2)35? HZ HoUinger Corp. pH 8.5 A Summary of European History from 1815 to 1914 Copyright, 1918 By ROBERT J. MCLAUGHLIN Published December, 1918 DEC -5 ISI8 €:i.A5077;iO 1^ V\ A SUMMARY OF EUROPEAN HISTORY FROM 1815 TO 1914 (a) The Development of Germany. — At the time of Napoleon I., Germany consisted of more tlian three hundred separate states, which varied in size from the powerful kingdom of Prussia to the tiny domain of Count William of Buckeburg, whose fortress defended "a range of wooden huts, an observatory, and a potato field." The Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, settled the affairs of Europe after Napoleon's fall, and by it a German Confederacy was formed of which Austria was chief. The number of states in Germany was then reduced to thirty-eight with a Diet at Frankfort, composed of delegates appointed by the vari- ous sovereigns. In 1818, Prussia replaced its sixty-seven different tariff systems by establishing free trade for all domestic commerce of Prussia, with a moderate tariff on foreign imports. Other states soon united with Prussia to form a Zollverein, or Customs Union, and by 1834 most of the German States had come in, though Austria was ex- cluded. This promoted the idea of German unity and de- veloped German commerce and industry. The Revolution of 1848 frightened Frederick William IV. of Prussia, and induced him to summon a national parlia- ment of about six hundred representatives to prepare a constitution for all Germany. After long debate, this body offered tlie crown to Frederick William in 1849, but he scornfully declined this "Crown of Mud and Wood," as he called it, having by this time put down the Revolution. The whole plan of a liberal constitution fell through and many patriots left Germany, in order to find freedom in America. In 1861, William I. became King of Prussia, ap- pointing Otto von Bismarck as his prime minister in 1862. Bismarck ruled without consulting the insignificant Land- tag, or parliament, of Prussia, saying, "The unity of Ger- many is not to be brought about by speeches nor by votes of majorities, but by iron and blood." In 1864, Bismarck in alliance with Austria fought a war with Denmark, in order to obtain the two duchies of Schleswig and Hoist ein. As Queen Victoria was pro-German, England did not inter- fere; and by this easy victory Schleswig-Holstein passed to German control; at Kiel, the seaport of Schleswig-Hol- stein, a German naval base was later established, which with the Kiel Canal to' the North Sea put the Baltic Sea under German domination. Bismarck now worked to begin a war with Austria; and in 1866, in alliance with Italy, he fought the Seven Weeks' War, in which Austria was utterly defeated at the decisive battle of Sadowa, or Koniggriitz, in Bohemia. As a result, Austria was excluded from Ger- many and Schleswig-Holstein became exclusively German territory. Bismarck next, in 1867, formed the North Ger- man Confederation, a union of twenty-two German States under the presidency of Prussia. The King of Prussia was of the Hohenzollcrn family, which had ruled over parts of Germany since 1415. When the throne of Spain became vacant, a Hohenzollern prince was elected in 1870. France thought that this would make Prussia too powerful, and at her protest the German prince withdrew. When the French ambassador demanded of the King, then at Ems, that he pledge himself never to permit such an .election. King William I. politely refused, and sent a telegram from Ems, telling Bismarck of the matter and leaving it to him to publish in the papers. Bismarck changed the wording of the Ems telegram so that it was very insulting to France, and war resulted in 1870. This Franco-Prussian war was a great defeat for France, who was compelled to give up to Germany Alsace and part of Lorraine (in eastern France), and to pay an indemnity of $1,000,000,000. In January, 1871, surrounded by the princes of German}^, in the palace of Versailles, near Paris, Wil- liam I. was proclaimed German Emperor. In 1882, Bis- marck further strengthened the Empire by the Triple Alli- ance, a defensive union of Germany, Austria, and Italy. In 1888, William I. died and was succeeded by his son, Frederick III.; this king, after a reign of ninety-six days, was succeeded by his son, William II., in 1888. This mon- arch wished to rule absolutely, and in 1890 he forced Bis- marck to retire. The Berlin-Bagdad railway was a plan of tlie Kaiser's to secure control of Asia Minor. He obtained permission from Turkey to construct it in 1902-1903, the plan being to unite Bagdad with Constantinople and thence with Ger- many. Had the plan been carried out fully, it would have threatened India and given Germany immense power in Asia Minor. Next he interfered with the French control of Morocco. After Russia, the ally of France, was defeated by Japan, the Kaiser forced France to dismiss Delcasse, lier able minister of foreign affairs, and to submit her claim to ^Morocco to a European Congress held at Algeciras, Spain, in 1906. This Congress, however, sustained the posi- tion^ of France there. The Agadir affair was another attempt to humiliate France. In 1911, Germany sent the cruiser "Panther" to the Moroccan port of Agadir ostensibly to protect German property, with the statement that the warship would go when the French left Fez. This looked like war, but Great Britain prevented it by warning Germany that in case of war, she would help France. In return for land giA'cn to Germany in French Congo, she recognized the French pro- tectorate over Morocco. The Middle-Europe project was a plan first proposed by Naumann, a German writer, in his book on "Mittel Europa." This was to be a union for the ''purposes of offense and defense, military and economic" of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, the Balkan States and Greece. This union was to be under Gemian control, and the Kaiser by uniting it and the Bagdad-railway idea hoped to make German rule extend from central Europe into the "heart of Asia." With Germany's enormous mines of coal and iron, her vast army, and her powerful navy, the Kaiser felt that he could establish a world-empire so that his will should be consulted and obeyed in every land. The government of Germany under the Kaiser Avas little short of an autocracy. There was a form of representation of the people in the Reichstag, composed of three hundred and ninety -seven elected members, but the Kaiser's will dominated them. In January, 1914, Friedrich Naumann, a member of the'Reichstag, said: ''The man who compared this house to a hall of echoes was not far wrong. . . . When one asks the question, 'What part has the Reichstag in German history as a whole?' it will be seen that the part is a very limited one." The other legislative body, the Bundesrat, was a council of sixty-one members ap- pointed by the rulers of German states as their representa- tives. The Kaiser controlled foreign affairs, the army,- .and the navy ; he could declare war if in defense of the empire ; the chancellor, or prime minister, held office only at the pleasure of his master, the Kaiser. Hence the Kaiser merited his official title of "All-Highest." The bulwark of his support was Prussia, of which the Kaiser was heredi- tary king; and here, the Junkers, or country aristocracy, were the batsis of his power. The Junkers despised the mer- chant and professional chisses as much as they did the peasants on tlieir own estates, who were little better than serfs. Almost all state positions, civil and military, were filled from this powerful Junker nobility, who scorned all the effort of the democracy to secure greater political privi- leges. The growth of Germany from 1871 to 1914 was amazing. The population had increased from 41,000,000 to 66,000,000, and this despite the vast emigration to the United States and South America during these years. Manufactures in- creased greatly, owing to the ample supply of coal and iron in the countrv-. In 1885, about four million tons of pig iron were made in Germany ; in 1913, about fifteen million tons were manufactured. The number of tons of coal used by Germany rose from 73,000.000 in 1891 to 185,000,000 tons in 1913, due to the increase in manufactures. Essen, with its great Krupp works manufactured guns, armor plate and other steel products; Elberfeld and Cologne had many cotton mills, and Krefeld had one hundred silk factories; Chemnitz and Berlin had vast manufacturing interests. The products of these mills with chemicals, dyes, drugs, etc., gave Germany a vast export trade before the war. Her exports were sent to every land; and her mighty commerce w^as generally carried in German ships, her merchant marine ranking next in size to that of England's. The cities in- creased in size, Berlin, for example, rising from 820,000 in 1871, to more than 2,000.000 m 1910. Everywhere was wonderful prosperity, which excited the surprise of other nations. The Kaiser's mad dream of world empire was to ruin this splendid success. Note 1. — Otto von Bismarck, the creator of German unity, was born in 1815. After holding various diplomatic positions, he was appointed Prussian premier and minister of foreign affairs in 1862. He de- fended the royal prerogatives, and finally overcame the o^jposition of the Landtag. In 1867, he became chancellor of the North German Confederation; in 1871, he became the first chancellor of the German Empire, and was made a prince. He presided at the famous Berlin Congress of 1878, which settled the Balkan question for many years. When Emperor William II. succeeded to the throne in 1888, he re- sented Bismarck's control; and in 1890, seeing that he was not wanted, Bismarck resigned. Until his death in 1898, Bismarck re- mained in retirement. He was a brilliant but unscrupulous states- man, and despised the common people. Some of his cynical remarks became famous, as when he said, "The world cannot be ruled from below, " ' ' I deceive all diplomats by telling them the truth, " ' ' The Germans fear God, and we fear nothing else in the whole world." Note 2. — The Franco-Prussian War will be treated fully in the section on France. Note 3. — Emperor William I. died at the age of ninety-one in 1888. He was succeeded by his son, Frederick III., who had married Vic- toria, daughter of Queen Victoria of England ; Frederick died after a reign of ninety-six days, and was succeeded by William II. From 1890 to 1914, William II. was practically an absolute monarch, his various chancellors being only figureheads. He had decided ability in many lines, but his arrogance and his ambition to become a world con- queror proved his ruin. His nature can be readily judged from some of his famous sayings. As early as 1890, he said, ' ' Every one who is against me, I shall crush. ' ' In the Golden Book of Munich, he wrote, ''Suprema lex regis voluntas" ("The will of the king is the highest law"). During the Great War he said, "Considering myself as the instrument of the Lord, I go on my way . . . and so I am indif- ferent to the views and the opinions of the moment. ' ' For years he advocated the doctrine of the * ' divine right of kings ' ' to rule, after the rest of the world had abandoned the idea for more than a century. The atrocious cruelties of German warfare were due to him, and made him hated in every land. Hence the world greeted Avith joy the news of his abdication in November, 1918. Note 4. — Bismarck long opposed the acquisition of colonies by Ger- many. The desire for better markets for German products and the wish to increase German prestige, however, conquered this idea of Bismarck's. In 1879, a German company acquired privileges in the Samoan Islands, beginning Germany's colonial expansion. In 1884, Togoland, Kamerun, and German Southwest Africa were acquired; while her richest possession, German East Africa, came under the German flag in 1885. German territories Avere nearly all too hot or too dry for colonization, and their value lay in their rubber, ivory, and palm-oil, and in the possibility of great plantations to raise cof- fee, cocoa, and tobacco. The government of these colonies forced the idle negroes to work, caring little for their welfare, though schools were established for the negro children, German Southw^est Africa was largely a desert, but the discovery of diamonds there in 1908 made 9 it valuable ; the revolt of the Herero tribes lasted from 1903 to 1907, and was put down with extreme ci-uelty, about 200,000 negroes being killed. Tn German East Africa, tlie natives, who resented being compelled to labor on the German plantations, rose in rebelHon, and more than 100,000 were killed before the revolt ended. Germany lost all her African colonies by British conquest during the Great War. (hi The Development of Austria. — The princes of tlio House of Hapsburg ruled Austria from the thirteenth cen- tury. From 1438 to 1806, Hapsburg emperors were the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, as the loose con- federation of the German-speaking countries in central Europe was called. The Congress of Vienna in 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, made Austria the chief power in continental Europe, with Prince Clemens Metternich as her great minister of state. For many years, he aided the Aus- trian emperors in keeping in subjection the various races of Austria-Hungary. In this country in 1900, the Slavs num- bered about one-half of the population, and consisted of the Czechs of Boliemia and Moravia, the Slovaks of north- western Hungary, the Poles and Ruthenians of Galicia, etc.; the Germans comprised about one-fourth; the Magyars of Hungary, about one-sixth. In Metternich 's day, these many elements also existed, and the country was difficult to rule, since there was no feeling of national unity. The year 1848 saw a violent revolution in many parts of Europe, when the proclamation of the Second French Republic was made (February, 1848). Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian orator, led the insurrection in Hungary, while Bohemia also began a revolt. Metternich, then seventy years old, "still very courtly in his blue swallow-tail coat," after his palace in Vienna had been sacked and burned, escaped in disguise and fled for his life to London. Hun- gary, in 1849, proclaimed itself independent, with Kossuth as president. At this the young Austrian emperor, Francis 10 Joseph I., appealed for aid to Czar Nicholas I., the Russian autocrat. He did not wish to have a republic next to his lands; therefore he sent an army of more than 100,000 to aid Austria; and by this means, Hungary was conquered. The great Kossuth fled to Turkey ; then after a visit to the United States, he went to London, finally settling in the Italian city of Turin, where he died in 1894. Hungary suf- fered bitterly from the cruel Austrian commander. Baron Haynau, nicknamed "General Hyena" by the tortured peo- ple, and his measures ended the revolt. For ten years, the Austrian Emperor was an absolute monarch, though later, some degree of the constitutional government was granted. The German Zollverein, or Customs Union, had weakened the influence of Austria, but she was still the leading Con- tinental nation. Relations with Italy had been strained since Napoleon gave Venice and its territories to Austria in 1797; the treaty of Paris in 1814 provided that Lom- bardy and Venetia should go to Austria, and this possession was undisturbed till 1859, when war broke out between Austria and the kingdom of Sardinia, aided by Napoleon III. of France. The greatest battle of this war was fought at Solfcrino, in northern Italy, in 1859, where Austria was defeated. It was at this battle of Solferino that Napo- leon III. said, ''The poor people! The poor people! What a horrible thing is war!" while Francis Joseph, the Austrian emperor, said of it, "Better lose a province than be present again at so awful a spectacle." By this war of 1859, Aus- tria lost Lombardy in northern Italy. In the war of 1866, Prussia defeated Austria decisively at the battle of Konig- gratz, or Sadowa; as a result of this Seven Weeks' War, Austria was excluded from Germany, and was compelled to give Venetia (with Venice) back to the possession of Italy. The Triple Alliance of 1882 made Austria an ally of 11 Germany and Italy, though the possession by Austria since 1797 of Dahnatia, along the eastern shore of the Adriatic, rankled in Italian minds. Austria likewise was a rival of Russia for the control of the Balkan nations. The prov- inces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in southeastern Austria, ha"d been placed under Austrian protection by the treaty of Berlin in 1878, but in defiance of this treaty she annexed these lands in 1908. Her jealousy of Serbia was great. The Austrian crown prince. Archduke Ferdinand, and his wife were assassinated in June, 1914, while on a visit to Sara- jevo, the capital of Bosnia. For this crime of two students, Austria held Serbia responsible, and Count Bcrchtold, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent an insulting ultimatum to Serbia. Austria refused to accept Serbia's reply to this ultimatum, and declared war on July 28, 1914, thus beginning the Great War. Note 1. — Francis ,Ioseph 1. was born in 1830, and succeeded to the thiioue in 1848, on tlie abdication of his uncJe during the revolutions of that year. He remained on the throne for almost sixty-seven years. His estrangement from his noble wife, the Empress Elizabeth, and the suicide, or nuirder, of his only sou Rudolph, in 1880, were two of the scandalous aft'airs of his court. Yet he was clever as a ruler, and managed to keep the Dual Monarchy together as long as he lived. Note 2. — Henri Dunant, a native of Geneva, as a young man took a pleasure trip in northern Italy in the summer of 1859, and found him- self near the scene of the gTeat battle of Solferino. For ten days he worked in the improvised field hospitals and enlisted the aid of peasant women and boys. Three years later, in 1862, appeared his little vol- ume called ''XTn Souvenir de Solferino," in which he suggested the formation in })eace times of societies of volunteers to he!]) the wounded in time of war. In 1863, Swiss delegates met at Geneva to discuss Dunant 's proposition. As a result of this, an international convention was held at Geneva in 1864, and the International Red Cross Society was formed. Note 3. — Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918 was a limited mon- archy, the monarch being emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. Each of these two countries had its own capital, its own constitution, and its own parliament. Foreign affairs, finance, and military and naval affairs were administered by the same ministers of state for the two countries. The crown was hereditary in the Hapsburg-Lorraine dynasty. 12 Note 4. — By the word Slav we mean a person belonging by birth to the Slavonian group of Aryans. They inhabit Russia, Austro-Hun- gary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. They number about 140,000,000, and are divided as follows: — 1. The eastern Slavs, or Russians. 2. The northAvestern Slavs, or Poles, Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks. 3. The southern Slavs, or Bulgarians, Slovenes, and Serbo-C'j'oa- tians. The Slovenes are found in Styria, Carniola, and (-arinthia; the Slovaks live chiefly in nortliern Hungary and Moravia; the Czechs form nearly 70% of the ])opulation of Bohemia and Moravia; the Serbo-Croatians are found in Bosnia, Croatia, and Slavonia; the Poles are found chiefly in western Galicia, while the Ruthenians are found in eastern Galicia and Bukowina. These various Slav peoples formed about half of the jiopulation of Austria-Hungary in 1910. The Germans of Austria-Hungary numbered about twelve millions in 1910, found chiefly in Austria, Styria, Carinthia, northern Tyrol, with smaller numbers in Bohemia, Moravia, and Galicia. The Magyars of Hungary nundiered ten millions in 1910. This race is of mixed Aryan and Mongolian blood. These people appeared in Europe for the first in 884, becoming Christians about a century later. They form the dominant race in Hungary. Italians in Austria-Hungary in 1910 numbered 768,000, and were found in Trieste, in the Trentino, and along the coast of Dalmatia. • ((•) The Development of Italy. — Prince Metternich called Italy ^'a geographical expression," and in his day no such thing existed as a united Italy. From the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to 1859, with but little interruption, the chief poAvers in Italy were the kingdom of Sardinia, includ- ing Sardinia, Savoy, Genoa, and Piedmont, in northwestern Italy, with Turin as its capital; the grand duchy of Tus- cany in northwestern Italy; the duchy of Modena, in northern IImIv; the duchy of Parma, in northern Italy, ruled by Maria Louisa, the wife of Napoleon I.; the States of the Church, or the Papal States, in central Italy, with Rome as capital, and ruled by the Pope; the King- dom of the Two Sicilies, which included Sicily and lower Italy, with Naples as its capital; and the kingdom of Lombardo^ — Venetia in the north, belonging to Austria, 13 and ruled by an Austrian viceroy. Austrian influence was supreme in Italy, since the duchies were ruled by Austrian princes, while Ferdinand II. of the Two Sicilies was in alliance with Austria. In all of these states, the ruler was an absolute monarch, there being no parliament and no constitution in any of them. Napoleon in his brief occupation of Italy had introduced many reforms, but these were abolished by the Congress of Vienna; as a result, the people were dissatisfied, and many joined the Carbonari, a secret society wliich aimed in a vag-ue way to promote insurrection and revolt. This name was derived from the charcoal burners of Italy, wdiose trade the ritual of the society followed. The first revolution oc- curred in 1820, in Naples; here. King Ferdinand I., after yielding to the demands of the people and giving them a constitution and a parliament, appealed to Austria for help. All opposition ended soon after the Austrian army arrived, and the old absolute rule was restored. The French revo- lution of 1830 affected Italy, and the Carbonari plotted a new insurrection there. A revolt began in 1831 in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, but it likewise was sup- pressed by an Austrian army. These two revolutions were local, but soon a new prophet of liberty arose who aimed to arouse all Italy. This was Ciuseppe (Joseph) Mazzini, who was born in Genoa, in 1805. Even in boyhood, he felt the misery of his country. In his autobiography, he said, 'T childishly determined to dress always in black, fancying myself in mourning for my country." Seeing some refugees fleeing from Italy after the revolt of 1821, this boy- of six- teen felt that he must bear his part in the struggle for liberty, the thought of these refugees pursuing him day and night. He became a lawyer. Having joined the Carbonari, he was arrested in 1830, as a member of this society; after 14 six months, he was released, but forced to leave Italy, be- ginning that long exile of nearly forty years in France, Switzerland, and England. In 1831, Mazzini founded a new revolutionary society called "Young Italy, with the motto "God and the People." By 1833, the society, which aimed to drive Austria out of Italy, had 60,000 members. With Mazzini as leader, they failed, as, he was not success- ful as a man of action ; yet the patriotism that he inspired in them and others made him one of three great makers of modern Italy. A new revolution broke out when the news of the procla- mation of the Second French Republic (February, 1848) reached Italy. Venice declared itself a republic, and writ- ten constitutions were exacted in Tuscany, Sardinia, and the Papal States. In 1848, Charles Albert, the king of Sardinia, began a war with Austria to liberate Italy. "Pa- triots believed the resurrection of Italy — the Risorgimento — to be at hand," but it was not. The Austrians under Ra- detzky defeated the Sardinian army in two battles, all re- sistance ending at Novara, in 1849, when Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanual II. In Sicily, the false, cruel Ferdinand II. put down the revolt by bombarding the cities, thereby gaining for himself the epithet of "Bomba." The revolt in Rome caused Pius IX. to flee to Naples for safety; a republic w^as established in Rome early in 1849, with Mazzini as chief of the trium- virate. France now decided to restore the Pope, and cap- tured the city in June, 1849, ending the Roman Republic, while Mazzini returned to poverty in London. The second maker of modern Italy was Count Camillo di Cavour. Born in 1810 of a noble family in Turin, he early adopted liberal views, which his sojourn in England con- firmed. Kins; Charles Albert had granted a constitution to 15 the kingdom of Sardinia, and Victor Emmanuel 11. on his succession to the tiirone refused all Austrian inducements to abolish this constitution, gaining the popular title of the ''Honest King." Cavour became his prime minister in 1852. In 1855, Cavour induced Sardinia to join France and Great Britain in the Crimean War against Russia, by this means gaining the friendship of France for his country. In 1858, as a result, an alliance was made between Sardinia and France, by which the latter agreed to aid in driving Aus- tria from northern Italy. War began in 1859. After the victories of Magenta and Solferino, Austria was obliged to cede Lombardy to the kingdom of Sardinia. In a few months, the people of the duchies of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany insisted on annexation to the kingdom of Sardinia, and England supported their demand. France agreed to this by treaty in 1860, in exchange for the cession of Savoy and Nice. Early in 1860, Sicily rose in revolt, (liuseppe Garibaldi with his followers, "The Thousand," "the Red Shirts," left Genoa in two steamers in order to aid the Sicilians in their fight against the King of Naples. His victory in Sicily was complete. Next he crossed to tlie mainhmd, and overthrew the Neapolitan kingdom with little bloodshed. Victor Em- manuel's army then entered Naples, and by popular vote, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was annexed to the king- dom of Sardinia. In 1861, a new parliament, representing all Italy except Vcnetia and Rome, met in Turin, and the kingdom of Sardinia became the kingdom of Italy, with Victor Emmanuel II. as its first monarch. Cavour before his death in the summer of 1861, made Parliament vote that Rome should be the capital of Italy. Italy's next gain was made in 1866, when in alliance with Prussia, she secured Venetia on the defeat of Austria in the Seven Weeks' War. 16 When the French troops were withdrawn from Rome after the battle of Sedan, in 1870, the troops of Victor Emmanuel II. entered Rome, which was made the capital of the king- dom of Italy. The Triple Alliance in 1882, of Germany, Austria, and Italy, was the next step in Italy's progress. In 1911, Italy announced its intention to seize Tripoli and Cyrenaica; and as a result the Turco-Italian War was fought. The Turkish garrisons and the Arab tribesmen of the coast were conquered by Italy, and peace was signed in 1912, leaving Tripoli and Cyrenaica in Italian possession. When the Great War broke out, Italy declined to join Germany; in 1915, she declared w^ar against Austria as an ally of England and France, though war on Germany was not declared till 1916. Note 1. — Mazzini while in exile was sentenced to death for sharing in the revolt of 1857. This sentence was removed in 1866, though he declined to accept such an ''offer of oblivion and pardon for having loved Italy above all earthly things." He died in 1872. Note 2. — ' ' Cavour, ' ' said Lord Palmerston in the British House of Commons, 'Meft a name 'to point a moral and adorn a tale.' The moral was, that a man of transcendent talent, indomitable energy, in- extinguishable patriotism, could overcome difficulties which seemed insurmountable, and confer the greatest, the most inestimable benefit on his country. The tale with which his memory would be associated was the most extraordinary, the most romantic, in the annals of the world. ' ' Note 3. — Giuseppe Garibaldi was born at Nice in 1807, and was for many years a sailor. He took part in a revolt in Savoy in 1834, and was condemned to death. He managed to escape to South America, living there for fourteen years and joining in the South American wars with his famous "Italian Legion." Still under sentence of death, he returned to Italy to take part in the revolution of 1848. When Rome was reconquered by France, Austrian and French troops pursued him through forests and over mountains until he escaped to America. For several years, he commanded a Peruvian ship, and at another time he was a candle maker on Staten Island. He returned to Italy in 1854, living as a farmer on the little island of Caprera, near Sardinia, until war broke out in 1859. After his victory in Sicily and Naples, Garibaldi, seated by the side of King Victor Em- manuel II., drove in triumph through the streets of Naples in 1860. Garibaldi refused all rewards, and "with only a little money and a bag of seed beans for his farm, he sailed away to Caprera." He 17 commaiuled a French force in the Franco-Prussian War. Ho died at Caprera in 1882. (d) The Development of Belgium. — In 1794, Belgium, then called the Austrian Netherlands, was conquered by France and annexed. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 united Belgium and Holland, forming the kingdom of the Netherlands, with the Dutch prince, William I., as ruler. The two countries, however, had little in common. They differed in religion, the Dutch being Protestants and the Belgians Catholics; they differed in language, the Dutch speaking Dutch, while the Belgians spoke either Flemish, which is a Teutonic language allied to Dutch, or Walloon, which is Belgian French; they also differed in occupation, the Dutch being mainly an agricultural and commercial people, while the Belgians were chiefly a manufacturing people. The obstinate William I. irritated the Belgians by imposing on them the Dutch law, the Dutch language, and Dutch officials, his powers being great under the constitu- tion. When the news of the French revolution of 1830 reached Brussels, a revolt was organized, and Belgium pro- claimed its independence (October, 1830). The British government and the French government supported Belgium in this demand; and by agreement of an international con- vention, held in London in 1831, Belgium became an inde- pendent, constitutional monarchy, with Leopold of Saxe- Coburg as king. A British fleet and a French army had to be sent to Belgium before King William would evacuate it; and only in 1839 was its independence officially agreed to by him. Leopold L reigned over Belgium till 1865, and was then succeeded by Leopold IL Stanley's exploration of central Africa in 1871-1877 was described in his book, "Through the Dark Continent." Tn 1878, a Belgian commercial company, realizing the wealth 18 of Afrka, began to develop the Congo valley. By a con- ference of the European Powers meeting in Berlin in 1884- 1885, the Congo was made an independent, neutral state; and in 1885, Leopold II. became sovereign of this Congo Free State. The rubber, ivory, and palm-oil of the Congo were immensely valuable, and the natives there were forced to work as slaves by the Belgians. The cruelty shown to these Congo negroes led to international protests; and in 1908, the Congo Free State became a Belgian colony, sub- ject to the Belgian parliament. In 1909, Leopold 11. died and was succeeded by his nephew, Albert I. Just after the Great War began, on August 2, 1914, Germany issued an ultimatum to Belgium, allowing her twelve hours to decide whether she would permit German troops to cross Belgium on the way to attack France. As a neutral country, she could not honorably permit Germany to do this; the Bel- gian government said in reply that her neutrality had been guaranteed by Germany and the other European Powers, and that she would resist any violation of it. Germany then insisted on sending her troops across Belgium, and this little country was thus drawn into the Great War in de- fence of its honor. Note. — On August 4, 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, demanded of Germany that she respect Belgian neutrality and that she keep her armies out of that country. The German chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, said to the English ambassa- dor in Berlin that England ough^ not to enter the war just for the sake of ' ' a scrap of paper. ' ' This contemptuous reference to the solemn treaties by which Germany and the other European Powers had guaranteed Belgian neutrality shocked the world. (e) The Development of France. — The French Revo- lution began in May, 1789; the Bastille, or state prison of Paris, was seized by the mob on July 14, 1789, and this date became the national French anniversary, corresponding to the American Fourth of July. The first French Republic 19 was proclaimed in September, 1792; and the execution of the weak monarch, Louis XVL, followed in January, 1793. With the overthrow of Robespierre, in July, 1794, the bloody Reign of Terror ended in France. The government by the Directory of five men began in 1795, and ended with the coup d' Hat of 1799 (on the 18th Brumaire by the Revolu- tionary calendar, or November 9th by ours). By this sudden, violent overthrow of the existing govern- ment, Napoleon, the Corsican soldier, became first consul of France. In 1804, he was made hereditary emperor of the French. His wonderful military successes continued with the victory over the Russians and Austrians at Aus- terlitz (in northwestern Austria), in 1805, although the victory of Nelson at Trafalgar had just made England '•'mistress of the seas" again. In 1807, with Russia as an ally, he was at the height of his power, with his own rela- tives placed on the thrones of northern Italy, Naples, Hol- land, and Westphalia. The placing of his brother on the Spanish throne in 1808, led to a revolt there and in Por- tugal, where he was finally defeated by the English, under Viscount Wellington, later the Duke of Wellington. Napo- leon's first great defeat came in his war with Russia in 1812, where he was forced by the approach of winter into a disastrous retreat. A coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria, England, and Sweden defeated him at the battle of Leipsic in 1814, and soon forced him to abdicate. He received the island of Elba with the title of emperor, but finally escaped from there to France, in March, 1815, beginning the rule of the Hundred Days, which ended with his crushing defeat at Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815, by the English undei^ Welling- ton, aided by the Germans under Bliicher. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored to power in France Louis XVIII. of the Bourbon line of kings, and the 20 white flag of the Bourbons banished the tricolor of the revolution. In 1824, Louis XVIII. died and was succeeded by his brother, Charles X., who w^as then sixty-seven years old. He attempted to rule without consulting the national legislative bodies, saying, "I would rather saw wood than be a king of the English type," and issued several illegal ordinances in 1830, one of which suspended the freedom of the press. This caused the July Revolution of 1830, the ''Glorious Three Days." The mob of Paris made barri- cades of the paving stones together with boxes, furniture, trees, etc.; and after defeating the soldiers of Charles, they expelled him from the throne and forced him to flee from France. The deputies and peers, at the desire of Lafayette, then elected to the vacant throne of France, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who became the "Citizen King." He secured the throne by the revolution of 1830, and he lost it by the revolution of 1848. Under Louis Philippe espe- cially, France passed from the old system of small home manufacturing to the factory system, and the use of steam- moved machinery. The toilers suffered from overwork and underpay; thus the silk weavers of Lyons, in 1831, earned eighteen sous for a day's work of eighteen hours. The king steadily opposed the reforms that the people demanded, and the Revolution of 1848 began. After three days of revolt, the Second Republic w^as proclaimed in February, 1848, while Louis Philippe drove off as "Mr. Smith," in a closed carriage, to end his days in England. After a provisional government had ruled for some months, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the ncpliew of Napo- leon I., was elected president in December, 1848. In 1851, by a coup d' etat, he was chosen president for ten years; in 1852, after a popular vote, he became emperor of France. Under him, France, allied with England, took part in the 21 Crimean War against Russia, in 1854- 1S56. Allied with Sardinia, Napoleon III. conquered Austria, at the battle of Solferino, in 1859. His fall came with the Franco-Prussian War. In 1868, a revolution had occurred in Spain ; and the pro- \'isional government repeatedly offered the Spanish throne to Prince Leopold, of tlie Hohenzollern family of Prussia. When the fourth offer was accepted by Leopold, in 1870, France was ah\rmed at this increase in Prussian power. The French ambassador was therefore directed to go to Ems, a German watering resort, where King William, the Prussian monarcli, then was in order to demand that Leo- pold withdraw. King William agreed, and the difficulty would liave ended if France had not insisted that no Hohen- zollern prince should ever accept the Spanish throne. King Wilham refused this request politely, and telegraphed the news to Bismarck in the Ems despatch, leaving him to pub- lish it in the newspapers. Bismarck did so in a manner purposely insulting to France; and to his delight, war was dechired by France in July, 1870. The German army under Count von Moltke was in splendid order; the French army was in supreme confusion. The French minister of war liad said that the French army was ready "to the last button on the last gaiter," but in reality bread, tents, medicines, munitions, and almost everything else were lacking. One general telegraphed to Paris: "What shall I do? I don't know where my regiments are!" This confusion proved fatal and France was utterly defeated. At the battle of Sedan in northeastern France, in September, 1870, Napo- leon IIL, after his defeat, was taken prisoner. When this news reached Paris, the Third Republic was proclaimed in September, 1870, under a provisional government. Aftei Marshal Bazaine with shameful cowardice surrendered 22 Metz and an army of 173,000 in October, 1870, the only resistance offered was by Paris. The Germans began the siege of Paris on September 19, 1870, continuing the siege for four months. The city endured the horrors of bom- bardment and famine. In January, the supply of coal and wood was almost exhausted; little bread could be had, and the people even ate dogs, cats, jind rats, the latter selling at two francs a piece. On January 28th, starvation com- pelled the city's surrender, and the (Jerman troops entered Paris in triumph. Bismarck imposed a drastic peace by the treaty of 1871, requiring France to cede Alsace, much of Lorraine, with the fortresses of Metz and Strassburg, and to pay an indemnity of a billion dollars. The provisional government of the Third Republic gave way to an elected National Assembly, which chose Louis Thiers as the first president. Civil war now broke out, when the revolutionary Commune, or local government of Paris, defied the National Assembly. The siege of Paris lasted two months in the spring of 1871, and caused widespread destruction of prop- erty, and the death of at least 20,000 Parisians. This war of the Commune ended May 28, 1871, with the defeat of the Communists by the general government of France. The Third Republic has continued as the government of France from 1870. It strengthened its position by an alli- ance with Russia in 1891, and by a later understanding with England. This Franco-British Entente was inaugu- rated in 1904; and by it, old discords over colonial claims were ended, and France and England agreed to act together in foreign matters. By England's agreement with Russia in 1907, a Triple Entente was formed between Russia, France, and Great Britain, which was invaluable to France, when Germany invaded her in 1914. 23 Note 1. — The colonial growth of France began in 1830, after the war with the dey of Algeria, By 1847, Algeria was entirely con- quered. In the reign of Napoleon III., the Senegal valley in Africa, and Cochin-China, Annani, and Cambodia, in southeastern Asia, were acquired. Tunis was occupied by French trooj)S in 1881; later, Mad- agascar, French Congo, Dahomey, Ivory Coast, French Guinea, tlie Niger valley, and the Sahara were a, 1899, until relieved by General Roberts in ]\Iay, 1900. Shortly after the capture of Pretoria, the capital, in June. 1900, by Lord Roberts, Paul Kruger, the president of the Trans- vaal, withdrew to Europe. The final occupation of the conquered country was completed by General Kitchener. Peace w^as signed in 1902, and the Transvaal and Orange Free State became parts of the British Empire. Queen Victoria died in 1901, and her son, Edward VIL, then sixt\' years old, ascended the throne. This pacific monarch aimed to promote the peace of Europe. By his efforts, in 1904, the entente cordiale w^as arranged between France and England, by which each agreed to support the other in African affairs; the later addition of Russia as ally of France, made the league a triple entente. In 1908, Her- bert Henry Asquith became Prime Minister and David Lloyd-George became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thi- rise of Mr. Lloyd-George, born of poor parents in a little Welsh village, Avas unprecedented in English politics, where rank or college training is almost indispensable for leaders. In 1910, George V. succeeded his father. In 1912, As- quith took up the question of Irish Home Rule, and a bill was passed in 1914, providing for an Irish parliament hi 44 Dublin to deal with Irish matters, while the lord lieutenant of Ireland, appointed by the British government, was to govern Ireland through ministers responsible to this Irish parliament. The religious question prevented Irish agree- ment. Seventy per cent, of the population of Ireland are Roman Catholics. The small percentage of Protestants live chiefly in northeastern Ireland, in the province of Ulster with its flourishing city of Belfast; and these, under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, began to collect arms in order to oppose the introduction of Home Rule, but the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 caused a suspension of the Home Rule law\ The extreme Irish nationalists aimed at making Ireland a republic, and in April, 1916, an insurrection broke out in Dublin led by the Sinn Fein (pro- nounced shin fane). This name meant "We ourselves," and they aimed at separating completely from England. The rebellion was suppressed in about a week, after some three hundred citizens of Dublin and five hundred British soldiers Avere killed. The president of the proposed republic, Padraic Pearse, was executed by the British government. In De- cember, 1916, on the fall of Asquith, Lloyd-George became premier. The Lloyd-George ministry made alternative pro- posals for a settlement of the Irish question. It offered to bring home rule into immediate effect while excluding from its operations the six northern counties of Ulster, or to set up a convention of representative Irishmen to try to settle the question for themselves. This Irish convention met in 1917, but after long deliberation they came to no agree- ment. Lloyd-George, in November. 1918, declared that the first alternative would therefore be used as a basis of settlement as soon as conditions in Ireland made it possible, and that he would refuse to support any settlement of the Irish question w^hich "would impose a forcible coercion of Ulster." 45 The agitation for woman's suffrage became ])rominent in England from 1905. Led by Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst. the women resorted to raids and other violent demonstrations in protest against being deprived of the vote. The Great War showed such patriotic devotion on the part of the women of England that a new reform bill was passed in 1917, enfranchising all English sailors and soldiers, all men over twenty-one years of age, and all women over thirty years of age. Note 1. — The Kiigiisli nation as a whole hated slavcn-y, l>ut the peo- ple were divided as to their views during the American (.'ivil War. The up})er cdasses favored the South, and the leadeis of the Liberal party then in power, Gladstone, Russell, and Palmerston, shaved this view, Gladstone going so far as to say in a speech that Jetferson Davis **had made an army, had made a navy, and ^^hat is more, had made a nation. ' ' The middle and lower classes of England favored the North; they maintained their loyalty to the ISTorthern cause even when the failure of the cotton supply threw thousands of English workmen out of employment and caused wide-s})read suffering. The English government remained strictly neutral. The "Trent" Aft"air, in November, 1861, with its seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the Confederate commissioners, from on board the British mail stennun- * * Trent, ' ' by Captain Wilkes, of the United States ship ' ' San Jacinto, ' ' threatened trouble between England and America, but the British Government withdrew its demand for an apology and expressed itself satisfied witli the release of the two commissioners. British ship- builders during the war built five cruisers for the Confederacy, (»f which the "Alabama" was the most noted. This difficulty was ad- justed b}' the Treaty of Washington in 1871 with the Geneva confer- ence in 1872. During the Spanish-American War, English S3anpathy for America was strong. Admiral Dewey's victory at Manila in 1898 was aided by Admiral Sir Edward Chichester, in command of the British fleet at Manila, who gave the insolent von Diedrichs, the Ger- man admiral there, to understand that he Avould aid Dewey if the German ships attacked him. Note 2. — Queen A'ictoria (1819-1901) was the only child of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George HI. She was not a woman of great intellectual power, nor was she beautiful of face, nor imposing in figure, being not quite five feet tall. On her accession, Hanover went to her uncde, the Duke of Cumberland, but was annexed by Ger- many after the Austro-Prussian War of 1860. She married her cousin Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in 1840, remaining a widow after his death in 1861. She assumed the title of empress of India in 1877, and celebrated her jubilee in 1887. She died in 1901, 46 after completing the longest reign in English history. Her courage, honesty, and love of country were undoubted, but she injured Englan 1 by her devotion to her German family connections, especially in her refusal to assist the Danes in 1866 or France in 1870, against Ger- man aggression. Note 3. — In 1890, the Marquis of Salisbury (salz'), as English prime minister, induced Germany to recognize the British protectorate over Zanzibar by giving to her the island of Heligoland, or Helgo- land, in the North Sea, forty-five miles from the mouth of the Elbe River. This island, strongly fortified by Germany, protected the German fleet from attack during the Great War. Note 4. — Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the great English novelist, published his "Oliver Twist" in 1838 and his "David Copperfield" in 1849-1851). William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) issued his greatest novel, "Vanitv Fair," in 1847-1848. George Eliot (Mrs. Cross, 1819-1880) published "The Mill on the Floss" in 1860 and "Romola" in 1862-1863. Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), for many years England's leading poet, issued his "In Memoriam" in 1850. A few of the other great writers of the period were the historian, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859); the poet, Robert Brown- ing (1812-1889); the essayist, John Euskin (1819-1900), and the historian, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). Note 5. — David Lloyd-George was born in a Welsh village in 1863. He was raised by his uncle, who was a shoemaker and a lay preacher. The family was poor, and the boy had to work for a time in the coal mines. Lloyd-George finally took up the study of law; and because of his great oratorical powers, he was sent to Parliament, in 1890. He opposed the Boer War; and once risked his life to speak on this subject at Birmingham, the home of Joseph Chamberlain, "arch apos- tle of the Boer War." As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Asquith cabinet in 1908, his budget was called revolutionary, because of the heavy income and inheritance taxes that he proposed. He de- fended the budget as a war budget for waging implacable war against poverty, expressing the hope that some day poverty and wretchedness niight disappear from f:ngland. In 1915, he became Minister of Munitions, and organized British industries on a war basis. The progress of the war failed to satisfy England, and in December, 1916. Asquith Avas superseded as Prime Minister by Lloyd-George. By his work as Minister of Munitions and as Premier, he was largely instru- mental in bringing the war to a successful end in 191S. Note 6. — Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born in Ireland in 1850, and early entered the British army. He became sirdar (diir'), or commander-in-chief of the Anglo-Egyptian army in 1892. His first great service to England was his victory over the dervishes of the Sudan at the battle of Omdurman, near Khartum, in 1898, by which ho established British control in the Sudan. He succeeded Lord Rob- erts in command in South Africa in 1900, bringing the Boer War to its conclusion. For these services he was made an earl. From 1902 to 1909, he was commander-in-chief of the Indian army. When the Great War broke out in 1914, Kitchener assumed command. He predicted that the war woul.l h^st at least three years, and proceeded to buiUl up a vast army. The German military staff called these in- experienced men ' ' Kitchener 's Mob, ' ' but they became great soldier"^. Lord Kitchener met his death at sea, Avhen the British battle cruiser "Hampshire," bearing Kitchener on a mission to Russia, was tor- pedoed in June, 1916. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 02i--39|f t^^^ ^