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NATIONALISM

FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR

THE object of this series is twofold ; to disseminate
knowledge of the facts of international relations, and
to inculcate the international rather than the
nationalistic way of regarding them* This Litter
purpose implies no distortion of facts. It is hoped
that the books will be found to maintain a Ji'gh
standard of accuracy and fairness*

But their avowed object is not merely to record
facts, but to present them in a certain light, and with
a certain object* That light is Internationalism and
that object the peace of the world* If the series is
successful in its purpose it will contribute to ^vhat
Wells has called the " international mind*"

The object has been to produce the books at a
price that shall not be prohibitive to people of small
incomes* For the world cannot be saved by
governments and governing classes* It can be saved
only by the creation, among the peoples of the wDrld,
of such a public opinion as cannot be dupec by
misrepresentation nor misled by passion* The
difficulties of that achievement can hardl) be
exaggerated, but ought not to daunt* And the
editor ventures to hope for support for men of
good will in this one attempt, among the many others,
to enlighten the intelligence and direct the will

NATIONALISM

By

'

,'

G. P. GOOCH

Author of "History
and Historians in the
Nineteenth Century/'
44 Germany and the
French Revolution/*
"Life of Lord
Courtney/* etc.

London :
THE SWARTHMORE

PRESS LTD.
72, Oxford Street, W.i

I92O

New York:
HARCOURT BRACE

6C HOWE
i, West 47th Street

late

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 5

I THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 9

II THE AGE OF METTERNICH 19

III THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 40

IV THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 60
V BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 76

VI THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 92

VII ARMAGEDDON 108

INTRODUCTION

THE core of nationalism is group-consciousness, the love
of the community, great or small, to which we belong ;
but for the larger portion of the prehistoric and historic
life of mankind such love of our unit has been an
instinctive emotion, not a doctrine. While patriotism
is as old as human association and has gradually widened
its sphere from the clan and the tribe to the city and the
state, nationalism as an operative principle and an
articulate creed only made its appearance among the
more complicated intellectual processes of the modern
world* The august conception of the unity of Chris-
tendom under the joint sway of Emperor and Pope was
almost as unfavourable to national differentiation as had
been the universalism of the Roman Empire ; and though
the latter centuries of the Middle Ages witnessed the
steady growth of national consciousness and the high-
souled patriotism of Joan of Arc, it was not until the
political and religious system of mediaeval Europe went
down before the combined assaults of the Renaissance
and the Reformation that the sovereign state emerged
as the dominant type of political organisation. In the
fulness of time the doctrine of nationalism issued from
the volcanic fires of the French Revolution, carrying its
virile message of emancipation and defiance to the utter-
most parts of the earth, and filling the nineteenth
century with the insistent clamour of its demands*

Nationalism is the self-consciousness of a nation, and
its flowing current is fed by many streams* The nation

6 INTRODUCTION

is an organism, a spiritual entity* All attempts to
penetrate its secrets by the light of mechanical inter-
pretations break down before the test of experience.
The occupation of a naturally defined territory, which
supplies the simplest tie of affinity, will not carry us far ;
for the conviction of national unity is sublimely indiff-
erent to rivers, mountains and even seas. Nor is identity
of racial type an indispensable factor of nationhood ; for
no race has ever been gathered into a single Nation-
state, while Great Britain and France, Belgium, Switzer-
land and the United States remind us that countries
where national self-consciousness is most highly
developed are peopled by men of different blood. Unity
of language, again, despite its immense practical con-
venience, can hardly be described as a necessity with the
example of Belgium and Switzerland, Canada and South
Africa before our eyes. Religious unity, in turn,
though a potent bond of union, above all in communities
such as the Poles, the Irish or the Armenians which have
lost or have never won independent political existence,
becomes ever less essential with the growing secularisa-
tion 6f thought. And finally, common economic
interests avail as little as forced obedience to a single
ruler to achieve the birth of nation.

Though neither the occupation of a defined area, nor
community of race, language, religion, government or
economic interests are indispensable to national self-
consciousness, each of these factors constitutes a powerful
tie and tends to produce the cohesiveness and solidarity
in which the strength of nations resides. Indeed in the
absence of such connecting links it would be childish
to expect a vigorous national sentiment. Yet, while

INTRODUCTION 7

admitting to the full the natural foundations of nation-
alism, we shall never discover its innermost secret if we
confine our scrutiny to the material plane* Its spiritual
characteristics have become increasingly recognised
since Maszini, the noblest of its prophets, and are now
axioms among thoughtful publicists in both hemispheres*
" A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a
Nationality/' wrote Mill in 1862, in his Representative
Government, " if they are united among themselves by
common sympathies, which do not exist between them
and any others, which make them co-operate more
willingly than with other people, desire to be under the
same government, and desire that it should be govern-
ment by themselves, or a portion of themselves, exclu-
sively. This feeling of nationality may have been
generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect
of identity of race and descent. Community of language
and community of religion greatly contribute to it.
Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the
strongest of all is the identity of political antecedents ;
the possession of a national history, and consequent com-
munity of recollections ; collective pride and humilia-
tion, pleasure and regret, connected with the same
incidents in the past/' Kenan's celebrated lecture,
Qu'est ce qu'une Nation ? leads to the same con-
clusion, " What constitutes a nation is not speaking
the same tongue or belonging to the same ethnic group,
but having accomplished great things in common in the
past and the wish to accomplish them in the future/'
"A nation," pronounces Littre, the eminent philologist,
"is an union of men inhabiting the same territory, whether
or not subject to the same government, and possessing

8 INTRODUCTION

such common interests of long standing that they may
be regarded as belonging to the same race/' " As the
culture of a people advances/' argues Laveleye, the
Belgian economist, " race exercises less power over aH
people, and historic memories more/' " A nationality,"
echoes Durkheim, the Belgian sociologist, with admirable
brevity, " is a group of which the members, for racial
or merely historic reasons, wish to live under the same
laws and form a state/' " Nationality, like religion,"
we learn from Professor Zimmern, " is subjective ;
psychological ; a condition of mind ; a spiritual posses-
sion ; a way of feeling, thinking and living/'

The path is now clear for our advance. Nationalism
denotes the resolve of a group of human beings to share
their fortunes, and to exercise exclusive control over
their own actions. Where such a conscious deter-
mination exists there should be a state, and there will be
no abiding peace until there is a state. Where there is a
soul there should be a body in which it may dwell. Here
is the master-key to the political history of the nine-
teenth century.

CHAPTER I
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

I

WHEN the States- General met at Versailles in 1789,
the nation looked with confident assurance to the
King, The Cahiers, in which we hear the authentic
accents of France, demanded the removal of concrete
abuses, but made no claim that the rudder should be
entrusted to the representatives of the people* The King
was assumed to be the champion of his subjects against
feudal oppression* When, however, guided by evil
counsellors, he emerged rather the enemy than the leader
of the political and social reformation, the notion that
sovereignty resided in the people and its selected repre-
sentatives, spread with the rapidity of a prairie fire. The
oath of the Tennis Court asserted the determination of
the assembly to disobey the royal command, and pro-
claimed it the organ of the national will* Sieves*
pamphlet claimed that the Tiers Etat, which had hitherto
been nothing, was in reality everything* The Declara-
tion of the Rights of Man substituted reason for tradition
as the guiding principle of politics. Finally the
women's march to Versailles, resulting in the transfer of
the Court in virtual capitivity to Paris, left the Assembly
visibly no less than actually supreme* Theoretical
royalism lingered on till the flight to Varennes con-
vinced France that her ruler had ceased to belong to the
nation, and that she must act for herself.

io NATIONALISM

France had become self-conscious in her victorious
struggle with the Crown and its advisers ; but it was
under the stress of attack from outside that the sentiment
of nationality reached its full stature. When the Great
War was inaugurated by France in April, 1792, Brissot's
policy was resisted by Robespierre and other Jacobin
chiefs. But when the first skirmishes revealed the
weakness of the troops, when Brunswick launched his
menacing Manifesto and marched into France, the
monarchy was overthrown and the nation rose in wrathful
might to hurl back the invader. Men become fully
conscious of the ties which bind them to their country
only when it is threatened or visited by some over-
whelming calamity. The tide of battle turned at Valmy,
and on the evening after the skirmish Goethe, who had
accompanied his friend and master, Karl August of
Weimar, replied to a request for his opinion in the
historic words, " From to-day begins a new era of
world-history ; and you will be able to say that you were
present at its birth, " The poet was right. The
titanic energy of France, which had since 1789 been
devoted to the task of internal reform, now turned to
meet the foe. The second stage of the revolution had
begun, and nationalism blossomed forth in irresistible
strength. The leaders of 1789 had never entertained a
thought of war or aggression, and the Constitution of
1791 had declared that France would never fight for
conquests. But when blood began to flow and the
achievements of the Revolution were imperilled, France
turned into a nation of supermen, whose volcanic energy
scattered the hosts of feudal Europe like chaff before
the blast.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION n

It was not to be expected that the victorious troops of
the Republic would halt on the frontier when the
invader had been expelled , The doctrine of the natural
limits of France, the frontiers marked by nature, —
the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, — was proclaimed
by Danton and echoed from a thousand throats. More-
over, the people which had won its liberty and defended
it against foreign attack could now aid others to follow in
its footsteps. On November 19^,1792, the Convention
resolved to " assist all peoples who wished to recover
their liberty/' The formula, which might seem
quixotically unselfish, proved to be merely a cloak for
aggression, since French soldiers and agents were the
judges of whether the peoples were desirous of " liberty/'
which, it was assumed, could only be enjoyed by
annexation to the French Republic, Thus in the space
of a few months militant nationalism revealed not only
its magical power of mobilising the latent strength of a
people, but the temptation to a virile nation to carry fire
and sword into the lands of its neighbours,

II

As France was stung into full national self-con-
sciousness in 179^ by the Brunswick Manifesto, so
Prussian patriotism was kindled into flame by the battle
of Jena, The eighteenth century was the age of cosmo-
politanism, and nowhere was the soil more favourable to
its growth than in Germany, Almost without exception
her leading minds owned allegiance to humanity alone.
In a land cut up into innumerable petty states, mostly ill-
governed, particularism was the instinct of the masses,

12 NATIONALISM

cosmopolitanism the creed of the elite. Excluded from
power and responsibility, men of liberal views felt them-
selves in closer association with reformers and thinkers
in other lands than with their own countrymen* To such
minds patriotism meant stagnation, a mulish antagonism
to the stimulating challenge of foreign influences,
41 German nationalism/' declared Nicolai bluntly, " is
a political monstrosity/' " To be praised as a zealous
patriot/' wrote Lessing, " is the last thing I desire — a
patriot, that is, who would teach me to forget that I must
be a citizen of the world/' The attitude of the leaders of
the Aufklarung was shared by the men who ushered in a
new period in the intellectual life of Germany, " If we
find a place where we can rest with our belongings,"
wrote the youthful Goethe, " a field to support us, a
house to shelter us, have we not a Fatherland ? Ubi
bene, ibi patria/' " I write as a citizen of the world who
serves no prince," echoed the youthful Schiller. " I
lost my Fatherland to exchange it for the great world.
What is the greatest of nations but a fragment ? "

The war against the French Revolution was never
popular in Germany, and it was often said that the only
man who entered into it with heart and soul was the King
of Prussia, Frederick William IL When military
failure and financial stringency led Prussia to make
peace with the Republic by the Treaty of Basle in 1795, a
sigh of relief went up from North Germany, During
the decade of peace that ensued Brunswick and other
military and civilian counsellors discussed in confidential
memoranda the reasons for the collapse of the army of
Frederick the Great before the levies of the Republic,
and found them, above all, in the want of national

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 13

spirit ; but it was not till the disastrous campaign which
opened at Jena and closed at Tilsit that the rotten
foundations of the Prussian state were exposed to the
gaze of all the world, and even the King realised that he
must break with the past. The best men of North and
Central Germany gave their services to Prussia* In his
brief but memorable ministry Stein emancipated the
peasants from the feudal yoke, and granted self-govern-
ment to the municipalities. Hardenberg completed the
creation of a free peasantry. Scharnhorst introduced
compulsory service, and trained the army which was to
overthrow Napoleon at Leipsic. Acting on the memor-
able utterance of the King, " We must seek compen-
sation on the spiritual plane for what we have lost in
material strength/ ' Wilhelm von Humboldt founded the
University of Berlin, and made it the first seat of learning
in Europe.

The necessity of such reforms had been widely
recognised before the debacle ; but the energy to carry
them out was lacking till the sentiment of nationality
was born in the crisis of the nation's fate. While some of
the leaders of the Prussian renaissance approved the
" principles of 1789 " and others abhorred them, they all
recognised that the terrible strength of the foe was
generated by the individual and national self-conscious-
ness bred of the Revolution, and that if Prussia was to
regain her independence she must build from the
depths. " Your majesty/' declared Hardenberg, " we
must do from above what the French have done from
below/' " One cause above all has raised France to
this pinnacle of greatness/' wrote Gneisenau. " The
Revolution awakened all her powers and gave to every

14 NATIONALISM

individual a suitable field for his activity. What
infinite aptitudes slumber in the bosom of a nation !
Why do not the courts take steps to open up a career to
it wherever it is found, to encourage talents and virtues
whatever the rank ? The Revolution has set the whole
strength of a nation in motion, and by the equalisation
of classes converted the living strength of men and the
dead strength of resources into a productive capital, and
thereby upset the old relations of states and the old
equilibrium. If other states desire to restore their
equilibrium, they must employ the same instruments."

The work of her statesmen was reinforced by the
appeal of her thinkers and her poets. The most eloquent
voice in the kingdom was Fichte, who had begun life as a
cosmopolitan, and whose career as a publicist spans the
transition from cosmopolitanism to nationalism. In his
lectures on the " Characteristics of the Present Age,"
delivered in the year before the battle of Jena, he asks
" Which is the fatherland of the truly cultured
European ? " " It is Europe, and more particularly that
state which at any given time has reached the highest
point of culture. Animated by this sentiment we need
not fret about the fortunes of particular states." But
the thunder of Napoleon's guns transformed Fichte
into the most fervent and eloquent champion of the
national state. The " Addresses to the German
Nation," delivered within earshot of the French garrison
in Berlin and at the peril of his life, proclaimed the birth
of the gospel of which his countrymen were one day
to become fanatical devotees. " I speak for Germans,"
he cried, " brushing aside all the differences which
unhappy events have created during centuries in the

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 15

single nation* These lectures, delivered first to you, are
meant for the whole nation* They are intended to
kindle a patriotic flame/* Where Hegel saw nothing but
the state, Fichte discerned the nation* Schiller's
44 Wilhelm Tell " became the bible of patriots ; the
songs of Arndt and Korner voiced the new passion for
action and self-sacrifice ; and the Gymnastic societies of
Father Jahn braced heart and muscle for the supreme
efforts of the Wars of Liberation*

III

Napoleon's invasion of Spain produced a fiercer
explosion of wrath than his invasion of Prussia ; but in
the latter case the flame he had kindled continued to
burn, while in the former, after emitting sparks of
dazzling brilliance, it quickly flickered out. The
difference is explained by the fact that the German mind
was awake, and that the issues were formulated by an
army of writers and speakers^ whereas the peninsula was
cut off from the intellectual movements of Europe by a
barrier of ignorance and indifference more formidable
than the Pyrenees* The country had possessed one or
two men of wider outlook, such as Campomanes, Jovel-
lanos, and Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition ; and
Charles III had ranked among the Enlightened Despots
of the eighteenth century* But the people as a whole
were wedded to their traditional beliefs and practices, and
asked nothing of their neighbours but to be let alone*
Such a nation could be relied on to resist attack with a
passion of pride and fury ; but when the danger was
past it would revert to the old paths*

16 NATIONALISM

Napoleon, who had been surprised at the weakness of
Prussia's resistance, was even more astonished by the
vigorous opposition of the peninsula , He shared the
common notion that the sun of Spain had set ; and the
conduct of the senile Charles IV and his son Ferdinand
confirmed his contempt , When the king had signed
the treaty of Bayonne resigning his right to the throne,
and French troops were in occupation of Madrid,
Barcelona, and the chief towns of the north, the Emperor
imagined that the country was at his mercy. But the
disgraceful surrender of the Court provoked an outburst
of volcanic fury. Napoleon and his royal dupes had
forgotten the Spanish people, which, with instinctive
unanimity, rose against the invader. The province of
Asturias in the North- West was the first to organise a
Junta, which at once declared war and despatched
deputies to England to beg help, a request instantly
granted by Canning, As Valmy turned the tide of
Brunswick's invasion and thrilled republican France
with self-confidence, the capitulation of twenty thousand
French troops at Baylen taught Spain that even Napoleon
was not invincible. The emperor at once crossed the
Pyrenees and scattered the Spanish levies ; but the
country was unconquered and unconquerable. The
house to house defence of Saragossa under the command
of Palafox against a large investing force with heavy
artillery, maintained till the city was in ruins, revealed
to the world that in arousing the slumbering spirit of
patriotism among the people the Emperor had created
a force more formidable than the disciplined armies
which he had so often overcome. Till the Russian
campaign diverted the attention and resources of the

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 17

Empire there was no chance of victory ; but the steady
opposition, fed by unquenchable hate, gnawed at the
vitals of French power* Readers of Marbot's Memoirs
can never forget his picture of the difficulties of cam-
paigning in the Peninsula*

While the armies of France were still in possession of
most of the cities of Spain, deputies and refugees
from the unconquered and conquered provinces met
at Cadiz in 1812 to draw up a new constitution. They
found their model in the French constitution of 1791,
declared that sovereignty resided in the nation, abolished
feudalism and the Inquisition and dissolved the
Monastic Orders* In thus decreeing a revolution the
legislators of Cadiz lost touch with the people ; and
when the dynasty was restored on the downfall of
Napoleon its reforms were swept away without protest*
The intellectual and moral discipline which in Germany
preceded the appeal to. arms had no counter-part in the
Peninsula. In Germany nationalism was formulated as
a doctrine and took its place as a guiding principle. In
Spain resistance to the invader was like a fire of straw,
blazing up with bewildering rapidity and falling back
into ashes when the enemy was consumed in the fierce
flame. Germany emerged from her martyrdom resolved
to learn and to apply the lessons which had made her
enemy powerful and victorious. Spain complacently
returned to her dynasty and her autocracy, her
Inquisition and her obscurantism ; and Ferdinand VII
ruled as if the French Revolution had never occurred and
as if her legislators had never flocked to Cadiz* But
the torch of emancipation was kindled in South
America, and it is from the Napoleonic invasion that

i8 NATIONALISM

South American nationalism dates its origin ; and
Spain's valiant struggle gave new hope to the nations
which were still under the Emperor's yoke* The basis of
nationalism is instinct ; but the nationalism that rests on
instinct alone will never enlarge and purify a nation's
soul* True nationalism must build the independence of
a nation on the foundation of the free and enlightened
citizenship which formed the ideal of the men who
made the French Revolution and preached its gospel to
a listening world*

CHAPTER II
THE AGE OF METTERNICH

WHILE the conflict with Napoleon was still undecided,
the spokesman of the Grand Alliance paid lip-service
to the spirit of nationality in which their hope of victory
lay* ' The object of the war and of the peace/' they
proclaimed, " is to secure the rights, the freedom and the
independence of all nations/' The Tsar Alexander
might use such language without insincerity ; but his
Prussian and Austrian comrades could attach no
intelligible meaning to the words . During the prolonged
discussions at the Vienna Congress there was no
recognition of national aspirations except in the creation
of a partially autonomous Poland, The guiding princi-
ples of the victors were to erect barriers against France,
and to reward or punish minor states for their part in
the Great War, The overthrow of Napoleon was due to
the combined resistance of outraged and threatened
nations ; but the peoples derived little benefit from their
victory. One great enemy of constitutional and national
liberty was succeeded by another ; and the yoke of
Metternich, if less brutally oppressive, was no less difficult
to shake off. With England standing aloof, the power of
the Holy Alliance was unchallenged ; and the three
rulers, Alexander, Francis I and Frederick William III,
had suffered so much during the revolutionary era that
the suppression of popular movements and ideas had
become their governing principle of statesmanship,

19

20 NATIONALISM

Yet nationalism had taken firm root in Europe ; and the
history of the generation that followed the downfall of
Napoleon is the record of the successful and unsuccessful
struggles of nationalities for self-determination and
self-realisation in face of entrenched and embattled
autocracy*

No provision of the settlement of 1815 has incurred
more criticism than the union of Belgium with Holland,
Belgium had been conquered by the French Republic,
and there was no desire in Vienna to regain its remote
province. It had never been independent ; and if it
were now erected into a sovereign state it would be too
weak to stand alone. If, on the other hand, it were
joined to Holland, the enlarged Dutch Monarchy would
form a barrier against French ambitions in the north. It
was true that the two countries had parted company in
the sixteenth century, and that they differed in language,
religion and sentiment ; but such considerations were
of little weight compared with the necessity of check-
mating the arch-disturber of the peace of Europe,

The tendency of recent historians is to argue that, since
Belgium was not yet a nation, Castlereagh's plan was
perhaps the best under the circumstances, and that if
Holland had played the part assigned to her with greater
skill the arrangement would have been justified by suc-
cess. Unfortunately, King William inherited the
militant Protestantism of his Orange ancestors, and
launched a crusade against his benighted Catholic
subjects. Before long the Church was in revolt, and the
ardent piety of Belgium rallied to its support* Secular

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 21

grievances were soon added to ecclesiastical complaints*
The four million Belgians returned no more members to
the States-General than the two million Dutch, and
when their interests clashed the dispute was settled in
favour of the northern half of the kingdom, Dutch
became the official language of the public services, the
schools and the courts. Faced by these attacks on their
religion and language, Catholics and Liberals, laying
aside their feuds, demanded the maintenance of their
rights under the Constitution and a separate administra-
tion. National sentiment, which had been a tiny rill in
1815, had grown into a flowing river which was soon to
overflow its banks,

In July, 1 830, Paris rose against Charles X and chased
him out of the country. The news of the Revolution
excited Belgium to fever pitch ; and on August 5th,
the King's birthday, cries were raised in the Brussels
Opera against Holland, The ferment spread to the
streets, and the standard of revolt was hoisted on the
Town Hall, A Dutch army advancing on Brussels
was met with resistance and retired after a bombardment.
The Committee of Defence blossomed into a Pro-
visional Government, which proclaimed the dissolution
of the ties binding Belgians to Holland, and ordered
Belgian soldiers in the army to return to their own
country. The States-General now voted the separation
of the countries by a narrow majority ; but the time for
compromise was past. The example of Brussels had
proved contagious. All the provinces followed the lead
of Brabant, and Luxemburg associated itself with the
revolt. On October 4th the independence of Belgium
was formally proclaimed by the Provisional Government,

23 NATIONALISM

which announced its resolve to summon a Constituent
Assembly* France and England threw their shield over
Belgium, and, despite the repugnance of the Tsar
Nicholas to condone revolution, the Powers accepted
the principle of separation* King William struggled
for years to retain his grip on the country, and when a
British and French force compelled him to relax it, he
abdicated in disgust. It required almost a decade of war
and negotiation to cut the knot tied in 1815 ; but in 1839
Belgium, neutralised indeed but independent, entered
the family of European states under her wise ruler
Leopold of Coburg.

II

Equally successful, though bought at a far higher
price, was the effort of Greece to throw off a heavier
yoke. After long preparation the Morea rose in 1821
and massacred every Turk within reach. At the end of
the year the whole peninsula, except a few fortresses, was
in the hand of the rebels, and the insurrection blamed
up north of the Gulf of Corinth and in the islands of the
archipelago. Possessing no trained soldiers the Greeks
practised guerrilla warfare, while their sailors preyed
upon Turkish commerce, and fire-ships set light to their
men of war. The revolt of Ali Pasha at first prevented
the concentration of the full strength of Turkey against
the rebels ; but the death of the Albanian chieftain
released the troops, and in 1823 Mehemet Ali sent a fleet
to the support of his overlord. The cause of Greece
would have been lost had not Europe come to her aid*
The hanging of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 23

in 1821, in retaliation for the massacres in the Morea,
had aroused a crusading fervour in Russia ; and in 1822
the extermination of the population of Chios sent a thrill
of horror through Christendom, Canning's recognition
of the Greeks as beligerents in 1823 brought the matter
within the competence of the Powers ; but when the
Tsar proposed the creation of three autonomous Greek
states under Turkish sovereignty, but guaranteed by the
Powers, Metternich and Canning refused consent, the
latter suggesting the recognition of complete indepen-
dence. While the Powers were exchanging notes with
each other and with the Sultan, Mehemet Ali, at the
request of his suzerain, sent a well-drilled army of 4,500
men to the Morea early in 1825 under his son Ibrahim,
who operated from Crete, By the end of the year the
Egyptian troops had conquered the peninsula ; but when
Nicholas succeeded his brother Alexander, England,
Russia and France agreed on the coercion of Turkey,
The battle of Navarino in 1827 destroyed the Egyptian
fleet ; and when the Sultan in reply proclaimed a Holy
War, Russian troops crossed the Balkans and brought
Turkey to her knees. In 1832, eleven years after the
outbreak of the revolt, Greece was recognised as an
independent state, and in 1833, Otto, second son of
King Ludwig of Bavaria, entered Athens as her first
King, The rivalries of the Powers and the lingering
sympathy with Turkey among the 'more reactionary
statesmen were responsible for the drawing of frontiers
which left the larger part of the Greek race outside the
new state. But the foundations had been well and truly
laid ; and the history of the succeeding century is in
large measure the record of the efforts to add Grsecia

34 NATIONALISM

irredenta — on the mainland and in Asia Minor, in the
Adriatic, the ^Egean and the Mediterranean — to the
little realm*

III

While Belgium and Greece won their independence
with foreign aid, friendless Poland endeavoured in vain
to regain her place among the States of Europe, The
three Partitions of her territory between Russia, Prussia
and Austria had been followed by a gleam of hope when
her oppressors were successively overthrown by
Napoleon ; but the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, though
placed under the King of Saxony, was in reality ruled
from Paris and regarded by the Emperor mainly as a
reservoir of soldiers. On the fall of the Empire the
Polish question came up for discussion at the Congress
of Vienna, and proved the thorniest of its many problems.
As a young man Alexander had learned from his bosom
friend Adam Czartoryski to sympathise with Polish
aspirations ; and he determined to endow his Polish
subjects with a full measure of autonomy, despite the
fact that they had fought with enthusiasm in the armies
of his great enemy. Treaties for the creation of " the
Congress Kingdom " were signed with Austria and
Prussia, and a few months after the close of the Congress
the Tzar issued the promised constitution, A Diet, with
the right to amend and reject legislation, was to meet
every two years ; Russia undertook to pay for the
Polish army ; and Poles alone were to be employed in
the administration. The settlement was liberally

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 25

conceived and granted in all sincerity ; but Castlereagh's
prophecy that the Poles would not be content, and that
Alexander's system would either be deliberately
destroyed or perish at the hands of his successor, was
to be fulfilled to the letter.

The Polish kingdom had fallen owing to its unwieldy
size and heterogeneous population, its impossible con-
stitution and its geographical position between greedy
and powerful neighbours. Its dying struggles had been
ennobled by Kosciusko, whose name henceforth became
the symbol of national existence ; and the flame of
patriotism burnt more fiercely when Poland was a soul
without a body. For a time the new system, commended
by the personal fascination of the monarch, seem to hold
out hopes of success* The first Diet was opened by the
Tsar in 1818, and in 1820 his brother Constantine, the
head of the Polish army, married a Polish wife. But
the honeymoon was brief. Alexander's liberalism, per-
haps never much more than skin-deep, evaporated after
the close of the war ; and when the Diet of 1820
rejected two government measures, he took no pains to
conceal his irritation. The Poles, who had never
surrendered the hope of complete independence,
accepted the constitution of 1815 as an instalment ; and
when rumours spread that the Tsar was more likely
to suspend the Constitution than to enlarge it, secret
societies were formed in the towns and the army.

Shortly after opening the third Diet in 1825 Alexander
died ; and his successor Nicholas detested the Polish
and all other constitutions. In 1 830 the Poles themselves
provided him with the desired excuse to sweep it away.
The July Revolution in Paris set light to the inflammable

26 NATIONALISM

material which had accumulated since 1815* An
insurrection broke out in Warsaw, Constantine fled from
the city, and the Diet met and approved the Revolution,
Nicholas replied by a demand for unconditional sub-
mission and the despatch of troops* The Diet,
undismayed, proclaimed the throne vacant and declared
the right of the Poles, as an independent people, to
choose their ruler* Two hundred thousand Russian
troops now crossed the frontier, and in a fierce battle
outside the gates of the capital the rebels were defeated*
The Russians were weakened by the terrible epidemic of
cholera which ravaged Europe in 1831, and by insur-
rections in their rear ; but when the siege of Warsaw
was begun in September, the city was unable to resist,
and an assault was forestalled by an offer of uncon-
ditional surrender* Nicholas would have preferred to
suppress Polish liberties en bloc ; but owing to protests
from England and France he substituted an Organic
Statute for his brother's constitution, a nominated
Council of State taking the place of the elected Diet*
Ruthless punishments were inflicted on the rebels, the
universities and schools were closed, and the country was
governed from St* Petersburg by a new Polish Depart-
ment, The plottings of exiles, the denunciations of
Mickiewicz, the national poet, and Lelewel, the national
historian, and futile risings were followed by the abo-
lition of the Organic Statute in 1847 ; and in 1846 the
tiny Republic of Cracow, the last relic of Polish inde-
pendence, was swallowed up in Austria* In 1863 a
second unsuccessful revolt was followed by the loss of
the last vestiges of liberty in Russian Poland*

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 27

IV

While the dead hand of Metternich and Nicholas lay
heavy on Europe, every movement towards national or
constitutional liberty was regarded as Jacobinism,
During the eighteenth century Hungary had enjoyed a
large measure of self-government ; and though the
Emperor Joseph struck out madly at Magyar consti-
tutional rights, his brother Leopold quickly restored
them* Though Hungary had aided Austria in the
struggle against Napoleon, the Emperor Francis used his
victory to extend the system of absolute rule from
Vienna to Budapest, His first step was to order a levy
of 35,000 recruits for the army, without requesting the
assent of the Diet, The attack on constitutional
privilege awakened the national spirit, and after a lively
contest Francis withdrew his claim, and summoned the
Diet in 1825,

The Magyar cause found a leader in Szechenyi, who
had fought as a young officer in the Napoleonic wars and
had subsequently travelled in France and England,
bringing back a living sense of the value of Parliamentary
institutions. His first speech in the Upper House struck
a new note ; for it was delivered in Hungarian instead
of Latin, hitherto the official language of the House of
Magnates, His next step was to found a Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, contributing for the purpose
one year's income from his immense estates. Refusing
to identify himself with any political party, he strove to
improve the economic condition of the country, " Do
not constantly trouble yourselves with the vanished
glories of the past/' he wrote, " but rather let your

28 NATIONALISM

patriotism aim at the prosperity of the beloved father-
land. Many there are who think that Hungary has
been ; but for my part I like to think that Hungary
shall be" Among his many achievements in the
economic field were the development of horse-breeding,
the encouragement of navigation on the Danube, and the
reclamation of swamps by the regulation of the Theiss,
It was mainly owing to his initiative that Buda-Pesth was
transformed into one of the finest capitals in Europe,
and that an imposing suspension bridge was built to
connect the two parts of the city. His unselfish
patriotism provided a model for the nobility, and his
determination to make Hungary a prosperous and
cultured state was the essential preliminary to a demand
for fuller political rights.

From 1825 to J84Q Szechenyi spoke for his com-
patriots ; but his concentration of effort on economic and
cultural progress could not satisfy the small gentry
and the bourgeoisie who clamoured for political advance.
The idea that material prosperity and political liberty
should be sought simultaneously was preached by
Kossuth and Deak, While Szechenyi was a wealthy
aristocrat, Kossuth belonged to the poorer class of
country gentry, and earned his living as a lawyer. He
became a national figure in 1832 when he circumvented
the Government veto on printed reports of the debates
in the Diet by writing out the speeches in his own hand
and having them copied. In vain did the Government
endeavour to stop the circulation ; and when the
session was over, Kossuth started a new manuscript
paper which reported the debates of the county assem-
blies, thus bringing the counties into touch and enabling

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 29

them to concert action against the authorities* The
fearless editor ignored the command to cease publication,
and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 1838,
Pardoned in 1840 at the urgent request of the Diet,
Kossuth founded the Pesti Hirlap in 1841, the first
political daily in Hungary, preaching the abolition of the
privileges of the nobility, and voicing the demands of
western liberalism with convincing eloquence,

Szechenyi declared that he had no objection to
Kossuth's programme, but that his methods led straight
to revolution. But the unyielding attitude of
Vienna and the conduct of the reactionary elements in
the House of Magnates strengthened the belief that a
policy of political neutrality was out of date, Kossuth
was elected to the diet of 1847-8, and proved himself even
greater as an orator than as a journalist. When the
wave of revolution started from Paris in 1848, he urged
the creation of a responsible Ministry ; but the Upper
House refused to support the demand, A few weeks
later the revolution spread to Vienna, and Metternich
fled in disguise. The Diet seized the opportunity to
demand constitutional Government, which was promptly
conceded by the Emperor Ferdinand, Authority was
entrusted to a Ministry responsible to Parliament,
equality before the law was established, the privileges of
the nobility were abolished, religious toleration and
freedom of the press guaranteed, and a National Guard
was created. The first ministry included the three
great leaders of Hungarian nationalism, Ssechenyi,
Kossuth and Deak ; but the soul of the National
Assembly created by the new Constitution was Kossuth,

The fair dawn was quickly overcast by the selfish

30 NATIONALISM

refusal of the Magyars to share their new-found liberties
with the non-Magyar races ; and the wise Szechenyi
accused Kossuth of goading them to madness against the
Magyar nation, A fierce racial war broke out in
Hungary, Slovaks and Roumanians, Croats and Serbs,
Saxons and Ruthenes alike rallying to the Hapsburg
dynasty, A Magyar army was quickly raised, and
Jellacic, the Ban of Croatia, who was marching on
Budapesth, was repulsed ; but Prince Windischgrats;,
having crushed the revolution in Vienna, invaded
Hungary, and occupied the capital. The Magyar
armies found a brilliant leader in Gorgei ; but when the
Parliament, led by Kossuth, declared the House of
Hapsburg to have forfeited its right to the Crown of
Hungary by invading the country, the Tsar Nicholas,
who regarded himself as the champion of legitimism,
despatched 200,000 Russian soldiers across the Car-
pathians, Gorgei surrendered at Vilagos, and Kossuth
sought refuge in Turkey, and finally, after a triumphant
tour through England and the United States, settled in
Italy, Wholesale executions followed the suppression
of the revolt, and the state of siege was continued for
five years, Kossuth's bold bid for national inde-
pendence was frustrated ; but the Magyars had won
self-consciousness in the struggle, and the songs of
Petofi, who had died on the battle-field, were sung in
secret till Hungary obtained independence in every-
thing but name by the Compromise of 1867,

While the revival of Hungarian nationalism was the
work of men of action, the renaissance of Bohemia was

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 31

due to the labours of a little band of scholars* In other
countries historical study has accompanied the revival of
national feeling ; in Bohemia it created it. Since the
battle of the White Hill in 1620 the country had lain
prostrate beneath the feet of its Austrian rulers, who had
spared no effort to stamp out every symbol and memory
of national life. A systematic destruction of Bohemian
books was begun, and a fanatical Jesuit boasted of having
burnt 60,000 volumes. The Czech language ceased to
be used for literary expression, its place being taken
by German and Latin, Every book published in the
Austrian dominions had to run the gauntlet of two
censors, one representing the Government, the other the
Church, Education was in the hands of the Jesuits,
whose aim was to make Bohemians forget that John Hus
ever existed. For almost two centuries the cultural life
of the country was smitten with paralysis. Among
the sins of the Hapsburgs there is none greater than
this truceless warfare against the soul of a people.

Though Joseph II was no friend of national aspira-
tions, it was during his reign that the first breach in the
iron system of repression was made. A Czech news-
paper was established in Prague, and foreign works were
allowed to appear in Czech translations, A Bohemian
Society of Sciences was established, which, though
German alone was used in its deliberations, revived the
interest in national history. Dobrovsky, a Jesuit, who
wrote in German and Latin, learnt Czech as a foreign
language, and, though destitute of national sentiment,
compiled a Bohemian grammar and a history of
Bohemian literature and language. With the opening
of the nineteenth century the scene changes rapidly, and

32 NATIONALISM

a tiny group of scholars, writing in their native language,
called the attention of the world to the literature and
history of Bohemia* " If the ceiling of this room were to
fall and crush us/' remarked one of them, " there would
be an end of the national movement/' Jungmann
wrote a history of Bohemian literature* Kollar, a
Slovak clergyman, sang the historic and legendary
glories of Slavdom in The Daughter of Slava, a vast
collection of sonnets* A treatise on Slavic Antiquities by
Safarik, another Slovak, was the first attempt to recover
the early history and culture of the Slavs*

By far the most influential member of the circle was
Palacky, the greatest of Slav historians and the chief
architect of the national consciousness. The child of
Lutheran Slovaks, he was brought up in the traditions of
the Bohemian Brothers, and introduced by Dobrovsky to
the few nobles who were interested in Bohemian history,
and by whom a National Museum had been established
at Prague in 1818 for the collection of artistic and literary
antiquities* When Palacky argued that the indifference
was rather the fault of the directors than of the people, he
was answered that it was too late to raise the Bohemian
nation from the dead* The young scholar replied that no
attempt was being made. In 1828 he founded a Journal
of the Museum, and the first-fruits of his studies were
contained in a volume on early Bohemian historians*
When he became aware of the wealth of material stored
in the dusty archives of the castles, he resolved to take
the whole of Bohemian history for his province. He
was appointed Historiographer with a salary ; and
though the appointment was vetoed at Vienna, the Diet
was allowed to defray the expenses of publication.

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 33

The first volume of The History of the Bohemian
People, published in 1836, idealised the culture of the
primitive Czechs ; but the work only attracted general
attention when the narrative reached the century of Hus.
While the reformer had been pilloried as a fanatic and
his followers as savages in German and Catholic
publications, Palacky revealed the nobility of the national
hero, and shewed that the cruelties of the Husite
Generals were surpassed by their enemies. The
volumes on the heroic era of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, with the resplendent figure of Hus in the
foreground, burst on his countrymen like a revelation,
and aroused corresponding resentment in Vienna. He
was compelled to suppress certain passages and to insert
interpolations from the censor's pen as his own work.
Shortly after this unworthy coercion of the great scholar
the Revolution of 1 848 broke out. The police censorship
being abolished, the historian restored the omissions
and expunged the interpolations. With Havlicek, the
greatest of Bohemian journalists, he was now the
authorised spokesman of his nation* He presided over
the first Pan-Slav Congress at Prague, the Slavonic
counterpart to the Frankfurt Parliament, and was elected
to the Constituent Assembly at Vienna. When abso-
lutism was restored, he returned to his study.

Palacky's first intention had been to bring his narra-
tive down to the fatal year 1620 ; but he finally deter-
mined to lay down his pen in 1526 with the accession of
the Hapsburgs. His experience of the Catholic censor
was sufficiently disagreeable. The guardian of the
prestige of the Hapsburgs would have added to his terrors
and rendered an account of the Reformation century

34 NATIONALISM

virtually impossible. Moreover he required ten
volumes even for his limited design. Written originally
in German the book appeared after 1848 simultaneously
in both languages, and on revision the early volumes
were translated into Czech, It was his aim and his
achievement to recreate the history of his country ; and
his work was not only a landmark in scholarship but a
political event, a trumpet-call to an oppressed nationality
to raise its head and prove itself worthy of its illustrious
past. His famous words in declining an invitation to the
Frankfurt Parliament in 1848, " If Austria ceased to
exist, it would be necessary to re-create her/' expressed
his conviction that the restoration of Bohemia's national
life could be realised within the ambit of the Hapsburg
Empire ; and the promise of Francis Joseph to be
crowned King at Prague delighted his closing years,
since he could not foresee that it would never be ful-
filled. But his loyalty to the dynasty was strictly con-
ditional, and his no less famous utterance, " An Austria
which oppresses the Slavs has lost its right to exist ;
before Austria was, Bohemia existed; after Austria,
Bohemia will be/' was often to be quoted when the proud
Empire of the Hapsburgs was stricken to the earth,

VI

The Union of Ireland and England was a war measure,
essential to victory in Pitt's judgment in the great
struggle against France, but possessing no moral validity
in the eyes of the Irish people. The Grattan Parlia-
ment, though consisting exclusively of Protestants,
embodied and expressed the ardent patriotism of a

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 35

gifted people ; and Emmet's rebellion in 1803 showed
that the Act of 1800 was a settlement by compulsion,
not consent, a union of institutions, not of hearts. It was
Pitt's misfortune that he was prevented by George III
from granting Catholic Emancipation at the same time
that he abolished the Legislature in Dublin, For almost
a generation Ireland lay bruised and helpless ; but in the
second quarter of the century two movements were to
show that the spirit of the nation was not dead, but
sleeping, Grattan declared that the best advice he could
give his fellow-citizens upon every occasion was to keep
knocking at the Union ; and in following his counsel
the Irish people have employed every method from
argument to insurrection,

Daniel O'Connell made his first public speech in 1800
at the age of twenty-five in a meeting of Catholics in
Dublin to protest against the Union ; and in 1823 ne
founded a Catholic Association, which raised " Catholic
rent0 for political propaganda. Though Catholics were
excluded from Parliament there was no law forbidding
them to stand ; and when the member for Clare, on
accepting a ministerial post, sought re-election, O'Connell
won an easy victory. Wisely refraining from presenting
himself at Westminster he remained in Ireland, holding
meetings and mobilising public opinion* The
Wellington Cabinet bent to the storm, and the King's
Speech of 1829 announced a bill for the removal of
Catholic disabilities, which was passed by a large
majority in the early weeks of the session. A re-
sounding though bloodless victory had been scored by
the efforts of a single man.

The triumph of his first campaign emboldened

36 NATIONALISM

O'Connell to embark on a more arduous adventure. On
the night that emancipation was voted a friend exclaimed
" Othello's occupation's gone/' " Gone ! " was the
reply* " Is there not a repeal of the Union ? " It was
not an afterthought ; for on the eve of his triumph he
declared that to obtain repeal he would give up emanci-
pation itself* The movement was inaugurated when at
the General Election of 1831 forty members were
returned to support the demand. He brought repeal
before the House in 1834 ; but with the sympathetic
Drummond as Under-Secretary he declared that he
would give the Union another chance. In 1840 the
leader threw his whole energies into the struggle
against " that odious and abominable measure/' and
founded the Repeal Association, He foretold that the
Act of Union would be repealed in 1841, and monster
meetings listened to the magic tones of the great
Tribune, In 1843 ne opened a debate in the Dublin
Corporation, which decided to petition for repeal. He
had always denounced the use of force in support of
national aims ; and when the Government forbade the
assembling of a mass meeting at Clontarf, near Dublin,
he loyally obeyed the order and avoided the shedding of
blood. He was prosecuted and sentenced to two years'
imprisonment, the people obeying his commands to
remain tranquil ; but though he was released after a few
months, he was now an old and broken man, and his
self-confidence was gone. The Government had
declined to yield, and he refused to appeal to force.
The state of the country filled him with dark foreboding,
and in 1846 the Great Famine began to cast its shadow
over the land. In 1847 he left Ireland to settle in Rome,

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 37

but died on the way in Genoa, leaving to his countrymen
the memory of a stainless and self-sacrificing patriotism.

When the Repeal movement collapsed with O'Connell's
surrender, the leadership of Irish nationalism passed into
the hands of a group of young men whose patriotism was
equal to that of the Liberator, but whose training and
temperament beckoned along other paths* While
O'Connell's achievement was to win full political rights
for his fellow-Catholics, " Young Ireland " laboured at
the political education of the country* The leading
spirits were a young Protestant barrister, Thomas Davis,
poet, journalist and historian, Gavan Duffy, and John
Blake Dillon, Duffy suggested to his friends the
foundation of a weekly journal ; and the prospectus
of The Nation, which began to appear in 1842,
announced that its object was to direct the popular mind
and the sympathies of educated men of all parties to the
great end of nationality* The movement was scarcely
less literary than political, and it was from the patriotic
poems of Davis and the articles of The Nation that
many of its readers learned to take an intelligent interest
in the history, literature and antiquities of their country,

Duffy, who was at once proprietor and editor,
gathered round him a brilliant staff, and the paper
combined ardent patriotism with solid instruction* The
campaign of enlightenment included cheap publications,
A collection of the songs and ballads published during
the first three months, entitled The Spirit of the
Nation, was sold for sixpence* The speeches of Curran
were edited by Davis with a biography of the great
advocate* Duffy produced " The Library of Ireland/'
a series of shilling volumes of biography, poetry and

38 NATIONALISM

criticism* For the first time the nation was invited
to drink deep at the wells of its spiritual life, to realise
its historic heritage, to rise above its ecclesiastical
divisions to a consciousness of its unity and a confidence
in its future* The response was immediate ; but the
death of Davis in 1845 at the age of thirty was an
irreparable loss* Moreover, while the programme of
enlightenment appealed to all schools of nationalism,
acute differences of opinion emerged as to the method
of obtaining self-government.

Such an educational crusade was complementary, not
antagonistic to the work of O'Connell ; but when the
Liberator in 1846 declared unconditionally against the
use of force, the eager young nationalists, though they
had no intention of employing it, formed a new associa-
tion called " The Irish Confederation/' differing from
the Repeal Association by its theoretical acceptance of
force* The cleavage was deepened by the adhesion of
Smith O'Brien, a member of Parliament of resolute
character, and later by James Lalor, who wrote incen-
diary articles in The Nation, till they were stopped by
the editor* " Young Ireland " now broke in two, John
Mitchel, the assistant editor, rallying to the standard of
Lalor and founding a new journal, The United Irishman,
in which he called on the people to " sweep the
island clear of the English name and nation*" When
1848, the Year of Revolutions, dawned, such incitements
to revolt could no longer be tolerated* The Nation
was suppressed, Mitchel was sentenced to fourteen
years' transportation, and after half-hearted and
ineffectual attempts at a rising the Young Ireland

THE AGE OF METTERNICH 39

leaders were arrested. Smith O'Brien and Meagher,
after being sentenced to death, were transported. Gavan
Duffy was tried ; but the prosecution was abandoned
and he lived to make a career in Victoria and to write in
old age the romantic history of " Young Ireland /'

CHAPTER III
THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY

ITALIAN nationalism dates from Napoleon, who in 1805
crowned himself King of Italy in Milan cathedral with
the iron crown of the Lombard kings* He did not indeed
bring independence ; but for the first time the inhabi-
tants of the peninsula realised that they were a nation,
On the fall of the Empire, Metternich became the master
of Italy; for in addition to governing Lombardy and
Venetia directly, Austrian princes ruled in Modena,
Parma and Tuscany, Austrian garrisons held Ferrara and
other cities in the North, and Ferdinand of Naples, who
had been restored to his throne by Austrian troops,
bound himself not to introduce methods of govern-
ment differing from those employed in Austria's Italian
possessions. The King of Piedmont, the only native
ruler in the peninsula, though disliking the Austrians,
shared their reactionary views in Church and State,

Such a regime was bound either to paralyse the nation
or to drive it to revolt ; and the ominous rumbling of
subterranean forces soon made itself heard. Secret
societies sprang up, chief among them the Carbonari,
who aimed at the expulsion of foreign rulers and the
establishment of constitutional government. The first
overt act of rebellion occurred in 1820, when a military
revolt forced the King of Naples to grant a constitution ;

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 41

but the autocracy was promptly restored by Austrian
troops* In 1821 a similar revolt took place in Piedmont,
and once more the constitutional movement was
suppressed by Austrian forces* Minor plots in
Lombardy and Venetia were ruthlessly punished by
Austria, and the poignant record of the imprisonment of
the poet Silvio Pellico aroused the sympathy of the
world* The protests of 1820-1 were repeated ten years
later when the expulsion of the Bourbons from France
encouraged the Carbonari to try again* The Papal rule
was overthrown in Romagna, a demand for a constitution
in Parma forced Marie Louise to abdicate, and a rising
occurred in Modena, But once more the Austrians
intervened, and the leaders were executed*

In 1831, while the fortunes of Italian liberty were at
their lowest ebb, Massini, a young Genoese, wrote to
Charles Albert on his accession to the throne of
Piedmont, passionately exhorting him to head the
movement for expelling the foreigner and uniting Italy,
The only reply was a prohibition to enter the territory
and Maszini, who had lost faith in Carbonarism, now
founded a society called Young Italy among the refugees
at Marseilles* The liberation of the country, he
taught, could only be secured by the united efforts of all
its parts ; but two raids into Piedmont in the hope of
seducing the army failed, and the Bandiera brothers,
who were members of the society, were captured and
shot when they landed in Calabria in 1844* During
these dark years the writings of Mazzini and Gioberti,
Cesare Balbo and Massimo d'Azeglio encouraged
their countrymen by reminding them of their past
prowess and by holding out the prospect of a united or

42 NATIONALISM

federated Italy free from the dead hand of the Austrian
oppressor*

A more hopeful era appeared to dawn with the election
in 1846 of Pope Pius IX ,, who enjoyed the reputation of a
Liberal bishop, and whose amnesty for political offences
and other mild reforms made him for the moment a
national hero. But greater events were soon to come*
In the opening days of January, 1848, revolts broke out at
Palermo and Naples ; and the King, unable to obtain
Austrian troops owing to the refusal of the Pope to allow
them to pass through his territory, granted a constitution.
The triumph in the South was repeated in the North,
In March, the King of Piedmont granted a constitution,
and the first Constitutional Ministry was formed by
Cesare Balbo, A few days later the Grand Duke of
Tuscany followed suit, and the flame spread to the
Austrian provinces. After a sanguinary struggle
Radetzky was driven out of Milan by the citizens, and in
Venice a republic was proclaimed by Manin, The rulers
of Parma and Modena fled from their capitals, and
provisional governments declared for annexation to
Piedmont, In Rome the Pope granted a new constitu-
tion, and pronounced a blessing on " Italy/' a term
which had been defined by Metternich as " a geographical
expression/' A declaration of war against Austria by
Charles Albert on March 23rd was followed by some
trifling successes ; but the expected help from Rome
and Naples was not forthcoming, and Radetsky,
strengthened by re-inforcements, defeated the Pied-
montese army, re-entered Milan, and concluded an
armistice by which Piedmont agreed to evacuate the
Austrian dominions, Manin was besieged in Venice,

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 43

and when Rossi, the head of the Ministry in Rome, was
murdered, the Pope sought refuge in the Kingdom of
Naples, and declined to return.

The bright dawn had been quickly overcast ; for
Italy's rulers were divided, and Austria was as strong as
ever. But the struggle was not yet over. Early in 1849
a Constituent Assembly in Rome proclaimed a republic,
with Massini as head of the Triumvirate ; and at the
same moment a republic was proclaimed in Tuscany, and
the Grand Duke fled to Naples, In March Charles
Albert renewed the war against Austria, but was at once
defeated by Radetzky at Novara and abdicated in favour
of his son Victor Emanuel. With Piedmont out of the
fight the national movement was doomed. After a
heroic defence of Rome by Garibaldi, the city was cap-
tured by a French army sent to restore the Pope, and
Venice was recaptured by the Austrians,

The year of revolutions ended with Austria once more
impregnably entrenched in the peninsula, her tools
restored to their thrones, and the Pope converted from
liberalism. But it left behind memories of darling
heroism, and the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the
nation. Moreover, Piedmont had revealed itself as the
natural leader, and the new King's desire to free Italy
from the Austrian yoke was an open secret. Best of all
Cavour, who had guided public opinion throughout the
crises from his editorial chair and from his place in
Parliament, entered the Ministry in 1850 and became
Prime Minister in 1852, His task was to reform the
finances, to prepare Parliament for the next attempt to
expel Austria, to discourage local risings, and to win the
sympathy of France and England for the cause of

44 NATIONALISM

Italian unity. To achieve the latter, though Piedmont
had no quarrel with Russia, fifteen thousand troops
joined the Allies in the Crimea, and Cavour brought the
Italian question before the Powers at the Congress of
Paris which concluded the war. Great Britain, though
not her sovereign, was friendly to the Italian cause, and
Gladstone's attack on Bourbon rule in Naples as
" the negation of God erected into a system of govern-
ment " echoed over Europe* Louis Napoleon, again,

\ had shared in the Carbonari rising of 1831, and his
sympathy with Italian ideals survived the attempt on
his life in January, 1858* Orsini's letter before his
execution, exhorting the Emperor to intervene in Italy,
and threatening him with death if he refused, bore fruit
in a secret meeting with Cavour in July, when a French

v army of two hundred thousand was promised for the
expulsion of the Austrians, whose Italian territory was
to pass to Piedmont, while France was to be rewarded
by Savoy and possibly Nice,

The failures of 1848-9 had proved that Austria could
not be expelled by the unaided efforts of Italy ; but now
that the strong arm of France was £gj^ec3p there was
no need to wait. On January ist, 1859, tne Emperor
remarked to the Austrian Ambassador at the New
Year's reception that he regretted that the relations of
France and Austria were not so good as they had been,
A few days later Victor Emanuel informed his Parlia-
ment that he could not remain deaf to the cry of pain
which reached his ears from other parts of Italy ; and at
the end of April Cavour manoeuvred Austria into a
declaration of war. The Austrians were defeated at
Magenta and Solferino ; but at this moment Louis

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 45

Napoleon, without consulting his ally, arranged an
/afmisSce jadtli-£rangg'~Josgpfa^ The losses had been
severe, the Austrian fortresses were strongly defended,
and the war was far from popular in France* Moreover
he feared the intervention of Prussia, and he had no
desire to create an Italian state strong enough to threaten
the Temporal Power . The infuriated Minister implored
his master to continue the war alone; but the King
wisely recognised that it was better to pocket Lombardy
than to stake everything on the struggle for Venetia.
The Emperor agreed that Lombardy should be ceded to
Piedmont, a milder regime introduced in Venetia,
the rulers of~Tuscany, Parma and Modena restored,
the Papal States reformed, and the Pope made
President of an Italian Confederation.

With the exception of the transfer of Lombardy the
political map was unchanged ; yet the realisation of the
national ideal was less distant than it appeared.
Piedmont had invited Tuscany to join in the war, and
when the Grand Duke refused Florence rose, its ruler
fled, a Provisional Government was formed under
Ricasoli, and Victor Emanuel accepted the protectorship
of the country, A Provisional Government was formed
in Modena, whose Duke had joined the Austrian army,
and Parma proclaimed its annexation to Piedmont.
Bologna raised the standard of revolt for Romagna and
the Marches, and a Royal Commissioner was sent to
take control. Cavour, who continued to pull the
strings from his retirement, secretly encouraged Ricasoli
and the other friends of union to hold what they had
won ; and in January, 1860, he resumed office, securing
by the cession of Savoy and Nice the Emperor's consent

46 NATIONALISM

to the annexation of central Italy, Members from the
new provinces took their place in the Parliament at
Turin in April ; and a month later Garibaldi embarked
with his Thousand from Quarto, near Genoa, on two
steamers and in three weeks entered Palermo, By the
end of July Sicily was in his power. In August he
crossed to the mainland and in September he entered
Naples without striking a blow* Fearing that an
attack on the Papal States would bring France on the
scene, and failing to convince Garibaldi of the danger,
Cavour determined to anticipate him. Piedmontese
troops defeated the Papal army at Castelfidardo, con-
quered Umbria and the Marches, and joined Garibaldi's
forces ; and in November Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi
entered Naples together, Gaeta held out till February,
1 86 1, when the first Italian Parliament met at Turin, and
Victor Emanuel was proclaimed King of Italy, The
new state included the whole peninsula except Venetia
and Rome,

The more difficult part of the work of unification had
been accomplished when Cavour died in June, 1861 ;
and all the world knew that another attempt to expel
Austria would be made as soon as a favourable oppor-
tunity occurred. The moment came in 1866, when
Bismarck, in view of the forthcoming struggle with
Austria, concluded an alliance with Italy, whose reward
was to be Venetia, Though Italy was defeated on land
at Custozza and by sea off the island of Lissa, Prussia's
overwhelming victory at Koniggratz won the war. It
was now necessary to wait for Rome, as it had been
necessary to wait for Venice, Garibaldi had attempted
a raid on Rome in 1862, when he was wounded and taken

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 47

prisoner by Victor Emanuel in a skirmish at Aspromonte ;
and in 1867 he renewed his attempt, but was defeated
by French and Papal troops at Mentana. The hour for
which cooler heads had waited struck in 1870* When
Napoleon *s power collapsed at Sedan, the Italian troops
broke through the walls, which were only defended by a
show of force ; and in 1872 the capital was transferred
to the Eternal City.

The unification of Italy had been carried out by
Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel, with assistance
from Napoleon III and Bismarck ; but the gospel of
Italian nationality had been proclaimed by Massini to
his countrymen and to the world before any one of these
actors appeared on the stage* No country which won its
liberty during the nineteenth century possessed so noble
a prophet as its spiritual father* Interpreting nationality
as a spiritual conception, he refused to consider it as an
end in itself. His doctrine of duty, of service to
humanity, was extended from the individual to the state.
" Nationality is sacred to me," he wrote, " because I see
in it the instrument of labour for the well-being and
progress of all men. Countries are the workshops of
humanity. A nation's life is not her own, but a force and
a function in the universal scheme of Providence.
Humanity is a great army, marching to the conquest of
unknown lands, against enemies both strong and cunning.
The peoples are its corps, each with its special operation
to carry out/' Looking round Europe he saw great
empires — Russia, Austria and Turkey — created or held
together by force, filled with human beings desiring to
escape from their yoke and to live under rulers of their
choice. The map of Europe, he taught, would have to be

48 NATIONALISM

remodelled, and states made as far as possible conter-
minous with nationalities.

Mazzini fully realised that race was not an essential
ingredient of nationality. He frankly declared that there
was not a spot in Europe inhabited by unmixed blood.
Living in Italy, with her clearly marked natural frontiers,
he laid great stress on geographical determination ;
and the spiritual heir of Dante was well aware of the
unifying influence of literature and language. But he
proclaimed that the basis of nationality was the popular
will ; and in preaching this doctrine he became the
founder of the theory of nationality in its purest form.
At this point most nationalists stop ; but Mazsini pro-
ceeds to issue orders for the conduct of its citizens.
Patriotism, like religion, must be revealed in its fruits.
" Let country be incarnated in each one of you ; let
each of you so act that in yourselves men may respect
and love your country. Flattery will never save a
country, the honour of which depends much more on
removing its faults than of boasting of its qualities/'

Believing in " God and the People " — the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man — Mazzini saw
Europe standing above the separate Powers as the Italy
of his dreams stood above Piedmont and Lombardy,
Venetia and Tuscany, the Papal States and the Kingdom
of Naples. No country could hold aloof, whether on the
material or the spiritual plane, without impoverishment.
" There exists in Europe a harmony of needs and wishes,
a common thought, a universal mind, which directs the
nations by convergent paths to the same goal. A nation's
growth depends on the trust that other peoples place in
it. I hate the monopolist, ursurping nation, that sees its

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 49

own strength and greatness only in the weakness and
poverty of others. No country can outrage liberty
abroad without nemesis/* The duty of one nation to
another, however, is not summed up in abstinence from
aggression. Non-intervention in the domestic affairs of
another would only be defensible if Europe consisted of
contented national states ; and even then it would be a
selfish creed. Human solidarity demanded that good
causes such as national independence and free institutions
should be supported and evil principles attacked by
men of good will wherever they were found, if necessary
at the cost of war. There would be no lasting peace till
Russia, Austria and Turkey released their hold on the
nationalities within their borders. And in the fulness
of time out of the mosaic of states would emerge " the
United States of Europe, the republican alliance of the
peoples, that great European federation whose task it is
to unite in one association all the political families of the
old world,"

Mazzini's doctrine of nationality was ennobled by his
faith in democracy and irradiated by his unshakeable
belief in Providence, Like all Liberal idealists he
believed that man is born with his face towards the light,
and that his better nature would have free play when
every nation enjoyed liberty and independence. With
our experience of the half-century that has elapsed since
his death we may be tempted to qualify his optimism.
But his example and his writings remain to remind later
devotees of the nationalist faith that the greatest
nationalist of the nineteenth century subordinated
nationality to the moral law and harnessed it to the
unselfish service of humanity.

50 NATIONALISM

II

The tide of national sentiment rose to a flood in
North Germany during the Wars of Liberation ; but
when Napoleon was overthrown the country entered on
a period of stagnation* The yoke of Metternich lay
heavy on the land, and King Frederick William III of
Prussia refused to fulfil his promise, given on the eve
of the Waterloo campaign, to grant a constitution.
Local explosions of discontent occurred at intervals,
such as the Wartburg gathering of the Students* Unions,
in 1817, and the revolts in Brunswick and Saxony in
1830, But they were expressions of a desire for consti-
tutional liberty, not for national unity ; and the demand
for the unification of Germany under Prussian leader-
ship was only voiced by isolated thinkers like Paul
Pfizer of Wiirttemberg, Such feeble consciousness of
unity as existed between the members of the Deutscher
Bund was mainly due to the spiritual treasures
bequeathed to their countrymen by Goethe and
Schiller, Lessing and Heine, Kant and Hegel, Bach and
Beethoven,

The wave of revolution set in motion by the Paris
mob in February, 1848, travelled swiftly eastwards, and
inspired the best minds in Germany to work for the
transformation of the anaemic and amorphous Bund into
a firmly-knit, powerful and self-governing state* The
men who gathered in St, Paul's Church at Frankfurt —
professors, lawyers, journalists — were the cream of the
Intellectuals ; and no country could boast of a larger
number of men of high character and distinction. But
the problem they had to face, like that which confronted

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 51

Cavour and Garibaldi, was insoluble on peaceful lines,
and the attempt to win unity and liberty by discussion
was a tragic failure* The educated middle classes
looked with envy on the constitutional liberties and
vigorous national life of Victorian England, and the
France of Louis Philippe ; and the professors were
almost to a man adherents of moderate liberalism* But
the King of Prussia, like most of the other rulers of
Germany, hated the conception of responsible govern-
ment, and Austria was irrevocably resolved to maintain
her position as the predominant partner in the Bund*
As the movement for unity and liberty represented a
single demand, so opposition to the one involved oppo-
sition to both.

The failure of the Frankfurt Parliament cleared the
stage for Bismarck* As the result of the division of
parties and the timidity of King Frederick William IV
Austria had re-established her power ; and though
Metternich had gone his spirit lived on in Schwarzen-
berg and Bach* In the fifties the " geographical
expressions " known as Germany and Italy found them-
selves in a similar predicament* Both were smarting
under disappointment and humiliation* Neither
country could call its soul its own till Austria was
extruded ; and, as she declined to go, it was necessary
to expel her by force of arms* The unification of
Italy in 1859-1860 was watched in Germany with an
n almost hungry desire for imitation* In the year after
i Cavour's death Bismarck was called to the post of Prime
Minister of Prussia by King William I* The two
greatest statesmen of the nineteenth century had to
solve similar problems, and they solved themj£by

52 NATIONALISM

similar means. The war with Austria was engineered as
skilfully by the one as the war with France by the other*
" If we did for ourselves what we do for our country/*
confessed Cavour with revealing frankness, " what
rascals we should be ! " The makers of kingdoms and
empires fight with different degrees of success, but they
employ the same kind of weapons*

When Bismarck entered political life as a member of
the United Diet of Prussia in 1847, the idea of a united
Germany had not dawned on his vision, and his guiding
principle during the constitutional struggle was to
defend the authority of the Crown against the encroach-
ments of democracy. But it was not long after his
arrival at Frankfurt in 1851 as Prussian envoy to the
Diet that his Prussian pride was outraged by the
unchallenged domination of Austria ; and before he was
transferred to the embassy at St. Petersburg in 1859, he
had mapped out the plan of campaign which he was
shortly to put into operation. Germany, he realised,
could never become a Great Power till she was mistress
of her own destinies ; and Prussia alone was strong
enough to expel her rival and to take her place as the
predominant partner in a close federation of German
States. The unification of Germany, he declared
shortly after assuming office, would be solved not by
speeches and resolutions but by blood and iron; and
within nine years the grim prophecy was fulfilled.

The first task of the new Prussian Government was t6
prepare the army for the struggle that lay before it ; and
when the Landtag, which regarded war with Austria as no
more than a distant possibility, refused the necessary
credits, the money was raised and spent without

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 53

Parliamentary sanction. While the constitutional
struggle was at its height the death of the childless King
of Denmark re-opened the Schleswig-Holstein question,
which had already led to war in 1849, The obstinate
refusal of Denmark to respect the autonomy of her
German provinces led to the mobilisation of the armed
strength of the Bund and the defeat of the Danes after
a spirited resistance, Austria and Prussia, on whom the
brunt of the war had fallen, repaid themselves by a
provisional division of the spoil. Such an arrangement,
however, contained within itself the germs of conflict,
and during 1865 both Powers began to prepare for the
decisive struggle. While Roon, the War Minister, per-
fected the Prussian army, it was Bismarck's task to secure
that when the guns went off the European situation
should be favourable to Prussian plans. Friendship with
Russia was the key-stone of his foreign policy, and his
active sympathy with the Tsardom during the Polish
revolt of 1863 gave evidence of his good feeling. The
support of Italy was purchased by the promise of Venetia.
France alone caused anxiety. He had no desire to buy
her neutrality if it could be had for nothing ; but he was
ready to discuss compensation if the Emperor assumed
a threatening attitude. The anticipated opposition of
the minor states of the Bund caused little apprehension ;
for their military forces were small, and they lacked unity
of control.

In the summer of 1866 the storm burst, France and
Russia stood aloof, Italy retained large Austrian forces
south of the Alps, the minor German states were over-
whelmed by a few swift blows, and the main Austrian
army was defeated at Koniggrats, The Austrian

54 NATIONALISM

commander Benedek was a beaten man before the battle,
for he knew nothing of the Bohemian terrain and vainly
craved permission to decline the supreme command*
If Moltke's genius won the battle, it was Bismarck who
won the campaign by compelling his master to stop the
war when he was dreaming of a triumphant entry into
Vienna* The French Emperor would inevitably
present a demand for compensation and might well
attempt to enforce it* Austria was defeated but not
crushed, and she had heavily defeated Italy by land and
sea* The object of the war was to expel the Hapsburgs
from the German Federation, and Francis Joseph was
willing to accept the logic of the stricken field* By
the wisest action of his life the great Minister sacrificed
the shadow for the substance, signed peace without
annexing an acre of Austrian soil, and thereby rendered
possible the resumption of friendly relations which were
to issue in the Dual Alliance thirteen years later*

Though Prussia took nothing from Austria but the
trifling indemnity, she enforced a wholesale re-arrange-
ment of the map of Germany* Schleswig-Holstein
naturally passed into her sole keeping, while Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, and Frankfurt were annexed* The
states of North and Central Germany were formed into
a North German Confederation under Prussian leader-
ship, and a Constitution was drawn up by Bismarck*
Though the power of the purse was entrusted to the
Reichstag, effective control rested with the Bundesrath
and with the Chancellor* The King of Prussia became
commander of the armies of the constituent states,
and by a series of secret treaties the armies of
Bavaria, Wiirttemberg and Baden agreed to join the

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 55

forces of the North German Confederation in the event
of war.

When Napoleon III instructed Benedetti, his
Ambassador at Berlin, to discuss compensations and
suggested that France might redress the balance by the
absorption of Belgium, Bismarck declined to pay ransom*
In 1867 a conflict on the fate of Luxemburg was avoided
with difficulty, and both sides began to regard war in
the near future as almost inevitable* But while Germany
perfected her army, the Emperor made no serious effort
to prepare the French army for a life and death struggle*
On the other hand, he attempted to secure an ally in the
Emperor Francis Joseph, who was still smarting under
his defeat by Prussia* But Austria feared that a war of
revenge against Prussia might bring in Russia on her
flank ; and an appeal to Victor Emanuel was equally
fruitless*

Napoleon III displayed a levity when the crisis arose
in 1870 which would have been indefensible had he
possessed an invincible army or a powerful ally* The
expulsion of Queen Isabella by her subjects in 1868 left
the throne of Spain vacant ; and after a brief experience
of a Republic General Prim offered the crown to Prince
Leopold of Hohensollern, a member of the Catholic and
South German branch of the family which had its seat
at Sigmaringen on the Danube, When the offer was
declined, Bismarck despatched an emissary to Madrid,
without his master's knowledge, to procure a renewal of
the offer* Prince Leopold was again invited and again,
in view of the passionate hostility of France to a Hohen-
zollern ruler in Spain, refused* Here the crisis would
have ended had Napoleon III been a statesman ; but he

56 NATIONALISM

craved dramatic restoration of his waning prestige.
Without the knowledge of Ollivier, his Prime Minister,
he telegraphed a demand that King William should veto
the acceptance of the Spanish throne by a member of his
family if the offer was ever renewed. No Great Power
could have been expected to concede such an imperti-
nent demand ; and the King, who had shown himself
straightforward and conciliatory throughout the crisis,
informed Benedetti that he had nothing to add to his
previous communications. The incident at Ems was
promptly reported in a telegram to Bismarck drawn up
by the King's secretary Abeken ; but the Chancellor, who
was dining with Moltke and Roon when it arrived,
instantly resolving to capitalise the Emperor's folly,
abbreviated the telegram, which, in his own words, he
transformed from an apology into a challenge. In its
published form the telegram suggested that the King of
Prussia had publicly affronted the French Ambassador ;
and on the following morning Napoleon III, after a
council at St, Cloud, signed a declaration of war.

The campaign was hardly begun when it was decided.
The Emperor surrendered with eighty thousand men
after the battle of Sedan on September 4th, and on
October 26th Mets was surrendered by Bazaine, who
capitulated with 170,000 men. The German armies
swept forward to the siege of Paris ; and despite the
efforts of Gambetta to turn the tide of victory by
organising fresh armies in the West, the capital was
starved into surrender in February, 1 87 1 , The challenge
of the French Emperor had sent a thrill of patriotic
emotion through Germany, and the South fought with
no less determination than the North, While the siege of

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 5?

Paris dragged its weary length through the winter
months Bismarck negotiated for the entrance of the
South German States into a resuscitated German
Empire* Baden had long been eager to enter into
partnership with the North, and Wiirttemberg was not
unwilling ; but King Ludwig of Bavaria required a
little coaxing* King William desired to end his days
as King of Prussia ; but the Crown Prince Frederick was
an enthusiast for the restoration of the Empire* The
Treaty of Frankfurt registered the results of the war,
which included the cession of Alsace and half of Lorraine
and an indemnity of two hundred millions,

Germany needed unity and liberty ; but she received
unity alone* Nothing was more natural, and yet
nothing was more pitiful, than the stampede of the
majority into the Government camp in 1866* The
needle-gun at Sadowa destroyed not only the
army of Benedek but the liberalism of Germany* The
bourgeoisie turned National-Liberal ; and when Sedan
had confirmed Sadowa it required strong nerves to oppose
the Man of Destiny* The transformation would have
occurred in any other people that suddenly realised the
dream of centuries and found itself, as the result of
two great wars, the strongest Power in Europe* In
millions of German hearts there was no other feeling
than that of proud thankfulness that their country was at
last a nation, and that the civil wars and foreign inva-
sions from which it had suffered throughout history were
at the end* It was not till some years had elapsed that
it became clear that Germany, like Italy, had been " too
quickly made," that her easy victories were working like
a subtle poison in the blood, and that the idealistic

58 NATIONALISM

liberalism of 1848 was being overlaid by a debasing
worship of power and riches. Keen-sighted and patri-
otic men like Mommsen openly lamented that the
accession of material strength was accompanied by a
decline in spiritual values.

If Mazzini shines forth as the inspired prophet of
Italian nationalism, Treitschke, the Bismarck of the
Chair, may stand for the cruder Teutonic variety. His
poems, which he began to write at the age of nine,
breathed a fervid patriotism, and his lectures at Leipsic
and Freiburg, like his early essays, glorified the architects
of German greatness, " We need an Emperor/' he cried
in his address on Fichte in 1863 ; " Austria cannot give
us what we want, for she is neither free nor German,"
A still greater effect was produced by his oration on the
jubilee of the battle of Leipsic, " One thing we still
lack — the state. Ours is the only people which possesses
no general legislation, which sends no representatives
to the meetings of the Powers, No salvo salutes the
German flag in a foreign port. Our country sails the
sea without colours, like a pirate/'

Treitschke demanded a Germany that should be not
only one Empire but one State, Prussia, like Piedmont,
was to swallow smaller states, who were the tools of
Austria or France, Prussia, he declared, had done
everything that was really great in Germany since 1648,
and was herself the supreme political achievement of the
German people. Only the Courts desired the continu-
ance of the existing system, which reduced Germany to a
geographical expression. He rejoiced in the annexation
of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, and regretted that Saxony
was allowed to survive. On the outbreak of war in 1870

UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY 59

he wrote, " What a humiliation we have escaped ! Had
not Bismarck so cleverly edited the telegram, the
King would have given way again /' His " Ode to the
Black Eagle " was the best war-song of the year, and
his pamphlet " What do we demand from France ? "
eloquently stated the demand for Alsace-Lorraine,
When his country was at length united he devoted
his strength to his History of Germany in the
Nineteenth Century, and to his lectures on Political
Science, which proclaimed in strident tones that the
State is Force,

CHAPTER IV
THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY

A FEW years after Germany had attained to her full
stature, the Christian races of the Balkan peninsula
revolted against their Turkish masters and, aided by the
strong arm of Russia, won in whole or in part their
emancipation from a cruel and degrading yoke,

I

It is an axiom of Roumanian patriots that their race
is descended from the Roman colony planted by
Trajan in distant Dacia, As a matter of fact the term
" Roman " possessed a political, not an ethnic signifi-
cance ; for the armies of the Empire were derived from
half the races of Europe, Yet the survival of a Latin
tongue on the shores of the Black Sea has created a feeling
of differentiation from the surrounding Slavs and linked
the Roumanians to Italy and still more to France as
co-heirs of Roman civilisation. For a thousand years
after the legions were recalled the land was a constant
prey to invaders ; but in the thirteenth century, after
the departure of the Tartar hordes, the principalities of
Moldavia and Wallachia were founded by native rulers.
Two centuries later the country was engulfed in the
Turkish flood ; but the Sultans were for the most part
content with tribute, and Roumania never suffered
from systematic denationalisation as most of the other

60

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 61

conquered Christian races . For a brief and brilliant
interval at the end of the sixteenth century Michael the
Brave, the national hero, after freeing the land from the
Turkish yoke, succeeded in uniting not only the two
Principalities but Transylvania under his sway ; but
after his murder in 1601 the Turks regained their hold,
governing the country through nominated native rulers.
With the eighteenth century a new system was introduced
which lasted from 1716 to 1822, the Sultan ruling
through pliable Greeks, known as Phanariots from the
Phanar or light-house district of Constantinople where
they resided* As each successive ruler paid heavily for
his post, it was the Sultan's interest to change them at
frequent intervals ; and during the century of their
sway their average tenure was three years* Govern-
ment by rapacious Greeks was strongly resented by the
Roumanians ; and the Greek revolt of 1821 frightened
the Sultan into nominating native rulers to both
principalities.

No sooner had the Roumanians evicted the detested
Phanariots than they were confronted with an attempt to
Russify their country. Roumania lay on the high road
from St. Petersburg and Moscow to Constantinople ; and
when the Tsar Nicholas dictated the Peace of Adrianople
to the Sultan in 1829, ne secured that the Hospodars
should be elected for life, and that full internal autonomy
should be conceded. These privileges were balanced by
an article empowering Russia to maintain a garrison in
the country till the Turkish indemnity was paid ; and
the occupation lasted six years. " The conquest of
Wallachia and Moldavia is superfluous/' wrote
Nesselrode, " for Russia is already their master/' Alien

62 NATIONALISM

rule produced its usual results* A society for the pro-
motion of national literature was founded in 1826, and
the first Roumanian newspaper appeared in 1829*
More books were written and read, and the liberalising
influence of France began to filter in* In 1848 the
revolutionary ferment encouraged the people to throw off
the Russian yoke, and a bloodless revolution in
Bucharest broke out* But Nicholas could hardly be
expected to tolerate revolution in a country which he
regarded as a vassal ; and a Russian army marched to
Bucharest* Russia and Turkey concluded a convention
limiting the reign of the Hospodars to seven years, and
substituting nomination by the Sultan and the Tsar for
election by the nobles*

The liberation of Roumania from Russia and Turkey
was the most abiding and beneficent result of the Crimean
War* The southern part of Bessarabia* which had been
annexed by Russia in 1812, was disgorged, and the
Danube was placed under a European Commission*
France and England desired to unite the two Princi-
palities into a single state as a barrier against Muscovite
aggression ; but the proposal was vetoed by Austria
and Turkey* A compromise was reached by referring
the decision to the people ; and the elections in both
Principalities resulted in an overwhelming majority
for union* The Powers merely conceded a central
committee for common affairs ; but the diplomatists
were circumvented by the people* In 1859 Moldavia
and Wallachia both elected Alexander Couza as their
ruler ; and two years later the Sultan gave his consent.
The new state, which was called Roumania* continued
to pay tribute to the Sultan, from whom the prince

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 63

received his investiture* Cousa was forced by his
subjects to abdicate in 1866 ; and Prince Charles of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was invited to succeed him.
" If you fail/' remarked Bismarck on the eve of the
Prince's departure, " you will at any rate store up some
interesting reminiscences/' But Prince Carol did not
fail* After a decade spent in developing the resources
of the country and creating an army, the opportunity
for which he was waiting came with the outbreak of the
Russo-Turkish war. In April, 1877 a secret convention
authorising the passage of Russian troops through
Roumanian territory provoked the Sultan to decree the
deposition of the Prince and to order the bombardment
of a Roumanian town by Turkish gunboats on the
Danube* The Prince replied with a declaration of war ;
but Russia declined his proffered assistance as super-
fluous. When Plevna proved impregnable the Tsar
begged for help, which was accorded on condition that
the Prince should command the troops of both Powers
before the fortress. Plevna fell at the end of the year
after a heroic defence. Though Russia could not have
won without Roumanian aid, the Tsar insisted on
re-annexing the portion of Bessarabia that he had been
obliged to surrender in 1856, compensating his allies
with the Dobrudja — a district of little value, largely
inhabited by Bulgarians, between the Danube and the
Black Sea — which he took from Turkey. But the blow
was softened by the recognition of Roumania as a
sovereign state, after nearly five centuries of Turkish
vassalage. Three years later, in 1881, the Prince
assumed the royal title, his crown being made of
Turkish cannon captured by his soldiers at Plevna.

64 NATIONALISM

II

Serbia, like Roumania, had won her autonomy befoye
she entered the rank of sovereign states in 1878* While
Roumanians point with pride to their Latin tongue,
Serbians recall the glories of Stephen Dushan — warrior,
statesman, lawgiver — whose dominions stretched from
the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth, from the Adriatic
to within sight of Adrianople* Bulgaria was a vassal,
and the Byzantine Empire had shrunk into a petty
principality* Master of the Balkan peninsula, Dushan
resolved to expel the Emperor and become the defender
of Constantinople against the infidel* In 1356 his
vanguard reached the suburbs of Constantinople, and
the feeble Emperor Palaeologus was incapable of
resistance* But at this moment the conqueror died of
fever or poison, and the Serbian host promptly returned
home* The memory of the national hero lived on to
inspire his people during the centuries of subjection
that lay before them ; and when King Milan declared
war on Bulgaria in 1885, the army marched to the
frontier with shouts of " Dushan*"

Serbian nationalism rests on historic tradition to a
greater degree than that of any other country* When
Stephen Dushan's strong hand was removed, his vast
empire broke up as rapidly as it had been formed ; and
in 1389 the Turks overthrew the Serbian army at the
battle of Kossovo, which decided the fate of the Balkan
peninsula for five centuries* When victory was
trembling in the balance the leader of one wing of the
Serbian army, jealous of his sovereign, rode off the field.
King Lazar perished in the fight, and the flower of

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 65

the aristocracy were cut to pieces* The events of this
terrible day are graven on the memory of every Serb,
and a. cycle of epic lays has preserved and embroidered
the treason of Vuk Brankovich, the death of King Lazar,
and the murder of Sultan Amurath by a Serb patriot in
the moment of victory* Serbia lingered on as a vassal
state till 1459, when it was merged in the Turkish Empire*
For the next three centuries and a half her history is a
blank*

The awakening of Serbia from her long sleep dates
from the declaration of war against Turkey by Austria
and Russia in 1788. Serb volunteers joined the
Imperial army, Belgrad fell* Bosnia was freed, Macedonia
and Albania rose, and it seemed as if the hour of Serbia's
resurrection was at hand* But the jealousies of the
Powers, the death of Joseph II, and the outbreak of the
French Revolution, brought the war of liberation to an
end, and Serbia was restored to the Turks* In 1804 a
massacre of Serbian leaders by the Janissaries prompted
Kara George (Black George, so called from his dark hair)
to raise the banner of revolt* The new leader, a pros-
perous pig-breeder, had served as a volunteer in the
Austrian army, and when the war was over he had joined
the brigands for a time in the mountains* Volunteers
flocked to his standard, Belgrad was captured, and the
yoke of the Janissaries, who had snapped their ringers at
the Sultan, was broken* Kara George, well aware that
his country could not stand alone, asked for nothing
more than autonomy, including the substitution of
Serbian for Turkish garrisons* The Sultan refused and
war broke out, Kara George was victorious, and when
Belgrad capitulated his followers revenged themselves

66 NATIONALISM

for the centuries of oppression by a wholesale massacre
of its Turkish inhabitants* The Sultan refused to
recognise the independence of his rebellious province,
and in 1812, when Russia's attention was claimed by the
Napoleonic invasion, Turkish armies swept over the land,
Kara George lost his nerve and fled to Austria, and after
a spirited struggle of eight years the nascent flame of
Serbian liberty was extinguished.

The flight of Kara George and many of his supporters
left Milosh Obrenovich the most influential man in the
country. Beginning life as a farm-servant he had
gained wealth, and distinguished himself in the war ;
but for the moment he bowed to the inevitable, and
accepted a governorship from the Turks, In 1815,
however, he revolted, and a fierce guerrilla war secured a
few privileges, among them permission to bear arms.
But the services of Milosh were tarnished in 1817, when
Kara George was assassinated on his return to his native
land. Thus began the terrible feud between Obrenovich
and Karageorgevich which was to complicate and
disgrace Serbian politics for nearly a century, Milosh
now assumed the title of Prince of Serbia, and declared
the title hereditary. Twelve years later the Treaty of
Adrianople, dictated by Russia to Turkey, decreed that
Serbia should be independent save for the payment of an
annual tribute and the occupation of the frontier
fortresses by Turkish garrisons. The dynasty was
recognised by the Sultan in 1830.

Milosh was the second founder of modern Serbia ;
but success made him a despot, and he was forced by his
subjects to abdicate in 1839, Three years later his son
Michael followed his father across the frontier, and

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 67

Alexander, the son of Kara George, was called to the
throne* The treaty of Paris registered a further
diminution of the power of the suzerain by placing the
rights and privileges of Serbia under the collective
guarantee of the Powers, and by forbidding armed inter-
vention without their consent* Two years later the
Prince was compelled to resign, and the aged Milosh,
who had been expelled in 1838, was recalled* On his
death in 1860 his son Michael, who had been expelled in
1842, found himself again on the throne* In 1867 the
Prince respectfully requested his suzerain to evacuate or
demolish the fortresses still garrisoned by Turkish
troops* The claim was supported by Austria and
England, and granted by the Sultan* With the departure
of the last Turkish soldier no material link except the
tribute connected Serbia with Constantinople,

A year later the best ruler of modern Serbia was
assassinated by partisans of the rival dynasty* The
National Assembly wrathfully decreed the permanent
exclusion of the Karageorgevich family from the throne,
and elected Milan, a lad of fourteen and the cousin of the
murdered prince* Serbian opinion insisted on joining
the revolt of the Balkan peoples against Turkey in 1876 ;
but the army proved no match for the Turks, and peace
was made early in 1877, a Russian ultimatum saving
the country from loss of territory and an indemnity*
When Russia herself declared war, Serbia re-opened
hostilities with better success* By the Treaty of San
Stefano she obtained the district of Nish and secured
Turkish recognition of her independence, which was
confirmed by the Powers in the Treaty of Berlin, Four

68 NATIONALISM

years later Prince Milan following the example of
Roumania, was proclaimed king*

III

When the Serbian kingdom collapsed on the fatal
field of Kossovo in 1389, the survivors of the battle
sought refuge on the Black Mountain — the beach, in
Gladstone's words, on which all that remained from the
wreck of Balkan freedom was cast up by the waves.
The border of black silk on the crimson cap worn by the
Montenegrins perpetuates the mourning. Though the
Turkish flood from time to time broke over the crags, and
Cetinje itself, founded in 1484 on the topmost plateau,
was more than once plundered by the Turks, the country
was never really conquered*

" O smallest among peoples J rough rock-throne
Of freedom I warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,
Great Tsernagora 1 never since thine own
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers/'

Tennyson's paean of 1877 was echoed by Gladstone in
1895, " In my deliberate opinion the traditions of
Montenegro exceed in glory those of Marathon and
Thermopylae, and all the war-traditions of the world/'
The independence of Montenegro was preserved not
only by her crags and the heroism of her children, but by
a peculiar system of government. When the last of the
Crnoievich dynasty, the son and husband of Venetian
ladies, resigned the crown in 1516, he confided the
administration to the Bishop, whose selection was ratified
by the people. The arrangement saved the country from

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 69

civil war between rival chieftains, and an ecclesiastic was
unlikely to succumb to the temptation of entering the
Mohammedan fold. The Prince-Bishop, himself
elected, was assisted by an elected Civil Governor who
undertook the defence of the country. After nearly
two centuries of harmonious operation this system was
strengthened by the introduction of the hereditary
principle. As the Prince-Bishop was forbidden to
marry, he was empowered to select his successor from
his relatives, and from 1696 nephew succeeded uncle in
unbroken line. The family selected for hereditary
rule was that of Danilo Petrovich, whose fortunes are as
closely associated with the history of the Black Mountain
as those of the Hohenzollerns with Prussia, Turkish
invasions continued throughout the eighteenth century ;
but the Montenegrins were adepts in guerrilla warfare,
and the Turks discovered that small armies were defeated
and large ones starved. The cession of Cattaro and the
whole of Dalmatia to Austria in 1797 on the fall of the
Venetian Republic was a cruel blow to the little state,
which had always looked forward to gaining the harbour
and the coast-line possessed by the Serb kingdom in the
days of its glory.

In the nineteenth century the administration was
further centralised by the abolition of the Civil Governor,
The office, which had existed since 1516, had become
hereditary in a noble family, and the dual control worked
smoothly enough till 1832, when an ambitious civilian
attempted to overthrow the Prince-Bishop, The plot
was discovered, the traitor was banished, and the office
was never filled up, A still greater constitutional change
occurred in 1851, when Danilo II, on his accession

70 NATIONALISM

surrendered his ecclesiastical functions* Montenegro
thus again became a secular state, and the crown was
enabled to pass from father to son in direct succession*
The change was sharply challenged by the Turks, who
had never recognised Montenegrin independence ; but
the invaders were heavily defeated. At the Congress of
Paris, though he had remained neutral in the Crimean
war, Danilo demanded the recognition of Montenegrin
independence by the Powers, an increase of territory
to north and south, and the cession of Antivari. The
Sultan offered a strip of Herzegovina and a civil list if he
would recognise Turkish suzerainty ; but though the
Prince was tempted to swallow the bait public opinion
rebelled. In 1858 a Turkish force of 7,000 men
attacked from the north ; but the army was almost
annihilated at Grahovo, the Marathon of Montenegro,
by Mirko, the brother of the Prince. Two years later,
Danilo was murdered, and he was succeeded by his
nephew Nicholas, in whose reign Montenegro was to
secure its juridical independence.

Prince Nicholas, who ascended the throne in 1860 at
the age of nineteen, was destined to rule his little
principality for sixty years and to become one of the
most celebrated of European rulers. As a patriotic
poet and the author of historical dramas, no less than
as lawgiver and warrior, he was the spokesman and
shepherd of his people. The successful war of 1858 had
borne no fruit ; but the great uprising of the Balkans in
1875 provided a more favourable opportunity. The
Prince had visited the Courts of Europe and had
obtained money from Russia which he spent on the army.
The main military objective in the war was to reach the

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 71

sea-coast, and Antivari and Dulcigno fell to his arms*
The Treaty of San Stefano, dictated by his friend the
Tsar, trebled the area of Montenegro ; but the Treaty
of Berlin diminished his gains to meet the objections of
Austria* The Black Mountain finally emerged with its
independence recognised by Turkey and with double the
area which it possessed before the war* The cession of
Antivari was resisted by its Albanian inhabitants ; and
the Powers therefore substituted Dulcigno, which*
however, the Sultan only disgorged when Gladstone
threatened him with the British fleet*

IV

While the Treaty of Berlin gave formal recognition to
the virtual independence which Roumania, Serbia and
Montenegro already enjoyed, a new and powerful state
sprang into existence at a single bound* The history of
the Balkan peninsula during the nineteenth century may
be defined as the disentangling of Christians from
Moslems and the differentiation of Christians from one
another* As the Turkish flood receded, a few spires and
towers began to appear above the waters* Greeks and
Serbs and Roumanians were clearly distinguished by the
middle of the century ; but Kinglake rode through
Bulgaria in the fifties without noticing the existence of
Bulgarians,

The Bulgars, a branch of the Asiatic stock to which
Turks, Magyars and Finns belong, crossed the Danube
from South Russia in the seventh century ; but though
they were merged in the Slavonic ocean which sur-
rounded them and their language was lost, they have

72 NATIONALISM

preserved the appearance and to some extent the
characteristics of their ancestors. Though they never
reached such a height as the Serbs under Stephen
Dushan, a powerful Bulgarian Empire existed in the
tenth and again in the thirteenth century. With the
Turkish conquest of the Balkan peninsula darkness
descended on the land, and the Bulgarian people were
forgotten for five centuries. The signal of deliverance
was sounded in 1870 when the Sultan, on the principle
of Divide et Impera, created an Exarch as the spiritual
head of the Bulgarians in the Turkish Empire, The
Greek Patriarch, from whose intolerant sway the
Bulgarians were thus at last removed, excommuni-
cated the Exarch and his flock ; but the ecclesiastical
differentiation supplied a nucleus around which a nation
could gather.

The revolt m Bosnia in 1875 excited and frightened the
Turks ; and the Bulgarians, anticipating an attack, rose in
in revolt. Their masters savagely retaliated, and the
Bulgarian atrocities, revealed by Edwin Pears, a young
lawyer practising in Constantinople, and denounced by
Gladstone, made the name of Bulgaria familiar to the
world, Bulgarian volunteers fought in the Russian
army, and the Treaty of San Stefano created a Bulgarian
state embracing not only Bulgaria proper, but
Thrace and Macedonia, excluding the two great cities
of Adrianople and Salonika. Though Austria had
remained neutral in the war, bribed by the promise of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, she had no wish to see a new
Power, created by and obedient to the Tsar, supreme
in the Balkan peninsula ; and, joining with Great
Britain, which Disraeli's Russophobia had brought to the

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 73

verge of war, she compelled Russia to submit the Treaty
of San Stefano to a Congress of the Powers at Berlin, on
the reasonable ground that the Eastern Question had
long been recognised as an European concern* While
the Powers made but minor changes relating to the other
Balkan states, the Bulgarian settlement was torn
to shreds. The territory assigned to Bulgaria at
San Stefano was divided into three parts — the
district north of the Balkans, with a population of
two millions, alone forming part of the new state ; that
to the south, known as Eastern Roumelia, with one
million souls, receiving autonomy under the Sultan;
while Macedonia was restored to Turkey, subject to
the promise of reforms to be carried out by the Sultan
under the supervision of the Powers, The boundaries
drawn at San Stefano assuredly provided Russia with the
machinery for dominating the Balkan peninsula and
disappointed legitimate Greek and Serbian claims ; but
they secured the emancipation of a very large Christian
population from the Turkish yoke. The Treaty of
Berlin, on the other hand, less concerned for the welfare
of the Balkan Christians than for the Balance of Power,
condemned Macedonia to remain the cockpit of the
peninsula and launched Bulgaria on her career with
nearly .half her people outside the fold.

Though Russia's plan of a Big Bulgaria had been
frustrated, her influence over the young state was
unchallengeable. The Tsar selected his nephew
Alexander of Battenberg for her first ruler, dictated
the policy of the Government, and controlled the army
through Russian officers. The high-handed conduct of
the Russians rapidly cooled the gratitude of the people

74 NATIONALISM

for their liberators, and the smouldering discontent
chilled the affection of St. Petersburg, The Prince
would never have dared to challenge the status quo ;
but his hand was forced in 1885 when the population of
Eastern Roumelia, which had never received the insti-
tutions designed for it by the Treaty of Berlin, rose
against the Sultan and annexed itself to Bulgaria, It was
a critical moment in the life of the young state ; for
the Sultan could hardly fail to vindicate his authority,
and Russia, no longer ruled by the warm-blooded
Liberator, but by his son Alexander III, encouraged
Turkey to reconquer her revolting province. But
Stambuloff, the Bismarck of the Balkans, warning his
master that if he did not advance to Philippopolis he must
retire to Darmstadt, was ready to take risks. Happily
for Bulgaria the change of ruler at St, Petersburg was
balanced by a change of ruler in Downing Street ; for the
Turcophil Disraeli was dead, and Salisbury had emanci-
pated himself from the influence of his old chief.
Fortified by the unhesitating advice of the British
Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir William White, the
Prime Minister threw his shield over Bulgaria, and
warned intruders off the course. If the foundation
of the Bulgarian state was the work of Russia, the
peaceful union of Eastern Roumelia with the mother-
land was rendered possible by the moral support of
Great Britain,

Though the dread menace of a Turkish invasion had
been removed, Bulgaria was by no means at the end of her
troubles. The sudden increase of her territory filled
Serbia with jealous rage, and King Milan promptly
declared war. The Bulgarian army was caught at a

THE LIQUIDATION OF TURKEY 75

disadvantage, as the Russian officers were recalled by
the angry Tsar ; but to the surprise of the world the
Serbians were routed at Slivnitza, and the march of the
victors towards Belgrad was only checked by an ulti-
matum from Vienna, The displeasure of the Tsar was
intensified by the victory of his rebellious nominee ; and
in 1886 Prince Alexander was kidnapped by Russian
officers. The Prince quickly returned to his capital ;
but his nerve was gone, and he submissively telegraphed
his readiness to abdicate. For several months the throne
went begging, till Stambuloff, the President of the
Assembly and head of the Regency, secured Ferdinand,
fifth son of the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and of
Princess Clementine, a daughter of Louis Philippe,
For a time the new ruler was recognised by none of the
Powers ; and the frowns of the Tsar determined
Stambuloff to seek the friendship of Turkey. The
methods of the great Minister, who was the real ruler of
the country from 1886 till his fall in 1894, were rough
and even brutal ; but it was under his sway that Bulgaria
emancipated herself from the stifling embrace of Russia
and became mistress of her own destinies. Like other
reactions, however, the pendulum swung too far. In
1894 Ferdinand felt himself strong enough to dismiss
his Bismarck, In 1895 Stambuloff was murdered ; and
in 1896 official Russian recognition was purchased by the
baptism of Prince Boris in the Orthodox faith, Ferdi-
nand was now recognised by the Tsar and his Turkish
suzerain, and the country made rapid progress under its
unloved but gifted ruler.

CHAPTER V
BEFORE THE GREAT WAR

WHILE the Balkan Christians were winning their emanci-
pation, Ireland renewed her efforts to revive her national
life. The years following the collapse of O'Connell, the
famine, and the revolt of 1848 were among the saddest in
modern Irish history ; and it was in this soil of indiffer-
ence and despair that Fenianism arose* The termination
of the American civil war set free thousands of Irish
soldiers, some of whom joined a secret organisation to
secure the Independence of Ireland, James Stephens
and most of the other leaders were arrested in 1863
before they had time to rebel ; but in 1867 a body of
Fenians assembled at Chester, with the apparent inten-
tion of seizing the castle and its military stores. Later
in the same year a van conveying Fenian prisoners was
attacked in Manchester, and the officer in charge was
shot. Shortly afterwards an explosion occurred in
Clerkenwell Prison, where some Fenians were confined.
These outrages compelled British statesmen to study
the causes of Irish discontent, and led directly to the
disestablishment of the Irish Church and the Land Act
of 1870,

In 1870 a meeting of men of all parties was held in a
Dublin hotel to consider the state of the country and to
concert measures for its improvement. A resolution,

76

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 77

" that the true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the
establishment of an Irish parliament, with full control
over our domestic affairs/' was proposed by Isaac
Butt, a Conservative, Protestant lawyer. That evening
witnessed the birth of the Home Rule movement*
* The Home Government Association of Ireland " was
formed, and striking victories were won by Butt's
candidates at by-elections* In 1873 a Conference was
held at Dublin, at which the name was changed to the
Home Rule League ; and in the election of 1874 sixty
Home Rulers were returned. The programme had been
set forth in Butt's pamphlet " Irish Federation/'
published in 1870, It was neither necessary, possible or
desirable, he argued, to repeal the Union. Ireland
asked for a subordinate Parliament, which would give
her all that was needed for the full development of her
national life, " The most discontented, the most
distracted, and the poorest country in Europe " asked
for nothing which could not equally be granted to
England and Scotland ; and before long the United
Kingdom would in all probability be transformed into
a federation, its local affairs being transacted by subor-
dinate Parliaments.

Butt's argument was conducted without a trace of
hostility to England, His distaste for violence was as
genuine as that of O'Connell, and he believed that a
modification of the Union could be secured by a reasoned
appeal to public opinion ; but the predominant partner,
busy with her own concerns, paid no attention to a
movement which confined itself to peaceful propaganda.
Moreover, Butt was no leader of men. He brought
Home Rule before Parliament session after session in able

78 NATIONALISM

and moderate speeches ; but the House treated him with
polite contempt* It was the task of other men to
transmute his academic demands into an irresistible
movement*

The first chapter in the history of the revolt against
the Union tells of O'Connell, the second of Young
Ireland, the third of the Fenians, the fourth of Isaac
Butt* The fifth opens in 1877 when Parnell, who had
entered Parliament in 1875, seised the reigns of the
Nationalist chariot. Though scarcely more than thirty
years of age, a Protestant and a landlord, he quickly
transformed a disorganised mob into a disciplined army.
The failure of the harvest in 1879 and the foundation of
the Land League by Michael Davitt reinforced the
political movement with the pent-up indignation of the
peasantry, while the systematic obstruction of business
at Westminster by Biggar, Parnell and a few other
importunate Nationalists compelled the most indifferent
legislator to occupy himself with the Irish question.
The creation of Rent Courts in 1881 failed to allay dis-
content, and a fierce struggle broke out between the
Nationalists and the Executive. The Phoenix Park
murders exasperated British opinion, while the imprison-
ment of their leaders infuriated Irish nationalism. The
futility of incessant Coercion Acts was becoming
obvious to both the historic parties. In 1884 Chamber-
lain began to advocate the creation of Irish Councils.
In 1885 the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carnarvon, had a
secret interview with Parnell, and gave him such satis-
factory assurances that the Irish vote was cast for
Conservative candidates in the autumn election* His
hopes were disappointed, for Carnarvon resigned, and

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 79

Salisbury declined Gladstone's offer of assistance in
carrying through Parliament a measure of autonomy.
At the close of the year it became known that the Liberal
leader had adopted Home Rule*

Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill, introduced in 1886,
was rejected in the House ; for an influential fraction of
Whigs and Liberals declined to follow their old chief,
sympathising with the fears of Ulster and distrusting
the character of the Nationalist leaders. The Liberal
party was reconstructed on a Home Rule basis ; but its
task was complicated by the divorce proceedings against
Parnell, which broke up the Nationalists into warring
factions. The rejection of the second Home Rule Bill
by the House of Lords in 1893 was in accordance with
British opinion ; and with the formation of a powerful
Coalition Ministry the triumph of Irish self-government
seemed indefinitely postponed. Yet the long delay was
not without its compensations. State-aided land
purchase terminated the warfare between landlord and
tenant, while the creation of County Councils in
1898 prepared the people for wider responsibilities,
and the Gaelic League revived the Irish language.

With the opening of the new century the serried
Unionist phalanx began to show signs of breaking up.
In 1901 the Chief Secretary, George Wyndham, invited
Sir Antony Macdonnell, a Catholic and a Home Ruler, to
work with him as a colleague rather than a subordinate ;
but their programme was wrecked by Sir Edward Carson.
Lord Dudley bravely proclaimed that his experience as
Lord Lieutenant had convinced him that Ireland must
be governed by Irish ideas. In 1903 Lord Dunraven
founded the Irish Reform Association to advocate the

8o NATIONALISM

establishment of a Financial Council and a Statutory
Body for dealing with local affairs* The Irish Council
Bill of 1907 was rejected by Nationalist opinion as
inadequate ; for the hope of full Home Rule had been
revived by the great Liberal victory of 1906* The
spectacular success of Campbell-Bannerman's grant of
self-government to the Transvaal and the Orange River
Colony exerted a profound effect on opinion throughout
the British Empire* After the power of the House of
Lords had been limited by the Parliament Act in 191 i,
the third Home Rule Bill was carried thrice through the
House of Commons and reached the Statute-Book at the
moment of the outbreak of the Great War, The long
delay, however* had bred a natural impatience ; and a
growing number of young men had already begun to
turn from constitutional nationalism to follow the
banners of Sinn Fein,

II

If the fortunes of Irish nationalism attracted the
attention of the Anglo-Saxon world, the struggles of the
Boers to live their own life unhampered by British
interference aroused sympathy in almost every country
outside the British Empire* The Napoleonic wars had
transferred Cape Colony from Holland to England ;
and after two decades of British rule a large number of
Boers trekked northwards into the unexplored country
and founded the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the
independence of which was at last recognised by Great
Britain in 1852 and 1854* It was a hazardous venture
for a few thousand Boers, armed only with their rifles,

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 81

to march a thousand miles into the Dark Continent ; and
wars with the natives strained their strength and their
finances to the uttermost*

By 1877 the difficulties of the Transvaal had become so
great that Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent to Pretoria
with power to annex the Republic* The pretext was
that the Boers were unable to cope with a native revolt,
and that the safety of British settlers in Natal was
endangered by the growth of the Zulu power ; but the
stealthy annexation of their country was bitterly resented
by the burghers, who vainly petitioned the British
Government for its reversal. Lord Carnarvon, the
Colonial Secretary, dreamed of federating the South
African Colonies, as he had helped to federate Canada ;
but he failed to realise the passionate attachment of the
Boers to their rude independence. Gladstone, on the
other hand, denounced the policy of annexation, and on
his return to office in 1880, the Boers naturally expected
that he would reverse it. He was, however, assured by
the British officials on the spot that the Boers were
becoming reconciled to the new order, and in an evil
moment he decided to accept the situation. The
Transvaal, which had given him time to carry out his
own policy, now rose in revolt. The Prime Minister,
realising that he had been grossly misinformed, at once
determined to open negotiations, and refused to allow
the repulse at Majuba Hill to interrupt them. The
annexation was annulled, and the Transvaal Republic
re-established, subject to the control of its foreign
relations.

The Dutch and British races in South Africa might
have lived in harmony but for the discovery of gold on the

82 NATIONALISM

Witwatersrand in 1886, and the mushroom growth of a
great cosmopolitan city within forty miles of Pretoria*
Fearing that the immigrants would swamp their national
life, the Boers excluded the newcomers, whom they
regarded as birds of passage, from any share in the
political life, despite the fact that the revenue was
mainly derived from their activities* Had the adminis-
tration been reasonably efficient, the anomaly might
perhaps have been tolerated ; but the re'gime of Presi-
dent Kruger was corrupt and obstructive. In vain did
Lord Loch, the High Commissioner, visit Pretoria in
1894 to warn the President that he must make con-
cessions ; and in vain did the more progressive Boers
throughout South Africa urge the need of reforms. The
tide was setting against Kruger, who barely held his own
against Joubert in the Presidential election of 1893.
But at the close of 1895 his position was rendered
impregnable by the Jameson Raid, engineered jointly
by the Outlanders and by Rhodes, and carried out by
the mounted police of the Chartered Company. The
raid was repulsed without difficulty ; but the whole of
South Africa was convulsed by racial passion. The
Dutch realised that they must stand together, and
Kruger was exalted into the symbol of national inde-
pendence.

The Transvaal had been treacherously annexed in 1877
and treacherously attacked in 1895 ; and it was only
common prudence to be prepared for further surprises*
Large guns and ammunition were ordered from Europe,
and in 1897 a military alliance was concluded with
the Orange Free State. The mischief of the Raid was
increased by the failure of the South Africa Committee,

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 83

which sat in London in 1897, to insist on the production
of all the relevant documents, and by the refusal of the
British Government to inflict any punishment on
Rhodes* The Dutch believed that Chamberlain, the
Colonial Secretary, had known of the conspiracy, and
that the missing telegrams would have proved it.

The relation of the two races became steadily worse,
and men in both camps began to talk of a war for the
supremacy of South Africa. Kruger was more resolved
than ever to keep the Outlanders at bay ; and Chamber-
lain's assertion of suzerainty, in a form at variance with
Lord Derby's concessions of 1884, strengthened his
conviction that Great Britain was resolved to incorporate
the Transvaal in the British Empire* " If I put the
Outlander on the box/' he argued, " how do I know that
he will not drive my carriage into Queen Victoria's
stables ? " With the arrival of Sir Alfred Milner as
High Commissioner in 1897 the situation became
critical* A monster petition from the Outlanders early
in 1899 extracted from Lord Salisbury's Ministry a
promise of intervention* Kruger and Milner met at
Bloemfontein ; but as each distrusted the other they
failed to reach a compromise* The discussion of the
terms of naturalisation and franchise reform lasted
through the summer, while both sides prepared for the
coming struggle.

In September troops were dispatched from England to
Capetown and from India to Durban, and on October
9th the Transvaal launched an ultimatum* The Orange
Free State joined its ally; but, after scoring some
successes in the opening months, the Boer forces fell
back before superior numbers. The two Republics

84 NATIONALISM

were annexed in 1900 after the occupation of their
capitals ; but the Boers, knowing every inch of the vast
territory and unencumbered by military impedimenta,
maintained a guerrilla warfare under the leadership of
Botha, De Wet and Delarey with a skill and courage that
compelled the admiration of the world. Neither over-
whelming numbers, nor the devastation of the country,
nor the terrible mortality among the children in the
Concentration Camps secured the unconditional
surrender which the British Government was for long
unwise enough to demand* But Kitchener had learned
to respect his brave foes, and the Treaty of Vereeniging,
signed in May, 1902, while registering the loss of their
independence, granted terms which brave men could
accept without humiliation.

The prolonged conflict turned a large part of South
Africa into a desert. The Boer prisoners were brought
back from India and St, Helena, and assisted by grants
and loans ; but the process of reconstruction was
slow, A new hope arose when the Liberal party
returned to office at the end of 1905 ; and in 1906 full
self-government was granted to the conquered republics.
The courageous generosity of the act struck the imagina-
tion of the world ; and the conviction of Campbell-
Bannerman that self-government alone could heal the
wounds of war was justified by events. The Transvaal
elections made General Botha Premier with a composite
Cabinet, But the interest of the four self-governing
colonies touched at many points ; and in 1908 a Con-
vention framed a constitution which was embodied in a
Statute by the British Parliament in 1909,

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 85

III

The struggles of subordinate nationalities usually
appeal to the sympathies of the outside world ; but in no
case has there been such a unanimous response as that
provoked by the efforts of the Finns to defend their
liberties* On the conquest of Finland in 1809,
Alexander I solemnly guaranteed the constitutional
rights enjoyed under Swedish rule* These promises
were confirmed by his successors ; and while Russia was
sunk in ignorance and poverty, the Grand Duchy pre-
sented a spectacle of liberty, culture and prosperity*
For a generation after the conquest the Swedes remained
predominant ; for wealth and prosperity were in their
hands, and they possessed a monopoly of education.
The birth of Finnish nationalism may be dated from
1835. when Lonnrot published the " Kalevala," a collec-
tion of folk songs gathered from the lips of the villagers.
Finnish became a literary language, and the linguistic
movement remained for two generations the symbol of
national advance. Finnish books and newspapers
made their appearance, and educated Finns discarded
Swedish for their own tongue. Official recognition by
the Russian Government followed. In 1863 Finnish
was permitted in the Diet and Courts ; in 1886 in official
correspondence ; in 1894 in the Senate*

When the native culture had emancipated itself
from Swedish domination, the Grand Duchy was
summoned to a far more arduous struggle. Finland was
governed by the Tsar as Grand Duke, by a Russian
Governor-General, by a Finnish Secretary at St.
Petersburg, by a nominated Senate, and by a Diet of

86 NATIONALISM

four Estates, — the nobles, the clergy, the burghers and
the peasants. Effective Home Rule was enjoyed ; the
conditions of military service were light ; and the army
remained within the frontiers, Finland was content
with her lot ; but to the fanatical champions of Russi-
fi cation who came into power after the death of Alexander
II the semi-independent little Duchy almost at the
gates of the capital was an offence* " One law, one
church, one tongue " was the ideal of Alexander III and
of his tutor Pobiedonostseff, the Procurator of the Holy
Synod ; and the generals complained that Finland, while
enjoying the protection of the Russian Empire, was
escaping the burden of national defence. Towards the
end of his reign encroachments began to be made ; but
the systematic attack on Finnish liberties was opened
with the appointment of Bobrikoff as Governor-General
in 1898. The Finns, while consenting to increase the
army, rejected the proposal to merge it in the Russian
legions; but the change was carried through by
Kuropatkin, the Minister of War. It was decreed that
Bills need only be submitted to the Diet if they concerned
Finland alone. The postal system was amalgamated
with that of Russia, the censorship was tightened, and
the Russian language and police were introduced.
These infractions were at first met by passive resistance ;
but in 1904 Bobrikoff, the symbol and agent of Russian
repression, was assassinated.

An impressive protest by the most distinguished
jurists of Europe produced no effect ; but when revo-
lution broke out in Russia in 1905, a national strike,
engineered by the Socialists, secured the abolition of
conscription, the restoration of autonomy, and the grant

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 87

of a democratic constitution with a Single Chamber,
Woman Suffrage and Proportional Representation*
The new Diet met in 1907 ; but by this time Stolypin
was in the saddle, and it was dissolved in 1908* An
ordinance transferred the control of all matters con-
cerning the Russian Empire as a whole to the Russian
Ministry, and abrogated the right of the Finnish
Secretary to report to the Tsar, Finland could now
only wait till her oppressor was once again in diffi-
culties*

IV

No less vigorous was the resistance offered by the
Poles to their Prussian taskmasters, Prussian policy
had oscillated between repression and conciliation ; but
Bismarck's quarrel with the Catholics embittered him
against the Poles, In 1886 a Land Commission was
established at Posen to plant German settlers in Polish
districts at the expense of the State, The campaign was
costly and ineffective ; for in some cases the Poles bought
a second estate with the proceeds of the first, while in
others they refused to sell to German bidders. The
latter obstacle was removed in 1908 when the Govern-
ment carried an Expropriation Act, empowering the
Land Commission to buy what it needed at its own
price. The policy was described by Prince Biilow as a
measure of defence, necessitated by the fact that the
Polish rabbits bred more rapidly than the German
hares ; and he expressed himself as satisfied if the
number of German settlers was not diminished. Subsi-
dised colonisation was not the only weapon in the

88 NATIONALISM

Prussian armoury ; but the attack on the Polish language
was no more successful, and in 1906 popular resentment
flared up. The children declined to answer questions in
German, and finally refused to attend school* The
Government punished and suppressed the school strikes
by fines, expulsions and imprisonment ; but the result
was to strengthen the determination of the Poles to
defend the symbol of their nationality against all comers.

As Turkish misrule was the parent of nationalism in
the Balkans, so the intervention of the Powers on behalf
of the Christian subjects of the Sultan gave rise in turn
to Ottoman nationalism. When the Young Turks
rose against Abdul Hamid in 1908 they were hailed with
enthusiasm as reformers. But though reform was on
their programme, the mainspring of their movement was
the resolve to strengthen the Turkish state against the
encroachments of the Powers. When Great Britain's
determination to secure decent government in Mace-
donia was re-affirmed in 1908 and the appointment of a
Christian Governor foreshadowed, they realised that the
province would slip from Turkish grasp unless decisive
action was promptly taken. Operating from their
headquarters at Salonika the Committee of Union and
Progress had carried their propaganda far and wide at
the risk of their lives before the Sultan heard of it. When
the despot prepared to strike, part of the army in
Macedonia mutinied, and the leaders proclaimed the
Constitution of 1876. The panic-stricken Sultan
yielded to the threat of a march on the capital ; the

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 89

warring races and religions joined in celebrating the
downfall of their common enemy ; and a Parliament
modelled on Midhat's short-lived Assembly met at
Constantinople,

It seemed for a moment as if a rejuvenated Turkey
might take its place beside the young Christian states of
the Balkans ; but the honeymoon was brief. In October
Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria threw off the overlordship
of Turkey, and Austria-Hungary proclaimed the formal
incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Hapsburg
dominions. The Young Turks accepted a financial
indemnity from both Powers ; but their pride was deeply
wounded and their prestige received a damaging blow.
That Christian Powers took selfish advantage of the
internal crisis strengthened the determination of the
Committee to resist the tendencies to autonomy which
had so often proved the road to separation, A new
spirit of efficiency was introduced into the public
services, and certain irritating features of the old regime,
such as internal passports, were swept away ; but these
improvements were outweighed by an iron system of
centralisation.

The Young Turks had made many enemies by their
revolt and still more by their rule ; and the Old Turks
resented the domination of men who took little pains to
conceal their contempt for the faith and precepts of Islam,
In April, 1909 a revolution broke out in Constantinople,
and the Young Turks fled for their lives. But the
Macedonian troops remained loyal to the Committee, and
within a fortnight Shevket Pasha fought his way into the
capital, Abdul Hamid was deposed, and his brother
was brought forth from his gilded cage to fill the throne.

go NATIONALISM

The victory of the Young Turks was decisive ; but the
warning that would have led wiser men to modify their
course was thrown away. The inhabitants of Macedonia
were roughly disarmed, Albania was goaded into revolt,
and the authors of a hideous massacre of Armenians
remained unpunished. The brief reforming chapter was
over, and the Young Turks set to work to create an armed
and centralised Empire capable of playing a leading part
in the politics of Europe,

In 1912 the Balkan States determined that the time
had come to drive Turkey out of Macedonia and Thrace,
if not out of Europe, Serbia and Bulgaria signed a treaty
under Russian auspices arranging not only for military
co-operation, but for the partition of Macedonia in the
event of victory, Greece, which had been rescued from
political anarchy by Venezelos, agreed to join in the attack
but, like Montenegro, entered into no covenant as to the
division of the liberated territory. To the amazement of
the world Turkey collapsed before the impetuous
onslaught, and was driven out of Macedonia and Thrace ;
but the victorious allies quarrelled over the spoils, and
Bulgaria was compelled to sign the Treaty of Bucharest,
which left her with a territory and population no greater
than she had possessed before the war. But though all
the other Balkan States emerged with extended frontiers,
not one of them as yet embraced the whole territory to
which it laid claim.

The expulsion of Turkey from Macedonia left Albania
without a master, Scutari had fallen to Montenegro
after a long siege ; but King Nicholas was evicted by the
Powers, as Serbia, who had occupied Durazzo, was
compelled by Austrian and Italian threats to withdraw

BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 91

from the Adriatic* The virile qualities of the Albanians
had been praised by every traveller, and the high-
landers had proved law-abiding citizens in Greece, where
they had settled in large numbers* But though Turkish
rule had been little more than nominal, they lacked the
conditions necessary for an independent state ; for a
double line of cleavage ran through the country* A
large part of the population at the time of the Turkish
conquest had bartered their faith for the right to carry
arms and other privileges* The Christians, in turn, are
divided between Catholics in the North and Orthodox
in the South* A still greater obstacle to unity is the
system of clans, in which loyalty to the chief leaves little
room for devotion to the fatherland* Add to these
difficulties a poor and undeveloped country, without
roads, railways or harbours, and with a population
deliberately kept illiterate by the Turks, and we shall
understand why the Powers made the new state a ward
of the Powers under Prince Wilhelm of Wied* The
Prince had just time to exhibit his unfitness for the post
when the great war broke out and he fled from Duraszo*

CHAPTER VI
THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST

IN the realm of ideas there are neither frontiers nor
custom-houses ; and during the latter part of the
nineteenth century the principles of self-determination,
which is the essence of nationalism, spread far beyond
the confines of Europe. Throughout Asia two currents
have been clearly visible. On the one hand there is a
desire to imitate the West, to learn the secret of its
power, to borrow its mechanical skill. On the other
there is a deep-seated determination to retain and even
to emphasise traditional ideals and characteristics. The
awakening of the East has resulted from the appro-
priation of the ideas and methods of the West ; but the
most enduring result is the affirmation of its own
personality.

I

The sensational development of national self-con-
sciousness in Asia is mainly due to the emergence of
Japan from her hermit life, when the arrival of
Commodore Perry's American squadron in 1854 com-
pelled her to open her doors. The last of the Shoguns
resigned in 1867, the power of the Mikado was restored
after an eclipse of more than two centuries, the Daimios
surrendered their privileges, and the remains of
feudalism were abolished by decree in 1871. A mission

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 93

to Europe, consisting of Ito and other open-eyed young
nobles, brought back some of the exportable elements of
civilisation. An efficient army and navy were created,
compulsory education introduced, and the judicial
system reformed. The first Parliament met at Tokio in
1890, and in 1894 Great Britain, by consenting to the
abolition of ex-territorial rights, led the way in the
recognition of Japan as a civilised state.

The birth of a Great Power in the • Far East was
proclaimed from the cannon's mouth in 1894. The
weakness of Korea was a perpetual temptation to her
neighbours ; and Japan invited China to co-operate in
demanding reform. When China declined, Japan
peremptorily summoned Korea to accept a programme of
reforms. Seoul was taken and the Emperor imprisoned,
and when China intervened she was easily defeated on
land and sea. The capture of Port Arthur compelled
Li Hung Chang to sue for peace, and on the fall of Wei-
hai-Wei the war was over. China ceded to Japan the
Liao-Tung peninsula and the island of Formosa, and
promised a large indemnity ; but the ink of the treaty was
hardly dry when Russia, France and Germany ordered
the victor to disgorge the Liao-Tung peninsula, on the
excuse that Port Arthur in foreign hands threatened the
independence of Pekin. The resentment rose to boiling-
point two years later when Russia herself seized the
coveted stronghold.

The emergence of Japan as an efficient fighting
machine, and the seizure of Port Arthur by Russia,
rendered a conflict between the two aggressive empires
almost inevitable. Prince Ito believed that an alliance
with Russia was both possible and desirable ; but the

94 NATIONALISM

majority of the Elder Statesmen favoured an alliance
with the power which had first surrendered its claim
to ex-territoriality, had stood aloof from the robber band
in 1895, and had shared in the indignation aroused by
the seizure of Port Arthur* The tightening grip of the
Russian bear on North China after the Boxer revolt of
1900 caused the keenest apprehension to both Powers, —
to Great Britain on account of her trade, to Japan
on account of Korea* After long negotiations in Lon-
don between the Japanese Ambassador and Lord
Lansdowne, a treaty was signed in January, 1902*
Though the name of Russia did not occur in the docu-
ment, it was none the less a mutual insurance against her
aggression* Japan's admission to partnership with a
great European Power gave her a position which had
never been attained by any Oriental State, and assured
her that in the event of war with Russia her ally would
keep the ring*

Russia's promise to evacuate Manchuria had not been
fulfilled ; and highly-placed speculators obtained a
concession to cut timber on the banks of the Yalu, the
river dividing Korea from Manchuria* In 1903 Japan
suggested a treaty safeguarding her rival's interests in
Manchuria and defining her own claims in Korea ; but
the Russian Government, neglecting the warnings of
Witte, was in no mood for compromise* The conflict
was opened in February, 1904, without a declaration of
war by an attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur ;
and its course was watched by the whole world with
amazement* Few expected Japan to display such
perfect organisation and such irresistible bravery, and
few were prepared for the blundering incompetence of

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 95

Russia. For the Japanese it was a national struggle for
clearly defined objects, and the conflict ranged in part
over ground familiar to her since 1894. Port Arthur was
captured after a long siege, while the main Japanese army
crossed the Yalu and in a series of battles drove the enemy
beyond Mukden. The struggle was concluded on
May yth, 1905, when the Russian fleet on its way to
Vladivostock was annihilated by Togo in the straits of
Tsushima, between Korea and Japan. By the Treaty of
Portsmouth Russia recognised the claims of Japan in
Korea, ceded the Liao-Tung peninsula and the southern
half of Sakhalin, and provided for the evacuation of
Manchuria. The victory of Japan over Russia is the
most important event in the modern history of Asia.
The ringleader of the Powers which had been engaged
in carving China into slices was overthrown in single
combat, and the achievement thrilled Asia with a con-
fidence and self-respect she had never known.

The solidarity and patriotic pride which enabled
Japan to raise herself in a generation to an equality with
the strongest and most civilised Powers of the Old and
New World, had their roots deep down in the soil of
national character and tradition ; for, while eager to learn
the secrets of the West, she jealously preserved her
beliefs and principles. Nowhere in the modern world
has such devotion to the dynasty been shown as in the
land whose Imperial family has borne sway for twenty-
five centuries in unbroken descent. Next to the cult of
the Mikado, as a source of national inspiration, ranks
the worship of ancestors. It was a revelation to the
West when the heroes of the war of 1904-5 attributed
their victories not to their own prowess and preparations,

96 NATIONALISM

but to the virtues of their Emperor and the spirits of
their ancestors. The subordination of the individual
to the community is the mark of the East ; but nowhere
is it carried to a greater height of romantic self-sacrifice
than in the theory and practice of modern Japan,

II

The defeat of China by Japan in 1894 convinced the
young Emperor that changes were needed in the oldest
and most populous state in the world ; and he lent a ready
ear to the proposals of Kang Yu Wei for national edu-
cation and the introduction of western ideas. The
reform movement, however, was blighted from the start
by the simultaneous encroachments of the European
Powers. China was compelled to lease Kiao-chou to
Germany, nominally in compensation for the murder of
two missionaries ; Russia obtained a lease of Port
Arthur ; and Great Britain, not to be outdone, acquired
Wai-hei-Wai, and an extension of territory opposite
Hong-Kong. France secured a concession near Tonkin ;
but when Italy asked for a bay the Government plucked
up courage to refuse.

Foreign influence became anathema to the people,
and a society called the Boxers, who claimed to be
invulnerable, spread rapidly through the provinces,
preaching death to foreigners. They were supported by
the Dowager-Empress, Tzu Hsi, who resumed the
Regency and annulled the reform decrees. Attacks on
Europeans began in 1899 and became frequent in the
early months of 1900. Pekin was surrounded by
Boxer troops, and the Legations were closely besieged.

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 97

The destruction of the Taku forts, which had fired on the
allied warships, was treated by China as a declaration of
war* The Imperial troops now joined the Boxers, the
German Ambassador was murdered in the streets of
Pekin, and the European residents, who had taken refuge
in the British Legation, were bombarded* The Lega-
tions were rescued after a terrible siege of two months.
The allies insisted on the punishment of the ring-
leaders, the dismantling of the forts between Pekin and
the coast, and the payment of large indemnities.

The victory of Japan over Russia in 1905 opened a new
chapter in the history of China. The reactionary
nationalism which had culminated in the Boxer rising
gave place to enthusiasm for western learning and western
methods. Decrees were issued condemning foot-
binding, approving inter-marriage between Manchus
and Chinese, abolishing literary examinations for
official employment, and forbidding torture and muti-
lation. Railways were built, schools were opened,
Japanese instructors were imported, and students
flocked to foreign Universities. Provincial assemblies
were established in 1909, a National Assembly, com-
posed chiefly of officials and nominees, met at Pekin in
1910, and the Manchu dynasty was deposed in 1912,
The first Parliament met in 1913, and, after a revolt in the
south had been suppressed, elected Yuan Shi Kai as the
first President of the Republic. Still more remarkable
as an evidence of reforming zeal was the crusade against
opium. Though the changes have been on the whole
disappointing in their results, there could be no more
doubt as to the abiding vitality of the race and for its
desire for national self-determination*

98 NATIONALISM

III

If the mutiny may be regarded as the first explosion of
Indian sentiment against the domination of an alien
race, it was not till the closing decades of the nineteenth
century that the intellectual elite of the different races
and provinces of the vast peninsula began to be
conscious of their unity. When English education was
introduced, Macaulay, at any rate, was well aware
whither it would lead. " If you supply them with
education/' he predicted, " you will create ambitions ;
and if you create ambitions, you must provide the means
for their satisf action. " Never was a forecast more
accurately fulfilled.

The idea of a Parliament first took shape in the brain
of one of India's alien governors. Allan Hume had
become convinced during the rule of Lord Lytton that
some definite action was necessary to counteract the
growth of unrest ; and in 1883, after retiring from the
public service, he summoned the Graduates of Calcutta
University to lead a movement for reform. " In vain
may aliens like myself love India and her children. We
lack the essential of nationality, and the real work must
ever be done by the people of the country themselves."
He asked for fifty Founders, and obtained them from all
parts of the country. The members of " The Indian
National Union " were agreed " in holding the continued
affiliation of India to Great Britain, at any rate for a
period far exceeding the range of any practical political
forecast, to be absolutely essential to the interests of our
own national development." After a visit to England
to consult proved friends of India, among them Lord

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 99

Ripon and John Bright, Hume returned to take part in
the first annual session of the Indian National Congress
at Bombay in December, 1885, The Congress asked
for the admission of elected members to the Viceroy's
and Local Legislative Councils, the discussion of
Budgets by such enlarged Councils, the right to inter-
pellate the Executive, and the creation of a Standing
Committee of the House of Commons. Every one of
the demands was ultimately to be conceded, and Hume
declared that " the people of India was at last a nation/'
The sun seemed to be shining on his work ; for Lord
Dufferin told him that it would be a public benefit if the
Government could be kept informed of the best Indian
public opinion through some responsible organisation.
At the second Congress, held in Calcutta, the Viceroy
publicly displayed his sympathy by inviting the members
to a garden party ; and in 1888 a similar compliment
was paid by the Governor of Madras.

Hume was grateful for, but not satisfied with, ^pfficial
smiles ; and in 1888, obsessed by the misery of the
masses, he determined to awaken the authorities to the
urgency of the case by active propaganda. The
Government, hitherto sympathetic, now drew back in
alarm, and the Congress passed into opposition. The
frowns of Simla encouraged the influence of the Left ;
but for twenty years the Congress followed the path of
constitutional agitation which its founder had marked out
for it. Its leaders, — Dadabhai Naoroji, for some years
a Member of Parliament, Sir Pherozesha Mehta,
Surendranath Banerjee, " the Gladstone of India," and
above all Gokhale — were men of high character and
statesmanlike vision, and in happier days were destined to

ioo NATIONALISM

become the trusted advisers of the British Raj, The
Mohammedan community stood aloof from the Congress
till nearly a generation had passed.

The Indian Councils Act of 1892 increased the
nominated Indian members of the Viceroy's and Provin-
cial Councils and strengthened the non-official element ;
but no further advance was made towards meeting the
Congress demands during the rule of Lord Elgin, whose
attention was claimed by frontier wars and famine, or
of Lord Curzon, who had little sympathy with the
aspirations of educated Indians. With the return of
the Liberal party to power in 1906 a new era opened.
While a campaign of repression against the extreme
Left was undertaken by Lord Minto, a far-reaching
scheme of reform was being elaborated by the Secretary
of State, Lord Morley. By the Councils Act of 1909 a
large addition was made to the membership of the
Viceroy's and Provincial Legislative Councils, an official
majority being retained in the former alone, and special
safeguards for the Mohammedan majority being inserted.
The Executive Councils of Madras and Bombay were
enlarged from two members to four, one to be an Indian,
and Executive Councils were foreshadowed for the other
provinces. Greater latitude was permitted in criticism
and debate. Of even higher importance was the
appointment of Sinha, the leading barrister of Calcutta,
as Legal Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, and
of two Indians to the Council of the Secretary of State.
Though the reforms failed to mollify the root and
branch opponents of British rule, they fulfilled Lord
Morley's precept, " Rally the Moderates," and opened
up a fruitful field of co-operation between the bureau-

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 101

cracy and the leaders of public opinion* The national
Congress had split at its meeting at Surat in 1907, the
followers of Tilak parting company with the Gokhale
moderates. That Lord Hardinge desired to work the
new system in the spirit of its authors was shown by his
cordial reception of Sir William Wedderburn as President
of the National Congress, and his resolute championship
of the rights of Indians in South Africa ; while the can-
celling of the worst features of Lord Curson's partition
of Bengal, announced by King George at his coronation
at Delhi, which was restored to its historic position as
the capital of India, revealed a desire to respect the senti-
ment of Indian nationality*

IV

At the beginning of the twentieth century Persia awoke
from her long sleep* Muzaffer-ed-Din, who ascended
the throne in 1890, was an amiable but effeminate ruler,
squandering his country's resources in costly journeys
to Europe and for the first time incurring a foreign debt*
In 1891 a passionate outcry greeted the grant of a
Tobacco Monopoly to an English company, and the
concession was revoked at the cost of half a million*
But in 1899 the custom houses were placed under the
control of Belgian officials, and in 1900 and 1902 Russian
loans were negotiated on onerous terms* The gradual
mortgaging of the country to Russia was watched with
jealousy by Great Britain, and with indignation by the
long-suffering Persians ; and in 1905 a number of
merchants and mullahs took sanctuary in a mosque in
protest against the Grand Vizier* When the Shah

102 NATIONALISM

promised to dismiss his adviser, the protesters returned ;
but the Minister remained, A second Bast took place in
1906, when about 14,000 indignant citizens took refuge
in the grounds of the British Legation ; but this time
the demand was for a Parli ament.

The Shah bent to the storm, and granted a consti-
tution. Newspapers were issued, political clubs sprang
into life, and a National Assembly met at Teheran. In
the following year Muzaffer-ed-Din died, and was
succeeded by his son Mohammed Ali, who had a bad
record as Governor of Tabriz. The first Budget cut
down pensions and sinecures, and turned the annual
deficit into a surplus without fresh taxation. The
reduction of the Civil List intensified the Shah's detesta-
tion of a meddling Parliament, and his Ministers' heads
were only saved by the intervention of the British
chargk d'affaires. In 1908 an attempt was made on his
life, and he fled to his Summer Palace, whence he carried
out a coup d'etat with the aid of Colonel Liakoff and the
" Cossack Brigade/' a native force under the command of
Russian officers. The Parliament House was bom-
barded, Liakhoff was appointed Military Governor of
the Capital, and the reformers fled for their lives. The
Constitutionalists held out in Tabriz during the winter,
closely invested by the royalist forces. When the fall
of the city was imminent, Russian troops crossed the
frontier to its relief. About the same time the Baktiaris,
a fighting tribe of the South, fought their way to the
capital and compelled the Shah to abdicate. His youth-
ful son was placed on the throne under a Regent educated
at Balliol, the Parliament was recalled, and the work of
reform resumed.

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 103

The expulsion of the treacherous autocrat facilitated
the task of the reformers ; but the Treasury was empty
and the actors inexperienced. Accordingly in 1911,
Mr, Shuster, an American of high character and ability
selected by President Taft, was invited to assume control
of the finances, and quickly gained the affectionate con-
fidence of his employers. For a moment it seemed as if
a new day might dawn for Persia ; but Russia had no
desire for a solvent and self-respecting Persia, which
would resist political encroachments and economic
penetration. The Anglo-Russian treaty of 1907 had
terminated the antagonism of the two Powers ; and
Russian concessions in Afghanistan were balanced by
British concessions in Persia, The Russian sphere
embraced the north and centre, which included the
richest and most populous districts and the three large
cities of Tabriz, Teheran and Ispahan, the British being
confined to the south and east. Each Power undertook
to seek no political or commercial concessions in the
other's sphere, though in the neutral zone both Powers
might compete. The Treaty explicitly recognised Persia
as an independent state ; and the economic claims of the
signatories in the respective spheres of influence carried
with them no political rights,

Mr, Shuster considered himself the servant of the
Persian Government by which he was appointed and
paid ; but he quickly discovered that the real obstacle to
success lay not in Teheran but in St, Petersburg, " I
was early offered the plain choice/' he wrote in his
poignant narrative, The Strangling of Persia, " between
serving the Persian people and only appearing to
do so, while actually serving foreign interests bent on

104 NATIONALISM

Persia's national destruction/' Collisions were inevit-
able, and, after eight months of uphill but fruitful effort,
the Treasurer was chased out of the country by a Russian
ultimatum which was approved by Sir Edward Grey,
It may be freely admitted that Persia had long fallen from
her high estate ; that many members of the Consti-
tutionalist party were selfish and some were corrupt ;
that Mr. Shuster might have paid more consideration to
Russian susceptibilities, however much he despised her
selfish aims. But it was an outrage that when Persia,
after centuries of oppression, began to feel herself a nation
and to struggle to her feet, she was hurled back by a
Power which had solemnly recognised her independence.
With Mr. Shuster 's expulsion the country relapsed into
anarchy, from which a Swedish gendarmerie was to
make unavailing efforts to rescue it. Meanwhile Russian
troops were entrenched in the north, which became in
everything but name a province of the Russian Empire
till the outbreak of the Great War. The collapse of
Russia delivered Persia from her oppressor, and in 1919
an Anglo-Persian treaty committed her fortunes into
the keeping of Great Britain.

Egypt belongs to the East by religion if not by geo-
graphy ; and the ferment of nationalism has been felt
in the valley of the Nile no less than in India and Persia.
The extravagance of the Khedive Ismail led to the
establishment of the Dual Control of France and Great
Britain, his principal creditors, and to his deposition by
Abdul-Hamid in 1879. His son, Tewfik, was an

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 105

amiable mediocrity ; the peasantry were in debt ; the
country was bankrupt, and alien creditors were in posses-
sion. No self-respecting Egyptian looked to Constanti-
nople for deliverance ; for the Sultan was merely waiting
for a pretext to recover the authority which his pre-
decessors had been compelled to delegate to the Albanian
adventurer Mehemet Ali and his successors. Egypt
was ripe for revolt against both Turkish and European
domination.

Early in 1881 Arabi and two other Colonels were sum-
moned before a court-martial for insubordination. They
were rescued by their soldiers during the proceedings ;
and in September they obtained a change of Ministry and
the summoning of the Chamber of Notables by a demon-
stration before the Khedive 's palace. The movement
had begun as a protest against the monopoly of the
higher positions by Turks ; and in April, 1882, forty
Turkish officers were court-martialled by order of Arabi,
now Minister of War, and exiled to the Sudan. The
Khedive's refusal to sanction the sentence prompted the
Cabinet to recall the Chamber of Notables in order to
depose the Khedive. The Notables, however, fearing
European intervention, declined to act ; and the
Cabinet resigned. The atmosphere was electric, and a
spark might set it aflame.

Though the crisis arose from the antagonism of native
to Turkish officers, the movement had broadened out
into hostility to all foreigners. Great Britain and France
had addressed a warning note to the Government in
January ; but no attention was paid to it, and in May the
British and French fleets sailed to Alexandria to protect
the lives and interests of Europeans. In June the mob

io6 NATIONALISM

of Alexandria rose, pillaged and massacred ; and in July
the British Admiral bombarded the forts of the city,
France having withdrawn at the last moment* Arabi
and his friends took up the challenge and prepared to
resist further attacks. The Sultan declined the invitation
of the Powers to quell the revolt, fearing to send his
troops against Mussulmans, who were resisting Christian
aggression* The rebellion was suppressed by Wolseley's
victory at Tel-el-Kebir, and the leaders were tried and
condemned to death ; but the sentence was commuted
to banishment by the Khedive, acting on the advice of
Lord Dufferin, who had been sent as High Commissioner
to report and advise.

Our verdict on the rebellion will depend in some
measure on our estimate of its leader. Was Arabi a
selfish and ambitious intriguer, as destitute of political
talent as of personal courage ? Or shall we look at him
through the spectacles of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, the life-long
champion of Egyptian nationalism, to whose efforts in
securing the services of an English barrister and in
mobilising British opinion was mainly due the pre-
servation of his life ? Whatever may be thought of the
nationalist leader, the movement, as Lord Cromer
frankly admitted, was " in its essence a genuine revolt
against misgovernment." Egypt had good right to
complain of Khedivial misgovernment, of the Turkish
preferences of the Court, of the tutelage of foreign
financiers. But the movement was marred by selfish
and violent courses, and its result was to rivet the alien
yoke on the country.

After the substitution of the British Occupation for the
Dual Control Egyptian nationalism, paralysed by the

THE AWAKENING OF THE EAST 107

banishment of its leaders and the presence of a British
garrison, slumbered for twenty years* In 1905,
towards the end of Lord Cromer's long rule, a new
generation arose, led by Mustapha Kamel, and approved
by the Khedive Abbas II, who had never concealed his
repugnance for the British occupation * An attack on
some British officers while pigeon-shooting in the village
of Denshawai, followed by public executions and
floggings, revealed and increased the growing embitter-
ment. Mustapha Kamel died in 1908 at the age of
thirty-four, and left no unchallenged successor, while the
Khedive's friendship with Sir Eldon Gorst deprived the
nationalist opposition of official patronage. When Lord
Kitchener reached Cairo in 1911 the country appeared
to regain something of the tranquillity of Lord Cromer's
middle years ; but a storm was brewing in Europe which
was soon to plunge Egypt into the fiery cauldron of war*

CHAPTER VI

ARMAGEDDON

THE Great War of 1914 is connected with the history
and development of nationalism in several ways. Firstly,
it was the result of the resolve of various nations, great
and small, to realise their territorial and commercial
ambitions, at whatever cost to the peace of the world.
In the second place, the sufferings of Belgium and Serbia
focussed attention on the fortunes, the dangers and the
aspirations of small nations. Thirdly, the proclamation
by a thousand voices that the Allies were fighting for the
principle of self-determination awoke or encouraged
dreams of independence. And finally, the collapse of
four powerful Empires paved the way for the creation of
new states and the consolidation of racial units.

The defeat of Germany naturally carried with it the
recovery of the provinces lost by France in 1871 , It was
true that Alsace and Lorraine had formed a portion of
the Holy Roman Empire for many centuries, that parts
of them had been won by France by arms, and that
Alsace was German by blood and language ; but it was
also true that a powerful sentiment of loyalty and
attachment had grown up since the French Revolution,
and that the thirty-six representatives in the French

zot

ARMAGEDDON 109

Chamber registered a solemn protest against their
forcible transfer. The rapid development of the mineral
wealth by German brains and capital brought material
prosperity ; but the conquerors ruled with a heavy hand,
and the attempt to stifle Francophil sentiments in the
army, the schools and the administration produced the
inevitable result of keeping them alive. What proportion
of the population in 1919 desired to remain within the
German Empire, to return to France, or to become an
independent state will never be known, for France in her
hour of victory declined a plebiscite as peremptorily as
Germany had done in 1871,

A second result of the German debacle was to enable
Denmark to recover the portion of North Schleswig in
which Danes form the majority, Schleswig and
Holstein enjoyed autonomy under the Danish crown
till, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the King
endeavoured to incorporate them in a centralised state.
The population, which was overwhelmingly German,
turned to the Bund for assistance ; and though the revolt
of 1849 was a failure, that of 1864 was crowned with
success. The Danes were defeated by Prussia and
Austria, who proceeded to divide the spoils. By the
Treaty of Prague in 1865 Prussia undertook to consult
the inhabitants of North Schleswig whether they desired
to rejoin Denmark ; but in the following year Austria
was expelled from the German Confederation, and in
1879 Prussia declared the obligation of 1865 to be can-
celled. The iron uniformity of Hohensollern rule
produced no less resentment among the Danes of
Schleswig than among the French of Lorraine ; but not
until every boundary in Europe was thrown into the

no NATIONALISM

melting-pot in 1914, did the opportunity arise of
restoring the 150,000 Danes of North Schleswig to the
motherland* The Danish Government welcomed the
principle of a plebiscite, the province being divided for
the purpose into three zones ; and while the northern
territory naturally returned a majority for Denmark, the
central or Flensborg area elected to remain German.

In addition to surrender of territory on the west and
north, Germany has been compelled to disgorge almost
the whole of the territory which fell to her in the
partitions of Poland, The larger part of the provinces of
Posen and West Prussia pass to the new Polish state,
Danzig being placed under a High Commissioner
responsible to the League of Nations, though forming
part commercially of Poland. The fate of Eastern
Silesia, which contains a Polish majority but formed no
part of the Polish Kingdom, was referred by a plebiscite.

II

The overthrow of Russia has contributed to the
realisation of national aspirations in a far larger degree
than that of Germany ; for not far short of half her
population differed in blood, language or religion from
the dominant type of Orthodox Slav. The sword has
ploughed deep furrows in Eastern Europe, and we may
watch the infant struggles of a litter of states, some
already recognised, others clamouring for recognition.

On the outbreak of war the Russian Government,
instead of winning the goodwill of Finland by the respect
of her constitutional rights, continued her suicidal policy
of denationalisation. When the Tsardom collapsed

ARMAGEDDON in

Finland seized the opportunity to abolish the Senate and
make the Diet supreme , while admitting the continuance
of Russian control of the army and foreign policy,
Kerensky retaliated by dissolving the Diet ; but on his
overthrow the independence of Finland was recognised
by the Bolsheviks* But the joyful realisation of her
nationhood was quickly marred by a savage civil war,
aided if not kindled by the Bolsheviks, and only
terminated by the intervention of German troops at the
request of the hard-pressed " White " army and the
bourgeoisie* For a brief space the Finns toyed with
the notion of a Teutonic King ; but on the defeat of
Germany in the West they returned to their democratic
traditions and established a Republic,

While the claims of Finland had long been widely
known, it was not till the Great War that the world
became aware of the national aspirations of the Baltic
Provinces. Esthonia, Livonia and Courland have for
centuries been the pawns and victims of their
neighbours ; and their history is the record of their
successive domination by Teutonic Knights, Swedes and
Russians, A Russian victory would have riveted the
yoke of Petrograd, and a German triumph would have
made them serfs of Potsdam ; but the collapse of both
Empires provided the unexpected opportunity of an
independent life. The three Baltic Provinces are
inhabited by two races, and there are to-day, therefore,
only two states, Esthonia is of the same racial stock as
the Finns across the Gulf, and has maintained its
language and individuality intact. Like other subject
nationalities of Russia, the Esthonians raised their heads
in 1905, but were quickly suppressed. On the fall of the

ii3 NATIONALISM

Tsardom in 1917 the Diet was summoned by the
Kerensky Government and asked to become a federal
member of the Russian Republic* When the Peace of
Brest-Litovsk severed the link with Russia, Germany
undertook to decide the future government in accordance
with the wishes of the population* German troops
entered and occupied the country during 1918 ; but on
the collapse of their new masters the Esthonians declared
their independence, and established the government of
the Republic at Reval.

Livonia and Courland have united to form the
Republic of Latvia, with Riga for its capital. While the
Esthonians belong to the Asiatic stock of which the Finns
and the Tartars, the Magyars and the Bulgarians are
branches, the Letts are survivors of the Baits, from
whom the Baltic derived its name, and who are equi-
distant from the Teuton and the Slav members of the
Indo-European family* Till a generation ago Livonia
and Courland were a German enclave in Russia ; for
though only six per cent* of the population was German,
most of the land, wealth and culture was possessed by
the descendants of the Teutonic Knights. Thus the
peasantry was Lettish, the aristocracy German, and
the sovereignty Russian. Though the bureaucracy
and the schools were Russianised at the end of the nine-
teenth century, and the German University of Dorpat
was degraded into a Russian high school, the social and
economic domination of the Germans Barons remained
unchanged ; and when the peasantry rose in revolt in
1905 the dominant races made common cause.
Courland was conquered by Germany at the beginning
of the great war, and Livonia at the end. Like Esthonia

ARMAGEDDON 113

they were severed from Russia by the Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk and drawn within the German orbit, only to be
released by the Teutonic debacle a few months later*

The outbreak of a world war opened up a prospect for
the Poles to regain their place among the nations of
Europe. The Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-
Chief of the Russian armies, issued an eloquent
Proclamation promising reunion under the Russian
flag ; but the Tsar took no steps to win the confidence of
his Polish subjects, who placed no reliance on the
promises of their oppressor, and whose goal was no
longer a precarious autonomy but complete independ-
ence. So profound, indeed, was the antagonism that
ardent patriots under the lead of Pilsudski crossed the
border and fought in the Austrian army against the Tsar*
Terrible as was the suffering involved in the conquest
of Poland by the Central Powers in 1915, few Polish
tears were shed at the defeat of Russia. The first and
longest step towards their national emancipation had been
taken.

The Poles met the invaders with courage and
dignity ; and it suited the interests of the Central
Powers to make concessions to Polish nationality.
Town Councils were permitted in Warsaw and other
cities, and Polish lectures were delivered in Warsaw and
Vilna. After long negotiations the German and Austrian
Emperors proclaimed in the autumn of 1916 the creation
of an independent Poland, postponing the delimitation
of its frontiers and the selection of its ruler to a later date*
The Russian revolution in 1917 and the cession of Poland
by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk relieved the country of
further apprehension from the east ; and the collapse of

ii4 NATIONALISM

her new masters in 1918 removed her oppressors on the
west and south. It was a dramatic moment when the
tortured Poles could look round on the three Powers who
had torn their country to pieces and see their proud
empires lying in the dust* With Russia, Germany and
Austria defeated, the way was at last clear for an inde-
pendent Poland. General Piludski, the national hero,
became the first President of the Republic, and
Paderewski, the most celebrated of living Poles, the first
Prime Minister. The reappearance of Poland as a
sovereign state after more than a century of partition
and subjugation may be regarded as the greatest con-
structive result of the war.

For four centuries Lithuania was linked to Poland by a
common ruler ; and after it fell to Russia in the
Partitions the Lithuanian Poles — among them Kosciusko,
Mickiewicz and Sienkiewics — have done their full share
in keeping alive the soul of the Polish nation. But
though the landowning nobility and the Vilna Intel-
lectuals are Poles, the Lithuanian peasant is of widely
different stock, closely related in blood and language to
their Lettish neighbours. Till the middle of the nine-
teenth century the country was held to be Polish, its
newspapers appearing in Polish, and the University
of Vilna being Polish till its suppression. But the
language survived among the peasantry and was fostered
by the clergy. The subject races of Russia have had
to fight on two fronts, — the Finns against Swedes and
Russians, the Letts against Germans and Russians, the
Lithuanians against Poles and Russians. Lithuania
raised her voice in 1905, and a National Assembly at
Vilna begged for autonomy and secured the recognition of

ARMAGEDDON 115

its language. But with the failure of the reform move-
ment the province fell back into vassalage, and only
emerged after the collapse of Russia and Germany* It
is for the new Republic to decide whether it will enter
into political or economic union with the Baltic States,
with Poland or with Russia.

Pursuing our journey south we reach the race
described in Russia as Little Russians, and in Austria as
Ruthenes and most generally known as Ukranians, a
Slavonic race of nearly thirty millions, with its centre in
Kiev. The larger part of the Ukraine, or " borderland "
between Poland, Turkey and Russia, transferred its
allegiance from the former to the Tsar Alexis, the
father of Peter the Great, the smaller part passing
with the rest of Galicia to Austria in the First Partition
of Poland. The Ukraine was robbed of its autonomy by
Peter the Great and Catherine the Great ; and its lan-
guage only lingered on among the peasantry. The songs
of Schevtschenko, followed by the Russian revolution
of 1905, opened the flood-gates of national sentiment.
Newspapers in the popular tongue were founded, books
and pamphlets poured from the press, and the demand
arose for national autonomy within a federalised Russia.
Two years later reaction had triumphed under Stolypin.
The Ukranian deputies disappeared from the Duma, the
press was muzzled, and the language banished from the
schools. Their comrades in Galicia, on the other hand,
though in practice subject to the Polish Governor and
the Polish landowners, were not unkindly treated by
the Hapsburgs, who respected the Uniate Church with
its married clergy, and founded some Ruthene chairs in
the Polish University at Lemberg ; and it was from

n6 NATIONALISM

the Austrian side of the frontier that the initiative to
national revival now came* The division of the race by
a political frontier and a religious antagonism gave rise
to endless propaganda, and contributed to the acute
tension between Russia and Austria which led to the
great war* The insane conduct of Russia in 1914 in
banishing the Uniate Metropolitan of Lemberg and
persecuting the Jews bore its natural fruit in rejoicing
when the invaders were expelled. But when Russia
and Austria were in turn overthrown, the Ukraine, under
the leadership of the Lemberg historian, Professor
Kruchevsky, separated itself from Russia and concluded
peace with the Central Powers, while the Bolsheviks
were still engaged in negotiations. The boundaries of
the province governed from the ancient capital of Kieff
were extended to embrace the mineral wealth of the
south ; but the Galician Ruthenes, after a fierce struggle
for their liberty, were compelled by Polish arms to form
part of the new Poland. The difference of race and
language between Ruthenes and Russians is so slight
that the Ruthene nationality may well find scope as a
member of a Russian federal Republic. Bessarabia, on
the other hand, is likely to remain part of the enlarged
Roumanian Kingdom.

The natural frontier of Russia on the south east is the
Caucasus ; and it was not till 1783 that the ancient
kingdom of Georgia sought protection from Persian
encroachments at the hands of Catherine the Great.
But protection developed into annexation, and in 1801
Georgia became a Russian province. A generation
later the cause of Transcaucasian independence found a
heroic leader in Shamyl, who for twenty-five years

ARMAGEDDON 117

maintained a guerilla warfare. The close of the Crimean
war enabled Russia to despatch overwhelming forces to
the Caucasus, and Shamyl was captured in 1859, The
next bid for liberty followed the victory of Japan in
1905 ; but in Georgia, as in every othsr subject province,
resistance was drowned in blood. Not until the
Tsardom vanished in the crucible of the world war and
Bolshevism was in the saddle could Transcaucasia raise
its head ; and in 1930 the Supreme Council accorded a
de facto recognition to the Republic of Georgia*

III

The Great War was inaugurated in Vienna, and the
ensuing dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire gave free
play to the nationalities which were held in varying
degrees of subjection by the Germans and Magyars,
Galicia has returned to Poland* Bohemia, the richest
province of Austria, has regained her place among
independent states which she lost on the death of her last
King in the battle of Mohacz. The great majority of
Czechs would have been content, like their political
leader Kramarz, with the revival of the Bohemian
Kingdom within the Hapsburg Empire, Bohemia
possessing the same rights as Hungary. But a party led
by Professor Masaryk, the most distinguished Slav
scholar in Austria and a prominent member of the
Reichsrath, gradually reached the conviction that
Bohemia must regain her independence* The dis-
inclination of the Czechs to fight against Russia, the
reign of terror at Prague, the cry of self-determination,
the unflagging efforts of Professor Masaryk to win

n8 NATIONALISM

support for the principle of independence in England,
France and America, and the organisation of a Czecho-
slovak army from among the prisoners of Russia, pre-
pared the ground for the restoration of Bohemia when
the Hapsburg Monarchy crumbled under the blows of
the Allies* The new state emerged as the Czecho-
slovak Republic, consisting of Bohemia, Moravia and
the districts of North- West Hungary inhabited by the
kindred Slovaks. The presence of over three million
Germans in the new state calls for tolerant statesman-
ship ; and the difference between industrial and pro-
gressive Bohemia, on the one hand, and clerical and
agricultural Slovakia on the other points to generous
autonomy. Yet Czecho-Slovakia, with Masaryk, him-
self a Slovak, as her first President, and with her mineral
resources and her industrious and highly-educated
population, has perhaps a fairer prospect of success than
any of the new states of Central and Eastern Europe.

While the claims of nationality were recognised by
the victorious Allies in every other portion of the
Hapsburg Empire, they were denied to German Austria.
Cut off from the minerals of Bohemia and the corn and
cattle of the Hungarian plain, separated from the
Adriatic by the extension of Italy's frontiers, and bur-
dened by a gigantic capital city, the one chance of life
for the tiny Republic was to unite with Germany. True,
however, to her instinct of weakening her principal
enemy, France vetoed the union despite the wish of its
inhabitants. Hungary, the second partner in the old
firm, has indeed obtained the independence which was
the dream of Kossuth ; but the new state emerges with
less than half its territory and population, losing

ARMAGEDDON 119

Transylvania and the Banat of Temesvar to Roumania,
the Slovak districts of the north and west to Bohemia, and
Croatia to the Jugo-Slavs.

While the northern Slav races were transferred from
the rule of Vienna to that of Warsaw and Prague, the
southern Slavs grouped themselves into Jugoslavia, of
which Serbia forms the nucleus. Its northern outpost,
the Slovenes, a little race of two and a half million
peasants, have only recently developed national self-
consciousness. Having never enjoyed independence,
and being too few to form a state of their own, they are
content to form part of a larger whole* The ideal of
Jugoslav consolidation dates from Napoleon, who
grouped the southern territories ceded by Austria into
a state called Les Pays Illyriens with its capital at
Laibach. When Illyria reverted to Austria the spirit
of Jugoslav nationalism was nourished by the poems of
Ludovic Gaj ; and in the second half of the century the
creation of a Parliament in Vienna and of provincial
Diets provided the Slovenes with the opportunity of
securing political experience* The first Slovene daily
paper was founded by Joseph Vosnjak, and the co-
operative movement was established by his brother
Michael. But though Austria was the chief obstacle to
Jugoslav unity, the Slovenes have also had to reckon
with the ambitions of Italian Imperialism.

While the Slovenes have been almost hidden from
sight, Croatia has played its part in history. Attached
to the Hungarian crown since the Middle Ages, it has
always enjoyed a varying measure of self-government ;
and when Hungary received complete self-govern-
ment by the Compromise of 1867, s^e granted statutory

120 NATIONALISM

autonomy to Croatia, A few years later a Jugoslav
Academy of Science and Art was founded at Agram by
Bishop Strossmayer, the greatest of modern Croatians,
and a University was established by the Government,
Though Croatia enjoyed a liberty possessed by no other
part of Hungary, the arrogant racialism of the Magyars
led to constant friction and to the periodical suspension
of the constitution, Hungary's task was facilitated by
the fact that Croatia is inhabited by the Croats and the
Serbs, who, although closely related, are sundered by
religious differences, the Croats being Catholics, the
Serbs Orthodox, and by the use of different alphabets,
the former employing Roman letters, the latter Slavonic.
It was the natural policy of the Catholic Magyars,
zealously pursued since the appointment of Khuen
Hedervary as Ban in 1883, to favour the Catholic Croats
and to play them off against the Serbs, But in 1905 the
two races combined in opposition under the lead of
Supilo, a young Dalmatian journalist, and began to
think seriously of escaping from Austro-Hungarian
rule*

The conduct of judges and prosecutors in 1909 at the
Agram treason trial of the Serb leaders, who were
accused of being in the pay of Belgrad, the revelations of
forgery in the Fried jung trial which followed, and the
abolition of the Constitution in 1912 increased resent-
ment to boiling point. The unconcealed disinclination
to fight against their brother Slavs of Russia and Serbia
provoked the vengeance of the Government ; and the
collapse of the Central Powers was promptly followed
by the creation of the Jugoslav state for which King
Peter of Serbia and his chief adviser Pasitch had been

ARMAGEDDON 121

striving, with Russian encouragement, ever since the
Austrian annexation of Bosnia in 1908, if not indeed
since the murder of the Austrophil King Alexander in
1903, With the Slovene districts of Austria, Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Montenegro
added to the Serbian nucleus, Jugoslavia emerges from
the great struggle a state of about the same size as its
sister Czecho-Slovakia.

IV

The liquidation of Turkey in Europe was almost
complete before the Great War ; but her defeat has
emancipated nationalities on the other side of the
straits over which she has long held sway*

The history of Armenia is above all the record of
unflinching fidelity to the Christian faith. While large
numbers of Balkan Christians embraced Islam at the
time of the Turkish conquest, Armenians have steadily
refused to purchase life and safety at the cost of apostasy.
Their nationality has been built up round their Church,
which traces back to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus in the
third century. Sandwiched between their Turkish
rulers and their marauding Kurdish fellow-subjects,
the hardworking villagers offered a tempting prey.
The Congress of Berlin handed over the northern half of
the Armenian districts, including Etchmiadzin, the
Armenian Mecca, to Russia, and extracted a promise
of reforms for the south. But the reforms were never
introduced, and the sympathetic interest of Great
Britain and the United States aroused the suspicions of
Constantinople. It was not religious intolerance, but

123 NATIONALISM

fear of conspiracy that goaded Abdul Hamid to massacre
the most cultured and gifted of his Asiatic subjects* In
1894-5 the savage Kurds, armed by the Sultan and aided
by Turkish troops, fell upon the Armenians and
butchered them by thousands. In 1896 a band of
desperate men seized the Ottoman bank in Constanti-
nople, and for two days the capital ran with Armenian
blood* The Powers were disunited ; for Russia, whom
England had checkmated in 1878, now declined to
co-operate with England. A shudder ran through
Europe ; but the Great Assassin remained unpunished.
In 1908 the Armenians believed for a moment that their
troubles were over ; but the massacre of Adana in 1909
announced that the Young Turks were no better than
the old. On the outbreak of the Great War the Turkish
Armenians made no attempt to conceal their wishes for
the victory of Russia, and volunteers fought in the
Russian ranks. The vengeance of Enver and Talaat,
who were only waiting for a pretext, was terrible, and
the greatest massacre in the blood-stained annals of
Armenia was carried out. On the defeat of Turkey
three years later the survivors united with the Republic of
Erivan, already instituted by their brothers on the
Russian side of the frontier.

The overthrow of Turkey involved the independence
of Arabia, and kindled Arab ambitions in Syria and
Mesopotamia. But perhaps the most interesting result
of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire to the historian
of nationalism is the opening of Palestine to Jewish
settlement under the British flag. The wave of Anti-
Semitism which spread through Russia and Roumania,
Austria, Germany and France in the last two decades of

ARMAGEDDON 123

the nineteenth century revived the age-long aspiration
of a return of the Jews to the land of their fathers, which
had begun on a small scale with the agricultural settle-
ments organised by Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron
Hirsch. In 1896 Herd, a Vienna journalist, outlined a
plan of an autonomous republic under the Sultan* The
scheme was warmly embraced by Max Nordau, Zangwill
and other influential leaders, and the first Zionist
Congress was held at Basel in 1897 ; but the difficulties
of the project soon became apparent* Abdul Hamid
was sympathetic, but failed to make a satisfactory offer.
Russia was hostile, and Germany unfriendly. The
prosperous Jews of the West had no wish to exchange
the comforts of civilisation for the barren soil of Palestine.
The death of Herd in 1904 deprived the Zionist move-
ment of its inspired leader, and little was heard of it till
Allenby presented Great Britain with Palestine.
While the existing Mussulman majority and the infer-
tility of the soil will prevent the Jews transforming
Palestine into a Jewish state, the British Government has
promised facilities for an Imperium in Imperio, which
will, at any rate, partially fulfil the aspirations of Jewish
nationalism.

The loud-tongued proclamation by the Allies of the
right of subject peoples to self-determination found an
echo not only among the oppressed races of Germany
and Austria, Russia and Turkey, but within the borders
of the British Empire. What is sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander. In Ireland the Home Rule

124 NATIONALISM

movement, ably led by Redmond and Dillon, was
superseded by the party of Sinn Fein, founded by Arthur
Griffith and led by de Valera, which, exasperated by the
delay in granting self-government, revived the Fenian
demand for a Republic. At the General Election of
1918 the Constitutional Nationalists were routed, and
Catholic Ireland voted Sinn Fein, the elected members
declining to take their seats at Westminster. The open
antagonism between the executive and the people
renewed the familiar tragedy of outrage and coercion.
It is typical of the malign fate which seems to dog the
footsteps of the Irish race that by the time British
Unionists were converted to Home Rule, Catholic
Ireland had ceased to be content with its limitations.

The Indian problem has been handled with far
greater courage and success. The contribution of
Indians to the Empire's need was universally recognised
to demand a corresponding reward ; and in August, 1917,
Mr. Montagu announced the Cabinet policy of "the
increasing association of Indians in every branch of the
administration and the gradual development of self-
governing institutions with a view to the progressive
realisation of responsible government as an integral part
of the British Empire/' After a visit to India the
Secretary of State outlined a programme of political
reform in a report which ranks with the Canadian
pronouncement of Lord Durham ; and in 1919 its main
proposals were incorporated in an Act of Parliament
which frankly recognised that India had come of age.

While the aspirations of educated Indians were being
in large measure realised, the distaste of Egypt for alien
rule was forgotten by harassed British statesmen in the

ARMAGEDDON 125

crisis of the conflict. The deposition of the Sultan and
the proclamation of a British Protectorate, without
consultation or explanation, at the moment that Turkey
entered the war, gave a shock to national sentiment the
severity of which was not measured by those who
inflicted it ; and the hardships of compulsory service in
the Egyptian Labour Corps inflamed the fellahin with
hatred of his alien rulers* When the war was over
sporadic revolts broke out ; and Egyptian Nationalism,
led by the respected ex-Minister of Education, Zagloul
Pasha, revived the demand for the evacuation of the
country in accordance with the promises of British
statesmen when the occupation commenced*

The gospel that a people with a distinct national
culture and self-consciousness should be allowed to live
its own life shows no sign of losing its power ; for it is
the expression of a profound and legitimate human
instinct. Yet the doctrine of nationality, like its twin,
the sovereignty of the people, has had a chequered
career. Its explosive force has torn unjust treaties to
shreds and shattered despotic empires. But it has also
fostered savage racial passion and repulsive national
arrogance, and the cult of " sacred egotism " has almost
obliterated the sense that civilisation is a collective
achievement and a common responsibility. Only when
each nation respects the rights and aspirations of its
fellows as its own, and recognises in theory and practice
its subordination to the welfare of humanity, can a league
of contented peoples bring healing to a distracted world.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

GENERAL

Holland Rose, Nationality as a Factor in Modern History ; Ramsay
Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism; Johannet, Le Principe des
Nationality ; Oakesmith, Race and Nationality; Zangwill, The
Principle of Nationalities ; Zimmern, Nationality and Government,
chapters 1 1- IV ; Acton, History of Freedom and other Essays (essay on
Nationality) ; Alison Phillips, Modern Europe ; Fyffe, Modern Europe,
1792-1878 ; Cambridge Modern History, vols. VIII-XIL

CHAPTER I

Madelin, The French Revolution ; Treitschke, History of Germany
in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I ; Gooch, Germany and the French
Revolution ; Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, three vols. ; Martin
Hume, Modern Spain ; Oman, History of the Peninsular War.

CHAPTER II

Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence ; E. F. Benson,
The Vintage (a historical novel on the Greek revolt) ; Alison Phillips,
Poland ; Vambery, Hungary ; Arnold-Forster, Francis Deak ; Lutzow,
History of Bohemia ; Dunlop, O'Connell ; Duffy, Young Ireland ;
Mrs. J. R. Green, Irish Nationality.

CHAPTER III

Bolton King, History of Italian Unity, two vols. ; Bolton King,
Mazzini ; Thayer, Life of Cavour, two vols. ; Trevelyan, Garibaldi,
three vols. ; Stillman, Francesco Crispi ; A. W. Ward, Germany,
1815-1907, three vols. ; W. H. Dawson, The German Empire, 1867-
1914, two vols. ; Grant Robertson, Bismarck ; H. W. C. Davis, The
Political Thought of Treitschke,

BOOKS RECOMMENDED 127

CHAPTER IV

Miller, The Balkans, and The Ottoman Empire; Seton-Watson,
The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans ; Reminiscences of the King of
Roumania, edited by Sidney Whitman ; Temperley, History of Serbia ;
Beaman, Stambuloff; Vazof, Under the Yoke (Bulgarian historical
novel).

CHAPTER V

W. O'Brien, Memoirs; Barry O'Brien, Life of Parnell ; Theal,
History of South Africa ; Kruger, Memoirs ; E . T. Cook, Rights and
Wrongs of the Transvaal War ; A. Reade, Finland and the Finns ;
C, R. Buxton, Turkey in Revolution ; Abbott, Turkey in Transition.

CHAPTER VI

Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan ; Bland and Backhouse, China under
the Empress Dowager ; Wedderburn, Life of Allan Hume ; Bevan,
Indian Nationalism ; E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution ; Shuster,
The Strangling of Persia ; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, and Abbas II ;
Wilfrid Blunt, The Secret History of the British Occupation of Egypt,
and My Diaries, two vols.

CHAPTER VII

A. Toynbee, Nationality and the War ; R. Butler, The New Eastern
Europe; Seton-Watson, The Southern Slavs; Racial Problems of
Hungary, and Europe in the Melting-Pot ; Benes, Bohemia's Case for
Independence ; Vosnjak, A Bulwark against Germany (The Slovenes) ;
Noel and Charles Buxton, The War and the Balkans ; Noel and Harold
Buxton, Travel and Politics in Armenia ; R. M. Henry, The Evolution
of Sinn Fein.

Headley Bros., 18 Devonshir« St., E.C.3. ; and Ashford, Kent.

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