The History Book

THE EARLY MODERN ERA 199 under his reign many Protestants Korea remained independent until their own language—Afrikaans— were imprisoned and many others 1910, after which there was a and played a central role in the fled from the country. 35-year period of Japanese rule. history of South Africa. THE SPANISH ARMADA THE SIEGE OF DROGHEDA THE OTTOMAN SIEGE OF VIENNA (1588) (1649) (1683) In 1588, the Catholic monarch England’s parliamentarian leader Philip II of Spain attempted to Oliver Cromwell launched his By 1683, the Turkish Ottoman conquer Protestant England by campaign to conquer Ireland in Empire was at its greatest extent sending a fleet of 130 ships to 1649, after Irish Catholics took and included large areas of North invade the country. After the control of the country from its Africa, the Middle East, and English succeeded in destroying English administrators in 1641. Eastern Europe. Austria was on part of the fleet using fire ships, Once Cromwell had taken Dublin, the empire’s western border, and a defeat at Gravelines sent the Drogheda became a base for Irish the Turks had already attempted remains of the Spanish Armada Catholic leaders. Cromwell laid to conquer Vienna. In 1683 they retreating northward toward siege to the town, massacring the besieged the city for the last time: Scotland, where many more ships people inside its walls when they the forces of the Habsburg-ruled were wrecked by storms. Only 86 refused to surrender. Most of the Holy Roman Empire and of Poland vessels made it back to Spain. The garrison of about 2,500 men, came to defend Vienna, and the defeat was a blow to Spain, ending plus many civilians, were killed. Ottomans were vanquished. From this campaign to capture England Although the killings did not this point on, the Ottomans’ power for Catholicism and confirming break the military code of the declined. No longer a threat to England’s status as a secure time, their ruthlessness and the Christian Europe, they steadily Protestant nation under Elizabeth I. sheer number of victims were lost their European territories. both unprecedented, and they THE JAPANESE INVASIONS embittered future relations between THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN OF KOREA ARE DEFEATED the English and the Irish Catholics. (1746) (1592–98) THE DUTCH ESTABLISH A COLONY AT CAPE TOWN At the Battle of Culloden, Scotland, The Japanese samurai leader an army being led by the Duke of Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched (1650) Cumberland, son of the Hanoverian attempts to conquer Korea in king George II, defeated a smaller 1592 and 1597, part of a larger Although Portuguese explorers force of Jacobites (including many campaign that was intended to were the first Europeans to from the Highland clans) under culminate with an invasion of discover the Cape of Good Hope Prince Charles Edward Stuart. China. Both times, Japan made in the 15th century, it was the The Stuart prince had hoped to major advances, but the Koreans, Dutch who founded Cape Town. restore his bloodline to the British with the support of Chinese forces, In 1652, a group from the Dutch throne, but Culloden effectively managed to fight back. However, East India Company under Jan put an end to his campaign. It they were unable to expel the van Riebeeck established a colony also led to the disarming of the Japanese completely, which led there, creating a stopping point Scottish Highlands, where Jacobite to a stalemate on land, although for Dutch ships on their way to support was strongest, the Korea’s Admiral Yi inflicted and from Asia. The settlement dismantling of the clan system frequent naval defeats on Japan. became the center of a large there, and a ruthless suppression Beaten at sea and confined to community of people of Dutch of Highland culture that included a few fortresses on land, Japan origin, who dominated trade and bans on wearing Highland dress abandoned its attempts to invade. agriculture in the region, evolved and speaking Gaelic.

SCOHCAINEGTIINE 1776–1914

SG

202 INTRODUCTION The Declaration of The Slave Trade Abolition Simon Bolívar Revolts occur all over Independence is signed. Act is passed in Britain, establishes Gran Europe as demands for It asserts basic human Colombia, a new South liberalism, socialism, outlawing trading American republic rights and creates a in slaves; however, independent of Spanish and national self- new nation: the United slavery itself is not rule; it lasts until 1830. determination grow; all banned until 1833. are suppressed by force. States of America. 1776 1807 1819 1848 1789 1815 1830 1856 The storming of the Bastille Napoleon is defeated George Stephenson’s The Second Opium signals the start of the at the Battle of Rocket steam engine War is launched by French Revolution, in powers the world’s first Western powers to which the monarchy Waterloo by the commercial rail service, force China to give is overthrown and a British, Dutch, and which links Liverpool access to Chinese Prussians, ending 23 ports for trade. republic is established. years of war in Europe. and Manchester. F rom the late 18th century, 1 million in 1800 to 7 million in 1910. there was no economic equality. history took on a perhaps Improvements in public health and Extremes of wealth and poverty delusory air of “progress.” medicine increased life expectancy polarized the world’s wealthiest Change accelerated and seemed in the most advanced countries. and most advanced societies, and to have a clear direction. The world conditions of life for industrial population exceeded 1 billion in Human rights and equality workers were often very miserable. 1804 and was approaching 2 billion Despite these advancements, it Artists and intellectuals of the by 1914. This growth was made is debatable whether progress Romantic movement criticized the possible by tremendous increases was detectable in the quality of life. impact of mechanized industry on in economic output. Agriculture At the start of this period, political people and the environment, while became more efficient and large revolutions in America and France socialist movements looked forward areas of new land were put to enunciated principles of human to further revolutions that would productive use. The exploitation of rights and equal citizenship that end the exploitation of man by man new sources of energy—especially radically challenged the existing and create egalitarian societies. steam power—the application of order of society. By the early 20th new technology, and organized century, liberals and democrats in Western imperialism industrial production in factories Europe and North America could The most obvious losers in the new revolutionized the manufacture look with some complacency upon world order created by industrial of commodities. Railways made it successes such as the widespread capitalism were the inhabitants of possible for humans to travel faster expansion of voting rights, the countries at the periphery of the than a horse for the first time and abolition of slavery, and freedom of global economy. The industrializing cities expanded—for instance, the speech. However, women remained countries of the West, needing population in London increased from mostly excluded from voting, and places to invest their excess capital,

CHANGING SOCIETIES 203 Charles Darwin During the American The Suez Canal opens, A coalition of various publishes On the Origin Civil War, US president linking the Red and reform groups, known Abraham Lincoln gives Mediterranean seas, and collectively as the Young of the Species, in the Gettysburg Address, dramatically reducing Turks, overthrow the which he introduces sailing times between authoritarian Ottoman one of the greatest Europe and the East. sultan and attempt to rule. his controversial speeches in history. theory of evolution. 1859 1863 1869 1908 1860 1868 1892 1913 Giuseppe Garibaldi The Tokugawa Ellis Island opens in New Emily Davison steps leads 1,000 volunteers shogunate is ousted and York Harbor to process out under King George to overthrow the French V’s horse at the Derby Bourbons in southern the Emperor Meiji arrivals of immigrants and is killed, raising Italy and Sicily; Italy was becomes ruler of Japan; to the United States; the profile of women’s unified one year later. suffrage worldwide. the nation emerges as most become US citizens. a major imperial power. The island closed in 1954. raw materials for their factories, dominance. On the other hand, the but Europe remained a deeply and markets for their new products, growing superiority of the West in divided continent. Militant found them in Asia, Africa, and technology, science, military power, nationalism, unleashed by the Latin America. They also sought and social organization led several French Revolution, was a threat to land for their expanding populations non-European governments to try stability. By 1815, the Napoleonic to settle in thinly populated zones to modernize based on the Western Wars had generated battles of such as the North American plains model. In the Muslim world, Egypt, unprecedented scale. After the and Australia. Peoples who stood Turkey, and Iran attempted, with wars of the mid-19th century in their way were swept aside. The only partial success, to pursue a that created a unified Italy and Europeans started expanding the modernizing agenda. In East Asia, Germany, the great powers areas under their direct rule or Japan successfully transformed maintained large conscript armies control. The British takeover of the itself into an efficient modern state, and formed mutually hostile Indian subcontinent, more or less becoming an imperialist power in alliance systems. These armies complete by the mid-19th century, its own right. China, by contrast, were equipped with high-explosive was the most spectacular example experienced turmoil and invasion, shells and rapid-fire weapons. of imperialism in action, and Sub- and imperial rule collapsed in the Saharan Africa was divided among early 20th century. European military power, which the European powers as if the local was supported by highly organized population did not exist. Rising nationalism state systems and economies, was Most Europeans and people of certainly one of the key elements in The world’s response to Western European descent gloried in a sense European world domination. There imperialism was mixed. Resistance of their own racial and cultural would be disaster when European was widespread in the form of wars superiority to the rest of the world, states turned this power against and uprisings against European one another. ■

204 IN CONTEXT CSWTTRHREELUAEFTHAT-THOAEESLLVDDLITDEOTMEQHENBUENETAS,LAERE FOCUS The American Revolution THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776) BEFORE 1773 Boston Tea Party protests tax on tea imports. 1775 Armed clashes take place between patriot militia and British forces. AFTER 1777 British defeat at Saratoga persuades France to support the American rebels. 1781 The British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. 1783 Britain recognizes American independence. 1787 Drafting of the Constitution begins. 1789 George Washington is elected as the first president of the United States. 1790 The US Constitution is ratified. T here has been no more daring assertion of statehood than that proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 and signed by all 56 delegates present. What would become the United States consisted of 13 British colonies, steadily established since the 17th century, and scattered along the east coast of North America. They were not just geographically remote from their mother country; most were also geographically remote from each other. Their economies were fragile, and they had no coherent political identity—citizens of

CHANGING SOCIETIES 205 See also: The Battle of Quebec 191 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The Slave Trade Abolition Act 226–27 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ The Gettysburg Address 244–47 ■ The California Gold Rush 248–49 France and Britain’s new ideals of political loyal to the British crown to the end liberty take hold in Britain’s American colonies. of the conflict, many subsequently settling in Canada. American colonists’ protests against taxes imposed by Britain lead to conflict The conflict takes shape with the British government. It would take a drawn-out and bitterly fought war to make The Declaration of Independence independence into reality. Britain is issued. was determined to assert what it saw as its legitimate rule, while American victory in the war with the hastily assembled forces of the the British government leads to the recognition nascent United States were no less determined to assert what they of independence. saw as their right to independence. The two modest armies—Britain’s, Virginia considered themselves rejected British authority, but because of the difficulties of sending to be Virginians, for example, not they set about establishing an forces en masse to America; the Americans—beyond an increasingly entirely new kind of state in which colonists’, because they consistently strained loyalty to the British crown. government would derive from lacked the means to raise and equip “the consent of the governed.” any substantial fighting force— However, the colonies were also This explosively novel idea would confronted each other in a series of remarkably self-aware and acutely lead to the creation of a new and minor engagements over six years. conscious of Enlightenment notions enduring republican government. of political liberty, and they were At their peak, the American concerned that their freedom Support for a formal assertion forces numbered scarcely 40,000 would come under threat as a of American independence was and had almost no navy at all. result of British rule. Unable to far from universal in the colonies, Britain deployed about the same assert their own natural rights, and however. Five states in particular— number of soldiers but in addition subjected to what they considered New York, New Jersey, Maryland, had a vastly greater number of unreasonably imposed taxes, the Delaware, and Pennsylvania— ships. In 1778, however, France colonists questioned why a distant feared it would damage trade and, declared support for the colonists parliament and a distant king if unsuccessful, provoke harsh and sent 5,000 troops and a should impose their will on them. reprisals from Britain. In the same substantial fleet. Facing certain ❯❯ Impelled by a series of exceptional way, as many as 500,000 of a leaders, in 1776 they not only population of 2.5 million remained These United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. Richard Henry Lee Proposed resolution at the Second Continental Congress (June 1776)

206 THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE defeat, in October 1781, the British It was the work of a distinctly In Declaration of Independence, by surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia. patrician Virginian, a haughty, John Trumbull, the drafting committee The war would not formally end for wealthy slave-owner named is shown presenting its work to another year, but in every important Thomas Jefferson. He was one of Congress. Thomas Jefferson can be respect, the colonists—and their a committee of five charged with seen standing in a red waistcoat. French allies—had dealt a huge writing the Declaration, yet the two blow to their British masters. drafts it went through in June 1776 British and French Enlightenment were almost entirely his own. It is thinkers, led to the creation of the The French involvement in the hard to overstate the importance of first modern state and, in doing so, creation of this new nation owed the Declaration of Independence. It changed the world. everything to a desire to reverse made, for the time, an astonishing the humiliations of the Seven Years’ claim: “that all men are created The destiny of America War. But the debts incurred would, equal.” It further claimed “that Jefferson remains an enigma. ironically, be among the many governments are instituted among He loathed monarchy yet loved causes of the bankruptcy of the men deriving their just powers from pre-Revolutionary France, where French crown that led to the French the consent of the governed.” he was the United States’ first Revolution in 1789. There was a ambassador, delighting in its profound irony, too, in absolutist These were actively seditious civilized elegance. He claimed to France seeking to win Americans sentiments that neither George III despise high office yet served two the freedoms that it was unwilling of England nor Louis XVI of France terms as President of the United to accord its own citizens. could have any sympathy with. States. And, as president, in 1803 They nonetheless formed the he drove through the Louisiana Revolutionary ideals bedrock of what would become Purchase, which saw a vast area At the heart of the American the United States and, indeed, west of the Mississippi transferred Revolution was the new political liberal political systems across at a bargain price from France, its philosophy encapsulated by the the Western world. These political nominal ruler, to the United States. Declaration of Independence. creeds, derived from the work of

CHANGING SOCIETIES 207 The god who gave us be bad for both slaves and white until June the following year, and life, gave us liberty Americans—unless they were then only after prolonged disputes. at the same time. returned to Africa. The result was an assertion of a new Thomas Jefferson form of government. It was both a A new constitution bill of rights and a blueprint for an He understood that the destiny of Although Jefferson can readily be ideal government, whose three the US lay in its colonization of the considered the guiding spirit behind branches—executive, legislative, vast lands to the west, he assented the Declaration of Independence, he and judiciary—would keep each to the notion that its indigenous played no formal role in the drawing other in check. It would have a inhabitants should be driven off, up of the next great document that profound influence on that issued and he owned slaves. “Blacks,” he shaped the nation: its Constitution. in Revolutionary France in 1791 asserted, “are inferior to the whites The United States was legally able and remains a model of its kind. in the endowments both of body to assert its independence from and mind.” Whereas George Britain in 1783. But for the next four “Unfinished business” Washington, also a patrician years, it existed in an increasingly The founding fathers were rightly Virginian, freed his slaves, unstable political vacuum, its fate optimistic about the United States’ Jefferson opted not to. decided by an ever-more divided potential, but they had failed to Confederation Congress, meeting resolve one crucial question. None of this, though, can variously in Pennsylvania, New Jefferson’s first draft of the diminish Jefferson’s significance in York, and New Jersey. Declaration of Independence called articulating notions of liberty that slavery “an execrable commerce” resonate today. And even though he There were serious reasons to and “a cruel war against human felt slavery was wrong, his personal believe the new nation might fail, nature itself.” However, to placate belief was that emancipation would torn apart by those arguing for the slave states of the south and the the primacy of the rights of the slave traders of the north, these individual states over the central radical statements were later government, and those in favor dropped. Almost 90 years later, it of a strong central government or would take a civil war and 620,000 even the creation of an American dead to end the practice and monarchy. In the spring of 1787, a complete what Abraham Lincoln Constitutional Convention took saw as the “unfinished business” place in Philadelphia. The written, of the Declaration of Independence formalized Constitution proposed and the Constitution. ■ would not be provisionally ratified George Washington Born in 1732, George Washington exceptionally harsh winter served the British crown with in 1777–78 at Valley Forge in distinction during the Seven Pennsylvania. From 1783, Years’ War (1754–61) against Washington sought to establish France. He represented Virginia a constitutional government for in the House of Burgesses and in the new nation. The nation’s the Continental Congresses of first president, he served two 1774 and 1775. With the outbreak terms, retiring in 1797 in the of the Revolutionary War, he was face of increasing disputes the unanimous choice to lead between Jefferson’s Democratic the Continental Army, which he Republicans and the Federalists, did with imagination and great who were led by the quick- fortitude, especially in the very tempered Alexander Hamilton. difficult early years of the conflict: Washington died in 1799 and his “skeleton of an army,” under- was buried at his Virginia equipped and close to starving, plantation, Mount Vernon, was forced to endure an overlooking the Potomac River.

RSEIRVEOLIUTT’SIOAN THE STORMING OF THE BASTILLE (1789)



210 THE STORMING OF THE BASTILLE IN CONTEXT O n July 14, 1789, an enraged The French Revolution was Parisian mob, seeking the greatest step forward FOCUS weapons to defend their in the history of mankind The French Revolution city from a rumored royal attack, since the coming of Christ. stormed the crumbling fortress BEFORE known as the Bastille and murdered Victor Hugo May 1789 Louis XVI its governor and guards. This summons the States General. violent defiance of royal power Les Misérables (1862) In June, the commons forms has become the symbol of the the National Assembly, taking French Revolution, a movement régime, and a new world that effective power in the name that not only engulfed France struggled, often violently, to of the people. but also reverberated around the create a coherent new order. world. The ideas articulated in the AFTER revolution spelled the beginning A country in disarray April 1792 The Legislative of the end for Europe’s absolute The French king, Louis XVI, well Assembly declares war on monarchies and inspired their meaning but indecisive, was Austria and Prussia. The first eventual replacement by more hardly the man to confront any French Republic is declared. democratic governments. crisis, let alone one as grave as that facing France in 1789. In the January 1793 Louis XVI The French Revolution originally previous century, his great-great- is executed. set out to sweep away aristocratic great-grandfather Louis XIV, privilege and establish a new the Sun King, had established March 1794 The Terror is at state based on the Enlightenment France as an absolute monarchy, its peak. In July, Robespierre, principles of liberté, égalité, and with all power concentrated in the its prime exponent, is executed. fraternité. But although it was king’s hands, and his palace at introduced by a surge of optimism, October 1795 Napoleon the revolution soon degenerated forcibly restores order to a into a violence that played out turbulent Paris. over several years and that would be brought to an end only by the November 1799 Napoleon dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. effectively becomes the ruler It remains a story of confusion and of France. chaos, of a collision between a privileged old order, the ancien Enlightenment A political crisis The Bastille prison thought establishes a arises in France, and is attacked by a belief in a new political the overthrow of the violent mob. order based on liberty. old order seems suddenly possible. The underpinning belief A sustained period Attempts are made to in liberté, égalité, of instability, rioting, construct a new society: the monarchy is abolished fraternité changes not civil war, and and a republic declared. just France, but the world. state-sanctioned executions follows.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 211 See also: Louis XIV begins personal rule of France The Battle of Quebec 191 ■ Diderot publishes the Encyclopédie 192–95 ■ The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The Battle of Waterloo 214–15 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 The storming of the Bastille symbolized the start of the French Revolution. The prison held only seven prisoners in July 1789, but its fall had great importance. Versailles as the most sophisticated semi-parliamentary body that had royal family to Paris, ransacking the court in Europe and a bastion of last assembled in 1614. It consisted palace for good measure. In what aristocratic privilege. of clergy, the first estate; nobles, the would become an unnerving second; and the commons foretaste of the violence to come, Louis XVI thus ruled over a (essentially a kind of bourgeoisie, the severed heads of the guards at country where nobles refused to lawyers predominating), the third. Versailles were paraded on stakes surrender any privileges, and taxes The States General met at Versailles as Louis and his family were were paid almost exclusively by an on May 5, 1789. Almost instantly, escorted to the capital. oppressed peasantry: France was the nobles and clerics tried to assert effectively bankrupt. In the late that their votes should be worth It had been comparatively easy 18th century, France’s population more than those of the commons. In to overthrow the existing royal was expanding rapidly, but unlike response, on June 17, the commons government, but it would prove England, France had not had an declared itself a National Assembly, infinitely harder to establish a new agricultural revolution and remained vesting power in itself instead of the government. It was presumed that particularly vulnerable to any failure crown. In August, with peasant a kind of constitutional monarchy of the harvest, as happened in uprisings across rural France, the would be the most obvious solution. 1787 and, again, in 1788. These Assembly abolished feudal taxes In the event, France found itself desperate summers were followed and aristocratic privileges and wrenched between those arguing in 1788–89 by a bitterly harsh issued what it called the Declaration for this more or less moderate option, winter, leading to mass starvation. of the Rights of Man, a statement and those in favor of a much more asserting fundamental freedoms. radical republican alternative. The king’s response The financial crisis critical, Louis In October 1789, events were The First Republic was desperate to raise further suddenly accelerated when a vast Although in most important respects funds while preserving his crowd, outraged by the lack of Louis’s reign seemed by now to be authority, so he summoned what bread in Paris, descended on doomed, the king had not entirely ❯❯ was called the States General, a Versailles and forcibly removed the Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe, and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue. Maximilien Robespierre, February 1794

212 THE STORMING OF THE BASTILLE abandoned hope of reasserting his a constitutional monarchy was So, legislators, place Terror authority. Large numbers of French proclaimed. Similarly, the church’s on the order of the day!… aristocrats—emigrés—had already privileged position was forcibly The blade of the law should fled France, fearing the revolution ended, though this, too, provoked hover over all the guilty. had made it unsafe. In trying to lasting upheaval and violence. Committee of General persuade other European regimes— Equally critically, the freedom of Security, September 1793 Austria above all, whose emperor the press was asserted. was the brother of the French queen its first act was to put Louis XVI on Marie-Antoinette—they stirred up At the same time, revolutionary trial as a traitor. In January 1793, he opposition to the revolution, but France faced an external threat was executed, an early victim of the their principal impact was to from Austria and Prussia, both guillotine, championed as a humane reinforce a determination in France determined to reassert the primacy and egalitarian means of death. to see the revolution succeed. of hereditary monarchy and to forestall revolutionary tendencies The sense of crisis continued to In June 1791, Louis attempted to in their own countries. In April grow. In April 1793, the Committee escape, but was intercepted near 1792, France declared war on both, of Public Safety was created to safe- the border with the Low Countries a war that would continue, in guard the revolution. For a year or and brought back to Paris to the different guises, for 23 years. By more, under the chairmanship of jeers of the increasingly violent, August, the combined Austrian a provincial lawyer, Maximilien politicized common folk, the sans- and Prussian forces were within Robespierre, the most influential culottes, their name a reference to 100 miles (160km) of Paris. of the now-dominant Jacobins, their striped, baggy trousers. There it would effectively become the was an increasingly hostile stand-off A kind of hysteria gripped the government of France. Its impact between political factions in Paris, city. A mob stormed the Tuileries, on France, however short-lived, was such as the Girondins and more where the royal family was held, devastating. This was the Terror. extremist Jacobins, which attracted slaughtering its Swiss Guards. The Counter-revolutionary movements the support of the sans-culottes, following month, a further round of across the country were ruthlessly and the French government. killings, the September Massacres, suppressed, most obviously in the was unleashed against anyone Vendée region of the southwest, An external threat suspected of royalist sympathies. where up to 300,000 died. Churches Whatever the obvious instability, September 1792 also marked the proved particularly rich targets. The progress toward a new social order establishment of the directly Terror’s victims were less likely to was being made. In September 1791, elected National Convention and of be remaining aristocrats and more the First French Republic. Almost anyone Robespierre suspected of impure thoughts, including almost all of his political opponents. Louis XVI was executed in 1793. Using the guillotine as the only means of execution for all people—royals and paupers alike—was meant to reinforce the revolutionary principle of equality.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 213 The French Revolution set out with the idea of building a new state that would take the Enlightenment principles of liberty, equality, and brotherhood as its foundation. Liberté Égalité A new understanding This idea asserted that of liberty suggested that all people were equal all were free to behave as under the law and they chose if they did ended aristocratic no harm to others. privilege. Fraternité Maximilien Robespierre This was the hope that the revolution would Robespierre (1758–94), a usher in a newfound, lawyer and a member of the rational spirit of third estate in 1789, was brotherhood. the chief architect of the Terror that gripped France between Robespierre’s single-minded pursuit reinforced its assertion of what it September 1793 and July 1794. of revolutionary purity reached an claimed were its “natural frontiers” He was a consistent champion improbable climax with his creation on the Rhine, which in reality of the dispossessed, as well as in 1794 of a new religion, the Cult of meant an audacious extension of a remarkable orator, capable of the Supreme Being. It was intended French rule into Germany. By 1797, astonishingly intense speeches as a focus of, and spur to, patriotic it had inflicted crushing defeats that electrified his supporters and revolutionary virtues, the over Austria in the Low Countries and opponents alike. He was superstition of the Catholic Church and in northern Italy. France was also a fierce opponent of the replaced by a belief dedicated to ready to re-assert what it saw as Revolutionary Wars, believing reason celebrating the natural laws its natural primacy in Europe. that a strengthened army of the universe. The megalomania it risked becoming a source of suggested contributed significantly Historical significance counter-revolutionary fervor. to his sudden downfall, and at the Whatever the importance of the Initially, at least, he was also end of July 1794, Robespierre was French Revolution, it remains the opposed to the death penalty. put to the guillotine. subject of continuing and intense His change of mind was historical debate. Its notional goals startlingly absolute. When Order restored were clear: the ending of repressive persuaded that terror was With the end of the killings—more monarchy and entrenched privilege; the most effective means particularly with the establishment the establishment of representative of preserving the revolution, of yet another government, the government; and the championing he embraced it implacably, Directory, at the end of 1795—order of universal rights. But the reality arguing that it was the natural of a sort was restored. Tellingly, was confused and often violent. handmaiden of the virtue it was achieved in part by the he felt should drive the Directory’s willingness to use force Furthermore, by 1804 Napoleon revolution. He remains the against the Paris mob, ordered by had effectively swapped one form original, chilling model for Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young of absolutism for his own, albeit all those who have since general in the revolutionary army. one vastly more effective than any championed state violence in France had known since Louis XIV. the interests of a supposed Furthermore, France’s armies, Yet the revolution’s consequences greater good. boosted by mass conscription, were reverberated well into the 20th reversing early defeats, apparently century. It remains a pivotal moment poised to carry the revolution into in the belief that freedom should new territories. Emboldened, France underpin the civilized world. ■

214 IPPCEEMAOOPUIPPSTLLTAEELMS, OAAONFKFDETEHOOUEFFRWPOAAPLORELRISLOTDHNTEEHE THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO (1815) IN CONTEXT France institutes Napoleon becomes mass conscription, emperor and vows FOCUS creating armies of an to restore France’s Revolutionary and unprecedented size. dominant role in Europe. Napoleonic Wars  The invasion of Sweeping conquests BEFORE Russia leaves Napoleon create the largest 1792 The Revolutionary overextended and French Wars against Republican European empire since France begin. manpower depleted. Charlemagne’s time. 1799 Napoleon seizes power The rate of Napoleonic Napoleon is in a military coup. conquest becomes finally defeated unsustainable. 1804 Napoleon names himself at Waterloo. Emperor of the French. N apoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, south Prussian forces finally prevailed 1805 The British are victorious of Brussels, on June 18, over a French army of 73,000, against France and Spain in 1815 marked his final overthrow hastily assembled by Napoleon. the naval Battle of Trafalgar. as Emperor of the French, ending 23 years of European warfare. It France’s Revolutionary Wars, 1807 France invades Portugal. was an epic encounter, fought on which began in 1792, had been rain-soaked ground, in which launched to extend Revolutionary 1809 Austria is defeated in 118,000 British, Dutch, and principles to neighboring states Napoleon’s last major victory. and to defend France against its enemies. Under Napoleon, 1814 A series of defeats lead to Napoleon’s abdication. AFTER 1815 Napoleon is exiled for the final time, and the Bourbon monarchy is restored. 1830 The Bourbon monarchy is overthrown.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 215 See also: Louis XIV begins personal rule of France 190 190 ■ The Battle of Quebec 191 ■ Diderot publishes the Encyclopédie 192–95 ■ The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 Napoleon Bonaparte Born in Ajaccio, on the island as he would subsequently of Corsica, to a family with dominate Europe. He was claims to minor Italian nobility, as brilliant and tireless an Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) administrator as he was a was commissioned in the French soldier. His most enduring army in 1785 and was an reform was the introduction, enthusiastic supporter of the in 1804, of the Napoleonic Revolution. In 1796, at the age Code, which is still the basis of 26, he was appointed to of French law. Forced to resign command the Army of Italy, in 1814, Napoleon was exiled winning a series of impressive to the island of Elba in the victories. Two years later, Mediterranean, from where he Napoleon led an unsuccessful escaped before his final defeat French invasion of Egypt. at Waterloo. In 1815, he was despatched to St. Helena in the Increasingly convinced of his South Atlantic, where he died destiny, by 1800, having staged a six years later. coup d’état, he dominated France they became, in effect, wars of Only Britain, protected by the traumatic for the nation. Of the conquest, despite being waged English Channel, remained 450,000 men he led against Russia in the name of the Revolution. undefeated, its position as the in 1812, barely 40,000 survived. world’s leading maritime power A continent reshaped underscored by victory at Trafalgar, Napoleon had overreached During the Revolutionary Wars, off southern Spain, in 1805. But himself. At Leipzig, Germany, in France had established sister maritime muscle alone was not 1813, outnumbered three to one by republics in northern Italy and the enough to beat Napoleon. Britain’s forces from Austria, Prussia, Russia, Low Countries; under Napoleon, most significant role was financing and Sweden, he suffered his first many of these were reformed into the endlessly shifting alliances major defeat. By Waterloo, his forces kingdoms, whose monarchs came confronting the French. had recovered slightly, and the ratio from the Emperor’s family. States was only two to one, but Napoleon’s across Germany were carved up, at In response, Napoleon imposed military genius failed to redress the the expense of Prussia, to become the Continental System, which balance and his imperial ambition a French puppet state, while the forbade trade between continental ended in the Waterloo mud. ■ 800-year-old Holy Roman Empire Europe and Britain. However, was abolished. From 1807, much of Portugal and Russia continued All Frenchmen are in Poland was controlled by the French to trade with Britain, prompting permanent requisition for as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleonic invasions in 1807 the services of the armies. These were states recast on French and 1812 respectively. lines: clerical power was reduced, Declaration of serfdom abolished, and aristocratic Resistance to Napoleonic rule Conscription, 1793 privilege ended. But such reforms was mounting; the Spanish began provoked inevitable resentments. a brutal guerrilla war that drained French resources and came to be Napoleon’s conquests were the referred to by Napoleon as the result not just of military genius “Spanish ulcer.” but also of greatly enlarged French armies. Conscription, introduced The final defeat in 1793, swelled the French army Napoleon had bred a sense of from 160,000 men to 1.5 million. French invincibility, and this made his eventual defeat all the more

216 IN CONTEXT ILCWTASEOMOITTRTEHOHNUREOESIPSCRUEILATSTRANATIYFTSOFEEHTNRAHEEREE.ODFOM FOCUS Latin American BOLÍVAR ESTABLISHES GRAN COLOMBIA (1819) independence BEFORE 1807–08 Napoleonic invasion of Iberia leads to governmental crisis in the Iberian colonies of South America. 1819 Spain is expelled from its former province of New Granada, and the Republic of Colombia is declared. AFTER 1822 Portugal assents to Brazil becoming a constitutional monarchy under Pedro I. 1824 The Spanish capitulate in Peru, and their New World empire ends. 1830 Break up of the Republic of Colombia. Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela emerge as independent states. T he establishment in 1819 of the Republic of Colombia, or Gran Colombia as it came to be known, by Simón Bolívar, the self-styled Libertador, marked a pivotal moment in the emergence of an independent Latin America. By 1825, the continent had successfully ended almost 300 years of Spanish and Portuguese rule. In Brazil, which won its independence in 1822, the process was relatively easy and also largely bloodless. Elsewhere, it was complex, long, drawn out, and violent. It was a reflection of societies comprising a teeming range of classes and races—ruling Europeans, native

CHANGING SOCIETIES 217 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The Slave Trade Abolition Act 226–27 ■ The Mexican Revolution 265 ■ Notions of political liberation spread across the territories colonized by the Spanish and Portuguese in South America. These ideas destabilize the Spanish administration on the continent. Bitter wars against colonial powers in Simón Bolívar South America lead to the creation of a newly independent Gran Colombia. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1783, Simón Bolívar came The new state faces divisions and instabilities. from one of the oldest and Hopes of unity are undermined by political infighting. wealthiest noble families in the city. His education was South America, racially and socially dislocated, consistently completed in Europe, where struggles to assert itself economically and politically. he absorbed the republican ideals of the American and Indians, black people, and those of the kind of social change—society French revolutions. The idea mixed race—that were never likely recast on liberal principles—that of independence for Hispanic to produce coherent political underpinned the French Revolution. America accordingly took wholes. Plagued by bitter disputes, That said, this drive was also root in his imagination. the short-lived republic of Gran significantly affected by the Colombia would break up in 1830. Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon’s His revolutionary career invasion of Portugal in 1807 forced began with an abortive Brazilian independence the Portuguese king, João VI, and uprising in Caracas in 1810. In Though partly influenced by the his court to flee to safety in its 1814, the charismatic Bolívar liberal doctrines of the American Brazilian colony. João remained declared himself “liberator” and French revolutions, the drive there even after the fall of Napoleon and head of state of the new to independence in South America in 1815, returning to Portugal only in republic of Venezuela. In 1817, was seldom the product of a desire 1821. However, his son and heir, he staged a daring invasion for social justice or representative Pedro, stayed in Brazil. of Colombia and went on to government. Aside from two complete the conquests of abortive Mexican revolutions in As in Spain’s Latin American Ecuador and Peru in 1824. 1810 and 1813, it was a struggle for colonies, Brazil was dominated by Bolívar’s dream was to unite supremacy between ruling elites, a land-owning elite, a great many all of South America—except none of which had much interest in of whom, over many generations, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile— had been born in South America. ❯❯ in a single great republic. However, his dictatorial tendencies and the brutality of his armies eventually led to dissent and the fracturing of Gran Colombia in 1830, the year of his death.

218 BOLÍVAR ESTABLISHES GRAN COLOMBIA Pedro I of Brazil, whose coronation is illustrated in this painting by Jean-Baptiste Debret, was the son of the king of Portugal. He had been left in Brazil to rule as regent. They came to resent the fact that of Spain’s restrictive control of Miguel Hidalgo, appalled at the ultimate authority was exercised South American trade and punitive obvious inequalities of Mexico, by a distant monarchy, and saw no taxation policies, both to the led a popular revolution that reason why they should submit to it. disadvantage of the colonies. In ended the following year in its the short term, however, it was a brutal suppression and Hidalgo’s There are clear parallels with reaction to Napoleon’s invasion of execution. Another popular the American Revolution. But Spain in 1808 and his deposition of uprising led by a second Catholic while in North America it was the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, in priest, José Morelos, between the fundamental liberties of free- favor of Napoleon’s brother, Joseph. 1813 and 1815 was similarly put born men that were disputed, in In effect, Spain’s colonies no longer down. When, in 1821, Mexico Brazil the issue was narrower— had a legitimate ruler of their own, did gain independence, it was by it was simply a question of who so it was their plain duty to become force against more or less token would govern. rulers themselves, at least until the Spanish resistance, and under the monarchy could be restored. leadership of Augustín de Iturbide, In 1822, to protect the interests a Mexican general who proclaimed of the native-born elite, Pedro While South American liberals himself emperor of Mexico the declared Brazil an independent saw Joseph as the harbinger of a following year. His rule lasted less constitutional monarchy and new, more just social order in place than a year. By 1838, Mexico had himself its emperor. This was a of the absolutism of Ferdinand VII, lost all its Central American revolution only in the sense that it monarchists in the colonies saw territories, and by 1848, it had lost produced Brazilian independence any such liberalizing tendencies all its North American territories. in the interests of those already as inherently destabilizing. The ruling it. One of the more obvious seeds of internal conflict were Gran Colombia consequences was that, with no being sown. Events in Spanish South America— change to the social or economic which included the triple Vice- order, slavery remained legal Social revolution in Mexico Royalties of New Granada, Peru, in Brazil until 1888, later than At the time, Mexico, which was and Rio de la Plata—followed a very anywhere else in the Western world. known as the Vice-Royalty of different course. The key figure here New Spain, encompassed an was Simón Bolívar. Born in modern- Governing Spain’s colonies immense area that extended In Spain’s colonies, the drive for almost from present-day Wyoming For my blood, my honour, independence stemmed partly to Panama and that included my God, I swear to give from the desire of the native-born most of Texas. Events there took ruling class—the creoles—to assert a different turn. In 1810, a priest, Brazil freedom. their interests, not least in the face Prince Pedro Future Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (1822)

CHANGING SOCIETIES 219 May slavery be banished movement in the Central Andes— This lack of direction resulted in forever together with the proved impossible to translate into instability and a social inequality distinction between castes. enduring and stable states. that would persist for a century or more. It would also produce a José Morelos Bolívar was an idealist and series of authoritarian military a passionate opponent of slavery. leaders acting in the interests of Leader of the failed He considered that so disparate the landowners. An inevitable Mexican Revolt of 1813–15 a land and a people could only consequence was a persistently be ruled by a strong central oppressed underclass, urban day Venezuela, he was a creole, government. Seeing himself as and agricultural, black and aristocratic, and highly educated. its natural leader, he proposed white. The hacienda—vast acres He had visited Europe several himself as the lifelong president inefficiently worked by armies times and was an enthusiastic of Gran Colombia. This provoked of peasants in the interests of a supporter of modern nation- predictably bitter opposition. complacently cruel, land-owning building on the model established elite—dominated. by the French Revolution. He Gran Colombia breaks up believed, in particular, that the By 1830—the year Bolívar died, In 1910, Mexico descended into diverse peoples and interests of aged 47, of tuberculosis—Gran another revolution. This was partly South America could be brought Colombia had already broken up. a result of being wrenched between together by the assertion of a Arguably, it was the result of ineffectual liberal regimes that shared South American identity, the kind of nationalism already sought to alleviate the obvious expressed by the creation of a vast surfacing in Europe, with the suffering of the poor but did little new South American state. This independence of Greece and, the to address fundamental economic was to be Gran Colombia, which following year, of Belgium. More weaknesses and self-serving embraced an immense area of particularly, it was due to a failure authoritarian regimes that cared northern South America, essentially to agree on the future of Gran more for bombast than real reform. the modern states of Ecuador, Colombia. There were disputes Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama. over whether its government Bolívar’s visions of a recast, was to be liberal, conservative, independent South America could Bolívar’s vision of an or authoritarian. Venezuela, in never contend with the reality of independent South America particular, was subjected to bitter an unequal society that shared no consistently fell foul of a series wars throughout the 19th century common belief in its own destiny of political realities. His military that cost the lives of an estimated and that was consistently the successes—for example, in 1824, 1 million people. victim of competing, mostly violent the routing of the remaining efforts to assert special interests. ■ Spanish strongholds in Peru, when his armies attacked from the north and the south in a pincer The Battle of Ayacucho (1824) saw the defeat of the Spanish army at the hands of the South American liberation troops. It marked the end of Spanish rule in Peru and in South America.

IILNSIFDEGUWSUITTHIOLRUTYT STEPHENSON’S ROCKET ENTERS SERVICE (1830)



222 STEPHENSON’S ROCKET ENTERS SERVICE IN CONTEXT A scientific revolution in the West creates a sense that the world can be better understood and better exploited. FOCUS The development of steam-powered machinery encourages The Industrial Revolution the growth of factory-based mass production. BEFORE Stephenson’s Rocket heralds a new form 1776 Adam Smith’s The of faster, more reliable transport. Wealth of Nations is published. The West imposes itself across the rest of the globe, 1781 Watts’s first rotating creating interlocked global markets. steam engine is invented; the world’s first iron bridge is built Industrial societies’ dependence on fossil fuels at Coalbrookdale, England. leads to a strain on the natural environment. 1805 The Grand Junction Canal, between Birmingham and London, is completed. 1825 The world’s first commercial steam-powered railway, linking Stockton and Darlington, opens. AFTER 1855 The Bessemer furnace is introduced. 1869 The first transcontinental railroad is completed in the US. 1885 The first practical petrol- driven internal-combustion engine is installed in a motor vehicle, in Germany. O n September 15, 1830, the an agricultural society that relied imported to Britain: more readily world’s first commercial on windmills, watermills, horses, available credit helped boost passenger rail service to and other beasts of burden, to an entrepreneurial activities. It had be powered by a steam engine— industrial one, in which steam never been easier for members of George Stephenson’s Rocket— engines were capable of generating the increasingly wealthy middle was opened. This was the Liverpool reliable power on a scale that was class, looking for ways to invest and Manchester Railway, which previously unimaginable. their money, to support new was 35 miles (56km) long and inventions and technologies. served by locomotives, also The background designed by Stephenson, that The industrialization process that A third factor was an agricultural were capable of reaching speeds started in Britain around the mid- revolution, which began in the approaching 30 mph (48km/h). to late 18th century was initiated Netherlands and Britain, where by the scientific revolution in Europe farmers realized that crop rotation Stephenson’s Rocket symbolized in the late 17th century. Of similar made it unnecessary to leave land what remains the key development importance were financial changes fallow every third year. In both of in world history over the past pioneered in the Netherlands, then these countries, land reclamation 250 years: the transformation from increased the acreage available

CHANGING SOCIETIES 223 See also: The opening of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange 180–83 ■ Newton publishes Principia 188 ■ Diderot publishes the Encyclopédie 192–95 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species 236–37 ■ The opening of the Eiffel Tower 256–57 for farming. Crop yields were thus underpinned what was becoming A hundred years ago boosted, just as selective breeding known as political economy, and business was limited in produced larger and more profitable the central role of the profit motive area, now it is world-wide. domesticated animals—sources and of competition in increasing of food and wool alike. With any efficiencies and lowering prices. Frank McVey likelihood of famine now receding, the population of Britain grew, This economic transformation Modern Industrialism (1903) between 1750 and 1800, from also contributed to and was, in 6.5 million to over 9 million. This, turn, boosted by the emergence time, it would revolutionize Britain, in turn, meant new markets and of global markets—a consequence making it the world’s first industrial an expanded workforce. of burgeoning European colonial power, and ultimately transform the empires, which offered greater world. Even so, it might never have Finally, in Britain, an improved access to raw materials and also had its dramatic global impact had transport network allowed goods, provided markets for finished Britain not had huge reserves of the produced on an ever-larger scale, goods. A better-mapped world, fuel needed to make it work: coal. to be transported faster and more and improvements in ship The replacement of wood as the reliably. Between 1760 and 1800, types and position-finding at prime source of fuel was critical to as many as 4,250 miles (6,840km) sea, also facilitated global trade. industrial development. In exactly of canals were built in England. the same way, the development of Steam power coke (processed coal that burns at Thinkers sought to understand The overriding force behind the much higher temperatures than the impulses behind these societal economic transformation, though, coal) at the beginning of the 18th changes. The publication in 1776 was the development of the steam century would make the production of The Wealth of Nations by the engine. In an astonishingly short of iron—the indispensable core Scottish philosopher Adam Smith material of the new technologies— faster and simpler. Steam engines of varying degrees of reliability had been developed as early as 1712, when Thomas Newcomen built an “atmospheric engine.” But it was only with James Watts’s first rotating steam engine in 1781 that the extraordinary potential of machine ❯❯ Stephenson’s Rocket was the steam engine on the world’s first passenger railway, which linked Liverpool and Manchester. This photograph shows it outside the Patent Office in London.

224 STEPHENSON’S ROCKET ENTERS SERVICE power became clear. The earliest the workforce, many of whom were The Bessemer process, devised by steam engines had been used children. This influx led to the the English engineer of the same name mainly as pumps. Watts’s rotating creation of an urban underclass. It to convert iron into steel, improved the engine, on the other hand, could took a long time before the workers efficiency of all industries—from power machinery. The engineering saw any improvement in their lives, transport to the military. company he and Matthew Boulton and the realization that they should established in Birmingham in 1775 share in the rewards of this social However, the most startling produced over 500 steam engines. and economic transformation, rather developments came in the United than simply be exploited as mere States, where there were around When Watts’s patents expired drudges, came very slowly. In the 3,300 miles (5,300km) of railway in 1800, others started producing meantime, however, the increasingly in 1840, almost all in the northeast. their own steam engines. The wealthy factory owners emerged as By 1860, this had increased to textile industries in the northwest a significant political voice. 32,000 miles (51,500km), and by benefited in particular from the 1900 it had soared to 193,000 miles increased availability of steam The wider world power, and large-scale, almost As late as 1860, Britain was, by entirely mechanized, factory some way, still the world’s leading production soon replaced small, industrial and mercantile power, but home-based manufacturing. By other Western nations were quick to 1835, there were more than 120,000 see how they too could benefit. In power looms in textile mills. No continental Europe, industrialization longer dependent on rivers as was initially uncertain, inhibited power sources, factories could be by the kind of political instability built anywhere, and they came to Britain had managed to avoid, such be concentrated in towns in the as the revolutions of 1848. Later, the north and Midlands of England that pace of its development would rival rapidly grew into major industrial Britain’s. In 1840, Germany and centers as the century progressed. France each had around 300 miles (480km) of railway lines; in 1870, Social changes both had 10,000 miles (16,000km). Huge numbers of workers were Similarly, pig-iron output from each drawn to these new cities, which rose from about 125,000 tons in became synonymous with poor 1840 to 1 million in 1870. living and working conditions for Isambard Kingdom No figure better encapsulates formed Great Western Railway, Brunel the determination, ambition, and which by 1841 linked London vision that drove the first phase of directly with Bristol, whose the Industrial Revolution in Britain docks he had rebuilt from 1832. than the prodigiously hard- Believing it should be possible working Isambard Kingdom to travel directly from London to Brunel (1806–59). He was New York, Brunel also designed responsible for an extraordinary the world’s first practical ocean- series of firsts: the world’s longest going steamship, the Great bridge (the Clifton Suspension Western. He followed this with Bridge), the world’s longest tunnel the screw-driven iron-built Great (Box Tunnel in Wiltshire), and the Britain. Despite his great vision, world’s largest ship (the Great delays and cost overruns dogged Eastern). In 1827, still only 21, he many of Brunel’s projects, but was appointed chief engineer of his works include some of the the Thames Tunnel. In 1833, he grandest feats of engineering became engineer to the newly the world had yet seen.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 225 (310,600km) of rail track. The Total world steamship tonnage in never seen before. An enduring production of pig iron rose similarly: 1870 was 1.4 million. By 1910, it irony of industrialization is that the in 1810, it was a little less than had reached 19 million. nations that benefited most from it 100,000 tons a year; in 1850, it was turned it against themselves in two approaching 700,000 tons; in 1900, Winners and losers world wars, deploying weapons of it was over 13 million. The benefits of industrialization extraordinarily destructive power. were unevenly spread. Southern The role of steel Europe was slow to react to it, and The Industrial Revolution laid By about 1870, in both Europe Russia also struggled to catch up. the foundations for the modern and the United States, a second The Chinese and Indian empires world. Fueled by an enormous wave of industrialization began, proved unwilling or unable to sense of new possibilities, in in which oil, chemicals, electricity, industrialize, Latin America did so some places it raised living and steel became increasingly only intermittently, and Africa standards across all sections of important. The production of steel was dominated by technologically society in ways unimaginable had been transformed after 1855, superior powers. By contrast, in earlier ages. However, in the when English engineer Henry after 1868, Japan’s single-minded wealthy West, it also produced Bessemer devised a way to make pursuit of industrialization made a sense that material superiority the metal lighter, stronger, and it a world power. was equivalent to a kind of moral more versatile; from that point superiority, one that not merely forward, steel would prove the Industrialization also made made it possible for the West to linchpin for industry. In 1870, possible a new kind of warfare, one dominate the world, but demanded total world steel production capable of bringing death on a scale that it do so. ■ was 540,000 tons, but within 25 years it had risen to 14 million Industrialization tons, and railways, armament was made possible by production, and the shipbuilding a scientific revolution industry all benefited from its that began in the late ready availability. 1600s and transformed understanding of the While Germany was beginning natural world. to threaten Britain’s industrial preeminent position in Europe, Steam-powered The Industrial Mass production quadrupling its industrial output ships were Revolution was driven cost companies less, between 1870 and 1914, the United bigger and faster, by several factors, chief and the ability to States was rapidly becoming the and they made a produce more goods world’s largest industrial power. genuinely global among them science, also meant higher In 1880, Britain was still producing market a reality. agriculture, finance potential sales. more steel than the United States, (cost and reward), and but by 1900 the United States was transport networks. producing more steel than Britain and Germany together. Improved crop yields wiped out At the same time, steam- famine in much of powered ships were also being Europe and directly introduced. Sailing times, no longer contributed to the dependent on the vagaries of the growing populations. wind, became more controllable, and journey times were shortened. The ships were significantly larger, too. While the largest wooden ships rarely exceeded 200ft (60m) in length, the Great Eastern, launched in 1858, was 689ft (210m) long.

226 CTYYOOHANUUE ONMDTIEADHVYEENCRROHTAWOGKOAANYSIOENBWTSUOATYLYOOOUK THE SLAVE TRADE ABOLITION ACT (1807) IN CONTEXT Radical notions of Merchants and plantation freedom in Britain owners resist calls for an FOCUS combine with the religious Abolitionism belief that slavery is end to slavery. an abomination. BEFORE 1787 The Society for the After several parliamentary defeats, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Slave Trade Abolition Act is passed is founded in London. by an overwhelming majority. 1791 Slaves revolt in the Britain campaigns Slavery is abolished in French Caribbean island vigorously to persuade the British Empire in 1833. of Haiti (St. Domingue). other nations to oppose Independence is successfully the shipping of slaves. It does not finally end in declared in 1804. the US until 1865. AFTER T he passing in 1807 of the the newly created United States, 1823 The Anti-Slavery Society Act Prohibiting Importation “conceived in liberty,” and the is founded. It campaigns to of Slaves in the United European colonies in the Caribbean abolish slavery throughout States and the Abolition of the depended on slave labor that was the British Empire. Slave Trade Act in Britain marked relatively easily obtained in West a radical shift in Western thinking. Africa. Portuguese-ruled Brazil was 1833 Slavery is outlawed Even as late as the 1780s, the trade even more dependent on slaves. throughout the British Empire. in slaves was still regarded as a Yet Britain in particular found itself “natural” economic activity. Both in an uncomfortably anomalous 1848 Slavery is abolished in France’s colonies. 1865 The Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery in the United States. 1888 Brazil abolishes slavery, the last country in the Americas to do so.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 227 See also: The formation of the Royal African Company 176–79 ■ The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The Siege of Lucknow 242 ■ Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The Gettysburg Address 244–47 ■ The Second Opium War 254–55 William Wilberforce, portrayed here Even so, Britain was also, by The state of slavery is by Karl Anton Hickel, was a fervent some margin, the West’s leading repugnant to the principles of Christian and the British politician slave-trading nation. It was this the British constitution and who campaigned most vociferously contradiction that offended both against the slave trade. religious and Enlightenment of the Christian religion. political sensibilities alike. Thomas Fowell Buxton position. Not only had slavery never been legal there—a point critically Global changes British politician (1823) reinforced in 1772 in what was To a number of high-minded and called the Somersett case, which unusually active campaigners newly independent states that ruled that any slave was free once such as William Wilberforce and emerged in Latin America after on British soil—but Britons prided Thomas Clarkson, the abolition of 1810 likewise outlawed slavery. themselves on their robust defense slavery became an imperative. A of such fundamental freedoms. remarkably effective campaign was It wasn’t until 1833 that slavery launched that, despite entrenched itself, as opposed to the trade, was The Haitian Revolt opposition, rapidly won wide public made illegal in the British Empire. and parliamentary support. For Whatever the efforts of a new set of Few uprisings illustrate the much of the 19th century, the Royal campaigners, not least Elizabeth contradictions of the revolutions Navy would be at the forefront of Heyrick, the motive was not entirely that swept across the late 18th- the campaign to intercept those humanitarian. The Haitian slave century Western world better still engaged in slave trading. revolt, which began in 1791 and led than that in Haiti (1791–1804). to the emergence of an independent This French Caribbean colony, While Britain took the lead, Haiti in 1804, had left the West known as St. Domingue, owed the movement had important uncomfortably aware that any such its enormous prosperity to slave supporters elsewhere. The uprisings might prove difficult to labor. The revolt, led by a freed revolutionary French National suppress. A slave revolt in British- slave, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Convention outlawed slavery in ruled Jamaica in 1831 reinforced was inspired by the American 1794 (though this would partially the point: in the longer term, and French revolutions. Yet be overturned by Napoleon in 1802). freeing slaves might prove less neither country supported it: Brazil aside, where slavery would trouble than enslaving them. The US was concerned it might not be banned until 1888, all the inspire similar revolts in its slave The United States, forward- states; France, despite its pledge looking and expansive, remained to abolish slavery, was wary of the great troubling sore. The more the damage to its trade. Spain, abolitionists in its industrializing which ruled the eastern half of northern states denounced slavery, the island, also opposed it, as the more its southern states, their did Britain, fearing it would agrarian economies dependent on spread to its own colonies. Even slave labor, were determined to the South American colonies retain it. It would take a four-year seeking independence refused civil war and 670,000 dead to to back it, fearful of its impact settle the question. ■ among their substantial slave populations. Yet the occasional combined resources of all these states were unable to quell the uprising. This was the only slave revolt to result in the emergence of an independent state.

228 SCOUCTIIENTYTWWOAS THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS IN CONTEXT O n February 24, 1848, Louis- 1821—was elected president. In Philippe of France, the 1851, he staged a coup, and the FOCUS “Citizen King,” abdicated following year he was proclaimed Labor movements, as Paris erupted in protest at the as Emperor Napoleon III. socialism, and revolution government’s refusals to initiate reforms—demanded by the middle France was plagued by political BEFORE and working classes alike—to instability throughout the 19th 1814–15 The Congress of introduce political liberalization century. The 1848 revolution came Vienna restores the French and to end inequalities. In his after a similar upheaval in 1830, monarchy. place, a Second Republic was and it would be followed by an declared. In June, fearful that one even more violent uprising 23 years 1830 Charles X of France is authoritarian government had later, in 1871. overthrown. Greece obtains been exchanged for another, the its independence from the Parisian working classes rose The spark for the revolution Ottoman Empire. again, but the uprising was savagely of 1848 was a famine during put down. In December, Louis- the previous two winters. This 1834 An uprising of French Napoleon Bonaparte—nephew provoked widespread unrest silk-weavers is suppressed. of Napoleon, who had died in among the dispossessed urban poor, along with demands from a AFTER burgeoning bourgeoisie for liberal 1852 The Second French political reforms. The ardor of Republic, established in 1848, the revolution sparked similar is dissolved. Louis-Napoleon revolts across continental Europe, is proclaimed Napoleon III. most obviously in the German Confederation, in multi-ethnic 1861 Victor Emmanuel II is Austria, and in Italy. Every single declared king of a united Italy. revolt was subdued, in most instances by force. 1870–71 The Franco-Prussian War ends with the unification This painting by Horace Vernet shows The rise of socialism of Germany under Prussia. The the barricades at Rue Soufflot, Paris. In Before and after the final defeat of Paris Commune is overthrown, June 1848, fighting erupted between Napoleon in 1815, and concerned and a Third Republic declared. the liberal republican government and about citizens rising up elsewhere, Parisian workers seeking social reform. Europe’s statesmen met in Vienna to try to create a political order that would stifle such an occurrence.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 229 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The Expedition of the Thousand 238–41 ■ Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The Gettysburg Address 244–47 ■ France returns to a republican government 265 Workers of the world, Just as important was the The Congress of unite! You have nothing emergence of a new political Vienna attempts to stifle to lose but your chains! creed—socialism—that sought to nationalism and the threat end the inequalities accelerated by The Communist the Industrial Revolution and led of future revolt. Manifesto to impoverished workers being The promise of exploited by factory owners. liberalism proves Their goal was the preservation of impossible to extinguish. aristocratic ruling elites, sustaining The old order is restored Demands for national the old order, and holding frontiers. In the feverish atmosphere of self-determination grow. 1848, however, these aims would France, in particular, This desire, however, was to be prove irreconcilable. As chaos after the restoration of countered by a new political reality threatened, the liberally minded the monarchy, sees informed by a number of factors, middle classes sided much more violent uprisings. including the desire to ensure that naturally with existing political the liberties championed by the elites in restoring order than with The French French Revolution were upheld. This the radicals seeking to rebuild Revolution of 1848 new reality was also the result of societies and create new nations. spawns rebellions what came to be called nationalism: in Germany, Austria, the right of peoples, however they The ultimate beneficiaries of the and Italy. All are were defined, to determine their revolutions were the monarchies in own futures as independent nations. Italy and Germany, which would suppressed exploit a kind of popular nationalism by force. to unify their countries. But at the same time, as economic shifts Conservative elites brought social change in their exploit nationalism to wake, the gradual emergence of drive the unifications trade unions—at least in Western of Italy and Germany. European liberal democracies—led to improving standards of living for the previously dispossessed. ■ The Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto was French group, the League of the published in London in 1848, Just, which later re-emerged, the same year as the revolutions in London, as the Communist that engulfed Europe. Although League. Engels subsequently its impact on those upheavals financed Marx’s seminal work, was negligible, its resonance in Das Kapital, its first volume years to come on social thought published, again in London, in almost everywhere would be 1867. It was a detailed attempt overwhelming. The pamphlet to demonstrate how what Marx was the work of two Germans: called capitalism contained Friedrich Engels, son of a textile the seeds of its own downfall, manufacturer, and the similarly and the inevitability of the privileged Jewish academic proletarian revolution that Karl Marx. In 1847, both men would create a classless society had joined a semi-subversive free of exploitation or want.

IRTWMHEIISLMWLENRETAEENRRTPUSDRRISSENE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUEZ CANAL (1859–1869)



232 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUEZ CANAL IN CONTEXT The Industrial Revolution allows the rapid development of Western economies. FOCUS Imperial economies New industries New classes of are hungry for workers hanker for BEFORE more resources. consumer goods. 1838 The first Atlantic crossing under steam power Developed countries build empires and use their alone is made. colonial muscle to feed their industries. 1858 The first transatlantic Technology and transport develop telegraph cable is laid. to support this new global economy. AFTER The Suez Canal is constructed, 1869 The Suez Canal opens, facilitating global trade by shortening slashing sailing times between Europe and the East. shipping routes substantially. 1878 The Gold Standard is adopted in Europe; the US follows suit in 1900. 1891 The Trans-Siberian railway is begun. It is completed in 1905. 1899–1902 Britain aims to secure control of South Africa in the Second Boer War. 1914 The Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, opens. T he ceremonial opening, on principal beneficiaries. It was almost a British monopoly, a point November 17, 1869, of the simultaneously a further boost further underlined when Britain Suez Canal, linking the to Europe’s imperial ambitions. gained control of the Suez Canal Mediterranean and the Red seas, in 1888 after having invaded and was an emphatic declaration of The Suez Canal reduced the occupied Egypt six years earlier. European—specifically, French – sailing route between London and This “gunboat diplomacy” proved technological and financial Bombay by 41 percent, and the a remarkably effective means of means. It was also a significant route between London and Hong protecting British interests. illustration of a rapidly emerging Kong by 26 percent. The impact and increasingly interdependent on trade was plain to see. However, The Panama Canal global economy, featuring goods reduced sailing times also greatly The Suez Canal was just one from all parts of the world being simplified the defense of India and of a number of similar massive traded on an ever-larger scale. its crucial markets, Britain’s key engineering undertakings in the This was a process dominated by imperial goal. By the end of the interests of imperial trade. An Europe’s colonial powers and the 19th century, trade in the Indian even more challenging project United States, overwhelmingly its Ocean, protected by no fewer than was the construction, begun in 21 Royal Navy bases, had become

CHANGING SOCIETIES 233 See also: Marco Polo reaches Shangdu 104–105 ■ The opening of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange 180–83 ■ Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The California Gold Rush 248–49 ■ The Meiji Restoration 252–53 ■ The opening of the Eiffel Tower 256–57 The Suez Canal opened in 1869 and dramatically cut sailing times between Europe and Asia. This provided a massive boost for trade, which, in turn, spurred technological advances. Roosevelt’s successor, William Taft, pursued a more legalistic variant of the policy—Dollar Diplomacy – by which American commercial interests, chiefly in Latin America and East Asia, were to be secured by the full backing of the US government, and huge overseas investments encouraged. 1881, of the Panama Canal in was the largest and most expensive Trains and telegraphs Central America, linking the engineering project in the world. It, At the same time, major new Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It too, dramatically reduced sailing railways were constructed in too was a French initiative, but times, shortening the Liverpool to both the US and Europe. The east one dogged by controversy and a San Francisco route by 42 percent, and west coasts of the US were consistently hostile climate that and the New York to San Francisco first linked by rail in 1869, with cost the lives of 22,000 laborers. route by 60 percent. the opening of the 1,907-mile The United States eventually (3,070-km) Central Pacific Railroad. completed the Panama Canal in US involvement By 1905, there were eight more August 1914, stepping in when the The fact that the United States transcontinental rail lines across the French finally admitted defeat. It took over the construction of the United States and one in Canada. Panama Canal underlines a crucial May the Atlantic telegraph, shift in US attitudes: they were The building of the Trans- under the blessing of Heaven, committing not just to expanding Siberian Railway in Russia, between prove to be a bond of perpetual trade but also to advancing US 1891 and 1905, was undertaken in ❯❯ peace and friendship between overseas interests. This had begun in 1898, when the US itself became The scheme in question the kindred nations. a colonial power, taking over the is the cutting of President Buchanan Philippines from Spain. a canal through the Telegram to Queen Victoria (1858) The process began to accelerate Isthmus of Suez. under the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09). He actively Ferdinand de Lesseps advocated US military involvement, above all, in Latin America, to French diplomat on his proposals ensure stability as a means of for the Suez Canal (1852) advancing American interests. One consequence of this was his strengthening of the US Navy, the Great White Fleet.

234 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUEZ CANAL the same spirit. A remarkable The Great Eastern Although gold and silver are 4,600 miles (7,400km) long and not by nature money, money spanning seven time zones, it The ship responsible for laying the is by nature gold and silver. remains the longest continuous transatlantic cable in 1866 was the railway in the world. It played a key Great Eastern, designed by the Karl Marx role not just in the settlement of most visionary engineer of the Russia’s vast Siberian territories, first phase of the Industrial Das Kapital but in Russia’s encroachment on Revolution, Isambard Kingdom parts of northern China, too. Brunel. Designed to carry 4,000 in size in line with their own passengers from England to populations. At the same time, The impact of the telegraph Australia non-stop (and to return the number of people in Europe was just as significant, allowing to England without refueling), was also increasing—for example, messages to be communicated the ship was overly ambitious in Britain swelled from 28 million along electrical lines. Samuel Morse concept and a commercial failure. to 35 million between 1850 and devised the system in the United 1880. Feeding and clothing the States in the 1830s, and the first However, it was indicative populations were important telegraph line was inaugurated in of a trend toward larger, faster, priorities. Wool could be easily May 1844. Within a decade, there and safer ships. Unlike the Great transported, but lamb and beef were 20,000 miles (32,200km) Eastern, which was built of iron, could not be shipped because it of telegraph cable in the US. later, steel-built, propeller-driven would rot en route—until 1877, ships would prove more versatile. when 80 tons of frozen beef The first telegraph cable across Their introduction coincided with were shipped from Argentina to the Atlantic, laid in 1858, worked for the development of more powerful France on board the world’s first only two weeks. But by 1866, a new and efficient steam engines. refrigerated ship. By 1881, regular cable had been installed, capable of shipments of frozen meat were transmitting 120 words per minute. Steamships and trade traveling between Australia and By 1870, a telegraph link had been The decline of the sailing ship Britain. The first shipment of established between London and further transformed imperial lamb from New Zealand was made Bombay; this was then extended to trade. One notable result was the following year. There was a Australia in 1872 and New Zealand the introduction of a series of vast increase in the export of in 1876. By 1902, the United States ever-larger passenger ships. The meat from all three countries— was linked to Hawaii. This was the transatlantic route saw the most New Zealand, for example, first near-instant international obvious developments. In 1874, the exported 2.3 million frozen sheep communications system. British steamer Britannic, capable in 1895, 3.3 million in 1900, and of generating 5,500 horsepower, 5.8 million in 1910. The RMS Mauretania, built at set a new east–west Atlantic Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, UK, was the record of just under eight days. The demand for cotton—above largest and fastest ship in the world. In 1909, the Mauretania, which all in the great textile mills of the In 1909, it set a record, sailing across generated 70,000 horsepower and northwest of England, which by 1850 the Atlantic in less than five days. carried over 2,000 passengers, were producing up to 50 percent set a new record of four days of the world’s cloth—led to an and 10 hours, cruising at an enormous surge in cotton growing. average speed of 26 knots, or In the southern states of the US, raw 30mph (48km/h). cotton production increased from New types of merchant ships— mainly refrigerated vessels—were also being built. Such developments show how technology helped drive trade, making it possible to reach global markets. The cattle and sheep farms in South America (especially Argentina), Australia, and New Zealand were growing

CHANGING SOCIETIES 235 The Suez Canal greatly London the 19th century, the British shortened travel times— pound sterling, its value pegged and eased journeys— Mumbai at 113 grains of gold, was the between parts of the currency against which all others British Empire, such were measured. as England and India. That distance of 10,800 Western overseas investments nautical miles was dramatically increased. By 1914, cut by more than the United States had overseas 40 percent, to just assets worth $3.5 billion, Germany 6,200 nautical miles. $6 billion, France $8 billion, and Britain almost $20 billion. Between Suez Canal them, North America and northern Route via Europe’s share of world income Suez Canal in 1860 was about $4.3 billion a Previous route year, 35 percent of the world’s Countries ruled total. In 1914, it was $18.5 billion, by British Empire 60 percent of the world’s total. 100,000 bales in 1800 to 4 million in Global finance Patterns of imperialism varied 1860. During the American Civil This complex trading network over the 19th century. In the War, the southern, Confederate could not have grown without British Empire, for example, clear states restricted exports of cotton developments in banking and and increasing distinctions were in an attempt to force European financing. Throughout the late drawn between those colonies— intervention in the war. However, 19th century, new banks were in Africa and Asia, above all— the ploy failed, since Britain merely established, their capital used whose native populations were increased its imports of raw cotton to support enterprises across governed by Europeans, and from India. After weaving the the world. At the same time, those—such as Canada, South cotton, it then exported it back to London emerged as the world’s Africa, Australia, and New India at substantial profits. financial capital. By the end of Zealand—deemed capable of self-government. By 1907, all four had been granted dominion status. It was not a privilege extended to a single British African colony or to India. ■ Working conditions in South The Great Mineral Rush Dutch settlers of what had Africa’s gold mines were harsh, and become the British Cape Colony. the work force—mainly young black The search for new sources of Their heightened economic men—was exploited and underpaid. minerals, both precious and importance reinforced Britain’s industrial, reached new heights determination to annex them, toward the close of the 19th which they could do only after century. Discoveries of diamonds the bitter Boer War (1899– and gold in the US, Canada, 1902), which stretched Britain’s Australia, and—most significantly military resources to their of all—South Africa sparked a limits. The exploitation, both frenzy of development. Diamonds before and after the conflict, were discovered in South Africa’s of the mineral resources of Orange Free State in 1867, and what in 1910 became the Union gold in the Transvaal in 1886. of South Africa by armies of Both were independent Boer underpaid black workers would republics, established by the later prove to be critical in the descendants of the original institutionalizing of Apartheid.

236 BEWANENODADNULADETRESIFERSUFBFLUEOLAIRNNHMGDASVMEEMVOOBOSLESTVETEND DARWIN PUBLISHES ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859) IN CONTEXT Geologists begin It became clear to to understand that the scientists that the Earth FOCUS Earth has existed for had undergone a series of Scientific advance previously unimaginable immense changes and BEFORE eons of time. extinctions. 1831–36 The voyage of the HMS Beagle takes the young Darwin’s book explains Charles Darwin naturalist Charles Darwin the diversity of publishes On the around the world. Origin of Species. animal species and AFTER posits that all life on 1860 Thomas Huxley defends Earth is related to a Darwin from an attack by the common ancestor. established Anglican church. Modern science decisively reinforces the evidence and 1863 Gregor Mendel conclusions presented in Darwin’s landmark text. demonstrates how genetics influence all plant life. P erhaps the most important The publication of his book On the scientist of the 19th century, Origin of Species (1859) introduced 1871 Darwin’s The Descent Charles Darwin originally a new scientific understanding of of Man advances the view of intended to follow his father into what gradually came to be known sexual selection, whereby the medicine and was subsequently as evolution. In the book, Darwin most successful members of a sent to Cambridge to train as an asked a fundamental question. The species are naturally attracted Anglican cleric. Endlessly curious, world teems with plant and animal to perpetuate the species. he was interested in almost any life: where and what had it come scientific question. from? How had it been created? 1953 Discovery of DNA demonstrates how traits are passed on genetically.

CHANGING SOCIETIES 237 See also: The voyages of Captain Cook 189 ■ Diderot publishes the Encyclopédie 192–95 ■ Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 Darwin was far from the first to The finches on the Galapagos Islands a decisive contribution to the propose that a process of change were key to Darwin’s work. The 13 understanding of the world. In over vast periods had produced this species he found there all had different the process, the status of science diversity, but he was the first to types of beaks, which had evolved to generally was immensely boosted. suggest an explanatory theme, deal with the food available to the birds. which he called “natural selection”. The primacy of science been created intact and unchanging Despite everything, it was possible Natural selection by a benevolent deity. Yet however for Darwinism to be warped. What At the heart of Darwin’s idea was heated the initial debate, quite came to be called “the survival of his contention that all animal life rapidly there was widespread the fittest” would later prove to be was derived from a single, common acceptance of Darwin’s views and influential in justifying imperialism, ancestor—that the ancestors of all a realization that he had made racism, and eugenics. mammals, humans included, for example, were fish. And in a natural On the Origin of Species was world that was never less than published at a time when a growing relentlessly violent, only those most understanding of the natural world able to adapt would survive, in the and rapid technological progress process evolving into new species. meant scientific study had a greater practical worth than ever before. These views were largely formed Darwin was one of the last amateur by the around-the-world voyage he gentleman scientists in a discipline made as the naturalist on the British that was becoming professionalized survey vessel HMS Beagle between as society came to view science 1831 and 1836, most of it spent in more highly. Partly as a result of South America. It would take him Darwin’s work, but also because of 10 years to work up his voluminous these changing attitudes, science notes and to go through all the began to have a more central place samples he collected on his voyage. in public life. By the end of Darwin’s life, continual progress in scientific Darwin’s book inevitably knowledge had become an almost generated controversy, outraging standard expectation. ■ Christian views that the world had Charles Darwin Charles Darwin (1809–82) was of persistent hard work—the only the fifth choice for the model high-Victorian scientist, position of naturalist on the aided by considerable private voyage of the HMS Beagle in means and a notably happy 1831. However fortuitous his family life, despite the deaths selection, it would transform of three of his ten children. his life. Although he was Although his own health constantly seasick during his time may effectively have been aboard the craft, Darwin proved severely damaged by the time himself an assiduous observer of he spent on the Beagle, his the world around him. He would output remained prodigious, as take as much amazed delight in did his level of intrigue at almost the jungles of Brazil as he would any subject in the natural world. in the pampas of Argentina or in In the absence of the exotic, the arid wastes of the Galapagos he was as fascinated by pigeons Islands. Upon returning to as by parasites, barnacles as England, he settled into a life much as earthworms.

238 IN CONTEXT FBLLOEERTTROTUUOHSSUERAFRIRSGMH.T FOCUS Nationalism THE EXPEDITION OF THE THOUSAND (1860) BEFORE 1830 Greece obtains its independence from the Ottomans. 1848 Nationalist revolutions sweeping across Central Europe and Italy are crushed. 1859 Austria is driven out of Lombardy, which is then annexed by Piedmont. AFTER 1861 The Italian kingdom is established. 1866 Austria is forced to cede Venetia in northeast Italy to the new Italian kingdom. 1870 The Papal States are incorporated within Italy. 1871 Germany is united under Prussian control. Rome is declared the capital of Italy. O n May 11, 1860, the Italian patriot and guerrilla fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily, then part of the Bourbon- ruled Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in southern Italy, leading a force of volunteers drawn from across Italy and just over 1,000 strong, hence their name, I Mille (The Thousand). Their goal was to overthrow the Bourbons, but there was much uncertainty as to what government would replace the ruling family. Like the other great 19th-century stalwart of Italian liberty, Giuseppe Mazzini, who in 1849 had briefly established a Roman republic, Garibaldi was committed to ending royal, clerical, and aristocratic

CHANGING SOCIETIES 239 See also: The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The opening of the Eiffel Tower 256–57 ■ The Young Turk Revolution 260–61 ■ France returns to a republican government 265 ■ The October Revolution 276–79 ■ The Treaty of Versailles 280 privilege. He was also driven by the Ideas of national self-determination, inspired by the goal of ending Austrian rule in the French Revolution, begin to proliferate across Europe. north of the country and by the The Greek War of Independence epitomizes the struggles idea of a united Italy. The desire to form new political entities based on necessary to free nations from foreign domination. common national elements such as The failed revolutions of 1848 illustrate the ruling geography and history came to be elites’ resistance to notions of national independence. known as nationalism. Garibaldi lands in Sicily and overthrows Reaching a compromise the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but Italy In 1859, much of Italy had already been united under the state of remains a constitutional monarchy. Piedmont-Sardinia, in the northwest of Italy, a process directed by its shrewd and pragmatic prime minister Camillo Cavour and critically boosted by French military assistance in expelling the Austrians. For Cavour, unification meant the creation not of a republican Italy, but of a centralized state under a constitutional monarchy. He believed this was the only way that German unification under Prussia reinforces conservative nationalism at the expense of republican liberties. Giuseppe Garibaldi, in the red shirt Italy could realize its potential— at his side, Victor Emmanuel II of that symbolized his makeshift army, above all, to press ahead with Sardinia entered Naples. In March managed to overthrow Bourbon rule in industrialization and compete with 1861, he was crowned king of Italy. the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but had the leading powers of Europe. to compromise on governmental form. Divided goals The Redshirts’ forces, swelled The difference between Garibaldi’s by locals flocking to join them, soon and Cavour’s goals illustrates the overcame the ineptly led armies contradictions at the heart of of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. nationalism in 19th-century Europe. Prompted by the notions of liberty When it came to deciding upon and equal rights promised by the a government for the newly united French Revolution, nationalism Italy—Venice and Rome excepted, developed an idealistic view of a though both would subsequently more just society. National groups be incorporated, in 1866 and oppressed by alien rule believed 1870 respectively—Garibaldi they should be able to assert their recognized the inevitability of independence as a natural right. ❯❯ Piedmontese domination. In November 1860, with Garibaldi

240 THE EXPEDITION OF THE THOUSAND Nationalism was furthermore which it was a province; the next The Ottoman army’s brutality in characterized by a romantic view year, it secured its independence suppressing Greek revolts—as seen of the right of peoples to lay claim with British support. Similar in Eugène Delacroix’s painting The to their historic destinies and rule nationalist uprisings followed in Massacre at Chios—led to increased themselves: independence. In place Poland in 1831 and in 1846, both support for the Greek cause. of loyalty to an established ruling savagely repressed by Russia. dynasty, new loyalties to national of Schleswig and Holstein, with groups defined by language, culture, German nationalism Austrian support. In 1866, Prussian history, and self-identity were Rising nationalism had momentous troops routed Austria itself; finally, formulated. The idea of the nation- consequences, especially in the in 1870–71, an army from across state became increasingly common, various states across Germany. Germany comprehensively and and likewise a belief in the right to The country’s unification under humiliatingly defeated France, national self-determination. the chancellorship of Otto von toppling Napoleon III’s government, Bismarck of Prussia in 1871 and and starving Paris into submission. The failure of the revolutions the declaration of a German empire These military victories underlined of 1848 in central Europe and Italy, jolted Europe into a new era. For a seemingly irresistible German intended to advance these very Bismarck, much as they had been destiny whose logical consequence goals, made plain the resolve of for Cavour, the benefits of unification was a unified German empire Europe’s ruling elites to oppose were clear. It would be the means under the Prussian king, now such initiatives and to preserve the by which a common German emperor, Wilhelm I. Europe created by the Congress nationality could be expressed, of Vienna in 1814–15, after the allowing the country to fill the need Nationalist aspirations defeat of Napoleon—a Europe of to underline an overarching German Nowhere were the conflicting monarchs, multinational empires, character that the philosopher impulses of nationalism more and pre-French Revolution frontiers. Georg Hegel had identified. It tangled than in the Habsburg would also break the dominance of Austrian Empire, an immense Metternich’s failures Habsburg Austria over the German- patchwork of ethnic groups across The new Europe was far from speaking world—in particular, Central Europe under the nominal stable, and the principal architect to lever the southern Catholic rule of Vienna. In 1867, following of the Congress of Vienna, the German states, Bavaria above all, Austria’s defeat by Prussia the Austrian Prince Metternich, would away from Austrian influence. previous year, Hungary was later admit: “I have spent my life in able to secure almost complete shoring up rotten buildings.” By In the interests of building this independence from Austria. The 1830, Belgium had revolted against great German state, Bismarck “dual-monarchy” that resulted— the Kingdom of the Netherlands, of pressed into service a kind of the Austrian Empire, now the conservative nationalism. The goal Austro-Hungarian Empire—not A people destined to was not social or democratic reform achieve great things for the to establish a more just or liberal welfare of humanity must state; it was the creation of a country to challenge the world. German one day or other be nationalism under Bismarck constituted a nation. translated into a determined Giuseppe Mazzini, 1861 adoption of industrialization and the creation of ever larger and more efficient armed forces. And it was military means that Bismarck single-mindedly deployed to create this new Germany. He mounted three major campaigns. The first, against Denmark in 1864, saw Prussia subsuming the southern Danish territories

CHANGING SOCIETIES 241 The proclamation of Wilhelm I as Emperor of Germany took place in Versailles in 1871. It was heralded by a series of military campaigns, including one against France. only greatly boosted an assertive civilization, a role that won them The consequences sense of Hungarian self-identity but support from liberals across Europe, The notion that social justice could also secured Hungary significant had secured their independence by be secured by peoples pursuing the territorial concessions from Vienna, 1830 after a nine-year war. right to self-determination would notably in Transylvania and Croatia. rarely be realized in the 1800s— Yet whatever the continuing Both Austria and Russia Vienna would continue to rule over tensions between Austria and competed to fill the void left by the its multi-ethnic empire until its Hungary, the two warily preferred Ottomans. Austria’s provocative defeat at the end of World War I to remain united precisely for fear occupation of Bosnia in 1878, which in 1918, for example. Likewise, of further nationalist agitations it peremptorily annexed in 1908, the people of Poland were from their own splintered ethnic would create tensions that led denied any means of exercising populations. The Hungarians, for directly to the outbreak of World such nationalistic rights to self- example, were notably reluctant to War I in 1914. The Balkan Wars of determination. And the Jews of concede the kind of political rights 1912–13—in effect a bitter squabble Europe remained persistently they demanded for themselves to for supremacy between Serbia, oppressed, whatever the promise of their substantial Slovak, Romanian, Bulgaria, and Greece—were further Zionism from the 1890s to create a and Serb populations. At the same evidence of the destabilizing effect Jewish nation in the Holy Land. ■ time, waning Ottoman control of the of nationalist-driven state building. Balkans also encouraged nationalist aspirations—Serbia, for example, had emerged as a more or less independent state as early as 1817. Wallachia and Moldavia, essentially modern Romania, could lay similar claims to independence by 1829. The Greeks, portraying themselves as the legatees of ancient Greek Otto von Bismarck Minister-president of Prussia the balance of power in Europe, from 1862 and chancellor of a task in which, juggling Germany 1871–90, Otto von competing interests, he was Bismarck (1815–98), also known remarkably successful. He as the Iron Chancellor, towered committed Germany to a huge over continental Europe after program of industrialization, engineering the unification oversaw the further growth of Germany. Bismarck’s main of the German armed forces, goals were to ensure Prussian and launched a program leadership of the German world of colonization. Despite being at the expense of Austria and to socially conservative, Bismarck contain the threat of renewed also introduced the world’s French hostility. A supreme first welfare system, though opportunist, despite starting his motive was as much to three wars, in 1864, 1866, outflank his socialist opponents and 1870, Bismarck thereafter as to protect the interests of worked tirelessly to maintain German workers.

242 DCTWHEOHAEMETSENHETAASORNAEADDNTSSHEOCENREYDNR?TEOOSWO, F THE SIEGE OF LUCKNOW (1857) IN CONTEXT T he Siege of Lucknow, it underlined the fact that India was which took place between now entirely subservient to Britain, FOCUS May and November 1857, both economically and politically. British rule in India led to scenes that were duplicated across much of north-central As the number of European- BEFORE India during the Indian Mutiny educated Indian elites grew, they 1824 The British conquest of 1857–58: of British enclaves would challenge Britain’s rights over of Burma is launched; it is enduring great suffering at the the subcontinent. Britain would largely completed by 1886. hands of previously loyal local continue to assert its imperial troops. When the British began to destiny, but increasingly had to 1876 Queen Victoria is restore order, the retribution was no confront the improbability that it declared Empress of India. less severe. The violence from both could. If there was an enduring sides shocked the public and led to truth, it was that British rule in India May 1857 The first revolt by immediate calls for reform. was never as robust as it seemed. ■ Indian sepoy troops against British rule occurs at Meerut. The mutiny began when the We hold ourselves bound to Indian troops—sepoys—became the natives of our Indian AFTER convinced that the cartridges of territories by the same 1858 The rule of the East India their new rifles had been greased obligations of duty which Company in India is formally with cow and pig fat, offensive to ended. Control of India passes Hindus and Muslims alike. But bind us to our other subjects. directly to the British crown. its roots lay in the dislocation Queen Victoria that many in India felt at British 1869 The Suez Canal control—the uprooting of traditional is opened, dramatically rulers, the apparent threat to local reducing sailing times to religions, and the aggressive and from India. assertion of alien rule. 1885 The Indian National Britain’s initial response after Congress is founded—the first the mutiny was intended to pan-Indian political movement. reassure India of Britain’s peaceful It later forms the core of a intentions toward it, but in reality nationalist movement. See also: The Battle of Quebec 191 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Second Opium War 254–55 ■ The Berlin Conference 258–59 ■ The Sikh Empire is founded 264

CHANGING SOCIETIES 243 FBSTTRHOEEORTAATMFNBEDOTBROOLEMTILWSOOFHAWRAIIBOTTOMSFLEOAILSRBFHOITVE, RUSSIA EMANCIPATES THE SERFS (1861) IN CONTEXT A lexander II’s emancipation We must give the country of Russia’s 20 million serfs such industrial perfection as FOCUS (unfree laborers) in 1861 Tsarist Russia was not a humanitarian act. Its has been reached by the goal was a further attempt to United States of America. BEFORE modernize a Russia that, regardless 1825 The Decembrist of potential, was being left behind Sergei Witte revolt against tsarist rule by the industrializing nations of is suppressed. the West. To take what it saw as Russian minister its rightful place in the world, 1853–55 Russia’s defeat Russia adopted wide-ranging showed greater willingness by Britain and France in reforms across political, social, to embrace industrial reform but the Crimea highlights its economic, and military areas. also created a kind of police state: military weaknesses. introducing strict censorship, The effects of these reforms suppressing protest, and making AFTER were mixed at best. Emancipation trade unions illegal. 1881 Tsar Alexander II is did very little to improve the assassinated by the People’s serfs’ well-being or agricultural Nonetheless, tsarist Russia was Will, an underground terrorist productivity, and Alexander refused emerging into the industrialized movement. to consider any real constitutional world. The country could lay claim reform: he remained an autocrat to to substantial, if not always efficient, 1891 Work on the Trans- the last, convinced of his divine military means. Politically, however, Siberian railway begins, right to rule as an absolute its unwillingness to reform would leading to massive new monarch. However, his reforms ultimately ensure its complete settlements in Siberia. had raised hopes that a degree of destruction in a Soviet revolution. ■ political liberalization might follow. 1894 The last tsar, Nicholas II, allows finance minister Sergei A police state Witte to launch further His assassination in 1881 provoked industrialization. a predictably reactionary backlash. His successor, Alexander III, 1905 Russian expansion in East Asia is halted by a See also: The founding of St. Petersburg 196–97 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ humiliating defeat by Japan. The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Crimean War 265 ■ The October Revolution 276–79

244 IN CONTEXT BFFSOGROYHFOORAVTTMLEHHTLREHETNNEHPPMOEEEPETOOEENPOPPATLLPEREELRTEIHSH FOCUS The American Civil War THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS (1863) BEFORE 1820 An attempt is made, in the Missouri Compromise statute, to restrict slavery in the new states to a line south of the Missouri border. 1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act sparks violence in Kansas. 1857 The Dred Scott Decision rules that even in non-slave states, slaves cannot be freed. 1861 The Confederate States are declared (February); in April, the Civil War begins. 1863 In July, the Confederates are defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. AFTER 1864 Lincoln is re-elected. 1865 General Lee surrenders; Lincoln is assassinated. O n November 19, 1863, little more than halfway through the American Civil War, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, US President Abraham Lincoln gave what came to be known as the Gettysburg Address. In it, he characterized the Civil War as a struggle both for national unity and to guarantee equality for all people. Lincoln was talking at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, which commemorated the 7,058 soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, an encounter fought between July 1–3, the same year that had left 27,224 more wounded. Gettysburg had been the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, as

CHANGING SOCIETIES 245 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ The California Gold Rush 248–49 ■ The opening of Ellis Island 250–51 The Battle of Gettysburg took place in 1863. After three days of fighting and the death of more than 7,000 soldiers, the Confederate army was forced to retreat. well as a turning point in which to the proposition that all men are for slave-owning Southerners, it the outnumbered, outgunned, yet created equal,” yet its Southern was a right. For them, “liberty” had improbably successful Southern states had a population of almost an additional meaning: the liberty army led by Robert E. Lee, the 4 million black slaves. Under the to possess slaves. Army of Northern Virginia, suffered constitution of the United States, its first major defeat. they were legally owned property. The disagreement underlined For the abolitionists of the rapidly the question over States’ Rights— The causes of the war industrializing north—always the extent to which the rights of The American Civil War was not a minority, but still exceedingly individual states trumped the simply a war about slavery; it was vocal—slavery was morally authority of the federal, or central, a war about whether so divisive an repugnant and an outrage against government in Washington. This issue could be allowed to break up their Christian sensibilities. question repeatedly resurfaced as the United States. The United territories in the west were settled States, as Lincoln said, was a nation However, slavery was not just and sought admission to the Union: “conceived in liberty and dedicated the backbone of the agricultural would they be slave or “free” states? prosperity of the Southern states; The 1820 Missouri Compromise stated that slavery would be allowed only in new states south of a line extending westward from the southern border of Missouri. It was later agreed that the settlers of new states should decide for themselves whether theirs would be free or slave states—a decision that was reinforced by the ❯❯ Abraham Lincoln When he arrived in Washington in of what would emerge as the February 1861 for his presidential anti-slavery Republican party. inauguration, Abraham Lincoln Despite having no military (1809–65) was widely dismissed experience, Lincoln proved in political circles as an ignorant, an increasingly shrewd judge socially awkward backwoodsman. of how the Civil War should By the time of his assassination best be fought, actively arguing just four years later, he had come in favor of General Grant. to dominate America. Lincoln He never lost sight of his had not just won the Civil War, wider aims: the maintenance but he had also established of American liberties and the himself as a kind of irresistible essential dignity of humanity. political oracle. He pushed on with the war with unflinching determination, Born in a log cabin in Kentucky, yet he understood precisely Lincoln qualified as a lawyer what loss of life on the scale by his late 20s. He became an of the Civil War meant. increasingly articulate champion

246 THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Since The United States is born as a beacon of liberty both Kansas and Nebraska were to in which slavery is nonetheless permitted. the north of Missouri’s southern border, what followed, in Kansas The Southern states The industrial Northern above all, was a sudden inrush of increasingly see slavery states are opposed to any pro- and anti-slavery settlers, each desperate to prevail. The two sides as a key part of their extension of slavery into clashed repeatedly and violently. agrarian society. any new states. The South breaks away These differences of opinion help spark the Civil War, This conflict led to the founding bringing destruction on an unforeseen scale, with neither of a new anti-slavery party, the Republicans, on whose ticket the North nor the South able to best the other. Abraham Lincoln, with practically no support from any slave state, The Gettysburg Address is Lincoln’s most was voted into office in November eloquent attempt to justify the war as the 1860. Lincoln’s victory prompted the almost immediate decision by means to a more just United States. South Carolina to secede, to leave the Union. By February, a further The South’s defeat results in political paralysis six Southern states had broken and institutionalized discrimination against its away, and the seven declared black population that persists well into the next century. themselves a new nation: the Confederate States of America. By As free-born men, the citizens of the As a supreme political operator, May, when Richmond in Virginia South had an “inalienable” right to Lincoln realized the need to proceed was made the capital of the new shape their own destinies, just as with caution. Initially at any rate, country, four more states had joined the founding fathers had when they his position was that he sought only them. However, five slave states, rejected the tyranny of British rule. to restrict the expansion of slavery the so-called Border States, opted In the minds of many Southerners, while preserving the Union. On to remain within the original Union. the US government was guilty of the second point, Lincoln was precisely the same kind of tyranny immovable; he felt the authority of The Confederacy argued that in seeking to limit these freedoms. the federal government overrode the Constitution had been freely that of individual states. adopted, and as such any state It was a deeply held position. As could legitimately break away Alexander Stephens, vice-president The United States, the only from the Union if it felt oppressed. of the Confederacy, asserted, the fully democratic country on Earth, cornerstone of this new state had been created as what Lincoln I cannot raise my hand “rest[ed] upon the great truth that called “a great promise to the against my birthplace, the negro is not equal to the white world,” so ensuring its survival was my home, my children. man; that slavery… is his natural an absolute moral duty. By the time and normal condition…”. of his Emancipation Proclamation Robert E. Lee On his resignation (April 1861)

CHANGING SOCIETIES 247 in January 1863, Lincoln felt more iron than the South, 38 times Grant stood by me when I politically secure enough to order as much coal, and 32 times as many was crazy, and I stood by him the freeing of all Southern slaves. firearms. The only area in which the when he was drunk, and now But in the short term, the Civil War South exceeded the North was in was fought to keep this “great cotton production, at 24 to 1. we stand by each other. promise” intact. William Sherman In the face of this superiority, Eventual Northern victory the fact that the South was not only civilian property. “War is cruelty,” The outcome of the American Civil able to resist the Union forces for Sherman asserted. “The crueler it War was dictated ultimately by the four years but also to come close is, the sooner it will be over.” human and material discrepancies to victory in 1862 and 1863 was a between the North and the South. reflection of the Southern soldiers’ A new freedom There were 21 Union states with profound belief in their cause. It was The US Civil War was the world’s a population of 20 million, and 11 also the result of its plainly superior first major industrial war, the first to Southern states with a population generals—the Virginian Robert E. make widespread use of railroads, of 9 million, 4 million of whom were Lee above all. By contrast, at least and the first widely reported in a slaves, and therefore not allowed until the emergence of Ulysses S. new kind of popular press. There to bear arms. Despite the fact that Grant and William Sherman as the was concentrated death on a scale by 1864, 44 percent of males in the two leading commanders of the never seen before: around 670,000 North between the ages of 18 and Union forces, the North had been dead, 50,000 of them civilians, in 60 were in military service, versus able to muster only a succession little more than four years. 90 percent in the Southern states, of timid and inept generals who the North was still able to enlist frittered away the advantages they For Abraham Lincoln, the war 2.2 million men over the whole war, so abundantly possessed. represented what in the Gettysburg compared to the South’s 800,000. Address he called “unfinished Reinvigorated by Grant and business.” The Constitution had The North was three times Sherman, the North prevailed. The left unresolved the question of richer than the South. It had 2.4 razing of Atlanta in September 1864 how slavery could exist in a nation miles (3.8km) of railroad to every was followed by Sherman’s “march “conceived in liberty.” Despite the 1 mile (1.6km) in the South. Its to the sea” at Savannah, Georgia. destruction and the huge death factories manufactured 10 times Completed in December, it left a toll, the war brought a chance more goods. It produced 20 times 60-mile- (96.5-km-) wide swathe of at “a new birth of freedom.” The destruction, deliberately targeting end of slavery, confirmed by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, represented an opportunity for the US to be recast as a genuinely free land for all its citizens, black and white. ■ This Thomas Nast illustration shows life for black Americans before and after emancipation. Abraham Lincoln is also portrayed.

248 DOOTHEVUSEERRTCMISNOAPYNNRTIIESFIANEDTESONTT THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH (1848–1855) IN CONTEXT Knowledge of the lands in the American West encourages an interest in settlement there. FOCUS American expansion The gold rush in California sparks a global frenzy to share in the new riches, accelerating BEFORE 1845 Texas, formerly part of the settlement of the West Coast. Mexico, is incorporated into the United States. Telegraph and railway lines American Indians improve links between are forced away from 1846 Britain signs Oregon the east and west coasts. their ancestral lands. over to the United States. Better communications spur the development 1848 New Mexico and of industry in the United States. California are annexed after the Mexican–American War. T he belief by sometime reaction. Over the next five years, journalist John L. O’Sullivan as many as 300,000 “49ers”—a AFTER that the “manifest destiny” reference to the year in which the 1861 The first transcontinental of the United States lay in its influx began in earnest—were telegraph line is completed; expansion to the west was boosted drawn to what, in 1850, would the Pony Express mail service immensely by the discovery of become the 31st state of the US. closes two days later. gold in a river in northern California The immediate consequence was in January 1848. Even allowing both a wild lawlessness in the 1862 The Homestead Act for the inevitable difficulties of pursuit of instant riches and the grants 160 acres of free land to communication and travel at the confirmation of America’s Pacific anyone settling it. time, the find sparked a frenzied coast as a promised land. The 1869 The first transcontinental railroad is completed. 1890 The US Census Bureau closes the American frontier, since no more large areas of land are unsettled.