The Nation-State System

RISE OF NATIONALISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY

By 1850, many of the liberal and nationalistic aspirations of revolutionaries were dashed as conservative, authoritarian rulers came to power. However, nationalism as a dynamic force remained powerful and continued to increase in strength during the 19th and 20th centuries. Between 1850 and 1871 almost all political leaders, whether liberal or conservative, recognised the strength of nationalism. Nationalism's political impact was manifested most dramatically in the successful struggles for national unification in Italy and Germany. Broadly, nationalism played a crucial role in the growing authority of the nation-state. Increasingly, central governments had to justify and bolster their authority by reference to a nation of citizens rather than dynastic links to the past. The period from 1850 to 1871, marks the beginning of a time when nationalism grew from earlier roots to become a dominant force in Western political life, and when the nation-state took on new authority and new functions.

Nationalism may be defined as feelings of common cultural identity and loyalty to one's country. What are the essential factors that contribute to these feelings? What makes a person a German or a Pole, even when there is no German or Polish national state?

The most important factor is language. Language brings people together in understanding and separates them from those they cannot understand. Probably second in importance is a historical tradition of unity. The Belgians with their two languages and the Swiss with their three languages and two religions illustrate the importance of this factor. Religion can be a powerful factor, too, though not as important as language. The German Empire with its common language came and held together in spite of a serious religious cleavage, and the Austrian Empire fell apart along language lines in spite of a common religion and a long tradition of unity under the Hapsburgs. Territorial compactness and natural boundaries frequently contribute to nationalism.

Until the French Revolution, national loyalty was chiefly cantered on the ruling monarch or dynasty and was limited for the most part to the educated upper classes who participated in the government of the nation. The French Revolution gave birth to a new and more virile kind of nationalism. The establishment of equal rights and popular representative government, together with the abolition of old provincial boundary lines, brought the masses of people into direct partnership with the national government. Universal conscription into the revolutionary armies gave people a sense of fraternity in a righteous cause—a crusade. Nationalism acquired attributes of a religion. Such mass dynamism helped make the revolutionary and Napoleonic armies irresistible.

Nationalism soon spread to other places of Europe. In the decades following the Napoleonic era, industrialisation and policies toward industrialisation connected with nationalism. The Revolutions of 1848 clearly demonstrated the revolutionary potential of nationalism. By mid-19th century, nationalism had grown from its deeper roots to become entwined with the central political, economic, and social forces of modern times.

What is Nationalism? Nationalism is a phenomenon of modern European history. It did not exist in recognisable form in the Middle Ages. At that time, the universalism of the Roman Empire lived in the Catholic Church, to which all Western Christians belonged, in the Latin language, which all educated people used, and in the Holy Roman Empire, ramshackle structure though it was. Therefore, mass allegiance to a nation during those centuries, was unknown. Instead, most men considered themselves to be, first of all, Christians, second, residents of a certain region such as Burgundy or Cornwall, and only last, if at all, French people or English people.

Three developments gradually modified this scale of allegiances. One was the rise of vernacular languages and the use of these languages for literary expression. Another was the break-off from the Catholic Church of several national churches. Finally, the Western European dynasties built and consolidated several large, homogeneous, independent states – England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark. These developments laid the basis for the rise of nationalism, though until the late-18th, century, a nation was identified with the person of the sovereign. Luther, for example, regarded ‘the bishops and princes’ as 'Germany,' while Louis XIV stated that the French nation 'resided wholly in the person of the king.'

How did it Rise and Grow? Nationalism did not assume its modern form until the 18th century, when the Western European bourgeoisie came to share or obtain full power. They did so in the name of the nation, so that the nation no longer was the king, his territory, and his subjects. Rather it was now composed of citizens (only propertied citizens until the late-19th century) ‘who inhabited a common territory, possessed a voice in their common government, and were conscious of their common (imagined or real) heritage and their common interests.’

This modern form of nationalism received its greatest boost during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period. In order to survive the onslaught of the old regimes of Europe, the revolutionary leaders were forced to mobilise national armies – armies of politically conscious citizens ready and eager to fight for their fatherland. The French Revolution contributed to the development of nationalism in several other ways. It required all French citizens to speak French – the central or national language – in place of the numerous regional dialects. It established a network of public elementary schools for the purpose of teaching French and love of country. The French Revolution also stimulated the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, and periodicals that were cheap and popularly written, and therefore effective in leaving their imprint upon the whole nation. It inaugurated such nationalist rites and symbols as the national flag, the national anthem, and national holidays. All these developments enabled nationalism to overcome people's traditional commitments to religion and region.

We noted earlier that this passionate identification with one's nation spread from France to neighbouring countries. It did so by the natural diffusion of nationalist ideology. Its spread was also a reaction to French aggression and domination. Nationalism was further stimulated by the industrial revolution which, with its new media (cheap newspapers, books, and leaflets) for mass communication, brought about a more effective and all-embracing indoctrination of citizens. Thus nationalism became a prime factor in European history in the 19th century and in world history in the 20th. Nationalism changed in character as the 19th century passed. It began as a humane and tolerant creed, based on the concept of the brotherhood rather than the rivalry of the various nationalist movements. In the latter part of the century, it became increasingly chauvinistic and militaristic because of the influence of social darwinism and the success of Bismarck in uniting Germany by Machiavellian diplomacy and war, or, as he put it, by 'blood and iron.'

Nationalism manifested itself strongly, immediately after 1815 because the territorial settlement of that year left millions of peoples either disunited or under foreign rule. This was the case with the Germans, the Italians, the Belgians, the Norwegians, and the numerous nationalities of the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. The inevitable result was a series of nationalist revolts that broke out in all parts of Europe after 1815. The Greeks revolted successfully in 1821, winning their independence from Turkish rule. The Belgians did likewise in 1830, breaking away from Dutch domination. The Italians, after futile uprisings in 1820, 1830, and 1848, established an independent and united state between 1859 and 1871. The Germans, under the leadership of Prussia, built their German Empire after defeating Austria in 1866 and France in 1870–71.

The principle of nationalism had triumphed in Western Europe by 1871. In Central and Eastern Europe the Hapsburg, Tsarist, and Ottoman empires remained ‘prisons of nationalities.’ The inmates of these prisons, however, were becoming increasingly ungovernable as nationalist movements succeeded all around them. The rulers of the three empires were aware of the consequences of nationalism for their multinational states, and tried to check it by various restrictive measures and by deliberately playing one subject nationality against another. These measures were successful at first but could not prevail indefinitely. The first breaches in the imperial structures were made by the Balkan subjects of the Turks. By 1878 the Serbs, the Rumanians, and the Montenegrins had gained their independence, and in 1908 the Bulgarians did likewise. Much more significant was the assassination in June 1914 of the Hapsburg Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a young Serbian patriot, Gavrilo Princip. This was the fateful event that precipitated World War I, whose outcome was the destruction of all the empires of Central and Eastern Europe – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish. The peace treaties that terminated the war were generally based on the principle of nationalism, so that several new states appeared – Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Albania – that expressed the independent existence of hitherto subject peoples. For better or for worse, nationalism had triumphed throughout Europe with the conclusion of World War I. In the following decades, the idea of nationalism began to awaken and spur to action hundreds of millions of people in Europe's overseas possessions.

Why did Nationalism Rise? Some of the factors which contributed to the rise and growth of nationalism in the 19th century can be seen in certain objective conditions such as:

(a)Common language, race and religion

(b)Common economic interests

(c)Common heritage or history

(d)Common political aspirations

(e)Geographic contiguity and unity

Though these objective conditions are not indispensable, without some of these no unification process can truly begin.

Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, etc., in Germany, and Dante, Machiavelli, etc., in Italy, proved that a people can express their culture and ideas better with the help of a common language and literature. So, the members of a group speaking the same language naturally develop a feeling of oneness. It should, however, be noted that common language is not indispensable, as demonstrated by the Swiss people who speak different languages. Common economic interests are another important factor in this process. The zolleverein, for example, brought the Germans together in a customs union and this commercial unification later facilitated the political unification of Germany. Another contributory factor in national consolidation is the possession of common heritage or history. The Italians, especially, were proud of their history, and desired to repeat the feats of their Roman ancestors once again.

Besides the above basic conditions, the Revolutionary France (1789–95) played an important role in arousing national sentiment in Italy and Germany. Revolutionary France, apart from espousing the cause of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, also give a new fillip to the idea of nationalism by heroically defending herself against foreign aggression and intervention. This courageous demonstration of patriotism by the French had a profound effect on the minds of Italians and Germans.

The events of Napoleonic are equally significant in this respect. Since the disintegration of the Roman Empire, Italy had remained a mere ‘geographical expression’. She was broken up into a number of small states which sometimes became easy prey to their more enterprising neighbours. Napoleon's conquests, however, bought about for the first time in the modern period, the unification of Italy which only helped them to realise their strength when united. The Italians during his reign experienced a sense of national unity and felt a desire to preserve the legacy by putting an end to mutual jealousies.

Like wise, Napoleon's activities kindled German Nationalism and paved way for the unification. To begin with, the complicated map of Germany with her 343 states was made simple by Napoleon. Hitherto the Hapsburg of Austria as the Holy Roman Emperors had nominal suzerainty over Germany, just as the Prussian king aspired for German leadership. Napoleon did not plan to bring the German lands under his direct control, but at the same time wanted to transform the German states into French protectorates and, thereby, reduce the influence of Austria and Prussia over them.

Immediately after the Treaty of Lunevelle (1801), he snatched away the independence of a large number of small states and distributed them among the larger states like Bavaria so that they might balance the influence of Prussia and Austria. The number of German states was, thus, brought down to 100 by this process of amalgamation.

The situation was further improved after the defeat of Austria in the battle of Austerlitz (1805), when Napoleon decided to combine the German states into one entity under his presidency. A German union, termed as the ‘Confederation of the Rhine’, was created with Napoleon becoming its ‘Protector’. Thus he finally managed to reduce the 300 odd states to just three—Austria, Prussia and the Confederation of the Rhine.

The abolition of the Holy Roman Empire followed the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine; Napoleon compelled the Austrian emperor to renounce the title of the 'Holy Roman Emperor'. This had a great effect upon the future of Germany. Austria was always against the unification of Germany, for a united Germany would threaten her very existence. Now Napoleon almost achieved the apparently impossible feat of having a Germany without Austria in the process, strengthening the claims of Prussia for German leadership.

Above all, Napoleon engendered, though unintentionally, the spirit of nationalism among the Germans. As in the case of Italy, the artificial barriers were removed, evoking a sense of national unity among the Germans. This national spirit made the Germans realise the degradation they underwent during the foreign (French) domination. Finally, the national feeling resulted in the demand for the War of Liberation (1813), which was, in fact, forced upon the Prussian government by the people. Thus the complicated political map of Germany was made simple by Napoleon who drove away the Hapsburgs, roused the German national spirit (which was the prerequisite for the political unity of Germany) and finally facilitated the Prussian leadership of Germany.

Several other international events like the Spanish Nationalist War, the Battle of Nations against Napoleon, the heroic Greek War of Independence (1820s), the success of the French Revolution of 1830 and the Belgian Revolution for Independence (1830–31) together had made the Italians and Germans to realise the national unity and freedom and thus greatly influenced the course of growing nationalism in these countries.

A number of political thinkers and philosophers also played a great role in moulding the minds of the people of Italy and Germany. Italian poet, Dante (14th century), put forward his concept of universal monarchy. His main plea in favour of a universal Roman Empire is that God's will is clearly evident in history and that the history of Rome showed her rise to place of supreme power had the signs of a providential guidance.

The Italian realist thinker Machiavelli (16th century) who believed in a ‘citizen army’ put forth the same idea of nationalism in a different shape. Patriotism and a desire for the unification of Italy and her defence from internal and external threats was the rationale of his citizen army. He held that duty to one's country precedes all other duties and scruples. These noble ideas of Italian nationalism remained foremost in the hearts of Italian patriots through centuries seeking a convenient time to bloom forth in reality. The opportunity came in consecutive stages in 18th and 19th centuries.

Italian nationalism got its further boost in the 18th century from the romanticism of the French philosopher, Rousseau. Rousseau's ideas of city state and popular sovereignty stirred up a strong feeling that resulted mainly in idealising national patriotism. This affected Italy as much as other European countries. The newlyborn romantic sentiment together with the idea of nationalism paved the way for the 19th century Italian Resorgimento (Resurrection).

The manner in which romantic spirit made way for German nationalism is borne out by Kant, Goethe, Hegel, etc., in Germany. The romantic version of nationalism in Germany has more depth than that of Italy, because in later days the non-rational approach to reality and truth was further increased by the writings of Trietsche.

Unification of Italy And Germany

The Italian people were disappointed when the Congress of Vienna divided their country into provinces. Only the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, which included Savoy, was under Italian control. Lombardy and Venetia were annexed to Austria. Dominated by Austria were other areas in Italy including the two Sicilies, which contained Naples and the Island of Sicily. The Pope controlled the Papal States across central Italy. Although a spirit of nationalism and unification developed among Italians, Austria and the Pope fought to keep control of their lands.

A nationalist society, Young Italy, was founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1852, another nationalist Count Cavour was named premier of Sardinia-Piedmont. The House of Savoy and King Victor Emmanuel II, ruler of Sardinia, backed Cavour's plans to unify Italy. In 1855, Cavour sent Sardinian troops to support the French in the Crimean war. France in return for Nice and Savoy pledged to aid Sardinia if Austria could be tricked into an attack. Cavour mobilised Sardinian troops causing Austria to issue an ultimatum and then declare war. French and Sardinian troops defeated the Austrians. Austria ceded Lombardy to France and then to Sardinia. Sardinia gave Nice and Savoy to France. Immediately many Italian states overthrew their royal governments and voted to join Sardinia.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, a nationalist military leader in Sardinia backed by Cavour, sailed from Piedmont in 1860, leading 1000 volunteer soldiers known as Red Shirts. He took control of Sicily and Southern Italy and marched toward Rome. Fearing that Garibaldi might take control for himself, Cavour sent an army through Northern Italy to head him off and attack the Papal States. These were annexed, except for Rome. The kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861.

Italy joined with Prussia in its seven weeks war against Austria. In the treaty, Austria was forced to give Venetia to Italy (1866). When French forces protecting Rome were withdrawn in 1870, Italian troops took that city. The Pope was left with only the Vatican area. Rome was chosen as the capital of the newly unified Italy.

The unification of the German states into a single powerful nation came through the diplomatic scheming of principally one man, Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor to the Prussian King. At the time of the French Revolution, Germany was composed of 343 independent states. Most had been loosely allied in the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon ended the empire when he formed the Confederation of the Rhine.

Germany was still split into the larger Catholic states grouped around Austria in the South and the Northern Protestant states who looked to Prussia's leadership. Austria feared the growth of Prussia, while Prussia wanted a union of German states without Austria. In 1819, Prussia set up the zollverein, a trade system that lifted tariffs among member German states. Except for Austria, most of the other German states became used to working with Prussia.

After William I became the new Prussian King in 1861, the Prussian Parliament refused to grant him his army credits. Angered, he called Bismarck to run his government and collect his taxes. Bismarck desired a unified Germany under Prussian leadership without Austria. After taking over the Danish provinces of Schelswig-Holstein, he next got French and Italian pledges of neutrality. In 1865 he caused Austria, disturbed over difficulties in Holstein and over other Prussian actions, to declare war. The Prussian army quickly crushed Austria (1866) and Prussia took control of the Central German states.

France, wanting to humiliate the growing Prussia, tried to prevent the German prince from becoming king of Spain. Bismarck, by rewriting a telegram between the French and the Prussian king, made both feel insulted. France declared war, but the Prussian army overran France, even taking Louis Napoleon prisoner. All the German states that fought with Prussia now joined in making the Prussian king their Emperor (Kaiser). A new constitution in 1870 completed the unification of Germany, giving it democracy and much efficiency, but most power went to Kaiser and Chancellor Bismarck.

How and When did Italian Unification Take Place? In the 19th century, Italian nationalism resulted in the rise of the Italian Resorgimento (Resurrection) in three different forms: a) federalist idea of unification of Italy under Pope; b) republican idea of unification; and c) the idea of unification under a constitutional monarch. All the efforts of Italian patriots prior to 1850 had been nullified by the existence of the above three divergent views as to the best method of realising their common aspiration. Mazzini favoured a republic; Giobarty was for a federation of the Italian states under the Presidency of the Pope; while the third party desired the union of Italy under the House of Savoy, that is, the King of Piedmont.

After the events of 1848–49, both federalism and republicanism were no longer considered as possible answers of the Italian question. Besides, the transformation of the reforming Pope, Pius XI, into a reactionary proved to be a stumbling block to the political unification of Italy. He was suspicious that the establishment of a strong secular government would decrease his own spiritual influence and compromise his position in the eyes of the non-Italian nations. Therefore, from 1849 onwards, he proved to be an antithesis to the national cause and made every possible attempt to prevent Italian unity. Likewise, republicanism lost its credibility. It was too radical to attract the masses, and failure of Mazzini's efforts in Rome made it a spent force. With the two rival plans out of the picture, the issue was simplified and the only solution that attracted the attention of the nationalists was the establishment of a constitutional kingdom under the king of Sardinia-Piedmont.

There were a number of causes for the Italian nationalists to look to the Piedmont as the nucleus of a future Italy:
1.Piedmont was the only Italian state that had never been under the control of Austria.
2.Her king was the only representative of the native Italian dynasty.
3.It was Piedmont that had in 1848–49 fought wholeheartedly against the Austrians and her dynasty alone had proved to be zealous of the national cause.
4.In spite of heavy pressure from the victorious Austrians, Victor Emmanuel II retained the constitution which his father had granted.

Thus, the only Italian state, with a constitution, to become a liberal oasis in the desert of despotism was Piedmont. She become the beacon of liberty and attracted the attention of nationalists in other places. Taking into account the risk she had braved and the sacrifices she had made, Piedmont stood out as the leader of the nationalist movement, and every kind of nationalist began to realise the fact that Italy could be made only a constitutional monarchy under the House of Savoy.

Luckily for Italy, Sardinia-Piedmont was then ruled by an enlightened and capable king, Victor Emmanuel II, who in turn was helped by his shrewd and efficient Prime Minister, Count Cavour. Cavour wanted to make Sardinia an ideally governed state and thus make all Italians accept her leadership. Through a series of radical reforms, he improved every branch of administration—ecclesiastical, civil, fiscal and military. Sardinia was now on the way to material prosperity. At the same time, Cavour, while rejecting the insurrectionary methods of Mazzini, believed that force alone could drive Austria out of Italy and was feasible only with the help of outside powers. Hence he was on the lookout for acquiring allies for Italy.

Consequently, he grabbed the opportunity presented by the Crimean War and joined England and France against Russia. In the Paris Peace Conference, he succeeded in gaining international sympathy for Italy. Most important was the success of Cavour in winning over Napoleon III to his cause and they signed a treaty in 1858 by which Napoleon agreed to help Italy in return for Savoy and Nice.

Piedmont's triumph in the war with Austria was the first step in the unification of Italy. Annoyed by the military preparations of Cavour, Austria declared war on Sardinia. Napoleon III personally led a French army into Italy. The Austrians were defeated at Salferino and Magenta (1859). Napoleon abruptly ceased hostilities and negotiated the peace of Villafranca (1859), which was thrust on the unwilling Italians. However, Austria was forced to part with Lombardy to Sardinia by this treaty.

The Sardinia success against Austria, albeit with French help, raised the hopes of the Italians. People of Tuscany, Modena, Parma and Romagna, in particular, drove away their princes and declared for amalgamation with Sardinia. Having appeased Napoleon III by the cession of Nice and Savoy, Victor Emmanuel bowed to the will of the people and merged those states into Sardinia (March, 1860).

The conquest of the two Southern states of Italy—Sicily and Naples (1860)—was achieved by Garibaldi, the soldier hero of Italian unity. With covert help from Mazzini and Cavour, Garibaldi invaded and conquered Sicily with the help of his ‘Red Shirts’. He went over to the mainland Italy and conquered Naples, after which he decided to strike Rome itself. Taking advantage of an insurrection in Rome, Cavour gained the permission of Napoleon and occupied the Papal States, excepting Rome. Emmanuel II then marched against Naples, where Garibaldi resigned his authority into the hands of Emmanuel. It was a fine example of selfless sacrifice by Garibaldi.

Emmanuel after bringing the major part of Italy under his control crowned himself king of Italy (1861). In the same year, the first Italian Parliament met at Turin. Still Venetia remained under the domination of Austria and Rome was independent under the Pope, defended by a French garrison. Two international wars had to be fought before they were annexed to Italy. Cavour did not live to see the complete unification of Italy since he passed away in 1861 itself.

On the eve of the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Emmanuel II supported Bismarck and fought against Austria. The Italians suffered serious setbacks against the Austrians. Their army was defeated at Custozza, while their navy was destroyed at Lissa. However, the Prussian victory at Sadowa over Austrians made good the Italian defeat. In the Treaty of Prague, Bismarck forced Austria to cede Venetia to the Italians.

On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III called back the French forces from Rome. Victor Emmanuel grabbed the opportunity and took over Rome which was immediately made the capital of united Italy. The unification of Italy was, thus, completed due to Mazzini's moral enthusiasm, Garibaldi's sword, Cavour 's diplomacy and Victor Emmanuel's tact and good sense.

Italian Unification

What was The Role of Italian Personalities? Mazzini, the prophet and apostle of Italian unity, contributed immensely to the growth and nourishment of Italian nationalism. He was a secular political thinker and a staunch republican who wanted unified Italy to be a republic with liberal institutions and laws. For his republican ideas, he was exited from his motherland. He instilled into the Italian national movement a moral zeal, which had been so far missing, aroused the enthusiasm of the people, especially the young, and kept alive the spirit of insurrection. The moral nature of his appeal made it irresistible. In the beginning, Mazzini was a Carbonari (member of a secret society). Soon he realized that Carbonarism was not going to triumph and young Italy soon displaced the Carbonari as the centre of nationalist movement. It believed that Renaissance was a necessary prerequisite for a revolution to be successful. The greatest contribution of Mazzini and the young Italy was to give a definite form to the idea of nationalism and to transform the idea into a popular cause.

Garibaldi, another prominent personality, was a man of action and hence he is regarded as the sword of Italian nationalism and unification. Placing his services at the beck and call of his country, he never missed an opportunity to strike a blow for its freedom. He relied on the sword to free Italy, not understanding either compromise or political necessities. Though his impetuosity was at times a source of great embarrassment to Cavour, it should be noticed that it was he who carved a way and with a rare selflessness handed over the fruits of his victory to Victor Emmanuel II. He was a republican, yet he not only fought under the king of Sardinia but supported, against his own beliefs, the union of Italy under that crown. His love for the country outweighed even his convictions.

Cavour was the most powerful single factor in the unification of Italy. It was he who successfully completed the work begun by Mazzini and Garibaldi and he did with a wisdom and statesmanship which none of them possessed. He was the masterbrain which converted the inspiration of Mazzini into a diplomatic force and turned the sword of Garibaldi into a national weapon. For his sound judgement and successful diplomacy, the idealism of Mazzini and the illguided enthusiasm of Garibaldi would have added another chapter to the history of blasted hopes and fruitless struggle.

In addition there was another personality whose must be mentioned with glory in the context of Italian Risorgimento. It was the name of Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Sardinia-Piedmont. His serene nature, common sense in great crises, his powers of military organisation, his frankness and, above all, his loyal support to his ministers, proved to be of priceless help to his country's emancipation. Without his support, Cavour could not have accomplished what he did.

How was German Unification Done? In Germany the origin of nationalism can be traced to the struggle with Napoleon. After the Battle of Waterloo the German liberals aimed at the reorganisation of Germany on a national basis. Their desire for a free, united Germany was thwarted when the reactionary Congress of Vienna made Germany a confederation of 19 states with the Emperor of Austria as its President. The disappointment of the liberals was boundless.

No reactionary settlement could arrest the spirit of freedom and nationalism when once kindled. The history of Germany for 50 years since the Vienna Congress was history of two movements—one democratic and the other national in character. The goal of the first movement was the establishment of popular government, while that of the second was German unity. For a time the forces of reaction were victorious in Germany. Most of the rulers of the German states were against any scheme of reforms and, under the direction of Metternich they did everything possible to arrest popular movements. As a result, when the July Revolution (1830) in Paris sent a sympathetic thrill throughout Germany, the popular movements were ruthlessly suppressed by the reactionary princes. Something was gained for the cause of liberalism as several of the minor German states granted constitutions to their subjects.

It was during the revolutionary period that the first step towards German unity was taken through the creation of zollvereins or customs unions. These were in the form of commercial treaties by which the different states of the German Confederation, expect Austria, agreed to introduce a policy of free trade among them by removing the customs, duties which were levied on goods passing from one state to another. Thus, even before German political unity had come within the range of practical politics, nearly the whole of Germany had achieved a commercial unity from which Austria was excluded. The commercial union led the people to think in terms of a complete union.

The triumph of the French Revolution of 1848 kindled new hopes in Germany, but these were soon extinguished by the refusal of the Prussian king, Frederick William IV, to accept the crown of united Germany, offered by a revolutionary parliament which had met at Frankfurt. The Prussian king subsequently made an attempt to unite the states of north Germany by a federal constitution under the presidency of Prussia, but it was frustrated by the hostile stand of Austria. Though the movement petered out, the Prussian king granted a constitution to his people.

The main hindrance to German unity was, thus, the jealousy of Austria which was strongly opposed to any reorganisation of Germany aimed at elevation of the position of Prussia. When Frederick William died and his brother ascended the throne as Williams Kaiser I, things began to look different. The new monarch was eager for reform, but the Prussian assembly obstructed his plans of reform. William I, therefore, appointed Bismarck, an ardent supporter of monarchy, as his Chief Minister and thus inaugurated a new chapter in German history.

War with Denmark (1863–68), which was the first of his series of wars, was the outcome of what is known as the Schelswig-Holstein question. The King of Denmark, being the Duke of these two duchies, wanted to annex them permanently to his kingdom. Bismarck was against this plan and in union with Austria declared war against Denmark and forced her to give up her claim to the duchies. Henceforth, the duchies became a bone of contention between the victors, Austria and Prussia. Bismarck was firm on annexing them, while Austria was determined that her rival should not acquire them.

The prolonged disputes that followed were skilfully handled by Bismarck to declare war against Austria. The Austro-Prussian War that followed was no longer for the two duchies but for the leadership of Germany. At Sadowa, the Austrians were humiliated. By the peace which followed, Austria withdrew from Germany and agreed to allow Prussia to reorganise the German states according to her plan.

After overcoming the main hurdle for German unity, Bismarck now began to reorganise Germany. Those states of the North which had opposed Prussia were annexed to Prussia. The remaining states of North Germany retained their independence, but were bound together in the North German Confederation under the presidency of Prussia. This was a great leap towards German unity.

The process of unification had still to take effect on the states of the South. There were two hurdles in the way. First, the Southern states were envious of Prussia and were not inclined to entering a confederation in which Prussia was overbearing. Secondly, there was the opposition of France which viewed with open jealousy the rise of the new Prussian power. Bismarck's policy was to overcome these hurdles by a deliberately provoked war with France. He wanted to wage a national war in order to create a national feeling which would tie together all the German states—Northern and Southern—for a common goal. His chance came when in 1869 the Spanish throne fell vacant and Leopold of Hohenzollern, a distant relative of the Prussia king, was offered the throne. The opposition of Napoleon III of France against it made Leopold to withdraw his candidature. This alone did not satisfy Napoleon and he demanded that the Prussian king should give surety that no member of the Hohenzollern family should ever contend for the Spanish throne. The Prussian king gave a polite no but Bismarck by a falsified telegram produced the impression that the French ambassador had been insulted and harshly sent beck by the Prussian king. This ignited the passion of the French people and the war which Bismarck so eagerly awaited was in sight. The French suffered a heavy defeat at Sedan and the patriotic pride resulting from this victory led the Southern states of Germany to join North German Confederation. Thus, the ruler of Prussia, King William I, was declared the Emperor of united Germany in 1871.

How do the Two Unifications Compare? A comparison of the unification of Italy with that of Germany would make an interesting study. There are quite a few similarities between the two, at least on the exterior:
1.The central subject was the same in both cases.
2.Both began the period in disunity, made futile efforts to attain goal on 1848, and ultimately achieved it almost simultaneously and as the consequence of the national operations.
3.In both cases, the most powerful states acted as the leaders of the national movement.
4.The desired goal in both cases was attained chiefly due to the capabilities of their respective Prime Ministers.
5.Both had to override the resistance of Austria as a necessary prerequisite to the achievement of their goal.

The above resemblances were however, only on the surface, because the problems which the two had to face were qualitatively as well as quantitatively distinct as also the ideas and modes they adopted to solve them.
1.In certain respects, Cavour's problems were greater compared to those of Bismarck.
2.The relative weakness of Sardinia- Piedmont made foreign aid necessary for achieving Italian unification, while Bismarck just needed the neutrality of other European powers.

Piedmont was only a trifle more powerful than other Italian states, while Prussia already had a commanding position in Germany due to the formation of zollverein with Prussia as its head and also due to the reorganisation of the Prussian army by William I.

In other ways, however, Bismarck's difficulties were greater compared to those of Cavour.
1.Bismarck had to face a stiffer opposition from local forces than Cavour, because German particularism was more deep-rooted than the Italian.
2.Diplomatic problems of Bismarck were greater than those of Cavour, because Austrian expulsion from Germany was bound to kick up a greater furore in Europe than her expulsion from Italy.
3.Bismarck had to do it single handed, whereas Cavour built with stones quarried largely by others (Mazzini and Garibaldi).
4.Bismarck had a more trying time than Cavour in obtaining the consent of his king for his policy.

The ideals and policies adopted by Cavour were also different from those of Bismarck.
1.Cavour was a liberal and staunch parliamentarian, while Bismarck was a reactionary, opponent of parliaments and a proponent of force.

Maps of German Unification
2.Cavour was an Italian first and then a Sardinian, whereas Bismarck was a Prussian first and then a German.

Because of these differences in ideals and principles, the element of force is more conspicuous in Bismarck's methods than in Cavour's.

How Did Germany Develop Between 1871 and 1914?

The creation of the German Empire by Bismarck's blood-and-iron method, its autocratic constitution (despite the establishment of universal male suffrage), and its strong-handed leadership, first by the Iron Chancellor and then by Kaiser Wilhelm II, guaranteed that the German Empire would be an enlarged Prussia. The German Empire possessed a powerful army, a large, energetic, and disciplined population, a rapidly growing industrial machine, a fervent and restless national spirit. Bismarck ruled over his creation as chancellor for almost 20 years.

His first concern after the defeat of France and the declaration of the empire in 1870–1871 was to complete the consolidation and nationalisation of the German states and people. The law codes, the currencies, and the military forces of the 25 lesser states were brought into conformity with those of Prussia. Banking and railroads were placed under control of the national government. The empire's spawning industry was protected against British competition by a high tariff. The French in Alsace-Lorraine, the Danes in Schleswig, and more than 3 million Poles in the Eastern districts were pressured to give up their language and traditions.

Two other groups in Germany excited Bismarck's suspicion and wrath: the Roman Catholics and the Socialists. Any German who had a foreign loyalty was intolerable to Bismarck. From 1872 to 1878, Bismarck waged a political power struggle with the Roman Catholics that came to be called the Kulturkampf (battle for civilisation). The Jesuits were expelled, civil marriage was made compulsory, and education, including that of Roman Catholic priests, was brought under state control and largely secularised. When the Roman Catholic clergy and most of the laity, which constituted approximately one-third of the total German population, resisted and rallied to the Pope, hundreds of priests and six bishops were arrested. It was all to no avail. The Roman Catholic Centre Party in the Reichstag became stronger, and by 1878, Bismarck wanted its support for what he considered to be a struggle of greater importance – that against the Socialists. In 1878 upon the accession of a more conciliatory pope, Leo XIII, Bismarck went to Canossa and had the most severe of the anti-Catholic legislation repealed.

In the same year, he began a 12 year crusade against the internationally minded Socialists. He outlawed their publications, their organisations, and their meetings, and set the German police force upon them. He only drove them underground. Throughout the 1880s, Bismarck sought to undercut the Socialists' appeal to the working class by setting up a comprehensive system of social insurance. Accident, sickness, and old-age insurance was provided for the industrial proletariat, the funds being raised by compulsory contributions from the workers, the employers, and the state. Although Bismarck's motives were not benevolent or humanitarian, his measures gave impetus to a trend toward state responsibility for social security. Nevertheless, the Socialists were not appeased, and Bismarck continued to fight them as long as he remained chancellor.

Bismarck's foreign policy after 1871 was one of security and retrenchment. He knew that France would be unforgiving and revengeful, forever seeking an opportunity to regain Alsace and Lorraine. Of France alone he had little fear, but France in league with other powers; particularly Russia and Great Britain, would be formidable. Therefore, his consistent policy was to maintain a close military alliance with Austria-Hungary and cordial relations with Russia and Great Britain. In 1873, Bismarck formed the Three Emperor's League among Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. When the interests of Austria-Hungary and Russia proved to be incompatible, this league was replaced in 1879–1882 by the Triple Alliance among Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. A separate 'reinsurance treaty' of friendship and neutrality was made with Russia. Bismarck did not depend wholly on diplomacy. Throughout this period, the German military machine was made even more powerful.

In 1888 Wilhelm II (1888–1918) became Kaiser. Wilhelm II was 29 nine years of age when he ascended the throne. He had been brought up in the army, which was his first love. Egotistical and bombastic by nature, he was a dabbler in theology, history, and the arts and gave advice and instructions freely to the leading figures in those fields. He was also an eloquent and willing speaker and had his generous and humanitarian moments.

The young Kaiser's personality and policies soon clashed with those of Bismarck. In 1890, just two years after he became emperor, Wilhelm II accepted Bismarck's reluctant resignation as chancellor. The immediate cause of the break was a disagreement over the control of the ministry and the repeal of the anti-Socialist laws, which Bismarck wished to be continued. The real reason, however, was that there was simply not room enough in Germany for two such prima donnas. Bismarck's foreign policy was quickly reversed.

The reinsurance treaty with Russia was immediately allowed to lapse, as the Kaiser assumed a keen interest in extending German hegemony over the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, areas the Russians considered to be vital to their own interests and ambitions. In 1894, Russia formed an alliance with France, the very thing that Bismarck had worked so hard to prevent. Wilhelm II also soon alienated Great Britain. His extension of German influence in the Near East, particularly his Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad project, threatened an area in which Great Britain had many vital interests and through which ran its ‘lifeline’ to India and the Far East. In China, too, German interests began to rival those of the British.

It was Kaiser's naval policy, however, that alarmed the British the most. Wilhelm was an ardent and lifelong navalist. 'The waves beat powerfully at our national gates,' he cried, 'and call us as a great nation to maintain our place in the world …' Germany's ‘place in the sun’ was a favourite phrase of the Hohen-zollern emperor. The Reichstag voted an enormous naval building program that was steadily increased until in 1908 it called for 28 new battleships of the biggest and latest design. The purpose of this program was to give Germany a battle fleet so great that 'a war against the mightiest naval power would endanger the supremacy of that power.'

Great Britain, whose food supply as well as her empire depended on naval supremacy, took utmost alarm. Failing in efforts to reach an understanding with Kaiser's government, Britain launched a huge and costly naval building program of its own. In 1904 Britain joined France, and in 1907 Russia, in the Triple Entente, which was in reality a defensive military alliance. The interests and policies of Great Britain, France, and Russia had long been so discordant that nothing less than maximum alarm could have brought them together. Thus in 17 years Wilhelm had undone Bismarck's work and brought about the ‘encirclement’ of the fatherland by three of the world's greatest powers.

Germany's economic exploits under Bismarck and Wilhelm II were no less phenomenal than those in the military realm. In 1871, Great Britain was the world's leading nation in manufacturing and commerce; the Industrial Revolution was still in its early stages in Germany. By 1914, Germany was a close second to Great Britain in industry and commerce; in many areas, such as the production of steel and machinery, Germany had far outstripped Britain. In the up-and-coming chemical and electrical industries and in scientific agriculture and forestry, Germany was far advanced from all other nations. Germany was also first in the application of science to industry and in industrial and scientific research. By 1914, the German merchant marine had captured the lion's share of the lucrative transatlantic passenger traffic.

At a time when other industrial nations, particularly the United States, were beginning to restrict the giant monopolistic trusts, the German imperial government was encouraging and subsidising its cartels in order that they might compete more effectively with foreign companies. More and more of the world's market was captured by German business. 'Made in Germany' became a familiar mark from the Andean plateau to the Congo jungles. Germany's population, keeping pace with its economy, increased from 41 million in 1871 to 65 million in 1914. Meanwhile, heavy emigration (which had reached a peak in the 1880s of some 250,000 a year, most of it to the United States) dwindled to a mere trickle. In 1914, the number of German emigrants was less than the number of workers coming into Germany from neighbouring countries. Only the United States was keeping pace with Germany in overall economic advancement.

The industrialisation of Germany, although accompanied by the growth of a large and prosperous bourgeoisie, did not produce a tide of liberalism as it had in other Western industrialised nations. The middle classes allied themselves with the conservative government. Only the Social Democratic Party (working class) and the small and weak Progressive Party (intellectuals, professionals, and small-business people) advocated liberal or radical reforms. Even the Social Democratic Party, by 1914 the largest party in the empire, was inundated by the flood of nationalism that welled up during the international crises that preceded World War I.

Disintegration of Empires Through Emergence of Nationalities

Nationalism between 1871 and 1914 pulled the Austrian and Ottoman empires apart along language lines. After Austria's defeat by Prussia in 1866, the dominant German minority in Austria felt obliged to take into partnership the aggressive and restless Magyars of Hungary. The Ausgleich (compromise) of 1867 set up the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Each country had its own separate parliament. But the two were united under a common ruler, the head of the house of Hapsburg; common ministries of war, finance, and foreign affairs; and joint delegations from the two parliaments whose duty was to coordinate policies, wherever possible. This arrangement was essentially an alliance between the Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary against the Slavic, Rumanian, and Italian language groups, which constituted a majority of the total population of the dual monarchy. In effect, the Germans said to the Magyars: 'You take care of your subject language groups [mostly Slavs] and we will take care of ours'.

Austria followed a relatively moderate policy in dealing with its subject language groups. Cultural autonomy was granted, and the suffrage was gradually extended until in 1907 all adult males were given the vote. However, the subject people were more interested in nationalism than in democracy. The various language groups developed images of a glorious cultural and political past. The prosperous Czechs of Bohemia were especially adamant. The problem was confounded by the fact that many language groups had kinsmen outside the dual monarchy whom they wished to join and who deliberately stirred up their disloyalty. Such groups were the Italians, the Poles, the Ruthenians (Ukrainians), the Serbs, and the Rumanians. Parliamentary sessions in Austria frequently degenerated into shouting, inkstand-throwing melees among the various language groups. Moreover anti-semitism was growing in Austria, a development not unrelated to these problems among different ethnic groups.

Hungary made no pretence of conciliation. The Magyar aristocracy ruled over Slovak, Rumanian, Serb, and Croat minorities with an iron hand. The aristocracy also refused to permit its own Magyar masses to participate in the government. The nationalist discontent in Hungary was even greater than it was in Austria; the Yugo (southern) Slavs (Croats and Serbs) were particularly troublesome. This explosive nationalism threatened to blow the Austro-Hungarian monarchy apart and, because of the network of entangling alliances, to draw the other major powers into a world conflict.

Linguistic Groups of Austria-Hungary

The Balkan portion of the Ottoman Empire between 1871 and 1914 was a hornets' nest of nationalism. The hatred of the Christian Balkan language groups for their Moslem Turkish masters was equalled only by their distrust for each other. The once potent Ottoman Empire crumbled throughout the course of the 19th century, and one Balkan language group after another, now aflame with national pride and ambition, emerged as an independent nation. Meanwhile, all the great powers of Europe became involved in the strategic and troubled area of the Near East. Russia, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy had important imperial, economic, and military interests in the Balkans. In addition, Russia and Austria- Hungary had serious nationalistic interests there. Russia considered itself the big brother and protector of the Slavic-speaking Serbs and Bulgarians. Austria-Hungary's large Rumanian and Yugoslav populations desired union with their free kinsmen in Rumania and Serbia. Between 1829 and 1913 first the Greeks, then the Serbs, Rumanians, and Bulgarians, and finally the Albanians gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire. In each case, a major crisis occurred among the great powers. These Balkan crises became progressively more severe, until finally one crisis got out of control and exploded into World War I.

What is its Background? The Ottoman Empire enjoyed a supreme position in the Islamic world for over 600 years. Originally a nomadic tribe from central Asia, the Ottoman Turks gradually moved into the Islamic world in the Middle East. Their leader, Ottoman, gave them a political status. Having served as the slaves of the Sultans, the Turkish mercenaries moved into the interiors of Arabia and ultimately overthrew the Caliphs of Baghdad in the 13th century. With remarkable speed, they also brought a part of Europe under the control of the Ottoman emperor. The Ottoman Empire included most of the Middle East in the 19th century and was a cauldron of different peoples, cultures, religions and conflicting loyalties. The Empire was organised as a theocracy on the basis of ecclesiastical communities rather than ethnic groups. These communities, the most important of which were the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Jewish, were allowed considerable autonomy under their respective ecclesiastical leaders. Thus, for centuries the Muslim people (Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, etc) lived side by side with the Christian people (Serbs, Greeks, Bulgars and Rumanians) in semi-autonomous and self-sufficient communities. Non-Muslims did suffer some discrimination regarding dress, behaviour, living areas and higher taxes, but each community was allowed its own church, schools, language and local government as long as it accepted the authority of the emperor and paid taxes to his treasury. Because of this loose imperial organisation, Western ideas and pressures encountered a variety of cultures and conditions. As a result of this, the impact of the West on the Ottoman Empire was not uniform. Therefore, inanalysing the nature of that impact, it is important to take into account the marked variations in regional conditions and responses. For this reason we shall consider, not the Ottoman Empire as a whole, but rather its two main regions; the Balkan Peninsula with a predominantly Christian population and Asia Minor with its ruling Turkish population.

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Why did Balkan Nationalism Rise? The Balkan peoples were ruled by the Turks for nearly four centuries, but the various Balkan people vastly outnumbered the few Turks living in their midst. They lived in small groups and retained their own languages and religions. A revolt from such a group could have caused a lot of trouble for the Turks. But the Turks, during the early centuries, had no more trouble ruling their Christian subjects in the Balkans than they did ruling their Muslim subjects in Asia.

This relative peace was possible, it is said, because the Turkish rulers were benevolent and efficient compared to the Byzantine rulers and the Bulgarian and Serb princes who had once ruled the Balkans. Ottoman rule was stern, yet just; taxation was light, and non-Muslim enjoyed a degree of tolerance unparalleled in Christian Europe. But there was a drastic change in the situation during the 18th and 19th centuries. Ottoman power and efficiency declined leading to wide-spread corruption and extortion, which in turn drove the now oppressed and embittered Balkan Christians to take up arms in self-defence. At the same time, Balkan people were being affected and aroused by a variety of western influences. The West affected and influenced the Balkans earlier and more profoundly than any other ethnic group in the Ottoman Empire.

Being mostly Christians, they were more receptive to the Christian West than the Muslim Arabs and Turks. The geographical contiguity of Europe and the Balkans also made it easier for persons, ideas and goods to converge upon the Balkans from across the Danube and the Adriatic, Mediterranean and Black Seas. The growing demand for food imports in West Europe stimulated agriculture in the Balkans. The export of these commodities in turn led to the growth of a native Balkan mercantile class and mariners. This trade expansion also boosted the demand and output of handicrafts. Major manufacturing centres appeared in various parts of the peninsula. The rise of commerce and industry promoted the growth of a merchant marine along the Adriatic coast and amongst the Aegean Islands.

This new economic situation created a middle class of merchants, artisans, shipowners and mariners which was sympathetic to Western ideas and institutions. These people were dissatisfied with Ottoman rule which had become inefficient and corrupt. Mariners and merchants who travelled abroad contrasted the Enlightenment and security they witnessed in foreign lands with the squalor and deplorable conditions at home, and concluded that their own future and that of the Balkan people depended on the removal of the Turkish rule. An intellectual awakening began with the help of Serbian merchants in Southern Hungary, Bulgarian merchants in Southern Russia, and Greek merchants scattered in the major cities of Europe. This was achieved by the publication of books and newspapers in their native languages, by establishing schools and villages and by sending young men to foreign universities. This meant a shift in the kind of education too—no longer was it purely religious. Instead, it was profoundly influenced by the Enlightenment in Western Europe. During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, the influence of the West in the Balkans became directly political and inflammatory. The uprisings in Paris, the slogan of 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity' and the spectacle of Napoleon toppling one dynasty after another made a profound impression on the politically conscious sections of the Balkans.

How did It Rise and Grow? The pace of national awakening, however, varied greatly from one Balkan people to another. The Greeks were the first—their frequent contacts with the West, their classical Byzantine heritage which stimulated national pride, and their Greek Orthodox Church which represented and preserved national pride contributed to the early awakening. The Serbs, who enjoyed a high degree of local self-government as well as the stimulating influence of the large Serbian settlements in Southern Hungary, came next. These advantages of the Greeks and Serbs suggest the reasons for the slower rate of national revival among the Balkan peoples. The Bulgars had no direct ties with the West and were located near the Ottoman capital and the solid Turkish settlements in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia. The Rumanians suffered from a sharp social stratification which was unique in the Balkans and which produced a cultivated upper class and an inert peasant mass. The Albanians were the worst off, with their primitive tribal organisation and their division among three creeds—Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam.

These factors explain why there were separate uprisings ranging from the early 19th century to the early 20th century, instead of a common Balkan revolution against the Ottoman rule. The Greeks won complete independence from the Turks following the protracted War of Independence between 1821 and 1829. The Serbs, who revolted earlier in 1804, succeeded only in gaining an autonomous status within the Ottoman Empire in 1815. It was only in 1878 that Serbia gained full independence to become the kingdom of Serbia. The Rumanians came next, winning autonomy in 1859 and full independence in 1908. Three of these Balkan people—the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians—came together in 1912 to drive the Turks out of the peninsula. They were successful, and despite a fratricidal war amongst the victors, the Turks were compelled in 1913 to surrender all their remaining territories in the Balkans with the exception of an enclave stretching around the straits from Constantinople to Adrianople.

The Ottoman Empire's frontiers shrank gradually from the walls of Vienna in 1683 to the Danube in 1815, to the mid-Balkans in 1878, and to the environs of Constantinople in 1913. Instead the independent Balkan states took its place—Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria and in 1912, Albania.

What was The Western Impact on the Turks? The West affected the Turks much later and much less than it did the Balkan Christians. The most important reason for this was the Turks' religion (Islam), and their lack of a native middle class. For the Balkan people their faith was a bond with the West, but for the Turks it became a barrier and a formidable one because of the long history of antagonism between Christianity and Islam. The Turks were not affected by the West, also because they had not developed their own middle class. They had no interest in or respect for commercial pursuits, so that the Ottoman bourgeoisie was largely Greek, American and Jewish. The Turks, in contrast, were either peasants (apathetic to change), teachers and judges in the Muslim ecclesiastical organisation (which meant they were bitterly anti-Western) or they were office holders in the imperial bureaucracy (in which case they had a stake in allowing the status quo to continue). In contrast to the many voices of progress in Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, the situation in Turkey was a difficult one.

With no comparable middle class, the few who spoke for reform among the Turks found themselves without a following. However, progress would not be denied and during the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was penetrated, influenced and controlled by the West in numerous direct and indirect ways. One of the most effective and earliest channels of influence was the military and the Turks found it necessary to adopt European techniques for self-preservation. In the latter half of the 19th century, the westerners actively encouraged the Turks to modernise their military in order to block Russian expansion into the Middle East. It was inevitable that at least some of the young men who went to foreign universities and military academies to study learnt about western ideologies as well as western military techniques. Thus, it was not surprising that when the old Ottoman regime was finally overthrown in 1908, the coup was executed, not by a political party or a mass movement, but by an army clique.

Where religion was concerned too, the Muslim Middle East was affected by the West. Missionaries began preaching and founding schools throughout the empire. By 1875, American missionaries alone had 240 schools with 8000 pupils. Most of the latter were Armenians and other Christians, but a fair number of Turkish students were to be found in the foreign colleges in the empire. The Turks too had, by this time, established several institutions of higher learning and the Turkish press was also rapidly developing during these years. From only one official and one semi-official weekly in the entire empire in 1859, the press grew to three daily papers and several weeklies by 1882.

As significant as the cultural compact was the economic intrusion of the West into the Ottoman Empire. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 once again placed the Ottoman Empire on the main trade route between Europe and Asia. The Ottoman Empire was slipping at the same time into the deep debt of European governments and private financiers. The first loan was contracted in 1854 and by 1875 their debts totalled 200 million pounds. Almost 12 million pounds were required to meet annuities, interest, and sinking fund, a sum that amounted to a little more than half the total revenues of the empire. This was too heavy a load, and soon some of the interest payments were defaulted, whereupon in 1881 the Europeans imposed the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. This body consisted mainly of foreign representatives and was entrusted with the revenues from various monopolies and customs duties for the service of the imperial debts.

Besides this hold over public finances in the Ottoman Empire, the foreign powers had control over the Turkish banking and railway systems, irrigation works, mining enterprises, and municipal public utilities. In addition, the empire was subject to extra-territorial privileges that foreigners enjoyed in the empire since the 15th century. The privileges included exemption from personal imports and customs tariffs. The latter were set at a very low level and could not be raised by the Ottoman government without the consent of the European powers, which normally was not forthcoming. Thus we may conclude that the Ottoman Empire was in a semi-colonial economic relationship with Europe.

What was Its Outcome? It is not possible to precisely measure the effect of all these western pressures and controls but there can be no doubt that they gradually cracked the long impregnable and monolithic Islamic structure. Canals, railways, banks, missionaries, schools and newspapers form that background and also provide the explanation for a literary and intellectual awakening that occurred amongst the Turks in the latter half of the 19th century.

The best known among the leaders of this awakening are Ibrahim Shinassi, Namik Kamal, and Abdul Hamid Ziya. These men did not agree on all issues but they had all lived in Western Europe, been influenced by western thought and literature, as well as by its material achievements. By 1865 a group of young western-minded writers formed around the newspaper 'Mushbir'. This paper championed, among other things, the introduction of some form of constitutional government. The imperial regime did not like this and suppressed the paper in 1867. The editor and his colleagues were forced to flee to Paris and London, where they continued their attacks on the imperial regime.

At this time it was realised by some Turkish statesmen that a comprehensive reform programme along western lines was essential for the survival of the empire. Rashid Pasha (1802–58) and Midhat Pasha (1822–84), both of whom served as grand wazirs and issued numerous reform decrees, are the most outstanding. Midhat Pasha took advantage of a domestic financial crisis and a revolution in the Balkans in May 1876, to force Sultan Abdul Aziz to abdicate. He then prepared a constitution providing for an elected parliament, a bill of rights and an independent judiciary. The new Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, was forced to accept the constitution, but had no intention of abiding by it. He dismissed Midhat from Constantinople. The only stirrings of protest were a few placards on walls. Turkish reformers were still faced with mass inertia as a result of which Abdul Hamid was able to rule unchallenged for the remainder of the century.

Abdul Hamid retained power during those tumultuous decades by relentlessly fighting the disruptive forces of nationalism and constitutionalism. He discouraged travel and study abroad, maintained a vast horde of informers, and censored the press. His agents periodically flushed out groups of disaffected elements who fled to Paris for refuge, from where they published periodicals and pamphlets criticising Hamid's autocracy. This group became popular in Western Europe as the 'Young Turk' group. These exiles were joined by revolutionary leaders of the various subject peoples under Hamid, including Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Albanians, Kurds and Jews. Representatives of all these nationalities held a congress in Paris in February 1902, with the aim of organising a common front against autocracy. But they soon discovered that their consensus was confined to a dislike of the Sultan. On all other issues there was discord. While one group wanted Turkish predominance, and centralised rule, another favoured decentralisation with power to the subject peoples.

While the exiled intelligentsia quarrelled, reform-minded Turkish army officers were taking concrete steps to break the Sultan's hold on the empire. Many had studied abroad or had come in contact with western military missions within the empire and had realised that the Sultan's policies were outmoded and dangerous. They, therefore, organised the Ottoman Society of Liberty with headquarters in Soloniki. Army officers were key figures in the group though other groups, especially the wealthy and numerous Jews of Saloniki, also helped them. The society was organised into groups of five, so that no one knew more than four members.

A new member had to be sponsored by a member and was closely watched during probation. This group finally revolted openly in July 1908. They sent an ultimatum to the Sultan, threatening to march upon Constantinople unless the 1876 constitution was restored within 24 hours. On the advice of his state council, Hamid proclaimed the restoration of the constitution. The news was greeted with great rejoicing and Christians and Turks embraced in the streets. But the euphoria did not last long. The issue of centralisation vs decentralisation that divided the Parisian exiles came up and had to be dealt with immediately. Then there was the conservative group which distrusted all Young Turks, the new leaders. Things came to a head and on April 12, 1909, when the conservatives staged a counter-revolution in Constantinople and seized control. However, the Young Turks gathered forces in Macedonia, marched on Constantinople, captured the city and forced Hamid to abdicate. Instead they placed Mohammed V on the throne. The new Sultan by his own admission had not read a newspaper in 10 years. He served as a pliable figurehead for the Young Turks who were now the masters.

In the few years prior to the World War I they tried to strengthen and modernise their empire, but with little success. They attempted centralisation as well as Turkification and tried to promote loyalty to the Sultan and the Ottoman Empire rather than to the several nationalities within the empire. People resisted this and were passionately opposed to centralisation. The awakening of the Arabs, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians and others would not be denied. Once again the cycle of repression and revolt was put in motion.

The Albanians revolted in 1910. Two years later, the Balkan States united to form a league and turned on the Turks. Meanwhile, Italy attacked the Ottoman province of Tripoli in Africa in 1911. Finding themselves continually at war until 1914, the Young Turks decided to join the Central Powers in the World War I.

It is apparent, then, that the efforts of the Turks to adjust to the West had proven ineffective. Because of religious and historical traditions, they had shown great resistance to the West, and for that very reason they had also ended up much more vulnerable. They did not develop their own industry, so that their armed forces remained dependent on western arms as well as western instructors. Indeed the Ottoman Empire survived World War I because of the conflicting interests and policies of the Great Powers rather than because of its own strength.

The Crimean War (1854–56)

Why did It Take Place? The apparent reason for the outbreak of the Crimean War was the dispute between France and Russia about the Holy Places and the protection of Latin and Orthodox Christians in Turkey, but it soon involved the whole tangled knot of the 'Eastern Question'. A question of prestige between France and Russia, it also became a clash between Russian efforts to control the Turkish government and British fears of Russian expansion. Inevitably, this aroused Franco-British anxieties to maintain the balance of power by safeguarding Turkish integrity. The original dispute was trivial, in itself no justification for breaking the 40 years' peace and ruining the Concert of Europe.

The two years of prolonged manoeuvres which preceded hostilities point out that the powers were not too willing to begin war in 1854. In 1852, the Turkish government, bowing to French pressure, recognised the full claims of the Latin Christians in the Holy Land to take part in the administration of the disputed sanctuaries. Taking cue from this, the Czar of Russia, besides moving troops towards the borders of Turkey, sent in 1853 to Constantinople a special commission, entrusted with the task of getting as clear a treaty right for Russia to protect the Greek Orthodox Church as France already enjoyed to safeguard the Roman Catholic Church in Ottoman territories. But the Czar's hope of realising Russian aims without general war was dashed by the course of events. When the Sultan of Turkey, on advice from the British ambassador, made concessions about the Holy Places but firmly refused to recognise a general Russian protectorate over Christians in the Balkans, the Russian Commission left Constantinople and the Russian armies reoccupied Maldavia and Wallachia.

Even then the powers led by Austria tried to prevent war and called for a conference at Vienna. Their efforts were not successful and in October 1853, Turkey declared war on Russia. When a Russian fleet destroyed a Turkish naval squadron, Britain and France, pressurised by their public, declared war on Russia (March 1854).

How did It Take Place? Soon, Russian forces retreated from Maldavia and Wallachia due to Austrian threat of attack. These provinces were at once taken over by Austria, which held them until they were restored to Turkey at the end of the war. With the removal of the immediate provocation of the war, peace could have been established. But both sides felt too heavily committed to withdraw so soon. National honour was involved, and war continued with a combined attack of Turks, French and British on the Russian naval base of Sebastopol on the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula. But the allied command conducted the seize of Sebastopol in a very clumsy manner and this enabled the Russians to prepare fortifications that held the attackers at bay for a whole year until September 1855. As the campaign dragged on, the diplomatic scene underwent changes, with Austria and Piedmont joining the allies. When Austria threatened to enter the war, Czar Alexander II (who had succeeded Nicholas I in March 1855) decided to come to terms and because the strain of war was already telling on the peace settlement in February 1856.

Crimean War

What was Its Outcome? The 1856 settlement was related partly to the immediate conduct between the powers. Turkey's integrity was recognised and it was agreed that no power had the right to come bet¬ween the Sultan and his Christian subjects. Turkey was admitted to the 'Public Law and System (Concert) of Europe', which indicated that for the first time she was brought within the ranks of the Great Powers and accepted as a component in the balance of power. It was also decided that the Black Sea was neutralised with its waters and ports kept open to merchant ships of all nations, but the Straits were closed to foreign warships during peace time.

Both Turkey and Russia were required to make some concessions in the territorial settlement. Russia gave up a part of the province of Bessarabia, which now became part of Maldavia. The principalities of Maldavia and Wallachia were to continue to enjoy their former privileges and immunities. The Turkish Sultan promised to grant them considerable degree of independence and selfgovernment under supervision of a special commission of the powers. Another Danubian principality, Serbia, was to enjoy similar rights under the collective guarantee of the powers. In these respects, the settlement blocked further steps towards the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

The primary importance of the 1856 settlement lay in its attempts to solve the issues of tension which had caused the first general war in 40 years: the relations between the Turkish government and its subjects and between Russia and Turkey; the question of the Straits and of the Danube; and the breakdown of the Concert of Europe. None of these issues could be solved permanently.

Turkish power went on diminishing and Turkish promises were often violated. Russian ambitions in the Balkan and the Black Sea did not cease. The Concert of Europe had received a serious blow, and soon other wars followed. The outcome of the Crimean War was as indecisive as its outset had been casual.

What is Its Place in History? In long-term perspective, the Crimean War was a strange combination of recurrent and of unusual features in European history. In so far as it was a war between Russia and Turkey, it was but one of the long series of Russo-Turkish Wars, roughly one every generation, beginning from 1760–74, 1787–92, 1806–12, 1828–29 and going on to 1877–78. They were the consequence of the constant pressure put on Turkey by Russian desire to extend influence into the Black Sea, the Balkans and the Mediterranean.

In so far as it involved a western invasion of Russia, it was likewise one of a long historic sequence that included: the invasions of Napoleon in 1812, of the Germans in 1916–18, the western allies in 1919–20, and Hitler in 1941–44. On the other hand, it was the first war of recent times in which Britain and France fought on the same side, the first in which women, led by Florence Nightingale, took an important part; the first to which the telegraph and press exerted any influence on the course of events.

This combination of familiar and novel features suggests its intermediate position in the history of modern Europe, just as the indecisiveness of its achievements fixes its significance in diplomatic history. It was fought not so much for Turkey as against Russia. Europe, in the decade after 1848, stood at the parting of the ways. The old concert was fading away, the balance of power was beginning to shift, and the new era of realism was beginning to see the daylight.

The Young Turk Movement

What was it? The Young Turks were Ottoman patriots, staunch supporters of the process of westernisation which Abdul Hamid II had attempted to keep away from his dominions. Many of the younger generation of Turkish noble families were inspired by the western liberal ideas. They had come to believe that successful action against the Sultan lay not in independent acts of terrorism but in the winning over of part of his armed forces to their movement. Their objective was the revival of the abortive liberal constitution of 1876. Their 'Committee of Union and Progress' undertook a rigorous propaganda against the Sultan, and by July 1908 won over the ill-paid and disillusioned Third Army Corps stationed at Saloniki. Aided by the Second Army Crops, they declared the constitution revived and marched on Constantinople.

Faced with so formidable a military revolt, Abdul overnight converted himself into a fulldress constitutional monarch by stopping all censorship of the press and by calling a national parliament on the basis of universal suffrage. The sudden and completeness of his volteface surprised everyone, and amid universal rejoicing the Young Turks seized all offices, and elections were conducted.

The Young Turks formed a managing committee, under the leadership of Envor Bey, which came to wield all the powers. The new parliament lacked any political experience and became a rubber stamp for Young Turks. Abdul bided his time, mobilising against the new regime all the forces of conservatism and all who were disappointed with the amateurishness and selfishness of the new powers. By April 1909, he was strong enough to lead a counter-revolution, which regained Constantinople and overthrow the new government. But the Young Turks rallied the army once again and recaptured the capital after five hours of fighting. This time they persuaded the parliament to depose Abdul Hamid in favour of his more amenable younger brother, Mohammad V, and Abdul withdraw to a remote place. Mohammad was the ideal figurehead for Young Turkish rule, blending the formalities of legitimist succession with a passive acqueisance in whatever his ministers desired. The extent to which the Young Turks were to disappoint liberal and nationalisthopes, and to prove no less brutal and tyrannical toward subject nationalities than their predecessor soon became clear. But more important were the immediate consequences of their weak-nesses.

What was The Outcome? The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina formally by Austria (she had hitherto administered them under the terms of the Berlin Treaty) was the first immediate result of the Young Turk Movement. This naturally ignited Serbian nationalist feelings, because there lived one million Serbs in these provinces, and Serbia changed from a friend of Austria into her foe. Though all the powers objected to this violation of the terms of the Berlin Treaty by Austria, the latter ignored them due to German support. At the same time Bulgaria announced her complete independence from Turkey. So, as a result of the whole crisis, Bulgaria emerged more closely tied to Russia, Serbia more violently hostile to Austria and therefore by reaction more likely to look to Russia for future support (because of the Slavic connection).

The capture of Tripoli (modern Libya) by Italy in 1911 was another important result. Within Italy had grown up a nationalist and colonial party, determined to assert Italy's claims along side that of France (which had occupied Tunisia in the 1880's) for colonial possessions in North Africa. When the Italian troops attacked Libya, the Turkish troops there retreated to the interior and refused to make peace. So the war prolonged and might have gone against Italy, if it was not for the outbreak of another war in the Balkans which forced the Turks to cede Tripoli and make peace. Italy gained little glory from the war, but yet another part of the Ottoman Empire had fallen away.

One more important consequence of the Young Turk Movement was in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The experience of the inexperienced and tyrannical Young Turkish rule caused Greeks, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bulgars to unite into the common front of the Balkan League. The war of 1912 was especially the crescendo of Balkan nationalism, forced into a common cause by Turkish intransigence and forced by the complete problems of Macedonia, the hill country lying between Greece, Albania, Serbia and Bulgaria and containing national minorities of all its neighbours.

In Macedonia the Christians suffered oppression on account of Turkification. They provoked the national sentiments of the fellow Christians in the Balkans, so that Macedonia could become free from the Turkish rule. So the four Balkan states (Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria), after forming a league for joint action against Turkey, attacked her from different sides. In no time they occupied the whole of Turkey, and Constantinople was itself in danger. At this crucial juncture, the Big Powers intervened and peace was signed. According to the Treaty of London (1913), Turkey had to give up all her European territory except that was around Constantinople. Albania became free from Turkey as desired by Austria to see that Serbia became a land-locked country, when the Balkan states began to quarrel over the distribution of spoils. Turkey joined war against Bulgaria with a desire to recover her lost territory. When Bulgaria was defeated and the Treaty of Bucharest was concluded, Turkey got back Adrianople and part of Thrace. Thus, the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 widened the Christian states by snatching away the Turkish territory in the peninsula. But the Balkan problem continued into the World War I.

Chapter 5 Imperialism and Colonialism

Geographical Discoveries

In 1400, had still seemed sensible to see Jerusalem as the centre of the world. For men pictured a world made up of only three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa) around the shores of one landlocked sea, the Mediterranean. A huge revolution lay just ahead which forever swept away such views and the route to it lay across the oceans, because elsewhere advance was blocked. Europe's first direct contacts with the East had been mostly on land than on water. Central Asian caravan routes were their primary channel and brought goods west to be shipped from Black Sea or Levant ports. Elsewhere, ships rarely ventured far south of Morocco until the 15th century. Then, a mounting wave of maritime enterprise becomes noticeable and it begins the age of true world history.

One explanation of it was the growing knowledge of new tools and skills. Better ships and new techniques of long-range navigation were essential for ocean going and they became available from the 14th century onwards. All these developments facilitated the great effort of exploration which has led to the 15th century being called the 'Age of Renaissance'.

The Portuguese were bound to be seafarers. Their coastline is dotted with little harbours and river mouths from which, in the 14th century, there emerged swarms of ships to trade. Surrounded by Spain and virtually barred from the Mediterranean trade by the experienced and powerful Italian merchants, they were forced unwittingly into the Atlantic. This was the starting of the 'Age of Discovery', and its heart was systematic, government-spon-sored research. The Portuguese pushed steadily south. In 1473, they sailed over the Equator and in 1487 reached the Cape of Good Hope. Ahead lay the Indian Ocean, which now became a geographical reality to Europeans. Finally, in 1498, Vasco da Gama dropped anchor at Calicut on the west coast of India.

By that time, another sailor, Columbus, had crossed the Atlantic in search of Asia. He instead discovered the Americas for the Spanish Crown in 1492. Soon, though Columbus to his dying day refused to admit it, it began to be realised that this was not Asia after all. In 1494, the term 'New World' came to be used for the first time to his discoveries. In 1522, 30 years after Columbus's great discoveries, a ship in Spanish service but commanded by a Portuguese, Magellan, completed the first voyage round the world. With this voyage and its demonstration that all the great oceans were interconnected, the prologue to the European age can be considered over.

A mere hundred years of discovery and exploration had drastically altered the shape of the world and the course of history. From now onwards the countries with access to the Atlantic would fare much better than the land-locked powers of Central Europe and the Mediterranean. In the first place this meant Spain and Portugal, but they would be joined and surpassed by France, Holland and above all, England. These Western European countries had a number of harbours incomparably placed at the centre of the newly enlarged hemisphere, all of them easily accessible from their shallow hinterland, and within easy reach of all the great European sea routes of the next 200 years.

The astonishing aspect of this development is its cumulative and systematic nature. European expansion in the next phase of world history would be conscious and directed as it had never been before. Europeans had always desired land and gold: the greed that goaded enterprise was not new. Nor was the religious zeal which occasionally motivated them and sometimes cloaked their springs of action even from the actors themselves. What was new was an increasing confidence emanating from knowledge and success. In 1500 Europeans were on the threshold of an age in which their energy and confidence would grow ostensibly without limit. The world did not come to them; they went out to it and took it. Soon, discovery would be followed by conquest. A world revolution was beginning. An equilibrium which had lasted a thousand years was dissolving and its disappearance was to be made manifest in the next two centuries.

What Were Geographical Discoveries? The period from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century is known as the 'Age of Discovery'. For during this period many voyages of exploration were undertaken and many new sea routes, new lands and continents were discovered. The people who undertook these voyages of exploration were led by the same renaissance spirit of curiosity that had already led to new developments in literature, science, government and religion. The main motivation behind these voyages was the profits that (demonstrated by Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India) made governments and financiers to undertake the organisation of voyages on a scale that was unimaginable before. The Mediterranean Sea was the limit of the known world to the people living in the Ancient and Medieval Europe, but gradually the more venturesome extended their activities beyond the bounds of that great inland-sea to the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, civilisation passed from an inland-sea stage to an oceanic stage, and sailors turned their ships both towards the Americas and the Far East.

What Were the Motives Behind Them? The single most important factor was the prospects of new and more lucrative trade. Until the 11th century, trade except that which was confined to the Western Mediterranean, was monopolised by the Muslims. Italian traders gradually made in-roads until they gained possession of some of the profitable commerce with the cities of Egypt and Syria. The Muslims, continuing to bring products from the Orient, sold them to Italian merchants. The prosperity of the Italian cities that had grown rich from this trade aroused the envy of other European countries, and they longed to have a share in this profitable trade, especially in spices. The writings of Marco Polo made Europeans aware of the East and its riches. Further stories about new lands found their way into Western Europe; and this led some venturesome sailors to make plans for finding it.

Europeans were in need of more produce to support a growing population. There was a shortage of spices (which were essential for the Europeans to preserve their food before the technological revolution), drugs, cottons, gold, silver and precious stones. Commerce from the Far East came to Europe through three major routes — the Southern route following the Red Sea and proceeding overland to the Nile and Northern Egypt; the middle route passing through the Persian Gulf and up the Euphrates river to Syria and the Black Sea Coast: and the northern one across Central Asia to the Caspian and Black Seas. The expense and hazards of these routes, combined with the difficulties after the capture of Constantinople (Capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire) by the Turks in 1453, compelled the Europeans to look for an all-water route to the East.

The European Renaissance, which marked the end of the Medieval Age and the beginning of the Modern Age in Europe, led the Europeans not only to effect new developments in literature, science, government and religion, but also to adventure and discovery of new lands and routes. The people in Medieval Europe were conservative, narrow-minded and superstitious mainly due to the then prevailing socioeconomic and political system, viz., the feudal system. Due to renaissance, there was a desire among the people to broaden their mental outlook. As a result, many people became enthusiastic and enterprising, and undertook difficult sea voyages to discover new lands and new routes.

Marco Polo's Route

There was a significant growth of geographical knowledge in the 14th and 15th centuries as is evidenced from the large number of books on travel that were written during this period. 'A Merchant's Handbook', written by a Florentine (Italian), described all the known trade routes between Western Europe and the Far East. 'Secrets of the Faithful Crusader', written by a Venetian (also an Italian), told about Asiatic cities. Other books on travel, including the 'Far East', the 'Holy Lands', and 'Africa', found their way into the homes of many European, long before Columbus started his voyage that resulted in the discovery of America. Amerigo Vespucci, who was also an Italian and who further explored the areas discovered by Columbus, wrote an account of his voyages that stimulated interest in the Americas. The Medieval theory that the earth was flat was gradually discarded and books that depicted the earth as a sphere began to appear. This belief that the earth is round and that one can arrive in the East by sailing westward further stimulated explorations.

Certain scientific developments too occurred during this period; facilitating the voyages of exploration and discovery. Before the end of the 13th century, the mariner's compass (which was a Chinese invention) was introduced into Europe, and men were no longer left to the mercy of a fine night and the stars to determine the direction in which they were sailing. The sailors could now undertake long voyages far from the sight of land. There was an improvement in ship-building too, which made ships more sea-worthy. Map-making became more accurate which was useful for the sailors. All these scientific developments made possible voyages that would have been out of the question in earlier times.

The demands of religion, i.e., the desire to spread Christianity also gave an impetus to geographical discoveries. While the merchants and traders were searching for an all-water route to the East, the Christian priests and monks were eager to carry the Christian religion to foreign and un-chartered lands. As a result, merchants and missionaries quite often travelled together to the remotest parts of the world.

When and How Were They Made? One main land-water route to the Far East remained after Constantinople was closed. This route from Western Europe led across the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandria in Egypt. From there, goods were carried by Arab Caravans around Turkey and into the Far Eastern trading lands. But it was a dangerous journey. Traders faced the loss of their goods and their lives to bandit gangs. The Italians, located in the centre of the Mediterranean, made good use of the Egyptian route. Portugal, Spain, England, France and Holland wanted to end Italy's hold on the trade routes and find an all-water route to the Far East. Students of navigation set out to solve this problem.

Prince Henry, the Navigator (1394–1460), the son of a Portuguese king, built a school for seamen on the coast of Portugal where many young men learned the secrets of the sea. Henry talked with travellers who had visited distant lands. He invented or helped improve navigational instruments such as the astrolabe, quadrant and compass. These instruments were used to determine directions and distances by reading the stars and pointing out directions on maps and charts. Using the lessons learned from Prince Henry, Portuguese sea-captains made their nation the leader of sea trade. Prince Henry told fearful captains that there were no sea monsters. 'Go forth', Henry told his captains, 'Explore, trade'.

Some daring sea-captains believed that an all-water route to India could be found around the southern tip of Africa. Many sailed down Africa's west coast but turned back because of heavy storms off Africa's northwestern hump. India did not lie straight ahead, as they expected, but the course turned east still along the African coast. First to reach and round the cape at Africa's tip was Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese captain, in 1487. He rode out the coastal storms and continued his journey when the course swung south again. Finally, he viewed open water stretching far to the east. Diaz had reached Africa's tip. He wanted to call it the Cape of Storms, but Portugal's King John II said, 'We will call it the Cape of Good Hope', as it is named today. Only a threatened mutiny by his crew kept Diaz from sailing around the cape into the Indian Ocean where India and the east lay ahead.

Christopher Columbus believed that the world was round and that by sailing west he could reach India and the Far East. He thought the distance was shorter than it really was. He also had no idea that vast, unknown continents lay between Europe and India. After studying the lessons of Prince Henry, the Navigator, he sought monetary backing for a westward voyage. Finally, Columbus won the support of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. They provided $ 30,000 to outfit three small ships; the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. On 3 August 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, and headed southwest.

Columbus stopped for a month in the Canary Islands for supplies and repairs, then headed west. Five weeks passed, and Columbus's crew of 88 sailors, fearful and restless, threatened mutiny and even considered throwing 'that crazy captain' overboard. Then birds were seen and tree branches floated by — sure signs of land. Shortly, a small flat island with palms and tropical plants was sighted. Columbus went ashore and claimed the island in the name of Spain. He named the island San Salvador (Holy Saviour). Today it is believed to be Watling Island, in the present Bahamas. But Columbus thought he had reached islands off India, calling them the Indies and the natives Indians. Columbus sailed on and reached Cuba and Hispaniolas (today's Dominican Republic and Haiti).

Returning to Spain, Columbus was hailed as a hero. He made three more voyages to the West between 1493 and 1504, sailing along the coast of South America, and made one short stop in Central America. After Queen Isabella's death, Columbus could not find backers for further explorations. Living in poverty, a lonely, forgotten man, Columbus died in 1506, still believing he had reached off-shore lands of India. Although he never knew that the land he had reached was a New World, other people studying the voyages began to think so.

His voyage was a breakthrough to new lands holding much promise. Rulers of powerful European nations sent explorers to new lands to seek riches and claim territory. At first one of the main goals of the explorers was to find a northwest passage through the new lands to provide a trade route to the Far East.

To settle claims between Portugal and Spain, Pope Alexander VI in 1493 declared a Line of Demarcation, or dividing line, through the Atlantic Ocean. The line ran from North to South, about 250 miles west of the Azores islands (the line later moved 1,000 miles farther west). The Pope ruled that Spain had rights to lands discovered west of the line and Portugal owned those discovered to the east. France, England and the Netherlands did not observe the Demarcation Line.

Beginning in 1497, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, made four trips to the South American coast. He wrote an account of its geography and the natives. A German geographer later named the land America, after the Latin version of Vespucci's first name, Amerigo. Later John Cabot, an Italian sailing for England in two voyages (1497–1498), sailed along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. He landed on the present Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia. Cartier, sailing for France in search of a northwest passage, explored the St. Lawrence River to the present sites of Montreal and Quebec in Canada.

Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese captain, was the first to make an all-sea voyage from Europe to India. From 1497–1498, da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa and continued to reach Calicut on the Malabar Coast of India. Da Gama gained great wealth from trading in India. In 1500, another Portuguese captain, named Pedro Alvarez Cabral, set out to sail for India. Strong winds blew him so far west that Cabral ended up on the coast of present Brazil in South America. Portugal's claim to the country was recognised by other nations.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa in 1513 was the leader of a group of Europeans and Africans who became the first men to see the Pacific Ocean from the American side. The expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic side to reach the Pacific. From 1532–1536, Francisco Pizarro invaded the Inca Empire in Peru, South America. Pizarro also seized gold and silver worth millions and shipped them back to Spain.

King Francis I of France in 1524 sent Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian, to find a northwest passage to Asia. Instead, Verrazano found present New York Bay and Manhattan Island. In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman, was sent by Holland on a search for a northwest passage. Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, into New York Bay and up the wide river now named after him, the Hudson.

Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese captain, led a Spanish expedition which, from 1519 to 1522, sailed around the world. The voyage followed the western route, from Spain across the Atlantic, around South America and across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, around Africa, and back to Spain. Magellan was killed in a fight with natives in Philippine Islands.

What was the Outcome? The people who undertook the voyages of discovery were the true pioneers who staked their lives. The risks they took were even greater than those of today's astronauts. Though their primary object behind all those life-risking was profit, their discoveries changed man's idea of the world, revolutionised trade, and started a wave of colonising that has determined the course of world history ever since, besides facilitating the transformation of the feudal society into a modern one.

The geographical discoveries led to a massive revival of trade and commerce, both internal and external, in the 16th and 17th centuries, which has been generally termed as the 'Commercial Revolution'. With the discovery of the 'New World' (the Americas), there began an unprecedented inflow of huge quantities of bullion (gold and silver) from the New World to Europe. And with the discovery of new sea routes to the east, spices from the east began to flood the European market. In the initial years, i.e., before the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the Europeans bought Eastern goods with the bullion that they had acquired from the Americas. The above developments led to the introduction of new crops and goods in Europe from the Americas (such as tobacco, maize, quinine, potato, tomato, etc.,) and from the east (such as spices, sugarcane, tea, coffee, silk, opium, cotton, etc.). Thus, commercial relations were established on a large scale between Europe on the one hand, and the Americas and the East on the other.

They also paved the way for the beginning of capitalism in Europe. Besides the existing industries, several new industries that were connected with the processing of the new goods (tobacco, tea, sugarcane, cotton, etc.) began to spring up. All the ingredients that the new as well as the old industries required were acquired from the New World and the east in a variety of ways: by military plunder; forced unequal trade with primitive tribesmen; and imposition of taxes, tributes and trade restrictions on both natives and colonies overseas. Further, the Commercial Revolution that began with the geographical discoveries also helped to accelerate capitalism by evolving the modern currency system, joint-stock companies, banking system and financial markets.

The transformation of the European socio-political set-up from a feudal one into a modern one was another important result. Progress in trade and commerce gave rise to the middle classes that became wealthy and prosperous. As such their influence in society and politics increased tremendously and they got many privileges. They became the backbone of the European society, and began to dominate the social order. The success of the middle classes in acquiring political power and social prestige, in alliance with the kings led to the gradual decline of the feudal lords and the assertion of absolute powers by the kings.

They also started a wave of colonisation and exploitation that has determined the course of world history ever since. Wherever the explorers went, the flag of their nation soon followed. The first conquerors were Spain and Portugal. However, soon the English, the French and the Dutch followed suit, and set up colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. They brought the natives of these lands under their sway, and exploited them politically as well as economically. One more tragic part of the colonisation was the trade in human beings. The people of the newly discovered areas in Africa were enslaved and transported to the newly discovered areas in the Americas. The slave trade brought immense profits to the slave traders. Though this new system of exploitation was first practiced by only the Spaniards and the Portuguese, it was later adopted by all the other Europeans.

The geographical discoveries also led to the propagation and spread of Christianity to new lands and people. The explorers were followed not only by the flag of their nation but also its missionaries. Many explorers even sincerely believed that their main aim was to carry the 'word of God and knowledge of His son to the far corners of the globe'. Thus the geographical discoveries provided the Christian missionaries new fields for the propagation of their faith, and they achieved quite a bit of success in this, of course, with the direct (e.g., Portuguese) or the indirect (e.g., British) support of their government.

There are certain other results of the geographical discoveries. As a result of the discovery of the Americas and Africa, the Atlantic Ocean became the main highway of international trade, and European towns on the Atlantic, such as Lisbon, London, Amsterdam, etc., increased in their importance. As a result of the increase in European trade and industry, there was a remarkable improvement in the standards of living of the Europeans, of course, at the cost of the people of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Finally, as a result of these discoveries, there began a fierce competition for colonial possessions and wealth among the Europeans. That is why, we find a number of commercial wars breaking out between England and Spain, between Spain and France, and between Holland and Portugal.

Meaning, Nature And Stages of Colonialism

During the age of royal absolutism, the European nations intensified their competition for overseas possessions and commerce. They were spurred on in large part by the riches that flowed to Europe from these possessions but also by a conviction that overseas possessions enhanced the power of nations. Whereas Spain and Portugal had led the way beyond the Atlantic frontier during the 16th century, England, France, and the Netherlands threw themselves vigorously into colonising and commercial expansion in various quarters of the globe during the 17th and 18th centuries. The newcomers indeed outstripped their older rivals and established themselves as the leading European colonial powers. As large as the world beyond Western Europe was, the competition for it led to struggles among the leading European powers; the outcome of these struggles decisively affected the power relationships among the competing nations. And while the Europeans colonised, traded, and competed around the globe, European civilisation spread with them, impacting with varying results on the native populations encountered by the Europeans. The 17th and 18th centuries marked a decisive turning point in the establishment of Western European domination over much of the world. No less significantly, European expansion laid the basis for a global economy.

What is Colonialism and Imperialism? No simple definition can convey aptly the meaning of the term 'Colonialism', for its usage has tended to reflect changing moral judgments. During the early modern period, the term was applied only to colonies of white settlers and was used in either of the two morally neutral ways, viz., a feature distinct of such colonies or the political status of a dependency as different from the metropolis (i.e., parent state). Its 20th century usage in the sense of a colonial system resulted from its adoption as part of the verb ammunition of the age of decolonisation. In this it suffered the fate of 'Imperialism', which after 1900, was adopted by critics of European expansion to serve ideological purposes and used incorrectly to suggest both the annexation of territories and their subsequent state of subordination. By the mid-20th century, colonialism also began to be used in this derogatory sense. Both terms were gradually refined and distinguished.

While 'Imperialism' came to denote the driving force of European empire-building and, for Marxists, the special nature of capitalist societies that acquires empires, 'Colonialism' described the resultant complex of political and economic controls imposed on dependencies. Colonialism, therefore, must now be taken to mean the colonial system in its post-expansionist phase, which implies that it constituted a system of controls that was built by the imperial powers to subordinate and to exploit their dependencies. The term 'Imperialism' refers to the outward thrust of European society, i.e., the carrying of European political, economic and moral practices into non-European areas, from the 15th century onwards. Though the two terms are often used as synonyms because of their close relationship, they nonetheless should be distinguished for proper understanding.

What Were the Causes for European Rivalry? In spite of the vast lands to occupy in the New World and rich trading opportunities to exploit in the highly civilised east and in sub-Saharan Africa, the aggressive European nations could not keep out of one another's way in their overseas expansion. As a consequence, the rivalry of European nations became global. The outcome of these struggles began to determine the destinies of peoples only remotely involved in the competition of the European states.

The competition for empire was rooted in two interrelated factors: the essential importance of overseas trade to the expanding economies of the major European nations and the policy of mercantilism practiced by most European powers.

The growing importance of overseas commerce to national economies was abundantly clear. New products from abroad – among others, spices, sugar, tobacco, cotton, silk, tea – were in high demand. So were some manufactured goods from the Far East, especially cotton textiles and chinaware. Colonists needed the products of European manufacturers. The opportunities to transport these goods stimulated shipbuilding. The need to distribute products from abroad created new opportunities for merchants. The funding of overseas trading and colonising ventures stimulated the development of banking and credit. The profits garnered from overseas trading activities not only improved the standard of living of those who earned the profits but also became a prime source of capital for investment in agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Even governments relied on the gains from overseas trade to provide taxes and loans. In short, Europe's economy had become the focal point for a global system. Control of that economy was vital to the well-being of European nations, even to the point of fighting others for a share of the lucrative overseas trade.

The realities of 17th-and 18th-century economic life found expression in the widely accepted economic policy of mercantilism, which accentuated the importance of competition, for overseas trade and colonies. Mercantilist policy was based on the conviction that the economic well-being of a nation depended on directing the total national economy in a way that would produce a favourable balance of bullion coming into the economy. Among other things, this policy saw colonies as a source of cheap food and raw materials and an outlet for manufactured goods that would return a profit to the mother country. Such a view made the accession and the careful management of the colonies crucial to each nation that aspired to be powerful. Especially important was the need to monopolise trade with a nation's colonies, which placed a premium on developing naval power. Likewise, mercantilism dictated that every effort be made to restrict the colonising ventures of rival nations and to deprive them of their colonial possessions whenever possible. Thus, every conflict among the major European nations in the 17th and 18th centuries was extended to their colonies, and every major peace settlement included a redistribution of overseas possessions.

How was the Course and Nature of Competition? The competition for the fruits of overseas empires began in the 16th century with the English and Dutch assaults on Spanish and Portuguese trading activities and overseas holdings. By the middle of the 17th century, competition began to intensify and to become more general. More than any other country, England allied governmental economic policy with private commercial interests, with a view toward promoting national well-being. This approach cast England into a particularly aggressive role in the competition for empire and trade. As early as 1651, England passed its first Navigation Act, providing that all goods coming to and from England and its overseas possessions must be carried in English ships.

This policy posed a challenge to Dutch commercial power, which was especially successful in providing shipping services to other nations. It also encouraged the growth of the English merchant fleet and the navy, badly neglected during the early Stuart period. On three different occasions between 1651 and 1688, England engaged the Dutch in warfare. As a result, Dutch commercial ascendancy began to be undermined while England's commercial power grew; the Dutch also lost their North American colonies.

Toward the end of the 17th century, the English and the Dutch began to see that France was the chief threat to both. The result was an Anglo-Dutch alliance made by William of Orange when he became king of England in 1689. By that time the Netherlands was no longer the major sea power in Europe. The Dutch were increasingly content to keep their already established holdings in the East Indies, to continue their declining but still profitable carrying trade, and to reap a great profit as the chief bankers and money lenders of Europe.

From 1689 until 1763, England and France fought each other regularly in Europe, and each engagement had its repercussions abroad. Several times during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), the English and the French forces engaged in North America, where the war was called King William's War. Neither in Europe nor in America was the action decisive, and no changes were made in the holdings of either combatant. England had more success during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13). In North America, where the struggle was called Queen Anne's War, England captured Acadia (Nova Scotia) and received recognition of its claims to Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. From France's ally, Spain, England received Gibraltar and Minorca, assuring entrance into the Mediterranean. Spain also granted to England the right to supply Spain's colonies with slaves (the asiento) and the privilege of sending one ship a year to the Spanish colonies in America. These concessions ended Spain's long effort to close its empire to outsiders and gave England the advantage over other nations in exploiting trading opportunities provided by the Spanish overseas holdings.

From 1713 to 1740 England and France remained at peace. During this calm neither nation was idle in overseas matters. France, realising the weakness of its position, was especially active in North America. France tried to protect its holdings from English sea power by building a strong fort at Louisburg at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. France also began constructing and garrisoning a series of forts in its territories west of the Appalachians designed to keep the English colonists pinned to the Atlantic seaboard. England concentrated its efforts on widening the commercial breach it had made in Spain's empire in 1713. A new European war in 1740, the War of the Austrian Succession, led to a sharp conflict between England and France in America (King George's War) and in India. At the end of the war in 1748, each power restored its spoils to the other, England giving up Louisburg and France restoring Madras.

An eight-year truce ensued in Europe, each side preparing desperately for the struggle that everyone knew would soon reopen. In North America, France went back to the policy of building a barrier against the westward expansion of the English colonies. The inevitable clash came in 1755, when the British unsuccessfully tried to stop the French from occupying Fort Duquesne, at the present site of Pittsburgh. The issue was clearly joined; one power must destroy the other in America.

In India a no less dramatic struggle was shaping. France had entered the scene later than England but had made steady progress up to 1740. Between 1740 and 1756 the French and British manipulated the internal chaos in India. Thus, at the opening of the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War in America) in 1756, France and England were pitted against each other on three continents. In that war England, led by William Pitt, threw its chief efforts into the naval and colonial war and won a smashing victory. In North America, the French forces held their own until 1757. After that the superior British forces, supported by the navy, overpowered the French outposts one by one. The decisive blow came in 1759, when the British captured Quebec, opening all Canada to the British. British naval units captured the chief French holdings in the West Indies. In India, Robert Clive gave the British a decisive victory at the battle of Plassey in 1757.

The Seven Years' War ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris. France surrendered Canada and all Louisiana east of the Mississippi (except New Orleans) to England. Spain, which had been an ally of France, ceded Florida to England. By a special treaty, France compensated Spain for this loss by giving Spain the rest of Louisiana (west of the Mississippi). All French possessions in the West Indies except Guadeloupe and Martinique also fell to England. France's empire in India likewise went to Britain. The French were permitted to enjoy trading privileges in India and to keep Pondicherry, but Britain controlled the chief centres of trade, ending any hope of a French recovery of power there. The Treaty of Paris closed an era in European expansion. Although the Dutch and the Spanish still had extensive holdings abroad, Great Britain had fought its way to supremacy in colonial and commercial affairs. The English could now turn to the exploitation of that empire.

Since Columbus' voyage, the Europeans had wrought an important change around the world. Energetic colonisers had planted European civilisation on the soil of the New World. Enterprising merchants had begun to tap the wealth of a considerable part of the Far East and of sub-Saharan Africa, creating for the first time a global economy in which the level of prosperity in European nations was directly related to their access to the labour and products of peoples all over the earth. European patterns of civilisation had begun to alter the lives of peoples who had developed their own cultures long before the Europeans came. For good or bad, the Europeanisation of the world had begun. European history never again ceased to have a world-wide scope.

How Did the Europeans Exploit the New World? One of the areas attracting the English, French, and Dutch was the New World, where all three nations established thriving colonies during the 17th century and eventually became embroiled in bitter rivalry for dominance. The northern European nations had their appetites whetted by the fabulous profits reaped from the New World by the Spanish and the Portuguese during the sixteenth century. These two powers retained their vast empires in Central and South America during the 17th and 18th centuries and continued to earn a rich reward from their enterprises. During the 17th century the hauls of gold and silver declined, and the Spanish and Portuguese turned their energies toward creating large plantations worked by oppressed natives and imported African slaves to produce products marketable in Western Europe. Their presence in South and Central America forced the attention of the English, French, and Dutch toward North America and the Caribbean area.

The English were the most successful colonisers in North America. Although some settlers were prompted by political and religious reasons, most were lured by the prospects of available land. Colonising ventures were organised by joint stock companies chartered by the government to plant settlements in the New World or by individual leaders granted huge tracts of land for the purpose of colonisation. Between 1607, when the first colony was planted at Jamestown, Virginia, and 1733, when a colony was founded in Georgia, England established control of the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to the Spanish colony in Florida. In the 13 colonies, a stable order soon emerged that showed considerable potential for agricultural and commercial growth. This growth was promoted by a steady flow of emigrants, not only from England but also from other northern European nations. By the beginning of the 18th century, the English settlers were beginning to push westward out of the coastal colonies in search of new lands to occupy. English explorers and traders penetrated into the Hudson Bay area in Canada and claimed for England a huge territory, where soon a profitable trade in fur developed. Flourishing English colonies were established in the West Indies, the chief ones being Barbados, Jamaica, and Bermuda. In this area, the English concentrated on developing highly profitable sugar plantations, utilising African slaves as a labour supply.

France also undertook to colonise in the New World, although not as successfully as England. Its first American colony was established by Samuel de Champlain at Quebec on the St. Lawrence River in 1608. Champlain later explored and claimed for France the entire St. Lawrence Valley from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. Toward the end of the 17th century during the reign of Louis XIV, the French extended their holdings in North America by claiming a huge territory called Louisiana, stretching down the Mississippi Basin from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The French also established prosperous colonies in the West Indies, especially on Martinique and Guadeloupe, where sugar production was the major economic activity.

Except for the West Indies, settlers were slow to come to France's vast, rich lands in the New World, in part because of governmental policy. France closed its empire to non-Catholics, thus excluding an element so important in populating England's colonies – the religiously dissatisfied. By adopting a policy of land allocation that favoured the aristocracy, the French government made it difficult for commoners to obtain land overseas. The opportunities for profits offered by the fur trade discouraged agricultural settlement. When England seized France's American empire in 1763, perhaps no more than eighty thousand settlers lived in New France, compared with the 1.5 million inhabitants of the English colonies. But that sparse population left its marks, especially in the form of Roman Catholicism, the French language, and the imitation of French social practices by settlers in the St. Lawrence Valley and Southern Louisiana – marks that persist to the present to give a distinctive character to society in these areas.

The Dutch also became involved in the colonising of North America. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was chartered to undertake colonising and commerce in the New World. In 1624, a Dutch colony was planted on Manhattan Island, a location made especially attractive because of its potential as a centre from which trade could be controlled. Soon other Dutch communities were established in the valleys of the Hudson, Connecticut, and Delaware rivers. However, the Dutch did not push their colonising effort very seriously. Their interest was chiefly in trading activities, leading them to concentrate their energies on the more profitable East Indies. Their American colonies became a bone of contention in the Anglo-Dutch struggles that preceded the Glorious Revolution in England. In 1664 the English seized New Netherlands, ending Dutch colonisation in North America.

What was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? During the 17th and 18th centuries, Western Europeans made significant crossroads into sub-Saharan Africa. Again the Portuguese had been the early leaders, but they were eventually joined by others. It was the establishment of the plantation system in the New World that sparked a new interest of Europeans in Africa. The plantations needed labour; African slaves could provide that commodity. Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and North American traders and adventurers, acting with the support of their governments, established a series of trading posts along the West African coast stretching from modern Senegal to Angola chiefly for the purpose of purchasing slaves to be transported to the New World.

For centuries the most valuable of African resources for Europeans were the slaves, but these could be obtained at coastal ports, without any need for penetration inland. Although the slave stations were restricted to the coast, the slave trade nevertheless had profound repercussions upon considerable areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The trade began in 1442 when two captains of Prince Henry the Navigator took 12 African slaves to Lisbon. It is true that slavery already was an established and widespread institution in Africa. Prisoners of war were enslaved, as were also debtors or individuals guilty of serious crimes. These slaves usually were treated as part of the family; they had clearly defined rights, and their status was not necessarily hereditary. In Europe, by contrast, slavery was a very different institution and had a very different history. From the beginning it was primarily an economic expedient, so that slaves were worked to death in mines during classical times. This impersonalism was reinforced by racism when the Europeans became involved in the African slave trade on a large scale. Perhaps as a subconscious rationalisation they gradually came to look down upon Negroes as inherently inferior, and therefore preordained to serve their white masters. Rationalisation also may have been involved in the Europeans' use of religion to justify the traffic in human beings. Enslavement, it was argued, assured the conversion of the African heathen to the true faith as well as to civilisation.

In this self-satisfied spirit, the Portuguese shipped thousands of African slaves to their homeland. This was but a petty prelude to the new and fateful phase of the slave trade that began in 1510 when the first shipload of African slaves was shipped to the New World. The venture was highly successful, for there was urgent need for labour in the Americas, especially on the sugar plantations. The market for slaves was almost limitless, and several other countries entered the slave trade to share in the rich profits. Portugal dominated the trade in the 16th century, Holland during most of the 17th, and Britain in the 18th. The West African coast was dotted with about 40 European forts which were used for defence against the rival trading nations and for storing the slaves while awaiting shipment across the Atlantic.

How was its Nature and Course? The typical voyage of the slave traders was triangular. The first leg was from the homeport to Africa, with a cargo including salt, cloth, firearms, hardware, beads, and rum. These goods were bartered for slaves brought by fellow-Africans from the interior to the coast. The unfortunate victims were packed under atrocious conditions in the vessels and shipped across the Atlantic on the so-called 'middle passage'. At their New World destinations, the slaves were either sold at once or held in stockades to be retailed on demand. The final lap was the voyage home with plantation produce such as sugar, molasses, tobacco, or rice.

Thanks to the prevailing trade winds the 'middle passage' was normally swift and brief. Nevertheless, the average death rate during the trip ranged from 10 to 55 percent, depending on the length of the voyage, the chance occurrence of epidemics, and the treatment accorded the slaves. This treatment almost invariably involved inhuman crowding, stifling heat, and poor food. Even greater casualties were suffered earlier, during the overland march to the coast. Raiding parties plundered villages and broke up families in their search for strong young men and women. The captives were then driven from dawn to dusk in the blazing heat and pouring rain, through thick jungles or over dry plains. The survivors who reached the coast were driven naked into the market like cattle. Then they were branded with the name of the company or buyer and herded into the forts to await shipment across the ocean. It is not surprising that, in supplying American plantations with some 12 million slaves, Africa suffered an estimated loss in casualties of about four times the number of people.

How was it Abolished? Despite these horrors, Europeans continued to buy and sell Africans for over four centuries. The profits were so high that powerful vested interests strongly opposed any proposals for control or abolition. There were first of all the African chiefs who received as much as £20 to £36 for a single able-bodied slave. These African leaders played a vital role in the slave-trade operations. Their participation was essential for the Europeans who were confined to the coastal areas and who suffered mortality rates of 25 to 50 percent. Not only did the African middlemen reap handsome profits from the trade but they also were violently opposed to all abolition proposals. Indeed, riots against Europeans were organised on African soil in defiance of the abolition movement!

The plantation owners in the Americas likewise supported the slave trade, especially the Barbados planters who held an important bloc of seats in the 18th-century British Parliament. There were European vested interests also that championed the slave trade, both amongst the traders and the various merchants at home who provided rum and manufactured goods. According to one estimate, Britain shipped to Africa manufactures valued at 1 million pounds a year, and the other European countries sent an equal amount for the same purpose. The return on this outlay was so extraordinarily high that in the 18th century the prosperity of cities such as Liverpool and Bristol depended heavily on this traffic.

Despite these formidable obstacles, a small group of reformers campaigned vigorously for abolition. In 1787, they established in England the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1823, they founded the Anti-Slavery Society to end the institution of slavery as well as the slave trade. These abolitionists were aided by the progress of the industrial revolution, which was rendering slavery obsolete. Advancing technology called for overseas markets rather than for cheap supply of human power. In fact, the abolitionists argued that the slave trade was inefficient and insisted that a more profitable 'legitimate' trade could be developed in Africa.

The first success of the abolitionists was a law in 1807 prohibiting British ships from participating in the slave trade and banning the landing of slaves in British colonies. Finally, in 1833 Parliament passed a decree that completely abolished slavery on British territory and provided 20 million pounds as compensation for the slaveholders. The British government went further and persuaded other European countries to follow its example in allowing British warships to seize slave ships flying other flags. Complete success was not possible until various countries in the New World gradually abolished slavery as an institution – as did Haiti in 1803, the United Sates in 1863, Brazil in 1888, Cuba at about the same time, and so forth.

Colonialism in Latin America

How was Latin America Colonised? The year 1519, in which Magellan left on his famous voyage around the world, was also the year Hernando Cortes left Cuba on his equally famous expedition against the Aztec Empire. In doing so, Cortes began what might be termed the age of the conquistadors. The preceding decades, from 1500 to 1520, had been the age of the explorers, when numerous navigators under various flags probed the entire length of the Americas in search of a passageway. In the 30 years that followed, a few thousand Spanish adventurers won the first great European overseas empire.

By 1550, the conquistadors had completed their work. The way was now clear for the Spaniards to proceed with the development of their overseas possessions. Since the native populations were not so dense or so highly organised as those of Africa and Asia, it was possible for the Iberians to settle in considerable numbers in the New World and to impose their cultures. Thus they built up Europe's first true colonial empire – something quite different from the purely commercial empires in Africa and Asia.

The swashbuckling conquistadors were effective as empire builders but quite ineffective as empire administrators. Incapable of settling down, they fell to fighting among themselves, and their ranks were decimated by feuding and warfare. The Spanish crown replaced the conquistadors with bureaucrats who imposed royal authority and royal justice.

What was the Nature of its Administration? At the top of the imperial administrative structure was the Council of the Indies, located in Spain and closely supervised by the crown. It made all important appointments and exercised general jurisdiction over colonial affairs. Supreme authority in the New World was entrusted to two viceroys who sat in Mexico City and Lima, respectively. The official in Mexico City headed the viceroyalty of New Spain, which was made up of all the Spanish territories in North America together with the West Indies, Venezuela, and the Philippines. The Lima official presided over the viceroyalty of Peru that was made up of the remaining Spanish possessions in South America. These two vast viceroyalties were subdivided into smaller units ruled by audiencias or courts. Audiencias were staffed by professional lawyers who usually had no excessive family pride or military ambition and therefore made ideal royal servants. In the 16th century, there were 10 such audiencias in the New World.

A basic problem of Spanish administration in the Americas was the treatment of the Indians. The crown granted to deserving conquistadors, known as 'protectors', or encomenderos, the right to draw specified tribute from assigned Indian villages and also to levy forced labour. In return, the encomenderos were required to give military service and to pay the salaries of the parish clergy. The provision for forced labour obviously opened the door to abuse, so it was modified in the mid-16th century. The natives still could be made to work, but by public officials rather than private encomenderos, and official wage rates had to be paid to the labourers so recruited. Needless to say, these safeguards were not always enforced. The colonies were too far from Madrid and too isolated from each other. Yet the fact remains that the Spaniards discussed seriously and conscientiously the problem of exploitation, for which there were no precedents.

How was its Economy Run? The all-important fact for the economy of the Spanish colonial empire is that, with the work of native labour, a great flood of gold and silver poured in from the mines of Mexico and Bolivia. The law required that all precious metals be taken to the royal offices to be stamped and taxed at the rate of one-fifth their value, the royal quinto. Between 1503 and 1660 Spain received from America a total of 18,600 registered tons of silver and 200 registered tons of gold. Unregistered bullion smuggled into Spain has been variously estimated at from 10 to 50 percent of the total.

Apart from mining, the principal occupations in Latin America were agriculture and stock-raising in the haciendas, and plantation monoculture in the tropical coastlands. The haciendas employed Indian labour and produced foodstuffs for their own use and for sale to nearby cities and mining settlements. The plantations were quite different, employing mostly imported African slaves and producing only one crop for the European market. The first plantations were evolved for the growing of sugar on the Atlantic islands – the Azores, Madeiras, Cape Verdes, and Canaries. Later this institution was further developed, first in the sugar plantations of Brazil and the West Indies, and later in the tobacco, cotton, and coffee plantations of North and South America.

Colonialism in South-East Asia (Indonesia)

During the 16th century, Portugal had established supremacy in the Far East. In the 17th century, however, the Dutch, English, and French aggressively entered the area. The Dutch were the first. In 1602, all the competing Dutch companies interested in Far Eastern trade were joined into a single Dutch East India Company, to which the Dutch government gave almost complete freedom of action. The company soon drove the Portuguese out of the Spice Islands, which became the centre of the Dutch trading empire. In 1641, Malacca on the Malay Peninsula was seized, giving Dutch control of the seas around the East Indies. Ceylon and the Celebes were also captured. The English tried to seize a share of this rich area, but they were driven out by the Dutch as early as 1623. To safeguard the sea route to the Indies, the Dutch established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Its growth was slow, but the Dutch influence was eventually strong enough to influence the history of South Africa to the present. To watch its interests in the Indies, the Dutch East India Company established a Governor-General in Java, who in turn set up several other fortified governmental centres in the island empire.

For years after, the Dutch continued to profit from their holdings in the Indies. They demonstrated remarkable skill in utilising the native agricultural economy to produce commodities such as spices that were in great demand in Western Europe. Consequently, their presence disturbed very little the existing patterns of life in the area. The Dutch also made attempts to penetrate China and Japan but enjoyed only limited success, chiefly because neither the Chinese nor the Japanese welcomed them. Both were too strong to permit entrance by force.

The English, although shut out of the East Indies by the Dutch, made rapid progress toward replacing the Portuguese in India. The English East India Company was chartered in 1600 and given a monopoly of English trade in the East. This company concentrated chiefly on India, slowly forcing the Portuguese to let English traders into the rich land. The company founded its own 'factories' (trading posts) at key locations – Surat, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. For a long time the East India Company was content to exploit the trading opportunities available in these cities; the merchants interfered little with Indian affairs and had little influence on Indian society. Rather, the French entered the competition in the Far East. Colbert organised a French East India Company (1664), which soon established a French outpost at Pondicherry in India. From this centre the French company built up a prosperous trade that returned large profits.

What was its Nature? Though the Portuguese were the first Europeans to come to Indonesia it was the Dutch who became rulers of the country by the end of the 18th century and, except for a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars, remained in occupation till the Second World War. The foundation of Dutch colonialism was laid by the Dutch East India Company from whom the Dutch government took control of the islands in 1890. The areas which had hitherto been outside the Dutch control were also brought under their domination by the end of the 19th century. Dutch colonialism in Indonesia in the 19th and 20th centuries had gone through three major phases, viz. the Culture System (1830–70), the Liberal Policy (1870–1990) and the Ethical policy (1901–41). Whatever be the nature of the different phases of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, the basic characteristic of all the phases was the same, that is, the exploitation of the colony (Indonesia) by the metropolis (Holland).

Why was the Culture System Introduced? During the Napoleonic Wars, Holland suffered a great loss of its power and prestige, and its overseas trade had gone into the hands of the British and Americans. However, after Napoleonic Wars, the 'Convention of London' in 1814 provided for the restoration by Britain of all the former colonies of the Dutch East India Company (including Indonesia) conquered from Holland since 1803.

The colony of Indonesia which the Dutch got back was not the same as before. Under the British taxation system introduced by Raffles, the British administration of the Indies during the intervening period, the trade system of the Dutch, that is the cultivation of export crops, which had been the main aim of the Dutch, had been disturbed.

Besides, the new Dutch Governor-General Vander Capellen, had to deal with a number of revolts in Malaccas, Borneo, the Western Sumatra and Celebes, which cost heavily on the financial resources of the Dutch. The efforts of William, the King of Holland, in establishing the Netherlands Trading Company and the Java Bank did not yield desired results. Moreover, the Java War of 1825–30 claimed the finances completely.

How was it Introduced? At this juncture, Bosch was made the new Governor General in 1830, and he proceeded immediately to implement a project that came to be known as the 'Culture System'. In several ways, it was the old system of forced delivery of commercial crops that was in existence even before, but now it was systematised and implemented with renewed vigour under name of 'Culture System'.

In this system, the peasant was required to devote one-fifth of his arable land for the culture or growth of the specified paying export crops, or alternatively he had to devote one-fifth of the time to work on government plantations. The Javanese cultivator was considered to be too ignorant to make the best use of his land; he was therefore compelled to set apart a portion of it for the cultivation of export crops as instructed by government and the government would procure the product in lieu of land rent.

The supplies procured in this manner were to be handled by the Dutch merchants, shipped in Dutch vessels and sold in Holland, which would by this means become once again a world market for tropical produce.

What was its Outcome? The culture system was a great success, highly profitable to the Dutch. The system was introduced under favourable circumstances, for the Java War had brought much new territory under the Dutch rule. How the Dutch benefited from this new system can be understood from the fact that the country's exchequer benefited to the extent of some 900 million guilders (Dutch currency) which was utilized for repayment of national debt and building of the Dutch railways.

For the Indonesians, it was very harmful. The worst hit by it was the native cultivator. From 1832, the element of compulsion was increased. Each residency had to deliver export produce to the value of 2 guilders a head of its population. Further the European and native officials who superintended the system received a percentage of commission on the products of their districts. Hence, they were eager to raise the proceeds as high as possible, and used means prohibited by the government laws and promise to the people. For instance, more than one-fifth of the land was set apart for the government culture and further the best land was set apart for the purpose.

The produce in excess of government quota was compelled to be sold to the government at low price which is against the original principle. The cultivation of export crops, being unfamiliar to the native, consumed more time than rice and this together with the forced labour (in many cases the native had to work for more than 200 days a year for the government), affected the rice cultivation resulting in widespread famine in central Java in 1848–1850.

Against the principles of the culture system, the land rent was collected without exception from even the one-fifth part of the peasant's land which was devoted for the culture or growth of export crops. This naturally amounted to double taxation. Even rice was included among the export crops in 1843 and this commercialisation of paddy cultivation resulted in further famines and large exodus of people.

Why was the Liberal Policy Introduced? As an outcome of revolutionary movement which shook all Europe in 1848 the Liberal Party came into power in Holland and in 1854, it led to the enactment of a new constitution for Indonesia called 'Constitutional Regulation' which brought the Indies under parliamentary control.

This combined with the publication of an article by Edward Dekkar and of pamphlets especially those by Isaac F. Putte strengthened the struggle against the economic exploitation through the culture system.

The cry of the liberals against the exploitation of Indonesia by the government was a limited and selfish one. Their advocacy of private enterprise in place of government controlled culture was largely motivated by the desire of the Dutch private concerns to have greater share in the profit. The private capitalists were demanding the removal of restrictions to their activities.

How was it Introduced? The selfish nature of the liberals and the exploitative character of Dutch colonialism even during the period of the liberal policy will be clear from the following facts. Even though the culture system was abolished in pepper (1862), cloves (1863), indigo, tea and tobacco (all in 1860), the forced culture of sugar and coffee—the main source of Dutch profit—was retained. The Sugar Law of 1870 which is considered as the culminating point of the struggle against culture system, provided that the government was to withdraw from the forced culture of sugar only. The forced culture of coffee, which brought by far the maximum profit from the system, remained in force till January 1917. Moreover, no effort was made to abolish the forced labour.

It is true that De Wall's Agrarian of 1870 protected the natives from alienation of their land by non-Indonesians. However, the immediate reason for this law was that there was such a rush on the part of the Europeans to cultivate culture products for the home market that there was danger that land needed for the production of food stuffs for the native population would be used for other purposes which would result in famine and other law and order problems.

The fact remains that during the period of the liberal policy even though it began the great age of private enterprises, the exploitation continued. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 accelerated the process further as seen in the establishment of the Netherlands Steam Navigation Company (1870) and the Rotterdam Lloyd (1875). It witnessed the annexations of new territories such as Borneo, Kutei and Billington, where the rich deposits of minerals like tin, coal, etc., attracted the Dutch enterprises.

The policy of non-intervention was given up in the period of liberal policy and the new policy introduced by the Governor General Vain Haitsz in 1898 known as the 'Short Declaration', whereby a chief who recognised the authority of the Dutch was confirmed in his rule, led to a new control over nearly as many as 300 principalities.

The liberal policy is said to have resulted in some economic progress, like the introduction of railways, post and telegraph, etc. These helped the Dutch planters and industrialists more than the natives. The introduction of railways, for example, helped in opening remote villages and in the quick transport of export crops to the ports.

What was its Outcome? The outcome of all this liberalism expressed in terms of exports and imports show that the export trade more than doubled in value between 1870 and 1900 and the imports trade quadrupled during the same period. The total value of exports rose from 107.57 million guilders in 1870 to 258.32 millions in 1900 and that of imports rose from 44.45 million guilders to 179.07 million over the same period.

Why was the Ethical Policy Introduced? The essence of the ethical policy was defined as 'Indonesian Welfare'. It aimed at increasing the economic development, providing social welfare for the Indonesians, expanding educational facilities and carrying out political decentralisation all under the Dutch supervision.

By 1900, the Dutch public opinion on colonial affairs had come to regard liberalism out of date. It was obvious that the supporters of private enterprise cared little for the interests of the Indonesians, and that the immense power that the private capital had come to yield was in the hands of few corporations able to take common action in defense of their interests.

Dr. Abraham, who became the Prime Minister of Holland in 1901, wrote a few pamphlets in which he argued that the government must adopt a policy of moral responsibility for native welfare. Thus came into force in 1901 what was known as the 'Ethical Policy'.

How was it Introduced? Once again after a great showing of noble sentiment, a program of decentralisation and native welfare was set in action. Decentralisation was the new ideal. It envisaged the delegation of power from Hague to Batavia (Indies), from the Governor-General to the local officers, and from the European to Indonesian officers. It also meant the establishment of autonomous organs managing their own affairs in cooperation with the government. In practice, however, the Decentralisation Law of 1903 and the decrees of 1904–1905 creating local councils consisting of Indonesians, Europeans and the Chinese went no way near the decentralisation scheme which the governor had submitted to the Home Government as far back as 1867. Up to the outbreak of the First World War, the Governor-General, in fact, remained completely under the control of the Home Government and the local autonomy also was only in theory and not in practice.

In the meantime, the supporters of the ethical policy had turned to the village as the basic unit for the improvement of native welfare. Beginning with Village Regulation of 1906 which provided for a village government, comprising of headman, village officers and village gathering competent to regulate village affairs and provide for its requirements, measures were taken to improve the agricultural production and veterinary care, to establish village schools, provide sound credit and promote public health. Thus, the most elaborate village administration was built. All this autonomy for the villages was only in theory, and in practice there was too much control from above making the villagers antagonistic towards the Dutch rule. The Dutch method in Indonesia has been described as 'let me help you, let me show you how to do it, and let me do it for you'.

What was its Outcome? The ethical policy, which attempted decentralisation, in fact brought too much control, and this resulted in the general hatred among the villagers against the Dutch. The little reform, particularly in the field of education that was carried out, however, awakened the Indonesians, and made them realise the inner contradictions of the colonial rule. This realisation on the part of the Indonesians finally took the shape of their nationalist movement.

Imperialism And Free Trade: Rise of Neo-Imperialism

At the beginning of 19th century, many nations questioned the importance of colonies. The cost of maintaining armies and fighting wars had exhausted their treasures. However, when the Industrial Revolution created new needs for supplies of raw materials, Europe resumed the scramble for colonies. Many Europeans thought colonies would also provide markets for finished goods. Moreover, advances in military technology meant that colonies could be won with less cost in lives to the mother country. The Europeans also had strategic motives for colonies. Their steam ships needed ports to refuel with coal, and naval bases were needed from which ships could guard sea lanes. Finally, colonies meant prestige and power, and nationalism was on the rise in Europe in 19th century.

The British Empire had its greatest growth under Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Under two outstanding prime ministers, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, Britain's landholding and influence spread. The discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa caused the Boer War (1899–1902) in which Britain defeated the Dutch settlers and took over their lands. With British colonies in Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, the British were proud to say that 'the sun never sets on the British Empire'.

Twice as many people lived in France's colonial possessions as lived in France itself. France had colonies in Africa, the Far East and Latin America. Belgium, Italy, Germany and Holland also sought colonies around the world.

The consequences of colonisation were different over the world. In China, the economic gains that Western merchants and industries made were at the cost of creating a weak and unstable China. Japan learned to compete with West, and it may be said that Japan's imperialistic designs in 20th century were an outgrowth of these Western influences. In Africa, traditional society was disrupted as Europeans took over the lands and native people were forced to move into the cities, where Africans were treated as inferiors. The boundaries fixed by the Europeans did not always follow traditional tribal boundaries. African economies were managed to favour the Europeans and most capital was European. The advantages that Europeans sought in colonisation often had lasting and harmful effects upon other people.

Imperialism and Free Trade

How was European Imperialism Implemented? The 19th and early 20th centuries stand out in world history as the period when Europe became master of the entire globe directly or indirectly. Europe's domination was evident not only in the political sphere, in the form of great colonial empires, but also in economic and cultural spheres. It was between 16th and 18th centuries that Europe had emerged from its obscurity and gained control of the oceans and relatively empty spaces of the Americans. So far as Asia and Africa were concerned, Europe's impact was still negligible at the end of the 18th century. In Africa, there were only a string of slave trading stations along the coasts and an insignificant settlement of Boers on the Southern tip of the continent. Likewise in India, the Europeans were confined to their few coastal trading posts and had not yet begun to have a substantial effect upon the vast hinterland. In East Asia, the Westerners were rigidly restricted to Canton and Deshima despite their pleas for further contracts. If by some miracle the relations between Europe on the one hand and Africa and Asia on the other hand had been suddenly severed in the last 18th century, there would have been little left to show for the three centuries of interaction. A few ruined forts and Churches would have been almost the only reminders of the intruders who had come across the sea. Everyday life would have continued along traditional lines as in the past millennia.

By 1914, this situation changed fundamentally; Europe's impact had grown immeasurably, both in event and in depth. Vast territories including the entire continent of Africa, with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, and the greater part of Asia, had become outright colonial possessions of the European rule. Of the 16,819,000 square miles in Asia, no less than 9,443,000 square miles were under European rule. These included 6,496,000 square miles under Russia, 1,998,000 under Britain, 587,000 under Holland, 248,000 under France, 114,000 under the United States, and a paltry 193 under Germany. In contrast to these tremendous colonial territories, Japan, the only truly independent Asian nation in 1914, accounted for a mere 161,000 square miles.

The remaining portion of the globe, apart from these colonial possessions and the Europeanised territories, consisted of countries that were nominally independent but were actually semi-colonial. These semi-colonial countries included the great Chinese and Ottoman empires as well as such smaller states as Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal. All these countries were dominated by European economic and military power. They were allowed to retain a nominal political independence simply because the European powers could not agree on the details of their dismemberment.

In this way, the entire globe had come under Europe by 1914. It was the extraordinary climax of the long process started a half-millennium earlier when Portuguese captains began to feel their way down the coast of Africa. One peninsula of the Eurasian landmass was now the centre of the world, with a concentration of power altogether unprecedented in past history. The fact that by 1914 Europe's domination was unprecedented not only in extent but also in depth was evident in the economic control that Europe exercised. Europe had become the banker of the world, providing the capital needed for building transcontinental railroads, digging inter-oceanic canals, opening mines, and establishing plantations. Europe had become not only the banker but also the industrial workshop of the world. By 1870, Europe was responsible for 64.7 percent of the world's total industrial output.

What was its Impact? The effect of Europe's great outpouring of capital and technology was an unprecedented global economic unity. By 1914, over 516,000 kilometres of cables had been laid on ocean beds, as well as a vast network of telegraph and telephone lines on the land surface of the globe. By 1914, over 30,000 ships with a total tonnage of 50 millions carried goods from one part of the world to another. Several canals were built to facilitate world commerce. The most important were the Suez (1869), which shortened the route between Western Europe and India by 4000 miles, and the Panama (1914), which reduced the distance between New York and San Francisco by almost 80000 miles. Continents were opened for economic exploitation by the construction of several transcontinental railroads.

The economic integration of the continents led to a spectacular increase in overall global productivity. World industrial production multiplied no less than six times between 1860 and 1913, while the value of world trade increased twelve times between 1851 and 1913. Europe, as might be expected, benefited the most from this economic leap forward. Statistics are not available for conditions all over the globe, but it is estimated that the difference in per capita income between colonial or semi-colonial regions and the European metropolitan countries was roughly 3:1 in 1800. By 1914 it had increased to about 7:1.

The everyday life of the peasant masses in colonial territories had been drastically affected by the shift from a traditional natural economy to a money economy. Money had been used in the earlier period but only in a peripheral manner, and production had been carried on by the peasant households primarily to satisfy family needs. A few commodities might have been sold in the local market, but not for the purpose of making profit. The aim was to get money to meet tax obligations and to buy few essentials such as salt and iron. The transactions and obligations were met by simple barter, and no money changed hands. But a new market economy was introduced when the Europeans appeared with their railroads, their machine-made goods and their insatiable demands for foodstuff, and industrial raw materials. Before long the peasants found themselves producing for an international market rather than for themselves and their neighbours, which in turn meant that they became subject to global economic fluctuations. They were at the mercy of merchants and money-lenders who now flourished in the new economy. The transition from a closed and static natural economy to a dynamic money and market economy was beneficial so far as productive capacity was concerned but certainly its initial effects were disruptive and uncomfortable.

The way of thinking as well as the way of life was affected by Europe's intrusion. However, this intellectual change primarily involved the small upper class in the colonial world rather than the peasant masses. It was the few members of the thin upper crust who knew Western languages, who read Western newspapers and books and who were familiar with European history and current politics. This initial response to this exposure to the alien culture was often an enthusiastic, uncritical admiration of everything western. But it was usually followed by a reaction against the west and an attempt to preserve and foster at least some elements of the traditional culture.

The political, economic and cultural dominance of Europe at the turn of the century naturally led Europeans to assume that their primacy arose from the superiority of their civilisation and that this, in turn, reflected their superiority as a race. It was confidently believed that God had created people unequal. He had made the whites more intelligent so that they could direct the labour and guide the development of the inferior races who had broad backs and weak minds. Hence arose the concept of the 'White Man's Burden' — a preaching that cloaked the imperialism of the times with a mantle of idealistic devotion to duty. On all continents, the European masters accepted the homage of the 'lesser breeds' as part of the divine nature of things, as the inevitable outcome of the 'survival of the fittest'. In India, they were addressed respectfully as 'Sahib', in the Middle East as 'Effendi', in Africa as 'Bwana', and in Latin America as 'Patron'. Under these circumstances, it is scarcely surprising that Europeans came to view the world with myopia and a self-centeredness that today seems incredible.

Rise of Neo-Imperialism

What is Neo-Imperialism? The great wave of empire building after 1870 was known as the 'neo-imperialism'. It made a large part of the earth's surface into an appendage of a few European powers. The inter-relationship of the neo-imperialism and the industrial revolution was manifested in a growing desire to obtain colonies that might serve as markets for the rising volume of manufactured goods. The several European and overseas countries that became industrialised during the 19th century were soon competing with each other for markets. In the process they raised tariffs to keep out each other's products. Soon it was being argued that each industrialised country must have colonies to provide 'sheltered markets' for its manufactures.

The industrial revolution also produced surplus capital, which again led the Great Powers to seek colonies as investment outlets. The more capital piled up at home, the lower the profits fell and the greater the need to find better investment markets abroad. Vast amounts of capital were, in fact, invested in foreign countries, especially by Britain, France, and Germany. For example, Britain by 1914 had invested £4 billion abroad, a sum amounting to one-fourth of its total national wealth. Europe by 1914 had become the banker of the world. In the first half of the 19th century, most overseas investments were made in the Americas and Australia – in the white man's world. In the century's second half they were made mostly in the non-white and relatively unstable countries of Asia and Africa. The thousands of small private investors and the large banking combinations that provided the capital naturally were anxious about their investments safety. They preferred 'civilised' administration, preferably by their own respective governments, in the regions in which their investments were situated. This is how the need to invest surplus capital safety promoted the neo-imperialism.

The Industrial Revolution also created a demand for raw materials to feed the machines. Many of these materials – jute, rubber, petroleum, and various metals – came from the 'uncivilised' portions of the globe. In most cases heavy capital outlays were needed to secure adequate production of these commodities. Such investments, as we have seen, usually led to the imposition of political control.

The neo-imperialism was not entirely economic in its origins; it was not related exclusively to the Industrial Revolution. A variety of other factors also were operative at this time. One was the desire to strengthen national security with strategic naval bases such as at Malta and Singapore. Another was the need to secure additional sources of labour power, as the French did in North Africa. Still another factor was the influence of the missionaries, who were particularly active during the 19th century. Sometimes these missionaries were maltreated, or even killed, by the natives they were seeking to convert. Even though the missionaries themselves might be willing to tolerate such risks for the sake of their cause, public opinion frequently demanded action. It was not unknown for governments to use such incidents as pretexts for military intervention. Finally, the vogue of Social Darwinism, with its doctrines of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, led naturally to ideas of racial superiority. The white man's 'burden' was to rule over the 'inferior' coloured peoples of the earth. The great empire builder Cecil Rhodes was quite outspoken on this matter. 'I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race…. If there be a God, I think what He would like me to do is to paint as much of the map of Africa British red as possible'.

How was its Nature and Course? The net result of these economic, political, and intellectualpsychological factors was the greatest landgrab in the history of the world, unequalled even by the conquests of Genghis Khan. In the generation between 1871 and 1900, Britain added 4.25 million square miles and 66 million people to its Empire; France added 3.5 million square miles and 26 million people; Russia in Asia added half a million square miles and 6.5 million people, and Germany one million square miles and 13 million people. Even little Belgium managed to acquire 900,000 square miles and 8.5 million inhabitants. These conquests, along with the existing colonial possessions, created a fantastic and unprecedented situation in which one small portion of the globe dominated all the rest.

The industrialised European powers not only owned these vast colonial territories outright, they also dominated those economically and militarily weak areas that, for one reason or another, were not actually annexed. Examples are China, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia, all of which were nominally independent, but which, in fact, were constantly harried, humiliated, and controlled in various direct and indirect ways. Latin America also was an economic appendage of the Great Powers, though in this region military action by Europe was discouraged by the Monroe Doctrine. The Doctrine, however, did not preclude repeated armed intervention by the United States Marine Corps to 'restore law and order'. The great Russian Empire was also dominated economically to a very large extent by Western Europe, but in this case the military strength of the tsarist regime was great enough to prevent foreign economic influence from extending into other areas. Thus we see that Europe's control extended not only over its far-flung empires but also over the equally extensive dependent regions. In fact, more European capital was invested in the dependent countries than in the colonies.

Investments were safeguarded through various devices and pressures such as military missions that trained the local armed forces, financial missions that supervised and usually controlled local finances, and extraterritorial and capitulatory arrangements that gave special privileges to Europeans residing or doing business in these areas. If necessary as a last resort, there were always the Marines in the New World or the gunboats in the Old. In this manner most of the earth's surface and most of the world's population had by 1914 come under the direct or indirect domination of a few European countries, including Russia, and of the United States. This was a development without precedence in human history. Today, in the early 21st century, much of the global turmoil represents the inevitable reaction to this European domination.

What was its Impact? Why should we label the great European expansion of the late-nineteenth century the ''neo-imperialism'? Imperialism, after all, was not something new. If it is defined as 'the rule or control, political or economic, direct or indirect, of one state, nation or people over similar groups', then imperialism is as old as human civilisation. Certainly the Romans were imperialistic, having conquered and for centuries ruled large parts of Europe and the Near East. And many other empires in all parts of the globe, both before and after the Romans, were conquered by all types of peoples.

Yet the term 'neo-imperialism' is justified, because the late-19th-century European expansion was quite unique in its impact upon the colonial and dependent territories. Rome exploited its possessions simply and directly by plundering and by collecting tribute, chiefly in the form of foodstuffs, but its exploitation did not particularly affect the economic life and structure of the colonies. They continued to produce pretty much the same foodstuffs and handicrafts in the same ways as in the past. To compare this imperialism with the later version that overran and remade entire continents is like comparing a spade to a steam shovel. The traditional imperialism involved exploitation but no basic economic and social change. The tribute merely went to one ruling clique rather than another. The neo-imperialism, by contrast, forced a thorough transformation of the conquered countries. This was not so much deliberate policy as it was the inevitable impact of the dynamic industrialism of Western Europe upon the static, self-contained agrarian regimes of Africa and Asia. In other words, Europe's industrial capitalism was far too complex and expansionistic to stop with a simple tribute relationship with the colonies.

At the outset, the European conquerors certainly did not hesitate to plunder and to levy tribute. The British did so in India, as the Spaniards had earlier in Mexico and in Peru. But after this initial phase, Europe's dynamic economy began in various ways to enfold and refashion the colonial economic and social structures. This happened because industrialised Europe needed sources of raw materials and markets for its surplus capital and manufactures. The historic role of the neo-imperialism was to carry the Industrial Revolution to its logical conclusion – to enable the industrial nations, or industrial capitalism, to operate on a worldwide scale. The global operation of industrial capitalism resulted in much more extensive, coordinated, and efficient use of the material and human resources of the globe. Certainly world productivity rose greatly when European capital and skills were combined with the raw materials and labour power of the underdeveloped regions. The combination produced, for the first time, an integrated global economy. In fact, world industrial production increased threefold between 1860 and 1890, and sevenfold between 1860 and 1913. The value of world trade grew from £641 million in 1851, to £3024 million in 1880, to £4025 million in 1900, and to £7840 million in 1913.

Everyone agrees that this increase in the size of the economic cake has been a great advantage. But there is much dispute over the question of how the cake has been sliced. Colonial people feel that in the past they have had less than their due share. The total amount that they have received obviously has increased, otherwise their rising populations could not have been supported. For example, a British economist has shown that in 1949 European companies engaged in mining in mineral-rich Northern Rhodesia sold their output for a total of £36.7 million. Of this, they spent only £12.5 million in Northern Rhodesia, which meant that two-thirds of the money was transferred abroad. Moreover, of the £12.5 spent in Northern Rhodesia, £4.1 million was paid to Europeans living and working there. Only £ 2 million out of the £ 36.7 million went to the Africans working in the mines. Yet these workers were receiving an average of £ 41 a year compared to an average income of £27 a year per adult African male in the colony.

Under these circumstances, it is understandable that colonial people are not very impressed by increased productivity or by the wages paid by foreign companies. They are more impressed by the wretched level at which they subsist, especially in comparison with western levels. They also resent being cast in the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water, even in regions where there are human and material resources for industrial development.

There is an obvious parallel here between the reaction of western workers to industrial capitalism and of colonial people to the neo-imperialism. Both have been dissatisfied with their lot, and both have supported movements designed to bring about radical change. A basic difference is that colonial people are ranged not against employers of their own nationality but rather against foreign rulers. Accordingly, their movement of protest, at least in the first stage, was not socialism, but rather a range of western political doctrines – liberalism, democracy, and, above all, nationalism.

Colonialism And Imperialism in Africa

How did it Begin? The Portuguese were the first to establish trading posts along Africa's west coast and acquire gold, ivory, and African slaves in the 15th century. For more than a century, Portugal held an almost unbroken monopoly of European relations with tropical Africa. The Portuguese sought to exploit it in a selective manner. Hence, except in a few relatively small areas, the economic and political life of the African people continued as it had done before. In fact, the Portuguese were more the harbingers of change than the actual agents of change. They showed other Europeans, with greater maritime and commercial strength than they themselves had, that there was profit to be made out of contract with Africa. By the close of the 16th century, the Portuguese for example, had demonstrated to the other West Europeans that the real value of Africa was not as a source of gold or spices or as an expanding frontier for Christendom, but as a continent where slaves could be acquired for exploitation in America.

The Dutch East India Company overthrew Portuguese supremacy in the Indian Ocean in the first decade of the 19th century and between 1637 and 1642 captured all the major Portuguese settlements on the west coast of Africa. These led to the incorporation of tropical Africa into a dynamic world trading system dominated by the Europeans. Soon, the Dutch also gave way to the British and French whose governments were not inclined to allow their American colonists to become tied to Dutch merchants for their supplies of slaves and other forms of capital with the resultant possibility that much of the marketing of their produce in Europe would be in Dutch hands.

Therefore, the latter part of the 17th century was one in which a number of major European trading companies were vying with one another for the trade of West African coastlands. The competition was more severe because, many times during the numerous colonial wars of the time, the companies, as representatives of their nation's interest in Africa, called upon the armed support of the new national navies. Because of this, much of the competition in West Africa centred around the possession of coastal ports.

The new pattern of trade became manifest with the increase in American demand for slaves and as European activities extended further into Africa. Yet the right to trade was the prerogative of the African rulers and was granted to any European who was prepared to acknowledge African sovereignty and to pay the legal dues and taxes. Though the Europeans were prepared to exchange their goods (print cloth, raw materials, manufactured hardware, muskets, shot-power, brandy, rum and gin, beads and other trinkets) for many African products which would bring them profit, it was the ever-increasing American demand for slaves which principally explains the wide expansion and great growth of European trading activity from the middle of the 17th century onwards. There was also a continuous demand for gold.

The consequences of the growth of salve trade in West Africa were of two kinds: those due to its particular character as a trade in men and those due to the fact that the continuous growth in this demand for men spearheaded a great increase in volume of major trading activities and in the number of people and the extent of territory involved in these activities. Increasing trade led to the organisation of trade as also the use of regular currency. One more result was the emergence of a new class of men to which the term 'merchant-princes' is often applied. These were men, often of humble origin, who had based their commercial acumen to break out from some of the restrictions of traditional society, to accumulate personal wealth and slaves. This class was naturally most in evidence in or around the coast. This also led to the increase in wealth and prosperity of coastal towns, and soon coastal areas were transformed into city states, as also individual wealth and power, lay in accumulation of considerable quantities of slaves.

Until 1800, the major part of 'Bantu Africa' (Africa south of the Equator) was little affected in any direct sense by the increasing trade which had induced so many changes in West Africa. The most precious resource here was ivory. The growth in the demand for ivory meant that mainland people who had access to elephants and who had developed skills in hunting them began to see that they had within their grasp a resource of considerable value. When they began to exhaust their local supplies of ivory, they began to organise hunting bands to penetrate further into the interior to find more elephants. Along with ivory, the slave trade also increased. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, a few luxury items were also brought here. The political and social consequences of this penetration of external trades into Eastern Bantu Africa were considerable. Traditional life was disrupted. The only exception to this was the non-Bantu pastoral people, like Morai, who remained hostile and aloof.

Why and How was Africa Colonised? By the dawn of the 20th century, the map of Africa looked like a huge jigsaw puzzle, with most of the boundary lines having been drawn in a sort of game of give-and-take played in the foreign offices of the leading European powers. The division of Africa, the last continent to be so carved up, was essentially a product of the new imperialism (1875–1914). Vividly highlighting its essential features like the notable speedup in colonial acquisitions, the timing and the pace of the scramble for Africa are especially noteworthy. Before 1800, colonial possessions in Africa were relatively few and limited to coastal areas, with largest of the coastlines and almost all the interior still independent. By 1900, however, Africa was almost entirely divided into separate territories controlled by European powers. The only exceptions were Liberia (generally regarded as being under the special protection of the USA), Morocco (conquered by France a few years later), Libya (later taken over by Italy) and Ethiopia.

The second feature of the new imperialism was also strongly evident. It was in Africa that Germany made its first major bid for membership in the club of colonial powers. Between May 1884 and February 1885, Germany announced its claims to territory in South West Africa, Togoland, Cameroon and part of the East African coast opposite Zanzibar. Two smaller nations, Belgium and Italy, also entered the ranks, and even Portugal and Spain once again became active in bidding for African territory. The increasing number of participants in itself spread up the race for conquest. With the heightened rivalry came more intense concern for preclusive occupation, increased attention to military arguments for additional buffer zones and in a period when free trade was giving way to protective tariffs and discriminatory practices in colonies as well as at home, a growing urgency for protected overseas markets. Not only the wish but also the means were at hand for this carving up of the African pie. Repeating rifles, machine guns and other advances in weaponry gave the small armies of the conquering nations the effective power to defeat the much larger armies of both advanced and technically backward people of Africa. Rapid railroad construction provided the means for military, political and economic consolidation of continental interiors. With the new steamships, men and materials could be moved to Africa with greater dispatch; and bulk shipments of raw materials and food from Africa, prohibitively costly for some products in the days of the sailing ships, became economically feasible and profitable.

Penetration of the Islamic North Africa was complicated, on the one hand, by the struggle among European powers for the control of the Mediterranean Sea and, on the other hand, by the suzerainty that the Ottoman Empire exercised to a greater or lesser extent over large sections of the region. Development in both respects contributed to the wave of partition towards the end of the 19th century. First, Ottoman power was perceptibly waning. The military balance had tipped decisively in favour of the European nations, and Turkey was becoming increasingly dependent on loans from European centres of capital. Second, the importance of domination of the Mediterranean increased significantly after Suez Canal was opened in 1869.

France was the only European nation that had established a major beachhead in Islamic North Africa before the 1880s. At a time when Great Britain was preoccupied to interfere, the French captured the fortress of Algiers in 1830. Frequent revolts kept the French Army busy in the Algerian interior for another 50 years before all Algeria was under full French rule.

While Tunisia and Egypt had been areas of great interest to European powers during the long period of France's Algerian take-over, the penetration of these countries had been informal, confined to diplomatic and financial maneuvers. Italy, as well as France and England, had loaned large sums to the ruling 'Begs' of Tunisia to help loosen that country's ties with Turkey. The inability of the Begs to service the foreign debt in the 1870s led to the installation of debt commissioners by the lenders.

Tunisia's revenues were pledged to pay the interest due on outstanding bonds. With this came increased pressure on the people for large tax payments and a growing popular dissatisfaction with a government that had 'sold out' to foreigners. The weakness of the ruling group, intensified by the danger of popular revolt or a military coup, opened the door further for formal occupation by one of the interested foreign powers. When Italy's actions showed that it might be preparing for outright possession, France jumped the gun by invading Tunisia in 1881 and completed its conquest by defeating the rebellions precipitated by this occupation.

The course of Egypt's loss of sovereignty resembled somewhat the same process as in Tunisia; easy credit extended by Europeans, bankruptcy, increasing control by foreign debt commissioners, overtaxing the peasants to raise revenue for servicing the debt, growing independence movements and, finally, military conquest by a foreign power. In Egypt, interimperialist rivalry, mainly between Great Britain and France, reached back to the early 19th century but was intensified under the circumstances of the new imperialism and the construction of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal was a strategic link to the British Empire and its eastern trade and colonial interests. The successful nationalist revolt headed by the Egyptian army imminently threatened in the 1860s the interests of both powers. France, occupied with war in Tunisia and with internal political problems, did not participate in the military intervention to suppress the revolt. Great Britain bombarded Alexandria in 1882, landed troops and thus obtained control of Egypt. Unable to find a stable collaborationist government that would also pay Egypt's debts and concerned with suppressing not only the rebellion but also a powerful anti-Egyptian Mahdist revolt in Sudan, Britain completely took over the reins of government in Egypt.

The rest of North Africa was carved up in the early 20th century. France, maneuvering for possession of Morocco, which bordered on her Algerian Colony, tried to obtain acquiescence of the other powers by both secret and open treaties granting Italy a free hand in Libya, allotting Spain a sphere of influence, and Germany's ambitions, now backed by an increasingly effective army and navy. The tension created by Germany led to an international conference at Algiers (1906), which produced a short-lived compromise, including recognition of France's paramount interest, Spanish participation in policing Morocco, and an open door for the country's economic penetration by other nations. France's vigorous pursuit of her claims, reinforced by the occupation of Casablanca and surrounding territory, precipitated critical confrontations, which reached their peak in 1911 when French troops were suppressing a Moroccan revolt and a German cruiser appeared before Agadir in a show of force. The resulting settlements completed the European partition of North Africa. France obtained the lion's share of Morocco, Germany received a large part of the French Congo, Italy was given the green light for her war with Turkey over control of Tripoli, the first step in her eventual acquisition of Libya and Spain was enabled to extend her Rio de-Oro protectorate to the Southern frontier of Morocco. The more or less peaceful trade offs by the occupying powers differed sharply from the long, bitter, and expensive wars they waged against the indigenous peoples and rulers of Islamic North Africa to consolidate European rule.

The partition of sub-Saharan Africa, i.e., Africa below the Sahara, took place at two levels: (1) on paper – in deals made among colonial powers who were seeking colonies partly for the sake of the colonies themselves and partly as pawns in the power play of European nations struggling for world dominance., and (2) in the filed – in battles of conquest against African states and tribes and in military confrontations among the rival powers themselves. This process produces, over and above the ravages of colonialism, a wasp's nest of problems that was to plague African nations long after they achieved independence. Boundary lines between colonies were often drawn arbitrarily, with little or no attention to ethnic unity, regional economic ties, tribal migratory patterns, or even natural boundaries.

Before the race for partition, only three European powers (France, Portugal and Britain) had territory in tropical Africa, located mainly in West Africa, but only France had moved into the interior along the Senegal river. However, the ground for eventual occupation of the interior of tropical Africa was being gradually prepared by explorers, missionaries and traders. Such penetration remained tenuous until the contraction of railroads and the arrival of steamships on navigable waterways made it feasible for European merchants to dominate the trade of the interior and for European governments to consolidate conquest.

In West Africa, Germany concentrated on consolidating her passions of Togo land and Cameroon, while England and France pushed northward and eastward from their bases. England concreted on the Niger region, the centre of its commercial activity, while France aimed at joining its possessions at Lake Chad within a grand design for an empire of contiguous territories from Algeria to the Congo. Final boundaries were arrived at after the British and the French had defeated the resisting tribes and kingdoms in their respective areas. The boundaries determined by conquest and agreement between the conquerors gave France the lion's share. In addition to the extension of its former coastal possessions, France acquired French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa, while Britain carved out its Nigerian colony.

In Central Africa, the inter-colonial rivalries chiefly involved the British, the Portuguese, the South African Republic of the Transvaal, the British backed Cape colony, and the Germans. The acquisitive drive was enormously stimulated by dreams of wealth generated by the discovery of diamonds and gold. Encouraged by these discoveries, Cecil Rhodes (heading the British South Africa Company) and other entrepreneurs expected to find gold, copper and diamonds in the regions surrounding the Transvaal. In the ensuing struggle, Britain obtained control over Bechuana land and through the British South Africa Company, over the areas later designated as the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. At the same time, Portugal moved inland to seize control over the colony of Mozambique. It was clearly the rivalries of stronger powers, especially the concern of Germany and France over the extension of British rule in Central Africa, that enabled a weak Portugal to have its way in Angola and Mozambique.

The boundary lines in East Africa were arrived at largely in settlements between Britain and Germany, the two chief rivals in that region. For the first area of friction, viz., Zanzibar and Tanganyika, separate spheres of influence were established in the 1886 Anglo-German agreement. A final division of the area coveted by both powers was reached in an overall Anglo-German treaty of 1890. Britain obtained the future Uganda and recognition of its paramount interest in Zanzibar island of Hoagland and non-interference in Germany's acquisition of Tanganyika, Ruanda and Urindi. As part of her consolidation of control over Uganda and its resources, Britain began to build an East African railroad to the coast, establishing the East African Protectorate (later Kenya) covering the area through which the railroad was built.

Rivalry in Northeast Africa between the French and British centred on domination of the upper end of the Nile. Italy, the third power in the race, had established itself at two ends of Ethiopia. Its penetration into the interior led to was with Ethiopia and defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian army at Adowa (1896). The unprecedented victory by an African state over a European army strengthened French influence in Ethiopia (Ethiopia had French military advisers during its war with Italy) and enabled France to stage military expeditions from Ethiopia as well as from the Congo to order to establish footholds on the upper Nile. War between France and Britain was narrowly avoided in a settlement in 1898 that completed the partition of the region; eastern Sudan to be ruled jointly by Britain and Egypt, while France was to possess the remaining part of Sudan.

The entry of Germany into South Africa through occupation and conquest of Southwest Africa sparked off an upsurge of British colonial activity in that area notably the separation of Lesotho as a Crown colony from the Cape colony and the annexation of Zululand. The thorn in the side of British interests, however, was the independence of the Transvaal, which was rich in gold, has its own ambitions to expand, and was a potential area of German infiltration. In the acquisition spirit of the new imperialism, Britain provoked war with the Boers (1899–1902), at the end of which she obtained sovereignty over the Transvaal as well as the Afrikaner Orange Free State.

What was its Positive Impact? The most important positive political consequence was the establishment of a relatively a greater degree of peace and stability in Africa. The 19th century Africa was one of instability and insecurity. In fact, from 1890 to 1930, this was intensified and caused wholesale and unpardonable destruction and loss of life. With colonial occupation liberation came to an end. Hence, most parts of Africa, especially from the end of the First World War enjoyed a great degree of continuous peace and stability.

The emergence of the modern independent nations of Africa as geo-political entities was another positive effect. The colonial conquest and partition led to a drastic reshaping of the political face of Africa. In place of the independent clan and lineage groups, which were without any clearly marked boundaries, city states, kingdoms and empires with fixed boundaries were now established. It is important to note that boundaries of the states as laid down in the colonial era have remained almost the same since independence.

Another positive political consequence was the birth of not only a new type of African nationalism but also of Pan-Africanism. The former was the fostering of a sense of identity and consciousness among the various classes or ethnic groups inhabiting each of the new states, while the latter was a sense of identity of black-men the world over. Various movements, political parties, youth leagues, associations, religious sects and newspapers were vehicles of articulation of African nationalism, while Pan-African congresses were those of Pan-Africanism. The colonial system also introduced in most parts of Africa two new institutions, viz., a new judicial system and a new bureaucracy both based on western models.

The best positive economic outcome can be seen in the primary sector of African economy. Since every effort was made to develop or exploit some of the rich natural resources of the continent. The full mineral potential of Africa was realised and the mining industry boomed. While the cultivation of cash crops, such as cocoa, coffee, tobacco, groundnuts, and rubber spread, this Economic Revolution had far-reaching results: (a) the commercialisation of land which made it a real asset (Before the colonial era, huge tracts of land in many parts of Africa were not only under-populated but also underutilised: but the introduction and spread of cash crops and mining industry put an end to all this); (b) an increase in the purchasing power of some Africans and with it an increase in their demand for consumer goods; (c) the ability of African individuals of whatsoever social status, especially in rural areas, to acquire wealth.

Another positive economic outcome was the introduction of money economy. By 1920s whole of Africa has been drawn into money economy. The results of this change were: (a) a new standard of wealth had been introduced which was based not only on the number sheep or cows one possessed but on actual cash; (b) people were engaged in activities not for subsistence alone but also to earn money which in turn led to the emergencies of a new class of wage – earners and salaried groups; (c) commencement of banking activities in Africa. The introduction of money economy, banking activities and tremendous expansion of trade between colonial Africa and Europe led to the completion of the integration of Africa into the economy of the western world. One more positive economic consequence was the provision of an infrastructure of motor roads, railways, telegraphs, etc. These did not exist in the pre-colonial Africa.

Colonisation of Africas 1913

The most beneficial social result was the new social structure that had emerged in some parts of Africa and which later spread to other parts as well. In contrast to the traditional social structure which placed too much importance on birth, the new colonial order emphasised individual merit and achievement rather than birth. This change, together with abolition of slavery, introduction of western education, Christianity and Islam, commercialisation of agriculture which facilitated acquisition of wealth in some areas, and many other avenues for advancement that the new colonial order introduced, radically altered traditional social structure. Thus, by 1930s in place of the pre-colonial social classes of traditional ruling aristocracy, the ordinary people, domestic slaves and a relatively small educated elite, there emerged a new society that had become more sharply divided than before into urban and rural dwellers, each of which was differently stratified. The urban people came to be divided into three main groups: (a) the elite consisting of bureaucrats, bankers and high merchants; (b) the sub-elite consisting of brokers, middlemen, clerks, teachers, nurses and junior civil servants; and (c) urban proletariat consisting of wage earners, store assistants, drivers, merchants, tailors, etc. In rural areas, there emerged for the first-time new classes, namely a rural proletariat to landless labourers and peasants.

Next was the overall increase in the populations of Africa during the colonial period by about 37.5% after its decline during the first 2 or 3 decades of colonialism, this increase was due to the establishments of an economic base, spread of roads and railways which ensured the rushing of food to famine areas and campaigns launched against epidemic diseases, such as sleeping sickness, bubonic plague and yellow fever.

Urbanisation was another positive social effect. Though urbanisation was not unknown in pre-colonial Africa, now the pace of urbanisation increased significantly. Many towns were established. They were either new capitals and administrative centres or new harbours and railway terminals or the new mining and commercial centres.

On more important positive social impact was the provision of a 'lingual franca' for each colony or set of colonies. In all colonies, mother tongue of colonial powers, either in its pure or modified form, became official language, and in many cases the main means of communication among numerous linguistic groups that comprised the population of each colony.

What was its Negative Impact? The negative impact of colonialism and imperialism in Africa for outweighed its positive impact. The negative impact can be seen clearly in the political field. To begin with, Nationalism in Africa grew with the oppressive, discriminatory, humiliating and exploitative measures introduced by the colonial rulers and was not a result of identity with the nation-state. Then with the overthrow of colonial rulers from the middle of the 20th century, the feeling of nationalism was bound to lose its momentum.

Further while new geo-political set up that sprang up was an asset, it nevertheless created far more problems that it solved. Though boundaries of states that emerged were not as arbitrary as is generally believed, there is no doubt that many of the states that rose were artificial creations and this artificially created a number of problems for further development of the continent. Some of the boundaries, for instance, cut across pre-existing ethnic groups, states and kingdoms and this caused widespread social disruptions and displacements. Another outcome of the artificially and arbitrations of the colonial divisions was that the states that emerged were of different sizes with unequal national resources and economic potentialities. The problems of development posed by the lack of or limited natural resources, limited fertile land and lack of access to the sea for the independent African states can be visualised.

Another negative political outcome was the growth of an attitude that government and all public property belonged not to the people but rather to white colonial rulers and could, therefore, be taken advantage of at the best opportunity. This attitude was a direct product of the remote nature of the colonial administration and the elimination of an overwhelming majority of Africans, both educated and uneducated, from the decision making process.

The genesis of the practices of military intervention in the politics of the states was one more unwanted consequence. Before the consolidation of colonialism in Africa no Africa state had a standing army. All adults including even members of the ruling aristocracy became soldiers in time of wars and civilians in times of peace. Standing armies were created in the 1880s and 90s, first for the conquest and occupation of Africa, then for the maintenance of colonial control, and finally for persecution of global wars and suppression of independence movements in Africa. After the overthrow of the colonial rule, these armies were nor disbanded but were taken over by the government of the independent states. In fact in most of the African states, the standing armies played important roles in the transition from colonial rule to indigenous rule due to the internal squabbling.

The last, but not the least, important negative political impact was the loss of African sovereignty and independence, and the right of Africans to shape their own destiny or deal directly with the outside worlds. Even after the decolonisation of Africa, the former colonial powers maintained their links with their former colonies and continued to exercise indirect control over them, particularly due to the former's economic dependence over the latter.

The economic development as it occurred in African colonies was based on the natural resources of the area, and therefore, those areas that were not naturally gifted were totally neglected. This led to sharp economic differences in the same colony. This accentuated the regional differences and sentiments which have been a great impediment in the way of nation-building in independent Africa.

A characteristic feature of the colonial economy was the total and deliberate negligence, and discouragement of industrialisation and processing of locally produced raw materials and agricultural products in most of the colonies. Simple items like matches, candles, edible oils, and even lime and orange juice – all these which could have been produced in Africa – were imported. All African states, therefore, became markets for the manufactured goods from metropolitan countries, and producers of raw materials for export. Not only was industrialisation neglected, but such industries and crafts that had existed in Africa in pre-colonial times were almost destroyed.

Though agricultural crops came to constitute the main source of income for most African states, no serious attempts were made to diversify the agricultural economy of the colonies. Instead the production of only single or cash crops had become the norm. The period after World War II did not see any improvement in this area. Hence, most of the African states, on attainment of independence, found themselves saddled with mono-crop economies and were, therefore, highly sensitive to the prevailing international trade conditions. Colonialism did, indeed, complete the integration of African economies into world economic order, but in a disadvantageous and exploitative manner and this has not altered ever since.

The over dependence on cash crops had another negative effect, i.e., negligence of the internal sector of African economy. The economy of Africa had always been divided into two sectors: internal sector which produced both for subsistence of producers and for the home market, and the export sector which provided for long distance and caravan trade. Both sectors were given equal emphasis in pre-colonial times, with the result that neither food nor fish was imported to feed anyone. However, because of the concentration on production of cash crops during the colonial area, internal sector was virtually neglected and Africans were, in fact, compelled to ignore the production of food crops for their consumption in favour of production of cash crops for exports. Food, therefore, had to be imported which ordinary people had to purchase usually at exorbitant prices to feed themselves.

The infrastructure that was provided by colonialism was not as adequate or as useful as it could have been. Most of the road and railroads were constructed not to open the country but merely to connect the areas, having mineral deposits and potentialities for the production of cash crops with the sea. Nor were they meant to facilitate inter-African travel and communication. Such infrastructure as was provided was meant to facilitate the exploitation of the resources of the colonies and to link them with the metropolitan countries, but not to promote the overall economic development.

Colonial rule also led to the appearance of an increasing number of expatriate banking, shipping and trading firms and companies. Since it was these firms and companies that controlled exports as well as imports, trade, fixed prices not only of important commodities but also of the exports produced by Africans, the huge profits that accrued from these activities went to these companies and not to the Africans. Thus, Africans were eliminated from the profitable and important sectors of the economy altogether.

The resultant outcome of the monetary policies pursued by the colonial powers towards their colonies (tying their currencies to those of the colonial powers, introduction of tariff and keeping all foreign exchange earnings in metropolitan capitals) led to the concentration of colonial assets in metropolitan capitals, instead of their being utilised in the colonies. The reparation of savings and deposits of Africans by banks and discrimination practiced against Africans in granting of loans further hampered African economic growth.

The education system under the colonial rule was hardly sufficient, unevenly distributed and badly oriented, and therefore not as beneficial as it could have been. Out of the five types of institutions (primary, secondary, teacher-training, technical and university) that were established under the colonial rule, only primary schools were established by 1860s and secondary schools only in the 1920s and 30s, while university and technical education was introduced only towards the end of the colonial era. Moreover, nowhere and at no level did the facilities provided by these institutions were determined by colonial people. Instead they were closely modelled on those of the European continent. The impact of this inadequate, uneven and wrongly oriented education of African societies is profound. For, it left Africa with a huge illiteracy problem – a problem whose solution will take a long time. Besides, the educated elite that cropped up was by and large an alienated elite, an elite based on European culture and civilisation and which looked down on African culture. Therefore, a gap had come into existence between this elite and the masses, and it has not yet been bridged. Since this elite comprised wealthiest people and they occupied the highest posts available both during and after the colonial era, they came to exercise power and influence out of proportion to their numbers, and relations between them on the one hand and traditional elite on the other hand became strained during the colonial era, and have not yet been bridged.

The neglect of technical education and the emphasis on liberal and clerical training and the consequent love for white-collared jobs also created, among the educated, disdain for manual labour and agricultural work which is still prevalent. Moreover, the uneven nature of distribution of educational facilities proved a stumbling block to the uniform process of modernisation in each colony, which further accentuated differences and tensions between ethnic groups and regions. These have remained in many areas and responsible for some of the civil wars and rivalries that have occurred in some of the independent African states.

Colonial rulers did introduce some social services, but these services were highly inadequate and unevenly distributed in each colony. Besides, they were essentially meant for the benefit of a few white settlers and administrators.

Most disgustingly the African himself was looked down upon, humiliated and discriminated both overtly and covertly. Even the educated elite, who admired European culture and went out of their way to identity with it, were never given equal treatment. They were barred from the societies of Europeans and were prevented from living in European quarters of the town. Instead of decreasing, this discrimination grew in intensity, culminating in the inhuman philosophy of Apartheid in South Africa. This racial discrimination inevitably created in some Africans a deep sense of inferiority which had not entirely disappeared even after decades of independence.

In the cultural field, the national arts, crafts, music, dance, etc., were condemned. Consequently, throughout the colonial period, African art, music, dance, and even history were not only ignored but also discouraged. Moreover, the development of 'lingua franca' hampered the growth of some of the indigenous languages into national languages.

Semi-Colonialism in Egypt

What was its Condition Under Mohammad Ali Pasha? Mohammad Ali's rise as the first Pasha was a natural outcome of Napoleon Bonaparte's activity in Egypt. The French forces had landed near Alexandria in July 1798 ostensibly to overthrow the Mamluks (local gentry) and to restore the authority of the Ottoman Sultan. But they could not consolidate their position because of British intervention. The French army remained ineffectual and was eventually withdrawn by agreement with the British in 1801. It, however, had the enormously important effect of bringing to the attention of a few men in Egypt a keen awareness of the advantages of an orderly government and an appreciation of the advances that science and learning had made in Europe.

Mohammad Ali (1805–1849), an Albanian, had been sent out by the Turkish Sultan to drive out the French, but he was keen on consolidating his position and that of his successors in hereditary possession of Egypt and was also aware of the fact that if he was to maintain such a position, he must have an army and a navy trained on western lines. As a result, he looked to the western powers, particularly the British and the French for armaments and technical experts. When his overtures to the British were declined, he turned to the French, whose hopes for an empire in India had been shattered.

Initiating an era of reforms to realise his ambitions, he first struck at the roots of Mamluk power by abolishing their land tenure system. By 1814 itself, he succeeded in vesting the ownership in his government (i.e., in himself), but leaving the use and cultivation of lands in the hands of the existing tenants. The peasant now paid taxes directly to the state. Most of the waqf land was also confiscated and the government was supposed to look after mosques and the religious people. Thus the state was now the landlord, and the peasant was a state-tenant, not a peasant-proprietor. In 1830, he distributed large tracks of this confiscated land apparently to create a social base to perpetuate his regime.

In agriculture, he began to decide what crops to be cultivated on how much land. Seeds and funds were lent out, and inspectors were employed to carry out the Pasha's orders. Most of the crops, especially export crops like cotton, were declared government monopolies and such crops were purchased by the government at a fixed price which was sometimes half or even less than half of the market value. From about 1820, he began the construction of numerous canals for the purpose of cultivating by perennial irrigation instead of artificial basins into which the annual Nile flood was admitted to fertilise the ground for the main winter crop. Dam construction was entrusted to French engineers. Thus began the history of permanent irrigational network in Lower Egypt.

By a series of reforms, he reorganised the industrial sector of Egypt also. In 1815 itself, he declared the existing manufacturers as government monopolies. The government, at a considerable profit to itself, supplied the artisans with the raw materials, bought back the finished articles cheaply and resold them dearly; a number of iron-works were set up and so were arsenals, gunpowder factories, saltpetre works, etc. Along with them, the Pasha set up a number of industries such as textiles, sugar, paper, glass, leather and sulphuric acid.

His industrial policy, however, did not yield the desired results. For, these industries were on the whole run at a loss on account of high cost of imported machines and spare parts, the lack of suitable overseers, engineers, apathy of the workers (who were paid low wages and pressurised as is the case in state capitalism), waste of raw materials, confusion, delays, etc. By 1840, the strain of the accumulated losses had become evident even to the Pasha.

It was inevitable that he would reorganise and modernise his armed forces on western lines. French officials and doctors used to accompany his armies in his campaigns. A French colonel was, in fact, engaged to reorganise and train Egyptian army on French lines. Another Frenchman planned and organised the naval dockyard at Alexandria. French military works were translated into Arabic. Separate military colleges to train officers were opened. A number of felaheen (peasants) were converted into soldiers.

To improve the education system, after 1836, he opened 50 elementary and secondary schools on French lines and got a number of European books on science and technology translated into Egyptian. In order to build a cadre of modern and technically trained young Egyptians, he sent a large number of them to Europe, especially to France to study language, law, astronomy, science and machines. Simultaneously, French personnel were invited to Egypt to teach the Egyptians. Medical colleges were also founded. In 1822, Egypt's first printing press and newspaper were founded. He also improved the means of transport and communication. The harbour of Alexandria was improved and linked to the Nile by a canal. Many roads and canals were built and old ones repaired for facilitating quick and easy transport.

His attempts to impose Capitalism from above, instead of building it from below, over a primitive agrarian and guild economy suffered from serious limitations. The industrial sector was on the whole running at a loss. The ruin was completed in 1842, when, as part of settlement of the Syrian War, the British government forced the Pasha to accept the application to Egypt of the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty of 1838, by which, British merchants were to trade in the country. A few years later, all that remained was a large quantity of rusted machinery all over the country. The managers of the factories were for the most part salaried government officials, ignorant and unenthusiastic about their work. The machines that were imported were novelties and highly expensive and very few in Egypt had mastered the new technology. The conditions of workers were unenviable; unskilled people were conscripted forcibly to work in factories and paid low wages. They lived in barracks and were kept like soldiers.

Likewise, attempts to accelerate agriculture production were in no way beneficial to the farmers. Low prices which were paid to them denied any incentive to work hard. Many, in fact, deserted their farms. The only effect of the monopoly system was to keep down the standard of living of the farmers and to divert into the hands of the government the additional wealth created by increased production and higher prices. Both the peasant and the artisan were unable to bear the burden of modernisation resulting in a number of uprisings.

Though Ali had control of internal politics, he could not go against the foreign powers. The Europeans were granted freedom from all duties and also extraterritoriality (i.e., they could be tried by their own courts). Besides, tariff was decided by the Ottoman Emperor and the Europeans, but not by Egypt separately. England was gradually acquiring commercial predominance over Egypt. The terms imposed by the British in 1842 after the Syrian War makes this point very clear. The new landlord class which acquired a large part of the commercial surplus was export oriented. Eventually, it resulted in direct European free trade colonialism. Egyptian industries were deprived of tariff protection. From 1841–-42, there was active beginning of a process of the integration of the Egyptian economy to international market in a subservient manner.

Yet the fact remains that Ali could achieve what must have looked impossible 50 years before the lifting of Egypt out of the morass in which centuries of misrule were smothering her. He increased the agricultural production, though at the cost of lowering the natural fertility of the soil. Further, he introduced elements of Western education and culture in Egypt. Most importantly, he left the country free from any debt, which his successors failed to do.

What was its Condition Under Other Pashas? Ali's immediate successor was Abbas Pasha (1849–54) whose rule is not significant since he was basically a conservative. His two successors, Said Pasha and Ismail Pasha, introduced a number of social, political and economic reforms which resulted in further modernisation of the Egyptian economy.

Said Pasha (1854–63), starting with the army, pressurised the Turkish Sultan to increase its strength. A large number of felaheen were recruited for this purpose. The Officers ranks, which comprised Mohammed Ali's men earlier (Albanians), were now becoming purely Egyptian in composition.

In the agrarian sector, he first removed the restrictions on private ownership of land and granted the rights of sale, mortgage and transfer to the landlords. Land revenue began to be collected in cash and not in kind and revenue settlement was made with the peasants and not the village heads. He also abolished the last survivals of the monopoly system. The peasant, thus, got freedom to sell his crop freely. A new class of landlords was created who introduced cash crops and machinery in agriculture. Irrigation system was developed further, old canals were remodeled and new ones were dug.

In the commercial sector, he abolished internal duties in order to introduce free trade inside Egypt also, and to neutralise the advantages enjoyed by the Europeans because of their exemption from internal duties and tariffs. However, these efforts of Said Pasha had serious limitations due to the restrictions imposed on Egypt by the Anglo-Turkish Agreement of 1842, and hence indigenous products could not naturally compete with foreign goods.

To improve transport and communications, railway lines connecting different parts of Egypt with Alexandria and the Suez were constructed. In fact Egypt outstripped even France in this. It came to outstrip France in telegraph as well. Great care was given to the development of the Egyptian fleet which became two-and-half times larger than that of France. Roads, bridges, canals and harbours were also improved.

The most noteworthy development of his reign was the construction of the Suez Canal. Ali was, in fact, the first to moot the idea of a two-sea canal, but dropped it when he felt that it would drag Egypt into international troubles and fierce rivalries. His two successors looked at it with positive but benign eyes. They regarded it as a means of slicing Egypt off the Turkish Empire. Proposal came from French experts like Lambert and Lesseps. In 1854, Said gave concessions to these French engineers. All land and four-fifths of the labour were given free of cost. Its construction had a number of consequences, some positive and some negative. It led to an increase in the strategic, economic, diplomatic and bargaining powers of Egypt. It also led to the birth of two large cities and a province in the Sinai desert. It even brought large sums in taxation. Finally, it meant a technological revolution because of the use of the latest technology. But it dragged Egypt into a huge debt and international rivalries and troubles.

Said Pasha, was, thus, found lacking the discretion, the judgment and the basic financial soundness of Mohammad Ali. When Said died in 1863, he left a huge debt of 12 million – composed of his obligations to the Suez Canal Company for his 44% share of the capital issues, public works of various kinds, personal loans, etc. Thus, he was responsible for dragging Egypt into the tentacles of European finance imperialism, though unintentionally.

Said Pasha (1863–79) ascended the throne at the height of American Civil War when the interruption of the supply of American cotton to Lancashire led to a tremendous boom in Egyptian cotton. This prosperity led him into impractical dreams of expanding and modernising his country's economy, for which he would have to depend heavily on foreign finances.

In order to realise his ambitious plans, he raised the first foreign loan of 5.7 million from a British banking house in 1864. When an outbreak of cattle disease swept Egypt between 1863 and 1865, in order to restore the herds and also to carry out a plan for extending railway, he took another loan in 1866. In his attempt to redress the economic situation by encouraging the planting and processing of sugar on a large scale, he took another loan.

Due to this extravagant expenditure on such enterprises as railways, irrigation canals, European type schools, harbours, bridges, army and interest payments on the loans (which never amounted to less than 20% per annum on the principal), expenditure during his reign amounted to double the total revenue.

The mounting foreign debt proved highly detrimental to Egypt. In desperation, Ismail decided to dispose of his 44% share in the capital of the Suez Canal Company. Disraeli (PM of Britain) purchased these shares for the British. Even then the state was bankrupt by 1876.

Eventually, an international 'Caise Dela Detta Publique' was set up with British and French Commissioners to receive Egyptian revenues, to supervise railways and the port of Alexandria, and to maintain the payment due to creditors. In short, 'dual control' of Britain and France had begun to regulate the public life in Egypt. A British officer was appointed as General Controller of revenues and a French Officer to control expenditure.

One more consequence of this increasing debt and the subsequent developments was the rising national feeling among Egyptians. The European penetration in the previous 50 years and the inauguration of a system of education along European lines had created a class of young men, who had imbibed some of the liberal and nationalist ideas of contemporary Europe. Moreover, while Ismail's public work schemes had greatly improved Egypt's communication, transport, production and trade, they had brought little benefit to the masses that bore the main burden of heavy taxation. Hence, a strong under-current of popular discontent was there.

Ismail was the first of his dynasty to be superficially Europeanised in education and taste. To install in Egypt all the external evidences of European material civilisation, regardless of the cost, was for him to be in the forefront of progress. He embarked upon vast and costly schemes with no adequate study of their practicability. Thus, under Ismail, Egypt was put firmly in the clutches of foreign imperialism and was transformed into a semi-colony of the Europeans.

How was it Colonised in Economic Terms? The geographical location of Egypt made her a prospective area for the operations of Greek, Roman, Turkish and later French and British exploiters for the past 2000 years. It became a province and art gallery of the Greek empire, a granary of the Roman Empire and a gold mine for the Turkish Empire. In fact, at the time of its national awakening, it had no national history, literature or even a language. Then came Mohammad Ali, who is considered as the maker of modern Egypt.

The basics of colonialism existed even in Ali's time which was to manifest itself only under his successors. The foreign traders had been freed from all duties and given extra-territorial rights. This gradually enabled the peaceful penetration of Egypt by the foreign powers. By the Anglo-Turkish Treaty (1842), the British goods got free access in Egypt. From the 1840s, began the process of active integration of the Egyptian economy to the European one, in a subordinate way. His great achievement was that there was no foreign debt left behind by him.

Under Said and Ismail Pasha, Egypt became a target of European imperialism. Like Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, and Persia, Egypt also went through the stages of Europeanisation – first reconstruction, then corruption and extravagance, followed by foreign financial and political control which is the essence of economic colonisation. The Suez Canal was of immense use to the world, but it proved detrimental to Egypt. It made her the centre of international intrigues and power politics.

Under Ismail Pasha, the process of economic colonisation of Egypt, which had already begun in some ways, manifested itself in its proper form. He tried to bring to Egypt a costly program of public works and drove the country into bankruptcy. In 1875, he was compelled to sell his shares in the Suez Canal (worth 16 million) to Great Britain which bought it for just 4 million. In April 1876, the Egyptian government suspended payment of its treasury bills and declared itself bankrupt. Consequently, an international 'Caise De La Detta Publique' was set up with British and French commissioners to receive Egyptian revenues, to supervise the railways and the port of Alexandria, and to maintain the payments due to the creditors. In short, the dual control of France and Britain over Egypt had begun. Pasha had to give up his important sources of revenue for interest payments. In this way, an indirect official control over Egypt by the European powers began.

This control was increased further in 1878 with the Pasha giving up all control over administration. The Pasha was now asked to rule through a cabinet containing a British Minister of Finance and a French Minister of Public Works. Among other measures for reducing expenditure, the new cabinet ordered a drastic reduction in the size of the army. 2000 officers were placed on half pay without settlement of their year-long arrears of pay. This caused great indignation and in 1879 the officers forced the government to resign. The British and the French controllers suspected that this demonstration had been instigated by Ismail Pasha himself. Accordingly, the European powers replaced him by his more amenable son, Tawfiq. It is significant to note that in 1879, foreign debt of Egypt was ₤500 million, whereas the annual revenue was merely ₤40 millions.

Under Tawfiq (1879−92), there was the initial restoration of the Dual Control with greater power, but later, it was altogether abolished with the British occupation of Egypt (1882). The financial policy of two European powers was extremely callous so that no sacrifice should be demanded from the creditors till every possible sacrifice had been made by the debtors. In 1880, the law of liquidation was introduced. The law provided that the annual revenue of Egypt was to be divided into two equal parts, one of which was to be assigned to the Caise De La Detta Publique for the payment of interest to the creditors.

At the same time, nationalist resentment against the foreign powers was growing. In 1881, a military demonstration led by Arabi compelled the Pasha to accept a nationalist government. The Chamber of Notables (Upper House) had the tenacity to claim the right to vote budget without needing the representation of foreign financial controllers. Plans were made to expand the army and place effective control in the hands of native Egyptian officers. The French and the British reacted immediately and the nationalist government was dismissed. Despite some resistance, the British forces captured Cairo. The French, however, abstained, and this was mainly due to her government's indecision. The British abolished the dual control (which naturally caused resentment on the part of the French) and decided to continue the occupation of Egypt.

It was Lord Cromer (1882–1906) who was the de facto ruler of Egypt for the next 24 years. By the Convention of London (1885), an international loan was arranged for Egypt with the addition of Germany and Russia to the membership of Caise La Detta Publique. British advisers were attached to various ministers and they were always more powerful than the ministers. Tawfiq raised no objection to these measures and Cromer went on increasing his control over the administration.

Sir Gorst, Cromer's successor, granted greater freedom of action to the Egyptian government, and even his successor, Lord Kitchener, made efforts at achieving political tranquility. With the coming of World War I and the declaration of martial law in Egypt, the whole political question was suspended. Even after the achievement of freedom by Egypt in the 1920s, the British continued to exercise some sort of indirect control over Egypt till 1946.

Semi-Colonialism in China

The Chinese civilisation was a unique and self-contained one which developed over a long period spanning 4000 years. It was essentially an agrarian economy rather than one based on trade, and like most other Asian societies, it was governed by landlords and bureaucrats rather than by merchants and politicians. Having grown and developed in such isolation, Chinese society was distinctly self-centred and self-assured regarding the rest of the world as inferior.

China's first contact with the West came when the Portuguese appeared on its Southeast coast in 1514. The Portuguese were followed by the British and the Dutch. There were over-land visitors too—Russians came in from the North and the Amur village. In a characteristically Chinese manner, all these visitors were kept at arms length and relations with them restricted to trade at a few ports. Diplomatic relations on a full and equal basis were rejected.

But this isolation was not possible for long. China received a severe jolt from three disastrous wars: the first with Britain in 1840–42; the second with Britain and France in 1856–58; and the third with Japan in 1895. The humiliation China suffered in these wars forced it to throw open its gates to the West, end its condescending attitude toward the rest of the world and reappraise their own civilisation. The result was the beginning of a process of interaction and reaction that led to the growth of a new China with far reaching consequences on the Far East and the entire world.

It was rather easy for Britain to take lead in opening up China because it had already consolidated a power base in India and controlled the seas. Britain's main objective was to remove the obstacles that the Chinese had placed in the way of trading operations. Hostilities between Britain and China were triggered by the issue of opium trade.

European soldiers had introduced opium smoking in China in the 17th century and the habit soon spread rapidly into the hinterland. The demand for opium solved the British problem of paying for Chinese goods. Before this the British had been forced to pay mainly in gold and silver because the Chinese had little interest in the western goods. With the demand for opium growing, the balance of trade was reversed in favour of the British. The Peking government issued decrees in 1729 and 1799 prohibiting the import of opium but the trade was so profitable that Chinese officials could be bribed to permit smuggling.

The first Anglo-Chinese war, or the Opium War as it is known, broke out when the Chinese tried to enforce their prohibition of the opium traffic. The war began in 1840 and during the hostilities that followed China's military inferiority became obvious. With just a squadron of ships and a few thousand men the English were able to seize port after port at will. This was because Chinese military technology had stagnated, while European warships and artillery improved at an amazing pace between the 16th and 19th centuries. Faced with such a desperate situation the Peking government capitulated and accepted the Treaty of Nanking, the first of a series of unequal treaties that were to nibble away much of China's sovereignty.

The Nanking Treaty did not end the friction between the Chinese and the Europeans. The latter pressed for more and more concessions so as to increase trade, while the Chinese felt that too many privileges had been granted. With this simmering dissatisfaction it was no surprise that war began again in 1856. This time, the occasion was the imprisonment by Chinese officials of the Chinese crew of a Chinese ship flying the British flag. When Peking refused to release the crew, the British bombarded Canton. Using the murder of a French priest as a pretext, France too entered the war. The combined forces of England and France proved invincible and, in June 1858, the Chinese were forced to sign the Tientsin Treaties. However, they refused to adhere to the provisions of the treaties, leading to a renewed attack by the Anglo-French forces. This time the capital was captured and China was forced to sign the Peking Convention in 1860. The Tientsin and Peking Agreements opened several more ports on the coast. In the interior, they redefined and extended extraterritoriality and permitted the establishment of foreign legations in Peking and Christian missions throughout the country.

The third and most humiliating defeat was suffered by China at the hands of its small neighbouring kingdom of Japan. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese had made use of Western technology to suit their own needs. Japanese achieved what no other oriental state had been able to. Japan began to press home certain shadowy claims in Korea. Traditionally, the Koreans had recognised the suzerainty of China, but they had also paid tributes to Japan periodically. Thus, when China sent a small force to Korea in response to an appeal for aid to crush a revolt, the Japanese also landed a detachment of marines. The two forces clashed, and war was formally declared in August 1894. The Chinese armies were easily routed and in April 1895, Peking was forced to accept the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

The defeat at the hands of a small neighbouring kingdom was a shattering blow to the pride and complacency of China. The great empire had been shown to be completely helpless at the hands of a despised neighbour equipped with modern equipment. Furthermore, the European powers were taking advantage of Chinese weakness and annexing outlying territories that traditionally had recognised the suzerainty of Peking. France seized Indo-china, Britain took Burma, and Japan, since it had established its predominance in Korea, proceeded to annex the country outright. Russia took the Amur Valley, the Maritime Provinces, and for a while occupied the Li River region in Central Asia. The Western powers did not, however, stop with territorial acquisitions. They were soon dividing up China proper amongst themselves. They set up 'spheres of influence' in which the political and economic primacy of each respective power was recognised. Thus, Yunan and the area bordering on Indo-china became a French sphere, Canton and the Yangtze valley and the large area in between was a British sphere. Manchuria was Russian, Shantung was German and Fukien Japanese.

The series of humiliating defeats China experienced in the latter half of the 19th century forced the traditionally self-centred Middle Kingdom to undertake a painful self-assessment and reorganisation. The Chinese slowly and gradually tried to follow the Western model in a number of fields—first in the military, then in the economic and later in the social, intellectual and political fields as well.

What Were the Relations Till Opium Wars? China did not open her door to the Europeans on her own. The West initially enticed her and then compelled her to let them in. Of the Europeans, the Portuguese were the first to arrive in China, followed by the Spanish, the Dutch, the English and French. The Portuguese, having the head start, succeeded in establishing themselves at Macao in 1557 from where they exercised a virtual monopoly of the China trade throughout 16th and 17th centuries. The Spanish and the Dutch, however, could never strike their roots in China. The English, who first sent an expedition to China in 1635, showed better enterprise and in the 18th century became the leaders of Europeans in the Far Eastern trade.

All the Europeans came to the Southern coast of China and established contacts with the Chinese Empire through Canton. The 'pearl delta' is formed by the merger of three rivers near the port city of Canton. These rivers provide a fine inland network of communications for the port of Canton. An imperial edict of 1635 allowed foreigners to trade at all coastal ports. Canton, with its favourable position, attracted the Western traders more than any other port. Hence they concentrated mainly at Canton.

What was regarded as an advantage initially was made a necessity after 1757. In that year, to keep the 'Western Barbarians' at arms length the Chinese Emperor made Canton the sole open port. From 1757 up to the end of the first 'Opium War', Canton was known as 'Canton Trade' and kept under strict vigil. In order to keep the foreign merchants segregated even at Canton they were confined to a small area, the Macao. The Chinese authorities could not be wholly blamed for the restrictions they imposed on the western merchants. They were witnesses to a number of petty quarrels that occurred during the Napoleonic Wars among the British, the American and the Spanish in Chinese waters. The Chinese government, being in the imperialist activities of the EICO in India, would naturally attempt to prevent Canton from becoming another Calcutta.

The name 'Opium Wars' is misleading because England fought these wars against China for achieving an object of much greater interest than the protection of the opium trade. She aimed at acquiring a political footing and extra-territorial rights, the prerequisites for establishing a solid colonial economy. Or else she would not have demanded these things in the subsequent treaties. Interestingly the treaty of Nanking, signed after the first war, made no mention of the opium trade. Yet, these wars got that name just because the protection of opium trade was one of the immediate interests of the British, though not the most important one.

What were the Causes for the First War? The Chinese who always regarded themselves to be immensely superior to the 'barbarians' from the West, treated them with disdain and denied them the right to equality in official relations. This is clear from the fact that the Chinese treated the ambassadors of foreign powers as tribute bearers, and hence insisted that they should 'kow-tow' (prostrate nine times) before the Chinese Emperor or his picture.

The 'Co-hang' (a group of Chinese merchants) enjoying monopoly controlled all the foreign trade in China. The foreign merchants had to conduct all their transactions in China through these merchants. These Chinese merchants used to abuse their privileges and exploit the foreign merchants. The foreign merchants resented it and were eager to put an end to the system.

The new British merchants, who entered the China trade after the abolition of the monopoly of the East India Company in 1833, were in a hurry to find new markets and wanted the Chinese government to recognise the principle of free trade and equal opportunity. But, as the Chinese were unwilling to concede any fresh concessions, the British merchants both at Canton and at home, prevailed upon their government to exert pressure with adequate military support on the Peking government. Consequently, in 1828, Lord Palmerstone dispatched a small British naval squadron to the coastal waters of China to support the complaints of British merchants. After this, war seemed imminent.

Another source of dispute was the universal complaint of the foreign merchants regarding the tariff irregularities. Though the Chinese imperial government set moderate tariff schedules, the officials usually overlooked them and collected high duties from the foreign merchants. Some of the duties were as high as 10 times the original rates.

The application of the Chinese law of 'talion', or 'an eye for an eye', to the foreign merchants was an eye-sore for them. Crimes among foreigners were often left to their own jurisdiction. In cases where any Chinese subject became involved, the Chinese law was enforced which included torture to extract confession and group responsibility that made any crew member chargeable for his shipmate's offences.

As the name suggests, the opium question also played an important role. Opium trade brought immense profit to the colonial government of British India, the East India Company, the British capitalists, and, in an indirect way, to the British government itself. Huge quantities of opium were exported from India and the customs' duties on it became a chief source of the revenue of the British India Government. British merchants who smuggled opium into China made huge profits. Due to the thriving opium trade, British capitalists at home could export large quantity of finished cotton goods and import large quantity of tea. This resulted in huge profits for them. On the other hand, customs duty on the imported tea formed a major source of British Government's revenue.

However, the large-scale smuggling of opium into China resulted in massive drain of silver from the country. Hence silver became scarce and its value appreciated in terms of copper. Silver and copper coins were the two currencies then in use in China. Peasants and handicraftsmen got the prices of their product in terms of copper cash while they were obliged to pay their taxes in silver. So the lowering of the prices of copper in terms of silver caused great hardship to them. The silver drain reduced government tax collection as well and the Manchu government faced grave financial crisis. Besides, opium was telling heavily upon the moral standards of the country. Practically, almost all the state officials were addicted to the vice and as a consequence there was prevalence of corruption everywhere. Alarmed by the declining moral standards, the court attempted to suppress the opium trade.

When the matter seemed to go out of hand, the Chinese government appointed Lin-Tse-Hsu, an honest and able officer, as special opium commissioner to suppress the illegal trade altogether. Lin's strong measure of the seizure and destruction of 20,000 chests of opium, though resented, did not evoke protest from Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade. Lin's demand that the British merchants must give bond on penalty of death that they would not import opium any more was not complied with and Elliot advised the British merchants not to give such a bond. This naturally brought the Anglo-Chinese relations to a crisis point.

The English merchants, threatened and pressed by Chinese, retired from Canton to Macro. At this point occurred an incident known as 'Kowloon Incident', the killing of a Chinese villager by English sailors, which is said to be the immediate cause of the war. This death highlighted the conflicting problem of jurisdiction, and Lin, after a month of indecision, passed an order to the effect that the culprit as well as those who protected him should be boycotted. He further ordered that all supplies should be cut off for the English.

How Did it Take Place? The British Parliament in April 1840 decided to wage war against China apparently to redress the grievances of the English merchants there. The First Opium or Anglo-Chinese War which resulted from this may be seen in three phases: from April 1840 to January 1841 (first truce); from February 1841 to May 1841 (second truce); and from June 1841 to August 1842 (Treaty of Nanking). Initially the operations were confined to Canton and its vicinity, but when the English carried the operation further up the coast and the British vessels proceeded a short distance up the Yangtse, cutting the eastern part of the Empire in two, the war was finally brought to an end.

What were the Results? Peking, now realising the gravity of the conflict, desired peace and the treaty of Nanking was signed on August 29, 1842. Some of the articles of this most humiliating treaty deserve special mention:

(1)China ceded Hong Kong to England and agreed to open five ports to European trade and commence, viz., Canton, Foochow, Ningpo, Amoy and Shanghai. These were called 'Treaty Ports'. It was also stipulated that the British merchants would be allowed to carry on trade without molestation. The British merchants were also allowed to reside in the five ports with their families.

(2)It was also settled that 'fair and regular' tariffs on imports and exports would be published in order to avoid the arbitrary fixing of dues by local officials.

(3)China had to recognise the principle of equality of all nations in international relations and to treat British officials as the equal to Chinese officials of the same rank. The practice of 'kow-tow' was abolished.

(4)China was asked to pay a large war indemnity (12 million dollars) as she was declared guilty. She had also to pay 9 million dollars as settlement of debts due to British merchants from the Co-hang merchants. Thus, altogether the Chinese had to pay 21 million dollars.

(5)Monopoly rights given to the Chinese merchants, that are 'Co-hang', were withdrawn.

(6)The British, in turn, promised to cooperate in suppressing contraband goods, including opium.

In the following year, China was compelled to conclude another treaty with England, viz. the Treaty of Bogue by which China ceded extra-territorial rights and most favoured nation clause to the British. Soon other separate treaties were signed by the Chinese with the other European powers such as the USA, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, etc., conceding similar concessions.

What was Treaty Port System? The opening of the five ports which were called 'Treaty Ports' to European trade and commerce started the 'Treaty Port System'. The treaty port system was a system in which the European nations were allowed to trade with China through specified ports. It was through this system that the Europeans sought and succeeded in opening up China to European trade and commerce. Some more ports were later added to this list and they came to play an important role in commercial relations between China and the European nations. Thus, began the foreign penetration of China by the West. The Treaty of Nanking was also the first of many unequal treaties which were later imposed on China in the 19th and early 20th century by the European powers and Japan. It also marked the beginning of forcible infringement of China's sovereignty, and its transition from a traditional, self-contained and independent feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.

What Led to the Second War? The Nanking Treaty and the following ones did not, however, result in the complete opening up of the China to the Europeans. While the foreigners went on demanding more privileges, the Chinese viewed the increase of foreign intercourse with growing disdain. These difference of attitude aroused passions that led to a fresh showdown in the form of the second Anglo-Chinese War or the second Opium War (1856–58).

The Europeans in general and the British in particular were not happy with the working of the Treaty of Nanking. They hoped that the treaty would remove the last hurdles to a limitless market in China. But instead they realised that British exports to China in the following decade had registered a decline rather than an increase. One explanation for this decline was that China's available supply of silver as well as that of silk and tea, two of her most important exportable commodities, were virtually depleted to pay for the huge amounts of opium smuggled into the country. Consequently, she was not in a position to buy much of the manufactures of England. Further, the internal tariffs of China did not come under the scope of the treaties signed. The British capitalists were very keen on getting these restrictions removed so that their goods could easily enter into the huge internal Chinese market. They exerted pressure on the British government to open China fully so that they could freely exploit the country.

The Chinese, on the other hand, were smarting under the latest humiliations. They were fully justified in being unhappy and felt agitated on the continuance of the illegal trade in opium. They were also aggrieved at the so called 'pig trade', i.e., sending Chinese labourers abroad by the agents. These emigrants were mostly ill-treated by the agents. The existence of piracy on the South China Sea in which the Portuguese also had a hand gave rise to many problems.

The failure of the foreigners to overcome their commercial problems, demand of the Western merchants and the Christian missionaries of the right to travel freely in the interior and to spread Christianity with a legal guarantee of tolerance to the converts, their insistence for the right of adequate representation with the Chinese government, etc., were other contributory factors to the war.

In such a tense atmosphere, minor incidents could easily lead to a fresh conflict. The immediate cause of the war was the 'Lorcha Arrow' incident. In 1856, matters were brought to a boiling point by the capture of 'Lorcha Arrow' which was a Chinese-owned but Hong Kong registered vessel on the ground that it was engaged in contraband trade. The British government took the incident as an insult to British sovereignty and the British nation and demanded full reparation. The Chinese viceroy of Canton out rightly rejected the British suggestion. This started the second Opium War.

How did it Take Place? Soon the French also joined in the war against China for her own reasons. During the Canton trouble of 1856–57, the French had a grievance against the Chinese government on account of the judicial murder of a French catholic missionary, Abbe Chapdelaine. He had infiltrated into the interiors of China without the knowledge of the Chinese authority: while he was initially welcomed, later he was captured and murdered at the direction of a Chinese magistrate. Failing to get reparation, the French joined hands with the English in the second bombardment and occupation of Canton.

China was finally forced in 1858 to ask for peace due to the success of the British and French arms on land and sea. Taking advantage of defeat, other European countries jumped on to the bandwagon and demanded the same concessions as was going to give to the British and the French. In June 1858, China signed four separate treaties, which are known as 'Treaties of Tientsin', with Britain, France, the USA and Russia.

What were its Results? Some of the provisions of the British Treaty of Tientsin are very important:

(1)China agreed to open 10 more ports.

(2)Right to maintain a British Resident Minister in the court of Peking.

(3)Guarantee of toleration to Christianity in China. This clause gave the British merchants as well as missionaries to preach their doctrine in the Celestial Empire without any obstacle.

(4)Provision was made for revision, largely in the foreign interests, of the tariff schedules. It was a serious infringement of China's sovereignty. She lost her right of regulating her own fiscal matters and was no more in a position to protect her cottage and infant industries, because foreign merchants could import foreign goods without restrictions.

(5)Foreign warships were permitted to enter, anchor in and patrol any port where the merchants were allowed.

(6)China was compelled to legalise opium trade.

The treaties concluded by other western powers with China were almost of the same nature, though differing in detail. When China showed her unwillingness to permit foreign envoys at Peking, hostilities were renewed and China was forced to agree to intercourse with foreigners on status of equality by the Convention of Peking of 1860.

What was the Impact of Treaty System? Through the Treaty Port System, which was the result of the so-called Opium Wars, European powers threw open the gates of China to the inroads of European colonialism and imperialism. If the first war started opening of China, the real opening of the country was achieved by the second war. The opening of more Treaty Ports and the rights of navigation in the inland rivers conceded by China, made possible the penetration of western goods and ideas to the remotest parts of the country. The unequal treaties imposed on China not only put an end to her isolation but also relegated her to an inferior status. The weakness of China continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries until China was virtually cut into the so-called spheres of influence of the different imperial powers and she became a semi-colony.

What was Finance Imperialism? Finance Imperialism is a phase of the larger economic imperialism, but in China it was the most important phase prior to 1914. In China, it amounted to the establishment of control through finance to further the economic interests of the European states, the USA and Japan. To the Chinese, the process was that of being gradually enfolded in the visible tentacles of an octopus, that is European finance. The most important concrete manifestation of the growing foreign financial control over China was in the sphere of communications, where the arteries of communication, such as railways, were built with borrowed money and subjected to varying degrees of foreign control. The results of this kind of control were disastrous for the Chinese. For, customs were hypothecated, and salt tax was reorganised and brought under foreign control.

The establishment of Finance Imperialism in China was facilitated by certain defective features of China's economy and taxation system. China was for a long time almost completely dependent on foreign capital for development and for meeting the increases in her governmental expenditure which necessarily arose from the imposition of indemnity payment. For developmental purposes, there was no domestic money market, not because of the non-availability of capital in China, but due to lack of confidence in the government as an agency for the construction of railroads and opening of mines – two great fields for the use of capital.

Besides, there was inflexible revenue system which could not be changed to meet the increased public expenditure. Any increase in the taxes met with serious resistance. Moreover, China could not, until after 1930, meet her needs by an increase in customs levels, since the rates were fixed by treaties with foreign powers. Therefore, she had to necessarily depend on foreign money market to take care of her immediate needs and provide for the governmental undertakings such as the construction of railways.

Early European interest in the opening up of the Chinese Empire was a commercial one and England took the lead as the chief trading state. The rights and privileges that were demanded were those considered necessary to enable them to carry on their trade more profitably. Toward the end of the 19th century, the imperial powers showed an interest in the development of exclusive zones in different parts of the Chinese Empire and this interest, though given an economic expression, was largely political in its nature. As financial interest began to appear, particularly after 1895, the union of finance and diplomacy became very close.

Desire to promote trade relations was not the most marked feature of the pressures on China. Political ends could be not so readily advanced by the promotion of trade. Consequently, it is to finance that we must turn to estimate the position and policy on the powers.

How was it Praticed in China? The period of Finance Imperialism in China (1895–1914) can be seen in two phases. The first phase (1895–1908) was characterised by severe competition among the imperialist powers to advance loans to China so that they could secure exclusive zones of influence in China. In the second phase (1908–1914), the powers showed an increasing realisation of the disadvantages of an unlimited competition and, as a result, tended to cooperate in the economic and financial exploitation of China.

Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, China had no significant foreign debt but the war imposed a huge indemnity of 23 crore taels over China by Japan. France and Russia came to the aid of China and offered a loan of 400 million francs the Chinese government to pay the first installment of the indemnity. Though this loan was made by Russia and France jointly, it was almost fully subscribed by France since Russia had no money to lend.

The British and the Germans were the next on the list to press on the Chinese government a loan to meet the second installment of the indemnity to the tune of 16 million pounds in 1898. The Anglo-German financiers were forced to contend with the Russo-French group, both strongly urging their claims to be considered by the Chinese government. The Anglo-German financiers were successful, although they offered less advantageous terms, because of the strong pressure brought to bear on China from the British legation. No government guarantee was involved in this loan. It was, nevertheless, the desire to combat the Russian influence which caused the British government to insist that their financiers should have the privilege of helping China out of the difficulties created by the war with Japan. Ultimately both groups reaped an abundant reward for their benevolence when it came to the scramble for economic privileges in China during and after 1898.

Another huge public debt of China came from the failure of the Boxer Movement; the indemnity imposed amounting to 45 crore taels. The security taken for this was the balance of the wartime customs increased by the raising of the tariff rates to 5%, the revenue from the native customs administered in the open ports by the maritime customs service and the revenue from salt gabelle (tax). Maritime custom was the best security because it was a service efficiently organised and administered under foreign supervision.

While government loans for paying the indemnities were important, the principal field for foreign finance lay in securing and utilising concessions. It was through railway construction that the powers hoped to effectively penetrate and develop the areas claimed as spheres of influence. Extensive control over these was demanded which shows that the interests were political. The control provisions that were demanded usually consisted of priority in purchase of material; supervision of the construction of the roads; audit and other supervision of expenditure; actual operation of road during the life of the loan; and administration of the railway zone and policy rights therein.

Some of the railroads which provided the control of operation for strategically or other political purposes were the Russian and Japanese lines in Manchuria, German line in Shantung province and French system in Yunan and Kwangsi provinces. They were constructed and for some years operated under the supervision of the foreign governments and not by the government of China. It is quite evident that the loans were not made primarily as good investment nor were the railroads constructed for the sake of the advantages derived from the sale of material to be used in building them or because of the profits that would be made out of their operation. In some cases, it was apparent that the railroads would not be immediately or even for a long time profitable. In addition to specific concessions, government also sought a general monopoly of construction in their respective spheres.

This resulted in a parcelling of China into spheres of influence. Each power sought to strengthen itself in its sphere by keeping out the others, either by direct agreement or by pressure exerted at Peking to prevent the grant of concessions to other powers.

Negotiations were initiated again in 1908 between Chinese government and Anglo-American financiers for the financing of a line from Chinchow to Algun. Before securing the ratification of the Chinese government, the US Secretary of State, Knox, made his famous proposal for the neutralisation of the railroads in Manchuria. However, the methods employed to get approval for them were quite objectionable. It was held that before approaching England, Knox should have negotiated with Russia a large loan to China so that she might buy out the Russian and Japanese interests and that the Manchurian railways should be neutralised and internationally administered during the period of the loan. England herself did not respond warmly. While the Japanese and the Russian governments gave a categorical refusal to consider the American proposals, the Chinchow-Aigun concession was allowed to lapse.

The consequences of this episode were quite far reaching: the right if China to decide upon the cause of railway development within her territory was denied by the foreign nations; certain foreign nations declared that their strategically and political interests must be considered as permanent in planning a railway system within China's territory; they asserted the right to decide who would finance, construct and operate railways within China.

The second phase of Finance Imperialism in China (1908–-14) inaugurated an era of international cooperation in financing China and this can be seen in the Knox proposal itself. The Knox proposal did not materialise, but an undercurrent to usher in the international cooperation in the financial exploitation of China was already making progress. The powers were gradually coming to realise that competition among them had the adverse effect of playing into the hands of China by securing her favourable terms in the making of loans than could otherwise have been obtained. A good instance of this was the railroad from Tientsin by securing the elimination of many of the usual control provisions. In fact the construction and the operation of the road were to be in the hands of China herself.

The 1911 Revolution resulted in new financial problems for the Chinese government. Once again, it began to look to foreign sources for funds for general administration purposes. The Chinese government turned to the international syndicate (which had been formed in 1910 with Britain, France, Germany and USA as members and which extended to include Japan and Russia in 1912) for advances. The government found that the syndicate insisted on adequate provisions for control of the revenue to be pledged as security. Finally, in 1913, agreement was reached on salt gabelle as the security for the loan and provision was made for its reorganisation under foreign supervision.

What were its Results? China naturally suffered immensely till 1930, because of the evils of Finance Imperialism. The European powers, the USA and Japan carried on an unashamed exploitation of China and its resources. The railroads which were constructed with the finance capital were not meant for improving communications and transport for the benefit of the Chinese but for that of each power to exploit the mineral resources of the areas under their control and to make them protected markets for their manufactured goods. The conditions under which loans were granted were so different and provisions for the supervision of construction so varied that it resulted in a non-uniform gauge. Some roads had the standard gauge, Russian roads used the 5 feet gauge, and the French roads the meter gauge. This naturally stood in the way of efficient administration of roads.

But after 1930, China could properly utilise the finance capital invested there by the western powers. There was a rapid improvement of trade and commerce. Farmers had incentive to cultivate commercial crops such as soybeans, raw silk, cotton, etc. Western education and ideas spread among the people resulting in the reform movement of 1911. Economic exploitation of China by these imperialist powers naturally resulted in the rise and growth of nationalist and anti-imperialist movement in China. Finance imperialism also resulted in the industrialisation of China which was, however, lopsided and finally it must be concluded that China materiality benefitted by the enlargement and improvement of her means of communication.

What was the Military and Economic Impact of the West on China? The military superiority of the West was recognised by some Chinese soon after they fought and lost the first British attack. Among those who recognised the British threat was Lin-Tse-Hsu, the commissioner who was appointed by the Emperor to stem the flow of opium and who led the Chinese in the war. In a letter to a friend he described the impossibility of coping with British warships, but was not willing to make his views public. This aversion to publicity was possibly due to the fear of a hostile reaction from colleagues and superiors. This fear was fully justified. The scholar-officials who ruled China remained, with a few exceptions, profoundly hostile and scornful of everything western. The shock of defeat compelled them to take certain measures towards imitating western arms and techniques. They only went through the motions without doing anything. In reality, even if they had sincerely wanted to imitate the West, which fundamentally they did not, the mandarins were hopelessly incompetent in mechanical matters. Thus, China did little during the inter-war years of 1842–1858 to face the challenge of European expansion.

The second defeat at the hands of western powers forced a few forward-looking Chinese intellectuals to reconsider their traditional values and policies. They responded with what was called a 'self-strengthening' movement. This was a phrase derived from the Confucian classics and was used in 19th century China to mean the preservation of Chinese civilisation by grafting on western mechanisms. To this end, Chinese leaders became willing to go beyond purely military matters to include railroads, steamship line, machine factories, and applied science in general. This self-strengthening movement was, however, doomed to fail because the base premise on which it rested was false. Westernisation could not be a halfway process; it was all or nothing. Westernisation in tools inevitably led to westernisation in ideas and institutions as well. So western science could not be used to preserve a Confusion civilisation; rather it was bound to undermine that civilisation.

For instance, the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company was established in 1872 to build steamships for transporting rice from the Yantze Delta to the capital in the north. The steamer fleet needed coal, so the Kaiping coal mines were opened north of Tientsin in 1878. To transport this coal, China's first permanent rail road began operations in 1881. This integrated complex of enterprises had a sound economic basis and should have prospered. Its directors were motivated in the traditional Chinese fashion more by family than by corporate considerations. They appointed needy relatives and greedy henchmen to various posts, with the result that the entire undertaking fell heavily into debt and eventually passed into foreign control.

China's failure to build up its economy and its armed forces led inevitably to increasing western control. Numerous loans were made to the Peking government often under pressure and on conditions that gave the creditors control over China's economy in stages. Another means of economic influence were the concessions in various Chinese ports that were held by the European powers. Most important was the International Settlement of Shanghai which developed into a sovereign European city state where Chinese laws did not apply and Chinese police and courts had no jurisdiction. These concessions profoundly affected China's economy, which traditionally has been self-sufficient and land-based, but which was now becoming increasingly dependent upon foreign controlled coastal cities, especially on Shanghai. The western powers also dominated the great inland waterways as well as coastal ports. They maintained fleets of gunboats that patrolled the Yangtze River between Shanghai and Chunking, a distance of 1500 miles across the heart of China.

What was the Social Impact of the West on China? The Chinese response to the challenge from the West broadened in the late 19th and early 20th century from the military and economic spheres to the social sphere. This was due to the fact that the extension of foreign business into the interior of the country stimulated the growth of a Chinese merchant class which soon took over the distribution of western goods. Later Chinese manufacturers began to establish match factories, flour and cotton mills, silk spinning factories. These new economic leaders tended to be an independent political force. They disliked European domination because of the reactionary imperial court in Peking which neither offered effective resistance to the foreigners nor showed any understanding of the nature and needs of a modern economy. As a result, the Chinese merchants felt no more loyalty towards the Manchu regime in Peking than the Indian merchants had earlier felt for the Mughal regime in Delhi. Thus, it was they who provided the real force behind the revolutionary nationalist movement that developed in the late 19th century. The first anti-foreign boycotts being organised in the coastal cities and the organisation of the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in the very same places was no accident of fate.

The unstable conditions prevailing in China affected the ruling scholar-bureaucrats too, though they were pushed in the direction of reform rather revolution. The official positions they held made them speak of change within tradition rather than of any radical changes. They continued to hold the view that the Confucian civilisation could be renovated to meet modern needs. The most influential exponent of this view was a Cantonese scholar called Kang Yu-wei (1858–1927), who startled his contemporaries by his study, 'Confucius as a Reformer'. This iconoclastic work depicted Confucius as a champion of the rights of the people rather than of imperial authority.

The idea of people's rights and their participation in government was something new for China. Before the arrival of the westerners the concepts of democracy and nationalism had been conspicuously absent. The emphasis was on family and so far as a broader allegiance was concerned, it took the form of 'culturalism' rather them nationalism. Culturalism meant identification with the native cultural tradition which was viewed simply as the alternative to foreign barbarism. China's scholar-bureaucrats were steeped in this tradition. In contrast to this, however, the reform leaders now accepted revolutionary western concepts.

What was the Political Impact of the West on China? The reform leaders gained support in their country following defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1895. They managed to get the attention of the young emperor Kuang-hsu, who for a brief spell broke away from the influence of the empress dowager, Tzu-hsi. The latter had determined China's policy since 1860, but now the reformers won the emperor to their side. Impressed by their oral and written presentations in the summer of 1898, he issued a series of sweeping reform decrees—collectively called the 'Hundred Days Reform'. Numerous sinecures were to be eliminated; the provincial governments were to be more centralised under Peking; new schools were to disseminate European learning. Western style production methods were to be encouraged and a national conscript army was to be organised along western lines. But these measures never went beyond the paper. The empress, with the support of the military, deposed the emperor, declared herself regent, rescinded all the decrees and executed six of the reform leaders.

With the collapse of the short-lived reform movement, the reactionaries got full power. In their renewed zeal, they channeled social and political discontent against the foreigners. Anti-foreign secret societies incited by court reactionaries and provincial governors organised local militants to combat foreign aggression. Chief among such societies was the 'I-Ho-Tuan' or 'Righteous Harmony Fists', called Boxers. With official connivance, the Boxers began to attack foreigners and by 1900, several foreigners and Chinese Christians were killed in North China. When European naval detachments began landing at Tientsin, the Boxers declared war on all foreigners and besieged legations in Peking. International armies, however, relieved the legations in a few months and the imperial court fled from the capital. China once again had to accept peace under humiliating terms, including further commercial concessions and payment of an indemnity of $333 millions.

The failure of the Hundred Days Reform and the Boxer Rebellion made it clear that modernising China from above, was a revolution from below, and this did take place in 1911 when the Manchu dynasty was overthrown and a republic took its place.