The Expansion of Europe; The Culmination of Modern History

by Ramsay Muir

It did not, however, necessarily follow from these premises that the great European states which did not already possess extra-European territories were bound to acquire such lands. So far as their purely economic needs were concerned, it would have been enough that they should have freedom of access, on equal terms with their neighbours, to the sources of the supplies they required. It is quite possible, as events have shown, for a European state to attain very great success in the industrial sphere without possessing any political control over the lands from which its raw materials are drawn, or to which its finished products are sold. Norway has created an immense shipping industry without owning a single port outside her own borders. The manufactures of Switzerland are as thriving as these of any European country, though Switzerland does not possess any colonies. Germany herself, the loudest advocate of the necessity of political control as the basis of economic prosperity, has found it possible to create a vast and very prosperous industry, though her colonial possessions have been small, and have contributed scarcely at all to her wealth. Her merchants and capitalists have indeed found the most profitable fields for their enterprises, not in their own colonies, which they have on the whole tended to neglect, but in a far greater degree in South and Central America, and in India and the other vast territories of the British Empire, which have been open to them as freely as to British merchants. All that the prosperity of European industry required was that the sources of supply should be under efficient administration, and that access to them should be open. And these conditions were fulfilled, before the great rush began, over the greater part of the earth. If in 1878, when the European nations suddenly awoke to the importance of the non-European world, they had been able to agree upon some simple principle which would have secured equal treatment to all, how different would have been the fate of Europe and the world! If it could have been laid down, as a principle of international law, that in every area whose administration was undertaken by a European state, the 'open door' should be secured for the trade of all nations equally, and that this rule should continue in force until the area concerned acquired the status of a distinctly organised state controlling its own fiscal system, the industrial communities would have felt secure, the little states quite as fully as the big states. Moreover, since, under these conditions, the annexation of territory by a European state would not have threatened the creation of a monopoly, but would have meant the assumption of a duty on behalf of civilisation, the acrimonies and jealousies which have attended the process of partition would have been largely conjured away. In 1878 such a solution would have presented few difficulties. For at that date the only European state which controlled large undeveloped areas was Britain; and Britain, as we have seen, had on her own account arrived at this solution, and had administered, as she still administers, all those regions of her Empire which do not possess self-governing rights in the spirit of the principle we have suggested.

Why was it that this solution, or some solution on these lines, was not then adopted, and had no chance of being adopted? It was because the European states, and first and foremost among them Germany, were still dominated by a political theory which forbade their taking such a view. We may call this theory the Doctrine of Power. It is the doctrine that the highest duty of every state is to aim at the extension of its own power, and that before this duty every other consideration must give way. The Doctrine of Power has never received a more unflinching expression than it received from the German Treitschke, whose influence was at its height during the years of the great rush for extra-European possessions. The advocate of the Doctrine of Power is not, and cannot be, satisfied with equality of opportunity; he demands supremacy, he demands monopoly, he demands the means to injure and destroy his rivals. It would not be just to say that this doctrine was influential only in Germany; it was in some degree potent everywhere, especially in this period, which was the period par excellence of 'imperialism' in the bad sense of the term. But it is certainly true that no state has ever been so completely dominated by it as Germany; and no state less than Britain. It was in the light of this doctrine that the demands of the new scientific industry were interpreted. Hag-ridden by this conception, when the statesmen of Europe awoke to the importance of the non-European world, it was not primarily the economic needs of their countries that they thought of, for these were, on the whole, not inadequately met: what struck their imagination was that, in paying no attention to the outer world, they had missed great opportunities of increasing their power. This oversight, they resolved, must be rectified before it was too late.

For when the peoples of Western and Central Europe, no longer engrossed by the problems of Nationalism and Liberalism, cast their eyes over the world, lo! the scale of things seemed to have changed. Just as, in the fifteenth century, civilisation had suddenly passed from the stage of the city-state or the feudal principality to the stage of the great nation-state, so now, while the European peoples were still struggling to realise their nationhood, civilisation seemed to have stolen a march upon them, and to have advanced once more, this time into the stage of the world-state. For to the east of the European nations lay the vast Russian Empire, stretching from Central Europe across Asia to the Pacific; and in the west the American Republic extended from ocean to ocean, across three thousand miles of territory; and between these and around them spread the British Empire, sprawling over the whole face of the globe, on every sea and in every continent. In contrast with these giant empires, the nation-states of Europe felt themselves out of scale, just as the Italian cities in the sixteenth century must have felt themselves out of scale in comparison with the new nation-states of Spain and France. To achieve the standard of the world-state, to make their own nations the controlling factors in wide dominions which should include territories and populations of varied types, became the ambition of the most powerful European states. A new political ideal had captivated the mind of Europe.

These powerful motives were reinforced by others which arose from the development of affairs within Europe itself. In the first place, the leading European states had by 1878 definitely abandoned that tendency towards free trade which had seemed to be increasing in strength during the previous generation; and, largely in the hope of combating the overwhelming mercantile and industrial supremacy of Britain, had adopted the fiscal policy of protection. The ideal of the protectionist creed is national self-sufficiency in the economic sphere. But, as we have seen, economic self-sufficiency was no longer attainable in the conditions of modern industry by any European state. Only by large foreign annexations, especially in the tropical regions, did it seem possible of achievement. But when a protectionist state begins to acquire territory, the anticipation that it will use its power to exclude or destroy the trade of its rivals must drive other states to safeguard themselves by still further annexations. It was, indeed, this fear which mainly drove Britain, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her free trade theories, into a series of large annexations in regions where her trade had been hitherto predominant.

Again, the most perturbing feature of the relations between the European powers also contributed to produce an eagerness for colonial possessions. Europe had entered upon the era of huge national armies; the example of Prussia, and the rancours which had been created by her policy, had set all the nations arming themselves. They had learned to measure their strength by their available man-power, and in two ways the desire to increase the reserve of military manhood formed a motive for colonisation. In the first place, the surplus manhood of a nation was lost to it if it was allowed to pass under an alien flag by emigration. Those continental states from which emigration took place on a large scale began to aspire after the possession of colonies of their own, where their emigrants could still be kept under control, and remain subject to the obligations of service. Germany, the state which beyond all others measures its strength by its fighting man-power, was most affected by this motive, which formed the chief theme of the colonial school among her politicians and journalists, and continued to be so even when the stream of her emigrants had dwindled to very small proportions. In a less degree, Italy was influenced by the same motive. In the second place, conquered subjects even of backward races might be made useful for the purposes of war. This motive appealed most strongly to France. Her home population was stationary. She lived in constant dread of a new onslaught from her formidable neighbour; and she watched with alarm the rapid increase of that neighbour's population, and the incessant increases in the numbers of his armies. At a later date Germany also began to be attracted by the possibility of drilling and arming, among the negroes of Central Africa, or the Turks of Asia Minor, forces which might aid her to dominate the world.

Thus the political situation in Europe had a very direct influence upon the colonising activity of this period. The dominant fact of European politics during this generation was the supreme prestige and influence of Germany, who, not content with an unquestioned military superiority to any other power, had buttressed herself by the formation (1879 and 1882) of the most formidable standing alliance that has ever existed in European history, and completely dominated European politics. France, having been hurled from the leadership of Europe in 1870, dreaded nothing so much as the outbreak of a new European war, in which she must be inevitably involved, and in which she might be utterly ruined. She strove to find a compensation for her wounded pride in colonial adventures, and therefore became, during the first part of the period, the most active of the powers in this field. She was encouraged to adopt this policy by Bismarck, partly in the hope that she might thus forget Alsace, partly in order that she might be kept on bad terms with Britain, whose interests seemed to be continually threatened by her colonising activity. But she hesitated to take a very definite line in regard to territories that lay close to Europe and might involve European complications.

Bismarck himself took little interest in colonial questions, except in so far as they could be used as a means of alienating the other powers from one another, and so securing the European supremacy of Germany. He therefore at first made no attempt to use the dominant position of Germany as a means of acquiring extra-European dominions. But the younger generation in Germany was far from sharing this view. It was determined to win for Germany a world-empire, and in 1884 and the following years—rather late in the day, when most of the more desirable territories were already occupied—it forced Bismarck to annex large areas. After Bismarck's fall, in 1890, this party got the upper hand in German politics, and the creation of a great world-empire became, as we shall see, the supreme aim of William II. and his advisers. The formidable and threatening power of Germany began to be systematically employed not merely for the maintenance of supremacy in Europe, which could be secured by peaceful means, but for the acquisition of a commanding position in the outer world; and since this could only be attained by violence, the world being now almost completely partitioned, the new policy made Germany the source of unrest and apprehension, as she had earlier been, and still continued to be, the main cause of the burden of military preparation in Europe.

Among the other powers which participated in the great partition, Russia continued her pressure in two of the three directions which she had earlier followed-south-eastwards in Central Asia, eastwards towards China. In both directions her activity aroused the nervous fears of Britain, while her pressure upon China helped to bring Japan into the ranks of the militant and aggressive powers. But Russia took no interest in the more distant quarters of the world. Nor did Austria, though during these years her old ambition to expand south-eastwards at the expense of Turkey and the Balkan peoples revived under German encouragement. Italy, having but recently achieved national unity and taken her place among the Great Powers, felt that she could not be left out of the running, now that extra-European possessions had come to appear an almost essential mark of greatness among states; and, disappointed of Tunis, she endeavoured to find compensation on the shores of the Red Sea. Spain and Portugal, in the midst of all these eager rivalries, were tempted to furbish up their old and half-dormant claims. Even the United States of America joined in the rush during the fevered period of the 'nineties.

Lastly, Britain, the oldest and the most fully endowed of all the colonising powers, was drawn, half unwilling, into the competition; and having an immense start over her rivals, actually acquired more new territory than any of them. She was, indeed, like the other states, passing through an 'imperialist' phase in these years. The value attached by other countries to oversea possessions awakened among the British people a new pride in their far-spread dominions. Disraeli, who was in the ascendant when the period opened, had forgotten his old opinion of the uselessness of colonies, and had become a prophet of Empire. An Imperial Federation Society was founded in 1878. The old unwillingness to assume new responsibilities died out, or diminished; and the rapid annexations of other states, especially France, in regions where British influence had hitherto been supreme, and whose chieftains had often begged in vain for British protection, aroused some irritation. The ebullient energy of the colonists themselves, especially in South Africa and Australia, demanded a forward policy. Above all, the fact that the European powers, now so eager for colonial possessions, had all adopted the protectionist policy aroused a fear lest British traders should find themselves shut out from lands whose trade had hitherto been almost wholly in their hands; and the militant and aggressive temper sometimes shown by the agents of these powers awakened some nervousness regarding the safety of the existing British possessions. Hence Britain, after a period of hesitancy, became as active as any of the other states in annexation. Throughout this period her main rival was France, whose new claims seemed to come in conflict with her own in almost every quarter of the globe. This rivalry produced acute friction, which grew in intensity until it reached its culminating point in the crisis of Fashoda in 1898, and was not removed until the settlement of 1904 solved all the outstanding difficulties. It would be quite untrue to say that Britain deliberately endeavoured to prevent or to check the rapid colonial expansion of France. The truth is that British trading interests had been predominant in many of the regions where the French were most active, and that the protectionist policy which France had adopted stimulated into a new life the ancient rivalry of these neighbour and sister nations. Towards the colonial ambitions of Germany, and still more of Italy, Britain was far more complaisant.

It is difficult to give in a brief space a clear summary of the extremely complicated events and intrigues of this vitally important period. But perhaps it will be easiest if we consider in turn the regions in which the strenuous rivalries of the powers displayed themselves. The most important was Africa, which lay invitingly near to Europe, and was the only large region of the world which was still for the most part unoccupied. Here all the competitors, save Russia, Japan, and America, played a part. Western Asia formed a second field, in which three powers only, Russia, Germany, and Britain, were immediately concerned. The Far East, where the vast Empire of China seemed to be falling into decrepitude, afforded the most vexed problems of the period. Finally, the Pacific Islands were the scene of an active though less intense rivalry.