceremony ; the Pope was
Crowns , , •. 1 . xt 1
„. ,, to perform it, but Napoleon
Himself j-j^ , ii- J. ^
did not permit him to place
the crown on his head ; he did that with his
own hands. He reorganised the Batavian
Republic under an almost autocratic
" Grand Pensionary." The Italian Re-
public turned itself into a monarchy, and
invited Napoleon to be its king — .an
invitation which he accepted, assuming
4725
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the old crown of Lombardy with his
own hands. The Ligurian Repubhc was
annexed to France, Parma to the new
kingdom of Italy, in which the
recently issued Civil Code of
France was established. Re-
turning to Paris, Napoleon left
his stepson, Eugene Beau-
harnais, as Viceroy in Italy.
It was these proceedings, at
the beginning of 1805, that
turned the scale with Austria,
and hurried her into the
third coalition.
In effect, the new coalition
consisted of Great Britain,
Russia, Sweden, and Austria.
Prussia stood aside ; of
Western Germany, the
southern half, Bavaria,
concentrated at Boulogne, for the English
invasion. The Austrians began operations
by invading Bavaria in September, ex-
pecting to be left leisure to
occupy it while the Russian
armies were advancing from
the rear, and the Archduke
Charles was deahng with
North Italy.
But the Boulogne army was
not destined for the invasion
of England ; that point was
already settled. For an in-
vasion the temporary com-
mand of the Channel was an
absolute necessity. With that
end in view. Napoleon, at the
close of 1804, made with
ALEXANDER I. OF RUSSIA Spain a treaty which placed a
In 1801 he succeeded his father, and fleet at his disposal ; but
Wurtemberg and Baden, were a°gaiLT'NSon"^'*RuVsu"was while an English squadron
on the French side while a much at war during: his reign, was keeping the Brest fleet
considerable French force which ended with his Jeathimso.s. ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^
under Bernadotte was in occupation of watching Toulon, nothing could be done.
Hanover. Napoleon's Grand Army was Napoleon displayed an intention of setting
EMPEROR AND CHILDREN: NAPOLEON WITH THE FAMILY OF GENERAL MURAT
This pretty picture showing the great Emperor of the French surrounded by the children of his distinguished general,
Murat, offers a striking contrast to some of the other scenes reproduced in these pages. Napoleon is enjc ying a
rare interval from the stress of the battlefield, the picture presenting aa interesting phase of his character.
From the painting by OucU
4726
THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON WITH THE OFFICERS OF HIS STAFF
From the painting by Meissonier
about the recovery of the West Indies for
France and Spain. In March, 1805,
Villeneuve at Toulon got his
chance of shpping out of port
while Nelson was driven off
guard by stress of weather.
Villeneuve sailed for the West
Indies ; Nelson was soon in
pursuit. But the West Indies
were not the French admiral's
objective ; the intention was
to evade Nelson, double back,
drive the English blockading
squadron from Brest, join the
Brest fleet, and so secure com-
mand of the Channel before
Nelson got back, and hold it
while the army of invasion
was transported. Up to a
certain point the plan suc-
ceeded. Villeneuve evaded ...... ^^...^ ^ „„.
Nelson and made for European created Prince of Venice in 1807
waters. But Nelson was in time to despatch
a swift cruiser with a warning. Before Ville-
EUGENE de BEAUHARNAIS
The sonof Josepiiine, who married
Napoleon in 1796, he exhibited
great military talent, and rapidly
rose to a high position. He was
neuve arrived, Admiral Calder was waiting
for him with a squadron, smaller, but
sufficient for its purpose.
Calder and Villeneuve met ofl
Finisterre ; the engagement
decided Villeneuve to join
forces with the Spanish at
Cadiz in August, instead of
raising the blockade' of Brest
at once and at all costs.
Nelson's return shattered the
whole design.
Napoleon afterwards as-
serted that the Boulogne
army had always been in-
tended not for England, but
for Austria ; in other words,
that he did not consider an
invasion really practicable
until the command of the
Channel should be more than
temporary. If so, the inten-
tion of Villeneuve's manoeuvre was only
to force a small portion of the British fleet
4727
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Villeneuve Bernadotte
COMMANDERS OF THE FRENCH FORCES
A commander in the French navy, Villeneuve took part in various
battles against the British fleet ; Nelson crushed him at Trafalgar,
and thus ended Napoleon's scheme for the invasion of England. The
son of a lawyer, Bernadotte became a marshal of the French army
in 1804. In 1818 he ascended the throne of Sweden as Charles XIV.
into an engagement with superior forces,
crush it, and so reduce the present pre-
ponderance of the British naval power. If
so, again, Villeneuve's retirement was
justified, since the engagement with Calder
showed that it was more than doubtful
whether the
scales would be
materially re-
dressed by
carrying out the
programme.
However that
may be. Napo-
leon was ex-
tremely angry
with Villeneuve,
but he used his
Boulogne army
with decisive
effect. Long
before the Rus-
sians could
arrive, it was
racing to Bava-
ria, whither
Berna do 1 1 e ,
ignoring the neutrality of intervening
territory, was on the march to join it.
Before the Austrian commander, Mack,
had realised the situation, he found himself
cut off from retreat, and was compelled
to surrender, with the bulk of his forces, at
Ulm on October
20th. The way
to Vienna lay
open to Napo-
leon. The capitu-
lation was virtu-
ally decisive of
the war on the
Continent.
An engagement
still more decisive
of the war with
Great Britain
took place on the
following day.
Nelson had
returned to
England, and
after a brief in-
interval resumed
the naval command. Villeneuve, stung by
the Emperor's taunts, put out from Cadiz
with 33 ships of the line, French and
Spanish. Nelson, with 27 ships of the
line, found him in the Bay of Trafalgar.
Descending in double column on the
4728
BROTHERS OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON
Louis Bonaparte, whose portrait is first given, was the third brother
of the Emperor Napoleon. Appointed King of Holland in 1806, he
resigned four years later. 1 he eldest brother of Napoleon, Joseph
Bonaparte also wore a crown, being placed on the throne of Naples in
1806. Two years later he became King of Spain, but resigned inl813.
French centre, he broke it at two points,
and the Franco-Spanish fleet was de-
stroyed. Nelson fell in the hour of victory ;
but the spectre of a French invasion had
been finally laid, the last semblance of
serious resistance to the British sea-power
had vanished.
That naval
dominion was to
cost Napoleon
dear ; but Tra-
falgar was no
present check on
his Continental
career. When
Mack capitulated
at Ulm, the Arch-
duke Charles,
hastening back
from Italy, found
it vain to inter-
pose between
the French and
Vienna, and he
fell back to
Hungary, while
the Russian
advance guard retreated on the main body
in Moravia. On November 13th the French
were in occupation of Vienna. This was
the moment when Prussia might have
intervened with great effect. Frederic
William had been roused to indignation
by Bernadotte's
march across his
territory, pre-
cisely when
Prussia was
refusing the
Russians a pas-
sage ; and he
now went so far
as to sign an
alliance with
Austria and
Russia at Pots-
dam, on Novem-
ber 3rd. But the
terms proposed
to Great Britain
were palpably
outrageous, and
their repudiation
gave Prussia an excuse for negotiating.
While the negotiations went on the mo-
ment passed during which the Prussian
army might have struck. Napoleon enticed
the Russians into an engagement at
Austerlitz on December znd, and won over
NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
them a victory, perhaps the most brilliant
of all his brilliant achievements. Had
Prussia joined the coalition at the outset,
Ulm would have been impossible. Had
she followed up the Potsdam agreement
by vigorous action, Austerlitz would have
been impossible, and the French army
might have been overwhelmed in spite of
Ulm. Had Austria maintained a strict
defensive till the Russian forces could co-
operate, she would not have had her main
army put out of action. Now, Alexander,
shocked by Austerlitz, disgusted with
Prussia, and annoyed with Austria, con-
Treaty of Schonbrunn, Prussia gave
up Neufchatel, Cleves, and Anspach.
For these losses, the Power which was
negotiating with Great Britain for a
subsidy was to be given possession of
Hanover, on condition of formally allying
herself to France. By the Treaty of
Presburg, Austria ceded to Napoleon's
kingdom of Italy all her own Italian
possessions. Napoleon's obsequious allies,
Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden, were
endowed with her outlying territories,
though the Tyrol was presently to re-
pudiate the Bavarian sovereignty. The
THE FRENCH AT VIENNA: NAPOLEON RECEIVING THE KEYS OF THE CITY
eluded a truce and withdrew. Francis,
whose troops shared the defeat of Auster-
litz with the Russians, obtained an armis-
tice. The coalition was virtually at an
end. The Prussian Minister, Haugwitz,
was prompt to accept, at Schonbrunn, a
treaty unexpectedly profitable super-
ficially, but extremely dishonourable,
which Frederic William did not venture to
repudiate. Austria had practically no
option in acceding to the terms dic-
tated to her at Presburg on December
26th. In England the news of Auster-
litz proved mortal to William Pitt,
who died in January, 1809. By the
three were severed from the old Empire,
and the two first became independent
kingdoms. The penalising process did
not stop here. The Bourbon dynasty was
summarily ejected from Naples for having
attached itself to the coalition, and
Napoleon's brother Joseph was proclaimed
King. o.f the Two Sicilies, though the
British .fleet effectively secured the island
against the entry of French troops. French
forces occupied the Papal states. Hol-
land and Belgium were then united under
another brother, Louis. More than a dozen
duchies and principalities were carved
out of the ceded territories for Napoleon's
4729
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
marshals. Bavaria and Wiirtemberg pro-
vided princesses as brides for Jerome
Bonaparte and Eugene Beauharnais.
Another mark of the triumph of the
new empire over the old was the formation
of the German Confederation of the
Rhine, a combination of a dozen of the
Western states of the old empire, which
were severed from it and recognised the
much more effective suzerainty of the
new — Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, and Baden at
their head, with Dalberg, Archbishop of
Mainz, as the prince-primate of the Con-
federation. For foreign policy and for
military services they were at the beck and
call of Napoleon. They got their profit
by the mediatising of the minor baronies
within their borders — that is, the several
states absorbed the hitherto independent
estates of the remaining tenants-in-chief
of the old empire. Francis II. did little
more than recognise an accomplished fact
when he dropped the Holy Roman title,
and called himself only the Emperor
Francis I. of Austria. On August 6th, 1806,
the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist.
Meanwhile, Great Britain and Prussia
had to be dealt with. Pitt's death brought
into power his great rival, Charles James
Fox, in the Grenville Ministry, known as ' 'the
Ministry of all the Talents," since it was
constructed without consideration of party.
Fox had always been disposed to take the
most generous view of the good intentions
and good faith of the French Government.
In spite of the completeness of Great
Britain's maritime triumph and of the
relative progress of her commerce, the
war entailed a heavy strain, which was felt
severely by the industrial population, and
the conditions were favourable for seeking
an honourable peace. Napoleon negotiated
on the basis of the restoration of Hanover
and the retention of Malta and
the Cape of Good Hope, which
had been given up at the Peace
of Amiens, but reoccupied soon
after the renewal of the war. Fox himself,
however, was not long in realising that
Napoleon had no intention of relaxing his
hostility ; and his death, in September,
removed the one powerful personality that
made for amicable relations.
But the negotiations with Great Britain
opened the eyes of Prussia, who was to
reap the due reward of her fatuous policy.
The formation of the Rhine Confederation
was a death-blow to any dream of a Prus-
sian hegemony in Germany replacing that
of Austria. But by way of placating her.
Napoleon's
Hostilily
to Britain
HK^^B^^
■
ii^ak^
1
!*0^B
H
JKmpjJl^^^^k
B
^iBr^ j!
"^
Ik
V
V
BE «=*""-■'■
1
\
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■^Ke.-
——»—«■
immMtL
bJ
NAPOLEON MEETING FRANCIS
4730
II. AFTER THE FORMER'S VICTORY AT AUSTBRLIT?
i-roin the painting by Baron Gros
NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
Napoleon dangled before her hints '^f a
North German Confederation, of whicn she
should be the head, but of which the im-
practicability was secured. The compul-
sory closing of the North German ports to
English ships at Napoleon's behest pro-
voked England to reprisals which were
ruinous to Prussian commerce. The dis-
covery that
Napoleon was
proposing to
King George the
restoration of
Hanover, the one
reward which
Prussia had been
promised for the
Ignominious part
she had played,
was too much for
Frederic William.
The war party,
which included
his queen, Louise,
carried the day.
Great Britain and
Russia were
indeed both
willing to com-
bine against
Napoleon, but
neither was will-
ing to sacrifice
much for Prussia,
and neither was
ready to render
her immediate
practical assist-
ance. Neverthe-
less, on October
9th, Prussia flung down the challenge.
The bout was short. The French forces
had not been withdrawn from North Ger-
many. Napoleon was with them ; they
were in motion at once. Brunswick, the
Prussian commander, changed his plan of
taking the offensive and fell back towards
Magdeburg, leaving one wing of his army
under Hohenlohe to hold Napoleon in
check at Jena. Hohenlohe was completely
overwhelmed. The retreating Brunswick
was caught on the same day at Auerstadt
by a smaller French column under Davoust,
and was compelled to retire. The arrival
of the rout from Jena turned the retire-
ment into a panic flight on October 14th.
Prussia was prostrate. Fortress after for-
tress opened its gates ; only Bliicher made
a stubborn stand at Liibeck. Napoleon's
NAPOLEON AND THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA AT HI. SIT
Crushed under the power of the migrhty Napoleon, Prussia was left
only a fragment of her dominions by the Treaty of Tilsit Louisa,
the brave Queen of Prussia, met Napoleon at Tilsit, and endeavoured
on behalf of her country to obtain concessions from him.
From the painting by Gosse
terms rose as he advanced ; Frederic
William found that nothing short of abject
submission would be accepted. But the
limit had been passed. He would not sub-
mit to Napoleon's terms. He retreated to
East Prussia, to throw himself on Russian
support, and dismissed Haugwitz, the
Minister whose counsels had guided his
policy. A fort-
night after Jena,
Napoleon was in
Berlin. The re-
maining North
German states
were joined to
the Rhine Con-
federation, in-
cluding Bruns-
wick and Hesse -
Cassel, which
were combined
into the kingdom
of Westphalia
for a third
brother of Napo-
leon, Jerome.
Russia and
Great Britain
still remained.
Against the
latter, military
or naval opera-
tions were
entirely useless.
But it was to her
hostility that
Napoleon attri-
buted every
check he had
received ; in her
he saw the moving spirit of every combina-
tion which had been formed against him,
and in her he recognised the most serious
obstacle to the expansion of his empire.
To strike at her commerce was the one
means of wounding her. Now, apart from
Portugal, every port in Europe west of
Denmark and the Adriatic was virtually
under his control. On November 21st he
issued from Berlin the Decree which was
to bring her to her knees. Every British
port was declared to be in a state of
blockade. Every British ship was to be
excluded from every port of the French
Empire and of the dependencies and allies
of the French Empire ; all British subjects
were to be seized, and all British goods,
or goods which had come from Britain,
QonAscated throughout those territories.
4731
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The British Government was not long in
replying. In J anuary , 1807, all ports from
which British ships were excluded were
declared, by the first of a series of Orders
in Council, to be in a state of blockade, the
enforcing of which was infinitely more
practicable than that of Napoleon's paper
pronouncement. So far as the European
. , Continent shut out British
Britain » Drastic ^^^^^^ ^^^ Continent should
be denied sea-borne com-
Reply
to Napoleon ^v ■ •
merce. The two great
belligerents were treating neutrals ; on the
same principles each claimed forcibly to
prevent neutrals from trading with the
rival power. It was to be a trial of
strength ; but Napoleon, the challenger,
had failed to realise that the arena was
precisely that in which all the advantage
lay with the sea-power which had no equal
and no second. She could prevent the
neutral trade ; Napoleon could not.
It was true that neutrals were more
irritated against Britain than against
Napoleon, for the plain reason that it was
the British and not the French who, in
actual fact, came near to annihilating their
trade altogether. On the other hand, it
was the dependents of Napoleon who found
themselves by Napoleon's orders robbed of
British goods which they had stocked and
precluded from replacing them — in whom,
therefore, a bitter hatred of the new empire
was aroused. Again, while neutral ports
existed where there could not even be a
paper blockade to bar the entry of British
ships, British goods could find their way
into, and European goods could find their
way out of, the Continent.
Finally, whatever Governments might
forbid, the Continent stood in absolute need
of goods which could be obtained only
through the British, even more than the
British stood in need of Continental goods.
If the traffic was made illegal, difficult,
and dangerous, it also became proportion-
ately profitable to those who took the
risks of engaging in it ; and an
f M *"* ' in^n^snse smuggling trade was
o apo eon s ggj^gj-g^^gjj which preserved a
Continental market for British
goods in defiance of Berlin Decrees. Perhaps
we may sum up the results by remarking
that Napoleon's " Continental System,"
while imposing fetters and manacles on
the trade of the world, made a present to
Britain of that predominance which the
man with one wooden leg has over the
man with two. In fact, it gave her a
4732
monopoly precisely where it had been in-
tended to exclude her altogether. Russia,
on the other hand, was to be challenged
with cannon and bayonet. Prussia had
entered on the J ena campaign in alliance
with both Russia and England, though she
had courted disaster before either of her
allies could render effective support.
Russian armies were now moving on
the east of Prussia, whither Frederic
William had fallen back. From Berlin,
immediately after issuing the decree,
Napoleon advanced into Poland, pro-
claiming that he was appearing as a
liberator. The patriot Kosciusko had no
confidence in Napoleon as a liberator ;
nevertheless, his name, audaciously
attached to a proclamation, was made to
serve as a call to arms for other Polish
patriots. An engagement at Pultusk
forced the Russians to retreat ; but in
spite of what even Napoleon regarded as
the impracticable condition of the country
in mid- winter, the newly- appointed
Russian commander, Bennigsen, deter-
mined on an active campaign, and
appeared in force, threatening the positions
», „ of Bernadotte and Ney in the
_ . . . ^ north. Napoleon was com-
j^. . pelled to march against him,
'^ and in February a terrific battle
took place at Eylau, in which the Emperor
failed to drive Bennigsen from his position.
Neither army was in condition to renew
so desperate an engagement — 'the casual-
ties exceeded 30,000 — .and both fell back.
The new British Ministry — Portland's
— which was formed in March, intended to
display vigour, but did not act up to its
intentions. Even the energy of George
Canning could inspire it with only spas- t
modic activity ; and though it undertook
in the Treaty of Bartenstein, in April, X807,
in which Sweden joined, to despatch an
army to the Baltic in support of Prussia
and Russia, the reinforcements delayed,
while Napoleon's troops were multiplying.
The campaign opened in June. Bennigsen
repulsed Napoleon's attack on his camp
at Heilsberg, but on June 14th he was
drawn into fighting a pitched battle
against superior numbers at Friedland.
Austerlitz was repeated.
Again the Tsar felt that disaster had
fallen upon his army through the in-
competence or the wavering of those who
were or should have been his allies ; for
Austria might now have played the part
which Prussia ought to have played before
NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
Austerlitz. He resolved to negotiate with
the French Emperor ; and the two met in
a personal private conference on a raft in
the River Niemen, at Tilsit, on June 25th.
The result of the meeting was a complete
revolution in the European situation.
Already Prussia was crushed and Austria
paralysed ; soon, in Napoleon's expecta-
tion, Great Britain would find her power
sapped and her life-blood drained by the
Continental System. It would be prefer-
able to remove Russian antagonism rather
than to attempt the conquest of Russia.
At Tilsit, Napoleon found his task un-
expectedly easy. The Tsar was ready to
abandon the allies whom he held guilty
of playing him false. Napoleon had a
settlement to propose which would place
all Western Europe under his own heel,
and complete the Tsar's
Eastern supremacy by
bestowing on him Finland
and the better part of
Turkey. Between them,
the two would be masters
of all Europe ; and the
ruin of Great Britain
would be assured when
every port in Europe
should be closed to her
ships and her commerce.
The Tsar found himself
willing to abandon the
liberation of an ungrateful
Europe in favour of the
aggrandisement of Russia.
The Treaty of Tilsit
Moldavia ; for the other the cession of all
conquests since 1805, and the withdrawal
of the maritime claims. Rejection was to
mean in one case deprival of all European
territories except Roumelia and Constanti-
nople, and in the other the completion of
the Continental System by the inclusion
of Sweden, Denmark, Por-
Fi * t c *^ t A ^^^'^ ^^^ Austria. Secret
K *B i *'* "" information, which the
y n &ia Government was unable to
reveal, reached Canning as to the secret
stipulations of the Tilsit agreement. The
Danish fleet was to be annexed. The
Danish fleet need have caused little alarm
to the British, and the Danish Government
was no party to the proposal ; but
Canning felt justified in anticipating
Napoleon. A British fleet appeared before
Copenhagen, and de-
manded that the Danish
navy should be handed
over and neutralised in
British ports. The Danes
refused, but a three-days*
bombardment forced
them to submission. The
fleet was carried off as
prize of war, and Den-
mark herself was con-
verted to bitter hostility.
The action would have
been in any case
questionable ; since the
information on which it
was based could not be
KING AND QUEEN OF SPAIN made pubhc, while the
left to Prussia only a frag- Charles iv. of Spain was not a king of whom Tsar and Napoleon re-
ment of her dominions, his country had reason to feei proud. After a pudiatcd the interpreta-
anrl this merplv as a rnn- contemptible reign of fifteen years, Napoleon T nloppH ^n the
ana tnis merely as a con- compeUed him to abdicate the throne in isoa ^O" piacea on tne
cession of Napoleon's to
the Tsar's goodwill. Her Polish domains
were transformed into the Grand Duchy
of Warsaw, controlled by Saxony. Danzig
became a free town. Other Prussian
districts were added to Murat's duchy of
Berg, to Jerome Bonaparte's kingdom of
Westphalia; and to Louis's kingdom of
_ „,. Holland. The French army
Conditions , .■
fih T ^^^ remain in occupation
° ~. . "* ^ until such war indemnity as
France might claim should be
paid. Turkey was to submit to France's
mediation between her and Russia, or
take the consequences. Britain was to
submit to Russia's mediation, or take
the consequences. As provided by secret
agreement, the mediation for the one
meant the cession of Wallachia and
Tilsit Treaty by the
British Ministers, it assumed the appear-
ance of a flagrant and inexcusable breach
of neutrality, damaging the British credit.
Portugal now remained alone outside
the Continental System. Napoleon treated
the bombardment of Copenhagen as
warranting the announcement that neu-
trality in the struggle with England
should no longer be recognised. He
demanded the accession of Portugal to
his system ; Portugal, honourably loyal
to an alliance of nearly 150 years' standing,
refused. In October, Junot was marching
on Portugal ; Napoleon had already
agreed with Spain on the partition of her
dominions. Armed resistance was out of
the question, and Napoleon's purpose
seemed to be consummated. Great Britain
4733
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The French
Caesar's
Monarchies
responded by a new series of Orders in
Council, imposing additional requirements
on neutral traders, on pain of being
treated as prize of war ; while Napoleon
retorted with the Milan Decrees, imposing
a corresponding penalty on neutrals who
yielded to the British claim. That Gustavus
of Sweden still refused to own himself
beaten was a quite insignifi-
cant detail, since there was
no prospect of his receiving
any practical help. Never-
theless, defiance was coming from two
quarters whence it might least of
all have been expected. The French
Republic had begun its career as the
champion of freedom, in the sense of
democracy as opposed to monarchy. It
had toppled over dynasties and organised
republics on every side ; in theory at
least it had established popular
governments and abolished
hereditary privileges, though
it had made the new republics
dependent on itself. In France
itself, democracy had pre-
pared the way, in accordance
with the law laid down by
philosophers of old, for the
tyrannis perfected as Caesar-
ism. The Caesar had con-
verted all save one of the
dependent republics into
dependent monarchies, ab-
solute in type. He had added
to his empire a congeries of
minor monarchies ; sometimes
maintaining old dynasties,
sometimes replacing them
from his own family stock.
For the old ancestral governments he
had substituted the arbitrary and grind-
ing yoke of a foreign domination ; the
peoples had not received the freedom
of democracy, and they had been robbed
of national freedom as well.
Hitherto Germany had all but lacked the
nationalist conception ; owing to the
Napoleonic order, the little leaven was
by degrees to pervade the whole mass.
In Spain, the spirit of the people had been
repressed under centuries of despotism ;
now, when a foreign despot was thrust
upon them, it blazed out in sudden
defiance. How the triumph of Napoleon
acted upon Germany we shall presently
examine. It was in Spain that the next
phase was to be inaugurated. The
Minister Godoy, his mistress, and her
4734
husband, King Charles IV., had ruled
Spain contemptibly for fifteen years — a
melancholy sequel to the enlightened
reign of Charles III. For most of the
time they had acted as the humble
vassals of France, a pawn for Napoleon
to play when he thought fit.
At the end of 1807, in order to facilitate
the introduction of a French army into
the Peninsula, the Emperor arranged with
Godoy — as noted above — for a partition
of Portugal and her colonies between
Spain and France ; incidentally, his
Italian dominion was to be consolidated
by the transfer of the Etrurian kingdom
to France. But Napoleon had probably
already made up his mind that it was time
to substitute a Bonaparte for a Bourbon
on the Spanish throne, a process con-
veniently facilitated by differences bet ween
the reigning sovereigns and
the heir apparent, Ferdi-
nand. Between the prince
and Godoy there was
natural hostility, which
reached a point which
seemed, before the end of the
year, to warrant interven-
tion— .theoretically in sup-
port of the heir against the
machinations of the Minister.
But the advancing troops
occupied fortresses ; alarm
was created. A popular
outbreak frightened Charles
into abdication in favour of
Ferdinand ; and the queen
was soon entreating Murat,
whom Napoleon had des-
Spain in 1814, and died in 1833. patched from Italy, to re-
store him. King and ex-king proceeded
to meet the Emperor at Bayonne ; another
outbreak in Madrid against the French
served as excuse for enforcing abdication
on Ferdinand. Charles surrendered his
own claims to Napoleon, accepting estates
and a pension by way of compensation ;
_ . . and Napoleon nominated
r'^^'I/a • ^^^ ^^^ brother Joseph
evo gams ^^ ^j^^ vacant throne in
Napoleon j^^^^ ^g^g ^^^^^^ ^^^
had hoped for the crown, had to be
contented with that of Naples, from
which Joseph was transferred. The pride of
a proud nation was touched to the quick ;
and the whole Spanish people rose to arms
in defiance of the Power which had over-
thrown the mightiest coalitions that all
Europe had been able to pour against hin;.
FERDINAND VII. OF SPAIN
He became king on the forced abdi-
cation of his father, but Napoleon
kept him prisoner during the Penin-
sular War. Ferdinand returned to
n-nT*rt*rt*nnn^.-iiti,,-^,,^^if
rt i-;o»iTT^*Tj.ig^-«*f»->^^f^-cvCi^.|^H.|V
howtrafmjgar changed t/ie
fACEOFTTiEWORLP
BEING A rODTNOTL TO MI/TORY
By S I R. 7oMN Knox Laughton
/^N November i8th, 1805, at Znaym,
^^ an obscure little town in Moravia,
Napoleon received the news of the
battle of Trafalgar. There had been,
he said, some fighting ; also a storm, in
which a few French ships had unfortu-
nately been lost. That was all. He
pushed on, and a fortnight later won
the battle of Austerlitz. Here, indeed,
was something like a victory. Every
soldier in the French army knew it ;
every Austrian, every Russian was
keenly conscious of defeat. The judg-
ment of war was decisive against the
coalition ; and the djdng Pitt, it has
been said, recognised the blow as fatal
to the liberties of Europe. Jena and
Auerstadt in the following year seemed
but to confirm the verdict, from which
there was no longer any appeal.
In England, public opinion did not
take any extended view. To the
English, as English, it
mattered little that the
Austrians and Prussians
were crushed by the French ;
I but they quite understood that after
i Trafalgar there was no fear of a French
I army invading England. The iu-
I tolerable threat which had seemed to
I hang over the country for the last two
I years was dissipated and could not be
renewed. Nelson was dead ; but his
i spirit remained, the tutelary deity of
his country — a feeling which Canning
more distinctly formulated in the
celebrated apostrophe :
3 And when in after-times with vain desire
I Her baffled foes, in restless hate, conspire
I From her fair brow the unfading wreath to
I tear,
I Thy hand, and hands Uke thine have planted
I there ;
i Thou, sacred shade ! in battle hovering near
I Shalt win bright Victory from her golden
sphere,
To float aloft, where England's ensign flies.
With angel wings and palms from paradise.
I But whilst in England people were
England's
Nightmare
Dissipated
content to take their own selfish view
of the result, on the continent of
Europe Trafalgar seemed a very small
thing in comparison with Austerlitz or
Jena. Napoleon himself was probably
the one man who, without in the least
, undervaluing his own vic-
apo eoa s Tories, could understand
opes urie ^^^^^ Trafalgar was the de-
struction of his hopes and
schemes. We are not to be beguiled or
misled by his own statements of what
he did or did not intend ; we judge
from his persistent conduct, from his
secret letters and orders, that from the
date of the renewal of the war in
1803 his all-absorbing idea was to
land his army in England, when, with
the help of God, he would put an end
to her existence.
So he wrote repeatedly ; but — as a
still more illustrious Frenchman is said
to have found— the first step was the
most difficult. One after the other, in
quick succession, he drew up different
schemes for ferrying his army across the
narrow sea — so narrow that men have
swum it, so narrow that a boy in a
dinghy might paddle himself across;
but which to Napoleon was impassable,
because a few ships of war — ships of
the line, frigates, and smaller vessels —
lay in the Downs or ranged along the
coast of France, from Dunkirk to
Etaples, in force to run down, sink, or
destroy any boat which ventured out ;
because in two years of scheming he
was never able to bring up any sufficient
force of the French navy
r n •I*'* *'**^* to drive these ships away,
of Britain s , ,, \. -■'
u/ J iir II and secure the safe, unm-
Wooden Walls. ^ , ', ^,
terrupted passage of these
boats ; because, before every port in
France or Spain, wherever a French or
Spanish ship of war was to be found,
there was a corresponding force keeping
guard over it ; because all his plans
were rendered futile by the tenacity of
4735
Schemes
of Napoleon
Cornwallis off Brest, and under him
Pellew, Collingwood, Cochrane, and
others, in the Bay of Biscay, and of
Nelson in the Mediterranean, off Toulon.
The main force of the French navy was
at Brest, and there the watch was the
strictest. If only the Brest fleet could
evade the vigilance of Cornwallis, get
TK Ch • °^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^P ^^^ Chan-
^^^ an«>»8 jjgj^ Keith, in the narrow
sea, might be overpowered
and the French army be
carried across before Cornwallis or any
of his colleagues to the southward
knew anything about it.
The detailed technical history of these
two years, and the confidential corre-
spondence during these two years of
Napoleon with his Ministers, admirals,
and generals, give positive proofs of the
reality of his wishes and hopes. But the
point to which we would call especial
notice is the frequent change of plan.
As soon as the failure of one became
evident, the conception of another began
to take form. The death of La Touche-
Treville, commanding at Toulon, in
August, 1804, put an end to one plan ;
another had to be evolved, and gradually
the Emperor conceived the one, more
familiarly known, of a gathering of
French and Spanish squadrons in the
West Indies, whence they were to return
and sweep the Channel in overpowering
force. When that failed, a modification
of it was to be tried. The fleet from the
Mediterranean was to come off Brest ;
at the same time the fleet in Brest was
to come out, and Cornwallis, caught
between the two, was to be crushed.
By no possibility could such a plan —
setting at defiance all principles of navi-
gation and naval war— .have succeeded ;
and if Villeneuve, the admiral com-
manding the Mediterranean fleet, had
Th a brought it off Brest, it must
war e have been destroyed by
Plans of the ^ n- i- x xi.
j, Cornwallis before ever the
^ ^ fleet from inside could get
out. As it was, Villeneuve refused to
throw away his fleet in that fashion, and,
having come as far as Ferrol, turned in
the opposite direction and went to Cadiz.
His disobedience marked the failure of
this plan ; and, threatened by a coalition
of the European Powers, Napoleon, who
had been flattering himself with the idea
that if he could crush England the soul
of the coalition would be dead, felt
obliged to attend to the critical position
in Germany before starting on a new
plan to get his army across the Straits.
That some plan, on lines similar
to those that had preceded it, and
probably as absurd as any of them,
would have been devised appears
certain ; but the fond hope was
destroyed at Trafalgar. The knowledge
was forced on Napoleon that there was
n© longer a possibility of his getting
the command of the Channel for the
few hours or days that he required, and
that other means must be found for
breaking the power of England. She
could not be crushed by armed force,
she should be crushed by the ruin of
her commerce. Out of this determina-
tion came the Berlin and Milan Decrees,
the Continental System, the land block-
ade, met — on the part of England — by
the Orders in Council and the blockade by
sea. Of the cruel suffering caused by
this commercial war, this war of the sea
against the land, we cannot speak in
any detail. In England it
was terrible ; but the national
existence was at stake, and it
was endured. In France it
was the ruin of bankers, merchants, and
manufacturers ; when the factories were
still, the workmen were starving ; it was
the horror of desolation crowning the
desolation of more than a dozen years
of titanic war. But the glamour of
military success and the authority of
the Emperor maintained the struggle
and sustained the suffering. Other
nations, not so supported, refused to
endure. In Spain, in Portugal, in
Germany, in Russia, it was maintained
past the breaking point, and the
Peninsular War, the Russian campaign,
and the War of Liberation followed.
Leipzig and Waterloo were the conse-
quents ; the Congress of Vienna, t^e
Holy Alliance, the map of Europe as
it remained for fifty years, the kindling
of German aspirations succeeded, and
the unification of Germany, and — less
directly — of Italy, has placed the
coping-stone on the edifice whose
foundation was laid in the destruction
of the French sea power at Trafalgar.
John Knox Laughton
The Great
Results of
Trafalgar
4736
NELSON'S FAMOUS SIGNAL AT TRAFALGAR
In this picture, reproduced from the painting by Turner, Nelson's flagship, the Victory, is shown
flying the memorable signal at Trafalgar, "England expects every man will do his duty."
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE FIGHTING TElMERAIRE
This famous picture was painted by Turner after seeing the old T6m6raire towed up the Thames.
301
4737
THE DAY AFTER THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR
The Victory, with the body of Lord Nelson on board, being: towed into the
harbour at Gibraltar by H.M.S. Mars the day after the Battle of Trafalgar.
1 the painting by Stenfield
4738
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
VII!
By ARTHUR
D. INNES M.A
THE AWAKENING OF NATIONALISM
WELLINGTON'S BRILLIANT TRIUMPHS IN THE
PENINSULAR WAR
MAPOLEON had committed himself to
* ^ an error vast and far-reaching in his
attempt to reduce Great Britain to sub-
mission by his Continental System. He
calculated that Britain had more need of
the Continent than the Continent had of
Britain ; whereas the need for English
goods was so great that no decrees could
keep them out, and, while a sea-borne
trade was a necessity, the British could
ensure that no carriers but themselves
should be available. In his Spanish
policy he committed himself to a second
error equally far-reaching, based on a
miscalculation which would probably have
been shared by almost every observer
at the time. He assumed that a Govern-
ment having for its sanction the force of
the Empire could have nothing to fear
from popular insurrection. The event
was to prove that an insurgent people,
The French supported by a British army,
Army Held
insignificant in numbers but
i Ch k ^^^y ^^^' ^^^^^ keep a quarter
of a million French troops
locked up in the Peninsula for five years and
finally drive them out of it altogether, in
spite of the military genius of such
generals as Soult, Massena, and Marmont.
The initial miscalculation of the ease
with which Spain could be held in subjec-
tion being demonstrated, the Governments
learned that popular national enthusiasm
was a potent instrument at their disposal
which they had not hitherto dreamed of
bringing into play, and which ultimately
wrought Napoleon's downfall.
Even at the time when Napoleon was
intervening in Spain, and carrying out his
scheme for a Bonapartist monarchy, the
ground was being prepared in Prussia,
and the seed was being sown which should
in due time bring forth harvest. Jena
and Auerstadt had awakened the existing
Government of that unhappy state to a
(consciousness of the rottenness of its
fabric. A complete reorganisation had
become an absolute necessity, while it
could be brought about only by a drastic
suppression of vested interests, which was
anathema to the cabal which had hitherto
guided the king. Statesmen were not
lacking who realised the need ; there was
only one. Stein, who had the resolution
_ . to carry the reforms through ;
r j!* . andafter Jena, Frederic William
J. J himself still lacked the courage
to entrust him with the task.
Hardenberg, the statesman who took the
place of Haugwitz, was of the same
school as Stein ; but he, too, was not bold
enough to override opposition. By a
curious fate, it was Napoleon himself who
after Tilsit forced Stein upon the king,
because Hardenberg's English sympathies
were not to be tolerated, and Stein
appeared to him in the light of a financier
whose skill would raise the funds which
he intended to extort from Prussia.
Stein was appointed Minister in October,
1807, with a free hand, which he did not
hesitate to use.
Prussian society was organised in three
rigid castes — nobles, citizens, and peasants.
Of these, none but the first had any share
whatever in the management of the state,
while the last were still in the condition
of serfage. The nobles supplied all the
officers of the army ; the rank and file
were drawn from the peasants. It was
_. _ neither expected nor permitted
^, that the wealth-producersshould
Classes 1 c i_j. • 1 -j. r
. p . be fighters, just as it was for-
bidden to the nobles to descend
to the degrading occupation of trade.
The land itself was correspondingly divided
between the three classes and could not
pass from one to the other. The Prussian
peasant was still in the position legally
held by the English villein in the fourteenth
century, but which even then was largely
modified in practice. To the citizen, in the
4739
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
sense of a denizen of the cities, as well as to
the serf, citizenship in the sense of political
rights and responsibilities was denied.
Under such conditions public spirit even,
of the most local kind could scarcely take
root; patriotism,
the public spirit
which is not
parochial or
provincial but
national, was all
but an impossi-
bility.
The first step
was to make
citizenship pos-
sible. A com-
mission of Har-
denberg's had
made recom-
mendations;
before Stein had
been a week in
office he had
translated the
recommend a-
tions into decrees. The restrictions which
bound a man to live and die in the class
and in the employment to which he was
born were abolished. The law permitted
Jourdan Soult
TWO OF NAPOLEON'S FAMOUS MARSHALS
A marshal in the army of Napoleon, Jourdan gained victories against
the Austrians, but was defeated by the Duke of Wellingrton at Vittoria
in 1813. Soult was a tower of streng^th to the French army, and
served his country with distinction in Spain and other countries.
He was defeated by Sir John Moore at the battle of Corunna.
every man to follow whatsoever calling he
chose. The transfer of land became free ;
the peasant was no longer bound to the
soil, he was at liberty to seek new pastures
or to join in the life of the cities. A little
later, not by
Stein but by
Hardenberg, he
was converted
into the pro-
prietor of his
land ; for the
present he re-
mained a tenant
who had to pay
the landlord
dues in one form
or another for
his holding,
while both Stein
and Harden-
berg left the
jurisdiction of
the baronial
class intact.
A sense of
common citizenship being made possible,
Stein saw the means to its development
in demanding the fulfilment of the
obligations of citizenship, participation
)EATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA
In chief comraana oi tne cntisn army in Spain in 1808, Sir John Moore co-operated with the Spaniards in expelling:
the French forces from the Peninsula. Learning of the Spanish defeats and of the fall of Madrid, he began a masterly
retreat to Corunna, the huge army of France following in pursuit. In a brilliant action at Corunna, on
January 16th, 1809, Moore repulsed Soult's attack, but in the hour of victory the gallant soldier was mortally wounded.
4740
THE PARTING OF EMPEROR AND EMPRESS : NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL TO JOSEPHINE
Being without family and desirous of an heir to carry on the dynasty, the Emperor Napoleon resolved to obtain a
divorce from his consort Josephine, and with her reluctant consent this was earned through at the close of 1809._ The
emperor's farewell to the woman who had been his wife for thirteen years is admirably depicted in the above picture.
Ffom tlM painting by Laslett J. Pott
4741
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
in public duties. He started at the
bottom by instituting local elective
bodies to manage minor local affairs —
the beginnings of a representative system
which was intended to culminate in a
representative parliament ; not, as in
England, controlling administration, but
able to make its voice heard and its will
. , felt in public affairs. Stein's
russias tenure of ofhce, however, was
c orming ^^^ brief to enable him to carry
Minister , . i j ^u
his programme beyond the
initial stage, which was of itself sufficient
to bring into being the sense of individual
responsibility and duty to the public,
of a common good to be wrought for in
common, for which there was no room
in the old system.
Besides this there was the reorganisa-
tion of the army, a work which, like the
abolition of caste, was not the creation of
Stein's own genius, but was one which his
colleagues would hardly have been able
to set on foot without the aid of his
vigorous initiative. The actual organiser
was Scharnhorst. As matters stood,
promotion among the officers was per-
manently blocked by superannuated
veterans, and the ranks were filled
with long-service men, to whom the
citizen class had not contributed.
The recent development of huge armies
had made universal liability to military
service a practical necessity ; but the con-
ditions laid down after Tilsit restricted
the number of troops to 40,000 men. By
Scharnhorst's plan a short-service period
took the place of the former twenty years
in the ranks. At the conclusion of the
period the men were drafted into reserves,
so that while the numbers of the short-
service army stood at 40,000, there was soon
a large reserve of trained soldiers who
could be called to arms in case of necessity.
In addition, a " Landwehr," or militia,
was created for home defence, though
it was not enrolled till five years later,
. and the scheme of a " Land-
wa ening g^^j-j^ " or general arming of the
Patriotism , ,• ° j t^ -
I p • population, was prepared. But
the reorganiser of Prussia was
intensely patriotic, intensely nationalist ;
his influence soon proved far more seriously
antagonistic to the Napoleonic ascendancy
than that of Hardenberg, while he aroused
a more active hostility to himself in the
nobles, who had encouraged the king in his
pusillanimous courses of old, and who
now found their privileges challenged.
4742
Stein was zealous to place the country
once more on a fighting basis, and to ally
it with Austria ; in the sudden uprising
of Spain he was not alone in recognising
a universal call to arms, and he did
not believe in the completeness of the
harmony between the Tsar and Napoleon.
The Emperor received information of his
plans for an Austrian alliance, and the
demands on Prussia immediately took
a more stringent form. Defiance at the
moment was impossible ; Frederic William
gave way. Stein soon after resigned, and
the present prospect of Prussia taking
arms against Napoleon disappeared. A
few weeks later Stein was forced by the
Emperor's wrath to flee for his life to
Austrian territory. But the grain of
mustard-seed, the nationalist ideal, had
taken root.
The " Address to the German Nation,"
issued by the philosopher Fichte during
this year, formed a powerful appeal
which went home to the hearts of
the people, -and when their hour came
they answered to it magnificently. All
Europe was startled by the rising of
_ . Spain, some months before the fall
pain ^j ^j^g great Minister in Prussia.
. ** "* During the last week of May, with-
out organisation, without warning,
without any common plan, every district
of Spain which was not actually dominated
by the presence of French forces was in
arms. The officials were compelled by the
populace to join ; those who ventured to
refuse were apt to find a short shrift. At
every centre of insurrection a " junta," or
governing committee, was formed in the
name of King Ferdinand, as well as an
army. The clergy flung themselves into
the popular cause in opposition to the
Antichrist who was coercing the Pope.
It did not occur to Napoleon that the
resistance was serious. His generals, Bes-
sicres, Dupont, and others, were soon
moving on various provinces ; but a
success of Bessieres, which secured the
route from the Pyrenees to Madrid, was
followed within a week by a disaster to
Dupont, who was compelled to capitulate
with all his forces at Baylen, and King
Joseph, at the end of July, had to flee from
Madrid, which he had only just entered.
Meanwhile the Government in London
had resolved on a new military policy.
Napoleon had seized Portugal, but that
country was eager to be set free, and the
mistress of the seas had no difficulty in
THE -AWAKENING OF NATIONALISM
despatching troops thither. - ^ The Spanish
monarchy was at war with Great Britain,
but Spain, now represented by the Central
Junta at Seville, was at war with Napoleon,
and, in Canning's view, was ipso facto
an ally of Great Britain. On August ist
Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had particularly
distinguished himself in India, landed in
Portugal at the head of 18,000 British troops.
At Vimeiro he was niet by Junot,
who was still in command ofrthe French
forces in Portugal. Wellesley was victori-
ous, but his success was marred by the
arrival on the scene of two senior officers,
Burrard and Dalrymple, who, instead of
crushing Junot completely, concluded with
him the Convention of Cintra, under which
the French troops evacuated Portugal,
but were conveyed with their arms in Eng-
lish ships to France. The indignation of
Napoleon with Junot was equalled by
British indignation with the generals who
had failed to make the most of their
success. All were recalled, and the
command was taken up by Sir John
Moore, though Wellesley, cleared of all
charges, was to reappear next year.
Napoleon was. annoyed not so. joiuch by
, the actual events ■ in, the
T* M G°° * Peninsula as by the excitement
ig rip ^j^g were causing in Europe.
On Prussift „ -',. , , , ., ° .. ^
He tightened the curb upon
Prussia, which shrank from Stein's pro-
posal of open war, and caused the Minister's
fall. But the matter of first importance
was to overawe Europe by a fresh demon-
stration of the amity between the Emperor
and the Tsar, since Austria, too, had been
reorganising and arming.
In October, a magnificent conference was
held at Erfurt, where all the vassal princes
were present and the Courts of Austria and
Prussia were both represented. In appear-
ance, at least, the conference was successful.
Napoleon left Erfurt with the operations
against Turkey for carrying out the Tilsit
agreement postponed, and with a free hand
for Spain. Nevertheless, the display of
harmony only veiled the fact that the
Tsar's friendship for Napoleon was cooling.
The Emperor was fully aware that the
suppression of Spain would demand a large
force. Early in November he himself
passed the Pyrenees to conduct the opera-
tions. The daring spirit of the insurgents
had not provided them with a capable
central government in the Seville Junta,
or with capable military chiefs, and their
dispositions were quite inadequate for
Death of
Sir John Moore
At Corunna
coping with Napoleon. Their extended line
was rapidly pierced and scattered ; and
though Palafox was able to throw himself
into Saragossa, where a prolonged and
heroic defence was maintained, it appeared
as though serious resistance had already
been shattered. Napoleon marched in
triumph to Madrid. In the meantime,
Sir John Moore, whose in-
formation from the British
agent and from the Spanish
Government was scandal-
ously inadequate, had advanced under
great difficulties to support the Spaniards.
Learning of the Spanish defeats, and, by
an accident, of the fall of Madrid, he
turned to effect a diversion by advancing
against Soult's division. This brought
Napoleon himself in pursuit, and Moore
began a masterly retreat to Corunna,
where English transports should have
been awaiting him but were not.
Napoleon was satisfied to leave the com-
pletion of the pursuit to Soult, while he
himself retired from. Spain, which he re-
garded as virtually coriquefred. Moore, in
a brilliant action at Corunna, . oh January
i6th, 1809, repulsed Soult's attadk, and
though his own life was lost, histrb^ps were
able to embark oh the transports, which
had now arrived Six weeks later, Saragossa
had fallen. Soult entered Portugal, the
South of Spain was held in subjection by
Marshal Victor, and, with a quarter of a
million of French troops in the Peninsula,
the insurgents seemed to have little
enough to hop)e for.
But it was equally obvious that a very
large force was necessary to maintain
Joseph in Spain. In Austria, the wai
party was in the ascendant, and the active
spirit of revolt was spreading in Germany.
Austria resolved on war, confident that it
would take but little to bring about thfe
co-operation of Prussia and of the Rhenish
confederation. The population of the Tyrol,
which had been ceded to Bavaria at the
Treaty of Presburg, detested
us ria e ^■^^ ^^^ regime, which ignored
Of F^'^'d'^ traditional customs and preju-
dices. The Austrian army itself
had bijeen placed on a greatly improved
footing by the Archduke Charles, and thr
Minister, Count Stadion, was of Stein's
political school — mutatis mutandis — with
a strong desire for Austria to take her
place as the leader of German nationalism.
It was as the champion of European
freedom and German nationalism that
4743
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Austria threw down the gauntlet in April
without entering into definite treaties with
Great Britain or with the Spanish Nation-
alists, who had struck a formal alliance
in January. In April, Wellesley also
returned to the Portuguese command,
having under him 20,000 British troops,
and being appointed generalissimo of the
Portuguese forces. Portugal was to be
the basis for co-operation with the Span-
iards. In view, however, of the Austrian
declaration of war against Bavaria, the
British Government resolved to concentrate
its main effort on an attack on Holland,
which, if promptly and effectively carried
out, would have very materially affected
Napoleon's campaign on the Danube.
It is by no means clear that the
scheme in itself was not well advised,
though it is sufficiently obvious that if the
40,000 men who were sent on the Wal-
cheren Expedition had been dispatched to .
Wellesley instead, the Peninsula cam-
paign of 1809 would have taken a very
different course. As the event proved, the
brilliancy of Wellesley's personal suc-
cesses did not enable him to maintain
ground beyond the Portuguese frontier ;
the Walcheren Expedition was ignominious
and disastrous, and the only check on
Napoleon's operations on the Danube lay
in the fact that so many of his troops were
detained on the south of the Pyrenees.
The Austrian advance to Regensburg
threatened the Emperor's forces with dis-
aster ; but his arrival to conduct the
operations in person changed the situation.
Napoleon's presence had a paralysing
effect on the Archduke Charles. In five
days, by a series of heavy blows, the Em-
peror had driven the Austrians before him
in full retreat, and the prospect of a general
German revolt had already all but van-
ished. He advanced to Vienna ; but a
severe and unlooked-for check at the battle
of Aspern-Essling on May 21st placed him
in a very dangerous position. The arch-
duke, however, lost nerve, and failed to
. take advantage of his oppor-
us nan tunitv- The moment passed ;
Overthrow - ^
At Wag ram
French reinforcements were
allowed to strengthen the lines
of communication. Six weeks later Napo-
leon succeeded in accomplishing the pas-
sage of the Danube by night ; the Austrians
had to fall back to Wagram, whence
they were again forced to retreat after a
stubborn battle on July 6th. To the victors
themselves the defeat by no means seemed
to be a crushing blow : but the Austrians
4744
THE MARRIAGE OF NAPOLEON TO MARIE LOUISE OF AUSTRIA IN 1810
From the painting by Rouget
THE BAPTISM
NAPOLEON'S HEIR,
KING
ROME,"
JUNE lOTH.
To the Emperor Napoleon and Marie Louise was born an heir on March 20th, 1811, and from his birth he was styled
"King ofRome." His baptism on June 10th is depicted in the above picture. His death occurred m the year 1832.
had lost heart, and sought and obtained an
armistice. In the north, at the opening
stage, the daring but unauthorised raid of
Colonel Schill with a regiment of cavalry
from Berlin had excited high hopes for
the moment ; but he had been unsup-
ported, and was annihilated at Stralsund,
just after Aspern.
The Duke of Brunswick, successor of
the old duke who had formerly com-
manded the Prussian forces, raided
Saxony from Bohemia, but Germany was
content to admire without aiding. It was
only in the Tyrol that the gallant Hofer
remained unsubdued after Wagram. Under
his leadership, the Tyrolese had thrown off
the Bavarian yoke ; and now an invading
force met with such disaster that the
French evacuated the region. But the
Tyrol, too, was soon to find itself deserted.
At the end of July the belated British
expedition arrived on the
The British gcheldt. An immediate ad-
^'"'c*'!.*'?r.°'' vance on Antwerp might still
the Scheldt have dealt a heavy blow; but
time was wasted at Flushing while the
defences of Antwerp were being secured. In
the marshes of Walcheren the troops were
laid low by fevers. The bulk of them were
withdrawn, and those that were left were
more than decimated from the same cause
before they, too, were recalled. The whole
business was a ghastly failure. In the
meanwhile, Wellesley had been showing
what it was possible for a brilliant
commander to do, and what it was not
possible to do unaided.
On his arrival at Lisbon in April he
organised the defences of the capital
and then threw himself northward on
Soult's lines of communication, and forced
the marshal to evacuate Portugal with the
loss of his cannon. He was thus enabled
to attempt a swift blow on Madrid, in
conjunction with the Spaniards. But
he could get no reinforcements from
England— the troops were wanted for
Walcheren— and the Spanish Government
forces, the generals, and the Government
itself, were incompetent. Wellesley reached
Talavera, where he was attacked by King
Joseph and Marshal Victor on July 28th.
The Spaniards broke and fled, yet the
valour of the British troops gave them the
victory. But the British troops could
not take Madrid by themselves, and
Soult was already threatening the line of
retreat. Wellesley, who was rewarded for
his victory by the title of Viscount
Wellington, fell back into Portugal, recog-
nising that the present possibilities were
limited to the defence of that country.
4745
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Wellington's retirement into Portugal
and the collapse of the Walcheren Expedi-
tion, capping the defeat of Wagram and
the failure of Germany to rise, ended any
inclination on Austria's part for the pro-
longation of the contest. Count Stadion
was replaced by Metternich, in whom
popular sympathies did not exist. The
idea of Austria as the head of
a German nation vanished.
The Gall&nt
Hofer Shot
as a Rebel
Austria bowed to the con-
queror. By the Treaty of Vienna
in October, the Tyrol, in spite of promises,
was tossed back to Bavaria, its resistance
was crushed, and Hofer was betrayed and
shot as a rebel. The regions terminating
on the Adriatic were surrended to Napo-
leon, and formed into the " Illyrian Pro-
vinces." Cracow was annexed to the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The Austrian
change of front was completed and her
humiliation consummated when, in the
following March, Napoleon demanded and
obtained the hand of the Austrian princess,
Marie Louise, an alliance for the sake of
which he divorced Josephine.
Before Wagram, Napoleon had already
rounded off his Italian dominion. Pius
VII. had never been his obedient servant ;
even after the Berlin Decree, the Pope
refused to close the papal ports to the
British. In 1808 Napoleon occupied
Rome ; in May, 1809, he issued a decree
confiscating the Papal States, and the Pope
was held a still unsubmissive prisoner at
Savona. The States themselves were re-
organised as departments. The annexation
was another move towards stopping the
leaks in the Continental System.
Sweden had been secured at last by the
fall of Gustavus IV., whose stubborn refusal
to submit to overwhelming force brought
about his deposition, and the elevation of
Charles XIII. to the throne. Charles sub-
mitted to the inevitable, and since there
was no heir to the reigning house, found an
excuse for nominating Marshal Bernadotte
as his successor. Although
•n Contrl? Bemadotte did not actually
"Ic!°"/° ascend the throne till 1818,
cf Sweden , , j j. • 1
he at once assumed practical
control of the state. The formation of
the Illyrian provinces after the Treaty of
Vienna closed what had been the Austrian
ports in the Adriatic. There remg-ined only
some points on the North German coast,
besides Holland, where Louis Bonaparte
found the needs of his subjects more
•xigent than his brother's demands, and
4746
permitted a considerable introduction of
British goods, which, it must be remem-
bered, covered practically all colonial pro-
duce, tea, cotton, and other necessaries,
since British ships were the only carriers.
In 1810 the Emperor's demands became
so insistent that Louis abdicated, where-
upon Holland was annexed to Napoleon's
empire. It is noteworthy that Joseph in
Spain, as well as Louis in Holland,
found the brother's bonds so galling that
he, too, would have abdicated if he had
been permitted to do so. The annexation
of Holland, in July, 1810, was followed up
by the incorporation with the empire of
the still nominally free Hansa towns and
coastal districts, including the Duchy of
Oldenburg, with the futile aim of stopping
every cranny in the wall which Napoleon
was seeking to build up for the total ex-
clusion of British commerce. The seizure
of Oldenburg soon proved to be at least a
contributory cause of the defeat of the very
object with which it had been effected.
The divorce of Josephine was carried
through, with her reluctant consent, at
the close of 1809. For obvious reasons,
Napoleon, like Henry VIII. of England,
, wanted a male heir of his
apo eon s ^^^y ^q carry on the dynasty ;
Divorce and -', u- u i u- ij
^ . a want which J osephine could
arnage ^^^ supply. Moreover, a matri-
monial alliance with one of the two
imperial houses would give the dynasty
of the Corsican a status which it lacked.
The first approaches on the subject had
been made to Alexander at Erfurt ; by
him they had not been warmly received,
and of the two available Russian princesses
the elder had been promptly betrothed
to the Duke of Oldenburg.
In December, 1809, a formal request for
the hand of the second was presented to
the Tsar ; but already the balance was
leaning towards Austria. Napoleon was
disinclined to risk receiving a direct refusal
from Russia which the Tsar's lukewarm
attitude rendered more than probable.
Negotiations were opened with Vienna,
where Metternich had none of Alexander's
scruples. The marriage was arranged
and took place in April. The annexation
of' Oldenburg completed the breach with
Russia, which formally withdrew from the
Continental System in December, and
opened its ports to British commerce.
Napoleon had in fact decided on a change
of policy. Austria could no longer be
considered as a rival, but she might be
THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF BADAJOZ BY THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON IN 1812
Reaching Badajoz in the middle of March, the Duke of Wellington resolved to carry it before Soult could arrive to
relieve it, and the storming of the town "was perhaps the most terrific incident of the war." The defence was
obstinate and ingenious, but, after appalling carnage, the walls were carried by escalade and the fortress captured.
From a cunleniporarj' engravir.g
utilised as an associate in consolidating
the empire of Western Europe. If Russia
chose to assume the role of rival instead
of coadjutor, she should in due course be
humbled like all other opponents except
the maritime Power. The dream which
Napoleon may have dreamed after Tilsit
of an advance through Asia, in conjunction
with Russia, and the demolition of the
British power in India, had been of but
brief duration at best," though the sus-
picion of it had caused some commotion
in the minds both of the British them-
selves and of native potentates who hoped
to profit by their overthrow. As Napoleon
and Alexander drew manifestly apart, the
perturbation was speedily allayed. But
in Europe the events of i8io pointed to
the development of the rupture between
France and Russia into open war before
any long time should have passed.
In the Peninsula, moreover, the course
of the year's campaigning did not improve
the French position. It opened, indeed,
not unfavourably. Wellington was mak-
ing no movement into Spain, and during
the first months Soult overran Anda-
lusia, where the Spanish Government was
strongest, and drove the Junta and its
armies into Cadiz. In the north, Catalonia
was being conquered by Suchet. Napo-
leon resolved to bring ttie war to an end,
and Massena was despatched with a
mighty force to drive the British into the
sea ; but that rather difficult operation
was made none the easier by the jealousies
STORMING THE SPANISH TOWN AND CASTLE OF ST. SEBASTIAN IN SEPTEMBER 1813
From Hfi engraving publUI^^ in (he same jea^
4747
THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY OF THE DUKE OF W.-LLINGTON INTO MADRID IN 1812
Wellington's brilliant campaigns in Spain, during which he inflicted a series of defeats upon the armies of Napoleon,
put an end to the French domination in that country. Reaching Madrid in 1812, as shown in the above
picture, he entered the city in triumph, the inhabitants of the place receiving him with wild enthusiasm.
From the painting by Wm. Hilton, R.A.
and disagreements of the French generals.
Wellington had advanced to the north
of Portugal with the intention of relieving
the Spanish garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo,
on its frontier, which was invested and
was holding out gallantly ; but the
approach of Massena with a force con-
siderably larger than the Anglo-Portuguese
army under Wellington's command made
retreat imperative. Ciudad Rodrigo and
Almeida fell. At Busaco, however, Mas-
sena accepted the challenge to an engage-
ment offered by Wellington and met with
a severe repulse, which gave heart to the
Portuguese on the spot — .for Massena
had the flower of the French veterans
under his command — .and to the British
Ministry in England.
Wellington continued his retreat, and the
pursuing Massena suddenly found himself
faced by the famous lines of Torres Vedras,
behind which Wellington had secured the
whole of his forces and his supplies, as well
as an immense number of civilians. Those
lines he had steadily and silently pre-
pared for a year past, till they were
impregnable, though the French had no
suspicion of their existence. Also he
had systematically stripped the whole of
the neighbouring district, and Massena
4748
found himself before a position which he
could not force, in a country denuded of
supplies, with subordinates who were
jealous and intractable. Torres V.edras
could not be stormed ; with the British
in command of the sea it could not be
blockaded. He fell back to Santarem ;
while Soult, who received orders to rein-
force . him, delayed in order to reduce
the fortress of Badajoz on the southern
frontier of Portugal — a fine piece of
work in itself, but not that which
happened to be demanded of him.
In March, 1811, Massena, recognising
that his purpose had been definitely foiled,
began to withdraw from Santarem, with
Wellington following him ; while Soult,
having secured Badajoz, returned to An-
dalusia, where an attempt on
the part of the garrison at
Cadiz to take the besiegers in
the rear had been foiled at
Barossa. Massena, wasting the country as
he went, so that the pursuing forces were
often hard put to it to obtain supplies, was
obliged to evacuate Portugal and retire
to Salamanca — .partly by the perpetual
insubordination of Ney, partly by the
rapidity of Wellington's movements. The
security of Portugal and the possibility
The Rapid
Movements of
Wellington
THE AWAKENING OF NATIONALISM
of an aggressive movement into Spain
on Wellington's part now depended on the
recovery of Almeida and of Ciudad
Rodrigo on the north, and of Badajoz on
the south. Badajoz, defended with all
the resources of engineering skill by the
commandant, Philippon, was left to Beres-
ford, and proved too hard a task for him.
Wellington's own efforts were concentrated
on the two northern fortresses.
The splendid conduct of the British regi-
ments at Fuentes d'Onoro foiled Massena's
attempt to raise the siege of Almeida, and
the marshal's supersession by Marmont
prevented a repetition of the attempt.
The position of the garrison
was hopeless, but the com-
mandant, Brennier, blew iip
his magazines before breaking
his way out through the besiegers with
most of his forces, and Wellington took
possession. In the south Soult advanced
against Beresford, and was in June repulsed
in the desperate action of Albuera, where
practically the whole of the fighting on
the side of the allies was done by the
British troops, less than 7,000 in number,
Wellington
in Possession
of Almeida
of whom more than 2,000 were killed or
wounded. Marmont, however, marching
from the north, effected a junction with
Soult, and the preponderance of the
French force was so great that the siege
had to be raised. But since the country
was unable to maintain so large an army,
Marmont again withdrew.
While Wellington was doing all the work
on the Portuguese frontier with no
practical help from the Spanish army and
the Spanish Government, the efforts of
the French marshals who were engaged
on the subjugation of Northern Spain
were perpetually nullified by the activities
of the Spanish guerrilla leaders, whom no
defeats in the field could crush ; and
presently the French armies began to
feel the drain due to the withdrawal of
troops who were to form part of the grand
army with which Napoleon was projecting
the invasion of Russia. To this tremendous
scheme must in the main be attributed
the fact that Napoleon neglected
personally to take in hand the subjugaton
of Spain. The marshals to whom he
left the task were brilliant commanders.
AT VITTORIA: WELLINGTON LEADING THE THIRD DIVISION TO THE ATTACK
This battle, fought on June 21st, 1813, was the decisive engagement of the campaign. Vittoria was the key to
the line of commuQicatioo with France, and there the French were routed, sustaining an irretrievable overthrow.
Frpm th« drawing by R. CatoQ WoodviUe
4749
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
but they were not, individually, a match
for Wellington, and they habitually failed
to act with that concert which Napoleon's
own presence would have ensured. The
Russian scheme so overshadowed all else
that Spain lost its true importance in his
eyes, and his forces there were weakened;
and when he finally gave the scheme effect
its disastrous termination
^eXIush necessitated a withdrawal of
J^ ^^^\ troops, which at length turned
Commander . , ^ , , , "■ r
the scale decisively in favour
of the British general in the Peninsula.
That consummation, however, was not
yet reached; although during 1812 Wel-
lington was able to establish his personal
superiority unmistakably, it was not till
the next year that he could conduct a
campaign which should expel the French
from the Peninsula altogether. Never-
theless, the certainty that a Russian cam-
paign would have precedence of everything
else in Napoleon's plans materially affected
those of Wellington. In January, by a
sudden attack, which Marmont had not
anticipated, he carried Ciudad Rodrigo by
storm, capturing the siege-train without
which Marmont could make no effective
attempt to recapture the place, which
was now occupied by a Spanish garrison.
In the middle of March, Wellington was
before Badajoz, the second of the two keys
to Spain, determined now to carry it
at all costs before Soult could arrive to
relieve it. The storming of Badajoz was
perhaps the most terrific incident of the
war ; the obstinacy and ingenuity of
Philippon's defence made the struggle
exceptionally desperate ; and when, after
appalling carnage, the walls were
carried by escalade, there were two days
during which the British troops, frenzied
with their victory, lost all semblance of
discipline, and the officers lost all control
over them. Soult was not to be drawn
into an engagement. It became Welling-
ton's object to make his junction with
»r ..• X . Marmont impossible ; and this
Wellingtons „t u j L ttik
_ . was accomplished by Hill s
g" **'' exploit in capturing the bridge
of Almaraz. Holding both
Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington
could keep both Marmont and Soult un-
certain as to which of them would be his
next object of attack; and he had succeeded
in making Soult believe that he was on the
point of a move into the south when he
was already on his way to measure swords
with Marmont. The result was the cam-
paign of Salamanca in July. After pro-
longed manoeuvring, neither general being
willing to .risk a serious defeat, Marmont
endeavoured by a flanking movement
with his left wing to cut off Wellington's
chance of retreat and to crush him.
In doing so a gap was opened between
centre and left. The opportunity thus
given was seized ; Wellington was able to
deliver a crushing blow. Marmont was
seriously wounded. The disaster to the
French would have been complete but for
the skill with which Clausel, who took
Marmont's place, drew the defeated army
from the field. Wellington was able to
march on Madrid, whence King Joseph
fled to Valencia, summoning Soult to
raise the blockade of Cadiz, leave Anda-
lusia, and join forces with him. At
Madrid the victors were received with
wild enthusiasm. Still, Wellington was
not strong enough without reinforcements
to carry his success further, or even to
maintain a secure position in Spain,
especially after an unexpected failure to
capture the castle of Burgos. Once more
he found himself obliged to fall back on
. the Portuguese frontier. The
e '*''><^ (jgcisive campaign was deferred
struggle ^.j^ ^g ^j^g disasters of
in Europe .^ -kit • j. 1
the Moscow campaign, to be
described in the next chapter, gave a new
form to the Titanic struggle in Europe,
and more and more of the French troops
were withdrawn from the Peninsula.
Wellington, on the other hand, was some-
what better supported by the British
Government, with whom he had a powerful
advocate in the person of his brother,
the Marquess Wellesley, whose brilliant
career as Governor-General of India has
been narrated in an earlier volume.
Of the 200,000 French troops that
remained, which still included contingents
from the subject or dependent nation-
alities, nearly half were occupied in
endeavouring to hold down the northern
districts, and to repress the irrepressible
guerrillas and their brilliant chief, Mina.
Soult had been called away to Napoleon's
aid, and the armies in Spain were com-
manded nominally by Joseph, actually
by the veteran Jourdan, when Wellington
took the offensive in the late spring of
1813, having now under his command
nearly 50,000 British troops, supple-
mented by Portuguese. Deluding the
enemy into the belief that his attack was
to be directed against the centre of Spain,
4751
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
he was on the march into the northern
districts before the enemy could concen-
trate. Vittoria was the key to the hne
of communication with France ; and
here the decisive battle was fought
on June 21st. It ended in the utter rout
of the French. Guns, ammunition, bag-
gage, treasure, all the accumulated spoil
of Joseph's five years in Spain
were lost. The French army
The French
Disaster
V'lt • ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ flight to France.
The disaster was irretrievable.
Soult was once more despatched to do all
that could be done to hold the frontier.
He applied to the task supreme skill and
daring, but it was impossible of accom-
plishment. By the end of the year
Wellington's Peilinsular army was on
French soil. Between him and Soult the
last contest took place on April loth, 1814,
at the hard-fought battle of Toulouse,
which could barely be claimed as a victory
by the British commander. And the battle
itself was needless; for although the fact
was unknown to Soult or to Wellington,
Napoleon had already abdicated ; only
the terms of the abdication were not fully
settled until the following day.
The story of his fall will be told in our
next chapter ; but first we must turn
from the accounts of campaigns with
which we have hitherto been occupied to
other aspects of the Peninsular War.
We have remarked on the fact that while
the Spanish guerrillas maintained a persis-
tent and successful warfare against the
French domination in the north, thereby
rendering immense service to Wellington,
' the Spanish Government and Government
troops habitually failed to co-operate with
their great ally. The guerrillas were not
politicians ; their one object was to rid
themselves of the foreign oppressor.
The termination of the regime of the
Bourbons and Godoy seemed to give their
opportunity to the reformers, who had
been multiplied by the French Revolution.
_ . They succeeded in obtaining the
Bourbon •' x au /^ j. a.i_
_, . summons of the Cortes, or the
t*a*"E A "^^rest thing to the Cortes avail-
able, in Cadiz, when the rest
of Andalusia was in the hands of the
French. As had happened in France, the
moderates in this national Parliament were
soon swamped by the zealots of the revolu-
tion, who were no more in sympathy with
the anti -revolutionary English than with
French Caesarism ; and mutual distrust
made anything like cordial relations abso-
4752
lutely impossible. Instead of devoting
itself to the urgent necessities of a war
administration, the Cortes turned its atten-
tion to the production of a democratic
constitution and democratic legislation,
while its members were conspicuously
deficient both in political experience and
in political capacity. The moderation of
Jovellanos, the one man of real ability,
was translated into treason, and he was
put to death in 181 1.
The new constitution was modelled on
the very limited French monarchy of
1791, with a single very democratic
Assembly to which the executive, though
nominated by the king, was to be
responsible. It was to be elected every
two years, and no one might sit in
two consecutive Assemblies ; consequently
administrative experience was precluded.
The legislation followed the natural anti-
feudal and anti-clerical lines, though it
enforced Roman Catholicism and tolerated
no other religion. A theoretical loyalty to
King Ferdinand was essential. In the
country where, of all others, clerical as-
cendancy had been for centuries the most
_^ p . marked characteristic, not
e eninsu a ^^^j ^^ ^^^ Government, but
Freed from the , •' • , , • , •,
P • Y k ° ^^ popular sentiment, it
oreign o « -g obvious that party feeling
between clericals and anti-clericals ran
particularly high ; and when the French
withdrawal from Andalusia after Salamanca
enabled the Cortes to make itself felt in
North Spain the discussion became still more
serious, and might have paralysed Welling-
ton if the French had been in a position to
reap the full advantages of it.
The overthrow, final so far as concerned
Spain, of the French power at Vittoria
delivered the Peninsula from a foreign yoke,
but left it on the verge of a constitutional
struggle. The democrats had tasted power;
the king, Ferdinand, who was now to re-
turn to his kingdom, had only played the
popular part as prince, in opposition to
Godoy. The Napoleonic monarchy of
Spain, absolute though it was except so far
as it was subordinated to the behests of the
Emperor, had still followed the principle of
suppressing feudal privileges. Nationalism
had won the day, but the seeds of
domestic discord were destined to bring
forth a plentiful crop. And incidentally
the war had enabled the Spanish American
colonies to throw off their allegiance — a
resolution which the mother country was
as yet by no means ready to accept.
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
IX
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES. M.A.
THE RISING OF THE NATIONS
AND THE FALL OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON
■VV/HEN Massena was sent to take
^ up the Spanish command against
WeUington the omens were already
pointing to a decisive breach between
. Napoleon and Alexander. The French
Emperor's seizure of Oldenburg was
almost a personal insult to the Tsar ; and
when the New Year, 1811, saw Russia
withdrawn from the Continental System,
a declaration of war between the Eastern
and Western Emperors became a mere
question of time. For the humbling
of Great Britain could be accomplished
only by an exclusion of her commerce even
more rigid than Napoleon had hitherto
been able to enforce ; and with the Baltic
open to her, it was vain to dream that her
goods could be shut out of Europe.
It is not surprising that the determination
to crush Great Britain should have been the
dominant passion with Napoleon ; for she
was the one Power which had persistently
. defied him and consistently
apo eon s f^gj-gj-g^ ^j^^j upheld every effort
.^^g**. ."^ on the part of other nations to
resist him. But no such pas-
sion possessed the Tsar, and nothing short
of it could make endurable the economic
strain involved by the exclusion, total or
even partial, of British and colonial pro-
duce. The apparent fact is that whatever
subsidiary objects Napoleon may have
had in view, the primary consideration
which drove him to war with Russia was
the determination to seal up the Baltic.
It remains among the most curious
of those psychological aberrations which
break across the normal forces of
historical causation that an intellect
so vast and so catholic as Napoleon's
should have flatly rejected the economic
truths which were patent to all his finance
Ministers. He could not or would not
realise that the Continent could not sub-
sist without British and colonial produce ;
that the policy of exclusion could, on the
one side, only limit without destroying the
market for British goods, while, on the
30a
other, it enhanced prices enormously.
Beetroot sugar and chicory could not,
for instance, satisfy the demand for sugar
and coffee, and the risk of a forbidden
traffic compelled the producers to sell only
at extravagant prices, which the consumers
^^ had no choice but to pay ; while
„ " the shortage or the high cost of
F *^ d " ^^^ material ruined Continental
manufacturers. In other words,
the Continental System could only hamper
England, but it crippled and crushed the
Continent. And in doing so it immensely
intensified the forces antagonistic to the
French Empire. Yet the perfecting of the
Continental System overshadowed every
other consideration in Napoleon's mind.
It is hardly less strange that his absorp-
tion in this grand object Winded him to
the importance of definitely ending the
Peninsular War. In view of the resources
at Wellington's and at Napoleon's dis-
posal, the most enthusiastic admirers of
the Iron Duke can hardly doubt that he
must have been driven into the sea if
Napoleon had made up his mind to conduct
in person a fight to a finish in the Peninsula
before he advanced upon Russia.
Before we follow Napoleon's campaign,
it will be well to grasp the territorial
situation of the Powers. Draw a line from
Liibeck on the Baltic to the south of
Dalmatia on the Adriatic. Between that
line and the Pyrenees the whole Continent
was under Napoleon's sway. Murat ruled
at Naples. Eugene Beauharnais in the
kingdom of Italy was Napoleon's own
viceroy. Denmark was now devoted to
his cause. The Confederation
thJ7w^ " of the Rhine owned his suzer-
»*»j ^^^ ainty. Practically the whole
of Napoleon <■ 'li . ^ n
of the rest was actually
annexed to France. East of the line, Meck-
lenburg and Saxony were in the Rhine
Confederation, and the Gi:and Duchy of
Warsaw was a dependency of Saxony.
Norway belonged to Denmark, and Sweden
was virtually under Bernadotte — the only
4753
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
doubtful factor. Outside of Russia,
Great Britain, and the Peninsula, there
remained Prussia — what was left of it —
Austria, and Turkey ; and an Austrian
princess was now Napoleon's empress.
Before the war began, Alexander neutra-
lised Turkey by the judicious Treaty of
Bucharest. Both he and Napoleon
endeavoured to secure Polish
support, and here Napoleon was
Polish
Mistrust
of Russia
successful ; Polish mistrust of
Russia was too deeply rooted.
Austria and Prussia could hardly avoid
participation. Austria was disposed to
support Napoleon, but to confine herself
to a masterly inactivity in doing so.
For Prussia, the problem was grave.
Hardenberg, who had returned to the
chancellery, was Russian in his sympathies,
but saw that Prussia could not take the
risk. If she declared for Russia, she would
be the first victim, and Hardenberg
remembered that Russia had almost
completely deserted her after Friedland.
Sentiment yielded to judgment, and Prus-
sia offered France her alliance, which meant
just so much support as might be abso-
lutely necessary to preserve Prussia from
destruction. Both Prussia and Austria
were careful to explain to an under-
standing Tsar that their hostihty was
entirely simulated. Finally, Bernadotte,
never a warm supporter of Napoleon,
resolved to identify himself with the
interests of Sweden, to play the part
of a Swedish patriot, and to decline the
French Emperor's overtures.
The enormous resources now at Napo-
leon's disposal are illustrated by the
vastness of the army which he was able to
bring together in the spring of 1812 for the
Russian campaign. Although more than
200,000 men were still locked up in the
Peninsula, these forces were so great that the
actual army of invasion which crossed the
Niemen in June numbered 350,000 men.
It was Napoleon's intention to thrust
between the northern and the
The Great
Russian
Campaign
southern armies of Russia with
his whole force, and render
their junction hopeless. Pro-
gress, while the army was still in Russian
Poland, met with few active obstacles.
But the advance force under Davoust
was unable — ^probably owing to the dis-
obedience of Jerome Bonaparte — to cut off
the smaller southern army under Bagration ;
and the rear-guard of the larger northern
army was able to hold St. Cyr and Mac-
4754
donald in check, while its chief, Barclay
du Tolly, retired eastwards and effected
the junction with Bagration at Smolensk.
The exhausting character of the advance
and the commissariat difficulties of the
Grand Army necessitated a halt, and it
appears to have been Napoleon's first
intention to restrict his further operations
for the year to the organisation of Poland
as a base for next year's campaign.
But he was accustomed to annihilate his
enemies by the fierce swiftness of his blows.
The temptation to crush the Russian
force at once was too strong ; Austria
and Prussia, however inert, still stood as
ramparts to cover his rear. Instead of
staying to organise, he hurled his forces
onwards to Smolensk.
But Barclay had realised the uses of a
policy of withdrawal. His rear-guard held
the French army at bay while the main
body retired ; then fired the city, and retired
itself under cover of the conflagration, en
route for Moscow, luring Napoleon after it
in the full hope that he would yet force an
engagement and win a crushing victory.
Had Barclay du Tolly remained in
command, an engagement might never
_ have been forced at all. The
« raa Grand Army was already
D*fr^ H" dwindling, if that term may be
applied to a force which still
numbered 140,000 men. Every mile it
marched took it further from its base and
its supplies, further into the heart of a
passionately hostile country in which
supplies were hardly' procurable. But
Barclay's sagacity appeared to more fiery
spirits to be pusillanimity, even treason.
He was superseded by Kutusoff, a veteran
of Suwarrow's training. Kutusoff gave his
army and the enemy their heart's desire.
Three weeks after the action at Smolensk,
Napoleon found the Russians facing him
at Borodino on September 7th. After a
long and desperate sturggle, he drove them
from their position ; yet only so that a
ridge in the rear could be occupied so as to
cover the further retirement effectively.
Borodino cost Napoleon 30,000 men, and
though it was a victory for him in the
technical sense that it left him master of
the battlefield, he was no nearer his object
of shattering the opposing force,
Kutusoff and his Russians, however,
found their honour satisfied by a battle
in which their courage and skill had been
sufficiently vindicated. They were content
now to revert to the previous policy.
THE RISING OF THE NATIONS
In another week Napoleon was at Moscow ;
the historic capital of the Russian Empire
was in his hands on September 14th. But
he found, not the submission he had hoped
for, but. emptiness. The population had
gone, as well as the army, leaving little
but empty houses. The country had been
swept by the Russian troops, as Welling-
ton had swept the country before Massena
on the retreat to Torres Vedras. On the
night when Napoleon occupied the ancient
capital, fires broke out in every quarter —
deliberately planned — and a great part
of the city was laid in ruin.
Nevertheless, shelter was still afforded.
It was even possible to suggest that the
army should winter there. But the problem
of providing supplies was insoluble. A
march on St. Petersburg, dogged by the
Russian army,
which now lay
on the south at
Kaluga, was im-
practicable. For
a month Napo-
leon held on, in
the hope that the
fall of Moscow
might still bring
the Tsar to
terms ; but the
Tsar made no
sign. It became
convincingly
clear that retreat
was the only
Macdonald Ney
TWO GREAT MARSHALS OF FRANCE
rniir«;p no<;«;iblf B"*"" ** Sedan, the son of a Scottish Jacobite schoolmaster, Macdonald
-^ _^ ^ ' rose to high rank in the French army, distinguishing himself on the
Un UCtOber IQl-h, battlefield, and becoming marshal and Duke of Taranto
the order was another great leader, was in charge of the rear-guard in the disas-
issued NaDO- ^'^°^^ retreat from Moscow; he was shot for high treason in 1815.
leon had penetrated to Moscow, less, shattered army before
perhaps, from the conviction that by doing
so he would reach Russia's heart than
from the hope of bringing the Russian
army to the decisive engagement which
it had eluded. At any rate, he found that
if Russia had a heart — a vital spot — it
was not at Moscow. Barren, indeed, were
the laurels of that victorious
The Terrible advance ; such laurels were
of^Moscow ^^ inadequate substitute for
bread. The five hundred miles
that lay between Napoleon and the fron-
tier had been swept bare, and those five
hundred miles would have to be traversed
again, for Kutusoff lay between the
Grand Army and a more southerly route,
which had not been swept ; and Kutusoff
soon proved to be an insuperable obstacle.
A fierce battle at Jaroslavitz, though
again a technical victory for the French,
was Pyrrhic in character. The Grand
Army could not fight its way out of the
country by such battles as that, and
Napoleon found that there was no alterna-
tive but to retreat along the line of the
_ _, previous advance. For nearly
.. ,* ° three weeks it was conducted
Napoleons j .i j u • j j
Q . . amid great hardships and under
^ harassing attacks which re-
duced the 100,000 men who started from
Moscow to half that number. And then, on
November 6th, winter descended. But it
is well to note that before the bitter winter
began Napoleon's force was already less
than two-fifths of that which had found the
Russians facing it at Borodino two montl s
before. In other words, the Grand Army
was already a
wreck, a rem-
nant, before that
awful frost smote
it. Just as in the
case of the
Spanish Armada,
a picturesque
fiction has
permanently dis-
placed the his-
torical fact in the
general belief.
The Armada was
an irretrievably
beaten and
broken fleet be-
fore the winds
Ney" blew. The Grand
Army was an
irretrievably
the frosts came.
But the broken Armada was splintered by
the winds, and the shattered Grand Army
was annihilated by the frosts; and the
world will probably continue to give the
winds and frost the whole credit
The frosts came, and the disastrous
retreat became a hideous nightmare of
misery, relieved only by the indomitable
heroism of the rear-guard. It is estimated
that not less than 400,000 men must have
crossed the Niemen eastwards ; only
20,000 made their way back into Prussia
on November 14th, apart from the
column, of about the same number, under
Macdonald's command in the north.
Ten days earlier, the Emperor had left
his army in order to hasten in person to
Paris to re-establish his authority, against
4755
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
which, and in his absence, a futile attempt
to engineer an insurrection had been
made. The command was left to Murat —
King of Naples — ^who followed his chief's
example, and made for his own kingdom,
leaving the army to Eugene Beauharnais,
who succeeded in conveying it to safe
quarters at Leipzig, in Saxony. Al-
though Wellington's victory at
uropean Salamanca had not enabled him
J. / to secure the mastery of Spain,
apo eon ^^ ^^^ been made evident that
French ascendancy could be established
only by a great effort in the Peninsula.
The mere fact was sufficient to stir the hopes
of Napoleon's foes throughout Europe.
On the top of Welhngton's successes
came the terrific disaster of the Russian
expedition. Yet even now the Govern-
ments were afraid or unwilling to break
free. Russia, from her own point of
view, might well be content with what
she had achieved. Austria, guided by
Metternich, saw diplomatic opportunities
in prospect. The princes of the Rhine
Confederation halted between two opinions.
And Frederic William of Prussia, with
his territories still largely occupied by
French garrisons, lacked the nerve to
make an irrevocable decision. But the
decision was taken out of his hands.
The Prussian contingent, hitherto serv-
ing as in alliance with the French, was
under the command of the veteran
General Yorck. Stein, a fugitive from the
wrath of Napoleon, had been called by
the Tsar into his counsels, and now
exercised a strong influence with him.
These two men gave the lead which
changed the situation. Macdonald, with
his column, recalled from the siege of
Riga by the disaster of the Grand Army,
accomplished a successful retreat into
Prussian territory, and was on the point
of calling upon Yorck to co-operate
when he found himself compelled by the
Prussian general's defection to withdraw
^ ^ hastily to Konigsberg. Yorck,
• .t n*i r on his own responsibility, but
intheRoleof •,, ,, ^t •.•
... With the enthusiastic support
of the officers and men of his
army, had concluded a convention with
the Russians at Tauroggen. Influenced by
Stein, the Tsar was once again resolved
to resume his early role of liberator, in
spite of a strong Russian opposition
which would have preferred leaving
Western Europe to take care of itself.
Magnanimity might not have sufficed to
4756
bring him to this decision if he had been
satisfied that Russian interests would be
adequately secured otherwise ; but if
Napoleon should again terrorise the West
into submission, it was more than probable
that Russia would again find itself the
object of attack. The liberation of North
Germany by Russian aid could be justified
as the most effective defensive policy for
Russia. Yorck's convention withdrew the
Prussian troops from the French alliance,
and in effect handed over East Prussia to
the Tsar, and the Tsar entrusted the
government to Stein. Stein forthwith
convoked an assembly for the purpose of
calling the people of East Prussia to arms,
himself acting in the name of the Tsar.
Frederic William at first repudiated
Yorck's action, but very soon found that
the whole nation would be with him if he
took the courageous course, and would
almost certainly take that course itself
whatever the Government might do.
Within a month of the convention he had
fled from Berlin, which was dominated
by the French, to Breslau, which was not ;
and at the end of February he concluded
the Treaty of Kalisch with
Prttssia and j.\_ 'r i ■ ^
„ . . , the Tsar for war against
Russia against xt 1 xi. t j
■^ . Napoleon, the Tsar under-
apo eon taking that the Prussian
kingdom shoud be reinstated in its old ex-
tent, with equivalents in other quarters to
compensate for particular curtailments ;
which meant mainly that German districts
were to be substituted for Polish provinces
which in effect would pass to Russia. To
Prussia, it seemed that a heavy price was
demanded. It was not realised that in
becoming a Power wholly German, instead
of largely Slavonic, she would be greatly
advancing the ultimate prospects of
German nationalism under Prussian hege-
mony ; that, to this end, Prussia would be
placed at an immense advantage as com-
pared with Austria, within whose domin-
ions both Magyars and Czechs stood
entirely outside German nationalism.
Even before the Treaty of Kalisch was
concluded, Russian troops were pressing
forward through Prussia, and the arming
of the whole population was in progress.
On March 4th, Beauharnais evacuated
Berlin ; on the i6th the Prussian declara-
tion of war was formally proclaimed ;
on the 17th, the king issued an appeal to
the nation which gave the signal for an
overwhelming outburst of national
enthusiasm. But when the allies issued
THE RISING OF THE NATIONS
another appeal to German sentiment
outside Prussia, there was no similar
response. Sweden was the only state
which joined the coalition without hesita-
tion, mainly, perhaps, because Berna-
dotte expected, as the outcome, to acquire
Norway from Denmark, which was reso-
lutely fixed in its adherence to Napoleon.
But the effect on Prussia itself of Stein's
influence, and of Scharnhorst's military
organisation, became apparent when the
short -service army was trebled by the
trained reserves, and, behind these,
Landwehr and Landsturm were taking up
their training in yet greater numbers.
A passion of patriotic ardour, of fervent
tion, though Austria, with more prudent
calculation, declined to render him the
military aid which he demanded.
Napoleon took the offensive, and drove
back the Russians and Prussians, defeating
them first at Liitzen and then at Bautzen ;
but the defeats were not of the old crush-
ing character — ■neither of them approached
to a rout. Nevertheless, Barclay, restored
to the Russian command, could hardly
be restrained from reverting to the purely
Russian policy of falling back into Poland,
by the consideration that this would de-
stroy all prospect of Austria coming into
the coalition. In J une, Napoleon, trusting
to the moral effect of Liitzen and Bautzen
H
1
^^^^^ \ m *-* Jv*^/
1^
1
P
i
mi
MARSHAL NEY DEFENDING THE REAR-GUARD IN THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW
In the whole history of Napoleon's campaigns there is nothing more terrible or tragic than the experiences of his army
during the ill-fated Russian expedition. Retreating from Moscow the Grand Army of the Emperor was subjected to
great hardships and harassing attacks, these tremendously reducing the number of'^the men. The frosts came, and the
retreat became a hideous nightmare, relieved only by the indomitable heroism of the rear-g^ard under Marshal Ney.
From the painting by Adolphe Yvon
self-sacrifice, for the whole German
Fatherland, swept through Prussia,
strangely rational and sober despite its
intensity, which makes this Prussian
movement, in its kind, perhaps the most
nobly inspiring which history records.
It is hardly less startling to find that the
armies of France, which had lost half a
million men or little less in the last six
months of 1812, were able still to muster
half a million, besides the 200,000 left for
Wellington to deal with in Spain. So
confident was Napoleon of his own in-
vincibility despite the experience of 1812,
that he rejected Austria's offer of media-
on both Pnissia and -Austria, offered a
truce, which was readily accepted. But
he had now to deal not with the vacillating
King of Prussia, but with her people ;
with the astute Metternich, who meant to
have his price from one side or other, and
saw more promise from the allies ; and
with Alexander, who, having again set his
hand to the plough was not to be per-
suaded or alarmed into looking back.
To Metternich the truce presented "pre-
cisely the opportunity he desired of
modifying the plans of the coalition in
the Austrian interest. He was himself
satisfied that Austria's adhesion to the
4757
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The Allied
Nations ready
for War
Coalition would assure it of the mastery ;
the more so when Great Britain con-
cluded subsidiary treaties with Russia and
Prussia, and news came of Wellington's
decisive triumph at Vittoria. Metternich's
mediation was provisionally accepted by
both parties. But Napoleon was deter-
mined not to yield an inch of
territory. Metternich would
not demand less than the
retrocession of the Illyrian
Provinces to Austria, the partition of the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw between Russia,
Prussia, and Austria, and the restriction
of the French dominion to the west of the
Rhine, with his suzerainty over the
Rhenish Confederacy. Napoleon's refusal
c|f the terms threw Austria into the coali-
tion : on August 12th she declared war.
, The truce had helped the allies,
especially Prussia, to increase their levies
much more than Napoleon ; and now to
these were added the Austrian armies
which threatened Napoleon's flank from
Bohemia. The French numbers were
far inferior, and were especially deficient
i'n artillery and cavalry, the arms on which
I^apoleon placed most reliance. Still,
fhey had the advantage of the central
position in Saxony, and of the controlling
master-mind.
' The value of this was seen in the
second great engagement which followed
4 fortnight after the renewal of the war,
^hen, at Dresden, Napoleon won a brilliant
victory over the main allied force. But
ijts effect was neutralised by Bliicher's
defeat of Macdonald at Katzbach, in
Silesia,' on the previous day, and by the
disaster, three days later, which befel
Vandamme's column at Kulm. Sent to
cut off the retreat of the allies, the force
was unsupported, surrounded, and com-
pelled to capitulate. And a week later
Ney, who had advanced on Berlin, was de-
cisively defeated at Dennewitz by Biilow.
The allies now saw the way open to
effect a junction on Napoleon's rear.
Bliicher from Silesia passed
round the northern flank, and
from that side, awaiting Ber-
nadotte and Biilow, threatened
Leipzig, whither the main army proposed
to make its way from the south. Napoleon,
finding it impracticable to pierce the
Erz-Gebirge and attack the latter in
Bohemia, left Murat, who had joined him
again, to cover Leipzig, and went to destroy
Bliicher ; but Bliicher retired, evading
4758
" Battle
of the
Nations "
battle, while the allies, under Schwarzen-
berg, pressed Murat back from the south.
Napoleon found himself compelled . to
concentrate on Leipzig and accept battle.
On October i6th began the three
days' Battle of Leipzig, the "Battle
of the Nations." On the south. Napoleon
checked Schwarzenberg ; on the north,
Bliicher drove in Marmont. The great
fight was on the i8th. The French resist-
ance was prolonged and desperate ;
but now Bernadotte, who had hampered
rather than aided the movements of the
allies, was arriving, and threatened to cut
off the retreat which had become inevitable.
The final result was a decisive rout, in
which a part of Napoleon's army escaped
across the Elbe, and a part was driven
into the river. The series of battles cost
Napoleon 45,000 men, besides 23,000
who were left behind in hospital.
Only 70,000 men recrossed the Rhine.
Yet the allies had suffered so severely —
more, numerically, than the French — ^that
they were unable to carry on a pursuit.
Some weeks t»efore Leipzig the bearing
of the Austrian intervention on the future
^ ; of Germany manifested itself in
Fut'^eTn* ^^^ Treaty of Toplitz, which
th B 1 ratified the alliances. The inten-
tion of the Treaty of Kalisch
had been to develop Stein's ideas of German
nationalism at the expense of the princes
. of the Rhenish Confederation, who, from
this point of view, had forfeited all claim
to consideration. But to Metternich, the
theories of Stein were an abomination.
His scheme was not that of appealing to Ger-
man sentiment and establishing free govern-
ments, but of detaching Napoleon's allies
by promising them monarchical indepen-
dence in place of monarchical subjection.
Little pleasing as the idea might be
to the new nationalism, it was not
without its appeal to the still influential
body of monarchists and feudalists in
Prussia ; moreover, Austria's position in
the coalition was too strong to permit of
her being over-ruled. The Treaty of
Toplitz embodied Metternich's principle ;
and its effect was seen in the early adhesion
of Bavaria, which had been Napoleon's
ally from the beginning, and in the marked
inclination of the whole posse of princes
to transfer their support to the allies.
Leipzig was decisive. They came in, in
haste to secure themselves the benefits of
the Toplitz agreement. Those whom
Napoleon had ejected were restored.
THE RISING OF THE NATIONS
William of Orange was reinstated in
Holland, no longer as stadtholder, but
as king. Denmark was obliged to give up
the French alliance, and to cede Norway
to Sweden. And most of the fortified
places held by French garrisons from
the Vistula to the Rhine were soon forced
to capitulate. Spain was already com-
pletely lost to Napoleon, and all that
Soult could do was to offer a stubborn
resistance to Wellington's entry into
France through the Pyrenees.
At Frankfort the allies held council in
the second week of November. Bliicher,
as befitted the veteran who was popularly
known as " Marshal Forward," was eager
for an immediate invasion of France. Not
so the diplomatists. They preferred to
offer the Emperor terms, restricting France
to her " natural boundaries " — the Pyre-
nees, the Alps, and the Rhine. The
monarchs were in some fear of the next
development of the peoples, into whom
the spirit of patriotism had breathed an
alarming energy. The old dread of the
Revolution was very much alive. Those
terms would have satisfied all the Powers.
. . After Moscow, Vittoria, and
nva ing Lgjp^jg^ they were generous, and
in Fran e ^^^^ represented nothing more
than the accomplished fact.
But even now Napoleon would not recog-
nise that the odds had become too over-
whelming. Perhaps he believed that his
dynasty would be endangered if he came
to terms otherwise than as a victor in the
field. Perhaps he trusted to a collapse in
the unanimity of the allies. Whatever his
motive, he ignored what was now the pre-
dominating sentiment in France in favour
of an honourable peace, while the allies had
been careful in -the form of their proposals
to concihate the amour propre of the
French people.
By this time Wellington was on French
soil, and his admirable control over the
invading troops was producing a most
favourable impression in Southern France.
Even the obsequious Corps Legislatif pre-
sented what was practically an address in
favour of such a peace as was offered. But
the Emperor was obdurate in maintaining
larger demands, and on December ist the
offer of the allies was withdrawn. In Jan-
uary the invading armies entered France.
In the south of France, the duel between
Soult and Wellington continued. In the
south of Italy, Murat had dropped ' his
brother-in-law's cause ; in North Italy,
the Austro-Bavarian agreement after Top-
litz, by giving the Austrians free passage
through the Tyrol, had made the position
of Eugene Beauharnais practically unten-
able. On the north-east of France, the
allied army of the north was entering
Belgium. Their Grand Army of 250,000
men passed the Rhine at Basle and moved
A M-ii- north-west on Champagne,
A Million ^j^.jg ^j^g g Bliicher with
Men Lost by . v i • xi, ■ i.
j^ J 90,000 crossed it m the neigh-
apo eon bourhood of Coblentz, passed
the Moselle and the Meuse, and advanced
to effect a junction with Schwarzenberg.
Napoleon was vastly outnumbered, for the
campaigns of the last eighteen months
must have cost him a million soldiers, and
that he could still put an effective force in
the field is explicable only when we re-
member that a great proportion of the
soldiery employed on those campaigns was
drawn, not from France, but from the
subject and dependent states of Germany,
Italy, and Poland. As it was, the force on
which he was now reduced to reljdng was
made up partly of indomitable veterans,
but mainly of lads who had been too young
to be called to arms before, of the genera-
tion which, born in the Year of Terror, was
inevitably stamped by physical inferiority.
The Seine, which takes its course
through Troyes to Paris, the Aube, which
joins it a little below Troyes, and the
Marne, which joins it just above Paris, all
take their rise on the plateau from which
the Grand Army was advancing. Napo-
leon's force lay between the Marne and the
Seine, covering Paris. A vigorous offen-
sive from Schwarzenberg was not to be
expected, but Bliicher was displaying his
habitual energy. He was already nearing
Schwarzenberg, when Napoleon struck at
him and checked him at the end of January
at St. Dizier and Brienne. But Bliicher,
reinforced, had double the numbers of the
opposing column, and inflicted a severe
defeat on it at La Rothiere on February
„ . ist, 1814. The victory was de-
_ "*^ ' . cisive enough to warrant his
P . desire to march straight on Paris
by the Marne and Chalons ;
but neither Austrians nor Russians wished
the campaign to be in effect a Prussian
triumph. For commissariat purposes, as it
was alleged, it was resolved that the Grand
Army should advance by the Seine and
Bliicher by the Marne — not too fast. They
still wished, in fact, to give Napoleon the
chance of accepting a peace. Austria was
4759
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
jealous of Prussia acquiring too much pres-
tige ; so was the Tsar. Austria was afraid
of the Tsar insisting, in the hour of victory,
on championing a Repubhcan restoration,
for he was the one monarch who had re-
garded the Revolution principles with
favour. Frederic William shared Austria's
fear. But Napoleon remained as deter-
^i r^ •*. 1 mined as ever in demanding
The Critical ,, ,, , •,•
„ ... , more than the most conciha-
rosition of , /• i • <• i j j
. -, tory of his foes would concede.
In the second week of Feb-
ruary, Bliicher gave him his chance by
endeavouring to break in between Napoleon
at Troyes and Macdonald at Epernay, and
to cut the latter off from Paris. The
movement involved an extension of his
column, which enabled the Emperor to
inflict on it in
detail a series
of defeats which
drove it back on
Chalons and gave
the young French
conscripts a new
confidence in
themselves and
in their mighty
leader. Napo-
leon's temporary
division encou-
raged Schwarzen-
berg to advance
past Troyes, and
the Emperor had
to turn back and
defeat him at
Montereau in-
stead of going
on to complete
Bliicher's discomfiture, which was much
less complete than Napoleon imagined.
Again the allies proposed an armistice ;
again Napoleon refused ; though the
former were continually receiving rein-
forcements, and the latter was not. The
overtures being rejected, the allies renewed
their treaty at Chaumont on March ist.
The fact that it was to hold good for
twenty years suggests that even now
they were not contemplating the total
destruction of Napoleon's power in the
immediate future. Meanwhile, however,
NAPOLEON ARRIVING AT ELBA IN 1811
that Bliicher, by the end of February,
was making a flank march on the north,
with a view to effecting a junction with
the Army of the North, which was now
approaching, and of threatening Paris,
while Schwarzenberg occupied Napoleon.
The junction was effected at Soissons
on March 4th. Napoleon attacked the
united forces at Craonne and drove them
back on Laon, where his success was
reversed. The overwhelming pressure of
the allies drove the Emperor to the
desperate expedient of falling on Schwarz-
enberg's communications, thus leaving
open the road to Paris for the Grand
Army ; and the Tsar resolved to disregard
Napoleon's movement and advance on
Paris itself. The covering corps under
Marmont were
shattered at La
Fere Champe-
noise by the com-
bined forces of the
Tsar and Bliicher
on March 26th.
Throughout the
30th a fierce but
unequal contest
raged in the en-
virons of Paris,
till Bliicher's cap-
ture of Mont-
martre decided
Marmont to act
on the licence
I given him by
Joseph Bona-
parte, who was
nominally in con-
trol of the city.
Paris capitulated on the next day; it
was evacuated by the French troops, and
entered by the allied sovereigns. At
last Napoleon found resistance hopeless.
His marshals one and all gave him
to understand that he must consider
himself irretrievably beaten.
Napoleon jj^ offered to abdicate, but
still struggled to make condi-
tions. The allies would listen to
They, not he, must decide the
Retires
to Elba
none.
future of France. For himself, he might
retain the title of Emperor, a substan-
the south-west was passing decisively tial but by no means imperial pension,
to Wellington, and on March 12th the and the sovereignty of the island of
Royalists in Bordeaux proclaimed Louis Elba. On April nth, 1814, he yielded.
XVI I L But what mattered more was On May 4th he was in Elba,
4760
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
X
BY ARTHUR
D. INNES.M.A
THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE
NAPOLEON'S RETURN & FINAL OVERTHROW
THE Napoleonic era closes with the
abdication in 1814. Fundamentally,
the Emperor's return and the campaign of
1815 merely form an episode, intensely
dramatic, but productive only of accidental
effects, inasmuch as the return silenced
the disputes between the Powers which
were threatening to disturb Europe afresh,
and the victory of Waterloo gave Great
Britain an increased prestige in the
councils of Europe. But the principles
on which the Continent was settled in
1815 were no departure from the principles
of 1814. We have therefore reached a
convenient point for forming some estimate
of what was actually accomplished by
the Revolution and the Empire.
In the first place, the Revolution
destroyed once for all in France the old
system of aristocratic and clerical privilege.
1 he aggressive Republic imposed the same
principle on the subordinate republics which
it created ; and when Caesarism
„ * . replaced the French Republic,
Revolution ^j r> i- j. j i.*
. ,. . . and Bonapartist dynasties
Accomplished ., it ^ i_i-
the subordmate republics,
the same principles continued to be
maintained, and took permanent root.
In Central Europe those principles had
taken sufficient hold to enable Stein and
Hardenberg and Stadion to carry re-
forms up to a point which gave a solid
basis for further development, but stopped
far short of what the reformers desired.
Social feudalism had gone in the west, and
its foundations in Germany were sapped.
Not so with monarchism. The Revolu-
tion effected only a temporary sub-
version of monarchism. The republics
which it created became monarchies again,
and so remained ; yet those monarchies
lacked their old prestige, and under them
enough of the machinery of popular govern-
ment survived to make the way ready for
constitutionalism to eject absolutism.
The Republic had extended liberty
outside the borders of France, in the sense
of calling peoples to active participation
in the government of the state. It had
destroyed liberty in the other sense—
that it had imposed alien control. The
Caesarism put an end to the new liberty,
and extended the imposition of alien con-
trol. Yet where that control was most
complete it brought gifts, consistency in-
_,. „ the form of law and in its ad-
f F ^'^^'"'^ ministration. The dependent
£^ . states were better governed
when they were dependencies
than when they were independent. Where
the Nationalist idea was non-existent, where
subordination to some external authority
had been habitual, as in Italy and in
Belgium, the French expansion, per se,
was beneficial. Napoleon in his conquests
and annexations merely carried out on a
larger scale the poUcy of the Republic
itself ; and the Republic, intensely
Nationalist as concerned France itself,
recognised no Nationalism beyond its
own borders. It was when the French
expansion came into collision with
Nationalism that it became a tyranny,
which stirred patriotic resistance to a
passion, and brought it to life where it
had hitherto been virtually non-existent.
Nationalism was a late birth of time.
In England and Scotland it had been
vigorous for 500 years, in France and
Spain for 300, and in Holland for 200 ;
but the system of the Holy Roman Em-
pire was cosmopolitan in theory and prac-
tice, and the Nationalist idea remained no
more than embryonic. Napoleon's concep-
tion of replacing the amorphous Holy
„ , , Roman Empire by reviving
Napoleon s ,- • ^ . r /-. 1
„ . J c . a living empire of Charle-
Ruined Scheme ^ Jl 1 ■,- ■,
of Imperialism magne IS not to be dismissed
as the outcome of mere per-
sonal ambition ; but it was doomed to
failure in the long run precisely because it
disregarded the Nationalism which, once
awakened, could juot be reconciled with
cosmopolitan imperialism. The perfidy
by which he seized Spain, the tyranny
to which he subjected Prussia, raised
4761
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Great Britain's
Resistance
Nationalism into an irresistible antagon-
istic force which brought the whole
imperial scheme to complete ruin.
The apologists for Napoleon have some
warrant for claiming that the conception
of such an empire, and the attempt to
give it effect should be admired and ap-
plauded as being for the advantage of civil-
isation. The upholders of
Nationalism are entitled to
. ., , take the contrary view. For
to Napoleon ^ , -r> \l ■ /u
Great Britam, the assump-
tion that the forces of the Napoleonic Em-
pire, when its construction and organisation
should be completed, would be devoted to
her o\ erthrow was so overwhelming that
she had no choice but to resist Napoleon
with her whole force. In the endeavour to
crush her resistance Napoleon imposed, or
tried to impose, upon Europe the Conti-
nental System, which inflicted
on the Continent itself hard-
ships which more than coun-
terbalanced such benefits as
were conferred by his consum-
mately organised methods of
administration. Added to
this, the realisation of the
imperial idea could be at-
tained only through a series of
wars, with all the evils thereof
in proportion to the vast scale
on which they had to be waged,
destroying property, ruining
industry, and draining every
country in Europe of its most
ignore it has ended in its more decisive con-
firmation. Perhaps in time it may come to
be recognised universally and decisively,
instead of only partially and occasionally.
Among the allies at the moment of
Napoleon's abdication there were not a
few prominent persons who entertained
illusory hopes of a Nationalist develop-
ment. They were doomed to disappoint-
ment ; but the first business of the
victorious Powers was the settlement of
France. Neither Russia nor Great Britain
viewed a Bourbon restoration with en-
thusiasm, but both wished the choice' of
the French themselves to be confirmed,
and the Legitimists carried the day, with
the warm approval of Austria and Prussia.
Talleyrand, always a monarchist at heart,
made himself the real controller of the
situation. Louis XVIII., recalled from
exile, entered Paris on April
29th, but the royalist victory
was endangered at the outset
by his reactionary tone. Under
pressure from the Tsar he was
induced to concede a Constitu-
tion by grace of the Crown.
On the hypothesis that the
Revolution was over, and that
France had returned to her
legitimate Government, the
legitimate Government made
a treaty with the allies. The
French frontier was with-
drawn to its maximum pre-
regicide limit, that of 1792,
, . JOACHIM MURAT ,. . „
vigorous sons, leavmg it in a general in the French army, he With SOmC additions : Great
the main to those physically [^^fgw* wfi^^prodataed'Krng^lff Britain restored her con-
inferior to impart their de- the Two SidUes. He was shot in quests, except Mauritius, St.
fec^s to_ the next generation. '^''•*^'*'"*"*^ ''y "'"■*-'"*''"^^- Lucia, and Tobago. The
The French Revolution, in spite ot its
own excesses and the monarchical reac-
tion in which it ended, made the con-
ception of civic freedom a part of the
inheritance of future generations, not only
in France, but throughout Europe.
Napoleon, overriding but not uprooting
civic freedom, set his seal on the revo-
lutionary charter which abolished a caste
system that was tightening its coils about
Europe. His overthrow established the
principle by which it was accomplished,
that through neither Empire nor Pro-
vincialism, but through a healthy and
tolerant Nationalism the progressive de-
velopment of Europe must be achieved.
The lesson was not learnt then ; it was
obstinately and repeatedly ignored in the
century that followed, and each attempt to
4762
allied armies withdrew, and no indemnity
was required. Broadly speaking, the
whole period of the Republic and the
Empire was wiped out as covering
merely an unfortunate episode. It was
provided at the same time that Holland
should receive an increase of territory, and
_ , that Great Britain should re-
R«tor°ed" ^^°^^ ^^^ ^"^^^ colonies— all
es ore y ^^ ^hich she had captured —
the Powers . .j r- j ta
except the Cape and Demerara.
The German princes were to have full
sovereignty, but were to be federated ;
Italy was to be resolved into a congeries
of independent states, except for a portion
to be restored to Austria. The disinter-
ested attitude of Great Britain was
marked not only by her unique surrender
of actual conquests, but by her insistence
THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE
on a clause in the treaty directed against
the slave-trade. Other questions and
details were to be referred to a congress
which was to meet at Vienna
in November. At that con-
gress the five great Powers
were represented respectively
by Metternich, Hardenberg,
Nesselrode, Castlereagh, and
Talleyrand. Every European
state, large or small, was
represented, except Turkey.
The four victorious Powers
had agreed to reserve to them-
selves the decision of burning
questions, but the diplomatic
skill of Talleyrand not only
added France herself to the
four, but made him practic-
ally the most important of
all the notable negotiators.
The congress had to re-
construct a Europe which had
been decomposing and recomposing ter-
ritorially and constitutionally at brief
intervals for more than twenty years,
LOUIS XVIII OF FRANCE
The younger brother of LouisXVI.,
he became monarch on the fall of
Napoleon in 1814. He ruled with
severity, and when Napoleon re-
turned from Elba', fled from Paris.
and it had no intention whatever of
allowing its reconstruction to be affected
in the one field by Nationalism, or in the
other by the principles of 1789.
Talleyrand successfully gave
them their keynote by offering
them the principle of legitim-
ism as the basis of harmony.
It did not produce harmony,
but it eliminated certain
discordant possibilities. The
treatment of Poland and
Saxony and of German
Nationalism became the cru-
cial questions. Russia wanted
Poland cLS a modest return
for her disinterested efforts
in the cause of Europe ; but
Prussia, if she were to lose
her share of Poland, wanted
Saxony by way of compensa-
tion ; while the King of
Saxony had forfeited all
right to consideration by supporting
Napoleon till his defeat at Leipzig. But
in the Austrian view that would give
THE BEGINNING OF "THE HUNDRED DAYS ": NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM ELBA
Brooding in Elba, Napoleon saw the unpopularity of the Restoration regime in France, and he determined to make one
more struggle with fate. Escaping from Elba, he landed near Cannes on March 1st, 1815, and appealed to the French
nation's loyalty to its emperor. Though France, on the whole, acquiesced in his return, the old enthusiasm was lacking.
From the painting' by Steuben
4763
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Kingdom
of Saxony
Prussia too great a preponderance in
Germany ; nor did it meet with the
approval of England and France, both of
which disliked the advance westward of
the Russian frontier. Matters reached a
stage at which these three Powers entered
into a compact to resist the
* '^* * undue aggrandisement of
Russia and Prussia. Talley-
rand's doctrine of legitimism,
however, carried the day with the Tsar.
The King of Saxony was allowed to retain
half his kingdom, Prussia getting the other
half, and, by way of compensation, the
districts on the west which she held before
Tilsit, together with the old ecclesias-
tical districts of Treves
and Cologne ;. and Dan-
zig, Thorn and Posen,
conceded by Russia, on
the east. Protestant
Prussia was rather
troubled by the acqui-
sition of the arch-
bishoprics ; neither she
nor France realised that
by having her frontier
brought to the Rhine
she was bound to be-
come the protagonist
in any Franco-German
contest over frontiers,
and to gain a corre-
sponding predominance
among the German
states. We need not
enter into further de-
tails of the territorial
rearrangements in
Germany, but some
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
By his great victory at the Battle of Waterloo, in
in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Norway
was transferred from Denmark to Sweden,
which had lost Finland to Russia after Tilsit .
The restoration of Ferdinand VII. in
Spain, and of the House of Braganza in
Portugal, resulted, in both countries, in
the Government which presented in its
extremest form the monarchical reaction
against those "principles of 1789"
which had been so completely pre-
dominant in the war of liberation.
The hardest disappointment was re-
served for the German patriots who had
revivified Prussia under the inspiration
of German Nationalism. They had looked
for a reorganisation which would establish
German unity, or, at
least, two vigorous
federations, headed by
Austria and Prussia
respectively, if the con-
flicting claims of those
two Powers to the
hegemony could not be
reconciled. Stein and
his allies had looked
further for the com-
pletion of the work in
which Stein himself had
been stayed by the in-
tervention of Napoleon,
of developing constitu-
tional government and
free institutions. All
these hopes were
dashed. Some two score
of principalities, whose
" legitimate " sove-
reigns were restored
with sovereign rights
nnintQ rPTYinin in Vip 1815, this famous general broke for ever the power „rirnrf ailpri wprp a<i-
poiniS remain lO Oe „{ Napoleon and rid Europe of the disturber of its UnCUrtaiiea, WCrC as-
noted. The promised peace, a grateful nation covered him with honours,
. • , TT n J and in 1827 he became Prime Minister. He died in 1852.
extension of Holland
gave her Belgium and Luxemburg ; Austria
thus ceased to rule over provinces co-
terminous with France. Victor Emanuel
of Savoy recovered his provinces in North
Italy, with his kingdom of Sardinia, while
Austria recovered her northern provinces
in that country, as well as the Tyrol from
Bavaria. The rest of North Italy resumed
its character as a congeries of small
states, and the papal dominions were
restored. Murat was permitted to retain
Naples, but ruined himself by again going
over to Napoleon on his return ; he was
deposed, and was finally captured in an
attempt to recover Naples, and was
executed; the Bourbons were reinstated
4764
sociated in a headless
confederation which
lacked even the semblance of unity pro-
vided by the defunct Holy Roman Empire.
Not German unity but the total sup-
pression of the " principles of 1789 " was
the one requirement of Austria under
the sinister guidance of Metter-
nich. While the diplomatists
wrangled and collogued, a
catastrophe was preparing which
came near to shattering the whole
edifice they were constructing. France
had regarded the fall of the Emperor with
something like relief ; the strain of the
last eighteen months had been too
exhausting, and Napoleon's obstinate
refusal to accept honourable terms had
France
Tired of
Napoleon
47^5
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
created a reaction against him. But the
peace and the Bourbon restoration brought
back to France immense numbers of
veteran soldiers who had been prisoners
of war, and gave the Royalists the
opportunity of flaunting their determina-
tion to carry the reaction back beyond
1789, and more particularly of procuring
, the restitution of the property
L^Tst*" * which had changed hands in
*.l r ^"^K e the Revolution. In the intense
with Fate J . , .,
and mcreasmg unpopularity
of the Restoration regime, Napoleon, brood-
ing in Elba, saw his chance of making one
more struggle with fate. Eluding the
vigilance of the warder frigates, he suc-
ceeded in embarking, landing near Cannes
on March ist, and appealing to the French
nation's loyalty to its emperor.
There was a critical moment when the
garrison of Grenoble was marched out
against him. With theatrical instinct he
bade them fire upon him if any among
them sought his death ; they responded
with enthusiastic shouts. In that hour
the soldiiery took him back to their hearts ;
loyalist marshals and generals had to
flee for their lives as he progressed trium-
phantly towards Paris. Louis was not
behindhand in dramatic fervour ; he
announced that he would remain steadfast
and die to protect his people. Having said
which, he incontinently ran away to
Ghent. On March 20th the Emperor was
back in Paris. Ney had gone out to
destroy him, and had joined him with all
his troops instead.
Napoleon declared that he had come
back not to embroil Europe, but to save
the Revolution. It is conceivable that this
was his intention at the moment ; it is
not conceivable that it would have re-
mained so for long. The Powers, at any
rate, dechned to take the risk. They
refused to recognise him, and a week
before he reached Paris declared him the
public enemy of Europe. Their wrangles
were brought to a sudden
th*'*E*°'^ end in the face of common
f*E ''*™* danger. In a treaty on March
25th, each of them agreed to put
150,000 men in the field, and maintain
war until Napoleon should be effectively
deposed and removed from all possibility
of troubling the world. Whether he wished
for war or not, he must either fight or go.
With the army at his back, whatever
the sentiment of the rest of France might
be, there was no sort of doubt that he
' 4766
would fight. France, on the whole,
acquiesced in his return, but without
unanimity or general enthusiasm. He
gave it to be understood that he intended
to rule not as an autocrat, but constitu-
tionally. It was evident that a revival
of despotism would meet with active
resistance, and there were many men iu
France, as well as outside, who felt that
no confidence could be placed in assurances
of good intentions. But in any case.
Napoleon was once more de facto lord of
France, and the attitude of the Powers
required him to organise his forces and
strike before the armies of Europe were
gathered together against him.
In June, the Emperor had concentrated
his forces, some 124,000 men, on the Bel-
gian frontier at Valenciennes. Great Britain
had thrown 36,000 troops into Holland.
Combined with these were 22,000 Bruns-
wickers, 20,000 Dutch and Belgians, 6,000
of the King's German Legion, and minor
contingents. Wellington had under his
command something over 90,000 men,-
with his headquarters at Brussels. Bliicher
had 120,000 men, nearly all Prussians, with
their base at Namur. The rest of the allies
j^ had not yet brought up their
apo ^°^ forces. The Prussian van had
B^rtTr "id * advanced as far as Charlerot,
and Wellington had not com-
bined with them, when Napoleon began
his advance. Space forbids us here to
enter on the endless discussions as to what
each of the generals may have intended to
do. The prima facie interpretation of the
campaign must suffice. Napoleon struck
straight at the Prussians, with the object of
driving them back on Namur, and cutting
them off from a junction with Wellington,
at whom he could then strike, crushing him
or driving him back on Brussels. The
destruction first of one army and then of
the other could then be completed in
detail, before the appearance of the allies.
On June 15th, then. Napoleon advanced
on Charleroi, while it was Wellingtonis
expectation that his blow would be
directed not to severing the British from
Bliicher, but to cutting the communica-
tions of that Power with the sea. Froih
Charleroi he drove back the Prussian van.
Bliicher took up a strong position at
Ligny. Wellington was tardy in his
movements. Ney was despatched north
with a column to secure the cross-roaos
at Quatre-Bras on the Brussels road,
blocking Welhngton's advance, and from
THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE
that point to descend south-eastwards by
the Namur road on Bliicher's rear, while
Napoleon himself made the main attack
on Bliicher. Ney found Quatre-Bras
weakly held by the Prince of Saxe-Weimar,
who had seized it without orders.
Ney, however, on the one hand, expected
the support of a corps under D'Erlon, who
received contradictory instructions, and
hovered all day between Quatre-Bras and
Ligny without rendering help in either
quarter ; and, on the other hand, the
Dutch were reinforced by British regi-
ments, who retrieved the position. Mean-
time, Napoleon attacked Bliicher, and,
after a stubborn fight, compelled the
Prussians at last to retreat under cover of
darkness. The victory at Quatre-Bras
prevented the defeat at Ligny from
becoming a disaster ; but Napoleon's
object of severing the hostile armies
seemed to have been accomplished.
Under this impression. Napoleon lost
valuable hours in delaying either to press
on after Bliicher or to advance against
Wellington. Moreover, he was misled by
the intelligence he received on the 17th
into believing that Bliicher was retiring
on the line of his communica-
tions to ^amur ; whereas the
valiant Prussian had resolved
to effect the junction with
Wellington, risking his exposed communi-
cations, and was retiring upon Wavre,
northwards, parallel to the road from
Quatre-Bras to Brussels. Wellington called
in his troops from Quatre-Bras and took
up his position on the ridge at Waterloo.
Soon after midday on June 17th,
Grouchy was detached with 33,000 men
to find Bliicher. It was not till after
midnight that the pursuing force learned
definitely that their quarry was not at
Namur, but at Wavre. Napoleon himself
advanced against Wellington. The crisis
had arrived. It was prima facie improb-
able that Wellington could inflict a defeat
on his adversary, who had a slightly larger
force and very much stronger artillery.
Moreover, of Wellington's 67,000 men,
only 24,000 were British, and those for
the most part were young recruits ; his
Hanoverians and Brunswickers could be
relied on — they were burning to avenge
the death of the Duke of Brunswick at
Quatre-Bras— but the rest, for the most
part, were of very uncertain quality. The
great questions were, for the Prussians,
whether Wellington would hold on at
The Decisive
Battle
of Waterloo
Waterloo or beat a retreat ; for Wellington,
whether the Prussians would be able to
come to his help at all, and if at all,
whether he could hold out till they came.
Wellington's troops were drawn up,
screened by the summit of their ridge,
and occupied the slopes, in front the
chateau of Hougomont, guarding their
^ ... , left, and the farm of La Haye
Welling on s g^-^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^ ^^jj^y
nriiiiant , between them and Napo-
Defence , -^ , .1 r i-
leon s army on the frontmg
ridge. The Emperor, not believing in the
possibility of Bliicher's arrival, delayed
his attack till near midday on Sunday,
June i8th, because the drenched state
of the ground was unfavourable to the
cavalry movements on which he relied.
Fierce attacks on Hougomont and La
Haye Sainte, gallantly repulsed, were the
features of the early stages of the Battle
of Waterloo. But Grouchy had failed to
interpose his force between Wellington and
Bliicher, and the fact that Prussians were
approaching was ascertained before the
fight had been going on for two hours.
A dispatch was sent to Grouchy, recalling
him - to the main army, but it did not
reach him till too late.
It became evident that if WelUngton
was to be routed before reinforcements
arrived, his centre must be pierced. Masses
of troops in dense columns were hurled
against it and rolled back by the stubborn
fire of the infantry and charges of British
cavalry. At about 4.30, the fury of the
attack began to be redoubled, and still
charge after charge was hurled back by the
obstinate, unyielding British squares, and
shattered by the flank fire of the extended
British line on the massed columns.
It was probably not till after six o'clock
that La Haye Sainte, resolutely held
by the King's German legion, was de-
cisively carried. But by that hour
Bliicher's approach had withdrawn the
reserves which should have occupied the
captured ground. Still, though
\t* w f Ik the Prussians were now
Old cJard threatening the French flank,
they had not yet arrived in
such force but that the field might yet
be won if the British could be routed in a
last desperate effort. That desperate effort
was made. The Old Guard was hurled
up the slope, only to be hurled back,
broken and shattered. The Prussians were
already in touch with Wellington's left.
The Duke gave the order for a general
4767
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
advance ; the cavalry, hitherto to a great
degree withheld from action, fell upon the
staggering column. The Prussians, crashing
in on the French right, turned what was
already becoming a rout into a wild
" sauve-qui-peut," and carried far into the
night a pursuit in which the exhausted
British could not share. Napoleon's
, army had ceased to exist.
Napoleons j^^^^^ ^^^ English critics
AntihilaUd' ^^° "^°^^^ ^^^^ ^^ *^^* ^^^"
lington would have defeated
Napoleon if there had been no Bliicher.
There are German critics who would
have it that nothing but Bliicher's
arrival saved Wellington from utter
disaster. There are Bonapartist critics
who hold that Napoleon would have
destroyed both Wellington and Bliicher
but for the incompetence of his own
marshals. And there are critics from
whom one would gather that the most
characteristic feature of this most decisive
of battles, in which the two most uniformly
successful commanders since the days of
Marlborough and Eugene were pitted
against each other, lay in the blunders that
each of them committed. The last point
hardly demands discussion. As for the
third, if Grouchy and Ney held commands
for which Soult and Davoust were better
fitted, it was by Napoleon's own choice.
For the other two, it was Wellington's
business to hold his position till Bliicher
arrived, and to be prepared for the con-
tingency of Bliicher's not arriving. It is
by no means inconceivable that if the
approach of the Prussians had not drawn
off Napoleon's reserves, the position would
have become untenable before the end of
the day. It is also conceivable that the
doggedness of Wellington's troops would
even in the same event have proved in-
vincible ; also that he might in any case
have been able to retire, defeated, but not
routed. The obvious fact is that Welling-
ton with the British, the Hanoverians and
.... . . Brunswickers, and the German
J. **„ ° legion, held Napoleon at bay
to*Paris*'°' ^°^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^ while Bliicher
completed the dangerous and
daring movement which turned a stubborn
defence into an overwhelming victory.
The Emperor fled to Paris, to find Carnot
practically the only man still zealous that
France should and could yet once more
be rallied to his support. Fouche, crafty,
self-seeking, indispensable, was at one
with Lafayette in insisting on the Chambers
4768
being treated as the supreme authority.
Paris gave no hope, and there was none out-
side Paris. Napoleon abdicated in favour
of the son born to him by his Austrian
spouse, attempted to embark on an
American frigate at Rochefort, and finding
that impossible, surrendered himself on
July 8th to the commander of the British
warship Bellerophon, declaring that he
threw himself on the generosity of England.
But generosity carried too many risks
for Europe to be contemplated by England
or assented to by the Powers. In the mid-
Atlantic, where stands the lonely rock of St.
Helena, the sun of Napoleon set for ever.
The last desperate effort, crushed on the
^ield of Waterloo, made no difference to
the settlement of Vienna save as regarded
France herself. Wellington and Bliicher
swept on to Paris. On July 3rd the city
capitulated. On the 8th, Louis XVIII.
re-entered the capital, and was recognised
by Wellington. The monarch was quite
capable of grasping the necessity of
adopting, a much ifiore constitutional
attitude than at his last restoration.
Talleyrand convinced the Tsar that the
choice lay between Louis and Napoleon,
, and Napoleon was impossible.
ranee s jj^g-t being^ettled, the question
R °"'*^ .^ of the penalty to be imposed
upon France arose, and here
the cool judgment of the victor of Water-
loo carried the day. The natural wrath of
Prussia must be restrained — the dynastic
restoration would be doomed if it were
accompanied by the territorial losses which
that Power called for. Something was
taken ; the boundaries not of 1792 but of
1790 were granted. France was to remain
one of the Great Powers.
These considerations outweighed the
demands of Prussia for a rectification of
the frontier which would have ended the
military possibility of renewed aggression
by France, and would hardly have given
Prussia herself an excessive compensation
for all that she had endured and all that
she had lost. Finally, her fortresses were
to be occupied by the allied troops for
five years, she was to pay a heavy war
indemnity, and was to restore to their
rightful owners the art treasures which
Napoleon had annexed. The settlement
was finally confirmed, on November, 1815,
in the Treaty of Paris, which in other
respects was a practical confirmation of
the settlement arrived at by the Congress
of Vienna. Arthur D. Innes
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
& NAPOLEON
XI
BY H. W. C.
DAVIS, M.A.
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
By H. W. C. Davis, M.A.
CELDOM has a coup d'etat proved more
^ successful than that by which George
in. destroyed the power of the Whigs in
1783. His old servant North had joined
with Charles J ames Fox, the most advanced
of parliamentarians, to form a coalition
Ministry, and the allies seemed to have the
Crown at their mercy, since they controlled
an assured majority in the House of
Commons. But by their ill-advised
attempt to obtain control of the Indian
patronage they drew upon themselves
the suspicion of meditating an unparalleled
system of jobbery. The king was able to
turn them out of office on the pretext
of a defeat which they had sustained in the
Upper House through his influence with
the Lords ; and the younger Pitt, a strip-
ling of twenty-five, whom he called into
power because it was impossible to obtain
a more experienced lieutenant, was able
, by skilful management to carry
_ *i '*' the country with him at the
_, „ next general election. The
From Power , . ° , , . , .,., .
nation was weary of the Whigs,
and of Ministers who were mere figure-
heads. It recognised in Pitt something of
the great qualities which had distinguished
his father. H,e became, accordingly, a
popular dictator ; and, justifying his great
position by the success of his financial
and foreign policy, he remained in office
until 1801. It was the longest and most
powerful Ministry since Walpole's time.
The relations of the king with the Prime
Minister were friendly. Even if George
III. had been disposed to rebel against the
ascendancy of his chosen adviser, he could
not have dispensed with Pitt except at the
price of submission to the Whigs. But he
was never forced to consider this alterna-
tive. He found in Pitt an adviser of con-
servative temperament, who was guiltless
of any designs to curtail the royal preroga-
tive ; and after 1788, when his mind began
to be clouded by intermittent insanity,
the king left everything to his adviser.
303
Pitt had entered politics as a reformer.
The early measures of his administration
went far towards gratifying the expecta-
tion which he had excited by his speeches
as a private member. From the first he
showed himself a master of fitiaiice. He
undertook with energy the thankless task
of liquidating the liabilities incurred in the
p. American war. He brought
p'. *' forward, though he was not
„*!"?* able to carry, a measure for the
redistribution of parliamentary
seats, proposing to increase the repre-
sentation of London and the largest
counties by disfranchising a number of
pocket boroughs. He was also prepared,
upon certain conditions, to give French
commerce a more favourable treatment
in the present with the ofier of complete
equality in the future ; but on this plan
also he was out-voted.
The theory of party government was
still immature. A Prime Minister could
not in Pitt's time count upon the
support of his party for every legislative
proposal ; nor did he conceive himself
obliged to treat the defeat of his Bills as
a command to retire. So long as his
administrative policy was approved by
Parliament, he could retain his position.
Pitt might have threatened to resign if his
reforms were not carried ; but he pre-
ferred to relinquish them and remain in
power. This has been nia.de a charge
against him. But the principles on which
Tu D ki he acted were those of all
The Problem p^.^^^ Ministers before him,
and for some time afterwards.
of N&ttonal
D efe nee
He hoped, no doubt, that time
would convert his minority into a majority.
As a matter of fact, the course of time
brought new problems much more pressing
than those of internal reform ; and, after
1793, every other consideration was perforce
subordinated to that of national defence.
The initial stages of the French Revo-
lution were generally viewed in England
4769
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
with indifference or approbation. Fox
and his friends, the remnant of the Whig
party, applauded the fall of the Bastille
as an event which heralded the dawn of a
new and brighter era in the history of
mankind. Pitt considered that the Revo-
lution was a crisis of purely national
significance which need not interest other
countries. He welcomed it,
but solely because it offered
How Britain
Regarded the
„ , ,. the prospect of a lasting peace.
For some time, he thought,
the aggressive policy which the French
monarchy had so long pursued towards the
rest of Europe would be out of the question.
His attention was concentrated upon
financial reforms which could be effected
only in a prolonged period of peace.
The sinking fund by which he hoped to
extinguish the national debt was not
expected to produce its effects in less
. than fifteen years.
At first it seemed as though the Revolu-
tion would fulfil Pitt's anticipations.
France did not come to the help of
Spain in the affair of Nootka Sound in
1790, and Dumouriez, the first Foreign
Minister of talent whom the Revolution
produced, was anxious to obtain an
English alliance. But Dumouriez was at
the same time meditating war on Austria ;
and all other party leaders in France were
united in desiring, for one reason or another,
that the Revolution should throw down
the gauntlet to Europe. The Royalists
thought that war would be the ruin of the
Republican cause ; the Republicans looked
upon war as the best means of identifying
their interests with those of the nation.
The opening of the Scheldt in defiance of
all treaties, and the propagandist decree
of the Convention in November, 1792,
promising assistance to any nations which
would revolt against their Governments,
were a direct challenge to Europe, and
early in 1793 they were followed by a
declaration of war upon England. The
... . pretext was found in Pitt's
^y " , protests against the measures of
Clamour for ^ , , ° , ,- ,,
-. 1792 ; the real motive was the
engeance ^ggjj.g ^q ^j^^j employment for
the armies of Dumouriez, which were as
dangerous to France as to foreign Powers.
The British nation was far from sharing
Pitt's aversion to a war. The execution
of Louis XVI. had produced a thrill of
horror ; the king and Pitt were followed
through the streets by crowds clamouring
for vengeance. Edmund Burke fanned the
4770
flame. He had attacked the Revolution
in his " Reflections " as long ago as 1790.
He represented it as a madness which,
unless roughly repressed, would spread,
and sap the foundatipns of European
society. There was, indeed, some reason
to fear that Jacobin doctrines would take
hold upon the industrial population of
the English manufacturing towns. England
was passing through a period of bad
harvests and commercial depression.
Wages were low ; in some localities there
was actual famine ; and it was known that
clubs professing sympathy with the Revo-
lution had been formed in more than one
centre. The \yar was therefore regarded
as a war of self-defence, and in that spirit
it was undertaken by Pitt.
Britain was at war with France from
1793 to the Treaty of Amiens in 1801, at
first as member of a coalition which in-
cluded more than half the Powers of
Europe. But the coalition was from the
beginning composed of Powers with divided
aims. To Prussia and Austria the question
of Poland seemed more important than
that of France ; and the Jacobin admini-
stration, guided by the skilful
hand of Carnot, was able not
only to clear France of in-
vaders, but even to undertake
conquests. The Austrian Netherlands,
Holland, and the west bank of the Rhine,
fell a prey to the Republic in 1794.
Holland was converted into a republic
under French protection ; Prussia retired
from the war and was followed by a number
of the lesser German states in 1795 ; Spain
became the active ally of France. There
remained in the coalition only Austria,
Sardinia, and Britain ; and Bonaparte's
invasion of Italy in 1796 had the immediate
effect of detaching Sardinia. The French
victories of Lodi, Areola, Rivoli, and La
Favorita, enabled Bonaparte to impost
terms of peace upon Austria in 1797. From
that time till 1799 Britain stood alone.
But the formation of the second
coalition — with Austria and Russia — at
length enabled her to conclude a peace
upon favourable terms. In the early part
of the war Pitt pursued a policy which
was expensive and unsuccessful. He main-
tained in the Netherlands an army of
10,000 men, which was incompetently
commanded by the Duke of York, the
king's second son ; he showered subsidies
upon the Continental allies, spending
for this purpose upwards of $45,000,000.
Britain
and France
at War
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
The desirability of waging a maritime
war appears to have forced itself upon
Pitt's mind only by slow degrees. But
the British navy had never been in a
better condition. The reorganisation
effected by Hawke had borne lasting
fruits ; Rodney and Howe proved them-
selves worthy pupils of this great master.
An army, on the other hand, had still to
be created ; and it was in the preliminary
work of raising, equipping, and training
troops that Abercrombie, Moore, and
Wellesley, who afterwards distinguished
themselves in the field against the best
French leaders, were for a long time to be
absorbed. But even the naval war was
not really begun before 1707, when
the victory of Jervis off
Cape St. Vincent annihi-
lated the Spanish fleet ;
and it was only the
mutinies of Spithead and
the Nore, in the same
year, which forced the
Government to abandon
an ill-advised system of
economy under which the
crews had been insuffi-
ciently paid and fed.
After the mutinies, in-
deed, there followed a
period of wonderful suc-
cesses. Duncan defeated
the Dutch at Camper-
• down in October, 1797 ;
in 1798, Nelson, by the
Battle of the Nile, ruined
WILLIAM PITT
the expense of Spain and Holland, cost
little to France, although the acquisition
of Ceylon was a blow to the chimerical
project, long entertained by Bonaparte,
of disputing the British supremacy in
India. But Trinidad and Ceylon were
acquisitions of the first importance to
Britain, and may even be re-
_ *. . , garded as an equivalent for the
Driven into ° , 1 • u j i.u
y. vast sums lavished on the
European war. The war was
one into which Pitt had been driven
against his will. His successor, Ad-
dington, may therefore be excused
for insisting upon an indemnity ; nor was
it reprehensible that the indemnity
should be taken from Holland and Spain,
Powers which in ^he
latter stages of the war
had been arrayed on the
side of France. The great
event of internal history
in this period of war is
the union with Ireland.
The Act of Union was
Pitt's solution for griev-
ances and dangers which
had been accumulating
since the Revolution,
and a brief retrospect is
necessary to understand
the circumstances under
which he felt justified in
bribing the Irish Parlia-
ment to commit suicide.
The Irish were, in the
eighteenth century, a
Bonaparte's schemes for This great parliamentary leader and Prime disunited people. There
the conquest of Egypt Sha;:^^Ae'sLw\rhL?e:ifamV's%f^ffin"f was the old feud of
and the Levant. In ance, and won the nation's confidence. He died Catholic and Protcstant,
,1 r J.L J in 1 806, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. j. i xj. l
the war of the second ' at bottom as much a
coalition (1799-1801) Pitt pursued a feud of races as of religions. There was
sounder course than formerly. He left
the reconquest of Italy, Switzerland,
and the Rhine to the land Powers, and
made it the business of Britain to
maintain her supremacy at sea. This
was brilliantly vindicated by the battle
H II A' ^^ Copenhagen ; the sur-
r/* f^ *» t render of the Danish fleet put
Fleet Captured j x xu j l
b B "t ^^ ^ armed neutra-
y ri ain j.^^ ^^ ^^^ northern Powers,
by which Bonaparte had anticipated that
he would bring Britain to her knees.
When peace was signed at Ahiiens,
Britain reaped the fruits of sea power ;
while surrendering the bulk of her colonial
conquests she retained Trinidad and
Ceylon. These renunciations, made at
also the feud between the nationalists and
the representatives of English rule, which
went far, at the end of the century, towards
obliterating religious and racial differences.
Last, and more deeply rooted than either
of these, there was the feud between the
landlord and tenant, which could be
traced back to the days of the plantation
policy, and was kept alive by the absen-
teeism of the ordinary Irish landowner.
Of all the grievances which Ireland
cherished against England, that connected
with religion was the most reasonable.
In 1691, the Treaty of Limerick, which
concluded the " Glorious " Revolution
so far as Ireland was concerned, had given
an express promise of relief to Roman
4771
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Catholics. So far was this promise from
being observed that the Test Act, never
before apphed to Ireland, was immediately
afterwards accepted and enforced by the
Whig majority of the Irish Parliament.
Immediately afterwards began a period of
penal legislation (1795-18 15), which is
happily unparalleled in the history of Great
_. _ ,. Britain. Under the penal
The Persecution , r^ ^.i, ^■ i.
.... acts no Catholic parent
„ rs .. ,. might send his children to
Roman Catholics , °j , j i_ j j
be educated abroad, and no
Catholic teacher might set up a school . The
lands of a Catholic, instead of passing to
the eldest son, were equally divided among
the children, unless one of them happened
to be a Protestant, in which case he was
entitled to the whole. No Catholic might
acquire land from a Protestant, or own a
horse of a value greater than $25, or keep
weapons in his house for the purpose of
self-defence. It was a penal offence for any
Catholic ecclesiastic to enter the country
from abroad. Any attempt to convert a
Protestant was punished as a crime.
For these and other measures the
blame must be laid, in the first instance,
on the Irish Protestants, whose fanaticism
was sharpened by the wildest fears and
suspicions. But the English Government,
which could easily have withheld the
royal assent from such legislature, cannot
be acquitted of responsibility. The
persecution was the more inexcusable,
because neither in 1715 nor in 1745 did
the Irish Catholics show any inclination to
throw in their lot with the House of Stuart.
It must be admitted that many of the
penal acts were so atrocious as to defeat
their own purpose. The law officers did
their best to avoid prosecutions ; juries
could be induced to convict only with the
greatest difficulty. But the Acts were
galling. They held a sword of Damocles
over the heads of the Catholics, who,
being without representatives in Parlia-
ment and disqualified for the franchise,
, felt that at any moment an
R*^! n f outburst of persecuting zeal
Intolerance "^^8^^ make their condition
intolerable. The Protestant
tyranny was the more odious because it
excluded a large proportion of the Irish
Protestants from all public employments.
This was the result of the Test Act, which
the Irish Anglicans refused to relax in
favour of other Protestant sects. In fact,
it was not until 1719 that liberty of public
worship was accorded to the Presbyterians.
4772
The political grievances of Ireland were
in part connected with Poynings' Law
(1492) and the Declaratory Act of 1721.
By Poynings' Law the assent of the
English Privy Council was necessary before
any Bill could be introduced in the Irish
Parliament. By the Declaratory Act the
English Parliament claimed the right of
legislating for Ireland. Even more gall-
ing, however, was the position of the
viceroy. In Ireland he took the place of
the sovereign and was not responsible to
Parliament ; but at the same time he was
a member of the English Ministry, and
compelled to regard interests other than
Irish in his administration. Some viceroys,
such as Lord Chesterfield in 1745, were dis-
interested and solicitous for Irish interests ;
but even the best of them could not resist
the pressure of their English colleagues,
who treated, the Irish patronage and pen-
sion fund as a part of their resources for
purchasing English supporters.
Signs of a national opposition to Eng-
land showed themselves about the middle
of the century. In Parliament it is true
that the Opposition was no less unprin-
cipled than the Castle party.
a lona ^ number of the great Irish
^^^\ '° J families combined to prove the
^^ *" market value of their services
by obstructing Government measures. The
only result was a further increase of par-
liamentary corruption. The Castle at first
tried the plan of periodically buying the
Opposition, and finally adopted the safer
plan of building up a rival combination
by means of wholesale bribery. More
effective was the opposition in the country.
About 1760 the secret societies, formed
by peasants to resist tithes, enclosures, and
demands for the arrears of rent, became a
serious difficulty. They were not at first
political, but through them the agricultural
classes received an apprenticeship in con-
certed resistance to authority. More formid-
able was the Catholic Committee formed
in 1759, which pressed for the repeal
of the disabling laws. The Government,
fearing a stoppage of the supply of
Irish recruits for the army, made some
slight concessions in 1771 and again in
1778. But the Catholics were still un-
satisfied, and they now combined with
the party of Nationalists which Flood
and Grattan were forming in the Irish
Parliament. The difficulties of the
American War enabled this coalition to
press its demands with irresistible force.
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
The fear of a French invasion compelled
the Government to sanction the enrolment
of volunteer corps. These were composed
of Protestants, but soon fell under the
influence of the Nationahsts in politics.
Numbering 50,000, they had the Govern-
ment at their mercy, since no
regular troops could be
spared for Ireland. There
was no rioting and no use of
overt threats. But the volun-
teers in every part of the
country held monster meet-
ings, and everywhere formu-
lated the same demands.
One of these was for free
trade with England, and for
the removal of the legislation
by which the cloth manu-
facture and other Irish indus-
tries had been depressed in
the interests of England.
Free trade was conceded by
Lord North in 1779, but the
clamour for Home Rule
became only more urgent,
since North's action was rightly interpreted
as a proof of weakness. The volunteers
rapidly increased in numbers ; new
measures of Catholic relief and the
passing of the Habeas Corpus Act for Ire-
land in 1782 failed to satisfy them. Fox
and North, on coming into power, resolved
that the inde-
pendence of the
Irish Parliament
must be recog-
nised. T-his was
accord ingly
done, the Eng-
lish legislature
repealing the
Declaratory Act
and passing an
Act of Renuncia-
tion in 1783.
Unfortunately
for Ireland and
for England, the
settlement which
the coalition
Ministry had
thus effected was
hasty and unworkmanlike. The future
relations of the two Parliaments were left
ambiguous. It was clear that Ireland was
to be subordinate to England in all
questions of foreign relations. But no
provision had been made for an Irish
AN IRISH PATRIOT
Henry Grattan was a member o
the Irish Parliament, and opposed
the movement which ended m the
rebellion of 1798. He afterwards
sat in the Imperial Parliament.
Addington
EMINENT POLITICIANS IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.
Speaker of the House of Commons from 1789 till 1801, Henry Adding-
ton was invited to form a Ministry upon the resignation of Pitt. His
administration came to an end in 1804, and in the following year he
was created Viscount Sidmouth. Lord Grenville, another eminent
Parliamentarian, formed the Government of " AH the Talents."
contribution to military and naval ex-
penses. And if the Irish Parliament chose
to frame a protective tariff, it was legally
entitled to present such a measure for the
royal assent. Pitt's generous proposals for
a commercial settlement were foiled by the
factious opposition of the
English Whigs and the im-
practicable temper of the
Irish Parliament. Equally
unsatisfactory were the rela-
tions of the latter body with
the disfranchised majority of
the Irish nation. The Pro-
testant oligarchy consented
to give Catholics the franchise,
but it would not admit them
to Parliament ; under these
circumstances the Catholic
franchise was a mere mockery,
and the Catholic gentry felt
little sympathy with the
cause of national indepen-
dence. It was, however, the
French Revolution which
gave the first shock to the
settlement of 1783. The Irish received
the doctrines of Rousseau and Paine with
the same enthusiasm which they had
shown for the preaching of the Counter-
Reformation. The United Irishmen, a
society controlled by Wolfe Tone, Napper
Tandy, Emmett, and Fitzgerald, which
had originally
contented itself
with demanding
parliamentary
reform and a
full measure of
Catholic eman-
cipation, turned
for help to the
French Govern-
m en t . The
leaders were
Protestants or
Rationalists, but
they were joined
by a large pro-
portion of dis-
cont ente d
Catholics ; and
in 1798, having
received promises of a French invasion,
they raised the standard of revolt in
Ulster and Leinster. The Protestants,
however, rallied to the cause of the Govern-
ment. The largest force collected by the
rebels was routed at Vinegar Hill, near
4773
Grenville
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Passing
of the Act
of Union
Enniscorthy ; the French force arrived too
late, and though it landed in Connaught
and gained one victory, was soon forced
to surrender for lack of support.
The rebellion proved that the Protesant
ascendancy had failed to conciliate the
Cathohcs. Pitt believed, rightly or
wrongly, that Catholic emancipation would
never be completed by a Pro-
testant Irish Parliament, from
the fear that the Catholic ascen-
dancy which must result would
be turned to account vindictively, and he
resolved to prepare the way for removing
all religious disabilities by fusing the Irish
legislature with that of Great Britain.
No doubt the impracticable behaviour of
the Irish leaders in their dealings with
•England made him more inclined to accept
this solution. The nightmare of an inde-
pendent Ireland declaring war upon Eng-
land had haunted the minds of Englishmen
for many years.
To an unbiassed critic it may seem
that the same methods of persuasion which
sufficed to procure the Act of Union might
equally well have procured measures for
Irish parliamentary reform and Catholic
emancipation. Inevitable or not, the Act
of Union was framed, and it passed the
Irish Parliament in 1800, under a fire of
eloquent protests from every independent
member in both Houses. It gave Ireland
a hundred seats in the United House of
Commons and thirty-two in the House of
Lords, established absolute free trade
between the two countries, and fixed the
Irish contribution to the revenue of the
United Kingdom at two-fifteenths. It
left the Irish judicature and executive
untouched, but united the Irish Church
and Army to those of England.
The promise of Catholic emancipation
remained a dead letter till 1829. George
III. refused to hear of any measure of
relief, and Pitt accordingly retired from
office. He did not return until 1804, when
the country was again at war
t ^ .u*!.'**'^ with France. He then gave
of Catholic Ai /- iu T °^i
Emanci ation ^P Catholic cause on the
mancipa ion gj-^^j^^j ^j^^^^ ^ revival of the
question would be fatal to the old king's un-
settled reason. The circumstances were
peculiar, and historians have hesitated to
accuse Pitt of bad faith. The fact remains
that he missed a possible opportunity of
reconciling the Irish Catholics to the Union.
The Peace of Amiens was a mere armis-
tice, which Bonaparte had no intention of.
4774
observing. He declined to withdraw his
armies from Holland and Italy ; he
occupied Switzerland on the pretext of
mediating in a civil war; he refused to
offer the United Kingdom any satisfaction
or compensation for these breaches of faith.
She, on her part, refused to surrender
Malta, as she had promised at Amiens,
until the First Consul fulfilled his part of
the treaty. Malta was of vital importance
in case of war with France. The Cape
was in French hands ; the only safe route
to India lay, therefore, through the
Mediterranean. The struggle with France
was assuming the same character as the
wars of 1740-1763 ; in the future little
was to be heard of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, but much of sea-power,
colonies, and commerce.
War was declared by the Addington
Ministry in May, 1803. The challenge was
answered by an embargo on British
shipping, and preparations for a descent
upon England. A flotilla was prepared
with this object at Boulogne ; the com-
bined French and Spanish fleets were
instructed to draw the British admirals off
_. _ .to the West Indies, and then,
Vktor"'"""* S^^^^g them the slip, to
."J"^ J J return and cover the in-
ra a gar ^g^gj^j^ Nelson fell into the
trap, but Calder met the returning fleet of
Villeneuve at Finisterre, and won a victory,
which gave Nelson time to return from his
chase and refit his ships. In October,
X805, Nelson met Villeneuve of£ Cape
Trafalgar, and won a crowning victory.
More than half the French fleet were put
out of action, and Villeneuve was taken
prisoner. The victory cost Nelson's life,
but it removed the fear of invasion ;
the prodigious successes of Napoleon
on land brought him no nearer to his
ultimate ambition of reducing England
and appropriating her empire.
Pitt died in 1806, prematurely worn out
by his exertions and heart-broken at the
apparent failure of his policy. His loss was
inestimable, for he had been the soul of
each successive coalition against France,
and had maintained an unshaken hold upon
the confidence of the nation. The Ministry
of All the Talents (1806-1807), which
succeeded him, failed to secure a peace ;
Fox died nine months after his great
rival, and the Ministry resigned because
it refused to pledge itself to silence on
the question of Catholic emancipation.
George III. was driven to fall back on the
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
support of the Tories, and it was this party
which finally brought the war to a successful
conclusion. They remained in power for
twenty-three years. They saved Britain
from Napoleon, and afterwards came near
to involvmg her in a civil war. They
provided her
Perceval at the head of the Ministry, which
was joined by the Marquees Wellesley
and by young Lord Palmerston. In the
following year the old king sank into
permanent imbecility, and the future
George IV. became the Prince Regent in
1811. A minis-
wit h a Welling-
ton and a Can-
ning ; but they
also saddled her
with a Liver-
pool, a Castle-
reagh, and an
Eldon. It was
the greatest of
Britain's mis-
fortunes in the
war that the
prestige of vic-
tory fell to the
share of re-
actionaries who LEADERS IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT
J ■ ' J The Duke of Portland succeeded Lord Rockingham as leader of the • r
were aiSpOSea wW? party ; he was twice Pnme Minister and held office as Home aCCCSSlOn Ol
to make their Secretary under Pitt. One of the most brilliant of Foreign Ministers, Lord LiverpOOl
services a plea George Canning had a seat in various administrations, and made a
for rbprlrinp' all reputation as a parliamentary orator of much eloquence and wit
Portland
Canning
terial crisis in
1812 gave the
personnel of the
administration a
still more de-
cisively Tory
cast, Wellesley
retiring and
Castlereagh re-
turning — a
modi fie ation
which was con-
firmed only by
the assassination
of Perceval in
April, and the
reforms. The Grenville Ministry has to
its credit the abolition of the slave trade.
It fell in maintaining the principles that
Ministers are entitled to tender their
advice on whatever subjects they think
fit, and that the king could act only on
their advice. Such was the
reaction produced in England
by the French Revolution that
even such recognised doctrines
as these were in danger of
being discredited ; the Tory
rule which followed was as
unhappily stubborn in its
fear of the Revolution as
it was happily stubborn in its
resistance to Napoleon. In
the Portland Ministry, which
followed, the two most re-
markable figures are those of
Canning and Castlereagh ; as
concerns the wary it was re-
sponsible for the bombard
to the post of
Prime Minister,
the year 1827.
which he retained till
The part played by the United King
dom in the struggle with Napoleon has
already been sufficiently described ; but,
incidentally that struggle involved her,
in i8i2, in another non-European war,
the outcome of the Berlin
Decrees and the answering
Orders in Council. The
United States found them-
selves seriously inconveni-
enced, at least as concerned
their southern portion, by the
consequent restrictions on
their commerce, and the in-
convenience was more imme-
diately due to the British than
to the Napoleonic regulations.
Exasperation reached a
climax at the moment when
the Government in Britain
VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH was throwu into coufusion by
Famous as Foreign Secretary, and the aSSaSSlUatlOU Ot the
ment of Copenhagen and as a leader of the reactionary party Prime Minister, Perceval,
the seizure of the Danish fleet, j|*^^°KjJ^^'*g^^«^^«^^.Jy.^**^°^^ the result that war
the undertaking of the Penin- *° "» a «i o msam y m ^^^ declared in 1812 on the
sular War, the appointment of Wellesley eve of Wellington's victory at Salamanca,
to the command, and the Walcheren The American contest received little
Expedition. On this last head there was
such angry dissension between Canning
and Castlereagh that both resigned in
1809, and the death of Portland placed
attention in England, preoccupied with
the greater struggle, and although
American attempts upon Canada failed,
the British were astonished to find their
4775
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of
Washington
owri ships repeatedly worsted in engage-
ments. Having awakened to the facts,
they were of course able to send to
American waters a naval force which could
effectively control the seas The termina-
tion of the European war at the
beginning of 1814 was followed by the
immediate despatch of a part of the Penin-
Tt. r^ sular force to the United States.
The capture v^ashington, the capital of the
States, was captured ; other ex-
peditions distributed in desul-
tory and disconnected fashion over the
American continent were for the most part
failures. Negotiations which had been
opened between the belligerents at Ghent
resulted in a Convention, signed on Decem-
ber 24th, 1814, which terminated actual
hostilities, though a singular bitterness of
feeling survived. It was unfortunate that
the news of the Convention reached
America too late to prevent a bloody
battle at New Orleans, where the courage
of the Peninsular veterans did not save
them from a complete defeat in attempt-
ing to capture the city.
The nation emerged from the N apoleonic
wars oppressed by a debt of £800,000,000,
and with a credit which had been strained
to the utmost. It was necessary for the
Bank of Eng-
land to suspend
cash payments
as early as
1797; its bank-
notes could not
be made con-
vertible again
until 1819.
Taxation had
been intoler-
ably severe,
and pauperism
had assumed
appalling di-
mensions. But
from the
economic point
of view there
had been com-
pensations.
Rrifkh +rarlf^ ^"^ CAPTURE OF THE "CHESAPEAKE"
jLJiiLisii tid-ue On June 1st, 1813, a fight took place in Maaaachusetts Bay between the
developed m American frigate Chesapeake and the British frigate Shannon. The battle
spite of the lasted but a few minutes, the Chesapeake falling as a prize to the Britiah.
Continental System ; it is a well-known fact
that the armies of Napoleon were largely
fed and clothed with English exports
The Berlin and Milan Decrees could be
defeated only by a costly process of smug-
gling, but the expenses of the trade were
defrayed by the Continental consumer ;
and the wars resulted in no inconsiderable
additions to the empire. At the final
settlement of 1815 England retained Malta.
She also kept Ceylon, and she acquired a
legal title to the Cape of Good Hope and to
Mauritius. In the western hemisphere
she kept Trinidad, Dutch — henceforth
British — Guiana, Tobago, and St. Lucia.
The Indian acquisitions of the period,
although they did not come under the
notice of the Congresses of Paris and
Vienna, may be regarded as in a sense
the fruits of the revolutionary and
Napoleonic wars. The Mysore war of
1799, which established the British supre-
macy over the southern extremity of the
peninsula, and the Mahratta war (1803-
G • fth -^^^4)' which led to a great
ains o e au^^ientation of territory and
Napoleonic -3 • xi ^ j
p . . iniiuence in the centre and
north-west, were both the out-
come of French intrigues. In 18 15 there
could be no doubt that it was the destiny
of Great Britain to predominate in India.
Such, then, were the gains of the Napo-
leonic period. But years were to elapse
before their value was adequately realised.
The Peace of
1815 was fol-
lowed by a
period of com-
mercial de-
pression and
bad harvests,
by agitation
against the
restraints
which the
Tory Govern-
m e nt had
thought fit to
impose, with
parliamentary
sanction, upon
individual lib-
erty ; and by
the perplexi-
ties arising
from politiccd
and social evils
which were
deeply rooted in the past, but had
assumed a more serious aspect during
twenty years of strain and stress.
H. W. C. Davis
4776
EUROPE
SIXTH DIVISION
THE RE-MAKINQ OF
EUROPE
We enter now upon the last phase of completed European
history — the century which has already run its course since the
decisive overthrow of Napoleon's ambitions at Waterloo.
Although during this period the United Kingdom and the
Eastern Powers, Russia and the whole Eastern peninsula,
pursue their course in comparative independence of the com-
plications which involve the rest of Europe, the latter being no
longer in isolation sufficient to warrant us in maintaining the
earlier complete separation of East and West.
Following immediately after Waterloo, we have a period of
strong reaction against the political ideas of the French
Revolution, a period in which the claims to power and
to territory of " legitimate " dynasties are looked upon as
paramount, while the control of the Sovereign People and
demands for the recognition of nationalities are held in check,
though Greece attains her liberation from Turkey. The second
period opens and closes with two revolutions in France — the
expulsion of the Bourbwns and the coup d'etat of Napoleon III.
During this period the demands of Constitutionalism and of
Nationalism are fermenting, Germany in particular making
futile efforts in the latter direction. The third period coincides
with that of the Second Empire in France, and is marked by
the unification of Italy and the triumph of German nationalism
in the new German Empire, consummated by the Franco-
German war, and attended by the establishment of the Third
French Republic.
Finally we follow the fortunes of the now reconstructed
Europe — the whole narrative having interludes associated with
the modem Eastern Question — until we reach our own day.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
By Oscar Bro'wning, M.A.
THE CONTINENT
By Dr. H. Zimmerer, Dr. Heinrich SchurtZt
Dr. Georg Adler, Dr. G. Egelhaaf,
Dr. H. Friedjung, and other '^vriters
By A
THE BRITISH ISLES
D. Innes. M.A., and H. W. C. Dayis, M.A.
4777
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PERIOD
By Oscar Browning, M.A.
EUROPE SINCE THE YEAR 1813
DEFORE the French Revolution Europe
*-' was in a condition of unstable equili-
brium. Anyone who studies the condition
of the map of Europe in the last years of
the eighteenth century will perceive this
to be the case. France, Spain, and Great
Britain were in a fairly homogeneous
situation, but the position of the rest of
Europe was intolerable. The German
Empire, the mere phantom of its glorious
past, was honeycombed by the territories
of ecclesiastical princes, while its neigli-
bours, Hungary and Poland, better con-
solidated than itself, were a menace to
its permanence. Russia was in the throes
of expansion to the east, west, and south.
The Turkish Empire, when it crossed the
Bosphorus, found itself ruling dominions
which it could not hope to maintain,
and which were now slipping from its
grasp. Greece and Bosnia, Moldavia and
Wallachia, Servia and Bulgaria were
moving from a position of subjection
to vassalage, from vassalage to indepen-
dence. Berlin was divided from Konigs-
berg by a long stretch of territory which
could not in any sense be called Prussian.
. Italy was cut up into a number
Barriers o ^^ impotent and warring states,
uropean ^jji^h denied it a voice in
an y £yj.Qpgg^j^ affairs. Naples and
Sicily were parts of Spain. Norway was
a part of Denmark. There was no soli-
darity, no unity in the component parts ;
railways, had they existed, would have
been* impossible, commerce was impeded
by every kind of artificial barrier. A
traveller who changed a sovereign when
he crossed the Chcinnel found it reduced
to nothing before his return by the charges
of perpetual discount. The awakening was
rude. Sluggish Europe shook herself to
resist the dangers of the Revolution.
She threatened to march to Paris to
punish the regicide miscreants who bore
.p. J. sway in the capital, and to
. " . restore the Bourbon to his
w ening ^j^j-Qj^g gy^ regenerated France
^ laughed gaily at this unwieldy
Titan. She threw off with ease the attacks
directed against the missionaries of a new
political gospel, and carried war into the
territories of those who had assailed her.
Her generals were everywhere victorious ;
but from among them arose Napoleon, the
greatest of all generals of modern times.
It is too common to represent this
commanding genius as a man of blood —
insatiable with slaughter, uncontrolled
in ambition, and regardless of the
sacrifices with which it might be grati-
fied. The empire of Napoleon was, at
least in part, a carrying out of the
programme of the Directory, and the
consummation of the efforts which
France had originally begun to resist
intrusion. When that empire had reached
its height, it was. either in direct govern-
ment or in powerful influence, nearly
coterminous with civilised Europe, with
the exception of Russia and England,
who remained unsubdued. Spain and
Portugal were under France, Belgium and
Holland were a part of her dominions, the
kingdom of Italy reached to the frontier
of Naples, and Naples was French.
4779
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Switzerland was devoted to the man who
had given her a good government, the
Confederation of the Rhine inchided the
kingdom of WestphaUa as well as the
tributary states of Saxony, Bavaria,
Wurtemberg, and Baden ; Scandinavia
listened to the advice of the Tuileries ;
Prussia was reduced to insignificance.
The Grand Duchy of War-
The Unstable ^^^^ ^ French creation, lay as
mpire ^ buffer state between Prussia
of Napoleon j a j. • j a j. •
and Austria ; and Austria,
having given an empress to the French
throne, was in a position in which her
best hope of influence and power lay in
her alhance with Napoleon, a position
which she had not the wisdom to realise.
But Napoleon's empire was itself in a
condition of instability. What form it
would have taken if he had continued to
reign, we do not know. The claims of
nationality had begun to assert themselves
before his fall — ^indeed, they had been to
a large extent the cause of his ruin ; and
if he desired to rear a lasting edifice he
must have found a way of reconciling
them with his scheme of a European
Empire. He wished for a second son,
and if such a one had been born and
grown to manhood, or at least to ado-
lescence, the formation of a united Italy
might have been anticipated by many
years. But his empire, constituted as it
was, was certain to perish at his fall, and
his fall came sooner than was expected.
We do not yet completely know the
causes of the great Russian war, and we
cannot properly apportion the blame of
it between the emperor and the tsar.
He believed that this would have been his
last enterprise, his last war. Russia once
brought to his feet, Europe would be at
peace. But he miscalculated the difficulty
of the task, and the stolid stubbornness
of Russian resistance. Fortune turned
against him, his star paled, and his em-
pire was no more. It is a mistake to sup-
pose that he could have made
The *^»t»' peace at Frankfort or at Chatil-
Error of the *^
Hapsburgs
Ion; the terms offered him
were delusive, and were in-
tended to be so by Metternich. Had
Austria obeyed the voice of honour and
of interest the empire might have been
preserved, but by deserting these funda-
mental principles, the empire of the
Hapsburgs, which has made so many
mistakes, committed a last fatal error,
which it has since most bitterly expiated.
4780
The Congress of Vienna endeavoured to
repair the shattered fabric, but the un-
prejudiced observer will not credit the
diplomatists of that assembly with
much wisdom or with much prescience.
Ignorant of, or ignoring, the principle of
nationality, which has since governed the
world with a dominating force, they were
led by Talleyrand to adopt the principle
of legitimacy, which they had not the
courage to follow out when it became a
question of punishing Napoleon's friends
or rewarding his enemies. Consequently,
many arrangements of Vienna have been
upset. Belgium has been divorced from
Holland, Norway from Sweden, Prussia
has united its severed territories and
secured the headship of Germany. Italy
has consolidated herself at the expense
of the provinces and the prestige of
Austria ; and Turkey has lost, one after
another, the dominions which it was a
disgrace to civilisation that she should
have held at all.
The change from the Restoration which
succeeded the fall of Napoleon to the
conditions of the present day is divided
, into certain well-defined epochs
Bri ain s jj^a,rked by periods of disturb-
Electoral •' ^ , ,• ^,
_ . . ance, wars, or revolutions, ihe
period between 1820 and 1830
is one of disheartening reaction, controlled
by a desire to suppress everything which
could remind the world of the principles
of 1789, and to undo everything which
the administrative ability of the great
emperor had accomplished. This led to
the Revolution of July, accompanied
by other disturbances in Europe, and
indirectly to the emancipation of the
Catholics in England and the Reform Bill
of 1832. It is characteristic of Great
Britain that the only revolution which it
has experienced since the close of the seven-
teenth century has been an alteration in
the electoral system, a change quite as im-
portant as, and more permanent than, any
which has taken place in any othercountry.
After 1830 the democratic strivings of
the nations of the Continent were either
suppressed or appeased, but the fire
broke out with greater intensity in 1848,
when a series of revolutions either shook
or shattered every throne in Europe but
England's. Then followed a series of
wars — the Crimean war of 1854, the
Italian war of 1859, the Danish war
of 1863, the Austrian war of 1866, and
the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. From
THE RE -MAKING OF EUROPE: GENERAL SURVEY
1870 until 1914 Europe was at peace, and
the severance of Norway from Sweden
and the final consolidation of Italy were
brought about without an actual conflict.
Belgium was no longer the cockpit of
Europe — that was to be sought further
afield. Rivalries which had a European
side to them were fought out in Asia and
in Africa, and we hoped the time was far
distant when the horrors of war would
be brought within our own experience.
Yet progress, in which international
jealousies must have a part, still went
on, and war, if averted, was often
threatened. The world knows of. many
mortal struggles which have never taken
place, but which have been regarded
as inevitable by well-informed and re-
sponsible statesmen. At one time Great
Britain expected a war with Russia,
at another time with France, at
another time with America, and a final
war with Germany was looked upon
by so many as the doom of fate that they
thought it useless to discuss its probability
or even to take means to avert it. If the
possibility of these catastrophes was known
to the public at large, how
French many were in the cognisance
f 1830°" ^^ Ministers who were ac-
° quainted with the secrets of
foreign affairs ? The present is quite
sufficient to occupy the historian.
Let us consider separately the effect of
each of these crises on the course of
European politics. The Revolution of
July in Paris had broken out as a quarrel
between the people and the king ; it ended
by establishing the authority of the
people. The royal title was changed from
King of France to King of the French.
The Charter was a Bill of Rights on the
English model, dear to the heart of Guizot.
It fixed the limits within which the people
were willing to accept the government of
a king. It was a decided advance towards
democracy. The new constitution which
followed the Revolution in Belgium was
framed on similar lines, and in the spirit
of the English Revolution of 1688.
It laid down the principle that all power
emanated from the people, and that the
king possessed no authority beyond that
given him by the constitution. He
could do no executive act except through
the Ministers, and they were responsible
to the Chambers. If the Ministers failed
to command a majority in Parliament,
it was their duty to retire. The English
colour of these arrangements seems to
have suited the character of the Belgian
people and the temper of the king.
The Revolution of July produced a
powerful effect upon Switzerland, and
inaugurated what is called the Period of
Regeneration. It began with a move-
ment to reform the constitutions of some
„ ., . ., of the cantons, in order to
Switzerland s • u • au _
p . . . give a share in the govern-
Regeneration
ment to classes who did not
possess it. The Forest Can-
tons, the ancient heart of Switzerland,
remained passive, but the population of
the others bombarded their Governments
with petitions for reform, and reform was
speedily accorded. Ziirich was the leader
of the movement. The programme of the
radical party was sovereignty of the
people, universal suffrage, direct election,
freedom of the Press, of petition, of
religious belief, and of industry.
The movement was essentially demo-
cratic, and the struggle became so severe
that the Federal Government had to inter-
vene. The Canton of Basle was separated
into two half cantons, Basle Town and
Basle Country. Seven cantons formed
a separate confederation, and a coun'ei
league was organised to oppose it. The
conflict, embittered by the presence of
refugees from other disturbed countries,
lasted till the convulsions of 1848.
In Spain and Portugal the struggle
between the Constitutionals and the
Absolutists was complicated by a dis-
puted succession. In the first country,
Isabella was the watchword of the Liberals,
Don Carlos of the reactionaries, their
place being taken in Portugal by Maria
da Gloria and Don Miguel. In Italy the
agitation was more serious. It seized
upon the states which had not been affected
by the previous movements of 1820.
At Rome the death of Pius VIII. gave the
signal. Louis Napoleon took part in the
plot to make his uncle, Jerome, King
of Italy. In the Romagna and
* ^ "^ . the Marches provisional govern-
tj * * ° ments and national guards were
the order of the day. Govern-
ments of this kind, with a dictator
at their head, were formed in Parma and
in Modena. But the movement came
to nothing. Louis Philippe would not
help, and Metternich was at hand with his
Austrian army. With their assistance he
brought back the Duke of Modena, and
pacified the States of the Church. But
4781
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the " Young Italy " of Mazzini was bom
in the conflict, a secret society devoted to
the realisation of the unity of Italy under
the form of a republic. Eventually the first
object was attained, but the second was not.
A similar impulse animated the Liberals
of Germany, who had long been discon-
tented with the policy of the Holy Alliance.
The War of Liberation had
Poland s bold only subjected them to a worse
Id °d despotism than that of Napo-
n epen cnce ^qq^ Brunswick.Hesse-Cassel,
Saxony, and Hanover obtained constitu-
tions ; in Bavaria and Baden men of
enlightened minds were allowed to express
themselves more freely. A stronger move-
ment took place in Poland, then divided
between two parties, the Whites and the
Reds. The Whites were composed of the
large proprietors, the higher officials, and
the clergy. Provided that Poland was
suffered to retain a nominal independence,
they were content to wait for constitutional
reforms. The Reds were patriots and demo-
crats, but they were violent and impatient.
In the last month of 1830, when the
emperor had mobilised the Polish army in
order to suppress the revolution in France
z:sA Belgium, the national troops turned
against their oppressors. The students of
the Military College seized the palace at
Warsaw, and the Grand Duke Constantine
fled for his life. The Romanoff dynasty
was deposed, and the union of Poland with
Lithuania was proclaimed. Britain and
France were sympathetic, but refused to
give active assistance ; the Polish army
was crushed by superior numbers, and a
military dictator was set up. The end of
Poland had arrived. In 1835 the Emperor
Nicholas told the Poles plainly that unless
they gave up the dream of a separate
independent nationality the guns of the
newly built citadel should lay Warsaw in
ruins. We see, therefore, that the Revolu-
tion of July had made a great breach in
the system established by the Congress
of Vienna. The Bourbons,
ChaTrsi ^^° ^^^'^ *^^^^ *^^^® °^ *^^
anges in pj^j^^iples of legitimacy, were
succeeded by a king of the
barricades, professing the doctrines of 1789,
and waving its flag. The British Constitu-
tion remained unshaken, but the Reform
Bill of 1832 brought about a revolution
in the balance of political power not less
momentous than the others, because it was
pacific, and destined to produce results not
less important although slow in coming.
4782
Eighteen years later the Revolution broke
out with greater violence, and spread with
the rapidity of a plague. It began in
Switzerland in 1847, showed itself in Sicily
in January, 1848, and overthrew the throne
of Louis Philippe in France in February
of the same year. The fall of monarchy in
France gave the signal for disturbances
throughout Europe. England, the Iberian
Peninsula, Sweden, Norway and Russia
alone escaped. In Holland, Belgium and
Denmark it ran a comparatively mild
course. The symptoms were more severe
in Austria, Prussia, Germany, and Central
Italy ; it led to bloodshed in Northern
Italy, Schleswig-Holstein, and Hungary.
The outbreak in Switzerland was the
result of a conflict which had been smoul-
dering for many years. It was caused by
two movements, one civil, the other
religious ; one an effort to democratise
the constitution, the other a desire to
restrain the influence of the Roman
Catholic Church. The Liberal party was
divided into Moderates and Radicals, but
the Moderates gradually lost their in-
fluence. The Radicals were strengthened
and stimulated by the refugees
. *^° " *°* of other nationalities, who had
a -. . , found an asylum in Switzerland
Switzerland , , . -' . r .1 •
when driven out of their own
countries. The Poles organised raids
against Neuchatel and Savoy ; Mazzini
used Switzerland as a place of arms.
Austria and Bavaria demanded the extra-
dition of German " patriots," and when this
was refused, broke off diplomatic relations.
France insisted upon the expulsion of the
supposed authors of the conspiracy of
Fieschi, and sealed their frontiers against
the passage of the stubborn Switzers.
A few years later they asked for the
surrender of Louis Napoleon, who had his
home at Arenenberg. The Catholics based
their hopes on the peasants, and posed as
the supporters of democracy. In Schytz
the two parties of " Horns " and " Hoofs "
came to blows over the use of the public
pastures ; in Canton Ticino, the Radicals
won by force of arms ; in the Valley of the
Rhone the Upper and Lower districts were
in hopeless disorder. The Puritans of
Ziirich drove Strauss, the author of the
" Life of Jesus," from his professorial
chair. The Jesuits succeeded in founding
Catholic Colleges at Schytz, Freiburg, and
Lucerne. Argau answered this challenge
by suppressing eight convents, and de-
manding the expulsion of the Order. The
THE RE. MAKING OF EUROPE t GENERAL SURVEY
result of this prolonged tension was a civil
war. In 1845 the seven Catholic cantons
formed a " sonderbund," a separate
league, which the government deter-
mined to suppress by force, and in three
weeks General Dufour effected this object.
The Radicals were victorious, the Jesuits
were expelled, and civil war was averted.
The result of this struggle was the forma-
tion of a new constitution, by which
Switzerland, from being a statenbund — a
confederation of states — became a federal
state — a bundesstat. A new nation came
to life in Europe.
The French Revolution of 1848 was
equally a surprise for the victors and the
vanquished. It raged for two days, the
first of which witnessed a revolt of the
reformers against Guizot, the second a
revolution of the Republicans against the
monarchy. At 10 a.m. on February 24th,
the Palais Royal was captured ; at 4.30
p.m. the throne was destroyed in the
Tuileries, and shortly afterwards the
Republic was proclaimed at the Hotel de
Ville. The result of this was a democratic
movement throughout Europe. In Holland
. . the personal government of
B* '^il" • * the king was changed into a
Revolt against ■•. x- i ° v •
. . constitutional monarchy; m
Belgium the Liberals were
confirmed in power ; in Denmark the
accession of a new king presented an
opportunity for substituting a constitution
for absolutism and for setting the Press free.
Italy was shaken from Monte Rosa to
Cape Passaro. The movement began in
Sicily, where for a fortnight in January
the insurgents fought against the Royal
troops, demanding the constitution of
l8i2. At Naples, Ferdinand accorded a
constitution based upon the French
Charte, and appointed a Carbonaro as
Prime Minister. At Turin, Charles Albert
promulgated a constitution, which, in
all the storm of conflict, has never
been abrogated, and the Grand Duke of
Tuscany did the same.
At Rome, Pio Nono nominated three
lay Ministers, but the supreme power
remained with the College of Cardinals.
The passionate desire of the Italians was to
shake off the hated domination of Austria.
They shouted, in the words of the
"Garibaldi hymn": " Va fuori d'ltalia,
va fuori o Stranier ! " [From Italy from
sea to snow, let the hated stranger go ! ]
For this the revolution in Vienna gave an
opportunity. Here the storm broke in
March, the direct consequence of the
French Revolution of February. The
desires of the people were voiced by book-
sellers, students, and Liberal clubs ; they
demanded liberty of religion, of teaching,
of speech, and of writing, and a budget
controlled by a representative govern-
ment. Their cry was : " Down with
Metternich ! Down with the
of^St Mark soldiery ! " and Metternich was
in V i dismissed. The emperor fled
to the Tyrol, and the Arch-
duke John, the darling of the people, took
his place. A Constituent Assembly met
at Vienna in July. In Hungary, a country
better suited for self-government, the
change took a more solid shape. The seat of
Parliament was tra'nsferred from Pressburg
to Budapest. It issued a coinage, and
formed an army under the Hungarian tri-
colour. Austria was compelled to weaken
her garrisons in Italy in order to subdue
her revolted provinces north of the Alps.
In March, Milan rose, and Radetsky
retired within the Quadrilateral. Modena
and Parma were left to themselves, and
obtained constitutions. Cavour called the
Piedmontese to arms ; Tuscany, Rome and
Naples sent their troops to join their
brethren of the North. In Venice,
Daniele Manin, like-named but not like-
minded with the last Doge, awakened to
life a Republic of St. Mark. A revolution
was organised, at once Liberal, monarch-
ical, and national, under the three colours
of the Italian flag, the emblems of passion,
purity, and hope.
The dream of liberty was short lived.
It vanished before the approach of foreign
armies. The Austrians defeated the Sar-
dinians at Custozza, and reconquered the
whole of Lombardy. A still more fatal
blow fell at Novara, where Charles Albert
was routed in March, 1849, and abdicated
in consequence. The crown came to his
son, Victor Emmanuel, who afterwards
became the first monarch of a united
_^ -. Italy. Venice fell, after a long
1 r'tf* siege, in August of the same
J y . year. Modena and Parma,
who had joined themselves to
Piedmont, were occupied by Austria, and
their ducal governments were restored.
Tuscany suffered the same fate, and the
Grand Duke was compelled by the Aus-
trian army of occupation to abrogate the
constitution of 1848, so that his country
became less free than it was before the
revolution. Four Catholic Powers —
4783
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
France, Spain, Austria, and Naples —
offered their assistance to the Pope, but
the main burden of recovering the Holy
City fell upon France. Rome, defended
by Mazzini and Garibaldi, was captured
in June, 1849 ; the Cardinals came into
power with Antonelli at their head. The
tricolour was surrendered. Italy was
again split into fragments,
ay p « dependent upon foreign force.
P ° Sardinia alone remained a
ragmea s gg^.^^ q£ liberty and hope.
In Austria, the champion of reaction, the
war of nationalities, which has always been
to her a danger, now proved her salvation.
A Panslavic Congress had been sum-
moned at Prague, which was attended
not only by Bohemiahs, Moravians, and
Silesians, but by Russians, Poles, and
Servians. But the Croatians turned
against the Magyars, and the South Slavs
against their brethren of the North.
Prague was bombarded and Bohemia
conquered ; the Croats marched upon
Budapest. The emperor, who had fled
from his capital and sought refuge in
Moravia, made a common war against the
German democrats and the Hungarian
rebels, who had chosen Kossuth as their
leader. Croats attacked Vienna from the
east, Bohemians from the north. After a
short struggle they were victorious ; the
Hungarians, who had come to the assist-
ance of the friends of liberty, were repulsed
and an absolute government was restored,
Hungary held out a little longer.
A Hungarian Republic was established,
with Kossuth as President. But the Rus-
sians declared themselves the enemies of
revolution, and Nicholas came to the aid of
his brother emperor. An army 80,000 strong
entered the country from the Carpathians.
The Magyars capitulated at Vilagos, pre-
ferring to fall into the hands of the
Russians rather than into those of their
ancient tyrants. Kossuth, after burying
the Hungarian crown, sought refuge in
Th B ' f Turkey. Metternich was again
_ * . "* master, and the last state of
Republic ,, L 11-
of Hungary ^^^ '^P^^^^^'Tu P^'T^^^^ "^^
worse than the first. Prussia
also had her " days of March," but here
the middle-classes stood aloof, and the
Liberals were left to fight out their battle
against the army.
The chief object of their attack was the
Prince of Prussia, brother of the king, who
WEis destined at a later period to be the
first Emperor of Germany. The king at
4784
first tried to temporise. He promised a
constitution, withdrew his troops, and
sent the Prince of Prussia to England. He
adopted the German tricolour, threw him-
self upon the affection of his Prussians,
and invoked the confidence of Germany.
He granted a written constitution and a
National Assembly elected by universal
suffrage. But he soon discovered his mis-
take, and was obliged to follow the example
of Austria. The army re-entered the capital,
took possession of the Parliament build-
ings, dissolved the National Guard, and
soon afterwards dispersed the Assembly.
Absolute government was restored, veiled
under the forms of a constitution.
The Provisional Government in France,
which succeeded the Orleans monarchy,
was formed by a coalition, and therefore
contained within itself the seeds of
dissolution. One party aimed at the
establishment of a democratic republic
based on universal suffrage, the other
desired a democratic and social republic,
the chief object of which should be the
elevation of the working classes. The
tricolour of 1789 was opposed by the red
_. flag of Louis Blanc. The battle
. '^ ^**' raged round the organisation
*^ P •' ^ ^ oi labour and the establish-
ment of national workshops.
However, the Socialists had opposed to
them the whole of France and half the
capital, and they were unable to hold
their own. A civil war broke out in the
streets of Paris, and three days' fighting
was required for the capture of the
suburb of St. Antoine by General Cavaig-
nac. The Socialist prisoners were shot
or transported and their newspapers were
suppressed. Eventually a constitution
was agreed upon, which established a
single chamber, a president holding office
for four years, and a Council of State.
The president was to be chosen by
universal suffrage, and the election took
place on December loth, 1848. Ledru
RoUin was the candidate of the Socialists,
Cavaignac of the Democrats, but both
had to give way to Louis Napoleon, the
inheritor of a mighty name, who was
chosen by an overwhelming majority.
This election could have no other result
than the establishment of a monarchy.
The coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1851,
dissolved the Assembly, and arrested the
leaders of the Republican party. Follow-
ing the example of his uncle, Louis
Napoleon was first made president for
THE RE -MAKING OF EUROPE: GENERAL SURVEY
ten years, and shortly afterwards Emperor.
The plebiscite accepting him as Emperor
of the French was taken four years, to a
day, after he had been elected president.
By the events we have described
absolute government was established over
the whole of Europe, excepting Switzer-
land and the countries which had not
been affected by the revolutions of 1848.
However, France preserved her principle
of universal suffrage, Prussia and Sardinia
their constitutions, with the fixed resolve
of achieving the unity of Germany and of
Italy, founded on the principle of nation-
ality, which had been ignored by the
Congress of Vienna. We now pass from the
epoch of revolutions to the epoch of war.
The Crimean War of 1854 belongs to
those events of history of which we do
not precisely know the cause. There are
probably few Englishmen who feel satisfied
with their country's share in it, or who
support it as an act of political wisdom.
There are few, also, who would deny that
England was led into it by the Emperor of
the French. Louis Napoleon came to the
throne of France pledged by conviction
and by honour to effect the
T^f liberation of Italy from the
rimcan ^^g^j-jg^j^ yoke. This could not
be done without war, and
although France was strong enough to
meet Austria in the field, she could not
contend against Austria and Russia united.
It therefore became necessary to weaken
Russia before such a war could be under-
taken, and the question of the Holy Places
was seized upon with great adroitness as
a colourable pretext for a war with Russia.
Britain was easily, too easily, stirred
to defend Turkey against aggression
and dismemberment, and thus a conflict
was begun of which there is little reason
to be proud. Russia was prepared to
meet an attack in the Baltic, in Poland,
or on the Danube, but the Crimea was
only feebly garrisoned. Still, Sebastopol
held out, and the resources of the allies
were strained to the utmost. A winter
campaign became necessary in a desert
country, subject to intense cold. The
British lost half their troops, and no
assistance came from Austria or Prussia.
In the spring of 1855 the Emperor
' Nicholas died, and the war no longer had a
motive. However, it continued under his
successor, and Sebastopol did not fall until
six months afterwards. Napoleon was
ready to make peace, ^though Palmerston
304
wished to go on fighting, and a treaty was
eventually concluded at the Congress of
Paris. Turkey lost the Danubian pro-
vinces, but the integrity of her empire was
guaranteed, while she promised reforms
of administration which were never carried
into effect. The navigation of the Danube
was declared free, and the Black Sea
_ neutral. Cavour had been
ofTr"""' "^^^^^^ enough to join the
^ . * -„ alliance, although Sardinia
Crimean War , , ' , , °,- ,
had no mterest, direct or m-
direct, in the questions in dispute. This
gave him a right to take part in the
congress, and the liberation of Italy
entered for the first time into the domain
of practical poUtics. The war undoubt-
edly raised the prestige of the French
Emperor, and gave him a commanding
position in European affairs. It called
Roumania into existence, and it recognised
the claims of nationality in Italy. It was
another blow to the principles of the
Congress of Vienna, and it weakened the
influence of Austria.
It will be seen from this narrative that
the Crimean War led directly to the
Italian War of 1859. ^Y adroit diplo-
macy Austria was induced to invade
Sardinian territory, and the armies of
France crossed the Alps to defend her.
The two allied armies were able to con-
centrate at Alessandria before they could
be attacked in detail. The Battle of
Magenta, having been lost in the morning,
was won in the afternoon, MacMahon
playing the part of Desaix at Marengo.
The Austrians evacuated Lombardy
and retired into the Quadrilateral to
defend Venetia. After a hard struggle
the Austrians were again defeated at Sol-
ferino, but the bloodshed had so unnerved
the emperor, and the quarrels between his
marshals had so disgusted him, that he
broke his promise of setting Italy free to
the Adriatic, and made a peace which
secured only Lombardy to Sardinia. He
received in exchange Savoy
PrrsH Tof * ^"^ ^^^^' ^^* ^^^^ second war
res ige o ^^ ^^ fatal to his prestige as
Louis Napoleon ,, r-iijir
the first had been favour-
able. Italy alone profited by the result.
Parma, Modena, and Tuscany drove out
their dukes ; Romagna set herself free
from the Pope ; provisional governments
were established in these provinces, ready
for incorporation with the kingdom of
the House of Savoy. Cavour, who had
resigned after the Peace of Villafranca,
4785
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
again became Prime Minister. The spell of
Austrian domination was broken, and the
establishment of an Italian kingdom, so
long the dream of poets and patriots,
became only a question of time.
The scene of our drama shifts to another
quarter. What Cavour had done for Italy
Bismarck was to do for Germany. The
rivalry between Austria and
Fatir'" * Prussia for the leading position
_* * - in Germany, and for the in-
heritance of the Holy Roman
Empire had been active ever since the
Congress of Vienna. The policy of Napo-
leon would have annihilated Prussia and
strengthened Austria, but Metternich com-
mitted the fatal blunder of joining the
coalition of which the profits were to come
to his rival instead of himself.
There was a time when Hanover might
have disputed with Prussia the first place
in a Teutonic Empire, but it was im-
possible that such a position could be held
by a King of England, and the sovereignty
of the British Isles was regarded as more
valuable than the chances of a Continental
crown. The share which Prussia had
taken in the Waterloo campaign rendered
her reward certain, and the world was
disposed to favour Protestant progress
at that time.
Still, it is doubtful if Prussia would
have gained the position which was the
object of her desires unless Bismarck
had been in her service, who, with a
mixture of statesmanship and craft, of
courage and audacity, half untied and half
cut the Gordian knot of the situation. The
X Danish War of 1864 would probably never
have taken place unless Bismarck had
conveyed to the Danes the false assurance,
based probably upon an intercepted
dispatch, that she was certain to receive
the support of Britain. The defeat of
Denmark was speedy and inevitable, and
the arrangements made by the Peace of
Vienna ceded the duchies of Schleswig
• . and Holstein to Austria and
th**P ""^^ ° Prussia under conditions which
. ... made a future quarrel inevitable.
The Schleswig-Holstein diffi-
culty rose in great measure from the fact
that whereas Holstein was almost entirely
German — and, indeed, claimed to be a part
of the old German Empire — Schleswig was
more than half Danish, and yet the two
duchies were united by a permanent bond
which national feeling declared was never
to be broken. " Schleswig-Holstein sea
4786
surrounded " was the text of their patriotic
hymn. The arrangements for the joint
occupation of the provinces by the two
conflicting rivals provided that the Ger-
man province should be occupied by
Austria ; the semi-Danish by Prussia.
This made a quarrel certain. The Prus-
sian governor of Schleswig persecuted the
partisans of independence ; the Austrian
governor of Holstein encouraged them.
The rupture was delayed for a time by the
Convention qf Gastein, but it came at last.
In order to attack Austria with success
it was necessary that Prussia should have
Italy on her side. But Italy could not
act without the consent of France, and
this implied the approval of the Emperor
Napoleon. At the interview of Biarritz, in
October, 1865, Napoleon agreed to support
Prussia against Austria, and declared him-
self in favour of the unity of Italy, if some
compensation were given to his own coun-
try by an increase of territory. He desired
to tear up the settlement of Vienna, so
hostile to Napoleonic ideals. Bismarck
adroitly encouraged these aspirations, but
took care not to commit himself. It was
found difficult to overcome the
Urstrust of ^^st^ust which the Italians felt
IS rus o ^^^ Bismarck. They hoped to
obtain Venetia without a war,
possibly by ceding the newly-created
Roumania to Austria. Even King William
was averse from force, and Bismarck stood
alone, supported by his clear insight and
his iron will. At last, in April, i866, an
offensive alliance with Italy was concluded
for three months. Italy was to support
Prussia in obtaining the hegemony of
Germany, and was to receive Venetia in
return. She asked for Trieste, but it was
refused to her. Napoleon promised to
remain neutral.
In June, Prussia declared the federative
tie which bound her to Austria dissolved.
But she found herself alone. Bavaria,
Wurtemberg, Saxony, and Hanover, to-
gether with Hesse-Nassau, and Baden,
supported Austria. Prussia had to rely
upon her well- drilled army and her
admirable arrangements for mobilisation.
Napoleon hoped that between combatants
so equally matched the war would be of
some duration, and that, when both were
exhausted, he could come forward as
a mediator, and make his own terms. But
these hopes were shattered by the rapidity
of the Prussian movements. Before the
end of June the army of Hanover had
THE RE -MAKING OF EUROPE: GENERAL SURVEY
capitulated, Saxony was occupied, Bo-
hemia invaded, and on July 3rd the
Battle of Koniggratz, won largely by the
genius of the Crown Prince Frederic,
ended the struggle, and the way lay
open to Vienna.
At the same time the Italians were
defeated at Custozza by a force inferior
in numbers, but this did not prevent the
Austrians having to surrender Venetia to
Napoleon, who gave it to the Italians.
The southern states of Germany were
incapable of effective action. They were
beaten in detail ; Frankfort was occupied,
Austria was compelled to abandon her
allies, who had no alternative but to make
peace ; Prussia became the undisputed
head of the German confederation. Europe
was dazed and bewildered by the rapidity
and completeness of her success.
Napoleon found himself deceived, and
every step which he took to recover his
position led to new disasters. His attempt
to gain possession of the Grand Duchy of
Luxemburg proved a failure. He looked
about in vain for allies. A triple alliance
was proposed with Austria and Italy,
but Austria was exhausted and dreaded
another war, while Italy de-
* manded the withdrawal of the
rea es French from Rome. Nothing
Ki**^* ^t. could be obtained beyond
Nineteenth i j i .• t ■'
^ general declarations of sym-
^ ^^^ pathy and friendship. A pro-
position made in the beginning of 1870 for
a mutual disarmament came to nothing.
At last, at a moment when peace seemed
to be assured, war broke out with the
suddenness of an earthquake. The clumsi-
ness of a French Minister who, not
satisfied with a material victory, demanded
a humiliating declaration from the Prus-
sian king, the genius of Bismarck, who
seized an unequalled opportunity for
precipitating a conflict which he regarded
as inevitable, so as to have the nation
and the sovereign on his side, caused the
greatest war of the nineteenth century,
by the results of which Europe was
dominated until 1914.
War was declared on July 19th, and the
emperor left for the front. But he had
no ijilusion as to the result. The empress
who, stung to the heart by the taunts
of Germany, had stimulated the conflict,
was unable to inspire him with hope.
He left St. Cloud, accompanied by his
son, as a victim led to the slaughter, and
the final catastrophe was not long delayed.
The war of 1870 was more than a local
conflict. It was reckoned at the time
among the vital struggles which have
convulsed Europe since the fall of the
Roman Empire ; a scene, but as we know
now only a scene, in the secular rivalry
between the Roman and the Teuton.
It was said at the time that Sedan
avenged Tagliacozzo, that the French
emperor expiated on that field the murder
of the Hohenstauffen Conradin by the
^ . , brother of St. Louis. Regarded
Creation of x • • i. r
,^ _ from a more prosaic point of
the German - ^ -
Empire
view, it upset the politics of
Europe. It created a German
Empire, with Prussia at its head, and
gave that country a preponderance in
Europe. It achieved the unity of Italy,
and destroyed the temporal power of the
Pope. It opened the question of the East
by putting an end to the neutrality of the
Black Sea. It established in France a
republican government which seems to be
durable, and it transferred that neutral
territory between Neustria and Austrasia
— which appears to have come into
existence from the accident of Louis the
Pious having three sons instead of two
— from the French to the German side
of his dominions. Whether this arrange-
ment will be permanent or not, none can
say. It produced by force a settlement of
Europe very different to those which were
established at Miinster, at LTtrecht, or
at Vienna, and until 1914 we lived under
the conditions which it created.
Forty-four years elapsed after the war of
1870, almost as long a period as intervened
between the Battle of Waterloo and the
Crimean war, before the great European
War.
4787
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE SIXTH DIVISION OF EUROPE
The above map shows Europe as it was in the year looo, with the boundaries of the various states as we know
thum to-day. The period thus illustrated is not the whole of the time covered by "The Re-making of Europe,"
but rather the eventual settlement of the Continent, as a result of the movements which were initiated on the
downfall of Napoleon, and involved such international conflicts as the Crimean War, the Italian revolt against
Austria, the Franco- Prussian, the Russo- Turkish, and the Greco-Turkish wars. The areas within 250 and 500 miles
of the coast are also indicated.
4.788
hot; -J
.3 -a
s w-S
d n u
S,v o
« CT3
u O C
*^EUROPE^WATffiLfiD
THE GREAT POWERS IN CONCORD
AND THE FAILURE OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE
AT the Congress of Vienna nations were
but rarely, and national rights and
desires never, a subject of discussion.
The Cabinets — that is to say, the princes
of Europe, their officials, and in particular
the diplomatists — arranged the mutual
relations of states almost exclusively with
reference to dynastic interests and differ-
ences in national power ; though in the case
of France it was necessary to consult
national susceptibilities, and in England the
economic demands of the upper classes
of society came into question. The term
" state " implied a ruling court, a govern-
ment, and nothing beyond, not only to
Prince Metternich, but also to the majority
of his coadjutors. These institutions were
the sole surviving representatives of that
feudal organism which for more than a
thousand years had undertaken the larger
proportion of the task of the state.
Principalities of this kind were not
founded upon the institutions of civic
life, which had developed under feudal
society ; the rule of the aristocracy
had fallen into decay, had grown anti-
quated or had been abolished, and as the
monarchy increased in power at the ex-
pense of the classes, it had invariably
employed instruments of government more
scientifically constructed in
detail. Bureaucracies had
arisen. Governments had in-
tervened between princes and
peoples and had become ends in them-
selves. The theory of "subordination,"
which in feudal society had denoted an
economic relation, now assvuned a political
character ; it was regarded as a necessary
extension of the idea of sovereignty, which
had become the sole ajid ultimate basis of
European
Governments
in Evolution
public authority in the course of the
seventeenth century. The impulse of the
sovereigns to extend the range of their
authority, and a conception more or less
definite of the connection between this
authority and certain ideal objects, re-
sulted in the theory that the guidance of
-,. _, . society was a governmental
The French 4. i j ^i i j
t J » .. TM. task, and consequently laid
Idea of The • • ^ iL <•
D- L* t%M .. an ever-increasing number of
Kights 01 Man 1 ■ J J 1
claims and demands upon
the government for the time being.
To this conception of the rights of
princes and their delegates, as a result of
historic growth, the French Revolution
had opposed the idea of " the rights of
man." To the National Assembly no
task seemed more necessary or more
imperative than the extirpation of errone-
ous theories from the general thought of
the time ; such theories had arisen from
the exaggerated importance attached to
monarchical power, had secured recogni-
tion, and had come into operation, simply
because they had never been confuted.
Henceforward sovereignty was to be
based upon the consent of the community
as a whole. Thus supported by the
sovereign will of the people, France had
entered upon war with the monarchical
states of Europe where the exercise of
supreme power had been the ruler's
exclusive right. It was as an exponent
of the sovereign rights of the people that
the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte had
attempted to make France the paramount
Power in Europe ; it was in virtue of the
power entrusted to him by six millions
of Frenchmen that the Emperor had led
his armies far beyond the limits of French
domination and had imposed his personal
4791
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
will upon the princes of Europe by means
of a magnificent series of battles. Within
a period of scarce two decades the balance
of power had swung to the opposite
extreme, and had passed back from the
sovereign people to the absolute despot.
Monarchs and nations shared aUke in the
task of overpowering this tyranny which
_. _ . had aimed at abolishing en-
Power 0^*"* tirely the rights of nations as
ower g^^j^ Y)^^ from victory the
the People . ■, j • j j
princes alone denved advan-
tage. With brazen effrontery literary time-
servers scribbled their histories to prove
that only the sovereigns and their armies
deserved the credit of the overthrow of
Napoleon, and that the private citizen
had done no more service than does the
ordinary fireman at a conflagration.
However, their view of the situation was
generally discredited. It could by no
means be forgotten that the Prussians had
forced their king to undertake a war of
liberation, and the services rendered by
Spain and the Tjnrol could not be wholly
explained by reference to the commands of
legally constituted authorities ; in either
case it was the people who by force of
arms had cast off the yoke imposed upon
them. The will of the people had made
itself plainly understood ; it had declined
the alien rule even though that rule had
appeared under the names of freedom,
reform, and prosperity.
Once again the princely families re-
covered their power and position ; they
had not entertained the least idea of
dividing among themselves the spoils
accumulated by the Revolution which had
been taken from their kin, their relations,
and their allies ; at the same time they
were by no means inclined to divide the
task of administering the newly created
states with the peoples inhabiting them.
They tacitly united in support of the
conviction, which became an article of
faith with all legitimists, that' their position
, and prosperity were no less im-
e u jec s pQj.^j^jj^ thdin the maintenance
^•"^e? * ofsocialorderandmoralitv.lt
theStatc 1-j iuj/ r
was explamed as the duty of
the subject to recognise both the former
and the latter ; and by increasing his
personal prosperity, the subject was to
provide a sure basis on which to increase
the powers of the government. However,
" the hmited intelligence of the subjects "
strove against this interpretation of the
facts ; they could not forget the enormous
4792
sacrifices which had been made to help
those states threatened by the continuance
of the Napoleonic supremacy, and in many
cases already doomed to destruction.
The value of their services aroused them
to question also the value of what they
had attained, and by this process of
thought they arrived at critical theories
and practical demands which " legitimist "
teaching was unable to confute.
The supreme right of princes to wage
war and conclude peace rested upon
satisfactory historic foundation, and was
therefore indisputable. In the age of
feudal society it was the lords, the free
landowners, who had waged war, and not
the governments ; and their authority had
been limited only by their means. Neither
the lives nor the property of the com-
monalty had ever come in question except
in cases where their sjonpathies had been
enlisted by devastation, fire, and slaughter ;
to actual co-operation in the undertakings
of the overlord the man of the people had
never been bound, and such help had been
voluntarily given. After the conception
of sovereignty had been modified by the
ideaof "government" the situa-
of the ^'" tion had been changed. Military
° J . powers and duties were now
dissociated from the feudal
classes ; the sinews of war were no longer
demanded from the warriors themselves,
and the provision of means became a
government duty. However, no new rights
had arisen to correspond with these
numerous additional duties. The vassal,
now far more heavily burdened, demanded
his rights : the people followed his
example. That which "was to be supported
by the general efforts of the whole of the
members of any body politic must surely
be a matter of general concern. The state
also has duties incumbent upon it, the
definition of which is the task of those
who support the state. Such demands
were fully and absolutely justified ; a
certain transformation of the state and of
society was necessary and inevitable.
Few princes, and still fewer officials,
recognised the overwhelming force of these
considerations ; in the majority of cases
expression of the popular will was another
name for revolution. The Revolution had
caused the overthrow of social order. It
had engendered the very worst of human
passions, destroyed professions and pro-
perty, sacrificed a countless number of
human lives, and disseminated infiidelity
THE GREAT POWERS IN CONCORD
and immorality ; revolution therefore
must be checked, must be nipped in the
bud in the name of God, of civilisation
and social order. This opinion was founded
upon the fundamental mistake of refusing
to recognise the fact that all rights imphed
corresponding duties ; while disregarding
every historical tradition and assenting to
the dissolution of every feudal idea, it did
nothing to introduce new relations or to
secure a compromise between the prince
and his subjects.
This point of view was known as Con-
servatism ; its supporters availed them-
selves of the unnatural limitations laid
upon the subject un-
duly to aggrandise
and systematically to
increase the privileges
of the ruling class;
and this process re-
ceived the name of
statecraft. This
conservative state-
craft, of which Prince
Metternich was proud
to call himself a
master, proceeded
from a dull and spirit-
less conception of
the progress of the
world ; founded upon
a complete lack of
historical knowledge,
it equally failed to
recognise any distinct
purpose as obligatory
on the^tate. Of politi-
The Tsar's
Lost Faith in
Liberalism
had been forced to leave the Germans and
Italians to their fate, and had satisfied
his conscience by the insertion of a few
expressions in the final protocol of the
Vienna Congress. Subsequently he
suffered a cruel disappointment in the case
of Poland, which proceeded to
misuse the freedom that had
been granted to it by the con-
coction of conspiracies and by
continual manifestations of dissatisfaction.
He began to lose faith in Liberalism as
such, and became a convert to Metternich's
policy of forcibly suppressing every popu-
lar movement for freedom. Untouched
by the enthusiasm of
the German youth,
which for the most
part had displayed
after the war of
liberation the noblest
sense of patriotism,
and could provide
for the work of re-
storation and reor-
ganisation coadjutors
highly desirable to a
far-seeing adminis-
tration; incapable of
understanding the
Italian yearnings for
union and activity,
and for the founda-
tion of a federal state
free from foreign in-
fluences, the great
Powers of Austria,
Russia, and Prussia
cal science Metternich ^^ ,. , ,/rM ^'^ "'^•' Afi^'^Jt^';' u . a employed threats and
, J , J After the fall of Napoleon, in 1815, Metternich stepped r ■ r
had none; he made i„to the place vacated by the emperor as the first person- lOfce in every torm,
good the deficiency allty in Europe, and, as the avowed champion of Con- with the object of
bv the ffeneral ad servatism, opposed forces that were destined to ultimate imposing COnstitu-
nuration which his '""'"P'^" He was overthrown in ms, and died in 18o9. ^-^^^ ^f ^j^^-^.
his
intellect and character inspired. His diaries
and many of his letters are devoted to
the glorification of these merits. A know-
ledge of his intellectual position and of
that of the majority of his diplomatic
colleagues is an indispensable
preliminary to the under-
standing of the aberrations
into which the statesmen of
the so-called Restoration period fell.
The restored Government of the
Bourbons in France was indeed provided
with a constitution. It was thus that
Tsar Alexander I. had attempted to
display his liberal tendencies and his
good-will to the French nation ; but he
The Restored
Government of
the Bourbons
tions ot tneir own
choice upon the people, whose desires for
reform they wholly disregarded. Austria
had for the moment obtained a magnificent
position in the German Confederacy. This,
however, the so-called statecraft of Con-
servatism declined to use for the con-
solidation of the federation, which Austria
at the same time desired to exploit for her
own advantage. Conservatism never, in-
deed, gave the smallest attention to the
task of uniting the interests of the allied
states by institutions making for pros-
perity, or by the union of their several
artistic and scientific powers ; it seemed
more necessary and more salutary to limit
as far as possible the influence of the
4793
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Austria's
Surrender
to Russia
popular representatives in the adminis-
tration of the allied states, and to prevent
the introduction of constitutions which
gave the people rights of real and tangible
value. The conservative statesmen did
not observe that even governments could
derive but very scanty advantage by
ensuring the persistence of conditions
which were the product of no
national or economic course
of development ; they did
not see that the power of the
governments was decreasing, and that
they possessed neither the money nor the
troops upon which such a system must
ultimately depend. In the East, under
the unfortunate guidance of Metternich,
Austria adopted a position in no way
corresponding to her past or to her religious
aspirations ; in order not to alienate the
help of Russia, which might be useful in
the suppression of revolutions, Austria
surrendered that right, which she had
acquired by the military sacrifices of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of
appearing as the liberator of the Balkan
Christians from Turkish oppression.
Political history provides many ex-
amples of constitutions purely despotic, of
the entirely selfish aspirations of persons,
families, or parties, of the exploitation of
majorities by minorities, of constitutions
which profess to give freedom to all, while
securing the dominance of individuals ;
but illusions of this kind are invariably
connected with some definite object, and
in every case we can observe aspirations
for tangible progress or increase of power.
But the Conservatism of the Restoration
period rests upon a false conception of
the working of political forces, and is
therefore from its very outset a policy of
mere bungling, as little able to create as
to maintain. Of construction, of purifi-
cation, or of improvement, it was utterly
incapable ; for in fact the object of the
conservative statesmen and
e ec s o their highest ambition were
P?r7o d**" nothing more than to capture
the admiration of that court
society in which they figured in their uni-
forms and decorations. For many princely
families it was a grave misfortune that they
failed to recognise the untenable character
of those " principles " by which their
Ministers, their masters of ceremonies, and
their officers professed themselves able to
uphold their rights and their possessions ;
many, indeed, have disappeared for ever
47Q4
from the scene of history, while others
have passed through times of bitter trial
and deadly struggle.
From their armed alliance against
Napoleon a certain feeling of federative
union seized the European Cabinets. The
astounding events, the fall of the Caesar
from his dizzy height, had, after all the free
thinking of the Revolutionary period and
the superficial enlightenment, once more
strengthened the belief in the dispositions
of a Higher Power. The effect on the
tsar, Alexander I., was the most peculiar.
His temperament, naturally idealistic,
moved him to an extreme religiosity,
intensified and marked by strong mystical
leanings, to many minds suggestive of
the presence of something like mania. He
was not without friends who encouraged
him to regard himself as a special " in-
strument " with a religious mission, who
was to raise Europe to a new level of
Christianity through his power as a ruler ;
in contradistinction to Napoleon, whom
he probably, in common with a good
many other mystics, had come to regard
as Antichrist. Alexander did not pose
_ as the champion of a Church,
* **'t th ^^^ ^^ wanted to assume the
u *."* *^f- ** * role of the ideal Christian
Holy Alliance . j . i j i,-
monarch, and to lead his
brother monarchs along the same path. Un-
fortunately, the conception of the divine
mission developed the idea of divine mon-
archical authority ; so that from his early
notions of Liberty he passed to the stage of
identifying the cause of Absolutism and of
Legitimism with the cause of Christianity.
Thus, he was moved to materialise his
ideals in the form of a Christian union
of nations, a Holy Alliance. This scheme
he laid before his brother rulers.
Frederic William HL, also a pietist in
his way, immediately agreed ; so did
Francis L, after some deliberation. On
September 26th the three monarchs
concluded this alliance in Paris. They
wished to take as the standard of their
conduct, both in the internal affairs of
their countries and in external matters,
merely the precepts of Christianity, justice,
love, and peaceableness ; regarding each
other as brothers, they wished to help
each other on every occasion. As pleni-
potentiaries of Divine Providence they
promised to be the fathers of their subjects
and to lead them in the spirit of brother-
hood, in order to protect religion, peace,
and justice ; and they recommended their
THE GREAT POWERS IN CONCORD
own peoples to exercise themselves daily
in Christian principles and the fulfilment
of Christian duties. Every Power which
would acknowledge such principles might
join the alliance. Almost all the states
of Europe gradually joined the Holy
Alliance. The sultan was obviously ex-
cluded, while the Pope declared that he
had always possessed the Christian verity
and required no new exposition of it.
Great Britain refused, from regard to her
constitution and to parliament ; Europe
was spared the presentation of the Prince
Regent as a devotee of the higher morality.
There was no international basis to the
Holy Alliance, which only had the value
of a personal declaration, with merely a
moral obligation for the monarchs con-
nected with it. In its beginnings the Alliance
aimed at an ideal ; and its founders were
sincere in their purpose. But it soon
became, and rightly, the object of universal
detestation ; for Metternich was master
of Alexander, and from the promise of the
potentates to help each other on everj'
opportunity he deduced the right to
interfere in the internal affairs of foreign
states. The Congresses of
eague Carlsbad, Troppau, Laibach
o uropean ^^^ Verona were the offshoots
of this unholy conception.
In addition to the Holy Alliance, the
Treaty of Chaumont was renewed.
On November 20th, 1815, ^^ Paris,
Russia, Great Britain, Austria, and Prussia
pledged themselves that their sovereigns
would meet periodically to deliberate on
the peace, security, and welfare of Europe,
or would send their responsible Ministers
for the purpose. France, which had so
long disturbed the peace of Europe, was
to be placed under international police
supervision, even after the army of occu-
pation had left its soil.
The first of these congresses met at
Aix-la-Chapelle, and showed Europe that
an aristocratic league of Powers stood at
its head. Alexander, Francis, and Fred-
eric William appeared in person, accom-
panied by numerous diplomatists, among
them Metternich, Gentz, Hardenberg,
Humboldt, Nesselrode, Pozzo di Borgo,
and Capodistrias ; France was represented
by Richelieu ; Great Britain by Welling-
ton, Castlereagh, and Canning. The
chief question to be decided by the con-
ferences, which began on September 30th,
i8i8, was the evacuation of France. The
Duke of Richelieu obtaiued on October
Qth an agreement according to which
France should be evacuated by the allied
troops before November 30th, 1818, in-
stead of the year 1820, and the costs of the
war and the indemnities still to be paid
were considerably lowered. On the other
hand, he did not succeed in forming a
quintuple alliance by securing the ad-
, mission of France as a member
"^* *** ^^^^ ^^^ quadruple alliance. It
Air ° ^ ^^ true that France was received
on November 15th into the
federation of the Great Powers, and that it
joined the Holy Alliance ; but the recip-
rocal guarantee of the five Great Powers,
advocated by Alexander and Ancillon,
did not come to pass ; the four Powers
renewed in secret on November 15th the
Alliance of Chaumont, and agreed upon
military measures to be adopted in the
event of a war with France. We have
already spoken of the settlement of the
dispute between Bavaria and Baden ;
the congress occupied itself also with other
European questions without achie\'ing
any successes, and increased the severity of
the treatment of the exile on St. Helena.
Alexander I. of Russia, who was now
making overtures to Liberalism throughout
Europe and supported the constitutional
principle in Poland, soon returned from
that path ; he grew colder in his friendship
for the unsatisfied Poles, and became a
loyal pupil of Metternich, led by the
rough " sergeant of Gatshina," Count
Araktcheiefi. Although art, literature, and
science flourished in his reign, although
the fame of Alexander Pushkin was at
its zenith, the fear of revolution, assas-
sination, and disbelief cast a lengthening
shadow over the policy of Alexander, and
he governed in a mystic reactionary spirit.
When it became apparent that Alexan-
der had broken with the Liberal party,
Metternich and Castlereagh rubbed their
hands in joy at his conversion, and the
pamphlet of the prophet of disaster,
, Alexander Stourdza, " On the
* k**-th Present Condition of Germany,"
'^^ .J'^ , which was directed against the
the Liberals j- , r . j • .1?
freedom 01 study in the univer-
sities and the freedom of the Press, when
put before the tsar at Aix-la-ChapeUe,
intensified his suspicious aversion to all
that savoured of liberty. The conference
of ambassadors at Paris was declared
closed. The greatest concord seemed to
reign between the five Great Powers when
the congress ended on November 2ist.
4795
47q6
THE
RE-MAKING
OF
EUROPE
EUROPE
AFTER
WATERLOO
II
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
THE LAST OF THE GEORGES, WILLIAM IV.,
AND BEGINNING OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
IN the nature of things, the British
* nation at all times stands to a certain
extent outside the general course of Con-
tinental politics. The political organism
developed far in advance of other nations ;
the English polity, assimilating Scotland
and Ireland, had achieved long before the
French Revolution a liberty elsewhere un-
known. Political power had become the
property not indeed of people at large,
but, in effect, of the whole landowning
class, a body altogether different from the
rigid aristocratic castes of Europe ; and
absolutism or the prospect of absolutism
had long vanished. In the latter half of
the eighteenth century there had been
indications of a democratic movement, to
which the beginnings of the French Revo-
lution gave a considerable impulse. But
its later excesses gave a violent check to
that impulse throughout the classes which
held political power, causing a strong anti-
democratic reaction ; although a precisely
contrary effect was produced in the classes
from whom political power was withheld.
That is to say, Europe in general and the
United Kingdom, like Europe, showed the
common phenomenon of a proletariat
roused by the French Revolution to a
desire for political power, and rulers who
were convinced that the granting of such
power would entail anarchy and niin ;
while material force was on the side of the
rulers. But the distinction between the
composition of the ruling class in the
United Kingdom and in the Continental
, , states remained as it was before
RllcHona ^^^ Revolution : though the ex-
eac lonary jg^jj^g Ministry in Great Britain
*'^" ^ was reactionary to an ex-
ceptional degree, the sympathies of the
ruling class were with constitutionalism,
not with absolutism. Moreover, Great
Britain was free from any idea that she
had a divine mission to impose her own
political theories on her neighbours, and
had a conviction, on the whole wholesome,
that her intervention in foreign affairs
should be restricted as far as possible to
the exercise of a restraining influence in
the interests of peace.
Thus we find Great Britain in the nine-
teenth century for the most part pursuing
her own way ; taking her own course of
Great Britain Vo\yticB\ development, influ-
« .. . enced only m a very second-
a Jrattem to ■,•'■, -ir •
Other Lauds fj degree by affans on
the Contment, on which
she in turn exercised usually only a very
minor influence, save as providing a
pattern for reformers in other lands.
Her part in world-history, as distinct from
domestic history, was played outside of
Europe altogether, in the development of
the extra-European Empire, as- already
related in the histories of India, Africa,
and Australasia, and to be related in the
American volume. In European history,
interest centred not in Great Britain,
but in the readjustments which issued
in the reorganisation of Germany as a
great and homogeneous Central European
power, in the German Empire as it had
developed ; in the reorganisation of France
as the Republic which we know to-day;
and in the liberation and unification of
Italy, and of minor nationalities.
Great Britain had played her full part —
a conspicuously unselfish one — in the
Congress of Vienna and the settlements
of Europe after the final overthrow of
Napoleon. In the period immediately
ensuing she made her influence felt, not
by her intervention, but by her refusal of
pressing invitations to intervene, and pre-
sently by her refusals to countenance the
unwarranted intervention of other Powers.
Thus the British representatives declined
to join the Holy Alliance of the great
Powers which was formed at Vienna in
1815 for the repression of liberal prin-
ciples, and the foreign policy of the Tories
was marked by a strong sympathy for the
4797
VA!AVAT7LVAiATAVA'A'AVA'A*AVX»XVAV/.VA»X»AVA'A!AUrA?A*>dA^A>AyAVAU»AtAVAVA.>Avj
WILLIAM HUSKISSON
LORD PALMERSTON
^VMVAViWAv;v.YiYrv7v>^
DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
The four statesmen whose portraits are given above — Peel, Canning, Huskisson and Palmerston — exercised a powerful
influence upon the Cabinet which they joined in 1822, moderating the foreign policy of the Tories and informing it with a
strong sympathy for the principles of liberty. Three of them — Peel, Palmerston, and Canning — became Prime Ministers.
principles of liberty and nationality. But
this was due to the influence of the
Moderates — ^Peel, Canning, Huskisson, and
Palmerston — ^who joined the Cabinet in
1822. The extreme Tories sympathised
with the aims of the Holy Alliance, and
had resolved under no circumstances to
impede its efforts. The refusal of Great
Britain to assist in bolstering up the
Spanish dynasty ; her consent to
recognise the independence of the
479S
Spanish colonies and Brazil ; her defence
of Portugal against the forces of Dom
Miguel, the absolutist pretender, and Fer-
dinand VII. of Spain ; her intervention
to save Greece from the Sultan and
Mehemet Ali — ^all these generous actions
were the work of Canning, and would
never have been sanctioned by Castle-
reagh, his predecessor at the Foreign
Office. In domestic policy the spirit of
reaction reigned supreme. During the
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
years 1815 to 1822 class interests and the
morbid fear of revolution were responsible
for a series of repressive enactments which
were so unreasonably severe that they
increased the popular sympathy for the
principles against which they were directed.
After 1822 came the period in which the
extreme Tories gave way tardily and with
the worst of graces.
The peace was inaugurated with a new
corn law, framed in the interests of the
landowning classes, from which both
Houses of Parliament were
chiefly recruited. This pro-
hibited the importation of
foreign com until the price of
80s. a quarter should be reached ; that is,
until the poorer classes should be reduced
to a state of famine. The statutory price
before this date had been merely 48s. The
change was naturally followed in many
places by bread riots and incendiarism.
The Government replied by calling out the
soldiery and framing coercive measures.
In 1819 a mass meeting which had
assembled in St. Peter's Field, at Man-
chester, was broken up with considerable
bloodshed ; Parliament, which had already
Bread Riots
in the
Country
suspended the Habeas Corpus, pro-
ceeded to pass the Six Acts giving the
executive exceptional powers to break up
seditious meetings and to punish the
authors of seditious libels. The powers
thus obtained were stretched to their
utmost limits, on the pretext that such
hare-brained schemes as the Cato Street
Conspiracy, 1820, constituted a serious
menace to public order.
It was not until 1823 that the Cabinet
consented to attack the root of social
disorders by making some reductions in
the tariff. It began by concessions to the
mercantile classes, whose prospects were
seriously affected by the heavy duties upon
raw materials, and to the consumers of
various manufactured commodities, such
as linen, silk, and cotton stuffs, upon
which prohibitive duties had been im-
posed in the interests of British industry'.
But in the all-important question of the
corn laws, affecting the poor rather than
the middle classes, the Tories would only
concede a compromise, the sliding-scale
duty of 1829. The demand of the chief
commercial centres for the repeal of the
Navigation Laws was met by an Act
MASS MEETING AT MANCHESTER: THE YEOMANRY CHARGING THE MOB IN 1819
Suffering hardship in consequence of the high price of bread, the people in many places resorted to violence. The
Government's reply was to call out the soldiery and frame coercive measures. A mass meeting which had assembled in
St. Peter's Field, at Manchester, in 1819, was broken up, as shown in the above picture, with considerable bloodshed.
4799
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
THE SCENE OF THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY
In Cato Street, London, shown in this picture, was conceived a plot
to assassinate Castlereagrh and other Ministers at a Cabinet dinner
in 1820. The plot being discovered, the revolutionaries were
captured, five of them being hanged and five transported for life.
?roviding that the ships of any foreign
'ower should be allowed free access to
British ports if that Power would grant a
reciprocity ; the Combination Acts, framed
to make trades
unions illegal,
were repealed:
considerable
amendment s
were introduced
into the criminal
law. But to
several reforms of
paramount neces-
sity the Ministers
showed them-
selves obstinately
averse. They
would not repeal
the disabUng laws
which still re-
mained in force
against the
Catholics, al-
though three-
fourths of the Irish nation were calling
for this act of justice. They would do
nothing to reform the House of Commons.
They would not deprive the landowning
classes of the profits which
the corn duties afforded.
It was now that the
nation discovered the use
which could be made of
two rights which it had
long possessed. Freedom
of speech on poUtical
matters was guaranteed by
Fox's Libel Act of 1792,
which left to the jury the
full power of deciding
what constituted legi-
timate criticism of the
administration. Freedom
of association and public
meeting existed, indepen-
dently of special enact-
ments, under the protec-
tion of the common law.
These weapons were used
with extraordinary skill
by O'Connell, the leader of his countrymen, and patriotically sur-
of the Irish Catholics. The
Catholic Association,
formed in 1823, learned from him the art
of intimidating without illegaUty by means
of monster meetings. Proclaimed as an
illegal body in 1825, the association con-
trived to continue its existence in the
4800
guise of a philanthropic society. At the
Clare election in 1828 O'Connell, although
a Catholic, and therefore disqualified, was
returned by an overwhelming majority.
Peel persuaded
his colleagues
that the time had
come when eman-
cipation must be
granted. Bills
for that purpose
were accordingly
passed and sub-
mitted for the
royal assent.
This afforded
George IV., who
had succeeded
his father in 1 820,
an opportunity
of asserting him-
self for once
in a matter of
national concern.
A prodigal and
a voluptuary, who had systematically
sacrificed honour and decency to his
pleasures and had broken his father's
heart by his want of shame and filial piety,
he now declared that
nothing could induce him
to accept a measure which
that father had rejected.
After long expostulations
he broke this vow, as he
had broken every other,
and Catholic emancipa-
tion was finally recorded
on the Statute Book.
George IV. died in
1830. He was succeeded
by his brother, the Duke
of Clarence, under the
title of Wilham IV., a
more respectable char-
acter than " the first
gentleman in Europe,"
but a politician of poor
abilities, great tactless-
ness and greater obstinacy.
In their resistance to the
next popular agitation
found him a
valuable ally. The
triumph of the Irish Catholics was
followed by a revival, in England, of
the cry for parliamentary reform, and
to this purpose the tactics of O'Connell
were steadily applied by the Liberads
DANIEL O'CONNELL
The leader of the Irish Catholics, O'Connell
was foremost in the agitation for the rights
rendered personal interests for the advance- f J^g TorieS
ment of the national cause. He died in 1847.
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
of the great manu-
facturing centres.
The energy with
which the Whigs
pushed their attack
is explained by their
conviction that the
defects of the repre-
sentative system con-
stituted the main
obstacles to social,
pohtical, and fiscal
reforms of the utmost
weight and urgency.
The House of Com-
mons no longer ex-
pressed the opinions
of the country. The
most enlightened,
industrious, and
prosperous portion of
the community were
either unrepresented
or ludicrously under-
represented. Since the
time of Charles II. no
new constituencies
had been created, and
of the boroughs which
KING GEORGE IV.
He became Prince Regent in 1810 owing to the mental
derangement of his father, George III., and succeeded
to the throne ten years later. Without any qualities
that endeared him to his people, he possessed failings
and vices that were conspicuously displayed, and there
were few to regret his death, which occurred in 1830.
had received repre-
sentation under the
Tudors and the
Stuarts, the greater
part owed their privi-
lege to the Crown's
expectation that their
elections could always
be controlled. Many
boroughs which
formerly deserved to
be represented had
fallen, through the
decay of their for-
tunes or through an
excessive limitation
of the franchise,
under the control of
the great territorial
families. Close
boroughs were so com-
pletely an article of
commerce that the
younger Pitt, when he
proposed a measure
of parliamentary re-
form, felt himself
bound to offer the
patrons a pecuniary
A SITTING OF THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS IN THE YEARS 1821-28
From the engraring by J. Scott. Photo by Wallcer
305
4801
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
compensation. It was by means of
" pocket " boroughs that the Whigs had
held the first two Hanoverians in bondage,
and that George III. had maintained his
personal ascendancy for twenty years. In
1793 it was computed that 307 members
of Parliament were returned by private
patrons. Matters had improved in the
last forty years ; but still on the eve of the
reform legislation 276 seats were private
property. Three-fourths of these be-
longed to members of the Tory aristocracy.
The state of the county representation
was somewhat better. But the smallest
shires returned as many membeis as the
largest, with the solitary exception that
Yorkshire, since 1821, returned four
members in place of the usual two. The
county franchise was limited, by a law of
1430, to freeholders, and the owners of
large estates had established their right
to plural or " faggot " votes.
The faults of this system, its logical
absurdities, are glaringly manifest. With
the votes of about half the House of
Commons controlled by a few families,
with great cities unrepresented, with
small and large counties treated as of
equal weight, with franchises varying in
different localities, it might rather be said
that there was no system at all. But it is
a peculiarly British characteristic to regard
anomalies as desirable in themselves, as
it was characteristic of the theorists of
the Revolution to discover the universal
panacea in symmetrical uniformity.
Entirely apart from personal interests,
the large proportion of the ruling class
had a firm conviction that the consti-
tution was incapable of improvement,
that it provided the best possible type of
legislator and administrator. The unen-
franchised masses saw in these Olympians
a group who neither understood nor cared
for anything but the interests of their own
class ; they acquired a rooted conviction
that, when they themselves obtained
political power, the millennium would
arrive. But among the enfranchised, the
minority, who had always refused to be
terrified by the Reign of Terror, now grew
into a majority who believed that political
intelligence existed in other sections of
the community, who might be enfranchised
without danger, and that flagrant anoma-
lies might be removed without under-
mining the constitution. When France
once more overturned the Bourbon
monarchy and established the citizen-king,
4802
GEORGE I\
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, IN HIS ROYAL ROBES
Fran tha psintiof by Sir Tbomas Uwrence, F.R.A.
4803
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4805
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Louis Philippe, on the throne with a con-
stitution in which the pohtical power of
the bourgeoisie was the prominent feature,
effecting the change without any excesses,
the phantom of the ancient Reign of
Terror dwindled, and the Reform party
was materially strengthened.
The king and the Duke of Wellington
refused at first to believe that any change
was either desirable or necessary. But
they were compelled in 1830 to admit that
it was necessary ; and Lord Grey was per-
mitted to construct a reform Cabinet of
Whigs and moderate Tories. Their Bills
passed the House of Commons without
difficulty, receiving the votes of many
members whose seats were known to be
doomed by its provisions. The House of
Lords, encouraged by the king, endeav-
oured to obstruct the measure which they
dared not openly oppose. But a new
agitation, threatening the very existence
of the Upper House, at once arose. The
duke, with greater wisdom than his royal
master, resdised that further resistance
was out of the question, and induced the
Lords to give way in June, 1832.
The Reform Bill of 1832 fell far short of
the democratic ideal which the English
admirers of the
French Revolu-
tion had kept in
view. Jeremy
Bentham., 1748-
1832, the greatest
of those writers
and thinkers who
prepared the
minds of men for
practical reform,
was of opinion
that the doctrine
of natural equal-
ity ought to be
the first principle
of every constitu-
tion; but the
followers of Lord
Grey contented
themselves with
giving
power to the
middle classes.
This work has since been supplemented by
the legislation of 1867, 1884, and 1885 ; yet
even at the present day the doctrine of man-
hood suffrage is unknown in English law.
Still less were the first reformers inclined
to map out the coimtry in new electoral
4806
Changes in the
Constitution
of P&rliament
THE FIRST STEAMBOAT ON THE CLYDE
DOlitical "^^^ early part of the nineteenth century witnessed progress along:
t^ J, many lines, the introduction of steamboats being a noteworthy
advance. The Comet, shown in the above illustration, was built
by Henry Bell, and began sailing on the Clyde in the year 1812.
districts of equal size. They enlarged the
representation of some counties. They
suppressed or partially disfranchised
eighty-six decayed boroughs. They gave
representatives to forty-two of the new
boroughs. But they kept intact the old
distinction between county and borough,
and sedulously avoided the subdivision or
amalgamation of constituencies which
possessed organic unity and historical
traditions. In this and other respects the
later Reform Bills have been more drastic.
That of 1867 abandoned the
principle, which had been
steadily maintained in 1832,
that the franchise should be
limited to those who paid direct taxes in
one form or another. That of 1885 endeav-
oured to equalise constituencies in respect
of population ; in order to attain this end,
counties and boroughs .were broken up
into divisions, without respect for past
traditions. Such legislation is necessarily
of a temporary character, since no measure
of redistribution can be expected to satisfy
the principle of equality for more than a
few years. And this is not the least
important consequence of the legislative
change which the nineteenth century
effected in the
constitution of
Parliament. The
Lower House in
becoming demo-
cratic has ceased
to represent a
fixed number of
communities
with fixed in-
terests and
characteristics.
The reformed
Pcirliament was
not long in
justifying the
hopes which had
been formed of
it. Those, indeed,
who had ex-
pected that the
members re-
turned under the
new system
democrats soon
would all be Whigs or
found reason to revise their judgment.
This is not the only, occasion in Enghsii
history on which it has been- proved
that aversion to ill-considered change is
a fundamental trait in the national
THE CORONATION PROCESSION OF WILLIAM IV. AND QUEEN ADELAIDE AT THE ABBEY
The third son of George III., William IV., the " Sailor King," succeeded to the throne of Great Britain and
Ireland on the death of his eldest brother, Georg-e IV., in 1830, and along with his consort, Adelaide, the eldest
daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, whom he married in 1818, he was crowned on September 8th, 1831.
From the drawing by George Cattermole
character. The Tories, although for a
moment under a cloud, soon recovered
their spirits and a certain measure of influ-
ence in the country. Under the leadership
of Peel, they adopted the new name of Con-
servatives, and shook off the instinct of
dogged and unreasoning obstruction. Peel
was unable to procure a majority in the
House of Commons when first invited by the
king to form a Ministry, and accordingly left
Melbourne and the Whigs in 1835 to carry
on the government. But political opinion
was swinging round to his side ;
The Busy j^g obtained a majority in 1841.
I *^* 1° *• So far the unforeseen had
Legislation j^g^ppg^ed. On the other hand,
the work of remedial legislation proceeded
with vigour whether the Whigs were in
or out of office. In fact both parties had
become possessed by the idea that their
main business was to devise and carry
sweeping measures. Legislation was re-
garded as the worthiest function of a
sovereign assembly ; it seemed as though
there could never be too much of legisla-
tion. Experience has brought a decline
of faith in the panacea. But it must be
admitted thart for twenty years the new
Parliament had necessary work to perform
in the way of legislation, and performed it
with admirable skill. A few of the more
important measures may be mentioned.
The Emancipation Act of 1833 com-
pleted a work of philanthropy which had
been commenced in 1807. The Ministry of
All the Talents had abolished the slave
trade. The new Act emancipated all the
slaves who were still to be found in British
colonies, and awarded the owners the sum
of twenty millions as a compensation.
Costly as the measure was for the mother
country, it was still more costly for the
colonies. The sugar industry of the West
Indies had been built up with the help of
slave labour. The planters lost heavily
through being compelled to emancipate
the slave for a sum which was much less
than his market value, and the black
population showed a strong disinclination
to become labourers for hire. This was
particularly the case in the larger islands,
where land was abundant and a squatter
could obtain a sustenance with Uttle or no
labour. The prosperity of Jamaica was
destroyed, and the West Indies as a whole
have never been prosperous since 1834.
4807
48o8
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
Free trade completed their ruin, since they
had only maintained the sugar trade with
the help of the preferential treatment
which they received from England. The
basis of their former
wealth was wholly arti-
ficial, and it is unlikely
that slavery and protec-
tion will ever be restored
for their benefit ; but it
may be regretted that
the necessary and salu-
tary reforms of which
they have been the
victims could not have
been more gradually ap-
plied in their case.
For the new Poor Law
of 1834 there can be
nothing but praise. It
ended a system which for
more than a generation
had been a national curse,
demoralising the labourer,
poor-relief in aid of wages, and of making
relief proportionate to the size of the
applicant's family. This practice was
confirmed b}^ the Speenham-land Act of
1796. The legislature
acted thus in part from
motives of philanthropy,
in part under the belief
that the increase of popu-
lation was in every way
to be encouraged. The
Act was at once followed
by a drop in the rate of
agricultural wages and a
I'ortentous increase of
l)oor-rates. In 1783 poor-
relief cost the country
about £2,000,000 ; by
1 817 this sum had been
quadrupled. The evils
of the new system were
augmented by the absence
of any central authority
possessing power to en-
LORD GREY _ , .
encouraging improvidence a distinguished statesman, he succeeded Ws forcc Uniform principles
aiid immorality, taxing ^^^st^tme^pUiTaStltsal^h^eU"^^^^^^ and methods of relief,
all classes for the benefit a powerful party, and passed the Act abolish- The proposal to iutroducc
of the small farmer and -g slavery in t{.e colonies. Hediedini845. such an authority, and in
employerwhom the misplaced philanthropy other respects to revive the leading ideas
of the legislature had enabkd to cut down of the Elizabethan Poor Law, was made by
wages below the margin of subsistence. Up a Royal Commission after the most careiui
to the year 1795 the
English Poor Law had
been, save for one serious
defect, sound in principle.
The defect was the Law
of Settlement, j&rst laid
down by an Act of 1662,
which enabled the local
authorities to prevent the
migration of labour from
one parish to another,
unless security could be
, given that the immigrant
I would not become a charge
upon the poor rate.
The result of this law
had been to stereotype
local inequalities in the
rate of wages and to take
from the labourer the
LORD MELBOURNE
investigations. The new
Poor Law, 1834, em-
bodied the principal sug-
gestions of the commis-
sioners. It provided that
the workhouse test should
be once more rigidly
applied to all able-bodied
paupers ; that parishes
should be grouped in
poor-law unions ; that
each parish should con-
tribute to the expenditure
of the union in propor-
tion to the numbers of
its paupers ; and that a
central board should be
appointed to control the
system. The new Poor
Law is still in force, so
chief means of bettering Twice Premier, he was in office at the accession far as its main principles
his position. It was ?!S^Zl°y}'-^°llV'^.lfI:^.^^^^^^^ of administration are con-
opportunist," and "kept his place in the early
mitigated in 1795 to the years of Queen Victoria chfefly through the CCmed.
^ . i . 1 . J.-L 1 1. favour of the young queen." He died in 1848,
extent that the labourer
could be no longer sent back until he
actually became a charge upon the rates.
But about the same time the justices of
the peace began the practice of giving
But there have
been changes in the con-
stitution of the central authority, by
Acts of 1847, 1871, and 1894. The
Poor-law Board has been merged in the
Local Government Board ; and the
4809
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Boards of Guardians, which control the of the young queen. The Conservatives,
local distribution of relief, are now demo- impatient for a return to power, were dis-
cratic bodies, whereas, under the original posed to bid against the Whigs for popular
Act the justices of the peace held favour. Neither party desired extreme
office as ex-officio members.
The Poor Law Act was
followed by others for the
reform of municipal govern-
ment in 1835, of the Irish
tithe system in 1838, and for
the introduction of the
penny post in 1839. The new
Poor Law and the new muni-
cipal system were also applied
to Ireland by special legisla-
tion. But larger questions
slumbered until the formation
of great political societies
forced them upon the un-
willing attention of Ministers
and both Houses of Parliament.
reform. Lord John Russell
expressed the general senti-
ment when he stated his
conviction that the Reform
Bill had been the final step in
the direction of democracy.
But neither party was strong
enough to resist external
pressure. The rise of the
Chartist organisation in 1838
seemed likely, therefore, to
produce sweeping changes. It
was recruited from the labour-
ing classes and animated by
hostility to capital. It pro-
A
many
JEREMY BENTHAM posed the cstaWishment of
flodai'kld poiftkii reforas radical democracy as a panacea
The period of 1840- 18 50 which characterised the early vic- for the wrongs of workmen.
„ I- t r ui i torian era were suggested by him. t^, f. • T £ j^\, i >
was peculiarly favourable to The five points of the people s
the democratic agitator. The Reform charter were manhood suffrage, voting by
Whigs had maintained themselves in power
till the death of WiUiam IV. But their
majority was small, and their chief leader,
Melbourne, an indolent opportunist. He
kept his place in the early years of
Queen Victoria chiefly through the favour
ballot, annual parliaments, payment of
members, and the abohtion of the property
qualification for membership. These de-
mands were supported in the House of
Commons by the philosophic Radicals,
among whom Grote, the historian, was
THE REFORM RIOTS AT BRIST
From the diawing by L.
'CTOBEK, 1831
4810
DESTRUCTION OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT ON OCTOBER i6th, 1834
This graphic scene depicts the destruction by fire, on October 16th, 1834, of the Houses of Parliament, the picture
sketch taken by him by the light of the flames at the end of Abingdon Street.
From the drawing by William Heath
influence was felt not
only in England but
in Wales, where it con-
tributed to produce
the Rebecca .Riots,
1843. But the. next
occasion on' which
Chartism invaded the
capital was in 1848,
the year of revolu-
tions. It was an-
nounced that half a
million of Chartists
would assemble at a
given place on April
loth, and march in
procession to lay their
demands before the
House of Commons.
The danger seemed
great ; extensive
military preparations
were made under the
old Duke of Welling-
ton, and the authori-
Though a Whig before his accession to the throne of ticS announced Oil the
Great Britain and Ireland in 1830, he became a Tory after appointed daV that
„ „ „i „ , J, his coronation, and used his influence to obstruct the .-, " ■, ■, ^ r
nean character, its passing of the first Reform Act in issg. He died in 1837. they would use for ce,
48H
being made by the artist from
the most conspicuous,
while in Feargus
O'Connor the Chart-
ists possessed a
popular orator of no
mean order. The
House of Commons
refused to consider
the first petition of
the Chartists in 1839.
The refusal was, how-
ever, followed by riots
in various localities;
and a second attempt
was made to move
Parliament in 1842.
when the Conserva-
tives, under Peel, had
wrested power from
the Whigs. But the
new Ministers were no
more pliable than the
old ; and a series of
prosecutions against
prominent Chartists
forced the movement
to assume a subterra-
KING WILLIAM
"YOUR MAJESTYl": ANNOUNCING TO PRINCESS VICTORIA THE FACT OF HER ACCESSION
On the death Of King WUliam IV. at Windsor Castle in 1837, his niece, Princess Victoria, succeeded to the throne.
Riding- through the night from Windsor to Kensington Palace, Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the
Marquess of Convngham. Lord Chamberlain, awakened the young girl about five o'clock in the morning to tell her that
she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. This dramatic incident is admirably represented in the abore picture.
From the painting by M^ry L. Cow, by permission of tlie perlin Photographic Co.
481?.
QUEEN VICTORIA IN HER CORONATION ROBES
Succeeding to the throne in 1837, at the early age of eighteen years, Queen Victoria was crowned at
Westminster Abbey on June 28th, 1838. The youthfiil queen of Great Britain and Ireland is in this {>ictur8
represented in her coronation robes, standing in the dawn of the longest and most glorious reign in the nation's bistoiy.
From the painting by Sir George Hayter
4813
4bi4
48i5
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
if neoessary, to check the march of the pro-
cession. The Chartist leaders were cowed,
and contented themselves with submitting
their petition for the third time. A large
number of the signatures, which had been
estimated at 5,000,000, turned out to be
fictitious ; and amidst the ridicule ex-
cited by this discovery the Charter and
Chartists slipped into oblivion.
The collapse of Chartism was significant,
for the great Chartist demonstration was
contemporaneous with a series of revo-
lutionary movements on the Continent.
It meant that in England the people at
were the product of the great war. They
had been established for the protection of
the agricultural interest, and had alto-
gether excluded foreign corn from the
English market except while the price of
English corn stood above eighty shillings,
so that the price of bread was maintained
at a very high figure. A modification had
been introduced, by which duties were
imposed on foreign corn, in place of the
import being prohibited, while home-
grown corn stood below eighty shillings,
the amount of the duty falling as the
price of English corn rose, and vice versa-
THE CORONATION PROCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA
From the drawing by Champion
large declined to believe in physical force
as the necessary means to attaining
political reforms, preferring the methods
of constitutional agitation. Chartism dis-
solved itself in the fiasco of 1848. But
the political demands of the Chartists
were adopted by constitutional reformers,
and were in great part conceded during
the following half century — though they
have not brought the millennium. The
episode emphasised the sobriety of the
masses ; and the result was probably in
measure due to the improvement in the con-
ditions of the industrial population owing
to the repeal of the Com Laws in 1846.
We have remarked that the Corn Laws
4816
But this did not remove the obvious fact
that the cost of the staple food of the
working classes was kept high artificially,
in order to benefit or preserve the agri-
cultural interest. Apart from philan-
thropic considerations — though these
carried their due weight in many quarters —
the capitalist manufacturers, now the dom-
inant power in the House of Commons,
began to perceive that if the price of
bread fell the operatives could live on a
lower money wage, that the wages bill
would be lowered, and with it the cost of
production ; that is to say, the middle
classes saw that their own interests would be
served by the abolition of the Corn Laws.
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
The Anti-Corn Law League, first formed
in 1838, owed its existence to a serious
depression of the manufacturing indus-
tries. Cobden, Bright, and others of the
leading organisers were philanthropists
who saw the iniquity of artificially main-
taining the price of food when wages were
low and employment uncertain. They
recruited their supporters to a great
extent among the starving operatives of
the North and Midlands. But the funds
for the Free Trade campaign were largely
their own prospective ruin. The working
classes, however, were not convinced by
the Chartist doctrine, and felt that if
bread were cheaper life would be easier.
An Irish famine completed the conversion
of the Conservative leader, Sir Robert
Peel, who had already been agitating his
party for Free Trade measures and the
removal or reduction of duties protecting
British industries. He took a number of
his colleagues with him, but not the party
as a whole. Peelites and Whigs together
QUEEN VICTORIA'S FIRST OFFICIAL VISIT TO THE CITY OF LONDON
The first o£Bcial visit of Queen Victoria to the City of London was on Lord Mayor's Day, November 9th, 1837, and in
this picture her carriage is seen passing Temple Bar on the way to the GuildhalL The picture is interesting not only
on account of its historic value, but also by reason of the glimpse which it gives of apart of London now entirely altered.
carried the repeal of the Corn Laws, but
had hardly done so when the Protectionists
and extreme Radicals combined to defeat
the Ministry, and Peel's career as Prime
Minister was closed. The Whigs, sup-
ported by Peelites, assumed the govern-
ment, and were presently combined in
the Liberal party.
Colonial development has been dealt with
in detail elsewhere ; but certain points must
here be noticed. During the period under
consideration nearly the whole of the
Indian peninsula passed under the British
dominion as a result of the great Mahratta
4817
supplied by manufacturers. There was no
thought of giving to the masses the
franchise as a means of self-protection.
Accordingly, the extreme Chartists hated
the Free Traders, and openly opposed their
propaganda, on the ground that the
charter would secure to the people all,
and more than all, that was hoped from
the repeal of the Corn Laws. The class
character of the Free Trade agitation
was a source of weakness, because the
working-class agitators did not believe
that the labouring class would benefit by
it ; while the landed interest saw in it
306
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
war ; while the first Burmese war added
territories beyond the Bay of Bengal.
Under Bentinck's rule, progress was made
in the organisation of administration and
the development of education. On the
north-west, however, the aggression of
Persia, more or less under the aegis of
Russia, produced British-
intervention in the affairs
of Afghanistan, with dis-
astrous consequences, of
which the evil effects were
at any rate diminished by
the skilful operations of
Pollock and Knott. In the
same decade, however, the
British supremacy was
challenged by the Sikh
armyof the Punjab. Beaten
in the first struggle, the
Silchs were renewing their
challenge in 1848, when
Lord Dalhousie arrived in
India to take up the gage
of battle and extend the
British dominion, in 1849,
over the Land of the Five
in North America, with the exception of
Newfoundland, as states of the Canadian
Dominion. The foundation was laid for
that system under which the colony was
no longer to be treated as a subordinate
section of the empire, but was to receive
full responsible government — a govern-
ment, that is, in which the
Ministers are responsible to
the representative assem-
blies as Ministers in England
are responsible to Parlia-
ment ; to become, in fact,
mutatis mutandis, a counter-
part of the United Kingdom,
practically independent ex-
cept in matters affecting
war and peace. Canada,
indeed, did not immediately
achieve this status even
after the Act of Reunion ;
but that Act may be re-
garded as initiating the
change which has smce
PRINCE ALBERT been carried out in nearly
The younger son of the Duke of Saxe- all the British COlonieS whcre
Coburgr-Gotha, Prince Albert first met .v „ i,;j.„ ^„„ i„+;^„ !,„„
Queen Victoria in 1836. They fell in love, ^hc whltc population haS
Rivers up to the mountain and were married in i84o, the Prince then ccascd to bear the character
passes, thus completing the receiving the title of Royal Highness, ^f ^ garrisou. Of the
assuming
were not
The Union
of British
Colonies
ring-fence of mountain and ocean girdling
the British Empire in India.
In Australia the settlements, which at
first had been penal in character, were
the form of true colonies, but
yet emancipated. In South
Africa, transferred to Great
Britain as a result of the Napo-
leonic war, a part of the Dutch
population — partly in conse-
quence of the abolition of slavery — began
during the fourth decade of the century to
remove itself beyond the sphere of British
interference, and to found the com-
munities which developed into the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal Republic.
It was, however, almost at the moment
of Queen Victoria's accession that dis-
satisfaction with the existing system in the
colonies of Upper and Lower Canada,
which had been established in the time of
the jounger Pitt, reached an acute stage,
issiung in insurrection and in the dispatch
of the epoch-making commission of Lord
Durham. The report of the commissioner
was the starting-point virtually of a new
theory of colonial relations. It led
directly to the Act of Reunion of 1842,
which was gradually followed by the
federal union of all the British colonies
4818
religious movements in this period some
account will be found in a later chapter
of this section. But we have still to review
here a development of English literature
which has no parallel except in the Shake-
spearean era, for the beginnings of which
we must go back to the Revolution epoch.
During three-fourths of the eighteenth
century, classicalism had dominated prose
and poetry alike. In place of poems,
satires, epigrams, admirable essays and
dissertations in verse had been produced
in abundance in strict accord with rigid
conventions ; no scope had been granted
to the lyrical utterance of passion, and
spontaneity had been repressed as barbaric
or at least impolite. But the spirit which
was rousing itself to a stormy attack
on social and political conventions was
not to spare the conventions of literature.
These were, indeed, set at
naught by the lyrical genius
of Robert Burns, whose first
volume of poems appeared in
1786. Burns, however, was not a pioneer
in the true sense — consciously promul-
gating a new theory. Essentially his
work was the most splendid expression
of a poetical type which had always
flourished in Scotland outside the realms
The Genius
of
Robert Burns
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
of polite literature. But its power and
fascination arrested attention, and carried
the conviction that subjects forbidden
by the critics as vulgar were capable of
treatment which was undeniably poetical.
He demonstrated anew that the poet's
true function is to appeal to the emotions
of men, and that this may be done through
the medium of language which is not at
all cultured. Unlike Burns, however, the
so-called " Lake School " of Wordsworth
and Coleridge were conscious exponents of
a theory which defied the crit-
Q°^^ ical dogmas of the day. But
p [*' Coleridge's practice contra-
dicted a part of his own theory,
and when Wordsworth acted upon it in its
entirety, he did not write poetry. Their
revolt against artificial language and
artificial restrictions of subject led them
virtually to affirm that the best poetry
may treat of commonplace matters in
commonplace language.
The paradox becomes obvious when we
perceive that Coleridge is never common-
place, and that it is precisely when he is
not commonplace that Wordsworth is
great, though unfortunately he never
recognised that truth himself. The familiar
fact must yield the unfamiliar thought ;
the familiar terms must combine in the
unfamiliar phrases which stamp themselves
upon the mind. The current criticism erred,
not in condemning the commonplace, but
in identifying the commonplace with the
superficially familiar, and treating con-
ventions as fundamental laws of art.
That these were errors was conclusively
proved by the practice rather than by the
critical expositions of the Lake school.
The volume of " Lyrical Ballads," which
contained " Tintern Abbey " and the
" Ancient Mariner," was a sufficient
refutation of the orthodox doctrines.
The poetical work which was produced
in the twenty-six years which passed
between the publication of the " Lyrical
Ballads," 1798, and the death of Byron,
1824, travelled far enough from the
standards of the eighteenth century.
Within that period Sir Walter Scott
adapted the old ballad form to metrical
narrative, and turned men's minds back
to revel in the gorgeous aspect of the
Middle Ages, somewhat forgetful of their
ugly side. Byron burst upon the public,
an avowed rebel, whose tragic poses were
unfortunately only too easy of imitation
A ROYAL ROMANCE : THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1840
Tne interesting- ceremony represented in the above picture took place at the Chapel Royal, St James's, on February
lOth, 1840. Queen Victoria was then in her twenty-first year, while Prince Albert was three months her junior.
From the paintingr by Sir George Hayter
4819
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
had already developed a new type of the
novelist's art, in the " Pickwick Papers " ;
but his great contemporary and rival,
William Makepeace Thackeray, had not
yet achieved fame in this
field. The Bronte sisters,
however, with " Wuther-
ing Heights" and "Jane
Eyre," 1847, had just
given convincing proof,
if any were needed after
Jane Austen, Scott's con-
temporary, that the novel
is a literary instrument
which woman can handle
as successfully as man.
By that time all the great
poets of the Revolution
era had passed away,
save Wordsworth, who
was all but an octo-
genarian ; but the stars
J of Tennyson and Brown-
ing had already appeared
by a host of self-conscious rhymesters, and
gave vice a morbid picturesqueness ; but
redeemed himself by the genuineness of
his passion for liberty, and died at Misso-
longhi fighting for the
liberation of Greece.
Shelley, a rebel of another
kind, shocked the world
by his Promethean defi-
ance of an unjust God, of
tyranny in every form,
but was, in fact, the
prophet not of atheism
and materialism, but of
an intensely spiritual
pantheism ; the most
ethereal, most intangible,
most exquisite among the
masters of song. John
Keats died when he was
only five-and- twenty, but
he had already lived long
enough to win for him-
self a secure place in the richard cobden
elysium of "poets dead "The Apostle of Free Trade," he denounced above the horizon.
and gone." His poetry ^f /o^nrerwi|«'!^ere"ow^^^^^^ The time of ferment
is the practical expression ment uncertain, and to his labours was largely which produccd this out-
, f \. , due the abolition of the Corn Laws in 184C. , , r t, ,• •,
of his own dictum : burst 01 literary activity
" Beauty in truth, truth beauty ; that is was also responsible for two new movements
all ye know on earth, and all ye need to of English thought, the utilitarian and the
know." Among great English poets there idealist. Utilitarianism is the sceptical
and inductive spirit of
such eighteenth - century
thinkers as David Hume,
applied to the study of
morals and social institu-
tions. The movement
began with the French
Encyclopaedists ; it came
to England through
Jeremy Bentham, 1748-
1832, than whom no man
has exercised a more far-
reaching influence on the
thought or government of
modern England. Most
of the social and political
reforms which charac-
terise the early Victorian
era were suggested by
is no other whose work
is so devoid of all ethical
element, none in whom
the sense of pure beauty
is so overm3,stering or its
rendering more perfect.
Among the poets whom
we have named, Byron's
influence alone was Euro-
pean; but that influence
pales by the side of
Walter Scott's in the
realm of prose romance.
There were novelists
before Scott, but it was
he who gave to the novel
that literary predomin-
ance which at one time
characterised the drama.
Practically it was he who john bright Bentham. His two great
revealed the capacities of Along with Cobden and others in the agitation works, the "Fragment on
nro<iP romance for the against the Corn Laws, John Bright used Government " T'7'76 and
prube roilldlice lUI ine his great eloquence both in Parliament and on »J"\ cmmeilt, 177U, dliu
portrayal of character and the pubUc platform to further the cause of Free the ' Principles of Morals
of picturesque incident, T"'*'*"- &« held office m ut^- —-
through the amazing achievement of the
later Ministries.
series of " Waverley Novels," whereof the
first appeared in 1814. Before the close of
our period, the genius of Charles Dickens
4820
and Legislation," 1789,
belong chronologically to the age of the
Revolution ; but it was only in later life
that Bentham became a prophet among
his own people. His greatest disciple was
THE CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE IN 1840
From the painting by C. R. Leslie
CHRISTENING THE PRINCE OF WALES, THE PRESENT KING EDWARD, IN 1841
From the painting by Sir George Hayter
DOMESTIC EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA
4821
Robert Burns, 1759-96 William Wordsworth, 1770-1850 S. T. Coleridge, 1772-1834
Jane Austen 1775-1817 Lord Byron, 1788-1824 P. B. Shelley, 1792-1822
IHSy^ \^flHi
Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881 Lord Macaulay,. 1800-59
W. M. Thackeray, 1811-63 Charles Dickens, 1812-70 Charlotte Bronte, 1816-55
GREAT MEN AND WOMEN OP LETTERS FROM BURNS TO CHARLOTTE BRONTE
4822
THE BRITISH ERA OF REFORM
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, whose versa-
tile genius never showed tonlore advantage
than when he was handling social questions
in Bentham's spirit. Mill was not so
rigorous a thinker as Bentham ; but the
moral enthusiasm of the younger man, his
power of exposition, and his suscepti-
bility to the best ideas of his time, gave
him the respectful attention of all thought-
ful minds. What Bentham did for the
theory of legislation. Mill did for the
theory of wealth. Mill's "Political Eco-
nomy," 1848, although largely based
upon the investigations of Adam Smith,
Ricardo, and Malthus, marks an era in
the history of that science. Mill was the
first to define with accuracy the proper
limits of economic study.
He originated a number
of new theories. He
diagnosed the economic
evils of his time and sug-
gested practical remedies.
Above all, however, he
was the first to see the
parts of economic science
in their true proportions
and to connect them as
an ordered whole. The
tendency of modern
thought is to belittle the
deductive school of econo-
mists which MiU repre-
sents ; but his claim to
be regarded as the classic
of that school has never
been disputed. Similarly,
SIR WALTER SCOTT
trade of the Tractarians. whose attempt
to imbue Anglican dogmas with a nev\
significance and to destroy. the insularity
of the Established Church is the most
remarkable phenomenon in the religious
history of modem England. The idealists
found a powerful though erratic ally in
Thomas Carlyie, 1795-1881. In literature
a romantic of the most lawless sort,
unequalled in power of phrase, in pictorial
imagination, and in dramatic humour, but
totally deficient in architectonic skill,
Carlyie wrote one history, " The French
Revolution," 1837, and two biographies,
" Cromwell," 1845, " Frederick the
Great," 1858-1865, of surpassing interest.
But his most characteristic utterances
are to be found in " Sartor
Resartus," 1833, and
"Heroes and Hero-
Worship," 1 841, the first
a biting attack upon
formaUsm and dogma, the
second a vindication of
the importance of indi-
vidual genius in maintain-
ing and in reforming the
social fabric. Carlyle's
gospel of labour and
silence, and his preference
for the guidance of instinct
as opposed to that of
conscious reflection, have
exercised a great, though
indeterminate, influence
upon many thinkers who
are unconscious of theii
characteristics
" Representative Govern- revealing: a creative genius unmatched since Can hardly be brought out
ment," i860, he became Shakespeare. Bom in 1771. he died in 1832. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^
exponent of English placing his work beside that of Thomas
the accredited exponent of
Liberalism ; while his essay on " UtiU-
tarianism," 1861, by giving a larger and
less material interpretation to Bentham's
formula, " the greatest happiness of the
greatest number," did much to bring out
the common basis of belief on which
Liberals and idealists Have conducted
their long controversy.
The ideahst movement begins with
Coleridge, whose philosophic writings,
notably the " Aids to Reflection," pub-
lished in 1825, although fragmentary and
unsystematic, are the first sign of a
reaction among English metaphysicians
against Hume's disintegrating criticism.
In a diluted and theological form the new
tenets formed the intellectual stock in
Babington Macaulay, no idealist, but a
typical Whig, whose clear-cut antithetical
style made him the past-master of popular
exposition, and the still prevalent model
for the essayist and the historian.
Finally, we note the appearance of John
Ruskin, whose " Modern Painters " began
to appear in 1842. Entering the literary
field primarily as a critic of the arts of
painting and architecture, Ruskin extended
his criticism, constructive and destructive,
to literature and economics, the essential
characteristic of his teaching being insist-
ence on the ethical basis of all human
energies : teaching expressed with unsur-
passed eloquence.
H. W. C. Davis; A. D. Innes
4823
AS SEEN FROM THE FANALE MARITTIMO uIGHTHOUSE
TRIESTE. THE CHIEF SEAPORT OF AUSTRIA - HUNGARY
4824
THE
RE-MAKING
OF
EUROPE
EUROPE
AFTER
WATERLOO
III
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
AND THE ASCENDANCY OF METTERNICH
HTHE Austrian state, totally disor-
■'• ganised by the period of the French
Revolution and Napoleonic wars, had
nevertheless succeeded in rounding off
its territories at the Congress of Vienna.
In internal affairs Francis I. and Metter-
nich tried as far as possible to preserve
the old order of things ; they wished for
an absolute monarchy, and favoured the
privileged .classes. There was no more
tenacious supporter of what was old, no
more persistent observer of routine than
the good Emperor Francis. He was an
absolute ruler in the spirit of conservatism.
He saw a national danger in any move-
ment of men's minds which deviated from
the letter of his commands, hated from
the first all innovations, and ruled his
people from the Cabinet. He delighted to
travel through his dominions, and receive
the joyful greetings of his loyal subjects,
since he laid the highest value on popu-
—. ,, . larity ; notwithstanding all his
The Vain i -^ s u ^- j
_, keenness of observation and
mp ro j^.^ industry, he possessed no
ideas of his own. Even Metter-
nich was none too highly gifted in this
respect. Francis made, at the most, only
negative use of the abundance of his
supreme power. Those who served him
were bound to obey him blindly ; but he
lacked the vigour and strength of character
for great and masterful actions ; his
thoughts and wishes were those of a
permanent official. Like Frederic William
in., he loathed independent characters,
men of personal views, and he therefore
treated his brothers Charles and John
with unjustified distrust.
The only member of his family really
acceptable to him was his youngest
brother, the narrow-minded and character-
less Louis. On the other hand, Francis
was solicitous for the spread of beneficial
institutions, and for the regulation of the
legal system ; in 1811 he introduced the
" Universal Civil Code," and in so doing
completed the task begun by Maria
Austria's
High Position
in Europe
Theresa and Joseph H. His chief defect
was his love of trifling details, which de-
prived him of any comprehensive view of
a subject ; and his constant interference
with the business of the Council of State
prevented any systematic conduct of affairs.
Francis owed it to Metternich
that Austria once more held
the highest position in
Europe ; he was therefore glad
to entrust him with the management of
foreign policy while he contented himself
with internal affairs. Metternich was the
centre of European diplomacy ; but he
was only a diplomatist, no statesman like
Kaunitz and Felix Schwarzenberg. He
did not consolidate the new Austria tor the
future, but only tried to check the wheel
of progress and to hold the reins with
the assistance of his henchman Gentz ;
everything was to remain stationary.
The police zealously helped to main-
tain this principle of government, and
prosecuted every free-thinker as sus-
pected of democracy. Austria was in
the fullest sense a country of police ;
it supported an army of " mouchards "
and informers. The post-office officials
disregarded the privacy of letters, spies
watched teachers and students in the
academies ; even such loyal Austrians as
Grillparzer and Zedlitz came into collision
with the detectives. The censorship was
blindly intolerant and pushed its inter-
ference to extremes. Public education,
from the university down to the village
school, suffered under the suspicious
tutelage of the authorities ; school and
_ . . Church alike were unprogres-
Suspicion &nd
sive. The provincial estates,
j, . both in the newly-acquired
and in the recovered Crown
lands, were insignificant, leading, as a
matter of fact, a shadowy existence,
which reflected the depressed condition of
the population. But Hungary, which,
since the time when Maria Theresa was
hard pressed, had insisted on its national
4825
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
independence, was not disposed to descend
from its height to the general insignificance
of the other Crown lands, and the Archduke
Palatine, Joseph, thoroughly shared this
idea. It was therefore certain that soon
there would be an embittered struggle with
c ' v • M *t the government at Vienna,
Szechenyi the ^^^^^ ^j^j^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^
Greatest of constitution of Hungary as
the Hungarians ^^^^^j ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^|^J^j^
and Tyrol. The indignation found its
expression chiefly in ths assemblies of
the counties, which boldly contradicted
the arbitrary and stereotyped commands
from Vienna, while a group of the nobiHty
itself supported the view that the people,
hitherto excluded from political life,
should share in the movement. In the
Reichstag of 1825 this group spoke very
distinctly against the exclu-
sive rule of the nobility.
The violent onslaught of the
Reichstag against the Govern-
ment led, it is true, to no
result ; the standard-bearer of
that g"oup was Count Stephen
Szechenyi, whom his antago-
nist, Kossuth, called " the
greatest of the Hungarians."
Th3 Archduke Rainer, to
whom the viceroyalty of the
Italian possessions had been
entrusted, was animated by
the best intention of pro-
moting the happiness of the
both there and in Germany, as outcomes
of the revolutionary spirit. Yet the hopes
of the nations on both sides of the Alps
were not being realised ; the " Golden
Age " had still to come.
The condition of the Austrian finances
was deplorable. Since the year 1811,
when Count Joseph Wallis, the Finance
Minister, had devised a system which
reduced by one-fifth the nominal value of
the paper money— which had risen to th3
amount of 1,060,000,000 gulden — per-
manent bankruptcy had prevailed. Silver
disappeared from circulation, the national
credit fell very low, and the revenue was
considerably less than the expenditure,
which was enormously increased by the
long war. In the year 1814 Count
the former Minister of the
Interior, undertook the thank-
less duties of Minister of
Finance. He honestly exerted
himself to improve credit,
introduce a fixed monetary
standard, create order on a
consistent plan, and with
competent colleagues to de-
velop the economic resources
of the nation. But various
financial measures were neces-
sary before the old paper
money could be withdrawn
en bloc, and silver once more
put into circulation. New
loans had to be raised, which
Stadion,
PP A Mf^TC F Op AUSTRIA
Lombard- Venetian kingdom. He succeeded his father, Leopold increased the burden of in-
and of familiarising the li-'it^^^h^^^enrnce^dX'^tftie'of terest, in the years 1816 to
Italians with the Austrian German-Roman Emperor, retain- 1823, from 9,000,000 gulden
rule ; but he was so hampered '"^ ^^^^ "^ Emperor of Austria. ^^ 24,000,000, and the annual
by instructions from Vienna that he could
not exercise any marked influence on the
Government. The Italians would hear
nothing of the advantages of the Austrian
rule, opposed all " Germanisation," and
prided themselves on their old nationality.
Literature, the Press, and secret societies
aimed at national objects and encouraged
independence, while Metternich thought
of an Italian confederation on the German
model, and under the headship of Austria.
It was also very disastrous that the
leading circles at Vienna regarded Italy
as the chief support of the whole poUcy
of the empire, and yet failed to understand
the great diversity of social and poHtical
conditions in the individual states of the
peninsula. Metternich, on the other hand,
employed every forcible means to oppose
the national wishes, which he regarded,
4826
expenditure for the national debt from
12,000,000 to 50,000,000. The National
Bank, opened in 1817, afforded efficient
help. If Stadion did not succeed in
remodelhng the system of indirect taxes,
and if the reorganisation of the land-
tax . proceeded slowly, the attitude of
Hungary greatly added to the difficulties
of the position of the great Minister of
reform, who died in May, 1824. The state
_. „ • J of the Emperor Francis was
rhe Promised naturally the Promised Land
Land of r J. 1 J. • i-
„ . . .. of custom-house restrictions
Restrictions , ■ ^ . -rr ■ j j.
and special tariffs ; industry
and trade were closely barred in. In
vain did clear-headed politicians advise
that all the hereditary dominions, ex-
cepting Hungary, should make one
customs district ; although the Govern-
ment built commercial roads and canals,
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
still the trade of the empire with foreign
countries was stagnant. Trieste never
became for Austria that which it might
have been ; it was left for Karl Ludwig
von Bruck of Elberfeld to make it, in
1833, a focus of the trade
of the world by founding
the Austrian-Lloyd Ship-
ping Company. Red
tape prevailed in the
army, innovations were
shunned, and the reforms
of the Archduke Charles
were interrupted. This
was the outlook in
Austria, the " Faubourg
St. Germain of Europe."
Were things better in
the rival state of Prussia ?
Frederic William III. was
the type of a homely
bourgeois, a man of
sluggish intellect and of
a cold scepticism, which
contrasted sharply with
the patriotic fire and self-
devotion of his people
its opponents, although the old tutelage
of the Church under the supreme bishop
of the country still continued to be felt,
and Frederic William, both in the secular
and spiritual domain, professed an abso-
lutism which did not
care to see district and
provincial synods estab-
lished by its side. The
union, indeed, produced
no peace in the Church,
but became the pretext
for renewed quarrels ;
nevertheless it was intro-
duced into Nassau,
Baden, the Bavarian
Palatinate, Anhalt, and
a part of Hesse in the
same way as into Prussia.
The king wished to give
to the Catholic Church
also a systematised and
profitable development,
and therefore entered
into negotiations with
the Curia, which were
METTERNICH IN LATER LIFE
Metternich's domination of European politics
after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 stands out , j u i-u
prominently in the history of the period. He COndUCtcd by the am-
His main object was to was the centre of European diplomacy, but he baSSador Barthold G.
secure tranquillity ; the "^^^ °'^y * diplomatist and not a statesman. Niebuhr, a great historian
storm of the war of liberation, so foreign but weak diplomatist. Niebuhr and Alten-
to his sympathies, had blown over, and stein, the Minister of Public Worship, made
he now wished to govern his kingdom too many concessions to the Curia, and
in peace. Religious questions interested were not a match for Consalvi, the
him more than
those of politics ;
he was a positive
Christian, and it
was the wish of
his heart to
amalgamate the
Lutheran and
the Reformed
Churches, an at-
tempt to which
the spirit of the
age seemed very
favourable.
When the ter-
centenary of the
Reformation was
commemor a t e d
in the year 1817
Joseph Sz6ch6nyi
LEADERS OF HUNGARIAN INDEPENDENCE
Insisting on its national independence, Hungary was unwilling to
Cardinal Secre-
tary of State.
On July i6th,
1821, Pope Pius
VIL issued the
Bull, " De salute
ani m a rum,"
which was fol-
lowed by an ex-
planatory brief,
"Quod de fide-
lium." The king
confirmed the
agreement by an
order of the Cabi-
net ; Cologne and
Posen became
aepenaence, nungaiy was unwiumg ro g. r C h b ishoorics
descend to the insignificance of the other Crown lands under Austria, z, ^ *' '-' ^"yl^ii'-Sj
and both the Archduke Palatine, Joseph, and Count Stephen Sz6ch6nyi TreVCS, Miinster,
he appealed for assisted the movement in assemblies and elsewhere. Sz^ch^nyi was de- Paderbom, BreS-
the union of the sc"bedbyhisantagonistKossuthas"thegreatestoftheHungarians." jg^^ Kulm and
TWO confessions, and found much response. Ermeland bishoprics, each with a clerical
The new Liturgy of 1821, issued with his
own concurrence, found great opposition,
especially among the Old Lutherans ; its
second form, in 1829, somewhat conciliated
seminary. The cathedral chapters
were conceded the right of electing
the bishop, who, however, had neces-
sarily to be a persona grata to the king.
4827
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The Problem
of Mixed
M&rriages
The trace did not, indeed, last long ;
the question of mixed marriages led to
renewed controversy. Subsequently to
1803, the principle held good in the
eastern provinces of Prussia that the
children in disputed cases should follow
the religion of the father, a view that
conflicted with a Bull of 1741 ; now, after
1825, the order of 1803 was to
be valid for the Rhine province,
which was for the most part
Catholic. But the bishops of the
districts appealed in 1828 to Pope Leo XII.
He and his successor, Pius VIII., con-
ducted long negotiations with the Prussian
ambassador, Bunsen, who, steeped in the
spirit of romanticism, saw the surest pro-
tection against the revolution in a close
adherence between national governments
and the Curia.
Pius VIII., an enemy of liberal move-
ments, finally, by a brief of 1830, permitted
the celebration of mixed marriages only
when a promise was given that the children
born from the union would be brought
up in the Catholic faith ; but the Prussian
Government did not accept the brief, and
matters soon came to a dispute between
the Curia and the Archbishop of Cologne.
It was excessively difficult to form the
new Prussian state into a compact unity
of a firm and flexible type. Not merely
its elongated shape, its geographical inco-
herency, and the position of Hanover as an
excrescence on its body, but above every-
thing its composition out of a hundred
territorial fragments with the most diver-
sified legislatures and the most rooted
dislike to centralisation, the aversion of
the Rhenish Catholics to be included in the
state which was Protestant by history and
character, and the stubbornness of the
Poles in the countries on the Vistula, quite
counterbalanced a growth in population,
now more than doubled, which was welcome
in itself. By unobtrusive and successful
labour the greatest efforts were made to-
wards establishing some degree
p^V^ of unity. The ideal of unity
rassi&n could not be universally realised
in the legal system and the ad-
ministration of justice. The inhabitants,
therefore, of the Rhenish districts were con-
ceded the Code Napoleon, with juries and
oral procedure, but the larger part of the
monarchy was given the universal common
law. The narrow-minded and meddlesome
system of the excise and the local variations
of the land-tax system were intolerable.
4§28
The root idea of the universal duty of
bearing arms, that pillar of the monarchy,
was opposed on many sides. This institu-
tion, which struck deeply into family life,
met with especial opposition and discon-
tent in the newly acquired provinces. In
large circles there prevailed the wish that
there should no longer be a standing army.
But finally the constitution of the army
was adhered to ; it cemented together the
different elements of the country. The
ultimate form was that of three years'
active service, two years' service in the
reserve, and two periods of service in the
militia, each of seven years. The fact
that the universal duties of bearing arms
and defending the country were to be
permanent institutions made Frederic
William suspicious. His narrow-minded
but influential brother-in-law, Duke
Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the sworn
opponent of the reform legislation of Stein,
Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst, induced him
to believe that a revolutionary party,
whose movements were obscure, wanted
to employ the militia against the throne,
and advised, as a counter precaution, that
. the militia and troops of the
'".'"* • ^^^^ should be amalgamated.
V e in -g^^ ^j^^ originator of the law
of defence, the Minister of
War, Hermann von Boyen, resolutely
opposed this blissful necessity. An ordin-
ance of April 30th, 1815, divided Prussia
into ten provinces ; but since East and
West Prussia, Lower Rhine and Cleves-
Berg were soon united, the number was
ultimately fixed at eight, which were
subdivided into administrative districts.
Lords-lieutenant were placed at the
head of the provinces instead of the
former provincial Ministries. Their ad-
ministrative sphere was accurately defined
by a Cabinet order of November 3rd, 18 17 ;
they represented the entire Government,
and fortunately these responsible posts
were held by competent and occasionally
prominent men. The amalgamation of the
new territories with Old Prussia was
complete, both externally and internally,
however difficult the task may have been
at first in the province of Saxony and
many other parts, and however much
consistency and resolution may have been
wanting at headquarters, in the immediate
vicinity of Frederic William. But the
struggle with the forces of local particu-
larism was long and obstinate. The
^eat period of Prince Hardenberg.
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
Chancellor of State, was over. He could
no longer master the infinity of work
which rested upon him, got entangled in
intrigues and escapades, associated with
despicable companions, and immediately
lost influence with the king, himself the soul
of honour ; his share in the
reorganisation of Prussia after
the wars of liberation was
too small. On the other hand,
he guarded against Roman en-
croachment, and assiduously
worked at the question of the
constitution. His zeal to
realise his intentions there
too frequently left the field
open to the reactionaries in
another sphere. Most of the
higher civil servants admired
the official liberalism of the
chancellor, and therefore, like
Hardenberg and Stein, " ap
order to recommend themselves to the
Governments as saviours of the threatened
society. The indignation at their false-
hoods was general ; there appeared
numerous refutations, the most striking of
which proceeded from the pen of Schleier-
- mach(r and Niebuhr. The
Prussian and Wiirtemberg
Governments, however, stood
on the side of Schmalz and
his companions, and rewarded
his falsehood with a decora-
tion and acknowledgment.
Frederic WilUam III., indeed,
strictly forbade, in January,
1816, any further literary
controversy about secret
combinations, but at the
same time renewed the pro-
hibition on such societies, at
which great rejoicings broke
out in Vienna. He also for-
Lutheran and Reformed Churches.
FREDERIC WILLIAM III
peared to the reactionaries He ascended the throne of Prussia bade the further appearance
as patrons of the extravagant ^J^^in^^ ^.!X of the " Rhenish Mercury,"
enthusiasm and " Teutonis- did much to further the union of the which demanded a constitu-
ing "agitation of the youth
as secret democrats, in short. Boyen was
the closest supporter of Hardenberg ; the
Finance Minister, Count Biilow, formerly
the distinguished Finance Minister of the
kingdom of Westphalia, usually supported
him, while the chief of the War Office,
Witzleben, the inseparable
counsellor of the king, who
even ventured to work counter
to the Duke of Mecklenburg,
was one of the warmest advo-
cates of the reform of Stein
and Hardenberg. The re-
actionaries, under Marwitz
and other opponents of the
great age of progress relied on
the Ministers of the Interior
and of the Police, the over-
cautious Schuckmann and
Prince William of Wittgen-
stein. The latter was a bitter
enemy of German patriotism
and the constitution, and the
best of the tools of Metter-
tion and liberty of the Press.
Gneisenau was removed from the general
command in Coblenz. Wittgenstein's
spies were continually active. The
emancipation of the Jews, in contradiction
to the royal edict of 181 2, lost ground,
The Act for the regulation of landed pro-
jjerty proclaimed in Septem-
ber, 1811, was "explained"
in 18 16, in a fashion which
favoured so greatly the pro-
perty of the nobles at the
cost of the property of the
peasants that it virtually re-
pealed the Regulation Act.
In the course of the last
decade there had been fre-
quent talk of a General
Council. Stein's programme
of 1808 proposed that the
Council of State should be the
highest ratifying authority for
acts of legislation. Harden-
Distinguished as a historian, Bar- . ^' . '
thoid Niebuhr in 1823 took up mg for his own Supremacy,
nich at the court of Berlin, his residence at Bonn, and gave had Contemplated in iSio
The reaction which naturally a grreat impetus to historical leam- giving the council a far more
.- ., ,, - , - -^^ mg: by his lectures in that city. ^ ,^. ^, -r>x '^.-u
NIEBUHR THE HISTORIAN
followed the exuberant love of
freedom shown in the wars of liberation
was peculiarly felt in Prussia. Janke,
Schmalz, the brother-in-law of Scharn-
horst, and other place-hunters clumsily
attacked in pamphlets the " seducers of
the people " arid the " demagogues," in
modest role. But neither
scheme received a trial ; and in many
quarters a Council of State was only
thought of with apprehension. When,
then, finally the ordinance of March ^oth,
1817, estabUshed the Council of State, it
was merely the highest advisory authority,
4829
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Schemes of
Count Billow
the foremost counsellor of the Crown, and
Stein's name was missing from the list of
those summoned by the king.
The first labours of the Council of State
were directed to the reform of the taxa-
tion, which Count Biilow, the Finance
Minister, wished to carry out in the spirit
of modified Free Trade. His schemes were
very aggressive, and aimed at
The Aggressive freedom of inland commerce,
but showed that, considering
the financial distress of the
moment, the state of the national debt,
which in 1818 amounted to 217,000,000
thalers, $165,000,000, the want of credit,
and the deficit, no idea of any remission
of taxation could be entertained. In
fact, Biilow demanded an increase of the
indirect taxes, a proposal which naturally
hit the lower classes very hard. Humboldt
headed the opponents of Biilow, and a bitter
struggle broke out. The notables convened
in the provinces to express their views re-
jected Biilow's taxes on meal and meat, but
pronounced in favour of the direct personal
taxation, graduated according to classes.
Biilow was replaced as Finance Minister
at the end of 1817 by Klewitz — the extent
of whose office was, however, much dim-
inished by all sorts of limitations — and
received the newly created post of Minister
of Trade and Commerce. In Altenstein,
who between 1808 and 1810 had failed to
distinguish himself as Finance Minister,
Prussia found a born Minister of Public
Worship and Education.
In spite of many unfavourable conditions
he put the educational system on a sound
footing ; he introduced in 1817 the pro-
vincial bodies of teachers, advocated uni-
versal compulsory attendance at school,
encouraged the national schools, and was
instrumental in uniting the University of
Wittenberg with that of Halle, and in
founding the University of Bonn in 1818.
Biilow, a pioneer in his own domain,
not inferior to Altenstein in the field of
_.. , Church and school, adminis-
u ow s tered the customs department,
Hand on the , j , j.t_ i_ A
C St ms supported by the shrewd
Maassen. The first preparatory
steps were taken in 1816, especially in
June, by the abolition of the waterway
tolls and the inland and provincial
duties. A Cabinet Order of August ist,
1817, sanctioned for all time the principle
of free importation, and Maassen drew
up the Customs Act, which became law
on May 26th, 1818, and came into force
4830
at the beginning of 1819, according to
Treitschke " the most liberal and matured
politico-economic law of those days " ; it
was simplified in 1821 to suit the spirit
of Free Trade, and the tolls were still more
lowered. An order of February 8th, 1819,
exempted from taxation out of the list
of inland products only wine, beer, brandy,
and leaf tobacco ; on May 30th, 1820, a
graduated personal tax and corn duties
were introduced.
Thus a well- organised system of taxation
was founded, which satisfied the national
economy for some time. All social forces
were left with free power of movement and
scope for expansion. It mattered little if
manufacturers complained, so long as the
national prosperity, which was quite
shattered, revived. Prussia gradually
found the way to the German Customs
Union. No one, it is true, could yet
predict that change ; but, as if with a
presentiment, complaints of the selfish-
ness and obstinacy of the tariff loan were
heard beyond the Prussian frontiers.
What progress had been made with the
constitution granting provincial estates
jj , and popular representation,
e rogression pj-Qj^|sg(j ^y ^j^g ]^ijj„ by the
of Frederic j- . r tit jo 1
^.„. edict of May 22nd, 1815 ?
William T^, . / J 7
1 he commission promised for
this purpose was not summoned until
March 30th, 1817. Hardenberg directed the
proceedings since it had assembled on July
7th in Berlin, sent Altenstein, Beyme, and
Klewitz to visit the provinces in order to
collect thorough evidence of the existing
conditions, and received reports, which
essentially contradicted each other.
It appeared most advisable that the
Ministers should content themselves with
establishing provincial estates, and should
leave a constitution out of the question.
Hardenberg honestly tried to make pro-
gress in the question of the constitution
and to release the royal word which had
been pledged ; Frederic William, on the
contrary, regretted having given it, and
gladly complied with the retrogressive
tendencies of the courtiers and supporters
of the old regime. He saw with concern
the contests in the South German chambers
and the excitement among the youth of
Germany ; he pictured to himself the
horrors of a revolution, and Hardenberg
could not carry his point.
The Federal Diet, the union of the princes
of Germany, owed its existence to the
Act of Federation of June 8th, 18 15, which
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
could not possibly satisfy the hopes of a
nation which had conquered a Napoleon.
Where did the heroes of the wars of
liberation find any guarantee for their
claims ? Of what did the national rights
consist, and what protection did the whole
Federation offer against foreign countries ?
Even the deposed and mediatised princes
of the old empire were deceived in their
last hopes ; they had once more dreamed
of a revival of their independence. But
they were answered with cold contempt
that the new political organisation of
Germany demanded that the princes and
counts, who had been found already
mediatised, should remain incorporated
into other political bodies or be incorpor-
ated afresh ; that the Act of Federation
involved the implicit recognition of this
necessity. The Act of Federation pleased
hardly anyone, not even its own designers.
The opening of the Federal Diet, con-
vened for September ist, 1815, was
again postponed, since negotiations were
taking place in Paris, and there were
various territorial disputes between the
several federal states to be decided.
Austria was scheming for Salz-
"p" *' 1 ^^^8 ^^^ ^^^ Breisgau, Bavaria
- . ^ for the Baden Palatinate ;
the two had come to a mutual
agreement at the cost of the House of
Baden, whose elder line was djang out,
and Baden was confronted with the
danger of dismemberment. The two chief
powers disputed about Mainz until the
town fell to Hesse-Darmstadt, but the
right of garrisoning the important federal
fortress fell to them both. Baden only
joined the Federation on July 26th, 1815,
Wiirtemberg on September ist. Notwith-
standing the opposition of Austria and
Prussia permission was given to Russia,
Great Britain, and France to have am-
bassadors at Frankfort, while the Federa-
tion had no permanent representatives at
the foreign capitals. Many of the South
German courts regarded the foreign am-
bassadors as a support against the leading
German powers ; the secondary and petty
states were most afraid of Prussia.
Finally, on November 5th, 1816, the
Austrian ambassador opened the meeting
of the Federation in Frankfort with a
speech transmitted by Metternich. On
all sides members were eager to move
resolutions, and Metternich warned them
against precipitation, the very last fault,
as it turned out, of which the Federal Diet
was likely to be guilty. On the question
of the domains of Electoral Hesse, with
regard to which many private persons
took the part of the elector, the Federation
sustained a complete defeat at his hands.
The question of the military organisation
of the Federation was very inadequately
solved. When the Barbary States in 1817
extended their raids in
_ ** Fi t ^^''•r^h o^ slaves and booty as
.... far as the North Sea, and
attacked merchantmen, the
Hanseatic towns lodged complaints before
the Federal Diet, but the matter ended in
words. The ambassador of Baden, recalling
the glorious past history of the Hansa, in
vain counselled the federal states to build
their own ships. The Federation remained
dependent on the favour of foreign mari-
time Powers ; the question of a German
fleet was dropped. Nor was more done
for trade and commerce ; the mutual
exchange of food-stuffs was still fettered
by a hundred restrictions.
How did the matter stand with the per-
formance of the article of the Act of
Federation, which promised diets to all
the federal states ?
Charles Augustus of Saxe- Weimar had
granted a constitution on May 5th, 1816,
and placed it under the guarantee of the
Federation, which also guaranteed the
Mecklenburg constitution of 1817. The
Federation generally refrained from inde-
pendent action, and omitted to put into
practice the inconvenient article empower-
ing them to sit in judgment on "the wis-
dom of each federal government." Austria
and Prussia, like most of the federal
governments, rejoiced at this evasion ;
it mattered nothing to them that the
peoples were deceived and discontented.
The same evasion was adopted in the
case of Article XVIII., on the liberty
of the Press. The north of Germany,
which had hitherto lived apparently
undisturbed, and the south, which was
Th F H I seething with the new constitu-
e e« a tional ideas, were somewhat
, ^* *"* abruptly divided on this point.
In Hanover the feudal system,
which had been very roughly handled by
Westphahan and French rulers, returned
cautiously and without undue haste out of
its lurking-place after the restoration of the
Plouse of Guelph. In the General Eandtag
the landed interest was enormously in the
preponderance. Count Miinster-Leden-
burg, who governed the new king dons
4831
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
from London, sided with the nobihty ; the
constitution imposed in 1814 rested on
the old feudal principles. The estates
solemnly announced on January 17th,
1815, the union of the old and new terri-
tories into one whole, and on December
7th, 1819, Hanover received a new con-
stitution on the dual-chamber system, and
with complete equality of rights for the
two chambers. The nobility and the
official class were predominant. There
was no trace of an organic development
of the commonwealth ; the nobility con-
ceded no reforms, and the people took little
interest in the proceedings of the chambers.
Charles insulted King George IV., and
challenged Miinster to a duel. Finally,
the Federal Diet intervened to end the
mismanagement, and everything grew ripe
for the revolution of 1830.
In the kingdom of Saxony, so reduced
in territory and population, matters re-
turned to the old footing. Frederic Au-
gustus I. the Just maintained order in the
peculiar sense in which he understood the
word. Only quite untenable conditions
were reformed, otherwise the king and
the Minister, Count Einsiedel, considered
that the highest political wisdom was to
persevere in the old order of things.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE TOWN OF BREMERHAVEN, FOUNDED IN 1827
Photochronje
The preponderance of the nobility was
less oppressive in Brunswick. George IV.
acted as guardian of the young duke,
Charles II., and Count Miinster in London
conducted the affairs of state, with
the assistance of the Privy Council of
Brunswick, and promoted the material
interests of the state, and the country
received on April 25th in the " renewed
system of states " a suitable constitution.
Everything went on as was wished until
Charles, in October, 1823, himself assumed
the government and declared war on the
constitution. A regime of the most de-
spicable caprice and licence now began ;
4832
Industries and trade were fettered, and
there was a total absence of activity. The
officials were as narrow as the statesmen.
In the Federation Saxony always sided with
Austria, being full of hatred of Prussia ;
Saxonj' was only important in the develop-
ment of art. Even under King Anthony,
after May, 1827, everything remained m
the old position. Einsiedel's statesman-
ship was as powerful as before, and the
discontent among the people grew.
The two Mecklenburgs remained feudal
states, in which the middle class and the
peasants were of no account. Even the
organic constitution of 1817 for Schwerin
Charles II.
Frederic Augustus
..»— -^-i
^'^^r^^H
r \
F;_;Hf \
WS!^F^'' '
^_Lii_ ^
k^^^'^Wl
i^l
^BHi JHk^ >. . !m
fe^^H
•
^1
WUliam I.
REACTIONARY RULERS OF EUROPEAN STATES
Assuming- the government of Brunswick in 1823, Charles II. declared war on the constitution, and a regime of the most
despicable caprice and licence went on until the Federal Diet intervened to end the mismanagement. Known as the Just,
Frederic Augustus I. of Saxony followed in the old order of things, and thus the country was stunted in its industries. King
of Wiirtemberg, William I. promised a liberal representative constitution, but did not fulfil his pledges ; he died in 1821.
made no alteration in the feudal power
prevailing since 1755 ; the knights were
still, as ever, supreme in the country. The
Sternberg Diet of 1819 led certainly to the
abolition of serfdom, but the position of
the peasants was not improved by this
measure. Emigration became more com-
mon ; trades and industries were stagnant.
Even Oldenburg was content with " poli-
tical hibernation." Frankfort-on-Main
received a constitution on October i8th,
1816, and many obsolete customs were
abolished. In the Hansa towns, on the
contrary, the old patriarchal conditions
were again in full force ; the council ruled
absolutelv. Trade and commerce made
great advances, especially in Hamburg and
Bremen. The founding of Bremerhaven
by the burgomaster Johann Smidt, a
clever politician, opened fresh paths of
world commerce to Bremen.
The Elector William I., who had returned
to Hesse-Cassel, wished to bring every-
thing back to the footing of 1806, when he
left his countiy ; he declared the ordin-
ances of " his administrator Jerome " not
to be binding on him, recognised the sale
of domains as little as the advancement
of Hessian officers, but washed to make the
fullest use of that part of the Westphalian
ordinances which brought him personal
advantage. He promised, indeed, a liberal
THE FAMOUS UNIVERSITY OP BONN. FOUNDED IN THE YEAR 1818
307
4833
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
representative constitution, but trifled
with the Landtag, and contented himself
with the promulgation of the unmeaning
family and national law of March 4th,
1817. When he died, unlamented, in
1821, the still more capricious and worth-
less regime of William II. began, which
was marked by debauchery, family quar-
_ , , rels, and public discontent.
Reforms of y- jx ■ xu i. ^
th G d '* more edif5ang was the state
Duk 'l^ ' ^^ things in Hesse-Darmstadt,
where the Grand Duke, Louis
I., although by inclination attached to the
old regime, worked his best for reform, and
did not allow himself to be driven to re-
action after the conference at Carlsbad. He
gave Hesse on December 17th (March i8th),
1820, a representative constitution, and was
an enlightened ruler, as is shown, among
other instances, by his acquiescence in the
efforts of Prussia toward a customs union.
The most unscrupulous among the
princes of the Rhenish Confederation,
Frederic of Wiirtemberg, readily noticed
the increasing discontent of his subjects,
and wished to meet it by the proclamation
of January nth, 1815, that ever since
1806 he had wished to give his country a
constitution and representation by estates ;
but when he read out his constitution to
the estates on May 15th, these promptly
rejected it. The excitement in the coun-
try increased amid constant appeals to
the " old and just right." Frederic died
in the middle of a dispute on October 30th,
18 16. Under his son, William I., who was
both chivalrous and ambitious, a better
time dawned for Wiirtemberg. But the
estates offered such opposition to him that
the constitution was not formed until
September 25th, 1819 ; but the first diet of
1820-1821 was extremely amenable to the
government. William was very popular,
although his rule showed little liberalism.
Bavaria, after the dethronement of its
second creator. Napoleon, had recovered
the territory on the left bank of the Rhine,
_ . , and formed out of it the
la 5 Rhenish Palatinate, whose
Recovered , .. • j i- 1
Terr't population remained for a long
time as friendly to France as
Bavaria itself was hostile. " Father Max "
certainly did his best to amalgamate the
inhabitants of the Palatinate and Bavaria,
and his premier, Count Montgelas, effected
so many profitable and wise changes for
this kingdom, which had increased to more
than thirteen hundred square German
miles, with four million souls, that much
4834
of the blame attached to this policy might
seem to be unjustified. His most danger-
ous opponents were the Crown Prince
Louis, with his leaning towards roman-
ticism and his " Teutonic " sympathies
and hatred of France, and Field-Marshal
Count Wrede. While Montgelas wished not
to hear a syllable about a new constitution,
the crown prince deliberately adopted a
constitutional policy, in order to prepare
the downfall of the hated Frenchman.
Montgelas' constitution of May ist, 1808,
had never properly seen the light. He
intended national representation to be
nothing but a sham. The crown prince
wished, in opposition to the Minister, that
Bavaria should be a constitutional state,
a model to the whole of Germany. Mont-
gelas was able to put a stop to the intended
creation of a constitution in 1814-1815,
while his scheme of an agreement with the
Curia was hindered by an increase in the
claims of the latter. He fell on February
2nd, 1817, a result to which the court at
Vienna contributed, and Bavaria spoke
only of his defects, without being in a
position to replace Montgelas' system by
The New another. The Concordat of
CoLittTion of June 5th, 1817, signified a
Bavaria complete Victory of the Curia,
and was intolerable in the
new state of Bavarian public opinion ; the
" kingdom of darkness ' stood beside the
door. The Crown met the general dis-
content by admitting into the constitution
some provisions guaranteeing the rights
of Protestants, and thus naturally fur-
nished materials for further negotiations
with the Curia. On May 26th, 18 18,
Bavaria finally received its constitution ;
in spite of deficiencies and gaps it was full
of vitality, and is still in force, although
in the interval it has required to be altered
in many points.
Bavaria thus by the award of a liberal
constitution had anticipated Baden,
which was forced to grant a similar one in
order to influence public opinion in its
favour. Prospects of the Baden Rhenish-
Palatinate were opened up to Bavaria by
arrangements with Austria. The ruling
House of Zahringen, except for an ille-
gitimate line, was on the verge of extinc-
tion, and the Grand Duke Charles could
never make up his mind to declare the
counts of Hochberg legitimate. At the
urgent request of Stein and the Tsar
Alexander, his brother-in-law, Charles, had
already announced to Mettemich and
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
Hardenberg in Vienna on December ist,
1814, that he wished to introduce a repre-
sentative constitution in his dominions,
and so anticipated the Act of Federation.
Stein once more implored the distrustful
man, "whose indolence was boundless," to
carry out his intention ; but every appeal
rebounded from him, and he once again
postponed the constitutional question.
The Bavarian craving for Baden terri-
tory became more and more threaten-
ing. A more vigorous spirit was felt in
the Baden Ministry after its reorganisa-
tion. At last, on October 4th, Charles,
by a family law, proclaimed the indivisi-
bility of the whole state and the rights of
the Hochberg line to the succession.
It was foreseen that Bavaria would not
submit tamely to this. German public
opinion, and even Russian influence were
brought to bear in favour of a constitution.
Baden was forced to try to anticipate
Bavaria in making this concession. Even
the Emperor Alexander opened the first
diet of his kingdom of Poland on the
basis of the constitution of 1815, and took
the occasion to praise the blessing of
_ . . . liberal institutions. Then Ba-
• *^i/V^^\ varia got the start of Baden.
Q '^ Tettenborn and Reitzenstein
rraany represented to Charles that
Baden must make haste and create a still
more liberal constitution, which was finally
signed by Charles on August 22nd, 1818.
It was, according to Barnhagen, "the
most liberal of all German constitutions, the
richest in germs of life, the strongest in
energy." It entirely corresponded to the
charter of Louis XVIII. The ordinances
of October 4th, 1817, were also contained
in it and ratified afresh. The rejoicings
in Baden and liberal Germany at large
were unanimous. In Munich there was •
intense bitterness. The Crown Prince
Louis in particular did not desist from
trying to win the Baden Palatinate,
and we know now that even Louis II.
in the year 1870 urged Bismarck to obtain
it for Bavaria. Baden ceded to Bavaria in
1819 a portion of the district of Wertheim,
and received from Austria Hohengerold-
seck. The congress at Aix-la-Chapelle had
also pronounced in favour of Baden in 1818.
Nassau, before the rest of Germany, had
received, on September 2nd, 1814, a
constitution, for which Stein was partly
responsible. But the estates were not
summoned until the work of reorganising
the duchy was completed. Duke William
opened the assembly at last on March 3rd,
1818, and a tedious dispute soon broke
out about the Crown lands and state
property. The Minister of State, Bieber-
stein, a particularist and reactionary of
the purest water, adopted Mettemich's
views. In popular opinion the credit of
the first step was not given to Nassau,
-J because it delayed so long to
nru y ^ i^ike the second. If Metternich
. D' t looked towards Prussia, he saw
the king in his element, and
Hardenberg in continual strife with Hum-
boldt ; if he turned his eyes to South
Germany, he beheld a motley scene,
which also gave him a hard problem to
solve. In Bavaria the first diet led to
such unpleasant scenes that the king con-
templated the repeal of the constitution.
In Baden, where Rotteck and Baron
Liebenstein were the leaders, a flood of
proposals was poured out against the
rule of the new Grand Duke, Louis I. ;
the dispute became so bitter that Louis,
on July 28th, 1819, prorogued the chambers.
In Nassau and in Hesse-Darmstadt there
was also much disorder in the diets.
The reaction saw all this with great
pleasure. It experienced a regular triumph
on March 23rd, 1819, through the bloody
deed of a student, Karl Ludwig Sand.
It had become a rooted idea in the Umited
brain of this fanatic that the dramatist
and Russian privy councillor, August von
Kotzebue, was a Russian spy, the most
dangerous enemy of German freedom
and German academic life ; he therefore
stabbed him in Mannheim. While great
and general sympathy was extended to
Sand, the governments feared a con-
spiracy of the student associations where
Sand had studied.
Charles Augustus saw that men looked
askance at him. and his steps for the pre-
servation of academic liberty were unavail-
ing. Metternich possessed the power, and
made full use of it, being sure of the assent
. . of the majority of German
..""If"* * * governments, of Russia, and of
the Hotbeds % a. t^ • , • r t-
,- . . Great Britam; even from r ranee
of Intrigues , , ,
approval was showered upon
him, Frederic WilHam III., being com-
pletely ruled by Prince Wittgenstein and
Kaunitz, was more and more overwhelmed
with fear of revolution, and wished to abolish
everything which seemed open to suspicion.
The universities, the fairest ornaments
of Germany, were regarded by the rulers
as hotbeds of revolutionary intrigues ;
4835
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
they required to be freed from the danger.
The authorities of Austria and Prussia
thought this to be imperatively necessary,
and during the season for the waters at
Carlsbad they wished to agree upon the
measures . H aste was urgent , asitseemed,
for on July ist, 1819, Sand had already
found an imitator. Karl Loning, an apothe-
—^ Gary's apprentice, attempted
e ron ^^ assassinate at Schwalbach
Prossil" ^^^^ ^°^ ^^®^^' ^^^ president
of the Nassau Government,
whom, in spite of his liberal and excellent
administration, the crackbrained Radicals
loudly proclaimed to be a reactionary. The
would-be assassin committed suicide after
his attempt had failed. In Prussia steps
were now taken to pay domiciliary visits,
confiscate papers, and make arrests. J ahn
was sent to a fortress, the papers of the
bookseller Reimer were put under seal,
Schleiermacher's sermons were subject to
police surveillance, the houses of Welcker
and Arndt in Bonn were carefully searched
and all writings carried off whici the
bailiffs chose to take. Protests were futile.
Personal freedom had no longer any pro-
tection against the tyranny of the police.
The privacy of letters was constantly
infringed, and the Government issued falsi-
fied accounts of an intended revolution.
On July 29th Frederic William and
Metternich met at Toplitz. Metternich
strengthened the king's aversion to grant
a general constitution, and agitated against
Hardenberg's projected constitution. On
August ist the Contract of Toplitz was
agreed upon, which, though intended to
be kept secret, was to form the basis of the
Carlsbad conferences ; a censorship was
to be exercised over the Press and the uni-
versities, and Article 13 of the Act of
Federation was to be explained in a corre-
sponding sense. Metternich triumphed, for
even Hardenberg seemed to submit to him.
Metternich returned with justifiable self-
complacency to Carlsbad, where he found
w - ... his selected body of diplo-
_ . matists, and over the heads of
I nary ^j^^ Federal Diet he discussed
with the representatives of a
quarter of the governments, from August
6th to 31st, reactionary measures of the
most sweeping character. Gentz, the secre-
tary of the congress, drew up the minutes
on which the resolutions of Carlsbad were
mainly based. Metternich wished to grant
to the Federal Diet a stronger influence on
the legislation of the several states, and
4836
through it indirectly to guide the govern-
ments, unnoticed by the public. The inter-
pretation of Article 13 of the Act of
Federation was deferred to ensuing con-
ferences at Vienna, and an agreement was
made first of all on four main points. A
very stringent press law for five years
was to be enforced in the case of all papers
appearing daily or in numbers, and of
pamphlets containing less than twenty
pages of printed matter ; and every federal
state should be allowed to increase the
stringency of the law at its own discretion.
The universities were placed under the
strict supervision of commissioners ap-
pointed by the sovereigns ; dangerous
professors were to be deprived of their
office, all secret societies and the universal
student associations were to be prohibited,
and no member of them . should hold a
public post. It was enacted that a central
commission, to which members were sent
by Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover,
Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau,
should assemble at, Mainz to investigate the
treasonable revolutionary societies which
had been discovered ; but, by the distinct
^^ ..^ n, declaration of Austria, such
The Te Deum i, 1 j u
commission should have no
_' . . judicial power. A preliminary
Reactionaries •• , • ^ , , ^ , • ,•'
executive order, to terminate
after August, 1820, was intended to secure
the carrying out of the resolutions of the
Federation for the maintenance of internal
tranquillity, and in given cases mihtary
force might be employed to effect it.
On September ist the Carlsbad con-
ferences ended, and the party of reaction
sang their Te Deum. Austria appeared to
be the all-powerful ruler of Germany. " A
new era is dawning," Metternich wrote to
London. The Federal Diet accepted the
Carlsbad resolutions with unusual haste
on September 20th, and they were pro-
claimed in all the federal states. Austria
had stolen a march over the others, and
the Federal Council expressed its most
humble thanks to Francis therefor. All
free-thinkers saw in the Carlsbad resolu-
tions not merely a check on all freedom and
independence, but also a disgrace ; never-
theless, the governments, in spite of the
indignation of men like Stein, Rotteck,
Niebuhr, Dahlmann, Ludwig Borne, and
others, carried them out in all their harsh-
ness. The central commission of inquiry
hunted through the Federation in search
of conspiracies, and, as its own reports
acknowledge, found nothing of importance,
THE REACTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE
but unscrupulously interfered with the life
of the nation and the individual. Foreign
countries did not check this policy,
although many statesmen, Capodistrias at
their head, disapproved of the reaction.
The Students' Association was officially
dissolved on November 26th, 1819, but
was immediately reconstituted in secret.
There was no demagogism in Austria ;
Prussia was satisfied to comply with the
wishes of the court of Vienna, and even
Hardenbergwas
prepared for any
step which Met-
t e r n i c h pre-
scribed. Every
suspected per-
son was re-
garded in Berlin
as an imported
conspirator.
The edict of
censorship • of
1819, dating
from the day
of liberation,
October i8th,
breathed the
unholy spirit
of Wollner;
foreign journals
were strictly
supervised. The
reaction was
nowhere more
irreconcilable
than in Prussia,
where nothing
recalled the say-
ing of Frederic
the Great, that
every man
might be happy
after his own
fashion. The
gymnasia were
as relentlessly
persecuted as
the intellectual
exercises of university training ; nothing
could be more detestable than the way in
which men like Arndt, Gneisenau, and
Jahn were made to run the gauntlet,
or a patriot like Justus Gruner was
ill-treated on his very deathbed, or
the residence of Gorres in Germany ren-
dered intolerable . This tendency obviously
crippled the fulfilment of the royal promise
of a constitution — a promise in which
Humboldt
Frederic William had never been serious.
Hardenberg and Humboldt were per-
petually quarrelling ; Humboldt attacked
the exaggerated power of the chancellor,
who was not competent for his post ;
Hardenberg laid a new plan of a constitu-
tion before the king on August nth, 1819.
The king, in this dispute, took the side of
Hardenberg, and the dismissal of Boyen
and Grolman was followed, on December
31st, 1819, by that of Humboldt and
Count Beyme.
Metternich re-
joiced ; Hum-
boldt, the
"thoroughly
bad man," was
put on one side
and thence-
forth hved for
science.
Hardenberg's
position was
once more
strengthened ;
his chief object
was to carry the
revenue and fin-
ance laws. On
January 17th,
1820, the ordi-
nance as to the
condition of the
national debt
was issued, from
which the
Liberals re-
ceived the
comforting as-
surance that the
Crown would
not be able to
raise new loans
except under
the joint
guarantee of
the proposed
Eichhorn
A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED GERMANS
Entering the service of Prussia in 1 780, Baron von Stein worked for pro-
gress and laid the foundations of Prussia's subsequent greatness.
Rotteck, a professor at Freiburg, was eminent as a historian and publicist ;
famous as a naturalist and traveller, Humboldt explored unknown aSSCmblv of the
lands, while Eichhorn was a prominent Prussian statesman and jurist. , . j
esxates, ano.
that the trustees of the debt would furnish
the assembly with an annual statement of
accounts. Shipping companies and banks
were remodelled ; the capital account
was to be published every three years.
Hardenberg then brought his revenue
laws to the front, and in spite of many
difficulties these laws, which, though
admittedly imperfect, still demanded
attention, were passed on May 20th, 1820.
4837
HISTORY OF THE TI^ORLD
Ideal
of Union
In accordance with the agreement made
in Carlsbad, the representatives of the
inner federal assembly met in Vienna, and
deliberated from November 25th, 1819,
to May 24th, 1820, over the head of the
Federal Diet ; the result, the final act of
Vienna of May 15th, 1820, obtained the
same validity as the Federal Act of 1815.
, In the plenary assemblv of June
Eichhorn s ^^^^ ^g^^^ ^^^ Federal Diet pro-
moted it to be a fundamental
law of the Federation. Particu-
larism and reaction had scored a success,
and the efficiency of the Federal Diet was
once more crippled. The nation was
universally disappointed by the new
fundamental law, which realised not one
of its expectations ; but Metternich
basked in the rays of success. ^ ,
The question of free intercourse between
the federal states had also been discussed
in Vienna, and turned men's looks to
Prussia's efforts towards a customs union.
The Customs Act of May 26th, 1818, was
unmercifully attacked ; it was threatened
with repeal at the Congress of Aix-la-
Chapelle, but weathered the storm, and
found protection from Johann Friedrich
Eichhorn. In the field of material interests
Eichhorn had a free hand ; he was a hero
of unobtrusive work, who with inde-
fatigable patience went towards his goal —
the union of the German states to Prussia
by the bond of their own interests. In
1819 he invited the Thuringian states,
which formed enclaves in Prussia, to a
tariff union, and on October 25th in that
year the first treaty for accession to the
tariff union was signed with Schwarzburg-
Sondershausen ; since this was extremely
advantageous to the petty state, it
served as a model to all further treaties
with Prussian enclaves.
The German Commercial and Industrial
Association of the traders of Central and
Southern Germany was founded in Frank-
fort during the April Fair of 1819, under
_, the presidency of Professor
e n ra pj-ig^jj-i^.]^ j J5^ ^f Tiibingen.
Commercial t>, • i r ^i •
. ... Ihe memorial of the associa-
Association ,. , it-. 1
tion, drawn up by List and
presented to the diet, pictured as its
ultimate aim the universal freedom of
commercial intercom se between every
nation ; it called for the abolition of the
inland tolls and existing federal tolls on
foreign trade, but was rejected. List now
attacked the several governments, scourged
in his journal the faults of German
4838
commercial policy, was an opponent of the
Prussian Customs Act, and always recurred
to federal tolls. Far clearer were the
economic views of the Baden statesman
Karl Friedrich Nebenius, whose pamphlet
was laid before the Vienna conferences.
He too attacked the Prussian Customs Act ;
but his pamphlet, in spite of all its merits,
had no influence on the development of the
tariff union. Johann Friedrich Benzenberg
alone of the well-known journalists of the
day spoke for Prussia. Indeed, the hos-
tility to Prussia gave rise to the abortive
separate federation of Southern and
Central Germany, formed at Darmstadt in
1820. Such plans were foredoomed to
failure. All rival tariff unions failed in the
same way.
Hardenberg's influence over Frederic
William III. had been extinguished by
Metternich, and the Chancellor of State
was politically dead, even before he closed
his eyes, on November 26th, 1822. A
new constitution commission under the
presidency of the Crown Prince Frederic
William {IV. ), who was steeped in roman-
ticism, consisted entirely of Hardenberg's
opponents, and would only be
. . content with charters for the
T^***^ h several provinces. The king
riuaip an (.Qj^ggj^^gjj ^q them. After
Hardenberg's death the king could not
consent to summon Wilhelm von Hum-
boldt, but abolished the presidency in the
Cabinet. The king contented himself
with the law of June 5th, 1823, as to the
regulation of provincial estates.
Bureaucracy and feudalism celebrated
a joint victory in this respect. Austria
could be contented with Prussia's aversion
to constitutional forms, and, supported
by it, guided the Federal Diet, in which
Wiirtemberg, owing to the frankness
and independence of its representative,
Wangenheim, now and again broke
from the trodden path. Wangenheim
suggested the plan of confronting the great
German powers with a league " of pure
and constitutional Germany," under the
leadership of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg,
proposing to create a triple alliance. But
the Vienna conferences of January, 1823,
arranged by Metternich, soon^ led to
Wiirtemberg's compliance. Wangenheim
fell in July. The Carlsbad resolutions
were renewed in August, 1824, ^^^ the
Federal Diet did not agitate again, after it
had quietly divided the unhappy Central
Enquiry Commission at Mainz in 1828.
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