Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

"OLD CATHOLICS."—Most of those who had strenuously endeavored to prevent this action, either because they considered it inexpedient, or disbelieved in the doctrine which it established, acquiesced in the decision of the council. There were some persevering dissentients, however, in Germany especially, of whom Dr. Döllinger was the most distinguished. They organized themselves as a distinct body, under the name of "Old Catholics." They were mostly educated persons; the party had no root among the common people. In France, the most distinguished of them was Père Hyacinthe, a preacher of much popularity and eloquence.

REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN.—After the revolution attended by the flight of Queen Isabella from Spain (1868), a majority of the Cortes decided for a monarchy, although many desired a republic. In 1870 Amadeus, the second son of the King of Italy, accepted the crown. But he found it impossible to restore order and peace, and Feb. 11, 1873, abdicated the throne. A bloody conflict of factions ensued. Don Carlos, the new Pretender of that name, raised his standard in the North. The Cortes were for a federal republic. Castelar, who as president was at the head of the government, and after him Marshal Serrano, by whom he was superseded, made no decisive progress against the Carlists. Alfonso, the youthful son of Isabella, was proclaimed king by General Martinez Campos; and the army pronounced in his favor (Dec. 29, 1874). Serrano laid down his office. The Carlist revolt was crushed, and Don Carlos driven out of the country. Alfonso died 1885, and was succeeded by a regency during the long minority of his posthumous son, Alfonso XIII. Both Canovas and Sagasta loyally supported the queen-mother, Maria Christina, acting as regent.

STATE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.—In July, 1875, the Turkish provinces of Herzegovina and Bosnia rebelled against the intolerable oppression of the Sultan's government. The little mountainous kingdom of Montenegro—which for four centuries had preserved its independence through numerous struggles with Turkey, and had a quarrel of its own with that power—lent help to its Slavonian neighbor. Servia did the same. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, a composite of distinct provinces and nationalities, was strongly interested to avert war in that region. The revolt was not put down by the Turks. The three European emperors moved the Sultan to pledge himself to an extensive programme of reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina,—a pledge which there was no intention on his part to fulfill. England gave no aid to the revolt, but strengthened herself in the East by obtaining, through a purchase of shares from the Khedive of Egypt, the control of the Suez Canal (Nov. 25, 1875). Russia, as kinsman of all the Slavonic peoples, and protector of Greek Christians, assumed alone the part of a champion of the maltreated provinces. But England refused to join with Russia, Germany, Austria, and France, in threatening "more effectual"—that is, coercive—measures, in case of the Porte's refusal to pacify the insurgents by carrying out his promises. Great Britain was bent on keeping the Sultan's empire, as being a barrier in the way of Russian ambition and essential to the security of India, from being dismembered, and professed to be swayed by respect for the rights of Turkey as an independent power. A revolt in Bulgaria was crushed by the Turks, who were guilty of such terrible atrocities that the "Bulgarian massacres" shocked all Christendom (1876). In the course of the difficulties just narrated, two revolutions, by which sultans had been dethroned, had taken place in the palace at Constantinople. The ambassadors of the Great Powers, in a conference at Constantinople, agreed in demanding of Turkey a constitution and guaranties for the benefit of the oppressed subjects in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This requirement the Porte refused to accept. A subsequent attempt of the same nature met with no better success (1877). Russia allowed its subjects to render effective help to the revolted districts. On the contrary, England was offended by the alleged ambitious schemes of the Muscovites, and advocated longer forbearance with the Sultan; but Lord Derby announced (April 19, 1877) that Turkey had been warned to expect no assistance from England. Nevertheless, the mission of Mr. Layard to Constantinople, and all the other circumstances, emboldened the Turks to refuse compliance with the Czar's demands.

THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.—The Turko-Russian war began in April, 1877. Russia, according to her previous declaration, took up arms alone. The Russian troops crossed the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, and seized on the important Shipka Pass. At first they seemed destined to a speedy triumph. But the Turks under Osman Pasha fought with unexpected valor and success. At length, however, their leader was obliged to surrender his army of forty-four thousand men at Plevna (Dec. 10). Adrianople was occupied by the Russians (Jan. 28). They were thus in the neighborhood of Constantinople. Meantime, after reverses in the East, the Russians had taken Kars, and pushed on to Erzeroum.

TREATY OF SAN STEFANO: THE BERLIN CONFERENCE.—Turkey now appealed to England to mediate; but Russia declined any such intervention, and insisted on treating separately with Turkey. England was now ready to interfere in behalf of the Sultan, and for the safety of Constantinople. Russia hastened to conclude with Turkey the Peace of San Stefano (March 3), the stipulations of which greatly reduced the Turkish power in Europe. Bulgaria was to be governed by a Christian prince, and fifty thousand Russian troops were to occupy it for two years. England concluded (June 4) a secret treaty engaging to protect Turkey in Asia: Cyprus was given up to be occupied by the British. Austria, as well as Great Britain, was anxious to deprive Russia of the advantages which she had naturally expected to reap by the war,—a war in which the other powers had declined to take part. Thus another great war was threatened, about the provisions of the San Stefano treaty. The conflict was averted by the Congress at Berlin (June 13-July 13, 1878), where D'lsraeli—who was then prime minister, and a friend of the anti-Russian policy—represented England. Austria and England were aided by Germany, and the diplomacy of Gortchakoff was thus overborne. Servia and Roumania, as well as Montenegro, were declared independent. Bulgaria was divided into two portions; the southern of which, called East Roumelia, was to be governed by the Sultan directly, but with a separate administration under a Christian governor. To Austria, the military occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which meant the possession of these provinces, was yielded. Thessaly had engaged in an insurrection, and Greece had hoped for an extension of her boundaries; but nothing effectual was done by England to forward this claim. Here Russia, always opposed to the building-up of a strong Greek kingdom, was at one with England. Russia obtained Kars, but her gains were far less than she deemed herself entitled to receive. The other powers, on the contrary, permitted Austria to advance far in the direction of Constantinople. During the war, the hostility of the Magyars (or Hungarians proper) to the Slaves had been ready to break out in the form of direct armed assistance to Turkey. On the other hand, the Slaves in Hungary, and in all the Austrian territories, were with difficulty restrained from enlisting actively in aid of the Russians. The arbitrary dealing of the Berlin Conference with Bosnia and Herzegovina occasioned an armed but ineffectual resistance, in these provinces, to the extension of the Austrian sway over them.

SITUATION OF RUSSIA.—Russia, embittered by Austria's refusal to aid in the Crimean War, had remained neutral in the struggle with Prussia, which ended in the exclusion of Austria from Germany. Russia was now offended with Germany for repaying her neutrality in the Franco-Prussian struggle by helping in the Berlin Conference the schemes of England and Austria. The attempt of Russia to form an alliance with France prompted Bismarck (Sept., 1879) to negotiate a defensive alliance with Austria. The activity of the Nihilists, and the refusal of France (March, 1880) to deliver up Hartmann, charged with an attempt on the life of the Czar, made the French alliance impossible. The sympathy of the Emperor William, after the endeavor made to assassinate Alexander (Feb. 17, 1880), tended to restore cordiality. Russia was embarrassed by these internal troubles. Alexander was murdered by Nihilists (March 13, 1881), and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III., who died after a lingering illness, Nov. 1, 1894. He was succeeded by his son Nicholas II. In 1891 and 1892 Russia was afflicted by famine and cholera.

NIHILISM.—The accession of Alexander II., following on the rigid autocracy of Nicholas, had introduced a more lenient rule. Alexander decreed (March 3, 1861) the emancipation of the serfs, who were also endowed with small possessions in land. The boon thus conferred, along with its advantages, brought with it hardship; for there were ways of oppression still open to the nobles, by which the emancipated class were made grievously to suffer. The great measure served to increase the national agitation which was connected with other causes. There had long been an enthusiastic party of "Slavophils," actuated by a strong race-feeling, and eager for "Panslavism," or a union of Slavonic peoples. It was the people in Russia which moved the court, against its will, to go to war, single-handed, with Turkey, in 1877. In the prosecution of the war, the abuses which were brought to light among officials, civil and military, heightened the indignation which the corrupt "bureaucracy"—the administration by departments, each under its chief—provoked. The failure to gather the harvest of the war, of which Russia was deprived by diplomacy, increased the popular unrest. A party of socialistic democracy, a revolutionary party, had developed itself as early as 1874. The way had been preparing for it for a decade of years. Out of this party came later (1878) the "Terrorists,"—the secret body which sought for a remedy for social and governmental evils by annihilating all existing authority in Church and State. They had begun with the demand of a constitution. The despotic, repressive measures of the government—in 1879 and 1880, sixty thousand persons were sent to Siberia without a trial—were followed by more desperate attempts of Nihilist conspirators upon the lives of the rulers of the land, and of their agents. These culminated in the murder of the Czar.

COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM.—A brief sketch of the various movements thus designated may be here in place. Communism is the name given to the theory that it is desirable to have a community of goods, and a total or partial abolition of private property. Socialism is often used to designate the same system, but is more commonly applied to the doctrine that government should own the land and all the implements of industry. Not a few religious sects of communists, like the Shakers (established in 1780, in the United States), have long existed. The hope of social amelioration by societies of a communistic character has led to a variety of movements for the formation of them on both sides of the Atlantic. Equality, education, deliverance from poverty and from burdensome toil, have been the blessings sought. Prominent leaders in such movements were Saint-Simon (1760-1825), whose ideas produced a strong effect in France; Charles Fourier (1772-1837), by whose influence "phalanxes," as the communities adopting his views were named, were formed in Europe and America; and Robert Owen (1771-1858), whose societies were built up at New Lanark in Scotland, New Harmony in Indiana, and in other places. Since the French Revolution of 1848, these particular attempts of philanthropic socialism have passed out of notice. Shortly after the Reign of Terror, Babeuf attempted (1796) to overthrow the authorities in Paris, and to bring to pass an equal division of property. The course of political struggles in France, in connection with the revolutions in industry and trade, which have occurred since the fall of the first Napoleon, have given rise to a disaffected working-class, or proletariat. The complaint has arisen, that the benefits resulting from political freedom in Europe have come to the middle class,—to tradesmen and manufacturers possessed of capital,—and that the laboring class are deprived of their due share of the profits of industry. One noted expounder of communism in France was Proudhon (1809-1865), who sought to give emphasis to his doctrine by affirming that "property is theft." Louis Blanc, who was a member of the provisional government in France in 1848, both before and after that time was an active promoter of the scheme under which government is to furnish labor on a large scale, and to become the grand employer of the working-class. In Germany, socialism in its later distinctive form, as defined above, has been advocated by a number of well-known writers. Perhaps the ablest of these was Ferdinand Lasalle (1825-1864). Like the other principal socialists, he would clothe the State with a vastly augmented power and responsibility. In this particular, socialism is directly antagonistic to the ideas of democracy which had previously prevailed. Lasalle's doctrine was that the State should lend capital at interest to associations of laborers. This, he thought, would be the first step in their emancipation. Karl Marx would go much farther. He would transfer to the State all capital and all means of production. He would, as he professes, "overthrow all the existing arrangements of society." With property, inheritance is to be abolished; labor is to be made compulsory; all means of transport are to be in the hands of the State, and so forth. The International Working Men's Association—popularly called "the International"—was organized in London in 1864. It has held congresses in Geneva, and in other cities. It entered upon the most destructive schemes of social agitation and revolution. But the society was divided in 1872, on the expulsion of Bakunin, a Russian Nihilist. A faction of the most violent class continued its activity for a while, and stirred up risings in several towns in Spain in 1873, in imitation of the insurrections in Paris in 1871. Different shades of socialistic theory have been advocated; from the "Christian Socialism" which aims at such objects as the creation of cooperative associations in the working-class, to the fanatics who would sweep away existing institutions by violence, and who resort to the use of dynamite as a means of inspiring terror.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SINCE 1871.—Thiers had wonderful success in providing for the payment of the German indemnity. His term of office was prolonged (Aug. 31, 1871) for three years, with the title of President. Thiers had cooperated with MacMahon in crushing the commune, and in wholesome measures for the preservation of order. An adverse vote in the Assembly (May 24, 1873) caused his resignation. This was effected by a combination of the monarchical parties. MacMahon, his successor, took a very conservative position. The monarchists united to restore the Count of Chambord to the throne as Henry V., but the scheme failed. In February, 1875, a new constitution, of a conservative republican cast, was established, which provided for a president and a cabinet, a senate, and a chamber of deputies. The legitimists, Orleanists, and imperialists united with the president in his reactionary, anti-republican policy. The whole clerical party were on that side. The republicans were divided among themselves, the most radical group being under the leadership of Gambetta. The danger to the republic compelled a common policy. One of the great subjects of controversy related to public education, in the management of which the Church and the clergy desired to retain and extend their influence and control. To secularize education, was a main aim of the body of the republicans. The success of the republicans, against extraordinary efforts made to defeat them, in the elections of 1877, at last prevailed on the marshal-president to accept the verdict of the country; and late in the year a republican cabinet was formed. The measures of Jules Ferry and his supporters, for taking the business of instruction out of the hands of ecclesiastics and of the clerical orders, although most earnestly resisted by Bishop Dupanloup and the whole clerical party, and opposed by a section of the republicans led by Jules Simon, were, after heated contention, adopted, and were completely carried out (1880). The death of Thiers (Sept., 1877) did not weaken the party of which he was the most honored leader. The death of the young Prince Louis Napoleon (1879) in South Africa, where he was serving, under the British, against the Zulus, was an almost fatal blow to the hopes of the Bonapartist faction. The more recent death of Count Chambord (1883) was followed by the recognition, on the part of the legitimists, of the Count of Paris, of the Orleans house, as the next heir to the throne. A manifesto of Prince Jerome Napoleon (1883), after the death of the young Prince Napoleon, aroused an agitation against all pretenders to the throne,—in particular, against the Orleanists; which led, after protracted debates, to the forced retirement of all the princes of this family from active service in the French army. In November, 1881, Gambetta became the head of the cabinet; but the opposition to his policy within the republican ranks was stronger than had been anticipated. After a short time he laid down his office. He died Dec. 31, 1882. Jules Grévy (first elected Jan. 30, 1879) was re-elected president Dec. 28, 1885. He was forced to resign in 1887 because his son-in-law was implicated in corrupt transactions. His successor was Sadi Carnot.

FRENCH CONQUESTS ABROAD.—The failure of France, in the Oriental difficulties, to gain the power which she desired, impelled her to build up colonial interests and settlements. Partly to punish marauding tribes, in 1881, an expedition was sent against Tunis; and the Bey was forced to accept a protectorate of the French over his dominion. Thus the French enlarged their power in Africa. This proceeding gave great offense to England, Italy, and the Turkish Sultan. On the ground of a treaty of 1841, a French admiral demanded the submission of the north-west coast of Madagascar to a French protectorate; and when this demand was refused, he bombarded and captured the second city in the island, Tamatave (1883). The efforts of France to gain control over Tonquin and the adjacent territory in China attracted still more attention. Tonquin is the most populous province of the kingdom of Anam, of which it formed a part after 1802. Over this kingdom, China claimed the rights of a suzerain; which the French refused to acknowledge. In 1862, after a war lasting for almost four years, Napoleon III. obtained from Anam, by the treaty of Saigun, the provinces called Cochin-China. In 1874 the French Republic extorted from King Tuduc of Anam a treaty by which his foreign policy was placed under the direction of France. Against this treaty, China protested. In 1882 the French commander Rivière seized the city of Hanoi. The "Black Flags," a body of free-lances or pirates, whose leader had been one of the Chinese rebels, fought against the French; but it soon appeared that both the king of Anam and the government of China were in league with his hostile force. Two years later a treaty was signed bringing Tonkin almost directly under French rule and reëstablishing the protectorate in Anam.