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THE EASTJARD KARCH OF POWER
AS IKFIUEICED BY BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY

by

Richard Lewis Thurm

A Thesis
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Kichigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of

' EASTER OF ARTS

Department of History

1950

THE-$5 3

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PORTUGAL
SPAIN
FRANCE
GERKANY
RUSSIA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

.-~ ' 4n
nc?,$_~\€}fl{a

Page

100

125

155

THE EASTWARD MARCH OF POWER

PART I
PORTUGAL
That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange eons even death may die.
H. P. Lovecraft
. While the first great civilizations and cultures
originated in Asia we ofkthe Western World are in the
habit of looking to Europe as the Master-Star of History.
That EurOpe which, though now fallen.upon evil days, we

still hope, as Churchill does, may yet regain some of its
ancient grandeur and prestige. Vain hepe, for that great
tide of power and culture which swept from Asia to the

Gibraltar straits is ebbing now. It has been ebbing for
centuries slowly but surely Eastward, back towards its
source as the river seeks the sea. Thus the cycle will
be completed and that which was in the beginning will be
in the end.

Some of course will point to the United States as
an extension as it were, of European culture and influence.
The tide, they will say, ceased not at Gibraltar but on
the American Pacific coast. Certainly the United States
is a lusty child of Europe, as indeed the entire Western
Hemisphere is. But even the might of America can at best
delay, and not avert, the Eastward march of Power. In
any case this work is concerned with Eurasia, and more

specifically Europe, in the period of modern nationpstates

2
which followed the break-up of the Hely Roman Empire
and the decline in the influence of the Church of Rome.
This period of nation-states we are still in. There are

signs, however, that it is drawing to a close.

It was upon the Iberian Peninsula that the seal
of Power first impressed itself. The now comparatively
tiny and insignificant nation of Portugal led all the

rest.

Alfonso the Third is to be considered first King
of the Portugal which we see in the maps of the present
day, for the result of his warring and treating was the
final delimitation of the country. "He became in reality
sovereign of Algarve as well as of the land between the

Minho and the Togus."l

Alfonso the Third was the first ruler since Count

Henry who had any acquaintance with life outside Portugal.
Hitherto contact with the rest of the world had been limit-
ed to transactions with Rome, intermarriages with Spanish
houses, and commercial intercourse with the western parts
of France, England, and the Low Countries. Broadly speak-
ing Portugal had been isolated from the main European
currents, and education, in particular, remained restricted.
Bishop Paternus had founded a school in Coimbra, which

was later moved into the monastery at Santa Cruz; the abbey

 

1W. A. Salisburg, Portugal and its Peeple, p. 53, 1893.

5

of Alcobaca gave instruction in grammar, logic, and theology.
But there was nothing that resembled a university, and

the few administrative positions that demanded some instruc-
tion were usually filled by graduates of Bologna. In Al-
fonso the Third's own life the influence of his stay in
France is only perceptible, but his son Denis received the
most complete education yet given to a Portuguese King.

His tutors were a Frenchman, Aymeric d'Ebrard, and a Portu-
guese, Domingos Anes Jardo, who founded a college in Lisbon
which probably formed the nucleus of the university. The
effect of this was soon extended to the whole court. With
the end of the reconquest and the pacification of.the
Kingdom the nobles must find other occupations as well as
warfare, and accordingly Dom Denis and his circle turned

to versification. Following his grandfather, who had al-
ready adOpted the Galaico-Portuguese speech as that most
suited to express the themes of Provencal poetry, Denis
wrote many poems in the language of the Contigas, though
their content is amorous rather than pious. Not only in
verse but also in prose, Portuguese developed towards
linguistic maturity, for now for the first time documents
began to be drawn up in the vernacular instead of in

Latin, and Denis ordered his grandfather's Siete Partidas

to be translated into Portuguese. In Twelve-Eighty-Eight
various ecclesiastics represented the desirability of the
establishment of a General Study in the Kingdom, and eighteen
monghs later the University was founded in Lisbon, its

existence being confirmed by a bull of Nicholas the

Fourth dated August the Ninth, Twelve-Ninety. The clergy
took the responsibility of finding the salaries for the
professors. Twenty years after the proposal for its crea-
tion, the University, now equipped for the study of canon
and civil law, dialectcs, grammar and medicine, was shift-
ed to Coimbra, receiving various privileges. "Hewever

it later returned to Lisbon and was only finally established

in Coimbra by John the Third in Fifteen-Thirty-Seven."2

After considerable bloody civil strife over the
succession to the throne Alfonso the Fourth was crowned in
Thirteen-Twenty—Five. The suspicious temper he had shown
as expectant monarch manifested itself afresh after his
accession. He decreed the exile of Alfonso Sanches, who,
according to agreement with his father, resided in Portugal.
In vain did his brother protest his loyalty. His declara-
tions were discredited. Alfonso Sanches therefore raised
an armed force for the support of his declinature to with-
draw from Portugal. "The royal tr00ps sent to expel him
were worsted; and Queen Isabel, hearing how matters stood,
interfered at this Juncture, and procured a treaty by which
Alfonso Sanches retained his right of residence and preperty

in the country."3

The wife of Alfonso the Fourth's son, Pedro, was

 

2H. V. Livermore, A History of Portugal, pp. 152-153, 1947.
3w. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, pp. 60-61, 1893.

5

murdered by courtiers for political reasons with the per-

mission of the King and this resulted in renewed civil

strife.

Alfonso the Fourth died soon after the civil war,
and Pedro acceded to the Throne in May, Thirteen-Fifty-
Seven. He at once proceeded to take vengeance on Ines
murderers. Two of them had been signatories to the peace
of Thirteen-Fifty-Five, but later escaped into Castile.
Already in Thirteen-Fifty-Eight a treaty with Castile was
under consideration, and in Thirteen-Sixty it was followed
by an agreement to extradite certain refugees in both
Kingdoms. "As a result Alvaro Goncaloes and Pedro Coelho
were handed over to Pedro and executed at Santarem; their
hearts being drawn, one through the chest, the other through
the back. The third murderer made good his escape."4

Pedro was a wild and eccentric ruler, judging all
criminal cases personally and often administering punish-
ment himself. Despite his peculiarities the ten years of

his reign were good years for Portugal.

When Ferdinand, son of Pedro and Queen Constance,
began to reign in Thirteen-Sixty-Seven, everything promised

well. He himself was a young man of considerable personal

 

4H. V. Livermore, A History g£_Portuga1, pp. 160-161, 1947.

6

attractions. He was esteemed the handsomest man of his
time, and had a bearing most graceful and Kingly. For
feats of strength and agility he had few equals. He was
noted for generosity. His manner to his inferiors was
affable, and won him golden Opinions from the commons.

He had understanding, too, for State business, and a power
of quickly unfolding feasible plans. The growth of the
nation and its commercial prosperity had filled the royal
treasury; and Portugal had, in Thirteen-Sixty-Seven, no
quarrel in hand with other nations. Never had a King a
smoother path before him than Ferdinand. Yet there was
hardly anything he touched, during his sixteen years reign,
which he did not mar. He flung away many advantages to
which he had fallen heir. He greatly reduced the wealth
accumulated by his ancestors for the necessities of the
crown, entangled the country in foreign war, and generally
mismanaged affairs at home. The reason for his failure
was his instability of character. He laid out schemes and
left them; gave orders one day, and countermanded them the
next; made promises, and lightly broke them. He ignored
recent treaties of alliance, and bound himself without
scruple, when he pleased, to the enemies of his former
friends. He took no trouble to investigate the gravest
matters. "So his projects often miscarried, being founded

on imperfect knowledge."5

 

5W. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, p. 68, 1893.

Ferdinand indulged in wars with Castile and
brought Portugal's affairs to a sorry pass. With his death
that famous Burgundian House under whose auspices Portugal

had advanced from next to nothing to a position of national

solidity and respectability came to an end. The Heuse of
John of Avis was next to appear upon the scene after a
bitter civil war. Fierce and successful fighting against
Castilian invaders, and a victorious campaign against
Ceuta took up most of his reign. "On August, Fourteen-
Thirty-Three, the Forty-Eighth anniversary of the Battle
of AlJubarrota, he succumbed to a long illness during

which Prince Duarte had born the brunt of the Government."6

The reign of Edward, eldest of John's sons, was a
very brief one, only five years long, and full of misfor-
tune. Like his four excellent brothers he had been well
trained by his mother. The depth of his religious convic-
tions, impressed upon him by the precept and example of
Philippa, was revealed by the whole tenor of his life.

His statements and promises were so reliable that "the
word of the King", was a current synonym for truth. In
public he was mild and unaffected, and his private life
was entirely admirable. "He dressed simply, and restrict-
ed to the utmost the expenses of his household. His in-
clination to learning had been sedulously cultivated, and

in his orations, wherein he displayed an extraordinary

 

6H. v. Livermore, A Historv 9;; Portugal, p. 184, 1947.

M

8
fluency, which obtained for him the sobriquet of 'The
Eloquent', he was able to draw upon a large fund of

literary'wealth."7

Unfortunately his reign was not a happy one for
Portugal. Famine and Plague troubled the land. A serious
military disaster occurred for the Portuguese at Tangier
in warfare against the MOhammadens and eventually his five

year reign was cut short by death from the plague.

The Regencies of Queen Leonor and Dom Pedro during
the minority of Alfonso the Fifth were turbulent and full
of Civil Strife which ended in the death of Dom Pedro.

Alfonso the Fifth engaged in futile and disastrous
wars in an effort to obtain the Crown of neighboring Castile
as well as that of Portugal. In this project he sought
the aid of Louis the Eleventh of France. Like most other
men he got little good out of the treacherous fox of the

House of Valois, and in the end his projects came to nothing.

John the Second, who succeeded Alfonso the Fifth, had
_seen the effects of his father's prodigality and felt
keenly the need to assert the authority of the monarchy.
He took a severely Machiavellian view of his duties; and
if he returned to the cortes-legality of Dom Pedro the

Regent, it was as policy rather than on principle. His

 

7w. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, :9. 96, 1893.

9
appearance, and to some extent his character, recall those
of Henry the Eighth of England, the same thickset, bulky
frame, and dog-like expression of the beard-fringed features,

the same conception of personal headship of the State,

fondness for show tempered by regard for wealth, love of
fine dress and majesty, addiction to hunting, hawking,
riding, dancing and swimming. Broad-shouldered and red-
faced, his hair was slightly rufous; and when he was

angry his eyes became bloodshot, which the chronicler found
very terrifying.' Extremely devout in an emotional way,

and absorbed by his affection for his two sons, he knew
how to harness his passions to the State. "For his motto

he adopted the words 'by thy law and for thy people'."8

Explorations and discoveries which had been initiated
long before by Prince Henry the Navigator were carried out.
The Congo was discovered and the Cape of Good Hope was
doubled by Portuguese Mariners. With the death of John

the Second the line of Avis came to an end.

The next heir to the Portuguese Crown was Manuel,
cousin of John the Second, and younger brother of that
Duke of Visew who had gone to his long account by the
same short way he had intended for the King. Manuel, a
boy of fourteen at the time of his brother's death in
Fourteen-Eighty-Three, became by that event second Duke
of Visew; but the King, desirous of obliterating, if pos-

 

8H. V. Livermore, A History 23 Portugal, p. 211, 1947.

lO
sible, every memorial of the tragedy, abolished in the
same year the Dukedom, and created for his cousin the new
title of Duke of BeJa, by which style he was known till
his accession to the throne. "As if to atone, in so far
as that could be done, for the murder, though he did not
choose to call it a crime, the King treated the boy with
the greatest tenderness, gave him the best tutors whom
he could find, and endowed him with the confiscated es-
tates of Visew, while he blotted the hateful peerage out

of existence."9

In the first year of his reign Manuel announced
the pardon of those nobles who had been in exile since
Fourteen-Eighty-Four. To the new Duke of Braganza alone,
he restored some fifty cities, towns, castles and other.
preperties. The society over which he presided was one
in which the nobility came to play a new part, as a court
circle, the ornaments of and ministers to the magnificence
of the King. "These nobles constituted the Seventy-Two
Families whose shields are still to be seen in the Sole

dos Brasoes of the Sintra Palace."lo

Manuel at first dealt leniently with the Jews,
freeing many who had been enslaved earlier. But Spanish
influence forced a revision of his policies and the Jews

were either converted to the faith or driven out of Portugal.

 

9w. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, p. 116, 1893.
103. v. Livermore, g Historyg_f_ Portugal, p. 222, 1947.

11
A similar policy of conversion or expulsion was followed
with regard to the Moors and as a result Portugal lost

many of its quietest, most industrious citizens.

During Manuel's reign Portuguese power was on the
upgrade. Vasco da Gama reached India by way of the
Cape of Good Hepe. Pedro Cobral reached Brazil, which he
named Santa Cruz. Portugal also established colonies in
Asia. In Africa too considerable victories were won in
wars against the infidel. Except for his mistaken policies
regarding the Jews and Moors Manuel may be said to have

been a good King for Portugal.

In Fifteen-Twenty-One King Manuel died. His
eldest son, at once crowned as John the Third, was a man
whose natural disposition was melancholy, and unfortunate-
ly the severe domestic afflictions allotted to him thick-
ened the gloom with which his spirit was shrouded. His
country was during his reign at the very zenith of its
prOSperity, and neighboring monarchs might well envy the
King of Portugal; but his home was desolated by the early
removal of nearly all of his large family. "Three years
before his own death he saw carried to the grave his only
remaining son, who was cut off at the age of sixteen and

a half."11

Unhappily John the Third, as a result of his sor-

rows, fell increasingly under the influence of the Church,

 

11w. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, pp. 122-123, 1898.

 

 

I‘ll! \ ‘l 'I’ llll ‘
\fif
1“ | (I, l

12

to which he turned for comfort. His clerical advisers
persuaded him to introduce the horrors of the Inquisition,
which had long ruled in Spain, into Portugal. The Jesuit
Order also became very influential in Portugal at this

time. Promptly great searchings and sniffings out of heretics
and backsliders, particularly directed against those Jews

and Moors which had accepted Christianity to avoid ex-

pulsion from Portugal, got under way.

John the Third died of apoplexy on June Eleventh,
Fifteen-Fifty-Seven. There was no royal testament, but
a council of notables appointed the Queen, Catarina, as
regent, this being declared the last will of the late King
on the evidence of some unsigned notes taken down by his
secretary. Catarina was a Spaniard, and a sister to
Charles the Fifth, who at once despatched from Yuste an
ambassador to investigate the Portuguese succession and
also sent Francis Borgia on a secret mission to Lisbon.
"The Commissary General of the Society of Jesus could dis-
creetly begin negotiations for the Crown of Portugal to
pass to John the Third's other grandson, Prince Carlos of
Spain in the event of Sebastian's, the son of John the Third,
death,"12

The peOple of Portugal did not care for the Queen,
however, and were determined to maintain their independence.

The Queen was regent during Sebastian's minority, he having

 

12H. V. Livermore, A History 2£_Portugal, p. 251, 1947.

13

been born shortly before the King's death; and called to
her aid in ruling the realm the Cardinal—Infant Henry,
who was a creature of the Jesuits. The policies of this
Society forced the Queen into a convent and brought the

young Sebastian's mind completely under its influence.

When the Society then found the Cardinal-Infant a
little intractable, they resolved to produce the young
King as acting ruler, and so compel the regent's resigna-
tion. Sebastian was now only fourteen, but the Jesuits
managed to overhear all Opposition to the premature assump-
tion of sovereignty on the part of Sebastian, and had him
proclaimed in Fifteen-Sixty-Eight, six years before the
time appointed in his father's will, as sole administrator

of the affairs of Portugal. It was with very bad grace
that the Cardinal submitted to be laid in his political

coffin, but nothing could withstand the will of the
Society. "The game was in their own hands thenceforward,
they thought, and the proceeded to play it with the utmost
regard for their pr0paganda."15

Great was the evil inflicted upon Portugal by the
Jesuits. Indeed of all the Great Powers to be mentioned
in this work Portugal may be said to be the only one that
did not either owe its downfall to, or receive sore blows‘

from, Britain to a large measure. It was the Jesuits who

 

15W. A. Salisbury, Portugal and its People, pp. 131-132, 1893.

l4
filled the young Sebastian's mind with curious and fatal ‘
notions. He neither married nor had children because the
Jesuits had told him that such desires of the flesh were
not becoming to a saintly individual. So Portugal lacked
heirs. Under the urging of the Jesuits he undertook a
mad crusade for the faith against the powerful Moslem
Hordes in North Africa and there was slain in battle.
With his death the royal line may be said to have come to
an end. True the Cardinal Henry ruled for two short years
after his death but that cipher cannot really be called a
King even if he did have the title. A more ruthless and
practical personality, that of Philip the Second of Spain,
had long eyed Portugal greedily. Seeing Portugal without
legitimate heirs, following the death of Henry, Philip,
with the Duke of Alva, that eater of blood, entered Portugal
in Fifteen—Eighty-One to enforce his own claim. After
some Opposition from Antonio, the Prior of Crato, Philip
took over all of Portugal. Thus Portugal became part of
Spain and was dragged down with Spain later when that
proud Empire fell. True Portugal later became independent,
but that was only to exist as an appendage of British
Foreign Policy. Power had shifted East to Spain.

15

PART II
SPAIN

And all our Pomp of Yesteryear
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre. - Kipling.

Spain's power as a modern, united State dates from
the union of the Houses of Castile and Aragon by the
marriage of Isabella to Ferdinand at Valladolid on the
morning of the Nineteenth of October, Fourteen-Sixty-Nine.l
This event, followed by the defeat of the Moors at Granada
on January the Second, Fourteen-Ninety-Two determined

Spain's upward path.

Geography, too, played its role. Flanked by the
Mediterranean on one side and the Atlantic on the other
with the Pyrenees separating her from France and forming
a not inconsiderable barrier to the military forces of
that day. Thus the boundless energy of a proud and war-

like pe0ple was released upon the world.

The results of that energy we all behold today.
From the discoveries of Columbus, the conquests of Cortez
and Pizarro, to the colonization of South America we can
see the Spanish influence. Spain today is a burnt out
candle, a charred wick, but the shadows of her past great-
ness live after her. The Spaniards at the time of the
nation's glory were admirable military material. Sober
and temperate they were more easily provisioned than any

European troops except the Turks. They could stand great

 

lJohn Abbott, The Romance g; Spanish History, p. 150, 1869.

16

climactic changes and were celebrated for their marching
powers. "In a warlike age such qualities were important

for decisive success."2

But all things carry within themselves some weak-
ness or weaknesses. While the faults of the Spanish char-
acter were many their main fraility may be said to be the
excisive influence of the Church in all of their affairs.
Religion is not to be condemned but Spain at the period
of its greatness was priest-ridden in the worst sense of
the word. Yet even so there is a nobility in their
struggles and in the blows struck in the name of God,

which the modern world would do well to heed.

Spain reached the apogee of her power under the
Emperor Charles the Fifth. Charles came to the Throne
as a foreigner, an outsider. He had been born in Ghent
and the first sixteen years of his life had been spent in
Flanders. He knew no word of Spanish and was ignorant
of the customs and mentality of his people. His counselors
and courtiers were Flemish noblemen who regarded Spain as
a plentiful source of supplies, and sought to use the
power of the young King to enrich themselves. "Charles'
representative in Spain, Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, had
alienated many of his subjects, and the number of Flemings

who accompanied the King accentuated this bad feeling."3

 

2Martin Hume, Spain, Its Greatness and Decay, p. 29, 1940.
5Cather1ne Mbran, Spain, Its Story Briefly Told, p. 99, 1980.

17

As a result there were uprisings against this out-
lander who despite his Spanish blood was not recognized
as a true Spaniard. These risings were crushed, however, I
and Charles became ruler of not only Spain, but of France :
and Germany as well, having been elected Holy Roman Emperor.
Charles showed a conciliatory Spirit towards his subjects
that spoke well for his statesmanship. It was during the
reign of Charles that the great explorations abroad were
undertaken. Undoubtedly Charles the Fifth was one of the
mightiest Monarchs EurOpe had ever seen. While Europe
knows of him as Charles the Fifth Spain itself knew him
as Charles the First since he was the first Charles of that
particular royal line to occupy the Spanish throne though
it had occupied other thrones before that time. He is
unusual among the really great leaders of History in that
at the high water mark of his power he voluntarily gave
up all of his vast powers to enter a monastery. The scepter

of his power he passed on to his son Philip the Second.

Philip was twenty-nine when he came to power and

it was a mighty, powerful Empire that he inherited. And
yet despite a beginning so auspicious it was under Philip
that Spain was destined to begin her long and slow decline.
That excess of zeal in religion, which has been mentioned
before, together with the deficiencies of Philip's own
character played a part; but it was the ominous shadow of
Britain, then considered a rather unimportant group of

islands, which darkened Spain's future and, as we shall

18

later see, Europe's also.

The Reformation, which initiated the decline of
the Church of Rome, laid the basis for the decline of
the greatest Catholic Power, Spain. "It Spread from Ger-
many among the Flemish provinces, nobility and people.
Catholicism, with its kindled imagination, poetic sensibili-
ties, and pageant-like accessories, lost its sway over
these simple, practical, reason-loving peOple with the
exception of the Flemings, and freedom of speculative in-
quiry established itself among all classes in the Spanish

Provinces in the Low Countries."4

Meanwhile in Spain the Inquisition reached new
heights of horror under Philip who sincerely saw himself
appointed to carry out God's will on Earth. These un-
happy practices were carried to the Netherlands but they
found little favor there. "Spain might be lurid with the
martyr-fires of Protestantism. Granada, Barcelona, Toledo,
and Seville might be wrapped in the smoke of the torment
of Lutherans; church holidays, Sundays, and public squares
might be made cheerful with the agonies of multitudes
dragged from the dungeons of the Inquisition; and one by
one the gentle lights of Christianity be extinguished by
the fingers of the priests; in the Netherlands the love of
toleration had rooted itself and no power on Earth could

trample it out."5

 

4James A. Harrison, Spain, p. 465, 1895.

51bid., p. 467.

 

 

 

19

A little more toleration, a little more humanity,
would have kept the Low Countries for Spain. But tolera-
tion and humanitarianism were notably lacking in Philip's
character. Cold, stern, and unloving he rigidly followed

in the path that in his view was that WQiCh God had or-

dained for him.

And yet Philip's reign was not entirely without
glory. Perhaps too much credit for that glory should not
go to Philip but Spain's prestige was undoubtedly enhanced.
There was, for example, the tremendous victory of Don Juan
of Austria over the Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto
on October Seventh, Fifteen-Seventy-One. Many historians
hold that this engagement marks the turning of the tide
in the struggle against Islam. "Had Philip acceded to the
repeated demands of Don Juan and despatched reinforcements
to him in Sicily, had he taken the advice of old and tried
soldiers such as the Duke of Alva, to follow up the victory
by chasing the Turk from the seas, by burning the forests
which supplied him with wood for his galleys, and thus
carrying the prestige of Christian arms into the adversary's
own country, it is highly probable that the Turk would
hate been finally expelled from EurOpe and the whole course
of history altered then and there."6

In the meantime other military activities of a

less glorious nature were going forward in the Low

 

6
Catherine Moran, Spain, Its Story Briefly Told, p. 126, 1930.

20

Countries. If Charles the Fifth had been unpOpular with

the Spanish peOple at first because he was not sufficiently
Spanish and smacked too much of the Low Countries, Philip
was extremely unpopular in the Low Countries because he

was far too Spanish, lacking the geniality and accessability
of Charles, and more bigoted than his famous father. When
the heretical doctrines of Luther and Calvin reared their
heads in the Low Countries, Philip, with his renowned

knack for doing the worst possible thing, sent the Duke

of Alva to restore the true faith by force and terror.

Alva was a strange character. "Of great military
excellence, with skillful and daring qualities as a general,
a consummate tactician, a formidable antagonist in field
and cabinet, of faultless Judgment in his military combina-
tions, keenly and wholly foreseeing and calculating upon
precisely the points where his Opponents would fail, im-
movable amid the blazing and starving nation around him,

a commanding figure of cruelty, serene amid imminent peril,
a potent chieftain everywhere except against the unconquer-
able Dutch, Alva's audacity, inventiveness, and desperate

courage rang through Christendom."7

Alva failed in the Netherlands, so did all of his
successors. The courage and determination of the Dutch

rank high among the reasons for that failure but even

 

7James A. Harrison, Spain, p. 510, 1895.

21

these were perhaps not as important as the intervention
of Britain. Following their eternal policy of keeping
the Continent weak and divided even this early, the
English cast their baneful influence upon Europe. Not,
of course, that it was a case of evil for evil's sake.
The survival of that "Tight Little Isle", it was felt by
its inhabitants, was contingent upon a weak and divided
Europe. A United Empire of all the EurOpean states would
outstrip Britain in commerce, in industry, and in sea-
power. Thus soon the English would be utterly at the
mercy of the ruler of the Continent. Philip was the most
powerful Monarch of the time so it was against Philip and
Catholicism and with the Netherlanders and Protestantism
that Elizabeth of England fought. We will see this phenomenon
again and again as we continue on through History. A
phenomenon which in the end has brought to ruin not only

EurOpe but Britain herself.

Finding the English Queen in alliance with the Low
Country heretics enraged Philip. He had hoped before to
unite Spain and England by marriage with Elizabeth but
the Virgin Queen had always put him off. Consequently he
finally came to the conclusion that he couldn't wait any
longer. The complete crushing of England would contribute
to the overthrow of William of Orange, the leader of the
Netherlands, and deal a crushing blow to heresy everywhere.
Therefore, with the blessing of the Pape, Philip laid

claim to the English Throne and instantly prepared to

22
make good his claim by force of arms. In May, Fifteen-
Eighty-Eight, the great fleet, one hundred and thirty
ships in all, set sail from Lisbon under the command of
the Duke of Medina Sidonia. This Armada met with bad
weather from the start. As it swung up the Channel, Drake
emerged from Plymouth and harried it into Calais. Here
for days the Duke of Medina Sidonia awaited the arrival
of the army of Alexander Farmese which he was to convey
to the English shores did not come, and after waiting in
vain Medina Sidonia sailed out of Calais once more. He
was met by the English Fleet of light, swift craft suit-
able for navigation in those narrow, stormy seas. The
cumbersome Spanish ships were hustled into disorder, fire
ships were sent among them to increase the confusion and
they fled to the North Sea. Having rounded the North of
Scotland, they were overtaken by a shattering storm in
the wild Atlantic waters off the coast of Ireland which
wreaked destruction.upon them. 'There sailed back to Spain
only sixty-five of the great galleons. "It was a shatter-
ing blow to Spain's naval power, and although the war with
England continued spasmodically for another ten years,
the supremacy of Spain on sea, so gloriously manifested

n
at Lepanto, passed irrevocably to England.8

So the tide turned. Not that Spain collapsed com-
pletely upon this defeat. Spain was still a greater,

 

—_

BCatherine Mbran, Spain, its Story Briefly Told, pp. 125-127,
1930.

23
richer, and, in many ways, more powerful nation than
England. She was still looked to as the first Power of
Europe. But the downturn, the slow, gradual process of
decay, had begun. The stubborn rebellion of the Nether-
lands played its part without a doubt, and so did the
Church. Much may be blamed upon the character of Philip
the Second himself. Bigoted, narrow minded, despotic,
he lived and breathed murder, as we know by his attempted
killing of Elizabeth, Henry of Navarre and John of Olden:
Barnveld, the great burgher; by his assassination of Eg-
mont, Hoome, and William the Silent. False, hypocritical,
mendacious, and faithless he was. Illiterate, petty-minded,
and full of cant, he could not spell, tell the truth, or
be sincere, if it had cost him his life. "His entire .

reign was consumed in accomplishing infinite nothing."9

Yet with all these factors taken into account we
must remember always that there was England; England which
supported the rebellion in the Low Countries. England
which dealt a deadly blow to Spanish sea-power. Some
historians may see in the struggle of Elizabeth with
Philip a glorious and victorious contest of freedom against
despotism. But one should look deeper. Philip and his
Inquisition were bad enough it is true, but the long en-
suing period of division and strife which EurOpe has had

to undergo and is still undergoing, shows us the picture

 

9James A. Harrison, Spain, p. 531, 1895.

24
of an even greater and more permanent evil. For the

Inquisition would have died out in time.

Other defeats were administered to the Spaniards
besides the destruction of the Armada during the reign of
Philip the Second. The League against the Huguenot King,
in which Philip had Joined, was defeated, and the Spanish
contingent of picked cavaly cut to pieces by Henry of

Navarre in the famous battle of Ivry in Fifteen-Ninety.
Philip was forced to acknowledge the well-won title of
Henry the Fourth to the Crown of France. "In the Nether-
lands, the son of the murdered Orange, Maurice of Nassau,
was entering on that career of success in which he defeat-
ed the Spaniards on many a hard-fought field; the fleets
of the Netherlands were victorious on the sea, and the
independence of the Dutch Republic had become an accomp-

lished though not yet a formally recognized fact."lo

Philip the Second died and his son Philip the Third
came to the Throne. The dying King's last injunction to
his son bade him to rule with justice and be true to the
Holy Catholic Faith. The war with Helland was interrupted
for a time by a truce, and that with England ended on the
accession of James the First. But, war or peace, there
were always Dutch and English privateers, pirates one
might call them, hovering about the Spanish Main, looking

 

1°Jemea Champlin Fernald, The Spaniard in History, p. 102,
1898.

25
for a town to sack or a galleon t0 scuttle. Peace was
made with France; the heir apparent married a French
Princess, and Louis the Thirteenth a Spanish Infants.
"There was some fighting with the Turks, there were some
acts of piracy committed against the Venetians, but nothing

of any great note."11

The character of Philip the Third as it appeared
to his contemporaries has been outlined by John Sobieski,
father of John the Third of Poland, who travelled through
Spain in the year Sixteen-Eleven. He writes: "Philip
the Third, a very pious monarch and a devoted servant of
God; his whole time was taken up with his devotions and
with hunting and expeditions." With greater inclination
for private than for public life, he left the Government
of the country to the Prince of Lerma who directed every-
thing as though he were the King. "The affection the King
held for him and the confidence he placed in him were so

great that at one time this Prince was absolute sovereign

of all Spain. "12

Among the lesser, but not the least important,
causes of Spanish decline may be recorded the policy of
the Spanish Throne towards the moors and the Jews. Philip
the Third is noted as the Monarch who expelled the Moors

 

llnenry Dwight Sedgwick, Spain, p. 208, 1925.
lzcatherine Moran, Spain, Its Story Briefly Told, p. 151, 1980.

26

from Spain as Ferdinand is noted as the King who brought
about the expulsion of the Jews. It is said of Philip
the Third that everything else he did to harm the King—
dom sinks into insignificance in comparison with the ex-

pulsion 0f the Mbriscos.

The motives behind this measure sprang from p0pular
prejudice. Rumor reported, and in part truthfully, that
there was always danger of an insurrection, and that the
Moriscos gave aid to foreign enemies, to Turks, to the
French, and especially to raiders and pirates from the
Barbary Coast. This fear was deepened by their rapid
growth in numbers. In Valencia, for instance, the Meor-
ish population had increased during twenty-five years above
forty per cent; they married young, they never became monks,
they did not emigrate to America and none were killed in
war. The expulsion caused a very serious economic loss.
The historian Lafuente says that the Moriscos were virtual-
ly in control of agriculture and commerce, of the mechanical
occupations and useful arts; that they were economical,
sober, excessively frugal, and consequently much better
off, in spite of the enormaus taxes laid on them, than
the Spaniards who were less laborious and greater spenders.
He quotes Cardinal Richelieu, who said that it was the
most rash and barbarous measure known to History. "No
wonder that it is the custom among Spanish historians to

lay much of the blame for Spanish decadence upon bad

27

Government."13

It cannot be maintained, however, that the expul-
sion of the Moriscos was the main cause of the decline of
the prosperity in Spain. A traveller in Andalusia, where
the Moriscos formed a large part of the p0pulation, describes
the country a few years after the event in the following
terms: "Everywhere the eye rests on extensive woods of
lemon trees, olives, cypresses, date palms and on vines
which produce very good wine." This would support the
assertion that the South was soon rep0pulated by peOple
from the Pyrenees, and the Spanish prejudice against work-
ing on the land was at least temporarily overcome. The.
dep0pulation of Spain had begun long before the Moriscos
were banished, and as early as Sixteen-Hundred and Two
the Cortes at Valladolid complained of the constant de-
crease in the population of Castile. "The causes for the
decadence, Which from now on become more and more apparent,

must be sought elsewhere."l4

Despite all this, however, Spain was still a Great
Power. The Spanish Army was still regarded as virtually
invincible in the Open field. The Spanish Fleet was still
of great importance in international politics. Had one
forceful personality appeared at the time, either a King

 

lzpenry Dwight Sedgwick, Spain, pp. 221-222, 1925.

14Catherine Moran, Spain, Its Story Briefly Told, pp. 135-
136, 1930. '

28
or a_King's favorite, the tide might have been turned
despite the corruption and inefficiency of the Spanish
political system. But alas, only little men appeared upon
the stage. The Kings were, for the most part, mere puppets
Operated by their favorites. Court extravagance and gener-
al economic distress in the country as a whole characterized

the rule of these latter day monarchs.

In February, Sixteen-Twenty-One Philip the Third
fell ill of fever, and felt that the hand of death was
upon him. All that his Church could do to save his life
was done. The Virgin of Atocha was brought, the body of
Saint Isidore carried to the King's bedside, and all the
realm was prostrated in prayer for the Monarch, who, idle
and pleasure-loving though he was enjoyed, personally,
the love of his subjects. Like that of his father, his
death-bed was one of rigid devotion, regret for lost 0p-
portunities, and faith in divine forgiveness. That he
saw now how disastrous his government had been is certain.
During his last hours he referred to it more than once.

"A fine account we shall give to God of our Government",
he said on one occasion; and on another, "Oh if Heaven
would please to prolong my life, how different should my
conduct be." Too late, too late like most of his House.
On the Thirty-First of March, he breathed his last, grasp-
ing firmly in his hand the coarse crucifix which had been
held in the dying grip, and had lain upon the dead breasts
of his father and grandfather. In the twenty—three years

29
of his reign he had missed the splendid opportunity of
resuscitating Spain. He had no world-wide ambitions to
which he needed to sacrifice his country. What was wanted
was honest administration, patience, economy, industry,
and restraint; and all might have been well. These
were the very qualities which Philip the Third lacked.
"Inoffensive, devout and well meaning, his indolence,
extravagance, and carelessness handed over his suffering

country to incompetent favorites who well-nigh bled it

to death."15

Philip the Third was succeeded by his son Philip
the Fourth. As in the reign of his father worthless favor-
ites ruled, while a profligate King squandered the money
of the people in lavish entertainments and luxuries. much
has been written about the visit of Charles Prince of
Wales, afterwards Charles the First, accompanied by the
Duke of Buckingham, at his court; whither the young Prince
had come disguised, to see the Infanta, Philip's sister,
whom he thought of making his Queen. Probably she did
not please him, or perhaps the alliance with Protestant
England was not acceptable to the pious Catholic family
of Philip. "At all events Henrietta, sister of Louis the

Thirteenth of France, was his final choice, and shared his

terrible misfortunes a few years later.".16

 

15Martin A. S. Hume, Spain, Its Greatness and Decay, pp. 222-
223, 1940.

151mm Platt Parmele, A Short Histqry _o_i_‘ Spain, p. 127, 1898.

30

Now alas for proud and great Spain Philip the
Fourth was no improvement over his father. Valasquez
has told a good deal about the royal court, and far more
vividly than the historians. You see in this great artist's
paintings the clever, crafty, astute, shallow Conde-duque
de Olivares, conscious of his own astuteness but not of
his shallowness. "There he hangs forever on the telltale
walls of the Prado, the King's favorite, accompanying the
feeble King down the road of life, with his long moustachios
upturned, his little fantailed beard, and his general air

of a successful Bowery merchant."l7

Olivares was not entirely without gifts but the
problems before him were far too much for him. Wars
broke out with Holland and with France. A powerful Spanish
fleet of seventy ships and ten thousand men was almost des-
troyed by the Dutch on October Twenty-First, Sixteen-Thirty-
Nine. Four-fifths of the Spaniards were lost, and only
seven of their ships escaped into Dunkirk. The Spaniards
had taken refuge in the Downs to escape the Dutch Admiral
Tromp; and simultaneously the Spanish agents and the Dutch
addressed Charles the First of England on the subject.
He pointed out to the former that they could not remain
in English waters forever and he began to bargain as to
what Spain would do for the Palatine if shelter were af-

forded to her fleet. But before an arrangement could be

 

17Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Spain, pp. 247-248, 1924.

31
made Tromp took the matter into his own hands and boldly
attacked the Spaniards whilst their ships lay on the Kentish
coast. The Spaniards asserted that the English themselves
lent him what help they could; and Admiral Pennington was
imprisoned for not protecting them. This blow ended pre-
maturely Spain's renewed attempt to become a great naval
power. Every nerve had been strained by Olivares to strength—
en the Spanish navy, and not without success. "The loss
now sustained was never completely recovered, and Spain's

hold upon the sceptre of the sea was loosed forever."18

To top it all off at the close of the reign of
Philip the Fourth the Spanish Kingdom was further darkened
by the loss of Portugal. "In Sixteen-Sixty-Four, the Lusit-
anians recovered and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza

King. "lg

Faster and faster the process of decline went for-
ward. Vain pride and empty pretensions of power marked

the Spanish State in this period.

In France Richelieu allied himself with Protestant
States against Spain as, in the previous century, France
had allied herself with Turks and pirates. The contest

was long and indecisive, and by Sixteen Forty-Three the

 

18Martin A. S. Hume, Spain its Greatness and Decgy, pp. 242-
243, 1940.

19Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History_g£ Spain, p. 128, 1898.

32
deaths of Richelieu and Louis the Thirteenth and the
fall of Olivares could have given peace, but Philip's
ministers insisted on a continuation of the war. The
result was the Battle of Rocroy, in that same year, where
Melo, governor of the Low Countries, met Condo, and
Spain's glory in the field came to dust. For more than
a century the Spanish infantry had been respected and
feared all over Europe as the nearest known approach to
invincibility. Rocroy was the land counterpart of the
defeat of the Armada. "Again the imponderables were more
serious than the material loss and no later victory, al-
though there were plenty, could obscure the inevitability
of Spain's military decline."20

Conditions may have been bad during the reign of
Philip the Fourth but following his death they went from
bad to worse. Philip on his death-bed left his wife Mariana
of Austria regent during the minority of the new King
Charles the Second, who was but four years old. All
Spain heeded, even at this late date, was peace, rest,
and freedom from foreign entanglements, in which the Pen-
insula itself had no concern whatever. Boldness, patriot-
ism and common sense might still have saved the prosperity
and happiness of the citizens, though illusive national
and dynastic claims would have to be abandoned. But an

evil fate at this crucial moment condemned Spain to the

 

20William C. Atkinson, Spain, A Brief History, p. 120, 1924.

53
rule of a Princess, who, though possessed of considerable
ability, was absolutely dominated by those very traditions
which had been the cause for many disasters. Ambitions,
intriguing and imprudent, she cared nothing for Spain
'and everything for the Empire. "An Austrian to the finger
tips, she had been for years before Philip's death plotting
for the predominance of her kinsmen; she weakened the
bonds of friendship with France which had been cemented

by the marriage of Louis the Fourteenth and Maria Theresa."21

Charles the Second himself was a child of poor
health and given to nervous disorders all of his short
life. With such hands at the wheel the Spanish ship of
State veered and wallowed. Corruption and inefficiency
became more and more prevalent at the Court. Throughout
the country in general economic and moral conditions

went from worse to terrible.

When Charles was fifteen years of age, he had, by
the royal law, attained his majority. This weak puny boy
thus, by the law of hereditary descent, became the absolute
Monarch of a nation numbering from eight to twelve million
inhabitants. His mother, with tears and blandishments,
still governed her feeble child. It is difficult to record
these facts without feeling indignation. And yet it has
been well said that every nation has as good a government

as it deserves. The pe0ple of Spain by now were so de-

 

glMartin A. S. Hume, Spain, Its Greatness and Decay, pp. 284-
285, 1940.

54
based that they were satisfied. They were delighted to
witness the agonies of heretics burned at the stake.
"They would have fought with desperation, nobles and
peasants alike to defend their King against any one who
should attempt to introduce free institutions."22

While Spain was withering under her misfortunes
France was growing mighty. The Eastward March of Power
which had shifted the scepter of might from Portugal to
Spain now carried it from Spain to France. Britain, too,
was growing in Power but Britain was in the curious posi-
tion of being outside of Eur0pe and yet able to inter-
fere in its affairs. The English Channel was a valuable
asset. But Louis the Fourteenth, the great sun King was
more the center of all eyes than Britain. Britain and
France tended to rise together until a series of fright-
ful collisions ensued which initiated the decline of French

power.

But back to Spain. Despite her sorry circumstances.
there was life in the Tiger yet. Indeed the other powers
considered Spain important enough to fight a war over the
Succession t0 the Spanish Throne. The dying King had de-
cided in favor of Louis of Anjou which choice furthered
ambitions of Louis the Fourteenth to dominate Europe.
England, pursuing her traditional policy of keeping the

 

22John S. C. Abbott, The Romance 3: Spanish History, pp. 342-
343, 1869.

35
Continent from being consolidated under one head, opposed
this choice and allied herself with Austria in a war to

prevent Louis of Anjou from coming to the Throne.

There was fighting in Flanders, in Italy, and on
the high seas. After ten or a dozen years of war, peace
was made among the various combatants. "The Treaties of
Utrecht and Rastatt carved up the Spanish Empire in Eur0pe;
Philip the Fifth was acknowledged King, but the Crowns
of France and Spain were to be always separate; Gibraltar
should belong to England; Sicily to go to Savoy; the other
Spanish possessions in Italy together with Flanders, Luxem-
bourg, and Sardinia, were handed over to the Austrian

Habsburgs."25

Alas and alas how the mighty had fallen. Spain
had retained her pride and her Church but her great power
was broken forever. Faint traces of that power lingered
on for a time in South America, and in the southern sec-
tions of the North American Continent. The Spanish navy
and the Spanish nation were still considered a valuable
makeweight in the international game of power politics.

But the initiative had shifted from Spain to others.

Yet even now there were forces within the nation
tending towards a renaissance. If the terrible catastrophes

of the preceding years can be said to carry any blessings

 

23Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Spain, pp. 288-284, 1925.

36
one could say that it was probably a great blessing for
Spain that from the bloody War of the Spanish Succession
a Bourbon, and not a Habsburger had come forth victor.
Philip the Fifth was in some sense a réjuvenation, a
personification of the lost youth of Spain; the upholder
of a new system of government, a new scheme of administra-
tion, and a new mode of warfare. "The measures and prin-
ciples which had raised France under Colbert and Richelieu
to the most brilliant of European ascendencies, the vigorous
and stirring initiative of a united government, the pro-
motion of trade and commerce, the unsparing abolition of
abuses, in however limited a manner employed by him, at
least brought Spain from its stagnant condition, Opened
a period of reform, and launched the country, under
Ferdinand the Sixth and Charles the Third, on a career

of comparative prosperity.”4

Charles the Third represented the last flicker of
life in the corpse, however. Under his successor, Charles
the Fourth, the final long decline began. Spain was
caught between the eternal determination of Britain to
keep Europe weak and divided and the rising power of
France. Eventually the Spaniards became a weak and
despised appendage of their powerful Eastern Neighbor.

"Charles the Fourth was a fool, a coward, a hen-peeked

 

24Jamea A. Harrison, Spain, p. 569, 1895.

p 87
contemptible bigot."25 He was completely under the in-
fluence of the Queen who turned the Spanish court into
a den of vice. In this last final fatal act of the Span-
ish tragedy Spain was ground to dust between the upper
millstone of an adamantine Britain and the nether millstone
of a rising, powerful France. The only thing that stands
out creditably in this whole shoddy curtain performance

is the desperate heroism of the Spanish people.

 

25James A. Harrison, Spain, p. 628, 1895.

PART III
FRANCE
Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate
Nor set down ought in malice. - Othello by
Shakespeare
The true story of a nation, like the true story
of a man, can only be suggested out of a habit of im-
partial truth-telling, joined to a sympathetic under-
standing. Both truth and understanding call one's at—
tention to the repeated times when France had been a

leader in the paths of progress and had made great con-

tributions to the common treasure of mankind.

While France had had manny Kings to rule her be-
fore him her rise as a modern nation-state may be said to
date from the reign of Louis the Eleventh of the Valois
line. He it was who brought France under the absolute
control of the Crown and crushed the power of the great
feudal lords. The personal character of Louis was not an
engaging one, but it fitted him well for his assigned task.
"He was an individual on whom neither war nor pleasure
seemed to have any effect; a cold blooded, watchful, un-
scrupulous tyrant, whose steps, like the Tiger's, were
noiseless, and whose object was only known by the rapid

spring when he had got within distance, and the shriek of

his victim."l

1James White, History of France, p. 12, 1901.

39
Louis, was crowned King on the Eighteenth of August,

Fourteen-Hundred-and Sixty-One. He commenced his reign
by a serious mistake. He dismissed his father's trusted
and experienced councillors and replaced them with new
men of low degree.2 He was firmly convinced of his own
divine right to rule without hindrance or limitation al-
though it was his habit to take full advice before he de-
cided upon action. "Every week regularly he touched for
the King's evil, or scrofula, any who came to be healed;
a royal miracle which was supposed to attest.the divine

function of Kings."3

Unlike many other Kings Louis the Eleventh cared

nothing for state or Splendor. He wore the meanest and
most shabby clothes and an old hat, surmounted by little
leaden images of the Saints, which he would take down

and invoke to help him. For though his religion was good
nothing, since it did not keep him from committing any
crime, he was wonderfully superstitious. "He must really
have been taught, like all of his Church, that the Saints
did not bestow benefits, and could only be asked to inter—
cede for them, but he not only prayed to them directly
but to their images; and it actually seems that he thought
that if he told one image of the Blessed Virgin of some

 

3Thomas E. Watson, The Story 3; France, p. 271, 1899.

3Paul Van Dyke, The Story 2: France, p. 254, 1929.

40
crime, or made it some promise, it was a different thing

from telling another."4

Louis initiated his reign by showing a positive
genius for making everybody angry. Perhaps this was due
to the influence of his amateur councillors but it very
nearly cost him both his crown and his head at the very
beginning of his rule. Among his other irritating activities
he raised taxes from one million, eight hundred thousand
to three million livres, curbed the jurisdiction of the

Parliament of Paris and reduced the power of the Church.

The aristocracy was still more seriously threatened.
The King commenced bestowing titles of nobility with a
freehhand upon persons of low birth; and he put restrictions
upon the feudal rights of hunting, to defend agriculture
against the havoc made by aristocratic amusements. "He
also revived against the feudal lords certain feudal dues
which had not been claimed by the late King, and demanded

immediate payment of them."5

The object of all this was, of course, to break
‘down the power of the great feudal lords. The nobility
saw the object of the King, and took up arms to prevent
the extinction of their order and the diminution of their

individual power. A cry is never wanting when people are

 

4Charlotte M. Yonge, XEEEE PeOples History 2: France, pp. 246-
247, 1879.

5Th0mas E. Watson;’The Story 3; France, p. 272, 1899.

41
determined to quarrel, and as the feudal chiefs could not,
with any decency, state openly the reasons of their op-
position they placed it upon the two grounds of the sacri-
fice of French ecclesiastical liberty by the abrogation
of the Pragmatic Sanction, and the intolerable weight of
taxation which the new King had imposed. "This, therefore,
was called, rather inapprOpriately, the War of the Public
Good".6

The greatest antagonist of Louis the Eleventh was
his ostensible vassal, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy,
whose father had fought his father for years. Charles had
inherited and acquired a rich territory running across
northern France into the Netherlands. "He was as false
and as cruel as Louis but lacked the other's common sense

and capacity to estimate what was possible."7

This struggle was mainly between the King and the
nobles. Some historians have attempted to range the burghers
and middle class alongside Louis as Opposed to the nobles.

It is true that Louis assumed the aspect of a friend of

the common man when it suited his purpose, and he granted
certain privileges to the middle class. Indeed he has

often been called the burgher King. But it must be remembered
that one of the grievances against him, proclaimed by Charles
the Bold and his cohorts, was high taxes. Indeed the nobles

 

6James White, History 2; France, p. 179, 1901.
7Paul Van Dyke, The Story 3; France, pp. 255-256, 1899.

42
appealed to the burghers to rally to their side because

of these self-same high taxes.

In his attempt to crush the league which had been
formed against him Louis was completely defeated. That

defeat was the most fortunate thing that could have happened
to him. It taught him where his real strength lay. Hence—

forth he fought his enemies not by force of arms, but by

craft.

He fairly earned the name he afterward received of
"the universal spider", for certainly no spider ever weaved

more subtle webs or caught more victims. He fomented

jealousies and quarrels which dissolved the league. Then
he dealt with the chief men individually. "He bought the
loyalty of one, he coaxed that of another, he locked up a
third like a wild beast in an iron cage, and kept him there
till his rebellious heart was broken."8

In the end with faction destroyed by the executioners
ax, and Charles of Burgundy dead in a ditch at Nancy in
January Fourteen-Hundred and Seventy-Seven, Louis was at
last master of the situation. He could now pit his diplo-
macy and his undiluted strength against Charles' daughter,
the Duchess Mary, whose hand he failed to secure for the
Dauphin, as well as her gallant husband, Maximilian, from

whom he succeeded in filching Artois and the Burgundian

 

8Darrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 23 French History,
p. 118, 1917.

43

duchy. Other substantial acquisitions betray the hand of
the master, whose will abashed feudalism no longer dared
to dispute. "Maine, Anjou, Provence were annexed to the
Crown, before whose luster that of the great families
paled into insignificance, and whose supremacy was no
longer threatened by that fatal system of appanages which
had nurtured feudal factiousness and civil strife, and

which the States-General had condemned at Tours in Fbur-

teen Sixty-Eight."9

It is an interesting sidelight on this early struggle
for the unification of the French nation that the English
were already there, even thus early, trying to prevent
that self-same unification from coming about. In this
particular case Charles of Burgundy had invited Edward of
Britain to aid him in his struggle against Louis. The
British were very eager and landed on the coast of one of
Charles' feudal holdings. If Charles had not changed his
plans for some reason it might have gone ill for Louis
then and there. It is but a minor example of the constant,
dragging, fatal influence of Britain upon that doomed,
harried Continent of EurOpe.

There was no dignity in the closing scene of the
rule of the great feudal nobles in France. The sword was

turned into a white rod or a silver stick, and the descendents

 

9James Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline 2f the French
MOnarchy, p. 96, I962.

44
of Oliver and Roland walked backwards in grand processions,
dressed in the livery of their master, and quarrelled for
precedent in the offices of the court. "Nothing but the
sound of a historical name remained to distinguish the De
Coucis and Mentmorencies from the herd of titled and land-
less adventurers who vied with each other in the depth of
their obeisances in the antechamber of the King. A nobility
derived from Charlemange was of the King. A nobility de-

rived from Charlemange was a sure passport to the scaffold."10

Thus we can see the beginning of the process which
led to the miserable, pardsitical aristocracy which existed

in the days of Louis the Sixteenth over three hundred

years later. And we see the reason for the French Revolution.
The greater part of humanity will endure the rule of a

mailed warrior, be it ever so cruel, so long as the warrior
keeps to his function of fighting man and protector. On

the other hand the British aristocracy showed an ability to
administrate the affairs of the British Empire which the
French aristocracy never develOped. Mankind will submit

to the rule of the blood-thirsty Tiger or the cunning Fox;
but never for long to that of the Pig which merely eats.

Louis the Eleventh had more of the fox in him than
of the tiger. He was small in his outlook, and he was as

free from generous impulses as a spider patiently waiting

 

lOJames White, History 93.; France, p. 199, 1901.

45
for blundering flies to entangle themselves in the web
he has woven. Many feared him, some respected him, the
burghers were mildly grateful to him, but, so far as we
know, no man or woman ever loved him. The last year of
his life, Louis the Eleventh lived shut up in a strong
castle whose guards had orders to shoot at anyone who ap-
proached the walk. "He grew jealous of everybody and even
afraid of his son in law, his daughter and his own son,
for, in the end, the fear he had inspired mastered his own

heart."11

Here we see the difference between the French and
the British political evolutions. In France all Opposi-
tion was crushed by the King and the government became an
unrelieved autocracy. In Britain, on the other hand, the
great nobles imposed certain restrictions upon the Crown
in the famous Magna Carta. It is true that under Edward
in Britain the power of the great nobles was weakened and
Warwick the "King maker" was slain but royal authority
never became absolute in Britain and as unrestrained as
in France. Even today when all the Kings have long since
departed you can see, even in the Continental countries
which have a democratic form of government, a subservience
to the central authorities and a control and power over
the individual which one did not see in Britain, at least

not until recently and which one does not yet see in the

 

11Faul Van Dyke, The Story 3; France, p. 259, 1929.

46
United States of America. For example it has been said
that one of the reasons for the German successes in France
in World War Two was the fact that all authority was con-
centrated at Paris, and the lesser officials in the outly-
ing sections of France were simply paralyzed and inactive
in the face of the Blity without instructions from the

central government from which they were cut off.

Louis the Eleventh was succeeded by Charles the
Eightth, his son. Charles the Eighth was in truth the anti-
thesis of his father and his sister. He was as rash, super-
ficial, and romantic as Louis was cunning and calculating;
he had none of his sisters masculine strength of will,
sense, and seriousness of purpose. "But his work was done
for him, and there was no reaction to impede the pursuit
of those adventurous enterprises which appealed to his
imaginative, sanguine temperament, though this temperament
unfitted him to be a great ruler, it enabled him to play

a meteoric role in History".12

Anne of Beaujeu, his sister, who was married to a
brother of the Duke of Bourbon, was a more worthy child
of the sagacious Louis than the frivolous boy. She ruled
by her influence over her brother, but never showed that
she ruled. "Wise regulations were issued in his name, bold
steps taken without apparent hesitation, a firm system
established, and France soon felt that a strong hand was

 

lzJames Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline a; the French

anarchy, p. 110, I902.

47
at the helm and anticipated great things from so aus-

piciously commenced a reign."15

While Louis limited his aggressive policy to a
moderate extension and strengthening of the frontiers,
his son aimed at the conquest of Italy. He became a com-
petitor for the Crown of Naples, in virtue of his inheritance
of the claim of the House of Anjou, and the Crown of Naples
was but a stepping-stone to the domination of the whole
Peninsula. "Italy was menaced by the Spaniards, the Ger-
mans, and the Turks; and Charles, egged on by his favorite
Stephen de Vesc, and his finance minister, William William
Briconnet, was of the opinion that he had a better title

than any of his rivals."14

His sister, Anne, had not lost her good sense and
she advised the King against these dubious schemes; so did
his wisest councillors and warriors. "But Charles was in
the first flush Of youth, was surrounded by ardent young

men eager for adventures, and the war party won out."15

What a sad commentary upon absolutism that the pig-
headed stupidity of one man and his servile flatterers
could prevail against not only the interests of the com-

mon man, who, it seems, was never much considered in those

 

15James White, History 2; France, p. 204, 1901.

14James Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline g; the French
Monarchy, p. 110, I952.

15Thomas E. Watson, The Story 2; France, p. 307, 1899.

48

days, but even against the advice of his own high officials
and a member of his own family. Yet even today, in this
vaunted age of Democracy, is it not still true that a few
men or perhaps even one man can plunge the world into

war?

So Charles, not satisfied with ruling at home,
endeavored to conquer an additional realm in Italy. He
began a war which was not to be concluded until nearly
half a century after his death. He was crowned King of
Naples, to which title he next added the empty ones of
King of Jerusalem and Emperor of the East. Shortly after,
he returned to France, where his death brought his cousin
Louis the Twelfth to the Throne. "The expedition of
Charles the Eighth to Italy amounted to nothing in itself,
but it is important to note it, since it marks the beginning
of those French wars for foreign conquest which, in the I

end, were to have far reaching results."16

Louis the Twelfth was different, fortunately, from
Charles the Eighth. He was now in his thirty-seventh
year, tall and well made; his courage had been shown in
many fields, for he had been distinguished in the Italian
expedition, and displayed the valor of a Paladin, as well
as the unselfishness of a hero in the defense of Novarra.
"His talents were well-known, though hitherto the use he
had applied them to was not uniformly good; and nobody

 

16Darrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 2; French
History, p. 126, 1917.

49

doubted that, if he devoted himself to the duties of his
high office, he would raise his country to a station it

had never reached before."17

"Mentally and morally Louis the Twelfth was rather
a weak man, unstable and unwise; but he was really con-
cerned for the welfare of the French people, and under his

mild, economical administration they prospered."18

In foreign policy Louis the Twelfth is a pupil of
the school of Louis the Eleventh and Macchiavelli, Fer-
dinand and the Borgias, a school bereft of conscience and
honor but unlike Louis the Eleventh, he was unable even
to be successful in his rogueries. He lost Milan; was
even threatened with the loss of France, and would have
been hard pressed to save his Kingdom from partial disin-
tegration if only his enemies could have united heartily
to play, at his expense, the game of spoliation which he
had joined them in playing at the expense of Italy. "Could
he have been content to rule as a model sovereign over
his own territories, History would have had the novel ex-
perience of re-echoing, with hardly a jarring note, the
chorus of praise which his numerous contemporary panegyrists

sang in his honor."19

 

17James White, History 3; France, p. 209, 1901.

18Thomas E. Watson, The Story 23 France, p. 315, 1899.

19James Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline of the French
Monarchy, pp. llZ-IlS, I§UZ.

50

Louis the Twelfth died son-less and was succeeded
by his cousin who became Francis the First. Francis the
First inherited not only the Crown of France, but what has
been called the "haunting obsession", of Italy. Within
seven months of mounting the Throne, he was leading an
army across narrow passes of the Alps where the rocks had
to be blasted to make way for his one hundred and fifty
cannons. Attacked in the plains of Italy by the Swiss
fighting for the POpe, he beat those hitherto invincible
troops in a two days fight so fiercely that one of his
generals said none of the other eighteen pitched battles
of his life had been more than child's play in comparison.
After this victory, which gave him an enormous military
reputation, he made a series of treaties. A concordat
with the Pope divided the patronage of the French Church
between the Papacy and the Crown. He concluded with the
Swiss a "perpetual peace", which was a defensive alliance
the same year he made peace with Spain. "A general treaty
of reciprocal protection was signed by the Emperor and
the Kings of Spain and France. The series of Italian

wars, begun a quarter of a century before, was closed."20

The treaties of Fifteen-Sixteen and Fifteen-Seventeen

did not, however, procure for EurOpe any prolonged period
of peace. "The 'Italian' wars of Fifteen-Twenty to Fifteen-

Fifty. Nine were different in character from the first

 

20Paul Van Dyke, The Story 3; France, pp. 249-250, 1929.

51
series: they were less frequently fought on Italian soil;
they were more far-reaching in scope and significance;
they were complicated by the emergence of an ecclesiastical
issue; and the stake at issue was no longer the balance

of power in Italy, but the balance of power in EurOpe."21

With the death of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany,
in Fifteen-Nineteen the post of Holy Roman Emperor was

vacant. The three candidates for this high office were

Henry the Eighth of Britain, Charles the Fifth of Austria
and Francis the First of France. Tremendous efforts were

made by all concerned to bribe the electors.

The seven electoral princes met at Frankfort, June
Seventeenth, Fifteen-Nineteen to choose an Emperor. Charles
had had the foresight to gather an army and station it
very hear by, well-knowing the helpful influnnce of cold
steel, while Francis had trusted entirely to money, and
had no troops at hand. Charles was put in nomination be-
fore the Diet by the Archbishop of Mayence, Francis by
the Archbishop of Treves. "Rival intrigues were kept up,
the tr00ps were a clog to debate, and finally, by way of
compromise, Frederick of Saxony was unanimously elected.
He declined the honor, made a speech in favor of Charles,

and Charles was unanimously elected.u22

 

leir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short History 33 France, p. 60, 1944.

22Thomas E. Watson, The Story 2; France, pp. 334-355, 1899.

52

Since the time of Charlemange and the Caesars no
sovereign had been able to gain control of such an immense
territory as that which the Emperor Charles the Fifth now
possessed. Francis the First felt that so formidable a
neighbor was a constant menace to himself and his people.
Placed as his Kingdom was between the armies of Germany
and Spain, both of whom obeyed one directing and absolute
will, France was like the wheat between the upper and the
nether millstones, which a single energetic movement might
suffice to crush. "One look at the map will show the posi-

tion and the danger."2:5

It was decided to offset this danger by, Napoleon-
like, attacking Charles' Italian possessions. In Fifteen-
Twenty-Four Francis, who could not get Italy out of his
mind, crossed the Alps with a powerful army to conquer the
Duchy of Milan. At Pavia he was attacked by the Imperial
army, defeated with great slaughter, wounded and taken
prisoner. In the battle he played the part of a brave
soldier but a poor general, for he showed the same sort
of bull-headed courage which had been so fatal to the French
chivalry in the wars of the previous century. "The disaster
was complete and he wrote to his mother that "nothing was

left to him except his honor and his life.“24

Such a disastrous day had not loomed over France

 

zzDarrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 3f French History,

p. 150, 1917.

24Paul Van Dyke, The Story 93;. France, p. 251, 1929.

53
since Agincourt. Francis was worried about honor and its
loss as we have noted. But the calm young man at Madrid
had a different estimate of honor. He had his rival brought
into Spain, and kept him in severe confinement. He had
the soul of a pawnbroker, and resolved to make the most
of his given word. A new advantage promised itself when
the sister of Francis, the fair and fascinating margaret
of Alencon, hurried to Madrid to console her imprisoned
brother. Her safe-conduct was valid only for three months,
and Charles consulted his almanac to see the exact day of
its expiration. In the meantime Margaret exerted all her
powers. The Spanish nobles were won over by so grateful
and fascinating a pleader; Charles himself appeared to
yield, and Margatet might have been deceived. But as time
went on, preparations were made for her arrest, and emissaries
were reported to be gathering between her and the boders.
Warned of these proceedings, the Duchess hurried from Madrid,
and put the Bidossoa River between her and the magnanimous
Emperor, on the very day her safe-conduct came to an end.
Charles was now at the summit of his ambition. He had
Italy at his feet, and his enemy in his hands. But a
premature assurance of success was the rock on which he
split. He neglected his instruments now that the work
was done he offended Henry the Eighth by his silence, and
Wolsey by the coldness of his letters; the Pope was afraid
of so powerful a neighbor; Pescara was disgusted by so un-
grateful a master, the Bourbon was disappointed at the

breach of his engagements. "Nobody continued heartily in

54

the cause of a man who was so evidently "concentrated all

in self."26

Francis submitted to the terms dictated by Charles,
and which were of a most stringent character, involving
the surrender of Burgundy and other provinces, as well as
of several of the principal cities in Flanders also, to
renounce all claim upon Navarre and to pay Henry the Eighth
a large debt which Charles owed him. It appears that he
made no objection to these terms, intending to repudiate
them, on the ground of duress, as soon as he could do so
with impunity. This opportunity presented itself subjected
him to the only charge of perfidy, or breach of faith and
honor, ever leveled against him. He returned to Paris,
leaving his two sons as hostages, and soon after his ar-
rival the Viceroy of Naples was sent by Charles the Fifth
to require a ratification of the Treaty of Madrid, and a
fulfillment of its several stipulations. By way of answer
the viceroy was invited to assist at an audience of the
deputies from Burgundy, who were sent there to protest
against the cession of that province, and the viceroy re-
ceived an announcement in support of Francis from the
Holy League, so called by POpe Clement the Seventh, with
all the Italian states and Henry the Eighth of England,
who had combined to prevent the Emperor from obtaining

possession of Milan."27

 

26James White, History 3; France, pp. 234-235, 1901.

27
William Tooke, The MOnarchy 3: France, pp. 367-368,

1855.

55
Rome was sacked by the Imperials. Pope Clement
the Seventh was himself taken prisoner in Fifteen-Twenty-
Seven; but after the war had dragged on aimlessly for an-
other year a treaty was negotiated on August, Fifteen-

Twenty-Nine at Cambrai between Louise of Savoy, the Queen-

MOther of France and Margaret of Austria, the aunt of Charles
the Fifth and Governor of the Netherlands. La Paix des
Dames "left the Emperor completely master of Italy. France
renounced all claims upon Flanders and Artois, but recovered
the Duchy of Burgundy. The Emperor might have been less
willing to make peace with France had he not been beset
with anxieties at home. In Fifteen-Twenty-Nine the great
Turkish Sultan, Sulieman "The Magnificient", having over-
run Hungary was knocking at the gates of Vienna. "Vienna
resisted him and the Sultan accepted his repulse as final
but the moment had been critical for Germany and indeed

for Christendom."28

The Treaty of Cambrai marks the beginning of the
most ruinous period of the policy of Francis: in it he
sacrificed his allies to what seemed to be his private in-
terests, showing a selfishness which recoiled sharply on
his own head. In the Treaty of Madrid he had sacrificed
France by giving up the Duchy of Burgundy, and had sent
his children into captivity that he might himself get free:
at Cambrai he sacrificed his Italian allies without a

word; no consideration of honor as of royal faith availed

 

ZBSir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short History 2: France, p. 61, 1944.

 

56

to stay his hand. By these two treaties France was ex-
cluded from Italy, her earthly Paradise, a penalty which
had in it the wholesome cleansing power of most misfor-
tunes; had she heroism enough, enough of strength and honest
industry, enough of purity and simplicity, she might still
make her own home, the France which teemed with blessings,
a better Paradise for herself. Unfortunately, the French
nation was left to its fate, whereas the Court with the
eagerness of childhood pursued its Italian ambitions.
While it strove to conquer Italy, Italy was completely

and banefully mastering it: during these days the Court
becomes thoroughly Italianised. Francis himself, true to
one love only, the love of letters, was fascinated by the
Italian side of the Renaissance; he thought that all true
culture must come thence. Consequently, Italian influences
ever increased in strength, and with them grew the idea
that at any sacrifice France must recover her foothold in
the Peninsula. For this unsubstantial object she thrust
from her true greatness. Had there been by the side of
Francis a Richelieu to shape a sound foreign policy how
different the outcome would have been. "Unfortunately for
France her ruler was as ill "provided"with advisers as he

was weak of grasp and character."29

Old and worn out with labors and debaucheries of
every kind, the King, at fifty—two, felt all his energy

ngggrge W. Kitchin,‘é History ggiFrance, Vblume II, pp. 220-
1’ 18970

57

decaying. Henry the Eighth had closed his troubled reign
in January of Fifteen-Forty-Seven. Francis brooded over
the event as if it had some mysterious connection with

his own fate. Fevered and ill at case, he hurried from
place to place to shake off the dark presentiment; but
Journeys, and hunting parties, and more elegant relaxations,
were all in vain. "The body would no longer move, and

on the Thirty-First of March in the same year, he followed
his rival to the tomb."30

While Henry the Second, the son of Francis the First,
was still enjoying the festivities attendent upon his ac-
cession to the throne, a revolt occurred in Guienne, caused
by an arbitrary increase of the salt tax. The people of
Guienne contended that they were exempt from this tax by
ancient privilege. Francis the First had disregarded the
privilege and enforced the tax. The peOple rose against
it, and Francis had marched against them with his army.
Unable to resist further, the peeple had humbled themselves
and prayed pardon. Francis handsomely forgave them for
being ill-humored on account of an illegal tax, and let
them off with a fine of two hundred thousand francs. The
illegal tax, of course, was left in force, and, Just before
his death, Francis had increased it. The spirit of dis-
satisfaction again spread, and led to the revolt already
mentioned. The peasants, goaded to madness, broke out into

deeds of lawlessness. The director-general of the salt-

 

30Jsmes White, History 2; France, p. 244, 1901.

58
tax was slain, and two of his collectors were beaten to
death and their bodies thrown into the river. "Go wicked
salt-taxers, and salt the fish of the Charente", cried
the infuriated mob as they cast the dead men into the

stream."31

This revolt against royal authority was punished
with atrocious severity by Henry's military officials who

had been sent to put down the rebellion.

Henry the Second had, in Fifteen-Thirty-Five, married
Catherine, the daughter of Lorenzo de Medici. His wife,
however, possessed no influence over him, as he was altogether
governed by his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, the widow of
the Chevalier Beeye, seneschal of Normandy, a woman of
exquisite beauty and extraordinary talent. She was eighteen

years older than the King, who had made her Duchess of
.Valentinois. During his life it was she who was to all
intents and purposes the real Queen of France. His first
acquaintance with her was when she solicited and obtained
the pardon of her husband, who had been condemned to die

for treason."52

It is interesting to note this continually recurring
French phenomenon, that of petticoat Operation behind the

scenes. It is particularly strange to one who knows the

 

31Thomas E. Watson, The Story 32 France, pp. 294-395.

32William Tooke, The Mbnarchy 23 France, p. 576, 1855.

59
curious French attitude toward the fair sex. This attitude
is a strange combination of contempt and admiration. One
has to read the works of such French authors as Guy de
Maupassant to get an idea of French ideas. 0n the one
hand we have one of de Maupassant's characters stating
that women have brains very much like monkeys, and on the
other hand we have the French tradition of chivalry and
the memory of the immortal Joan. Under French law no
woman could ever rule the nation as Elizabeth and Victoria
ruled Britain. It is only recently that French women ob-
tained the right to vote. In the home the French husband
is master. And yet when Frenchmen had become demoralized
and French rulers weak, degenerate and corrupt it was a
Joan of Arc who led them into battle, and provoked the
British to an act that will reverberate down through the
centuries to their everlasting shame. Alas there are more
decreditable episodes than the glorious age of Joan of
Arc. Pompadour, and Du Barrey are also in the books. As
a sidelight my fellow countrymen may note that the EurOpeans
often laugh at Americans for being dominated by our women-
folk. And the French are not the least forward in making
this claim.

Under Henry the Second the Kingdom at first had
peace; although Paul the Third pressed Henry to resist
the predominance of Charles, who, since the Battle of Muhlberg,
had become all powerful, the King would not move. He also
won a political triumph over England. Somerset, the Protector,

wishing to secure the hand of Mary Queen of Scots for the

60
young King Edward the Sixth, then only five years of age,
had marched an army northwards, and defeated the Scots
at Pinkie. In opposition to this rough way of wooing the
young beauty, the French also came as suitors, sending a
force to support Mary of Guise, the Regent, her mother,
against the English. By help of these tr00ps, and with
the good-will of the Regent, Mary of Scots was safely
carried over into France, to the great delight and triumph
of Henry the Second. He bade his envoy in London go to
the Protector, and tell him that the little Queen.was af-
fianced to Francis the Dauphin, and that Scotland, sceptre
and Crown, had been handed over to him, Henry, for his sons
profit; whereof he held himself bound, by duty and obliga-
tion, to protect that Kingdom as though it were his own.
This was not a declaration of war, though it came very
close to it: it was saying that the Calvinistic party in
Scotland must hope for nothing; that the English Calvinists
had failed to win the day, and that the high Catholic party,
carrying off the Queen, had secured Scotland also to the
faith. So they thought, and, for a while, their policy
seemed to prosper; but the Scottish peOple were too stub-
born and too much in earnest to be ruled in this manner;
and Mary of Scots was destined to pass her life amid
intrigues, the sport of other interests than her own,
and at last to perish, because it was impossible for her
to reconcile her claims and those of the Catholic party

with the wishes of England and the safety of England's

61

a
Queen.“3

Later, however, Henry went on with the war with
the Emperor, Charles of Spain, and would not let the French
bishops go to Trent, where Charles was trying to get to-
gether a council of the Church, to set right the evils
that had led to the separations. Henry had one very able
general, Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Guise. "He sent this
general to seize the city of Mely, which he declared he
had a right to and there Guise shut himself up and stood
a siege by the Emperor himself, until disease and famine
created such havoc in the besieging army that they were

forced to retreat."54

In all this one of the most interesting points is
the fact that the most Catholic Majesty of France and
the most Catholic Majesty of Spain.were in conflict with
each other instead of being united against the Protestant
States of Germany. The new rising spirit of nationalism
was producing diviflions and weakening the power of the
Church even without the influence of Protestantism. The
possibility of Eurlpean unity under the Pope was fading.
All of the desperate efforts of Charles could not put
Humpty Dumpty together again. Quite aside from Martin
Luther the Princes of Europe were more interested in their

ambitions for personal power and the expansion of their

 

33
34

George W. Kitchen, A History 3; France, volume II, p. 266, 1897

Charlotte Yonge, Young Peoples History of France, pp. 501-
302, 1879. '_'

 

62
nations than in submission to Rome. And Henry the Eighth
of England was the first among the Princes of Europe to
fling off the control of Rome. Here we see Britain, as
usual, aiding in the breaking up of EurOpean cohesion.
Other Monarchs, Catholic as well as Protestant, were not
slow in following his example. The rule of a universal
theocracy over the people of EurOpe became an obvious im-

possibility.

Henry the Second met his end at the festivities at-

tending the marriage of the Queen of Scotland to his son.
Tournaments were held from morn till eve, and on the Twenty-
Nineth Henry held the lists against all comers, and challenged
the Knights of France and Spain. He resisted the attack
of his first assailant, the Duke of Savoy, who courteously
turned his spear and retired. The Duke of Guise was like-
wise gracefully repelled; the two best generals in the
service of France felt the skill of the Menarch's arm,
and ladies and nobles vied in their show of admiration.
But a big rough Scotchman, of the name of Mbntgomery, ad-
vanced as the third assailant, and by some mismanagement
did not succeed in giving the King the best of the shock,
but shook his feet out of the stirrups. Henry insisted

on another course. Montgomery obeyed, and held the lance
so straight, so firmly pointed, that it broke in his op-
ponents visor, and a splinter went into his eye. A shrill
cry was all the spectators heard; but the King lay forward
on his horse. "He was taken off and visited by the best

63
surgeons; the wood had penetrated to the brain, and on the

tenth of July he died."35

Henry had been on the whole a lightheaded and dis-
solute Menarch. The latter part of his reign saw both
the French military disaster at St. Quentin.when Spanish
and English forces under Philip the Second defeated the Con-
stable Montmorency and then threw away an opportunity to
take Paris, and the French victory at Calais shortly after-
ward: History must give Francis blame for the first and

little credit for the second.

Francis the Second, who succeeded to the Crown, was
but a boy of fifteen, and in feeble health. The situation
was critical. France was divided between two mutually
hostile religious parties both eager for power. "The great-
er part belonged to the old Church, but a strong minority,

including many influential men, were Calvinists.“56

The Dauphin, now Francis the Second, devoted to
his young wife, Mary Stuart, naturally leant towards his
uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorrain.
Then were suspected already and not without reason, of
aiming even at the Throne of France, in case the sickly
children of Henry the Second left no issue. They drew

out a pedigree, which showed them descended from Charles

 

35Jemes White, History 3; France, p. 252, 1901.

ZGDarrd Henry Mentgomery, The Leading Facts 3: French

History, p. 144, 1917.

64
the Great: they had old claims on the Throne of Naples.
For the time, however, they were content to have Francis
crowned and saluted as King of France and England: the
royal couple quartered the arms of the two Kingdoms.

They also entered into communications with Philip of Spain,
for they were strict Catholics in policy who condescended

to promise his support. Although this foreshadowed the
combinations of the League, it was not very sincere at

the time; for Philip was seriously alarmed by the pretensions
of Mary Stuart to the English Crown: England and Scotland
joined with France would have been a very powerful combina-
tion, and a menace to his authority in the Netherlands,

if not in Spain. "It was in consequence of this fear that
Philip allowed Queen Elizabeth's succession to the English

Throne to pass unchallenged and unopposed.“Z7

Francis the Second was a sickly youth as has been
mentioned before and he soon passed on. While the nation
was afflicted by the death of Henry the Second, it re-
garded that of his eldest son as a deliverance, and but
for the pity which so premature an end excited, it was
glad to be rid of poor Francis. Not only was he mentally
weak and apathetic; he had earned for himself a share in
the odium of the regime of his wife's uncles, who now be-
came the malcontents in Opposition to the Government,

and who had not the philosophy to practice in adversity
the self-denial which they had demanded of their opponents

 

57
George W. Kitchin, A History of France, Volume II, p. 295,
1897. " '—

65
when they were out of office. Power being to their am-
bitious minds as breath to their lungs, they became the
focus of intrigue and sedition against the Government of
Charles the Nineth, or rather of his mother, Catherine.

Of Charles, who was only eleven years old, great hopes were
entertained. He was altogether, according to the Venetian

ambassador, who retails the general opinion, an admirable

boy, handsome of figure, with specially beautiful eyes,
like his father, easy and graceful in deportment. A lad
of talent, too, and very affable; but not robust, being
easily fatigued, and only applying himself to his books
in obedience to his mother, though fond of painting and
sculpture. "His passion was war and stories of war, and

his governor only spoke to him of conquests."58

For ten years, from Fifteen-Sixty to Fifteen-Seventy
Catherine de Medici was the real ruler of France. Commonly
regarded as the typical product of Renaissance Italy, a
monster of cruelty and craft, devoid of all moral sense,
and intent only on the pursuit of selfish aims and the
satisfaction of personal ambition, Catherine has been
gravely misjudged. Had circumstances been more favorable
she might well have left a more savory reputation. "She
did not, indeed, shrink from shedding the blood of heretics,
particularly if heresy involved treason; she could look on

with satisfaction at the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,

 

zaJames Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline 33 the French
Monarchy, p. 185, 1902.

66
though more gladly would she have identified herself with
the tolerant sentiments of Michel de l'Hospital, for whose

appointment as Chancellor she was responsible."39

The terrible religious struggles within France in-
volving the Catholic ruling party and the Huguenots should
not evoke too loud outcries of horror and self-righteous-
ness in our present time. Today we have struggles between
the Communists and the Fascists, the Reds and the Reactionaries
which, our neWSpapers tell us, are equally bloody. Some
might say that then it was religion and that today it is
politics and economics, but it must be remembered that in
those days religion was closely mixed with both political
and economic beliefs. And people took religious matters
much more seriously than they do today. So actually what
we have today is really the same old struggle dressed up in

different clothing, at least in some respects.

The historian of the wars of religion, whenever he
shall appear, may perhaps consider them as comprising
three distinct periods, each of which has an aspect and a
hero peculiar to itself. The first would embrace the ten
years which elapsed between the seizure of Orleans by Condo
in Fifteen-Sixty-Two and the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
in Fifteen-Seventy-Two, years memorable for the successful
treacheries of Catherine de Medici. The second period,
commencing from that fearful tragedy, and terminating with

39Sir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short Histogy‘gf France, p. 67,
1944.

67
the assassination of Henry the Third, in August, Fifteen-
Eighty-Nine, would exhibit the triumph and the fall of
the great Commander of the Catholic League, Henry, the
second Duke of Guise. The third period would be that of
the gallant struggle of Henry the Fourth against the Leaguers
and their foreign allies, and would conclude with this
purchase of the Crown of France by the abandonment of the
faith to the defense of which his life had been so solemnly
consecrated both by his mother and by himself.40

Henry the Fourth was a man of energy and courage as
well as of ability. He compared very favorably with his
weak and often cowardly predecessors and was of decided
Protestant leanings. Unfortunately for France he was as-
sassinated by a Catholic. His name was Francis Ravaillae,
a fanatic, though in the calmest possession of his senses,
a man of incredible firmness of mind, who bore all the
tortures of his trial and execution without departing from
the silence he had enjoined himself. No art or cruelty
could extract a confession of his confederates were, if
any he had. "All he revealed was merely his hatred the
Protestant faith, and zeal to force the professors of it
to recant on pain of death."41 Thuswe see the example of

the monk, Clement, who struck down Henry the Third being

 

4OJames Stephen, Lectures 2n the History 22 France, p. 452, 1852.

41James White, History 2: France, p. 307, 1901.

68
followed by this mnguided zealot.

The dagger that slew Henry the Fourth inflicted a
terrible blow against the welfare of France. The nation
lost its chief guide and support before it had acquired
strength and unity to take care of itself. Henry's son,
Louis the Thirteenth, was not yet nine, and according to
French custom, his mother, Marie de Medici, a foreigner
by birth, became ruler during his minority. "The Queen-
Mother soon found that her ideas of Government and Sully's
did not agree, and she dismissed her deceased husband's
friend and counselor, after his twenty year's service to
the state, in order that she might be free to carry out

some petty schemes of marriage for her children."42

Under the leadership of Condo agitation was soon
begun for the calling of the States-General, mainly as
a result of the atrocious mismanagement of the nation's
affairs by the favorites of the Queen-Mbther. The de-
liberations of this Assembly, which met at Paris on the
Twenty-Seventh of October, Sixteen-Fourteen, are of more
than ordinary interest, in view of the fact that it was
to be the last meeting of the Estates before Seventeen-
Eighty-Nine and that many of its demands anticipated those
of the National Constituent Assembly. In some respects,
indeed, the Parliament of Sixteen-Fourteen might be mistaken
for the Parliament of Seventeen-Eighty-Nine. The deliberations

 

4zDarrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 33 French
History, p. 170, 1917.

69
reveal the same jealousy and mistrust between the two
higher orders and the Third Estate, the same spirit of
antagonism between the privileged and the non-privileged
classes, the same fear, on the part of the Third Estate,
of being controlled by a reactionary combination, the same
advocacy by the middle-class representatives of national
as distinct from social interests. There are notable dif-
ferences, of course, and the most notable, perhaps, is the
utter impotence of the Third Estate to beat down the op-
position either of the higher orders or of the court. "Never-
theless, the attitude of the papular deputies reveals an
ominous prephecy for the future and the popular orators of

Seventeen-Eighty-Nine will only re-echo in some of their

noblest passages the patriotism and the sense of human

rights vindicated by the popular orators of Sixteen-Fourteen."43

In Sixteen-Sixteen the boy-King was married to Anne
of Austria, and another of the notable women of this women's
period appears on the stage. The Princes, Huguenot and
Royalist, became more and more turbulent; for this marriage
offended and, as they thought, menaced them: a scattered

uneasy warfare began; Concini, the Queen—Mether's favorite,

again met them with the old weapons, and by the treaty of
Londun bought off the malcontents. Conde obtained five
strongholds, with offices and money for his adherents:
large payments were made to all the chief nobles. "The

43James Mackinnon, The Growth and Decline 33 the Frengh
Monarchy, p. 272, I962.

70
Council was reformed, and the young BishOp of Lucon,
whom the Regent admired and the Marshal Ancoe thought to

use, became a member of it."44

Thus France continued uneasy because of the con-
spiracies of the great nobles and the weakness of the King
and the Corruption of his favorites. A strong man was
needed and a strong man France got in the person of Armand
de Richelieu. Though destined originally for the army,
Richelieu, for family reasons, abandoned that career for
the Church, and at twenty-two was consecrated BishOp of
Lucon, a See recently vacated by his brother. As a deputy
for the clergy to the States-General of Sixteen-Fourteen
he attracted attention by a great speech in support of the
ultramontane views of his Order. In Sixteen-Sixteen he
was admitted to the Council of State, and entrusted with
the departments of Foreign Affairs and War. These appoint-
ments he owed to the favor of the Queen-Mother whose tem—
porary exile, following the assassination of her favorite
Concini, he shared. In Sixteen-Twenty-One, however, a
reconciliation between the King and the Queen-Mother led
to the recall of Richelieu, and in Sixteen-Twenty-Four he
became First Minister to the King. "Until his death in
Sixteen-Forty-Two he ruled France."45

 

44George W. Kitchin, A History 2: France, VOlume II, p. 495,

1897.

Sir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short Histony of France, p. 80,
1944. - "—

45

71,
Louis the Thirteenth, who had abdicated all active

functions of Government in favor of his domineering minister
lived at this time a retired, isolated, melancholy life,
estranged from his Queen, and without power or influence.

He had lately formed a platonic liaison with one of the
Queen's maids of honor, Mademoiselle de Hautefort. This
young lady, indignant at the King's degradation, strove to
rouse him from his apathy, and encouraged him to shake

off his absolute dependence on the Cardinal. Richelieu,

informed of this cabal against him, spared no pains to
supersede Mademoiselle de Hautefort in the royal affections;

and Louis, unable to resist, discarded his friend in favor

of Mademoiselle de Lafayette in whom the Cardinal expected

to find a docile instrument of his policy. The influence

of the new favorite, however, was exerted still more decidedly
against him; Louis began to show signs of returning in—
telligence and vigor, and the jealous minister, in alarm,
employed such agency to work upon the scrupulous conscience

of Mademoiselle de Lafayette as to induce her to take the
resolution of retiring to a convent. She executed her

purpose in May, Sixteen-Thirty-Seven; but the King continued
to visit her in her seclusion, and her influence over his
mind was augmented rather than diminished. The intrigues
against Richelieu continued, and Louis seems to have enter-
tained serious thoughts of dismissing him, when an incident
occurred which disconcerted his enemies and restored his
supremacy. The Cardinal discovered a cladestine correspondence

carried on by Louis' wife, Anne of Austria, with the court

72

of Spain, the Cardinal-Infant at Brussels, and other enemies
of France. Anne's confidential messenger was arrested and
thrown into the Bastille, and the Queen, in extreme terror,
made a full avowal of her guilt to Richelieu, and signed

a solemn engagement never again to commit a similar offense;
whereupon the minister promised in return to mediate for
her a complete reconciliation with her husband. This was
accordingly effected, and the good genius of Richelieu

once more triumphed in the re-establishment of cordial
relations between the royal pair. The Jesuit Coussin,

the King's Confessor, was dismissed, and Louis discontinued
his visits to Mademoiselle de Lafayette. These occurrences
led to an event of highest importance to the welfare of

the Kingdom. After a childless union of more than twenty
years', Anne of Austria found herself in a condition to
give an heir to the Throne. To the great joy of the nation,
a dauphin, who afterward became Louis the Fourteenth, was
born at Saint Germain on the Fifth of September, Sixteen-
Thirty-Eight. This event reduced the mischievous Gaston

of Orleans to comparative insignificance, and greatly
strengthened the reins of Government in the grasp of Richelieu.
"The King's health, always feeble, was now much impaired,
and the Cardinal had already begun to count upon obtaining

the Regency in the prospect of his death."46

 

45w1111sm H. Jervis, The Students History 23 France. pp- 401-
402, 1862.

 

 

1" .l I'll-III III-[Ill

75
He did not obtain the Regency, however. Richelieu
died in December, Sixteen-Forty-Two, victorious at home
and abroad. Under his administration the principalities
of Roussillon and of Sedan had been added to France, and
her armies had won important victories in Spain, Italy,
and Germany. "So completely was his masterful influnece
established that even after his death the minister he had
recommended was chosen as his successor, and his policy

faithfully carried out as long as the King lived."47

As far as the King is concerned the greatest admirer
of royality cannot pay much tribute to the memory of Louis
the Thirteenth. The few respectable qualities which he
had were altogether neutralized by corresponding defects,
while for those vices which he pursued with energy no
counterbalance could be found. He was not slow of compre-
hension; but his feebleness of mind was so incurable that
he was always the slave of the judgment or will of others.
He was not destitute of courage; but, though fond of war,
and often at the head of his armies, he was so utterly de-
.ficient in energy that he never distinguished himself by
a single military exploit; and the greatest proof of resolu-
tion he ever showed was the indifference with which he
heard of or witnessed the sufferings of others. The weak-
ness of his constitution did not allow him to imitate the
debaucheries of his father; but he exceeded him in his ill-

 

47Thomas E. Watson, The Story 93: France, p. 50:5, 1899.

74

treatment of the Queen, and as a son he was even worse
than as a husband; while, in his relations to others, he
had so little steadiness of principle, or even feeling,
that of love or friendship he was completely incapable.
To the commanding genius of Richelieu he owes it that
posterity has not assigned him a place among the worst of
Kings; but though in a Constitutional Mbnarchy, like that
of Britain, the posthumous reputation of a sovereign must
in a great degree depend on the actions and wisdom of his
councillors, an absolute Monarch cannot be allowed to shine
by a borrowed light. “To say that such a Prince was ab-
solute over the rest of his subjects, but a slave to his
minister, is to say that he was a nonentity; and he who

is such as a King can hardly fail to be worse as a man."48

As we have said before Anne of Austria, surprisingly
enough, followed Richelieu's advice regarding his successor.
Both in character and methods Mazarin and his predecessor
were strikingly contrasted. Richelieu was a typical French
aristocrat, strong, stern, haughty, and overbearing. Giulio
Mazarin was a middle-class Italian, a trained lawyer, a
pupil of the Jesuit College in Rome, apprenticed to diplomacy
in the service of the Papacy, not less determined than
Richelieu in pursuit of his ends, but pursuing them by
more subtle and pliable methods. Physically a coward,
adroit rather than strong, Mazarin first came to France as

Papal Nuncio in Sixteen-Thirty-Six, but became a naturalized

 

48Charles Duke Yonge, A History 3: France Under the Bomrbone,
pp. 566-567, 1866. "

75

Frenchman in Sixteen-Thirty-Nine, was taken into Richelieu's
service, and on the latter's death succeeded him as Minister.
For the first five years of his ministry, Mazarin's attention
was concentrated on the war with Spain. He was fortunate
enough to be served in the field by two of the most brilliant
soldiers of that age: the young Duc d'Enghien, and Marshal
Turenne. The former, the Great Conde, was the eldest son

of the Prince of Conde. Turenne was of even more illustrious
descent: a son of the Duc de Bouillon, a nephew of Maurice
of Nassau, and a grandson of William the Silent. Conde's '
brilliant victory at Rocroi in Sixteen-Forty-Three dealtj

the death-blow to the military power of Spain, and put the
Netherlands at the mercy of France. A great victory won

by Condo and Turenne at Nordlingen in Sixteen-Forty-Five

gave France the supremacy in the Upper Rhinelands. Beaten.
to their knees in Germany, in Alsace, and in the Netherlands,
with Naples in revolt and Portugal independent, the Habsburgs
were ready to make peace, which was concluded by the Treaties
of Westphalia on October Twenty-Fourth, Sixteen-Forty-Eight.
The Thirty Years War was ended. The line then drawn be-
tween Catholics and Protestants was permanent; the Holy
Roman Empire came virtually to an end; the Swedes were sub-
stantially rewarded, but the richest harvest was reaped

by the laborer who had gone into the field only at the eleventh
hour. France acquired Breisach and Alsace, and the three
Lorraine Bishiprics, Many, Toul, and Verdun, passed formally
into her keeping. She was allowed to garrison Phillippsburg,

76

and between that fortress and Basle there were to be no
fortifications on the eastern bank of the Rhine. "In
short the Rhine, guarded at the source and the mouth by
two stout bastions, Switzerland and the Netherlands ceased

to be a German river."49

Worn with years and labor, regretted by the Queen,
and respected, from the force of youthful habit, by Louis,

Cardinal Mazarin died in Sixteen-Sixty-One. Cabals,
plots, Opposition, were all at an end, and the reign of

Louis the Fourteenth may be said to begin at this date.
He has fifty-four years of life and authority before him,
and in the course of that time the whole state of European

society will be changed. After the troubles of the Fronds
in France and the Great Rebellion in England, which may

be named more by way of contrast than of resemblance, one

of those ebbs which occasionally occur in the advancing

tide of liberty and progress made itself perceptible in

both nations. The supporters of the Grand Remonstrance,

the men of Dunbar and Marston Moor, fell at the footstool

of the falsest, basest, meanest of Mbnarchs and buffoons;
while the intriguers of the boudoir, and traitors of every
party, the followers of De Rety and schphants of Anne,

rose to a higher sort of servitude, which was almost dignity,

when they bent their foreheads to the ground at the audiences

 

49Sir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short History 2; France, pp. 84-85,
1944.

77

of the pompously-worded and gorgeously-arrayed potentate,
who already professed to represent in his own person the

|
glory and majesty of France:50

As Richelieu left his friend Majarin to succeed
him, so Mazarin in turn left one of his friends, a provin—
cial governor named Colbert, to take his place. The Cardinal
had not found his office unprofitable, having accumulated
a colossal fortune as report said, by plundering the state.
Just before his death in Sixteen-Sixty-One he said to the
King, then twenty-three, "Sire I owe everything to you,
but I believe that I pay at least part of the debt in leav-

ing you Colbert."51

Louis the Fourteenth actually believed that France
was as much his own individual dwelling; God had given him
the Crown, the Kingdom, and the Peeple. Of this he was
sure, and nothing ever occurred to shake his faith. Some
shadowy notions he had about the prOperty having been
given to him in trust, but the execution of the trust was
a matter which lay between him and God. Parliaments had
no voice in it. The peOple had nothing to do with it.
"Even the grandees, although in his splendid way he bade
them come to his court and shine as lesser luminaries around
himself, the central sun, were made to understand that

they drew all their radiance from him, the source of the

 

50James White, History gf France, p. 545, 1901.

51Darrd Henry Mbntgomery, The Leading Facts E: French History,
p. 186, 1917.

78
light, he being the fountain-head of honor, power, and

privilege."52

At the end of six years of peace Louis began to
think himself strong enough to engage in war; or at least
to hold that imperious and menacing language towards other
states which is its almost certain forerunner. And it
was consistent with the good fortune which hitherto, and
for many years yet to come, attended Louis in all his de—
signs, that one change in the administration which took
place in Sixteen-Sixty-Six, though it was not apparently
dictated by any warlike intentions, contributed in a pre-
eminent degree to render the arms of France formidable.

Le Tellier, who found the regulation of the internal af-
fairs of the Kingdom a labor sufficiently onerous for any
single individual, obtained permission to transfer the war
department to his son Louvois; and the new secretary at
once applying himself zealouhly to the duties of his office,
speedily develOped talents of the highest order. If he
'had not been unfortunately, of a peculiarly jealous dis-
position, jealous not only of his colleagues, but even of
the officers who were to execute his orders, he would have
been one of the greatest ministers in his department that
the world has seen. And as it was, his large views, his
foresight, his lucidity of arrangement, his energy, and

force of will, long counterbalanced even that great defect.

 

52Thomas E. Watson, The Story _o_f_ France, p. 512, 1899.

79
He had the wisdom on entering upon his office to consult
Turenne as to the reforms which were still needed in the
army. With the aid of that great officer's experience,
he rapidly placed the whole force on a far more effective
footing than even his father, had been able to. And Louis,
who was a good judge of men's talents and characters, and
a sufficiently diligent man of business to be fully aware
of the industry displayed in his service, and of the effects
produced by it, soon perceived his value, and the degree
in which his own power was augmented by the ministers peculiar

n
genius.53

Louis felt some irritation against the Dutch because
they had taken part with Sweden and Britain against France

in an earlier quarrel. Consequently after temporarily maneuver-

ing the British upon his side Louis declared war upon Helland.
For a time it seemed that it would go hard with the Dutch
but other Powers intervened and in the end the Netherlands

came off virtually unscathed.

The real foe, however, was not Holland but Britain.
This fact Louis readily recognized. The first phase of
the prolonged confliect between France and England develOped
on Irish soil. James the Second, though supported by a
I French army, was decisively defeated by William of Orange
in the battle of the Boyne, and James fled back to France.
The victory of the Boyne was, however, balanced by the

defeat of the British Navy off Beachy Head. Admiral

 

58Charles Duke Yonge, The History 3; France Under the Bourbons,
pp. 212-215, 1866. ” ”” ' '

80
Tourville's great victory gave the French command of the
Channel for two years. "In May, Sixteen-Ninety-Two the
loss was retrieved by Russell's victory at La Gague, but
in Sixteen-Ninety-Four an expedition against Brest was

repulsed with heavy 103333.u54

Their initial clash continued until the Treaty of
Ryswick, which represented merely a truce between a rising,
powerful France on one side and Britain and he allies on
the Continent on the other. The real battles,were yet to

come.

We have seen that Mazarin had planned the King's
marriage with Maria Theresa, daughter of the King of Spain,
in the belief that in time his master would become ruler
of that country by the union of the two Crowns. This now
seemed likely to be accomplished for the King of Spain
had died childless and had left the Throne to a grandson
of Louis, which was practically the same as if he had left
it to Louis himself. In his exultation at the prospect,
the French Menarch exclaimed, "The Pyrenees are no more",
for in imagination he now saw all barriers leveled, and

Spain henceforth a dependency of France."55

Other nations failed to sympathize with this idea

 

54Sir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short History _9_f_ France, p. 97,
1944. “"— ""—

55Darrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 2; French History.

81
however, and first in the lists was Britain, Britain which
was determined that no great Power should dominate the
Continent. The War of the Spanish Succession, as it has
been called, soon ensued and at the Battle of Blenheim

in Bavaria.

The Danube in this part of its course is already
broad and deep; and the plain-land on its left or northern
shore is of no great width, being soon bounded by wooded
hills running parallel to the stream; out of these low

heights come little rivers, which descent through marshy
banks at right angles to the Danube. One such rivulet

joins the main stream at Hockstett another, the Nebel,

runs in at Blenheim. It was above this latter, from the
woods to the Danube, that the French and Bavarians posted
themselves facing towards the east, and awaiting the allies.
The Elector of Bavaria had the left wing, round Lutzingen,

a little village close to the woods; in the center lay
Marsin behind Oberklaw, with a small force pushed across

the rivulet and occupying Niederklaw on its eastern bank:
Tallard had the right wing and had crammed the village of
Blenheim with his troops. Their dispositions were faulty
in more ways than one; thus, the French were quite separated
from the Bavarians; they all, except Marsin's men in Nieder-
klau, lay too far from the river, on the rise beyond,

where they could not defend the passage, or make full use

of the difficulties of the ground; and lastly, far too many
of their tr00ps were c00ped up in Blenheim and other villages.

82
Though they numbered in all nearly sixty thousand men with
ninety guns, the twenty-six battalions and twelve squadrons
in Blenheim, with the trOOps posted in the other villages,
much reduced their available force; and when it came to
the push their infantry were too weak successfully to dis-
pute the allied advance. The allies on their side of the
Nebel had about fifty thousand men and sixty sex guns:
Prince Eugene was on the right, with his Imperials, facing
the Elector and Marsin; Marlborough to the left, with the
English and Dutch, stretching from the Danube till he
touched Eugene's left, having Opposite him Marsin and
Tallard: through the center of his position ran the high
road which leads from Hockstett to Donauworth, crossing
the Nebel by a bridge just below which are some water-
mills on the stream. On the Thirteenth of August, Seventeen-
Four, General Cutts began the battle by taking Niederklav
and the mills, and clearing away the French from the eastern
bank of the little river; after this the English pressed
forward, got across the stream and attacked Tallard in
front and Blenheim on their left flank. While Marlborough
made good progress here, Prince Eugene higher up the stream,
could make no impression on his opponents: their position
was very strong, and all his efforts seemed vain. Towards
evening, however, Marlborough after great effforts succeeded
in storming Tallard's position, the key of the battle, and,
driving him back, cut him off from Blenheim, whence his

strong reserves tried to get out to his rescue; they were

85
too late, for the English had worked around them and firmly
held them in the village. The action had been chiefly
one of artillery and cavalry. Just as the battle had
passed this critical point, Tallard himself, being short-
sighted, fell in with a tr00p of English horse, and was
made prisoner: his cavalry, having been cut in two by
the English, fled in panic; part got safely to Hochstett,
while the rest, bending to their left and hard pressed in
the rear by the enemy's horse, came unawares to the Danube,
dashed into the stream, and perished almost to a man. The
French right being thus disposed of, Marlborough turned
Tallard's guns on Marsin who soon discerned that he was
no longer safe, and that he and the Elector must draw off,
if they would avoid being surrounded and ruined. They
effected their retreat in good condition to the Black Forest;
Tallard's army was almost annihilated. After dark, the
regiments in Blenheim, about ten thousand strong, convinced
that their friends had left the field, cppitulated and the
great battle was over. "The French call it the second
battle of Hochstett, in England it has ever been known as

the great victory of Blenheim."56

While France was by no means completely crushed by
this defeat and the war continued for some time afterward
it represented a turning point such as that of the defeat
of the Spanish Armada. Britain had intervened to prevent

Philip of Spain from ruling all Europe, now she called a

 

56
George W. Kitchin, A History of France, Volume III, pp.
507-508 , 1897. " '—

84
check to Louis of France. After Blenheim French arms,
on the whole, fared ill. Nevertheless French diplomacy
retrieved much of the loss at the treaties of Utrecht and

Rastatt which terminated the War of the Spanish Succession.

From the standpoint of France, it is impossible to
ascribe greatness to the reign of Louis the Fourteenth.
There is no comparison, if we except the first few years
of admirable promise, between it and those of Henry the
Fourth and Louis the Twelfth, in respect of the welfare of
the people. This, and not the meretricious splendours of
royalty, is the true test of royal grandeur. The widespread
unpopularity of the dying Monarch is net ascribable to mere
popular fickleness and ingratitude. It is only too well
founded in the wretchedness of the people. The most indul-
gent critic cannot get over the fact that his rule had
for long years been fatal to the interests of the nation.
The misery of France is a melancholy commentary on the prac-
tical effects of the theory of the unlimited power of the
Monarch, elaborated by Bossuet in his "Politique" and em-
bodied by Louis in his Government. Give a single individual,
by hereditary right or otherwise, unlimited ominion over
a nation, and if that individual be an unenlightened, am-
bitious, vainglorious potentate like Louis the Fourteenth
the results must be disastrous. "War, extravagance, despotism,
poverty, starvation form the epitome of nearly half a century

of the system which identifies in theory and practice the

85

State with the Monarch."57

During the minority of Louis the Fifteenth, follow-
ing the death of Louis the Fourteenth, the Duke of Orleans,
a good-natured profligate, acted as Regent. From personal
reasons, the Duke formed an alliance with England and H01-
land. "Subsequently a quadruple alliance was formed be-
tween England, Holland, Austria, and France against the

schemes of Spain to get control of the French Crown."58

In Seventeen-Twenty-Three the vain ceremony was gone
through of taking Louis the Fifteenth, in his fourteenth
year, to a Bed of Justice, and proclaiming his majority.

He had been consecrated at Rheims the year before. The

office of Regent was now at an end, but the influence of
Orleans remained as prime—minister. It is pleasant to get

to the close of so disgraceful a period as the Regency of
Philip and the career of Dubois. "That unregretted adventurer
came to his end, brought on by his debaucheries in August,
Seventeen-Twenty-Three; and in four months he was followed

by his congenial pupil, who died of apoplexy on the Second

of December."59

The accession of Louis the Fifteenth marked the be-

ginning of the decadence of the anarchy. Paradoxically,

 

57James Hackinnon, The Growth and Decline of the French

Monarchy, pp. 471-472, 1902.

58Darrd Henry Mbntgomery, The Leading E59t3.2£ French History,

p. 208, 1917.
59
James White, History of France, p. 392, 1901.

86
however, it was with a feeling of relief that Frenchmen
learnt that the King under whom the Monarchy had reached
its apogee had passed away. Louis the Fourteenth, supremely
anxious to perpetuate his policy, had provided by will for
a Council of Regency during the minority of his great-grand-
son, then a sickly child of five. "His nephew, Philip,

Duke of Orleans, was to ba a nominal Regent but Louis the
Fourteenth intended that real power should be vested in
the Due de Maine, his bastard but recently legitimatized

son by Madame de Montespan."60

The wars that France engaged in under Louis the Fif-
teenth did not on the whole go well for her. India and
North America were lost to the implacable British. The
French Court gave an illusion of culture, prosperity, and
civilization on the surface but there were fissures under-
neath. Immorality, atheism, financial disintegration were
the order of the day. The famous saying, "After us the

Deluge", comes down to us from that mad era.

Like a bevy of bacchanals, maddened with wine and
garlanded with flowers the old French noblesse reeled to
its doom, riotously gay to the last. "It was as though a
carnival, rollicking through sunny avenues, had met the
Pale Horse and its rider at the turn of the street, and

the shouts of revelry had changed to shrieks of fear and

 

6OSir J. A. R. Marriott, _A_ Short History 2; France, pp. 104-105,
1944. —""‘

87
pain, as light, life, and joy were stricken down by swift

appalling Death."6l

After the death of Louis the Fifteenth, Louis the
Sixteenth came to the Throne. It might have been thought
that Louis the Sixteenth was mounting the Throne under
peculiarly favorable circumstances, since he could not
fail to be contrasted with the last sovereign; and not
only was it impossible for anyone to be so worthless as
not to shine by such a Juxtaposition, but in those moral
excellencies which, in peaceful and ordinary times shed a
lustre on a Crown, he might have challenged a comparison
with the worthiest of his predecessors. With the passive

virtues of piety, humanity, Justice, patience, and fortitude,

combined with a sincere love for his peOple, he was amply
endowed. It must be confessed, on the other hand, that

of intellectual ability, and of those more active qualities
which, though perhaps hardly attributes of the intellect,
are nevertheless indispensable to a statesman and ruler

of a nation, he was nearly destitute. He had no decision,
no energy, no steadiness of purpose, no force of character.
Though honestly anxious to select the best ministers he
often allowed his judgment to be overruled, and, with re-
spect to those to whom he did intrust his affairs, when

they were peoplexed he had not discernment to assist or to

 

61Thomas E. Watson, The Story of France, p. 695, 1899.

88
prompt them, when they saw their way he had not vigor of
mind to support them. Unhappily his lot was cast at a
time when the vices of his predecessor and the inveterate
errors of the Government had made talents as well as virtues
requisite to encounter the difficulties and dangers with
which the State was surrounded. The finances were in a

state of inextricable disorder and hopeless embarrassment.

The destitution of the lower classes, and in the
agricultural districts of all but the very highest, was
universal and insupportable. The discontent was, as a
matter of course, at least co-extensive with the distress;
and even of those who were not exasperated by personal priva-
tions, three most influential classes were as bitter against
the Government as those who were. "The lawyers were indig-
nant at the suppression of the Parliaments, the clergy
resented the expulsion of the Jesuits; while the literary
men were hostile to all institutions which, by their mere
existence, seemed to stand in the way of their theories,

whether political or religious."62

There was a period of confusion and struggle in
which various measures were tried and discarded. Abroad
and successful war against Britain was conducted on the
side of the infant American Republic. This war further
drained the country's finances, however, and made the ap-

proaching crash even more inevitable. Finally the States-

 

620harles Duke Yonge, The History of France Under the Bourbons,
pp. 5990 409, 1867.

 

89

General, consisting of an assembly of the Three Estates,
Clergy, Nobility, and Commons, was called, and the Furies

were unleashed.

Relying for its success on the striking nature of its
services, the Monarchy entrusted itself to the hazards of
the States-General in all innocence and in all good faith.
The moment for doing so was singularly ill-chosen. "France,
which had enjoyed half a century of unclouded prosperity,
had been suffering for some months from an economic crisis
of exceptional severity, and the effects of this seemed
all the more painful because the country had become accustomed

to well-being and a comfortable existence."6:5

As might have been expected the States-General got
out of hand. Things went from bad to worse and the death-
knell of the French Monarchy was sounded by the taking of
the ancient fortress—prison of the Bastille on July Fourteenth,
Seventeen-Eighty-Nine in a furious attack.

The attack was led by veteran army soldiers. The
commander of the fortress had only a feeble garrison and
could not hold out. After five hours of fighting, he capitul-
ated. The mob expected to find the dungeons crowded with
political prisoners, as they formerly had been. They found
only seven prisoners; five of these were ordinary criminals
and two were lunatics, probably sent there for safe-keeping.

"The truth is that the Bastille had long since ceased to be

 

65Pierre Gaxotte, The French Revolution, p. 89, 1902.

 

 

.I 1'11!" Ill 1ft .9:

90

the "Cave of Horrors", which pOpular imagination still

supposed it to be."64

With the fall of the Bastille the French Revolution
had begun in earnest and wild work they made of it. The
King and Queen lost their heads as did many of the Revolution-
ists themselves before it was over. France intended to
spread the new ideas of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity
throughout all of EurOpe. France consequently came to grips

with the Monarchies of EurOpe.

From her Tight Little Isle Britain considered all
this excitement on the Continent and decided that she didn't
like it, didn't like it at all. Consequently Britain sided
with the crowned heads of EurOpe in a titantic struggle
against France that did not really end until Waterloo,

many, many years later.

The advent of Napoleon Bonaparte represented one
of those instances when the voiceless masses of the people
spew to the surface a natural leader; a man with a will in
him to rule or die. Such men can shake Empires into dust
or raise new ones. Starting out a mere artillery corporal
he rose to the position of the Emperor of France and ruler
of much of EurOpe. His rise may be said to represent the
final great flaring up of French power on the Continent.
A flaring which like an exploding star blazes up fiercely

and then, forever, dies away.

 

64Darrd zHenrg” Montgomery, The Leading Facts of French History,

P.232 —-——-———_-———_

91

As for Napoleon himself, he was a ruler with more
despotic authority than Cardinal Richelieu, and a more im-
placable hatred of popular freedom than Louis the Fourteenth.
Yet the implements of tyranny had become so defective by
the disuse of a few years, the traditions of unreasoning
submission and divine right had been so washed out by the
blood of the Revolution, that the position of France was
infinitely happier, both in its present circumstances and
its future prospects, than at any other time before. The
dominance of the priest, the insolence of the noble, the
exactions of the farmers-general, the exemption of favored
orders, the uncertainty of law, the galling inequalities
of social ranks, had all passed away.‘ If taxation pressed,
it was at all events equal in its pressure. It did not
spare the chateau to fall with tenfold weight upon the

cottage even conscription made no invidious distinctions,

but fell on all alike. The French were contented with

the equality about which they had raved so loudly, even
when they discovered it was an equality of submission. But
there were reasons which Justified a strong and repressive
Government, arising from the very novelty of their emancipa-
tion from former wrongs. If they had been allowed to riot
in their ill-consolidated liberties, the Austrians and
Russians would very soon have encamped upon the Seine. The
curtailment of their theoretical rights was compensated

for by the protection of society from the outbursts of dis-

content. It was a temporary sacrifice to secure their eventual

92

claims; and over all that might be disagreeable in their
political condition, there was thrown the halo of military
renown. "The Frenchman consoled himself with the reflection
that he might be trampled on a little at Versailles and
Fontainebleau, but that he was immensely feared at Vienna

and Berlin."65

So we see that the excesses of Revolution brought
forth a Strong Man as is so often the case. And this
Strong Man, this Man of the People, was a far more rigorous
tyrant than the mild mannered Louis the Sixteenth, whom
the peOple had beheaded, had ever been. He was efficient,
however, and the peOple did not starve under him. Instead
they were killed off in his numerous wars. But it is far
more interesting and exciting to be killed in wars and
various foreign expeditions than to eke out your life
in wearisome toil and grinding poverty. Today we hear
much about the militaristic and aggressive tendencies of
the Germans. And we sympathize with the French who have
so often been their victims. But in those days no pe0ple
were more attached to military glory than the French. And
no pe0ple suffered more from the victorious.French armies

than the Germans.

Napoleon's many victorious campaigns made him master
of most of Europe either through outright conquest or

through treaties of alliance. But Britain, that ancient

 

65James White, History of France, pp. 486-487, 1901.

93

festering thorn in Continental Europe's side, still held

out bitterly against the Emperor and refused to accept French
domination of the EurOpean mainland. Napoleon resolved

to invade England under cover of the protection of the French
and Spanish fleets commanded by the French Admiral, Villeneuve,
who departed for the battle, which took place off the Cape

of Trafalgar, on the Twentieth of October near Cadiz, Spain.

Villeneuve had thirty-three ships of the line French
and Spanish, the latter being for the most part in bad
repair and badly manned. The French ships were in better
condition, but still inferior to the English, whose admirals,
particularly Nelson, had won the same supremacy by sea
which Napoleon and the French leaders enjoyed on shore.
Nelson himself now met Villeneuve with twenty-seven vessels
well equipped and commanded, among them seven fine three-

deckers. Villeneuve deployed his forces in a long line,

keeping no reserve. Nelson formed two columns, intending

to break the French line at two points, and overwhelm one
part before the other could come to the resuce. He and

his first lieutenant, Collingwood, led the columns and

fell upon the French and Spanish in advance of the other
English ships. While Collingwood attacked the rear-guard,
Nelson, with his flag-ship, the Victory, penetrated the
French center, first cannonaded Villeneuve's flag-ship,

the Bucentaur, and then attacked the French ship Redoubtable,
commanded by the brave Captain Lucas, boarding it in a

sort of hand-to-hand fight. In so close a contest Nelson

lost the advantage of his superior ordnance. The French

94

swept his deck with a hail of shot and shell from the t0ps
and shrouds of the Redoubtable. Suddenly Nelson was seen

to totter and fall; a ball had pierced his body and broken
his spine. "I'm done for!" said he; "the French triumph

at last!" He just escaped the grief of seeing his flag-ship
taken prisoner. Captain Lucas and his crew were on the
point of boarding the Victory, when the English ship Temeraire,
coming to the Victory said, poured a frightful volley of
grape into the French ship. A third English vessel joined
the Victory and Temeraire, and the Redoubtable, conquered
by numbers, yielded only when her whole crew was wounded

or dead. Nelson was fatally wounded; but his idea lived
and triumphed. His two attacking columns cut off and sur-
rounded a part of the Franco-Spanish line, and with a less
number of vessels than the foe, the English proved superior
in power at the decisive points, while at least a third

of the Franco-Spanish fleet, the advance guard, took no

part in the action. The French vessels engaged fought with
desperate courage: the English carried the day by the rapidity
with which they aided each other, and by the superiority

of their fire. "The wretched Villeneuve, overpowered by
several English ships, after four hours' struggle yielded,

his ship being but a wretched hulk strewn with the dead

and dying."66

The defeat at Trafalgar did not break Napoleon by

 

66 . . .
Henri Martin A Po ular History of France, Volume II,
pp. 226-227: NYSE“. "" """_

95
any means but historians, looking backward, can see in it
a turning point. As long as the British sat securely off-
shore blockading, stirring up discontent and rebellion on
the Continent, landing her armies to aid any peOple fight-
ing against France, Bonaparte's rule could never be secure.
As Britain's policy of blockade forced Napoleon to issue
decrees boycotting all British trade with the Continent
the European nations grumbled. Russia refused to give up
grade with Britain and Napoleon was forced into the disastrous
Russian campaign. Spain was in a continous state of revolt
and British armies operated on the Iberian Peninsula with
Portugal as their base. A coalition in which the German
states were prominent was formed against Napoleon. In
the first week of Octoner in Eighteen-Thirteen the allies
took the offensive. Blucher crossed the Elbe and marched
on Leipsig, where on October Sixteenth to Nineteenth, Eighteen-
Thirteen, one of the decisive battles of the world was
fought. "After three days terrific conflict the French
were compelled to retreat in confusion. Leipsig broke the

military power of Napoleon."67

The allied forces invaded France from both north
and south. Paris could not defend itself. The enemies'

hosts passed through her gates. They placed Louis the
Eighteenth, brother of Louis the Sixteenth, on the Throne.

Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and, it is said, took

 

67Darrd Henry Montgomery, The Leading Facts 2; French History,
P0 285, 1917.

96

poison, but without effect. "He was now sent an exile to

6
rule over the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean." 8

Napoleon, however, having ruled EurOpe could not
content himself with an island and he soon returned to
France where he was received with wild acclaim by the French
armies which were sent to capture him by the Government.
Back in power he hastily rallied his forces for the struggle
with the tremendous forces which soon would be hurled against
him. At Waterloo Napoleon met the British commander Welling-
ton in a last great battle with his deadly English foes
and their allies. Waterloo went down in History as one
of the greatest victories that had ever crowned British
arms. For many successive hours the imperturbable line of
red-coats had stood the charges of the furious battalions
which fought under the eye of the Emperor, and felt that
the glory of France was intrusted to their keeping. The
squadrons of horse, the discharges of artillery, and finally
the Old Guard, had made no impression on the soldiers of
England. And when the decisive moment came, and the distant
guns of the Prussians proclaimed that Blucher was at hand,
the great word was given, the inert masses had remained
immovable so long, rose up with a shout that reached the
ears of Napoleon, and the irresistible bayonets poured on.

Down in dreadful power swept the regulated torrent of horse

 

68 .
Sir J. A. R. marriott, A Short History 3; FranceI p. 182,

1944.

 

 

 

97

man; and the French, surprised and terrified, were huddled
into broken heaps. The day was won. "Napoleon turned his
horse in bitterness of despair, and silent, moody, and be-
wildered at the frightful scene, made his way to Paris
before the intelligence of his disaster had arrived and

gave up the struggle as h0peless,u

The fall of Napoleon marked the final turning point
of French power on the Continent. True for a long time
afterward France was regarded and feared as a great Power,
but the spark had gone out, the flame had been extinguished.
While the Eastward March of Power did not shift completely
to Germany until Eighteen-Seventy there were already rumblings
of a new unity and a new national spirit east of the Rhine.
A spirit which had been born out of French aggression and
fed by British support. The defeat of Louis the Fourteenth
by Marlborough represented merely the defeat of the French
Monarchy. The defeat of Napoleon by Wellington represented

the defeat of the French peOple.

France was now to submit a second time to the in-
dignity of accepting a dynasty imposed on her by the bayonets
of foreign armies, and that under circumstances far more
degrading and offensive to the national vanity than before.
The allied generals absolutely refused to listen to any
pr0positions for an armistice until they were under the

very walls of Paris. Negotiations were opened with the Duke

 

69James White, History 23. France, p. 527, 1901.

98

of Wellington and Blucher, and on the Third of July, Eighteen—
Fourteen a convention was signed at Saint Cloud by which
Paris was to be surrendered to the allies within three

days, and the French army, evacuating the city, was to re—
tire upon the Loire. By the Seventh the whole army had
withdrawn from Paris, of which the allies immediately

took possession; and on the next day Louis the Eighteenth
re-entered the city, attended by five Marshals, escorted

by his household, and surrounded by foreign battalions.

His reception was by no means universally cordial; the
partisans of the old regime shouted and congratulated,

but the pOpulace were for the most part gloomily silent,

or muttered suppressed murmurs of indignation. "Talleyrand
was declared president of the council of ministers; and

the King was induced, sorely against his will, to bestow

the department of police on the regicide Fouche, the despic-
able traitor who had duped and betrayed all parties in
succession, but who was now felt, both by the allies and

the ultra-Royalists, to be too important and dangerous a

personage to be offended.”0

Louis the Eighteenth was followed by Charles the
Tenth whose reactionary policies soon cost him his Throne.
He was replaced by Louis Phillipe, a moderate bourgeois
Monarch. The series of revolutionary disturbances of Eigteen-
Forty-Eight led to the overthrow of this Orleanist Monarchy
and the establishment of a Republic. Louis Napoleon followed

 

0
William H. Jervis, A Students History 3: France, p. 662,
1862. "

 

99
this uprising as his great namesake had followed the
first great French Revolution. Louis Napoleon embarked
upon a pregram of dictatorial power at home and imperialist
expansion abroad. In Eighteen-Seventy he came to grips
with a newly risen Germany. The decisive battle came at
Sedan. "After desperate fighting he was compelled to sur-
render with eighty thousand Frenchmen; the Emperor Louis

Napoleon became a prisoner of war."'71

Power had shifted East, to Prussia.

 

71Sir J. A. R. Marriott, A Short History 2: France, p. 235,

1944.

 

lOO

PART IV
GERMANY
Very Dark and Very Bright is Pan
And he made the World to suit his Fancy
fade it of Blood and Fire.
Of Beauty and of Shadows
And his Symbol is the Sword
Peace comes but the Sword Returns. — From the
Ancient Greek.
Germany as a modern nation-state came late to the
table and so her story is considerably shorter than that
of France and Spain. Her impact upon Western, and indeed
upon World Civilization has certainly not been any the less
because of this, however, and perhaps future historians

may rate her influence as more profound, in the long run,

than that of her predecessors.

While the forces of national unity, militarism,
and patriotism had been gestating in Germany since the
Napoleonic Wars it was not until the German States under
the leadership of Prussia and its redoubtable Premier,
Bismarck, defeated Louis Napoleon of France in the Franco-
Prussian War of Eighteen-Seventy that the Reich stood
forth before the World as a Great Power on the European
Continent. The war broke out in Eighteen-Seventy in a
somewhat unexpected manner. A Hohenzollern Prince had been
chosen as King 03 Spain, and France, alarmed at this re-
quested Prussia to secure his withdrawal. Bismarck gave
unsatisfactory replies, and his alteration of the famous
"Ems telegram" made war inevitable. While, during the

four years, Eighteen-Sixty-Six to Eighteen-Seventy, Bismarck

101
had been preparing for war by bringing all the German armies
under the control of Prussia and in other ways, Napoleon
had been negotiating with Austria and Italy, and plans for
joint action against Prussia had been discussed at Vienna
and elsewhere. "When, however, it came to war, no assistance
was forthcoming from these quarters, and France, quite
unprepared, as it proved, had to face alone the onslaught

of Prussia and her allies."l

The French went into the war with a kind of foclish,
arrogant confidence. After some preliminary engagements
the French forces fell back on Sedan. On September the
First, Eighteen-Seventy, was fought one of the decisive
battles of the World, a battle that dethroned a dynasty
and changed the form of Government in France. The French
General Mac Manon took up a defensive position near Sedan.
Here some protection at least was offered by the winding
Mass on the west and south, and by the Givcnne on the east.
None the less it proved a death trap: the French called it

lg souriciere. "Fighting from early dawn to evening the

 

Germans gradually surrounded them; drove them down at
Bayeilles and La Moncelle, from Daigny, Haybes, and Givcnne,
from Floing, Illy, and Saint Menges, and from the sheltering
Bois de la Garonne; crowding them into such a narrow space
that maneuvring became impossible, then, finally, after a

significant pause to see if they were not ready to save

 

1A. w. Holland, Germany, p. 285, 1914.

' 102
further horrors by suriender, trained their heavy cannon
on the worthless old fortress and on the chaotic mass of
men, horses, cannon, and vehicles that overflowed the

streets."2

Fighting continued for some time after Sedan but
the French military power had been shattered. After the
capitulation of Paris on January Twenty-Eighth, Eighteen-
Seventy-One, Bismarck at once made possible free election
of a French National Assembly. "He considered it to be
to the interests of Germany and of Eur0pe that a new, stable,
and generally recognized French State should emerge to
make peace and to assert itself against internal subversive

forces."3

Bismarck succeeded in founding the Reich even be-
fore peace was concluded. On January Eighteenth, Eighteen-
Seventy-One King William was proclaimed German Emperor in
the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace at Versailles. It was
a simple ceremony, military in tone, with far reaching
consequences for World History. Very few contemporaries
knew how distasteful the preliminary negotiations had
been. Although Bavaria certainly wished to continue c00perat-
ing with the North German Federation; she wanted both a
narrower and a wider federation; in other words, she wanted

to save as much of her own statehood as possible, either

 

zErnest F. Henderson, A Short History 23 Germany, p. 483, 1917.

3Hubetus zu Loewenstein, The Germans in History, p. 822,
1945.

103
with or without Wurttemberg. This Bavarian policy prevented
the joint entrance of the South German states into the
Federation. Tedious Special negotiations and a series of
separate treaties were necessary. Wurttemberg also tried
to gain territorial and other advantages. The final result
was so-called reserved rights for Bavaria and Wurttemberg
in connection with jurisdiction over mails, railroads,
financial administration, and army command. "In addition
Bavaria was given the right, of making her own treaties and
received the permanent vice-presidency of the federal council,

as well as assurance of consent of that council in case of
Bavaria declaring war, and finally the right to levy her own
taxes on beer and brandy. Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt entered

the Federation without special privileges."4

Bismarck's basic thought in the twenty years after
he completed its unification derived from Germany's geographic
situation. He held that Germany, with its long land borders
in the East and West, was compelled to a defense on two
fronts and thus ill-adapted to a policy of expansion. Only
a strong army could settle the danger of a war on two fronts.
If one substitutes Navy for Army, one has the present
situation of North America. To Bismarck, overseas acquisition
and a large Navy at the time seemed dangerous, since German
talents did not lie in this direction and Britain would
never concede naval equality to the strongest military

power. Alliances with Russia and Austria, friendship with

 

4Veit Valentin, The German People, p. 480, 1946.

104
France, little or no rivalry in foreign continents, these
seemed to him to be the best guarantees for the security
of the Reich. For this reason, he at first lent no sup-
port at all to the colonial aspirations; even later his
support was limited; Kool Peters, Luderitz and Wormann
were the pioneers in the field. "Not until the middle

Eighties did he sanction and himself undertake a colonial

POlicyo"5

Although public Opinion was certainly not among the
more obvious of the determining factors of Bismarck's
foreign policy after the establishment of the Empire, his
attitude toward it had momentous consequences both to him-
self and to Germany after his fall. Not until the problem
of Germany's relations with Russia and Austria became acute,
when popular sentiment threatened the nice balance which
he wished to maintain between these powers, did he show
much appreciation of its importance. Through the press
bureau of the foreign office and in his speeches to the
Reichstag he gave a good deal of attention to the education
of opinion in regard to the proper solution of this funda-
mental problem. The results, though difficult to estimate,
were doubtless considerable, but even more important was
his success. The nationalist sections of the middle classes
united with the Conservatives in an unquestioning support
of his foreign policy, but it was nevertheless under Bis-

marck that a cleft developed between the official conduct

 

5Emil Ludwig, The Germans, p. 351, 1941.

105

of German policy and a section of public Opinion that neither
he nor his successors ever bridged. For the most part,
neither the Progressives nor the Social Democrats, who were
making good their claim of speaking in the name of the
working classes, accepted his aims and methods as those
which were required by the country's true interest. While
the former applauded his strong speech against Russia, Febru-
ary Sixth, Eighteen-Eighty-Eight, their reaction would have
been different if they had been aware of the Reinsurance
Treaty; neither of these opposition parties had any sympathy
for the principles of Machtpolitik and both saw Germany's
salvation in a diplomatic association with the Western
Powers. They also agreed in condemning Bismarck's use of
the press. The existence of official and semi-official
newspapers was a standing grievance; but even more offensive
was the publication of alarmist communications, the famous
Kaltwasserstrahlen, during periods of international tension.
Innumerable protests were direct against the practice of
exaggerating foreign dangers to drum sentiment for increases
in the army and to secure pliant majorities in the Reichstag.

By his abandonment of the Kulturkampf, Bismarck neutralized

 

the Centrists criticism to a considerable extent, but his
domestic policy, eSpecially in its refusal of any con-
cession to the principle of ministerial responsibility and
in its reliance upon indirect taxes, which bore most heavily
upon the working classes, continued to alienate liberal

Opinion. Taxation and military service bore most heavily

106
upon the masses, but their spokesmen were refused any real
voice in German policy at home or abroad. Instead, Bis-
marck dismissed them lightly as Reichfeind or as sentimental-
ists who were incapable of understanding the realities of
international politics. No wonder that his dismissal was
accepted not only with indifference but even with the hope
that it would mean a change for the better. If he was
largely responsible for the divorce between German policy
and the masses, his influence upon the nationalists had
serious consequences. He knew that every country must
pay for the windows broken by its press; Germany eventually
paid the bill for Bismarck's use of the press for alarmist

purposes in the form of a public Opinion that was increasingly

susceptible to panic and hysteria. "He was responsible to
no small degree for the conviction that the chauvinists
would always dictate France's action in a crisis, an assump-
tion which inevitably militated against a cool steadiness

in relations with her, and for the ingrained suspicion that

England would never be a reliable friend."6

On March Fifteenth, Eighteen-Ninety, the great states-

man who had hitherto guided Germany's destiny was compelled

to tender his resignation, and the youthful Emperor in-
stantly accepted it. It was the outcome of a long and
bitter struggle for power, scarcely noticed by the general
public, but watched and abetted by those cOncerned with

suspense, dismay, and often with impatience. Undoubtedly

 

6E. Malcolm Carroll, Germany and the Great Powers, pp. 589-341,

1958.

l0?

Bismarck wished to retain his office, even against his
sovereigns will, and regarded it as the duty of his colleagues
to support him unreservedly in the struggle. It was not
sheer thirst for personal rule which drove him to this
course, but the firm conviction that in the personality

of the Emperor William the Second there were serious dangers
for Germany. The Kaiser, however, wished to rule in person.
He felt that the Chancellor's position, and the way in which
he sometimes advocated his wishes, were incompatible with
his Monarchical dignity and vocation. This, and this alone,
was the real root of the hostility between the two men, not
their divergent views on social and political questions,

nor even the irreconcilable differences in their general
outlook; for the Kaiser had no firm and wide political out-
look, but was swayed by momentary mOOds and impulses, arising
from the popular feeling. Even questions of foreign policy
played a very secondary part in this great conflict. It

has sometimes been alleged that there was an insurmountable
difference of opinion over the scope and purpose of the
Austro-German Treaty, and over the attitude of Germany
towards Russia's Bulgarian plans. As a matter of fact it
was not so much that they held conflicting opinions on
these questions as that the Kaiser was annoyed that dis-
patches relating to alleged Russian preparations for attack
had not been brought to his notice at the right time. It

is true that Bismarck had repeatedly deplored and criticised

the Kaisers acts and speeches because of their effect on

108
foreign policy. "But these things were not of decisive

moment."7

With the fall of Bismarck German diplomacy entered
a new, and for the Germans, an unfavorable era. Bismarck
had followed a policy of maintaining close ties with both
Britain and Russia. The Kaiser gradually abandoned both
policies. The decrepit Russian MOnarchy proved less of a
threat to the Reich than Bismarck had anticipated but England,
ah England proved fatal indeed to the German Empire.

The Kaiser was at one time very friendly with the
Russian Czar and actually addressed him by his first name.
For a time, too, there was talk of an alliance between Germany

and Britain. But the forces of national fears and antagonisms

combined with the unfortunate personality of the young

Kaiser would brook no denial.

The revolution that occurred in Anglo-German relations
at the turn of the present century has generally been at—
tributed to three main factors: first, economic rivalry;
second, the German naval program, signifying her entrance

into the field of Weltpolitik; and third, a tendency in

 

certain sections of the press to magnify national differences
and fan the flames of ill-will. Each of these factors,
to the exclusion of others, has been stressed as the chief

cause of friction.

The anti-English trend that now became evident in

 

7Erich Brandenburg, From Bismarck £2_t 8 World War, pp. 20-21,

1933.

109
German foreign policy was advanced primarily by the very
able Privy Councillor von Holstein, who became more and
more a leader in foreign policy because of his energy and
his zest for effecting combinations. Holstein was a mono-
maniac, infinitely superior to the average diplomat, egoistic

and almost abnormally absorbed in his own world of ideas
and in his official duties, which so completely sequestered

him that in the long run he lost contact with reality and
also flexibility of action, the very qualities that had
been responsible for Bismarck's greatness. Holstein was
personally disagreeable. He delighted in irritating, casting
slure, and even spreading slanders; in administering every
variety of subtle poison; and he was corrupt in mOney mat-
ters. This man, in a position to know the state of inter-
national politics better than anyone else, exploited his
knowledge in speculations on the stock exchange and thus
presented the unusual phenomenon of corruption in Prussian-
German officialdom. Curiously enough, Holstein did not
become at all rich, but died in relatively modest circum-
stances; he had at any rate savored the true gambler's joy,
which is simply to gamble. "And his fate in matters of
foreign policy was the same as in his money ventures; all

his diabolical plotting ended in undramatic bankruptcy."8

The tremendous growth of German man power and indus-

trial capacity during the Wilhelmian era was not accompanied

 

8 . .
Velt Valentin, The German People, p. 521, 1946.

 

110

by a corresponding extension of democratic institutions,
as the Empire remained a semi-autocracy, the middle and

lower classes being excluded from any share in the Govern-
ment. There was not even an a'tempt to lift Bismarcks
stigma on democrats, socialists, Catholics, Poles, Danes
and Alsatians, although these "enemies of the Empire"
mustered six and one half out of twelve and two tenths
million voters in Nineteen-Twelve. The policy of either
exterminating or reconciling the foreign nationalities
within the Empire was already doomed to failure when the
last pro-war Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, made a last at-
tempt to solve the problem. In Nineteen-Eleven Alsace-
Lorraine was at last given a constitution which brought

the country, for forty years treated like a backward man-
date, nearer to the standard of a self-governing colony;
but the notorious Zabern incident of Nineteen-Thirteen
revealed that neither the arrogance of the Prussian of-
ficers nor the hostility of the pOpulation had undergone

a change. The Zabern incident also confirmed the conviction
of all progressive elements that the actual power in Ger-
many was vested in the military caste, which used the civil
authorities only as a convenient screen. Similarly sterile
was the Prussian policy towards the Poles, who numbered
about ten per cent of the pOpulation. The laws of expro-
priation were made severer but the Junkers failed to realize
that it was no longer the Polish squires, but the Polish
artisans and peasants, who formed the backbone of national

resistance, so that the anti-Polish laws remained for the

111
most part ineffective. "Bethmann eventually decided not
to apply them, but he could not replace them by anything

better."9

With autocracy at home and militaristic imperialism
abroad the road to war loomed ahead. France brooded, thinking
of revenge. Russia was estranged from the Reich. Britain
was aroused by German naval preparations. Italy, as always,
was wavering. And the Kaiser was not a cool, calculating

leader like Bismarck but an unstable, emotional sentimental-

ist.

Nevertheless, when the War broke out in the summer

of Nineteen-Fourteen, the German peOple were taken by sur-
prise as were all the other nations. As a nation the Ger-
man people had neither expected nor prepared for the War
as they did twenty-five years later, but unlike all the
other peOples they exhibited joyous enthusiasm instead of
alarm. The great training school that had lasted, first
three hundred, and then again forty, years had held this
nation in armed eXpectancy. The Germans, all the many
millions of them, resembled a professional fire—fighting
force in which every man leaps out of bed at night at the
first warning bell to hasten to his long-prepared place
known to him from a hundred practice-tests. "All the other

nations ran to their places like members of a volunteer

fire brigade, with signs of confusion and terror."10

 

9 S. H. Steinberg, A Short History_gf Germany, pp. 250-251, 1945.

 

lOEhil Ludwig, The Germans, p. 412, 1941.

 

112

A clear—sighted German diplomacy and a strong Civil
Government not under the thumb of a politically incompetent
High Command might have brought the War to an early and
honorably close. For this it would have been necessary to
pay careful attention to the sentiments of the United
States. Indeed, no other single event affected the family
of EurOpean nations, a family, despite war, more deeply
than did the appearance of American divisions on the 0c-
cidental stage. "Had America remained neutral, a negotiated
peace, which should always be the aim of statesmanship,
might have been concluded with its cooperation, provided,
of course, that the Entente did not have reason to expect

eventual American intervention."ll

Astonishingly enough the Supreme Command failed in
several decisive situations. In the beginning the great
offensive against France collapsed, not from a lack of
trOOps, but because of inadequate strategy. After tre-
mendous losses the attack on Verdun in Nineteen-Fifteen
ended in German defeat. But the Battle of Tannenberg and
the break-through at Gorlice were heroic feats. German
striking—power was most effective in the East, against
the inadequately organized and poorly led Russian armies,
and in the Balkans. In the West the Allies were more than
able to hold their own. Germany was scarcely able to com-
pete with their mass of war equipment, let alone to out-

strip it. And the German Navy proved a great disappointment.

 

llHfubertus zu Loavenstein, The Germans 15 History, p. 596, 1945.

 

115

The cruisers were much too weak to protect overseas trade,
which was choked off by the British blockade. Submarines
alone were able to challenge the blockade and to maintain
a kind of counter-blackade. But Tirpity had been repre-
hensibly remiss. He had let the construction of V-boats
lag in favor of the battle-fleet. The Reich had invested
more and more funds in the building of dread noughts in
spite of warnings of naval experts, particularly Admiral
Karl Galster. These dreadnoughts had in the first place
made war with England inevitable through the very fact of
their existence; in the second place they had worked against
the enlargement and equipment of the land army; thirdly
they were not able to inflict any notable injury on the
English fleet in all the course of the war. "The only
great naval battle of the World War, the Battle of Jutland,

brought no clear cut decision."12

After two years of war, though there was no reason
whatever to anticipate defeat, the civilian heads in Berlin
and Vienna began to realize that a decisive victory was im-
possible, and that it might be wise to explore the possibilities
of peace. It was suggested by Burian, who had succeeded
Berchtold at the Ballplatz, that the Central Powers and
their Allies should lay their cards on the table. The
German Chancellor, who had never been dazzled by military
success, favored the plan of approaching the enemy: but

he vetoed the notion of a public declaration of terms, on

 

l‘2Veit Valentin, The German People, p. 564, 1946.

114
the ground that the offer of a compromise, unless it brought
peace in its train, would dishearten a peOple attuned to
the loftiest expectations and prepared for further sacri-
fices to attain them. It was therefore agreed that the
four Allies should invite the Entente to a discussion as
soon as Roumania, who had entered the struggle on the Twenty-
Eighth of August, Nineteen-Sixteen, received a decisive
defeat. "Meanwhile the hands of the Government were
strengthened by the Auxiliary Service Bill, which compelled
all male citizens between seventeen and sixty to perform

duties required by the State."15

These cautious peace feelers were rejected by the
Allied Powers. There was really very little real will for
peace on the part of either side at the time. England and
the other Allies looked forward to the intervention of America

which came in the end. And so the War went on.

By Nineteaneseventeen the impossibility of victory
in a war on two fronts was evident to the well—informed.
No doubt Ludendorff organized defense excellently. But
as a politician he was pursuing an unattainable and chimerical
aim, that of winning the peace. The army was exhausted
and the fleet powerless. The nation had obtained obvious
military successes, but no decision. The Russian front had
collapsed, it was true. But the coalition of the Western

nations, Britain, France, the United States, and their allies,

 

13George P. Gooch, Germany, p. 141, 1925.

115

was perfectly capable of beating Germany without Russian
aid. Such was the supreme consequence of the mistakes
accumulated by the Bismarckian and Wilhelmian system. The
Kaiser's power and the prestige of the military nobility
were ruined for all time. "One last effort, the offensive
of Nineteen-Eighteen, and the great system, ill-led, and
broken by the final and inescapable disintegration of its

fo4ces, collapsed, vanquished and humiliated."14

0n the unceremonious disappearance of royalty and
royalists, a Council of People's Commissars took over
the fluttering reins of Government, but, as it was composed
of evolutionary and revolutionary socialists in equal pro-
portion, it was divided against itself and incapable of
taking energetic steps in any direction. Simultaneously
with the Council of PeOples Commissars, 'Worker's and Soldier's
Councils', modelled on the Russian Soviets, Sprang up all
over Germany; and, at the same time, particularist movements
displayed great vigor not only in the federate states prOper,
but also in the Rhineland and to a lesser degree in Hanover,
Slesvig-Holstein, Hesse-Cassel and Silesia. The first prob-
lem which the new authorities had to decide was whether Ger-
many should be organized as a Soviet Republic or a democracy.
The Independent Socialists, vying with the recently established

Spartacus League, forerunner of the Communist party, advocated

 

l4Edmond Vermeil, Germany's Three Reichs, p. 217, 1945.

116

dictatorship of the proletariat. The right-wing Socialists
stuck to their democratic convictions, and, supported by
the Central Congress of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils
and the Federal Governments, they carried the day. Writs
for the election of a Constituent National Assembly were
issued, and universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage
was granted to all men and women over twenty years of age.
Thus thwarted, the champions of the proletarian revolution
took up arms; irregular gangs of so-called sailors fought
the remnants of the old army which had placed themselves

at the disposal of the Government. "The fighting in Berlin
during which the radical members withdrew from the Council
of PeOples Commissars, ended with a complete victory of

the Government; and on the Nineteenth of January the elec-
tions for the National Assembly took place in good order,

the Communists abstaining."15

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of the
Revolution was sealed by the Berlin fighting in Germany in
January. Someone has said that it was the German Revolutions
Battle of the Marne, in any case, the radical Left had been
crushed. The fires of the Revolution in the provinces
were extinguished in the same way during the succeeding
months. "The Socialist Government triumphed but behind their
backs it was the officers that were triumphant, and they now
applied themselves to the task of turning the wheel, to

use Noske's phrase, ever faster, towards the restoration of

 

15
S. H. Steinberg, A Short History 2£_Germany, p. 264, 1945.

117

the old militarist and aggressive Germany."16

The new Republican Government had to accept the onus
of the Versailles Treaty and of War Guilt. Germany seemed
ruined but actually the basic elements of German strength
were as yet unharmed. The colonies she had lost were of
little value to Germany when she had them. She retained
the Ruhr and the major part of the country was unoccupied
by Allied armies. But the reactionary elements in Germany
desired revenge and did their best to prepare for a new
war and throw the blame for defeat in the old one on the

V

REPUbliC o

The spiritual father of the Weimar Constitution was
Professor Hugo Preuss, the well-known jurist, but his two
main ideas were not realized. He wanted a centralized
state, with Prussia dissolved into her historical components
and the other individual states develOped into bodies capable
of administering themselves. The Reich was to make all
decisions, even down to municipal elections. This new
Reich was to be based in every respect on the national con-
sciousness of a self-directing peOple, it was to be demo-
cratic, centralized, and parliamentarian. A storm of ob-
jections arose against this fundamental view of Preuss's,
patterned on the institutions of western Europe. It be-

came evident that German particularism had not disappeared

 

16Fladyslav Kulski, Germany, p. 258, 1945.

 

 

1'11le

118

with the Princes and their courts. A new and extraordinary
form of particularism emerged, with separate parliaments,
local dignitaries, officials and gentry, coteries and
cliques. Although there was hardly an instance in which

the individual states still showed the old tribal character,
they still laid claim even to these old and venerable in-
terests. The astonishing fact emerged that in so artificial
a dynastic structure as Boden, for instance, a new kind of
local patriotic spirit had develOped; and it now took over
the heritage of the lost dynasty with obstinate self-con-
fidence. In Prussia, of course, all the old conservative
forces of the east, in the name of true Prussianism, under-
took the fight against the breaking-up that threatened.

The individual states survived, with limited authority, but
with their own parliaments and governments. Half of all

the Prussian votes in the council of the Reich were given

to the provinces and the other half retained by the state
government, so that the Prussian annexations of earlier
times were in a sense counterbalanced by giving the annexed
territories a sort of autonomy. The Government of the Reich
and the Prussian Government now existed side by side, in the
same capital, Berlin,' Both rested a parliamentary basis

and possessed a fully developed bureaucratic structure,
though the Prussian state had no president; it would have
been preposterous to institute such an office in addition

to that of the president of the Reich. The president of

the Prussian ministry, elected by the Prussian parliament,

was at the head of affairs for that part of Germany. There

119

was also a Prussian council of state, which represented

the interests of the provinces; it was modelled on the
council of the Reich. The constitutional setting-off of
Prussia from the Reich, which Bismarck had wisely avoided,
led to all sorts of administrative difficulties. Here in-
deed was the weakest point in the new order; do what it
would, the council of the Reich was unable to cope with

the difficulty. This council under the Weimar Constitution
was a revival of Bismarck's federal council. It did not
provide parliamentary representation like a Senate, but

was a bureaucratic body that naturally leaned toward particular-

ism and red tape. The democratic principle of referendum

was introduced by provisions for the Optional referendum,

on the initiative of the voters, and for the statutory referendum
on the initiative of the voters, and for the statutory refer-
endum, on the initiative of the Government. A temporary
dictatorship was provided for extraordinary emergencies.

The parts of the Weimar Constitution dealing with community
life, religion, education, and schools were ample and wisely
formulated. The law in regard to officials was drawn up

with special care. The whole document was only slightly
social-minded. It provided for the introduction of worker's
councils and emphasized the freedom to form associations,
social welfare, and a minimum of social rights for workers.

The principles of private property and the right of inheritance
were recognized; control of wages, taxation, and super-

vision were entrusted to the state; entails were to be

done away with. "No one could detect in these cautious

120

measures a revolutionary attack on the existing order of

society or on the ownership of prOperty."l7

At first things did not go too badly for the Republic
but the crash of Nineteen-Twenty-Nine and the death of
Stresemann, both of which occurred in the month of October
started a chain of events which finally ended in the Nazi
Dictatorship and World War Two. Utterly-unable to deal
with the rising tide of unemployment, economic chaos, and
clamorous attacks from both the extreme Right and the ex-

treme Left the Republic drifted toward dissolution.

How did it come about that almost the whole German

nation at once submitted tamely to a regime which meant

the complete negation of everything that was best in German
life and tradition? Two answers to this question have been
put forward. One school of thought maintains that Naziism
is nothing but the undisguised expression of the eternal
German spirit, whereas the opposite school regards the
Nazis as a mad minority which has temporarily imposed its
will upon a decent and innocent nation. Neither of these
arguments can satisfy,the historian. The nation that has
produced men such as Gutenberg, Luther, Durer, Bach, Kant,
Goethe, Rontgen, and Robert Koch cannot be described as an
abomination to the rest of the world, unredeemed and unre-

deemable. The very fact that the Nazis have maintained

 

l7Veit Valentin, The German PeOple, pp. 589-590, 1946.

121
themselves in pewer only by the brutal methods of the con-
centration camp and the omnipresent Gestapo clearly shows
that they do not represent the German nation as a-whole.

"On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the vast
majority of the peOple either Openly hailed, or at least
raised no objections to the political aims and methods of
Hitler and his henchmen, from the abolition of the fundamental
rights of man in Germany, to the cold extirpation of millions

of men, women, and children."18

The Nazi Government set out to erase the shame of
Versailles, Communism, the Jews, Democracy, and a number
of other things which it seemed to find objectionable. After
sensational bloodless diplomatic triumphs in the Saar, the
Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia the Third German
Reich in collaboration with its most un—Aryan, but pleasingly
ferocious, ally Japan in the Pacific and with Italy in the
Mediterranean launched World War Two with the attack on Poland.
Britain and France finally had to fight and the last tragic

act for Germany in the Eastward March of Power had begun.

An hour before the fearful attack that would lay
Poland waste was set in motion, Hitler called a learned
aide and asked the question. "Who was Genghis Khan?" "In
all truth memories associated with a famous ancient scourge
of mankind pale into ins4gnificance when one tries to es-

timate the blood and tears which in these our days an un-

 

188. H. Steinberg, A Short History 93 Francez p. 278, 1945.

122

successful Austrian painter, become dictator of Germany,
has exacted of mankind. History will, one thinks, hold
him and some of his henchmen solely and fully responsible
for the outbreak of the greatest war in human annals. It
may be that he did not envisage a world-wide conflict,

even though his diplomats and officers had reached a kind
of agreement with Japan and were busily fomenting trouble
in India. The purpose of these and kindred maneuvers may
have been to keep Great Britain and the United States oc-
cupied until the Third Reich should have grown strong enough
to control for a century or more the destinies of mankind.
Humanity may never possess the information on which to

base an accurate and realistic appraisal of Hitler's true
purpose. But it will remain forever evident that the demo-
cracies, for all their faults and failures, wanted no new
holocaust of the peoples and were therefore ready to make
costly sacrifices. "Hitler, on the other hand, plotted

a war of vengeance and of conquest. He was the conscious

builder of the world's doom."19

The sensational German successes which followed the
outbreak of the war are recent history. Following his
alliance with Russia, in which he emulated Napoleon, Hitler
overwhelmed Poland, conquered Norway, Denmark, Holland,
Belgium, Luxembourg, and France and stood on the English
channel. Once again a powerful European conqueror confronted

Britain, the Old Man of the Sea.

 

19Shuster and Bergstraesser, Germany, p. 214, 1944.

123

What would Britain do? The part she played in
Nineteen—Forty deviated not by a hairbreadth from the line
she had always followed. It was in conformity with the
clearest historic traditions of Great Britain, who has
never ceased to oppose to the ambitions of conquerors an
insurmountable barrier. But it is not enough to say that
the German army came up against the inflexible resistance
of a country separated from the Continent by a broad arm
of the sea. It must be borne in mind that if Britain,
then defenceless, had been eliminated from the war by a
German invasion, the enemy would have had every chance of
winning against Russia. Moreover, the British resistance
permitted the formation and consolidation of the alliance
of Russia, the United States, and the British Empire. In
other words, it is thanks to British heroism that there
was built up, in face of the Hitlerite ambitions whose un-
limited scOpe we know, the new Triple Entente, the associa-
tion of Powers that needed only time to crush Germany be-
neath its blows. The supreme hour of destiny had struck.
The British peOple andiits Prime Minister realized it.
"They gained incomparable greatness by that Battle of Britain,

which saved the world and made possible the liberation of

France."‘20

Finally, again like Napoleon, Hitler quarreled with
his little-trusted ally, Russia. Hitler felt that Russia

was a threat to him. He needed security in the East if he

 

0
Edmond Vermeil, Germany's Three Reichs, p. 875, 1945.

 

124
wanted to conquer the West. A Russia hostile but defeated
seemed to him more desirable than a false friend who was
fully prepared. So he attacked Russia. The climax of
the war had come. The fact that Russia was kept busy in
EurOpe heightened Japan's readiness to strike. Japan made
use of the European situation to push her own program in
Asia, and she flung a deadly challenge to the United States.

"America's entrance into the war gave it its global character.::331

The disastrous defeat suffered by the Third Reich is
well known. Bombed from the air by Britain and the United
States from the West the Reich armies in the East encountered
vast spaces, ice, snow, deSperate guerilla resistance, Cos-
sacks, the frightful nameless spawn of Central Asian deserts,
and constantly replaced Russian armies. In Nineteen-Forty-
Five the Reich collapsed under invasion from both East and

West. Power shifted East again. Russia's Red Star was rising.

PART V
RUSSIA
There can be no truce with Adam. - Zad.
The Bear that Walks like a Man. - Kipling.
The Russians were always late in everything they
did. Perhaps their geographical situation and their long
domination by the Mongol Golden Horde had something to do
with it. Whatever the reason, Russia lagged behind the
other EurOpean nations and kept many Asiatic features,

some of which she retains to this day. Even up to compara-
tively recent times Russia was regarded by the more enlight-
ened nations of EurOpe in much the same light as a barbarian
nation. The man who first set to work to EurOpeanize Russia
and to transform the ancient, half Tartar realm into a

modern nation-state was Peter the Great.

Soon after Peter's assumption of power there came
a clash between the two Opposing forces of the time in Russia,
desire for progress and conservative clinging to traditions
of the past. The occasion for conflict was a vacancy in
the Patriarchate. "The Reform party, under the leadership
of the young Tsar, put forward the progressive MetrOpolitan
of Pskov, while the Old Russian party supported the claim
of the BishOp of Kayan, a strong Conservative, to whom a

shaved chin was a sure sign of heresy."l

 

lSonia E. Howe, A Thousand Years 33 Russian History, p. 86,

1915.

 

126

Peter vigorously overcame all obstacles at home
and ruthlessly suppressed conspiracies and plots directed
against him b his sister SOphia. He personally travelled
abroad in disguise to learn all he could of the ways of
more advanced nations. Often he worked as a common laborer.

In many ways he exemplifies the crude but tremendous half-

barbarian vigor of the Russian peOple.

The great duel between Peter and the gallant but

reckless Charles the Twelfth was now to begin. Peter

had thoroughly realized the need of an outlet to the sea.

He only partially succeeded at Azov, and was now to try

his luck in the Baltic, which was at that time practically

a Swedish lake. Sweden possessed in fact Finland, Ingerman-
land, Esthonia, Livonia, and Pomerania. Peter cast longing
eyes upon the Baltic provinces, and was eager for an op-
portunity of carrying into effect the schemes which had been
cherished by Ivan the Fourth, and by his father Alexis.

Such an Opportunity was soon forthcoming. John Reinhold
Patkul, who was destined subsequently to expiate, in so

cruel a manner, his efforts in behalf of his native province,
had been deputed by the Livonian nobles to carry a complaint
to Charles the Eleventh, the father of the celebrated Swedish
King. The King affected to receive the petition with favor,
but in a few days caused Patkul to be declared guilty of
high treason, and condemned to death. Patkul, however,

escaped, and thenceforward set himself to wreak vengeance

upon the Oppressor. "He prOposed to Augustus the Second of

127

Poland a plan by which Swden should be simultaneously
attacked on all sides. Poland was to take Livonia and

Esthonia, Russia, Ingria and Karelia; and Denmark, Holstein."2

Charles the Twelfth, on learning the danger, put an
abrupt end to his amusements, returned to Stockholm, asserted
his authority, organized his military resources, and in-
vading Denmark and advancing to COpenhagen, forced the King
without delay to an ignominious treaty at Travendal, by
which Denmark retired from the coalition; this peace was
concluded on August Eighteenth, the day before Peter declared
war. Charles had now to deal with Poland and Russia. Tak-
ing Russia first and using his military position, which
gave him a base almost everywhere on the south coast of
the Baltic, he appeared in Livonia. Peter meanwhile was
besieging the town of Narva. He had destroyed the streltsy,
and his program of reorganizing the Russian army on the
European model was still only at its beginning. The
covering Russian force was under a foreigner, the Due of
Croy, who had been lent to Russia from Vienna. The foreign
generals had not the confidence of their Russian troops;
the old medieval militia of Moscow was no match for western
Opponents; supply, transport and the medical service were
chaotic or non-existent, units failed to appear or even
to materialize at all, and there was always a constant flow

of desertions. The Russians were encamped without any

 

217,-alum R. Morfill, _A_ History 93;: Russia, p. 27, 1902.

128

regular military positions, and on November Nineteenth

in the midst of a snow storm the fearless young King was
upon them. The Russians had an overwhelming superiority

in numbers, but once the Swedes had cut into them, nothing
but isolated resistance was possible. Sheremeteo, in com-
mand of the cavalry, could have envelOped them, but instead
retreated as best he could across the Narva; a bridge which
collapsed drowned numbers of Russians under the eyes of
their enemies. Medals were struck for the victorious King,
one side showing the flying Tsar, and bearing the legend,

"He brought down three at one blow."5

The year after the defeat at Narva, Cheremetief
attacked the Swedish general Slipenbach near Ehresfer in
Livonia. The Russians were the more numerous, but it was
an advance to conquer the Swedes, even at odds of three to
one. Out of seven thousand men Slipenbach lost thirty-
five hundred, and only three hundred and fifty prisoners
were taken, a fact which proves the fierceness of the fighting.
This "eldest of Russian victories" was celebrated at Moscow
in which the arms, guns, and banners of the vanquished
filed past. Cheremetief was created field-marshal, and
Peter exclaimed, "Glory be to God! One day we shall be
able to beat the Swedes." The same year seven Swedish
vessels were repulsed by the fleet of the Tsar. "In Seventeen-
Two Cherementief again defeated Slipenbach at Hammelsdorff,
took from him all his artillery, and killed six thousand

out of his eight thousand men."4

 

Z . .
ABeEnaranare ,‘A_Hlstory_ g Russia, p. 190, 1944.

_ __o r‘__.__.__ 10 1’1 1nnfl

129
The Swedes still held the advantage, however, de-
feating Peter's ally Augustus the Second of Poland and
making peace with all their German enemies. The great
desire of Charles, however, was the complete defeat of the

Russians.

At the head of more than forty thousand admirable

and seasoned troops he marched to Grodno, on the river
Niemen, where he came in contact with the Russian rearguards.
At this moment grave disturbances broke out in Russia,

first the revolt of the Bashkir Tartars along the whole
middle course of the Volga; then that of the Cossacks of

the Don, which embraced all the country from Tambov to Azov.
These caused the utmost embarrassment to Peter, as he had

to detach forces to deal with them. But not only was Charles
marching straight on Moscow; his general, Loewenhaupt, with
another sixteen thousand men and large supplies of ammunition
and food, was coming from Livonia to join forces with the
main army under the King. So anxious was his position

that Peter tried to negotiate, but Charles refused. The
Russian army gradually retreated before him. Charles crossed
the Berezina, and at Golovshchino met a force of twenty
thousand Russians who only gave ground after a stubborn
fight. He reached the Dnieper at Mbgilev, and advanced as
far as Mstislavl. At Dobroe, to the south of Smolensk, he
again attacked the Russians, but it was an even fight, and

he himself, had a narrow escape from death. But it was

already the end of September, the winter began early, and

he was in want of supplies. He was advised to retire on

130
Mogilev, and there await Loewenhaupt's arrival. But, true
vagabond and adventurer that he was, having no fixed plan,
he suddenly decided to turn due south towards Little Russia,
presumably lured by its traditional abundance and relying
on the fickle support of the weathercock Mayeppa. The
Cossacks of Little Russia had chosen this Opport nity to
turn and fight against the Tsar. Their Hetman was now the
Byronic Mayeppa, who had been appointed to this office
by SOphia and Golitsyn. The Cossacks of the Dnieper had
for some time been alarmed at Pete's energetic use of his
despotic power and at his evident determination to unify
all the military forces of the Empire, and to bring them
up to the disciplined standard of a regular army, and under
the control of the central authority. They acutely anti-
cipated an increase of hard work and a decrease of leisure
as the result. Mazeppa had long been dallying with sugges-
tions emnating from Stanislas Lesycyzniski to betray Peter
without committing himself to disloyality. He had been
repeatedly traduced to the Tsar but Peter chose to trust
him, and paid no heed to delations. "But when both Swedes
and Russians began to verge southwards he had to make up
his mind on which side he would fight, and he chose the

first."5

Mayeppa's plot failed to secure him the desired aim:
the majority of Cossacks did not join him, as anticipated,
and the small number he could lead to his ally the King

of Sweden was but a negligible quantity. "At the battle

of Poltava in Seventeen-Nine Charles the Twelfth was beaten,

 

5Raymond Beasley. Russia. pp. ;23-229. 1918.

and the way to Russia's final success was opened up: she
now stepped into the place hitherto occupied by Sweden as

a first class Power."6

The battle of Poltava has always been reckoned one
of the decisive battles of the world. It signified two
things: first, the fall of Sweden from her purely accidental
position as the leading power in Northern Europe, which she
owed entirely to the genius of Gustavus Adolphus; and secondly,
the assumption of that place by Russia. Up to this time.
Peter had been regarded by the other Europeans with mingled
feelings of astonishment and contempt; now, however, there
manifested itself a universal inclination to court him,
especially shown among the petty German potentates. But
not only did Peter thus establish his position towards the
other European Powers, he also by this brilliant victory,
so gratifying to Russian pride, reconciled his own subjects
to the reforms w ich had been introduced and the high-handed
manner in which they had been carried out. At the beginning
of his reign he was not without moments of peril at the
hands of the Streltsy, who met with a great deal of support
among the clergy and represented a faction which had never
been entirely suppressed. The course of Peter's action had
been throughout in direct Opposition to the prejudices of
his countrymen and now the disaffected ones began to group
themselves round his divorced wife and rebellious son. It

is easy to understand that they fancied, as we read in the

 

6Sonia E. Howe, g Thousand Years of Russian History, p. 94,
1915.

 

132
contemporary bilini, that there was only a spurious Peter
who was ruling over them and that the real orthodox Russian

Tsar had been spirited away to Stegoln, or Stockholm, and

was kept prisoner there. "Perry the English engineer em—
ployed by Peter tells that papers were found about the

streets threatening his assassination."7

a Peter's works were many and vigorous. He built
Saint Petersburgh, now called Leningrad, on the Baltic
coast. He modernized and European nation-states. True
to his unconventional tastes he put away his first wife
and married Catherine Skavronsky, a Lithuanian servant girl.
Peter's son, Alexis, was a great disappointment to him,
and was frequently embroiled in the plots against him in-

side Russia. Eventually Peter had Alexis executed.

The succession was thus left Open. Peter had by
Catherine two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth; he had also
had two infant sons named Peter and Paul, who all died in
early childhood. For him the question of the permanence
of his reforms preceded every other interest. He therefore
took an extraordinary step which was to cause endless trouble
after him. In a decree of February, Seventeen—Twenty-One,
he declared that the sovereign in the future had the right
to choose his successor, thus reducing the Russian Empire

to the situation which prevailed in Rome during its decline

 

7%‘Iilliam R. Morfill, _A_ History 93: Russia. 1213- 51-53: 1903-

135
and fall. Having claimed this power, he never made use of
it. Continuing his vigorous spade work to the last, at
the end of Seventeen-Twenty-Four he contracted a severe
chill while engaged in saving the lives of some drowning
sailors. This illness was aggravated by his attendance
at the ceremony of blessing the waters in January Seventeen-
Twenty-Five. His powers left him very suddenly. While
he was writing his last instructions, pen and paper dropped
from his hand. His daughter Anne was sent for to take them
by word of mouth, but all he could say was: "Give all to-"

"The succession was left to be disputed by force."8

At the death of Peter the Great the nation was divided
into two parties: one supported his grandson, Peter Alexievitch,
then twelve years old, the other wished to proclaim Catherine
the Livonian. The Golitsynes, the Dolgoroukis, Repnine,
and all Old Russia desired to place the Crown on the head
of Peter Alexievitch; but those who owed their elevation
to Peter the First, those who were involved in the trial
of his son; Prince Henchikof, Admiral Apraxine, Boutouoline,

the Chancellor Golovkine, Jagoujinski, the German Ostermann,

Tolstoi, the Bishop Feofane, and the members of the gribunal
which had condemned the Tyarevitch, all felt their only

hepe of salvation lay in Catherine. They were the more
capable and the more enlightened; they held the power actually
in their hands, directed the administration and commanded

the army. Their adversaries felt that they must be content

 

8
Bernard Pares, A History of Russia, p. 214, 1944.

154

with a compromise. Dmitri Golitsyne proposed to proclaim
Peter the Second, but only under the guardianship of the
Empress-widow. Tolstoi Opposed this, on the ground that

it was the most certain means Of arming one party against

the other of giving birth to troubles, of Offering hostile
factions a pretext for raising the people against the Regent.
He proved that in the absence of all testamentary disposition,
Catherine had the best right to succeed Peter the First.

She had been solemnly crowned, and had received the oaths

of her subjects; she was initiated into all the State secrets,
and had learned from her husband how to govern. The officers
and regiments of Guards loudly declared in favor of the
heroine of the Pruth. It was at last decided that she

should reign alone, and absolute, by the same title as

the dead Tsar. NO doubt it was a novelty in Russia, a novelty
even greater than the Regency of Sophia. Catherine was not
only a woman, but a foreigner, a captive, a second wife,
hardly considered as a wife at all. "There was more than

one protest against a decision which excluded the grandson

of Peter the Great from the Throne, and many raskolniks,
suffered torture rather than take the oath of allegiance

to a woman."9

The accession of Catherine was aggreat triumph for
the followers of Peter the Great and ostensibly a pledge
that his work would be carried out. As a matter of fact,

it was merely a confirmation in power of those who already

 

9 ,
Alfred Ramband, The History of Russia, pp. 53-54, 1904.

 

135
possessed it, and a guarantee that their pastimes would
not be interfered with. Catherine herself was entirely
frivolous, and was able fully to indulge her craving for
pleasure in the protective sunshine of military favor. The
bureaucracy decreed themselves a prolonged holiday from
all serious work, a relaxation amply justified by their
unwonted exertions in the last reign. But this millennium
was short-lived. Catherine's motto was an adventurous and
merry life, but having combined this with consistently im-
prudent living she had undermined her health. "After a
prodigal reign of a little over two years she died in May,

Seventeen-Twenty-Seven."lo

During her reign she drew various members of her
family, simple Livonian peasants, into the court, made

her sisters and brothers-in-law Counts, and arranged marriages

for their children. On her death bed she appointed the
grandson of Peter the Great, Peter Alexievitch, as her suc-
cessor; but he was to rule under the Regency of a Council,
which was to consist of her two daughters, Anna and Eliza-
beth, the husband of the former, the Grand Duke of Holstein,
and the members of the High Privy Council. By this arrange-
ment the claims of the two great factions were to be recon~
ciled. The hitherto omnipotent Mentchikov, or "The Prince",
as he was called took good care to keep the young Tsar well
'under his eye: he made him live with him in his own palace,

and forced him to bectme engaged to his daughter, who

 

loRaymond Beazley, Russia, p. 256, 1918.

156
was several years his senior. "In his unbridled ambition

Mentchikov went so far as to sign his letters to Peter
the Second simply "your father", in anticipation of the

Tsar's becoming his son-in-law."ll

Menshikov's ascendancy, however, was of short dura-
tion. In August, Seventeen-Twenty—Seven he compelled the
Duke of Holstein with Anne, his wife, to quit Russia. In
May of that year the Emperor had made him Commander-in-Chief
of the Russian forces, and he forthwith began to be courted
by foreign potentates, the German Emperor giving him an es-
tate in Silesia. But by degrees his arrogance became in-
tolerable, and the boy Tsar, who was now beginning to feel
his feet, entered into a contest with him which could only
end in one way. At first Henshikov was deprived of his
various offices. Then he was arrested and ordered to be
confined in his own house. This last blow gave rise to an
apoplectic stroke. "At length he was commanded to quit
Saint Petersburgh and to live upon his estates in the Ukraine,
his departure from the capital being more like a triumphal
procession than that of a man in disfavor with his sovereign

going into exile."12

The Dolgoroukis now had the boy in their own hands.
He was betrothed to the daughter of Prince Alexis, also
his senior, for whom he had no more liking than for his

earlier fiancee. He disliked Saint Petersburgh and moved

 

llSonia E. Howe, A Thousand Years Of Russian History, pp. 125-
126, 1915.

 

12w. R. Morfill, .4 History pg Russia. p- 115. 1903-

13?
his capital to Hescow; there, though he declared himself
to be Of age, he took no part in public business, and spent
all his time in hunting. "He appears to have wanted to
shake himself free of the Dolgoroukis, when he suddenly
died of a severe chill at the age of fifteen, on the very

day which had been fixed for his wedding."13

There then came to the Throne Anne Ivanova, who
was then thirty-five years of age. In her youth she had
lived in the dreary court of Hittau, a bride sought for
her duchy, the political plaything of the four Northern
courts, despised by Menchikov, and receiving orders and
reproaches from Moscow. The bitterness of her regrets
and her disappointments was painted in her severe countenance,
and reflected in her soured and coldly cruel character. A
head taller than the gentlemen of her court, with a hard
and masculine beauty, and the deep voice of a man, she was
imposing, and even terrible. The aristocratic attempt of
Seventeen-Thirty had made her mistrust the Russians, and
she felt that a project less exclusive and more clever than
that of the High Council would perhaps have had a chance
with the Russian nation. By precaution, and from taste,
she surrounded herself with Germans, Biren or Biron at the
head of them, a Courlander of low extraction, whom the ducal
nobility had refused to admit amongst them, and whom she

created Duke of Courland and Prince of the Holy Empire.

 

laBernard Psi-es, _A_ History 2; Russia, pp. 220—221.

38
She made Loewenvald manager of court affairs, Ostermann
chief of the foreign administration, Korff and Kayserling
Of the embassies; Luscy, munich, Bismarck, and Gustav Biren
of the army. It was in Germany that she chose to seek
for her successor, Anne, daughter Of Catherine Ivanova,
Princess of Mecklenburg, with her husband, the Duke of
Brunswick Bevern, and their little Emperor, Ivan the Sixth.
The Germans ruled in Russia just as the Tartars had formerly
done; and a new word, Bironovchtchina, expressive of the
new regime, was coined on the model of the old Tartarchtchina.
But if the Germans were triumphant, was it not the fault
of the Russians themselves? The 'eaglets' of Peter the
Great had torn each other to pieces. Henchikov had ruined
Tolstoi and Jagoujinski, and was in his turn destroyed by
the Dolgoroukis, themselves victims, with the Golitsynes,
of the national hate. Besides all this, the strangers who
took their posts and filled the place they had left vacant
were far more laborious and more exact than the natives.
"The Russians gad still to pass through a hard school to
acquire the qualities they lacked."14

Anne died on October Twenty-Eighth, Seventeen-Forty,
and the vexed question of the succession again emerged.
She had not considered it necessary to remarry, but she
did appoint a successor. This was her great-nephew, Ivan
Antonovitch, at this period aged two months. This infant
was the child of her niece Anne Leopoldovna. It will

 

14Alfred Ramband, The Historngf Russia, p. 61, 1904.

 

139
be recalled that in Seventeen—Sixteen Peter the Great,
engrossed in the sport of EurOpean dynastic intrigue, then
new to Russian royalty, had married his second half-niece
Catherine, the sister Of the Empress Anne, and, like her,
presumed daughter of his half-brother Ivan the Fifth, to
Charles Leopold, Duke of Mecklenburg. To them was born a
daughter, called Anne, in Seventeen-Eighteen. After much
hesitation, and after having already proclaimed as her suc-
cessor the son of t is niece, if one should be born, the
Empress Anne, in Seventeen-Thirty-Nine, married her to
Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick-Bevern. Expectations
were fulfilled, and their son Ivan was born in Seventeen-
Forty, two months before the death of his great aunt the
Empress Anne. He duly succeeded her and reigned for thir-
teen months as Ivan the Sixth, hypothetical great-grandson
of Ivan the Fifth. Neither of his parents was distinguished
by any ability, and moreover they were hardly on speaking
terms with one another. On her deathbed Anne therefore
confided the Regency with autocratic powers to the un-
speakable Biron. "But while the Russian nobility and
their spokesmen, the regiments of the Guards, had tolerated
Anne, the prospect of Biron as Regent was more than they
could stand, especially as it was known that he distrusted
the Guards, whose ranks, it must be remembered, were solidly
filled with noblemen, and that he intended to transfer
these aristocratic privates as Officers to other regiments

in the provinces and fill their places with ordinary recruits?l5

 

15Raymond Beazley, Russia, p. 267-268, 1918.

140

Elizabeth, who was finally chosen as Queen by a coup
at least brought a breath of relief after foreign rule.
She took as her motto the program of her father, Peter.
The Swedes were quickly driven back and the frontier of
Russia in Finland was advanced further westward. Eliza-
beth herself was a curious blend of the old and the new.
With a large frame, andeasy going nature and a lively dis-
position, living in apartments which.were always untidy,
possessing as many as fifteen thousand dresses, seeking
her pleasures in the simplest company such as Old peasant
women, very Russian and assiduously Orthodox, she at the
same time left her mark on Russian history by an edict
abolishing forever the death penalty, though it was retained
later for military and sometimes for political offences.
Choosing as one of her principal advisers Count Ivan Shuvalov,
a man of high integrity and great enlightenment, she helped
him to carry through a notable program Of education. This
included the foundation of the first Russian university,
that of Moscow, in Seventeen-Fifty-Five. In Elizabeth's
reign Russia began to find better models for culture than
the petty stilted German courts, and to feel the influence
of western culture as represented at that time by French
literature and thought. "The best of the Russian nobility,
such as Count Ivan Shuvalov, felt that Russia needed some-
thing more than mere technical knowledge for thepperformance

of state service, that a true education must go deeper and

141

begin with the training of character."16

During Elizabeth's reign Russia participated in

Seven Years War during which the armies of Frederick the
Great of Prussia were very severely handled by the Russian
forces. Elizabeth seems to have taken a decided dislike
to the King of Prussia. Berlin was entered and ravaged
by Russian forces and only the death Of Elizabeth saved

the day for Prussia.

Elizabeth was, according to the settlement of the
Crown which she had made by virtue of the ukase of Peter,
succeeded by her nephew Peter. The genealogy Of this man
was unfortunate. He had succeeded to his father's duchy
of Holstein in Seventeen-Thirty-Nine, and there he might
have ended his days in peace, vegetating in petty dignity.
At the request of his aunt he came to Russia in Seventeen-
Forty-Two. It is singular that the Swedes had, a short
time previously, offered him their Crown with a view of
propitiating. "They chose, however, ultimately Adolphus
Frederick of Holstein, also connected with the Russian
royal family, and were thus enabled to secure more advant-
ageous terms in the treaty Of Abo, following on the little

war which they had with their powerful Slavonic neighbor."17

Sophie, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst was chosen as
Peter's wife. As future Empress of Russia she had to change

her Protestant faith: she accepted the Greek Orthodox

 

16
Bernard Pares, A History 2; Russia, p. 226, 1944.

17w. R. Horfill, A History g: Russia, p. 190, 1902.

142
creed and received the name of Catherine Alexeievna. She
was later to become Catherine the Great. She was treated

brutally by her husband who alienated the Russian peOple
by his adoration of all things German and his policies

toward the Church. By a copdd'etat Catherine assumed full
power forcing her husband to abdicate and later, it is said,

had him killed.

Catherine the Great joined Prussia in the memorable
partitions of Poland and she also won several notable victories
against the Turks. She followed a policy of limited reform
within Russia and with the aid of her gifted minister Potem-
kin made many progressive changes in the military, cultural,
and social life of Russia. She died at the age of sixty-
six, of an apOplectic fit and was succeeded by her son

Paul the First.

The four years of Paul's reign may be described as
one long nightmare to his subjects who went in terror of
their lives. In Eighteen-Hundred the Imperial Chancellor
wrote: "The ill-humor and melancholy of our master is in-
creasing by leaps and bounds." "Indeed, the arbitrariness
of this master was fast driving his ship of State upon the

rocks."18

Paul began as a vigorous Opponent Of the French
Revolution which was going on at the time. Eventually,

however, he joined forces with Napoleon and a coalition

 

18Sonia E. Howe, A Thousand Years 3: Russian History, p. 193,

1915.

 

143
which, for a time shook the world was formed. Paul antagon-
ized the Russian nobility and people, however, and was
killed in a coup that brought Alexander the First to the

Russian Throne.

The major event of Alexander's reign was Napoleon's
invasion of Russia. Alexander had reversed the pro-French
and anti-British policy of Paul and as a result he and
Napoleon finally broke. The French swept into Russia in

June, Eighteen-Twelve.

A wave of patriotic feeling swept over the country.
The wealthy classes made large contributions towards the
cost of the war, which became a war of the people, a struggle
for the defence of the Fatherland against the invader.
Alexander vowed that he would not make peace while a single
enemy remained on RusSian soil, and, yielding to pOpular
demand appointed Kutuzov Commander-in-Chief of the Armies.
Kutuzov knew that he was expected to make a stand against
the French but determined to retreat until he reached a

favorable position. On September Seventh, a great battle

took place at Borodino, in which the losses of both French
and Russians were very heavy. Both sides claimed the vic-

tory, but Kutuzov saw that he could not hOpe to keep

Napoleon back for long, and abandoned Ehscow without another
fight. The French entered the city on September Fourteenth.
They had expected a long rest and plentiful supplies of
provisions, but found only flames, famine, and desolation.

Almost the whole population had fled with the army and re-

moved everything that could be of service to the enemy.

144
Napoleon tried to negotiate with the Russian leaders, but
without success. Forced inactivity, starvation, and the
terrors of a burning city, led to the final demoralization
of the seriously depleted French forces, and after little
more than a month in Moscow Napoleon decided to retreat
in October. He attempted to break through to the South,
in order to avoid the Old, devastated route by which he
had advanced, but was headed off at Maloyaroslavets and
driven back once more onto the main road from Moscow to
Smolensk. Fierce rearguard actions were fought at vyazma
and Krasnoe, and only a brilliant stratagem saved the rem-
nant Of the French forces from complete annihilation at
the crossing of the river Bereyina in November. Winter
came on, and the whole country rose against the French as
they straggled west. "Harassed from all sides by guerrilla
bands and Cossack irregulars, the Grand Army turned into
a hungry, frozen rabbel, and only a small portion of it

was left to recorss the Niemen."19

The defeat in Russia represented the turning of the
tide for Napoleon and for France as it did for Hitler and
Germany later. Alexander became the soul of the Coalition
against Napoleon and Paris finally was entered by the Allies.
After Napoleon's return from Elba and his final defeat at
Waterloo Alexander became the moving Spirit in the idealistic
Holy Alliance which degenerated into an instrument of

reactionary repression. Alexander's intentions were better

 

19
Raymond Beazley, Russia, pp. 570-371, 1918.

145
than those of host Honarchs of that time. But his high
minded ideas were merely shrugged off by the other members
of the Coalition and the stubborn problems of Russia largely
defeated his reform efforts. In his old age he turned
toward reaction and grew more deeply mystical. He died

in December, Eighteen-Twenty-Five.

By the law of primogeniture, Alexander's successor
should have been Constantine, the eldest Of his brothers,
but in order to marry the Countess Groudsinska, afterwards
created Princess Lovicy, Constantine had, in Eighteen-Twenty-
Two, declared to Alexander his intention of renouncing the
Crown. The Emperor had accepted, and the Empress-Mother
had approved, his renunciation; and in Eighteen-Twenty-
Three Alexander had drawn up a manifesto which sanctioned
the resolution taken by Constantine, and summoned Nicholas,
Pauls third son, to the Throne. This act was deposited
at the Ouspienski Sobar at Moscow, but was kept secret even
from Nicholas himself. When, two years after, Alexander
died at Taganrog, Constantine at Warsaw hastened to take
the oath of allegiance to Nicholas, but Nicholas at Saint
Petersburg thought it his duty to swear fealty himself to
Constantine, and to make others do so. It was only on the
Twenty-Fourth of December, Eighteen-Twenty-Five, that he
received a letter from Constantine in which he repeatedly
and formally declared his intention to renounce the Throne.
"Then Nicholas published a manifesto announcing his own

accession and received the oaths of his subjects."20

 

ZOAlfred Ramband, The Historngf Russia, p. 226, 1904.

 

146

In the long period from Eighteen-Thirty-One to Eight-
een-Forty-Eight which forms the major part of the reign of
Nicholas, there was enforced silence both in Russia and
in Europe. In this dismal period Russia, for EurOpe, is
the biussian Government and Nicholas; and Nicholas stands
as the most secure and powerful protagonist of Throne and
Altar against all movements of discontented peoples; this
was a position forced upon him by Alexander's leading role
in Europe. For EurOpe this was a period of permanent unrest,

not least in France, where the bourgeoise regarded the monarchy

of Louis Philippe as their own creation and property. The
rapid industrialization of France was raising acute social
questions. There had been beginnings of socialist thought

in the later period of the first French Revolution, especially
during the administration Of the Commune in Paris by Chaumette
and Hebert and again directly after the fall of Robespierre;
these beginnings were followed up by several socialist
theorists, from Saint Simon and Fourier to Louis Blane.

In Eighteen-Thirty-Two there was street fighting in Paris
roughly suppressed, and in April, Eighteen-Thirty-Four, a
strike at Lyons developed into an insurrection, with similar
movements of unrest in other large towns. At one moment

a Republic was proclaimed in Paris. The failure of the plot
of Faesche in Eighteen-Thirty-Five was followed by more re-

pression and more unrest. "Political discontent was chronic

in West Germany and in Italy."21

During the reign of Nicholas the First the British

 

ZlBernard Pares, g History 2; Russia, p. 2:27, 1944.

147
began to act upon Russia. This came about through the
famous "Eastern Question" of the Turkish Straits or Dardanelles.
Britain had found Russia useful as a foil for Napoleon but
in the Crimean War Britain fought Russia to prevent her
expansion and her search for an outlet to the sea. Nicholas
died on Harch the Second, Eighteen-Fifty-Five with the

Crimean War still raging.

When the new Tsar, Alexander the Second, ascended
the Throne he found the country in a very critical condition.
Russia was being exhausted by the drain of war. The English,
although their efforts had not been crowned with any very
brilliant results, were well furnished with the senews of
war; the French had got tired of the campaign which now
dragged on. A new element was added by the appearnace of
fifteen thousand Sardinians in the field. The English had
some success in the Black Sea and Kertch was taken. Previous
to this on Harch the Twenty—Second the Russians made a
great sortie from SevastOpol, which was ultimately driven
back. "Sometimes clothed in the long grey coat of the
ordinary soldier there fell dead into the trenches some of-
ficer whose high rank could only be guessed by the decora-

tions underneath it."22

When the heavy burden of rulership was laid upon the
shoulders of Alexander the Second it soon became apparent
that he had been well prepared to carry it with honor. At

the first meeting of the Imperial Council which he attended

 

32w. R. Morfill, A History 9; “Russia, 13- 424:. 1902-

148
after his father's death he reminded its members that as
holders of the highest position of trust in the Empire they
should never forget that it was their duty to set the

nation an example of "reasonableness, industry, and honesty."255

During the first months of the reign his attention

was Occupied with the war, which was exhausting the country

and bringing financial and political bankruptcy nearer every
month. When peace was concluded Prince Gorchakov wrote to
the Emperor: "It is fortunate that we have made peace,

for we could have fought no longer. Now we can turn our
attention to internal affairs." The whole country agreed
with him in blaming Russia's internal disorder for her failure
in the war. Alexander at once relieved his peOple of some
of the most Oppressive burdens imposed on them in the pre-
vious reign, and raised their hopes for the future still
higher. The censorship rules were so far relaxed that
within moderate limits the press could discuss political
questions. The prohibition of travel abroad was withdrawn.
The position of the universities became easier, and the
restrictions on the number Of students were removed. These
changes roused enthusiasm and gratitude amongst all sections
Of the educated classes and seemed to promise a complete
reversal of Government policy. During these early months
Alexander had no definite program of reforms, though he

was well intentioned. The abolition of serfdom, the reform

 

U

ngigig E. Howe, A Thousand Years 2: Russian histggx. Po 298.

 

149
of the judicial system, the establishment of schools, the
freedom of the press, the introduction of municipal and
local Government were urgent necessities. At the end of
the fifties a large body of Opinion was in favor of the
abolition of serfdom in the interests of the nation. Some
landholders began to realize how unprofitable this serfdom
was. In the second half of the Nineteenth Century the de-
fects of the system became very evident. "It was necessary
to start at the construction of railways, to encourage the
development of various branches of industrial activity and

24
to discover new sources of state revenues."

The Crown purchased from the proprietors the land,
with the peasants attached to it, and then bestowed the
land upon the peasnats with the condition that for forty-
five years they should pay to the Crown six per cent interest
upon the amount paid by it for the land. "It was the com-
mune or mir which accepted the land and assumed the obliga—
tion and duty of seeing that every individual paid his
1 share of rental upon the land within his enclosure,

8.1111118.

which was supposed to be sufficient for his own maintenance

and the payment of the Government tax."25

Unfortunately due to heavy taxes and the rental

payments emancipation proved more of a curse than a blessing

to many peasants. All Russia was in political ferment.

___

w—v—

24iakeev and O'Hara, Russia, p. 47, 1925.

25Parmele,‘A Short History 2: Russia, p. 219, 1900.

150

The Poles were striking for their independence. Alexander
was the mildest and best intentioned of men, but the political
whirlpool was too much for him. On the thirteenth of march
in Eighteen—Eighty he was slain by an assassin's bomb. The
reign of Alexander the Third, which followed, was one of

Oppression, tyranny, and terror until his death.

On the accession of Nicholas the Second the Zemstvos
of Russia in a joint address emphasized the need of immediate
reform, of a change in policy, of the representation of
the people in the Government of the country. No heed was
given to this appeal. The general discontent gathered
force year by year and captured every class and section of
the community. The Japanese War, just as the Crimean War
half a century back, revealed but 00 poignantly the tragic
reality of existing conditions, the false illusion of the
power of the autocracy, the disastrous consequences of
leaving the destinies of the country in the hands Of a small
group of the higher bureaucracy and a court clique. It
was not so much the reckless, senseless character of this
clique's amazing adventure in the Far East as the humilia-
tion endured by the whole of Russia in honoring the gambling
debt incurred which stiffened the sinews of resistance a-
gainst this mockery of autocracy. Some members of the
Government actually hoped that the War would distract the
attention of the nation and of the peOple from social and
political evils at home. They were mistaken. "The Japanese

War only intensified a burning resentment and a spirit of

151
opposition which the Old methods of Oppression could no

longer succeed in stamping out."‘?‘6

The Russian Revolution grew out of all these discon-
tents and tribulations. The catastrophe of the First World
War was the final factor in the collapse of the Old Russian
Empre. As it had been with France so it was now with Russia.
Not the Russian peOple but the Russian Monarchy had been
defeated in the First World War. And Revolution followed

on defeat.

The Russian Revolution, however, produced no Napoleon,
or at least has not done so as yet. A long chaotic period
ensued in Russia. Leaders such as Lenin, Stalin, and Trotzky
arose. Russia is a vast country and it took a long time
for the first phases of the Revolution to be consummated.
Moreover the policies of the Soviets created grave schisms

and dissensions within the country.

The German invasion of Russia in the Second World
War united the country as Napoleon's had done more than
a century earlier. Stalingrad was the new Poltava, and
with it Power shifted East to Russia where it remains to
this present day. The Russian Revolution has not yet run
its course. Like the French Revolution before it, it is
aggressive, carrying its doctrines to new lands often with

armed force. And as ever Britain, now battered and en-

 

ZGHakeev and O'Hara, Russia, pp. 93-94, 1925.

152
feebled but backed by a powerful United States of America,
stands in the way. France was embroiled in long and ter-
rible wars with its neighbors and in the end brought to
ruin by its Revolution. Will the Russian upheaval follow
the same course? Or will not merely Europe but all of
Eurasia be united under the new Colossus? Today we stand
on the brink of a frightful collision. Men talk of peace
but the grim lessons of all of recorded history point not
to peace but to war when situations such as today's exist.
It has indeed been EurOpe's curse that Britain was an island.
For on that Continent there has been an underlying will to
unity, a tendency to coalse, which worked against all the
disruptive forces trying to keep Europe divided. This will
to unity, Britain,has made it her business to continually
frustrate. And as a result of this constant frustration
the manifestations of this will to unity have constantly
become darker and more terrible. A Napoleon, a Hitler,

a Stalin, have replaced Philip the Second and Louis the

Fourteenth. And so the show goes on.

In summary one may say that while many factors
have entered into the Eastward March of Power, factors such
as birth rate, natural resources, political organization,
leadership, geography and so forth it has always been
Britain which has been the straw that broke the camel's
back. Britain's interference has been decisive in European

affairs when the victory or the downfall of a Great Power

153
hung in the balance. And Britain's influence has always
been for the downfall of the Power which had achieved the
greatest strength upon the Continent. Had not Britain existed
it is very likely that Europe would have long since been
united under one head. Probably that unity would have
been achieved by the sword but this would not have been
unique in history. What Europe has needed and still needs
is unity. This unity Britain has steadfastly set herself

to prevent. And great has been EurOpe's woe in consequence.

Today the Soviet Empire is seeking to unify both
EurOpe and Asia under an iron rule which would be more
Asiatic than European. And the Anglo-American combination
is seeking to prevent this. What if the Russian and the
Anglo-American camps destroy each other in homocidal-suicidal
frenzy? Will Power shift East again. East to the calm,
Bhudda-like, smiling millions of China and Japan? There
are ominous signs and portents now in the Far East as de-
cay spreads over the tottering EurOpean colonial Empires in
Asia. Civilization and Power grew first in Asia when
Europe's inhabitants were living in caves. Will it return

to Asia again so that the circle will be complete.

Even today, in matters of economics and trade, the
policies of Great Britain are disruptive as regards the
economic health of the Continent. Some historians see in
many of England's struggles a battle against tyranny and

Oppression and so it may have been for the time. But looked

154
at from the long view the English monkey wrench in the
EurOpean machinery has been fatal for EurOpe and ruinous
for Britain herself. How much better off would Britain
and Europe be today if both were united under one Empire?
It will be argued that the old conquerors were disagreeable
fellows but are the new ones any improvement? William the
Conqueror overran England; the United States had to have a
Civil War to achieve unity. But despite any injustices
that may have been inflicted upon the South at the time is
not the United States better off as one nation than as two.
What if EurOpe might have been under Spanish or French
hegamony in the beginning. Time would have wrought changes
as it did with the Normans and Saxons in Britain. But the
English would not have a united Europe. So they have fashioned

their own and EurOpe's doom.

Certainly a Hitler and a Stalin are worse than a
Napoleon or a Wilhelm the Second. Or must all Hestern
Civilization disintegrate and new centers of power arise
in the Orient. A Third World War might not destroy Civilization
but it would almost certainly wipe out the domination of

the West upon this planet.

155
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