Chapter Summary

Industrialization and urbanization typified the economy of Europe between 1870 and 1914.

Industrial production led to a greater concentration of population in the cities. Those people that remained in the rural areas became increasingly linked to urban and national culture through the new communications and transportation networks. Between 1873 and 1895 the European economy suffered from economic depression. The so-called Great Depression of the nineteenth century was followed by a boom period to 1914. Such radical swings in economic fortunes convinced governments, bankers and industrialists of the necessity of regulating business cycles of boom and bust. Industries of the later nineteenth century had to be heavily capitalized to make use of the new sources of energy—petroleum and electricity. Capital formation to support the new industries had to be obtained from financial institutions, not private family funds. Bankers were unwilling to risk the enormous investments in industrialization unless some of the worst aspects of the business cycle were controlled. Businesses responded by forming cartels and trusts to control the market. Cartels were groups of firms that cooperated to fix prices. Although Great Britain failed to develop cartels, corporations in Germany, Austria, and France organized to control the marketplace. Banks similarly formed groups to fix interest rates. These cooperative financial organizations were called consortia. The control of the marketplace sounded the death knell for free trade. European nations returned to tariff barriers to protect domestic industries. Only Britain remained aloof from the policy of protectionism. Tariffs divided Europe into two halves: an industrialized north and west, and an agricultural south and east.

Parliamentary politics saved Britain from revolution. In addition, Britain was less affected by the boom and bust cycle of the late nineteenth century. At the outset of the twentieth century, however, wages stagnated while prices continued to rise. Workers responded by depending more heavily on trade unionism for political influence. A new leader—Keir Hardie, a miner—launched a political experiment, the Labour party. Hardie attempted to get trade unions to support working class candidates for Parliament in preference to the traditional political elites of the Conservative or Liberal parties. Intellectuals also assaulted the traditional British political system. Fabian socialists called for gradual change. Under the leadership of the Webbs, G. B. Shaw, and others, the Fabians supported the new Labour party. In response to the working-class threat, the Liberals introduced legislative reform for laborers. Unions were permitted to engage in more aggressive strike tactics and a national health system was introduced. Most radical of the reforms was the Parliament Bill of 1911 that lopped off most of the constitutional powers of the House of Lords, the most conservative branch of Parliament. Reform did not stifle protest. Unions increased in number, as did the frequency of job actions against sensitive industries such railroads, coal mining, and dock workers. In addition, women increasingly pressed for the right to vote. At the same time parliament remained unable to resolve the issue of Irish home rule.

German males could vote, but the Reichstag had limited powers in the German constitution. In general, Bismarck was able to cooperate with political liberals to build German industry and commercial infrastructure. He also launched an attack, the Kulturkampf, on Roman Catholics who were suspected of undermining loyalty to the state. Bismarck also targeted socialists as potential political enemies. The chancellor outlawed the Social Democratic party, a German Marxist group. Despite repression, both Catholics and Socialists continued to field candidates. When Bismarck was dismissed in a conflict with Wilhelm II, the Social Democrats became the largest political party in the Reichstag. German Marxism practiced revisionism, the political position that capitalism would wither away without violent revolution. The foremost politician of the Social Democrats was Eduard Bernstein, who sought to gain an alliance with the German labor movement. Unions were recruited to the Social Democrat cause. In fear of the growing power of the socialist and trade union movement, conservatives attempted to consolidate support among agricultural and capitalist industrial groups. Aggressive foreign policy and super-patriotism were the hallmarks of right-wing politics in Germany.

The Third Republic was the offspring of surrender in the Franco-Prussian War and the bloody suppression of the Paris Commune. Despite its rough beginnings, the Third Republic was able to marshal public support through the creation of a national public education system that broke down regionalism within the country. Communication networks and control of the press helped to create a national mass culture. The French right wing was attracted to General Georges Boulanger who presented himself as a national “super-patriot” and war hero. Some conservatives saw him as the candidate best suited to restore the monarchy. By 1889 Boulanger had built a sufficient support base to threaten the Third Republic. In the end, the general fled the country under a cloud of treason, but he had galvanized a right-wing movement poised to take advantage of national patriotism. The Dreyfus affair also stirred political emotions in France. Dreyfus, a Jew, was an army officer accused of selling state secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus’ conviction on charges of treason was largely due to anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Right-wing political groups supported the conviction, but those on the left of the political spectrum pointed to perjuries and extraordinary decisions that invalidated the trial. Dreyfus was exonerated and pardoned in 1905, but the dispute over his prosecution created new political alliances on both sides of the question. Pressure groups utilized the press to bring pressure on the government.

The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was a constitutional monarchy politically dominated by the capitalist middle class. The symbol of bourgeois affectation was the rebuilding of the Austrian capital of Vienna after 1860. In reality, the power of the bourgeoisie was limited. As a class, the Austrian bourgeoisie was smaller than those of western Europe and too dependent on its partnership with the Habsburg emperors. By l900 the liberalism of the Austrian middle class was supplanted by more conservative groups. The right wing was able to capitalize on general dissatisfaction with the capitalist political leadership. Mass political organizations emerged around Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, anticapitalism of the rural classes, and superpatriotism. In the election for mayor of Vienna in 1895, Jews were identified with capitalism as a means of sweeping liberals out of office. With them went faith in the parliamentary forms of government.

Mass politics were the order of the day at the end of the nineteenth century. A few groups—women, Jews, and ethnic minorities—were left outside the new political alliances. Some few others—the anarchists—rejected participation in the normal political processes.

Women remained grossly underpaid in comparison to male laborers. They were excluded from political participation, subject to the domination of husbands in marriage, and excluded from public education. Feminists at the end of the nineteenth century began to form mass political organizations. The first international meeting of feminists met in Paris in 1878. Most women, however, continued to accept passively the roles prescribed for them in the cult of domesticity. National feminist groups varied in their political objectives: those who wanted the right to vote and those who wanted economic, social and legal reforms to gain equality with men in society. Socialist women were primarily among the latter group. In order to achieve their ends, feminists formed political action groups. Of the feminist organizations, the British suffrage movement was most effective. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst, the Women’s Social and Political Union successfully created a public forum for women’s issues. In 19l0, following a parliamentary failure to pass voting rights for women, a battle between suffragists and the police turned bloody. Black Friday stimulated a more militant attitude on the part of English feminists. Suffragettes turned to vandalism and violence as political statements. The government responded by more repressive tactics of imprisonment. The movement accomplished little before 1914, but English women were granted limited political rights in 1918. Women’s movements had little more success outside Britain. German women could vote after 1918, American women in 1920, and French women only in 1945. The groups more intent on social reform than the franchise separated from the suffragettes. Women’s socialist movements were most numerous in Germany. Women socialists often faced opposition from male socialists who remained threatened by women in the workforce.

Anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews, was common in the nineteenth century. Most severe persecution occurred in Russia following the assassination of Alexander II. Jews from eastern Europe began a slow migration westward to Germany and to the United States. Within nations, Jews moved from the countryside to cities. Even where the new Jewish communities achieved political rights, they remained targets of bigotry as threats to local economic and commercial elites. Fear of the Jews culminated in the anti-liberal politics of Germany and Austria at the turn of the century. Some Jewish leaders responded to anti-Semitism by proposing a separate nation for Jews—a political solution called Zionism first suggested by Theodor Herzl. The appeal of Zionism was particularly strong in eastern Europe. Jews began migrating to Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Israelites, in the first decades of the twentieth century. Even some Jewish leaders recognized the potential difficulties inherent in migration to Arab Palestine, but the movement continued despite the potential for violence.

Anarchism was the total rejection of the political system. Some anarchists turned to terrorism: attacks on private property and assassination. Anarchists were just as negative toward the new mass political organizations as they were to liberal institutions. Anarchism made heaviest philosophical inroads in Russia. Mikhail Bakunin became the leading anarchist theorist (if such a theory could be said to have existed). He was followed as the leading proponent of anarchism by Prince Petr Kropotkin. Anarchism was more popular as a form of political action in less industrialized countries of western Europe. In France anarchism allied with trade unionism in a movement called syndicalism. As a result, trade unionism remained outside the parliamentary political structure. The spokesman of anarcho-syndicalism was Georges Sorel.

Science and technology began to reshape the known world between 1870 and 1914. Science challenged traditional belief systems in the most fundamental fashion.

The late nineteenth century was an age of scientific discovery. In the physical sciences electromagnetism, X-rays, visible light, and radio waves all were discovered. Additions were made to the table of chemical elements. Max Planck proposed quantum physics to replace classical theory. Einstein expanded Planck’s discoveries to include a theory of relativity that assaulted Newtonian theories of gravity. Biological sciences experienced similar iconoclasm. Biological research centered on the identification of microorganisms associated with disease. One by one epidemic diseases were brought under control. Such knowledge was disseminated through public health services, resulting in improvements in sanitation and disease prevention. Scientists became the discoverers and creators of a new world of knowledge.

Scientific methodology was also applied to social organization with similarly traumatic results. History, archaeology, and economics were subjected to scientific techniques. Psychology became divided between behavioralists like Ivan Pavlov, who studied behavioral reactions to external stimuli, and psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud, who probed the landscape of the unconscious. Science could also be utilized to create new social theories. Criminologists attempted to identify criminal “types” through physical appearance. The social climate became, itself, the object of study. Emile Durkheim was the first modern sociologist to argue that deviation was the result of environmental factors. Geneticists argued that heredity determined biologically the causes of social variation. At the same time scientific ideas were used to attack traditions. Moral values and religion.

Social science was utilized to demonstrate the inferiority of women. Darwin’s theories of eternal struggle were buttressed with biological studies that “proved” the physical impossibility of women competing with men on an equal footing. Women, according to the scientific studies, were best suited to their domestic tasks and reproduction. In response to scientific subjection, the “new woman” emerged. The new woman wanted to smash the feminine image created by the cult of domesticity and male domination. In the pursuit of independence, the new woman sought full social equality with males. Included in that concept of equality was control of the process of reproduction. Public dissemination of birth control devices and knowledge of reproduction and sexuality was a goal of the new woman.

Late-nineteenth century art influenced by the new ideas, scientific discoveries and values gave rise to new artistic forms and movements that reflected the new middle class. Impressionism chose unlikely subjects for their paintings, while symbolists were concerned with the unconscious.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the benefits of industrialization had spread to the working class. As the money economy reached more layers of European society, the consumption of goods became a measure of social status. Department stores pandering to the demands for consumer goods first emerged in the late 1800s. Leisure was available for sale—in resorts for the middle class, in pubs and taverns for the working class. The poorer members of society were also attracted to inexpensive strip shows and cinemas. Organized sports became popular forms of mass culture.