Chapter Summary

Rising nationalism at home and imperial tensions abroad were mirrored by deterioration of the European balance of power within the continent.

The alliance system of Europe was dramatically altered after 1870 with the creation of a united Germany and Italy. Initially, Bismarck allied Germany with Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Three Emperors’ League in order to isolate France on the continent. Despite its successful industrialization, Germany was confronted by two geographical limitations: the possibility of its North Sea ports being effectively shut off from the North Atlantic and the absence of any easy frontier for expansion. Austria-Hungary lacked internal unity. Various ethnic groups within the aged empire demanded greater independence. Moreover, the Habsburg had not responded to the challenge of European industrialization and imperialism. Technically outside the European alliance system lay the Ottoman Empire. Weakened over centuries, the Ottoman Empire continued to control a large portion of the Balkan peninsula. Like Austria, the Ottoman Empire was convulsed by movements of various ethnic groups seeking independence. Although western European powers had seized parts of the Ottoman Empire during their imperial expansion, none was willing to accept the demise of the Ottomans if it meant the domination of another European power. The point at which European ambitions and ethnic revolution met was the Balkan peninsula.

The new alliance system was predicated on French fear of German aggression and the continued Russian search for access to the Mediterranean. Russia was hopeful of gaining an advantage in southern Europe by fostering Slavic nationalist movements in the Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire. Supporting a Serbian revolt in two Ottoman principalities with Slavic majorities, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1876. Bismarck engineered the peace settlement in the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Russian gains were nullified in the treaty, leading to diplomatic stress between Germany and Russia. German support for Austria-Hungary at the Congress of Berlin resulted in the Dual Alliance of 1879. In 1882 Italy joined Germany and Austria-Hungary to form the Triple Alliance. A second Balkan crisis in 1885 led to diplomatic realignment. Again Germany supported Austria-Hungary’s interests at the expense of Russian ambitions in the Balkans. Bismarck maintained the alliance with Russia only with extreme difficulty. After Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890, the fragile relationship between Russia and Germany dissolved. Seeking allies, Russia concluded an alliance with France. France also managed an agreement with its former imperial rival, Great Britain. The three—Russia, France, and Great Britain—formed the Triple Entente. Thus the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente divided Europe into two competing diplomatic spheres. Continued problems within the Balkan peninsula threatened to topple the precarious diplomatic house of cards. Russian and Austrian conflicts over domination of Slavic national movements within the region continued to foment revolutions. Austrian annexation of former Ottoman principalities coveted by Serbia nearly led to war in 1908. Hostilities broke out again in 1913, this time between Serbia (supported by Russia) and Bulgaria (supported by Austria-Hungary). In each case, the alliance system threatened to involve all Europe in acts of violence limited to the Balkan peninsula.

Imperialism was not a creation of the nineteenth century, but industrialization led to the dominance of the more industrialized European nations over the underdeveloped regions of Asia, Africa, and the New World.

Technological advances paved the way for European dominance of the world. The advent of steamships shortened the amount of time spent in sea travel and brought all ports of the world closer to Europe in terms of time spent on the seas. Steamships also enabled Europeans to penetrate Africa and Asia on the navigable rivers. Technology permitted the construction of deepwater ports throughout the world. Even more impressively, two canals—the Suez in Egypt and the Panama—provided shortcuts between major oceans. The French began both canals, but as a result of financial mismanagement lost their controlling interests to the British and the Americans. The telegraph shortened the time needed to communicate between European nations and their colonies, thus fostering more efficient military and diplomatic control. New medical discoveries lessened the severity of tropical diseases on European populations. Finally, new types of firearms gave the European military extraordinary advantages over the soldiers of the rest of the world.

There were many reasons why European nations sought to establish colonies. Not all nations profited from colonial ventures. In general, the major powers—Britain, France, and Germany—controlled the business of empire. In some cases, economic motivation was more a matter of private or corporate initiative rather than national interest. In any case, an international economy was created. Geopolitical interests also affected the pace of imperial expansion. Countries determined that some regions were valuable, not because they had intrinsic economic value, but because they were sensitive regions. For example, the British defended Egypt because of the Suez Canal, the most expedient route to British colonies in the Indian subcontinent. Areas also had to be acquired and defended in order to establish fueling bases for the steamships that carried goods and men around the world. Defense of sensitive regions led to greater expenditures for the establishment of national military forces on both the land and the sea. Military leaders became increasingly important in the determination of foreign policy. Colonies were often pursued to enhance national prestige. Governments competed with one another in a colonial race. Political leaders utilized the issue of colonialism to whip up support for the party or government. Newspapers forged a national public opinion to promote the colonial race or to deflect public attention from problems on the home front. “Jingoism” emerged as a term to describe manipulated patriotism.

In Africa, where European prejudices dictated that social organization was primitive, even in those areas where large states existed, military conquest and direct political administration was imposed. In Asia, Europeans were more likely to accept existing social hierarchies. Europeans imposed either informal empires, as in China, or formal but indirect rule, as in India.

The European seizure of colonies in Africa extended from 1875 to 1912. There were many rationales for the seizure of colonies: carving out military reputations, mineral wealth, deterioration in traditional trade zones, missionary activity, and the dictates of European strategy. Underlying all the motives was the European conviction that Africans were racially inferior. The process of colonization was viewed as the scientific proof of the racial superiority of whites. A second factor was the downturn in the European economy after 1873 and the subsequent rise of protectionism and economic competition. The person who initiated the scramble for land in Africa was Leopold II, king of Belgium, who seized the area around the Congo River basin for himself. When other European nations, envious of the economic potential, refused to recognize Leopold’s seizure, a conference was convened in Berlin in 1884. The conference at Berlin provided the ground rules for the scramble for Africa—states claiming territory would have to produce proof of economic development in the region claimed. In general, the European seizure of Africa proceeded without warfare among the colonists. The process of claiming colonies, however, was characterized by violence against Africans. Technological advantages such as the machine gun led to the widespread slaughter of indigenous peoples. Despite the overwhelming military advantages enjoyed by Europeans, some African states, such as Ethiopia, resisted colonization. Surrounded by French, British, and Italian colonies, the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II attempted to play off all the European states against one another. He offered territorial concessions to each in return for modern weapons. In 1896 Italy launched an invasion of Ethiopia. Outnumbered and facing an African army equipped with modern arms, the Italians were defeated and forced to recognize Ethiopia as a sovereign state. Ethiopia was the only African state to successfully defend itself against European colonizers.

In South Africa the British engaged in a long war with white Africans, the Boers, to control the mineral resources of the region. The British, confident in the isolation of the Boers, had recognized the Afrikaner states of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State after the Great Trek of 1835. German entry into the scramble for imperial possessions awakened British fears of an alliance between the Germans and the Boers. The discovery of gold in the Transvaal in 1886 heightened British concerns. British investors, including Cecil Rhodes, immediately began to capitalize the mining operations of the Transvaal. In 1895 Rhodes attempted to overthrow the Afrikaner government of the Transvaal through the so-called Jameson Raid, which failed. Following the failure of Rhodes’ scheme, the British sent a new minister, Alfred Milner, to South Africa. Milner agitated until war between Britain and the Boer republics was inevitable. Warfare broke out in 1899 and lasted until 1902. Both sides suffered horrendous casualties in the fighting. The British annexed the two Boer republics, but agreed not to make any decisions concerning the black African population of South Africa before returning political power to the Afrikaners.

India was the crown jewel of Britain’s empire. To protect lines of communication and to establish markets for Indian products, the British government engaged in other colonial ventures throughout the world. One of the trade links was the triangular trade in Indian cottons for Chinese tea that was exported to England. When Chinese demand for Indian cottons waned, the British substituted opium produced in the Indian sub-continent. By the 1830s, opium was one of Britain’s most profitable crops. The Chinese government attempted to halt the traffic in narcotics, but the British defended their right to export opium in the Opium War. Between 1842 and 1895, the European powers defeated Chinese attempts to expel foreigners on five occasions. Britain, Germany, Japan, and France carved out “spheres of influence” including ports in China. From the ports, foreign investors linked the coast with the interior by railways. Foreign capitalists gained control of the Chinese economy. Foreign domination of spheres of influence was reflected in the imposition of Western laws and Western administration through consuls. While China barely retained its national identity, other areas of Asia were not so fortunate. The French established control of Indochina; and the British carved out colonies in Burma, Hong Kong and Kowloon. Japan was a late, but determined, entrant into the colonial wars. Japanese armies seized the island of Taiwan from China in 1895 and claimed areas in Manchuria and Korea.

Both of the latter claims brought Japan into conflict with Russia. The Japanese enforced their claims in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, a shocking victory over a weak European opponent.

American imperialism began with the expansion of the United States across North America. In the process, the United States decimated Native Americans. Rich in natural resources, the United States began rapid industrialization in the nineteenth century. To develop new markets, the U.S. looked to the Pacific and to the Caribbean. Hawaii and Samoa provided fueling stops for American steamships in the Pacific, while repeated intervention in the countries of Latin America resulted in U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean.

The Europeans intended to shape the new colonial empires in their own images’ but the creation of empire imposed social and cultural changes on Europe, as well.

Colonization created a worldwide international market with Europe as its industrialized center. In the process, traditional economies of colonies were altered or destroyed to produce commodities valued in Europe. Investment capital flowed out of the industrialized West into eastern Europe and the colonies in search of more rapid returns on investments. Britain remained the greatest commercial giant, but Germany and the United States had begun to challenge her dominance by the twentieth century. Capital investment and trade was related to the growing demand for state protection of commercial interests.

Europeans approached colonial peoples from a position of racial superiority. Racism received its pseudo-scientific basis from evolutionary theories gaining currency in the second half of the nineteenth century. Europeans regarded themselves as the cultural and racial overlords of the rightfully subjugated peoples of the colonies.

In the age of imperialism, European women were encouraged to have more children to ensure the survival of the superior white race. Careful breeding, based on the “science” of eugenics, was intended to improve offspring. The burden of racial improvement fell on women. Women who served in the colonies were expected to preserve the dignity and status of Western culture.

The process of imperialism disrupted native ecologies. While there were some improvements in medical care and some modern technology was introduced, in general the impact of Western civilization was negative. Tribal societies simply disintegrated, to be replaced by corrupt and inadequate hierarchies dependent on colonial intervention for survival. Asian and African laborers, once converted to production for Western markets, became dependent on business cycles within those markets. Labor instability contributed to breakdown of tribal organization, as workers migrated from one place to another in search of employment. The most extreme case of ecological disregard of colonial territories was the exportation of criminals to prison colonies.

Not everyone saw the imperial race as a positive good. Some condemned it as exploitative and racist. In Imperialism, A Study, J. A. Hobson criticized imperialism as a poor solution to the problems of industrialization. Nikolai Lenin, a Russian socialist, argued that imperialism marked the last, decadent stage of capitalism. While both works were flawed, they marked the beginning of debate over the morality and economic realities of imperialism. Most Europeans, as judged by electoral results and the press, clearly endorsed imperial policies. The sense of the superiority of European culture and of the white race remained dominant.