Nation States, Religion, War, and The Armada
From about 1480 onward, the concept of “nation states” began to arise. The sentiment was new, in that ancient empires such as Persia and Babylonia were normally a collage of peoples, languages, and customs reaching over a vast area with the veneer of the empire’s rulers settling over the indigenous peoples. The Spanish Empire, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Austria-Hungarian Empire from the 1700s on, fit the same mold; however, the nation states’ roots go much deeper. It was a large area such as France, inhabited by generally similar peoples speaking the same language and all answering to a powerful central government. The key is all the people in the nation state considered everyone in the nation as one united entity—that is, one people. Like the people of the ancient city state, everyone was in the same boat and would advance or decline together. Similar religions, customs, languages, and history all combined to convince these rather large groups to people to think of themselves as one unit. Nearly all modern Western European nations and their progeny fit this category. Here was a momentous change in human thought, and these new inclinations would lead to both good and evil consequences.
The new nations would dramatically improve the national infrastructure of roads, banks, general staffs for the army, and bureaucracies for the monarch. Parliament would dramatically improve its position in England. In 1688, as part of the Glorious Revolution restoring the English monarchy, the incoming king accepted the English Bill of Rights.[101] This bill of rights gave Parliament the edge in the political relationship, and in due time Parliament became the controlling government body.
The discovery of the “New World” excited all of Europe. Part of the excitement involved exchanges of new foods. Corn (maize) and potatoes came to Europe, and wheat, barley, horses, and other herd animals went to the Americas. These new foods, along with an agricultural revolution in the 1700s, allowed an increase in the food production in Europe, helped ease some of the starvation prevalent in previous years, and contributed to a worldwide population upsurge from 1400 to 1700 (world population increased from about350 million in 1400 to 610 million by 1700). These new foods also had some drawbacks, as the Irish found out in the potato famine of 1845 to 1852, where 30 percent of Ireland’s population died because of an over dependency on potatoes. A fungus hit the potatoes destroying copious amounts of the crop. In spite of a tremendous death toll, England’s Parliament acted slowly and ineptly. Nevertheless, the new foods helped the agricultural economies of Europe and the New World quite a bit.
As the explorers set out to find new worlds, inside Europe new religious rivalries were coming to the surface. From outside Europe Islam was hammering at the Balkans, while inside Europe the Roman Catholic Church suffered from increasing corruption. Several movements were trying to reform the Church, such as the monastic movement,[102] and humanist influences from philosophers like Sir Thomas Moore (1478 to1535), and Erasmus (1466 to1536) talked against corruption; however, no endeavor brought real change within the Church. A Church led by wealthy popes leading depraved lives was not going to change through its leadership. Some reformers paid with their lives for challenging Church doctrines, so many who desired restructuring stayed quiet.
All this changed with the advent of Martin Luther (1483 to 1546), an Augustinian monk who, in 1517, nailed his ninety-five theses to a church door at Wittenberg, Germany, demanding the Catholic Church end corrupt practices, change its doctrines, and recognizesalvation by faith alone. Luther took a big chance with his life, and he might have lost both his life and his spiritual battle if not for the protection of German princes who wanted to break from the pope and his long tradition of extracting money from them. With this protection, he survived several attempts on his life by the supporters of the pope, wrote a Bible that a common person could read,[103] and printed several tracts defending his position on the Bible. Marrying a defrocked nun only confirmed to all Catholics Luther was in league with Satan. Eventually, the Protestant Reformation spread across northern Germany, Scandinavia, and England (kinda sorta). From the city of Geneva, Switzerland, which became a religious state, John Calvin (1509 to 1564) spread his form of the Protestant faith (a belief in predestination, hard work, and thrift) to France and Holland. Calvin’s Protestant sect had an outsized worldwide influence that lingers until this day. The Protestant Reformation generated many sects of Christianity, and many wars, causing millions of deaths across Europe. Like all religious wars, they were brutal.
The Catholic leaders of Europe had numerous problems. Under escalating attacks from the Muslim east they needed the German princes to help repel the threat; accordingly, they could not destroy them to get to Martin Luther. The problem of defending Catholic empires (like Spain) from upstart nations (like England) took men and money, adding to their woes and wreaking their ability to crush the Protestants. As the Protestant religion spread, the Catholic response became more violent as France and other nations began killing their own. In Spain, Phillip wanted to end the Protestant rebellion in the Netherlands that England was supporting. This small fact would lead to a famous sea battle and then the demise of a great Catholic worldwide empire, followed by the foundation of a new and even greater Protestant worldwide empire.
Henry VIII of England really threw a wrench into the religious works when he decided to replace his queen with a much younger woman. In times past the monarch could just buy the pope off, but this time the pope refused, thereby turning King Henry VIII into a fat vat of smoldering anger.[104] He decided the King of England could darn well head his own church, so he decided to go Protestant and reject the Catholic Church in 1533.[105] Soon he had put his old queen away and married a much younger one—and then decided to marry another, and another, and, well, the whole thing just went nuts. King Henry ended up with six (6) wives, most going to their deaths to make way for the next woman in the king’s bed. After King Henry’s death, Elizabeth I of England, the daughter of Ann Boleyn (the second wife), eventually became queen; and she was a Protestant.
Henry VIII did more than just argue with Catholics over women and power. He set the foundations for the future might of England when he decided to build the most advanced navy in the world. His ships had the best cannons and the best designs. This decision, continued by his successors, was foundational and eventually made England the most powerful nation on earth for over 350 years.
Phillip, King of Spain and ruler of the Netherlands (at least he thought so), sent his army to fight the Dutch Protestants over their claim of independence (Holland, et al). It would be a war lasting eighty years. This was a tough war, fought over what amounted to salt marshes by troops wearing heavy armor pounding away with crude and inaccurate guns, long pikes, and heavy swords. The fighting gained little for Spain, and Phillip thought the so-called virgin queen of England (Elizabeth) was helping the rebels. So, following the custom of the day, Phillip sent diplomats to diplomatically tell the virgin queen to back off assisting the rebels. Elizabeth, following the custom of the day, gently replied she could do nothing of the sort, while lying and denying England was sending aid.—also part of the customs of the day. Naturally, this upset the Spanish king, but he still wanted a better reason to go to war, and Elizabeth gave it to him. There was another heir to the English throne, Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic enjoying wide support in England. She was, however, Elizabeth’s prisoner making it hard to push a claim. Mary made a few poor decisions and ended up charged with conspiring to kill Elizabeth (all true) which got her condemned to death. Soon her head was bouncing away from her otherwise gorgeous body, and the King of Spain had what he needed, a righteous reason to war with England.
King Phillip constructed the Spanish Armada, a fleet consisting of numerous exceptionally outsized ships, to invade England. King Phillip planned to sail his fleet to Holland, load his waiting infantry aboard the massive ships, and thence sail to England and debark for conquest. Realizing he needed a lot of men to invade England, the Spanish king thought many large ships were necessary to haul the men and equipment. Phillip may have been right about the need for large ships, but did all of them have to be so large? Believing the Catholic God was on his side, King Phillip put the Armada to sea in 1588 with orders to sail for Holland.
Figure 31 Route of the Spanish Armada
Things immediately began to go wrong for the Armada. Many of the ships were not seaworthy, and the men had little training in sailing, firing cannons, or otherwise surviving at sea. When the Armada appeared on the British horizon the English sea dogs set out in their small, but very maneuverable, ships to meet the challenge. Elizabeth was ashore with her army, all decked out in gleaming armor and ready to fight, but armies were unnecessary in this battle. The highly experienced English seamen vigorously attacked the Armada, but the grand ships sailed on with little noticeable damage. The Armanda successfully sailed to Holland, but unfortunately for the Spanish the troops were not ready to board. Somehow, no one informed them when the Armada would arrive. Seeing this was a mess, the Spanish dropped anchor, waiting for the morrow while trying to figure out what to do.
The English had other plans. Seeing the Spanish at anchor, the English unleashed several fire ships, burning from stem to stern, at the stationary Spanish Galleons when the wind was right. The fire ships caused a general Spanish panic, and a few of their ships were lost, but mainly the Spanish were unnerved. With things deteriorating and no troops appearing for the invasion, the Spanish admiral made a bad decision. He decided to return to Spain, but not down the channel—the way they came—but around Scotland and Ireland, and then back to Spain. The Spanish sailed north to their doom. On the way home tremendous storms struck the Armada tearing the vessels apart. The ships were not all that seaworthy anyway, and the massive storms simply gave them no chance. Nearly the entire Armada was lost at sea or driven onto the rocky Irish coast where plundering and murder awaited the warships and men courtesy of the area’s unruly inhabitants.
The loss of the Armada, by whatever means, was a huge blow to the Spanish war effort. Building the Armada drained the treasury, always bad news in a war, and the loss of men hurt as well. This began the loss of the worldwide Catholic empire. Meanwhile, England celebrated a miraculous victory. Elizabeth I became a legendary leader by way of the defeat of the Armada, and England would go on to secure its place as the world’s predominant sea power for 350 plus years (until the end of World War II in 1945). This was the start of the worldwide Protestant empire.
Europe Undergoes Vast Change
The Catholic Church was undergoing a new beginning because of groups like the Jesuit order founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola. This spawned the Counter-reformation against the Protestants. Eventually, the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) managed to stop the worst church offenses. None of this prevented the two warring Christian sides from murdering one another in the name of God. The Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648) devastated huge tracts of Europe, and the English civil wars (1642 to 1649) managed to do the same in England. The Puritans won in England, thereby allowing Oliver Cromwell to establish a virtual military dictatorship as “lord protector” (after beheading Charles I in 1649). These wars and beheadings failed to endear Catholics and Protestants to one another, so the fighting just went endlessly on. Cromwell died in 1658, followed in 1660 by the Restoration of the monarchy when Charles II became King of England. His son, James II, after losing a war with the Parliamentarians, lost his kingship which was assumed by the Protestant William of Orange, who became King in 1688. It was after this so-called Glorious Revolution that he took the crown as William III of England. Unknown to James II, he was the last Catholic monarch of England.
Another subtle, but extremely powerful, change was spreading in Europe. Land, the measure of wealth for probably 5,000 years, was becoming something less. Money—cash that is—created by trade and commerce was becoming the something more. Quickly, it seems from the record, the people at the pinnacle now longer held land. They had cash in the bank, ships for commerce, storehouses of goods, and other trappings of capitalist wealth. Landholders typically hold little cash. In feudal times land equaled power because people with land controlled commerce. Commerce was now flowing from fast growing cities where landholders had no say. As the merchants accumulated money and expanded their power, land was less valuable. Hard money was the language of the new era. This decreased the power of the landholding nobility somewhat, and it caused the monarchs pause, because their power was land based; after all, taxes came from land. Monarchs and parliaments learned to tax commerce to increase their wealth, but the nobility lacked that taxing power, so the landholders watched their power melt away into the cities of a new epoch.
While religious wars snuffed people out at a fantastic rate, something else was having a profound influence on religion and human endeavors of all types. Science was coming of age, and with the invention of the printing press the spread of experimentally confirmed knowledge was assured.
Science and the Printing Press (The Road to Tomorrow)
1430
One of the greatest inventions since the advent of language and agriculture, the PRINTING PRESS is a key reason the modern world exists as it does today.
Our modern world exists because of the printing press. In about 1430, Johann Gutenberg, a goldsmith in Germany, invented a method of printing using movable type, the precursor of the modern printing press. His press was so good it spread all over Europe and the world very quickly. At the same time the printing press was producing books and pamphlets in large numbers, the Protestant Reformation, the rise of science, and new political ideas were emerging and changing the world. Without the printing press such ideas may not have spread as quickly or might fail to spread at all. The printing press was so powerful that Muslim countries banned it in 1515 because it might spread Western learning.
Large numbers of people began reading as books and tracts became widely available. They included: the Bible as translated by Luther, the King James Bible (1611), the tracts on science by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, the political thoughts of Moore (Utopia 1516), Machiavelli (The Prince 1513), philosophers like John Locke, and literature by Shakespeare (1553 to1616). Once these ideas moved off the press their power was limitless. Efforts by churches and traditionalist to thwart the growth of new ideas about the earth, the universe, and mankind were condemned to failure once the concepts hit the printing presses and a literate public.[106]
The first book off the new printing press was the Gutenberg Bible in 1455. This book held the words of a man scourged and crucified in about AD 33 in the backwater Roman province of Palestine (modern day Israel). This poor fellow died crucified between two criminals, was not of noble birth or any kind of government official. His burial place was a cave with a rock rolled over the front. No one chiseled his words into stone like emperors or Pharaohs. He lived before the printing press, newspapers, tape recorders, radio, TV, or any modern method of keeping records of the spoken word. When he died, his friends said they did not know him, and his death went unrecorded in any official record we know about. It seems the only thing owned when he died was the clothes on his back which were filthy, blood-soaked rags after his scourging and crucifixion. He died alone, childless, no wife, without money, without worldly power or position on the dusty outskirts of Roman civilization. Before his crucifixion, he made a strange statement: “Heavenand earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt: 24:35). His statement was confirmed, at least in the short run, when Gutenberg published the Gutenberg Bible, because the man who spoke those words was Jesus Christ. The most printed book on planet earth is the Bible carrying the words of Jesus Christ who suffered scourging and crucifixion outside the gates of the city of Jerusalem so long ago.[107]
Yet, the printing press did not seem to be a friend of religion so long as it printed the words of men scouring the earth and the heavens for answers to the mysteries of life. The acceptance of the scientific method was the key to advancing empirical knowledge, and the advance of mankind’s empirical knowledge grew spectacularly in Europe. This was the scientific revolution that was throwing out old ideas of an earth-centered universe through the work of Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler. By explaining the movement of the planets in the sky they were able to prove that the sun was the center of the solar system. It was the start of a new way of thinking. Before, people looked to the past or the books of Aristotle or Ptolemy to explain the world, but now people would not read the classics to see what was fact or fiction. Now people tested it for themselves, and if the classic view failed the test, rejection was the result. New ideas based on tested facts became the accepted view, and any new empirically proven “facts” survived only so long as they withstood testing. This brave new empirical world started during the Renaissance and zoomed ahead during the 1600s and 1700s in Europe. And its growth never stopped accelerating.
The new scientific and practical advances were astounding: Peter Heinlein invented the first pocket watch in 1500; in 1515 the first rifles were developed; Isaac Newton described the laws of gravity in 1665 and in his publication of Principia Mathematica (1687) united gravity, inertia, and centrifugal force; William Harvey discovered how blood circulated in the human body by 1628; Fermat put forth the statistical theory of probability in 1659; John Kay invented the flying shuttle loom in 1733; and so on. After laying the foundations of science, more discovery and invention followed until a tidal wave of progress swept the Western World.
The Arts—Painting
During this period, painting began to advance as never before. Michelangelo (1475 to 1654), Titian, Durer, Raphael, Jan van Eyck, El Greco, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt (1606 to 1669), Holbein, and many others brought painting away from the stiff and unrealistic styles of the Middle Ages to the vibrant, realistic, and almost-animated paintings of 1400 to 1600. The artists were using new colors based on oil paints invented in 1400, and painting on new material (canvas) with new techniques founded on perspective drawing (perspective discovered about 1434) that brought the paintings alive. There was still an enormous amount of symbolism, but the depiction of the world became very real. Oils allowed new techniques of paint application including the layering of color where very thin coats of multiple colors were laid on over a long period. This allowed light to enter through the layers of thin paint and then bounce back to the viewer’s eye, imparting a glow to the paintings that made the colors iridescent. Nothing like this had ever been seen before.
Speed of Change
Due to the printing press new ideas now spread with astonishing speed and clarity. Ideas spread by word of mouth can warp quickly, but once written down the idea remains the same no matter how many people read the book or pamphlet. This foretells the pace of change in the modern world. Today, 2010, the pace of change is so fast that most of it goes unreported and almost unnoticed. A publication called Science News comes out once per week filled with summaries of new discoveries which most people will never hear of directly. The flow of information has been increasing since 1455, and it is now so great (with the Internet, TV, radio, computers, newspapers, etc.) it is impossible to sort through it all. In ancient Persia, the fastest way to get information around was by pony express (not their name for it). Until the telegraph in 1837, pony express was the quickest way possible to transmit detailed information. Now, the push of a button electronically transports a hundred pages of text to Japan from America in seconds. Hence, from 1837 to 2010, the speed of information transfer has increased from a running horse to the speed of light. From before 5000 BC to 1837, it had not increased at all.
The French Revolution 1789 to 1799
The French Revolution is so significant it is difficult to exaggerate its importance. Yet, it is a very complex revolt changing France and Europe a lot, but then changing them very little. The Revolution started in 1789 when starving people in Paris, France, decided to do something about it. Riots and confrontations shook the government, escalating until the king and queen were captured and then beheaded by the unleashed forces of change. Shortly thereafter, suspicious radicals commenced beheading anyone they could lay their hands on calling them enemies of the Revolution, and those beheaded included several prominent early leaders of the rebellion. During the crisis, a strong man arose and captured the Revolution, eventually naming himself emperor of France in 1804. Now everyone is back where they started minus thousands of dead and a swarm of wars stemming from the Revolution. It did not really end until 1815, after the strong man was defeated at Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna convened to stop the wars and achieve a political balance in Europe. The strong man was Napoleon, and his ideas on war and government came to dominate the age. The French Revolution set off numerous new political, social, and cultural ideas, but in the final event the “old order” prevailed, suppressing many of the innovative ideas. Still, such ideas did not die, and a permanent structural change took place in the culture and the societies of Europe touched by this inferno.
It all started in the late seventeen hundreds when France was a prosperous state, and one of the most powerful nations in the world. Louis XIV (1661 to 1715), the Sun King, pushed the boundaries of France to the Rhine River, and the luxury of his court was unmatched in Europe. However, novel ideas were starting to challenge monarchies. The Enlightenment was taking hold of the intellectual minds in Europe, and they questioned everything. Reason was their god, and they knew no other. To these intellectuals, “reason” consisted of applying empirical methods to all matters (some said apply the “methods of Newton,” but that was the scientific method), and under this analysis the “divine right of kings” was suspect.[108]
The expansion of France under Louis XIV, plus his extravagant lifestyle, drained the state treasury. As time went on, French kings refused to reduce their lifestyles. The French court and nobility were well-known for beauty and pageantry—all very expensive. Unfortunately, the tax situationwas mediocre due to several exclusions from the tax rolls, the Catholic Church being the largest, followed by exclusions for the nobility. As Louis XVI ascended to kingship, the financial situation was atrocious. Making a bad situation worse, the 1780s had seen a series of meager harvests, and the poor were doing without food. Additional tax money is hard to find amongst the starving. Casting about for a way to get taxes from Church holdings (which were extensive in both land and buildings[109]) and the wealthy nobility, Louis XVI decided to call together the Estates-General in May of 1789 (the same year the USA adopted its Constitution). The Estates-General was a gathering of the three classes of society in a national assembly, and in theory it possessed the power to impose taxes where the king could not. Unfortunately, for Louis XVI and his queen MarieAntoinette he had called together a group of men who would lop their heads off.
After the Estates-General assembled an impasse soon arose. The First and Second Estates were comprised of the clergy and the nobility, and they refused to allow any kind of tax change, especially in exemptions, because their taxes would increase from zero to something, and that something might be a lot. The clergy also feared the seizure of Church land. The Third Estate was comprised of everyone not in the First and Second estates and represented ninety plus percent of the population. The Third Estate stormed out of[110] the Estates-General in an unhappy mood, and formed the National Assembly. Shortly thereafter unrest increased and a Paris mob stormed an old jail called the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and released its prisoners—all six of them. During the storming of the ancient jail the army was mustered to suppress the rioters, but the military refused to fire on the starving public and joined the revolt. That was the end for the monarch of France. This event is often used to mark the start of the Revolution. The National Assembly decided to transform France into a constitutional monarchy. They promptly freed the peasants by abolishing serfdom, confiscated all the lands, buildings and money of the Catholic Church in France, and acted as if King Louis XVI was a criminal. The pope rejected the idea that a government could seize Church property, thereby raising the issue of authority. Who owned the land, the French National Assembly or the Church? The fellows with an army easily answered that issue, and the Church lands were lost. The word flew across Europe about the new government in France, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and other pronouncements indicating the age of monarchs and popes was over and the age of the people was dawning. Unfortunately, it was a red dawn.
We should pause to note that the French Revolution differed extensively from the American Revolution even though tax policies started the trouble both times. The American Revolution started because England was pushing Americans around, and they objected with gunfire. The settlers wanted Parliament to leave them alone. It was a war of independence from Great Britain more than a revolution. A revolution aims at the ruling government and its desire is to replace that government with another. In America’s case the revolutionaries wanted to keep their local government and get rid of the overseeing government in England. In France, the Revolution was started by bad economic times and starving peasants, then expanded to answer the question “who had the ultimate right to rule?” The people won, and the assembly of the people took over from the king—for awhile. The goal of the uprising was to oust King Louis XVI and replace him with a different kind of government. They did not want a new king, they wanted a new state. And that the French revolutionaries both compelled and received . . . in spades.
Intellectuals across Europe saw the French Revolution as a wake-up call for the monarchs who continued to rule most of Europe, and not benevolently. The peasants everywhere wanted a change, and the French model seemed a good place to start. This alarmed every government in Europe. The radical ideas of the French Revolution might overthrow the conservative governments. As the danger was amplified through increasingly radical words and actions from Paris, the governments of Europe began preparations for the coming storms. The popularity of the French Revolution with the peasants and intellectuals of many nations, and growing threats against the Revolution from neighboring realms, triggered the French decision to export the Revolution. This in turn led to the pitiless wars of the 1800s often called the Napoleonic Wars.
In Paris, the National Assembly beheaded the king and his family[111] after an escape attempt. It was probably a sad sight watching the royal family, surrounded by cheering crowds and dressed in peasants’ clothes, put to death because they were of royal blood. There was no other crime except their status. That was enough for the Revolution and the Committee of Public Safety as they began killing anyone of royal blood or royal connection. With France fighting to maintain its national sovereignty, radical elements of the Revolution gained more power, soon beginning theReign of Terror (1793 to 1794) which took the lives of several extremist leaders of the Revolution. At the height of the terror, George Danton and Maximilien Robespierre led the Committee of Public Safety, supervising a killing machine sweeping through France murdering over 18,000 in Paris alone. Both these men’s heads would roll by the very method, the guillotine, they had used to slay so many others. The extremist journalist and publisher Jean Paul Marat got a killing knife stuck in him by the counter-revolutionary Charlotte Corday on July 13, 1793, leading to increasingly harsh measures by the Committee. Marat was demanding the execution of nearly everyone, and the publisher could rouse the mobs of Paris to zealous action at his whim. Charlotte said she killed one man to save one hundred thousand, and was much later viewed as a hero. Scorned at the time, Charlotte was executed four days after she stabbed Marat. In Paris the government devolved into chaos, while outside Paris European states invaded France trying to bring the Revolution to a halt.
War now seemed to be the only way to protect and spread the Revolution. The National Assembly began drafting citizens of the French Republic (the Revolution’s new name) in mass to fight for the “new” nation. An army made up of large numbers of draftees,rather than small numbers of professional soldiers, was an original concept in the Europe of 1800. Once this large army took the field smaller opposing armies endured defeat after defeat. Under Napoleon Bonaparte with his innovative ideas, the combination of massed armies and inspired leadership proved almost unstoppable.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a low ranking artillery officer in the French Army prior to 1789. Born in Corsica, a French island off the Mediterranean coast, his chances in the old aristocratic French army were nil, but revolutionary France opened the door for the rough but able Corsican. Proving himself on the battlefield, he quickly achieved the rank of general and soon held sway over all the armies of France. By 1799, he established a military dictatorship over France and its (his) conquests. The dictatorship was cleverly masquerading as a continuation of the Revolution and the French Republic. Napoleon had conquered nearly all before him, and he expanded the French Republic (later the French Empire) over the face of Europe.[112] On May 18, 1804, while declaring the French Empire, he crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I. It is important to note that he crowned himself; no priest or government official put the crown on his head. As such, he claimed no right flowing from god, the church, or anybody else (such as the people of France). By crowning himself he was showing that his person alone was the cause for his becoming emperor. This is very much in line with the Age of Reason. Once more, as in Rome, we go from a Republic to an Empire through the actions of a great general—only very much faster.
The ascension of Napoleon to the crown ended the French Revolution; although, it really ended in 1799 after Napoleon took over as a dictator in everything except name. The French Revolution rocked Europe to its foundations. All the fundamental truths accepted without question for hundreds of years were gone. Critical to European culture was the decreed demise of the Church and the rise of the nation state. After Napoleon, the Church was irrelevant to underwriting a king or queen’s power. The emperor or king or parliament held power because they could and did as they pleased with state power. They determined good and evil by their will alone. The Church lost its lands, and its monastic orders underwent dissolution. God was nothing to the revolutionaries of France.[113]
In May of 1794, the Revolution abolished the Christian Religion. Reason was to control the minds of men, but “reason” led to the Reign of Terror, the murder of the king and queen, and wars that were brutal beyond measure. The new killing fever was not because one god fought another, but because one man fought another over differing views on government. Gods could not stop men from killing, but now that man claimed to be free from gods, he managed to come up with other reasons to kill every bit as motivating as any god had been. Worse yet, as the government of France existed without the sanction of any god, and as it admitted to no god beyond reason, it was freed from all restrictions as long as “reason” justified the actions. Had the revolutionaries acknowledged the existence of God and the relevance of the Bible, Christian moral restrictions would apply; however, with Christian moral restraints removed and replaced by reason it was found that “reason” could justify any action including the Reign of Terror (remember the Sophist?). Reason, it seemed, recognized no absolutes.
France decided all things must be questioned by the light of reason. The French decided history itself must center on their Revolution; thus, they created a new calendar to reflect its central importance. The metric system of weights and measures was adopted, new fashions were invented, and the Napoleonic Code was published just to name a very few of the concepts arising from the French Revolution; on the other hand, for all their thoughts about being the center of the world and their Revolution the focus of history, notmuch changed. In the end, Napoleon destroyed himself in a series of military blunders rivaling Hitler’s some 124 years later. After a massive attack on Russia and the total loss of his frozen army, Napoleon was sent to the island of Elba and exile. His final gasp was his return from exile followed by France restoring him as emperor (how dumb can people get), the declaration of war on Napoleon by England, Prussia and nearly everyone else in Europe, and the final battle at Waterloo in 1815 where a combination of English and Prussian forces crushed the French. This time Napoleon ended up on a drab Pacific island where he died in 1821, probably from poison slipped into his food by a servant working on the island who hated him.
Figure 32 Napoleon’s Empire 1810
After Napoleon’s fall, the nations of Europe assembled in the Congress of Vienna which sorted out all the trouble caused by the French, re-established the “old regimes” in Europe, and set the foundations for modern Europe. This peace would hold from 1815 to1914, ninety-nine years in all, and resulted in remarkable prosperity and success for Europe. The Congress of Vienna was historic, and even though small wars occurred during the ninety-nine years, the great powers remained generally at peace saving the world from untold suffering.
The Impact of Empires
1650 to 1950
Empires held by Western European nations had an unqualified impact on world history. The British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Belgium, and the Netherlands’s empires gobbled up much of the world’s surface outside of Europe and the United States, and these empires lasted a very long time.
From about 1650 to 1950 is a general period for the existence of European Empires; thus, Europe had control of most of the world for three hundred years. The growth of these empires was especially rapid. In 1815, about 35 percent of the earth’s habitable area was controlled by Europe, but by 1914, this percentage was at 85 percent. The only non-European nation establishing a modern empire was Japan whose empire was Asian. These empires, especially the English, brought Europe’s technological advancements to all parts of the globe. This in turn brought goods and raw materials from the world to Europe, leading to a general prosperity having a worldwide positive impact. The citizens of the mother countries did not run the empires as a whole. A few government administrators in powerful positions made decisions affecting the daily lives of millions of common folks across the planet. In general, a handful of men positioned at the top of their nation’s officialdom governed the colonies of each imperial power. One order could send out lesser administrators to alter lives across the globe.
One must comprehend the worldwide reach of the empires to understand the world of 1700 and beyond. These empires made England, France, Holland, Portugal, and other European states the center of the world in financial, military, political, and cultural power for more than three hundred years. As such, the political machinations of Europe hit the entire globe. The boundaries of the empires really displayed political considerations in Europe, and they were placed to assist Europeans in governing their empires. As such, the lines drawn by the European Empires were not a fit solution for the situation existing on the ground. Nonetheless, as the empires toppled, the lines established in Europe became the boundaries of modern-day states. The inappropriateness of these boundaries is obvious as vicious wars over the frontiers continue even today.
As the empires flourished, so did the world. Extensive trade, the adoption of the gold standard to ease the payment problems between nations, and increasing prosperity led to more inventions and more infrastructure development in Europe and their empires. England ruled the world because of her powerful navy and extensive empire. Raw materials from the world over hurried to England’s factories for transformation into finished goods ranging from ships to tea. With Britain’s extensive coalfields, energy to fuel its expansion into an industrial giant was easy to find. The United Kingdom became the world’s richest nation, and its wealth was growing constantly during the Age of Empires. The rest of Europe was doing fine as well, and after the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, growth and prosperity were commonplace in the Western world.
(See Figures 19, 20 and 43 for maps of the colonial empires)
The Industrial Revolution
1750 (approximate beginning)
Before the French Revolution, another revolution had started which would have considerably more impact on the world. The Industrial Revolution started about 1750, when water was first used to power new mills for cutting wood, weaving cloth on new kinds of looms, and otherwise putting something other than human or horse muscle to work making products for growing worldwide commercial markets.[114] Since the end of the fourteenth century the population of Europe had been growing, increasing the demand for goods and services.[115]
Numerous inventions marked the new age. The flying shuttle loom was invented in 1733, improving the production of finished cloth goods; by 1740, the processing of cast iron and steel progressed markedly; 1779 saw the first iron bridge constructed in Britain; in1782, James Watt developed the double-acting steam engine; in 1785, the power loom was invented in Britain, and in 1793, Whitney invented the cotton gin in the United States. By 1807 the first commercial steam boat was operating in America; by 1814, the first steam locomotive was running in Britain and by 1825, Britain opened its first railroad. 1837 saw the invention of the steel plow in the US, while in 1839 France photography developed with the daguerreotype. Goodyear vulcanized rubber in America that same year. Moreover, these are only a few of the achievements that occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Something invented in England during the Age of Discovery would have an unprecedented impact on the Industrial Revolution—the corporate form of enterprise. Originally, these were companies formed by individuals with the approval of the crown and were given an exclusive area of trade such as the East India Company. These were very successful, and soon private stock corporations began to show they too could achieve success. A corporation normally consists of owners (stockholders) who hire people to oversee the corporation (the board of directors). The board of directors hires the corporation executives (president or chief operating officer, treasurer, sales manager and so forth), and the corporate executives are responsible for making money for the shareholders. If they fail to do so, the board of directors can, and will, replace them with other executives. If the board fails to act rationally, the stockholders can fire the board and hire other people to insure the enterprise makes money. The corporate form of enterprise has shown itself to be a most powerful organizational tool. Repeatedly, corporations outperformed individuals competing against it. One example was Henry Ford. He built the most powerful automotive company on earth which he operated as the sole owner. An upstart company combined many small automotive companies together and adopted the name General Motors, but they also adopted the corporate form of enterprise under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan. Within a few years the men at General Motors had nearly driven Ford Motor Company out of business.
Of course, corporations fail all the time, but the power of the corporate form of enterprise is easily proven in modern business life. The top companies in the world are corporations. Year after year, corporations dominate Fortune Magazine’s list of the top 500 companies. This ability to combine management talent was one reason the Industrial Revolution made such good progress. Once more, we should notice this new organizational tool was perfected in the Western world.
These advances brought a new kind of life to the world, an urbanized life in cities that would be larger than ever before but also connected to the countryside and other cities as never before. As railroads grew, connecting cities across various nations, the ability to transport raw materials increased as well. Factories, such as iron works or textiles, were constructed near the people needed to operate them and close to the populace that would buy the finished goods. The new urban centers brought together the railroads, the workers, the shoppers, and the sellers all in one relatively small area. With demand for labor growing wages were good, and the new machines coupled with cheaper delivery of raw materials allowed the prices of manufactured goods to fall. People financing these new ventures, bankers and stockbrokers for example, made enormous amounts of money as did the new manufacturers themselves.
The urban environment included some very rich folks, many of them new to such wealth. In the urban centers entertainment, housing, food delivery, and many other comforts grew to serve the new wealthy citizens flowing into the cities. For many, the new urban centers were shining examples of a new world where people could live in safety and contentment making a good living and building a sound future. Throughout Europe after 1815, economies grew at an unprecedented pace. Prices were falling and wages were rising all over Europe. Things were looking up for the common person as well. Peasants were turning into factory workers, food production was going up (new growing and harvesting techniques), and new inventions were making work simpler and easier all the time. The confluence of science, inventions, and work were changing the world in dramatic ways.
Naturally, not all of this was good. As the peasants moved to the cities, many found themselves crowded into small and unsanitary living areas (slums). The new factories polluted the rivers, air, and ground. The factory workers were expected to work extremely long hours under strenuous conditions. As long as there was a labor shortage the wages kept rising, but as the new machines became more efficient the need for labor fell. This created a labor glut that drove wages down. There was also the new boom and bust cyclescreated by the new economies. Market crashes affected more people, and downturns became a problem for the rich and poor alike. Governments themselves became concerned with these cycles, as market troubles put people out of work and increased stress on societies and their ability to address the problems created by hunger and homelessness. Some of the panics were long and harsh. Luckily, most of these panic cycles were short, lasting only 1 to 2 years, and the cities and governments endured without much change. However, far-reaching new philosophies came forth dealing with these new environments created by cities and the working class poor. In 1848, Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto that decried the conditions of the working classes and predicted a revolution would overthrow the capitalist system. Other reformers working to change the lives of the poor, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), thought alcohol was the root cause of urban evils and lobbied to ban liquor sales.
As the new cities continued to grow, the new underclass also grew. The problems of the urban poor would not abate in spite of the actions of social welfare agencies and special interests groups such as the WCTU. Crime was rampant in the crumbling areas of the cities where poverty reigned supreme. Theft, molestation, rape, prostitution, murder, beatings, and gang activity were ordinary events. Whores were everywhere in these areas, drunkenness was common, drug abuse relentless, and all manner of low behavior was ensconced in these eroding neighborhoods of the new urban scene. None of this was new; nevertheless, the scale of the problems had expanded greatly (except perhaps in ancient Rome). Ancient civilizations could not solve the problems, and the new urban centered civilizations likewise found no solutions.
Art and the Future of Europe
1874
Art was taking a new turn as the French Impressionist began exhibiting in 1874 (Monet, Manet, Renoir et al). These artists refused to paint glorious scenes from the past; rather, they painted scenes from the glorious, and not so glorious, present. Prior to the Impressionist, painting in France was confined to scenes from antiquity showing great moments in history such as the birth of Venus or a celebrated battle scene. The Impressionist broke this pattern by painting everyday scenes such as railway stations, a person sitting at a bar, or a crowded city street scene complete with balloon vendors. No longer did a painting have to show something noteworthy. The common person was now a good subject for immortality in paint. The Impressionist changed the methods of painting. The Impressionist avoided the insides of studios where a painting’s completion took weeks or months; instead, they went outside, and by using modern tube paints and canvas painted scenes rather quickly. Light was their subject, and the play of light across the scene was all important. Catching the fleeting light was hard; consequently, the faster one painted the better one could seize the ever-changing rays and convert them into a picture. The application of paint to the canvas was unlike the smooth style employed by accomplished French salon painters. Impressionist applied paint in dips and dabs that, if looked at closely, appeared to be a mess of colors; yet, upon standing back the colors, dips, and dabs fused to form a brilliant and glimmering recital of light and substance. In precise hands the effect was light and life dancing on the canvas.
Figure 33 Monet, Hotel de Roches Noires, Trouville, 1870.
The Impressionist displayed a new world of speed and commotion which was chaos up close, but from a distance became beautiful and seductive. As art “progressed,” this beauty fell into a deep ugliness without form or reason. The “splatter paintings” of the 1950s by Jason Pollock were foretold by Van Gogh (usually considered Impressionist), Gauguin, Seurat, Matisse (Fauvism 1909), Max Ernst (1923 early surrealism), Picasso and Braque (Cubism 1910), and Salvador Dali (Surrealism 1931). J. Pollock represents Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s.
Artists’ predicted where the world was heading from 1870 through 1914, and the destination was not the gleaming cities of sanity and serenity envisioned by the common person in 1800.[116] According to the artists of the late 1800s, the world was plummeting into insanity and darkness where life would make no sense, and the world of reason would melt away. According to the art of the 1950s, life had no meaning and the future was chaos or worse. The decline of the world, according to the artists, began about the time of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of science. Art foretold of a world without sense, purpose, God, or reason to guide mankind. A world ruled by machines doesn’t need a God. The purpose for existence was gone according to the painters, writers, and composers.
The visual arts lost their way after Impressionism. The world, while bad in many ways, is not awful everywhere. People do live for more than death. Science does not tell us the world has no God. Impressionism still observed the confused world as a good place where each person and event had a purpose. [117] To make this statement, they did something new and broke all the old traditions. As art went onward, it seems “new” was all that mattered. If it had not been done before, then it was genius. As a result, Picasso “sculpted” using an old bike seat with bike handlebars attached, called it “bull,” and won acclaim. Pollock threw paint at a canvas, a huge canvas, and became the greatest artist since Rembrandt. The same elitist trends go on today. This is not art. Art without skill, real and abiding skill with attention to detail, is nothing.
The Industrial Revolution never ended. Machines continue to improve, and new inventions are coming all the time. In the year 2010, machines and computers have long since been married and the result is very smart machines. People may be the same murdering, cheating, conniving slime we have always been; nevertheless, we have nice stuff. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars to 1914, Europe generally enjoyed prosperity and peace. There were wars in faraway places as colonial powers fought to keep their conquests, and short wars erupted between Austria, and later France against Germany; however, to most people in England and Europe things looked good. Great advances were being made everywhere. One of the greatest was made by Frenchman L. Pasteur in 1864 with his germ theory. After Pasteur’s discovery, medical science began an unprecedented advance to the modern age and its fantastic medical miracles. Most of this was due to the Industrial Revolution. Our modern world enjoys industrial progress because of the foundations laid down from 1750 onward, and that prosperity still looks good.[118]
Rise of New Nations in Central Europe
After 1700, both Italy and Germany (Prussia) began to coalesce as nation states. By the peace of 1815 and the defeat of Napoleon, both Prussia and Italy gained territory and more independence. In 1848, there was a general revolt in the German and Italian principalities, but the armies remained loyal to the central governments, and in the aftermath these governments grew stronger. The sovereigns liberalized their policies by abolishing serfdom and adding power to representative assemblies. The Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed in 1861, grew to include Rome and Venice by 1870. Italy was at last united, but still struggling with industrialization and modernization. Otto Von Bismarck proclaimed the German Empire in 1871 after conducting wars to consolidate areas around Prussia forcing them under Prussian control. Bismarck was the political giant of the age, as his practical but cold-blooded politics united Germany, defeated Austria and France in war, and resulted in a German Constitution and Empire. Conflicts with Austria stopped its interfering with Prussian affairs, leading to reform in the Austrian monarchy and the establishment of Austria-Hungary in 1867. A final war of German consolidation took place between Prussia and France in 1871 (the Franco-Prussian War) which was sharp but short, resulting in Alsace-Lorraine being taken by the German Empire while France’s Second Republic was toppled and replaced by the Third Republic. Now Germany and Austria-Hungary were established as nation states in Central Europe, with Germany being the foremost of these nations. Bismarck then set out to prevent wars involving Germany from occurring. He had what he wanted, a united Germany, and he desired to maintain the status quo while Germany consolidated its industrial power. The advent of a new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, ended Bismarck’s foreign policies designed to keep Europe at peace.
The newly formed Germany wanted recognition and respect. Its problem, its new Kaiser thought, was Germany had an insufficient navy and no colonies. This was a very poor analysis. The Kaiser set out to get both, thereby putting Germany on a collision course with England and France. The competition for prestige and influence resulted in an all-out arms race. Germany’s main goal in the arms race was a powerful navy because she already possessed a powerful army. Germany managed to acquire colonies in Africa and the Pacific, but they never got to the point of satisfaction. Trying to be on a par with England and France, who pursued colonies for over a century before Germany’s founding, was insane. Why Germany thought it must be like England or France to achieve greatness is hard to understand. Germany’s obvious path was that of a great Central Europeanland power, not a world sea power. Seeking sea power made it necessary to challenge England and upset the apple cart holding Europe’s balance of power. Dumb German decisions would trigger arms races and other tensions, thereby fostering the policies and decisions that led to a general European war in 1914.
The new nation states were stirring things up. The old pot of Europe began boiling over as the emerging nation states tried to push aside older nation states that disliked the unhappy interlopers for many reasons. Economic competition was unwelcome in 1900s Europe as nations looked upon economics as a win-lose game. In fact, when trade increases everyone benefits—even if some benefit more than others do. Thus, competition in Europe heated up, and centuries old hatreds refused to die. Mistrust piled upon tensions dating back to Charlemagne causing the European world to become a heavily armed and nervous camp.
Let Us Learn
History teaches us through the Armada to plan well, communicate well, and train people for the task. Spain’s leaders planned poorly, in that the Armada’s ships and crews were unfit for the task. Better training for the crews, better ships for the job of defending the Armada, and better communication to the troops in Holland might have altered history. Also, never assume God is on your side as King Philip assumed. From England’s response, we learn to be prepared, be ready to do the unusual to grasp the goal, and be flexible enough to act in accordance with the changing situation. And just because one is small, defeat does not follow by that fact alone.
The Protestant Reformation shows the dangers of corruption. The Catholic Church forfeited the right to lead by engaging in corrupt practices for centuries. It finally caught up with them. In addition, part of the corruption involved persecuting individuals calling for righteous change. Best listen to those asking for honest corrections to shady activities, even if they are your own. This revolt tells us the power of an idea. One man, after several suffered death before him, spoke of salvation by faith alone. Anyone reading the Bible could reach the same conclusion. That idea started the Protestant Reformation, a world changing series of events. People respond to ideas with fervor; recall this when watching political rallies or reading about revolutions. Rejoice in the power of ideas and understand their full power and potential.
Nations chasing England’s path to world power illustrate the idiocy of assuming what worked before will work now. Each nation’s or individual’s situation is distinct. Unclear, stilted thinking threw away chances for positive progress by Germany and other countries trying for “greatness” through military power and colonial acquisitions. Mapping out the best course of action requires knowing your unique situation, the situation of others involved, and knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. If you are five foot nine and weigh 165 pounds your chances of playing linebacker in the NFL are nil. Learn to live with that. If you excel at math attend college and major in engineering. Germany blew it big time by poorly analyzing their fundamental situation and its advantages and disadvantages. Rather, they dreamed of achievements not fitting their situation, angered everyone with their activities, and then ignored the anger and the danger. Don’t do that. Learn to be realistic and take things one step at a time. If your actions bring trouble coupled with active confrontation immediately change course so your actions bring positive results. Flexibility, clear analysis, and superior research bring positive rewards while avoiding dreadful pitfalls.
The French Revolution teaches us moderation. Radicals seizing the Revolution destroyed its ideals achieving worse than nothing. Practice moderation and notice where your actions are taking you. If your path is laced with strife, alter the path. Concentrate on small (moderate) thoughtful changes and notice the results. The big changes in France shook up the neighborhood turning all governments against them. The French Republic needed to alter course. Instead, they kept the same course and eradicated themselves. Avoid that error.