One permanent factor in the history of Europe after the war of 1870-71 was the constant increase of armaments by all the great powers, and the proportionate increase of taxation. The fact made such an impression on the young emperor of Russia, Nicholas II., that he invited the powers to consider whether the further increase of the burdens thereby imposed on the nations might not be arrested by mutual agreement; and a conference for this purpose was convened at the Hague (May 18-July 29, 1899), but the desirable object in view was not attained. (See [Arbitration, International].)
(D. M. W.)
Though neither the first Hague Conference nor the second, which met in 1907, did much to fulfil the expectations of those who hoped for the establishment of a system which should guarantee the world against the disasters of Progress of the Peace movement. war, they undoubtedly tended to create a strong public opinion in favour of peaceful methods in the solution of international problems which has not been without its effect. Any attempt to organize the concert of the powers must always fail, as it failed in the early part of the 19th century, so long as the spirit of national and racial rivalry is stronger than the consciousness of common interests; and the early years of the 20th century showed no diminution, but rather an accentuation of this rivalry. The court of arbitration established at the Hague early in 1901 may deal effectively with questions as to which both parties desire a modus vivendi, and the pacific efforts of King Edward VII., which did so much to prevent misunderstandings likely to lead to war, resulted from 1903 onwards in a series of arbitration treaties between Great Britain and other powers which guaranteed the Hague court an effective activity in such matters. But more perilous issues, involving deep-seated antagonisms, have continued to be dealt with by the methods of the old diplomacy backed by the armed force of the powers. How far the final solution of such problems has been helped or hindered by the general reluctance to draw the sword must for some time to come remain an open question. Certainly, during the early years of the 20th century, many causes of difference which a hundred years earlier would assuredly have led to war, were settled, or at least shelved, by diplomacy. Of these the questions of Crete, of Armenia, and of contested claims in Africa have already been mentioned. Other questions of general interest which might have led to war, but which found a peaceful solution, were those of the separation of Norway and Sweden, and the rivalry of the powers in the northern seas. In October 1905 Sweden formally recognized the separate existence of Norway (see [Norway]: History and [Sweden]: History). On the 23rd of April 1908 were signed the “Declarations”; the one, signed by the four Baltic littoral powers, recognized “in principle” the maintenance of the territorial status quo in that sea; the other—to which Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Holland were the parties—sanctioned a similar principle in regard to the North Sea. These were followed, in June of the same year, by two agreements intended to apply the same principles to the southern European waters, signed by France and Spain and Great Britain and Spain respectively. Another agreement, that signed between Russia and Great Britain in 1907 for the delimitation of their spheres of influence in Persia and the northern borders of the Indian empire, though having no direct relation to European affairs, exercised considerable influence upon them by helping to restore the international prestige of Russia, damaged by the disasters of the war with Japan and the internal disturbances that followed. The new cordial understanding between the British and Russian governments was cemented by the meeting of King Edward VII. and the emperor Nicholas II. at Reval in June 1908.
More perilous to European peace, however, than any of these issues was the perennial unrest in Macedonia, which threatened sooner or later to open up the whole Eastern Question once more in its acutest form. The situation was due Revival of the Eastern Question. to the internecine struggle of the rival Balkan races—Greek, Bulgarian, Servian—to secure the right to the reversion of territories not yet derelict. But behind these lesser issues loomed the great secular rivalries of the powers, and beyond these again the vast unknown forces of the Mahommedan world, ominously stirring. The very vastness of the perils involved in any attempt at a definitive settlement compelled the powers to accept a compromise which, it was hoped, would restore tolerable conditions in the wretched country. But the “Mürzsteg programme,” concerted between the Austrian and Russian emperors in 1903, and imposed upon the Porte by the diplomatic pressure of the great powers, did not produce the effects hoped for. The hideous tale of massacres of helpless villagers by organized Greek bands, and of equally hideous, if less wholesale, reprisals by Bulgarian bands, grew rather than diminished, and reached its climax in the early months of 1908. The usefulness of the new gendarmerie, under European officers, which was to have co-operated with the Ottoman authorities in the restoration of order, was from the outset crippled by the passive obstruction of the Turkish government. The sultan, indeed, could hardly be blamed for watching with a certain cynical indifference the mutual slaughter of those “Christians” whose avowed ideal was the overthrow of Mahommedan rule, nor could he be expected to desire the smooth working of a system against which he had protested as a violation of his sovereign rights. In 1908 the powers were still united in bringing pressure to bear on the Porte to make the reforms effective; but the proposal of Great Britain to follow the precedent of the Lebanon and commit the administration of Macedonia to a Mussulman governor appointed by the sultan, but removable only by consent of the powers, met with little favour either at Constantinople or among the powers whose ulterior aims might have been hampered by such an arrangement.
Such was the condition of affairs when in October 1908 the revolution in Turkey altered the whole situation. The easy and apparently complete victory of the Young Turks, and the re-establishment without a struggle of the constitution Young Turkish revolution, 1908. which had been in abeyance since 1876, took the whole world by surprise, and not least those who believed themselves to be most intimately acquainted with the conditions prevailing in the Ottoman empire. The question of the Near East seemed in fair way of settlement by the action of conflicting races themselves, who in the enthusiasm of new-found freedom appeared ready to forget their ancient internecine feuds and to fraternize on the common ground of constitutional liberty (see [Turkey]: History). By the European powers the proclamation of the constitution was received, at least outwardly, with unanimous approval, general admiration being expressed for the singular moderation and self-restraint shown by the Turkish leaders and people. Whatever views, however, may have been openly expressed, or secretly held, as to the revolution so far as it affected the Ottoman empire itself, there could be no doubt that its effects on the general situation in European results. Europe would be profound. These effects were not slow in revealing themselves. On the 5th of October Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria proclaimed himself king (tsar) of the Bulgarians; and two days later the emperor Francis Joseph issued a rescript announcing the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Habsburg monarchy (see [Bulgaria]: History and [Bosnia and Herzegovina]: History). Whatever cogent reasons there may have been for altering the status of these countries in view of the changed conditions in Turkey, there could be no doubt that the method employed was a violation of the public law of Europe. By the declaration of London of 1871, to which Austria-Hungary herself had been a principal party, it had been laid down that “contracting powers could only rid themselves of their treaty engagements by an understanding with their co-signatories.” This solemn reaffirmation of a principle on which the whole imposing structure of international law had, during the 19th century, been laboriously built up was now cynically violated. The other powers, confronted with the fait accompli, protested; but the astute statesman who had staked his reputation as foreign minister of the Dual Monarchy on the success of this coup had well gauged the character and force of the opposition he would have to meet. European crisis provoked by Austria. Baron von Aehrenthal, himself more Slav than German, in spite of his name, had served a long apprenticeship in diplomacy at Belgrade and St Petersburg; he knew how fully he could rely upon the weakness of Russia, and that if Russian Pan-Slav sentiment could be cowed, he need fear nothing from the resentment of the Servians. He was strong, too, in the moral and—in case of need—the material support of Germany. With Germany behind her, Austria-Hungary had little to fear from the opposition of the powers of the triple entente, Great Britain, France and Russia. This diagnosis of the situation was justified by the event. For months, indeed, Europe seemed on the verge of a general war. During the autumn the nationalist excitement in Servia and Montenegro rose to fever-heat, and Austria responded by mobilizing her forces on the frontiers and arming the Catholic Bosnians as a precaution against a rising of their Orthodox countrymen. Only the winter seemed to stand between Europe and a war bound to become general, and men looked forward with apprehension to the melting of the snows. It is too early as yet to write the history of the diplomatic activities by which this disaster was avoided. Their general outline, however, is clear enough. The protests of Turkey at a violation of treaty rights, doubly resented as likely to damage the prestige of the new constitutional régime, were sympathetically received by the powers of the triple entente. An international conference was at once suggested as the only proper authority for carrying out any modifications of the treaty of Berlin necessitated by the new conditions in Turkey; the right of Austria-Hungary to act on her own initiative was strenuously denied; Bulgarian independence and Prince Ferdinand’s title of king were meantime refused recognition. In the assertion of these principles Great Britain, Russia and France were united. Germany, on the other hand, maintained an attitude of reserve, though diplomatically “correct”; she accepted the principle of a conference, but made her consent to its convocation conditional on that of her ally Austria-Hungary. But the latter refused to agree to any conference in which the questions at issue should be reopened; the most that she would accept was a conference summoned merely to register the fait accompli and to arrange “compensations” not territorial but financial.
For a while it seemed as though Baron Aehrenthal’s ambition had o’erleaped itself. The reluctance of the Russian government, conscious of its military and political weakness, to take extreme measures seemed likely to be overborne The German-Austrian victory. by the Pan-Slav enthusiasm of the Russian people, and the Austrian statesman’s policy to have placed him in an impasse from which it would be difficult to extricate himself, save at an expense greater than that on which he had calculated. At this point Germany, conscious throughout of holding the key to the situation, intervened with effect. Towards the end of March 1909 the German ambassador at St Petersburg, armed with an autograph letter from the emperor William II., had an interview with the tsar. What were the arguments he used is not known; but the most powerful are supposed to have been the German forces which had been mobilized on the Polish frontier. In any case, the result was immediate and startling. Russia, without previous discussion with her allies, dissociated herself from the views she had hitherto held in common with them, and accepted the German-Austrian standpoint. All question of a conference was now at an end; and all that the powers most friendly to Turkey could do was to persuade her to make the best of a bad bargain. The Ottoman government, preoccupied with the internal questions which were to issue in the abortive attempt at counter-revolution in April, was in no condition to resist friendly or unfriendly pressure. The principle of a money payment in compensation for the shadowy rights of the sultan over the lost provinces was accepted,[79] and Bulgarian independence under King Ferdinand was recognized on the very eve of the new victory of the Young Turks which led to the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid II. and the proclamation of Sultan Mahommed V. (see [Turkey]: History).
The change made by these events in the territorial system of Europe was of little moment. A subject principality, long practically independent, became a sovereign state; the Almanach de Gotha was enriched with a new royal Its moral. title; the sentiment of the Bulgarian people was gratified by the restoration of their historic tsardom. Two provinces long annexed to the Habsburg monarchy de facto became so de jure, and the vision of a Serb empire with a free outlet to the sea, never very practicable, was finally dissolved. Of vastly greater importance were the moral and international issues involved. The whole conception of an effective concert of Europe, or of the World, based on the supposed sacred obligation of treaties and the validity of international law, was revealed, suddenly and brutally, as the baseless fabric of a dream. The most momentous outcome of the international debates caused by Austria’s high-handed action was the complete triumph of Bismarck’s principle that treaties cease to be valid “when the private interest of those who lie under them no longer reinforces the text.” Henceforth, it was felt, no reaffirmation of a principle of international comity and law, so successfully violated, could serve to disguise the brutal truth that in questions between nations, in the long-run, might is right—that there is no middle term between the naked submission preached by Tolstoy and his disciples and Napoleon’s dictum that “Providence is with the big battalions.” In Great Britain, especially, public opinion was quick to grasp this truth. It was realized that it was the immense armed power of Germany that had made her the arbiter in a question vitally affecting the interests of all Europe. Germany alone emerged from the crisis with prestige enormously enhanced; for without her intervention Austria could not have resisted the pressure of the powers. The cry for disarmament, encouraged by the action of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s government, suddenly died down in England; and the agitation in favour of an increased ship-building programme, that followed the revelation by the first lord of the admiralty (April 1909) of Germany’s accelerated activity in naval construction, showed that public opinion had been thoroughly awakened to the necessity of maintaining for Great Britain her maritime supremacy, on which not only her position in Europe but the existence of her over-sea empire depended.
Bibliographical Note.—(1) Bibliographies.—Lists of the principal works on the history of the various European countries, and of their main sources, are given in the bibliographies attached to the separate articles (see also those appended to the articles [Papacy]; [Church History]; [Diplomacy]; [Crusades]; [Feudalism], &c.). For the sources of the medieval history of Europe see Ulysse Chevalier’s monumental Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge; Bio-Bibliography (Paris, 1877, &c.), which with certain limitations (notably as regards the Slav, Hungarian and Scandinavian countries) gives references to published documents for all names of people, however obscure, occurring in medieval history. In 1894 M. Chevalier began the publication of a second series of his Répertoire, under the somewhat misleading title of Topo-Bibliographie, intended as a compendious guide to the places, institutions, &c., of the middle ages; though very useful, this is by no means so complete as the Bio-Bibliographie. August Potthast’s Bibliotheca historica medii aevi (2nd ed., Berlin, 1895-1896) gives a complete catalogue of all the annals, chronicles and other historical works which appeared in Europe between the years 375 and 1500 and have since been printed, with short notes on their value and significance, and references to critical works upon them. See also the article [Record]. For authorities on the history of Europe from the end of the 15th to the 19th centuries inclusive the excellent bibliographies appended to the volumes of the Cambridge Modern History are invaluable.
(2) Works.—Of general works the most important are the Histoire générale du IVme siècle à nos jours, published under the direction of E. Lavisse and A. Rambaud (Paris, 1894, &c.), in 12 vols., covering the period from the 4th to the end of the 19th century: Leopold von Ranke’s Weltgeschichte (Leipzig, 1881, &c.), in 9 vols., covering (i.) the oldest group of nations and the Greeks; (ii.) the Roman Republic; (iii.) the ancient Roman Empire; (iv.) the East Roman empire and the origin of the Romano-German kingdoms; (v.) the Arab world-power and the empire of Charlemagne; (vi.) dissolution of the Carolingian and foundation of the German empire; (vii.) zenith and decay of the German empire; the hierarchy under Gregory VII.; (viii.) crusades and papal world-power (12th and 13th centuries); (ix.) period of transition to the modern world (14th and 15th centuries). To this may be added Ranke’s works on special periods: e.g. Die Fürsten und Völker von Süd-Europa im 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1837-1839); Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker, 1494-1514 (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1874, Eng. trans. 1887). In English the most important general work is the Cambridge Modern History (1903, &c.), produced by the collaboration of English and foreign scholars, and covering the ground from the end of the 15th to the 19th century inclusive. The Historians’ History of the World, edited by Dr H. Smith Williams (1908), is a compilation from the works of eminent historians of all ages, and the value of its various parts is therefore that of the historians responsible for them. Its chief merit is that it makes accessible to English readers many foreign or obscure sources which would otherwise have remained closed to the general reader. It also contains essays by notable modern scholars on the principal epochs and tendencies of the world’s history, the texts of a certain number of treaties, &c., not included as yet in other collections, and comprehensive bibliographies. On a less ambitious scale are the volumes of the “Periods of European History” series (London, 1893, &c.): Per. I. The Dark Ages, 476-918, by C.W.C. Oman (1893); Per. II. The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273, by T.F. Tout (1898); Per. III. The Close of the Middle Ages, 1273-1494, by R. Lodge (1901); Europe in the 16th Century, 1494-1598, by A.H. Johnson (1897); The Ascendancy of France, by H.O. Wakeman (1894); The Balance of Power, by A. Hassal (1896); Revolutionary Europe, by H. Morse Stephens (1893); Modern Europe, by W. Alison Phillips (1901, 5th ed., 1908). See also T.H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe from the fall of Constantinople, revised and continued to the end of the 19th century by A. Hassal (6 vols., London, 1901). Besides the above may be mentioned, for European history since the outbreak of the French Revolution, A. Sorel, l’Europe et la Révolution Française (7 vols., Paris, 1885, &c.), a work of first-class importance; A. Stern, Geschichte Europas seit den Wiener Verträgen von 1815 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1894, &c.), based on the study of much new material, still in progress (1908); C. Seignobos, Histoire politique de l’Europe contemporaine (Paris, 1897), a valuable text-book with copious bibliography (Eng. trans., London, 1901); C.M. Andrews, Historical development of Europe, 2 vols. (New York, 1896-1898).
(3) Published Documents.—For the vast mass of published sources reference must be made to the bibliographies mentioned above. It must be borne in mind, however, that these represent but a fraction of the unpublished material, and that the great development of original research is constantly revealing fresh sources, throwing new light on old problems, and not seldom upsetting conclusions long established as final. For these latest developments of scholarship the numerous historical and archaeological reviews published in various countries should be consulted: e.g. The English Historical Review (London); The Scottish Hist. Rev. (Glasgow); The American Hist. Rev. (London and New York); the Revue historique (Paris); the Historische Zeitschrift (Munich). The most notable collections of treaties are J. Dumont’s Corps diplomatique, covering the period from A.D. 800 to 1731 (Amsterdam and the Hague, 1726-1731); F.G. de Martens and his continuators, Recueil des traités, &c. (1791, &c.), covering with its supplements the period from 1494 to 1874; F. (T.T.) de Martens, Recueil des traités conclus par la Russie, &c. (14 vols., St Petersburg, 1874, &c.); A. and J. de Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France (Paris, 1864; new ed., 1880, &c.); L. Neumann, Recueil des traités conclus par l’Autriche (from 1763), (6 vols., Leipzig, 1855); new series, by. L. Neumann and A. de Plason (16 vols., Vienna, 1877-1903); Österreichische Staatsverträge (vol. i. England, 1526-1748), published by the Commission for the modern history of Austria (Innsbruck, 1907), with valuable introductory notes; British and Foreign State Papers (from the termination of the war in 1814), compiled at the Foreign Office by the Librarian and Keeper of the Papers (London, 1819, &c.); Sir E. Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty (from 1814), (4 vols., London, 1875-1891). See the article [Treaties].