VII
THE OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONS IN THE INDIVIDUALISTIC ERA
FRANCE has never become a great industrial country like England or Germany. Weakened by a generation of continual war under the first Napoleon, its recovery retarded by the reactionary period under the unholy alliance and the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, which led to the Second Empire with its repeated wars, and ended in the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, France never had the chance of undisturbed industrial development which other nations had. The decreasing birth-rate, and finally the decreasing population, made the social problem less severe than in nations with rapidly increasing population, as Germany, where national production had to provide not only for the existing population, but for a great increase of population. Adding hereto the thrift and the saving habits of the French, it is easily understood that France became a wealthy country, with the wealth rather distributed in moderate fortunes throughout the entire population, and not massed in a few vast fortunes, surrounded by a poverty-stricken population, as in the industrial nations.
Though France was unable to compete with England or Germany in supplying the standard industrial products to the world's markets, the inborn artistic temperament of the French nation made France successful in a limited but very profitable field, and in all those industries in which an artistic sense is necessary France became, and is to-day, predominant in the markets of the world, and has no competition to fear.
Thus the waves of the conflict for industrial supremacy between England, Germany, and America left France untouched.
France's rising financial power was repeatedly set back—by the extravagance of the Second Empire, by the war indemnity to Germany, and remained small compared with that of England, and in any case did not threaten England's supremacy; as, due to the French national temperament, French capital was to a small extent only invested in industrial exploitation of foreign countries. French capital built the Suez Canal, while the world stood by, scoffing; but when it proved a success, England appropriated it. The attempt to build the Panama Canal proved an impossible task, and tropical disease conquered; it was only after medical science had conquered tropical disease, largely by the work of the American Medical Staff in Cuba and in the Philippines, that the construction of the Panama Canal became possible and was accomplished by our country.
The disastrous financial failure of the French Panama companies discouraged French investors, and since that time French wealth has largely gone into governmental loans of foreign nations, especially Russia. Thus, when after Russia's defeat by Japan Russia, nearly bankrupt, was threatened by dissolution, and Poland, the Baltic provinces, and Finland rose in revolution, it was French money which came to Russia's assistance; it was the money of the French Republic which enabled the Russian autocracy to subjugate the nations which had tried to free themselves from the Russian yoke.
When the final conflict between England and Germany approached, France hesitated for a moment. But the English-speaking nations were her best customers; the defeat in the Franco-German war of 1870-71 still rankled, and when Russia joined England the large investments in Russian loans needed protection, and thus France joined the Allies.
Russia has not yet approached the individualistic era, but is still deep in feudalism. An autocratic monarchy, discouraging and opposing intelligence and education, a small intellectual minority, fully as educated, intelligent, and able as the intellectual classes in any other country, but helpless and not backed by a nation; over 80 per cent, of the masses are still essentially serfs, are illiterate and thereby deprived of the means of communication beyond their immediate surroundings, hence barred from any intelligent political activity. The attenuated parliamentarism, represented by the Duma, thus can be a shadow only; but if it were real and the Duma had the power of the British Parliament, it would probably plunge the nation in still greater misery by substituting an irresponsible oligarchy for the autocratic monarchy. It is significant that the conditions of the Russian masses have been best when a strong autocrat ruled, and most unfavorable under a weak ruler like the present, when a self-constituted group of dukes and bureaucrats exploited the nation.
The "awakening" of a "new Russia" by the present war, of which we hear so much, thus is an idle dream; as a nation Russia is further behind than Japan was when the American ships opened it to Western civilization; and it took Japan two generations to rise to equality with the Western civilized nations. What Russia needs is not political freedom and parliamentarism, but an enlightened autocrat like Frederic II. of Prussia was in the middle of the eighteenth century, who establishes schools everywhere throughout the country, and forces all the people to send their children to school. Then, in a generation, Russia can begin to think of self-government.
Industrially, Russia is a nation of vast undeveloped resources, requiring capital for its development, just as Mexico, South America, China does, and as our country did two generations ago.
But such development by foreign capital means exploitation. While the country becomes prosperous—as Mexico was under Diaz—the prosperity is not for the natives of the country, but the wealth of the country, from mines and plantations, enriches foreign nations, and the lot of the natives is a steady depression of their standard of living toward serfdom, or, as we now call it, peonage. Our country has luckily escaped this fate, due to the enterprise and ability of the mixed races which had settled it; but in the Mexico of to-day we see the result of the development of a country by foreign capital in the individualistic era. Russia before the war was being "developed" largely by the Germans, and much of the hatred of the Russian against the German thus is of the same nature as that of the Mexican against the American.
Politically, Russia's position has been consistent for centuries. Christianized from Constantinople, by the Greek Catholic church, it was under the influence of the East Roman Empire, and when this empire ended by the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, the Russian ruler, related by marriage to the last Palaeologus, naturally considered himself as the heir to East Rome, and the dream of Russia has been ever since the restoration of the East Roman Empire as pan-Slavic power, with the Czar as ruler in the old capital "Czar-grad"—Constantinople—just as the dream of the Germans in the Middle Ages was the restoration of the West Roman Empire, of German nationality.
Twice Russia was close to the goal; in the first half of the nineteenth century (1839), when my countryman, Diebitsch Sabalkanski, forced the "impregnable" Balkan range, and finally in 1878, when the Russian army had penetrated to the walls of Constantinople, but both times it was defeated by British jealousy; the British war fleet, passing the Dardanelles, anchored before Constantinople, and the Congress of Berlin, under Bismarck and Lord Beaconsfield, tore up the peace of San Stephano. Baffled in the Balkans, Russia then turned her eyes toward a Pacific empire, but here again England's backing of Japan led to Russian defeat. England feared for her Indian empire, which Russia's rising power seemed to threaten, as in central Asia the Russian frontier had gradually crept close to the northern frontier of India.
The territory conquered, "liberated" by Russia in the Balkans, which England did not allow her to retain, was formed into small separate nations, under Turkish sovereignty, and so Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, originated. Russia accepted this as a transition state, a temporary condition, until the time when Russia could completely absorb these countries, as she had done with Poland and Finland, as England did with Egypt, and Austria with Bosnia. But after some time these nations began to take themselves seriously, developed a national individuality, especially the more highly civilized ones—Roumania and Bulgaria—and refused to be swallowed, and now lie as a barrier between Russia and her Turkish prey. At the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, England erected still another and stronger barrier against Russia, when she gave Bosnia and the Herzegovina—which had been destined for Serbia—to Austria, and thus established Austria on the Balkan Peninsula. Naturally then, Serbia, deprived of its booty, has ever since leaned toward Russia, and become practically a Russian dependency, while Roumania and Bulgaria gravitated into the Austrian sphere of influence, since it was Russia which threatened their national existence, by considering them as a temporary arrangement, pending absorption by Russia. Thus the alignment of these nations in the present war was to be expected, in spite of the enmity between Bulgaria and Roumania, engendered gendered by the second Balkan war. Racial differences contributed: Serbia is Greek Catholic Slav, like Russia. Roumania, however, is Latin, is the last colony of the ancient Roman Empire, its language closer to the Latin of the later empire than any other modern language, and it is thereby closely attached to Italy. Bulgaria, while speaking a Slav language since the days of the great Serbian Empire of the Middle Ages, is of different race from Slav or Latin, nearer related to the Magyar race of Hungary.
Thus England, fearing Russia, had closed and double-locked the gates against Russian expansion in the Balkans, had made the Dardanelles a closed strait, so as to blockade Russia in the Black Sea. But when the greater danger from Germany's rising financial power threatened, England withdrew her objection against Russia's occupation of Constantinople, and promised her assistance to this end. This attached feudal Russia to individualistic England.
But there is still the old divergence of interest and mutual suspicion between Russia and England, and makes itself felt to the disadvantage of the Allies in this war; England's aim is to destroy Germany, but to save Austria as much as possible as future counter-weight against Russia. Therefore, also, the British expedition into Mesopotamia, into Persia, to occupy as much Turkish territory as possible, and to keep it from falling into Russia's hands. On the other hand, Russia would prefer Germany to remain sufficiently strong to keep England in check after the war, but desires Austria, the barrier in the Balkans, destroyed. Therefore Russia consistently directed her drives against Austria, in her own interest, instead of against Germany, in England's interest. There are probably differences of interest, also, within the Central Powers, though less pronounced. Germany is the nation which threatened the individualistic era by her co-operative industrial organization, and Austria is the most conservative and correspondingly backward nation within this group, while Hungary is closely attached to Germany in its social industrial development, as well as politically. When in 1848 Hungary attempted to make herself independent, a Russian army reconquered her for Austria, while Prussia's victory over Austria in 1866 gave Hungary its freedom. Austria, as the weakest member, had to be pulled along by her two stronger neighbors, Germany and Hungary. Thus when in the first year of the war Austria's military organization broke down, Germany reorganized the armies; when, later on, the economic pressure resulting from the food blockade threatened Austria, Germany again had to organize Austria's internal economy.
Austria, however, was the leading nation in central Europe before Germany. Her emperor is of the oldest and most exclusive royal family, her nobility still far more self-conscious than that of Germany, and there naturally remained some feeling of jealousy against Germany as the upstart leader. It, therefore, is probably not without intention that Germany does not like to see Austria become too prominent. Thus Germany's help against Serbia came only when the Turkish Empire found itself in such danger as to make German assistance necessary. In this connection it may be significant that while the German drive against Russia in 1915 carried the frontier of the Central Powers forward for hundreds of miles, beyond the limits of Poland, in the southeast corner of Galicia some Austrian territory was left in Russian hands, and the Allies in Salonica and the Italians in Avlona were allowed to retain their hold.
Poland as an independent state ended over a century ago, and was divided between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. But as a nation Poland still lives; indeed, the national self-consciousness of the Poles greatly increased after the dismemberment of the nation, just as that of Germany in the period after the Thirty Years' War. The large and valuable Polish literature practically all dates from the time after the division of Poland. The Poles were a civilized nation long before the Russians; they were Christianized from the west, from Rome, are Roman Catholics, and between them and the Greek Catholic Russians stands the unbridgeable barrier of hatred, which is greater than any other among men, that of religious persecution and oppression. Germany has politically oppressed the Poles, but Germany has little Polish territory, and even there the majority of the population is German, because Prussian Poland was given to Russia by Napoleon, after Prussia's defeat. Austria has a large Polish population in Galicia. Austria has never oppressed the Poles, but has given them equal political and social rights, so that there is little enmity between Austrian and Pole, and as Austria is the leading Roman Catholic nation, the Poles have begun to look toward Austria as their protector, since their old protector, France, betrayed them when, after the Japanese war, France financed Russia to defeat Poland's attempt for independence, and England abandoned the Poles in allying herself with Russia.
Thus a reconstructed Poland, too small a nation to stand entirely independent, would probably gravitate toward Austria as protector, assuming a position similar to Hungary.
Switzerland has an army, small, but not negligible, and while entirely surrounded by the war, situated as it is on the heights of the Alps, no convenient pathway of armies leads through it, and thus its neutrality is not likely to be violated like that of Greece or Belgium.
Greece is the only nation whose entire interest is to remain neutral at any sacrifice, for an alliance with the Central Powers would be suicide, with the enormous coast-line exposed to the attacks of the Allies, while a union with the Allies would bring down the thunderbolt in the fate of Serbia and Belgium.
The Turkish power has been steadily declining since the days of Suleiman II., and if it had not been for the jealousy of the European nations the Turks would have been driven out of Europe long ago. But for a century England protected Turkey against Russia—at a price, however: Cyprus, Egypt, and the Sudan, etc. When abandoned by England, in her approach to Russia, Turkey naturally allied herself with Germany as the only great military power which had no frontier adjoining Turkey and thus did not endanger the integrity of the remnant of the Turkish Empire, but merely desired commercial exploitation as compensation. It must be realized, however, that there has been an awakening, and a revival of Mohammedanism resultant from the war. Christianity has preached for twenty centuries, "Love your enemies," and as the result all the civilized Christian nations slaughter their enemies by the hundred thousands. But Mohammedanism has taught, "Help your friends and kill your enemies," and so the Mohammedan honestly practises his religious belief, while it requires a very highly developed state of hypocrisy for the Christian nations to harmonize their actions with their professed religion.
Japan, in the Far East, while a party to the world's war, is really outside of it. Looking only after her own interest, she is writing the Monroe Doctrine of Asia into the book of history: "Asia for the Asiatics." In the Chinese war of 1894 she acquired the leadership of the yellow race; but the European nations deprived her of the fruit of victory, and divided between themselves the territories which Japan had conquered. Japan had to bide her time. In the Boxer revolution she took a leading part in the punitive expedition and so deprived it of any racial significance. When the time was ripe Japan struck Russia, deprived her of the spoils taken in 1894, and ended the dream of Russia's Pacific empire. Another ten years, and Germany felt Japan's retaliation and had to abandon her spoils. But England also had profited from Japan's coercion in 1894, and it is significant that Japan has taken not only the German possessions in China, but also the German islands in the Pacific, and is holding them as "strategic positions." Against whom? Not against Germany; but they are strategic positions against England's colonies.
We, as Americans, may desire the "open door" in China, but as believers in the Monroe Doctrine—"America for the Americans"—we cannot honestly dispute Japan's "Asia for the Asiatics," if Japan is capable of making good in civilization. And there is no doubt about this, for the yellow race is the only one which has been capable of disputing with the white race the leadership in civilization, and, indeed, has held the leadership in some periods in the world's history. Thus there will be a gradual coalition of Japan with her defeated enemies, Russia and Germany, in her preparation to drive England out of the Far East.
It is necessary to shortly discuss the situation of the various nations to understand their alignment in the world's war and to realize the complexity of the issues: while primarily it is the inevitable conflict between the old and the new era, between England and Germany, all the issues between the nations, which lay slumbering, have flared up and are being fought out, such as Russia's aim for Constantinople, Poland's restoration, the desire of the Balkan nations to safeguard their national independence, etc., and these secondary issues necessarily more or less modified and controlled the conduct and the theater of the war, and so tended to obscure the main issue.