Even the extremest East was brought in contact with the West. As a result of the Opium War of 1840, China was compelled to open her doors to foreign trade. She was also compelled to surrender territory to England. Japan, which for more than two centuries had jealously excluded Europeans from her shores, received her memorable awakening from the friendly American expedition of Commodore Perry. [Footnote: See The Opening of Japan.]
THE CRIMEAN WAR
Russia sought to have her share also in the appropriation of territory and "spheres of influence." She and England were the only two European Powers which had not been seriously shaken by the upheavals of 1848. It seemed that they might almost divide between them the helpless Eastern world. England having already begun operations, Russia assumed a sort of protectorate over the Christians in Turkish lands, and proposed to England that the entire Turkish Empire should be divided between the two despoilers. The British Government refused the plan, mainly because it would give Russia a broad highway to the sea and make her a dangerous commercial rival. So Russia attempted to carry out her scheme single-handed, and began seizing Turkish provinces. She destroyed the Turkish fleet. Once before in 1828 the threat of a general European alliance had checked the Russian bear at this same game; but Europe was weaker now, the Czar stronger, and England far off and undecided.
Thus perhaps the Czar might have had his way but for Napoleon III. This new Emperor had been permitted by Frenchmen to usurp his power largely because of the military repute of his great namesake; and he felt that to hold his place he must justify his reputation. Frenchmen resented exceedingly the Czar's haughty assumption that only England was able to oppose Russia; and Napoleon III promptly asserted himself in the role of the former Napoleon as "dictator of Europe." The title so pleased the insulted pride of his people that they followed him eagerly, and remained blind to many failings through more wars than one. The self-constituted dictator insisted that his whole desire was for peace and the artistic beautifying of his country; yet if Russia persisted in extending her power and ignoring France—. In 1854 he joined England in the war of the Crimea against Russia.
It cannot be said that the allies achieved any great success against their huge antagonist. Their fleets bombarded the Baltic fortresses with small result. Their armies, hastening to protect Turkey, attacked the Russians in the Crimea, gained the Battle of the Alma, and then for an entire year besieged the fortifications of Sebastopol. [Footnote: See The Capture of Sebastopol.] But distance and changeful climate proved Russia's aids as they had in 1812. The allies' commissary and sanitary departments could hardly be managed at all; their troops died by thousands, and, though they finally stormed and captured Sebastopol, it was a barren victory. Russia, not so much overcome as convinced of the practical lack of profit in persistency, made terms of peace by which she once more drew back from her feeble prey. English statesmen were satisfied with the check administered to their great rival; and the French were delighted at the successful interference of their "dictator of Europe." He had rehabilitated the nation in its own eyes.
UNION OF ITALY
Ambition grows by what it feeds on. Napoleon determined to assert himself again. The bitterness of Italy against its Austrian masters offered an excellent opportunity, and in 1859 he encouraged the King of Sardinia to try once more the contest which had proved so disastrous eleven years before. The King, Victor Emmanuel II, prepared for war against Austria. The French joined him, so did the little North Italian States, and their combined forces were victorious at Magenta and Solferino. [Footnote: See Battles of Magenta and Solferino.]
Napoleon had declared that the combat should not cease until the Austrians were driven entirely out of Italy. As the price of his alliance he secured Nice and Savoy from Sardinia; and then, immediately after the bloody Battle of Solferino he suddenly changed front and declared that the war must cease. Austria yielded Lombardy, but kept Venice, the last of the possessions for which during more than three hundred years she had been battling in Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia became the Kingdom of Northern Italy.
The next year (1860) Garibaldi, the lion-like fighter, the enthusiastic lover of Italy, gathering round him a thousand followers, made an unexpected attack on Sicily, which was held by the tyrant King of Naples. With his celebrated "Thousand" he won two remarkable victories. The Sicilians joined him; the Neapolitans were driven from the island. Not giving them time to recover, Garibaldi followed to the mainland, defeated them again, and was master of all Southern Italy. Meanwhile Victor Emmanuel, marching his troops southward, seized what was left of the States of the Church. The two conquerors met midway in Italy, and Garibaldi, grasping his sovereign by the hand, saluted him as King at last of a united Italy. Only Rome and Venice remained outside the pale, Rome protected by being in actual possession of the Pope, and, since France was still Catholic, guarded by French troops from the eager Italians. The year 1860 had been second only to 1848 in its importance in changing the outlines of modern Europe. [Footnote: See The Kingdom of Italy Established.]
Another change, immeasurably vast and still unmeasured in its consequences, may be dated from 1859, when Charles Darwin gave to the world his book, the Origin of Species. In this he proclaimed the doctrine of the evolution of all the more complicated forms of life from simpler forms. The idea, at first resolutely combated on religious grounds, has gradually received more or less acceptance into the entire religious fabric, even as were the discoveries of Galileo. [Footnote: See Darwin Publishes His Origin of Species.]