THE STORY OF THE MAP of EUROPE THE LAKE HISTORY STORIES m The Lake History Stories The Lake History Stories THE HARDING BOOKS GREEK GODS, HEROES, AND MEN, by Samuel B. Harding and Caroline H. Harding. 202 pages, 12 full page illustrations. Price $0.50 THE CITY OF THE SEVEN HILLS, by Samuel B. Harding and Caroline H. Harding. 274 pages, 38 illustrations and maps. Price : .50 THE STORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES, by Samuel B. Harding. New edition, revised and enlarged. 256 pages, 79 illustrations and maps. Price 50 THE STORY OF ENGLAND, by Samuel B. Harding and William F. Harding. 384 pages, 7 maps, and 138 illustrations. Price 60 Teachers' Manual, 73 pages, price 25 cents. THE STORY OF EUROPE, from the Times of the Ancient Greeks to the Colonization of America. Based on the report of the Committee of Eight to the American His- torical Association. By Samuel B. Harding and Margaret Snodgrass. 384 pages, 128 illustrations and maps. Price. .60 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, by Edwin E. Sparks, M.A., Ph.D., State College, Penn- sylvania. 472 pages, 184 illustrations and maps. Price. .60 THE STORY OF THE MAP OF EUROPE, by L. P. Benezet. 282 pages, 56 illustrations, 22 maps (6 in colors). Price. . . .60 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK THE STORY OF THE MAP OF EUROPE ITS MAKING AND ITS CHANGING BY L. P. BENEZET SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1916 By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY PREFACE This little volume is the result of the interest shown by pupils, teachers, and the general public in a series of talks on the causes of the great European war which were given by the author in the fall of 1914. The audiences were widely different in character. They included pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, students in high school and normal school, teachers in the public schools, an association of business men, and a convention of boards of education. In every case, the same sentiment was voiced: "If there were only some book which would give us these facts in simple language and illustrate them by maps and charts as you have done!" After searching the market for a book of this sort without success, the author deter- mined to put the subject of his talks into manuscript form. It has been his aim to write in a style which is well within the comprehension of the children in the upper grades and yet is not too juvenile for adult readers. The book deals with the remarkable sequence of events in Europe which made the great war inevitable. Facts are revealed which, so far as the author knows, have not been published in any history to date; facts which had the strongest possible bearing on the outbreak of the war. The average American, whether child or adult, has little conception of conditions in Europe. In America all races mix. The children of the Polish Jew mingle with those of the Sicilian, and in the second generations both peoples have become 357349 2 Preface Americans. Bohemians intermarry with Irish, Scotch with Norwegians. In Europe, on the other hand, Czech and Teuton, Bulgar and Serb may live side by side for centuries without mixing or losing their distinct racial characteristics. In order that the American reader may understand the compli- cated problem of European peace, a study of races and languages is given in the text, showing the rela- tionship of Slav, Celt, Latin, and Teuton, and the various sub-divisions of these peoples. A knowledge of these facts is very essential to any understanding of the situation in Europe. The author has pointed out the fact that political boundaries are largely king-made, and that they have seldom been drawn with regard to the natural division of Europe by nationalities, or to the wishes of the mass of the population. The chapter, entitled " Europe as it Should Be," with its accompanying map, shows the boundaries of the various nations as they would look if the bulk of the people of each nationality were included in a single political division. In many places, it is, of course, impossible to draw sharp lines. Greek shades off into Bulgar on one side and into Skipetar and Serb on the other. Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is one-third German in its population. There are large islands of Germans and Magyars in the midst of the Roumanians of Transylvania. These are a few examples out of many which could be cited. However, the general aim of the chapter has been to divide the continent into nations, in each of which the leading race would vastly predominate in population. It is hoped that the study of this little work will - Preface 3 not only throw light upon the causes of war in gen- eral, but will also reveal its cruelty and its needless- ness. It is shown that the history of Europe from the time of the great invasions by the Germanic tribes has been a continuous story of government without the consent of the governed. A preventive for wars, such as statesmen and phil- anthropists in many countries have urged, is out- lined in the closing chapter. It would seem as though after this terrible demonstration of the results of armed peace, the governments of the world would be ready to listen to some plan which would forever forbid the possibility of another war. Just as individuals in the majority of civilized countries discovered, a hundred years ago, that it was no longer necessary for them to carry weapons in order to insure their right to live and to enjoy protection, so nations may learn at last that peace and security are preferable to the fruits of brigandage and aggres- sion. The colonies of America, after years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tre- mendous war, at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way are the remains of feudal government in Europe and the ignorance and short-sightedness of the common people in many countries. Ignorance is rapidly waning with the advance of education, and we trust that feudalism will not long survive its last terrible crime, the world war of 1914. In the preparation of this little work, the author has received many helpful suggestions from co- workers. His thanks are especially due to Professor A. G. Terry of Northwestern University and Pro- 4 Preface fessor A. H. Sanford of the Wisconsin State Normal School at La Crosse, who were kind enough to read through and correct the manuscript before its final revision. Acknowledgment is also made to Row, Peterson and Company for kind permission to use illustrations from History Stories of Other Lands; also to. the International Film Service, Inc., of New York City for the use of many valuable copyright illustrations of scenes relating to the great war. L. P. BENEZET. La Crosse, Wisconsin, January 20, 1916. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Preface 1 List of Maps 6 List of Illustrations 7 I. The Great War 9 II. Rome and the Barbarian Tribes 22 III. From Chiefs to Kings 37 IV. Master and Man 52 V. A Babel of Tongues 61 VI. " The Terrible Turk" 78 VII. The Rise of Modern Nations 87 VIII. The Fall of Two Kingdoms 101 IX. The Little Man from .the Common People . .112 X. A King-Made Map and Its Trail of Wrongs . 127 XI. Italy a Nation at Last 136 XII. The Man of Blood and Iron 144 XIII. The Balance of Power 162 XIV. The" Entente Cordiale" 178 XV. The Sowing of the Dragon's Teeth 191 XVI. Who Profits? 203 XVII. The Spark that Exploded the Magazine ... 212 XVIII. Why England Came In 222 XIX. Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition 231 XX. Europe As It Should Be 243 XXI. The Cost of It All 251 XXII. The Causes of War and a Remedy 260 Pronouncing Glossary 269 Index: . . 273 LIST OF MAPS PAGE Distribution of Peoples According to Relationship . . 65 Distribution of Languages 66 Southeastern Europe in 600 B.C 72 Southeastern Europe 975 A.D 74 Southeastern Europe 1690 82 The Empire of Charlemagne 90 Europe in 1540 (following) 92 The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia 1400-1806 .... 99 Italy in 525 114 Italy in 650 115 Italy in 1175 116 Europe in 1796 (following) 118 Europe in 1810 (following) 120 Europe in 1815 (following) 130 Italy Made One Nation 1914 .... (following) 142 Formation of the German Empire 158 Southeastern and Central Europe 1796 168 Losses of Turkey During the Nineteenth Century ... 169 Turkey As the Balkan Allies Planned to Divide It . . . 192 Changes Resulting from Balkan Wars 1912-1913 ... 198 The Two Routes from Germany into France ...... 220 Europe as It Should Be (following) 246 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Peace Palace at the Hague Frontispiece Fleeing from Their Homes, Around which a Battle is Raging 12 A Drill Ground in Modern Europe 20 The Forum of Rome as It Was 1600 Years Ago .... 26 The Last Combat of the Gladiators 28 Germans Going into Battle 31 A Hun Warrior 32 Gaius Julius Caesar 34 A Frankish Chief 38 Movable Huts of Early Germans 39 Goths on the March 40 Franks Crossing the Rhine 41 Men of Normandy Landing in England 42 Alexander Defeating the Persians 44 A Knight in Armor 46 A Norman Castle in England 53 A Vassal Doing Homage to His Lord 56 William the Conqueror 58 A Typical Bulgarian Family 76 Mohammed II Before Constantinople 79 A Scene in Salonika 85 Louis XIV- 92 John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough 93 The Great Elector of Brandenburg . . 94 Frederick the Great 96 Catharine II 103 Courtier of Time of Louis XIV 105 The Taking of the Bastille 106 7 8 List of Illustrations The Palace of Versailles 107 The Reign of Terror 109 The First Singing of "The Marseillaise" 110 Charles the Fifth 117 The Emperor Napoleon in 1814 122 The Retreat from Moscow 124 Napoleon at Waterloo 126 The Congress of Vienna 128 Prince Metternich 134 The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel . 140 Bismarck 145 An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War . 154 The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of Germany 156 Peter the Great .164 Entrance to the Mosque of St. Sophia 166 The Congress of Berlin 170 An Arab Sheik and His Staff 179 A Scene in Constantinople 184 Durazzo 196 A Modern Dreadnaught 202 Submarine 204 A Fort Ruined by the Big German Guns 218 Russian Peasants Fleeing Before the German Army . .234 A Bomb-proof Trench in the Western War Front ... 238 Polish Children . 247 The Price of War 250 Rendered Homeless by War 253 Charles XII of Sweden . . 256 THE STORY OF THE MAP OF EUROPE CHAPTER I THE GREAT WAR The call from Europe. Friend against friend. Why? Death and devastation. No private quarrel. Ordered by government. What makes government? The influence of the past. Four causes of war. Among the bricklayers at work on a building which was being erected in a great American city during the summer of 1914 were two men Russian, who had not yet become citizens of the United States. Born abroad, they still owed allegiance, one to the Emperor of Austria, the other to the Czar of Russia. Meeting in a new country, and using a new language which gave them a chance to under- stand each other, they had become well acquainted. They were members of the same labor union, and had worked side by side on The two several different jobs. In the course of time, a chums firm friendship had sprung up between them. Suddenly, on the same day, each was notified to call at the office of the agent of his govern- 9 10 The Story of The call from Europe A sad parting The great war merit in the city. Next morning the Russian came to his boss to explain that he must quit work, that he had been called home to fight for the " Little Father" of the Russians. He found his chum, the Austrian, there ahead of him, tell- ing that he had to go, for the Russians had declared war on Austria and the good Kaiser,* Franz Josef, had need of all his young men. The two chums stared at each other in sorrow and dismay. The pitiless arm of the god of war had reached across the broad Atlantic, plucking them back from peace and security. With weapons put into their hands they would be ordered to kill each other on sight. A last hand-clasp, a sorrowful "Good luck to you," and they parted. Why was this necessary? What was this irresistible force, strong enough to separate the two friends and drag them back five thousand miles for the purpose of killing each other? To answer these two questions is the purpose of this little volume. Beginning with the summer of 1914, Europe and parts of Asia and Africa were torn and racked with the most tremendous war that the world has ever seen. Millions of men were killed. Other millions were maimed, blinded, or disfigured for life. Still other millions were * In the German language, the title Kaiser means Emperor. The Map of Europe 11 herded into prison camps or forced to work like convict laborers. Millions of homes were . filled with grief. Millions of women were hardships forced to do hard work which before the war had been considered beyond their power. Millions of children were left fatherless. What had been the richest and most productive farm- ing land in Europe was made a barren waste. Thousands of villages and towns were utterly destroyed and their inhabitants were forced to flee, the aged, the sick, and the infants alike. In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally starving, because all food had been seized for the use of , Terrible fighting men. Dreadful diseases, which cannot suffering exist where people have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of vic- tims. The strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or to work for mankind's happiness. The only mills and factories which were running full time were those that turned out the tools of (12) The Map of Europe 13 destruction and shot and shell for the guns. Nations poured out from fifty to sixty million dollars a day for the purpose of killing off the best men in Europe. Had the world gone mad? What was the reason for it all? In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their money in Germany. France and Austria exchanged goods and their inhabitants traveled within each other's boundaries. A Frenchman might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or Belgian. The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could meet and find plenty of ground for friendship. We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred. One can imagine that JN o private two men living side by side and seeing each quarrel other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other, but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a whole army of their oppon- ents. In many cases, the soldiers did not see the men whom they were killing. An officer 14 The Story of War at long range Govern- ment ordered slaughter What makes a govern- ment with a telescope watched where the shells from the cannon were falling and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed and fired the gun. Once in a while, a shell from the invisible enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing and wounding. When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians because they were told to do so by their officers, and the Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so ordered them. The officers on each side were only obeying orders received from their generals. The generals were only obeying orders from the government. In the end, then, we come back to the govern- ments, and we wonder what has caused these nations to fly at each other's throats. The question arises as to what makes up a govern- ment or why a government has the right to rule its people. In the United States, the government officials are simply the servants of the people. Practically every man in our country, unless he is a citizen of some foreign nation, has a right to vote, and in many of the states women, too, have a voice in the government. We, the people of the United States, can choose our own lawmakers, can The Map of Europe 15 instruct them how to vote and, in some states, Govem- ment by can vote out of existence any law that they the people have made which we do not like. In all states, we can show our disapproval of what our law- makers have done by voting against them at the next election. Such is the government of a republic, a " government of the people, by the people, and for the people," as Abraham Lincoln called it. In December, 1914, and again, in December, 1915, a bill was introduced into the United States Congress, which provided that ojui_comitry^Biay not declare war except by the^direjc^vote j)Mts_j3eople. Some such law wilf probably soon be passed. How is it in Europe? Have the people of Germany or Russia the right to vote on war? Were they consulted before their governments called them to arms and sent them to fight each other? It is plain that in order to understand what this war is about, we must look into the story of how the different governments of - f Europe came to be and learn why their peoples obey them so unquestioningly. We must remember that government by the people is a very new thing. One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United States only about one-fourth of the men had the right to new vote. These were citizens of property and wealth. They did not think a poor man was 16 The Story of Unthink- ing obedience "The Battle of Blenheim' worth considering. In England, a country which allows its people more voice in the govern- ment than almost any other nation in Europe, it is only within the last thirty years that all men could vote. There are some European countries, like Russia, where the people have practically no power at all and others, like Aus- tria, where they have very little voice in how they shall be governed. For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up their weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known nothing of the causes of the conflict or of what they were fighting for. A famous English writer has written a poem which illustrates how little the average citizen has ever known concerning the cause of war, and shows the difference between the way in which war was looked upon by the men of old and the way in which one should regard it. The poem runs as follows: THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine. The Map of Europe 17 She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet In playing there had found, He came to ask what he had found That was so large and smooth and round. Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh " Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory. "I find them in the garden, For there's many hereabout; And often when I go to plow, The plowshare turns them out! For many a thousand men," said he, "Were slain in the great victory." "Now tell us what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries; And little Wilhelmine looks up With wonder-waiting eyes "Now tell us all about the war, And what they fought each other for." "It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; But what they fought each other for I could not well make out; But everybody said," quoth he, "That 'twas a famous victory. 18 The Story of "My father lived at Blenheim then, Yon little stream hard by; They burnt his dwelling to the ground, And he was forced to fly; So with his wife and child he fled, Nor had he where to rest his head. "They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won - For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory. "Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, And our good Prince Eugene." "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" Said little Wilhelmine. "Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory. "And everybody praised the duke Who this great fight did win." "But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. "Why, that I cannot tell," said he; "But 'twas a famous victory." Robert Southey. , ' BJ )ld Kaspar, who has been used to such things Cui bono? alUhis life, cannot feel the wickedness and horror (What is O f t i^ e battle. The children, on the other hand, the good of , it?) 'have a different idea of war. They are not satisfied until they know what it was all about The Map of Europe 19 and what good came of it, and they feel that "it was a very wicked thing." If the men in the armies had stopped to ask the reason why they were killing each other and had refused to fight until they knew the truth, the history of the world would have been very different. One reason why we still have wars is that men refuse to think for themselves, because it is so The tyranny of much easier to let their dead ancestors think the dead for them and to keep up customs which should have been changed ages ago. People in Europe have lived in the midst of wars or preparation for wars all their lives. There never has been a time when Europe was not either a battlefield or a great drill-ground for armies. There was a time, long ago, when any man might kill another in Europe and not be punished for his deed. It was not thought wrong to take human life. Today it is not considered wrong to kill, provided a man is ordered to do so by his general or his king. When two kings go to war, each claiming l.ls quarrel to be a just one, wholesale murd^i is done, and each side is made by its gove rr -nt to think itself very virtuous and whoi fied in its killing. It should be the greai an of everyone today to help to bring about lasting peace among all the nations. HHMHfc* . *& (20) The Map of Europe 21 In order to know how to do this, we must study the causes of the wars of the past. We Four causes shall find, as we do so, that almost all wars can of wars be traced to one of four causes: (1) the instinct among barbarous tribes to fight with and plunder their neighbors; (2) the ambition of kings to enlarge their kingdoms; (3) the desire of the traders of one nation to increase their commerce at the expense of some other nation; (4) a people's wish to be free from the control of some other country and to become a nation by itself. Of the four reasons, only the last furnishes a just cause for war, and this cause has been brought about only when kings have sent their armies out, and forced into their kingdoms other peoples who wished to govern themselves. Questions for Review (a) Why must foreigners in the United States return to their native lands when summoned by their governments? (6) How is it that war helps to breed diseases? (c) Is race hatred a cause of war or a result of it? (d) Whom do we mean by the government in the United States? (e) Who controls the government in Russia? (/) Who in England? (g) Who in Germany? (k) Who in France? (i) In Southey's poem, how does the children's idea of the battle differ from that of their grandfather? Why? ('O Are people less likely to protest against war if their forefathers have fought many wars? (fc) What have been the four main causes of war? CHAPTER II ROME AND THE BARBARIAN TRIBES New governments in Europe. Earliest times. How civilization began. The rise of Rome. Roman civiliza- tion. Roman cruelty. The German tribes. The Slavic tribes. The Celtic tribes. The Huns and Moors. The great Germanic invasions of the Roman world. To search for the causes of the great war New which began in Europe in 1914, we must go govern- f ar back i n t o history. It should be remembered merits in Europe that many of the governments of today have not lived as long as that of our own country. This is, perhaps, a new thought to some of us, who rather think that, as America is a new country, it is the baby among the great nations. But, one hundred and thirty years ago, when the United States was being formed, there was no nation called Italy; the peninsula which we now know by that name was cut up among nine or ten little governments. There was no nation known as Germany; the land which is in the present German empire was then divided among some thirty or thirty-five different rulers. There was no Republic of France; instead, France had a king whose will was law, and the French people were cruelly oppressed. 22 The Map of Europe 23 There was no kingdom of Belgium, no kingdom of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Roumania. The years ago -kingdom of Norway was part of Denmark. The Republic of France, as we now know it, dates back only to ,1871; the Empire of Germany and the United Kingdom of Italy to about the same time. The kingdoms of Roumania, Ser- bia, and Bulgaria have been independent of Turkey only since 1878. The kingdom of Albania did not exist before 1913. Most of the present nations of modern Europe, then, are very new. The troubles which led to the great war, however, originated in the dim twilight of history. In the earliest days, there were no separate countries or kingdoms. Men gathered to- p ur sava s e gether in little bands, each of which had its fathers leader. This leader was generally chosen be- cause of his bodily strength and courage. He was the best fighter of the tribe. The people did not have any lasting homes. They moved around from place to place, wherever they could find the best hunting and fishing. When two tribes wanted the same hunting grounds, they fought, and the weaker party had to give way. Selfishness was supreme. If a man Club law wanted anything which belonged to his weaker neighbor, he simply beat this neighbor over the head with his club, and took it. The stronger 24 The Story of tribe attacked the weaker, without any thought of whether or not its quarrel was just. Gradually, in the southern and warmer parts of Europe, the tribes began to be more civilized. Beginnings Towns sprang up. Ships were built. Trade civilization came to be one of the occupations. The fight- ing men needed weapons and armor; so there grew up artisans who were skilled in working metals. In Egypt and Syria there were people who had reached quite a high degree of civil- ization, and gradually the Europeans learned from them better ways of living. First the Greeks, then the Etruscans (E-trus'cans), a people who lived in Italy just north of where Rome now is, and finally the southern Italians learned that it was possible to live in cities, Change of occupations without hunting and plundering. Grazing (the tending of flocks of animals) came to be the occupation of many. The owners of sheep or cattle drove their flocks from place to place, as grass and water failed them where they were. There was no separate ownership of land. At last came the rise of the city of Rome, which, starting out as the stronghold of a little gang of robbers, spread its rule gradually over all the surrounding country. By this time, the barbarians of northern Europe had gotten past , the use of clubs as weapons. They, too, Bronze and iron had learned to make tools and arms of bronze, The Map of Europe 25 and those living near civilized, countries had obtained swords of iron. The club, however, still remained as the sign of authority. The large bludgeon of the chief was carried before the tribe as a sign of his power over them. You have all seen pictures of a king sitting on his throne and holding a wand or stick in his right hand. It is interesting to think that this Meaning scepter, which the present king of England ? the carries on state occasions to remind his people scepter of his power, is a relic of the old, old days when his grandfather, many times removed, broke the head of his rival for leadership in the tribe and set up his mighty club for his awestruck people to worship. The city of Rome (at first a republic, after- wards an empire) spread its rule over all of Beginnings Italy, over all the shores of the Mediterranean f the Roman Sea, and finally over all the countries of Europe Empire south and west of the rivers Danube and Rhine. One of the emperors planted a colony north of the Danube near its mouth, and the descendants of these colonists are living in that same country today. They have not forgotten their origin, for they still call themselves Romans (Roumani [Roo-ma'ni]), and talk a language greatly resembling the Latin, which was the tongue spoken by the Romans of old. With the excep- tion of this country, which is now Roumania > 26 The Story of The Map of Europe 27 the part of Europe north and east of the Danube The and Rhine was practically free from the Romans, boundary In this territory, roving bands wandered around, driving their cattle with them and clearing the woods of game. In some ways, the Romans were a highly civilized people. They had schools where their Roman children were taught to read and write, to speak civilization Greek, and to work problems in geometry. They had magnificent public buildings, fine temples and palaces. They built excellent paved roads all over the southern part of Europe, and had wonderful systems of aqueducts which supplied their cities with pure water from springs and lakes miles away. Their dress was made of fine cloth. They knew how to make paper, glass, and steel. On the other hand, they were a cruel and bloodthirsty people. Their favorite amusement was to go to shows where gladiators fought, cruelty either with each other or with wild beasts. These gladiators were generally men from tribes which had fought against Rome. They had been captured and brought to that city, where they were trained to use certain weapons. Then on holidays, with all the people of Rome packed into big amphitheaters, these unfortu- nate captives were forced to fight with each other until one man of each pair was killed. THE LAST COMBAT OF THE GLADIATORS The Map of Europe 29 It occasionally happened that one gladiator might be wounded, and lie helpless on the sand, gladiators The spectators would then shout to the victor- ious fighter to take his knife and finish what he had begun. In this way what would seem to us like cold-blooded murder was committed hun- dreds of times each year, while the fairest ladies and young girls of Rome sat and watched with eager interest. Thus, although the Romans had all the outward appearance of being civil- ized, they were savages at heart, and had no sympathy for any people who were not of their own race. In the early days, the Romans prided them- selves on their honor. They scorned a lie and ? ard y , honorable looked down on anyone who would cheat or fighters deceive. They lived hardy lives and would not allow themselves luxuries. They rather de- spised the Greeks, because the latter surrounded themselves with comforts in life. The early Romans were fighters by nature. They had a certain god named Janus (our month January is named after him) and his temple was open only when they were engaged in war. It is a matter of history that during the twelve hundred years from the first building of Rome to the end of the Roman Empire, the temple of Janus was closed on but three occasions and then only for a short time. 30 The Story of About five or six hundred years after the founding of Rome came several disastrous wars which killed off a great majority of her sturdy fighters. Rome was the victor in all of these wars, but she won them at tremendous cost to herself. With the killing off of her best and bravest men, a great deal of the old time honesty Decay of was \ os> i t Very soon, we begin to hear of Roman Roman morals governors who, when put in charge of conquered states, used their offices only to plunder the helpless inhabitants and to return to Rome after their terms were finished, laden with ill-gotten gains. Roman morals, which formerly were very strict, began to grow more lax, and in general the Roman civilization showed signs of decay. To the north and east of the Roman Empire dwelt a people who were to become the leaders Germans of the new nations of Europe. These were the free German tribes, which occupied the part of Europe bounded, roughly, by the rivers Danube and Rhine, the Baltic Sea, and the Carpathian Mountains. In many ways they were much less civilized than the Romans. They were clad in skins and furs instead of cloth. They lived in rough huts and tents or in caves dug in the sides of a hill. They, too, like the Romans, held human life cheap, and bloodshed and murder were common among them. As The Map of Europe 31 a rule, the men scorned to work, leaving what- End ever labor there was, largely to the women, fighting while they busied themselves in fighting and hunting, or, during their idle times, in gambling. Nevertheless, these people, about the time that the Roman honesty began to disappear, had virtues more like those of the early Romans. They were frank and honorable. The men were faithful husbands and kind fathers, and their GERMANS GOING INTO BATTLE family life was very happy. They were bar- barous and rough, but those of them who were taken to Rome and learned the Roman civil- ization made finer, nobler men than Rome was producing about the time of which we speak. To the east of these German tribes were the The Slavs Slavs, a people no better civilized, but not so warlike in their nature. As the Germans, in later years, moved on to the west, the Slavs, in turn, moved westward and occupied much 32 The Story of The Celts of the land which had been left vacant by the Germans. The inhabitants of western Europe, that is, France, Spain, and the British Isles, were largely Celts. In fact, all Europe could be said to be divided up among four great peoples: A HUN WARRIOR There were the Latins in Italy, the Celts in western Europe, the Germans in central Europe, and the Slavs to the east. All of these four families were distantly related, as can be proved by the languages which they spoke. The Greeks, while not belonging to any one of the The Map of Europe 33 four, were also distant cousins of both Germans and Latins. Probably all five peoples are descended from one big family of tribes. In addition to these, there were, from time ' Huns and to time invasions 01 Europe by other nations Moors which did not have any connection by blood with Celts, Latins, Greeks, Germans, or Slavs. For instance, the ferocious Huns, a people of the yellow race, rushed into Europe about 400 A.D., but were beaten in a big battle by the Romans and Germans and finally went back to Asia. Three hundred years later, a great horde of Moors and Arabs from Africa crossed over into Europe^ by way of the Straits of Gibraltar, and at one time threatened to sweep before them all the Christian nations. For several hundred years after this, they held the southern part of Spain, but were finally driven out. Let us now come back to the story of what happened in Europe after the Romans had con- quered all the country south and west of the Danube and Rhine. The wild tribes of the Germans were restlessly roaming through the ^ derin central part' of Europe. They were not at Germans peace with each other. In fact, constant war was going on. Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, who conquered what is now France and added it to the Roman world, tells us that one great tribe of Germans, the Suevi (Swe'vl), GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR From a bust in the British Museum The Map of Europe 35 made it their boast that they would let no other tribe live anywhere near them. About a hundred years B.C., two great German tribes, TheCimbri the Cimbri and the Teutones, broke across the Teutones Rhine and poured into the Roman lands in countless numbers. For seven years they roamed about until at last they were conquered in two bloody battles by a Roman general, who was Caesar's uncle by marriage. After this time, the Romans tried to conquer the country of the Germans and they might have been successful but for a young German chief named Arminius. He had lived in Rome as a young man and had learned the Romans' method of war; so when an army came against his tribe, he taught the Germans how to defend *dted themselves. As a result, the Roman army was at last trapped in a big forest and slaughtered, almost to a man. This defeat ended any thought that the Romans may have had of conquering all Ger- many. For the next one hundred and fifty years, Germans and Romans lived apart, each afraid of the other. Then came a time when the Germans again became the attacking party. Other fiercer and wilder peoples, like the Huns, were assailing them in the east and pushing them forward. They finally broke over the * Rhine-Danube boundary and poured across the invasions 36 The Story of Roman Empire in wave after wave. Some of these tribes were the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Lombards. The Roman Empire went to pieces under their savage attacks. Questions for Review (a) Why is it that after nations become civilized, people need less land to live on? (6) Are barbarous tribes more likely to engage in war than civilized peoples? (c) Explain why clubs were the earliest weapons and why the more civilized tribes were better armed than the bar- barians. (d) Can a people be said to be civilized when they enjoy bloodshed and are not moved by the sufferings of others? (e) What was it that lowered the morals of the Roman republic? (/) In what way were the Germans better men than the later Romans? (g) What was the religion of the Moors and the Arabs? (A) Why did the German tribes invade the Roman empire? CHAPTER III FROM CHIEFS TO KINGS The early chief a fighter. The club the sign of power. Free men led by a chief of their own choosing. The first slaves. Barbarians conquer civilized nations. A ruling class among conquered people. All men no longer free and equal. The value of arms and armor. The robber chiefs. How kings first came. Treaties between tribes follow con- stant wars. Tribes unite for protection against enemies. A king is chosen for the time being. Some kings refuse to resign their office when the danger is past. New generations grow up which never knew a kingless state. The word "king" becomes sacred. The chiefs of the invading tribes knew no law except the rule of the sword. If they saw The end of Roman anything which they wanted, they took it. law Rich cities were plundered at will. They did not admit any man's ownership of anything. In the old days when the tribes were roaming around, there was no private ownership of land. Everything belonged to the tribe in common. Each man had a vote in the council of the tribe. Among these invaders, as with all barbarous tribes, there was no such thing as an absolute rule. A chief was obeyed because the greater part of his people considered him the best leader in war. Often, no doubt, when a chief had lost a battle and the majority of the tribe 37 38 The Story of had lost confidence in him, he resigned and let them choose a new chief. (For the same reason we frequently hear today that the prime minister, or leader of the government, of some European country has resigned.) In spite of the fact, then, that the chief was stronger than any other man in the tribe, if the ma- jority of his warriors had combined against him to put another man in his place he could not have with- stood them. Government, in its beginning, was based upon the consent of the governed. All men in the primitive tribe were equal in rank, except as one was a better fighter than another, and the chief held the leadership in war only because the members of his tribe allowed him to keep it. It must be remembered that in these early . days, the people had no fixed place of abode. tribes Their only homes were rude huts which they could put up or tear down at very short notice; and so when they heard of more fertile lands or a Govern- ment among barbarians A PRANKISH CHIEF The Map of Europe 39 warmer climate across the mountains to the south they used to pull up stakes and migrate in a body, never to return. It was always the more savage and uncivilized peoples who were most likely to migrate. The lands which they wished to seize they generally found already settled by other tribes, more civilized and MOVABLE HUTS OF EARLY GERMANS hence more peaceful, occupied in trade and agriculture, having gradually turned to these pursuits from their former habits of hunting and fighting. Sometimes these more civilized and peace-loving people were able, by their better weapons and superior knowledge of the art of fortifying, to beat back the invasion of Barbarians the immigrating barbarians. Oftener, though, overcome the rougher, ruder tribes were the victors, and civilized 40 The Story of settled down among the people they had con- quered, to rule them, doing no work themselves, but forcing the conquered ones to feed and clothe them. History is full of instances of such conquests, and they were taking place, no doubt, ages migrations before the times from which our earliest records date. The best examples, however, are to be found in the invasions of the Roman Empire The great GOTHS ON THE MARCH by the Germanic tribes to which we have referred above. The country between the Rhine River and the Pyrenees Mountains, which had been called Gaul when the Gauls lived there, became France when the Franks conquered the Gauls and stayed to live among them. In like manner, two German tribes became the master races in Spain. The Bur- gundians came down from the shores of the Baltic Sea and gave their name to their new home in the fertile valley of the Saone (Son); The Map of Europe 41 the Vandals came out of Germany to roam through Spain, finally founding a kingdom in Africa; while the Lombards crossed the Alps to become the masters of the Valley of the Po, whither the Gauls had gone before them, seven hundred years earlier. The island now known as Great Britain, 1-1 Invasions which was inhabited two thousand years ago of Britain FRANKS CROSSING THE RHINE by the Britons and Gaels, Celtic peoples, was overrun and conquered in part about 450 A.D. by the Saxons and Angles, Germanic tribes, after whom part of the island was called Angle- land. (The men from the south of England are of the same blood as the Saxons in the German army, against whom they had to fight in the great war.) Then came Danes, who partially 42 The Story of The Normans conquered the Angles and Saxons, and after them, in 1066 A.D., the country was again conquered by the Normans, descendants of some Norsemen, who, one hundred and fifty years before, had come down from Norway and con- quered a large territory in the northwestern part of France. In some cases, the conquered tribes moved MEN OF NORMANDY LANDING IN ENGLAND on to other lands, leaving their former homes to their conquerors. In this way the Britons and Gaels gave up the greater part of their land to the Angles and Saxons and withdrew to the hills and mountains of Wales, Cornwall, and northern Scotland. In other cases, the con- quered people and their conquerors inhabited the same lands side by side, as the Normans settled down in England among the Anglo-Saxons. The Map of Europe 43 In the early days of savagery, one tribe would frequently make a raid upon another neighbor- , ., , , . .,, ., Beginnings ing tribe and bring home with it some cap- of slavery lives who became slaves, working without pay for their conquerors and possessing no more rights than beasts of burden. (This custom exists today in the interior of Africa, and was responsible for the infamous African slave trade. Black captives were sold to white traders through the greed of their captors, who forgot that their own relatives and friends might be carried off and sold across the seas by some other tribe of blacks.) When these slaves were kept as the servants of their conquerors, their number was very small as compared with that of their masters. When, on the other hand, a tribe settled among a More people whom they had conquered, they often ^ n aves found themselves fewer in numbers, and kept masters their leadership only by their greater strength and fighting ability. Here there had arisen a new situation: all men were no longer equal, led by a chief of their ^^J 8 ** own choosing, but instead, the greater part of men equal them now had no voice in the government. They had become subjects, working to earn their own living and also, as has been said, to support in idleness their conquerors. This ability of the few to rule the many and 44 The Story of The value of armor force them to support their masters was in- creased as certain peoples learned better than others how to make strong armor and effective weapons. Nearly five hundred years before the time of Christ, at the battle of Marathon (Mar'a thon), the Greeks discovered that one Greek, clad in metal armor and armed with a long spear, was worth ten Persians wearing leather and carrying a bow and arrows or a short ALEXANDER DEFEATING THE PERSIANS sword. One hundred and sixty years later, a small army of well-equipped Macedonian Greeks, led by that wonderful general, Alex- ander the Great, defeated nearly forty times its number of Persians in a great battle in Asia and conquered a vast empire. In later times, as better and better armor was made, the question of -wealth entered in. The chief who had money enough to buy the The Map of Europe 45 best arms for his men could defeat his poorer neighbor and force him to pay money as to a ruler. Finally, in the so-called "Middle Ages," before the invention of gunpowder, one knight, armed from crown to sole in steel, was worth in battle as much as one hundred poorly-armed farmers or " peasants" as they are called in Europe. In the "Dark Ages/'* after all these bar- barians that we have named had swarmed over The robber Europe, and before the governments of modern chiefs times were fully grown, there were hundreds of robber chiefs, who, scattered throughout a country, were in the habit of collecting tribute at the point of the sword from the peaceful peasants who lived near. This tribute they collected in some cases, regularly, a fixed amount each month or year, just as if they had a right to collect it, like a government tax collector. It might be money or food or fodder, or fuel. The robber chiefs were well armed themselves and were able to give good weapons and armor to their men, who lived either in the chief's castle or in small houses built very near it. They likewise plundered any travelers who came by, unless their numbers and weapons made them look too dangerous to be attacked. But the *The "Dark Ages" came before the "Middle Ages." They were called "dark" because the barbarians had extinguished nearly all civilization and learning. 46 The Story of A KNIGHT IN ARMOR The Map of Europe 47 regular tribute forced from the peaceful farm- ers was the chief source of their income. The robber chief and his men lived a life of idleness J he fighters when they were not out upon some raid for as parasites plunder, and the honest, industrious peasants worked hard enough to support both their own families and those of the robbers. These robber chiefs had no right but might. They were outlaws, and lived either in a country which had no government and laws, or in one whose government was too weak to protect its people. They were no worse, however, than the so-called feudal barons who came after them, who oppressed the people even more, because they had on their side whatever law and govern- ment existed in those days. Now let us stop to consider how first there came to be kings. In the early days of the Small J J mdepen- human race and also in later days among dent tribes barbarous peoples, the land was very sparsely settled. The reason lay in the chief occupa- tions of the men. A small tribe might inhabit a great stretch of territory through which they wandered to keep within reach of plenty of game. As time went on, however, the popu- lation increased, and, as agriculture took the place of hunting, and homes became more lasting, tribes found themselves living in smaller and smaller tracts of land, and hence nearer to 48 The Story of their neighbors. In some cases, constant fight- ing went on, just as Caesar tells us that two thousand years ago, the Swiss and the Germans fought almost daily battles back and forth across the Rhine. In other cases, the tribes found it better for all concerned to make treaties of peace with their neighbors, and if they did not exchange visits and mix on friendly terms, at least they did not attack each other. Finally, one day there would come to several Danger tribes which had treaties with each other a drives common danger, such as an invasion by some together horde of another race or nation. Common interest would drive them together for mutual protection, and the chief of some one of them would be chosen to lead their joint army. In this way, we find the fifteen tribes of the Bel- gians uniting against the Roman army led by A Kin^ IS selected Julius Caesar, and electing as king over them the chief of one of the tribes "on account of his justice and wisdom." Five years later, in the year 52 B.C., we find practically all the inhabi- tants of what is now France united into a nation under the leadership of Vercingetorix (Ver sin- jet'o riks) in one last effort to free themselves from Rome. Five hundred years later, the Romans themselves were driven to join forces with two of the Germanic tribes to check the swift invasion of the terrible Huns. The Map of Europe 49 In some cases, these alliances were only for a short time and the kingships were merely tem- porary. In other cases, the wars that drove the tribes to unite under one great chief or king Some lasted for years or even centuries, so that new Kingships outlive the generations grew up who had never lived under wars any other government than that of a king. Thus when the wars were ended, the tribes continued to be ruled by the one man, although the reason for the kingship had ceased to be. In the days of the Roman republic, from 500 to 100 B.C., when grave danger arose, the senate, or council of elders, appointed one man who was called the dictator, and this dictator ruled like an absolute monarch until the danger was past. Then, like the famous Cincinnatus, he gave up the position and retired to private life. The first lasting kingships, then, began, as it were, by the refusal of some dictator to resign when the need for his rule was ended. By this time, the custom of choosing the son Son J / m succeeds of a chief or king to take his father's place was father fairly well settled, and it did not take long to have it understood as a regular thing that at a king's death he should be followed by his oldest son. Often there were quarrels and even civil wars caused by ambitious younger sons, who did not submit to their elder brothers without a struggle, but as people grew to be more civil- 50 The Story of war created kings ized and peace-loving, they found it better to have the oldest son looked upon as the right- ful heir to the kingship. As kingdoms grew larger, and more and more forget* that P e pl e came to be busied in agriculture, trade, and even, on a small scale, in manufacture, the warriors grew fewer in proportion, and people began to forget that the king was originally only a war leader, and that the office was created through military need. They came to regard the rule of the king as a matter of course and stopped thinking of themselves as having any right to say how they should be governed. Kings were quick to foster this feeling. For the purpose of making their own positions sure, they were in the habit of impressing it upon their people that the kingship was a divine institution. They proclaimed that the office of king was made by the gods, or in Christian nations, by God, and that it was the divine will that the people of the nations should be ruled by kings. The great Roman orator, Cicero (Sis'ero), in a speech delivered in the year 66 B.C., referring to people who lived in king- doms, says that the name of king " seems to them a great and sacred thing." This same feeling has lasted through all the ages down to the present time, and the majority of the people in European kingdoms, even among the The word "king" is venerated The Map of Europe 51 educated classes, still look upon a king as a superior being, and are made happy and proud if they ever have a chance to do him a service of any sort. Questions for Review (a) Why was it that in barbarian tribes there was no private ownership of land? (6) What is meant by saying that government was based upon the consent of the governed? (c) Was there anything besides love of plunder that induced the German tribes to move southward? (d) Explain the beginnings of slavery. (e) Explain the value of armor in early times. (/) What is meant by the "Dark Ages"? (g) What is meant by saying that the fighting men were parasites? (h) When the first kings were chosen was it intended that they should be rulers for life? (i) Is it easy for a man in power to retain this power? (j) Why is it that most Europeans bow low before a king? CHAPTER IV The land is the king's The king lends to the barons MASTER AND MAN The land is the king's. He lends it to barons. Barons lend it to knights and smaller barons. Smaller barons collect rent for it from the peasants. A father's lands are lent to his son. Barons pay for the land by furnishing men for the king's wars. No account is taken of the rights of the peasant. The peasant, the only producer, is despised by the fighting men. If a baron rebels, his men must rebel also. Dukes against kings. What killed the feudal system. Feudal wrongs alive today. When one great tribe or nation invaded and conquered a country, as the Ostrogoths came into Italy in the year 489 A.D., or as the Nor- mans entered England in 1066, their king at once took it for granted that he owned all the conquered land. In some cases, he might divide the kingdom up among his chiefs, giving a county to each of forty or fifty leaders. These great leaders (dukes or barons, as they were called in the Norman-French language, or earls, as the English named them) would in turn each divide up his county among several less important chiefs, whom we may call lesser or little barons. Each little baron might have several knights and squires, who lived in or near his castle and had received from him tracts of 52 The Map of Europe 53 A NORMAN CASTLE IN ENGLAND land corresponding in size, perhaps, to the American township and who, therefore, fought under his banner in war. Each baron had under him a strong body of fighting men, "men-at-arms," as they were Themen called, or " retainers," who in return for their at-arms "keep," that is, their food and lodging, and a chance to share the plunder gained in war, swore to be faithful to him, became his men, and gave him the service called homage. 54 The Story of (This word comes from homo, the Latin for "man.") The lesser baron, in turn, swore homage to, and was the "man" of the great baron or earl. Whenever the earl called on these lesser chiefs to gather their fighting men and report to him, they had to obey, serving him as unquestioningly as their squires and retainers obeyed them. The earl or duke swore homage to the king, from whom he had received his land. This, then, was the feudal system (so named The king, from the word feudum, which, in Latin, meant people 6 is a pi ece f l an d the use of which was given to a the foun- man in return for his services in war) , a system dation of society which reversed the natural laws of society, and stood it on its apex, like a cone balanced on its point. For instead of saying that the land was the property of the people of the tribe or nation, it started by taking for granted that the land all belonged to the king. The idea was that the king did not give the land, outright, to his dukes and earls, but that he gave them, in return for their faithful support and service in war, the use of the land during their lifetime, or so long as they remained true to him. In Macbeth, we read how, for his treason, the lands of the thane (earl) of Cawdor were taken 'from him by the Scottish king and given to the thane of Glamis. The lands thus lent were The Map of Europe 55 called fiefs. Upon the death of the tenant, they went back to the king or duke who had given them in the first place, and he at once gave them to some other one of his followers upon the same terms. It often happened that A f ather s upon the death of an earl or baron his son was J ands are . lent to the granted the lands which his father had held, oldest son Finally, in many counties, it grew into a custom, and the oldest son took possession of his father's fief, but not without first going to the king and swearing homage and fidelity to him. Two things must be kept in mind if we are to understand the system fully. In the first place, in the division of the lands among the barons of the conquering nation, no account was taken of the peasants. As they were of the defeated people, their rights to the land were The not once considered. In many countries, the victors thought of them as part and parcel rights of the conquered territory. They "went with" the land and were considered by the lord of the county as merely his servants. When one lord turned over a farm to another, the farmers were part of the bargain. If any of them tried to run away, they were brought back and whipped. They tilled the land and raised live stock, giving a certain share of their yearly crop and a certain number of beeves, hogs, sheep, etc., to (56) The Map of Europe 57 the lord, as rent for the land, much as the free farmers in other countries paid tribute to the robber chieftains. Thus the one class of people who really earned their right to live, by pro- ducing wealth, were oppressed and robbed by all the others. Note this point, for there are wrongs existing today that are due to the fact that the feudal system is not wholly stamped out in some countries. In the second place, it must be noted that the king was not the direct master of all the A curious people. . Only the great lords had sworn homage sch eme of to him. He was lord of the dukes, earls, and ment barons. The less important barons swore homage to the great barons, and the knights, squires, retainers, and yeomen swore homage to the lesser barons. If a lesser baron had sub- divided his fief among certain knights and squires, the peasants owed allegiance, not to him, but to the squire to whom they had been assigned. Thus, if a "man" rebelled against his lord, all of his knights, retainers, etc., must rebel also. If, for instance, a great duke refused to obey his king and broke his oath of allegiance, all his little barons and knights must turn dis- loyal too, or rather, must remain loyal, for their oaths had been taken to support the duke, and not the king. History is full of such cases. ^^| t In many instances, dukes became so powerful kings 58 The Story of William conquers England that they were able to make war on even terms with kings. The great Dukes of Burgundy for a time kept the kings of France in awe of their power; the Duke of Northumberland in 1403 raised an army that almost overthrew King Henry Fourth of England; the Duke of York, in 1461, drove Henry Sixth from the throne of Eng- land and became king in his place. A strange case arose when, in 1066, William, who as duke of Normandy had sworn homage to the king of France, became, through con- quest, king of England. His sons, great-grandsons, and great-great-grandsons continued for one hun- dred and fifty years to be obliged to swear allegiance to the French kings in order to keep the duchy of Normandy. It was as if the Governor of Texas had led an army into Mexico, conquered it, and become Emperor of that country, without resigning his governorship or giving up his American citizenship. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR The Map of Europe 59 Two things which tended to break down the feudal system and bring more power to the What common people were, first, the invention of killed the gunpowder, and, second, the rise of towns. A system man with a musket could bring down a knight in armor as easily as he could the most poorly armored peasant. Kings, in fighting to control their great lords, gave more freedom to citizens of towns in return for their help. The king's armies came to be recruited largely from townspeople, who were made correspondingly free from the feudal lords. The rule of the feudal system, that each man owed a certain amount of military service to his A feudal rule alive ruler has lasted to the present day and is today responsible for much of the misery that now exists. Kings went to war with each other simply to increase their territories. The more land a king had under his control, the more people who owed him taxes, and the greater number he could get into his army, the greater became his ambition to spread his kingdom still farther. Questions for Review (a) How was it that the king of a tribe could claim to own all the land in the country which he had invaded? (6) Did the kings, lords, and fighting men contribute anything to the welfare of the working classes? (c) Would the peasants have been better off if all the fight- ing men, lords, dukes, kings, etc., had suddenly been killed? 60 The Story of (d) Can you see why in some countries in Europe a man who earns his living is looked down upon by the nobles? (e) What is meant by saying that the feudal system turns society upside down? (/) Why did the farmers continue to feed the fighting men? (g) Explain how the use of gunpowder in warfare helped to break up the feudal system. (/i) How did the rise of cities also help to do away with the feudal system? CHAPTER V A BABEL OF TONGUES The great family of languages. Few languages in Europe not belonging to the family. The dying Celtic languages. The three branches of the Germanic family. The influence of the Latin tongue on the south of Europe. The many Slavic peoples. The map as divided by kings without regard to peoples and languages. The strange mixture in Austria-Hungary. The southeast of Europe. The Greeks and Dacians. The Roman colonists. The Slavs. The Volgars. The Skipetars. A hopeless mixture. In Chapter II it was pointed out that almost all the peoples of Europe were related, in one big family of tribes. It is likely that the forefathers of the Celts, the Latins, the Ger- mans, the Greeks, and the Slavs belonged to one big tribe which had its home back in the high- lands of Central Asia. As a general rule, the relationship of peoples to each other can be told by the languages which they speak. If two tribes are related because their forefathers once belonged to the same tribe, it is almost Relation- certain that they will show this relationship in ^ their languages. language The language of England a thousand years ago was very much like the language of the Germans, for the English were originally Ger- 61 62 The Story of English a Germanic tongue The great family man tribes. Even today, it is easy to see that English is a Germanic language. Take the English words house, father, mother, brother, water, here, is, etc. The German words which mean the same are haus, vater, mutter, bruder, wasser, hier, ist. It is very plain that the two languages must have come from the same source. There are professors in European colleges who have spent their whole lives studying this relationship of languages. These men have proved not only that almost all the languages of Europe are related, but that the language of the Persians, and that of some of the old tribes in Hindustan also belong to one great family of tongues. Let us take the word for mother. In one of the ancient languages of Hindustan it was matr; in the Greek, it was matar; in the Latin mater (matar) ; in the Bohemian matka; in the German mutter; in the Spanish madre; in the Norwegian moder, etc. This great family of languages is called "the Indo-Euro- pean group," because the tribes which spoke them, originally inhabitants of Asia, have scat- tered all over India and Europe. The only peoples in Europe whose languages do not belong to it are the Finns and Laplanders of the north, the Basques (Basks) of the Pyrenees Mountains, the Hungarians, the Gypsies, and the Turks. The Map of Europe 63 The descendants of the old Celtic peoples have not kept up the Celtic languages to any great extent. The reason for this is that first f the Romans and then the Germanic tribes con- tongues quered most of the lands where the Celts lived. In this way, Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium now talk languages that have grown from the Latin, the language of Rome. The Celts in the British Isles now alt talk English, because the English, who were a Germanic people, conquered them and forced them to use their language. Patriotic Irish- men and Welshmen (who are descendants of the Celtic tribes) are trying to keep alive the Irish and Welsh languages, but all of the young people in the British Isles learn English, and they are generally content to talk only one language. The other Celtic languages which have existed within the last one hundred years are the Gaelic of the north of Scotland, the Breton of western France, and the Cornish of the southwestern corner of England. The Germanic languages (sometimes called Teutonic) are found in three parts of Europe JP^^^ today. The Scandinavian languages, Danish, languages Norwegian, and Swedish, belong to this family. Western Austria and Germany form, with Holland and Western Belgium, a second group of German-speaking nations. (The people of 64 The Story of The Latin tongues The Slavonic languages Greek and Albanian eastern Belgium are Celts and talk a kind of French.) The third part of Europe which uses a Germanic language is England. In an earlier chapter we learned how the Celts in France, Spain, and Portugal gave up their own languages and used the Latin. Latin languages today are found also in the southern and western parts of Switzerland, all over Italy, and in Roumania. We learned also about the Slavs who lived to the eastward of the Germanic tribes. When the Germans moved west, these Slavs followed them and occupied the lands which had just been left vacant. In this way, we find Slavic peoples talking Slavic (sometimes called Slav- onic) languages in the parts of Europe to the east and south of the Germans. More than half of the inhabitants of Austria-Hungary are Slavs, although the Austrians proper are a Germanic people, and the Hungarians do not belong to the Indo-European family at all. The Serbians and Montenegrins are Slavs. The Poles and Russians are Slavs. The Bulgarians speak a Slavic language and have some Slavic blood in them, although, as will be pointed out later, originally they did not belong to the Slavic family. 'The Greeks and Albanians belong to the great Indo-European family of tribes, but their The Map of Europe 65 66 The Story of I I , ' zoo i g - The Map of Europe 67 languages are not closely related to any of the four great branches. The two maps on pages 65 and 66 are very much alike and yet in some respects very The two different. The first shows how Europe is largely maps inhabited by peoples of the great Indo- European family. Those who are descended from the Celts are marked Celtic even though today they have given up their Celtic language, as have the Cornish in England and the inhab- itants of Spain, France, eastern Belgium, and the greater part of Ireland. The Bulgarians are marked as not belonging to the great family, although they speak a Slavic language. In the second map, the distribution of lan- guages is shown. You will notice that the Celtic languages are found only in small parts of the British Isles, and in the westernmost point of France. The Bulgarians are here marked Slavic because their language belongs to that branch. One of the most curious things about the two maps is the presence of little spots like islands, particularly made up of German- speaking peoples. There are several of these little islands in Russia. They have been there for nearly two hundred years. A traveler crossing the southern part of Russia is aston- ished to find districts as large as an American county where not a word of Russian is spoken. 68 The Story of THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES (a) Hindu branch (b) Persian branch (c) Celtic branch (d) Latin branch (e) Germanic branch < (/) Slavonic branch Gae'lic (northern Scotland) Welsh Cornish (dead) Erse (Irish) Bre'ton (western France) Portuguese Spanish French Romansh (southeastern Switzerland) Italian Roumanian Norwegian Danish Swedish Dutch Flemish (Belgium) Low German High German English Russian Polish ^ Lettish >Baltic states of Russia Lithuanian/ Old Prussian (dead) Czech (Bohemian [pronounced Che"ck] ) Slovak 7 (northern Hungary) Serbian Bulgarian Slove'nian (southwestern Austria) Croa'tian (southern Austria) Ruthe'nian (northeastern Austria-Hungary and southwestern Russia) (gY Greek (h) Albanian The Map of Europe 69 The people are all of Germanic blood, although they live under the government of Russia. In the same way, there is a large German island isolated German- in the midst of the Roumanians in Transylvania speaking and another between the Slovaks and Poles at nities the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. There is a large Hungarian island in Transylvania also, entirely surrounded by Germans and Roumanians. The table on the opposite page shows the main branches of the Indo-Euro- pean family that are found in Europe. The main source of the present trouble in Europe is that kings and their ministers and generals, like their ancestors, the feudal lords, never considered the wishes of the people when they changed the boundaries of kingdoms. Kin s- Austria-Hungary is a good example. The maps Austrians and Hungarians were two very different peoples. They had nothing in com- mon and did not wish to be joined under one ruler, but a king of Hungary, dying, left no son to succeed him, and his only daughter was married to the archduke of Austria. This archduke of Austria (a descendant of the o f h \s^ counts of Hapsburg) was also emperor of. Ger- Hungary many and king of Bohemia, although the Bohemian people had not chosen him as their ruler. The Hungarians, before their union with Austria, had conquered certain Slavic 70 The Story of tribes- and part of the Roumanians. Later Austria annexed part of Poland, in this way, the empire became a jumble of lan^ guages and nationalities. When its congress is called together, the official announcement is read in eleven different languages. Forty-one different dialects are talked in an area not as large as that of the state of Texas. We must remember that besides the literary Dialects vs. or wr itten languages of each country there are languages several spoken dialects. A man from Devon- shire, England, meeting a man from Yorkshire in the north of the same country, has difficulty in understanding many words in his speech. The language of the south of Scotland also is English, although it is very different from the English that we in America are taught. A Frenchman from the Pyrenees Mountains was taught in school to speak and read the French language as we find it in books. Yet besides this, he knows a dialect that is talked by the country people around him, that can not be understood by the peasants from the north of France near the Flemish border. The man who lives in the east of France can understand the dialect of the Italians from the west of Italy much better than he can that of the Frenchman from the Atlantic coast. In America, with people moving around The Map of Europe 71 from place to place by means of stage coach, steamboat, and railroad, there has been no great chance to develop dialects, although we can instantly tell the New Englander, the south- erner, or the westerner by his speech. It should be remembered that in Europe, for centuries, the people were kept on their own farms or in their own towns. The result of this was that each lit- Each tie village or city has its own peculiar language. villa g e It is said that persons who have studied such language matters carefully, after conversing with a man from Europe, can tell within thirty miles where his home used to be in the old country. There are no sharply marked boundaries of languages. The dialects of France shade off into those of Spain on the one hand and into those of the Flemish and the Italian on the other. The British Isles furnish us with four or five different nationalities. The people of the north p^ e ples of Ireland are really lowland Scotch of Germanic f . t ^ e t _ British descent, while the other three-fourths of Ireland isles is inhabited by Celts. To make the difference all the greater, the Celts are almost universally Catholics, while the Scotch-Irish are Protes- tants. The people of the north of Scotland are Gaels, a Celtic race having no connection in language or blood with the people of the southern half of that country. The Welsh are a Celtic people, and have little sympathy 72 The Story of < O W OS o I 1 I i j The Map of Europe 73 with the English, who are a Germanic people. The Welsh and the Cornish of Cornwall and the people of highland Scotland are the descend- ants of the ancient Britons and Gaels who inhabited the island when Julius Caesar and the British Romans first landed there. Then five hundred years afterwards, as has already been told, came great swarms of Germans (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), who drove the Britons to the west and north, and settled the country now known as England. After these, you will recall, came a number of Danes, another Germanic people, who settled the east coast of England. Two hun- dred years later, the Normans came from France. These Normans had been living in France for a century or two, but had come origi- nally from Norway. Normans, Danes, Angles, and Saxons all mixed to make the modern Eng- lish. Together, they fought the Scotch, the Welsh, and the Irish, and having conquered them, oppressed them cruelly for many centuries. But it is in the southeastern corner of Europe that one finds the worst jumble of nationalities. Six hundred years before Christ, the Greeks and their rougher cousins, the Thracians, Macedonians, and Dacians inhabited this dis- Th . seething trict. When one of the Roman Emperors Balkans conquered the Dacians about 100 A.D., (see page 25) he planted a large Roman colony 74 The Story of The Map of Europe 75 north of the Danube River. Then came the West Goths, who swept into this country, but soon left it for the west of Europe. Next came the Slavic tribes who are the ancestors of the modern Serbs. Following these, came a large tribe which did not belong to the Indo-European family, but was distantly related to the Finns and the Turks. These people were called the The people from the Yolgars, for they came from the country around Volga the River Volga. Before long, we find them called the Bulgars. (The letters B and V are often interchanged in the languages of south- eastern Europe. The people of western Europe used to call the country of the Serbs Servia, but the Serbs objected, saying that the word servio, in Latin, means "to be a slave," and that as they were not slaves, they wanted their country to be called by its true name, Serbia. The Greeks, on the other hand, pronounce the letter B as though it were V.) A strange thing happened to the Volgars or Bulgars. They completely gave up their A^unous Asiatic language and adopted a new one, which language became in time the purest of the Slavic tongues. They intermarried with the Slavs around them and adopted Slavic names. They founded a flourishing nation which lay between the king- dom of Serbia and the Greek Empire of Con- stantinople. A Latin island among the Slavs 76 The Story of North of the Bulgars lay the country of the Roumani (roo ma'ni). These people claimed to be descended from the Roman Emperor's colonists, as was previously told, but the reason their language is so much like the Italian is A TYPICAL BULGARIAN FAMILY that a large number of people from the north of Italy moved into the country nearly a thou- sand years after the first Roman colonists settled there. From 900 to 1300 A.D., south- eastern Europe was inhabited by Serbians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and Greeks. A fifth people perhaps ought to be counted here, the Albanians. (See map, p. 74.) This tribe is descended from the Illyrians, who inhab- ited the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea even before the time of the Roman Empire. Their The Map of Europe 77 language, 'like the Greek, is a branch of the Indo- European family which is neither Latin, Celtic, Germanic, nor Slavic. They are distant cousins The of the Italians and are also slightly related to untamed oKipetars the Greeks. They are a wild, fierce, uncivil- of Albania ized people, and have never known the meaning of law and order. Robbery and warfare are common. Each village is always fighting with the people of the neighboring towns. The Albanians, or Skipetars (sk'ip'e tars) as they call themselves, were Christians until they were conquered by the Turks about 1460. Since that time, the great majority of them have been staunch believers in the Mohammedan relig- ion. Questions for Review (a) Where did the great Indo-European family of languages have its beginning? (6) Why is it that the Celtic languages are dying out? (c) What killed the Celtic languages in Spain and France? (d) What are the three parts of Europe where Germanic languages are spoken? (e) In what parts of Europe are languages spoken which are descended from the Latin? (/) Explain the presence in Austria-Hungary of eleven different peoples? (g) Are the Bulgarians really a Slavic people? CHAPTER VI "THE TERRIBLE TURK" The Greek Empire at Constantinople. The invading Mohammedans. The Ottoman Turks. The fall of Con- stantinople. The enslaving of the Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians. One little part of Serbia unconquered. The further conquests of the Turks. The attack on Vienna. John Sobieski to the rescue. The waning of the Turkish empire. The Spanish Jews. The jumble of languages and peoples in southeastern Europe. In the last chapter, we referred briefly to the division Greek empire at Constantinople. This city of the was originally called Byzantium, and was a Empire flourishing Greek commercial center six hun- dred years before Christ. Eleven hundred years after this, a Roman emperor named Constantine decided that he liked Byzantium better than Rome. Accordingly, he moved the capital of the empire to the Greek city, and renamed it Constantinopolis (the word polis means "city" in Greek). Before long, we find the Roman empire divided into two -parts, the capital of one at Rome, of the other at Con- stantinople. This eastern government was continued by the Greeks nearly one thousand years after the government of the western 78 The Map of Europe 79 THE TURKISH SULTAN BEFORE CONSTANTINOPLE empire had been seized by the invading Ger- manic tribes. For years, this Greek empire at Constanti- nople had been obliged to fight hard against the Mohammedans who came swarming across fertile plains of Mesopotamia (mes'o po ta'- Turks mi a) and Asia Minor. (Mesopotamia is the district lying between the Tigris (ti'gris) and 80 The Story of Euphrates (u fra/tez) Rivers. Its name in Greek means " bet ween the rivers.") The fiercest of the Mohammedan tribes, the warlike Ottoman Turks, were the last to arrive. For several years, they thundered at the gates of Constantinople, while the Greek Empire grew feebler and feebler. At last in 1453, their great cannon made a breach in the walls, and the Turks poured through. The Greek Empire was a thing of the past, and all of southeastern Europe lay at the mercy of the invading Moslems (another name for "Mohammedans"). The Turks did not drive out the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Albanians, but settled down among them as the ruling, military class. They strove to force these peoples to give up Christianity and turn Mohammedans, but were successful only in the case of the Skipetars of Albania. The Albanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and conquests Roumanians remained where they had been, but were oppressed by the newcomers. For more than two hundred years after the capture of Constantinople, the Turks pushed their conquests farther and farther into Europe. The entire coast of the Black Sea fell into their hands. All of Greece, all of Bulgaria, and all of Roumania became part of their empire. Of the kingdom of Serbia, one small province remained The Map of Europe 81 unconquered. Up in the mountains near the coast of the Adriatic gathered the people of one county of the Serbian kingdom. As the Turks attacked them, they retreated higher and higher One part of up the mountain sides and rolled huge stones Serbia & uncon- down upon the invaders. Finally, the Turks quered became disgusted, and concluded that "the game was not worth the candle." Thus the little nation of Montenegro was formed, com- posed of Serbians who never submitted to the Ottoman rule. (The inhabitants of this small country call it Tzernagorah (tzer na go'ra); the Italians call it Montenegro. Both of these names mean "Dark Mountain.") Not satisfied with these conquests, the Turks pushed on, gaining control of the greater part of the kingdom of Hungary. About 1682, they were pounding at the forts around Vienna. The heroic king of Poland, John Sobieski (so bi es'ki), d came to the rescue of the Austrian emperor with rescue an army of Poles and Germans and completely defeated the Turks. He saved Vienna, and ended any further advance of the Turkish rule into Europe. (The map on page 82 shows the high water mark of the Turkish conquests.) It /must be remembered that the original inhabitants of the conquered lands were still ving where they always had lived. The Turks were very few in number compared with the 82 The Story of The Map of Europe 83 millions of people who inhabited their empire and paid them tribute. Many wars were caused by this conquest, but it was two hundred J he . tide begins to and thirty years before the Christian peoples ebb won back their territory. By the year 1685, the Hungarians had begun to win back part of their kingdom. By 1698, almost all of Hungary and Transylvania was free from Turkish rule. It will be recalled that a certain Count of Hapsburg had become Emperor of Germany, and when we say Ger- many, we include Austria, which had become the home of the Hapsburgs. It was shortly after this that the Hapsburg family came to be lords of Hungary also, through the marriage of one of their emperors with the only daughter of the king of that country. In this way, when the province of Bukowina TVi and the territory known as the Banat, just north of the Danube and west of what is now ^ pire of Roumania, were reconquered from the Turks, Hapsburgs it was the joint kingdom to which they were attached. (Bukowina has never been a part of Hungary. It is still a crown land, or county subject to the emperor of Austria personally.) During the 15th century, the southeastern Europe came to be inhabited by a still different people. Not long after Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain, had 84 The Story of Spanish intolerance Another people added to the Balkan mixture Salonika and Constanti- nople conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada (see Chapter II) that used to stretch across the southern half of Spain, the Spaniards decided to drive out of their country all " unbelievers/' that is, all who were not Christians of the Catholic faith. (This happened in 1492, the same year that they sent Columbus to America.) The Moors retreated into Africa, which was their former home, but the millions of Spanish Jews had no homeland to which to return. In the midst of their distress, the Sultan of Turkey, knowing them to be prosperous and well- behaved citizens, invited them to enter his land. They did so by hundreds of thousands. The descendants of these people are to be found today throughout the Balkan peninsula, though mainly in the large cities. They are so numerous in Constantinople that four news- papers are published there in the Spanish language, but printed in Hebrew characters. The city of Salonika, a prosperous seaport of 140,000 people, which used to belong to Turkey but now is part of Greece, has over 50,000 of these Jews. They readily learn other tongues, and many of them can talk in four or five lan- guages besides their native Spanish, which they still use in the family circle. Constantinople (called Stamboul by the Turks) is a polyglot city, that is, a place of many The Map of Europe 85 A SCENE IN SALONIKA languages. Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Jews, Italians are all found mingled together. The main source of trouble in the Balkan peninsula is that the races and nationalities are so jumbled together that it is almost impossible to say which land should belong to Ambitions which nation. Take the case of Macedonia conflict (the district just northwest of the Aegean Sea). It is inhabited largely by Bulgarians, and yet there are so many Greeks and Serbs mixed in with the former that at the close of the last Balkan ^var in 1913, Greece and Serbia both claimeg it as belonging to them because of ttie^^prevailing nationality of its inhabi- tants!" In other words, the Serbians claimed that the inhabitants of Macedonia were largely 86 The Story of Serbs, the Greeks were positive that its people were largely Greeks, while Bulgaria is very resentful today because the land was not given to her, on the ground that almost all its inhabi- tants are Bulgarians! Religious and racial hatreds have had a great deal to do with making the Balkan peninsula a hotbed of political trouble. Right in the center of Bulgaria, for example, speaking the same language, dressing exactly alike, doing business with each other on an equal footing, are to be found the native Bulgarian and the Religion descendant of the Turkish conquerors; yet one to e friemi- r goes to the Greek Orthodox Church to worship ship and the other to the Mohammedan Mosque. With memories of hundreds of years of wrong and oppression behind them, Bulgarians and Turks hate and despise each other with a fierce intensity. Let us now leave the Balkan states, with their seething pot of racial and religious hatred, and turn to other causes of European wars. Questions for Review (a) What became of the Greeks when the Turks captured Constantinople? (6) Why could one county of Serbia resist the Turks? (c) How long after the fall of Constantinople were the Turks threatening Vienna? (d) Explain how Constantinople has people of so many different nationalities. (e) Why have the Turk and Bulgarian never been friendly? CHAPTER VII THE RISE OF MODERN NATIONS How the peasants looked upon war. War the opportunity of the fighting men. The decreasing power of barons. The growth of royal power. How four little kingdoms became Spain. Other kingdoms of Europe. The rise of Russia. The Holy Roman Empire. The electors. The rise of Brandenburg. The elector of Brandenburg becomes King of Prussia. Frederick the Great. The seizure of Silesia and the consequent wars. You have already been shown how in the early days of the feudal system, the lords, with their squires, knights, and fighting men made up a class of the population whose only trade was war, and how the poor peasants were compelled to raise crops and live stock enough to feed both themselves and the fighting men. These peas- The P 6 3. S 3. n t S ants had no love for war, as war resulted only pay in their losing their possessions in case their country was invaded by the enemy. The fighting men, on the other hand, had nothing to do unless war was going on, and as those who were not killed returned from a war with rich plunder ni case they were victorious, they were always locking for a chance to start trouble with some neighboring country. 87 88 The Story of Honest work scorned by the fighters In those days, kings cared little what their nobles did, so long as the nobles furnished them with fighting men in times of wa'r. As a result, one county in a certain kingdom would often be at war with a neighboring county. The fighting man either was killed in battle or he came out of it with increased glory and plunder, but the peasants and the common people had nothing to gain by war and everything to lose. As we have seen, force ruled the world, and the common people had no voice in their government. The workers were looked down upon by the members of the fighting class, who never did a stroke of work themselves and considered honest toil as degrading. In fact, as one writer has said, the only respectable trade in Europe in those days was what we today would call highway robbery. Down with barons ; up with kings FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN THE 15TH CENTURY Gradually in most of the European countries ^ e j^ mg was ^\ Q to p u t d own the power of his nobles and make himself master over the whole nation. In this way a strong central power grew up in France. After the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1477, no 'noble dared to question the leadership of the king of France. The same thing was true in The Map of Europe 89 England after the battle of Bosworth in 1485, which resulted in the death of King Richard III and the setting of the Tudor family on the throne. SPAIN AND OTHER KINGDOMS "* Spain had been divided into four little kingdoms: Leon, Castile, Aragon, and Gra- nada, the latter ruled by the Moors. The nation marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile and Leon joined the three Christian kingdoms into one, and after 1492, when the Moors were defeated and Granada annexed to the realm of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain became one kingdom.^- About this time, also, there had grown up a strong kingdom of Hun- gary, a kingdom of Portugal, a kingdom of Poland, and one of Denmark. Norway was ruled by the Danes, but Sweden was a separate kingdom. ---In Russia, Czar Ivan the Terrible . (1533-84) had built up a strong power which was of Russia still further strengthened by Czar Peter the Great (1690-1725). THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE The rest of the continent of Europe, with the exceptiorTofxthe Turkish Empire, formed what . The Holy was called the Holy Roman Empire, 'a rule Roman which had been founded by Charlemagne Germany 90 The Story of The Map of Europe 91 (A.D. 800), the great Frankish monarch, who had been crowned in Rome by the pope as ruler of the western world. (The name "Holy Roman Empire" was not used by Charlemagne. We first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon emperor, who was crowned in 962.) . This Holy Roman Empire included all of . r/xtent or what is now Germany (except the eastern the empire third of Prussia), all of what is now Bohemia, Austria (but not Hungary), and all of Italy except the part south of Naples. There were times when part of France and all of the low countries (now Belgium and Holland) also belonged to the Empire. (The mountain- eers of Switzerland won their independence from the Empire in the fourteenth century, and formed a little republic.) _See map " Europe in 1540." In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not necessarily succeed his father as _. ruler. There were seven (afterwards nine) electors "electors" who, at the death of the ruling mon- arch, met to elect his successor. Three of these electors were archbishops, one was king of Bohemia, and the others were counts of large countiesin-Cc^rmany like Hanover and Branden- burg. It frequently happened that the candi- date chosen was a member of the family of the dead emperor, and there were three or four 92 The Story of A weak state LOUIS XIV families which had many rulers chosen from among their number. The most famous of these families was that of the Counts of Haps- burg, from whom the present emperor of Aus- tria is descended. This Holy Roman Empire was not a strong government, as the kingdoms of England and France grew to be. The kings of Bohemia, \ \ Boundaries of ihe Hoiy Roman Empire ^ Lands of the Hapsburg Family in Red 1. Spain 2. Kingdom of Sardinia 3. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 4. The Netherlands 5. The Free County of Burgundy 6. Bohemia 7. Austria 8. Silesia 9. Part of Hungary never conquered by the Turks 10. The Duchy of Milan 11. The Kingdom of France 12. The Kingdom of England 13. The Kingdom of Scotland 14. The Kingdom of Denmark 15. The Kingdom of Norway 16. The Kingdom of Sweden 17. The Grand-Duchy of Finland (Controlled by Sweden) 18. Lands of the German Knights of Livonia 19. Russia 20. The Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania 21. Empire of the Ottoman Turks 22. Montenegro 23. Republic of Venice 24. Lands of Genoa 25. States of the Church 26. Little German States 27. Switzerland 28. Portugal France The Map of Europe 93 Saxony, and Bavaria all were subjects of the emperor, as were many powerful counts. These men were jealous of the emperor's power, and he did not dare govern them as strictly as the king of France ruled his nobles. FRANCE IN THE 18TH CENTURY During the 18th century, there were many wars in Europe caused by the ambition of var- ious kings to make " The , ' Grand their domains larger Monarch" and to increase their own incomes. King Louis XIV of France had built up a very powerful kingdom. Brave soldiers and skillful generals spread his rule over a great part of what is Belgium and Lux- emburg, and an- nexed to the French kingdom the part of Germany between the Rhine River and the Vdsges (Vozh) Mountains. Finally, the English joined with the troops of the Holy Roman Empire TO curb the further growth of the French kingdom, and at the battle of Blenheim (1704), the English Duke of Marl- JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH 94 The Story of * THE GREAT ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG The Map of Europe 95 borough, aided by the emperor's army, put an end to the further expansion of the French. PRUSSIA The 18th century also saw the rise of a new kingdom in Europe. You will recall that there was a county in Germany named Brandenburg, whose count was one of the seven electors who chose the emperor. The capital of this county was Berlin. It so happened that a number of Counts of Brandenburg, of the family of burg Hohenzollern, ha^i been men of ambition and ability, the little county had grown by adding small territorielTaround it, as shown on the map on page 99. \ One of these counts, called "the Great Elector," had added to Brandenburg the greater part of the neighboring county of Pomerania. His son did not have the ability of his father, but was a very proud and vain man. He happened to visit King William III An of England, and was very much offended because during the interview, the king occupied results a comfortable arm chair, while the elector, being simply a count, was given a chair to sit in which was straight-backed and had no arms. Brooding over this insuit. as it seemed to him, he went home and decided that he too should be called a king. The question was, what should his title be. He could not call himself 96 The Story of FREDERICK THE GREAT "King of Brandenburg/' for Brandenburg was part of the Empire, and the emperor would not allow it. It had happened some one hun- dred years before, that, through his marriage The Map of Europe 97 with the daughter of the Duke of Prussia, a Count of Brandenburg had come into possession of the district known as East Prussia, at the extreme southeastern corner of the Baltic Sea. Between this and the territory of Brandenburg lay the district known as West Prussia, which was part of the Kingdom of Poland. However, Prussia lay outside the boundaries of the Empire, and the emperor had nothing to say about what went on there. Therefore, the elector sent , A new notice to alljJae^ kings and princes of Europe kingdom that after /this he was to be known as the "King of [Prussia/' It was a situation some- what like the/tine we have already referred to, when the kirigs of England were independent monarchs and yet subjects of the kings of France because they were also dukes of Normandy. The son of this elector who first called himself king had more energy and more character than his father. He ruled his country with a rod of iron, and built up a strong, well-drilled army. He was especially fond of tall soldiers, and had agents out all over Europe, kidnapping men who were over six feet tall to serve in his famous regiment of Guards. 'He^iurther increased the size of the Prussian kingdom. The best _ His son was the famous Frederick the Great, ' Hohen- one of the most remarkable fighters that the zoiiem 98 The Story of world has ever seen. This prince had been brought up under strict discipline by his father. The old king had been insistent that his son should be no weakling. It is told that one day, finding Frederick playing upon a flute, he seized father the instrument and snapped it in twain over his son's shoulder. The young Frederick, under this harsh training, became a fit leader of a military nation. When his father died and left him a well-filled treasury and a wonder- fully drilled army, he was fired with the am- bition to spread his kingdom wider. Germany, as has been said, was made up of a great many little counties, each ruled by its petty prince or duke, all owing homage, in a general way, to the ruler of Austria, who still was supposed to be the head of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire was not a real nation, but a col- lection of many different nationalities which had Divided J Austria little sympathy with each other. The ruler of Austria was also king of Bohemia and of Hungary, but neither country was happy at being governed by a German ruler. Then, too, the Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, and Slovaks were unhappy at being ruled, first by the Hungarians and then by the emperor, as they were Slavic peoples who wished their indepen- dence. It so happened that about the time that Frederick became king of Prussia in place of his The Map of Europe 99 100 The Story of father, the head of the House of Austria died, leaving his only child, a daughter, Maria Theresa, to rule the big empire. Frederick decided that he could easily defeat the dis- Might organized armies of Austria, so he announced right to the world that the rich province of Silesia was henceforth to be his and that he proposed to take it by force of arms. Naturally, this brought on a fierce war with Austria, but in the end, Frederick's well-trained troops, his store of money, and above all, his expert military ability made the Prussians victorious, and at the close of the fighting, almost all of Silesia remained a part of the kingdom of Prussia. The Austrians, however, were not satisfied, and two more wars were fought before they finally gave up trying to recover the stolen state. Frederick remained stronger than ever as a result of his victories. Questions for Review (a) Why were the fighting men of the Middle Ages a source of loss to a nation in general? (6) How was it that Spain became one nation? (c) What did Peter the Great do for Russia? (d) Why did the Emperor have less power than many kings? (e) What was the ambition of Louis XIV of France? (/) What effect had the training of his father upon the character of Frederick the Great? (g) Had Frederick the Great any right to Silesia? CHAPTER VIII THE FALL OF TWO KINGDOMS The Poles, a divided nation. The three partitions. Wars and revolts as a result. The disappearance of Lith- uania. The growing power of the king of France. An extravagant and corrupt court. Peasants cruelly taxed and oppressed. Bankruptcy at last. The meeting of the three estates. The third estate defies the king. The fall of the Bastille. The flight and capture of the king. The king beheaded. Other kings alarmed. Valmy saves the revo- lution. The reign of terror. In the flat country to the northeast of Austria-Hungary and east of Prussia lay the The Poles kingdom of Poland, the largest country in Europe with (the exception of Russia. The Poles, as has been said before, were a Slavic people, distant cousins of the Russians and Bohemians. They had a strong nobility or upper class, but these nobles were jealous of each other, and as a result, the country was torn apart by many warring factions. The condition of the working class was very miserable. The Divided nobles did not allow them any privileges, we fall They were serfs, that is to say, practically slaves, who had to give up to their masters the greater part of the cropB^that they raised. In the council of the Polish nobles, no law could be 101 102 The -.Story of passed if a single nobleman opposed it. As a result of this jealousy between factions, the Poles could not be induced to obey any one leader, and thus, divided, were easy to conquer. Frederick the Great, regretting the fact that . . , , he was separated from his land in East Prussia Frederick's proposal by the county of West Prussia, which was part of Poland, proposed to his old enemy, Maria Theresa of Austria, and to the Empress Cathar- ine II of Russia that they each take a slice of Poland. This was accordingly done, in the year 1772. Poor Poland was unable to resist the three great powers around her, and the other kings of Europe, who had been greedily annex- ing land wherever they could get it, stood by without a protest. Some twenty years later, Prussia and Russia each again annexed a large part of the remainder of Poland, and two years A reat a ^ er ^ S ' the three powers divided up among crime them all that was left of the unhappy kingdom. The Poles fought violently against this last partition, but they were not united and were greatly outnumbered by the troops of the three powers. This great crime against a nation was the result of the military system; and this in turn was the result of the feudal system, which made the king, as commander-in-chief of the army, the supreme ruler of his country. The men in The Map of Europe 103 CATHARINE II Victory Rule f s not people, the Prussian and Austrian armies had no desire to fight and conquer the poor Poles. meant nothing to them. They gained no ad- to blame vantage from it. To^the^fcings who divided up the countries it simply meant, an enlargement of 104 The Story of The result: Bloodshed and misery their kingdoms, more people to pay taxes to them, and more men to draw on for their armies. Instead of crushing out the love of the Poles for their country, this wrongful tearing apart has made their national spirit all the stronger. There have been revolts and bloody wars, caused by Polish uprisings, time and time again, and the Poles will never be satisfied until their unhappy country is once more united. To the northeast of the Poles live the Lithu- anians, whose country had been annexed to the Polish kingdom when their duke, who had married the daughter of the king of Poland, followed his father-in-law on the Polish throne. Lithuania fell to Russia's share in the division, so that its people only changed masters. They are a distinct nation, however, possessing a language and literature of their own, and having no desire to be ruled by either Poles or Russians. If they were to receive justice, they would form a country by themselves, lying between Poland and Russia proper. THE DOWNFALL OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY In the meantime, a great change had come about in France. There, for hundreds of years, Th k' ' ^ e P ower f the king had been growing greater, will is law until by the eighteenth century, there was no Another nation disappears from the map The Map of Europe 105 one in the country who could oppose him. He had great fortresses and prisons where he sent those who had offended him, shutting them up without a trial and not even letting their families know where they had been taken. The peasants and working classes had been ground down under taxes which grew heavier and heavier. The king spent mil- lions of dollars on his palaces, on his armies, on his courts. Money was stolen by court misery officials. Paris was the gayest capital in the world, the home of fashion, art, and fri- volity and the poor peasants paid the bills. For years, there had been mutterings. The people were ripe for a revolt, but they had no weapons, and there was no one to lead them. At last, came a time when there was no money in the royal treasury. After all the waste andrtjorruption, nothing was left to pay the army and keep up the expenses COURTIER OF TIME OF LOUIS XIV 106 The Story of A bankrupt nation THE TAKING OF THE BASTILLE of the government. One minister of finance after another tried to devise some scheme whereby the country might meet its debts, but without success. The costly wars and wasteful extravagances of the past hundred years were at last to bring a reckoning. In desperation, the king summoned a meeting of representa- tive men from all over the kingdom. There were three classes represented, the nobles, the clergy, and what was called "the third estate," At last which meant merchants, shopkeepers, and the a leader of the people poor gentlemen. A great statesman appeared, a man named Mirabeau. Under his leadership, the third estate defied the king, and the temper The Map of Europe 107 of the people was such that the king dared not force them to do his will. In the midst of these The fau of exciting times, a mob attacked the great Paris the Bastille prison, the Bastille. They took it by storm, and tore it to the ground. This happened on the fourteenth of July, 1789, a day which the French still celebrate as the birthday of their nation's THE /PALACE OF VERSAILLES liberty. All over France the common people The g . nal rose in revolt. The soldiers in the army would for revolt no longer obey their officers. The king was closely watched, and when he attempted to flee to Germany was brought back and thrown into prison. Many of the nobles, in terror, fled from the country. Thus began what is known as the French Revolution. As soon as the king was thrown into prison and the people of France took charge of their government, a panic ^arose x throughout the courts of Europe. Other kings, alarmed over 108 The Story of the fate of the king of France, began to fear for themselves. They, too, had taxed and oppressed their subjects. They felt that this revolt of the French people must be put down, and the king of France set back upon his throne, otherwise the same kind of revolt might Kings must ^ a ^ e pl ace m their countries as well. Accord- self te in m &ly? tne king f Prussia, the king of England, defense and the emperor of Austria all made war on the new French Republic. They proposed to overwhelm the French by force of arms and compel them to put back their king upon his throne. Of course, if the soldiers in the armies of these ignorance kings had known what the object of this war the servant of tyranny was, they would have had very little sympathy with it, but for years they had been trained to obey their officers, who in turn obeyed their generals, who in turn obeyed the orders of the kings. The common soldiers were like sheep, in that they did not think for themselves, but followed their leaders. They were not allowed to know the truth concerning this attack on France. They did not know the French lan- guage, and had no way of finding out the real situation, for there were no public schools in these countries, and very few people knew how A shackled ^ reac ^ ^ e newspapers. The newspapers, press moreover, were controlled by the governments, The Map of Europe 109 and were allowed to print only what favored the cause of the kings. The French, however, knew the meaning of the war. A young French poet from Strasbourg on the Rhine wrote a wonderful war song which was first sung in Paris by the men of Marseilles, and thus has come to be called "La Marseillaise." It is the cry of a crushed THE REIGN OF TERROR and oppressed people against foreign tyrants A people who would again enslave them. It fired the at bay French army with a wonderful enthusiasm, and untrained as they were, they beat back the invaders at the hard-fought field of Valmy and saved the French Republic. The period known as "the reign of terror" now began in earnest. Abaction of the extreme (110) The Map of Europe 111 republican party got control of the government, and kept it by terrorizing the more peaceable citizens. The brutal wrongs which nobles had put upon the lower classes for so many hundred years were brutally avenged. The king was executed, as were most of the nobles who had Wrongs aid washed out not fled from the country. For three or four by blood years, the gutters of the principal French cities ran blood. Then the better sense of the nation came to the front and the people settled down. A fairly good government was organized, and the executions ceased. Still the kings of Europe would not ree6gnize^ the new republic. There was war against France for the next twenty years on the part of England, and gen- erally two or three other countries as well. Questions for Review (a) Why was Poland an easy prey for her neighbors? (6) Why did not Spain, France, or England interfere to prevent the partition of Poland? (c) How did Lithuania come to be joined to Poland? (d) What things could the king of France do which would not be tolerated in the United States today? (e) Why did the people of France submit to the rule of the king? (/) Why did the king call together the three "estates"? (0) Why do the French celebrate the 14th of July? (h) Why did the other kings take up the cause of the king of France? (1) What was the cause of the reign of terror? CHAPTER IX THE LITTLE MAN FROM THE COMMON PEOPLE The young Corsican. The war in Italy. Italy a battle- field for centuries. The victories of Bonaparte. The first consul. The empire. The French sweep over Europe. Kings and emperors beaten and deposed. The fatal Russian campaign. The first abdication. The return from Elba. The battle of Waterloo. The feudal lords once more tri- umphant. And now there came to the front one of the most remarkable characters in all history. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, a little man from the island of Corsica, of Italian parentage, but a French citizen, for the island had been forcibly The annexed to France shortly before his birth. Heutenant As a y un & lieutenant in the army, he had seen of artillery the storming of the Bastille. Later on, being in charge of the cannon which defended the House of Parliament, he had saved one of the numerous governments set up during this period. A Paris mob was trying to storm this building, as they had the castle of the king. As a reward, he had been put in charge of the French army in Italy, which was engaged in fighting the Austrians. 112 The Map of Europe 113 In order to understand the situation it is necessity at this point to devote some attention to the past history of the Italian peninsula. Italy had not been a united country since the days of the Roman Empire. The southern Divided part of the peninsula had formed, with Sicily, Italy a. small nation called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The northern part had belonged to the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, the Franks, and the Holy Roman Empire in turn. The Italian people wanted to become one nation, but they were divided up-among many little princes, each with hi/ separate dominions. The cities of Genoa and Venice Mad each formed a republic, which was strong on the sea only, for both cities had large navies and had acquired practically all their wealth by their trade with Constantinople, Egypt, and the far East. In 1796 the Hapsburg family held the control of The northern Italy except the lands around the city in Italy of Venice and the county of Piedmont. The latter formed a separate kingdom with the island of Sardinia, much as Sicily was joined with the southern end of the peninsula. Italy had been the battlefield where Goths, Franks, Huns, Lombards, Germans, Austrians, French, and Spaniards had fought their battles for the control of the civilized world. (See the following maps.) At one time, the Austrian 114 The Story of ITALY IN 525 A.D. 1 \///A Kingdom of the Ostrogoths 2 I 1 Kingdom of the Vandals 3| | Kingdom of the Franks 4 $} Kingdom of the Burgundians The Map cf 115 ITALY IN 650 A.D. Lands of the Lombards Lands of the Eastern Empire (The Greek Empire at Constantinople) Country of the Serbs and Croats Country of the Avars Kingdom of the Franks 116 The Story of 1 I | Lands of the Holy Roman Empire 2 R>^\\^\\j Stales of the Church 3 IHiiillillllllllllll Lands of the Republic of Venice 4 I I I II I II The Kingdom of Hungary 5 V////////\ The Kingdom of Sicily Lands of the Moors and Saracens The Map of Europe 117 CHARLES THE FIFTH House of Hapsburg controlled the greater part of the peninsula. This was especially true when Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As a Hapsburg, he was ruler of Austria. As a descendant of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ,\he was/ Lord of the Low Countries (what is nowHolland and 118 The Story of Austrians vs. French Enter Napoleon Bonaparte Belgium). He was also king of Spain, being the oldest living grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. When he became ruler of the two Sicilies, and defeated the French king for the control of northern Italy, there were only four powers in Europe which were not under his sway: Russia, Turkey, Poland, and England. (See map following page 92.) Three hundred years after this, the Austrians were again invading Italy, and at the time when Bonaparte entered it (1796), they had overrun and controlled the entire valley of the Po. The cause of the war was still the deposing of the French monarch. The Austrian armies were fighting to force the people of France to take back the rule of the hated kings. The armies of France, on the other hand, represented the rights of the people to choose their own form of government. Of course the French, intoxicated by the success of the Revolution, were eager to spread the republican form of government all over Europe. There was a real possibility that they might do so, and the kings were fighting in defense of their thrones. (The map shows the conquests of the new republic up to this time.) Such was the situation when young Bona- parte, twenty-six years of age, went down into Italy to take command of the French army. EUROPE IN 1796 Just after the French Revolution and the Division of Poland 1 s 10 \ . Kingdom ot Sardinia 2. Republic of Switzerland 3. Kingdom of Bavaria . Kingdom of Wurtemburg 5. Little German States 6. Batavian Republic 7. Kingdom of Denmark' and Norway 8. Kingdom of Great Britain 9. Kingdom of Sweden 0.. Empire of Russia 1. Kingdom of Prussia 2. Lands of the Hapsburgs (Austria-Hungary) 3. Turkish Empire 4. Montenegro 5. Republic of Venice 6. Tuscany 17. States of the Church 18. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 19. Kingdom of Spain 20. Kingdom of Portugal 21. Republic of France 22. Republic of Genoa 23. Hanover 24. Saxony The Map of Europe 119 The generals, many of them as old as his father, began offering him advice, but he impatiently waved them aside and announced that he was going to wage war on a plan hitherto unheard of. He made good his boast, and after a short campaign in which he inspired his ragged, hungry army to perform wonders in fighting, .he had genius driven the Austrians out of northern Italy, broken up the Republic of Venice, and forced the emperor to make peace with France. After a brilliant but unsuccessful campaign in Egypt and Syria, Bonaparte returned to France, where, as the popular military hero, he had little difficulty in overthrowing the five Directors of the French government and having himself elected " First Consul" or president of France. A new combination of nations now united against the republic, but Bonaparte cut to pieces a great Austrian army, and a second time A , rale 5 t . . elected by compelled his enemies to make peace. He now his people proposed that the French people elect him "emperor of the French" for life, and by an overwhelming vote they did so. The empire was very different from the other empires and kingships of Europe, since it was created by the vote of the people. The other monarchs held their thrones by reason of their descent from the / chiefs of the plundering tribes which mvadea Europe during the Dark Ages. By this time, 120 The Story of Kings claim divine authority The awakening of the peasants the kings had forgotten that they owed their power to the swords of their fighting men, there had grown up a doctrine called e Divine Right of Kings." In other words, kings claimed that God in his wisdom had seen fit to make them rulers over these lands, and that they were responsible to God alone. In this way they tried to make it appear that any one who attempted to drive a king from his throne was opposed to the will of Heaven. The victorious French, exulting in their newly-won freedom from the tyranny of kings and nobles, were full of warlike pride in the won- derful victories gained by their armies under the brilliant leadership of Napoleon. (He dropped his last name, Bonaparte, when he was elected emperor.) They swept over the greater part of Europe and helped to spread the idea that the people had rights that all kings were bound to respect, and that it was not necessary to be ruled by descendants of the old robber chiefs. For sixteen years Napoleon did not meet defeat. He beat the Austrians and Russians singly; he beat them combined. In two fierce battles, he crushed the wonderful Prussian army, which had been trained in the military school of Frederick the Great. He drove out the king of Spain, the king of the Two Sicilies, the kings of several of the small German EUROPE IN 181O Napoleon at the Height of his Power CONTROLLED BY FRANCE The Empire of France Little German States composing the Confederation of the Rhine 3. Kingdom of Westphalia 4. Kingdom of Italy Kingdom of Naples 6. Grand Duchy of Warsaw 7. Kingdom of Spain 8. Republic of Switzerland ALLIED WITH FRANCE 9. Empire of Austria 0. Kingdom of Prussia 1. Kingdom of Sweden 2. Kingdom of Denmark and Norway INDEPENDENT OF FRANCE 13. Empire of Russia 14 Turkish Empire 15. Montenegro 16. Kingdom of Sicily 17. Kingdom of Sardinia 18. Kingdom of Portugal 19. Kingdom of Great Britain E A The Map of .Europe 121 kingdoms. He made one of his brothers king of Spain, another king of Holland, a third king of Westphalia (part of western Germany). He set his brother-in-law on the throne of Naples. He had his small son crowned king of Rome. He took away from Prussia all of her territory except Brandenburg, corsican Silesia, Pomerania, and East and West Prussia. mak es and unmakes He reorganized the old Polish kingdom and kings called it the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. He forced Austria to give up all claim to northern Italy. He annexed to France the land which is now Belgium and Holland, and parts of western Germany and Italy. (See map entitled "Europe in 1810.") All over Europe, those of the people who had education enough to understand what was going on, were astonished to see the old feudal kings and princes driven from their thrones and their places taken by men sprung from the common people. The father of the Bonapartes had been a poor lawyer. Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, king of the Two Sicilies, was the son of an innkeeper. Bernadotte, one of Rulers Napoleon's generals, whom the Swedes chose from the common as their king, was likewise descended from the people lower classes. In nations where the working classes had never dreamed of opposing the rulers there sprang up a new hope. THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON IN 1814 (122) The Map of Europe 123 Bonaparte at last made a fatal mistake. Thefatal With an army of half a million men, he invaded blunder Russia, and established his headquarters in Moscow. The Russian people, however, set fire themselves to their beautiful city, and the French had to retreat a thousand miles through The L , terrible snow and ice, while bands of Russian Cossacks retreat swooped down on them from the rear and took a hundred thousand prisoners. Encouraged by this terrible blow dealt the French, the allied kings of Europe again united in one last effort to drive the little Corsican from the throne of France. For two years Napoleon held them at bay, making up for his lack of soldiers by his marvel- ous military skill, and by the enthusiasm which he never failed to arouse in his troops. In 1814, however, surrounded by the troops of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England, he had to confess by numbers himself beaten. Even Bernadotte, his former general, led the Swedish troops against him. The allied kings brought back in triumph to Paris the brother of the king who had been murdered there twenty-two years before, and set him on the throne of France. Napoleon was banished to the little island of Elba to the west of Italy, and the monarchs flattered themselves that their troubles were ended. In the spring of the following year, however, (124) The Map of Europe 125 Napoleon escaped from his island prison and landed on the southern coast of France. The king ordered his soldiers to capture their former emperor. But the magic of his presence was too much for them, and the men who had The peop i e been sent to put him into chains shed tears of rise a , second joy at the sight of him, and threw themselves time at his feet. One week later, the king of France had fled a second time from his country, and the man chosen by the people was once more at the head of the government. All the kingdoms of Europe declared war against France, and four large armies were headed toward her borders. Napoleon did not wait for them to come. Gathering a big force, he marched rapidly north into the low countries, where he met and defeated an army of Prus- sians. Another army of English was advancing from Brussels. .On the field of Waterloo, the French were defeated in one of the great battles of the world's history. The defeated Prussians had made a wide circuit and returned to the field to the aid of their English allies,, while the general whom Napoleon had sent to follow the Germans arrived too late to prevent, the emperor from being crushed. A second time, Napoleon had to give up his crown, and a second time King Louis XVIII was brought back into Paris and put upon the French 126 The Story of NAPOLEON AT WATERLOO throne by the bayonets of foreign troops. Feudalism J triumphant The people had been crushed, apparently, and the old feudal lords were once more in control. Questions for Review (a) Had Italy ever been a nation? (6) What German tribe ruled Italy in 525? (See map.) (c) What tribe ruled Italy in 650? (See map.) (d} What part of Italy once belonged to the Holy Roman Empire? (See map.) (e) What induced the French to elect Bonaparte as First Consul and afterward Emperor? (/) What led Napoleon to make war on the other rulers? (0) What was Napoleon's great mistake? (K) Why did the people welcome him upon his return from Elba? (1) What was the effect of the battle of Waterloo? CHAPTER X A KING-MADE MAP AND ITS TRAIL OF WRONGS A meeting of kings and diplomats. Austrians and English vs. Prussians and Russians. Talleyrand the subtle. Carving a new map. The people are ignored. Sowing the seeds of trouble. Unhappy Poland. Divided Italy. Revolts of the people. The outbreaks of 1848. And now the kings and princes, with their ministers of state and diplomats, met at Vienna to decide what should be the map of Europe. In past years, there had been a great deal of suspicion and jealousy among these monarchs. Hardly five years had gone by without finding two of them flying at each other's throats in some unjust war or other. Only their great fear of uprisings similar to the French Revolution had driven them to act together in crushing the French Republic, and the empire voted by the people, which had followed it. This famous J he Congress " Congress of Vienna," which took place in of Vienna 1815, is a fair example of the way in which European lands have been cut up and parceled out to various monarchs without any regard for the wishes of the people. 127 128 The Story of The Map of Europe 129 Russia and Prussia, proud of the part that their mighty armies had had in crushing Napo- leon, were arrogantly intending to divide the map of Europe as suited them, and it was only by a great deal of diplomacy that they were beaten. (The game of diplomacy is frequently a polite name for some very cunning deception, at work involving lying and cheating, in which kings and their ministers take part.) The Austrians were afraid of the Russian-Prussian combination, and they induced England to side with them. England did not love Austria, but feared the other two powers. The English minister, Lord Castlereagh, finally persuaded the Aus- trians, Prussians, and Russians, to allow the French diplomat, Talleyrand, to take part in their final meetings. Now Talleyrand was probably the most slippery and tricky diplomat The of all Europe. He had grown to power during diplomat the troublous days of the latter part of the Trench Revolution, and had guessed which party would remain in power so skillfully that he always appeared as the strong friend of the win- ning side. Although he had served Napoleon during the first years of the empire, he was shrewd enough to remain true to King Louis XVIII during the- latter's second exile. The Prussian-Russian combination was finally obliged to give in, somewhat, to the demands of 130 The Story of The division of the spoils Trading in nations Austria, England, and France. Compare this map with the one given in the preceding chap- ter, and you will see most of the important changes. Prussia, which had been cut down to about half its former size by Napoleon, got back some of its Polish territory, and was given a great deal of land in western Germany along the River Rhine. Part of the kingdom of Saxony was forcibly annexed to Prussia also. It is needless to say that its inhabitants were bitterly unhappy over this arrangement. Austria kept part of her Polish territory, and gave the rest of it to Russia. The southern part of the Netherlands, which is today called Belgium, had belonged to the Hapsburg family, the emperors of Austria. As was previously said, it was conquered by the French and remained part of France until the fall of Napoleon. It was now joined with Hol- land to make the kingdom of the Netherlands. Its people were Walloons and Flemish, almost entirely Catholic in their religion, and they very much disliked to be joined with the Protes- tant Dutch of Holland. The state of Finland, which had not been strong enough to defend itself against its two powerful neighbors, Sweden and Russia, had been fought over by these two powers for EUROPE IN 1815 After the Congress of Vienna fcr is i / ^ \ I 1. Kingdom of Spain 2. Kingdom of Portugal 3. Kingdom of France 4. Kingdom of Sardinia 5. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 6. States of the Church 7. Tuscany 8. Republic of Switzerland 9. Empire cf Austria 10. Montenegro 11. Turkish Empire 12. Empire of Russia 13. Kingdom of Sweden and Norway 14. Kingdom of Prussia 15. Republic of Cracow 16. Little German States, with Austria and Prussia, composing the German Confederation 17. Kingdom of the Netherlands 18. Kingdom of Denmark 19. Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 20. Parma 21. Modena 22. Republic of San Marino The Map of Europe 131 more than a century. It was finally transferred to Russia, and in order to appease Sweden, Nor- way, which had been ruled by the Danes, was torn away from Denmark and made part of the kingdom of Sweden. The Norwegians desired to remain an independent country, and they trouble loved the Swedes even less than they loved the Danes. Therefore, this union was another source of trouble. The greater part of the kingdom of Poland and all of Lithuania were joined to Russia. Russia got back all of the territory she had taken in 1795, and in addition large parts of the former shares of Prussia and Austria. In order to pay back Austria for the loss of part of Poland, she was given all of northern Italy except the counties of Piedmont and Savoy near France. The German states (and these included both Austria and Prussia) were formed into a loose alliance called the German Confederation. England's share of the plunder consisted largely of distant colonies, such as South Africa, Ceylon, Trinidad, etc. France shrank back to the boundaries which she had had at the beginning of the revolution. The kings of France, of the Two Sicilies, and of Spain (all of Thg retum them members of the Bourbon family) who had of tyrants been driven out by Napoleon, were set back upon their thrones. 132 The Story of This arrangement left Italy all split up into nine or ten different parts, although its people desired to be one nation. It left Austria a government over twelve different nationalities, each one of which was dissatisfied. It joined Belgium to Holland in a combination dis- pleasing to both. It gave Norway and Finland as subject states to Sweden and Russia respec- tively. It left the Albanians, Serbians, Rou- Haifof manians, Bulgarians, and Greeks all subject dissatisfied to the hated Turks. It set upon three thrones, once vacant, kings who were hated by their subjects. It divided the Poles up among four different governments for, strange as it may seem, the powers could not decide who should own the city of Cracow and the territory around it, and they ended by making this district a little republic, under the joint protection of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In fact, the Swiss, serene in their lofty mountains, were almost the only small people of Europe who were left untroubled. The Congress of 1815 had laid the foundation for future revolutions and wars without number. At first, the Poles were fairly well treated by the Russians, but after two or three unsuccessful The woes of Poland attempts at a revolution, Poland, which, as one of the states of the Russian Empire, was still called a kingdom, was deprived of all its rights, The Map of Europe 133 and its people were forced to give up the use of their language in their schools, their courts, and even their churches. In the same fashion, the Poles in Prussia were "not even allowed to think in Polish," as one Polish patriot bitterly put it. All through the first half of the 19th century, there were uprisings and struggles among these people. As a result of one of them, in 1846, the little Republic of Cracow was abolished, and its territory forcibly annexed to Austria. The Italian people formed secret societies which had for their object the uniting of Italy, and the freeing of its people from foreign rulers. All through Germany there were mutterings of discontent. The people wanted more free- dom from their lords. Greece broke out into tented common insurrection against the Turks, and fifteen years people after the Congress of 1815 won its right to independence. Not long afterwards, the southern half of 'the Netherlands broke itself loose from the northern half, and declared to the world that it should henceforth be a new kingdom, under the name of Belgium. About the same time, the people of France rose up against the Bourbon kings, and threw them out "for good." A distant cousin of the king was elected, not "king of France" but "citizen king of the French," and the people were allowed 134 The Story of A short- lived republic The waning of feudal powers to elect men to represent them in a parliament or Congress at Paris. In Spain, one revolution followed another. For a short time, Spain was a republic, but the people were not well enough educated to govern themselves, and the kingdom was restored. PRINCE METTERNICH The statesman who had more to do with the division of territory in 1815 than any other was Prince Metternich of Austria. He stood for the "divine right of kings," and did not believe in allowing the common people any liberty what- soever. In 1848, an uprising occurred in Aus- tria, and crowds in Vienna, crying, "down with Metternich," forced the aged diplomat to flee. During the same year, there were outbreaks in Germany. The people everywhere were The Map of Europe 135 revolting against the feudal rights of their kings and princes, and gaining greater liberty for themselves. In 1848, France, also, grew tired of her " citizen king," and that country a second time became a republic. The French made the mistake, however, of electing as their president, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon, and in time he did exactly what his uncle had done, persuaded the French people to elect him emperor. Questions for Review (a) What were the motives of each of the nations repre- sented at the Congress of Vienna? (6) Why were the Russians and Prussians the leaders of the meeting at first? (c) Why did the English and Austrians assist each other? (d) What had Napoleon done for Poland? (See last chapter.) (e) What kings deposed by Napoleon were set back on their thrones? (/) What were the greatest wrongs done by the Congress? (0) How did the Poles protest against the settlement made by the Congress? (K) What did the Belgians do about it? (1) What did the French finally do to the Bourbon kings? CHAPTER XI ITALY A NATION AT LAST. The Crimean War curbs Russia. Cavour plans a United Italy. War against Austria. Garibaldi, the patriot. The Kingdom of Sardinia becomes part of the new Kingdom of Italy. Venice and Rome are added. Some Italians still outside the kingdom. Meanwhile, Italy, under the leadership of two patriots named Mazzini and Garibaldi, was in a turmoil. The Austrians and the Italian princes who were subject to them were constantly crushing some attempted revolution. One thing which helped the cause of the people was that the great powers were all jealous the nations of each other. For example, Russia attacked Turkey in 1853, but France and England were afraid that if Russia conquered the Turks and took Constantinople, she would become too powerful for them. Therefore, both countries rushed troops to aid Turkey, and in the end, Russia was defeated, although thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides before the struggle was over. You will remember that the counties of The Piedmont and Savoy in western Italy, together beginnings w [fa t he island of Sardinia, made up a little of modern Italy kingdom known as the "Kingdom of Sardinia. " 136 The Map of Europe 137 This country had for its prime minister, a statesman named Count Cavour, who, like all Italians, strongly hoped for the day when all the Cavour people living on the Italian peninsula should be one nation. At the time of the Crimean War (as the war between Russia on the one side and Turkey, France, and England on the other was called) he caused his country also to declare war on Russia, and sent a tiny army to fight alongside of the English and French. A few years later, he secretly made a bargain with Napoleon III. (This was what President More Bonaparte of France called himself after he had diplomacy been elected emperor.) The French agreed to make war with his country against the Austrians. If they won, the Sardinians were to receive all north Italy, and in return for France's help were to give France the county of Savoy and the seaport of Nice. When Cavour and the French were all ready to strike, it was not hard to find an excuse for a war. Austria declared war on Sardinia, and, as had been arranged, France rushed to the aid of the Italians. Austria was speedily beaten, but no sooner was the war finished than the French emperor repented of his bargain. He was afraid that it would make trouble for him with his Catholic subjects if the Italians were allowed to take all the northern half of the 138 The Story of peninsula, including the pope's lands, into their kingdom. Accordingly, the Sardinians re- ceived only Lombardy in return for Savoy and Nice, which they gave to France, and the Austrians kept the county of Venetia. A fire once kindled, however, is hard to put out. No sooner did the people of the other states of The s kit nortnern Italy see the success of Sardinia, than, of revolt one after another, they revolted against their Austrian princes and voted to join the new kingdom of Italy. In this way, Parma, Mo- dena, Tuscany, and part of the " States of the Church" were added. All of this happened in the year 1859. These " States of the Church" came to be formed in the following way : The father of the great king of the Franks, Charlemagne, who had been crowned western emperor by the pope in the year 800, had rescued northern Italy from the rule of the Lombards. He had made the pope lord of a stretch of territory extending across Italy from the Adriatic Sea to the Medi- The pope terranean. The inhabitants of this country had as a feudal lord no ruler but the pope. They paid their taxes to him, and acknowledged him as their feudal lord. It was part of this territory which revolted and joined the new kingdom of Italy. You will remember the name of Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, who with Mazzini had been The Map of Europe 139 stirring up trouble for the Austrians. They finally pursued him so closely that he had to leave Italy. He came to America and set up a The fruit store in New York City, where there were quite a number of his countrymen. By 1854, patriot he had made a great deal of money in the fruit business, but had not forgotten his beloved country, and was anxious to be rich only in order that he might free Italy from the Austrians. He sold out his business in New York, and taking all his money, sailed for Italy. When the war of 1859 broke out, he volunteered, and fought throughout the campaign. But the compromising terms of peace galled him, and he was not satisfied with a country only half free. In the region around Genoa, Ahazard he enrolled a -thousand men to go on what ous venture looked like a desperate enterprise. Garibaldi had talked with Cavour, and between them, they had schemed to overthrow the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and join this land to the northern country. Of course, Cavour pretended not to know anything about Garibaldi, for the king of Naples and Sicily was supposed to be a friend of the king of Sardinia. Nevertheless, he secretly gave Garibaldi all the help that he dared, and urged men to enroll with him. With his thousand " red-shirts," as they were called, Garibaldi landed on the island of Sicily, 140 The Story of The Map of Europe 141 at Marsala. The inhabitants rose to welcome him, and everywhere they drove out the officers who had been appointed by their king to rule them. In a short time, all Sicily had risen in Sicily rises rebellion against the king. (You will remember that this family of kings had been driven out by Napoleon and restored by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. They were Bourbons, the same family that furnished the kings of Spain and the last kings of France. They stood for "the divine right of kings/' and had no sym- pathy with the common people.) Crossing over to the mainland, Garibaldi, with his little army now swollen to ten times its former size, swept everything before him as he marched toward Naples. Everywhere, the people rose against their former masters, and welcomed the liber- ator. The king fled in haste from Naples, never to return. A vote was taken all over the south- ern half of Italy and Sicily, to decide whether the people wanted to join their brothers of the- north to make a new kingdom of Italy. It was so voted almost unanimously. Victor Emman- The uel, king of Sardinia, thus became the first |ks[JP/ king of United Italy. He made Florence his no more, capital at first, as the country around Rome still belonged to the pope. The pope had few soldiers, but was protected by a guard of French troops. However, ten years later, in 142 The Story of 1870, when war broke out between France and Prussia, the French troops left Rome, and the troops of Italy marched quietly in and took possession of the city. Rome, for so many years the capital, not only of Italy but of the whole Mediterranean world, became once more the chief city of the peninsula. The pope "Eternal was g ran ted a liberal pension by the Italian City" once government in order to make up to him for more a capital the loss of the money from his former lands. The dream of Italians for the last 600 years had finally come to pass. Italy was again one country, ruled by the popular Victor Emmanuel, with a constitution which gave the people the right to elect representatives to a parliament or congress. One of the worst blunders of the Congress of Vienna had been set right by the patriotism of the people of Italy. It should be noted, however, that there are still Italians who are not part of this kingdom. The county of Venetia, at the extreme northeast was a dded to the kingdom in 1866 Whatltal still wished as the result of a war which will be told about more fully in the next chapter, but the territory around the city of Trent, called by the Italians Trentino, and the county of Istria at the head of the Adriatic Sea, containing the import- ant seaports of Trieste, Fiume, and Pola, are inhabited almost entirely by people of Italian roil IM 'VSAROINI-A j / in-T858 ITALIANS NOT INCLUDED IN THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 1914 Republic of San Marino Istria ) belonging Trentinoj to Austria Ticino part of Switzerland Parma Pontrernoli Modena Tuscany The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Part of the States of the Church Revolted and voted to join Sardinia to form The Kingdom of Italy 1859-1860 The Map of Europe 143 blood. Certain islands along the coast of Dalmatia also are full of Italians. To rescue these people from the rule of Austria has been the earnest wish of all Italian patriots, and was the chief reason why Italy did not join Germany and Austria in the great war of 1914. Questions for Review (a) Why did England and France side with Turkey against Russia? (6) What bargain did Cavour make with Napoleon III? (c) How did the rest of Italy come to join Sardinia? (d) Explain the origin of the "States of the Church." (e) Why did Sicily and Naples revolt against their king? (/) What Italians are not yet citizens of the kingdom of Italy? CHAPTER XII THE MAN OF BLOOD AND IRON The people demand their rights. Bismarck, the chief prop of the Prussian monarchy. The question of the leader- ship of the German states. The wonderful Prussian army. The war on Denmark. Preparing to crush Austria. The battle of Sadowa. Easy terms to the defeated nation. Preparing to defeat France. A good example of a war caused by diplomats. Prussia's easy victory. The new German empire. Harsh terms of peace. The triumph of feudal government. All of this time, the kings of Europe had been engaged in contests with their own people. The overthrow of the French king at the time of the revolution taught the people of the other countries of Europe that they too could obtain their liberties. You have already been told 1848, a year now fa e people of Austria drove out Prince of popular - uprisings Metternich, who was the leader of the party which refused any rights to the working classes. That same year, 1848, had seen the last king driven out of France, had witnessed revolts in all parts of Italy, and had found many German princes in trouble with their subjects, who were demanding a share in the government, the right of free speech, free newspapers, and trial by jury. The empires of Austria and Russia had 144 The Map of Europe 145 BISMARCK joined with the kingdom of Prussia in a com- bination which was known as the "Holy Alii- The "Holy ance." This was meant to stop the further Alliance" against the spread of republican ideas and to curb the people growing power of the common people. Not long after this, there came to the front 146 The Story of Remaster Bismarck . the Prussian machine The leadership of the German states in Prussia a remarkable man, who for the next forty years was perhaps the most prominent statesman in Europe. His full name was Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schonhausen, but we generally know him under the name of He was a Prussian nobleman, a believer in the divine right of kings, the man who more than anybody else is responsible for the establishing of the present empire of Ger- many. He once made a speech in the Prussian Diet or council in which he said that " blood and iron," not speeches and treaties, would unite Germany into a nation. His one object was a united Germany, which should be the strongest nation in Europe. He wanted Ger- many to be ruled by Prussia, Prussia to be ruled by its king, and the king of Prussia to be controlled by Bismarck. It is marvellous to see how near he came to carrying through his whole plan. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Prussia remained among the powers of Europe, but was not as great as Austria, Russia, England, or France. The German states, some 35 in num- ber, had united in a loose alliance called the German Confederation. (This union was some- what similar to the United States of America between 1776 and 1789.) Austria was the largest of these states, and was naturally looked The Map of Europe 147 upon as the leader of the whole group. Prussia was the second largest, while next after Prussia, and much smaller, came the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Wurtemburg. Bismarck, as prime minister of Prussia, built up a wonderfully strong army. He did this by The means of a military system which at first made of Prussia him very unpopular with the people. Every man in the nation, rich or poor, was obliged to serve a certain number of years in the army and be ready at a moment's notice to join a certain regiment if there came a call to war. Having organized this army, and equipped it with every modern weapon, Bismarck was anxious to use it to accomplish his purpose. There were two counties named Schleswig (shles'vig) and Holstein (hol'stin) which be- longed to the king of Denmark and yet con- tained a great many German people. The inhabitants of Schleswig were perhaps half Danes, while those of Holstein were more than two-thirds Germans. These Germans had pro- tested against certain actions of the Danish government, and were threatening to revolt. Taking advantage of this trouble, Prussia and Awarof Austria, as the leading states of the German conquest Federation, declared war on little Denmark. The Danes fought valiantly, but were over- whelmed by the armies of their enemies. 148 The Story of Schleswig and Holstein were torn away from Denmark and put under the joint protection of Austria and Prussia. This sort of arrangement could not last. Sooner or later, there was bound to be a quarrel over the division of the plunder. Now Bis- marck had a chance to show his crafty diplo- macy. He made up his mind to crush Austria and put Prussia in her place as the leader of the German states. He first negotiated with Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and made sure that this monarch would not interfere. Next he remembered that the provinces of Venetia, Trentino, and Istria still belonged to diplomacy Austria, as the Italians had failed to gain them in the war of 1859. Accordingly, Bismarck induced Italy to declare war on Austria by promising her Venetia and the other provinces in return for her aid. Saxony, Bavaria, and Hanover were friendly to Austria, but Bismarck did not fear them. He knew that his army, under the leadership of its celebrated general, von Moltke, was more than a match for the Austrians, Bavarians, etc., combined. When Bismarck was ready, Prussia and Italy struck. The Austrians were successful at first against the Italians, but at Sadowa in Bohemia, their armies were beaten in a tremendous battle by the Prussians. Austria was put down The Map of Europe 149 from her place as the leader of the German Confederation, and Prussia took the leadership. Hanover, whose king had sided with the Aus- trians, was annexed to Prussia. The king of To Prussia and several of his generals were anxious belong the to rob Austria of some of her territory, as had spoils been the custom in the past whenever one nation defeated another in war. Bismarck, however, restrained them. In his program of making Prussia the leading military state in Europe, he saw that his next opponent would be France, and he did not propose, on attack- ing France, to find his army assailed in the rear by the revengeful Austrians. Accordingly, Bismarck compelled the king to let Austria off without any loss of territory except Venetia, which was given to the Italians. Austria was even allowed to retain Trentino and Istria, and was not required to pay a large indemnity to Prussia. (A custom which had come down . A nation's from the middle ages, when cities which were ransom captured had been obliged to pay great sums of money, in order to get rid of the conquering armies, was the payment of a war indemnity by the defeated nation. This was a sum of money as large as the conquerors thought they could safely force their victims to pay.) The Austrians, although they were angry over the manner in which Bismarck had provoked 150 The Story of Not room for two dictators in Europe the war, nevertheless appreciated the fact that he was generous in not forcing harsh terms upon them, as he could have done had he wanted to. The eyes of all Europe now turned toward the coming struggle between Prussia and France. It was plain that it was impossible for two men like Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon to continue in power very long with- out coming to blows. It was Bismarck's ambition, as was previously said, to make Prussia the leading military nation of Europe, and he knew that this meant a struggle with Napoleon. You will remember also that he planned a united Germany, led by Prussia, and he felt that the French war would bring this about. On the other hand, the French emperor was extremely jealous of the easy victory that Prussia and Italy had won over Austria. He had been proud of the French army, and wanted it to remain the greatest fighting force in Europe. He was just as anxious for an excuse to attack Prussia as Bismarck was for a pretext to attack him. It should be kept in mind that all this time there was no ill-feeling between the French pepple and the Germans. In fact, the Germans of the Rhine country were very friendly to France, and during Napoleon's time had been The Map of Europe 151 given more liberties and had been governed better than under the rule of their former feudal lords. All the hostility and jealousy was between the military chiefs. Even Bismarck did not dislike the French. He had no feeling hostility is toward them at all. It was part of his program that their military power should be crushed and chiefs his program must be carried through. Europe, to his mind, was too small to contain more than one master military power. The four years between 1866 and 1870 were used by Bismarck to gain friends for Prussia among other countries of Europe, and to make enemies for France. The kingdoms of south Germany (Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemburg), which had sided with Austria during the late war, were friendly to France and hostile to Prussia. Napoleon III, however, made a pro- posal in writing to Bismarck that France should be given a slice of this south German territory in return for some other land which France was to allow Prussia to seize. Bismarck pretended to consider this proposal, but was careful to keep the original copy, in the French ambassador's own handwriting. (Each nation sends a man Diplomatic maneuver- to represent her at the capital of each other ing nation. These men are called ambassadors. They are given power to sign agreements for their governments.) By showing this to the 152 The Story of Efficiency vs. inefficiency and "graft" rulers of the little south German kingdoms, he was able to turn them against Napoleon and to make secret treaties with these states by which they bound themselves to fight on the side of Prussia in case a war broke out with France. In similar fashion, Bismarck made the Belgians angry against the French by letting it be known that Napoleon was trying to annex their country also. Meanwhile, aided by General von Moltke and Count von Roon (ron), Bismarck had built up a wonderful military power. Every man in Prussia had been trained a certain number of years in the army and was ready at a moment's notice to join his regiment. The whole cam- paign against France had been planned months in advance. In France on the other hand, the illness and advanced age of Napoleon III had resulted in poor organization. Men who did not wish to serve their time in the army were allowed to pay money to the government instead. Yet their names were carried on the rolls. In this way, the French army had not half the strength in actual numbers that it had on paper. What is more, certain government officials had taken advantage of the emperor's weakness and lack of system 'and had put into their own pockets money tjiat should have been spent in buying guns and ammunition. The Map of Europe 153 When at last Bismarck was all ready for the war, it was not hard to find an excuse. Old Queen Isabella of Spain had been driven from her throne, and the Spanish army under General Prim offered the crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a cousin of the king of Prussia. This alarmed Napoleon, who imagined that if Prussia attacked him on the east, this Prussian prince, as king of Spain, would lead the Spanish | h nish army over the Pyrenees against him on the question south. France made so vigorous a protest that the prince asked the Spaniards not to think of him any longer. This was not enough for Napoleon, who now proceeded to make a fatal mistake. The incident was closed, but he persisted in reopening it. He sent his ambassa- dor to see King William of Prussia to ask the latter to assure France that never again should Prince Leopold be considered for the position of king of Spain. The king answered that he could not guarantee this, for he was merely the head of the Hohenzollern family. Prince Leo- pold, whose lands lay outside of Prussia, was not even one of his subjects. The interview between the king and the French ambassador had been a friendly one. The ambassador had been very courteous to the king, and the king had been very polite to the ambassador. They had parted on good terms. (154) The Map of Europe 155 In the meanwhile, Bismarck had been hoping that an excuse for war would come from this incident. He was at dinner with General von Moltke and Count von Roon when a long telegram came from the king, telling of his interview with the French ambassador. In the story of his life written by himself, Bismarck tells how, as he read the telegram both Roon and Moltke groaned in disappointment. He says that Moltke seemed to have grown older in a minute. Both had earnestly hoped that war would come. Bismarck took the dispatch, J 1 J 1 e rtened sat down at a table, and began striking out the message polite words and the phrases that showed that the meeting had been a friendly one. He cut down the original telegram of two hundred words to one of twenty. When he had finished, the message sounded as if the French ambassa- dor had bullied and threatened the king of Prussia, while the latter had snubbed and insulted the Frenchman. Bismarck read the altered telegram to Roon and Moltke. In- , An altered stantly, they brightened up and felt better, meaning "How is that?' 7 he asked. "That will do it," they answered. "War is assured." The telegram was given to the newspapers, and within twenty-four hours, the people of Paris and Berlin were shouting for war. Napo- J5^ ress leon III hesitated, but he finally gave in to his a hand 156 The Story of The Map of Europe 157 generals and his wife who urged him to " avenge the insult to the French nation." We give this story of the starting of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 just to show the tricks of European diplomats. What Bismarck did was no worse than what the Frenchman, Talleyrand, would have done, or the Austrian, Metternich, or several of the English or Russian diplomats. It simply proves how helpless the people of European countries are, when the military class which rules them has decided, for diplomats its own power and glory, on war with some other nation. The war was short. The forces of France were miserably unprepared. The first great defeat of the French army resulted in the capture of the emperor by the Prussians and the overthrowing of the .government in Paris, where Revolution a third republic was started. One of the French treason generals turned traitor, thinking that if he surrendered his army and cut short the war the Prussians would force the French to take Napoleon III back as emperor. Paris was besieged for a long time. The people lived on mule meat and even on rats and mice rather than surrender to the Germans, but at last they were starved out, and peace was made. In the meantime, another of Bismarck's plans had been successful. In January, 1871, while 158 The Story of The Map of Europe 159 the siege of Paris was yet going on, he induced the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, together with Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and all the other little German states to join Prussia in forming a new empire of Germany. The The new king of Prussia was to be " German Emperor," Germany and the people of Germany were to elect rep- resentatives to the Reichstag or Imperial ' Congress. Although at the outset, the war was between the kingdom of Prussia and the empire of France, the treaty of peace was signed by the republic of France and the empire of Ger- many. Bismarck was very harsh in his terms of peace. France was condemned to pay an indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs (nearly one billion dollars) and certain parts of France were to be occupied by the German troops until this money was fully paid. Two counties of France, v Alsace and Lorraine, were to be annexed to Germany. Alsace was inhabited largely by people of German descent, but there were many French mingled with them, and the whole province had belonged to France so long that its people felt themselves to be wholly French. Lorraine contained very few Germans, and was taken, contrary to Bismarck's best judgment, dMomatic because it contained the important city of blunder Metz, which was strongly fortified. Here the 160 The Story of military chiefs overruled Bismarck. The desire among the French for revenge on Germany for taking this French-speaking province has proved that Bismarck was right. It was a blunder of the worst kind. The policy of " blood and iron' 7 had been successful. From a second rate power, Prussia had risen, under Bismarck's leadership, to become the strongest military force in Europe. Schleswig had been torn from Danish, Holstein from Austrian control. Hanover had been forcibly annexed, and Alsace and Lorraine wrested from France. The greater part of the inhabitants of these countries were bitterly unhappy at being placed under the Prussian military rule. Moreover, it must be remem- bered that a great deal of this growth in power had been at the expense of the liberty of the common people. The revolution of 1848 had demanded free speech, free newspapers, the right to vote, and the right to elect men to a congress or parliament, and while some of these rights had been granted, still the whole country was under the control of the war department. The emperor, as commander-in-chief of the army, could suppress any newspaper and dismiss the congress whenever he might think this proper. The Reichstag was, as it has been called, a big debating society, whose members The Map of Europe 161 had the right to talk, but were not allowed to pass any laws that were contrary to the wishes of the military leaders. Questions for Review (a) What was the reason for the revolts of 1848 all over Europe? (6) What was the object of the "Holy Alliance"? (c) What was Bismarck's purpose in building up a strong army? (d) How did Bismarck defeat Austria? (e) What is a war indemnity? (/) Explain how Bismarck made enemies for Napoleon III. (0) Why were the French alarmed when Spain offered its crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern? (h) What means did Bismarck use to bring on war with France? (ft Was Prussia's victory a good thing for her people? CHAPTER XIII THE BALANCE OF POWER The recovery of France. The jealousy of the powers. The policy of uniting against the strongest. The dream of Russia. A war of liberation. The powers interfere in favor of the Turk. The Congress of Berlin. Bismarck's Triple Alliance. France and Russia are driven together. The race for war preparation. The growth of big navies. Under the third republic,* France recovered very rapidly from the terrible blow dealt her by Germany. Her people worked hard and Thrift and save( ^ t ^ ie ^ r mone y- I n I GSS than two years, industry they had paid off the last cent of the one billion dollar indemnity, and the German troops were obliged to go home. France had adopted the same military system that Germany had, and required all of her young men to serve two years in the army and be ready at a moment's notice to rush to arms. She began also to build up a strong navy, and to spread her colonies in Africa and other parts of the world. This rapid recovery of France surprised and disturbed Bismarck, who thought that never again, after rises again the war of 1870, would she become a strong power. He had tried to renew the old "Holy The first republic began in 1792, when King Louis XVI was beheaded, the second in 1848 when Louis Philippe, the " citizen king," was driven out. 162 The Map of Europe 163 Alliance" between Germany, Russia, and Aus- tria with the idea of preventing the spread of republics. These were the three nations which gave their people very few rights, and which stood for the " divine right of kings" and for the crushing of all republics. Bismarck called this new combination the " Drei-kaiser-bund" or three-emperor-bond. He himself says that the proposed alliance fell to pieces because of the emperors lies and treachery of Prince Gortchakoff, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. An incident which happened in 1875 helped to estrange Germany from Russia. As was previously said, Bismarck was astonished and alarmed when he saw how quickly France was getting over the effects of the war. In 1875, some trouble came up again between France and Germany, and Bismarck a second time planned to make war on the republic and complete the task that he had left unfinished in 1871. He wanted to reduce France to the rank of a second class power, on a par with Spain and Denmark. This time, however, England and Russia growled ominously. They notified Bis- marck that they would not stand by and see of the 187 France crushed not from any love of France, g rowin g ' strength of but because they were jealous of Prussia and Prussia afraid that the Germans might become too powerful in Europe. Accordingly, Bismarck 164 The Story of PETER THE GREAT The balance of power had to give up his idea of war. Prussia was strong, but she could not fight England, Russia, and France combined. However, he remem- bered that England and Russia had spoiled his plans and waited for a chance to get revenge. The great object of all European diplomats was to maintain what they called "the balance of power." By this they meant that no one The Map of Europe 165 country was to be allowed to grow so strong that she could defy the rest of Europe. When- ever one nation grew too powerful, the others combined to pull her down. In the meantime, trouble was again brewing among the Balkan nations, which were still sub- ject to the Turks. Revolts had broken . out among the Serbians, and the people of Bosnia and Bulgaria. As has already been told, these nations are Slavic, cousins of the Russians, of the Slavs and they have always looked upon Russia as their big brother and protector. Any keen- eared, intelligent Russian can understand the language of the Serbs, it is so much like his own tongue. (Bel-grad, Petro-grad ; the word ' ' grad' ' means "city" in both languages.) Not only was Russia hostile toward the Turks because they were oppressing the little Slav states, but she had reasons of her own for wanting to see Turkey overthrown. Ever since the reign of Peter the Great, Russia had had her eye upon Constantinople. Peter had con- quered the district east of the Gulf of Finland, and had founded St. Petersburg* there, just to J warmer give Russia a port which was free of ice. In the seas same way, other czars who followed him had fought their way southward to the Black Sea, seeking for a chance to trade with the Mediter- *Now called Petrograd. 166 The Story of The mosque of St. Sophia ENTRANCE TO THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA ranean world. But the Black Sea was like a bottle, and the Turks at Constantinople were able to stop the Russian trade at any time they might wish to do so. Russia is an agri- cultural country, and must ship her grain to countries that are more densely inhabited, to exchange it for their manufactures. Therefore, it has been the dream of every Russian czar that one day Russia might own Constantinople. Again, this city, in ancient days, was the home of the Greek church, as Jlome was the capital of the western Catholic church. The Russians are all Greek Catholics, and every Russian looks forward to the day The Map of Europe 167 when the great church of St. Sophia, which is now a Mohammedan mosque, shall once more be the home of Christian worship. With this plan in mind, Russian diplomats were only too happy to stir up trouble for the Turks among the Slavic peoples of the Balkan states, as Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Montenegro are called. Glance at the two following maps of _ The losses southeastern Europe, and see how Turkey had of Turkey been reduced in size during the two hundred years which followed the Turkish defeat at the gates of Vienna by John Sobieski and the Aus- trians (page 81). The state of Bessarabia had changed hands two or three times, remaining finally in the hands of Russia. The revolts of the Balkan peoples in 1875 and 1876 were hailed with joy among the Russians, and the government at St. Petersburg lost no R USS i awins time in rushing to the aid of the Balkan states freedom for the Balkan and declaring war on Turkey. After a short Slavs but stubbornly contested conflict, Russia and the little countries were victors. A treaty of peace was signed at San Stephano, by which Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria were to be recognized by Turkey as independent states. The boundaries of Bulgaria were to reach to the Aegean Sea, including most of Macedonia, thus cutting off Turkey from her county of Albania, except by water. Bear this in mind, 168 The Story of The Map of Europe 169 ft s ,o||l_>. f ^ I oS- Is it r I n- II I! SI Is II! - ! 1 It -52 c "2 .5 i-o c.n o -r^i-it i, ii -:-: ? > OW^ 3^ C^ 3 D-'5iOCteo S E * -E S l 28 2>*l2; - if *l o 2 3 2 (170) The Map of Europe 171 for it will help you to understand Russia's later feeling when Bulgaria in 1915 joined the ranks of her enemies. The matter was all settled, and Turkey had accepted these terms, when once more the diplomats of Europe began to meddle. It will be remembered that Russia three years before _ The powers had prevented a second war against France intervene planned by Bismarck. It was very easy for him to persuade Austria and England that if Russia were allowed to cripple Turkey and set up three new kingdoms which would be under her control, she would speedily become the strongest nation in Europe. The " balance of power" would be disturbed. England and Austria sided with Germany, and a meeting of statesmen and diplomats was called at Berlin in 1878 to decide once more what should be the map of Europe. Representatives were present from all the leading European countries. Even Turkey had two men at the meeting, but the three men who really controlled were Bismarck, Count Andrassy of Austria, and Lord Beacons- field (Benjamin Disraeli) of England. Russia was robbed of a great part of the fruits of her victory. Bulgaria was left partially under the control of Turkey, in that she had to pay TheBalkan problem Turkey a large sum of money each year for the unsolved privilege of being left alone. Her territory was 172 The Story of Austria administers Bosnia New com- binations among the powers made much smaller than had been agreed to by the treaty of San Stephano. In fact less than one-third of the Bulgarians were living within the boundaries finally agreed upon by the con- gress. A great part of the Serbians were still left under Turkish rule, as were the Greeks of Thessaly and Epirus. The two counties of Bosnia and Herzegovina were still to belong to Turkey, but as the Turks did not seem to be strong enough to keep order there, Austria was to take control of them and run their govern- ment, although their taxes were still to be paid to Turkey. Austria solemnly agreed never to take them from Turkey. Russia, naturally, was very unhappy over this arrangement, and so were the inhabitants of the Balkan kingdoms, for they had hoped that now they were at last to be freed from the oppression of their ancient enemies, the Turks. Thus the Congress of Berlin, like that of Vienna in 1815 (see page 127), laid the foundation for future wars and revolutions. Bismarck now set out to strengthen Germany by making alliances with other European states. He first made up with his old enemy, Austria. Thanks to the liberal treatment that he had given this country after her disastrous war of '1866, he was able to get the Austrians to join Germany in an alliance which states that if two The Map of Europe 173 countries of Europe should ever attack one of the two allies, the other would rush to her help. The Italians were friendly to Germany, for they remembered that they had gotten Venetia from Austria through the help of the Prussians, but they had always looked upon the Austrians as their worst enemies. It was a wonderful thing, then, when Bismarck finally induced Italy to join with Austria and Germany in a ' ' Dreibund' ' or " Triple Alliance. ' ' The Italian people had been very friendly to bund" the French, and this going over to their enemies would never have been possible but for an act of France which greatly angered Italy. For many years, France had been in control of Algeria on the north coast of Africa. This country had once been a nest of pirates, and the French had gone there originally to clean them out. Next to Algeria on the east is the county of Tunis, which, as you will see by the map, is very close to Sicily and Italy. The Italians had been looking longingly at this district for some time, intending to organize an expedition and forcibly annex it to their kingdom. They waited too long, however, and one fine day in 1881 they found the prize gone, France had seized this county for herself. It was Italy's i ta ii an anger over this act of France more than any- ^jj^ t thing else that enabled Bismarck to get her France 174 The Story of The Dual Alliance Again the balance of power into an alliance with Germany and her ancient enemy, Austria. France now saw herself hemmed in on the east by a chain of enemies. It looked as though Bismarck might declare war upon the republic at any time, and be perfectly safe from inter- ference, with Austria and Italy to protect him. Russia, smarting under the treatment which she had been given by the Congress of Berlin, was full of resentment against Germany. Both the French and the Russians felt themselves threatened by Bismarck's Dreibund, and so, in self-defense each country made advance toward the other. The result was the "Dual Alliance" between France and Russia, which bound either country to come to the aid of the other in case of an attack by two powers at once. In this way, the balance of power, disturbed by Bismarck's " Dreibund," was again restored. Many people thought the forming of the two alliances a fine thing, "for," said they, "each party is now too strong to be attacked by the other. Therefore, we shall never again have war among the great powers." England was not tied up with either alliance. On account of her position on an island, and because of her strong navy, she did not feel obliged to keep a large standing army such as The Map of Europe 175 the great powers on the continent maintained. These nations were kept in constant fear of war. As soon as France equipped her army with machine guns, Germany and Austria had to do the same. As soon as the Germans in- vented a new magazine rifle, the Russians and French had to invent similar arms for their soldiers. If Germany passed a law compelling all men up to the age of forty-five to report for two weeks' military training once every Eur P e an armed year, France and Russia had to do the same, camp If Italy built some powerful warships, France and Russia had to build still more powerful ones. This led to still larger ships built by Germany and Italy. If France built a fleet of one hundred torpedo boats, the Triple Alliance had to "go her one better" by building one hundred and fifty. If Germany equipped her army with war balloons, Russia and France had to do the same. If France invented a new kind of heavy artillery, Germany and Austria built a still bigger gun. This mad race for war equipment was bad enough when it had to do only with the five nations in the two alliances about which you have been told. However, the death of the old emperor of Germany in 1888 brought to the throne his grandson, the present Kaiser,* and he *The present Kaiser's father reigned only ninety-nine days, as he was a very sick man at the time of the old emperor's death. 176 The Story of The T d C t f rme d a plan for making Germany the leading the Sea nation on the sea as Bismarck had made her on the land. He saw France and England seizing distant colonies and dividing up Africa between them. He at once announced that Germany, too, must have colonies to which to export her manufactures and from which to bring back tropical products. This meant a strong navy to protect these colonies, and the race with England was on. As soon as Germany built some new battleships, England built still others, larger and with heavier guns. The next year, Germany would build still larger ships, and the next England would come back with still heavier guns. As fast as England built ships, Germany built them. Now, each battle- ship costs from five to fifteen million dollars, and Taxes and ft j oes no ^ take long before a race of this kind still more taxes sends the taxes too high for people to stand. There was unrest throughout Europe and mur- murs of discontent were heard among the working classes. Questions for Review (a) How did France pay off her war indemnity so promptly? (6) Why did Bismarck's three-emperor-alliance fail? (a) What is meant by "the balance of power"? (d) What was the condition of the Serbs, Bulgarians, etc. before 1878? (e) Why does Russia covet Constantinople? The Map of Europe 177 (/) Why did the powers prevent the treaty of San Stephano from being carried out? (0) What wrongs were done by the Congress of Berlin? (K) Why did Bismarck form the Triple Alliance? (i} How was he able to induce Italy to join her old enemy, Austria? , (j) What was the effect of the formation of the Triple Alliance on France and Russia? (fc) What result had the formation of the two alliances on the gun-industry? (1) How was England brought into the race for war equipment? CHAPTER XIV THE "ENTENTE CORDIALE" Ancient enemies. England and France in Africa. A collision at Fashoda. Germany offers to help France. Delcasse the peacemaker. A French-English agreement. Friendship takes the place of hostility. England's relations with Italy, Russia, and Germany. Germans cultivate the friendship and trade of Turkey. The Morocco-Algeciras incident. The question of Bosnia and Herzegovina. England joins France and Russia to form the " Triple Entente." The Agadir incident. England and France had never been friendly. Ancient There had been wars between them, off and on, enemies for five hundred years. The only time that they had fought on the same side was in the campaign against Russia in 1855, but even then there was no real sympathy between them. In the year 1882, events happened in Egypt which gave England an excuse for interfering with the government of that country. Egypt was a part of the Turkish empire, but so long as it paid a certain amount of money to Constantinople, the Turks did not care very much how it was governed. But now a wild chief of the desert had announced himself as the prophet Mohammed come to earth again, and a great many of the desert tribesmen had 178 The Map of Europe 179 joined him. They cut to pieces one or two English armies in Egypt, and killed General Gordon, a famous English soldier. It was 1898 before the English were able to defeat this horde. The Aiabs Lord Kitchener finally beat them and extended vs. Gordon and the English power to the city of Khartoom Kitchener on the Nile. AN ARAB SHEIK AND HIS STAFF In the meantime, the English millionaire, Cecil Rhodes, had formed a plan for a railroad which should run the entire length of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo. It was England's ambition to control all the territory through which this road should run. But the Th " Ca P e to Cairo" French, too, were spreading out over Africa, railroad Their expeditions through the Sahara Desert had joined their colonies of Algeria and Tunis to those on the west coast of Africa and others along the Gulf of Guinea. In this same year, 180 The Story of 1898, while Lord Kitchener was still fighting the Arabs, a French expedition under Major Marchand struggled across the Sahara and reached the Nile at Fashoda, several miles above Khartoom. Marchand planted the French flag and announced that he took possession of this territory for the republic of France. The English were very indignant when they heard of what Marchand had done. If France held Fashoda, their "Cape to Cairo" railroad was cut right in the middle, and they could advance their territory no farther up the valley The quarrel o f t h e Nile. They notified France that this over Fashoda was English land. Marchand retorted that no Englishman had ever set foot there, and that the French flag would never be hauled down after it had once been planted on the Nile. Excitement ran high. The French people had no love for England, and they encouraged Marchand to remain where he was. The English newspapers demanded that he be withdrawn. Germany, which had already be- gun its campaign to wrest from England the leading place on the ocean, was delighted at the Germany prospect of a war between France and the encourages France British. The German diplomats patted France on the back, and practically assured her of German help in case it came to a war with England. The Map of Europe 181 Germany now felt that she had nothing more to fear from France. The French population was not increasing, while Germany was steadily growing in numbers. It was England whom Germany saw across her path toward control of the sea. There was a man in France, however, who had no thought of making up with Germany. The memory of the war of 1870 and of the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine was very strong with him. This was Theophile Delcasse, a little man with a large head and a great brain. He refused to be tempted by the offers of German help, thinking that England, with its free government, was a much better friend for r> e i cass g the republic than the military empire of Ger- | r ^ f ^ d to many could be. Germany Just when the trouble was at its height, the English ambassador came to see Mr. Del- casse, who at that time was in charge of the French foreign office. He had in his pocket an ultimatum, that is to say, a final notice to France that she must give in or England would declare war on her. As he walked into Del- casse 's presence, he began fumbling with the top button of his coat. " Don't touch that button," said Delcasse quickly. "Drop your hand. You have something in your pocket which must not be taken out. It is a threat, 182 The Story of English gratitude A diplo- matic king and if I see it, France will fight. Sit down. Let us talk this matter over coolly. Matters will adjust themselves all right in the end." And they did. Delcasse was finally able to quiet the French people, to recall Marchand from Fashoda and to persuade France to refuse the offer of German friendship. England was given a free hand in Egypt, without any interference from the French. Naturally the English were very grateful to Delcasse for hav- ing refused to profit by German help and declare war. In return for the French agreement to stay out of Egypt, the English promised to help France get control of Morocco. Very soon after this, Queen Victoria of Eng- land died, and her son, Edward VII, became king. He had spent a great deal of time in France, and was very fond of the French and was popular with them. He saw the growing power of Germany, and knew that England could not afford to be without a friend in Europe. He did his best to bring about a feeling of friend- ship between the English and the French, and was very successful in doing so. He made frequent visits to France, where he was received with great cordiality. In return the English entertained the president of France in London in a princely fashion. French warships paid friendly visits to English waters, and the The Map of Europe 183 k sailors mingled with each other and did their best to understand each other's language. All France, and England as well, welcomed the beginning of the " Entente Cordiale," or friendly understanding between the two nations. and Italy England also went out of her way to cultivate a friendly understanding with Italy. With the other nations of Europe England had no great friendship. Between England and Russia, there had been a hostile feeling for a long time, . for the British felt that the Russians would like nothing better than to stretch their empire from Siberia, down to include British India, or at least Afghanistan and Baluchistan, where the British were in control. The emperor of Germany, on the other hand, was planning for the future growth of the trade of his country. Since his coming to the throne, Germany had made wonderful progress in the direction of manufactures. She had become one of the leading nations of the world. One of her chief questions was, where to market these Germans goods. In 1896 the emperor paid a visit to Syria and Turkey. He was received with East great enthusiasm by the Turks, who were glad to have one strong friend among the powers of Europe. Soon afterwards the Germans began to get more and more of the trade of the Ottoman Empire. A German company was The Map of Europe 185 given permission by the Turks to build a rail- road across Turkey to the Persian Gulf through Bagdad. German railways ran through Aus- g]j e dad tria-Hungary, which was Germany's ally, to railway Constantinople and Salonika, the two greatest ports of Turkey in Europe. This short over- land route to Persia was looked upon with sus- picion and distrust by the English, whose ships up to this time had carried on almost all of Europe's commerce with India and the neigh- boring countries. Germany was reaching out for colonies. She secured land on the west coast of Africa and _ tjennany on the east as well. A tract of land in the corner on the sea of the Gulf of Guinea also fell to her share. Islands in the Pacific Ocean were seized. Her foreign trade was growing by leaps and bounds, and she threatened to take away from England a great deal of the latter's commerce. The German emperor announced that he must always be consulted whenever any changes of territory took place, no matter in what part of the earth. Therefore in 1905 when France, with the help of Great Britain and Spain, told the sultan of Morocco that he had to behave himself, the German emperor in person made a visit to Morocco and assured the sultan that he didn't have to pay any attention to France. 186 The Story of . Algeciras incident . Bosnian trouble Promises d and kings There was a great deal of excitement over this incident, and a meeting was held at Algeciras, Spain, where representatives of all the great powers came together. In the end, France and England were upheld, for even Italy, Germany's ally, voted against the Germans. On the other hand, Delcasse, the Frenchman who settled the Fashoda trouble, was compelled to resign his position as minister of foreign affairs because the Germans objected to him, and the French felt that Germany had humiliated them. In 1908, the " young Turk" party in Constan- tinople (the party which stood for progress and for more popular government) drove the old sultan off his throne, and announced that there should be a Turkish parliament, or congress, to which all parts of "the empire should send representatives. You will remember that two counties of the Turkish empire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, had been turned over to Austria to rule by the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Austria at the time solemnly promised that she would never try to annex these provinces. In 1908, how- ever, she forgot all about her promise. When Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to elect men to represent them in the new Turkish parliament, Austria calmly told them that after this they The Map of Europe 187 should consider themselves part of the Austrian Empire, that they belonged to Turkey no longer. The two provinces were inhabited largely by Serbs, and all Serbia had looked forward to the day when they should once more be joined to herself. These states, like Montenegro, had been part of the ancient kingdom of Serbia. As long as they were in dispute between Austria and Turkey, Serbia had hopes of regaining them, but when Austria thus forcibly annexed them, it seemed to the Serbs that they were lost forever. Serbia appealed to Russia, for as was said, all the Slavic states look upon Russia as their , An appeal big brother. The Russians were highly indig- to Russia nant at this breaking of her promises by Aus- tria, and the czar talked of war. His generals and war ministers, however, dissuaded him. "Oh, no, your majesty," said they, "we are in no shape to fight Austria and Germany. Our army was badly disorganized in the Jap- anese war three years ago, and we shall not be ready for another fight for some time to come." Russia protested, but the German emperor notified her that he stood by Austria, and asked Russia if she was ready to fight. Russia and The Dual France were not ready, and so they were Alliance is not ready obliged to back down, but did so with a bitter to fight 188 The Story of feeling toward the " central empires," as Ger- many and Austria are called. It has already been shown that England for a long time had been suspicious of Russia, fearing that the northern power was aiming at control of India. Of late this hostile feeling had been dying out, especially as the friendship between France and Great Britain grew stronger. It was impossible for Russia, France's partner in the Dual Alliance, to remain unfriendly to England, France's ally in the " Entente Cor- diale." Both England and Russia felt that the growth of Germany and the ambition of her war chiefs threatened them more than they had ever threatened each other. In 1907 Russia and England reached an and^Russia understanding by which they marked off two compose great parts of Persia for trading purposes, each differences agreeing to stay in her own portion, and not disturb the traders of the other country in theirs. After this Russia, England, and France were usually found acting together in European diplomacy, under the name of the " Triple Entente." The "balance of power" had been leaning toward Germany and her allies, but the English navy, added to the scales on the other side, more than balanced the advantage in land forces of the Triple Alliance. Three years later, Morocco again gave The Map of Europe 189 trouble, and France, with England's backing and Spain's friendship, sent her troops among the Moors to enforce law and order. Any one could see that with Tunis and Algeria already in French hands, it was only a question of a little while before Morocco would be theirs also. This time Germany rushed her warship Panther to the Moorish port of Agadir. This r Panther was a threat against France, and the French at Agadir appealed to England to know whether they could look to her for support. Russia was now in much better shape for war than she had been three years before, and notified France that she was ready to give her support. Therefore, when Mr. Lloyd-George, the little Welshman who was really the leader of the British government, stood up in his place in the English parliament and told the world that "to the last ship, the last man, the last penny," England would support France, it was plain that somebody would have to back down or else start a tre- mendous European war. It was now Germany's turn to give way. Strong as she was, she did not propose to fight j^ a e s r ^ any France, Russia, and England combined. So, backdown although the French gave Germany a few square miles of land in central Africa in return for the Kaiser's agreement to let France have her way in Morocco, the result was a backdown for 190 The Story of Germany, and it left scars which would not heal. During all this period from 1898 to 1914 there were incidents happening, any one of which might have started the world war. Fashoda, Algeciras, Bosnia, Agadir each time it seemed as if only a miracle could avert the conflict. Europe was like a powder magazine. No man knew when the spark might fall that would bring on the explosion. Questions for Review (a) What were the plans of the English regarding Africa? (6) How did Major Marchand threaten the peace of Europe? (c) Why was Germany ready to help France? (d) Why did Delcasse desire to keep peace with England? (e) Why was England suspicious of Russia? (/) Why did Germany cultivate the friendship of the Turks? (gr) Why did not the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria start a general European war? (h) Why did England and Russia become friendly? (i) Why did not the Agadir incident bring about a war? CHAPTER XV THE SOWING OF THE DRAGON'S TEETH The growth of German trade. Balkan hatreds. The wonderful alliance against Turkey. The sympathies of the big nations. Their interference and its results. A new kingdom. The second war. The work of diplomacy. The. wrongs and grievances of Bulgaria. Germany's position in Europe was not favorable to her trade. Her ships, in order to carry on commerce with the peoples of the Mediterranean, had to go a great deal farther than those of France or England. As a result, Germany the Germans had been looking toward Con- ^^ g th stantinople and southwestern Asia as the part East of the world with which their commerce ought to grow. It was Germany's plan to control the Balkan countries and thus have a solid strip of territory, including Germany, Austria, the Balkan states, and Turkey through which her trade might pass to Asia Minor, Persia, and India. The feelings of the Balkan peoples for each other has already been explained. The Bul- garians hated the Serbians, with whom they had fought a bloody war in 1885. The Serbians despised the Bulgarians. The Albanians had hatreds 191 192 The Story of The Map of Europe 193 no love for either nation, while the Greeks looked down on all the others. Montenegro and Serbia were friends, naturally, since they were inhabited by the same kind of people and had once been parts of the original kingdom of Serbia. Bulgaria in 1909 announced to the world that she would pay no more tribute to Turkey, and after this was to be counted one of the independent nations of Europe. The Bui- Bulgaria garians had grown so strong and the Turks ceases to so weak, that Turkey did not dare go to war, to Turkey so permitted the matter to go unnoticed. The only thing on which all the Balkan nations and Greece could agree was their bitter hatred of the Turks, who had oppressed and wronged them cruelly for the last three hundred and fifty years. Russia, always plotting to overthrow Turkey, at last accomplished a wonderful bit of diplo- macy. She encouraged Bulgaria, Serbia, Mon- tenegro, and Greece to forget their old time dislike of each other, for the time being, and declare war jointly on Turkey. In order that ^he there should not be any quarreling over the Alliance spoils when the war was over, the four little nations agreed, in a secret treaty, that when they got through with Turkey, they would divide up the carcass as shown in the opposite 194 The Story of Carving the turkey Austria and the Serbian trade Germany backs the Turks map. The head, including Constantinople, was to be left for Russia, of course. Bulgaria was to take the back and the great part of the body, Greece was to annex the drumsticks and the second joint. . The rest of the body was to go to Serbia with the exception of the very tail, including the city of Scutari, which was to be given to Montenegro. Serbia was at last to have a seacoast and a chance to trade with other nations than Austria. The Serbs had a grudge against the Austrians, for the latter, taking advantage of the fact that all Serbian trade with Europe had to go through their country, had charged them exorbitant prices for manufac- tured goods and paid them very little for their own products in return. Bulgaria was to have Kavala (ka va/la) as a seaport on the Aegean and all the coast of that sea as far as the Gallipoli (gal i'po li) peninsula. Greece was to have the important city of Salonika (saloni'ka), southern Macedonia, and southern Albania. With this secret agreement between them, the four little states went to war with Turkey. In accordance with the new friendship sprung up between Germany and the Ottomans, German officers and generals were sent to Con- stantinople to drill the Turkish troops. Can- non and machine guns were sent them from German factories, and their rifles were fed with The Map of Europe 195 German bullets. The four little countries, accordingly, turned to France and Russia for assistance. Their troops were armed with French cannon and machine guns, and their France and military advisers were French and Russians, ^ssisuhe While the big nations managed to keep out of allies the war themselves, all were strongly interested in one side or the other. The result was a complete surprise to Austria and Germany. To their consternation and disgust, the four little nations made short work of the Turkish troops. In eight months, Turkey was thoroughly beaten, and the allies were ready to put through their program of dividing up the spoils. And now, once more, the great powers meddled, and by their interference laid the foundation for future wars and misery. Austria interven- and Germany saw their path to Constantinople * &t y 1 and the east cut right in two. Their railroads, P wers instead of passing through a series of countries under German control, now were to be cut asunder by an arm of Slavic states under Rus- Slavic sian protection, which would certainly stop German progress toward Asia. With the map as it had been before the war of East . 1912, there was one little strip of territory, called the Sanjak of Novibazar, between Serbia and Montenegro, which connected Turkey with 196 The Story of Italian ambition concerning the Adriatic Sea Austria. To be sure, this country was inhab- ited almost entirely by Serbians, but so long as it was under the military control of Austria and Turkey, German railway trains bound for the east could traverse it. Now Serbia and Monte- negro proposed to divide this country up between themselves. Serbia, by gaining her seaport on the Adriatic, could send her trade upon the water to find new markets in Italy, Spain, and France. DURAZZO The Italians had always wanted to control the Adriatic Sea. They longed for the time when the cities of Trieste and Pola should be turned over to them by Austria. The cities of Durazzo (du rat'zo) and Avlona on the Albanian coast were inhabited by many Italians, and Italy had always cherished the hope that they might belong to her. Therefore, the The Map of Europe 197 Italians did not take kindly to the Serbian program of seizing this coast. At any rate, as soon as the four little countries announced their intention of dividing up Turkey in Europe among themselves, Austria, Germany, and Italy raised a great clamor. Another meeting of representatives of the great powers was held, and once more the king-made Germans were able to carry their point. Instead map of allowing the four little countries to divide up the conquered land between them, the powers made a fifth small country, the kingdom of Albania, and brought down from Germany a little prince to rule over these wild mountain- eers. Notice that the Albanians were not consulted. The great powers simply took a map, drew a certain line on it and said, "This shall be the kingdom of Albania, and its king shall be Prince William of Wied." Again we have a king-made map with the usual trail of kingdom grievances. This arrangement robbed Montenegro of Scutari, robbed Serbia of its seaport on the Adriatic, and robbed Greece of the country west of Janina (yani'na). France and Russia did The victors not like this program, but they did not feel like fighting the Triple Alliance to prevent its spoils being put into effect. The three little countries, separated from a 198 The Story of a s = e .? s I 3-1 ^>. >. c3 >, s >'-= CD ^ CN< "* J =3 ^\ 3 3*"^*-* - "S^ "S^ -5^ IS" The Map of Europe 199 great part of their new territory, now turned to Bulgaria, and, practically, said to her, " Since we have been robbed of Albania, we will have to divide up all over again. You must give us part of your plunder in order to 'make it square.' ' ; Now was the time for the ancient A new division ill-feeling between the Bulgarians and their demanded neighbors to show itself. In reply to this invitation, Bulgaria said, in so many words, "Not a bit of it. Our armies bore the brunt of the fight. It was really we who conquered Turkey. Your little armies had a very insig- nificant part in the war. If you want any more land, we dare you to come and take it." "All Oyercon- ndent right, we will!" cried the three little nations, Bulgaria and they promptly declared war on their recent ally. This quarrel, of course, was exactly what Germany and Austria wanted. It accomplished their purpose of breaking up this Balkan alliance under the protection of Russia. So with Austria and Germany egging on Bulgaria, and Russia and France doing their best to Austria induce Bulgaria to be reasonable and surrender wins; some land to Greece and Serbia, the second loses Balkan war began in 1913 almost before the last cannon discharged in the first war had cooled. Again,Europe was astonished, for the victorious Bulgarians, who had been mainly responsible 200 The Story of Again Austria backs the loser Robbing the fallen nation A source of future trouble for the defeat of the Turks, went down to defeat before the Serbians and Greeks on the bloody field of Koumanova (koo ma/no va) . To add to Bulgaria's troubles, the Turks, taking ad vantage of the discord among their late opponents, suddenly attacked the Bulgarians in the rear and stole back the city of Adrianople, which had cost the Bulgarians so much trouble to capture. In the meantime, Roumania, which up to this point had had no part in any of the fighting, saw all of her neighbors growing larger at the expense of Turkey. The Roumanian states- men, asking what was to be their share of the spoils, and moved simply by a greedy desire to enlarge their kingdom, declared war on Bul- garia also. Poor Bulgaria, fighting five nations at once, had to buy peace at the best price she could make. She bought off Roumania by giving to her a strip of land in the country called the Dobrudja (dobrood'ja) between the Danube River and the Black Sea. She had to agree to a new boundary line with Turkey by which the Turks kept Adrianople. She had to give Kavala and the surrounding country to Greece and the territory around Monastir (mo na stir 7 ) to Serbia, although these districts were inhab- ited largely by her own people. Bulgaria had in vain appealed to her ancient The Map of Europe 201 friend and protector, Russia. The Russians were disgusted to think that the Bulgarians had refused to listen to them when they urged them to grant some small pieces of land to Greece and Serbia at the close of the first war. They felt that the Bulgarians had been headstrong and richly deserved what they got. Therefore, Russia refused to interfere now and save Bul- garia from humiliation. In the end, Austrian The end diplomacy had accomplished a great deal of f R ussia ' s mischief. The Balkan alliance under the pro- Alliance tection of Russia was badly broken up. The old hostility between Serbia and Bulgaria, which had been buried for the time being during the first Balkan war, now broke out with greater force than ever. Bulgaria sulked, feeling revengeful against all of her neighbors, but especially angry at Russia, who had always been her friend before. Questions for Review (a) - Why did the Germans desire a road to the east? (6) What was the one thing on which the Balkan nations were united? (c) What was Russia's purpose in helping to form the Bal- kan Alliance? (d) Why did the great powers interfere to prevent the four little countries from carrying out their secret agreement? (e) What was the cause of the second Balkan war? (/) Which powers were glad and which were sorry to see it begin? ( "it is a11 ver y wel1 for England to be declined satisfied with her present navy, which is half again as large as ours. If our navy were the strongest in the world, we too would be glad to have all nations stop building warships," and they laid down the keels of four new super- dreadnaughts. But other things disturbed the peace of mind of the German militarists. For a long time, The Map of Europe 205 the population of France had not been increas- ing, while Germany almost doubled her numbers from 1860 to 1900. Now, to their dismay, the The falUn German birth-rate began to grow less and they birth-rate saw the population of Russia growing larger by 20% every ten years. Again, they learned that Russia was about to build a series of railroads near the German frontier which would enable them to rush an army to attack Germany at very short notice. The Germans already had strate ic ,, such railroads in their own country, but they railroads did not propose to let their neighbors have this advantage also. Again, France had recently passed a law forcing every young man to put three years in military service instead of two. This would increase France's standing army by 50 per cent. The German people, who up to this time had been very docile and very obedient to the military rule, were showing signs of discontent. The Socialists, a party who represented the working people largely, and who were strongly opposed to war, had been growing very fast. In the last election, they had gained many representatives in the German congress, and The rise of had cast over 4,000,000 votes. The only Socialists thing that kept them from having a majority in the Reichstag (the German congress) was the fact that in some districts, the voters of 206 The Story of the other parties combined against them. In this way, the military class still held control of the German government, but it was afraid that it would not be for long. With nearly half the able-bodied men in the country spending their time drilling and doing guard duty, the other half of the population had to earn money enough to support their own f am- The ilies and also the families of the men in the workers army. As one writer has put it, " Every work- double load ingman in Europe carried a soldier on his back who reached down and took the bread out of his platter." The program of Bismarck was still in the minds of the military leaders of Germany. The dream The military class must rule Prussia, Prussia Bismarck must rule Germany, and Germany must be the greatest power in Europe. To their minds, war between Germany and her allies and the rest of Europe must come. Being warriors by trade and having nothing else to do, they saw that, if the great war were postponed much longer, the chances of Germany's winning it would grow less and less. France and Russia were growing stronger and Germany was unable to catch up to England's navy. It should be remembered that this class made up a very tiny part of the German nation. Their influence was all out of proportion to their The Map of Europe 207 numbers. It must also be noted that there was a similar class in France (the Chauvinists [sho'- vin ists] ) who were constantly clamoring for revenge on Germany for the war of 1870. Bismarck's policy had been to crush his enemies one by one. He never entered a war until he was sure that Prussia was bound to win it. In like fashion, the German military chiefs of 1914 hoped to conquer France and Russia before The plans England was ready for the conflict. It was the ^.^ old story as told by Shakespeare. " Our legions class are brim full, our cause is ripe. The enemy increaseth every day. We, at the height, are ready to decline." Russia, too, was having her troubles. After the czar had promised the nation a constitution and had agreed to allow a duma or parliament to be called together, the military class, who were trying to keep the common people under ^; sian control and in ignorance as much as possible duma had been able to prevent the duma from obtain- ing any power whatsoever. It had much less freedom than the German Reichstag. It was permitted to meet and to talk, but not to pass laws. If any member spoke his mind freely, he was sent to Siberia for life. There were mur- murs and threats. There were labor troubles Murmurs of and strikes. The people of Russia, especially discontent those living in cities, were learning how little 208 The Story of An old- time trick of kings The profitable business of preparing for war freedom they had, compared with citizens of other countries, and the time seemed ripe for a revolution. It has always been the policy of kings to take the minds of their people off their own wrongs by giving them some foreign war to think about. Many a king who was in danger of being driven from his country has been able, by declaring war on some other nation, to distract the minds of his subjects and to save his throne, through the pride of his people in the victories of their armies. So the czar probably was not sorry to see war clouds threatening. He hoped that in their anger against Germany, the Russians would forget their grievances against their own government. There were two other forces at work to pro- mote war. With so many of the men of Europe drilling every day, the manufacturing of wea- pons and equipment of armies grew to be one of the great industries of the world. Many of Europe's wealthiest citizens had their money invested in gun-factories and powder mills. It was to the direct advantage of these people to keep up the preparation for war. They kept inventing newer and stronger guns, so that the weapons which they had sold the governments one year would be out of date the next, and ready to be thrown on the scrap heap. In this The Map of Europe 209 way, their factories were kept working day and night, and their profits were enormous. This money, of course, came out of the taxes of the people. The newspapers, too, had a great deal to do with keeping up the war talk. It was proved in the German Reichstag in 1913 that the great The gun-makers of Europe had a force of hired news- gun-makers paper writers who were paid to keep up threats hired press of war. The gun-makers paid certain news- papers in Paris large sums to print articles to make the French people think that the Germans were just on the point of attacking them. These same gun-makers paid other newspapers in Berlin money to persuade the German people that the French, in their anxiety for revenge for the war of 1870, were just on the point of attacking them. Net result: As soon as France J f ordered more guns, Germany ordered still more; scares and thus the game went on, with taxes piling heavier and heavier on the common people and a great part of the workers of Europe either drilling for war or working at the destructive trade of manufacturing implements for killing. Another class of people also were interested in promoting wars. These were the great bankers of Europe. No nation in war can pay the expenses of the conflict by its own revenue. It is obliged to mortgage its future earnings and 210 The Story of money The Empire of Finance put upon its people a debt which it will take h un d re ds f y ears to wipe out. The national debts of countries like France and England, which have fought many wars, are simply staggering. In some nations, the taxes amount to 25 per cent, or one-fourth of a man's income. When a war breaks out, the nations have to rush to the great bankers and seek their help. In prosperous times, the people have been depositing their money in the banks, until the bankers have a great surplus of gold on hand and cannot find a chance to invest it to make high rates of interest. Accordingly, they welcome a war, for it gives them a chance to lend back to the people their own money and charge them high rates of interest which will continue to be paid for years and years to come. These bankers, largely through the house of Rothschild, which has branch banks in all of the leading European cities, are connected, and act together. One of the chief reasons why France and Germany did not go to war in 1911 was that the bankers transferred a great store of gold from Berlin to Paris. They were not ready to have war break out at that time and they calmly told the German government that they would not lend the money. On the other hand war brings no gain to the common people. In 1899, Great Britain de- The Map of Europe 211 clared war on two little Dutch republics in South Africa. It cost England a billion dollars and the lives of a hundred thousand men, and when the war was over, very little land had actually changed owners. The Dutch people were annexed to British South Africa, it is true, but they remained in possession of their own land and today are enjoying almost complete self-government . No citizen of Berlin is any happier or better Wno off because the people of Alsace and Lorraine profits? are compelled to teach German in their schools instead of French. Even the billion dollars indemnity that France . paid after the war of 1870 was not spent for the benefit of the German people. It was hoarded in a great war chest to defray the expenses of the next conflict. Questions for Review (a) Why did Germany decline to take a ''naval holiday"? (h) What is meant by "strategic railroads?" (c) Why were the military leaders alarmed at the growth of the Socialist Party? (d) Why could a few men in each country control it? (e) What was the situation in Russia regarding popular government? (/) Why are kings sometimes glad to have wars break out? (g) Was the influence of European newspapers on the side of peace or war? Why? (h) Were the bankers on the side of peace or war? Why? (i) 'How does the individual citizen prosper if his govern- ment wins a war? CHAPTER XVII THE SPARK THAT EXPLODED THE MAGAZINE The year 1914. England's troubles. Plots for a "Greater Serbia." The hated archduke. The shot whose echoes shook the whole world. Austria's extreme demands. Russia threatens. Frantic attempts to prevent war. Mobilizing on both sides. Germany's tiger-like spring. The forts of the Vosges Mountains. The other path to Paris. The neutrality of Belgium. Belgium defends herself. The year 1914 found England involved in England's se rious difficulties. Her parliament had voted many troubles to give home rule to Ireland. There was to be an Irish parliament, which would govern Ireland as the Irish wanted it governed. Ulster, a province in the northeast of Ireland, however, was very unhappy over this arrangement. Its people were largely of English and Scotch descent, and they were Protestants, while the other inhabitants of Ireland were Celts and Catholics. The people of this province were so bitter against home rule that they actually imported rifles and drilled regiments, saying that they would start a' civil war if England compelled them to be governed by an Irish parliament. 212 The Map of Europe 213 There were labor troubles and strikes, also, in England, and threatened revolutions in India, where the English government was none too popular. Altogether, it looked as though England had so many troubles of her own that she would never dare to enter a general Euro- pean war. Meanwhile, the Serbians, unhappy over the loss of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria, were busily stirring up the people of these Plotting provinces to revolt. The military leaders who Greater really ruled Austria, were in favor of crushing SerDia these attempted uprisings with an iron hand. One of the leaders of this party, a man who was greatly hated by the Serbians, was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of the emperor and heir to the throne. He finally ? announced that he was going in person to throne Sarajevo (sa ra ye'vo) in Bosnia to look into the situation himself. The people of the city warned him not to come, saying that his life would be in danger, as he was so hated. Being a headstrong man of violent temper, he refused to listen to this advice, but insisted on going. His devoted wife, after doing her best to dis- suade him, finally refused to let him go without her. When it was known that he was really coming, the Serbian revolutionists laid their plans. 214 The Story of They found out just where his carriage was to pass, and at almost every street corner, . they had some assassin with bomb or pistol, laid plot One bomb was thrown at him, but it exploded too soon, and he escaped. Bursting with indig- nation, he was threatening the mayor for his lax policing, when a second assassin, a nineteen year old boy, stepped up with a pistol and shot to death the archduke and his wife. Many people have referred to this incident as the cause of the great European war. As you have been shown, however, this was simply the spark that exploded the magazine. With the whole situation as highly charged as it was, any other little spark would have been enough to set the war a-going. The Austrian government sent word to Serbia Austrian indignation that the crime had been traced to Serbian plotters, some of them in the employ of the government. It demanded that Serbia apol- ogize; also that she hunt out and punish the plotters at once. And because Austria did not Austria's trust the Serbians to hold an honest investi- extraordi- gation, she demanded that her officers should inary demands sit in the Serbian courts as judges. Imagine a Japanese killed in San Francisco, and think what the United States would say if the Tokio government insisted that a Japanese judge be sent to California to try the case The Map of Europe 215 because Japan could not trust America to give her justice! The Serbians, of course, were in no position to fight a great power like Austria- Hungary, and yet, weakened as they were, they could not submit to such a demand as this. They agreed to all the Austrian demands except the one concerning the Austrian judges in Serbian courts. They appealed to the other powers to see that justice was done them. Russia growled ominously at Austria, where- upon Germany sent a sharp warning to Russia R USS i a that this was none of her affair, and that as Serbia's . bl s Austria and Serbia must be left to fight it out. brother In the meantime, Serbia offered to lay the mat- ter before the court of arbitration at the Hague. (In 1899, at the invitation of the czar of Russia, representatives of all the great powers of Europe met at the Hague to found a lasting The court which should decide disputes between tribunal nations fairly, and try to do away with wars, to as great an extent as possible. The court has several times been successful in averting trouble. See frontispiece.) Great Britain proposed that the dispute between Austria and Serbia should be judged by a court composed of representatives of France, England, Italy, and Germany. Austria's reply to the proposals of England and Serbia was a notice to the latter country that she had just 216 The Story of Striving to avert war The slow- moving Russians Germany's wonderful machinery forty-eight hours in which to give in com- pletely to the Austrian demands. In the mean- time, Mr. Sazanoff, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, was vainly pleading with England to declare what she would do in case the Triple Alliance started a war with France and Russia. Kings and ministers telegraphed frantically, trying to prevent the threatened conflict. The story was sent out by Germany that Russia was gathering her troops, mobilizing them, as it is called. As Russia has so much more territory to draw from than any other country, and as her railroads are not many and are poorly served, it was figured that it would be six weeks before the Russian army would be ready to fight anybody. Germany, on the other hand, with her wonderful system of government- owned railroads, and the machine-like organ- ization of her army, could launch her forces across the frontier at two days' notice. As soon as the Germans began to hear that the Russians were mobilizing their troops against Austria, Germany set in motion the rapid machinery for gathering her own army. She sent a sharp message to Russia, warning the latter that she must instantly stop mobilizing or Germany would declare war. Next the Germans asked France what she intended to do in case Germany and Austria declared war on Russia. France The Map of Europe 217 replied that she would act in accordance with what seemed to be her best interests. This answer did not seem very reassuring, and with- The g rin out any declaration of war, the German army of a tiger rushed for the French frontier. Now ever since the war of 1870, France had been building a line of great forts across the narrow stretch of ground where her territory approached that of Germany. Belfort, Toul, ^ f e ^nce~ Epinal, Verdun, Longwy, they ranged through man-made the mountains northeast of France as guardians natural of their country against another German attack. To rush an army into France over this rough country and between these great fortresses was impossible. Modern armies carry great guns with them which cannot climb steep grades. Therefore, if Germany wanted to strike a quick, smashing blow at France and get her armies back six weeks later to meet the slow-moving Russians, it was plain that she must seek some other approach than that through the Vosges Mountains. From Aix-La-Chapelle near the Rhine in Germany, through the northern and western ^j^^ 161 part of Belgium, there stretches a flat plain, France with level roads, easy to cross. (See map, p. 220.) Now, years before, Belgium had been promised by France, Prussia, and England that no one of them would disturb its neutrality. (218) The Map of Europe 219 In other words it was pledged that in case of a war, no armed force of any of these three nations should enter Belgian territory, nor should Belgium be involved in any trouble arising among them. In case any one of the nations named or in fact any other hostile force, bargain invaded Belgium, the signers of the treaty were bound to rush to Belgium's aid. Belgium, in return, had agreed to resist with her small Belgium army any troops which might invade her country. In spite of the fact that their nation had signed this treaty, the Germans started their rush toward France, not through the line of forts in the mountains, but across the gently rolling plain to the north. They first asked permission of the Belgians to pass through their country. On being refused, they entered Belgian territory just east of Liege (li ezh'). The Belgians B . , telegraphed their protest to Berlin. The Ger- protest mans replied that they were sorry but it was necessary for them to invade Belgium in order to attack France. They agreed to do no dam- age and to pay the Belgians for any supplies or food which their army might seize. The Belgians replied that by their treaty with France, England, and Germany they were bound on their honor to resist just such an invasion as this. They asked the Germans 220 The Story of _11I."J1I The Two Routes to Paris French Forts V s^V/ PARIS (Si^^ \ |>4. *"" ^f?&* fWM FRANCE AUSTRIA ^h^^ / -\ N v ^' MAP SHOWING THE TWO ROUTES FROM GERMANY TO PARIS Force rules how Germany would regard them if they were to permit a French army to cross Belgian terri- tory to take Germany by surprise. The Germans again said that they were sorry, but that if Belgium refused permission to their army to cross, the army would go through without permission. It was a dreadful decision that Belgium had to make, but she did not hesitate. She sent orders to her armies to resist by all means the passage of the German troops. The great war had begun. The Map of Europe 221 Questions for Review (a) Why were the people of Ulster unhappy at the thought of home rule for Ireland? (6) What were the hopes of the Serbians regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina? (c) Why did Russia interfere between Austria and Serbia? (d) Why did Russia mobilize her troops? (e) What was the cause of the German attack upon France? (/) Why did the Germans choose the road through Belgium? CHAPTER XVIII The "line-up" of nations The power of the workers in Italy WHY ENGLAND CAME, IN The question of Italy and England. Italy's position. The war with Turkey. Italy declines to join her allies. England is aware of the German plans. The treaty with Belgium. Germany's rage at England's declaration of war. The result of militarism vs. navalism. The working classes protest, feebly. Race hatred kept alive by descendants of the feudal lords. France, Belgium, Russia, and Serbia were combined against Austria and Germany. Little Montenegro also rushed to the help of her neigh- bor and kinsman, Serbia. The question was, what would Italy and England do. Italy, like Russia and Germany, had been having trouble in holding down her people. A revolution had been threatened which would overthrow the king and set up a republic. The Socialist Party, representing the working class, had been growing very strong, and one of their greatest principles was that all war is wrong. They felt that the Triple Alliance made by the Italian statesmen had never bound the Italian people. Throughout the entire peninsula, the Austrians were hated. , You will remember that France had aroused the Italians' anger in 1881 by seizing Tunis. 222 The Map of Europe 223 Italy had hoped to snap up this province for herself, for the Italian peninsula was crowded with people, and as the population increased, it was thought necessary that colonies be estab- lished to which the people could migrate to have more room. Finally in 1911, in order to divert the minds of the people from revolutionary thoughts, the government organized an expedi- tion to swoop down on Tripoli, which, like Egypt, was supposed to belong to Turkey. This meant war with the government at Constantinople, and Germany and Austria were very angry at Italy, their ally, for attack- ing Turkey, with which the Austrians and Ger- Italian war mans were trying to establish a firm friendship. However, " self-preservation is the first law of nature," and the Italian king and nobles valued their leadership in the nation much more than they dreaded the dislike of Germany and Austria. The Germans had counted on Italy to join in the attack on Russia and France, but the Italian statesmen knew the feelings of their people too well to attempt this. Of late years, there had been growing up a friendship between the people The of Italy and those of France, and the Italian friendship generals knew that it would be a difficult task Italy and to induce their men to fire upon their kinsmen France from across the Alps. Therefore, when Austria 224 The Story of and Germany demanded their support in the war, they replied by pointing out that the terms of the Triple Alliance bound Italy to go to their help only if they were attacked. "In this case," said the Italians, "you are the attacking party. The treaty does not bind us to support you in any war of conquest.. What is more, we were Germany not consulted before Austria sent to Serbia her impossible demands. Expect no help from us." Now the great question arose as to England. The English statesmen were not blind to , the German plan. They saw that Germany in- tended to crush France first, capturing Paris and dealing the French army such an over- whelming blow that it would take it a long time to recover. Then the German armies were to be planned rushed back over their marvelous system of gov- progra: ernment-owned railroads to meet the on-coming German t jde of Russians. military chiefs The Germans knew that they were well pro- vided with ammunition and all war supplies. They knew that they had invented some won- derful guns which were large enough to batter down the strongest forts in the world. They did not have very much respect for the ability of the Russian generals. They had watched them bungle badly in the Japanese war, ten years before. If once France were brought to her knees, they did not fear Russia. Then The Map of Europe 225 after France and Russia had been beaten, there would be plenty of time, later on, to settle with Great Britain. The English statesmen, as we have said, were aware of this plan. They saw that if they were to fight Germany, this was the ideal time. However, Great Britain, having a gov- ernment which is more in the hands of the people than even that of republican France, No did not have the system of forcing her young mffitaiy 3 compulsion men to do military service. Her little army in England was made up entirely of men who enlisted in it because they wished to, and because they received fair pay. If England were to enter a great war with Germany, there must be some very good reason for her doing so. Otherwise, her people, who really did not hate the Germans, would never enlist to fight against them. The question was, would anything happen to make the English people feel that they were justified in entering the war on the side of France and Russia. You will remember that England, France, and Prussia had promised each other to protect Belgium from war. Even in the war of 1870, France and Prussia had carefully avoided bringing their troops upon Belgian soil. Now, however, with the German army invading Belgium, the English statesmen had to decide 226 The Story of England decides Where the German leaders miscal- culated their course. As heads of one of the nations to guarantee Belgium's freedom, they called on Germany to explain this unprovoked invasion. The Germans made no answer. They were busily attacking the city of Liege. Great Britain gave Germany twenty-four hours in which to withdraw her troops from Belgium. At the end of this time, with Germany paying no attention still, England solemnly declared war and took her stand alongside of Russia and France. The Germans were furious. They had no bit- ter feeling against the French. They realized that France was obliged, by the terms of her alliance, to stand by Russia, but they had con- fidently counted on keeping England out of the war. In fact, the German ambassador to England had assured the German emperor that England had so many troubles, with her upris- ing in Ireland and threatened rebellions in India and South Africa that she would never dare fight at this time. It seemed to the Germans that the English had deliberately misled them, drawing them into a trap and then attacking them when they were already engaged in a life and death struggle with two other strong antagonists. As a matter of fact, it was a case of "pot and kettle,"- - the pot was calling the kettle black. England was doing to Germany The Map of Europe 227 exactly what Germany would have liked to do to England if the circumstances had been the other way. England and Germany were two proud, headstrong nations, each thinking herself the greatest power in the world. With this un- Christian sentiment in the hearts of their with pride leaders, they were bound to clash sooner or later, as long as the military classes in each country held control of the government. In England, there was some protest against the war on the part of the Labor Party. They felt that both they and the German working- men had everything to lose and nothing to gain :J by fighting, and that if the laboring men in both workers countries refused to fight there would be no war. Two of the representatives of the Labor Party in parliament, Mr. Hardie and Mr. MacDonald, opposed the military program. They were promptly denounced as " traitors" by the war-chiefs, and the majority of average citizens took up the same cry, which was echoed in the newspapers. One sincere lover of peace and of his fellow men, Lord Morley, had the courage to resign his place in the English cabinet rather than support war. John Burns, the Labor leader, did the same. These were rare exceptions. The great mass of the British people believed, as their newspapers told them, 228 The Story of What the Germans believe The common people not to blame that war was necessary and that the life of the British Empire was at stake. Could the common people in the two countries have gotten together and come to understand each other, the situation might have been different; But in Germany, the protests against war were still more feeble. The newspapers, with few exceptions, as was previously pointed out, were under the control of the military leaders and the manufacturers of war materials. These papers persuaded the German people that England, through her jealousy of Ger- many's great growth -in trade, had egged on Russia, France, and Serbia to attack Germany and Austria, and then had declared war herself on a flimsy pretext. The entire German nation believes this. They think, as their war chiefs tell them, that the war was thrust upon Ger- many by her enemies, just as the English people believe that Germany forced the war upon them. As a matter of fact, the people in each country who really would profit by the war, and who were not sorry to see it start, comprised a mere handful in comparison to the people who had nothing to gain from the war. The average German and the average Frenchman could meet, and, after talking to each other as best they could, owing to their differences in language, The Map of Europe 229 could part company, each agreeing that the other was a very good fellow. The Italian and the Austrian can meet in America and find things to admire and respect in each other's qualities. Even the Serb and the Bulgar, transplanted to this country, as they learn to know each other, have become warm friends. The spirit of race hatred has been kept alive in the first place by ignorance. The common people of Russia do not know the people of the Race same class in Germany, but each believes the hatred kept alive by other to be brutal and unlovely. It was the ignorance same thing in the United States before the Civil War. The Yankee and the Southerner did not know each other, but each believed the other capable of the meanest acts, and not worth knowing. Since the war, as northern people Yajk 66 have gone to live among the southerners and Southerner vice versa, each section has come to appreciate and admire the virtues of the other. As Senator Lamar. of Mississippi said, in the United States Senate, at the time of the death of Charles Sumner, the great opponent of slavery, "My countrymen, learn to know one another, and you will love one another." So again we find military leaders and descend- ants of the old feudal nobles able to set whole nations to hating each other whose people should have been friends. 230 The Story of Questions for Review (a) Why did Italy make war on Turkey in 1911? (&) Why did not Italy join in the attack on France? (c) What was Germany's plan? (d) How is the English army different from those of the continental nations? (e) What reason had England for declaring war on Germany? (/) Had the Germans expected England to attack them? Give reasons for your answer. (g) Was the war to the interest of the common people in any of the countries? (h) Why could diplomats and kings set men to fighting each other? CHAPTER XIX DIPLOMACY AND KINGLY AMBITION Turkey throws in her lot with the central empires. The demands of Italy. She joins the Triple Entente. The retreat of the Russians. The Balkans again. Bulgaria's bargaining. German princes on Balkan thrones, The central empires bid the highest for Bulgarian support. The attitude of Greece. Roumania's hopes. To return to the great war. The diplomats of both sides made all haste to put pressure upon The effort the governments of the countries which were not to involve other engaged in the struggle, in order to win them nations over. Germany and Austria worked hard with Italy, with Turkey, and with Bulgaria. The Turks were the first to plunge in. The party headed by Enver Bey (the young minister of war) saw that a victory for Russia and her allies meant the final expulsion of the Turks from Europe. Only in the victory of Germany and Austria did this faction see any hope for Turkey. It was the latter part of October (1914) when Turkish warships, without any TuT ^ e provocation, sailed into some Russian ports on plunges in the Black Sea and blazed away with their big guns. Some of the older Turkish statesmen were terrified, and did their best to get the govern- 231 232 The Story of ment at Constantinople to disclaim all respon- sibility for this act of their naval commanders. The " Young Turks/' however, were all for war on the side of Germany. What is more, Russia, always anxious for an excuse to seize Constantinople, would not allow the Turks to apologize for their act and keep out of trouble. She declared war on Turkey, and was quickly followed by France and England. Both sides now set to work on Italy. It was plain that all the sympathies of the Italian ., people were with France and England. The six (janbalai in France grandsons of Garibaldi formed an Italian regi- ment and volunteered for fighting on the French lines. Two of them were killed, and at their funerals in Rome, nearly all the inhabitants of the city turned out and showed plainly that they too would like to be fighting on the side of France. You will remember that Italy wanted very much to gain the provinces of Trentino and Istria, with the cities of Trent, Trieste (tri es'te), Pola (po'la), and Fiume (fe u'me), all inhabited by Italian people. The possession of these counties and cities by Austria had been the Who will g rea test source of trouble between the two bid highest nations. Italy now came out boldly, and demanded, as the price of her keeping out of the war, that Austria give to her this land The Map of Europe 233 inhabited by Italians. Germany urged Aus- tria to do this, and sent as her special ambassa- dor, to keep Italy from joining her enemies, Prince von Bulow, whose wife was an Italian _ Von Bulow lady, and who was very popular with the in Italy Italian statesmen. For months, von Bulow argued and pleaded, first trying to induce Italy to accept a small part of the disputed territory and then, when he found this impossible, doing his best to induce Austria to give it all. Austria was stubborn. She did not take kindly to the plan of giving away her cities. She offered to cede some territory if Italy should wait until the end of the war. This did not satisfy Italy. She was by no means certain that Austria and Germany were , J A bird in going to win the war and was even less sure that the hand- Austria would be willing, in case of her victory, to give up a foot of territory. It seemed to the Italian statesmen that it was "now or never" if Italy wished to get within her kingdom all of her own people. In the month of May 1915 Italy threw herself into the struggle by declaring war on Austria and entering an alliance with Russia, France, and Eng- land. Meanwhile, the Russians were having difficul- ties. They had millions and millions of men, (234) The Map of Europe 235 but not enough rifles to equip them all. They had plenty of food but very little ammunition for their cannon. Austria and Germany, on the other hand, had been manufacturing shot and shells in enormous quantities, and from the month of May, when the Russians had crossed the Carpathian Mountains and were threatening to pour down on Buda-Pest and Vienna, they drove them steadily back until the first of J he ? reat Russian October, forcing them to retreat nearly three retreat hundred miles. In the meantime, the Balkans again became the seat of trouble. You will recall that Bulgaria, who had grown proud because of her victory over Turkey in the war of 1912, was too grasping when it came to a division of the con- quered territory. Thus she brought on a second war, in the course of which Greece and Serbia defeated her, while Roumania took a slice of her territory and the Turks recaptured the city of Adrianople. The czar of Russia had _ Bulgaria's done his best to prevent this second Balkan grievances war, even sending a personal telegram to Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and to King Peter of Serbia, begging them for the sake of the Slavic race, not to let their quarrels come to blows. Bulgaria, confident of her ability to defeat Greece and Serbia, had disregarded the Rus- sians' pleadings, and as a result Russia did not 236 The Story of Czar Ferdinand offers his sword to the highest bidder interfere to save her when her neighbors were robbing her of part of the land which she had taken from Turkey. It will be recalled that Macedonia was the country which Bulgaria had felt most sorry to lose, as its inhabitants were largely Bulgarian in their blood, although many Greeks and Serbs were among them. Therefore, just as Italy strove by war and diplomacy to add Trentino to her nation, so Bulgaria now saw her chance to gain Macedonia from Serbia. Accordingly, she asked the four great powers what they would give her in case she entered the war on their side, and attacked Turkey by way of Constan- tinople, while the French and English were hammering at the forts along the Dardanelles. * The four powers, after much persuasion and brow-beating, finally induced Serbia to agree to give up part of Serbian Macedonia to Bulgaria. They further promised Bulgaria to give her the city of Adrianople and the territory around it which Turkey had reconquered. But Bulgaria was not easily satisfied. She wanted more than Serbia was willing to give; she wanted, too, the port of Kavala, which Greece had taken from her. This the allies could not promise. In the meantime, Bulgaria was bargaining *England and France needed wheat, which Russia had in great quantities at her ports on the Black Sea. On the other hand France and England, by supplying Russia with rifles and ammunition, could strike a hard blow at Germany. The Map of Europe 237 with Austria, Germany, and Turkey. France, England, and Russia were ready to pay back Serbia for the loss of Macedonia, by promising her Bosnia and Herzegovina in case they won the war from Austria. In like fashion, Austria Diplomats ana me and Germany promised Bulgaria some Turkish map again territory and also the southern part of the present kingdom of Serbia, in case she entered the war on their side. Now the king of Bulgaria, or the czar, as he prefers to call himself, is a German. (As these little countries won their independence from Turkey, they almost always called in foreign princes to be their kings. In this way it had come about that the king of Greece was a prince of Denmark, the king of Roumania was a German of the Hohenzollern family, while the czar of Bulgaria was a German of the Germanic Coburg family, the same family which has rinces on JMuuut furnished England and Belgium with their thrones kings.) The Bulgarians themselves are members of the Greek Catholic Church, and they have a very high regard for the czar of Russia, as trie head of that church. Czar Ferdinand had no such feeling, however. He wanted to be the most powerful ruler in the Balkan states, and it made no difference to him which side helped him to gain his object. 238 The Story of A BOMB-PROOF TRENCH IN THE WESTERN WAR FRONT The Map of Europe 239 About this time, the Russians had been forced to retreat to a line running south from Riga, on the Baltic Sea, to the northern boundary of Roumania. The French and English had been pounding at the Dardanelles for some months, but the stubborn resistance of the Turks seemed likely to hold them out of Con- The Allies are stantinople for a long time to come. The checked Italians had not been able to make much headway against the Austrians through the mountainous Alpine country where the fighting was taking place. In the west, the Germans were holding firmly against the attacks of the British and French. The czar of Bulgaria and his ministers, thinking that the German- Austrian-Turkish alliance could win with their _ Bulgaria help, flung their nation into its third war plunges in within four years. This happened in Octo- ber, 1915. Now at the close of the second Balkan war, when Serbia and Greece defeated Bulgaria, they made an alliance, by which each agreed to come to the help of the other in case either was The attacked by Bulgaria. Roumania, too, was g^^ friendly to Greece and Serbia, rather than to treaty Bulgaria, for the Roumanians knew that Bul- garia was very anxious to get back the territory of which Roumania had robbed her, in the second Balkan war. In this way, the Quadruple 240 The Story of Entente (Russia, Italy, France, and England) hoped that the entry of Bulgaria into the war, on the side of Germany and Turkey, would bring Greece and Roumania in on the other side. The Greek people were ready to rush to Serbia's aid and so was the Greek prime minis- ter. The queen of Greece, however, is a sister Oueen of ^ ^ e German emperor, and through her influ- the Greeks ence with her husband she was able to defeat the plans of Venizelos (ven i zeT6s), the prime min- ister, who was notified by the king that Greece would not enter the war. Venizelos accordingly resigned, but not until he had given permission to the French and English to land troops at Salonika, for the purpose of rushing to the help of Serbia. (Greece also was afraid that German and Austrian armies might lay waste her terri- tory, as they had Serbia's, before England and France could come to the rescue.) Meanwhile poor Serbia was in a desperate state. The two Balkan wars had drained her of The woes of Serbia some of her best soldiers. Twice the Austrians had invaded her kingdom in this war, and twice they had been driven out. Then came a dread- ful epidemic of typhus fever which was the result of unhealthful conditions caused by the war. Now the little kingdom, attacked by the Ger- mans and Austrians on two sides and by the Bulgarians on a third, was literally fighting The Map of Europe 241 with her back to the wall. She had counted on Greece to stand by her promise to help in case of an attack from Bulgaria, but we have seen how the German queen of Greece had been able to prevent this. Serbia hoped that Roumania. No help from her too, would come to her help. However, as you neighbors have been told, the king of Roumania is a German of the Hohenzollern family, a cousin of the emperor, and in spite of the sympathy of his people for Italy, France, and Serbia, he was able to keep them from joining in the defense of the Serbs. Now Roumania ought to include a great part of Bessarabia (bes a ra'bi a), which is the near- The st county of Russia, and also the greater part of question Transylvania and Bukowina (boo ko vi'na), Roumania which are the provinces of Austria-Hungary that lie nearest; for a great part of the inhabi- tants of these three counties are Roumanians by blood and language. They would like to be parts of the kingdom of Roumania, and Rou- mania would like to possess them. The Quad- ruple Entente would promise Roumania parts of Transylvania and Bukowina in case she joined the war on their side, while the Triple Alliance was ready to promise her Bessarabia. Rou- mania, as was said before, was originally settled by colonists sent out from Rome, and in the eleventh century a large number of people from 242 The Story of the north of Italy settled there. On this account, Roumania looks upon Italy as her mother country, and it was thought that Italy's attack upon Austria would influence her to support the Entente. Each country wanted to be a friend of the winning side, in order to share in the spoils. In this way, whenever it looked as if the Quad- ruple Entente did not need her help Roumania was eager to offer it, at a price which seemed to the allies too high. When, however, the tide turned the other way, she lost her enthusiasm for the cause of her friends, fearing what the central empires might do to her. Questions for Review (a) What was the motive of Turkey in joining the war? (6) Why were the Russians not sorry to have Turkey declare war on them? (c) What were the feelings of the Italian people? (d) What were the Italian diplomats anxious to gain? (e) What were the demands of Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria upon the Entente powers? (/) Why did Bulgaria join the central empires? ( L-) L.O JAHl 2'B5-3PM UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY