Category: History

Jan 20 2012

Political Situation in Europe on the Eve of the French Revolution

On the eve of the French Revolution the political situation in Europe was remarkably simple. The Continent was dominated by five great powers: Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Their neighbors – Spain, Sweden, and Turkey – had all once enjoyed periods of economic, military, or naval greatness, but by the end of the 18th century had slipped into the ranks of the lesser powers. Most of western Germany remained fragmented into hundreds of minor principalities, ecclesiastical cities, and minor states contained within the Holy Roman Empire. Italy, similarly, contained a number of small kingdoms, some independent and others controlled by Austria. Europe was overwhelmingly agrarian and feudal, particularly in the east, with monarchs ruling absolutely within their domains. Britain was a somewhat different case: though the vast majority of her people were disenfranchised, the monarchy ruled under constitutional constraints. The nation’s prosperity was based not on agriculture but on trade. The process of industrialization, though still in its infancy, was well under way.

A generation before the French Revolution, Prussia, under the ruling house of Hohenzollern, had established herself as Europe’s newest great power, having won a series of costly and exhausting wars in which she had taken on and defeated practically every major state on the Continent. Frederick the Great had inherited from his father, Frederick William (1713-40), a highly militarized, extremely efficient state where the landed aristocracy and king enjoyed a close relationship. The aristocracy were freeholders of their land and, in effect, over their peasants as well. In return, the crown taxed the nation heavily in order to maintain a standing army proportionally much larger than that of any other European state. Frederick used that army aggressively: he invaded Austrian Silesia in 1740, and thus began the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). This was followed by the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) (see Osprey Essential Histories,The Seven Years’ War, by Daniel Marston) in which Prussia used her formidable army for the glory of the nation and to consolidate her territorial gains, generally at the expense of Austria. During the Seven Years’ War Frederick fought the greatest coalition ever seen in Europe – Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and most of the German states of the Holy Roman Empire – and survived intact. It was the hard-fought bloody encounters of this war that confirmed for Prussia her place among the Great Powers.

The Russian Empire covered a vast stretch of territory containing at the turn of the century about 48 million subjects, over half of whom were serfs tied to the land. The autocratic Romanov dynasty had ruled since the early 17th century. Russia’s military reputation had been won under Peter the Great, who had defeated the Swedes in the Great Northern War (1700-21). Although Russia had briefly fought Prussia in the later years of the Seven Years’ War, her territorial gains were made at Polish and Turkish expense during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-96), particularly during the First Partition of Poland in 1772 and in the annexation of the Crimea, an Ottoman possession, in 1783. Russia fought simultaneous conflicts with Sweden (1788-90) and, in alliance with Austria, Turkey (1787-92). She was ultimately successful in both of these conflicts. When the French Revolutionary Wars began, Catherine the Great remained neutral and she died four years later in 1796 without having challenged the Revolution. That task was left to her son and successor, Paul I, who would finally face France during the War of the Second Coalition (1798-1802). Paul was known for his mental instability and obsession with military matters and was assassinated in 1801.

George III, who had presided over the somewhat different and more constitutional monarchy of Britain since 1760, proved to be one of the French Revolution’s most implacable opponents. Political power rested with Parliament and the Prime Minister. William Pitt the Younger had attained office in 1783 with a loyal following in the House of Commons and the support of the crown. Though small by continental standards – with a population of fewer than 10 million – Britain was the world’s most prosperous nation. Her wealth was based on thriving trade with Europe and her exclusive access to a vast empire which, in addition to Canada and, above all, India, included newly acquired territories in Australia and many of the bountiful "sugar islands" of the West Indies. As international trade was the basis of the rapidly increasing national wealth, the protection of trade was paramount. Britain’s unrivaled merchant fleet, which exceeded 10,000 vessels, could confidently rely on the power of the Royal Navy for its protection. Although agriculture was still important – accounting for one-third of the national product – Britain was the birthplace of the recent phenomenon of industrialization, and its growing manufacturing capacity played a major role in stimulating a booming economy. Britain and France were long-standing enemies, having fought one another regularly over the past century and on opposite sides in nearly every conflict in which the two countries were engaged since the Middle Ages.

Dec 20 2011

Convicts and Settlement of Australia

The settlement of Australia began with the establishment of a convicts colony at the end of the 18th century. Following the American Revolution, Britain was no longer able to transport convicts to North America. With jails and prison hulks already overcrowded, it was essential that an alternative be found quickly. In 1779, Joseph Banks suggested New South Wales, Australia, as a fine site for a colony of convicts and in 1786 Lord Sydney, as Home Secretary in the Pitt Government, announced that the king had decided upon Botany Bay as a place for convicts under sentence of transportation. Less than two years later, in January 1788, the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, under the command of Captain Arthur Philip, who was to be the colony’s first governor. Philip was immediately disappointed with the landscape and sent a small boat north to find a more suitable landfall; the crew soon returned with the news that in Port Jackson they had found the finest harbor in the world and a good sheltered cove, which was called Sydney Cove. This first fleet was composed of 11 ships carrying about 750 males and female convicts, 400 sailors, 4 companies of marines, and enough livestock and supplies for two years.

The Second Fleet arrived in 1790 with more convicts and some supplies, and a year later, following the landing of the Third Fleet, the population increased to about 4300 convicts and military personnel. As crops began to yield, New South Wales became less dependent of Britain for food. There were still, however, huge social gulfs in the fledgeling colony: officers and their families were in control, clinging to a civilized British upper class lifestyle; soldiers, free settlers, and even emancipated convicts were beginning to eke out a living; nevertheless, the majority of the population were still in chains, regarded as the dregs of humanity and living in squalid conditions.

Little of the country was explored during the first years and few people ventured further than Sydney Cove. Philip believed New South Wales would not progress if the colony continued to rely soley on the labor of convicts, who were already busy constructing government roads and buildings. He believed that prosperity depended on attracting free settlers, to whom convicts could be assigned as laborers and on the granting of land to officers, soldiers, and worthy emancipated convicts. This began to happen when Philip returned to England, and his second in command, Grose, took over. Grose tipped the balance of power further in favor of the military by granting land to officers of the New South Wales Corps. With money, land, and cheap labor suddenly at their disposal, the so-called Rum Corps became exploitative, making huge profits at the expense of the small farmers; they began to pay for labor and local products in rum, and were soon able to buy whole shiploads of goods and resell them at two or three times their original value. New South Wales was becoming an important port on trade routes as whaling and sealing were increasing.

The Rum Corps, meeting little resistance, continued to do virtually as they pleased, all the while getting richer and more arrogant. They, and in particular one John Macarthur, managed to upset, defy, out-maneuver, and outlast three governors, including William Bligh of the Bounty mutiny fame. Bligh actually faced a second mutiny when the Rum Corps officers rebelled and ordered his arrest. The Rum Rebellion was the final straw for the British Government, which dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Lachlan Macquarie with his own regiment and orders for the return to London of the New South Wales Corps. Incidentally, that John Macarthur was to have far-reaching effects on the colony’s first staple industry. It was his understanding of the country’s grazing potential that fostered his own profitable sheep breeding concerns and prompted the introduction of the merino in the belief that careful breeding could produce wool of exceptional quality. Though it was his vision, it was his wife, Elizabeth, who did most of the work, for Macarthur remained in England for nearly a decade for his part in the Rum Rebellion.

Dec 19 2011

Discovery and Exploration of Australia

Although Captain James Cook is popularly credited with Australia discovery, it was probably a Portuguese who first sighted the Australian continent, while credit for its earliest coastal exploration must go to a Dutchman. Portuguese navigators had come within sight of the coast in the first half of the 16th century, and in 1606, the Spaniard Torres sailed through the strait between Cape York and New Guinea that would bear his name. In the early 1600s Dutch sailors, in search of gold and spices, reached the west coast of Cape York and several other places on the west coast; what they found was a dry, harsh, unpleasant country and they rapidly scuttle back the the kinder climates of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. In 1642, the Dutch East Indies Company, in pursuit of fertile lands and riches of any sort mounted an expedition to explore the lands to the south. Abel Tasman made two voyages from Batavia in the 1640s during which he discovered a region he called Van Diemens Lands, later called Tasmania, though he was unaware it was an island.

The dismal Australian continent was forgotten until 1768, when the British Admiralty instructed Captain James Cook to lead a scientific expedition to Tahiti, to observe the transit of planet Venus, and begin a search for the Great South Land. On board his ship Endeavour were also several scientists, including an astronomer and a group of naturalists and artists led by Josephs Banks. After circumnavigating both islands of New Zealand, Cook set sail in search of the Great South Land, planning to head west until he found the unexplored east coast of the land known as New Holland. On April 19, 1770, the extreme southeastern tip of the continent was sighted and named Point Hicks, and when the Endeavour was a navigable distance from the shore, Cook turned north to follow the coast and search for a suitable landfall. It was nine days before an opening in the cliffs was sighted and the ship and crew found sheltered anchorage in a harbor they named Botany Bay.

During they forays ashore, the scientists recorded descriptions of plants, animals, and birds, the likes of which had never been seen, as they attempted to communicated with the few natives inhabitants who all but ignored these; they were the first white men to set foot on the east coast. After leaving Botany Bay, James Cook continued north, charting the coastline as they sailed. He noted that the fertile east coast was different from the inhospitable land the earlier explorers had seen to the south and west. When the Endevour was badly damaged on a reef off north Queensland, Cook was forced to make a temporary settlement. It took six weeks to repair the ship, during which time Cook and the scientists investigated their surroundings further; this time making contact with the local Aborigines. After repairing the Endevour, navigating the Great Barrier Reef and rounding Cape York, Cook again put ashore to raise the Union Jack, rename the continent New South Wales, claiming it for the British in the name of King George III.

Dec 06 2011

UN Resolution 181

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Resolution 181, which was a plan to partition the British Mandate territory of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State, with the Greater Jerusalem area under international control. The Jewish accepted the UN Resolution 181 and created the State of Israel, which was officially declared by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948; as the Palestinian Arabs, as well as all the Arab countries, rejected the UN Partition Plan, since they opposed the existence a Jewish State, war broke out on May 15, 1948, when Israel was suddenly attacked from all fronts by Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq; this is known in history as the Israeli War of Independence.

Background

The newly-created United Nations, which was the successor of the League of Nations, took the first steps to solve the long dispute between the Jewish and Arabs in Palestine, which until then had been a British Mandate granted to the United Kingdom by the former League of Nations in 1922 after the dissolution of the Turkish Empire as a consequence of World War I. In May 1947, the United Nations appointed a committee, composed of representative from eleven countries. To make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented. After three months of hearings and general survey of the situation in Palestine, the UN committee officially released its report on August 1947. A majority of nations, which included Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay, recommended the creation of two independent States: a Jewish and an Arab one.

Approval of the UN Plan

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, the Resolution 181. The 33 countries which voted in favor of the partition were Bolivia, Brazil, Belgium, Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxemburg, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, the Soviet Union, the United States, Venezuela, South Africa, Sweden, Poland, Paraguay, Philippines, and Ukraine. The 13 countries that voted against the Resolution 181 were: Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, India, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, Pakistan, Cuba, and Afghanistan. The 10 countries that abstained were: Argentina, Chile, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Hondura, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Colombia, and China.

Dec 04 2011

Egyptian-Israeli Peace Process

Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat visited Jerusalem in November 1977 after thirty years of hostility with his Jewish neighbors. His visit was a response to an invitation of the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. During this two-day visit, which included a speech before the Knesset, the Egyptian leader created a new psychological climate in the Middle East, which would open the door for a peace process between Israel and Egypt. Anwar al-Sadat recognized Israel’s right to exist and established the basis for direct negotiations between the two countries.

In September 1978, US President Jimmy Carter invited Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President al-Sadat to meet with him at Camp David, where they agreed on a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt and a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. It set out broad principles to guide negotiations between Israel and the Arab States. It also established guidelines for a West Bank-Gaza transitional regime of full autonomy for the Palestinians residing in these territories and for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The treaty between the two countries was finally signed on March 26, 1979, by Menachem Begin and Anwar al-Sadat, with President Carter signing as witness. Under this treaty, which would become known as the Camp David Accords, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt, which became effective in April 1982, and Egypt recognized the existence of Israel as a free independent State; also the rights of the Palestians were recognized, but the fate of Jerusalem was excluded from the peace treaty.

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