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SEVENTH EDITION
A HISTORYOF THE
MODERNWORLD
I1 . Pi ll- eleJo()el Coltlon
ALFRED A. KNOPF NEW YORK 1991
This is a Borzoi BookPublished by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
Copyright © 1992 by McCGraw-lill. Inc.Copyright © 1950, 1956, 1965, 1971, 1978, 1984 by Alfred A. Knopf All rights reserved underInternational and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States byAlfred A Knopf Inc., New )ork, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of CanadaLimited, boronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Manufactured in the United States of Anerica
Seventh Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DateaPalmer, R. R. (Robert Roswell), (date).
A history of the modern world/ R. R. Palmer, Joel Colton. -7th ed.p. cn.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.Contents: [1] To 1815-[2] Since 1815.ISBN 0-679-41014-71. History, Modern. 1. Colton, Joel, (date). 11. Title.
D209. P26 1992909.08 - dc2
Acknowledgment is hereby made .for permission to quote from te following works:
World Population, by A. N. Carr-Saunders. Clarendon Press, Oxjbrd (1936).
British Economic Growth, 1688-1959: Trends and Structnre. by Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole(1962). Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.
"The White Mans Burden"froin The Five Nations by Rudyarrd Kipling. Reprinted by permissionof The National Trust and Doubleday & Company, Inc.
European Historical Statistics: 1750-1970, by B. R. Mitchell, pp. 316 and 396. Copyright © 1975by Columbia Unicersity Press.
CONTENTS
1'1(1 1 \(:,
1. Ancient Times: Greece, Rome, and Christianity2. The Early Middle Ages: The Formation of Europe3. The High Middle Ages: Secular Civilization4. The High Middle Ages: The Church
II. ' Fil: '111 ̀ \\ \. IN iIiRiS'iiFNII)( I, 1li0 1605. Disasters of the Fourteenth Century6. The Renaissance in Italy7. The Renaissance Outside Italy8. The New Monarchies9. The Protestant Reformation
10. Catholicism Reformed and Reorganized
Picture Essay: The Florence of the Renaissance
I1( :(l7~ \\11(' 'FiNl r , \ \",'1) \ \{SOI (I ' lI(I 1(1(1 ',I l) I IS
11. The Opening of the Atlantic12. The Commercial Revolution13. Changing Social Structures14. The Crusade of Catholic Spain: The Dutch and English15. The Disintegration and Reconstruction of France16. The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648: The Disintegration of
GermanyPicture Essay: The World Overseas
\ 111
1117
2635
I,
475362677587
95
I I ,
107114120126134
140
151
v
vI CONTENTS
17. The Grand Monarque and the Balance of Power
18. The Dutch Republic19. Britain: The Puritan Revolution20. Britain: The Triumph of Parliament21. The France of Louis XIV, 1643-1715: The Triumph of
Absolutism22. The Wars of Louis XIV: The Peace of Utrecht, 1713
Picture Essay: The Age of Grandeur
I | 1 ' t ''.\ ' ! ' I?l"' I 1 f' q 1 I ', |] 1 'P ,"C I'T , IIT q1';
23. Three Aging Empires24. The Formation of an Austrian Monarchy25. The Formation of Prussia26. The "Westernizing" of Russia27. The Partitions of Poland
28. Elite and Popular Cultures29. The Global Economy of the Eighteenth Century30. Western Europe after Utrecht, 1713-174031. The Great War of the Mid-Eighteenth Century: The Peace
of Paris, 1763
'.11 1 I!! 11 : I ItIl' i 1, (1 ' !f 11 \'. 11t )
32. Prophets of a Scientific Civilization: Bacon and Descartes33. The Road to Newton: The Law of Universal Gravitation34. New Knowledge of Man and Society35. Political Theory: The School of Natural Law
36. The Philosophes-And Others37. Enlightened Despotism: France, Austria, Prussia38. Enlightened Despotism: Russia39. New Stirrings: The British Reform Movement40. The American Revolution
41. Backgrounds42. The Revolution and the Reorganization of France
I (f)
161163169176
182190
199
'It)
211221226234245
-;
251255264
273
287293300307
314326336342351
362365
CONTENTS vn
43. The Revolution and Europe: The War and the "Second"Revolution, 1792 378
44. The Emergency Republic, 1792-1795: The Terror 38445. The Constitutional Republic: The Directory, 1795-1799 39346. The Authoritarian Republic: The Consulate, 1799-1804 398
Picture Essay: A Revolutionary Era 403
47. The Formation of the French Imperial System 41848. The Grand Empire: Spread of the Revolution 42549. The Continental System: Britain and Europe 43150. The National Movements: Germany 43551. The Overthrow of Napoleon: The Congress of Vienna 441
XI. RIx\ \(. 1(!) ' I I S; I l'R '()(; :', , Ilq 1; I L I .;
52. The Industrial Revolution in Britain 45553. The Advent of the "Isms" 46354. The Dike and the Flood: Domestic 47455. The Dike and the Flood: International 47756. The Breakthrough of Liberalism in the West: Revolutions
of 1830-1832 48457. Triumph of the West-European Bourgeoisie 495
Xll. R F, V )IJ["I 1 )q l\NI) I 11 I4 F'l\ lN I( 'l 1( ' i 'l~()I)I 'I -s I s~1,71) 7())
58. Paris: The Specter of Social Revolution in the West 50159. Vienna: The Nationalist Revolution in Central Europe and
Italy 50760. Frankfurt and Berlin: The Question of a Liberal Germany 51461. The New Toughness of Mind: Realism, Positivism,
Marxism 51962. Bonapartism: The Second French Empire, 1852-1870 527
Pictre ssay Ealy Idusrialsm nd Scia Clases533
XlIl. HI IF ( His{t i ), 1 "'q I N 1 I 1. \1 I '. } l] )N:' IA\'l I.S, Is," 1i71
63. Backgrounds: The Idea of the Nation-State64. Cavour and the Italian War of 1859: The Unification of
Italy65. Bismarck: The Founding of a German Empire66. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary67. Liberalization in Tsarist Russia: Alexander 1168. The United States: The American Civil War
533
542
546550559564569
II -
Picture Essay: Early Industrialism and Social Classes
.so
Vil CONTENTS
69. The Dominion of Canada, 186770. Japan and the West
71. The "Civilized World"72. Basic Demography: The Increase of the Europeans
73. The World Economy of the Nineteenth Century
74. The Advance of Democracy: Third French Republic,
United Kingdom, German Empire
75. The Advance of Democracy: Socialism and Labor Unions
76. Science, Philosophy, the Arts, and Religion
77. The Waning of Classical Liberalism
x'. I' l l'( 81 1. ' '\; , I , ~ 1'.1) SXiI'RI' M .\( X
78. Imperialism: Its Nature and Causes79. The Americas80. The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
81. The Partition of Africa82. Imperialism in Asia: The Dutch, the British, and the
Russians83. Imperialism in Asia: China and the West
84. The Russo-Japanese War and Its Consequences
Picture Essay: The British in India
85. The International Anarchy86. The Armed Stalemate87. The Collapse of Russia and the Intervention of the United
States88. The Collapse of the Austrian and German Empires
89. The Economic and Social Impact of the War
90. The Peace of Paris, 1919
' '. It ! ' ,1 : ' I .' 1 X \ q -' | |()i' \ \N1) ' 1 ll. ,i )\'I 'l'
91. Backgrounds92. The Revolution of 190593. The Revolution of 191794. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
95. Stalin: The Five-Year Plans and the Purges
96. The International Impact of Communism, 1919-1939
574577
584586595
605618625637
(-12
644650654662
669674681
683
695706
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734741746754762772
CONTENTS Ix
X\I111. ' IF:A , \PI~.\I ,I NI ' \l(71'() 1\q ()1 I)I;,x I 1 ',( .Y
97. The Advance of Democracy after 191998. The German Republic and the Spirit of Locarno
99. The Revolt of Asia100. The Great Depression: Collapse of the World Economy
.X X. I)IM (.)( f1 \ i' \ N",i l I M I \ I ( f lill
101. The United States: Depression and New Deal
102. Trials and Adjustments of Democracy in Britain and
France103. Italian Fascism104. Totalitarianism: Germany's Third Reich
NXX. 'I11 F SI:( IN) \( 1'1.1) \\ \,
105. The Weakness of the Democracies: Again to War
106. The Years of Axis Triumph107. The Western-Soviet Victory108. The Foundations of the Peace
XXI. - IFP0)5 I \V \ I h' \ I :11 1 i H:I 111
'[tI' '1'I )\\ l.5
109. The Cold War: The Opening Decade, 1945-1955
110. Western Europe: Economic Reconstruction
111. Western Europe: Political Reconstruction112. Reshaping the Global Economy113. The Communist World: The U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe
114. The Communist World: The People's Republic of China
XXII. IAIMPI:S l<'l () '\ 11 l 'I \ \ l'l( ;\ 11
NI I)I I.I I ,' i
115. End of the European Empires in Asia
116. The African Revolution117. Ferment in the Middle East118. The Developing World: Expectations and Frustrations
Picture Essay: The Modern World in Varied Settings
XXIII. I111 ( r F I\11', !'\ \( ;1 i ', ml!-! )
I 1 '$1.( )1'11"I
119. The Cold War: Confrontation and Detente, 1955-1975
120. Recession and Recovery: The Global Economy
121. The Cold War Rekindled122. China Under Deng
777783788799
:i()5
806
810818822
835843852860
868883886897903914
920925939951
955
969982992997
I .
x CONTENTS
123. Crisis and Transformation in the Soviet Union124. The Revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe
125. Intellectual and Social Currents126. A New Era
Appendix I: Chronological Tables
Appendix II: Rulers and Regimes
Appendix III: Historical Populations of Various Countriesand Cities
Bibliography
Illustration Sources
Index
III ''. I I ( ): i-.
The Meeting of St. Anthony and St. Paul by SassettaPortrait of a Condottiere by Giovanni BelliniErasmus of Rotterdam by Hans Holbein, the YoungerThe Geographer by Jan VermeerStudy of Two Black Heads by Rembrandt van RijnThe Masters of the Cloth Hall by Rembrandt van RijnM. Bachelier, Director of the Lyons Farms by Jean-Baptiste
OudryA Scholar Holding a Thesis on Botany by Willem MoreelseThe Hon. Mrs. Graham by Thomas GainsboroughMrs. Isaac Smith by John Singleton CopleyA Woman of the Revolution by Jacques-Louis DavidThe Gleaners by Jean-Francois MilletLiberty Leading the People by Eugene DelacroixBig Investments by Honore DaumierTrain in the Snow by Claude MonetClassic Landscape by Charles SheelerSunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges
SeuratPainting #198 (Autumn) by Vasily KandinskyComposition with the Ace of Clubs by Georges BraqueAutour d'Elle by Marc ChagallThe Assembly Line by Diego RiveraThe Survivor by George GroszTwinned Column by Antoine PevsnerWheel Man by Ernest Trova
1001100810191035
1046
1072
1077
1082
1197
1198
416468
111113165
271292346352382386486493585597
611633635780807861
10291040
CONTENTS xi
I\ PS :\ l) (.I I \R 1'
Contemporary Europe front end papersEurope: Physical 4-5
The Mediterranean World about A.D. 400, 800, and 1250 21Crusading Activity, 1100-1250 44Estimated Population of Europe, 1200-1550 48Europe, 1526 73State Religions in Europe about 1560 86European Discoveries, 1450-1600 108The Low Countries, 1648 130Europe, 1648 146147France from the Last Years of Louis XIV to the Revolution
of 1789 188The Atlantic World After the Peace of Utrecht, 1713 196Central and Eastern Europe, 1660-1795 212Aging Empires and New Powers 216The Growth of the Austrian Monarchy, 1521-1772 222
The Growth of Prussia, 1415-1918 230-231The Growth of Russia in the West 242-243Poland since the Eighteenth Century 248The World in 1763 284
"West India" (inset)"East India" (inset)
The Growth of Geographical Knowledge 302-303Europe, 1740 328The French Republic and Its Satellites, 1798-1799 396Napoleonic Europe, 1810 427Napoleonic Germany 430Europe, 1815 448-449Britain Before and After the Industrial Revolution 460The Industrial Revolution in Britain (As Shown by Sources of
Income) 462Languages of Europe 470Nation Building, 1859-1867 551
The German Question, 1815-1871 555Europe, 1871 562-563Migration from Europe, 1850-1940 592Export of European Capital to 1914 601The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1699-1914 660
The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1699-1923 (inset)Precolonial Africa: Sites and Peoples 665
Africa, 1914 667Lines of Political Pressure about 1898 (inset)
"The British Lake," 1918 671Imperialism in Asia, 1840-1914 676-677
Critical Area, 1895-1905 (inset)Northeast China and Adjoining Regions, 1895-1914 679Anglo-German Industrial Competition, 1898 and 1913 699
YIIII-·l-Lllly·y-y- __ I-_I·_ -· ··-···-··-·I __
i I
THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 273272 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND EMPIRE
The credi f the two governments was als shaken by the "bubbles.' uch
of the French f ar debt was repudiated in on way or another. Repudi o n
was in many ca s morally justifiable, for man government creditors we
unscrupulous war p fiteers, but financially it was astrous, for it discouragehonest people from le ing their money to the state, was much accomplishedtoward reform of the es. The nobles continued to vade taxes imposed on
them by Louis XIV, Joh Law's plans for taxation eva rated with the res
his project, and when in 1564 a finance minister tried to le a 2 percent on
all property, the vested inters, led by the Parlement of Pis, anni_ e d this
proposal also. Lacking an adeq terevenue, and repudiating it deb ,the French
monarchy had little credit. The nception of the public or nat a debt hardly
developed in France in the eighte th century. The debt w c idered to be
the king's debt, for which no onee ept a few ministers any ponsibility.
TheBourbon government in fact often b wrrowed throug echurch, ,rovincial
Estates, or the city of Paris, which lende cnide bl te r fina Ial risks
ant king himself. The government w ey capp foeignp0'y and its wars. It could not fully tap th at of its own subjects.
_n ngland none of the debt was repu eWalpole managed to tauntkeep go.the system of the sinking dh the government regula
set aside t hreihal to pay estadII ipal on its obligations. Th
credit oft te 'ish govermn ean bsltl i.The debt was considered
a national deb, or e Britis itself d the responsibilit
Parliamentargev n tmade this devepment o le. In France no one
could tell what th g or his ministers might do, nce everyone
reluctant to tru his money. In England the peop ho had th
could Parli nt, determine the policies of Sta cidemoney ud espent for, dlevy enough taxes to intan fine inth
debt, milarities to France the were; the landowners wocnr dteBritis
Parliament, like those who cont ld the Parlement oPar tddirectJ;
f-axation, so that the British gover ntdrew two-thirds oroeo eenues 5
mindirect taxes paid by the mas fthe population eladw , even
duk , i amportant amounts oftasThrwenoxmpisbclsor ran as nre All propertied intereshd tk ntegvrmnh
wealtho he ounr stood behind the io Ibt. he national credit see d
inexhaustib\. This was the supreme trumpc o te British in their wars wi
Francefo foundn othBakof] gan ' 1694 to the fall of Napoleon
120 yer lter. nd it was the poI' alfreedo oEngland that gave it its
economic strength.
sjacessful, and Jacobiti quieted down. Walpole suppot the Bank, the trading/companies, and the fina ial interests, and they in tu' superted him. It was a
time of political calm, in hich the lower classe were quit and the upperclasses not quarreling, favor le therefore to the development parliamentaryinstitutions.
Walpole has been called thefir prime nister and the architec f cabinet
government, a system in which the ni ers, or executives, are also embersof the legislative body. He saw to it careful rigging, that a majorityNn theCommons always supported him. avo ed issues on which his majority ghtle lost. He thus began to ack wledge therinciple of cabinet responsibility oa aajority in Parliament, ichwas to becoe an important characteristic
* cab et government. by selecting colleag s who agreed with him, argettin rid of those o did not, he advanced t heNdea of the cabinet as a dyof minisrs bo to each other and to the prime nister, obligated to/ollowthe same es and to stand or fall as a group. Thu Parliament wa/not onlya repres ave or deliberative body like the dietsand e tates on t Continent,but that eveloped an effective executive organ, thou which neitherrresentative gvernment nor any government could survi
To assure peac and quiet in domestic politics the be mns was to avoidraising taxes. And tbest way to avoid taxes wa t avoid ar. Fleury and
Walpole both tried to ep at peace. They were no the long in successful.Fleury was drawn into War of the Polish Su ssion 1733. alpole keptEngland out of war until 1 9. He always had war party to contendwith, andthe most bellicose were thos interested in t American trade-the slake trade,the sugar plantations, and the licit sal f goods in the Spanish empir. Thehritish official figures show thawh trade with Europe, in the eight enthctury, was always less in waran in peace, trade with America al ys
inclased during war, except, inued, uring the War of American lndependenc.In e 1730s there were cotant coplaints of indignities suffered by sturdy
Briton n the Spanish M . The war rty produced a Captain Jenkins, whocarried h him a smat ox containing aithered ear, which he said had beencut fromis head fthe outrageous Spa ards. Testifying in the House ofCommons, ere "commended his soul to od and his cause to his country,"he stirred up ommotion which led to war. S in 1739, after twenty-five yearsof peace, Ig. plunged with wild enthusiasminto the War of Jenkins' Ear."They ringinthe bells now," said Walpole; 'they will soon be wringingthei inds." Thear soon became merged in a nfiict involving Europeansan others in all partof the world.
Fleurv in France; Wa
Fleury was seventy-thre ys old when he took office, and i ety v
it. He was not one t initiate ograms for the distant future. Nuisit. He was toe!`ltiN-i
came of age, prove to be indolehand selfish. Public affairs drifted,
grew privately ore wealthy, espe'ally the commercial and bourgeWalpole like isse kept out of controv sies. His motto was quieta r
"let sleepjg dogs lie." It was to win o r the Tory squires to theand W g regime that Walpole kept do n the land taxes; this
vhen he lefts XV, as hevhile France
31. The Great War of the Mid-Eighteenth Century:The Peace of Paris, 1763
The fighting lasted until 1763, with an uneasy interlude between 1748 and 1756.It went by many names. The opening hostilities between England and Spain werecalled, by the English, the War of Jenkins' Ear. The Prussians spoke of three"Silesian" wars. The struggle on the Continent in the 1740s was often known as
w .....
274 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND EMPIRE
the War of the Pragmatic Sanction. British colonials in America called the fightingof the 1740s King George's War, or used the term "French and Indian Wars,"for the whole sporadic conflict. Disorganized and nameless struggles at the sametime shook the peoples of India. The names finally adopted by history were theWar of the Austrian Succession for operations between 1740 and 1748 and theSeven Years' War for those between 1756 and 1763. The two wars were reallyone. They involved the same two principal issues, the duel of Britain and Francefor colonies, trade, and sea power, and the duel of Prussia and Austria for territoryand military power in central Europe.
Eighteenth-Century Warfare
Warfare at the time was in a kind of classical phase, which strongly affected thedevelopment of events. It was somewhat slow, formal, elaborate, and indecisive.The enlisted ranks of armies and navies were filled with men consideredeconomically useless, picked up by recruiting officers among unwary loungers intaverns or on the wharves. All governments protected their productive population,peasants, mechanics, and bourgeois, preferring to keep them at home, at work,and paying taxes. Soldiers were a class apart, enlisted for long terms, paid wages,professional in their outlook, and highly trained. They lived in barracks or greatforts, and were dressed in bright uniforms (like the British "redcoats"), which,since camouflage was unnecessary, they wore even in battle. Weapons were notdestructive; infantry was predominant and was armed with the smooth-boremusket, to which the bayonet could be attached. In war the troops depended ongreat supply depots built up beforehand, which were practically immovable withthe transportation available, so that armies, at least in central and western Europe,rarely operated more than a few days' march from their bases. Soldiers foughtmethodically for pay. Generals hesitated to risk their troops, which took yearsto train and equip, and were very expensive. Strategy took the form not of seekingout the enemy's main force to destroy it in battle, but of maneuvering foradvantages of position, applying a cumulative and subtle pressure somewhat asin a game of chess.
There was little national feeling, or feeling of any kind. The Prussian armyrecruited half or more of its enlisted personnel outside Prussia; the British armywas largely made up of Hanoverian or other German regiments; even the Frencharmy had German units incorporated in it. Deserters from one side were enlistedby the other. War was between governments, or between the oligarchies andaristocracies which governments represented, not between whole peoples. It wasfought for power, prestige, or calculated practical interests, not for ideologies,moral principles, world conquest, national survival, or ways of life. Popularnationalism had developed farthest in England, where "Rule Britannia" and"God Save the King," both breathing a low opinion of foreigners, became popularsongs during these mid-eighteenth-century wars.
Civilians were little affected, except in India or the American wilderness whereEuropean conditions did not prevail. In Europe, a government aspiring to conquera neighboring province did not wish to ruin or antagonize it beforehand. The factthat the west-European struggle was largely naval kept it well outside civilianexperience. Never had war been so harmless, certainly not in the religious wars
of earlier times, or in the national wars initiated later. This was one reason whygovernments went to war so lightly. On the other hand governments also withdrewfrom war much more readily than in later times. Their treasuries might beexhausted, their trained soldiers used up; only practical or rational questionswere at stake; there was no war hysteria or pressure of mass opinion; the enemyof today might be the ally of tomorrow. Peace was almost as easy to make aswar. Peace treaties were negotiated, not imposed. So the eighteenth century sawa series of wars and treaties, more wars, treaties, and rearrangements of alliances,all arising over much the same issues, and with exactly the same powers presentat the end as at the beginning.
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748
The War of the Austrian Succession was started by the king of Prussia. FrederickII, or the "Great," was a young man of twenty-eight when he became king in1740. His youth had not been happy; he was temperamentally incompatible withhis father. His tastes as a prince had run to playing the flute, corresponding withFrench men of letters, and writing prose and verse in the French language. Hisfather, the sober Frederick William I,20 thought him frivolous and effeminate, anddealt with him so clumsily that at the age of eighteen he tried to escape from thekingdom. Caught and brought back, he was forced to witness the execution, byhis father's order, of the friend and companion who had shared in his attemptedflight. Frederick changed as the years passed from a jaunty youth to an agedcynic, equally undeceived by himself, his friends, or his enemies, and seeing noreason to expect much from human nature. Though his greatest reputation wasmade as a soldier, he retained his literary interests all his life, became a historianof merit, and is perhaps of all modern monarchs the only one who would have arespectable standing if considered only as a writer. An unabashed freethinker,like many others of his day, he considered all religions ridiculous and laughed atthe divine right of kings; but he would have no nonsense about the rights of thehouse of Brandenburg, and he took a solemn view of the majesty of the state.
Frederick, in 1740, lost no time in showing a boldness which his father wouldhave surely dreaded. He decided to conquer Silesia,2' and on December 16, 1740,he invaded that province, a region adjoining Prussia, lying in the upper valley ofthe Oder, and belonging to the kingdom of Bohemia and hence to the Danubianempire of the Habsburgs. The Pragmatic Sanction, a general agreement signedby the European powers, including Prussia, had stipulated that all domains of theAustrian Habsburgs should be inherited integrally by the new heiress, MariaTheresa. 22 The issue was between law and force. Frederick in attacking Silesiacould invoke nothing better than "reason of state," the welfare and expansionof the state of which he was ruler. But he was not mistaken in the belief that ifhe did not attack the Austrians someone else soon would.
The Pragmatic Sanction was universally disregarded. All turned against MariaTheresa. Bavaria and Saxony put in claims. Spain, still hoping to revise the Peace
See pp. 233-234.21 See map, p. 230. panel 3." See p. 226.
TH-E PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 2 75
276 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND EMPIRE
of Utrecht, saw another chance to win back former Spanish holdings in Italy.The decisive intervention was that of France. It was the fate of France to be tornbetween ambitions on the European continent and ambitions on the sea andbeyond the seas. Economic and commercial advantage might dictate concentrationon the impending struggle with Britain. But the French nobles were less interestedthan the British aristocrats in commercial considerations. They were influentialbecause they furnished practically all the army officers and diplomats. They sawin Austria the traditional enemy, in Europe the traditional field of valor, and inBelgium, which now belonged to the Austrians, the traditional object forannexation to France. Cardinal Fleury, much against his will and judgment, foundhimself forced into war against the Habsburgs.
Maria Theresa was at this time a young woman of twenty-three. She provedto be one of the most capable rulers ever produced by the house of Habsburg.She bore sixteen children, and set a model of conscientious family living at a timeof much indifference to such matters among the upper classes. She was as devoutand as earnest as Frederick of Prussia was irreligious and seemingly flip. Shedominated her husband and her grown sons as she did her kingdoms and herduchies. With a good deal of practical sense, she reconstructed her empire withouthaving any doctrinaire program, and she accomplished more in her methodicalway than more brilliant contemporaries with more spectacular projects of reform.
She was pregnant when Frederick invaded Silesia, giving birth to her first son,the future emperor Joseph II, in March 1741. She was preoccupied at the sametime by the political crisis. Her dominions were assailed by half a dozen outsidepowers, and were also quaking within, for her two kingdoms of Hungary andBohemia (both of which had accepted the Pragmatic Sanction) were slow to seewhich way their advantage lay. She betook herself to Hungary to be crownedwith the crown of St. Stephen-and to rally support. The Hungarians were stillin a grumbling frame of mind, as in the days of the Rakoczy rebellion forty yearsbefore.2 3 She made a carefully arranged and dramatic appearance before them,implored them to defend her, and swore to uphold the liberties of the Hungariannobles and the separate constitution of the kingdom of Hungary. All Europe toldhow the beautiful young queen, by raising aloft the infant Joseph at a session ofthe Hungarian parliament, had thrown the dour Magyars into paroxysms ofchivalrous resolve. The story was not quite true, but it is true that she made aneloquent address to the Magyars, and that she took her baby with her and proudlyexhibited him. The Hungarian magnates pledged their "blood and life," anddelivered 100,000 soldiers.
The war, as it worked out in Europe, was reminiscent of the struggles of thetime of Louis XIV, or even of the Thirty Years' War now a century in the past.It was, again, a kind of civil struggle within the Holy Roman Empire, in which aleague of German princes banded together against the monarchy of Vienna. Thistime they included the new kingdom of Prussia. It was, again, a collision ofBourbons and Habsburgs, in which the French pursued their old policy ofmaintaining division in Germany, by supporting the German princes against theHabsburgs. The basic aim of French policy, according to instructions given bythe French foreign office to its ambassador in Vienna in 1725, was to keep the
Empire divided by the principles of the Peace of Westphalia, 24 preventing theunion of German powers into "one and the same body, which would in factbecome formidable to all the other powers of Europe." This time the Bourbonshad Spain on their side. Maria Theresa was supported only by Britain andHolland, which subsidized her financially, but which had inadequate land forces.The Franco-German-Spanish combination was highly successful. In 1742 MariaTheresa, hard pressed, accepted the proposals of Frederick for a separate peace.She temporarily granted him Silesia, and he temporarily slipped out of the warwhich he had been the first to enter. The French and Bavarians moved intoBohemia and almost organized a puppet kingdom with the aid of Bohemiannobles. The French obtained the election of their Bavarian satellite as HolyRoman Emperor, Charles VII. In 1745 the French won the battle of Fontenoy inBelgium, the greatest battle of the war; they dominated Belgium, which neitherthe Dutch nor British were able to defend. In the same year they fomented theJacobite rebellion in Scotland.
But the situation overseas offset the situation in Europe. It was America thattilted the balance. The French fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island wascaptured by an expedition of New Englanders in conjunction with the Britishnavy. British warships drove French and Spanish shipping from the seas. TheFrench West Indies were blockaded. The French government, in danger of losingthe wealth and taxes drawn from the sugar and slave trades, announced itswillingness to negotiate.
Peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. It was based on an Anglo-Frenchagreement in which Maria Theresa was obliged to concur. Britain and Francearranged their differences by a return to the status quo ante bellum. The Britishreturned Louisburg despite the protests of the Americans and relaxed theirstranglehold on the Caribbean. The French returned Madras, which they hadcaptured, and gave up their hold on Belgium. The Atlantic powers recognizedFrederick's annexation of Silesia and required Maria Theresa to cede some Italianduchies-Parma and Piacenza-to a Spanish Bourbon. Belgium was returned toMaria Theresa at the especial insistence of Britain and the Dutch. She and herministers were very dissatisfied. They would infinitely have preferred to loseBelgium and keep Silesia. They were required, in the interest of a European oreven intercontinental balance of power, to give up Silesia and to hold Belgiumfor the benefit of the Dutch against the French.
The war had been more decisive than the few readjustments of the map seemedto show. It proved the weakness of the French position, straddled as it wasbetween Europe and the overseas world. Maintaining a huge army for use inEurope, the French could not, like Britain, concentrate upon the sea. On theother hand, because vulnerable on the sea, they could not hold their gains inEurope or conquer Belgium. The Austrians, though bitter, had reason forsatisfaction. The war had been a war to partition the Habsburg empire. TheHabsburg empire still stood. Hungary had thrown in its lot with Vienna, a factof much subsequent importance. Bohemia was won back. In 1745, when CharlesVII died, Maria Theresa got her husband elected Holy Roman Emperor, a positionfor which she could not qualify because she was a woman. But the loss of Silesia
"See pp. 145-149.
1`HE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 277
21 See pp. 225-226.
278 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND EMPIRE
was momentous. Silesia was as populous as the Dutch Republic, heavily German,and industrially the most advanced region east of the Elbe. Prussia by acquiringit doubled its population and more than doubled its resources. Prussia with Silesiawas unquestionably a great power. Since Austria was still a great power therewere henceforth two great powers in the vague world known as "Germany," asituation which came to be known as the German dualism. But the transfer ofSilesia, which doubled the number of Germans ruled by the king of Prussia, madethe Habsburg empire less German, more Slavic and Hungarian, more Danubianand international. Silesia was the keystone of Germany. Frederick was determinedto hold it, and Maria Theresa to win it back. A new war was therefore foreseeablein central Europe. As for Britain and France, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle wasclearly only a truce.
The next years passed in a busy diplomacy, leading to what is known as the"reversal of alliances" and Diplomatic Revolution of 1756. The Austrians setthemselves to nipping off the growth of Prussia. Maria Theresa's foreign minister,Count Kaunitz, perhaps the most artful diplomat of the century, concluded thatthe time had come to abandon ideas that were centuries old. The rise of Prussiahad revolutionized the balance of power. Kaunitz, reversing traditional policy,proposed an alliance between Austria and France-between the Habsburgs andthe Bourbons. He encouraged French aspirations for Belgium in return for Frenchsupport in the destruction of Prussia. The overtures between Austria and Franceobliged Britain, Austria's former ally, to reconsider its position in Europe; theBritish had Hanover to protect, and were favorably impressed by the Prussianarmy. An alliance of Great Britain and Prussia was concluded in January 1756.Meanwhile Kaunitz consummated his alliance with France. One consequencewas to marry the future Louis XVI to one of Maria Theresa's daughters, MarieAntoinette, the "Austrian woman" of Revolutionary fame. The Austrian alliancewas never popular in France. Some Frenchmen thought that the ruin of Prussiawould only enhance the Austrian control of Germany and so undo the fundamental"Westphalia system." The French progressive thinkers, known as "philosophes,"believed Austria to be priest-ridden and backward, and were for ideologicalreasons admirers of the freethinking Frederick II. Dissatisfaction with its foreignpolicy was one reason for the growth of a revolutionary attitude toward theBourbon government.
In any case, when the Seven Years' War broke out in 1756, though it was acontinuation of the preceding war in that Prussia fought Austria, and BritainFrance, the belligerents had all changed partners. Great Britain and Prussia werenow allies, as were, more remarkably, the Habsburgs and the Bourbons. Inaddition, Austria had concluded a treaty with the Russian empire for theannihilation of Prussia.
The Seven Years' War, 1756-1763: In Europe and America
The Seven Years' War began in America. Let us turn, however, to Europe first.Here the war was another war of "partition." As a league of powers had butrecently attempted to partition the empire of Maria Theresa, and a generationbefore had in fact partitioned the empires of Sweden and Spain, so now Austria,Russia, and France set out to partition the newly created kingdom of Prussia.
Their aim was to relegate the Hohenzollerns to the margraviate of Brandenburg.Prussia, even with Silesia, had less than 6,000,000 people; each of its threeprincipal enemies had 20,000,000 or more. But war was less an affair of peoplesthan of states and standing armies, and the Prussian state and Prussian army werethe most efficient in Europe. Frederick fought brilliant campaigns, won victoriesas at Rossbach in 1757, moved rapidly along interior lines, eluded, surprised, andreattacked the badly coordinated armies opposed to him. He proved himself thegreat military genius of his day. But genius was scarcely enough. Against threesuch powers, reinforced by Sweden and the German states, and with no allyexcept Great Britain (and Hanover) whose aid was almost entirely financial, thekingdom of Prussia by any reasonable estimate had no chance of survival. Therewere times when Frederick believed all to be lost, yet he went on fighting, andhis strength of character in these years of adversity, as much as his ultimatetriumph, later made him a hero and symbol for the Germans. His subjects, Junkersand even serfs, advanced in patriotic spirit under pressure. The coalition tendedto fall apart. The French lacked enthusiasm; they were fighting Britain, theAustrian alliance was unpopular, and Kaunitz would not plainly promise themBelgium. The Russians found that the more they moved westward the more theyalarmed their Austrian allies. Frederick was left to deal only with the implacableAustrians, for whom he was more than a match. By the peace of Hubertusburgin 1763 not only did he lose nothing; he retained Silesia.
For the rest, the Seven Years' War was a phase in the long dispute betweenFrance and Great Britain. Its stakes were supremacy in the growing worldeconomy, control of colonies, and command of the sea. The two empires hadbeen left unchanged in 1748 by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Both held possessionsin India, in the West Indies, and on the American mainland.25 In India both Britishand French possessed only disconnected commercial establishments on the coast,infinitesimal specks on the giant body of India. Both also traded with China atCanton. Both occupied way stations on the route to Asia, the British in St. Helenaand Ascension Island in the south Atlantic, the French in the much better islandsof Mauritius and Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Frenchmen were active also onthe coasts of Madagascar. The greatest way station, the Cape of Good Hope,belonged to the Dutch. In the West Indies the British plantations were mainly inJamaica, Barbados, and some of the Leeward Islands; the French in San Domingo,Guadeloupe, and Martinique. All were supported by the booming slave trade inAfrica.
On the American mainland the French had more territory, the British morepeople. In the British colonies from Georgia to Nova Scotia lived perhaps twomillion whites, predominantly English but with strong infusions of Scots-Irish,Dutch, Germans, French, and Swedes. Philadelphia, with some 40,000 people,was as large as any city in England except London. The colonies, in population,bulked about a quarter as large as the mother country. But they were provincial,locally minded, incapable of concerted action. In 1754 the British governmentcalled a congress at Albany in New York, hoping that the colonies would assumesome collective responsibility for the coming war. The congress adopted an"Albany plan of union" drawn up by Benjamin Franklin, but the colonial
1' See maps, pp. 196, 284.
THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 2 79
THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 281280 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND EMPIRE
legislatures declined to accept it, through fear of losing their separate identity.The colonials were willing, in a politically immature way, to rely on Britain formilitary action against France.
The French were still in possession of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, astronghold begun by Louis XIV, located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It wasdesigned for naval domination of the American side of the north Atlantic, and tocontrol access to the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes. and the vast regionnow called the Middle West. Through all this tract of country Frenchmenconstantly came and went, but there were sizable French settlements only aroundNew Orleans in the south and Quebec in the north. One source of French strengthwas that the French were more successful than the British in gaining the supportof the Indians. This was probably because the French. being few in numbers, didnot threaten to expropriate the Indians from their lands, and also becauseCatholics at this time were incomparably more active than Protestants in Christianmissions among non-European peoples.
Both empires, French and British, were held together by mercantilist regulationsframed mainly in the interest of the home countries. In some ways the Britishempire was more liberal than the French; it allowed local self-government andpermitted immigration from all parts of Europe. In other ways the British systemwas more strict. British subjects, for example. were required by the NavigationActs to use empire ships and seamen-English, Scottish, or colonial-whereasthe French were more free to use the carrying services of other nations. Britishsugar planters had to ship raw sugar to the home country, there to be refined andsold to Europe, whereas French planters were free to refine their sugar in theislands. The mainland British colonials were forbidden to manufacture ironwareand numerous other articles for sale: they were expected to buy such objectsfrom England. Since the British sold little to the West Indies, where the slavepopulation had no income with which to buy, the mainland colonies. though lessvalued as a source of wealth, were a far more important market for British goods.The colonials, though they had prospered under the restrictive system, werebeginning to find much of it irksome at the time of the Seven Years's War, andindeed evaded it when they could.
Fighting was endemic even in the years of peace in Europe. Nova Scotia wasa trouble spot. French in population, it had been annexed by Britain at the Peaceof Utrecht. Its proximity to Louisburg made it a scene of perpetual agitation. TheBritish government in 1755, foreseeing war with France, bodily removed about7,000 of its people, who called themselves Acadians, scattering them in smallnumbers through the other mainland colonies. But the great disputed area wasthe Alleghenies. British colonials were beginning to feel their way westwardthrough the mountains. French traders, soldiers, and empire builders were movingeastward toward the same mountains from points on the Mississippi and the GreatLakes. In 1749, at the request of Virginia and London capitalists, the Britishgovernment chartered a land-exploitation company, the Ohio Company, to operatein territory claimed also by the French. The French threw up a fort at the pointwhere the Ohio River is formed by the junction of two smaller rivers-FortDuquesne, later called Pittsburgh. A force of colonials and British regular troops,under General Braddock, started through the wilderness to dislodge the French.
It was defeated in July 1755, perhaps through its commander's unwillingness totake advice from the colonial officers, of whom one was George Washington.
A year later France and Britain declared war. The British were brilliantly ledby William Pitt, subsequently the Earl of Chatham, a man of wide vision andsuperb confidence. "I know that I can save the country," he said, "and I knowthat no one else can." He concentrated British effort on the navy and colonies,while subsidizing Frederick of Prussia to fight in Europe, so that England, as heput it, might win an empire on the plains of Germany. Only the enormous creditof the British government made such a policy feasible. In 1758 British forcessuccessfully took Fort Duquesne. Louisburg fell again in the same year. Gainingentry to the St. Lawrence, the British moved upstream to Quebec, and in 1759a force under General Wolfe, stealthily scaling the heights, appeared by surpriseon the Plains of Abraham outside the fortress, forcing the garrison to accept abattle, which the British won. With the fall of Quebec no further French resistancewas possible on the American mainland. The British also, with superior navalpower, occupied Guadeloupe and Martinique and the French slave stations inAfrica.
The Seven Years' War, 1756-1763: In India
Both British and French interests were meanwhile profiting from disturbedconditions in India. As large as Europe without Russia, India was a congestedcountry of impoverished masses, speaking hundreds of languages and followingmany religions and subreligions, the two greatest being the Hindu and the Muslim.Waves of invasion through the northwest frontier since the Christian year A.D.
1001 had produced a Muslim empire, whose capital was at Delhi and which fora short time held jurisdiction over most of the country. These Muslim emperorswere known as Great Moguls. The greatest was Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to1605, built roads, reformed the taxes, patronized the arts, and attempted tominimize religious differences among his peoples. The Muslim artistic cultureflourished for a time after Akbar. One of his successors, Shah Jehan (1628-1658),built the beautiful Taj Mahal near Agra, and at Delhi the delicately carvedalabaster palace of the Moguls, in which he placed the Peacock Throne, made ofsolid gold and studded with gems.
But meanwhile there was restlessness among the Hindus. The Sikhs, who hadoriginated in the fifteenth century as a reform movement in Hinduism, went towar with the Mogul emperor in the seventeenth century. They became one of themost ferociously warlike of Indian peoples. Hindu princes in central India formeda "Mahratta confederacy" against the Muslim emperor at Delhi. Matters weremade worse when Aurungzeb, the last significant Mogul emperor (1658-1707),adopted repressive measures against the Hindus. After Aurungzeb, India fell intopolitical dissolution. Many of the modern princely states originated or becameautonomous at this time. Hindu princes rebelled against the Mogul. Muslims,beginning as governors or commanders under the Mogul, set up as rulers in theirown right. Thus originated Hyderabad, which included the fabulous diamondmines of Golconda, and whose ruler long was called the wealthiest man in theworld. Princes and would-be princes fought with each other and with the emperor.
282 THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTtt AND EMPIRE
New Muslim invaders also poured across the northwest frontier. In 1739 a Persianforce occupied Delhi, slaughtered thirty thousand people and departed with thePeacock Throne. Between 1747 and 1761 came a series of forays from Afghanistan,which again resulted in the looting of Delhi and the massacre of uncountedthousands.
The situation in India resembled, on a larger and more frightful scale, whathad happened in Europe in the Holy Roman Empire, where also irreconcilablereligious differences (of Catholics and Protestants) had torn the country asunder,ambitious princes and city-states had won a chaotic independence, and foreignarmies appeared repeatedly as invaders. India, like central Europe, sufferedchronically from war, intrigue, and rival pretensions to territory; and in India, asin the Holy Roman Empire, outsiders and ambitious insiders benefited together.
The half-unknown horrors in the interior had repercussions on the coasts. Herehandfuls of Europeans were established in the coastal cities. By the troubles inthe interior the Indian authorities along the coasts were reduced, so to speak, toa size with which the Europeans could deal. The Europeans-British and French-were agents of their respective East India companies. The companies built forts,maintained soldiers, coined money, and entered into treaties with surroundingIndian powers, under charter of their home governments, and with no one inIndia to deny them the exercise of such sovereign rights. Agents of the companies,like Indians themselves, ignored or respected the Mogul emperor as suited theirown purpose. They were, at first, only one of the many elements in the flux andreflux of Indian affairs.
Neither the British nor the French government, during the Seven Years' War,had any intention of territorial conquest in India, their policy in this respectdiffering radically from policy toward America. Nor were the two companiesimperialistic. The company directors, in London and Paris, disapproved offantastic schemes of intervention in Indian politics, insisted that their agentsshould attend to business only, and resented every penny and every sou not spentto bring in commercial profit. But it took a year or more to exchange messagesbetween Europe and India, and company representatives in India, caught up inthe Indian vortex, and overcome by the chance to make personal fortunes or bydreams of empire, acted very much on their own, committing their home officeswithout compunction. Involvement in Indian affairs was not exactly new. Wehave seen how "Diamond" Pitt, in 1702, purchased the good will of the nawabof the Carnatic, when the nawab threatened, by military force, to reduce theEnglish traders at Madras to submission. 26 But the first European to exploit thepossibilities of the situation was the Frenchman Dupleix. Dupleix felt that thefunds sent out by the company in Paris, to finance trade in India, were insufficient.His idea seems to have been not empire-building, but to make the company intoa local territorial power, in order that, from taxes and other political revenues,it might have more capital for its commercial operations. In any case, during theyears of peace in Europe after 1748, Dupleix found himself with about 2,000French troops in the Carnatic. the east coast around Madras. He lent them outto neighboring native rulers in return for territorial concessions. The first to drillnative Indians by European methods, he was the originator of the "sepoys."
6 See p. 263.
THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763 283
Following a program of backing claimants to various Indian thrones, he built upa clientele of native rulers under obligation to himself. He was very successful,for a few European troops or sepoys could overcome hordes of purely Indianforces in pitched battle. But he was recalled to France in 1754, after the companybecame apprehensive of war with Britain and other trouble; and he died indisgrace.
When war came in 1756, British interests in India were advanced chiefly byRobert Clive. He had come out many years before as a clerk for the companybut had shown military talents and an ability to comprehend Indian politics. Hehad maneuvered, with little success, against Dupleix in the Carnatic in the 1740s.In 1756, on hearing the news of war in Europe, he shifted his attention to Bengal,hoping to drive the French from their trading stations there. The French werefavored in Bengal by the local Muslim ruler, Suraja Dowla, who proceeded toanticipate Clive's arrival by expelling the British from Calcutta. Capturing thecity, he shut up 146 Englishmen in a small room without windows (soon knownas the "Black Hole of Calcutta") and kept them there all night, during whichmost of them died of suffocation. Clive, soon appearing with a small force ofBritish and sepoys, routed Suraja Dowla at the battle of Plassey in 1757. He puthis own puppet on the Bengal throne and extorted huge reparations both for thecompany and for himself. Back in England he was received with mixed feelings,and again, in India, strove to purify the almost incredible corruption of companyemployees there, men normal enough but demoralized by irresistible chances foreasy riches. Finally he committed suicide in 1774.
It was British sea power, more fundamentally than Clive's tactics, that assuredthe triumph of British over French ambitions in the East. The British governmentstill had no intention of conquest in India, but it could not see its East IndiaCompany forced out by agents of the French company in collaboration withIndian princes. Naval forces were therefore dispatched to the Indian Ocean, andthey not only allowed Clive to shift from Madras to Calcutta at will, but graduallycut off the French posts in India from Europe and from each other. By the endof the war all the French establishments in India, as in Africa and America, wereat the mercy of the British. The French overseas lay prostrate, and France itself
was again detached from the overseas world on which much of its economyrested. In 1761 France made an alliance with Spain, which was alarmed for thesafety of its own American empire after the British victories at Quebec and inthe Caribbean. But the British also defeated Spain.
The Peace Settlement of 1763
he British armed forces had been spectacularly successful. Yet the peace treaty,signed at Paris in February 1763, five days before the Austro-Prussian peace of
ubertusburg, was by no means unfavorable to the defeated. The French Dukeif Choiseul was a skillful and single-minded negotiator. The British, Pitt having
allen from office in 1761, were represented by a confused group of parliamentaryvorites of the new king, George IlII. France ceded to Britain all French territoryn the North American mainland east of the Mississippi. Canada thereby became
British, and the colonials of the Thirteen Colonies were relieved of the Frenchresence beyond the Alleghenies. To Spain, in return for aid in the last days of
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system of the British empire. France therefore received back Guadeloupe andMartinique, as well as most of its slave stations in Africa. In India, the Frenchremained in possession of their commercial installations-offices, warehouses,and docks-at Pondicherry and other towns. They were forbidden to erectfortifications or pursue political ambitions among Indian princes-a practice whichneither the French nor the British government had hitherto much favored in anycase.
The treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg, closing the prolonged war of the mid-century, made the year 1763 a memorable turning point. Prussia was to continuein being. The dualism of Germany was to be lasting; Austria and Prussia eyedeach other as rivals. Frederick's aggression of 1740 was legalized and evenmoralized by the heroic defense that had proved necessary to retain the plunder.Frederick himself, from 1763 until his death in 1786, was a man of peace,philosophical and even benign. But the German crucible had boiled, and out ofit had come a Prussia harder and more metallic than ever, more disposed, by itsescape from annihilation, to glorify its army as the steel framework of its life.
The Anglo-French settlement was far-reaching and rather curious. Althoughthe war was won ovewhelmingly by the British, it resulted in no commercialcalamity to the French. French trade with America and the East grew as rapidlyafter the Seven Years' War as before it, and in 1785 was double what it had beenin 1755. For England the war opened up new commercial channels. British tradewith America and the East probably tripled between 1755 and 1785.27 But theoutstanding British gains were imperial and strategic. The European balance ofpower was preserved, the French had been kept out of Belgium, British subjectsin North America seemed secure, and Britain had again vindicated its commandof the sea. British sea power implied, in turn, that British seaborne commercewas safe in peace or war, while the seaborne commerce for the French, or of anyothers, depended ultimately on the political requirements of the British. But theFrench still had a few cards to play, and were to play them in the American andFrench Revolutions.
For America and India the peace of 1763 was decisive. America north ofMexico was to become part of an English-speaking world. In India the Britishgovernment was drawn increasingly into a policy of territorial occupation; aBritish "paramount power" eventually emerged in place of the empire of theMoguls. British political rule in India stimulated British business there, until inthe greatest days of British prosperity India was one of the main pillars of theBritish economic system, and the road to India became in a real sense the lifelineof the British empire. But in 1763 this state of affairs was still in the future andwas to be reached by many intermediate steps.
7 See pp. 259-262.
