The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
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Title: The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
Author: Louis Paul Bénézet
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11200]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD WAR AND WHAT WAS BEHIND IT; OR, THE STORY OF THE MAP OF EUROPE ***
[Illustration]
The World War and What Was Behind It
or
The Story of the Map of Europe
By
L. P. Bénézet
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, EVANSVILLE, INDIANA
[Illustration: The Peace Palace at the Hague]
Preface
This little volume is the result of the interest shown by pupils,
teachers, and the general public in a series of talks on the causes of
the great European war which were given by the author in the fall of
1914. The audiences were widely different in character. They included
pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, students in high
school and normal school, teachers in the public schools, an
association of business men, and a convention of boards of education.
In every case, the same sentiment was voiced: “If there were only some
book which would give us these facts in simple language and illustrate
them by maps and charts as you have done!” After searching the market
for a book of this sort without success, the author determined to put
the subject of his talks into manuscript form. It has been his aim to
write in a style which is well within the comprehension of the children
in the upper grades and yet is not too juvenile for adult readers. The
book deals with the remarkable sequence of events in Europe which made
the great war inevitable. Facts are revealed which, so far as the
author knows, have not been published in any history to date; facts
which had the strongest possible bearing on the outbreak of the war.
The average American, whether child or adult, has little conception of
conditions in Europe. In America all races mix. The children of the
Polish Jew mingle with those of the Sicilian, and in the second
generations both peoples have become Americans. Bohemians intermarry
with Irish, Scotch with Norwegians. In Europe, on the other hand, Czech
and Teuton, Bulgar and Serb may live side by side for centuries without
mixing or losing their distinct racial characteristics. In order that
the American reader may understand the complicated problem of European
peace, a study of races and languages is given in the text, showing the
relationship of Slav, Celt, Latin, and Teuton, and the various
sub-divisions of these peoples. A knowledge of these facts is very
essential to any understanding of the situation in Europe. The author
has pointed out the fact that political boundaries are largely
king-made, and that they have seldom been drawn with regard to the
natural division of Europe by nationalities, or to the wishes of the
mass of the population.
The chapter, entitled “Europe as it Should Be,” with its accompanying
map, shows the boundaries of the various nations as they would look if
the bulk of the people of each nationality were included in a single
political division. In many places, it is, of course, impossible to
draw sharp lines. Greek shades off into Bulgar on one side and into
Skipetar and Serb on the other. Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is
one-third German in its population. There are large islands of Germans
and Magyars in the midst of the Roumanians of Transylvania. These are a
few examples out of many which could be cited. However, the general aim
of the chapter has been to divide the continent into nations, in each
of which the leading race would vastly predominate in population.
It is hoped that the study of this little work will not only throw
light upon the causes of war in general, but will also reveal its
cruelty and its needlessness. It is shown that the history of Europe
from the time of the great invasions by the Germanic tribes has been a
continuous story of government without the consent of the governed.
A preventive for wars, such as statesmen and philanthropists in many
countries have urged, is outlined in the closing chapter. It would seem
as though after this terrible demonstration of the results of armed
peace, the governments of the world would be ready to listen to some
plan which would forever forbid the possibility of another war. Just as
individuals in the majority of civilized countries discovered, a
hundred years ago, that it was no longer necessary for them to carry
weapons in order to insure their right to live and to enjoy protection,
so nations may learn at last that peace and security are preferable to
the fruits of brigandage and aggression. The colonies of America, after
years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tremendous war,
at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will
have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way are the remains of
feudal government in Europe and the ignorance and short-sightedness of
the common people in many countries. Ignorance is rapidly waning with
the advance of education, and we trust that feudalism will not long
survive its last terrible crime, the world war of 1914.
Now that the United States has become a belligerent, it is very
essential that our people understand the events that led up to our
participation in the war. So many of our citizens are of a peace-loving
nature, we are so far removed from the militarism of continental
Europe, and the whole war seems so needless and so profitless to those
who have not studied carefully its causes, that there is danger of a
want of harmony with the program of the government if all are not
taught the simple truth of the matter. There is no quicker channel
through which to reach all the people than the public schools. With
this in mind, two entire chapters and part of a third are devoted to
demonstrating why no other course was open to this country than to
accept the war which was forced upon her.
In the preparation of this little work, the author has received many
helpful suggestions from co-workers. His thanks are especially due to
Professor A. G. Terry of Northwestern University and Professor A. H.
Sanford of the Wisconsin State Normal School at La Crosse, who were
kind enough to read through and correct the manuscript before its final
revision. The author is especially indebted to the Committee on Public
Information at Washington, D. C., for furnishing to him authoritative
data on many phases of the war. Acknowledgment is also made to Row,
Peterson and Company for kind permission to use illustrations from
_History Stories of Other Lands_; also to the International Film
Service, Inc., of New York City for the use of many valuable copyright
illustrations of scenes relating to the great war.
L. P. BÉNÉZET.
_Evansville, Indiana,
January 2, 1918_
Contents
Preface
I. The Great War
II. Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
III. From Chiefs to Kings
IV. Master and Man
V. A Babel of Tongues
VI. “The Terrible Turk”
VII. The Rise of Modern Nations
VIII. The Fall of Two Kingdoms
IX. The Little Man from the Common People
X. A King-Made Map and Its Trail of Wrongs
XI. Italy a Nation at Last
XII. The Man of Blood and Iron
XIII. The Balance of Power
XIV. The “Entente Cordiale”
XV. The Sowing of the Dragon’s Teeth
XVI. Who Profits?
XVII. The Spark that Exploded the Magazine
XVIII. Why England Came In
XIX. Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition
XX. Back to the Balkans
XXI. The War under the Sea
XXII. Another Crown Topples
XXIII. The United States at War—Why?
XXIV. Europe As It Should Be
XXV. The Cost of It All
XXVI. What Germany Must Learn
Pronouncing Glossary
Index
List of Maps
I. Distribution of Peoples According to Relationship
II. Distribution of Languages
III. Southeastern Europe in 600 B.C.
IV. Southeastern Europe 975 A.D.
V. Southeastern Europe 1690
VI. The Empire of Charlemagne
VII. Europe in 1540
VIII. The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia 1400-1806
IX. Italy in 525
X. Italy in 650
XI. Italy in 1175
XII. Europe in 1796
XIII. Europe in 1810
XIV. Europe in 1815
XV. Italy Made One Nation—1914—
XVI. Formation of the German Empire
XVII. Southeastern and Central Europe 1796
XVIII. Losses of Turkey During the Nineteenth Century
XIX. Turkey As the Balkan Allies Planned to Divide It
XX. Changes Resulting from Balkan Wars 1912-1913
XXI. The Two Routes from Germany into France
XXII. The Roumanian Campaign as the Allies Wished It
XXIII. The Roumanian Campaign as It Turned Out
XXIV. Europe as It Should Be
List of Illustrations
I. The Peace Palace at the Hague
II. Fleeing from Their Homes, Around which a Battle is Raging
III. A Drill Ground in Modern Europe
IV. The Forum of Rome as It Was 1600 Years Ago
V. The Last Combat of the Gladiators
VI. Germans Going into Battle
VII. A Hun Warrior
VIII. Gaius Julius Caesar
IX. A Frankish Chief
X. Movable Huts of Early Germans
XI. Goths on the March
XII. Franks Crossing the Rhine
XIII. Men of Normandy Landing in England
XIV. Alexander Defeating the Persians
XV. A Knight in Armor
XVI. A Norman Castle in England
XVII. A Vassal Doing Homage to His Lord
XVIII. William the Conqueror
XIX. A Typical Bulgarian Family
XX. Mohammed II Before Constantinople
XXI. A Scene in Salonika
XXII. Louis XIV
XXIII. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
XXIV. The Great Elector of Brandenburg
XXV. Frederick the Great
XXVI. Catharine II
XXVII. Courtier of Time of Louis XIV
XXVIII. The Taking of the Bastille
XXIX. The Palace of Versailles
XXX. The Reign of Terror
XXXI. The First Singing of “The Marseillaise”
XXXII. Charles the Fifth
XXXIII. The Emperor Napoleon in 1814
XXXIV. The Retreat from Moscow
XXXV. Napoleon at Waterloo
XXXVI. The Congress of Vienna
XXXVII. Prince Metternich
XXXVIII. The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel
XXXIX. Bismarck
XL. An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War
XLI. The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of Germany
XLII. Peter the Great
XLIII. Entrance to the Mosque of St. Sophia
XLIV. The Congress of Berlin
XLV. An Arab Sheik and His Staff
XLVI. A Scene in Constantinople
XLVII. Durazzo
XLVIII. A Modern Dreadnaught
XLIX. Submarine
L. A Fort Ruined by the Big German Guns
LI. Russian Peasants Fleeing Before the German Army
LII. A Bomb-proof Trench in the Western War Front
LIII. Venizelos
LIV. The Deutschland in Chesapeake Bay
LV. Crowd in Petrograd During the Revolution
LVI. Revolutionary Soldiers in the Duma
LVII. Kerensky Reviewing Russian Troops
LVIII. Flight from a Torpedoed Liner
LIX. President Wilson Reading the War Message
LX. American Grain Set on Fire by German Agents
LXI. Polish Children
LXII. The Price of War
LXIII. Rendered Homeless by War
LXIV. Charles XII of Sweden
The Story of the Map of Europe
Chapter I.
The Great War
The call from Europe.—Friend against friend.—Why?—Death and
devastation.—No private quarrel.—Ordered by government.—What
makes government?—The influence of the past.—Four causes of war.
Among the bricklayers at work on a building which was being
erected in a great American city during the summer of 1914 were
two men who had not yet become citizens of the United States.
Born abroad, they still owed allegiance, one to the Emperor of
Austria, the other to the Czar of Russia.
Meeting in a new country, and using a new language which gave them a
chance to understand each other, they had become well acquainted. They
were members of the same labor union, and had worked side by side on
several different jobs. In the course of time, a firm friendship had
sprung up between them. Suddenly, on the same day, each was notified to
call at the office of the agent of his government in the city. Next
morning the Russian came to his boss to explain that he must quit work,
that he had been called home to fight for the “Little Father” of the
Russians. He found his chum, the Austrian, there ahead of him, telling
that he had to go, for the Russians had declared war on Austria and the
good Kaiser,[1] Franz Josef, had need of all his young men.
[1] In the German language, the title Kaiser means Emperor.
The two chums stared at each other in sorrow and dismay. The
pitiless arm of the god of war had reached across the broad
Atlantic, plucking them back from peace and security. With
weapons put into their hands they would be ordered to kill each
other on sight.
A last hand-clasp, a sorrowful “Good luck to you,” and they
parted.
Why was this necessary? What was this irresistible force, strong
enough to separate the two friends and drag them back five
thousand miles for the purpose of killing each other? To answer
these two questions is the purpose of this little volume.
Beginning with the summer of 1914, Europe and parts of Asia and
Africa were torn and racked with the most tremendous war that the
world has ever seen. Millions of men were killed. Other millions
were maimed, blinded, or disfigured for life. Still other
millions were herded into prison camps or forced to work like
convict laborers. Millions of homes were filled with grief.
Millions of women were forced to do hard work which before the
war had been considered beyond their power. Millions of children
were left fatherless. What had been the richest and most
productive farming land in Europe was made a barren waste.
Thousands of villages and towns were utterly destroyed and their
inhabitants were forced to flee, the aged, the sick, and the
infants alike.
In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and
Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally
starving, because all food had been seized for the use of
fighting men. Dreadful diseases, which cannot exist where people
have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more
appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of victims. The
strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations
were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable
existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in
many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of
civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or
to work for mankind’s happiness. The only mills and factories
which were running full time were those that turned out the tools
of destruction and shot and shell for the guns. Nations poured
out one hundred fifty million dollars a day for the purpose of
killing off the best men in Europe. Had the world gone mad? What
was the reason for it all?
[Illustration: Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is Raging]
In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in
Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with
intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their
money in Germany. France and Austria exchanged goods and their
inhabitants traveled within each other’s boundaries. A Frenchman
might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was
nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or
Belgian. The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could
meet and find plenty of ground for friendship.
We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred.
One can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each
other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other,
but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers
whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never
exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a
whole army of their opponents. In many cases, the soldiers did
not see the men whom they were killing. An officer with a
telescope watched where the shells from the cannon were falling
and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a
trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed
and fired the gun. Once in a while, a shell from the invisible
enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing
and wounding. When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge
the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians
because they were told to do so by their officers, and the
Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so
ordered them. The officers on each side were only obeying orders
received from their generals. The generals were only obeying
orders from the government.
In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder
what has caused these nations to fly at each other’s throats. The
question arises as to what makes up a government or why a
government has the right to rule its people.
In the United States, the government officials are simply the
servants of the people. Practically every man in our country,
unless he is a citizen of some foreign nation, has a right to
vote, and in many of the states women, too, have a voice in the
government. We, the people of the United States, can choose our
own lawmakers, can instruct them how to vote and, in some states,
can vote out of existence any law that they the people have made
which we do not like. In all states, we can show our disapproval
of what our law-makers have done by voting against them at the
next election. Such is the government of a republic, a
“government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as
Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British colonies, the
people rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing men to
serve in the army. The result was very close and the vote of the
women helped to decide it. Canada, on the contrary, voted to
compel her men to go. How is it in Europe? Have the people of
Germany or Austria the right to vote on war? Were they consulted
before their governments called them to arms and sent them to
fight each other? It is plain that in order to understand what
this war is about, we must look into the story of how the
different governments of Europe came to be and learn why their
peoples obey them so unquestioningly.
We must remember that government by the people is a very new
thing. One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United
States only about one-fourth of the men had the right to vote.
These were citizens of property and wealth. They did not think a
poor man was worth considering. In England, a country which
allows its people more voice in the government than almost any
other nation in Europe, it is only within the last thirty years
that all men could vote. There are some European countries, like
Turkey, where the people have practically no power at all and
others, like Austria, where they have very little voice in how
they shall be governed.
For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without
thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up
their weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known
nothing of the causes of the conflict or of what they were
fighting for. A famous English writer has written a poem which
illustrates how little the average citizen has ever known
concerning the cause of war, and shows the difference between the
way in which war was looked upon by the men of old and the way in
which one should regard it. The poem runs as follows:
The Battle of Blenheim
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found,
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large and smooth and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh—
“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory.
“I find them in the garden,
For there’s many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out!
For many a thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in the great victory.”
“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes—
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.”
“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
I could not well make out;
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.
“My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
“They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won—
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.
“Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”
Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay, nay, my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory.
“And everybody praised the duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why, that I cannot tell,” said he;
“But ’twas a famous victory.”
—_Robert Southey_.
Old Kaspar, who has been used to such things all his life, cannot
feel the wickedness and horror Of the battle. The children, on
the other hand, have a different idea of war. They are not
satisfied until they know what it was all about and what good
came of it, and they feel that “it was a very wicked thing.” If
the men in the armies had stopped to ask the reason why they were
killing each other and had refused to fight until they knew the
truth, the history of the world would have been very different.
One reason why we still have wars is that men refuse to think for
themselves, because it is so much easier to let their dead
ancestors think for them and to keep up customs which should have
been changed ages ago. People in Europe have lived in the midst
of wars or preparation for wars all their lives. There never has
been a time when Europe was not either a battlefield or a great
drill-ground for armies.
There was a time, long ago, when any man might kill another in
Europe and not be punished for his deed. It was not thought wrong
to take human life. Today it is not considered wrong to kill,
provided a man is ordered to do so by his general or his king.
When two kings go to war, each claiming his quarrel to be a just
one, wholesale murder is done, and each side is made by its
government to think itself very virtuous and wholly justified in
its killing. It should be the great aim of everyone today to help
to bring about lasting peace among all the nations.
[Illustration: A Drill Ground in Modern Europe.]
In order to know how to do this, we must study the causes of the
wars of the past. We shall find, as we do so, that almost all
wars can be traced to one of four causes: (1) the instinct among
barbarous tribes to fight with and plunder their neighbors; (2)
the ambition of kings to enlarge their kingdoms; (3) the desire
of the traders of one nation to increase their commerce at the
expense of some other nation; (4) a people’s wish to be free from
the control of some other country and to become a nation by
itself. Of the four reasons, only the last furnishes a just cause
for war, and this cause has been brought about only when kings
have sent their armies out, and forced into their kingdoms other
peoples who wished to govern themselves.
Questions for Review
Why must foreigners in the United States return to their
native lands when summoned by their governments?
How is it that war helps to breed diseases?
Is race hatred a cause of war or a result of it?
Whom do we mean by the government in the United States?
Who controls the government in Russia?
Who in England?
Who in Germany?
Who in France?
In Southey’s poem, how does the children’s idea of the battle
differ from that of their grandfather? Why?
Are people less likely to protest against war if their
forefathers have fought many wars?
What have been the four main causes of war?
Chapter II.
Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
New governments in Europe.—Earliest times.—How civilization
began.—The rise of Rome.—Roman civilization.—Roman cruelty.—The
German tribes.—The Slavic tribes.—The Celtic tribes.—The Huns and
Moors.—The great Germanic invasions of the Roman world.
To search for the causes of the great war which began in Europe
in 1914, we must go far back into history. It should be
remembered that many of the governments of today have not lived
as long as that of our own country. This is, perhaps, a new
thought to some of us, who rather think that, as America is a new
country, it is the baby among the great nations. But, one hundred
and thirty years ago, when the United States was being formed,
there was no nation called Italy; the peninsula which we now know
by that name was cut up among nine or ten little governments.
There was no nation known as Germany; the land which is in the
present German empire was then divided among some thirty or
thirty-five different rulers. There was no Republic of France;
instead, France had a king whose will was law, and the French
people were cruelly oppressed. There was no kingdom of Belgium,
no kingdom of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Roumania. The kingdom of
Norway was part of Denmark. The Republic of France, as we now
know it, dates back only to 1871; the Empire of Germany and the
United Kingdom of Italy to about the same time. The kingdoms of
Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria have been independent of Turkey
only since 1878. The kingdom of Albania did not exist before
1913. Most of the present nations of modern Europe, then, are
very new. The troubles which led to the great war, however,
originated in the dim twilight of history.
In the earliest days, there were no separate countries or
kingdoms. Men gathered together in little bands, each of which
had its leader. This leader was generally chosen because of his
bodily strength and courage. He was the best fighter of the
tribe. The people did not have any lasting homes. They moved
around from place to place, wherever they could find the best
hunting and fishing. When two tribes wanted the same hunting
grounds, they fought, and the weaker party had to give way.
Selfishness was supreme. If a man wanted anything which belonged
to his weaker neighbor, he simply beat this neighbor over the
head with his club, and took it. The stronger tribe attacked the
weaker, without any thought of whether or not its quarrel was
just.
Gradually, in the southern and warmer parts of Europe, the tribes
began to be more civilized. Towns sprang up. Ships were built.
Trade came to be one of the occupations. The fighting men needed
weapons and armor; so there grew up artisans who were skilled in
working metals. In Egypt and Syria there were people who had
reached quite a high degree of civilization, and gradually the
Europeans learned from them better ways of living. First the
Greeks, then the Etruscans (Ē-trŭs′cans), a people who lived in
Italy just north of where Rome now is, and finally the southern
Italians learned that it was possible to live in cities, without
hunting and plundering. Grazing (the tending of flocks of
animals) came to be the occupation of many. The owners of sheep
or cattle drove their flocks from place to place, as grass and
water failed them where they were. There was no separate
ownership of land.
At last came the rise of the city of Rome, which, starting out as
the stronghold of a little gang of robbers, spread its rule
gradually over all the surrounding country. By this time, the
barbarians of northern Europe had gotten past the use of clubs as
weapons. They, too, had learned to make tools and arms of bronze,
and those living near civilized countries had obtained swords of
iron. The club, however, still remained as the sign of authority.
The large bludgeon of the chief was carried before the tribe as a
sign of his power over them. You have all seen pictures of a king
sitting on his throne and holding a wand or stick in his right
hand. It is interesting to think that this scepter, which the
present king of England carries on state occasions to remind his
people of his power, is a relic of the old, old days when his
grandfather, many times removed, broke the head of his rival for
leadership in the tribe and set up his mighty club for his
awestruck people to worship.
The city of Rome (at first a republic, afterwards an empire)
spread its rule over all of Italy, over all the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, and finally over all the countries of Europe
south and west of the rivers Danube and Rhine. One of the
emperors planted a colony north of the Danube near its mouth, and
the descendants of these colonists are living in that same
country today. They have not forgotten their origin, for they
still call themselves Romans (Roumani [Ro͞o-mä′ni]), and talk a
language greatly resembling the Latin, which was the tongue
spoken by the Romans of old. With the exception of this country,
which is now Roumania, the part of Europe north and east of the
Danube and Rhine was practically free from the Romans. In this
territory, roving bands wandered around, driving their cattle
with them and clearing the woods of game.
[Illustration: The Forum (public square) of Rome as it was 1600 years
ago.]
In some ways, the Romans were a highly civilized people. They had
schools where their children were taught to read and write, to
speak Greek, and to work problems in geometry. They had
magnificent public buildings, fine temples and palaces. They
built excellent paved roads all over the southern part of Europe,
and had wonderful systems of aqueducts which supplied their
cities with pure water from springs and lakes miles away. Their
dress was made of fine cloth. They knew how to make paper, glass,
and steel.
On the other hand, they were a cruel and bloodthirsty people.
Their favorite amusement was to go to shows where gladiators
fought, either with each other or with wild beasts. These
gladiators were generally men from tribes which had fought
against Rome. They had been captured and brought to that city,
where they were trained to use certain weapons. Then on holidays,
with all the people of Rome packed into big amphitheaters, these
unfortunate captives were forced to fight with each other until
one man of each pair was killed. It occasionally happened that
one gladiator might be wounded, and lie helpless on the sand, The
spectators would then shout to the victorious fighter to take his
knife and finish what he had begun. In this way what would seem
to us like cold-blooded murder was committed hundreds of times
each year, while the fairest ladies and young girls of Rome sat
and watched with eager interest. Thus, although the Romans had
all the outward appearance of being civilized, they were savages
at heart, and had no sympathy for any people who were not of
their own race.
[Illustration: The Last Combat of the Gladiators]
In the early days, the Romans prided themselves on their honor.
They scorned a lie and looked down on anyone who would cheat or
deceive. They lived hardy lives and would not allow themselves
luxuries. They rather despised the Greeks, because the latter
surrounded themselves with comforts in life. The early Romans
were fighters by nature. They had a certain god named Janus (our
month January is named after him) and his temple was open only
when they were engaged in war. It is a matter of history that
during the twelve hundred years from the first building of Rome
to the end of the Roman Empire, the temple of Janus was closed on
but three occasions and then only for a short time.
About five or six hundred years after the founding of Rome came
several disastrous wars which killed off a great majority of her
sturdy fighters. Rome was the victor in all of these wars, but
she won them at tremendous cost to herself. With the killing off
of her best and bravest men, a great deal of the old time honesty
was lost. Very soon, we begin to hear of Roman governors who,
when put in charge of conquered states, used their offices only
to plunder the helpless inhabitants and to return to Rome after
their terms were finished, laden with ill-gotten gains. Roman
morals, which formerly were very strict, began to grow more lax,
and in general the Roman civilization showed signs of decay.
To the north and east of the Roman Empire dwelt a people who were
to become the leaders of the new nations of Europe. These were
the free German tribes, which occupied the part of Europe
bounded, roughly, by the rivers Danube and Rhine, the Baltic Sea,
and the Carpathian Mountains. In many ways they were much less
civilized than the Romans. They were clad in skins and furs
instead of cloth. They lived in rough huts and tents or in caves
dug in the sides of a hill. They, too, like the Romans, held
human life cheap, and bloodshed and murder were common among
them. As a rule, the men scorned to work, leaving whatever labor
there was, largely to the women, while they busied themselves in
fighting and hunting, or, during their idle times, in gambling.
Nevertheless, these people, about the time that the Roman honesty
began to disappear, had virtues more like those of the early
Romans. They were frank and honorable. The men were faithful
husbands and kind fathers, and their family life was very happy.
They were barbarous and rough, but those of them who were taken
to Rome and learned the Roman civilization made finer, nobler men
than Rome was producing about the time of which we speak.
[Illustration: Germans Going Into Battle]
To the east of these German tribes were the Slavs, a people no
better civilized, but not so warlike in their nature. As the
Germans, in later years, moved on to the west, the Slavs, in
turn, moved westward and occupied much of the land which had been
left vacant by the Germans.
[Illustration: A Hun Warrior]
The inhabitants of western Europe, that is, France, Spain, and
the British Isles, were largely Celts. In fact, all Europe could
be said to be divided up among four great peoples: There were the
Latins in Italy, the Celts in western Europe, the Germans in
central Europe, and the Slavs to the east. All of these four
families were distantly related, as can be proved by the
languages which they spoke. The Greeks, while not belonging to
any one of the four, were also distant cousins of both Germans
and Latins. Probably all five peoples are descended from one big
family of tribes.
In addition to these, there were, from time to time invasions of
Europe by other nations which did not have any connection by
blood with Celts, Latins, Greeks, Germans, or Slavs. For
instance, the ferocious Huns, a people of the yellow race, rushed
into Europe about 400 A.D., but were beaten in a big battle by
the Romans and Germans and finally went back to Asia. Three
hundred years later, a great horde of Moors and Arabs from Africa
crossed over into Europe by way of the Straits of Gibraltar, and
at one time threatened to sweep before them all the Christian
nations. For several hundred years after this, they held the
southern part of Spain, but were finally driven out.
Let us now come back to the story of what happened in Europe
after the Romans had conquered all the country south and west of
the Danube and Rhine. The wild tribes of the Germans were
restlessly roaming through the central part of Europe. They were
not at peace with each other. In fact, constant war was going on.
Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, who conquered what is now
France and added it to the Roman world, tells us that one great
tribe of Germans, the Suevi (Swē′vī), made it their boast that
they would let no other tribe live anywhere near them. About a
hundred years B.C., two great German tribes. the Cimbri and the
Teutones, broke across the Rhine and poured into the Roman lands
in countless numbers. For seven years they roamed about until at
last they were conquered in two bloody battles by a Roman
general, who was Caesar’s uncle by marriage. After this time, the
Romans tried to conquer the country of the Germans and they might
have been successful but for a young German chief named Arminius.
He had lived in Rome as a young man and had learned the Romans’
method of war; so when an army came against his tribe, he taught
the Germans how to defend themselves. As a result, the Roman army
was trapped in a big forest and slaughtered, almost to a man.
[Illustration: Gaius Julius Caesar. From a bust in the British Museum]
This defeat ended any thought that the Romans may have had of
conquering all Germany. For the next one hundred and fifty years,
Germans and Romans lived apart, each afraid of the other. Then
came a time when the Germans again became the attacking party.
Other fiercer and wilder peoples, like the Huns, were assailing
them in the east and pushing them forward. They finally broke
over the Rhine-Danube boundary and poured across the Roman Empire
in wave after wave. Some of these tribes were the Vandals,
Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Lombards. The Roman Empire went
to pieces under their savage attacks.
Questions for Review
Why is it that after nations become civilized, people need
less land to live on?
Are barbarous tribes more likely to engage in war than
civilized peoples?
Explain why clubs were the earliest weapons and why the more
civilized tribes were better armed than the barbarians.
Can a people be said to be civilized when they enjoy
bloodshed and are not moved by the sufferings of others?
What was it that lowered the morals of the Roman republic?
In what way were the Germans better men than the later
Romans?
What was the religion of the Moors and the Arabs?
Why did the German tribes invade the Roman empire?
Chapter III.
From Chiefs to Kings
The early chief a fighter.—The club the sign of power.—Free men
led by a chief of their own choosing.—The first
slaves.—Barbarians conquer civilized nations.—A ruling class
among conquered people.—All men no longer free and equal.—The
value of arms and armor.—The robber chiefs.—How kings first
came.—Treaties between tribes follow constant wars.—Tribes unite
for protection against enemies.—A king is chosen for the time
being.—Some kings refuse to resign their office when the danger
is past.—New generations grow up which never knew a kingless
state.—The word “king” becomes sacred.
The chiefs of the invading tribes knew no law except the rule of
the sword. If they saw anything which they wanted, they took it.
Rich cities were plundered at will. They did not admit any man’s
ownership of anything. In the old days when the tribes were
roaming around, there was no private ownership of land.
Everything belonged to the tribe in common. Each man had a vote
in the council of the tribe.
Among these invaders, as with all barbarous tribes, there was no
such thing as an absolute rule. A chief was obeyed because the
greater part of his people considered him the best leader in war.
Often, no doubt, when a chief had lost a battle and the majority
of the tribe had lost confidence in him, he resigned and let them
choose a new chief. (For the same reason we frequently hear today
that the prime minister, or leader of the government, of some
European country has resigned.) In spite of the fact, then, that
the chief was stronger than any other man in the tribe, if the
majority of his warriors had combined against him to put another
man in his place he could not have withstood them. Government, in
its beginning, was based upon the consent of the governed. All
men in the primitive tribe were equal in rank, except as one was
a better fighter than another, and the chief held the leadership
in war only because the members of his tribe allowed him to keep
it.
[Illustration: A Frankish Chief.]
It must be remembered that in these early days, the people had no
fixed place of abode. Their only homes were rude huts which they
could put up or tear down at very short notice; and so when they
heard of more fertile lands or a warmer climate across the
mountains to the south they used to pull up stakes and migrate in
a body, never to return. It was always the more savage and
uncivilized peoples who were most likely to migrate. The lands
which they wished to seize they generally found already settled
by other tribes, more civilized and hence more peaceful, occupied
in trade and agriculture, having gradually turned to these
pursuits from their former habits of hunting and fighting.
Sometimes these more civilized and peace-loving people were able,
by their better weapons and superior knowledge of the art of
fortifying, to beat back the invasion of the immigrating
barbarians. Oftener, though, the rougher, ruder tribes were the
victors, and settled down among the people they had conquered, to
rule them, doing no work themselves, but forcing the conquered
ones to feed and clothe them.
[Illustration: Movable Huts of Early Germans]
History is full of instances of such conquests, and they were
taking place, no doubt, ages before the times from which our
earliest records date. The best examples, however, are to be
found in the invasions of the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes
to which we have referred above. The country between the Rhine
River and the Pyrenees Mountains, which had been called Gaul when
the Gauls lived there, became France when the Franks conquered
the Gauls and stayed to live among them. In like manner, two
German tribes became the master races in Spain. The Burgundians
came down from the shores of the Baltic Sea and gave their name
to their new home in the fertile valley of the Saône (Sōn); the
Vandals came out of Germany to roam through Spain, finally
founding a kingdom in Africa; while the Lombards crossed the Alps
to become the masters of the Valley of the Po, whither the Gauls
had gone before them, seven hundred years earlier.
[Illustration: Goths on the March]
[Illustration: Franks Crossing the Rhine]
The island now known as Great Britain, which was inhabited two
thousand years ago by the Britons and Gaels, Celtic peoples, was
overrun and conquered in part about 450 A.D. by the Saxons and
Angles, Germanic tribes, after whom part of the island was called
Angleland. (The men from the south of England are of the same
blood as the Saxons in the German army, against whom they had to
fight in the great war.) Then came Danes, who partially conquered
the Angles and Saxons, and after them, in 1066 A.D., the country
was again conquered by the Normans, descendants of some Norsemen,
who, one hundred and fifty years before, had come down from
Norway and conquered a large territory in the northwestern part
of France.
[Illustration: Men of Normandy Landing in England.]
In some cases, the conquered tribes moved on to other lands,
leaving their former homes to their conquerors. In this way the
Britons and Gaels gave up the greater part of their land to the
Angles and Saxons and withdrew to the hills and mountains of
Wales, Cornwall, and northern Scotland. In other cases, the
conquered people and their conquerors inhabited the same lands
side by side, as the Normans settled down in England among the
Anglo-Saxons.
In the early days of savagery, one tribe would frequently make a
raid upon another neighboring tribe and bring home with it some
captives who became slaves, working without pay for their
conquerors and possessing no more rights than beasts of burden.
(This custom exists today in the interior of Africa, and was
responsible for the infamous African slave trade. Black captives
were sold to white traders through the greed of their captors,
who forgot that their own relatives and friends might be carried
off and sold across the seas by some other tribe of blacks.)
When these slaves were kept as the servants of their conquerors,
their number was very small as compared with that of their
masters. When, on the other hand, a tribe settled among a people
whom they had conquered, they often found themselves fewer in
numbers, and kept their leadership only by their greater strength
and fighting ability.
Here there had arisen a new situation: all men were no longer
equal, led by a chief of their own choosing, but instead, the
greater part of them now had no voice in the government. They had
become subjects, working to earn their own living and also, as
has been said, to support in idleness their conquerors.
This ability of the few to rule the many and force them to
support their masters was increased as certain peoples learned
better than others how to make strong armor and effective
weapons. Nearly five hundred years before the time of Christ, at
the battle of Marathon (Măr′ȧ thŏn), the Greeks discovered
that one Greek, clad in metal armor and armed with a long spear,
was worth ten Persians wearing leather and carrying a bow and
arrows or a short sword. One hundred and sixty years later, a
small army of well-equipped Macedonian Greeks, led by that
wonderful general, Alexander the Great, defeated nearly forty
times its number of Persians in a great battle in Asia and
conquered a vast empire.
[Illustration: Alexander Defeating the Persians]
In later times, as better and better armor was made, the question
of wealth entered in. The chief who had money enough to buy the
best arms for his men could defeat his poorer neighbor and force
him to pay money as to a ruler. Finally, in the so-called “Middle
Ages,” before the invention of gunpowder, one knight, armed from
crown to sole in steel, was worth in battle as much as one
hundred poorly-armed farmers or “peasants” as they are called in
Europe.
In the “Dark Ages,”[2] after all these barbarians that we have named
had swarmed over Europe, and before the governments of modern times
were fully grown, there were hundreds of robber chiefs, who, scattered
throughout a country, were in the habit of collecting tribute at the
point of the sword from the peaceful peasants who lived near. This
tribute they collected in some cases, regularly, a fixed amount each
month or year, just as if they had a right to collect it, like a
government tax collector. It might be money or food or fodder, or fuel.
The robber chiefs were well armed themselves and were able to give good
weapons and armor to their men, who lived either in the chief’s castle
or in small houses built very near it. They likewise plundered any
travelers who came by, unless their numbers and weapons made them look
too dangerous to be attacked. But the regular tribute forced from the
peaceful farmers was the chief source of their income. The robber chief
and his men lived a life of idleness when they were not out upon some
raid for plunder, and the honest, industrious peasants worked hard
enough to support both their own families and those of the robbers.
[2] The “Dark Ages” came before the “Middle Ages.” They were called
“dark” because the barbarians had extinguished nearly all civilization
and learning.
[Illustration: A Knight in Armor]
These robber chiefs had no right but might. They were outlaws,
and lived either in a country which had no government and laws,
or in one whose government was too weak to protect its people.
They were no worse, however, than the so-called feudal barons who
came after them, who oppressed the people even more, because they
had on their side whatever law and government existed in those
days.
Now let us stop to consider how first there came to be kings. In
the early days of the human race and also in later days among
barbarous peoples, the land was very sparsely settled. The reason
lay in the chief occupations of the men. A small tribe might
inhabit a great stretch of territory through which they wandered
to keep within reach of plenty of game. As time went on, however,
the population increased, and, as agriculture took the place of
hunting, and homes became more lasting, tribes found themselves
living in smaller and smaller tracts of land, and hence nearer to
their neighbors. In some cases, constant fighting went on, just
as Caesar tells us that two thousand years ago, the Swiss and the
Germans fought almost daily battles back and forth across the
Rhine. In other cases, the tribes found it better for all
concerned to make treaties of peace with their neighbors, and if
they did not exchange visits and mix on friendly terms, at least
they did not attack each other.
Finally, one day there would come to several tribes which had
treaties with each other a common danger, such as an invasion by
some horde of another race or nation. Common interest would drive
them together for mutual protection, and the chief of some one of
them would be chosen to lead their joint army. In this way, we
find the fifteen tribes of the Belgians uniting against the Roman
army led by Julius Caesar, and electing as king over them the
chief of one of the tribes “on account of his justice and
wisdom.” Five years later, in the year 52 B.C., we find
practically all the inhabitants of what is now France united into
a nation under the leadership of Vercingetorix (Vẽr sin jet′ō
riks) in one last effort to free themselves from Rome. Five
hundred years later, the Romans themselves were driven to join
forces with two of the Germanic tribes to check the swift
invasion of the terrible Huns.
In some cases, these alliances were only for a short time and the
kingships were merely temporary. In other cases, the wars that
drove the tribes to unite under one great chief or king lasted
for years or even centuries, so that new generations grew up who
had never lived under any other government than that of a king.
Thus when the wars were ended, the tribes continued to be ruled
by the one man, although the reason for the kingship had ceased
to be. In the days of the Roman republic, from 500 to 100 B.C.,
when grave danger arose, the senate, or council of elders,
appointed one man who was called the dictator, and this dictator
ruled like an absolute monarch until the danger was past. Then,
like the famous Cincinnatus, he gave up the position and retired
to private life. The first lasting kingships, then, began, as it
were, by the refusal of some dictator to resign when the need for
his rule was ended.
By this time, the custom of choosing the son of a chief or king
to take his father’s place was fairly well settled, and it did
not take long to have it understood as a regular thing that at a
king’s death he should be followed by his oldest son. Often there
were quarrels and even civil wars caused by ambitious younger
sons, who did not submit to their elder brothers without a
struggle, but as people grew to be more civilized and
peace-loving, they found it better to have the oldest son looked
upon as the rightful heir to the kingship.
As kingdoms grew larger, and more and more people came to be
busied in agriculture, trade, and even, on a small scale, in
manufacture, the warriors grew fewer in proportion, and people
began to forget that the king was originally only a war leader,
and that the office was created through military need. They came
to regard the rule of the king as a matter of course and stopped
thinking of themselves as having any right to say how they should
be governed. Kings were quick to foster this feeling. For the
purpose of making their own positions sure, they were in the
habit of impressing it upon their people that the kingship was a
divine institution. They proclaimed that the office of king was
made by the gods, or in Christian nations, by God, and that it
was the divine will that the people of the nations should be
ruled by kings. The great Roman orator, Cicero (Sĭs′erō), in a
speech delivered in the year 66 B.C., referring to people who
lived in kingdoms, says that the name of king “seems to them a
great and sacred thing.” This same feeling has lasted through all
the ages down to the present time, and the majority of the people
in European kingdoms, even among the educated classes, still look
upon a king as a superior being, and are made happy and proud if
they ever have a chance to do him a service of any sort.
Questions for Review
Why was it that in barbarian tribes there was no private
ownership of land?
What is meant by saying that government was based upon the
consent of the governed?
Was there anything besides love of plunder that induced the
German tribes to move southward?
Explain the beginnings of slavery.
Explain the value of armor in early times.
What is meant by the “Dark Ages”?
What is meant by saying that the fighting men were parasites?
When the first kings were chosen was it intended that they
should be rulers for life?
Is it easy for a man in power to retain this power?
Why is it that most Europeans bow low before a king?
Chapter IV.
Master and Man
The land is the king’s.—He lends it to barons.—Barons lend it to
knights and smaller barons.—Smaller barons collect rent for it
from the peasants.—A father’s lands are lent to his son.—Barons
pay for the land by furnishing men for the king’s wars.—No
account is taken of the rights of the peasant.—The peasant, the
only producer, is despised by the fighting men.—If a baron
rebels, his men must rebel also.—Dukes against kings.—What killed
the feudal system.—Feudal wrongs alive today.
When one great tribe or nation invaded and conquered a country,
as the Ostrogoths came into Italy in the year 489 A.D., or as the
Normans entered England in 1066, their king at once took it for
granted that he owned all the conquered land. In some cases, he
might divide the kingdom up among his chiefs, giving a county to
each of forty or fifty leaders. These great leaders (dukes or
barons, as they were called in the Norman-French language, or
earls, as the English named them) would in turn each divide up
his county among several less important chiefs, whom we may call
lesser or little barons. Each little baron might have several
knights and squires, who lived in or near his castle and had
received from him tracts of land corresponding in size, perhaps,
to the American township and who, therefore, fought under his
banner in war.
[Illustration: A Norman Castle in England]
Each baron had under him a strong body of fighting men,
“men-at-arms,” as they were called, or “retainers,” who in return
for their “keep,” that is, their food and lodging, and a chance
to share the plunder gained in war, swore to be faithful to him,
became his men, and gave him the service called homage. (This
word comes from _hōmō_, the Latin for “man.”) The lesser baron,
in turn, swore homage to, and was the “man” of the great baron or
earl. Whenever the earl called on these lesser chiefs to gather
their fighting men and report to him, they had to obey, serving
him as unquestioningly as their squires and retainers obeyed
them. The earl or duke swore homage to the king, from whom he had
received his land.
This, then, was the feudal system (so named from the word
_feudum_, which, in Latin, meant a piece of land the use of which
was given to a man in return for his services in war), a system
which reversed the natural laws of society, and stood it on its
apex, like a cone balanced on its point. For instead of saying
that the land was the property of the people of the tribe or
nation, it started by taking for granted that the land all
belonged to the king. The idea was that the king did not give the
land, outright, to his dukes and earls, but that he gave them, in
return for their faithful support and service in war, the _use_
of the land during their lifetime, or so long as they remained
true to him. In _Macbeth_, we read how, for his treason, the
lands of the thane (earl) of Cawdor were taken from him by the
Scottish king and given to the thane of Glamis. The lands thus
lent were called fiefs. Upon the death of the tenant, they went
back to the king or duke who had given them in the first place,
and he at once gave them to some other one of his followers upon
the same terms. It often happened that upon the death of an earl
or baron his son was granted the lands which his father had held,
Finally, in many counties, it grew into a custom, and the oldest
son took possession of his father’s fief, but not without first
going to the king and swearing homage and fidelity to him.
Two things must be kept in mind if we are to understand the
system fully. In the first place, in the division of the lands
among the barons of the conquering nation, no account was taken
of the peasants. As they were of the defeated people, their
rights to the land were not once considered. In many countries,
the victors thought of them as part and parcel of the conquered
territory. They “went with” the land and were considered by the
lord of the county as merely his servants. When one lord turned
over a farm to another, the farmers were part of the bargain. If
any of them tried to run away, they were brought back and
whipped. They tilled the land and raised live stock, giving a
certain share of their yearly crop and a certain number of
beeves, hogs, sheep, etc., to the lord, as rent for the land,
much as the free farmers in other countries paid tribute to the
robber chieftains. Thus the one class of people who really earned
their right to live, by producing wealth, were oppressed and
robbed by all the others. Note this point, for there are wrongs
existing today that are due to the fact that the feudal system is
not wholly stamped out in some countries.
[Illustration: A Vassal doing Homage to his Lord]
In the second place, it must be noted that the king was not the
direct master of all the people. Only the great lords had sworn
homage to him. He was lord of the dukes, earls, and barons. The
less important barons swore homage to the great barons, and the
knights, squires, retainers, and yeomen swore homage to the
lesser barons. If a lesser baron had subdivided his fief among
certain knights and squires, the peasants owed allegiance, not to
him, but to the squire to whom they had been assigned. Thus, if a
“man” rebelled against his lord, all of his knights, retainers,
etc., must rebel also. If, for instance, a great duke refused to
obey his king and broke his oath of allegiance, all his little
barons and knights must turn disloyal too, or rather, must remain
loyal, for their oaths had been taken to support the duke, and
not the king. History is full of such cases. In many instances,
dukes became so powerful that they were able to make war on even
terms with kings. The great Dukes of Burgundy for a time kept the
kings of France in awe of their power; the Duke of Northumberland
in 1403 raised an army that almost overthrew King Henry Fourth of
England; the Duke of York, in 1461, drove Henry Sixth from the
throne of England and became king in his place.
[Illustration: William the Conqueror]
A strange case arose when, in 1066, William, who as duke of
Normandy had sworn homage to the king of France, became, through
conquest, king of England. His sons, great-grandsons, and
great-great-grandsons continued for one hundred and fifty years
to be obliged to swear allegiance to the French kings in order to
keep the duchy of Normandy. It was as if the Governor of Texas
had led an army into Mexico, conquered it, and become Emperor of
that country, without resigning his governorship or giving up his
American citizenship.
Two things which tended to break down the feudal system and bring
more power to the common people were, first, the invention of
gunpowder, and, second, the rise of towns. A man with a musket
could bring down a knight in armor as easily as he could the most
poorly armored peasant. Kings, in fighting to control their great
lords, gave more freedom to citizens of towns in return for their
help. The king’s armies came to be recruited largely from
townspeople, who were made correspondingly free from the feudal
lords.
The rule of the feudal system, that each man owed a certain
amount of military service to his ruler has lasted to the present
day and is responsible for much of the misery that now exists.
Kings went to war with each other simply to increase their
territories. The more land a king had under his control, the more
people who owed him taxes, and the greater number he could get
into his army, the greater became his ambition to spread his
kingdom still farther.
Questions for Review
How was it that the king of a tribe could claim to own all
the land in the country which he had invaded?
Did the kings, lords, and fighting men contribute anything to
the welfare of the working classes?
Would the peasants have been better off if all the fighting
men, lords, dukes, kings, etc., had suddenly been killed?
Can you see why in some countries in Europe a man who earns
his living is looked down upon by the nobles?
What is meant by saying that the feudal system turns society
upside down?
Why did the farmers continue to feed the fighting men?
Explain how the use of gunpowder in warfare helped to break
up the feudal system.
How did the rise of cities also help to do away with the
feudal system?
Chapter V.
A Babel of Tongues
The great family of languages.—Few languages in Europe not
belonging to the family.—The dying Celtic languages.—The three
branches of the Germanic family.—The influence of the Latin
tongue on the south of Europe.—The many Slavic peoples.—The map
as divided by kings without regard to peoples and languages.—The
strange mixture in Austria-Hungary.—The southeast of Europe.—The
Greeks and Dacians.—The Roman colonists.—The Slavs.—The
Volgars.—The Skipetars.—A hopeless mixture.
In Chapter II it was pointed out that almost all the peoples of
Europe were related, in one big family of tribes. It is likely
that the forefathers of the Celts, the Latins, the Germans, the
Greeks, and the Slavs belonged to one big tribe which had its
home back in the highlands of Central Asia. As a general rule,
the relationship of peoples to each other can be told by the
languages which they speak. If two tribes are related because
their forefathers once belonged to the same tribe, it is almost
certain that they will show this relationship in their languages.
The language of England a thousand years ago was very much like
the language of the Germans, for the English were originally
German tribes. Even today, it is easy to see that English is a
Germanic language. Take the English words house, father, mother,
brother, water, here, is, etc. The German words which mean the
same are _haus, vater, mutter, bruder, wasser, hier, ist_. It is
very plain that the two languages must have come from the same
source.
There are professors in European colleges who have spent their
whole lives studying this relationship of languages. These men
have proved not only that almost all the languages of Europe are
related, but that the language of the Persians, and that of some
of the old tribes in Hindustan also belong to one great family of
tongues. Let us take the word for mother. In one of the ancient
languages of Hindustan it was _matr_; in the Greek, it was
_mātār_; in the Latin _mater_ (mätār); in the Bohemian
_matka_; in the German _mu̠tter_; in the Spanish mädre; in the
Norwegian _mōder_, etc. This great family of languages is called
“the Indo-European group,” because the tribes which spoke them,
originally inhabitants of Asia, have scattered all over India and
Europe. The only peoples in Europe whose languages do not belong
to it are the Finns and Laplanders of the north, the Basques
(Bȧsks) of the Pyrenees Mountains, the Hungarians, the Gypsies,
and the Turks.
The descendants of the old Celtic peoples have not kept up the
Celtic languages to any great extent. The reason for this is that
first the Romans and then the Germanic tribes conquered most of
the lands where the Celts lived. In this way, Spain, Portugal,
France, and Belgium now talk languages that have grown from the
Latin, the language of Rome. The Celts in the British Isles now
all talk English, because the English, who were a Germanic
people, conquered them and forced them to use their language.
Patriotic Irishmen and Welshmen (who are descendants of the
Celtic tribes) are trying to keep alive the Irish and Welsh
languages, but all of the young people in the British Isles learn
English, and they are generally content to talk only one
language. The other Celtic languages which have existed within
the last one hundred years are the Gaelic of the north of
Scotland, the Breton of western France, and the Cornish of the
southwestern corner of England.
The Germanic languages (sometimes called Teutonic) are found in
three parts of Europe today. The Scandinavian languages, Danish,
Norwegian, and Swedish, belong to this family. Western Austria
and Germany form, with Holland and Western Belgium, a second
group of German-speaking nations. (The people of eastern Belgium
are Celts and talk a kind of French.) The third part of Europe
which uses a Germanic language is England.
In an earlier chapter we learned how the Celts in France, Spain,
and Portugal gave up their own languages and used the Latin.
Latin languages today are found also in the southern and western
parts of Switzerland, all over Italy, and in Roumania.
We learned also about the Slavs who lived to the eastward of the
Germanic tribes. When the Germans moved west, these Slavs
followed them and occupied the lands which had just been left
vacant. In this way, we find Slavic peoples talking Slavic
(sometimes called Slavonic) languages in the parts of Europe to
the east and south of the Germans. More than half of the
inhabitants of Austria-Hungary are Slavs, although the Austrians
proper are a Germanic people, and the Hungarians do not belong to
the Indo-European family at all. The Serbians and Montenegrins
are Slavs. The Poles and Russians are Slavs. The Bulgarians speak
a Slavic language and have some Slavic blood in them, although,
as will be pointed out later, originally they did not belong to
the Slavic family.
[Illustration: Map: Distribution Of Peoples According to Relationship]
The Greeks and Albanians belong to the great Indo-European family
of tribes, but their languages are not closely related to any of
the four great branches.
[Illustration: Distribution Of Languages]
The two maps on pages 65 and 66 are very much alike and yet in
some respects very different. The first shows how Europe is
largely inhabited by peoples of the great Indo-European family.
Those who are descended from the Celts are marked Celtic even
though today they have given up their Celtic language, as have
the Cornish in England and the inhabitants of Spain, France,
eastern Belgium, and the greater part of Ireland. The Bulgarians
are marked as not belonging to the great family, although they
speak a Slavic language.
In the second map, the distribution of languages is shown. You
will notice that the Celtic languages are found only in small
parts of the British Isles, and in the westernmost point of
France. The Bulgarians are here marked Slavic because their
language belongs to that branch. One of the most curious things
about the two maps is the presence of little spots like islands,
particularly made up of German-speaking peoples. There are
several of these little islands in Russia. They have been there
for nearly two hundred years. A traveler crossing the southern
part of Russia is astonished to find districts as large as an
American county where not a word of Russian is spoken. The people
are all of Germanic blood, although they live under the
government of Russia. In the same way, there is a large German
island in the midst of the Roumanians in Transylvania and another
between the Slovaks and Poles at the foot of the Carpathian
Mountains. There is a large Hungarian island in Transylvania
also, entirely surrounded by Germans and Roumanians. The table on
the opposite page shows the main branches of the Indo-European
family that are found in Europe.
The Indo-European Family of Languages
(_a_) Hindu branch
(_b_) Persian branch
(_c_) Celtic branch
Gāe′lic (northern Scotland) Welsh Cornish (dead)
Erse (Irish) Brē′ton (western France)
(_d_) Latin branch
Portuguese Spanish French Romansh (southeastern Switzerland)
Italian Roumanian
(_e_) Germanic branch
Norwegian Danish Swedish Dutch Flemish (Belgium)
Low German High German English
(_f_) Slavonic branch
Russian Polish Lettish Lithuanian Old Prussian (dead) Czech
(Bohemian [pronounced Chĕck]) Slō vak′ (northern Hungary)
Serbian Bulgarian Slove′nian (southwestern Austria)
Crōa′tian (southern Austria)
Ruthē′nian (northeastern Austria-Hungary, and southwestern
Russia)
} } Baltic states of Russia }
(_g_) Greek
(_h_) Albā′nian
The main source of the present trouble in Europe is that kings
and their ministers and generals, like their ancestors, the
feudal lords, never considered the wishes of the people when they
changed the boundaries of kingdoms. Austria-Hungary is a good
example. The Austrians and Hungarians were two very different
peoples. They had nothing in common and did not wish to be joined
under one ruler, but a king of Hungary, dying, left no son to
succeed him, and his only daughter was married to the archduke of
Austria. This archduke of Austria (a descendant of the counts of
Hapsburg) was also emperor of Germany and king of Bohemia,
although the Bohemian people had not chosen him as their ruler.
The Hungarians, before their union with Austria, had conquered
certain Slavic tribes and part of the Roumanians. Later Austria
annexed part of Poland. In this way, the empire became a jumble
of languages and nationalities. When its congress is called
together, the official announcement is read in eleven different
languages. Forty-one different dialects are talked in an area not
as large as that of the state of Texas.
We must remember that besides the literary or written languages
of each country there are several spoken dialects. A man from
Devonshire, England, meeting a man from Yorkshire in the north of
the same country, has difficulty in understanding many words in
his speech. The language of the south of Scotland also is
English, although it is very different from the English that we
in America are taught. A Frenchman from the Pyrenees Mountains
was taught in school to speak and read the French language as we
find it in books. Yet besides this, he knows a dialect that is
talked by the country people around him, that can not be
understood by the peasants from the north of France near the
Flemish border. The man who lives in the east of France can
understand the dialect of the Italians from the west of Italy
much better than he can that of the Frenchman from the Atlantic
coast.
In America, with people moving around from place to place by
means of stage coach, steamboat, and railroad, there has been no
great chance to develop dialects, although we can instantly tell
the New Englander, the southerner, or the westerner by his
speech. It should be remembered that in Europe, for centuries,
the people were kept on their own farms or in their own towns.
The result of this was that each little village or city has its
own peculiar language. It is said that persons who have studied
such language matters carefully, after conversing with a man from
Europe, can tell within thirty miles where his home used to be in
the old country. There are no sharply marked boundaries of
languages. The dialects of France shade off into those of Spain
on the one hand and into those of the Flemish and the Italian on
the other.
[Illustration: Southeastern Europe, 600 B.C.]
The British Isles furnish us with four or five different
nationalities. The people of the north of Ireland are really
lowland Scotch of Germanic descent, while the other three-fourths
of Ireland is inhabited by Celts. To make the difference all the
greater, the Celts are almost universally Catholics, while the
Scotch-Irish are Protestants. The people of the north of Scotland
are Gaels, a Celtic race having no connection in language or
blood with the people of the southern half of that country. The
Welsh are a Celtic people, having no relationship with the
English, who are a Germanic people. The Welsh and the Cornish of
Cornwall and the people of highland Scotland are the descendants
of the ancient Britons and Gaels who inhabited the island when
Julius Caesar and the Romans first landed there. Then five
hundred years afterwards, as has already been told, came great
swarms of Germans (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), who drove the
Britons to the west and north, and settled the country now known
as England. After these, you will recall, came a number of Danes,
another Germanic people, who settled the east coast of England.
Two hundred years later, the Normans came from France. These
Normans had been living in France for a century or two, but had
come originally from Norway. Normans, Danes, Angles, and Saxons
all mixed to make the modern English. Together, they fought the
Scotch, the Welsh and the Irish, and having conquered them,
oppressed them harshly for many centuries.
[Illustration: Southeastern Europe, 975 A.D.]
But it is in the southeastern corner of Europe that one finds the
worst jumble of nationalities. Six hundred years before Christ,
the Greeks and their rougher cousins, the Thracians, Macedonians,
and Dacians inhabited this district. When one of the Roman
Emperors conquered the Dacians about 100 A.D., he planted a large
Roman colony north of the Danube River. Then came the West Goths,
who swept into this country, but soon left it for the west of
Europe. Next came the Slavic tribes who are the ancestors of the
modern Serbs. Following these, came a large tribe which did not
belong to the Indo-European family, but was distantly related to
the Finns and the Turks. These people were called the Volgars,
for they came from the country around the River Volga. Before
long, we find them called the Bulgars. (The letters B and V are
often interchanged in the languages of south-eastern Europe. The
people of western Europe used to call the country of the Serbs
Servia, but the Serbs objected, saying that the word _servio_, in
Latin, means “to be a slave,” and that as they were not slaves,
they wanted their country to be called by its true name, Serbia.
The Greeks, on the other hand, pronounce the letter B as though
it were V.)
A strange thing happened to the Volgars or Bulgars. They
completely gave up their Asiatic language and adopted a new one,
which became in time the purest of the Slavic tongues. They
intermarried with the Slavs around them and adopted Slavic names.
They founded a flourishing nation which lay between the kingdom
of Serbia and the Greek Empire of Constantinople.
North of the Bulgars lay the country of the Roumani (ro͞o
mä′nï). These people claimed to be descended from the Roman
Emperor’s colonists, as was previously told, but the reason their
language is so much like the Italian is that a large number of
people from the north of Italy moved into the country nearly a
thousand years after the first Roman colonists settled there.
From 900 to 1300 A.D., south-eastern Europe was inhabited by
Serbians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and Greeks.
[Illustration: A Typical Bulgarian Family]
A fifth people perhaps ought to be counted here, the Albanians.
(See map) This tribe is descended from the Illyrians, who
inhabited the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea even before the
time of the Roman Empire. Their language, like the Greek, is a
branch of the Indo-European family which is neither Latin,
Celtic, Germanic, nor Slavic. They are distant cousins of the
Italians and are also slightly related to the Greeks. They are a
wild, fierce, uncivilized people, and have never known the
meaning of law and order. Robbery and warfare are common. Each
village is always fighting with the people of the neighboring
towns. The Albanians, or Skipetars (skïp′ĕtars) as they call
themselves, were Christians until they were conquered by the
Turks about 1460. Since that time, the great majority of them
have been staunch believers in the Mohammedan religion.
Questions for Review
Where did the great Indo-European family of languages have
its beginning?
Why is it that the Celtic languages are dying out?
What killed the Celtic languages in Spain and France?
What are the three parts of Europe where Germanic languages
are spoken?
In what parts of Europe are languages spoken which are
descended from the Latin?
Explain the presence in Austria-Hungary of eleven different
peoples?
Are the Bulgarians really a Slavic people?
Chapter VI.
“The Terrible Turk”
The Greek Empire at Constantinople.—The invading Mohammedans.—The
Ottoman Turks.—The fall of Constantinople.—The enslaving of the
Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians.—One little
part of Serbia unconquered.—The further conquests of the
Turks.—The attack on Vienna.—John Sobieski to the rescue.—The
waning of the Turkish empire.—The Spanish Jews.—The jumble of
languages and peoples in southeastern Europe.
In the last chapter, we referred briefly to the Greek empire at
Constantinople. This city was originally called Byzantium, and
was a flourishing Greek commercial center six hundred years
before Christ. Eleven hundred years after this, a Roman emperor
named Constantine decided that he liked Byzantium better than
Rome. Accordingly, he moved the capital of the empire to the
Greek city, and renamed it Constantinopolis (the word _polis_
means “city” in Greek). Before long, we find the Roman empire
divided into two parts, the capital of one at Rome, of the other
at Constantinople. This eastern government was continued by the
Greeks nearly one thousand years after the government of the
western empire had been seized by the invading Germanic tribes.
[Illustration: The Turkish Sultan before Constantinople]
For years, this Greek empire at Constantinople had been obliged
to fight hard against the Mohammedans who came swarming across
the fertile plains of Mesopotamia (mĕs′ō pō tā′ mĭ ā) and
Asia Minor. (Mesopotamia is the district lying between the Tigris
(tī′grĭs) and Euphrates (ūfrā′tēz) Rivers. Its name in Greek
means “between the rivers.”) The fiercest of the Mohammedan
tribes, the warlike Ottoman Turks, were the last to arrive. For
several years, they thundered at the gates of Constantinople,
while the Greek Empire grew feebler and feebler.
At last in 1453, their great cannon made a breach in the walls,
and the Turks poured through. The Greek Empire was a thing of the
past, and all of southeastern Europe lay at the mercy of the
invading Moslems (another name for “Mohammedans”). The Turks did
not drive out the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Albanians,
but settled down among them as the ruling, military class. They
strove to force these peoples to give up Christianity and turn
Mohammedans, but were successful only in the case of the
Skipetars of Albania. The Albanians, Serbians, Bulgarians,
Greeks, and Roumanians remained where they had been, but were
oppressed by the newcomers.
For more than two hundred years after the capture of
Constantinople, the Turks pushed their conquests farther and
farther into Europe. The entire coast of the Black Sea fell into
their hands. All of Greece, all of Bulgaria, and all of Roumania
became part of their empire. Of the kingdom of Serbia, one small
province remained unconquered. Up in the mountains near the coast
of the Adriatic gathered the people of one county of the Serbian
kingdom. As the Turks attacked them, they retreated higher and
higher up the mountain sides and rolled huge stones down upon the
invaders. Finally, the Turk became disgusted, and concluded that
“the game was not worth the candle.” Thus the little nation of
Montenegro was formed, composed of Serbians who never submitted
to the Ottoman rule. (The inhabitants of this small country call
it Tzernagorah (tzẽr nä gō′ra); the Italians call it
Montenegro. Both of these names mean “Dark Mountain.”)
Not satisfied with these conquests, the Turks pushed on, gaining
control of the greater part of the kingdom of Hungary. About
1682, they were pounding at the forts around Vienna. The heroic
king of Poland, John Sobieski (sō bĭ ĕs′kĭ), came to the
rescue of the Austrian emperor with an army of Poles and Germans
and completely defeated the Turks. He saved Vienna, and ended any
further advance of the Turkish rule into Europe. (The map on page
82 shows the high water mark of the Turkish conquests.)
It must be remembered that the original inhabitants of the
conquered lands were still living where they always had lived.
The Turks were very few in number compared with the millions of
people who inhabited their empire and paid them tribute. Many
wars were caused by this conquest, but it was two hundred and
thirty years before the Christian peoples won back their
territory.
[Illustration: Southeastern Europe 1690 A.D.]
By the year 1685, the Hungarians had begun to win back part of
their kingdom. By 1698, almost all of Hungary and Transylvania
was free from Turkish rule. It will be recalled that a certain
Count of Hapsburg had become Emperor of Germany, and when we say
Germany, we include Austria, which had become the home of the
Hapsburgs. It was shortly after this that the Hapsburg family
came to be lords of Hungary also, through the marriage of one of
their emperors with the only daughter of the king of that
country. (See page 69.)
In this way, when the province of Bukowina and the territory
known as the Banat, just north of the Danube and west of what is
now Roumania, were reconquered from the Turks, it was the joint
kingdom to which they were attached. (Bukowina has never been a
part of Hungary. It is still a crown land, or county subject to
the emperor of Austria personally.)
During the 15th century, the southeastern part of Europe came to
be inhabited by a still different people. Not long after
Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain, had
conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada (see Chapter II) that
used to stretch across the southern half of Spain, the Spaniards
decided to drive out of their country all “unbelievers,” that is,
all who were not Christians of the Catholic faith. (This happened
in 1492, the same year that they sent Columbus to America.) The
Moors retreated into Africa, which was their former home, but the
millions of Spanish Jews had no homeland to which to return. In
the midst of their distress, the Sultan of Turkey, knowing them
to be prosperous and well-behaved citizens, invited them to enter
his land. They did so by hundreds of thousands.
The descendants of these people are to be found today throughout
the Balkan peninsula, though mainly in the large cities. They are
so numerous in Constantinople that four newspapers are published
there in the Spanish language, but printed in Hebrew characters.
The city of Salonika, a prosperous seaport of 140,000 people,
which used to belong to Turkey but now is part of Greece, has
over 50,000 of these Jews. They readily learn other tongues, and
many of them can talk in four or five languages besides their
native Spanish, which they still use in the family circle.
Constantinople (called Stamboul by the Turks) is a polyglot city,
that is, a place of many languages. Greeks, Turks, Armenians,
Jews, Italians are all found mingled together.
[Illustration: A Scene in Salonicka]
The main source of trouble in the Balkan peninsula is that the
races and nationalities are so jumbled together that it is almost
impossible to say which land should belong to which nation. Take
the case of Macedonia (the district just northwest of the Aegean
Sea). It is inhabited largely by Bulgarians, and yet there are so
many Greeks and Serbs mixed in with the former that at the close
of the last Balkan war in 1913, Greece and Serbia both claimed it
as belonging to them because of the “prevailing nationality of
its inhabitants!” In other words, the Serbians claimed that the
inhabitants of Macedonia were largely Serbs, the Greeks were
positive that its people were largely Greeks, while Bulgaria is
very resentful today because the land was not given to her, on
the ground that almost all its inhabitants are Bulgarians!
Religious and racial hatreds have had a great deal to do with
making the Balkan peninsula a hotbed of political trouble. Right
in the center of Bulgaria, for example, speaking the same
language, dressing exactly alike, doing business with each other
on an equal footing, are to be found the native Bulgarian and the
descendant of the Turkish conquerors; yet one goes to the Greek
Orthodox Church to worship and the other to the Mohammedan
Mosque. With memories of hundreds of years of wrong and
oppression behind them, Bulgarians and Turks hate and despise
each other with a fierce intensity. Let us now leave the Balkan
states, with their seething pot of racial and religious hatred,
and turn to other causes of European wars.
Questions for Review
What became of the Greeks when the Turks captured
Constantinople?
Why could one county of Serbia resist the Turks?
How long after the fall of Constantinople were the Turks
threatening Vienna?
Explain how Constantinople has people of so many different
nationalities.
Why have the Turk and Bulgarian never been friendly?
Chapter VII.
The Rise of Modern Nations
How the peasants looked upon war.—War the opportunity of the
fighting men.—The decreasing power of barons.—The growth of royal
power.—How four little kingdoms became Spain.—Other kingdoms of
Europe.—The rise of Russia.—The Holy Roman Empire.—The
electors.—The rise of Brandenburg.—The elector of Brandenburg
becomes King of Prussia.—Frederick the Great.—The seizure of
Silesia and the consequent wars.
You have already been shown how in the early days of the feudal
system, the lords, with their squires, knights, and fighting men
made up a class of the population whose only trade was war, and
how the poor peasants were compelled to raise crops and live
stock enough to feed both themselves and the fighting men. These
peasants had no love for war, as war resulted only in their
losing their possessions in case their country was invaded by the
enemy. The fighting men, on the other hand, had nothing to do
unless war was going on, and as those who were not killed
returned from a war with rich plunder in case they were
victorious, they were always looking for a chance to start
trouble with some neighboring country.
In those days, kings cared little what their nobles did, so long
as the nobles furnished them with fighting men in times of war.
As a result, one county in a certain kingdom would often be at
war with a neighboring county. The fighting man either was killed
in battle or he came out of it with increased glory and plunder,
but the peasants and the common people had nothing to gain by war
and everything to lose. As we have seen, force ruled the world,
and the common people had no voice in their government. The
workers were looked down upon by the members of the fighting
class, who never did a stroke of work themselves and considered
honest toil as degrading. In fact, as one writer has said, the
only respectable trade in Europe in those days was what we today
would call highway robbery.
France and England in the 15th Century
Gradually in most of the European countries the king was able to
put down the power of his nobles and make himself master over the
whole nation. In this way a strong central power grew up in
France. After the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in
1477, no noble dared to question the leadership of the king of
France. The same thing was true in England after the battle of
Bosworth in 1485, which resulted in the death of King Richard III
and the setting of the Tudor family on the throne.
Spain and Other Kingdoms
Spain had been divided into four little kingdoms: Leon, Castile,
Aragon, and Granada, the latter ruled by the Moors. The nation
marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile and Leon
joined the three Christian kingdoms into one, and after 1492,
when the Moors were defeated and Granada annexed to the realm of
Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain became one kingdom. About this
time, also, there had grown up a strong kingdom of Hungary, a
kingdom of Portugal, a kingdom of Poland, and one of Denmark.
Norway was ruled by the Danes, but Sweden was a separate kingdom.
In Russia, Czar Ivan the Terrible (1533-84) had built up a strong
power which was still further strengthened by Czar Peter the
Great (1690-1725).
The Holy Roman Empire
The rest of the continent of Europe, with the exception of the
Turkish Empire, formed what was called the Holy Roman Empire, a
rule which had been founded by Charlemagne (A.D. 800), the great
Frankish monarch, who had been crowned in Rome by the pope as
ruler of the western world. (The name “Holy Roman Empire” was not
used by Charlemagne. We first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon
emperor, who was crowned in 962.)
[Illustration: The Empire of Charlemagne]
This Holy Roman Empire included all of what is now Germany
(except the eastern third of Prussia), all of what is now
Bohemia, Austria (but not Hungary), and all of Italy except the
part south of Naples. There were times when part of France and
all of the low countries (now Belgium and Holland) also belonged
to the Empire. (The mountaineers of Switzerland won their
independence from the Empire in the fourteenth century, and
formed a little republic.) See map “Europe in 1540.”
[Illustration: Europe in 1540]
In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not
necessarily succeed his father as ruler. There were seven
(afterwards nine) “electors” who, at the death of the ruling
monarch, met to elect his successor. Three of these electors were
archbishops, one was king of Bohemia, and the others were counts
of large counties in Germany like Hanover and Brandenburg. It
frequently happened that the candidate chosen was a member of the
family of the dead emperor, and there were three or four families
which had many rulers chosen from among their number. The most
famous of these families was that of the Counts of Hapsburg, from
whom the present emperor of Austria is descended.
[Illustration: Louis XIV]
This Holy Roman Empire was not a strong government, as the
kingdoms of England and France grew to be. The kings of Bohemia,
Saxony, and Bavaria all were subjects of the emperor, as were
many powerful counts. These men were jealous of the emperor’s
power, and he did not dare govern them as strictly as the king of
France ruled his nobles.
France in the 18th Century
[Illustration: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough]
During the 18th century, there were many wars in Europe caused by
the ambition of various kings to make their domains larger and to
increase their own incomes. King Louis XIV of France had built up
a very powerful kingdom. Brave soldiers and skillful generals
spread his rule over a great part of what is Belgium and
Luxemburg, and annexed to the French kingdom the part of Germany
between the Rhine River and the Vosges (Vōzh) Mountains.
Finally, the English joined with the troops of the Holy Roman
Empire to curb the further growth of the French kingdom, and at
the battle of Blenheim (1704), the English Duke of Marlborough,
aided by the emperor’s army, put an end to the further expansion
of the French.
[Illustration: The Great Elector of Brandenburg]
Prussia
The 18th century also saw the rise of a new kingdom in Europe.
You will recall that there was a county in Germany named
Brandenburg, whose count was one of the seven electors who chose
the emperor. The capital of this county was Berlin. It so
happened that a number of Counts of Brandenburg, of the family of
Hohenzollern, had been men of ambition and ability. The little
county had grown by adding small territories around it. One of
these counts, called “the Great Elector,” had added to
Brandenburg the greater part of the neighboring county of
Pomerania. His son did not have the ability of his father, but
was a very proud and vain man. He happened to visit King William
III of England, and was very much offended because during the
interview, the king occupied a comfortable arm chair, while the
elector, being simply a count, was given a chair to sit in which
was straight-backed and had no arms. Brooding over this insult,
as it seemed to him, he went home and decided that he too should
be called a king. The question was, what should his title be. He
could not call himself “King of Brandenburg,” for Brandenburg was
part of the Empire, and the emperor would not allow it. It had
happened some one hundred years before, that, through his
marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Prussia, a Count of
Brandenburg had come into possession of the district known as
East Prussia, at the extreme southeastern corner of the Baltic
Sea. Between this and the territory of Brandenburg lay the
district known as West Prussia, which was part of the Kingdom of
Poland. However, Prussia lay outside the boundaries of the
Empire, and the emperor had nothing to say about what went on
there. Therefore, the elector sent notice to all the kings and
princes of Europe that after this he was to be known as the “King
of Prussia.” It was a situation somewhat like the one we have
already referred to, when the kings of England were independent
monarchs and yet subjects of the kings of France because they
were also dukes of Normandy.
[Illustration: Frederick The Great]
The son of this elector who first called himself king had more
energy and more character than his father. He ruled his country
with a rod of iron, and built up a strong, well-drilled army. He
was especially fond of tall soldiers, and had agents out all over
Europe, kidnapping men who were over six feet tall to serve in
his famous regiment of Guards. He further increased the size of
the Prussian kingdom.
His son was the famous Frederick the Great, one of the most
remarkable fighters that the world has ever seen. This prince had
been brought up under strict discipline by his father. The old
king had been insistent that his son should be no weakling. It is
told that one day, finding Frederick playing upon a flute, he
seized the instrument and snapped it in twain over his son’s
shoulder. The young Frederick, under this harsh training, became
a fit leader of a military nation. When his father died and left
him a well-filled treasury and a wonderfully drilled army, he was
fired with the ambition to spread his kingdom wider. Germany, as
has been said, was made up of a great many little counties, each
ruled by its petty prince or duke, all owing homage, in a general
way, to the ruler of Austria, who still was supposed to be the
head of the Holy Roman Empire.
[Illustration: The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1400-1806]
This empire was not a real nation, but a collection of many
different nationalities which had little sympathy with each
other. The ruler of Austria was also king of Bohemia and of
Hungary, but neither country was happy at being governed by a
German ruler. Then, too, the Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, and
Slovaks were unhappy at being ruled, first by the Hungarians and
then by the emperor, as they were Slavic peoples who wished their
independence. It so happened that about the time that Frederick
became king of Prussia in place of his father, the head of the
House of Austria died, leaving his only child, a daughter, Maria
Theresa, to rule the big empire. Frederick decided that he could
easily defeat the disorganized armies of Austria, so he announced
to the world that the rich province of Silesia was henceforth to
be his and that he proposed to take it by force of arms.
Naturally, this brought on a fierce war with Austria, but in the
end, Frederick’s well-trained troops, his store of money, and
above all, his expert military ability made the Prussians
victorious, and at the close of the fighting, almost all of
Silesia remained a part of the kingdom of Prussia. The Austrians,
however, were not satisfied, and two more wars were fought before
they finally gave up trying to recover the stolen state.
Frederick remained stronger than ever as a result of his
victories.
Questions for Review
Why were the fighting men of the Middle Ages a source of loss
to a nation in general?
How was it that Spain became one nation?
What did Peter the Great do for Russia?
Why did the Emperor have less power than many kings?
What was the ambition of Louis XIV of France?
What effect had the training of his father upon the character
of Frederick the Great?
Had Frederick the Great any right to Silesia?
Chapter VIII.
The Fall of the Two Kingdoms
The Poles, a divided nation.—The three partitions.—Wars and
revolts as a result.—The disappearance of Lithuania.—The growing
power of the king of France.—An extravagant and corrupt
court.—Peasants cruelly taxed and oppressed.—Bankruptcy at
last.—The meeting of the three estates.—The third estate defies
the king.—The fall of the Bastille.—The flight and capture of the
king.—The king beheaded.—Other kings alarmed.—Valmy saves the
revolution.—The reign of terror.
In the flat country to the northeast of Austria-Hungary and east
of Prussia lay the kingdom of Poland, the largest country in
Europe with the exception of Russia. The Poles, as has been said
before, were a Slavic people, distant cousins of the Russians and
Bohemians. They had a strong nobility or upper class, but these
nobles were jealous of each other, and as a result, the country
was torn apart by many warring factions. The condition of the
working class was very miserable. The nobles did not allow them
any privileges. They were serfs, that is to say, practically
slaves, who had to give up to their masters the greater part of
the crops that they raised. In the council of the Polish nobles,
no law could be passed if a single nobleman opposed it. As a
result of this jealousy between factions, the Poles could not be
induced to obey any one leader, and thus, divided, were easy to
conquer.
Frederick the Great, regretting the fact that he was separated
from his land in East Prussia by the county of West Prussia,
which was part of Poland, proposed to his old enemy, Maria
Theresa of Austria, and to the Empress Catharine II of Russia
that they each take a slice of Poland. This was accordingly done,
in the year 1772. Poor Poland was unable to resist the three
great powers around her, and the other kings of Europe, who had
been greedily annexing land wherever they could get it, stood by
without a protest. Some twenty years later, Prussia and Russia
each again annexed a large part of the remainder of Poland, and
two years after this, the three powers divided up among them all
that was left of the unhappy kingdom. The Poles fought violently
against this last partition, but they were not united and were
greatly outnumbered by the troops of the three powers.
This great crime against a nation was the result of the military
system; and this in turn was the result of the feudal system,
which made the king, as commander-in-chief of the army, the
supreme ruler of his country. The men in the Prussian and
Austrian armies had no desire to fight and conquer the poor
Poles. Victory meant nothing to them. They gained no advantage
from it. To the kings who divided up the countries it simply
meant an enlargement of their kingdoms, more people to pay taxes
to them, and more men to draw on for their armies.
[Illustration: Catharine II]
Instead of crushing out the love of the Poles for their country,
this wrongful tearing apart has made their national spirit all
the stronger. There have been revolts and bloody wars, caused by
Polish uprisings, time and time again, and the Poles will never
be satisfied until their unhappy country is once more united.
To the northeast of the Poles live the Lithuanians, whose country
had been annexed to the Polish kingdom when their duke, who had
married the daughter of the king of Poland, followed his
father-in-law on the Polish throne. Lithuania fell to Russia’s
share in the division, so that its people only changed masters.
They are a distinct nation, however, possessing a language and
literature of their own, and having no desire to be ruled by
either Poles or Russians. If they were to receive justice, they
would form a country by themselves, lying between Poland and
Russia proper.
The Downfall of the French Monarchy
[Illustration: Courtier of time of Louis XIV]
In the meantime, a great change had come about in France. There,
for hundreds of years, the power of the king had been growing
greater, until by the eighteenth century, there was no one in the
country who could oppose him. He had great fortresses and prisons
where he sent those who had offended him, shutting them up
without a trial and not even letting their families know where
they had been taken. The peasants and working classes had been
ground down under taxes which grew heavier and heavier. The king
spent millions of dollars on his palaces, on his armies, on his
courts. Money was stolen by court officials. Paris was the gayest
capital in the world, the home of fashion, art, and frivolity and
the poor peasants paid the bills.
[Illustration: The Taking of The Bastille]
For years, there had been mutterings. The people were ripe for a
revolt, but they had no weapons, and there was no one to lead
them. At last, came a time when there was no money in the royal
treasury. After all the waste and corruption, nothing was left to
pay the army and keep up the expenses of the government. One
minister of finance after another tried to devise some scheme
whereby the country might meet its debts, but without success.
The costly wars and wasteful extravagances of the past hundred
years were at last to bring a reckoning. In desperation, the king
summoned a meeting of representative men from all over the
kingdom. There were three classes represented, the nobles, the
clergy, and what was called “the third estate,” which meant
merchants, shopkeepers, and the poor gentlemen. A great statesman
appeared, a man named Mirabeau. Under his leadership, the third
estate defied the king, and the temper of the people was such
that the king dared not force them to do his will. In the midst
of these exciting times, a mob attacked the great Paris prison,
the Bastille. They took it by storm, and tore it to the ground.
This happened on the fourteenth of July, 1789, a day which the
French still celebrate as the birthday of their nation’s liberty.
All over France the common people rose in revolt. The soldiers in
the army would no longer obey their officers. The king was
closely watched, and when he attempted to flee to Germany was
brought back and thrown into prison. Many of the nobles, in
terror, fled from the country. Thus began what is known as the
French Revolution.
[Illustration: The Palace of Versailles]
As soon as the king was thrown into prison and the people of
France took charge of their government, a panic arose throughout
the courts of Europe. Other kings, alarmed over the fate of the
king of France, began to fear for themselves. They, too, had
taxed and oppressed their subjects. They felt that this revolt of
the French people must be put down, and the king of France set
back upon his throne, otherwise the same kind of revolt might
take place in their countries as well. Accordingly, the king of
Prussia, the king of England, and the emperor of Austria all made
war on the new French Republic. They proposed to overwhelm the
French by force of arms and compel them to put back their king
upon his throne.
Of course, if the soldiers in the armies of these kings had known
what the object of this war was, they would have had very little
sympathy with it, but for years they had been trained to obey
their officers, who in turn obeyed their generals, who in turn
obeyed the orders of the kings. The common soldiers were like
sheep, in that they did not think for themselves, but followed
their leaders. They were not allowed to know the truth concerning
this attack on France. They did not know the French language, and
had no way of finding out the real situation, for there were no
public schools in these countries, and very few people knew how
to read the newspapers. The newspapers, moreover, were controlled
by the governments, and were allowed to print only what favored
the cause of the kings.
The French, however, knew the meaning of the war. A young French
poet from Strasbourg on the Rhine wrote a wonderful war song
which was first sung in Paris by the men of Marseilles, and thus
has come to be called “La Marseillaise.” It is the cry of a
crushed and oppressed people against foreign tyrants who would
again enslave them. It fired the French army with a wonderful
enthusiasm, and untrained as they were, they beat back the
invaders at the hard-fought field of Valmy and saved the French
Republic.
[Illustration: The Reign of Terror]
The period known as “the reign of terror” now began in earnest. A
faction of the extreme republican party got control of the
government, and kept it by terrorizing the more peaceable
citizens. The brutal wrongs which nobles had put upon the lower
classes for so many hundred years were brutally avenged. The king
was executed, as were most of the nobles who had not fled from
the country. For three or four years, the gutters of the
principal French cities ran blood. Then the better sense of the
nation came to the front and the people settled down. A fairly
good government was organized, and the executions ceased. Still
the kings of Europe would not recognize the new republic. There
was war against France for the next twenty years on the part of
England, and generally two or three other countries as well.
[Illustration: The First Singing of ‘The Marseillaise’]
Questions for Review
Why was Poland an easy prey for her neighbors?
Why did not Spain, France, or England interfere to prevent
the partition of Poland?
How did Lithuania come to be joined to Poland?
What things could the king of France do which would not be
tolerated in the United States today?
Why did the people of France submit to the rule of the king?
Why did the king call together the three “estates”?
Why do the French celebrate the 14th of July?
Why did the other kings take up the cause of the king of
France?
What was the cause of the reign of terror?
Chapter IX.
The Little Man from the Common People
The young Corsican.—The war in Italy.—Italy a battlefield for
centuries.—The victories of Bonaparte.—The first consul.—The
empire.—The French sweep over Europe.—Kings and emperors beaten
and deposed.—The fatal Russian campaign.—The first
abdication.—The return from Elba.—The battle of Waterloo.—The
feudal lords once more triumphant.
And now there came to the front one of the most remarkable
characters in all history. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, a little
man from the island of Corsica, of Italian parentage, but a
French citizen, for the island had been forcibly The annexed to
France shortly before his birth. As a young lieutenant in the
army, he had seen the storming of the Bastille. Later on, being
in charge of the cannon which defended the House of Parliament,
he had saved one of the numerous governments set up during this
period. A Paris mob was trying to storm this building, as they
had the castle of the king. As a reward, he had been put in
charge of the French army in Italy, which was engaged in fighting
the Austrians.
In order to understand the situation it is necessity at this
point to devote some attention to the past history of the Italian
peninsula.
Italy had not been a united country since the days of the Roman
Empire. The southern part of the peninsula had formed, with
Sicily, a small nation called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The northern part had belonged to the Ostrogoths, the Lombards,
the Franks, and the Holy Roman Empire in turn. The Italian people
wanted to become one nation, but they were divided up among many
little princes, each with his separate dominions. The cities of
Genoa and Venice had each formed a republic, which was strong on
the sea only, for both cities had large navies and had acquired
practically all their wealth by their trade with Constantinople,
Egypt, and the far East. In 1796 the Hapsburg family held the
control of northern Italy except the lands around the city of
Venice and the county of Piedmont. The latter formed a separate
kingdom with the island of Sardinia, much as Sicily was joined
with the southern end of the peninsula.
Italy had been the battlefield where Goths, Franks, Huns,
Lombards, Germans, Austrians, French, and Spaniards had fought
their battles for the control of the civilized world. (See the
following maps.) At one time, the Austrian House of Hapsburg
controlled the greater part of the peninsula. This was especially
true when Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
As a Hapsburg, he was ruler of Austria. As a descendant of
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, he was Lord of the Low
Countries (what is now Holland and Belgium). He was also king of
Spain, being the oldest living grandson of Ferdinand and
Isabella. When he became ruler of the two Sicilies, and defeated
the French king for the control of northern Italy, there were
only four powers in Europe which were not under his sway: Russia,
Turkey, Poland, and England. (See map.)
[Illustration: Italy in 525 A.D.]
[Illustration: Italy in 650 A.D.]
[Illustration: Italy in 1175 A.D.]
[Illustration: Charles the Fifth]
Three hundred years after this, the Austrians were again invading
Italy, and at the time when Bonaparte entered it (1796), they had
overrun and controlled the entire valley of the Po. The cause of
the war was still the deposing of the French monarch. The
Austrian armies were fighting to force the people of France to
take back the rule of the hated kings. The armies of France, on
the other hand, represented the rights of the people to choose
their own form of government.
Of course the French, intoxicated by the success of the
Revolution, were eager to spread the republican form of
government all over Europe. There was a real possibility that
they might do so, and the kings were fighting in defense of their
thrones. (The map shows the conquests of the new republic up to
this time.)
[Illustration: Europe in 1796]
Such was the situation when young Bonaparte, twenty-six years of
age, went down into Italy to take command of the French army. The
generals, many of them as old as his father, began offering him
advice, but he impatiently waved them aside and announced that he
was going to wage war on a plan hitherto unheard of. He made good
his boast, and after a short campaign in which he inspired his
ragged, hungry army to perform wonders in fighting, he had driven
the Austrians out of northern Italy, broken up the Republic of
Venice, and forced the emperor to make peace with France. After a
brilliant but unsuccessful campaign in Egypt and Syria, Bonaparte
returned to France, where, as the popular military hero, he had
little difficulty in overthrowing the five Directors of the
French government and having himself elected “First Consul” or
president of France.
A new combination of nations now united against the republic, but
Bonaparte cut to pieces a great Austrian army, and a second time
compelled his enemies to make peace. He now proposed that the
French people elect him “emperor of the French” for life, and by
an overwhelming vote they did so. The empire was very different
from the other empires and kingships of Europe, since it was
created by the vote of the people. The other monarchs held their
thrones by reason of their descent from the chiefs of the
plundering tribes which invaded Europe during the Dark Ages. By
this time, the kings had forgotten that they owed their power to
the swords of their fighting men, and there had grown up a
doctrine called “The Divine Right of Kings.” In other words, the
kings claimed that God in his wisdom had seen fit to make them
rulers over these lands, and that they were responsible to God
alone. In this way they tried to make it appear that any one who
attempted to drive a king from his throne was opposed to the will
of Heaven.
The victorious French, exulting in their newly-won freedom from
the tyranny of kings and nobles, were full of warlike pride in
the wonderful victories gained by their armies under the
brilliant leadership of Napoleon. (He dropped his last name,
Bonaparte, when he was elected emperor.) They swept over the
greater part of Europe and helped to spread the idea that the
people had rights that all kings were bound to respect, and that
it was not necessary to be ruled by descendants of the old robber
chiefs.
For sixteen years Napoleon did not meet defeat. He beat the
Austrians and Russians singly; he beat them combined. In two
fierce battles, he crushed the wonderful Prussian army, which had
been trained in the military school of Frederick the Great. He
drove out the king of Spain, the king of the Two Sicilies, the
kings of several of the small German kingdoms. He made one of his
brothers king of Spain, another king of Holland, a third king of
Westphalia (part of western Germany). He set his brother-in-law
on the throne of Naples. He had his small son crowned king of
Rome. He took away from Prussia all of her territory except
Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania. and East and West Prussia. He
reorganized the old Polish kingdom and kings called it the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw. He forced Austria to give up all claim to
northern Italy. He annexed to France the land which is now
Belgium and Holland, and parts of western Germany and Italy. (See
map entitled “Europe in 1810.”)
[Illustration: Messen Europe in 1810]
All over Europe, those of the people who had education enough to
understand what was going on, were astonished to see the old
feudal kings and princes driven from their thrones and their
places taken by men sprung from the common people. The father of
the Bonapartes had been a poor lawyer. Murat, Napoleon’s
brother-in-law, king of South Italy, was the son of an innkeeper.
Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s generals, whom the Swedes chose as
their king, was likewise descended from the lower classes. In
nations where the working classes had never dreamed of opposing
the rulers there sprang up a new hope.
[Illustration: The Emperor Napoleon in 1814]
Bonaparte at last made a fatal mistake. With an army of half a
million men, he invaded Russia, and established his headquarters
in Moscow. The Russian people, however, set fire themselves to
their beautiful city, and the French had to retreat a thousand
miles through snow and ice, while bands of Russian Cossacks
swooped down on them from the rear and took a hundred thousand
prisoners. Encouraged by this terrible blow dealt the French, the
allied kings of Europe again united in one last effort to drive
the little Corsican from the throne of France.
For two years Napoleon held them at bay, making up for his lack
of soldiers by his marvelous military skill, and by the
enthusiasm which he never failed to arouse in his troops. In
1814, however, surrounded by the troops of Austria, Prussia,
Russia, and England, he had to confess himself beaten. Even
Bernadotte, his former general, led the Swedish troops against
him. The allied kings brought back in triumph to Paris the
brother of the king who had been executed there twenty-two years
before, and set him on the throne of France. Napoleon was
banished to the little island of Elba to the west of Italy, and
the monarchs flattered themselves that their troubles were ended.
[Illustration: The Retreat from Moscow]
In the spring of the following year, however, Napoleon escaped
from his island prison and landed on the southern coast of
France. The king ordered his soldiers to capture their former
emperor. But the magic of his presence was too much for them, and
the men who had been sent to put him into chains shed tears of
joy at the sight of him, and threw themselves at his feet. One
week later, the king of France had fled a second time from his
country, and the man chosen by the people was once more at the
head of the government.
All the kingdoms of Europe declared war against France, and four
large armies were headed toward her borders. Napoleon did not
wait for them to come. Gathering a big force, he marched rapidly
north into the low countries, where he met and defeated an army
of Prussians. Another army of English was advancing from
Brussels. On the field of Waterloo, the French were defeated in
one of the great battles of the world’s history. The defeated
Prussians had made a wide circuit and returned to the field to
the aid of their English allies, while the general whom Napoleon
had sent to follow the Germans arrived too late to prevent the
emperor from being crushed. A second time, Napoleon had to give
up his crown, and a second time King Louis XVIII was brought back
into Paris and put upon the French throne by the bayonets of
foreign troops. The people had been crushed, apparently, and the
old feudal lords were once more in control.
[Illustration: Napoleon at Waterloo]
Questions for Review
Had Italy ever been a nation?
What German tribe ruled Italy in 525? (See map.)
What tribe ruled Italy in 650? (See map.)
What part of Italy once belonged to the Holy Roman Empire?
(See map.)
What induced the French to elect Bonaparte as First Consul
and afterward Emperor?
What led Napoleon to make war on the other rulers?
What was Napoleon’s great mistake?
Why did the people welcome him upon his return from Elba?
What was the effect of the battle of Waterloo?
Chapter X.
A King-Made Map and its Trail of Wrongs
A meeting of kings and diplomats.—Austrians and English vs.
Prussians and Russians.—Talleyrand the subtle.—Carving a new
map.—The people are ignored.—Sowing the seeds of trouble.—Unhappy
Poland.—Divided Italy.—Revolts of the people.—The outbreaks of
1848.
And now the kings and princes, with their ministers of state and
diplomats, met at Vienna to decide what should be the map of
Europe. In past years, there had been a great deal of suspicion
and jealousy among these monarchs. Hardly five years had gone by
without finding two of them flying at each other’s throats in
some unjust war or other. Only their great fear of uprisings
similar to the French Revolution had driven them to act together
in crushing the French Republic, and the empire voted by the
people, which had followed it. This famous “Congress of Vienna,”
which took place 1815, is a fair example of the way in which
European lands have been cut up and parceled out to various
monarchs without any regard for the wishes of the people.
[Illustration: The Congress of Vienna]
Russia and Prussia, proud of the part that their mighty armies
had had in crushing Napoleon, were arrogantly intending to divide
the map of Europe as suited them, and it was only by a great deal
of diplomacy that they were beaten. (The game of diplomacy is
frequently a polite name for some very cunning deception,
involving lying and cheating, in which kings and their ministers
take part.) The Austrians were afraid of the Russian-Prussian
combination, and they induced England to side with them. England
did not love Austria, but feared the other two powers. The
English minister, Lord Castlereagh, finally persuaded the
Austrians, Prussians, and Russians, to allow the French diplomat,
Talleyrand, to take part in their final meetings. Now Talleyrand
was probably the most slippery and tricky diplomat of all Europe.
He had grown to power during the troublous days of the latter
part of the French Revolution, and had guessed which party would
remain in power so skillfully that he always appeared as the
strong friend of the winning side. Although he had served
Napoleon during the first years of the empire, he was shrewd
enough to remain true to King Louis XVIII during the latter’s
second exile. The Prussian-Russian combination was finally
obliged to give in, somewhat, to the demands of Austria, England,
and France. Compare this map with the one given in the preceding
chapter, and you will see most of the important changes.
Prussia, which had been cut down to about half its former size by
Napoleon, got back some of its Polish territory, and was given a
great deal of land in western Germany along the River Rhine. Part
of the kingdom of Saxony was forcibly annexed to Prussia also. It
is needless to say that its inhabitants were bitterly unhappy
over this arrangement. Austria kept part of her Polish territory,
and gave the rest of it to Russia.
The southern part of the Netherlands, which is today called
Belgium, had belonged to the Hapsburg family, the emperors of
Austria. As was previously said, it was conquered by the French
and remained part of France until the fall of Napoleon. It was
now joined with Holland to make the kingdom of the Netherlands.
Its people were Walloons and Flemish, almost entirely Catholic in
their religion, and they very much disliked to be joined with the
Protestant Dutch of Holland.
[Illustration: Messen Europe in 1815]
The state of Finland, which had not been strong enough to defend
itself against its two powerful neighbors, Sweden and Russia, had
been fought over by these two powers for more than a century. It
was finally transferred to Russia, and in order to appease
Sweden, Norway, which had been ruled by the Danes, was torn away
from Denmark and made part of the kingdom of Sweden. The
Norwegians desired to remain an independent country, and they
loved the Swedes even less than they loved the Danes. Therefore,
this union was another source of trouble. The greater part of the
kingdom of Poland and all of Lithuania were joined to Russia.
Russia got back all of the territory she had taken in 1795, and
in addition large parts of the former shares of Prussia and
Austria. In order to pay back Austria for the loss of part of
Poland, she was given all of northern Italy except the counties
of Piedmont and Savoy near France.
The German states (and these included both Austria and Prussia)
were formed into a loose alliance called the German
Confederation. England’s share of the plunder consisted largely
of distant colonies, such as South Africa, Ceylon, Trinidad, etc.
France shrank back to the boundaries which she had had at the
beginning of the revolution. The kings of France, of the Two
Sicilies, and of Spain (all of them members of the Bourbon
family) who had been driven out by Napoleon, were set back upon
their thrones.
This arrangement left Italy all split up into nine or ten
different parts, although its people desired to be one nation. It
left Austria a government over twelve different nationalities,
each one of which was dissatisfied. It joined Belgium to Holland
in a combination displeasing to both. It gave Norway and Finland
as subject states to Sweden and Russia respectively. It left the
Albanians, Serbians, Roumanians, Bulgarians, and Greeks all
subject to the hated Turks. It set upon three thrones, once
vacant, kings who were hated by their subjects. It divided the
Poles up among four different governments—for, strange as it may
seem, the powers could not decide who should own the city of
Cracow and the territory around it, and they ended by making this
district a little republic, under the joint protection of
Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In fact, the Swiss, serene in their
lofty mountains, were almost the only small people of Europe who
were left untroubled. The Congress of 1815 had laid the
foundation for future revolutions and wars without number.
At first, the Poles were fairly well treated by the Russians, but
after two or three unsuccessful attempts at a revolution, Poland,
which, as one of the states of the Russian Empire, was still
called a kingdom, was deprived of all its rights, and its people
were forced to give up the use of their language in their
schools, their courts, and even their churches. In the same
fashion, the Poles in Prussia were “not even allowed to think in
Polish,” as one Polish patriot bitterly put it. All through the
first half of the 19th century, there were uprisings and
struggles among these people. As a result of one of them, in
1846, the little Republic of Cracow was abolished, and its
territory forcibly annexed to Austria.
The Italian people formed secret societies which had for their
object the uniting of Italy, and the freeing of its people from
foreign rulers. All through Germany there were mutterings of
discontent. The people wanted more freedom from their lords.
Greece broke out into insurrection against the Turks, and fifteen
years after the Congress of 1815 won its right to independence.
Not long afterwards, the southern half of the Netherlands broke
itself loose from the northern half, and declared to the world
that it should henceforth be a new kingdom, under the name of
Belgium. About the same time, the people of France rose up
against the Bourbon kings, and threw them out “for good.” A
distant cousin of the king was elected, not “king of France” but
“citizen king of the French,” and the people were allowed to
elect men to represent them in a parliament or Congress at Paris.
In Spain, one revolution followed another. For a short time,
Spain was a republic, but the people were not well enough
educated to govern themselves, and the kingdom was restored.
[Illustration: Prince Metternich]
The statesman who had more to do with the division of territory
in 1815 than any other was Prince Metternich of Austria. He stood
for the “divine right of kings,” and did not believe in allowing
the common people any liberty whatsoever. In 1848, an uprising
occurred in Austria, and crowds in Vienna, crying, “down with
Metternich,” forced the aged diplomat to flee. During the same
year, there were outbreaks in Germany. The people everywhere were
revolting against the feudal rights of their kings and princes,
and gaining greater liberty for themselves. In 1848, France,
also, grew tired of her “citizen king,” and that country a second
time became a republic. The French made the mistake, however, of
electing as their president, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of
the great Napoleon, and in time he did exactly what his uncle had
done,—persuaded the French people to elect him emperor.
Questions for Review
What were the motives of each of the nations represented at
the Congress of Vienna?
Why were the Russians and Prussians the leaders of the
meeting at first?
Why did the English and Austrians assist each other?
What had Napoleon done for Poland? (See last chapter.)
What kings deposed by Napoleon were set back on their
thrones?
What were the greatest wrongs done by the Congress?
How did the Poles protest against the settlement made by the
Congress?
What did the Belgians do about it?
What did the French finally do to the Bourbon kings?
Chapter XI.
Italy a Nation at Last
The Crimean War curbs Russia.—Cavour plans a United Italy.—War
against Austria.—Garibaldi, the patriot.—The Kingdom of Sardinia
becomes part of the new Kingdom of Italy.—Venice and Rome are
added.—Some Italians still outside the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Italy, under the leadership of two patriots named
Mazzini and Garibaldi, was in a turmoil. The Austrians and the
Italian princes who were subject to them were constantly crushing
some attempted revolution.
One thing which helped the cause of the people was that the great
powers were all jealous of each other. For example, Russia
attacked Turkey in 1853, but France and England were afraid that
if Russia conquered the Turks and took Constantinople, she would
become too powerful for them. Therefore, both countries rushed
troops to aid Turkey, and in the end, Russia was defeated,
although thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides before
the struggle was over.
You will remember that the counties of Piedmont and Savoy in
western Italy, together with the island of Sardinia, made up a
little kingdom known as the “Kingdom of Sardinia.” This country
had for its prime minister, a statesman named Count Cavour, who,
like all Italians, strongly hoped for the day when all the people
living on the Italian peninsula should be one nation. At the time
of the Crimean War (as the war between Russia on the one side and
Turkey, France, and England on the other was called) he caused
his country also to declare war on Russia, and sent a tiny army
to fight alongside of the English and French. A few years later,
he secretly made a bargain with Napoleon III. (This was what
President Bonaparte of France called himself after he had been
elected emperor.) The French agreed to make war with his country
against the Austrians. If they won, the Sardinians were to
receive all north Italy, and in return for France’s help were to
give France the county of Savoy and the seaport of Nice.
When Cavour and the French were all ready to strike, it was not
hard to find an excuse for a war. Austria declared war on
Sardinia, and, as had been arranged, France rushed to the aid of
the Italians. Austria was speedily beaten, but no sooner was the
war finished than the French emperor repented of his bargain. He
was afraid that it would make trouble for him with his Catholic
subjects if the Italians were allowed to take all the northern
half of the peninsula, including the pope’s lands, into their
kingdom. Accordingly, the Sardinians received only Lombardy in
return for Savoy and Nice, which they gave to France, and the
Austrians kept the county of Venetia. A fire once kindled,
however, is hard to put out. No sooner did the people of the
other states of northern Italy see the success of Sardinia, than,
one after another, they revolted against their Austrian princes
and voted to join the new kingdom of Italy. In this way, Parma,
Modena, Tuscany, and part of the “States of the Church” were
added. All of this happened in the year 1859.
These “States of the Church” came to be formed in the following
way: The father of the great king of the Franks, Charlemagne, who
had been crowned western emperor by the pope in the year 800, had
rescued northern Italy from the rule of the Lombards. He had made
the pope lord of a stretch of territory extending across Italy
from the Adriatic Sea to the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of
this country had no ruler but the pope. They paid their taxes to
him, and acknowledged him as their feudal lord. It was part of
this territory which revolted and joined the new kingdom of
Italy.
You will remember the name of Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, who
with Mazzini had been stirring up trouble for the Austrians. They
finally pursued him so closely that he had to leave Italy. He
came to America and set up a fruit store in New York City, where
there were quite a number of his countrymen. By 1854, he had made
a great deal of money in the fruit business, but had not
forgotten his beloved country, and was anxious to be rich only in
order that he might free Italy from the Austrians. He sold out
his business in New York, and taking all his money, sailed for
Italy. When the war of 1859 broke out, he volunteered, and fought
throughout the campaign.
But the compromising terms of peace galled him, and he was not
satisfied with a country only half free. In the region around
Genoa, he enrolled a thousand men to go on what looked like a
desperate enterprise. Garibaldi had talked with Cavour, and
between them, they had schemed to overthrow the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies and join this land to the northern country. Of
course, Cavour pretended not to know anything about Garibaldi,
for the king of Naples and Sicily was supposed to be a friend of
the king of Sardinia. Nevertheless, he secretly gave Garibaldi
all the help that he dared, and urged men to enroll with him.
[Illustration: The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel]
With his thousand “red-shirts,” as they were called, Garibaldi
landed on the island of Sicily, at Marsala. The inhabitants rose
to welcome him, and everywhere they drove out the officers who
had been appointed by their king to rule them. In a short time,
all Sicily had risen in rebellion against the king. (You will
remember that this family of kings had been driven out by
Napoleon and restored by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. They
were Bourbons, the same family that furnished the kings of Spain
and the last kings of France. They stood for “the divine right of
kings,” and had no sympathy with the common people.) Crossing
over to the mainland, Garibaldi, with his little army now swollen
to ten times its former size, swept everything before him as he
marched toward Naples. Everywhere, the people rose against their
former masters, and welcomed the liberator. The king fled in
haste from Naples, never to return. A vote was taken all over the
southern half of Italy and Sicily, to decide whether the people
wanted to join their brothers of the north to make a new kingdom
of Italy. It was so voted almost unanimously. Victor Emmanuel,
king of Sardinia, thus became the first king of United Italy. He
made Florence his capital at first, as the country around Rome
still belonged to the pope. The pope had few soldiers, but was
protected by a guard of French troops. However, ten years later,
in 1870, when war broke out between France and Prussia, the
French troops left Rome, and the troops of Italy marched quietly
in and took possession of the city. Rome, for so many years the
capital, not only of Italy but of the whole Mediterranean world,
became once more the chief city of the peninsula. The pope was
granted a liberal pension by the Italian government in order to
make up to him for the loss of the money from his former lands.
The dream of Italians for the last 600 years had finally come to
pass. Italy was again one country, ruled by the popular Victor
Emmanuel, with a constitution which gave the people the right to
elect representatives to a parliament or congress. One of the
worst blunders of the Congress of Vienna had been set right by
the patriotism of the people of Italy.
It should be noted, however, that there are still Italians who
are not part of this kingdom. The county of Venetia, at the
extreme northeast of Italy, was added to the kingdom in 1866 as
the result of a war which will be told about more fully in the
next chapter, but the territory around the city of Trent, called
by the Italians Trentino, and the county of Istria at the head of
the Adriatic Sea, containing the important seaports of Trieste,
Fiume, and Pola, are inhabited almost entirely by people of
Italian blood. Certain islands along the coast of Dalmatia also
are full of Italians. To rescue these people from the rule of
Austria has been the earnest wish of all Italian patriots, and
was the chief reason why Italy did not join Germany and Austria
in the great war of 1914.
[Illustration: Messen Italy Made One Nation, 1914]
Questions for Review
Why did England and France side with Turkey against Russia?
What bargain did Cavour make with Napoleon III?
How did the rest of Italy come to join Sardinia?
Explain the origin of the “States of the Church.”
Why did Sicily and Naples revolt against their king?
What Italians are not yet citizens of the kingdom of Italy?
Chapter XII.
The Man of Blood and Iron
The people demand their rights—Bismarck, the chief prop of the
Prussian monarchy—The question of the leadership of the German
states—The wonderful Prussian army—The war on Denmark—Preparing
to crush Austria—The battle of Sadowa—Easy terms to the defeated
nation—Preparing to defeat France—A good example of a war caused
by diplomats—Prussia’s easy victory—The new German empire—Harsh
terms of peace—The triumph of feudal government.
All of this time, the kings of Europe had been engaged in
contests with their own people. The overthrow of the French king
at the time of the revolution taught the people of the other
countries of Europe that they too could obtain their liberties.
You have already been told how the people of Austria drove out
Prince Metternich, who was the leader of the party which refused
any rights to the working classes.
That same year, 1848, had seen the last king driven out of
France, had witnessed revolts in all parts of Italy, and had
found many German princes in trouble with their subjects, who
were demanding a share in the government, the right of free
speech, free newspapers, and trial by jury. The empires of
Austria and Russia had joined with the kingdom of Prussia in a
combination which was known as the “Holy Alliance.” This was
meant to stop the further spread of republican ideas and to curb
the growing power of the common people.
[Illustration: Bismarck]
Not long after this, there came to the front in Prussia a
remarkable man, who for the next forty years was perhaps the most
prominent statesman in Europe. His full name was Otto Eduard
Leopold von Bismarck-Schönausen, but we generally know him under
the name of Bismarck. He was a Prussian nobleman, a believer in
the divine right of kings, the man who more than anybody else is
responsible for the establishing of the present empire of
Germany. He once made a speech in the Prussian Diet or council in
which he said that “blood and iron,” not speeches and treaties,
would unite Germany into a nation. His one object was a united
Germany, which should be the strongest nation in Europe. He
wanted Germany to be ruled by Prussia, Prussia to be ruled by its
king, and the king of Prussia to be controlled by Bismarck. It is
marvellous to see how near he came to carrying through his whole
plan.
After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Prussia remained among the
powers of Europe, but was not as great as Austria, Russia,
England, or France. The German states, some 35 in number, had
united in a loose alliance called the German Confederation. (This
union was somewhat similar to the United States of America
between 1776 and 1789.) Austria was the largest of these states,
and was naturally looked upon as the leader of the whole group.
Prussia was the second largest, while next after Prussia, and
much smaller, came the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and
Wurtemburg. Bismarck, as prime minister of Prussia, built up a
wonderfully strong army. He did this by means of a military
system which at first made him very unpopular with the people.
Every man in the nation, rich or poor, was obliged to serve a
certain number of years in the army and be ready at a moment’s
notice to join a certain regiment if there came a call to war.
Having organized this army, and equipped it with every modern
weapon, Bismarck was anxious to use it to accomplish his purpose.
There were two counties named Schleswig (shlĕs′vig) and Holstein
(hōl′stīn) which belonged to the king of Denmark and yet
contained a great many German people. The inhabitants of
Schleswig were perhaps half Danes, while those of Holstein were
more than two-thirds Germans. These Germans had protested against
certain actions of the Danish government, and were threatening to
revolt. Taking advantage of this trouble, Prussia and Austria, as
the leading states of the German Federation, declared war on
little Denmark. The Danes fought valiantly, but were overwhelmed
by the armies of their enemies. Schleswig and Holstein were torn
away from Denmark and put under the joint protection of Austria
and Prussia.
This sort of arrangement could not last. Sooner or later, there
was bound to be a quarrel over the division of the plunder. Now
Bismarck had a chance to show his crafty diplomacy. He made up
his mind to crush Austria and put Prussia in her place as the
leader of the German states. He first negotiated with Napoleon
III, Emperor of the French, and made sure that this monarch would
not interfere. Next he remembered that the provinces of Venetia,
Trentino, and Istria still belonged to Austria, as the Italians
had failed to gain them in the war of 1859. Accordingly, Bismarck
induced Italy to declare war on Austria by promising her Venetia
and the other provinces in return for her aid. Saxony, Bavaria,
and Hanover were friendly to Austria, but Bismarck did not fear
them. He knew that his army, under the leadership of its
celebrated general, von Moltke, was more than a match for the
Austrians, Bavarians, etc., combined.
When Bismarck was ready, Prussia and Italy struck. The Austrians
were successful at first against the Italians, but at Sadowa in
Bohemia, their armies were beaten in a tremendous battle by the
Prussians. Austria was put down from her place as the leader of
the German Confederation, and Prussia took the leadership.
Hanover, whose king had sided with the Austrians, was annexed to
Prussia. The king of Prussia and several of his generals were
anxious to rob Austria of some of her territory, as had been the
custom in the past whenever one nation defeated another in war.
Bismarck, however, restrained them. In his program of making
Prussia the leading military state in Europe, he saw that his
next opponent would be France, and he did not propose, on
attacking France, to find his army assailed in the rear by the
revengeful Austrians. Accordingly, Bismarck compelled the king to
let Austria off without any loss of territory except Venetia,
which was given to the Italians. Austria was even allowed to
retain Trentino and Istria, and was not required to pay a large
indemnity to Prussia. (A custom which had come down from the
middle ages, when cities which were captured had been obliged to
pay great sums of money, in order to get rid of the conquering
armies, was the payment of a war indemnity by the defeated
nation. This was a sum of money as large as the conquerors
thought they could safely force their victims to pay.) The
Austrians, although they were angry over the manner in which
Bismarck had provoked the war, nevertheless appreciated the fact
that he was generous in not forcing harsh terms upon them, as he
could have done had he wanted to.
The eyes of all Europe now turned toward the coming struggle
between Prussia and France. It was plain that it was impossible
for two men like Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon to continue in
power very long without coming to blows. It was Bismarck’s
ambition, as was previously said, to make Prussia the leading
military nation of Europe, and he knew that this meant a struggle
with Napoleon. You will remember also that he planned a united
Germany, led by Prussia, and he felt that the French war would
bring this about. On the other hand, the French emperor was
extremely jealous of the easy victory that Prussia and Italy had
won over Austria. He had been proud of the French army, and
wanted it to remain the greatest fighting force in Europe. He was
just as anxious for an excuse to attack Prussia as Bismarck was
for a pretext to attack him.
It should be kept in mind that all this time there was no
ill-feeling between the French people and the Germans. In fact,
the Germans of the Rhine country were very friendly to France,
and during Napoleon’s time had been given more liberties and had
been governed better than under the rule of their former feudal
lords. All the hostility and jealousy was between the military
chiefs. Even Bismarck did not dislike the French. He had no
feeling toward them at all. It was part of his program that their
military power should be crushed and his program must be carried
through. Europe, to his mind, was too small to contain more than
one master military power.
The four years between 1866 and 1870 were used by Bismarck to
gain friends for Prussia among other countries of Europe, and to
make enemies for France. The kingdoms of south Germany (Bavaria,
Baden, and Wurtemburg), which had sided with Austria during the
late war, were friendly to France and hostile to Prussia.
Napoleon III, however, made a proposal in writing to Bismarck
that France should be given a slice of this south German
territory in return for some other land which France was to allow
Prussia to seize. Bismarck pretended to consider this proposal,
but was careful to keep the original copy, in the French
ambassador’s own handwriting. (Each nation sends a man to
represent her at the capital of each other nation. These men are
called ambassadors. They are given power to sign agreements for
their governments.) By showing this to the rulers of the little
south German kingdoms, he was able to turn them against Napoleon
and to make secret treaties with these states by which they bound
themselves to fight on the side of Prussia in case a war broke
out with France. In similar fashion, Bismarck made the Belgians
angry against the French by letting it be known that Napoleon was
trying to annex their country also.
Meanwhile, aided by General von Moltke and Count von Roon (rōn),
Bismarck had built up a wonderful military power. Every man in
Prussia had been trained a certain number of years in the army
and was ready at a moment’s notice to join his regiment. The
whole campaign against France had been planned months in advance.
In France on the other hand, the illness and irritability of
Napoleon III had resulted in poor organization. Men who did not
wish to serve their time in the army were allowed to pay money to
the government instead. Yet their names were carried on the
rolls. In this way, the French army had not half the strength in
actual numbers that it had on paper. What is more, certain
government officials had taken advantage of the emperor’s
weakness and lack of system and had put into their own pockets
money that should have been spent in buying guns and ammunition.
When at last Bismarck was all ready for the war, it was not hard
to find an excuse. Old Queen Isabella of Spain had been driven
from her throne, and the Spanish army under General Prim offered
the crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a cousin of the king
of Prussia. This alarmed Napoleon, who imagined that if Prussia
attacked him on the east, this Prussian prince, as king of Spain,
would lead the Spanish army over the Pyrenees against him on the
south. France made so vigorous a protest that the prince asked
the Spaniards not to think of him any longer. This was not enough
for Napoleon, who now proceeded to make a fatal mistake. The
incident was closed, but he persisted in reopening it. He sent
his ambassador to see King William of Prussia to ask the latter
to assure France that never again should Prince Leopold be
considered for the position of king of Spain. The king answered
that he could not guarantee this, for he was merely the head of
the Hohenzollern family. Prince Leopold, whose lands lay outside
of Prussia, was not even one of his subjects. The interview
between the king and the French ambassador had been a friendly
one. The ambassador had been very courteous to the king, and the
king had been very polite to the ambassador. They had parted on
good terms.
[Illustration: An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War.]
In the meanwhile, Bismarck had been hoping that an excuse for war
would come from this incident. He was at dinner with General von
Moltke and Count von Roon when a long telegram came from the
king, telling of his interview with the French ambassador. In the
story of his life written by himself, Bismarck tells how, as he
read the telegram both Roon and Moltke groaned in disappointment.
He says that Moltke seemed to have grown older in a minute. Both
had earnestly hoped that war would come. Bismarck took the
dispatch, sat down at a table, and began striking out the message
polite words and the phrases that showed that the meeting had
been a friendly one. He cut down the original telegram of two
hundred words to one of twenty. When he had finished, the message
sounded as if the French ambassador had bullied and threatened
the king of Prussia, while the latter had snubbed and insulted
the Frenchman. Bismarck read the altered telegram to Roon and
Moltke. Instantly, they brightened up and felt better. “How is
that?” he asked. “That will do it,” they answered. “War is
assured.”
The telegram was given to the newspapers, and within twenty-four
hours, the people of Paris and Berlin were shouting for war.
Napoleon III hesitated, but he finally gave in to his generals
and his wife who urged him to “avenge the insult to the French
nation.”
[Illustration: The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of
Germany]
We give this story of the starting of the Franco-Prussian war of
1870 just to show the tricks of European diplomats. What Bismarck
did was no worse than what the Frenchman, Talleyrand, would have
done, or the Austrian, Metternich, or several of the Turkish or
Russian diplomats. It simply proves how helpless the people of
European countries are, when the military class which rules them
has decided, for its own power and glory, on war with some other
nation.
The war was short. The forces of France were miserably
unprepared. The first great defeat of the French army resulted in
the capture of the emperor by the Prussians and the overthrowing
of the government in Paris, where a third republic was started.
One of the French generals turned traitor, thinking that if he
surrendered his army and cut short the war the Prussians would
force the French to take Napoleon III back as emperor. Paris was
besieged for a long time. The people lived on mule meat and even
on rats and mice rather than surrender to the Germans, but at
last they were starved out, and peace was made.
[Illustration: Formation of the German Empire]
In the meantime, another of Bismarck’s plans had been successful.
In January, 1871, while the siege of Paris was yet going on, he
induced the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, together with
Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and all the other little German states to
join Prussia in forming a new empire of Germany. The king of
Prussia was to be “German Emperor,” and the people of Germany
were to elect representatives to the Reichstag or Imperial
Congress. Although at the outset, the war was between the kingdom
of Prussia and the empire of France, the treaty of peace was
signed by the republic of France and the empire of Germany.
Bismarck was very harsh in his terms of peace. France was
condemned to pay an indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs (nearly one
billion dollars) and certain parts of France were to be occupied
by the German troops until this money was fully paid. Two
counties of France, Alsace and Lorraine, were to be annexed to
Germany. Alsace was inhabited largely by people of German
descent, but there were many French mingled with them, and the
whole province had belonged to France so long that its people
felt themselves to be wholly French. Lorraine contained very few
Germans, and was taken, contrary to Bismarck’s best judgment,
because it contained the important city of Metz, which was
strongly fortified. Here the military chiefs overruled Bismarck.
The desire among the French for revenge on Germany for taking
this French-speaking province has proved that Bismarck was right.
It was a blunder of the worst kind.
The policy of “blood and iron” had been successful. From a second
rate power, Prussia had risen, under Bismarck’s leadership, to
become the strongest military force in Europe. Schleswig had been
torn from Danish, Holstein from Austrian control. Hanover had
been forcibly annexed, and Alsace and Lorraine wrested from
France. The greater part of the inhabitants of these countries
were bitterly unhappy at being placed under the Prussian military
rule. Moreover, it must be remembered that a great deal of this
growth in power had been at the expense of the liberty of the
common people. The revolution of 1848 had demanded free speech,
free newspapers, the right to vote, and the right to elect men to
a congress or parliament, and while some of these rights had been
granted, still the whole country was under the control of the war
department. The emperor, as commander-in-chief of the army, could
suppress any newspaper and dismiss the congress whenever he might
think this proper. The Reichstag was, as it has been called, a
big debating society, whose members had the right to talk, but
were not allowed to pass any laws that were contrary to the
wishes of the military leaders.
Questions for Review
What was the reason for the revolts of 1848 all over Europe?
What was the object of the “Holy Alliance”?
What was Bismarck’s purpose in building up a strong army?
How did Bismarck defeat Austria?
What is a war indemnity?
Explain how Bismarck made enemies for Napoleon III.
Why were the French alarmed when Spain offered its crown to
Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern?
What means did Bismarck use to bring on war with France?
Was Prussia’s victory a good thing for her people?
Chapter XIII.
The Balance of Power
The recovery of France.—The jealousy of the powers.—The policy of
uniting against the strongest.—The dream of Russia.—A war of
liberation.—The powers interfere in favor of the Turk.—The
Congress of Berlin.—Bismarck’s Triple Alliance.—France and Russia
are driven together.—The race for war preparation.—The growth of
big navies.
Under the third republic,[3] France recovered very rapidly from the
terrible blow dealt her by Germany. Her people worked hard and saved
their money. In less than two years, they had paid off the last cent of
the one billion dollar indemnity, and the German troops were obliged to
go home. France had adopted the same military system that Germany had,
and required all of her young men to serve two years in the army and be
ready at a moment’s notice to rush to arms. She began also to build up
a strong navy, and to spread her colonies in Africa and other parts of
the world. This rapid recovery of France surprised and disturbed
Bismarck, who thought that never again, after the war of 1870, would
she become a strong power. He had tried to renew the old “Holy
Alliance” between Germany, Russia, and Austria with the idea of
preventing the spread of republics. These were the three nations which
gave their people very few rights, and which stood for the “divine
right of kings” and for the crushing of all republics. Bismarck called
this new combination the “Drei-kaiser-bund” or three-emperor-bond. He
himself says that the proposed alliance fell to pieces because of the
lies and treachery of Prince Gortchakoff, the Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs.
[3] The first republic began in 1792, when King Louis XVI was
beheaded, the second in 1848 when Louis Philippe, the “citizen king,”
was driven out.
An incident which happened in 1875 helped to estrange Germany
from Russia. As was previously said, Bismarck was astonished and
alarmed when he saw how quickly France was getting over the
effects of the war. In 1875, some trouble came up again between
France and Germany, and Bismarck a second time planned to make
war on the republic and—complete the task that he had left
unfinished in 1871. He wanted to reduce France to the rank of a
second class power, on a par with Spain and Denmark. This time,
however, England and Russia growled ominously. They notified
Bismarck that they would not stand by and see France crushed—not
from any love of France, but because they were jealous of Prussia
and afraid that the Germans might become too powerful in Europe.
Accordingly, Bismarck had to give up his idea of war. Prussia was
strong, but she could not fight England, Russia, and France
combined. However, he remembered that England and Russia had
spoiled his plans and waited for a chance to get revenge.
[Illustration: Peter the Great]
The great object of all European diplomats was to maintain what
they called “the balance of power.” By this they meant that no
one country was to be allowed to grow so strong that she could
defy the rest of Europe. Whenever one nation grew too powerful,
the others combined to pull her down.
In the meantime, trouble was again brewing among the Balkan
nations, which were still subject to the Turks. Revolts had
broken out among the Serbians, and the people of Bosnia and
Bulgaria. As has already been told, these nations are Slavic,
cousins of the Russians, and they have always looked upon Russia
as their big brother and protector. Any keen-eared, intelligent
Russian can understand the language of the Serbs, it is so much
like his own tongue. (Bel-grad, Petro-grad; the word “grad” means
“city” in both languages.)
Not only was Russia hostile toward the Turks because they were
oppressing the little Slav states, but she had reasons of her own for
wanting to see Turkey overthrown. Ever since the reign of Peter the
Great, Russia had had her eye upon Constantinople. Peter had conquered
the district east of the Gulf of Finland, and had founded St.
Petersburg[4] there, just to give Russia a port which was free of ice.
In the same way, other czars who followed him had fought their way
southward to the Black Sea, seeking for a chance to trade with the
Mediterranean world. But the Black Sea was like a bottle, and the Turks
at Constantinople were able to stop the Russian trade at any time they
might wish to do so. Russia is an agricultural country, and must ship
her grain to countries that are more densely inhabited, to exchange it
for their manufactures.
[4] Now called Petrograd.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Mosque of St Sophia]
Therefore, it has been the dream of every Russian czar that one
day Russia might own Constantinople. Again, this city, in ancient
days, was the home of the Greek church, as Rome was the capital
of the western Catholic church. The Russians are all Greek
Catholics, and every Russian looks forward to the day when the
great church of St. Sophia, which is now a Mohammedan mosque,
shall once more be the home of Christian worship. With this plan
in mind, Russian diplomats were only too happy to stir up trouble
for the Turks among the Slavic peoples of the Balkan states, as
Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Montenegro are called. Glance at
the two following maps of southeastern Europe, and see how Turkey
had been reduced in size during the two hundred years which
followed the Turkish defeat at the gates of Vienna by John
Sobieski and the Austrians. The state of Bessarabia had changed
hands two or three times, remaining finally in the hands of
Russia.
The revolts of the Balkan peoples in 1875 and 1876 were hailed
with joy among the Russians, and the government at St. Petersburg
lost no time in rushing to the aid of the Balkan states and
declaring war on Turkey. After a short but stubbornly contested
conflict, Russia and the little countries were victors. A treaty
of peace was signed at San Stephano, by which Roumania, Serbia,
and Bulgaria were to be recognized by Turkey as independent
states. The boundaries of Bulgaria were to reach to the Aegean
Sea, including most of Macedonia, thus cutting off Turkey from
her county of Albania, except by water. Bear this in mind, for it
will help you to understand Russia’s later feeling when Bulgaria
in 1915 joined the ranks of her enemies.
[Illustration: Southeastern and Central Europe, 1706]
[Illustration: Losses of Turkey during the Nineteenth Century]
[Illustration: The Congress of Berlin. Prince Gortchakoff (seated).
Disraeli (with cane). Count Andrassy. Bismarck.]
The matter was all settled, and Turkey had accepted these terms,
when once more the diplomats of Europe began to meddle. It will
be remembered that Russia three years before had prevented a
second war against France planned by Bismarck. It was very easy
for him to persuade Austria and England that if Russia were
allowed to cripple Turkey and set up three new kingdoms which
would be under her control, she would speedily become the
strongest nation in Europe. The “balance of power” would be
disturbed. England and Austria sided with Germany, and a meeting
of statesmen and diplomats was called at Berlin in 1878 to decide
once more what should be the map of Europe. Representatives were
present from all the leading European countries. Even Turkey had
two men at the meeting, but the three men who really controlled
were Bismarck, Count Andrassy of Austria, and Lord Beaconsfield
(Benjamin Disraeli) of England. Russia was robbed of a great part
of the fruits of her victory. Bulgaria was left partially under
the control of Turkey, in that she had to pay Turkey a large sum
of money each year for the privilege of being left alone. Her
territory was made much smaller than had been agreed to by the
treaty of San Stephano. In fact less than one-third of the
Bulgarians were living within the boundaries finally agreed upon
by the congress. A great part of the Serbians were still left
under Turkish rule, as were the Greeks of Thessaly and Epirus.
The two counties of Bosnia and Herzegovina were still to belong
to Turkey, but as the Turks did not seem to be strong enough to
keep order there, Austria was to take control of them and run
their government, although their taxes were still to be paid to
Turkey. Austria solemnly agreed never to take them from Turkey.
Russia, naturally, was very unhappy over this arrangement, and so
were the inhabitants of the Balkan kingdoms, for they had hoped
that now they were at last to be freed from the oppression of
their ancient enemies, the Turks. Thus the Congress of Berlin,
like that of Vienna in 1815 laid the foundation for future wars
and revolutions.
Bismarck now set out to strengthen Germany by making alliances
with other European states. He first made up with his old enemy,
Austria. Thanks to the liberal treatment that he had given this
country after her disastrous war of 1866, he was able to get the
Austrians to join Germany in an alliance which states that if two
countries of Europe should ever attack one of the two allies, the
other would rush to her help.
The Italians were friendly to Germany, for they remembered that
they had gotten Venetia from Austria through the help of the
Prussians, but they had always looked upon the Austrians as their
worst enemies. It was a wonderful thing, then, when Bismarck
finally induced Italy to join with Austria and Germany in a
“Dreibund” or “Triple Alliance.”
The Italian people had been very friendly to the French, and this
going over to their enemies would never have been possible but
for an act of France which greatly angered Italy. For many years,
France had been in control of Algeria on the north coast of
Africa. This country had once been a nest of pirates, and the
French had gone there originally to clean them out. Next to
Algeria on the east is the county of Tunis, which, as you will
see by the map, is very close to Sicily and Italy. The Italians
had been looking longingly at this district for some time,
intending to organize an expedition and forcibly annex it to
their kingdom. They waited too long, however, and one fine day in
1881 they found the prize gone,—France had seized this county for
herself. It was Italy’s anger over this act of France more than
anything else that enabled Bismarck to get her into an alliance
with Germany and her ancient enemy, Austria.
France now saw herself hemmed in on the east by a chain of
enemies. It looked as though Bismarck might declare war upon the
republic at any time, and be perfectly safe from interference,
with Austria and Italy to protect him. Russia, smarting under the
treatment which she had been given by the Congress of Berlin, was
full of resentment against Germany. Both the French and the
Russians felt themselves threatened by Bismarck’s Dreibund, and
so, in self-defense each country made advance toward the other.
The result was the “Dual Alliance” between France and Russia,
which bound either country to come to the aid of the other in
case of an attack by two powers at once.
In this way, the balance of power, disturbed by Bismarck’s
“Dreibund,” was again restored. Many people thought the forming
of the two alliances a fine thing, “for,” said they, “each party
is now too strong to be attacked by the other. Therefore, we
shall never again have war among the great powers.”
England was not tied up with either alliance. On account of her
position on an island, and because of her strong navy, she did
not feel obliged to keep a large standing army such as the great
powers on the continent maintained.
These nations were kept in constant fear of war. As soon as
France equipped her army with machine guns, Germany and Austria
had to do the same. As soon as the Germans invented a new
magazine rifle, the Russians and French had to invent similar
arms for their soldiers. If Germany passed a law compelling all
men up to the age of forty-five to report for two weeks’ military
training once every year, France and Russia had to do the same.
If Italy built some powerful warships, France and Russia had to
build still more powerful ones. This led to still larger ships
built by Germany and Italy. If France built a fleet of one
hundred torpedo boats, the Triple Alliance had to “go her one
better” by building one hundred and fifty. If Germany equipped
her army with war balloons, Russia and France had to do the same.
If France invented a new kind of heavy artillery, Germany and
Austria built a still bigger gun.
This mad race for war equipment was bad enough when it had to do only
with the five nations in the two alliances about which you have been
told. However, the death of the old emperor of Germany in 1888 brought
to the throne his grandson, the present Kaiser,[5] and he formed a plan
for making Germany the leading nation on the sea as Bismarck had made
her on the land. He saw France and England seizing distant colonies and
dividing up Africa between them. He at once announced that Germany,
too, must have colonies to which to export her manufactures and from
which to bring back tropical products. This meant a strong navy to
protect these colonies, and the race with England was on. As soon as
Germany built some new battleships, England built still others, larger
and with heavier guns. The next year, Germany would build still larger
ships, and the next England would come back with still heavier guns. As
fast as England built ships, Germany built them. Now, each battleship
costs from five to fifteen million dollars, and it does not take long
before a race of this kind sends the taxes too high for people to
stand. There was unrest throughout Europe and murmurs of discontent
were heard among the working classes.
[5] The present Kaiser’s father reigned only ninety-nine days, as he
was a very sick man at the time of the old emperor’s death.
Questions for Review
How did France pay off her war indemnity so promptly?
Why did Bismarck’s three-emperor-alliance fail?
What is meant by “the balance of power”?
What was the condition of the Serbs, Bulgarians, etc. before
1878?
Why did Russia covet Constantinople?
Why did the powers prevent the treaty of San Stephano from
being carried out?
What wrongs were done by the Congress of Berlin?
Why did Bismarck form the Triple Alliance?
How was he able to induce Italy to join her old enemy,
Austria?
What was the effect of the formation of the Triple Alliance
on France and Russia?
What result had the formation of the two alliances on the
gun-industry?
How was England brought into the race for war equipment?
Chapter XIV.
The “Entente Cordiale”
Ancient enemies.—England and France in Africa.—A collision at
Fashoda.—Germany offers to help France.—Delcassé the
peacemaker.—A French-English agreement.—Friendship takes the
place of hostility.—England’s relations with Italy, Russia, and
Germany.—Germans cultivate the friendship and trade of
Turkey.—The Morocco-Algeciras incident.—The question of Bosnia
and Herzegovina.—England joins France and Russia to form the
“Triple Entente.”—The Agadir incident.
England and France had never been friendly. There had been wars
between them, off and on, for five hundred years. The only time
that they had fought on the same side was in the campaign against
Russia in 1855, but even then there was no real sympathy between
them.
In the year 1882, events happened in Egypt which gave England an
excuse for interfering with the government of that country. Egypt
was a part of the Turkish empire, but so long as it paid a
certain amount of money to Constantinople, the Turks did not care
very much how it was governed. But now a wild chief of the desert
had announced himself as the prophet Mohammed come to earth
again, and a great many of the desert tribesmen had joined him.
They cut to pieces one or two English armies in Egypt, and killed
General Gordon, a famous English soldier. It was 1898 before the
English were able to defeat this horde. Lord Kitchener finally
beat them and extended the English power to the city of Khartoom
on the Nile.
[Illustration: An Arab Sheik and His Staff]
In the meantime, the English millionaire, Cecil Rhodes, had
formed a plan for a railroad which should run the entire length
of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo. It was England’s
ambition to control all the territory through which this road
should run. But the French, too, were spreading out over Africa.
Their expeditions through the Sahara Desert had joined their
colonies of Algeria and Tunis to those on the west coast of
Africa and others along the Gulf of Guinea. In this same year,
1898, while Lord Kitchener was still fighting the Arabs, a French
expedition under Major Marchand struggled across the Sahara and
reached the Nile at Fashoda, several miles above Khartoom.
Marchand planted the French flag and announced that he took
possession of this territory for the republic of France.
The English were very indignant when they heard of what Marchand
had done. If France held Fashoda, their “Cape to Cairo” railroad
was cut right in the middle, and they could advance their
territory no farther up the valley of the Nile. They notified
France that this was English land. Marchand retorted that no
Englishman had ever set foot there, and that the French flag
would never be hauled down after it had once been planted on the
Nile. Excitement ran high. The French people had no love for
England, and they encouraged Marchand to remain where he was. The
English newspapers demanded that he be withdrawn. Germany, which
had already begun its campaign to wrest from England the leading
place on the ocean, was delighted at the prospect of a war
between France and the British. The German diplomats patted
France on the back, and practically assured her of German help in
case it came to a war with England.
Germany now felt that she had nothing more to fear from France.
The French population was not increasing, while Germany was
steadily growing in numbers. It was England whom Germany saw
across her path toward control of the sea.
There was a man in France, however, who had no thought of making
up with Germany. The memory of the war of 1870 and of the lost
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine was very strong with him. This
was Théophile Delcassé, a little man with a large head and a
great brain. He refused to be tempted by the offers of German
help, thinking that England, with its free government, was a much
better friend for the republic than the military empire of
Germany could be.
Just when the trouble was at its height, the English ambassador
came to see Mr. Delcassé, who at that time was in charge of the
French foreign office. He had in his pocket an ultimatum, that is
to say, a final notice to France that she must give in or England
would declare war on her. As he walked into Delcassé’s presence,
he began fumbling with the top button of his coat. “Don’t touch
that button,” said Delcassé quickly. “Drop your hand. You have
something in your pocket which must not be taken out. It is a
threat, and if I see it, France will fight. Sit down. Let us talk
this matter over coolly. Matters will adjust themselves all right
in the end.” And they did. Delcassé was finally able to quiet the
French people, to recall Marchand from Fashoda and to persuade
France to refuse the offer of German friendship. England was
given a free hand in Egypt, without any interference from the
French. Naturally the English were very grateful to Delcassé for
having refused to profit by German help and declare war. In
return for the French agreement to stay out of Egypt, the English
promised to help France get control of Morocco.
Very soon after this, Queen Victoria of England died, and her
son, Edward VII, became king. He had spent a great deal of time
in France, and was very fond of the French and was popular with
them. He saw the growing power of Germany, and knew that England
could not afford to be without a friend in Europe. He did his
best to bring about a feeling of friendship between the English
and the French, and was very successful in doing so. He made
frequent visits to France, where he was received with great
cordiality. In return the English entertained the president of
France in London in a princely fashion. French warships paid
friendly visits to English waters, and the sailors mingled with
each other and did their best to understand each other’s
language. All France, and England as well, welcomed the beginning
of the “Entente Cordiale,” or friendly understanding between the
two nations.
England also went out of her way to cultivate a friendly
understanding with Italy. With the other nations of Europe
England had no great friendship. Between England and Russia,
there had been a hostile feeling for a long time, for the British
felt that the Russians would like nothing better than to stretch
their empire from Siberia, down to include British India, or at
least Afghanistan and Baluchistan, where the British were in
control.
The emperor of Germany, on the other hand, was planning for the
future growth of the trade of his country. Since his coming to
the throne, Germany had made wonderful progress in the direction
of manufactures. She had become one of the leading nations of the
world. One of her chief questions was, where to market these
goods. In 1896 the emperor paid a visit to Syria and Turkey. He
was received with great enthusiasm by the Turks, who were glad to
have one strong friend among the powers of Europe. Soon
afterwards the Germans began to get more and more of the trade of
the Ottoman Empire. A German company was given permission by the
Turks to build a railroad across Turkey to the Persian Gulf
through Bagdad. German railways ran through Austria-Hungary,
which was Germany’s ally, to Constantinople and Salonika, the two
greatest ports of Turkey in Europe. This short overland route to
Persia was looked upon with suspicion and distrust by the
English, whose ships up to this time had carried on almost all of
Europe’s commerce with India and the neighboring countries.
[Illustration: A Scene In Constantinople]
Germany was reaching out for colonies. She secured land on the
west coast of Africa and, on the east as well. A tract of land in
the corner of the Gulf of Guinea also fell to her share. Islands
in the Pacific Ocean were seized. Her foreign trade was growing
by leaps and bounds, and she threatened to take away from England
a great deal of the latter’s commerce.
The German emperor announced that he must always be consulted
whenever any changes of territory took place, no matter in what
part of the earth. Therefore in 1905 when France, with the help
of Great Britain and Spain, told the sultan of Morocco that he
had to behave himself, the German emperor in person made a visit
to Morocco and assured the sultan that he didn’t have to pay any
attention to France.
There was a great deal of excitement over this incident, and a
meeting was held at Algeciras, Spain, where representatives of
all the great powers came together. In the end, France and
England were upheld, for even Italy, Germany’s ally, voted
against the Germans. On the other hand, Delcassé, the Frenchman
who settled the Fashoda trouble, was compelled to resign his
position as minister of foreign affairs because the Germans
objected to him, and the French felt that Germany had humiliated
them.
In 1908, the “young Turk” party in Constantinople (the party
which stood for progress and for more popular government) drove
the old sultan off his throne, and announced that there should be
a Turkish parliament, or congress, to which all parts of the
empire should send representatives.
You will remember that two counties of the Turkish empire, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, had been turned over to Austria to rule by the
Congress of Berlin in 1878. Austria at the time solemnly promised
that she would never try to annex these provinces. In 1908,
however, she forgot all about her promise. When Bosnia and
Herzegovina wanted to elect men to represent them in the new
Turkish parliament, Austria calmly told them that after this they
should consider themselves part of the Austrian Empire, that they
belonged to Turkey no longer.
The two provinces were inhabited largely by Serbs, and all Serbia
had looked forward to the day when they should once more be
joined to herself. These states, like Montenegro, had been part
of the ancient kingdom of Serbia. As long as they were in dispute
between Austria and Turkey, Serbia had hopes of regaining them,
but when Austria thus forcibly annexed them, it seemed to the
Serbs that they were lost forever.
Serbia appealed to Russia, for as was said, all the Slavic states
look upon Russia as their big brother. The Russians were highly
indignant at this breaking of her promises by Austria, and the
czar talked of war. His generals and war ministers, however,
dissuaded him. “Oh, no, your majesty,” said they, “we are in no
shape to fight Austria and Germany. Our army was badly
disorganized in the Japanese war three years ago, and we shall
not be ready for another fight for some time to come.” Russia
protested, but the German emperor notified her that he stood by
Austria, and asked Russia if she was ready to fight. Russia and
France were not ready, and so they were obliged to back down, but
did so with a bitter feeling toward the “central empires,” as
Germany and Austria are called.
It has already been shown that England for a long time had been
suspicious of Russia, fearing that the northern power was aiming
at control of India. Of late this hostile feeling had been dying
out, especially as the friendship between France and Great
Britain grew stronger. It was impossible for Russia, France’s
partner in the Dual Alliance, to remain unfriendly to England,
France’s ally in the “Entente Cordiale.” Both England and Russia
felt that the growth of Germany and the ambition of her war
chiefs threatened them more than they had ever threatened each
other.
In 1907 Russia and England reached an understanding by which they
marked off two great parts of Persia for trading purposes, each
agreeing to stay in her own portion, and not disturb the traders
of the other country in theirs. After this Russia, England, and
France were usually found acting together in European diplomacy,
under the name of the “Triple Entente.” The “balance of power”
had been leaning toward Germany and her allies, but the English
navy, added to the scales on the other side, more than balanced
the advantage in land forces of the Triple Alliance.
Three years later, Morocco again gave trouble, and France, with
England’s backing and Spain’s friendship, sent her troops among
the Moors to enforce law and order. Any one could see that with
Tunis and Algeria already in French hands, it was only a question
of a little while before Morocco would be theirs also.
This time Germany rushed her warship _Panther_ to the Moorish
port of Agadir. This was a threat against France, and the French
appealed to England to know whether they could look to her for
support. Russia was now in much better shape for war than she had
been three years before, and notified France that she was ready
to give her support. Therefore, when Mr. Lloyd-George, the little
Welshman who was really the leader of the British government,
stood up before a big crowd of English bankers and told the world
that “to the last ship, the last man, the last penny,” England
would support France, it was plain that somebody would have to
back down or else start a tremendous European war.
It was now Germany’s turn to give way. Strong as she was, she did
not propose to fight France, Russia, and England combined. So,
although the French gave Germany a few square miles of land in
central Africa in return for the Kaiser’s agreement to let France
have her way in Morocco, the result was a backdown for Germany,
and it left scars which would not heal.
During all this period from 1898 to 1914 there were incidents
happening, any one of which might have started the world war.
Fashoda, Algeciras, Bosnia, Agadir—each time it seemed as if only
a miracle could avert the conflict. Europe was like a powder
magazine. No man knew when the spark might fall that would bring
on the explosion.
Questions for Review
What were the plans of the English regarding Africa?
How did Major Marchand threaten the peace of Europe?
Why was Germany ready to help France?
Why did Delcassé desire to keep peace with England?
Why was England suspicious of Russia?
Why did Germany cultivate the friendship of the Turks?
Why did not the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by
Austria start a general European war?
Why did England and Russia become friendly?
Why did not the Agadir incident bring about a war?
Chapter XV.
The Sowing of the Dragon’s Teeth
The growth of German trade.—Balkan hatreds.—The wonderful
alliance against Turkey.—The sympathies of the big nations.—Their
interference and its results.—A new kingdom.—The second war.—The
work of diplomacy.—The wrongs and grievances of Bulgaria.
Germany’s position in Europe was not favorable to her trade. Her
ships, in order to carry on commerce with the peoples of the
Mediterranean, had to go a great deal farther than those of
France or England. As a result, the Germans had been looking
toward Constantinople and southwestern Asia as the part of the
world with which their commerce ought to grow. It was Germany’s
plan to control the Balkan countries and thus have a solid strip
of territory, including Germany, Austria, the Balkan states, and
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