Mastering Modern European History
Mastering Modern European History
Mastering Modern European History
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MASTERING
MODERN EUROPEAN
HISTORY
STUART T. MILLER
M
MACMILLAN
EDUCATION
© Stuart T. Miller 1988
Published by
MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xix
List of Maps xxi
List of Figures xxii
Preface xxiii
Acknowledgements XXV
Note on Names and Distances xxvi
4.4 Liberalism 56
4.5 Socialism 57
4.6 Communications 59
4.7 'This great and
dangerous plot' 59
4.8 Social theories 60
4.9 The peasantry 60
4.10 The 'labouring and
dangerous classes' 60
4.11 The middle classes 62
4.12 Weakness at the top 63
4.13 The accelerator 64
4.14 Conclusion 65
5 Restoration France 5.1 The restoration of the
1815-48 Bourbon Monarchy 69
5.2 The failure of
conciliation (1815-24) 70
5.3 The reign of Charles X 73
5.4 The July Monarchy 74
5.5 The early problems of
the regime 75
5.6 'France is bored' 77
5.7 Growing opposition 78
5.8 Conclusion 79
6 Italy 1796-1848 6.1 A 'geographical
expression' 82
6.2 The Napoleonic
occupation 84
6.3 The era of the Secret
Societies (1814-32) 85
6.4 Routes to unification
(1832-48) 87
6.5 Mazzini and the Italian
Republic 87
6.6 Liberal reformism 88
6.7 Gioberti and neo-
Guelphism 90
6.8 Charles Albert and
Piedmont 91
6.9 Conclusion 92
CONTENTS
7 Germany 1801-48 7.1 'The Germanies' in 1800 95
7.2 The impact of the
French Revolution
and Napoleon 97
7.3 The Napoleonic
Settlement of
Germany 98
7.4 The Prussian revival 98
7.5 German nationalism 99
7.6 The German
Confederation 102
7.7 The Vormiirz (1815-48) 103
7.8 Economic development 104
7.9 Conclusion 106
ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 The Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) 4
1.2 The expropriation of the Church 7
1.3 Robespierre's government 12
2.1 The execution of the defenders of Madrid (1808) 29
2.2 The retreat from Moscow 31
2.3 The resurrection of Napoleon 34
4.1 Houndsditch (1875) 61
7.1 Blessing of the Liitzow Free Corps (1813) 101
7.2 German economic and political advances 107
9.1 The King of Prussia salutes the dead 127
9.2 Frederick William IV (1848) 128
9.3 Metternich's flight 129
9.4 Exiles (1848) 130
9.5 Louis Napoleon takes the oath 139
10.1 Russian peasants at a well (1880s) 153
11.1 Officers of the 68th Regiment in the Crimea 169
11.2 French infantry in the Crimea 170
12.1 Censorship under the Second Empire 177
12.2 A vision on the way: 'Beware' 186
13.1 Napoleon III at Magenta 197
13.2 The battle of the Volturno, October 1860 199
14.1 Making omelettes 212
14.2 Prussian troops trying to take the railway line between
Nancy and Metz (1870) 215
14.3 The Parisian diet during the first siege of Paris 217
14.4 The acclamation of the Emperor in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles 218
15.1 On the swoop! 231
15.2 Despise not your enemy! 235
16.1 Serbian troops on the march (1885) 250
18.1a,b Bismarck deals with the Liberals and Socialists 273-4
18.2 The Krupp cannon factory 277
19.1 Seize Mai 1877 283
19.2 La derniere quille 288
22.1 Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tangier 337
23.1 Wollt ihr dieses? 353
ILLUSTRATIONS
23.2 Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? 354
23.3 Destroy this mad brute. Enlist 355
24.1 The awful warning 386
25.1 a,b The expunging of Trotsky from history 395-6
25.2 The USSR under Stalin 401
26.1 Black jerseys and black shirts 408
26.2 The Balli/la 413
26.3 Mussolini and the 'battle for grain' 416
27.1 a,b Hitler in power 431-2
27.2 a,b Anti-Semitism 436-7
29.1 Liberators 461
29.2 Les menteurs de Berlin 463
30.1 See for yourself 477
31.1 Non! 493
32.1 Now they've bloomed, next year we shall have fruit 502
xxi
MAPS
Fig. 2.1 Europe in 1810 27
Fig. 3.1 Europe in 1815 41
Fig. 6.1 The states of Italy in 1815 83
Fig. 7.1 The German Confederation 96
Fig. 7.2 The Zollverein 105
Fig. 8.1 The Habsburg Monarchy in 1848 114
Fig. 13.1 The unification of Italy (1859-71) 195
Fig. 14.1 The unification of Germany (1866-71) 210
Fig. 14.2a,b German railways (185o-BO) 220-21
Fig. 15.1 The colonisation of Africa (1876-1914) 227
Fig. 16.1 The Balkans according to the Treaties of San
Stefano and Berlin (1878) 245
Fig. 21.1 The nationalities of Austria-Hungary in 1914 323
Fig. 22.1 The impact of the Balkan wars (1912-13) 343
Fig. 23.1 Europe in 1914 352
Fig. 23.2 Europe in 1923 369
Fig. 28.1 The expansion of Germany (1919-38) 444
Fig. 29.1 Europe in October 1942 457
Fig.31.1 The decolonisation of Africa since 1945 486
Fig. 34.1 Europe in the 1980s 524
xxii
FIGURES
Fig. P.1 The relative contributions of agriculture and indus-
try to the national product of the United Kingdom
(1788-1907) xxxii
Fig. 12.1 The volume of horse power derived from steam
engines in France (183D-75) 179
Fig. 17.1 The relative contributions of agriculture and indus-
try to the Italian national product (1861-1910) 256
Fig. 18.1 The relative contributions of agriculture and indus-
try to the German national product (185D-1910) 266
Fig. 19.1 The relative contributions of agriculture and indus-
try to the French national product (1815-1909) 293
Fig. 19.2 Population growth in Germany and France
(185D-1910) 295
Fig. 20.1 Population growth in Russia (185D-1910) 301
Fig. 20.2 The comparative densities of railway networks in
Europe in 1913 303
Fig. 22.2 Steel production in Great Britain and Germany
(1891-1911) 347
Fig. 24.1 The structure of the League of Nations 375
Fig. 25.1 Economic activity in the USSR (1928-35) and
livestock numbers in the USSR (1916-70) 395
Fig. 27.1 The structure of the Nazi state 435
Fig. 30.1 The structure of the United Nations 473
xxiii
PREFACE
Like all textbooks, there is very little originality of content in
Mastering Modern European History. The original ideas and in-
terpretations have been carefully quarried from many of the books
referred to in the Further Reading section, to whose authors I owe a
general acknowledgement. The claim to originality on behalf of this
book rests upon the following factors:
(i) A logical synthesis
There is a middle way between the Marxist view that there are
preordained patterns in historical development and Henry
Ford's claim that 'History is just one damn thing after another'
Gust a little less famous than his remark that 'History is bunk').
I have desperately avoided the antique 'There were 37 causes
of the French Revolution' method of teaching, although I have
used an enumeration system for convenience. Certainly in
retrospect historical events are due usually to the interaction of
several factors and do follow some sort of narrative pattern. I
have thus used chronological accounts where necessary in
combination with considered analyses of the component factors
contributing to events.
(ii) Coverage of controversy
The work of the historian is not only the accumulation of data,
but also its interpretation. History is therefore a subject full of
controversy. There is an awful danger that a textbook can
become a sort of exercise in name-dropping, and I have
sometimes lapsed into this behaviour, but it is important that
attention should be drawn to the main issues of controversial
interpretations. On many occasions - as with the origins of the
Second World War and of the imperialism of the late nine-
teenth century - I have deliberately taken time to consider
theories and their interaction.
I have included selections of sample questions drawn from
the reservoirs of a number of examination boards and these are
a typical cross-section. A number of questions have been
devised by myself, especially when the subject content of the
book gets beyond the 1960s and begins to exceed the chronolo-
gical limits of many examination syllabuses as they at present
PREFACE
exist. I have deliberately not written the book as answers to
questions, simply because this can cause structural problems.
However, there is everything to be said for encouraging
students to regard History as a vast complex of questions as to
what happened, why it happened, and why it mattered. Most of
the section and paragraph headings which I have used are easily
equated with these fundamental questions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have
kindly given permission for the use of copyright material:
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright-holders, but if
any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be
pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
xxvi
NOTE ON NAMES
AND
DISTANCES
I have followed certain conventions in referring to some of the states
of Europe. First of all, though, a point should be made about the title
of the book. Britain played a vital role in European history in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to her economic leadership
until 1914, her recurrent interventions into European international
relations, and her imperial activities. However I have tended to treat
her very much as 'the offshore island' until the post-1945 period,
when Britain became a member of various European organisations
and especially the EEC. I have not attempted to deal with the
internal affairs and development of Britain. For this latter, the reader
is directed to the excellent volume Mastering Modern British History
(Macmillan, 1984) by Norman Lowe. Also after 1945, it becomes
increasingly difficult - and of questionable value - to try and
segregate European from World history. I hope that I have achieved
a reasonable compromise.
Apart from this, I have faced the usual problems of nomenclature
in dealing with a number of states find I hope that the following
explanation is adequate.
(ii) Germany
Before 1871, I have occasionally employed the old-fashioned
contemporary practice of talking of 'the Germanies'. The
complexities of the membership of the German Confederation
are explained in the relevant chapter.
(iii) The Ottoman Empire
Although I have used the proper title before 1914, I have
often used the term 'Turkey' and spoken of 'the Turks', just as
contemporaries did.
(iv) Piedmont
Technically, the correct title of the northernmost Italian
kingdom was 'the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont'. In keep-
ing with usual practice, though, I have used the term 'Pied-
mont'.
(v) Russia
After 1917, I have tended to employ, as we do today, a
number of titles interchangeably. 'Russia', 'the Soviet Union',
'Soviet Russia' and the 'USSR' all refer to the same state. In
fact, technically, 'the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic' is
only one - albeit the greatest - of the units of the USSR.
Any other confusion that might arise on this subject must be
attributed entirely to my own carelessness.
(vii) Distances
Finally I have standardised distances on the mile (1 Kilometre
= 0.62 miles or 8 Kilometres = 5 miles).
xxviii
PROLOGUE:
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
EUROPE
INTRODUCTION
The French Revolution is usually seen as the start of an era and the
chief event to which can be related the main threads of European
history in the nineteenth century. In fact -like other 'turning points'
in history- the 'Great Revolution' was as much the end of a period as
the beginning. Equally, Napoleon Bonaparte- the heroic 'superman'
of the new Romantics - was in many respects the last and greatest of
the old-style enlightened despots and mercantilists. The eighteenth
century was characterised by a number of features:
'PROSPERITY BY COMPULSION'
40
30
20
10
0
1788 1821 1850 1861 1871 1881 1901
The changing proportions between the two sectors are typical of a developing
economy. The pattern was most marked with the United Kingdom. What is also
notable in this graph is the slackening off of growth in the Edwardian period.
This reflects to some extent the tendency for the UK to derive more income from
commercial and financial services.
ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM