General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 65

A second time Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and a second time Louis XVIII. was lifted by the allies upon his unstable throne. Bonaparte desired to be allowed to retire to America, but his enemies believed that his presence there would not be consistent with the safety of Europe.

Consequently he was banished to the island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, and there closely guarded by the British until his death, in 1821.

2. FRANCE SINCE THE SECOND RESTORATION (1815-).

CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD.--The history of France since the second restoration of the Bourbons may be characterized briefly. It has been simply a continuation of the Revolution, of the struggle between democratic and monarchical tendencies. The aim of the Revolution was to abolish privileges and establish rights,--to give every man lot and part in shaping the government under which he lives. These republican ideas and principles have, on the whole, notwithstanding repeated reverses, gained ground; for revolutions never move backward. There may be eddies and counter-currents in a river, but the steady and powerful sweep of the stream is ever onward towards the sea. Not otherwise is it with the great political and intellectual movements of history.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1830.--Profiting by the lessons of The Hundred Days, Louis XVIII. ruled after the second restoration with reasonable heed to the results and changes effected by the Revolution. But upon the death of Louis in 1824 and the accession of Charles X., a reactionary policy was adopted. The new king seemed utterly incapable of profiting by the teachings of the Revolution. His blind, stubborn course gave rise to the saying, "A Bourbon learns nothing and forgets nothing." The result might have been foreseen. The people rose in revolt, and by one of those sudden movements for which Paris is so noted, the despot was driven into exile, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was placed on the throne (1830).

A new const.i.tution was now given to France, and as Louis Philippe had travelled about the world considerably, and had experienced various vicissitudes of fortune,--having at one time been obliged to support himself by teaching mathematics,--the people regarded him as one of themselves, and antic.i.p.ated much from their "Citizen King" and their reformed const.i.tution.

The French "July Revolution," as it is called, lighted the signal fires of liberty throughout Europe. In almost every country there were uprisings of the Liberals. Existing const.i.tutions were so changed as to give the people a larger share in the government; and where there were no const.i.tutions, original charters were granted. In some instances, indeed, the uprisings had no other result than that of rendering the despotic governments against which they were directed more cruel and tyrannical than they were before; yet, on the whole, a decided impulse was given to the cause of const.i.tutional, republican government. [Footnote: It was at this time that Belgium became an independent state; for upon the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, the Congress of Vienna had made the Low Countries into a single kingdom, and given, the crown to a prince of the House of Orange.

The Belgians now arose and declared themselves independent of Holland, adopted a liberal const.i.tution, and elected Leopold I., of Saxe-Coburg, as their king (1831).]

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC (1848).--The reign of Louis Philippe up to 1848 was very unquiet, yet was not marked by any disturbance of great importance. But during all this time the ideas of the Revolution were working among the people, and the republican party was constantly gaining strength. Finally, in 1848, some unpopular measures of the government caused an uprising similar to that of 1830. Louis Philippe, under the a.s.sumed name of Mr. Smith, fled into England. The Second Republic was now established. An election being ordered, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon, was chosen president of the new republic (Dec. 20, 1848).

The truth of the first Napoleon's declaration, which we have before quoted, that a revolution in France is sure to be followed by a revolution throughout Europe, was now ill.u.s.trated anew. Almost every throne upon the continent felt the shock of the French Revolution of 1848. The const.i.tutions of many of the surrounding states again underwent great changes in the interest of the people and of liberty. "It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that during the month of March, 1848, not a single day pa.s.sed without a const.i.tution being granted somewhere." France had made another of her irresistible invasions of the states of Europe--"an invasion of ideas."

THE SECOND EMPIRE (1852-1870).--The life of the Second Republic spanned only three years. By almost exactly the same steps as those by which his uncle had mounted the French throne, Louis Napoleon now also ascended to the imperial dignity, crus.h.i.+ng the republic as he rose.

Dissensions having arisen between the President and the Legislative a.s.sembly, he suddenly dissolved that body, placed its leaders under arrest, and then appealed to the country to indorse what he had done. By a most extraordinary vote of 7,437,216 to 640,737 the nation approved of the President's _coup d'etat_, and rewarded him for it by electing him President for ten years, which was virtually making him dictator. The next year he was made emperor, and took the t.i.tle of Napoleon III. (1852).

The important political events of the reign of Napoleon III. were the Crimean War (1853-1856), the Austro-Sardinian War (1859), and the Franco- Prussian War (1870-1871). The first and second of these wars need not detain us at this time, as we shall speak of them hereafter in connection with Russian and Italian affairs.

The third war was with Prussia. The real causes of this war were French jealousy of the growing power of Prussia, and the Emperor's anxiety to strengthen his government in the affections of the French people by reviving the military glory of the reign of his great-uncle. The pretext upon which the war was actually declared was that Prussia was scheming to augment her influence by allowing a Prussian prince (Leopold of Hohenzollern) to become a candidate for the vacant throne of Spain (see p.

705).

The French armies invaded Germany, but were pushed back by the Prussians and their allies, who followed the retreating enemy across the frontier, defeated one large French army at Gravelotte (Aug. 18, 1870) and imprisoned it in Metz, captured the strong fortress of Sedan,--making a prisoner here of the emperor himself, [Footnote: After the war Louis Napoleon found an asylum in England (at Chiselhurst), where he died January 9, 1873.]--and then advancing upon Paris, forced that city, after an investment of a few months, to capitulate (Jan. 28, 1871).

The terms of the treaty that followed were that France should surrender to Germany the greater portion of the Rhenish provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, pay an indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs (about $1,000,000,000), and consent to the occupation of certain portions of French territory until the fine was paid.

The Red Republicans, or Communists, of Paris, indignant at the terms of the treaty, shut the gates of the city, and called the population to arms, declaring that the capital would never submit to see France thus dismembered and humiliated. A second reign of terror was now set up. The Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, and many other public buildings were burned. The government at length succeeded in suppressing the Anarchists, and restoring order.

THE THIRD REPUBLIC (1871).--The organization of the Third Republic was now completed. M. Thiers, the historian, was made its first president [Footnote: The successors of M. Thiers have been Marshal MacMahon (1873- 1879), M. Grevy (1879-1887), and M. Carnot (1887).] (Aug. 31, 1871). Since the establishment of the republic, its enemies have been busy and vigilant, hoping to see democratic inst.i.tutions discredited and the monarchy revived. But it is believed that each succeeding year of republican government in France strengthens the faith of the French people in their ability to govern themselves, and that the history of France as a monarchy is ended.

CHAPTER LX.

RUSSIA SINCE THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

ALEXANDER I. AND THE HOLY ALLIANCE.--Upon the downfall of Napoleon, Alexander I. (1801-1825) of Russia organized the celebrated union known as the _Holy Alliance_. This was a league embracing as its chief members Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the ostensible object of which was the maintenance of religion, peace, and order in Europe, and the reduction to practice in politics of the maxims of Christ. The several sovereigns entering into the union promised to be fathers to their people, to rule in love and with reference solely to the promotion of the welfare of their subjects, and to help one another as brothers to maintain just government and prevent wrong.

All this had a very millennial look. But the "Holy Alliance" very soon became practically a league for the maintenance of absolute principles of government, in opposition to the liberal tendencies of the age. Under the pretext of maintaining religion, justice, and order, the sovereigns of the union acted in concert to suppress every aspiration among their subjects for political liberty. Yet, when Alexander founded the alliance, he meant all that he said. But conspiracies among his own subjects, and popular uprisings throughout Europe, all tended to create in him a revulsion of feeling. From an ardent apostle of liberal ideas, such as he was during all the earlier part of his reign, he was transformed into a violent absolutist, and spent all his later years in aiding the despotic rulers of Spain, Italy, and Germany to crush every uprising among their subjects for political freedom.

This reactionary policy of Alexander caused bitter disappointment among the Liberals in Russia, the number of whom was large, for the Russian armies that helped to crush Napoleon came back from the West with many new and liberal ideas awakened by what they had seen and heard and experienced.

THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR OF 1828-1829.--In 1825 Alexander I. was succeeded by his brother Nicholas I. (1825-1855), "a terrible incarnation of autocracy." He carried out the later policy of his predecessor, and strove to shut out from his empire all the liberalizing influences of Western Europe.

In 1828, taking advantage of the embarra.s.sment of the Sultan through a stubborn insurrection in Greece, [Footnote: This was the struggle known as the "War of Grecian Independence." It was characterized by the most frightful barbarities on the part of the Turks. Lord Byron enlisted on the side of the Greeks. The result of the war was the freeing of Greece from Turkish rule. England, France, and Russia became the guardians of the little state, the crown of which was given to Prince Otto of Bavaria (Otto I., 1832-1862).] Nicholas declared war against the Ottoman Porte. The Balkans were quickly pa.s.sed, and the victorious armies of the Czar were in full march upon Constantinople, when their advance was checked by the jealous interference of England and Austria, through whose mediation the war was brought to a close by the Peace of Adrianople (1829). Nicholas restored all his conquests in Europe, but held some provinces in Asia which gave him control of the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Euxine. Greece was liberated, and Servia became virtually independent of the Sultan. Thus the result of the contest was greatly to diminish the strength and influence of Turkey, and correspondingly to increase the power and prestige of Russia.

REVOLUTION IN POLAND (1830-1832).--The Congress of Vienna (1815) re- established Poland as a const.i.tutional kingdom dependent upon Russia. But the rule of the Czar over the Poles was tyrannical, and they were impatient of an opportunity to throw off the Russian yoke. The revolutionary movements of the year 1830 sent a wave of hope through Poland; the people arose and drove out the Russian garrisons. But the armies of the Czar quickly poured over the frontiers of the revolted state, and before the close of the year 1831 the Polish patriots were once more under the foot of their Russian master.

It was a hard fate that awaited the unhappy nation. Their const.i.tution was taken away, and Poland was made a province of the Russian empire (1832).

Mult.i.tudes were banished to Siberia, while thousands more expatriated themselves, seeking an asylum in England, America, and other countries. Of all the peoples that rose for freedom in 1830 none suffered so cruel and complete an extinguishment of their hopes as did the patriot Poles.[Footnote: For Russia's part in the affairs of the revolutionary years 1848-49, see p. 702.]

THE CRIMEAN WAR (1853-1856).--A celebrated phrase applied to the Ottoman Porte by the Czar Nicholas casts a good deal of light upon the circ.u.mstances that led to the Crimean War. "We have on our hands," said the Czar, "a sick man--a very sick man; I tell you frankly it would be a great misfortune if he should give us the slip some of these days, especially if it happened before all the necessary arrangements were made."

Nicholas had cultivated friendly relations with the English government, and he now proposed that England and Russia, as the parties most directly interested, should divide the estate of the "sick man." England was to be allowed to take Egypt and Crete, while the Turkish provinces in Europe were to be taken under the protection of the Czar, which meant of course the complete absorption, in due time, of all Southeastern Europe into the Russian empire.

A pretence for hastening the dissolution of the sick man was not long wanting. A quarrel between the Greek and Latin Christians at Jerusalem about the holy places was made the ground by Nicholas for demanding of the Sultan the admission and recognition of a Russian protectorate over all Greek Christians in the Ottoman dominions. The demand was rejected, and Nicholas prepared for war.

The Sultan appealed to the Western powers for help. England and France responded to the appeal, and later Sardinia joined her forces to theirs.

England, rejecting the Czar's proposal of a division of the dying man's estate, fought to prevent Russia from getting through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean, and thus endangering her route to her Eastern possessions.

The French emperor fought to avenge Moscow, and to render his new imperial throne attractive to his people by surrounding it with the glamour of successful war. Sardinia was led to join England and France through the policy of the far-sighted Cavour, who would thus have the Sardinians win the grat.i.tude of these powers, so that in the next conflict with Austria the Italian patriots might have some strong friends to help them.

The main interest of the struggle centred about Sebastopol, in the Crimea, Russia's great naval and military depot, and the key to the Euxine. Around this strongly fortified place were finally gathered 175,000 soldiers of the allies. The siege, which lasted eleven months, was one of the most memorable and destructive in history. The Russian engineer Todleben earned a great fame through his masterly defence of the works. The English "Light Brigade" earned immortality in their memorable charge at Balaklava. The French troops, through their das.h.i.+ng bravery, brought great fame to the emperor who had sent them to gather glory for his throne.

The Russians were at length forced to evacuate the place. They left it, however, a "second Moscow." The war was now soon brought to an end by the Treaty of Paris (1856). Every provision of the treaty had in view the maintenance of the integrity of the empire of the Sultan, and the restraining of the ambition of the Czar. Russia was given back Sebastopol, but was required to give up some territory at the mouth of the Danube, whereby her frontier was pushed back from that river; to abandon all claims to a protectorate over any of the subjects of the Porte; to agree not to raise any more fortresses on the Euxine nor keep upon that sea any armed s.h.i.+ps, save what might be needed for police service. The Christian population of the Turkish dominions were placed under the guardians.h.i.+p of the great powers, who were to see that the Sublime Porte fulfilled its promise of granting perfect civil and religious equality and protection to all its subjects.

EMANc.i.p.aTION OF THE SERFS (1858-1863).--Alexander II. (1855-1881), who came to the Russian throne in the midst of the Crimean War, abandoned the narrow and intolerant system of his predecessor Nicholas, and reverting as it were to the policy of Peter the Great, labored for popular reform, and for the introduction into his dominions of the ideas and civilization of Western Europe. The reform which will ever give his name a place in the list of those rulers who have conferred singular benefits upon their subjects, was the emanc.i.p.ation, by a series of imperial edicts, of the Russian serfs, who made up more than 45,000,000 of the population of the empire. More than half of these serfs belonged to the Crown, and were known as Crown peasants.

The Crown serfs were only _nominal_ bondsmen, their servitude consisting in scarcely more than the payment of a light rent. The serfs of individual proprietors, however, might be designated as semi-slaves. Thus, their owners could flog them in case of disobedience, but could not sell them individually as slaves are sold; yet when a proprietor sold his estate, the whole community of serfs living upon it pa.s.sed with it to the purchaser.

Besides the emanc.i.p.ation measure, Alexander's name is a.s.sociated with other reforms, the earlier part of his reign especially being characterized by a very liberal spirit. This liberal policy was followed until the revolt of the Poles in 1863, when Alexander was led to adopt a more reactionary policy, a policy which persistently pursued has yielded bitter fruit in Nihilism.

THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR OF 1877-1878.--Anxiously as the Treaty of Paris had provided for the permanent settlement of the Eastern Question, barely twenty-two years had pa.s.sed before it was again up before Europe, and Russia and Turkey were again in arms. The Sultan could not or would not give to his Christian subjects that equal protection of the laws which he had solemnly promised should be given. The Moslem hatred of the Christians was constantly leading to disturbance and outrage. In 1860 there was a great ma.s.sacre of Syrian Christians by the Druses and Turks, and in 1876 occurred in Bulgaria the so-called "Bulgarian atrocities," ma.s.sacres of Christian men, women, and children, more revolting perhaps than any others of which history tells. The greatest indignation was kindled throughout Europe. The Russian armies were set in motion (1877). Kars in Asia Minor and Plevna in European Turkey fell into the hands of the Russians, and the armies of the Czar were once more in full march upon Constantinople, with the prospect of soon ending forever Turkish rule on European soil, when England, as in 1829, interfered, and by the movements of her iron-clads in the Bosporus again arrested the triumphant march of the Russians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE According to the Treaty of Berlin, 1878.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. (By Anton von Werner, Prussian Court Painter)]

The Treaty of Berlin (1878) adjusted once more the disorganized affairs of the Sublime Porte, and bolstered as well as was possible the "sick man."

But he lost a good part of his estate. Out of those provinces of his dominions in Europe in which the Christian population was most numerous, there was created a group of wholly independent or half-independent states. The absolute independence of Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro was formally acknowledged; Bulgaria, north of the Balkans, was to enjoy self- government, but was to pay a tribute to the Porte; East Roumelia was to have a Christian governor, but was to remain under the dominion of the Sultan. The Balkans were thus made the northern boundary of the Turkish empire in Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to the Austro- Hungarian monarchy. Russia acquired some places in Armenia, and also received Bessarabia on the Lower Danube.

In a word, Russia regained everything she had lost in the Crimean struggle, while Turkey was shorn of half her European possessions. There were left in Europe under the direct authority of the Sultan barely 5,000,000 subjects, of which number about one-half are Christians. England alone is responsible for the work of emanc.i.p.ation not having been made complete.

NIHILISM AND THE EXILE SYSTEM.--Russian Nihilism is a smothered French Revolution. It is the form which Liberalism has taken under the repressions of a despotic autocracy; for the government of Russia is a perfect absolutism, the Czar alone being legislator, judge, and executive for the Russian nation of 85,000,000 souls. He makes laws, levies taxes, expends the revenue, and condemns his subjects to exile or death, according to his own will, without let or hindrance. The terrible character of the repressive measures of the government is revealed by the fact that during the years 1879 and 1880 sixty thousand persons were, _without trial_, sent into exile in Siberia. [Footnote: On the Exile System of Russia read the excellent series of articles by George Kennan in _The Century Magazine_ for 1888-9.]

It is a principle of the extreme Nihilists, that a.s.sa.s.sination is a righteous means of reform. Within the last few years many attempts have been made upon the life of the reigning Czar. On March 13, 1881, Alexander II. was killed by means of a bomb filled with dynamite.

The son of the murdered Czar who now came to the throne as Alexander III., immediately inst.i.tuted a still more sternly repressive system than that pursued by his father, whom he seemed to regard as the victim of the over- liberal policy of the earlier years of his reign. It appears to be his determination to close his empire against the entrance of all liberal or progressive ideas, political, religious, and scientific, of Western Europe. A rigid censors.h.i.+p of the press is being maintained (1889), and the writings of such authors as Huxley, Spencer, Aga.s.siz, Lyell, and Adam Smith, are forbidden circulation.

There can be but one outcome to this contest between the "Autocrat of all the Russias" and his subjects. Either through wise concessions on the part of its rulers, or through the throes of a terrible revolution, like that of 1789 in France, the Russian empire will sooner or later come to possess a const.i.tutional representative government. The Czar of Russia is simply fighting the hopeless battle that has been fought and lost by the despotic sovereigns of every other European country--a battle which has the same invariable issue, the triumph of liberal principles and the admission of the people to a partic.i.p.ation in the government.