A SHORT 
 WORLD HISTORY 
 
 E.M.WILMOT-BUXTON 
 
Qass Jl^4J. 
 Book _: 
 
A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
A 
 SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 E. M. WILMOT-BUXTON 
 
 "F.R.Hist.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MAKERS OF EUROPE" ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 D 
 
 ^\ 
 
 .v^-l 
 
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 OX INTRODUCTION 
 
 1 
 
 A ■ A O write a complete History of the World within the 
 
 ■ limits assigned to this book would be, of course, to 
 attempt the impossible. But the necessity of giving 
 a wider view of history than is afforded by the courses 
 iusually followed in schools is so strongly felt to-day, that even 
 'a partial story of world development may be found useful 
 |as a class book, all the more, perhaps, because it does not 
 pretend to deal exhaustively with the subject. 
 
 To attempt to deal with world history in more than one 
 of its many aspects seems likely to court disaster ; and all 
 that has been done here is to trace, very simply, the line 
 of economic development throughout the rise and fall of 
 Empires, showing in closest connexion with this theme 
 the general principles of cause and effect, as one nation 
 after another rises, comes to the front, and passes away into 
 obscurity. If the method thus adopted emphasizes the 
 application of these principles to the World War of the 
 present century, one chief aim of the writer has been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 The book presupposes a general knowledge of the chief 
 events, places, and personages of history, and does not deal 
 with military, biographical, or political details. For such a 
 subject, wide reviews, general principles, broad touches are 
 more in place. 
 
 It should be found suitable, therefore, for young students 
 
vi A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 who, having worked through the ordinary scheme of British 
 and European history, are prepared for a more extended 
 view. 
 
 The study of World History should prove most interesting 
 and stimulating to those who have even the merest spark of 
 the historical sense. It will link up previous knowledge, 
 often sadly disconnected in character ; it will reveal the 
 extraordinarily close connexion between ages and peoples 
 widely differing in their stages of civilization ; it will show the 
 legacy which each period left to its successors. More especi- 
 ally it will reveal the true perspective of the story of their 
 own country by painting in the background, against which 
 modern history must be set if it is to be rightly understood. 
 
 Lastly, since it is hoped that the study of economics 
 will form a part of the education of all our future citizens, 
 this method of reading World History may help to make 
 familiar some of its leading principles as seen in practical 
 application. 
 
 A list of books, to most of which the writer owes a debt of 
 gratitude, has been appended to each section, as suggesting 
 sources for wider study of the subject. 
 
 E. M. W.-B. 
 
 Storrington 
 
 January ig2i ^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SECTION I 
 THE ANCIENT EMPIRES OF THE WORLD 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Before the Days of History . . . . i 
 
 II. The Ancient Civilizations of the East . . 7 
 
 Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Phcenicia, 
 Jud/EA 
 
 III. The Far East . . . . . , 30 
 
 China, India 
 
 IV. The "Glory of Greece" . . . . 41 
 V. The " Splendour of Rome " .. . . .53 
 
 SECTION II 
 THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 
 
 ■-St- 
 
 " VI. The Fall of the Roman Empire 
 
 The First Six Centuries of the Christian Era 
 
 VII. The Empire of Islam .... 
 
 VIII. The New Nations . . . . 
 
 IX. The Eastern World in the Middle Ages 
 
 X. The Later Mediaeval World of Europe . 
 
 XI. The Later Medieval World of Asia 
 
 65 
 
 83 
 
 93 
 
 106 
 
 119 
 
 131 
 
viii A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 SECTION III 
 
 THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XII. The Growth of Nations .... 138 
 
 XIII. The Disruption of Europe . . . .148 
 
 XIV. New Worlds for Old. . . . . 157 j 
 
 America and India 
 
 XV. The Era of Colonization .... 168 I 
 
 1 
 
 XVI. "Great Powers" and "Benevolent Despots" . 178 j 
 
 XVII. Revolution— Industrial and Political . . 189 I 
 
 XVIII. The Era of Progress and Reform . . . 199 
 
 XIX. The World of To-day . . . •. 209 ij 
 
 Index . . . . . . . .215 
 
A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 SECTION I 
 THE ANCIENT EMPIRES OF THE WORLD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 
 
 IF you who read this book have visited the British 
 Museum, you will have seen some of those wonderful 
 friezes of Ancient Greece, which show in a series of 
 pictures the life of heroes and the everyday deeds of 
 the people of that land. Back through the ages they take 
 us to the days of men and women and children very much 
 like ourselves, though living under different conditions in 
 lands far distant from our own. To us they stretch their 
 hands, to us they seem to speak, reminding us of the strong 
 links that bind together all races and tribes and peoples into 
 one connected whole. 
 
 In tr}dng to realize the story of the past, it will perhaps 
 help us if we study in imagination a gigantic frieze long 
 enough to embrace the circumference of the earth. On it 
 we may note the figures o^ men and women who played 
 some striking part in the history of their lands, and, more 
 often, men and women who are merely typical of their race 
 and period. These differ much from time to time, but they 
 still form part of one continuous and gigantic whole, part 
 of the great human family, always affecting one another, 
 bringing certain characteristics to bear upon the common 
 stock. Sometimes they help, sometimes they hinder, the 
 progress of the race towards its common goal ; always they 
 I 
 
2 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 count for something, and the world would have been different 
 in some particular way if they had never appeared upon the 
 stage of human life. And always these figures progress in 
 one direction ; seeing that the goal is the same for the pre- 
 historic man as for us who read about him nowadays ; and 
 that goal is Human Happiness. 
 
 Prehistoric Man — The first figures that appear upon the 
 frieze are grouped in packs like animals, for reasons of 
 defence against unknown dangers. They are clothed in 
 skins, and in their hands they carry a rough stone tool or 
 weapon, shaped like a hammer ; for their first impulse 
 towards happiness arises from the need of slaying a wild 
 animal for their meals and of making a shelter of some kind 
 from the cold. Long before the days of history these wolf- 
 men appeared in the midst of a world upheaved by volcanoes 
 and torn by glaciers, in which a struggle for bare life was 
 taking place among vast animals, mammoth ox and bison 
 and woolly-haired rhinoceros, fighting for their existence not 
 only with one another but with the powers of nature. And 
 among the huge bones and skeletons, embedded in caves far 
 below the surface of the earth, we find the skulls of Primitive 
 Man of the Old Stone Age. 
 
 Primitive he was indeed, but still he was true man ; for 
 he had thought out the use to which he might put his stone 
 hammer when made, and how and why he should shape 
 a handle for it. He knew how to make a fire and how to 
 cook his meal, which is more than the wisest beast could 
 ever do. 
 
 . One of his temporary abiding - places found in recent 
 times in Germany, shows the very charcoal that he used, 
 the smoke-stained fire-place, and the bones of the slain beasts. 
 No trace of clay vessel is there, nor of domestic animal. If 
 he kept a dog, he did so for its flesh, which he tore from the 
 bones with a stone knife or the lower jaw of a bear before 
 sucking the marrow from them. We find there, too, the arrow- 
 head with which he killed the bear, harpoons of reindeer 
 horn for catching fish, and cups made from a reindeer's 
 skull. 
 
BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 8 
 
 At the end of this earliest period of man's existence he 
 was beginning to find some of his happiness in " dressing 
 up " ; for we find a horse's tooth perforated for hanging 
 round his neck, pierced shells for decoration, bone needles 
 with " eyes," and scrapers for dressing skins. At this 
 period man was evidently a hunter and a fisherman, holding 
 property, in the shape of the creatures that he killed, in 
 common with the " pack," with the members of which he 
 herded round the fire at night, and slaked his thirst in the 
 dew-pond among the hills at dawn. 
 
 New Stone Age — In the next period, the New Stone 
 Age, primitive man had taken a step forward. He still 
 knew nothing of agriculture or cattle-rearing, but he could 
 make clay vessels for cooking and storing food ; he could 
 "point " his needles of bone, and make small bone combs for 
 combing out sinews into thread. He could even make a kind 
 of boat from which to catch fish. But he was still only a 
 " squatter " or trapper, with no fixed abode, and his ideal 
 of happiness was little more than a hearty meal. 
 
 Then come signs of advance in civilization, for his wants 
 had evidently increased in number. Excavations show us 
 implements for spinning and weaving ; and ornaments, beads 
 of pierced clay, plates decorated with stags' heads, round 
 buttons, bracelets of mother of pearl, combs of boxwood, 
 hairpins. By his side appear the dog, the horse, the cow, 
 the goat. His pottery was now made of finer clay, smoothed 
 by hand, and baked through instead of only burnt on the 
 outside ; a handle appeared, and a shaped jar or jug. 
 
 In the later Stone Age man had become an agriculturist, 
 as well as a huntsman and fisherman. He had a settled 
 home, generally in a hut built with many others on piles in 
 the middle of a lake, which afforded him protection against 
 hostile tribes or wild beasts. Among the remains of these 
 we find the millstones with which he ground his corn, the 
 twirling sticks for butter-making, and the strainers for cheese. 
 Mats, baskets, combs, even toy ships for his children, were 
 among his possessions. He had become a farmer of sorts. 
 His wants were no longer bounded by his bodily needs. He 
 
4 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 began to realize, dimly enough, that he also had a soul, which 
 survived death. So when his relations and friends were laid to 
 rest under the huge '"barrows" or mounds still to be found 
 both in Europe and America, he laid beside the dead body a 
 supply of weapons and food for use in the next world. 
 
 The Bronze Age and the Iron Age — The next stage 
 of man's development is marked by the use of metals. In 
 place of mud huts we now find the remains of wooden dwell- 
 ings and indications of metal work in bronze. There are the 
 casting moulds, the melting pots, sure indications of the 
 development of man's intellect, since he had discovered that 
 a mixture of copper and tin in a certain proportion would 
 give him hard and durable metal known as bronze. 
 
 Then comes the period when man discovered the use of 
 iron. Excavations at Olympia in Greece show us, swords 
 with blades of iron and handles of bronze. By this time the 
 twilight period is nearly over and we are emerging into the 
 light of history. But before we leave the story of primitive 
 man, let us glance for a minute at the remains of the once 
 famous city of Troy, now known as Hissarlik, on the western 
 shore of Asia Minor. 
 
 The Stones o! Troy — Here we get an extraordinary 
 illustration of the different periods of man's growth shown 
 in cities, found in layers, " one upon the other like the leaves 
 of a bud, so that you can read them as from the leaves of a 
 book." Seven or eight distinct towns, erected one on top 
 of another, give us the connexion between the Stone Age 
 and the most brilliant period of Greek and Roman history. 
 
 The earliest city, built probably four thousand years 
 before the Christian era, shows rough clay vessels and stone 
 weapons among the remains of a small and primitive 
 settlement. 
 
 The next marks a startling change in development. It 
 belongs to the first period of the glory of Ancient Troy, and 
 shows mighty walls, and fine gateways replacing the old 
 narrow entrances. A citadel and hall were built of bricks 
 made with straw, amongst which a miser had hidden a 
 treasure, found some three thousand years later. The tools 
 
BEFORE THE DAYS OF HISTORY 5 
 
 were made partly of stone, partly of bronze, showing how 
 the two periods overlapped. Pots turned on a wheel mark 
 the influence of Oriental civilization. This city, the scene of 
 the great legendary siege, was evidently destroyed by fire. 
 
 No new features mark the next three towns, and a long 
 period of stagnation must have followed the early glory of 
 Troy. But the sixth town shows another great advance. 
 The walls were built of large, smooth blocks ; fine gates, 
 terraces, and stately mansions appeared, and in these were 
 found vessels of shining colours, highly ornamented. 
 
 A barbaric wave seems to have passed over the seventh 
 and eighth cities, and Troy deteriorated into a mere village, 
 until it was rebuilt by Lysimachus in the days of history. 
 
 Even more wonderful are the revelations of an early 
 civilization at Knossos in Crete, and at Mycenae and Tiryns 
 in Greece. But as these belong more particularly to the 
 history of Greece, we will read of them in that connexion. 
 
 Let us for a moment glance at the progress primitive man 
 had made on what is called the " economic " side of civiliza- 
 tion. Originally he was one member of a tribal family, 
 holding property of the simplest kind in common with those 
 who were descended from the same ancestor or " patriarch." 
 Different forms of activity, however, began to mark out 
 rough distinctions ; and " classes " of huntsmen, fishermen, 
 hut-builders, and so on began to appear. Presently other 
 tribes approached and members intermarried ; the family 
 instinct developed, and the " family " drawing apart from 
 the rest, was allowed to claim the fruits of its own toil under 
 certain conditions. Later on, the advantages of exchanging 
 a surplus of skins or logs for one of shells or good sound 
 flints for hammer-heads became evident. And when work 
 was done outside the family circle in return for some gift of 
 arrow-heads or corn, the right of the individual to hold that 
 reward as his own marked the growth of the idea of personal 
 property. Still, however, the claim of the community was 
 strong, and the whole family, or clan, was held responsible 
 for the actions of individual members. Then the idea of 
 " law '* began to develop, first out of a kind of blind instinct 
 
6 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 for justice, then out of settled custom, sometimes out of the 
 ideals of isolated " lawgivers." 
 
 The idea of a " State " now began to dawn upon pre- 
 historic man, as strange tribes, on conditions of paying tribute 
 and service, settled near his own. The Chieftain took the 
 place of the Patriarch ; and if the tribe was warlike in its 
 tastes, a " militant " class split off from the shepherd or farmer 
 class, and the members of this devoted their time to fighting 
 with their neighbours for supremacy. 
 
 Sometimes a great leap towards civilization was made 
 under the pressure of some revolt against oppression, or the 
 influence of some unusual personality. And so, during an 
 immensely long period of time, primitive man had gradually 
 developed from the state of a savage until he stepped upon 
 the stage of actual history as a rudimentary citizen. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. What are the chief points which mark off prehistoric from 
 historic man ? 
 
 2. What are the main stepping-stones towards civilization 
 during the prehistoric period ? 
 
 3. Describe with pen or paint-brush your own idea of st pre- 
 historic scene. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST: 
 
 EGYPT, BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, PERSIA, 
 
 PHCENICIA, JUDiEA 
 
 (4000 B.C.) 
 
 FOLLOWING the thin vague line of prehistoric 
 figures upon our imaginary frieze, we see certain 
 groups of men and women cut in bold relief and 
 painted in brilliant colours. The first group shows a 
 fair-haired, olive-skinned race, with oval face and shghtly 
 projecting lips. The long beards of the men turn stiffly up 
 at the points ; both men and women wear short hair, ihe 
 second group has more distinctly African characteristics, 
 with low forehead, heavy jaw and lips. In the midst of them 
 stands a full-length figure, stiffly holding a stick m his hand. 
 He is evidently the Great Man, lord of a district, and the 
 smaller figures, digging, hunting, temple-buildmg are his 
 slaves In the background flocks of sheep are treadmg seed 
 into soft mud on either side of a wide river ; and above m the 
 distance looms a pyramid. A«.;or.+ 
 
 Ancient Egypt-The scene takes us back to Ancient 
 Egypt, somewhere about four thousand years before the 
 ^ristian era, at a time when Menes, first king of the whole 
 land of the Nile, had established his capital at Memphis. 
 
 Concerning the early civihzation of Egypt we have an 
 immense amount of information. The results of excavation 
 tell us plainly what was the daily life of the people, even to 
 such details as the dolls which the children played with and 
 the fairy tales they read. But as to how this extraordmarily 
 advanced civilization developed scarcely anything is known. 
 It is thought that the earhest people were of a pigmy race 
 
8 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 like those still found at the sources of the Nile; the period 
 between their occupation of the land and that of the dwellers 
 under the Ancient Empire is a blank. 
 
 The Ancient Empire of Egypt (e. 4000 B.C.)-— The whole 
 story of Egypt is one of glowing dynasties separated by 
 periods of darkness. Thus we see first in full blaze of history 
 the ten dynasties of the Ancient Empire, with their Pyramids 
 and Temple Builders, and their seat of rule at Memphis, on 
 the site of which Cairo now stands. The people were ruled 
 by despotic kings, nominally aided by a council of nobles ; 
 in later days, colleges of priests, owning lands and money, 
 held much power in the land, besides holding control over its 
 literature and learning. 
 
 On the rocks of Egypt is portrayed the figure of one of 
 these early rulers, Seneferu, in the act of crushing a fallen foe 
 with a huge hammer. The inscription speaks of him as " the 
 great god, subduer of foreign lands, giver of power, stability, 
 life, all health and joy for ever." He was the personification 
 of the Sun God Ra, the midday sun, who controlled the flow 
 and ebb of the Nile, the river on which the life of Egypt 
 depended, so that the people reckoned their new year from 
 the day on which it began to rise. The faith of the people 
 was also closely bound up with their famous river. 
 
 As the day waned, crowds of worshippers followed the 
 course of Tum, the setting sun, as he floated on his journey 
 to the regions of the Under World. Thither also descended 
 the souls of the dead, to be judged by Osiris, who sent them 
 forth to the lands of bliss, or through the House of Truth, 
 to reappear again upon the earth in the form of animals. 
 
 Religion was the very breath of these people of the Nile. 
 A host of other gods held sway over them, as well as a 
 crowd of sacred animals — the bull, fish, cat, and crocodile — 
 which were " incarnations " of the spirits of the gods. Guard- 
 ing the land, with its face of mystery turned towards the 
 East, crouched the Sphinx, probably the image of Harmachis, 
 Sun of the Under World, combining in its man's head and 
 lion's body the ideas of intellect and strength. The P3n:amids, 
 those mighty cemeteries of kings, are an abiding witness to 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 
 
 the belief in the importance of the preservation of the body 
 that it might be a fit habitation for the returning soul. 
 
 The Middle Empire (? 2500 B.C.)— During the four dynasties 
 of the Middle Empire, Thebes replaced Memphis as the capital, 
 and its temple of Amen at Karnak, one of the suburbs of the 
 city, became the centre of Egyptian religion. During this 
 period the tomb inscriptions show us the building of a fleet, 
 and caravans bringing gums and spices from Arabia. The 
 caravan routes between Egypt and the Red Sea were opened 
 up by the provision of wells ; reservoirs were freely built, 
 canals constructed, and good roads made. In the earlier 
 days, the kings, occupied with their own personal glory, 
 employed their people to build pyramids that should per- 
 petuate their names for ever. Under the kings of the Middle 
 Empire, temples were built instead, and the land was guarded 
 well from invasion. Of Amen-em-hat, that mighty hunter, 
 who " brought back the crocodile a prisoner," it was well 
 and simply said : " He stood on the boundaries of the land 
 to keep watch on its borders ; and all the people loved him." 
 
 It was during this period that the famous Book of the 
 Dead took its final form. It was the Egyptian Bible, and 
 contained not only a history of the doctrines and faith of the 
 land, but also a code of morals for everyday life. 
 
 The Hyksos Kings (? 1750 B.C.)— Quite suddenly this state 
 of comparatively advanced culture collapsed before the on- 
 slaught of a horde of Eastern tribes, who established the rule 
 of what is known as the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. Says 
 the Egyptian historian Manetho : "There came up from the 
 East in strange manner men of an ignoble race who easily 
 subdued our country by their power. They burnt our cities 
 and demolished the temples of the gods, and inflicted every 
 kind of barbarity upon the inhabitants, slaying some, and 
 reducing the wives and children of others to a state of 
 slavery." 
 
 Of the events of this calamitous wave of barbarism no 
 inscription remains. It was but one of the constantly re- 
 curring episodes of history, the collapse of a race grown soft 
 with overmuch civilization and a luxurious manner of life 
 
10 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 before the strength of a simply Uving nomad race. But it is 
 interesting to note that it was probably owing to his pas- 
 toral origin that Joseph, son of Jacob the Patriarch, owed his 
 advancement to be Vizier under one of the kings of this 
 Shepherd dynasty. 
 
 The New Empire (c. 1700 B.C.)— The beginning of the New 
 Empire (about 1700 B.C.) saw the expulsion of the alien kings 
 at the hands of Amasis I, a Theban prince, and the spirit of 
 invasion taking possession of his grandson, Thothmes. The 
 inscription on the monument of the latter speaks glowingly 
 of this young conqueror : "He has taken tribute from the 
 nations of the whole earth ; he has laid hold of the bar- 
 barians, he has not let one of them escape his grip upon their 
 hair ; all the nations of the entire earth are prostrate under 
 his feet." 
 
 The Egyptian historians were always grandiloquent ; 
 but Thothmes was of importance as a maker of his country, 
 since, by the rough-and-ready mode of conquest of some part 
 of South- Western Asia, where the power of Babylon and 
 Assjnria and of the mixed races of Palestine was now rearing 
 its head, he brought Egypt into touch with the outer world 
 from which she had so long held herself aloof. His daughter, 
 the famous Hatasu, carried on the work by building a great 
 fleet of merchant ships wherewith to explore the shores of 
 the Red Sea. On the temple of Amen (or Ammon) near 
 Thebes we see portrayed the return of the fleet, packed full 
 of incense trees, gums, and spices, bringing the Queen of 
 Sheba, or Punt, to pay a state visit to the Egyptian princess. 
 
 The Golden Age 0! Egypt — The Golden Age of Egypt 
 had now dawned. It needed only that she should win herself 
 a name for military glory. Under the rule of Thothmes HI 
 this was achieved by victories over the armies of Palestine 
 and by yearly campaigns against Syria. Babylon and 
 Assyria sent Thothmes gifts, if not tribute. His fleet of 
 warships is said to have penetrated even to the coasts of 
 Greece. At the end of his reign Egypt was recognized as 
 the chief military power of the known world ; and the obelisk, 
 called by a queen of much later days " Cleopatra's Needle," 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 11 
 
 was probably one of the pillars of a portico of his temple 
 set up to record the fact. 
 
 The Empire of Thothmes, which extended as far into 
 Western Asia as the mountains of Armenia, was lost under his 
 successors. It seemed, indeed, as though the glory of Egypt 
 was to be won through her internal development rather than 
 by conquest. In the days of Seti I and Rameses II we hear 
 indeed of great victories over the " Kheta " tribe — probably 
 the Hittites — ^but they were never very lasting in their effects. 
 More important achievements of Setis were the great wall built 
 by him to repel invasion across the isthmus which connects 
 Egypt with Asia, and the wonderful Hall of Pillars at Karnak. 
 
 As for Rameses, he is memorable to modern readers as 
 being in all probability the Pharaoh who " oppressed " the 
 Israelites, who " made their lives bitter in mortar and in 
 brick and in all manner of service in the field." The reason 
 of this oppression may well have been that this little group 
 of shepherd people dwelling on his borders had so rapidly 
 increased, that they bade fair to threaten the exclusiveness 
 of a kingdom from which all Asiatics were to be rigidly shut 
 out. On the great rampart separating Egypt from Asia 
 were built the " treasure cities," Pithom and Rameses-; and 
 on their building the subject shepherds were probably em- 
 ployed. Of their dehverance at the hand of Moses, the 
 protege of the court of Menepthah, we have no mention in 
 Egyptian history. 
 
 The Decline of Egypt (c. 1130-750 B.C.)— The decline of 
 Egypt was as rapid as her rise. At a time when the kingdoms 
 of Judah and Israel were rising and falling under Saul and 
 David, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, Ahab and Jehu, the land 
 of the Nile was divided up under various rulers and sinking 
 into apathy and ruin. And as the great war-cloud of the 
 Assyrian nation darkened in the East, threatening to over- 
 whelm all the empires of Central and Western Asia, Egypt 
 became, sometime during the century that saw the founda- 
 tion of the city of Rome, the battle-ground and the prize of 
 the Assyrian kings, and in later years the tributary of Babylon 
 and Persia. 
 
12 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 She has left to the world at large a remarkable literature, 
 in itself a testimony to the esteem paid to the world of ideas 
 rather than of facts by this, one of the most highly civilized 
 nations of antiquity. At Karnak we may still see the " Hall 
 of Books," out of which lead nine smaller libraries, which 
 originally contained a wealth of writing on rolls of papyrus. 
 This writing was in hieroglyphics or priestly script, to which 
 the Rosetta Stone, with its translations both into Greek and 
 into the ordinary writing of the people, gave the Modern 
 World the key. Romance, fairy tales, adventure stories, 
 moral sayings, and poems are found among the treasures 
 hidden in the tombs, as well as treatises on astronomy, 
 arithmetic, and geometry. We still use the Egyptian division 
 of the year into twelve months and the hour into sixty 
 minutes ; and in the British Museum may be seen to-day 
 the very instrument by which the night hours were deter- 
 mined by the course of the stars. On the handle of the 
 plummet used is inscribed the words : " I know the course of 
 the sun, the moon, and of all the stars in their places." 
 
 The Legacy of Egypt — As " thinkers," then, especially 
 in the realms of literature and science ; as mighty builders, 
 canal-makers, and agriculturists, the Egyptians move with 
 stiff dignity across the frieze of history, owing little to 
 outside influences, but affecting with their own civilization 
 the western lands of the Mediterranean to a marked degree. 
 That this influence was only temporary is perhaps due to one 
 striking weakness in Egyptian rule. Her army might be 
 equipped with the most perfect weapons in the shape of 
 chariots, battering rams, and scaling ladders, her fleet im- 
 posing with galleys and transports ; but her people as a 
 whole, the " producers," the weavers, painters, sculptors, 
 masons, and workers in wood and metal, were kept in such 
 subordination that they were little better than slaves. The 
 husbandmen, moreover, had no rights over the land they tilled, 
 but paid heavy toll of its produce, which left nothing but a 
 bare livelihood for themselves. There is one other thing to 
 remember. The native Egyptian had nothing of the military 
 spirit in his veins, and the great armies of which we read 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 13 
 
 were composed of foreigners, mostly professional soldiers 
 from Syria and Nubia. Under those kings who sought their 
 country's welfare by means of the industry of their people and 
 the native resources of the land, Egypt was a strong pro- 
 gressive state, with the ability to build monuments throughout 
 her borders which astound the skilled engineer of to-day. 
 
 It was the sacrifice of these resources for the " im- 
 perial " ambitions of the kings of the Middle Empire that 
 brought economic and political disaster upon the land and 
 ended in her subjection. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the women of Egypt held a 
 far higher position than was usual in the Eastern World. They 
 were not kept in seclusion nor treated as slaves, and were 
 considered almost, though not quite, on an equality with 
 their husbands. In the upper classes we find men and 
 women living in the married state in their two-storied brick 
 houses, in much comfort, possessing sofas, chairs, ornamented 
 cushions, and other signs of luxury. Outside, the slaves drive 
 the plough, and the processes of wine-making and Hnen- 
 weaving are portrayed. The many pictures of richly decked 
 ships bearing merchandise speak of a flourishing commerce 
 with the countries of the Mediterranean. 
 
 Egypt, with her many dynasties, her vast organization, 
 her self -development, stands somewhat apart from the other 
 civilizations of the Ancient World. The empires that are 
 crowded, Hke outposts round a citadel, about the district 
 known as Middle Asia are far more closely connected. 
 
 Influence o! Central Asia— Whether this part of the 
 world saw the origin of the human race or not matters little. 
 What is certain is that the higher civiUzation, which marked 
 the development of mankind, came from this quarter, and 
 that by means of great caravan routes, early estabhshed, 
 it spread by way of Babylon to China, India, Egypt, and 
 so to the lands of the Western Sea. And when civiUzation 
 died down and almost vanished, it was this same district 
 that sent forth streams of warhke nomads to shake the 
 foundations of the known world. 
 
 Ancient Babylonia — In the " land between the Rivers," 
 
14 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 still known as Mesopotamia, bounded by the Tigris and 
 Euphrates, lay the kingdom of Babylon. Its first inhabitants 
 were the mysterious Sumerians, who, though they themselves 
 have disappeared from the pages of history, yet left behind 
 them a highly developed religious system and a language 
 which, like Latin in Christendom, survived as the sacred 
 tongue of the religion of their successors. All else we know 
 of them is comprised in the fact that they were a pastoral 
 people, though they knew well how to construct waterways, 
 use metals, make bricks, and build some kind of dwelling. 
 When the Babylonians of history appear upon our frieze 
 we see in them the characteristics of the Semitic race, such 
 as are found in the Jew of to-day. Some of them are 
 occupied in making canals, building temples of bricks 
 instead of the stone we should expect ; others are examining 
 the stars or writing on clay tablets ; m^any are engaged 
 in lading caravans or travelling the high roads to distant 
 lands. 
 
 For Ancient Babylon was not a great military power, 
 nor a political state of importance. Her high position was 
 due to her development as an industrial state, and thus 
 to her trade with nations lying East and West. The great 
 trade routes to China, India, and Egypt were in her hands, 
 and when she fell before the onslaught of the Assyrian, the 
 city of Babylon was destroyed in order that its vast trade 
 and industries might be secured for Nineveh, the city of 
 Sennacherib. 
 
 The Code of Hammurabi (? 2213 B.C.) — A flood of 
 light has been thrown in recent years ^ on the civilization 
 of Babylonia during her Golden Age, by the discovery of a 
 great block of diorite on the mound of the citadel of Susa 
 inscribed with the " Code " of Hammurabi, the first king 
 of the whole land of Babylonia. In his lifetime he was 
 famous as the Wise King, who built not only temples but 
 waterworks and embankments against the inundations of 
 the Tigris, and who began the Royal Canal, connecting the 
 Euphrates and Tigris, which, as he says himself, " he caused 
 
 1 December 1901. 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 15 
 
 to be dug as a benediction for the people ... he changed 
 desert plains into well-watered grounds." 
 
 The famous Code reveals a postal system, flourishing 
 commerce, highly organized industry, and a system of laws 
 so detailed and perfect that it has been thought to be the 
 foundation of the famous Roman Law of later days. By 
 its means, says the inscription, he taught the Babylonians 
 " just statutes and righteous ordinances." Such details as 
 the following recall in cuiious fashion the laws of early and 
 mediaeval England. " If a man steal in a burning house, 
 let him be thrown upon the same fire." " If the harvest 
 be bad, the debtor may postpone his payment for a while." 
 There is also mention of an Ordeal by Water, by which the 
 river god decided the guilt or innocence of the accused. 
 Most of the provisions of this Code had, however, been in use 
 for long centuries. It was the work of Hammurabi to collect 
 and enforce the various laws. 
 
 Besides this Code, we have another striking evidence of 
 civilization in a design showing a Babylonian king setting 
 free a vassal. Both figures wear the square beards of the 
 Oriental, but the head-dress of the king is pointed, while 
 the vassal wears a fiat cap. The king holds up the deed of 
 manumission in an earthenware cylinder. 
 
 Organization of the Land — From other sources we know 
 that the " lord of the land " was a deity who " entrusted " the 
 country to the king and the priests. The land was divided 
 up into Temple property and State property. The latter 
 was the open country, which the king granted to vassals 
 *' in fee " ; that is, the latter cultivated it as small farmers 
 and had to pay a large share of the profits to the " lord." 
 The town land was granted to the nobles, and a large part 
 of both kinds was held by the priests as " temple land." 
 The system was unfair enough, since the peasant who did 
 the main part of the work barely gained a living, though 
 he was, as a rule, a freeman. Serfs, indeed, were not legally 
 known, though there was a large class of " non-free labourers," 
 mostly prisoners of battle. The chief occupations of the people 
 were agriculture and commerce, though, as they had no fleet, 
 
16 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the latter was mainly a " caravan trade.'* In this rainless 
 land, the trade of the people depended on the ceaseless 
 industry by means of which they covered the country with 
 a network of canals. These were sometimes used, as in 
 Holland, to transform the kingdom into an island as a 
 protection from outside foes. It was the foul deed of the 
 Mongol in later days which, by destrojdng these canals, 
 turned this fair land into a marshy desert. 
 
 The Babylonians were builders of note, though they had 
 neither stone nor wood. Their temples and pillars were 
 built of bricks, when they were not constructed of imported 
 cedar wood ; and they enamelled their bricks with beautiful 
 colours and patterns. Their terraced towers of many stories 
 gave rise to the legend which makes them builders of the 
 Tower of Babel. Their beautiful temples were the univer- 
 sities of the land, forming towns in themselves, where the 
 priests, the guardians of the science and literature of the 
 country, who alone knew the secret of writing, gave instruc- 
 tion to students who came from all quarters to acquire learn- 
 ing from their famous store. For Babylon, twenty-three 
 centuries before the Christian era, was as famous as the home 
 of astrology and astronomy as in the year of the birth of 
 our Lord, when the meaning of the star was sought by 
 Wise Men of the East. 
 
 Second Empire o£ Babylon, or Chaldsea (607 B.C.) — So 
 strong indeed was the inward force of her intellectual energy 
 that not even the deadweight of the Assyrian invasion 
 could stamp out her vitality. But by making her perforce 
 a military nation instead of a purely industrial one, it marked 
 the beginning of the end. Crushed she was for a time by the 
 rude hand of Sennacherib, but in the seventh century B.C., 
 under the name of Chaldaea, she was able to found her Second 
 Empire and to come forward under Nebuchadnezzar as a 
 conqueror of the surrounding nations. Assyria, Judaea, 
 Phoenicia, even a large part of Egypt, became her vassal 
 states; and it was during this brilliant, if brief, period of 
 revival that a large number of the Hebrews were led into 
 captivity at Babylon and forced to " hang up their harpg 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 17 
 
 in a strange land." In those days, however, her strength 
 lay entirely in her military development. Long before the 
 end of the sixth century B.C., Babylon had fallen, a helpless 
 victim, into the hands of the Persian Cyrus. "Babylon 
 is fallen : that great city Babylon." So rang the cry from 
 East to West among the nations who had looked so long to 
 her as the centre of the learning and civihzation of the earth ; 
 for the glory of the ancient world was fast passing away, 
 and force was ruling in place of intellect. 
 
 Assyria, the War State — Following a group of high 
 turbaned Magi of Chaldsea there appears upon our frieze 
 a troop of bearded warriors, fully armed, with limbs large 
 and robust, strongly marked features, and expressions not 
 devoid of pride and treachery. They are the " fierce people " 
 of Assyria, the Land of Warriors, who, within a comparatively 
 brief period, had made themselves the conquerors of Western 
 
 Asia 
 
 Assyria, the War State of the Ancient World, is remark- 
 able for the comparative swiftness of her rise and fall as an 
 Empire. Up to the ninth century before Christ she scarcely 
 counted among the nations of the known world. By the 
 middle of the seventh century B.C. she had fallen to pieces 
 before the rise of the second Empire of Babylon. 
 
 Yet within those two hundred years she had become a 
 great World Empire, the terror of Babylon, Syria, and Canaan, 
 the conqueror of the League of the Nations of Phoenicia, 
 Philistia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Judah, had risen to her highest 
 point and had fallen to her ruin. 
 
 Economic Position of Assyria— How can this be ac- 
 counted for ? Her rapid rise was apparently due to her 
 highly developed mihtary system, which for a time enabled 
 her to become the conqueror of the vast hordes of Egypt 
 and the far more civihzed army of Babylonia. Yet this 
 success was very short-Hved. The strength of Assyria de- 
 pended on her troops, but these, instead of being conscripted 
 from a population weakened by feudal rule, were drawn from 
 an active and vigorous peasantry and a free people. As 
 long as the national spirit of Assyria survived, so long did 
 
18 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 her Empire last. But constant warfare is no wholesome food 
 even for a nation bred on the battlefield, and her national 
 army, worn out by yearly campaigns, gradually disappeared 
 in favour of troops of mercenaries. Moreover, when the 
 Assyrians conquered Babylonia, and removed the trade 
 centre of the East from Babylon to Nineveh, they were 
 preparing their own downfall. The militant spirit on which 
 their very life depended was smothered by the civilization 
 of the country of their adoption. The Assyrians them- 
 selves lost their unity, and two parties arose within the Empire 
 even at the height of its success. The nobles, adopting the 
 feudal spirit of the conquered land, led out each year an army 
 composed of mercenary troops ; the " temple " class, the 
 priests and townspeople, held aloof. Meantime the old free 
 peasant class became almost extinct, and the Empire was 
 divided up into great landed estates owned by nobles and 
 worked by slaves. The army itself under these conditions 
 was bound to go forth on periodical expeditions of plunder, 
 since its only means of support was the booty obtained by 
 conquest. 
 
 Thus, with an oppressed and insignificant peasantry, an 
 army clamouring for frequent warfare, and a city class un- 
 fairly free from taxation and in the hands of the " temple " 
 caste, the Assyrians possessed within their Empire all the 
 seeds of weakness and approaching ruin. Their treatment 
 of their subject states shows their real weakness as Empire 
 builders. If a king paid tribute he was free to administer 
 his land, but that land must furnish troops for Assyria. If 
 he were oppressed in his weakness by a neighbour state, he 
 could not count on his Assyrian overlord for help of any 
 kind. As a consequence, all parts of the loosely held Empire 
 were in constant revolt. 
 
 If a state were completely conquered, as in the case of 
 Samaria, the land was confiscated and the conquered people 
 were sent to distant parts of the Empire, where, as new- 
 comers, they would not be likely to rebel, and where their 
 tribal customs and systems would be broken up. Thus we 
 find on several occasions that the people of Samaria were 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 19 
 
 exiled to Mesopotamia, the Jews to Babylonia, Babylonians 
 to Samaria. The result was a condition of destruction and 
 desolation, while the conquering country lived upon the 
 resources of the conquered. 
 
 Then Nemesis fell upon them. With no united people, 
 no settled administration, the Ass5n:ians could not hold an 
 Empire that was kept together by an army of paid soldiers 
 and by the variable rule of a class of self-seeking nobles. For 
 a time they existed as a kind of " robber state," descending 
 upon and crushing smaller nations. But they were really so 
 rotten at the core that, when the Chaldsean Empire rose upon 
 the ruins of Ancient Babylon, the Assyrians were merged 
 within it and, as an individual nation, almost disappeared. 
 
 Assyrian Architecture and Art — ^Traces of this swamping 
 by the conquered state are seen even in the architecture of 
 Assyria. As is always the case when a powerful and wealthy 
 monarch comes to the fore, the palaces of the Golden Age 
 of Assyria were numerous and finely built. But although 
 the country possessed ample stores of marble and alabaster 
 in her mountain ranges, she copied Babylonia slavishly in 
 the use of bricks, though she covered them with slabs of 
 stone. The pictures which adorn these slabs show the glory of 
 the campaigns of Tiglath Pileser, of Sargon and Sennacherib. 
 In a bas-relief now in the British Museum we see the latter 
 king seated upon the royal chair that formed part of his 
 camp accoutrements, in front of a captured city. The in- 
 scription tells us that ** Sennacherib, the king of legions, king 
 of Assyria, sat upon an upright thi-one, and the spoil of the 
 city passed before him." 
 
 The capture of such a city was accompanied by terrible 
 cruelties. Children were burnt alive, and conquered foes were 
 impaled on stakes over the city gates. 
 
 Almost the only glimpse we have of civilian life in this 
 warrior state is one of vast numbers of slaves employed 
 in building, and using rollers and ropes and levers for the 
 columns and huge stone figures. We also see the nobles, 
 with their stiffly curled hair and long tasselled gowns, sitting 
 at their banquets with their feet dangling from high stools. 
 
20 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 They used dishes of alabaster and bronze and drank from 
 cups of elaborate shapes, but their designs are entirely lacking 
 in imagination and originality. Their one idea of developing 
 it was to repeat a type on an enlarged scale. Hence their 
 enormous winged bulls and exaggeratedly colossal figures. 
 Their chief ideal of beauty lay in costly and ornamental 
 wearing apparel, as can be seen in most of the wall pictures 
 in the Empire's best days. 
 
 The Medes and Persians — In the last years of the seventh 
 century B.C. Nineveh fell before the onslaught of a wild 
 Scythian race known as the " Manda," or Medes; and after 
 the brief revival of the Babylonian monarchy, it was these 
 same tribes, in alhance with the armies of Persia, that finally 
 overthrew this ancient stronghold of civilization. 
 
 With the approach of Persia a new spirit of virile 
 life blew through the worn-out systems of Western Asia. 
 For Persia, through her conquest of Asia Minor, had touched 
 Greek civihzation, and had been infected with that mar- 
 vellous vitality which was the characteristic of the Greek. 
 She appeared first upon the scene of history as a vigorous, 
 though uncivilized nation, apt for rapid conquest, but with 
 no elements of strength in her own organization to enable 
 her to hold what she had won. 
 
 For about two hundred years the Persians played a lurid 
 part upon the stage of human life ; then, save for a wonder- 
 ful and deathless literature, they passed from the scene for 
 many a long day. On our frieze of history we see them 
 portrayed as a group of horsemen, without armour and carry- 
 ing only a short sword, bow, and lance, riding with free and 
 gallant air through their mountain passes. Their Shah 
 wears a high stiff cap, fiat at top and round, to distinguish 
 him from his nobles, and, Hke them, a long and flowing gown 
 known as the " Median garment." In the background stands 
 his gorgeous palace, the floors of which are beautifully 
 coloured stone covered with richly woven carpets. Pillars of 
 ivory support silken hangings of violet, white, and green, 
 upon which hang plates of gold. A golden vine, whose grapes 
 are priceless jewels, hangs over the bed of the king, and he 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 21 
 
 washes his hands in a bowl of gold. No woman is seen among 
 them, for these were kept in the strictest seclusion. If a man 
 happened to pass on the road a litter containing one of the 
 king's wives, even though she were hidden behind the closed 
 curtains, he was liable to instant execution. 
 
 Early Traditions of Persia — ^The delightful legends 
 which form the bulk of the national literature, telling the 
 story of Kaiomurs, that " King of the World," of Shah 
 Djemsheed, who first taught his people the use of iron and the 
 art of weaving in silk and wool, above all of the hero Rustem 
 and the fair youth Sohrab, his unknown son, all paint 
 the early story of Persia as the land of a vigorous, partially 
 civilized people of Aryan race, scorning the wily astuteness 
 of the Semite, hospitable and kind to the stranger, free and 
 open in speech. 
 
 Their singularly beautiful and spiritual form of Nature- 
 worship, full of poetry and imagination, was crystallized 
 into a definite faith by the wise Magus Zoroaster, probably 
 some ten centuries before the Christian era. The power of 
 Light was their God, whose eye was the Sun, whose child was 
 Fire, who sent the sacred rain upon the parched earth " well- 
 forded and full-flowing," Closely connected with this Sky- 
 God was Mithra, the Daylight, " a warrior with a silver helm, 
 a golden cuirass, who kills with the poniard strong and valiant ; 
 the warrior of the white horse." 
 
 In the face of this light, the Persians knew there could exist 
 neither falsehood nor deceit. " Those who lie unto Mithra, 
 however swift they may be running, cannot outrun him ; 
 riding, cannot outride him ; driving, cannot outdrive him." 
 For their love of truth they were as noted as for their courage 
 and energy, and even the Shah himself was bound never to 
 break a promise or to change an order ; the fame of the " Law 
 of the Medes and Persians which altereth not " went forth 
 into all lands. 
 
 Early Civilization o£ Persia — In the days before their 
 historical Empire was established, the Persians seem to have 
 been divided into four classes : priests, warriors, traders, and 
 husbandmen. Of these, the last were by no means the least 
 
22 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 in repute. " They render homage to no one ; they labour, 
 they sow, they harvest, and are nourished in the fields of 
 the earth without injury to anyone. They are subject to the 
 orders of none, although their clothes are humble ; and 
 their ear is never struck by the clamour of slander. They 
 are free, and the tillage of the earth is their right ; they 
 have no enemies ; they have no quarrels." 
 
 We have here all the elements of a sound and enduring 
 economic existence, yet we find, as a fact, that the whole 
 history of the rise and fall of Persia took place within little 
 more than two hundred years (c. 553-333 B.C.), that is, it had 
 about the same duration as that of the Assyrian Empire. 
 
 Rise and Fall of the Persian Empire (553-333 B.C.)— The 
 reason for its comparative brevity was not quite the same, 
 however, as in the case of the former. We have seen that 
 the craze for an empire resting entirely on military founda- 
 tions was the cause of the downfall of Assyria. In the case 
 of Persia, the rise of the Empire was due almost entirely to the 
 personal devotion of the nobles to Cyrus, the grandson of the 
 legendary Kai Kaoos of Persian epic. The career of this 
 prince at the head of only partially civilized hordes of mounted 
 nomads was one great series of victories. Lydia, ruled by 
 Croesus, with all her fabulous wealth, and Babylonia with all 
 her tributary states, fell before his fierce onrush, before he was 
 laid to rest in his royal palace at Pasargad. Two hundred 
 years later the Greeks found his body encased in a golden 
 coffin and bearing the inscription : 
 
 " O man, I am Cyrus, who won domination for the Persians 
 and was their king. Grudge not this monument, then, to me. " 
 
 Personal devotion is not an enduring foundation for 
 Empire-building, and it was from a condition of utter con- 
 fusion that Darius, some years after the death of Cyrus, began 
 to raise the country into a firmly established kingdom. The 
 first task of Darius was to reduce the revolting territories, once 
 conquered by his predecessor, and then to hold them in sub- 
 jection. This he did by establishing the same kind of govern- 
 ment in all parts of the Empire and by placing it in the hands 
 of " satraps," independent governors, held in check by royal 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 23 
 
 eommissioners. Instead of vexatiously uncertain demands 
 for tribute, a fixed annual taxation was set up. Good roads 
 and excellent "caravanserai/' or inns, made travelling com- 
 paratively easy even across an Empire that soon stretched 
 from the Indus to the Steppes of Russia, and from the northern 
 waters of the iEgean Sea to the Nile. 
 
 Yet already the second cause of Persia's downfall was 
 at work. The Persians, by their temperament, very easily 
 acquired the culture and atmosphere of the conquered nations 
 amongst whom they lived, and quickly lost the special 
 characteristics springing from a free and vigorous outdoor 
 life. The Persian became more luxurious than the Baby- 
 lonian, more ambitious of military empire than the Assyrian ; 
 and by the year 479 B.C. the Empire fell before the rising 
 power of Greece and the strength of Alexander of Macedon. 
 Not the defeat of Marathon, which was, after all, probably 
 confined to the Persian troops stationed in Asia Minor ; not 
 the loss of the famous bodyguard of Xerxes, his Ten Thousand 
 Immortals, in Greece, a country whose mountains were its best 
 allies ; not the destruction of a fleet unused to maritime 
 warfare at the hands of the quickly mobilized and seafaring 
 nation of the Greeks, were the real causes of the downfall. 
 We may doubt indeed whether Susa, the royal capital, heard 
 very much of these disasters. 
 
 The actual causes were, as we have seen, the failure of 
 Persia to develop an independent civilization, or to main- 
 tain her own characteristics before the stifling weight of the 
 outworn and effete culture of. Middle Asia ; and the unwieldy 
 " satrapies " ruled by viceroys with despotic power, by 
 means of huge armies maintained by constant warfare and 
 the booty that it brought in. The latter days of the 
 Empire saw the effect of Greek influence upon the im- 
 pressionable Persian. The enrolment of thousands of 
 Greek mercenaries, under the leadership of another Cyrus, 
 transformed the military spirit of the nation. But already 
 the end was approaching, and before the hardy onslaught of 
 the Macedonian Alexander the whole of the Empire of 
 Western Asia fell. 
 
24 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 But though her Ancient Empire disappeared, Persia 
 still lived in her literature, in the epics of her race. Some 
 thirteen centuries later the Persian poet Firdusi collected these 
 early sagas under the name of the Shah Nameh or Book of 
 Kings, of the subject of which poems he justly wrote : 
 "These are the heroes whose glory I have restored. They 
 are passed long ago, but my song has awakened them to 
 eternal life." 
 
 The Legacy of Persia to the World — A deathless literature 
 was not the only contribution of Ancient Persia to the progress 
 of civilization. She was one of the first nations of the world 
 to set up a high standard of honour, even in dealing with her 
 foes ; and, though she was not sufficiently creative to develop 
 an independent civilization on her own lines, the lively, quick- 
 witted character of her people, and their love of poetry and art, 
 showed a marked advance on the unoriginal and unimagina- 
 tive ideas of the Egyptian and Assyrian. The country, 
 too, under the influence of Babylon, was the home of all kinds 
 of curious learning ; and the priestly class were the Magi, 
 keepers of the sacred law and ancestors of that body of wise 
 men versed in strange lore, who are known as Magicians. 
 
 Phoenicia, the Carrier of Nations — ^There now appear upon 
 our frieze of history two groups of people who represent the 
 smaller nations which followed Egypt, Babylon, and Persia in 
 the crash of Empires under the onslaught of Alexander the 
 Macedonian. The first of these represents Phoenicia, the 
 Land of the Merchant Carriers, masters, until the Greeks 
 appeared as their rivals, of the trade of the Mediterranean. 
 We see them as men of a Semitic type, busily at work trim- 
 ming the sails of their ships, extracting their famous purple dye 
 from the shellfish on their coasts, plying their caravan trade 
 from the city of Damascus, whence diverged the great com- 
 mercial roads of the world. 
 
 Phoenicia, which at one period comprised Syria and 
 Palestine, was a little nation, with a civilization borrowed 
 from Egypt or Babylon. Its famous cities of Tyre and Sidon 
 were not much larger than a London square, and their harbours 
 were able to contain only a very few vessels. Yet by her 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 25 
 
 position on the highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia, 
 between Greece and Assyria, Phoenicia was the centre of the 
 great caravan routes which passed from Egypt to Mesopo- 
 tamia, Babylon and Persia. From her own land stepped long 
 lines of camels laden with the glass vessels and mirrors for 
 which Sidon was famed, with the purple cloth of Tyre, with 
 the sword blades and metal work of Damascus ; and East and 
 West she sent the sweet -smelling cedar wood from her forests of 
 Lebanon. Her city Tyre, rising up at the " entry of the sea," 
 was a " merchant of the people for many isles," and was for 
 centuries the carrier of the whole of the trade of the Medi- 
 terranean. She was the first of any nation to develop a fear- 
 less spirit of adventure and discovery, the first to venture on 
 her light, well-built ships to explore the " Western Sea," to 
 sail round Africa, to touch the shores of India, Spain, and even 
 far-off Britain. This fearless trust of themselves to wind 
 and wave, in an age when the unknown was full of terror, was 
 one of the most marked characteristics of the Phoenicians. 
 Another was their ability, without loss of their own individ- 
 uality, to adapt themselves to the character of the widely 
 differing nations with whom their trade brought them into 
 contact. 
 
 Thus we find the jealous and exclusive Egyptians granting 
 them not only many commercial advantages, but even a 
 settlement and a temple in the land of Egypt. They were on 
 friendly terms with the haughty Assyrians and Chaldseans, 
 who afforded them free passage from the Mediterranean to 
 the Persian Gulf, and treated them, even when they became 
 their conquerors, with respect and consideration. 
 
 The Persians, too, did all they could to encourage their 
 prosperity, more especially as Persia depended upon their 
 skill as shipwrights for her fleet ; and the Greeks, though their 
 rivals in trade, frankly acknowledged their superiority in 
 respect of shipbuilding. 
 
 Phoenician Characteristics — Yet, in spite of their acuteness 
 in commerce, the Phoenicians were a dreamy, philosophic, and 
 religious people. Their cities grew up round their temples ; 
 their merchant ships carried the figure of a god at the prow. 
 
26 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 The myths of Babylon and Egypt became more poetical and 
 spiritual in their hands, although they had strangely little 
 belief in a future life for the soul of man. 
 
 The Influence of Phoenicia on Civilization — By their high 
 ideals of art and the excellence of their handiwork they 
 wielded a profound influence upon the many half-civilized 
 nations with whom they came into contact. They shared w^ith 
 Egypt the reputation of being the first workers in glass ; 
 they modified and modernized the alphabetical writing in- 
 vented by the Chaldseans, and handed it on to Asia Minor, 
 Greece, and Italy. They were famous for their fine metal work. 
 We read in the pages of Homer how when Achilles, at the 
 funeral of Patroclus, offered, as a prize to the runners, the 
 most perfectly shaped bowl in the world, it was one made and 
 chased at Sidon and brought to him by Phoenician seamen, that 
 he chose ; and the robe stiff with embroidery and " shining 
 with the brightness of a star," which Hecuba offered to Athens, 
 was the work of Phoenician needlewomen. 
 
 To this people also is due the glory of the Temple of 
 Solomon, the decoration of which was the work of Hiram, 
 " a man of Tyre, skilled to work in gold and in silver, in 
 brass, in iron, in stone and in timber, in purple, in blue and 
 in fine linen, and in crimson ; also to grave any manner of 
 graving." 
 
 The Siege of Tyre — The siege of Tyre by Alexander is one 
 of the marvels of history. When the sea-girt city found that her 
 sister town, Sidon, had submitted to the World Conqueror, she 
 at first bowed to fate and sent a polite message by her chief 
 men, offering her submission. Alexander received it graciously, 
 and informed the messengers that he intended to enter the 
 island city and there to sacrifice to the Phoenician god Mel- 
 karth, whom he claimed as ancestor. But the Tyrians saw 
 in this a proposal to occupy their free city which had never 
 known a foreign garrison, and replied shortly that if he wished 
 to sacrifice to Melkarth he could do so in the temple upon the 
 opposite shore. This intimation was greeted by a storm of 
 fury from the Conqueror, who declared that, if they would not 
 open their gates to him, he would break them down. 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 27 
 
 So hostilities began ; and Tyre, safe in her fleet and sea- 
 washed walls, looked down undismayed upon the approaching 
 foe. But before long she began to realize only too well the 
 resources of Alexander. A huge causeway was in process of 
 construction, and, even if it were washed away by friendly 
 waves, there were always thousands of workmen ready to 
 reconstruct it. Then the Tyrian fleet, like the Elizabethan 
 ships in Armada days, fitted up fire ships filled with burning 
 tar and sulphur and kindled the wooden towers and mole into 
 a blaze. A gale fanned the flames, and the whole mass of 
 flaring stuff was washed away by a huge sea. Immediately 
 Alexander ordered the work to be again begun. Whole trees 
 were now used as the groundwork ; and in return the un- 
 daunted Tyrians sent divers to drag out the trunks with hooks, 
 which caused the structure to collapse. 
 
 Then Alexander tried a new plan. He prevailed on the 
 Sidonians to send him vessels ; he borrowed a large and well- 
 equipped fleet from the Prince of Cyprus ; and with these he 
 surrounded the mouth of the harbour, shutting up the Tyrian 
 vessels and besieging the town both from the sea and from the 
 rapidly renewed causeway. Even then the Tyrians held out. 
 Their little boats slipped under the big galleys and cut the 
 mooring cables, so that chains had to be substituted ; they 
 lowered blocks of stone as bulwarks against the battering 
 rams ; they hid their vessels behind sails and, rowing noiselessly 
 out, made a sudden rush upon the fleet, which almost met with 
 the success it deserved. Even when Alexander arrived with 
 reinforcements, the sailors would not capitulate, but threw 
 themselves into the water and swam back to the city. 
 
 Finally, at the walls a most desperate defence was made 
 before Alexander in person, with his Macedonian troops, 
 could make an entrance ; and the savage nature of the Con- 
 queror was seen under his veneer of civilization in the fact 
 that he had every man killed and thirty thousand women 
 and children sold as slaves. 
 
 So the greatness of Phoenicia came to an end, leaving 
 behind a reputation due, not, as in the case of other kingdoms 
 of the Ancient World, to conquest and political domination, 
 
28 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 but to the independence, enterprise, and commercial skill of 
 her people. 
 
 The People of the Hebrews — ^The next group of Eastern 
 people which appears upon the frieze stands apart in one 
 sense from the other nations of the Ancient World. The 
 strongly marked features are familiar to us of modern days ; 
 for though the Jews have lost their country and wander 
 through all other lands as exiles, they keep the characteristics 
 of their race, and are to-day the same mystical poets, the same 
 keen financiers, the same passionate patriots, as in the days 
 of old. 
 
 The proud isolation of this People of the Hebrews, 
 or Jews, as we call them to-day, is due to the fact that 
 they represent the " Chosen People," selected out of all the 
 nations of the earth to be trained to carry out a Divine 
 ideal. Their history must be read in detail elsewhere ; it 
 is recorded more fully than that of any other race in the 
 pages of the Old Testament, and we can but glance for an 
 instant at it in this connexion. 
 
 As the family of a pastoral chieftain, then as a small tribe, 
 they passed the infancy of their race as the slaves of an 
 Egyptian usurper. Rapidly their number increased ; they 
 returned to their native land, fought for it, cultivated it, and 
 quickly acquired a position of wealth and trade prosperity. 
 They were overthrown by the mighty power of Assyria, but 
 rallied again, to be reconquered by Alexander and later on by 
 Rome. Their city Jerusalem, " beloved of the whole earth," 
 fell before the Roman army, and they were scattered homeless 
 over the wide world. A curse fell on their nation, the result 
 of a Great Refusal, of a rejection of the realization of the ideal 
 towards which their forefathers had blindly stumbled. 
 
 Hebrew Influence on Civilization — But they have contri- 
 buted at least one priceless element to the march of civiliza- 
 tion. They were the one nation of the Ancient World whose 
 instinct was always strong for righteousness, whose moral 
 standard was exalted, whose respect for law was unbounded. 
 The legal codes of modern nations are based upon the Ten 
 Commandments of the Hebrews ; no higher can be found. 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST 29 
 
 They were, moreover, unique in another respect. When 
 other nations worshipped many personifications of deities of 
 one kind or another, the Hebrew set before himself the ideal 
 of the One God, and followed the divine revelation as closely 
 as he might, in spite of frequent fallings away under the 
 influence of other nations. From his faith in a divine 
 Fatherhood followed his belief in a universal brotherhood of 
 man. This fact alone, apart from the position of Palestine 
 as the cradle of Christendom, makes her people remarkable 
 among all the races of East or West. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Say what you think is the most interesting and character- 
 istic feature of each of the Ancient Empires of the East. 
 
 2. Show in the case of any two of these Empires that their 
 downfall was due, not to military, but to economic causes. 
 
 3. What has been the legacy left to the world respectively by 
 Egypt, Babylon, Assjnia, Persia, Phoenicia, Judaea ? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FAR EAST : 
 CHINA, INDIA 
 
 DURING the centuries that saw the rise and fall of 
 the Empires of Western Asia and the growth of the 
 vigorous younger nations of Europe, there existed in 
 curious isolation and monotony an Empire of the Far 
 East, much greater in size and number of inhabitants than any 
 of those of which we have been reading. Yet the Empire of 
 China played no part in the drama of Ancient History as far 
 as influence or interaction with other nations is concerned. 
 She came into touch with India only at a comparatively late 
 date, and with the people of the West not till the thirteenth 
 century of the Christian era ; and then only to a very slight 
 extent. Yet her position is decidedly interesting, for she is 
 the only kingdom which has existed without a break from 
 ancient to modern times. Almost untouched by the thought 
 and faiths of the West, lending a polite ear to the less distant 
 voices of India and Japan, she kept her administration, her 
 education, her moral code practically unchanged until the 
 end of the last century. An air of mystery and remoteness 
 overshadowed her and invested her with a splendour not 
 always based on solid fact. For, as though in remote ages 
 strict limits had been set to her development, the land of 
 China seemed doomed to consist of a vast, showy, magnificently 
 huge domain, whose people were unprogressive, stereotyped, 
 and almost entirely incapable of adapting themselves to 
 modern developments. 
 
 Yet up to a certain point China seems to have made more 
 than ordinary progress towards civilization. She is supposed 
 
 to have known how to make gunpowder at a very early period ; 
 
 30 
 
THE FAR EAST 81 
 
 but she did not discover its use in warfare till it was explained 
 by foreigners in the fifteenth century A.D. She was famous 
 for her porcelain, lacquer-ware, and enamel, and beautiful 
 silk, in the early days of Rome. She knew the secret of 
 bronze-founding, suspension bridges, dykes, and marvellous 
 temple-building twelve hundred years before the Christian era. 
 She knew the use of the compass at a very remote period, 
 and how to print from wooden blocks at least five hundred 
 years before the days of Caxton and his Westminster Press ; 
 and the use of coal and gas for heating was familiar to her 
 at a period long before the Anglo-Saxon had dreamed of 
 anything but a log fire. 
 
 The early story of the nation is dim with mystery. It 
 has been conjectured that the Chinese were akin to the first 
 inhabitants of Ancient Chaldaea, that they were a Sumerian 
 tribe which migrated across Central Asia to the Far East. 
 There they settled among Mongolian tribes, bringing with 
 them the customs of their old home, already half forgotten 
 in the process of changing from a nomad to an agricultural 
 people. The effect of climate, and of intermarriage with an 
 alien race, may have left them content with a state of 
 intellectual stagnation that yet had reached a very fairly 
 advanced stage ; so that we find them learned in astronomy, 
 but ignorant of the use of a telescope, and deeply interested 
 in art without knowing how to draw in perspective. 
 
 The history of China is centred in her kings. No priestly 
 class divided honours with the ruler ; her records deal only 
 with the achievements of kings who were popularly supposed 
 to be the teachers of their people in the arts of civilization. 
 Thus one king instituted the marriage system, taught how to 
 fish and how to play the lute and lyre, invented the curious 
 hieroglyphics of Chinese handwriting. Another explained the 
 secret of the plough and all the arts of agriculture. Under 
 his rule the people grew wise in mind and sound in body, for 
 he showed them how to use bitter herbs as medicine. The 
 image of this Shen-nung or " Prince of Cereals " may still 
 be seen, sometimes in the act of chewing a herb leaf, in every 
 Chinese chemist's shop. Another king invented a calendar 
 
32 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 and a method of reckoning time which is still in use. He also 
 made instruments of music, and others for the study of 
 astronomy. His wife is said to have discovered the use of 
 the silkworm for the good of man, and to have laid the 
 foundation of the famous trade in Chinese silk. 
 
 In spite, however, of these apparent strides towards pro- 
 gress in civilization, the bulk of the great population remained 
 in a curious condition of mingled superstition and ignorance, 
 caring for little else than bodily ease and comfort, bowing 
 contentedly under the iron rule of a despot, and governed by 
 a feudal system which crushed the individuality of the people 
 and prevented any real advance. For centuries their only 
 religion was a blind king-worship, and not until the end of 
 the seventh century B.C., when Rome was struggling out of 
 obscurity, did the two great thinkers appear who were destined 
 to influence the whole character of the Chinese people. 
 
 They belonged to two opposite schools of thought. 
 Laotse's system of "Taoism" was philosophical and mystical ; 
 the Tao, or Logos, was the unseen Word of God, for which 
 man is for ever searching; and a code of precepts for the 
 attainment of true virtue was laid down by him. But this 
 quickly degenerated into a system of alchemy and magic, 
 and became thickly overgrown with rank superstition. 
 Confucius, on the other hand, was a social reformer, who 
 revived the religion of past days and grafted upon it a system 
 of practical moral reforms that closely touched the daily life 
 of the people. He soon outri vailed the claims of Laotse, 
 and, like Socrates in Greece, gathered round him a band of 
 ardent pupils who followed him from place to place, hanging 
 upon his words. As a high official of State he brought about 
 many reforms ; but a wave of jealousy on the part of the 
 great nobles obtained his dismissal, and he became a homeless 
 wanderer and exile. From court to court of the feudal 
 overlords he wandered with his " school " ©f young followers, 
 often sorely distressed at the miserable lot of the people of his 
 land. Thus one day he came across a woman in a deserted 
 place weeping bitterly because her father, husband, and only 
 son had been killed at that spot by a tiger. 
 
THE FAR EAST 33 
 
 " Why then do you stay in this dangerous spot ? " asked 
 Confucius ; and the woman replied : 
 
 " Because here, and here alone, there is no oppressive 
 
 government." 
 
 " My sons," said the prophet, turning to his followers, 
 " remember this— oppressive government is fiercer even than 
 
 Confucius died in 478 B.C., old and weary and disappomted. 
 "No wise ruler appears," was his moan, "no one desires my 
 advice ; it is time for me to die." 
 
 After his death there rose up an Emperor, Hwang-h, 
 who made himself despotic ruler of all the States of China. 
 Fearing lest the more educated people, swayed by the teach- 
 ing of the seer, should rebel, he ordered all written books save 
 those on medicine and astronomy to be destroyed. 
 
 So for a time Confucius was forgotten, while this man, the 
 real founder of the Chinese Empire, won glory by his success 
 in driving out the Tartar invaders from his western frontiers, 
 and by building the " Great Wall of China " to protect his 
 country from outside foes. Yet still the people groaned 
 under his iron hand, and under a criminal code that bathed 
 
 the land in blood. 
 
 During the Han dynasty, which followed, a real attempt 
 was made to restore the literature of the country, and it was 
 then that from hiding-places in ground and waUs and roofs 
 were produced ancient books and writings of the philosopher, 
 which had been carefully treasured and hidden since the days 
 of Confucius. Within the next two centuries China actually 
 became famous for her libraries, and " Confucianism " became 
 an accepted form of faith. 
 
 Still, however, the great mass of the people remained 
 untouched, and knew nothing of religion, until envoys, sent 
 westward in search of a " Great Teacher," returned with 
 a Buddhist priest who taught the faith of Buddha. The 
 influence of Buddhism on the civihzation of China was marked. 
 Soon an alphabet took the place of the extraordinary mono- 
 syllabic language and writing, and a large number of literary 
 works[^appeared. 
 "3 
 
34 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 During all these centuries China, shut off by her great wall 
 and her high mountain ranges, played no part in the drama 
 of Western Asia. Here and there we find a mention of her. 
 The Persians speak of the Eastern people who dwell beyond 
 the Sun-setting. Phoenicians and Hebrews knew of " Sinim," 
 and Rome valued their silks and described them somewhat 
 vaguely as " dwellers in a vast and populous country, touching 
 on the East the Ocean and the limits of the habitable world 
 . . . civilized men, of mild, just, and frugal temper ; avoiding 
 collisions with their neighbours and shy of close intercourse, 
 but not averse from disposing of their own products, which 
 include silk stuffs, furs, and iron of remarkable quality." 
 
 Early in the seventh century after Christ a Mongol 
 dynasty was set up under the famous Genghis Khan, 
 " Conqueror of the World," and this to some extent broke 
 down the isolation of China. The appearance of Catholic 
 priests and the introduction of Christianity brought another 
 and very different wave of thought from the Western World ; 
 while the visit of the traveller, Marco Polo, in the thirteenth 
 century, roused for the first time in civilized Europe an 
 interest in these Eastern people. 
 
 Yet China, in her halting march on the road of progress, 
 profited little, during the next six hundred years, by her inter- 
 course with the outside world ; and when in 1894 the attempt 
 of Japan to annex Korea brought her into contact with modern 
 forms of warfare, she was hopelessly defeated. The " anti- 
 foreign " outrages of a section called the Boxers formed the 
 last attempt to restore her former splendid isolation. 
 Terrible as was the result of this, in the wholesale murder of 
 traders and missionaries, it did something to check the move- 
 ment towards the partition of China among European robbers, 
 and to rouse the conscience of the West. But the most striking 
 effect of Europe's attempt to prey upon China is seen in the 
 national awakening to the sense of the need of marching with 
 the times if the land were to remain a power. How this was 
 brought about belongs to the story of the Modern World. 
 How far the most conservative nation in the world will pursue 
 this march is one of the problems of history. 
 
THE FAR EAST 35 
 
 India — Midway between the Yellow Men and the people 
 of Western Asia there stands portrayed upon our frieze a 
 group of men who show at least three different types of race. 
 
 These are Indians, and among them we find the man of 
 mixed Mongol, Chinese, and Hindu blood ; another of the pure, 
 dark-skinned type, which is probably the original Dra vidian 
 race, small, black, and broad of nose ; and the comparatively 
 white-skinned Aryan, with his well-modelled features. 
 
 The Aryan, of course, was the invader, and as usual spread 
 himself over the land at the expense of the aborigines. But 
 the latter are found even now in mountain and jungle, small 
 of stature, but big of soul, fearless, courageous, and noted for 
 their honour and fidelity. The arrow of an absent chieftain 
 of their tribe, given by his wife to an English traveller, ensured 
 him hospitality and security among all the members of this 
 wild race. While they were yet living in the days of old under 
 trees or rocks, clad in aprons of grass and decked with neck- 
 laces and bracelets, the invading Aryan race, originally 
 nomads, were settling in the Punjaub as cattle breeders and 
 farmers, living on milk and corn, in houses roofed with vege- 
 table fibre or tree bark. Their women cooked and spun and 
 fashioned the finest of fur cloaks from the skins of slain beasts. 
 Very early pictures show the smith blowing up the fire with a 
 feather fan, the goldsmith making bracelets and rings. Even 
 their language shows their pastoral character. They call a 
 battle " desire for cows," and their word for chieftain means 
 " possessor of oxen." Their standard of morality was high. 
 A man had but one wife and made her his equal. At the 
 marriage feast the bridegroom led the bride three times 
 round her parents' hearth, and then, having carried her home 
 in a cart drawn by white steers, three times round his own ; 
 after this, the meal was held in common with the relatives and 
 guests. 
 
 At first the settlers lived in groups of villages, which 
 gradually developed into districts ruled by a chief. The 
 election of a king was in the hands of an assembly of " arm- 
 bearing " men, which also discussed questions of war and peace. 
 The king represented the people before the gods, but might 
 
36 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 himself be represented by an official of poetic gifts and high 
 dignity, and this latter was the forerunner of the priest caste. 
 
 Literature of India : The Rig-Veda — India has no actual 
 history till the so-called " conquest " of Alexander in 327 B.C. 
 It is from her remarkable literature that we construct the 
 picture of her past. The first compilation of her national 
 poetry, the Rig-Veda, was made about 1400 B.C. It is a 
 collection of short poems which show perhaps as many of the 
 characteristics of the Hindu race as the Western mind will 
 ever grasp. From it we find the growth of the Four " Castes " 
 or classes. We see how in the earliest times every head of a 
 household, or chief, was also a priest, warrior, and husbandman. 
 Gradually the more intellectual members of the family, 
 especially those who composed or recited the " Vedic " 
 hymns, were dedicated to the priestly office and became 
 Brahmins, of the most sacred caste of all. The Brahmin was 
 " chief of all created things ; the world and all in it are his " ; 
 all manner of protection, legal and moral, hedged him in. 
 Yet he himself was trained most strictly, passing the first part 
 of his life in poverty and abstinence and in study of the 
 Sacred Vedas. He lived by hard manual toil or by begging 
 from his neighbours. In the second period of his life he might 
 marry and share in ordinary family life, while keeping close 
 to the high ideal of his caste. Thus he must take no gift 
 from " low-born, wicked, or unworthy persons " ; and though 
 he might dig, sow, and glean on his own account, he must not 
 take service of any kind. His demeanour must be at all times 
 grave and reserved ; " he must wear his hair and beard clipped, 
 his passions must be subdued, his mantle white, and his body 
 pure." 
 
 The third part of his life was spent as a hermit in the woods. 
 Wearing the skin of a black antelope, with uncut hair and nails, 
 he slept on the bare earth " without fire, without a mansion, 
 wholly silent, living on roots and fruit." He must bear 
 exposure to weather of all kinds, and meantime redouble his 
 ardour for his religious duties. Only in his later years was 
 this iron rule relaxed, and the Brahmin, having learnt endur- 
 ance, might live with serene mind, meditating upon the 
 
THE FAR EAST 37 
 
 hidden mysteries of his faith, until the time came to quit 
 the body " as a bird leaves the branches of a tree at its 
 pleasure." 
 
 The influence of men trained after this fashion was enor- 
 mous. All law-making was necessarily in their hands, since 
 they alone might interpret the ancient code. Only the higher 
 castes might venture to give them means of support, and these 
 were anxious for the privilege ; so that the Brahmins very 
 seldom need work for their living. The religion taught by 
 them was a very imaginative nature-worship, which saw in the 
 deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, three manifestations of the 
 One Supreme Being. 
 
 From the mouth of Brahma was said to spring the Brahmin 
 caste, born to command and teach ; from his arms the 
 militant caste, for action and defence ; from his thighs the 
 merchant, whose chief office was to support the priestly class ; 
 and from his feet the low caste folk who were bound to run to 
 and fro at the command of others. But the favourite deities 
 were — not Brahma — ^but Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the 
 Destroyer and Reproducer of Life, 
 
 The military caste, to which belonged the king and his 
 ministers, held the people by force of arms, while the Brahmin 
 ruled them by spiritual powers. Theirs was the work of 
 defence, of offering sacrifices, of giving alms, and of studying 
 the sacred books, but not of interpreting them. Members of 
 the third caste, to which belonged the merchant, tradesman, 
 and industrial population, were also allowed to give alms, offer 
 sacrifices, and read the " Scriptures," but their chief duty was 
 to trade, breed cattle, cultivate the soil, and lend money to the 
 needy. 
 
 The people of the " servile " or lowest caste, generally non 
 Aryan serfs of mixed races, were ranked far below the rest. 
 They might not even mention the Sacred Names, nor have the 
 Vedas read in their presence. They might not become wealthy, 
 nor might they share their own wretched food with a Brahmin, 
 even though the latter were starving. The penalty for put- 
 ting them to death was the same as that for killing a cat, a 
 frog, or a lizard. 
 
38 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 The " rule of life " drawn up for these " castes " throws 
 much light upon the economic condition of the Hindu people. 
 That which governed the militant caste more especially 
 portrays a noble and generous-hearted race. 
 
 No man might use poisoned arrows ; life must always be 
 granted to an unarmed or a wounded man, and to one who had 
 broken his weapon or given himself up. A mounted man must 
 not kill one on foot ; nor must death ever be dealt to those 
 who lie down weary, or who are asleep, or who flee before their 
 foes. The religion and laws of a conquered country are not to 
 be disturbed ; and at the earliest possible moment a native 
 prince is to be restored to the throne of the conquered land 
 as a tributary monarch. 
 
 Other regulations found in the Rig- Veda show a humane 
 state of society not too usual among the people of the ancient 
 world. " Way must be made," says the Sacred Book, " f or a 
 man in a wheeled carriage, or above ninety years old, or 
 afflicted with disease, or carrying a burden, for a woman, for 
 a priest, for a prince, and for a bridegroom." 
 
 In earlier days, as we have seen, the position of women 
 was not much inferior to that of men, but under Brahmin rule 
 it was distinctly degraded. Yet the wife was to be treated 
 kindly, " for where the women are made miserable, the 
 family very soon perishes." 
 
 The Mahabharata — ^The history of what we may call 
 the Heroic Age of Northern India may be read between the 
 lines of two great epic poems of Ancient India. 
 
 The Mahabharata is woven round the fortunes of the House 
 of Delhi and tells of the struggle between the rival clans of 
 the five Panda vas and the hundred Kauravas in their efforts 
 to obtain supremacy. The details of the long feud cannot 
 here be told at length, but, in a land where nowadays love 
 for animals, especially for dogs, scarcely exists, it is interesting 
 to find a curious reminiscence of Northern Europe in the 
 tale that tells how the five Pandava princes set out to find 
 the gate of heaven, taking with them a favourite hound. 
 One after another perished on the long hard road, until at 
 length only the eldest prince and the dog survived and 
 
THE FAR EAST 39 
 
 reached the gate. The prince was given admission at once, but 
 declined to enter unless the souls of his dead brethren might 
 accompany him. This was granted, but, when he demanded 
 also admission for his dog, it was refused. The prince then 
 sought the Under World, preferring a place of torment with 
 his faithful friend ; but in a brief space it was shown to him 
 that he had only been given a test of endurance ; and 
 finally both he and his dog were raised to the bliss of heaven. 
 
 The Ramayana sings the story of the House of Oude. 
 It describes the youth of Prince Rama and how he won the 
 hand of the Princess Sita after he had bent the bow of Siva. 
 But Sita was carried off one day, when Rama was absent 
 hunting in the jungle, by Ravana, the demon king, who 
 bore her to his kingdom of Ceylon. Then to the aid of the 
 distracted Rama came Hanuman and his monkey tribe, 
 who built a bridge across to the island, by which Rama 
 crossed, slew the demon, and recovered his bride. 
 
 Buddhism (543 B.C.) — As the centuries rolled by, this 
 poetical old-world religion of the Hindus became lifeless 
 and stifled with superstition. Within it were grave economic 
 drawbacks also, for the peasant class, as we have seen, was 
 treated with contempt, and the distinctions of caste became 
 a heavy burden upon the people. So, in the sixth century 
 B.C., there appeared a great teacher, Prince Gautama, or 
 ''Buddha," the Enlightened One, who became the Reformer 
 of his age. - The poetic legend of his spiritual progress must 
 be read elsewhere ; the effects of the doctrines he taught are 
 all that can be noted here. 
 
 The task of Buddha was to help the afflicted and to 
 carry a message of hope to the " out -caste," the beggar, 
 the sick, and the miserable. Wandering over the face of 
 the earth, he looked upon the sheep and the goat bound for 
 the sacrifice and bade the priest loose the victim for ever. 
 He listened to the moan of a mother over her dead babe, and, 
 promising her a remedy if she could procure a mustard seed 
 from a household from which none had been carried out 
 for burial, taught her the lesson of endurance and patience. 
 He spoke to men of the value of life and of the friendship 
 
40 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 that should reign between animal and man, so that hence- 
 forth they would not take the life of beasts for food. 
 
 So within a comparatively brief period a great change 
 came over those who had embraced the religion of Buddha. 
 Caste distinctions began to be broken down, for the Buddhist 
 priest, who lived a life of strict penance much like that of 
 the Catholic monk in Christian days, might be drawn from 
 any rank of society. People of the lower castes were treated 
 with kindness in place of contempt ; and the doctrine that 
 the future life of man depended entirely upon his own actions 
 here led to a reformation of morality and the adoption of a 
 simple self-denying life. 
 
 In one marked respect, however, the teaching of Buddha 
 was not progressive. The position of women was still further 
 lowered, and condolences were showered upon the parents 
 of a girl child at her birth. She received no education, and 
 was married at the age of seven or eight to a boy or to an 
 old man whom she had never seen. Her life was one of 
 slavery, and during many a year she was burnt alive on the 
 funeral pyre of her dead husband. 
 
 Buddhism and Brahminism never displaced one another, 
 and continued to flourish side by side through the centuries. 
 Once again was this religious and imaginative race to be given 
 a new faith, when, in mediaeval days, about one thousand 
 years after the birth of our Lord, the followers of Mohammed 
 flooded the land with their doctrines. But this belongs to 
 the history of a later period ; for, as a matter of fact, the 
 actual story of India was not written at all until the time 
 of these Arab Conquests in the Middle Ages. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. What evidence is there of a high degree of civilization in 
 Ancient China ? 
 
 2. In what respects is China unique among nations ? 
 
 3. What do you know of Laotse, Confucius, Buddha ? How 
 did each of these influence the story of the world ? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE "GLORY OF GREECE" 
 
 (2000-330 B.C.) 
 
 YOU will remember that we found the origins of the 
 civilization of the Ancient World in Central Asia. 
 If we search for the cradle of the civilization of 
 Europe we shall find it in the land now known as 
 the Balkan Peninsula, the home of Ancient Greece ; and in 
 the islands of the ^Egean Sea. 
 
 Knossos — Discoveries made in comparatively recent 
 times have made it clear that at least forty centuries before 
 Christ a state of civilization, which reached its highest point 
 perhaps about the eighteenth century of that era, existed 
 in the island of Crete and its immediate neighbours. At 
 Knossos, for example, excavations have shown three palaces 
 built one on top of the other, each showing the distinctive 
 marks of the age to which it belonged. The lowest evidently 
 dates from the Stone Age. The second was built in the days 
 of the Ancient Empire of Egypt, from which land Crete 
 possibly borrowed its civilization. The third is the most 
 astonishing and interesting of all, for it is the very palace of 
 King Minos, who was long supposed to be a person of myth and 
 fable, and is now proved to have been an actual ruler, probably 
 of the days when the Hyksos kings were being thrust out of 
 Egypt. Even the Labyrinth of fable is to be found in very 
 truth, being an involved arrangement of rooms leading from 
 one to the other, and dedicated to a god whose symbol was 
 the double axe or labrys. 
 
 This palace has still more surprising features. We find 
 in it an elaborate system of architecture, staircases, corridors, 
 
 pillared halls, balconies, frescoed walls — a far higher stage 
 
 41 
 
42 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of the building art than is to be found in England before the 
 eleventh century of the Christian era. The wall paintings 
 show landscapes and seascapes, fruit and flowers, as well 
 as the warriors of the early days of pictorial art. Ivory 
 statuettes, beautifully cut cameos and chased gold fillets, 
 delicately tinted cups of a kind of porcelain as fragile as egg- 
 shell, tablets covered with script — all go to prove an advanced 
 stage of civilization ; and the possession of a system of 
 handwriting, some centuries before the supposed invention 
 of the latter by the Phoenicians, is evident. 
 
 Mycense — About the time (1500 B.C.) that saw the be- 
 ginnings of the downfall of this civilization of Knossos in 
 Crete, we find another flourishing period at Mycenae and 
 Tiryns, on the eastern side of the peninsula of Greece. A 
 stronghold excavated at Tiryns shows us the work of a people 
 who knew the use of mortar and how to shape their stones, 
 how to build covered galleries fitted with windows, and cup- 
 boards in their walls. The floors were plastered in red and 
 blue ; the halls of the palace were lighted from above. 
 
 The palace of Mycenae reaches a higher stage. It shows 
 us vaulted passages, towers and gateways, such -as the Lion 
 Gate, guarded by enormous lions of stone. The halls and 
 passages are decorated with paintings and sculptures ; the 
 hearths show a pattern of red, blue, and white tiles. The 
 richly decorated tombs, the armour, the leathern helmets 
 and shields, the spears and bows, all speak of an advanced 
 stage of civilization. Whether this was borrowed from Egypt, 
 as seems to be implied by the presence of Egyptian pottery, 
 and the finding of the seal of an Egyptian king, and of a 
 dagger inlaid with an Egyptian scene upon the blade ; or 
 whether this Mycenean civilization existed side by side and 
 in close connexion with that of Egypt, matters little. What 
 is important is that these inhabitants of Knossos and Mycenae 
 and Tiryns were the forefathers of Greece, who, themselves 
 unknown to history, handed on the torch of progress to an 
 alien race, settlers or conquerors, possibly coming from the 
 region of the Carpathian Mountains, who gradually spread 
 from the islands of the ^Egean to the coasts of Asia Minor, 
 
THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 43 
 
 and from Mycenae over Greece, carrying with them their 
 newly acquired civiHzation. 
 
 Prehistoric Greece — At Hissarlik, the site of Ancient 
 Troy, there was found, in the ruins of the sixth city built 
 upon that site, an arch in the Mycenean style. No doubt 
 a rapid increase in the population of Mycenae had resulted 
 in migrations to the coast of Asia Minor. The Trojan War 
 itself, which belongs to the Heroic Age of Greece, was a great 
 military expedition of Greek chieftains, and amongst them, 
 no doubt, princes of Mycenae journeyed to the Trojan shores 
 to fight, as in more recent days, for the possession of the 
 Bosphorus and the control of the rich corn-lands of that 
 region. Other great city colonies were established in Asia 
 Minor by the lonians, another group of Greeks, remarkable 
 throughout history for their free, daring, versatile spirit. And 
 since these things happened in the days when Assyria held 
 Asia Minor well in hand, we get in them a mixture of the 
 Assyrian spirit, daring, bold, and overbearing, with the 
 culture and rapid civilization of Greece. 
 
 Somewhere in the days before history, another group of 
 Greeks, the Dorians, moved southwards, colonized the 
 northern part of the Peloponnesus, and caused the fall of 
 Mycenge and Tiryns. They were an unlettered race, marked 
 off by a peasant spirit of simplicity and ignorance frorn the 
 keen intellect, love of beauty, and artistic sense that char- 
 acterized the lonians. 
 
 The next stage in the story of Greece shows us the Age 
 of Homer, called by some the Age of Heroes, by others the 
 Middle Ages of Greece. The old civilization, with its 
 Eastern features of elaborate detail and oft-repeated style 
 of ornament intermingled with the more natural features 
 of the original race, had by this time passed away. 
 In its place we find a simpler and more characteristic con- 
 dition, on both the social and the artistic side. The land, by 
 its geographical formation, was divided into various " states " 
 ruled by a patriarch chieftain, who was king, priest, and 
 judge of the people. He was advised by a strong council 
 of nobles. The great body of freemen were farmers, but 
 
44 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 physicians, " seers," and poets or " makers " were held in 
 high esteem. Such slaves as existed were mostly captives 
 taken in war. 
 
 A certain amount of Oriental influence still per- 
 sisted in the dress they wore, in the bright Eastern colours, 
 the light -fitting patterned robe of the women and the Oriental 
 veil covering their cheeks. The latter wore a hood-like cover- 
 ing for the head, and the men still kept the pointed wedge- 
 shaped beard of the East. But, contrary to the custom of the 
 Oriental world, their women were held in high honour. A 
 princess, it is true, supervised the washing-tub, and another 
 spun the web that clothed her household; but Nausicaa 
 and Penelope are the types of the perfect virgin and wife, 
 the inspiration of their men-folk, just as in another type, that 
 of Helen of Troy, we find one cause of a lifelong conflict 
 between the nations. 
 
 The laws of this early race were few and simple. A 
 traveller or a beggar might count on food and shelter, 
 since strangers and beggars were sent by Zeus ; and a 
 fugitive was given protection from his pursuers. The 
 actions of this imaginative people were ruled at every point 
 by the gods and goddesses of the natural world ; but during 
 this period their religion may have progressed from the 
 worship of nature powers to that of perfect human beings, 
 living apart in Mount Olympus, but keenly interested in the 
 fortunes of the race. So we find Athene, the warrior goddess, 
 patron of the arts and crafts of civihzation, representing 
 the triumph of intellectual wisdom, presiding over the 
 AcropoUs on the Hill of Athens ; and Apollo, representative 
 of the perfect body, teaching men music and poetry and all 
 that appeals to the emotional side of human nature ; and 
 many another deity whose influence was closely interwoven 
 with the daily occupations of life. Such a living faith had a 
 marked effect upon the Greek people of this period. For 
 it was an age of colonization, when a rapid growth in popu- 
 lation, the tempting nearness of the Mgesm Islands and the 
 shore of Asia, or, it may be, internal pohtical troubles, urged 
 each state to send forth emigrants and to plant colonies in 
 
THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 45 
 
 both east and west. So we find Greek colonies in Russia, in 
 Africa, in Sicily and Southern France, as well as all along 
 the coasts of the Black Sea ; while the Mediterranean became 
 practically an inland sea of Greece. And these immigrants 
 were by no means of a primitive stage of civilization. They 
 were able to bring capital with them and to employ the 
 aborigines to work for them ; they raised spacious cities and 
 bred lordly cattle and built fine fleets. It was said of them, 
 indeed, that they built as though they would live for ever, 
 and dined as though they would die next day. The cord 
 that bound them together as Hellenes, all the world over, 
 was the bond of their religion. But this in course of time 
 wore very thin, and we find them looking down with scorn 
 on their motherland and breaking loose from her whenever 
 they could. 
 
 Historic Greece — ^As the Greeks emerge into the light of 
 history, somewhere about the eighth century B.C., we see 
 them on our frieze in two very distinct groups. A change 
 has been taking place that has transformed a pastoral people 
 into townsfolk famed for their handicraft and trade; and 
 the first group shows graceful, well-knit figures of youths and 
 maidens, simply clad in tunic and flowing robe, with keen 
 intellectual faces, clear-cut features, and beauty-loving eyes, 
 against a background of buildings on fine, simple lines, based 
 no longer on the stiff Oriental fashions, but on Nature's own 
 designs. These are the Athenians, people of the city dedicated 
 to the wise goddess who was patron of handicraft as well as 
 of book-learning, men notable even in much later days for 
 their restless love of novelty, their keen wits and quick 
 emotions. They were energetic colonizers abroad, and at 
 home were as famed for their love of experiment in forms 
 of government as for their skill as traders and adventurers. 
 
 The second group consists of a band of sturdy young 
 warriors, hard and strong of limb and stern of feature, whose 
 whole training has been directed to making them forget them- 
 selves as individuals and to become perfect members of a 
 warrior state. These are the Spartans, who were to become for 
 a time the conquerors of all Greece and who bade fair once on 
 
46 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 a time to reduce its civilization to their own primitive ideal. 
 Their land-locked country cut them off from sea adventure, 
 and thus they were in a manner forced to make miUtary 
 development their first aim. 
 
 Round these two city states most of the history of 
 Greece can be grouped, even in the early story of the land. 
 But it is in Athens, the sea state, that we find the really 
 typical development of Greece. In her we see the change 
 from a feudal state to a great manufacturing and trading 
 centre, famous for its weapons, its metal work, its woven 
 goods, its pottery. In the commerce which Athens carried 
 on with all the known world, we see her giving up the use of 
 cattle as money in favour of bars of iron and copper and 
 later on of coins. The first standard coin was struck in 
 Lydia at a time when the West was still using a system 
 of " barter " and valuing goods in cows and sheep. Thus 
 money became the Greek standard of wealth, a necessary 
 step when all the trade of the known world was falling into 
 Greek hands. 
 
 The Hmits of that world, too, were fast enlarging. The 
 primitive Greek had placed the Gates of Hades, the " end of the 
 world," at the western coast of the Peloponnesus ; but the 
 opening up of the great caravan routes to Central Asia, 
 Russia, and even China, gradually pushed it out to some 
 region of mystery, the Islands of the Blest, beyond " the 
 Ocean." 
 
 The next great step was the introduction of a system 
 of writing, probably on Phoenician models. The effect of 
 this was immense. The adoption of a written code of law, 
 supposed to be the work of Solon, really created a citizen 
 state, in which all alike could claim protection for life and 
 property. New intellectual ideas arose, were recorded, and 
 exchanged. While Sparta, scorning books and book-learning, 
 and trained by the State on strict military fines, was still 
 in a primitive state of civilization, Athens bade fair to 
 become the leader of Greece. 
 
 The City States — In the sixth century b.c. we find this 
 condition developed during a period of consolidation and 
 
THE " GLORY OF GREECE " 47 
 
 unity. Everjrwhere the city states were growing fast, drawn 
 together by the bond of rehgion, and especially by the yearly 
 *' fairs/' or games, held at Olympia and elsewhere, in honour of 
 the gods. A high ideal pervaded these contests. Only pure- 
 blooded freemen might compete, with no stain upon them of 
 sacrilege or murder. 
 
 At Delphi, the home of Apollo, were held the meetings 
 of the Amphictyonic League, a kind of League of Nations 
 on a tiny scale, which drew up an international scheme of 
 laws for the various city states, and strove to prevent war ; 
 or, if this were impossible, ±o check its worst effects. Thus 
 we find it enacting that the water supply of besieged cities 
 was not to be cut off, and that no town, if a member of the 
 League, was to be destroyed ; and, though its aims were 
 religious rather than political, it certainly acted to some 
 extent as an " international agent." 
 
 Sparta and Athens — Meantime the military and auto- 
 cratic state of Sparta and the economic and democratic 
 Commonwealth of Athens were steadily emerging from the 
 lesser states and preparing for a life-and-death struggle, 
 strangely foreshadowing one that was to come some twenty- 
 four centuries later. Year by year they grew more distinct 
 as their characteristics differed more widely. 
 
 By this time the Spartans, the offspring of the sturdy 
 peasant Dorian race, composed an aristocratic and despotic 
 state, ruUng the older conquered races as serfs and depen- 
 dents, and ruled themselves by two kings, who were controlled 
 by a board of five magistrates called Ephors, elected annually 
 and possessing very wide powers. The Spartan knew no family 
 life ; he ate and drank and lived and died in public, and 
 swayed the fortunes of his state by his vote on war and 
 treaty, whatever his rank might be. His marked success in 
 warfare when he came to grips with Persia shows the triumph 
 of trained muscle and will over a vast unwieldy state that 
 had lost its own simplicity in the overwhelming and un- 
 digested civilization of its conquered peoples ; but they would 
 have availed little without the aid of the Athenian fleet. 
 
 Athens stood, on the other hand, for the triumph of 
 
48 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 mind. At an early stage a mythical lawgiver named Draco 
 had well-nigh crushed the infant state by the severity of his 
 legal code. Political rights were only for those who could 
 produce a complete war equipment, and this placed so much 
 power in the hands of a few rich nobles that the " small 
 man " lost hope, got into debt, was sold for a slave to pay 
 his creditors or fled as an exile from his native land. 
 
 To Solon is the credit due of laying the real foundations 
 of Athens. He swept away this system, freed the debtors, 
 limited the amount of land that could be held by one man, 
 and gave the right of vote in the Assembly to the rich noble, 
 the small landowner, and the labourer alike. Under these 
 conditions the City of the Sea developed fast, becoming in 
 the days of Cleisthenes a complete commonwealth, famed for 
 its intellectual activity, its fervour of religion, its successful 
 trade, its beauty of architecture, above all, for its power of 
 individual thought and self-expression. 
 
 Nor was the great bronze statue of Athene Promachos, 
 the " Fighter in the Front," which, clad in helmet and spear, 
 ruled with arm outstretched over city and sea, a mere empty 
 boast of later days. It was an Athenian army, aided, it is true, 
 by geographical conditions, that saved not only Greece but the 
 greater part of Southern Europe from the grasp of Persia on the 
 " Day of Marathon," and so left an indelible mark on the history 
 of the world. It was an Athenian fleet under Themistocles 
 that, a few years later, drove the fleet of Persia headlong from 
 the coast. The Spartan Leonidas had indeed played a noble 
 part in his defence of the Pass of Thermopylae with a handful 
 of men ; but Sparta, an inland state, knew nothing of sea- 
 manship ; and it was Athens who finally set Greece free from 
 fear of Persian tyranny and made her a foremost name among 
 the nations of the world. 
 
 The Golden Age of Athens — ^The fifth century b.c. was 
 the " Golden Age " of Athens. Under the skilful guidance 
 of Pericles, wisest of statesmen, she had become the foremost 
 state of Greece, watched indeed jealously by Sparta, but 
 able to subdue one reluctant state of central Greece after 
 another till she was overlord of all. She was the mother of 
 
THE " GLORY OF GREECE '* 49 
 
 rich colonies, the islands of the sea looked to her as mistress, 
 her own trade was world-wide. Within her walls rose glorious 
 temples, and within the beautiful Parthenon, dedicated to 
 the Maiden Goddess of the city, the wooden statue of Athene 
 had been covered with plates of ivory for flesh, and of gold for 
 raiment, by the sculptor Pheidias, whose pupils were to 
 carve the famous frieze that you may see to-day, almost 
 untouched by age. The face of the goddess is strangely 
 typical of the Greek character as found in the northern 
 part of the peninsula. As she stands there resting upon her 
 shield, the face is full of that joy of life that was the secret 
 of Greek vitality. There is a hint of quick intuition in the 
 mobile lips, the speculative brow, the alert pose ; and mingled 
 with it is a look of grave wisdom that reminds us that one 
 ~of the chief legacies of Greece to the world at large was the 
 power of hard, clear thought, as hard and clear as her own 
 sculptures. For still, in the Modem World, some twenty- 
 five centuries after the Golden Age of Greece, we reason by 
 her methods of thought and abide by her intellectual laws. 
 Our greatest philosophers look back to Socrates and Plato 
 and Aristotle as their masters ; our most modern scientists 
 owe something to the Greek discoverers of the theory of 
 atoms ; our dramatists are still to some extent bound by the 
 conventions of the stage of ^Eschylus and Sophocles and 
 Euripides. There is, indeed, no form of modern intellectual 
 activity that was not, to some extent, developed and, so to 
 speak, standardized in Ancient Greece. 
 
 Yet, at the height of apparent success, the foundations 
 of Athens were already crumbling. The economic wisdom 
 of Pericles had for a time staved off one danger by forming 
 city colonies as an outlet for the unemployed, and by insisting 
 on the principle that " not poverty, but the spirit of idleness 
 that refuses to defend itself against it, is looked on with 
 contempt." In the plays of Euripides and Aristophanes 
 we see the restless spirit of the age, the growing contempt for 
 religious faith, the bitterness of soul that cried out for the 
 right to the fullest kind of life for every man, without knowing 
 how to use the means to attain to it. In vain did Socrates, 
 4 
 
50 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the philosopher, and Plato, his interpreter, preach a system of 
 morals founded on knowledge and will-power. The typical 
 Athenian after the days of Pericles was Alcibiades, that 
 brilliant and versatile youth, scorning gods and men ahke, 
 full of egotism and love of singularity for its own sake, and so 
 utterly indifferent to the welfare of his mother state that he 
 was prepared to sell her to Sparta or to Persia if he could but 
 get his price. Foiled in this, his sheer weight of personahty 
 pushed him into the leadership of Athens for a brief period ; 
 but his real weakness of character was seen in the way the 
 city fell, through acts of utter carelessness on his part, between 
 the opposing buffers of Sparta and Persia. 
 
 It was the supreme chance of the War State against the 
 Intellectual State ; and intellectual freedom went down with 
 a crash before the discipline which in other forms was her 
 own greatest necessity. For a few bitter years Greece as a 
 whole was to feel the effects of an iron autocracy, of a military 
 rule waged by Sparta in alliance with Persia. It was a short- 
 lived supremacy for Sparta ; for the strength of the latter 
 lay, not in the senate-house, but on the battlefield. Yet it left 
 Greece torn by internal conflicts and a ready prey to Phihp 
 of Macedon, the Man of Iron, when the troops of Macedon 
 swarmed down upon the plains of Attica. For Philip found 
 there no union of states, no supreme leader, but an army 
 composed of mercenaries ; and her only true patriot was the 
 orator Demosthenes, who had in vain stirred his fellow- 
 citizens to preserve their liberty. 
 
 Yet the faU of Greece was saved from being a catastrophe, 
 a mere triumph of brute force, by the character of her future 
 ruler Alexander, the son of Philip, whom we have already 
 seen as the conqueror of the East. It was impossible for him, 
 the pupil of Aristotle and the embodiment of all that was 
 finest in Greek civilization, to make Greece a mere appendage 
 to a half-civilized state. His own ideal of kingship was one 
 that should influence men, not by force, but by deeds of 
 chivalry and nobility ; as the personification of the ancient 
 Greek hero Achilles, he would bring back a Golden Age to 
 Greece. And for a time Alexander actually did succeed in 
 
THE "GLORY OF GREECE" 51 
 
 holding together a vast empire by the strength of hero-worship. 
 A greater achievement was the joining of the opposing forces 
 of East and West by making the city Alexandria the centre 
 of world commerce, the centre also of a League of Nations 
 that stretched from Athens to another Alexandria in India. 
 The appearance of this city of Alexandria was as a sign and a 
 symbol. Built foursquare to the four quarters of the earth, 
 and intersected by two great thoroughfares at right angles to 
 each other, she beckoned to every part of the known world, 
 calling students of every nation to the doors of her immense 
 library, her museums, her lecture-rooms, the centre of all 
 science and all philosophy, where Euclid taught mathematics 
 and the " intellectuals " gathered at his feet. 
 
 Yet it has been well said that " the Greece we all worship 
 is not the far-spreading Empire of Alexander, but the group 
 of related, autonomous city-states,' where intelligence and 
 commercial skill were qualities of citizenship, and citizenship 
 was the essence of civilization." ^ 
 
 The legacy of Greece to the world was a political and moral 
 experiment hitherto unknown ; "an ideal of the sane mind 
 in the sane body " ; and an indication of the true meaning of 
 Democracy in its best and fullest sense. 
 
 The effect upon the world of the work of Alexander was 
 immense. Everywhere the Greek tongue was spoken and 
 Greek ideals were spread ; and when the scientific investiga- 
 tion of Ancient Babylon was mingled with the clear-cut, 
 essentially modem thought of Greece, the result was in every 
 respect a signal triumph for intellect over force. 
 
 Yet as an Empire, Greece in the days of the Roman 
 invasion no longer existed ; and when, a century and a half 
 after the conquest of Philip, the Roman general Flaminius 
 announced that she was free, she had forgotten how to use 
 her liberty and fell prostrate before the Roman spears. But 
 in one sense she was never conquered. Her most bitter 
 enemies always ended by absorbing her civiUzation and 
 adopting her ideas ; it was from her that all the countries 
 of the world obtained their standards of law and architecture, 
 ^ G. H. Perris, History of War and Peace. 
 
52 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of music, poetry and sculpture. Even her religion, transformed 
 to suit a sterner race, migrated to Rome. Her political theories 
 have influenced the whole world ; and her hard, clear methods 
 of thought have been adopted by every nation in every age 
 down to the present day. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. What is the legacy of Greece to the modern world ? 
 
 2. Account for the rapid development of Greek civilization. 
 
 3. Bring out and try to account for the main points of differ- 
 ence between Athens and Sparta. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 
 
 (750 B.C.-A.D. 14) 
 
 THERE next appears upon our frieze of history a 
 well-ordered legion of warriors, mingling in their 
 veins the blood of three rival nations, the Etruscan, 
 Sabine, and Latin races, and following a brazen eagle 
 as the symbol of their world-wide ideals. 
 
 They represent the race that was to conquer not only 
 by force of arms but by sheer weight of a perfect political 
 organization, and by their practical realization of the meaning 
 of Authority in its widest and fullest sense. 
 
 " If there is a people in the world," says their own 
 historian Livy, " who can call Mars its founder and forefather, 
 it is certainly the people of Rome, who, exchanging the 
 shepherd's staff for the warrior's sword, have subjected the 
 whole world to their rule." 
 
 The patriotism of the writer lays stress upon the military 
 glory of Rome in later years, but it says nothing of the ideals 
 of law and order, of strong government and training in 
 citizenship, that marked the difference between a war State, 
 such as that of Assyria in its comparatively brief existence, 
 and the vast organization out of which Rome developed her 
 mighty Empire. For military skill was only one of her 
 methods of expansion ; and a much greater part was played 
 by her road-building and her colonies, and her method of 
 governing them. 
 
 The difference between Greece and Rome is equally well 
 marked, in spite of the fact that in later days Rome borrowed 
 her religion, her literature, her art, straight from the country 
 she had vanquished. 
 
 53 
 
54 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 The spiritual, emotional, and artistic side of life appealed 
 little to the Roman, whose ideal was comprised in the word 
 " citizenship," and to whom civihzation meant the outward 
 condition of law and order, the well-built city rather than the 
 well-equipped mind. 
 
 " I am a citizen of no mean city," boasted one of her sons 
 in the early days of the Christian Church ; and such words 
 must have been often on the lips of those who claimed Rome 
 as their mother. Lacking the " spirited youthfulness," the joy 
 of Ufe that distinguished the Greek, the Roman possessed 
 instead a " stern and calculating manhness " that produced 
 the fine ascetic character known all over the world as the " old 
 Roman " type. 
 
 The origins of such men would be full of interest were 
 they not so closely overshadowed by mylh as to be almost 
 unrecognizable. The earUest race of Italy were probably 
 immigrant Iberians, perhaps haiUng from Africa, or farther 
 East from the Caucasus Mountains, men who finally moved 
 on west to Spain, and south to Sicily, where their character- 
 istics survive in the Basques and Sicihans of modern days. 
 They seem to have been small and slender, dark-eyed and 
 dark-skinned, with well-shaped hands and feet. The next 
 invaders, Indo-Germanic tribes coming down the valley of the 
 Po, who called themselves Ligurians, broke up into various 
 scattered colonies of Samnites, Volscians, Latins, Sabines, 
 Umbrians, and in Ancient Venice, at least, under the name of 
 Illyrians, possessed a fairly advanced civihzation. 
 
 The Etruscan Invasion — ^Then came a wave of invasion by 
 a mightier race, the Etruscans, who spread rapidly across the 
 plain of the River Po and over Latium and Campania. They 
 were a mysterious people, haiUng probably from the valleys of 
 Western Asia, and had reached Italy on their " trek " through 
 Central Europe. Conjecture has linked them with the 
 Hebrews, with the Scandinavians, with the Iberian aborigines ; 
 but nothing certain is known of their origin. 
 
 The Ancients called them Pelasgi, and painted them as a 
 wild fierce people such as probably belong to a very early 
 period of volcanic disturbance and earthquake. They seem 
 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 55 
 
 to have held aloof from the other Aryan tribes, from which 
 their round heads and short stout figures distinguished them, 
 as well as their dark and gloomy temperament. But they 
 nevertheless reached the highest civiUzation known in Italy 
 before the era of Rome ; and Rome herself bore the impression 
 of many of their customs, while their superstitions, such as 
 the foretelling of the fate of man from the entrails of a slain 
 beast, were deeply ingrained in Roman ritual. 
 
 The underground tombs of these people, the vases and 
 temples of Tuscany, show the strong influence of Egypt and 
 Assyria, perhaps by way of Phoenicia and of Greece at the 
 stage of the Mycenaean period of civilization. They built 
 their cities high upon the hills ; they were at home on sea as 
 on land ; and as in course of time they overran most of Italy, 
 we are bound to regard them as in some sense the ancestors 
 of Rome herself. 
 
 Probably these Etruscans were the Tarquins of the 
 legendary period, before the middle of the eighth century 
 before Christ. The Romans, then a shepherd tribe, settled 
 about the banks of Tiber, acknowledged their supremacy for 
 a time, and when Rome shook off their rule she did not forget 
 what they had taught her. Her police system — ^the lictors 
 and the fasces ; her insignia of office — ^the purple toga and 
 the curule chair ; her drainage system — ^the Great Sewer, 
 caUed " Cloaca Maxima " ; her early architecture as seen 
 in the Temple on the Capitol ; her calendar, her metal-work, 
 her pottery — all were Etruscan ; and when Rome appears 
 on the pages of actual history, her sons undoubtedly showed 
 traces of Etruscan as well as of Latin descent. Moreover, of 
 aU the primitive civilizations of Italy, the Etruscan is the 
 only one that survived to any extent, and is the only one 
 handed on, through Rome, to the Modern World. 
 
 The Heroic Age — ^The Heroic Age of Rome shows us 
 the origin of the Republic at the period when the " rule of 
 kings," that is, of the Etruscans, was finally demolished. 
 In the years of warfare between the infant state and the alien 
 tribes by which Rome was surrounded, we find the reasons 
 that made her inhabitants a military people instead of a 
 
m A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 pastoral tribe. No doubt her position near the mouth of the 
 Tiber had much to do with her rapid progress ; for even at the 
 beginning of the days of the Repubhc we find the Romans 
 making trade treaties with Carthage, then the chief commercial 
 city of the Mediterranean. 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at the stage reached by Rome 
 about the fifth centm-y B.C., when the RepubUc was an 
 accomplished fact. During the past three hundred years 
 the Romans had become definitely transformed from a 
 pastoral race to a commercial and military people. The 
 need of protecting themselves against the hostile tribes that 
 surrounded them had forced them, in the first instance, to 
 take up sword and spear ; and by this time all citizens were 
 bound to take their place in the ranks of the army in time 
 of war. 
 
 At the head of the Republic were placed two Consuls, or 
 " colleagues," for the space of one year ; at the end of that 
 time these were generally appointed to the governorship of a 
 province and were not re-elected. In time of war, since a 
 consul was strictly the city magistrate, and was not supposed 
 to leave Rome during his term of office, a dictator was ap- 
 pointed for six months at a time to control military affairs. 
 
 The religion of the Romans, as well as their art, was either 
 inherited from the Etruscans or, in later days, borrowed from 
 Greece. At this period their religion was closely connected 
 with the pastoral occupations of their ancestors, and Flora, 
 the flower-goddess, Saturn, the god of the seed-sowing, Janus, 
 the two-headed sun-god, facing east and west, were among 
 their chief deities. 
 
 A college of Augurs interpreted omens by the flight of 
 birds or the entrails of beasts ; another college of Pontiffs, 
 or bridge-makers, regulated matters of faith as well as matters 
 of hygiene. 
 
 Both the religious and social instincts of the Roman were 
 centred round his homestead, and in every household was 
 found an altar to the Lares, or spirits of the dead, and to the 
 Penates, the deities who presided over the dwelling. In their 
 honour was lighted the fire upon each hearthstone ; and 
 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 57 
 
 sacred fire played a chief part in the Temple of Vesta, where 
 it burned perpetually under the care of six vestal virgins, a 
 symbol of that burning spark of vitality that was to make this 
 small and comparatively unknown city the centre of a vast 
 and enduring empire. 
 
 Aristocracy and Democracy — ^The two and a half cen- 
 turies that followed the founding of the Republic were a period 
 of external and internal warfare. Inside the city there raged 
 a long struggle between the aristocratic Patricians, the de- 
 scendants of the first " fathers " of Rome, and the democratic 
 Plebeians, descendants of non-Romans who had swarmed in 
 for purposes of refuge or of commerce. Little by little these 
 Plebeians worked out their own salvation as citizens, wresting 
 from the aristocratic party, first, their Tribunes or special 
 representatives, whose veto could prevent the passing of an 
 unrighteous law, then their equality with the Patricians in 
 private rights. As the struggle continued, various privileges 
 of the Patricians were gradually surrendered, until finally all 
 the public offices were open to Plebeian and Patrician alike. 
 Next to the Consuls, the most important officials were : 
 Praetors, who were the chief justices of the Republic ; Aediles, 
 who were at once police magistrates and superintendents of 
 temples and other public buildings ; Quaestors, who had 
 charge of the public treasury ; Censors, who were responsible 
 for the periodical census lists, giving the rank, property, 
 and assessment of each citizen, and also had control of the 
 public land ; and Tribunes, already mentioned, who were 
 appointed for the special protection of the common people, 
 and whose functions were therefore mainly negative or 
 restrictive. But the real seat of power in Rome was the 
 Senate, or Council of Elders, composed mostly of ex-officials, 
 which practically controlled all public business. 
 
 The Expansion of Rome — During this time an unceasing 
 conflict was being maintained outside Rome over every yard 
 of the land that was to form the nucleus of her future empire. 
 At first it was a mere border warfare against neighbouring 
 tribes, all of which were gradually absorbed or dispersed. Then 
 came the great struggle with an alien foe, the fierce Gauls of 
 
58 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the North, who burnt the city to the ground. Thence rose a 
 new Rome, strengthened and purified by suffering, stretching 
 her arms both North and South, and maintaining her hold on 
 what she won by means of flourishing colonies connected by 
 the straight and well-made roads that led from the heart 
 of her city, like arteries, through the land of Italy. 
 
 For a while the South of Italy, an old Greek colony and 
 still known as Greater Greece, withstood her with the aid of 
 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a famous general and cousin of 
 Alexander the Great. For the moment North faced South, 
 and it even looked as if the latter might prevail. But, though 
 Pyrrhus gained more than one victory over the Romans, they 
 cost him very dear, as he lost thousands of men, and he was 
 so much impressed by the courage of the Roman soldiers as 
 to declare that with them he could conquer the world. 
 
 More important than the gain of all Italy was the rapid 
 absorption by Rome of the spirit of Greece. The glory of that 
 land, as seen first in Magna Grsecia, then in her trade inter- 
 course with Greece herself, dazzled the eyes of the Romans, 
 and kindled in them the determination to make that country 
 their own. Their historians wrote in Greek, and that language 
 was taught in every school. For a while the actual conquest 
 was delayed by the long warfare with the Carthaginians 
 which drove that people, famous for their wealth and com- 
 merce, from Sicily, overcame them in Africa and Syria, and 
 finally left scarcely one stone of their famous city as a re- 
 membrance of her ancient greatness. 
 
 When the great names of Hannibal and Hasdrubal were 
 trampled in the dust before the oncoming legions of Rome, 
 Greece was the next to fall, gazing with sorrowful eyes at the 
 seizure of her fair statues and treasures of art, which were 
 carried off to Italy by a general so ignorant of all that they 
 implied that he told the master of the ship that bore them that 
 if they were damaged they must be replaced at his own cost. 
 Yet the culture of Greece was but a thin veneer over the 
 Roman civihzation of the third century B.C. During the 
 next hundred years all the energies of Rome were absorbed 
 in the wars that made her mistress of Spain and Gaul, of 
 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 59 
 
 S57ria, Egj^pt, and Asia Minor. East and West the world 
 clanged with the noise of her warfare, and the century pre- 
 ceding the Christian era saw her the conqueror of the known 
 world. For in the East Pompey had overrun Sjnia in 62 B.C., 
 in the West Julius Caesar from 58 to 50 B.C. had made himself 
 master of Gaul, and Augustus, the future Emperor, had 
 conquered Egypt on the South in 30 B.C., just two years 
 before the Empire was established. 
 
 Economic Conditions — But while Rome was thus absorbed 
 abroad in her conquest of the world, her conditions at home 
 were rotten to the core. While her best citizens were fighting 
 in the field, her worst were left to govern the city and the 
 home provinces. Rapidly there arose a system of bribery, 
 extortion, and *' land-grabbing," which drove the small free- 
 holder and the yeoman from the soil and left the land to 
 be tilled by slaves. Unemployed labourers swelled the lowest 
 stratum of town popxilation. Scarcity of food made them 
 dependent on foreign supplies; need of money left them a 
 prey to the " pubhcan " or tax-collector, who contracted for 
 the taxes wrung from a starving people and made an immense 
 profit out of the job. A demoralized populace, forgetting 
 the dignity of labour, clamoured for free bread, while the 
 rulers were becoming more and more absorbed in the hunt 
 for plunder in the East. Nothing but a prolonged period of 
 peace, as well as a radical revolution in her government, could 
 have saved Rome at this crisis. 
 
 Yet outwardly her power was colossal. Seven centuries 
 of almost incessant warfare had transformed the primitive 
 village on the Tiber into the centre of a vast Empire. At 
 least a hundred different races, ranging from the highest 
 types of civilization in Greece and Egypt to the barbaric 
 tribes of Gaul, " Germania," and Spain, owned her sway. 
 When Augustus Caesar, her first Emperor, was crowned in 
 28 B.C., he could look forth from the walls of Rome to an Empire 
 whose frontiers on the West were the Atlantic Ocean and the 
 Channel between Britain and Gaul, a frontier soon to be 
 extended by the conquest of Britain ; on the South, the 
 African desert ; on the East, the river Euphrates, and soon 
 
60 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 to include also Mesopotamia and Arabia ; on the North, the 
 rivers Rhine and Danube. 
 
 These frontiers had been fixed by a warfare that had 
 sca,rcely ceased for centuries ; it was the chief gift of Augustus 
 to the newly-formed Empire that he caused the Temple of 
 Janus, whose doors stood always open in wartime, to be 
 closed for a period long enough to introduce an era of con- 
 struction in place of the devastation of past centuries. 
 
 The inner weakness of the sprawling Empires of the Ancient 
 World had been shown again and again by their inabiUty to 
 hold what they had won. The strength of Augustus is seen 
 in the fact that he understood the meaning of consohdation 
 even better than that of conquest. Four things were needed. 
 The frontiers must be held, and held in strength. Hence we 
 find the picked legions of Rome in full force guarding the 
 distant points of Empire in Gaul and Syria, in Spain and 
 Africa, on the Rhine and Danube banks, where they formed 
 armies of occupation, and often intermarried with the 
 native women. The second pressing need was a well-organized 
 system of administration. Proconsuls, or legates, responsible 
 directly to the Emperor, ruled the conquered provinces, 
 enforcing Roman law and customs, giving the vanquished 
 good government and protection from their foes. 
 
 The third need, that of means of communication, was met 
 by the straight-paved high roads, roads that have never 
 been excelled in construction, which led from all the chief 
 points of the frontiers direct to Rome. On these a special 
 band of centurions acted as couriers, speeding from Rome to 
 the outskirts of the Empire on swift horses, kept ready for 
 them from stage to stage. 
 
 Lastly, under a just method of taxation, the population 
 of the conquered provinces, as well as that of Italy herself, 
 began to prosper exceedingly. Trade flourished ; fine public 
 buildings arose ; a literature, second only to that of Greece, 
 developed under the immediate patronage of the Emperor 
 himself, and the great names of Ovid, Virgil, Horace, and Livy 
 became famous throughout the known world. To some 
 degree, in the midst of a luxurious civilization, the Roman 
 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 61 
 
 kept his strain of hardness. His chief amusements were the 
 great gladiatorial combats fought in the amphitheatre, with 
 the cry of the combatants, " Hail, Caesar ! We who are about 
 to die salute thee ! " in his ears. Yet even now the seeds of 
 decay were visible. He was content to be a spectator instead 
 of an actor, and, like the onlookers at a modern football match, 
 was more ready to use his voice in cheering others than to 
 risk his own limbs. 
 
 Under the rule of Augustus the whole appearance of Rome 
 was transformed, and the saying that he " found it brick 
 and left it marble " is almost literally true. Even in these 
 days we find that most of the remains of imperial Rome 
 date from his time. But the Modem World owes more than a 
 debt of fine architecture to the man who founded the Roman 
 Empire. The organization which Augustus established was 
 to last, modified but essentially unchanged, without a break, 
 for fifteen hundred years, until the Empire itself finally 
 vanished. 
 
 The soundness of an Empire thus organized is proved, 
 not only by the length of time it lasted, but by the fact that 
 it survived unmoved the inefficient and vicious rule of such 
 emperors as Caligula and Claudius and Nero. It looks indeed 
 as though a genius for empire-building was innate in the 
 Roman temperament and could not be destroyed by the 
 effect of scandalous careers at Rome ; for the rule of these 
 men was as strongly ef&cient outside Rome as it was weakly 
 inefficient within her walls. Perhaps this is due to the fact 
 that the proconsuls of those days were better men than their 
 emperors, and this in spite of the fact that the mother city 
 offered no good training-ground for empire-building. The 
 spirit of Rome was yet intensely Roman ; and her vast 
 Empire was still in those days regarded merely as a convenient 
 means of taxation for the benefit of the Mother Country. 
 Never in the writings of this " classical '' period do we find 
 the idea of imperialism set forth as a worthy ideal. The city 
 of Rome was always the object of their adoring praise. 
 
 With the domestic tragedies that dogged the steps of the 
 emperors of the first centuries of the Empire we will not 
 
62 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 deal. Let us turn our eyes instead with reverence and awe 
 to an event that took place in the little town of Bethlehem, 
 a tiny spot in the great Roman Empire of the East, in the 
 twenty-fourth year of Augustus, seven hundred and fifty 
 years after the founding of the city of Rome. 
 
 There were few in those days to recognize the tremendous 
 nature of that event, the birth of the Divine Child Who was 
 to set up a new Ideal for the world and to be the Founder of 
 a spiritual Kingdom that was to outlast aU the changing 
 empires of the centuries to come. 
 
 The birth of Jesus Clirist took place at a time when the 
 old religious faith of Rome was practically dead. We have 
 seen how, on the intellectual side, Rome had been swamped 
 by the learning of Greece ; and when she adopted the latter's 
 spiritual ideals these were at a stage when they were expressed 
 rather in systems of philosophy than in actual doctrines. 
 So, at the beginning of the Empire, while the ordinary man in 
 the street had ceased to take an interest in a faith in which 
 only the ignorant peasants of the countryside really believed, 
 the ** intellectuals " of Rome had ranged themselves on the 
 side of the teachers of the Epicurean or Stoic or Platonic 
 philosophies. 
 
 Augustus was far too astute not to see the danger in this. 
 He reaHzed that rehgion has always been the strongest bond 
 in the unity of nations, and that decaying temples were only 
 an outward sign of the decay of the spiritual and most import- 
 ant part of man. He knew, too, that it was the loss of her 
 reUgious faith that led to the disunion and weakness of 
 Greece and to her ultimate faU. So he made an heroic effort 
 to revive the ancient beliefs of the Romans. His famous 
 '* Testament," engraved upon his tomb, stated that he erected 
 more than eighty temples in the city ; but he knew that these 
 were but empty shells unless the personal element of love and 
 adoration could be revived. It was useless to fan the flame 
 of devotion for a dead Jupiter or Mercury or Juno ; the only 
 way was to make himself the centre of this rehgious revival. 
 So he, himself an unbeliever and not even a philosopher, took 
 the title of Pontifex Maximus, the head of the ancient coUege 
 
THE " SPLENDOUR OF ROME " 
 
 63 
 
 of priests ; and before the end of his reign divine honours were 
 paid to him and a " Temple to the Divine Augustus " reared 
 its head in Rome. 
 
 Yet, even in the midst of his attempt to make himself a 
 god, there seems to have existed in his mind an uneasy pre- 
 monition that his claim to divinity would soon be shown to 
 be a shadow of the substance. A legend of his days, which 
 has a curious confirmation in an ancient inscription, says that 
 on one occasion the Senate proposed to confer divine honours 
 upon him. But the Emperor, as he stood in the Temple of 
 Jupiter on the hUl of the Capitol, saw a vision of a woman 
 bearing a child in her arms, standing upon an altar. So, says 
 the legend, he consulted the Sibyl whose office was to explain 
 such things from her oracle-haunted cell at Cumae ; and she 
 repHed that it signified the coming of a king from heaven, 
 who should be bom of a virgin. And to this day, in apparent 
 confirmation of this fact, there stands an ancient altar within 
 the Christian Church known as the " Ara CoeH," which is 
 universally believed to have been erected in the Temple of 
 Jupiter by Augustus. It is inscribed with the words : " Ara 
 Primogeniti Dei " — ^the Altar of the First-born God. 
 
 The effect upon the world of that apparently insignificant 
 Birth, Life, and Death in a remote and despised region of the 
 Empire will be seen in the story of the Mediaeval World. 
 
 BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 Helmolt . . 
 
 Universal History. 
 
 SiMCOX . . . 
 
 . Primitive Civilization. 
 
 Sayce . 
 
 . Ancient Empires of the East. 
 
 Maspero . 
 
 . Dawn of Civilization. 
 
 »> • • 
 
 . Passing of the Empires. 
 
 King and Hal 
 
 L . . Discoveries in Chaldcea, Egypt, and 
 
 
 Western Asia. 
 
 Ball 
 
 . Light from the East. 
 
 Browne 
 
 . Fourteen Centuries of East and West. 
 
 SOUTTAR . . 
 
 . History of the Ancient Peoples. 
 
 Burrows . 
 
 . Discoveries in Crete. 
 
 Bury 
 
 . History of Greece. 
 
64 
 
 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Shuckburgh 
 
 Tucker 
 
 De La Fosse 
 
 Breasted . 
 
 Myers . 
 
 Lavisse et Rambaud 
 
 History of Rome, 
 Life in Ancient Athens. 
 History of India, 
 Ancient Times, 
 General History. 
 Histoire generate. 
 
SECTION II 
 THE MEDIiEVAL WORLD 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 (a.d. 30-600) 
 
 STRICTLY speaking, the Mediaeval World dates from the 
 Fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century after the 
 birth of Christ. Long before that time, however, we see 
 
 upon our frieze of history a medley of figures, confused 
 as to race and nation, advancing with threatening gestures 
 upon the centre of the Empire. From their original home, 
 somewhere in Central Asia, these warriors had been, for 
 centuries, pouring forth in waves of destruction over the 
 surrounding countries. The Persians knew their fighting 
 powers, the Macedonians their persistence. For the moment 
 the Ukraine in South- West Russia had been the home of one of 
 their peoples, and thence they migrated to the Danube banks. 
 Always from behind they were pushed forward by the sheer 
 weight of other barbarian hordes, until they broke in a great 
 wave over the borders of Italy and overflowed into Africa, 
 Gaul, Hispania, to the uttermost limits of the Empire. In 
 their turn these others were displaced by Vandals, Vandals by 
 Huns, Huns again by fresh hordes of Vandals following in 
 their track, while Lombards, Franks, Saxons, and the count- 
 less tribes known collectively as '* Germans " surged on 
 from time to time in the place of one or other of these 
 races. 
 
 Differing widely from one another in their characteristics, 
 they all alike followed the same tracks of invasion, and attacked 
 
 5 
 
66 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the Empire, sometimes in its weaker and outlying parts, some- 
 times at its very heart. 
 
 The Work of the First Four Centuries— The Fall of the 
 Empire of the West was preceded by four centuries of outward 
 splendour and strength, beneath which the actual elements 
 of weakness were concealed. During these years we see the 
 long Hue of Roman Emperors, magnificent, triumphant, ruling 
 with strong hand the whole of the civilized and most of the 
 unciviUzed world. We may even see the Aryan invaders from 
 Central Asia, known as Goths and " Germans," beginning, in 
 their admiration for an organizing genius they utterly lacked, 
 to absorb the imperial idea and to settle down for a while as 
 colonists of Rome. 
 
 We see, moreover, the enormously important work done 
 by Rome in imposing upon the scattered portions of her vast 
 estate an ideal of unity, a spirit of cosmopolitanism, in place 
 of petty race standards, so that all national distinctions be- 
 came merged by degrees into the two great central ideas of 
 Empire and Citizen. 
 
 From this only the Jews and the Greeks stood aloof — ^the 
 one from their deep-rooted belief that they, and they alone, 
 were the Elect of God, the Chosen People, whose national 
 traits must be jealously guarded for ever ; the latter from a 
 pride of intellect which, even in their conquered state, made 
 them regard their conquerors with lofty scorn. 
 
 This ideal of the Unity of the Empire, with the 
 imperial city as the heart of all, was the chief legacy of Rome 
 to the World, and we shall find it persisting through the 
 centuries in spite of the rents made by her conflicts with Goth 
 and Vandal and Hun. And just when the whole fabric 
 threatened to crack and split asunder in consequence of the 
 ceaseless blows from barbarian invaders, there came to her 
 aid an influence that had been developing, with a swift and 
 steady growth, throughout these early centuries. Just as the 
 Empire, all unconsciously, came to the aid of Christianity 
 in its earhest days and helped to spread its doctrines by means 
 of her far-flung tentacles, her excellent system of roads, her 
 imiversal employment of the Greek tongue (which made the 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 67 
 
 teaching of the new faith possible in every part of the known 
 world), as well as by the fury of her persecution ; so the 
 organization of the Christian Church, with its great central 
 authority, its outlying missionary centres, helped to support 
 the falling Empire and to preserve the Roman methods and 
 standards of government when one part of the Empire had 
 crashed to its ruin. 
 
 For the very power that had been subjected by Roman 
 Emperors to bitter persecution for three hundred years became 
 in spite, or rather, in consequence, of this, a great political as 
 well as spiritual force, with her own governing body " re- 
 producing within herself the imperial system." Her local 
 churches looked to Rome as their centre and authority, her 
 provinces and dioceses corresponded with the divisions of the 
 Empire, and in the end her spiritual and temporal authority 
 grew so strong that Emperors had to bow to her will. 
 
 This will be seen very much more clearly later on, when 
 we realize what might have been the fate of Europe at the 
 fall of the Empire of the West, if this " Kingdom of God on 
 earth " had never come into existence. 
 
 Meantime, let us glance at the outstanding features of these 
 first six centuries of the Christian era. 
 
 The Years before the Fall o! the Empire — The first three 
 centuries show a pageant of almost unshadowed brilliance. 
 The Empire had touched her highest level of prosperity. Her 
 commerce, industries, art, and letters had made her famous for 
 all generations. Almost every part of her vast estate had 
 been raised by her to a higher pitch of civilization than the 
 world had yet known. Even far-away Britain showed tokens 
 of her progressive spirit in the " villas " or country houses, 
 with their mosaic floors, in the "baths," and in the coins and 
 urns and burial-places of her dead. 
 
 In the fourth century a note of weakness is heard. Even 
 the insignificant province of the Western Sea heard it and wept 
 to see the legions that brought Britain prosperity and civiliza- 
 tion hurried back to defend the borders of the motherland 
 from invasion. Other signs of insecurity were noted by those 
 who looked beneath the surface, in spite of the fact that her 
 
68 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 army could boast that it had been only twice defeated during 
 an incessant conflict of eighty years, that her cities were 
 numerous and magnificent, that her people, in spite of heavy 
 taxation, were exceedingly prosperous, that barbarian countries 
 had developed into civihzed provinces under her rule. The 
 surface was indeed very fair. Never again for nine hundred 
 years was Europe to know such fine cities connected by 
 good roads, such harbours filled with shipping, such a system 
 of posts and hostelries for the messenger or the trader, or such 
 a perfect legal organization, touching the very nerves and 
 sinews of her vast system. 
 
 Yet during the next hundred years, within, indeed, an 
 extraordinarily brief period, the whole of the Western Empire 
 of Rome had crashed together in a swift and appalhng 
 destruction. 
 
 Let us glance back for a moment at three outstanding 
 features of the two centuries before the crash occurred. 
 
 Diocletian — ^At the close of the third century the Empire 
 was ruled by an active and able prince, the Emperor Diocletian. 
 He had found that Empire threatening to crack to pieces in the 
 hands of a number of petty rulers, generals of armies or 
 governors of provinces, who had become for all intents and 
 purposes monarchs of the lands they administered. 
 
 Realizing to the full the importance of the unity of the 
 state in days when Europe was far from ready for the national 
 idea of independent kingdoms, Diocletian took a strong line. 
 
 He divided the Empire into four portions, three of which 
 were ruled by colleagues who all acknowledged his supremacy. 
 Thus Gaul, Britain, Spain, and part of North Africa were 
 governed from Treves ; Italy and the remaining provinces of 
 North Africa from Milan; Greece, Thrace, Macedonia, and 
 the Danube provinces from Sirmium on the River Save ; Asia 
 Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt from Nicomedia on 
 the eastern shore of the Bosphorus, and these last by Diocletian 
 himself. 
 
 Thus, by this system of subdivision, the real power of the 
 actual ruler could make itself felt in every quarter ; the 
 barbarian races were absorbed, and prosperity was restored 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 69 
 
 to the Empire. And in order to carry this through with a 
 high hand, Diocletian, ignoring the Senate, and not even 
 residing at Rome, made himself an absolute monarch, whose 
 word literally was the law of every citizen within the Roman 
 world. 
 
 Strangely enough, this clever and able man completely 
 mistook the character of the one organization that would, 
 more than anything else, have helped to strengthen his ideal 
 of the unification of the provinces. The edict which he 
 issued for the persecution of the Christians deluged the Empire 
 with the blood of martyrs ; and this, by driving fugitives far 
 and wide throughout the lands he ruled, served only to spread 
 the doctrines of the religion he hoped to destroy. The blood 
 of the martyrs became the seed of the Christian Church ; but 
 none who saw the beginning of that awful reign of terror 
 lasting from 303 to 313 could have foretold the extraordinary 
 way in which it was to end. 
 
 The Growth 0! the Christian Church — For one of the four 
 successors of Diocletian, in the year 307, was Constantine, 
 proclaimed as Emperor by his troops, in the province of 
 Britain over which he had ruled as Caesar. He at once found 
 himself opposed by a rival, Maxentius, who ruled the Italian 
 province from Rome. And it was in his march upon that 
 city that Constantine is said to have seen, in broad daylight 
 in the sky, a flaming cross crowned by the words in Greek, 
 " In this sign thou shalt conquer." 
 
 The victory that followed was the triumph of the per- 
 secuted faith. Even if the conqueror himself did not become 
 a Christian till some years later, the Christian Church had 
 no more to fear. In the year 313 the Edict of Milan declared 
 the absolute freedom of Christianity, and ordered that all 
 churches, lands, and property that had been confiscated were 
 to be restored at once. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of this conversion is not its 
 miraculous origin, or the speed with which the whole matter 
 was carried through. It is the fact that the whole Roman 
 world, which ten years earlier had almost unanimously com- 
 bined to stamp out a hated form of religion, had, within that 
 
70 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 short space of time, completely changed its mind and was 
 more than ready to bless what it had so lately cursed. The 
 effect of persecution cannot be weighed or measured ; and 
 the spirit which produces many converts as the result of 
 the death of one mart}^: is not unknown, even in modem 
 days. 
 
 Another act of Constantine the Great has made his name 
 famous and influenced profoundly the story of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 It was he who removed the seat of power from Rome to 
 Byzantium, and who erected upon the promontory on the 
 Bosphorus, on the site of the ancient Greek town, the city of 
 " New Rome " or Constantinople. So great and powerful did 
 this become that it could never take an inferior place ; from 
 henceforth it was to rank with Rome as one capital of a 
 divided Empire. 
 
 The position as well as the history of the city was unique. 
 For more than ten centuries Constantinople was to stand as 
 the bulwark of Europe againt incessant hammering from 
 Eastern foes, to remain unmoved when the whole of the 
 Western Empire was swept away. She was able to keep the 
 Turk from overrunning Europe in later years, and thus to 
 safeguard the newly born kingdoms from being crushed and 
 dominated by an enemy, alien in civilization as in religion. 
 Within her walls, up to the time of her fall in the middle of 
 the fifteenth century, she preserved the treasures of Greek 
 literature, the remnants of Roman civilization, at a time 
 when both were threatened with extinction ; and thus be- 
 came, even in her own destruction, the mother of a new era 
 of civihzation for the West. 
 
 The minor acts of Constantine, his reorganization of 
 both the civil and the military systems, are overshadowed 
 by these two vast achievements. He left the Empire strong 
 and undivided at his death in 337, having earned for himself 
 the title of the greatest of the Roman emperors. 
 
 Within fifty years Theodosius, the last emperor to rule 
 over the whole Empire, saw her prosperity at its height. From 
 the Scottish shores in the west to the Euphrates in the east, 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 71 
 
 from the coast washed by the North Sea to the deserts of 
 Arabia and the Sahara, he presided over eighteen vast pro- 
 vinces, each at a high stage of civilization. Beautiful cities, 
 fine churches and cathedrals, public halls, baths, libraries, 
 villas, and gardens were frequented by a people differing in 
 race, colour, and tongue, but all alike proud to be accounted 
 citizens of the Empire, and to obey a system of laws which 
 it had taken four centuries to bring to perfection. 
 
 And so the fourth century passes away in its glory ; and 
 the fifth century, which was to see the utter break-up of this 
 vast system, as far as the Western Empire was concerned, 
 casts its shadow upon history. 
 
 The Barbarian Invasions — The hordes of barbarians, whom 
 the Romans call by the general term of " Germans," now 
 pressed forward in a surging mass ; their steady movement from 
 east to west had been checked by the barriers of the Empire, 
 and those barriers now had to go. In the swamps and wood- 
 lands of the northern and central parts of Europe they found 
 free space for their activities, and they could not be restrained 
 from overrunning the south and west. Some of them, 
 indeed, had already tarried so long upon the borders of the 
 Empire that they had invaded it •* not as savage strangers 
 but as colonists," full of admiration for a system of govern- 
 ment entirely lacking among themselves, while at the same 
 time they despised the citizens who had lost the power of using 
 it for their own protection. 
 
 Such were the Visigoths under their ruler Alaric, who 
 had passed his boyhood as a hostage in Constantinople. He 
 came not as a barbarian, but as nominally a Christian, with some 
 amount of education ; and had Theodosius fulfilled his promise 
 of making him general of the Eastern part of the army, he 
 might have come as the ally of Rome. As it was he became 
 her most bitter foe. 
 
 Macedonia and Greece were the first to be harried by him ; 
 and only the position and strength of Constantinople saved 
 the Eastern Empire from ruin. But it was upon Rome, 
 not upon the city of Constantine, that Alaric had fixed 
 his determined gaze ; for always in his ears sounded that 
 
72 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 mysterious prophecy, " Penetrabis ad Urbem " (Thou shalt 
 penetrate to the City). 
 
 And Rome was doomed. For even had Alaric and his 
 Visigoths failed, there stood on her northern frontier vast 
 numbers of " Germans " — Franks, Saxons, Burgundians, 
 Allemanni, Vandals — ready to fling themselves upon the 
 western half of the Empire. But Alaric did not fail, though 
 he was hampered by an enormous host of non-combatants, 
 seeing that the Goths carried their women, children, and 
 goods along with them. For a while he was obliged to re- 
 treat eastward, while the Vandals were overwhelming Gaul 
 in one great wave of destruction. But Alaric was only 
 biding his time. In the year 408 his army stood before the 
 walls of Rome, waiting for famine and pestilence to do their 
 deadly work within. In vain the Senate tried to frighten 
 him with the numbers of their fighting men. " The thicker 
 the grass, the more easily it is mown " was the grim answer 
 of the Goth. 
 
 But Alaric was a noble foe, and on this occasion risked a 
 mutiny among his troops by his refusal to allow the city 
 to be sacked. 
 
 Two years later the bad faith of the " puppet " Emperor 
 whom he had set upon the throne destroyed the last hope of 
 mercy at the hands of Alaric the Goth. Although her public 
 buildings for the most part escaped destruction, Rome was 
 sacked and plundered. 
 
 But within a year of that act of pillage it was noised abroad 
 that Alaric the Conqueror was dead. 
 
 To the Mediaeval World came the unwilling realization that 
 the fall of Rome was final. " The great city has been over- 
 thrown with the crash of a mighty slaughter," cried St. 
 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa. And St. Jerome 
 from Palestine echoed his cry: "The frame of the world is 
 falling in pieces. What can be safe if Rome can fall ? " 
 
 Yet for another fifty years the Empire of the West, in spite 
 of renewed blows, managed to retain a feeble flicker of life. 
 
 Although little permanent harm had been done to the 
 structure of the city by these first waves of attack by the 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 73 
 
 Goths, it might well have expected annihilation after the 
 invasion of the Huns under Attila, the " Scourge of God." 
 This terrible, half-human personality, hailing, with his savage 
 hordes of misshapen and repulsive followers, from an Empire 
 carved out of Asia, now advanced upon Europe. Before 
 him cities fell one after another, and the hills and plains over 
 which he passed whitened with the bones of slaughtered 
 peoples. What could save the heart of the Empire from 
 destruction at the hands of one of whom it has been said, 
 " He touched nothing that he did not destroy " ? 
 
 The first onrush of Attila chanced to be upon Gaul. 
 Orleans would have fallen before it had not the Visigoths, who 
 from conquerors had become settlers in that land, driven 
 him back upon Troyes. Then, in the Mauriae Plain, a terrific 
 battle followed between the Huns, " demoniac horsemen with 
 flattened noses and small fierce eyes . . . whose ferocity had 
 filled the world with dread," and the allied forces of Romans 
 and Visigoths, fighting together against barbarism. Had 
 Attila won the day, the fate of Western Europe would have 
 been sealed, and the civilization of the Western World, ex- 
 tinguished by the rule of the Tartar, could not have been 
 revived for many a century. But, after a long day of 
 desperate hand-to-hand fighting, the Hun was forced back 
 across the Rhine, and one of the decisive battles of the world 
 had ended in favour of a civilized Europe. Yet the Hun 
 had not left his work undone ; and the whole of Gaul as far 
 south as Orleans lay a desert of waste land. 
 
 This was in 451. A year later Attila was in Italy, sweep- 
 ing the fair cities of the Empire into one great dustheap of 
 ruin and desolation. At length he stood before the walls 
 of Rome. And there a marvellous thing was seen. There 
 came from the city to meet this brutal conqueror a calm and 
 dignified man dressed in the simple white robe of the Pontiff 
 of Christendom. A strange parley must have been held 
 between these two utterly different personalities ; and as the 
 resolute hawk eyes of Leo the Great gazed upon the half- 
 human countenance of the hideous and bloodstained dwarf, 
 it may have been, as writers of the time declare, that the lower 
 
74 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 nature was awed and overcome by the spiritual force of the 
 Pope. 
 
 It is certain that Attila cared nothing for threats of 
 excommunication, even if Pope Leo had thought fit to make 
 them ; if it were not personal influence exercised over a 
 superstitious character, we must look for the cause of 
 Attila's withdrawal in some more prosaic fact, such as the 
 sickness of his troops in the unhealthy marsh land round 
 Rome. No such search is necessary, however, and the 
 " Remember Alaric " of Leo the Great might well have 
 carried dread to the heart of one whose only fear was that of 
 death. 
 
 At all events, he did withdraw, and Italy knew him no 
 more. For in the next year he died a drunkard's death in 
 his tent in the midst of the Hungarian plain that he had made 
 his temporary abiding-place ; and in the internal struggles 
 that ensued among his followers, his vast Empire broke to 
 pieces. 
 
 The whole episode of the Huns was a strange and signifi- 
 cant interlude in the drama of Mediaeval Christendom, For 
 twenty years both Eastern and Western Europe and almost 
 the whole of Asia were terrorized by the appalling personahty 
 of the Tartar emperor, whose name became for centuries 
 synonymous with the idea of the Scourge of God, the dread 
 of the whole world. In Scandinavian and Teutonic Uterature 
 he still lives as the robber of the buried gold of Sigurd and as 
 a hero of the Nibelungenlied. To this day the Magyars of 
 Himgary trace their descent from his race ; but the most 
 direct descendants of the Huns were the Seljukian Turks, of 
 whom we shall hear later on. To us he stands as an example 
 of the real weakness of mere brute force against the powers 
 of organization and intellect. There had been wholesale 
 destruction, it is true, while great provinces, paralysed with 
 terror, had watched in helpless inaction. But the battle of 
 the Mauriac Plain and the withdrawal of the Huns from 
 Rome had shown that the mad fury of wild beasts could be 
 overcome by the forces of mind and personality, even when the 
 case seemed desperate indeed. 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 75 
 
 Two years after the death of Attila it seemed as if even 
 forces such as these could no longer save the doomed city of 
 Rome. When the Visigoths had strengthened their hold over 
 Gaul and Spain and, expelling the Vandals, the earlier con- 
 querors, had driven them to form an Empire in Northern 
 Africa, they were in reality preparing to deal the last blow 
 at the heart of the Empire. For the Vandals, dissatisfied 
 with the power they held in the Mediterranean so long as 
 Rome evaded their sway, now appeared in a vast host before 
 her walls. 
 
 Weary with years and toil. Pope Leo no longer availed 
 against the new and determined foe, and in 455 Rome was 
 captured by the Vandals, while her nobles were carried off to 
 North Africa as captives. Sacked and ruined, the phantom 
 of the city that once had ruled the world lingered on for 
 another twenty years. And then her wretched puppet king 
 " Augustulus" — ^the " petty Augustus," as he was scornfully 
 termed — was forced to abdicate by the Gothic chief, Odoacer, 
 who insolently sent the imperial crown and robe to Constanti- 
 nople as a sign that the Western Empire no longer existed. 
 
 Causes of the Fall of the Roman Empire. — More interest- 
 ing to us of to-day than the actual facts of the barbarian 
 inroads are the causes which brought about the fall of this 
 greatest of world empires. 
 
 One underlying cause was no doubt the inadequacy of 
 the army in face of the enormous masses of the foe. It must 
 be realized that the armies of the Goths, Huns, and Vandals 
 were no picked hosts, but whole nations in arms, which often 
 overbore the forces of the Empire by sheer weight alone. 
 On the other hand the barbarians were hampered by the very 
 fact of their unwieldy masses, and especially by the wagon- 
 loads of women and children and property which accom- 
 panied them. 
 
 The real cause of the undoubted weakness of the Roman 
 army lay in the fact that it was now largely composed, not of 
 citizens fighting for their homes and hearths, but of mercen- 
 aries, often recruited from the barbarian colonists upon the 
 borders. There was no citizen force upon which to fall back. 
 
76. A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 The people of the Roman cities were unwiUing to bear the 
 burden of warfare, free " bread and games " had weakened 
 the fibre of the manual workers ; luxury and the quest for 
 pleasure as the one aim of life had completely transformed the 
 old nobility ; and the steady decrease of the birth rate, always 
 found in a decadent era, had dried up the source of material, 
 either for leaders, or producers, or for the rank and file of the 
 army. 
 
 During these centuries, again, there had come about a 
 marked decrease in the agricultural population. Tempted 
 by high wages and a more luxurious standard of living, the 
 tillers of the soil had migrated to the towns, leaving behind 
 them the old sterling qualities of vigour and endurance which 
 had formerly marked their race. 
 
 Such were some of the conditions that brought about the 
 destruction of the Western Empire. What that destruction 
 meant it is difficult, even after the Great War of this century, 
 fully to realize. 
 
 While Rome had been expanding, her servile work, the 
 burden of road and bridge building, fortifications, and har- 
 bours, had been performed by her millions of slave prisoners. 
 When this period came to an end and she herself was 
 on the defensive, the slaves rose in revolt, and those who had 
 been freemen were forced by economic conditions to take 
 their place. Poverty led to famine, famine to plague. The 
 middle-class citizens, crushed under an impossible burden of 
 taxation, no longer tried to keep up a standard of citizenship ; 
 and the Empire was threatened with what has been described 
 as " a calamity far more terrible than any of the quick destroy- 
 ing maladies to which nations are liable — a tottering, drivelling, 
 paralytic longevity." ^ 
 
 We have seen what an advanced state of outward pros- 
 perity had been reached by the cities of Italy and Gaul during 
 the fourth century. Long before the end of the following 
 epoch all these cities lay in ruined desolation. Rome herself, 
 after five terrible sieges, barely survived as a pile of derelict 
 buildings that overlooked the unhealthy marsh created by 
 ^ Macaulay, The Romance of History 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 77 
 
 the destruction of her aqueducts. Beyond her walls the 
 fertile plains and fair hill cities of Etruria were now a deserted 
 wilderness. Over all Northern Italy lay the blight of the 
 breath of Attila and his Huns. 
 
 Odoacer — Slowly and gradually a kind of faint revival 
 awoke in the land when Odoacer formed a " kingdom of 
 Italy," with himself as absolute ruler and Ravenna as the 
 capital. But the Romans were now a conquered race, though 
 not actually enslaved. The Goths, who alone were allowed 
 to carry arms, who paid no taxes, who owned more than a 
 third of Italy, were now their masters. The rest of the 
 Empire was in no better case. Gaul was still stunned by 
 the scourge of Attila ; Spain was entirely devastated ; in 
 Northern Africa St. Augustine died at the moment that the 
 Vandal hosts had surrounded the city of Hippo, which, with 
 Carthage and Constantine, were all that were left of a once 
 noble province of the Empire. Even in far-off Britain the 
 effect of the fall of Rome left the country " a serpent -haunted 
 wilderness, the country of the dead." 
 
 Effects of the Barbarian Invasion — Enough has been 
 said to show the ill-effects of the Barbarian invasion. There 
 is something to be said on the other side. Centuries of 
 luxury and soft living had, as we have seen, enfeebled the 
 once vigorous citizens of the Empire ; the strong infusion of 
 Northern blood, wild and undiscipHned though it was, restored 
 to them the lost qualities of vigour and vitality. That 
 mixture of the fearless courage and tenacity of the barbarian 
 with the instinctive habits of law and discipline that marked 
 the Roman citizen must have produced no despicable kind 
 of character in those dark days of history. 
 
 One other advantage of the break-up of the Empire can 
 be still more clearly seen. In those years of weak Emperors, 
 Rome, left to herself, would always have drawn an inflexible 
 line between her citizens and the outside world, since the 
 day was gone when she had been strong enough to " Romanize" 
 all those who dwelt upon her borders. 
 
 Now, when her Empire was broken up, the hordes of 
 barbarians had their chance of sharing in the privileges of 
 
78 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 an organization that was to endure long after the fall of Rome. 
 The invaders retained their own customs, it is true ; but 
 gradually these became modified by Roman laws and Roman 
 ideals. If the barbarian had conquered Rome in one sense, 
 in another Rome conquered the barbarian. Even as early 
 as the fifth century itself, that period of licence and destruc- 
 tion, we hear the echo of the future in the words of a Gothic 
 chief. 
 
 " I have found by experience," he said, " that my Goths 
 are too savage to render any obedience to laws, but I have 
 also found out that without laws a State can never be a State. 
 I have therefore chosen the glory of seeking to restore and to 
 increase by Gothic strength the name of Rome. Wherefore 
 I avoid war and strive for peace." 
 
 But by far the most important effect of the inrush of 
 Northern nations was the influence upon them of the greatest 
 civiHzing power the world has ever known, the power of 
 Christianity. We shall see better how this worked when the 
 ferment of unrest that followed the fall of the Western Empire 
 had settled down. 
 
 Let us glance briefly at one or two of the outstanding 
 features of the century that followed the last siege of Rome. 
 
 The Dark Ages — It was for Europe a period of violence, 
 lawlessness, and barbarism. For more than two centuries 
 the Northern conquerors were to fight each other for the lands 
 wrested from the Romans ; and these years were the true 
 " Dark Ages " of History, since scarcely any records of them 
 were ever kept. Over Gaul and Spain and Britain hung a 
 thick cloud of gloom. All we know is that the one pre- 
 vaiUng power was that of Force. 
 
 But in Italy, owing to the intervention of the Emperor 
 of the Eastern Empire — sometimes known as the Later 
 Empire of Rome — ^the curtain is lifted on occasion, as was the 
 case later on in what was to be known as the ICingdom of the 
 Franks. 
 
 Just as, on the first invasion of Italy by Alaric, the whole 
 race of the Visigoths had migrated with him, so now the 
 nation of the Ostrogoths, freed from the bondage of the 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 79 
 
 Huns, moved under their leader, Theodoric, against Odoacer, 
 the ruler of Rome, and made themselves masters of Italy 
 in the year 493. 
 
 The Kingdom of the Franks — In that same year an event 
 took place farther to the West that was to have even more 
 important consequences. The Franks of North-West Gaul 
 had as their king one Clovis, who in that year married Clotilda, 
 a Burgundian princess, whose father had ruled the south- 
 west region of Gaul. This maiden was a Catholic, the daughter 
 of a mother who had kept the true faith in the midst of Arian 
 surroundings ; and her influence over her warlike husband 
 must have been remarkable. For Clovis, finding himself on 
 the point of being overwhelmed by the tribes of Allemanni, 
 on what is now the border of Alsace, vowed to adopt the 
 " faith of Clotilda " if he were preserved from defeat. Find- 
 ing himself victorious, he asked for Christian baptism and at 
 the same time ordered all his nobles to follow his example. On 
 the Christmas Day of 496 Clovis, with three thousand knights, 
 was received into the Catholic Church in the Cathedral of 
 Rheims, and thus he became the first ruler in the whole of 
 Europe to profess the faith that had its centre still unmoved 
 in Rome. For at this period, it must be remembered, all the 
 conquering races of the Empire, as well as most of the 
 Emperors of the East, were either pagans or Arians — ^that 
 is, they denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Only in Rome 
 the Catholic Church, the one unchanging and stable con- 
 stitution in the midst of a tottering world, though in a tiny 
 minority, stood firm for the early faith. 
 
 And now she could count one adherent, and that no 
 unimportant ally. For the Franks, under the strong leader- 
 ship of Clovis, rapidly extended their sway, driving back 
 Burgundians and Allemanni and Visigoths ; so that at the 
 end of the reign of Clovis, in 511, the Frankish Empire ex- 
 tended over almost the whole of Gaul and ranked as the 
 leading nation of the West. Her ruler was known as the 
 " Most Christian King," his nation as the " eldest daughter 
 of the Church." From it, in later days, was to emerge a 
 hero-figure who absolutely dominated the mediaeval imagina- 
 
80 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 tion, and who was to found the Second Empire of the 
 West. 
 
 Theodoric the Ostrogoth (493-526) — Let us pass on to 
 Italy, which we last saw in the grasp of Theodoric the Arian 
 Ostrogoth. For thirty-three years (493-526) this remark- 
 able man ruled the land with a tolerant justice amazing in 
 one of his origin and race. His story cannot be told in detail 
 here, but he interests us as a fine type of the barbarian who had 
 been so strongly impressed by the methods and customs of 
 the Romans, that he determined to adopt them in his new 
 kingdom. In the face of his uncivilized hordes of followers 
 this was no easy task ; nor was it easier to hold the balance 
 true between conflicting beliefs in a land whose heart still 
 beat from Rome as a centre. By his marriage with the sister 
 of Clovis he made alliance with the only kingdom of the 
 West that had yet emerged as a serious rival to his own ; 
 through the marriage of his daughters he maintained a con- 
 nexion with most of the other nations of the West — Bur- 
 gundians, Visigoths, Thuringians, and Vandals. It was during 
 his reign that the vigorous Northern influence first left its 
 mark upon an enfeebled Italy. 
 
 Justinian (527-565) — The year after the death of Theo- 
 doric there steps upon the stage of history an Emperor of the 
 Eastern Empire, Justinian by name, who is notable for two 
 reasons, in his time a successful attempt was made to 
 include Italy within the borders of his Empire ; and the code 
 of Roman law which he drew up became the basis of the 
 legislative system of Europe. The latter, because it was 
 permanent, is a far more important fact than the more 
 spectacular conquest of Italy. That, indeed, was the work, 
 not of the Emperor, but of his marvellous general Belisarius, 
 the Napoleon of the Mediaeval World. 
 
 It took eighteen years of constant warfare to drive out the 
 Ostrogoths, and after them the Franks, who had become of 
 late years the plunderers of a doomed land. And when at 
 length Italy was once again included under the title of the 
 Roman Empire, she was but a ghost of her former self. All 
 her cities, save Ravenna, had been plundered and ravaged ; 
 
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 81 
 
 the whole land lay a desolate waste, dotted here and there 
 with piles of ruins. Rome herself, five times besieged, was a 
 mere circuit of walls surrounding a heap of shattered buildings. 
 Wild beasts made their homes where once a princely Roman 
 held his court, and priceless treasures were buried under the 
 dust and debris of a broken world. 
 
 In a later chapter we shall see how this laid Italy open, as 
 an easy prey, to a fresh band of invaders, men who belong to 
 the stirring story of Charlemagne, the Emperor of the Second 
 Empire of the West. 
 
 Effect of the Christian Church — We can understand more 
 clearly now the part played by the only institution that stood 
 firm during this period of storm and stress. We have already 
 seen how the Christian Church, with its seat of government 
 at Rome, had commanded the respect and even the submission 
 of Vandal and Goth alike. In the midst of the anarchy that 
 threatened Europe during the two centuries that followed 
 the fall of the Western Empire, the Church was the only 
 power that was not entirely prostrate before the disaster of 
 the times. It stood, indeed, as the one means of preserving 
 all which was to survive out of the crumbling wreck of Roman 
 civilization. Even apart from matters of faith, it was neces- 
 sary to have a centre, strong in traditions of reverence and 
 supremacy for the Western World ; and for this there stood 
 the Papacy, with the figure of Leo commanding it in the 
 fifth century, and that of Gregory in the sixth. Both popes 
 earned the title of " the Great," and both dominated for a 
 while the period in which they hved. And though for two 
 hundred years they and their successors looked upon a 
 desolated Europe and a dying civihzation, they took a noble 
 revenge upon their foes. For the next five centuries they 
 sent forth a ceaseless stream of missionaries, who carried 
 not only a message of faith and hope to darkened souls, but 
 also the torch of a civihzation that must otherwise have 
 flickered out. Thus in the early part of the fifth century 
 Ireland was converted by St. Patrick, sent by Pope Celestine. 
 Towards the end of that century, as we have seen, King 
 Clovis and his Franks were baptized, through the influence 
 6 
 
82 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of one who looked to Rome as her authority. In the sixth 
 century Augustine came from Gregory the Great as the 
 Apostle of England ; and later on a host of missionaries carried 
 the Faith over Central and Western and Eastern Europe. 
 
 And as Rome sent forth her missionaries to preach the 
 Gospel of Christ, she also gave them a system of moral teach- 
 ing, based on the principles of justice, honesty, and truth, 
 which was bound to be the real foundation of civilization. 
 
 Security of life and property, the mutual relationship of 
 trust and confidence between man and man and between 
 nation and nation, are included in the meaning of the word ; 
 and this it was which, in closest connexion with the teachings 
 of the Christian faith, was to tame savage humanity and 
 civilize a barbarian world. It has been said that social well- 
 being is but civilization in act, and to achieve this was not the 
 least of the Church's aims. 
 
 It was this that gave to the mind of Northern Europe a 
 stirring, energizing, and life-giving impulse ; this that gradually 
 put an end to a system of tyranny that bade fair to extinguish 
 the poor and oppressed. In the days of pagan Rome it had 
 been the custom to look upon the labouring classes as beings 
 of an inferior mould. In the eyes of the Northern barbarian 
 the soldier was of far more importance than the agriculturist, 
 who was generally a slave. It was left for the Christian 
 Church to insist on the equality of all men in the eyes of God, 
 to open her sanctuary to the fugitive slave, to raise even those 
 of low degree to the dignity of her priesthood ; and by the 
 widespread influence of her religious Orders, to teach the 
 beauty of learning, the dignity of labour, the glory of art 
 and music and science. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 
 
 (A.D. 622-1058) 
 
 IN the story of the fall of the Roman Empire we have 
 been concerned almost entirely with events which 
 affected Western Europe. But it must not be forgotten 
 
 that, since the days of Constantine, the Empire of the 
 East, sometimes caUed the Later Roman Empire, held on its 
 way almost unmoved by the battering of the Northerners at 
 the gates of the West during the fifth and sixth centuries. 
 
 From the beginning of the seventh century, however, the 
 East was to be the arena of another struggle, destined to have 
 an almost equally important influence upon the history of 
 the world. 
 
 It was, in fact, all to the good that this eastern branch 
 of the Empire was roused, roughly enough, from the lethargy 
 which had come in the train of a long period of luxury and ease. 
 
 Heraclius (610-641) — ^The story centres at first in the figure 
 of the Emperor Heraclius, whose colossal statue, found 
 beneath the sea, dominates the modern town of Barletta, 
 much as his personality dominated the Eastern World during 
 this period. 
 
 The first achievement of this young monarch, who called 
 himself " the Roman Emperor and Sovereign faithful in 
 Christ," was to set in order the chaotic muddle into which 
 his dominion had fallen, and to build up an army and fleet 
 fit to deal with the power that was already beginning to eat 
 away his Empire. 
 
 For, just as in the fifth century before the Christian era, 
 the Persians had been the Masters of the East and the dreaded 
 
 foe of the Balkan Peninsula ; so now, twelve centuries later, 
 
 83 
 
84 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 they had seized the greater part of Asia Minor, overrun Syria, 
 taken Jerusalem, and with it that reUc of the True Cross 
 which was Christendom's most precious possession ; and now 
 they were threatening the very heart of the Eastern Empire. 
 The contempt with which Persia regarded the loose and 
 disorganized realm of Heraclius can best be seen by a letter 
 from the Persian king, Chosroes II, to Heraclius. It begins : 
 " Chosroes, the noblest of the gods, king and master of the 
 whole earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. 
 
 " Refusing to submit to our rule, you call yourself lord 
 and sovereign, and, having gathered together a troop of 
 brigands, you ceaselessly annoy us. Have I not then de- 
 stroyed the Greeks ? You say you have trust in your God ; 
 why, then, has He not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, 
 Jerusalem, Alexandria ? And could I not also destroy 
 Constantinople ? " ^ He goes on to promise " pardon and 
 the necessaries of life " if Heraclius will give himself up, 
 with his wife and children, to his tender mercies. 
 
 The reply of the Emperor to this insult was to fling 
 himself and his new-made army upon the fo© in six great 
 campaigns, which ended in the complete overthrow of the 
 Persian Empire. 
 
 See him on that 14th of September 628, a day com- 
 memorated ever since in the Calendar of Christendom as 
 Holy Cross Day, riding through the Golden Gate of Con- 
 stantinople in a chariot drawn by four elephants, in the midst 
 of a crowd delirious with joy at the deliverance of their 
 city from the foe that had kept all Asia in dread for so many 
 centuries. See him alight at the great cathedral of St. 
 Sophia, built by his predecessor Justinian, carr3dng with 
 him the precious relic that had been restored to Christendom 
 by his prowess. See him, finally, as the successful leader 
 of what had been, in one sense, the first Crusade on behalf 
 of the Cross against the infidel, carrying back the Cross in 
 triumph to Jerusalem and placing it, amid scenes of inde- 
 scribable reUgious fervour, within the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 ^ Quoted in Prof. Bury's Later Roman Empire. 
 
THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 85 
 
 Then the glory fades away. Three years later the death 
 of an Arabian prophet seer, scarcely known as yet to the 
 outer world, let loose the most extraordinary whirlwind 
 of conquest that mankind has ever known. Within the 
 next ten years the Arabs, or Mohammedans, as they must 
 now be called, had overrun Palestine and the whole of Syria, 
 mastered Egypt, the granary of Constantinople, conquered 
 Persia, and were preparing to force the gates of the capital 
 of the Eastern Empire. 
 
 Mohammed (570-632)— The story of the rise of the 
 Mohammedan Empire is amazing in the suddenness, the 
 swiftness, the success of its onset. For forty years there 
 had Uved on the hillsides near the Arabian city of Mecca a 
 man of thoughtful and meditative mind, once a poor camel 
 driver, afterwards the husband of a rich widow. Almost 
 unknown, Mohammed dwelt amid a people who had out- 
 grown their earlier nature worship and had become, for the 
 most part, a degenerate race given over to drinking, gambling, 
 and evil lusts. For them civilization had but spoilt the 
 simplicity of their nomad shepherd existence ; and the 
 constant feuds between those who still lived the wild life 
 of the desert and those who had settled on the south and 
 west coasts of Arabia as traders prevented any idea of 
 national unity. 
 
 One thing alone they had in common, and that was their 
 reverence for their sanctuary, the Kaaba at Mecca, where 
 was preserved a small stone, originally white in hue, which 
 was said to have fallen from heaven on the day that Adam 
 and Eve were driven from the gates of Eden. This was the 
 object of great yearly pilgrimages, and thus became a centre 
 of trade to and from the Red Sea ; and thither, during the 
 four months' truce held every year, the various tribes went up 
 to buy and sell, and to worship with the only remnant of a 
 faith that had once held " Allah," the God of their ancestors 
 as of the Jews, in reverence, and which had now lapsed into 
 the worship of idols. 
 
 It may have been that the study of the various types 
 of pilgrim traders and a keen intuition of their spiritual 
 
86 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 needs created in the mind of the unknown patriot an ideal 
 of rehgion that was to place Mohammed among the " seers " 
 of the world. Idol worship and the false beliefs of a bygone 
 age must be swept away, and his countrymen must be con- 
 verted to a new faith whose essence was " Islam " — complete 
 submission to the will of God. To him the revelation had 
 come in his mountain cave near Mecca, and by him the 
 formula was passed on. " There is no God but AUah, and 
 Mohammed is his prophet " became within a few years the 
 creed of Arabia. The Mohammedan era dates from the 
 year 622, when the seer himself was forced by unbelieving 
 citizens to flee to Medina, where ten years later he was to die. 
 
 The formula became the creed, but it also became the 
 battle-cry of a people who had in their blood a passion for 
 fighting. The " Koran," their Bible, containing the teaching 
 of their prophet, lays as much stress upon the " religion of 
 conquest " as upon the duty of prayer and almsgiving and 
 of abstention from pork and wine. When a paradise of 
 sensual ease was assured to all who fell fighting for the faith 
 against unbeUevers, the Arab became a soldier to whom fear 
 of death and retreat were alike unknown. 
 
 Within ten years of Mohammed's death the ideal of 
 Islam had completely taken possession of the Arab tribes ; 
 and, in spite of their comparatively smaU numbers and poor 
 equipment, we find them marching from their borders to 
 join issue with the two most powerful nations of the world 
 and to create a Mohammedan Empire in Western Asia. 
 
 Mohammedan Conquests — ^The Persian Empire, already 
 shaken to its foundations by the conquests of Heraclius, 
 fell an easy prey to them, and before the middle of the 
 seventh century they had wrested Syria from the Roman 
 Empire of the East. Mesopotamia on the one hand, Egypt 
 on the other, became their strongholds, and soon they were 
 battering at the sea-gates of Constantinople. 
 
 From the death of Heraclius in 641, for the next eight 
 centuries, this terrible foe, fighting for a pohtical as well as 
 for a rehgious ideal which bade fair to make them masters 
 of the world, cast a shadow of incessant dread over the 
 
THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 87 
 
 Empires of the East and West. Again and again Con- 
 stantinople was besieged by the forces of Islam and barely 
 managed to hold her own. , ,„ , t- 
 
 If she had failed to do so, the whole of Western Europe 
 in the days of her greatest weakness and disruption, would 
 have been submerged before this last great wave of emigra- 
 tion from the East, and the seeds of Greek and Latm civiliza- 
 tion, Uterature, law, and morals, as well as the faith ot 
 Christendom, would have been utterly destroyed As it 
 was, the once noble Empire of the East had shrunk by the 
 end of the seventh century to such insignificant dimensions 
 that Constantinople became almost the only refuge of the 
 Western scholar, the only treasure-house of the art and litera- 
 ture and culture of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. 
 
 Meantime the Arabs, or Moslems as they were more 
 generally called, were fast developing their own system of 
 civiUzation at the same time as their conquests. North 
 Africa, with its vast deserts, had been in the first instance 
 a suitable abode for these children of the wild, who reck- 
 lessly destroyed the city of Carthage and burnt Alexandna, 
 with its famous library, to the ground; but they were an 
 impressionable race, combining practical ability with extra- 
 ordinarily high ideals, and they were by no means averse 
 from adopting all that was best in the civihzations they 
 destroyed From simple desert warriors they not only rapidly 
 developed into exceedingly shrewd merchants since their 
 swift conquests were continually opening up to them new 
 routes for trade, but also into scholars and artists. 
 
 Progress o! Islam-The period of the early Caliphate 
 was the heroic age of Islam, and it reached its highest point 
 Tn thl days of the'caliph Haroun Al Raschid in the last years 
 of the eighth century (786-809). at • 7 ^o 
 
 We all know that picturesque figure of the AraUan mghts 
 of whom romance has made a legendary hero His was the 
 irionality that made the glory of Islam m hose days 
 ^d even softened the view that Christendom took of the 
 "Infidel " when Haroun sent to Charlemagne the keys of the 
 Holy Places at Jerusalem. 
 
88 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 But the Caliph could show another face to the man who 
 defied him without the power to carry out his defiance to the 
 end. In those days tribute had been paid by an Empress of 
 the Eastern Empire which her successor chose to repudiate 
 in these terms : 
 
 " Nicephorus, King of the Greeks, to Haroun, King of the 
 Arabs. 
 
 " The late Queen was too humble. She submitted to pay 
 tribute to you when she should have exacted twice that sum 
 from you. 
 
 " Now a man speaks : therefore send back the tribute 
 you have received — otherwise the sword shall be umpire 
 between me and thee." 
 
 To which the Caliph replied briefly : 
 
 " In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful. 
 
 *' Haroun Al Raschid, Commander of the Faithful, to 
 Nicephorus the Roman dog. 
 
 " I here read thy letter, son of an unbelieving mother. 
 Thou shalt not hear, but shalt see my reply ! " 
 
 And forthwith a huge force appeared before Constan- 
 tinople, from which only the promise to pay tribute twice, 
 instead of once a year, induced the Caliph to withdraw. 
 
 In the days of Haroun, the city of Bagdad, then the 
 capital of the Empire of Islam, was the brilliant centre of the 
 Eastern World. All that collection of wisdom and learning, of 
 magic lore and science, of poetry and art, which the ancient 
 Eastern World had stored within her old cities, was now 
 gathered into Bagdad as the inheritance of the conquering 
 race. She was the centre of the splendid roads dotted with 
 caravanserais which stretched in long network from China to 
 Western Europe, from India to Constantinople. Merchants 
 and ambassadors of every race thronged her courts, and were 
 welcomed at the magnificent palace of the Caliph. Beautiful 
 rose gardens, stately mosques, graceful bridges, and well- 
 planned conduits made the city a dream of beauty, through 
 which wended the vast caravans laden with the silks of 
 China, the furs of Siberia, the spices of India, and the leather 
 goods of Spain. 
 
THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 89 
 
 The trade of the sea was also in Mohammedan hands, and 
 while a thriving commerce with India and China was main- 
 tained, their warships rode unchallenged through the Medi- 
 terranean, and made a conquered Crete the base of their 
 pirate raids upon the coasts of Greece and Italy. 
 
 The city of Bagdad was as famous for her learning as for 
 her commerce. Scholars and poets were always sure of a 
 welcome at Haroun's court whatever their creed might be. 
 For tolerance and freedom of thought were the main character- 
 istics of the Caliph, and a new idea the passport to his favour. 
 A strange medley of intellects was found within the city, 
 where the imagination of the Persian, the mysticism of the 
 Hindu, the idealism of the Greek, and the keen common sense 
 of the Arab were intermingled. Bagdad was the home of 
 logic, of philosophy, of mathematics ; her chemists cherished 
 the hope of manufacturing gold, her astrologers were con- 
 sulted for their knowledge of astronomy and natural science 
 as well as for their magic lore. She was the university of the 
 Middle Ages, with Schools of Medicine, of Philosophy, of 
 Music, of Literature. And all this was in existence at a time 
 when Europe, unlettered and ignorant, was only just beginning 
 to recover from the shock of the barbarian invasions. 
 
 The reason of the vast and swift expansion of the forces of 
 Islam is interesting from the economic point of view. It was 
 the custom of the Arab caliphs, while leaving to the conquered 
 lands their own methods of administration, to exact regular 
 tribute from the conquered people. There was no compulsion 
 to adopt the new faith ; a choice of taxation or conversion 
 was always given in the earlier years of the movement. 
 
 But after a while the material advantages of submission to 
 Islam became so evident that a vast stream of converts 
 adopted the faith of their conquerors, and the number of tax- 
 payers became exceedingly small. The more religious their 
 subjects, the less money flowed into the coffers of the caliphs. 
 
 Then came reforms. One ruler imposed a poll-tax on 
 believers and unbelievers alike ; another raised money from a 
 ground-tax paid by all property owners, and levied tribute on 
 the new-made converts. By this time the political andeconomic 
 
90 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 side was even more important than the reHgious aspect, and 
 the success of Islam, material and otherwise, was assured. 
 
 Islam in Spain — No wonder, then, that in the early days of 
 the eighth century we find her forces threatening the gates of 
 Europe. Constantinople had repulsed them, but there were 
 other means of entrance. 
 
 Troops of North African Moors, who had readily adopted 
 the faith of Islam rather than pay tribute, were sent as an 
 advanced guard into Spain under the leadership of one Tarik, 
 who has given his name to the strait over which he passed 
 (Gibraltar : the cliff of Tarik, " Gebal al Tarik "). 
 
 In Spain he found a Gothic kingdom which had known 
 peace so long that it had lost the art of war. Grimly the 
 Moslem gazed at King Roderick, " last of the Goths," 
 riding into battle clad in robes of silk and gold, in an ivory car 
 drawn by two white mules, and grimly again lent ear to the 
 news that a few hours later this degenerate successor of a 
 fighting race had been drowned as he fled from the field across 
 the River Guadalquivir. From that time his Visigoths were 
 scattered, and Southern Spain was in the hands of Islam. 
 
 Two years later the only remnant of the Gothic rule in 
 Spain was to be found in the northernmost provinces of that 
 land. The Moors had overflowed the rest of the peninsula, set 
 up their capital at Cordova, and were living on terms of peace 
 with the mixed native population of Roman and Gothic descent. 
 
 Islam in France — A further attempt to conquer the 
 neighbouring land of Gaul proved a failure. The Franks, 
 hardened by years of conflict, and led by their " Hammer 
 Chief," Charles Mart el, were able to hold the gates of Tours 
 against the invaders. In this decisive battle, the former 
 stood " inflexible as a block of ice " against their foes. Only 
 in Southern France did the Moslems maintain their hold for a 
 while upon some of the ancient Roman cities and the fortresses 
 at the foot of the Pyrenees, remaining there as a thorn in the 
 flesh of the Frank, and the " typical foe " of mediaeval France. 
 
 Islam in Italy — Soon after the beginning of the ninth 
 century we find the mark of Islam left upon Italy. In the 
 year^Say the Saracens had made one of their most important 
 
THE EMPIRE OF ISLAM 91 
 
 conquests when they took Sicily from the Byzantine governor, 
 and thus were able to set up a post from which they could 
 seize opportunities of conquests in Italy. 
 
 From the " Saracen towers," whose ruins still mark the 
 coast between Naples and Palermo, the Saracens sighted the 
 approach of hostile fleets and prepared to meet them. Later 
 they pushed inland, and before the middle of the ninth cen- 
 tury were taking a prominent part in the incessant feuds 
 between the towns and provinces of Italy. Rome herself, 
 on one occasion at least, was not free from their piratical 
 raids, one of which was only frustrated by the united action 
 of the western seaports against the invader. Again and 
 again they appear as robber bands on Italian soil, though 
 meantime, under their rule, Sicily was by no means behind 
 the rest of the world in progress. It was not until the end of 
 the eleventh century (1091) that they were finally driven out 
 from all parts of Italy by the Norman invasion. 
 
 We have seen them as the freebooters of Europe, but it 
 must be remembered that in acting thus they were no worse 
 than their neighbours on every hand. Robbery and piracy, 
 raids by which men, women, and children were carried off 
 into slavery, were commonplace events of the Dark Ages of 
 history. On the other hand, the Saracen, whenever he gained 
 a footing on European soil, left behind him a legacy of culture 
 that went far to balance the evil he did in his piratical raids. 
 It was of a different character from that left by Greece and 
 Rome, but, during the ^years that the latter were wellnigh 
 extinct, it filled the gap made by the Gothic invasions by 
 raising a valuable standard of civihzation in a barbarian world. 
 In the very midst of her world renown, however, we hear 
 the note of failure sounding in the ranks of Islam. For the 
 free life of the desert, not the culture and habits of town life, 
 was the only natural element for the original race from which 
 Islam had sprung. " A tree swayed by the wind is dearer to 
 me than this lofty castle. ... A piece of bread in my desert 
 home tastes better than the daintiest sweetmeat. ... I long 
 for my home in the desert. No palace can take its place." 
 This was the true heart-cry of the Arab, whom circum- 
 
92 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 stances had made the successful trader, the wealthy merchant 
 of the city ; and after the death of Haroun the real weakness 
 that existed beneath the brilliant outward show began to 
 appear. 
 
 Gradually the vast empire began to break up. Other powers 
 appeared on the horizon. A revived Persia made itself head of 
 the Mohammedan world at the end of the tenth century ; and 
 fifty years later the Seljukian Turks ruled the Empire of Islam. 
 
 The Seljukian Turks — The advent of this race was to 
 exercise a powerful influence over the Mediaeval World. From 
 the hills and plains of Turkestan the Turks descended in a 
 flood upon the cities of the Mohammedans, much as did the 
 barbarians upon Europe five centuries earlier. Quickly ab- 
 sorbing the religion of the conquered race, these Turks showed 
 themselves strong, if narrow-minded, rulers, restoring order 
 to the confused and dissipated Moslem World, and, settling 
 down rapidly among its inhabitants, were soon accepted by 
 the Moslems as their chieftains. When Asia Minor, after 
 the year 1071, passed under their rule, the little power still 
 exercised by the Empire of the East vanished for ever. For 
 the invaders broke up the feudal system, under which the 
 cities had been held by the Greek nobles, and gave the land, 
 devastated by Persian or Arab raids, to a people who had 
 for long years degenerated into serfs. So the Moslem was 
 allowed to do what the Christian in his blindness had declined, 
 since the chivalric spirit awakened by the Crusade had come 
 too late to save the Roman Empire of the East. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Trace the rise of the empire of Islam. 
 
 2. Show by a sketch map the extent of this empire in the 
 tenth century. 
 
 3. Give a description of Bagdad in the days of Haroun Al 
 Raschid, and compare it with any European city of that period 
 in which you are interested. 
 
 4. Give your own ideas as to the underlying causes of the 
 rapid rise of the Mohammedan Empire. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE NEW NATIONS 
 (a.d. 600-900) 
 
 AS the gloom of the Dark Ages fades into the dawn 
 of Mediaeval Europe, certain groups of new nations 
 emerge from the welter of races that had wandered 
 throughout Asia and Europe during the past five 
 centuries. 
 
 The most important of these, as far as history is con- 
 cerned, was the Teutonic race, whose origin must be sought 
 far away among the Aryan people of a prehistoric Asia. From 
 this sprang Goths and Vandals, Angles, Jutes and Saxons, 
 Franks, Burgundians and Lombards, Vikings and Normans, 
 besides the other tribes known under the general name of 
 " Germans," which were to remain as permanent occupants 
 of Central Europe. 
 
 To the East, along the Danube shores, the fierce Slavs, of 
 Aryan, though not of Teuton, descent, pressing hard upon 
 the heels of the latter in the march of invasion, stayed their 
 course and settled down in lands now known as Russia and 
 Serbia. In the latter region they presently became the vassals 
 of the yet fiercer tribe of the Bulgarians. 
 
 These last were of Tartar descent, closely akin to the 
 Huns ; and with Magyars, Finns, and other tribes of the 
 Danube land§, belonged to the Mongolian race, from which 
 sprang that tribe of Turks which was to flood the world of 
 Islam. A few centuries later we shall see the formation of a 
 second Mongolian Empire under that master spirit Genghis 
 Khan, an Empire that was to stretch from the Danube to the 
 Yellow Sea, and from the White Sea to the Persian Gulf; 
 
 while in the far-distant Eastern waters we shall see emerging 
 
 93 
 
94 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 from the obscurity of their early history the people of the 
 distant islands of Japan. 
 
 Let us, to begin with, follow the development of the 
 Teutonic tribes which were to make their influence felt, if not 
 paramount, in every part of Europe. 
 
 Note first their steady movement to the West, a movement 
 which presently brought some of their wandering tribes to 
 the coast barrier of the North Sea, and forced them to settle 
 for a while on the bleak lands round the Baltic. From there 
 they were pushed on, either by growth of numbers or by the 
 relentless pressure of other Teutonic tribes in the rear. 
 
 From the middle of the fifth century we find them swarm- 
 ing over the seas in their light boats to invade the land of 
 Britain under their various tribal names of Jutes and Angles 
 and Saxons. There they were to experience during the eighth 
 century a fresh onslaught from the yet more northerly tribes 
 of Scandinavia, who, as the Northmen or Vikings, were to 
 exercise such an important influence over Western Europe. 
 
 The Lombard Invasion — During the sixth century the 
 Lombards advanced from another quarter of Europe, along 
 the Danube frontier by the old, well-trodden path into Italy, 
 seized the land north of the River Po, and set up their capital 
 at Pa via. From there, for two centuries (568-774), they 
 threatened the rest of Italy, and actually conquered large 
 portions in the centre and South. In spite of the fact that 
 they absorbed the language and customs of the conquered 
 race, the Lombard invaders never ceased to be regarded as 
 dangerous enemies ; and it was to check their further advance 
 that Charlemagne, as wiU be seen, was summoned to Italy. 
 
 One important result of this Lombard invasion was as 
 follows. Through their conquests, Italy, which was stiU nomin- 
 ally under the rule of the Roman Emperor at Constantinople, 
 was split up into various disconnected parts, some in the hands 
 of the Lombards, others ruled by the Pope as States of the 
 Church. The authority of the Emperor was a dead letter, 
 and hence the tendency increased for the separated districts 
 to break up into small states, some under Lombard rule, 
 some independent, some directly under the authority of the 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 95 
 
 Church, all of which were but loosely held together by their 
 allegiance to the head of Christendom in the person of the 
 Roman pontiff. Later, when the Normans made their ap- 
 pearance in Southern Italy, we get another cause of disruption 
 
 in the land. 
 
 The Kingdom o£ the Franks— In these years, however, 
 the race that counted most among the new-born nations was 
 that of the Franks. No doubt they owed their pre-eminence 
 largely to the fact that they had been the first Teutonic race 
 to embrace the Cathohc faith in an age when most of the 
 new-comers had adopted the Arian heresy. This fact had 
 certainly gained them the full support of the Church. 
 
 But the Frank had already won a name for valour on the 
 battle-field. We have seen how Clovis had made himself 
 master of Roman Gaul, driven the Allemanni tribes from 
 Alsace, the Visigoths from Aquitaine, and made the Bur- 
 gundians of the Rhone pay tribute. After that, he and his 
 successors turned Eastwards, and overran Bavaria and Thur- 
 ingia, till the " Empire of the Franks," the widest Empire ever 
 founded by a Teutonic race, stretched from the shores of the 
 Bay of Biscay to the River Inn, and from the Pyrenees to the 
 River Rhine. Not that it ever was a united kingdom, but 
 rather a number of principalities, ruled by Clovis and his 
 successors, who were regarded as chieftains by the practically 
 independent tribes of what is now Germany, and as kings by 
 the subject races in Gaul. 
 
 The Carolingians (A.D. 751)— The eighth century saw a 
 definite change in this respect. The heirs of the Une of 
 Clovis had earned at this time the tifte of the " do-nothing " 
 kings, and had left their authority almost entirely in the hands 
 of certain officials known as " Mayors of the Palace." 
 
 One of these, Charles Martel, the " Hammer," had won 
 renown for himself as the victor at Tours, the battle which 
 closed the gates of Gaul to the conquering hosts of Islam. 
 His son, Pepin, dethroned the last of the Merovingian " do- 
 nothings," and by the hands of Pope Stephen II was anointed 
 "king by the Grace of God," the founder of the famous 
 Carohngian dynasty, and the first to make the Frankish tribes 
 
96 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of the Lower Rhine the acknowledged rulers of the whole of 
 the scattered Empire. 
 
 This was in 751. Five years later the Lombards were 
 hammering at the gates of Rome and harassing every part of 
 Italy by their incessant attacks. It was but natural that 
 Rome, rapidly becoming independent of the rule of the 
 Emperor of the East, should, by the mouth of her Chief 
 Bishop, call for help to the nation that had now held the 
 Catholic faith, nominally at least, for two centuries ; a nation, 
 moreover, that had aided the conversion of Germany by the 
 generous help given to the English Boniface, the missionary 
 sent from Rome to the heathen tribes of that land. 
 
 Pepin at once struck two rapid and effective blows, 
 which, though they served rather to stun than to destroy 
 the Lombard power, added a considerable portion of Italy 
 lying between Ravenna and Rome to the districts which 
 now began to be called the Papal States. 
 
 But the real conqueror of the Lombards was the man 
 whose personality was to dominate Europe for the next 
 half-century, and the imaginations of Europeans for a very 
 much longer period. 
 
 Charlemagne (771-31^) — At the repeated summons of 
 Pope Hadrian, this hitherto unknown chieftain, Charles, 
 son of Pepin and " King of the Franks," swept down from 
 the Alps upon Italy, completely broke up the Lombard 
 Empire, and having taken prisoner Desiderius, the Lombard 
 king, assumed the famous Iron Crown,^ and made Northern 
 Italy (Lombardy) a part of his dominions. 
 
 This was but the overture to a long drama of successful 
 conquest. His next achievement was to crush the heathen 
 tribes of a Saxony in revolt, and to command them to accept 
 either Christianity or death. A faith thus rudely forced 
 upon a people, though the method was common enough 
 in those days, could scarcely have had much spiritual or 
 moral effect, and long years of constant warfare were to 
 
 ^ The Iron Crown, given by Pope Gregory I to the Lombard king 
 on his conversion, was so called because a scrap of iron, believed to be 
 a nail of the True Cross, was inserted in the golden circlet. 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 9t 
 
 elapse before these rugged tribes could be considered either 
 conquered or Christian. But still the religious ideal, how- 
 ever crudely presented, became eventually the most effective 
 bond of union ; and when, at length, by the heroic efforts 
 of the missionaries sent from Rome, as well as by the rough- 
 and-ready methods of Charles, the nations had accepted 
 the Christian faith, civilization as usual followed hard in its 
 wake. Towns, schools, bishoprics were to be found at the 
 beginning of the ninth century in a land that had been sunk 
 in a state of almost primitive savagery ; and a Saxon peasant 
 was to produce, somewhere about the year 830, a Christian 
 poem founded on the life of Christ that, as the Heliand, stands 
 conspicuously as a landmark of Early Teutonic literature. 
 
 Meantime Charlemagne had led his victorious army farther 
 to the east, where the Avars, descendants of the Huns, had 
 pushed forward to the Danube from their Caspian home. 
 In the Danube plains, after years of hard fighting, the 
 Prankish king broke at last the famous " Ring " or Camp 
 of Chieftains, and so impressed the savage leaders with the 
 force of his arms that they declared themselves willing to 
 accept both the supremacy and the religious faith of one 
 who could fight so well. 
 
 Most famous, perhaps, among the long series of his con- 
 quests, is the stand made by Charles against the Moors, the 
 champions of Islam, who had begun again to harass the 
 Christian chieftains of the region of the Pyrenees. Anyone 
 who conquered a Mohammedan was sure of his laurels ; and 
 the eyes of Christendom gazed proudly at the king who had 
 driven back the forces of Islam across the River Ebro, and 
 added a large part of Northern Spain to the Frankish Empire. 
 Yet even he was not to depart unscathed ; for on his return 
 through the Pyrenees the rear of his army was attacked by 
 foes hidden among the mountains, and his nephew Roland, 
 henceforth to be the darling of mediaeval romance, was found 
 dead by the avenging host of Franks which swept back upon 
 the foe at the sound of the hero's horn. More interesting, 
 if less romantic, is the fact that in this campaign Charle- 
 magne actually fought in alliance with an Arab king against 
 7 
 
m A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 his Arab foe, the first, but not the last instance of a Christian 
 uniting his forces with an unbehever against a common 
 enemy. 
 
 Meantime fresh troubles had broken the long peace which 
 Charles had given to Italy, and the eyes of Pope Leo III 
 naturally turned again to the Frankish king for help. Sedition 
 had broken out within the walls of the Holy City herself, and 
 the person of the Pope had been in serious danger. Wounded 
 and left for dead, Leo III managed to escape from Italy and 
 fled to the camp of Charles, who received him with cordial 
 respect and affection, and sent him back to Rome under the 
 protection of an armed force that quickly put an end to the 
 ambitions of the traitors. 
 
 The incident only served to hasten a movement that had 
 been long in the minds of King and Pope. 
 
 The one thing that had remained intact in a broken and 
 disintegrated Europe was the ideal of the Christian Church, 
 and that in spite of the blows of foreign invaders and the 
 treachery of her own sons. But in order to strengthen this 
 ideal, as well as to give the new-born nations a central rally- 
 ing point such as had already proved so signal a success in 
 the Mohammedan worli, the political unity of the Empire 
 must also be asserted. It was no use to look to the weak 
 rulers of Constantinople for a lead in the movement, for 
 already there were signs of sharp dissension between the 
 Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople. So the 
 Eastern part of the Empire was ignored, and a step was taken 
 that becomes the central event in the Mediaeval World. 
 
 The Second Empire of the West — On Christmas Day 
 A.D. 800, during Mass in the ancient basilica of St. Peter 
 at Rome, Charles, kneeling on the steps of the high altar 
 in the dress of a Roman patrician, was solemnly crowned 
 by Pope Leo III with the diadem of the Caesars ; while the 
 immense crowd of onlookers shouted " Life and victory to 
 the great and peace-giving Emperor Charles Augustus, 
 crowned by God." 
 
 Outside the great building, so typical of the strength and 
 stern simplicity of Rome, the Franks took up the cry. " In 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 99 
 
 that shout was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, 
 so mighty in its consequences, of the Roman and the Teuton, 
 of the memories and the civiUzation of the South with the fresh 
 energy of the North " (Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire). 
 
 Eleven years later Byzantium also acknowledged the 
 supremacy of Charles, and received in return Venice, soon to 
 become the commercial gateway between East and West. 
 
 But the separation of the two parts of the Empire was 
 now complete, and was only emphasized by the great schism 
 of the eleventh century, by which the Eastern Church, with 
 its centre at Constantinople, broke away from the West 
 on a point of doctrine, and henceforth became an independent 
 church. 
 
 Effect of the Second Empire of the West— The Second 
 Empire of the West was destined to endure only for a brief 
 period, and to break up almost entirely a few years after its 
 founder's death in 814. But the ideal which it represented 
 was to remain. 
 
 All through the Middle Ages, aided by the essential 
 unity of the Western Church, this ideal is constantly to be 
 found. The spirit of cosmopolitanism seen throughout 
 Europe until the middle of the fifteenth century was its out- 
 come. For many a long year the local idea of loyalty to 
 province or monarch was merged in the homage paid to the 
 head of Christendom and also to the Emperor. 
 
 It was these two forces — the Papacy and the Empire — 
 that prevented Europe from splitting up into a number of 
 little states under the " provincial " spirit of Feudalism ; 
 and though the influence of the Emperor was to decline after 
 the year a.d. iooo, still it had not failed to do a work which 
 the firmly established ideal of a united Christendom was then 
 strong enough to carry on alone. 
 
 We can find the outward signs of this ideal of unity in the 
 growth of Gothic architecture, in later years, in all parts of 
 Western Europe ; in the rise of universities in which were found 
 scholars of every nation of the West ; in a cosmopolitan art ; 
 and in a literature which claimed Charlemagne and Roland, 
 Arthur and Coeur de Lion as its heroes, whatever might be the 
 
100 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 language in which their deeds were sung. One language, 
 Latin, became the learned tongue of Europe ; while its 
 daughter, French, under various forms of dialect, became the 
 common spoken language of the governing classes in every 
 Western nation of the Continent. 
 
 Lastly we notice one more effect of the Coronation of 
 Charlemagne upon the Western World. The Pope had made 
 tne Emperor ; thenceforth his was the power to unmake 
 where he had made. Hence arose the beginnings of that 
 long feud between the spiritual power and the temporal, 
 which was to keep Europe in a ferment during so many 
 years of the Middle Ages. 
 
 But in the days of Charlemagne these things were as yet 
 unknown. His was the colossal task of holding together a 
 vast Empire, of which the only bond at that time was an 
 ideal imperfectly realized, often wholly ignored. And the 
 greatness of the man stands out even more when we see him 
 as the Prankish King, full of vital energy and enthusiasm for 
 the civilization of every part of his Empire, than when we 
 gaze upon the crowned Emperor in Rome. His great bridges, 
 his fine roads, his plan for a waterway that was to join the 
 Rhine with the Danube, were all part of his ideal. Mission- 
 aries journeying among the wild Teutonic tribes of Central 
 Europe were sure of his assistance and protection. The 
 administration of justice was secured by placing a governor 
 or " count " over every district, who was obliged to hold a 
 " county " court every month to hear the grievances of the 
 oppressed. And, wisely enough, he did not attempt to force 
 new legal codes upon his Teuton subjects, but based his 
 *' capitularies," as they are called, upon the popular laws of 
 the various tribes, whilst allowing the civil law of Rome to 
 exist along with them, just as the " Church " Latin was used 
 as well as the dialects of the people. 
 
 Perhaps his most important gift to the European world 
 was that of education. Within his " School of the Palace " 
 the Lombard Paul taught history, and Peter of Pisa grammar, 
 to the King and to his children ; from the University of 
 York came Alcuin the English scholar, to found the famous 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 101 
 
 School of Tours, and to become the tutor of the Emperor's 
 young sons. No longer could mediaeval Europe, even in its 
 darkest corners, utterly despise letters when so renowned a 
 prince became their votary, though another century was 
 to pass before an influence of quite a different kind was to 
 arouse a real desire for learning. 
 
 In the year 814 Charlemagne's work was finished, and 
 the greatest figure of mediaeval history was buried under 
 the magnificent church built by him at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 Almost immediately, under his successors, the Empire of 
 the West began to break up, and, in the period of unrest 
 that followed, it seemed for a while as though his grand ideal 
 had perished. For a new power had arisen in Europe, a 
 power that was all on the side of disruption and anarchy 
 in these earlier years, although in later days it was to develop 
 a strong and well-disciplined nation. 
 
 The Northmen in Europe — This nation was that of the 
 Northmen, the last of the Teutonic migrants to advance as a 
 wave upon Europe and to swamp a large part of the Empire 
 of the West. Long before the days of Christendom these 
 men had ploughed their cold northern shores and sailed their 
 black boats over their stormy Arctic seas ; and years before 
 Charlemagne had been crowned as Emperor, their trading 
 adventurers had brought word of the rich lands of the South 
 and West to which they had taken their furs and walrus' 
 teeth, and inflamed other minds to go thither in the search for 
 wealth. The ordinary ways of commerce did not appeal to 
 a people fierce and restless by nature, fond of romantic 
 adventure, utterly fearless by sea or land. As plunderers 
 and freebooters they sailed forth from their barren shores, 
 and the great Charles himself is said to have wept with rage 
 at the story of their daring inroads upon the Baltic coasts of 
 Northern Frankland and Friesland, lamenting that he could 
 boast of no followers who would in like manner dare the 
 stormy waters. 
 
 Soon they grew bolder still, descending like an avalanche 
 upon the coasts of England, sailing up the mouths of the 
 Elbe and Rhine, making Russia and Greenland their hunting- 
 
102 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 grounds. In vain did Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, 
 send missionaries to Scandinavia to try to convert these 
 terrors of Christendom. Some effect was made upon Den- 
 mark, but the country as a whole remained heathen, and it 
 was as heathens that the Danes descended upon England 
 in the ninth century and made large part of it their own. 
 
 But later in that century it was the fertile soil and pleasant 
 climate of the Frankish lands that most appealed to the 
 Vikings. In those days the north-western portion of the 
 Frankish Empire was split up into various petty kingdoms, 
 such as those of Paris, of Burgundy, of Lorraine. The first 
 of these, comprising the land between the Loire and the 
 Seine, was to emerge later as the Kingdom of France ; 
 Lorraine, which then included the modern Belgium, and 
 Burgundy remained as independent kingdoms acknowledging 
 the overlordship of the King of Paris. South of the Loire 
 the country was ruled by various powerful counts, who had 
 almost entirely thrown off their allegiance to King or 
 Emperor. 
 
 To the enterprise of an invading host of sturdy Northmen, 
 a land so divided proved an easy prey. Coming first as 
 settlers along the shores on both sides of the Loire, and 
 venturing on their marauding expeditions even as far south 
 as the coasts of Spain and Italy, they presently appeared as 
 unmistakable invaders. 
 
 Under their leader, Rolf or RoUo, they descended upon 
 Northern France and founded the city of Rouen — the town 
 of Rou or Rollo — on the ashes of the former settlement. 
 By the end of the tenth century the northern district of the 
 Frankland had become Normandy, the land of the Northmen, 
 and the invaders had become natives of the soil. 
 
 Already they had made permanent settlements in Ireland, 
 where Dublin and Limerick were founded by them ; the 
 islands that fringe the coast of Scotland were entirely under 
 their rule, Iceland and Greenland among their most flourishing 
 colonies, and even America was not beyond their limit. 
 But their most important influence was over a district, then 
 inhabited by Slavonic tribes always at war with one another 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 103 
 
 which was to be the future Russia. It was on the occasion 
 of one of these quarrels, in the middle of the ninth century, 
 that Rurik the Northman is said to have been invited, with 
 his two brothers, all of the Rotsi or Russi family, to rule over 
 Russia and so keep the peace. 
 
 Russia — The tradition is vague and obscure ; but it may 
 be that these heroes gave their name to the province of 
 Novgorod, and ruled it until the end of the sixteenth century. 
 Certainly Scandinavian names are commonly found in Russia, 
 and the adventurous influence of the Northmen must have 
 done much to open the channels of communication between 
 the West of Europe and this great unknown region of Eastern 
 Europe. Another link of communication was the conversion 
 of Russia, during the eleventh century, to Christianity. 
 Tradition says that Vladimir, Rurik's descendant, desiring a 
 new faith, sent ambassadors to the chief representatives of 
 the CathoHc Church in Rome, of the Greek Church in Con- 
 stantinople, of the faith of the Jews, and of that of Islam. 
 Dazzled by the splendour of the ritual at St. Sophia, now 
 in schism from the Church of Western Christendom, these 
 envoys reported so strongly in its favour that its doctrines 
 became the faith of Russia. The fact that Vladimir at this 
 time had married the sister of the Emperor of the Eastern 
 Empire had probably much more to do with the ruler's 
 decision to make the religion of Russia that of the Eastern 
 Church. 
 
 These various waves of invasion, combined with the fact 
 that the Empire was now broken up and in the hands of 
 a number of petty rulers, all fighting for territory, and quite 
 unrestrained by any great central government save the 
 vaguely comprehended influence of the Catholic Church, 
 had plunged the Europe of the ninth and tenth centuries 
 into a state of inconceivable anarchy and confusion. 
 
 The chief feature of this period is the growth of the spirit 
 of Feudalism in Europe. Its rapid development was due, 
 no doubt, to the need of opposing the Viking hordes by 
 something more permanent and forceful than an " armed 
 levy" of the population. Mounted soldiers, well-trained 
 
104 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 lighters, were necessary, and so were fortified cities and bridges 
 and castles. The fortress castle changed the whole character 
 of the roving robber chieftain into that of the responsible 
 noble, and placed him as a leader and ruler over the people 
 beneath his walls. 
 
 Yet still the Feudal system maintained an atmosphere of 
 violence, which had its outcome in the marauding bands of 
 freebooters who kept all Europe in panic. These did but 
 reflect the spirit of their rulers who fought for kingdoms or 
 principalities ; but it seemed clear that a passion for ruin 
 and destruction was everywhere rife, and that an ordered 
 method of life was an impossible ideal. 
 
 Even the influence of the Christian Church, which had 
 kept the Europe of earlier days from utter disruption, seemed 
 to have lost its power, and, when neither the crown of the king 
 nor the loaf of the labourer was safe for any length of time 
 from the hands of robbers, it seemed worth while neither to 
 rule justly nor to labour for daily bread. When ail were 
 content to destroy rather than to construct, the dignity of 
 honest labour became a lost ideal. 
 
 Nor do we find the system of Feudalism, with all its 
 evils, opposed by the Church of those days. For in those 
 troublous times the bishop had to handle the sword as well 
 as the missal, and secular force bade fair to take the place 
 of the spiritual bond of old. Yet scarcely two centuries after 
 the death of Charlemagne the first faint dawn of a vast 
 impulse towards better things was seen by those who still 
 had hopes of a brighter future. 
 
 The first indications of reform came from the direction of 
 Cluny, a Benedictine monastery founded in Burgundy by a 
 few men who hoped to live within its walls a life more in 
 accordance with the ancient ideals of Christianity than was 
 possible in a world at strife. 
 
 By a curious paradox, it was the very men who withdrew 
 from the world who were to teach that world how to live 
 aright. These reformed Benedictines, in the spirit of their 
 first founder, a spirit of " service instead of destruction, of love 
 rather than strife," set before the Western World an ideal so 
 
THE NEW NATIONS 105 
 
 attractive and in such accord with sound common sense, that 
 it brought forth in course of time not only a great revival of 
 religion, but also a far higher level of civilization than the new 
 Europe had yet known. " Every Benedictine community 
 stood for one thing in Europe ; it preached the sacred dignity 
 of labour and the hatefulness of destruction. In an age when 
 men counted their manhood by the amount they could destroy, 
 when their pastime, as their pride, was to wreck, or to prevent 
 others from wrecking them, the rule which commanded handi- 
 work as necessary to the soul's health reminded an astonished 
 world of the dignity of labour." ^ 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1 . Trace the origin of two of the modern European nations. 
 
 2. Account for the predominance of the " Kingdom of the 
 Franks." 
 
 3. Show the effect upon Europe of : (i) The Viking In- 
 vasions ; (2) Feudalism ; (3) The Second Empire of the West ; 
 (4) The Lombard Invasion ; (5) The Influence of Charlemagne ; 
 (6) Monasticism. 
 
 ^ A. C. Welch, Anselm and His Work. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 (a.d. 900-1300) 
 
 WHILE the Western World of Europe had been 
 fighting its way through a period of disruption and 
 confusion, the East, in a series of movements 
 slower, though no less momentous, than those of 
 the West, had been shaping the history of the world. 
 
 Some of these movements were to bring East and West 
 into close touch during the centuries that followed the rise of 
 the new nations of Europe. During this period, for the first 
 time, we shall see the stored-up learning and philosophic 
 spirit of the ancient Eastern World brought to bear upon the 
 raw civilization of the West. But before we read how this 
 came to pass, let us pass right across the great continent of 
 Asia and look for a moment at the development of a little 
 nation destined in the far future to play an important part in 
 the shaping of the world of men. 
 
 Japan — The islands of Japan, volcanic in origin and 
 highly favoured in climate and production, seem to have been 
 peopled in the days before history by dwarfish cave-dweUers 
 of unknown origin. These were displaced by immigrants, 
 supposed to have been akin to the peasants of Russia of the 
 Mujik type. If so, they were of Tartar race, hailing from 
 Northern Asia, and this is the more probable because similar 
 customs are found among both Tartars and Japanese. 
 
 For instance, it was the custom of both races partly to 
 bury servants and horses alive round the grave cairns of a 
 dead prince, in order to form a " living fence " to keep off evil 
 spirits. The record of a Japanese Emperor who died in the 
 
 year a.d. 70 says, " All those who had been in his personal 
 
 106" 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 107 
 
 service were gathered together and buried aUve in an upright 
 position round his barrow. They did not die for many days, 
 but wept and bewailed day and night. At length they died, 
 and dogs and crows devoured them." 
 
 Japan possessed no records of national history till the 
 eighth century after Christ, and no system of writing before the 
 sixth century, when we find a long chronicle of traditions deal- 
 ing with the Age of Gods and Heroes, from whom the Mikados, 
 or Emperors, were descended. From these, though we get no 
 political history, we glean some hints as to the progress of 
 civilization among the Japanese, a progress which seems to 
 have been singularly slow, measured by the more rapid 
 development of the West. Yet there is a very early mention 
 of silk- weaving, of clothes " fastened crossways by knots " 
 as at the present day, of plates of bamboo and wood. Differ- 
 ence of rank was marked by certain tattoo marks on the skin. 
 Theft was unknown, and other crimes were punished by the 
 destruction of the whole family of the criminal. When a 
 public man died, one of his clan was appointed as public 
 mourner. This person might not comb his hair, wash, or eat. 
 If the survivors prospered, he was rewarded with gifts ; if not, 
 he was put to death. 
 
 At the end of the second century A.D., after a long period of 
 civil war, we hear of a mysterious queen. " She was old and 
 unmarried and had devoted herself to the art of magic, so that 
 she was able to deceive the people. They agreed to recognize 
 her as queen. She has one thousand male servants ; but few 
 see her face save one man who brings her meat and maintains 
 communication with her. She lives in a palace of airy rooms 
 surrounded by a palisade and protected by a guard of soldiers." 
 
 The position of the Mikado was still more remote, as 
 became his supposed divine origin. He was the head of a care- 
 fully graduated series of tribes, whose bond of union was the 
 worship of their ancestors and of the sun, which they adored 
 as a goddess. 
 
 There seems to have been very little connexion with the 
 outer world before the sixth century, though we hear of 
 pirate raids on Korea and an occasional embassy to China; 
 
108 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 and this accounts partly for the very slow development of 
 Japan. There was in time, however, a certain amount of 
 trade, still with Korea, the nearest point of the mainland. 
 
 The sixth century brought the religion of Buddha to 
 Japan, and with it a wave of Chinese civilization. Monasteries 
 were built, and Buddhist monks became a power in the land. 
 
 The government of Japan was by this time (sixth century) 
 entirely on feudal lines. All arable land belonged to the 
 Emperor, and was sublet into small family holdings on a lease 
 of six or twelve years. The rent was paid in the form of pro- 
 duce and labour. In spite of this, the country throve apace, 
 and by the ninth or tenth century seems to have been at the 
 zenith of its wealth and luxury. The moral tone of its people 
 was very low, for by that time the worst side of feudalism was 
 apparent ; the Mikado was a myth, and all power was in the 
 hands of untrustworthy officials and nobles. Centuries of 
 misrule and civil warfare followed. Law and order became 
 unknown, and the custom of hara-kari, when the conquered 
 fell upon his own sword and put an end to a dishonoured 
 career, became common. The Samurai, originally peasant 
 serfs, gradually emancipated themselves from that condition 
 and formed a professional military class, with much power in 
 their hands, as was natural in a nation without a constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 The first European to get into touch with Japan was the 
 Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, who made his way through 
 Asia to the court of Kubla Khan at Pekin. There he heard 
 much o " Cipango," as Japan seems to have been called in 
 those days, though he does not seem to have visited the 
 islands. The people, he says, were " white, civilized, and so 
 rich in gold that the royal palace was roofed and paved with 
 that metal." At the end of the thirteenth century the 
 country seems to have made a far more rapid advance in 
 strength than seemed possible in the past. For when Kubla 
 Khan, the conquering chieftain of the Mongols, sent to demand 
 recognition of his supremacy and the payment of tribute, he 
 met with a scornful refusal. A favourite tradition tells of the 
 Mongohan fleet of ten thousand warriors and four thousand 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 109 
 
 ships sent out against the daring Uttle country, and of its 
 destruction on the way thither by a typhoon. 
 
 Two centuries later, however, the land was in a perilous 
 condition. For, owing to the extermination of the peasants, 
 the hordes of freebooters which overran the country, and a 
 disastrous civil war, Japan was forced to seek the aid of China, 
 who set up an official " King of Japan " in return for a heavy 
 tribute. It is remarkable, however, that this is the only 
 instance of the country's loss of independence, and it was a 
 matter of brief duratioh. 
 
 From the middle of the sixteenth century we find European 
 traders visiting the country, and the barrier of centuries at 
 last removed for a while. Yet it seems as though the ex- 
 clusive self-concentration of Japan was not yet destroyed. 
 Late in the sixteenth century the Christian faith had been 
 preached there and Jesuit missionaries and Dominican Friars 
 were busy at their work, when a rising of the peasants gave 
 the jealous priests of Buddha their chance. The Christians 
 were accused of being the cause of the revolt, and a great 
 persecution began, in which thousands of priests and people 
 lost their lives. In the year 1624 all strangers were expelled 
 from the land ; and hence, after little more than a century, 
 the connexion between Japan and the Western World came to 
 an end, and was not reopened again till the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 This brief glance at the early story of Japan may help 
 to explain the importance of her present position. Slow in 
 development, with strength repressed but by no means 
 destroyed, she makes her entrance into the Modern World 
 as a young fresh nation in the midst of old and sometimes 
 decaying forces. Ready as she is to adopt all that is best 
 in European and American civilization, she yet retains her 
 characteristic spirit of exclusiveness. Her people are small 
 in stature and her land comparatively small in population, 
 but she is yet full of a vitality that made her the conqueror 
 of the unwieldy forces of Russia. Her future career is one 
 of the most interesting problems of the Modern World. 
 
 The Revival of Persia (10th Century)— But we must now 
 
110 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 return to mediaeval days, and regard upon our frieze of history 
 a group of Eastern people which, in its threatening advance, 
 reminds us of the dark year of Attila the Hun. First, however, 
 let us glance at Western Asia, where we find in the tenth 
 century a brief revival of Empire among the Persians. It 
 was a small affair in comparison with that ancient Empire 
 of former days ; but it had two marked effects upon mediaeval 
 affairs. By their military success under the warrior King 
 Mahmoud, the Persians for a time took the place of the 
 Arabs as head of the Mohammedan world. And, in the realm 
 of literature, this same Mahmoud showed his superiority over 
 most of his contemporaries by the place he allotted to litera- 
 ture in his scheme of national life. It is said that it was 
 the recital of the hero poems, the sagas of Ancient Persia, 
 that first stirred him to command that they should be collected 
 and reduced to definite form. This was the work of Firdusi, 
 one of the great world poets of all ages, who, when over 
 seventy years of age, produced the Shah Nameh, or Book of 
 Kings, the Mneid of the Persian people. For this master- 
 piece Firdusi, for some reason, received only a part of the 
 promised reward, and, haughtily refusing what was offered, 
 the poet fled into exile and passed his days in writing angry 
 satires upon his royal master. Like Dante, exactly three 
 centuries later, he died an outcast from his native place, and 
 did not even know that the repentant Sultan had sent him at 
 the last a caravan of costly gifts. Like that of Dante's great 
 poem, too, was the influence of the Shah Nameh upon his 
 country. " These are the heroes whose glory I have restored, " 
 he cries. " They all passed long ago, but my song has awakened 
 them, to eternal life." Not only did the poems revive a lost 
 national ideal, but they did much to unify a land of scattered 
 tribes and various dialects by setting up a standard of language, 
 very much as Chaucer's writings did for a fourteenth-century 
 England. 
 
 The Seljukian Turks (11th Century) — Yet the mediaeval 
 Empire of Persia was at the time of the death of Mahmoud 
 almost at its end, and about to be swept away by the Turkish 
 tribes, now advancing in a great wave upon the world of 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 111 
 
 Islam as it existed in the eleventh century. With hordes 
 of savage Mongols hard upon their heels, these Seljukian 
 Turks, originally nomadic tribes from the steppes of Turkestan, 
 had pushed to the West and, coming there into conflict with 
 the Arabs, had gradually conformed to the faith of Islam. 
 From that time they became the conquering race, swamping 
 the Mohammedan world and sweeping away in their relent- 
 less advance the newly revived Persia as well as all the smaller 
 nations of Western Asia. By the latter part of the eleventh 
 century they had overrun almost the whole of Asia Minor 
 and were threatening the gates of the Bosphorus. 
 
 The influence of this savage race upon Western Asia was 
 not altogether disastrous. The Turks had this advantage over 
 the Arabs, that they possessed an instinct for order which 
 the latter almost entirely lacked. They found the Moham- 
 medan Empire torn with internal strife, and even imperial 
 Bagdad weakened by disunion. Under the iron rule of the 
 Seljukian Turks commerce rapidly improved, and even art, 
 literature, and science revived, though the latter were foreign 
 enough to the nature of the conquering race. When they 
 settled in Asia Minor, the power of the Roman Empire of the 
 East had passed for ever. Her feudal rule over the inhabitants 
 of that region, with its powerful nobles and great military 
 garrisons, had resulted in a condition of utter wretchedness. 
 The free population had become serfs ; many thousands 
 of the people had been either killed or deported in the wars 
 between Persia and Constantinople and their place taken by 
 slaves. It is due to the Seljukian Turk to say that, by 
 dividing up the great estates among the survivors, he created 
 a loyal and prosperous peasant class. But, by so doing, he 
 added another strong contingent to the orces of Islam. 
 
 The most important effect by far, however, that the 
 Seljukian Turks have had upon world history is the part 
 they played in causing Europe to take part in that great 
 drama of mediaeval times known as the Crusades. 
 
 The Crusades — ^The story of the Crusades must be read 
 elsewhere in detail. We can but glance here at the main 
 events before going on to note the importance of the move- 
 
112 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 ment as a whole. Let us first try to realize what it involved. 
 It was the coming to grips of the two great religious forces 
 of the world — Christianity and Islam, the Cross and the 
 Crescent ; it was the first meeting face to face of the stately 
 mysterious East with the Western World, in which the civiliza- 
 tion and organization of Rome were beginning at last to 
 prevail over the chaos attending the birth of the New 
 Nations. 
 
 We have seen how the Turks had threatened the seat of 
 the Eastern Empire of Rome in their invasion of Asia Minor. 
 From his stronghold in Constantinople the weak Emperor, 
 quailing at their approach, had sent forth appeal after appeal 
 to the nations of the West to come to his aid. But in those 
 days it was no call from the tottering Empire of the East 
 that could rouse a Europe torn with feudal strife and barely 
 emerging into civilization. 
 
 What was needed was not a material trumpet call to arms, 
 but a spiritual appeal, an inspiration, an ideal ; and that 
 was to come, as once before, from the " holy fields " of 
 Palestine. 
 
 In the year 1076 the Seljukian Turks conquered Jerusalem 
 and overran the whole of Palestine save Antioch. The Holy 
 City was at that time, as for many years past, the resort of 
 Christian pilgrims of all ranks. Many of them were permanent 
 settlers there, ruled by the Patriarch of Jerusalem ; others 
 were peaceful traders. But the majority had come, as was 
 the case with Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of William 
 the Conqueror, and Eldred, the Bishop of York, and many 
 another, " kings and counts, marquises and bishops, together 
 with men of middle rank and many of the poorer sort," to 
 pay their homage to the tomb of the Saviour. And, with 
 very few exceptions, the Moslem Caliphs up to this time had 
 left those pilgrims in peace and security. 
 
 But to the Seljukian Turk, in his fanaticism, the very 
 name of Christian was abhorrent. A veritable reign of 
 terror began. The Patriarch was dragged by the hair through 
 the streets and flung into a filthy prison. The holiest rites 
 of the Church were profaned ; pilgrims were stripped and 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 113 
 
 beaten on the hill roads leading to Jerusalem ; many suffered 
 martyrdom at the Holy Tomb. 
 
 From the East went up a great and terrible cry for aid for 
 the oppressed and vengeance on the oppressor ; and at first 
 it seemed as though Europe was turning a deaf ear to that 
 piteous appeal. 
 
 For the Western World was torn by a violent struggle 
 between Kings and Popes over their rights as feudal lords. 
 At one time the chief antagonists were the Emperor Henry IV 
 and Pope Gregory VII ; at another, Henry I, head of the 
 Norman Empire that comprised England and Northern 
 France, and Anselm of Canterbury ; and these were but typical 
 figures in a contest the nature of which has been already 
 described. 
 
 Chivalry— In the absorption of this struggle between 
 Church and State, it seemed as though that call from the East 
 would be unheard, did not some new and powerful force 
 come forward to urge its importance. Already there had 
 stirred in Europe that curious movement, or rather inspira- 
 tion, known as Chivalry, which was to transform hordes of 
 uncivilized, half-savage soldiers into knightly gentlemen, 
 pledged to the threefold watchword of Religion, Honour, 
 Courtesy, pledged also to the aid of the weak and the 
 oppressed. 
 
 The effect of this call for help upon the growing spirit of 
 Chivalry was to set afoot a great Crusade. In itself Chivalry 
 was the '* religion of Feudalism " — a vast institution, with 
 rules and regulations which took years to develop. In a 
 practical sense it was called into active being by the Crusade, 
 though in theory it had already begun to stir the hearts of 
 Christendom. Nothing since the days of Charlemagne, 
 except the influence of the Papacy, had done so much to unify 
 a broken, chaotic Europe as this ideal of Chivalry, crystallized 
 into practical action by the call to a universal Crusade against 
 the forces of the unbeliever. It was said, with some exag- 
 geration, that " all wars and brigandage came to an end. 
 The Crusade, like the rain, stilled the wind." 
 
 Before the end of the eleventh century Jerusalem had 
 8 
 
114 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 been stormed, and a Christian kingdom set up in the midst 
 of the sects of Islam. Early in the twelfth century two great 
 military orders, the Knights Hospitallers, whose special work 
 was to tend the sick and' wounded, and the Knights Templars, 
 whose duty originally was to defend the Holy Sepulchre and 
 the brigand-infested passes by which pilgrims made their way 
 thither, were playing a prominent part both in East and West. 
 
 By the middle of the twelfth century a new power had 
 arisen in the Eastern World. The Vizier Saladin had, by a 
 stroke of military genius, made himself supreme over Egypt, 
 and as the Champion of Islam determined to drive the forces 
 of Christendom from Syria. 
 
 It was impossible for the little kingdom of Jerusalem to 
 hold her own in the midst of the vast encircling power of the 
 Sultan, and in 1187 the Holy City was in his hands. Richard I 
 of England and Philip of France succeeded with difficulty in 
 occupying the coast of Tyre ; but Palestine was lost. This 
 Saladin was, however, a worthy foe. Brave, generous, and 
 strong-minded, the best type of Seljukian Turk, he earned 
 the respect of his foes in Europe even while he established a 
 new and powerful Mohammedan Empire in Asia Minor, a 
 standing menace to the Empire of the East. 
 
 The attempt to recover Palestine for Christendom dragged 
 on for two more centuries, and only ended in 1291 with 
 the failure of Otho de Grandison, representing the English 
 prince Edward, son of Henry III, to hold the walls of Acre. 
 He failed, as all his predecessors in the Holy Land had failed, 
 because of the hopeless disunion among his supporters. 
 When Knights Hospitallers turned their swords more readily 
 against Knights Templars than against the foe ; when the 
 ally of Otho, Henry, King of Cyprus, was capable of slipping off 
 in the darkness and leaving him to his fate, who should blame 
 the last of the long line of Englishmen who risked their lives 
 in a lost cause when Acre fell ? 
 
 And to-day Englishmen are proud to boast that it was 
 another of their race who once again, more than six centuries 
 after it had passed entirely out of Christian hands, wrested 
 Jerusalem from the Turks and restored it to Christendom. 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 115 
 
 Effect of the Crusades— Yet the Crusades, in spite of 
 their apparent failure, had left an indelible mark on the 
 history of the world. They accomplished the immense task 
 of barring the way of the Turk in Europe, and deferring his 
 entrance thither for a considerable period of time. 
 
 We may, indeed, get some faint idea of what his rule would 
 have done for Europe if we consider the present condition of 
 the subjects of the Sultan in the Balkan Peninsula and compare 
 it with the rest of Europe. A wave of Mohammedanism would 
 have swept the Christian faith into far corners of the Continent, 
 there to exist only under conditions of persecution ; and a 
 religion whose chief tenet was the might of the sword would 
 have been forced upon the Western World. 
 
 In other respects the influence of the Crusades was for good. 
 The movement, to begin with, struck a heavy blow at the 
 Feudal System, a system which left an immense amount of 
 power in the hands of the few, and was a perfect illustration 
 of the motto, " Might is right." But when the feudal noble 
 marched to the Holy Land, he either sold his lands or gave 
 them in charge of Church or King,- to whom they reverted if 
 he and his heirs failed to return. Thus both the Church and 
 the royal authority were strengthened in these years, a fact 
 that told heavily at a time when these two powers were often 
 at variance. 
 
 Another effect was the strengthening of the mediseval 
 towns, then struggling into a difficult existence. The feudal 
 noble had always been the chief hindrance in their path to 
 freedom, since it was to his advantage to claim their inhabitants 
 as his own peculiar vassals and to make their rights his own. 
 But the Crusading nobles, in their need for ready money, were 
 often glad to sell charters of freedom to the towns ; while 
 their absence in distant lands removed all fear of unjust 
 interference with their development. This fact did much to 
 account for the growth of city life, of which we shall read in 
 the following chapter. 
 
 Moreover, when the feudal lord went forth to fight the 
 Saracen, he ceased to be in a state of perpetual warfare with 
 his neighbour ; and thus the constant petty fighting which had 
 
116 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 kept the Europe of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in a 
 state of fidgety unrest began to die down. 
 
 Even more striking is the effect of the constant journeying 
 to and fro, the demand for ships for transport, the opening up 
 of the Mediterranean trade and of the great commercial roads 
 of the East to the merchants of the West. From Cairo and 
 Damascus, from Bagdad and Alexandria, the silks and jewels, 
 the spices and ivory, the perfumes and leather work of the 
 East poured through the gates of Italy into Europe. To 
 Venice, " the southern terminus of the great land trade route," 
 was carried the produce of England, Norway, Flanders, 
 France, and Germany as to a huge market ; and thence 
 distributed throughout the East. And not only commerce 
 was affected by these open roads. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the nations of the West 
 had not long emerged from a condition of barbarism, and 
 were still only very partially civilized. We have only to 
 compare the rude hut of the mediaeval peasant or the primi- 
 tive castle of the noble with the fine houses and marble palaces 
 of the Eastern World to realize how very far ahead was the East 
 in the arts of civilization. When the prince or the baron of 
 the West was stiU a rough boor, mannerless and ill-educated, 
 the Saracen of the East was a learned and cultured gentleman, 
 skilled in medicine and music and in many a science, with all 
 the lore of the ancient world behind him. And since, though 
 they were foes in name, there was always a certain amount 
 of friendly intercourse between the Crusader and the Saracen, 
 the former was bound to be affected to some degree. From 
 the East he learnt the Arabic system of notation, to be used 
 later instead of the clumsy Roman figures. There is, in fact, 
 scarcely any branch of scientific knowledge, from architecture 
 to astronomy, that cannot be traced to the keen and subtle 
 intelligence of the East. 
 
 All this is, however, of trifling concern compared with the 
 great unifying effect upon a Europe whose one great danger, 
 in early mediaeval days, was her lack of centralization, in 
 an age when her various kingdoms were raw and inexperienced 
 in the national idea In religious matters men's eyes turned 
 
EASTERN WORLD IN MIDDLE AGES 117 
 
 instinctively to the Head of Christendom in Rome. In 
 temporal affairs they looked in vain for a Charlemagne or 
 even a WiUiam of Normandy, in days when the Empire of the 
 Angevins, the States of Italy, the kingdom of France, the 
 lands of the German Emperor, were constantly shifting their 
 boundaries and changing their rulers. It was the long 
 struggle with Pope Gregory VII that kept the Emperor 
 Henry IV from joining in the Crusades and turned against 
 him the sympathy of Europe. It was the death of Frederick 
 Barbarossa " leading the van of Christian chivalry against the 
 Mussulman " that sets him apart as the noblest of mediseval 
 knights. For it was during the first three Crusades that, 
 for the first time, the ideal was set up of a great Christian 
 commonwealth in Europe, with one grand unselfish goal 
 before her eyes, for which all her sons and daughters were 
 called upon to make the same supreme sacrifice of wealth and 
 material welfare and hfe. And though in the end this ideal 
 was doomed to fade, it could not be said to have failed in its 
 effect upon the world. If Europe did not become united, 
 she did become cosmopolitan, as far as her faith, her learning, 
 her literature, her art, her commerce were concerned. And 
 on the spiritual side, it was this sense of universal brotherhood 
 that brought into being those two great orders of " ecclesi- 
 astical knighthood," the Dominicans and Franciscans, whose 
 influence upon the mediaeval world was so immense. The 
 Dominican, the "Hound of the Lord," swift on the scent of 
 error and ignorance, the Franciscan, setting up the ideal of 
 " My Lady Poverty " before a materialistic and money- 
 loving Europe, became the chief, if not the only, social workers 
 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the science lecturers 
 at the Universities of Europe, the doctors, the missionaries, 
 the philosophers of those days. From the Dominicans came 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, the most profound of mediaeval philo- 
 sophers; from the Franciscans, Roger Bacon, teacher of 
 science at Oxford. 
 
 This brief account of one of the most remarkable move- 
 ments of world history will help us to judge of the truth of the 
 statement that there existed no civilization in Europe before 
 
118 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the Crusades. Such a dictum takes no account of the legacies 
 of the ancient Empires of Greece and Rome, often forgotten, 
 but never entirely lost, nor of the fact that the Roman Empire, 
 now long dead, was yet strong enough to impose her language, 
 her law, her constitution on almost the whole of the alien 
 races which had supplanted her. 
 
 It ignores also the fact of the existence of flourishing 
 universities at Bologna, at Paris, at Oxford, before the end 
 of the twelfth century, institutions which might have been 
 stimulated by the Crusades, but could scarcely have had 
 their origin in them. But it is true to say that the spirit of 
 the Holy War, apart from the influence of Eastern culture, 
 did an immense amount to stir up a great intellectual revival 
 in Europe during this period, and that, in a universal brother- 
 hood of letters, Europe became, in the highest sense, at one. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Examine the statement, " There was no civilization in 
 Europe before the Crusades." 
 
 2. Trace the growth of Chivalry and explain its effect on 
 mediaeval Europe. 
 
 3. Show by some examples the cosmopolitanism of mediaeval 
 Europe. 
 
 4. Sketch the story of Japan. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LATER MEDIAEVAL WORLD OF EUROPE 
 (a.d. 1200-1500) 
 
 WHEN we study the main features of development, 
 in both East and West, since the Early Middle 
 Ages, we find Europe beginning to be separated 
 into four great sections. There is the East, still 
 under the nominal rule of the Emperor, very slow to move in 
 the way of progress, and still absorbed in the necessity of 
 guarding Europe from the hordes of Asia. There is the 
 North, barely civilized as yet. There is Central Europe, 
 roughly mapped out as " Germany," which, together with 
 Italy, was divided up into a number of small states or 
 principalities, over which, during this period, the parties of 
 the Pope and the Emperor, calling themselves respectively 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines, were always at war. And there 
 is Western Europe, in which, owing to various causes, 
 the idea of the monarchy as a form of government was first 
 to develop. 
 
 The Growth of the " Kingdom "—But although the vast 
 *' shadow-empire " of Charlemagne had fallen to pieces, 
 there was very little idea of " nationalism " in the sense of a 
 kingdom developing on its own lines apart from the rest ; and 
 the note of " cosmopolitan " ideals in religion, education, 
 law, literature, and art still sounded very distinctly long after 
 the boundaries of various ** kingdoms " had been roughly 
 marked out. 
 
 The germ of the " kingdom " was the feudal " county " 
 or state ruled by a despot in the shape of count or baron 
 by means of his vassal army. Often enough the " king " 
 
 developed naturally out of the " glorified baron," as in the 
 
 119 
 
120 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 case of Duke William of Normandy, the future ruler of 
 England. When a baron had raised himself over the heads 
 of his peers by force of personality or weight of arms, his 
 state became " royal," and could be handed on to his 
 descendants. He could, moreover, by securing the allegiance 
 of the smaller feudal barons, make himself strong enough to 
 break up loosely held tracts of territory and to add large 
 portions to his own realm. 
 
 The Making of France — Thus we find Philip Augustus 
 in the early thirteenth century enlarging his tiny kingdom 
 of France, with its little stretch of territory round Paris 
 and Orleans, by breaking up the great Angevin Empire, 
 which stretched, since the days of the English Henry H, 
 from the Tweed to the Pyrenees, and by taking from John of 
 England all his French possessions north of the River Loire. 
 
 This event not only added immensely to the size and 
 strength of the kingdom of France. It also helped in a 
 marked way to awaken the national spirit in England earlier 
 than on the Continent, a spirit due partly, it is true, to her 
 position as an island, but also largely to the fact that, after 
 the separation from the continental Empire of which she 
 had formed but an insignificant part, she was naturally far 
 more inclined to develop upon her own lines. 
 
 Meantime the tiny kingdom of Paris, ringed round by 
 great feudal territories, had grown under Louis IX, the 
 St. Louis of the thirteenth century, into one of the strongest 
 and most solid of European kingdoms. For Louis was no 
 less a practical ruler because he was a saint, and by his firm 
 administration he did much to establish the absolute monarchy 
 in France that was to end only with the Revolution. His 
 reign saw the beginning of a " Parliament " ; and the growth 
 of a " King's Bench," instead of the rough-and-ready procedure 
 of the feudal courts, made Roman law familiar in the land. 
 But the chief blow at the feudalism which was the chief 
 check upon absolute monarchy was struck when his grandson, 
 Philip IV, raised money to support a standing army by direct 
 taxation, and also substituted money payments for military 
 service. 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 121 
 
 Presently we see France emerging from the Hundred 
 Years War of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries strong 
 enough in her victory over her English foe to establish an 
 absolute government to which both nobles and commons 
 had to bow. State officials took the place held by the barons 
 in the England of that day, and the supremacy of the king 
 over all departments of the State was unchallenged. 
 
 The growth of the kingdom of France had been affected 
 very largely by the mixed character of her population, which 
 had joined the enterprise and vivacity of the Celtic Gaul 
 to the stern tenacity of the Roman, and mingled with both 
 the strength and vigour of the Teutonic race as found in the 
 Gothic and Scandinavian invaders. 
 
 Growth of Spain — In Spain, her sister kingdom, we find 
 the same mixture of races. The original Iberians mingled 
 with the first Celtic settlers, and were both permeated with 
 the spirit of Rome. Then came the Teutonic element in 
 the shape of the Visigoths, who founded, it will be remem- 
 bered, a kingdom there in the fifth century; and these 
 were driven out of the greater part of the country by the 
 Moors or Saracens. By the close of the thirteenth century 
 the Moors had been forced southward into the little kingdom 
 of Granada ; and it was the long struggle with the followers 
 of Islam that created a national spirit in Spain and served 
 to build up a Christian kingdom in the land. The exploits 
 of Ruy Diaz, the national hero, known lovingly as the Cid, 
 or Lord, are inextricably woven with this struggle of the 
 Cross against the Crescent, though it is doubtful whether 
 Ruy was anything better than an adventurer, fighting for 
 his own hand. But long after his death his name served to 
 stir up the spirit of patriotism in Spain and to prepare her 
 for the unification that was to come about in the fifteenth 
 century. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with 
 Isabella of Castile in 1479 then combined the two most 
 important States into one kingdom, and their united strength 
 drove out the last remnant of Islam from Granada in 1492 
 after it had ruled there for close upon eight centuries. 
 
 From that time there were few difficulties in the way 
 
122 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of establishing an absolute monarchy in Spain. In France, 
 as we have seen, this form of government was the only 
 alternative in those days to a condition of feudalism, and 
 as such it had an important task to perform. And when, 
 by a royal alliance with the House of Austria, Spain joined 
 hands with Eastern Europe, she was able within a very few 
 years to stand forth as the leading nation of what was to be 
 the Modern World. 
 
 To understand the method of growth and unification of 
 the rest of Europe we must take a sweeping glance at the 
 condition of the Teutonic Empire from the middle of the 
 tenth century to the middle of the fifteenth. 
 
 The Holy Roman Empire — When Otto the Great was 
 crowned Emperor in a.d. 962, national distinctions scarcely 
 existed within the domain which was to be the future Holy 
 Roman Empire. The bond which linked all the various 
 parts together was purely internal, a spiritual rather than a 
 material tie, " resting not on armed hosts or wide lands, 
 but upon the duty, the awe, and love of its subjects." In 
 Germany itself, with its six great tribes always warring 
 against one another, there seemed small sign of unity ; and 
 yet at the Coronation feast of Otto, attended by Franks 
 and Bavarians, Saxons and Suabians, Thuringians and 
 Lorrainers, the underlying link of a common speech and a 
 common pride in their Emperor was there as a symbol of 
 the actual fact. 
 
 By the end of the reign of Otto, Jutland and Denmark 
 were his vassal states, and the Slav tribes of the Eastern 
 borders had submitted to him and were ready to fortify 
 Austria, the " Eastern State," against the invasion of Turks 
 or other Asiatics. Even the nomad people of Hungary 
 were induced by him to settle upon the fertile lands washed 
 by the Danube. Less wide than the Empire of Charles the 
 Great, less Roman and more Teutonic in atmosphere, the 
 Empire of Otto knew a peace and prosperity not experienced 
 hitherto in Europe. To Germany the eyes of the nations 
 now were turned as the heir of the temporal authority once 
 held by Rome, and to her people as the " imperial race." 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 123 
 
 On the other hand, the German tribes, newly civilized as 
 they were, had eagerly imbibed the knowledge and culture 
 of Italy, and were ready in their turn to hand on the torch 
 to such outlying regions as Poland or Bohemia. " If the 
 revived Romano-Germanic Empire was less splendid than 
 the Western Empire had been under Charles, it was, within 
 narrower limits, firmer and more lasting, since based on a 
 social force which the other had wanted. It perpetuated 
 the name, the language, the literature, such as it then was, 
 of Rome ; it extended her spiritual sway ; it strove to re- 
 present that concentration for which men cried, and became 
 a power to unite and civilize Europe."^ 
 
 Meantime, while Otto, as " Lord of the World " north 
 and south of the Alps, was attempting to weld a number 
 of different tribes into a single people, the rest of Europe, 
 torn by the miseries of feudal rule, was rapidly developing 
 a spirit of isolation and diversity. It was this spirit of 
 feudal despotism, aiming as it did at the overthrow of 
 spiritual as well as temporal rule, which lay at the root of 
 the long struggle between Pope and Emperor that marks 
 the next period of Empire. 
 
 From the middle of the eleventh century till the end 
 of the thirteenth, the struggle lasted under various aspects. 
 Whether it turned on the right of " investiture," on the 
 right of election to the imperial throne without consent of 
 the Pope, or the right of freedom for the cities of Italy, 
 matters little. The real issue was as to whether the Pope 
 or the Emperor was to be supreme over the Holy Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 Guelph and GhibeUine — The long struggle had its 
 dramatic crises. At one of these, in the year 1077, we see 
 Henry IV, the deposed ruler of Germany, shivering on the 
 snow-bound slopes below the castle of Canossa, within whose 
 walls is Pope Gregory VII, the one man on earth whose 
 word could win him back his Empire. 
 
 The word of absolution was spoken, but the contrition 
 of the penitent was but skin-deep. Rome was besieged, 
 1 Bryce's Holy Roman Empire. 
 
124 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the Pope had to flee for his life, and eight years later died 
 in exile. 
 
 A century later, the humiliation of the " going to 
 Canossa " was re-enacted when Frederick Barbarossa, 
 haughtiest of Emperors, knelt before Pope Alexander III 
 in the great Cathedral of St. Mark at Venice, and humbly 
 kissed his feet. The Emperor, powerful though he was, 
 had been worsted in his attempt to seize the Italian cities 
 over which the Pope held rule ; and his abandonment of 
 them to the Church from that time was marked by his 
 action on that day. 
 
 At about the same time a struggle of similar character 
 was being waged in England between Henry H and 
 Thomas of Canterbury, and again the Church won the day, 
 though at the cost of the life of the Archbishop. But 
 in Germany the conflict left a deeper bitterness in its wake, 
 and sowed the seed of that great upheaval and revolt in 
 the sixteenth century which was to have its outcome in the 
 schism between Germany and Rome, sometimes known as 
 the German Reformation. 
 
 Again, we find Frederick II, grandson of the founder of 
 the Hohenstaufen dynasty, engaged in the same struggle. 
 But now the bone of contention is Sicily, or rather the kingdom 
 of Sicily and Naples, known as the " two Sicilies." Founded 
 by Norman adventurers just before the days in which their 
 cousins conquered England, this dynasty had been, until the 
 year 1189, not only independent of the Empire, but the latter 's 
 most dangerous enemy. It fell into the hands of Henry VI, 
 the successor of Barbarossa by a marriage with Constance, the 
 last of the line of Norman princes ; and since the way to this 
 important State was barred to him at the Pope's will by the 
 possession of Central Italy, it was the aim of Frederick to 
 unite Naples and Sicily under his rule. 
 
 But the Popes claimed that the " two Sicilies " had been 
 held by the Normans as fiefs of the Holy See ; for it was of 
 extreme importance to them that the Papal States should not 
 be at the mercy of the two possibly hostile States of North 
 and South Italy, between which they lay. Out of this arose a 
 
THE LATER MEDIAEVAL WORLD 125 
 
 tremendous conflict between the Papacy and one of the most 
 striking figures of Mediaeval Europe. For Frederick II was to 
 be " the last Emperor to brave the terrors of the Church and 
 to die beneath her ban ; the last who ruled from the sands of 
 the ocean to the Sicilian Sea." 
 
 The House of Hapsburg — With the death of his son in 
 1254 the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and with it the Empire of 
 Germany, fell. For the preoccupation of the Emperors with 
 affairs in Italy had prevented them from holding in check the 
 German princes, and, in the hands of petty nobles, the land 
 was flooded with anarchy and disorder. For nineteen years 
 after the last of the Hohenstaufens died, Germany had no ruler. 
 It was only after the threat of the Pope that if the petty princes 
 did not choose their ruler he would himself appoint one, that 
 they elected Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg, founder of the House 
 of Austria, as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And this 
 title was held by the rulers of Austria until the year 1806, when 
 Francis II, heir to the " oldest political institution in the 
 world," announced his resignation of the imperial crown. 
 
 Yet Rudolf and his successors ruled as local rather than 
 universal monarchs. In the other States of Europe during this 
 period we have seen the growing power of the king and the 
 centralization in him of the government. But in Germany 
 it was exactly the opposite. The idea of union, of central- 
 ization, had weakened, and the whole country now broke up 
 into a number of small feudal States ruled by their own local 
 princes. Not till the year 1871 were they to be united into 
 a new German Empire, brought to a sudden end as a result 
 of the Great War of 1914-1918. 
 
 So the second of the great Teutonic Empires, being no 
 longer a necessary part of the world's order, passed away in 
 all but name. 
 
 During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we find large 
 slices of that Empire broken completely away. Burgundy, so 
 useful as a barrier to France, passed over to the latter State ; 
 Switzerland revolted against the Austrian oppression and 
 became independent ; and after the fifteenth century almost 
 the last trace of Teutonic rule in Italy had passed away. 
 
126 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Poland, once a tributary state, had become independent, and 
 was even strong enough to snatch Prussia from those bands 
 of " Teutonic Knights " who had enriched that district with 
 wealthy merchant cities. The Hungarians had thrown off the 
 German yoke, and Bohemia, too, was practically independent. 
 Not till the year 1493, when Maximilian of Hapsburg united 
 in his person, and through his marriage, many of these 
 scattered territories, did a faint reflection of the former glory of 
 the Empire rise ; and even then it was the glory of the Austrian 
 monarchy rather than that of the hollow title of ruler of the 
 Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 The Awakening of Mediseval Europe — ^During the thirteenth 
 century the University of Paris became the most famous seat 
 of learning in Europe. Over five thousand students thronged 
 its lecture rooms, where many men afterwards famous, such as 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, were among the youths crowded round 
 the " chair " of Albertus Magnus and other great teachers, who 
 lectured to the students scattered over the rush-strewn floors. 
 Many of these students were penniless boys, dependent upon the 
 alms of the generous lovers of learning. There were no resi- 
 dential colleges, but a number of hostels in which the students 
 lived in the roughest possible way, content with the plainest 
 and scantiest fare as long as they were free to study the seven 
 liberal arts — grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, 
 astronomy, and music — and later on the more advanced 
 courses in theology, law, or medicine. No doubt the influence 
 of the Crusaders, with their revelation of the learning of the 
 East, did much to stimulate this mediseval desire for learning ; 
 but this enthusiasm for study was due also to the new social 
 conditions then coming into being. The intellectual awaken- 
 ing of Europe as a whole, the outburst of romantic literature, 
 especially in France, the revival to some extent of the ancient 
 classic literature that had been forgotten, save in Byzantium, 
 for more than eight centuries, led to an outburst of speculative 
 thought and philosophy of which the University of Paris was 
 the centre and Thomas of Aquin, with his revival of the 
 study of Aristotle, the chief exponent. 
 
 Again, we must realize that a new social feeling was grow- 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 127 
 
 ing up in a Europe that had, from the eleventh century onward, 
 been finding its feet after centuries of anarchy and disorder. 
 The man of letters, instead of being regarded as an inexpli 
 cable personality, was everywhere in demand ; and for this 
 reason, among others, men turned to the universities as a 
 training-ground for professional life, for preparation for public 
 service of all kinds as well as for the priesthood. 
 
 Thus the seed sown by Charlemagne and Alcuin in their 
 School of Tours was reaped in a rich harvest some four cen- 
 turies later. 
 
 The Origin of Towns— Not only in the universities but 
 in the growth of towns do we see the awakening of Mediaeval 
 Europe, and that most clearly, perhaps, in France, though the 
 movement was hurrying on apace under somewhat different 
 conditions in the England of those days. 
 
 The growth of towns had been slow in France owing to the 
 feudal disruptions and unrest, which prevented any kind of 
 commerce, trade, or industry, and limited the population 
 strictly to agricultural work. With the making of roads and 
 waterways the wandering merchant and pedlar made their 
 appearance. By degrees these settled down on the outskirts 
 of a settlem^ent, such as that of Verdun, where the citoyens, 
 bound strictly by their mediaeval Gild rules, excluded strictly 
 those bourgeois, who were self-contained trading companies on 
 much freer lines. Thus trade was encouraged and a certain 
 amount of competition set on foot. The high watch-tower or 
 belfry seen in so many of the mediaeval towns of modern 
 France and Belgium was in most cases the sign of freedom 
 for these settlements, or "bourgs," whose members " enjoyed 
 the peace of the town and market " and gradually obtained a 
 state of equality with the citizens within the city wall. 
 
 The legal and economic rights of these communes were, 
 however, hardly won. At first they were under the ban of 
 the Church, which looked with suspicion on their demands 
 for freedom from ecclesiastical rule ; later on they suffered 
 from the effects of their own exclusiveness. For when they, 
 in their turn, refused admission to new settlers, they lost 
 the obvious advantage of fresh ideas in commerce and new 
 
128 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 methods of trade. Most of all they suffered from the effects 
 of the long Hundred Years War, during the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, which forced them to give up their rights 
 to king or bishop in order to gain protection for hfe and 
 property. 
 
 In spite of these conditions, however, the whole of Europe, 
 from the eleventh century onwards, was to witness a great 
 revival in the growth of the city hfe that had been destroyed 
 by barbarian invasion and feudal conditions. 
 
 The increase of trade and commerce, the rise of the market 
 and fair, the practice of paying in money in place of goods 
 or service, aU tended to the rise of cities ; and, as civiUzation 
 increased, the city system became the open rival of feudalism 
 and the means whereby the provinces, the backbone of 
 Europe, won back their freedom. 
 
 Sometimes, as in England, France, and Spain, the cities 
 gained a charter of liberties from the king, but were still com- 
 pletely under his government. In Germany, owing to her 
 condition of anarchy, many cities became entirely independ- 
 ent, developing into repubUcs like Athens or Corinth in the 
 days of Greece, with complete freedom from anything hke 
 slavery or serfdom, and inhabited by a new class of " bur- 
 gesses," or independent tradesmen. 
 
 This class appeared at about the same period (the eleventh 
 century) in most parts of Europe. It was among its 
 members that there grew up the Gild System. The Gild of 
 the Merchants regulated the trade of the town and prevented 
 strangers from buying or selling there, except by permission 
 of the community and under its conditions. It protected also 
 the interests of members, examined the quaUty of their work, 
 tested weights and measures, and lent money to the town. 
 Sometimes the gildsmen built churches, repaired roads and 
 bridges, or maintained a ** free " school. 
 
 The Craft Gilds were bodies of workmen banded together 
 for mutual protection according to their crafts. But, besides 
 keeping up their own standard of work, regulating their em- 
 ployment of apprentices, and " enforcing brotherly behaviour 
 and charity," they did most useful work in caring for the 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 129 
 
 sick, relieving the wants of the needy, and maintaining the 
 particular church to which their own Gild was attached. 
 Their story is full of interest, but it cannot be told here, though 
 the important part they played in mediseval life demands 
 their mention. 
 
 Italian Cities — In Northern Italy, as we have seen, the 
 struggle for freedom against German rule had resulted, before 
 the fourteenth century, in the division of the country into a 
 number of independent states, ruled for the most part by a 
 local prince or noble after the fashion of a despot. 
 
 This was the case with Milan, with Genoa, with Florence. 
 But while these three were all noted for their commercial 
 importance, Florence had, by the fifteenth century, won a 
 reputation for learning, art, and literature that made her the 
 most renowned city of Europe. 
 
 From all these cities Venice stood apart. Ruler of the 
 Adriatic, the only important Italian town that did not date 
 from Roman times, the trading centre and clearing station 
 for the commerce of East and West, she was governed by a 
 Doge elected by the popular vote, and by an oligarchy of her 
 most capable citizens, who succeeded in making her in very 
 truth the " Eye of Italy." By the end of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury Venice ruled an empire that covered a large slice of 
 Northern Italy and the whole of the eastern coast of the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 Cities of Flanders — Lastly, we must notice the wealthy 
 cities of Flanders, then an independent district of mingled 
 French and Teutonic origin. Her cities, lying as they did 
 upon the mainland route to the South, and also forming con- 
 venient halting-places for merchants traveUing by sea from 
 the Mediterranean to the Baltic, had immense advantages of 
 position apart from her vast trade in the wool manufacture 
 of the whole world. At Bruges the merchants of Venice, with 
 the commerce of Southern Europe and Western Asia in their 
 hands, met the merchants of the Hanse towns of Northern 
 Europe. At Ghent and Ypres and Antwerp and Louvain 
 the riches amassed by the prosperous burghers went to build 
 some of the most perfect architecture the world has known. 
 9 
 
180 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Only the bitter trade rivalry that existed between 
 these strong and independent cities prevented Flanders, 
 small as she was, from ranking with Northern Italy, with 
 Prussia, or with England in importance. Weakened by 
 disunion, she was annexed by France during the fourteenth 
 century, and became part of the kingdom of Belgium in the 
 first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Trace the origin of the " kingdom " in Mediaeval Europe. 
 
 2. What was the effect of Feudalism {a) on country, (h) on 
 city life ? 
 
 3. Sketch the growth of any one European kingdom. 
 
 4. Explain the meaning of the title " Holy Roman Empire." 
 
 5. Write a brief essay on {a) mediaeval universities or (b) the 
 " free cities " of Europe. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD OF ASIA 
 
 (a.d. 1200-1500) 
 
 THE Crusades, the greatest of mediaeval movements, 
 had made vain attempts to force the ideals and 
 civiHzation of the West upon the alien people of the 
 East. And now, at the dawn of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, there was already growing up in Asia a new Empire, 
 which was to form the most serious menace to civilization 
 that the West had known since the days of the first Teutonic 
 invasions. 
 
 The Mongolian Empire o£ Genghis Khan— The Mongols, 
 under which name are included aU the peoples known 
 as the Yellow Races, were originally barbarian nomads, 
 wandering on the steppes of Central Asia. Content in 
 early days to war against each other on some pretext 
 of stolen wives or cattle, they were, in the early years of the 
 thirteenth century, united and organized by a master spirit 
 known as Genghis Khan — the " Very Mighty King." He 
 is said to have been a boy of twelve when he faced his own 
 revolting tribes, and showed himself even then the perfect 
 warrior whom they gladly hailed as their leader. His first 
 organized attack was upon the Great Wall which had for so 
 many centuries shut off China from Western Asia. Behind 
 this wall the huge unwieldy Chinese Empire still lay drowsing 
 as in the days of the Ancient World. But now it received 
 a rude awakening when the discovery was made that the 
 northern part of her vast Empire had been overrun by the 
 new-comers. Scarcely was this complete when Genghis 
 Khan turned his sword against Turkestan and Persia. His 
 
 destructive aim was open and unashamed. All those fine 
 
 131 
 
182 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 territories and well-built towns were to be destroyed, and 
 only to those who promptly submitted would mercy be 
 shown. Poets and scholars, heirs of the ancient civiHzation 
 of Persia and the East, fled from the land, the intellectual 
 life of Persia died away, and her rose-gardens became 
 pasture-lands for the herds of the nomads who were her 
 conquerors. 
 
 With these there perished a pernicious sect of Turks 
 known as the Ismailians, the " Scourges of Asia," who for 
 many years, under a false pretence of being followers of Islam, 
 had harassed the orthodox Mohammedans with fire and 
 sword. This sect was now massacred by the Mongols in 
 cold blood. It was, however, easier to draw than to sheathe 
 the sword ; and before the onrush of the barbarians fine 
 Eastern cities, such as Bokhara and Samarkand, famous 
 trade centres and treasure houses of Eastern culture, were 
 destroyed. Then the invaders swept farther West, crushing 
 the Russian principalities in their stride, until in 1227, at 
 the death of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire stretched 
 from the River Dnieper to the Yellow Sea. 
 
 Under the successors of the " Mighty King " that Empire 
 was extended till it embraced Russia, Asia Minor, Poland, 
 and Hungary on the West, and Tibet and Korea on the East. 
 The grandson of its founder, Kubla Khan, made himself 
 Emperor of China, and built for himself a famous palace in 
 the city now known as Pekin. 
 
 Reign of Tamerlaine (1369-1405) — The second part of the 
 fourteenth century, nearly two centuries after the death of 
 Genghis Khan, saw a revival of the Empire under Timur or 
 Tamerlaine. During this period the vast Empire had broken 
 up into many principalities ; but under this soldier of fortune, 
 Timur the Lame, it was to some extent reunited. As " Lord 
 of the World" he carried a sword of flame throughout 
 Central Asia, marched across the river Ganges and conquered 
 Northern India, then turned West to lay Asia Minor in ruins, 
 to demand the overlordship of Egypt, to wipe out the 
 remnants of the Seljukian Turks, and seriously to threaten 
 Europe. 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 133 
 
 The ambition of Timur was unbounded, but his death in 
 1405 prevented him from fulfilling his project of conquering 
 China; so that all he actually did was to unite the three 
 great western portions of the Mongolian Empire— Northern 
 India, Central Asia, and Asia Minor. With him " the age 
 of the great nomad Empires " definitely closed. 
 
 What had been the effect of this Empire upon the progress 
 of the world ? If we look for it upon our frieze of history 
 we shall see it symboHzed best in that vast pyramid of 
 seventy thousand skulls built to show the result of Timur's 
 conquests in Western Asia. A savage joy in destruction 
 was the characteristic of the Mongol, and, when the wave 
 of his conquests had passed, civiHzation for the time seemed 
 to have been washed away. 
 
 There is another side to the picture. " The storm did 
 not only wreak destruction ; it purified the atmosphere." 
 
 Many of those ancient cities of Persia, so ruthlessly 
 destroyed, had deteriorated into hotbeds of luxury and 
 vice, and nothing but annihilation would have cleansed 
 them. Moreover, where submission was offered, as in China, 
 the Mongol would settle down and rapidly become stamped, 
 at anyrate on the surface, with the civilization of the 
 conquered race. By his vast and far-reaching conquests 
 he opened up nearly every part of Asia, so that all races 
 could communicate with each other. Thus uncivilized 
 races could benefit by the experience of those who had never 
 lost the civilization of the Ancient World. 
 
 Even the gates of exclusive China were opened during 
 this century and a half of Mongol rule, and for a while a 
 not unimportant trade was carried on between China and 
 Europe. At Karakorum, the Chinese capital of the Mongol 
 Empire, there met together Chinese artisans, merchants 
 from Persia and Arabia, Jesuit missionaries from Portugal 
 and Italy, gold workers from France, Arabs and Buddhist 
 priests. For the first time for centuries China was roused 
 from her drowsy slumber and began to be interested 
 in the astronomy and mathematics of Persia and the 
 West. 
 
134 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 But, while the Mongol invasion thus scattered the remnants 
 of ancient civihzation far and wide, it at the same time 
 destroyed it at its source, reducing the once most highly 
 cultured region in the world to a desert waste. 
 
 So, when Timur, after his stormy life, had been laid to 
 rest under the huge mosque of Samarkand, his vast Empire 
 crumbled into dust. China reverted to her old position of 
 hostile aloofness, and drove the foreigner from her land. 
 Western Asia became the home of rival hordes which preyed 
 on one another to their destruction. One of these, however, 
 had managed, during the fourteenth century, to make itself 
 famous as the Ottoman Turks, the followers of Othman, who 
 was to found the Ottoman Empire. With their story 
 is bound up that great event which marks off the Modem 
 from the Mediaeval World — ^the Fall of Constantinople. 
 Let us briefly see the happening of it. 
 
 The FaU of the Empire o£ the East (1333-1453)— The 
 Eastern Empire of Rome, threatened but not actually 
 invaded by the dreaded Moguls, had by the year 1333 lost 
 all her possessions in Asia Minor, except the town of 
 Chalcedon and the strip of land that faced Constantinople 
 across the Bosphorus. Those who now held the lost domains 
 were these Ottoman Turks just mentioned, whose leader, 
 Othman, had managed before his death to push the newly 
 revived Turkish Empire as far west as the Sea of Marmora. 
 Their rule over Asia Minor was firm and just enough, but 
 one grim feature was the employment of young boys, levied 
 each year as tribute from the Christians, to be trained as 
 " Janissaries " or " New Soldiers " of the Turkish army, 
 to fight against Christian lands. 
 
 As the years went by, the Ottomans crept nearer and 
 nearer to the heart of the Eastern Empire ; and then a sinister 
 event occurred for their encouragement. About the middle 
 of the fourteenth century there was civil strife in the capital, 
 and one party actually called in the aid of the Turks and 
 allowed them to overrun the Greek province of Thrace. A 
 few years later Adrianople submitted to their Sultan, and 
 nothing remained of the Empire of the East save Constan- 
 
THE LATER MEDIiEVAL WORLD 135 
 
 tinople, the town of Thessalonica, and the Byzantine province 
 of the Peloponnesus. 
 
 For the next hundred and fifty years the Ottomans were 
 hindered from the invasion of Europe only by the determined 
 barriers set up by the Serbians and Bulgarians, and in 
 later years by the distraction caused by the conquests of 
 Timur the Mongol, then pressing hard upon their rear. At 
 the very hour when Bajazet, the Turkish Sultan, was attacking 
 Constantinople, Timur and his Tartar hordes fell upon him 
 like a thunderbolt, took him prisoner, and demanded tribute 
 after his death, in impartial wise, from his two sons and also 
 from Manuel, the Emperor of Constantinople. 
 
 Amurath — A later Sultan, Amurath by name, was to 
 build up a stronger Empire for the Ottomans, untroubled 
 by Mongol threats ; and in his day great prosperity came 
 upon his land. " He was a just and valiant prince," says 
 one of his own people, " of a great soul, patient of labours, 
 learned, reHgious, merciful, charitable ; a lover and encourager 
 of the studious and of all who excelled in any art or science ; 
 a good Emperor and a great general. No man obtained more 
 or greater victories than Amurath. Under his reign the 
 soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and secure. If he 
 subdued any country, his first care was to build mosques 
 and caravanserais, hospitals and colleges." 
 
 But while he was thus strengthening his Empire the 
 doomed city of Constantinople was further weakened by 
 internal strife. Hoping to get aid from Rome, the Emperor, 
 John Palaeologus, consented to acknowledge the supremacy 
 of the Pope. But the majority of his people utterly refused 
 to accept the terms of this agreement, and John was left in 
 terrified expectation, while a brave King of Poland and 
 Hungary tried vainly to stem the tide of invasion. John was 
 succeeded by his brother Constantine, bearer of the honoured 
 name of the founder of the city, but destined to be its last 
 Christian ruler. This poor-spirited prince was as content 
 as his predecessors to be the vassal of Mohammed the Con- 
 queror, son of the great Amurath ; but this fact by no means 
 satisfied the ambition of the Sultan. On the excuse that 
 
136 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 some Greek soldiers had attacked the Turks, who, in order to 
 build a fortress, were pulling down a beautiful old church 
 outside the city, Mohammed declared war, and in the spring 
 of 1453 the Siege of Constantinople was begun. 
 
 In this siege Mohammed made use of that gunpowder 
 whose use was to be one of the distinctive features of the new 
 world ; and under the shock of his guns the old walls of the 
 city shuddered and fell. For forty days Constantinople was 
 held by a prince to whom despair had at last lent courage ; 
 but on 29 May 1453 the end came. A special effort had been 
 urged by the Sultan. " The city and buildings," he said to 
 his soldiers, " are mine, but I resign to you the captives 
 and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich 
 and happy. Many are the provinces of my Empire ; the 
 soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall 
 be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most 
 wealthy." 
 
 The answer shook the crumbling walls : 
 
 " Allah is great ! There is no god but Allah, and 
 Mohammed is his Prophet." 
 
 In that cry passed away for ever the glory of the Empire 
 of the East. The shout re-echoed again when the Sultan, 
 trampUng the body of the last Emperor underfoot, rode to the 
 great Church of St. Sophia, and passed on his magnificent 
 war-horse through the Eastern door and up to the very altar 
 itself. 
 
 The rule of the Crescent had displaced that of the Cross, 
 and from that time the Turks have held sway in Eastern 
 Europe, though to-day they have little left there but the 
 capital. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. What was the legacy to the History of the World left by 
 the great nomad Empires of mediaeval days ? 
 
 2. Explain the importance in history of the Fall of Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 3. Consider the importance of the geographical position of 
 Constantinople, and give a brief sketch of the story of this city 
 up to the present day. 
 
THE LATER MEDIEVAL WORLD 
 
 137 
 
 BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 Section II 
 
 SOUTTAR 
 
 Helmolt . 
 Cunningham . 
 
 Hallam 
 Ameer Ali 
 Robinson, J. H. 
 
 Myers 
 
 Emerton . 
 
 Lavisse et Rambaud 
 
 Bryce 
 
 History of MedicBval Peoples, 
 
 Universal History. 
 
 Essay on Western Civilisation in its 
 
 Economic Aspects. 
 History of the Middle Ages. 
 Short History of the Saracens. 
 Introduction to the History of Western 
 
 Europe. 
 MedicBval and Modern History 
 Middle Ages. 
 Medicsval Europe. 
 Histoire Generate. 
 Holy Roman Empire. 
 
SECTION III 
 THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 
 
 WE come now in our World Story to the threshold 
 of the Modern World, the characteristics of which 
 can be seen best by considering the most distinctive 
 points of the history of Europe during the two 
 centuries that followed the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. 
 
 Two main features mark off the Modern from the Ancient 
 World. 
 
 (i) Rise of " Nationality " — The first of these is the 
 development of the notion of " Nationality " in place of 
 the mediaeval ideal of a kind of European Commonwealth, 
 with one system of law for every kingdom, and close family 
 ties and interests for all countries alike. This ideal was 
 now to be abandoned, and in its place arose a system of 
 Competition between nations — a system that has been called 
 " the starting-point of modern history." 
 
 When competition entered into the scheme of things, it 
 followed that each country became absorbed in its own 
 particular struggle to be first in the race ; and this had two 
 important results. The strength of each nation depends 
 on the force of each individual member of that nation ; hence 
 the growth of " national feeling " implied a very much fuller 
 recognition of the rights and personality of the citizen. It 
 followed that when the citizen became conscious of his in- 
 creased importance, he began to criticize the State which had 
 
 138 
 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 139 
 
 hitherto kept him in order, and to assert his freedom to take a 
 hand in its management. 
 
 (ii) Expansion — ^The second distinction that marks off 
 the Modern from the Mediaeval World is the sudden and vast 
 expansion of European life that took place after the discovery 
 of the New World. The growth of sea power, a complete 
 revolution of trade and economic life, colonization — all 
 followed as a consequence of this wider view of the world ; 
 and with these there came a striking increase of energy, 
 mental and physical, in almost every department of life. 
 
 The Renaissance — On the mental side we see this new 
 energy expressing itself in the Renaissance Movement, a 
 name originally given to the awakened interest in the litera- 
 ture of Ancient Greece and Rome, which was the legacy of the 
 Greek scholars of Constantinople when they were dispersed, 
 with their priceless scripts, throughout Western Europe. But 
 the Renaissance soon grew to mean more than this. It 
 meant the awakening of men's minds to a wider mental 
 grasp. The Middle Ages had seen great deeds accomplished, 
 heroic struggles, vast reforms, and the steady progress of 
 intellectual thought. There is little doubt, indeed, that the 
 progress of civilization advanced far more quickly during 
 the five centuries that preceded than in the five that followed 
 the Fall of the Empire of the East. To those earlier years 
 we owe the development of Europe from a state of barbarism 
 to civilization, the organization of her various nationalities, 
 an ideal of internationalism that kept these nations, when yet 
 weak, from rending each other to pieces. We owe to them 
 also the ideal of Chivalry, the greatest check upon the evils 
 of feudalism, and a rapid and valuable development of art, 
 architecture, commerce, and law. But after the thirteenth 
 century we notice that the advantages of law and order had 
 been very generally accepted, and daily life had ceased to be 
 a wild-beast struggle for existence. In spite of more or less 
 incessant wars, the comparative safety in which men lived, 
 and their limited view of the outside world, might have led 
 to a dangerous stage of complacency and sluggish acceptance 
 of things as they were. The necessary impetus to further 
 
140 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 progress came at the end of the fifteenth century under the 
 name of this Renaissance, a New Spirit that was to show 
 itself under many different forms. Roughly speaking, the 
 Renaissance Movement came as a new interest in Ufe, a new 
 energy, a desire for novelty, a craving after original thought 
 and expression, a wish to experiment and then to wrest from 
 Nature her hidden secrets. 
 
 We see the effect of such a spirit in every phase of activity. 
 In literature it produced a Shakespeare, a Cervantes ; in 
 politics, a Machiavelli ; in philosophy, a Francis Bacon ; in 
 science, a Kepler and a Galileo. In art it gave us the " Monna 
 Lisa " of Leonardo da Vinci, the " Sistine Madonna " of 
 Raphael, the music of Palestrina and Tavemer. In archi- 
 tecture it evolved the glorious palaces and churches of 
 Florence and Venice, and the domed roof of St. Peter's in 
 Rome. In education it replaced the cut-and-dried subjects of 
 the " trivium " and " quadrivium " by the study of classical 
 literature and of language as a living instrument instead of a 
 dead tongue. 
 
 Effect upon Daily Life — The chief characteristic of this 
 New Spirit that we shall study briefly here is its effect upon 
 the daily life of Europe. 
 
 We have already seen that the general result of the age of 
 geographical discovery, following upon a long period of conflict 
 and unrest, was to open up to Europe a wide range of com- 
 munication with other parts of the world. This possession of 
 new trade routes was bound to affect very closely the com- 
 mercial and economic life of the continent. 
 
 A century earlier European merchants had been to some 
 extent restricted in enterprise. The Mohammedan conquests 
 had hemmed them in, so that they could not penetrate south 
 or east, nor estabUsh a permanent trade except in the Medi- 
 terranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic, the North Sea, and the 
 Eastern Atlantic. Even there they found their hands tied 
 by regulations such as those that confined the trade of the 
 Adriatic to Venice, and that of the Baltic to the merchants of 
 the Hanse towns. It was the discovery of the com.pass that 
 encouraged mariners to extend their voyages beyond the 
 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 141 
 
 coastal routes, and the knowledge of the existence of a New 
 World that opened up both East and West to a vast field of 
 new enterprise in colonization and trade. This gives us the 
 first reason, not only for the increase of commerce in the 
 sixteenth century, but also for the need of reconstruction in 
 social life that such an increase implied. 
 
 To begin with, we find a striking change taking place in 
 some of the finest cities of Europe, cities which in mediaeval 
 days had been the commercial centres of the restricted trade 
 of that day. 
 
 In those times the " city state *' had been the centre of 
 commercial Hfe and interest. Commerce was regulated by 
 the city magnates ; each town or group of towns was respon- 
 sible for its own food supply ; each kind of manufacture was 
 pretty closely confined to its own particular centre. Thus, in 
 Italy, if you wanted cloth, you went to Florence ; or, if arms, 
 to Genoa ; or, if glass and silk goods, to Venice. " Foreigners," 
 which term included not only aliens, but also all artisans who 
 were not " burgesses " or merchants, were excluded. The 
 result was to limit the interest of the citizen to his own 
 particular town ; for the prosperity of the country as a 
 whole he cared very little. 
 
 On city ports, such as Stettin, which had practically com- 
 manded the Baltic trade, the opening up of the new trade 
 routes had therefore a crushing effect. Left almost derelict 
 by those who were once bound to her by strict trade regula- 
 tions, she, and all other cities which depended purely on 
 commerce for their existence, fell into decay. In contrast 
 to her fate stands Antwerp, one of the first cities to throw 
 open her gates freely to merchant adventurers of every race. 
 Already, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Antwerp had 
 attracted the trade of Bruges, once the great commercial 
 centre of Northern Europe, by admitting traders without 
 restrictions. Now, in the sixteenth century, she welcomed the 
 merchants of Spain, the capitahsts of Germany, and developed 
 a great "bank," or money market, where capital could be 
 borrowed by the adventurer. Thus, by her readiness to adapt 
 herself to new conditions, she became the leading city of 
 
142 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Europe, till she was destroyed by Spanish oppression in 1576. 
 And the result of this spirit of enterprise on her part was to 
 make Holland during this period the " carrying nation " of 
 the world, doing the business of Europe in north and south, 
 east and west. 
 
 Rise of Capitalism — The mention of capitalists brings us 
 to another cause of the social revolution of this period. In 
 mediaeval days the moneylender or usurer — usually a Jew 
 or a Lombard — was looked at askance. We see the public 
 opinion even of Shakespeare's day represented in his treat- 
 ment of Shylock, and the injustice meted out to the Jews 
 by every nation was notorious. As a matter of fact, these 
 mediaeval moneylenders lent their money chiefly to the State 
 for the payment of mercenaries, a quite unproductive method 
 of employing capital. In the early days of the Modem 
 World new ways of employing capital had been discovered. 
 The organization of the mining capacities of the New W^orld, 
 the new lines of trade, all required capital, as much as the 
 merchant adventurer when he fitted out his fleet for eastern 
 waters. Thus in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 " capitahst " became a man of great importance, and power 
 passed from the man of war to the man of wealth. 
 
 One effect of this change in economic conditions was to 
 put the new capitalist — ^the moneyed man — ^in the place of 
 the old gilds, which had done such excellent work in the 
 past. But the mediaeval policy which had kept the trading 
 bodies separate, and prevented them from interfering with or 
 rivalling one another, now had to give way to one that was 
 prepared to develop trade on the latest lines, to plant new 
 industries, to consider the interests of the State as a whole. 
 
 Agriculture — In the country districts we find much the 
 same principle at work, though its effects upon the peasant 
 population were not felt till much later. In mediaeval days 
 the peasant was attached to his master's estate, and was 
 forbidden to move from place to place. Not only was the 
 peasant attached thus to the estate of his " lord," but whole 
 tracts of land were appropriated by a particular city state 
 as its " market." Lower Italy, for example, was the source 
 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 143 
 
 whence Venice obtained her com and eggs, and where she 
 controlled all agricultural produce ; while towns in that very 
 district had to buy their food in Venice. 
 
 It was the influence of a great Italian thinker, Machiavelli, 
 which swept away such restrictions as these, and substituted 
 " common action " and the " welfare of the State " for the 
 narrower interests of the town or gild. 
 
 One effect of mediaeval days on the agricultural population 
 was to be seen for many a day, even in the Modern World. 
 Constantly recurring plague, owing to the want of sanitary 
 knowledge, combined with long years of war, had lessened the 
 number of workers and destroyed vast tracts of once fertile 
 land.. Only in those countries where the ruler realized the 
 importance of encouraging the food producers were the founda- 
 tions of future prosperity truly laid ; and in the race for 
 wealth in the early days of the Modem World this was too 
 often forgotten. 
 
 On the whole, however, the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries saw a definite breaking down of the barriers between 
 the townsman and the countryman, and an increase of common 
 intercourse for a mutual benefit that was, in the end, to the 
 great advantage of the State. 
 
 We have seen already that this idea of the development 
 of the State or Nation, as a whole, and the suppression of 
 private and local interests, which was the policy of Machia- 
 veUi, came to be one of the leading characteristics of this 
 period. 
 
 Let us see, very briefly, how it worked in the case of three 
 countries of Europe — Spain, France, and England. 
 
 Spain (1492-1600) — ^The extraordinary good fortune of 
 Spain in becoming the patron of Christopher Columbus, after 
 Genoa, his own city state, and England had both rejected him, 
 at once placed her easily first among European nations owing 
 to the discovery of the New World. 
 
 After 1492 the gold of the West Indies, after 1522 the silver 
 of Mexico, and eleven years later the silver of Peru, poured 
 into her coffers and gave her the wealth for which aU Europe 
 was craving in the race for " reconstruction." At her disposal. 
 
144 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 moreover, were the great German and Genoese capitalists who 
 were to organize the vast enterprise of mining and industry 
 which followed the discovery of the mines of precious metal 
 in America. 
 
 But all this activity and these new outlets across the seas 
 meant a heavy demand for increased food supply and manu- 
 factures at home. Prices rose rapidly, and there was every 
 chance of an equally rapid industrial development among a 
 people newly roused by the removal of Moorish oppression 
 and the wide outlook in America. But this golden oppor- 
 tunity was lost by the shortsighted poUcy of the Spanish 
 rulers. Instead of using their stores of wealth to encourage 
 agriculture and industry, and to improve the condition of 
 the nation, they followed too literally the policy of Machia- 
 velli by hoarding their treasures in the coffers of the State 
 and so becoming wealthy in name, but not in fact. 
 
 Alarmed by the perfectly natural rise in prices that 
 followed the increased demand, the Spanish " Grandees, '* 
 always too ready to deride the trader and the merchant ad- 
 venturer, pressed the Government to put every possible 
 obstacle in the way of the capitahst, and to withdraw from 
 the country the French and Italian artisans who were the 
 backbone of industry. The wealth of the country was not 
 permitted to affect industrial and agricultural Ufe, and as a 
 consequence, within a century, Spain had not only failed to 
 obtain the world supremacy at which she aimed, but was so 
 exhausted that she had fallen hopelessly behind in the com- 
 petition of the nations. 
 
 By a curious nemesis, HoUand, her rebel province, 
 freed from her rigid rule, became the harbour of exiled subjects 
 from the Spanish Netherlands, and the centre of the trade and 
 commerce that might well have been hers. Thus "Spain 
 failed to derive real advantage from the much vaunted 
 American possessions, and the gains which might have en- 
 riched the peninsula went to her bitterest enemies." ^ 
 
 France (1590-1650) — In striking comparison stands the 
 policy of France, in the days of Henry IV and in the period that 
 ^ Cunningham, Camb. Mod. Hist., vol. i. 
 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 145 
 
 followed his reign. Henry found a country full of possibilities, 
 and himself with a large royal income drawn from taxation ; but 
 the land had been devastated by the long " Huguenot Wars/' 
 and was in the hands of feudal nobles, possessing almost 
 unlimited power over the population of their huge and isolated 
 estates. 
 
 He, with the aid of Tully, his minister, at once determined 
 to aim at consolidating the nation, and at establishing the 
 prosperity of the entire country. This was done in various 
 ways. New industries, such as silk, glass, and fine pottery, 
 were encouraged and supported by the State. New water- 
 ways, canals, and bridges connected up the isolated feudal 
 estates and cities ; and the national resources were developed, 
 if necessary, by the aid of royal capital. 
 
 In agricultural districts, even the royal power and purse 
 could not do much against the sheer weight of the feudal 
 nobles ; but on the king's estates an example of enterprise was 
 set that had some results, though it was slow enough in taking 
 effect. Thus in these days were laid the firm foundations 
 of the greatness of France in the seventeenth century, her 
 Golden Age. 
 
 There was, however, one drawback to this apparent success. 
 When the national prosperity depended so closely on the 
 royal purse and supervision, free enterprise dwindled and 
 initiative failed. It is not to France that we look for the 
 best commercial and colonial development of the Modern 
 World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 
 England (1550-1600)— At the middle period of the six- 
 teenth century England was far behind Spain and France in 
 the race for supremacy. Her own political independence, 
 indeed, was at stake, and she had the utmost need of develop- 
 ing her own resources. Her schism from the Catholic Church 
 threatened to cut her off from absolutely necessary sources 
 of supply, for she had no munitions, and the materials 
 necessary for making gunpowder, saltpetre and sulphur, 
 were controlled by Catholic powers. She had no mining 
 industries, and had great difficulty in obtaining iron and 
 copper from abroad. Her sea power was in its infancy : she 
 
 lO 
 
146 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 had practically no native talent or knowledge of new methods 
 of such matters as brass-founding or mining. Moreover, the 
 royal coffers, in spite of the spoliation of the Church, were 
 practically empty. 
 
 Yet within fifty years England was strong enough to 
 wrest the supremacy of the sea from Spain, and rich enough 
 to rank as one of the foremost commercial countries in the 
 world. 
 
 The policy of Cecil, Elizabeth's minister, in the most 
 critical years of her reign, is worthy of the highest praise. 
 
 Realizing that there was no money in hand to pay 
 mercenaries, although the part they played in the defence 
 of the country must be filled, he used all the resources of the 
 land to maintain a large, strong, and healthy population, 
 and meantime avoided wars on any pretext. Agriculture 
 was encouraged by breaking up waste lands, pastures, and 
 " commons," and enclosing them for tillage. The old 
 vexatious laws that bound the farmer to one particular 
 market were removed, and, in order to maintain for it a 
 sufficiently high price, the export of corn was encouraged. 
 Commerce and agriculture joined hands ; the wool trade 
 flourished anew ; the price of cloth increased ; farmer, weaver, 
 and wool mercer profited alike by their closer interaction. 
 
 In order to maintain a large seafaring population, the 
 fishing trade was encouraged, and people were bound by law 
 to eat fish three days a week. To increase the stock of in- 
 dustrial skill and commercial activity, foreigners who formed 
 companies for brass-founding and mining were welcomed 
 to the country. Not only native resources but native in- 
 dustries were made the most of, and English hardware and 
 sailcloth soon became noted in other lands. AHen " ad- 
 venturers " were welcomed also for the introduction of new 
 industries, such as the manufacture of glass, paper, starch, 
 and soap ; so that England became a haven for skilled work- 
 men from the Netherlands, from Greece and Italy and Spain, 
 and had her regular " colonies " of these aliens in various 
 parts of the country. 
 
 Before the end of the sixteenth century England had 
 
THE GROWTH OF NATIONS 147 
 
 beaten Spain upon the high seas, and found that her alhance 
 was coveted by other countries. Prosperous at home, her 
 merchants ploughed the seas in all directions. Their great 
 trading companies took the place of the merchant gilds ; and 
 in a future chapter we shall see the part they played in the 
 New World as well as in the East. 
 
 Looking back on the story of these three nations, Spain, 
 France, and England, we see that the aim of the ruler of each 
 was to raise his country to the highest pitch of prosperity. 
 But Spain made the fatal error of locking up the capital which 
 had come in so sudden a manner and in such vast abundance, 
 and, having lost her splendid opportunity, fell into the back- 
 ground of history. 
 
 France, on the other hand, used the resources of the Crown 
 for the benefit of the people, and reaped a golden harvest for 
 a while ; but the principle was unsound, and in it might be 
 found, even in those early years, the seeds of the Revolution 
 that were to shake her foundations in future days. 
 
 Meantime England, stimulated by the action of a Govern- 
 ment " hampered by poverty," which aided foreign workers 
 and did not scorn to use foreign capital, set to work on in- 
 dependent lines. Developed by her middle class, depending 
 on both industry and agriculture for her wealth, she gained 
 the high road to commercial success through her acceptance 
 of the principle of the advantage of bringing all parts of the 
 kingdom into close connexion with one another, and of making 
 the utmost of all her available resources by sea and land. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. What are the main general features that mark off the 
 Modern from the Mediaeval World ? Explain their bearing on 
 Europe. 
 
 2. Trace some of the effects of the Renaissance on Modern 
 Europe. 
 
 3. Account for the swift rise and fall of the Spanish Empire ; 
 and for the part played by France and England in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 
 
 (a.d. 15 17-1648) 
 
 THE century that saw the Rise of Nationalism 
 and the exploration of the New World was also 
 to see the break-up of the Unity of Western 
 Christendom. 
 During the first twenty years of the sixteenth century 
 the storm had been slowly gathering. It needed but a 
 spark from the firebrand Luther to explode the thunder-cloud 
 over the whole of the Western World. 
 
 The Reformation — Like all other great crises of history, 
 the steps leading to it were many and various. No doubt its 
 progress was hastened by the Renaissance, with its ideal of 
 separate States ; its spirit of rebellion against accepted " 
 authority ; its casting away of discipline ; its revival of the 
 Greek ideals of pleasure and beauty as the main objects of 
 life. Yet the Reformation, which it is supposed to have 
 effected, was not a movement towards freedom, since it perse- 
 cuted its opponents with the bitterest zeal, and substituted 
 the authority of an inspired Book for that of an inspired 
 Church. Nor was the cult of beauty and pleasure among its 
 aims. 
 
 It may have been hastened by the condition of the Papacy 
 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The fact that the 
 centre of Christendom had been removed from Rome to 
 Avignon for nearly seventy years (1305-1372), and that French 
 influence had then been strongly exercised, had weakened Papal 
 authority ; and this had been the case even more in the period 
 that followed the return to Rome, when two popes disputed 
 for the Chair of Peter. But the mediaeval Catholic was too well 
 
THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 149 
 
 accustomed to distinguish between the man and his office to 
 be deeply affected by such happenings as these, or to make 
 the laxity often found in the Papal Court a vahd reason for a 
 schism that was to rend Europe asunder. There had been 
 earher days when those who sat in the Chair of Peter had 
 been guilty of many crimes ; but, though men shuddered at the 
 guilt of the man, they swerved not a hairsbreadth from 
 allegiance to the holy office. 
 
 From another point of view we may see the cause in the 
 condition of the Holy Roman Empire, once the firm adherent 
 and supporter of the Church that had called her into existence, 
 now sunk to the condition of a shadowy German kingdom, 
 in the form of petty states only held together by a faint 
 hope of imperial revival ; and in her weakness we may 
 lookjto find the reason why the Papacy that had been so 
 closely connected with her could no longer command the 
 allegiance of a united Christendom. No doubt the con- 
 dition of Germany in the sixteenth century was such that 
 the rulers of the various states were glad of an excuse to 
 throw off the yoke of both Emperor and Pope; but this 
 is no sufficient cause for the Reformation, since the Papacy 
 had long ceased to depend upon the Empire for support. 
 
 The main effect of the Reformation in Europe is easier 
 to trace than its manifold causes. For more than a hundred 
 years after it was set on foot it involved the Western World 
 in a state of permanent political disunion. That was the 
 natural outcome of a movement which was all in the direction 
 of "individuahsm," that is, the consideration of man as an 
 individual rather than as a member of a community, subject 
 to the authority and to the rules of that community. Thus, 
 as we have seen, while certain countries were preparing to 
 cut themselves adrift from the centre of Christendom, the 
 idea of "nationalism," with its spirit of concentration on 
 its own affairs, combined with the emulation and rivalry 
 necessary to its worldly success, was rapidly developing, and a 
 death-blow was struck at the old international spirit, with 
 its common aims and interests and ideals. 
 
 The purely religious side of the question scarcely enters 
 
150 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 into the historical view of the Reformation Movement, though 
 it has been, perhaps, more often mis-stated than any other 
 fact in history. It is nothing less than absurd to account for 
 this vast happening by saying that the cause was a revolt 
 against Catholic doctrines, especially in the case of indulgences 
 and their " sale." 
 
 In the days of Luther the most ignorant peasant knew 
 as well as he did that an indulgence was merely a remission 
 of the penalties due to sin, a " remission," or " letting off 
 the consequences," which could only be granted to a sinner 
 who was willing to prove his real repentance and sincere 
 desire to atone for his ill-deeds in some practical form. To 
 give money aid in building churches and bridges and roads 
 was in those days a very ordinary way of showing an honest 
 wish for atonement ; and the building of St. Peter's at Rome, 
 which Pope Leo X had just taken in hand, was looked upon 
 as no unworthy object for the offerings of sinful lay-folk. 
 
 Even if Luther's rebellion against the collection of money 
 for this purpose found a sympathetic ground in German 
 states, which were longing to cast off all outward shackles of 
 obligation, we can scarcely believe that Europe as a whole 
 was so deeply interested in religion, and learned in dogma, 
 as to make this a sufficient ground for " schism " — ^the 
 cutting adrift from the CathoUc Church. The actual cause 
 in nearly every case was poUtical, where, as in the case of 
 the EngHsh Henry VIII, it was not a matter of domestic 
 policy ; and the reUgious aspect scarcely entered into the 
 question. 
 
 The Reformation was a revolt against authority ; and 
 as on the religious side, the " Protestant " claimed the right 
 of private judgment, so on the political side, the subject 
 demanded privileges that seemed fatal to anything like 
 despotism. Yet, curiously enough, the EngUsh Reformation 
 was accomplished during the Tudor despotism ; and the 
 ultimate result of the whole movement was a marked re- 
 action towards absolute rule in most parts of Europe. 
 
 Such are some of the contradictions which are concerned 
 with an event which plunged Europe into incessant war for 
 
THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 151 
 
 a century and a half and, by dividing nation against nation 
 and kingdom against kingdom, destroyed the unity of 
 Christendom. 
 
 The Emperor Charles V — The ruler of the Holy Roman 
 Empire at that crisis was a sullen Spanish Fleming, Charles V. 
 As the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain on the 
 one hand, and of the Emperor Maximilian on the other, 
 his Empire extended over the Netherlands, Spain, and 
 Spanish America, the " two Sicilies," and the central kingdoms 
 of Europe. 
 
 As head of the Empire Charles was obliged to appear as 
 the Champion of Christendom against Luther, who in 1520 
 broke with Rome once for all. We see him, indeed, not only 
 branding Luther as a heretic at the Diet of Worms in 1521, 
 but declaring himself prepared to sacrifice his domains, his 
 friends, his life, his very soul, to root out the Lutheran heresy. 
 Yet he was not above using the excommunicated monk as a 
 catspaw against his own enemies, and in 1527 allowing a 
 host of miscreants, Lutherans, and German and Spanish 
 malcontents, to march against Pope Clement VII and to 
 attack Rome. 
 
 The sack of the capital of Christendom followed, and for 
 eight days " murder, lust, sacrilege, avarice, held high 
 festival ; and Spaniards outdid Germans in riot and pillage. 
 Nine months passed before the lawless soldiers quitted their 
 prey.*' 
 
 It was the outward symbol of the inner spirit of revolt ; 
 but Rome herself recovered from the great pillage with the 
 same elasticity with which she had met other and equally 
 severe shocks. Within the next eighteen years the Council 
 of Trent set on foot her own "Counter Reformation"; and 
 in the midst of this Charles learnt that North Germany 
 was in hot revolt against both him and the ancient faith. 
 It was the last blow to the unity of the tottering Empire. 
 
 From the historic moment when Charles was forced to 
 flee over the Brenner to the eastern limits of his dominions, 
 there was no putting a stop to the flow of insurrection. 
 Germany was split into two distinct divisions, and South 
 
152 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Germany remained Catholic, while North Germany became 
 Lutheran. Across the Baltic passed the new beliefs and, 
 still more, the new spirit of revolt, finding there a fertile 
 soil ; and Sweden, Norway, Finland all threw off the Catholic 
 faith. 
 
 The North German princes, in the minority as yet, now 
 looked beyond the borders of their own country and found 
 an opportunity for alliance with a kingdom that had long 
 gazed with jealous eye on the Empire of Spain. France, 
 still strongly Catholic, was induced, for political reasons, to 
 throw in her lot with the Lutheran League, and thus to 
 become a thorn in the side of the ruler of Catholic Spain. 
 And, meantime, France herself was becoming infected by the 
 teaching of the followers of Zwingh, who had stirred up 
 Switzerland to civil war, and of Cahdn, the " Protestant 
 Pope," who had set up his own peculiar form of Protestantism 
 in Geneva, and had sent forth his teachers into France and 
 England, Scotland, and Holland. 
 
 By the end of the sixteenth century the disruption of 
 Europe was fairly complete. At the beginning of that epoch 
 all Europe, save Russia and the Balkan Peninsula, owed 
 allegiance to the Papacy. At the end of it North Germany, 
 Switzerland, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Holland, England, 
 and Scotland had thrown off this allegiance, and the unity of 
 Western Christendom had vanished. 
 
 Effects of the Schism — Some of the effects of this may 
 be glanced at. 
 
 In England the result of the Reformation principles was 
 seen in the struggle between Crown and Parliament (1628- 
 1688). Here we find the latter, representing the Puritan 
 or ultra-Protestant body, in revolt against kings who tried 
 in vain to assume the infallible authority of the Papacy 
 they repudiated. The struggle swayed backwards and 
 forwards with varying fortune, and was not ended till the 
 Revolution of 1688, which deposed the autocrat James H, and 
 placed a Protestant Dutchman, Wilham of Orange, on the 
 throne. 
 
 The Low Countries (1550-1579) — In Spain we see the 
 
THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 153 
 
 country, so lately the most powerful in Europe, weakened 
 and broken by the Revolt of the Netherlands. These 
 countries had been held as part of the Roman Empire until 
 the days of Philip II (1556). But their distance from the 
 centre of rule, their wide differences in race and speech, their 
 strong trade position, had long tended to make their cities 
 independent petty states. When the religious tie was 
 broken and was followed by persecution on the part of Spain, 
 CathoHcs and Protestants joined in raising the flag of revolt 
 against " foreign " rule. Under William the Silent the 
 seven northern provinces, all Protestant, declared their 
 independence of Spain, and became the Dutch Republic of 
 Holland, henceforth to take a leading part in the story of 
 Europe (1579). The ten Southern provinces, the nucleus 
 of modern Belgium, which were of mingled Flemish and 
 Walloon race, and CathoUc in behef, remained faithful to 
 Spain. 
 
 France (1530-1590) — In France, where the Protestant 
 Calvinists were known as Huguenots, the Reformation Move- 
 ment took a strongly political character. Many of the leading 
 nobles had embraced the new doctrines as a pretext for throw- 
 ing off allegiance to the king, and for maintaining themselves 
 in a state of feudal independence within walled cities. A long 
 conflict laid unhappy France waste during the middle part 
 of the sixteenth century. A massacre of the Huguenots, 
 ordered to be carried out on St. Bartholomew's Day (1572), 
 through the influence of Catherine de Medici, mother of the 
 young king Charles IX, fanned the flame of revolt ; and 
 nothing but the religious indifference of Henry Bourbon, King 
 of Navarre, saved France from another long civil war. As 
 Henry IV, son of a Lutheran mother, Jeanne d'Albret, but 
 willing to become a nominal Catholic for the sake of a kingdom, 
 he became the idol of both parties. To him France owed the 
 Edict of Nantes in 1598, which allowed private freedom of 
 worship to all Huguenots, and was the first declaration of its 
 kind to establish the fact that there was nothing to prevent two 
 kinds of faith from existing in the same kingdom, at the same 
 time, without reHgious strife. 
 
154 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Germany (1618-1648) — In Germany, after fifty years of 
 growing hatred between the Protestants and CathoHcs, the 
 flame flared up anew in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). 
 
 Very briefly, the cause of this was the attempt of the 
 Emperor Ferdinand II, of the House of Hapsburg, to turn 
 the German Empire into a military monarchy governed by 
 Austria. The petty princes, on the other hand, aimed at com- 
 plete independence of imperial rule. Thus we find Spain 
 and Catholic Germany united against Protestant Germany in 
 alliance with Denmark and Holland, and WaUenstein, the 
 Emperor's great general, bidding fair to crush the insurgents, 
 weakened as they were by their own internal quarrels between 
 Lutherans and Calvinists. 
 
 The long war resolved itself into a series of struggles in 
 various parts of the Empire. First, Bohemia declared her in- 
 dependence, but was crushed and forced to return to the 
 CathoHc faith. Then the King of Denmark was driven out of 
 the contest, and all North Germany bade fair to fall into the 
 hands of WaUenstein. 
 
 At this critical moment there appeared upon the scene 
 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who entered the contest 
 not only as a champion of the Lutheran religion, but in the 
 hope of conquering North Germany and annexing it to Sweden. 
 Though he fell at Lutzen at the moment of victory, this " Lion 
 of the North ' ' succeeded in getting what he wanted in the 
 shape of a " bastion " on the Baltic, which would give Sweden 
 the control of the sea of that name. 
 
 After the death of Gustavus, the struggle still continued, 
 fostered now by Richelieu, the wily French diplomat, whose 
 policy was still to weaken the Hapsburgs through the disunion 
 of Germany. Not till 1648 did the Treaty of Westphaha end 
 a war which left all the combatants exhausted. By this 
 treaty, religious liberty was granted to Germany ; but France 
 obtained Alsace, rights over the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and 
 Verdun, and important territories in Germany. The end 
 of the struggle left France also in many respects the heir to 
 power once held by the House of Austria. To Sweden fell the 
 western part of Pomerania and the bishopric of Bremen, which 
 
THE DISRUPTION OF EUROPE 155 
 
 gave her control over the mouths of three great German rivers. 
 The independence of Switzerland and the Netherlands was 
 recognized. Most significant of all, the state then known as 
 Brandenburg, soon to be known as Prussia, annexed Eastern 
 Pomerania and some important bishoprics, and thus laid 
 the foundation of her future role in Germany. 
 
 From that time the Hapsburg princes ruled Austria alone ; 
 and Germany, left entirely disunited, had to face at least a 
 century of reconstruction, before she to any degree had recovered 
 from the ravages of the Thirty Years War. 
 
 Effect o! Thirty Years War on Germany — Nothing, 
 perhaps, serves to show more clearly the devastating effect of a 
 long war than the history of Germany for the next hundred 
 years. The conflict had been not only a rehgious but a civil 
 war, fought largely by mercenaries from every country in 
 Europe, whose object was to plunder their employers as well 
 as to fight for them. 
 
 The country, once smiling and fertile under the incessant 
 toil of a nation of agriculturists, lay desolate under the stress of 
 constant marches, occupations, and evacuations. No peasant 
 had existed in safety for a generation ; the farmer had forgotten 
 how to plough and the labourer how to reap. In Bohemia 
 six thousand prosperous villages had disappeared. Bavaria, 
 once well populated with flourishing traders, now lay a famine- 
 stricken waste. The once smihng pastures and vineyards of 
 the Upper Rhine now stood barren and neglected by a 
 population that had fled to safer lands. 
 
 Yet, in face of all this misery and poverty, the bankruptcy 
 of the rulers caused a heavy burden of service or money taxa- 
 tion to be exacted from the peasants. Under the^ weight of 
 these exactions, the free peasant sank to the condition of serf- 
 dom; arable lands "reverted" to forests, through which wild 
 beasts ranged unchecked ; and for more than a generation 
 one-third of Northern Germany was left uncultivated. 
 
 With the burgher class things were as bad. There was 
 little trade or industry. The old Hanseatic League of Mer- 
 chants, with its proud motto, " To navigate is necessary for us ; 
 to Hve is not," was broken up. Their once flourishing foreign 
 
156 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 trade fell into the hands of Holland, and the Dutch, now 
 masters of the outlets of the Rhine, took their place as the 
 *' Carriers of Europe." 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Give a brief sketch of the fortunes of the House of Austria 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 2. Trace some of the main effects of the Great Schism on 
 Europe. 
 
 3. What changes were wrought in the map of Europe by the 
 Thirty Years War ? 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 NEW WORLDS FOR OLD : 
 AMERICA AND INDIA 
 
 (a.d. 1490-1700) 
 
 WE have seen that one of the most striking features of 
 the Modern World is the outburst of exploration 
 and colonization, which, in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, made New Worlds to " swim 
 into the ken " of the Old. Most of these had, indeed, pos- 
 sessed ancient civilizations of their own; but, as far as the 
 Old World was concerned, they only came to hfe again under 
 the quickening touch of the explorer and the colonist. 
 
 In earlier days the motive of exploration had been either a 
 spirit of curiosity and enterprise, or a frank desire for money 
 and trade opportunities. Thus one of the earliest pioneers 
 was a Portuguese Prince, Henry the Navigator, who, in the 
 latter part of the fifteenth century, explored the West African 
 Coast and set on foot a lively trade with the natives in gold- 
 dust and ivory. 
 
 It was another Portuguese sea-dog who, in 1484, set up at 
 the mouth of the River Congo a stone pillar, topped by a 
 stone cross soldered on with lead, as a token of Portuguese 
 possession. He was also the first to set on foot the shameful 
 trade in slaves in which all Europe was to share. 
 
 Jealousy of Portuguese success brought England and 
 France, to a small extent, into the game of exploration in 
 these earlier days ; and missionary enterprise, especially in 
 the case of the courageous followers of Ignatius Loyola, the 
 soldier founder of the Jesuits, began to play no unimportant 
 part during the sixteenth century. 
 
 But, by the middle of the seventeenth century, new motives 
 
 157 
 
158 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 for exploration were coming into play. The rapid increase of 
 European trade called for new and vast supplies of raw 
 material ; and the growing substitution of manufactures for 
 agriculture all over Europe demanded a wider field of com- 
 merce. Colonies were now desired, not as a mere refuge for 
 those whom reUgious intolerance had driven from their 
 motherland, nor as a vent for surplus population, but as 
 estates which could be systematically worked to provide raw 
 materials for commerce at home. 
 
 We have seen that the old Gilds, with their merchant 
 traders, had been by the latter part of the sixteenth century 
 transformed into great trading companies, in whose hands 
 lay the task of obtaining and providing this material. It 
 was the East India Company, as we shall see, which first 
 obtained for Britain a foothold in India through its 
 " factories " on the coast, and thus laid the foundations of 
 our future Empire. And it was the haughty refusal of the 
 Spaniards to soil their hands with industrial systems, re- 
 garded by them as only " fit for Moors or Jews," which in 
 great part accounts for the failure of Spain to build a colonial 
 Empire in a field in wMch she stood undeniably first during 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 We have seen how Spain had lost her opportunity in 
 Europe ; let us now look across the seas at the story of the 
 New World to which Columbus had given her access. The 
 main cause of the discovery of America undoubtedly lay in 
 that spirit of curiosity and adventure which we have seen to 
 be the essence of the Renaissance. 
 
 Discovery of the New World — The idea of the possibiUty 
 of a western continent dates back to the days of the Ancient 
 World. As far back as the age of Seneca, in the first century 
 of Christendom, we find the dramatist philosopher writing 
 of " a vast new continent beyond the sea which shall be dis- 
 closed when this Ancient World doth westward stretch her 
 bounds." 
 
 Eight centuries later, in the time of the Enghsh Alfred, 
 Northmen had colonized Iceland, already inhabited by 
 Irish Celts, and a hundred years later Erik the Red, another 
 
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 159 
 
 Viking rover, had discovered Greenland. Leif, the son of 
 Erik, went farther, and, saiHng nine days south-west of Green- 
 land, landed on a rocky coast, which seems to have been 
 Newfoundland. South of this he pushed on to " Markland," 
 the modern Nova Scotia, and after two days' sail spent a winter 
 on a river bank in a new continent called by them Vinland, 
 or the Land of the Vine. There, in what is now known to 
 have been New England, part of Rhode Island and Massa- 
 chusetts, the Northmen founded a colony and commenced 
 a trade with the native Eskimos in fur and timber. This 
 colony flourished till the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 when it was abandoned. Nearly three centuries later its 
 site was to be the scene of the landing of the Mayflower and 
 the settlement of the Puritan emigrants in New England 
 and Massachusetts. 
 
 The actual discovery of America belongs then to the early 
 part of the eleventh century, and several rehcs of this age 
 are to be found there. A stone inscribed in runes, the ancient 
 form of Northern writing, may be seen in the Taunton 
 River, Massachusetts, which declares that " Thorfinn, with 
 151 Norse seafaring men, took possession of this land." The 
 skeleton of a Viking wearing a curious belt made of brass 
 tubes has been found in the FaU River ; and a round tower 
 at Newport, bearing traces of Northern architecture, belongs 
 probably to the twelfth century. 
 
 Another possible . claim to the discovery of America 
 comes from Ireland. When the Christian Celts were driven 
 from Iceland by the Northmen they appear to have sailed 
 south to a colony on the eastern coast of America, already 
 settled by some Irish rovers and caUed by the Northmen 
 " Mickle Ireland." Carohna, Ontario, and Quebec have each 
 in turn been identified with this spot. 
 
 Other discoverers may have anticipated Columbus, the 
 best authenticated being the Venetian brothers, Nicolo and 
 Antonio Zeus, at the end of the fourteenth century. They 
 seem, however, to have obtained their information not at 
 first hand, but from a sailor who told them of regions of the 
 west inhabited partly by cannibals, but partly by civiHzed 
 
160 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 people who dwelt in a great country with towns and 
 temples. 
 
 The story of Columbus is too well known to be told here. 
 The most striking part of it is his anticipation of our modern 
 notions as to the shape of the earth, which, he maintained, 
 was spherical, not flat ; and yet, on the other hand, the error he 
 maintained to the day of his death in believing that the con- 
 tinent he discovered was a part of Eastern Asia. 
 
 It was a fortunate accident that led the Spanish king 
 and queen to patronize the Genoese sailor, for on the founda- 
 tions of his discoveries the future Empire of Spain was to be 
 built. Unity of territory had been brought about by the 
 marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ; 
 but wealth was sorely needed to enrich a country impoverished 
 by the long war which drove the Moors from Spain. 
 
 The finding of gold, therefore, in an India to which the 
 Genoese claimed to discover a short cut, was the bait of the 
 whole scheme for Ferdinand ; and he was the more ready 
 to accept it that he realized that the Turks, with Constantin- 
 ople in their hands, could close the Eastern route to the 
 land of gold and the source of future trade. 
 
 By sailing westward from Europe over the ocean, Colum- 
 bus hoped to reach Zipango (Japan) and Cathay (China), 
 and thence to take the road to India with ease. The Bahamas 
 meant to him the discovery of the continent of Asia, and he 
 called them the Indian Islands accordingly ; while Cuba 
 was supposed by him to be part of Asia itself, hitherto 
 unexplored, and part of the realm of the Great Khan of 
 Cathay. 
 
 The name America was given to commemorate the voyage 
 of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine sailor, also in the service 
 of Spain, who claimed to have discovered the mainland of 
 America in 1497. A more important person is one Ferdinand 
 Magellan, who in the reign of Charles V of Spain actually 
 sailed round the southern cape of South America and, by 
 crossing the Pacific, reached the Philippines. There he was 
 killed in a fight with the natives, but his one remaining ship 
 and a few sailors survived to bring back the news to Spain 
 
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 161 
 
 of the circumnavigation of the globe and of the existence of 
 a great new world entirely separated from Asia. 
 
 When Columbus had made his famous discovery of the 
 New World he had declared, " I have only opened the door 
 for others to enter." One of the first to do so was Fernando 
 Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexico in 15 19. From his account 
 we can get to know a good deal of the conditions and character 
 of the early story of America, though much of it still belongs 
 to the Age of Myths. 
 
 Mayas and Aztecs — For nearly three hundred years after 
 the discoveries of Columbus the Spanish colonial Empire 
 included Florida in North America, New Spain or Mexico, 
 CaUfornia, Central America, South America, and the West 
 Indies. Of the races north of Florida Spain knew little. 
 These aboriginal " Indians," as they are still called, were then 
 in a state of barbarism ; but this was far from being the case 
 with the inhabitants of Mexico or Central America, and the 
 northern districts of South America. Just as Central Asia, 
 once the home of the finest and oldest civilizations in the world, 
 had become by the end of the Middle Ages a desolate waste 
 of buried cities, so in the early part of the sixteenth century 
 Cortes found traces in Mexico of an ancient people well 
 advanced in knowledge of art and hieroglyphic literature, 
 builders of noble palaces and temples, knowing enough 
 science to use a calendar of three hundred and sixty-five days, 
 builders of cities now buried under the forests and jungles 
 of the Mexican plateau and the plains of Central America. 
 
 These Mayas of Yucatan and Mexico seem to have been 
 displaced late in the eighth century by tribes of people known 
 as Toltecs, who descended from the North upon the lake 
 country round the present city of Mexico and built fine 
 temples and houses that earned for them the name of 
 " Architects." 
 
 Some time during the fourteenth century the Aztecs took 
 their place, bringing with them, or borrowing from the 
 original inhabitants, a knowledge of the arts of building and 
 metal working that was apparently well in advance of that 
 of the Europe of that day and not far behind that of Asia. 
 II 
 
162 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 But along with this were to be found barbaric ideas such as 
 that which demanded war every twenty days in order to 
 provide bodies for their cannibal feasts, and for the human 
 sacrifices without which they firmly believed the Sun would 
 cease to exist. 
 
 Conquest of Mexico — These were the people whom 
 Cortes, on his arrival, found in possession of an Empire extend- 
 ing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and ruled by a 
 chief known as Montezuma. The natives were skilled in 
 a pecuUar kind of music ; they had an organized system of 
 labour, though they kept no animals for this purpose, and 
 used dogs only for food. Their political institutions were 
 about on a level with those of the last Saxon kings, but their 
 stores of gold and silver so dazzled the eyes of the Spanish 
 invaders, that they thought them far more civiUzed than they 
 were in reality. Their chiefs used armour made of thin 
 plates of gold or silver, over which was thrown a cloak of 
 gorgeous featherwork ; and the warriors wore a close vest of 
 quilted cotton " so thick as to be impenetrable to the Hght 
 missiles of Indian warfare." 
 
 The account of the meeting between Cortes and Monte- 
 zuma shows the chieftain borne on a golden palanquin blazing 
 with burnished gold. The Spaniard and his men passed 
 through avenues lined with houses whose fiat roofs were 
 protected by parapets and covered with masses of growing 
 plants. " Occasionally a great square intervened, surrounded 
 by porticoes of stone and stucco ; or a pyramidal temple 
 reared its colossal bulk crowned with its tapering sanctu- 
 aries and altars blazing with inextinguishable fires. But 
 what most impressed the Spaniards were the throngs of 
 people who swarmed through the streets and on the canals." 
 
 The natives at first took Cortes for a god and treated him 
 with the highest honours ; but he, by a dastardly act of 
 treachery, seized the person of their ruler and put himself 
 at the head of the government. When this had made him 
 master of the city, the hoards of a long line of ancestors were 
 poured out at his feet by the abject Montezuma. 
 
 " The gold alone," we read, " was sufficient to make three 
 
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 163 
 
 great heaps . . . the greatest portion was in utensils and 
 various kinds of ornaments and curious toys, together with 
 imitations of birds, insects, and flowers. There were also 
 quantities of collars, bracelets, and other trinkets in which the 
 gold and featherwork were richly powdered with pearls and 
 precious stones." 
 
 The Mexican warriors, however, showed more spirit than 
 their leader, and chased their treacherous guests from the 
 district. But Cortes reappeared with two brigantines, built 
 for the purpose, upon the waters of the lake on which the 
 city of Mexico stood, overcame the resistance of its defenders, 
 and rased its buildings to the ground. 
 
 This was in 1521, and in the next year Cortes sent to 
 Spain two vessels loaded with treasure. These were captured 
 by Verrazano, a Florentine captain in the service of France, 
 and handed over to the amazed French king. " Why ! " cried 
 Francis, "the Emperor can carry on war against me by 
 means of the riches he draws from the West Indies alone, 
 and now he can draw also on Mexico." 
 
 Deciding that France must also have her share of the 
 spoil of the New World, he ordered the successful Florentine 
 to secure for him an5d;hing that was left untouched by the 
 enterprise of Spain and Portugal. The shore from Florida to 
 Newfoundland was as yet unclaimed, and this was annexed 
 by Verrazano under the name of New France. Part of this 
 region, round the Gulf of the River St. Lawrence, became 
 the scene of French colonization in years to come. 
 
 Meantime, Spain had gone farther afield, and, in 1532, 
 Pizarro had invaded the territory of the Incas of Peru and 
 obtained from them fresh stores of wealth. In the course of 
 the next few years swarms of Spaniards settled in these parts 
 of America, intermarried with the natives, and produced the 
 mixed race which is found there to this day. 
 
 Effects 0! Discovery of the New World — Leaving the 
 fascinating story of exploration and discovery, let us see 
 the immediate effects of the discovery of the New World on 
 the Old. The first thing to notice is the enormous increase of 
 wealth for Spain, wealth which formed the foundation of the 
 
164 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 powerful Empire of Charles V, and made that country for a 
 brief period the foremost in Europe. In the shape of money, 
 this gold and silver of Mexico and Peru passed into all the 
 countries of Europe in return for imported goods. As money 
 became more plentiful, prices and wages both rose, and capital, 
 as we have seen, began to be more widely employed in industry. 
 
 Then new articles of food, clothing, and building material 
 flowed in from the New World, and began by degrees to raise 
 the whole standard of living. Potatoes, chocolate, quinine, 
 cane-sugar, furs, and tobacco are only a few amongst the 
 many things we are now inclined to call indispensable, but 
 which were almost unknown before the discovery of America. 
 
 Lastly, through the constant emigration that now took 
 place from Europe to America, a new outlet was opened 
 for the energy of her more restless sons and daughters, and 
 the foundation was laid of the great colonies of the future. 
 For these and other reasons into which want of space forbids 
 us to enter here, we may say with truth that " the opening of 
 the Atlantic to continuous exploration is the most momentous 
 step in the history of man's occupation of the earth." 
 
 Let us now turn eastward, and see how Europe was 
 beginning to get into touch with the world of India. 
 
 The Opening up of India: The Empire of the Great 
 Mogul (Second Half of Sixteenth Century) — The reputation of 
 India as a land of gold and precious stones, and more especi- 
 ally as a new outlet for trade, had made that land the lodestar 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 In his search for a new trade route thither, when the 
 Mediterranean was barred by Moslem pirates, the Portu- 
 guese, Bartholomew Diaz, had sailed round the most southerly 
 point of Africa, to which " the captain and his company gave 
 the name Stormy, because of the dangers and tempests that 
 had beset them in the rounding of it ; but when they came 
 home, the king (the father of a yet earlier navigator. Prince 
 Henry of Portugal) gave it a fairer name. He caUed it the 
 Cape of Good Hope, because it awoke the hope that India, 
 so much desired and so long sought, would be found at last." 
 
 And found it was by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, 
 
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 165 
 
 who landed on the west coast of India in 1498, and thus 
 effected a junction between West and East that was never 
 again to be entirely severed. Before many more years had 
 passed, the Portuguese had trading posts and factories all 
 along the coast. 
 
 Let us look for a minute at the history of this great 
 country. When we last read of the progress of India, we 
 saw that she was on the verge of a strong wave of Moham- 
 medanism, in which wave she was submerged from the eleventh 
 to the eighteenth century. 
 
 The first half of this period is full of confusion, due to 
 the constant feuds between Hindu and Mohammedan, which 
 made them centuries of warfare. Some time during this 
 interval India broke up into hundreds of petty states ruled 
 by petty princes. 
 
 India : The Empire ol the Great Mogul (1556-1700)— 
 The first attempt at amalgamation was made by one Akbar, 
 who from the year 1556 founded the vast Mogul Empire. 
 Akbar has well been called the greatest ruler who ever sat 
 upon an Indian throne. Strong and just, the friend of 
 scholars, a philosopher, scientist, general, and statesman, 
 he, by strength of will and moral force, overthrew the 
 Mohammedan dynasty, carved out the Empire of Delhi, and 
 proceeded to extend his rule from Afghanistan to the Bay 
 of Bengal, and from the Himalayas to a line south of Surat. 
 
 In his days a rule of toleration was imposed for Mussul- 
 man, Brahmin, and Catholic missionary ahke. His vast 
 dominion was subject to a fair rate of taxation instead of to 
 the impositions of cheating officials, and taxes were readily 
 remitted when times were bad. By substituting a uniform 
 currency for the hundreds of different ones then existing, 
 he improved the condition of commerce by leaps and bounds 
 and gave his Empire a half-century of prosperity and peace. 
 
 To the court of his son Jehangir came the EngHshman 
 Sir Thomas Roe, in the early years of the seventeenth century 
 (1615-1618), who afterwards spoke with awe and respect of 
 the splendour and display of the brilliant Eastern court, and 
 of the toleration shown to Christians and to Europeans in 
 
166 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 general. But he noted also the drunken orgies of the king, 
 who professed to be a strict Mohammedan, the tyranny and 
 corruption of his officials, the loose and weak administra- 
 tion. " The time will come," he wrote, " when all in these 
 kingdoms will be in great combustion." 
 
 For a while the fulfilment of this prophecy was deferred. 
 The influence of a wise and beautiful queen, Mir Jehan, 
 " Light of the World," was all for good ; and under her 
 stepson, Shah Jehan, the Mogul Empire became a proverb 
 for all that wealth and prosperity can bestow. The palaces 
 of Delhi, the marble mosques, the wonderful " Taj-i-Mahal," 
 the grave of that " Light of the Harem," Nur-i-Mahal, with 
 its crystal and marble and exquisite peacock throne of 
 precious stones, all served to gain for Shah Jehan the title 
 of " Magnificent." 
 
 Yet less than a century later the kingdom had sunk to 
 the lowest point of misery and weakness, and the aUen people 
 from France and England were settling with impunity upon 
 the eastern coast-line. 
 
 As the representative of the ** Gorgeous East," India had 
 laid the foundation of the prosperity of Genoa, of Venice, and 
 of Pisa, and later had stirred the Portuguese to become her 
 first European settlers since the brief invasion of Alexander. 
 
 In the early seventeenth century India was brought 
 again into touch with Europe by the visits of Catholic mis- 
 sionaries, and by the year 1613 the East India Company 
 of England had a trading settlement firmly established at 
 Surat. Favour was shown the traders by the Great Mogul, 
 who gave them permission to carry on their trade at certain 
 stations along. the coast. Next year his goodwill was in- 
 creased ; for an EngHsh physician. Dr. Broughton, saved the 
 life of his favourite child. As his fee, the latter obtained 
 trading rights upon the River Hooghly, which gave the EngHsh 
 their first footing in Bengal. By the year 1640, though the 
 idea of an Indian Empire was as yet undreamed of, the 
 British, represented by the East India Company, were firmly 
 established in Surat, Madras, and Bengal, and less than a 
 century later were in active rivalry with the merchants 
 
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 167 
 
 whom the French Government had estabUshed on the south- 
 east coast at Chandernagore and Pondicherry. 
 
 India in the Eighteenth Century — ^At the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century the last great Emperor of the 
 Moguls had passed away, and in the interval of confusion 
 that followed, Dupleix, a clever young governor of the 
 French " Company of the Indies," was quick to seize his 
 opportunity. It was a golden one, for the Viceroy and 
 Nizam, the chief officers of the late Emperor, together with 
 all the smaller native princes, had shaken off their allegiance 
 and made their various domains independent. Immediately 
 the dismembered Empire became the prey of outside foes. 
 A Persian monarch sacked many of the rich cities ; the 
 powerful Mahratta tribes spread themselves over Central India. 
 
 This was the moment for Dupleix to change the status of 
 the French from that of mere traders to that of masters. 
 His first step was to fortify Pondicherry, the earliest settle- 
 ment of the French, and, having allied himself with some of 
 the petty princes, to raise an army of native (Sepoy) soldiers. 
 With this he attacked Madras, and for the next few years, 
 while the Seven Years War was raging in Europe, the story 
 of India is that of the struggle between French and British 
 for the vast and invertebrate Empire. It was Clive who 
 saved India for the British, and the battle of Plassey, in 1757, 
 that made them masters of Bengal, the richest province of 
 that land. 
 
 The East India Company remained the rulers of India 
 until the horrors of the Mutiny of 1857 brought home to 
 Europe the drawbacks of this kind of government. In 1877 
 the title of Empress of India was first held by an British 
 sovereign, and under British protection the land is now ruled 
 by native princes, though the administration is carried on for 
 the most part by British officials under the Viceroy. 
 
 EXERCISE 
 Trace the effects upon Europe 
 
 {a) of the discovery of America ; 
 {b) of the opening up of India. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 
 
 (1600-1900) 
 
 THE English in America — ^The new spirit of coloniza- 
 tion that had lasted well into the seventeenth century 
 affected America earher than the golden world of 
 India; and there the struggle between French and 
 English was to assume far greater proportions. 
 
 Before the reign of Charles II a steady stream of emi- 
 grants from English shores had established themselves in 
 various parts of the country north of Mexico and south of 
 the river St. Lawrence. That fine pioneer, Captain John 
 Smith, had shown these early empire-makers the import- 
 ance of labour and discipline in founding new settlements, 
 and had done much to settle the colony of Virginia, left 
 derelict after the first settlement made by Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 The Pilgrim Fathers, driven from their native land by the 
 uncompromising Anglicanism of James I, had founded New 
 England, and put the " fear of the Englishman " into the 
 heart of the Redskin aborigines ; and another band of Puritan 
 exiles in the reign of Charles I, " bidding farewell with weep- 
 ing eyes and sobbing voices to the land whose cruelty could 
 not efface their love," had founded the colony of Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 The " States " of North America — Their story is one 
 of constant dread of Indian attacks, of incessant warfare, 
 of hardly won security. But round Massachusetts in the 
 North and Virginia in the South there presently grew up 
 eleven colonies, separated not only by distance but by 
 differences of faith and caste. 
 
 Thus Maryland, one of the Southern States, founded 
 
 168 
 
THEiERA OF COLONIZATION 169 
 
 by persecuted Catholics, and Carolina, settled by penniless 
 nobles of the days of Charles II, had nothing in common 
 with the sturdy Puritans of New England, and were, in fact, 
 entirely separated from them by the Dutch colony of New 
 Netherland, occupied by the Dutch West India Company. 
 
 When England wrested this latter state from Holland and 
 called it New York, a line of connexion between the colonies 
 scattered along the coast-line, from Florida to the mouth 
 of the St. Lawrence, was established for the first time, and 
 this was further strengthened by the Quaker foundation of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 By the time of George II, who gave his name to the Southern 
 colony of Georgia, thirteen colonies existed in North America, 
 which, since the days of Charles II, had become in the eyes 
 of the Mother Country a most useful field for the provision 
 of such raw material as sugar and cotton. 
 
 It was, however, the fur trade with the Indians that most 
 attracted Great Britain ; and in 1688 Prince Rupert, mindful 
 of the district discovered by the explorer, Henry Hudson, 
 a century earlier, sent out a band of men who presently 
 formed the nucleus of the Hudson Bay Company and spread 
 their net over a region three times the size of India. 
 
 ^ With the vast tract north of the St. Lawrence River 
 was granted " the whole and entire trade and traffic to and 
 from all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes, and seas into which 
 they shall find entrance or passage, with all the natives and 
 people inhabiting the territories aforesaid." 
 
 The French in America (1608-1740)— This was in 1688. 
 Eighty years earlier, however, the land Just north of the great 
 river St. Lawrence had been explored by the Frenchman 
 Samuel de Champlain, who had set up a fort at Quebec, and 
 in 161 1 had founded Montreal. Under his governorship the 
 unknown regions of Canada were explored by fearless Jesuit 
 missionaries, whose temporary stations often became the 
 site of future cities. By the year 1632 the French held the 
 basin of the St. Lawrence River and the vaguely defined 
 region of Acadia, which was probably the district now known 
 as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
 
170 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Encouraged by the success met with in these parts, the 
 minister of Louis XIV, the great Colbert, determined to build 
 up a vast French empire across the seas. Regardless of 
 British rights and claims, he granted to a French trading 
 company the right of colonizing America, from Hudson Bay 
 to the river Amazon, by the simple process of " killing or 
 conquering the natives or colonists of such European nations 
 as are not our allies." 
 
 One of the first steps towards the end was taken when 
 Robert de la Salle explored the unknown region of the 
 Mississippi, planted a colony at the mouth of that river, 
 and named it Louisiana in honour of the king. The town of 
 New Orleans was built ; and having thus obtained command of 
 the great waterway, the next step was obviously to connect it 
 with the river St. Lawrence by means of a long chain of forts. 
 
 French and English Colonists (1740-1763)— This was an 
 open challenge to the British colonies, which were not only 
 prevented from advancing westward, but were threatened 
 by extinction if the French chose to push their settlements 
 nearer the eastern sea-board. 
 
 Thus there began that long struggle between French and 
 English colonists, reflecting all too well the spirit of the 
 frequent wars which, in those years, were devastating a Europe 
 absorbed in conflict over the so-called Balance of Power. 
 
 In the New World the fight was for a French colonial 
 empire that was to support the imperial needs of Louis XIV. 
 But this selfish policy overreached itself. Without aid from 
 the Mother Country the scheme was bound to fail. 
 
 It was the policy of the energetic French governor, 
 Duquesne, who built a new line of forts completely shutting 
 the British out of the district from the Ohio to Niagara, that 
 first brought Washington upon the scene. But Washington 
 met with utter defeat, as did the English general Braddock ; 
 for the French had the Indians on their side, and when these 
 Redskins had once realized the joys of victory, they swooped 
 upon the peaceful homesteads of the colonists with burning 
 brands and tomahawks, and swept them out of existence. 
 
 A grim revenge was taken by the British Government at 
 
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 171 
 
 home. Years earlier the French settlement of Acadia had 
 fallen into British hands, but the original settlers had been 
 allowed to live there in peace and security. These were now 
 all driven forth from their quiet farms and forced to find a 
 home elsewhere in strange lands. 
 
 *« Waste are those pleasant farms and the farmers for ever 
 
 departed, 
 Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of 
 
 October 
 Seize them and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over 
 
 the ocean." ^ 
 
 A more justifiable retaliation was the action of Wolfe, 
 who, in face of dire peril, took Quebec from the French, and 
 made the British masters of North America from the Arctic 
 Ocean to the borders of Florida and Mexico. 
 
 Never again was there a chance of French dominion in 
 Canada. Yet the name of France lives on in the language and 
 religion, the laws and customs, of many thousands of the in- 
 habitants of Canada, some of whom, through intermarriage 
 with the Indian tribes, are of mixed race. 
 
 The Peace of Paris, which robbed France of all her North 
 American colonies save Louisiana, was signed in 1763. 
 
 The Independence 0! the « States" (1765-1776)— Thirteen 
 years later was signed another historic document, the 
 Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed all the North 
 American " States " free and independent. 
 
 The cause of the revolt that brought about the loss to 
 Britain of the North American colonies was a perfectly reason- 
 able demand enforced in a very unreasonable manner. 
 
 The colonists were asked to bear some of the expense of 
 keeping up a large military and naval force in defence of 
 their largely increased dominions, and, had they been in any 
 sense united, they might well have seen the justice of this. 
 But even the most tactful of governments would not have 
 found it easy to enforce this necessary taxation upon a number 
 of different groups of states in which the Puritan colonists 
 1 Longfellow's Evangeline. 
 
172 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 of New England had neither the same ideals nor the same 
 religion as the Southern States of Maryland and Virginia, 
 nor even racial sympathy with the Dutch and German 
 settlers in the middle group of New York, New Jersey, and 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 There had, moreover, been growing up for a considerable 
 time a large amount of self-government, and a leaning towards 
 independence of a Mother Country that had done remarkably 
 little to help in either their foundation or development. 
 Had Britain at this crisis frankly acknowledged the growing 
 independence of the colonies, and merely asked for aid in 
 bearing a common load, all might have been well. But a 
 stupid and short-sighted Government imposed an irritating 
 tax upon the colonists without even a pretence of considering 
 their position ; and immediately the latter retaliated by 
 announcing that "taxation and representation must go 
 together." 
 
 This was in 1765, and the obnoxious tax was imposed only 
 for a year and never paid. But two years later a system of 
 coercion was introduced which was to browbeat the colonists 
 into submission. In face of the inevitable war of revolt that 
 followed, the thirteen colonies forgot their differences of 
 origin, race, and faith, and joined together in a Declaration 
 of Independence (1776) that made the " United States," 
 and deprived Britain of all her most flourishing American 
 colonies. Alone, the struggle against a rich and powerful 
 motherland, with a large population, a strong navy, and a 
 well-trained army, might have been hopeless. But when 
 France, already in sympathy with the spirit of revolution, 
 and still resentful of her losses in America, came in as their 
 ally, the result was assured. 
 
 Canada remained, however, in the hands of Britain, and 
 during the War of American Independence a large number of 
 " loyalists " left the States and settled in Lower Canada, 
 in Ontario, and round about the mouth of the river St. Law- 
 rence. The rest of the colony was still peopled by French 
 settlers, and if Britain had chosen to impose her methods of 
 government on all alike, as she had done in the States, a fresh 
 
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 173 
 
 revolt would have followed. But the Motherland had begun 
 to learn wisdom. By the " Canada Act " of Pitt (1741) the 
 colony was divided into Lower or French Canada and Upper 
 or British Canada, both under British rule ; and to each was 
 given a certain amount of self-government and its own legis- 
 lative assembly. 
 
 The Expansion of the United States (1800-1900)— Meantime 
 the United States, having shaken off all fetters, began to 
 expand freely. The region between the Mississippi and the 
 Rockies, known as Louisiana, was bought from France in 
 1803, and Florida from Spain in 1819. By the middle of the 
 nineteenth century her borders touched the Pacific on the 
 West, while by her purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 
 she became the owner of the richest gold mines in the world. 
 Before the end of the same century she had founded her own 
 colonial Empire in the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines, 
 in Samoa and the West Indies, and was strong enough to 
 enunciate her " Monroe Doctrine," which forbade the Old 
 World to lay hands further upon the New. " Henceforth/' 
 declared President Monroe in 1823, " the American continents 
 are not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by 
 any European Power." 
 
 It was the attempt of Napoleon III to ignore this by con- 
 quering Mexico and by setting up the Austrian prince, Maxi- 
 milian, brother of Francis Joseph I, as the Emperor, that led 
 to the capture and murder of this scion of an ill-fated house 
 by the Mexicans in 1867. 
 
 Effect upon the Old World — Some of the general effects of 
 the events of this chapter on the Story of the World may be 
 noted here. 
 
 The downfall of French and Spanish colonization in North 
 America made the history of that continent much less inter- 
 national, though its mixed races, together with its position 
 between Asia on the one hand and Europe on the other, 
 would always prevent its developing on purely local lines. The 
 trend henceforth was in one instead of in many directions. 
 
 Of more importance, perhaps, is the effect on the Old 
 World of the Declaration of Independence. We have seen that 
 
174 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 this was caused by the conflict between different theories of 
 government, and by a narrow and selfish colonial policy, a 
 policy which was adopted even more thoroughly by France and 
 Spain than by Britain. If this policy had been persisted in 
 there is no doubt that the whole of the British Empire, as well 
 as the colonies of other European powers, v/ould have risen in 
 successful revolt. When it became discredited by the loss of 
 the American States, a new and more generous principle was 
 adopted, the result of which is seen to-day in the fact that 
 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to which the privilege of 
 self-government was granted during the nineteenth century, 
 were the most loyal and ardent supporters of the Mother 
 Country during the Great War. 
 
 Australia (1640-1900) — ^To the period between the British 
 conquest of Canada and the complete emancipation of the 
 United States belong the voyages and explorations which 
 brought the almost unknown continent of Australia fully into 
 the course of World History. 
 
 The Dutch were the first to explore the Western Coast, 
 and in 1642 the Dutchman Tasman discovered Tasmania and 
 New Zealand. But they went no farther, and it was left for 
 Captain Cook, more than a century later, to explore the Pacific 
 and its many islands, before he was murdered by the 
 Hawaiian natives in 1779. 
 
 The actual colonization of the new continent of Australia 
 was carried out by British convicts, a band of whom was 
 landed first in Sydney Cove in 1787. Never was a colony so 
 hard to build up, for a short-sighted home government 
 persisted in sending out batches of convict settlers without a 
 single expert farmer to leaven the lump of ignorance and 
 vice. The settlers were at once faced with famine, for the 
 soil about the Cove would not grow corn. A number of the 
 convicts were then shipped off to Norfolk Island, where they 
 were only saved from the same fate by the hosts of sea-birds 
 and their eggs, upon which for a time they lived. After a 
 while farmers were established on the mainland, and, largely 
 owing to the tact and humanity of Phillips, the first governor, 
 his own prediction that " this country would prove the most 
 
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 175 
 
 valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made/* began to be 
 fulfilled. By the year 1792 the young colony of New South 
 Wales, in spite of many drawbacks and difficulties, was the 
 nucleus of a rich and prosperous country, which in 1900 was 
 to become the Australian Commonwealth. 
 
 New Zealand — In 1839 New Zealand, the largest of the 
 group of islands known as Oceania, was annexed by Britain ; 
 and such was her importance, owing to her favoured climate 
 and fertility, that in 1907 she, like Australia, became a self- 
 governing Dominion. 
 
 Africa — During the nineteenth century the New World of 
 Africa, parts of which had known a civilization compared to 
 which that of Europe is but as yesterday, came within the 
 knowledge of an Old World that had forgotten her ancient 
 glory. Yet even in the early days of her story, little more 
 than the shore of the Mediterranean had ever been known. 
 Egypt, Carthage, the Arab domain of North Africa as far as 
 Morocco, and the Straits of Gibraltar belonged to history, and 
 the Portuguese explorers of the sixteenth century had told 
 marvellous stories of the long coast-line to the Southern Seas. 
 But yet Africa, fortressed by her high mountain ranges and 
 dangerous rivers, her vast deserts and thick forests, remained 
 the " Dark Continent " right down to the days of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Then began a rush of exploration. Sir Samuel Baker and 
 Captain Speke followed Mungo Park, who was killed by 
 natives in 1806, in his search for the source of the Nile ; and 
 David Livingstone, about the middle of the nineteenth century, 
 making his way up the Zambesi, crossed the continent from 
 South to North. In his search for the latter in 1871, Stanley 
 discovered the source of the Congo and explored its course ; 
 and in his subsequent writings threw a flood of light upon the 
 Dark Continent as far as Europeans were concerned. 
 
 The Partition of Africa — One of the results of Stanley's 
 exploration was the formation of the Congo Free State, estab- 
 lished by Leopold II, King of the Belgians, for the sake of the 
 rich rubber plantations worked by the negroes. But mean- 
 time other European States were also out for plunder from the 
 
176 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 natives of Africa. Germany quickly acquired by treaty and 
 annexation a large part of South- West Africa, East Africa, and 
 the Cameroons. Italy annexed part of Somaliland, and took 
 Libya from Turkey in 1912. France took Algeria from the 
 Arabs, annexed Tunis, and established a protectorate over 
 Morocco. Portugal obtained Portuguese East Africa. 
 
 But the richest part of the continent, stretching from the 
 Cape to Lake Tanganyika, fell into the hands of Great Britain. 
 Cape Colony became hers in 1816 after the Napoleonic Wars ; 
 twenty years later the Dutch settlers, known as Boers, trekked 
 North to found the republics of Natal, the Transvaal, and the 
 Orange Free State. Natal was the scene of fierce and bloody 
 conflicts between Boers and Zulus before it was annexed 
 over the heads of both by Britain. The other two states 
 remained independent until the discovery of the gold mines 
 of the Transvaal. This led to the immigration of numbers 
 of British-born men, who, as settlers, demanded a share in 
 the government. This the Boers, under the leadership of 
 Kruger, refused, and the Boer War (1899-1902) was the result. 
 
 When once Great Britain had become the conqueror of 
 the Boers, she showed that she had profited by her lesson 
 of over a century before. She granted self-government to 
 Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Natal, and the Transvaal, 
 and these States have now been joined in the Union of South 
 Africa. The Union possesses a parliament and a ministry 
 acting under the Governor-General appointed by the Mother 
 Country ; and thus the rights of Boer and Englishman are 
 alike safeguarded. Beyond these States lies the dominion 
 called Rhodesia after the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, 
 Cecil Rhodes, an English gentleman who was among the 
 first to discover the diamond fields of Kimberley, and to 
 make Bechuanaland a British protectorate. To the north 
 again lie the fertile colony of British East Africa and 
 the Protectorate of Uganda ; and, farther north still, the 
 Sudan and Egypt, both now to be reckoned among British 
 possessions. 
 
 The full story of the partition of Africa must be read 
 elsewhere. Enough has been said to illustrate the remarkable 
 
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION 177 
 
 expansion of Europe during the second half of the nineteenth 
 century. The necessity had been felt for new outlets for 
 European energy after the upheaval of the Franco-Prussian 
 War and the settlements made by the Treaty of Berlin. 
 There was pressing need also for new openings for commercial 
 and industrial enterprise ; and so the eyes of Europe turned 
 to that part of the world whose riches were in those times as 
 fabulous as those of India to the men of mediaeval days. 
 
 Oceania— While the Old World " scrambled for Africa/* 
 the distant islands of Oceania were fast being appropriated by 
 Germany, Britain, and the United States. And since appro- 
 priation had thus become the fashion, Russia, Germany, and 
 Britain began to lay hands upon the ancient Empire of China, 
 peacefully asleep, as it seemed, behind its mountain barriers, 
 and to seize respectively Port Arthur, Kiao-chau, and 
 Wei-hai-wei. Then of a sudden the dreaming Empire moved 
 in her sleep ; the Boxer rising showed the foreigners the 
 need of caution ; the neighbour kingdom of Japan, which had 
 rapidly developed a highly efficient naval and military force, 
 dashed to the rescue and prevented the wholesale spoliation 
 of the Eastern World by the West. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Compare and explain the colonial policy of Britain in the 
 eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries respectively. 
 
 2. Write a critical explanation of the " Scramble for Africa." 
 
 3. What has been the general effect on World History of the 
 Declaration of American Independence ? 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 "GREAT POWERS " AND "BENEVOLENT DESPOTS" 
 
 (a.d. 1650-1800) 
 
 IN this chapter we shall briefly trace the methods by 
 which certain European States, during the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, became " Great Powers." 
 
 In one respect these methods are alike, for they are 
 all based upon what we call " economic development." 
 
 Effect of Great Changes in Europe — About the middle of 
 the seventeenth century — the Peace of Westphalia (1650) 
 may be taken as a convenient milestone — the effect of the 
 great changes that Europe had seen in the past hundred 
 years began to be felt in the economic world. 
 
 Let us briefly recall what these changes were. 
 
 There was, to begin with, the break-up of Christendom 
 after the Reformation, when the central idea of Europe be- 
 came no longer a European Commonwealth, but individual, 
 independent States free from any outside authority. 
 
 This led to the development of the " monarch " and the 
 " State," an idea expressed best by Louis XIV of France 
 in his terse remark, " L'Etat, c'est Moi." Elsewhere it 
 fostered the spirit of individualism that made an Independent 
 State, such as Holland. 
 
 With this is closely connected the new " Mercantile 
 System," which simply meant that all members of a State 
 were bound to work for the welfare of that State, and for 
 the support of the standing army and navy upon which that 
 welfare was now made to depend. 
 
 Then, in place of the old municipal community, we get a 
 
 " central system," organized by a government whose aim 
 
 was to increase the productive power of the nation in order 
 
 178 
 
" GREAT POWERS " 179 
 
 that the resulting wealth might provide a field for heavy 
 taxation. 
 
 For this reason the great trading European companies 
 could generally depend upon some degree of support from the 
 State ; and colonial enterprise was encouraged by the most 
 far-sighted governments for the same reason. 
 
 So it came about that, since national power now depended 
 on national enterprise, it was the State whose income was the 
 largest and on the soundest foundation that became a " Great 
 Power." For on the productive power of the people de- 
 pended the size and strength of the army ; and the army, in 
 days when countries were forcibly carved out of the dis- 
 organization of Europe, became the short cut to power. 
 
 ** War became a business in which the man who invested 
 the largest amount of capital was the most likely to succeed." 
 The result of such a policy, ignoring, as it does, the utterly 
 wasteful and unproductive effect of war, can be seen in the 
 century of revolt that followed. 
 
 The Development o£ France (1650-1713)— The foundations 
 of the greatness of France had been laid, as we saw, by 
 Henry IV. They were strengthened in the direction we 
 have been describing, by Richelieu, the Cardinal Minister 
 of State, who prepared the ground for the despotism of Louis 
 XIV. The aim of the latter was frankly " to make all forces 
 of the State subservient to himself, and to turn them to the 
 advantage of the State at his own will." 
 
 Industry in France was encouraged by the royal power, 
 and then taxed to provide military material, and with this 
 Louis carried on a succession of wars by which he hoped to 
 win an Empire at least as great as that of Charlemagne. 
 
 Thus " economic progress became the foundation of 
 military power," and the country v^^as rapidly developed for 
 this end both as to industry and agriculture. New manu- 
 factures, new inventions were encouraged. Foreign com- 
 petition was excluded wherever possible. Heavy taxes were 
 levied as prosperity increased. 
 
 It is true that a great body of the most industrious part of 
 the population, the Huguenots, were driven out by religious 
 
180 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 intolerance, and left France to help to found the prosperity 
 of other European States ; but, in spite of that, France seemed 
 to prosper exceedingly. Traces of feudalism were to be 
 found here and there, but the tendency of this State en- 
 couragement was to destroy the despotism of the nobles and 
 to increase the number of free peasant proprietors and 
 industrial workers. 
 
 Yet underneath, the foundations of the kingdom of the 
 " Benevolent Despot," Louis XIV, were fast rotting away ; 
 for her apparent success was based, not on a great national 
 movement, but on a system of absolutism that made men 
 serfs in fact if not in name. Long before the death of 
 Louis XV its failure was apparent ; and though other and 
 more immediate causes brought about the Revolution, 
 we must look for its roots in these years of outward 
 success. 
 
 Power of Holland (1660-1713)— During this period the 
 small and new-made State of Holland had been pushing her 
 way to the front in a very different spirit, though by precisely 
 the same method. Her success was won by the sheer de- 
 termination of the whole nation to overcome the natural 
 drawbacks of her position. She commanded, it is true, the 
 mouth of one of the greatest waterways in Europe, but she 
 had also to conquer and make alliance with the sea which 
 periodically overflowed her territory. 
 
 When the ocean had been tamed by the mechanical device 
 of dunes and dykes Holland determined to push to the utter- 
 most the mercantile advantages of her long coast-line. For 
 a century Holland dominated Europe by keeping the carrying 
 trade of the world in her hands ; her ships raced to and fro 
 along the great trade routes to East and West. Her com- 
 merce and business capacity were so well developed that the 
 Dutch became the most wealthy merchants and " capitalists " 
 in Europe. Her fleet defied that of Britain ; her army under 
 William HI of England, the " Stadt holder " of Holland, 
 held up Louis in his attempt to form a continental Empire. 
 Though never a "Great Power" herself, the little country, 
 by keeping up a barrier between France and the rest of the 
 
" GREAT POWERS " 181 
 
 continent, maintained the " Balance of Power " and became 
 for a time the saviour of Europe. 
 
 Peace of Utrecht (1713)— The Peace of Utrecht, which 
 ended a war into which most of the European countries had 
 been drawn, gave to Austria the Spanish Netherlands, now 
 known as Belgium, while France gained little but the border 
 provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. 
 
 Among the minor terms of this treaty was an insignificant 
 clause permitting the ** Elector of Brandenburg " to take the 
 title of " King of Prussia." From that moment dates the 
 appearance of a new power in Europe. 
 
 Five centuries before this time— early, that is, in the 
 thirteenth century— an offshoot of the Crusading army, known 
 as the Teutonic knights, had settled in a wooded and well- 
 watered strip of land lying along the Baltic coast, and in course 
 of years had made this district, now called Prussia, rich and 
 prosperous. Gradually, however, the Poles, their neighbours, 
 encroached upon their territory, and the Teutonic knights 
 were merged into the subjects of the princes of the House of 
 Brandenburg, the nearest province. The ruler of that day 
 made Prussia into a dukedom, and united the two provinces. 
 
 These Brandenburg rulers were of the Hohenzollern race, 
 whose boast was that each of them died possessed of wider 
 realms than those owned by his ancestors. Pomerania and 
 the lands along the Lower Rhine had been added to Branden- 
 burg and Prussia before the death of the Prussian " Elector," 
 Frederick William ; and in 1713, as we have seen, the son of 
 the Elector, Frederick, took the title of King of Prussia. In 
 the days of this king's grandson, another Frederick William 
 the principle of an absolute State, which we have seen in 
 France, was carried out to its fullest extent in Prussia. All 
 kinds of representative councils were suppressed in favour of a 
 " central assembly " of ministers, dominated by the monarch. 
 A standing army ensured support for all his measures, and this 
 was developed by a system of compulsory military service, 
 and by the selection of picked men for his most famous regi- 
 ments ; until, almost unawares, Europe was confronted with a 
 perfect military machine such as no other country could rival. 
 
182 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Economic Policy of Frederick the Great (1740-1786)— 
 
 The success of his son, Frederick II, the " Robber of Europe," 
 in war concerns us less than the means by which he built up a 
 powerful State upon the foundations thus laid. 
 
 It was no mere desire for " land-grabbing," but the 
 knowledge of the linen industry of Silesia, that made the 
 latter Frederick's " Peru." When a long series of wars, which 
 meantime devastated Europe, had finally gained him the 
 province which rightly belonged to Marie Therese of Austria, 
 Frederick had leisure to carry out a thoroughgoing policy of 
 reform throughout the now largely increased territory of 
 Prussia. He had always the deepest admiration for French 
 methods, and he knew that Silesia would have been torn 
 from his grasp had it not been for British gold ; hence his 
 first aim must be to increase the industrial and agricultural 
 wealth of a country, much of which was depopulated and 
 unfertile. 
 
 So he rebuilt villages and farms that had been devastated 
 by war ; he encouraged the " peasant proprietor " or small 
 farmer ; he reclaimed and drained the great tracts of waste 
 lands, and peopled Brandenburg and Silesia, Pomerania 
 and Magdeburg, with colonists from Prussia proper. But he 
 took little heed of the fact that these people, who were subject 
 to forced labour and heavy feudal burdens in order to supply 
 money for his wars, were practically serfs. 
 
 In many rural districts the old feudal wrongs survived. 
 There was little industry, and field labourers could be flogged 
 at the will of their master. Yet in many respects the policy 
 of Frederick, selfish as it was, did much to improve these 
 conditions. Trade was encouraged by grants of money, and 
 every weaver in Silesia was given a loom as a free gift. " Let 
 it be known," the king proclaimed, " that, if any economic 
 enterprise is beyond the power of my subjects, it is my affair 
 to defray the costs." 
 
 The result was an example of " paternal Government " 
 carried to an extreme that left no department of life free from 
 the royal interference. Free corn was doled out in famine 
 years, and the price of corn kept down that the people might 
 
"GREAT POWERS" 183 
 
 not starve ; but " the king was the chief corn merchant in the 
 land." The iron industry, the wool trade, were bound strictly 
 by royal regulations. A maidservant, by royal orders, was 
 not allowed to light her fires with rags. Salt, coffee, and 
 tobacco were monopolies of the Crown. 
 
 His people, under such iron discipline, showed small 
 gratitude and less initiative. " They move if you urge them 
 on, and stop as soon as you leave off driving them," com- 
 plained the king. " Nobody approves of habits and customs 
 except those of his fathers. ... As for me, who never did 
 them anything but good, they think I want to put a knife to 
 their throats as soon as there is any question of introducing 
 a useful innovation or of making any change at all." 
 
 Yet there is no doubt that it was his domestic rule, 
 rather than his immoral foreign policy, that won for Frederick 
 the title of the "Great." 
 
 Reforms of Joseph II in Austria (1760-1790)— All over 
 Europe in these latter days of the eighteenth century we find 
 the same wave of reform, as though, indeed, the Western 
 World had awakened to the fact that by the construction of 
 industry rather than the destruction caused by war must 
 the position of a Great Power be won and held. But 
 still the idea of reform imposed from above rather than 
 demanded from below held good. The State must be the 
 sole agent of improvement. 
 
 The constructive work of Joseph II, who succeeded to 
 the Austrian dominion of Marie Th6rese after her death in 
 1780, was on the most enlightened lines of his day. Taxation 
 was fair and equally distributed ; justice was dealt out im- 
 partially to rich and poor ; education was encouraged ; 
 freedom in religion was tolerated ; the death penalty was no 
 longer inflicted for minor offences. 
 
 At his accession the peasants of some provinces were almost 
 entirely in a state of serfdom. They were not free to leave 
 their masters' estates, or to marry whom they pleased, or to 
 take up any calling but that of manual labour. The first great 
 step towards the real rise of Austria was taken when Joseph 
 abolished serfdom in the Slav provinces, and secured the 
 
184 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Bohemian peasant the right of owning land, of moving from 
 place to place, and of marrying without the permission of his 
 employer. 
 
 Rise of Russia (1700-1800) — ^A similar wave of reform 
 began, in the eighteenth century, to affect a country that had 
 lagged far behind the rest of Europe. Cut off by lack of 
 seaports from the rest of Europe, as well as by religion and by 
 her Eastern origin, Russia, after three centuries of Mongol 
 rule had come to an end, was behind the Western World in 
 education, industry, and civilization. She had never been 
 conquered by the Romans, and therefore owed nothing to 
 the Roman Empire in the way of law and organization. Her 
 people were either ignorant serfs, tilling the ground in scattered 
 villages and by antiquated methods, or they wandered south 
 to the borderland washed by the Dnieper, known as the 
 Ukraine, under the leadership of the Cossacks. These Cossacks 
 were warrior tribes, Slav in dialect, living a wild, free life as 
 hunters or herdsmen and holding their land on the old 
 principle of "feudal tenure,** in return for military service. 
 Others of the population migrated into the region known as 
 Siberia, and extended the borders of Russia to the Arctic and 
 Pacific Oceans. But not until the days of the Czar Michael 
 Romanov did this vast unwieldy country know a ruler who 
 understood the true principles of economic progress ; and not 
 until the days of his grandson, Peter the Great (1689-1725), 
 were these principles adopted to any extent. 
 
 The aims of Peter were first to introduce Western civiliza- 
 tion into Russia, and secondly to make himself the most 
 absolute of monarchs. The calendar, which began the year 
 in September, was brought up to date ; women were allowed 
 to appear in public ; European or, rather, German dress took 
 the place of the long, sweeping Asiatic robe. Roads and 
 canals were made, mines dug, the manufacture of silk and 
 wool encouraged. To support his absolutism, a regular 
 army and navy were organized, the former on the German, 
 the latter on the English, pattern. The European legal system 
 was adapted to Russian ideas. When the clergy of the 
 Greek Church in Russia objected to some of these reforms, 
 
" GREAT POWERS " 185 
 
 the Czar's answer was to place the Church under the complete 
 control of the State, When the nobles opposed his plans, 
 he made the title of nobility depend, not upon birth, but upon 
 the share taken by them in his personal government. 
 
 That these extraordinary changes, suddenly imposed 
 upon a nation deeply tinged with Asiatic conservatism and 
 inertia, did not result in overwhelming confusion, is partly 
 a tribute to the genius of Peter, and partly due to the fact 
 that, owing to the vast size of his Empire, they really only 
 penetrated a very small part of it. The Russian peasant 
 remained a serf, with neither political nor economic rights. 
 The noble cared as little as he had ever done for the progress 
 and welfare of his country. But the indefatigable Czar 
 meant to build, as a symbol of western culture, his grand 
 new city of Petrograd. After that he would force his nobles 
 also to build fine houses and his merchants to carry on their 
 trades. But first, having, superficially at any rate, remade 
 Russia, he meant to drive back the Swedes, make the Baltic 
 his western frontier, and build his " window " into Europe. 
 
 Sweden (1700-1800)— In those days the Baltic Sea was 
 in the hands of Sweden, which in the seventeenth century 
 had developed into a Great Power. By the successful 
 enterprise of Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years 
 War, she held not only her ancient fiefs of Finland and 
 Esthonia, but other small Baltic provinces, including 
 Western Pomerania. The mouths of the Baltic rivers from 
 the Neva to the Weser were under her control, and almost 
 the whole of the Baltic coast was in her hands. 
 
 In striking contrast to the neighbouring country of Norway, 
 the greatness of Sweden has always depended upon the 
 character of her kings ; and this is clearly seen in the days 
 when she was ruled by Charles XII (1697-1718). 
 
 Against this lad of fifteen, Denmark, Poland, and Russia 
 united to rob him of his possessions. Within twelve years 
 the first two of these lay prostrate at his feet, while the third 
 had felt the weight of his arm. Intoxicated by success, the 
 young king, now a man of twenty-seven, determined to 
 march on Moscow and humble Czar Peter to the dust. But 
 
186 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 this was just the opportunity for which the latter had waited. 
 Charles was utterly defeated at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, 
 and Sweden lost all her possessions save part of Finland. 
 The rest of Finland, together with the Baltic provinces on 
 the eastern shores, went to Russia ; and there Peter built 
 the city of his dreams. The province of Western Pomerania, 
 with its rich trading advantages, went to Prussia. 
 
 During the half - century that followed the death of 
 Peter the Great, Russia, through the accession of the German 
 princess Catherine, came into close touch with Germany 
 and into open conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which 
 touched her south-west borders. Poland and Turkey were 
 in those days the only obstacles that prevented Russia from 
 holding the sea power of the South as she now held it in the 
 North. 
 
 Poland — The huge plain of Poland, stretching from the 
 Baltic to the Black Sea, was the home of a Slav people, who 
 had only come into touch with the Western World when they 
 fell in the tenth century under the civilizing influence of the 
 Catholic Church. Four hundred years later we find them 
 united with the Lithuanians, making Warsaw their common 
 capital ; but there was little real unity of any sort to be 
 found among their mixed population of Poles, Lithuanians, 
 Germans, Swedes, and Russians. The peasants were serfs of 
 the most degraded type, ruled by feudal lords, amongst 
 whom the land was divided. All power was in the hands of 
 the latter ; the king was merely their instrument. 
 
 It is no wonder, therefore, that a country lacking the 
 very elements of economic strength fell an easy prey into 
 the grasp of those who coveted her position in Europe. 
 Three times between 1772 and 1795 Poland was, not con- 
 quered, but partitioned out between Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia ; and by the end of the century, in spite of the 
 heroic resistance of Kosciusko, the Polish patriot, the little 
 kingdom had ceased to exist save as a thorn in the flesh 
 of the Europe that had looked on at her death. Never 
 content under foreign rule, always restlessly hankering after 
 national life, Poland yet had no chance of regaining her 
 
" GREAT POWERS " 187 
 
 independence till the cataclysm of the Great War (1914-1918) 
 broke her bonds and set her free. 
 
 The Ottoman Empire — From the Ottoman Empire 
 Russia was also to make profit. At the end of the seven- 
 teenth century the Ottoman Empire had steadily encroached 
 upon Europe until it included the whole of what is now 
 known as Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece, 
 as well as the Crimea and a large part of Hungary. In Asia 
 and Africa the Turks ruled not only Egypt, but Syria, 
 Armenia, Mesopotamia, and North Africa. Vienna itself 
 would have been theirs in 1683 had they not been checked 
 by the Polish king, John Sobieski, whose action helped to 
 free all Hungary from Turkish rule. But Russia, in the 
 days of Catherine the Great, proved Turkey's most powerful 
 opponent. She took from the Turks the Crimea, and gained 
 access to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and 
 Dardanelles. And by the constant interference of Russia 
 with Turkish affairs there was fostered that sense of hostility 
 to the presence of the Turk in Europe, and that desire to 
 drive him back to his original Asiatic home, which had been 
 so strongly felt in mediaeval days. 
 
 Policy of Catherine the Great (1762-1796) — The great 
 unwieldy Empire ruled over by Catherine II during the 
 second half of the century gained little by these outside 
 excursions and alarms. It did, however, profit to some 
 degree by the veneer of European civilization imposed upon 
 it by a Czarina who was of German birth and education. 
 In her frequent journeys from end to end of her vast king- 
 dom, she saw both the need and the difficulty of reform in 
 a country peopled by almost uncivilized serfs living under 
 mediaeval feudal conditions. While keeping up the idea of 
 ** centralization," so dear to the eighteenth-century ruler, 
 she realized the need of granting great freedom in the 
 administration of the widely separated provinces. But 
 though she herself was all in favour of abolishing serfdom 
 in days when peasants were openly advertised for sale, 
 nothing was actually done to emancipate these " goods and 
 '^chattels " of the nobility. 
 
188 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 She also favoured a system of parliament to which a 
 kind of representative was elected by the provinces ; but 
 the utmost she could do in this respect was to get established 
 a clear legal code in place of the muddled laws of former 
 years. 
 
 In the same way, free trade and manufactures were part 
 of her ideal, and to this end she encouraged private factories 
 and abolished monopolies, improved the waterways, and 
 built the valuable port of Odessa on the Black Sea. But, 
 though she made Petrograd a *' seat of enlightened despotism,'* 
 the effect of her reign upon Russia was very small. Out- 
 wardly, perhaps, the nobles adopted a European civilization. 
 The mass of the people remained almost untouched by the 
 policy of a queen whose theories were in advance of her 
 practical administration. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Show what general principles underlay the rise of any 
 European country to the position of a Great Power. 
 
 2. Sketch the Rise of Prussia. 
 
 3. What changes in Economic Conditions laid the foundations 
 for the rise of Great Powers in Europe ? 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL AND POLITICAL 
 
 (1780-1815) 
 
 IF we glance back at the history of the eighteenth 
 century, some of the main features of which we have 
 been studying in the last chapter, we shall see that, in 
 spite of the widespread spirit of despotism, the unreason- 
 able amount of power in the hands of the nobles, and the 
 lack of any opportunity for making heard the voice of the 
 " people," it still may be regarded as the period in which 
 these things were fast passing away in favour of modern 
 conditions. 
 
 Just to take a few examples — we find in it the birth of 
 the new " nation " of the United States upon free and demo- 
 cratic lines. We have seen Prussia rebuilding her national 
 existence on a firm internal organization, enlarging her 
 territory, encouraging those who were to make this period 
 the " greatest era of German thought." Not yet, however, 
 was Prussia to make herself heard in the new Europe ; for 
 her development was still hindered by the effects of the 
 Thirty Years War, and her old-fashioned political machinery 
 and small opportunity for industrial development blocked 
 the way to rapid expansion. 
 
 It is to Great Britain and to France that we look for the 
 most evident features of change during this period, since 
 they were " the two first countries in Europe to attain their 
 nationhood" — the first to respond to the "national ideal" 
 of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Industrial Revolution in Britain (1780-1800) — During 
 the eighteenth century we find in Great Britain the be- 
 ginnings of free speech among members of Parhament, the 
 
 189 
 
190 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 expansion of her Empire overseas, and, more important still, 
 the spread of the scientific ideas of the seventeenth century, 
 such as those of Newton, which were to alter the face of 
 Europe. 
 
 So, during the years when we shall find France in the 
 throes of the terrible revolt by which she was to win her 
 freedom, we see Britain in the midst of a peaceful revolution 
 of industry, the practical result of the new scientific thought. 
 Within a very few years this revolution made her the richest 
 and most successful commercial nation of Europe. 
 
 This Industrial Revolution, the practical work of which 
 was inaugurated by the Younger Pitt, took the form of 
 removing all the ancient restrictions on industry, and of 
 transforming a country mainly agricultural into a great manu- 
 facturing community. In former years the wool trade had 
 been England's mainstay ; and the introduction of the 
 rival cotton industry early in the century had been looked 
 upon with such suspicion that Parliament had ordered people 
 to be buried in woollen shrouds, and forbade the wearing 
 of print dresses. But with Pitt's ministry the economic 
 doctrines of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations began to be 
 accepted, and men saw that the only way to increase the 
 national welfare was to give each industry a free hand. 
 
 So cotton and linen trades were allowed to flourish, and 
 did so beyond all expectation, owing to the many mechanical 
 inventions which developed a limited hand manufacture 
 into great commercial industries. The invention of spinning 
 machines worked first by hand, then by water, and later by 
 steam, revolutionized the face of the country. 
 
 The population flocked from village and countryside into 
 the great trade centres now rapidly rising near the lately 
 discovered coal-fields of the north and midlands. The 
 speedy progress of industry after Watt had found the means 
 of utilizing coal in the form of steam was seen in the extra- 
 ordinarily rapid growth of such towns as Liverpool, Birming- 
 ham, and Manchester. 
 
 And with all this hurried success came the inevitable 
 drawbacks. Two new classes of society appeared — the rich 
 
REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 191 
 
 manufacturers, the capitalists, who drew their wealth from 
 the blood and muscle of the workers ; and the artisans them- 
 selves, badly housed in hastily built hovels, overworked, 
 uneducated, little better than slaves. 
 
 Thus, out of a peaceful Industrial Revolution, which 
 proclaimed an immense increase of trade and prosperity, and 
 the triumph of the capitalist, was to grow that movement 
 towards democratic government which advanced so steadily 
 in the next century. For it was impossible that the ruling 
 power should remain in the hands of a few men of aristo- 
 cratic birth when the wealth and prosperity of the land 
 depended entirely upon the wealthy middle-class merchant 
 and the industrial worker. 
 
 Again, although the industrial reforms seemed at first 
 merely to degrade the working man and to treat him as part 
 of the newly invented machinery, the development of 
 scientific thought, the wider outlook, the very fact that it 
 was a revolution against old-fasliioned ideas, led in the end 
 to a great era of Reform. 
 
 The abolition of slavery, the sweeping changes in 
 prison life brought about by John Howard and Mrs. Fry, 
 the beginnings of educational schemes, all led up to the 
 Reform Bill of 1832, which was the first step in giving the 
 " people " the chance of making their voice heard in the 
 government of their own land. 
 
 The French Revolution — This era of Reform might have 
 come about earlier had it not been for the way in which 
 Britain was involved in the result of the Revolution in France. 
 The spirit of freedom in action which had prevented any- 
 thing like a violent revolution in our own country did not 
 exist in our neighbour across the Channel. Outwardly, 
 indeed, the long-drawn-out despotism of the ancien regime 
 had brought about a " splendour of form," a wealthy nation, 
 a method of thought, and a literature that had made France 
 famous throughout Europe. But, in spite of the fact that 
 feudalism, in face of the new doctrines of such men as 
 Voltaire and Rousseau, was tottering, the nobles could 
 still claim freedom from a taxation that was crushing the 
 
192 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 dumb peasantry ; and the administration of the country was 
 still paralysed by the custom that insisted that even trivial 
 matters of local business must be transacted in the royal 
 courts, at great expense of time and money. 
 
 The general cause of the Revolution was, no doubt, 
 to some extent, the new spirit introduced by the revolt of 
 the American Colonies, as well as by the bitter attack upon 
 the system of Absolutism made by Rousseau in his Contrat 
 Social. 
 
 But these things appealed only to the educated middle 
 class, the bourgeoisie, the lawyers, doctors, merchants, 
 bankers, on whom had fallen the burden of providing 
 money for the State and for the needs of an extravagant 
 monarch. It was the ill-fortune of Louis XVI that he, 
 the only Bourbon who did his best to stem the current of 
 Court extravagance, should have to pay the penalty due to 
 the sins of his ancestors. The reforms of his minister, 
 Turgot, came too late ; and the dismissal of the latter sealed 
 the fate of the old regime in Europe, which Louis himself was 
 honestly anxious to sweep away. 
 
 The recent light thrown on this period shows very clearly 
 that the Revolution was not the outbreak of a maddened 
 multitude despairing of redress ; and that the " people " 
 were rather the victims than the prime movers of revolt. 
 It was the work of an underground conspiracy, made up of 
 sections whose aims differed, but whose one desire was to 
 overcome the monarchy. 
 
 Of these the Orleanist faction had as its leader the in- 
 famous Philippe Agalite, a distant cousin of the King, who had 
 his own axe to grind and cared not how many innocent heads 
 fell under its edge. Anarchists of the lodges of " freemasons " 
 springing up in France and Germany were working to destroy 
 all existing law and order. The animosity of Frederick 
 the Great against the Austrian princess, Marie Antoinette, 
 was by no means inoperative. From across the Channel 
 came promises of support, not from the statesman Pitt, but 
 from the Prince of Wales and certain English revolutionists, 
 whose hands, within their own country, were tied. 
 
REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 193 
 
 Taken all together, these things account for the fact that 
 what might have been a legitimate movement of reform, 
 which aimed at a constitutional monarchy with control in the 
 hands of the wealthy and taxpaying middle class, became a 
 Red Terror, which swept away not only king, queen, and 
 nobles, but also the bourgeoisie who had first set the movement 
 on foot. 
 
 In theory, the French Revolution was to bring about a 
 New Birth of Humanity throughout Europe by means of its 
 three great watchwords, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity " ; 
 and the most terrible feature of the movement was the misuse 
 of these principles. For " Liberty " soon came to mean the 
 right to ignore all obligations and to abolish all authority ; 
 " Equality " impHed the right of destroying a superior ; and 
 " Fraternity " the most bitter and bloodstained struggle be- 
 tween man and man that the world has known. Yet, in spite 
 of this, the actual rightness of these principles persisted and in 
 course of years had its true effect. For to the Modern World 
 was to come the Liberty which permits the development of the 
 individual to his fullest capacity ; the Equality which gives 
 equal opportunities to all ; the Fraternity upon which all 
 society really depends. In France herself we find an awaken- 
 ing of the people, the beginnings of education, a code of law, 
 and a marked increase of small peasant proprietors after the 
 redistribution of the land of murdered " aristocrats." But 
 these good things, which would have come about without 
 the violent reaction of that age, were hindered for many years 
 by the course taken by the Revolution after 1792. The 
 anarchist horrors, the reign of blood, the horrible excesses of 
 mob rule in France had swiftly changed the sympathy of 
 Europe to disgust and hate. The voice of democracy, it is 
 true, was never again to be stilled, but it had little influence for 
 good on the world during the thirty years of war and misery 
 that followed the Revolution. 
 
 The Wars oS the Revolution — ^The main effect of the long 
 
 war that followed was to revive a strong national spirit in all 
 
 the countries of Europe. In this France herself led the way, 
 
 under the leadership of the greatest military genius the world 
 
 13 
 
194 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 has known, in her pride in her own successes in the battle-fields 
 of the Continent, and in the superiority she claimed over both 
 allies and foes. And, on the other hand, this very aloofness 
 of France, combined with the ambitious aims of Napoleon 
 Buonaparte, had the effect of rousing in opposition a perfect 
 passion of national patriotism, which was fanned to white 
 heat by the new-made Emperor's determination to make 
 Europe a part of his World Empire. 
 
 Marat, one of the chief Revolutionary leaders, had once 
 said that before a France, torn with anarchy and ruled by 
 hordes of undisciplined brigands, could return to forgotten 
 paths of commerce and industry, it was necessary to rid the 
 country of a large part of her unruly population by a war. 
 In this phase of the conflict, after 1792, all the States of 
 Europe took part, some, such as Prussia and Austria, to defend 
 the principle of absolute monarchy ; others, like Britain and 
 Holland, because the conquest of Belgium had opened the 
 gate of Europe to the Rhine and to the North Sea ; and Spain, 
 because her ruler was a Bourbon who feared a similar revolu- 
 tion in his own realm. 
 
 It was a war of six States against one, but the balance of 
 power was not so uneven as it seemed, since the newly roused 
 nation, with all her energies absorbed in a war for her existence, 
 was no bad match for a ring of half-hearted and unpopular 
 governments. This first phase lasted from 1792 to 1802 ; and 
 before its fourth year was ended, France had annexed large 
 portions of Germany, Savoy, and the Netherlands, while Hol- 
 land was made a Republic under French protection. She had 
 also driven the Austrians from Lombardy and the Pope from the 
 Papal States of the North. One after another the European 
 States were forced to fall out and make peace. Only Britain 
 and her sea power remained, firm on the foundation of her 
 commercial wealth and able alone to frustrate Napoleon's 
 schemes. 
 
 And now, with the eye of a World Conqueror, Buonaparte 
 had looked beyond the confines of the West, and was aiming at 
 the conquest of the Eastern World, which all these years had 
 been making its own slow but steady progress. To control 
 
REVOLUTION—INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 195 
 
 Egypt, to cut off Britain from the East, and to destroy her 
 Empire in India was his plan ; and on the way to this he meant 
 to conquer the Ottoman Empire, drive the Turk from Europe, 
 and estabHsh French rule over all the central portion of the 
 Continent. 
 
 But English sea power under Nelson at Aboukir Bay 
 brought him to a standstill in the East, while the common 
 danger in that region roused Russia, Austria, and Turkey 
 against him in a coalition which sent him hurrying back to 
 Paris. 
 
 Yet again, within a year we find Russia out of the conflict 
 and prepared to turn her armies against Great Britain ; and 
 Austria broken and brought to her knees after the defeats of 
 Marengo and Hohenlinden. In 1802 the Peace of Amiens 
 left the Netherlands, the Rhinelands, and most of Italy under 
 French rule. 
 
 The Empire ol Napoleon (1802-1813) — ^The peace was but a 
 truce. The war broke out again with redoubled force next 
 year ; and now, in his open claim for World Empire, the chief 
 aim of the Emperor Napoleon was the invasion of Britain. 
 Only the mastery of the seas was necessary to make him Lord 
 of the World ; and Britain alone stood in his path. Austria, 
 it is true, had to be reckoned with ; but, while Nelson's victory 
 at Trafalgar destroyed for ever his hope for sea-mastery, 
 Austria was seen to collapse hopelessly after the battle of 
 Austerlitz, which left Napoleon master of the Continent. 
 
 Then he proceeded to remodel Europe. The Holy Roman 
 Empire vanished, when all the German States except Prussia 
 and Austria became a Confederation of the Rhine under French 
 rule ; the Polish provinces annexed by Prussia were made the 
 Grand duchy of Warsaw ; Napoleon's brother Louis was made 
 king of Holland ; the Papal States were shared among his 
 marshals ; and his brother Joseph was first made king of 
 Naples and then king of a conquered Spain and Portugal. 
 
 The real motive underlying all this was the hope that 
 Britain could be blockaded, and her commerce excluded from 
 a Europe in the hands of the Emperor. But the " continental 
 system " cut both ways ; and nothing more was wanted to 
 
196 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 rouse in all the conquered States a flame of revolt against the 
 despotic rule and exactions of Napoleon. This revolt ended in 
 his downfall at Waterloo. 
 
 Effect on Europe of the Napoleonic Wars — The gift of 
 Buonaparte to France was one of reform, efficiency, and 
 success, which lasted for many years. But these reforms 
 were built upon a foundation of militarism with its handmaids 
 of plunder, bloodshed, and subjection ; and when he himself 
 vanished into the mists of St. Helena, the nation was left 
 humiliated and downcast, ruled by an unpopular king and 
 faced by a possible return to some of the worst features of the 
 old state of things. The effect upon Europe as a whole was 
 remarkable. In Germany and Italy the Napoleonic conflict 
 did much to prepare the way for union and reconstruction by 
 sweeping away the remnants of the feudal nobility ; but the 
 chief effect there, as elsewhere, was to rouse a spirit of 
 patriotism — a thirst for the fulfilment of the national ideal 
 that, while apparently still further destroying the old spirit of 
 internationalism, was all tending towards the idea of Unity. 
 
 For nearly a century there was to be a slow but steadfast 
 movement towards " a federated continent peacefully admini- 
 stered under recognized international laws," an arrangement 
 perfectly compatible with a zeal for nationality. It was one 
 of the worst features of the Great War of the twentieth century 
 that it destroyed this most important principle. 
 
 We see this idea of federation beginning to operate at the 
 Congress of Vienna, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when 
 four Great Powers — Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia — 
 formed a quadruple aUiance. We see it again in the Con- 
 gress, where six reigning monarchs were present besides the 
 representatives of the four Great Powers. And again, 
 when Talleyrand, Castlereagh, Metternich, and Hardenberg 
 could meet together as representatives of European policy to 
 define the borders of France, to provide a new form of 
 government for Germany, and to decide the fate of Poland, 
 Saxony, Finland, and Italy. The " Commonwealth of Europe " 
 in those days was no mere fancy title. 
 
 Congress of Vienna (1815) — Unfortunately, the Congress 
 
REVOLUTION— INDUSTRIAL & POLITICAL 197 
 
 was really dominated by a selfish and reactionary spirit, and 
 its decisions, though they laid the foundation of the States 
 of Modem Europe, were in almost every case reversed during 
 the century that followed. Belgium was joined to Holland 
 under the government of the Prince of Orange, merely to 
 form a stronger barrier against Northern France. Prussia 
 was strengthened by the acquisition of the Rhine Provinces, 
 regardless of differences of race and creed. The repubUcs 
 of Nice and Genoa were forced, much against their will, to 
 join Savoy and Piedmont under the King of Sardinia. 
 
 The thirty-nine States of Germany were loosely knit 
 together in a Confederation, represented by a Diet without 
 executive power. Unlucky Poland was again divided up 
 between Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Finland fell into the 
 hands of Russia, and Norway into those of Sweden. Italy 
 was rent into nine pieces, had to cede Lombardy to Austria, 
 and became, as Metternich said, merely a "geographical ex- 
 pression." Britain strengthened the foundation of her 
 colonial Empire by the gain of Malta, Heligoland, Cape 
 Colony, Ceylon, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. 
 
 Yet, in spite of its many shortcomings and injustices, the 
 treaty signed at Vienna preserved a system of balance among 
 the Powers, which earned for Europe at least forty years of 
 peace in which to rebuild her lost prosperity. An additional 
 clause which enabled the Powers to meet from time to time 
 to deal with the affairs of Europe went further still in the 
 matter of setting up an international form of Commonwealth. 
 There were^even men who talked in those days, as in these, 
 of a League of Nations, that should enforce international law 
 and preserve peace among a kind of United States of Europe. 
 
 Unfortunately, the spirit of reaction was far too strong, 
 and the practical and immediate effect was that the four 
 strongest States— Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Britain— 
 merely joined hands in order the better to poUce France 
 and to maintain the peace of the Western World. 
 
 Outwardly, indeed, the terms of the proposed " Holy 
 Alliance," as announced by Alexander of Russia, sounded 
 well enough. Not only the rulers of the Great Powers, but 
 
198 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 the heads of all the European States were to join in bond to 
 "take for their sole guidance the precepts of the Christian 
 religion, and to strengthen themselves every day more and 
 more in the principles and exercises of the duties which the 
 Divine Saviour has taught to mankind." 
 
 For very different reasons the Pope, the Sultan of Turkey, 
 and the Regent of Britain refused to join the AlHance ; and, 
 though it may not have been the " piece of sublime mysticism 
 and nonsense " that Castlereagh described it, the Holy 
 Alliance had no effect whatever upon the political state of 
 Europe. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Show what general principles underlay the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 2. Sketch some points in a debate for and against the motion 
 " That the French Revolution was an unmitigated evil for 
 Europe." 
 
 3. How far did Napoleon succeed in forming his World 
 Empire ? What economic principles were involved in his success 
 and failure ? 
 
 4. What was the effect upon the world of the Wars of the 
 French Revolution ( 1 793-1 8 1 5 ) ? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 
 (1815-1914) 
 
 THE really important effects of the period of Revolu- 
 tion are to be seen in the century that followed. This 
 century was marked by some of the finest construc- 
 tive work that the world has known ; and yet it has 
 been truly said that it was on the destructive side that the 
 Revolution was most effective. For not until abuses were 
 swept away could the forces of progress be free to work. 
 
 Destructive Work — Thus, in France and Germany, the 
 last relics of feudal serfdom had to be swept away by the 
 armies of Napoleon before the field was clear for the building 
 up of two new nations, on very different lines. In France 
 the Code Napoleon gave a system of justice as just and 
 balanced as that of the famous Roman Law on which it was 
 based ; and the establishment of a national system of educa- 
 tion opened the door of "equal opportunity " to the people. 
 But for many years France in her newborn freedom was merely 
 experimenting with schemes of reform ; it is in Britain that 
 we see the development of the Revolution more fully carried 
 out. 
 
 Here again the destructive side had to come first. The 
 industrial changes which were making the country wealthy had 
 threatened to sweep away the peaceful life of the country- 
 side. The influence of the agriculturists of Holland on the 
 improvement of " tillage " led the landowners to enclose 
 large tracts of land hitherto " common " ; and the cottagers 
 suffered the loss of the bit of waste ground that had enabled 
 them to keep a pig or a cow. 
 
 Wages were very low, work very scarce, and whole parishes 
 
 199 
 
200 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 were deserted by labourers and their families, who found it 
 better worth while to "go on tramp." DemobiHzed soldiers 
 flooded the hungry countryside, and the bad harvests and 
 consequent high price of com almost destroyed the possi- 
 bility of existence for agricultural workers. 
 
 Nor were matters improved by the action of the Government 
 in using the rates for "poor relief," thus enabling the greedy 
 employer to assure himself that these would fully compensate 
 for a starvation wage. In the crowded towns matters were 
 worse still. At first sight the Revolution would seem to have 
 destroyed the first principles of humanity and liberty when 
 crowds of little pauper children were sent to work in the 
 factories ; when unemployed workers could be imprisoned 
 for refusing to work on the employers' terms ; when over 
 one hundred thousand persons were found each year in 
 gaol ; when over two hundred offences were punishable by 
 death. 
 
 Reconstruction — It was in this field, rife with abuses, 
 that the " Fraternity " principle of the Revolution had to 
 work. In spite of the crippling of the country by the ex- 
 penses of twenty years of war, in spite of aU the enormous 
 difficulties of reconstruction in a period of scarcity and social 
 unrest, the year 1830 saw measures of reform already on foot. 
 By that year, the date of the opening of the first British 
 railway, the Factory Acts had begun, slowly but surely, to 
 safeguard the lives and health of women and children in in- 
 dustry. Within a short time (1833) negro slavery had been 
 abolished in our colonies ; the Poor Law absurdities had been 
 swept away, the Penal Code had been revised, and the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws had opened the granaries of Europe to a hungry 
 people. Most important of all was the Reform Act of 1832, 
 which gave the vote to the middle-class population of Britain 
 and prepared the way for the later steps that have given every 
 citizen a chance of making his voice heard in the government 
 of his country. 
 
 These reforms were the result of the change that we call 
 the Industrial Revolution. We have seen the bad side of it 
 in the temporary devastation of agricultural England, and 
 
THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 201 
 
 in the overcrowding and degraded social conditions of the 
 factory workers. 
 
 Most great changes, however, bring great evils in their 
 train ; and when these evils have attention called to them 
 by their very grossness, the work of reform does not end 
 with them. The industrial system, by its dependence on the 
 artisan, forced the Government to give that artisan his vote. 
 The need of connecting the centres of industry led to the 
 construction of the great highways and waterways of the land, 
 as well as the telegraph and telephone. The importance of 
 building up industry by means of strong and virile workers 
 dictated the measures of health reform that have swept at 
 least three mortal diseases almost out of existence and 
 taught us how to control others. And the life of the town, 
 the co-operation needed in modem industry, between 
 workers themselves, as well as between employer and em- 
 ployed, besides leading to the formation of the great Trade 
 Unions, have afforded to the manual workers a chance of 
 wider and quicker mental existence, a " clash of minds," as well 
 as higher ideals of the more material side of life. 
 
 Thus, while the ideal of the Revolution in France was a 
 strong constitutional government, that of England is seen to be 
 the redress of abuses ; and in both cases these were to lead to 
 " a more perfect expression of the public will." 
 
 The fact that Europe was more or less at peace during the 
 years 1815-1845, and again from 1871-1914, enabled the pro- 
 gress of reform to go on apace both in Britain and on the 
 Continent. 
 
 But the twenty-six years that lie between 1845 and 1871 
 were to see another period of violent disturbance in the 
 Western World, with the result of making greater changes on 
 the map of Europe than those that appeared after Waterloo. 
 
 Rise o£ the National Ideal — Early in the nineteenth 
 century there had arisen in many parts of Europe a craving for 
 a national ideal, that " most important of all nation-moulding 
 factors," ^ implying the " possession of a common tradition, 
 a memory of sufferings endured and victories won in common, 
 ^ Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. 
 
202 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 expressed in song and legend, in the dear names of great 
 personalities that seem to embody in themselves the character 
 and ideal of the nation." 
 
 The first outcome of this had been the successful revolt of 
 the Greeks from the rule of Turkey, the separation of HoUand 
 from Belgium, the independent Republics of the Spanish 
 South American colonies, which " called into existence a New 
 World to redress the balance of the Old." 
 
 But similar national movements in Poland and Italy came 
 to nothing, and under the iron hand of Metternich Middle 
 Europe lay, outwardly at least, repressed. 
 
 France, however, won her first triumph of nationalism 
 when she overthrew the House of Bourbon in 1830 and set 
 up a constitutional " middle class " monarchy under Louis 
 PhiUppe of the House of Orleans. 
 
 This was but the overture to the drama. 
 
 Europe 1848-1852 — In February 1848 the real struggle 
 for nationalism began to rage, and Europe seethed with the 
 spirit of revolt for the, cause of freedom. In Italy, Mazzini 
 was gathering the forces of his " Young Italy " party to 
 support Charles Albert, the new King of Piedmont, in his effort 
 to drive out Austria and throw off the hated yoke of the 
 " foreigners." 
 
 In France the weak-kneed "citizen king," Louis Philippe, 
 was forced to flee to England for safety before a republican 
 mob which clamoured for a Republic ; and, immediately 
 this was established, aU Europe blazed up in revolution. 
 
 Within one week (March 15-23) the Magyars of Hungary 
 set up a free state, with their patriot Kossuth as president ; 
 and the Czechs of Bohemia did the same. A Constitutional 
 Government was granted to the Papal States of Italy by Pope 
 Pius IX ; Milan and Venice proclaimed themselves inde- 
 pendent republics ; and Charles Albert, King of Sardinia and 
 Piedmont, declared war upon Austria. 
 
 Metternich fell, and with him the last remnant of the 
 ancien regime in Europe. 
 
 In that same breathless week almost every German State 
 demanded a free constitution and reform, and when a 
 
THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 203 
 
 National Parliament was summoned, won at least the principle 
 of constitutional government. 
 
 Then Austria recovered herself, and the revolution 
 collapsed. The smaller " nations " were put down, Prussia 
 was reduced to a secondary position, and the Austrian 
 Emperor, Francis Joseph, dominated the German States. 
 
 In France, the Repubhc was swept away, and another 
 Napoleon was advanced from President to Emperor. By the 
 year 1850 the democratic outbreak in the cause of nationahsm 
 seemed to have failed. 
 
 Two countries, however, crushed for the moment, were 
 still holding fast to their hopes of freedom ; and the rise of a 
 united Italy and a united Germany marks the next period of 
 European history. 
 
 Europe 1852-1870 — The prehminary to the struggle was 
 the ill-fated attempt of Napoleon III to make himself the 
 " Arbiter of Europe " in days when the Continent was still 
 seething with unrest. 
 
 The second act of the drama brings to the fore that " Eastern 
 Question " which has always been the problem of Europe 
 since the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1453. 
 
 Ever since the days of Peter the Great the control of the 
 " highway of the Straits " of Constantinople had been the 
 chief object of the national pohcy of Russia; and a long 
 series of wars with Turkey had brought her nearer to her aim. 
 
 Early in the century Russian, French, and British ships 
 had destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino, and forced the 
 Sultan to grant independence to Greece. Now, in 1854, 
 Russia made another bid for the possession of the city at 
 whose gates her army had then stood. For Russia knew that 
 the power that held Constantinople controlled the Bosphorus 
 and the Dardanelles, as well as the highway to the great corn 
 ports of the Black Sea. 
 
 At this point, however. Great Britain came in to the 
 support of Turkey. With her France threw in her lot, and 
 shared in her somewhat inglorious success when Russia, 
 vanquished in the Crimean War, appeared as a conquered foe 
 before the Congress of Paris. 
 
204 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 This Treaty of Paris (1856) gave a new lease of life to the 
 Turk in Europe, and imposed fresh hardships on Serbians 
 and Bulgarians, and on the people of Thessaly and Macedonia, 
 who still groaned under his rule. But it forbade Russia to 
 maintain a fleet in the Black Sea, and thus set up a permanent 
 grievance in that quarter, till the embargo was thrown off 
 some fifteen years later, after the change of affairs which had 
 then taken place. 
 
 The " Eastern Question," so far, had resolved itself into 
 the form : " Who is to control Constantinople, and with that 
 city, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the trade of Russia ? " 
 
 We shall see how this question was reopened a few years 
 later. 
 
 The main point at present to keep in mind is the fact 
 that Napoleon's apparent success in the defeat of Russia had 
 encouraged him to come forward, without many qualifications 
 for the part, as the champion of oppressed nationahties. 
 
 His next opportunity of interference with the affairs of 
 Europe arose in 1859, when Count Cavour, the Minister of 
 Victor Emanuel, now King of Sardinia, made a determined 
 bid for the unity of Italy by driving out the Austrians. 
 
 Within a few months the armies of France and the National- 
 ists had driven the Austrians from Lombardy, and high hopes 
 were raised that Venetia would soon be also freed. But here 
 the real treachery and incompetence of Napoleon showed 
 itself. Having secured the duchy of Savoy and the port of 
 Nice for France, he made a secret treaty with the Austrian 
 Emperor and withdrew his troops. 
 
 In principle, he was bound to support the ideal of nation- 
 ality and so to aid both Italy and Germany towards unity. 
 In practice, he feared a united Germany as much as the difii- 
 culties which arose when a Catholic sovereign took a hand in a 
 movement which meant the downfall of the temporal power of 
 the Pope in Italy. So he fell between two impossible ideals, 
 and by his fall dragged France into the Franco-German War 
 of 1870. 
 
 Meantime, however, the people of Italy, roused by the 
 ideal of nationality hitherto so foreign to their minds, had 
 
THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 205 
 
 settled the question of unity for themselves. Tuscany, 
 Modena, and Romagna threw off the Austrian yoke and were 
 united in i860 to the kingdom of Victor Emanuel. Then 
 Naples and Sicily revolted under Garibaldi and opened the 
 gates of the former city to the king. It was not till 1870 that 
 the Franco-German War precipitated the movement which sent 
 Itahan troops into the Holy City. The Pope was deprived of 
 his temporal power, and his sovereign state was restricted 
 to the domain of the Vatican Palace. 
 
 Thus the union of Italy was complete. 
 
 Union 0! Germany— The next triumph of nationality in 
 Europe made Germany, in name at least, a nation. We have 
 seen the growth of that country, with its medley of states, 
 its free cities, counties, and duchies, most of them independent 
 of any central rule. The unification of these was the giant 
 task of Bismarck. His policy was clearly set forth in his own 
 words in 1862 : "My first task will be, with or without the help 
 of parhament, to reorganize the army. The king (WiUiam I) 
 has rightly set himself this task. He cannot, however, carry 
 it through with his present councillors. When the army has 
 been brought to such a state as to command respect, then I 
 will take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria, 
 burst asunder the German Confederation, bring the middle 
 and smaller states into subjection, and give Germany a 
 national union under the leadership of Prussia." 
 
 Here we see the legacy of the old poHcy of the Elector 
 William and his tall grenadiers, the militant poHcy that was 
 to be the ruin of Europe in years to come. With this behind 
 him, after the two powers had once crushed Denmark and 
 divided Schleswig and Holstein between them, Bismarck 
 made short work of Austria at the battle of Sadowa in 1866. 
 
 The Franco-Prussian War — Bismarck was now strong 
 enough to organize the North German States into a Con- 
 federation, and to buy the friendship of Italy at the price 
 of Venetia, taken from Austria ; though the Trentino, Istria 
 and Dalmatia [Italia irridenta), were left as a sop to the con- 
 quered. He could forthwith turn his attention to the dis- 
 gusted ruler of France, who saw his borders threatened by his 
 
206 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 old nightmare, a united Germany. The angry attitude of 
 Napoleon just suited Bismarck's mood. The latter knew 
 the discredited position of the weak and vacillating Emperor 
 in his own country, and could make sure of his prey before a 
 blow was struck. An excuse was found when the revolu- 
 tionists of Spain offered the vacant throne of that country to 
 a HohenzoUern prince. The offer was refused, but the over- 
 bearing demand of Napoleon that a HohenzoUern should 
 never sit upon the throne of the Bourbons was all that 
 Germany required. The sword was raised in July 1870, and 
 two months later Napoleon was a prisoner at Sedan. In the 
 following January the capitulation of a frozen and starving 
 Paris ended the Franco-Prussian War. 
 
 The humiliations that followed, the loss of Alsace and 
 Lorraine and the payment of an immense indemnity, led at 
 once to red revolution in France, when the " Commune " 
 imposed another siege on Paris. This spectre had to be 
 laid before the Third Republic was established, and this, under 
 the guidance of M. Thiers, led to a marvellous resurrection 
 for the country. 
 
 The industry of the peasants, the revival of commerce, 
 the reorganization of local government in every part of 
 the land, and above all, the steady growth of the national spirit 
 had their effect in the paying off of the indemnity within three 
 years and the rapid advance of France on the path of economic 
 success. 
 
 But meantime by the success of German militarism Bismarck 
 had achieved his greatest aim. The South German States, 
 which had hitherto stood aloof, gave up their independence 
 and joined the Confederation. At Versailles, on January 18, 
 1871, William, King of Prussia, was declared German 
 Emperor, and a united Germany could settle down to 
 further plans of World Empire in the future. 
 
 So far, the impulse of nationahty had won union for two 
 of the most disunited territories in Europe. In Austria it 
 had the opposite effect. 
 
 Austria — After the debacle of 1867 the Emperor Francis 
 Joseph I had allowed the Hapsburg territory to be divided 
 
THE ERA OF PROGRESS AND REFORM 207 
 
 into two independent states, the Empire of Austria and the 
 Kingdom of Hungary, under one sovereign. Had the people of 
 these states been sharply divided into Germans in Austria 
 and Magyars in Hungary, this might have worked well. But 
 Austria comprised many people of the Slav and Magyar 
 races, and under the new arrangement was intent upon forc- 
 ing her rule also upon Roumanians, Czechs, and Italians of 
 the Trentino. The Magyars, too, were no more liberal in 
 their treatment of Roumanians, Serbians, and Slovakians, 
 all hugging to themselves the remembrance of national ideals 
 rudely frustrated. Here were all the elements of discord for 
 the future. 
 
 The Balkan States— We have seen how South-Eastern 
 Europe had been hindered in her development by the slow- 
 ness of her Slav population to absorb the civihzation left by 
 Rome, by the traditions she inherited from the Empire of 
 the East in its worst days, from the frequent invasion she 
 suffered at the hands of Huns and Magyars, Tartars and 
 Turks. 
 
 We have seen also the kindling of the spark of nationality 
 among these States of the Balkans, and its suppression by the 
 Turk, whose treatment of Bulgaria amounted almost to 
 extermination. It only needed an outburst of national spirit 
 on the other side, in the movement of the " Young Turks," 
 which united all the races of the Ottoman Empire into one 
 nation, to cause a new blaze of patriotism to bum up in 
 Greece, in Serbia, in Bulgaria, and Montenegro, nominally 
 over the massacres in many-peopled Macedonia, but actually 
 to win a new charter of independence from the Turk. 
 
 The First Balkan War ended in a blow to the Turkish 
 power which took from her Crete and all her territory except 
 the district round Constantinople. Then the allies quarrelled 
 over Macedonia in a Second Balkan War (1913), which removed 
 large districts from Bulgaria and gave great part of Macedonia 
 to Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro. 
 
 The foregoing recital has told mainly of the wars and 
 revolts by which Europe struggled through to the attainment 
 of some at least of her national aims. Roughly, we can 
 
208 
 
 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 see by this time how Modern Europe has been evolved and 
 how her map stood at the eve of the Great War. But one 
 thing remains to be said. Although Italy, Germany, and, 
 to a certain extent, the Balkan States had reached their aims 
 in the matter of creating national and united states, others 
 yet remained restless and unsatisfied. Alsace-Lorraine, 
 Schleswig, Trentino, Poland, and Bohemia held within them 
 the possibilities of ready revolt from an alien rule. The 
 beginning of the twentieth century found Europe quiet on 
 the surface, but by no means at rest. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Trace the growth of the National Spirit in Europe with 
 regard to two of her nations. 
 
 2. Mark briefly the steps which led to the union of Germany. 
 
 3. Trace the effects upon France of the great European move- 
 ments of this era. 
 
 SOME BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 Lavisse et Rambaud 
 
 Histoire Generale. 
 
 
 Cambridge Modern History. 
 
 Symonds .... 
 
 Renaissance Studies. 
 
 Hakluyt .... 
 
 Discoveries, 
 
 Justin M'Carthy 
 
 The Epoch of Reform. 
 
 GiBBINS .... 
 
 Industrial History. 
 
 Marvin .... 
 
 Century of Hope. 
 
 Brailsford , . 
 
 A League of Nations. 
 
 Hearnshaw . 
 
 Main Currents of European History, 
 
 
 181S-1915. 
 
 Pollard .... 
 
 Factors in Modern History. 
 
 Rose 
 
 Development of the European Nations, 
 
 
 I 870-1900. 
 
 Seignobos .... 
 
 History of Contemporary Civilisation. 
 
 Acton 
 
 Lectures on Modern History. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 
 (1900-1920) 
 
 IT has been well said that during the nineteenth century 
 the history of Europe had become the history of the 
 world. The truth of this will be acknowledged by 
 those who have seen all the nations of the earth 
 fighting in a world war that had its apparent origin in a 
 remote European State. It will be realized more fully if 
 we grasp the extraordinary expansion of Europe during 
 the last century. 
 
 The Expansion o! Europe (1815-1914) — Look back for 
 an instant at the sixteenth century. In those days European 
 civilization was known only in France, Britain, the Nether- 
 lands, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. Russia stood 
 aloof from it. Scandinavia and Poland knew almost as 
 little of it as the South-East of Europe, which was entirely 
 under Ottoman influences. 
 
 Then came the era of geographical discovery and coloniza- 
 tion, the full effects of which were not felt till the beginning 
 of the present century. 
 
 We have seen how, early in the nineteenth century, the 
 States of Central and South America revolted against the 
 rule of Spain and Portugal and became independent. A 
 great wave of European immigration followed, and in the 
 year 1907 representatives of the republic then set up ap- 
 peared at the Congress at The Hague as equal members of a 
 European conference. " Thus, during the nineteenth century, 
 the whole South American continent was added to the 
 European political realm.'' ^ 
 
 1 Stanley Leathes, Cambridge Modern History. 
 14 
 
210 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 In North America, the United States had expanded into 
 a great nation, almost entirely composed of Europeans and 
 African negroes, the Yellow Race (Chinamen) being excluded 
 as far as possible. In Canada, British and French, in a 
 blending of races, had settled side by side. 
 
 In the southern hemisphere, the Australian States, all 
 peopled by Europeans, had united into a great Federal 
 Union, and became a Commonwealth in 1900 ; and New 
 Zealand had become a self-governing British Dominion. 
 
 South Africa, in the beginning of the present century, 
 had seen a war between the Dutch farmers and the more 
 progressive new-comers from Europe, and had agreed to a 
 peaceful settlement, which established British and Dutch 
 interests from the Cape to the Zambesi. 
 
 The remainder of Africa had been almost entirely parcelled 
 out among Western nations. France occupied Tunis (1881- 
 1884), and made her influence supreme from Algeria to the 
 Congo. The Congo Free State was annexed by Belgium. 
 Britain dominated the vaUey of the Lower Niger and shared 
 Somaliland with France and Italy ; she also occupied 
 Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, and Rhodesia. Italy held the 
 southern shore of the Red Sea. Germany and Portugal ruled 
 territories in South- West and Eastern Africa. 
 
 In Asia alone we see a solid boundary set to European 
 influence, by the Ottoman Empire, which, in Asia Minor, 
 Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia, appeared quite impene- 
 trable by Western civilization. Siberia, on the other hand, 
 which not long ago was a region of mysterious twilight, 
 has been opened up by the Great Siberian Railway, com- 
 menced in 1891 ; and Russia, in her desire for Eastern 
 expansion, had touched the frontiers of Persia and Turkestan. 
 Japan — But Russia, with her great unwieldy territory, her 
 despotic rule, her hundred million people, barely emancipated 
 from serfdom, her vast feudal estates and imperial domains, 
 could never hope to be a World Conqueror. Checked by 
 British diplomacy and antagonism in Afghanistan, she tried 
 in 1905 to establish a claim on Manchuria and the Liaotung 
 peninsula, a claim that brought her face to face with a new 
 
THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 211 
 
 opponent. Upon Japan's small but efficient shoulders fell 
 the task of driving back the Russian from the Pacific coast. 
 Through her success Japan became allied with Great Britain, 
 and, after peace was established with Russia, agreed with 
 this country and with France to act as " policeman " in the 
 Far East. 
 
 The part played by Japan both then and in the World 
 War has awakened the Western World to her importance 
 as a new industrial power. Her development has been 
 extraordinarily rapid in this respect. Within forty years, 
 exclusive, aristocratic Japan, with her mediaeval feudalism 
 and cottage industries, has not only become a first-class 
 industrial power, but has accomplished the industrial revolu- 
 tion which it took Britain a century and a half to bring 
 about. At this moment she still suffers from the draw- 
 backs of rapid progress — ^unhygienic factories, bad sanitation, 
 inadequate machinery, long work hours, and low wages ; 
 but these are the inevitable sequences of an abundance of 
 labour and a scarcity of capital. What assures her future 
 is the character of the Japanese worker, " his health, cheer- 
 fulness, and general intelligence " {Report on Japanese Labour, 
 IQ20, by Mr. Oswald White). 
 
 China — Already her great neighbour China had roused 
 herself from her dream of centuries. In the Revolution of 
 1900 she had driven out the last Emperor of that Manchurian 
 dynasty which had reigned for nearly three centuries, 
 and set up a Republic in place of her vast unwieldy Empire. 
 Since then her rapid progress in Western education, and her 
 prohibition of the opium traffic and of the many mediaeval 
 customs that crippled her men and her women both physically 
 and mentally, have brought her into close connexion with 
 the world from which she had so long held herself aloof. 
 Her fine railways, factories, and machinery also point towards 
 a career of industrial success ; though here her race character- 
 istics may play a part greater than, though very different 
 from, those of Japan. 
 
 Meantime, while the Eastern World was thus making 
 steady progress, a cloud was gathering upon the Western 
 
212 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 horizon that was shortly to envelop the world in the cataclysm 
 of a great war. 
 
 The Great War (1914-1919)— Amongst the Great Powers of 
 Europe, two, in particular, in the earlier years of the present 
 century, were in need of economic expansion ; and both 
 looked to one part of the East as the gateway of their 
 desires. 
 
 For Russia, the possession of Constantinople and the 
 control of the Straits had always been a supreme need. 
 Essentially Eastern in her outlook, in spite of a thin veneer 
 of Western civilization, the rule of the Imperial city of the 
 East, seat of the Patriarch of the Church to which she gave 
 allegiance, was a matter of importance to a nation essentially 
 religious in mind. Still more important was the control 
 of the Straits, the outlet to the Mediterranean, without 
 which she was incapable of trading effectively anywhere 
 to the west of her own territory. For, though in peace the 
 Straits lie open to the merchantmen of every nation, the 
 Sultan, who has the right to close them in time of war, can, 
 by so doing, " shut up the Black Sea fleet as in a lake." ^ To 
 gain the Mediterranean, Russia would then have to sail 
 from Baltic ports that are frozen part of the year, round the 
 west coast of Europe, and through the Straits of Gibraltar. 
 
 To Germany the control of the Turkish power was equally 
 important, for it meant to her the door to the economic 
 advantages of Asia Minor. If she could but get into her 
 hands the railway to Bagdad and link it up with Berlin, a 
 rich and backward country must lie at the feet of the great 
 German capitalists. 
 
 To the Balkan States the Straits were of no less import- 
 ance. Roumania depended upon them for £dl, Bulgaria for 
 nearly all, her commerce ; and the whole of the Balkan 
 region was bound to fall under the control of any Great 
 Power which could estabUsh itself in the peninsula. 
 
 These facts may serve to explain some of the causes of 
 the Great War ; and with them may be noted the position 
 of Serbia, an independent and hostile little kingdom block- 
 1 Brailsford, A League of Nations, 
 
THE WORLD OF TO-DAY 213 
 
 ing the way of the railway that was to afford Germany a 
 road to Constantinople and Bagdad. 
 
 The first step towards the war had been taken, therefore, 
 in 1898, when William Hohenzollern, at the Court of Abdul 
 Hamid, the " Sick Man of Europe," declared himself the 
 " protector of the Ottoman Empire, the patron of the Moham- 
 medan religion throughout the world, the ally of Allah " ; and 
 forthwith proceeded to reorganize the Turkish army on 
 German lines. 
 
 We live in days too near the Great War to be able to dis- 
 entangle all the motives and causes of the terrible process of 
 destruction, which gradually involved practically the whole 
 world. 
 
 From the Pacific Ocean, where the naval forces of 
 Australia and New Zealand swept Germany from New 
 Guinea and the islands of Oceania in 1914, to Kiao-chau 
 seized by the fleet of Japan ; from African Togoland and 
 the Cameroons to Mesopotamia and the sites of ancient 
 world empires ; from Egypt and the Holy Land, with all 
 their old and sacred associations, to the world of America in 
 the youth of existence, fighting " to make the world safe for 
 democracy," the torch of war was carried in haste. Cuba 
 and Panama, Brazil and Siam, Liberia and China played 
 their part, and thus the war-cycle of the whole earth was 
 completed. 
 
 This is not the place to tell the story of the war, but two 
 main incidents belong to world history. In March 1917 
 Russia's Revolution caused the downfall and death of the 
 Czar and his family and the setting up of a socialistic state 
 under the dictator Kerensky. 
 
 Almost immediately the many widely different races of 
 which the country was composed — Cossacks, Ukraines, Finns, 
 Siberians, and Russians — broke up into different factions, and 
 Russia, involved in a terrible internal conflict, fell out of the 
 European War. 
 
 On II November 1918, Germany was forced to sue for 
 peace ; and this was formally declared in 1919. 
 
 A terrible world war such as this was bound to leave 
 
214 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 behind it an atmosphere of unrest, a legacy of pressing social 
 problems. But it has not been fought in vain if it has done 
 two things at least. It should have taught the world that 
 government based on military power alone carries with it 
 the seeds of destruction. It should also have taught the 
 need of some such organization as a League of Nations based 
 on the ideal of co-operation in the work of civilization. 
 
 During these long centuries, through whose vistas we have 
 but glanced, the Empires of the world, used in the old bad 
 sense of the autocratic rule of one nation over many others, 
 have passed, like shadows, away. In their place there is 
 hope of a new world story, with universal brotherhood as its 
 aim in place of universal domination ; in whose days the 
 wars which stain the pages of the past may become incredible 
 legends for the Children of the Future. 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Give some account of the development of Modern Japan. 
 
 2. Explain the importance of Constantinople to the European 
 Powers. 
 
 3. In what sense was the Great War a World War ? Illustrate 
 by a map. 
 
 4. Show the expansion of Europe during the nineteenth and 
 twentieth centuries. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acre, 114 
 Acropolis, the, 44 
 Africa, 58, 60, 65, 175 
 — • Union of South, 176, 210 
 
 — West, 157 
 Age, Bronze, 4 
 
 — Stone, 2, 3 
 Ages, Dark, 78 
 Agricola, 44 
 Alaric, 71 
 Alcibiades, 50 
 Alcuin, 100 
 
 Alexander the Great, 23, 26, 50 
 
 Alexander III, Pope, 124 
 
 Alexandria, 51 
 
 AUemanni, 95 
 
 Alsace, 79, 154, 181, 206 
 
 America, 164, 168, 171 
 
 — Central, 161 
 
 — United States of, 173, 213 
 Amiens, Peace of, 195 
 Angles, the, 94 
 Antwerp, 129, 141 
 Aquitaine, 95 
 
 Aragon, 121, 160 
 Arabia, 71, 85 
 Arabs, Sy, iii 
 Aristophanes, 49 
 Aristotle, 49, 126 
 Aryans, 35, 55, 66 
 Asia, Central, 13, 23, 46 
 
 — Minor, 4, 43, 59, 84, iii, 133, 
 
 212 
 
 — Western, 23, 34, 86, iii, 129, 
 
 210 
 Assyria, 10, 17, 53 
 Athens, 45 . 
 
 Attila, 73 
 Augustine, St., 82 
 
 — Bishop of Hippo, 72 
 Augustus, 59 
 Austerlitz, 195 
 
 Babylon, 10, 14 
 
 — Second Empire of, 16 
 
 Bagdad, 88, 116 
 
 Balkan Peninsula, 41, 115, 152, 
 207 
 
 — States, 208, 212 
 
 — Wars, 207 
 
 Barbarian invasion, 71, 77 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, 124 
 Bartholomew, St., Massacre of, 
 
 153 
 Basques, 54 
 Bavaria, 155 
 Belgium, 153, 202 
 Benedictines, the, 104 
 " Benevolent Despots," 178, 180 
 Bengal, 166 
 Berlin, Treaty of, 177 
 Biscay, Bay of, 95 
 Bismarck, 205 
 Bohemia, 123, 155, 208 
 Bokhara, 132 
 Book of the Dead, 9 
 Brahma, 36 
 Britain, 25, 59, 67 
 
 — Great, 189, 197, 203 
 Bruges, 129 
 Buddha, 33, 39, 108 
 Bulgarians, 93, 195 
 Buonaparte, Napoleon, 194 
 
 Caligula, 61 
 Canada, 169, 172 
 
 — Act, 1 73 
 
 " Capitalism," 142 
 
 Carolingians, 95 
 
 Castile, 121, 160 
 
 Cathay, 160 
 
 Catherine the Great, 187 
 
 Caucasus Mountains, 54 
 
 Celestine, Pope, 81 
 
 Chaldaea, 16 
 
 Charlemagne, S,y, 96, 99 
 
 Charles V, Emperor, 151 
 
 China, 13, 30, 33, 46, 89, 133, 160, 
 
 211 
 City States, 46 
 
 21S 
 
216 
 
 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Claudius, 6i 
 
 Clement VII, Pope, 151 
 
 Cleopatra's Needle, 10 
 
 Clive, Robert, 167 
 
 Clovis, 79, 95 
 
 Cluny, 104 
 
 Code Napoleon, 199 
 
 Colonies, American, the, 169, 171 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 143, 160 
 
 Commonwealth of Europe, 196 
 
 Commune, the, 206 
 
 Confucius, 32 
 
 Congo River, 157 
 
 Constantine the Great, 69 
 
 Constantinople, 84, 94, 98, 112, 
 
 134, 139, 203, 212 
 Corinth, 128 
 Cortes, F., 161 
 Crimea, the, 203 
 Crusades, the, iii 
 Cyrus, 17, 22 
 
 Damascus, 24, 116 
 
 Danube, River, 60, 100, 122 
 
 Darius, 22 
 
 " Dark Ages," the, 93 
 
 Delhi, 38 
 
 Delos, 47 
 
 Denmark, 122 
 
 Desiderius, 96 
 
 Diocletian, 68 
 
 Dnieper, River, 132 
 
 Dominicans, the, 117 
 
 Dorians, the, 43 
 
 Draco, 48 
 
 Dupleix, 167 
 
 Duquesne, 170 
 
 East India Company, 158, 166 
 " Eastern Question," the, 204 
 Egypt, 7, 9, IT, 59, 68 
 Empire, Angevin, 117 
 
 — Chinese, 131, 177 
 
 — Eastern, 71, 80, 103, 134, 139 
 
 — Egyptian, 8, 10, 11 
 
 — Frankish, 79, 97 
 
 — German, 206 
 
 — Great Mogul, 164 
 
 — Greek, 118 
 
 — Holy Roman, 122 
 
 — Mohammedan, 85, iii 
 
 — Mongolian, 93, 131 
 
 — Ottoman, 187, 195, 210, 213 
 
 — Persian, 84 
 
 Empire, Roman, 75, 83 
 — Western, 66, 70, 81, 98, loi 
 England, 116 
 Ephors, 47 
 Epicureans, 62 
 Etruscans, 54 
 Euclid, 51 
 
 Euphrates, River, 14, 59, 70 
 Euripides, 49 
 
 Europe, 41, 54, 68, 70, 78, 82, 99, 
 126, 196, 203, 209 
 
 Factory Acts, 200 
 
 Feudalism, 103, 120, 139 
 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, 121, 160 
 
 Firdusi, 24 
 
 Flaminius, 51 
 
 Flanders, 116, 129 
 
 France, 90, 116, 120, 144, 153, 179, 
 
 194 
 Francis II. Emperor, 125 
 Franciscans, the, 117 
 Franks, the, 79, 90, 95 
 Frederick Barbarossa, 124 
 Frederick the Great, 182, 192 
 Frederick II, Emperor, 124 
 
 Gama, Vasco da, 164 
 
 Gaul, 59, 68, 73 
 
 Gautama, 39 
 
 Genghis Khan, 93, 131 
 
 Genoa, 129 
 
 Germania, 59 
 
 Germans, 65, 93 
 
 Germany, 116, 154, 196, 205 
 
 Gilds, 128 
 
 Goths, 77, 81, 90 
 
 Greece, i, 4, 25, 41, 43, 46, 58, 
 
 68 
 Gregory the Great, 81 
 Gregory VII, Pope, 113, 117 
 Greenland, 10 1 
 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines, 119, 123 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 154 
 
 Hadrian, Pope, 96 
 Hammurabi, "Code" of, 14 
 Hannibal, 58 
 Hanseatic League, 155 
 Hapsburg, House of, 125 
 Harmachis, 8 
 Hasdrubal, 58 
 Hebrews, the, 16, 28 
 Helen of Troy, 44 
 
INDEX 
 
 217 
 
 Hellenes, 45 
 
 Himalayas, 165 
 
 Henry IV, Emperor, 113, 117 
 
 Henry VI, Emperor, 124 
 
 Henry I of England, 113 
 
 Henry II of England, 124 
 
 Henry III of England, 114 
 
 Henry VIII of England. 150 
 
 Henry IV of France, 153, 179 
 
 Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 157 
 
 Hohenstaufen, 125 
 
 Holland, 156, 180, 194 
 
 Holy Alliance, the, 197 
 
 Homer, 43 
 
 Horace, 60 
 
 Hudson Bay Company, 170 
 
 Huguenots, 153, 179 
 
 Hundred Years War, the, 128 
 
 Hungary, 122, 202 
 
 Huns, 65, 73 
 
 Hyksos Kings, 9 
 
 Iberians, 54, 121 
 Iceland, 158 
 
 India, 13, 25, 35, 38, 164, 167 
 Indo-Germanic tribes, 54 
 Inn, River, 95 
 Ireland, 159 
 Isabella of Castile, 160 
 Islam, 87, 90 
 
 Italy, 68, 90, 96, 103, 123, 129, 
 195, 204, 208 
 
 James II, 152 
 
 Japan, 34, 94, 106, 160, 210 
 
 Jerusalem, 28, 84, 112, 114 
 
 Jews, the, 28, 66 
 
 Joseph II of Austria, 183 
 
 Judaea, 16 
 
 Julius Caesar, 59 
 
 Justinian, 80 
 
 Jutes, the, 94 
 
 Karnak, 11 
 Kiao-chau, 177 
 Knossos, 5 
 Korea, 34, 108, 132 
 Kosciusko, 186 
 Kossuth, 202 
 Kubla Khan, 108 
 
 Lares and Penates, 56 
 
 Latins, 54 
 
 League of Nations, 197, 214 
 
 15 
 
 Leo the Great, Pope, 73, 81 
 Leo III, 98 
 Leo X, 150 
 Leonidas, 48 
 Lombards, 94, 96 
 Louis IX of France, 120 
 Louis XIV, 170, 179 
 Louis Philippe, 202 
 Louis the Pious, 102 
 Luther, M., 150 
 Lutzen, 154 
 Lydia, 46 
 Lysimachus, 5 
 
 Macedon, 23 
 Macedonia, 58, 68 
 Machiavelli, 140 
 Madras, 166 
 Magyars, 93 
 Mahabharata, 38 
 Marathon, 23 
 Marco Polo, 34, 108 
 Martel, Charles, 90, 95 
 Maximilian, 151 
 Maximus Pontifex, 62 
 Mayflower, the, 159 
 Mazzini, 202 
 Mecca, 85 
 Medes, the, 20 
 
 Medina, 86 
 
 Mediterranean Sea, 12, 24, 116. 
 129, 212 
 
 Memphis, 7 
 
 Menepthah, 11 
 
 Menes, 7 
 
 Mesopotamia, 14, 25, 68, 86, 213 
 
 Metternich, 202 
 
 Mexico, 143, 161 
 
 Milan, 129 
 
 — Edict of, 69 
 
 Minos, King, 41 
 
 Mohammed, 85, 11 1, 136 
 
 Mongols, 34, 108, III 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, 173 
 
 Moors, the, 97, 121, 160 
 
 Moslems, 87 
 
 Nantes, Edict of, 153 
 
 Naples, 91 
 
 Nationality, rise of, 138, 148 
 
 Nausicaa, 44 
 
 Nelson, 195 
 
 Nero, 61 ^ 
 
 New Zealand, 175, 210 
 
218 
 
 A SHORT WORLD HISTORY 
 
 Newfoundland, 159, 163 
 Nicephorus, 88 
 Nile, River, 8, 23 
 Nineveh, 14 
 North Sea, 71 
 Northmen, 83, loi 
 Nova Scotia, 159 
 
 Oceania, 177 
 Odessa, 188 
 Odoacer, 77 
 Olympia, 4, 47 
 Olympus, Mt., 44 
 Orleans, 120 
 Othman, 134 
 Otto the Great, 122 
 Ottoman Empire, 186, 195 
 
 — Turks, 134 
 Osiris, 8 
 Ostrogoths, 80 
 Oude, 39 
 Ovid, 60 
 
 Paleologus, John, 135 
 Palestine, 10, 29, 72, 112 
 Paris, 120 
 
 — Peace of, 171 
 
 — Treaty of, 204 
 Pavia, 94 
 
 Peace of Westphalia, 178 
 
 Pelasgi, 54 
 
 Peloponnesus, 46 
 
 Penelope, 44 
 
 Pepin, 95 
 
 Pericles, 48 
 
 Persia, 11, 21, 47, 92, 109, 131, 210 
 
 Persian Gulf, 25, 93 
 
 Peru, 163 
 
 Peter the Great, 184 
 
 Pharaoh, 11 
 
 Pheidias, 49 
 
 Philip Augustus, 120 
 
 Philip IV of France, 120 
 
 Philip of Macedon, 50 
 
 Philip II of Spain, 153 
 
 Philippines, 160 
 
 Phoenicia, 16, 24 
 
 Pius IX, Pope, 202 
 
 Plassej'. battle of, 167 
 
 Plato, 49, 62 
 
 Poland, 123, 186, 196 
 
 Poor Law, the, 200 
 
 Port Arthur, 177 
 
 Portugal, 157 
 
 Prussia, 155, 181, 194, 196, 205 
 Punjaub, the, 35 
 Pyramids, the, 8 
 Pyrenees Mountains, 120 
 Pyrrhus, 58 
 
 Quebec, 169 
 
 Ra, 8 
 
 Rameses II, 11 
 Raphael, 140 
 Ravenna, 77, 96 
 Red Sea, the, 10, 85 
 Reform Act, 200 
 Reformation, the, 148 
 
 — Counter, 151 
 Renaissance, the, 139, 148 
 Revolution, French, 191, 200 
 
 — Industrial, 189 
 Rheims, 79 
 
 Rhine, River, 60, 95, 100 
 
 Richard I of England, 114 
 
 Richelieu, 154, 179 
 
 Rig- Veda, the, 36 
 
 Roderick, King, 90 
 
 Roe, SirThos., 165 
 
 Rome, 53, ^5, 57, 76 
 
 Rosetta Stone, the, 12 
 
 Rudolf, Emperor, 125 
 
 Russia, 46, 103, 132, 184, IQ5, 197, 
 
 210, 213 
 Rustem, li 
 Ruy Diaz, 121 
 
 Sadowa, 105 
 Samaria, 18 
 Samnites, 54 
 Samurai, 108 
 Saracens, 90, 121 
 Sargon, 19 
 Saxons, 94 
 
 Scandinavia, 94, 103, 152 
 Scotland 102, 152 
 Sedan, 206 
 
 Seljukian Turks, 92, no, 132 
 Serbia, 135, 207 
 Seven Years War, 167 
 Shakespeare, 140 
 Sheba, Queen of, 10 
 Sicily, 54, 38, 91, 124 
 Sid on, 24 
 Silesia, 182 
 I Slavery abolished, 191, 200 
 Slavs, 186 
 
INDEX 
 
 219 
 
 Socrates, 49 
 
 Sohrab, 21 
 
 Solon, 46 
 
 Sophocles, 49 
 
 Spain, 25, 59, 65, 68, 90, 121, 143 
 
 Sparta, 47 
 
 States, United, of America, 171, 
 
 173 
 Stephen II, Pope, 95 
 Stettin, 141 
 Stoic, 62 
 Surat, 166 
 Susa, 23 
 
 Switzerland, 125, 152 
 Syria, 10, 58, 68 
 
 Tamerlaine, 132 
 
 Taoism, 32 
 
 Tartars, 73, 93, 106 
 
 Teutonic knights, 126 
 
 - — tribes, 93 
 
 Thebes, 10 
 
 Theodoric, 80 
 
 Theodosius, 70 
 
 Themistocles, 48 
 
 Thermop3dse, 48 
 
 Thothmes, 10 
 
 Thrace, 68 
 
 Tiber, River, 55, 59 
 
 Tibet, 132 
 
 Tigris, River, 14 
 
 Tirj^hs, 5, 42 
 
 Towns, rise of, 127 
 
 Trafalgar, 195 
 
 Troy, 4 
 
 Turkestan, 131 
 
 Turkey, 198, 203 
 
 Turks, Seljuldan, 92, no, 132 
 
 Tuscany, 55 
 
 Tyre, 24, 26 
 
 Ukraine, the, 65, 184 
 Umbrians, 54 
 
 United States of America, 171 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, 181 
 
 Vandals, 65, 75 
 Vedas, the, 36 
 Venice, 124, 129 
 Versailles, 206 
 Vespucci, Amerigo, 160 
 Vienna, Congress of, 196 
 Virgil, 60 
 Vishna, 37 
 Visigoths, 71, 73, 90 
 Vladimir, 103 
 Volscians, 54 
 
 Wallen stein, 154 
 War, the Great, 212 
 Washington, George, 170 
 Wei-hai-wei, 177 
 Westphalia, Peace of, 154, 17S 
 White Sea, 93 
 William of Normandy, 120 
 William III of England, 153, 
 
 180 
 William the Silent, 153 
 William II, German Emperor. 
 
 213 
 Worms, Diet of , 151 
 
 Xerxes, 23 
 
 York, 100 
 Ypres, 129 
 
 Zeus, 44 
 Zipango, 160 
 Zoroaster, 21 
 Zwingli, 152 
 
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