Colonialism During the Belle Époque

Here's my first forum post from the next course: Modern European History.

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The popular militarism of the Belle Époque is broadly expressed in cultural texts from the period. For the readings for the week, this militarism is expressed within the context of colonialism, but more specifically, the readings provide hints of the conflicts that will arise for the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia over the course of the coming decades. Britain already ruled the seas and, by extension, an enormous empire by the Belle Époque, and its military supremacy would persist until it was supplanted by the United States during World War II. Russia and Germany, as relative latecomers to the "great game," saw their imperial destines lying in the east, although the specifics were different and their interests overlapped.

A common theme uniting the imperialistic anthems of the United Kingdom is that of divineright. Repeatedly in the songs excerpted in the reading are references to the imprimatur of God on Britain's colonial endeavors. This expression is perhaps most clear in "God Save the Queen," here referring to Victoria, under whose reign the empire reached nearly its greatest extent. More explicitly, "Land of Hope and Glory" in more than one line, addressing Britain, says that God has "made thee mighty,"[1] with the direct statement that the borders of the empire will be expanded with God's approval ("Wider still and wider / shall thy bounds be set").[2] The association between the imperial enterprise and divine favoritism comes to full fruition in "Jerusalem," with the United Kingdom cast in Blake's lyrics as so good a defender of Christendom that Britain approaches Biblical Jerusalem in its holiness.

The excerpt by Prince Ukhtomskii of Russia, written when the author accompanied the future Tsar Nicholas II on a diplomatic voyage to the Far East, is no less explicit in expressing a unique place for Russia in the family of nations, although unsurprisingly, the specifics of Russia's geopolitical role are quite different. Most importantly, the militarism of Ukhtomskii's thoughts often seem directed less toward those whom he sees as potential imperial subjects and more toward the European nations that have already colonized Indonesia (the Netherlands) and Indochina (France). He excoriates the greed and racism of European colonialists: "The natives are not brothers in humanity to them; for them the land is one of voluntary exile, and the people are considered as miserable and inferior beings."[3] Russia, owing to its massive intercontinental geography is different, Ukhtomskii maintains, not only in its greater respect for the people of Asia, but more importantly also in the esteem that Asians feel for Russia and its "White Tsar."[4] Unspoken but underlying the acknowledgement of Russia's particular role in Asian imperial rule is impending conflict with Japan, hinting toward the conflict with that country that Russia would fight less than twenty years later.

Friedrich von Bernhardi's Germany and the Next War was published in 1912 and is thus the latest of the readings for the week, as well as closest to World War I. Bernhardi's point of view is the clearest expression of Social Darwinism and the military conflict necessary for the further "evolution" of European civilization: "War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow, which excludes every advancement of the race, and therefore all real civilization."[5] In referring immediately before this passage to the Hague Peace Conference, Bernhardi seems to be suggesting that European conflict must be waged within certain restrictions, unlike Germany's recent colonial endeavors in present-day Namibia.[6] Nevertheless, it is clear that Bernhardi sees war as an important aspect of European development. Within the context of both the completed division of Africa among European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1885 and Bismarck's Drang nachOsten (drive toward the east), in so far as major conflict going forward will be largely imperial in nature, Germany's conflicts will be with Russia, as the war to come would show.

Thus, the readings from British, Russian, and German writers all engage the topics of militarism via colonialism, but the dimensions of the topics are country-specific. Britain envisions continued military supremacy and an ever-growing empire. Russia sees a manifest destiny of hegemony over Asia, with the realization that such supremacy must be maintained, if not imposed, militarily. Germany believes that militarism and the war that it engenders is a positive process and an innate human need, and its recent geopolitical posturing indicates that it sees its imperial and colonial future in Eastern Europe, under the concept of Lebensraum (living space). That these three countries' paths would greatly diverge in the coming decades is clear, but perhaps the readings will provide some indication of why they did.

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     [1] "British Imperialistic Anthems: Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory, and more," Modern History Sourcebook, accessed June 12, 2016, http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/rulebritannia.asp

     [2] Ibid.

     [3] E.E. Ukhtomsky, "Prince Ukhtomskii: Russia's Imperial Destiny, 1891," Modern History Sourcebook, accessed June 12, 2016, http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1891ukhtomskii.asp, para. 6.

     [4] Ibid, para. 7.

     [5] Friedrich von Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War, translated by Allen H. Powles, accessed June 12, 2016, http://www.gwpda.org/comment/bernhardi.html, chapter 1, para 7.

     [6] George Steinmetz, "The First Genocide of the 20th Century and its Postcolonial Afterlives: Germany and the Namibian Ovaherero," Journal of the International Institute 12, no. 2 (Winter 2005): http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0012.201/--first-genocide-of-the-20th-century-and-its-postcolonial?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=Race+and+Ethnicity

Final Exam: 1492 vs. the Present

Explanation: This was my final exam essay for my World History 1500 to Present class. Got an A!

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In 1492, the world was bifurcated. On the one hand, the so-called Old World of Africa and Europe for the most part had interconnected economies through trade routes and maritime commerce, complex societies, and political systems characterized mainly by monarchy. On the other hand, the Americas were isolated, with few societies in contact economically, a large proportion of people still hunting and gathering, and monarchy limited to only a few places. However, with the Columbian Exchange begun in 1492 and the consequent historical developments, the world has converged economically, politically, culturally.

Economically, the looting of gold and silver from the Americas was among the first impacts of contact between the hemispheres. The increase in hard currency drove prices up and also funded further colonial endeavors that further drove a fledgling trans-Atlantic trade. One example is the growth of the sugar trade based on the introduction of coffee to the European market. Because sugar must be farmed in tropical climates by workers accustomed to such conditions, Caribbean plantations drove the market for slavery.

With the Industrial Revolution in Europe, economic growth grew more than ever before, consequently linking hemispheres even more closely. The freeing of human industry from agriculture due to industrialization gave rise to further technological innovation, culminating in the digital economy of today. Compared to 1492, when markets in Belgium and the Amazon basin were totally unrelated, now all markets affect one another due to electronic banking, international investment, and free trade pacts from the late 20th century.

Politically, the Eastern Hemisphere was characterized by monarchies. Agriculture had given rise to food surpluses, in turn giving rise to divisions of labor, urbanization, and concentration of wealth. Large agricultural entrepreneurs who benefited from economies of scale amassed economic and political power, culminating in a hierarchical structure with a monarch on the top. The Western hemisphere, limited by fewer cultivable crops and animals suitable for husbandry, developed monarchies in only a few areas, maintaining a very large proportion of hunter/gatherer societies, characterized politically by fierce egalitarianism.

Contact between hemisphere, based as it was on clear economic and, thus, political inequality, resulted in the extension of monarchy to the Western Hemisphere in the form of empire. However, between the American Revolution and the final throes of decolonization in the post-World War II period, in most cases, political sovereignty was established such that new, independent states were established. Since World War II, in particular, democratization has been the norm, at least in theory. The republican form of government or, at the very least, constitutional monarchy has become commonplace, although certain areas of the world have found the transition more difficult than others.

Culturally, the world was arguably more diverse in 1492 than it is today. Cultures were distinctive in the Eastern Hemisphere on a roughly continent-wide basis, with Europe characterized by a culture steeped in Christianity, the Middle East in Islam, the Far East in Buddhism, etc. Outside of major world powers, languages were largely non-written and quite numerous. This was particularly the case in the Western Hemisphere, where only a handful of languages had any written form. Similarly, religion in the Western Hemisphere had not yet been influenced by Abrahamic faiths, which then as now made up a plurality, if not a clear majority, of professed religious faiths.

Since Columbus's arrival in the Americas, the story has been one of decreased diversity, although of course diversity persists to some extent. Christianity was undoubtedly triumphant in the Western Hemisphere. With the exception of a handful of sizable Hindu communities in the Americas arising from the diaspora of workers from India in the 19th century, Jewish communities strewn about as a consequence of international trade, and far more recent communities of peoples of other religions, including Islam, due to more open immigration policies, the Western Hemisphere has established populations with overwhelmingly Christian -- and in Latin America, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic -- populations. In addition, the Western Hemisphere (and post-Colonial Africa) now uniformly speaks European languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Consequent with the political and economic superiority of the United States since the end of World War II (if not longer), a pervasive culture marked by consumerism has become common in much of the world. Because the U.S. is the world's largest consumer base and because it has the world's largest gross domestic product, the production and trade of goods worldwide has taken on a focus on America and Americans, with clear multiplication of American commercial products (blue jeans, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, etc.). Although there has also clearly been a backlash against this trend, it is not that it will end anytime soon.

In conclusion, a world largely divided by hemisphere in 1492 has, in the five hundred years since then, become a more unified world economically, politically, and culturally. Markets are more independent than ever before, with international trade touching every continent and, as a result, affected virtually everyone's lives. Democracy has by and large replaced other forms of government, particularly absolute monarchy, although it is unclear how well it has succeeded in some places vs. others. Finally, contact between hemispheres had the cultural consequences of the spread of European languages and religions, and in the most recent century, American consumer culture. Whether international capitalism, democracy, and a triumphant Western/American culture will persist into the currently century is currently unknown, but it is clear that the clock cannot be turned back to the way it was before 1492. If change comes, it will be further progression, rather than devolution.

On the Columbian Exchange

The period of global interaction inaugurated by Columbus's arrival in the Western hemisphere lay the groundwork for much of the social, cultural, and political changes worldwide in the 16th and 17th centuries. These changes were either developments resulting from this interaction or reactions against it. Specific examples include demographic changes Brazil, the political transformation of Russia, and the closing of Japan to the west.

Slavery was a major driver of demographic change in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Fernandez-Armesto discusses at length how the need for agricultural labor in the tropical regions of the western hemisphere with pre-existing ability to tolerate extreme heat and humidity drove the slave trade to increase exponentially over the period under discussion. In Brazil, the influx of black slaves from sub-Saharan Africa by nominally Christian plantation owners, under the careful eye of Catholic missionary organizations, resulted in a syncretic effect on black religious belief. The confraternities that arose, which Fernandez-Armesto calls "lay brotherhoods" dedicated to "black artistic vocations and religious devotion … centered on the cult images."[1] The author then goes on to describe how, rather than having a placating effect on slaves, Black Catholicism was a motivating force for self-empowerment even within the obviously strict confines of slavery.

Politically, global interaction affected the role of government in Russia under the guiding hand of Tsar Peter the Great. Fernandez-Armesto notes that Peter modeled his political reforms on what he observed in central and western Europe while traveling incognito, modeling his new capital city of St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea on the rapidly growing cities of Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Not coincidentally, these cities were all capitals of metropoles of large empires that enriched themselves through colonialism. Peter observed the influx of wealth into these cities and countries and, in emulating them, introduced Russia permanently into the community of European nations, both as member of military alliances and as a trade partner.

However, as noted, not all of the changes wrought by global interaction were marked by positive reactions. Fernandez-Armesto discusses how, unlike in the Americas, where Christianity was largely embraced by the population, Christianity was unsuccessful in penetrating Japan because the Japanese leadership suppressed its practice. He mentions this suppression in the context of both an increasing closing of Japan to the west, reporting that the government "practically forbade its subjects to travel overseas,"[2] as well as Japan's resultant embrace of Buddhism and its melding withindigenous ancestor worship. Fernandez-Armesto nevertheless notes that Japan's rejection of the west and westerners did not negate its imperial endeavors or economic growth. The latter factor transformed Japanese politically, such that the power of the samurai declined, while the shogunate emerged, with the shoguns playing roles similar to the empowered nobility of the European monarchies or the mandarins of the late Ming Dynasty in China.

Clearly the global exchange of the post-Columbian period had enormous effects worldwide, politically, socially, and culturally. Politically, economic transformation as a result of colonialism resulted in the tsardom of Peter the Great in Russia and the shoguns in Japan. Socially and culturally, the rapidly shifting demographic nature of the western hemisphere resulted in the rise of a unique form of Christianity that stood in contrast to its European original, while the same religion was rejected in Japan in favor of more "authentic" Asian forms of belief. While it cannot be conclusively stated that these changes would not have occurred without the global exchange following 1492, it is unlikely to have happened as rapidly and pervasively without it.

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[1] Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, The World: A History, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (New York: Pearson, 2015), 511.

[2] Ibid, 446.

Stuff I'm Reading

The Shaping of Modern America: 1877-1920, Vincent P. DeSantis
The Muslims of Medieval Italy, Alex Metcalfe