The Project Gutenberg eBook, Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth
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Title: Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century
Author: Charles Morris
Release Date: May 23, 2014 [eBook #45733]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MEN AND GREAT EVENTS OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY***
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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
The oe-ligature has been rendered as separate characters
('oe').
Any text printed using small capitals was converted to
all upper-case.
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font, were moved to the head of the paragraph in which
they appear and are enclosed by square brackets (example:
[=A Bird's-Eye View=]). There are occasionally multiple
such notes in a given paragraph. All appear here prior to
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Please see the transcriber's note at the end of this text
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[Illustration: THE MARVELOUS PROGRESS OF THE 19TH CENTURY
The above symbolic picture, after the master painting
of Paul Sinibaldi, explains the secret of the
wonderful progress of the past 100 years. The genius
of Industry stands in the centre. To her right sits
Chemistry; to the left the geniuses of Electricity
with the battery, the telephone, the electric light;
there also are the geniuses of Navigation with the
propeller, and of Literature and Art, all bringing
their products to Industry who passes them through the
hands of Labor in the foreground to be fashioned for
the use of mankind.]
The Achievements of One Hundred Years
FAMOUS MEN AND GREAT EVENTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Embracing Descriptions of the Decisive Battles of the Century and
the Great Soldiers Who Fought Them; the Rise and Fall of Nations; the
Changes in the Map of the World, and the Causes Which Contributed
to Political and Social Revolutions; Discoverers and Discoveries;
Explorers of the Tropics and Arctics; Inventors and Their Inventions;
the Growth of Literature, Science and Art; the Progress of Religion,
Morals and Benevolence in All Civilized Nations.
by
CHARLES MORRIS, LL. D.
Author of "The Aryan Race," "Civilization, Its History, Etc.,"
"The Greater Republic," Etc.
Embellished With Nearly 100 Full-Page Half-Tone Engravings,
Illustrating the Greatest Events of the Century, and 100 Portraits of
the Most Famous Men in the World.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1899, by
W. E. Scull,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
All Rights Reserved.
LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS
Introduction PAGE
A Bird's-eye View--Tyranny and Oppression in the Eighteenth
Century--Government and the Rights of Man in 1900--Prisons
and Punishment in 1900--The Factory System and Oppression
of the Workingman--Suffrage and Human Freedom--Criminal
Law and Prison Discipline in 1800--The Era of Wonderful
Inventions--The Fate of the Horse and the Sail--Education,
Discovery and Commerce 23
CHAPTER I
The Threshold of the Century
The Age We Live in and its Great Events--True History and
the Things Which Make It--Two of the World's Greatest
Events--The Feudal System and Its Abuses--The Climax of
Feudalism in France--The States General is Convened--The
Fall of the Bastille--King and Queen Under the
Guillotine--The Reign of Terror--The Wars of the French
Revolution--Napoleon in Italy and Egypt--England as a
Centre of Industry and Commerce--The Condition of the
German States--Dissension in Italy and Decay in Spain--The
Partition of Poland by the Robber Nations--Russia and
Turkey 33
CHAPTER II
Napoleon Bonaparte; The Man of Destiny
A Remarkable and Wonderful Career--The Enemies and Friends
of France--Movements of the Armies in Germany and
Italy--Napoleon Crosses the Alps at St. Bernard Pass--The
Situation in Italy--The Famous Field of Marengo--A
Great Battle Lost and Won--The Result of the Victory of
Marengo--Napoleon Returns to France--Moreau and the Great
Battle of Hohenlinden--The Peace of Luneville--The Peace
of Amiens--The Punishment of the Conspirators and the
Assassination of the Duke d'Enghien--Napoleon Crowned
Emperor of the French--The Great Works Devised By the New
Emperor 44
CHAPTER III
Europe in the Grasp of the Iron Hand
Great Preparations for the Invasion of England--Rapid March
on Austria--The Surrender of General Mack--The Eve Before
Austerlitz--The Dreadful Lake Horror--Treaty of Peace
With Austria--Prussian Armies in the Field--Defeat of the
Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt--Napoleon Divides the
Spoils of Victory--The Frightful Struggle at Eylau--The
Cost of Victory--The Total Defeat of the Russians--The
Emperors at Tilsit and the Fate of Prussia--The Pope a
Captive at Fontainebleau--Andreas Hofer and the War in
Tyrol--Napoleon Marches Upon Austria--The Battle of
Eckmuhl and the Capture of Ratisbon--The Campaign in
Italy--The Great Struggle of Essling and Aspern--Napoleon
Forced to His First Retreat--The Second Crossing of the
Danube--The Victory at Wagram--The Peace of Vienna--The
Divorce of Josephine and Marriage of Maria Louisa 57
CHAPTER IV
The Decline and Fall of Napoleon's Empire
The Causes of the Rise and Decline of Napoleon's Power--Aims
and Intrigues in Portugal and Spain--Spain's Brilliant
Victory and King Joseph's Flight--The Heroic Defence of
Saragossa--Wellington's Career in Portugal and Spain--The
Invasion of Russia by the Grand Army--Smolensk Captured
and in Flames--The Battle of Borodino--The Grand Army
in the Old Russian Capital--The Burning of the Great
City of Moscow--The Grand Army Begins its Retreat--The
Dreadful Crossing of the Beresina--Europe in Arms Against
Napoleon--The Battle of Dresden, Napoleon's Last Great
Victory--The Fatal Meeting of the Armies at Leipzig--The
Break-up of Napoleon's Empire--The War in France and the
Abdication of the Emperor--Napoleon Returns From Elba--The
Terrible Defeat at Waterloo--Napoleon Meets His Fate 83
CHAPTER V
Nelson and Wellington, the Champions of England
England and France on Land and Sea--Nelson Discovers the
French Fleet in Aboukir Bay--The Glorious Battle of the
Nile--The Fleet Sails for Copenhagen--The Danish Line
of Defence--The Attack on the Danish Fleet--How Nelson
Answered the Signal to Cease Action--Nelson in Chase of
the French Fleet--The Allied Fleet Leaves Cadiz--Off Cape
Trafalgar--The "Victory" and Her Brilliant Fight--The Great
Battle and its Sad Disaster--Victory for England and Death
for Her Famous Admiral--The British in Portugal--The Death
of Sir John Moore--The Gallant Crossing of the Douro--The
Victory at Talavera and the Victor's Reward--Wellington's
Impregnable Lines at Torres Vedras--The Siege and Capture
of the Portuguese Fortresses--Wellington Wins at Salamanca
and Enters Madrid--Vittoria and the Pyrenees--The Gathering
of the Forces at Brussels--The Battlefield of Waterloo--The
Desperate Charges of the French--Blücher's Prussians and
the Charge of Napoleon's Old Guard 101
CHAPTER VI
From the Napoleonic Wars to the Revolution 1830
A Quarter Century of Revolution--Europe After Napoleon's
Fall--The Work of the Congress--Italy, France and
Spain--The Rights of Man--The Holy Alliance--Revolution
in Spain and Naples--Metternich and His Congresses--How
Order Was Restored in Spain--The Revolution in Greece--The
Powers Come to the Rescue of Greece--The Spirit of
Revolution--Charles X. and His Attempt at Despotism--The
Revolution in Paris--Louis Phillippe Chosen as King--Effect
in Europe of the Revolution--The Belgian Uprising and
its Result--The Movements in Germany--The Condition of
Poland--The Revolt of the Poles--A Fatal Lack of Unity--The
Fate of Poland 116
CHAPTER VII
Bolivar, the Liberator of Spanish America
How Spain Treated Her Colonies--The Oppression of the
People--Bolivar the Revolutionary Leader--An Attempt
at Assassination--Bolivar Returns to Venezuela--The
Savage Cruelty of the Spaniards--The Methods of General
Morillo--Paez the Guerilla and His Exploits--British
Soldiers Join the Insurgents--Bolivar's Plan to Invade
New Granada--The Crossing of the Andes--The Terror of the
Mountains--Bolivar's Methods of Fighting--The Victory at
Boyaca--Bolivar and the Peruvians--The Freeing of the Other
Colonies 128
CHAPTER VIII
Great Britain as a World Empire
Napoleonic Wars' Influence--Great Awakening in Commerce--
Developments of the Arts--Growth of the Sciences--A Nation
Noted for Patriotism--National Pride--Conscious Strength--
Political Changes and Their Influence--Great Statesmen of
England 141
CHAPTER IX
The Great Reform Bill and the Corn Laws
Causes of Unrest--Demands of the People--The Struggle for
Reform in 1830--The Corn Laws--Free Trade in Great
Britain--Cobden the Apostle of Free Trade--Other Promoters
of Reform--England's Enlarged Commerce 147
CHAPTER X
Turkey the "Sick Man" of Europe
The Sultan's Empire in 1800--Revolts in Her
Dependencies--Greece Gains Her Freedom--The Sympathy of
the Christian World--Russian Threats--The Crimean War and
its Heroes--The War of 1877--The Armenian Massacres--The
Nations Warn off Russia--War in Crete and Greece in
1897--The Tottering Nation of to-day--The "Sick Man" 156
CHAPTER XI
The European Revolution of 1848
Corrupt Courts and Rulers--The Spirit of Liberty Among
the People--Bourbonism--Revolutionary Outbreak in
France--Spreads to Other Countries--The Struggle in
Italy--In Germany--The Revolt in Hungary--The Career of
Kossuth the Patriot, Statesman and Orator--His Visit
to America--Defeat of the Patriots by Austria and
Hungary--General Haynau the Cruel Tyrant--Later History of
Hungary 167
CHAPTER XII
Louis Napoleon and the Second French Empire
The Power of a Great Name--The French People Love the
Name Napoleon--Louis Napoleon's Personality--Elected
President--The Tricks of His Illustrious Ancestor
Imitated--Makes Himself Emperor--The War With
Austria--Sends an Army to Mexico--Attempt to Establish
an Empire in America--Maximilian Made Emperor in the New
World--His Sad Fate--War With Germany--Louis Napoleon
Dethroned 178
CHAPTER XIII
Garibaldi and the Unification of Italy
The Many Little States of Italy--Secret Movements for
Union--Mazzini the Revolutionist--Tyranny of Austria
and Naples--War in Sardinia--Victor Emanuel and Count
Cavour--Garibaldi in Arms--The French in Rome--Fall of the
Papal City--Rise of the New Italy--Naval War With Austria 194
CHAPTER XIV
Bismarck and the New Empire of Germany
The State of Prussia--Sudden Rise to Power--Bismarck Prime
Minister--War With Denmark--With Austria--With France--Metz
and Sedan--Von Moltke--The Fall of Paris--William I.
Crowned Emperor--United Germany--Bismarck and the Young
Kaiser--Peculiarities of William II.--Germany of To-Day 207
CHAPTER XV
Gladstone the Apostle of Liberalism in England
Sterling Character of the Man--His Steady Progress to
Power--Becomes Prime Minister--Home and Foreign Affairs
Under His Administration--His Long Contest With
Disraeli--Early Conservatism Later Liberalism--Home Rule
Champion--Result of Gladstone's Labors 243
CHAPTER XVI
Ireland the Downtrodden
Ancient Ireland--English Domination--Oppression--Patriotic
Struggles Against English Rule--Robert Emmet and
His Sad Fate--Daniel O'Connell--Grattan, Curran and
Other Patriots--The Fenians--Gladstone's Work for
Ireland--Parnell, the Irish Leader in Parliament--Ireland
of the Present 259
CHAPTER XVII
England and Her Indian Empire
Why England Went to India--Lord Clive and the East India
Company--Sir Arthur Wellesley--Trouble With the
Natives--Subjugation of Indian States--The Great
Mutiny--Havelock--Relief of Lucknow--Repulse From
Afghanistan--Conquest of Burmah--Queen Victoria Crowned
Empress of India--What English Rule Has Done for the
Orient--A Vast Country Teeming With Population--Its
Resources and Its Prospects 268
CHAPTER XVIII
Thiers, Gambetta and the Rise of the New French Republic
French Instability of Character--Modern Statesmen
of France--Thiers--MacMahon--Gambetta--The New
Republic--Leaders in Politics--Dangerous Powers of the
Army--Moral and Religious Decline--Law and Justice--The
Dreyfus Case as an Index to France's National Character and
the Perils Which Beset the Republic 277
CHAPTER XIX
Paul Kruger and South Africa
Review of the Boers--Their Establishment in Cape Colony--The
Rise and Progress of the Transvaal Republic--Diamond Mines
and Gold Discoveries--England's Aggressiveness--The Career
of Cecil Rhodes--Attempt to Overthrow the Republic--The
Zulus and Neighboring Peoples--The Uitlanders--Political
Struggle of England and Paul Kruger--Chamberlain's
Demands--The Boers' Firm Stand--War of 1899 295
CHAPTER XX
The Rise of Japan and the Decline of China
Former Cloud of Mystery Surrounding These Two Nations--Ancient
Civilizations--Closed Territory to the Outside World--Their
Ignorance of Other Nations--The Breaking Down of
the Walls in the Nineteenth Century--Japan's Sudden
Rise to Power--Aptness to Learn--The Yankees of the
East--Conditions of Conservatism Holds on in China--Li
Hung Chang Rises into Prominence--The Corean Trouble--War
Between China and Japan--The Battle of Yalu River--Admiral
Ito's Victory--Japanese Army Invades the Celestial
Empire--China Surrenders--European Nations Demand Open
Commerce--Threatened Partition 309
CHAPTER XXI
The Era of Colonies
Commerce the Promoter of Colonization--England's Wise
Policy--The Growth of Her Colonies Under Liberal
Treatment--India--Australia--Africa--Colonies of France
and Germany--Partition of Africa--Progress of Russia in
Asia--Aggressiveness of the Czar's Government--The United
States Becomes a Colonizing Power--The Colonial Powers and
Their Colonies at the Close of the Century 323
CHAPTER XXII
How the United States Entered the Century
A Newly Formed Country--Washington, the National Capital--Peace
With France--Nations of State Sovereignty--State
Legislatures and the National Congress--The Influence of
Washington--The Supreme Court and its Powers--Population
of Less Than Four Millions--No City of 50,000 Inhabitants
in America--Sparsely Settled Country--Savages--Trouble
With Algiers--War Declared by Tripoli--Thomas Jefferson
Elected President 343
CHAPTER XXIII
Expansion of the United States From Dwarf to Giant
Ohio Admitted in 1802--Louisiana Purchased From French
1803--Admission of the States--Florida Transferred to the
United States 1819--The First Railway in 1826--Indians
Cede Their Illinois Lands in 1830--Invention of Telegraph
1832--Fremont's Expeditions to the Pacific Slope--Conquest
of Mexico--Our Domain Established From Ocean to Ocean
1848--The Purchase of Alaska From Russia 1867--Rapid
Internal Growth--Cities Spring up on the Plains--A
Marvelous Era of Peace--Through the Spanish-American War
Comes the Acquisition of First Tropical Territory--From
East to West America's Domain Reaches Half-way Around the
World--Three Cities Each With Over 1,000,000 Inhabitants 351
CHAPTER XXIV
The Development of Democratic Institutions In America
Colonization and its Results--Religious Influences--Popular
Rights--Limitations--Colonial Legislatures--The Money
Question--Taxation--Confederation--The Franchise--Property
Qualifications--Growth of Western Ideas--Contrast Between
Institutions at the Beginning and Close of the Century 361
CHAPTER XXV
America's Answer to British Doctrine of Right of Search
Why the War of 1812 Was Fought--The Principles
Involved--Impressing American Sailors--Insults and
Outrages Resented--The "Chesapeake" and "Leopard"--Injury
to Commerce--Blockades--Embargo as Retaliation--Naval
Glory--Failure of Canadian Campaign--"Constitution" and
the "Guerriere"--The "Wasp" and the "Frolic"--Other
Sea Duels--Privateers--Perry's Great Victory--Land
Operations--The "Shannon" and the "Chesapeake"--Lundy's
Lane and Plattsburg--The Burning of Washington--Baltimore
Saved--Jackson's Victory at New Orleans--Treaty of Peace 369
CHAPTER XXVI
The United States Sustains Its Dignity Abroad
First Foreign Difficulty--The Barbary States--Buying
Peace--Uncle Sam Aroused--Thrashes the Algerian
Pirates--A Splendid Victory--King Bomba Brought to
Terms--Austria and the Koszta Case--Captain Ingraham--His
Bravery--"Deliver or I'll Sink You"--Austria Yields--The
Paraguayan Trouble--Lopez Comes to Terms--The Chilian
Imbroglio--Balmaceda--The Insult to the United
States--American Seamen Attacked--Matta's Impudent
Letter--Backdown--Peace--All's Well That Ends Well, Etc. 382
CHAPTER XXVII
Webster and Clay--The Preservation of the Union
The Great Questions in American Politics in the First Half
of the Century--The Great Orators to Which They Gave
Rise--Daniel Webster--Henry Clay--John C. Calhoun--Clay's
Compromise Measure on the Tariff Question--On Slavery
Extension--Webster and Calhoun and the Tariff
Question--Webster's Reply to Hayne--The Union Must and
Shall be Preserved 398
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Annexation of Texas and the War With Mexico
Texas as a Province of Mexico--Rebellion and War--The Alamo
Massacre--Rout of Mexicans at San Jacinto--Freedom
of Mexico--Annexation to the United States--The War
With Mexico--Taylor and Buena Vista--Scott and Vera
Cruz--Advance on and Capture of Mexico--Results of the War 413
CHAPTER XXIX
The Negro In America and the Slavery Conflict
The Negro in America--The First Cargo--Beginning of the Slave
Traffic--As a Laborer--Increase in Numbers--Slavery;
its Different Character in Different States--Political
Disturbances--Agitation and Agitators--John Brown--War and
How it Emancipated the Slave--The Free Negro--His Rapid
Progress 425
CHAPTER XXX
Abraham Lincoln and the Work of Emancipation
Lincoln's Increasing Fame--Comparison With Washington--The
Slave Auction at New Orleans--"If I Ever Get a Chance
to Hit Slavery, I Will Hit it Hard"--The Young
Politician--Elected Representative to Congress--His
Opposition to Slavery--His Famous Debates With Douglas--The
Cooper Institute Speech--The Campaign of 1860--The Surprise
of Lincoln's Nomination--His Triumphant Election--Threats
of Secession--Firing on Sumter--The Dark Days of the
War--The Emancipation Question--The Great Proclamation--End
of the War--The Great Tragedy--The Beauty and Greatness of
His Character 436
CHAPTER XXXI
Grant and Lee and The Civil War
Grant a Man for the Occasion--Lincoln's Opinion--"Wherever
Grant is Things Move"--"Unconditional Surrender"--"Not a
Retreating Man"--Lee a Man of Acknowledged Greatness--His
Devotion to Virginia--Great Influence--Simplicity of
Habits--Shares the Fare of His Soldiers--Lee's Superior
Skill--Gratitude and Affection of the South--Great
Influence in Restoring Good Feeling--The War--Secession
Not Exclusively a Southern Idea--An Irrepressible
Conflict--Coming Events--Lincoln--A Nation in Arms--
Sumter--Anderson--McClellan--Victory and Defeat--"Monitor"
and "Merrimac"--Antietam--Shiloh--Buell--Grant--George H.
Thomas--Rosecrans--Porter--Sherman--Sheridan--Lee--
Gettysburg--A Great Fight--Sherman's March--The
Confederates Weakening--More Victories--Appomattox--Lee's
Surrender--From War to Peace 449
CHAPTER XXXII
The Indian in the Nineteenth Century
Our Relations and Obligations to the Indian--Conflict
between Two Civilizations--Indian Bureau--Government
Policy--Treaties--Reservation Plan--Removals Under
It--Indian Wars--Plan of Concentration--Disturbance
and Fighting--Plan of Education and Absorption--Its
Commencement--Present Condition of Indians--Nature of
Education and Results--Land in Severalty Law--Missionary
Effort--Necessity and Duty of Absorption 468
CHAPTER XXXIII
The Development of the American Navy
The Origin of the American Navy--Sights on Guns and What They
Did--Opening Japan--Port Royal--Passing the Forts--The
"Monitor" and "Merrimac"--In Mobile Bay--The "Kearsarge"
and the "Alabama"--Naval Architecture Revolutionized--The
Samoan Hurricane--Building a New Navy--Great Ships of
the Spanish American War--The Modern Floating Iron
Fortresses--New "Alabama" and "Kearsarge" 482
CHAPTER XXXIV
America's Conflict With Spain
A War of Humanity--Bombardment of Matanzas--Dewey's Wonderful
Victory at Manila--Disaster to the "Winslow" at Cardenas
Bay--The First American Loss of Life--Bombardment of San
Juan, Porto Rico--The Elusive Spanish Fleet--Bottled-up in
Santiago Harbor--Lieutenant Hobson's Daring Exploit--Second
Bombardment of Santiago and Arrival of the Army--Gallant
Work of the Rough Riders and the Regulars--Battles of San
Juan and El Caney--Destruction of Cervera's Fleet--General
Shafter Reinforced in Front of Santiago--Surrender
of the City--General Miles in Porto Rico--An Easy
Conquest--Conquest of the Philippines--Peace Negotiations
and Signing of the Protocol--Its Terms--Members of the
National Peace Commission--Return of the Troops from Cuba
and Porto Rico--The Peace Commission in Paris--Conclusion
of its Work--Terms of the Treaty--Ratified by the Senate 496
CHAPTER XXXV
The Dominion of Canada
The Area and Population of Canada--Canada's Early
History--Upper and Lower Canada--The War of 1812--John
Strachan and the Family Compact--A Religious
Quarrel--French Supremacy in Lower Canada--The Revolt of
1837--Mackenzie's Rebellion--Growth of Population and
Industry--Organization of the Dominion of Canada--The
Riel Revolts--The Canadian Pacific Railway--The Fishery
Difficulties--The Fur-Seal Question--The Gold of
the Klondike--A Boundary Question--An International
Commission--The Questions at Issue--The Failure of
the Commission--Commerce of Canada with the United
States--Railway Progress in Canada--Manufacturing
Enterprise--Yield of Precious Metals--Extent and Resources
of the Dominion--The Character of the Canadian Population 509
CHAPTER XXXVI
Livingstone, Stanley, Peary, Nansen and other Great Discoverers and
Explorers
Ignorance of the Earth's Surface at the Beginning of
the Century--Notable Fields of Nineteenth Century
Travel--Famous African Travelers--Dr. Livingstone's
Missionary Labors--Discovery of Lake Ngami--Livingstone's
Journey from the Zambesi to the West Coast--The
Great Victoria Falls--First Crossing of the
Continent--Livingstone discovers Lake Nyassa--Stanley in
Search of Livingstone--Other African Travelers--Stanley's
Journeys--Stanley Rescues Emin Pasha--The Exploration
of the Arctic Zone--The Greely Party--The Fatal
"Jeanette" Expedition--Expeditions of Professor
Nordenskjöld--Peary Crosses North Greenland--Nansen and his
Enterprise--Andrée's Fatal Balloon Venture 523
CHAPTER XXXVII
Robert Fulton, George Stephenson, and the Triumphs of Invention
Anglo-Saxon Activity in Invention--James Watt and the
Steam Engine--Labor-Saving Machinery of the Eighteenth
Century--The Steamboat and the Locomotive--The First
Steamboat Trip up the Hudson--Development of Ocean
Steamers--George Stephenson and the Locomotive--First
American Railroads--Development of the Railroad--Great
Railroad Bridges--The Electric Steel Railway--The
Bicycle and the Automobile--Marvels in Iron and
Woodworking--Progress in Illumination and Heating--Howe and
the Sewing Machine--Vulcanization of Rubber--Morse and the
Telegraph--The Inventions of Edison--Marconi and Wireless
Telegraphy--Increase of Working Power of the Farmer--The
American Reapers and Mowers--Commerce of the United States 535
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Evolution in Industry and the Revolt Against Capital
Mediæval Industry--Cause of Revolution in the Labor
System--Present Aspect of the Labor Question--The
Trade Union--The International Workingmen's
Association--The System of the Strike--Arbitration
and Profit Sharing--Experiments and Theories in
Economies--Co-operative Associations--The Theories
of Socialism and Anarchism--Secular Communistic
Experiments--Development of Socialism--Growth of the
Socialist Party--The Development of the Trust--An
Industrial Revolution 554
CHAPTER XXXIX
Charles Darwin and the Development of Science
Scientific Activity of the Nineteenth Century--Wallace's
"Wonderful Century"--Useful and Scientific Steps of
Progress--Foster's Views of Recent Progress--Discoveries
in Astronomy--The Spectroscope--The Advance of
Chemistry--Light and its Phenomena--Heat as a Mode of
Motion--Applications of Electricity--The Principles
of Magnetism--Progress in Geology--The Nebular and
Meteoric Hypotheses--Biological Sciences--Discoveries in
Physiology--Pasteur and His Discoveries--Koch and the
Comma Bacillus--The Science of Hygiene--Darwin and Natural
Selection 569
CHAPTER XL
Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century
Literary Giants of Former Times--The Standing of the Fine Arts
in the Past and the Present--Early American Writers--The
Poets of the United States--American Novelists--American
Historians and Orators--The Poets of Great Britain--British
Novelists and Historians--Other British Writers--French
Novelists and Historians--German Poets and Novelists--The
Literature of Russia--The Authors of Sweden, Norway and
Denmark--Writers of Italy--Other Celebrated Authors--The
Novel and its Development--The Text-Book and Progress of
Education--Wide-spread use of Books and Newspapers 591
CHAPTER XLI
The American Church and the Spirit of Human Brotherhood
Division of Labor--American Type of Christianity--Distinguishing
Feature of American Life--The Sunday-school System--The Value
of Religion in Politics--Missionary Activity--New Religious
Movements--The Movement in Ethics--Child Labor in
Factories--Prevention of Cruelty to Animals--Prison
Reform--Public Executions--The Spirit of Sympathy--The Growth
of Charity--An Advanced Spirit of Benevolence 605
CHAPTER XLII
The Dawn of the Twentieth Century
The Century's Wonderful Stages--Progress in Education--The
Education of Women--Occupation and Suffrage
for Women--Peace Proposition of the Emperor of
Russia--The Peace Conference at The Hague--Progress in
Science--Political Evolution--Territorial Progress of the
Nations--Probable Future of English Speech--A Telephone
Newspaper--Among the Dull-Minded Peoples--Limitations to
Progress--Probable Lines of Future Activity--Industry in
the Twentieth Century--The King, the Priest and the Cash
Box--The New Psychology 617
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Progress of the Nineteenth Century _Frontispiece_
Duke of Chartres at the Battle of Jemappes 21
Battle of Chateau-Gontier 22
Death of Marat 31
Last Victims of the Reign of Terror 32
Marie Antoinette Led to Execution 37
The Battle of Rivoli 38
Napoleon Crossing the Alps 47
Napoleon and the Mummy of Pharaoh 48
Napoleon Bonaparte 53
The Meeting of Two Sovereign 54
The Death of Admiral Nelson 59
Murat at the Battle of Jena 60
The Battle of Eylau 69
The Battle of Friedland 70
The Order to Charge at Friedland 79
Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia at Tilsit 80
Marshal Ney Retreating from Russia 89
General Blücher's Fall at Ligny 90
The Battle of Dresden, August 26 and 27, 1813 94
Famous English Novelists 95
The Eve of Waterloo 99
Wellington at Waterloo Giving the Word to Advance 100
Retreat of Napoleon from Waterloo 109
The Remnant of an Army 110
Illustrious Leaders of England's Navy and Army 119
James Watt, the Father of the Steam Engine 120
Great English Historians and Prose Writers 129
Famous Popes of the Century 130
Great English Statesmen (Plate I) 139
Britain's Sovereign and Heir Apparent to the Throne 140
Popular Writers of Fiction In England 149
Great English Statesmen (Plate II) 150
Potentates of the East 159
Landing in the Crimea and the Battle of Alma 160
The Congress at Berlin, June 13, 1878 169
The Wounding of General Bosquet 170
The Battle of Champigny 179
Noble Sons of Poland and Hungary 180
Noted French Authors 189
Napoleon III. at the Battle of Solferino 190
Great Italian Patriots 199
The Zouaves Charging the Barricades at Mentana 200
Noted German Emperors 209
Renowned Sons of Germany 210
The Storming of Garsbergschlosschen 219
Crown Prince Frederick at the Battle of Froschwiller 220
Present Kings of Four Countries 229
Great Men of Modern France 230
Russia's Royal Family and Her Literary Leader 257
Four Champions of Ireland's Cause 258
Dreyfus, His Accusers and Defenders 281
The Dreyfus Trial 282
The Bombardment of Alexandria 291
Battle Between England and the Zulus, South Africa 292
The Battle of Majuba Hill, South Africa 301
Two Opponents in the Transvaal War 302
Typical American Novelists 307
Two Powerful Men of the Orient 308
Four American Presidents 409
Great American Orators and Statesmen 410
The Battle of Resaca de la Palma 419
Great American Historians and Biographers 420
Great Men of the Civil War in America 445
The Attack on Fort Donelson 446
General Lee's Invasion of the North 455
The Sinking of the Alabama, etc. 456
The Surrender of General Lee 465
The Electoral Commission Which Decided Upon Election of
President Hayes 466
Prominent American Political Leaders 475
Noted American Journalists and Magazine Contributors 476
The U.S. Battleship "Oregon" 483
In the War-Room at Washington 484
Leading Commanders of the American Navy, Spanish-American War 487
Leading Commanders of the American Army 488
Prominent Spaniards in 1898 497
Popular Heroes of the Spanish-American War 498
The Surrender of Santiago 501
United States Peace Commissioners of the Spanish-American War 502
Illustrious Sons of Canada 521
Great Explorers in the Tropics and Arctics 522
Inventors of the Locomotive and the Electric Telegraph 539
Edison Perfecting the First Phonograph 540
The Hero of the Strike, Coal Creek, Tenn. 557
Arbitration 558
Illustrious Men of Science in the Nineteenth Century 575
Pasteur in His Laboratory 576
Great Poets of England 589
Great American Poets 590
Count Tolstoi at Literary Work 603
New Congressional Library at Washington, D. C. 604
Famous Cardinals of the Century 615
Noted Preachers and Writers of Religious Classics 616
Greater New York 629
Delegates to the Universal Peace Conference at The Hague, 1899 630
Key to above 631
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PORTRAITS
PAGE
Abbott, Lyman 476
Adams, John Quincy 409
Agassiz, Louis 575
Aguinaldo, Emilio 308
Albert Edward, (Prince of Wales) 140
Austin, Alfred 589
Balfour, A. J. 150
Bancroft, George 420
Barrie, James M. 149
Beecher, Henry Ward 410
Besant, Walter 149
Bismarck, Karl Otto Von 210
Black, William 149
Blaine, James G. 475
Blanco, Ramon 497
Bright, John 139
Browning, Robert 589
Bryan, William Jennings 475
Bryant, William Cullen 590
Bryce, James 150
Caine, T. Hall 149
Carlyle, Thomas 129
Cervera, (Admiral) 497
Chamberlain, Joseph 302
Christian IX, (King of Denmark) 229
Clay, Henry 410
Cleveland, Grover 475
Cooper, James Fenimore 307
Dana, Charles A. 476
Darwin, Charles 575
Davis, Cushman K. 502
Davis, Richard Harding 476
Davitt, Michael 258
Day, William R. 502
DeLesseps, Ferdinand 230
Depew, Chauncey M. 410
Dewey, George 487
Dickens, Charles 95
Disraeli, Benjamin 139
Dreyfus, (Captain), Alfred 281
Doyle, A. Conan 149
Drummond, Henry 616
Dumas, Alexander 189
DuMaurier, George 149
Eggleston, Edward 307
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 590
Esterhazy, Count Ferdinand W. 281
Everett, Edward 410
Farrar, Frederick W., (Canon) 616
Francis Joseph, (Emperor of Austria) 229
Froude, Richard H. 129
Frye, William P. 502
Gambetta, Leon 230
Garibaldi, Guiseppe 199
Gibbon, Edward 129
Gladstone, William Ewart 139
Gough, John B. 410
Grady, Henry W. 410
Grant, Ulysses S. 445
Gray, George 502
Greeley, Horace 476
Hale, Edward Everett 307
Halstead, Murat 476
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 307
Hawthorne, Julian 476
Healy, T. M. 258
Henry, Patrick 410
Henry, Lieutenant-Colonel 281
Hobson, Richmond Pearson 498
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 590
Howells, William Dean 307
Hugo, Victor 189
Humbert, (King of Italy) 229
Humboldt, F. H. Alexander von 575
Huxley, Thomas H. 575
Jackson, Andrew 409
Jefferson, Thomas 409
Kipling, Rudyard 149
Kosciusko, Thaddeus 180
Kossuth, Louis 180
Kruger, Paul 302
Labori, Maitre 281
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid 521
Lee, Robert E. 445
Lee, Fitzhugh 488
Leo XIII., (Pope) 130
Li Hung Chang 308
Lincoln, Abraham 445
Livingstone, David 522
Longfellow, Henry W. 590
Loubet (President of France) 230
Lowell, James Russell 590
Lytton, (Lord) Bulwer 95
McCarthy, Justin 150
Macaulay, Thomas B. 129
MacDonald, Sir John A. 521
MacDonald, George 149
McKinley, William 475
McMaster, John B. 420
Manning, Henry Edward (Cardinal) 615
Mercier, (General of French Army) 281
Merritt, Wesley 488
Miles, Nelson A. 488
Moltke, H. Karl B. von 210
Morley, John 150
Morse, Samuel F. B. 539
Motley, John L. 420
Nansen, (Dr.) Frithiof 522
Napoleon Bonaparte 53
Nelson, (Lord) Horatio 119
Newman, John Henry (Cardinal) 615
Nicholas II. and Family, (Czar of Russia) 257
O'Brien, William 258
Oscar II., (King of Sweden and Norway) 229
Otis, Elwell S. 498
Parnell, Charles Stewart 258
Parton, James 420
Pasteur, Louis, in his Laboratory 576
Peary, Lieutenant R. E. 522
Phillips, Wendell 410
Pitt, William, (Earl of Chatham) 139
Pius IX., (Pope) 130
Prescott, William H. 420
Reid, Whitelaw 476
Rios, Montero 497
Roosevelt, Theodore 498
Ruskin, John 129
Sagasta, Praxedes Mateo 497
Sampson, William T. 487
Schley, Winfield Scott 487
Scott, Sir Walter 95
Shafter, William R. 488
Shah of Persia 150
Shaw, Albert W. 476
Shelley, Percy B. 589
Sherman, William T. 445
Spurgeon, Charles H. 616
Stanley, Henry M. 522
Stephenson, George 539
Stevenson, Robert Louis 149
Sultan of Turkey 159
Taylor, Zachary 409
Tennyson, Alfred 589
Thackeray, William Makepeace 95
Thiers, Louis Adolphe 230
Thompson, Hon. J. S. D. 521
Tolstoi, Count Lyof Nikolaievitch 603
Trollope, Anthony 95
Tupper, Sir Charles 521
Victor Emmanuel (King of Italy) 199
Victoria (Queen of England) 140
Wallace, General Lew 307
Watson, John (Ian Maclaren) 616
Watson, John Crittenden 487
Watt, James 120
Watterson, Henry W. 476
Webster, Daniel 410
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, (Duke) 119
Wheeler, Joseph 498
Whittier, John G. 590
William I., Emperor of Germany 209
William II., Emperor of Germany 209
Wordsworth, William 589
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF CHARTRES AT THE BATTLE OF JEMAPPES--
(FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. LE DRES)
At Jemappes, in November, 1792, a battle was fought
between the French and Austrians. The Duke of Chartres
was Chief Lieutenant under General Dumouriez and
commanded the centre of attack. In 1830 the Duke was
made King of France, and on account of his peaceful
reign was known as the "Citizen's King." In 1848 he
abdicated the throne and soon after Napoleon III
became President of the new Republic.]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF CHATEAU-GONTIER
(REIGN OF TERROR, 1792)]
INTRODUCTION.
It is the story of a hundred years that we propose to give; the record
of the noblest and most marvelous century in the annals of mankind.
Standing here, at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, as at the summit
of a lofty peak of time, we may gaze far backward over the road we have
traversed, losing sight of its minor incidents, but seeing its great
events loom up in startling prominence before our eyes; heedless of
its thronging millions, but proud of those mighty men who have made
the history of the age and rise like giants above the common throng.
History is made up of the deeds of great men and the movements of grand
events, and there is no better or clearer way to tell the marvelous
story of the Nineteenth Century than to put upon record the deeds of
its heroes and to describe the events and achievements in which reside
the true history of the age.
First of all, in this review, it is important to show in what the
greatness of the century consists, to contrast its beginning and
its ending, and point out the stages of the magnificent progress it
has made. It is one thing to declare that the Nineteenth has been
the greatest and most glorious of the centuries; it is another and
more arduous task to trace the development of this greatness and the
culmination of this career of glory. This it is that we shall endeavor
to do in the pages of this work. All of us have lived in the century
here described, many of us through a great part of it, some of us,
possibly, through the whole of it. It is in the fullest sense our own
century, one of which we have a just right to feel proud, and in whose
career all of us must take a deep and vital interest.
[=A Bird's-Eye View=]
Before entering upon the history of the age it is well to take a
bird's-eye view of it, and briefly present its claims to greatness.
They are many and mighty, and can only be glanced at in these
introductory pages; it would need volumes to show them in full. They
cover every field of human effort. They have to do with political
development, the relations of capital and labor, invention, science,
literature, production, commerce, and a dozen other life interests, all
of which will be considered in this work. The greatness of the world's
progress can be most clearly shown by pointing out the state of affairs
in the several branches of human effort at the opening and closing of
the century and placing them in sharp contrast. This it is proposed to
do in this introductory sketch.
[=Tyranny and Oppression in the Eighteenth Century=]
A hundred years ago the political aspect of the world was remarkably
different from what it is now. Kings, many of them, were tyrants;
peoples, as a rule, were slaves--in fact, if not in name. The absolute
government of the Middle Ages had been in a measure set aside, but
the throne had still immense power, and between the kings and the
nobles the people were crushed like grain between the upper and nether
millstones. Tyranny spread widely; oppression was rampant; poverty was
the common lot; comfort was confined to the rich; law was merciless;
punishment for trifling offences was swift and cruel; the broad
sentiment of human fellowship had just begun to develop; the sun of
civilization shone only on a narrow region of the earth, beyond which
barbarism and savagery prevailed.
In 1800, the government of the people had just fairly begun. Europe had
two small republics, Switzerland and the United Netherlands, and in the
West the republic of the United States was still in its feeble youth.
The so-called republic of France was virtually the kingdom of Napoleon,
the autocratic First Consul, and those which he had founded elsewhere
were the slaves of his imperious will. Government almost everywhere
was autocratic and arbitrary. In Great Britain, the freest of the
monarchies, the king's will could still set aside law and justice in
many instances and parliament represented only a tithe of the people.
Not only was universal suffrage unknown, but some of the greatest
cities of the kingdom had no voice in making the laws.
[=Government and the Rights of Man in 1900=]
In 1900, a century later, vast changes had taken place in the political
world. The republic of the United States had grown from a feeble infant
into a powerful giant, and its free system of government had spread
over the whole great continent of America. Every independent nation of
the West had become a republic and Canada still a British colony, was a
republic in almost everything but the name. In Europe, France was added
to the list of firmly-founded republics, and throughout that continent,
except in Russia and Turkey, the power of the monarchs had declined,
that of the people had advanced. In 1800, the kings almost everywhere
seemed firmly seated on their thrones. In 1900, the thrones everywhere
were shaking, and the whole moss-grown institution of kingship was
trembling over the rising earthquake of the popular will.
[=Suffrage and Human Freedom=]
The influence of the people in the government had made a marvelous
advance. The right of suffrage, greatly restricted in 1800, had
become universal in most of the civilized lands at the century's end.
Throughout the American continent every male citizen had the right of
voting. The same was the case in most of western Europe, and even in
far-off Japan, which a century before had been held under a seemingly
helpless tyranny. Human slavery, which held captive millions upon
millions of men and women in 1800, had vanished from the realms of
civilization in 1900, and a vigorous effort was being made to banish
it from every region of the earth. As will be seen from this hasty
retrospect, the rights of man had made a wonderful advance during the
century, far greater than in any other century of human history.
[=Criminal Law and Prison Discipline in 1800=]
In the feeling of human fellowship, the sentiment of sympathy and
benevolence, the growth of altruism, or love for mankind, there had
been an equal progress. At the beginning of the century law was stern,
justice severe, punishment frightfully cruel. Small offences met with
severe retribution. Men were hung for a dozen crimes which now call for
only a light punishment. Thefts which are now thought severely punished
by a year or two in prison then often led to the scaffold. Men are hung
now, in the most enlightened nations, only for murder. Then they were
hung for fifty crimes, some so slight as to seem petty. A father could
not steal a loaf of bread for his starving children except at peril of
a long term of imprisonment, or, possibly, of death on the scaffold.
And imprisonment then was a different affair from what it is now. The
prisons of that day were often horrible dens, noisome, filthy, swarming
with vermin, their best rooms unfit for human residence, their worst
dungeons a hell upon earth. This not only in the less advanced nations,
but even in enlightened England. Newgate Prison, in London, for
instance, was a sink of iniquity, its inmates given over to the cruel
hands of ruthless gaolers, forced to pay a high price for the least
privilege, and treated worse than brute cattle if destitute of money
and friends. And these were not alone felons who had broken some of the
many criminal laws, but men whose guilt was not yet proved, and poor
debtors whose only crime was their misfortune. And all this in England,
with its boast of high civilization. The people were not ignorant of
the condition of the prisons; Parliament was appealed to a dozen times
to remedy the horrors of the jails; yet many years passed before it
could be induced to act.
[=Prisons and Punishment in 1900=]
Compare this state of criminal law and prison discipline with that
of the present day. Then cruel punishments were inflicted for small
offences; now the lightest punishments compatible with the well-being
of the community are the rule. The sentiment of human compassion has
become strong and compelling; it is felt in the courts as well as among
the people; public opinion has grown powerful, and a punishment to-day
too severe for the crime would be visited with universal condemnation.
The treatment of felons has been remarkably ameliorated. The modern
prison is a palace as compared with that of a century ago. The terrible
jail fever which swept through the old-time prisons like a pestilence,
and was more fatal to their inmates than the gallows, has been stamped
out. The idea of sanitation has made its way into the cell and the
dungeon, cleanliness is enforced, the frightful crowding of the past is
not permitted, prisoners are given employment, they are not permitted
to infect one another with vice or disease, kindness instead of cruelty
is the rule, and in no direction has the world made a greater and more
radical advance.
[=The Factory System and the Oppression of the Workingman=]
A century ago labor was sadly oppressed. The factory system had
recently begun. The independent hand and home work of the earlier
centuries was being replaced by power and machine work. The
steam-engine and the labor-saving machine, while bringing blessings to
mankind, had brought curses also. Workmen were crowded into factories
and mines, and were poorly paid, ill-treated, ill-housed, over-worked.
Innocent little children were forced to perform hard labor when they
should have been at play or at school. The whole system was one of
white slavery of the most oppressive kind.
To-day this state of affairs no longer exists. Wages have risen, the
hours of labor have decreased, the comfort of the artisan has grown,
what were once luxuries beyond his reach have now become necessaries
of life. Young children are not permitted to work, and older ones not
beyond their strength. With the influences which have brought this
about we are not here concerned. Their consideration must be left to
a later chapter. It is enough here to state the important development
that has taken place.
Perhaps the greatest triumph of the nineteenth century has been in
the domain of invention. For ages past men have been aiding the work
of their hands with the work of their brains. But the progress of
invention continued slow and halting, and many tools centuries old were
in common use until the nineteenth century dawned. The steam-engine
came earlier, and it is this which has stimulated all the rest. A power
was given to man enormously greater than that of his hands, and he at
once began to devise means of applying it. Several of the important
machines used in manufacture were invented before 1800, but it was
after that year that the great era of invention began, and words are
hardly strong enough to express the marvelous progress which has since
taken place.
[=The Era of Wonderful Inventions=]
To attempt to name all the inventions of the nineteenth century would
be like writing a dictionary. Those of great importance might be named
by the hundreds; those which have proved epoch-making by the dozens. To
manufacture, to agriculture, to commerce, to all fields of human labor,
they extend, and their name is legion. Standing on the summit of this
century and looking backward, its beginning appears pitifully poor and
meager. Around us to-day are hundreds of busy workshops, filled with
machinery, pouring out finished products with extraordinary speed, men
no longer makers of goods, but waiters upon machines. In the fields the
grain is planted and harvested, the grass cut and gathered, the ground
ploughed and cultivated, everything done by machines. Looking back for
a century, what do we see? Men in the fields with the scythe and the
sickle, in the barn with the flail, working the ground with rude old
ploughs and harrows, doing a hundred things painfully by hand which now
they do easily and rapidly by machines. Verily the rate of progress on
the farm has been marvelous.
[=The Fate of the Horse and the Sail=]
The above are only a few of the directions of the century's progress.
In some we may name, the development has been more extraordinary
still. Let us consider the remarkable advance in methods of travel.
In the year 1800, as for hundreds and even thousands of years before,
the horse was the fastest means known of traveling by land, the
sail of traveling by sea. A hundred years more have passed over our
heads, and what do we behold? On all sides the powerful, and swift
locomotive, well named the iron-horse, rushes onward, bound for the
ends of the earth, hauling men and goods to right and left with a speed
and strength that would have seemed magical to our forefathers. On
the ocean the steam engine performs the same service, carrying great
ships across the Atlantic in less than a week, and laughing at the
puny efforts of the sail. The horse, for ages indispensable to man, is
threatened with banishment. Electric power has been added to that of
steam. The automobile carriage is coming to take the place of the horse
carriage. The steam plough is replacing the horse plough. The time
seems approaching when the horse will cease to be seen in our streets,
and may be relegated to the zoological garden.
In the conveyance of news the development is more like magic than fact.
A century ago news could not be transported faster than the horse could
run or the ship could sail. Now the words of men can be carried through
space faster than one can breathe. By the aid of the telephone a man
can speak to his friend a thousand miles away. And with the phonograph
we can, as it were, bottle up speech, to be spoken, if desired, a
thousand years in the future. Had we whispered those things to our
forefathers of a century past we should have been set down as wild
romancers or insane fools, but now they seem like every-day news.
These are by no means all the marvels of the century. At its beginning
the constitution of the atmosphere had been recently discovered. In
the preceding period it was merely known as a mysterious gas called
air. To-day we can carry this air about in buckets like so much water,
or freeze it into a solid like ice. In its gaseous state it has long
been used as the power to move ships and windmills. In its liquid state
it may also soon become a leading source of power, and in a measure
replace steam, the great power of the century before.
[=Education, Discovery and Commerce=]
In what else does the beginning of the twentieth stand far in advance
of that of the nineteenth century? We may contrast the tallow candle
with the electric light, the science of to-day with that of a century
ago, the methods and the extension of education and the dissemination
of books with those of the year 1800. Discovery and colonization of the
once unknown regions of the world have gone on with marvelous speed.
The progress in mining has been enormous, and the production of gold
in the nineteenth century perhaps surpasses that of all previous time.
Production of all kinds has enormously increased, and commerce now
extends to the utmost regions of the earth, bearing the productions of
all climes to the central seats of civilization, and supplying distant
and savage tribes with the products of the loom and the mine.
Such is a hasty review of the condition of affairs at the end of the
nineteenth century as compared with that existing at its beginning. No
effort has been made here to cover the entire field, but enough has
been said to show the greatness of the world's progress, and we may
fairly speak of this century as the Glorious Nineteenth.
[Illustration: DEATH OF MARAT
Never was there a more worthy act of murder than that
of the monster Marat, the most savage of the leaders
of the Reign of Terror, by the knife of the devoted
maiden, Charlotte Corday. She boldly avowed her guilt
and its purpose, and suffered death by the guillotine,
July 17, 1793.]
[Illustration: THE LAST VICTIMS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR--
(FROM THE PAINTING BY MULLER)]
CHAPTER I.
The Threshold of the Century.
[=The Age we Live in and its Great Events=]
After its long career of triumph and disaster, glory and shame, the
world stands to-day at the end of an old and the beginning of a new
century, looking forward with hope and backward with pride, for it has
just completed the most wonderful hundred years it has ever known, and
has laid a noble foundation for the twentieth century, now at its dawn.
There can be no more fitting time than this to review the marvelous
progress of the closing century, through a portion of which all of
us have lived, many of us through a great portion of it. Some of the
greatest of its events have taken place before our own eyes; in some of
them many now living have borne a part; to picture them again to our
mental vision cannot fail to be of interest and profit to us all.
[=True History and the Things which Make it=]
When, after a weary climb, we find ourselves on the summit of a lofty
mountain, and look back from that commanding altitude over the ground
we have traversed, what is it that we behold? The minor details of the
scenery, many of which seemed large and important to us as we passed,
are now lost to view, and we see only the great and imposing features
of the landscape, the high elevations, the town-studded valleys, the
deep and winding streams, the broad forests. It is the same when,
from the summit of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time.
The myriad of petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the
striking events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which
the world has passed. These are the things that make true history, not
the daily doings in the king's palace or the peasant's hut. What we
should seek to observe and store up in our memories are the turning
points in human events, the great thoughts which have ripened into
noble deeds, the hands of might which have pushed the world forward
in its career; not the trifling occurrences which signify nothing,
the passing actions which have borne no fruit in human affairs. It is
with such turning points, such critical periods in the history of the
nineteenth century, that this work proposes to deal; not to picture the
passing bubbles on the stream of time, but to point out the great ships
which have sailed up that stream laden deep with a noble freight.
This is history in its deepest and best aspect, and we have set our
camera to photograph only the men who have made and the events which
constitute this true history of the nineteenth century.
[=Two of the World's Greatest Events=]
On the threshold of the century with which we have to deal two grand
events stand forth; two of those masterpieces of political evolution
which mold the world and fashion the destiny of mankind. These are,
in the Eastern hemisphere, the French Revolution; in the Western
hemisphere, the American Revolution and the founding of the republic
of the United States. In the whole history of the world there are no
events that surpass these in importance, and they may fitly be dwelt
upon as main foundation stones in the structure we are seeking to
build. The French Revolution shaped the history of Europe for nearly a
quarter century after 1800. The American Revolution shaped the history
of America for a still longer period, and is now beginning to shape
the history of the world. It is important therefore that we dwell on
those two events sufficiently to show the part they have played in the
history of the age. Here, however, we shall confine our attention to
the Revolution in France. That in America must be left to the American
section of our work.
[=The Feudal System and Its Abuses=]
The Mediæval Age was the age of Feudalism, that remarkable system of
government based on military organization which held western Europe
captive for centuries. The State was an army, the nobility its captains
and generals, the king its commander-in-chief, the people its rank and
file. As for the horde of laborers, they were hardly considered at all.
They were the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the armed and
fighting class, a base, down-trodden, enslaved multitude, destitute of
rights and privileges, their only mission in the world to provide food
for and pay taxes to their masters, and often doomed to starve in the
midst of the food which their labor produced.
France, the country in which the Feudal system had its birth, was
the country in which it had the longest lease of life. It came down
to the verge of the nineteenth century with little relief from its
terrible exactions. We see before us in that country the spectacle of a
people steeped in misery, crushed by tyranny, robbed of all political
rights, and without a voice to make their sufferings known; and of an
aristocracy lapped in luxury, proud, vain, insolent, lavish with the
people's money, ruthless with the people's blood, and blind to the
spectre of retribution which rose higher year by year before their eyes.
One or two statements must suffice to show the frightful injustice that
prevailed. The nobility and the Church, those who held the bulk of
the wealth of the community, were relieved of all taxation, the whole
burden of which fell upon the mercantile and laboring classes--an
unfair exaction that threatened to crush industry out of existence. And
to picture the condition of the peasantry, the tyranny of the feudal
customs, it will serve to repeat the oft-told tale of the peasants who,
after their day's hard labor in the fields, were forced to beat the
ponds all night long in order to silence the croaking of the frogs that
disturbed some noble lady's slumbers. Nothing need be added to these
two instances to show the oppression under which the people of France
lay during the long era of Feudalism.
[=The Climax of Feudalism in France=]
This era of injustice and oppression reached its climax in the closing
years of the eighteenth century, and went down at length in that
hideous nightmare of blood and terror known as the French Revolution.
Frightful as this was, it was unavoidable. The pride and privilege of
the aristocracy had the people by the throat, and only the sword or
the guillotine could loosen their hold. In this terrible instance the
guillotine did the work.
It was the need of money for the spendthrift throne that precipitated
the Revolution. For years the indignation of the people had been
growing and spreading; for years the authors of the nation had been
adding fuel to the flame. The voices of Voltaire, Rousseau and a dozen
others had been heard in advocacy of the rights of man, and the people
were growing daily more restive under their load. But still the lavish
waste of money wrung from the hunger and sweat of the people went on,
until the king and his advisers found their coffers empty and were
without hope of filling them without a direct appeal to the nation at
large.
[=The States General is Convened=]
It was in 1788 that the fatal step was taken. Louis XVI, King of
France, called a session of the States General, the Parliament of the
kingdom, which had not met for more than a hundred years. This body
was composed of three classes, the representatives of the nobility, of
the church, and of the people. In all earlier instances they had been
docile to the mandate of the throne, and the monarch, blind to the
signs of the times, had no thought but that this assembly would vote
him the money he asked for, fix by law a system of taxation for his
future supply, and dissolve at his command.
He was ignorant of the temper of the people. They had been given a
voice at last, and were sure to take the opportunity to speak their
mind. Their representatives, known as the Third Estate, were made
up of bold, earnest, indignant men, who asked for bread and were
not to be put off with a crust. They were twice as numerous as the
representatives of the nobles and the clergy, and thus held control
of the situation. They were ready to support the throne, but refused
to vote a penny until the crying evils of the State were reformed.
They broke loose from the other two Estates, established a separate
parliament under the name of the National Assembly, and begun that
career of revolution which did not cease until it had brought monarchy
to an end in France and set all Europe aflame.
[=The Fall of the Bastille=]
The court sought to temporize with the engine of destruction which it
had called into existence, prevaricated, played fast and loose, and
with every false move riveted the fetters of revolution more tightly
round its neck. In July, 1789, the people of Paris took a hand in the
game. They rose and destroyed the Bastille, that grim and terrible
State prison into which so many of the best and noblest of France had
been cast at the pleasure of the monarch and his ministers, and which
the people looked upon as the central fortress of their oppression and
woe.
With the fall of the Bastille discord everywhere broke loose, the
spirit of the Revolution spread from Paris through all France, and the
popular Assembly, now the sole law-making body of the State, repealed
the oppressive laws of which the people complained, and with a word
overturned abuses many of which were a thousand years old. It took
from the nobles their titles and privileges, and reduced them to the
rank of simple citizens. It confiscated the vast landed estates of the
church, which embraced nearly one-third of France. It abolished the
tithes and the unequal taxes, which had made the clergy and nobles rich
and the people poor. At a later date, in the madness of reaction, it
enthroned the Goddess of Reason and sought to abolish religion and all
the time-honored institutions of the past.
The Revolution grew, month by month and day by day. New and more
radical laws were passed; moss-grown abuses were swept away in an
hour's sitting; the king, who sought to escape, was seized and held as
a hostage; and war was boldly declared against Austria and Prussia,
which showed a disposition to interfere. In November, 1792, the
French army gained a brilliant victory at Jemmapes, in Belgium, which
eventually led to the conquest of that kingdom by France. It was the
first important event in the career of victory which in the coming
years was to make France glorious in the annals of war.
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE LED TO EXECUTION
The hapless wife of Louis XVI, of France, imprisoned
during the Revolution in the prisons of the Temple and
Conciergerie, separated from her family and friends,
and treated to great indignities, died at length under
the knife of the guillotine, October 16, 1793.]
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF RIVOLI
Rivoli is a village of Venetia, Italy, on the western
bank of the Adige; population, about 1,000. On January
14 and 15, 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte here, in his first
campaign as commander-in-chief, gained a great victory
over the Austrians commanded by Alvinczy, who lost
20,000 prisoners.]
[=King and Queen Under the Guillotine=]
The hostility of the surrounding nations added to the revolutionary
fury in France. Armies were marching to the rescue of the king, and
the unfortunate monarch was seized, reviled and insulted by the mob,
and incarcerated in the prison called the Temple. The queen, Marie
Antoinette, daughter of the Emperor of Austria, was likewise haled from
the palace to the prison. In the following year, 1793, king and queen
alike were taken to the guillotine and their royal heads fell into
the fatal basket. The Revolution was consummated, the monarchy was at
an end, France had fallen into the hands of the people, and from them
it descended into the hands of a ruthless and blood-thirsty mob.
[=The Reign of Terror=]
At the head of this mob of revolutionists stood three men, Danton,
Marat, and Robespierre, the triumvirate of the Reign of Terror, under
which all safety ceased in France, and all those against whom the
least breath of suspicion arose were crowded into prison, from which
hosts of them made their way to the dreadful knife of the guillotine.
Multitudes of the rich and noble had fled from France, among them
Lafayette, the friend and aid of Washington in the American Revolution,
and Talleyrand, the acute statesman who was to play a prominent part in
later French history.
Marat, the most savage of the triumvirate, was slain in July, 1793,
by the knife of Charlotte Corday, a young woman of pious training,
who offered herself as the instrument of God for the removal of this
infamous monster. His death rather added to than stayed the tide of
blood, and in April, 1794, Danton, who sought to check its flow, fell
a victim to his ferocious associate. But the Reign of Terror was
nearing its end. In July the Assembly awoke from its stupor of fear,
Robespierre was denounced, seized, and executed, and the frightful
carnival of bloodshed came to an end. The work of the National Assembly
had been fully consummated; Feudalism was at an end, monarchy in France
had ceased, and a republic had taken its place, and a new era for
Europe had dawned.
[=The Wars of the French Revolution=]
Meanwhile a foreign war was being waged. England had formed a coalition
with most of the nations of Europe, and France was threatened by land
with the troops of Holland, Prussia, Austria, Spain and Portugal,
and by sea with the fleet of Great Britain. The incompetency of her
assailants saved her from destruction. Her generals who lost battles
were sent to prison or to the guillotine, the whole country rose as one
man in defence, and a number of brilliant victories drove her enemies
from her borders and gave the armies of France a position beyond the
Rhine.
These wars soon brought a great man to the front, Napoleon Bonaparte,
a son of Corsica, with whose nineteenth century career we shall deal
at length in the following chapters, but of whose earlier exploits
something must be said here. His career fairly began in 1794, when,
under the orders of the National Convention--the successor of the
National Assembly--he quelled the mob in the streets of Paris with
loaded cannon and put a final end to the Terror which had so long
prevailed.
Placed at the head of the French army in Italy, he quickly astonished
the world by a series of the most brilliant victories, defeating the
Austrians and the Sardinians wherever he met them, seizing Venice, the
city of the lagoon, and forcing almost all Italy to submit to his arms.
A republic was established here and a new one in Switzerland, while
Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were held by France.
[=Napoleon in Italy and Egypt.=]
His wars here at an end, Napoleon's ambition led him to Egypt,
inspired by great designs which he failed to realize. In his absence
anarchy arose in France. The five Directors, then at the head of the
Government, had lost all authority, and Napoleon, who had unexpectedly
returned, did not hesitate to overthrow them and the Assembly which
supported them. A new government, with three Consuls at its head, was
formed, Napoleon as First Consul holding almost royal power. Thus
France stood in 1800, at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
[=England as a Centre of Industry and Commerce.=]
In the remainder of Europe there was nothing to compare with the
momentous convulsion which had taken place in France. England had gone
through its two revolutions more than a century before, and its people
were the freest of any in Europe. Recently it had lost its colonies
in America, but it still held in that continent the broad domain of
Canada, and was building for itself a new empire in India, while
founding colonies in twenty other lands. In commerce and manufactures
it entered the nineteenth century as the greatest nation on the earth.
The hammer and the loom resounded from end to end of the island, mighty
centres of industry arose where cattle had grazed a century before,
coal and iron were being torn in great quantities from the depths of
the earth, and there seemed everywhere an endless bustle and whirr.
The ships of England haunted all seas and visited the most remote
ports, laden with the products of her workshops and bringing back raw
material for her factories and looms. Wealth accumulated, London became
the money market of the world, the riches and prosperity of the island
kingdom were growing to be a parable among the nations of the earth.
On the continent of Europe, Prussia, which has now grown so great,
had recently emerged from its mediæval feebleness, mainly under the
powerful hand of Frederick the Great, whose reign extended until 1786,
and whose ambition, daring, and military genius made him a fitting
predecessor of Napoleon the Great, who so soon succeeded him in the
annals of war. Unscrupulous in his aims, this warrior king had torn
Silesia from Austria, added to his kingdom a portion of unfortunate
Poland, annexed the principality of East Friesland, and lifted Prussia
into a leading position among the European states.
[=The Condition of the German States=]
Germany, now--with the exception of Austria--a compact empire, was
then a series of disconnected states, variously known as kingdoms,
principalities, margravates, electorates, and by other titles, the
whole forming the so-called Holy Empire, though it was "neither
holy nor an empire." It had drifted down in this fashion from the
Middle Ages, and the work of consolidation had but just begun, in the
conquests of Frederick the Great. A host of petty potentates ruled the
land, whose states, aside from Prussia and Austria, were too weak to
have a voice in the councils of Europe. Joseph II., the titular emperor
of Germany, made an earnest and vigorous effort to combine its elements
into a powerful unit; but he signally failed, and died in 1790, a
disappointed and embittered man.
Austria, then far the most powerful of the German states, was from 1740
to 1780 under the reign of a woman, Maria Theresa, who struggled in
vain against her ambitious neighbor, Frederick the Great, his kingdom
being extended ruthlessly at the expense of her imperial dominions.
Austria remained a great country, however, including Bohemia and
Hungary among its domains. It was lord of Lombardy and Venice in Italy,
and was destined to play an important but unfortunate part in the
coming Napoleonic wars.
[=Dissension in Italy and Decay in Spain=]
The peninsula of Italy, the central seat of the great Roman Empire,
was, at the opening of the nineteenth century, as sadly broken up
as Germany, a dozen weak states taking the place of the one strong
one that the good of the people demanded. The independent cities of
the mediæval period no longer held sway, and we hear no more of wars
between Florence, Genoa, Milan, Pisa and Rome; but the country was
still made up of minor states--Lombardy, Venice and Sardinia in the
north, Naples in the south, Rome in the centre, and various smaller
kingdoms and dukedoms between. The peninsula was a prey to turmoil and
dissension. Germany and France had made it their fighting ground for
centuries, Spain had filled the south with her armies, and the country
had been miserably torn and rent by these frequent wars and those
between state and state, and was in a condition to welcome the coming
of Napoleon, whose strong hand for the time promised the blessing of
peace and union.
Spain, not many centuries before the greatest nation in Europe, and,
as such, the greatest nation on the globe, had miserably declined in
power and place at the opening of the nineteenth century. Under the
emperor Charles I. it had been united with Germany, while its colonies
embraced two-thirds of the great continent of America. Under Philip
II. it continued powerful in Europe, but with his death its decay set
in. Intolerance checked its growth in civilization, the gold brought
from America was swept away by more enterprising states, its strength
was sapped by a succession of feeble monarchs, and from first place it
fell into a low rank among the nations of Europe. It still held its
vast colonial area, but this proved a source of weakness rather than
of strength, and the people of the colonies, exasperated by injustice
and oppression, were ready for the general revolt which was soon to
take place. Spain presented the aspect of a great nation ruined by its
innate vices, impoverished by official venality and the decline of
industry, and fallen into the dry rot of advancing decay.
[=The Partition of Poland by the Robber Nations.=]
Of the nations of Europe which had once played a prominent part, one
was on the point of being swept from the map. The name of Poland, which
formerly stood for a great power, now stands only for a great crime.
The misrule of the kings, the turbulence of the nobility, and the
enslavement of the people had brought that state into such a condition
of decay that it lay like a rotten log amid the powers of Europe.
The ambitious nations surrounding--Russia, Austria, and Prussia--took
advantage of its weakness, and in 1772 each of them seized the portion
of Poland that bordered on its own territories. In the remainder of
the kingdom the influence of Russia grew so great that the Russian
ambassador at Warsaw became the real ruler in Poland. A struggle
against Russia began in 1792, Kosciusko, a brave soldier who had fought
under Washington in America, being at the head of the patriots. But
the weakness of the king tied the hands of the soldiers, the Polish
patriots left their native land in despair, and in the following year
Prussia and Russia made a further division of the state, Russia seizing
a broad territory with more than 3,000,000 inhabitants.
In 1794 a new outbreak began. The patriots returned and a desperate
struggle took place. But Poland was doomed. Suvoroff, the greatest of
the Russian generals, swept the land with fire and sword. Kosciusko
fell wounded, crying, "Poland's end has come," and Warsaw was taken and
desolated by its assailants. The patriot was right; the end had come.
What remained of Poland was divided up between Austria, Prussia, and
Russia, and only a name remained.
[=Russia and Turkey.=]
There are two others of the powers of Europe of which we must speak,
Russia and Turkey. Until the seventeenth century Russia had been a
domain of barbarians, weak and disunited, and for a long period the
vassal of the savage Mongol conquerors of Asia. Under Peter the Great
(1689-1725) it rose into power and prominence, took its place among
civilized states, and began that career of conquest and expansion which
is still going on. At the end of the eighteenth century it was under
the rule of Catharine II., often miscalled Catharine the Great, who
died in 1796, just as Napoleon was beginning his career. Her greatness
lay in the ability of her generals, who defeated Turkey and conquered
the Crimea, and who added the greater part of Poland to her empire.
Her strength of mind and decision of character were not shared by her
successor, Paul I., and Russia entered the nineteenth century under the
weakest sovereign of the Romanoff line.
Turkey, once the terror of Europe, and sending its armies into the
heart of Austria, was now confined within the boundaries it had long
before won, and had begun its long struggle for existence with its
powerful neighbor, Russia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century
it was still a powerful state, with a wide domain in Europe, and
continued to defy the Christians who coveted its territory and sought
its overthrow. But the canker-worm of a weak and barbarous government
was at its heart, while its cruel treatment of its Christian subjects
exasperated the strong powers of Europe and invited their armed
interference.
As regards the world outside of Europe and America, no part of it had
yet entered the circle of modern civilization. Africa was an almost
unknown continent; Asia was little better known; and the islands of
the Eastern seas were still in process of discovery. Japan, which was
approaching its period of manumission from barbarism, was still closed
to the world, and China lay like a huge and helpless bulk, fast in the
fetters of conservatism and blind self-sufficiency.
CHAPTER II.
Napoleon Bonaparte; The Man of Destiny.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe yield us
the history of a man, rather than of a continent. France was the centre
of Europe; Napoleon, the Corsican, was the centre of France. All the
affairs of all the nations seemed to gather around this genius of war.
He was respected, feared, hated; he had risen with the suddenness of a
thundercloud on a clear horizon, and flashed the lightnings of victory
in the dazzled eyes of the nations. All the events of the period were
concentrated into one great event, and the name of that event was
Napoleon. He seemed incarnate war, organized destruction; sword in hand
he dominated the nations, and victory sat on his banners with folded
wings. He was, in a full sense, the man of destiny, and Europe was his
prey.
[=A Remarkable Man and a Wonderful Career=]
Never has there been a more wonderful career. The earlier great
conquerors began life at the top; Napoleon began his at the bottom.
Alexander was a king; Cæsar was an aristocrat of the Roman republic;
Napoleon rose from the people, and was not even a native of the land
which became the scene of his exploits. Pure force of military genius
lifted him from the lowest to the highest place among mankind, and
for long and terrible years Europe shuddered at his name and trembled
beneath the tread of his marching legions. As for France, he brought it
glory, and left it ruin and dismay.
We have briefly epitomized Napoleon's early career, his doings in the
Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that France's worship
of his military genius raised him to the rank of First Consul, and gave
him in effect the power of a king. No one dared question his word,
the army was at his beck and call, the nation lay prostrate at his
feet--not in fear but in admiration. Such was the state of affairs in
France in the closing year of the eighteenth century. The Revolution
was at an end; the Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the
autocrat of France and the terror of Europe. From this point we resume
the story of his career.
[=The Enemies and Friends of France.=]
The First Consul began his reign with two enemies in the field, England
and Austria. Prussia was neutral, and he had won the friendship of
Paul, the emperor of Russia, by a shrewd move. While the other nations
refused to exchange the Russian prisoners they held, Napoleon sent
home 6,000 of these captives, newly clad and armed, under their own
leaders, and without demanding ransom. This was enough to win to his
side the weak-minded Paul, whose delight in soldiers he well knew.
Napoleon now had but two enemies in arms to deal with. He wrote letters
to the king of England and the emperor of Austria, offering peace. The
answers were cold and insulting, asking France to take back her Bourbon
kings and return to her old boundaries. Nothing remained but war.
Napoleon prepared for it with his usual rapidity, secrecy, and keenness
of judgment.
There were two French armies in the field in the spring of 1800,
Moreau commanding in Germany, Massena in Italy. Switzerland, which was
occupied by the French, divided the armies of the enemy, and Napoleon
determined to take advantage of the separation of their forces, and
strike an overwhelming blow. He sent word to Moreau and Massena to keep
the enemy in check at any cost, and secretly gathered a third army,
whose corps were dispersed here and there, while the powers of Europe
were aware only of the army of reserve at Dijon, made up of conscripts
and invalids.
[=Movements of the Armies in Germany and Italy=]
Meanwhile the armies in Italy and Germany were doing their best to
obey orders. Massena was attacked by the Austrians before he could
concentrate his troops, his army was cut in two, and he was forced to
fall back upon Genoa, in which city he was closely besieged, with a
fair prospect of being conquered by starvation if not soon relieved.
Moreau was more fortunate. He defeated the Austrians in a series of
battles and drove them back on Ulm, where he blockaded them in their
camp. All was ready for the great movement which Napoleon had in view.
Twenty centuries before Hannibal had led his army across the great
mountain barrier of the Alps, and poured down like an avalanche upon
the fertile plains of Italy. The Corsican determined to repeat this
brilliant achievement and emulate Hannibal's career. Several passes
across the mountains seemed favorable to his purpose, especially those
of the St. Bernard, the Simplon and Mont Cenis. Of these the first
was the most difficult; but it was much the shorter, and Napoleon
determined to lead the main body of his army over this ice-covered
mountain pass, despite its dangers and difficulties. The enterprise was
one to deter any man less bold than Hannibal or Napoleon, but it was
welcome to the hardihood and daring of these men, who rejoiced in the
seemingly impossible and spurned at hardships and perils.
[=Napoleon Crosses the Alps at St. Bernard Pass=]
The task of the Corsican was greater than that of the Carthaginian. He
had cannon to transport, while Hannibal's men carried only swords and
spears. But the genius of Napoleon was equal to the task. The cannon
were taken from their carriages and placed in the hollowed-out trunks
of trees, which could be dragged with ropes over the ice and snow.
Mules were used to draw the gun-carriages and the wagon-loads of food
and munitions of war. Stores of provisions had been placed at suitable
points along the road.
Thus prepared, Napoleon, on the 16th of May, 1800, began his remarkable
march, while smaller divisions of the army were sent over the Simplon,
the St. Gothard and Mont Cenis passes. It was an arduous enterprise.
The mules proved unequal to the task given to them; the peasants
refused to aid in this severe work; the soldiers were obliged to
harness themselves to the cannon, and drag them by main strength over
the rocky and ice-covered mountain path. The First Consul rode on a
mule at the head of the rear-guard, serene and cheerful, chatting with
his guide as with a friend, and keeping up the courage of the soldiers
by his own indomitable spirit.
A few hours' rest at the hospice of St. Bernard, and the descent was
begun, an enterprise even more difficult than the ascent. For five
days the dread journey continued, division following division, corps
succeeding corps. The point of greatest peril was reached at Aosta,
where, on a precipitous rock, stood the little Austrian fort of Bard,
its artillery commanding the narrow defile.
It was night when the vanguard reached this threatening spot. It was
passed in dead silence, tow being wrapped round the wheels of the
carriages and a layer of straw and refuse spread on the frozen ground,
while the troops followed a narrow path over the neighboring mountains.
By daybreak the passage was made and the danger at an end.
[=The Situation in Italy=]
The sudden appearance of the French in Italy was an utter surprise
to the Austrians. They descended like a torrent into the valley,
seized Ivry, and five days after reaching Italy met and repulsed an
Austrian force. The divisions which had crossed by other passes one
by one joined Napoleon. Melas, the Austrian commander, was warned
of the danger that impended, but refused to credit the seemingly
preposterous story. His men were scattered, some besieging Massena, in
Genoa, some attacking Suchet on the Var. His danger was imminent, for
Napoleon, leaving Massena to starve in Genoa, had formed the design of
annihilating the Austrian army at one tremendous blow.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS
The renowned exploit of Hannibal leading an army
across the lofty and frozen passes of the Alps, was
emulated by Napoleon in 1800, when he led his army
across the St. Bernard Pass, descended like a torrent
on the Austrians in Italy, and defeated them in the
great battle of Marengo.]
[Illustration: NAPOLEON AND THE MUMMY OF PHARAOH
Strange thoughts must have passed through the mind of
him soon to be Emperor of France, in gazing on the
shriveled form of one of the great monarchs of old
Egypt. Did he not ask himself then: what are glory and
power worth, if this is the end of kingly greatness?]
The people of Lombardy, weary of the Austrian yoke, and hoping for
liberty under the rule of France, received the new-comers with
transport, and lent them what aid they could. On June 9th, Marshall
Lannes met and defeated the Austrians at Montebello, after a hot
engagement. "I heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the roofs,"
he said. On the 14th, the two armies met on the plain of Marengo, and
one of the most famous of Napoleon's battles began.
[=The Famous Field of Marengo=]
Napoleon was not ready for the coming battle, and was taken by
surprise. He had been obliged to break up his army in order to guard
all the passages open to the enemy. When he entered, on the 13th, the
plain between the Scrivia and the Bormida, near the little village of
Marengo, he was ignorant of the movements of the Austrians, and was not
expecting the onset of Melas, who, on the following morning, crossed
the Bormida by three bridges, and made a fierce assault upon the
divisions of generals Victor and Lannes. Victor was vigorously attacked
and driven back, and Marengo was destroyed by the Austrian cannon.
Lannes was surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and, fighting furiously,
was forced to retreat. In the heat of the battle Bonaparte reached the
field with his guard and his staff, and found himself in the thick of
the terrific affray and his army virtually beaten.
The retreat continued. It was impossible to check it. The enemy pressed
enthusiastically forward. The army was in imminent danger of being
cut in two. But Napoleon, with obstinate persistence, kept up the
fight, hoping for some change in the perilous situation. Melas, on
the contrary,--an old man, weary of his labors, and confident in the
seeming victory,--withdrew to his headquarters at Alessandria, whence
he sent off despatches to the effect that the terrible Corsican had at
length met defeat.
He did not know his man. Napoleon sent an aide-de-camp in all haste
after Desaix, one of his most trusted generals, who had just returned
from Egypt, and whose corps he had detached towards Novi. All depended
upon his rapid return. Without Desaix the battle was lost. Fortunately
the alert general did not wait for the messenger. His ears caught the
sound of distant cannon and, scenting danger, he marched back with the
utmost speed.
Napoleon met his welcome officer with eyes of joy and hope. "You see
the situation," he said, rapidly explaining the state of affairs. "What
is to be done?"
[=A Great Battle Lost and Won=]
"It is a lost battle," Desaix replied. "But there are some hours of
daylight yet. We have time to win another."
While he talked with the commander, his regiments had hastily formed,
and now presented a threatening front to the Austrians. Their presence
gave new spirit to the retreating troops.
"Soldiers and friends," cried Napoleon to them, "remember that it is my
custom to sleep upon the field of battle."
Back upon their foes turned the retreating troops, with new animation,
and checked the victorious Austrians. Desaix hurried to his men and
placed himself at their head.
"Go and tell the First Consul that I am about to charge," he said to an
aide. "I need to be supported by cavalry."
A few minutes afterwards, as he was leading his troops irresistibly
forward, a ball struck him in the breast, inflicting a mortal wound. "I
have been too long making war in Africa; the bullets of Europe know me
no more," he sadly said. "Conceal my death from the men; it might rob
them of spirit."
The soldiers had seen him fall, but, instead of being dispirited,
they were filled with fury, and rushed forward furiously to avenge
their beloved leader. At the same time Kellermann arrived with his
dragoons, impetuously hurled them upon the Austrian cavalry, broke
through their columns, and fell upon the grenadiers who were wavering
before the troops of Desaix. It was a death-stroke. The cavalry and
infantry together swept them back in a disorderly retreat. One whole
corps, hopeless of escape, threw down its arms and surrendered. The
late victorious army was everywhere in retreat. The Austrians were
crowded back upon the Bormida, here blocking the bridges, there
flinging themselves into the stream, on all sides flying from the
victorious French. The cannon stuck in the muddy stream and were left
to the victors. When Melas, apprised of the sudden change in the
aspect of affairs, hurried back in dismay to the field, the battle was
irretrievably lost, and General Zach, his representative in command,
was a prisoner in the hands of the French. The field was strewn with
thousands of the dead. The slain Desaix and the living Kellermann had
turned the Austrian victory into defeat and saved Napoleon.
[=The Result of the Victory of Marengo=]
A few days afterwards, on the 19th, Moreau in Germany won a brilliant
victory at Hochstadt, near Blenheim, took 5,000 prisoners and twenty
pieces of cannon, and forced from the Austrians an armed truce which
left him master of South Germany. A still more momentous armistice was
signed by Melas in Italy, by which the Austrians surrendered Piedmont,
Lombardy, and all their territory as far as the Mincio, leaving France
master of Italy. Melas protested against these severe terms, but
Napoleon was immovable.
"I did not begin to make war yesterday," he said. "I know your
situation. You are out of provisions, encumbered with the dead,
wounded, and sick, and surrounded on all sides. I could exact
everything. I ask only what the situation of affairs demands. I have no
other terms to offer."
[=Napoleon Returns to France=]
During the night of the 2d and 3d of July, Napoleon re-entered Paris,
which he had left less than two months before. Brilliant ovations met
him on his route, and all France would have prostrated itself at his
feet had he permitted. He came crowned with the kind of glory which is
especially dear to the French, that gained on field of battle.
Five months afterwards, Austria having refused to make peace without
the concurrence of England, and the truce being at an end, another
famous victory was added to the list of those which were being
inscribed upon the annals of France. On the 3d of December the veterans
under Moreau met an Austrian army under the Archduke John, on the plain
of Hohenlinden, across which ran the small river Iser.
[=Moreau and the Great Battle of Hohenlinden=]
The Austrians marched through the forest of Hohenlinden, looking for no
resistance, and unaware that Moreau's army awaited their exit. As they
left the shelter of the trees and debouched upon the plain, they were
attacked by the French in force. Two divisions had been despatched to
take them in the rear, and Moreau held back his men to give them the
necessary time. The snow was falling in great flakes, yet through it
his keen eyes saw some signs of confusion in the hostile ranks.
"Richepanse has struck them in the rear," he said, "the time has come
to charge."
Ney rushed forward at the head of his troops, driving the enemy in
confusion before him. The centre of the Austrian army was hemmed in
between the two forces. Decaen had struck their left wing in the rear
and forced it back upon the Inn. Their right was driven into the
valley. The day was lost to the Austrians, whose killed and wounded
numbered 8,000, while the French had taken 12,000 prisoners and
eighty-seven pieces of cannon.
The victorious French advanced, sweeping back all opposition, until
Vienna, the Austrian capital, lay before them, only a few leagues away.
His staff officers urged Moreau to take possession of the city.
"That would be a fine thing to do, no doubt," he said; "but to my fancy
to dictate terms of peace will be a finer thing still."
[=The Peace of Luneville=]
The Austrians were ready for peace at any price. On Christmas day,
1800, an armistice was signed which delivered to the French the valley
of the Danube, the country of the Tyrol, a number of fortresses, and
immense magazines of war materials. The war continued in Italy till the
end of December, when a truce was signed there and the conflict was at
an end.
Thus the nineteenth century dawned with France at truce with all her
foes except Great Britain. In February, 1801, a treaty of peace between
Austria and France was signed at Luneville, in which the valley of
the Etsch and the Rhine was acknowledged as the boundary of France.
Austria was forced to relinquish all her possessions in Italy, except
the city of Venice and a portion of Venetia; all the remainder of North
Italy falling into the hands of France. Europe was at peace with the
exception of the hostile relations still existing between England and
France.
[=The Peace of Amiens=]
The war between these two countries was mainly confined to Egypt,
where remained the army which Napoleon had left in his hasty return
to France. As it became evident in time that neither the British land
forces nor the Turkish troops could overcome the French veterans in the
valley of the Nile, a treaty was arranged which stipulated that the
French soldiers, 24,000 in all, should be taken home in English ships,
with their arms and ammunition, Egypt being given back to the rule of
the Sultan. This was followed by the peace of Amiens (March 27, 1802),
between England and France, and the long war was, for the time, at an
end. Napoleon had conquered peace.
During the period of peaceful relations that followed Napoleon was by
no means at rest. His mind was too active to yield him long intervals
of leisure. There was much to be done in France in sweeping away the
traces of the revolutionary insanity. One of the first cares of the
Consul was to restore the Christian worship in the French churches and
to abolish the Republican festivals. But he had no intention of giving
the church back its old power and placing another kingship beside
his own. He insisted that the French church should lose its former
supremacy and sink to the position of a servant of the Pope and of the
temporal sovereign of France.
Establishing his court as First Consul in the Tuileries, Napoleon began
to bring back the old court fashions and etiquette, and attempted to
restore the monarchical customs and usages. The elegance of royalty
reappeared, and it seemed almost as if monarchy had been restored.
A further step towards the restoration of the kingship was soon taken.
Napoleon, as yet Consul only for ten years, had himself appointed
Consul for life, with the power of naming his successor. He was king
now in everything but the name. But he was not suffered to wear his new
honor in safety. His ambition had aroused the anger of the republicans,
conspiracies rose around him, and more than once his life was in
danger. On his way to the opera house an infernal machine was exploded,
killing several persons but leaving him unhurt.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE]
[Illustration: MEETING OF TWO SOVEREIGNS
Pope Pius VII, at the request, almost the command, of
Napoleon, came from Rome to France in 1804 to crown
the great conqueror Emperor of the French. He was very
ceremoniously received by Napoleon, and treated with
every outward show of honor. Years afterwards he was
brought to France and forced to reside there, as the
virtual captive of the Emperor.]
[=The Punishment of the Conspirators and the Assassination of the
Duke d'Enghien=]
Other plots were organized, and Fouché, the police-agent of the time,
was kept busy in seeking the plotters, for whom there was brief
mercy when found. Even Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden, accused of
negotiating with the conspirators, was disgraced, and exiled himself
from France. Napoleon dealt with his secret enemies with the same
ruthless energy as he did with his foes in the field of battle.
His rage at the attempts upon his life, indeed, took a form that has
been universally condemned. The Duke d'Enghien, a royalist French
nobleman, grandson of the Prince of Condé, who was believed by Napoleon
to be the soul of the royalist conspiracies, ventured too near the
borders of France, and was seized in foreign territory, taken in haste
to Paris, and shot without form of law or a moment's opportunity for
defence. The outrage excited the deepest indignation throughout Europe.
No name was given it but murder, and the historians of to-day speak of
the act by no other title.
The opinion of the world had little effect upon Napoleon. He was a law
unto himself. The death of one man or of a thousand men weighed nothing
to him where his safety or his ambition was concerned. Men were the
pawns he used in the great game of empire, and he heeded not how many
of them were sacrificed so that he won the game.
[=Napoleon Crowned Emperor of the French=]
The culmination of his ambition came in 1804, when the hope he had long
secretly cherished, that of gaining the imperial dignity was realized.
He imitated the example of Cæsar, the Roman conqueror, in seeking the
crown as a reward for his victories, and was elected emperor of the
French by an almost unanimous vote. That the sanction of the church
might be obtained for the new dignity, the Pope was constrained to come
to Paris, and there anointed him emperor on December 2, 1804.
The new emperor hastened to restore the old insignia of royalty.
He surrounded himself with a brilliant court, brought back the
discarded titles of nobility, named the members of his family princes
and princesses, and sought to banish every vestige of republican
simplicity. Ten years before he had begun his career in the streets of
Paris by sweeping away with cannon-shot the mob that rose in support of
the Reign of Terror. Now he had swept away the Republic of France and
founded a French empire, with himself at its head as Napoleon I.
But though royalty was restored, it was not a royalty of the old type.
Feudalism was at an end. The revolution had destroyed the last relics
of that effete and abominable system, and it was an empire on new and
modern lines which Napoleon had founded, a royalty voted into existence
by a free people, not resting upon a nation of slaves.
[=The Great Works Devised By the New Emperor=]
The new emperor did not seek to enjoy in leisure his new dignity. His
restless mind impelled him to broad schemes of public improvement. He
sought glory in peace as actively as in war. Important changes were
made in the management of the finances in order to provide the great
sums needed for the government, the army, and the state. Vast contracts
were made for road and canal building, and ambitious architectural
labors were set in train. Churches were erected, the Pantheon was
completed, triumphal arches were built, two new bridges were thrown
over the Seine, the Louvre was ordered to be finished, the Bourse to
be constructed, and a temple consecrated to the exploits of the army
(now the church of the Madeleine) to be built. Thousands of workmen
were kept busy in erecting these monuments to his glory, and all France
resounded with his fame.
Among the most important of these evidences of his activity of
intellect was the formation of the _Code Napoleon_, the first organized
code of French law, and still the basis of jurisprudence in France.
First promulgated in 1801, as the Civil Code of France, its title was
changed to the _Code Napoleon_ in 1804, and as such it stands as one
of the greatest monuments raised by Napoleon to his glory. Thus the
Consul, and subsequently the Emperor, usefully occupied himself in the
brief intervals between his almost incessant wars.
CHAPTER III.
Europe in the Grasp of the Iron Hand.
[=England Declares War=]
The peace of Amiens, which for an interval left France without an open
enemy in Europe, did not long continue. England failed to carry out
one of the main provisions of this treaty, holding on to the island
of Malta in despite of the French protests. The feeling between the
two nations soon grew bitter, and in 1803 England again declared war
against France. William Pitt, the unyielding foe of Napoleon, came
again to the head of the ministry in 1804, and displayed all his old
activity in organizing coalitions against the hated Corsican. The war
thus declared was to last, so far as England was concerned, until
Napoleon was driven from his throne. It was conducted by the English
mainly through the aid of money paid to their European allies, and the
activity of their fleet. The British Channel remained an insuperable
obstacle to Napoleon in his conflict with his island foe, and the
utmost he could do in the way of revenge was to launch his armies
against the allies of Great Britain, and to occupy Hanover, the domain
of the English king on the continent. This he hastened to do.
[=Great Preparations for the Invasion of England=]
The immunity of his persistent enemy was more than the proud conqueror
felt disposed to endure. Hitherto he had triumphed over all his foes in
the field. Should these haughty islanders contemn his power and defy
his armies? He determined to play the role of William of Normandy,
centuries before, and attack them on their own shores. This design he
had long entertained, and began actively to prepare for as soon as war
was declared. An army was encamped at Boulogne, and a great flotilla
prepared to convey it across the narrow sea. The war material gathered
was enormous in quantity; the army numbered 120,000 men, with 10,000
horses; 1,800 gunboats of various kinds were ready; only the support of
the fleet was awaited to enable the crossing to be achieved in safety.
We need not dwell further upon this great enterprise, since it failed
to yield any result. The French admiral whose concurrence was depended
upon took sick and died, and the great expedition was necessarily
postponed. Before new plans could be laid the indefatigable Pitt had
succeeded in organizing a fresh coalition in Europe, and Napoleon found
full employment for his army on the continent.
In April, 1805, a treaty of alliance was made between England and
Russia. On the 9th of August, Austria joined this alliance. Sweden
subsequently gave in her adhesion, and Prussia alone remained neutral
among the great powers. But the allies were mistaken if they expected
to take the astute Napoleon unawares. He had foreseen this combination,
and, while keeping the eyes of all Europe fixed upon his great
preparations at Boulogne, he was quietly but effectively laying his
plans for the expected campaign.
[=Rapid March on Austria=]
The Austrians had hastened to take the field, marching an army into
Bavaria and forcing the Elector, the ally of Napoleon, to fly from
his capital. The French emperor was seemingly taken by surprise, and
apparently was in no haste, the Austrians having made much progress
before he left his palace at Saint Cloud. But meanwhile his troops
were quietly but rapidly in motion, converging from all points towards
the Rhine, and by the end of September seven divisions of the army,
commanded by Napoleon's ablest Generals,--Ney, Murat, Lannes, Soult
and others,--were across that stream and marching rapidly upon the
enemy. Bernadotte led his troops across Prussian territory in disdain
of the neutrality of that power, and thereby gave such offence to King
Frederick William as to turn his mind decidedly in favor of joining the
coalition.
[=The Surrender of General Mack=]
Early in October the French held both banks of the Danube, and before
the month's end they had gained a notable triumph. Mack, one of the
Austrian commanders, with remarkable lack of judgment, held his
army in the fortress of Ulm while the swiftly advancing French were
cutting off every avenue of retreat, and surrounding his troops. An
extraordinary result followed. Ney, on the 14th, defeated the Austrians
at Elchingen, cutting off Mack from the main army and shutting him up
hopelessly in Ulm. Five days afterwards the despairing and incapable
general surrendered his army as prisoners of war. Twenty-three thousand
soldiers laid their weapons and banners at Napoleon's feet and eighteen
generals remained as prisoners in his hands. It was a triumph which
in its way atoned for a great naval disaster which took place on
the succeeding day, when Nelson, the English admiral, attacked and
destroyed the whole French fleet at Trafalgar.
The succeeding events, to the great battle that closed the campaign,
may be epitomized. An Austrian army had been dispatched to Italy under
the brave and able Archduke Charles. Here Marshal Massena commanded
the French and a battle took place near Caldiero on October 30th. The
Austrians fought stubbornly, but could not withstand the impetuosity of
the French, and were forced to retreat and abandon northern Italy to
Massena and his men.
[Illustration: DEATH OF LORD NELSON--BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, OCTOBER 21,
1805
The greatest sea fight in history is represented by the above
engraving. It was off Cape Trafalgar, southern coast of Spain, that
Lord Nelson met and defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets,
vastly his superior in number of vessels and men. This victory sounded
the key note in the decline of Napoleon's power and changed the destiny
of Europe. "It is glorious to die in the moment of victory." Nelson
fell and died as he heard the words telling him that the naval power of
France and Spain were destroyed and he gained at once the double honor
of victory and Westminster Abbey.]
[Illustration: MURAT AT BATTLE OF JENA
General Murat was the Sheridan of France, the most
dashing and daring cavalry leader in Napoleon's
armies. Napoleon said of him: "It was really a
magnificent sight to see him in battle, heading the
cavalry." At Jena he played an efficient part in
breaking the ranks of the Prussians.]
In the north the king of Prussia, furious at the violation of his
neutral territory by the French under Bernadotte, gave free passage
to the Russian and Swedish troops, and formed a league of friendship
with the Czar Alexander. He then dispatched his minister Haugwitz to
Napoleon, with a demand that concealed a threat, requiring him, as a
basis of peace, to restore the former treaties in Germany, Switzerland,
Italy and Holland.
With utter disregard of this demand Napoleon advanced along the Danube
towards the Austrian states, meeting and defeating the Austrians and
Russians in a series of sanguinary conflicts. The Russian army was
the most ably commanded, and its leader Kutusoff led it backward in
slow but resolute retreat, fighting only when attacked. The French
under Mortier were caught isolated on the left bank of the Danube, and
fiercely assailed by the Russians, losing heavily before they could be
reinforced.
[=The Advance on Vienna=]
Despite all resistance, the French continued to advance, Murat soon
reaching and occupying Vienna, the Austrian capital, from which
the emperor had hastily withdrawn. Still the retreat and pursuit
continued, the allies retiring to Moravia, whither the French, laden
with an immense booty from their victories, rapidly followed. Futile
negotiations for peace succeeded, and on the 1st of December, the two
armies, both concentrated in their fullest strength (92,000 of the
allies to 70,000 French) came face to face on the field of Austerlitz,
where on the following day was to be fought one of the memorable
battles in the history of the world.
[=The Eve Before Austerlitz=]
The Emperor Alexander had joined Francis of Austria, and the two
monarchs, with their staff officers, occupied the castle and village
of Austerlitz. Their troops hastened to occupy the plateau of Pratzen,
which Napoleon had designedly left free. His plans of battle was
already fully made. He had, with the intuition of genius, foreseen
the probable manoeuvers of the enemy, and had left open for them
the position which he wished them to occupy. He even announced their
movement in a proclamation to his troops.
"The positions that we occupy are formidable," he said, "and while the
enemy march to turn my right they will present to me their flank."
This movement to the right was indeed the one that had been decided
upon by the allies, with the purpose of cutting off the road to Vienna
by isolating numerous corps dispersed in Austria and Styria. It had
been shrewdly divined by Napoleon in choosing his ground.
The fact that the 2d of December was the anniversary of the coronation
of their emperor filled the French troops with ardor. They celebrated
it by making great torches of the straw which formed their beds and
illuminating their camp. Early the next morning the allies began
their projected movement. To the joy of Napoleon his prediction was
fulfilled, they were advancing towards his right. He felt sure that the
victory was in his hands.
[=The Greatest of Napoleon's Victories=]
He held his own men in readiness while the line of the enemy deployed.
The sun was rising, its rays gleaming through a mist, which dispersed
as it rose higher. It now poured its brilliant beams across the field,
the afterward famous "sun of Austerlitz." The movement of the allies
had the effect of partly withdrawing their troops from the plateau of
Pratzen. At a signal from the emperor the strongly concentrated centre
of the French army moved forward in a dense mass, directing their march
towards the plateau, which they made all haste to occupy. They had
reached the foot of the hill before the rising mist revealed them to
the enemy.
The two emperors watched the movement without divining its intent. "See
how the French climb the height without staying to reply to our fire,"
said Prince Czartoryski, who stood near them.
The emperors were soon to learn why their fire was disdained. Their
marching columns, thrown out one after another on the slope, found
themselves suddenly checked in their movement, and cut off from the two
wings of the army. The allied force had been pierced in its centre,
which was flung back in disorder, in spite of the efforts of Kutusoff
to send it aid. At the same time Davout faced the Russians on the
right, and Murat and Lannes attacked the Russian and Austrian squadrons
on the left, while Kellermann's light cavalry dispersed the squadrons
of the Uhlans.
The Russian guard, checked in its movement, turned towards Pratzen,
in a desperate effort to retrieve the fortune of the day. It was
incautiously pursued by a French battalion, which soon found itself
isolated and in danger. Napoleon perceived its peril and hastily sent
Rapp to its support, with the Mamelukes and the chasseurs of the guard.
They rushed forward with energy and quickly drove back the enemy,
Prince Repnin remaining a prisoner in their hands.
The day was lost to the allies. Everywhere disorder prevailed and their
troops were in retreat. An isolated Russian division threw down its
arms and surrendered. Two columns were forced back beyond the marshes.
The soldiers rushed in their flight upon the ice of the lake, which the
intense cold had made thick enough to bear their weight.
[=The Dreadful Lake Horror=]
And now a terrible scene was witnessed. War is merciless; death is
its aim; the slaughter of an enemy by any means is looked upon as
admissible. By Napoleon's order the French cannon were turned upon the
lake. Their plunging balls rent and splintered the ice under the feet
of the crowd of fugitives. Soon it broke with a crash, and the unhappy
soldiers, with shrill cries of despair, sunk to death in the chilling
waters beneath, thousands of them perishing. It was a frightful
expedient--one that would be deemed a crime in any other code than the
merciless one of war.
A portion of the allied army made a perilous retreat along a narrow
embankment which separated the two lakes of Melnitz and Falnitz, their
exposed causeway swept by the fire of the French batteries. Of the
whole army, the corps of Prince Bagration alone withdrew in order of
battle.
All that dreadful day the roar of battle had resounded. At its close
the victorious French occupied the field; the allied army was pouring
back in disordered flight, the dismayed emperors in its midst;
thousands of dead covered the fatal field, the groans of thousands
of wounded men filled the air. More than 30,000 prisoners, including
twenty generals, remained in Napoleon's hands, and with them a hundred
and twenty pieces of cannon and forty flags, including the standards of
the Imperial Guard of Russia.
[=Treaty of Peace with Austria=]
The defeat was a crushing one. Napoleon had won the most famous of
his battles. The Emperor Francis, in deep depression, asked for an
interview and an armistice. Two days afterward the emperors,--the
conqueror and the conquered,--met and an armistice was granted. While
the negotiations for peace continued Napoleon shrewdly disposed of
the hostility of Prussia by offering the state of Hanover to that
power and signing a treaty with the king. On December 26th a treaty of
peace between France and Austria was signed at Presburg. The Emperor
Francis yielded all his remaining possessions in Italy, and also the
Tyrol, the Black Forest, and other districts in Germany, which Napoleon
presented to his allies, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden; whose monarchs
were still more closely united to Napoleon by marriages between their
children and relatives of himself and his wife Josephine. Bavaria
and Wurtemberg were made kingdoms, and Baden was raised in rank to a
grand-duchy. The three months' war was at an end. Austria had paid
dearly for her subserviency to England. Of the several late enemies
of France, only two remained in arms, Russia and England. And in the
latter Pitt, Napoleon's greatest enemy, died during the next month,
leaving the power in the hands of Fox, an admirer of the Corsican.
Napoleon was at the summit of his glory and success.
[=Napoleon Awards Kingdoms to His Brothers and Adherents=]
Napoleon's political changes did not end with the partial dismemberment
of Austria. His ambition to become supreme in Europe and to rule
everywhere lord paramount, inspired him to exalt his family, raising
his relatives to the rank of kings, but keeping them the servants of
his imperious will. Holland lost its independence, Louis Bonaparte
being named its king. Joachim Murat, brother-in-law of the emperor, was
given a kingdom on the lower Rhine, with Düsseldorf as its capital.
A stroke of Napoleon's pen ended the Bourbon monarchy in Naples,
and Joseph Bonaparte was sent thither as king, with a French army
to support him. Italy was divided into dukedoms, ruled over by the
marshals and adherents of the emperor, whose hand began to move the
powers of Europe as a chess-player moves the pieces upon his board.
The story of his political transformations extends farther still. By
raising the electors of Bavaria and Wurtemberg to the rank of kings,
he had practically brought to an end the antique German Empire--which
indeed had long been little more than a name. In July, 1806, he
completed this work. The states of South and West Germany were
organized into a league named the Confederation of the Rhine, under the
protection of Napoleon. Many small principalities were suppressed and
their territories added to the larger ones, increasing the power of the
latter, and winning the gratitude of their rulers for their benefactor.
The empire of France was in this manner practically extended over
Italy, the Netherlands, and the west and south of Germany. Francis
II., lord of the "Holy Roman Empire," now renounced the title which
these radical changes had made a mockery, withdrew his states from the
imperial confederation of Germany, and assumed the title of Francis
I. of Austria. The Empire of Germany, once powerful, but long since
reduced to a shadowy pretence, finally ceased to exist.
[=The Hostile Irritation of Prussia=]
These autocratic changes could not fail to arouse the indignation of
the monarchs of Europe and imperil the prevailing peace. Austria was in
no condition to resume hostilities, but Prussia, which had maintained
a doubtful neutrality during the recent wars grew more and more
exasperated as these high-handed proceedings went on. A league which
the king of Prussia sought to form with Saxony and Hesse-Cassel was
thwarted by Napoleon; who also, in negotiating for peace with England,
offered to return Hanover to that country, without consulting the
Prussian King, to whom this electorate had been ceded. Other causes of
resentment existed, and finally Frederick William of Prussia, irritated
beyond control, sent a so-called "ultimatum" to Napoleon, demanding the
evacuation of South Germany by the French. As might have been expected,
this proposal was rejected with scorn, whereupon Prussia broke off all
communication with France and began preparations for war.
[=The Prussian Armies in the Field=]
The Prussians did not know the man with whom they had to deal. It
was an idle hope that this state could cope alone with the power
of Napoleon and his allies, and while Frederick William was slowly
preparing for the war which he had long sought to avoid, the French
troops were on the march and rapidly approaching the borders of his
kingdom. Saxony had allied itself with Prussia under compulsion, and
had added 20,000 men to its armies. The elector of Hesse-Cassel had
also joined the Prussians, and furnished them a contingent of troops.
But this hastily levied army, composed of men few of whom had ever seen
a battle, seemed hopeless as matched with the great army of war-worn
veterans which Napoleon was marching with his accustomed rapidity
against them. Austria, whom the Prussian King had failed to aid, now
looked no passively at his peril. The Russians, who still maintained
hostile relations with France, held their troops immovable upon the
Vistula. Frederick William was left to face the power of Napoleon alone.
[=March of the French Upon Prussia=]
The fate of the campaign was quickly decided. Through the mountain
passes of Franconia Napoleon led his forces against the Prussian
army, which was divided into two corps, under the command of the Duke
of Brunswick and the Prince of Hohenlohe. The troops of the latter
occupied the road from Weimar to Jena. The heights which commanded the
latter town were seized by Marshal Lannes on his arrival. A second
French corps, under Marshals Davout and Bernadotte, marched against the
Duke of Brunswick and established themselves upon the left bank of the
Saale.
On the morning of the 4th of October, 1806, the conflict at Jena, upon
which hung the destiny of the Prussian kingdom, began. The troops under
the Prince of Hohenlohe surpassed in number those of Napoleon, but
were unfitted to sustain the impetuosity of the French assault. Soult
and Augereau, in command of the wings of the French army, advanced
rapidly, enveloping the Prussian forces and driving them back by the
vigor of their attack. Then on the Prussian center the guard and the
reserves fell in a compact mass whose tremendous impact the enemy
found it impossible to endure. The retreat became a rout. The Prussian
army broke into a mob of fugitives, flying in terror before Napoleon's
irresistible veterans.
[=Defeat of the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt=]
They were met by Marshal Biechel with an army of 20,000 men, advancing
in all haste to the aid of the Prince of Hohenlohe. Throwing his
men across the line of flight, he did his utmost to rally the
fugitives. His effort was a vain one. His men were swept away by the
panic-stricken mass and pushed back by the triumphant pursuers. Weimar
was reached by the French and the Germans simultaneously, the former
seizing prisoners in such numbers as seriously to hinder their pursuit.
While this battle was going on, another was in progress near Auerstadt,
where Marshal Davout had encountered the forces of the Duke of
Brunswick, with whom was Frederick William, the king. Bernadotte,
ordered by the emperor to occupy Hamburg, had withdrawn his troops,
leaving Davout much outnumbered by the foe. But heedless of this,
he threw himself across their road in the defile of Koesen, and
sustained alone the furious attack made upon him by the duke. Throwing
his regiments into squares, he poured a murderous fire on the charging
troops, hurling them back from his immovable lines. The old duke fell
with a mortal wound. The king and his son led their troops to a second,
but equally fruitless, attack. Davout, taking advantage of their
repulse, advanced and seized the heights of Eckartsberga, where he
defended himself with his artillery. Frederick William, discouraged by
this vigorous resistance, retired towards Weimar with the purpose of
joining his forces with those of the Prince of Hohenlohe and renewing
the attack.
Davout's men were too exhausted to pursue, but Bernadotte was
encountered and barred the way, and the disaster at Jena was soon
made evident by the panic-stricken mass of fugitives, whose flying
multitude, hotly pursued by the French, sought safety in the ranks of
the king's corps, which they threw into confusion by their impact.
It was apparent that the battle was irretrievably lost. Night was
approaching. The king marched hastily away, the disorder in his ranks
increasing as the darkness fell. In that one fatal day he had lost his
army and placed his kingdom itself in jeopardy. "They can do nothing
but gather up the _débris_," said Napoleon.
[=The Demoralization of the Prussian Forces=]
The French lost no time in following up the defeated army, which had
broken into several divisions in its retreat. On the 17th, Duke Eugene
of Wurtemberg and the reserves under his command were scattered in
defeat. On the 28th, the Prince of Hohenlohe, with the 12,000 men whom
he still held together, was forced to surrender. Blucher, who had
seized the free city of Lübeck, was obliged to follow his example. On
all sides the scattered _débris_ of the army was destroyed, and on
October 27th Napoleon entered in triumph the city of Berlin, his first
entry into an enemy's capital.
[=Napoleon Divides the Spoils of Victory=]
The battle ended, the country occupied, the work of revenge of the
victor began. The Elector of Hesse was driven from his throne and his
country stricken from the list of the powers of Europe. Hanover and the
Hanseatic towns were occupied by the French. The English merchandise
found in ports and warehouses was seized and confiscated. A heavy war
contribution was laid upon the defeated state. Severe taxes were laid
upon Hamburg, Bremen and Leipzig, and from all the leading cities the
treasures of art and science were carried away to enrich the museums
and galleries of France.
Saxony, whose alliance with Prussia had been a forced one, was alone
spared. The Saxon prisoners were sent back free to their sovereign, and
the elector was granted a favorable peace and honored with the title
of king. In return for these favors he joined the Confederation of the
Rhine, and such was his gratitude to Napoleon that he remained his
friend and ally in the trying days when he had no other friend among
the powers of Europe.
The harsh measures of which we have spoken were not the only ones taken
by Napoleon against his enemies. England, the most implacable of his
foes, remained beyond his reach, mistress of the seas as he was lord
of the land. He could only meet the islanders upon their favorite
element, and in November 21, 1806, he sent from Berlin to Talleyrand,
his Minister of Foreign Affairs, a decree establishing a continental
embargo against Great Britain.
[=The Embargo on British Commerce=]
"The British Islanders," said this famous edict of reprisal, "are
declared in a state of blockade. All commerce and all correspondence
with them are forbidden." All letters or packets addressed to an
Englishman or written in English were to be seized; every English
subject found in any country controlled by France was to be made a
prisoner of war; all commerce in English merchandise was forbidden,
and all ships coming from England or her colonies were to be refused
admittance to any port.
It is hardly necessary to speak here of the distress caused, alike in
Europe and elsewhere, by this war upon commerce, in which England did
not fail to meet the harsh decrees of her opponent by others equally
severe. The effect of these edicts upon American commerce is well
known. The commerce of neutral nations was almost swept from the seas.
One result was the American war of 1812, which for a time seemed as
likely to be directed against France as Great Britain.
[=Frederick William a Fugitive in the Russian Camp=]
Meanwhile Frederick William of Prussia was a fugitive king. He refused
to accept the harsh terms of the armistice offered by Napoleon, and in
despair resolved to seek, with the remnant of his army, some 25,000 in
number, the Russian camp, and join his forces with those of Alexander
of Russia, still in arms against France.
Napoleon, not content while an enemy remained in arms, with inflexible
resolution resolved to make an end of all his adversaries, and meet in
battle the great empire of the north. The Russian armies then occupied
Poland, whose people, burning under the oppression and injustice to
which they had been subjected, gladly welcomed Napoleon's specious
offers to bring them back their lost liberties, and rose in his aid
when he marched his armies into their country.
Here the French found themselves exposed to unlooked-for privations.
They had dreamed of abundant stores of food, but discovered that the
country they had invaded was, in this wintry season, a desert; a series
of frozen solitudes incapable of feeding an army, and holding no reward
for them other than that of battle with and victory over the hardy
Russians.
[=The French in the Dreary Plains of Poland=]
Napoleon advanced to Warsaw, the Polish capital. The Russians were
entrenched behind the Narew and the Ukra. The French continued to
advance. The Russians were beaten and forced back in every battle,
several furious encounters took place, and Alexander's army fell
back upon the Pregel, intact and powerful still, despite the French
successes. The wintry chill and the character of the country seriously
interfered with Napoleon's plans, the troops being forced to make their
way through thick and rain-soaked forests, and march over desolate
and marshy plains. The winter of the north fought against them like
a strong army and many of them fell dead without a battle. Warlike
movements became almost impossible to the troops of the south, though
the hardy northerners, accustomed to the climate, continued their
military operations.
By the end of January the Russian army was evidently approaching in
force, and immediate action became necessary. The cold increased. The
mud was converted into ice. On January 30, 1807, Napoleon left Warsaw
and marched in search of the enemy. General Bennigsen retreated,
avoiding battle, and on the 7th of February entered the small town of
Eylau, from which his troops were pushed by the approaching French. He
encamped outside the town, the French in and about it; it was evident
that a great battle was at hand.
The weather was cold. Snow lay thick upon the ground and still fell in
great flakes. A sheet of ice covering some small lakes formed part of
the country upon which the armies were encamped, but was thick enough
to bear their weight. It was a chill, inhospitable country to which the
demon of war had come.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF EYLAU
The battle fought at Eylau, in East Prussia, February
8, 1807, between the Russians and French, was the most
indecisive engagement in Napoleon's career. Both sides
claimed victory, but the Russians retreated in the
night. A dense snowfall occurred during the battle,
and nearly led to the defeat of the French.]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND
The sanguinary engagement at Friedland, a small town
in East Prussia, fought on June 14, 1807, ended in the
defeat of the Russians under Bennigsen by Napoleon's
army. It lead to the Peace of Tilsit, and the end of
a long and desperate war.]
[=The Frightful Struggle at Eylau=]
Before daybreak on the 8th Napoleon was in the streets of Eylau,
forming his line of battle for the coming engagement. Soon the
artillery of both armies opened, and a rain of cannon balls began to
decimate the opposing ranks. The Russian fire was concentrated on the
town, which was soon in flames. That of the French was directed
against a hill which the emperor deemed it important to occupy. The
two armies, nearly equal in numbers,--the French having 75,000 to the
Russian 70,000,--were but a short distance apart, and the slaughter
from the fierce cannonade was terrible.
A series of movements on both sides began, Davout marching upon
the Russian flank and Augereau upon the centre, while the Russians
manoeuvred as if with a purpose to outflank the French on the left.
At this interval an unlooked-for obstacle interfered with the French
movements, a snow-fall beginning, which grew so dense that the armies
lost sight of each other, and vision was restricted to a few feet. In
this semi-darkness the French columns lost their way, and wandered
about uncertainly. For half an hour the snow continued to fall. When
it ceased the French army was in a critical position. Its cohesion was
lost; its columns were straggling about and incapable of supporting
one another; many of its superior officers were wounded. The Russians,
on the contrary, were on the point of executing a vigorous turning
movement, with 20,000 infantry, supported by cavalry and artillery.
"Are you going to let me be devoured by these people?" cried Napoleon
to Murat, his eagle eye discerning the danger.
[=Murat's Mighty Charge=]
He ordered a grand charge of all the cavalry of the army, consisting
of eighty squadrons. With Murat at their head, they rushed like an
avalanche on the Russian lines, breaking through the infantry and
dispersing the cavalry who came to its support. The Russian infantry
suffered severely from this charge, its two massive lines being rent
asunder, while the third fell back upon a wood in the rear. Finally
Davout, whose movement had been hindered by the weather, reached the
Russian rear, and in an impetuous charge drove them from the hilly
ground which Napoleon wished to occupy.
The battle seemed lost to the Russians. They began a retreat, leaving
the ground strewn thickly with their dead and wounded. But at this
critical moment a Prussian force, some 8,000 strong, which was being
pursued by Marshal Ney, arrived on the field and checked the French
advance and the Russian retreat. Benningsen regained sufficient
confidence to prepare for final attack, when he was advised of the
approach of Ney, who was two or three hours behind the Prussians. At
this discouraging news a final retreat was ordered.
[=The Cost of Victory Frightful=]
The French were left masters of the field, though little attempt was
made to pursue the menacing columns of the enemy, who withdrew in
military array. It was a victory that came near being a defeat, and
which, indeed, both sides claimed. Never before had Napoleon been so
stubbornly withstood. His success had been bought at a frightful cost,
and Königsberg, the old Prussian capital, the goal of his march, was
still covered by the compact columns of the allies. The men were in no
condition to pursue. Food was wanting, and they were without shelter
from the wintry chill. Ney surveyed the terrible scene with eyes of
gloom. "What a massacre," he exclaimed; "and without result."
So severe was the exhaustion on both sides from this great battle that
it was four months before hostilities were resumed. Meanwhile Danzig,
which had been strongly besieged, surrendered, and more than 30,000 men
were released to reinforce the French army. Negotiations for peace went
slowly on, without result, and it was June before hostilities again
became imminent.
Eylau, which now became Napoleon's headquarters, presented a very
different aspect at this season from that of four months before. Then
all was wintry desolation; now the country presented a beautiful scene
of green woodland, shining lakes, and attractive villages. The light
corps of the army were in motion in various directions, their object
being to get between the Russians and their magazines and cut off
retreat to Königsberg. On June 13th Napoleon, with the main body of
his army, marched towards Friedland, a town on the River Alle, in the
vicinity of Königsberg, towards which the Russians were marching. Here,
crossing the Alle, Benningsen drove from the town a regiment of French
hussars which had occupied it, and fell with all his force on the corps
of Marshal Lannes, which alone had reached the field.
[=Napoleon on the Field of Friedland=]
Lannes held his ground with his usual heroic fortitude, while sending
successive messengers for aid to the emperor. Noon had passed when
Napoleon and his staff reached the field at full gallop, far in advance
of the troops. He surveyed the field with eyes of hope. "It is the 14th
of June, the anniversary of Marengo," he said; "it is a lucky day for
us."
"Give me only a reinforcement," cried Oudinot, "and we will cast all
the Russians into the water."
This seemed possible. Bennigsen's troops were perilously concentrated
within a bend of the river. Some of the French generals advised
deferring the battle till the next day, as the hour was late, but
Napoleon was too shrewd to let an advantage escape him.
"No," he said, "one does not surprise the enemy twice in such a
blunder." He swept with his field-glass the masses of the enemy before
him, then seized the arm of Marshal Ney. "You see the Russians and the
town of Friedland," he said. "March straight forward; seize the town;
take the bridges, whatever it may cost. Do not trouble yourself with
what is taking place around you. Leave that to me and the army."
The troops were coming in rapidly, and marching to the places assigned
them. The hours moved on. It was half-past five in the afternoon when
the cannon sounded the signal of the coming fray.
[=The Assault of the Indomitable Ney=]
Meanwhile Ney's march upon Friedland had begun. A terrible fire from
the Russians swept his ranks as he advanced. Aided by cavalry and
artillery, he reached a stream defended by the Russian Imperial Guard.
Before those picked troops the French recoiled in temporary disorder;
but the division of General Dupont, marching briskly up, broke the
Russian guard, and the pursuing French rushed into the town. In a short
time it was in flames and the fugitive Russians were cut off from the
bridges, which were seized and set on fire.
[=The Total Defeat of the Russians=]
The Russians made a vigorous effort to recover their lost ground,
General Gortschakoff endeavoring to drive the French from the town, and
other corps making repeated attacks on the French centre. All their
efforts were in vain. The French columns continued to advance. By ten
o'clock the battle was at an end. Many of the Russians had been drowned
in the stream, and the field was covered with their dead, whose numbers
were estimated by the boastful French bulletins at 15,000 or 18,000
men, while they made the improbable claim of having lost no more than
500 dead. Königsberg, the prize of victory, was quickly occupied by
Marshal Soult, and yielded the French a vast quantity of food, and a
large store of military supplies which had been sent from England for
Russian use. The King of Prussia had lost the whole of his possessions
with the exception of the single town of Memel.
[=The Emperors at Tilsit and the Fate of Prussia=]
Victorious as Napoleon had been, he had found the Russians no
contemptible foes. At Eylau he had come nearer defeat than ever before
in his career. He was quite ready, therefore, to listen to overtures
for peace, and early in July a notable interview took place between
him and the Czar of Russia at Tilsit, on the Niemen, the two emperors
meeting on a raft in the centre of the stream. What passed between them
is not known. Some think that they arranged for a division of Europe
between their respective empires, Alexander taking all the east and
Napoleon all the west. However that was, the treaty of peace, signed
July 8th, was a disastrous one for the defeated Prussian king, who
was punished for his temerity in seeking to fight Napoleon alone by
the loss of more than half his kingdom, while in addition a heavy war
indemnity was laid upon his depleted realms.
He was forced to yield all the countries between the Rhine and the
Elbe, to consent to the establishment of a dukedom of Warsaw, under
the supremacy of the king of Saxony, and to the loss of Danzig and the
surrounding territory, which were converted into a free State. A new
kingdom, named Westphalia, was founded by Napoleon, made up of the
territory taken from Prussia and the states of Hesse, Brunswick and
South Hanover. His youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte, was made its
king. It was a further step in his policy of founding a western empire.
Louisa, the beautiful and charming queen of Frederick William, sought
Tilsit, hoping by the seduction of her beauty and grace of address to
induce Napoleon to mitigate his harsh terms. But in vain she brought
to bear upon him all the resources of her intellect and her attractive
charm of manner. He continued cold and obdurate, and she left Tilsit
deeply mortified and humiliated.
[=Denmark and Sweden=]
In northern Europe only one enemy of Napoleon remained. Sweden retained
its hostility to France, under the fanatical enmity of Gustavus
IV., who believed himself the instrument appointed by Providence to
reinstate the Bourbon monarchs upon their thrones. Denmark, which
refused to ally itself with England, was visited by a British fleet,
which bombarded Copenhagen and carried off all the Danish ships of war,
an outrage which brought this kingdom into close alliance with France.
The war in Sweden must have ended in the conquest of that country, had
not the people revolted and dethroned their obstinate king. Charles
XIII., his uncle, was placed on the throne, but was induced to adopt
Napoleon's marshal Bernadotte as his son. The latter, as crown prince,
practically succeeded the incapable king in 1810.
[=The Pope a Captive at Fontainebleau=]
Events followed each other rapidly. Napoleon, in his desire to add
kingdom after kingdom to his throne, invaded Portugal and interfered
in the affairs of Spain, from whose throne he removed the last of
the Bourbon kings, replacing him by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte.
The result was a revolt of the Spanish people which all his efforts
proved unable to quell, aided, as they were eventually, by the
power of England. In Italy his intrigues continued. Marshal Murat
succeeded Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Naples. Eliza, Napoleon's
sister, was made queen of Tuscany. The temporal sovereignty of the
Pope was seriously interfered with and finally, in 1809, the pontiff
was forcibly removed from Rome and the states of the Church were
added to the French territory, Pius VII., the pope, was eventually
brought to France and obliged to reside at Fontainebleau, where he
persistently refused to yield to Napoleon's wishes or perform any act
of ecclesiastical authority while held in captivity.
These various arbitrary acts had their natural result, that of active
hostility. The Austrians beheld them with growing indignation, and
at length grew so exasperated that, despite their many defeats, they
decided again to dare the power and genius of the conqueror. In April,
1809, the Vienna Cabinet once more declared war against France and
made all haste to put its armies in the field. Stimulated by this, a
revolt broke out in the Tyrol, the simple-minded but brave and sturdy
mountaineers gathering under the leadership of Andreas Hofer, a man of
authority among them, and welcoming the Austrian troops sent to their
aid.
[=Andreas Hofer and the War in the Tyrol=]
As regards this war in the Tyrol, there is no need here to go into
details. It must suffice to say that the bold peasantry, aided by the
natural advantages of their mountain land, for a time freed themselves
from French dominion, to the astonishment and admiration of Europe.
But their freedom was of brief duration, fresh troops were poured into
the country, and though the mountaineers won more than one victory,
they proved no match for the power of their foes. Their country was
conquered, and Hofer, their brave leader, was taken by the French and
remorselessly put to death by the order of Napoleon.
[=The Army of Napoleon Marches Upon Austria=]
The struggle in the Tyrol was merely a side issue in the new war with
Austria, which was conducted on Napoleon's side with his usual celerity
of movement. The days when soldiers are whisked forward at locomotive
speed had not yet dawned, yet the French troops made extraordinary
progress on foot, and war was barely declared before the army of
Napoleon covered Austria. This army was no longer made up solely of
Frenchmen. The Confederation of the Rhine practically formed part of
Napoleon's empire, and Germans now fought side by side with Frenchmen;
Marshal Lefebvre leading the Bavarians, Bernadotte the Saxons, Augereau
the men of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Hesse. On the other hand, the
Austrians were early in motion, and by the 10th of April the Archduke
Charles had crossed the Inn with his army and the King of Bavaria,
Napoleon's ally, was in flight from his capital.
The quick advance of the Austrians had placed the French army in
danger. Spread out over an extent of twenty-five leagues, it ran
serious risk of being cut in two by the rapidly marching troops of
the Archduke. Napoleon, who reached the front on the 17th, was not
slow to perceive the peril and to take steps of prevention. A hasty
concentration of his forces was ordered and vigorously begun.
"Never was there need for more rapidity of movement than now," he wrote
to Massena. "Activity, activity, speed!"
[=A Grave Peril Overcome=]
Speed was the order of the day. The French generals ably seconded the
anxious activity of their chief. The soldiers fairly rushed together. A
brief hesitation robbed the Austrians of the advantage which they had
hoped to gain. The Archduke Charles, one of the ablest tacticians ever
opposed to Napoleon, had the weakness of over-prudence, and caution
robbed him of the opportunity given him by the wide dispersion of the
French.
[=The Battle of Eckmühl and the Capture of Ratisbon=]
He was soon and severely punished for his slowness. On the 19th
Davout defeated the Austrians at Fangen and made a junction with the
Bavarians. On the 20th and 21st Napoleon met and defeated them in a
series of engagements. Meanwhile the Archduke Charles fell on Ratisbon,
held by a single French regiment, occupied that important place, and
attacked Davout at Eckmühl. Here a furious battle took place. Davout,
outnumbered, maintained his position for three days. Napoleon, warned
of the peril of his marshal, bade him to hold on to the death, as
he was hastening to his relief with 40,000 men. The day was well
advanced when the emperor came up and fell with his fresh troops on
the Austrians, who, still bravely fighting, were forced back upon
Ratisbon. During the night the Archduke wisely withdrew and marched for
Bohemia, where a large reinforcement awaited him. On the 23d Napoleon
attacked the town, and carried it in spite of a vigorous defence. His
proclamation to his soldiers perhaps overestimated the prizes of this
brief but active campaign, which he declared to be a hundred cannon,
forty flags, all the enemy's artillery, 50,000 prisoners, a large
number of wagons, etc. Half this loss would have fully justified the
Archduke's retreat.
[=The Campaign In Italy=]
In Italy affairs went differently. Prince Eugene Beauharnais, for
the first time in command of a French army, found himself opposed by
the Archduke John, and met with a defeat. On April 16th, seeking to
retrieve his disaster, he attacked the Archduke, but the Austrians
bravely held their positions, and the French were again obliged to
retreat. General Macdonald, an officer of tried ability, now joined
the prince, who took up a defensive position on the Adige, whither the
Austrians marched. On the 1st of May Macdonald perceived among them
indications of withdrawal from their position.
"Victory in Germany!" he shouted to the prince. "Now is our time for a
forward march!"
He was correct, the Archduke John had been recalled in haste to aid his
brother in the defence of Vienna, on which the French were advancing in
force.
The campaign now became a race for the capital of Austria. During its
progress several conflicts took place, in each of which the French
won. The city was defended by the Archduke Maximilian with an army of
over 15,000 men, but he found it expedient to withdraw, and on the
13th the troops of Napoleon occupied the place. Meanwhile Charles had
concentrated his troops and was marching hastily towards the opposite
side of the Danube, whither his brother John was advancing from Italy.
It was important for Napoleon to strike a blow before this junction
could be made. He resolved to cross the Danube in the suburbs of the
capital itself, and attack the Austrians before they were reinforced.
In the vicinity of Vienna the channel of the river is broken by many
islets. At the island of Lobau, the point chosen for the attempt, the
river is broad and deep, but Lobau is separated from the opposite bank
by only a narrow branch, while two smaller islets offered themselves as
aids in the construction of bridges, there being four channels, over
each of which a bridge was thrown.
[=The Bridges over the Danube=]
The work was a difficult one. The Danube, swollen by the melting
snows, imperilled the bridges, erected with difficulty and braced by
insufficient cordage. But despite this peril the crossing began, and on
May 20th Marshal Massena reached the other side and posted his troops
in the two villages of Aspern and Essling, and along a deep ditch that
connected them.
As yet only the vanguard of the Austrians had arrived. Other corps soon
appeared, and by the afternoon of the 21st the entire army, from 70,000
to 80,000 strong, faced the French, still only half their number, and
in a position of extreme peril, for the bridge over the main channel of
the river had broken during the night, and the crossing was cut off in
its midst.
Napoleon, however, was straining every nerve to repair the bridge, and
Massena and Lannes, in command of the advance, fought like men fighting
for their lives. The Archduke Charles, the ablest soldier Napoleon had
yet encountered, hurled his troops in masses upon Aspern, which covered
the bridge to Lobau. Several times it was taken and retaken, but the
French held on with a death grip, all the strength of the Austrians
seeming insufficient to break the hold of Lannes upon Essling. An
advance in force, which nearly cut the communication between the two
villages, was checked by an impetuous cavalry charge, and night fell,
leaving the situation unchanged.
At dawn of the next day more than 70,000 French had crossed the stream;
Marshal Davout's corps, with part of the artillery and most of the
ammunition, being still on the right bank. At this critical moment the
large bridge, against which the Austrians had sent fireships, boats
laden with stone and other floating missiles, broke for the third time,
and the engineers of the French army were again forced to the most
strenuous and hasty exertions for its repair.
[=The Great Struggle of Essling and Aspern=]
[=Napoleon Forced to his First Retreat=]
The struggle of the day that had just begun was one of extraordinary
valor and obstinacy. Men went down in multitudes; now the Austrians,
now the French, were repulsed; the Austrians, impetuously assailed,
slowly fell back; and Lannes was preparing for a vigorous movement
designed to pierce their centre, when word was brought Napoleon that
the great bridge had again yielded to the floating _débris_, carrying
with it a regiment of cuirassiers, and cutting off the supply of
ammunition. Lannes was at once ordered to fall back upon the villages,
and simultaneously the Austrians made a powerful assault on the French
centre, which was checked with great difficulty. Five times the charge
was renewed, and though the enemy was finally repelled, it became
evident that Napoleon, for the first time in his career, had met with a
decided check. Night fell at length, and reluctantly he gave the order
to retreat. He had lost more than a battle, he had lost the brilliant
soldier Lannes, who fell with a mortal wound. Back to the island
of Lobau marched the French; Massena, in charge of the rear-guard,
bringing over the last regiments in safety. More than 40,000 men lay
dead and wounded on that fatal field, which remained in Austrian
hands. Napoleon, at last, was obliged to acknowledge a repulse, if not
a defeat, and the nations of Europe held up their heads with renewed
hope. It had been proved that the Corsican was not invincible.
Some of Napoleon's generals, deeply disheartened, advised an immediate
retreat, but the emperor had no thought of such a movement. It would
have brought a thousand disasters in its train. On the contrary, he
held the island of Lobau with a strong force, and brought all his
resources to bear on the construction of a bridge that would defy the
current of the stream. At the same time reinforcements were hurried
forward, until by the 1st of July, he had around Vienna an army of
150,000 men. The Austrians had probably from 135,000 to 140,000. The
archduke had, moreover, strongly fortified the positions of the recent
battle, expecting the attack upon them to be resumed.
[Illustration: THE ORDER TO CHARGE AT FRIEDLAND
At the decisive battle of Friedland, the Russian army
was incautiously drawn up within a loop of the river.
Napoleon was quick to perceive their mistake, and in
a terrible charge he carried the town, burned the
bridges, and then used his whole army to drive the
Russians into the stream.]
[Illustration: NAPOLEON AND THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA AT TILSIT
(FROM THE PAINTING BY GROS)
Tilsit is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in Eastern
Prussia. Here the Treaty of Peace between the French
and Russian Emperors and also between France and
Prussia was signed in July, 1807.]
[=The Second Crossing of the Danube=]
Napoleon had no such intention. He had selected the heights ranging
from Neusiedl to Wagram, strongly occupied by the Austrians, but not
fortified, as his point of attack, and on the night of July 4th bridges
were thrown from the island of Lobau to the mainland, and the army
which had been gathering for several days on the island began its
advance. It moved as a whole against the heights of Wagram, occupying
Aspern and Essling in its advance.
[=The Victory at Wagram=]
The great battle began on the succeeding day. It was hotly contested
at all points, but attention may be confined to the movement against
the plateau of Wagram, which had been entrusted to Marshal Davout.
The height was gained after a desperate struggle; the key of the
battlefield was held by the French; the Austrians, impetuously assailed
at every point, and driven from every point of vantage, began a
retreat. The Archduke Charles had anxiously looked for the coming of
his brother John, with the army under his command. He waited in vain,
the laggard prince failed to appear, and retreat became inevitable. The
battle had already lasted ten hours, and the French held all the strong
points of the field; but the Austrians withdrew slowly and in battle
array, presenting a front that discouraged any effort to pursue. There
was nothing resembling a rout.
The Archduke Charles retreated to Bohemia. His forces were dispersed
during the march, but he had 70,000 men with him when Napoleon reached
his front at Znaim, on the road to Prague, on the 11th of July. Further
hostilities were checked by a request for a truce, preliminary to a
peace. The battle, already begun, was stopped, and during the night
an armistice was signed. The vigor of the Austrian resistance and the
doubtful attitude of the other powers made Napoleon willing enough to
treat for terms.
[=The Peace of Vienna=]
The peace, which was finally signed at Vienna, October 14, 1809,
took from Austria 50,000 square miles of territory and 3,000,000
inhabitants, together with a war contribution of $85,000,000, while
her army was restricted to 150,000 men. The overthrow of the several
outbreaks which had taken place in north Germany, the defeat of a
British expedition against Antwerp, and the suppression of the revolt
in the Tyrol, ended all organized opposition to Napoleon, who was once
more master of the European situation.
Raised by this signal success to the summit of his power, lord
paramount of Western Europe, only one thing remained to trouble the
mind of the victorious emperor. His wife, Josephine, was childless; his
throne threatened to be left without an heir. Much as he had seemed
to love his wife, the companion of his early days, when he was an
unknown and unconsidered subaltern, seeking humbly enough for military
employment in Paris, yet ambition and the thirst for glory were always
the ruling passions in his nature, and had now grown so dominant as to
throw love and wifely devotion utterly into the shade. He resolved to
set aside his wife and seek a new bride among the princesses of Europe,
hoping in this way to leave an heir of his own blood as successor to
his imperial throne.
Negotiations were entered into with the courts of Europe to obtain a
daughter of one of the proud royal houses as the spouse of the plebeian
emperor of France. No maiden of less exalted rank than a princess of
the imperial families of Russia or Austria was high enough to meet
the ambitious aims of this proud lord of battles, and negotiations
were entered into with both, ending in the selection of Maria Louisa,
daughter of the Emperor Francis of Austria, who did not venture to
refuse a demand for his daughter's hand from the master of half his
dominions.
[=The Divorce of Josephine and Marriages of Maria
Louisa=]
Napoleon was not long in finding a plea for setting aside the wife
of his days of poverty and obscurity. A defect in the marriage was
alleged, and the transparent farce went on. The divorce of Josephine
has awakened the sympathy of a century. It was, indeed, a piteous
example of state-craft, and there can be no doubt that Napoleon
suffered in his heart while yielding to the dictates of his unbridled
ambition. The marriage with Maria Louisa, on the 2d of April, 1810, was
conducted with all possible pomp and display, no less than five queens
carrying the train of the bride in the august ceremony. The purpose of
the marriage did not fail; the next year a son was born to Napoleon.
But this imperial youth, who was dignified with the title of King of
Rome, was destined to an inglorious life, as an unconsidered tenant of
the gilded halls of his imperial grandfather of Austria.
CHAPTER IV.
The Decline and Fall of Napoleon's Empire.
[=The Causes of the Rise and Decline of Napoleon's Power=]
Ambition, unrestrained by caution, uncontrolled by moderation, has
its inevitable end. An empire built upon victory, trusting solely to
military genius, prepares for itself the elements of its overthrow.
This fact Napoleon was to learn. In the outset of his career he opposed
a new art of war to the obsolete one of his enemies, and his path to
empire was over the corpses of slaughtered armies and the ruins of
fallen kingdoms. But year by year they learned his art, in war after
war their resistance grew more stringent, each successive victory was
won with more difficulty and at greater cost, and finally, at the
crossing of the Danube, the energy and genius of Napoleon met their
equal, and the standards of France went back in defeat. It was the
tocsin of fate. His career of victory had culminated. From that day its
decline began.
[=Aims and Intrigues in Portugal and Spain=]
It is interesting to find that the first effective check to Napoleon's
victorious progress came from one of the weaker nations of Europe, a
power which the conqueror contemned and thought to move as one of the
minor pieces in his game of empire. Spain at that time had reached
almost the lowest stage of its decline. Its king was an imbecile;
the heir to the throne a weakling; Godoy, the "Prince of the Peace,"
the monarch's favorite, an ambitious intriguer. Napoleon's armies
had invaded Portugal and forced its monarch to embark for Brazil,
his American domain. A similar movement was attempted in Spain. This
country the base Godoy betrayed to Napoleon, and then, frightened by
the consequences of his dishonorable intrigues, sought to escape with
the king and court to the Spanish dominions in America. His scheme
was prevented by an outbreak of the people of Madrid, and Napoleon,
ambitiously designing to add the peninsula to his empire, induced
both Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand to resign from the throne. He
replaced them by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who, on June 6, 1808,
was named King of Spain.
[=The Bold Defiance of the People of Spain=]
Hitherto Napoleon had dealt with emperors and kings, whose overthrow
carried with it that of their people. In Spain he had a new element,
the people itself, to deal with. The very weakness of Spain proved
its strength. Deprived of their native monarchs, and given a king not
of their own choice, the whole people rose in rebellion and defied
Napoleon and his armies. An insurrection broke out in Madrid in which
1,200 French soldiers were slain. Juntas were formed in different
cities, which assumed the control of affairs and refused obedience to
the new king. From end to end of Spain the people sprang to arms and
began a guerilla warfare which the troops of Napoleon sought in vain
to quell. The bayonets of the French were able to sustain King Joseph
and his court in Madrid, but proved powerless to put down the people.
Each city, each district, became a separate centre of war, each had to
be conquered separately, and the strength of the troops was consumed
in petty contests with a people who avoided open warfare and dealt in
surprises and scattered fights, in which victory counted for little and
needed to be repeated a thousand times.
[=Spain's Brilliant Victory and King Joseph's Flight=]
The Spanish did more than this. They put an army in the field which was
defeated by the French, but they revenged themselves brilliantly at
Baylen, in Andalusia, where General Dupont, with a corps 20,000 strong,
was surrounded in a position from which there was no escape, and forced
to surrender himself and his men as prisoners of war.
This undisciplined people had gained a victory over France which none
of the great powers of Europe could match. The Spaniards were filled
with enthusiasm; King Joseph hastily abandoned Madrid; the French
armies retreated across the Ebro. Soon encouraging news came from
Portugal. The English, hitherto mainly confining themselves to naval
warfare and to aiding the enemies of Napoleon with money, had landed
an army in that country under Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Lord
Wellington) and other generals, which would have captured the entire
French army had it not capitulated on the terms of a free passage to
France. For the time being the peninsula of Spain and Portugal was free
from Napoleon's power.
[=The Heroic Defence of Saragossa=]
The humiliating reverse to his arms called Napoleon himself into the
field. He marched at the head of an army into Spain, defeated the
insurgents wherever met, and reinstated his brother on the throne. The
city of Saragossa, which made one of the most heroic defences known in
history, was taken, and the advance of the British armies was checked.
And yet, though Spain was widely overrun, the people did not yield. The
junta at Cadiz defied the French, the guerillas continued in the field,
and the invaders found themselves baffled by an enemy who was felt
oftener than seen.
The Austrian war called away the emperor and the bulk of his troops,
but after it was over he filled Spain with his veterans, increasing
the strength of the army there to 300,000 men, under his ablest
generals, Soult, Massena, Ney, Marmont, Macdonald and others. They
marched through Spain from end to end, yet, though they held all the
salient points, the people refused to submit, but from their mountain
fastnesses kept up a petty and annoying war.
[=Wellington's Career in Portugal and Spain=]
Massena, in 1811, invaded Portugal, where Wellington with an English
army awaited him behind the strong lines of Torres Vedras, which the
ever-victorious French sought in vain to carry by assault. Massena was
compelled to retreat, and Soult, by whom the emperor replaced him,
was no more successful against the shrewd English general. At length
Spain won the reward of her patriotic defence. The Russian campaign
of 1812 compelled the emperor to deplete his army in that country,
and Wellington came to the aid of the patriots, defeated Marmont at
Salamanca, entered Madrid, and forced King Joseph once more to flee
from his unquiet throne.
[=The Reward of Patriotic Valor=]
For a brief interval he was restored by the French army under Soult and
Suchet, but the disasters of the Russian campaign brought the reign of
King Joseph to a final end, and forced him to give up the pretence of
reigning over a people who were unflinchingly determined to have no
king but one of their own choice. The story of the Spanish war ends in
1813, when Wellington defeated the French at Vittoria, pursued them
across the Pyrenees, and set foot upon the soil of France.
[=A Record of Disaster=]
While these events were taking place in Spain the power of Napoleon was
being shattered to fragments in the north. On the banks of the Niemen,
a river that flows between Prussia and Poland, there gathered near the
end of June, 1812, an immense army of more than 600,000 men, attended
by an enormous multitude of non-combatants, their purpose being the
invasion of the empire of Russia. Of this great army, made up of troops
from half the nations of Europe, there reappeared six months later on
that broad stream about 16,000 armed men, almost all that were left of
that stupendous host. The remainder had perished on the desert soil or
in the frozen rivers of Russia, few of them surviving as prisoners in
Russian hands. Such was the character of the dread catastrophe that
broke the power of the mighty conqueror and delivered Europe from his
autocratic grasp.
[=Napoleon and the Czar at Enmity=]
The breach of relations between Napoleon and Alexander was largely due
to the arbitrary and high-handed proceedings of the French emperor,
who was accustomed to deal with the map of Europe as if it represented
his private domain. He offended Alexander by enlarging the duchy of
Warsaw--one of his own creations--and deeply incensed him by extending
the French empire to the shores of the Baltic, thus robbing of his
dominion the Duke of Oldenburg, a near relative of Alexander. On the
other hand the Czar declined to submit the commercial interests of his
country to the rigor of Napoleon's "continental blockade," and made a
new tariff, which interfered with the importation of French and favored
that of English goods. These and other acts in which Alexander chose
to place his own interests in advance of those of Napoleon were as
wormwood to the haughty soul of the latter, and he determined to punish
the Russian autocrat as he had done the other monarchs of Europe who
refused to submit to his dictation.
For a year or two before war was declared Napoleon had been preparing
for the greatest struggle of his life, adding to his army by the most
rigorous methods of conscription and collecting great magazines of
war material, though still professing friendship for Alexander. The
latter, however, was not deceived. He prepared, on his part, for the
threatened struggle, made peace with the Turks, and formed an alliance
with Bernadotte, the crown prince of Sweden, who had good reason to
be offended with his former lord and master. Napoleon, on his side,
allied himself with Prussia and Austria, and added to his army large
contingents of troops from the German states. At length the great
conflict was ready to begin between the two autocrats, the Emperors of
the East and the West, and Europe resounded with the tread of marching
feet.
[=The Invasion of Russia by the Grand Army=]
In the closing days of June the grand army crossed the Niemen, its last
regiments reaching Russian soil by the opening of July. Napoleon, with
the advance, pressed on to Wilna, the capital of Lithuania. On all
sides the Poles rose in enthusiastic hope, and joined the ranks of the
man whom they looked upon as their deliverer. Onward went the great
army, marching with Napoleon's accustomed rapidity, seeking to prevent
the concentration of the divided Russian forces, and advancing daily
deeper into the dominions of the czar.
[=The French Baffled by the Russian Policy=]
The French emperor had his plans well laid. He proposed to meet the
Russians in force on some interior field, win from them one of his
accustomed brilliant victories, crush them with his enormous columns,
and force the dismayed czar to sue for peace on his own terms. But
plans need two sides for their consummation, and the Russian leaders
did not propose to lose the advantage given them by nature. On and on
went Napoleon, deeper and deeper into that desolate land, but the great
army he was to crush failed to loom up before him, the broad plains
still spread onward empty of soldiers, and disquiet began to assail
his imperious soul as he found the Russian hosts keeping constantly
beyond his reach, luring him ever deeper into their vast territory.
In truth Barclay de Tolly, the czar's chief in command, had adopted a
policy which was sure to prove fatal to Napoleon's purpose, that of
persistently avoiding battle and keeping the French in pursuit of a
fleeting will-of-the-wisp, while their army wasted away from natural
disintegration in that inhospitable clime.
He was correct in his views. Desertion, illness, the death of young
recruits who could not endure the hardships of a rapid march in the
severe heat of midsummer, began their fatal work. Napoleon's plan of
campaign proved a total failure. The Russians would not wait to be
defeated, and each day's march opened a wider circle of operations
before the advancing host, whom the interminable plain filled with a
sense of hopelessness. The heat was overpowering, and men dropped from
the ranks as rapidly as though on a field of battle. At Vitebsk the
army was inspected, and the emperor was alarmed at the rapid decrease
in his forces. Some of the divisions had lost more than a fourth of
their men, in every corps the ranks were depleted, and reinforcements
already had to be set on the march.
Onward they went, here and there bringing the Russians to bay in a
minor engagement, but nowhere meeting them in numbers. Europe waited
in vain for tidings of a great battle, and Napoleon began to look upon
his proud army with a feeling akin to despair. He was not alone in
his eagerness for battle. Some of the high-spirited Russians, among
them Prince Bagration, were as eager, but as yet the prudent policy of
Barclay de Tolly prevailed.
[=Smolensk Captured and in Flames=]
On the 14th of August, the army crossed the Dnieper, and marched, now
175,000 strong, upon Smolensk, which was reached on the 16th. This
ancient and venerable town was dear to the Russians, and they made
their first determined stand in its defence, fighting behind its walls
all day of the 17th. Finding that the assault was likely to succeed,
they set fire to the town at night and withdrew, leaving to the French
a city in flames. The bridge was cut, the Russian army was beyond
pursuit on the road to Moscow, nothing had been gained by the struggle
but the ruins of a town.
The situation was growing desperate. For two months the army had
advanced without a battle of importance, and was soon in the heart
of Russia, reduced to half its numbers, while the hoped-for victory
seemed as far off as ever. And the short summer of the north was
nearing its end. The severe winter of that climate would soon begin.
Discouragement everywhere prevailed. Efforts were made by Napoleon's
marshals to induce him to give up the losing game and retreat, but
he was not to be moved from his purpose. A march on Moscow, the old
capital of the empire, he felt sure would bring the Russians to bay.
Once within its walls he hoped to dictate terms of peace.
Napoleon was soon to have the battle for which his soul craved.
Barclay's prudent and successful policy was not to the taste of many of
the Russian leaders, and the czar was at length induced to replace him
by fiery old Kutusoff, who had commanded the Russians at Austerlitz.
A change in the situation was soon apparent. On the 5th of September
the French army debouched upon the plain of Borodino, on the road to
Moscow, and the emperor saw with joy the Russian army drawn up to
dispute the way to the "Holy City" of the Muscovites. The dark columns
of troops were strongly intrenched behind a small stream, frowning
rows of guns threatened the advancing foe, and hope returned to the
emperor's heart.
[=The Battle of Borodino=]
Battle began early on the 7th, and continued all day long, the Russians
defending their ground with unyielding stubbornness, the French
attacking their positions with all their old impetuous dash and energy.
Murat and Ney were the heroes of the day. Again and again the emperor
was implored to send the imperial guard and overwhelm the foe, but he
persistently refused. "If there is a second battle to-morrow," he said,
"what troops shall I fight it with? It is not when one is eight hundred
leagues from home that he risks his last resource."
The guard was not needed. On the following day Kutusoff was obliged to
withdraw, leaving no less than 40,000 dead or wounded on the field.
Among the killed was the brave Prince Bagration. The retreat was an
orderly one. Napoleon found it expedient not to pursue. His own losses
aggregated over 30,000, among them an unusual number of generals, of
whom ten were killed and thirty-nine wounded. Three days proved a brief
time to attend to the burial of the dead and the needs of the wounded.
Napoleon named the engagement the Battle of the Moskwa, from the river
that crossed the plain, and honored Ney, as the hero of the day, with
the title of Prince of Moskwa.
[Illustration: MARSHAL NEY RETREATING FROM RUSSIA
Marshal Ney, who commanded the rear-guard of
Napoleon's army during the retreat from Russia, won
imperishable fame by his brilliant and daring deeds.
Had it not been for his courage and military skill it
is doubtful if a man of that great army would have
escaped from the frozen soil of the north.]
[Illustration: GENERAL BLÜCHER'S FALL AT LIGNY
General Blucher, "Marshal Forward" as he was called,
from his intrepid boldness, was a veteran of over
seventy years of age at the date of the battle of
Waterloo. He was defeated at Ligny, and during the
battle was unhorsed and charged over by the French and
Prussian cavalry. He reached with his troops the field
of Waterloo in time to decide that battle against the
French.]
[=The First Sight of the Holy City of Russia=]
On the 15th the Holy City was reached. A shout of "Moscow! Moscow!"
went up from the whole army as they gazed on the gilded cupolas and
magnificent buildings of that famous city, brilliantly lit up by the
afternoon sun. Twenty miles in circumference, dazzling with the green
of its copper domes and its minarets of yellow stone, the towers
and walls of the famous Kremlin rising above its palaces and gardens,
it seemed like some fabled city of the Arabian Nights. With renewed
enthusiasm the troops rushed towards it, while whole regiments of Poles
fell on their knees, thanking God for delivering this stronghold of
their oppressors into their hands.
[=The Grand Army in the Old Russian Capital=]
It was an empty city into which the French marched; its streets
deserted, its dwellings silent. Its busy life had vanished like a
morning mist. Kutusoff had marched his army through it and left it
to his foes. The inhabitants were gone, with what they could carry
of their treasures. The city, like the empire, seemed likely to be a
barren conquest, for here, as elsewhere, the policy of retreat, so
fatal to Napoleon's hopes, was put into effect. The emperor took up his
abode in the Kremlin, within whose ample precincts he found quarters
for the whole imperial guard. The remainder of the army was stationed
at chosen points about the city. Provisions were abundant, the houses
and stores of the city being amply supplied. The army enjoyed a luxury
of which it had been long deprived, while Napoleon confidently awaited
a triumphant result from his victorious progress.
[=The Burning of the Great City of Moscow.=]
A terrible disenchantment awaited the invader. Early on the following
morning word was brought him that Moscow was on fire. Flames arose
from houses that had not been opened. It was evidently a premeditated
conflagration. The fire burst out at once in a dozen quarters, and
a high wind carried the flames from street to street, from house to
house, from church to church. Russians were captured who boasted that
they had fired the town under orders and who met death unflinchingly.
The governor had left them behind for this fell purpose. The poorer
people, many of whom had remained hidden in their huts, now fled in
terror, taking with them what cherished possessions they could carry.
Soon the city was a seething mass of flames.
The Kremlin did not escape. A tower burst into flames. In vain the
imperial guard sought to check the fire. No fire-engines were to be
found in the town. Napoleon hastily left the palace and sought shelter
outside the city, where for three days the flames ran riot, feeding on
ancient palaces and destroying untold treasures. Then the wind sank and
rain poured upon the smouldering embers. The great city had become a
desolate heap of smoking ruins, into which the soldiers daringly stole
back in search of valuables that might have escaped the flames.
This frightful conflagration was not due to the czar, but to Count
Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, who was subsequently driven from
Russia by the execrations of those he had ruined. But it served as a
proclamation to Europe of the implacable resolution of the Muscovites
and their determination to resist to the bitter end.
Napoleon, sadly troubled in soul, sent letters to Alexander, suggesting
the advisability of peace. Alexander left his letters unanswered. Until
October 18th the emperor waited, hoping against hope, willing to grant
almost any terms for an opportunity to escape from the fatal trap into
which his overweening ambition had led him. No answer came from the
czar. He was inflexible in his determination not to treat with these
invaders of his country. In deep dejection Napoleon at length gave the
order to retreat--too late, as it was to prove, since the terrible
Russian winter was ready to descend upon them in all its frightful
strength.
[=The Grand Army Begins Its Retreat=]
The army that left that ruined city was a sadly depleted one. It had
been reduced to 103,000 men. The army followers had also become greatly
decreased in numbers, but still formed a host, among them delicate
ladies, thinly clad, who gazed with terrified eyes from their traveling
carriages upon the dejected troops. Articles of plunder of all kinds
were carried by the soldiers, even the wounded in the wagons lying amid
the spoil they had gathered. The Kremlin was destroyed by the rear
guard, under Napoleon's orders, and over the drear Russian plains the
retreat began.
It was no sooner under way than the Russian policy changed. From
retreating, they everywhere advanced, seeking to annoy and cut off the
enemy, and utterly to destroy the fugitive army if possible. A stand
was made at the town of Maloi-Yaroslavitz, where a sanguinary combat
took place. The French captured the town, but ten thousand men lay
dead or wounded on the field, while Napoleon was forced to abandon his
projected line of march, and to return by the route he had followed in
his advance on Moscow. From the bloody scene of contest the retreat
continued, the battlefield of Borodino being crossed, and, by the
middle of November, the ruins of Smolensk reached.
[=The Sad Remnant of the Army of Invasion=]
Winter was now upon the French in all its fury. The food brought from
Moscow had been exhausted. Famine, frost, and fatigue had proved more
fatal than the bullets of the enemy. In fourteen days after reaching
Moscow the army lost 43,000 men, leaving it only 60,000 strong. On
reaching Smolensk it numbered but 42,000, having lost 18,000 more
within eight days. The unarmed followers are said to have still
numbered 60,000. Worse still, the supply of arms and provisions ordered
to be ready at Smolensk was in great part lacking, only rye-flour and
rice being found. Starvation threatened to aid the winter cold in the
destruction of the feeble remnant of the "Grand Army."
Onward went the despairing host, at every step harassed by the
Russians, who followed like wolves on their path. Ney, in command of
the rear-guard, was the hero of the retreat. Cut off by the Russians
from the main column, and apparently lost beyond hope, he made a
wonderful escape by crossing the Dnieper on the ice during the night
and rejoining his companions, who had given up the hope of ever seeing
him again.
[=The Dreadful Crossing of the Beresina=]
On the 26th the ice-cold river Beresina was reached, destined to be
the most terrible point on the whole dreadful march. Two bridges were
thrown in all haste across the stream, and most of the men under arms
crossed, but 18,000 stragglers fell into the hands of the enemy. How
many were trodden to death in the press or were crowded from the bridge
into the icy river cannot be told. It is said that when spring thawed
the ice 30,000 bodies were found and burned on the banks of the stream.
A mere fragment of the great army remained alive. Ney was the last man
to cross that frightful stream.
On the 3d of December Napoleon issued a bulletin which has become
famous, telling the anxious nations of Europe that the grand army
was annihilated, but the emperor was safe. Two days afterwards he
surrendered the command of the army to Murat and set out at all speed
for Paris, where his presence was indispensably necessary. On the 13th
of December some 16,000 haggard and staggering men, almost too weak to
hold the arms to which they still despairingly clung, recrossed the
Niemen, which the grand army had passed in such magnificent strength
and with such abounding resources less than six months before. It was
the greatest and most astounding disaster in the military history of
the world.
This tale of terror may be fitly closed by a dramatic story told by
General Mathieu Dumas, who, while sitting at breakfast in Gumbinnen,
saw enter a haggard man, with long beard, blackened face, and red and
glaring eyes.
"I am here at last," he exclaimed. "Don't you know me?"
"No," said the general. "Who are you?"
"I am the rear-guard of the Grand Army. I have fired the last
musket-shot on the bridge of Kowno. I have thrown the last of our arms
into the Niemen, and came hither through the woods. I am Marshal Ney."
"This is the beginning of the end," said the shrewd Talleyrand, when
Napoleon set out on his Russian campaign. The remark proved true,
the disaster in Russia had loosened the grasp of the Corsican on the
throat of Europe, and the nations, which hated as much as they feared
their ruthless enemy, made active preparations for his overthrow.
While he was in France, actively gathering men and materials for a
renewed struggle, signs of an implacable hostility began to manifest
themselves on all sides in the surrounding states. Belief in the
invincibility of Napoleon had vanished, and little fear was entertained
of the raw conscripts whom he was forcing into the ranks to replace his
slaughtered veterans.
[=Europe in Arms Against Napoleon=]
Prussia was the first to break the bonds of alliance with France, to
ally itself with Russia, and to call its people to arms against their
oppressor. They responded with the utmost enthusiasm, men of all ranks
and all professions hastened to their country's defence, and the noble
and the peasant stood side by side as privates in the same regiment. In
March, 1813, the French left Berlin, which was immediately occupied by
the Russian and Prussian allies. The king of Saxony, however, refused
to desert Napoleon, to whom he owed many favors and whose anger he
feared; and his State, in consequence, became the theatre of the war.
[=The Opening of the Final Struggle=]
Across the opposite borders of this kingdom poured the hostile hosts,
meeting in battle at Lützen and Buntzen. Here the French held the
field, driving their adversaries across the Oder, but not in the wild
dismay seen at Jena. A new spirit had been aroused in the Prussian
heart, and they left thousands of their enemies dead upon the field,
among whom Napoleon saw with grief his especial friend and favorite
Duroc.
A truce followed, which the French emperor utilized in gathering fresh
levies. Prince Metternich, the able chancellor of the Austrian empire,
sought to make peace, but his demands upon Napoleon were much greater
than the proud conqueror was prepared to grant, and he decisively
refused to cede the territory held by him as the spoils of war. His
refusal brought upon him another powerful foe, Austria allied itself
with his enemies, formally declaring war on August 12, 1813, and an
active and terrible struggle began.
[=The Battle of Dresden, Napoleon's Last Great Victory=]
Napoleon's army was rapidly concentrated at Dresden, upon whose works
of defence the allied army precipitated itself in a vigorous assault
on August 26th. Its strength was wasted against the vigorously held
fortifications of the city, and in the end the gates were flung open
and the serried battalions of the Old Guard appeared in battle array.
From every gate of the city these tried soldiers poured, and rushed
upon the unprepared wings of the hostile host. Before this resistless
charge the enemy recoiled, retreating with heavy loss to the heights
beyond the city, and leaving Napoleon master of the field.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF DRESDEN, AUGUST 26 AND 27, 1813
At Dresden, August 26 and 27, 1813, Napoleon gained
the last of his many great victories, against a large
army of Austrian, Prussian and Russian allies. In
this hard-fought battle Murat, the dashing cavalry
leader, was the hero of the day. Never had he led more
effectively his "whirlwinds of cavalry," and most of
the honors of the day fell to his daring cuirassiers.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM M. THACKERAY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
SIR WALTER SCOTT
CHARLES DICKENS
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Famous English Novelists.]
On the next morning the battle was resumed. The allies, strongly
posted, still outnumbered the French, and had abundant reason to
expect victory. But Napoleon's eagle eye quickly saw that their left
wing lacked the strength of the remainder of the line, and upon this
he poured the bulk of his forces, while keeping their centre and right
actively engaged. The result justified the instinct of his genius, the
enemy was driven back in disastrous defeat, and once again a glorious
victory was inscribed upon the banners of France--the final one in
Napoleon's career of fame.
[=A Series of French Disasters=]
Yet the fruits of this victory were largely lost in the events of
the remainder of the month. On the 26th Blücher brilliantly defeated
Marshal Macdonald on the Katzbach, in Silesia; on the 30th General
Vandamme, with 10,000 French soldiers, was surrounded and captured
at Culm, in Bohemia; and on the 27th Hirschfeld, at Hagelsberg, with
a corps of volunteers, defeated Girard. The Prussian-Swedish army
similarly won victories on August 25th and September 6th, and a few
weeks afterward the Prussian general, Count York, supported by the
troops of General Horn, crossed the Elbe in the face of the enemy, and
gained a brilliant victory at Wartenburg. Where Napoleon was present
victory inclined to his banner. Where he was absent his lieutenants
suffered defeat. The struggle was everywhere fierce and desperate, but
the end was at hand.
[=The Fatal Meeting of the Armies at Leipzig=]
The rulers of the Rhine Confederation now began to desert Napoleon
and all Germany to join against him. The first to secede was Bavaria,
which allied itself with Austria and joined its forces to those of the
allies. During October the hostile armies concentrated in front of
Leipzig, where was to be fought the decisive battle of the war. The
struggle promised was the most gigantic one in which Napoleon had ever
been engaged. Against his 100,000 men was gathered a host of 300,000
Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and Swedes.
We have not space to describe the multitudinous details of this mighty
struggle, which continued with unabated fury for three days, October
16th, 17th, and 18th. It need scarcely be said that the generalship
shown by Napoleon in this famous contest lacked nothing of his usual
brilliancy, and that he was ably seconded by Ney, Murat, Augereau,
and others of his famous generals, yet the overwhelming numbers of
the enemy enabled them to defy all the valor of the French and the
resources of their great leader, and at evening of the 18th the armies
still faced each other in battle array, the fate of the field yet
undecided.
Napoleon was in no condition to renew the combat. During the long
affray the French had expended no less than 250,000 cannon balls.
They had but 16,000 left, which two hours' firing would exhaust.
Reluctantly he gave the order to retreat, and all that night the
wearied and disheartened troops filed through the gates of Leipzig,
leaving a rear-guard in the city, who defended it bravely against the
swarming multitude of the foe. A disastrous blunder terminated their
stubborn defence. Orders had been left to blow up the bridge across the
Elster, but the mine was, by mistake, set off too soon, and the gallant
garrison, 12,000 in number, with a multitude of sick and wounded, was
forced to surrender as prisoners of war.
The end was drawing near. Vigorously pursued, the French reached
the Rhine by forced marches, defeating with heavy loss the army of
Austrians and Bavarians which sought to block their way. The stream was
crossed and the French were once more upon their own soil. After years
of contest, Germany was finally freed from Napoleon's long-victorious
hosts.
[=The Break-up of Napoleon's European Empire=]
Marked results followed. The carefully organized work of Napoleon's
policy quickly fell to pieces. The kingdom of Westphalia was dissolved.
The elector of Hesse and the dukes of Brunswick and Oldenburg returned
to the thrones from which they had been driven. The Confederation
of the Rhine ceased to exist, and its states allied themselves with
Austria. Denmark, long faithful to France, renounced its alliance
in January, 1814. Austria regained possession of Lombardy, the duke
of Tuscany returned to his capital, and the Pope, Pius VII., long
held captive by Napoleon, came back in triumph to Rome. A few months
sufficed to break down the edifice of empire slowly reared through so
many years, and almost all Europe outside of France united itself in
hostility to its hated foe.
Napoleon was offered peace if he would accept the Rhine as the French
frontier, but his old infatuation and trust in his genius prevailed
over the dictates of prudence, he treated the offer in his usual
double-dealing way, and the allies, convinced that there could be no
stable peace while he remained on the throne, decided to cross the
Rhine and invade France.
[=The War in France and the Abdication of the Emperor=]
Blücher led his columns across the stream on the first day of 1814,
Schwarzenberg marched through Switzerland into France, and Wellington
crossed the Pyrenees. Napoleon, like a wolf brought to bay, sought to
dispose of his scattered foes before they would unite, and began with
Blücher, whom he defeated five times within as many days. The allies,
still in dread of their great opponent, once more offered him peace,
but his success robbed him of wisdom, he demanded more than they were
willing to give, and his enemies, encouraged by a success gained by
Blücher, broke off the negotiations and marched on Paris, now bent on
the dethronement of their dreaded antagonist.
A few words will bring the story of this contest to an end. France
was exhausted, its army was incapable of coping with the serried
battalions marshalled against it, Paris surrendered before Napoleon
could come to its defence, and in the end the emperor, vacillating and
in despair, was obliged, on April 7, 1814, to sign an unconditional
act of abdication. The powers of Europe awarded him as a kingdom the
diminutive island of Elba, in the Mediterranean, with an annual income
of 2,000,000 francs and an army composed of 400 of his famous guard.
The next heir to the throne returned as Louis XVIII. France was given
back its old frontier of 1492, the foreign armies withdrew from her
soil, and the career of the great Corsican seemed at an end.
In spite of their long experience with Napoleon, the event proved that
the powers of Europe knew not all the audacity and mental resources
of the man with whom they had to deal. They had made what might have
proved a fatal error in giving him an asylum so near the coast of
France, whose people, intoxicated with the dream of glory through which
he had so long led them, would be sure to respond enthusiastically to
an appeal to rally to his support.
[=Napoleon Returns from Elba=]
The powers were soon to learn their error. While the Congress of
Vienna, convened to restore the old constitution of Europe, was
deliberating and disputing, its members were startled by the news that
the dethroned emperor was again upon the soil of France, and that Louis
XVIII. was in full flight for the frontier. Napoleon had landed on
March 1, 1815, and set out on his return to Paris, the army and the
people rapidly gathering to his support. On the 30th he entered the
Tuileries in a blaze of triumph, the citizens, thoroughly dissatisfied
with their brief experience of Bourbon rule, going mad with enthusiasm
in his welcome.
Thus began the famous period of the "Hundred Days." The powers declared
Napoleon to be the "enemy of nations," and armed a half million of men
for his final overthrow. The fate of his desperate attempt was soon
decided. For the first time he was to meet the British in battle, and
in Wellington to encounter the only man who had definitely made head
against his legions. A British army was dispatched in all haste to
Belgium, Blücher with his Prussians hastened to the same region, and
the mighty final struggle was at hand. The persistent and unrelenting
enemies of the Corsican conqueror, the British islanders, were destined
to be the agents of his overthrow.
[=The Gathering of the Armies in Belgium=]
The little kingdom of Belgium was the scene of the momentous contest
that brought Napoleon's marvelous career to an end. Thither he led
his army, largely made up of new conscripts; and thither the English
and the Prussians hastened to meet him. On June 16, 1815, the prelude
to the great battle took place. Napoleon met Blücher at Ligny and
defeated him; then, leaving Grouchy to pursue the Prussians, he turned
against his island foes. On the same day Ney encountered the forces of
Wellington at Quatre Bras, but failed to drive them back. On the 17th
Wellington took a new position at Waterloo, and awaited there his great
antagonist.
[=The Terrible Defeat at Waterloo=]
June 18th was the crucial day in Napoleon's career, the one in which
his power was to fall, never to rise again. Here we shall but sketch
in outline this famous battle, reserving a fuller account of it for
our next chapter, under the story of Wellington, the victor in the
fray. The stupendous struggle, as Wellington himself described it, was
"a battle of giants." Long the result wavered in the balance. All day
long the British sustained the desperate assaults of their antagonists.
Terrible was the contest, frightful the loss of life. Hour after hour
passed, charge after charge was hurled by Napoleon against the British
lines, which still closed up over the dead and stood firm; and it
seemed as if night would fall with the two armies unflinchingly face to
face, neither of them victor in the terrible fray.
The arrival of Blücher with his Prussians turned the scale. To
Napoleon's bitter disappointment Grouchy, who should have been close
on the heels of the Prussians, failed to appear, and the weary and
dejected French were left to face these fresh troops without support.
Napoleon's Old Guard in vain flung itself into the gap, and the French
nation long repeated in pride the saying attributed to the commander of
this famous corps: "The guard dies, but it never surrenders."
[=Napoleon Meets His Fate=]
In the end the French army broke and fled in disastrous rout,
three-fourths of the whole force being left dead, wounded, or
prisoners, while all its artillery became the prize of the victors.
Napoleon, pale and confused, was led by Soult from the battlefield. It
was his last fight. His abdication was demanded, and he resigned the
crown in favor of his son. A hopeless and unnerved fugitive, he fled
from Paris to Rochefort, hoping to escape to America. But the British
fleet held that port, and in despair he went on board a vessel of the
fleet, trusting himself to the honor of the British nation. But the
statesmen of England had no sympathy with the vanquished adventurer,
from whose ambition Europe had suffered so terribly. He was sent as a
state prisoner to the island of St. Helena, there to end his days. His
final hour of glory came in 1842, when his ashes were brought in pomp
and display to Paris.
[Illustration: THE EVE OF WATERLOO
No more impressive scene could be imagined than this
peaceful slumber of an army on the eve of what was to
prove one of the most famous battles of history. On
the succeeding night many of these slumberers slept
the sleep of death, but their hands had brought to an
end the career of Napoleon.]
[Illustration: WELLINGTON AT WATERLOO GIVING THE WORD TO ADVANCE
This spirited illustration figures the final event
in the mighty struggle at Waterloo when the French,
after hurling themselves a dozen times against the
unyielding British ranks, like storm waves upon a
rock-bound shore, staggered back in despair, and
Wellington gave the magic word of command: "Let all
the line advance!" Those words signified the final
downfall of Napoleon.]
CHAPTER V.
Nelson and Wellington, the Champions of England.
[=England and France on Land and Sea=]
For nearly twenty years went on the stupendous struggle between
Napoleon the Great and the powers of Europe, but in all that time, and
among the multitude of men who met the forces of France in battle,
only two names emerge which the world cares to remember, those of
Horatio Nelson, the most famous of the admirals of England, and Lord
Wellington, who alone seemed able to overthrow the greatest military
genius of modern times. On land the efforts of Napoleon were seconded
by the intrepidity of a galaxy of heroes, Ney, Murat, Moreau, Massena,
and other men of fame. At sea the story reads differently. That era of
stress and strain raised no great admiral in the service of France; her
ships were feebly commanded, and the fleet of Great Britain, under the
daring Nelson, kept its proud place as mistress of the sea.
[=Nelson Discovers the French Fleet in Aboukir Bay=]
The first proof of this came before the opening of the century, when
Napoleon, led by the ardor of his ambition, landed in Egypt, with vague
hopes of rivaling in the East the far-famed exploits of Alexander the
Great. The fleet which bore him thither remained moored in Aboukir
Bay, where Nelson, scouring the Mediterranean in quest of it, first
came in sight of its serried line of ships on August 1, 1798. One
alternative alone dwelt in his courageous soul, that of a heroic death
or a glorious victory. "Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained
a victory or Westminster Abbey," he said.
In the mighty contest that followed, the French had the advantage in
numbers, alike of ships, guns, and men. They were drawn up in a strong
and compact line of battle, moored in a manner that promised to bid
defiance to a force double their own. They lay in an open roadstead,
but had every advantage of situation, the British fleet being obliged
to attack them in a position carefully chosen for defence. Only the
genius of Nelson enabled him to overcome those advantages of the enemy.
"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry, on
hearing the admiral's plan of battle. "There is no if in the case,"
answered the admiral. "That we shall succeed is certain: who may live
to tell the story, is a very different question."
[=The Glorious Battle of the Nile=]
The story of the "Battle of the Nile" belongs to the record of
eighteenth century affairs. All we need say here is that it ended in
a glorious victory for the English fleet. Of thirteen ships of the
line in the French fleet, only two escaped. Of four frigates, one was
sunk and one burned. The British loss was 895 men. Of the French,
5,225 perished in the terrible fray. Nelson sprang, in a moment, from
the position of a man without fame into that of the naval hero of the
world--as Dewey did in as famous a fray almost exactly a century later.
Congratulations and honors were showered upon him, the Sultan of Turkey
rewarded him with costly presents, valuable testimonials came from
other quarters, and his own country honored him with the title of Baron
Nelson of the Nile, and settled upon him for life a pension of £2,000.
The first great achievement of Nelson in the nineteenth century was the
result of a daring resolution of the statesmen of England, in their
desperate contest with the Corsican conqueror. By his exploit at the
Nile the admiral had very seriously weakened the sea-power of France.
But there were powers then in alliance with France--Russia, Sweden and
Denmark--which had formed a confederacy to make England respect their
naval rights, and whose combined fleet, if it should come to the aid of
France, might prove sufficient to sweep the ships of England from the
seas.
The weakest of these powers, and the one most firmly allied to France,
was Denmark, whose fleet, consisting of twenty-three ships of the line
and about thirty-one frigates and smaller vessels, lay at Copenhagen.
At any moment this powerful fleet might be put at the disposal of
Napoleon. This possible danger the British cabinet resolved to avoid.
A plan was laid to destroy the fleet of the Danes, and on the 12th of
March, 1801, the British fleet sailed with the purpose of putting this
resolution into effect.
[=The Fleet Sails for Copenhagen=]
Nelson, then bearing the rank of vice-admiral, went with the fleet, but
only as second in command. To the disgust of the English people, Sir
Hyde Parker, a brave and able seaman, but one whose name history has
let sink into oblivion, was given chief command--a fact which would
have insured the failure of the expedition if Nelson had not set aside
precedent, and put glory before duty. Parker, indeed, soon set Nelson
chafing by long drawn-out negotiations, which proved useless, wasted
time, and saved the Danes from being taken by surprise. When, on the
morning of April 30th, the British fleet at length advanced through
the Sound and came in sight of the Danish line of defence, they beheld
formidable preparations to meet them.
[=The Danish Line of Defence=]
Eighteen vessels, including full-rigged ships and hulks, were moored
in a line nearly a mile and a half in length, flanked to the northward
by two artificial islands mounted with sixty-eight heavy cannon
and supplied with furnaces for heating shot. Near by lay two large
block-ships. Across the harbor's mouth extended a massive chain, and
shore batteries commanded the channel. Outside the harbor's mouth were
moored two 74-gun ships, a 40-gun frigate, and some smaller vessels. In
addition to these defences, which stretched for nearly four miles in
length, was the difficulty of the channel, always hazardous from its
shoals, and now beaconed with false buoys for the purpose of luring the
British ships to destruction.
With modern defences--rapid-fire guns and steel-clad batteries--the
enterprise would have been hopeless, but the art of defence was then
at a far lower level. Nelson, who led the van in the 74-gun ship
_Elephant_, gazed on these preparations with admiration, but with no
evidence of doubt as to the result. The British fleet consisted of
eighteen line of battle ships, with a large number of frigates and
other craft, and with this force, and his indomitable spirit, he felt
confident of breaking these formidable lines.
[=The Attack on the Danish Fleet=]
At ten o'clock on the morning of April 2d the battle began, two of
the British ships running aground almost before a gun was fired. At
sight of this disaster Nelson instantly changed his plan of sailing,
starboarded his helm, and sailed in, dropping anchor within a cable's
length of the _Dannebrog_, of 62 guns. The other ships followed his
example, avoiding the shoals on which the _Bellona_ and _Russell_ had
grounded, and taking position at the close quarters of 100 fathoms from
the Danish ships.
A terrific cannonade followed, kept up by both sides with unrelenting
fury for three hours, and with terrible effect on the contesting
ships and their crews. At this juncture took place an event that has
made Nelson's name immortal among naval heroes. Admiral Parker, whose
flag-ship lay at a distance from the hot fight, but who heard the
incessant and furious fire and saw the grounded ships flying signals of
distress, began to fear that Nelson was in serious danger, from which
it was his duty to withdraw him. At about one o'clock he reluctantly
hoisted a signal for the action to cease.
At this moment Nelson was pacing the quarter-deck of the _Elephant_,
inspired with all the fury of the fight. "It is a warm business,"
he said to Colonel Stewart, who was on the ship with him; "and any
moment may be the last of either of us; but, mark you, I would not for
thousands be anywhere else."
As he spoke the flag-lieutenant reported that the signal to cease
action was shown on the mast-head of the flag-ship _London_, and asked
if he should report it to the fleet.
"No," was the stern answer; "merely acknowledge it. Is our signal for
'close action' still flying?"
"Yes," replied the officer.
[=How Nelson Answered the Signal to Cease Action=]
"Then see that you keep it so," said Nelson, the stump of his amputated
arm working as it usually did when he was agitated. "Do you know," he
asked Colonel Stewart, "the meaning of signal No. 39, shown by Parker's
ships?"
"No. What does it mean?"
"To leave off action!" He was silent a moment, then burst out, "Now
damn me if I do!"
Turning to Captain Foley, who stood near him, he said: "Foley, you know
I have only one eye; I have a right to be blind sometimes." He raised
his telescope, applied it to his blind eye, and said: "I really do not
see the signal."
On roared the guns, overhead on the _Elephant_ still streamed the
signal for "close action," and still the torrent of British balls
rent the Danish ships. In half an hour more the fire of the Danes was
fast weakening. In an hour it had nearly ceased. They had suffered
frightfully, in ships and lives, and only the continued fire of the
shore batteries now kept the contest alive. It was impossible to take
possession of the prizes, and Nelson sent a flag of truce ashore with a
letter in which he threatened to burn the vessels, with all on board,
unless the shore fire was stopped. This threat proved effective, the
fire ended, the great battle was at an end.
At four o'clock Nelson went on board the _London_, to meet the admiral.
He was depressed in spirit, and said: "I have fought contrary to
orders, and may be hanged; never mind, let them."
There was no danger of this; Parker was not that kind of man. He had
raised the signal through fear for Nelson's safety, and now gloried in
his success, giving congratulations where his subordinate looked for
blame. The Danes had fought bravely and stubbornly, but they had no
commander of the spirit and genius of Nelson, and were forced to yield
to British pluck and endurance. Until June 13th, Nelson remained in the
Baltic, watching the Russian fleet which he might still have to fight.
Then came orders for his return home, and word reached him that he had
been created Viscount Nelson for his services.
[=Nelson in Chase of the French Fleet=]
There remains to describe the last and most famous of Nelson's
exploits, that in which he put an end to the sea-power of France, by
destroying the remainder of her fleet at Trafalgar, and met death
at the moment of victory. Four years had passed since the fight at
Copenhagen. During much of that time Nelson had kept his fleet on guard
off Toulon, impatiently waiting until the enemy should venture from
that port of refuge. At length, the combined fleet of France and Spain,
now in alliance, escaped his vigilance, and sailed to the West Indies
to work havoc in the British colonies. He followed them thither in all
haste; and subsequently, on their return to France, he chased them back
across the seas, burning with eagerness to bring them to bay.
[=The Allied Fleet Leaves Cadiz=]
On the 19th of October, 1805, the allied fleet put to sea from the
harbor of Cadiz, confident that its great strength would enable
it to meet any force the British had upon the waves. Admiral De
Villeneuve, with thirty-three ships of the line and a considerable
number of smaller craft, had orders to force the straits of Gibraltar,
land troops at Naples, sweep British cruisers and commerce from the
Mediterranean, and then seek the port of Toulon to refit. As it turned
out, he never reached the straits, his fleet meeting its fate before
it could leave the Atlantic waves. Nelson had reached the coast of
Europe again, and was close at hand when the doomed ships of the allies
appeared. Two swift ocean scouts saw the movements, and hastened to
Lord Nelson with the welcome news that the long-deferred moment was
at hand. On the 21st, the British fleet came within view, and the
following signal was set on the mast-head of the flag-ship:
"The French and Spaniards are out at last; they outnumber us in ships
and guns and men; we are on the eve of the greatest sea-fight in
history."
On came the ships, great lumbering craft, strangely unlike the
war-vessels of to-day. Instead of the trim, grim, steel-clad,
steam-driven modern battle-ship, with its revolving turret, and great
frowning, breech-loading guns, sending their balls through miles of
air, those were bluff-bowed, ungainly hulks, with bellying sides
towering like black walls above the sea as if to make the largest mark
possible for hostile shot, with a great show of muzzle-loading guns of
small range, while overhead rose lofty spars and spreading sails. Ships
they were that to-day would be sent to the bottom in five minutes of
fight, but which, mated against others of the same build, were capable
of giving a gallant account of themselves.
[=Off Cape Trafalgar=]
It was off the shoals of Cape Trafalgar, near the southern extremity
of Spain, that the two fleets met, and such a tornado of fire as has
rarely been seen upon the ocean waves was poured from their broad and
lofty sides. As they came together there floated from the masthead of
the _Victory_, Nelson's flagship, that signal which has become the
watchword of the British isles: "England expects that every man will do
his duty."
[=The "Victory" and Her Brilliant Fight=]
We cannot follow the fortunes of all the vessels in that stupendous
fray, the most famous sea-fight in history. It must serve to follow
the _Victory_ in her course, in which Nelson eagerly sought to thrust
himself into the heart of the fight and dare death in his quest for
victory. He was not long in meeting his wish. Soon he found himself
in a nest of enemies, eight ships at once pouring their fire upon his
devoted vessel, which could not bring a gun to bear in return, the wind
having died away and the ship lying almost motionless upon the waves.
Before the _Victory_ was able to fire a shot fifty of her men had
fallen killed or wounded, and her canvas was pierced and rent till
it looked like a series of fishing nets. But the men stuck to their
guns with unyielding tenacity, and at length their opportunity came. A
68-pounder carronade, loaded with a round shot and 500 musket balls,
was fired into the cabin windows of the _Bucentaure_, with such
terrible effect as to disable 400 men and 20 guns, and put the ship
practically out of the fight.
The _Victory_ next turned upon the _Neptune_ and the _Redoubtable_, of
the enemy's fleet. The _Neptune_, not liking her looks, kept off, but
she collided and locked spars with the _Redoubtable_, and a terrific
fight began. On the opposite side of the _Redoubtable_ came the British
ship _Temeraire_, and opposite it again a second ship of the enemy, the
four vessels lying bow to bow, and rending one another's sides with an
incessant hail of balls. On the _Victory_ the gunners were ordered to
depress their pieces, that the balls should not go through and wound
the _Temeraire_ beyond. The muzzles of their cannon fairly touched the
enemy's side, and after each shot a bucket of water was dashed into the
rent, that they may not set fire to the vessel which they confidently
expected to take as a prize.
In the midst of the hot contest came the disaster already spoken of.
Brass swivels were mounted in the French ship's tops to sweep with
their fire the deck of their foe, and as Nelson and Captain Hardy paced
together their poop deck, regardless of danger, the admiral suddenly
fell. A ball from one of these guns had reached the noblest mark on the
fleet.
[=The Great Battle and its Sad Disaster=]
"They have done for me at last, Hardy," the fallen man said.
"Don't say you are hit!" cried Hardy in dismay.
"Yes, my backbone is shot through."
His words were not far from the truth. He never arose from that fatal
shot. Yet, dying as he was, his spirit survived.
"I hope none of our ships have struck, Hardy," he feebly asked, in a
later interval of the fight.
"No, my lord. There is small fear of that."
"I'm a dead man, Hardy, but I'm glad of what you say. Whip them now
you've got them. Whip them as they've never been whipped before."
Another hour passed. Hardy came below again to say that fourteen or
fifteen of the enemy's ships had struck.
"That's better, though I bargained for twenty," said the dying man.
"And now, anchor, Hardy--anchor."
"I suppose, my lord, that Admiral Collingwood will now take the
direction of affairs."
"Not while I live," exclaimed Nelson, with a momentary return of
energy. "Do _you_ anchor, Hardy."
"Then shall _we_ make the signal, my lord."
"Yes, for if I live, I'll anchor."
[=Victory for England and Death for Her Famous Admiral=]
That was the end. Five minutes later Horatio Nelson, England's greatest
sea champion, was dead. He had won both prizes he sought for in the
battle of the Nile--victory and Westminster Abbey.
Collingwood did not anchor, but stood out to sea with the eighteen
prizes of the hard fought fray. In the gale that followed many of the
results of victory were lost, four of the ships being retaken, some
wrecked on shore, some foundering at sea, only four reaching British
waters in Gibraltar Bay. But whatever was lost, Nelson's fame was
secure, and the victory at Trafalgar is treasured as one of the most
famous triumphs of British arms.
The naval battle at Copenhagen, won by Nelson, was followed, six years
later, by a combined land and naval expedition in which Wellington,
England's other champion, took part. Again inspired by the fear that
Napoleon might use the Danish fleet for his own purposes, the British
government, though at peace with Denmark, sent a fleet to Copenhagen,
bombarded and captured the city, and seized the Danish ships. A battle
took place on land in which Wellington (then Sir Arthur Wellesley)
won an easy victory and, captured 10,000 men. The whole business was
an inglorious one, a dishonorable incident in a struggle in which
the defeat of Napoleon stood first, honor second. Among the English
themselves some defended it on the plea of policy, some called it
piracy and murder.
[=The British in Portugal=]
Not long afterwards England prepared to take a serious part on land
in the desperate contest with Napoleon, and sent a British force to
Portugal, then held by the French army of invasion under Marshal Junot.
This force, 10,000 strong, was commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and
landed July 30, 1808, at Mondego Bay. He was soon joined by General
Spencer from Cadiz, with 13,000 men.
[=The Death of Sir John Moore=]
The French, far from home and without support, were seriously alarmed
at this invasion, and justly so, for they met with defeat in a sharp
battle at Vimeira, and would probably have been forced to surrender as
prisoners of war had not the troops been called off from pursuit by Sir
Harry Burrard, who had been sent out to supersede Wellesley in command.
The end of it all was a truce, and a convention under whose terms the
French troops were permitted to evacuate Portugal with their arms and
baggage and return to France. This release of Junot from a situation
which precluded escape so disgusted Wellesley that he threw up his
command and returned to England. Other troops sent out under Sir John
Moore and Sir David Baird met a superior force of French in Spain, and
their expedition ended in disaster. Moore was killed while the troops
were embarking to return home, and the memory of this affair has been
preserved in the famous ode, "The burial of Sir John Moore," from which
we quote:
"We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning,
By the glimmering moonbeams' misty light
And the lanterns dimly burning."
In April, 1809, Wellesley returned to Portugal, now chief in command,
to begin a struggle which was to continue until the fall of Napoleon.
There were at that time about 20,000 British soldiers at Lisbon, while
the French had in Spain more than 300,000 men, under such generals as
Ney, Soult, and Victor. The British, indeed, were aided by a large
number of natives in arms. But these, though of service as guerillas,
were almost useless in regular warfare.
[=The Gallant Crossing of the Douro=]
Wellesley was at Lisbon. Oporto, 170 miles north, was held by Marshal
Soult, who had recently taken it. Without delay Wellington marched
thither, and drove the French outposts across the river Douro. But in
their retreat they burned the bridge of boats across the river, seized
every boat they could find, and rested in security, defying their foes
to cross. Soult, veteran officer though he was, fancied that he had
disposed of Wellesley, and massed his forces on the sea-coast side of
the town, in which quarter alone he looked for an attack.
He did not know his antagonist. A few skiffs were secured, and a small
party of British was sent across the stream. The French attacked them,
but they held their ground till some others joined them, and by the
time Soult was informed of the danger Wellesley had landed a large
force and controlled a good supply of boats. A battle followed in
which the French were routed and forced to retreat. But the only road
by which their artillery or baggage could be moved had been seized
by General Beresford, and was strongly held. In consequence Soult was
forced to abandon all his wagons and cannon and make his escape by
bye-roads into Spain.
[Illustration: RETREAT OF NAPOLEON FROM WATERLOO
In the slaughter of his Old Guard on the field of
Waterloo, Napoleon recognized the tocsin of fate.
Pale, distressed, despairing, he was led by Marshall
Soult from the scene of slaughter. It was the last of
his many fields of battle and death, and his career
would have had a nobler ending if he had died there
rather than fled.]
[Illustration: THE REMNANT OF AN ARMY
The defeat of the French in the battle of Waterloo was
so complete that all organization was lost, many of
the soldiers fleeing singly from the field. This state
of affairs is here strikingly depicted.]
[=The Victory at Talavera and the Victor's Reward=]
This signal victory was followed by another on July 27, 1809, when
Wellesley, with 20,000 British soldiers and about 40,000 Spanish
allies, met a French army of 60,000 men at Talavera in Spain. The
battle that succeeded lasted two days. The brunt of it fell upon the
British, the Spaniards proving of little use, yet it ended in the
defeat of the French, who retired unmolested, the British being too
exhausted to pursue.
The tidings of this victory were received with the utmost enthusiasm
in England. It was shown by it that British valor could win battles
against Napoleon's on land as well as on sea. Wellesley received the
warmest thanks of the king, and, like Nelson, was rewarded by being
raised to the peerage, being given the titles of Baron Douro of
Wellesley and Viscount Wellington of Talavera. In future we shall call
him by his historic title of Wellington.
Men and supplies just then would have served Wellington better than
titles. With strong support he could have marched on and taken Madrid.
As it was, he felt obliged to retire upon the fortress of Badajoz, near
the frontier of Portugal. Spain was swarming with French soldiers, who
were gradually collected there until they exceeded 350,000 men. Of
these 80,000, under the command of Massena, were sent to act against
the British. Before this strong force Wellington found it necessary to
draw back, and the frontier fortresses of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo
were taken by the French. Wellington's first stand was on the heights
of Busaco, September, 1810. Here, with 30,000 men, he withstood all the
attacks of the French, who in the end were forced to withdraw. Massena
then tried to gain the road between Lisbon and Oporto, whereupon
Wellington quickly retreated towards Lisbon.
[=Wellington's Impregnable Lines at Torres Vedras=]
The British general had during the winter been very usefully employed.
The road by which Lisbon must be approached passes the village
of Torres Vedras, and here two strong lines of earthworks were
constructed, some twenty-five miles in length, stretching from the
sea to the Tagus, and effectually securing Lisbon against attack.
These works had been built with such secrecy and despatch that the
French were quite ignorant of their existence, and Massena, marching
in confidence upon the Portuguese capital, was amazed and chagrined on
finding before him this formidable barrier.
It was strongly defended, and all his efforts to take it proved in
vain. He then tried to reduce the British by famine, but in this he
was equally baffled, food being poured into Lisbon from the sea.
He tried by a feigned retreat to draw the British from their works,
but this stratagem failed of effect, and for four months more the
armies remained inactive. At length the exhaustion of the country of
provisions made necessary a real retreat, and Massena withdrew across
the Spanish frontier, halting near Salamanca. Of the proud force with
which Napoleon proposed to "drive the British leopards into the sea,"
more than half had vanished in this luckless campaign.
[=The Siege and Capture of the Portuguese Fortresses=]
But though the French army had withdrawn from Portugal, the frontier
fortresses were still in French hands, and of these Almeida, near the
borders, was the first to be attacked by Wellington's forces. Massena
advanced with 50,000 men to its relief, and the two armies met at
Fuentes-de-Onoro, May 4, 1811. The French made attacks on the 5th and
6th, but were each time repulsed, and on the 7th Massena retreated,
sending orders to the governor of Almeida to destroy the fortifications
and leave the place.
Another battle was fought in front of Badajoz of the most sanguinary
character, the total loss of the two armies being 15,000 killed and
wounded. For a time the British seemed threatened with inevitable
defeat, but the fortune of the day was turned into victory by a
desperate charge. Subsequently Ciudad Rodrigo was attacked, and was
carried by storm, in January, 1812. Wellington then returned to
Badajoz, which was also taken by storm, after a desperate combat in
which the victors lost 5,000 men, a number exceeding that of the whole
French garrison.
[=Wellington Wins at Salamanca and Enters Madrid=]
These continued successes of the British were seriously out of
consonance with the usual exploits of Napoleon's armies. He was furious
with his marshals, blaming them severely, and might have taken their
place in the struggle with Wellington but that his fatal march to
Russia was about to begin. The fortress taken, Wellington advanced
into Spain, and on July 21st encountered the French army under Marmont
before the famous old town of Salamanca. The battle, one of the most
stubbornly contested in which Wellington had yet been engaged, ended in
the repulse of the French, and on August 12th the British army marched
into Madrid, the capital of Spain, from which King Joseph Bonaparte had
just made his second flight.
[=Vittoria and the Pyrenees=]
Wellington's next effort was a siege of the strong fortress of Burgos.
This proved the one failure in his military career, he being obliged to
raise the siege after several weeks of effort. In the following year
he was strongly reinforced, and with an army numbering nearly 200,000
men he marched on the retreating enemy, meeting them at Vittoria, near
the boundary of France and Spain, on June 21, 1813. The French were
for the first time in this war in a minority. They were also heavily
encumbered with baggage, the spoils of their occupation of Spain. The
battle ended in a complete victory for Wellington, who captured 157
cannon and a vast quantity of plunder, including the spoils of Madrid
and of the palace of the kings of Spain. The specie, of which a large
sum was taken, quickly disappeared among the troops, and failed to
reach the treasure chests of the army.
The French were now everywhere on the retreat. Soult, after a vigorous
effort to drive the British from the passes of the Pyrenees, withdrew,
and Wellington and his army soon stood on the soil of France. A victory
over Soult at Nivelle, and a series of successes in the following
spring, ended the long Peninsular War, the abdication of Napoleon
closing the long and terrible drama of battle. In the whole six years
of struggle Wellington had not once been defeated on the battlefield.
His military career had not yet ended. His great day of glory was still
to come, that in which he was to meet Napoleon himself in the field,
and, for the first time in the history of the great Corsican, drive
back his army in utter rout.
[=The Gathering of the Forces at Brussels=]
A year or more had passed since the events just narrated. In June,
1815, Wellington found himself at the head of an army some 100,000
strong, encamped around Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It was a
mingled group of British, Dutch, Belgian, Hanoverian, German, and
other troops, hastily got together, and many of them not safely to
be depended upon. Of the British, numbers had never been under fire.
Marshal Blücher, with an equal force of Prussian troops, was near at
hand; the two forces prepared to meet the rapidly advancing Napoleon.
We have already told of the defeat of Blücher at Ligny, and the attack
on Wellington at Quatre Bras. On the evening of the 17th the army,
retreating from Quatre Bras, encamped in the historic field of Waterloo
in a drenching rain, that turned the roads into streams, the fields
into swamps. All night long the rain came down, the soldiers enduring
the flood with what patience they could. In the morning it ceased,
fires were kindled, and active preparations began for the terrible
struggle at hand.
[=The Battlefield of Waterloo=]
Here ran a shallow valley, bounded by two ridges, the northern of
which was occupied by the British, while Napoleon posted his army on
its arrival along the southern ridge. On the slope before the British
centre was the white-walled farm house of La Haye Sainte, and in front
of the right wing the chateau of Hougoumont, with its various stout
stone buildings. Both of these were occupied by men of Wellington's
army, and became leading points in the struggle of the day.
It was nine o'clock in the morning before the van-guard of the French
army made its appearance on the crest of the southern ridge. By
half-past ten 61,000 soldiers,--infantry, cavalry, and artillery--lay
encamped in full sight. About half-past eleven came the first attack
of that remarkable day, during which the French waged an aggressive
battle, the British stood on the defensive.
[=The Desperate Charges of the French=]
This first attack was directed against Hougoumont, around which
there was a desperate contest. At this point the affray went on, in
successive waves of attack and repulse, all day long; yet still the
British held the buildings, and all the fierce valor of the French
failed to gain them a foothold within.
About two o'clock came a second attack, preceded by a frightful
cannonade upon the British left and centre. Four massive columns, led
by Ney, poured steadily forward straight for the ridge, sweeping upon
and around the farm-stead of La Haye Sainte, but met at every point by
the sabres and bayonets of the British lines. Nearly 24,000 men took
part in this great movement, the struggle lasting more than an hour
before the French staggered back in repulse. Then from the French lines
came a stupendous cavalry charge, the massive columns composed of no
less than forty squadrons of cuirassiers and dragoons, filling almost
all the space between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte as they poured like
a torrent upon the British lines. Torn by artillery, rent by musketry;
checked, reformed; charging again, and again driven back; they expended
their strength and their lives on the infantry squares that held their
ground with the grimmest obstinacy. Once more, now strengthened by
the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, they came on to carnage and death,
shattering themselves against those unyielding squares, and in the end
repulsed with frightful loss.
[=Blücher's Prussians and the Charge of Napoleon's Old Guard=]
The day was now well advanced, it being half-past four in the
afternoon; the British had been fearfully shaken by the furious
efforts of the French; when, emerging from the woods at St. Lambert,
appeared the head of a column of fresh troops. Who were they? Blücher's
Prussians, or Grouchy's pursuing French? On the answer to this question
depended the issue of that terrible day. The question was soon decided;
they were the Prussians; no sign appeared of the French; the hearts of
the British beat high with hope and those of the French sank low in
despair, for these fresh troops could not fail to decide the fate of
that mighty field of battle. Soon the final struggle came. Napoleon,
driven to desperation, launched his grand reserve corps, the far-famed
Imperial Guard, upon his enemies. On they come, with Ney at their head;
on them pours a terrible torrent of flame; from a distance the front
ranks appear stationary, but only because they meet a death-line as
they come, and fall in bleeding rows. Then on them, in a wild charge,
rush the British Foot Guards, take them in flank, and soon all is over.
"The Guard dies, but never surrenders," says their commander. Die they
do, few of them surviving to take part in that mad flight which swept
Napoleon from the field and closed the fatal day of Waterloo. England
has won the great struggle, now twenty years old, and Wellington from
that day of victory takes rank with the greatest of British heroes.
CHAPTER VI.
From the Napoleonic Wars to the Revolution of 1830.
[=A Quarter Century of Revolution=]
The terrific struggle of the "Hundred Days," which followed Napoleon's
return from Elba and preceded his exile to St. Helena, made a serious
break in the deliberations of the Congress of Vienna, convened for
the purpose of recasting the map of Europe, which Napoleon had so
sadly transformed, of setting aside the radical work of the French
Revolution, and, in a word, of turning back the hands of the clock of
time. Twenty-five years of such turmoil and volcanic disturbance as
Europe had rarely known were at an end; the ruling powers were secure
of their own again; the people, worn-out with the long and bitter
struggle, welcomed eagerly the return of rest and peace; and the
emperors and kings deemed it a suitable time to throw overboard the
load of new ideas under which the European "ship of state" seemed to
them likely to founder.
[=The Congress of Vienna=]
The Congress of Vienna was, in its way, a brilliant gathering. It
included, mainly as handsome ornaments, the emperors of Russia and
Austria, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria and Wurtemberg; and,
as its working element, the leading statesmen of Europe, including the
English Castlereagh and Wellington, the French Talleyrand, the Prussian
Hardenberg, and the Austrian Metternich. Checked in its deliberations
for a time by Napoleon's fierce hundred days' death struggle, it
quickly settled down to work again, having before it the vast task of
undoing the mighty results of a quarter of a century of revolution. For
the French Revolution had broadened into an European revolution, with
Napoleon and his armies as its great instruments. The whole continent
had been sown thickly during the long era of war with the Napoleonic
ideas, and a crop of new demands and conditions had grown up not easily
to be uprooted.
[=Europe After Napoleon's Fall=]
Reaction was the order of the day in the Vienna Congress. The shaken
power of the monarchs was to be restored, the map of Europe to be
readjusted, the people to be put back into the submissive condition
which they occupied before that eventful 1789, when the States-General
of France began its momentous work of overturning the equilibrium of
the world. As for the people, deeply infected as they were with the
new ideas of liberty and the rights of man, which had made their way
far beyond the borders of France, they were for the time worn-out
with strife and turmoil, and settled back supinely to enjoy the
welcome era of rest, leaving their fate in the hands of the astute
plenipotentiaries who were gathered in their wisdom at Vienna.
[=The Work of the Congress=]
These worthy tools of the monarchs had an immense task before them--too
large a one, as it proved. It was easy to talk about restoring to the
nations the territory they had possessed before Napoleon began his
career as a map-maker; but it was not easy to do so except at the cost
of new wars. The territories of many of the powers had been added to
by the French emperor, and they were not likely to give up their new
possessions without a vigorous protest. In Germany the changes had been
enormous. Napoleon had found there more than three hundred separate
states, some no larger than a small American county, yet each possessed
of the paraphernalia of a court and sovereign, a capital, an army
and a public debt. And these were feebly combined into the phantasm
known as the Holy Roman Empire. When Napoleon had finished his work
this empire had ceased to exist, except as a tradition, and the great
galaxy of sovereign states was reduced to thirty-nine. These included
the great dominions of Austria and Prussia; the smaller states of
Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover and Wurtemberg, which Napoleon had raised into
kingdoms; and a vastly reduced group of minor states. The work done
here it was somewhat dangerous to meddle with. The small potentates of
Germany were like so many bull-dogs, glaring jealously across their new
borders, and ready to fly at one another's throats at any suggestion
of a change. The utmost they would yield was to be united into a
confederacy called the _Bund_, with a Diet meeting at Frankfurt. But as
the delegates to the Diet were given no law-making power, the _Bund_
became an empty farce.
The great powers took care to regain their lost possessions, or to
replace them with an equal amount of territory. Prussia and Austria
spread out again to their old size, though they did not cover quite
the old ground. Most of their domains in Poland were given up, Prussia
getting new territory in West Germany and Austria in Italy. Their
provinces in Poland were ceded to Alexander of Russia, who added to
them some of his own Polish dominions, and formed a new kingdom of
Poland, he being its king. So in a shadowy way Poland was brought to
life again. England got for her share in the spoils a number of French
and Dutch colonies, including Malta and the Cape Colony in Africa. Thus
each of the great powers repaid itself for its losses.
[=Italy, France, and Spain=]
In Italy a variety of changes were made. The Pope got back the States
of the Church; Tuscany was restored to its king; the same was the case
with Naples, King Murat being driven from his throne and put to death.
Piedmont, increased by the Republic of Genoa, was restored to the king
of Sardinia. Some smaller states were formed, as Parma, Modena, and
Lucca. Finally, Lombardy and Venice, much the richest regions of Italy,
were given to Austria, which country was made the dominant power in the
Italian peninsula.
Louis XVIII., the Bourbon king, brother of Louis XVI., who had reigned
while Napoleon was at Elba, came back to the throne of France. The
title of Louis XVII. was given to the poor boy, son of Louis XVI.,
who died from cruel treatment in the dungeons of the Revolution. In
Spain the feeble Ferdinand returned to the throne which he had given
up without a protest at the command of Napoleon. Portugal was given a
monarch of its old dynasty. All seemed to have floated back into the
old conditions again.
[=The Rights of Man=]
As for the rights of the people, what had become of them? Had they been
swept away and the old wrongs of the people been brought back? Not
quite. The frenzied enthusiasm for liberty and human rights of the past
twenty-five years could not go altogether for nothing. The lingering
relics of feudalism had vanished, not only from France but from all
Europe, and no monarch or congress could bring them back again. In its
place the principles of democracy had spread from France far among the
peoples of Europe. The principle of class privilege had been destroyed
in France, and that of social equality had replaced it. The principle
of the liberty of the individual, especially in his religious opinions,
and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, had been proclaimed.
These had still a battle before them. They needed to fight their way.
Absolutism and the spirit of feudalism were arrayed against them.
But they were too deeply implanted in the minds of the people to be
eradicated, and their establishment as actual conditions has been the
most important part of the political development of the nineteenth
century.
[Illustration: LORD HORATIO NELSON
ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON
ILLUSTRIOUS LEADERS OF ENGLAND'S NAVY AND ARMY]
Revolution was the one thing that the great powers of Europe feared
and hated; this was the monster against which the Congress of Vienna
directed its efforts. The cause of quiet and order, the preservation
of the established state of things, the authority of rulers, the
subordination of peoples, must be firmly maintained, and revolutionary
disturbers must be put down with a strong hand. Such was the political
dogma of the Congress. And yet, in spite of its assembled wisdom and
the principles it promulgated, the nineteenth century has been
especially the century of revolutions, actual or virtual, the result
being an extraordinary growth in the liberties and prerogatives of the
people.
[Illustration: JAMES WATT--THE FATHER OF THE STEAM ENGINE
It is to the steam engine that the wonderful
productive progress of recent times is largely due,
and to the famous Scotch engineer, James Watt, belongs
the honor of inventing the first effective steam
engine. His idea of condensing the steam from his
engine in a separate vessel came to him in 1765, and
with this fortunate conception began the wonderful
series of improvements which have given us the
magnificent engine of to-day.]
[=The Holy Alliance=]
The plan devised by the Congress for the suppression of revolution was
the establishment of an association of monarchs, which became known
as the Holy Alliance. Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria, and
Frederick William of Prussia formed a covenant to rule in accordance
with the precepts of the Bible, to stand by each other in a true
fraternity, to rule their subjects as loving parents, and to see that
peace, justice, and religion should flourish in their dominions.
An ideal scheme it was, but its promulgators soon won the name of
hypocrites and the hatred of those whom they were to deal with on the
principle of love and brotherhood. Reaction was the watchword, absolute
sovereignty the purpose, the eradication of the doctrine of popular
sovereignty the sentiment, which animated these powerful monarchs; and
the Holy Alliance meant practically the determination to unite their
forces against democracy and revolution wherever they should show
themselves.
[=Revolution in Spain and Naples=]
It was not long before the people began to move. The attempt to
re-establish absolute governments shook them out of their sluggish
quiet. Revolution lifted its head again in the face of the Holy
Alliance, its first field being Spain. Ferdinand VII., on returning to
his throne, had but one purpose in his weak mind, which was to rule as
an autocrat, as his ancestors had done. He swore to govern according
to a constitution, and began his reign with a perjury. The patriots
had formed a constitution during his absence, and this he set aside
and never replaced by another. On the contrary, he set out to abolish
all the reforms made by Napoleon, and to restore the monasteries, to
bring back the Inquisition, and to prosecute the patriots. Five years
of this reaction made the state of affairs in Spain so intolerable that
the liberals refused to submit to it any longer. In 1820 they rose in
revolt, and the king, a coward under all his show of bravery, at once
gave way and restored the constitution he had set aside.
The shock given the Holy Alliance by the news from Spain was quickly
followed by another coming from Naples. The Bourbon king who had been
replaced upon the throne of that country, another Ferdinand, was one
of the most despicable men of his not greatly esteemed race. His
government, while weak, was harshly oppressive. But it did not need a
revolution to frighten this royal dastard. A mere general celebration
of the victory of the liberals in Spain was enough, and in his alarm he
hastened to give his people a constitution similar to that which the
Spaniards had gained.
[=Metternich and His Congresses=]
These awkward affairs sadly disturbed the equanimity of those statesmen
who fancied that they had fully restored the divine right of kings.
Metternich, the Austrian advocate of reaction, hastened to call a new
Congress, in 1820, and another in 1821. The question he put to these
assemblies was, Should revolution be permitted, or should Europe
interfere in Spain and Naples, and pledge herself to uphold everywhere
the sacred powers of legitimate monarchs? His old friends of the Holy
Alliance backed him up in this suggestion, both Congresses adopted it,
a policy of repression of revolutions became the programme, and Austria
was charged to restore what Metternich called "order" in Naples.
He did so. The liberals of Naples were far too weak to oppose the power
of Austria. Their government fell to pieces as soon as the Austrian
army appeared, and the impotent but cruel Ferdinand was made an
absolute king again. The radicals in Piedmont started an insurrection
which was quickly put down, and Austria became practically the lord and
master of Italy.
[=How Order was Restored in Spain=]
Proud of his success, Metternich called a new Congress in 1822, in
which it was resolved to repeat in Spain what had been done in Naples.
France was now made the instrument of the absolutists. A French army
marched across the Pyrenees, put down the government of the liberals,
and gave the king back his despotic rule. He celebrated his return to
power by a series of cruel executions. The Holy Alliance was in the
ascendant, the liberals had been bitterly repaid for their daring,
terror seized upon the liberty-loving peoples, and Europe seemed thrown
fully into the grasp of the absolute kings.
[=The Revolution in Greece=]
Only in two regions did the spirit of revolt triumph during this period
of reaction. These were Greece and Spanish America. The historic land
of Greece had long been in the hands of a despotism with which even the
Holy Alliance was not in sympathy--that of Turkey. Its very name, as a
modern country, had almost vanished, and Europe heard with astonishment
in 1821 that the descendants of the ancient Greeks had risen against
the tyranny under which they had been crushed for centuries.
The struggle was a bitter one. The sultan was atrocious in his
cruelties. In the island of Chios alone he brutally murdered 20,000
Greeks, But the spirit of the old Athenians and Spartans was in the
people, and they kept on fighting in the face of defeat. For four years
this went on, while the powers of Europe looked on without raising a
hand. Some of their people indeed took part, among them Lord Byron, who
died in Greece in 1824; but the governments failed to warm up to their
duty.
Their apathy vanished in 1825, when the sultan, growing weary of the
struggle, and bent on bringing it to a rapid end, called in the aid of
his powerful vassal, Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt. Mehemed responded by
sending a strong army under his son Ibrahim, who landed in the Morea
(the ancient Peloponnesus), where he treated the people with shocking
cruelty.
[=The Powers Come to the Rescue of Greece=]
A year of this was as much as Christian Europe could stand. England
first aroused herself. Canning, the English prime minister, persuaded
Nicholas, who had just succeeded Alexander as Czar of Russia, to join
with him in stopping this horrible business. France also lent her aid,
and the combined powers warned Ibrahim to cease his cruel work. On his
refusal, the fleets of England and France attacked and annihilated the
Turkish-Egyptian fleet in the battle of Navarino.
The Sultan still hesitated, and the czar, impatient at the delay,
declared war and invaded with his army the Turkish provinces on the
Danube. The next year, 1829, the Russians crossed the Balkans and
descended upon Constantinople. That city was in such imminent danger
of capture that the obstinacy of the sultan completely disappeared and
he humbly consented to all the demands of the powers. Servia, Moldavia
and Wallachia, the chief provinces of the Balkan peninsula, were put
under the rule of Christian governors, and the independence of Greece
was fully acknowledged. Prince Otto of Bavaria was made king, and ruled
until 1862. In Greece liberalism had conquered, but elsewhere in Europe
the reaction established by the Congress of Vienna still held sway.
[=The Spirit of Revolution=]
The people merely bided their time. The good seed sown could not fail
to bear fruit in its season. The spirit of revolution was in the air,
and any attempt to rob the people of the degree of liberty which they
enjoyed was very likely to precipitate a revolt against the tyranny of
courts and kings. It came at length in France, that country the ripest
among the nations for revolution. Louis XVIII., an easy, good-natured
old soul, of kindly disposition towards the people, passed from life in
1824, and was succeeded by his brother, Count of Artois, as Charles X.
[=Charles X. and His Attempt at Despotism=]
The new king had been the head of the ultra-royalist faction, an
advocate of despotism and feudalism, and quickly doubled the hate which
the people bore him. Louis XVIII. had been liberal in his policy, and
had given increased privileges to the people. Under Charles reaction
set in. A vast sum of money was voted to the nobles to repay their
losses during the Revolution. Steps were taken to muzzle the press and
gag the universities. This was more than the Chamber of Deputies was
willing to do, and it was dissolved. But the tyrant at the head of the
government went on, blind to the signs in the air, deaf to the people's
voice. If he could not get laws from the Chamber, he would make them
himself in the old arbitrary fashion, and on July 26, 1830, he issued,
under the advice of his prime minister, four decrees, which limited the
list of voters and put an end to the freedom of the press. Practically
the constitution was set aside, the work of the Revolution ignored, and
absolutism re-established in France.
[=The Revolution in Paris=]
King Charles had taken a step too far. He did not know the spirit of
the French. In a moment Paris blazed into insurrection. Tumult arose on
every side. Workmen and students paraded the streets with enthusiastic
cheers for the constitution. But under their voices there were soon
heard deeper and more ominous cries. "Down with the ministers!"
came the demand. And then, as the throng increased and grew more
violent, arose the revolutionary slogan, "Down with the Bourbons!" The
infatuated old king was amusing himself in his palace of St. Cloud, and
did not discover that the crown was tottering upon his head. He knew
that the people of Paris had risen, but looked upon it as a passing
ebullition of French temper. He did not awake to the true significance
of the movement until he heard that there had been fighting between
his troops and the people, that many of the citizens lay dead in the
streets, and that the soldiers had been driven from the city, which
remained in the hands of the insurrectionists.
Then the old imbecile, who had fondly fancied that the Revolution of
1789 could be set aside by a stroke of his pen, made frantic efforts
to lay the demon he had called into life. He hastily cancelled the
tyrannical decrees. Finding that this would not have the desired
effect, he abdicated the throne in favor of his grandson. But all was
of no avail. France had had enough of him and his house. His envoys
were turned back from the gates of Paris unheard. Remembering the fate
of Louis XVI., his unhappy brother, Charles X., turned his back upon
France and hastened to seek a refuge in England.
[=Louis Philippe Chosen as King=]
Meanwhile a meeting of prominent citizens had been held in Paris, the
result of their deliberations being that Charles X. and his heirs
should be deposed and the crown offered to Louis Philippe, duke of
Orleans. There had been a Louis Philippe in the Revolution of 1789, a
radical member of the royal house of Bourbon, who, under the title of
Egalité, had joined the revolutionists, voted for the death of Louis
XVI., and in the end had his own head cut off by the guillotine. His
son as a young man had served in the revolutionary army and had been
one of its leaders in the important victory of Jemappes. But when the
terror came he hastened from France, which had become a very unsafe
place for one of his blood. He had the reputation of being liberal
in his views, and was the first man thought of for the vacant crown.
When the Chamber of Deputies met in August and offered it to him, he
did not hesitate to accept. He swore to observe and reign under the
constitution, and took the throne under the title of Louis Philippe,
king of the French. Thus speedily and happily ended the second
Revolution in France.
[=Effect in Europe of the Revolution=]
But Paris again proved itself the political centre of Europe. The
deposition of Charles X. was like a stone thrown into the seething
waters of European politics, and its effects spread far and wide beyond
the borders of France. The nations had been bound hand and foot by the
Congress of Vienna. The people had writhed uneasily in their fetters,
but now in more than one locality they rose in their might to break
them, here demanding a greater degree of liberty, there overthrowing
the government.
The latter was the case in Belgium. Its people had suffered severely
from the work of the Congress of Vienna. Without even a pretence of
consulting their wishes, their country had been incorporated with
Holland as the kingdom of the Netherlands, the two countries being
fused into one under a king of the old Dutch House of Orange. The
idea was good enough in itself. It was intended to make a kingdom
strong enough to help keep France in order. But an attempt to fuse
these two states was like an endeavor to mix oil and water. The people
of the two countries had long since drifted apart from each other,
and had irreconcilable ideas and interests. Holland was a colonizing
and commercial country, Belgium an industrial country; Holland was
Protestant, Belgium was Catholic; Holland was Teutonic in blood,
Belgium was a mixture of the Teutonic and French, but wholly French in
feeling and customs.
[=The Belgian Uprising and Its Result=]
The Belgians, therefore, were generally discontented with the act of
fusion, and in 1830 they imitated the French by a revolt against King
William of Holland. A tumult followed in Brussels, which ended in the
Dutch soldiers being driven from the city. King William, finding that
the Belgians insisted on independence, decided to bring them back to
their allegiance by force of arms. The powers of Europe now took the
matter in hand, and, after some difference of opinion, decided to grant
the Belgians the independence they demanded. This was a meddling with
his royal authority to which King William did not propose to submit,
but when the navy of Great Britain and the army of France approached
his borders he changed his mind, and since 1833 Holland and Belgium
have gone their own way under separate kings. A limited monarchy, with
a suitable constitution, was organized for Belgium by the powers, and
Prince Leopold, of the German house of Saxe-Coburg, was placed upon the
throne.
[=The Movements in Germany and Italy=]
The spirit of revolution extended into Germany and Italy, but only with
partial results. Neither in Austria nor Prussia did the people stir,
but in many of the smaller states a demand was made for a constitution
on liberal lines, and in every instance the princes had to give way.
Each of these states gained a representative form of government, the
monarchs of Prussia and Austria alone retaining their old despotic
power.
In Italy there were many signs of revolutionary feeling; but Austria
still dominated that peninsula, and Metternich kept a close watch upon
the movements of its people. There was much agitation. The great secret
society of the Carbonari sought to combine the patriots of all Italy
in a grand stroke for liberty and union, but nothing came of their
efforts. In the States of the Church alone the people rose in revolt
against their rulers, but they were soon put down by the Austrians, who
invaded their territory, dispersed their weak bands, and restored the
old tyranny. The hatred of the Italians for the Austrians grew more
intense, but their time had not yet come; they sank back in submission
and awaited a leader and an opportunity.
[=The Condition of Poland=]
There was one country in which the revolution in France called forth a
more active response, though, unhappily, only to double the weight of
the chains under which its people groaned. This was unfortunate Poland;
once a great and proud kingdom, now dismembered and swallowed up by the
land-greed of its powerful neighbors. It had been in part restored by
Napoleon, in his kingdom of Warsaw, and his work had been in a measure
recognized by the Congress of Vienna. The Czar Alexander, kindly in
disposition and moved by pity for the unhappy Poles, had re-established
their old kingdom, persuading Austria and Prussia to give up the bulk
of their Polish territory in return for equal areas elsewhere. He gave
Poland a constitution, its own army, and its own administration, making
himself its king, but promising to rule as a constitutional monarch.
[=The Revolt of the Poles=]
This did not satisfy the Poles. It was not the independence they
craved. They could not forget that they had been a great power in
Europe when Russia was still the weak and frozen duchy of Muscovy. When
the warm-hearted Alexander died and the cold-hearted Nicholas took his
place, their discontent grew to dangerous proportions. The news of the
outbreak in France was like a firebrand thrown in their midst. In
November, 1830, a few young hot-heads sounded the note of revolt, and
Warsaw rose in insurrection against the Russians.
For a time they were successful. Constantine, the czar's brother,
governor of Poland, was scared by the riot, and deserted the capital,
leaving the revolutionists in full control. Towards the frontier he
hastened, winged by alarm, while the provinces rose in rebellion behind
him as he passed. Less than a week had passed before the Russian power
was withdrawn from Poland, and its people were once more lords of their
own land. They set up a provisional government in Warsaw, and prepared
to defend themselves against the armies that were sure to come.
[=A Fatal Lack of Unity=]
What was needed now was unity. A single fixed and resolute purpose,
under able and suitable leaders, formed the only conceivable condition
of success. But Poland was, of all countries, the least capable of such
unity. The landed nobility was full of its old feudal notions; the
democracy of the city was inspired by modern sentiments. They could not
agree; they quarreled in castle and court, while their hasty levies
of troops were marching to meet the Russians in the field. Under such
conditions success was a thing beyond hope.
Yet the Poles fought well. Kosciusko, their former hero, would have
been proud of their courage and willingness to die for their country.
But against the powerful and ably led Russian armies their gallantry
was of no avail, and their lack of unity fatal. In May, 1831, they were
overwhelmed at Ostrolenka by the Russian hosts. In September a traitor
betrayed Warsaw, and the Russian army entered its gates. The revolt was
at an end, and Poland again in fetters.
[=The Fate of Poland=]
Nicholas the Czar fancied that he had spoiled these people by kindness
and clemency. They should not be spoiled in that way any longer. Under
his harsh decrees the Kingdom of Poland vanished. He ordered that
it should be made a Russian province, and held by a Russian army of
occupation. The very language of the Poles was forbidden to be spoken,
and their religion was to be replaced by the Orthodox Russian faith.
Those brief months of revolution and independence were fatal to the
liberty-loving people. Since then, except during their brief revolt
in 1863, they have lain in fetters at the feet of Russia, nothing
remaining to them but their patriotic memories and their undying
aspiration for freedom and independence.
CHAPTER VII.
Bolivar, the Liberator of Spanish America.
In the preceding chapter mention was made of two regions in which the
spirit of revolt triumphed during the period of reaction after the
Napoleonic wars--Greece and Spanish America. The revolt in Greece was
there described; that in Spanish America awaits description. It had
its hero, one of the great soldiers of the Spanish race, perhaps the
greatest and ablest of guerilla leaders; "Bolivar the Liberator," as he
was known on his native soil.
[=How Spain Treated Her Colonies=]
Spain had long treated her colonists in a manner that was difficult
for a high-spirited people to endure. Only two thoughts seemed to
rule in their management, the one being to derive from the colonies
all possible profit for the government at home, the other to make
use of them as a means by which the leaders in Spain could pay their
political debts. The former purpose was sought to be carried out by
severe taxation, commercial restriction, and the other methods in which
a short-sighted country seeks to enrich itself by tying the hands and
checking the industries of its colonists. To achieve the latter purpose
all important official positions in the colonies were held by natives
of Spain. Posts in the government, in the customs, in all salaried
offices were given to strangers, who knew nothing of the work they were
to do or the conditions of the country to which they were sent, and
whose single thought was to fill their purses as speedily as possible
and return to enjoy their wealth in Spain.
[=The Oppression of the People=]
All this was galling to the colonists, who claimed to be loyal
Spaniards; and they rebelled in spirit against this swarm of human
locusts which descended annually upon them, practicing every species
of extortion and fraud in their eagerness to grow rich speedily, and
carrying much of the wealth of the country back to the mother land.
Add to this the severe restrictions on industry and commerce, the
prohibition of trade except with Spain, the exactions of every kind,
legal and illegal, to which the people were forced to submit, and their
deep-seated dissatisfaction is easy to understand.
[Illustration: FROUDE
CARLYLE
RUSKIN
GIBBON
MACAULAY
GREAT ENGLISH HISTORIANS AND PROSE WRITERS]
[Illustration: PIUS IX.
LEO XIII.
FAMOUS POPES OF THE CENTURY]
The war for independence in the United States had no apparent influence
upon the colonies of Spanish America. They remained loyal to Spain.
The French Revolution seemed also without effect. But during the long
Napoleonic wars, when Spain remained for years in the grip of the
Corsican, and the people of Spanish America were left largely to govern
themselves, a thirst for liberty arose, and a spirit of revolt showed
itself about 1810 throughout the length and breadth of the colonies.
[=Bolivar, the Revolutionary Leader=]
Chief among the revolutionists was Simon Bolivar, a native of Caracas,
the capital of Venezuela. In 1810 we find him in London, seeking the
aid of the British government in favor of the rebels against Spain. In
1811 he served as governor of Puerto Cabello, the strongest fortress
in Venezuela. He was at that time subordinate to General Miranda,
whom he afterwards accused of treason, and who died in a dungeon in
Spain. In the year named Venezuela proclaimed its independence, but in
1813, Bolivar, who had been entitled its "Liberator," was a refugee in
Jamaica, and his country again a vassal of Spain.
[=An Attempt at Assassination=]
The leaders of affairs in Spain knew well where to seek the backbone of
the insurrection. Bolivar was the one man whom they feared. He removed,
there was not a man in sight capable of leading the rebels to victory.
To dispose of him, a spy was sent to Jamaica, his purpose being to take
the Liberator's life. This man, after gaining a knowledge of Bolivar's
habits and movements, bribed a negro to murder him, and in the dead of
night the assassin stole up to Bolivar's hammock and plunged his knife
into the sleeper's breast. As it proved, it was not Bolivar, but his
secretary, who lay there, and the hope of the American insurrectionists
escaped.
[=Bolivar Returns to Venezuela=]
Leaving Jamaica, Bolivar proceeded to San Domingo, where he found a
warm supporter in the president, Petion. Here, too, he met Luis Brion,
a Dutch shipbuilder of great wealth. His zeal for the principles of
liberty infused Brion with a like zeal. The result was that Brion
fitted out seven schooners and placed them at Bolivar's disposal,
supplied 3,500 muskets to arm recruits who should join Bolivar's
standard, and devoted his own life and services to the sacred cause.
Thus slenderly equipped, Bolivar commenced operations in 1816 at
the port of Cayos de San Luis, where the leading refugees from
Cartagena, New Granada, and Venezuela had sought sanctuary. By them
he was accepted as leader, and Brion, with the title of "Admiral of
Venezuela," was given command of the squadron he had himself furnished.
The growing expedition now made for the island of Margarita, which
Arismendi had wrested from the Spanish governor; and here, at a
convention of officers, Bolivar was named "Supreme Chief," and the
third Venezuelan war began. It was marked by many a disaster to the
patriot arms, and so numerous vicissitudes that, until the culminating
triumph of Boyaca on August 7th, 1819, it remained doubtful upon which
side victory would ultimately rest.
[=The Savage Cruelty of the Spaniards=]
The war was conducted on the part of the Spaniards with the most
fiendish cruelty, prisoners taken in war and the unarmed people of
the country alike being tortured and murdered under circumstances of
revolting barbarity. "The people of Margarita," writes an English
officer who served in Venezuela, "saw their liberties threatened
and endangered; their wives, children, and kindred daily butchered
and murdered; and the reeking members of beings most dear to them
exposed to their gaze on every tree and crag of their native forests
and mountains; nor was it until hundreds had been thus slaughtered
that they pursued the same course. The result was that the Spaniards
were routed. I myself saw upwards of seven thousand of their skulls,
dried and heaped together in one place, which is not inaptly termed
'Golgotha,' as a trophy of victory."
Another writer tells us: "I saw several women whose ears and noses had
been cut off, their eyes torn from their sockets, their tongues cut
out, and the soles of their feet pared by the orders of Monteverde, a
Spanish brigadier-general." The result of these excesses of cruelty was
an implacable hatred of the Spaniard, and a determination to carry on
the war unto death.
[=The Methods of General Morillo=]
In 1815 Ferdinand of Spain determined to put an end once for all to the
movement for independence that, in varying forms, had, been agitating
for five years the whole of Spanish America. Accordingly, strong
reinforcements to the royalist armies were sent out, under General
Morillo. These arrived at Puerto Cabello, and, besides ships of war,
comprised 12,000 troops--a force in itself many times larger than all
the scattered bands of patriots then under arms put together. Morillo
soon had Venezuela under his thumb, and, planting garrisons throughout
it, proceeded to lay siege to Cartagena. Capturing this city in four
months, he marched unopposed to Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of New
Granada, ruin and devastation marking his progress. In a despatch to
Ferdinand, which was intercepted, he wrote: "Every person of either
sex who was capable of reading and writing was put to death. By thus
cutting off all who were in any way educated, I hoped to effectually
arrest the spirit of revolution."
An insight into Morillo's methods of coping with the "spirit of
revolution" is furnished by his treatment of those he found in the
opulent city of Maturin on its capture. Dissatisfied with the treasure
he found there, he suspected the people of wealth to have anticipated
his arrival by burying their property. To find out the supposed buried
treasure, he had all those whom he regarded as likely to know where
it was hidden collected together, and, to make them confess, had the
soles of their feet cut off, and then had them driven over hot sand.
Many of the victims of this horrid piece of cruelty survived, and were
subsequently seen by those that have narrated it.
[=Paez the Guerilla and His Exploits=]
At the commencement of the war, with the exception of the little band
on the island of Margarita, the patriotic cause was represented by a
few scattered groups along the banks of the Orinoco, on the plains of
Barcelona and of Casanare. These groups pursued a kind of guerilla
warfare, quite independently of one another, and without any plan to
achieve. They were kept together by the fact that submission meant
death. The leader of one of these groups, Paez by name, presents one of
the most picturesque and striking characters that history has produced.
He was a Llanero, or native of the elevated plains of Barinas, and
quite illiterate. As owner of herds of half-wild cattle, he became
chief of a band of herdsmen, which he organized into an army, known
as the "Guides of the Apure," a tributary of the Orinoco, and whose
banks were the base of Paez's operations. Only one of his many daring
exploits can be here recorded. That occurred on the 3rd of June,
1819, when Paez was opposing the advance of Morillo himself. With
150 picked horsemen, he swam the river Orinoco and galloped towards
the Spanish camp. "Eight hundred of the royalist cavalry," writes W.
Pilling, General Mitre's translator, "with two small guns, sallied out
to meet him. He slowly retreated, drawing them on to a place called
Las Queseras del Medio, where a battalion of infantry lay in ambush by
the river. Then, splitting his men into groups of twenty, he charged
the enemy on all sides, forcing them under the fire of the infantry,
and recrossed the river with two killed and a few wounded, leaving the
plain strewn with the dead of the enemy."
[=British Soldiers Join the Insurgents=]
While Paez's dashing exploits were inspiring the revolutionary leaders
with fresh courage, which enabled them at least to hold their own, a
system of enlisting volunteers was instituted in London by Don Luis
Lopes Mendez, representative of the republic. The Napoleonic wars
being over, the European powers were unable to reduce their swollen
armaments, and English and German officers entered into contracts
with Mendez to take out to Venezuela organized corps of artillery,
lancers, hussars, and rifles. On enlisting, soldiers received a
bounty of £20; their pay was 2s. a day and rations, and at the end
of the war they were promised £125 and an allotment of land. The
first expedition to leave England comprised 120 hussars and lancers,
under Colonel Hippisley; this body became the basis of a corps of
regular cavalry. The nucleus of a battalion of riflemen was taken out
by Colonel Campbell; and a subaltern, named Gilmour, with the title
of colonel, formed with 90 men the basis of a brigade of artillery.
General English, who had served in the Peninsular War under Wellington,
contracted with Mendez to take out a force of 1,200 Englishmen; 500
more went out under Colonel Elsom, who also brought out 300 Germans
under Colonel Uzlar. General MacGregor took 800, and General Devereux
took out the Irish Legion, in which was a son of the Irish tribune,
Daniel O'Connell. Smaller contingents also went to the seat of war;
these mentioned, however, were the chief, and without their aid Bolivar
was wont to confess that he would have failed.
[=Bolivar's Plan to Invade New Granada=]
Now it was that a brilliant idea occurred to Bolivar. He had already
sent 1,200 muskets and a group of officers to General Santander, who
was the leader of the patriots on the plains of Casanare. This enabled
Santander to increase his forces from amongst the scattered patriots
in that neighborhood. He thereupon began to threaten the frontier of
New Granada, with the result that General Barreiro, who had been left
in command of that province by Morillo, deemed it advisable to march
against him and crush his growing power. Santander's forces, however,
though inferior in number, were too full of enthusiasm for Barreiro's
soldiers--reduced to a half-hearted condition from being forced to take
part in cruelties that they gained nothing from, except the odium of
the people they moved amongst. Barreiro, accordingly, was driven back;
and, on receiving the news of Santander's success, Bolivar at once
formed the conception of crossing the Andes and driving the Spaniards
out of New Granada. The event proved that this was the true plan of
campaign for the patriots. Already they had lost three campaigns
through endeavoring to dislodge the Spaniards from their strongest
positions, which were in Venezuela; now, by gaining New Granada, they
would win prestige and consolidate their power there for whatever
further efforts circumstances might demand.
Thus, as it has been described, did the veil drop from Bolivar's eyes;
and so confident was he of ultimate success, that he issued to the
people of New Granada this proclamation: "The day of America has come;
no human power can stay the course of Nature guided by Providence.
Before the sun has again run his annual course, altars to Liberty will
arise throughout your land."
Bolivar immediately prepared to carry out his idea, and on the 11th
of June, 1819, he joined Santander at the foot of the Andes, bringing
with him four battalions of infantry, of which one--the "Albion"--was
composed entirely of English soldiers--two squadrons of lancers, one
of carabineers, and a regiment called the "Guides of the Apure," part
of which were English--in all 2,500 men. To join Santander was no
easy task, for it involved the crossing of an immense plain covered
with water at this season of the year, and the swimming of seven deep
rivers--war materials, of course, having to be taken along as well.
This, however, was only a foretaste of the still greater difficulties
that lay before the venturesome band.
[=The Crossing of the Andes=]
General Santander led the van with his Casanare troops, and entered
the mountain defiles by a road leading to the centre of the province
of Tunja, which was held by Colonel Barreiro with 2,000 infantry
and 400 horse. The royalists had also a reserve of 1,000 troops at
Bogota, the capital of New Granada; at Cartagena, and in the valley of
Cauca were other detachments, and there was another royalist army at
Quito. Bolivar, however, trusted to surprise and to the support of the
inhabitants to overcome the odds that were against him. As the invading
army left the plains for the mountains the scene changed. The snowy
peaks of the eastern range of the Cordillera appeared in the distance,
while, instead of the peaceful lake through which they had waded,
they were met by great masses of water tumbling from the heights. The
roads ran along the edge of precipices and were bordered by gigantic
trees, upon whose tops rested the clouds, which dissolved themselves
in incessant rain. After four days' march the horses were foundered;
an entire squadron of Llaneros deserted on finding themselves on foot.
The torrents were crossed on narrow trembling bridges formed of trunks
of trees, or by means of the aerial "taravitas."[A] Where they were
fordable, the current was so strong that the infantry had to pass two
by two with their arms thrown round each other's shoulders; and woe
to him who lost his footing--he lost his life too. Bolivar frequently
passed and re-passed these torrents on horseback, carrying behind him
the sick and weakly, or the women who accompanied his men.
[A] Bridges made of several thongs of hide twisted into a stout rope,
well greased and secured to trees on opposite banks. On the rope
is suspended a cradle or hammock to hold two, and drawn backwards
and forwards by long lines. Horses and mules were also thus
conveyed, suspended by long girths round their bodies.
The temperature was moist and warm; life was supportable with the aid
of a little firewood; but as they ascended the mountain the scene
changed again. Immense rocks piled one upon another, and hills of
snow, bounded the view on every side; below lay the clouds, veiling
the depths of the abyss; an ice-cold wind cut through the stoutest
clothing. At these heights no other noise is heard save that of the
roaring torrents left behind, and the scream of the condor circling
round the snowy peaks above. Vegetation disappears; only lichens are to
be seen clinging to the rock, and a tall plant, bearing plumes instead
of leaves, and crowned with yellow flowers, resembling a funeral torch.
To make the scene more dreary yet, the path was marked out by crosses
erected in memory of travellers who had perished by the way.
[=The Terror of the Mountains=]
On entering this glacial region the provisions gave out; the cattle
they had brought with them as their chief resource could go no farther.
They reached the summit by the Paya pass, where a battalion could
hold an army in check. It was held by an outpost of 300 men, who were
dislodged by the vanguard under Santander without much difficulty.
Now the men began to murmur, and Bolivar called a council of war, to
which he showed that still greater difficulties lay before them, and
asked if they would persevere or return. All were of opinion that they
should go on, a decision which infused fresh spirit into the weary
troops.
In this passage more than one hundred men died of cold, fifty of whom
were Englishmen; no horse had survived. It was necessary to leave the
spare arms, and even some of those that were carried by the soldiers.
It was a mere skeleton of an army which reached the beautiful valley of
Sagamoso, in the heart of the province of Tunja, on the 6th of July,
1819. From this point Bolivar sent back assistance to the stragglers
left behind, collected horses, and detached parties to scour the
country around and communicate with some few guerillas who still roamed
about.
[=Bolivar's Methods of Fighting=]
Meanwhile, Barreiro was still in ignorance of Bolivar's arrival.
Indeed, he had supposed the passage of the Cordillera at that season
impossible. As soon, however, as he did learn of his enemy's proximity,
he collected his forces and took possession of the heights above the
plains of Vargas, thus interposing between the patriots and the town
of Tunja, which, being attached to the independent cause, Bolivar was
anxious to enter. The opposing armies met on the 25th of July, and
engaged in battle for five hours. The patriots won, chiefly through the
English infantry, led by Colonel James Rooke, who was himself wounded
and had an arm shot off. Still, the action had been indecisive, and
the royalist power remained unbroken. Bolivar now deceived Barreiro by
retreating in the daytime, rapidly counter-marching, and passing the
royalist army in the dark through by-roads. On August 5th he captured
Tunja, where he found an abundance of war material, and by holding
which he cut Barreiro's communication with Bogota, the capital. It
was in rapid movements like these that the strength of Bolivar's
generalship lay. Freed from the shackles of military routine that
enslaved the Spanish officers, he astonished them by forced marches
over roads previously deemed impracticable to a regular army. While
they were manoeuvring, hesitating, calculating, guarding the
customary avenues of approach, he surprised them by concentrating a
superior force upon a point where they least expected an attack, threw
them into confusion, and cut up their troops in detail. Thus it happens
that Bolivar's actions in the field do not lend themselves to the same
impressive exposition as do those of less notable generals.
[=The Victory of Boyaca=]
Barreiro, finding himself shut out from Tunja, fell back upon Venta
Quemada, where a general action took place. The country was mountainous
and woody, and well suited to Bolivar's characteristic tactics. He
placed a large part of his troops in ambush, got his cavalry in
the enemy's rear, and presented only a small front. This the enemy
attacked furiously, and with apparent success. It was only a stratagem,
however, for as they drove back Bolivar's front, the troops in ambush
sallied forth and attacked them in the flanks, while the cavalry
attacked them in the rear. Thus were the Spaniards surrounded. General
Barreiro was taken prisoner on the field of battle. On finding his
capture to be inevitable, he threw away his sword that he might not
have the mortification of surrendering it to Bolivar. His second in
command, Colonel Ximenes, was also taken, as were also almost all the
commandants and majors of the corps, a multitude of inferior officers,
and more than 1,600 men. All their arms, ammunition, artillery, horses,
etc., likewise fell into the patriots' hands. Hardly fifty men escaped,
and among these were some chiefs and officers of cavalry, who fled
before the battle was decided. Those who escaped, however, had only the
surrounding country to escape into, and there they were captured by the
peasantry, who bound them and brought them in as prisoners. The patriot
loss was incredibly small--only 13 killed and 53 wounded.
At Boyaca the English auxiliaries were seen for the first time under
fire, and so gratified was Bolivar with their behavior, that he made
them all members of the Order of the Liberator.
Thus was won Boyaca, which, after Maypu, is the great battle of South
America. It gave the preponderance to the patriot arms in the north of
the continent, as Maypu had done in the south. It gave New Granada to
the patriots, and isolated Morillo in Venezuela.
Nothing now remained for Bolivar to do but to reach Bogota, the
capital, and assume the reins of government, for already the Spanish
officials, much to the relief of the inhabitants, had fled. So, with
a small escort, he rode forward, and entered the city on August 10th,
amid the acclamations of the populace.
[=Bolivar and the Peruvians=]
The final battle in this implacable war took place in 1821 at Carabobo,
where the Spaniards met with a total defeat, losing more than 6,000
men. This closed the struggle, the Spaniards withdrew, and a republic
was organized with Bolivar as president. In 1823 he aided the Peruvians
in gaining their independence, and was declared their liberator and
given supreme authority. For two years he ruled as dictator, and then
resigned, giving the country a republican constitution. The people of
the upper section of Peru organized a commonwealth of their own, which
they named Bolivia, in honor of their liberator, while the congress of
Lima elected him president for life.
[=The Freeing of the Other Colonies=]
Meanwhile Chili had won its liberty in 1817 as a result of the victory
of Maypu, above mentioned, and Buenos Ayres had similarly fought for
and gained independence. In North America a similar struggle for
liberty had gone on, and with like result, Central America and Mexico
winning their freedom after years of struggle and scenes of devastation
and cruelty such as those above mentioned. At the opening of the
nineteenth century Spain held a dominion of continental dimensions
in America. At the close of the first quarter of the century, as a
result of her mediæval methods of administration, she had lost all her
possessions on the western continent except the two islands of Cuba and
Porto Rico. Yet, learning nothing from her losses, she pursued the same
methods in these fragments of her dominions, and before the close of
the century these also were torn from her hands. Cruelty and oppression
had borne their legitimate fruits, and Spain, solely through her own
fault, had lost the final relics of her magnificent colonial empire.
[Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.
JOHN BRIGHT.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM.
GREAT ENGLISH STATESMEN]
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA.
ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES.
BRITAIN'S SOVEREIGN AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE THRONE]
CHAPTER VIII.
Great Britain as a World Empire.
On the western edge of the continent of Europe lies the island of Great
Britain, in the remote past a part of the continent, but long ages ago
cut off by the British Channel. Divorced from the mainland, left like
a waif in the western sea, peopled by men with their own interests and
aims, it might naturally be expected to have enough to attend to at
home and to take no part in continental affairs.
[=The Adventurous Disposition of the British People=]
Such was the case originally. The island lay apart, almost unknown, and
was, in a sense, "discovered" by the Roman conquerors. But new people
came to it, the Anglo-Saxons, and subsequently the Normans, both of
them scions of that stirring race of Vikings who made the seas their
own centuries ago and descended in conquering inroads on all the shores
of Europe, while their daring keels cut the waters of far-off Greenland
and touched upon the American coast. This people--stirring, aggressive,
fearless--made a new destiny for Great Britain. Their island shores
were too narrow to hold them, and they set out on bold ventures in all
seas. Their situation was a happy one for a nation of daring navigators
and aggressive warriors. Europe lay to the east, the world to the west.
As a result the British islands have played a leading part alike in the
affairs of Europe and of the world.
[=Hostility of England to France=]
France, the next door neighbor of Great Britain, was long its prey.
While, after the memorable invasion of William of Normandy, France
never succeeded in transporting an army to the island shores, and even
Napoleon failed utterly in his stupendous expedition, the islanders
sent army after army to France, defeated its chivalry on many a
hard-fought field, ravaged its most fertile domains, and for a time
held it as a vassal realm of the British King.
All this is matter of far-past history. But the old feeling was
prominently shown again in the Napoleonic wars, when Great Britain
resumed her attitude of enmity to France, and pursued the conqueror
with an unrelenting hostility that finally ended in his overthrow. Only
for this aggressive island Europe might have remained the bound slave
of Napoleon's whims. He could conquer his enemies on land, but the
people of England lay beyond his reach. Every fleet he sent to sea was
annihilated by his island foes. They held the empire of the waters as
he did that of the land. Enraged against these ocean hornets, he sought
to repeat the enterprise of William of Normandy, but if his mighty
Boulogne expedition had put to sea it would probably have met the fate
of the Armada of Spain. Great Britain was impregnable. The conqueror of
Europe chafed against its assaults in vain. This little island of the
west was destined to be the main agent in overthrowing the great empire
that his military genius had built.
[=The Vast Industries of Great Britain=]
Great Britain, small as it was, had grown, by the opening of the
nineteenth century, to be the leading power in Europe. Its industries,
its commerce, its enterprise had expanded enormously. It had become
the great workshop and the chief distributor of the world. The raw
material of the nations flowed through its ports, the finished products
of mankind poured from its looms, London became the great money centre
of the world, and the industrious and enterprising islanders grew
enormously rich, while few steps of progress and enterprise showed
themselves in any of the nations of the continent.
[=How England Fought Against Napoleon=]
It was with its money-bags that England fought against the conqueror.
It could not conveniently send men, but it could send money and
supplies to the warring nations, and by its influence and aid it formed
coalition after coalition against Napoleon, each harder to overthrow
than the last. Every peace that the Corsican won by his victories was
overthrown by England's influence. Her envoys haunted every court,
whispering hostility in the ears of monarchs, planning, intriguing,
instigating, threatening, in a thousand ways working against his plans,
and unrelentingly bent upon his overthrow. It was fitting, then, that
an English general should give Napoleon the _coup de grace_, and that
he should die a prisoner in English hands.
Chief among those to whom Napoleon owes his overthrow was William
Pitt, prime minister of England during the first period of his career
of conquest, and his unrelenting enemy. It was Pitt that organized
Europe against him, that kept the British fleet alert and expended the
British revenues without stint against this disturber of the peace of
the nations, and that formed the policy which Great Britain, after the
short interval of the ministry of Fox, continued to pursue until his
final defeat was achieved.
[=Was England's Policy a Wise One=]
Whether this policy was a wise one is open to question. It may be that
Great Britain caused more harm than it cured. Only for its persistent
hostility the rapid succession of Napoleonic wars might not have
taken place, and much of the terrible bloodshed and misery caused
by them might have been obviated. It seems to have been, in its way,
disastrous to the interests of mankind. Napoleon, it is true, had no
regard for the stability of dynasties and kingdoms, but he wrought for
the overthrow of the old-time tyranny, and his marches and campaigns
had the effect of stirring up the dormant peoples of Europe, and
spreading far and wide that doctrine of human equality and the rights
of man which was the outcome of the French Revolution. Had he been
permitted to die in peace upon the throne and transmit his crown to his
descendant, the long era of reaction would doubtless have been avoided
and the people of Europe have become the freer and happier as a result
of Napoleon's work.
[=The Prestige Gained by Great Britain=]
The people of Great Britain had no reason to thank their ministers
for their policy. The cost of the war, fought largely with the purse,
had been enormous, and the public debt of the kingdom was so greatly
increased that its annual interest amounted to $150,000,000. But the
country emerged from the mighty struggle with a vast growth in power
and prestige. It was recognized as the true leader in the great contest
and had lifted itself to the foremost position in European politics.
On land it had waged the only successful campaign against Napoleon
previous to that of the disastrous Russian expedition. At sea it had
destroyed all opposing fleets, and reigned the unquestioned mistress of
the ocean except in American waters, where alone her proud ships had
met defeat.
[=Great Extension of England's Colonies=]
The islands of Great Britain and Ireland had ceased to represent the
dominions under the rule of the British king. In the West Indies
new islands had been added to his colonial possessions. In the East
Indies he had become master of an imperial domain far surpassing the
mother country in size and population, and with untold possibilities
of wealth. In North America the great colony of Canada was growing in
population and prosperity. Island after island was being added to his
possessions in the Eastern seas. Among these was the continental island
of Australia, then in its early stage of colonization. The possession
of Gibraltar and Malta, the protectorate over the Ionian Islands, and
the right of free navigation on the Dardanelles gave Great Britain the
controlling power in the Mediterranean. And Cape Colony, which she
received as a result of the Treaty of Vienna, was the entering wedge
for a great dominion in South Africa.
[=The Wars of the World-Empire=]
Thus Great Britain had attained the position and dimensions of a
world-empire. Her colonies lay in all continents and spread through all
seas, and they were to grow during the century until they enormously
excelled the home country in dimensions, population, and natural
wealth. The British Islands were merely the heart, the vital centre of
the great system, while the body and limbs lay afar, in Canada, India,
South Africa, Australia and elsewhere.
But the world-empire of Great Britain was not alone one of peaceful
trade and rapid accumulation of wealth, but of wars spread through
all the continents, war becoming a permanent feature of its history
in the nineteenth century. After the Napoleonic period England waged
only one war in Europe, the Crimean; but elsewhere her troops were
almost constantly engaged. Now they were fighting with the Boers and
the Zulus of South Africa, now with the Arabs on the Nile, now with the
wild tribes of the Himalayas, now with the natives of New Zealand, now
with the half savage Abyssinians. Hardly a year has passed without a
fight of some sort, far from the centre of this vast dominion, while
for years England and Russia have stood face to face on the northern
borders of India, threatening at any moment to become involved in a
terrible struggle for dominion.
And the standing of Great Britain as a world power lay not alone in
her vast colonial dominion and her earth-wide wars, but also in the
extraordinary enterprise that carried her ships to all seas, and made
her the commercial emporium of the world. Not only to her own colonies,
but to all lands, sailed her enormous fleet of merchantmen, gathering
the products of the earth, to be consumed at home or distributed again
to the nations of Europe and America. She had assumed the position of
the purveyor and carrier for mankind.
[=Manufacturing and Inventive Activity=]
This was not all. Great Britain was in a large measure, the producer
for mankind. Manufacturing enterprise and industry had grown immensely
on her soil, and countless factories, forges and other workshops turned
out finished goods with a speed and profusion undreamed of before.
The preceding century had been one of active invention, its vital
product being the steam engine, that wonder-worker which at a touch
was to overturn the old individual labor system of the world, and
replace it with the congregate, factory system that has revolutionized
the industries of mankind. The steam engine stimulated invention
extraordinarily. Machines for spinning, weaving, iron-making, and a
thousand other purposes came rapidly into use, and by their aid one of
the greatest steps of progress in the history of mankind took place,
the grand nineteenth century revolution in methods of production.
[=Commercial Enterprise=]
Great Britain did not content herself with going abroad for the
materials of her active industries. She dug her way into the bowels
of the earth, tore from the rocks its treasures of coal and iron, and
thus obtained the necessary fuel for her furnaces and metal for her
machines. The whole island resounded with the ringing of hammers and
rattle of wheels, goods were produced very far beyond the capacity of
the island for their consumption, and the vast surplus was sent abroad
to all quarters of the earth, to clothe savages in far-off regions and
to furnish articles of use and luxury to the most enlightened of the
nations. To the ship as a carrier was soon added the locomotive and
its cars, conveying these products inland with unprecedented speed
from a thousand ports. And from America came the parallel discovery of
the steamship, signalling the close of the long centuries of dominion
of the sail. Years went on and still the power and prestige of Great
Britain grew, still its industry and commerce spread and expanded,
still its colonies increased in population and new lands were added
to the sum, until the island-empire stood foremost in industry and
enterprise among the nations of the world, and its people reached the
summit of their prosperity. From this lofty elevation was to come, in
the later years of the century, a slow but inevitable decline, as the
United States and the leading European nations developed in industry,
and rivals to the productive and commercial supremacy of the British
islanders began to arise in various quarters of the earth.
[=Disastrous Effect on the People of the New Conditions=]
It cannot be said that the industrial prosperity of Great Britain,
while of advantage to her people as a whole, was necessarily so to
individuals. While one portion of the nation amassed enormous wealth,
the bulk of the people sank into the deepest poverty. The factory
system brought with it oppression and misery which it would need a
century of industrial revolt to overcome. The costly wars, the crushing
taxation, the oppressive corn-laws, which forbade the importation of
foreign corn, the extravagant expenses of the court and salaries of
officials, all conspired to depress the people. Manufacturies fell into
the hands of the few, and a vast number of artisans were forced to live
from hand to mouth, and to labor for long hours on pinching wages.
Estates were similarly accumulated in the hands of the few, and the
small land-owner and trader tended to disappear. Everything was taxed
to the utmost it would bear, while government remained blind to the
needs and sufferings of the people and made no effort to decrease the
prevailing misery.
Thus it came about that the era of Great Britain's greatest prosperity
and supremacy as a world-power was the one of greatest industrial
oppression and misery at home, a period marked by rebellious uprisings
among the people, to be repressed with cruel and bloody severity.
It was a period of industrial transition, in which the government
flourished and the people suffered, and in which the seeds of revolt
and revolution were widely spread on every hand.
This state of affairs cannot be said to have ended. In truth the
present condition of affairs is one that tends to its aggravation.
Neither the manufacturing nor commercial supremacy of Great Britain
are what they once were. In Europe, Germany has come into the field
as a formidable competitor, and is gaining a good development in
manufacturing industry. The same must be said of the United States,
the products of whose workshops have increased to an enormous extent,
and whose commerce has grown to surpass that of any other nation on
the earth. The laboring population of Great Britain has severely felt
the effects of this active rivalry, and is but slowly adapting itself
to the new conditions which it has brought about, the slow but sure
revolution in the status of the world's industries.
CHAPTER IX.
The Great Reform Bill and the Corn Laws.
[=A Period of Riot and Tumult=]
At the close of the last chapter we depicted the miseries of the people
of Great Britain, due to the revolution in the system of industry,
the vast expenses of the Napoleonic wars, the extravagance of the
government, and the blindness of Parliament to the condition of the
working classes. The situation had grown intolerable; it was widely
felt that something must be done; if affairs were allowed to go on
as they were the people might rise in a revolt that would widen into
revolution. A general outbreak seemed at hand. To use the language of
the times, the "Red Cock" was crowing in the rural districts. That
is, incendiary fires were being kindled in a hundred places. In the
centres of manufacture similar signs of discontent appeared. Tumultuous
meetings were held, riots broke out, bloody collisions with the troops
took place. Daily and hourly the situation was growing more critical.
The people were in that state of exasperation that is the preliminary
stage of insurrection.
Two things they strongly demanded, reform in Parliament and repeal of
the Corn Laws. It is with these two questions, reform and repeal, that
we propose to deal in this chapter.
[=The Parliament of Great Britain=]
The British Parliament, it is scarcely necessary to say, is composed
of two bodies, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The
former represents the aristocratic element of the nation;--in short,
it represents simply its members, since they hold their seats as
a privilege of their titles, and have only their own interests to
consider, though the interests of their class go with their own. The
latter are supposed to represent the people, but up to the time with
which we are now concerned they had never fully done so; and they did
so now less than ever, since the right to vote for them was reserved to
a few thousands of the rich.
[=Two Centuries of Change=]
In the year 1830, indeed, the House of Commons had almost ceased to
represent the people at all. Its seats were distributed in accordance
with a system that had scarcely changed in the least for two hundred
years. The idea of distributing the members in accordance with the
population was scarcely thought of, and a state of affairs had arisen
which was as absurd as it was unjust. For during these two hundred
years great changes had taken place in England. What were mere villages
or open plains had become flourishing commercial or manufacturing
cities. Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, and other centres
of industry had become seats of great and busy populations. On the
other hand, flourishing towns had decayed, ancient boroughs had
become practically extinct. Thus there had been great changes in the
distribution of population, but the distribution of seats in Parliament
remained the same.
[=Disfranchised Cities and Rotten Boroughs=]
As a result of this state of affairs the great industrial towns,
Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and others, with their
hundreds of thousands of people, did not send a single member to
Parliament, while places with only a handful of voters were duly
represented, and even places with no voters at all sent members to
Parliament. Land-holding lords nominated and elected those, generally
selecting the younger sons of noble families, and thus a large number
of the "representatives of the people" really represented no one but
the gentry to whom they owed their places. "Rotten" boroughs these were
justly called, but they were retained by the stolid conservatism with
which the genuine Briton clings to things and conditions of the past.
The peculiar state of affairs was picturesquely pointed out by Lord
John Russell in a speech in 1831. "A stranger," he said, "who was told
that this country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, and more
civilized and enlightened than any country was before it--that it is
a country which prides itself upon its freedom, and which once in
seven years elects representatives from its population to act as the
guardians and preservers of that freedom--would be anxious and curious
to see how that representation is formed, and how the people choose
their representatives.
[Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING.
T. HALL CAINE.
A. CONON DOYLE.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
GEORGE DU MAURIER.
JAMES M. BARRIE.
WILLIAM BLACK.
WALTER BESANT.
GEORGE MACDONALD.
POPULAR WRITERS OF FICTION.]
[Illustration: JUSTIN McCARTHY.
JAMES BRYCE.
JOHN MORLEY.
A. J. BALFOUR.
ENGLISH STATESMEN IN LITERATURE.]
[=The Case Presented by Lord John Russell=]
"Such a person would be very much astonished if he were taken to a
ruined mound and told that that mound sent two representatives to
Parliament; if he were taken to a stone wall and told that these
niches in it sent two representatives to Parliament; if he were
taken to a park, where no houses were to be seen, and told that that
park sent two representatives to Parliament. But he would be still
more astonished if he were to see large and opulent towns, full of
enterprise and industry and intelligence, containing vast magazines of
every species of manufacture, and were then told that these towns sent
no representatives to Parliament.
"Such a person would be still more astonished if he were taken to
Liverpool, where there is a large constituency, and told, 'Here you
will have a fine specimen of a popular election.' He would see bribery
employed to the greatest extent and in the most unblushing manner; he
would see every voter receiving a number of guineas in a bag as the
price of his corruption; and after such a spectacle he would be, no
doubt, much astonished that a nation whose representatives are thus
chosen, could perform the functions of legislation at all, or enjoy
respect in any degree."
[=Dissenters and Catholics Admitted to Parliament=]
Such was the state of affairs when there came to England the news
of the quiet but effective French Revolution of 1830. Its effect in
England was a stern demand for the reform of this mockery miscalled
House of Commons, of this lie that claimed to represent the English
people. We have not told the whole story of the transparent falsehood.
Two years before no man could be a member of Parliament who did not
belong to the Church of England. No Dissenter could hold any public
office in the kingdom. The multitudes of Methodists, Presbyterians,
Baptists, and other dissenting sects were excluded from any share
in the government. The same was the case with the Catholics, few in
England, but forming the bulk of the population of Ireland. This evil,
so far as all but the Catholics were concerned, was removed by Act of
Parliament in 1828. The struggle for Catholic liberation was conducted
in Ireland by Daniel O'Connell, the most eloquent and patriotic of its
orators. He was sneered at by Lord Wellington, then prime minister of
Great Britain. But when it was seen that all Ireland was backing her
orator the Iron Duke gave way, and a Catholic Relief Bill was passed in
1829, giving Catholics the right to hold all but the highest offices of
the realm. In 1830, instigated by the revolution in France, the great
fight for the reform of Parliamentary representation began.
The question was not a new one. It had been raised by Cromwell, nearly
two hundred years before. It had been brought forward a number of times
during the eighteenth century. It was revived in 1809 and again in
1821, but public opinion did not come strongly to its support until
1830. George IV., its strong opponent, died in that year; William IV.,
a king more in its favor, came to the throne; the government of the
bitterly conservative Duke of Wellington was defeated and Earl Grey,
a Liberal minister, took his place; the time was evidently ripe for
reform, and soon the great fight was on.
[=The Reform Bill Introduced=]
The people of England looked upon the reform of Parliament as a
restoring to them of their lost liberties, and their feelings were
deeply enlisted in the event. When, on the 1st of March, 1831, the
bill was brought into the House of Commons, the public interest was
intense. For hours eager crowds waited in the streets, and when the
doors of the Parliament house were opened every inch of room in the
galleries was quickly filled, while for hundreds of others no room was
to be had.
The debate opened with the speech by Lord John Russell from which we
have quoted. In the bill offered by him he proposed to disfranchise
entirely sixty-two of the rotten boroughs, each of which had less than
2,000 inhabitants; to reduce forty-seven others, with less than 4,000
inhabitants, to one member each; and to distribute the 168 members thus
unseated among the populous towns, districts, and counties which either
had no members at all, or a number out of all proportion to their
population. Also the suffrage was to be extended, the hours for voting
shortened, and other reforms adopted.
[=The Fate of Reform in Parliament=]
The bill was debated, pro and con, with all the eloquence then in
Parliament. Vigorously as it was presented, the opposing elements
were too strong, and its consideration ended in defeat by a majority
of eight. Parliament was immediately dissolved by the premier, and an
appeal was made to the people. The result showed the strength of the
public sentiment, limited as the suffrage then was. The new Parliament
contained a large majority of reformers, and when the bill was again
presented it was carried by a majority of 106. On the evening of its
passage it was taken by Earl Grey into the House of Lords, where it
was eloquently presented by the prime minister and bitterly attacked
by Lord Brougham, who declared that it would utterly overwhelm the
aristocratic part of the House. His view was that of his fellows, and
the Reform Bill was thrown out by a majority of forty-one.
[=England on the Verge of Revolution=]
Instantly, on the news of this action of the Lords, the whole country
blazed into a state of excitement and disorder only surpassed by that
of civil war. The people were bitterly in earnest in their demand
for reform, their feelings being wrought up to an intense pitch of
excitement. Riots broke out in all sections of the country. London
seethed with excitement. The peers were mobbed in the streets and
hustled and assaulted wherever seen. They made their way to the House
only through a throng howling for reform. Those known to have voted
against the bill were in peril of their lives, some being forced to
fly over housetops to escape the fury of the people. Angry debates
arose in the House of Lords in which even the Bishops took an excited
part. The Commons was like a bear-pit, a mass of furiously wrangling
opponents. England was shaken to the centre by the defeat of the bill,
and Parliament reflected the sentiment of the people.
On December 12th, Russell presented a third Reform Bill to the House,
almost the same in its provisions as those which had been defeated.
The debate now was brief, and the result certain. It was felt to be no
longer safe to juggle with the people. On the 18th the bill was passed,
with a greatly increased majority, now amounting to 162. To the Lords
again it went, where the Tories, led by Lord Wellington, were in a
decided majority against it. It had no chance of passage, unless the
king would create enough new peers to outvote the opposition. This King
William refused to do, and Earl Grey resigned the ministry, leaving the
Tories to bear the brunt of the situation they had produced.
[=How the Reform Bill Was Passed=]
The result was one barely short of civil war. The people rose in fury,
determined upon reform or revolution. Organized unions sprang up in
every town. Threats of marching an army upon London were made. Lord
Wellington was mobbed in the streets and was in peril of his life. The
maddened populace went so far as to curse and stone the king himself,
one stone striking him in the forehead. The country was indeed on the
verge of insurrection against the government, and unless quick action
was taken it was impossible to foresee the result.
William IV., perhaps with the recent experience of Charles X. of
France before his eyes, gave way, and promised to create enough new
peers to insure the passing of the bill. To escape this unwelcome
necessity Wellington and others of the Tories agreed to stay away from
Parliament, and the Lords, pocketing their dignity as best they could,
passed the bill by a safe majority, and reform was attained. Similar
bills were passed for Scotland and Ireland, and thus was achieved the
greatest measure of reform in the history of the British Parliament. It
was essentially a revolution, the first great step in the evolution of
a truly representative assembly in Great Britain.
[=The Extension of the Suffrage=]
The second great step was taken in 1867, in response to a popular
demonstration almost as great and threatening as that of 1830. The
Tories themselves, under their leader Mr. Disraeli, were obliged
to bring in this bill, which extended the suffrage to millions of
the people, and made it almost universal among the commercial and
industrial classes. Nearly twenty years later, in 1884, a new crusade
was made in favor of the extension of the suffrage to agricultural
laborers, previously disfranchised. The accomplishment of this reform
ended the great struggle, and for the first time in their history
the people of Great Britain were adequately represented in their
Parliament, which had ceased to be the instrument of a class and at
last stood for the whole commonwealth.
The question of Parliamentary reform settled, a second great question,
that of the Corn Laws, rose up prominently before the people. It was
one that appealed more immediately to them than that of representation.
The benefits to come from the latter were distant and problematical;
those to come from a repeal of the Corn Laws were evident and
immediate. Every poor man and woman felt each day of his life the
crushing effect of these laws, which bore upon the food on their
tables, making still more scarce and high-priced their scanty means of
existence.
[=The Corn Laws=]
For centuries commerce in grain had been a subject of legislation.
In 1361 its exportation from England was forbidden, and in 1463 its
importation was prohibited unless the price of wheat was greater than
6s. 3d. per quarter. As time went on changes were made in these laws,
but the tariff charges kept up the price of grain until late in the
nineteenth century, and added greatly to the miseries of the working
classes.
The farming land of England was not held by the common people, but by
the aristocracy, who fought bitterly against the repeal of the Corn
Laws, which, by laying a large duty on grain, added materially to
their profits. But while the aristocrats were benefited, the workers
suffered, the price of the loaf being decidedly raised and their scanty
fare correspondingly diminished.
[=Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law Crusade=]
[=Great Britain Adopts Free Trade=]
More than once they rose in riot against these laws, and occasional
changes were made in them, but many years passed after the era of
parliamentary reform before public opinion prevailed in this second
field of effort. Richard Cobden, one of the greatest of England's
orators, was the apostle of the crusade against these misery-producing
laws. He advocated their repeal with a power and influence that in
time grew irresistible. He was not affiliated with either of the great
parties, but stood apart as an independent Radical, a man with a party
of his own, and that party, Free Trade. For the crusade against the
Corn Laws widened into one against the whole principle of protection.
Backed by the public demand for cheap food, the movement went on, until
in 1846 Cobden brought over to his side the government forces under Sir
Robert Peel, by whose aid the Corn Laws were swept away and the ports
of England thrown open to the free entrance of food from any part of
the world. The result was a serious one to English agriculture, but
it was of great benefit to the English people in their status as the
greatest of manufacturing and commercial nations. Supplying the world
with goods, as they did, it was but just that the world should supply
them with food. With the repeal of the duties on grain the whole system
of protection was dropped and in its place was adopted that system of
free trade in which Great Britain stands alone among the nations of the
world. It was a system especially adapted to a nation whose market was
the world at large, and under it British commerce spread and flourished
until it became one of the wonders of the world.
CHAPTER X.
Turkey, the "Sick Man" of Europe.
[=The "Sick Man" of Europe=]
Among the most interesting phases of nineteenth-century history is that
of the conflict between Russia and Turkey, a struggle for dominion
that came down from the preceding centuries, and still seems only
temporarily laid aside for final settlement in the years to come. In
the eighteenth century the Turks proved quite able to hold their own
against all the power of Russia and all the armies of Catharine the
Great, and they entered the nineteenth century with their ancient
dominion largely intact. But they were declining in strength while
Russia was growing, and long before 1900 the empire of the Sultan would
have become the prey of the Czar had not the other powers of Europe
come to the rescue. The Czar Nicholas designated the Sultan as "the
sick man" of Europe, and such he and his empire have truly become.
[=The Result of the War of 1829=]
The ambitious designs of Russia found abundant warrant in the cruel
treatment of the Christian people of Turkey. A number of Christian
kingdoms lay under the Sultan's rule, in the south inhabited by Greeks,
in the north by Slavs; their people treated always with harshness and
tyranny; their every attempt at revolt repressed with savage cruelty.
We have seen how the Greeks rebelled against their oppressors in 1821,
and, with the aid of Europe, won their freedom in 1829. Stirred by this
struggle, Russia declared war against Turkey in 1828, and in the treaty
of peace signed at Adrianople in 1829 secured not only the independence
of Greece, but a large degree of home-rule for the northern
principalities of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Turkey was forced in
a measure to loosen her grip on Christian Europe. But the Russians were
not satisfied with this. They had got next to nothing for themselves.
England and the other Western powers, fearful of seeing Russia in
possession of Constantinople, had forced her to release the fruits of
her victory. It was the first step in that jealous watchfulness of
England over Constantinople which was to have a more decided outcome in
later years. The newborn idea of maintaining the balance of power in
Europe stood in Russia's way, the nations of the West viewing in alarm
the threatening growth of the great Muscovite Empire.
[=Oppression of the Christians of Turkey=]
The ambitious Czar Nicholas looked upon Turkey as his destined prey,
and waited with impatience a sufficient excuse to send his armies
again to the Balkan Peninsula, whose mountain barrier formed the great
natural bulwark of Turkey in the north. Though the Turkish government
at this time avoided direct oppression of its Christian subjects, the
fanatical Mohammedans were difficult to restrain, and the robbery and
murder of Christians was of common occurrence. A source of hostility
at length arose from the question of protecting these ill-treated
peoples. By favor of old treaties the czar claimed a certain right to
protect the Christians of the Greek faith. France assumed a similar
protectorate over the Roman Catholics of Palestine, but the greater
number of Greek Christians in the Holy Land, and the powerful support
of the czar, gave those the advantage in the frequent quarrels which
arose in Jerusalem between the pilgrims from the East and the West.
[=The Balance of Power in Europe=]
Nicholas, instigated by his advantage in this quarter, determined to
declare himself the protector of all the Christians in the Turkish
Empire, a claim which the sultan dared not admit if he wished to hold
control over his Mohammedan subjects. War was in the air, and England
and France, resolute to preserve the "balance of power," sent their
fleets to the Dardanelles as useful lookers-on.
[=The Sultan Declares War Against Russia=]
The sultan had already rejected the Russian demand, and Nicholas lost
no time in sending an army, led by Prince Gortchakoff, with orders to
cross the Pruth and take possession of the Turkish provinces on the
Danube. The gauntlet had been thrown down. War was inevitable. The
English newspapers demanded of their government a vigorous policy. The
old Turkish party in Constantinople was equally urgent in its demand
for hostilities. At length, on October 4, 1853, the sultan declared
war against Russia unless the Danubian principalities were at once
evacuated. Instead of doing so, Nicholas ordered his generals to invade
the Balkan territory, and on the other hand France and England entered
into alliance with the Porte and sent their fleets to the Bosporus.
Shortly afterwards the Russian Admiral Nachimoff surprised a Turkish
squadron in the harbor of Sinope, attacked it, and--though the Turks
fought with the greatest courage--the fleet was destroyed and nearly
the whole of its crews were slain.
This turned the tide in England and France, which declared war in
March, 1854, while Prussia and Austria maintained a waiting attitude.
No event of special importance took place early in the war. In April
Lord Raglan, with an English army of 20,000 men, landed in Turkey and
the siege of the Russian city of Odessa was begun. Meanwhile the
Russians, who had crossed the Danube, found it advisable to retreat and
withdraw across the Pruth, on a threat of hostilities from Austria and
Prussia unless the principalities were evacuated.
[=England and France Come to the Aid of Turkey=]
The French had met with heavy losses in an advance from Varna, and the
British fleet had made an expedition against St. Petersburg, but had
been checked before the powerful fortress of Cronstadt. Such was the
state of affairs in the summer of 1854, when the allies determined to
carry the war into the enemy's territory, attack the maritime city of
Sebastopol in the Crimea, and seek to destroy the Russian naval power
in the Black Sea.
[=The War in the Crimea=]
Of the allied armies 15,000 men had already perished. With the
remaining forces, rather more than 50,000 British and French and 6,000
Turks, the fleet set sail in September across the Black Sea, and landed
near Eupatoria on the west coast of the Crimean peninsula, on the 4th
of September, 1854. Southwards of Eupatoria the sea forms a bay, into
which, near the ruins of the old town of Inkermann, the little river
Tschernaja pours itself. On its southern side lies the fortified town
of Sebastopol, on its northern side strong fortifications were raised
for the defence of the fleet of war which lay at anchor in the bay.
Farther north the western mountain range is intersected by the river
Alma, over which Prince Menzikoff, governor of the Crimea, garrisoned
the heights with an army of 30,000 men. Against the latter the allies
first directed their attack, and, in spite of the strong position of
the Russians on the rocky slopes, Menzikoff was compelled to retreat,
owing his escape from entire destruction only to the want of cavalry
in the army of the allies. This dearly bought and bloody battle on the
Alma gave rise to hopes of a speedy termination of the campaign; but
the allies, weakened and wearied by the fearful struggle, delayed a
further attack, and Menzikoff gained time to strengthen his garrison,
and to surround Sebastopol with strong fortifications. When the allies
approached the town they were soon convinced that any attack on such
formidable defences would be fruitless, and that they mast await the
arrival of fresh reinforcements and ammunition. The English took up
their position on the Bay of Balaklava, and the French to the west, on
the Kamiesch.
[Illustration: THE SULTAN OF TURKEY
THE SHAH OF IRAN
POTENTATES OF THE EAST]
[Illustration: LANDING IN THE CRIMEA AND THE BATTLE OF ALMA
On the landing of the allied British, French and Turks
in the Crimea in September, 1854, Prince Menshikoff
occupied the adjacent heights with an army of 30,000
men. He was attacked by the allies and driven from his
position in the battle of Alma. From that point the
invaders marched to the siege of Sebastopol.]
[=The Battle of Balaklava=]
There now commenced a siege such as has seldom occurred in the history
of the world. The first attempt to storm by a united attack of the land
army and the fleet showed the resistance to be much more formidable
than had been expected by the allies. Eight days later the English
were surprised in their strong position near Balaklava by General
Liprandi. The battle of Balaklava was decided in favor of the
allies, and on the 5th of November, when Menzikoff had obtained fresh
reinforcements, the murderous battle of Inkermann was fought under the
eyes of the two Grand Princes Nicholas and Michael, and after a mighty
struggle was won by the allied armies. Fighting in the ranks were two
other princely personages, the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Napoleon,
son of Jerome, former King of Westphalia.
Of the engagements here named there is only one to which special
attention need be directed, the battle of Balaklava, in which occurred
that mad but heroic "Charge of the Light Brigade," which has become
famous in song and story. The purpose of this conflict on the part of
the Russians was to cut the line of communication of the allies, by
capturing the redoubts that guarded them, and thus to enforce a retreat
by depriving the enemy of supplies.
[=The Highlanders' "Thin, Red Line"=]
The day began with a defeat of the Turks and the capture by the
Russians of several of the redoubts. Then a great body of Russian
cavalry, 3,000 strong, charged upon the 93d Highlanders, who were drawn
up in line to receive them. There was comparatively but a handful of
these gallant Scotchmen, 550 all told, but they have made themselves
famous in history as the invincible "thin, red line."
Sir Colin Campbell, their noble leader, said to them: "Remember, lads,
there is no retreat from here. You must die where you stand."
"Ay, ay, Sir Colin," shouted the sturdy Highlanders, "we will do just
that."
They did not need to. The murderous fire from their "thin, red line"
was more than the Russians cared to endure, and they were driven back
in disorder.
The British cavalry completed the work of the infantry. On the serried
mass of Russian horsemen charged Scarlett's Heavy Brigade, vastly
inferior to them in number, but inspired with a spirit and courage
that carried its bold horsemen through the Russian columns with such
resistless energy that the great body of Muscovite cavalry broke and
fled--3,000 completely routed by 800 gallant dragoons.
And now came the unfortunate but world-famous event of the day. It
was due to a mistaken order. Lord Raglan, thinking that the Russians
intended to carry off the guns captured in the Turkish redoubts, sent
an order to the brigade of light cavalry to "advance rapidly to the
front and prevent the enemy from carrying off the guns."
[=Captain Nolan and the Order to Charge=]
Lord Lucan, to whom the command was brought, did not understand it.
Apparently, Captain Nolan, who conveyed the order, did not clearly
explain its purport.
"Lord Raglan orders that the cavalry shall attack immediately," he
said, impatient at Lucan's hesitation.
"Attack, sir; attack what?" asked Lucan.
"There, my lord, is your enemy; there are your guns," said Nolan, with
a wave of his hand towards the hostile lines.
The guns he appeared to indicate were those of a Russian battery at the
end of the valley, to attack which by an unsupported cavalry charge was
sheer madness. Lucan rode to Lord Cardigan, in command of the cavalry,
and repeated the order.
"But there is a battery in front of us and guns and riflemen on either
flank," said Cardigan.
"I know it," answered Lucan. "But Lord Raglan will have it. We have no
choice but to obey."
"The brigade will advance," said Cardigan, without further hesitation.
In a moment more the "gallant six hundred" were in motion--going in the
wrong direction, as Captain Nolan is thought to have perceived. At all
events he spurred his horse across the front of the brigade, waving his
sword as if with the intention to set them right. But no one understood
him, and at that instant a fragment of shell struck him and hurled him
dead to the earth. There was no further hope of stopping the mad charge.
[=The Charge of the Light Brigade=]
On and on went the devoted Light Brigade, their pace increasing at
every stride, headed straight for the Russian battery half a league
away. As they went fire was opened on them from the guns in flank. Soon
they came within range of the guns in front, which also opened a raking
fire. They were enveloped in "a zone of fire, and the air was filled
with the rush of shot, the bursting of shells, and the moan of bullets,
while amidst the infernal din the work of death went on, and men and
horses were incessantly dashed to the ground."
But no thought of retreat seems to have entered the minds of those
brave dragoons and their gallant leader. Their pace increased; they
reached the battery and dashed in among the guns; the gunners were cut
down as they served their pieces. Masses of Russian cavalry standing
near were charged and forced back. The men fought madly in the face of
death until the word came to retreat.
[=The Sad End of a Deed of Glory=]
Then, emerging from the smoke of the battle, a feeble remnant of the
"gallant six hundred" appeared upon the plain, comprising one or two
large groups, though the most of them were in scattered parties of
two or three. One group of about seventy men cut their way through
three squadrons of Russian lancers. Another party of equal strength
broke through a second intercepting force. Out of some 647 men in all,
247 were killed and wounded, and nearly all the horses were slain.
Lord Cardigan, the first to enter the battery, was one of those who
came back alive. The whole affair had occupied no more than twenty
minutes. But it was a twenty minutes of which the British nation has
ever since been proud, and which Tennyson has made famous by one of the
most spirit-stirring of his odes. The French General Bosquet fairly
characterized it by his often quoted remark: "C'est magnifique, mais ce
n'est pas la guerre." (It is magnificent, but it is not war.)
These battles in the field brought no changes in the state of affairs.
The siege of Sebastopol went on through the winter of 1854-55, during
which the allied army suffered the utmost misery and privation, partly
the effect of climate, largely the result of fraud and incompetency at
home. Sisters of Mercy and self-sacrificing English ladies--chief among
them the noble Florence Nightingale--strove to assuage the sufferings
brought on the soldiers by cold, hunger, and disease, but these enemies
proved more fatal than the sword.
In the year 1855 the war was carried on with increased energy. Sardinia
joined the allies and sent them an army of 15,000 men. Austria broke
with Russia and began preparations for war. And in March the obstinate
czar Nicholas died and his milder son Alexander took his place. Peace
was demanded in Russia, yet 25,000 of her sons had fallen and the honor
of the nation seemed involved. The war went on, both sides increasing
their forces. Month by month the allies more closely invested the
besieged city. After the middle of August the assault became almost
incessant, cannon balls dropping like an unceasing storm of hail in
forts and streets.
[=The Assault on and Capture of Sebastopol=]
On the 5th of September began a terrific bombardment, continuing day
and night for three days, and sweeping down more than 5,000 Russians on
the ramparts. At length, as the hour of noon struck on September 8th,
the attack of which this play of artillery was the prelude began, the
French assailing the Malakoff, the British the Redan, these being the
most formidable of the defensive works of the town. The French assault
was successful and Sebastopol became untenable. That night the Russians
blew up their remaining forts, sunk their ships of war, and marched
out of the town, leaving it as the prize of victory to the allies.
Soon after Russia gained a success by capturing the Turkish fortress
of Kars, in Asia Minor, and, her honor satisfied with this success, a
treaty of peace was concluded. In this treaty the Black Sea was made
neutral and all ships of war were excluded from its waters, while the
safety of the Christians of Wallachia, Moldavia and Servia was assured
by making these principalities practically independent, under the
protection of the powers of Europe.
[=The Revolt in Bosnia=]
Turkey came out of the war weakened and shorn of territory. But the
Turkish idea of government remained unchanged, and in twenty years'
time Russia was fairly goaded into another war. In 1875 Bosnia
rebelled in consequence of the insufferable oppression of the Turkish
tax-collectors. The brave Bosnians maintained themselves so sturdily in
their mountain fastnesses that the Turks almost despaired of subduing
them, and the Christian subjects of the Sultan in all quarters became
so stirred up that a general revolt was threatened.
The Turks undertook to prevent this in their usual fashion. Irregular
troops were sent into Christian Bulgaria with orders to kill all they
met. It was an order to the Mohammedan taste. The defenceless villages
of Bulgaria were entered and their inhabitants slaughtered in cold
blood, till thousands of men, women, and children had been slain.
[=The "Bulgarian Horror" and Its Effect=]
When tidings of these atrocities reached Europe the nations were filled
with horror. The Sultan made smooth excuses, and diplomacy sought to
settle the affair, but it became evident that a massacre so terrible as
this could not be condoned so easily. Disraeli, then prime minister of
Great Britain, sought to dispose of these reports as matters for jest;
but Gladstone, at that time in retirement, arose in his might, and by
his pamphlet on the "Bulgarian Horrors" so aroused public sentiment in
England that the government dared not back up Turkey in the coming war.
Hostilities were soon proclaimed. The Russians, of the same race and
religious sect as the Bulgarians, were excited beyond control, and in
April, 1877, Alexander II. declared war against Turkey. The outrages of
the Turks had been so flagrant that no allies came to their aid, while
the rottenness of their empire was shown by the rapid advance of the
Russian armies.
They crossed the Danube in June. In a month later they had occupied
the principal passes of the Balkan mountains and were in position to
descend on the broad plain that led to Constantinople. But at this
point in their career they met with a serious check. Osman Pasha, the
single Turkish commander of ability that the war developed, occupied
the town of Plevna with such forces as he could gather, fortified it as
strongly as possible, and from behind its walls defied the Russians.
[=Osman Pacha and the Defence of Plevna=]
They dared not advance and leave this stronghold in their rear. For
five months all the power of Russia and the skill of its generals
were held in check by this brave man and his few followers, until
Europe and America alike looked on with admiration at his remarkable
defence, in view of which the cause of the war was almost forgotten.
The Russian general Krüdener was repulsed with the loss of 8,000 men.
The daring Skobeleff strove in vain to launch his troops over Osman's
walls. At length General Todleben undertook the siege, adopting the
slow but safe method of starving out the defenders. Osman Pacha now
showed his courage, as he had already shown his endurance. When hunger
and disease began to reduce the strength of his men, he resolve on a
final desperate effort. At the head of his brave garrison the "Lion of
Plevna" sallied from the city, and fought with desperate courage to
break through the circle of his foes. He was finally driven back into
the city and compelled to surrender.
[=The Total Defeat of the Turks=]
Osman had won glory, and his fall was the fall of the Turkish cause.
The Russians crossed the Balkan, capturing in the Schipka Pass a
Turkish army of 30,000 men. Adrianople was taken, and the Turkish line
of retreat cut off. The Russians marched to the Bosporus, and the
Sultan was compelled to sue for peace to save his capital from falling
into the hands of the Christians, as it had fallen into those of the
Turks four centuries before.
Russia had won the game for which she had made so long a struggle.
The treaty of San Stefano practically decreed the dissolution of the
Turkish Empire. But at this juncture the other nations of Europe took
part. They were not content to see the balance of power destroyed by
Russia becoming master of Constantinople, and England demanded that the
treaty should be revised by the European powers. Russia protested, but
Disraeli threatened war, and the czar gave way.
[=The Congress of Berlin=]
The Congress of Berlin, to which the treaty was referred, settled the
question in the following manner: Montenegro, Roumania, and Servia were
declared independent, and Bulgaria became free, except that it had to
pay an annual tribute to the sultan. The part of old Bulgaria that lay
south of the Balkan Mountains was named East Roumelia and given its own
civil government, but was left under the military control of Turkey.
Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under the control of Austria. All
that Russia obtained for her victories were some provinces in Asia
Minor. Turkey was terribly shorn, and since then her power has been
further reduced, for East Roumelia has broken loose from her control
and united itself again to Bulgaria.
[=The Turks in Armenia and Crete=]
Another twenty years passed, and Turkey found itself at war again. It
was the old story, the oppression of the Christians. This time the
trouble began in Armenia, a part of Turkey in Asia, where in 1895 and
1896 terrible massacres took place. Indignation reigned in Europe, but
fears of a general war kept them from using force, and the sultan paid
no heed to the reforms he promised to make.
In 1896 the Christians of the island of Crete broke out in revolt
against the oppression and tyranny of Turkish rule. Of all the powers
of Europe little Greece was the only one that came to their aid, and
the great nations, still inspired with the fear of a general war,
sent their fleet and threatened Greece with blockade unless she would
withdraw her troops.
[=The War Between Turkey and Greece=]
The result was one scarcely expected. Greece was persistent, and
gathered a threatening army on the frontier of Turkey, and war broke
out in 1897 between the two states. The Turks now, under an able
commander, showed much of their ancient valor and intrepidity, crossing
the frontier, defeating the Greeks in a rapid series of engagements,
and occupying Thessaly, while the Greek army was driven back in a
state of utter demoralization. At this juncture, when Greece lay at
the mercy of Turkey, as Turkey had lain at that of Russia twenty years
before, the powers, which had refused to aid Greece in her generous but
hopeless effort, stepped in to save her from ruin. Turkey was bidden
to call a halt, and the sultan reluctantly stopped the march of his
army. He demanded the whole of Thessaly and a large indemnity in money.
The former the powers refused to grant, and reduced the indemnity to
a sum within the power of Greece to pay. Thus the affair ended, and
such is the status of the Eastern Question to-day. But it may be merely
a question of time when Russia shall accomplish her long-cherished
design, and become master of Constantinople; possibly by the way of
Asia, in which her power is now so rapidly and widely extending.
CHAPTER XI.
The European Revolution of 1848.
[=Opposition in France to Louis Philippe=]
The revolution of 1830 did not bring peace and quiet to France nor to
Europe. In France the people grew dissatisfied with their new monarch;
in Europe generally they demanded a greater share of liberty. Louis
Philippe delayed to extend the suffrage; he used his high position to
add to his great riches; he failed to win the hearts of the French,
and was widely accused of selfishness and greed. There were risings of
legitimist in favor of the Bourbons, while the republican element was
opposed to monarchy. No less than eight attempts were made to remove
the king by assassination--all of them failures, but they showed the
disturbed state of public feeling. Liberty, equality, fraternity became
the watchwords of the working classes, socialistic ideas arose and
spread, and the industrial element of the various nations became allied
in one great body of revolutionists known as the "Internationalists."
In Germany the demand of the people for political rights grew until
it reached a crisis. The radical writings of the "Young Germans," the
stirring songs of their poets, the bold utterances of the press, the
doctrines of the "Friends of Light" among the Protestants and of the
"German Catholics" among the Catholics, all went to show that the
people were deeply dissatisfied alike with the state and the church.
They were rapidly arousing from their sluggish acceptance of the work
of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, and the spirit of liberty was in the
air.
[=Revolutionary Sentiment in Germany and Italy=]
The King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., saw danger ahead. He became
king in 1840 and lost no time in trying to make his rule popular by
reforms. An edict of toleration was issued, the sittings of the courts
were opened to the public, and the Estates of the provinces were called
to meet in Berlin. In the convening of a Parliament he had given the
people a voice. The Estates demanded freedom of the press and of the
state with such eloquence and energy that the king dared not resist
them. The people had gained a great step in their progress towards
liberty.
In Italy also the persistent demands of the people met with an
encouraging response. The Pope, Pius IX., extended the freedom of
the press, gave a liberal charter to the City of Rome, and began the
formation of an Italian confederacy. In Sicily a revolutionary outbreak
took place, and the King of Naples was compelled to give his people
a constitution and a parliament. His example was followed in Tuscany
and Sardinia. The tyrannical Duke of Modena was forced to fly from the
vengeance of his people, and the throne of Parma became vacant by the
death in 1847 of Maria Louisa, the widow of Napoleon Bonaparte, a woman
little loved and less respected.
The Italians were filled with hope by these events. Freedom and the
unity of Italy loomed up before their eyes. Only two obstacles stood
in their way, the Austrians and the Jesuits, and both of these were
bitterly hated. Gioberti, the enemy of the Jesuits, was greeted with
cheers, under which might be heard harsh cries of "Death to the
Germans."
Such was the state of affairs at the beginning of 1848. The measure of
liberty granted the people only whetted their appetite for more, and
over all Western Europe rose an ominous murmur, the voice of the people
demanding the rights of which they had so long been deprived. In France
this demand was growing dangerously insistant; in Paris, the centre of
European revolution, it threatened an outbreak. Reform banquets were
the order of the day in France, and one was arranged for in Paris to
signalize the meeting of the Chambers.
[=The Outbreak in Paris=]
Guizot, the historian, who was then minister of foreign affairs, had
deeply offended the liberal party of France by his reactionary policy.
The government threw fuel on the fire by forbidding the banquet and
taking steps to suppress it by military force. The people were enraged
by this false step and began to gather in excited groups. Throngs of
them--artisans, students, and tramps--were soon marching through the
streets, with shouts of "Reform! Down with Guizot!" The crowds rapidly
increased and grew more violent. The people were too weak to cope with
them; the soldiers were loath to do so; soon barricades were erected
and fighting began.
[Illustration: THE CONGRESS AT BERLIN, JUNE 13, 1878
After the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, a
Congress of the European Powers was held at Berlin
to decide on the status of Turkey, its purpose being
largely to prevent Russia from taking possession of
Constantinople. One of its results was to give Great
Britain control of the Island of Cyprus.]
[Illustration: THE WOUNDING OF GENERAL BOSQUET--
(FROM THE PAINTING BY YVON)
One of the most successful French Marshals in the
Crimean War was Pierre Francois Joseph Bosquet.
Parliament voted him England's thanks for the part he
played in winning the battle of Inkermann. He also
took a leading part in the capture of the Malakoff,
Siege of Sebastopol September 8, 1855, where he was
seriously wounded.]
For two days this went on. Then the king, alarmed at the situation,
dismissed Guizot and promised reform, and the people, satisfied for the
time and proud of their victory, paraded the streets with cheers and
songs. All now might have gone well but for a hasty and violent act
on the part of the troops. About ten o'clock at night a shouting and
torch-bearing throng marched through the Boulevards, singing and waving
flags. Reaching the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they halted and called
for its illumination. The troops on duty there interfered, and, on
an insult to their colonel and the firing of a shot from the mob, they
replied with a volley, before which fifty-two of the people fell killed
and wounded.
[=Revolt Becomes Revolution=]
This reckless and sanguinary deed was enough to turn revolt into
revolution. The corpses were carried on biers through the streets by
the infuriated people, the accompanying torch-bearers shouting: "To
arms! they are murdering us!" At midnight the tocsin call rang from the
bells of Notre Dame; the barricades, which had been partly removed,
were restored; and the next morning, February 24, 1848, Paris was in
arms. In the struggle that followed they were quickly victorious, and
the capital was in their hands.
[=The Second French Republic=]
Louis Philippe followed the example of Charles X., abdicated his
throne and fled to England. After the fate of Louis XVI. no monarch
was willing to wait and face a Paris mob. The kingdom was overthrown,
and a republic, the second which France had known, was established,
the aged Dupont de l'Eure being chosen president. The poet Lamartine,
the socialist Louis Blanc, the statesmen Ledru-Rollin and Arago became
members of the Cabinet, and all looked forward to a reign of peace
and prosperity. The socialists tried the experiment of establishing
national workshops in which artisans were to be employed at the expense
of the state, with the idea that this would give work to all.
Yet the expected prosperity did not come. The state was soon deeply
in debt, many of the people remained unemployed, and the condition of
industry grew worse day by day. The treasury proved incapable of paying
the state artisans, and the public workshops were closed. In June the
trouble came to a crisis and a new and sanguinary outbreak began,
instigated by the hungry and disappointed workmen, and led by the
advocates of the "Red Republic," who acted with ferocious brutality.
General Brea and the Archbishop of Paris were murdered, and the work of
slaughter grew so horrible that the National Assembly, to put an end to
it, made General Cavaignac dictator and commissioned him to put down
the revolt. A terrible struggle ensued between the mob and the troops,
ending in the suppression of the revolt and the arrest and banishment
of many of its ringleaders. Ten or twelve thousand people had been
killed. The National Assembly adopted a republican constitution, under
which a single legislative chamber and a president to be elected every
four years were provided for. The assembly wished to make General
Cavaignac president, but the nation, blinded by their faith in the
name of the great conqueror, elected by an almost unanimous vote
his nephew, Louis Napoleon, a man who had suffered a long term of
imprisonment for his several attempts against the reign of the late
king. The revolution, for the time being, was at an end, and France was
a republic again.
[=Effect of the Revolution of 1848 in Europe=]
The effect of this revolution in France spread far and wide through
Europe. Outbreaks occurred in Italy, Poland, Switzerland and Ireland,
and in Germany the revolutionary fever burned hot. Baden was the first
state to yield to the demands of the people for freedom of the press, a
parliament and other reforms, and went so far as to abolish the imposts
still remaining from feudal times. The other minor states followed
its example. In Saxony, Würtemberg and other states class abuses were
abolished, liberals given prominent positions under government, the
suffrage and the legislature reformed, and men of liberal sentiment
summoned to discuss the formation of new constitutions.
[=Metternich and His System=]
But it was in the great despotic states of Germany--Prussia and
Austria--that the liberals gained the most complete and important
victory, and went farthest in overthrowing autocratic rule and
establishing constitutional government. The great Austrian statesman
who had been a leader in the Congress of Vienna and who had suppressed
liberalism in Italy, Prince Metternich, was still, after more than
thirty years, at the head of affairs in Vienna. He controlled the
policy of Austria; his word was law in much of Germany; time had
cemented his authority, and he had done more than any other man in
Europe in maintaining despotism and building a dam against the rising
flood of liberal sentiment.
But the hour of the man who had destroyed the work of Napoleon was at
hand. He had failed to recognize the spirit of the age or to perceive
that liberalism was deeply penetrating Austria. To most of the younger
statesmen of Europe the weakness of his policy and the rottenness of
his system were growing apparent, and it was evident that they must
soon fall before the onslaught of the advocates of freedom.
An incitement was needed, and it came in the news of the Paris
revolution. At once a hot excitement broke out everywhere in Austria.
From Hungary came a vigorous demand for an independent parliament,
reform of the constitution, decrease of taxes, and relief from the
burden of the national debt of Austria. From Bohemia, whose rights and
privileges had been seriously interfered with in the preceding year,
came similar demands. In Vienna itself the popular outcry for increased
privileges grew insistant.
[=The Outbreak in Vienna=]
The excitement of the people was aggravated by their distrust of the
paper money of the realm and by a great depression in commerce and
industry. Daily more workmen were thrown out of employment, and
soon throngs of the hungry and discontented gathered in the streets.
Students, as usual, led away by their boyish love of excitement, were
the first to create a disturbance, but others soon joined in, and the
affair quickly became serious.
The old system was evidently at an end. The policy of Metternich could
restrain the people no longer. Lawlessness became general, excesses
were committed by the mob, the dwellings of those whom the populace
hated were attacked and plundered, the authorities were resisted
with arms, and the danger of an overthrow of the government grew
imminent. The press, which had gained freedom of utterance, added to
the peril of the situation by its inflammatory appeals to the people,
and by its violence checked the progress of the reforms which it
demanded. Metternich, by his system of restraint, had kept the people
in ignorance of the first principles of political affairs, and the
liberties which they now asked for showed them to be unadapted to a
liberal government. The old minister, whose system was falling in ruins
about him, fled from the country and sought a refuge in England, that
haven of political failures.
[=Flight and Return of the Emperor=]
In May, 1848, the emperor, alarmed at the threatening state of
affairs, left his capital and withdrew to Innsbruck. The tidings
of his withdrawal stirred the people to passion, and the outbreak
of mob violence which followed was the fiercest and most dangerous
that had yet occurred. Gradually, however, the tumult was appeased,
a constitutional assembly was called into being and opened by the
Archduke John, and the Emperor Ferdinand re-entered Vienna amid the
warm acclamations of the people. The outbreak was at an end. Austria
had been converted from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy.
[=Revolt in Prussia and the German Union=]
In Berlin the spirit of revolution became as marked as in Vienna.
The King resisted the demands of the people, who soon came into
conflict with the soldiers, a fierce street fight breaking out which
continued with violence for two weeks. The revolutionists demanded the
removal of the troops and the formation of a citizen militia, and the
king, alarmed at the dangerous crisis in affairs, at last assented.
The troops were accordingly withdrawn, the obnoxious ministry was
dismissed, and a citizen-guard was created for the defence of the city.
Three days afterwards the king promised to govern as a constitutional
monarch, an assembly was elected by universal suffrage, and to it
was given the work of preparing a constitution for the Prussian
state. Here, as in Austria, the revolutionists had won the day and
irresponsible government was at an end.
Elsewhere in Germany radical changes were taking place. King Louis
of Bavaria, who had deeply offended his people, resigned in favor
of his son. The Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt did the same. Everywhere
the liberals were in the ascendant, and were gaining freedom of the
press and constitutional government. The formation of Germany into
a federal empire was proposed and adopted, and a National Assembly
met at Frankfort on May 18, 1848. It included many of the ablest
men of Germany. Its principal work was to organize a union under an
irresponsible executive, who was to be surrounded by a responsible
ministry. The Archduke John of Austria was selected to fill this new,
but brief imperial position, and made a solemn entry into Frankfort on
the 11th of July.
[=The Schleswig-Holstein Affair=]
All this was not enough for the ultra radicals. They determined to
found a German republic, and their leaders, Hecker and Struve, called
the people to arms. An outbreak took place in Baden, but it was quickly
suppressed, and the republican movement came to a speedy end. In the
north war broke out between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, united
duchies which desired to be freed from Danish rule and annexed to
Germany, and called for German aid. But just then the new German Union
was in no condition to come to their assistance, and Prussia preferred
diplomacy to war, with the result that Denmark came out victorious from
the contest. As will be seen in a later chapter, Prussia, under the
energetic leadership of Bismarck, came, a number of years afterwards,
to the aid of these discontented duchies, and they were finally torn
from Danish control.
[=War in Sicily and Sardinia=]
While these exciting events were taking place in the north, Italy was
swept with a storm of revolution from end to end. Metternich was no
longer at hand to keep it in check, and the whole peninsula seethed
with revolt. Sicily rejected the rule of the Bourbon king of Naples,
chose the Duke of Genoa, son of Charles Albert of Sardinia, for its
king, and during a year fought for liberty. This patriotic effort of
the Sicilians ended in failure. The Swiss mercenaries of the Neapolitan
king captured Syracuse and brought the island into subjection, and
the tyrant hastened to abolish the constitution which he had been
frightened into granting in his hour of extremity.
In the north of Italy war broke out between Austria and Sardinia. Milan
and Venice rose against the Austrians and drove out their garrisons,
throughout Lombardy the people raised the standard of independence,
and Charles Albert of Sardinia called his people to arms and invaded
that country, striving to free it and the neighboring state of Venice
from Austrian rule. For a brief season he was successful, pushing
the Austrian troops to the frontiers, but the old Marshal Radetzky
defeated him at Verona and compelled him to seek safety in flight. The
next year he renewed his attempt, but with no better success. Depressed
by his failure, he resigned the crown to his son Victor Emmanuel, who
made a disadvantageous peace with Austria. Venice held out for several
months, but was finally subdued, and Austrian rule was restored in the
north.
[=The Revolution in Rome=]
Meanwhile the pope, Pius IX., offended his people by his unwillingness
to aid Sardinia against Austria. He promised to grant a constitutional
government and convened an Assembly in Rome, but the Democratic people
of the state were not content with feeble concessions of this kind.
Rossi, prime minister of the state, was assassinated, and the pope,
filled with alarm, fled in disguise, leaving the Papal dominion to the
revolutionists, who at once proclaimed a republic and confiscated the
property of the Church.
Mazzini, the leader of "Young Italy," the ardent revolutionist who had
long worked in exile for Italian independence, entered the Eternal
City, and with him Garibaldi, long a political refugee in America and
a gallant partisan leader in the recent war with Austria. The arrival
of these celebrated revolutionists filled the democratic party in Rome
with the greatest enthusiasm, and it was resolved to defend the States
of the Church to the last extremity, viewing them as the final asylum
of Italian liberty.
[=Capture of Rome by the French Army=]
In this extremity the pope called on France for aid. That country
responded by sending an army, which landed at Civita-Vecchia and
marched upon and surrounded Rome. The new-comers declared that they
came as friends, not as foes; it was not their purpose to overthrow
the republic, but to defend the capital from Austria and Naples. The
leaders of the insurgents in Rome did not trust their professions and
promises and refused them admittance. A fierce struggle followed. The
republicans defended themselves stubbornly. For weeks they defied
the efforts of General Oudinot and his troops. But in the end they
were forced to yield, a conditional submission was made, and the
French soldiers occupied the city. Garibaldi, Mazzini, and others of
the leaders took to flight, and the old conditions were gradually
resumed under the controlling influence of French bayonets. For years
afterwards the French held the city as the allies and guard of the pope.
[=The Outbreak in Hungary=]
The revolutionary spirit, which had given rise to war in Italy, yielded
a still more resolute and sanguinary conflict in Hungary, whose people
were divided against themselves. The Magyars, the descendants of the
old Huns, who demanded governmental institutions of their own, separate
from these of Austria, though under the Austrian monarch, were opposed
by the Slavonic part of the population, and war began between them.
Austrian troops were ordered to the aid of Jellachich, the ruler of the
Slavs of Croatia in South Hungary, but their departure was prevented
by the democratic people of Vienna, who rose in violent insurrection,
induced by their sympathy with the Magyars.
[=Vienna Captured by Storm=]
The whole city was quickly in tumult, an attack was made on the
arsenals, and the violence became so great that the emperor again took
to flight. War in Austria followed. A strong army was sent to subdue
the rebellious city, which was stubbornly defended, the students' club
being the centre of the revolutionary movement. Jellachich led his
Croatians to the aid of the emperor's troops, the city was surrounded
and besieged, sallies and assaults were of daily occurrence, and for
a week and more a bloody conflict continued day and night. Vienna was
finally taken by storm, the troops forcing their way into the streets,
where shocking scenes of murder and violence took place. On November
21, 1848, Jellachich entered the conquered city, martial law was
proclaimed, the houses were searched, the prisons filled with captives,
and the leaders of the insurrection put to death.
Shortly afterwards the Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne in
favor of his youthful nephew, Francis Joseph, who at once dissolved
the constitutional assembly and proclaimed a new constitution and a
new code of laws. Hungary was still in arms, and offered a desperate
resistance to the Austrians, who now marched to put down the
insurrection. They found it no easy task. The fiery eloquence of the
orator Kossuth roused the Magyars to a desperate resistance, Polish
leaders came to their support, foreign volunteers strengthened their
ranks, Gorgey, their chief leader, showed great military skill, and the
Austrians were driven out and the fortresses taken. The independence of
Hungary was now proclaimed, and a government established under Kossuth
as provisional president.
[=The Hungarian Revolt and Its Suppression=]
The repulse of the Austrians nerved the young emperor to more strenuous
exertions. The aid of Russia was asked, and the insurgent state invaded
on three sides, by the Croatians from the south, the Russians from the
north, and the Austrians, under the brutal General Haynau, from the
west.
The conflict continued for several months, but quarrels between the
Hungarian leaders weakened their armies, and in August, 1849, Gorgey,
who had been declared dictator, surrendered to the invaders, Kossuth
and the other leaders seeking safety in flight. Haynau made himself
infamous by his cruel treatment of the Hungarian people, particularly
by his use of the lash upon women. His conduct raised such wide-spread
indignation that he was roughly handled by a party of brewers, on his
visit to London in 1850.
With the fall of Hungary the revolutionary movement of 1848 came to
an end. The German Union had already disappeared. There were various
other disturbances, besides those we have recorded, but finally all the
states settled down to peace and quiet. Its results had been great in
increasing the political privileges of the people of Western Europe,
and with it the reign of despotism in that section of the continent
came to an end.
The greatest hero of the war in Hungary was undoubtedly Louis Kossuth,
whose name has remained familiar among those of the patriots of
his century. From Hungary he made his way to Turkey, where he was
imprisoned for two years at Kutaieh, being finally released through the
intervention of the governments of Great Britain and the United States.
He then visited England, where he was received with enthusiastic,
popular demonstrations and made several admirable speeches in the
English language, of which he had excellent command. In the autumn of
1851 he came to the United States, where he had a flattering reception
and spoke on the wrongs of Hungary to enthusiastic audiences in the
principal cities.
CHAPTER XII.
Louis Napoleon and the Second French Empire.
The name of Napoleon is a name to conjure with in France. Two
generations after the fall of Napoleon the Great, the people of that
country had practically forgotten the misery he had brought them, and
remembered only the glory with which he had crowned the name of France.
When, then, a man whom we may fairly designate as Napoleon the Small
offered himself for their suffrages, they cast their votes almost
unanimously in his favor.
[=Louis Napoleon and His Claim to the Throne=]
Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, to give this personage his full name,
was a son of Louis Bonaparte, once king of Holland, and Hortense de
Beauharnais, and had been recognized by Napoleon as, after his father,
the direct successor to the throne. This he made strenuous efforts to
obtain, hoping to dethrone Louis Philippe and install himself in his
place. In 1836, with a few followers, he made an attempt to capture
Strasbourg. His effort failed and he was arrested and transported to
the United States. In 1839 he published a work entitled "Napoleonic
Ideas," which was an apology for the ambitious acts of the first
Napoleon.
[=A Rash and Unsuccessful Invasion=]
The growing unpopularity of Louis Philippe tempted him at this time to
make a second attempt to invade France. He did it in a rash way almost
certain to end in failure. Followed by about fifty men, and bringing
with him a tame eagle, which was expected to perch upon his banner as
the harbinger of victory, he sailed from England in August, 1840, and
landed at Boulogne. This desperate and foolish enterprise proved a
complete failure. The soldiers whom the would-be usurper expected to
join his standard arrested him, and he was tried for treason by the
House of Peers. This time he was not dealt with so leniently as before,
but was sentenced to imprisonment for life and was confined in the
Castle of Ham. From this fortress he escaped in disguise in May, 1846,
and made his way to England.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF CHAMPIGNY
On November 30, 1870, the French besieged in Paris
made a desperate effort to break through the investing
lines of the Germans at Champigny, on the River Marne.
The struggle continued for two days and ended in the
repulse of the French. This defeat sealed the fate of
Paris and of France.]
[Illustration: THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO.
LOUIS KOSSUTH.
NOBLE SONS OF POLAND AND HUNGARY]
The revolution of 1848 gave the restless and ambitious adventurer
a more promising opportunity. He returned to France, was elected
to the National Assembly, and on the adoption of the republican
constitution offered himself as a candidate the Presidency of the
new republic. And now the magic of the name of Napoleon told. General
Cavaignac, his chief competitor, was supported by the solid men of the
country, who distrusted the adventurer; but the people rose almost
solidly in his support, and he was elected president for four years by
5,562,834 votes, against 1,469,166 for Cavaignac.
[=An Autocratic President of France=]
The new President of France soon showed his ambition. He became
engaged in a contest with the Assembly and aroused the distrust of the
Republicans by his autocratic tones. In 1849 he still further offended
the Democratic party by sending an army to Rome, which put an end to
the republic in that city. He sought to make his Cabinet officers the
pliant instruments of his will, and thus caused De Tocqueville, the
celebrated author, who was minister for foreign affairs, to resign. "We
were not the men to serve him on those terms," said De Tocqueville, at
a later time.
The new-made president was feeling his way to imperial dignity. He
could not forget that his illustrious uncle had made himself emperor,
and his ambition instigated him to the same course. A violent
controversy arose between him and the Assembly, which body passed a
law restricting universal suffrage, and thus reducing the popular
support of the president. In June, 1850, it increased his salary at his
request, but granted the increase only for one year--an act of distrust
which proved a new source of discord.
[=The Coup d'état of Louis Napoleon=]
Louis Napoleon meanwhile was preparing for a daring act. He secretly
obtained the support of the army leaders and prepared covertly for
the boldest stroke of his life. On the 2d of December, 1851,--the
anniversary of the establishment of the first empire and of the battle
of Austerlitz,--he got rid of his opponents by means of the memorable
_coup d'etat_, and seized the supreme power of the state.
The most influential members of the Assembly had been arrested during
the preceding night, and when the hour for the session of the House
came the men most strongly opposed to the usurper were in prison.
Most of them were afterwards exiled, some for life, some for shorter
terms. This act of outrage and violation of the plighted faith of the
president roused the Socialists and Republicans to the defence of their
threatened liberties, insurrections broke out in Paris, Lyons, and
other towns, street barricades were built, and severe fighting took
place. But Napoleon had secured the army, and the revolt was suppressed
with blood and slaughter. Baudin, one of the deposed deputies, was shot
on the barricade in the Faubourg St. Antoine, while waving in his hand
the decree of the constitution. He was afterwards honored as a martyr
to the cause of republicanism in France.
[=How Napoleon Won Popular Support=]
The usurper had previously sought to gain the approval of the people
by liberal and charitable acts, and to win the goodwill of the civic
authorities by numerous progresses through the interior. He posed
as a protector and promoter of national prosperity and the rights
of the people, and sought to lay upon the Assembly all the defects
of his administration. By these means, which aided to awaken the
Napoleonic fervor in the state, he was enabled safely to submit his
acts of violence and bloodshed to the approval of the people. The new
constitution offered by the president was put to vote, and was adopted
by the enormous majority of more than seven million votes. By its terms
Louis Napoleon was to be president of France for ten years, with the
power of a monarch, and the Parliament was to consist of two bodies, a
Senate and a Legislative House, which were given only nominal power.
[=Louis Napoleon is Elected Emperor=]
This was as far as Napoleon dared to venture at that time. A year
later, on December 1, 1852, having meanwhile firmly cemented his power,
he passed from president to emperor, again by a vote of the people, of
whom, according to the official report, 7,824,189 cast their votes in
his favor.
Thus ended the second French republic, an act of usurpation of the
basest and most unwarranted character. The partisans of the new
emperor were rewarded with the chief offices of the state; the leading
republicans languished in prison or in exile for the crime of doing
their duty to their constituents; and Armand Marrest, the most zealous
champion of the republic, died of a broken heart from the overthrow
of all his efforts and aspirations. The honest soldier and earnest
patriot, Cavaignac, in a few years followed him to the grave. The cause
of liberty in France seemed lost.
The crowning of a new emperor of the Napoleonic family in France
naturally filled Europe with apprehensions. But Napoleon III., as he
styled himself, was an older man than Napoleon I., and seemingly less
likely to be carried away by ambition. His favorite motto, "The Empire
is peace," aided to restore quietude, and gradually the nations began
to trust in his words, "France wishes for peace; and when France is
satisfied the world is quiet."
[=Marriage of the Emperor=]
Warned by one of the errors of his uncle, he avoided seeking a wife in
the royal families of Europe, but allied himself with a Spanish lady
of noble rank, the young and beautiful Eugenie de Montijo, duchess of
Teba. At the same time he proclaimed that, "A sovereign raised to the
throne by a new principle should remain faithful to that principle,
and in the face of Europe frankly accept the position of a parvenu,
which is an honorable title when it is obtained by the public suffrage
of a great people. For seventy years all princes' daughters married
to rulers of France have been unfortunate; only one, Josephine, was
remembered with affection by the French people, and she was not born of
a royal house."
[=Public Works in Paris and France=]
The new emperor sought by active public works and acts of charity to
win the approval of the people. He recognized the necessity of aiding
the working classes as far as possible, and protecting them from
poverty and wretchedness. During a dearth in 1853 a "baking fund" was
organized in Paris, the city contributing funds to enable bread to be
sold at a low price. Dams and embankments were built along the rivers
to overcome the effects of floods. New streets were opened, bridges
built, railways constructed, to increase internal traffic. Splendid
buildings were erected for municipal and government purposes. Paris
was given a new aspect by pulling down its narrow lanes, and building
wide streets and magnificent boulevards--the latter, as was charged,
for the purpose of depriving insurrection of its lurking places. The
great exhibition of arts and industries in London was followed in 1854
by one in France, the largest and finest seen up to that time. Trade
and industry were fostered by a reduction of tariff charges, joint
stock companies and credit associations were favored, and in many ways
Napoleon III. worked wisely and well for the prosperity of France, the
growth of its industries, and the improvement of the condition of its
people.
[=The Ambition of the Emperor=]
But the new emperor, while thus actively engaged in labors of peace, by
no means lived up to the spirit of his motto, "The Empire is peace."
An empire founded upon the army needs to give employment to that army.
A monarchy sustained by the votes of a people athirst for glory needs
to do something to appease that thirst. A throne filled by a Napoleon
could not safely ignore the "Napoleonic Ideas," and the first of
these might be stated as "The Empire is war." And the new emperor was
by no means satisfied to pose simply as the "nephew of his uncle."
He possessed a large share of the Napoleonic ambition, and hoped by
military glory to surround his throne with some of the lustre of that
of Napoleon the First.
Whatever his private views, it is certain that France under his reign
became the most aggressive nation of Europe, and the overweening
ambition and self-confidence of the new emperor led him to the same end
as his great uncle, that of disaster and overthrow.
The very beginning of Louis Napoleon's career of greatness, as
president of the French Republic, was signalized by an act of military
aggression, in sending his army to Rome and putting an end to the new
Italian republic. These troops were kept there until 1866, and the
aspirations of the Italian patriots were held in check until that year.
Only when United Italy stood menacingly at the gates of Rome were these
foreign troops withdrawn.
[=The French in the Crimea=]
In 1854 Napoleon allied himself with the British and the Turks against
Russia, and sent an army to the Crimea, which played an effective part
in that great struggle in that peninsula. The troops of France had the
honor of rendering Sebastopol untenable, carrying by storm one of its
two great fortresses and turning its guns upon the city.
[=Orsini's Attempt at Assassination=]
The next act of aggression of the French emperor was against Austria.
As the career of conquest of Napoleon I. had begun with an attack upon
the Austrians in Italy, Napoleon III. attempted a similar enterprise,
and with equal success. He had long been cautiously preparing in secret
for hostilities with Austria, but lacked a satisfactory excuse for
declaring war. This came in 1858 from an attempt at assassination.
Felice Orsini, a fanatical Italian patriot, incensed at Napoleon from
his failing to come to the aid of Italy, launched three explosive bombs
against his carriage. This effect was fatal to many of the people in
the street, though the intended victim escaped. Orsini won sympathy
while in prison by his patriotic sentiments and the steadfastness of
his love for his country. "Remember that the Italians shed their blood
for Napoleon the great," he wrote to the emperor. "Liberate my country,
and the blessings of twenty-five millions of people will follow you to
posterity."
Louis Napoleon had once been a member of a secret political society
of Italy; he had taken the oath of initiation; his failure to come to
the aid of that country when in power constituted him a traitor to his
oath and one doomed to death; the act of Orsini seemed the work of the
society. That he was deeply moved by the attempted assassination is
certain, and the result of his combined fear and ambition was soon to
be shown.
On New Year's Day, 1859, while receiving the diplomatic corps at the
Tuileries, Napoleon addressed the following significant words to the
Austrian ambassador: "I regret that our relations are not so cordial as
I could wish, but I beg you to report to the Emperor that my personal
sentiments towards him remain unaltered."
[=The Warlike Attitude of France and Sardinia=]
Such is the masked way in which diplomats announce an intention of
war. The meaning of the threatening words was soon shown, when Victor
Emmanuel, shortly afterwards, announced at the opening of the Chambers
in Turin that Sardinia could no longer remain indifferent to the cry
for help which was rising from all Italy. Ten years had passed since
the defeat of the Sardinians on the plains of Lombardy. During that
time they had cherished a hope of retribution, and it was now evident
that an alliance had been made with France and that the hour of
vengeance was at hand.
Austria was ready for the contest. Her finances, indeed, were in
a serious state, but she had a large army in Lombardy. This was
increased, Lombardy was declared in a state of siege, and every
step was taken to guard against assault from Sardinia. Delay was
disadvantageous to Austria, as it would permit her enemies to complete
their preparations, and on April 23, 1859, an ultimatum came from
Vienna, demanding that Sardinia should put her army on a peace footing
or war would ensue.
[=Advance of the Austrian Army=]
A refusal came from Turin. Immediately field-marshal Gyulai received
orders to cross the Ticino. Thus, after ten years of peace, the
beautiful plains of Northern Italy were once more to endure the ravages
of war. This act of Austria was severely criticised by the neutral
powers, which had been seeking to allay the trouble. Napoleon took
advantage of it, accusing Austria of breaking the peace by invading the
territory of his ally, the king of Sardinia.
The real fault committed by Austria, under the circumstances, was not
in precipitating war, which could not well be avoided in the temper of
her antagonists, but in putting, through court favor and privileges of
rank, an incapable leader at the head of the army. Old Radetzky, the
victor in the last war, was dead, but there were other able leaders who
were thrust aside in favor of the Hungarian noble Franz Gyulai, a man
without experience as commander-in-chief of an army.
By his uncertain and dilatory movements Gyulai gave the Sardinians
time to concentrate an army of 80,000 men around the fortress of
Alessandria, and lost all the advantage of being the first in the
field. In early May the French army reached Italy, partly by way of the
St. Bernard Pass, partly by sea; and Garibaldi, with his mountaineers,
took up a position that would enable him to attack the right wing of
the Austrians.
[=The French in Italy and the March on Milan=]
Later in the month Napoleon himself appeared, his presence and the name
he bore inspiring the soldiers with new valor, while his first order of
the day, in which he recalled the glorious deeds which their fathers
had done on those plains under his great uncle, roused them to the
highest enthusiasm. While assuming the title of commander-in-chief, he
left the conduct of the war to his able subordinates, MacMahon, Niel,
Canrobert, and others.
The Austrian general, having lost the opportunity to attack, was
now put on the defensive, in which his incompetence was equally
manifested. Being quite ignorant of the position of the foe, he sent
Count Stadion, with 12,000 men, on a reconnoisance. An encounter took
place at Montebello on May 20th, in which, after a sharp engagement,
Stadion was forced to retreat. Gyulai directed his attention to that
quarter, leaving Napoleon to march unmolested from Alessandria to the
invasion of Lombardy. Gyulai now, aroused by the danger of Milan, began
his retreat across the Ticino, which he had so uselessly crossed.
[=A Campaign of Blunders=]
The road to Milan crossed the Ticino River and the Naviglio Grande,
a broad and deep canal a few miles east of the river. Some distance
farther on lies the village of Magenta, the seat of the first great
battle of the war. Sixty years before, on those Lombard plains,
Napoleon the Great had first lost, and then, by a happy chance, won
the famous battle of Marengo. The Napoleon now in command was a very
different man from the mighty soldier of the year 1800, and the French
escaped a disastrous rout only because the Austrians were led by a
worse general still. Some one has said that victory comes to the army
that makes the fewest blunders. Such seems to have been the case in the
battle of Magenta, where military genius was the one thing wanting.
The French pushed on, crossed the river without finding a man
to dispute the passage,--other than a much-surprised customs
official,--and reached an undefended bridge across the canal. The
high road to Milan seemed deserted by the Austrians. But Napoleon's
troops were drawn out in a preposterous line, straddling a river and a
canal, both difficult to cross, and without any defensive positions to
hold against an attack in force. He supposed that the Austrians were
stretched out in a similar long line. This was not the case. Gyulai
had all the advantages of position, and might have concentrated his
army and crushed the advanced corps of the French if he had known his
situation and his business. As it was, between ignorance on the one
hand and indecision on the other, the battle was fought with about
equal forces on either hand.
[=Buffalora and Magenta=]
The first contest took place at Buffalora, a village on the canal where
the French encountered the Austrians in force. Here a bloody struggle
went on for hours, ending in the capture of the place by the Grenadiers
of the Guard, who held on to it afterwards with stubborn courage.
General MacMahon, in command of the advance, had his orders to march
forward, whatever happened, to the church-tower of Magenta, and, in
strict obedience to orders, he pushed on, leaving the grenadiers to
hold their own as best they could at Buffalora, and heedless of the
fact that the reserve troops of the army had not yet begun to cross
the river. It was the 5th of June, and the day was well advanced when
MacMahon came in contact with the Austrians at Magenta, and the great
contest of the day began.
[=Camou's Deliberate March=]
It was a battle in which the commanders on both sides, with the
exception of MacMahon, showed lack of military skill and the soldiers
on both sides the staunchest courage. The Austrians seemed devoid of
plan or system, and their several divisions were beaten in detail by
the French. On the other hand, General Camou, in command of the second
division of MacMahon's corps, acted as Desaix had done at the battle
of Marengo, marched at the sound of the distant cannon. But, unlike
Desaix, he moved so deliberately that it took him six hours to make
less than five miles. He was a tactician of the old school, imbued with
the idea that every march should be made in perfect order.
At half-past four MacMahon, with his uniform in disorder and followed
by a few officers of his staff, dashed back to hurry up this
deliberate reserve. On the way thither he rode into a body of Austrian
sharpshooters. Fortune favored him. Not dreaming of the presence of the
French general, they saluted him as one of their own commanders. On his
way back he made a second narrow escape from capture by the Uhlans.
[=The French Victory at Magenta=]
The drums now beat the charge, and a determined attack was made by
the French, the enemy's main column being taken between two fires.
Desperately resisting, it was forced back step by step upon Magenta.
Into the town the columns rolled, and the fight became fierce around
the church. High in the tower of this edifice stood the Austrian
general and his staff, watching the fortunes of the fray; and from
this point he caught sight of the four regiments of Camou, advancing
as regularly as if on parade. They were not given the chance to fire
a shot or receive a scratch, eager as they were to take part in the
fight. At sight of them the Austrian general ordered a retreat and the
battle was at an end. The French owed their victory largely to General
Mellinet and his Grenadiers of the Guard, who held their own like
bull-dogs at Buffalora while Camou was advancing with the deliberation
of the old military rules. MacMahon and Mellinet and the French had
won the day. Victor Emmanuel and the Sardinians did not reach the
ground until after the battle was at end. For his services on that day
of glory for France MacMahon was made Marshal of France and Duke of
Magenta.
[=Milan and the Quadrilateral=]
The prize of the victory of Magenta was the possession of Lombardy.
Gyulai, unable to collect his scattered divisions, gave orders for
a general retreat. Milan was evacuated with precipitate haste, and
the garrisons were withdrawn from all the towns, leaving them to be
occupied by the French and Italians. On the 8th of June Napoleon
and Victor Emmanuel rode into Milan side by side, amid the loud
acclamations of the people, who looked upon this victory as an
assurance of Italian freedom and unity. Meanwhile the Austrians
retreated without interruption, not halting until they arrived at
the Mincio, where they were protected by the famous Quadrilateral,
consisting of the four powerful fortresses of Peschiera, Mantua,
Verona, and Leguano, the mainstay of the Austrian power in Italy.
The French and Italians slowly pursued the retreating Austrians, and
on the 23d of June bivouacked on both banks of the Chiese River, about
fifteen miles west of the Mincio. The Emperor Francis Joseph had
recalled the incapable Gyulai, and, in hopes of inspiring his soldiers
with new spirit, himself took command. The two emperors, neither of
them soldiers, were thus pitted against each other, and Francis Joseph,
eager to retrieve the disaster at Magenta, resolved to quit his strong
position of defence in the Quadrilateral and assume the offensive.
[=The Armies on the Mincio=]
At two o'clock in the morning of the 24th the allied French and Italian
army resumed its march, Napoleon's orders for the day being based
upon the reports of his reconnoitering parties and spies. These led
him to believe that, although a strong detachment of the enemy might
be encountered west of the Mincio, the main body of the Austrians
was awaiting him on the eastern side of the river. But the French
intelligence department was badly served. The Austrians had stolen
a march upon Napoleon. Undetected by the French scouts, they had
recrossed the Mincio, and by nightfall of the 23d their leading columns
were occupying the ground on which the French were ordered to bivouac
on the evening of the 24th. The intention of the Austrian emperor, now
commanding his army in person, had been to push forward rapidly and
fall upon the allies before they had completed the passage of the river
Chiese. But this scheme, like that of Napoleon, was based on defective
information. The allies broke up from their bivouacs many hours before
the Austrians expected them to do so, and when the two armies came in
contact early in the morning of the 24th of June the Austrians were
quite as much taken by surprise as the French.
[Illustration: VICTOR HUGO.
ALEXANDER DUMAS.
NOTED FRENCH AUTHORS]
[Illustration: NAPOLEON III AT THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO, 1859--
(FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY YVON)
The village of Solferino in Northern Italy is made
historic by two notable battles which occurred there.
In 1796 the French conquered the Austrians; and in
1859 the allied French and Sardinians, commanded by
their respective monarchs, gained here another great
victory over the Austrians commanded by their Emperor.]
[=The Battle of Solferino=]
The Austrian army, superior in numbers to its opponents, was posted
in a half-circle between the Mincio and Chiese, with the intention of
pressing forward from these points upon a centre. But the line was
extended too far, and the centre was comparatively weak and without
reserves. Napoleon, who that morning received complete intelligence
of the position of the Austrian army, accordingly directed his chief
strength against the enemy's centre, which rested upon a height
near the village of Solferino. Here, on the 24th of June, after a
murderous conflict, in which the French commanders hurled continually
renewed masses against the decisive position, while on the other side
the Austrian reinforcements failed through lack of unity of plan and
decision of action, the heights were at length won by the French troops
in spite of heroic resistance on the part of the Austrian soldiers; the
Austrian line of battle being cut through, and the army thus divided
into two separate masses. A second attack which Napoleon promptly
directed against Cavriano had a similar result; for the commands
given by the Austrian generals were confused and had no general and
definite aim. The fate of the battle was already in a great measure
decided, when a tremendous storm broke forth that put an end to the
combat at most points, and gave the Austrians an opportunity to retire
in order. Only Benedek, who had twice beaten back the Sardinians at
various points, continued the struggle for some hours longer. On the
French side Marshal Niel had pre-eminently distinguished himself by
acuteness and bravery. It was a day of bloodshed, on which two great
powers had measured their strength against each other for twelve hours.
The Austrians had to lament the loss of 13,000 dead and wounded, and
left 9,000 prisoners in the enemy's hands; on the side of the French
and Sardinians the number of killed and wounded was even greater, for
the repeated attacks had been made upon well-defended heights, but the
number of prisoners was not nearly so great.
[=The Feeling in France and Italy=]
The victories in Italy filled the French people with the warmest
admiration for their emperor, they thinking, in their enthusiasm, that
a true successor of Napoleon the great had come to bring glory to their
arms. Italy also was full of enthusiastic hope, fancying that the
freedom and unity of the Italians was at last assured. Both nations
were, therefore, bitterly disappointed in learning that the war was at
an end, and that a hasty peace had been arranged between the emperors,
which left the hoped-for work but half achieved.
Napoleon estimated his position better than his people. Despite his
victories, his situation was one of danger and difficulty. The army had
suffered severely in its brief campaign, and the Austrians were still
in possession of the Quadrilateral, a square of powerful fortresses
which he might seek in vain to reduce. And a threat of serious trouble
had arisen in Germany. The victorious career of a new Napoleon in Italy
was alarming. It was not easy to forget the past. The German powers,
though they had declined to come to the aid of Austria, were armed and
ready, and at any moment might begin a hostile movement upon the Rhine.
[=A Meeting of the Emperors and Treaty of Peace=]
Napoleon, wise enough to secure what he had won, without hazarding its
loss, arranged a meeting with the Austrian emperor, whom he found quite
as ready for peace. The terms of the truce arranged between them were
that Austria should abandon Lombardy to the line of the Mincio, almost
its eastern boundary, and that Italy should form a confederacy under
the presidency of the pope. In the treaty subsequently made only the
first of these conditions was maintained, Lombardy passing to the king
of Sardinia. He received also the small states of Central Italy, whose
tyrants had fled, ceding to Napoleon, as a reward for his assistance,
the realm of Savoy and the city and territory of Nice.
Napoleon had now reached the summit of his career. In the succeeding
years the French were to learn that they had put their faith in a
hollow emblem of glory, and Napoleon to lose the prestige he had gained
at Magenta and Solferino. His first serious mistake was when he yielded
to the voice of ambition, and, taking advantage of the occupation of
the Americans in their civil war, sent an army to invade Mexico.
[=The Invasion of Mexico=]
The ostensible purpose of this invasion was to collect a debt which the
Mexicans had refused to pay, and Great Britain and Spain were induced
to take part in the expedition. But their forces were withdrawn when
they found that Napoleon had other purposes in view, and his army was
left to fight its battles alone. After some sanguinary engagements the
Mexican army was broken into a series of guerilla bands, incapable of
facing his well-drilled troops, and Napoleon proceeded to reorganize
Mexico as an empire, placing the Archduke Maximilian of Austria on the
throne.
All went well while the people of the United States were fighting
for their national union, but when their war was over the ambitious
French emperor was soon taught that he had committed a serious error.
He was given plainly to understand that the French troops could only
be kept in Mexico at the cost of a war with the United States, and he
found it convenient to withdraw them early in 1867. They had no sooner
gone than the Mexicans were in arms against Maximilian, and his rash
determination to remain quickly led to his capture and execution as a
usurper.
[=Napoleon Loses Prestige in France=]
The inaction of Napoleon during the wars which Prussia fought with
Denmark and Austria gave further blows to his prestige in France, and
the opposition to his policy of personal government grew so strong
that he felt himself obliged to submit his policy to a vote of the
people. He was sustained by a large majority. Yet he perceived that his
power was sinking. He was obliged to loosen the reins of government
at home, though knowing that the yielding of increased liberty to the
people would weaken his own control. Finally, finding himself failing
in health, confidence, and reputation, he yielded to advisers who told
him that the only hope for his dynasty lay in a successful war, and
undertook the war of 1870 against Prussia.
The origin and events of this war will be considered in a subsequent
chapter. It will suffice to say here that its events proved Napoleon's
incapacity as a military emperor, he being utterly deceived in the
condition of the French army and unwarrantably ignorant of that of
the Germans. He believed that the army of France was in the highest
condition of organization and completely supplied, when the very
contrary was the case; and was similarly deceived concerning the state
of the military force of Prussia. The result was that which might have
been expected. The German troops admirably organized and excellently
commanded, defeated the French in a series of engagements that fairly
took the breath of the world by their rapidity and completeness, ending
in the capture of Napoleon and his army. As a consequence the second
empire of France came to an end and Napoleon lost his throne. He died
two years afterwards an exile in England, that place of shelter for
French royal refugees.
CHAPTER XIII.
Garibaldi and the Unification of Italy.
[=Lack of Italian Unity=]
From the time of the fall of the Roman Empire until late in the
nineteenth century, a period of some fourteen hundred years, Italy
remained disunited, divided up between a series of states, small
and large, hostile and peaceful, while its territory was made the
battlefield of the surrounding powers, the helpless prey of Germany,
France, and Spain. Even the strong hand of Napoleon failed to bring
it unity, and after his fall its condition was worse than before, for
Austria held most of the north and exerted a controlling power over the
remainder of the peninsula, so that the fair form of liberty fled in
dismay from its shores.
[=Italian Unity and Its Heroes=]
But the work of Napoleon had inspired the patriots of Italy with a
new sentiment, that of union. Before the Napoleonic era the thought
of a united Italy scarcely existed, and patriotism meant adherence
to Sardinia, Naples, or some other of the many kingdoms and duchies.
After that era union became the watchword of the revolutionists, who
felt that the only hope of giving Italy a position of dignity and
honor among the nations lay in making it one country under one ruler.
The history of the nineteenth century in Italy is the record of the
attempt to reach this end, and its successful accomplishment. And on
that record the names of two men most prominently appear, Mazzini,
the indefatigable conspirator, and Garibaldi, the valorous fighter;
to whose names should be added that of the eminent statesmen, Count
Cavour, and that of the man who reaped the benefit of their patriotic
labors, Victor Emmanuel, the first king of united Italy.
[=The Carbonari=]
The basis of the revolutionary movements in Italy was the secret
political association known as the Carbonari, formed early in the
nineteenth century and including members of all classes in its ranks.
In 1814 this powerful society projected a revolution in Naples, and in
1820 it was strong enough to invade Naples with an army and force from
the king an oath to observe the new constitution which it had prepared.
The revolution was put down in the following year by the Austrians,
acting as the agents of the "Holy Alliance,"--the compact of Austria,
Prussia, and Russia.
An ordinance was passed, condemning any one who should attend a meeting
of the Carbonari to capital punishment. But the society continued to
exist, despite this severe enactment, and has been at the basis of many
of the outbreaks that have taken place in Italy since 1820. Mazzini,
Garibaldi, and all the leading patriots were members of this powerful
organization, which was daring enough to condemn Napoleon III. to
death, and almost to succeed in his assassination, for his failure to
live up to his obligations as a member of the society.
[=Mazzini the Patriot=]
Giuseppe Mazzini, a native of Genoa, became a member of the Carbonari
in 1830. His activity in revolutionary movements caused him soon after
to be proscribed, and in 1831 he sought Marseilles, where he organized
a new political society called "Young Italy," whose watchword was "God
and the People," and whose basic principle was the union of the several
states and kingdoms into one nation, as the only true foundation of
Italian liberty. This purpose he avowed in his writings and pursued
through exile and adversity with inflexible constancy, and it is
largely due to the work of this earnest patriot that Italy to-day is
a single kingdom instead of a medley of separate states. Only in one
particular did he fail. His persistent purpose was to establish a
republic, not a monarchy.
[=Early Career of Garibaldi=]
While Mazzini was thus working with his pen, his compatriot, Giuseppe
Garibaldi, was working as earnestly with his sword. This daring
soldier, a native of Nice and reared to a life on the sea, was banished
as a revolutionist in 1834, and the succeeding fourteen years of his
life were largely spent in South America, in whose wars he played a
leading part.
The revolution of 1848 opened Italy to these two patriots, and they
hastened to return, Garibaldi to offer his services to Charles Albert
of Sardinia, by whom, however, he was treated with coldness and
distrust. Mazzini, after founding the Roman republic in 1849, called
upon Garibaldi to come to its defence, and the latter displayed the
greatest heroism in the contest against the Neapolitan and French
invaders. He escaped from Rome on its capture by the French, and, after
many desperate conflicts and adventures with the Austrians, was again
driven into exile, and in 1850 became a resident of New York. For
some time he worked in a manufactory of candles on Staten Island, and
afterwards made several voyages on the Pacific.
[=The Hunters of the Alps=]
The war of 1859 opened a new and promising channel for the devotion
of Garibaldi to his native land. Being appointed major-general and
commissioned to raise a volunteer corps, he organized the hardy body of
mountaineers called the "Hunters of the Alps," and with them performed
prodigies of valor on the plains of Lombardy, winning victories over
the Austrians at Varese, Como and other places. In his ranks was his
fellow-patriot Mazzini.
The success of the French and Sardinians in Lombardy during this war
stirred Italy to its centre. The grand duke of Tuscany fled to Austria.
The duchess of Parma sought refuse in Switzerland. The duke of Modena
found shelter in the Austrian camp. Everywhere the brood of tyrants
took to flight. Bologna threw off its allegiance to the pope, and
proclaimed the king of Sardinia dictator. Several other towns in the
states of the Church did the same. In the terms of the truce between
Louis Napoleon and Francis Joseph the rulers of these realms were to
resume their reigns if the people would permit. But the people would
not permit, and they were all annexed to Sardinia, which country was
greatly expanded as a result of the war.
[=Count Cavour the Brain of Italy=]
It will not suffice to give all the credit for these revolutionary
movements to Mazzini, the organizer, Garibaldi, the soldier, and the
ambitious monarchs of France and Sardinia. More important than king
and emperor was the eminent statesman, Count Cavour, prime minister
of Sardinia from 1852. It is to this able man that the honor of the
unification of Italy most fully belongs, though he did not live to see
it. He sent a Sardinian army to the assistance of France and England
in the Crimea in 1855, and by this act gave his state a standing among
the powers of Europe. He secured liberty of the press and favored
toleration in religion and freedom of trade. He rebelled against the
dominion of the papacy, and devoted his abilities to the liberation and
unity of Italy, undismayed by the angry fulminations from the Vatican.
The war of 1859 was his work, and he had the satisfaction of seeing
Sardinia increased by the addition of Lombardy, Tuscany, Parma and
Modena. A great step had been taken in the work to which he had devoted
his life.
[=Garibaldi's Invasion of Sicily=]
The next step in the great work was taken by Garibaldi, who now
struck at the powerful kingdom of Naples and Sicily in the south. It
seemed a difficult task. Francis II., the son and successor of the
infamous "King Bomba," had a well-organized army of 150,000 men. But
his father's tyranny had filled the land with secret societies, and
fortunately at this time the Swiss mercenaries were recalled home,
leaving to Francis only his unsafe native troops. This was the critical
interval which Mazzini and Garibaldi chose for their work.
[=Capture of Palermo=]
At the beginning of April, 1860, the signal was given by separate
insurrections in Messina and Palermo. These were easily suppressed
by the troops in garrison; but though both cities were declared in
a state of siege, they gave occasion for demonstrations by which
the revolutionary chiefs excited the public mind. On the 6th of May,
Garibaldi started with two steamers from Genoa with about a thousand
Italian volunteers, and on the 11th landed near Marsala, on the west
coast of Sicily. He proceeded to the mountains, and near Salemi
gathered round him the scattered bands of the free corps. By the 14th
his army had increased to 4,000 men. He now issued a proclamation, in
which he took upon himself the dictatorship of Sicily, in the name
of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. After waging various successful
combats under the most difficult circumstances, Garibaldi advanced
upon the capital, announcing his arrival by beacon-fires kindled at
night. On the 27th he was in front of the Porta Termina of Palermo,
and at once gave the signal for the attack. The people rose in mass,
and assisted the operations of the besiegers by barricade-fighting in
the streets. In a few hours half the town was in Garibaldi's hands.
But now General Lanza, whom the young king had dispatched with strong
reinforcements to Sicily, furiously bombarded the insurgent city, so
that Palermo was reduced almost to a heap of ruins. At this juncture,
by the intervention of an English admiral, an armistice was concluded,
which led to the departure of the Neapolitan troops and war vessels
and the surrender of the town to Garibaldi, who thus, with a band of
5,000 badly armed followers, had gained a signal advantage over a
regular army of 25,000 men. This event had tremendous consequences,
for it showed the utter hollowness of the Neapolitan government, while
Garibaldi's fame was everywhere spread abroad. The glowing fancy of the
Italians beheld in him the national hero before whom every enemy would
bite the dust. This idea seemed to extend even to the Neapolitan court
itself, where all was doubt, confusion and dismay. The king hastily
summoned a liberal ministry, and offered to restore the constitution
of 1848, but the general verdict was, "too late," and his proclamation
fell flat on a people who had no trust in Bourbon faith.
[=Messina is Taken=]
The arrival of Garibaldi in Naples was enough to set in blaze all the
combustible materials in that state. His appearance there was not long
delayed. Six weeks after the surrender of Palermo he marched against
Messina. On the 21st of July the fortress of Melazzo was evacuated, and
a week afterwards all Messina except the citadel was given up.
[=Flight of Francis II. and Conquest of Naples=]
Europe was astounded at the remarkable success of Garibaldi's handful
of men. On the mainland his good fortune was still more astonishing. He
had hardly landed--which he did almost in the face of the Neapolitan
fleet--than Reggio was surrendered and its garrison withdrew. His
progress through the south of the kingdom was like a triumphal
procession. At the end of August he was at Cosenza; on the 5th of
September at Eboli, near Salerno. No resistance appeared. His very
name seemed to work like magic on the population. The capital had
been declared in a state of siege, and on September 6th the king took
flight, retiring, with the 4,000 men still faithful to him, behind the
Volturno. The next day Garibaldi, with a few followers, entered Naples,
whose populace received him with frantic shouts of welcome.
[=The Army of the Pope=]
The remarkable achievements of Garibaldi filled all Italy with
overmastering excitement. He had declared that he would proclaim
the kingdom of Italy from the heart of its capital city, and nothing
less than this would content the people. The position of the pope
had become serious. He refused to grant the reforms suggested by the
French emperor, and threatened with excommunication any one who should
meddle with the domain of the Church. Money was collected from faithful
Catholics throughout the world, a summons was issued calling the
recruits to the holy army of the pope, and the exiled French General
Lamoricière was given the chief command of the troops, composed of men
who had flocked to Rome from many nations. It was hoped that the name
of the celebrated French leader would have a favorable influence on the
troops of the French garrison of Rome.
The settlement of the perilous situation seemed to rest with Louis
Napoleon. If he had let Garibaldi have his way the latter would, no
doubt, have quickly ended the temporal sovereignty of the pope and made
Rome the capital of Italy. But Napoleon seems to have arranged with
Cavour to leave the king of Sardinia free to take possession of Naples,
Umbria and the other provinces, provided that Rome and the "patrimony
of St. Peter" were left intact.
[=Victor Emmanuel in Naples=]
At the beginning of September two Sardinian army corps, under Fanti
and Cialdini, marched to the borders of the states of the church.
Lamoricière advanced against Cialdini with his motley troops, but was
quickly defeated, and on the following day was besieged in the fortress
of Ancona. On the 29th he and the garrison surrendered as prisoners of
war. On the 9th of October Victor Emmanuel arrived and took command.
There was no longer a papal army to oppose him, and the march southward
proceeded without a check.
[Illustration: GUISEPPE GARIBALDI.
VICTOR EMMANUEL.
GREAT ITALIAN PATRIOTS]
[Illustration: THE ZOUAVES CHARGING THE BARRICADES AT MENTANA
In 1876 Garibaldi made a final effort to take the city
of Rome, it being one of the cherished objects of his
life to make it the capital of United Italy. He would
have succeeded in capturing the famous city had not
the French come to the aid of the papal troops. The
allied forces were too strong, and he was defeated at
Mentana. The illustration shows the French Zouaves in
a dashing bayonet charge against the barricades of the
revolutionists.]
[=Garibaldi Yields His Conquests=]
The object of the king in assuming the chief command was to complete
the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, in conjunction with Garibaldi.
For though Garibaldi had entered the capital in triumph, the progress
on the line of the Volturno had been slow; and the expectation that
the Neapolitan army would go over to the invaders in a mass had not
been realized. The great majority of the troops remained faithful to
the flag, so that Garibaldi, although his irregular bands amounted to
more than 25,000 men, could not hope to drive away King Francis, or to
take the fortresses of Capua and Gaeta, without the help of Sardinia.
Against the diplomatic statesman Cavour, who fostered no illusions, and
saw the conditions of affairs in its true light, the simple, honest
Garibaldi cherished a deep aversion. He could never forgive Cavour
for having given up Nice, Garibaldi's native town, to the French. On
the other hand, he felt attracted toward the king, who in his opinion
seemed to be the man raised up by Providence for the liberation of
Italy. Accordingly, when Victor Emmanuel entered Sessa, at the head of
his army, Garibaldi was easily induced to place his dictatorial power
in the hands of the king, to whom he left the completion of the work of
the union of Italy. After greeting Victor Emmanuel with the title of
King of Italy, and giving the required resignation of his power, with
the words, "Sire, I obey," he entered Naples, riding beside the king;
and then, after recommending his companions in arms to his majesty's
special favor, he retired to his home on the island of Caprera,
refusing to receive a reward, in any shape or form, for his services to
the state and its head.
[=Capture of Gaeta=]
[=Victor Emmanuel Made King of Italy=]
The progress of the Sardinian army compelled Francis to give up the
line of the Volturno, and he eventually took refuge, with his best
troops, in the fortress of Gaeta. On the maintenance of this fortress
hung the fate of the kingdom of Naples. Its defence is the only bright
point in the career of the feeble Francis, whose courage was aroused by
the heroic resolution of his young wife, the Bavarian Princess Mary.
For three months the defence continued. But no European power came to
the aid of the king, disease appeared with scarcity of food and of
munitions of war, and the garrison was at length forced to capitulate.
The fall of Gaeta was practically the completion of the great work of
the unification of Italy. Only Rome and Venice remained to be added to
the united kingdom. On February 18, 1861, Victor Emmanuel assembled at
Turin the deputies of all the states that acknowledged his supremacy,
and in their presence assumed the title of King of Italy, which he was
the first to bear. In four months afterwards Count Cavour, to whom this
great work was largely due, died. He had lived long enough to see the
purpose of his life practically accomplished.
Great as had been the change which two years had made, the patriots
of Italy were not satisfied. "Free from the Alps to the Adriatic!"
was their cry; "Rome and Venice!" became the watchword of the
revolutionists. Mazzini, who had sought to found a republic, was far
from content, and the agitation went on. Garibaldi was drawn into it,
and made bitter complaint of the treatment his followers had received.
In 1862, disheartened at the inaction of the king, he determined to
undertake against Rome an expedition like that which he had led against
Naples two years before.
[=Garibaldi's Expedition Against Rome=]
In June he sailed from Genoa and landed at Palermo, where he was
quickly joined by an enthusiastic party of volunteers. They supposed
that the government secretly favored their design, but the king had
no idea of fighting against the French troops in Rome and arousing
international complications, and he energetically warned all Italians
against taking part in revolutionary enterprises.
[=Sent Back to Caprera=]
But Garibaldi persisted in his design. When his way was barred by the
garrison of Messina he turned aside to Catania, where he embarked with
2,000 volunteers, declaring he would enter Rome as a victor, or perish
beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on the 24th of August, and threw
himself at once, with his followers, into the Calabrian mountains. But
his enterprise was quickly and disastrously ended. General Cialdini
despatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino,
against the volunteer bands. At Aspromonte, on the 28th of August, the
two forces came into collision. A chance shot was followed by several
volleys from the regulars. Garibaldi forbade his men to return the
fire of their fellow-subjects of the Italian kingdom. He was wounded,
and taken prisoner with his followers, a few of whom had been slain
in the short combat. A government steamer carried the wounded chief
to Varignano, where he was held in a sort of honorable imprisonment,
and was compelled to undergo a tedious and painful operation for the
healing of his wound. He had at least the consolation that all Europe
looked with sympathy and interest upon the unfortunate hero; and a
general sense of relief was felt when, restored to health, he was set
free, and allowed to return to his rocky island of Caprera.
[=Florence the Capital of Italy=]
Victor Emmanuel was seeking to accomplish his end by safer means. The
French garrison of Rome was the obstacle in his way, and this was
finally removed through a treaty with Louis Napoleon in September,
1864, the emperor agreeing to withdraw his troops during the succeeding
two years, in which the pope was to raise an army large enough to
defend his dominions. Florence was to replace Turin as the capital of
Italy. This arrangement created such disturbances in Turin that the
king was forced to leave that city hastily for his new capital. In
December, 1866, the last of the French troops departed from Rome, in
despite of the efforts of the pope to retain them. By their withdrawal
Italy was freed from the presence of foreign soldiers for the first
time probably in a thousand years.
[=The War of 1866=]
In 1866 came an event which reacted favorably for Italy, though her
part in it was the reverse of triumphant. This was the war between
Prussia and Austria. Italy was in alliance with Prussia, and Victor
Emmanuel hastened to lead an army across the Mincio to the invasion
of Venetia, the last Austrian province in Italy. Garibaldi at the
same time was to invade the Tyrol with his volunteers. The enterprise
ended in disaster. The Austrian troops, under the Archduke Albert,
encountered the Italians at Custozza and gained a brilliant victory,
despite the much greater numbers of the Italians.
Fortunately for Italy, the Austrians had been unsuccessful in the
north, and the emperor, with the hope of gaining the alliance of France
and breaking the compact between Italy and Prussia, decided to cede
Venetia to Louis Napoleon. His purpose failed. All Napoleon did in
response was to act as a peacemaker, while the Italian king refused to
recede from his alliance. Though the Austrians were retreating from a
country which no longer belonged to them, the invasion of Venetia by
the Italians continued, and several conflicts with the Austrian army
took place.
[=The Fleets in the Adriatic=]
But much the most memorable event of this brief war occurred on
the sea, in the most striking contest of ironclad ships between
the American civil war and the Japan-China contest. Both countries
concerned had fleets on the Adriatic. Italy was the strongest in naval
vessels, possessing ten ironclads and a considerable number of wooden
ships. Austria's ironclad fleet was seven in number, plated with thin
iron and with no very heavy guns. In addition there was a number of
wooden vessels and gunboats. But in command of this fleet was an
admiral in whose blood was the iron which was lacking on his ships,
Tegethoff, the Dewey of the Adriatic. Inferior as his ships were, his
men were thoroughly drilled in the use of the guns and the evolutions
of the ships, and when he sailed it was with the one thought of victory.
Persano, the Italian admiral, as if despising his adversary, engaged
in siege of the fortified island of Lissa, near the Dalmatian coast,
leaving the Austrians to do what they pleased. What they pleased was
to attack him with a fury such as has been rarely seen. Early on July
20, 1866, when the Italians were preparing for a combined assault of
the island by land and sea, their movement was checked by the signal
displayed on a scouting frigate: "Suspicious-looking ships are in
sight." Soon afterwards the Austrian fleet appeared, the ironclads
leading, the wooden ships in the rear.
The battle that followed has had no parallel before or since. The whole
Austrian fleet was converted into rams. Tegethoff gave one final order
to his captains: "Close with the enemy and ram everything grey." Grey
was the color of the Italian ships. The Austrian were painted black, so
as to prevent any danger of error.
Fire was opened at two miles distance, the balls being wasted in the
waters between the fleets, "Full steam ahead," signalled Tegethoff.
On came the fleets, firing steadily, the balls now beginning to tell.
"Ironclads will ram and sink the enemy," signalled Tegethoff. It was
the last order he gave until the battle was won.
[=The Sinking of the "Re d'Italia"=]
Soon the two lines of ironclads closed amid thick clouds of smoke.
Tegethoff, in his flagship, the _Ferdinand Max_, twice rammed a grey
ironclad without effect. Then, out of the smoke, loomed up the tall
masts of the _Re d'Italia_, Persano's flagship in the beginning of the
fray. Against this vessel the _Ferdinand Max_ rushed at full speed, and
struck her fairly amidships. Her sides of iron were crushed in by the
powerful blow, her tall masts toppled over, and down beneath the waves
sank the great ship with her crew of 600 men. The next minute another
Italian ship came rushing upon the Austrian, and was only avoided by a
quick turn of the helm.
[=The "Palestro" is Blown Up=]
One other great disaster occurred to the Italians. The _Palestro_ was
set on fire, and the pumps were put actively to work to drown the
magazine. The crew thought the work had been successfully performed,
and that they were getting the fire under control, when there suddenly
came a terrible burst of flame attended by a roar that drowned all
the din of the battle. It was the death knell of 400 men, for the
_Palestro_ had blown up with all on board.
The great ironclad turret ship and ram of the Italian fleet, the
_Affondatore_, to which Admiral Persano had shifted his flag, far the
most powerful vessel in the Adriatic, kept outside of the battle-line,
and was of little service in the fray. It was apparently afraid to
encounter Tegethoff's terrible rams. The battle ended with the Austrian
fleet, wooden vessels and all, passing practically unharmed through the
Italian lines into the harbor of Lissa, leaving death and destruction
in their rear. Tegethoff was the one Austrian who came out of that war
with fame. Persano on his return home was put on trial for cowardice
and incompetence. He was convicted of the latter and dismissed from the
navy in disgrace.
[=Venetia Ceded to Italy=]
But Italy, though defeated by land and sea, gained a valuable prize
from the war, for Napoleon ceded Venetia to the Italian king, and soon
afterwards Victor Emmanuel entered Venice in triumph, the solemn act
of homage being performed in the superb Place of St. Marks. Thus was
completed the second act in the unification of Italy.
The national party, with Garibaldi at its head, still aimed at the
possession of Rome, as the historic capital of the peninsula. In
1867 he made a second attempt to capture Rome, but the papal army,
strengthened with a new French auxiliary force, defeated his badly
armed volunteers, and he was taken prisoner and held captive for a
time, after which he was sent back to Caprera. This led to the French
army of occupation being returned to Civita Vecchia, where it was kept
for several years.
[=Rome Becomes the Capital of Italy=]
The final act came as a consequence of the Franco-German war of 1870,
which rendered necessary the withdrawal of the French troops from
Italy. The pope was requested to make a peaceful abdication. As he
refused this, the States of the Church were occupied up to the walls of
the capital, and a three hours' cannonade of the city sufficed to bring
the long strife to an end. Rome became the capital of Italy, and the
whole peninsula, for the first time since the fall of the ancient Roman
empire, was concentrated into a single nation, under one king.
CHAPTER XIV.
Bismarck and the New Empire of Germany.
[=The Empires of Germany and France=]
What was for many centuries known as "The Holy Roman Empire of
the German Nation" was a portion of the great imperial domain of
Charlemagne, divided between his sons on his death in 814. It became
an elective monarchy in 911, and from the reign of Otho the Great was
confined to Germany, which assumed the title above given. This great
empire survived until 1804, when the imperial title, then held by
Francis I. of Austria, was given up, and Francis styled himself Emperor
of Austria. It is an interesting coincidence that this empire ceased to
exist in the same year that Napoleon, who in a large measure restored
the empire of Charlemagne, assumed the imperial crown of France. The
restoration of the Empire of Germany, though not in its old form, was
left to Prussia, after the final overthrow of the Napoleonic imperial
dynasty in 1871.
[=The Rapid Growth of Prussia=]
Prussia, originally an unimportant member of the German confederation,
rose to power as Austria declined, its progress upward being remarkably
rapid. Frederick William, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg, united
the then minor province of Prussia to his dominions, and at his death
in 1688 left it a strong army and a large treasure. His son, Frederick
I., was the first to bear the title of King of Prussia. Frederick the
Great, who became king in 1740, had under him a series of disjointed
provinces and a population of less than 2,500,000. His genius made
Prussia a great power, which grew until, in 1805, it had a population
of 9,640,000 and a territory of nearly 6,000 square miles.
We have seen the part this kingdom played in the Napoleonic wars.
Dismembered by Napoleon and reduced to a mere fragment, it regained
its old importance by the Treaty of Vienna. The great career of this
kingdom began with the accession, in 1862, of King William I., and the
appointment, in the same year, of Count Otto von Bismarck as Minister
of the King's House and of Foreign Affairs. It was not King William,
but Count Bismarck, who raised Prussia to the exalted position it has
since assumed.
[=Bismarck's Despotic Acts and Warlike Aggressions=]
Bismarck began his career by an effort to restore the old despotism,
setting aside acts of the legislature with the boldness of an autocrat,
and seeking to make the king supreme over the representatives of
the people. He disdained the protest of the Chamber of Deputies in
concluding a secret treaty with Russia. He made laws and decreed budget
estimates without the concurrence of the Chambers. And while thus
busily engaged at home in altercations with the Prussian Parliament, he
was as actively occupied with foreign affairs.
In 1864 Austria reluctantly took part with Prussia in the occupation of
the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, claimed by Denmark. A war with Denmark
followed, which ultimately resulted in the annexation to Prussia of
the disputed territory. In this movement Bismarck was carrying out
a project which he had long entertained, that of making Prussia the
leading power in Germany. A second step in this policy was taken in
1866, when the troops of Prussia occupied Hanover and Saxony. This act
of aggression led to a war, in which Austria, alarmed at the ambitious
movements of Prussia, came to the aid of the threatened states.
Bismarck was quite ready. He had strengthened Prussia by an alliance
with Italy, and launched the Prussian army against that of Austria
with a rapidity that overthrew the power of the allies in a remarkably
brief and most brilliant campaign. At the decisive battle of Sadowa
fought July 3, 1866, King William commanded the Prussian army and
Field-marshal Benedek the Austrian. But back of the Prussian king was
General Von Moltke one of the most brilliant strategists of modern
times, to whose skillful combinations, and distinguished services in
organizing the army of Prussia, that state owed its rapid series of
successes in war.
[=Austria Overthrown at Sadowa=]
At Sadowa the newly-invented needle-gun played an effective part in
bringing victory to the Prussian arms. The battle continued actively
from 7.30 A.M. to 2.30 P.M., at which hour the Prussians carried the
centre of the Austrian position. Yet, despite this, the advantage
remained with the Austrians until 3.30, at which hour the Crown Prince
Frederick drove their left flank from the village of Lipa. An hour more
sufficed to complete the defeat of the Austrians, but it was 9 P.M.
before the fighting ceased. In addition to their losses on the field,
15,000 of the Austrians were made prisoners and their cause was lost
beyond possibility of recovery.
[Illustration: WILLIAM I. EMPEROR OF UNITED GERMANY.
WILLIAM II. PRESENT EMPEROR.
NOTED GERMAN EMPERORS]
[Illustration: OTTO VON BISMARCK.
H. KARL B. VON MOLTKE.
RENOWNED SONS OF GERMANY]
There seemed nothing to hinder Bismarck from overthrowing and
dismembering the Austrian empire, as Napoleon had done more than
once, but there is reason to believe that the dread of France coming
to the aid of the defeated realm made him stop short in his career
of victory. Napoleon III. boasted to the French Chambers that he had
stayed the conqueror at the gates of Vienna. However that be, a
treaty of peace was signed, in which Austria consented to withdraw
from the German Confederation. Bismarck had gained one great point in
his plans, in removing a formidable rival from his path. The way was
cleared for making Prussia the supreme power in Germany. The German
allies of Austria suffered severely for their assistance to that power.
Saxony kept its king, but fell under Prussian control; and Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and the free city of Frankfurt-on-the-Main were
absorbed by Prussia.
[=South German States in the War=]
The States of South Germany had taken part on the side of Austria
in the war, and continued the struggle after peace had been made
between the main contestants. The result was the only one that could
have been expected under the circumstances. Though the Bavarians and
Würtembergers showed great bravery in the several conflicts, the
Prussians were steadily successful, and the South German army was
finally obliged to retire beyond the Main, while Würzburg was captured
by the Prussians. In this city a truce was effected which ultimately
led to a treaty of peace. Würtemberg, Bavaria, and Baden were each
required to pay a war indemnity, and a secret measure of the treaty was
an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia for common action in
case of a foreign war.
[=Disunion of Germany=]
Mention was made in the last chapter of the long disunion of Italy,
its division into a number of separate and frequently hostile states
from the fall of the Roman Empire until its final unification in 1870.
A similar condition had for ages existed in Germany. The so-called
German Empire of the mediæval period was little more than a league of
separate states, each with its own monarch and distinct government.
And the authority of the emperor decreased with time until it became
but a shadow. It vanished in 1804, leaving Germany composed of several
hundred independent states, small and large.
Several efforts were made in the succeeding years to restore the bond
of union between these states. Under the influence of Napoleon they
were organized into South German and North German Confederacies, and
the effect of his interference with their internal affairs was such
that they became greatly reduced in number, many of the minor states
being swallowed up by their more powerful neighbors.
[=Efforts at Union=]
The subsequent attempts at union proved weak and ineffective. The
_Bund_, or bond of connection between these states, formed after the
Napoleonic period, was of the most shadowy character, its congress
being destitute of power or authority. The National Assembly, convened
at Frankfurt after the revolution of 1848, with the Archduke John of
Austria as administrator of the empire, proved equally powerless. It
made a vigorous effort to enforce its authority, but without avail;
Prussia refused to be bound by its decisions; and the attitude of
opposition assumed by this powerful state soon brought the new attempt
at union to an end.
In 1886 the war between the two great powers of Germany, in which most
of the smaller powers were concerned, led to more decided measures,
in the absorption by Prussia of the states above named, the formation
of a North German League among the remaining states of the north, and
the offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia of the South German
states. By the treaty of peace with Austria, that power was excluded
from the German League, and Prussia remained the dominant power in
Germany. A constitution for the League was adopted in 1867, providing
for a Diet, or legislative council of the League, elected by the direct
votes of the people, and an army, which was to be under the command of
the Prussian king and subject to the military laws of Prussia. Each
state in the League bound itself to supply a specified sum for the
support of the army.
[=The Feeling for Unity=]
Here was a union with a backbone--an army and a budget--and Bismarck
had done more in the five years of his ministry in forming an united
Germany than his predecessors had done in fifty years. But the idea
of union and alliance between kindred states was then widely in the
air. Such a union had been practically completed in Italy, and Hungary
in 1867 regained her ancient rights, which had been taken from her
in 1849, being given a separate government, with Francis Joseph, the
emperor of Austria, as its king. It was natural that the common blood
of the Germans should lead them to a political confederation, and
equally natural that Prussia, which so overshadowed the smaller states
in strength, should be the leading element in the alliance.
The great increase in the power and importance of Prussia, as an
outcome of the war with Austria, was viewed with jealousy in France.
The Emperor Napoleon sought, by a secret treaty with Holland, to obtain
possession of the state of Luxemburg, for which a sum of money was to
be paid. This negotiation became known and was defeated by Bismarck,
the King of Holland shrinking from the peril of war and the publicity
of a disgraceful transaction. But the interference of Prussia with this
underhand scheme added to the irritation of France.
[=The Position of Louis Napoleon=]
And thus time passed on until the eventful year 1870. By that year
Prussia had completed its work among the North German states and was
ready for the issue of hostilities, if this should be necessary.
On the other hand, Napoleon, who had found his prestige in France
from various causes decreasing, felt obliged in 1870 to depart from
his policy of personal rule and give that country a constitutional
government. This proposal was submitted to a vote of the people and was
sustained by an immense majority. He also took occasion to state that
"peace was never more assured than at the present time." This assurance
gave satisfaction to the world, yet it was a false one, for war was
probably at that moment assured.
There were alarming signs in France. The opposition to Napoleonism
was steadily gaining power. A bad harvest was threatened--a serious
source of discontent. The Parliament was discussing the reversal of the
sentence of banishment against the Orleans family. These indications of
a change in public sentiment appeared to call for some act that would
aid in restoring the popularity of the emperor. And of all the acts
that could be devised a national war seemed the most promising. If the
Rhine frontier, which every French regarded as the natural boundary of
the empire, could be regained by the arms of the nation, discontent and
opposition would vanish, the name of Napoleon would win back its old
prestige, and the reign of Bonapartism would be firmly established.
[=Preparations for Hostilities=]
Acts speak louder than words, and the acts of Napoleon were not in
accord with his assurances of peace. Extensive military preparations
began, and the forces of the empire were strengthened by land and sea,
while great trust was placed in a new weapon, of murderous powers,
called the _mitrailleuse_, the predecessor of the machine gun, and
capable of discharging twenty-five balls at once.
On the other hand, there were abundant indications of discontent in
Germany, where a variety of parties inveighed against the rapacious
policy of Prussia, and where Bismarck had sown a deep crop of hate. It
was believed in France that the minor states would not support Prussia
in a war. In Austria the defeat in 1866 rankled, and hostilities
against Prussia on the part of France seemed certain to win sympathy
and support in that composite empire. Colonel Stoffel, the French
military envoy at Berlin, declared that Prussia would be found
abundantly prepared for a struggle; but his warnings went unheeded in
the French Cabinet, and the warlike preparations continued.
[=The Revolution in Spain=]
Napoleon did not have to go far for an excuse for the war upon which
he was resolved. One was prepared for him in that potent source of
trouble, the succession to the throne of Spain. In that country there
had for years been no end of trouble, revolts, Carlist risings, wars
and rumors of wars. The government of Queen Isabella, with its endless
intrigues, plots, and alternation of despotism and anarchy, and the
pronounced immorality of the queen, had become so distasteful to the
people that finally, after several years of revolts and armed risings,
she was driven from her throne by a revolution, and for a time Spain
was without a monarchy and ruled on republican principles.
But this arrangement did not prove satisfactory. The party in
opposition looked around for a king, and negotiations began with a
distant relative of the Prussian royal family, Leopold of Hohenzollern.
Prince Leopold accepted the offer, and informed the king of Prussia of
his decision.
[=The Spanish Succession=]
The news of this event caused great excitement in Paris, and the
Prussian government was advised of the painful feeling to which the
incident had given rise. The answer from Berlin that the Prussian
government had no concern in the matter, and that Prince Leopold was
free to act on his own account, did not allay the excitement. The
demand for war grew violent and clamorous, the voices of the feeble
opposition in the Chambers were drowned, and the journalists and
war partisans were confident of a short and glorious campaign and a
triumphant march to Berlin.
[=Napoleon's Demand and William's Refusal=]
The hostile feeling was reduced when King William of Prussia, though he
declined to prohibit Prince Leopold from accepting the crown, expressed
his concurrence with the decision of the prince when he withdrew his
acceptance of the dangerous offer. This decision was regarded as
sufficient, even in Paris; but it did not seem to be so in the palace,
where an excuse for a declaration of war was ardently desired. The
emperor's hostile purpose was enhanced by the influence of the empress,
and it was finally declared that the Prussian king had aggrieved France
in permitting the prince to become a candidate for the throne without
consulting the French Cabinet.
[=The Declaration of War=]
Satisfaction for this shadowy source of offence was demanded, but King
William firmly refused to say any more on the subject and declined to
stand in the way of Prince Leopold if he should again accept the offer
of the Spanish throne. This refusal was declared to be an offence to
the honor and a threat to the safety of France. The war party was so
strongly in the ascendant that all opposition was now looked upon as
lack of patriotism, and on the 15th of July the Prime Minister Ollivier
announced that the reserves were to be called out and the necessary
measures taken to secure the honor and security of France. When the
declaration of war was hurled against Prussia the whole nation seemed
in harmony with it, and public opinion appeared for once to have become
a unit throughout France.
Rarely in the history of the world has so trivial a cause given rise
to such stupendous military and political events as took place in
France in a brief interval following this blind leap into hostilities.
Instead of a triumphant march to Berlin and the dictation of peace from
its palace, France was to find itself in two months' time without an
emperor or an army, and in a few months more completely subdued and
occupied by foreign troops, while Paris had been made the scene of a
terrible siege and a frightful communistic riot, and a republic had
succeeded the empire. It was such a series of events as have seldom
been compressed within the short interval of half a year.
[=State of the French and German Armies=]
In truth Napoleon and his advisers were blinded by their hopes to the
true state of affairs. The army on which they depended, and which they
assumed to be in a high state of efficiency and discipline, was lacking
in almost every requisite of an efficient force. The first Napoleon
was his own minister of war. The third Napoleon, when told by his war
minister that "not a single button was wanting on a single gaiter,"
took the words for the fact, and hurled an army without supplies and
organization against the most thoroughly organized army the world
had ever known. That the French were as brave as the Germans goes
without saying; they fought desperately, but from the first confusion
reigned in their movements, while military science of the highest kind
dominated those of the Germans.
Napoleon was equally mistaken as to the state of affairs in Germany.
The disunion upon which he counted vanished at the first threat of war.
All Germany felt itself threatened and joined hands in defence. The
declaration of war was received there with as deep an enthusiasm as in
France and a fervent eagerness for the struggle. The new popular song,
_Die Wacht am Rhein_ ("The Watch on the Rhine") spread rapidly from
end to end of the country, and indicated the resolution of the German
people to defend to the death the frontier stream of their country.
[=Bismarck and Von Moltke=]
The French looked for a parade march to Berlin, even fixing the day of
their entrance into that city--August 15th, the emperor's birthday. On
the contrary, they failed to set their foot on German territory, and
soon found themselves engaged in a death struggle with the invaders of
their own land. In truth, while the Prussian diplomacy was conducted by
Bismarck, the ablest statesman Prussia had ever known, the movements
of the army were directed by far the best tactician Europe then
possessed, the famous Von Moltke, to whose strategy the rapid success
of the war against Austria had been due. In the war with France Von
Moltke, though too old to lead the armies in person, was virtually
commander-in-chief, and arranged those masterly combinations which
overthrew all the power of France in so remarkably brief a period.
Under his directions, from the moment war was declared, everything
worked with clocklike precision. It was said that Von Moltke had only
to touch a bell and all went forward. As it was, the Crown Prince
Frederick fell upon the French while still unprepared, won the first
battle, and steadily held the advantage to the end, the French being
beaten by the strategy that kept the Germans in superior strength at
all decisive points.
But to return to the events of war. On July 23, 1870, the Emperor
Napoleon, after making his wife Eugenie regent of France, set out with
his son at the head of the army, full of high hopes of victory and
triumph. By the end of July King William had also set out from Berlin
to join the armies that were then in rapid motion towards the frontier.
[=Strength of the Armies=]
The emperor made his way to Metz, where was stationed his main army,
about 200,000 strong, under Marshals Bazaine and Canrobert and General
Bourbaki. Further east, under Marshal MacMahon, the hero of Magenta,
was the southern army, of about 100,000 men. A third army occupied the
camp at Chalons, while a well-manned fleet set sail for the Baltic,
to blockade the harbors and assail the coast of Germany. The German
army was likewise in three divisions, the first, of 61,000 men, under
General Steinmetz; the second, of 206,000 men, under Prince Frederick
Charles; and the third, of 180,000 men, under the crown prince and
General Blumenthal. The king, commander-in-chief of the whole, was in
the centre, and with him the general staff under the guidance of the
alert Von Moltke. Bismarck and the minister of war Von Roon were also
present, and so rapid was the movement of these great forces that in
two weeks after the order to march was given 300,000 armed Germans
stood in rank along the Rhine.
[=Battles of Saarbrück and Weissenburg=]
The two armies first came together on August 2d, near Saarbrück, on
the frontier line of the hostile kingdoms. It was the one success of
the French, for the Prussians, after a fight in which both sides lost
equally, retired in good order. This was proclaimed by the French
papers as a brilliant victory, and filled the people with undue hopes
of glory. It was the last favorable report, for they were quickly
overwhelmed with tidings of defeat and disaster.
Weissenburg, on the borders of Rhenish Bavaria, had been invested
by a division of MacMahon's army. On August 4th the right wing of
the army of the Crown Prince Frederick attacked and repulsed this
investing force after a hot engagement, in which its leader, General
Douay, was killed, and the loss on both sides was heavy. Two days
later occurred a battle which decided the fate of the whole war, that
of Worth-Reideshofen, where the army of the crown prince met that of
MacMahon, and after a desperate struggle, which continued for fifteen
hours, completely defeated him, with very heavy losses on both sides.
MacMahon retreated in haste towards the army at Chalons, while the
crown prince took possession of Alsace, and prepared for the reduction
of the fortresses on the Rhine, from Strasburg to Belfort. On the same
day as that of the battle of Worth, General Steinmetz stormed the
heights of Spicheren, and, though at great loss of life, drove Frossard
from those heights and back upon Metz.
[=Occupation of Alsace and Lorraine=]
The occupation of Alsace was followed by that of Lorraine, by the
Prussian army under King William, who took possession of Nancy and the
country surrounding on August 11th. These two provinces had formerly
belonged to Germany, and it was the aim of the Prussians to retain them
as the chief anticipated prize of the war. Meanwhile the world looked
on in amazement at the extraordinary rapidity of the German success,
which, in two weeks after Napoleon left Paris, had brought his power to
the verge of overthrow.
Towards the Moselle River and the strongly fortified town of Metz, 180
miles northeast of Paris, around which was concentrated the main French
force, all the divisions of the German army now advanced, and on the
14th of August they gained a victory at Colombey-Neuvilly which drove
their opponents back from the open field towards the fortified city.
[=The Situation at Metz=]
It was Moltke's opinion that the French proposed to make their stand
before this impregnable fortress, and fight there desperately for
victory. But, finding less resistance than he expected, he concluded,
on the 15th, that Bazaine, in fear of being cooped up within the
fortress, meant to march towards Verdun, there to join his forces with
those of MacMahon and give battle to the Germans in the plain.
The astute tactician at once determined to make every effort to prevent
this concentration of his opponents, and by the evening of the 15th a
cavalry division had crossed the Moselle and reached the village of
Mars-la-Tour, where it bivouacked for the night. It had seen troops
in motion towards Metz, but did not know whether these formed the
rear-guard or the vanguard of the French army in its march towards
Verdun.
In fact, Bazaine had not yet got away with his army. All the roads
from Metz were blocked with heavy baggage, and it was impossible to
move so large an army with expedition. The time thus lost by Bazaine
was diligently improved by Frederick Charles, and on the morning of
the 16th the Brandenburg army corps, one of the best and bravest in
the German army, had followed the cavalry and come within sight of the
Verdun road. It was quickly perceived that a French force was before
them, and some preliminary skirmishing developed the enemy in such
strength as to convince the leader of the corps that he had in his
front the whole or the greater part of Bazaine's army, and that its
escape from Metz had not been achieved.
[=The Battle of Mars-la-Tour=]
They were desperate odds with which the brave Brandenburgers had to
contend, but they had been sent to hold the French until reinforcements
could arrive, and they were determined to resist to the death. For
nearly six hours they resisted, with unsurpassed courage, the fierce
onslaughts of the French, though at a cost in life that perilously
depleted the gallant corps. Then, about four o'clock in the afternoon,
Prince Frederick Charles came up with reinforcements to their support
and the desperate contest became more even.
[=Defeat of the French=]
Gradually fortune decided in favor of the Germans, and by the time
night had come they were practically victorious, the field of
Mars-la-Tour, after the day's struggle, remaining in their hands. But
they were utterly exhausted, their horses were worn out, and most
of their ammunition was spent, and though their impetuous commander
forced them to a new attack, it led to a useless loss of life, for
their powers of fighting were gone. They had achieved their purpose,
that of preventing the escape of Bazaine, though at a fearful loss,
amounting to about 16,000 men on each side. "The battle of Vionville
[Mars-la-Tour] is without a parallel in military history," said Emperor
William, "seeing that a single army corps, about 20,000 men strong,
hung on to and repulsed an enemy more than five times as numerous and
well equipped. Such was the glorious deed done by the Brandenburgers,
and the Hohenzollerns will never forget the debt they owe to their
devotion."
[=Great Victory of the Germans at Gravelotte=]
Two days afterwards (August 16th), at Gravelotte, a village somewhat
nearer to Metz, the armies, somewhat recovered from the terrible
struggle of the 14th, met again, the whole German army being now
brought up, so that over 200,000 men faced the 140,000 of the French.
It was the great battle of the war. For four hours the two armies
stood fighting face to face, without any special result, neither being
able to drive back the other. The French held their ground and died.
The Prussians dashed upon them and died. Only late in the evening was
the right wing of the French army broken, and the victory, which at
five o'clock remained uncertain, was decided in favor of the Germans.
More than 40,000 men lay dead and wounded upon the field, the terrible
harvest of those nine hours of conflict. That night Bazaine withdrew
his army behind the fortifications at Metz. His effort to join MacMahon
had ended in failure.
[Illustration: THE STORMING OF GARSBERGSCHLÖSSCHEN, AUGUST 4, 1870
An incident of the Franco-Prussian War.]
[Illustration: CROWN PRINCE FREDERICK AT THE BATTLE OF FROSCHWILLER
In this battle the French under Marshal MacMahon were
defeated by the Prussians.]
[=The Siege of Metz=]
It was the fixed purpose of the Prussians to detain him in that
stronghold, and thus render practically useless to France its largest
army. A siege was to be prosecuted, and an army of 150,000 men was
extended around the town. The fortifications were far too strong to
be taken by assault, and all depended on a close blockade. On August
31st Bazaine made an effort to break through the German lines, but was
repulsed. It became now a question of how long the provisions of the
French would hold out.
[=MacMahon Marches to Relieve Bazaine=]
The French emperor, who had been with Bazaine, had left his army before
the battle of Mars-la-Tour, and was now with MacMahon at Chalons. Here
lay an army of 125,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. On it the Germans
were advancing, in doubt as to what movement it would make, whether
back towards Paris or towards Metz for the relief of Bazaine. They
sought to place themselves in a position to check either. The latter
movement was determined on by the French, but was carried out in a
dubious and uncertain manner, the time lost giving abundant opportunity
to the Germans to learn what was afoot and to prepare to prevent it. As
soon as they were aware of MacMahon's intention of proceeding to Metz
they made speedy preparations to prevent his relieving Bazaine. By the
last days of August the army of the crown prince had reached the right
bank of the Aisne, and the fourth division gained possession of the
line of the Maas. On August 30th the French under General de Failly
were attacked by the Germans at Beaumont and put to flight with heavy
loss. It was evident that the hope of reaching Metz was at an end, and
MacMahon, abandoning the attempt, concentrated his army around the
frontier fortress of Sedan.
[=The French Surrounded=]
This old town stands on the right bank of the Meuse, in an angle of
territory between Luxemburg and Belgium, and is surrounded by meadows,
gardens, ravines, ditches and cultivated fields; the castle rising
on a cliff-like eminence to the southwest of the place. MacMahon had
stopped here to give his weary men a rest, not to fight, but Von
Moltke decided, on observing the situation, that Sedan should be the
grave-yard of the French army. "The trap is now closed, and the mouse
in it," he said, with a chuckle of satisfaction.
Such proved to be the case. On September 1st the Bavarians won the
village of Bazeille, after hours of bloody and desperate struggle.
During this severe fight Marshal MacMahon was so seriously wounded
that he was obliged to surrender the chief command, first to Ducrot,
and then to General Wimpffen, a man of recognized bravery and cold
calculation.
[=The Battle of Sedan=]
Fortune soon showed itself in favor of the Germans. To the northwest of
the town, the North German troops invested the exits from St. Meuges
and Fleigneux, and directed a fearful fire of artillery against the
French forces, which, before noon, were so hemmed in the valley that
only two insufficient outlets to the south and north remained open.
But General Wimpffen hesitated to seize either of these routes, the
open way to Illy was soon closed by the Prussian guard corps, and a
murderous fire was now directed from all sides upon the French, so
that, after a last energetic struggle at Floing, they gave up all
attempts to force a passage, and in the afternoon beat a retreat
towards Sedan. In this small town the whole army of MacMahon was
collected by evening, and there prevailed in the streets and houses an
unprecedented disorder and confusion, which was still further increased
when the German troops from the surrounding heights began to shoot down
upon the fortress, and the town took fire in several places.
That an end might be put to the prevailing misery, Napoleon now
commanded General Wimpffen to capitulate. The flag of truce already
waved on the gates of Sedan when Colonel Bronsart appeared, and in
the name of the king of Prussia demanded the surrender of the army
and fortress. He soon returned to headquarters, accompanied by the
French General Reille, who presented to the king a written message from
Napoleon: "As I may not die in the midst of my army, I lay my sword in
the hands of your majesty." King William accepted it with an expression
of sympathy for the hard fate of the emperor and of the French army
which had fought so bravely under his own eyes. The conclusion of
the treaty of capitulation was placed in the hands of Wimpffen, who,
accompanied by General Castelnau, set out for Doncherry to negotiate
with Moltke and Bismarck. No attempts, however, availed to move Moltke
from his stipulation for the surrender of the whole army at discretion;
he granted a short respite, but if this expired without surrender, the
bombardment of the town was to begin anew.
[=Surrender of Napoleon and His Army=]
At six o'clock in the morning the capitulation was signed, and was
ratified by the king at his headquarters at Vendresse (2d September).
Thus the world beheld the incredible spectacle of an army of 83,000
men surrendering themselves and their weapons to the victor, and being
carried off as prisoners of war to Germany. Only the officers who gave
their written word of honor to take no further part in the present war
with Germany were permitted to retain their arms and personal property.
Probably the assurance of Napoleon, that he had sought death on the
battlefield but had not found it, was literally true; at any rate, the
fate of the unhappy man, bowed down as he was both by physical and
mental suffering, was so solemn and tragic, that there was no room
for hypocrisy, and that he had exposed himself to personal danger was
admitted on all sides. Accompanied by Count Bismarck, he stopped at a
small and mean-looking laborer's inn on the road to Doncherry, where,
sitting down on a stone seat before the door, with Count Bismarck, he
declared that he had not desired the war, but had been driven to it
through the force of public opinion; and afterwards the two proceeded
to the little castle of Bellevue, near Frenois, to join King William
and the crown prince. A telegram to Queen Augusta thus describes the
interview: "What an impressive moment was the meeting with Napoleon!
He was cast down, but dignified in his bearing. I have granted him
Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel, as his residence. Our meeting took place in
a little castle before the western glacis of Sedan."
[=Revolution and the Third Republic=]
The locking up of Bazaine in Metz and the capture of MacMahon's army
at Sedan were fatal events to France. The struggle continued for
months, but it was a fight against hope. The subsequent events of the
war consisted of a double siege, that of Metz and that of Paris, with
various minor sieges, and a desperate but hopeless effort of France in
the field. As for the empire of Napoleon III., it was at an end. The
tidings of the terrible catastrophe at Sedan filled the people with a
fury that soon became revolutionary. While Jules Favre, the republican
deputy, was offering a motion in the Assembly that the emperor had
forfeited the crown, and that a provisional government should be
established, the people were thronging the streets of Paris with
cries of "Deposition! Republic!" On the 4th of September the Assembly
had its final meeting. Two of its prominent members, Jules Favre and
Gambetta, sustained the motion for deposition of the emperor, and it
was carried after a stormy session. They then made their way to the
senate-chamber, where, before a thronging audience, they proclaimed
a republic and named a government for the national defence. At its
head was General Trochu, military commandant at Paris. Favre was made
minister of foreign affairs; Gambetta, minister of the interior; and
other prominent members of the Assembly filled the remaining cabinet
posts. The legislature was dissolved, the Palais de Bourbon was closed,
and the Empress Eugenie quitted the Tuileries and made her escape with
a few attendants to Belgium, whence she sought a refuge in England.
Prince Louis Napoleon made his way to Italy, and the swarm of courtiers
scattered in all directions; some faithful followers of the deposed
monarch seeking the castle of Wilhelmshöhe, where the unhappy Louis
Napoleon occupied as a prison the same beautiful palace and park in
which his uncle Jerome Bonaparte had once passed six years in a life
of pleasure. The second French Empire was at an end; the third French
Republic had begun--one that had to pass through many changes and
escape many dangers before it would be firmly established.
[=Jules Favre's Defiance=]
"Not a foot's breadth of our country nor a stone of our fortresses
shall be surrendered," was Jules Favre's defiant proclamation to the
invaders, and the remainder of the soldiers in the field were collected
in Paris, and strengthened with all available reinforcements. Every
person capable of bearing arms was enrolled in the national army, which
soon numbered 400,000 men. There was need of haste, for the victors
at Sedan were already marching upon the capital, inspired with high
hopes from their previous astonishing success. They knew that Paris was
strongly fortified, being encircled by powerful lines of defence, but
they trusted that hunger would soon bring its garrison to terms. The
same result was looked for at Metz, and at Strasburg, which was also
besieged.
Thus began at three main points and several minor ones a military siege
the difficulties, dangers, and hardships of which surpassed even those
of the winter campaign in the Crimea. Exposed at the fore-posts to the
enemy's balls, chained to arduous labor in the trenches and redoubts,
and suffering from the effects of bad weather, and insufficient food
and clothing, the German soldiers were compelled to undergo great
privations and sufferings before the fortifications; while many fell
in the frequent skirmishes and sallies, many succumbed to typhus and
epidemic disease, and many returned home mutilated, or broken in health.
[=Hardships of the Conflict=]
No less painful and distressing was the condition of the besieged.
While the garrison soldiers on guard were constantly compelled to
face death in nocturnal sallies, or led a pitiable existence in damp
huts, having inevitable surrender constantly before their eyes, and
disarmament and imprisonment as the reward of all their struggles and
exertions, the citizens in the towns, the women and children, were in
constant danger of being shivered to atoms by the fearful shells, or of
being buried under falling walls and roofs; and the poorer part of the
population saw with dismay the gradual diminution of the necessaries of
life, and were often compelled to pacify their hunger with the flesh of
horses, and disgusting and unwholesome food.
[=Thiers and Bismarck=]
The republican government possessed only a usurped power, and none but
a freely elected national assembly could decide as to the fate of the
French nation. Such an assembly was therefore summoned for the l6th
of October. Three members of the government--Crémieux, Fourichon,
and Glais-Vizoin--were despatched before the entire blockade of the
town had been effected, to Tours, to maintain communication with
the provinces. An attempt was also made at the same time to induce
the great powers which had not taken part in the war to organize an
intervention, as hitherto only America, Switzerland, and Spain had
sent official recognition. For this important and delicate mission
the old statesman and historian Thiers was selected, and, in spite of
his three-and-seventy years, immediately set out on the journey to
London, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Florence. Count Bismarck, however,
in the name of Prussia, refused any intervention in internal affairs.
In two despatches to the ambassadors of foreign courts, the chancellor
declared that the war, begun by the Emperor Napoleon, had been approved
by the representatives of the nation, and that thus all France was
answerable for the result. Germany was obliged, therefore, to demand
guarantees which should secure her in future against attack, or, at
any rate, render attack more difficult. Thus a cession of territory on
the part of France was laid down as the basis of a treaty of peace.
The neutral powers were also led to the belief that if they fostered
in the French any hope of intervention, peace would only be delayed.
The mission of Thiers, therefore, yielded no useful result, while the
direct negotiation which Jules Favre conducted with Bismarck proved
equally unavailing.
Soon the beleaguered fortresses began to fall. On the 23d of September
the ancient town of Toul, in Lorraine, was forced to capitulate, after
a fearful bombardment; and on the 27th Strasburg, in danger of the
terrible results of a storming, after the havoc of a dreadful artillery
fire, hoisted the white flag, and surrendered on the following day. The
supposed impregnable fortress of Metz held out little longer. Hunger
did what cannon were incapable of doing. The successive sallies made by
Bazaine proved unavailing, though, on October 7th, his soldiers fought
with desperate energy, and for hours the air was full of the roar of
cannon and mitrailleuse and the rattle of musketry. But the Germans
withstood the attack unmoved, and the French were forced to withdraw
into the town.
[=Siege and Surrender of Metz=]
Bazaine then sought to negotiate with the German leaders at Versailles,
offering to take no part in the war for three months if permitted to
withdraw. But Bismarck and Moltke would listen to no terms other than
unconditional surrender, and these terms were finally accepted, the
besieged army having reached the brink of starvation. It was with
horror and despair that France learned, on the 30th of October, that
the citadel of Metz, with its fortifications and arms of defence, had
been yielded to the Germans, and its army of more than 150,000 men had
surrendered as prisoners of war.
[=The Germans at Versailles=]
This hasty surrender at Metz, a still greater disaster to France than
that of Sedan, was not emulated at Paris, which for four months held
out against all the efforts of the Germans. On the investment of the
great city, King William removed his headquarters to the historic
palace of Versailles, setting up his homely camp-bed in the same
apartments from which Louis XIV. had once issued his despotic edicts
and commands. Here Count Bismarck conducted his diplomatic labors and
Moltke issued his directions for the siege, which, protracted from
week to week and month to month, gradually transformed the beautiful
neighborhood, with its prosperous villages, superb country houses, and
enchanting parks and gardens, into a scene of sadness and desolation.
[=The Siege of Paris=]
In spite of the vigorous efforts made by the commander-in-chief Trochu,
both by continuous firing from the forts and by repeated sallies, to
prevent Paris from being surrounded, and to force a way through the
trenches, his enterprises were rendered fruitless by the watchfulness
and strength of the Germans. The blockade was completely accomplished;
Paris was surrounded and cut off from the outer world; even the
underground telegraphs, through which communication was for a time
secretly maintained with the provinces, were by degrees discovered
and destroyed. But to the great astonishment of Europe, which looked
on with keenly pitched excitement at the mighty struggle, the siege
continued for months without any special progress being observable from
without or any lessening of resistance from within. On account of the
extension of the forts, the Germans were compelled to remain at such a
distance that a bombardment of the town at first appeared impossible;
a storming of the outer works would, moreover, be attended with such
sacrifices, that the humane temper of the king revolted from such a
proceeding. The guns of greater force and carrying power which were
needed from Germany, could only be procured after long delay on account
of the broken lines of railway. Probably also there was some hesitation
on the German side to expose the beautiful city, regarded by so many
as the "metropolis of civilization," to the risk of a bombardment,
in which works of art, science, and a historical past would meet
destruction. Nevertheless, the declamations of the French at the
Vandalism of the northern barbarians met with assent and sympathy from
most of the foreign powers.
[=The Energy of Resistance=]
[=Gambetta and His Work=]
[=The Southward Advance of the Germans=]
Determination and courage falsified the calculations at Versailles of
a quick cessation of the resistance. The republic offered a far more
energetic and determined opposition to the Prussian arms than the
empire had done. The government of the national defence still declaimed
with stern reiteration: "Not a foot's breadth of our country; not a
stone of our fortresses!" and positively rejected all proposals of
treaty based on territorial concessions. Faith in the invincibility
of the republic was rooted as an indisputable dogma in the hearts of
the French people. The victories and the commanding position of France
from 1792 to 1799 were regarded as so entirely the necessary result
of the Revolution, that a conviction prevailed that the formation
of a republic, with a national army for its defence, would have an
especial effect on the rest of Europe. Therefore, instead of summoning
a constituent Assembly, which, in the opinion of Prussia and the
other foreign powers, would alone be capable of offering security
for a lasting peace, it was decided to continue the revolutionary
movements, and to follow the same course which, in the years 1792 and
1793, had saved France from the coalition of the European powers--a
revolutionary dictatorship such as had once been exercised by the
Convention and the members of the Committee of Public Safety, must
again be revived, and a youthful and hot-blooded leader was alone
needed to stir up popular feeling and set it in motion. To fill such
a part no one was better adapted than the advocate Gambetta, who
emulated the career of the leaders of the Revolution, and whose soul
glowed with a passionate ardor of patriotism. In order to create for
himself a free sphere of action, and to initiate some vigorous measure
in place of the well-rounded phrases and eloquent proclamations of
his colleagues Trochu and Jules Favre, he quitted the capital in
an air-balloon and entered into communication with the Government
delegation at Tours, which through him soon obtained a fresh impetus.
His next most important task was the liberation of the capital from the
besieging German army, and the expulsion of the enemy from the "sacred"
soil of France. For this purpose he summoned, with the authority of
a minister of war, all persons capable of bearing arms up to forty
years of age to take active service, and despatched them into the
field; he imposed war-taxes, and terrified the tardy and refractory
with threats of punishment. Every force was put in motion; all France
was transformed into a great camp. A popular war was now to take the
place of a soldiers' war, and what the soldiers had failed to effect
must be accomplished by the people; France must be saved, and the world
freed from despotism. To promote this object, the whole of France, with
the exception of Paris, was divided into four general governments,
the headquarters of the different governors being Lille, Le Mans,
Bourges, and Besançon. Two armies, from the Loire and from the Somme,
were to march simultaneously towards Paris, and, aided by the sallies
of Trochu and his troops, were to drive the enemy from the country.
Energetic attacks were now attempted from time to time, in the hope
that when the armies of relief arrived from the provinces, it might be
possible to effect a coalition; but all these efforts were constantly
repulsed after a hot struggle by the besieging German troops. At
the same time, during the month of October, the territory between
the Oise and the Lower Seine was scoured by reconnoitering troops,
under Prince Albrecht, the south-east district was protected by a
Würtemberg detachment through the successful battle near Nogent on the
Seine, while a division of the third army advanced towards the south
accompanied by two cavalry divisions. A more unfortunate circumstance,
however, for the Parisians was the cutting off of all communication
with the outer world, for the Germans had destroyed the telegraphs. But
even this obstacle was overcome by the inventive genius of the French.
By means of pigeon letter-carriers and air-balloons, they were always
able to maintain a partial though one-sided and imperfect communication
with the provinces, and the aërostatic art was developed and brought
to perfection on this occasion in a manner which had never before been
considered possible.
[=Gambetta's Army of Defence=]
The whole of France, and especially the capital, was already in a state
of intense excitement when the news of the capitulation of Metz came
to add fresh fuel to the flame. Outside the walls Gambetta was using
heroic efforts to increase his forces, bringing Bedouin horsemen from
Africa and inducing the stern old revolutionist Garibaldi to come to
his aid; and Thiers was opening fresh negotiations for a truce. Inside
the walls the Red Republic raised the banners of insurrection and
attempted to drive the government of national defence from power.
[=The Negotiations Are Broken Off=]
This effort of the dregs of revolution to inaugurate a reign of terror
failed, and the provisional government felt so elated with its victory
that it determined, to continue at the head of affairs and to oppose
the calling of a chamber of national representatives. The members
proclaimed oblivion for what had passed, broke off the negotiations
for a truce begun by Thiers, and demanded a vote of confidence. The
indomitable spirit shown by the French people did not, on the other
hand, inspire the Germans with a very lenient or conciliatory temper.
Bismarck declared in a despatch the reasons why the negotiations had
failed: "The incredible demand that we should surrender the fruits of
all our efforts during the last two months, and should go back to the
conditions which existed at the beginning of the blockade of Paris,
only affords fresh proof that in Paris pretexts are sought for refusing
the nation the right of election." Thiers mournfully declared the
failure of his undertaking, but in Paris the popular voting resulted
in a ten-fold majority in favor of the government and the policy of
postponement.
[Illustration: KING OSCAR II. OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY.
KING CHRISTIAN IX. OF DENMARK.
EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH OF AUSTRIA.
KING HUMBERT OF ITALY.
PRESENT KINGS OF FOUR COUNTRIES]
[Illustration: LEON GAMBETTA
LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
FERDINAND DeLESSEPS
PRESIDENT LOUBET
GREAT MEN OF MODERN FRANCE]
[=Famine and Misery in Paris=]
After the breaking off of the negotiations, the world anticipated some
energetic action towards the besieged city. The efforts of the enemy
were, however, principally directed to drawing the iron girdle still
tighter, enclosing the giant city more and more closely, and cutting
off every means of communication, so that at last a surrender might be
brought about by the stern necessity of starvation. That this object
would not be accomplished as speedily as at Metz, that the city of
pleasure, enjoyment, and luxury would withstand a siege of four months,
had never been contemplated for a moment. It is true that, as time went
on, all fresh meat disappeared from the market, with the exception of
horse-flesh; that white bread, on which Parisians place such value, was
replaced by a baked compound of meal and bran; that the stores of dried
and salted food began to decline, until at last rats, dogs, cats, and
even animals from the zoological gardens were prepared for consumption
at restaurants. Yet, to the amazement of the world, all these miseries,
hardships, and sufferings were courageously borne, nocturnal watch was
kept, sallies were undertaken, and cold, hunger, and wretchedness of
all kinds were endured with an indomitable steadfastness and heroism.
The courage of the besieged Parisians was also animated by the hope
that the military forces in the provinces would hasten to the aid of
the hard-pressed capital, and that therefore an energetic resistance
would afford the rest of France sufficient time for rallying all its
forces, and at the same time exhibit an elevating example. In the
carrying out of this plan, neither Trochu nor Gambetta was wanting in
the requisite energy and circumspection. The former organized sallies
from time to time, in order to reconnoitre and discover whether the
army of relief was on its way from the provinces; the latter exerted
all his powers to bring the Loire army up to the Seine. But both erred
in undervaluing the German war forces; they did not believe that the
hostile army would be able to keep Paris in a state of blockade, and at
the same time engage the armies on the south and north, east and west.
They had no conception of the hidden, inexhaustible strength of the
Prussian army organization--of a nation in arms which could send forth
constant reinforcements of battalions and recruits, and fresh bodies of
disciplined troops to fill the gaps left in the ranks by the wounded
and fallen. There could be no doubt as to the termination of this
terrible war, or the final victory of German energy and discipline.
[=The Fall of the Fortresses=]
Throughout the last months of the eventful year 1870, the northern part
of France, from the Jura to the Channel, from the Belgian frontier to
the Loire, presented the aspect of a wide battlefield. Of the troops
that had been set free by the capitulation of Metz, a part remained
behind in garrison, another division marched northwards in order to
invest the provinces of Picardy and Normandy, to restore communication
with the sea, and to bar the road to Paris, and a third division
joined the second army, whose commander-in-chief, Prince Frederick
Charles, set up his headquarters at Troyes. Different detachments were
despatched against the northern fortresses, and by degrees Soissons,
Verdun, Thionville, Ham, where Napoleon had once been a prisoner,
Pfalzburg and Montmedy, all fell into the hands of the Prussians,
thus opening to them a free road for the supplies of provisions. The
garrison troops were all carried off as prisoners to Germany; the
towns--most of them in a miserable condition--fell into the enemy's
hands; many houses were mere heaps of ruins and ashes, and the larger
part of the inhabitants were suffering severely from poverty, hunger
and disease.
[=Guerilla Warfare in the East=]
The greatest obstacles were encountered in the northern part of Alsace
and the mountainous districts of the Vosges and the Jura, where
irregular warfare, under Garibaldi and other leaders, developed to a
dangerous extent, while the fortress of Langres afforded a safe retreat
to the guerilla bands. Lyons and the neighboring town of St. Etienne
became hotbeds of excitement, the red flag being raised and a despotism
of terror and violence established. Although many divergent elements
made up this army of the east, all were united in hatred of the Germans
and the desire to drive the enemy back across the Rhine.
Thus, during the cold days of November and December, when General
Von Treskow began the siege of the important fortress of Belfort,
there burst forth a war around Gray and Dijon marked by the greatest
hardships, perils and privations to the invaders. Here the Germans
had to contend with an enemy much superior in number, and to defend
themselves against continuous firing from houses, cellars, woods and
thickets, while the impoverished soil yielded a miserable subsistence,
and the broken railroads cut off freedom of communication and of
reinforcement.
[=In the Jura District=]
The whole of the Jura district, intersected by hilly roads as far as
the plateau of Langres, where, in the days of Cæsar, the Romans and
Gauls were wont to measure their strength with each other, formed
during November and December the scene of action of numerous encounters
which, in conjunction with sallies from the garrison at Belfort,
inflicted severe injury on Werder's troops. Dijon had repeatedly to
be evacuated; and the nocturnal attack at Chattillon, 20th November,
by Garibaldians, when one hundred and twenty Landwehrmen and Hussars
perished miserably, and seventy horses were lost, affording a striking
proof of the dangers to which the German army was exposed in this
hostile country; although the revolutionary excesses of the turbulent
population of the south diverted to a certain extent the attention of
the National Guard, who were compelled to turn their weapons against an
internal enemy.
[=Gambetta and the Army of the Loire=]
By means of the revolutionary dictatorship of Gambetta the whole French
nation was drawn into the struggle, the annihilation of the enemy being
represented as a national duty, and the war assuming a steadily more
violent character. The indefatigable patriot continued his exertions
to increase the army and unite the whole south and west against the
enemy, hoping to bring the army of the Loire to such dimensions that it
would be able to expel the invaders from the soil of France. But these
raw recruits were poorly fitted to cope with the highly disciplined
Germans, and their early successes were soon followed by defeat and
discouragement, while the hopes entertained by the Paris garrison of
succor from the south vanished as news of the steady progress of the
Germans were received.
[=The Bombardment of Paris=]
During these events the war operations before Paris continued
uninterruptedly. Moltke had succeeded, in spite of the difficulties
of transport, in procuring an immense quantity of ammunition, and
the long-delayed bombardment of Paris was ready to begin. Having
stationed with all secrecy twelve batteries with seventy-six guns
around Mont Avron, on Christmas-day the firing was directed with such
success against the fortified eminences, that even in the second night
the French, after great losses, evacuated the important position,
the "key of Paris," which was immediately taken possession of by
the Saxons. Terror and dismay spread throughout the distracted city
when the eastern forts, Rosny, Nogent and Noisy, were stormed amid
a tremendous volley of firing. Vainly did Trochu endeavor to rouse
the failing courage of the National Guard; vainly did he assert that
the government of the national defence would never consent to the
humiliation of a capitulation; his own authority had already waned;
the newspapers already accused him of incapacity and treachery, and
began to cast every aspersion on the men who had presumptuously seized
the government, and yet were not in a position to effect the defence
of the capital and the country. After the new year the bombardment of
the southern forts began, and the terror in the city daily increased,
though the violence of the radical journals kept in check any hint
of surrender or negotiation. Yet in spite of fog and snow-storms the
bombardment was systematically continued, and with every day the
destructive effect of the terrible missiles grew more pronounced.
[=The Last Great Sally from Paris=]
Trochu was blamed for having undertaken only small sallies, which
could have no result. The commander-in-chief ventured no opposition
to the party of action. With the consent of the mayors of the twenty
_arrondissements_ of Paris a council of war was held. The threatening
famine, the firing of the enemy, and the excitement prevailing among
the adherents of the red republic rendered a decisive step necessary.
Consequently, on the 19th of January, a great sally was decided on,
and the entire armed forces of the capital were summoned to arms.
Early in the morning, a body of 100,000 men marched in the direction
of Meudon, Sevres and St. Cloud for the decisive conflict. The left
wing was commanded by General Vinoy, the right by Ducrot, while Trochu
from the watch-tower directed the entire struggle. With great courage
Vinoy dashed forward with his column of attack towards the fifth army
corps of General Kirchbach, and succeeded in capturing the Montretout
entrenchment, through the superior number of his troops, and in
holding it for a time. But when Ducrot, delayed by the barricades in
the streets, failed to come to his assistance at the appointed time,
the attack was driven back after seven hours' fierce fighting by the
besieging troops. Having lost 7,000 dead and wounded, the French in
the evening beat a retreat, which almost resembled a flight. On the
following day Trochu demanded a truce, that the fallen National Guards,
whose bodies strewed the battlefield, might be interred. The victors,
too, had to render the last rites to many a brave soldier. Thirty-nine
officers and six hundred and sixteen soldiers were given in the list of
the slain.
[=A Truce at Paris=]
Entire confidence had been placed by the Parisians in the great sally.
When the defeat, therefore, became known in its full significance, when
the number of the fallen was found to be far greater even than had
been stated in the first accounts, a dull despair took possession of
the famished city, which next broke forth into violent abuse against
Trochu, "the traitor." Capitulation now seemed imminent; but as the
commander-in-chief had declared that he would never countenance such
a disgrace, he resigned his post to Vinoy. Threatened by bombardment
from without, terrified within by the pale spectre of famine, paralysed
and distracted by the violent dissensions among the people, and
without prospect of effective aid from the provinces, what remained
to the proud capital but to desist from a conflict the continuation
of which only increased the unspeakable misery, without the smallest
hope of deliverance? Gradually, therefore, there grew up a resolution
to enter into negotiations with the enemy; and it was the minister
Jules Favre, who had been foremost with the cry of "no surrender"
four months before, who was now compelled to take the first step to
deliver his country from complete ruin. It was probably the bitterest
hour in the life of the brave man, who loved France and liberty with
such a sincere affection, when he was conducted through the German
outposts to his interview with Bismarck at Versailles. He brought the
proposal for a convention, on the strength of which the garrison was
to be permitted to retire with military honors to a part of France
not hitherto invested, on promising to abstain for several months
from taking part in the struggle. But such conditions were positively
refused at the Prussian headquarters, and a surrender was demanded as
at Sedan and Metz. Completely defeated, the minister returned to Paris.
At a second meeting on the following day, it was agreed that from the
27th, at twelve o'clock at night, the firing on both sides should be
discontinued. This was the preliminary to the conclusion of a three
weeks' truce, to await the summons of a National Assembly, with which
peace might be negotiated.
[=Bourbaki's Army and the Siege of Belfort=]
[=The Harsh Terms of Peace=]
The war was at an end so far as Paris was concerned. But it continued
in the south, where frequent defeat failed to depress Gambetta's
indomitable energy, and where new troops constantly replaced those put
to rout. Garibaldi, at Dijon, succeeded in doing what the French had
not done during the war, in the capture of a Prussian banner. But the
progress of the Germans soon rendered his position untenable, and,
finding his exertions unavailing, he resigned his command and retired
to his island of Caprera. Two disasters completed the overthrow of
France. Bourbaki's army, 85,000 strong, became shut in, with scanty
food and ammunition, among the snow-covered valleys of the Jura, and
to save the disgrace of capitulation it took refuge on the neutral
soil of Switzerland; and the strong fortress of Belfort, which had
been defended with the utmost courage against its besiegers, finally
yielded, with the stipulation that the brave garrison should march
out with the honors of war. Nothing now stood in the way of an
extension of the truce. On the suggestion of Jules Favre, the National
Assembly elected a commission of fifteen members, which was to aid the
chief of the executive, and his ministers, Picard and Favre, in the
negotiations for peace. That cessions of territory and indemnity of
war expenses would have to be conceded had long been acknowledged in
principle; but protracted and excited discussions took place as to the
extent of the former and the amount of the latter, while the demanded
entry of the German troops into Paris met with vehement opposition.
But Count Bismarck resolutely insisted on the cession of Alsace and
German Lorraine, including Metz and Diedenhofen. Only with difficulty
were the Germans persuaded to separate Belfort from the rest of
Lorraine, and leave it still in the possession of the French. In
respect to the expenses of the war, the sum of five milliards of francs
($1,000,000,000) was agreed upon, of which the first milliard was to be
paid in the year 1871, and the rest in a stated period. The stipulated
entry into Paris also--so bitter to the French national pride--was
only partially carried out; the western side only of the city was to
be traversed in the march of the Prussian troops, and again evacuated
in two days. On the basis of these conditions, the preliminaries of
the Peace of Versailles were concluded on the 26th of February between
the Imperial Chancellor and Jules Favre. Intense excitement prevailed
when the terms of the treaty became known; they were dark days in
the annals of French history. But in spite of the opposition of the
extreme Republican party, led by Quinet and Victor Hugo, the Assembly
recognized by an overpowering majority the necessity for the Peace, and
the preliminaries were accepted by 546 to 107 votes. Thus ended the
mighty war between France and Germany--a war which has had few equals
in the history of the world.
[=The Glory of Germany=]
Had King William received no indemnity in cash or territory from
France, he must still have felt himself amply repaid for the cost of
the brief but sanguinary war, for it brought him a power and prestige
with which the astute diplomatist Bismarck had long been seeking to
invest his name. Political changes move slowly in times of peace,
rapidly in times of war. The whole of Germany, with the exception of
Austria, had sent troops to the conquest of France, and every state,
north and south alike, shared in the pride and glory of the result.
South and North Germany had marched side by side to the battlefield,
every difference of race or creed forgotten, and the honor of the
German fatherland the sole watchword. The time seemed to have arrived
to close the breach between north and south, and obliterate the line of
the Main, which had divided the two sections. North Germany was united
under the leadership of Prussia, and the honor in which all alike
shared now brought South Germany into line for a similar union.
The first appeal in this direction came from Baden. Later in the year
plenipotentiaries sought Versailles from the kingdoms of Bavaria and
Wurtemberg and the grand duchies of Baden and Hesse, their purpose
being to arrange for and define the conditions of union between the
South and the North German states. For weeks this momentous question
filled all Germany with excitement and public opinion was in a state of
high tension. The scheme of union was by no means universally approved,
there being a large party in opposition, but the majority in its favor
in Chambers proved sufficient to enable Bismarck to carry out his plan.
[=Restoration of the Germany Empire=]
This was no less than to restore the German Empire, or rather to
establish a new empire of Germany, in which Austria, long at the
head of the former empire, should have no part, the imperial dignity
being conferred upon the venerable King William of Prussia, a monarch
whose birth dated back to the eighteenth century, and who had lived
throughout the Napoleonic wars.
Near the close of 1870 Bismarck concluded treaties with the ambassadors
of the Southern States, in which they agreed to accept the constitution
of the North German Union. These treaties were ratified, after some
opposition from the "patriots" of the lower house, by the legislatures
of the four states involved. The next step in the proceeding was a
suggestion from the king of Bavaria to the other princes that the
imperial crown of Germany should be offered to King William of Prussia.
[=The Crowning of William I. at Versailles=]
When the North German Diet at Berlin had given its consent to the new
constitution, congratulatory address was despatched to the Prussian
monarch at Versailles. Thirty members of the Diet, with the president
Simson at their head, announced to the aged hero-king the nation's wish
that he should accept the new dignity. He replied to the deputation in
solemn audience that he accepted the imperial dignity which the German
nation and its princes had offered him. On the 1st of January, 1871,
the new constitution was to come into operation. The solemn assumption
of the imperial office did not take place, however, until the 18th of
January, the day on which, one hundred and seventy years before, the
new emperor's ancestor, Frederick I., had placed the Prussian crown
on his head at Königsberg, and thus laid the basis of the growing
greatness of his house. It was an ever-memorable coincidence, that in
the superb-mirrored hall of the Versailles palace, where, since the
days of Richelieu, so many plans had been concerted for the humiliation
of Germany, King William should now proclaim himself German Emperor.
After the reading of the imperial proclamation to the German people by
Count Bismarck, the Grand Duke led a cheer, in which the whole assembly
joined amid the singing of national hymns. Thus the important event had
taken place which again summoned the German Empire to life, and made
over the imperial crown with renewed splendor to another royal house.
Barbarossa's old legend, that the dominion of the empire was, after
long tribulation, to pass from the Hohenstaufen to the Hohenzollern,
was now fulfilled; the dream long aspired after by German youth had now
become a reality and a living fact.
The tidings of the conclusion of peace with France, whose preliminaries
were completed at Frankfurt on the 10th of May, 1871, filled all
Germany with joy, and peace festivals on the most splendid scale
extended from end to end of the new empire, in all parts of which an
earnest spirit of patriotism was shown, while Germans from all regions
of the world sent home expressions of warm sympathy with the new
national organization of their fatherland.
[=A Decade of Remarkable Changes=]
The decade just completed had been one of remarkable political changes
in Europe, unsurpassed in significance during any other period of equal
length. The temporal dominion of the pope had vanished and all Italy
had been united under the rule of a single king. The empire of France
had been overthrown and a republic established in its place, while
that country had sunk greatly in prominence among the European states.
Austria had been utterly defeated in war, had lost its last hold on
Italy and its position of influence among the German states. And all
the remaining German lands had united into a great and powerful empire,
of such extraordinary military strength that the surrounding nations
looked on in doubt, full of vague fears of trouble from this new and
potent power introduced into their midst.
Bismarck, however, showed an earnest desire to maintain international
peace and good relations, seeking to win the confidence of foreign
governments, while at the same time improving and increasing that
military force which had been proved to be so mighty an engine of war.
[=The Legislature of the Empire=]
In the constitution of the new empire two legislative bodies were
provided for, the _Bundesrath_ or Federal Council, whose members
are annually appointed by the respective state governments, and the
_Reichstag_ or Representative body, whose members are elected by
universal suffrage for a period of three years, an annual session
being required. Germany, therefore, in its present organization, is
practically a federal union of states, each with its own powers of
internal government, and with a common legislature approximating to our
Senate and House of Representatives.
[=The Power of the Catholic Church in Prussia=]
The remaining incidents of Bismarck's remarkable career may be briefly
given. It consisted largely in a struggle with the Catholic Church
organization, which had attained to great power in Germany, and was
aggressive to an extent that roused the vigorous opposition of the
chancellor of the empire, who was not willing to acknowledge any power
in Germany other than that of the emperor.
King Frederick William IV., the predecessor of the reigning monarch,
had made active efforts to strengthen the Catholic Church in Prussia,
its clergy gaining greater privileges in that Protestant state than
they possessed in any of the Catholic states. They had established
everywhere in North Germany their congregations and monasteries, and,
by their control of public education, seemed in a fairway to eventually
make Catholicism supreme in the empire.
[=The New Laws Against Church Power=]
This state of affairs Bismarck set himself energetically to reform.
The minister of religious affairs was forced to resign, and his place
was taken by Falk, a sagacious statesman, who introduced a new school
law, bringing the whole educational system under state control, and
carefully regulating the power of the clergy over religious and moral
education. This law met with such violent opposition that all the
personal influence of Bismarck and Falk were needed to carry it, and
it gave such deep offence to the pope that he refused to receive the
German ambassador. He declared the Falk law invalid, and the German
bishops united in a declaration against the chancellor. Bismarck
retorted by a law expelling the Jesuits from the empire.
In 1873 the state of affairs became so embittered that the rights
and liberties of the citizens seemed to need protection against
a priesthood armed with extensive powers of discipline and
excommunication. In consequence Bismarck introduced, and by his
eloquence and influence carried, what were known as the May Laws. These
provided for the scientific education of the Catholic clergy, the
confirmation of clerical appointments by the state, and a tribunal to
consider and revise the conduct of the bishops.
[=The Triumph of the Church=]
These enactments precipitated a bitter contest between church and
state, while the pope declared the May Laws null and void and
threatened with excommunication all priests who should submit to
them. The state retorted by withdrawing its financial support from
the Catholic church and abolishing those clauses of the constitution
under which the church claimed independence of the state. Pope Pius IX.
died in 1878, and on the election of Leo XIII. attempts were made to
reconcile the existing differences. The reconciliation was a victory
for the church, the May Laws ceasing to be operative, the church
revenues being restored and the control of the clergy over education in
considerable measure regained. New concessions were granted in 1886 and
1887, and Bismarck felt himself beaten in his long conflict with his
clerical opponents, who had proved too strong and deeply entrenched for
him.
[=The Socialists and the Insurance Laws=]
Economic questions became also prominent, the revenues of the empire
requiring some change in the system of free trade and the adoption of
protective duties, while the railroads were acquired by the various
states of the empire. Meanwhile the rapid growth of socialism excited
apprehension, which was added to when two attempts were made on the
life of the emperor. These were attributed to the Socialists, and
severe laws for the suppression of socialism were enacted. Bismarck
also sought to cut the ground from under the feet of the Socialists by
an endeavor to improve the condition of the working classes. In 1881
laws were passed compelling employers to insure their workmen in case
of sickness or accident, and in 1888 a system of compulsory insurance
against death and old age was introduced. None of these measures,
however, checked the growth of socialism, which very actively continued.
In 1882 a meeting was arranged by the chancellor between the emperors
of Germany, Russia, and Austria, which was looked upon in Europe as a
political alliance. In 1878 Russia drifted somewhat apart from Germany,
but in the following year an alliance of defence and offence was
concluded with Austria, and a similar alliance at a later date with
Italy. This, which still continues, is known as the Triple Alliance. In
1877 Bismarck announced his intention to retire, being worn out with
the great labors of his position. To this the emperor, who felt that
his state rested on the shoulders of the "Iron Chancellor," would not
listen, though he gave him indefinite leave of absence.
On March 9, 1888, Emperor William died. He was ninety years of age,
having been born in 1797. He was succeeded by his son Frederick, then
incurably ill from a cancerous affection of the throat, which carried
him to the grave after a reign of ninety-nine days. His oldest son,
William, succeeded on June 15, 1888, as William II.
[=William II. and the Dismissal of Bismarck=]
The liberal era which was looked for under Frederick was checked by
his untimely death, his son at once returning to the policy of William
I. and Bismarck. He proved to be far more positive and dictatorial in
disposition than his grandfather, with decided and vigorous views of
his own, which soon brought him into conflict with the equally positive
chancellor. The result was a rupture with Bismarck, and his dismissal
from the premiership in 1890. The young emperor subsequently devoted
himself in a large measure to the increase of the army and navy, a
policy which brought him into frequent conflicts with the Reichstag,
whose rapidly growing socialistic membership was in strong opposition
to this development of militarism.
The old statesman, to whom Germany owed so much, was deeply aggrieved
by this lack of gratitude on the part of the self-opinionated young
emperor. Subsequently a reconciliation took place. But the political
career of the great Bismarck was at an end, and he died on July 30,
1898. It is an interesting coincidence that almost at the same time
died the equally great, but markedly different, statesman of England,
William Ewart Gladstone. Count Cavour, the third great European
statesman of the last half of the nineteenth century, had completed his
work and passed away nearly forty years before.
[=The Development of the German Army=]
The career of William II. has been one of much interest and some alarm
to the other nations of Europe. His eagerness for the development of
the army and navy, and the energy with which he pushed forward its
organization and sought to add to its strength, seemed significant
of warlike intentions, and there was dread that this energetic
young monarch might break the peace of Europe, if only to prove the
irresistible strength of the military machine he had formed. But
as years went on the apprehensions to which his early career and
expressions gave rise were quieted, and the fear that he would plunge
Europe into war vanished. The army and navy began to appear rather a
costly plaything of the active young man than an engine of destruction,
while it tended in considerable measure to the preservation of peace by
rendering Germany a power dangerous to go to war with.
The speeches with which the emperor began his reign showed an
exaggerated sense of the imperial dignity, though his later career
indicated far more judgment and good sense than the early display of
overweening self-importance promised, and the views of William II. now
command far more respect than they did at first. He has shown himself a
man of exuberant energy. Despite a permanent weakness of his left arm
and a serious affection of the ear, he early became a skilful horseman
and an untiring hunter, as well as an enthusiastic yachtsman, and there
are few men in the empire more active and enterprising to-day than the
Kaiser.
[=State Socialism=]
A principal cause of the break between William and Bismarck was the
system of partial state socialism established by him, of which the
old chancellor strongly disapproved. This was a system of compulsory
old age insurance, through which workmen and their employers--aided
by the state--were obliged to provide for the support of artisans
after a certain age. The system seems to have worked satisfactorily,
but socialism of a more radical kind has grown in the empire far more
rapidly than the emperor has approved of, and he has vigorously,
though unsuccessfully, endeavored to prevent its increase. Another of
his favorite measures, a religious education bill, he was obliged to
withdraw on account of the opposition it excited. On more than one
occasion he has come into sharp conflict with the Reichstag concerning
increased taxation for the army and navy, and a strong party against
his autocratic methods has sprung up, and has forced him more than once
to recede from warmly-cherished measures.
[=Constitution of the German Empire=]
It may be of interest here to say something concerning the organization
of the existing German empire. The constitution of this empire, as
adopted April 16, 1871, proposes to "form an eternal union for the
protection of the realm and the care of the welfare of the German
people," and places the supreme direction of military and political
affairs in the King of Prussia, under the title of Deutscher Kaiser
(German emperor). The war-making powers of the emperor, however, are
restricted, since he is obliged to obtain the consent of the Bundesrath
(the Federal Council) before he can declare war otherwise than for the
defence of the realm. His authority as emperor, in fact, is much less
than that which he exercises as King of Prussia, since the imperial
legislature is independent of him, he having no power of veto over the
laws passed by it.
This legislature consists of two bodies, the Bundesrath, representing
the states of the union, whose members, 58 in number, are chosen for
each session by the several state governments; and the Reichstag,
representing the people, whose members, 397 in number, are elected
by universal suffrage for periods of five years. The German union,
as now constituted, comprises four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five
duchies, seven principalities, three cities, and the Reichsland of
Alsace-Lorraine; twenty-six separate states in all. It includes all the
German peoples with the exception of those of Austria.
[=The Progress of Germany=]
The progress of Germany within the century under review has been very
great. The population of the states of the empire, 24,831,000 at
the end of the Napoleonic wars, is now over 52,000,000, having more
than doubled in number. The wealth of the country has grown in a far
greater ratio, and Germany to-day is the most active manufacturing
nation on the continent of Europe. Agriculture has similarly been
greatly developed, and one of its products, the sugar beet, has become
a principal raw material of manufacture, the production of beet-root
sugar having increased enormously. The commerce of the empire has
similarly augmented, it having become one of the most active commercial
nations of the earth. Its imports, considerable in quantity, consist
largely of raw materials and food stuffs, while it vies with Great
Britain and the United States in the quantity of finished products sent
abroad. In short, Germany has taken its place to-day as one of the most
energetic of productive and commercial nations, and its wealth and
importance have increased correspondingly.
CHAPTER XV.
Gladstone, the Apostle of Liberalism in England.
[=Gladstone's First Political Address=]
It is a fact of much interest, as showing the growth of the human
mind, that William Ewart Gladstone, the great advocate of English
Liberalism, made his first political speech in vigorous opposition to
the Reform Bill of 1831. He was then a student at Oxford University,
but this boyish address had such an effect upon his hearers, that
Bishop Wordsworth felt sure the speaker "would one day rise to be
Prime Minister of England." This prophetic utterance may be mated with
another one, by Archdeacon Denison, who said: "I have just heard the
best speech I ever heard in my life, by Gladstone, against the Reform
Bill. But, mark my words, that man will one day be a Liberal, for he
argued against the Bill on liberal ground."
[=Gladstone in Parliament and the Cabinet=]
Both these far-seeing men hit the mark. Gladstone became Prime
Minister and the leader of the Liberal Party in England. Yet he had
been reared as a Conservative, and for many years he marched under
the banner of Conservatism. His political career began in the first
Reform Parliament, in January, 1833. Two years afterward he was made an
under-secretary in Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet. It was under the same
Premier that he first became a full member of the Cabinet, in 1845,
as Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was still a Tory in home
politics, but had become a Liberal in his commercial ideas, and was
Peel's right-hand man in carrying out his great commercial policy.
[=The Letters from Naples=]
The repeal of the Corn-laws was the work for which his Cabinet had been
formed, and Gladstone, as the leading Free-trader in the Tory ranks,
was called to it. As for Cobden, the apostle of Free-trade, Gladstone
admired him immensely. "I do not know," he said in later years, "that
there is in any period a man whose public career and life were nobler
or more admirable. Of course, I except Washington. Washington, to my
mind, is the purest figure in history." As an advocate of Free-trade
Gladstone first came into connection with another noble figure, that
of John Bright, who was to remain associated with him during most of
his career. In 1857 he first took rank as one of the great moral forces
of modern times. In that year he visited Naples, where he saw the
barbarous treatment of political prisoners under the government of the
infamous King Bomba, and described them in letters whose indignation
was breathed in such tremendous tones that England was stirred to its
depths and all Europe awakened. These thrilling epistles gave the cause
of Italian freedom an impetus that had much to do with its subsequent
success, and gained for Gladstone the warmest veneration of patriotic
Italians.
[=First Contest Between Gladstone and Disraeli=]
In 1852 he first came into opposition with the man against whom he was
to be pitted during the remainder of his career, Benjamin Disraeli,
who had made himself a power in Parliament, and in that year became
Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Derby's Cabinet and leader of the
House of Commons. The revenue Budget introduced by him showed a sad
lack of financial ability, and called forth sharp criticisms, to which
he replied in a speech made up of scoffs, gibes and biting sarcasms, so
daring and audacious in character as almost to intimidate the House. As
he sat down Mr. Gladstone rose and launched forth into an oration which
became historic. He gave voice to that indignation which lay suppressed
beneath the cowed feeling which for the moment the Chancellor of the
Exchequer's performance had left among his hearers. In a few minutes
the House was wildly cheering the intrepid champion who had rushed into
the breach, and when Mr. Gladstone concluded, having torn to shreds
the proposals of the Budget, a majority followed him into the division
lobby, and Mr. Disraeli found his government beaten by nineteen votes.
Such was the first great encounter between the two rivals.
Lord Derby resigned at once, and politics were plunged into a condition
of the wildest excitement and confusion. Mr. Gladstone was the butt of
Protectionist execration. He was near being thrown out of the window at
the Carlton Club by twenty extreme Tories, who, coming upstairs after
dinner, found him alone in the drawing-room. They did not quite go this
length, though they threatened to do so, but contented themselves with
insulting him.
In the Cabinet that followed, headed by Lord Aberdeen, Gladstone
succeeded Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position in which
he was to make a great mark. In April, 1853, he introduced his first
Budget, a marvel of ingenious statesmanship, in its highly successful
effort to equalize taxation. It remitted various taxes which had
pressed hard upon the poor and restricted business, and replaced them
by applying the succession duty to real estate, increasing the duty on
spirits, and extending the income tax. The latter Gladstone spoke of
as an emergency tax, only to be applied in times of national danger,
and presented a plan to extinguish it in 1860. His plan failed to work.
Nearly fifty years have passed since then, and the income tax still
remains, seemingly a fixed element of the British revenue system.
[=Gladstone's Great Budget Speech=]
Taken altogether, and especially in its expedients to equalize
taxation, this first Budget of Mr. Gladstone may be justly called
the greatest of the century. The speech in which it was introduced
and expounded created an extraordinary impression on the House and
the country. For the first time in Parliament figures were made as
interesting as a fairy tale; the dry bones of statistics were invested
with a new and potent life, and it was shown how the yearly balancing
of the national accounts might be directed by and made to promote the
profoundest and most fruitful principles of statesmanship. With such
lucidity and picturesqueness was this financial oratory rolled forth
that the dullest intellect could follow with pleasure the complicated
scheme; and for five hours the House of Commons sat as if it were under
the sway of a magician's wand. When Mr. Gladstone resumed his seat, it
was felt that the career of the coalition Ministry was assured by the
genius that was discovered in its Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[=Gladstone's Powers as an Orator=]
It was, indeed, to Gladstone's remarkable oratorical powers that much
of his success as a statesman was due. No man of his period was his
equal in swaying and convincing his hearers. His rich and musical
voice, his varied and animated gestures, his impressive and vigorous
delivery, great fluency, and wonderful precision of statement, gave him
a power over an audience which few men of the century have enjoyed. His
sentences, indeed, were long and involved, growing more so as his years
advanced, but their fine choice of words, rich rhetoric, and eloquent
delivery carried away all that heard him, as did his deep earnestness,
and intense conviction of the truth of his utterances.
We must pass rapidly over a number of years of Gladstone's career,
through most of which he continued to serve as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and to amaze and delight the country by the financial
reforms effected in his annual Budgets. Between 1853 and 1866 those
reforms represented a decrease in the weight of the burden of the
national revenue amounting to £13,000,000.
Meanwhile his Liberalism had been steadily growing, and reached its
culmination in 1865, when the great Tory university of Oxford, which he
had long represented, rejected him as its member. At once he offered
himself as a candidate for South Lancashire, in which his native place
was situated, saying, in the opening of his speech at Manchester: "At
last, my friends, I am come among you; to use an expression which has
become very famous and is not likely to be forgotten, 'I am come among
you unmuzzled.'"
[=Gladstone the Liberal Leader of the House=]
Unmuzzled he was, as his whole future career was to show. Oxford had,
in a measure, clipped his wings. Now he was free to give the fullest
expression to his liberal faith, and to stand before the country as
the great apostle of reform. In 1866 he became, for the first time in
his career, leader of the House of Commons--Lord Russel, the Prime
Minister, being in the House of Lords. Many of his friends feared for
him in this difficult position; but the event proved that they had
no occasion for alarm, he showing himself one of the most successful
leaders the House had ever had.
[=The Suffrage Reform Bill=]
His first important duty in this position was to introduce the new
suffrage Reform Bill, a measure to extend the franchise in counties and
boroughs that would have added about 400,000 voters to the electorate.
In the debate that followed Gladstone and Disraeli were again pitted
against each other in a grand oratorical contest. Disraeli taunted him
with his youthful speech at Oxford against the Reform Bill of 1831.
Gladstone replied in a burst of vigorous eloquence, in which he scored
his opponent for lingering in a conservatism from which the speaker
gloried in having been strong enough to break. He and the Cabinet were
pledged to stand or fall with the Bill. But, if it fell, the principle
of right and justice which it involved would not fall. It was sure
to survive and triumph in the future. He ended with this stirring
prediction:
"You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great
social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and which
the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or disturb,
those great social forces are against you: they are marshalled on our
side; and the banner which we now carry into this fight, though perhaps
at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again
will float in the eye of Heaven, and it will be borne by the firm hands
of the united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but
to a certain, and to a not far distant, victory."
[=England Agitated on Reform=]
Disraeli and his party won. The Bill was defeated. But its defeat
roused the people almost as they had been roused in 1832. A formidable
riot broke out in London. Ten thousand people marched in procession
past Gladstone's residence, singing odes in honor of "the People's
William." There were demonstrations in his favor and in support of
the Bill throughout the country. The agitation continued during
the winter, its fire fed by the eloquence of another of the great
orators of the century, the "tribune of the people," John Bright. This
distinguished man and powerful public speaker, through all his life a
strenuous advocate of moral reform and political progress, had begun
his parliamentary career as an advocate of the Reform Bill of 1831-32.
He now became one of the great leaders in the new campaign, and through
his eloquence and that of Gladstone the force of public opinion rose
to such a height that the new Derby-Disraeli ministry found itself
obliged to bring in a Bill similar to that which it had worked so hard
to overthrow.
And now a striking event took place. The Tory Reform Bill was
satisfactory to Gladstone in its general features, but he proposed
many improvements--lodger franchise, educational and savings-bank
franchises, enlargement of the redistribution of seats, etc.--every
one of which was yielded in committee, until, as one lord remarked,
nothing of the original Bill remained but the opening word, "Whereas."
This bill, really the work of Gladstone, and more liberal than the one
which had been defeated, was passed, and Toryism, in the very success
of its measure, suffered a crushing defeat. To Gladstone, as the people
perceived, their right to vote was due.
[=Disraeli Becomes Prime Minister=]
But Disraeli was soon to attain to the exalted office for which he had
long been striving. In February, 1868, failing health caused Lord Derby
to resign, and Disraeli was asked to form a new administration. Thus
the "Asian Mystery," as he had been entitled, reached the summit of his
ambition, in becoming Prime Minister of England.
[=Gladstone is Made Prime Minister=]
He was not to hold this position long. Gladstone was to reach the
same high eminence before the year should end. Disraeli's government,
beginning in February, 1868, was defeated on the question of the
disestablishment of the Irish Church; an appeal to the country resulted
in a large Liberal gain; and on December 4th the Queen sent for Mr.
Gladstone and commissioned him to form a new ministry. The task was
completed by the 9th, Mr. Bright, who had aided so greatly in the
triumph of the Liberals, entering the new cabinet as President of the
Board of Trade. Thus at last, after thirty-five years of active public
life, Mr. Gladstone was at the summit of power--Prime Minister of Great
Britain with a strong majority in Parliament in his support.
Bishop Wilberforce, who met him in this hour of triumph, wrote of him
thus in his journal: "Gladstone as ever great, earnest, and honest; as
unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible. He is so delightfully true and
the same; just as full of interest in every good thing of every kind."
The period which followed the election of 1868--the period of the
Gladstone Administration of 1868-74--has been called "the golden age
of Liberalism." It was certainly a period of great reforms. The first,
the most heroic, and probably--taking all the results into account--the
most completely successful of these, was the disestablishment of the
Irish Church.
Though Mr. Gladstone had a great majority at his back, the difficulties
which confronted him were immense. In Ireland the wildest protests
emanated from the friends of the Establishment. The "loyal minority"
declared that their loyalty would come to an end if the measure were
passed. One synod, speaking with a large assumption, even for a synod,
of inspired knowledge, denounced it as "highly offensive to the
Almighty God." The Orangemen threatened to rise in insurrection. A
martial clergyman proposed to "kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne"
if she assented to such a Bill. Another announced his intention of
fighting with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. These
appeals and these threats of civil war, absurd as they proved to be in
reality, were not without producing some effect in Great Britain, and
it was amid a din of warnings, of misgiving counsels, and of hostile
cries, that Mr. Gladstone proceeded to carry out the mandate of the
nation which he had received at the polls.
[=Disestablishment of the Irish Church=]
On the first of March, 1869, he introduced his Disestablishment Bill.
His speech was one of the greatest marvels amongst his oratorical
achievements. His chief opponent declared that, though it lasted
three hours, it did not contain a redundant word. The scheme which
it unfolded--a scheme which withdrew the temporal establishment of a
Church in such a manner that the Church was benefited, not injured,
and which lifted from the backs of an oppressed people an intolerable
burden--was a triumph of creative genius. Leaving aside his Budgets,
which stand in a different category, it seems to us there is no room
to doubt that in his record of constructive legislation this measure
for the disestablishment of the Irish Church is Mr. Gladstone's most
perfect masterpiece.
Disraeli's speech in opposition to this measure was referred to by the
_London Times_ as "flimsiness relieved by spangles." After a debate in
which Mr. Bright made one of his most famous speeches, the bill was
carried by a majority of 118. Before this strong manifestation of the
popular will the House of Lords, which deeply disliked the Bill, felt
obliged to give way, and passed it by a majority of seven.
[=The Irish Land Bill Enacted=]
In 1870 Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land Bill, a measure of
reform which Parliament had for years refused to grant. By it the
tenant was given the right to hold his farm as long as he paid his
rent, and received a claim upon the improvement made by himself and
his predecessors--a tenant-right which he could sell. This bill was
triumphantly carried; and another important Liberal measure, Mr.
Forster's Education Bill, became law.
In the following sessions the tide of Liberal reform continued on its
course. Among the reforms adopted was that of vote by ballot. A measure
was introduced abolishing purchase in the Army; and on this question
Mr. Gladstone had his third notable conflict with the Lords. The Lords
threw out the Bill. The imperious Premier, having found that purchase
in the Army existed only by royal sanction, advised the Queen to issue
a Royal Warrant cancelling the regulation. By a single act of executive
authority he carried out a reform to which Parliament had, through
one of its branches, refused its assent. This was a high-handed, not
to say autocratic, step, and it afforded a striking revelation of the
capacities in boldness and resolution of Mr. Gladstone's character. It
was denounced as Cæsarism and Cromwellism in some quarters; in others
as an unconstitutional invocation of the royal prerogative.
[=Defeat of Gladstone and the Liberals=]
But the career of reform at length proved too rapid for the country to
follow. The Government was defeated in 1873 on a bill for University
Education in Ireland. Gladstone at once resigned, but, as Disraeli
declined to form a Government, he was obliged to resume office. In 1874
he took the bold step of dissolving Parliament and appealing to the
country for support. If he were returned to power he promised to repeal
the income tax. He was not returned. The Tory party gained a majority
of 46. Gladstone at once resigned, not only the Premiership, but the
leadership of the Liberal party, and retired to private life--a much
needed rest after his many years of labor. Disraeli succeeded him as
Prime Minister, and two years afterwards was raised to the peerage by
the Queen as the Earl of Beaconsfield.
Mr. Gladstone was never idle. The intervals of his public duties were
filled with tireless studies and frequent literary labors. Chief
among the latter were his "Homeric Studies," works which showed great
erudition and active mental exercise, though not great powers of
critical discrimination. They adopted views which were then becoming
obsolete, and their conclusions have been rejected by Homeric scholars.
Gladstone's greatness was as an orator and a moral reformer, not as a
great logician and brilliant thinker.
[=Gladstone on the Bulgarian Horrors=]
In the period at which we have arrived his moral greatness and literary
fervor were both called into exercise in an international cause. The
Bulgarian atrocities of 1876--spoken of in Chapter X--called the aged
statesman from his retirement, and his pamphlet entitled "Bulgarian
Horrors and the Question of the East," rang through England like a
trumpet-call. "Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only
possible manner--by carrying off themselves," he wrote. "Their Zaptiehs
and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams
and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear
out from the province they have desolated and profaned."
[=His Second Great Contest with Disraeli=]
He followed up this pamphlet by a series of speeches, delivered to
great meetings and to the House of Commons, with which for four years
he sought, as he expressed it, "night and day to counterwork the
purpose of Lord Beaconsfield." He succeeded; England was prevented by
his eloquence from joining the Turks in the war; but he excited the
fury of the war party to such an extent that at one time it was not
safe for him to appear in the streets of London. Nor was he quite safe
in the House of Commons, where the Conservatives hated him so bitterly
as to jeer and interrupt him whenever he spoke, and a party of them
went so far as to mob him in the House.
Yet the sentiment he had aroused saved the country from the greatest of
the follies by which it was threatened; and, if it failed to stop the
lesser adventures in which Lord Beaconsfield found an outlet for the
passions he had unloosed,--an annexation of Cyprus, an interference in
Egypt, an annexation of the Transvaal, a Zulu war which Mr. Gladstone
denounced as "one of the most monstrous and indefensible in our
history," an Afghan war which he described as a national crime,--it
nevertheless was so true an interpretation of the best, the deliberate,
judgment of the nation, that it sufficed eventually to bring the
Liberal party back to power.
[=Gladstone Again Made Premier=]
This took place in 1880. In the campaign for the Parliament elected
in that year Gladstone took a most active part, and had much to do
with the great Liberal victory that followed. In the face of the
overwhelming majority that was returned Lord Beaconsfield resigned
office, and Gladstone a second time was called to the head of the
government.
[=Parnell Becomes the Leader of the Irish Party=]
As in the previous, so in the present, Gladstone administration the
question of Ireland loomed up above all others. While Beaconsfield
remained Premier Ireland was lost sight of, quite dwarfed by the
Eastern question upon which the two life-long adversaries measured
their strength. But as Turkey went down in public interest Ireland
rose. The Irish people were gaining a vivid sense of their power under
the Constitution. And another famine came to put the land laws and
government of Ireland to a severe test. Still more, Ireland gained
a leader, a man of remarkable ability, who was to play as great a
part in its history as O'Connell had done half a century before. This
was Charles Stewart Parnell, the founder of the Irish Land League--a
powerful trade-union of tenant farmers--and for many years the leader
of the Irish party in Parliament. In the Parliament of 1880 his
followers numbered sixty-eight, enough to make him a power to be dealt
with in legislation.
Gladstone, in assuming control of the new government, was quite unaware
of the task before him. When he had completed his work with the Church
and the Land Bills ten years before, he fondly fancied that the Irish
question was definitely settled. The Home Rule movement, which was
started in 1870, seemed to him a wild delusion which would die away of
itself. In 1884 he said: "I frankly admit that I had had much upon my
hands connected with the doings of the Beaconsfield Government in every
quarter of the world, and I did not know--no one knew--the severity of
the crisis that was already swelling upon the horizon, and that shortly
after rushed upon us like a flood."
[=The Famine and the Bill for Irish Relief=]
He was not long in discovering the gravity of the situation, of which
the House had been warned by Mr. Parnell. The famine had brought its
crop of misery, and, while the charitable were seeking to relieve the
distress, many of the landlords were turning adrift their tenants
for non-payment of rents. The Irish party brought in a Bill for the
Suspension of Evictions, which the government replaced by a similar one
for Compensation for Disturbance. This was passed with a large majority
by the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords, and Ireland was left to
face its misery without relief.
[=Mr. Forster's Policy of Coercion=]
The state of Ireland at that moment was too critical to be dealt with
in this manner. The rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill
was, to the peasantry whom it had been intended to protect, a message
of despair, and it was followed by the usual symptom of despair in
Ireland, an outbreak of agrarian crime. On the one hand over 17,000
persons were evicted; on the other there was a dreadful crop of
murders and outrages. The Land League sought to do what Parliament
did not; but in doing so it came in contact with the law. Moreover,
the revolution--for revolution it seemed to be--grew too formidable
for its control; the utmost it succeeded in doing was in some sense
to ride without directing the storm. The first decisive step of Mr.
Forster, the chief secretary for Ireland, was to strike a blow at the
Land League. In November he ordered the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Mr.
Biggar, and several of the officials of the organization, and before
the year was out he announced his intention of introducing a Coercion
Bill. This step threw the Irish members under Mr. Parnell and the
Liberal Government into relations of definitive antagonism.
Mr. Forster introduced his Coercion Bill on January 24, 1881. It was
a formidable measure, which enabled the chief secretary, by signing
a warrant, to arrest any man on suspicion of having committed a
given offence, and to imprison him without trial at the pleasure of
the government. It practically suspended the liberties of Ireland.
The Irish members exhausted every resource of parliamentary action
in resisting it, and their tactics resulted in several scenes
unprecedented in parliamentary history. In order to pass the Bill it
was necessary to suspend them in a body several times. Mr. Gladstone,
with manifest pain, found himself, as leader of the House, the agent by
whom this extreme resolve had to be executed.
[=Gladstone's New Land Bill=]
The Coercion Bill passed, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Land Bill
of 1881, which was the measure of conciliation intended to balance
the measure of repression. This was really a great and sweeping
reform, whose dominant feature was the introduction of the novel and
far-reaching principle of the State stepping in between landlord and
tenant and fixing the rents. The Bill had some defects, as a series of
amending acts, which were subsequently passed by both Liberal and Tory
Governments, proved; but, apart from these, it was on the whole the
greatest measure of land reform ever passed for Ireland by the Imperial
Parliament.
[=Stirring Events in Ireland=]
But Ireland was not yet satisfied. Parnell had no confidence in the
good intentions of the government, and took steps to test its honesty,
which so angered Mr. Forster that he arrested Mr. Parnell and several
other leaders and pronounced the Land League an illegal body. Forster
was well meaning but mistaken. He fancied that by locking up the
ringleaders he could bring quiet to the country. On the contrary,
affairs were soon far worse than ever, crime and outrage spreading
widely. In despair, Mr. Forster released Parnell and resigned. All now
seemed hopeful; coercion had proved a failure; peace and quiet were
looked for; when, four days afterward, the whole country was horrified
by a terrible crime. The new secretary for Ireland, Lord Cavendish, and
the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, were attacked and hacked to death with
knives in Phoenix Park.
Everywhere panic and indignation arose. A new Coercion Act was passed
without delay. It was vigorously put into effect, and a state of
virtual war between England and Ireland again came into existence.
Great Britain, in her usual fashion of seeking to carry the world on
her shoulders, had made the control of the Suez Canal an excuse for
meddling with the government of Egypt.
[=The Bombardment of Alexandria and Death of Gordon=]
The result was a revolution that drove Ismail Pasha from his throne. As
the British still held control, a revolt broke out among the people,
headed by an ambitious leader named Arabi Pasha, and Alexandria was
seized, the British being driven out and many of them killed. Much as
Gladstone deprecated war, he felt himself forced into it. John Bright,
to whom war was a crime that nothing could warrant, resigned from the
cabinet, but the Government acted vigorously, the British fleet being
ordered to bombard Alexandria. This was done effectively. The city,
half reduced to ashes, was occupied by the British, Arabi and his
army withdrawing in haste. Soon afterwards he was defeated by General
Wolseley and the insurrection was at an end. Egypt remained a vassal
of Great Britain. An unfortunate sequel to this may be briefly stated.
A formidable insurrection broke out in the Soudan, under El Mahdi, a
Mohammedan fanatic, who captured the city of Khartoum and murdered the
famous General Gordon. For years Upper Egypt was lost to the state,
it being recovered only at the close of the century by a military
expedition.
In South Africa the British were less successful. Here a war had been
entered into with the Boers, in which the British forces suffered a
severe defeat at Majuba Hill. Gladstone did not adopt the usual fashion
of seeking revenge by the aid of a stronger force, but made peace, the
Boers gaining what they had been fighting for.
[=The Defeat of the Liberals=]
Disasters like this weakened the administration. Parnell and his
followers joined hands with the Tories, and a vigorous assault was made
upon the government. Slowly its majority fell away, and at length, in
May, 1885, it was defeated.
The scene which followed was a curious one. The Irish raised cries of
"No Coercion," while the Tories delivered themselves up to a frenzy
of jubilation, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and wildly cheering.
Lord Randolph Churchill jumped on a bench, brandished his hat madly
above his head, and altogether behaved as if he were beside himself.
Mr. Gladstone calmly resumed the letter to the Queen which he had been
writing on his knee, while the clerk at the table proceeded to run
through the orders of the day, as if nothing particular had happened.
When in a few moments the defeated Premier moved the adjournment, he
did so still holding his letter in one hand and the pen in the other,
and the Conservatives surged through the doorway, tumultuously cheering.
Gladstone's great opponent was no longer on earth to profit by his
defeat. Beaconsfield had died in 1881, and Lord Salisbury became head
of the new Tory Government, one which owed its existence to Irish
votes. It had a very short life. Parnell and his fellows soon tired of
their unnatural alliance, turned against and defeated the Government,
and Gladstone was sent for to form a new government. On February 1,
1886, he became Prime Minister of Great Britain for the third time.
[=Gladstone a Convert to Home Rule=]
During the brief interval his opinions had suffered a great revolution.
He no longer thought that Ireland had all it could justly demand.
He returned to power as an advocate of a most radical measure, that
of Home Rule for Ireland, a restoration of that separate Parliament
which it had lost in 1800. He also had a scheme to buy out the Irish
landlords and establish a peasant proprietary by state aid. His new
views were revolutionary in character, but he did not hesitate--he
never hesitated to do what his conscience told him was right. On April
8, 1886, he introduced to Parliament his Home Rule Bill.
[=A Remarkable Scene in Parliament=]
The scene that afternoon was one of the most remarkable in
Parliamentary history. Never before was such interest manifested in a
debate by either the public or the members of the House. In order to
secure their places, members arrived at St. Stephen's at six o'clock
in the morning, and spent the day on the premises; and, a thing quite
unprecedented, members who could not find places on the benches
filled up the floor of the House with rows of chairs. The strangers',
diplomats', peers', and ladies' galleries were filled to overflowing.
Men begged even to be admitted to the ventilating passages beneath the
floor of the Chamber that they might in some sense be witnesses of the
greatest feat in the lifetime of an illustrious old man of eighty.
Around Palace Yard an enormous crowd surged, waiting to give the
veteran a welcome as he drove up from Downing Street.
Mr. Gladstone arrived in the House, pale and still panting from the
excitement of his reception in the streets. As he sat there the entire
Liberal party--with the exception of Lord Hartington, Sir Henry James,
Mr. Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan--and the Nationalist members,
by a spontaneous impulse, sprang to their feet and cheered him again
and again. The speech which he delivered was in every way worthy of the
occasion. It expounded, with marvelous lucidity and a noble eloquence,
a tremendous scheme of constructive legislation--the re-establishment
of a legislature in Ireland, but one subordinate to the Imperial
Parliament, and hedged round with every safeguard which could protect
the unity of the Empire. It took three hours in delivery, and was
listened to throughout with the utmost attention on every side of the
House. At its close all parties united in a tribute of admiration for
the genius which had astonished them with such an exhibition of its
powers.
Yet it is one thing to cheer an orator, another thing to vote for a
revolution. The Bill was defeated--as it was almost sure to be. Mr.
Gladstone at once dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country in
a new election, with the result that he was decisively defeated. His
bold declaration that the contest was one between the classes and the
masses turned the aristocracy against him, while he had again roused
the bitter hatred of his opponents.
But the "Grand Old Man" bided his time. The new Salisbury ministry was
one of coercion carried to the extreme in Ireland, wholesale eviction,
arrest of members of Parliament, suppression of public meetings by
force of arms, and other measures of violence which in the end wearied
the British public and doubled the support of Home Rule. In 1892 Mr.
Gladstone returned to power with a majority of more than thirty Home
Rulers in his support.
[=Gladstone's Last and Greatest Triumph=]
It was one of the greatest efforts in the career of the old
Parliamentary hero when he brought his new Home Rule Bill before
the House. Never in his young days had he worked more earnestly and
incessantly. He disarmed even his bitterest enemies, none of whom now
dreamed of treating him with disrespect. Mr. Balfour spoke of the
delight and fascination with which even his opponents watched his
leading of the House and listened to his unsurpassed eloquence. Old
age had come to clothe with its pathos, as well as with its majesty,
the white-haired, heroic figure. The event proved one of the greatest
triumphs of his life. The Bill passed with a majority of thirty-four.
That it would pass in the House of Lords no one looked for. It was
defeated there by a majority of 378 out of 460.
[=The Close of a Great Career=]
With this great event the public career of the Grand Old Man came to an
end. The burden had grown too heavy for his reduced strength. In March,
1894, to the consternation of his party, he announced his intention
of retiring from public life. The Queen offered, as she had done once
before, to raise him to the peerage as an earl, but he declined the
proffer. His own plain name was a title higher than that of any earldom
in the kingdom.
On May 19, 1898 William Ewart Gladstone laid down the burden of his
life as he had already done that of labor. The greatest and noblest
figure in legislative life of the nineteenth century had passed away
from earth.
[Illustration: NICHOLAS II. AND FAMILY
COUNT LYOF NIKOLAIEVITCH TOLSTOI
RUSSIA'S ROYAL FAMILY AND HER LITERARY LEADER]
[Illustration: CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.
WILLIAM O'BRIEN.
MICHAEL DAVITT.
T. M. HEALY.
FOUR CHAMPIONS OF IRELAND'S CAUSE]
CHAPTER XVI.
Ireland the Downtrodden.
[=Ireland in the Past Centuries=]
Time was when Ireland was free. But it was a barbarian freedom. The
island had more kings than it had counties, each petty chief bearing
the royal title, while their battles were as frequent as those of our
Indian tribes of a past age. The island, despite the fact that it
had an active literature reaching back to the early centuries of the
Christian era, was in a condition of endless turmoil. This state of
affairs was gradually put an end to after the English conquest; but the
civilization which was introduced into the island was made bitter by
an injustice and oppression which has filled the Irish heart with an
undying hatred of the English nation and a ceaseless desire to break
loose from its bonds.
For centuries, indeed, the rule of England was largely a nominal one,
the English control being confined to a few coast districts in the
east. In the interior the native tribes continued under the rule of
their chiefs, were governed by their own laws, and remained practically
independent.
[=The O'Neill Rebellion and the Confiscation of Ulster=]
It was not until the reign of James I. that England became master of
all Ireland. In the last days of the reign of Elizabeth a great rising
against the English had taken place in Ulster, under a chief named
O'Neill. The Earl of Essex failed to put it down and was disgraced by
the queen in consequence. The armies of James finally suppressed the
rebellion, and the unruly island now, for the first time, came fully
under the control of an English king. It had given the earlier monarchs
nothing but trouble, and James determined to weaken its power for
mischief. To do so he took possession of six counties of Ulster and
filled them with Scotch and English colonists. As for the Irish, they
were simply crowded out, and left to seek a living where they could.
There was no place left for them but the marshes.
This act of ruthless violence filled the Irish with an implacable
hatred of their oppressors which has not vanished in the years since
it took place. They treasured up their wrongs for thirty years, but in
1641, when England was distracted by its civil war, they rose in their
wrath, fell upon the colonists, and murdered all who could not save
themselves by flight. For eight years, while the English had their
hands full at home, the Irish held their reconquered lands in triumph,
but in 1649 Cromwell fell upon them with his invincible Ironsides, and
took such a cruel revenge that he himself confessed that he had imbued
his hands in blood like a common butcher. In truth, the Puritans looked
upon the Papists as outside the pale of humanity, and no more to be
considered than a herd of wild beasts, and they dealt with them as
hunters might with noxious animals.
[=Cromwell's Bloody Severity and the Fate of the Irish=]
The severity of Cromwell was threefold greater than that of James,
for he drove the Irish out of three provinces, Ulster, Leinster and
Munster, bidding them go and find bread or graves in the wilderness of
Connaught. Again the Irish rose, when James II., the dethroned king,
came to demand their aid; and again they were overthrown, this time
in the memorable Battle of the Boyne. William III. now completed the
work of confiscation. The greater part of the remaining province of
Connaught was taken from its holders and given to English colonists.
The natives of the island became a landless people in their own land.
[=The Cause of Irish Hatred of England=]
To complete their misery and degradation, William and the succeeding
monarchs robbed them of all their commerce and manufactures, by
forbidding them to trade with other countries. Their activity in
this direction interfered with the profits of English producers and
merchants. By these merciless and cruel methods the Irish were reduced
to a nation of tenants, laborers and beggars, and such they still
remain, downtrodden, oppressed, their most lively sentiment being their
hatred of the English, to whom they justly impute their degradation.
The time came when England acknowledged with shame and sorrow the
misery to which she had reduced a sister people--but it was then
too late to retrieve the wrong. English landlords owned the land,
manufacturing industry had been irretrievably crowded out, the evil
done was past mending.
With these preliminary statements we come to the verge of the
nineteenth century. America had rebelled against England and gained
independence. This fact stirred up a new desire for liberty in the
Irish. The island had always possessed a legislature of its own, but
it was of no value to the natives. It represented only the great
Protestant landowners, and could pass no act without the consent of the
Privy Council of England.
[=Home Rule and the Act of Union=]
A demand for a national Parliament was made, and the English
government, having its experience in America before its eyes, granted
it, an act being passed in 1782 which made Ireland independent of
England in legislation, a system such as is now called Home Rule. It
was not enough. It did not pacify the island. The religious animosity
between the Catholics and Protestants continued, and in 1798 violent
disturbances broke out, with massacres on both sides.
The Irish Parliament was a Protestant body, and at first was elected
solely by Protestant votes. Grattan, the eminent Irish statesman,
through whose efforts this body had been made an independent
legislature,--"The King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws
for the people of Ireland,"--carried an act to permit Catholics to vote
for its members. He then strove for a measure to permit Catholics to
sit as members in the Irish Parliament. This was too much for George
III. He recalled Lord Fitzwilliam, the viceroy of Ireland, who had
encouraged and assisted Grattan and blighted the hopes of the Irish
Catholics.
[=The United Irishmen and Act of Union=]
The revolt that followed was the work of a society called the United
Irishmen, organized by Protestants, but devoted to the interests
of Ireland. Wolfe Tone, one of its leading members, went to France
and induced Napoleon to send an expedition to Ireland. A fleet
was dispatched, but this, like the Spanish Armada, was dispersed
by a storm, and the few Frenchmen who landed were soon captured.
The rebellion was as quickly crushed, and was followed by deeds of
remorseless cruelty, so shameful that they were denounced by the
commander-in-chief himself. With this revolt the independence of
Ireland ended. An act of union was offered and carried through the
Irish Parliament by a very free use of money among the members, and the
Irish Legislature was incorporated with the British one. Since January
1, 1801, all laws for Ireland have been made in London.
Among the most prominent members of the United Irishmen Society were
two brothers named Emmet, the fate of one of whom has ever since been
remembered with sympathy. Thomas A. Emmet, one of these brothers,
was arrested in 1798 as a member of this society, and was imprisoned
until 1802, when he was released on condition that he should spend
the remainder of his life on foreign soil. He eventually reached New
York, at whose bar he attained eminence. The fate of his more famous
brother, Robert Emmet, was tragical. This young man, a school-fellow of
Thomas Moore, the poet, was expelled from Trinity College in 1798, when
twenty years of age, as a member of the United Irishmen. He went to
the continent, interviewed Napoleon on behalf of the Irish cause, and
returned in 1802 with a wild idea of freeing Ireland by his own efforts
from English rule.
[=The Fate of Robert Emmet=]
Organizing a plan for a revolution, and expending his small fortune in
the purchase of muskets and pikes, he formed a plot to seize Dublin
Castle, capture the viceroy, and dominate the capital. At the head of
a small body of followers he set out on this hopeless errand, which
ended at the first volley of the guards, before which his confederates
hastily dispersed. Emmet, who had dressed himself for the occasion in
a green coat, white breeches and cocked hat, was deeply mortified at
the complete failure of his scheme. He fled to the Wicklow mountains,
whence, perceiving that success in his plans was impossible, he
resolved to escape to the continent. But love led him to death. He
was deeply attached to the daughter of Curran, the celebrated orator,
and, in despite of the advice of his friends, would not consent to
leave Ireland until he had seen her. The attempt was a fatal one. On
his return from the interview with his lady-love he was arrested and
imprisoned on a charge of high treason. He was condemned to death
September 19, 1803, and was hanged the next day.
Before receiving sentence he made an address to the court of such
noble and pathetic eloquence that it still thrills the reader with
sympathetic emotion. It is frequently reprinted among examples of
soul-stirring oratory. The disconsolate woman, Sarah Curran, perished
of a broken heart after his untimely death. This event is the theme of
one of Moore's finest poems: "She is far from the land where her young
hero lies."
[=Landlords, Tenants and Clergy=]
The death of Emmet and the dispersal of the United Irishmen by no
means ended the troubles in Ireland, but rather added to their force.
Ireland and England, unlike in the character and religion of their
people and in their institutions, continued in a state of hostility,
masked or active, the old feuds being kept alive on the one side by
the landlords, on the other by the peasantry and the clergy. The
country was divided into a great number of small farms, thousands
of them being less than five acres each in size. For these the
landlords--many of whom the tenants never saw and some of whom had
never seen Ireland--often exacted extravagant rents. Again, while the
great majority of the people was Catholic, the Catholic clergy had to
be supported by the voluntary contributions of the poverty-stricken
people, while tithes, or church taxes, were exacted by law for the
payment of clergymen of the English Church, who remained almost without
congregations. Finally, the Catholics were disfranchised. After the
abolishment of the Irish Parliament they were without representation
in the government under which they lived. No Catholic could be a member
of Parliament. It is not surprising that their protest was vigorous,
and that the British government had many rebellious outbreaks to put
down.
[=O'Connell and Catholic Emancipation=]
It was the disfranchisement of the Catholics that first roused
opposition. Grattan brought up a bill for "Catholic Emancipation"--that
is, the admission of Catholics to the British Parliament and the repeal
of certain ancient, and oppressive edicts--in 1813. The bill was lost,
but a new and greater advocate of Irish rights now arose, Daniel
O'Connell, the "Liberator," the greatest of Irish orators and patriots,
who for many years was to champion the cause of downtrodden Ireland.
[=The "Counsellor" and His Oratory=]
The "counsellor"--a favorite title of O'Connell among his Irish
admirers--was a man of remarkable powers, noted for his boisterous
Irish wit and good humor, his fearlessness and skill as a counsel,
his constant tact and readiness in reply, his unrivalled skill in
the cross-examination of Irish witnesses, and the violent language
which he often employed in court. This man, of burly figure, giant
strength, inexhaustible energy and power of work, a voice mighty enough
to drown the noise of a crowd, a fine command of telling language,
coarse but effective humor, ready and telling retort, and master of all
the artillery of vituperation, was just the man to control the Irish
people, passing with the ease of a master from bursts of passion and
outbreaks of buffoonery to passages of the tenderest pathos. Thoroughly
Irish, he seemed made by nature to sustain the cause of Ireland.
O'Connell was shrewd enough to deter revolt, and, while awakening in
the Irish the spirit of nationality, he taught them to keep political
agitation within constitutional limits, and seek by legislative means
what they had no hope of gaining by force of arms. His legal practice
was enormous, yet amid it he found time for convivial relaxation and
for a deep plunge into the whirlpool of politics.
[=The Irish Association=]
The vigorous advocate was not long in rising to the chiefship of the
Irish party, but his effective work in favor of Catholic emancipation
began in 1823, when he founded the "Irish Association," a gigantic
system of organization which Ireland had nothing similar to before. The
clergy were disinclined to take part in this movement, but O'Connell's
eloquence brought them in before the end of the year, and under their
influence it became national, spreading irresistibly throughout the
land and rousing everywhere the greatest enthusiasm. To obtain funds
for its support the "Catholic Rent" was established--one penny a
month--which yielded as much as £500 per week.
In alarm at the growth of this association, the government brought in
a bill for its suppression, but O'Connell, too shrewd to come into
conflict with the authorities, forstalled them by dissolving it in
1825. He had set the ball rolling. The Irish forty-shilling freeholders
gained courage to oppose their landlords in the elections. In 1826
they carried Waterford. In 1828 O'Connell himself stood as member of
parliament for Clare, and was elected amid the intense enthusiasm of
the people.
This triumph set the whole country in a flame. The lord-lieutenant
looked for an insurrection, and even Lord Wellington, prime minister
of England, was alarmed at the threatening outlook. But O'Connell,
knowing that an outbreak would be ruinous to the Catholic cause, used
his marvelous powers to still the agitation and to induce the people to
wait for parliamentary relief.
[=O'Connell in Parliament=]
This relief came the following year. A bill was passed which admitted
Catholics to parliament, and under it O'Connell made his appearance in
the House of Commons May 15, 1829. He declined to take the old oaths,
which had been repealed by the bill. The House refused to admit him on
these conditions, and he went down to Clare again, which sent him back
like a conqueror. At the beginning of 1830 he took his seat unopposed.
O'Connell's career in parliament was one of persistent labor for the
repeal of the "Act of Union" with Great Britain, and Home Rule for
Ireland, in the advocacy of which he kept the country stirred up for
years. The abolition of tithes for the support of the Anglican clergy
was another of his great subjects of agitation, and this one member had
the strength of a host as an advocate of justice and freedom for his
country.
[=The Tithe Troubles=]
The agitation on the Catholic question had quickened the sense of the
wrongs of Ireland, and the Catholics were soon engaged in a crusade
against tithes and the established Church, which formed the most
offensive symbols of their inferior position in the state. In 1830
the potato crop in Ireland was very poor, and wide-spread misery and
destitution prevailed. O'Connell advised the people to pay no tithes,
but in this matter they passed beyond his control, and for months
crime ran rampant. The farmers refused to pay tithes or rents, armed
bands marched through the island, and murder and incendiarism visited
the homes of the rich. A stringent coercion bill was enacted and the
troubles were put down by the strong hand of the law. Subsequently the
Whig party, then in power, practically abolished tithes, cutting down
the revenue of the Established Church, and using the remainder for
secular purposes, and the agitation subsided.
In 1832 O'Connell became member for Dublin, and nominated most of the
Irish candidates, with such effect that he had in the next Parliament
a following of forty-five members, known sarcastically as his "tail."
He gradually attained a position of great eminence in the House of
Commons, standing in the first rank of parliamentary orators as a
debater.
[=The Home Rule Crusade=]
When a Tory ministry came into power, in 1841, O'Connell began a
vigorous agitation in favor of repeal of the Act of Union and of
Home Rule for Ireland, advocating the measure with all his wonderful
power of oratory. In 1843 he travelled 5,000 miles through Ireland,
speaking to immense meetings, attended by hundreds of thousands of
people, and extending to every corner of the island. But thanks to
his great controlling power, and the influence of Father Mathew, the
famous temperance advocate, these audiences were never unruly mobs, but
remained free from crime and drunkenness. The greatest was that held on
the Hill of Tara, at which, according to the _Nation_, three-quarters
of a million persons were present.
O'Connell wisely deprecated rebellion and bloodshed. "He who commits a
crime adds strength to the enemy," was his favorite motto. Through a
whole generation, with wonderful skill, he kept the public mind at the
highest pitch of political excitement, yet restrained it from violence.
But with all his power the old chief began to lose control of the
enthusiastic Young Ireland party and, confident that the government
must soon yield to the impassioned appeal from a whole nation, he
allowed himself in his speeches to outrun his sober judgment.
[=O'Connell Imprisoned=]
Fearful of an outbreak of violence, the government determined to put
an end to these enormous meetings, and a force of 35,000 men was sent
to Ireland. A great meeting had been called for Clantarf on October
5, 1843, but it was forbidden the day before by the authorities, and
O'Connell, fearing bloodshed, abandoned it. He was arrested, however,
tried for a conspiracy to arouse sedition, and sentenced to a year's
imprisonment and a fine of £2,000. This sentence was set aside by the
House of Lords some months afterward as erroneous, and at once bonfires
blazed across Ireland from sea to sea. But the three months he passed
in prison proved fatal to the old chief, then nearly seventy years old.
He contracted a disease which carried him to the grave three years
afterwards.
[=The Young Ireland Rebellion=]
During his withdrawal the Young Ireland party began to advocate
resistance to the government. In 1846 and 1847 came the potato famine,
the most severe visitation Ireland had known during the century, and
in 1848 the revolutionary movement in Europe made itself felt on Irish
soil. In the latter year the ardent Young Ireland party carried the
country into rebellion; but the outbreak was easily put down, hardly a
drop of blood being shed in its suppression. The popular leader, Smith
O'Brien, was banished to Australia, but was eventually pardoned. John
Mitchell, editor of the _Nation_ and the _United Irishman_, was also
banished, but subsequently escaped from Australia to the United States.
The wrongs of Ireland remained unredeemed, and as long as this was the
case quiet could not be looked for in the island. In 1858 a Phoenix
conspiracy was discovered and suppressed. Meanwhile John O'Mahony, one
of the insurgents of 1848, organized a formidable secret society among
the Irish in the United States, which he named the Fenian Brotherhood,
after Finn, the hero of Irish legend. This organization was opposed by
the Catholic clergy, but grew despite their opposition, its members
becoming numerous and its funds large.
[=The Fenian Brotherhood=]
Its leader in Ireland was James Stephens, and its organ the _Irish
People_ newspaper. But there were traitors in the camp and in 1865 the
paper was suppressed and the leaders were arrested. Stephens escaped
from prison ten days after his arrest and made his way to America. The
revolutionary activity of this association was small. There were some
minor outbreaks and an abortive attempt to seize Chester Castle, and in
September, 1867, an attack was made on a police van in Manchester, and
the prisoners, who were Fenians, were rescued. Soon after an attempt
was made to blow down Clerkenwell Prison wall, with the same purpose in
view.
The Fenians in the United States organized a plot in 1866 for a raid
upon Canada, which utterly failed, and in 1871 the government of this
country put a summary end to a similar expedition. With this the active
existence of the Fenian organization ended, unless we may ascribe to
it the subsequent attempts to blow down important structures in London
with dynamite.
[=Land Holding Reform in Ireland=]
These movements, while ineffective as attempts at insurrection, had
their influence in arousing the more thoughtful statesmen of England
to the causes for discontent and need of reform in Ireland, and since
that period the Irish question has been the most prominent one in
Parliament. Such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright took the matter
in hand, Gladstone presenting a bill for the final abolition of Irish
tithes and the disestablishment of the English Church in Ireland. This
was adopted in 1868, and the question of the reform of land holding
was next taken up, a series of measures being passed to improve
the condition of the Irish tenant farmer. If ejected, he was to be
compensated for improvements he had made, and a Land Commission was
formed with the power to reduce rents where this seemed necessary,
and also to fix the rent for a term of years. At a later date a Land
Purchase Commission was organized, to aid tenants in buying their farms
from the landlords, by an advance of a large portion of the purchase
money, with provision for gradual repayment.
[=The Home Rule Agitation=]
These measures did not put an end to the agitation. Numerous ejections
from farms for non-payment of rent had been going on, and a fierce
struggle was raging between the peasants and the agents of the absentee
landlords. The disturbance was great, and successive Coercion Acts
were passed. The peasants were supported by the powerful Land League,
while the old question of Home Rule was revived again, under the active
leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, who headed a small but very
determined body in Parliament. The succeeding legislation for Ireland,
engineered by Mr. Gladstone, to the passage in the House of Commons
of the Home Rule Bill of 1893, has been sufficiently described in the
preceding chapter, and need not be repeated here. It will suffice to
say in conclusion, that the demand for Home Rule still exists, and
that, in spite of all efforts at reform, the position of the Irish
peasant is far from being satisfactory, the most prolific crop in that
long-oppressed land seemingly being one of beggary and semi-starvation.
CHAPTER XVII.
England and Her Indian Empire.
[=The Black Hole of Calcutta=]
In 1756, in the town of Calcutta, the headquarters of the British in
India, there occurred a terrible disaster. A Bengalese army marched
upon and captured the town, taking prisoner all the English who had not
escaped to their ships. The whole of these unfortunates, 146 in number,
were thrust into the "black hole," a small room about eighteen feet
square, with two small windows. It was a night of tropical heat. The
air of the crowded and unventilated room soon became unfit to breathe.
The victims fought each other fiercely to reach the windows. The next
morning, when the door was opened, only twenty-three of them remained
alive. Such is the famous story of the "black hole of Calcutta."
[=Clive and the Battle of Plassey=]
In the following year (1757) this barbarism was avenged. On the
battlefield of Plassey stood an army of about 1,000 British and
2,100 Sepoys, with nine pieces of artillery. Opposed to them were
50,000 native infantry and 18,000 cavalry, with fifty cannon. The
disproportion was enormous, but at the head of the British army was
a great leader, Robert Clive, who had come out to India as a humble
clerk, but was now commander of an army. A brief conflict ended the
affair. The unwieldy native army fled. Clive's handful of men stood
victorious on the most famous field of Indian warfare.
This battle is taken as the beginning of the British Empire in India.
It is of interest to remember that just one hundred years later, in
1857, that empire reached the most perilous point in its career, in
the outbreak of the great Indian mutiny. Plassey settled one question.
It gave India to the English in preference to the French, in whose
interest the natives were fighting. The empire which Clive founded was
organized by Warren Hastings, the ablest but the most unscrupulous of
the governors of India. At the opening of the nineteenth century the
British power in India was firmly established.
[=Wellesley's Career in India=]
In 1798 the Marquis of Wellesley--afterwards known as Lord
Wellington--was made governor. Even there he had his future great
antagonist to guard against, for Napoleon was at that time in Egypt,
and was thought to have the design of driving the British from India
and restoring that great dominion to France. Wellesley's career
in India was a brilliant one. He overthrew the powerful Marhatta
Confederacy, gained victory after victory over the native chiefs and
kings, captured the great Mogul cities of Delhi and Agra, and spread
the power of the British arms far and wide through the peninsula.
In the succeeding years war after war took place. The warlike Marhattas
rebelled and were again put down, other tribes were conquered, and in
1824 the city of Bhartpur in Central India, believed by the natives to
be impregnable, was taken by storm, and the reputation of the British
as indomitable fighters was greatly enhanced. Rapidly the British power
extended until nearly the whole peninsula was subdued. In 1837 the
conquerors of India began to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan,
and a British garrison was placed in Cabul, the capital of that
country, in 1839.
[=The Terrible Retreat from Cabul=]
Two years they stayed there, and then came to them one of the greatest
catastrophes in the history of the British army. Surrounded by hostile
and daring Afghans, the situation of the garrison grew so perilous
that it seemed suicidal to remain in Cabul, and it was determined to
evacuate the city and retreat to India through the difficult passes
of the Himalayas. In January, 1842, they set out, 4,000 fighting
men and 12,000 camp followers. Deep snows covered the hills and all
around them swarmed the Afghans, savage and implacable, bent on
their utter destruction, attacking them from every point of vantage,
cutting down women and children with the same ruthless cruelty as
they displayed in the case of men. One terrible week passed, then,
on the afternoon of January 13th, the sentinels at the Cabul gate of
Jelalabad saw approaching a miserable, haggard man, barely able to sit
upon his horse. Utterly exhausted, covered with cuts and contusions,
he rode through the gate, and announced himself as Dr. Brydan, the
sole survivor of the army which had left Cabul one week before. The
remainder, men, women, and children,--except a few who had been taken
prisoners,--lay slaughtered along that dreadful road, their mangled
bodies covering almost every foot of its bloodstained length.
The British exacted revenge for this terrible massacre. A powerful
force fought its way back to Cabul, defeated the Afghans wherever met,
and rescued the few prisoners in the Afghan hands. Then the soldiers
turned their backs on Cabul, which no British army was to see again for
nearly forty years.
[=The War With the Sikhs=]
Three years afterwards the British Empire in India was seriously
threatened by one of the most warlike races in the peninsula, the
Sikhs, a courageous race inhabiting the Punjab, in northern India,
their capital the city of Lahore. In 1845 a Sikh army, 60,000 strong,
with 150 guns, crossed the Sutléj River and invaded British territory.
Never before had the British in India encountered men like these.
Four pitched battles were fought, in each of which the British lost
heavily, but in the last they drove the Sikhs back across the Sutléj
and captured Lahore.
That ended the war for the time being, but in 1848 the brave Sikhs were
in arms again, and pushing the British as hard as before. On the field
of Chilianwala the British were repulsed, with a loss of 2,400 men and
the colors of three regiments. This defeat was quickly retrieved. Lord
Gough met the enemy at Guzerat and defeated them so utterly that their
army was practically destroyed. They were driven back as a shapeless
mass of fugitives, losing their camp, their standards, and fifty-three
of their cherished guns. With this victory was completed the conquest
of the Punjab. The Sikhs became loyal subjects of the queen, and
afterwards supplied her armies with the most valorous and high-spirited
of her native troops.
[=The Causes of the Mutiny=]
Thus time went on until that eventful year of 1857, when the British
power in India was to receive its most perilous shock. For a long
time there had been a great and continually increasing discontent in
India. Complaints were made that the treaties with native princes
were not kept, that extortion was practised by which officials grew
rapidly and mysteriously wealthy, looking upon India as a field for
the acquisition of riches, and that the natives were treated by the
governing powers with deep contempt, while every license was granted
to the soldiery. The hidden cause of the discontent, however, lay in
the deep hatred felt by the natives, Hindu and Mussulmen alike, for the
dominant race of aliens to whom they had been obliged to bow in common
subjection; and the fanaticism of the Hindus caused the smouldering
elements of discontent to burst out into the flames of insurrection.
A secret conspiracy was formed, in which all classes of the natives
participated, its object being to overthrow the dominion of the
English. It had been prophesied among the natives that the rule of the
foreign masters of India should last only for a hundred years; and a
century had just elapsed since the triumph of Clive at Plassey.
[=The Greased Cartridges=]
Small _chupatties_, cakes of unleavened bread, were secretly passed
from hand to hand among the natives, as tokens of comradeship in the
enterprise. This conspiracy was the more dangerous from making its
way into the army, for India was a country governed by the sword. A
rumor ran through the cantonments of the Bengal army that cartridges
had been served out greased with the fat of animals unclean to Hindu
and Mussulman alike, and which the Hindus could not bite without loss
of caste, the injunction of their religion obliging them to abstain
from animal food under this penalty. After this nothing could quiet
their minds; fires broke out nightly in their quarters; officers were
insulted by their men; all confidence was gone, and discipline became
an empty form.
[=The Old Emperor Akbar=]
The sentence of penal servitude passed upon some of the mutineers
became the signal for the breaking out of the revolt. At Meerut, on the
Upper Ganges, the Sepoys broke into rebellion, liberated their comrades
who were being led away in chains, and marched in a body to Delhi, the
ancient capital of India and former seat of the Mogul empire. Here they
took possession of the great military magazine and seized its stores.
Those among the British inhabitants who did not save themselves by
immediate flight were barbarously put to death; and the decrepit Akbar,
the descendant of the Moguls, an old man of ninety, who lived at Delhi
upon a pension granted to him by the East India Company, was drawn from
his retirement and proclaimed Emperor of Hindostan by the rebels, his
son, Mirza, being associated with him in the government.
[=The Frightful Massacre at Cawnpore=]
The mutiny spread with terrible rapidity, and massacres of the English
took place at Indore, Allahabad, Azimghur, and other towns. Foremost
in atrocity stands the massacre perpetrated at Cawnpore by Nana Sahib,
the adopted son of the last Peishwa of the Marhattas, who, after
entering into a compact with General Wheeler, by which he promised
a free departure to the English, caused the boats in which they
were proceeding down the river to be fired upon. The men were thus
slain, while the women and children were brought back as prisoners to
Cawnpore. Here they were confined for some days in a building, into
which murderers were sent who massacred them every one, the mutilated
corpses being thrown down a well.
[=The Scotch Slogan at Lucknow=]
In Oude, the noble-minded Sir Henry Lawrence defended himself
throughout the whole summer in the citadel of Lucknow against the
rebels under Nana Sahib with wonderful skill and bravery, until he
was killed by the bursting of a bomb, on the 2d of July. The distress
of the besieged, among whom were many ladies and children, was now
extreme. But the little garrison held out for nearly three months
longer against the greatest odds and amid the most distressing
hardships. At length came that eventful day, when, to the keen ears
of one of the despairing sufferers, a Scotch woman, came from afar
a familiar and most hopeful sound. "Dinna ye hear the pibroch?" she
cried, springing to her feet in the ecstacy of hope renewed.
Those near her listened but heard no sound, and many minutes passed
before a swell of wind bore to their ears the welcome music of the
bagpipe, playing the war-march of the Highlanders of her native land.
It came from the party of relief led by General Havelock, which had
left Calcutta on the first tidings of the outbreak, and was now
marching in all haste to imperilled Lucknow.
[=The March of Havelock=]
On his way Havelock had encountered the mutineers at Futtipur and
gained a brilliant victory. Three days later Cawnpore was reached.
There the insurgent Sepoys fought with desperation, but they were
defeated, and the British entered the town, but not in time to rescue
the women and children, whose slaughter had just taken place. What they
saw there filled the soldiers with the deepest sentiments of horror
and vengeance. The sight was one to make the blood run cold. "The
ground," says a witness of the terrible scene, "was strewn with clotted
blood, which here and there lay ankle deep. Long locks of hair were
scattered about, shreds of women's garments, children's hats and shoes,
torn books and broken playthings. The bodies were naked, the limbs
dismembered. I have seen death in all possible forms, but I could not
gaze on this terrible scene of blood."
The frightful slaughter was mercilessly avenged by the infuriated
soldiers on the people of Cawnpore and on the prisoners they had taken.
Havelock then crossed the Ganges and marched into Oude. Fighting its
way through the difficulties caused by inclement weather and the
continual onslaughts of the enemy, Havelock's regiment at last effected
a coalition with the reinforcements under General Outram, and together
they marched towards Lucknow, which was reached at the end of September.
An especial act of heroism was achieved during the siege of Lucknow
by Mr. Kavanagh, an official, who offered, disguised as a native, to
penetrate through a region swarming with enemies, to communicate with
the general of the approaching relieving force. He happily accomplished
his dangerous exploit, from which he obtained the honorable nickname of
"Lucknow Kavanagh."
[=The Relief of Lucknow=]
As the army of relief drew near, the beleaguered people heard with
ears of delight the increasing sounds of their approach, the roar of
distant guns reaching their gladdened ears. Yet the enterprise was a
desperate one and its success was far from assured. Havelock and Outram
had no more than 2,600 men, while the enemy was 50,000 strong. Yet as
the sound of the guns increased there were evidences of panic among the
natives. Many of the town people and of the Sepoys took to flight, some
crossing the river by the bridge, some by swimming. At two o'clock the
smoke of the guns was visible in the suburbs and the rattle of musketry
could be heard. At five o'clock heavy firing broke out in the streets,
and in a few minutes more a force of Highlanders and Sikhs turned into
the street leading to the residency, in which the besieged garrison had
so long been confined. Headed by General Outram, they ran at a rapid
pace to the gate, and, amid wild cheers from those within, made their
way into the beleaguered enclosure, and the first siege of Lucknow was
at an end.
[=The Suffering at Lucknow=]
The garrison had fought for months behind slight defences and against
enormous odds. They were well supplied with food and water, but they
had been exposed to terrible heat and heavy and incessant rains. The
Sepoys had been drilled by British officers, were well supplied with
arms and ammunition, and from the housetops of the town kept up an
incessant fire that searched every corner of the defended fortress.
Sickness raged in the crowded and underground rooms in which shelter
was sought against the constant musketry, and death had reaped a
harvest among the gallant and unyielding few who had so long held that
almost untenable post.
[=The Coming of Campbell=]
Havelock's men were able to do no more than reinforce the garrison.
After fighting their way with heavy losses into the citadel, they found
that it was impossible, with their small army, to force a retreat
through the ranks of the enemy with the women, children and invalids,
surrounded by the swarms of rebels who surged round the walls like a
foaming sea. They were compelled, therefore, to shut themselves up,
and await fresh reinforcements. Provisions, however, now began to
diminish, and they were menaced with the horrors of starvation; but
matters did not reach this last extremity. Sir Colin Campbell, the new
commander-in-chief, with 7,000 well-equipped troops, was already on the
way. He arrived at Lucknow on the 14th of November, made a bold and
successful attack on the fortifications, and liberated the besieged.
Unable to hold the town, he left it to the enemy, being obliged to
content himself with the rescue of the people in the residency. Eight
days afterwards Havelock died of cholera. His memory is held in high
esteem as the most heroic figure in the war of the mutiny.
[=Siege and Capture of Delhi=]
Meanwhile Delhi was under siege, which began on June 8th, just one
month after the original outbreak. It was, however, not properly a
siege, for the British were encamped on a ridge at some distance from
the city. They never numbered more than 8,000 men, while within the
walls were over 30,000 of the mutineers. General Nicholson arrived with
a reinforcement in middle August, and on September 14th an assault was
made. The city was held with desperation by the rebels, fighting going
on in the streets for six days before the Sepoys fled. Nicholson fell
at the head of a storming party, and Hodson, the leader of a corps of
irregular horse, took the old Mogul emperor prisoner, and shot down his
sons in cold blood.
[=Final Operations Against Lucknow=]
It was not until three months and a half after the release of the
garrison at Lucknow that Sir Colin Campbell, having dealt out
punishment to the mutineers at many of the stations where they still
kept together, and having received large reinforcements of men and
artillery from home, prepared for the crowning attack upon that place.
On the 4th of February he advanced from Cawnpore, with three divisions
of infantry, a division of cavalry, and fifteen batteries, and on the
1st of March operations began; General Outram, with a force of 6,000
men and thirty guns, crossing the Goomtee, and reconnoitering the
country as far as Chinhut. On the following day he invested the king's
race-house, which he carried the next day by assault, and on the 9th
Sir Colin Campbell's main force captured, with a slight loss, the
Martinière, pushed on to the bridges across the river, and carried,
after some hard fighting, the Begum's palace. Two days later the
Immaumbarra, which had been converted into a formidable stronghold and
was held by a large force, was breached and stormed, and the captors
followed so hotly upon the rear of the flying foe that they entered
with them the Kaiserbagh, which was regarded by the rebels as their
strongest fortress. Its garrison, taken wholly by surprise, made but a
slight resistance. The loss of these two positions, on which they had
greatly relied, completely disheartened the enemy, and throughout the
night a stream of fugitives poured out of the town.
[=The Storming of the Fortresses=]
The success was so unexpected that the arrangements necessary for
cutting off the retreat of the enemy had not been completed, and very
large numbers of the rebels escaped, to give infinite trouble later
on. Many were cut down by the cavalry and horse artillery, which set
out the next morning in pursuit; but, to the mortification of the
army, a considerable proportion got away. The next day a number of
palaces and houses fell into the hands of the advancing troops without
resistance, and by midnight the whole city along the river bank was
in their possession. In the meantime Jung Bahadoor, the British ally,
was attacking the city with his Goorkhas from the south, and pushed
forward so far that communications were opened with him halfway across
the city. The following day the Goorkhas made a further advance, and,
fighting with great gallantry, won the suburbs adjacent to the Charbach
bridge.
The hard fighting was now over; the failure to defend even one of
the fortresses upon which for months they had bestowed so much care,
completely disheartened the mutineers remaining in the city. Numbers
effected their escape; others hid themselves, after having got rid
of their arms and uniforms; some parties took refuge in houses, and
defended themselves desperately to the end. The work was practically
accomplished on the 21st, and Lucknow, which had so long been the
headquarters of the insurrection, was in British hands, and that with
a far smaller loss than could have been expected from the task of
capturing a city possessing so many places of strength, and held by
some 20,000 desperate men fighting with ropes round their necks.
[=The Booty of the Soldiers=]
[=The East India Company Abolished=]
[=Victoria is Made Empress of India=]
The city taken, the troops were permitted to plunder and murder to
their hearts' content. In every house were dead or dying, and the
corpses of Sepoys lay piled up several feet in height. The booty which
the soldiers carried off in the way of jewels and treasures of every
kind was enormous. The widowed queen of Oude set out for England, to
proclaim the innocence of her son "in the dark countries of the West,"
and to preserve to her house the shadow of an independent monarchy. She
never saw her sunny India again, however; on the return journey she
died of a broken heart. Though the rebellion gradually lost force and
cohesion after this period, the vengeance continued for a year longer.
But the chief rebel, Nana Sahib, and the two heroic women, the Begum of
Oude and the Ranee of Jansee, escaped to Nepaul. In the course of the
year 1858, peace and order again returned to the Anglo-Indian Empire,
and the government was able to consider means of reconciliation. By a
proclamation of the queen all rebels who were not directly implicated
in the murder of British subjects, and would return to their duty
and allegiance by January, 1859, were to obtain a complete amnesty.
This proclamation also announced that the queen, with the consent of
Parliament, had determined to abolish the East India Company, to take
the government into her own hands, and to rule India by means of a
special secretary of state and council. The Indian Empire, both within
and without, had assumed such gigantic proportions that it could no
longer be properly ruled by a mercantile company, and came properly
under the control of the crown. In 1876 Queen Victoria assumed, by act
of Parliament, the title of Empress of India. The most recent important
event, in the acquisition of territory in this part of the world, was
the invasion of Burmah in 1885, and its capture after a short and
decisive campaign. The Indian Empire of Victoria has now grown enormous
in extent, its borders extending to the Himalayas on the north, where
they are in contact with the boundaries of the great imperial dominion
which Russia has acquired in Asia. Whether the two great rivals will
yet come into conflict on this border is a question which only the
future can decide.
India possesses a population only surpassed by that of China
amounting at the census of 1896 to 221,172,952. This excludes the
native and partially independent states, the population of which
numbers 66,050,479, making a total for the whole empire, including
Burmah, of 287,223,431. Under British control the country has been
greatly developed, and abundantly supplied with means of internal
communication, its railroad lines covering a length of about 27,000
miles, and its telegraphs of over 45,000 miles, while the telephone has
also been widely introduced. Its commerce amounts in round numbers to
nearly $500,000,000 annually.
This great country has long been subject to devastating disasters.
In 1876 a terrible tidal wave drowned thousands of the people and
destroyed millions in value of property. In 1897 much of the country
suffered frightfully from famine, being the fifteenth occasion during
the century. In the same year a plague broke out in the crowded city
of Bombay and caused dreadful ravages among its native population. For
ages past India has been subject to visitations of this kind, which
have hitherto surpassed the power of man to prevent. In the last named
all the world came to the aid of the starving and science did its
utmost to stay the ravages of the plague.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Thiers, Gambetta, and the Rise of the French
Republic.
[=A Provisional Government=]
It has been already told how the capitulation of the French army at
Sedan and the captivity of Louis Napoleon were followed in Paris by
the overthrow of the empire and the formation of a republic, the third
in the history of French political changes. A provisional government
was formed, the legislative assembly was dissolved, and all the court
paraphernalia of the imperial establishment disappeared. The new
government was called in Paris the "Government of Lawyers," most of
its members and officials belonging to that profession. At its head
was General Trochu, in command of the army in Paris; among its chief
members were Jules Favre and Gambetta. While upright in its membership
and honorable in its purposes, it was an arbitrary body, formed by
a _coup d'etat_ like that by which Napoleon had seized the reins of
power, and not destined for a long existence.
[=Excitement in Paris=]
The news of the fall of Metz and the surrender of Bazaine and his army
served as a fresh spark to the inflammable public feeling of France. In
Paris the Red Republic raised the banner of insurrection against the
government of the national defence and endeavored to revive the spirit
of the Commune of 1793. The insurgents marched to the senate-house,
demanded the election of a municipal council which should share power
with the government, and proceeded to imprison Trochu, Jules Favre, and
their associates. This, however, was but a temporary success of the
Commune, and the provisional government continued in existence until
the end of the war, when a national assembly was elected by the people
and the temporary government was set, aside. Gambetta, the dictator,
"the organizer of defeats," as he was sarcastically entitled, lost his
power, and the aged statesman and historian, Louis Thiers, was chosen
as chief of the executive department of the new government.
The treaty of peace with France, including, as it did, the loss of
Alsace and Lorraine and the payment of an indemnity of $1,000,000,000,
roused once more the fierce passions of the radicals and the masses
of the great cities, who passionately denounced the treaty as due to
cowardice and treason. The dethroned emperor added to the excitement
by a manifesto, in which he protested against his deposition by the
assembly and called for a fresh election. The final incitement to
insurrection came when the assembly decided to hold its sessions at
Versailles instead of in Paris, whose unruly populace it feared.
[=Outbreak of the Commune=]
In a moment all the revolutionary elements of the great city were in
a blaze. The social democratic "Commune," elected from the central
committee of the National Guard, renounced obedience to the government
and the National Assembly, and broke into open revolt. An attempt to
repress the movement only added to its violence, and all the riotous
populace of Paris sprang to arms. A new war was about to be inaugurated
in that city which had just suffered so severely from the guns of the
Germans, and around which German troops were still encamped.
The government had neglected to take possession of the cannon on
Montmartre; and now, when the troops of the line, instead of firing
on the insurrectionists, went over in crowds to their side, the
supremacy over Paris fell into the hands of the wildest demagogues.
A fearful civil war commenced, and in the same forts which the
Germans had shortly before evacuated firing once more resounded; the
houses, gardens, and villages around Paris were again surrendered to
destruction, and the creations of art, industry, and civilization,
and the abodes of wealth and pleasure were once more transformed into
dreary wildernesses.
[=Outrages of the Insurgents=]
The wild outbreaks of fanaticism on the part of the Commune recalled
the scenes of the revolution of 1789, and in these spring days of 1871
Paris added another leaf to its long history of crime and violence.
The insurgents, roused to fury by the efforts of the government to
suppress them, murdered two generals, Lecomte and Thomas, and fired
on the unarmed citizens who, as the "friends of order," desired
a reconciliation with the authorities at Versailles. They formed
a government of their own, extorted loans from wealthy citizens,
confiscated the property of religious societies, and seized and held as
hostages Archbishop Darboy and many other distinguished clergymen and
citizens.
[=Punishment of the Commune=]
Meanwhile the investing troops, led by Marshal MacMahon, gradually
fought their way through the defences and into the suburbs of the city,
and the surrender of the anarchists in the capital became inevitable.
This necessity excited their passions to the most violent extent,
and, with the wild fury of savages, they set themselves to do all the
damage to the historical monuments of Paris they could. The noble
Vendôme column, the symbol of the warlike renown of France, was torn
down from its pedestal and hurled prostrate in the street. The most
historic buildings in the city were set on fire, and either partially
or entirely destroyed. Among these were the Tuileries, a portion
of the Louvre, the Luxembourg, the Palais Royal, the Elysée, etc.;
while several of the imprisoned hostages, foremost among them Darboy,
Archbishop of Paris, and the universally respected minister Daguerry,
were shot by the infuriated mob. Such crimes excited the Versailles
troops to terrible vengeance, when they at last succeeded in repressing
the rebellion. They went their way along a bloody course; human life
was counted as nothing; the streets were stained with blood and strewn
with corpses, and the Seine once more ran red between its banks. When
at last the Commune surrendered, the judicial courts at Versailles
began their work of retribution. The leaders and participators in
the rebellion who could not save themselves by flight were shot by
hundreds, confined in fortresses, or transported to the colonies. For
more than a year the imprisonments, trials, and executions continued,
military courts being established which excited the world for months by
their wholesale condemnations to exile and to death. The carnival of
anarchy was followed by one of pitiless revenge.
The Republican government of France, which had been accepted in an
emergency, was far from carrying with it the support of the whole of
the assembly or of the people, and the aged, but active and keen-witted
Thiers had to steer through a medley of opposing interests and
sentiments. His government was considered, alike by the Monarchists and
the Jacobins, as only provisional, and the Bourbons and Napoleonists on
the one hand and the advocates of "liberty, equality and fraternity"
on the other, intrigued for its overthrow. But the German armies still
remained on French soil, pending the payment of the costs of the war;
and the astute chief of the executive power possessed moderation enough
to pacify the passions of the people, to restrain their hatred of the
Germans, which was so boldly exhibited in the streets and in the courts
of justice, and to quiet the clamor for a war of revenge.
[=President Thiers and the Assembly=]
The position of parties at home was confused and distracted, and a
disturbance of the existing order could only lead to anarchy and civil
war. Thiers was thus the indispensable man of the moment, and so much
was he himself impressed by consciousness of this fact, that he many
times, by the threat of resignation, brought the opposing elements in
the assembly to harmony and compliance. This occurred even during the
siege of Paris, when the forces of the government were in conflict
with the Commune. In the assembly there was shown an inclination to
moderate or break through the sharp centralization of the government,
and to procure some autonomy for the provinces and towns. When,
therefore, a new scheme was discussed, a large part of the assembly
demanded that the mayors should not, as formerly, be appointed by the
government, but be elected by the town councils. Only with difficulty
was Thiers able to effect a compromise, on the strength of which
the government was permitted the right of appointment for all towns
numbering over twenty thousand. In the elections for the councils
the Moderate Republicans proved triumphant. With a supple dexterity,
Thiers knew how to steer between the Democratic-Republican party and
the Monarchists. When Gambetta endeavored to establish a "league of
Republican towns," the attempt was forbidden as illegal; and when the
decree of banishment against the Bourbon and Orlean princes was set
aside, and the latter returned to France, Thiers knew how to postpone
the entrance of the Duc d'Aumale and Prince de Joinville, who had been
elected deputies, into the assembly, at least until the end of the year.
[=The National Loan=]
The brilliant success of the national loan went far to strengthen the
position of Thiers. The high offers for a share in this loan, which
indicated the inexhaustible wealth of the nation and the solid credit
of France abroad, promised a rapid payment of the war indemnity, the
consequent evacuation of the country by the German army of occupation,
and a restoration of the disturbed finances of the state. The foolish
manifesto of the Count de Chambord, who declared that he had only to
return with the white banner to be made sovereign of France, brought
all reasonable and practical men to the side of Thiers, and he had,
during the last days of August, 1871, the triumph of being proclaimed
"President of the French Republic."
The new president aimed, next to the liberation of the garrisoned
provinces from the German troops of occupation, at the reorganization
of the French army. Yet he could not bring himself to the decision of
enforcing in its entirety the principle of general armed service, such
as had raised Prussia from a state of depression to one of military
regeneration. Universal military service in France was, it is true,
adopted in name, and the army was increased to an immense extent, but
under such conditions and limitations that the richer and more educated
classes could exempt themselves from service in the army; and thus the
active forces, as before, consisted of professional soldiers. And when
the minister for education, Jules Simon, introduced an educational law
based on liberal principles, he experienced on the part of the clergy
and their champion, Bishop Dupanloup, such violent opposition, that the
government dropped the measure.
[Illustration: DREYFUS, HIS ACCUSERS AND DEFENDERS
Lawyer Labori; Henry, the suicide; Dreyfus, the
prisoner; Esterhazy, the confessed criminal; General
Mercier, chief accuser.]
[Illustration: THE DREYFUS TRIAL
Dreyfus in the act of declaring "_I am Innocent_."]
[=Reorganization of the Army=]
In order to place the army in the condition which Thiers desired, an
increase in the military budget was necessary, and consequently an
enhancement of the general revenues of the state. For this purpose a
return to the tariff system, which had been abolished under the empire,
was proposed, but excited so great an opposition in the assembly that
six months passed before it could be carried. The new organization
of the army, undertaken with a view of placing France on a level in
military strength with her late conqueror, was now eagerly undertaken
by the president. An active army, with five years' service, was to be
added to a "territorial army," a kind of militia. And so great was the
demand on the portion of the nation capable of bearing arms that the
new French army exceeded in numbers that of any other nation.
[=Gambetta as an Agitator=]
But all the statesmanship of Thiers could not overcome the anarchy in
the assembly, where the forces for monarchy and republicanism were
bitterly opposed to each other. Gambetta, in order to rouse public
opinion in favor of democracy, made several tours through the country,
his extravagance of language giving deep offence to the monarchists,
while the opposed sections of the assembly grew wider and more violent
in their breach.
[=Trial and Condemnation of the Generals=]
Indisputably as were the valuable services which Thiers had rendered
to France, by the foundation of public order and authority, the
creation of a regular army, and the restoration of a solid financial
system, yet all these services met with no recognition in the face
of the party jealousy and political passions prevailing among the
people's representatives at Versailles. More and more did the Royalist
reaction gain ground, and, aided by the priests and by national
hatred and prejudice, endeavor to bring about the destruction of its
opponents. Against the Radicals and Liberals, among whom even the
Voltairean Thiers was included, superstition and fanaticism were
let loose, and against the Bonapartists was directed the terrorism
of court martial. The French could not rest with the thought that
their military supremacy had been broken by the superiority of the
Prusso-German arms; their defeats could have proceeded only from the
treachery or incapacity of their leaders. To this national prejudice
the Government decided to bow, and to offer a sacrifice to the popular
passion. And thus the world beheld the lamentable spectacle of the
commanders who had surrendered the French fortresses to the enemy being
subjected to a trial by court-martial under the presidency of Marshal
Baraguay d'Hilliers, and the majority of them, on account of their
proved incapacity or weakness, deprived of their military honors, at
a moment when all had cause to reproach themselves and endeavor to
raise up a new structure on the ruins of the past. Even Ulrich, the
once celebrated commander of Strasburg, whose name had been given to a
street in Paris, was brought under the censure of the court-martial.
But the chief blow fell upon the commander-in-chief of Metz, Marshal
Bazaine, to whose "treachery" the whole misfortune of France was
attributed. For months he was retained a prisoner at Versailles, while
preparations were made for the great court-martial spectacle, which, in
the following year, took place under the presidency of the Duc d'Aumale.
[=MacMahon Elected President=]
The result of the party division in the assembly was, in May, 1873, a
vote of censure on the ministry which induced them to resign. Their
resignation was followed by an offer of resignation on the part of
Thiers, who experienced the unexpected slight of having it accepted
by the majority of the assembly, the monarchist MacMahon, Marshal of
France and Duke of Magenta, being elected President in his place.
Thiers had just performed one of his greatest services to France, by
paying off the last installment of the war indemnity and relieving the
soil of his country of the hated German troops.
[=The Count de Chambord and His Demand=]
The party now in power at once began to lay plans to carry out their
cherished purpose of placing a Legitimist king upon the throne, this
honor being offered to the Count de Chambord, grandson of Charles X.
He, an old man, unfitted for the thorny seat offered him, and out of
all accord with the spirit of the times, put a sudden end to the hopes
of his partisans by his mediæval conservatism. Their purpose was to
establish a constitutional government, under the tri-colored flag of
revolutionary France; but the old Bourbon gave them to understand that
he would not consent to reign under the Tricolor, but must remain
steadfast to the white banner of his ancestors; he had no desire to be
"the legitimate king of revolution."
This letter shattered the plans of his supporters. No man with ideas
like these would be tolerated on the French throne. There was never to
be in France a King Henry V. The Monarchists, in disgust at the failure
of their schemes, elected MacMahon president of the republic for a term
of seven years, and for the time being the reign of republicanism in
France was made secure.
[=Trial and Sentence of Bazaine=]
While MacMahon was thus being raised to the pinnacle of honor, his
former comrade Bazaine was imprisoned in another part of the palace at
Versailles, awaiting trial on the charge of treason for the surrender
of Metz. In the trial, in which the whole world took a deep interest,
the efforts of the prosecution were directed to prove that the conquest
of France was solely due to the treachery of the Bonapartist marshal.
Despite all that could be said in his defence, he was found guilty by
the court-martial, sentenced to degradation from his rank in the army,
and to be put to death.
A letter which Prince Frederick Charles wrote in his favor only added
to the wrath of the people, who cried aloud for his execution. But,
as though the judges themselves felt a twinge of conscience at the
sentence, they at the same time signed a petition for pardon to the
president of the republic. MacMahon thereupon commuted the punishment
of death into a twenty years' imprisonment, remitted the disgrace of
the formalities of a military degradation, without cancelling its
operation, and appointed as the prisoner's place of confinement the
fortress on the island of St. Marguerite, opposite Cannes, known
in connection with the "iron mask." Bazaine's wealthy Mexican wife
obtained permission to reside near him, with her family and servants,
in a pavilion of the sea-fortress. This afforded her an opportunity of
bringing about the freedom of her husband in the following year with
the aid of her brother. After an adventurous escape, by letting himself
down with a rope to a Genoese vessel, Bazaine fled to Holland, and then
offered his services to the Republican government of Spain.
[=The New Constitution of France=]
In 1875 the constitution under which France is now governed was adopted
by the republicans. It provides for a legislature of two chambers;
one a chamber of deputies elected by the people, the other a senate
of 300 members, 75 of whom are elected by the National Assembly and
the others by electoral colleges in the departments of France. The two
chambers unite to elect a president, who has a term of seven years.
He is commander-in-chief of the army, appoints all officers, receives
all ambassadors, executes the laws, and appoints the cabinet, which is
responsible to the Senate and House of Deputies,--thus resembling the
cabinet of Great Britain instead of that of the United States.
[=MacMahon Resigns and Grevy Elected=]
This constitution was soon ignored by the arbitrary president, who
forced the resignation of a cabinet which he could not control, and
replaced it by another responsible to himself instead of to the
assembly. His act of autocracy roused a violent opposition. Gambetta
moved that the representatives of the people had no confidence in a
cabinet which was not free in its actions and not Republican in its
principles. The sudden death of Thiers, whose last writing was a
defence of the republic, stirred the heart of the nation and added
to the excitement, which soon reached fever heat. In the election
that followed the Republicans were in so great a majority over the
Conservatives that the president was compelled either to resign or
to govern according to the constitution. He accepted the latter and
appointed a cabinet composed of Republicans. But the acts of the
legislature, which passed laws to prevent arbitrary action by the
executive and to secularize education, so exasperated the old soldier
that he finally resigned from his high office.
[=Gambetta as Prime Minister=]
Jules Grévy was elected president in his place, and Gambetta was
made president of the House of Deputies. Subsequently he was chosen
presiding minister in a cabinet composed wholly of his own creatures.
His career in this high office was a brief one. The Chambers refused
to support him in his arbitrary measures and he resigned in disgust.
Soon after the self-appointed dictator, who had played so prominent a
part in the war with Germany, died from a wound whose origin remained a
mystery.
The constitution was revised in 1884, the republic now declared
permanent and final, and Grévy again elected president. General
Boulanger, the minister of war in the new government, succeeded in
making himself highly popular, many looking upon him as a coming
Napoleon, by whose genius the republic would be overthrown.
[=The Career of Boulanger=]
In 1887 Grévy resigned, in consequence of a scandal in high circles,
and was succeeded by Sadi Carnot, grandson of a famous general of the
first republic. Under the new president two striking events took place.
General Boulanger managed to lift himself into great prominence, and
gain a powerful following in France. Carried away by self-esteem, he
defied his superiors, and when tried and found guilty of the offence,
was strong enough in France to overthrow the ministry, to gain
re-election to the Chamber of Deputies, and to defeat a second ministry.
But his reputation was declining. It received a serious blow by a duel
he fought with a lawyer, in which the soldier was wounded and the
lawyer escaped unhurt. The next cabinet was hostile to his intrigues,
and he fled to Brussels to escape arrest. Tried by the Senate, sitting
as a High Court of Justice, he was found guilty of plotting against the
state and sentenced to imprisonment for life. His career soon after
ended in suicide and his party disappeared.
[=The Panama Canal Scandal=]
The second event spoken of was the Panama Canal affair. De Lesseps,
the maker of the Suez Canal, had undertaken to excavate a similar one
across the Isthmus of Panama, but the work was managed with such wild
extravagance that vast sums were spent and the poor investors widely
ruined, while the canal remained a half-dug ditch. At a later date this
affair became a great scandal, dishonest bargains in connection with
it were abundantly unearthed, bribery was shown to have been common
in high places, and France was shaken to its centre by the startling
exposure. De Lesseps, fortunately for him, escaped by death, but others
of the leaders in the enterprise were condemned and punished.
[=Anarchy in France and Murder of the President=]
In the succeeding years perils manifold threatened the existence of the
French republic. A moral decline seemed to have sapped the foundations
of public virtue, and the new military organization rose to a dangerous
height of power, becoming a monster of ambition and iniquity which
overshadowed and portended evil to the state. The spirit of anarchy,
which had been so strikingly displayed in the excesses of the Parisian
Commune, was shown later in various instances of death and destruction
by the use of dynamite bombs, exploded in Paris and elsewhere. But its
most striking example was in the murder of President Carnot, who was
stabbed by an anarchist in the streets of Lyons. This assassination,
and the disheartening exposures of dishonesty in the Panama Canal Case
trials, stirred the moral sentiment of France to its depths, and made
many of the best citizens despair of the permanency of the republic.
[=The Reorganization of the Army=]
But the most alarming threat came from the army, which had grown in
power and prominence until it fairly overtopped the state, while its
leaders felt competent to set at defiance the civil authorities. This
despotic army was an outgrowth of the Franco-Prussian war. The terrible
punishment which the French had received in that war, and in particular
the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, filled them with bitter hatred of
Germany and a burning desire for revenge. Yet it was evident that
their military organization was so imperfect as to leave them helpless
before the army of Germany, and the first thing to be done was to place
themselves on a level in military strength with their foe. To this
President Thiers had earnestly devoted himself, and the work of army
organization went on until all France was virtually converted into a
great camp, defended by powerful fortresses, and the whole people of
the country were practically made part and portion of the army.
The final result of this was the development of one of the most
complete and well-appointed military establishments in Europe. The
immediate cause of the reorganization of the army gradually passed
away. As time went on the intense feeling against Germany softened
and the danger of war decreased. But the army became more and more
dominant in France, and, as the century neared its end, the autocratic
position of its leaders was revealed by a startling event, which showed
vividly to the world the moral decadence of France and the controlling
influence and dominating power of the members of the General Staff.
This was the celebrated Dreyfus Case, the _cause celèbre_ of the end
of the century. This case is of such importance that a description of
its salient points becomes here necessary.
[=The Opening of the Dreyfus Case=]
Albert Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew and a captain in the Fourteenth
Regiment of Artillery of the French army, detailed for service at the
Information Bureau of the Minister of War, was arrested October 15,
1894, on the charge of having sold military secrets to a foreign power.
The following letter was said to have been found at the German embassy
by a French detective, in what was declared to be the handwriting of
Dreyfus:
"Having no news from you I do not know what to do. I send you in the
meantime the condition of the forts. I also hand you the principal
instructions as to firing. If you desire the rest I shall have them
copied. The document is precious. The instructions have been given only
to the officers of the General Staff. I leave for the manoeuvres."
For some time prior to the arrest of Dreyfus on the charge of being the
author of this letter, M. Drumont, editor of the _Libre Parole_, had
been carrying on a violent anti-Semitic agitation through his journal.
He raved about the Jews in general, declared Dreyfus guilty, and
asserted that there was danger that he would be acquitted through the
potent Juiverie, "the cosmopolite syndicate which exploits France."
Public opinion in Paris became much influenced by this journalistic
assault, and under these circumstances Dreyfus was brought to trial
before a military court, found guilty and condemned to be degraded from
his military rank, and by a special act of the Chamber of Deputies was
ordered to be imprisoned for life in a penal settlement on Devil's
Island, off the coast of French Guiana, a tropical region, desolate and
malarious in character. The sentence was executed with the most cruel
harshness. During part of his detention Dreyfus was locked in a hut,
surrounded by an iron cage, on the island. This was done on the plea of
possible attempts at rescue. He was allowed to send and receive only
such letters as had been transcribed by one of his guardians.
He denied, and never ceased to deny, his guilt. The letters he wrote to
his counsel after the trial and after his disgrace are most pathetic
assertions of his innocence, and of the hope that ultimately justice
would be done him. His wife and family continued to deny his guilt, and
used every influence to get his case reopened.
[=Belief in the Innocence of Dreyfus=]
The first trial of Dreyfus was conducted by court-martial and behind
closed doors. Some parts of the indictment were not communicated to
the accused and his lawyer. The secrecy of the trial, the lack of
fairness in its management, his own protestations of innocence, the
anti-Jewish feeling, and the course of the government in the affair
aroused a strong suspicion that Dreyfus, being a Jew, had been used as
a scapegoat for some one else and had been unjustly convicted. Many
eminent literary men of France, and even M. Scheurer-Kestner, a vice
president of the Senate--none of them Jews--eventually advocated the
revision of a sentence which failed to appeal to the sense of justice
of the best element of France.
It was asserted by some that Dreyfus had sold the plans of various
strongly fortified places to the German government, and by others that
the sale had been to the Italian government. It was also said that he
had disclosed the plans for the mobilization of the French army in case
of war, covering several departments, and especially the important
fortress of Briançon, the Alpine Gibraltar near the Italian frontier.
[=The Bordereau and the Dossier=]
The _bordereau_, the paper on which the charges against Dreyfus were
based, was a memorandum of treasonable revelations concerning French
military affairs. The _dossier_ was the official envelope containing
the papers relative to the case, which embraced facts alleged to be
sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused officer. The bordereau was
examined by five experts in handwriting, only three of whom testified
that it could have been written by Dreyfus. The papers in the dossier
were not shown to Dreyfus or his counsel, so that it was impossible
to refute them. In fact, the court-martial was conducted in the most
unfair manner, and many became convinced that some disgraceful mystery
lay behind it, and that Dreyfus had been made a scapegoat to shield
some one higher in office.
[=The Accusation of Esterhazy=]
It was in the early part of 1898 that the case was again brought
prominently to public notice, after the wife of the unfortunate
prisoner had, with the most earnest devotion for three years, used
every effort to obtain for him a new trial. Lieutenant-Colonel
Picquart, in charge of the secret service bureau at Paris, became
familiar through his official duties with the famous case, and was
struck with the similarity between the handwriting of the bordereau and
that of Count Ferdinand Esterhazy, an officer of the French army and
a descendant of the well-known Esterhazy family of Hungary. Shortly
afterwards M. Scheurer-Kestner declared that military secrets had
continued to leak out after the arrest of Dreyfus, that in consequence
a rich and titled officer had been requested to resign, and that this
officer was the real author of the bordereau. This man was Count
Esterhazy, whose exposure was due to Picquart's fortunate discovery.
Others took up this accusation, and the affair was so ventilated that
Esterhazy was subjected to a secret trial by court-martial, which ended
in an acquittal.
[=Zola's Letter and Accusation=]
At the close of the Esterhazy trial a new defender of Dreyfus stepped
into the fray, Emile Zola, the celebrated novelist. He wrote an open
letter to M. Faure, then President of France, entitled "_J'accuse_"
("I accuse"), which was published in the _Aurore_ newspaper. In it he
boldly charged that Esterhazy had been acquitted by the members of the
court-martial on the order of their chiefs in the ministry of war, who
were anxious to show that French military justice could not possibly
make an error.
This letter led to the arrest and trial of Zola and the manager of
the paper, their trial being conducted in a manner specially designed
to prevent the facts from becoming known. They were found guilty of
libel against the officers of the court-martial and sentenced to heavy
fines and one year's imprisonment. On appeal, they were tried again
in the same unfair way, and received the same sentence. Zola took
care, by absenting himself from France, that the sentence of a year's
imprisonment should not be executed.
[=Henry's Forgery and Suicide=]
As time went on new evidence became revealed. Colonel Henry, who was
one of the witnesses in the Zola trial, was confronted with a damaging
fact, one of the most important papers in the secret dossier being
traced to him. He confessed that he had forged it to strengthen the
case against Dreyfus, was imprisoned for the offence, and committed
suicide _in his cell_--or was murdered, as some thought. Picquart was
punished by being sent to Africa, and afterwards imprisoned. He made
the significant remark that if he should be found dead in his cell it
would not be a case of suicide. Esterhazy was said to have acknowledged
to a London editor that he was the author of the bordereau, and it
was proved that the handwriting was identical with his and the paper
on which it was written a peculiar kind which he had used in 1894.
The papers in the secret dossier were also alleged to be a mass of
forgeries.
The great publicity of this case, in which the whole world had
taken interest,--the action of the French courts being universally
condemned,--and the development of the facts just mentioned, at length
goaded the officials of the French government to action. President
Faure had the case considered by the cabinet, and finally forced a
revision. In consequence the cabinet resigned and a new one was chosen.
As a result the case was brought before the Court of Cassation, the
final court of appeal, which, after full consideration, ordered a new
trial of the condemned officer.
[Illustration: THE BOMBARDMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
The Egyptian patriots of 1882, who rushed to arms at
the call of Arabi Pasha for the expulsion of the hated
British from their country, made their most vigorous
stand behind the strong fortifications of Alexandria,
where they fought with much resolution. But the cannon
of the British fleet proved too heavy for their powers
of defence, and the city fell into the hands of the
invaders. It was plundered and partly burned by the
Egyptians in their retreat.]
[Illustration: BATTLE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND THE ZULUS, SOUTH AFRICA
Of all the natives encountered by the British in
Africa, there were none more brave and daring than
the Zulus of the South, who did not hesitate with
spear and shield to charge against the death dealing
rifles of their foes. Cetewayo, the leader of these
valiant blacks, was a man who would have been a hero
in civilized warfare. As a captive savage in London
streets he compelled the respect of his enemies by the
majestic dignity of his bearing, and won the right to
return and die in his native land.]
[=A Second Condemnation=]
Captain Dreyfus was accordingly brought from Devil's Island, and on
July 1, 1899, reached the city of Rennes, where the new court-martial
was to be held. It is not necessary to repeat the evidence given in
this trial, which lasted from August 7th to September 7th, and with
which the world is sufficiently familiar. It will suffice to say that
the evidence against Dreyfus was of the most shadowy and uncertain
character, being largely conjectures and opinions of army officers,
and seemed insufficient to convict a criminal for the smallest offence
before an equitable court; that the evidence in his favor was of
the strongest character; that the proceedings were of the loosest
description; that much favorable evidence was ruled out by the judges,
the presiding judge throughout showing a bias against the accused; and
that the trial ended in a conviction of the prisoner, by a vote of five
judges to two, the verdict being the extraordinary one of "guilty of
treason, with extenuating circumstances"--as if any treason could be
extenuated.
[=The World's Opinion=]
This is but an outline sketch of this remarkable case, which embraced
many circumstances favorable to Dreyfus which we have not had space
to give. The verdict was received by the world outside of France with
universal astonishment and condemnation. The opinion was everywhere
expressed that not a particle of incriminating evidence had been
adduced, and that the members of the court-martial had acted virtually
under the commands of their superior officers, who held that the "honor
of the army" demanded a conviction. Dreyfus was thought by many to have
been made a victim to shield certain criminals of high importance in
the army, which so dominated French opinion that the great bulk of the
people pronounced in favor of the sacrifice of this innocent victim to
the Moloch of the French military system. It was widely felt in foreign
lands that the great development of militarism in France, and the
vast influence of the general staff of the army, formed a threatening
feature of the governmental system, which might at any time overthrow
the republic and form a military empire upon its ruins. Two republics
have already been brought to an end in France through the supremacy of
the army, and the safety of the third is far from assured. The Dreyfus
case has thrown a flood of light upon the volcanic condition of affairs
in France.
The general condemnation of this example of French "justice" by the
press of other nations, and very probably the recognition by the
governing powers of France of the inadequacy of the evidence led,
shortly after the conclusion of the court-martial, to the pardon of
the condemned. The sentence of the court in no sense affected his
position before the world, he being looked upon everywhere outside of
France as a victim of injustice instead of a criminal. The severity
of his imprisonment however, had seriously affected his health, and
threatened to bring his life to an end before he could obtain the
justice which he proposed to seek in the courts of France.
This remarkable case, which made an obscure officer of the French army
the most talked-of and commiserated man among all the peoples of the
earth, at the end of the nineteenth century, is of further interest
from the light it throws upon the legal system of France as compared
with that of Anglo-Saxon nations. Dreyfus, it is true, was tried by
court-martial, but the procedure was similar to that of the ordinary
French courts, in which trial by jury does not exist, the judge having
the double function of deciding upon the guilt or innocence of the
accused and passing sentence; while efforts are made to induce the
prisoner to incriminate himself which would be considered utterly
unjust in British and American legal practice. The French legal system
is a direct descendant of that of ancient Rome. The British one
represents a new development in legal methods. Doubtless both have
their advantages, but the Dreyfus trial seems to indicate that the
system of France opens the way to acts of barbarous injustice.
CHAPTER XIX.
Paul Kruger and the Struggle for Dominion in
South Africa.
At the close of the nineteenth century, not the least important among
the international questions that were disturbing the nations was
the controversy between the English and the Boers in South Africa,
concerning the political privileges of the Uitlanders, or foreign gold
miners of the Transvaal. A consideration of this subject obliges us to
go back to the beginning of the century and review the whole history of
colonization in South Africa.
[=The Dutch Settlement in South Africa=]
[=Great Britain in Cape Colony and the Emigration of the
Boers=]
That region belongs by right of settlement to the Dutch, who founded
a colony in the region of Capetown as early as 1650, and in the
succeeding century and a half spread far and wide over the territory,
their farms and cattle ranches occupying a very wide area. The first
interference with their peaceful occupation came in 1795, when the
English took possession. In 1800, however, they restored the colony to
Holland, which held it in peaceable ownership until the Congress of
Vienna, in 1815, came to disturb the map of Europe, and in a measure
that of the world. As part of the distribution of spoils among the
great nations, Cape Colony was ceded to Great Britain. Since then that
country, which has a great faculty of taking hold and a very poor
faculty of letting go, has held possession, and has pushed steadily
northward until British South Africa is now a territory of enormous
extent, stretching northward to the borders of the Congo Free State and
to Lake Tanganyika.
This vast territory has not been gained without active and persistent
aggression, from which the Dutch settlers, known as Boers, and the
African natives have alike suffered. In truth, the Boers found the
oppression of British rule an intolerable burden early in the century,
and in 1840 a great party of them gave up their farms and "treked"
northward--that is, traveled with their ox-teams and belongings--eager
to get away from British control. Here they founded a republic of their
own on the river Vaal, and settled down again to peace and prosperity.
[=A Huntsman's Paradise=]
The country in which they settled was a huntsman's paradise. On the
great plains of the High Veldt or plateau (from 4,000 to 7,000 feet
in height) antelopes of several species roamed in tens of thousands.
In the valleys and plains of the low country the giraffe, elephant,
buffalo, lion and other large animals were plentiful. The rivers were
full of alligators and hippopotami. Here the newcomers found abundance
of food, and a land of such pastoral wealth that the farm animals
they brought increased abundantly. For years a steady stream of Boers
continued to enter and settle in this land, deserting their farms in
the British territory, harnessing their cattle to their long, lumbering
wagons, and bringing with them food for the journey, and a good supply
of powder and lead for use in their tried muskets. Their active hunting
experience brought them in time to rank among the best marksmen in the
world.
[=The Boers Drive Out the Blacks=]
They had not alone wild animals to deal with, but wild men as well.
Fierce tribes of natives possessed the land, and with these the Boers
were soon at war. A number of sanguinary battles were fought, with much
slaughter on both sides, but in the end the black men were forced to
give way to the whites and cross the Limpopo River into Matabeleland,
to the north, which their descendants still occupy. Others of the
natives were subdued and continued to live with the Boers. The latter
were essentially pioneers. They did not till the soil, but divided up
the land into great grazing ranges, covered with their abundant herds.
And they had no instinct for trade, what little commerce the country
possessed falling into British hands.
[=The South African Republic Founded=]
Two settlements were made, one between the Orange and the Vaal rivers,
and the other north of the Vaal. The former had much trouble with the
British previous to 1854, in which year it was given its independence.
It is known as the Orange River Free State. The latter was given the
name of Transvaal, and originally formed four separate republics, but
in 1860 these united into one under the title of the South African
Republic. The settlers were for a time covered with the shadow of
British sovereignty, the claims of the British extending up to the 25th
degree of latitude. But this claim was only on paper, and in 1852 it
was withdrawn, Great Britain formally renouncing all rights over the
country north of the Vaal. And for years afterwards the Boers lived on
here free and undisturbed.
[=The Discovery of Diamonds=]
But their country possessed other wealth than that of pasture lands,
and its hidden treasures were to yield them no end of trouble in the
years to come. Under their soil lay untold riches, which in time
brought hosts of unruly strangers to disturb their pastoral peace. The
trouble began in 1867, when diamonds were found in the vicinity of the
Vaal River, and a rush of miners began to invade this remote district.
But the diamond mines lay west of the borders of the Transvaal, and
brought rather a threatening situation than immediate disturbance
to the Boer state. It was the later discovery of gold on Transvaal
territory that eventually overthrew the quiet content of the pastoral
community.
[=Shepstone's Annexation of the Transvaal=]
In 1877 the first intrusion came. The British were now abundant in
Griqualand West, the diamond region, and on the Transvaal borders lay a
host of native enemies, chief among them being the warlike Zulus, led
by the bold and daring Cetewayo. Only fear of the British kept this
truculent chief at rest. Meanwhile the Boer Republic had fallen into a
financial collapse. Its frequent wars with the natives had exhausted
its revenues and thrown it deeply into debt. A serious crisis seemed
impending. On the plea of preventing this, Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
secretary of Natal, made his way to Pretoria, the capital of the
republic, and issued a proclamation annexing the Transvaal country to
Great Britain. The public treasury he found to be almost empty, it
containing only twelve shillings and six pence, and even part of this
was counterfeit coin. His act was arbitrary and unwarranted, and while
the Boers submitted, they did so with sullen anger, quietly biding
their time.
[=The Zulu War=]
In the following year the Zulus, who had been threatening the Boers,
broke out into war with the British, and with such energy that the
whites were at first repulsed by the impetuous Cetewayo and his
warlike followers. In this onset Prince Napoleon, son of the deposed
emperor Louis Napoleon, who served as a volunteer in the British
ranks, was killed. The British soon retrieved the disaster, and in
the end decisively defeated the Zulus, capturing their king, who was
taken as a prisoner to London. After the Zulu war Sir Garnet Wolseley
led his troops into the Transvaal, telling the protesting Boers that
"so long as the sun shone and the Vaal River flowed to the sea the
Transvaal would remain British territory." Other acts of interference,
and the attempt of the British officials to tax the Boers, added to
their exasperation, and at the end of 1880 they resolved to fight for
the independence of which they had been robbed. Wolseley had before
this left the territory, and the troops had been reduced to a few
detachments, scattered here and there.
[=War With the Boers=]
The first hostile action took place on December 20, 1880, a detachment
of the Ninety-fourth regiment, on its march to Pretoria, being waylaid
by a body of about 150 armed Boers, who ordered them to stop. Colonel
Anstruther curtly replied: "I go to Pretoria; do as you like." The
Boers did more than he liked. They closed in on his columns and opened
on them so deadly a fire that the British fell at a frightful rate. Out
of 259 in all, 155 had fallen dead or wounded in ten minutes' time.
Then the colonel, himself seriously wounded, ordered a surrender, and
the Boers at once became as friendly as they had just been hostile.
They had lost only two killed and five wounded.
As soon as news of this disaster reached Natal, Colonel Sir George
Colley, in command at Natal, marched against the Boers without waiting
for reinforcements, the force at his disposal being but 1,200 men. He
paid dearly for his temerity and contempt of the enemy. On January 28,
1881, he was encountered by the Boers at a place called Lang's Nek, and
met with a bloody defeat. In about a week afterwards another engagement
took place, in which the British lost 139 officers and men, while the
whole Boer loss was 14. Practised hunters, their fire was so deadly
that almost every shot found its mark.
[=The Stand at Majuba Hill=]
The war was going badly for the British. It was soon to go worse.
Receiving reinforcements, Colley made a stand in an elevated position
known as Majuba Hill, whose summit was 2,000 feet above the positions
held by the Boers and its ascent so steep and rugged that the soldiers
had to climb it in single file. Near the top of the ascent the grassy
slopes were succeeded by boulders, crags, and loose stones, over which
the weary men had to drag themselves on hands and knees. In this way
about 400 men gained the summit on the morning of February 27th. The
top of the hill was a saucer-shaped plateau, about 1,200 yards wide,
with an elevated rim within which the British were posted.
The place seemed impregnable, but the daring Boers did not hesitate in
the attack. A force of the older men were detailed to keep on the watch
below--picked shots ready to fire on any soldier who should appear
on the rim of the hill. The younger men began to climb the slopes,
under cover of the shrub and stones. The assault was made on every
side, and the defenders, too weak in numbers to hold the whole edge of
the plateau, had to be moved from point to point to meet and attempt
to thwart the attacks of the Boers. Slowly and steadily the hostile
skirmishers clambered upwards from cover to cover, while the supports
below protected their movement with a steady and accurate fire. During
the hours from dawn to noon the British did not suffer very heavily,
notwithstanding the accuracy of the Boer marksmanship. But the long
strain of the Boers' close shooting began to tell on the _morale_ of
the British soldiers, and when the enemy at length reached the crest
and opened a deadly fire at short range the officers had to exert
themselves to the utmost in the effort to avert disaster. The reserves
stationed in the central dip of the plateau, out of reach until then
of the enemy's fire, were ordered up in support of the fighting line.
Their want of promptitude in obeying this order did not augur well,
and soon after reaching the front they wavered, and then gave way. The
officers temporarily succeeded in rallying them, but the "bolt" had a
bad effect. To use the expression of an eye-witness, a "funk became
established."
[=The Boers Storm the British Camp=]
It was struggled against very gallantly by the officers, who, sword
and revolver in hand, encouraged the soldiers by word and by action.
A number of men, unable to confront the deadly fire of the Boers, had
huddled for cover behind the rocky reef crossing the plateau, and no
entreaty or upbraiding on the part of their officers would induce them
to face the enemy. What then happened one does not care to tell in
detail. Everything connected with this disastrous enterprise went to
naught, as if there had been a curse on it. Whatever may have been the
object intended, the force employed was absurdly inadequate. Instead
of being homogeneous, it consisted of separate detachments with no
link or bond of union--a disposition of troops which notoriously has
led to more panics than any other cause that the annals of regimental
history can furnish. Fragments of proud and distinguished regiments
fresh from victory on another continent shared in the panic of the
Majuba, seasoned warriors behaving no better than mere recruits. To
the calm-pulsed philosopher a panic is an academic enigma. No man who
has seen it--much less shared in it--can ever forget the infectious
madness of panic-stricken soldiers.
[=The Victory of the Boers=]
In the sad ending, with a cry of fright and despair the remnants of
the hapless force turned and fled, regardless of the efforts of the
officers to stem the rearward rush. Sir George Colley lay dead, shot
through the head just before the final flight. A surgeon and two
hospital attendants caring for the wounded at the bandaging place in
the dip of the plateau were shot down, probably inadvertently. The
elder Boers promptly stopped the firing in that direction. But there
was no cessation of the fire directed on the fugitives. On them the
bullets rained accurately and persistently. The Boers, now disdaining
cover, stood boldly on the edge of the plateau, and, firing down
upon the scared troops, picked off the men as if shooting game. The
slaughter would have been yet heavier but for the entrenchment which
had been made by the company of the Ninety-second, left overnight on
the Nek, between the Inquela and the Majuba. Captain Robertson was
joined at dawn from camp by a company of the Sixtieth, under Captain
Thurlow. Later there arrived at the entrenchment on the Nek a troop of
the Fifteenth Hussars, under the command of Captain Sullivan. After
midday the sound of the firing on the Majuba rapidly increased, and men
were seen running down the hill towards the laager, one of whom brought
in the tidings that the Boers had captured the position, that most of
the troops were killed or prisoners, and that the general was dead with
a bullet through his head.
[=A Panic Flight=]
Wounded men presently came pouring in, and were attended by
Surgeon-Major Cornish. The laager was manned by the companies, and
outposts were thrown out, which were soon driven in by large bodies of
mounted Boers, under whose fire men fell fast. Robertson dispatched
the rifle company down the ravine towards the camp, and a little later
followed with the company of the Ninety-second under a murderous fire
from the Boers, who had reached and occupied the entrenchment. The
Highlanders lost heavily in the retreat, and Surgeon-Major Cornish
was killed. The surviving fugitives from Majuba and from the laager
finally reached camp under cover of the artillery fire from it, which
ultimately stopped the pursuit. With the consent of the Boer leaders a
temporary hospital was established at a farm-house near the foot of the
mountain, and throughout the cold and wet night the medical staff never
ceased to search for and bring in the wounded. Sir George Colley's body
was brought into camp on March 1st, and buried there with full military
honors.
[=Peace Declared with British Suzerainty=]
Of 650 officers and men who took part in this disastrous affair the
loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was 283; the Boers had one
man killed and five wounded. Majuba Hill was enough for the British,
fighting as they were in an unjust cause. An armistice was agreed upon,
followed by a treaty of peace on March 23d. Large reinforcements had
been sent out, which would have given the British an army of 20,000
against the 8,000 Boers, capable of bearing arms; but to fight longer
in defence of an arbitrary invasion against such brave defenders of
their homes and their rights, did not appeal to the conscience of Mr.
Gladstone, and he lost no time in bringing the war to an end. By the
terms of the treaty the Boers were left free to govern themselves as
they would, they acknowledging the queen as suzerain of their country,
with control of its foreign relations.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF MAJUBA HILL
The greatest disaster ever experienced by the British
in Africa was at Majuba Hill, in the South African
Republic. In the war of 1880-81 with the Boers, a
British force occupied the flat top of this steep
elevation, but was driven out with great slaughter.
The attempt to recapture the hill in the face of the
skilled Boer marksmen was simply a climb to death,
and the day ended in a serious defeat for the
invaders.]
[Illustration: JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN
Colonial Secretary of England]
[Illustration: PAUL KRUGER
President of the South African Republic]
[=The Gold Diggings of the Transvaal=]
The next important event in the history of the Transvaal was the
exploitation of its gold mines. Gold was discovered there soon after
the opening of the diamond mines, but not under very promising
conditions. It exists in a conglomerate rock, whose beds extend
over an area of seventy by forty miles, and through a depth of from
two to twenty feet; but years passed before the richness in metal of
these rocks was discovered, and it was not until after the Boer war
that mining fairly began. No one in his wildest dreams foresaw that
these "banket" beds would in time yield gold to the value of more than
$60,000,000 a year. The yield of the diamond mines was also enormous,
and these two incitements brought a steady stream of new settlers to
that region, destined before many years greatly to outnumber the sturdy
farmers and herders of Dutch descent.
[=The Career of Cecil Rhodes=]
In the vicinity of the gold mines, not far from Pretoria, the Boer
capital, rose the mining city of Johannesburg, which now has a
population of more than 100,000 souls, of whom half are European miners
and nearly all the remainder are natives. The great event in the
history of the diamond mines was the advent thither of Cecil Rhodes.
This remarkable man, the son of a country parson in England, who was
ordered to South Africa for the benefit of his failing lungs, displayed
such enterprise and ability that he soon became the leading figure in
the diamond mining industry, organizing a company that controlled the
mines, and accumulating an immense fortune.
This accomplished, he entered actively into South African politics,
and was not long in immensely extending the dominion of Great Britain
in that region of the earth. He obtained from Lord Salisbury, prime
minister of Great Britain, a royal charter giving him the right to
occupy and govern the great territory lying between the Limpopo River
on the south and the Zambesi on the north, and extending far to the
north and the west of the South African Republic. With an expedition
of a thousand men, volunteers from the Transvaal and the Cape Colony,
Rhodes marched north through a country filled with armed Zulus,--the
best fighting stuff in Africa,--and reached the spot where now stands
the flourishing town of Fort Salisbury without firing a shot or losing
a man. Here gold mines were opened, the resources of the country
developed, and within three years as many important townships were
founded and settled.
[=War With the Matabeles=]
Not until July, 1893, did trouble with the natives arise. Then a
rupture took place with the Matabele chief, Lobengula, who sent against
the whites powerful bands of his dreaded Zulu warriors, numbering
in all over 20,000 armed blacks. These were met by Dr. Jameson, the
administrator of the chartered territory, and dealt with so vigorously
and skilfully that in two months the power of the Matabeles was at an
end, their army was practically annihilated, their great kraals were
occupied, and their king was driven from his capital into the desert,
where he died two months later. Thus Cecil Rhodes added to the dominion
of Great Britain a territory as large as France and Germany, very
fertile and healthful, and rich in gold and other metals.
[=The Domain of the South African Company=]
Zambesia--or Rhodesia, as it is often called--now extends far to the
north of the Zambesi River, being bordered on the north by the Congo
Free State and Lake Tanganyika, and on the east by Lake Nyassa, and
embracing the heart of South Africa. This territory was chartered in
1889 by the British South Africa Company, with Cecil Rhodes, then
premier of the Cape Colony, as its managing director and practical
creator.
[=What the Foreigners Brought to the Transvaal=]
The rapid development of British interests in South Africa, the
acquisition of territory in great part surrounding the South African
Republic,--which was completely cut off from the sea by British and
Portuguese territory,--and the growth of a large foreign population on
the soil of the republic itself, could not fail to be a source of great
annoyance to the Boers, who deeply mistrusted their new neighbors.
Their effort to get away from the British had been a failure. They
were surrounded and overrun by them. It is true, the coming of the
gold miners had been a great boon to the Boer in one way. From having
an empty treasury, he had now an overflowing one. The tax on the gold
product had made the government rich. The foreigners had also brought
the railway, the electric light, the telegraph, cheap and abundant
articles of every-day use, newspapers, schools, and other appendages of
civilization, but it is doubtful if these were as welcome to the Boers
as the cash contribution, since they tended to break up their simple,
patriarchal style of living and destroy their time-honored customs.
[=Paul Kruger and the Uitlanders=]
The question that particularly troubled the Boer mind was a political
one. Paul Kruger, the president of the republic, was a man of
remarkable character, an astute statesman, a shrewd politician, with
an iron will and keen judgment, a personage strikingly capable of
dealing with a disturbing situation. While ignorant in book lore, he
had associated with him as secretary of state an educated Hollander,
Dr. Leyds by name, one of the ablest and shrewdest statesmen in South
Africa. The pair of them were a close match for the bold and aspiring
Cecil Rhodes, then premier of the Cape Colony. The difficulty they had
to deal with was the following: The _Uitlander_(Outlander or foreign)
element in the republic had grown so enormously as far to outnumber
the Dutch. The country presented the anomaly of a minority of 15,000
ignorant and unprogressive Dutch burghers ruling a majority of four or
five times their number of educated, wealthy and prosperous aliens,
who, while possessing the most valuable part of the territory, were
given no voice in its government. They were not only deprived of
legislative functions in the country at large, but also of municipal
functions in the city of their own creation, and they demanded in vain
a charter that would enable them to control and improve their own
city. President Kruger, fearing to have his government overwhelmed
by these Anglo-Saxon strangers, sternly determined that they should
have no political foothold in his state until after a long residence,
foreseeing that if they were given the franchise on easy terms they
would soon control the state. In this sense the gold which was making
them rich seemed a curse to the Boers, since it threatened to bring
them again under the dominion of the hated Englishman.
[=The Jameson Raid=]
In 1895 the state of affairs reached a critical point. The British in
Matabeleland, north of the Transvaal, were in warm sympathy with their
brethren in Johannesburg, and between them a plot was laid to overthrow
Kruger and his people. An outbreak took place in Johannesburg, led by
Colonel F. W. Rhodes, brother of Cecil Rhodes, by whom it was thought
to have been instigated. It was quickly followed by an invasion from
Matabeleland, led by Dr. L. S. Jameson, Cecil Rhodes' lieutenant in
that region. The movement was a hasty and ill-considered one. The
invaders were met by the bold Boers, armed with their unerring rifles,
were surrounded and forced to surrender, and their leaders were put on
trial for their lives.
Paul Kruger, however, was shrewd enough not to push the matter to
extremities. Jameson and his confederates were set at liberty and
allowed to return to England, where they were tried, convicted of
invading a friendly country and imprisoned--Cecil Rhodes going free.
This daring man soon after suppressed an extensive revolt of the
Matabeles, and gained the reputation of designing to found a great
British nationality in South Africa. At a later date he devised the
magnificent scheme of building a railroad throughout the whole length
of Africa, from Cairo to Cape Colony, and threw himself into this
ambitious enterprise with all his accustomed energy and organizing
capacity.
[=The Demands of the Uitlanders=]
The victory of the Boers over Jameson and his raiders did not bring
to an end the strained relations in Johannesburg. The demand of the
Uitlanders for political rights and privileges grew more earnest and
insistant as time went on, and the British government, on the basis of
its suzerainty, began to take a hand in it. The right to vote, under
certain stringent conditions as to period of residence and declaration
of intention to become citizens, was accorded by the Boer government,
but was far from satisfactory to the foreign residents, who demanded
the suffrage under less rigorous conditions.
In 1899 the state of affairs became critical, England taking a more
decided stand, and strongly pressing her claim to a voice in the status
of British residents under her suzerainty--despite the fact that the
latter gave her no right to interfere in the domestic affairs of
the state. Joseph Chamberlain, secretary of state for the colonies,
demanded a more equitable arrangement than that existing, and his
insistence led to a conference between the Boer authorities and those
of Cape Colony. But President Kruger refused to yield to the full
demands made upon him, while the concessions which he offered were not
satisfactory to the British cabinet.
Negotiations went on during the summer and early autumn of 1899, but
at the same time both sides were actively preparing for war, and Great
Britain had begun to send large contingents of troops to South Africa.
The state of indecision came to a sudden end on October 10th. President
Kruger apparently fearing that Joseph Chamberlain, who conducted the
negotiations, was deceiving him, and seeking delay until he could land
an overwhelming force in South Africa, sent a sudden ultimatum to the
British cabinet. They were bidden to remove the troops which threatened
the borders of his state before five o'clock of the next day or accept
war as the alternative.
Such a mandate from a weak to a strong state was not likely to be
complied with. The troops were not removed, and the Boers promptly
crossed the borders into Natal on the east and Cape Colony on the west.
The Orange River Free State had joined the South African Republic
in its attitude of hostility, and the British on the borders found
themselves outnumbered and outgeneraled. The towns of Mafeking and
Kimberley on the west were closely besieged, and on the east the
outlying troops were driven back on Ladysmith, where General White,
the British commander, met with a severe repulse, losing two entire
regiments as prisoners.
Meanwhile General Buller, the British commander-in-chief, had reached
Cape Town and a powerful army was on the ocean, and it was widely felt
that the successes of the Boers were but preliminaries to a desperate
struggle whose issue only time could decide.
[Illustration: W. D. HOWELLS.
J. F. COOPER.
GEN. LEW. WALLACE.
EDWARD EGGLESTON.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORN.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
TYPICAL AMERICAN NOVELISTS]
[Illustration: LI HUNG CHANG, THE GRAND OLD MAN OF CHINA
EMILIO AGUINALDO, LEADER OF THE FILIPINOS
TWO POWERFUL MEN IN THE ORIENT]
CHAPTER XX
The Rise of Japan and the Decline of China.
[=Asia the Original Seat of Civilization=]
Asia, the greatest of the continents and the seat of the earliest
civilizations, yields us the most remarkable phenomenon in the
history of mankind. In remote ages, while Europe lay plunged in
the deepest barbarism, certain sections of Asia were marked by
surprising activity in thought and progress. In three far-separated
regions--China, India, and Babylonia--and in a fourth on the borders
of Asia--Egypt--civilization rose and flourished for ages, while the
savage and the barbarian roamed over all other regions of the earth.
A still more extraordinary fact is, that during the more recent era,
that of European civilization, Asia has rested in the most sluggish
conservatism, sleeping while Europe and America were actively moving,
content with its ancient knowledge while the people of the West were
pursuing new knowledge into its most secret lurking places.
[=The Sluggishness of Modern Asia=]
And this conservatism is an almost immovable one. For a century
England has been pouring new thought and new enterprise into India,
yet the Hindoos cling stubbornly to their remotely ancient beliefs
and customs. For half a century Europe has been hammering upon the
gates of China, but the sleeping nation shows little signs of waking
up to the fact that the world is moving around it. As regards the
other early civilizations--Babylonia and Egypt--they have been utterly
swamped under the tide of Turkish barbarism and exist only in their
ruins. Persia, once a great and flourishing empire, has likewise sunk
under the flood of Arabian and Turkish invasion, and to-day, under
its ruling Shah, is one of the most inert of nations, steeped in the
self-satisfied barbarism that has succeeded its old civilization. Such
was the Asia upon which the nineteenth century dawned, and such it
remains to-day except in one remote section of its area, in which alone
modern civilization has gained a firm foothold.
[=The Seclusion of China and Japan=]
The section referred to is the island empire of Japan, a nation the
people of which are closely allied in race to those of China, yet which
has displayed a progressiveness and a readiness to avail itself of the
resources of modern civilization strikingly diverse from the obstinate
conservatism of its densely settled neighbor. The development of Japan
has taken place within the past half century. Previous to that time it
was as resistant to western influences as China. They were both closed
nations, prohibiting the entrance of modern ideas and peoples, proud of
their own form of civilization and their own institutions, and sternly
resolved to keep out the disturbing influences of the restless west.
As a result, they remained locked against the new civilization until
after the nineteenth century was well advanced, and China's disposition
to avail itself of the results of modern invention was not manifested
until the century was near its end.
[=The Opening of China=]
China, with its estimated population of nearly 400,000,000, attained
to a considerable measure of civilization at a very remote period, but
has made almost no progress during the Christian era, being content to
retain its old ideas, methods and institutions, which its people look
upon as far superior to those of the western nations. Great Britain
gained a foothold in China as early as the seventeenth century, but the
persistent attempt to flood the country with the opium of India, in
disregard of the laws of the land, so annoyed the emperor that he had
the opium of the British stores at Canton, worth $20,000,000, seized
and destroyed. This led to the "opium war" of 1840, in which China was
defeated and was forced to accept a much greater degree of intercourse
with the world, five ports being made free to the world's commerce
and Hong Kong ceded to Great Britain. In 1856 an arbitrary act of the
Chinese authorities at Canton, in forcibly boarding a British vessel
in the Canton River, led to a new war, in which the French joined the
British and the allies gained fresh concessions from China. In 1859
the war was renewed, and Peking was occupied by the British and French
forces in 1860, the emperor's summer palace being destroyed.
These wars had their effect in largely breaking down the Chinese wall
of seclusion and opening the empire more fully to foreign trade and
intercourse, and also in compelling the emperor to receive foreign
ambassadors at his court in Peking. In this the United States was among
the most successful of the nations, from the fact that it had always
maintained friendly relations with China. In 1876 a short railroad
was laid, and in 1877 a telegraph line was established. During the
remainder of the century the telegraph service was widely extended,
but the building of railroads was strongly opposed, and not until the
century had reached its end did the Chinese awaken to the importance of
this method of transportation. They did, however, admit steam traffic
to their rivers, and purchased some powerful ironclad naval vessels in
Europe.
[=How Japan Was Opened to Commerce=]
The isolation of Japan was maintained longer than that of China,
trade with that country being of less importance, and foreign nations
knowing and caring less about it. The United States has the credit of
breaking down its long and stubborn seclusion and setting in train the
remarkably rapid development of the Japanese island empire. In 1854
Commodore Perry appeared with an American fleet in the bay of Yeddo,
and, by a show of force and a determination not to be rebuffed, he
forced the authorities to make a treaty of commercial intercourse with
the United States. Other nations quickly demanded similar privileges,
and Japan's obstinate resistance to foreign intercourse was at an end.
The result of this was revolutionary in Japan. For centuries the
Shogun, or Tycoon, the principal military noble, had been dominant in
the empire, and the Mikado, the true emperor, relegated to a position
of obscurity. The entrance of foreigners disturbed conditions so
greatly--by developing parties for and against seclusion--that the
Mikado was enabled to regain his long-lost power, and in 1868 the
ancient form of government was restored.
[=Great Development of Japan=]
Meanwhile the Japanese began to show a striking activity in the
acceptance of the results of western civilization, both in regard to
objects of commerce, inventions, and industries, and to political
organization. The latter advanced so rapidly that in 1889 the old
despotic government was, by the voluntary act of the emperor, set
aside and a limited monarchy established, the country being given a
constitution and a legislature, with universal suffrage for all men
over twenty-five. This act is of remarkable interest, it being doubtful
if history records any similar instance of a monarch decreasing his
authority without appeal or pressure from his people. It indicates
a liberal spirit that could hardly have been looked for in a nation
so recently emerging from semi-barbarism. To-day, Japan differs
little from the nations of Europe and America in its institutions and
industries, and from being among the most backward, has taken its place
among the most advanced nations of the world.
The Japanese army has been organized upon the European system, and
armed with the most modern style of weapons, the German method of drill
and organization being adopted. Its navy consists of over fifty war
vessels, principally built in the dock-yards of Europe and America,
and of the most advanced modern type, while a number of still more
powerful ships are in process of building. Railroads have been widely
extended; telegraphs run everywhere; education is in an advancing
stage of development, embracing an imperial university at Tokio, and
institutions in which foreign languages and science are taught; and
in a hundred ways Japan is progressing at a rate which is one of
the greatest marvels of the nineteenth century. This is particularly
notable in view of the obstinate adherence of the neighboring empire of
China to its old customs, and the slowness with which it is yielding to
the influx of new ideas.
[=A Remarkable Event=]
As a result of this difference in progress between the two nations, we
have to describe a remarkable event, one of the most striking evidences
that could be given of the practical advantage of modern civilization.
Near the end of the century war broke out between China and Japan, and
there was shown to the world the singular circumstance of a nation of
40,000,000 people, armed with modern implements of war, attacking a
nation of 400,000,000--equally brave, but with its army organized on an
ancient system--and defeating it as quickly and completely as Germany
defeated France in the Franco-German War. This war, which represents
a completely new condition of events in the continent of Asia, is of
sufficient interest and importance to speak of at some length.
Between China and Japan lies the kingdom of Corea, separated by rivers
from the former and by a strait of the ocean from the latter, and
claimed as a vassal state by both, yet preserving its independence as
a state against the pair. Japan invaded this country at two different
periods in the past, but failed to conquer it. China has often invaded
it, with the same result. Thus it remained practically independent
until near the end of the nineteenth century, when it became a cause of
war between the two rival empires.
[=Corea Opened to Foreign Intercourse=]
Corea long pursued the same policy as China and Japan, locking its
ports against foreigners so closely that it became known as the Hermit
Nation and the Forbidden Land. But it was forced to give way, like
its neighbors. The opening of Corea was due to Japan. In 1876 the
Japanese did to this secluded kingdom what Commodore Perry had done
to Japan twenty-two years before. They sent a fleet to Seoul, the
Corean capital, and by threat of war forced the government to open
to trade the port of Fusan. In 1880 Chemulpo was made an open port.
Later on the United States sent a fleet there which obtained similar
privileges. Soon afterwards most of the nations of Europe were admitted
to trade, and the isolation of the Hermit Nation was at an end. Less
than ten years had sufficed to break down an isolation which had lasted
for centuries. In less than twenty years after--in the year 1899--an
electric trolley railway was put in operation in the streets of
Seoul--a remarkable evidence of the great change in Corean policy.
Corea was no sooner opened to foreign intercourse than China and Japan
became rivals for influence in that country--a rivalry in which Japan
showed itself the more active. The Coreans became divided into two
factions, a progressive one that favored Japan, and a conservative
one that favored China. Japanese and Chinese soldiers were sent to
the country, and the Chinese aided their party, which was in the
ascendant among the Coreans, to drive out the Japanese troops. War was
threatened, but it was averted by a treaty in 1885 under which both
nations agreed to withdraw their troops and to send no officers to
drill the Corean soldiers.
[=Insurrection in Corea=]
The war, thus for the time averted, came nine years afterwards, in
consequence of an insurrection in Corea. The people of that country
were discontented. They were oppressed with taxes and by tyranny, and
in 1894 the followers of a new religious sect broke out in open revolt.
Their numbers rapidly increased until they were 20,000 strong, and they
defeated the government troops, captured a provincial city, and put
the capital itself in danger. The Min (or Chinese) faction was then
at the head of affairs in the kingdom and called for aid from China,
which responded by sending some two thousand troops and a number of
war vessels to Corea. Japan, jealous of any such action on the part of
China, responded by surrounding Seoul with soldiers, several thousands
in number.
Disputes followed. China claimed to be suzerain of Corea and Japan
denied it. Both parties refused to withdraw their troops, and the
Japanese, finding that the party in power was acting against them,
advanced on the capital, drove out the officials, and took possession
of the palace and the king. A new government, made up of the party that
favored Japan, was organized, and a revolution was accomplished in a
day. The new authorities declared that the Chinese were intruders and
requested the aid of the Japanese to expel them. War was close at hand.
[=Li Hung Chang and the Empress=]
China was at that time under the leadership of a statesman of marked
ability, the famous Li Hung Chang, who, from being made viceroy of a
province in 1870, had risen to be the prime minister of the empire. At
the head of the empire was a woman, the Dowager Empress Tsu Tsi, who
had usurped the power of the young emperor and ruled the state. It was
to these two people in power that the war was due. The dowager empress,
blindly ignorant of the power of the Japanese, decided that these
"insolent pigmies" deserved to be chastised. Li, her right-hand man,
was of the same opinion. At the last moment, indeed, doubts began to
assail his mind, into which came a dim idea that the army and navy of
China were not in shape to meet the forces of Japan. But the empress
was resolute. Her sixtieth birthday was at hand and she proposed to
celebrate it magnificently; and what better decorations could she
display than the captured banners of these insolent islanders? So it
was decided to present a bold front, and, instead of the troops of
China being removed, reinforcements were sent to the force at Asan.
[=The Sinking of the Chinese Transport=]
There followed a startling event. On July 25th three Japanese
men-of-war, cruising in the Yellow Sea, came in sight of a transport
loaded with Chinese troops and convoyed by two ships of the Chinese
navy. The Japanese admiral did not know of the seizure of Seoul by the
land forces, but he took it to be his duty to prevent Chinese troops
from reaching Corea, so he at once attacked the war ships of the enemy,
with such effect that they were quickly put to flight. Then he sent
orders to the transport that it should put about and follow his ships.
This the Chinese generals refused to do. They trusted to the fact that
they were on a chartered British vessel and that the British flag flew
over their heads. The daring Japanese admiral troubled his soul little
about this foreign standard, but at once opened fire on the transport,
and with such effect that in half an hour it went to the bottom,
carrying with it one thousand men. Only about one hundred and seventy
escaped.
[=Declaration of War=]
On the same day that this terrible act took place on the waters of the
sea, the Japanese left Seoul en route for Asan. Reaching there, they
attacked the Chinese in their works and drove them out. Three days
afterwards, on August 1, 1894, both countries issued declarations of
war.
[=The War on Land=]
Of the conflict that followed, the most interesting events were those
that took place on the waters, the land campaigns being an unbroken
series of successes for the well-organized and amply-armed Japanese
troops over the mediæval army of China, which went to war fan and
umbrella in hand, with antiquated weapons and obsolete organization.
The principal battle was fought at Ping Yang on September 15th, the
Chinese losing 16,000 killed, wounded and captured, while the Japanese
loss was trifling. In November the powerful fortress of Port Arthur was
attacked by army and fleet, and surrendered after a two days' siege.
Then the armies advanced until they were in the vicinity of the Great
Wall, with the soil and capital of China not far before them.
[=The Chinese and Japanese Fleets=]
With this brief review of the land operations, we must return to the
performances of the fleets, which were of high interest as forming the
second occasion in which a modern ironclad fleet had met in battle--the
first being that already described in which the Austrians defeated the
Italians at Lissa. Backward as the Chinese were on land, they were
not so on the sea. Li Hung Chang, progressive as he was, had vainly
attempted to introduce railroads into China, but he had been more
successful in regard to ships, and had purchased a navy more powerful
than that of Japan. The heaviest ships of Japan were cruisers, whose
armor consisted of deck and interior lining of steel. The Chinese
possessed two powerful battleships, with 14-inch iron armor and turrets
defended with 12-inch armor, each carrying four 12-inch guns. Both
navies had the advantage of European teaching in drill, tactics, and
seamanship. The _Ting Yuen_, the Chinese flagship, had as virtual
commander an experienced German officer named Van Hanneken; the _Chen
Yuen_, the other big ironclad, was handled by Commander M'Giffen,
formerly of the United States navy. Thus commanded, it was expected in
Europe that the superior strength of the Chinese ships would ensure
them an easy victory over those of Japan. The event showed that this
was a decidedly mistaken view.
It was the superior speed and the large number of rapid-fire guns of
the Japanese vessels that gave them the victory. The Chinese guns were
mainly heavy Krupps and Armstrongs. They had also some machine guns,
but only three quick-firers. The Japanese, on the contrary, had a few
heavy armor-piercing guns, but were supplied with a large number of
quick-firing cannon, capable of pouring out shells in an incessant
stream. Admiral Ting and his European officers expected to come at
once to close quarters and quickly destroy the thin armored Japanese
craft. But the shrewd Admiral Ito, commander of the fleet of Japan, had
no intention of being thus dealt with. The speed of his craft enabled
him to keep his distance and to distract the aim of his foes, and he
proposed to make the best use of this advantage. Thus equipped the two
fleets came together in the month of September, and an epoch-making
battle in the history of the ancient continent of Asia was fought.
[=The Fleets off the Yalu River=]
On the afternoon of Sunday, September 16th, Admiral Ting's fleet,
consisting of 11 warships, 4 gunboats, and 6 torpedo boats, anchored
off the mouth of the Yalu River. They were there as escorts to some
transports, which went up the river to discharge their troops. Admiral
Ito had been engaged in the same work farther down the coast, and
early on Monday morning came steaming towards the Yalu in search of
the enemy. Under him were in all twelve ships, none of them with heavy
armor, one of them an armed transport. The swiftest ship in the fleet
was the _Yoshino_, capable of making twenty-three knots, and armed with
44 quick-firing Armstrongs, which would discharge nearly 4,000 pounds
weight of shells every minute. The heaviest guns were long 13-inch
cannon, of which four ships possessed one each, protected by 12-inch
shields of steel. Finally, they had an important advantage over the
Chinese in being abundantly supplied with ammunition.
[=The Cruise of Admiral Ito's Fleet=]
With this formidable fleet Ito steamed slowly to the north-westward.
Early on Monday morning he was off the island of Hai-yun-tao. At
seven A.M. the fleet began steaming north-eastward. It was a
fine autumn morning. The sun shone brightly, and there was only just
enough of a breeze to ripple the surface of the water. The long line
of warships cleaving their way through the blue waters, all bright
with white paint, the chrysanthemum of Japan shining like a golden
shield on every bow, and the same emblem flying in red and white from
every masthead must have been a grand spectacle. Some miles away to
port rose the rocky coast and the blue hills of Manchuria, dotted
with many an island, and showing here and there a little bay with its
fishing villages. On the other side, the waters of the wide Corean Gulf
stretched to an unbroken horizon. Towards eleven o'clock the hills at
the head of the gulf began to rise. Ito had in his leading ship, the
_Yoshino_, a cruiser that would have made a splendid scout. In any
European navy she would have been steaming some miles ahead of her
colleagues with, perhaps, another quick ship between her and the fleet
to pass on her signals. Ito however seems to have done no scouting,
but to have kept his ships in single line ahead, with a small interval
between the van and the main squadron. At half-past eleven smoke was
seen far away on the starboard bow, the bearing being east-north-east.
It appeared to come from a number of steamers in line, on the horizon.
The course was altered and the speed increased. Ito believed that he
had the Chinese fleet in front of him. He was right. The smoke was
that of Ting's ironclads and cruisers anchored in line, with steam up,
outside the mouth of the Yalu.
On Monday morning the Chinese crews had been exercised at their guns,
and a little before noon, while the cooks were busy getting dinner
ready, the lookout men at several of the mastheads began to call out
that they saw the smoke of a large fleet away on the horizon to the
south-west. Admiral Ting was as eager for the fight as his opponents.
At once he signalled to his fleet to weigh anchor, and a few minutes
later ran up the signal to clear for action.
[=The Chinese on the "Chen Yuen"=]
A similar signal was made by Admiral Ito half-an-hour later, as his
ships came in sight of the Chinese line of battle. The actual moment
was five minutes past noon, but it was not until three-quarters
of an hour later that the fleets had closed sufficiently near for
the fight to begin at long range. This three-quarters of an hour
was a time of anxious, and eager expectation for both Chinese and
Japanese. Commander McGiffen of the _Chen Yuen_ has given a striking
description of the scene when "the deadly space" between the two
fleets was narrowing, and all were watching for the flash and smoke
of the first gun:--"The twenty-two ships," he says, "trim and
fresh-looking in their paint and their bright new bunting, and gay
with fluttering signal-flags, presented such a holiday aspect that
one found difficulty in realizing that they were not there simply
for a friendly meeting. But, looking closer on the _Chen Yuen_, one
could see beneath this gayety much that was sinister. Dark-skinned
men, with queues tightly coiled round their heads, and with arms
bared to the elbow, clustered along the decks in groups at the guns,
waiting impatiently to kill or be killed. Sand was sprinkled along
the decks, and more was kept handy against the time when they might
become slippery. In the superstructures, and down out of sight in the
bowels of the ship, were men at the shell whips and ammunition hoists
and in the torpedo room. Here and there a man lay flat on the deck,
with a charge of powder--fifty pounds or more--in his arms, waiting
to spring up and pass it on when it should be wanted. The nerves of
the men below deck were in extreme tension. On deck one could see the
approaching enemy, but below nothing was known, save that any moment
might begin the action, and bring in a shell through the side. Once
the battle had begun they were all right; but at first the strain
was intense. The fleets closed on each other rapidly. My crew was
silent. The sub-lieutenant in the military foretop was taking sextant
angles and announcing the range, and exhibiting an appropriate small
signal-flag. As each range was called, the men at the guns would
lower the sight-bars, each gun captain, lanyard in hand, keeping his
gun trained on the enemy. Through the ventilators could be heard the
beats of the steam pumps; for all the lines of hose were joined up and
spouting water, so that, in case of fire, no time need be lost. Every
man's nerves were in a state of tension, which was greatly relieved as
a huge cloud of white smoke, belching from the _Ting Yuen's_ starboard
barbette, opened the ball."
[=The Opening of the Battle=]
The shot fell a little ahead of the _Yoshino_, throwing up a tall
column of white water. Admiral Ito, in his official report, notes
that this first shot was fired at ten minutes to one. The range, as
noted on the _Chen Yuen_, was 5,200 yards, or a little over three and
a half miles. The heavy barbette and bow guns of the _Chen Yuen_ and
other ships now joined in, but still the Japanese van squadron came
on without replying. For five minutes the firing was all on the side
of the Chinese. The space between the Japanese van and the hostile
line had diminished to 3,000 yards--a little under two miles. The
_Yoshino_, the leading ship, was heading for the centre of the Chinese
line, but obliquely, so as to pass diagonally along the front of the
Chinese right wing. At five minutes to one her powerful battery of
quick-firers opened on the Chinese, sending out a storm of shells, most
of which fell in the water just ahead of the _Ting_ and _Chen Yuen_.
Their first effect was to deluge the decks, barbettes and bridges of
the two ironclads with the geysers of water flung up by their impact
with the waves. In a few minutes every man on deck was soaked to the
skin. One by one the other ships along the Japanese line opened fire,
and then, as the range still diminished, the Chinese machine-guns,
Hotchkisses and Nordenfelts added their sharp, growling reports to the
deeper chorus of the heavier guns.
The armored barbettes and central citadels of the two Chinese
battleships were especially the mark of the Japanese fire.
Theoretically they ought to have been pierced again and again, but all
the harm they received were some deep dents and grooves in the thick
plates. But through the thin lined hulls of the cruisers the shells
crashed like pebbles through glass, the only effect of the metal wall
being to explode the shells and scatter their fragments far and wide.
[=Admiral Ito's Strategy=]
[=The Daring Act of the "Heijei"=]
The Chinese admiral had drawn up his ships in a single line, with
the large ones in the centre and the weaker ones on the wings. Ito's
ships came up in column, the _Yoshino_ leading, his purpose being to
take advantage of the superior speed of his ships and circle round
his adversary. Past the Chinese right wing swept the swift _Yoshino_,
pouring in the shells from her rapid-fire guns on the unprotected
vessels there posted, one of which, the _Yang Wei_, was soon in flames.
The ships that followed tore the woodwork of the _Chao Yung_ with their
shells, and she likewise burst into flames. The slower vessels of the
Japanese fleet lagged behind their speedy leaders, particularly the
little _Heijei_, which fell so far in the rear as to be exposed to the
fire of the whole Chinese fleet. In this dilemma its captain displayed
a daring spirit. Instead of following his consorts, he dashed straight
for the line of the enemy, passing between two of their larger vessels
at 500 yards distance. Two torpedoes were launched at him, but missed
their mark. But he was made the target of a heavy fire, and came
through with his craft in flames. At 2.23 the blazing _Chao Yung_ went
to the bottom with all on board.
[=The "Matsushima" and the "Ting Yuen"=]
As a result of the Japanese evolution, their ships finally closed in
on the Chinese on both sides and the action reached its most furious
phase. The two flag-ships, the Japanese _Matsushima_ and the Chinese
_Ting Yuen_, battered each other with their great guns, the wood-work
of the latter being soon in flames, while a heap of ammunition on the
_Matsushima_ was exploded by a shell and killed or wounded eighty
men. The Chinese flag-ship would probably have been destroyed by the
flames but that her consort came to her assistance. By five o'clock the
Chinese fleet was in the greatest disorder, several of its ships having
been sunk or driven in flames ashore, while others were in flight. The
Japanese fire was mainly concentrated on the two large ironclads, which
continued the fight, their thick armor resisting the heaviest guns of
the enemy.
[=McGiffen's Terrible Danger=]
Signals and signal halyards had been long since shot away, and all
the signalmen killed or wounded; but the two ships conformed to each
other's movements, and made a splendid fight of it. Admiral Ting had
been insensible for some hours at the outset of the battle. He had
stood too close to one of his own big guns on a platform above its
muzzle, and had been stunned by the upward and backward concussion of
the air; but he had recovered consciousness, and, though wounded by a
burst shell, was bravely commanding his ship. Von Hanneken was also
wounded in one of the barbettes. The ship was on fire forward, but the
hose kept the flames under. The _Chen Yuen_ was almost in the same
plight. Her commander, McGiffen, had had several narrow escapes. When
at last the lacquered woodwork on her forecastle caught fire, and the
men declined to go forward and put it out unless an officer went with
them, he led the party. He was stooping down to move something on the
forecastle, when a shot passed between his arms and legs, wounding both
his wrists. At the same time he was struck down by an explosion near
him. When he recovered from the shock he found himself in a terrible
position. He was lying wounded on the forecastle, and full in front of
him he saw the muzzle of one of the heavy barbette guns come sweeping
round, rise, and then sink a little, as the gunners trained it on a
Japanese ship, never noticing that he lay just below the line of fire.
It was in vain to try to attract their attention. In another minute
he would have been caught in the fiery blast. With a great effort he
rolled himself over the edge of the forecastle, dropping on to some
rubbish on the main deck, and hearing the roar of the gun as he fell.
The battle now resolved itself into a close cannonade of the two
ironclads by the main body of the Japanese fleet, while the rest of the
ships kept up a desultory fight with the three other Chinese ships and
the gunboats. The torpedo boats seem to have done nothing. Commander
McGiffen says that their engines had been worn out, and their fittings
shaken to pieces, by their being recklessly used as ordinary steam
launches in the weeks before the battle. The torpedoes fired from the
tubes of the battleships were few in number, and all missed their mark,
one, at least, going harmlessly under a ship at which it was fired at a
range of only fifty yards. The Japanese used no torpedoes. It is even
said that, by a mistake, they had sailed without a supply of these
weapons. Nor was the ram used anywhere. Once or twice a Chinese ship
tried to run down a Japanese, but the swifter and handier vessels of
Ito's squadron easily avoided all such attacks. The Yalu fight was from
first to last an artillery battle.
[=The End of the Battle=]
And the end of it came somewhat unexpectedly. The _Chen Yuen_ and the
_Ting Yuen_ were both running short of ammunition. The latter had been
hit more than four hundred times without her armour being pierced, and
the former at least as often. One of the _Chen Yuen's_ heavy guns had
its mountings damaged, but otherwise she was yet serviceable. Still,
she had been severely battered, had lost a great part of her crew, and
her slow fire must have told the Japanese that she was economizing her
ammunition, which was now all solid shot. But about half-past five Ito
signalled to his fleet to retire. The two Chinese ironclads followed
them for a couple of miles, sending an occasional shot after them; then
the Japanese main squadron suddenly circled round as if to renew the
action, and, towards six o'clock, there was a brisk exchange of fire
at long range. When Ito again ceased fire, the _Chen Yuen_ had just
three projectiles left for her heavy guns. If he had kept on for a few
minutes longer the two Chinese ships would have been at his mercy.
[=Lessons from the Yalu Sea-Fight=]
Just why Ito retired has never been clearly explained. Probably
exhaustion of his crew and the perils of a battle at night with such
antagonists had much to do with it. The next morning the Chinese fleet
had disappeared. It had lost four ships in the fight, two had taken
to flight, and one ran ashore after the battle and was blown up. Two
of the Japanese ships were badly damaged, but none were lost, while
their losses in killed and wounded were much less than those of the
Chinese. An important lesson from the battle was the danger of too much
wood-work in ironclad ships, and another was the great value in naval
warfare of rapid-firing guns. But the most remarkable characteristic
of the battle of the Yalu was that it took place between two nations
which, had the war broken out forty years earlier, would have done
their fighting with fleets of junks and weapons a century old.
[=Capture of Wei Hai Wei=]
In January, 1895, the Japanese fleet advanced against the strongly
fortified stronghold of Wei Hai Wei, on the northern coast of China.
Here a force of 25,000 men was landed successfully, and attacked
the fort in the rear, quickly capturing its landward defences. The
stronghold was thereupon abandoned by its garrison and occupied by the
Japanese. The Chinese fleet lay in the harbor, and surrendered to the
Japanese after several ships had been sunk by torpedo boats.
[=The Treaty of Peace=]
China was now in a perilous position. Its fleet was lost, its coast
strongholds of Port Arthur and Wei Hai Wei were held by the enemy, and
its capital city was threatened from the latter place and by the army
north of the Great Wall. A continuation of the war promised to bring
about the complete conquest of the Chinese empire, and Li Hung Chang,
who had been degraded from his official rank in consequence of the
disasters to the army, was now restored to all his honors and sent to
Japan to sue for peace. In the treaty obtained China was compelled to
acknowledge the independence of Corea, to cede to Japan the island of
Formosa and the Pescadores group, and that part of Manchuria occupied
by the Japanese army, including Port Arthur, also to pay an indemnity
of 300,000,000 taels and open seven new treaty ports. This treaty was
not fully carried out. The Russian, British, and French ministers
forced Japan, under threat of war, to give up her claim to the Liau
Tung peninsula and Port Arthur.
[=The Impending Partition of China=]
The story of China during the few remaining years of the century may
be briefly told. The evidence of its weakness yielded by the war with
Japan was quickly taken advantage of by the great powers of Europe, and
China was in danger of going to pieces under their attacks, which grew
so decided and ominous that rumors of a partition between these powers
of the most ancient and populous empire of the world filled the air.
In 1898 decided steps in this direction were taken. Russia obtained a
lease for ninety-nine years of Port Arthur and Talien Wan, and is at
present in practical possession of Manchuria, through which a railroad
is to be built connecting with the Trans-Siberian road, while Port
Arthur affords her an ice-free harbor for her Pacific fleet. Great
Britain, jealous of this movement on the part of Russia, forced from
the unwilling hands of China the port of Wei Hai Wei, and Germany
demanded and obtained the cession of a port at Kiau Chun, farther
down the coast. France, not to be outdone by her neighbors, gained
concessions of territory in the south, adjoining her Indo-China
possessions, and Italy, last of all, came into the Eastern market for a
share of the nearly defunct empire.
[=A Palace Revolution=]
How far this will go it is not easy to say. The nations are settling
on China like vultures on a carcass, and perhaps may tear the
antique commonwealth to pieces between them. Within the empire
itself revolutionary changes have taken place, the dowager empress
having first deprived the emperor of all power and then enforced his
abdication, while Japan, the late enemy of China, is now looked to for
its defence, and Count Ito has been asked to become its premier.
[=Progress in China=]
Meanwhile one important result has come from the recent war. Li Hung
Chang and the other progressive statesmen of the empire, who have
long been convinced that the only hope of China lies in its being
thrown open to Western science and art, have now become able to carry
out their plans, the conservative opposition having seriously broken
down. The result of this is seen in a dozen directions. Railroads,
long almost completely forbidden, have now gained free "right of way,"
and before many years promise to traverse the country far and wide.
Steamers plough their way for a thousand miles up the Yang-tse-Kiang;
engineers are busy exploiting the coal and iron mines of the Flowery
Kingdom; great factories, equipped with the best modern machinery,
are springing up in the foreign settlements; foreign books are being
translated and read; and the emperor and the dowager empress have even
gone so far as to receive foreign ambassadors in public audience and
on a footing of outward equality in the "forbidden city" of Peking,
long the sacredly secluded centre of an empire locked against the outer
world.
[=What the Future May Bring to China=]
All this is full of significance. The defeat of China in 1895 may
prove its victory, if it starts it upon a career of acceptance of
Western civilization which shall, before the twentieth century has far
advanced, raise it to the level of Japan. It must be borne in mind that
the extraordinary progress of the island empire has been made within
about forty years. China is a larger body and in consequence less easy
to move, but its people are innately practical and the pressure of
circumstances is forcing them forward. Within the next half century
this great empire, despite its thousands of years of unchanging
conditions, may take a wonderful bound in advance, and come up to Japan
in the race of political and industrial development. In such a case all
talk of the partition of China must cease, and it will take its place
among the greatest powers of the world.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Era of Colonies.
Since civilization began nations have endeavored to extend their
dominions, not alone by adding to their territory by the conquest of
adjoining countries, but also by sending out their excess population
to distant regions and founding colonies that served as aids to and
feeders of the parent state. In the ancient world the active commercial
nations, Phoenicia and Greece, were alert in this direction, some of
their colonies,--Carthage, for instance,--becoming powerful enough to
gain the status of independent states. In modern times the colonial era
began with the discovery of America in 1492 and the circumnavigation
of Africa immediately afterwards. Spain and Portugal, the leaders
in enterprise at that period, were quick to take advantage of their
discoveries, while France, Great Britain and Holland came into the
field as founders of colonies at a later date.
[=Progress in Colonization=]
At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain and Portugal still
held the great dominions they had won. They divided between them
the continent of South America, while Spain held a large section of
North America, embracing the whole continent south of Canada and west
of the Mississippi River, together with the peninsula of Florida.
Portugal held, in addition to Brazil, large territories in east and
west Africa and minor possessions elsewhere. As regards the remaining
active colonizing nations,--Great Britain, France, and Holland,--some
striking transformations had taken place. Great Britain, while late to
come into the field of colonization, had shown remarkable activity and
aggressiveness in this direction, robbing Holland of her settlement
on the Atlantic coast of America, and depriving France of her great
colonial possessions in the east and the west.
[=French Activity in Founding Colonies=]
France had shown a remarkable activity in colonization. In the east she
gained a strong foothold in India, which promised to expand to imperial
dimensions. In the west she had settled Canada, had planted military
posts along the great Mississippi River and claimed the vast territory
beyond, and was extending into the Ohio Valley, while the British
still confined themselves to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast.
The war which broke out between the English and French colonists in
1754 put an end to this grand promise. When it ended France had lost
all her possessions in America and India, Great Britain becoming heir
to the whole of them with the exception of the territory west of the
Mississippi, which was transferred to Spain. As regards Holland, she
had become the successor of Portugal in the east, holding immensely
valuable islands in the Malayan archipelago.
The colonial dominion of Great Britain, however, suffered one great
loss before the end of the eighteenth century. It failed to recognize
the spirit of Anglo-Saxon colonists, and by its tyranny in America gave
rise to an insurrection which ended in the freedom of its American
colonies. It still held Canada and many of the West India Islands,
but the United States was free, and by the opening of the nineteenth
century had fairly begun its remarkable development.
Such was the condition of colonial affairs at the beginning of the
century with which we are concerned. Spain and Portugal still held the
greatest colonial dominions upon the earth, France had lost nearly the
whole of her colonies, Holland possessed the rich spice islands of the
eastern seas, and Great Britain was just entering upon that activity
in colonization which forms one of the striking features of nineteenth
century progress.
[=Spain's Colonial Decline=]
At the close of the century a remarkable difference appears. Spain had
lost practically the whole of her vast colonial empire. She had learned
no lesson from England's experience with her American colonies, but
maintained a policy of tyranny and oppression until these far-extended
colonial provinces rose in arms and won their independence by courage
and endurance. Her great domain west of the Mississippi, transferred
by treaty to France, was purchased by the United States. Florida was
sold by her to the same country, and by the end of the first quarter of
the century she did not own a foot of land on the American continent.
She still held the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico in the West Indies,
but her oppressive policy yielded the same result there as on the
continent. The islanders broke into rebellion, the United States came
to their aid, and she lost these islands and the Philippine Islands
in the East. At the end of the century all she held were the Canary
Islands and some small possessions elsewhere.
Portugal had also suffered a heavy loss in her colonial dominions,
but in a very different manner. The invasion of the home state by
Napoleon's armies had caused the king and his court to set sail for
Brazil, where they established an independent empire, while a new
scion of the family of Braganza took Portugal for his own. Thus, with
the exception of Canada, Guiana, and the smaller islands of the West
Indies, no colonies existed in America at the end of the century, all
the former colonies having become independent republics.
[=The Colonial Development of Great Britain=]
The active powers in colonization within the nineteenth century were
the great rivals of the preceding period, Great Britain and France,
though the former gained decidedly the start, and its colonial empire
to-day surpasses that of any other nation of mankind. It is so
enormous, in fact, as to dwarf the parent kingdom, which is related to
its colonial dominion, so far as comparative size is concerned, as the
small brain of the elephant is related to its great body.
[=Other Colonizing Powers=]
Other powers, not heard of as colonizers in the past, have recently
come into this field, though too late to obtain any of the great
prizes. These are Germany and Italy, the latter to a small extent.
But there is a great power still to name, which in its way stands as
a rival to Great Britain, the empire of Russia, whose acquisitions
in Asia have grown enormous in extent. These are not colonies in the
ordinary sense, but rather results of the expansion of an empire
through warlike aggression, but they are colonial in the sense of
absorbing the excess population of European Russia. The great territory
of Siberia was gained by Russia before the nineteenth century, but
within recent years its dominion in Asia has greatly increased, and it
is not easy to tell just when and where it will end.
[=Growth of the British Colonies=]
With this preliminary review we may proceed to consider the history of
colonization within the century. And first we must take up the results
of the colonial enterprise of Great Britain, as much the most important
of the whole. Of this story we have already described some of the
leading features. A chapter has been given to the story of the Indian
empire of Great Britain, far the largest of her colonial possessions,
and another to that of South Africa. In addition to Hindustan, in which
the dominion of Great Britain now extends to Afghanistan and Thibet in
the north, the British colony now includes Burmah and the west-coast
region of Indo-China, with the Straits Settlements in the Malay
peninsula, and the island of Ceylon, acquired in 1802 from Holland.
[=Australia and New Zealand=]
In the eastern seas Great Britain possesses another colony of vast
dimensions, the continental island of Australia, which, with its area
of nearly 3,000,000 square miles, is three-fourths the size of Europe.
The first British settlement was made here in 1788, at Port Jackson,
the site of the present thriving city of Sydney, and the island was
long maintained as a penal settlement, convicts being sent there as
late as 1868. It was the discovery of gold in 1851 to which Australia
owed its great progress. The incitement of the yellow metal drew the
enterprising thither by thousands, until the population of the colony
is now more than 3,000,000, and is growing at a rapid rate, it having
developed other valuable resources besides that of gold. Of its cities,
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has more than 300,000 population;
Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, probably 250,000, while there
are other cities of rapid growth. Australia is the one important
British colony obtained without a war. In its human beings, as in its
animals generally, it stood at a low level of development, and it was
taken possession of without a protest from the savage inhabitants.
The same cannot be said of the inhabitants of New Zealand, an important
group of islands lying east of Australia, which was acquired by Great
Britain as a colony in 1840. The Maoris, as the people of these islands
call themselves, are of the bold and sturdy Polynesian race, a brave,
generous, and warlike people, who have given their new lords and
masters no little trouble. A series of wars with the natives began in
1843 and continued until 1869, since which time the colony has enjoyed
peace. It can have no more trouble with the Maoris, since there are
said to be no more Maoris. They have vanished before the "white man's
face." At present this colony is one of the most advanced politically
of any region on the face of the earth, so far as attention to the
interests of the masses of the people is concerned, and its laws and
regulations offer a useful object lesson to the remainder of the world.
[=Other British Colonies=]
In addition to those great island dominions in the Pacific, Great
Britain possesses the Fiji Islands, the northern part of Borneo, and
a large section of the extensive island of Papua or New Guinea, the
remainder of which is held by Holland and Germany. In addition there
are various coaling stations on the islands and coast of Asia. In the
Mediterranean its possessions are Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, and
in America the great colony of Canada, a considerable number of the
islands of the West Indies, and the districts of British Honduras and
British Guiana. Of these, far the most important is Canada, to which a
chapter will be devoted farther on in our work.
[=The Interior of Africa and Asia=]
We have here to deal with the colonies in two of the continents,
Asia and Africa, of which the history presents certain features of
singularity. Though known from the most ancient times, while America
was quite unknown until four centuries ago, the striking fact presents
itself that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the continents
of North and South America were fairly well known from coast to centre,
while the interior of Asia and Africa remained in great part unknown.
This fact in regard to Asia was due to the hostile attitude of its
people, which rendered it very dangerous for any European traveler
to attempt to penetrate its interior. In the case of Africa it was
due to the inhospitality of nature, which had placed the most serious
obstacles in the way of those who sought to penetrate beyond the coast
regions. This state of affairs continued until the latter half of the
century, within which period there has been a remarkable change in
the aspect of affairs, both continents having been penetrated in all
directions and their walls of isolation completely broken down.
[=Early Colonies in Africa=]
Africa is not only now well known, but the penetration of its interior
has been followed by political changes of the most revolutionary
character. It presented a virgin field for colonization, of which the
land-hungry nations of Europe hastened to avail themselves, dividing
up the continent between them, so that, by the end of the century, the
partition of Africa was practically complete. It is one of the most
remarkable circumstances in the history of the nineteenth century that
a complete continent remained thus until late in the history of the
world to serve as a new field for the outpouring of the nations. The
occupation of Africa by Europeans, indeed, began earlier. The Arabs
had held the section north of the Sahara for many centuries, Portugal
claimed--but scarcely occupied--large sections east and west, and the
Dutch had a thriving settlement in the south. But the exploration
and division of the bulk of the continent waited for the nineteenth
century, and the greater part of the work of partition took place
within the final quarter of that century.
[=The Partition of Africa=]
In this work of colonization Great Britain was, as usual, most
energetic and successful, and to-day the possessions and protectorates
of this active kingdom in Africa embrace 2,587,755 square miles;
or, if we add Egypt and the Egyptian Soudan--practically British
territory--the area occupied or claimed amounts to 2,987,755 square
miles. France comes next, with claims covering 1,232,454 square miles.
Germany lays claim to 920,920; Italy, to 278,500; Portugal, to 735,304;
Spain, to 243,877; the Congo Free State, to 900,000; and Turkey (if
Egypt be included), to 798,738 square miles. The parts of Africa
unoccupied or unclaimed by Europeans are a portion of the Desert of
Sahara, which no one wants; Abyssinia, still independent though in
danger of absorption; and Liberia, a state over which rests the shadow
of protection of the United States.
[=British Colonies in Africa=]
Of the British colonial possessions in Africa we have already
sufficiently described that in the south, extending now from Cape Town
to Lake Tanganyika, and forming an immense area, replete with natural
resources, and capable of sustaining a very large future population.
On the east coast is another large acquisition, British East Africa,
extending north to Abyssinia and the Soudan and west to the Congo Free
State, and including part of the great Victoria Nyanza. Further north
a large slice has been carved out of Somaliland, facing on the Gulf
of Aden. The remainder of this section of Africa is claimed--though
very feebly held--by Italy, whose possessions include Somaliland
and Eritrea, a coast district north of Abyssinia. Great Britain, in
addition, lays claim to Sierra Leone and the Ashantee country on the
west coast and an extensive region facing on the Gulf of Guinea, and
extending far back into the Soudan.
[=African Colonies of France=]
Next to Great Britain in activity in the acquisition of African
territory comes France, which within the recent period has enormously
extended its claims to territory in this continent. Of these the most
difficult in acquirement was Algeria, on the Mediterranean, which
France first invaded in 1830, but did not obtain quiet possession of
for many years and then only at the cost of long and sanguinary wars.
At a later date the adjoining Moorish kingdom of Tunis was added,
and since then the claims of France have been extended indefinitely
southward, to include the greater part of the western half of the
Sahara--the Atlantic coast district of the Sahara being claimed by
Spain. Of this great desert region almost the whole is useless to any
nation, and France holds it mainly as a connecting link between her
possessions in Algeria and the Soudan.
French Soudan has had a phenomenal growth, the French displaying the
same enterprise here as they did in America in the rapid extension of
their Canadian province. Claiming, as their share in the partition of
Africa, the Atlantic coast region of Senegal and an extensive district
facing on the Gulf of Guinea and the South Atlantic, and known as
French Congo, they have made an enormous spread, northward from the
latter, westward from Senegal, and southward from Algeria, until now
their claims cover nearly the whole of the Soudan--a vast belt of
territory stretching from the Atlantic nearly across the continent and
bordering on the Egyptian Soudan in the east. The French claim, indeed,
extended as far as the Nile, being based on Major Marchand's journey
to the river in 1898. But the English conquests in that region barred
out the French claim, and it has been abandoned. In addition to the
territories here named, France has taken possession of a portion of the
coast region of Abyssinia, between the Italian and the British regions,
and completely shutting out that ancient kingdom from the sea.
[=German and Italian Colonies=]
The latest of the nations to develop the colonizing spirit were Italy
and Germany. We have described Italy's share in Africa. Germany's is
far larger and more important. In East Africa it holds a large and
valuable region of territory, on the Zanzibar coast, between British
East Africa and Portuguese Mozambique, and extending westward to Lake
Nyassa and Tanganyika and the Congo Free State, and northward to the
Victoria Nyanza. It cuts off British territory from an extension
throughout the whole length of Africa, and if Cecil Rhodes' Cairo to
Cape Town Railway is ever completed, some hundreds of miles of it will
have to run through German territory.
In South Africa Germany has seized upon abroad region left unclaimed
by Great Britain, the Atlantic coast section of Damaraland and Great
Namaqualand, and also an extensive section on the right of the Gulf
of Guinea, stretching inward like a wedge between British and French
possessions in this region. On the Gold Coast it has also a minor
territory, lying between British Ashantee and French Dahomey.
[=The Congo Free State=]
The broad interior of the continent, the mighty plateau region watered
by the great Congo River and its innumerable affluents, first traversed
by the daring Stanley not many years in the past, has been erected into
the extensive and promising Congo Free State, under the suzerainty of
the king of Belgium. It is the most populous and agriculturally the
richest section of Africa, while its remarkable extension of navigable
waters give uninterrupted communication through its every part. It has
probably before it a great future.
[=The French Conquest of Madagascar=]
Off the east coast of Africa lies the great island of Madagascar, now
a French territory. France has had military posts on its coast for
more than two hundred years, and in 1883 began the series of wars
which resulted in the conquest of the island. The principal war of
invasion began in 1895 and ended in a complete overthrow of the native
government, Madagascar being declared a French colony in June, 1896.
Of these European possessions in Africa, all are held with a strong
hand except those of Portugal, which unprogressive state may soon
give up all claim to her territories of Angola and Mozambique. Great
Britain and Germany have been negotiating with Portugal for the
purchase of these territories--to be divided between them. As one part
of the bargain, Great Britain will get the important Delagoa Bay, and
definitely shut in the Boer Republic from the sea.
[=Wars in Africa=]
This division of Africa between the European nations, with the
subsequent taking possession of the acquired territories, has not
been accomplished without war and bloodshed; England, France, and
Italy having had to fight hard to establish their claims. In only two
sections, Abyssinia and the Egyptian Soudan, have the natives been
able to drive out their invaders, and the wars in these regions call
for some fuller notice.
[=Defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia=]
The first war in Abyssinia occurred in 1867, when England, irritated
by an arbitrary action of the Emperor Theodore, declared war against
him, and invaded his rocky and difficult country. The war ended in the
conquest of Magdala and the death of Theodore. In 1889 Italy aided
Menelek in gaining the throne, and was granted the large district of
Eritrea on the Red Sea, with a nominal protectorate over the whole
kingdom. Subsequently Menelek repudiated the treaty, and in 1894 the
Italians invaded his kingdom. For a time they were successful, but in
March, 1896, the Italian army met with a most disastrous defeat, and
in the treaty that followed Italy was compelled to acknowledge the
complete independence of Abyssinia. It was the one case in Africa in
which the natives were able to hold their own against the ambitious
nations of Europe.
[=The Expansion of Egypt=]
In Egypt they did so for a time, and a brief description of the recent
history of this important kingdom seems of interest. Egypt broke loose
in large measure from the rule of Turkey during the reign of the able
and ambitious Mehemet Ali, who was made viceroy in 1840. In 1876 the
independence of Egypt was much increased, and its rulers were given
the title of khedive, or king. The powers of the khedives steadily
increased, and in 1874-75 Ismail Pasha greatly extended the Egyptian
territory, annexing the Soudan as far as Darfur, and finally to the
shores of the lately discovered Victoria Nyanza. Egypt thus embraced
the valley of the Nile practically to its source, presenting an aspect
of immense length and great narrowness.
Soon after, the finances of the country became so involved that they
were placed under European control, and the growth of English and
French influence led to the revolt of Arabi Pasha in 1879. This was
repressed by Great Britain, which bombarded Alexandria and defeated the
Egyptians, France taking no part. As a result the controlling influence
of France ended, and Great Britain became the practical ruler of Egypt,
which position she still maintains.
[=The Rise of the Mahdi=]
[=The Massacre of Hicks Pasha and His Army=]
In 1880 began an important series of events. A Mohammedan prophet arose
in the Soudan, claiming to be the Mahdi, a Messiah of the Mussulmans.
A large body of devoted believers soon gathered around him, and he set
up an independent sultanate in the desert, defeating four Egyptian
expeditions sent against him, and capturing El Obeid, the chief city
of Kordofan which he made his capital in 1883. Then against him Great
Britain dispatched an army of British and Egyptian soldiers, under
an English leader styled in Egypt Hicks Pasha. These advanced to El
Obeid, where they fell into an ambush prepared by the Mahdists, and,
after a desperate struggle, lasting three days, were almost completely
annihilated, scarcely a man escaping to tell the disastrous tale.
"General Hicks," said a newspaper correspondent, "charged at the head
of staff. They galloped towards a sheikh, supposed by the Egyptians to
be the Mahdi. Hicks rushed on him with his sword and cut his face and
arm; this man had on a Darfur steel mail-shirt. Just then a club thrown
struck General Hicks on the head and unhorsed him. The chargers of the
staff were speared but the English officers fought on foot till all
were killed. Hicks was the last to die."
Other expeditions of Egyptian troops sent against Osman Digma ("Osman
the Ugly"), the lieutenant of the Mahdi in the Eastern Soudan, met
with a similar fate, while the towns of Sinkat and Tokar were invested
by the Mahdists. To relieve these towns Baker Pasha advanced with a
force of 3,650 men. There was no more daring or accomplished officer
in the British army than Valentine Baker, but his expedition met with
the same fate as that of his predecessor. Advancing into the desert
from Trinkitat, a town some distance south of Suakim, on the Red Sea,
the force was met by a body of Mahdists, and the Egyptian soldiers at
once broke into a panic of terror. The Mahdists were only some 1,200
strong, but they surrounded and butchered the unresisting Egyptians in
a frightful slaughter.
[=The Battles Near Suakim=]
"Inside the square," said an eyewitness, "the state of affairs was
almost indescribable. Cavalry, infantry, mules, camels, falling
baggage and dying men were crushed into a struggling, surging mass.
The Egyptians were shrieking madly, hardly attempting to run away, but
trying to shelter themselves one behind another." "The conduct of the
Egyptians was simply disgraceful," said another officer. "Armed with
rifle and bayonet, they allowed themselves to be slaughtered, without
an effort at self-defence, by savages inferior to them in numbers and
armed only with spears and swords."
Baker and his staff officers, seeing that affairs were hopeless,
charged the enemy and cut their way through to the shore, but of the
total force two-thirds were left dead or wounded on the field. Such
was the "massacre" of El Teb, which was followed four days afterwards
by the capture of Sinkat and slaughter of its garrison. This butchery
was soon after avenged. General Graham was sent from Cairo with
reinforcements of British troops, which advanced on Osman's position,
and, in two bloody engagements subjected him to disastrous defeat. The
last victory was a crushing one, the total British loss being about
200, while, of the Arab loss, the killed alone numbered over 2,000.
[=Gordon Goes to Khartoum=]
In the same year in which these events took place (1884) General
Charles Gordon--Chinese Gordon, as he was called, from his memorable
exploits in the Flowery Kingdom--advanced by the Nile to Khartoum,
the far-off capital of the Mohammedan Soudan, of which he had been
governor-general in former years. His purpose was to relieve the
Egyptian garrison of that city--in which design he failed. In fact,
the Arabs of the Soudan flocked in such multitudes to the standard of
the Mahdi that Khartoum was soon cut off from all communication with
the country to the north, and Gordon and the garrison were left in a
position of dire peril. It was determined to send an expedition to his
relief, and this was organized under the leadership of Lord Wolseley,
the victor in the Ashantee and Zulu wars.
[=To the Rescue of Gordon=]
[=The Desert Fights=]
The expedition was divided into two sections, a desert column which was
to cross a sandy stretch of land with the aid of camels, from Korti to
Metamneh, on the Nile, thus cutting off a wide loop in the stream; and
a river column for whose transportation a flotilla of 800 whale boats
was sent out from England. The desert column found its route strongly
disputed. On the 7th of January, 1885, it was attacked by the Arabs
in overwhelming force and fighting with the ferocity of tigers, some
5,000 of them attacking the 1,500 British drawn up in square, round
which the fanatical Mahdists raged like storm-driven waves. The peril
was imminent. Among those who fell on the British side was Colonel
Burnaby, the famous traveler. The battle was a remarkably brief one,
the impetuous rush of the Arabs being repulsed in about five minutes
of heroic effort, during which there was imminent danger of their
penetrating the square and making an end of the British troops. As it
was the Arabs lost 1,100 in dead and a large number of wounded, the
British less than 200 in all. A few days afterwards the Arabs attacked
again, but as before were repulsed with heavy loss. On the 19th of
January the river was reached, and the weary troops bivouacked on its
banks.
Here they were met by four steamers which Gordon had sent down the
Nile, after plating their hulls with iron as a protection against Arab
bullets. Various circumstances now caused delay, and several days
passed before General Wilson, in command of the expedition, felt it
safe to advance on Khartoum. At length, on January 24th, two of the
steamers, with a small force of troops, set out up the river, but met
with so many obstacles that it was the 28th before they came within
sight of the distant towers of Khartoum. From the bank came a shout
to the effect that Khartoum had been taken and Gordon killed two days
before. As they drew nearer there came evidence that the announcement
was true. No British flag was seen flying; not a shot came from the
shore in aid of the steamers. Masses of the enemy could be seen in all
directions. A storm of musketry beat like hail on the iron sides of
the boats. Wilson, believing the attempt hopeless, gave the order to
turn and run at full speed down the river. They did so amid a rattle of
bullets and bursting of shells from the artillery of the enemy.
[=Death of General Gordon=]
The news they brought was true. The gallant Gordon was indeed dead. The
exact events that took place are not known. Some attributed the fall of
the town to the act of a traitor, some to the storming of the gates.
It does not matter now; it is enough to know that the famous Christian
soldier had been killed with all his men--about 4,000 persons being
slaughtered, in a massacre that continued for six hours. That was the
end of it. The British soon after withdrew and left Khartoum and the
Soudan in the undisputed possession of the Arabs. The Mahdi had been
victorious, though he did not live long to enjoy his triumph, he dying
some months later.
[=The Advance of the British and Recapture of the
Soudan=]
And so matters were left for nearly twelve years, when the British
government, having arranged affairs in Egypt to its liking, and put the
country in a prosperous condition, decided to attempt the reconquest
of the Soudan, and avenge the slaughtered Gordon. An expedition was
sent out in 1896, which captured Dongola in September and defeated the
dervish force in several engagements. The progress continued, slowly
but surely, up the Nile. In 1897 other advantages were gained. But it
was not until 1898 that the Anglo-Egyptian force, under Sir Herbert
Kitchener, known under his Egyptian title of the Sirdar, reached the
vicinity of Khartoum. The Egyptian soldiers under him were of other
stuff than those commanded by Baker Pasha. From a mob with arms in hand
they had been drilled into brave and steady soldiers, quite capable of
giving a good account of themselves. At Omdurman, near Khartoum, the
dervishes were met in force and a fierce and final battle was fought.
The Arabs suffered a crushing defeat, losing more than 10,000 men,
while the British loss was only about 200. This brilliant victory ended
the war on the Nile. The fight was taken out of the Arabs. The Soudan
was restored to Egypt by British arms, fourteen years after it had been
lost to the Mahdi.
[=The Partition of Asia=]
Asia has been invaded by the nations of civilization almost as actively
as Africa, and to-day, aside from the Chinese and Japanese Empires, far
the greater part of that vast continent is under foreign control, the
only important independent sections being Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and
Afghanistan. As matters now look, all of these, China included, before
the twentieth century is very old may be in European hands, and the
partition of Asia become as complete as that of Africa. The nations
active in this work have been Great Britain, Russia, and France, while
Holland is in possession of Java, Sumatra, and others of the valuable
spice islands of the eastern seas. Of the enterprise of Great Britain
in extending her colonial dominion in Hindostan and Burmah we have
already spoken. The enterprise of France here demands attention.
[=French and British Methods of Colonization=]
France has always been remarkably active in her colonizing enterprises.
In America she surpassed Great Britain in the rapid extension of
her dominion, though she fell far behind in the solidity of her
settlements. It has been the same in Africa. France has spread out
with extraordinary rapidity over the Soudan, while England has moved
much more slowly but far more surely. The enterprises of the one are
brilliant, those of the other are solid, and it is the firmness with
which the Anglo-Saxon race takes hold that makes it to-day the dominant
power on the earth. The French have the faculty of assimilating
themselves with foreign peoples, accepting their manners and customs
and becoming their friends and allies. The British, on the contrary,
are too apt to treat their colonial subjects as inferior beings, but
they combine their haughtiness with justice, and win respect at the
same time as they inspire distrust and fear.
[=Operations of France in Indo-China=]
The colonizing enterprise of France in Asia, after the French had been
ousted from India by Great Britain, directed itself to the peninsula
of Indo-China. This was the only region of the Asiatic coast land
which was at once safe to meddle with and worth the cost and trouble.
In 1789 the emperor of Annam accepted French aid in the conquest of
the adjoining states of Cochin China and Tonquin. The wedge of French
influence, thus entered, was not removed. Missionaries sought those
far-off realms, and in time found themselves cruelly treated by the
natives. As usual in such cases, this formed a pretext for invasion
and annexation, and in 1862 a portion of Cochin China was seized upon
by France, the remainder being annexed in 1867. Meanwhile, in 1863,
the "protection" of France was extended over the neighboring state of
Cambodia.
North of Cochin China lies Annam, and farther north, bordering on
China, is the province of Tonquin, inhabited largely by Chinese. The
four states mentioned constitute the eastern half of Indo-China. The
western portion is formed by the kingdom of Burmah, now a British
possession. Between these lies the contracted kingdom of Siam, the only
portion of the peninsula that retains its independence.
[=The Black Flags=]
The attention of France was next directed to Tonquin, the northern
province of the Annamite Empire, which was invaded in 1873, and its
capital city, Hanoi, captured. Here the French found foeman worthy of
their steel. After the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in China
certain bands of the rebels took refuge in Tonquin, where they won
themselves a new home by force of arms, and in 1868 held the valley of
the Red River as far south as Hanoi. These, known as the "Black Flags,"
were bold, restless, daring desperadoes, who made the conquest of the
country a difficult task for the French. By their aid the invading
French were driven from Hanoi and forced back in defeat.
[=The Siege of Sontay=]
[=A Night Attack=]
The French resumed their work of conquest in 1882, again taking the
city of Hanoi, and in December, 1883, a strong expedition advanced
up the Red River against the stronghold of Sontay, which, with the
neighboring Bac Ninh, was looked upon, in a military sense, as the key
to Tonquin. The enterprise seemed a desperate one, the expeditionary
force consisting of but 6,000 soldiers and 1,350 coolies, while behind
the strong works of the place were 25,000 armed men, of whom 10,000
were composed of the valiant Black Flags. But cannon served the place
of men. The river defences were battered down and preparations made to
storm the citadel. During the succeeding night, however, the French ran
imminent risk of a disastrous repulse. At one o'clock at night, when
all but the sentries were locked in slumber, a sudden shower of rockets
was poured on the thatched roofs of the huts in which the soldiers
lay asleep, and with savage yells the Chinese rushed from their gates
and into the heart of the camp, firing briskly as they came. The
French troops, fatigued with the hard fighting of the preceding day,
and demoralized by the suddenness of the attack and the pluck and
persistent energy of the assailants, were thrown almost into panic, and
were ready to give way when the Chinese trumpets sounded the recall and
the enemy drew off. As it appeared afterwards this attack was made by
only 300 men. It would undoubtedly have stampeded the invading forces
but for the vigilance of the sentinels.
[=The Storming of the Citadel=]
On the next day, December 16th, the fort was stormed, and taken after
a desperate resistance. There is but one incident of the assault that
we need relate. As the French rushed across the bridge that spanned
the wide ditch and approached the gate of the citadel, there was seen
an instance of cool and devoted bravery hardly excelled by that which
was displayed by the famous "captain of the gate" who held the Tiber
bridge, against the Tuscan host. There, told off to guard the narrow
passage between the stockade and the wall, stood a gallant Black
Flag soldier. His Winchester repeating rifle was in his hand, its
magazine filled with cartridges. Although half the French force were
at the gate, he quailed not. Shot after shot he fired, deliberately
and calmly, and each bullet found its billet. Down went brave Captain
Méhl, leader of the Foreign Legion, with a ball through his heart, and
other attackers were slain; and when the stormers rushed in at last the
heroic Black Flag, true to his trust, died with his face to the foe, as
a soldier should die. The French, quick to recognize bravery either in
friend or enemy, buried him with military honors when the day's fight
was over, at the gate which he defended so well.
The capture of this town, followed by that of Bac-Ninh, which was
similarly taken by storm, completed the work of conquest and firmly
established the French in their occupation of Tonquin.
[=France in Possession=]
They had, however, still the Chinese to deal with. China claimed a
suzerainty over this region and protested against the French invasion,
and in 1885 went to war for the expulsion of the foreign conquerors.
During the previous year the Black Flags had engaged in murderous raids
on the French mission stations, in which they massacred nearly 10,000
native Christians. In the war with China, they, with other Chinese
troops, held the passes above Tuyen-Kivan for nearly a month against
repeated assaults by the French, and were still in possession of their
posts when peace was declared. China had yielded the country to France.
In 1895 France gained the right to extend a railway from Annam into
China, a concession which was protested against by Great Britain,
then in possession of the adjoining province. In 1896 a treaty was
made between these two powers, which fixed the Mekong or Cambodia
River as their dividing line. As a result those powers now hold all
of Indo-China except the much diminished kingdom of Siam. France has
permitted the form of the old government to continue, the Emperor of
Annam still reigning--though he does not rule, since the real power is
in the hands of the French governor-general at Hanoi.
[=The Advance of Russia in Asia=]
While Great Britain and France were thus establishing themselves in
the south, Russia was engaged in the conquest of the north and centre
of the continent. The immense province of Siberia, crossing the whole
width of the continent in the north, was acquired by Russia in the
seventeenth century, after which the progress of Russia in Asia ceased
until the nineteenth century, within which the territory of the
Muscovite empire in that continent has been very greatly extended.
Two provinces were wrested from Persia in 1828, as the prize of a
victorious war, and in 1859 the conquest of the region of the Caucasus
was completed by the capture of the heroic Schamyl. In 1858 the left
bank of the great Amur River was gained by treaty with China, after
having been occupied by force.
Soon after this period, Russia began the work of conquest in the region
of Turkestan, that long-mysterious section of Central Asia, inhabited
in part by fierce desert nomades, who for centuries made Persia the
spoil of their devastating raids, and in part by intolerant settled
tribes, among whom no Christian dared venture except at risk of his
life. It remained in great measure a _terra incognita_ until the
Russians forced their way into it arms in hand.
[=The Invasion of Turkestan=]
The southern border of Siberia was gradually extended downward over
the great region of the Mongolian steppes until the northern limits
of Turkestan were reached, and in 1864 Russia invaded this region
subduing the oasis of Tashkend after a fierce war. In 1868 the march of
invasion reached Bokhara, and in 1873 the oasis of Khiva was conquered
and annexed. In 1875-76 Khokand was conquered after a fierce war,
and annexed to Russia. This completed the acquisition of the fertile
provinces of Turkestan, but the fierce nomades of the desert remained
unsubdued, and the oasis of Merv and the country of the warlike Tekke
Turcomans were still to conquer. This, which was accomplished in
1880-81, merits a fuller description.
A broad belt of desert lands stretches across the continent of Asia
from Arabia, in the southwest, to the rainless highlands of Gobi, or
Shamo, in the far east. This desert zone is here and there broken by a
tract of steppe land that is covered with grass for a portion of the
year, while more rarely a large oasis is formed where the rivers and
streams, descending from a mountain range, supply water to a fertile
region, before losing themselves in the sands of the desert beyond.
[=The Deserts of Central Asia=]
Eastward of the Caspian, and south of the Aral, much of the waste land
is a salt desert, and the shells, mixed with the surface sand, afford
further evidence that it was in times not very remote part of the
bottom of a large inland sea, of which the landlocked waters of Western
Asia are a survival.
Along the Caspian the steppe and desert sink gradually to the
water-level, and the margins of the sea are so shallow that, except
where extensive dredging works have been carried out, and long jetties
constructed, ships have to discharge their cargoes into barges two or
three miles from the shore.
This desert region marked for many years the southern limit of the
Russian empire in Central Asia. A barren waste is a more formidable
obstacle to an European army than the ocean itself; and the Turkoman
tribes of the oases not only refused to acknowledge the dominion of the
White Czar, but successfully raided up to the very gates of his border
forts in the spring, when the grass of the steppe afforded forage for
their horses. The first successful advance across the desert zone was
made by Kaufmann, whose expeditions followed the belt of fertile land
which breaks the desert where the Amu Daria (the Oxus of classical
times) flows down from the central highlands of Asia to the great lake
of the Aral Sea. But in 1878 the Russians began another series of
conquests, starting not from their forts on the Oxus, but from their
new ports on the southwestern shore of the Caspian.
[=The Country of the Tekke Turkomans=]
In this direction the most powerful of the Turkoman tribes were the
Tekkes of the Akhal oasis. Between their strongholds and the Caspian
there was a desert nearly 150 miles wide, and then the ridge of the
Kopet Dagh Mountains. The desert, which stretches from the northern
shore of the Atrek River, is partly sandy waste, partly a tract of
barren clayey land, baked hard by the sun; broken by cracks and
crevices in the dry season, and like a half-flooded brickfield when
it rains. The water of the river is scanty, and not good to drink.
It flows in a deep channel between steep banks, and so closely does
the desert approach it that for miles one might ride within a hundred
yards of its clay-banked cañon without suspecting that water was so
near. Where the Sumber River runs into the Atrek the Russians had an
advanced post--the earthwork fort of Tchad, with its eight-gun battery.
Following the Sumber, one enters the arid valleys on the south of the
Kopet Dagh range. On this side the slopes rise gradually; on the other
side of the ridge there is a sharp descent, and sometimes the mountains
form for miles a line of precipitous rocky walls. At the foot of this
natural rampart lay the fortified villages of the Tekke Turkomans.
[=The Land of Akhal=]
[=The Herds and Villages of the Tekkes=]
[=The Akhal Warriors=]
Numerous streams descend from the Kopet Dagh, flowing to the
north-eastward, and after a few miles losing themselves in the sands
of the Kara Kum desert. Between the mountain wall and the desert the
ground thus watered forms a long, narrow oasis--the land of Akhal--to
which a local Mussulman tradition says that Adam betook himself when
he was driven forth from Eden. No doubt much of the praise that has
been given to the beauty and fertility of this three-hundred-mile
strip of well-watered garden ground comes from the contrast between
its green enclosures and the endless waste that closes in the horizon
to the north-eastward. Corn and maize, cotton and wool, form part of
the wealth of its people. They had the finest horses of all Turkestan,
and great herds and flocks of cattle, sheep and camels. The streams
turned numerous mills, and were led by a network of tunnels and
conduits through the fields and garden. The villages were mud-walled
quadrangles, with an inner enclosure for the cattle; the kibitkas, or
tents, and the mud huts of the Tekkes filling the space between the
inner and outer walls, and straggling outside in temporary camps that
could be rapidly cleared away in war time. The people were over 100,000
strong--perhaps 140,000 in all--men, women and children. They were
united in a loose confederacy, acknowledged the lordship of the Khan
of Merv, who had come from one of their own villages. They raided the
Russian and Persian borders successfully, these plundering expeditions
filling up the part of the year when they were not busy with more
peaceful occupations. Along their fertile strip of land ran the caravan
track from Merv by Askabad to Kizil Arvat and the Caspian, and when
they were not at war the Tekkes had thus an outlet for their surplus
productions, among which were beautiful carpets, the handiwork of
their women. In war they had proved themselves formidable to all their
neighbors. United with the warriors of Merv, the men of Akhal had cut
to pieces a Khivan army in 1855 and a host of Persians in 1861.
The conquest of Akhal had long been a subject of Russian ambition. It
was not merely that they were anxious to put an end once for all to
the raids of the Turkomans of the great oasis, but they regarded the
possession of this region as a great step towards the consolidation of
their power in Asia. From Baku, the terminus of their railways in the
Caucasus, it was easy to ferry troops across the Caspian. What they
wanted was a secure road from some port on its eastern shore to their
provinces on the Upper Oxus, and anyone who knew the country must have
felt that this road would eventually run through the Akhal and the Merv
oases.
[=Repulse of Lomakine and the Russians=]
The first effort to subdue the Akhal warriors proved a complete
failure. As soon as peace was concluded with Turkey, after the war of
1877-78, General Lomakine was sent with a strong force to the Caspian,
whence he made his way by the caravan route over the desert to the
strong nomade fortress of Geok Tepe ("blue hills"), at the foot of the
mountain range mentioned. We shall say nothing more concerning this
expedition than that the attempt to take the fort by storm proved a
complete failure, and the Russians were forced to retreat in disorder.
[=Skobeleff and the Siege of Geok Tepe=]
To retrieve this disaster General Skobeleff, the most daring of the
Russian generals, who had gained great glory in the siege of Plevna,
was selected, and set out in 1880. On the 1st of January, 1881, he
came in sight of the fort, with an army of 10,000 picked troops, and
fifty-four cannon. Behind the clay ramparts lay awaiting him from
20,000 to 30,000 of valiant nomades, filled with the pride of their
recent victory. The first batteries opened fire on the 8th, and the
siege works were pushed so rapidly forward that the Russians had gained
all the outworks by the 17th. This steady progress was depressing to
the Turkomans, who were not used to such a method of fighting. The
cannonade continued resistlessly, the wall being breached on the 23d
and the assault fixed for the next day. Two mines had been driven under
the rampart, one charged with gun-powder and one with dynamite, and all
was ready for the desperate work of the storming parties.
Early the next day all the Russian guns opened upon the walls, and a
false attack was made on the west side of the fort, the men firing
incessantly to distract the attention of the Turkomans, while the
actual column of attack was formed and held ready on the east. Another
column, 2,000 strong, waited opposite the south angle, the soldiers
ready and eager for the assault.
[=The Fort Carried by Storm=]
A little after eleven the mines were fired. The explosion caused
momentary panic among the garrison, and in the midst of the confusion
the two storming columns rushed for the breaches. But before they could
climb the heaps of smoking _debris_ the Tekkes were back at their
posts, and it was through a sharp fire of rifles and muskets that the
Russians pushed in through the first line of defence. The fight in and
around the breaches was a close and desperate struggle; but as the
stormers in front fell, others clambered up to replace them, and at
the same time Haidaroff, converting his false attack into a real one,
escaladed the southern wall.
[=A Frightful Massacre=]
"No quarter!" had been the shout of the Russian officers as they dashed
forward at the head of the stormers. The Tekkes expected none. They
fought in desperate knots, back to back, among the huts and tents of
the town, but at last they were driven out by the east side. Skobeleff
did not make Lomakine's mistake of blocking their way. He let them go;
but once they were out on the plain the Cossack cavalry was launched
in wild pursuit, and for ten long miles sword and spear drank deep
of the blood of the fugitives. Women as well as men were cut down or
speared as the horses overtook them. More than 8,000 Tekkes fell in the
pursuit. Asked a year after if this was true, Skobeleff said that he
had the slain counted, and that it was so. Six thousand five hundred
bodies were buried inside the fortress; eight thousand more strewed the
ten miles of the plain.
[=Submission of the Turkomans=]
Skobeleff looked on the massacre as a necessary element in the conquest
of Geok Tepe. "I hold it as a principle," he said, "that in Asia the
duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict
on the enemy. The harder you hit them the longer they will keep quiet
after it." No women, he added, were killed by the troops under his
immediate command, and he set at liberty 700 Persian women who were
captives in Geok Tepe. After ten miles the pursuit was stopped. There
was no further resistance. Not a shot was fired on either side after
that terrible day. The chiefs came in and surrendered. The other towns
in the eastern part of the oasis were occupied without fighting; nay,
more, within a month of Geok Tepe Skobeleff was able to go without a
guard into the midst of the very men who had fought against him. We in
America cannot understand the calm submission with which the Asiatic
accepts as the decree of fate the rule of the conqueror whose hand has
been heavy upon him and his. The crumbling ramparts of Geok Tepe remain
a memorial of the years of warfare which it cost the Russians; and the
iron track on which the trains steam past the ruined fortress shows how
complete has been the victory.
Skobeleff looked upon his triumph as only the first step to further
conquests. But within eighteen months of the storming of Geok Tepe
he died suddenly at Moscow. Others have built on the foundations
which he laid; and, for good or ill, the advance which began with the
subjugation of the Tekke Turkomans has now brought the Russian outposts
in Central Asia in sight of the passes that lead across the mountain
barriers of the Indian frontier.
[=Great Development of Russia in Asia=]
This conquest was quickly followed by the laying of a railroad
across the desert, from the Caspian to the sacred Mohammedan city of
Samarcand, the former capital of the terrible Timur the Tartar, and the
iron horse now penetrates freely into the heart of that once unknown
land, its shrill whistle perhaps disturbing Timur in his tomb. Across
the broad stretch of Siberia another railroad is being rapidly laid,
and extended downward through Manchuria to the borders of China, a
stupendous enterprise, the road being thousands of miles in length.
Manchuria, the native land of the Chinese emperors, is now held firmly
by Russia, and the ancient empire of Persia, on the southern border of
Turkestan, is threatened with absorption. When and where the advance
of Russia in Asia will end no man can say, perhaps not until Hindustan
is torn from British hands and the empire of the north has reached the
southern sea. While Russia in Europe comprises about 2,000,000 square
miles, Russia in Asia has attained an area of 6,564,778 square miles,
and the total area of this colossal empire is nearly equal to that of
the entire continent of North America.
The final step in colonization--if we may call it by this name--belongs
to the United States, which at the end of the century laid its hand on
two island groups of the Eastern Seas, acquiring Hawaii by peaceful
annexation and the Philippine Islands by warlike invasion. What will be
the result of this acquisition on the future of the United States it is
impossible to say, but it brings the American border close to China,
and when the destiny of that great empire is settled, the republic of
the West may have something to say.
[=The Future of Colonizing Enterprise=]
At the end of the nineteenth century the work of the colonizing powers
was fairly at an end. Nearly all the available territory of the earth
had been entered upon and occupied. But the work, while in this sense
completed, was in a fuller sense only begun. It was left for the
twentieth century for those great tracts of the earth to be brought
properly under the dominion of civilization, their abundant resources
developed, peace and prosperity brought to their fertile soils, and
their long turbulent population taught the arts of peaceful progress
and civilized industry.
CHAPTER XXII.
How the United States Entered the Century.
[=The Great Republic of the West=]
Hitherto our attention has been directed to the Eastern Hemisphere,
and to the stirring events of nineteenth century history in that
great section of the earth. But beyond the ocean, in North America, a
greater event, one filled with more promise for mankind, one destined
to loom larger on the horizon of time, was meanwhile taking place, the
development of the noble commonwealth of the United States of America.
To this far-extending Republic of the West, a nation almost solely an
outgrowth of the nineteenth century, our attention needs now to be
turned. Its history is one full of great steps of progress, illuminated
by a hundred events of the highest promise and significance, and it
stands to-day as a beacon light of national progress and human liberty
to the world, "the land of the brave and the home of the free."
A hundred years ago the giant here described was but a babe, a newborn
nation just beginning to feel the strength of its limbs. It is with
this section of its history that we are here concerned, its days of
origin and childhood. Two events of extraordinary significance in human
history rise before us in the final quarter of the eighteenth century,
the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence and
its results. The first of these revolutionary events we have dealt
with; the second remains to be presented.
[=The Great Men who Founded our Nation=]
There is one circumstance that impresses us most strongly in this
great event, the remarkable group of able men who laid the foundation
of the American commonwealth. Among those whose hands gave the first
impulse to the ship of state were men of such noble proportions as
George Washington, the greatest man of the century not only in America
but in the whole world; Benjamin Franklin, who came closely to the
level of Washington in another field of human greatness; Patrick Henry,
whose masterpieces of oratory still stir the soul like trumpet-blasts;
Thomas Jefferson, to whose genius we owe the inimitable "Declaration of
Independence;" Thomas Paine, whose pen had the point of a sword and the
strength of an army; John Paul Jones, the hero of the most brilliant
feat of daring in the whole era of naval warfare, and Alexander
Hamilton, whose financial genius saved the infant state in one of the
most critical moments of its career. These were not the whole of that
surpassing coterie, but simply in their special fields the greatest,
and it is doubtful if the earth ever saw an abler group of statesmen
than those to whom we owe the Constitution of the United States.
It is not our purpose to tell the story of the American Revolution.
That lies back of the borders of time within which this work is
confined. But some brief statement of its results is in order, as an
introduction to the nineteenth century record of the United States.
[=Weakness of the States After the Revolution=]
It was a country in almost an expiring state when it emerged from
the fierce death struggle of the Revolution. It had been swept by
fire and sword, its resources destroyed, its industries ruined, its
government financially bankrupt, its organization in a state of
tottering weakness, little left it but the courage of its people and
the aspirations of its leaders. But in courage and aspiration safety
and progress lie, and with those for its motive forces the future of
the country was assured.
The weakness spoken of was not the only or the worst weakness with
which the new community had to contend. Though named the United
States, its chief danger lay in its lack of union. The thirteen recent
colonies--now states--were combined only by the feeblest of bonds,
one calculated to carry them through an emergency, not to hold them
together under all the contingencies of human affairs. Practically
they were thirteen distinct nations, not one close union; a group of
communities with a few ties of common self-interest, but otherwise
disunited and distinct.
[=The Articles of Confederation=]
"Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" had been adopted in
1777 and ratified by the agreement of all the states in 1781. But the
Confederation was not a union. Each state claimed to be a sovereign
commonwealth, and little power was given to the central government.
The weak point in the Articles of Confederation was that they gave
Congress no power to lay taxes or to levy soldiers. It could merely
ask the states for men and money, but must wait till they were ready
to give them--if they chose to do so at all. It could make treaties,
but could not enforce them; could borrow money, but could not repay it;
could make war, but could not force a man to join its armies; could
recommend, but had no power to act.
The states proposed to remain independent except in minor particulars.
They were jealous of one another and of the general Congress. "We are,"
said Washington, "one nation to-day and thirteen to-morrow." That well
expressed the state of the case; no true union existed; the states were
free to join hands more closely or to drift more widely asunder.
[=False Ideas in Finance=]
The time from the revolt against the stamp duties in 1775 to the
inauguration in 1789 of the National Government under which we live
has been called the critical period of American history. It was
a period which displayed all the inaptitude of the Americans for
sound financiering. There is hardly an evil in finances that cannot
be illustrated by some event in American affairs at that time. The
Americans began the war without any preparation, they conducted it
on credit, and at the end of fourteen years three millions of people
were five hundred millions of dollars or more in debt. The exact
amount will never be known. Congress and the State Legislatures issued
paper currency in unlimited quantities and upon no security. The
Americans were deceived themselves in believing that their products
were essential to the welfare of Europe, and that all European nations
would speedily make overtures to them for the control of American
commerce. It may be said that the Americans wholly over-estimated their
importance in the world at that time; they thought that to cut off
England from American commerce would ruin England; they thought that
the bestowal of their commerce upon France would enrich France so much
that the French king, for so inestimable a privilege, could well afford
to loan them, and even to give them, money.
The doctrine of the rights of man ran riot in America. Paper currency
became the infatuation of the day. It was thought that paper currency
would meet all the demands for money, would win American independence.
Even so practical a man as Franklin, then in France, said: "This
effect of paper currency is not understood on this side the water;
and, indeed, the whole is a mystery even to the politicians, how we
have been able to continue a war four years without money, and how we
could pay with paper that had no previously fixed fund appropriated
specifically to redeem it. This currency, as we manage it, is a
wonderful machine: it performs its office when we issue it; it pays
and clothes troops and provides victuals and ammunition, and when
we are obliged to issue a quantity excessive, it pays itself off by
depreciation."
If the taxing power is the most august power in government, the abuse
of the taxing power is the most serious sin government can commit.
No one will deny that the Americans were guilty of committing most
grievous financial offenses during the critical period of their
history. They abused liberty by demanding and by exercising the rights
of nationality, and at the same time by neglecting or refusing to
burden themselves with the taxation necessary to support nationality.
[=Constitutions of Colonies and Confederated States=]
The inability of the Congress of the Confederation to legislate under
the provisions of the Articles compelled their amendment; for while
the exigencies of war had forced the colonies into closer union,--a
"perpetual league of friendship,"--they had also learned additional
lessons in the theory and administration of local government; for
each of the colonies, with the exception of Connecticut and Rhode
Island, had transformed colonial government into government under
a constitution. The people had not looked to Congress as a central
power; they considered it as a central committee of the States. The
individualistic tendencies of the colonies strengthened when the
colonies transformed themselves into commonwealths.
The struggle, which began between the thirteen colonies and the
imperial Parliament, was now transformed into a struggle between two
tendencies in America, the tendency toward sovereign commonwealths and
the tendency toward nationality. The first commonwealth constitutions
did not acknowledge the supreme authority of Congress; there was yet
lacking that essential bond between the people and their general
government, the power of the general government to address itself
directly to individuals. Interstate relations in 1787 were scarcely
more perfect than they had been fifteen years before. The understanding
of American affairs was more common, but intimate political association
between the commonwealths was still unknown. The liberty of nationality
had not yet been won. A peculiar tendency in American affairs from
their beginning is seen in the succession of written constitutions,
instruments peculiar to America. The commonwealths of the old
Confederation demonstrated the necessity for a clearer definition of
their relations to each other and of the association of the American
people in nationality.
[=The Constitutional Convention and its Work=]
A sense of the necessity for commercial integrity led to the calling
of the Philadelphia Convention to amend the old Articles, but when
the Convention assembled it was found that an adequate solution of
the large problem of nationality could not be found in an amendment
of the old "Articles of Confederation," but called for a new and
more vigorous Constitution. This Convention combined the associated
states into a strongly united nation, possessed of all the powers of
nationality, civil, financial and military. It organized a tripartite
government, consisting of Supreme Executive, Supreme Legislative, and
Supreme Judicial departments, each with all the power "necessary to
make it feared and respected." While the Upper House of Congress still
represented the states as separate commonwealths, the Lower House
represented the people as individuals; it standing, not for a group
of distinct communities, but for a nation of people. And to this House
was given the sole power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and
excises, and to pay the debt, and provide for the common defence and
general welfare of the United States."
With this Constitution the United States of America first came into
existence; a strong, energetic and capable nation; its government
possessed of all the powers necessary to the full control of the
states, and full ability to make itself respected abroad; its people
possessed of all the civil rights yet known or demanded.
[=Restrictions on the Right of Suffrage=]
Yet the people, in their political privileges, were still controlled by
the constitutions of the states, and these fixed close restrictions on
the right of suffrage, the electorate being confined to a small body
whose ownership of real estate and whose religious opinions agreed
with the ideas existing in colonial times. The property each voter was
required to possess differed in different commonwealths. In New Jersey
he must have property to the value of fifty pounds, in Maryland and the
Carolinas an estate of fifty acres, in Delaware a freehold estate of
known value, in Georgia an estate of ten dollars or follow a mechanic
trade; in New York, if he would vote for a member of Assembly he must
possess a freehold of twenty pounds, and if he would vote for State
Senator, it must be a hundred. Massachusetts required an elector to own
a freehold estate worth sixty pounds or to possess an annual income of
three pounds. Connecticut was satisfied if his estate was of the yearly
value of seven dollars, and Rhode Island required him to own the value
of one hundred and thirty-four dollars in land. Pennsylvania required
him to be a freeholder, but New Hampshire and Vermont were satisfied
with the payment of a poll-tax.
[=Religious Qualifications of Voters=]
The number of electors was still further affected by the religious
opinions required of them. In New Jersey, in New Hampshire, in Vermont,
in Connecticut, and in South Carolina, no Roman Catholic could vote;
Maryland and Massachusetts allowed "those of the Christian religion" to
exercise the franchise, but the "Christian religion" in Massachusetts
was of the Congregational Church. North Carolina required her electors
to believe in the divine authority of the Scriptures; Delaware was
satisfied with a belief in the Trinity and in the inspiration of
the Bible; Pennsylvania allowed those, otherwise qualified, to vote
who believed "in one God, in the reward of good, and the punishment
of evil, and in the inspiration of the Scriptures." In New York, in
Virginia, in Georgia, and in Rhode Island, the Protestant faith was
predominant, but a Roman Catholic, if a male resident, of the age of
twenty-one years or over, could vote in Rhode Island.
[=Property Qualifications of Officials=]
The property qualifications which limited the number of electors were
higher for those who sought office. If a man wished to be governor of
New Jersey or of South Carolina, his real and personal property must
amount to ten thousand dollars; in North Carolina to one thousand
pounds; in Georgia to two hundred and fifty pounds or two hundred
and fifty acres of land; in New Hampshire to five hundred pounds; in
Maryland to ten times as much, of which a thousand pounds must be of
land; in Delaware he must own real estate; in New York he must be
worth a hundred pounds; in Rhode Island, one hundred and thirty-four
dollars; and in Massachusetts a thousand pounds. Connecticut required
her candidate for governor to be qualified as an elector, as did
New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In all the
commonwealths the candidate for office must possess the religious
qualifications required of electors.
[=Condition of the Country in 1787=]
From these statements it is evident that the suffrage in the United
States was greatly limited when, after the winning of American
independence, the Constitution of the United States was framed and the
commonwealths had adopted their first constitutions of government. It
may be said that in 1787 the country was bankrupt, and America was
without credit, and that of a population of three million souls, who,
by our present ratio, would represent six hundred thousand voters,
less than one hundred and fifty thousand possessed the right to vote.
African slavery and property qualifications excluded above four hundred
thousand men from the exercise of the franchise. It is evident, then,
that at the time when American liberty was won American liberty had
only begun; the offices of the country were in the possession of
the few, scarcely any provision existed for common education, the
roads of the country may be described as impassable, the means for
transportation, trade, and commerce as feeble. If the struggle for
liberty in America was not to be in vain, the people of the United
States must address themselves directly to the payment of their debts,
to the enlargement of the franchise, to improvements in transportation,
and to the creation, organization, and support of a national system of
common taxation. It is these great changes which constitute the history
of this country during the nineteenth century.
[=Payment of Debt and Extension of Suffrage=]
All these have been gained since the adoption of the Constitution.
The remarkable financial operations of Alexander Hamilton--by which
the crushing load of debt of the new nation was funded, for payment
in after years a customs tariff established as a means of obtaining
revenue, and provision made for paying the claims of the soldiers
of the Revolution--saved the credit and secured the honor of the
nation. As regards the franchise, it was greatly extended during the
nineteenth century. By the time the Erie canal was excavated property
qualifications for suffrage had disappeared in nearly all the states,
and by the middle of the century such qualifications had been abandoned
in them all. Those of a religious character had vanished thirty years
earlier.
As yet, however, the right to vote was limited to "free, white, male
citizens." Twenty years afterwards, on March 30, 1870, a further great
extension of the right of suffrage was made, when, in accordance with
the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, it was proclaimed by
Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, that the right of citizens of this
country to vote could not be denied or abridged by the United States
or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.
Universal suffrage, so far as male citizens were concerned, thus
became the common condition of American political life in 1870. But
the struggle for liberty in this direction was not yet ended. Female
citizens, about the middle of the century, gave voice to their claim to
the same right, and with such effort that they had gained the right to
vote at all elections in four of the States--Wyoming, Colorado, Utah,
and Idaho--by the end of the century, and partial rights of suffrage
in a majority of the States. The outlook is that before many years
universal suffrage in its fullest sense will be established in the
United States.
[=Development in State Constitutions=]
With the westward movements of the millions of human beings who have
occupied the North American continent have gone the institutions and
constitutions of the east, modified in their journey westward by the
varying conditions of the life of the people. The brief constitutions
of 1776 have developed into extraordinary length by successive
changes and additions made by the more than seventy Constitutional
Conventions which have been held west of the original thirteen States.
These later constitutions resemble elaborate legal codes rather
than brief statements of the fundamental ideas of government. But
these constitutions, of which those of the Dakotas and of Montana
and Washington are a type, express very clearly the opinions of
the American people in government at the present time. The earnest
desire shown in them for an accurate definition of the theory and the
administration of government proves how anxiously the people of this
country at all times consider the interpretation of their liberties,
and with what hesitation, it may be said, they delegate their powers in
government to legislatures, to judges, and to governors.
[=Progress in the United States=]
The struggle for liberty will never cease, for with the progress of
civilization new definitions of the wants of the people are constantly
forming in the mind. The whole movement of the American people in
government, from the simple beginnings of representative government in
Virginia, when the little parliament was called, to the present time,
when nationality is enthroned and mighty commonwealths are become the
component parts of the "more perfect union," has been toward the slow
but constant realization of the rights and liberties of the people.
Education, for which no commonwealth made adequate provision a century
ago, is now the first care of the State. Easy and rapid transportation,
wholly unknown to our fathers, is now a necessary condition of daily
life. Trade has so prospered that the accumulated wealth of the country
is more than sixty billions of dollars. Newspapers, magazines, books
and pamphlets are now so numerous as to make it impossible to contain
them all in hundreds of libraries, and the American people have become
the largest class of readers in the world.
A century ago there were but six cities of more than eight thousand
people in this country; the number is now more than five hundred.
Three millions of people have become seventy-five millions. The area
of the original United States has expanded from eight hundred and
thirty thousand square miles to four times that area. With expansion
and growth and the amelioration in the conditions of life, the earnest
problems of government have been brought home to the people by the
leaders in the State, by the clergy, by the teachers in schools and
colleges, and by the press.
But though we may be proud of these conquests, we are compelled in
the last analysis of our institutions, to return to a few fundamental
notions of our government. We must continue the representative idea
based upon the doctrine of the equality of rights and exercised by
representative assemblies founded on popular elections; and after our
most pleasing contemplation of the institutions of America, we must
return to the people, the foundation of our government. Their wisdom
and self-control, and these alone, will impart to our institutions that
strength which insures their perpetuity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Expansion of the United States from Dwarf to Giant.
In 1775, when the British colonies in America struck the first blow
for independence, they were of dwarfish stature as compared with the
present superb dimensions of the United States. Though the war with
France had given them possession of the great Ohio Valley, the settled
portion of the country lay between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic,
and the thirteen confederated States were confined to a narrow strip
along the ocean border of the continent.
But before and during the Revolutionary War pathfinders and pioneers
were at work. Chief among them was the noted hunter Daniel Boone, the
explorer and settler of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" of Kentucky.
Before him daring men had crossed the mountains, and after him came
others, so that by the end of the Revolution the hand of civilization
was firmly laid on the broad forest land of Kentucky and Tennessee. The
rich country north of the Ohio, where the British possessed a number of
forts, was captured for the United States by another daring adventurer,
George Rogers Clark, who led a body of men down the Ohio, took and held
the British forts, and saved the northwest to the struggling States.
The boundaries of the United States in 1800, as established by the
treaty of peace with Great Britain, extended from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Mississippi, and from the Great Lakes on the north to Florida
on the south. Florida, then held by Spain, included a strip of land
extending to the Mississippi River, so that the new republic was cut
off from the Gulf of Mexico by domain belonging to a foreign country.
The area thus acquired by the new nation was over 827,000 square miles.
It was inhabited in 1800 by a population of 5,300,000.
The vast and almost wholly unknown territory west of the Mississippi,
claimed by France, in virtue of her discoveries and settlements on the
great river, until 1763, when it was ceded to Spain, was held by that
country in 1800. This cession gave Spain complete control of the lower
course of the Mississippi, since her province of Florida extended to
the east bank of the stream. And she held it in a manner that proved
deeply annoying to the American settlers in the west, to whom free
navigation of the Mississippi was of great and growing importance.
[=The Settlement of the West=]
These settlers were increasing in numbers with considerable rapidity.
The daring enterprise of Daniel Boone and other fearless pioneers had
opened up the fertile lands of Kentucky and Tennessee. The warlike
boldness of Colonel Clark had gained the northwest territory for the
new nation. Into this new country pioneer settlers poured, over the
mountains and down the Ohio, and by the opening of the century villages
and towns had been built in a hundred places, and farmers were widely
felling the virgin woods and planting their grain in the fertile soil.
Kentucky and Tennessee had already been organized as states, and their
admission was quickly followed by that of Ohio, which entered the Union
in 1803. In the same year an event of the highest importance took
place, the acquisition of the great Louisiana territory by the United
States.
[=Spain Closes the Mississippi to Traffic=]
It has been stated above that the action of Spain gave great annoyance
to the settlers in the country west of the Alleghanies. To these the
natural commercial outlet to the sea was the Mississippi River, and the
free use of this stream was forbidden by Spain, through whose country
ran its lower course. Spain was so determined to retain for herself the
exclusive navigation of the great river that in 1786 the new American
republic withdrew all claim upon it, agreeing to withhold any demand
for navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five years.
This action proved to be hasty and unwise. The West filled up with
unlooked-for rapidity, and the settlers upon the Mississippi soon began
to insist on free use of its waters, their irritation growing so great
that the United States vainly sought in 1793 to induce Spain to open
the stream to American craft. This purpose was attained, however, in
1795, when a treaty was made which opened the Mississippi to the sea
for a term of three years, with permission for Americans to use New
Orleans as a free port of entry, and place goods there on deposit.
[=France Obtains Louisiana=]
Five years later (1800), by an article in a secret treaty between
Spain and France, the vast province of Louisiana, extending from the
source to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and westward to the Rocky
Mountains, was ceded by Spain to France, from which country Spain had
received it in 1763. Towards the end of 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte, then
at the head of French affairs, sent out a fleet and army ostensibly to
act against San Domingo, but really to take possession of New Orleans.
When the secret of this treaty leaked out, as it soon did, there was
great excitement in the United States, the irritation being increased
by a Spanish order which withdrew the right of deposit of American
merchandise in New Orleans, granted by the treaty of 1795, and failed
to substitute any other place for that city, in accordance with the
terms of the treaty. So strong was the feeling that a Pennsylvania
Senator introduced a resolution into Congress, authorizing President
Jefferson to call out 50,000 militia and occupy New Orleans. But
Congress wisely decided that it would be better and cheaper to buy
it than to fight for it, and in January, 1803, made an appropriation
of $2,000,000 for its purchase. The President thereupon sent James
Monroe to Paris to co-operate with Robert R. Livingston, United States
Minister to France, in the proposed purchase.
[=The Louisiana Purchase=]
Fortunately for the United States a new war between England and
France was then imminent, in the event of which Napoleon felt that
he could not long hold his American acquisition against the powerful
British navy. Not only New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana, would
probably be lost to him, and just then money for his wars was of more
consequence than wild lands beyond the sea. Therefore, to the surprise
of the American Minister, he was asked to make an offer for the entire
territory. This was on April 11th. On the 12th Monroe reached Paris.
The two commissioners earnestly debated on the offer. They had no
authority to close with such a proposition, but by the time they could
receive fresh instructions from Washington the golden opportunity
might be lost, and Great Britain deprive us of the mighty West. An
ocean telegraph cable would have been to them an invaluable boon. As
it was, there was no time to hesitate, and they decided to close with
the offer, fixing the purchase price at $10,000,000. Napoleon demanded
more, and in the end the price fixed upon was $15,000,000, of which
$3,750,000 was to be paid to American citizens who held claims against
Spain. A treaty to this effect was signed April 30, 1803.
[=How the Purchase Was Received=]
The news fell upon Spain like a thunderbolt. She filed a protest
against the treaty--based, probably, on a secret condition of her
cession of Louisiana to France, to the effect that it should not be
parted with by that country. But Napoleon was not the man to pay any
attention to a protest from a power so weak as Spain, and the matter
was one with which the United States was not concerned. President
Jefferson highly approved of the purchase, and called an extra session
of the Senate for its consideration. It met with some vigorous
opposition in that body, based upon almost absolute ignorance of the
value of the territory involved; but it was ratified in October, 1803,
and Louisiana became ours. The territory thus easily and cheaply
acquired added about 920,000 square miles to the United States, more
than doubling its area. It is now divided up into a large number of
States, and includes much of the most productive agricultural land of
the United States.
[=Ignorance of the Country=]
The members of the Senate who opposed the ratification of the treaty
of purchase were in a measure justified in their doubt. Almost nothing
was known of the country involved, and many idle legends were afloat
concerning it. Hunters and trappers had penetrated its wilds, but the
stories told by them had been transformed out of all semblance of
truth. In order to dispel this ignorance and satisfy these doubts,
the President determined to send an exploring expedition to the far
West, with the purpose of crossing the Rocky Mountains, seeking
the head-waters of the Columbia River, and following that stream
to its mouth. The men chosen to lead this expedition were William
Clark--brother of George Rogers Clark, of Revolutionary fame--and
Merriwether Lewis. Both of these were army officers, and they were well
adapted for the arduous enterprise which they were asked to undertake.
[=The Lewis and Clark Expedition=]
Lewis and Clark left St. Louis in the summer of 1803. They encamped for
the winter on the bank of the Mississippi opposite the mouth of the
Missouri River. The company included nine Kentuckians, who were used to
Indian ways and frontier life, fourteen soldiers, two Canadian boatmen,
an interpreter, a hunter and a negro boatman. Besides these, a corporal
and guard with nine boatmen were engaged to accompany the expedition as
far as the territory of the Mandans.
The party carried with it the usual goods for trading with the
Indians--looking-glasses, beads, trinkets, hatchets, etc., and such
provisions as were necessary for the sustenance of its members. While
the greater part of the command embarked in a fleet of three large
canoes, the hunters and pack-horses followed a parallel route along
the shore. In this way, in the spring of 1804, the ascent of the
Missouri was commenced. In June the country of the Osages was reached,
then the lands occupied by the Ottawa tribes, and finally, in the fall,
the hunting grounds of the Sioux. Here the leaders of the expedition
ordered cabins to be constructed, and camped for the winter among
the Mandans, in latitude 27 degrees 21 minutes north. They found in
that country plenty of game, buffalo and deer being abundant; but the
weather was intensely cold and the expedition was hardly prepared for
the severity of the climate, so that its members suffered greatly.
In April a fresh start was made and the party continued to ascend
the Missouri, reaching the great falls by June. Here they named the
tributary waters and ascended the northernmost, which they called the
Jefferson River, until further navigation was impossible; then Captain
Lewis with three companions left the expedition in camp and started
out on foot toward the mountains, in search of the friendly Shoshone
Indians, from whom he expected assistance in his projected journey
across the mountains.
[=The Head-Waters of the Columbia=]
On the 12th of August he discovered the source of the Jefferson River
in a defile of the Rocky Mountains and crossed the dividing ridge, upon
the other side of which his eyes were gladdened by the discovery of a
small rivulet which flowed toward the west. Here was proof irrefutable
"that the great backbone of earth" had been passed. The intrepid
explorer saw with joy that this little stream danced out toward the
setting sun--toward the Pacific Ocean. Meeting a force of Shoshones
and persuading them to accompany him on his return to the main body of
the expedition, Captain Lewis sought his companions once more. Captain
Clark then went forward to determine their future course, and coming
to the river which his companion had discovered, he named it the Lewis
River.
[=Descending the Columbia=]
A number of Indian horses were procured from their red-skinned friends
and the explorers pushed on to the broad plains of the western
slope. The latter part of their progress in the mountains had been
slow and painful, because of the early fall of snow, but the plains
presented all the charm of early autumn. In October the Kaskaskia
River was reached, and, leaving the horses and whatever baggage could
be dispensed with in charge of the Indians, the command embarked in
canoes and descended to the mouth of the Columbia River, upon the
south bank of which, four hundred miles from their starting point upon
this stream, they passed the second winter. Much of the return journey
was a fight with hostile Indians, and the way proved to be much more
difficult than it had been found while advancing toward the west. Lewis
was wounded before reaching home, by the accidental discharge of a gun
in the hands of one of his force.
Finally, after an absence of two years, the expedition returned to its
starting point, the leaders reaching Washington while Congress was in
session. Grants of land were immediately made to them and to their
subordinates. Captain Lewis was rewarded also with the governorship of
Missouri. Clark was appointed brigadier-general for the territory of
Upper Louisiana, and in 1813 was made governor of Missouri. When this
Territory became a State he was appointed superintendent of Indian
affairs, which office he filled till his death.
[=Spain's Irritating Action=]
The second acquisition of territory by the United States embraced
the peninsula of Florida. The Spanish colony of Florida was divided
into two sections, known as Eastern and Western Florida, the latter
extending from the Appalachicola River to the Mississippi River, and
cutting off the Americans of Florida and Alabama from all access to the
Gulf. Spain set up a customhouse at the mouth of the Alabama River, and
levied heavy duties on goods to or from the country up that stream.
[=Western Florida Occupied=]
The United States was not willing to acknowledge the right of Spain
to this country. It claimed that the Louisiana purchase included the
region east of the Mississippi as far as the Perdido River,--the
present western boundary of Florida--and in 1810 a force was sent
into this country which took possession of it, with the exception
of the city of Mobile. That city was occupied by General Wilkinson,
commander-in-chief of the army, in 1813, leaving to Spain only the
country between the Perdido and the Atlantic Ocean and south of Georgia.
[=General Jackson Invades Eastern Florida=]
Throughout these years the purpose had grown in the southern states
to gain this portion of the Spanish dominion, as well as Western
Florida, for the United States. On January 15 and March 3, 1811,
the United States Congress passed in secret--and its action was not
made known until 1818--acts which authorized the President of the
United States to take "temporary possession" of East Florida. The
commissioners appointed under these acts, Matthews and Mitchell, both
Georgians, stirred up insurrection in the coveted territory, and,
when President Madison refused to sustain them, the state of Georgia
formally pronounced Florida needful to its own peace and welfare, and
practically declared war on its private account. But its expedition
against Florida came to nothing. In 1814, General Andrew Jackson,
then in command of United States forces at Mobile, made a raid into
Pensacola, and drove out a British force which had been placed there.
He afterwards restored the place to the Spanish authorities and
retired. Four years after, during the Seminole war, Jackson, annoyed by
Spanish assistance given to the Indians, again raided Eastern Florida,
captured St. Marks and Pensacola, hung Arbuthnot and Ambruster, two
Englishmen who were suspected of aiding the Seminoles, as "outlaws and
pirates," and again demonstrated the fact that Florida was at the mercy
of the United States.
[=The Purchase of Florida=]
The action of Jackson was unauthorized by the government, and his
hanging the Englishmen without taking the trouble to make sure of their
guilt caused a feeling of hostile irritation in England. But it had by
this time grown quite evident to Spain, both that it could not hold
Florida in peace and that this colony was of very little value to it.
In consequence it agreed to sell the peninsula to the United States
for the sum of $5,000,000, the treaty being signed February 22, 1819.
By this treaty Spain also gave up all claim to the country west of the
Louisiana purchase, extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean. The purchase of Florida added 59,268 square miles to the United
States, and the way was cleared for the subsequent acquisition of the
Oregon country.
[=Texas Gains Freedom and is Annexed to the United
States=]
The next accession of territory came in 1845, when Texas was added to
the dominion of the United States. This country had, since 1821, been
one of the states of the Mexican Republic. But American frontiersmen,
of the kind calculated to foment trouble, soon made their way across
the borders, increasing in numbers as the years passed on, until Texas
had a considerable population of United States origin. Efforts were
made to purchase this country from Mexico, $1,000,000 being offered in
1827 and $5,000,000 in 1829. These were declined, and in 1833 Texas
adopted a constitution as a state of the Mexican republic. Two years
later Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, was made dictator, and all
state constitutions were abolished. Irritated by this, the American
inhabitants declared the independence of Texas in 1836, and after a
short war, marked by instances of savage cruelty on the part of the
Mexicans, gained freedom for that country. Texas was organized as a
republic, but its people soon applied for annexation to the United
States. This was not granted until 1845. The territory added to this
country by the admission of Texas amounted to 376,133 square miles.
[=The Oregon Country=]
In the following year another large section of territory was added
to the rapidly growing United States. The Louisiana purchase ran
indefinitely westward, but came to be considered as bounded on the
west by the Rocky Mountains, Spain retaining a shadowy claim over the
country west of that range. This exceedingly vague claim was abandoned
in the Florida purchase treaty, and the broad Oregon country was left
without an owner. The United States, indeed, might justly have claimed
ownership on the same plea advanced for new regions elsewhere--namely,
that of discovery and exploration. Captain Grey, in his ship, the
_Columbia_, carried the starry flag to its coast in 1792, and was the
first to enter and sail up its great river, which he named after his
vessel. In 1805 the country was traversed and explored by Lewis and
Clark. In 1811 John Jacob Astor founded the settlement of Astoria at
the mouth of the Columbia, and sent hunters in search of furs through
the back country. And in 1819 the vague right over the country held by
Spain was transferred by treaty to the United States.
These various circumstances would have established a prescriptive right
to the country concerned as against other countries, had any thought
of claiming such a right been entertained. But no man, statesman or
commoner, thought the country worth the value of even a paper claim,
and it was left unconsidered and unthought of until the century was
well advanced. Then, after the Hudson Bay Company had gained control of
Astoria, and had begun to fill the country with fur hunters, a living
sense of the value of this great region came to the mind of one man.
[=Whitman's Ride=]
[=Oregon Is Acquired=]
This was Dr. Marcus Whitman, a missionary physician among the Indians
of the Columbia River region. He discovered that the Hudson Bay Company
was making efforts to bring permanent settlers there, and that it
proposed to claim the country for Great Britain. At once the energetic
doctor set out for Washington, crossing the vast stretch of country
from the Pacific to the Atlantic on horseback and traversing the Rocky
Mountains in the dead of winter. It was a long and terrible journey,
full of perils and hardships, but he accomplished it in safety, and
strongly urged the government at Washington to lay claim to the
country. Even then it was hard to arouse an interest in the statesmen
concerning this far-off territory, so the brave pioneer went among
the people, told them of the beauty of the country and the fertility
of its soil, and on his return, in 1843, took with him an emigrant
train of nearly a thousand persons. This settled the question. The
newcomers formed a government of their own. Others followed, and the
question of ownership was practically settled. In 1845 there were
some 7,000 Americans in Oregon and only a few British. By that time a
stern determination had arisen in the people of this country to retain
Oregon. A claim was made on the whole western region up to the parallel
of 54 degrees 40 minutes, the southern boundary of Russian America,
and the political war-cry of that year was "fifty-four forty or
fight." In 1846 the question was settled by treaty with Great Britain,
the disputed country being divided at the forty-ninth parallel. The
northern portion became British Columbia, the southern Oregon. In this
way it was that the United States spanned the continent and established
its dominion from ocean to ocean. The tract acquired measured about
255,000 square miles. It now constitutes the States of Oregon,
Washington and Idaho.
The United States grew with extraordinary rapidity in the decade with
which we are now concerned, the acquisition of Texas and Florida being
followed in 1848 by another great addition of territory, much larger
than either. This came as the result of the annexation of Texas.
[=War With Mexico and Its Results=]
Mexico had never acknowledged the independence of the "Lone Star
Republic," and was deeply dissatisfied at its acquisition by the United
States, which it looked upon as an unwarranted interference in its
private affairs. The strained relations between the two countries were
made more stringent by a dispute as to the western boundary of Texas,
both countries claiming the strip of land between the Rio Grande and
Nueces Rivers. The result was a war, the description of which must be
left for a later chapter. It will suffice here to say that the American
troops marched steadily to victory, and at the end of the war held two
large districts of northern Mexico, those of New Mexico and California.
The occupation of these Mexican states gave this country a warrant to
claim them as the prizes of victory.
[=California and New Mexico Purchased=]
But there was no disposition shown to despoil the defeated party
without compensation. An agreement was made to pay Mexico $15,000,000
for New Mexico and California, and to assume debts owed by Mexico to
United States citizens amounting to about $3,000,000. The territory
thus acquired was 545,783 square miles in extent. Of its immense value
we need scarce speak. It will suffice to say that it gave the United
States the gold mines of California and the silver mines of Nevada,
together with the still more valuable fertile fields of the California
lowlands. Five years afterwards, to settle a border dispute, another
tract of land, south of New Mexico, 45,535 square miles in extent, was
purchased for the sum of $10,000,000. This is known as the Gadsden
purchase, the treaty being negociated by James Gadsden. Thus in less
than ten years the United States acquired more than 1,220,000 square
miles of territory, increasing its domain by nearly three-fourths.
These new acquisitions carried it across the continent in a broad band,
giving it a coast line on the Pacific nearly equal to that on the
Atlantic, and adding enormously to its mineral and agricultural wealth.
[=The Acquisition of Russian America=]
Still another extensive acquisition remained to be made. Long
before, when the daring pioneers of Russia overran Siberia, parties
of them crossed the narrow Bering Strait and took possession of the
northwestern section of the American continent. This territory, long
known as Russian America, embraced the broad peninsular extension west
of the 141st degree of west longitude, and a narrow strip of land
stretching down the coast as far south as the parallel of 54 degrees
40 minutes. It included also all the coast islands and the Aleutian
Archipelago, with the exception of Copper and Bering Islands on the
Siberian coast. This territory was of little value or advantage to
Russia, and in 1867 that country offered to sell it to the United
States for $7,200,000. The offer was accepted without hesitation, the
result being an addition of 577,000 square miles to our territory.
[=The Wealth of Alaska=]
As regards the value of this acquisition something more remains to
be said. The active Yankee prospectors have found Alaska--as the new
territory was named--far richer than its original owners dreamed of.
It was like the story of California repeated. First were the valuable
fur seals, which haunted certain islands of Bering Sea. Then were
the fur animals of the mainland. To these must be added the wealth
of the rivers, which were found to swarm with salmon and other food
fishes. Next may be named the forests, which cover the coast regions
for hundreds of square miles. Finally, the country proved to be rich
in mineral wealth, and especially in gold. The recently discovered
gold deposits lie principally on the British side of the border, the
Klondike diggings--developed in 1897--being in Canada. But gold has
been mined in Alaska for years, and probably exists on most of the
tributaries of the Yukon River, so that the country may yet prove to be
a second California in its golden treasures.
[=Island Acquisitions=]
The final acquisition of territory by the United States came in
1899, as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The treaty
of peace gave to this country a series of highly fertile tropical
islands, consisting of Porto Rico in the West Indies, and the
Philippine Archipelago in the Asiatic Seas. To these must be added a
temporary protectorate over, and possibly the future ownership of,
the broad and fertile West Indian Island of Cuba. In 1898 there came
by peaceful means another accession of territory, the Hawaiian group
of islands in the Central Pacific. These, with some islands of minor
importance--including Guam, in the Ladrone group, also acquired from
Spain--constitute the recent island accessions of the United States.
Their areas are: Porto Rico, 3,530; Hawaii, 6,564; and the Philippines,
116,000 square miles; making a total of about 126,000 square miles.
As a consequence of those various accessions of territory, the United
States now has an area of, in round numbers, 3,732,000 square miles,
more than four times its area in 1800. As a result of these several
acquisitions this country has grown from one of the smaller nations to
nearly the largest nation in area, on the earth, while its population
has increased from 5,300,000 in 1800 to about 75,000,000 in 1900. Its
few small cities at the beginning of the century have been replaced
by a considerable number of large ones, three of them with more than
1,000,000 inhabitants each, while New York, the largest, is now the
second city in population on the earth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Development of Democratic Institutions in
America.
[=The Religious Origin of Modern Democracy=]
Modern democracy is often looked upon as something peculiarly secular,
unreligious, or even irreligious in its origin. In truth, however, it
has its origin in religious aspirations quite as much as modern art or
architecture or literature. To the theology of Calvin, the founder of
the Republic of Geneva, grafted upon the sturdy independence of English
and Scotch middle classes, our American democracy owes its birth. James
I. well appreciated that the principles of uncompromising Protestantism
were as incompatible with monarchy as with the hierarchy which they
swept aside. Each man by his theology was brought into direct personal
responsibility to his God, without the intervention of priest, bishop,
or pope, and without any allegiance to his king except so far as it
agreed with his allegiance to the King of kings. Macaulay has struck
this note of Puritan republicanism when he says that the Puritans
regarded themselves as "Kings by the right of an earlier creation;
priests by the interposition of an Almighty hand." As John Fiske says,
James Stuart always treasured up in his memory the day when a Puritan
preacher caught him by the sleeve and called him "God's silly vassal."
"A Scotch Presbytery," cried the king, "agrees as well with monarchy as
God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and
at their pleasure censure me and my council and all our proceedings!"
[=The Political Conceptions of the Puritans=]
But the democracy which was founded in New England as the logical
outcome of the religious principles for which the Puritans left Old
England was not democracy as we know it to-day. The Puritans, for
the most part, believed as much in divinely appointed rulers as the
monarchs against whom they rebelled; but these divinely appointed
rulers were to be the "elect of God"--those who believed as they
did, and joined with their organizations to establish His kingdom on
earth. For this reason we find the Massachusetts Colony as early as
1631 deciding that, "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this
body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within
the limits of the same." The government, in short, was simply a
democratic theocracy, and, as the colony grew in numbers, the power
came to be lodged in the hands of the minority. There were, however,
among the clergy of Massachusetts men who believed in democracy as we
understand it to-day. Alexander Johnson, in his history of Connecticut,
says with truth that Thomas Hooker, who led from Massachusetts into
Connecticut the colony which established itself at Hartford, laid
down the principle upon which the American nation long generations
after was to be established. When Governor Winthrop, in a letter to
Hooker, defended the restriction of the suffrage on the ground that
"the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser
part is always the lesser," the learned and generous-hearted pastor
replied: "In matters which concern the common good, a general council,
chosen by all to transact business which concerns all, I conceive most
suitable to rule, and most safe for the relief of the whole." The
principles of our republicanism were never better stated until Lincoln
in his oration at Gettysburg made his appeal that this nation might be
consecrated anew in the fulfillment of its mission, and that government
"from the people, for the people, by the people" might not perish from
the earth. Both Hooker and Lincoln had a supreme belief in the wisdom
of the plain people in the matters which affect their own lives. The
rank and file of the people have the surest instinct as to what will
benefit or injure the rank and file of the people, and when upon them
is placed the responsibility of determining what their government shall
be, they are educated for self-government. In the colony which Thomas
Hooker founded upon these principles there was found at the time of the
Revolution more political wisdom, more genius for self-government, and
more devotion to the patriotic cause, than in any other of the thirteen
colonies.
[=Democracy in the South=]
At the time of the Revolution, however, there was another democracy
besides that of New England which enabled the colonies successfully
to resist the Government of George III. This was the democracy of the
planters of the South. The democracy of the Southern colonies was not,
like that of New England, the democracy of collective self-government,
but the democracy of individual self-government, or, rather, of
individual self-assertion. In fact, it would hardly be too much to say
that many of the Virginia planters who espoused so warmly and fought
so bravely in the cause of liberty were not inspired by the spirit of
democracy at all, but rather by the spirit of an aristocracy which
could brook no control. These southern planters were the aristocrats
of the American Revolution. In New York City, and even in Boston and
Philadelphia, the wealthiest merchants were strongly Tory in their
sympathies. In New York it was affirmed by General Greene that
two-thirds of the land belonged to men in sympathy with the English
and out of sympathy with their fellow countrymen. In these cities it
was the plain people and the poorer classes who furnished most of the
uncompromising patriots, but in the South men of fortune risked their
fortunes in the cause of independence. These men were slave owners,
and the habit of mastery made them fiercely rebellious when George
III. attempted in any way to tyrannize over them. Many of them were
the descendants of the English nobility, and as such they acknowledged
no superiors. Naturally, then, in the struggle for liberty they
furnished the leaders of the colonists, both North and South; and the
agricultural classes, whether rich or poor, were naturally on the side
of self-government, for their isolation had from the first compelled
them to be self-governing.
[=What Was Thought of Democracy in the Federal
Convention=]
The first half century of the political history of the United States
consisted rather in the development of the political rights of the
individual citizen than of the loyalty which all owed to the American
nation. Nothing is so difficult as to keep in mind that the government
of the colonies at the close of the Revolution was not what it is
to-day, and that democracy as we know it was regarded as the dream
of theorists. Some of the members of the Federal Convention deeply
distrusted the common people. Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts,
declared that "The people do not want suffrage, but are the dupes
of pretended patriots;" and those who were at all in sympathy with
him prevented, as they imagined, the election of the President by
the people themselves, and did prevent the election of the United
States Senators by the people. Some of them were even opposed to the
election of the House of Representatives directly by the people; but,
fortunately, even Hamilton sided with Madison and Mason, when they
urged that our House of Commons ought to have at heart the rights and
interests of, and be bound, by the manner of their election, to be
the representatives of every class of people. But by "every class of
people" the framers of the Constitution from the more conservative of
the States meant simply every class of freeholders.
[=Property Qualifications for Suffrage=]
[=Chancellor Kent's Views on Universal Suffrage=]
In Virginia none could vote except those who owned fifty acres of land.
In New York, to vote for Governor or State Senator, a freehold worth
$250 clear of mortgage was necessary, and to vote for Assemblymen a
freehold of $50 or the payment of a yearly rent of $10 was necessary.
Even Thomas Jefferson, who was the Democratic philosopher of the
Revolutionary period, did not strenuously insist that the suffrage
must be universal, and it was not for a half century that it became
universal, even among white males. In the State of New York these
restrictions existed until the adoption of the Constitution of 1821,
and even this Constitution merely reduced the privileges of land
owners. Old Chancellor Kent, the author of "Kent's Commentaries,"
declared in this convention that he would not "bow before the idol of
universal suffrage," the theory which he said had "been regarded with
terror by the wise men of every age," and whenever tried had brought
"corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny." "If universal suffrage
were adopted," he declared, "prosperity would deplore in sackcloth and
ashes the delusion of the day." The horrors of the French Revolution
were always held up by conservatives to show that the people could not
be trusted, and the learned author of the "Commentaries," which every
lawyer has pored over, maintained that, if universal suffrage should
be adopted, "The radicals of England, with the force of that mighty
engine, would sweep away the property, the laws, and the people of that
island like a deluge." Not until between 1840 and 1850 did universal
suffrage among the whites come to be accepted in the older States.
During the first half century of our history it was the Democratic
party, the party of Jefferson, which was on the side of these
extensions of popular rights. The principle of this party was that each
State ought to legislate for itself, with the least possible control
from the central government; that each locality ought to have its
freedom of local government extended; and that each individual should
be self-governing, with the same rights and privileges for all. As
regards foreign affairs, it was characterized by a "passion for peace,"
and an abiding hostility toward a costly army and navy. Jefferson
believed that the way to avoid wars, and the way to be strong, should
war become inevitable, was by the devotion of the people to productive
industry, and not by burdening them to rival the powers of Europe in
the strength of their armaments. In the year 1800, the party which
rallied to his support--then called the Republican party, but generally
spoken of as the Democratic party--triumphed over the Federalists.
[=Federalism and Democracy in New England=]
In New England alone did Federalism remain strong at the close of
Jefferson's first administration. In that section the calvinistic
clergy, who had done so much for the establishment of American
democracy, fought fiercely against its extension. Jefferson's followers
demanded the separation of Church and State and the abolition of the
religious qualifications for office holding, which were then almost as
general as property qualifications. He was known to be in sympathy
with the French revolution, and was therefore denounced as a Jacobin,
both in religion and in politics. We cannot wonder, therefore, that
in the section in which the clergy were the real rulers, Jeffersonian
democracy was regarded with hatred and contempt. Vermont alone, among
the New England States, was from the first thoroughly democratic, and
this was because in Vermont there was no established aristocracy,
either of education or of wealth. In Connecticut, which under clerical
leadership had once been the stronghold of advanced democracy, we find
President Dwight expressing a sentiment common not only to the clergy
but to the educated classes generally, when he declared that "the great
object of Jacobinism, both in its political and moral revolution, is
to destroy every race of civilization in the world." "In the triumph
of Jeffersonianism," he said, "we have now reached a consummation of
democratic blessings; we have a country governed by blockheads and
knaves."
[=New Ideas in the New West=]
But the ideas which in New England were at first received only by the
poor and the ignorant, were in the very air which Americans breathed.
The new States which were organized at the West were aggressively
democratic from the outset. In the Northwest Territory the inequalities
against which Jeffersonian democracy protested never gained a foothold.
Here, where the State of Ohio was organized during Jefferson's first
administration, the union of Church and State was not thought of, and
no religious qualifications whatever for the office of Governor were
exacted. Property qualifications were almost as completely set aside.
While in some of the older States the Governor had to possess £5,000,
and even £10,000, Ohio's Governor was simply required to be a resident
and an owner of land. As regards inheritances, the English law of
primogeniture which remained unaltered in some of the older States,
and in New England generally took the form of a double portion to the
oldest son, was completely set aside, and all children of the same
parents became entitled to the same rights. That Ohio thus led the way
in the democratic advance was due to the fact that its constitution
was framed when these ideas had already become ascendant in the hearts
of the people, and the failure of the clergy of New England was due to
their trying to keep alive institutions which were the offspring of
another age, and could not long survive it.
[=The Decay and Disappearance of Federalism=]
For its distrust of the new democracy New England Federalism paid
heavily in the isolation, defeat, and destruction which shortly awaited
it. When the new democratic administration had fully reduced Federal
taxation and shown its capacity for government, the more liberal-minded
of the Federalists went over to the Democrats. Even Massachusetts gave
a majority for Jefferson in 1804, and when the extreme Federalists
became more extreme through the loss of their Liberal contingent, and
called the Hartford Convention, in 1814, Federalism died of its own
excesses. The policy of the democratic administration toward England
may not have been wise, but the proposal of secession in order to
resist it made Federalism almost synonymous with toryism and disloyalty.
[=A Period Without a Party=]
For a number of years after the close of the war of 1812 there was
really only one political party in the United States. In 1824, when the
contest was so close between Jackson, Adams and Clay, each of these
contestants was a "Democratic Republican," and it would have been
hard to tell what questions of policy divided their followers; though
Jackson's followers, as a rule, cared most for the extension of the
political rights of the poorer classes, and least for that policy of
protection which the war had made an important issue, by cutting off
commerce and thus calling into being extensive manufacturing interests.
That the followers of Clay finally voted for Adams may have been due
to sympathy upon this question of the tariff. In 1828 something akin
to party lines were drawn upon the question of the national bank, and
the victory of Jackson provoked the hostility of the masses toward
that institution, which certainly enriched its stockholders to such
an extent as to make them a favored class. The Tariff Act, passed in
1828, made the tariff question thenceforth the dividing question in our
national politics until slavery took its place.
Most of the absolute free-traders were supporters of Jackson, but
when South Carolina passed its Nullification Act as a protest against
the "tariff of abominations," as it was called, President Jackson
promptly declared that "the Union must and shall be preserved," and
forced the recalcitrant State to renew its allegiance to the National
Government. By the end of Jackson's administration there were again
two distinct parties in the United States; the one advocating a high
tariff and extensive national improvements by the Federal Government,
and the other advocating a low tariff and the restriction of national
expenditures to the lowest possible limit. The former party--the
Whig--was, of course, in favor of a liberal construction of the
Constitution and the extension of powers to the National Government,
while the latter advocated "strict construction" and "State rights."
[=Rise of the Democratic and Whig Parties=]
Jackson belonged to the latter party, and in 1836 was able to transfer
the succession to Van Buren. But in 1840 the Whigs swept the country,
electing Harrison and Tyler, after the most picturesque Presidential
campaign ever known in America. All the financial ills from which the
country was suffering were for the time attributed to Van Buren's
economic policy, and his alleged extravagance at the White House
enabled the Whigs to arouse the enthusiasm of the poor for their
candidate, who was claimed to live in a log cabin and drink hard cider.
During the next four years, however, there was a reaction, and in 1844
Polk was elected upon the platform on which Van Buren had stood. It
is true that in Pennsylvania the Democratic campaign cry was, "Polk,
Dallas and the tariff of '42," which was a high tariff; but in most of
the country Democracy meant "free trade and sailors' rights."
[=The Origin and Character of the Republican Party=]
From this time on, the Whig party grew weaker and the Democratic
party stronger. It is true that the Whigs elected General Taylor in
1848. The revenue tariff law passed by the Democrats in 1846 was not
changed until the still lower tariff of 1857 was enacted. By 1852 the
Whig party had so declined that it was hardly stronger than the old
Federalist party at the close of Jefferson's first term. But just as
the Democratic party became able to boast of its strength, a new party
came into being which adopted the principles of the free-soil wing of
the old Democratic party, chose the name of "Republican Party," swept
into its ranks the remnants of various political organizations of the
past, and in its second national campaign elected Abraham Lincoln to
the presidency. In this readjustment of parties the pro-slavery Whigs
went over to the Democrats and the anti-slavery Democrats went over to
the Republicans. The bolting Democrats claimed, with truth, to maintain
the principles held by their party from the time of Jefferson down,
but the party as a whole followed the interests of its most powerful
element instead of the principles of its founder. In the States from
Ohio west, where upon economic questions the Democratic party had swept
everything by increasing majorities since 1840, the bolting element was
so great that all of these States were landed in the Republican column.
One great Church--the Methodist--which before had been, as a rule,
Democratic in politics, now became solidly Republican.
[=The People's Party and Its Principles=]
From time to time, in the succeeding years, a variety of political
organizations, of minor importance, rose and declined. But none of
national significance were added to the two great parties until the
Presidential campaigns of 1892 and 1896, when a new organization,
known as the People's party, came into prominence. The principles
distinguishing it from the old Democratic and Republican parties
were its demand for a currency issued by the general Government
only, without the intervention of banks of issue, and the free and
unrestricted coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1,
regardless of foreign nations. It demanded further that the Government,
in payment of its obligations, should use its option as to the kind
of lawful money in which they were to be paid; should establish
and collect a graduated income tax; and should own and operate the
railroads and telegraph lines in the interests of the people. Its
general tendency was to favor what is known as "Paternalism in
government," the existing form in America of what is known as Socialism
in Europe. This party found its chief strength among the farmers, who
believed it possible and right for the Government to pass laws to
suppress "trusts" and monopolies, and also to favor the agricultural
and laboring classes.
The history of American politics up to the time of the introduction
of the new economic questions by the labor unions in the East, and
the farmer's unions in the West and South, has been the history of
the gradual extension of political rights. The Federalist party gave
us the Constitution; the old Democratic party gave us white manhood
suffrage; the Republican party gave us universal suffrage. What the
People's party may give us remains for the future to demonstrate. The
glory of America's past is that she has been continually progressing;
that she has proven to the world the capacity of the whole people for
self-government.
CHAPTER XXV
America's Answer to the British Claim of the Right
of Search.
[=The Causes of the War of 1812=]
By their first war with Great Britain our forefathers asserted and
maintained their right to independent national existence; by their
second war with Great Britain, they claimed and obtained equal
consideration in international affairs. The War of 1812 was not based
on a single cause; it was undertaken from mixed motives,--partly
political, partly commercial, partly patriotic. It was always unpopular
with a great number of the American people; it was far from logical in
some of its positions; it was perhaps precipitated by party clamor.
But, despite all these facts, it remains true that this war established
once for all the position of the United States as an equal power among
the powers. Above all--clearing away the petty political and partisan
aspects of the struggle--we find that in it the United States stood
for a strong, sound, and universally beneficial principle, that of the
rights of neutral nations in time of war. "Free ships make free goods"
is a maxim of international law now universally recognized, but at the
opening of the century it was a theory, supported, indeed, by good
reasoning, but practically disregarded by the most powerful nations. It
was almost solely to the stand taken by the United States in 1812 that
the final settlement of this disputed principle was due.
[=British Impressment of American Seamen=]
The cause of the War of 1812, which appealed most strongly to the
patriotic feelings of the common people, though, perhaps, not in itself
so intrinsically important as that just referred to, was unquestionably
the impressment by Great Britain of sailors from American ships. No
doubt great numbers of English sailors did desert from their naval
vessels and avail themselves of the easier service and better treatment
of the American merchant ships. Great Britain, in the exigencies of
her desperate contest with Napoleon, was straining every nerve to
strengthen her already powerful navy, and the press-gang was constantly
at work in English seaports. Once on board a British man-of-war, the
impressed sailor was subject to overwork, bad rations, and the lash.
That British sailors fought as gallantly as they did under this regime
will always remain a wonder. But it is certain that they deserted
in considerable numbers, and that they found in the rapidly-growing
commercial prosperity of our carrying trade a tempting chance of
employment.
[=Outrages Upon American Ships and Sailors=]
Great Britain, with a large contempt for the naval weakness of the
United States, assumed, rather than claimed, the right to stop our
merchant vessels on the high seas, to examine their crews, and to
take as her own any British sailors among them. This was bad enough
in itself, but the way in which the search was carried out was worse.
Every form of insolence and overbearing was exhibited. The pretense of
claiming British deserters covered what was sometimes barefaced and
outrageous kidnapping of Americans. The British officers went so far
as to lay the burden of proof of nationality in each case upon the
sailor himself; if he were without papers proving his identity he was
at once assumed to be a British subject. To such an extent was this
insult to our flag carried, that our Government had the record of about
forty-five hundred cases of impressment from our ships between the
years of 1803 and 1810; and when the War of 1812 broke out the number
of American sailors serving against their will in British war vessels
was variously computed to be from six to fourteen thousand. It is even
recorded that in some cases American ships were obliged to return
home in the middle of their voyages because their crews had been so
diminished in number by the seizures made by British officers that they
were too short-handed to proceed. In not a few cases these depredations
led to bloodshed.
[=The Affair of the "Chesapeake" and the "Leopard"=]
The greatest outrage of all, and one which stirred the blood of
Americans to the fighting point, was the capture of an American war
vessel, the _Chesapeake_, by the British man-of-war, the _Leopard_. The
latter was by far the more powerful vessel, and the _Chesapeake_ was
quite unprepared for action; nevertheless, her commander refused to
accede to a demand that his crew be overhauled in search for British
deserters. Thereupon the _Leopard_ poured broadside after broadside
into her until her flag was struck. Three Americans were killed and
eighteen wounded; four were taken away as alleged deserters; of these,
three were afterwards returned, while in one case the charge was
satisfactorily proved and the man was hanged. The whole affair was
without the slightest justification under the law of nations and was
in itself ample ground for war. Great Britain, however, in a quite
ungracious and tardy way, apologized and offered reparation. This
incident took place six years before the actual declaration of war. But
the outrage rankled during all that time, and nothing did more to fan
the anti-British feeling which was already so strong in the rank and
file of Americans, especially in the Democratic (or, as it was then
often called, the Republican) party. It was such deeds as this that led
Henry Clay to exclaim, "Not content with seizing upon all our property
which falls within her rapacious grasp, the personal rights of our
countrymen--rights which must forever be sacred--are trampled on and
violated by the impressment of our seamen. What are we to gain by war?
What are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character, a nation's best
treasure, honor!"
[=The Era of Paper Blockades=]
The interference with American commerce was also a serious threat to
the cause of peace. In the early years of the century Great Britain
was at war not only with France, but with other European countries.
Both Great Britain and France adopted in practice the most extreme
theories of non-intercourse between neutral and hostile nations. It was
the era of "paper blockades." In 1806 England, for instance, declared
that eight hundred miles of the European coast were to be considered
blockaded, whereupon Napoleon, not to be outdone, declared the entire
Kingdom of Great Britain to be under blockade.
Up to a certain point the interruption of the neutral trade relations
between the countries of Europe was to the commercial advantage of
America. Our carrying trade grew and prospered wonderfully. Much of
this trade consisted in taking goods from the colonies of European
nations, bringing them to the United States, then trans-shipping them
and conveying them to the parent nation. This was allowable under the
international law of the time, although the direct carrying of goods
by the neutral ship from the colony to the parent nation (the latter,
of course, being at war) was forbidden. But by her famous "Orders in
Council" Great Britain absolutely forbade this system of trans-shipment
as to nations with whom she was at war. American vessels engaged in
this form of trade were seized and condemned by English prize courts.
Naturally, France followed Great Britain's example and even went
further. Our merchants, who had actually been earning double freights
under the old system, now found that their commerce was woefully
restricted. At first it was thought that the unfair restriction might
be punished by retaliatory measures, and a quite illogical analogy was
drawn from the effect produced on Great Britain before the Revolution
by the refusal of the colonies to receive goods on which a tax had been
imposed. So President Jefferson's administration resorted to the most
unwise measure that could be thought of--an absolute embargo on our own
ships, which were prohibited from leaving port.
[=Jefferson and the Embargo=]
[=War Declared Against Great Britain=]
This measure was passed in 1807, and its immediate result was to
reduce the exports of this country from nearly fifty million dollars'
worth to nine million dollars' worth in a single year. This was
evidently anything but profitable, and the act was changed so as to
forbid only commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and
their colonies, with a proviso that the law should be abandoned as
regards either of these countries which should repeal its objectionable
decrees. The French government moved in the matter first, but only
conditionally. Our non-intercourse act, however, was after 1810 in
force only against Great Britain. That our claims of wrong were
equally, or nearly so, as great against France in this matter cannot be
doubted. But the popular feeling was stronger against Great Britain;
a war with England was popular with the mass of the Democrats; and
it was the refusal of England to accept our conditions which finally
led to the declaration of war. By a curious chain of circumstances it
happened, however, that between the time when Congress declared war
(June 18, 1812) and the date when the news of this declaration was
received in England, the latter country had already revoked her famous
"Orders in Council." In point of fact, President Madison was very
reluctant to declare war, though the Federalists always took great
pleasure in speaking of this as "Mr. Madison's war." The Federalists
throughout considered the war unnecessary and the result of partisan
feeling and unreasonable prejudice.
[=The British and American Navies Compared=]
It is peculiarly grateful to American pride that this war, undertaken
in defence of our maritime interests and to uphold the honor of our
flag upon the high seas, resulted in a series of naval victories
brilliant in the extreme. It was not, indeed, at first thought that
this would be chiefly a naval war. President Madison was at one time
strongly inclined to keep our war vessels in port; but, happily, other
counsels prevailed. The disparity between the American and British
navies was certainly disheartening. The United States had seven or
eight frigates and a few sloops, brigs, and gunboats, while the
sails of England's navy whitened every sea, and her ships certainly
outnumbered ours by fifty to one. On the other hand, her hands were
tied to a great extent by the stupendous European war in which she
was involved. She had to defend her commerce from formidable enemies,
and could spare but a small part of her naval strength for battle
with the new foe. That this new foe was despised by the great power
which claimed, not without reason, to be the mistress of the seas, was
not unnatural. But soon we find a lament raised in Parliament about
the reverses of its navy, which were such as "English officers and
English sailors had not before been used to, particularly from such
a contemptible navy as that of America had always been held to be."
The fact is, that the restriction of American commerce had made it
possible for our naval officers to take their pick of a remarkably
fine body of native American seamen, naturally brave and intelligent,
and thoroughly well trained in all seamanlike experiences. These men
were in many instances filled with a spirit of resentment at British
insolence, having either themselves been the victims of the aggressions
which we have described, or having seen their friends compelled to
submit to these insolent acts. The very smallness of our navy, too, was
in a measure its strength; the competition for active service among
those bearing commissions was great, and there was never any trouble in
finding officers of proved sagacity and courage.
[=The War on the Canada Border=]
At the outset, however, the policy determined on by the administration
was not one of naval aggression. It was decided to attack England
from her Canadian colonies. This plan of campaign, however reasonable
it might seem to a strategist, failed wretchedly in execution. The
first year of the war, so far as regards the land campaigns, showed
nothing but reverses and fiascoes. There was a long and thinly settled
border country, in which our slender forces struggled to hold their
own against the barbarous Indian onslaughts, making futile expeditions
across the border into Canada, and resisting with some success the
similar expeditions by the Canadian troops. One of the complaints which
led to the war was that the Indian tribes had been incited against our
settlers by the Canadian authorities and had been promised aid from
Canada. It is certain that after war was declared British officers not
only employed Indians as their allies, but, in some instances at least,
paid bounties for the scalps of American settlers.
[=Hull and the Surrender of Detroit=]
The Indian war planned by Tecumseh had just been put down by General
(afterward President) Harrison. No doubt Tecumseh was a man of more
elevated ambition and more humane instincts than one often finds in an
Indian chief. His hope to unite the tribes and to drive the whites out
of his country has a certain nobility of purpose and breadth of view.
But this scheme had failed, and the Indian warriors, still inflamed for
war, were only too eager to assist the Canadian forces in a desultory
but bloody border war. The strength of our campaign against Canada was
dissipated in an attempt to hold Fort Wayne, Fort Harrison, and other
garrisons against Indian attacks. Still more disappointing was the
complete failure of the attempt, under the command of General Hull, to
advance from Detroit into Canada. He was easily driven back to Detroit,
and, while the nation was confidently waiting to hear of a bold defence
of that place, it was startled by the news of Hull's surrender
without firing a gun, and under circumstances which seemed to indicate
either cowardice or treachery. Hull was, in fact, court-martialed and
condemned to death, and was only pardoned on account of his services in
the war of 1776.
[=The "Constitution" and the "Guerrière"=]
[=The Glorious Victory of the Frigate "Constitution"=]
The mortification that followed the land campaign of 1812 was forgotten
in the joy at the splendid naval victories of that year. Pre-eminent
among these was the famous sea-duel between the frigates _Constitution_
and _Guerrière_. Every one knows of the glory of _Old Ironsides_, and
this, though the greatest, was only one of many victories through which
the name of the _Constitution_ became the most famed and beloved of all
that have been associated with American ships. She was a fine frigate,
carrying forty-four guns, and though English journals had ridiculed
her as "a bunch of pine boards under a bit of striped bunting," it was
not long before they were busily engaged in trying to prove that she
was too large a vessel to be properly called a frigate, and that she
greatly out-classed her opponent in metal and men. It is true that
the _Constitution_ carried six more guns and a few more men than the
_Guerrière_, but all allowances being made, her victory was a naval
triumph of the first magnitude. Captain Isaac Hull, who commanded
her, had just before the engagement proved his superior seamanship by
escaping from a whole squadron of British vessels, out-sailing and
out-manoeuvring them at every point. It was on August 19, 1812, that
he descried the Guerrière. Both vessels at once cleared for action
and came together with the greatest eagerness on both sides for the
engagement. Though the battle lasted but half an hour, it was one of
the hottest in naval annals. At one time the _Constitution_ was on
fire, and both ships were soon seriously crippled by injuries to their
spars. Attempts to board each other were thwarted on both sides by
the close fire of small arms. Here, as in later sea-fights of this
war, the accuracy and skill of the American gunners were something
marvelous. At the end of half an hour the _Guerrière_ had lost both
mainmast and foremast, and floated as a helpless hulk in the open sea.
Her surrender was no discredit to her officers, as she was almost in a
sinking condition. It was hopeless to attempt to tow her into port, and
Captain Hull transferred his prisoners to his own vessel and set fire
to his prize.
In this engagement the American frigate had only seven men killed
and an equal number wounded, while the British vessel had as many as
seventy-nine men killed or wounded. The conduct of the American seamen
was throughout gallant in the highest degree. Captain Hull put it on
record that "From the smallest boy in the ship to the oldest seaman
not a look of fear was seen. They all went into action giving three
cheers and requesting to be laid close alongside the enemy." The effect
of this victory in both America and England was extraordinary. English
papers long refused to believe in the possibility of the well-proved
facts, while in America the whole country joined in a triumphal shout
of joy, and loaded well-deserved honors on vessel, captain, officers,
and men.
[=The "Wasp" Captures the "Frolic"=]
The chagrin of the English public at the unexpected result of this
sea-battle was changed to amazement and vexation when, one after
another, there followed no less than six combats of the same duel-like
character, in all of which the American vessels were victorious. The
first was between the American sloop _Wasp_ and the English brig
_Frolic_, which was convoying a fleet of merchantmen. The fight was
one of the most desperate in the war; the two ships were brought so
close together that their gunners could touch the sides of the opposing
vessels with their rammers. Broadside after broadside was poured into
the _Frolic_ by the _Wasp_, which obtained the superior position; but
her sailors, too excited to await the victory which was sure to come
from the continued raking of the enemy's vessel, rushed upon her decks
without orders and soon overpowered her. Again the British loss in
killed and wounded was large; that of the Americans very small. It in
no wise detracted from the glory of this victory that both victor and
prize were soon captured by a British man-of-war of immensely superior
strength.
[=The "United States" and the "Macedonian"=]
Following this action, Commodore Stephen Decatur, in the frigate
_United States_, attacked the _Macedonian_, a British vessel of the
same class, and easily defeated her, bringing her into New York harbor
on New Year's Day, 1813, where he received an ovation equal to that
offered Captain Hull. The same result followed the attack of the
_Constitution_, now under the command of Commodore Bainbridge, upon
the British _Java_. The latter had her captain and fifty men killed
and about one hundred wounded, and was left such a wreck that it was
decided to blow her up, while the _Constitution_ suffered so little
that she was in sport dubbed _Old Ironsides_, a name now ennobled
by a poem which has been in every school-boy's mouth. Other naval
combats resulted, in the great majority of cases, in the same way; in
all unstinted praise was awarded by the nations of the world, even
including England herself, to the admirable seamanship, the wonderful
gunnery, and the personal intrepidity of our naval forces. When the
second year of the war closed our little navy had captured twenty-six
warships, armed with 560 guns, while it had lost only seven ships,
carrying 119 guns.
[=American Privateers and Their Work=]
But, if the highest honors of the war were thus won by our navy, the
most serious injury materially to Great Britain was in the devastation
of her commerce by American privateers. No less than two hundred and
fifty of these sea guerrillas were afloat, and in the first year of the
war they captured over three hundred merchant vessels, sometimes even
attacking and overcoming the smaller class of warships. The privateers
were usually schooners armed with a few small guns, but carrying one
long cannon mounted on a swivel so that it could be turned to any point
of the horizon, and familiarly known as Long Tom. Of course, the crews
were influenced by greed as well as by patriotism. Privateering is a
somewhat doubtful mode of warfare at the best; but international law
permits it, and, though it is hard to dissociate from it the aspect
of legalized piracy, it is recognized to this day. In the most recent
war, however, the Spanish-American, neither of the belligerent nations
indulged in this relic of barbarism.
If privateering were ever justifiable it was in the war now under
consideration. As Jefferson said, there were then tens of thousands
of seamen cut off by the war from their natural means of support and
useless to their country in any other way, while by "licensing private
armed vessels, the whole naval force of the nation was truly brought
to bear on the foe." The havoc wrought on British trade was widespread
indeed; altogether between fifteen hundred and two thousand prizes
were taken by the privateers. To compute the value of these prizes is
impossible, but some idea may be gained from the single fact that one
privateer, the _Yankee_, in a cruise of less than two months captured
five brigs and four schooners, with cargoes valued at over half a
million dollars. The men engaged in this form of warfare were bold to
recklessness, and their exploits have furnished many a tale to American
writers of romance.
[=The Fleets on the Lakes=]
[=Perry's Great Victory on Lake Erie=]
The naval combats thus far mentioned were almost always of single
vessels. For battles of fleets we must turn from the salt water to the
fresh, from the ocean to the great lakes. The control of the waters
of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain was obviously of vast
importance, in view of the continued land-fighting in the West and of
the attempted invasion of Canada and the threatened counter-invasions.
The British had the great advantage of being able to reach the lakes
by the St. Lawrence, while our lake navies had to be constructed after
the war began. One such little navy had been built at Presque Isle,
now Erie, on Lake Erie. It comprised two brigs of twenty guns and
several schooners and gunboats. It must be remembered that everything
but the lumber needed for the vessels had to be brought through the
forests by land from the eastern seaports, and the mere problem of
transportation was a serious one. When finished, the fleet was put in
command of Oliver Hazard Perry. Watching his time (and, it is said,
taking advantage of the carelessness of the British commander, who
went on shore to dinner one Sunday, when he should have been watching
Perry's movements), the American commander drew his fleet over the
bar which had protected it while in harbor from the onslaughts of
the British fleet. To get the brigs over this bar was a work of time
and great difficulty; an attack at that hour by the British would
certainly have ended in the total destruction of the fleet. This feat
accomplished, Perry, in his flagship, the _Lawrence_, headed a fleet of
ten vessels, fifty-five guns and four hundred men. Opposed to him was
Captain Barclay with six ships, sixty-five guns, and also about four
hundred men. The British for several weeks avoided the conflict, but
in the end were cornered and forced to fight. It was at the beginning
of this battle that Perry displayed the flag bearing Lawrence's famous
dying words, "Don't give up the ship!" No less famous is his dispatch
announcing the result in the words, "We have met the enemy and they are
ours." The victory was indeed a complete and decisive one; all six of
the enemy's ships were captured, and their loss was nearly double that
of Perry's forces. The complete control of Lake Erie was assured; that
of Lake Ontario had already been gained by Commodore Chauncey.
[=The Battle of the Thames=]
Perry's memorable victory opened the way for important land operations
by General Harrison, who now marched from Detroit with the design of
invading Canada. He engaged with Proctor's mingled body of British
troops and Indians, and by the battle of the Thames drove back the
British from that part of Canada and restored matters to the position
in which they stood before Hull's deplorable surrender of Detroit--and,
indeed, of all Michigan--to the British. In this battle the Indian
chief, Tecumseh, fell, and about three hundred of the British and
Indians were killed on the field. The hold of our enemies on the Indian
tribes was greatly broken by this defeat.
Previous to this the land campaigns had been marked by a succession of
minor victories and defeats. In the West a force of Americans under
General Winchester had been captured at the River Raisin, where there
took place an atrocious massacre of prisoners by the Indians, who were
quite beyond restraint from their white allies. On the other hand, the
Americans had captured the city of York, now Toronto, though at the
cost of their leader, General Pike, who, with two hundred of his men,
was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine. Fort George had also
been captured by the Americans and an attack on Sackett's Harbor had
been gallantly repulsed. Following the battle of the Thames, extensive
operations of an aggressive kind were planned, looking toward the
capture of Montreal and the invasion of Canada by way of Lakes Ontario
and Champlain. Unhappily, jealousy between the American Generals
Wilkinson and Hampton resulted in a lack of concert in their military
operations, and the expedition became a complete fiasco.
[=Lawrence's Famous Saying, "Don't Give Up the Ship."=]
One turns for consolation from the mortifying record of Wilkinson's
expedition to the story of the continuous successes which accompanied
the naval operations of 1813. Captain Lawrence, in the _Hornet_, won
a complete victory over the English brig _Peacock_; our brig, the
_Enterprise_, captured the _Boxer_, and other equally welcome victories
were reported. One distinct defeat marred the record--that of our
fine brig, the _Chesapeake_, commanded by Captain Lawrence, which was
captured after one of the most hard-fought contests of the war by the
British brig, the _Shannon_. Lawrence himself fell mortally wounded,
exclaiming as he was carried away, "Tell the men not to give up the
ship, but fight her till she sinks." It was a paraphrase of this
exclamation which Perry used as a rallying signal in the battle on Lake
Erie. Despite his one defeat, Captain Lawrence's fame as a gallant
seaman and high-minded patriot was untarnished, and his death was more
deplored throughout the country than was the loss of his ship.
[=Macdonough's Victory on Lake Champlain=]
In the latter part of the war England was enabled to send large
reinforcements both to her army and navy engaged in the American
campaigns. Events in Europe seemed in 1814 to insure peace for at least
a time. Napoleon's power was broken; the Emperor himself was exiled
at Elba; and Great Britain at last had her hands free. But before the
reinforcements reached this country, our army had won greater credit
and had shown more military skill by far than were evinced in its
earlier operations. Along the line of the Niagara River active fighting
had been going on. In the battle of Chippewa, the capture of Fort
Erie, the engagement at Lundy's Lane, and the defence of Fort Erie the
troops, under the command of Generals Winfield Scott and Brown, had
more than held their own against superior forces, and had won from
British officers the admission that they fought as well under fire as
regular troops. More encouraging still was the total defeat of the plan
of invasion from Canada undertaken by the now greatly strengthened
British forces. These numbered twelve thousand men and were supported
by a fleet on Lake Champlain. Their operations were directed against
Plattsburg, and in the battle on the lake, usually called by the name
of that town, the American flotilla, under the command of Commodore
Macdonough, completely routed the British fleet. As a result the
English army also beat a rapid and undignified retreat to Canada. This
was the last important engagement to take place in the North.
[=The Burning of the American Capital=]
Meanwhile expeditions of considerable size were directed by the
British against our principal Southern cities. One of these brought
General Ross with five thousand men, chiefly the pick of the Duke
of Wellington's army, into the Bay of Chesapeake. Nothing was more
discreditable in the military strategy of our administration than
the fact that at this time Washington was left unprotected, though
in evident danger. General Ross marched straight upon the capital,
easily defeated at Bladensburg an inferior force of raw militia--who
fought, however, with much courage--seized the city, and carried out
his intention of destroying the public buildings and a great part of
the town. Most of the public archives had been removed. Ross's conduct
in the burning of Washington, though of a character common enough in
modern warfare, has been condemned as semi-barbarous by many writers.
The achievement was greeted with enthusiasm by the English papers, but
was really of much less importance than they supposed. Washington at
that time was a straggling town of only eight thousand inhabitants; its
public buildings were not at all adequate to the demands of the future;
and an optimist might even consider the destruction of the old city as
a public benefit, for it enabled Congress to adopt the plans which have
since led to the making of the most beautiful city of the country, if
not of the world.
A similar attempt upon Baltimore was less successful The people
of that city made a brave defence and hastily threw up extensive
fortifications. In the end the British fleet, after a severe
bombardment of Fort McHenry, was driven off. The British admiral had
boasted that Fort McHenry would yield in a few hours; and two days
after, when its flag was still flying, Francis S. Key was inspired by
its sight to compose our far-famed national ode, the "Star Spangled
Banner."
[=Jackson and the Creek Indians=]
[=Jackson's Famous Great Victory at New Orleans=]
A still larger expedition of British troops soon after landed on the
Louisiana coast and marched to the attack of New Orleans. Here General
Andrew Jackson was in command. He had already distinguished himself
during the war by putting down with a strong hand the hostile Creek
Indians, who had been incited by English envoys to warfare against
our southern settlers; and in April, 1814, William Weathersford,
the half-breed chief, had surrendered in person to Jackson. General
Packenham, who commanded the five thousand British soldiers sent
against New Orleans, expected as easy a victory as that of General
Ross at Washington. But Jackson had summoned to his aid the stalwart
frontiersmen of Kentucky and Tennessee--men used from boyhood to
the rifle, and who made up what was in effect a splendid force of
sharp-shooters. Both armies threw up rough fortifications; General
Jackson made great use for that purpose of cotton bales, Packenham
employing the still less solid material of sugar barrels. As it proved
neither of these were suitable for the purpose, and they had to be
replaced by earthworks. Oddly enough, the final battle, and really
the most important one of the war, took place after the treaty of
peace between the two countries had been signed. The British were
repulsed again and again in persistent and gallant attacks on our
fortifications. General Packenham himself was killed, together with
many of his officers and seven hundred of his men. One British officer
pushed to the top of our earthworks and demanded their surrender,
whereupon he was smilingly asked to look behind him, and turning saw,
as he afterwards said, that the men he supposed to be supporting him
"had vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up." Of the Americans
only a few men were killed.
[=The Results of the War=]
The treaty of peace, signed at Ghent, December 24, 1814, has been
ridiculed because it contained no positive agreement as to many of the
questions in dispute. Not a word did it say about the impressment of
American sailors or the rights of neutral ships. Its chief stipulations
were the mutual restoration of territory and the appointing of a
commission to determine our northern boundary line. The truth is that
both nations were tired of the war; the circumstances that had led to
England's aggressions no longer existed; both countries were suffering
enormous commercial loss to no avail; and, above all, the United States
had emphatically justified by its deeds its claim to an equal place in
the council of nations. Politically and materially, further warfare was
illogical. If the two nations had understood each other better in the
first place; if Great Britain had treated our demands with courtesy and
justice instead of with insolence; if, in short, international comity
had taken the place of international ill-temper, the war might have
been avoided altogether. Its undoubted benefits to us were incidental
rather than direct. But though not formally recognized by treaty, the
rights of American seamen and of American ships were in fact no longer
infringed upon by Great Britain.
[=The Hartford Convention=]
One political outcome of the war must not be overlooked. The New
England Federalists had opposed it from the beginning, had naturally
fretted at their loss of commerce, and had bitterly upbraided the
Democratic administration for currying popularity by a war carried on
mainly at New England's expense. When, in the latter days of the war,
New England ports were closed, Stonington was bombarded, Castine in
Maine was seized, and serious depredations were threatened everywhere
along the northeastern coast, the Federalists complained that the
administration taxed them for the war but did not protect them.
The outcome of all this discontent was the Hartford Convention. In
point of fact it was a quite harmless conference which proposed some
constitutional amendments, protested against too great centralization
of dower, and urged the desirability of peace with honor. But the most
absurd rumors were prevalent about its intentions; a regiment of troops
was actually sent to Hartford to anticipate treasonable outbreaks;
and for many years good Democrats religiously believed that there had
been a plot to set up a monarchy in New England with the Duke of Kent
as king. Harmless as it was, the Hartford Convention caused the death
of the Federalist party. Its mild debates were distorted into secret
conclaves plotting treason, and, though the news of peace followed
close upon it, the Convention was long an object of opprobrium and a
political bugbear.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The United States Sustains Its Dignity Abroad.
[=The Piratical States of North Africa=]
If the reader will look at any map of Africa he will see on the
northern coast, defining the southern limits of the Mediterranean, four
States, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, running east and west a
distance of 1800 miles. These powers had for centuries maintained a
state of semi-independency by paying tribute to Turkey. But this did
not suit Algeria, the strongest and most warlike of the North African
States; and in the year 1710 the natives overthrew the rule of the
Turkish Pasha, expelled him from the country, and united his authority
to that of the Dey, the Algerian monarch. The Dey subsequently governed
the country by means of a Divan or Council of State chosen from the
principal civic functionaries. The Algerians, with the other "Barbary
States," as the piratical States were called, defied the powers of
Europe; their armed vessels sweeping the waters of the Mediterranean,
committing a thousand ravages upon the merchant vessels of other
nations, and almost driving commerce from its waters. France alone
resisted these depredations, and this only partially, for after she
had repeatedly chastised the Algerians, the strongest of the piratical
States, and had induced the Dey to sign a treaty of peace, the
Corsairs would await their opportunity and after a time resume their
depredations. Algiers in the end forced the United States to resort
to arms in the defence of its commerce, and the long immunity of the
pirates did not cease until the great republic of the West took them in
hand.
The truth is, this conflict was no less irrepressible than that
greater conflict which a century later deluged the land in blood.
Before the Constitution of the United States had been adopted, two
American vessels, flying the flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen
stars, instead of the forty-five stars which now form our national
constellation, while sailing the Mediterranean had fallen a prey to the
swift, heavily-armed Algerian cruisers. The vessels were confiscated,
and their crews, to the number of twenty-one persons, were held for
ransom, for which an enormous sum was demanded.
This sum our Government was by no means willing to pay, as to do so
would be to establish a precedent not only with Algeria, but also with
Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco, for each of these African piratical
States was in league with the others, and all had to be separately
conciliated.
[=The War with the Pirates of Tripoli=]
But, after all, what else could the Government do? The country had no
navy. It could not undertake in improvised ships to go forth and fight
the powerful cruisers of the African pirates--States so strong that
the commercial nations of Europe were glad to win exemption from their
depredations by annual payments. Why not, then, ransom these American
captives by the payment of money and construct a navy sufficiently
strong to resist their encroachments in the future? This feeling on
the part of the Government was shared by the people of the country,
and as a result Congress authorized the building of six frigates, and
by another act empowered President Washington to borrow a million of
dollars for purchasing peace. Eventually the ransom money was paid to
the piratical powers, and it was hoped all difficulty was at an end.
But, as a necessary provision for the future, the work of constructing
the new warships was pushed with expedition. As will be seen, this
proved to be a wise and timely precaution.
We are now brought to the year 1800. Tripoli, angry at not receiving
as much money as was paid to Algiers, declared war against the United
States. Circumstances, however, had changed for the better, and the
republic was prepared to deal with the oppressors of its seamen in a
more dignified and efficient manner than that of paying ransom. For
our new navy, a small but most efficient one, had been completed, and
a squadron consisting of the frigates _Essex_, Captain Bainbridge, the
_Philadelphia_, the _President_, and the schooner _Experiment_, was in
Mediterranean waters. Two Tripolitan cruisers lying at Gibraltar on
the watch for American vessels were blockaded by the _Philadelphia_.
Cruising off Tripoli, the _Experiment_ fell in with a Tripolitan
cruiser of fourteen guns, and after three hours' hard fighting captured
her, the Tripolitans losing twenty killed and thirty wounded. This
brilliant result had a marked effect in quieting the turbulent pirates,
who for the first time began to respect the United States. A treaty was
signed in 1805, in which Tripoli agreed no longer to molest American
ships and sailors.
[=The Famous Incident of the "Philadelphia"=]
This war was marked by a striking evidence of American pluck
and readiness in an emergency. During the contest the frigate
_Philadelphia_, while chasing certain piratical craft into the harbor
of Tripoli, ran aground in a most perilous situation. Escape was
impossible, she was under the guns of the shore batteries and of the
Tripolitan navy, and after a vain effort to sink her, all on board
were forced to surrender as prisoners of war. Subsequently the
Tripolitans succeeded in floating the frigate, brought her into port
in triumph, and began to refit her as a welcome addition to their
navy. This state of affairs was galling to American pride, and, as the
vessel could not be rescued, it was determined to make an effort to
destroy her. One night a Moorish merchantman (captured and fitted for
the purpose) entered the harbor and made her way close up to the side
of the _Philadelphia_. Only a few men, dressed in Moorish garb, were
visible, and no suspicion of their purpose was entertained. As these
men claimed to have lost their anchor, a rope was thrown them from the
vessel, and they made fast. In a minute more a startling change took
place. A multitude of concealed Americans suddenly sprang into sight,
clambered to the deck of the _Philadelphia_, and drove the surprised
Moors over her sides. The frigate was fairly recaptured. But she could
not be taken out, so the tars set her on fire, and made their escape
by the light of her blazing spars and under the guns of the Tripolitan
batteries, not a ball from which reached them. It was a gallant
achievement, and gave fame to Decatur, its leader.
[=War Declared by Algiers=]
But peace was not yet assured. In 1815, when this country had just
ended its war with Great Britain, the Dey of Algiers unceremoniously
dismissed the American Consul and declared war against the United
States, on the plea that he had not received certain articles demanded
under the tribute treaty. This time the government was well prepared
for the issue. The population of the country had increased to over
eight millions. The military spirit of the nation had been aroused
by the war with Great Britain, ending in the splendid victory at
New Orleans under General Jackson. Besides this, the navy had been
increased and made far more effective. The administration, with Madison
at its head, decided to submit to no further extortions from the
Mediterranean pirates, and the President sent in a forcible message
to Congress on the subject, taking high American ground. The result
was a prompt acceptance of the Algerian declaration of war. Events
succeeded each other in rapid succession. Ships new and old were at
once fitted out. On May 15, 1815, Decatur sailed from New York to
the Mediterranean. His squadron comprised the frigates _Guerriere_,
_Macedonian_ and _Constellation_, the new sloop of war _Ontario_, and
four brigs and two schooners in addition.
[=The Dey Sues for Peace=]
On June 17th, the second day after entering the Mediterranean, Decatur
captured the largest frigate in the Algerian navy, having forty-four
guns. The next day an Algerian brig was taken, and in less than two
weeks after his first capture Decatur, with his entire squadron,
appeared off Algiers. The end had come. The Dey's courage, like that of
Bob Acres, oozed out at his fingers' ends. The terrified Dey sued for
peace, which Decatur compelled him to sign on the quarter-deck of the
_Guerriere_. In this treaty it was agreed by the Dey to surrender all
prisoners, pay a heavy indemnity, and renounce all tribute from America
in the future. Decatur also secured indemnity from Tunis and Tripoli
for American vessels captured under the guns of their forts by British
cruisers during the late war.
This ended at once and forever the payment of tribute to the piratical
States of North Africa. All Europe, as well as our own country, rang
with the splendid achievements of our navy; and surely the stars and
stripes had never before floated more proudly from the masthead of an
American vessel--and they are flying as proudly to-day.
[=A Naval War with France=]
One further example of the readiness of this country to defend itself
upon the seas in its weak, early period may be related, though it
slightly antedated the beginning of the century. This was a result of
American indignation at the ravages upon its commerce by the warring
nations of Europe. About 1798 the depredations of France upon our
merchantmen became so aggravating that, without the formality of a
declaration, a naval war began. The vessels of our new navy were sent
out, "letters of marque and reprisal" were granted to privateers, and
their work soon began to tell. Captain Truxton of the _Constellation_
captured the French frigate _L'Insurgente_, the privateers brought more
than fifty armed vessels of the French into port and France quickly
decided that she wanted peace. This sort of argument was not quite to
her taste.
Seventeen years after the close of the trouble with Algiers, in 1832,
one of the most interesting cases of difficulty with a foreign power
arose. As with Algeria and Tripoli, so now our navy was resorted to
for the purpose of exacting reparation. This time the trouble was
with the kingdom of Naples, in Italy, which had been wrested from
Spain by Napoleon, who placed successively his brother Joseph and his
brother-in-law Murat on the throne of Naples and the two Sicilies.
During the years 1809-12 the Neapolitan government, under Joseph and
Murat successively, had confiscated numerous American ships with their
cargoes. The total amount of the American claims against Naples, as
filed in the State department when Jackson's administration assumed
control, was $1,734,994. They were held by various insurance companies
and by citizens, principally of Baltimore. Demands for the payment of
these claims had from time to time been made by our government, but
Naples had always refused to settle them.
[=The Claim Against Naples=]
Jackson and his cabinet took a decided stand, and determined that the
Neapolitan government, then in the hands of Ferdinand II.--subsequently
nicknamed Bomba because of his cruelties--should make due reparation
for the losses sustained by American citizens. The Hon. John Nelson,
of Frederick, Maryland, was appointed Minister to Naples, and required
to insist upon a settlement. Commodore Daniel Patterson, who had aided
in the defense of New Orleans in 1815, was put in command of the
Mediterranean squadron and ordered to co-operate with Minister Nelson
in enforcing his demands. But Naples persisted in her refusal to render
satisfaction, and a warlike demonstration was decided upon, the whole
matter being placed, under instructions, in the hands of Commodore
Patterson.
[=How King Bomba was Brought to Terms=]
The entire force under his command consisted of three fifty-gun
frigates and three twenty-gun corvettes. In order not to precipitate
matters too hastily, the plan adopted was that these vessels should
appear in the Neapolitan waters one at a time, and instructions were
given to that effect. The _Brandywine_, with Minister Nelson on
board, went first. Mr. Nelson made his demand for a settlement and
was refused. There was nothing in the appearance of a Yankee envoy
and a single ship to trouble King Bomba and his little kingdom. The
_Brandywine_ cast anchor in the harbor and the humbled envoy waited
patiently for a few days. Then another American flag appeared on the
horizon, and the frigate _United States_ floated into the harbor and
came to anchor. Mr. Nelson repeated his demands, and they were again
refused. Four days slipped away, and the stars and stripes once more
appeared off the harbor. King Bomba, looking out from his palace
windows, saw the fifty-gun frigate _Concord_ sail into the harbor
and drop her anchor. Then unmistakable signs of uneasiness began to
show themselves. Forts were repaired, troops drilled, and more cannon
mounted on the coast. The demands were reiterated, but the Neapolitan
government still declined to consider them. Two days later another
warship made her way into the harbor. It was the _John Adams_. When
the fifth ship sailed gallantly in, Nelson sent word home that he was
still unable to collect the bill. The end was not yet. Three days
later, and the sixth American sail showed itself on the blue waters
of the peerless bay. It was the handwriting on the wall for King
Bomba, and his government announced that they would accede to the
American demands. The negotiations were promptly resumed and speedily
closed, the payment of the principal in installments with interest
being guaranteed. Pending negotiations, from August 28th to September
15th the entire squadron remained in the Bay of Naples, and then the
ships sailed away and separated. So, happily and bloodlessly, ended a
difficulty which at one time threatened most serious results.
[=Captain Ingraham and the Koszta Affair=]
Another demonstration, less imposing in numbers but quite as spirited,
and, indeed, more intensely dramatic, occurred at Smyrna in 1853, when
Captain Duncan N. Ingraham, with a single sloop-of-war, trained his
broadsides on a fleet of Austrian warships in the harbor. The episode
was a most thrilling one, and our record would be incomplete were so
dramatic an affair left unrecorded on its pages. This is the story:
When the revolution of Hungary against Austria was put down, Kossuth,
Koszta, and other leading revolutionists fled to Smyrna, and the
Turkish government, after long negotiations, refused to give them
up. Koszta soon after came to the United States, and in July, 1852,
declared under oath his intention of becoming an American citizen. He
resided in New York city a year and eleven months.
[=The "St. Louis" and the "Huzzar"=]
A year after he had declared his intention to assume American
citizenship, Koszta went to Smyrna on business, where he remained for
a time undisturbed. He had so inflamed the Austrian government against
him, however, that a plot was formed to capture him. On June 21,
1853, while he was seated on the Marina, a public resort in Smyrna, a
band of Greek mercenaries, hired by the Austrian Consul, seized him
and carried him off to an Austrian ship-of-war, the _Huzzar_, then
lying in the harbor. Archduke John, brother of the emperor, is said
to have been in command of this vessel. Koszta was put in irons and
treated as a criminal. The next day an American sloop-of-war, the
_St. Louis_, commanded by Captain Duncan N. Ingraham, sailed into the
harbor. Learning what had happened, Captain Ingraham immediately sent
on board the _Huzzar_ and courteously asked permission to see Koszta.
His request was granted, and the captain assured himself that Koszta
was entitled to the protection of the American flag. He demanded
his release from the Austrian commander. When it was refused, he
communicated with the nearest United States official, Consul Brown,
at Constantinople. While he was waiting for an answer six Austrian
warships sailed into the harbor and came to anchor in positions near
the _Huzzar_. On June 29th, before Captain Ingraham had received any
answer from the American Consul, he noticed unusual signs of activity
on board the _Huzzar_, and before long she began to get under way. The
American captain made up his mind immediately. He put the _St. Louis_
straight in the _Huzzar's_ course and cleared his guns for action. The
_Huzzar_ hove to, and Captain Ingraham went on board and demanded the
meaning of her action.
"We propose to sail for home," replied the Austrian. "The consul has
ordered us to take our prisoner to Austria."
"You will pardon me," said Captain Ingraham, "but if you attempt to
leave this port with that American on board I shall be compelled to
resort to extreme measures."
The Austrian glanced around at the fleet of Austrian war-ships and the
single American sloop-of-war. Then he smiled pleasantly, and intimated
that the _Huzzar_ would do as she pleased.
Captain Ingraham bowed and returned to the _St. Louis_. He had no
sooner reached her deck than he called out: "Clear the guns for action!"
The Archduke of Austria saw the batteries of the _St. Louis_ turned
upon him, and suddenly realized that he was in the wrong. The _Huzzar_
was put about and sailed back to her old anchorage. Word was sent to
Captain Ingraham that the Austrian would await the arrival of the note
from Mr. Brown.
[=Koszta is Given Up to Ingraham=]
The consul's note, which came on July 1st, commended Captain Ingraham's
course and advised him to take whatever action he thought the situation
demanded. At eight o'clock on the morning of July 2d, Captain Ingraham
sent a note to the commander of the _Huzzar_, formally demanding the
release of Mr. Koszta. Unless the prisoner was delivered on board the
_St. Louis_ before four o'clock the next afternoon, Captain Ingraham
would take him from the Austrians by force. The Archduke sent back a
formal refusal. At eight o'clock the next morning Captain Ingraham once
more ordered the decks cleared for action and trained his batteries on
the _Huzzar_. The seven Austrian war vessels cleared their decks and
put their men at the guns.
At ten o'clock an Austrian officer came to Captain Ingraham and began
to temporize. Captain Ingraham refused to listen to him.
"To avoid the worst," he said, "I will agree to let the man be
delivered to the French Consul at Smyrna until you have opportunity to
communicate with your government. But he must be delivered there, or I
will take him. I have stated the time."
At twelve o'clock a boat left the _Huzzar_ with Koszta in it, and an
hour later the French Consul sent word that Koszta was in his keeping.
Then several of the Austrian war-vessels sailed out of the harbor.
Long negotiations between the two governments followed, and in the
end Austria admitted that the United States was in the right, and
apologized.
[=The Trouble with Nicaragua=]
Scarcely had the plaudits which greeted Captain Ingraham's intrepid
course died away, when, the next year, another occasion arose where
our government was obliged to resort to the show of force. This
time Nicaragua was the country involved. Various outrages, as was
contended, had been committed on the persons and property of American
citizens dwelling in that country. The repeated demands for redress
were not complied with. Peaceful negotiations having failed, in June,
1854, Commander Hollins, with the sloop of war _Cyane_, was ordered
to proceed to the town of San Juan, or Greytown, which lies on the
Mosquito coast of Nicaragua, and to insist on favorable action from the
Nicaraguan government.
Captain Hollins came to anchor off the coast and placed his demands
before the authorities. He waited patiently for a response, but no
satisfactory one was offered him. After a number of days he made a
final appeal and then proceeded to carry out his instructions. On the
morning of July 13th he directed his batteries on the town of San Juan
and opened fire. Until four o'clock in the afternoon the ship poured
out broadsides as fast as its guns could be loaded. By that time the
greater part of the town was destroyed. Then a party of marines was put
on shore, and completed the destruction of the place by burning the
houses.
A lieutenant of the British navy commanding a small vessel of war was
in the harbor at the time. England claimed a species of protectorate
over the settlement, and the British officer raised violent protest
against the action taken by America's representative. Captain Hollins,
however, paid no attention to the interference and carried out his
instructions. The United States government later sustained Captain
Hollins in everything he had done, and England thereupon thought best
to let the matter drop. In this that country was unquestionably wise.
[=In Paraguayan Waters=]
At this time the United States seems to have entered upon a period of
international conflict; for no sooner had the difficulties with Austria
and Nicaragua been adjusted than another war-cloud appeared on the
horizon. Here again only a year from the last conflict had elapsed, for
in 1855 an offense was committed against the United States by Paraguay.
To explain what it was we shall have to go back three years. In 1852
Captain Thomas J. Page, commanding a small light-draught steamer, the
_Water Witch_, by direction of his government started for South America
to explore the River La Plata and its large tributaries, with a view
to opening up commercial intercourse between the United States and the
interior States of South America. We have said that the expedition
was ordered by our government; it also remains to be noted that it
was undertaken with the full consent and approbation of the countries
having jurisdiction over those waters. Slowly, but surely, the little
steamer pushed her way up the river, making soundings and charting the
river as she proceeded. All went well until February 1, 1855, when the
first sign of trouble appeared.
[=The Assault on the "Water Witch"=]
It was a lovely day in early summer--the summer begins in February
in that latitude--and nothing appeared to indicate the slightest
disturbance The little _Water Witch_ was quietly steaming up the River
Paraná, which forms the northern boundary of the State of Corrientes,
separating it from Paraguay, when suddenly, without a moment's warning,
a battery from Fort Itaparu, on the Paraguayan shore, opened fire upon
her, immediately killing one of her crew, who at that time was at the
wheel. The _Water Witch_ was not fitted for hostilities; least of all
could she assume the risk of attempting to run the batteries of the
fort. Accordingly, Captain Page put the steamer about, and was soon
out of range. It should here be explained that at that time President
Carlos A. Lopez was the autocratic ruler of Paraguay, and that he had
previously received Captain Page with every assurance of friendship.
A few months previous, however, Lopez had been antagonized by the
United States consul at Ascencion. This gentleman, in addition to his
official position, acted as agent for an American mercantile company
of which Lopez disapproved and whose business he had broken up. He had
also issued a decree forbidding foreign vessels of war to navigate the
Paraná or any of the waters bounding Paraguay, which he clearly had no
right to do, as half the stream belonged to the country bordering on
the other side.
[=Marcy Demands Reparation=]
Captain Page, finding it impracticable to prosecute his exploration
any further, at once returned to the United States, where he gave the
Washington authorities a detailed account of the occurrence. It was
claimed by our government that the _Water Witch_ was not subject to
the jurisdiction of Paraguay, as the channel was the equal property
of the Argentine Republic. It was further claimed that, even if she
had been within the jurisdiction of Paraguay, she was not properly a
vessel of war, but a government boat employed for scientific purposes.
And even were the vessel supposed to be a war vessel, it was contended
that it was a gross violation of international right and courtesy to
fire shot at the vessel of a friendly power without first resorting to
more peaceful means. At that time William L. Marcy, one of the foremost
statesmen of his day, was Secretary of State. Mr. Marcy at once wrote
a strong letter to the Paraguayan government, stating the facts of the
case, declaring that the action of Paraguay in firing upon the _Water
Witch_ would not be submitted to, and demanding ample apology and
compensation. All efforts in this direction, however, proved fruitless.
Lopez refused to give any reparation; and not only so, but declared
that no American vessel would be allowed to ascend the Paraná for the
purpose indicated.
The event, as it became known, aroused not a little excitement; and
while there were some who deprecated a resort to extreme measures, the
general sentiment of the country was decidedly manifested in favor of
an assertion of our rights in the premises. Accordingly, President
Pierce sent a message to Congress, stating that a peaceful adjustment
of the difficulty was impossible, and asking for authority to send such
a naval force to Paraguay as would compel her arbitrary ruler to give
the full satisfaction demanded.
[=A Powerful Fleet Sent to Paraguay=]
To this request Congress promptly and almost unanimously gave assent,
and one of the strongest naval expeditions ever fitted out by the
United States up to that time was ordered to assemble at the mouth of
La Plata River. The fleet was an imposing one for the purpose, and
comprised nineteen vessels, seven of which were steamers specially
chartered for the purpose, as our largest war vessels were of too deep
draught to ascend the La Plata and Paraná. The entire squadron carried
200 guns and 2,500 men, and was commanded by flag officer, afterward
rear-admiral, Shubrick, one of the oldest officers of our navy, and one
of the most gallant men that ever trod a quarter-deck. Flag Officer
Shubrick was accompanied by United States Commissioner Bowlin, to whom
was intrusted negotiations for the settlement of the difficulty.
Three years and eleven months had now passed since the _Water Witch_
was fired upon, and President Buchanan had succeeded Franklin Pierce.
The winter of 1859 was just closing in at the north; the streams were
closed by ice, and the lakes were ice-bound, but the palm trees of the
south were displaying their fresh green leaves, like so many fringed
banners, in the warm tropical air when the United States squadron
assembled at Montevideo. The fleet included two United States frigates,
the _Sabine_ and the _St. Lawrence_; two sloops-of-war, the _Falmouth_
and the _Preble_; three brigs, the _Bainbridge_, the _Dolphin_ and
the _Perry_; seven steamers especially armed for the occasion, the
_Memphis_, the _Caledonia_, the _Atlanta_, the _Southern Star_, the
_Westernport_, the _M. W. Chapin_, and the _Metacomet_; two armed
store-ships, the _Supply_ and the _Release_; the revenue steamer,
_Harriet Lane_; and, lastly, the little _Water Witch_ herself, no
longer defenceless, but in fighting trim for hostilities.
[=The Ships Anchor off Ascencion=]
On the 25th of January, 1859, within just one week of four years from
the firing upon the _Water Witch_, the squadron got under way and came
to anchor off Ascencion, the capital of Paraguay. Meanwhile President
Urquiza, of the Argentine Republic, who had offered his services to
mediate the difficulty, had arrived at Ascencion in advance of the
squadron. The negotiations were reopened, and Commissioner Bowlin made
his demand for instant reparation. All this time Flag Officer Shubrick
was not idle. With such of our vessels as were of suitable size he
ascended the river, taking them through the difficulties created by its
currents, shoals and sand bars, and brought them to a position above
the town, where they were made ready for action in case of necessity to
open fire. The force within striking distance of Paraguay consisted of
1,740 men, besides the officers, and 78 guns, including 23 nine-inch
shell guns and one shell gun of eleven inches.
[=President Lopez Brought to Terms=]
Ships and guns proved to be very strong arguments with Lopez. It did
not take the Dictator-President long to see that the United States
meant business, and that the time for trifling had passed and the time
for serious work had come. President Lopez's cerebral processes worked
with remarkable and encouraging celerity. By February 5th, within
less than two weeks of the starting of the squadron from Montevideo,
Commissioner Bowlin's demands were all acceded to. Ample apologies
were made for firing on the _Water Witch_, and pecuniary compensation
was given to the family of the sailor who had been killed. In addition
to this, a new commercial treaty was made, and cordial relations were
fully restored between the two governments.
[=The Civil War in Chili=]
A period of more than thirty years now elapsed before any serious
difficulty occurred with a foreign power. In 1891 an event took place
that threatened to disturb our relations with Chili and possibly
involve the United States in war with that power. Happily the matter
reached a peaceful settlement. In January, of that year, civil war
had broken out in Chili, the cause of which was a contest between the
legislative branch of the government and the executive, for the control
of affairs. The President of Chili, General Balmaceda, began to assert
authority which the legislature, or "the Congressionalists," as the
opposing party was called, resisted as unconstitutional and oppressive,
and they accordingly proceeded to interfere with Balmaceda's Cabinet in
its efforts to carry out the president's despotic will.
Finally matters came to a point where appeal to arms was necessary.
On the 9th of January the Congressional party took possession of
the greater part of the Chilian fleet, the navy being in hearty
sympathy with them, and the guns of the warships were turned against
Balmaceda,--Valparaiso, the capital, and other ports being blockaded
by the ships. For a time Balmaceda maintained control of the capital
and the southern part of the country. The key to the position was
Valparaiso, which was strongly fortified, Balmaceda's army being massed
there and placed at available points.
[=The Overthrow of Balmaceda=]
At last the Congressionalists determined to attack Balmaceda at his
capital, and on August 21st landed every available fighting man at
their disposal at Concon, about ten miles north of Valparaiso. They
were attacked by the Dictator on the 22d, there being twenty thousand
men on each side. The Dictator had the worst of it. Then he rallied
his shattered forces, and made his last stand at Placillo, close to
Valparaiso, on the 28th. The battle was hot, the carnage fearful;
neither side asked for or received quarter. The magazine rifles,
with which the revolutionists were armed, did wonders. The odds were
against Balmaceda; both his generals quarreled in face of the enemy;
his army became divided and demoralized. In a later battle both of his
generals were killed. The valor and the superior tactics of General
Canto, leader of the Congressional army, won the day. Balmaceda fled
and eventually committed suicide, and the Congressionalists entered the
capital in triumph.
Several incidents meantime had conspired, during the progress of this
war, to rouse the animosity of the stronger party in Chili against the
United States. Before the Congressionalists' triumph the steamship
_Itata_, loaded with American arms and ammunition for Chili, sailed
from San Francisco, and as this was a violation of the neutrality laws,
a United States war vessel pursued her to the harbor of Iquique, where
she surrendered. Then other troubles arose. Our minister at Valparaiso,
Mr. Egan, was charged by the Congressionalists, then in power, with
disregarding international law in allowing the American Legation to
be made an asylum for the adherents of Balmaceda. Subsequently these
refugees were permitted to go aboard American vessels and sail away.
Then Admiral Brown, of the United States squadron, was, in Chili's
opinion, guilty of having acted as a spy upon the movements of the
Congressionalists' fleet at Quinteros, and of bringing intelligence of
its movements to Balmaceda at Valparaiso. This, however, the Admiral
stoutly denied.
[=An Attack on the Men of the "Baltimore"=]
The strong popular feeling of dislike which was engendered by these
charges culminated on the 16th of October, in an attack upon American
seamen by a mob in the streets of the Chilian capital. Captain
Schley, commander of the United States cruiser _Baltimore_, had given
shore-leave to a hundred and seventeen petty officers and seamen, some
of whom, when they had been on shore for several hours, were set upon
by Chilians. They took refuge in a street car, from which, however,
they were soon driven and mercilessly beaten, and a subordinate officer
named Riggen fell, apparently lifeless. The American sailors, according
to Captain Schley's testimony, were sober and conducting themselves
with propriety when the attack was made. They were not armed, even
their knives having been taken from them before they left the vessel.
The assault upon those in the street car seemed to be only a signal for
a general uprising; and a mob which is variously estimated at from one
thousand to two thousand people attacked our sailors with such fury
that in a little while these men, whom no investigation could find
guilty of any breach of the peace, were fleeing for their lives before
an overwhelming crowd, among which were a number of the police of
Valparaiso. In this affray eighteen sailors were stabbed, several dying
from their wounds.
Of course the United States government at once communicated with
the Chilian authorities on the subject, expressing an intention to
investigate the occurrence fully. The first reply made to the American
government by Signor Matta, the Chilian minister of foreign affairs,
was to the effect that Chili would not allow anything to interfere with
her own official investigation.
[=An Investigation Demanded=]
An examination of all the facts was made on our part. It was careful
and thorough, and showed that our flag had been insulted in the
persons of American seamen. Yet, while the Chilian court of inquiry
could present no extenuating facts, that country refused at first
to offer apology or reparation for the affront. In the course of
the correspondence Minister Matta sent a note of instruction to Mr.
Montt, Chilian representative at Washington, in which he used the most
offensive terms in relation to the United States, and directed that the
letter should be given to the press for publication.
After waiting for a long time for the result of the investigation at
Valparaiso, and finding that, although no excuse or palliation had
been found for the outrage, the Chilian authorities seemed reluctant
to offer apology, the President of the United States, in a message to
Congress, made an extended statement of the various incidents of the
case and its legal aspect, and stated that on the 21st of January he
had caused a peremptory communication to be presented to the Chilian
government by the American minister at Santiago, in which severance of
diplomatic relations was threatened if our demands for satisfaction,
which included the withdrawal of Mr. Matta's insulting note, were not
complied with. At the time that this message was delivered no reply had
been sent to the note.
[=The American Case Presented=]
Mr. Harrison's statement of the legal aspect of the case, upon which
the final settlement of the difficulty was based, was that the presence
of a warship of any nation in a port belonging to a friendly power is
by virtue of a general invitation which nations are held to extend
to each other; that Commander Schley was invited, with his officers
and crew, to enjoy the hospitality of Valparaiso; that while no claim
that an attack which an individual sailor may be subjected to raises
an international question, yet where the resident population assault
sailors of another country's war vessels, as at Valparaiso, animated
by an animosity against the government to which they belong, that
government must act as it would if the representatives or flag of the
nation had been attacked, since the sailors are there by the order of
their government.
[=Chili Offers an Apology and Reparation=]
Finally an ultimatum was sent from the State department at Washington,
on the 25th, to Minister Egan, and was by him transmitted to the proper
Chilian authorities. It demanded the retraction of Mr. Matta's note and
suitable apology and reparation for the insult and injury sustained by
the United States. On the 28th of January, 1892, a dispatch from Chili
was received, in which the demands of our government were fully acceded
to, the offensive letter was withdrawn, and regret was expressed for
the occurrence. In his relation to this particular case, Minister
Egan's conduct received the entire approval of his government.
While the United States looked for a peaceful solution of this annoying
international episode, the proper preparations were made for a less
desirable outcome. Our naval force was put in as efficient a condition
as possible, and the vessels which were then in the navy yard were
got ready for service with all expedition. If the Chilian war-scare
did nothing else, it aroused a wholesome interest in naval matters
throughout the whole of the United States, and by focusing attention
upon the needs of this branch of the public service, showed at once how
helpless we might become in the event of a war with any first-class
power. We may thank Chili that to-day the United States Navy is in a
better condition than at any time in our history.
[=The Monroe Doctrine=]
When the great Napoleon was overthrown, France, Russia, Prussia and
Austria formed an alliance for preserving the "balance of power" and
for suppressing revolutions within one another's dominions. This
has been spoken of in a preceding chapter as the "Holy Alliance."
At the time the Spanish South American colonies were in revolt, and
the alliance had taken steps indicating an intention to aid in their
reduction. George Canning, the English secretary of state, proposed
to our country that we should unite with England in preventing such
an outrage against civilization. It was a momentous question, and
President Monroe consulted with Jefferson, Madison, Calhoun and John
Quincy Adams, the secretary of state, before making answer. The
decision being reached, the President embodied in his annual message
to Congress in December, 1823, a clause which formulated what has ever
since been known as the "Monroe Doctrine." It was written by John
Quincy Adams, and, referring to the intervention of the allied powers,
said that we "should consider any attempt on their part to extend their
system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace
and safety;" and further, "that the American continents, by the free
and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by
any European powers."
[=The Case of Cuba=]
By the Monroe Doctrine the United States formally adopted the position
of guardian of the weaker American States, and since its promulgation
there have been few aggressions of European nations in America, and
none in which the United States has not decisively warned them off. The
most striking instances may be stated. When, during the troubles in
Cuba, France and Great Britain suggested an alliance with the United
States to look after affairs in that quarter, they were given plainly
to understand that this country would attend to that matter itself and
would brook no interference on the part of foreign powers. It also
intimated that, in the event of Spain giving up her authority in Cuba
from any cause, the United States proposed to act as the sole arbiter
of the destinies of the island. Since that date no European power has
shown any inclination to interfere in Cuban affairs.
[=France in Mexico and the Fate of Maximilian=]
The only decided effort to set at naught the Monroe Doctrine was made
by France during-the American Civil War. Taking advantage of the
difficulties under which our government then labored, France landed
an army in Mexico, overthrew the republic, established an empire,
and placed Maximilian, a brother of the Emperor of Austria, upon its
throne. All went well with the new emperor until after the close of our
Civil War; then all began to go ill. The Monroe Doctrine raised its
head again, and the French were plainly bidden to take their troops
from Mexico if they did not want trouble. Napoleon III. was quick to
take the hint, and to withdraw his army. Maximilian was advised to go
with it, but he unwisely declined, fancying that he could maintain his
seat upon the Mexican throne. He was quickly undeceived. The liberals
sprang to arms, defeated with ease his small army, and soon had him
in their hands. A few words complete the story. He was tried by court
martial, condemned to death, and shot. Thus ended in disaster the
most decided attempt to set at naught the Monroe Doctrine of American
guardianship.
[=The Venezuelan Boundary and the Monroe Doctrine=]
A second effort, less piratical in its character, was the attempt
of Great Britain to extend the borders of British Guiana at the
expense of Venezuela. To a certain degree Great Britain seems to have
had right on its side in this movement, but its methods were those
used by strong nations when dealing with weak ones, the demand of
Venezuela for arbitration was scornfully ignored, and force was used
to support a claim whose justice no effort was made to show. These
high-handed proceedings were brought to a quick termination by the
action of the United States, which offered itself as the friend and
ally of Venezuela in the dispute. President Cleveland insisted on an
arbitration of the difficulty in words that had no uncertain ring,
and the statesmen of Great Britain, convinced that he meant just what
he said, submitted with what grace they could. A court of arbitration
was appointed, the boundary question put into its hands to settle, and
peace and satisfaction reigned again. The Monroe Doctrine had once more
decisively asserted itself. By the decision of the court of arbitration
each country got the portion of the disputed territory it most valued,
and both were satisfied. Thus peace has its triumphs greater than those
of war.
These are not offered as the only occasions in which the United States
has come into hostile relations with foreign powers and has sustained
its dignity with or without war, but they are the most striking ones,
unless we include in this category the Mexican war. Various disputes of
a minor character have arisen, notably with Great Britain, the latest
being that concerning the Alaskan boundary; but those given are the
only instances that seem to call for attention here.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Webster and Clay and the Preservation of the Union.
[=Questions of Internal Policy=]
During the first half of the nineteenth century a number of great
questions came up in American politics and pressed for solution. There
was abundance of hostilities--wars with Great Britain, the Barbary
states, Mexico and the Indians--and international difficulties of
various kinds. The most important of these we have described. We have
now to consider questions of internal policy, problems arising in the
development of the nation which threatened its peace and prosperity,
and to deal with which called for the most earnest patriotism and the
highest statesmanship in the political leaders of the commonwealth.
Among these leaders two men loomed high above their contemporaries,
Daniel Webster, the supreme orator and staunch defender of the Union,
and Henry Clay, the great peace-maker, whose hand for years stayed the
waves of the political tempest and more than once checked legislative
hostilities in their early stage. It was not until Clay had passed
from the scene that one of the national problems alluded to plunged
the country into civil war and racked the Union almost to the point of
dissolution.
[=Danger to the Union=]
Of these great political questions, danger to the Union arose from
two, the problem of the tariff and the dispute over the institution
of slavery. There were others of minor importance, prominent among
them those of internal improvement at government expense, and of state
rights, or the degree of independence of the states under the Federal
Union, but it was the first two only that threatened the existence
of the nation, and in dealing with which the noblest statesmanship
and the most fervid and convincing oratory were called into play.
The subject of slavery in particular gloomed above the nation like a
terrible thunder cloud. All other questions of domestic policy--tariff,
currency, internal improvements, state rights--were subordinate to the
main question of how to preserve the Union under this unceasing threat.
Some, like Calhoun, were ready to abandon the Union that slavery might
be saved; others, like Garrison, were ready to abandon the Union that
slavery might be destroyed. Between these extremes stood many able and
patriotic statesmen, who, to save the Union, were ready to make any
sacrifice and join in any compromise. And high among these, for more
than fifty years, stood the noble figure of Henry Clay.
[=Clay's Great Popularity=]
Not often does a man whose life is spent in purely civil affairs
become such a popular hero and idol as did Clay--especially when it is
his fate never to reach the highest place in the people's gift. "Was
there ever," says Parton, "a public man, not at the head of a state,
so beloved as he? Who ever heard such cheers, so hearty, distinct and
ringing, as those which his name evoked? Men shed tears at his defeat,
and women went to bed sick from pure sympathy with his disappointment.
He could not travel during the last thirty years of his life, but only
make _progresses_. When he left home the public seized him and bore him
along over the land, the committee of one state passing him on to the
committee of another, and the hurrahs of one town dying away as those
of the next caught his ear."
Born a poor boy, who had to make his way up from the lowest state of
frontier indigence, he was favored by nature with a kindly soul, the
finest and most effective powers of oratory, and a voice of the most
admirable character; one of deep and rich tone, wonderful volume, and
sweet and tender harmony, which invested all he said with majesty, and
swept audiences away as much by its musical and swelling cadences as by
the logic and convincing nature of his utterances.
After years of active and useful labor in Congress, it was in 1818 that
Clay first stepped into the arena for the calming of the passions of
Congress and the preservation of the Union, a duty to which he devoted
himself for the remainder of his life. In the year named a petition for
the admission of Missouri into the Union was presented in Congress, and
with it began that long and bitter struggle over slavery which did not
end until the surrender of Lee at Appomattox in 1865.
[=The Slavery Sentiment=]
For years the sentiment in favor of slavery had been growing stronger
in the South. At one time many of the wisest southern statesmen and
planters disapproved of the institution and proposed its abolition.
But the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, and the
subsequent great development of the cotton culture had decidedly
changed the situation. By 1800 the value of the cotton product had
advanced to $5,700,000. In 1820 it had made another great advance, and
was valued at nearly $20,000,000. There was now no thought of doing
away with the use of slaves, but a strong sentiment had arisen in the
South in favor of extending the area in which slave labor could be
employed.
[=The Admission of Missouri=]
In the North a different state of feeling existed. Slavery was believed
to be a wrong and an injury to American institutions, though no
movement for its abolition had been started. Many people thought it
ought to and would disappear in time, but there was no idea of taking
steps to enforce its disappearance. But when, in the bill for the
admission of Missouri, there was shown a purpose of extending the area
of slavery, northern sentiment became alarmed and a strong opposition
to this project developed in Congress.
It was the sudden revelation of a change of feeling in the South which
the North had not observed in its progress. "The discussion of this
Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls," wrote John
Quincy Adams. The slaveholders watched with apprehension the steady
growth of the free states in population, wealth and power. In 1790 the
population of the two sections had been nearly even. In 1820 there was
a difference of over 600,000 in favor of the North in a total of less
than ten millions. In 1790 the representation of the two sections in
Congress had been about evenly balanced. In 1820 the census promised to
give the North a preponderance of more than thirty votes in the House
of Representatives. If the South was to retain its political equality
in Congress, or at least in the Senate, it must have more slave states,
and there now began a vigorous struggle with this object in view. It
was determined, if possible, to have as many states as the North,
and it was with this purpose that it fought so hard to have slavery
introduced into Missouri.
[=The Missouri Compromise=]
The famous "Missouri Compromise," by which the ominous dispute of
1820 was at last settled, included the admission of one free state
(Maine) and one slave state (Missouri) at the same time, and it
was enacted that no other slave state should be formed out of any
part of the Louisiana territory north of thirty-six degrees thirty
minutes, which was the southern boundary line of Missouri. The assent
of opposing parties to this arrangement was secured largely by the
patriotic efforts of Clay, who, says Schurz, "did not confine himself
to speeches, * * * but went from man to man, expostulating, beseeching,
persuading, in his most winning way. * * * His success added greatly
to his reputation and gave new strength to his influence." The result,
says John Quincy Adams, was "to bring into full display the talents
and resources and influence of Mr. Clay." He was praised as "the great
pacificator"--a title which was confirmed by the deeds of his later
life.
Clay served as secretary of state during the administration of John
Quincy Adams, but in 1829, when Jackson, his bitter enemy, succeeded to
the presidency, he retired for a short season to private life in his
beautiful Kentucky home. But he was not long to remain there; in 1831
he was again elected to the Senate, where he remained until 1842. They
were stormy years. In South Carolina the opposition to the protective
tariff had led to the promulgation of the famous "nullification"
theory--the doctrine that any state had the power to declare a law of
the United States null and void. Jackson, whose anger was thoroughly
aroused, dealt with the revolt in summary fashion, threatening that if
any resistance to the government was attempted he would instantly have
the leaders arrested and brought to trial for treason. Nevertheless,
to allay the discontent of the South, Clay devised his Compromise
Tariff of 1833, under which the duties were to be gradually reduced,
until they should reach a minimum of twenty per cent. In 1832 he
allowed himself, very unwisely, to be a candidate for the presidency,
Jackson's re-election being a foregone conclusion. In 1836 he declined
a nomination, and Van Buren was elected. Then followed the panic of
1837, which insured the defeat of the party in power, and the election
of the Whig candidate at the following presidential election; but
the popularity of General Jackson had convinced the party managers
that success demanded a military hero as a candidate; and accordingly
General Harrison, "the hero of Tippecanoe," was elected, after the
famous "Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign" of 1840. This slight was
deeply mortifying to Clay, who had counted with confidence upon being
the candidate of the party. "I am the most unfortunate man in the
history of parties," he truly remarked; "always run by my friends when
sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any
one else, would be sure of an election."
[=Clay as a Presidential Candidate=]
In 1844, however, Clay's opportunity came at last. He was so obviously
the Whig candidate that there was no opposition. The convention met at
Baltimore in May, and he was nominated by acclamation, with a shout
that shook the building. Everything appeared to indicate success, and
his supporters regarded his triumphant election as certain.
[=The Contest of 1844=]
But into the politics of the time had come a new factor--the "Liberty
party." This had been hitherto considered unimportant; but the proposed
annexation of Texas, which had become a prominent question, was opposed
by many in the North who had hitherto voted with the Whig party.
Clay was a slaveholder; and though he had opposed the extension of
slavery, his record was not satisfactory to those who disapproved of
the annexation of Texas. In truth, the opposition to slavery in the
North was rapidly gaining political strength, while the question of
the annexation of Texas was looked upon as one for the extension of
the "peculiar institution," since Texas would, under the Missouri
Compromise, fall into line as a slave state, and was large enough, if
Congress should permit, to be cut up into a number of slave states.
Clay was between two fires. He was distrusted in the South; while his
competitor, Polk, was pledged to support the annexation of Texas. He
was doubted in the North as a slaveholder. His old enemy, Jackson, used
his influence strongly against him. The contest finally turned upon the
vote of New York, and that proved so close that the suspense became
painful. People did not go to bed, waiting for the delayed returns. The
contest was singularly like that of Blaine and Garfield, forty years
later, when the result again turned upon a close vote in the State of
New York. When at last the decisive news was received, and the fact of
Clay's defeat was assured, the Whigs broke out in a wail of agony all
over the land. "It was," says Nathan Sargent, "as if the first-born
of every family had been stricken down." The descriptions we have of
the grief manifested are almost incredible. Tears flowed in abundance
from the eyes of men and women. In the cities and villages the business
places were almost deserted for a day or two, people gathering together
in groups to discuss in low tones what had happened. The Whigs were
fairly stunned by their defeat, and the Democrats failed to indulge
in demonstrations of triumph, it being widely felt that a great wrong
had been done. It was the opinion of many that there would be no hope
thereafter of electing the great statesmen of the country to the
presidency, and that this high office would in future be attained only
by men of second-rate ability.
[=The Compromise of 1850=]
The last and greatest work of the life of Henry Clay was the famous
Compromise of 1850, which has been said to have postponed for ten years
the great Civil War. At that period the sentiment against slavery was
rapidly increasing in the North and had gained great strength. Though
the number of free and slave states continued equal, the former were
fast surpassing the latter in wealth and population.
It was evident that slavery must have more territory or lose its
political influence. Shut out of the northwest by the Missouri
Compromise, it was supposed that a great field for its extension had
been gained in Texas and the territory acquired from Mexico. But now
California, a part of this territory which had been counted upon for
slavery, was populated by a sudden rush of northern immigration,
attracted by the discovery of gold; and a state government was
organized with a constitution excluding slavery, thus giving the free
states a majority of one. Instead of adding to the area of slavery, the
Mexican territory seemed likely to increase the strength of freedom.
The South was both alarmed and exasperated. Threats of disunion were
freely made. It was clear that prompt measures must be taken to allay
the prevailing excitement, if disruption were to be avoided. In such
an emergency it was natural that all eyes should turn to the "great
pacificator," Henry Clay.
[=An Orator of Seventy-two=]
When, at the session of 1849-50, he appeared in the Senate to assist,
if possible, in removing the slavery question from politics, Clay was
an infirm and serious, but not sad, old man of seventy-two. He never
lost his cheerfulness or faith, but he felt deeply for his distracted
country. During that memorable session of Congress he spoke seventy
times. Often extremely sick and feeble, scarcely able, with the
assistance of a friend's arm, to climb the steps of the Capitol, he
was never absent on the days when the compromise was to be debated.
On the morning on which he began his great speech, he was accompanied
by a clerical friend, to whom he said, on reaching the long flight of
steps leading to the Capitol, "Will you lend me your arm, my friend?
for I find myself quite weak and exhausted this morning." Every few
steps he was obliged to stop and take breath. "Had you not better defer
your speech?" asked the clergyman. "My dear friend," said the dying
orator, "I consider our country in danger; and if I can be the means,
in any measure, of averting that danger, my health or life is of little
consequence." When he rose to speak it was but too evident that he
was unfit for the task he had undertaken. But as he kindled with his
subject, his cough left him, and his bent form resumed all its wonted
erectness and majesty. He may, in the prime of his strength, have
spoken with more energy, but never with so much pathos or grandeur. His
speech lasted two days; and though he lived two years longer, he never
recovered from the effects of the effort. The thermometer in the Senate
chamber marked nearly 100 degrees. Toward the close of the second
day, his friends repeatedly proposed an adjournment; but he would not
desist until he had given complete utterance to his feelings. He said
afterwards that he was not sure, if he gave way to an adjournment, that
he should ever be able to resume.
[=Clay's Tribute to the Union=]
Never was Clay's devotion to the Union displayed in such thrilling and
pathetic forms as in the course of this long debate. On one occasion
allusion was made to a South Carolina hot-head, who had publicly
proposed to raise the flag of disunion. When Clay retorted by saying,
that, if Mr. Rhett had really meant that proposition, and should follow
it up by corresponding acts, he would be a _traitor_, and added, "and
I hope he will meet a traitor's fate," thunders of applause broke
from the crowded galleries. When the chairman succeeded in restoring
silence, Mr. Clay made that celebrated declaration which was so
frequently quoted in 1861: "If Kentucky to-morrow shall unfurl the
banner of resistance unjustly, I will never fight under that banner. I
owe paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my
own state." Again: "The senator speaks of Virginia being my country.
This Union, sir, is my country; the thirty states are my country;
Kentucky is my country, and Virginia, no more than any state in the
Union." And yet again: "There are those who think that the Union must
be preserved by an exclusive reliance upon love and reason. That is not
my opinion. I have some confidence in this instrumentality; but, depend
upon it, no human government can exist without the power of applying
force, and the actual application of it in extreme cases."
[=The Omnibus Bill=]
The compromise offered by Clay became known as the "Omnibus Bill,"
from the various measures it covered. It embraced the following
provisions: 1. California should be admitted as a free state. 2. New
Mexico and Utah should be formed into territories, and the question
of the admission of slavery be left for their people to decide. 3.
Texas should give up part of the territory it claimed, and be paid
$10,000,000 as a recompense. 4. The slave-trade should be prohibited in
the District of Columbia. 5. A stringent law for the return of fugitive
slaves to their masters should be enacted.
[=Effect of the Fugitive Slave Law=]
The question concerning Texas was the following: Texas claimed that
its western boundary followed the Rio Grande to its source. This
took in territory which had never been part of Texas, but the claim
was strongly pushed, and was settled in the manner above stated. The
serious question, however, in this compromise was that concerning the
return of fugitive slaves. When an effort was made to enforce the
Fugitive Slave Law great opposition was excited, on account of the
stringency of its provisions. The fugitive, when arrested, was not
permitted to testify in his own behalf or to claim trial by jury, and
all persons were required to assist the United States marshal, when
called upon for aid. To assist a fugitive to escape was an offence
punishable by fine and imprisonment. In the last two respects the law
failed; and its severe provisions added greatly to the strength of the
anti-slavery party, and thus had much to do in bringing on the Civil
War.
Side by side with Clay in the senate stood another and greater figure,
the majestic presence of Daniel Webster, one of the greatest orators
the world has ever known, a man fitted to stand on the rostrum with
Demosthenes, the renowned orator of Greece, or with Chatham, Burke, or
Gladstone of the British parliament.
[=The "Reply to Hayne"=]
In the hall of the United States Senate, on January 26, 1830, occurred
what may be considered the most memorable scene in the annals of
Congress. It was then that Daniel Webster made his famous "Reply to
Hayne,"--that renowned speech which has been declared the greatest
oration ever made in Congress, and which, in its far-reaching effect
upon the public mind, did so much to shape the future destiny of the
American Union. That speech was Webster's crowning work, and the event
of his life by which he will be best known to posterity.
Nothing in our history is more striking than the contrast between
the Union of the time of Washington and the Union of the time of
Lincoln. It was not merely that in the intervening seventy-two years
the republic had grown great and powerful; it was that the popular
sentiment toward the Union was transformed. The old feeling of distrust
and jealousy had given place to a passionate attachment. It was as
though a puny, sickly, feeble child, not expected by its parents even
to live, had come to be their strong defense and support, their joy and
pride. A weak league of states had become a strong nation; and when
in 1861 it was attacked, millions of men were ready to fight for its
defence. What brought about this great change? What was it that stirred
the larger patriotism that gave shape and purpose to this growing
feeling of national pride and unity? It was in a great degree the work
of Daniel Webster. It was he who maintained and advocated the theory
that the Federal Constitution created, not a league, but a nation; that
it welded the people into organic union, supreme and perpetual. He
it was who set forth in splendid completeness the picture of a great
nation, inseparably united, commanding the first allegiance and loyalty
of every citizen; and who so fostered and strengthened the sentiment of
union that, when the great struggle came, it had grown too strong to be
overthrown.
[=Webster's Personal Appearance=]
[=Voice and Personal Magnetism of Webster=]
No description of Daniel Webster is complete or adequate which fails
to describe his extraordinary personal appearance. In face, form and
voice nature did her utmost for him. So impressive was his presence
that men commonly spoke of this man of five feet ten inches in height
and less than two hundred pounds in weight as a giant. He seemed to
dwarf those surrounding him. His head was very large, but of noble
shape, with broad and lofty brow, and strong but finely cut features.
His eyes were remarkable. They were large and deep-set, and in the
excitement of an eloquent appeal they glowed with the deep light of
the fire of a forge. His voice was in harmony with his appearance. In
conversation it was low and musical; in debate it was high but full.
In moments of excitement it rang out like a clarion, whence it would
sink into notes of the solemn richness of organ tones, while the grace
and dignity of his manner added greatly to the impressive delivery of
his words. That wonderful quality which we call personal magnetism,
the power of impressing by one's personality every human being who
comes near, was at its height in Mr. Webster. He never punished his
children. It sufficed, when they did wrong, to send for them and look
at them in silence. The look, whether of sorrow or anger, was rebuke
and punishment enough.
[=The Question of Nullification=]
As an orator, Mr. Webster's most famous speeches were the Plymouth
Rock address, in 1820; the Bunker Hill Monument address, in 1825; and
his orations in the Senate in 1830 in reply to Hayne, and in 1850 on
Clay's Compromise Bill. Greatest among these was the speech in reply
to Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, on the 26th of January, 1830.
The Union was threatened, and Webster rose to the utmost height of
his impassioned genius in this thrilling appeal for its preservation
and endurance. The question under debate was the right of a state to
nullify the acts of Congress. Hayne, in sustaining the affirmative of
this dangerous proposition, had bitterly assailed New England, and had
attacked Mr. Webster by caustic personalities, rousing "the giant" to a
crushing reply.
"There was," says Edward Everett, "a very great excitement in
Washington, growing out of the controversies of the day, and the action
of the South; and party spirit ran uncommonly high. There seemed to
be a preconcerted action on the part of the southern members to break
down the northern men, and to destroy their force and influence by a
premeditated onslaught.
"Mr. Hayne's speech was an eloquent one, as all know who ever read it.
He was considered the foremost southerner in debate, except Calhoun,
who was vice-president and could not enter the arena. Mr. Hayne was the
champion of the southern side. Those who heard his speech felt much
alarm, for two reasons; first, on account of its eloquence and power,
and second, because of its many personalities. It was thought by many
who heard it, and by some of Mr. Webster's personal friends, that it
was impossible for him to answer the speech.
[=Hayne's Speech in the Senate=]
"I shared a little myself in that fear and apprehension," said Mr.
Everett. "I knew from what I heard concerning General Hayne's speech
that it was a very masterly effort, and delivered with a great deal
of power and with an air of triumph. I was engaged on that day in a
committee of which I was chairman, and could not be present in the
Senate. But immediately after the adjournment. I hastened to Mr.
Webster's house, with, I admit, some little trepidation, not knowing
how I should find him. But I was quite re-assured in a moment after
seeing Mr. Webster, and observing his entire calmness. He seemed to
be as much at ease and as unmoved as I ever saw him. Indeed, at first
I was a little afraid from this that he was not quite aware of the
magnitude of the contest. I said at once:
"'Mr. Hayne has made a speech?'
"'Yes, he has made a speech.'
"'You reply in the morning?'
"'Yes,' said Mr. Webster, 'I do not propose to let the case go by
default, and without saying a word.'
"'Did you take notes, Mr. Webster, of Mr. Hayne's speech?'
[=Webster Prepares for Reply=]
"Mr. Webster took from his vest pocket a piece of paper about as big as
the palm of his hand, and replied, 'I have it all: that is his speech.'
"I immediately arose," said Mr. Everett, "and remarked to him that I
would not disturb him longer; Mr. Webster desired me not to hasten, as
he had no desire to be alone; but I left."
"On the morning of the memorable day," writes Mr. Lodge, "the Senate
chamber was packed by an eager and excited crowd. Every seat on
the floor and in the galleries was occupied, and all the available
standing-room was filled. The protracted debate, conducted with so much
ability on both sides, had excited the attention of the whole country,
and had given time for the arrival of hundreds of interested spectators
from all parts of the Union, and especially from New England.
"In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is
so peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human
beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster arose. His personal grandeur
and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect
quietness, unaffected apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling
about him, he said, in a low, even tone:
[=The Opening of a Great Speech=]
"'Mr. President: When the mariner has been tossed for many days in
thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the
first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his
latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his
true course. Let us imitate this prudence; and before we float farther
on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed,
that we may, at least, be able to conjecture where we are now. I ask
for the reading of the resolution before the Senate.'
"This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple
and appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved
the strained excitement of the audience, which might have ended by
disconcerting the speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now
at his ease; and when the monotonous reading of the resolution ceased,
Mr. Webster was master of the situation, and had his listeners in
complete control."
With breathless attention they followed him as he proceeded. The
strong, masculine sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning,
the burning appeals to love of state and country, flowed on unbroken.
As his feelings warmed the fire came into his eyes; there was a glow
in his swarthy cheek; his strong right arm seemed to sweep away
resistlessly the whole phalanx of his opponents, and the deep and
melodious cadences of his voice sounded like harmonious organ tones as
they filled the chamber with their music. Who that ever read or heard
it can forget the closing passage of that glorious speech?
[=A Magnificent Peroration=]
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be,
in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance behold
rather the glorious ensign of the republic, now known and honored
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted,
not a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable
interrogatory as, _What is all this worth?_ or those other words
of delusion and folly, _Liberty first, and Union afterwards_; but
everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on
all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, that
other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,--LIBERTY AND
UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!"
As the last words died away into silence, those who had listened looked
wonderingly at each other, dimly conscious that they had heard one of
the grand speeches which are landmarks in the history of eloquence; and
the men of the North and of New England went forth full of the pride of
victory, for their champion had triumphed, and no assurance was needed
to prove to the world that this time no answer could be made.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON. (1743-1826)
ANDREW JACKSON. (1767-1845)
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. (1767-1848)
ZACHARY TAYLOR. (1784-1850)]
[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY.
HENRY CLAY.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
JOHN B. GOUGH.
HENRY W. GRADY.
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
EDWARD EVERETT.
GREAT AMERICAN ORATORS AND STATESMEN.]
[=Calhoun, the Advocate of Slavery=]
The great supporter of the doctrine which Hayne advocated and which
Webster tore into shreds and fragments, the indefatigable sustainer
of the institution of slavery in the United States Congress, was John
C. Calhoun. That this man was sincere in his conviction that slavery
was morally and politically right, and beneficial alike to white
and black, to North and South, no one has questioned. He was one of
the most upright of men; one devoid of pretence or concealment; a man
of pure honesty of purpose and great ability, and in consequence of
immense influence. His own state followed his lead with unquestioning
faith, and it is not too much to say that the slavery conflict was in
great measure due to the doctrines which he unceasingly advocated for a
quarter of a century.
[=The South Carolina Exposition=]
Calhoun is equally well known for his state rights championship and
in connection with the effort of South Carolina to secede from the
Union, as a consequence of the tariff bill of 1828. This measure, which
considerably increased the duties on imports, aroused bitter opposition
in the South, where it was styled the "Tariff of Abominations." On its
passage Calhoun prepared a vigorous paper called the "South Carolina
Exposition," in which he maintained that the Constitution limited the
right of Congress to exact tariff charges to the purpose of revenue;
that protective duties were, therefore, unconstitutional; and that any
state had the right to declare an unconstitutional law null and void,
and forbid its execution in that state. Such was the famous doctrine of
"nullification."
This paper was issued in 1828, Calhoun being then Vice-President under
Jackson, and as such president of the senate. In 1829, the long debate
on the question: "Does the Constitution make us one sovereign nation or
only a league of separate states?" reached its height. Its climax came
in January, 1830, in the remarkable contest between Webster and Hayne,
above described. Webster showed that an attempt to nullify the laws of
the nation was treason, and would lead to revolution, in the employment
of armed force to sustain it.
[=The Ordinance of Nullification=]
To such a revolutionary measure South Carolina proceeded. After
the presidential election of 1832, Calhoun, who had resigned the
vice-presidency, called a convention of the people of the state, which
passed the famous Ordinance of Nullification, declaring the 1828 tariff
null and void in that state.
[=Jackson and Nullification=]
The passage of the ordinance created intense excitement throughout
the states. Everywhere the dread of civil war and of the dissolution
of the Union was entertained. Fortunately there was a Jackson, and
not a Buchanan, in the presidential chair. Jackson was not a model
President under ordinary circumstances, but he was just the man for
the emergency of this character, and he dealt with it much as he had
dealt with the Spaniards in Florida. On December 10, 1832, came out
his vigorous proclamation against nullification. The governor of South
Carolina issued a counter-proclamation, and called out twelve thousand
volunteers. A crisis seemed at hand. Congress passed a "Force Bill" to
provide for the collection of the revenue in South Carolina, though
Calhoun--then in the Senate--opposed it in the most powerful of his
speeches. It is said that Jackson warned him that, if any resistance to
the government was made in South Carolina, he would be at once arrested
on a charge of treason.
[=Calhoun Seeks to Force the Issue of Slavery=]
The President made prompt preparations to suppress the threatened
revolt by force of arms, troops and naval vessels being sent to
Charleston. But at the same time Congress made concessions to South
Carolina and the crisis passed. It was through the efforts of Henry
Clay as already specified that this warcloud was dissipated. The tariff
question settled, the slavery issue grew prominent. The agitation of
this question, from 1835 to 1850, was chiefly the work of one man,
John C. Calhoun. Parton says that "the labors of Mr. Garrison and Mr.
Wendell Phillips might have borne no fruit during their lifetime, if
Calhoun had not made it his business to supply them with material. 'I
mean to force the issue on the North,' he once wrote; and he did force
it."
[=A Pen Picture of Three Great Orators=]
This chapter cannot be more fitly closed than with a quotation from
Harriet Martineau, in whose "Retrospect of Western Travel" we find the
following pen-picture of the three great statesmen above treated: "Mr.
Clay sitting upright on the sofa, with his snuff-box ever in his hand,
would discourse for many an hour in his even, soft, deliberate tone, on
any one of the great subjects of American policy which we might happen
to start, always amazing us with the moderation of estimate and speech
which so impetuous a nature has been able to attain. Mr. Webster,
leaning back at his ease, telling stories, cracking jokes, shaking the
sofa with burst after burst of laughter, or smoothly discoursing to
the perfect felicity of the logical part of one's constitution, would
illuminate an evening now and then. Mr. Calhoun, the cast-iron man, who
looks as if he had never been born and could never be extinguished,
would come in sometimes to keep our understanding on a painful stretch
for a short while, and leave us to take to pieces his close, rapid,
theoretical, illustrated talk, and see what we could make of it. We
found it usually more worth retaining as a curiosity, than as either
very just or useful.
"I know of no man who lives in such utter intellectual solitude. He
meets men and harangues by the fireside as in the Senate; he is wrought
like a piece of machinery, set going vehemently by a weight, and stops
while you answer; he either passes by what you say, or twists it into a
suitability with what is in his head, and begins to lecture again."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Annexation of Texas and the War with
Mexico.
[=Mexico Gains Its Independence=]
We have spoken, in Chapter xxiii, of the revolt of Texas from Mexico
and the annexation of the newly formed republic to the United States.
In the present chapter it is proposed to deal more fully with this
subject and describe its results in the war with Mexico. In the year
1821, after more than ten years of struggle for freedom, Mexico won
its independence from Spain, and soon after founded a constitutional
monarchy, with Augustin de Iturbide, the head of the revolutionary
government, as emperor. This empire did not last long. General Santa
Anna proclaimed a republic in 1823, and the emperor was obliged to
resign his crown. In the following year he returned to Mexico with the
hope of recovering his lost crown; but, on the contrary, was arrested
and shot as a traitor. Mexico is not a good country for emperors. About
forty years afterward, a second emperor, sent there by France, was
disposed of in the same manner.
[=The Settlement of Texas=]
The establishment of the republic was followed by earnest efforts in
favor of the settlement and development of the unoccupied territory of
the country, and Texas, a large province in its northeastern boundary,
began to be settled by immigrants, very largely from the United
States. By 1830 the American population numbered about 20,000, being
much in excess of that of Mexican origin. These people were largely
of the pioneer class, bold, unruly, energetic frontiersmen, difficult
to control under any government, and unanimous in their detestation
of the tyranny of Mexican rule. Their American spirit rose against
the dominance of those whom they called by the offensive title of
"greasers," and in 1832 they broke into rebellion and drove all the
Mexican troops out of the country.
[=The Career of General Houston=]
It was this revolt that brought the famous Samuel Houston to Texas.
The early life of this born leader had been spent on the Tennessee
frontier, and during much of his boyhood he had lived among the
Cherokee Indians, who looked up to him as to one of their head chiefs.
He fought under Jackson in the war of 1812, and was desperately
wounded in the Creek War. He subsequently studied law, was elected to
Congress, and in 1827 became governor of Tennessee. An unhappy marriage
brought to an end this promising part of his career. A separation from
his wife was followed by calumnies on the part of her friends, which
became so bitter that Houston, in disgust, left the state and proceeded
to Arkansas, where for three years he lived with his boyhood friends,
the Cherokees. The outbreak in Texas offered a promising opportunity to
a man of his ambitious and enterprising disposition, and he set out for
that region in December, 1832.
[=War in Texas=]
For two years after Houston joined fortunes with Texas there was
comparative quiet; but immigration went on in a steadily increasing
stream, and the sentiment for independence grew stronger every day. The
Mexican government, in fear of the growing strength of Texas, ordered
that the people should be disarmed--a decree which aroused instant
rebellion. A company of Mexican soldiers sent to the little town of
Gonzales, on the Guadalupe, to remove a small brass six-pounder, was
met a few miles from the town by one hundred and eighty Texans, who
fell upon them with such vigor that they turned and fled, losing
several men. No Texan was killed. This battle was called "the Lexington
of Texas."
Then war broke out again more furiously than ever. The Mexican
soldiers, who were under weak and incompetent commanders, were again
dispersed and driven out of the country. But now Santa Anna himself,
the Mexican dictator, an able general, but a false and cruel man, took
the field. With an army of several thousand men, he crossed the Rio
Grande, and marched against the Texans.
The town of Bexar, on the San Antonio River, was defended by a garrison
of about one hundred and seventy-five men. Among them were two whose
names are still famous--David Crockett, the renowned pioneer, and
Colonel James Bowie, noted for his murderous "bowie-knife," his duels,
and his deeds of valor and shame. The company was commanded by Colonel
W. Barrett Travis, a brave young Texan. On the approach of Santa Anna,
they took refuge in the Alamo, about half a mile to the north of the
town.
[=The Massacre of the Alamo and Goliad=]
The Alamo was an ancient Franciscan mission of the eighteenth century.
It covered an area of about three acres, surrounded by walls three
feet thick and eight feet high. Within the walls were a stone church
and several other buildings. For two weeks it withstood Santa Anna's
assaults. A shower of bombs and cannon-balls fell incessantly within
the walls. At last, after a brave defense by the little garrison,
the fortress was captured, in the early morning of Sunday, March 6,
1836. After the surrender, Travis, Bowie and Crockett, with all their
companions, were by Santa Anna's especial command massacred in cold
blood.
But this was not the worst; a few days afterwards a company of over
four hundred Texans, under Colonel Fannin, besieged at Goliad, were
induced to surrender, under Santa Anna's solemn promises of protection.
After the surrender they were divided into several companies, marched
in different directions a short distance out of the town, and shot down
like dogs by the Mexican soldiers. Not a man escaped.
While these horrible events were taking place, Houston was at Gonzales,
with a force of less than four hundred men. Meetings were held in the
different settlements to raise an army to resist the Mexican invasion;
and a convention of the people issued a proclamation declaring Texas a
free and independent republic. It was two weeks before General Houston
received intelligence of the atrocious massacres at Bexar and Goliad,
and of Santa Anna's advance. The country was in a state of panic.
Settlers were everywhere abandoning their homes, and fleeing in terror
at the approach of the Mexican soldiers. Houston's force of a few
hundred men was the only defense of Texas; and even this was diminished
by frequent desertion from the ranks. The cause of Texan freedom seemed
utterly hopeless.
[=General Houston and Santa Anna=]
In order to gain time, while watching his opportunity for attack,
Houston slowly retreated before the Mexican army. After waiting two
weeks for reinforcements, he moved toward Buffalo Bayou, a deep, narrow
stream connecting with the San Jacinto River, about twenty miles
southeast of the present city of Houston. Here he expected to meet the
Mexican army. The lines being formed, General Houston made one of his
most impassioned and eloquent appeals to his troops firing every breast
by giving as a watchword, "REMEMBER THE ALAMO."
Soon the Mexican bugles rang out over the prairie, announcing the
advance guard of the enemy, almost eighteen hundred strong. The rank
and file of the patriots was less than seven hundred and fifty men.
Their disadvantages only served to increase the enthusiasm of the
soldiers; and when their general said, "Men, there is the enemy; do
you wish to fight?" the universal shout was, "We do!" "Well, then," he
said, "remember it is for liberty or death; _remember the Alamo!_"
At the moment of attack, a lieutenant came galloping up, his horse
covered with foam, and shouted along the lines, "I've cut down Vince's
bridge." Each army had used this bridge in coming to the battle-field,
and General Houston had ordered its destruction, thus preventing all
hope of escape to the vanquished.
[=The Battle of San Jacinto=]
Santa Anna's forces were in perfect order, awaiting the attack, and
reserved their fire until the patriots were within sixty paces of their
works. Then they poured forth a volley, which went over the heads of
the attackers, though a ball struck General Houston's ankle, inflicting
a very painful wound. Though suffering and bleeding. General Houston
kept his saddle during the entire action. The patriots held their
fire until it was given to the enemy almost in their very bosoms, and
then, having no time to reload, made a general rush upon the foe, who
were altogether unprepared for the furious charge. The patriots not
having bayonets, clubbed their rifles. About half-past four the Mexican
rout began, and closed only with the night. Seven of the patriots
were killed and twenty-three were wounded; while the Mexicans had
six hundred and thirty-two killed and wounded, and seven hundred and
thirty, among whom was Santa Anna, made prisoners.
The victory of San Jacinto struck the fetters forever from the hands
of Texas, and drove back the standard of Mexico beyond the Rio Grande,
never to return except in predatory and transient incursions. General
Houston became at once the leading man in Texas, almost universal
applause following him. As soon as quiet and order were restored,
he was made the first President of the new republic, under the
Constitution adopted in November, 1835.
[=Texas Applies for Admission to the Union=]
In 1837 the republic of Texas was acknowledged by the United States,
and in 1840 by Great Britain, France and Belgium. The population was
overwhelmingly of American origin, and these people had in no sense
lost their love for their former country, a sentiment in favor of the
annexation of the "Lone Star State" to the United States being from
the first entertained. In 1837 a formal application for admission as
a state of the American Union was made. This proposition found many
advocates and many opposers in this country, it being strongly objected
to by northern Congressmen and favored by those from the South. The
controversy turned upon the question of the extension of the area of
slavery, which was a matter of importance to the South, while others
who supported it held large tracts of land in Texas which they hoped
would increase in value under United States rule.
As a result of the opposition, the question remained open for years,
and was prominent in the presidential campaign of 1844, in which
Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, was defeated, and James K. Polk, the
Democratic candidate, was elected on the annexation platform. This
settled the dispute. The people had expressed their will and the
opposition yielded. Both Houses of Congress passed a bill in favor of
admitting Texas as a state, and it was signed by President Tyler in
the closing hours of his administration. The offer was unanimously
accepted by the legislature of Texas on July 4, 1845, and it became a
state of the American Union in December of that year.
[=Mexico Protests=]
In admitting Texas, Congress had opened the way to serious trouble.
Though Mexico had taken no steps to recover its lost province, it
had never acknowledged its independence, and stood over it somewhat
like the dog in the manger, not prepared to take it, yet vigorously
protesting against any other power doing so. Its protest against the
action of the United States was soon followed by a more critical
exigency, an active boundary dispute. Texas claimed the Rio Grande
River as her western boundary. Mexico held that the Nueces River was
the true boundary. Between these two streams lay a broad tract of land
claimed by both nations, and which both soon sought to occupy. War
arose in consequence of this ownership dispute.
[=A Disputed Boundary=]
In the summer of 1845 President Polk directed General Zachary Taylor
to proceed to Corpus Christi, on the Nueces, and in the spring of
1846 he received orders to march to the Rio Grande. As soon as this
movement was made, the Mexicans claimed that their territory had been
invaded, ordered Taylor to retire, and on his refusal sent a body of
troops across the river. Both countries were ripe for war, and both had
taken steps to bring it on. A hostile meeting took place on April 24th,
with some loss to both sides. On receiving word by telegraph of this
skirmish, the President at once sent a message to Congress, saying:
"Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, and shed American
blood upon American soil. * * * War exists, notwithstanding all our
efforts to avoid it."
[=War Declared Against Mexico=]
The efforts to avoid it had not been active. There was rather an
effort to favor it. Abraham Lincoln, then a member of Congress, asked
pointedly if special efforts had not been taken to provoke a war. But
Congress responded favorably to the President's appeal, declared that
war existed "by the act of Mexico," and called for fifty thousand
volunteers.
The declaration of war was dated May 13, 1846. Several days before
this, severe fights had taken place at Palo Alto and Resaca de la
Palma, on the disputed territory. The Mexicans were defeated, and
retreated across the Rio Grande. They were quickly followed by Taylor,
who took possession of the town of Matamoras. The plan of war laid out
embraced an invasion of Mexico from four quarters. Taylor was to march
southward from his position on the Rio Grande, General Winfield Scott
to advance on the capital by the way of Vera Cruz, General Stephen W.
Kearny to invade New Mexico, and California was to be attacked by a
naval expedition, already despatched.
[=The Storming of Monterey=]
Taylor was quick to act after receiving reinforcements. He advanced
on September 5th, and on the 9th reached Monterey, a strongly
fortified interior town. The Mexicans looked upon this place as almost
impregnable, it being surrounded by mountains and ravines, difficult
to pass and easy of defense. Yet the Americans quickly penetrated to
the walls, and were soon within the town, where a severe and bloody
conflict took place. The stormers made their way over the house roofs
and through excavations in the adobe walls, and in four days' time were
in possession of the town which the Mexicans had confidently counted
upon stopping their march.
[=Taylor at Buena Vista=]
Some months passed before Taylor was in condition to advance again,
his force being much depleted by reinforcements sent to General Scott.
It was February, 1847, when he took the field once more, reaching a
position south of Monterey known as Buena Vista, a narrow mountain
pass, with hills on one side and a ravine on the other. This bold
advance of an army not more than 5,000 strong seemed a splendid
opportunity to Santa Anna, then commander-in-chief of the Mexican army,
who marched on the small American force with 20,000 men. The battle
that followed was the most interesting and hard fought one in the war.
Santa Anna hoped to crush the Americans utterly, and would perhaps
have done so but for the advantage of their position and the effective
service of their artillery.
"You are surrounded by twenty thousand men, and cannot, in all human
probability, avoid suffering rout and being cut to pieces with your
troops." Such were the alarming words with which the Mexican general
accompanied a summons to General Taylor to surrender within an hour.
Taylor's answer was polite but brief. "In answer to your note of this
date summoning me to surrender my forces at discretion, I beg leave to
say that I decline acceeding to your request."
[Illustration: BATTLE OF RESACA DE LA PALMA
Captain May leaped his steed over the parapets,
followed by those of his men whose horses could do a
like feat, and was among the gunners the next moment,
sabering them right and left. General La Vega and a
hundred of his men were made prisoners and borne back
to the American lines.]
[Illustration: JOHN L. MOTLEY
WM. H. PRESCOTT
GEO. BANCROFT
JOHN B. McMASTER
JAMES PARTON
GREAT AMERICAN HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS]
General Taylor, or "Rough and Ready" as he was affectionately called
by his men, had long before--he was now sixty-three years old--won his
spurs on the battlefield. He was short, round-shouldered, and stout.
His forehead was high, his eyes keen, his mouth firm, with the lower
lip protruding, his hair snow-white, and his expression betokened his
essentially humane and unassuming character. No private could have
lived in simpler fashion. When he could escape from his uniform he
wore a linen roundabout, cotton trousers, and a straw hat, and, if it
rained, an old brown overcoat. In battle he was absolutely fearless,
and invariably rode a favourite white horse, altogether regardless of
attracting the enemy's attention. The old hero never wavered when he
heard of the approach of the dreaded Santa Anna. He quietly went to
work, and, having strongly garrisoned Saltillo, placed his men so as to
seize all the advantages the position offered.
[=The Field of Battle=]
Imagine a narrow valley between two mountain ranges. On the west side
of the road a series of gullies or ravines, on the east the sheer sides
of precipitous mountains. Such was the Pass of Angostura, which, at one
spot three miles from Buena Vista, could be held as easily as Horatius
kept the bridge in the brave days of old; and here was placed Captain
Washington's battery of three guns, with two companies as a guard. Up
the mountain to the eastward the rest of the American army was ranged,
more especially on a plateau so high as to command all the ground east
and west, and only approachable from the south or north by intricate
windings formed by ledges of rock.
At nine o'clock on the morning of the 22d of February the advance
pickets espied the Mexican van, and General Wool sent in hot haste to
Taylor, who was at Saltillo. The Mexican army dragged its slow length
along, its resplendent uniforms shining in the sun. With much the
same feelings as Macbeth saw Birnam Wood approach, must many of the
Americans have watched the coming of this forest of steel. Two hours
after the pickets had announced the van, a Mexican officer came forward
with a white flag. He bore the imperious message from the dictator the
opening words of which have already been quoted.
The fight on that day was confined to an exchange of artillery shots,
and at nightfall Taylor returned to Saltillo, seeing that the affair
was over for the time. But during the night the Mexicans made a
movement that put the small American force in serious peril. While the
Americans bivouacked without fires in the bitter chill of the mountain
height, some 1,500 Mexicans gained the summit under cover of the
darkness, and when the mists of morning rose the Americans, to their
surprise and chagrin, saw everywhere before them the battalions of the
enemy.
[=The Mexican Cavalry Charge=]
[=O'Brien's Battery=]
Up the pass soon came heavy force, in the face of Captain Washington's
battery, while a rush, that seemed as if it must be irresistible, was
made for the plateau. The fight here was desperate. The soldiers of
neither army had had any experience in battle, and an Indiana regiment
retreated at the command of its colonel, and could not be rallied
again. This imperilled the safety of all who remained, many of them
being killed, while only the active service of the artillery prevented
the loss of the plateau, upon whose safe keeping depended the issue of
the day. So fierce was the Mexican charge that every cannonier of the
advanced battery fell beside his gun, and Captain O'Brien was obliged
to fall back in haste losing his guns. He replaced them by two six
pounders, borrowed from Captain Washington, who had repulsed the attack
in the pass. Meanwhile, more American artillery on O'Brien's left was
driving the Mexicans back upon the cavalry opposed to the gallant
captain. The Mexican lancers charged the Illinois soldiers--"the very
earth did shake." It was not until the lancers were within a few yards
of O'Brien that he opened fire. This gave the Mexicans pause, but
with cries of "God and Liberty!" on they came. Once more the deadly
cannonade--another pause. O'Brien determined to stand his ground until
the hoofs of the enemy's horses were upon him, but the recruits with
him, only few of whom had escaped from being shot down, had no stomach
left for fighting. The intrepid captain again lost his pieces, but he
had saved the day.
At this point the leisurely General Taylor, on his white horse, so
easily recognisable, came from Saltillo to the field of battle. North
of the chief plateau was another, where the Mississippi Rifles,
under Colonel Davis--who, although early wounded, kept his horse all
day--stood at bay, formed into a V-shape with the opening towards the
enemy. Nothing loth, the Mexican lancers rushed on, and the riflemen
did not fire until they were able to recognize the features of their
foe and to take deliberate aim at their eyes. This coolness was too
great to be combated.
For hours the active and deadly struggle went on. The Mexican lancers
made an assault on Buena Vista, where were the American baggage and
supply train, but were driven off after a sharp contest. At a later
hour of the day the brunt of the fight was being borne by the Illinois
regiment and the Second Kentucky Cavalry, who were in serious straits
when Taylor sent to their relief a light battery under Captain Bragg.
It was quickly in peril. The Mexicans captured the foremost guns and
repulsed the infantry support.
[=The Work of Captain Bragg=]
Bragg appealed for fresh help. "I have no reinforcements to give you,"
"Rough and Ready" is reported to have replied, "but Major Bliss and I
will support you"; and the brave old man spurred his horse to the spot
beside the cannon. Unheeding, the Mexican cavalry rode forward--the
day was now theirs for a certainty, "God and Liberty!" their proud
cry again rang out. Their horses galloped so near to Captain Bragg's
coign of vantage that their riders had no time in which to pull them
up before the battery opened fire with canister. As the smoke cleared,
the little group of Americans saw the terrible work they had done in
the gaps in the enemy's ranks, and heard it in the screams of men and
horses in agony. They reloaded with grape. The Mexicans pressed on;
their courage at the cannon's mouth was truly marvelous. This second
shower of lead did equal, if not greater, mischief. A third discharge
completely routed the enemy, who, being human, fled in headlong haste
over the wounded and the dead--no matter where. The American infantry
pursued the flying foe, with foolish rashness, beyond safe limits.
The Mexicans, all on an instant, turned about, the hounds became the
hare, and had it not been for Washington's cannon checking the Mexican
cavalry, who had had enough grape and canister for one day, they would
have been annihilated.
At six o'clock, after ten hours of fierce and uninterrupted fighting,
the battle came to an end, both armies occupying the same positions as
in the morning, though each had lost heavily during the day. General
Taylor expected the battle to be renewed in the morning, but with
daylight came the welcome news that the enemy had disappeared. The five
thousand had held their own against four times their number, and the
victory that was to make General Taylor President of the United States
had been won.
[=Scott's Advance Against the City of Mexico=]
Meanwhile General Scott, the hero of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in 1814,
had sailed down the Gulf with a considerable force to the seaport city
of Vera Cruz, which was taken after a brief bombardment. From here an
overland march of two hundred miles was made to the Mexican capital.
Scott reached the vicinity of the City of Mexico with a force 11,000
strong, and found its approaches strongly fortified and guarded by
30,000 men. Yet he pushed on almost unchecked. Victories were won at
Contreras and Churubusco, the defences surrounding the city were taken,
and on September 13th the most formidable of them all, the strong hill
fortress of Chapultepec, was carried by storm, the American troops
charging up a steep hill in face of a severe fire and driving the
garrison in dismay from their guns.
This ended the war in that quarter. The next day the star and stripes
waved over the famous "Halls of the Montezumas" and the city was ours.
On February 2, 1848, a treaty of peace was signed at the village of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, whose terms gave the United States an accession of
territory that was destined to prove of extraordinary value.
[=New Mexico and California=]
New Mexico, a portion of this territory, had been invaded and occupied
by General Kearny, who had taken Santa Fé after a thousand miles'
march overland. Before the fleet sent to California could reach there,
Captain John C. Fremont, in charge of a surveying party in Oregon, had
invaded that country. He did not know that war had been declared, his
purpose being to protect the American settlers, whom the Mexicans
threatened to expel. Fremont was one of the daring pioneers who made
their way over the mountains and plains of the West in the days when
Indian hostility and the difficulties raised by nature made this a very
arduous and perilous enterprise. Several conflicts with the Mexicans,
in which he was aided by the fleet, and later by General Kearny, who
had crossed the wild interior from Santa Fé, gave Fremont control of
that great country, which was destined almost to double the wealth of
the United States. Whatever he thought of the ethics of the acquisition
of Texas and the Mexican war, their economical advantages to the United
States have been enormous, and the whole world has been enriched by the
product of California's golden sands and fertile fields.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Negro in America and the Slavery Conflict.
[=Beginning of the Slave Traffic=]
[=Increase in Numbers=]
When, over two hundred and eighty years ago (it is in doubt whether
the correct date is 1619 or 1620) a few wretched negroes, some say
fourteen, some say twenty, were bartered for provisions by the crew of
a Dutch man-of-war, then lying off the Virginia coast, it would have
seemed incredible that in 1900 the negro population of the Southern
States alone should reach very nearly eight million souls. African
negroes had, indeed, been sold into slavery among many nations for
perhaps three thousand years; but in its earlier periods slavery
was rather the outcome of war than the deliberate subject of trade,
and white captives no less than black were ruthlessly thrown into
servitude. It has been estimated that in historical times some forty
million Africans have been enslaved. The Spaniards found the Indian
an intractable slave, and for the arduous labors of colonization soon
began to make use of negro slaves, importing them in great numbers and
declaring that one negro was worth, as a human beast of burden, four
Indians. Soon the English adventurers took up the traffic. It is to Sir
John Hawkins, the ardent discoverer, that the English-speaking peoples
owe their participation in the slave trade. He has put it on record, as
the result of one of his famous voyages, that he found "that negroes
were very good merchandise in Hispaniola and might easily be had on the
coast of Guinea." For his early adventures of this kind he was roundly
taken to task by Queen Elizabeth. But tradition says that he boldly
faced her with the argument that the Africans were an inferior race,
and ended by convincing the Virgin Queen that the slave trade was not
merely a lucrative but a perfectly philanthropic undertaking. Certain
it is that she acquiesced in future slave trading, while her successors
Charles II. and James II. chartered four slave trading companies and
received a share in their profits. It is noteworthy that both Great
Britain and the United States recognized the horrors of the slave trade
as regards the seizing and transportation from Africa of the unhappy
negroes, long before they could bring themselves to deal with the
problem of slavery as a domestic institution. Of those horrors nothing
can be said in exaggeration.
[=Colonial Laws About Slavery=]
The institution of slavery, introduced as we have seen into Virginia,
grew at first very slowly. Twenty-five years after the first slaves
were landed the negro population of the colony was only three hundred.
But the conditions of agriculture and of climate were such that, once
slavery obtained a fair start, it spread with continually increasing
rapidity. We find the Colonial Assembly passing one after another a
series of laws defining the condition of the negro slave more and
more clearly, and more and more pitilessly. Thus, a distinction was
soon made between them and Indians held in servitude. It was enacted
that "all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by
shipping shall be slaves for their lives; but what shall come by land
shall serve, if boyes or girles, until thirty years of age; if men or
women, twelve years and no longer." And before the end of the century
a long series of laws so encompassed the negro with limitations and
prohibitions, that he almost ceased to have any criminal or civil
rights and became a mere personal chattel.
[=Slavery in Early New York=]
In some of the northern colonies slavery seemed to take root as readily
and to flourish as rapidly as in the South. It was only after a
considerable time that social and commercial conditions arose which led
to its gradual abandonment. In New York a mild type of negro slavery
was introduced by the Dutch. The relation of master and slave seems in
the period of the Dutch rule to have been free from great severity or
cruelty. After the seizure of the government by the English, however,
the institution was officially recognized and even encouraged. The
slave trade grew in magnitude; and here again we find a series of
oppressive laws forbidding meetings of negroes, laying down penalties
for concealing slaves, and the like. When the Revolution broke out
there were not less than fifteen thousand slaves in New York--a number
greatly in excess of that held by any other northern colony.
[=Slavery in Massachusetts=]
Massachusetts, the home in later days of so many of the most eloquent
abolition agitators, was from the very first, until after the war
with Great Britain was well under way, a stronghold of slavery. The
records of 1633 tell of the fright of Indians who saw a "Blackamoor"
in a treetop, whom they took for the devil in person, but who turned
out to be an escaped slave. A few years later the authorities of the
colony officially recognized the institution. To quote Chief Justice
Parsons, "Slavery was introduced into Massachusetts soon after its
first settlement, and was tolerated until the ratification of the
present constitution in 1780." The curious may find in ancient Boston
newspapers no lack of such advertisements as that, in 1728, of the
sale of "two very likely negro girls," and of "A likely negro woman
of about nineteen years and a child about seven months of age, to be
sold together or apart." A Tory writer before the outbreak of the
Revolution sneers at the Bostonians for their talk about freedom when
they possessed two thousand negro slaves. Even Peter Faneuil, who
built the famous "Cradle of Liberty," was himself, at that very time,
actively engaged in the slave trade. There is some truth in the once
common taunt of the pro-slavery orators that the North imported slaves,
the South only bought them.
[=Negro Soldiers in the Revolution=]
As with New York and Massachusetts, so with the other colonies. Either
slavery was introduced by greedy speculators from abroad or it spread
easily from adjoining colonies. In 1776 the slave population of the
thirteen colonies was almost exactly half a million, nine-tenths
of whom were to be found in the southern states. In the War of the
Revolution the question of arming the negroes raised bitter opposition.
In the end a comparatively few were enrolled, and it is admitted that
they served faithfully and with courage. Rhode Island even formed a
regiment of blacks, and at the siege of Newport and afterwards at
Point's Bridge, New York, this body of soldiers fought not only without
reproach but with positive heroism.
[=Slavery Abolished in the North=]
From the day when the Declaration of Independence asserted "That all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness," the peoples of the new, self-governing states
could not but have seen that with them lay the responsibility. There
is ample evidence that the fixing of the popular mind on liberty as
an ideal bore results immediately in arousing anti-slavery sentiment.
Such sentiment existed in the South as well as in the North. Even North
Carolina in 1786 declared the slave trade of "evil consequences and
highly impolitic." All the northern states abolished slavery, beginning
with Vermont in 1777, and ending with New Jersey in 1804. It should be
added, however, that many of the northern slaves were not freed, but
sold to the South. The agricultural and commercial conditions in the
North were such as to make slave labor less and less profitable, while
in the South the social order of things, agricultural conditions, and
climate were gradually making it seemingly indispensable.
When the Constitutional debates began the trend of opinion seemed
strongly against slavery. Many delegates thought that the evil would
die out of itself. One thought the abolition of slavery already rapidly
going on and soon to be completed. Another asserted that "slavery in
time will not be a speck in our country." Mr. Jefferson, on the other
hand, in view of the retention of slavery, declared roundly that he
trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just. And John
Adams urged again and again that "every measure of prudence ought to be
assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United
States." The obstinate states in the convention were South Carolina and
Georgia. Their delegates declared that their states would absolutely
refuse ratification to the Constitution unless slavery were recognized.
The compromise sections finally agreed upon, avoided the use of the
words slave and slavery, but clearly recognized the institution, and
even gave the slave states the advantage of sending representatives to
Congress on a basis of population determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons "three-fifths of all other persons." The other
persons referred to were, it is almost needless to add, negro slaves.
[=Compromises in the Constitution=]
The entire dealing with the question of slavery, at the framing of the
Constitution, was a series of compromises. This is seen again in the
failure definitely to forbid the slave trade from abroad. Some of the
southern states had absolutely declined to listen to any proposition
which would restrict their freedom of action in this matter, and they
were yielded to so far that Congress was forbidden to make the traffic
unlawful before the year 1808. As that time approached, President
Jefferson urged Congress to withdraw the country from all "further
participation in those violations of human rights which have so long
been continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa." Such an act
was at once adopted, and by it heavy fines were imposed on all persons
fitting out vessels for the slave trade and also upon all actually
engaged in the trade, while vessels so employed became absolutely
forfeited. Twelve years later another act was passed declaring the
importation of slaves to be actual piracy. The latter law, however, was
of little practical value, as it was not until 1861 that a conviction
was obtained under it. Then, at last, when the whole slave question
was about to be settled forever, a ship-master was convicted and
hanged for piracy in New York for the crime of being engaged in the
slave trade. In despite of all laws, however, the trade in slaves was
continued secretly, and the profits were so enormous that the risks did
not prevent continual attempts to smuggle slaves into the territory of
the United States.
[=The Slave Trade=]
The first quarter of a century of our history, after the adoption of
the Constitution, was marked by comparative quietude in regard to the
future of slavery. In the North, as we have seen, the institution died
a natural death, but there was no disposition evinced in the northern
states to interfere with it in the South. The first great battle took
place in 1820 over the so-called Missouri compromise. Now, for the
first time, the country was divided, sectionally and in a strictly
political way, upon issues which involved the future policy of the
United States as to the extension or restriction of slave territory.
State after state had been admitted into the Union, but there had been
an alteration of slave and free states, so that the political balance
was not disturbed. Thus Ohio was balanced by Louisiana, Indiana by
Mississippi, Illinois by Alabama. Of the twenty-two states admitted
before 1820, eleven were slave and eleven free states.
[=The Missouri Compromise=]
Immediately after the admission of Alabama, of course as a
slave-holding state, Maine and Missouri applied for admission. The
admission of Maine alone would have given a preponderance to the free
states, and for this reason it was strongly contended by southern
members that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state. But the
sentiment of opposition to the extension of slavery was growing
rapidly in the North, and many members from that section opposed this
proposition. They had believed that the ordinance of 1787, adopted
simultaneously with the Constitution, and which forbade slavery to be
established in the territory northwest of the Ohio, had settled this
question definitely; but this ordinance did not apply to territory west
of the Mississippi, so that the question really remained open. A fierce
debate was waged through two sessions of Congress, and in the end it
was agreed to permit the introduction of slavery into Missouri, but to
prohibit it forever in all future states lying north of the parallel
of 36 degrees 30 minutes, the southern boundary of Missouri. This was
a compromise, satisfactory only because it seemed to dispose of the
question of slavery in the territories once and forever. It was carried
mainly by the great personal influence of Henry Clay. It did, indeed,
dispose of slavery as a matter of national legislative discussion for
thirty years.
[=The Anti-slavery Sentiment=]
But this interval was distinctively a period of popular agitation.
Anti-slavery sentiment of a mild type had long existed. The Quakers
had, since revolutionary times, held anti-slavery doctrines, had
released their own servants from bondage, and had disfellowshipped
members who refused to concur in the sacrifice. The very last public
act of Benjamin Franklin was the framing of a memorial to Congress in
which he deprecated the existence of slavery in a free country. In New
York the Manumission society had been founded in 1785, with John Jay
and Alexander Hamilton, in turn, as its presidents. But this early
writing and speaking were directed against slavery in a general way,
and with no tone of aggression. Gradual emancipation and colonization
were the only remedies suggested. It was with the founding of the
_Liberator_ by William Lloyd Garrison, in 1831, that the era of
aggressive abolitionism began. Garrison and his society maintained that
slavery was a sin against God and man; that immediate emancipation was
a duty; that slave owners had no claim to compensation; that all laws
upholding slavery were, before God, null and void. Garrison exclaimed:
"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will
not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard." His paper bore
conspicuously the motto "No union with slaveholders."
[=Leading Opponents of Slavery=]
The Abolitionists were, in numbers, a feeble band; as a party they
never acquired strength, nor were their tenets adopted strictly by any
political party; but they served the purpose of arousing the conscience
of the nation. They were abused, vilified, mobbed, all but killed.
Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope around
his neck--through those very streets which, in 1854, had their shops
closed and hung in black, with flags Union down and a huge coffin
suspended in mid-air, on the day when the fugitive slave, Anthony
Burns, was marched through them on his way back to his master, under a
guard of nearly two thousand men. Mr. Garrison's society soon took the
stand that the union of states with slavery retained was "an agreement
with hell and a covenant with death," and openly advocated secession of
the non-slaveholding states. On this issue the Abolitionists split into
two branches, and those who threw off Garrison's lead maintained that
there was power enough under the Constitution to do away with slavery.
To the fierce invective and constant agitation of Garrison were, in
time, added the splendid oratory of Wendell Phillips, the economic
arguments of Horace Greeley, the wise statesmanship of Charles Sumner,
the fervid writings of Channing and Emerson, and the noble poetry of
Whittier. All these and others, in varied ways and from different
points of view, joined in bringing the public opinion of the North to
the view that the permanent existence of slavery was incompatible with
that of a free republic.
[=Southern Hatred of Abolitionists=]
In the South, meanwhile, the institution was intrenching itself more
and more firmly. The invention of the cotton gin and the beginning
of the reign of cotton as king made the great plantation system a
seeming commercial necessity. From the deprecatory and half apologetic
utterances of early southern statesmen, we come to Mr. Calhoun's
declaration that slavery "now preserves in quiet and security more than
six and a half million human beings, and that it could not be destroyed
without destroying the peace and prosperity of nearly half the states
in the Union." The Abolitionists were regarded in the South with
the bitterest hatred. Attempts were even made to compel the northern
states to silence the anti-slavery orators, to prohibit the circulation
through the mail of anti-slavery speeches, and to refuse a hearing in
Congress to anti-slavery petitions. The influence of the South was
still dominant in the North. Though the feeling against slavery spread,
there co-existed with it the belief that an open quarrel with the
South meant commercial ruin; and the anti-slavery sentiment was also
neutralized by the nobler feeling that the Union must be preserved at
all hazards, and that there was no constitutional mode of interfering
with the slave system. The annexation of Texas was a distinct gain to
the slave power, and the Mexican war was undertaken, said John Quincy
Adams, in order that "the slave-holding power in the government shall
be secured and riveted."
[=The Literature of Slavery=]
The actual condition of the negro over whom such a strife was being
waged differed materially in different parts of the South, and, under
masters of different character, in the same locality. It had its side
of cruelty, oppression and atrocity; it had also its side of kindness
on the part of master and of devotion on the part of slave. Its dark
side has been made familiar to readers by such books as "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," Dickens' "American Notes," and Edmund Kirk's "Among the Pines;"
its brighter side has been charmingly depicted in the stories of Thomas
Nelson Page, Joel Chandler Harris, and Harry Edwards. On the great
cotton plantations of Mississippi and Alabama the slave was often
overtaxed and harshly treated; in the domestic life of Virginia, on the
other hand, he was as a rule most kindly used, and often a relation of
deep affection sprang up between him and his master.
[=The Fugitive Slave Law and Underground Railroad=]
With this state of public feeling North and South, it was with
increased bitterness and developed sectionalism that the subject of
slavery in new states was again debated in the Congress of 1850. The
Liberty party, which held that slavery might be abolished under the
Constitution, had been merged in the Free Soil party, whose cardinal
principle was, "To secure free soil to a free people," and, while not
interfering with slavery in existing states, to insist on its exclusion
from territory so far free. The proposed admission of California
was not affected by the Missouri Compromise. Its status as a future
free or slave state was the turning point of the famous debates in
the Senate of 1850, in which Webster, Calhoun, Douglas and Seward
won fame--debates which have never been equaled in our history for
eloquence and acerbity. It was in the course of these debates that
Mr. Seward, while denying that the Constitution recognized property
in man, struck out his famous dictum, "There is a higher law than
the Constitution." The end reached was a compromise which allowed
California to settle for itself the question of slavery, forbade the
slave trade in the District of Columbia, but enacted a strict fugitive
slave law. To the Abolitionists this fugitive slave law, sustained
in its most extreme measures by the courts in the famous--or as they
called it, infamous--Dred Scott case, was as fuel to fire. They defied
it in every possible way. The "Underground Railway" was the outcome of
this defiance. By it a chain of secret stations was established, from
one to the other of which the slave was guided at night until at last
he reached the Canada border. The most used of these routes in the East
was from Baltimore to New York, thence north through New England; that
most employed in the West was from Cincinnati to Detroit. It has been
estimated that not fewer than thirty thousand slaves were thus assisted
to freedom.
[=The Outbreak an Kansas=]
Soon the struggle was changed to another part of the western territory,
which was now growing so rapidly as to demand the formation of new
states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill introduced by Douglas was in effect
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in that it left the question
as to whether slavery should be carried into the new territories to
the decision of the settlers themselves. As a consequence immigration
was directed by both the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery parties
to Kansas, each determined on obtaining a majority enabling it to
control the proposed State Constitution. Then began a series of acts
of violence which almost amounted to civil war. "Bleeding Kansas"
became a phrase in almost every one's mouth. Border ruffians swaggered
at the polls and attempted to drive out the assisted emigrants sent
to Kansas by the Abolition societies. The result of the election of
the Legislature on its face made Kansas a slave state, but a great
part of the people refused to accept this result; and a convention was
held at Topeka which resolved that Kansas should be free even if the
laws formed by the Legislature should have to be "resisted to a bloody
issue."
[=John Brown at Harper's Ferry=]
Prominent among the armed supporters of free state ideas in Kansas was
Captain John Brown, a man whose watchword was at all times action.
"Talk," he said, "is a national institution; but it does no good for
the slave." He believed that slavery could only be coped with by
armed force. His theory was that the way to make free men of slaves
was for the slaves themselves to resist any attempt to coerce them
by their masters. He was undoubtedly a fanatic in that he did not
stop to measure probabilities or to take account of the written law.
His attempt at Harper's Ferry was without reasonable hope, and as
the intended beginning of a great military movement was a ridiculous
fiasco. To attempt to make war upon the United States with twenty men
was utter madness, and if the hoped for rising of the slaves had taken
place might have yielded horrible results. The execution of John Brown,
that followed, was the logical consequence of his hopeless effort.
But there was that about the man which none could call ridiculous.
Rash and unreasoning as his action seemed, he was still, even by his
enemies, recognized as a man of unswerving conscience, of high ideals,
of deep belief in the brotherhood of mankind. His offense against law
and peace was cheerfully paid fur by his death and that of others near
and dear to him. Almost no one at that day could be found to applaud
his plot, but the incident had an effect on the minds of the people
altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic character. More and more
as time went on he became recognized as a martyr in the cause of human
liberty.
[=Slaves "Contraband of War"=]
Events of vast importance to the future of the negro in America now
hurried fast upon each other's footsteps: the final settlement of the
Kansas dispute by its becoming a free state; the formation and rapid
growth of the Republican party; the division of the Democratic party
into northern and southern factions; the election of Abraham Lincoln;
the secession of South Carolina, and, finally, the greatest civil war
the world has known. Though that war would never have been waged were
it not for the negro, and though his fate was inevitably involved in
its result, it must be remembered that it was not undertaken on his
account. Before the struggle began Mr. Lincoln said: "If there be
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would
not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery,
I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union,
and not either to destroy or to save slavery." And the northern press
emphasized over and over again the fact that this was "a white man's
war." But the logic of events is inexorable. It seems amazing now that
Union generals should have been puzzled as to the question whether
they ought in duty to return runaway slaves to their masters. General
Butler settled the controversy by one happy phrase when he called the
fugitives "contraband of war." Soon it was deemed right to use these
contrabands, to employ the new-coined word, as the South was using
the negroes still in bondage, to aid in the non-fighting work of the
army--on fortification, team-driving, cooking, and so on. From this
it was but a step, though a step not taken without much perturbation,
to employ them as soldiers. At Vicksburg, at Fort Pillow, and in many
another battle, the negro showed beyond dispute that he could fight
for his liberty. No fiercer or braver charge was made in the war than
that upon the parapet of Fort Wagner by Colonel Shaw's gallant colored
regiment, the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth.
[=Behavior of Slaves During the Civil War=]
In a thousand ways the negro figures in the history of the war. In
its literature he everywhere stands out picturesquely. He sought the
flag with the greatest avidity for freedom; flocking in crowds, old
men and young, women and children, sometimes with quaint odds and ends
of personal belongings, often empty-handed, always enthusiastic and
hopeful, almost always densely ignorant of the meaning of freedom and
of self-support. But while the negro showed this avidity for liberty,
his conduct toward his old masters was often generous, and almost never
did he seize the opportunity to inflict vengeance for his past wrongs.
The eloquent southern orator and writer, Henry W. Grady, said: "History
has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the
war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through
these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety and the
unprotected homes rested in peace.... A thousand torches would have
disbanded every southern army, but not one was lighted."
[=The Emancipation Proclamation=]
It was with conditions, and only after great hesitation, that the
final step of emancipating the slaves was taken by President Lincoln
in September, 1862. The proclamation was distinctly a war measure,
but its reception by the North and by the foreign powers and its
immediate effect upon the contest were such that its expediency was at
once recognized. Thereafter there was possible no question as to the
personal freedom of the negro in the United States of America. With
the Confederacy, slavery went down once and forever. In the so-called
reconstruction period which followed, the negro suffered almost as
much from the over-zeal of his political friends as from the prejudice
of his old masters. A negro writer, who is a historian of his race,
has declared that the government gave the negro the statute book
when he should have had the spelling book; that it placed him in the
legislature when he ought to have been in the school house, and that,
so to speak, "the heels were put where the brains ought to have been."
A quarter of a century and more has passed since that turbulent period
began, and if the negro has become less prominent as a political
factor, all the more for that reason has he been advancing steadily
though slowly in the requisites of citizenship. He has learned that he
must, by force of circumstances, turn his attention, for the time at
least, rather to educational, industrial and material progress than
to political ambition. And the record of his advance on these lines
is promising and hopeful. In Mississippi alone, for instance, the
negroes own one-fifth of the entire property in the state. In all,
the negroes of the South to-day possess two hundred and fifty million
dollars' worth of property. Everywhere throughout the South white men
and negroes may be found working together.
[=Progress of the Negroes of the South=]
[=Educational Development of the Negro Race=]
The promise of the negro race to-day is not so much in the development
of men of exceptional talent, such as Frederick Douglas or Senator
Bruce, as in the general spread of intelligence and knowledge. The
southern states have very generally given the negro equal educational
opportunities with the whites, while the eagerness of the race to
learn is shown in the recently ascertained fact that while the colored
population has increased only twenty-seven per cent. the enrollment
in the colored schools has increased one hundred and thirty-seven per
cent. Fifty industrial schools are crowded by the colored youth of the
South. Institutions of higher education, like the Atlanta University,
the Hampton Institute of Virginia, and Tuskegee College are doing
admirable work in turning out hundreds of negroes fitted to educate
their own race. Honors and scholarships have been taken by colored
young men at Harvard, at Cornell, at Phillips Academy and at other
northern schools and colleges of the highest rank. The fact that a
young negro, Mr. Morgan, was, in 1890, elected by his classmates at
Harvard as the class orator has a special significance. Yet there
is greater significance, as a negro newspaper writes, in the fact
that the equatorial telescope now used by the Lawrence University
of Wisconsin was made entirely by colored pupils in the School of
Mechanical Arts of Nashville, Tenn. In other words, the Afro-American
is finding his place as an intelligent worker, a property owner, and
an independent citizen, rather than as an agitator, a politician or a
race advocate. In religion, superstition and effusive sentiment are
giving way to stricter morality. In educational matters, ambition for
the high-sounding and the abstract is giving place to practical and
industrial acquirements. It will be many years before the character
of the negro, for centuries dwarfed and distorted by oppression and
ignorance, reaches its normal growth, but that the race is at last upon
the right path, and is being guided by the true principles cannot be
doubted.
CHAPTER XXX.
Abraham Lincoln and the Work of Emancipation.
[=Washington and Lincoln=]
Among the men who have filled the office of President of the United
States two stand pre-eminent, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln,
both of them men not for the admiration of a century but of the ages,
heroes of history whose names will live as the chief figures among the
makers of our nation. To the hand of Washington it owed its freedom, to
that of Lincoln its preservation, and the name of the preserver will
occupy a niche in the temple of fame next to that of the founder. But
our feeling for Lincoln is different from that with which we regard the
"Father of his Country." While we venerate the one, we love the other.
Washington was a stately figure, too dignified for near approach. He
commanded respect, admiration and loyalty; but in addition to these
Lincoln commands our affection, a feeling as for one very near and dear
to us.
[=A Great Man and His Critics=]
[=The Character of Lincoln=]
The fame of Lincoln is increasing as the inner history of the great
struggle for the life of the nation becomes known. For almost two
decades after that struggle had settled the permanence of our
government, our vision was obscured by the near view of the pygmy
giants who "strutted their brief hour upon the stage;" our ears were
filled with the loud claims of those who would magnify their own
little part, and, knowing the facts concerning some one fraction of
the contest, assumed from that knowledge to proclaim the principles
which should have governed the whole. Time is dissipating the mist,
and we are coming better to know the great man who had no pride of
opinion, who was willing to let Seward or Sumner or McClellan or any
one imagine himself to be the guiding spirit of the government, if he
were willing to give that government the best service of which he was
capable. We see more clearly the real greatness of the leader who was
too slow for one great section of his people, and too fast for another,
too conservative for those, too radical for these; who refused to
make the contest merely a war for the negro, yet who saw the end from
the beginning, and led, not a section of his people, but the whole
people, away from the Egyptian plagues of slavery and disunion, and
brought them, united in sentiment and feeling, to the borders of the
promised land. We are coming to appreciate that the "Father Abraham"
who in that Red Sea passage of fraternal strife was ready to listen to
every tale of sorrow, and who wanted it said that he "always plucked
a thistle and planted a flower when he thought a flower would grow,"
was not only in this sense the father of his people; but that he was a
truly great statesman, who, within the limits of human knowledge and
human strength, guided the affairs of state with a wisdom, a patience,
a courage which belittle all praise, and make him seem indeed a man
divinely raised up, not only to set the captive free, but in order that
"government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not
perish from the earth."
[=Lincoln's First Experience of Slavery=]
It is not our purpose to tell the story of Lincoln's boyhood--his
days of penury in the miserable frontier cabins of his father in
Kentucky and Indiana, his struggles to obtain an education, his pitiful
necessity of writing his school exercises with charcoal on the back of
a wooden shovel, his efforts to make a livelihood when he had become a
tall and ungainly, but strong and vigorous, youth, his work at farming,
rail-splitting, clerking, boating, and in other occupations. A journey
on a flat-boat to New Orleans gave him his first acquaintance with the
institution of slavery, with which he was thereafter to have so much
to do. Here he witnessed a slave auction. The scene was one that made
a deep and abiding impression on his sympathetic mind, and he is said
to have declared to his companion, "If I ever get a chance to hit that
institution, _I'll hit it hard_." Whether this is legend or fact, it is
certain that he did get a chance to hit it, and did "hit it hard."
Difficult as it was to obtain an education on the rude frontier and
in the extreme poverty in which Lincoln was reared, he succeeded by
persistent reading and study in making himself the one man of learning
among his farming fellows, and one who was not long content with the
occupations of rail-splitting, flat-boating, or even that of keeping
country store, which he tried without success. He was too devoted
to his books to attend very carefully to his business, which left
him seriously in debt, and he soon chose the law as his vocation,
supporting himself meanwhile by serving as land surveyor in the
neighboring district.
[=In the Illinois Legislature=]
Lincoln's political career began in 1834, when his neighbors, who
admired him for his learning and ability, elected him to represent them
in the Illinois legislature. His knowledge was only one of the elements
of his popularity. He had acquired a reputation as a teller of quaint
and humorous stories; he was a champion wrestler, and could fight well
if forced to; and he was beginning to make his mark as a ready and able
orator. In the legislature he became prominent enough to gain twice
the nomination of his party for speaker. His principal service there
was to advocate a system of public improvements, whose chief result
was to plunge Illinois deeply in debt. A significant act of his at
this early day in his career was to join with a single colleague in a
written protest against the passage of resolutions in favor of slavery.
The signers based their action on their belief that "the institution
of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy." It needed no
little moral courage to make such a protest in 1837 in a community
largely of southern origin, but moral courage was a possession of which
Lincoln had an abundant store.
[=Lincoln as a Lawyer=]
In the meantime Lincoln had been admitted to the bar, and in 1837 he
removed to Springfield, where he formed a partnership with an attorney
of established reputation. He became a successful lawyer, not so much
by his knowledge of law, for this was never great, as by his ability as
an advocate, and by reason of his sterling integrity. He would not be
a party to misrepresentation, and more than once refused to take cases
which involved such a result. He even was known to abandon a case which
brought him unexpectedly into this attitude, making in his first case
before the United States Circuit Court the unusual statement that he
had not been able to find any authorities supporting his side of the
case, but had found several favoring the opposite, which he proceeded
to quote.
The very appearance of such an attorney in any case must have gone far
to win the jury; and, when deeply stirred, the power of his oratory,
and the invincible logic of his argument, made him a most formidable
opponent. "Yes," he was overheard to say to a would-be client, "we can
doubtless gain your case for you; we can set a whole neighborhood at
loggerheads; we can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless
children, and thereby get for you the six hundred dollars to which you
seem to have a legal claim, but which rightfully belongs, it appears to
me, as much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must
remember that some things legally right are not morally right. We shall
not take your case, but will give you a little advice for which we will
charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man; we would
advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other
way."
[=In the United States Congress=]
In 1846 he accepted a nomination to Congress and was triumphantly
elected, being the only Whig among the seven representatives from his
state. As a member of the House his voice was always given on the side
of human freedom, he voting in favor of considering the petitions for
the abolition of slavery and supporting the doctrines of the Wilmot
proviso, which opposed the extension of slavery to the territory
acquired from Mexico.
As yet Lincoln had not made a striking figure as a legislator. He was
admired by those about him for his sterling honesty and integrity,
but his name was hardly known in the country at large, and there was
no indication that he would ever occupy a prominent position in the
politics of the nation. It was the threatened repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, in 1854, an act which would open the western territory to
the admission of slavery, that first fairly wakened him up and laid the
foundation of his remarkable career. The dangerous question which Henry
Clay had set aside for years, but which was now brought forward again,
absorbed his attention, and he grew constantly more bold and powerful
in his denunciation of the encroachments of the slave power. He became,
therefore, the natural champion of his party in the campaigns in which
Senator Douglas undertook to defend before the people of his state
his advocacy of "squatter sovereignty," or the right of the people of
each territory to decide whether it should be admitted as a slave or
a free state, and of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by which the "Missouri
Compromise" was repealed.
[=The Great Lincoln and Douglas Debate=]
The first great battle between these two giants of debate took place
at the State Fair at Springfield, in October, 1854, Douglas made a
great speech to an unprecedented concourse of people, and was the lion
of the hour. The next day Lincoln replied, and his effort was such as
to surprise both his friends and his opponents. It was probably the
first occasion in which he reached his full power. In the words of a
friendly editor: "The Nebraska bill was shivered, and like a tree of
the forest was torn and rent asunder by the hot bolts of truth.... At
the conclusion of this speech every man and child felt that it was
unanswerable."
But it was the campaign of 1858 that made Lincoln famous. In this
contest he first fully displayed his powers as an orator and logician,
and won the reputation that made him President. Douglas, his opponent,
was immensely popular in the West. His advocacy of territorial
expansion appealed to the patriotism of the young and ardent; his
doctrine of popular sovereignty was well calculated to mislead shallow
thinkers; and his power in debate was so great that he became widely
known as the "Little Giant." But he found a worthy champion of the
opposite in Abraham Lincoln, who riddled and ventilated many of his
specious arguments, and succeeded in inducing him to make a statement
that proved fatal to his hopes of the Presidency.
[=Douglas's Fatal Answer=]
When Lincoln proposed to press upon his opponent the question whether
there were lawful means by which slavery could be excluded from a
territory before its admission as a state, his friends suggested that
Douglas would reply that slavery could not exist unless it was desired
by the people, and unless protected by territorial legislation, and
that this answer would be sufficiently satisfactory to insure his
re-election. But Lincoln replied, "I am after larger game. If Douglas
so answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth
a hundred of this." Both predictions were verified. The people of the
South might have forgiven Douglas his opposition to the Lecompton
Constitution of Kansas, but they could not forgive the promulgation of
a doctrine which, in spite of the Dred Scott decision (a Supreme Court
decision to the effect that a master had the right to take his slave
into any state and hold him there as "property"), would keep slavery
out of a territory; and so, although Douglas was elected and Lincoln
defeated, the Democracy was divided, and it was impossible for Douglas
to command southern votes for the presidency.
[=Lincoln Takes His Stand=]
The campaign had been opened with a speech by Lincoln which startled
the country by its boldness and its power. It was delivered at the
Republican convention which nominated him for Senator, and had been
previously submitted to his confidential advisers. They strenuously
opposed the introduction of its opening sentences. He was warned
that they would be fatal to his election, and, in the existing
state of public feeling, might permanently destroy his political
prospects. Lincoln could not be moved. "It is _true_" said he, "and I
_will_ deliver it as written. I would rather be defeated with these
expressions in my speech held up and discussed before the people than
be victorious without them." The paragraph gave to the country a
statement of the problem as terse and vigorous and even more complete
than Seward's "irrepressible conflict," and as startling as Sumner's
proposition that "freedom was national, slavery sectional." "A house
divided against itself," said Lincoln, "cannot stand. I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to
fall; but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the
farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all
the states,--old as well as new, North as well as South."
[=The "Champion of Freedom"=]
Never had the issues of a political campaign seemed more momentous;
never was one more ably contested. The triumph of the doctrine of
"popular sovereignty," in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had opened the
territories to slavery, while it professed to leave the question
to be decided by the people. To the question whether the people of
a territory could exclude slavery Douglas had answered, "That is a
question for the courts to decide," but the Dred Scott decision,
practically holding that the Federal Constitution guaranteed the right
to hold slaves in the territories, seemed to make the pro-slavery cause
triumphant. The course of Douglas regarding the Lecompton Constitution,
however, had made it possible for his friends to describe him as "the
true champion of freedom," while Lincoln continually exposed, with
merciless force, the illogical position of his adversary, and his
complete lack of political morality.
[=Lincoln's Views on the Slavery Question=]
Douglas claimed that the doctrine of popular sovereignty "originated
when God made man and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to
choose upon his own responsibility." But Lincoln declared with great
solemnity: "No; God did not place good and evil before man, telling him
to take his choice. On the contrary, God did tell him that there was
one tree of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of death."
The question was to him one of right, a high question of morality,
and only upon such a question could he ever be fully roused. "Slavery
is wrong," was the keynote of his speeches. But he did not take the
position of the abolitionists. He even admitted that the South was
entitled, under the Constitution, to a national fugitive slave law,
though his soul revolted at the law which was then in force. His
position, as already cited, was that of the Republican party. He would
limit the extension of slavery, and place it in such a position as
would insure its ultimate extinction. It was a moderate course, viewed
from this distance of time, but in the face of a dominant, arrogant,
irascible pro-slavery sentiment it seemed radical in the extreme,
calculated, indeed, to fulfill a threat he had made to the governor
of the state. He had been attempting to secure the release of a young
negro from Springfield who was wrongfully detained in New Orleans,
and who was in danger of being sold for prison expenses. Moved to
the depths of his being by the refusal of the official to interfere,
Lincoln exclaimed: "By God, governor, I'll make the ground of this
country _too hot for the foot of a slave_."
Douglas was re-elected. Lincoln had hardly anticipated a different
result, and he had nothing of the feeling of defeat. On the contrary,
he felt that the corner-stone of victory had been laid. He had said
of his opening speech: "If I had to draw a pen across my record, and
erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left
as to what I should choose to save from the wreck, I should choose that
speech, and leave it to the world unerased."
[=The Cooper Institute Speech=]
The great debate had made Lincoln famous. In Illinois his name was a
household word. His stand for the liberty of the slave was on the lips
of the advocates of human freedom through all the country. Deep and
widespread interest was felt in the East for this prairie orator, and
when, in 1860, he appeared by invitation to deliver an address in the
Cooper Institute, of New York, he was welcomed by an audience of the
mental calibre of those who of old gathered to hear Clay and Webster
speak.
It was a deeply surprised audience. They expected to be treated to
something of the freshness, but much of the shallowness, of the
frontier region, and listened with astonishment and admiration to the
dignified, clear, and luminous oration of the prairie statesman. It
is said that those who afterwards published the speech as a campaign
document were three weeks in verifying its historical and other
statements, so deep and abundant was the learning it displayed.
[=A Tour in New England=]
He had taken the East by storm. He was invited to speak in many places
in New England, and everywhere met with the most flattering reception,
which surprised almost as much as it delighted him. It astonished him
to hear that the Professor of Rhetoric of Yale College took notes of
his speech and lectured upon them to his class, and followed him to
Meriden the next evening to hear him again for the same purpose. An
intelligent hearer spoke to him of the remarkable "clearness of your
statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning, and especially
your illustrations, which are romance and pathos, fun and logic, all
welded together." Perhaps his style could not be better described.
He himself said that it used to anger him, when a child, to hear
statements which he could not understand, and he was thus led to form
the habit of turning over a thought until it was in language any boy
could comprehend.
[=The Rail-splitter Made President=]
It is not necessary to tell in detail what followed. Lincoln had
attained the high eminence of being considered as a suitable candidate
for President, and when the Republican Convention of 1860 met in
Chicago, he found himself looked upon as the man for the West. Seward
was a prominent candidate, but his candidacy sank before that of the
choice of the westerners, who were roused to a frenzy of enthusiasm
when some of the rails which Lincoln had split were borne into
the hall. He was nominated on the third ballot amid the wildest
acclamations. In the campaign that followed Lincoln and Hamlin were the
triumphant candidates, winning their seats by a majority of fifty-seven
in the electoral college. The poor rail-splitter of Illinois had lifted
himself, by pure force of genius, to be President of the United States
of America. From that time forward the life of Abraham Lincoln is the
history of the great Civil War. His task was such as few men had ever
faced before. The mighty republic of the West, the most promising
experiment in self-government by the people that the world had ever
known, seemed about to end in failure. No man did more to save it from
destruction and start it on its future course of greatness and renown
than this western prodigy of genius and rectitude.
Mr. Lincoln called to his cabinet the ablest men of his party, two of
whom, Seward and Chase, had been his competitors for the nomination,
and the new administration devoted itself to the work of saving the
Union. Every means was tried to prevent the secession of the border
states, and the President delayed until Fort Sumter had been fired upon
before he began active measures for the suppression of the rebellion
and called for seventy-five thousand volunteers.
[=The Great Question of the Civil War=]
The great question, from the start, was the treatment of the negro.
The advanced anti-slavery men demanded decisive action, and could not
understand that success depended absolutely upon the administration
commanding the support of the whole people. And so Mr. Lincoln incurred
the displeasure and lost the confidence of some of those who had been
his heartiest supporters, by keeping the negro in the background and
making the preservation of the Union the great end for which he strove.
He repeatedly declared that, if he could do so, he would preserve the
Union _with slavery_, and further said, "I could not feel that, to the
best of my ability, I had even _tried_ to preserve the Constitution,
if, to save slavery or for any minor matter, I should permit the wreck
of government, country and Constitution, all together." Only when it
became evident that the North was in accord with him in his detestation
of slavery did the President venture to strike the blow which was to
bring that perilous system to an end.
[=The Proclamation of Emancipation=]
In the dark days of 1862, when the reverses of the Union arms cast
a gloom over the North, and European governments were seriously
considering the propriety of recognizing the Confederacy, it seemed
to Mr. Lincoln that the time had come, that the North was prepared
to support a radical measure, and that emancipation would not only
weaken the South at home, but would make it impossible for any
European government to take the attitude toward slavery which would
be involved in recognizing the Confederacy. Action was delayed until
a favorable moment, and after the victory of Antietam the President
called his cabinet together and announced that he was about to issue
the Proclamation of Emancipation. It was a solemn moment. The President
had made a vow--"I promised my God," were his words--that if the tide
of invasion should be mercifully arrested, he would set the negro
free. The final proclamation, issued three months later, fitly closes
with an appeal which indicates the devout spirit in which the deed was
done: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice,
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the
considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty
God."
The question of slavery was only one of the many with which Lincoln
had to contend. Questions of foreign policy, of finance, of the
conduct of the war, of a dozen different kinds pressed upon him
for solution, while dissensions in his cabinet and incompetence in
the army made his task anything but a pleasant one. His personal
advisers, Stanton, Seward, Chase, and others, were strong and able
men, but above them was a stronger man, who held firmly in his own
hands the reins of government, and would not yield them to any of his
ambitious subordinates, nor change his fixed policy at the bidding of
irresponsible critics and fault-finders.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (1809-1865)]
[Illustration: ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. (1822-1885)]
[Illustration: ROBERT EDMUND LEE. (1807-1870)]
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. SHERMAN. (1820-1891)]
[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON FORT DONELSON
This memorable battle of February, 1862, was the first
serious blow to the Confederate cause. It was also
Grant's first victory of importance, and marks the
beginning of his rise to fame. Fifteen thousand
prisoners were taken. Grant generously allowed the
Confederates to retain their personal baggage, and the
officers to keep their side arms. General Buckner
expressed his thanks for this chivalrous act, and later
in life became Grant's personal friend.]
[=Lincoln and the "Plain People"=]
[=An Able Diplomatist=]
Upon what Lincoln called "the plain people"--the mass of his
countrymen--he could always depend, because he, more than any other
political leader in our history, understood them. Sumner, matchless
advocate of liberty as he was, distrusted the President, and was
desirous of getting the power out of his hands into stronger and
safer ones. But suddenly the great Massachusetts senator awoke to the
fact that he could not command the support of his own constituency,
and found it necessary to issue an interview declaring himself not
an opponent, but a supporter, of Lincoln. The President's grasp of
questions of state policy was, indeed, stronger than that of any of
his advisers. The important dispatch to our minister in England, in
May, 1861, outlining the course to be pursued towards that power, has
been published in its original draft, showing the work of the Secretary
of State and President Lincoln's alterations. Of this publication the
editor of the _North American Review_ says: "Many military men, who
have had access to Lincoln's papers, have classed him as the best
general of the war. This paper will go far toward establishing his
reputation as its ablest diplomatist." It would be impossible for any
intelligent person to study the paper thus published, the omissions,
the alterations, the substitutions, without acknowledging that they
were the work of a master mind, and that the raw backwoodsman, not
three months in office, was the peer of any statesman with whom he
might find it necessary to cope. He was entirely willing to grant to
his secretaries and to his generals the greatest liberty of action; he
was ready to listen to any one, and to accept advice even from hostile
critics; and his readiness made them think, sometimes, that he had
little mental power of his own, and brought upon him the charge of
weakness; but, as the facts have become more fully known, it has grown
more and more evident that he was not only the "best general" and the
"ablest diplomatist," but the greatest man among all the great men whom
that era of trial brought to the rescue of our country.
[=The Assassination of Lincoln=]
And when the end came, after four years of desperate conflict; when
Lee had surrendered and the work of saving the Union seemed complete;
when the liberator was made, by the assassin's hand, the martyr to that
great cause which he had carried to its glorious termination, a depth
of pathos was added to our memory of America's noblest man, insuring
him a fame that was worth dying for, that crown of human sympathy which
lends glory to martyrdom.
The story of the end need hardly be told. On the evening of April
14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot by a half-crazed sympathizer with
the South, John Wilkes Booth. The President had gone, by special
invitation, to witness a play at Ford's Theatre, and the assassin had
no difficulty in gaining entrance to the box, committing the dreadful
deed, and leaping to the stage to make his escape. The story of his
pursuit and death while resisting arrest is familiar to us all. Mr.
Lincoln lingered till the morning, when the little group of friends
and relatives, with members of the cabinet, stood with breaking hearts
about the death-bed.
[=The Grief of the People=]
Sorrow more deep and universal cannot be imagined than enveloped our
land on that 15th of April. Throughout the country every household felt
the loss as of one of themselves. The honored remains lay for a few
days in state at Washington, and then began the funeral journey, taking
in backward course almost the route which had been followed four years
before, when the newly-elected President went to assume his burdens of
his high office. Such a pilgrimage of sorrow had never been witnessed
by our people. It was followed by the sympathy of the whole world until
the loved remains were laid in the tomb at Springfield, Illinois. Over
the door of the state house, in the city of his home, where his old
neighbors took their last farewell, were these lines:
"He left us borne up by our prayers;
He returns embalmed in our tears."
[=A Man of Melancholy and of Wit=]
Abraham Lincoln was in every way a remarkable man. Towering above his
fellows, six feet four inches in height, his giant figure, with its
inclination to stoop, of itself attracted attention. While possessed
of gigantic strength, he was diffident and modest in the extreme. The
expression of his face was sad, and that sadness deepened as the war
dragged on and causes for national depression increased. Melancholy
was hereditary with him, and it is doubtful if his mind was ever
free from a degree of mental dejection. On certain occasions he was
almost overwhelmed by it. Yet with all this he was one of the readiest
inventors and gatherers of amusing stories, which were inimitable
as told by him. He opened the cabinet meeting in which he announced
his purpose to issue the Emancipation Proclamation by reading to his
dignified associates a chapter from Artemus Ward. His jokes were
usually for a purpose. He settled more than one weighty question by the
wit of a homely "yarn," that told better than hours of argument would
have done. A signal illustration of his method is the telling aphorism
by which he once settled the question of changing the generals in
command: "It is a bad plan to swap horses crossing a stream."
His gift of expression was only equaled by the clearness and firmness
of his grasp upon the truths which he desired to convey; and the beauty
of his words, upon many occasions, is only matched by the goodness and
purity of the soul from which they sprung. His Gettysburg speech will
be remembered as long as the story of the battle for freedom shall be
told; and of his second inaugural it has been said: "This was like a
sacred poem. No American President had ever spoken words like these to
the American people. America never had a President who found such words
in the depth of his heart." The following were its closing words, and
with them we may fitly close this imperfect sketch:
[=The Great Gettysburg Oration=]
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until
all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword; as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward none,
with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up
the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle,
and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
CHAPTER XXXI.
Grant and Lee and the Civil War.
[=The Great Leaders of the Civil War=]
In several of the preceding chapters the causes which led the United
States into its great fratricidal war have been given. In the present
we propose to deal with the war itself; not to describe it in
detail,--that belongs to general history,--but to speak of its great
soldiers and its leading events, which form the chosen topics of this
work. Of the statesmen brought into prominence by the war, President
Lincoln was the chief, and we have given an account of his life. Of
its famous soldiers two stand pre-eminent, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert
E. Lee, and around the careers of these two men the whole story of the
war revolves. They did not stand alone; there were others who played
leading parts,--Thomas, Sherman, Sheridan, McClellan and others, on
the Union side; Jackson, Johnston and others on the Confederate,--but
this is not a work of biographical sketches, and our main attention
must be centred upon the two leading figures in the war, the mighty
opponents who linked arms in the desperate struggle from the Wilderness
to Appomattox.
[=Grant Takes Command=]
Grant was a modest and retiring man. While others were strenuously
pushing their claims to command, he, an experienced soldier of
the Mexican war, held back and was thrust aside by the crowd of
enterprising incompetents, doing anything that was offered him,
the coming Napoleon of the war performing services suitable for
a drill sergeant. But gradually men of experience in war began
to find their appropriate places, and in August, 1861, Grant was
made brigadier-general and given command of a district including
southeast Missouri and western Kentucky. He soon set out to meet the
Confederates, and found them at Belmont, Missouri, where he drove
them back in a hard four hours' fight. Then they were reinforced and
advanced in such strength that Grant and his men were in danger of
being cut off from the boats in which they had come.
"We are surrounded," cried the men, in some alarm.
"Well, then," said Grant, "we must cut our way out, as we cut our way
in," and they did. It was the only retreat in Grant's career.
[=All Quiet on the Potomac=]
Meanwhile, in the East, the battle of Bull Run had been fought, to
the dismay of the Union side, the triumph of the Confederate. There
followed an autumn and winter of weary waiting, which severely tried
the patience of North and South alike, both sides being eager for
something to be done. Early in the following year something was done,
but not in the region where the people looked for it. While attention
was chiefly concentrated upon the Potomac, where McClellan was
organizing and drilling that splendid army which another and a greater
commander was to lead to final victory; while the only response to the
people's urgent call, "On to Richmond!" was the daily report, "All
quiet on the Potomac;" Grant, an obscure and almost unknown soldier,
was pushing forward against Forts Henry and Donelson, eleven miles
apart, on the Tennessee and the Cumberland, near where these rivers
cross the line dividing Kentucky and Tennessee.
[=The Surrender of Fort Donelson=]
He had obtained from his commander, Halleck, a reluctant consent
to his plan for attacking these important posts with a land force,
co-operating at the same time with a fleet of gunboats under Commodore
Foote. It was the month of February and bitterly cold. Amid sleet and
snow the men pushed along the roads, arriving at Fort Henry just after
it had been captured, as the result of a severe bombardment, by the
gunboats. Grant immediately turned his attention to Fort Donelson,
which had been reinforced by a large part of the garrison that had
escaped from Fort Henry. It was held by Generals Buckner, Floyd and
Pillow with 20,000 men. For three days a fierce attack was kept up.
Buckner, who had been at West Point with Grant, and doubtless knew that
he was, as his wife designated him, "a very obstinate man," sent on the
morning of the fourth day, under a flag of truce, to ask what terms
of surrender would be granted. In reply Grant sent that brief, stern
message which thrilled throughout the North, stirring the blood in
every loyal heart: "No terms but unconditional and immediate surrender
can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
Buckner protested against the terms; but he was obliged to accept them
and to surrender unconditionally. With Fort Donelson were surrendered
15,000 men, 3,000 horses, sixty-five cannon, and a great quantity
of small arms and military stores. It was the first victory for the
North, and the whole country was electrified. Grant's reply to Buckner
became a household word, and the people of the North delighted to call
him, "Unconditional Surrender Grant." He was made a major-general of
volunteers, his commission bearing date of February 16, 1862, the day
of the surrender of Fort Donelson.
[=The Terrible Struggle at Pittsburg Landing=]
On April 6th, less than two months afterwards, another of Grant's great
battles was fought, at Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, in Mississippi.
In this battle Sherman was Grant's chief lieutenant, and the two men
tested each other's qualities in the greatest trial to which either had
as yet been exposed. The battle was one of the turning-points of the
war. The Confederates, 50,000 strong, under Albert Sidney Johnston,
one of their best generals, attacked the Union force of 40,000 men at
Shiloh Church. All day on Sunday the battle raged. The brave Johnston
was killed; but the Union forces were driven back, and at night their
lines were a mile in the rear of their position in the morning. Grant
came into his headquarters' tent that evening, when, to any but the
bravest and most sanguine, the battle seemed lost, and said: "Well,
it was tough work to-day, but we will beat them out of their boots
to-morrow." "When his staff and the generals present heard this,"
writes one of his officers, "they were as fully persuaded of the result
of the morrow's battle as when the victory had actually been achieved."
The next day, after dreadful fighting, the tide turned in favor of
the Union forces, which had been strongly reinforced by General Buell
during the night. In the afternoon Grant himself led a charge against
the Confederate lines, under which they broke and were driven back.
Night found the Union army in possession of the field, after one of the
severest battles of the war.
A man who wins victories is apt to become a fair foil for criticism
from those who lose them. "Grant is a drunkard," said his opponents.
This charge came to the President's ears. "Grant drinks too much
whisky," some fault-finder said. Lincoln replied, with his dry humor.
"I wish you would tell me what brand of whisky General Grant uses; I
should like to send some of it to our other generals."
[=The War in the East=]
It would doubtless have been better if this general, who drank a
fighting brand of whisky, had been brought to the East, where the war
was proceeding in a manner far from satisfactory. For six days the
armies of Lee and McClellan met in desperate battle before Richmond,
the Union army being driven from all its positions, and forced to
seek a new base on the James River. This disaster was followed by a
second conflict at Bull Run, which ended in one of the most sanguinary
defeats of the Union side during the war. The repulse was in a measure
retrieved by McClellan at Antietam, yet affairs did not look very
bright for the Union cause, and in the winter of 1862-63 there was much
depression in the North. The terrible defeats at Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville added to the anxiety of the people, and the necessity
of some signal success seemed urgent. Such a success came in double
measure in the following summer, at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg.
[=The Vicksburg Problem=]
On a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River, which
pursues a winding course through its fertile valley, stands the town of
Vicksburg. From this point a railroad ran to the eastward, and from the
opposite shore another ran westward through the rich, level country of
Louisiana. The town was strongly fortified, and from its elevation it
commanded the river in both directions. So long as it was held by the
Confederate armies, the Mississippi could not be opened to navigation;
and the line of railroad running east and west kept communication
open between the western and eastern parts of the Confederacy. How to
capture Vicksburg was a great problem; but it was one which General
Grant determined should be solved.
For eight months he worked at this problem. He formed plan after plan,
only to be forced to abandon them. Sherman made a direct attack at the
only place where a landing was practicable, and failed. Weeks were
spent in cutting a canal across the neck of a peninsula formed by a
great bend in the river opposite Vicksburg, so as to bring the gunboats
through without their passing under the fire of the batteries; but a
flood destroyed the work. Meanwhile great numbers of the troops were
ill with malaria or other diseases, and many died. There was much
clamor at Washington to have Grant removed, but the President refused.
He had faith in Grant, and determined to give him time to work out the
great problem,--how to get below and in the rear of Vicksburg, on the
Mississippi River.
This was at last accomplished. On a dark night the gunboats were
successfully run past the batteries, although every one of them was
more or less damaged by the guns. The troops were marched across the
peninsula, and then taken down the river on the side opposite the town;
and on April 30th the whole force was landed on the Mississippi side,
on high ground, and at a point where it could reach the enemy.
[=Passing the Batteries=]
The railroad running east from Vicksburg connected that city with
Jackson, the state capital, which was an important railway centre, and
from which Vicksburg was supplied. Grant made his movements with great
rapidity. He fought in quick succession a series of battles by which
Jackson and several other towns were captured; then, turning westward,
he attacked the forces of Pemberton, drove him back into Vicksburg, cut
off his supplies, and laid siege to the place.
[=The Siege of Vicksburg=]
The eyes of the whole nation were now centred on Vicksburg. More than
two hundred guns were brought to bear upon the place, besides the
batteries of the gunboats. In default of mortars, guns were improvised
by boring out tough logs, strongly bound with iron bands, which did
good service. The people of Vicksburg took shelter in cellars and caves
to escape the shot and shell. Food of all kinds became very scarce;
flour was sold at five dollars a pound, molasses at twelve dollars a
gallon. The endurance and devotion of the inhabitants were wonderful.
But the siege was so rigidly and relentlessly maintained that there
could be only one end. On July 3d, at ten o'clock, flags of truce were
displayed on the works, and General Pemberton sent a message to Grant
asking for an armistice, and proposing that commissioners should be
appointed to arrange terms of capitulation.
On the afternoon of the same day, Grant and Pemberton met under an
oak between the lines of the two armies and arranged the terms of
surrender. It took three hours for the Confederate army to march out
and stack their arms. There were surrendered 31,000 men, 250 cannon,
and a great quantity of arms and munitions of war. But the moral
advantage to the Union cause was far beyond any material gain. The fall
of Vicksburg carried with it that of Port Hudson, a few miles below,
which surrendered to Banks a few days later; and at last the great
river was open from St. Louis to the sea.
[=The Great Victories and Their Effect=]
The news of this great victory came to the North on the same day
with that of Gettysburg, July 4, 1863. The rejoicing over the great
triumph is indescribable. A heavy load was lifted from the minds of the
President and his cabinet. The North took heart, and resolved again to
prosecute the war with energy. The name of Grant was on every tongue.
It was everywhere felt that he was the foremost man of the campaign. He
was at once made a major-general in the regular army, and a gold medal
was awarded him by Congress.
Grant's next striking victory was at Chattanooga, an important railway
centre in the valley of the Tennessee River, near where it enters
Alabama. South of the town the slope of Lookout Mountain rises to
a height of 2000 feet above sea-level. Two miles to the east rises
Missionary Ridge, 500 feet high. Both Lookout Mountain and Missionary
Ridge were occupied by the army of General Bragg, and his commanding
position, strengthened by fortifications, was considered by him
impregnable.
[=Chickamauga and Chattanooga=]
The disastrous battle of Chickamauga, in September, 1863, had left the
Union armies in East Tennessee in a perilous situation. General Thomas,
in Chattanooga, was hemmed in by the Confederate forces, his line of
supplies was endangered, and his men and horses were almost starving.
The army was on quarter rations. Ammunition was almost exhausted, and
the troops were short of clothing. Thousands of army mules, worn out
and starved, lay dead along the miry roads. Chattanooga, occupied by
the Union army, was too strongly fortified for Bragg to take by storm,
but every day shells from his batteries upon the heights were thrown
into the town. This was the situation when Grant, stiff and sore from
a recent accident, arrived at Nashville, on his way to direct the
campaign in East Tennessee.
"Hold Chattanooga at all hazards. I will be there as soon as possible,"
he telegraphed from Nashville to General Thomas. "We will hold the town
until we starve," was the brave reply.
[=Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge=]
Grant's movements were rapid and decisive. He ordered the troops to
be concentrated at Chattanooga; he fought a battle at Wauhatchie, in
Lookout Valley, which broke Bragg's hold on the river below Chattanooga
and shortened the Union line of supplies; and by his prompt and
vigorous preparation for effective action he soon had his troops
lifted out of the demoralized condition in which they had sunk after
the defeat of Chickamauga. One month after his arrival were fought the
memorable battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, by which
the Confederate troops were driven out of Tennessee, their hold on the
country was broken up, and a large number of prisoners and guns were
captured. Nothing in the history of war is more inspiring than the
impetuous bravery with which the Union troops fought their way up the
steep mountain sides, bristling with cannon, and drove the Confederate
troops out of their works at the point of the bayonet. An officer of
General Bragg's staff afterward declared that they considered their
position perfectly impregnable, and that when they saw the Union
troops, after capturing their rifle-pits at the base, coming up the
craggy mountain toward their headquarters, they could scarcely credit
their eyes, and thought that every man of them must be drunk. History
has no parallel for sublimity and picturesqueness of effect, while the
consequences, which were the division of the Confederacy in the East,
were inestimable.
[Illustration: GENERAL LEE'S INVASION OF THE NORTH
The Confederate army under General Lee twice invaded
the North. The first invasion was brought to a
disastrous end by the Battle of Antietam, September
17, 1862. The second invasion ended with greater
disaster at Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. Gettysburg was
the greatest and Antietam the bloodiest battles of the
war.]
[Illustration: THE SINKING OF THE "ALABAMA," THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL
CONFEDERATE CRUISERS
The battle between the _Kearsarge_ and the _Alabama_
took place off the coast of Holland, June, 1864. "The
famous cruiser was going down, and the boats of the
_Kearsarge_ were hurriedly sent to help the drowning
men. The stern settled, the bow rose high in the air,
the immense ship plunged out of sight, and the career
of the _Alabama_ was ended forever."]
[=Grant Made Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-Chief=]
After Grant's success in Tennessee, the popular demand that he should
be put at the head of all the armies became irresistible. In Virginia
the magnificent Army of the Potomac, after two years of fighting, had
been barely able to turn back from the North the tide of Confederate
invasion, and was apparently as far as ever from capturing Richmond.
In the West, on the other hand, Grant's armies had won victory after
victory, had driven the opposing forces out of Kentucky and Tennessee,
had taken Vicksburg, opened up the Mississippi, and divided the
Confederacy in both the West and the East. In response to the call
for Grant, Congress revived the grade of lieutenant-general, which had
been held by only one commander, Scott, since the time of Washington;
and the hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga was nominated
to this rank by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and placed in
command of all the armies of the nation.
The relief of President Lincoln at having such a man in command was
very great. "Grant is the first _general_ I've had," he remarked to a
friend. "You know how it has been with all the rest. As soon as I put a
man in command of the army, he would come to me with a plan, and about
as much as say, 'Now, I don't believe I can do it, but if you say so
I'll try it on,' and so put the responsibility of success or failure
upon me. They all wanted _me_ to be the general. Now, it isn't so with
Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know, and I don't
want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me."
[=The Virginia Campaign of 1864-65=]
Never were the persistent courage, the determined purpose, which formed
the foundation of Grant's character, more clearly brought out than in
the Virginia campaign of 1864, in which he commanded; and never were
they more needed. Well did he know that no single triumph, however
brilliant, would suffice. He saw plainly that nothing but "hammering
away" would avail. The stone wall of the Confederacy had too broad and
firm a base to be suddenly overturned; it had to be slowly reduced to
powder.
During the anxious days which followed the battle of the Wilderness,
Frank B. Carpenter, the artist, relates that he asked President
Lincoln, "How does Grant impress you as compared with other generals?"
"The great thing about him," said the President, "is cool persistency
of purpose. He is not easily excited, and he has the grip of a
bull-dog. _When he once gets his teeth in, nothing can shake him off._"
His great opponent, Lee, saw and felt the same quality. When, after
days of indecisive battle, the fighting in the Wilderness came to a
pause, it was believed in the Confederate lines that the Union troops
were falling back. General Gordon said to Lee,--
"I think there is no doubt that Grant is retreating."
The Confederate chief knew better. He shook his head.
"You are mistaken," he replied earnestly,--"quite mistaken. Grant is
not retreating; _he is not a retreating man_."
The battles of Spottsylvania and North Anna followed, and then came the
disastrous affair at Cold Harbor. Then Grant changed his base to James
river and attacked Petersburg. Slowly but surely the Union lines closed
in. "Falling back" on the Union side had gone out of fashion. South or
North, all could see that now a steady resistless force was back of the
Union armies, pushing them ever on toward Richmond.
[=The End of The War=]
Grant's losses in the final campaign were heavy, but Lee's slender
resources were wrecked in a much more serious proportion; and for
the Confederates no recruiting was possible. Their dead, who lay so
thickly beneath the fields, were the children of the soil, and there
were none to replace them. In some cases whole families were destroyed;
but the survivors still fought on. In the Confederate lines around
Petersburg there was often absolute destitution. An officer who was
there testified, shortly after the end of the struggle, that every cat
and dog for miles around had been caught and eaten. Grant was pressing
onward; Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas had proved
that the Confederacy was an egg-shell; Sheridan's splendid cavalry was
ever hovering round the last defenders of the bars and stripes. Grant
saw that all was over, and on April 7, 1865, he wrote that memorable
letter calling upon Lee to surrender and bring the war to an end. Lee,
whose army was cut off beyond possibility of escape, was obliged to
consent, and the terrible four years' conflict ceased.
We have told the chief incidents in the career as a soldier of the
great Union general; we have now to deal with that of his equally great
opponent in the final year of the war, the brilliant commander of the
Confederate forces, General Robert E. Lee.
[=Character of General Lee=]
Of all the men whose character and ability were developed in the Civil
War, there was perhaps not one in either army whose greatness is more
generally acknowledged than that of the man just named. His ability as
a soldier and his character as a man are alike appreciated; and while
it is natural that men of the North should be unwilling to condone
his taking up arms against the government, yet that has not prevented
their doing full justice to his greatness. It is not too much to say
that General Lee is recognized, both North and South, as one of the
greatest soldiers, and one of the ablest and purest men, that America
has produced.
Lee, like Grant, was a graduate of West Point and had seen service in
the Mexican war, in which he won high honor. It was he who, when John
Brown made his raid against Harper's Ferry, was despatched with a body
of troops for his capture. The raiders had entrenched themselves in the
engine house of the arsenal, but Lee quickly battered down the door,
captured them, and turned them over to the civil authorities.
[=Lee's Devotion to His State=]
Lee, the son of "Light Horse Harry Lee," a famous general of the
Revolutionary War, cherished an attachment to the Union which his
father had helped him to form, and at the breaking out of the Civil
War was in great doubt as to what course he should take. He disapproved
of secession, but was thoroughly pervaded with the idea of loyalty to
his state,--an idea which was almost universal in the South, though
not entertained by the people of the North. He had great difficulty in
arriving at a decision; but when at last Virginia adopted an ordinance
of secession, he resigned his commission in the United States army.
Writing to his sister, he said, "Though I recognize no necessity for
this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end
for redress of grievances, yet in my own person I had to meet the
question whether I should take part against my native state. With all
my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an
American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise
my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore
resigned my commission in the army, and, save in defence of my native
state, I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword."
[=Lee in Command at Richmond=]
It was not a case in which a soldier who believed in state supremacy
could long hesitate. Virginia was invaded, and Lee drew his sword
"in defence of his native state," his first service being as
brigadier-general in Northwestern Virginia, where he was opposed to
General Rosecrans. Here no important battle was fought, and in the
latter part of 1861 he was sent to the coast of North Carolina, where
he planned the defences which were held good against Union attack until
the last year of the war. After the wounding of General J. E. Johnston
at Fair Oaks, Lee was called to the command of the forces at Richmond,
and on June 3, 1862, took charge of the army defending the Confederate
capital.
[=The Six Day's Fight=]
The task before him was no light one. McClellan lay before Richmond
with a powerful and well-appointed army, and that city was in
considerable danger of capture. But the generals opposed to each other
were of very different calibre. McClellan was of the cautious and
deliberate order; Lee was one of those ready to dare all "on the hazard
of a die." On June 26th he made a vigorous assault on the Union army,
and continued it with unceasing persistence day after day for six days,
driving McClellan and his men steadily backward. On the final day, July
1st, the Union army, strongly posted on Malvern Hill, defeated Lee, who
suffered heavy loss. But McClellan continued to retreat until the James
River was reached and the siege of Richmond abandoned.
A few months passed, and then, with a sudden and rapid sweep north, Lee
fell upon the large army which had been gathered under General Pope,
on the old battlefield of Bull Run. Here a terrible struggle took
place, ending in the disastrous defeat of Pope. In this bloody battle
the Unionists lost 25,000 men, of whom 9,000 were made prisoners. The
Confederates lost about 15,000. As the defeated army had fallen back on
Washington, that city was safe against assault, and on September 4th,
with another of his brilliant and rapid movements, Lee marched his army
into Maryland, hoping that this State would rise in his support.
[=Second Bull Run and Antietam=]
He was disappointed in this; the Marylanders proved staunch for the
Union; but one great advantage was gained in the capture of Harper's
Ferry by Stonewall Jackson, with nearly 12,000 prisoners and immense
quantities of munitions of war. It was a bloodless victory, as valuable
in its results for the Confederacy as had been the sanguinary battle of
Bull Run. A few days later, on September 17th, the two late opponents,
McClellan and Lee, met in conflict at Antietam, in the most bloody
battle, for the numbers engaged, of the war. Lee had taken a dangerous
risk in weakening his army to despatch Jackson against Harper's Ferry.
But the alert Jackson was back again, and the Confederates had 70,000
men to oppose to the 80,000 under McClellan. The result was in a
measure a drawn battle, but Lee was so severely handled that he did not
deem it safe to wait for a renewal of the conflict, and withdrew across
the Potomac. The failure of McClellan to pursue with energy brought his
career to an end. He was removed from command by the government and
replaced by General Burnside.
[=Fredericksburg And Chancellorsville=]
It cannot be said that the change of commanders was a successful one.
Burnside attacked the vigilant Lee at Fredericksburg, on December 13th,
and met with one of the most disastrous defeats of the war, losing
nearly 14,000 men to a Confederate loss of 5,000. General Hooker, who
succeeded him, met with a similar defeat. Supplied with a splendid
army, over 100,000 strong, he attacked Lee at Chancellorsville on May
3, 1863, and met with a terrible repulse, through a brilliant flank
movement executed by Stonewall Jackson, losing over 17,000 men. The
Confederates had a loss, not less severe, this being the death of
Jackson, their most brilliant leader after Lee.
His great successes at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville led Lee to
venture upon a daring but dangerous movement, an invasion of the North;
one which, if successful, might have placed Philadelphia, Baltimore,
and Washington in his hands, but which, if unsuccessful, would leave
him in a very critical position.
[=The Armies at Gettysburg=]
[=The Union Victory at Gettysburg=]
It was, as all readers know, unsuccessful. General Meade, who replaced
Hooker in command, followed the Confederates north with the utmost
haste, and placed himself across their path at Gettysburg, in western
Pennsylvania. On July 1st, the advance columns of the two armies met,
and engaged in a preliminary struggle, which ended in a repulse of the
Union forces. These fell back and took up a strong position on Cemetery
Ridge, where during the night they were strongly reinforced by the
troops hurrying up from the south. During the next two days the Union
army fought on the defensive, Lee making vigorous onslaughts upon it
and fighting desperately but unsuccessfully to break Meade's line or
seize some commanding point. The end of this fierce struggle--which
is ranked among the decisive battles of the world--came on the 3d,
when Lee launched a powerful column, 15,000 strong, under General
Pickett, against the Union centre. It ended in a repulse, almost an
annihilation, of the charging force, and the great battle was at an
end. The next day Lee retreated. He had lost in all about 30,000 men.
The Union loss aggregated about 23,000.
[=The 4th of July, 1863=]
The 4th of July, 1863, was in its way as great a day for the American
Union as the 4th of July, 1776, for it was the great turning point in
the war. On this day Grant took possession of Vicksburg, with 30,000
prisoners, and cut the Confederacy in two. And on the same day Lee
began his retreat, disastrously beaten in his last act of offensive
warfare. During the remainder of his career he was to stand on the
defence, until driven to bay and forced to surrender by the hammer-like
blows of "Unconditional surrender Grant."
[=The Great Struggle for Richmond=]
But while brilliant in offensive war, Lee was in his true element in
defence, and never has greater skill and ability, or more indomitable
resistance, been shown than in his struggle against his vigorous
adversary. Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union armies,
on March 1, 1864. Having sent Sherman to conduct a campaign in the
South, he himself, on May 4 and 5, crossed the Rapidan River for a
direct advance on Richmond. A campaign of forty-three days followed,
in which more than 100,000 men, frequently reinforced, were engaged
on either side. Grant came first into encounter with Lee in the
Wilderness, near the scene of Hooker's defeat a year before. Here,
after two days of terrible slaughter, the battle ended without decided
advantage to either side, though the Union loss was double that of the
Confederates.
Finding Lee's position impregnable, Grant advanced by a flank
movement to Spottsylvania Court House. Here, on May 11th, Hancock,
by a desperate assault, captured Generals Johnson and E.H. Stewart,
with 3000 men and 30 guns, while Lee himself barely escaped. But no
fighting, however desperate, could carry Lee's works. Sheridan with
his cavalry now made a dashing raid toward Richmond. He fought the
Confederate cavalry, killed their ablest general, J. E. B. Stuart, and
returned, having suffered little damage, to Grant. On May 17th, Grant,
having executed another flank movement, reached the North Anna River.
But Lee had fallen back with his usual celerity, and the advancing
army found itself again in face of strong entrenchments. As a vigorous
attack failed to carry Lee's works, Grant made a third flank march,
which brought him to the vicinity of Richmond.
Here once more he found his indefatigable opponent in his front, very
strongly posted at Cold Harbor. Grant, perhaps incensed at seeing this
man always blocking up his road, hurled his tried troops upon the
impregnable works of the enemy. It was a vain effort, leading only
to dreadful slaughter. The Unionists lost in this hopeless affair
over 10,000 in killed and wounded, while the Confederates escaped
practically without loss.
[=Grant's March on Petersburg=]
Grant now executed the most promising of his flank movements. He
secretly crossed the James River about June 15th and made a dash on
Petersburg, hoping to seize the railroads leading south and to cut the
line of supply of Richmond. But unforeseen delays and strong resistance
enabled Lee to throw a force of his veterans into the town, and the
movement failed. And now for months it was a question of attack and
defence. Both sides threw up entrenchments of enormous strength, and
the following fall and winter were occupied in an incessant artillery
duel, marked by a few assaults, which had little effect other than that
of loss of life.
But during all this time Lee's army was weakening, while that of Grant
was kept in full strength. At the end of March, 1865, the final events
of the great struggle were at hand. Grant sent Warren and Sheridan to
the south of Petersburg, to cut the Danville and Southside Railroads,
Lee's avenues of supply. On April 1st the Confederate right wing was
encountered and defeated at Five Forks, and on the following day the
whole line of works defending Petersburg was successfully assailed.
[=The End of the Conflict=]
Richmond could no longer be held. Lee evacuated it that night, and
retreated towards Danville with about 35,000 men. But the Union cavalry
under Sheridan pursued with such celerity that escape was cut off, and
the Confederates were surrounded at Appomattox Court House, and forced
to surrender on April 9, 1865.
Lee had made for himself a world-wide reputation. While the bulldog
persistence of Grant had enabled him to crush army after army of
the Confederacy, Lee had shown himself one of the most brilliant of
generals, successful in all his assaults except at Gettysburg, and
almost without a peer in defensive warfare. Only the utter exhaustion
of the country behind him and the slow grinding of his army into
fragments brought final success to his opponents.
We can only refer briefly to the careers of some of the abler
subordinate commanders in the war. First among them was Sherman, whose
exploits in great measure place him on a level with Grant and Lee. In
truth, there was no more brilliant operation in the entire war than his
famous "March through Georgia."
[=Sherman's March on Atlanta=]
This striking event was the culmination of a series of successful
battles and flank movements, by which Johnston was gradually forced
back from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Here the able Johnston was removed
and replaced by the dashing but reckless Hood, who attacked Sherman
fiercely, but only to meet a disastrous repulse. A final flank
movement, which cut off Hood's sources of supply, forced him to
evacuate Atlanta, which Sherman occupied on September 1, 1864. It was
the most brilliant success of the year, and Sherman became the hero of
the hour. Hood, finding that he could do nothing there, made a dash
into Tennessee, hoping to draw Sherman after him for the defence of
Nashville.
Sherman had no intention of doing anything of the kind. The removal of
Hood from his vicinity was just what he wanted, and he remarked in a
chuckling tone, "If Hood will go to Tennessee I will be glad to furnish
him with rations for the trip." What he had in view was something very
different; namely, to abandon his long line of supplies, march across
Georgia to Savannah, nearly three hundred miles away, and live upon
the country as he went, while destroying one of the richest sources of
Confederate supply.
[=Marching Through Georgia=]
The Confederate generals did not dream of a movement of such unusual
boldness, and left the field clear for Sherman's march. For a month
he and his men simply disappeared. No one knew where they were, or
if they were not annihilated. They had plunged into the heart of the
Confederacy, far away from all means of communication, and the people
of the North could only wait and hope. "I know which hole he went in
at," said Lincoln to anxious inquirers, "but I know no more than you at
which hole he will come out."
He came out at Savannah. He had cut a great swath, thirty miles wide,
through Georgia, his soldiers living off the country and rendering it
incapable of furnishing supplies for the Confederate armies, and on
December 23d he sent Lincoln a despatch that carried joy throughout
the North: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of
Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, and
about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."
[=Sherman Marches North=]
The remainder of Sherman's movement may be briefly told. Marching
northward, he took Charleston, which had so long defied Union assault,
without a shot. Reaching North Carolina, he found himself opposed again
to Johnston, but before much fighting took place the news of Lee's
surrender came, and nothing was left for Johnston except to yield up
his force. Meanwhile, Thomas, who had saved the army at Chickamauga,
hurried to Nashville to meet the hard-fighting Hood, and there defeated
him so utterly and dispersed his army so completely that it never came
together again.
[=General Early's Raid on Washington=]
There is only one further exploit of the Union generals that calls
here for special mention, that of Sheridan's famous ride. In 1864 Lee
sent General Early with 20,000 men to the Shenandoah Valley, recently
cleared of its defenders, the purpose being to threaten Washington
and possibly oblige Grant to weaken his forces for its defence.
Success attended Early's movement. He invaded Maryland, defeated Lew
Wallace near Frederick, and reached the suburbs of Washington, which
an immediate attack might have placed in his hands. Not venturing,
however, to attack the capital, he soon returned, with large spoils in
horses and cattle, to the Valley, where he defeated General Crook at
Winchester.
In one respect this movement had failed. Grant was not induced to
weaken his forces to any important extent. Had it been Stonewall
Jackson in the Valley it might have been different, but he contented
himself with sending Sheridan to take care of Early. Sheridan bided his
time, despite the growing impatience in the country. Grant visited him,
intending to propose a plan of operations, but he found that Sheridan
was in full touch with the situation, and left him to his own devices.
[="Whirling Through Winchester."=]
At length, in September, Early incautiously divided his command, and
Sheridan, who was closely on the watch, attacked him, flanked him right
and left, broke his lines in every direction, and sent him, as he
telegraphed to Washington, "Whirling through Winchester." "I have never
since deemed it necessary to visit General Sheridan before giving him
orders," said Grant afterwards. Sheridan again attacked and defeated
Early at Fisher's Hill, driving him out of the valley and into the gaps
of the Blue Ridge.
[Illustration: SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE TO GENERAL GRANT, AT
APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE, APRIL 9, 1865
"The two generals met at the house of Major McLean,
in the hamlet of Appomattox Courthouse, where Lee
surrendered all that remained of the Confederate
Army, which for nearly four years had beaten back
every attempt to capture Richmond. Grant's terms, as
usual, were generous. He did not ask for Lee's sword,
and demanded only that he and his men should agree
not again to bear arms against the Government of the
United States."]
[Illustration: THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION WHICH DECIDED UPON THE
ELECTION OF PRESIDENT HAYES
Composed of three Republican and two Democratic
Senators, three Democratic and two Republican
Representatives, three Republican and two Democratic
Justices of the Supreme Court; total, eight
Republicans and seven Democrats. By a strict party
vote the decision was given in favor of Mr. Hayes,
who, two days later, March 4, 1877, was inaugurated
President of the United States.]
Sometime afterwards took place the most famous event in Sheridan's
career. During an absence at Washington his camp at Cedar Creek was
surprised by Early, the men were driven back in disorderly rout,
and eighteen guns and nearly a thousand prisoners were lost.
Sheridan, on his way back from the capital, had stopped for the
night at Winchester. On his way to the front the next morning the
sound of distant guns came to his ears. Perceiving that a battle was
in progress, he rode forward at full speed. Soon he began to meet
frightened fugitives, and guessed what had happened. Taking off his
hat, he swung it in the air as he dashed onward at a gallop, shouting,
"Face the other way, boys; face the other way. We're going back to lick
them out of their boots!"
[=Sheridan's Ride=]
His words were electrical. The fugitives did "face the other way."
As he came nearer and met the retreating companies and regiments, he
rallied them with the same inspiring cry. The men turned back. The
Confederates, who were rifling their camp, were astounded to find a
routed army charging upon them. Dismay spread through their ranks,
they were thrown into disorder, and were soon in full flight, having
lost all the captured guns and twenty-four more, with a heavy loss in
killed, wounded, and prisoners. Since that day "Sheridan's ride" has
been celebrated in song and story as the most dramatic incident of the
war.
[=Stonewall Jackson and His Exploits=]
We have told some of the exciting events of the conflict from the Union
side. The Confederates also had their dashing generals and thrilling
deeds of valor. But this chapter is already so extended that we must
confine ourselves to an account of but one in addition to Lee, the
renowned Stonewall Jackson. It is well known how Thomas J. Jackson got
this title of honor. In the battle of Bull Run his men stood so firm
amid the disordered fragments of other corps, that General Bee called
attention to them: "Look at those Virginians! They stand like a stone
wall." The title of "Stonewall" clung to their leader until his death.
His most famous work was done in the Shenandoah Valley. In March, 1862,
he retreated before Banks some forty miles, then suddenly turned and
with only 3,500 men drove him back in dismay. But his most brilliant
exploit was in April, when he whipped Milroy, Banks, Shields, and
Fremont, one after another, in the Valley, and then suddenly turned,
marched to Lee's aid, and helped to defeat McClellan at Gaines's Mills,
the first victory in the memorable six days' fight.
In August, 1862, he drove Pope back from the Rappahannock, and by
stubborn fighting held him fast until Longstreet could get up to aid
in the victory of the second Bull Run. We have told of his striking
exploit at Harper's Ferry, and how he won the day at Chancellorsville.
Here he was wounded by a mistaken volley from his own men, was soon
after attacked with pneumonia, and died on May 10, 1863. Thus fell
the ablest man, after Lee, that the great contest developed on the
Confederate side.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Indian in the Nineteenth Century.
[=The Relation of Whites and Indians=]
The relation of the American people to the Indians, since the first
settlement of this country, has been one of conflict, which has been
almost incessant in some sections of the land. By the opening of the
nineteenth century the red men had been driven back in great measure
from the thirteen original states, but the tribes in the west were
still frequently hostile, and stood sternly in the way of our progress
westward. We propose in this chapter to describe the various relations,
both peaceful and warlike, which have existed between the whites and
the red men during the century with which we are here concerned.
[=Harrison and Tecumseh=]
The close of the Revolutionary War brought only a partial cessation of
the Indian warfare. The red man was by no means disposed to give up his
country without a struggle, and throughout the interior, in what is
now Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and along the Ohio River, there
were constant outbreaks, and battles of great severity. The conflict
in Indiana brought forward the services of a young lieutenant, William
Henry Harrison, who for many years had much to do with Indians, both
as military officer and as governor of the Indian territory. In 1811
appeared one of those great Indian chiefs whose abilities and influence
are well worth attention and study. Tecumseh, a mighty warrior of
mixed Creek and Shawnee blood, was one who dreamt the dream of freeing
his people. With eloquence and courage he urged them on, by skill he
combined the tribes in a new alliance, and, encouraged by British
influence, he looked forward to a great success. While he was seeking
to draw the Southern Indians into his scheme, his brother rashly joined
battle with General Harrison, and was utterly defeated in the fight
which gained for Harrison the title of Old Tippecanoe. Disappointed and
disheartened at this destruction of his life-work, Tecumseh threw all
his great influence on the British side in the War of 1812, in which
he dealt much destruction to the United States troops. At Sandusky and
Detroit and Chicago, and at other less important forts, the Indian
power was severely felt; but at Terre Haute the young captain Zachary
Taylor met the savages with such courage and readiness of resources
that they were finally repulsed. But rarely did a similar good fortune
befall our troops; and it was not until after Commodore Perry won
victory for us at Lake Erie, that Tecumseh himself was killed, and the
twenty-five hundred Indians of his force were finally scattered, in the
great fight of the Thames River, where our troops were commanded by
William Henry Harrison and Richard M. Johnson, afterward President and
Vice-President of the United States. For a little time the Northwest
had peace. But in the South the warfare was not over. Tecumseh had
stirred up the Creeks and Seminoles against the whites, and throughout
Alabama, Georgia, and Northern Florida the Creek War raged with all its
horrid accompaniments until 1814; even the redoubtable Andrew Jackson
could not conquer the brave Creeks until they were almost exterminated,
and then a small remnant remained in the swamps of Florida to be heard
of at a later time.
[=National Period=]
[=Government Policy=]
Before the new government of the United States was fully upon its
feet it recognized the necessity and duty of caring for its Indian
population. In 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence,
the Continental Congress divided the Indians into three departments,
northern, middle and southern, each under the care of three or more
commissioners, among whom we find no less personages than Oliver
Wolcott, Philip Schuyler, Patrick Henry and Benjamin Franklin. As early
as 1832 the young nation found itself confronted with a serious Indian
problem, created a separate bureau for the charge of the red men, and
inaugurated a definite policy of treatment. Speaking in general, we
have altered this policy three times. As a matter of fact, we have
altered its details, changed its plans, and adopted new methods of
management as often as changing administrations have changed the
administrators of our Indian affairs. But in the large, there have
been three great steps in our Indian policy, and these have to some
extent grown out of our changing conditions. The first plan was that of
the reservations. Under that system, as the Indian land was wanted by
the white population, the red man was removed across the Mississippi
and pushed step by step still further west; and as time went on
and the population followed hard after, he was eventually confined
to designated tracts. Yet despite the fact that these tracts were
absolutely guaranteed to him, he was driven off them again and again
as the farmer or the miner demanded the land. In time a new policy was
attempted, or rather an old policy was revived, that of concentrating
the whole body of Indians into one state or territory, but the obvious
impossibility of that scheme soon brought it to an end. Less than
thirty years ago the present plan took its place, that of education and
eventual absorption.
[=Removal of the Southern Tribes=]
[=War with the Seminoles=]
In 1830 the country seemed to stretch beyond any possible need of
the young nation, lusty as it was, and the wide wilderness of the
Rocky Mountains promised to furnish hunting grounds for all time.
The Mississippi Valley and the Northwest were still unsettled, but
in the South the Five Nations were greatly in the way of their white
neighbors, and the work of the removal of the latter beyond the
Mississippi was begun. Under President Monroe several treaties were
made with those tribes--the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and
Seminoles--by which, one after another, they ceded their lands to the
government, and took in exchange the country now known as the Indian
Territory. They were already somewhat advanced in civilization, with
leaders combining in blood and brain the Indian astuteness and the
white man's experience and education. John Ross, a half-breed chief
of the Cherokees, of unusual ability, brought about the removal under
conditions more favorable than often occurred. He was bitterly opposed
by full half the Indians, and it was not without sufferings and losses
of more than one kind that the great southern league was removed to
the fair and fertile land set aside for them in the far-off West. It
was owing to the sagacity of John Ross and his associates that this
land was secured to them, in a way in which no other land has ever been
secured to an Indian tribe. They hold it to-day by patent, as secure
in the sight of the law as an old Dutch manor house or a Virginia
plantation, and all the learning of the highest tribunals has not yet
found the way to evade or disregard these solemn obligations. To these
men, too, and to the missionaries who long taught their tribes, do
they owe an effective form of civilization, and a governmental polity
which preserves for them alone, among all the red men, the title and
the state of nations. The Seminoles, who were of the Creek blood, were
divided, some of them going west with their brethren, the larger number
of them remaining in Florida. With these--about 4,000 in all--under
their young and able chief, Osceola, the government fought a seven
years' war, costing many lives and forty millions in money, and did not
then succeed in removing all the Seminoles from their much-loved home.
[=Hostilities with Northern Tribes=]
A similar state of affairs attended the removals in the north. The
savages bitterly opposed giving up their native soil, there being in
every case two parties in the tribe, one that sorrowfully yielded to
the necessity of submission, and one that indulged in the hopeless
dream of successful resistance. Thus the Sac and Fox tribe of Wisconsin
was divided, and although Keokuk and one band went peaceably to their
new home among the Iowas, Black Hawk and his followers were slow to
depart, and were removed by force. The Indian Department failed to
furnish corn enough for the new settlement, and, going to seek it among
the Winnebagoes, the Indians came into collision with the government.
Thereafter ensued a series of misunderstandings, and consequent fights,
resulting in great alarm among the whites and destruction to the
Indians. The story is the same story, almost to details, that has been
frequently seen since that time. After the fashion above described all
the removals have proceeded, the cause ever the same, the white man's
greed and the ferocity of the wronged and infuriated savage.
[=Treatment of the Western Indians=]
It is useless and impossible to give the details of all the various
tribes that have been pushed about in the manner described. In 1830 the
East was already crowding toward the West, and every succeeding decade
saw the frontier moved onward with giant strides. Everywhere the Indian
was an undesirable neighbor, and when, in 1849, the discovery of gold
began to create a new nation on the Pacific slope, a pressure began
from that side also, and the intervening deserts became a thoroughfare
for the pilgrims of fortune and the lovers of adventure. From year to
year the United States made fresh treaties with the tribes; those in
the East were gone already, those in the interior were following fast,
and there had arisen the new necessity of dealing with those in the
far West. One tribe after another would be planted on a reservation
millions of acres in extent and apparently far beyond the home of
civilization, and almost in a twelvemonth the settler would be upon
its border, demanding its broad acres. The reservations were altered,
reduced, taken away altogether, at the pleasure of the government,
with little regard to the rights or wishes of the Indian. Usually this
brought about fighting, and it produced a state of permanent discontent
that wrought harm for both settler and savage. The Indian grew daily
more and more treacherous and constantly more cruel. The white settler
was daily in greater danger, and constantly more eager for revenge.
[=General "To-morrow"=]
A new complication entered into the problem. The game was fast
disappearing, and with it the subsistence of the Indian. It became
necessary for the government to furnish rations and clothes, lest he
should starve and freeze. Cheating was the rule and deception the
every-day experience of these savages. In 1795 General Wayne gained
the nickname of General To-morrow, so slow was the government to
fulfill his promises; and thus for more than a hundred years it was
to-morrow for the Indian. Exasperated beyond endurance, he was ever
ready to retaliate, and the horrors of an Indian war constantly hung
over the pioneer. During all this period we treated the Indian tribes
as if they were foreign nations, and made solemn treaties with them,
agreeing to furnish them rations or marking the reservation bounds. We
have made more than a thousand of these treaties, and General Sherman
is the authority for the statement that we have broken every one of
them. Day by day the gluttonous idleness, the loss of hope, the sense
of wrong, and the bitter feeling of contempt united to degrade the red
man as well as to madden him.
[=The Sioux War of 1862=]
The fighting did not cease, for all the promises or the threats of the
government. But always, it is credibly declared, the first cause of an
Indian outbreak was a wrong inflicted upon some tribe. And always, in
the latter days as in the earlier period, it has meant one more effort
on the part of the old warriors to regain the power they saw slipping
away so fast. Both these causes entered into the awful Sioux War in
Minnesota in 1862. Suffering from piled-up wrongs, smarting under the
loss of power, and conscious that the Civil War was their opportunity,
a party of one hundred and fifty Sioux began the most horrid massacre
known for fifty years; the beginning of a struggle which lasted more
than a year, and which was remarkable for the steadfast fidelity of
the Christian Indians, to whose help and succor whole bodies of white
men owed their lives. Four years later, in 1866, the discovery of gold
in Montana caused the invasion of the Sioux reservation, and Red Cloud
set about defending it. Scarcely more than thirty years old, but no
mean warrior, he fought the white man long and desperately and with the
cunning of his race.
[=Massacre of General Custer's Command=]
This outbreak was scarcely quieted when another occurred. As was its
wont, the government forgot the promises of its treaty of peace, and
a small band of the Cheyennes retaliated with a raid upon their white
neighbors. General Sheridan made this the occasion he was seeking for
a war of extermination, and in November, 1868, Lieutenant Custer fell
upon Black Kettle's village and after a severe fight destroyed the
village, killing more than a hundred warriors and capturing half as
many women and children. The next year General Sheridan ordered the
Sioux and Cheyennes off the hunting grounds the treaty had reserved
to them, but these were the strongest and bravest of the tribes and
they resisted the order. A number of Civil War heroes, Crook, Terry,
Custer, Miles and McKenzie, led our troops, and among the chiefs whom
they met in a long and desperate struggle were Crazy Horse and Spotted
Tail, notable warriors both. At the battle of the Big Horn, by some
misunderstanding or mismanagement, General Custer was left with only
five companies to meet nearly three thousand savage Sioux. He fought
desperately until the last, but he was killed and his command so
utterly destroyed that not a single man was left alive. The attempt to
remove the Modocs from California to Oregon in 1872 was the signal for
a new war; and a year or two afterwards similar results followed when
it was attempted to push the Nez Perces from the homes they had sought
in Oregon to a new reservation in Idaho. This tribe, under its famous
leader, Chief Joseph, was hard to conquer. The military organization,
the civilized method of warfare, and the courage and skill of the tribe
were publicly complimented by Generals Sherman, Howard and Gibbons, who
declared Chief Joseph to be one of the greatest of modern warriors.
[=Barbarous Treatment of the Cheyennes=]
In 1877, discouraged by the failure of our efforts to hold the Indians
in check, it was determined by Secretary Schurz, then in charge of the
Department of the Interior, to remove them all to the western part of
the Indian Territory, where the tribes in possession agreed to cede the
necessary land. It was hoped to create there an Indian commonwealth,
but trouble arose from the attempt to carry out the well-meant effort.
A single story, the story of the Northern Cheyennes, will illustrate
the wrongs the Indian suffered, as well as those he inflicted. The
Cheyennes, as has been seen, were a tribe of valiant warriors, some of
them at home in the hills of the North, some residing in the hills of
the South. The Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas and Comanches were banded
together in a close and common bond, and, at first the friends of the
government, had become frequently its enemies, by reason of broken
faith, cruel treatment, injustice, and downright wrong. That chronicle
of misery, "A Century of Dishonor," contains forty pages of facts
taken from the government records, which relate the inexcusable and
indefensible treatment of the Cheyenne tribe by the government, and
their vain endurance of wrongs, interspersed with savage outbreaks,
when human nature could endure no longer. It includes the account of a
massacre of helpless Indian women and children under a flag of truce;
a war begun over ponies stolen from the Indians, and sold in the open
market by the whites in a land where the horse thief counts with the
murderer; another incited by a rage against a trader who paid one
dollar bills for ten dollar bills; and tells of whole tracts of land
seized without compensation by the United States itself.
[=How the Cheyennes were Subdued=]
The Northern Cheyennes had been taken by force to the Indian Territory,
and in its severe heat, with scant and poor rations, a pestilence came
upon them. Two thousand were sick at once, and many died because there
was not medicine enough. At last three hundred braves, old men and
young, with their women and children, broke away and, making a raid
through Western Kansas, sought their Nebraska home. This was not a
mild and peaceable tribe. It was fierce and savage beyond most, and
its people were wild with long endured injustice and frantic with a
nameless terror. Three times they drove back the troops who were sent
to face them, and, living by plunder, they made a red trail all through
Kansas, until they were finally captured in Nebraska in December. They
refused to go back to the Indian Territory, and the department ordered
them to be starved into submission. Food and fuel were taken from the
imprisoned Indians. Four days they had neither food nor fire--and the
mercury froze at Fort Robinson in that month! And when at last two
chiefs came out under a flag of truce, they were seized and imprisoned.
Then pandemonium broke loose inside. The Indians broke up the useless
stoves, and fought with the twisted iron. They brought out a few hidden
arms, and, howling like devils, they rushed out into the night and the
snow. Seven days later they were shot down like dogs.
[=President Grant Adopts a New System=]
Experiences like this soon ended the attempt to gather together all
our Indian wards, and we returned to the old plan of the reservations,
but with little more certainty of peace than before. Again and again
starvation was followed by fighting, nameless outrages upon the Indian
by cruel outrages upon the white man. Whether Apaches under Geronimo in
New Mexico, or Sioux in Dakota, it was the old story over again. Thus,
with constant danger menacing the white settler from the infuriated
savage Indian, and constant outrage upon the red man by rapacious and
cruel whites, the government found a new policy necessary. This policy
was inaugurated by a strange and unusual sequence of events. In 1869
a sharp difference arose between the two Houses of Congress over the
appropriations to pay for eleven treaties then just negotiated, and
the session closed with no appropriation for the Indian service. The
necessity for some measure was extreme; the plan was devised of a bill
which was passed at an extra session, putting two millions of dollars
in the hands of President Grant, to be used as he saw fit for the
civilization and protection of the Indian. He immediately called to his
aid a commission composed of nine philanthropic gentlemen to overlook
the affairs of the Indian and advise him thereupon. This commission
served without salary and continues to this day its beneficent work.
Another valuable measure followed. At the next Congress a law was
enacted forbidding any more treaties with Indians, and thenceforth they
became our wards; not foreigners and rivals, as practically the case
before.
[Illustration: JAMES G. BLAINE
WILLIAM McKINLEY
GROVER CLEVELAND
WILLIAM J. BRYAN]
[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.
MURAT HALSTEAD.
ALBERT SHAW.
LYMAN ABBOTT.
CHAS. A. DANA.
HENRY W. WATTERSON.
WHITELAW REID.
JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
NOTED AMERICAN JOURNALISTS AND MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS.]
[=Captain Pratt and his Captives=]
The war of 1877 had indirectly another beneficent result, most
far-reaching in its consequences. Among the brave men who had fought
the Cheyennes and Kiowas and Comanches, was Captain Richard H. Pratt,
who was put in charge of the prisoners who had been sent to Fort
Marion, Florida, as a punishment worse than death. They were the
wildest and fiercest warriors, who had fought long and desperately.
On their way East they killed their guard, and repeatedly tried,
one and another, to kill themselves. But Captain Pratt was a man of
wonderful executive ability, of splendid courage and great faith in
God and man. By firmness and patience and wondrous tact he gradually
taught the savages to read and to work, and when after three years the
government offered to return them to their homes, twenty-three of them
refused to go. Captain Pratt appealed to the government to continue
their education, and General Armstrong, with his undying faith in
human beings as children of one Father and his sublime enthusiasm for
humanity, received most of them at Hampton Institute, the rest being
sent to the North under the care of Bishop Huntington, of New York. In
the end these men returned to their tribes Christian men, and, with
the seventy who returned directly from Florida, they became a power
for peace and industry in their tribe. Out of this small beginning
grew the great policy of Indian education, and the long story of death
and destruction began to change to the bright chronicle of peace and
education.
[=How the Indians Live=]
What, then, is the condition of the Indian to-day? In number there
are scarcely more than two hundred and forty thousand in the whole
country. Of these less than one-fifth depend upon the government for
support. All told, they are fewer than the inhabitants of Buffalo
or Cleveland or Pittsburg, yet they are _not_ dying out, but rather
steadily increasing. They are divided and subdivided into many
tribes of different characteristics and widely different degrees of
civilization. Some are Sioux--these are brave and able and intelligent;
they live in wigwams or tepees, and are dangerous and often hostile.
Some are Zunis, who live in houses and make beautiful pottery, and are
mild and peaceable, and do not question the ways of the Great Father
at Washington. Some are roving bands of Shoshones, dirty, ignorant,
and shiftless--the tramps of their race--who are on every man's side
at once. Some are Chilcats or Klinkas, whose Alaskan homes offer
new problems of new kinds for every day we know them. And some are
Cherokees, living in fine houses, dressed in the latest fashion, and
spending their winters in Washington or Saint Louis.
Yet these, and many of other kinds, are all alike Indians. They have
their own governments, their own unwritten laws, their own customs.
As a race they are neither worthless nor degraded. The Indian is not
only brave, strong, and able by inheritance and practice to endure, but
he is patient under wrong, ready and eager to learn, and willing to
undergo much privation for that end; usually affectionate in his family
relations, grateful to a degree, pure and careful of the honor of his
wife and daughter; and he is also patriotic to a fault. He has a genius
for government, and an unusual interest in it. He is full of manly
honor, and he is strongly religious. His history and traditions have
only recently been traced, to the delight and surprise of scientific
students. His daily life is a thing of elaborate ceremonial, and his
national existence is as carefully regulated as our own, and by an
intricate code. It is true that our failure to comprehend his character
and our neglect to study his customs have bred many faults in him and
have fostered much evil. Our treatment of him, moreover, has produced
and increased a hostility which has been manifested in savage methods
for which we have had little mercy.
[=Indian Character and Habits=]
[=The Indian Agencies=]
But we have not always given the same admiration to warlike virtues
when our enemy was an Indian that we have showered without stint upon
ancient Gaul or modern German. The popular idea of the Indian not only
misconceives his character, but to a large degree his habits also. Even
the wildest tribes live for the most part in huts or cabins made of
logs, with two windows and a door. In the middle is a fire, sometimes
with a stovepipe and sometimes without. Here the food is cooked, mostly
stewed, in a kettle hung gypsy-fashion, or laid on stones over the
fire. Around the fire, each in a particular place of his own, lies or
sits the whole family. Sometimes the cooking is done out of doors,
and in summer the close cabin is exchanged for a tepee or tent. Here
they live, night and day. At night a blanket is hung up, partitioning
the tent for the younger women, and if the family is very large,
there are often two tents, in the smaller of which sleep the young
girls in charge of an old woman. These tents or cabins are clustered
close together, and their inhabitants spend their days smoking,
talking, eating, or quarreling, as the case may be. Sometimes near
them, sometimes miles away, is the agent's house and the government
buildings. These are usually a commissary building where the food for
the Indians is kept, a blacksmith shop, the store of the trader, school
buildings, and perhaps a saw-mill. To this place the Indians come week
by week for their food. The amount and nature of the rations called for
by treaties vary greatly among different tribes. But everywhere the
Indian has come into some sort of contact with the whites, and usually
he makes some shift to adopt the white man's ways. A few are rich, some
own houses, and almost universally, at present, government schools
teach the children something of the elements of learning as well as the
indispensable English.
[=The Indian Rights Association=]
The immediate control of the reservation Indian is in the hands of
the agent, whose power is almost absolute, and, like all despotisms,
may be very good or intolerably bad according to the character of the
man. The agencies are visited from time to time by inspectors, who
report directly to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,--an officer
of the Interior Department and responsible to the secretary, who
is, of course, amenable to the President. In each house of Congress
is a committee having charge of all legislation relating to Indian
affairs. Besides these officials there is the Indian Commission already
mentioned. The National Indian Rights Association and the Women's
National Indian Association are the unofficial and voluntary guardians
of the Indian work. It is their task to spread correct information,
to create intelligent interest, to set in motion public and private
forces which will bring about legislation, and by public meetings and
private labors to prevent wrongs against the Indian, and to further
good work of many kinds. While the Indian Rights Association does the
most public and official work for the race and has large influence
over legislation, the Women's Indian Association concerns itself more
largely with various philanthropic efforts in behalf of the individual,
and thus the two bodies supplement each other.
[=Appropriations for Education=]
Hopeless and impossible as it seemed to many when this effort began
to absorb the Indian, to-day we see the process well under way and
in some cases half accomplished; and in this work the government,
philanthropy, education and religion have all had their share, and so
closely have these worked together that neither can be set above nor
before the others. We began to realize, it is true, that our duty and
our safety alike lay in educating the Indians as early as 1819, when
Congress appropriated $10,000 for that purpose, and still earlier
President Washington declared to a deputation of Indians his belief
that industrial education was their greatest need; but it is only
within recent years that determined efforts have been made or adequate
provision afforded. Beginning with $10,000 in 1819, we had reached
only $20,000 in 1877; but the appropriation for Indian education is
now over $2,500,000. With this money we support great industrial
training schools established at various convenient points. In them
several thousand children are learning not only books, but all manner
of industries, and are adding to study the training of character.
There are more than 150 boarding schools on the various reservations
teaching and training these children of the hills and plains, and many
gather daily at the three hundred little day schools which dot the
prairies, some of them appearing to the uninitiated to be miles away
from any habitation. This does not include the mission schools of the
various churches. But all together it is hoped that in the excellent
government schools now provided, in the splendid missionary seminaries,
and in the great centres of light like Hampton and Carlisle and Haskell
Institute, we shall soon do something for the education of nearly or
quite all the Indian children who can be reached with schools. At
present the daily school attendance is over 20,000.
[=Hampton and Carlisle Indian Schools=]
The two great training schools at the East, Hampton and Carlisle,
have proved object lessons for the white man as well as the Indian,
and the opposition they constantly encounter from those who do not
believe that the red man can ever receive civilization is in some sort
a proof of their value. In the main, they and all their kind have one
end--the thorough and careful training in books and work and home life
of the Indian boy and girl--and their methods are much alike. Once a
year the superintendents or teachers of these schools go out among the
Indians and bring back as many boys and girls as they can persuade the
fathers and mothers to send. At first these children came in dirt and
filth, and with little or no ideas of any regular or useful life, but
of late many of them have gained some beginnings of civilization in
the day schools. They are taught English first, and by degrees to make
bread and sew and cook and wash and keep house if they are girls; the
trade of a printer, a blacksmith, a carpenter, etc., if they are boys.
They study books, the boys are drilled, and from kind, strong men and
gentle, patient women they learn to respect work and even to love it,
to turn their hands to any needed effort, to adapt themselves to new
situations.
[=The Effect of Education=]
It is charged that the Indian educated in these schools does not remain
civilized, but shortly returns to his habits and customs. A detailed
examination into the lives of three hundred and eighteen Indian
students who have gone out from Hampton Institute has shown that only
thirty-five have in any way disappointed the expectations of their
friends and teachers, and only twelve have failed altogether; and the
extraordinary test of the last Sioux war, in which only one of these
students, and he a son-in-law of Sitting Bull, joined the hostiles, may
well settle the question. A recent statement says that 76 per cent.
of the school graduates prove "good average men and women, capable of
taking their place in the great body politic of our country."
[=The Severalty Act=]
In 1887 a new step was taken for the advancement of the Indian, in the
passage of the Severalty Act, by which homesteads of 160 acres were
set aside for each head of a family willing to accept the proffer, and
smaller homesteads for other members of the family. These were to be
free from taxation and could not be sold for twenty-five years. They
might be selected on the reservation of the tribe or anywhere else
on the public domain. This allotment of land carried with it all the
rights, privileges and immunities of American citizenship. In case the
Indian should not care to take up a homestead, he could still become a
citizen if he took up his residence apart from the tribe and adopted
civilized habits. The purpose was to break up the tribal organization
which had stood so greatly in the way of the beneficent purposes of the
government, and to convert each Indian into an individual citizen of
the United States.
[=The Homestead Indians=]
The effort has been attended with highly encouraging success.
Within twelve years after the law was passed 55,467 Indians had
taken up homesteads, aggregating in all 6,708,628 acres. Of these
agriculturists, more than 15,000 were heads of families, around whose
farms were gathered the smaller ones of the other members of the
family. The change to the independence and responsibilities of United
States citizenship was so sudden as to prove a severe strain to the
Indian, accustomed to consider himself a fraction of a tribe and
lacking the full sense of individuality. Yet the failures have been
very few, and we begin to see our way clear to a final disposal of the
long-existing Indian question.
As regards the effect of religious training upon the Indians, it may be
said to be quite encouraging. Of the 33,000 Sioux, for instance, 8,000
are now church members. The Presbyterian Church numbers nearly 5,000
Indian members and 4,000 Sunday-school pupils; while the total number
of church communicants among the Indians is nearly 30,000.
[=The Outcome of Indian Policy.=]
Thus, with the close of the nineteenth century, there is good reason to
hope for the end of a serious difficulty that has confronted the whites
since their first settlement in this country nearly three hundred years
ago. War, slaughter, injustice, wrongs innumerable have attended its
attempted solution, which long seemed as if it would be reached only
when all the red men had been exterminated. Fortunately it was justice,
not slaughter, that was needed, and the moment our government awoke
fully to this fact and began to practice justice the difficulty began
to disappear. To-day just treatment, education, religious training
are rapidly overcoming the assumed ineradicable savageness of the
Indian, while the breaking up of the tribal system promises before
many years to do away with the political aggregation of the Indians,
and distribute them among the other citizens of our country as members
of the general body politic. Thus has the nineteenth century happily
disposed of an awkward problem that threatened seriously the successful
development of our nation a century ago.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Development of the American Navy.
[=Development in Naval Architecture=]
In scarcely any department of human industry are the changes produced
by the progress of civilization more strikingly seen than in the
navy. When America was discovered the galleon and the caravel were
the standard warships of the world--clumsy wooden tubs, towering high
in the air, propelled by sails and even oars, with a large number
of small cannons, and men armed with muskets and cross-bows. Such
was the kind of vessels that made up the famous Armada, "that great
fleet invincible," which was vanquished by the smaller and lighter
crafts of Britain. Three hundred years have passed, and what is the
warship of to-day? A low-lying hulk of iron and steel; armed with a
few big guns, each one of which throws a heavier shot than a galleon's
whole broadside; driven resistlessly through the water by mighty
steam engines; lighted and steered by electric apparatus, and using
an electric search-light that makes midnight as bright as day. All
the triumphs of science and mechanic arts have contributed to the
perfection of these dreadful sea monsters, a single one of which could
have destroyed the whole Armada in an hour, and laughed to scorn the
might of Nelson at Trafalgar.
[=American Sailors and Their Doings=]
And in the development of this modern warship no other nation on earth
has won as much credit as the United States, the whole career of which
upon the sea has been one of glory and success, while its inventors
and engineers have gained as much renown as its admirals and sailors,
in their development of new ideas in naval architecture and warfare.
Of all ocean exploits in history that of John Paul Jones in the _Bon
Homme Richard_ ranks first. Lord Nelson himself scarcely showed such
indomitable pluck and intrepidity. And in the war of 1812 American
ships and sailors took from Great Britain the credit of being the
mistress of the seas, winning gallantly in every conflict where the
forces engaged were at all near equality.
[=American Marksmanship=]
This good work of the sailors was aided by that of the shipwrights, the
Americans winning battles largely because they had better ships than
their opponents. But their success was also in great measure due to the
superiority of their ordnance and the better service of their guns. It
was to the careful sighting of the pieces that our sailors owed much
of their victorious career. While most of the British shot were wasted
on the sea and in the air, nearly all the American balls went home,
carrying death to the British crews and destruction to their hulls and
spars, while the American ships and sailors escaped in great measure
unharmed.
[Illustration: THE OREGON.
One of the most renowned ships of the American Navy
is the mighty Battleship Oregon. Her famous run from
San Francisco around Cape Horn to take part in the
Battle of Santiago has never been equalled by any
battleship in the world's history. After she won fame
in the destruction of Cervera's fleet she was ordered
to Manila by Admiral Dewey "for political reasons" and
remained there throughout the Philippine War hurling
her 13-inch shells into the Insurgent ranks when
occasion required]
[Illustration: IN THE WAR ROOM AT WASHINGTON.
The above illustration shows President McKinley,
Secretary Long, Secretary Alger, and Major-General
Miles consulting map during the progress of the
Spanish-American War. It is in this room that the
plans of conducting the war, by land and sea, are
formulated, and the commands for action are wired to
the fleet and the army.]
As regards the work of our naval inventors, it will suffice to say,
that the Americans, while not the first to plate vessels with iron,
were the first to do so effectively and to prove the superiority of
the ironclad in naval warfare. The memorable contest in Hampton Roads
between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_ made useless in a day all the
fleets of all the nations of the world, and caused such a revolution in
naval architecture and warfare as the world had never known.
[=The Early American Navy=]
[=The Naval War with France=]
The fleet with which the United States entered the nineteenth century
was due to the depredations on American ships and commerce of the war
vessels of France and Great Britain. This roused great indignation,
particularly against France. While England contented herself with
stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing sailors claimed
to be of British birth, France seized our ships themselves, under the
pretext that they had British goods on board, and if she found an
American seaman on a British ship--even if impressed--she treated him
as a pirate instead of as a prisoner of war. Protection was felt to be
necessary, and preparations for war were made. The small navy of the
Revolution had practically disappeared, and a new one was built. In
July, 1798, the three famous frigates, the _Constellation_, the _United
States_, and the _Constitution_--the renowned _Old Ironsides_--were
completed and sent to sea, and others were ordered to be built. Actual
hostilities soon began. French piratical cruisers were captured, and
an American squadron sailed for the West Indies to deal with the
French privateers that abounded there, in which work it was generally
successful. In January, 1799, Congress voted a million dollars, for
building six ships of the line and six sloops. Soon after, on February
9, occurred the first engagement between vessels of the American
and French navies. The _Constellation_, Captain Truxton, overhauled
_L'Insurgente_ at St. Kitts, in the West Indies, and after a fight of
an hour and a quarter forced her to surrender. The _Constellation_ had
three men killed and one wounded; _L'Insurgente_ twenty killed and
forty-six wounded.
Again, on February 1, 1800, Truxton with the _Constellation_ came up,
at Guadeloupe, with the French Frigate _La Vengeance_. After chasing
her two days he brought on an action. The two ships fought all night.
In the morning, _La Vengeance_, completely silenced and greatly
shattered, drew away and escaped to Curaçoa, where she was condemned
as unfit for further service. The _Constellation_ was little injured
save in her rigging. For his gallantry, Truxton received a gold medal
from Congress. Later in that year there were some minor engagements, in
which the American vessels were successful.
By the spring of 1801, friendly relations with France were restored.
The President was accordingly authorized to dispose of all the navy,
save thirteen ships, six of which were to be kept constantly in
commission, and to dismiss from the service all officers save nine
captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty midshipmen.
At about this time ground was purchased and navy-yards were established
at Portsmouth, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Norfolk,
and half a million dollars were appropriated for the completion of six
seventy-four gun ships.
[=The Opening up of Japan=]
Nothing needs to be said here concerning our conflicts with the pirates
of the Mediterranean or of the remarkable exploits of the small
American navy in the second war with Great Britain. These have already
been dealt with in chapters xxv. and xxvi. In the interval between that
period and the Civil War there was little demand upon the American
navy. The naval operations during the Mexican war were of no great
importance. Some vessels were used in scientific exploration, and the
dignity of America had to be asserted on some occasions, but the most
important service rendered by the navy was the opening up of Japan to
the commerce of the world. After some fruitless efforts at intercourse
with the island realm, Commodore Perry was sent thither in 1852, and by
a resolute show of force he succeeded in obtaining a treaty of commerce
from Japan. That treaty opened Japan to the world, and was the first
step in its remarkable recent career.
At the beginning of the Civil War the United States was very poorly
provided with ships of war. There were only forty-two vessels in
commission, nearly all of which were absent in distant parts of the
world. Others were destroyed in southern ports, and for a time there
was actually only one serviceable warship on the North Atlantic coast.
This difficulty was soon overcome by buying and building, and by the
end of 1861 there were 264 vessels in commission, and all the ports in
the South were under blockade. These vessels were a motley set,--ferry
boats, freight steamers, every sort of craft--but they served to tide
over the emergency.
[Illustration: REAR-ADMIRAL WILLIAM T. SAMPSON.
REAR-ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY.
COMMODORE JOHN CRITTENDEN WATSON.
REAR-ADMIRAL WINFIELD SCOTT SCHLEY.
LEADING NAVAL COMMANDERS OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL NELSON APPLETON MILES.
MAJOR-GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE.
MAJOR-GENERAL WESLEY MERRITT.
MAJOR-GENERAL WM. R. SHAFTER.
LEADING COMMANDERS OF OUR ARMY IN THE
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.]
With all this we are not particularly concerned, but must turn our
attention to the great naval events of the war, those conflicts which
served as turning points in nineteenth century warfare. And first
and greatest among these was the remarkable naval battle in Hampton
Roads on March 9, 1862.
[=The Idea of Ironplating of American Origin=]
[=Early Ironclads of Great Britain and France=]
The use of iron for plating the hulls of ships was not first adopted
in American war. This device was employed by England and France in
the Crimean war in attacks on the Turkish forts. The idea, however,
was American. As early as 1813 Colonel John Stevens, of New York,
made plans for an ironclad ship somewhat resembling the _Monitor_
in type. His son Edwin afterwards performed experiments with cannon
balls against iron plate, and in 1844 Robert L. Stevens began the
construction of a vessel to be plated with 4¼-inch iron for the
government. It was never finished, though in all nearly $2,000,000
were spent upon it. New invention rendered it obsolete before it could
be completed, yet to it belongs the credit of inaugurating the era
of the ironclad navy. After the Crimean war France and England both
built ironclad ships, the French _La Gloire_ being the first ironclad
ever constructed. It was followed by the British _Warrior_, launched
in January, 1861. Yet despite this enterprise, the fact remains that
the first conception of an ironclad ship belongs to the United States,
and the first hostile meeting of two ironclads took place in American
waters.
[=The Ironclad "Manassas"=]
At the opening of the American Civil War this idea was in the air,
and it was soon made evident that the era of wooden warships was
near its end. It is interesting to learn that the Confederates were
the first to adopt the new idea, the earliest ironclad of the war
being produced by them on the lower Mississippi. A large double-screw
tugboat was employed, whose deck was covered with a rounded roof,
plated with bar iron one and a half inches thick. This craft--named the
_Manassas_ after the first Confederate victory--made its appearance
at the mouth of the Mississippi on the night of October 31, 1861, and
created a complete panic in the blockading fleet at that point. The
_Manassas_ wrecked one of her engines in attempting to ram the flagship
_Richmond_, and crept slowly back, at the same time as the alarmed
fleet was hastening away with all speed over the waters of the gulf.
[=The Plating of the "Merrimac"=]
While this event was taking place, two ironclads of more formidable
description were being built elsewhere, the meeting of which
subsequently was the most startling revelation to the nations of the
earth ever shown in naval warfare. The United States steam frigate
_Merrimac_ had been set on fire at the Gosport Navy Yard, when hastily
abandoned by the Federal navy officers at the outbreak of the war.
It was burned to the water's edge and sunk, but soon after the
Confederates raised the hull, which was seriously damaged--its engines
being in reasonably good condition--and they hurriedly undertook
the work of converting it into an ironclad. A powerful prow of cast
iron was attached to its stem, a few feet under water and projecting
sufficiently to enable it to break in the side of any wooden vessel.
A low wooden roof two feet thick was built at an incline of about
36 degrees, and this was plated with double iron armor, making a
four-inch iron plating. Under this protection were mounted two
broadside batteries of four guns each, and a gun at the stem and stern.
The government was soon advised of the raising of the hull of the
_Merrimac_, and without having detailed information on the subject,
knew that a powerful ironclad was being constructed. A board of naval
officers had been selected by the government to consider the various
suggestions for the construction of ironclad vessels, and although, as
a rule, naval officers had little faith in the experiment, Congress
coerced them into action by the appropriation of half a million dollars
for the work. The Naval Board recommended a trial of three of the most
acceptable plans presented, and ships on these plans were put under
contract.
[=Ericsson and the "Monitor"=]
Among those who pressed the adoption of light ironclads, capable of
penetrating our shallow harbors, rivers, and bayous, was John Ericsson.
He was a Swede by birth, but had long been an American citizen, and
exhibited uncommon genius and scientific attainments in engineering.
The vessel he proposed to build was to be only 127 feet in length, 27
feet in width, and 12 feet deep, to be covered by a flat deck rising
only one or two feet above water. The only armament of the vessel was
to be a revolving turret, about 20 feet in diameter and nine feet high,
made of plated wrought iron aggregating eight inches in thickness,
with two eleven-inch Dahlgren guns. The guns were so constructed that
they could be fired as the turret revolved, and the port-hole would be
closed immediately after firing. The size of the _Merrimac_ was well
known to the government to be quite double the length and breadth of
the _Monitor_, but it had the disadvantage of requiring nearly double
the depth of water in which to manoeuvre it. Various sensational
reports were received from time to time of the progress made on the
_Merrimac_, the name of which was changed by the Confederates to
_Virginia_, and as there were only wooden hulls at Fortress Monroe
to resist it, great solicitude was felt for the safety of the fleet
and the maintenance of the blockade. While the government hurried the
construction of the new ironclads to the utmost, little faith was felt
that so fragile a vessel as the _Monitor_ could cope with so powerful
an engine of war as the _Merrimac_. The most formidable vessels of
the navy, including the _Minnesota_, the twin ship of the original
_Merrimac_, the _St. Lawrence_, the _Roanoke_, the _Congress_ and the
_Cumberland_, were all in Hampton Roads waiting the advent of the
_Merrimac_.
[=The Coming of the "Merrimac"=]
[=The Fate of the "Congress" and the "Cumberland"=]
On Saturday, the 8th of March, the _Merrimac_ appeared at the mouth of
the Elizabeth River and steamed directly for the Federal fleet. All
the vessels slipped cable and started to enter the conflict, but the
heavier ships soon ran aground and became helpless. The _Merrimac_
hurried on, and, after firing a broadside at the _Congress_, crashed
into the sides of the _Cumberland_, whose brave men fired broadside
after broadside at their assailant only to see their balls glance from
its mailed roof. An immense hole had been broken into the hull by the
prow of the _Merrimac_, and in a very few minutes the _Cumberland_
sank in fifty feet of water, her last gun being fired when the water
had reached its muzzle, while the whole gallant crew went to the
bottom with their flag still flying from the masthead. The _Merrimac_
then turned upon the _Congress_, which was compelled to flee from
such a hopeless struggle, and was finally grounded near the shore;
but the _Merrimac_ selected a position where her guns could rake her
antagonist, and, after a bloody fight of more than an hour, with the
commander killed and the ship on fire, the _Congress_ struck her
flag, and was soon blown up by the explosion of her magazine. Most
fortunately for the Federal fleet, the _Merrimac_ had not started
out on its work of destruction until after midday. Its iron prow was
broken in breaching the _Cumberland_, and, after the fierce broadsides
it had received from the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_, with the
other vessels firing repeatedly during the hand-to-hand conflict, the
_Merrimac's_ captain was content to withdraw for the day, and anchor
for the night under the Confederate shore batteries on Sewall's Point.
[=The Monitor in Hampton Roads=]
The night of March 8th was one of the gloomiest periods of the war.
The _Merrimac_ was sure to resume its work on the following day, and,
with the fleet destroyed and the blockade raised, Washington, and even
New York, might be at the mercy of this terrible engine of war. But
deliverance was at hand. The building of the _Monitor_ had been hurried
with all speed, and this little vessel,--"a cheese box on a raft," as
it was contemptuously termed--was afloat and steaming in all haste to
Hampton Roads. It entered there that night, and took up a position
near the helpless _Minnesota_ in bold challenge to the _Merrimac_. On
Sunday morning, March 9th, the Confederate ironclad came out to finish
its work of destruction, preparatory to a cruise against the northern
ports.
[=The First Battle of Ironclads=]
The little _Monitor_ steamed boldly out to meet it. The history of that
conflict need not be repeated. To the amazement of the commander of the
_Merrimac_, the _Monitor_ was impervious to its terrible broadsides,
while its lightness and shallow draft enabled it to out-manoeuvre its
antagonist at every turn; and while it did not fire one gun to ten from
its adversary, its aim was precise and the _Merrimac_ was materially
worsted in the conflict. After three hours of desperate battle the
defiant and invincible conqueror of the day before found it advisable
to give up the contest and retreat to Norfolk.
[=Fate of the First Ironclads=]
It was this naval conflict, and the signal triumph of the little
_Monitor_, that revolutionized the whole naval warfare of the world in
a single day, and from that time until the present the study of all
nations in aggressive or defensive warfare has looked to the perfection
of the ironclad. To the people of the present time the ironclad is so
familiar, and its discussion so common, that few recall the fact that
less than fifty years ago it was almost undreamed of as an important
implement of war. It is notable that neither of those vessels which
inaugurated ironclad warfare, and made it at once the accepted method
for naval combat for the world, ever afterward engaged in battle during
the three years of war which continued. The _Merrimac_ was feared as
likely to make a new incursion against our fleet, but her commander did
not again venture to lock horns with the _Monitor_. Early in May the
capture of Norfolk by General Wool placed the _Merrimac_ in a position
of such peril that on the 11th of that month she was fired by her
commander and crew and abandoned, and soon after was made a hopeless
wreck by the explosion of her magazine. The fate of the _Monitor_ was
even more tragic. The following December, when being towed off Cape
Hatteras, she foundered in a gale and went to the bottom with part
of her officers and men; but she had taught the practicability of
ironclads in naval warfare, and when she went down a whole fleet was
under construction after her own model, and some vessels already in
active service.
While these events were taking place in the waters of the coast, a
fleet of ironclad boats was being built for service on the rivers of
the West, seven of these being begun in August, 1861, by James B. Eads,
the famous engineer of later times. These were light-draught, stern
paddle-wheel river steamers, plated with 2½-inch iron on their
sloping sides and ends. These, and those that followed them, saw much
service in the western rivers, bombarding Forts Henry and Donelson,
running through the fire of the forts on Island No. 10, and daring the
terrible bombardment from the Vicksburg batteries.
[=Farragut on the Mississippi=]
But the most famous event in river warfare during the conflict was the
exploit of the daring Farragut in running past Forts St. Philip and
Jackson on the Mississippi with his fleet of wooden vessels, breaking
their iron chain, dispersing their gun-boats, and driving ashore the
ironclad _Manassas_. The Confederates had also an ironclad battery,
the _Louisiana_, but it proved of little service, and Farragut sailed
triumphantly through the hail of fire of the forts, and on the same
afternoon reached the wharves of New Orleans.
The most famous exploit of Farragut was the passing of the forts at
Mobile. It is worth a brief relation, for in this the resources of
ironclad warfare, as then developed, were fully employed, while the
bottom of the channel was thickly sown with torpedoes, a mechanism in
naval warfare to become of great importance in the following years.
Farragut's main fleet, indeed, was of wooden ships, but he had four
monitors; while the Confederates, in addition to their forts and
gunboats, had the ironclad ram _Tennessee_, the most powerful floating
battery ever built by them. This formidable craft--for that period--was
plated with six inch iron armor in front and five inch elsewhere; and,
while carrying only six guns, these were 6- and 8-inch rifled cannon.
[=Farragut and the Torpedoes=]
The torpedoes, of which no fewer than 180 were sown in the channel,
were not quite ineffective, since one of them exploded under the
monitor _Tecumseh_, and she went down head first with nearly all her
crew. The _Brooklyn_, following in her track, halted as this disaster
was seen, her recoil checking all the vessels in her rear. Farragut
had taken his famous stand in the shrouds, just under the maintop,
and hailed the _Brooklyn_ as he came up in the _Hartford_. "What is
the matter?" he demanded. "Torpedoes," came back the reply. "Damn the
torpedoes!" cried Farragut, in a burst of noble anger. "Follow me."
As the _Hartford_ passed on the percussion caps of the torpedoes were
heard snapping under her keel. Fortunately they were badly made, and no
other explosion took place.
The story of the battle we may briefly complete. The ships dashed
almost unharmed through the fire of the forts, driving the Confederate
gunners from their pieces with a shower of grape and canister; and the
contest ended with an attack upon the _Tennessee_, whose stern-port
shutters were jammed and her steering gear shot away. Rendered
helpless, she was forced to surrender, and the fight was at an end.
[=Lieutenant Cushing and the "Albemarle"=]
The Confederates were singularly unfortunate with their ironclads. With
the exception of the temporary advantage gained by the _Merrimac_,
all their labor and expense proved of no avail. The last of these
war-monsters, the _Albemarle_, built in Roanoke River, and causing
some alarm in the blockading fleet on the coast, was sent to the
bottom by a daring young officer, Lieutenant Cushing, in one of the
most gallant exploits of the war. He and a few men, in a steam launch
carrying a large torpedo, sailed up the stream at night to where the
ironclad lay in her dock at Plymouth. A protecting raft of logs guarded
the _Albemarle_, but Cushing daringly drove his launch up on the slimy
logs, exploded the torpedo as it touched the sides of the ship, and
leaped with his men into the stream. The _Albemarle_ sank to a muddy
bed in the river's bottom, and Cushing escaped to the blockading fleet,
after a series of thrilling adventures.
[=The Type of the New Navies=]
But the most important thing achieved in this war was the entire
transformation effected in naval science. Previously the warship had
been of the type of an armed merchantship, propelled by sails or,
latterly, by steam, and carrying a large number of small guns. Modern
inventiveness made it, after the duel of the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_,
a floating fortress of iron or steel, carrying a few enormously
heavy guns. The glory of the old line-of-battle ship, with three or
four tiers of guns on each side and a big cloud of canvas overhead,
firing rattling broadsides, and manoeuvring to get and hold the
weather-gauge of the enemy--all that was relegated to the past forever.
In its place came the engine of war, with little pomp and circumstance,
but with all the resources of science shut within its ugly, black iron
hull.
John Paul Jones, with his _Bon Homme Richard_, struck the blow
that made universal the law of neutrals' rights. Hull, with the
_Constitution_, sending a British frigate to the bottom, showed what
Yankee ingenuity in sighting guns could do. Ericsson and Worden, with
the _Monitor_, sent wooden navies to the hulk-yard and ushered in the
era of iron and steel fighting-engines. These were the great naval
events of a century.
[=Beginning of the Modern American Fleet=]
Yet the American navy was greatly neglected in the years succeeding
the Civil War, while foreign nations, quick to learn the lesson taught
at Hampton Roads, were straining every nerve to build powerful fleets
of iron and steelclad ships, and to develop the breech-loading rifled
cannon into an implement of war capable of piercing through many inches
of solid steel. It was not until after 1880 that our government awoke
to the need of a navy on the new lines, and began to take advantage
of the lessons that had been learned abroad. It is not our purpose to
speak in detail of the results. The steelclad battleship and cruiser,
the armor-piercing breech-loader, the quick-firing gun, the machine
gun, the submarine torpedo-boat, the anchored mine, the automobile
torpedo, and other devices have come to make the naval warfare of our
day a wonderfully different thing from that of the past.
[=The "Columbia" and the "Minneapolis"=]
The United States began late to build a modern navy, but has made
highly encouraging progress, and while still far in the rear of Great
Britain and France in the number of her ships, possesses some of the
finest examples of naval architecture now afloat upon the waters.
Among commerce-destroyers the _Columbia_ and the _Minneapolis_, with
their respective trial speeds of 22.81 and 23.07 knots, stand beyond
any rivals to-day in the navies of Europe, while the inventive naval
engineering of the Americans is exemplified in the double turrets of
the _Kearsarge_ and _Kentucky_, two additions to our navy of original
formation, and likely to give an excellent account of themselves should
any new war occur.
[=The Powerful Fleet of Great Britain=]
Of modern fleets, however, far the most powerful one is that of Great
Britain, the government of which island shows a fixed determination to
keep its naval force beyond rivalry. This stupendous fleet forms the
most striking example of naval destructiveness the world has ever seen,
and the nations of the world are entering the twentieth century with
powers of warfare developed enormously beyond those with which they
entered the nineteenth. We can only hope that this vast development
both in army and navy may prove to exert a peace-compelling influence,
and that every new discovery in the art of killing and destroying may
be a nail in the coffin of Mars, the god of war.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
America's Conflict With Spain.
[=A War in the Cause of Humanity=]
A third of a century passed after the great struggle of the United
States for the existence of the Union, and then, in almost the closing
year of the nineteenth century, came another war, this time fought
in the interests of humanity. It was not a war for gain or conquest;
the thought of territorial acquisition did not enter into the motives
leading to it, despite the fact that this country gained new territory
as one of its results; in its inception humane feeling, the sentiment
of sympathy with the oppressed and starving people of Cuba, alone
prevailed, and the nineteenth century fitly reached its end with a war
entered into for humanity's sake alone, it being one of the very few
instances in the history of the world in which a nation has gone to war
from purely philanthropic motives.
It is not necessary here to repeat the story of Spain's tyranny in
Cuba. It is too well known to need telling again, and simply carried
out the colonial policy of Spain from the time of the discovery of
America. The successful rebellion of her colonies on the American
continent failed to teach that country the lesson which England learned
from a similar occurrence, and in Cuba was continued the same system of
tyranny and official oppression which had driven the other colonies to
revolt. The result was the same, Cuba blazed into rebellion, and for
years war desolated that fair island.
[Illustration: SENOR MONTERO RIOS
President of the Spanish Peace Commission whose painful
duty required him to sign away his country's colonial
possessions.]
[Illustration: GENERAL RAMON BLANCO
Who succeeded Weyler as Captain-General of Cuba in
1897. He was formerly Governor-General of the
Philippine Islands.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL CERVERA
Commander of Spanish Fleet at Santiago.]
[Illustration: SAGASTA
Premier of Spain during the Spanish-American War.]
[Illustration: GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER.
RICHMOND PEARSON HOBSON.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
MAJOR-GENERAL ELWELL S. OTIS.
POPULAR HEROES OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR]
[=General Weyler and His Policy=]
The United States, however, sedulously avoided taking any part in the
affair until absolutely driven to interfere by the horrible inhumanity
displayed by Captain-General Weyler. It was the awful policy of
"reconcentration" that stretched the forbearance of the people of this
country to the breaking point. Not content with fighting the rebels in
arms, the brutal Weyler extended the war against the people in their
homes, burning their houses, destroying the crops in their fields,
driving them in multitudes into the cities and towns, and holding them
there in the most pitiable destitution and misery until they died by
thousands the terrible death of starvation. It was not until word came
to this country that not less than 200,000 of the helpless people had
perished in this horrible manner, and that there seemed no hope of
alleviation of the frightful situation, that a practically universal
demand for the government to interfere. Spain was asked to fix a date
in which the war should be brought to an end, with the intimation that
if the contest was not concluded or the independence of the island
conceded by that date, this country would feel obliged to take decisive
steps.
No satisfactory answer was received, and anticipations of war filled
all minds, though many hoped that this dread ultimatum might be
avoided, when, in the last week of January, 1898, the battleship
_Maine_ was ordered to proceed from Key West to the harbor of Havana.
Her visit was ostensibly a friendly one, but there had been riots in
Havana which imperilled the safety of American residents, to whom the
Spanish inhabitants of that city were bitterly hostile, and it was felt
that some show of force in that harbor was imperative.
[=The Sinking of the "Maine"=]
A terrible disaster succeeded. In one fatal instant, on the night
of February 15th, the noble ship was hurled to destruction and her
crew into eternity. This frightful event took place about 9.45 in the
evening, while the ship lay quietly at anchor in the place selected
for her by the Spanish authorities. Intense darkness prevailed in
the harbor, Captain Sigsbee was writing in his cabin, the men were
in their quarters below, when of a sudden came a terrible explosion
that tore the vessel asunder and killed most of her crew. So violent
was the shock that the whole water-front of the city was shaken as
by an earthquake, telegraph poles were thrown down and the electric
lights extinguished. The wrecked vessel sank quickly into the mud of
the harbor's bottom, and a great flame broke from her upper works that
illuminated the whole harbor. Of three hundred and fifty-three men in
the ship's company only forty-eight escaped unhurt, and the roll-call
of the dead in the end reached two hundred and sixty-six.
[=Preparations for War=]
This terrible event was the immediate cause of the war. It intensified
the feeling of the people and of their representatives in Congress to
such an extent that no other solution of the difficulty now seemed
possible. The popular indignation was increased when the court of
inquiry announced that, in its opinion, "the _Maine_ was destroyed by a
submarine mine." It was universally felt that the disaster was another
instance of Spanish malignity, the war-fever redoubled, and Congress
unanimously voted an appropriation of $50,000,000 "for the national
defense." The War and Navy Departments hummed with the activity of
recruiting, the preparations of vessels and coast defenses, and the
purchase of war material and vessels at home, while agents were sent to
Europe to procure all the warships that could be purchased. Unlimited
capital was at their command, and the question of price was not an
obstacle. When hostilities impended the United States was unprepared
for war, but by amazing activity, energy and skill the preparations
were pushed and completed with a rapidity that approached the marvelous.
[=War is Declared=]
Negotiations went on, it is true, but they were principally with the
purpose of gaining time to permit American citizens to leave Cuba.
Consul-general Lee left Havana on April 11th, and on the same day
President McKinley sent a message to Congress in which he described in
earnest terms the situation in Cuba, reciting the dreadful results of
Weyler's heartless policy and asking for power to intervene. "In the
name of humanity, in the name of civilization," he said, "the war in
Cuba must stop." On April 18th, Congress responded with a series of
resolutions that were virtually a declaration of war, and on the 22d
war actually began, the fleet which had gathered at Key West being
despatched to Cuba with orders to blockade Havana and some other
leading ports. On the following day a call was issued for 125,000
volunteers to serve in the coming conflict.
[=Progress in Naval Warfare=]
While it seems important to give the preliminary events that led to
the war, we do not propose to tell the story of the war itself, but to
confine ourselves to a description of its more important incidents, in
accordance with the plan of this work. It may be said here, however,
that the war was in great part a naval one, and gave rise to naval
operations of intense interest and great importance, so that this
chapter will fitly round out the preceding one, which deals with the
progress in naval warfare during the century. We there described the
contests of ironclad ships during the Civil War. In other chapters
have been told the stories of the fight between Austrian and Italian
ironclads at the battle of Lissa and of the Japanese and Chinese
ironclad fleets at the battle of the Yalu. We have now to tell the
final events in naval warfare of the century, the epoch-making contest
in Manila Bay, and the desperate flight and fight off Santiago harbor.
If these examples of ocean warfare be contrasted with those between the
_Constellation_ and the French frigates _L'Insurgente_ and _Vengeance_
a century before, they will place in striking clearness the immense
advance in naval warfare within the hundred years involved.
[Illustration: THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO, JULY 17, 1898.
After a little ceremony the two commanding Generals
faced each other, and General Toral, speaking in
Spanish, said: "Through fate I am forced to surrender
to General Shafter of the American Army the city and
strongholds of the City of Santiago." General Shafter
in reply said: "I receive the city in the name of the
Government of the United States."]
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES PEACE COMMISSIONERS OF THE SPANISH WAR
Appointed September 9, 1898. Met Spanish Commissioners
at Paris, October 1st. Treaty of Peace signed by the
Commissioners at Paris, December 10th. Ratified by the
United States Senate at Washington, February 6, 1899.]
[=The Mission of Dewey=]
Of these two events the greatest was that which took place in Manila
Bay. War, it must be remembered, is governed by a different system of
ethics from that operative in peace. Though inhumanity in Cuba was the
cause of the war, to strike the enemy wherever he could be found was
the demand of prudence and military science. Spain had an important
possession in the eastern seas, the Philippine Islands, off the
southeastern coast of Asia. There, in the bay of Manila, near the large
city of that name, lay a Spanish fleet, which, if left unmolested,
might seek our Pacific Coast and commit terrible depredations. In
the harbor of Hong Kong lay a squadron of American war-vessels
under Commodore Dewey. Prudence dictated but one course under the
circumstances. There was flashed to Dewey under sea and over land the
telegraphic message to "find the Spanish fleet and capture or destroy
it." How Dewey obeyed this order is the circumstance with which we are
now concerned.
[=How Dewey entered Manila Bay=]
He lost no time. Leaving port in China on April 27th, he arrived off
the entrance to Manila Bay on the night of the 30th. An island lay in
the neck of the bay, with well-manned batteries on its shores. It was
probable that torpedoes had been planted in the channel. But George
Dewey had been a pupil of Farragut in the Civil War, and was inspired
with the spirit of that hero's famous order, "Damn the torpedoes!
Follow me!" Past Corregidor Island in the darkness glided the great
ships, several of them being out of range of its batteries before the
alarm was taken. Then some shots were fired, but the return fire from
the squadron silenced the Spanish guns and the ships passed safely into
Manila Bay.
[=The Opposing Fleet=]
About five o'clock on the morning of May 1st Dewey's fleet swept in
battle-line past the front of the city of Manila, and soon after
rounded up in face of the Spanish fleet, which extended across the
mouth of Bakoor Bay, within which lay the naval station of Cavité.
There were ten of the Spanish ships in all, with shore batteries to add
to their defensive force, while the effective American ships consisted
of six, the cruisers _Olympia_, _Baltimore_, _Raleigh_, _Boston_, and
the gunboats _Petrel_ and _Concord_. The Spaniards had two large and
four small cruisers, three gunboats and an armed transport. They were
not equal in size or weight of metal to the American vessels, but
their fixed position, their protection by shore batteries, and the
acquaintance of their officers with the waters in which they lay gave
them an important advantage over the Americans, which was added to
by their possession of torpedo boats and by the mines which they had
planted in the track of an attacking fleet. Dewey and his men were, in
fact, in a position of great peril, and if the Spaniards knew how to
work their guns none of them might leave that bay alive. Fortunately
for them the Spaniards did not know how to work their guns.
[=The Deadly Work of the American Guns=]
On swept the gallant squadron of assault, the _Olympia_ leading with
Dewey on the bridge. He had a look-out place protected by steel armor,
but he preferred to stand in the open and dare all peril from the
Spanish guns. The mines were there. As the flagship drove onward two of
them exploded in her path. Luckily the nervous hands at the electric
wires set them off too soon. Heedless of such perils as this Dewey
pursued his course, and at 5.40 A.M. opened fire, followed by
the remainder of his ships. From that moment the fire was deadly and
continuous, the boom of the great guns seconded by the rattle of the
rapid fire pieces until the air seemed full of the roar of ordnance.
The Spanish returned as hot a fire, but by no means so effective. While
most of their shot were wasted on the waves, the bulk of those from the
American ships found a goal, and death and destruction reigned in the
Spanish ships while their opponents moved on almost unharmed.
[=The Fate of the Spanish Flagship=]
Back and forth across the Spanish lines swept Dewey's ships, five times
in all, at first at 5,000 yards distance, then drawing in to a distance
of 2,000 yards. And during all this time the great guns roared their
message and the small guns poured out their fiery hail, rending the
Spanish hulls and carrying death to their crews, while the flames that
shot up from their decks told that another element of destruction was
at work. Early in the fight two torpedo boats darted out towards the
_Olympia_, but were met with a torrent of fire that sent one to the
bottom and drove the other hastily to the beach. Then, with an instinct
of desperation, Admiral Montojo drove gallantly out in his flagship,
the _Reina Christina_, with the purpose of engaging the _Olympia_ at
shorter range. At once Dewey turned his entire battery upon her, and
poured in shot and shell at such a frightful rate that the Spaniard
hastily turned and fled for the shelter of Bakoor Bay. But the deadly
baptism of fire with which she had been met proved the end of her
career. Swept from stern to stem by shells as she fled, she burst into
flames, which continued to burn until she sank to a muddy death.
[=The Destruction of the Spanish Fleet=]
Meanwhile the Spanish ships and batteries returned the fire vigorously,
but with singular lack of effect. While they were being riddled and
sunk, the American ships escaped almost unhurt, and while hundreds
of their crews fell dead or wounded, not an American was killed and
seven men alone were slightly wounded. What little skill in aiming
the Spaniards possessed was utterly disconcerted by the incessant and
deadly American fire, and their balls and shells screamed uselessly
through the air to plunge into the waves.
At the hour of 7.35 Dewey withdrew from the fight, that he might see
how all things stood on his ships and give the men an interval of rest
and an opportunity for breakfast. He knew very well that the Spaniards
must await his return. Fight and flight were alike taken out of them.
When he came back to the attack, shortly after 11 o'clock, nearly all
the Spanish ships were in flames and some rested on the bottom of the
bay. For an hour longer the firing continued on both sides. At the end
of that time the batteries were silenced and the ships sunk, burned,
and deserted. The great battle was at an end, and Dewey had made
himself the hero of the war.
[=How the Nation Rewarded Dewey=]
When the news of the result reached Europe, the naval powers of the
nations heard with utter astonishment of the fighting prowess and skill
of the Yankees. Anything so complete in the way of a naval victory the
century had not seen before, and it was everywhere recognized that a
new power had to be dealt with in the future counsels of the nations.
Americans, previously looked upon almost with contempt from a military
point of view, suddenly won respect, and Dewey took rank among the
great ocean fighters of the century. His nation hastened to honor him
with the title of rear-admiral, and finally with that of admiral,
its highest naval dignity, and on his return home in autumn of the
following year he was received with an ovation such as few Americans
had ever been given before. To his fellow citizens he was one of the
chief of their heroes, and they could not do him honor enough.
The second notable naval event of which we have spoken took place off
the harbor of Santiago, a city on the southern coast of Cuba, at a date
after that just described.
[=The Fleet of Admiral Cervera=]
The finest fleet possessed by Spain, that under the command of Admiral
Cervera, consisted of four cruisers, the _Christobal Colon_, plated
with a complete belt of 6-inch nickel steel, and with a deck armor of
steel 2 to 6 inches thick, and the _Vizcaya_, the _Almirante Oquendo_,
and the _Infanta Maria Teresa_, each of 6890 tons, with 10- to 12-inch
armor and powerful armament. They were all of high speed, and were
the only vessels of which any dread was felt in the United States.
With them were three torpedo boats, the _Terror_, the _Furor_ and the
_Pluton_, among the best of their class, and dangerous enemies to deal
with.
This fleet lay in the Cape Verde Islands at the opening of the war.
From there, in May, it set sail, causing doubt and dread in American
coast cities while its destination remained unknown, and yielding
relief when the news came that it had reached some of the lower islands
of the West Indies. On May 21st it was learned that the dreaded
squadron had reached Santiago and was safely at anchor in its harbor.
[=The Spanish Fleet at Santiago=]
The Atlantic fleet of the United States meanwhile had been partly
engaged in blockading the Cuban ports, partly in searching for
Cervera's fleet, and there was a decided sensation of relief when
the tidings from Santiago were confirmed. Thither from all quarters
the great ships of the fleet hastened at full speed, battleships,
cruisers, monitors, gunboats, and craft of other kinds, and soon they
hung like grim birds of war off the harbor's mouth, determined that
the Spanish fleet should never leave that place of refuge except to
meet destruction. To the battleships of the fleet was soon added the
_Oregon_, which had made an admirable journey of many thousand miles
around the continent of South America, and barely touched land in
Florida before it was off again to take part in the great blockade.
[=The Sinking of the "Merrimac"=]
The story that follows is, if given in all its details, a long one, but
we must confine ourselves to its salient points. Admiral Sampson, in
command of the American fleet, at first sought to lock up the Spaniards
in their harbor of refuge, by sinking a coaler, the _Merrimac_, in the
narrow channel of Santiago Bay. The work was gallantly and ably done
by Lieutenant Hobson and his daring crew, but proved a failure through
causes beyond his control. The _Merrimac_ sank lengthwise in the
channel, and the passage remained open. This being recognized, the most
vigilant watch was kept up, battle-ships, cruisers, and gunboats lying
off the harbor's mouth in a wide semicircle, with their lookouts ever
closely on the watch.
On the morning of Sunday, July 3d, the long-looked for alarm came,
in a yell from the sentinel on the _Brooklyn_, "There is a big ship
coming out of the harbor!" A like alarm was given on other ships, and
Commodore Schley, on the _Brooklyn_, hastened to signal the fleet and
to give the order, "Clear ship for action." Almost in an instant the
lazily swinging fleet awoke to life and activity, and the men sprang
from their listless Sunday rest into the most enthusiastic readiness
for duty.
[=The Flight of the Spanish Ships=]
Admiral Sampson, unfortunately for him, was absent, having gone up the
coast in the cruiser _New York_, and the direction of affairs fell to
Commodore Schley. He was capable of meeting the emergency. It was soon
evident that Cervera's fleet was coming out, the flagship, _Infanta
Maria Teresa_, in the lead, the others following. On clearing the
harbor headland they turned west, and the Americans at once set out
in pursuit, firing as they went. "Full speed ahead; open fire, and
don't waste a shot," shouted Schley. The _Oregon_ had already opened
fire from her great 13-inch guns, and was followed by the battleships
_Texas_, _Indiana_, and _Iowa_. The _Brooklyn_ joined in with her 8-
and 5-inch batteries, and soon a rain of shells was pouring upon the
devoted fugitive ships. The _Maria Teresa_ ran towards the _Brooklyn_
as if with intention to ram her, but the danger was avoided by a quick
swerve of the helm, and Cervera's flagship turned again and sped away
in flight.
[=A Hot Chase Down the Cuban Coast=]
The fugitive ships soon found themselves the centre of the most
terrific fire any war vessels had ever endured, with the exception
of those at Manila. Big guns and little guns joined in the frightful
concert, shot after shot telling, while the response of the Spaniards
was little more effective than that of their compatriots in Manila
Bay. One man killed on the _Brooklyn_ was the sole loss of life on
the American side, while the unfortunate Spaniards were swept down by
hundreds.
[=The Fate of the Spanish fleet=]
The first ship to succumb to this hail of shells was the _Maria
Teresa_, which quickly burst into flames, and soon after ran ashore.
Then the _Brooklyn_, _Oregon_ and _Indiana_ concentrated their fire on
the _Almirante Oquendo_, which was similarly beached in flames. Next
the _Vizcaya_ drew abeam of the _Iowa_, which turned its fire from the
_Oquendo_ to this new quarry, pouring in shells that tore great rents
in her side, while the _Vizcaya_ fired back hotly but ineffectively.
As the Spaniard drew ahead of the _Iowa_, the fire of the _Oregon_ and
_Texas_ reached her, and an 8-inch shell from the Brooklyn raked her
fore and aft. The next moment a great shell exploded in her interior,
killing eighty men. She was clearly out of the race, and ran in despair
for the beach.
Meanwhile the _Christobal Colon_ was running at great speed along
the beach, pursued by the American ships. Of these the _Oregon_ and
_Brooklyn_ alone were able to keep within hopeful distance. For an
hour the chase kept up, then the _Oregon_ tried a 13-inch shell, which
struck the water close astern of the _Colon_, four miles away. Another
was tried and reached its mark. Soon after a shell from the _Brooklyn_
pierced the _Colon_ at the top of her armor belt. Then she too gave up
and ran for the beach, Admiral Sampson, on the _New York_, reaching the
scene in time only to receive the surrender of her officers.
[=The "Gloucester" and Her Work=]
Perhaps the most telling work of the day was that done by the little
_Gloucester_, a yacht turned into a gunboat, which was commanded by
Richard Wainwright, one of the surviving officers of the _Maine_. Two
torpedo-boat destroyers had followed the Spanish ships from the harbor,
and these were gallantly attacked and sunk by Wainwright in his little
craft, thus finally disposing of the second Spanish fleet with which
the Yankees came into contact.
[Sidenote=: The Lesson of the War=]
The annals of naval history record no more complete destruction of an
enemy's fleet than in the two cases we have described, and never has
such work been done with so little loss--only one man being killed
and a few wounded in both American fleets. It taught the world a new
lesson in the art of naval warfare, and admonished the nations that the
United States was a power to be gravely considered in the future in any
question of war.
We have told the only incidents of this short war with which we are
concerned. In the conflict on land there was nothing of special
character. An American army landed near Santiago and fought its fight
to a quick finish in the capture of that city; and a similar story is
to be told of Manila; while the attempted conquest of Porto Rico was
cut short in the middle by the signing of a peace protocol. In December
a treaty of peace was signed in which Spain abandoned her colonies
of Cuba and Porto Rico, the latter being ceded to the United States,
while the Philippine Islands, the scene of Dewey's great victory, were
likewise ceded to this country. The latter, however, was not to the
pleasure of the island people, who took up arms to fight for freedom
from the dominion of the whites.
[=The United States Made a Colonial Power=]
Brief as was the war, it had the effect of radically changing the
position of the United States, which for the first time in its history
became a colonial power, and acquired an interest in that troublesome
Eastern Question which reached, at the end of the century, a highly
critical stage. Into what complication this new political relation is
likely to lead the republic of the West it is impossible to say, but
this country will certainly play its part in the shaping of the future
destiny of the East.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Dominion of Canada.
[=The Area and Population of Canada=]
Occupying the northern section of the western hemisphere lies Great
Britain's most extended colony, the vast Dominion of Canada, which
covers an immense area of the earth's surface, surpassing that of the
United States, and nearly equal to the whole of Europe. Its population,
however, is not in accordance with its dimensions, being less than
5,000,000, while the bleak and inhospitable character of much the
greater part of its area is likely to debar it from ever having any
other than a scanty nomad population, fur animals being its principal
useful product. It is, however, always unsafe to predict. The recent
discovery of gold in a part of this region, that traversed by the
Klondike River, has brought miners by the thousands to that wintry
realm, and it would be very unwise to declare that the remainder of the
great northern region contains no treasures for the craving hands of
man.
[=Canada's Early History=]
It is the development of Canada during the nineteenth century with
which we are here concerned, and we must confine ourselves, as in the
case of the other countries treated, to its salient points, those upon
which the problem of its progress turns. First settled by the French
in the seventeenth century, this country came under British control
in 1763, as a result of the great struggle between the two active
colonizing powers for dominion in America. The outcome of this conquest
is the fact that Canada, like the other colonies of Great Britain,
possesses a large alien population, in this case of French origin; and
it may further be said that the conflict between England and France in
America is not yet at an end, since political warfare, varied by an
occasional act of open rebellion, has been maintained throughout the
century by the French Canadians.
The revolution of 1775 in the colonies to the south failed to gain
adherents in Canada, which remained loyal to Great Britain and repelled
every attempt to invade its territory. It met invasion in the war of
1812 in the same spirit, and despite the fact that there has long been
a party favoring annexation to the United States, the Canadians as a
whole are to-day among the most loyal colonial subjects of the home
government of Great Britain.
At the opening of the nineteenth century the population of Canada was
small, and its resources were only slightly developed. Its people did
not reach the million mark until about 1840, though since then the
tide of immigration has flowed thither with considerable strength and
the population has grown with some rapidity. In 1791 the original
province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada, a political
separation which by no means gave satisfaction, but led to severe
political conflicts. As a result an act of union took place, the
provinces being reunited in 1840.
[=Upper and Lower Canada=]
Upper Canada, at the opening of the century, was only slightly
developed, the country being a vast forest, without towns, without
roads, and practically shut out from the remainder of the world. The
sparse population endured much suffering, which, in 1788, deepened
into a destructive famine, long remembered as a terrible visitation.
But it began to grow with the new century, numbers crossed the Niagara
River from the States to the fertile lands beyond, immigrants crossed
the waters from Great Britain and France, Toronto was made the capital
city, and the population of the province soon rose to 30,000 in number.
Lower Canada, however, with its old cities of Quebec and Montreal, and
its flourishing settlements along the St. Lawrence River, continued the
most populous section of the country, though its people were almost
exclusively of French origin. The strength of the British population
lay in the upper province.
[=The War of 1812=]
These historical particulars are desirable as a statement of the
position and relations of Canada at the opening of the nineteenth
century, though in the succeeding history of the country only an
occasional event occurred of sufficiently striking character to fit
into our plan. We have already detailed the events of the war of 1812
on the Canada frontier, in which the capture and burning of York (now
Toronto) served as an excuse for the subsequent indefensible burning
of Washington by the British. Battles were fought on Canadian soil in
1814 at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane--the latter the bloodiest battle of
the war. But though the Americans were victorious in these engagements,
they soon after withdrew from Canada--to which they have never since
returned in a hostile way. Many political complications have arisen
between the two countries, and at times sharp words have been spoken,
but all the questions have been amicably settled and the two countries
remain fairly good friends, with only such disputes as too close
neighborhood is apt to provoke.
[=John Strachan and the Family Compact=]
The leader of public opinion in Canada during the three years'
struggle with the United States was a clergyman of the English church,
John Strachan, rector of York. Though a clergyman of the English
establishment, Strachan was by birth a Scotchman, and a decidedly
pugnacious and determined character, a man of courage, persistence,
cunning and political skill, whose ambition drove him forward, until,
with his party, he formed in 1820 what was long known as the "Family
Compact," which for years ruled the country in an autocratic way. The
governor and council were the tools of Strachan and his allies; they
filled the public offices with their favorites, and went so far as to
drive Robert Gourlay, an honest and capable business man, from the
country, because he was so presumptuous as to reflect on the character
of their administration.
[=A Religious Quarrel=]
In 1824 their power was for a time overturned. William Lyon Mackenzie,
a Scotchman of impetuous disposition, started the _Colonial Advocate_
newspaper, which opposed the "Compact" so vigorously as to arouse the
hatred of its adherents. The office of the _Advocate_ was gutted by
a mob, but Mackenzie recovered large damages, an opposition Assembly
was elected, and the Family Compact fell from power. Strachan however,
was only temporarily defeated. A religious quarrel arose which lasted
for thirty years, and in which he played the leading part. This
turned upon the use of what was known as the "clergy reserve fund,"
an allotment of one-seventh of the crown lands for the support of a
Protestant clergy. A portion of this fund was demanded by a Scotch
Presbyterian congregation, but Strachan, who had a controlling voice
in its disposition, claimed it all for the English Established Church,
and entered into this new fight with all his old energy. He gained
strong support, was promoted to the dignity of a bishop, founded King's
College from part of the fund, and, in 1853 obtained a transfer of the
fund--which had been placed at the disposal of the British Parliament
for religious purposes--to Canada. The controversy was finally settled
in 1854, an act being passed which secured their life interests to
the clergy already enjoying them, while the remainder of the fund was
devoted to public education.
Thus for forty years and more John Strachan made himself the most
prominent and powerful figure in Upper Canada. Meanwhile a strained
condition of affairs existed in Lower Canada, due to the rivalry and
struggle for power of the inhabitants of French and British descent.
The strife became so intense as in 1837 to lead to open rebellion.
[=French Supremacy in Lower Canada=]
The great supremacy of the French in numbers gave them a decided
majority in the Assembly, and for years Louis Papineau was elected
by them speaker of that body, though bitterly opposed by the British
population. When Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, refused to
recognize him in this position, sufficient influence was brought to
bear upon the home government to have the autocratic lord transferred
to India, and the French retained their control of the Assembly. A
reform in the government of the province was recommended by a committee
of the British Parliament, which resulted in 1832 in giving the
Assembly control of the local finances.
This gave the French Canadians a perilous power, and they endeavored to
rid themselves of the English judges and civil officials by a process
of financial starvation. Salaries were unpaid and the government was
blocked through lack of funds. The sharpness of the strife was added to
by resolutions in the British Parliament which condemned the Canadian
legislature and supported the council--an arbitrary body under the
governor's control, and in the British interest.
[=The Revolt of 1837=]
The strife eventually deepened into revolt. Both provinces vigorously
demanded that the council should be chosen by the votes of the people,
and thus truly represent the country. Lower Canada became violently
excited on this question; funds known as "Papineau tribute" were
collected; the liberty cap was worn; imported goods were replaced by
homespun clothes, and military training soon began. These movements
were followed by hostile acts, the English "Constitutionalists" and
the French "Sons of Liberty" coming into warlike contact. But Sir John
Colborne, the governor, was a man of energy and decision, and quickly
brought the incipient rebellion to an end. The insurgents were attacked
and dispersed wherever they showed themselves, Dr. Nelson, one of
their leaders, was captured, and Papineau, the head of the revolt, was
obliged to escape across the border.
This movement in Lower Canada was accompanied by a similar revolt in
Upper Canada under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie, the former
opponent of the Family Compact. He, as a leader of the opposition
forces, had continued bitterly to oppose the oligarchy which controlled
Canadian affairs. Three times he was elected to the Assembly of Upper
Canada, and three times expelled by the tyrannical majority. The law
officers of Great Britain pronounced his expulsion illegal, and he
was re-elected by a large majority, but the arbitrary Assembly again
refused to admit him.
[=Mackenzie's Rebellion=]
The result of this unlawful action was to make him highly popular, he
was elected the first mayor of Toronto, and the struggle went on more
bitterly than ever. An unlucky expression he had used--"The baneful
domination of the mother country"--was now quoted against him as
evidence of disloyalty, and Mackenzie, exasperated by the acts of his
enemies, lost his self-control and entered into rebellion. He made a
compact with Louis Papineau to head a rising in Toronto on the same
day with the insurgent rising in Montreal. In furtherance of this he
proclaimed a "Provisional Government of the State of Upper Canada,"
gathered a force of eight hundred men, and threatened Toronto with
capture. But hesitation was fatal to his cause, his men were attacked
and dispersed, and he was forced to flee. On Navy Island he flung the
flag of rebellion to the breeze, but he had lost his one opportunity
and the flag soon went down. Lack of prudence and patience had put an
end to a promising political career.
[=Growth of Population and Industry=]
The suppression of this rebellion was followed in 1840 by the Act of
Union of the two provinces already mentioned. The population now began
to grow with considerable rapidity. From about 1,100,000 in 1840,
it grew to nearly 2,000,000 in 1850, and 2,500,000 in 1860. And the
people were spreading out widely northward and westward, settling new
lands, and stretching far towards the Pacific border. The industries of
Canada, which had been greatly depressed by the adoption of free trade
in Great Britain, were revived by a treaty of reciprocity in trade with
the United States, and prosperity came upon the country in a flood.
But political troubles were by no means at an end, and much irritation
arose from acts of citizens of the United States during the Civil War.
Refugees and conspirators from the south sought the Canadian cities,
and endeavored to involve the two countries in hostile relations.
Fenian raids were attempted from the United States, and there was much
alarm, though nothing of importance arose from the disturbed condition
of affairs.
[=Organization of the Dominion of Canada=]
[=The Riel Revolts=]
In time the confederation which existed between the two larger
provinces of Canada became too narrow to serve the purposes of the
entire colony. The maritime provinces began to discuss the question
of local federation, and it was finally proposed to unite all British
North America into one general union. This was done in 1867, the
British Parliament passing an act which created the "Dominion of
Canada." The new confederation included Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec
(Lower Canada), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Four years later
Manitoba and British Columbia were included, and Prince Edward's Island
in 1874. A parliament was formed consisting of a Senate of life members
chosen by the prime minister and an Assembly elected by the people.
The formation of the dominion was soon followed by trouble, this time
arising in the Indian country, over which the Canadian people had
rapidly extended their authority. Louis Riel, son of the leader of the
Metés (half-breed) Indians, headed a rebellion in 1869 and established
a provisional government at Fort Garry. In the following year the
revolt collapsed on the arrival of General Wolseley at this fort. Twice
in later years Riel attempted rebellion, the second time in 1885.
He was finally captured and executed, and the rebellious sentiment
vanished with his death.
Shortly after the formation of the dominion, Sir John Macdonald
became a conspicuous figure in Canadian politics and for many years
served as prime minister of the country. He took part in the treaty
of Washington, which referred to arbitration of the Alabama claim
and other questions between Great Britain and the United States, and
came near defeat in consequence, since the parts of the treaty which
referred to Canada were very unpopular in that country. He was defeated
in 1873 on the question of the Canadian Pacific Railway, concerning
which a great scandal had arisen, with suspicion of wholesale bribery.
In 1878 Macdonald returned to the premiership, which he continued to
hold until his death in 1891.
[=The Canadian Pacific Railway=]
Despite the scandal attending the Pacific Railway bill, that enterprise
was pushed forward with much energy, and, after desperate financial
struggles, was completed in 1886. It need scarcely be said that it has
since played a highly important part in the development of Canada.
Under the liberal ministry of Alexander Mackenzie (1873-78) the country
prospered greatly for a time, but a period of financial stringency
followed, and the people demanded commercial protection. This was given
by the Conservatives, under Macdonald, in 1879, a protective tariff
being adopted as a measure of defence against the commercial enterprise
of the United States. The result was a rapid revival of trade and
wide-spread prosperity. In 1880, by an act of the British Parliament,
the control of all the British possessions in Canada--except
Newfoundland, which had not joined the Union--was transferred to
the Dominion Parliament, and the country became in large measure an
independent nation.
[=The Fishery Difficulties=]
The important questions which have since that time arisen in Canada
have had largely to do with its relations to the United States and its
people. One of the most troublesome of these has been the question
of the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland and the coasts of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick. For years the problem of the rights of
American fishermen on the Canadian coast excited controversy, In 1877
the Halifax Fishery Commission awarded $5,500,000 to Great Britain,
to pay for the privileges granted to the United States, and in 1888 a
treaty was signed for the settlement of this vexatious question.
[=The Fur-Seal Question=]
The temporary removal of this difficulty was followed by the
development of a still more serious fishery controversy between the
two countries, that relating to the fur-seal fishery of Alaska. The
fur-seals, frequenting the Pribylof Islands of the Bering Sea for
breeding purposes, belonged to the United States, which rented out
the right of killing seals on these islands to the Alaska Commercial
Company, whose killing privileges were restricted to 100,000
yearly. But these seals had a wide range of excursion at sea, and
Canadian fishermen began to prey upon them in the open waters. These
depredations, beginning in 1886, reduced the herds by 1890 to such an
extent that the Alaska Company could secure only 21,000 skins in that
year. There was serious danger of the extermination of the animals,
and the United States took active measures to prevent poaching on its
preserves, as it regarded the work of the Canadians. The controversy on
this question became strenuous as time went on, and it was seriously
thought at one time that the easiest way out of the difficulty would be
to kill all the seals at once and so put an end to the problem. Finally
the two nations concerned agreed to submit the question to arbitration,
and a decision was rendered in 1893, establishing a "protected zone" of
sixty miles around the Pribylof Islands. Unfortunately the ocean range
of the seals is much wider than this, and the diminution of the herd
has still gone on. The difficulty, therefore, remains unsettled.
[=The Gold of the Klondike=]
Sir John Macdonald died in 1891 and Sir John S. D. Thompson, a man of
marked ability, became premier in 1892. He lived, however, only until
1894 and for a brief interval Sir Charles Tupper filled the office.
Before the end of the year he resigned, and Sir Wilfred Laurier became
premier, he being the first French Canadian to hold that high office.
The most important questions rising under his administration were those
springing from the discovery of gold on the Klondike River. This find
was made in the autumn of 1896, and as reports quickly spread of the
richness of the diggings, a rush of miners, mainly Americans, took
place during the following year. But it was quickly perceived that
the region was not in Alaska, as at first supposed, but in Canadian
territory, and mining laws were imposed by the Canadian government,
including heavy fees and royalties, which were bitterly objected to by
the American miners.
But the chief question, arising from the find was that concerning the
true boundary between the two countries, This had never been clearly
decided upon for the southern section of Alaska, and the natural
desire of Canada to obtain an ocean outing for the new gold district,
which was being very rapidly settled, soon stirred up a very active
controversy.
[=A Boundary Question=]
The claim of Russia, transferred by purchase to the United States,
called for a strip of land ten leagues wide from the coast backward.
This would have been definite enough had it been quite clear what
constituted the coast. The sea line of Alaska is marked by deep
indentations, some of which are open to question as to whether they
should be considered oceanic or inland waters. Such a one is Lynn
Canal, which affords the natural waterway to the mountain passes
leading to the upper Yukon, by whose waters the gold district can be
most easily reached. This inlet, running sixty miles into the land,
is less than six miles wide at its mouth; and while the United States
claimed that it was part of the open sea, the Canadian government
looked upon it as territorial water, and demanded that the coast line
should be drawn across its mouth. This would have given Canada control
of its upper waters and the access to the sea from the Klondike region
over its own territory which it so urgently needed. It would also have
given it possession of Dyea and Skagua, two mining towns built and
peopled by Americans at the head of the canal, and whose people would
have bitterly opposed being made citizens of Canada.
[=An International Commission=]
As will be perceived from the above statement a number of international
questions had arisen between the United States and Canada, of which
only the most urgent have here been mentioned. In 1898 an earnest
attempt was made to adjust these annoying problems, by the appointment
of an International Commission, whose sessions began in the city of
Quebec, August 23, 1898. On the part of Great Britain and Canada the
membership consisted of Lord Herschell, ex-Lord Chancellor of England,
chairman, Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Premier of Canada, Sir Richard
J. Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce, Sir Louis H. Davies,
Minister of Marine and Fisheries, John Charlton, M. P., and Sir James
T. Winter, Premier of Newfoundland. The American members were Charles
W. Fairbanks, United States Senator from Indiana, chairman, George
Gray, Senator from Delaware, Nelson Dingley, Representative from Maine,
John W. Foster, former Secretary of State and ex-Minister to Spain,
Russia and Mexico, John A. Kasson, former Minister to Germany and
Austria, and T. Jefferson Coolidge, former Minister to France. Senator
Gray resigned in September, to take part in Peace Commission on the
Spanish War, and was succeeded by Senator Charles J. Faulkner, of West
Virginia.
[=The Questions at Issue=]
The principal questions that came before this Commission for
consideration were the following: The adjustment of the difficulties
concerning the Atlantic and Pacific coast fisheries and those still
arising in reference to the fur-seals; the establishment of a fixed
boundary between Alaska and Canada; provision for the transit of
merchandise to or from either country across territory of the other,
or to be delivered at points in either country beyond the frontier;
the questions of labor laws and mining rights affecting the subjects
of either country within the territory of the other; a mutually
satisfactory readjustment of customs duties; an understanding
concerning the placing of war vessels on the great lakes; arrangements
to define and mark the frontier line; provision for the conveyance of
accused persons by officers of one country through the territory of the
other; and reciprocity in wrecking and salvage rights.
[=The Failure of the Commission=]
As will be perceived from this list of subjects to be considered, the
High Commission had abundance of work mapped out for it. While some
of the questions were of minor importance and might be settled with
comparative ease, others were of high significance and likely to prove
very difficult to adjust. In fact, they proved beyond the powers of the
commission. Adjourning from Quebec to meet in Washington in November,
the members continued in session there for several months longer, but
adjourned finally in the spring of 1899 without having been able to
come to a decision on the difficult matters involved.
[=Commerce of Canada with the United States=]
Several of these questions, indeed, were of the most complex and
vexatious character, particularly that relating to the fisheries,
which had been a source of trouble and conflict through most of the
century. As respects the transport of goods of one country over the
territory of the other, it is a matter of much importance to Canada,
which sends great quantities of goods over United States territory for
shipment abroad, six times more Canadian grain, for instance, going by
way of Buffalo, than _via_ Montreal and the St. Lawrence. The problem
of reciprocal customs regulations is also one of much importance to
Canada, which imports more merchandise from the United States than is
sent by that country to all the remainder of the American Continent,
amounting in all to about $70,000,000 annually. In return its exports
to the United States amount to about $50,000,000, the total commerce
being of importance enough to call for special tariff regulations
between the two countries.
After the adjournment of the commission, efforts were made to adjust
the boundary question, so far as Lynn Canal was concerned, through
an understanding between the two governments. The United States, in
consideration of the needs of Canada in the Klondike region, showed a
disposition to concede temporarily to that country a tidewater port
in the Lynn Canal. But decided protests from commercial ports on the
Pacific seaboard caused the withdrawal of the proposed concession. A
temporary adjustment of the question was subsequently made, a line
being drawn by officials of the two countries which followed the
mountain summits and cut off Canada from access to the sea except
across United States territory.
[=Railway Progress in Canada=]
The progress of Canada during the past quarter of a century has been
very great, while her population has increased in that period by
nearly one-half. Railways have spread like a network over the rich
agricultural territory along the southern border land of the dominion,
from ocean to ocean, and are now pushing into the deep forest land
and rich mineral regions of the interior and the northwest, their
total length in 1899 being over 17,000 miles, a large mileage for a
population of 5,000,000. The most recent railway projected is one
to the Klondike region, which already has a large population, and
possesses in Dawson City a thriving and enterprising headquarters of
the mining region. Canada has also been active in canal building,
and has now under consideration a project of the highest importance,
namely, the excavation of a ship-canal from Lake Huron to the St.
Lawrence. This great enterprise, if carried into effect, will shorten
the distance of commercial navigation by hundreds of miles and be of
untold advantage to the Canadian commonwealth. It is proposed also to
deepen the existing canals, so as to permit the conveyance of ocean
freight without breaking bulk.
[=Manufacturing Enterprise=]
[=The Yield of Precious Metals=]
In manufacturing industry almost every branch of production is to be
found, the progressive enterprise of the people of the Dominion being
great, and a large proportion of the goods they need being made at
home. The best evidence of the enterprise of Canada in manufacture is
shown by the fact that she exports many thousand dollars worth of goods
annually more than she buys--England being her largest customer and
the United States second on the list. In addition to her manufactured
products, Canada is actively agricultural, and possesses vast natural
wealth in the products of her rich mines, vast forests and prolific
fisheries. The most recent of these sources of wealth are her mines
of the precious metals, which yielded over $6,000,000 in gold and
$7,000,000 in silver in 1897, shortly after the discovery of the
Klondike deposits. The yield of those has since very greatly increased.
[=Extent and Resources of the Dominion=]
Not only is the outside world largely ignorant of the importance of
Canada, but few of her own people realize the greatness of the country
they possess. Its area of more than three and one-half millions of
square miles--one-sixteenth of the entire land surface of the earth--is
great enough to include an immense variety of natural conditions and
products. This area constitutes forty per cent. of the far extended
British empire, while its richness of soil and resources in forest and
mineral wealth are as yet almost untouched, and its promise of future
yield is immense. The dimensions of the dominion guarantee a great
variety of natural attractions. There are vast grass-covered plains,
thousands of square miles of untouched forest lands, multitudes of
lakes and rivers, great and small, and mountains of the wildest and
grandest character, whose natural beauty equals that of the far-famed
Alpine peaks. In fact, the Canadian Pacific Railway is becoming a route
of pilgrimage for the lovers of the beautiful and sublime, its mountain
scenery being unrivaled upon the continent.
The population of Canada varies in character according to location.
In Ontario the people are generally English. In Quebec, and many
other portions of what was formerly called Lower Canada, the original
settlers were French, and their descendants are still in the majority
and retain many of the habits and customs of their mother country--so
much so, in fact, that, though England has ruled the land for about
one hundred and fifty years, the French language is still almost
exclusively spoken. Even in the cities of Montreal and Quebec the
prevalence of the language makes the visitor from Toronto feel that he
is in a foreign city.
[=The Character of the Canadian Population=]
In the west, until a few years ago, the prevailing population was
the original Indian and the half-breed. But this element, though
still numerous, is fast being swallowed up or hidden by the throng of
immigrants, who are now pouring into that vast and resourceful region.
These immigrants, unlike those of the older eastern provinces, are made
up of all the nationalities of northern Europe, the British Isles,
however, being well represented. Out of this mixture a new people,
combining the good and progressive elements of various nations, is
springing up. In this respect the Canadians of the northwest are much
like the inhabitants of the northwestern United States.
Population at present is densest on the southern borders of the
country, along the Great Lakes and the shores of the St. Lawrence.
The interior is very sparsely settled, and as the latitude increases
the cold of winter, except where the country is warmed by the winds
of the Pacific, becomes more intense, until, in the northern part of
the dominion, it is practically impossible for the Caucasian race
to live in comfort. Much of this unbroken wilderness is covered with
gigantic forests, which make lumbering the chief industry of that
section, as agriculture is of the lower latitudes. In fact, lumbering
and agriculture are the chief industries of all sections except the
sea-coasts, where fishing interests are of great importance, and
certain portions of the great northwest, like the Yukon districts,
where mining is predominant. On the whole, Canada has before it a great
future, and what its political destiny will be no man can foresee.
In several conditions the people of Canada, while preserving
the general features of English society, are much more free and
untrammeled. The caste system of Great Britain has gained little
footing in this new land, where nearly every farmer is the owner of
the soil which he tills, and the people have a feeling of independence
unknown to the agricultural population of European countries. There has
been great progress also in many social questions. The liquor traffic,
for instance, is subject to the local option of restriction; religious
liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the
franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of the parliament are
paid for their services; and though the executive department of the
government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the
queen, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state
of practical independence prevails. Recognizing this, and respecting
the liberty-loving spirit of the people, Great Britain is chary in
interfering with any question of Canadian policy, or in any sense in
attempting to limit the freedom of her great Transatlantic Colony.
[Illustration: RT. HON. SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD, G. C. B.
Prime Minister of Canada, 1878-1892.]
RT. HON. J. S. D. THOMPSON, K. C. M. G.
Prime Minister of Canada, 1892-1894.]
RT. HON. SIR WILFRID LAURIER,
Prime Minister of Canada, 1896.]
SIR CHARLES TUPPER.]
[Illustration: DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
HENRY M. STANLEY.
DR. FRITHIOF NANSEN.
LIEUT. R. E. PEARY.
GREAT EXPLORERS IN THE TROPICS AND ARCTICS.]
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Livingstone, Stanley, Peary, Nansen and Other Great
Discoverers and Explorers.
[=Ignorance of the Earth's Surface at the Beginning of the
Century=]
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, long as man had previously
existed upon the earth, much more than half its surface was unknown
to the most civilized nations. Of the extensive continent of Africa,
for instance, only the coast regions had been explored, while the vast
interior could fairly be described as the "Great Unknown." The immense
continent of Asia was known only in outline. With its main features
men had some acquaintance, but its details were as little known as the
mountains of the moon. With America men were little better acquainted
than with Africa. The United States itself had been explored only
as far west as the Mississippi, and that but imperfectly. The vast
space between that great stream and the Pacific almost wholly awaited
discovery. The remainder of the continent was divided into national
domains, which were thinly inhabited and very imperfectly known. Of
the continental island of Australia only a few spots on the border had
been visited, and still less was known of the broad region of the North
Polar zone.
[=Great Activity of Explorers in the Nineteenth Century=]
At the end of the century a very different tale could be told.
The hundred years had been marked by an extraordinary activity in
travel, adventure, and discovery; daring men had penetrated the
most obscure recesses of continents and islands, climbed the most
difficult mountains, ventured among the most savage tribes, studied the
geographical features and natural productions of a thousand regions
before unknown, and learned more about the conditions of the earth
than had been learned in a thousand years before. The work of the
century has no parallel in history except the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, when America was discovered and the East Indies were
explored, and the horizon of human knowledge was immensely extended.
The great achievements of the century with which we have to deal were
performed by a large number of adventurous men, far too numerous even
to be named in this review.
[=The Notable Fields of Nineteenth Century Travel=]
In fact it would need a volume, and one of considerable extent, to
tell, even in epitome, the story of travel and exploration within
the nineteenth century. Such a story, given in any fulness, would
far transcend our purpose, which is confined to the description of
the great events of the century, those of epoch-making significance,
and which played leading parts in the progress of the period with
which we are concerned. In this review, therefore, we may fairly
confine ourselves to records of travel in two regions of the earth,
the continent of Africa and the Arctic Zone, of both of which little
was known at the opening of the century, while the story of their
exploration has been of startling interest and importance. The interior
of Asia and America, while presenting problems to be solved, were not
unknown in the sense in which we speak of Africa, over which rested
a pall of darkness as black as the complexion of its inhabitants.
Australia alone was unknown in a similar sense. But the interior
of that great island is practically a desert, and its exploration
possesses nothing of the interest which attaches to that of Africa,
a land which for many centuries has attracted the active attention
and aroused the vivid curiosity of mankind, while a satisfactory
acquaintance with it has been left for the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
Of the great travelers to whom we are indebted for our present
knowledge of this continent two stand pre-eminent, David Livingstone
and Henry M. Stanley, and we may deal with their careers as the pivots
around which the whole story of African exploration revolves.
[=Famous African Travelers=]
The first of modern travelers to penetrate the interior of western
Africa to any considerable depth was the justly celebrated Mungo Park,
whose first journey to the Niger was made in 1795-96, and the second in
1805. He traced that important stream through a large part of its upper
course--finally losing his life as a result of his intrepid daring. On
the east coast, at a somewhat earlier date (1768-73) the equally famous
James Bruce penetrated Abyssinia to the head-waters of the Blue Nile,
which he looked upon as the source of the great river of Egypt. About
the same time the French traveler Vaillant entered the continent at
Cape Town and journeyed north for more than three hundred miles, into
the country of the Bushmen.
Such was the state of African exploration at the beginning of the
century under consideration. The travelers named, and others of minor
importance, had not penetrated far from the coast, and the vast
interior of the continent remained almost utterly unknown. In fact
the century was half gone before anything further of consequence was
discovered, the first journey of Dr. Livingstone being made in 1849.
[=Dr. Livingstone's Missionary Labors=]
David Livingstone, an enterprising man, of Scotch birth, left England
in 1840 to devote his life to missionary work in Africa. He had studied
medicine and theology, and was well equipped in every way for the
arduous and difficult work he had undertaken. Landing at Port Natal,
he became associated with the Rev. Robert Moffat, a noted African
missionary, whose daughter he afterwards married, and for years he
labored perseveringly as an agent of the London Missionary Society.
He studied the languages, habits, and religious beliefs of a number
of tribes, and became one of the most earnest and successful of
missionaries, his subsequent journeys being undertaken largely for the
advance of his religious labors.
His experience in missionary work convinced him that success in this
field of duty was not to be measured by the tale of conversions--of
doubtful character--which could be sent home every year, but that
the proper work for the enterprising white man was that of pioneer
research. He could best employ himself in opening up and exploring new
fields of labor, and might safely leave to native agents the duty of
working these out in detail.
[=Discovery of Lake Ngami=]
This theory he first put into effect in 1849, in which year he set
out on a journey into the unknown land to the north, the goal of his
enterprise being Lake Ngami, on which no white man's eyes had ever
fallen. In company with two English sportsmen, Mr. Oswell and Mr.
Murray, he traversed the great and bleak Kalahari Desert,--which he
was the first to describe in detail,--and on the 1st of August the
travelers were gladdened by the sight of the previously unknown liquid
plain, the most southerly of the great African lakes.
Two hundred miles beyond this body of water lived a noted chief named
Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo tribe, whose residence Livingstone
sought to reach the following year, bringing with him on this journey
his wife and children. But fever seized the children and he was obliged
to stop at the shores of the lake. Nothing daunted by this failure, he
set out again in 1851, once more accompanied by his family, and with
his former companion, Mr. Oswell, his purpose being to settle among the
Makololos and seek to convert to Christianity their great chief. He
succeeded in reaching the tribe, but the death of Sebituane, shortly
after his arrival, disarranged his plans, and he was obliged to return.
But before doing so he and Mr. Oswell made an exploration of several
hundred miles to the northeast, their journey ending at the Zambesi,
the great river of South Africa, which he here found flowing in a broad
and noble current through the centre of the continent.
[=Livingstone's Journey from the Zambesi to the West
Coast=]
The subsequent travels of Livingstone were performed more for purposes
of exploration than for religious labors, though to the end he
considered himself a missionary pioneer. Sending his family to England,
he left Capetown in June, 1852, and reached Linyanti, the capital of
the Makololo, in May, 1853, being received in royal style by the chief
and his people, by whom he was greatly esteemed. He next ascended the
Zambesi, in search of some healthy high land for a missionary station.
But everywhere he found the tsetse fly, an insect deadly to animals,
and, annoyed by the ravages of this insect among his cattle, he
determined to leave that locality and enter upon the greatest journey
ever yet undertaken in Africa, one through the unknown interior to the
west coast.
The start was made from Linyanti on November 11, 1853, the party
ascending the Leeba to Lake Dilolo, which was reached in February,
1854. Finally, on the 31st of May, they came to the coast town
of St. Paul de Loanda, in Portuguese West Africa. Their long and
dangerous journey had been attended by numberless hardships, and
Livingstone reached the coast nearly worn out by fever, dysentery and
semi-starvation. But nothing could deter the indefatigable traveler. He
set out again after a few months, reached Lake Dilolo on June 13, 1855,
and Linyanti in September. After a brief interval of rest he left this
place with a determination to follow the broad-flowing Zambesi to its
mouth in the eastern sea.
[=The Discovery of the Great Victoria Falls=]
A fortnight after his start he made the most notable of his
discoveries, the one with which his name is most intimately associated
in popular estimation, that of the great Victoria Falls of the Zambesi,
a cataract which has no rival upon the earth except the still mightier
one of the Niagara. Here an immense cleft or fissure in the earth cuts
directly across the channel of the river, which pours in an enormous
flood down into the cavernous abyss, whence "the smoke of its torrent
ascendeth forever." The country surrounding seems to be a great
basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains, the depression
having probably at one time been filled with an immense lake whose
waters were drained off when the earth split asunder across its bed.
[=The First Crossing of the Continent=]
On went the untiring traveler, and on May 20, 1856, he reached the
east coast at the Portuguese town of Quillimane, at the mouth of the
Zambesi, in a frightfully emaciated condition. He had, in two and a
half years of travel, performed one of the most remarkable journeys
ever made up to that time. First proceeding north from the Cape to
Loanda, through twenty-five degrees of latitude, he had for the first
time in history, crossed the continent of Africa from ocean to ocean,
through as many degrees of longitude, while his discoveries in the
geography and natural history of the region traversed had been immense.
Livingstone returned to England in the latter part of the year and
was received with the highest enthusiasm, being welcomed as the first
to break through that pall of darkness which had so long enveloped
the interior of Africa. The Royal Geographical Society had already
conferred upon him its highest token of honor, its gold medal, and now
honors and compliments were showered upon him until the modest traveler
was overwhelmed with the warmth of his reception.
[=Livingstone Discovers Lake Nyassa=]
The desire to complete his work was strong upon him, and after
publishing an account of his travels, in a work of modest simplicity,
he returned to Africa, reaching the mouth of the Zambesi in May, 1858.
In 1859 his new career of discovery began in an exploration of the
Shire, a northern affluent of the Zambesi, up which he journeyed to
the great Lake Nyassa, another capital discovery. For several years
he was engaged in exploring the surrounding region and in furthering
the interests of missionary enterprise among the natives. In one of
his journeys his wife, who was his companion during this period of
his travels, died, and in 1864 he returned home, worn out with his
extraordinary labors in new lands and desiring to spend the remainder
of his days in quiet and repose.
But at the suggestion of Murchison, the famous geologist and his
staunch friend, he was induced to return to Africa, one of his main
purposes being to take steps looking to the suppression of the Arab
slave trade, whose horrors had long excited his deepest sympathies.
Landing at the mouth of the Rovuma River--a stream he had previously
explored--on March 22, 1866, he started for the interior, rounded Lake
Nyassa on the south, and set off to the northeast for the great Lake
Tanganyika--which had meanwhile been discovered by Barton and Speke, in
1857.
[=Stanley in Search of Livingstone=]
[=The Death of the Great Explorer=]
After his departure Livingstone vanished from sight and knowledge, and
for five years was utterly lost in the deep interior of the continent.
From time to time vague intimations of his movements reached the world
of civilization, but the question of his fate became so exciting a one
that in 1871 Henry M. Stanley was dispatched, at the expense of the
proprietor of the _New York Herald_, to penetrate the continent and
seek to discover the long-lost traveler. Stanley found him at Ujiji,
on the northeast shore of Tanganyika, on October 18, 1871, the great
explorer being then, in his words, "a ruckle of bones." Far and wide
he had traveled through Central Africa, discovering a host of lakes
and streams, and finding many new tribes with strange habits. Among
his notable discoveries was that of the Lualaba River--The Upper
Congo--which he believed to be the head-waters of the Nile. His work
had been enormous, and the "Dark Continent" had yielded to him a host
of its long hidden mysteries. Not willing yet to give up his work,
he waited at Ujiji for men and supplies sent him by Stanley from the
coast, and then started south for Lake Bangweolo, one of his former
discoveries. But attacked again by his old enemy, dysentery, the iron
frame of the great traveller at length yielded, and he was found, on
May 1, 1873, by his men, dead in his tent, kneeling by the side of his
bed. Thus perished in prayer the greatest traveler in modern times.
For more than thirty years Livingstone had dwelt in Africa, most of
that time engaged in exploring new regions and visiting new peoples.
His travels had covered a third of the continent, extending from the
Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean,
his work being all done leisurely and carefully, so that its results
were of the utmost value to geographical science. He had also aroused a
sentiment against the Arab slave-trade which was to give that frightful
system its death-blow.
The work of Livingstone stirred up an enthusiasm for African travel,
and many adventurous explorers set out for that continent during
his career. After the discovery of Lake Tanganyika by Burton and
Speke, in 1857, the latter started to the northeast, and reached the
head-waters of the great Victoria Nyanza, the largest body of water on
the continent. Subsequently this traveler, accompanied by Mr. Grant,
journeyed to the White Nile, north of this lake, while Samuel Baker,
another adventurous traveler, accompanied by his heroic wife, reached
in 1864 a great lake west of the Victoria, which he named the Albert
Nyanza.
[=Other African Travelers=]
Further north Dr. Barth, as early as 1850, set out on a journey across
the Sahara to the Soudan, and at a later date various travelers
explored this northern section of the continent, while in 1874-75
Lieutenant Cameron repeated Livingstone's feat of crossing the
continent from sea to sea. But the greatest of African travelers after
Livingstone was Henry M. Stanley, with whose work we are next concerned.
While a reporter in the _New York Herald_, this enterprising man had
been sent to Crete to report upon the revolution in that island,
to Abyssinia during the British invasion, and to Spain during the
revolution in that country. While in Spain, in 1869, James Gordon
Bennett sent him the brief order to "find Livingstone." This was
enough for Stanley, who proceeded at once to Zanzibar, organized an
expedition, and did "find Livingstone," as above stated.
[=Stanley's Journey to the Victoria Nyanza=]
[=The Descent of the Great Congo River=]
Next, filled with the spirit of travel, Stanley set out to "find
Africa," now as joint agent for the _Herald_ and the London _Daily
Telegraph_. Setting out from Zanzibar in November, 1874, he
proceeded, with a large expedition, to the Victoria Nyanza, which he
circumnavigated; and then journeyed to Tanganyika, whose shape and
dimension he similarly ascertained. From these he proceeded westward to
the Lualaba, the stream which Livingstone had supposed to be the Nile.
How Stanley made his way down this great stream, overcoming enormous
difficulties and fighting his way through hostile tribes, is too long a
story to be told here. It must suffice to say that he soon found that
he was not upon the Nile, but upon a westward flowing stream, which he
eventually identified as the Congo--a great river whose lower course
only had been previously known. For ten months the daring traveler
pursued his journey down this stream, assailed by treachery and
hostility, and finally reached the ocean, having traversed the heart of
that vast "unexplored territory" which long occupied so wide a space on
all maps of Africa. He had learned that the interior of the continent
is a mighty plateau, watered by the Congo and its many large affluents
and traversed in all directions by navigable waters. Politically this
remarkable journey led to the founding of the Congo Free State, which
embraces the central region of tropical Africa, and which Stanley was
sent to establish in 1879.
In 1887 he set out on another great journey. The conquest of the
Egyptian Soudan by the Mahdi, described in a preceding chapter, had not
only greatly diminished the territory of Egypt, but had cut off Emin
Pasha (Dr. Edward Schnitzler), governor of the Equatorial Province of
Egypt, leaving him stranded on the Upper Nile, near the Albert Nyanza.
Here Emin maintained himself for years, holding his own against his
foes, and actively engaging in natural history study. But, cut off as
he was from civilization, threatened by the Mahdi, and his fate unknown
in Europe, a growing anxiety concerning him prevailed, and Stanley was
sent to find him, as he had before found Livingstone.
[=Stanley Goes to the Rescue of Emin Pasha=]
Organizing a strong expedition at Zanzibar, the traveler sailed with
his officers, soldiers and negro porters for the mouth of the Congo,
which river he proposed to make the channel of his exploration. Setting
out from this point on March 18, 1887, by June 15th the expedition had
reached the village of Yambuya, 1,300 miles up the stream. Thus far he
had traversed waters well known to him. From this point he proposed to
plunge into the unknown, following the course of the Aruwimi, a large
affluent of the Congo which flowed from the direction of the great
Nyanza lake-basins.
It was a terrible journey which the expedition now made. Before it
spread a forest of seemingly interminable extent, peopled mainly by
the curious dwarfs who form the forest-folk of Central Africa. The
difficulties before the traveler were enormous, but no hardship or
danger could daunt his indomitable courage, and he kept resolutely on
until he met the lost Emin on the shores of Albert Nyanza, as he had
formerly met Livingstone on those of Lake Tanganyika.
[=A Terrible Forest Journey=]
Three times in effect Stanley crossed that terrible forest, since
he returned to Yambuya for the men and supplies he had left there
and journeyed back again. Finally he made an overland journey to
Zanzibar, on the east coast, with Emin and his followers, who had been
rescued just in time to save them from imminent peril of overthrow and
slaughter by the fanatical hordes of the Mahdi. This second crossing
of the continent by Stanley ended December 4, 1889, having continued
little short of three years. The discoveries made were great and
valuable, and on his return to Europe the explorer met with a reception
almost royal in its splendor. Among the large number of travelers who
during the latter half of the century have contributed to make the
interior of Africa as familiar to us as that of portions of our own
continent, Livingstone and Stanley stand pre-eminent, the most heroic
figures in modern travel: Livingstone as the missionary explorer, who
won the love of the savage tribes and made his way by the arts of peace
and gentleness; Stanley as the soldierly explorer, who fought his way
through cannibal hordes, his arts being those of force and daring.
They and their successors have performed one of the greatest works of
the nineteenth century, that of lifting the cloud which for so many
centuries lay thick and dense over the whole extent of interior Africa.
[=The Exploration of the Arctic Zone=]
Leaving this region of research, we must now seek another which has
been the seat of as earnest efforts and terrible hardships and has
aroused as ardent a spirit of investigation, the Arctic Zone. At no
point in the story of the nineteenth century do we find a greater
display of courage and resolution, a more patient endurance of
suffering, and a more unyielding determination to extend the limits
of human knowledge, than in this region of ice and snow, the delving
into whose secrets has actively continued during the latter half of the
century.
[=Early Expeditions to the Far North=]
A number of voyages were made to the Arctic regions in former
centuries, and Henry Hudson as early as 1607 sailed as far north as the
latitude of 81 degrees 30 minutes in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. With
the opening of the nineteenth century exploration grew more active,
and voyage after voyage was made; but the distance north reached by
Hudson two centuries before was not surpassed until 1827, when Parry
reached 82 degrees 40 minutes north latitude in the same region of
the sea. Beyond these efforts to penetrate the ice barrier, and the
discovery of some islands in the Arctic Ocean, nothing of special
interest occurred until the date of Sir John Franklin's expedition,
which left England in 1845 and disappeared in the icy seas, every soul
on board perishing. This expedition was made famous by the many search
parties which were sent out in quest of the lost mariners.
By one of these parties the northwest passage from ocean to ocean,
around the Arctic coast of America, was traversed in 1854. The fate of
Franklin and his men was not fully solved until 1880, when an American
expedition, under Lieutenant Schwatka, found the last traces left by
the unfortunate explorers.
As famous and as disastrous as the Franklin expedition was the "Lady
Franklin Bay Expedition," conducted by Lieutenant Greely, of the United
States army, which set out in 1881. This expedition was not sent for
purposes of polar research, but in pursuance of a plan to conduct a
series of circumpolar meteorological observations. The relief party of
1883, dispatched to the rescue of the explorers, was unfortunately put
under the control of military men, who not only failed to reach their
destination, but even to leave a supply of food where Greely and his
men might justly expect to find one.
[=The Dreadful Fate of the Greely Party=]
As a result of this failure, the explorers were obliged to abandon
their ships and make their way southwards over almost impassable ice.
In October they reached Cape Sabine, one of the bleakest spots in the
Arctic zone. If food had been left there for them all would have been
well. But they looked in vain for the expected supplies, and when,
in June, 1884, Commodore Schley reached them with a new relief ship,
starvation had almost completed its work. Of the whole party only six
men survived, and a day or two more of delay would have carried them
all away. Among the survivors was their leader, Lieutenant Greely.
[=The Fatal "Jeannette" Expedition=]
A disaster as fatal in character attended the _Jeannette_ expedition,
sent out by the _New York Herald_, in 1879, under Commander DeLong,
to push north by way of Bering Strait. The vessel was crushed by the
ice in 1882, and the crew made their way over the frozen surface past
the New Siberian Islands to the mouth of the Lena River, on the north
coast of Siberia. Here starvation attacked them, and DeLong and many
of his men miserably perished, their bodies being found by Engineer
Melville, one of their companions, who had pushed south to the Siberian
settlements and secured aid, with which he heroically returned for the
rescue of the unfortunate mariners.
[=Expedition of Prof. Nordenskjöld=]
Another expedition calling for attention was that of Adolf Erik
Nordenskjöld, a Swedish scientist. The purpose of this enterprise was
to discover, if possible, a practical commercial route through the
waters north of Europe and Asia, the long sought-for Northeast Passage.
In 1878 Nordenskjöld set out in the _Vega_, commanded by Captain
Pallander, of the Swedish Navy. The party succeeded in making the long
journey round the northern coasts of Europe and Asia, wintering in
Bering Strait and reaching Japan in 1879. This vessel was the first one
to round the northernmost point of Asia, and Nordenskjöld was rewarded
by being made a baron and a commander of the order of the Pole Star in
his own country, and by marks of distinction from several others of the
courts of Europe.
[=Land Journeys in Greenland=]
Since 1890 the work of polar exploration has taken new forms. In 1870
Nordenskjöld made a journey into Greenland, and a second one in 1883,
penetrating that island more than 100 miles and reaching a snow-clad
elevation of 7,000 feet. In 1886 Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, of the
United States Navy, made a similar journey, and in 1888 Dr. Frithjof
Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, crossed the southern part of the island
on snowshoes from east to west.
[=Peary Crosses North Greenland=]
In 1891 Peary proceeded with a small party to McCormick Bay, a locality
far up on the west coast of Greenland, whence he set out in the
following spring with a single companion for a sledge journey over the
northern section of the island. After a remarkable journey of 650 miles
he reached the northeast coast of Greenland, at 81°, 37" N. latitude,
but the appearance of an area of broken stones impassable by sledges
cut off his progress to the far north. In 1895 Peary repeated this
journey, but failed to make farther progress northward.
During the final decade of the century polar expeditions became
numerous. Walter Wellman, a young American journalist, attempted in
1894 to reach the pole by sledge and boat over the Spitzbergen route,
but his supporting vessel was crushed in the ice, and he was forced to
retreat when near the 81st parallel. He made a second "dash for the
pole" in 1898-99, but was disabled by an accident, and again obliged
to return without success. In 1894 Frederick G. Jackson, an English
explorer, visited Franz Joseph Land, an island region discovered by an
Austrian expedition in 1872-74, and whose northern extension was not
known. He remained on this island three years, carefully exploring it,
and in 1896 stood on its northern extremity, near the 81st parallel,
and in view of an open expanse of polar waters. Jackson's most notable
service to science was the rescue of the daring explorer Nansen, whose
expedition needs next to be described.
[=Nansen and His Enterprise=]
Frithjof Nansen, whose crossing of Greenland has been mentioned, soon
after projected an enterprise of a new character. There was excellent
reason to suppose that a strong ocean current crossed the polar area,
flowing from the coast of the Eastern hemisphere across to Greenland
and down both shores of that island. By trusting to the drift influence
of this current a vessel might be carried past the pole and the long
baffling mystery solved. Nansen accordingly had a vessel constructed
adapted to resist the most powerful crushing force, and so formed that
a severe ice pressure would lift it to the surface of the floe. In
this vessel, the _Fram_, he set out in June, 1893, sailed east to the
vicinity of the New Siberia Islands, and there made fast his ship to
an ice floe, with the hope that the current would slowly carry ice and
ship across the polar area.
[=Nansen's "Farthest North"=]
For three years Nansen and his crew were lost to all knowledge of
man, in these frozen seas, and all hopes of his return had nearly
vanished when he triumphantly reappeared, having achieved a marvelous
success, even though short of that which he had desired. For more than
a year the _Fram_ had drifted slowly northward, and on Christmas eve,
1894, the latitude of 83 degrees 24 minutes, reached by the Greely
expedition, and the highest yet attained, was passed. In March, 1895,
Nansen left the ship, dissatisfied with its slow progress, and with one
companion started on a sledge journey to the north. But the ice grew
so difficult to cross and his dog teams so depleted in number, that,
after a desperate effort, he was obliged to give up the enterprise on
April 7th. He had then reached latitude 86 degrees 14 minutes, being
200 miles nearer the pole than former explorers had gone, and within
300 miles of that "farthest north" point. The vessel which he had left
continued to drift north until it reached 85 degrees 57 minutes, when
it turned southward. Here the sea was found to be deep, and the belief
that the pole might be surrounded by a land area was disproved. It lies
probably in a sea region of over 10,000 feet in depth.
[=The Rescue of Nansen=]
Nansen and Johansen, his companion, finally reached the coast of Franz
Joseph Land, where they drearily spent the winter of 1895-96, living on
the flesh of bears and walrusses, which they shot. In the spring they
set out to cross the ice to Spitzbergen, and after two unsuccessful
attempts had the good fortune to meet Dr. Jackson on the shores of
Franz Joseph Land. The incident was one of the most notable in the
history of research, it seeming next to impossible that almost the
only human beings in the vast area of the frozen north should have
the remarkable fortune to come together. The voyagers completed their
journey home in Jackson's supply ship, the _Windward_, their arrival
in the realms of civilization being one of the most striking events of
the century. In 1897 Jackson returned, having explored and mapped Franz
Joseph Land.
[=Andrée's Fatal Balloon Venture=]
The final years of the century were very active in polar research. A
new explorer of Swedish birth, S. A. Andrée, devised a plan of reaching
the pole as original as that of Nansen, and thought by many to be more
hopeful. This was the taking advantage of the currents of air, instead
of those of water. Mr. Andrée was an aëronaut of experience, and found
it possible, by aid of a rope drag and a rubber sail, to direct the
motion of a balloon somewhat aside from the course of the wind. A
balloon seemingly suitable for his enterprise was constructed, and in
the summer of 1897 he set out for the north with two companions, and
with ardent hopes of returning successful in a few months. Unhappily,
accident or miscalculation interfered with the plans of the adventurous
aëronaut, and he and his companions have failed to return. They have
in all probability fallen victims to the terrible conditions of the
northern zone.
In 1898 Lieutenant Peary set out again for the scene of his former
triumph, now equipped for a continued effort to solve the problem of
the pole. He proposed to establish depots of provisions at successive
points in the north, and to continue the enterprise for years if
necessary, finally dashing polar-ward from his farthest north station.
In the same year the Norwegian Captain Sverdrup proceeded to the same
locality in the famous _Fram_, with purposes analogous to those of
Peary. In 1899 the adventurous Italian Prince Luigi, set out for Franz
Joseph Land, well equipped for a journey north, and proposing to devote
several years to the enterprise.
Thus there is room for hope that the pole may be reached by the end
of the nineteenth century, or before the twentieth century is many
years advanced. Meanwhile the enterprise of South Polar exploration,
long neglected, has been actively revived. Several expeditions have
recently visited that region, and active steps are being taken for its
exploration on a larger scale.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Robert Fulton, George Stephenson, and the
Triumphs of Invention.
[=Anglo-Saxon Activity in Invention=]
In no direction has the nineteenth century been more prolific than in
that of invention, and its fame in the future is likely to be largely
based on its immense achievements in this field of human activity. It
has been great in other directions,--in science, in exploration, in
political and moral development, but it is perhaps in invention and the
industrial adaptation of scientific discovery that it stands highest
and has done most for the advancement of mankind. And it is a fact of
great interest that much the most striking and important work in this
direction has been done by the Anglo-Saxon race, in many respects the
most enterprising and progressive race upon the face of the earth. For
the beginning of this work, during the eighteenth century, credit must
be given to Great Britain, and especially for the notable invention of
the steam engine, which forms the foundation stone of the whole immense
edifice. But to the development of the work, during the nineteenth
century, we must seek the United States, whose inventive activity and
the value of its results have surpassed those of any other region of
the earth.
[=James Watt and the Steam Engine=]
We cannot confine ourselves to the nineteenth century in considering
this subject, but must go back to the eighteenth, and glance at the
epoch-making discovery of James Watt, the famous Scottish engineer,
to whom we owe the great moving force of nineteenth century industry
and progress, and whose life extended until 1819, well within the
century. There exists an interesting legend that his attention was
first attracted to the power of steam when a boy, when sitting by the
fireside and observing the lid of his mother's tea-kettle lifted by
the escaping steam. It is not, however, to the discovery, but to the
useful application of steam power that his fame is due. The use of
steam as a motive power had been attempted long before, and steam pumps
used almost a century before Watt's great invention. What he did was
to produce the first effective steam engine, the parent machine upon
which the multitudinous improvements during the succeeding century were
based.
[=Nineteenth Century Invention=]
While the eighteenth century is notable for the discovery of the steam
engine and for the first stages in the production of labor-saving
machinery, the great triumphs in the latter field of invention were
made in the succeeding century, during which era the powers of human
production were developed to an extent not only unprecedented, but
almost incredible, the powers of man, aided by steam and electricity,
being increased a hundred-fold during a century of time. It would
need a volume devoted to this subject alone to tell, even in epitome,
all that has been done in this direction, and here we must confine
ourselves to a rapid review of the leading results of inventive genius.
[=Labor-saving Machinery of the Eighteenth Century=]
Both in Great Britain and in America notable triumphs in the invention
of labor-saving machines were accomplished in the closing period of
the eighteenth century. These include the famous British inventions
of the spinning jenny of James Hargreaves, the spinning frame of Sir
Richard Arkwright, and the power loom of Dr. Cartwright, the first
notable aids in cotton manufacture. These were rendered available
by the cotton-gin of Eli Whitney, the American inventor, by whose
genius the production of cotton fibre was enormously cheapened. Other
celebrated American inventors of this period were John Fitch, to whose
efforts the first practical steamboat was due, and Oliver Evans, who
revolutionized milling machinery, his devices in flour and grist mills
being in use for half a century after his death. He was also the first
to devise a steam carriage, and in 1804 built a steam dredger, which
propelled itself through the streets of Philadelphia and afterwards
was moved as a stern-wheel steamboat on the Schuylkill River. Another
famous invention of this period was the nail machine of Jacob Perkins,
patented in 1795, though not fully developed until 1810. At that time
nails were all hand-wrought, and cost twenty-five cents a pound. By
this machine the ancient hand process was speedily brought to an end
and the price of nails has since been reduced to little more than that
of the iron of which they are made. Another famous American inventor
of early date was Thomas Blanchard, the most notable of whose many
inventions was the Blanchard lathe, developed in 1819, for the turning
of irregular forms, a contrivance of the utmost value in doing away
with slow and costly methods of labor.
[=The Steamboat and Locomotive=]
Of early inventions of the nineteenth century, however, the most
notable were the steamboat and the locomotive, the later development
of which has been of extraordinary value to mankind. Previous to the
century under review, for a period of several thousand years, the horse
had been depended on for rapid land travel, the sail for rapid motion
on the water. The inventions of Fulton and Stephenson brought these
ancient systems to an end, and within a single century produced a
magical change in the ability of man to make his way over the surface
of land and sea.
The application of steam to the movement of boats had been tried by
several inventors in Great Britain and America in the eighteenth
century, the most successful being John Fitch, whose steamboat was used
for months on the Delaware about 1790. But the earliest inventor to
produce a commercially successful steamboat was Robert Fulton, another
American, whose boat, the _Clermont_, was given its trial trip on the
Hudson in 1807.
[=Fulton's Boat the "Clermont"=]
[=The First Steamboat Trip Up the Hudson=]
This boat, in which was employed the principle of the side
paddle-wheel, and which used a more powerful engine than John Fitch
could command, was completed in August, 1807, and excited a great
degree of public interest, far more than had been given to the pioneer
steamboat. Monday, September 11, 1807, the time set for sailing, came,
and expectation was at its highest pitch. The friends of the inventor
were in a state of feverish anxiety lest the enterprise should come to
grief, and the scoffers on the wharf were ready to give vent to shouts
of derision. Precisely at the hour of one the moorings were thrown off,
and the _Clermont_ moved slowly out into the stream. Volumes of smoke
rushed forth from her chimney, and her wheels, which were uncovered,
scattered the spray far behind her. The spectacle was certainly novel
to the people of those days, and some of the crowd on the wharf broke
into shouts of ridicule. Soon, however, the jeers grew silent, for
it was seen that the steamer was increasing her speed. Soon she was
fairly under way, and making a steady progress up the stream at the
rate of five miles per hour. The incredulity of the spectators had been
succeeded by astonishment, and now this feeling gave way to undisguised
delight, and cheer after cheer went up from the vast throng. In
a little while, however, the boat was observed to stop, and the
enthusiasm at once subsided. The scoffers were again in their glory,
and unhesitatingly pronounced the enterprise a failure. But to their
chagrin, the steamer, after a short delay, once more proceeded on her
way, and this time even more rapidly than before. Fulton had discovered
that the paddles were too long, and took too deep a hold on the water,
and had stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them.
This defect remedied, the _Clermont_ continued her voyage during the
rest of the day and all night, without stopping, and at one o'clock the
next day ran alongside the landing at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor
Livingston. She lay there until nine the next morning, when she
continued her voyage toward Albany, reaching that city at five in the
afternoon. On her return trip, she reached New York in thirty hours
running time--exactly five miles per hour.
[=The Effect of the Steamboat on River Men=]
The river was at this time navigated entirely with sailing vessels. The
surprise and dismay excited among the crews of these vessels by the
appearance of the steamer was extreme. These simple people beheld what
they supposed to be a huge monster, vomiting fire and smoke from its
throat, lashing the water with its fins, and shaking the river with its
roar, approaching rapidly in the face of both wind and tide. Some threw
themselves flat on the decks of their vessels, where they remained in
an agony of terror until the monster had passed, while others took to
their boats and made for the shore in dismay, leaving their vessels to
drift helplessly down the stream.
The introduction of the steamboat gave a powerful impetus to the
internal commerce of the Union. It opened to navigation many important
rivers whose swift currents had closed them to sailing craft, and made
rapid and easy communication between the most distant parts of the
country practicable. The public soon began to appreciate this, and
orders came in rapidly for steamboats for various parts of the country.
Fulton executed these as fast as possible, several among the number
being for boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
[=Development of Ocean Steamers=]
The subsequent history of this important invention need but be glanced
at here. The first steamship to cross the ocean was the _Savannah_,
which set out from the city of that name in 1819, and reached
Liverpool by the combined aid of wind and steam in twenty-eight days.
The first to cross entirely by steam power was the _Royal William_,
a Canadian-built vessel, in 1833. A year or two later the _Great
Britain_, the first iron ocean steamer--322 feet long by 31 feet
beam--crossed the ocean in fifteen days. Since then the development of
steam navigation, alike on inland and ocean waters, has been enormous,
and an extraordinary increase has been made in the size and speed of
steam vessels. Forty years ago the fastest ocean steamer took more
than nine days to cross from New York to Queenstown. This journey
can be made now in a little over five days. As regards size, the
great _Oceanic_, whose first voyage was made in 1899, surpasses any
other boat ever built. This sea-monster is 704 feet long, and has a
displacement of 28,000 tons, while it is capable of steaming around
the earth at twelve knots an hour without recoaling. Its engine power
is enormous, and its carrying capacity unprecedented. This leviathan
considerably outranks in dimensions the _Great Eastern_, the former
ocean marvel, and fitly typifies the progress of the century. As will
be remembered the _Great Eastern_ proved a failure, while the _Oceanic_
is a pronounced success.
[Illustration: GEORGE STEPHENSON.
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE.
THE INVENTORS OF THE LOCOMOTIVE AND THE ELECTRIC
TELEGRAPH
Stephenson's genius enabled men to travel 1000 miles
in a day. Morse's genius enabled men to send a message
around the world in less than one hour.]
[Illustration: EDISON PERFECTING THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH
The phonograph, one of the most wonderful discoveries
of the nineteenth century, was, in a measure, the
result of chance, that of Edison's accidently
perceiving a vibration due to an electric current. But
it was one of the chances of which only great minds
avail themselves. By its aid the words and voices of
this century may be heard ten or twenty centuries in
the future.]
Important as has been the invention of the steamboat, it is much
surpassed by that of the locomotive and the railroad, which have
increased the ease, cheapness, and rapidity of land travel and freight
transportation far more than steam navigation has increased traffic by
water. While the sailing vessel falls short of the steamship as an aid
to commerce, the difference between the two is very much less than that
between the horse and the locomotive, the iron rail and the ordinary
road, and the railroad has achieved a revolution in transportation
equal to that made by the steam engine in manufacture.
[=George Stephenson and the Locomotive=]
[=The Performance of the "Rocket"=]
The motor engine is, aside from the work of Oliver Evans, already
mentioned, solely a result of nineteenth century enterprise. The
railroad came earlier, first in the form of tramways of wood; the
earliest iron rails being laid in England about 1767. But it was
not until after 1800 that an attempt was made to replace the horse
by the steam carriage on these roads. Of those who sought to solve
this problem, George Stephenson, a poor English workingman, stands
decidedly first. While serving as fireman in a colliery, and later as
engineer, he occupied himself earnestly in the study of machinery, and
as early as 1814 constructed for the colliery a traction engine with
two cylinders. This was seated on a boiler mounted on wheels, which
were turned by means of chains connected with their axles. It drew
eight loaded cars at a speed of four miles an hour. This was a clumsy
affair, weak in power, and inefficient in service, but it was much
superior to any other engine then in use, and was improved on greatly
by his second engine, built the following year, and in which he used
the steam blast-pipe. These early engines were not much esteemed, and
the horse continued to be employed in preference, the first passenger
railroad, the Stockton and Darlington, opened in 1825, being run by
horse-power. Meanwhile Stephenson continued to work on the locomotive,
improving it year after year, until his early ventures were far
surpassed in efficiency by his later. A French engineer, M. Seguin, in
1826, successfully introduced locomotives in which improved appliances
for increasing the draught were employed. At that time, indeed,
inventors seem to have been actively engaged on this problem, and when
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, begun in 1825, offered premiums
for the best engines to be run at high speed, a number of applicants
appeared. The premium was easily won, in 1830, by Stephenson's
"Rocket," the most effective locomotive yet produced. This antediluvian
affair, as it would appear to-day, weighed only 4¼ tons, but was
able to draw a load of 17 tons at an average speed of fourteen miles an
hour, sometimes reaching seventeen miles. When run alone it attained
thirty miles an hour, to the amazement and admiration of the public.
It is to George Stephenson we owe the locomotive as an effective piece
of mechanism. "He found it inefficient," says Smiles, "and he made it
powerful, efficient and useful."
[=First American Railroads and Locomotives=]
While these events were taking place in England and France, the new
idea had taken root in America, and the inventors and engineers of the
United States set themselves to the development of the problem. Short
lines of railway, for horse traction, were laid at early dates, the
first locomotive, the "Stourbridge Lion," being imported from England
and placed on a short line at Honesdale, Pa., in 1829. The Baltimore
and Ohio, the first passenger railroad in the United States, was begun
in 1830, and on it was tried the earliest American-built locomotive,
the production of Peter Cooper, the celebrated philanthropist of later
years. This was a toy affair, with a three and a half inch cylinder,
an upright tubular boiler made of old gun barrels, and a fan blower
to increase the draught. Its weight was two and a half tons. Yet it
did not lack speed, making the run from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills,
twenty-seven miles, in an hour. But the first serviceable American
locomotive was the "Best Friend," built at West Point, N. Y., and run
on the Charleston and Hamburg Road, in South Carolina, in 1830, shortly
after Stephenson's "Rocket" had been tried. The "Best Friend" could
make more than thirty miles an hour, and could draw a train of four or
five coaches, with forty to fifty passengers, at twenty miles an hour.
It was inferior to the "Rocket," however, in design, and its career
came to a sudden end through the zeal of a negro fireman, who sat on
the safety valve to stop the escape of steam. The fireman shared the
fate of the locomotive.
[=Development of The Railroad=]
Such was the railroad as it began,--a microscopic event. To-day it
is of telescopic magnitude. At the end of 1831 there were less than
a hundred miles of railroad in the United States, and probably still
fewer elsewhere. At the end of the century this country alone had over
180,000 miles of railroad, while there were single railroad systems
with more than 8000 miles of track. In the whole world there were about
450,000 miles of road,--only two and a half times the mileage of the
United States.
[=Great Railroad Bridges=]
As for the development of the locomotive, the railroad carriage,
the track, etc., it has been enormous, and sixty miles an hour for
passenger trains is now a common speed, while the numbers of people
and tons of freight transported annually by the railroads of the
world are incredibly great. We cannot here undertake to describe the
notable feats of engineering which have carried railroads over rivers
and chasms, over mountains impassable otherwise except by sure-footed
mules, across deserts too hot and dry even for mule trains. "No heights
seem too great to-day, no valleys too deep, no cañons too forbidding,
no streams too wide; if commerce demands it the engineer will respond
and the railways will be built." The railroad bridges of the country
would make a continuous structure from New York to San Francisco, and
include many of the boldest and most original, as well as the longest
and highest, bridges in the world. The pioneer railroad suspension
bridge at Niagara Falls was as remarkable in its day for boldness and
originality as for dimensions and success. A single span of 821 feet,
supported by four cables, carried the track 245 feet above the river
that rushed beneath. The cables were supported by masonry towers,
whose slow disintegration gave occasion for an engineering feat even
more notable than the original construction of the bridge. The first
railroad bridge across the Ohio was at Steubenville, completed in 1866;
the first iron bridge over the Upper Mississippi was the Burlington
bridge of 1869. The first great bridge across the Mississippi was Eads'
magnificent structure at St. Louis, whose beautiful steel arches of
over 500 feet span each give no hint of the difficult problems that had
to be solved before a permanent bridge was possible at that point. It
was completed in 1874. Since then the great river has been frequently
bridged for railroads, while its great branch, the Missouri, has been
crossed by bridges in a dozen places.
[=The Electric Steel Railway=]
The steam railroad has been supplemented by the electric street
railway, which at the close of the century was being extended at a
highly promising rate. Passenger travel in cities by aid of the horse
railway was inaugurated about the middle of the century, the horse
beginning to be replaced by the electric motor in 1881, when the first
railway of this character was laid in Berlin. A second was laid in
Ireland in 1883. But the electric steel railway has made its greatest
progress in the United States, where the first line went into operation
at Richmond, Va., in 1888. This adopted the overhead trolly system,
since so widely employed, and the length of line had increased to over
3,000 miles in 1892 and 15,000 miles in 1897. Since that date the
progress of electric railways has been enormous, they being extended
from the cities far into the country, where they come into active
competition with the steam roads. Electric locomotives are also in use,
and the twentieth century is likely to see a development of electric
traction which will have the whole earth for its field, and may perhaps
displace the steam road, the great triumph in transportation of the
nineteenth century.
[=The Bicycle and the Automobile=]
Other recent devices for swift travel are the bicycle, which came
extraordinarily into use during the last quarter of the century, and
the automobile carriage, whose era only fairly began as the century
reached its end. It is in the direction of the latter and of aërial
travel that the twentieth century will perhaps achieve its most notable
triumphs in this field. As for the horse, man's most useful servant at
the beginning of the century, it was rapidly being displaced at the
end, and may during the century to come cease to be employed in the
service of man.
[=Marvels in Iron and Wood-working=]
The story of railroading leads naturally to that of progress in iron
and steel work generally, which has been extraordinary during the
century. Of inventions in this direction perhaps the most notable is
the Bessemer steel-making process, which converts iron into steel by
the direct addition of the necessary quantity of carbon, and has had
the important result of making steel cheaper to-day than iron was
not very many years ago. In iron-working machinery the progress has
been very great, and in no other field has the genius of the American
inventor been more conspicuously displayed. The same may be said of
wood-working machinery, in which the most clever mechanism is employed.
The result is that many articles in metal and wood, of the most varied
and useful kinds, formerly almost unattainable by the rich, are now
within the easy reach of the poor, and the comfort and convenience of
common life to-day are enormously in advance of those enjoyed by our
ancestors of a century ago.
As it is impossible to name all the inventions which conduce to this
increase in convenience, it will perhaps suffice to name one alone,
the friction match, that most useful of small contrivances, which has
relegated into the museum of antiquities the slow and clumsy flint and
steel to which the world was for centuries confined. This invention,
gradually developed in various countries, owes its cheapness largely to
the invention of an American, whose patent, taken out in 1836, first
made possible the production of phosphorus matches on a large scale.
[=Progress in Illumination and Heating=]
Mention of the friction match opens to us one broad vista of nineteenth
century progress, too great to be more than glanced at. This embraces
the replacement of wood by coal for heating purposes, the development
of the stove, the furnace, the coal-burning grate, and various
conveniences of like character. As regards the tallow candle, which
was in common use during the first third of the century, it seems
as antiquated now as the pyramids. Various kinds of oil succeeded it
as illuminants, until the discovery of petroleum set them all aside,
and gave the world one of its most useful natural products. Then came
the illuminating gas, and finally the wonderful electric light, whose
brilliant glow lighted up the threshold of the twentieth century.
Petroleum, gas and electricity are also beginning to replace coal for
heating and cooking purposes,--as coal replaced wood,--and an outlook
into the future seems to reveal to us the marvelous electric energy
performing these and a thousand other services; this energy yielded,
not as now, by costly fuel dug from the earth, but by power derived
from falling water, from moving air, from swelling tides and flowing
currents, and even from the direct light and heat of the sun.
[=Howe and the Sewing Machine=]
We cannot undertake to describe in detail the inventions of the
century, even all those of great service to mankind. A mere inventory
of these would more than fill this chapter, and we must confine
ourselves to the notable ones of American origin. Among the most
important of these may be named the sewing machine, a device gradually
approached through a century of effort, but not made workable until
a poor mechanic named Elias Howe attacked the problem, and worked it
out through years of penury and disappointment. It was the lock-stitch
and shuttle to which he owed his success, but these devices, patented
by him in 1846, were pirated by wealthy corporations, and years of
litigation were necessary before he gained his rights. He finally
obtained a royalty of five dollars for each machine made up to 1860,
and, after the renewal of his patent in that year, one dollar for each
machine. The numbers produced were sufficient to make him very wealthy,
and by the time the original patents expired, in 1877, over six million
machines had been produced and sold by American manufacturers alone.
Aside from the vast number of sewing machines now used in families,
those used in factories are estimated to give employment, throughout
the world, to over 20,000,000 women.
[=Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber=]
Another American invention of the greatest utility is that of
vulcanized India-rubber, the production of a poor man named Charles
Goodyear, who, like Howe, spent years of his life and endured
semi-starvation while persistently experimenting. Beginning in 1834,
it was 1839 before, after innumerable failures, he discovered the
secret of vulcanizing the rubber by means of sulphur. Before that date
the softening effect of heat rendered rubber practically useless, but
the vulcanized rubber produced by Goodyear was, before his death in
1860, applied to nearly five hundred purposes, and gave employment to
60,000 persons in Europe and the United States. Since then its utility
has very greatly increased, and its recent employment for bicycle and
carriage tires opens up a new field for its use which must enormously
increase the demand.
[=Morse and the Telegraph=]
Another of the famous inventions of the century, the electric
telegraph, usually attributed to Samuel Finley Morse, should really
be credited to the labors of several scientists both in Europe and
America. The merit of Morse lay, not in the discovery of the principle
of electric telegraphy, but in his simplified telegraphic alphabet,
which has nearly driven out all other devices and has made its way
throughout the world. Morse's first line, completed in 1844, was the
pioneer of a development analogous to that of the railroad. To-day
the telegraph runs over all continents and under almost all seas, the
length of the telegraph lines in the world at the end of the century
being over 5,000,000 miles, of which more than half were in America.
The telephone--the marvelous talking telegraph--invented by Alexander
Bell and developed in the final quarter of the century, now has over
half a million miles of wire in the United States.
[=The Inventions of Edison=]
The mention of the telegraph and telephone calls to our attention
one of the ablest and most prolific of American inventors, the
indefatigable Thomas Alva Edison, to whom are due important discoveries
in multiplex telegraphy--the sending of various messages at once over
a single wire--in telephony, in the incandescent electric light, and
other fields of research. Most surprising of his many discoveries is
the marvelous phonograph, by which the sounds of the human voice may be
put on permanent record, to speak again in their original tones years
or centuries hence.
Other inventors have been active in this field, and extraordinary
progress has been made in systems of telegraphy, some of the new
inventions being capable of remarkable feats in the rapid sending of
messages, while it is possible now to transmit pictures as well as
words over the telegraphic wire.
[=Marconi and Wireless Telegraphy=]
So vast, indeed, has been the advance in this field of practical
science, so many the applications and devices employed, and so
wonderful the results, that it seemed as if the powers of telegraphy
must be exhausted, when, at the very end of the century, one of its
most remarkable results was announced, as the discovery of a young
Italian named Marconi. This was the method of "wireless telegraphy,"
the sending of messages through the air without the aid of connecting
wires. This discovery, like most others, cannot be credited to
one man alone. A number of scientists were experimenting with it
simultaneously, but to Marconi is due the honor of a successful and
practical solution of the problem. It has long been known that electric
energy can produce effects through space by the influence known as
induction, in which a moving current causes a reverse current to
appear in a neighboring wire. By aid of the very powerful currents
now produced this effect may be shown at a considerable distance.
Whether the action in wireless telegraphy is the result of induction,
or of a direct passage of electricity through space, must be left for
scientists to decide, but the results are astonishing, messages having
been sent and received over distances of many miles. It is not well to
state how many miles, since the system is still in its infancy, and
before these words are read, for all that can now be affirmed to the
contrary, a message may be sent in this manner from America to Europe.
Wireless telegraphy is a combination of science and invention.
Scientifically the electric waves appear to flow out through the air
in all directions from the powerful currents employed. Mechanically a
lofty pole seems necessary, and by the aid of a directive contrivance
the waves can be sent in a fixed course. In the Marconi contrivance,
the electric waves, when received, are made to pass through a vial
containing metal filings, which are caused to cohere so as to furnish
a direct line of passage for the current. Marconi's special invention
is a small tapper which strikes the vial of filings and causes them to
fall asunder, thus breaking the current. The public at large, however,
is likely to be more interested in results than methods, and in the
system of wireless telegraphy there is promise of a development that
may supplant all existing telegraphic systems during the century upon
whose threshold we stand.
[=Labor-saving Agricultural Implements=]
In no field of effort have inventors been more active or their
results more useful than in the production of labor-saving devices in
agriculture. In these we have to do with the yield of food, the very
corner-stone of life itself, and whatever seems to increase the product
of the fields, or to cheapen the necessaries of life, is of the most
direct and immediate utility to mankind. This subject, therefore, one
of vital interest to all the farmers of our country, calls for special
notice here.
[=Early Farming Tools=]
Great inventions are not necessarily large or costly. The scythe is
a simple and inexpensive tool; yet the practical perfecting of it by
Joseph Jenks, almost at the outset of farm-life in New England, formed
an epoch-mark in agriculture. It was the beginning of a new order
of things. Putting curved fingers to the improved scythe-blade and
snath did for the harvester what had been done for the grass-cutter,
gave him an implement which doubled or trebled his efficiency at a
critical season, and furnished in the American grain cradle a farm-tool
perfect of its kind, and likely to hold its place as long as grain is
grown on uneven ground. For the great bulk of grain and grain-cutting,
the scythe and the cradle have been displaced by later American
inventions,--mowers and harvesters, operated by animal or steam
power,--still they are likely to remain forever a part of every farm's
equipment. Their utility is beyond computation.
[=The Development of the American plow=]
The plow supplied to the Colonial farmers, was as venerable as the
reaping-hook. It had been substantially unimproved for four thousand
years. The moment our people were free to manufacture for themselves,
they set about its improvement in form and material, the very first
patent granted by the National Patent Office being for an improved
plow of cast-iron. The best plow then in use was a rude affair,
clumsily made, hard to guide, and harder to draw. It had a share of
wrought iron, roughly shaped by the roadside black-smith, a landside
and standard of wood, and an ill-shaped mould-board plated with tin,
sheet iron, or worn-out saw-plates. Only a stout man could hold it,
and a yoke of oxen was needed for work that a colt can do with a
modern plow. Its improvement engaged the attention of many inventors,
notably President Jefferson, who experimented with various forms and
made a mathematical investigation of the shape of the mould-board,
to determine the form best suited for the work. He was the first to
discover the importance of straight lines from the sole to the top of
the share and mould-board. Pinckney discovered the value of a straight
line from front to rear. Jethro Wood discovered that all lines, from
front to rear, should be straight. The method of drafting the lines,
on a plane surface, in designing plows, is due to Knox. The discovery
of the importance of the centre-draught, and the practical means of
attaining it by the inclination of the landside inward, is credited
to Mears. Governor Holbrook, of New Hampshire, devised the method of
making plows of any size symmetrical, so as to ensure the complete
pulverization of the soil. Col. Randolph, Jefferson's son-in-law, "the
best farmer in Virginia," invented a side-hill plow. Smith was the
first to hitch two plows together; and Allen, by combining a number
of small plow-points in one implement, led the way to the production
of the infinite variety of horse-hoes, cultivators, and the like, for
special use. But Jethro Wood, of New York, in 1819 and after, probably
did more than any other man to perfect the cast-iron plow, and to
secure its general use in place of the cumbrous plows of the earlier
days. His skill as an inventor, and his pluck as a fighter against
stolid ignorance and prejudice, for the advancement of sensible
plowing, cost him--what they ought to have gained for him--a fortune.
The use of cast-iron plows had become general by 1825.
[=Increase of Working Power of the Farmer=]
The construction of plows has since been taken up by a multitude of
inventors, the most valuable of improvements, probably, coming through
the use of chilled iron, and the most promising from the application
of steam-power to plowing. The increase in the working power of the
farmer, from American improvements in plows, may be estimated from
the fact that two million plowmen, with as many teams, would need to
work every day in the year with the primitive plow to prepare the soil
annually under cultivation in this country. It would be impossible,
under the ancient system, to do this work within the brief plowing
season.
The era of agricultural machinery began about 1825, its earliest phase
appearing in the application of horse-power to the threshing and
cleaning of grain. Already the American tendency to seek practical
results by the simplest means, and to make high-priced labor profitable
by increasing its efficiency, had been shown in the improvement of
a wide range of farmer's tools, almost everything they had to use
being made lighter, neater, and more serviceable. The same improving,
practical sense was displayed in devising more complicated labor-saving
machines, which made it possible to do easily and directly what had
been previously difficult or quite impossible to do. Too often,
however, the early inventor was defeated by the lack of skilled labor
and proper machine tools for making his improvements commercially
successful. As soon as the mechanic arts had been sufficiently
perfected and extended--largely by American genius--the development and
production of agricultural machinery became rapid and profitable.
[=Threshing Machines and Their Performance=]
Washington had tried a sort of threshing machine as early as 1798;
and one of the first patents issued by the Patent Office was for an
improved thresher; yet the flail held the field until after 1825. In
the following twenty-five years over two hundred patents were granted
for improvements in threshers, and since then the patents have numbered
thousands. By 1840, most of the grain was threshed by horse-driven
machinery. In 1853, when a famous trial of rival threshers was held
in England, the American machine did three times as much as the best
English machine, and did it better. In a subsequent trial in France,
the average work of experts with the flail being reckoned as one,
that of the best French machine was twenty-five; of the best English
machine, forty-one; while Pitt's American machine did the work of
seventy-four. The application of steam-power greatly increased the
efficiency of threshing machines, raising the output from perhaps 2,000
bushels a day to six or seven thousand for a single machine.
[=The American Reapers and Mowers=]
Still more significant and important have been the victories of
American inventors in connection with mowers and reapers. The
circumstance that reaping by machinery is as old as the Christian
era, and that a multitude of comparatively modern attempts have been
made, particularly in England, to apply horse-power to the cutting of
grass and grain, only added to the merit of inventors like Hussey and
McCormick, who practically solved the problems involved by means so
simple and efficient that they have not been and are likely never to be
entirely displaced. Hussey's mowing machine of 1833 had reciprocating
knives working through slotted fingers, a feature not only new but
essential to all practical grass and grain cutters, except the special
type known as lawn-mowers. McCormick patented a combination reaper
and mower in 1834, which he subsequently so improved as to make it
the necessary basis of all reapers. In competitive trials at home
and abroad, the American mowers and reapers have never failed to
demonstrate their superiority over all others.
[=Harvesters and Self-binders=]
The first great victory, which gave these machines the world-wide
fame they have so successfully maintained, was won in London in 1851.
In the competitive trial near Paris, in 1855, the American machine
cut an acre of oats in twenty-two minutes; the English in sixty-six
minutes; the French in seventy-two. In the later competition, local and
international, their superior efficiency has been not less signally
manifested. By increasing the efficiency of the harvester twenty-fold
(and twice that by the self-binders), these products of American
invention have played a part second only to railroads in opening up the
West to profitable cultivation, rapidly converting a wilderness into
the granary of the world. Devices for binding grain as it was cut began
to be developed about 1855. The first machine used wire binders; the
later twine. The combination of reapers and threshers in one machine
has been most largely developed in California. The largest in use there
weighs eight tons; and, pushed by thirty mules, cuts a swath twenty-two
feet wide and eighteen miles long in a day--over forty-eight acres,
yielding about as many tons of wheat, which is cut, threshed, cleaned
and deposited in 700 sacks. The machine employs a driver, a shearer, a
knife-tender, and a sack-lowerer--four men, costing eight dollars a day
for wages.
[=The Great Variety of Agricultural Implements=]
Less important individually, yet in the aggregate of incalculable
assistance to agriculture, have been a multitude of American inventions
intended to expedite and lighten the farmer's work--stump and stone
extractors for clearing the ground, ditching machines for drainage
systems, fencing devices, particularly the barbed wire fence, special
plows for breaking up new ground, harrows of many types, seeders,
planters, cultivators, horse rakes, hay tedders and hay loaders, potato
and rock diggers, corn huskers and shellers, cotton pickers, and
countless other labor-saving tools and devices. In most cases these
improved appliances enable one man to do easily the work of several
working with primitive tools. With the help of machine planters and
seeders the farmer's work is made at least five times more efficient;
with cultivators, ten times; with potato diggers, twenty; with
harrowers, thirty; with mowers and harvesters, from twenty to fifty;
with corn huskers and shellers, a hundred. The latest cotton harvester,
employing a team, a driver, and a helper, does the work of forty
hand-pickers.
These agricultural machines, by greatly cheapening all food products,
have had a wider influence, probably, than any other group of
American inventions. In connection with improvements in means of
transportation--largely of American origin--they have changed the food
conditions of half the world, making food more abundant, more varied,
more wholesome, more secure, and vastly cheaper than ever before. At
the same time they have lightened the farmer's labor, shortened his
hours of toil, increased his gains, and quite transformed his social
and industrial position.
[=Productive Activity of the Nineteenth Century=]
The marvelous evolution in the nineteenth century, of which we have
mentioned only some of the more notable particulars, the whole story
being far too voluminous to deal with here, has had the result of
immensely increasing the wealth of the world and the cheapness and
rapid distribution of products, and of placing within the ready control
of mankind hundreds of articles of art and utility scarcely dreamed
of a century ago. In textile production, in metal working, in the
making of furniture, clothing and other articles of ordinary use, in
heating and illumination, in travel and transportation of goods, farm
operations, engineering, mining and excavation, and the production
of the tools of peace and the weapons of war, in ways, indeed, too
numerous to mention, the inventive activity and the industrial energy
of the nineteenth century have added enormously to the variety and
abundance of useful objects at man's disposal, increased his wealth to
an extraordinary extent, and enabled him to move over land and sea with
marvelous ease and speed, and to send information around the world with
a rapidity that almost annihilates time and space.
[=Commerce of the United States=]
Not the least among the results of modern mechanical progress is
the vast development in commerce, and particularly in that of the
Anglo-Saxon people--the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United
States--the commercial enterprise of which countries is nowhere else
equalled. The ocean commerce of the United States, for instance,
has nearly doubled within thirty years, and now amounts to nearly
$2,000,000,000 worth of goods annually, two-thirds of which are
articles of export. But this great sum is far from indicating the
actual commerce of this country, since it is greatly surpassed by its
interior commerce, the movement of goods by aid of river, canal, and
railroad from part to part of the vast area of the United States, the
extent of which commerce it is impossible even to estimate.
[=Wealth and its Sources=]
The statement of a single fact will suffice to put in striking
prominence the result of this in increasing the value of property
and the wealth of the people of this country. In the year 1801, the
opening year of the century, the ideas entertained of riches differed
remarkably from what they do now. At that time it is doubtful if there
was a person in this country worth more than a quarter million of
dollars. Thirty years afterwards, Stephen Girard, with an estate of
about nine million dollars, was looked upon as a prodigy of wealth, and
his reputation as a man of immense riches spread round the world. In
1900, the closing year of the century, there were single estates worth
more than two hundred million dollars, and the number of millionairs
in the United States could be counted by the hundreds. As regards the
largest estates possessed in 1801, there are thousands among us with
greater wealth to-day, while the general average of property possessed
by our citizens has very greatly advanced.
If it be asked in what this wealth consists, it may be said that
the railroad property of the country alone suffices to account for
a considerable proportion of it. The assets of the railroads of the
United States are valued at over $12,000,000,000, and the annual
profits of their business amounts to a very great sum. Another immense
source of wealth is the landed property of the United States, the
annual product of which alone is worth over $3,000,000,000. A third
great element of wealth consists in the dwellings and other buildings
of cities and towns; and a fourth in the buildings and machinery of
manufacturing enterprises, whose annual products alone are valued at
more than $10,000,000,000. It will suffice here to name a fifth great
source of wealth, our mines and their productions, particularly those
of coal, iron and precious metals. The annual yield of coal alone is
worth more than $200,000,000; that of iron more than $90,000,000; those
of gold and silver more than $100,000,000. To these may be added an
annual production of nearly $60,000,000 worth of copper, and as much
of petroleum and its products--each of which nearly equals gold in
value,--$12,000,000 worth of lead, and large values of other minerals;
the grand total being over $750,000,000.
[=Expansion of Values During the Century=]
If these figures should be extended to cover the world, the total
sum of values would be something astounding. What we are principally
concerned with here is the fact that this vast total of wealth is
very largely the result of nineteenth century enterprise, and mainly
as applied in Europe and the northern section of North America. What
the percentage of increase in value has been it is quite impossible
to state, but the wealth of the world as a whole is probably more
than double what it was a century ago, while that of such expanding
countries as the United States has increased in a vastly greater
proportion. That this growth in wealth will go on during the twentieth
century cannot be doubted, but that the proportionate rate of increase
will equal that of the century now at its end may well be questioned,
the inventive activity and application of nature's forces within this
century having reached a development which seems to preclude as great a
future rate of progress. The nineteenth may, therefore, perhaps remain
the banner century in material progress.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Evolution in Industry and the Revolt
Against Capital.
Industry in the past centuries was a strikingly different thing from
what it has been in the recent period. For a century it has been
passing through a great process of evolution, which has by no means
reached its culmination, and whose final outcome no man can safely
predict.
[=The Conditions of Mediæval Industry=]
For a long period during the mediæval and the subsequent centuries
industry existed in a stable condition, or one whose changes were
few and none of them revolutionary. Manufacture was in a large sense
individual. The great hive of industry known as a factory did not
exist, workshops being small and every expert mechanic able to conduct
business as a master. Employees were mainly apprentices, each of whom
expected to become a master mechanic, or, if he chose to work for a
master, did so with an independence that no longer exists. The workshop
was usually a portion of the dwelling, where the master worked with his
apprentices, teaching them the whole art and mystery of his craft, and
giving them knowledge of a complete trade, not of a minor portion of
one as in our day.
The trade-union had its prototype in the guild. But this was in no
sense a combination of labor for protection against capital, but of
master workmen to protect their calling from being swamped by invasion
from without. In truth, when we go back into the past centuries, it is
to find ourselves in another world of labor, radically different from
that which surrounds us to-day.
[=The Cause of the Revolution in the Labor System=]
It was the steam-engine that precipitated the revolution. This great
invention rendered possible labor-saving machinery. From working
directly upon the material, men began to work indirectly through the
medium of machines. As a result the old household industries rapidly
disappeared. Engines and machines needed special buildings to contain
them and large sums of money to purchase them, the separation of
capital and labor began, and the nineteenth century opened with the
factory system fully launched upon the world.
[=Present Aspect of the Labor Question=]
The century with which we are concerned is the one of vast
accumulations of capital in single hands or under the control of
companies, the concentration of labor in factories and workshops,
the extraordinary development of labor-saving machines, the growth
of monopolies on the one hand and of labor unions on the other, the
revolt of labor against the tyranny of capital, the battle for shorter
hours and higher wages, the coming of woman into the labor field as
a rival of man, the development of economic theories and industrial
organizations, and in still other ways the growth of a state of affairs
in the world of industry that had no counterpart in the past, and
which we hope may not extend far into the future, since it involves a
condition of anarchy, injustice, and violence that is certainly not
calculated to advance the interests of mankind.
[=A Revolution In Industry=]
In past times wealth was largely accumulated in the hands of the
nobility, who had no thought of using it productively. Such of it
as lay under the control of the commonalty was applied mainly for
commercial purposes and in usury, and comparatively little was used in
manufacture. This state of affairs came somewhat suddenly to an end
with the invention of the steam-engine and of labor-saving machinery.
Capital was largely diverted to purposes of manufacture, wealth grew
rapidly as a result of the new methods of production, the making of
articles cheaply required costly plants in buildings and machinery
which put it beyond the reach of the ordinary artisan, the old
individuality in labor disappeared, the number of employers largely
diminished and that of employees increased, and the mediæval guild
vanished, the workmen finding themselves exposed to a state of affairs
unlike that for which their old organizations were devised.
A radically new condition of industrial affairs had come, and the
industrial class was not prepared to meet it. Everywhere the employers
became supreme and the men were at their mercy. Labor was dismayed.
Its unions lost their industrial character and resumed their original
form of purely benevolent associations. Such was the state of affairs
in the early years of the nineteenth century. Industry was in a stage
of transition, and inevitably suffered from the change. It was only
at a later date that the idea of mutual aid in industry revived,
and the trade union--a new form of association adapted to the new
situation--arose as the lineal successor of the old society of artisans.
[=The Trade Union=]
The trade union resembles the old industrial association in general
character, and in modes of action, but is much more extensive and
concentrated in organization and far-seeing in management, in
accordance with the vast expansion of industries and the changed
relations of the workingman. The new form of association was not
welcomed by the employers, who scented danger afar. They attacked it in
the press, in the legislature, and by every means at their command. But
the trade union had come to stay, hostile legislation failed to destroy
it, and the opposition of employers to check its growth. It slowly,
but steadily advanced, increased in strength and unity of purpose,
gained legislative recognition, and in time became a legally protected
institution and one of the powerful forces in modern industry.
The trade union had its origin in England, in which country the modern
conditions of industry rapidly gained a great development. It appeared
in a crude form near the end of the eighteenth century, one of the
earliest societies known being the "Institution," established by
the cloth-workers of Halifax in 1796. Many other unions were formed
during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, in spite of
persecution and attempts at repression. It was not until 1825, however,
that they gained legal recognition, and not until 1871 that they
obtained permanent protection for their property and funds. Some of the
earlier unions still survive, though many changes have taken place in
their constitution.
[=Progress and Purpose of the Unions=]
In 1850 a new departure was taken, in the formation of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers, one of the most perfect types of a trade union
in the world. It is organized for the mutual benefit of its members as
well as for protection against oppression by employers, and the annual
tax upon its members for various purposes amounts to as much as $15.00
per year, often more. Others of the same character followed, and in
all there are about 2,000 trade unions in Great Britain and Ireland,
with a membership of nearly 2,250,000, and an annual income of about
$10,000,000.
The purposes of the union are various. The mutual aid and benefit
feature is secondary to the protective purpose, which is to secure the
most favorable conditions of labor that can be obtained. This includes
efforts to raise wages and to prevent their fall, reduction of hours of
labor and prevention of their increase, the regulation of apprentices,
overtime, piecework, and many other difficulties which arise in the
complicated relations of labor and capital.
It is generally acknowledged that the trade union has reached its
highest state of organization and power in Great Britain, and that the
British workman, in consequence, controls the situation more fully
than in any other country. This form of organization has only of late
years appeared on the continent of Europe, freedom to combine have been
denied to workmen in most countries until late in the century. There
are excellent unions in the Australian colonies, both these and those
of the mother country being superior in organization and influence
to the trade unions of the United States, though those of the latter
country have gained much in power and cohesion in recent years.
[Illustration: THE HERO OF THE STRIKE, COAL CREEK, TENN.
In 1892 a period of great labor agitation began,
lasting for several years, One of the most heroic
figures of those troublous times is Colonel Anderson,
under a flag of truce, meeting the infuriated miners
at Coal Creek.]
[Illustration: ARBITRATION
The relations of capital and labor--mutually
dependent the one upon the other--both selfish and
often unjust--have caused serious trouble in the past
decade of the world's history. Fair and equitable
arbitration seems to be the only safe and just way of
settling disputes of this character.]
[=The International Workingmen's Association=]
The first great combination of all trades was the International
Workingmen's Association, founded in London in 1847, and intended to
combine the industrial classes throughout Europe. Dr. Karl Marx gave
it a definite organization on the continent in 1864, but it was there
warped widely from its original purpose, became a field for anarchists,
and came to an end in 1872. In the United States a general organization
called the Knights of Labor was formed in 1869, and at one time had a
membership of a million, but has now greatly decreased, being largely
replaced by the American Federation of Labor, an association of trade
unions of very large membership. Of single trade organizations probably
the most powerful in this country is the Brotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners, with more than 60,000 members. The International Typographical
Union, the oldest in America, has a membership of over 40,000, and
there are many others of great strength.
The weapon of offense with which the labor organization seeks to gain
its ends is the strike, in which the artisans quit work for the purpose
of forcing employers to grant their demands, and endeavor to prevent
others from taking their place. The reverse of this is the lock-out, an
expedient adopted by capitalists for the purpose of obliging workmen to
yield to their demands.
[=The System of the Strike=]
[=Great American Strikes=]
During the century under consideration strikes have been very numerous
both in England and America, many of them of great dimensions and
serious results. It must suffice to speak of some of the more important
of those within the United States. In 1803 occurred a strike of sailors
in New York, often spoken of as the first strike in this country,
though there seem to have been several in the preceding century.
A strike of Philadelphia shoemakers took place in 1805 and one of
New York cordwainers in 1809, while as time went on strikes became
frequent, with varying results of success and failure. Violence was
at times resorted to, and in the early days strikers were tried for
conspiracy. As population increased and labor associations became
stronger, strikes grew greatly in dimensions, and were frequently
attended with bloodshed and destruction. Such was the case with the
famous railroad strike of 1877, which interrupted traffic over great
part of the country for a week, and resulted in acts of sanguinary
violence at Pittsburg. There a lawless mob joined the strikers, the
militia were attacked and lives were lost, and the railroad buildings
and cars were burned, the total loss being estimated at $5,000,000. The
coal miners of Pennsylvania joined the strike, and in all about 150,000
men stopped work.
Since that date strikes have been very numerous and some of them of
great proportions. Among these, one of the most notable was that
which began in Chicago on May 1, 1886, in which fully 40,000 men took
part. On the 4th, when the disorder was at its height, a meeting of
Anarchists was held, in the streets, which the police attempted to
disperse on account of the violent and threatening language used.
While doing so a dynamite bomb was thrown in their midst, which killed
several and wounded about sixty of the officers. This action was
denounced by workingmen throughout the country and excited general
horror and detestation.
Another serious strike took place at the Carnegie Steel-Works, at
Homestead, Pa., in 1892, which was also attended with bloodshed, the
workmen firing on a force of detectives hired to protect the works.
The disturbance became so great that the whole military force of
Pennsylvania had to be called out. Two years afterwards Chicago was
the scene of a great railroad strike, directed against the Pullman Car
Works of that city. The movement of trains was greatly interfered with,
and in the end President Cleveland sent United States troops to Chicago
to maintain order and protect the movement of the mails.
[=Arbitration and Profit Sharing=]
That the difficulty between capital and labor will ever be settled
by the strike and the lock-out cannot be expected, though these
methods of warfare have had the effect of producing some degree of
wholesome fear on both sides, and of rendering each more likely to
offer concessions than to indulge in a costly and doubtful strife. A
disposition to replace violent measures by peaceful arbitration is
growing up, while in some instances employers have agreed to share a
portion of their profits with their employees. This system of profit
sharing, originating in France, has been extended to other countries,
and appears to have proved very generally successful. Workmen act as if
they were real partners in the business, and had their own interests to
serve. They do more and better work, and are more careful in the use
of tools and materials, so that in some instances the increased profit
arising from their carefulness and diligence has covered their share
of the proceeds, leaving that of their employers undiminished. Strikes
have almost ceased to exist in such institutions, and the future of
profit-sharing is full of promise.
[=Experiments and Theories in Economics=]
But expedients which leave the existing system practically unchanged
can have only a temporary and partial utility. The cause of the
difficulty appears to lie deeper and to call for more radical changes.
It is not easy to believe that a system of perpetual protest and
frequent strife is a natural one, and it seems as if it must in the
future be replaced by some more peaceful and satisfactory relation
between capital and labor. During the nineteenth century the labor
problem has given rise to a number of experiments and theories looking
towards its solution, an account of which is here in place.
The chief of the experiments alluded to is that of co-operation, the
association of workingmen as producers, a democratic organization of
labor calculated, if successfully instituted, to bring the present
system to an end, and replace it by one in which the division into
employer and employee, capitalist and artisan, will cease to exist,
each workman embracing both of these in his single person, the combined
property of the group representing the capital of the concern and the
profits being equitably divided. This seemingly promising solution
of the problem has not hitherto proved satisfactory in practice. In
most cases experience and skill in management have been wanting, and
the placing of ambitious and influential members of the association
in the positions of business manager and financier, regardless of
their adaptation to these duties, has wrecked more than one promising
co-operative concern.
[=Co-operative Associations=]
But while most of such manufacturing associations of workingmen have
failed, some have succeeded, and the story of the latter seems to
show that there is nothing false in the principle, the failure being
due to the results of injudicious management, as above indicated.
The successful associations have accumulated large capital, pay good
dividends, and are noted for the honesty of their operations and
the unusual industry of their members, each of whom feels that the
profit from increased or superior product will come to himself. Of
co-operative institutions now in existence, the most famous is that
of the Rochdale Pioneers, founded at Rochdale, England, in 1844. This
association, organized by twenty-eight poor weavers with a capital of
twenty-eight pounds, at first as a distributive enterprise, is now
a rich and flourishing institution, which adds manufacturing to its
distributive interests.
At first these poor pioneers, who had very slowly collected their small
capital of one pound each, opened a store to supply themselves with
provisions, having only four articles to sell--flour, butter, sugar and
oatmeal. They limited interest on shares to five per cent., and divided
profits among members in proportion to their purchases, a system which
proved highly advantageous. From the first this organization was
successful, and by 1857 it had 1,850 members, a capital of £15,000, and
annual sales of £80,000. Since then its growth has continued rapid, and
it is now in a high state of prosperity.
There were co-operative societies in Great Britain long before the date
of this, and many have been started since, nearly all of them being
in the form of co-operative stores, of which the Army and Navy Stores
are among the most flourishing. There are now in that country probably
over 1,500 of these associations, with a million of members, a capital
of more than £10,000,000, and profits of over £3,000,000 annually. In
1864 there was founded at Manchester a Wholesale Society to supply
goods to these stores, and a second at Glasgow in 1869--the two being
now practically one institution. This society purchases and forwards
goods, and owns a number of steamships of its own, which traffic with
cities on the continent. Its manufacturing industries are also large,
including boot and shoe factories at Leicester, soap works at Durham,
woolen-cloth mills at Batley, and other factories elsewhere. There are
in addition mills and factories carried on by retail societies, the
annual production by these associations being probably considerably
over £5,000,000. It will be perceived from the above statement that the
workmen's co-operative enterprises in Great Britain comprise one of
the important institutions of the country, one that has become firmly
established during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and may
grow enormously in importance during the twentieth. It is likely to
play a prominent part in the solution of the labor question.
[=Co-operation in Europe and the United States=]
In no other country has this form of association flourished. In
France profit-sharing has made a much greater progress, and ordinary
co-operation has met with slight success. In Germany and Austria
co-operation has taken the form of people's banks. These originated in
1849 at the little town of Delitzsch, in Saxony, and have flourished
greatly, there being several thousand societies in the German states,
with probably two million members and a very large business. There
are also in Germany a considerable number of productive associations
and co-operative dairies, while the latter have greatly flourished in
Denmark. In Italy the people's banks have made marked progress, and
there are several hundred co-operative dairies, bakeries and other
enterprises.
Co-operation has made no decided progress in the United States, it
being most developed in New England, where it takes the form of
associations of fishermen, of creameries and banks. In Philadelphia
co-operative building societies have provided workmen with more
than 100,000 homes. The co-operative store has not flourished, and
associated manufacture has made little progress, though profit-sharing
has been introduced into many large stores and factories.
[=The Theories of Socialism and Anarchism=]
Such is the status of the experimental development in associated
manufacturing and distributive enterprise. The theoretical phase of
this question has gone much further, and has given rise to an extensive
popular movement whose final outcome it is not easy to predict. This
is really, in its way, an extension of the co-operative idea, being
an attempt to make co-operation national, the entire nation becoming
one great co-operative association, and the functions of government
being extended to cover production and distribution of the necessaries
of life, in addition to its present duties. This theory is most
commonly known as Socialism, though also entitled Nationalism and
Collectivism. Its main purpose is industrial reform, but it seeks
to produce by political means what the trade union has attempted to
do by non-political agitation. An opposite doctrine, which has many
adherents, is known as Anarchism, whose platform contemplates the
overthrow of existing institutions and the rebuilding of society
from its elements upon the basis of local grouping. This doctrine
has attracted to itself much of the ignorant and violent element of
the European populations, and has been seriously discredited by the
outrages committed by its members. Prominent examples of these were
the massacre of the police in Chicago, already mentioned, the excesses
of the Commune in Paris, and the acts of violence of the Russian
Nihilists. The theory itself is philosophical, even if impracticable,
and has been advocated by a number of able men who cannot be charged
with its excesses.
[=Communistic Societies=]
Returning to the doctrines of Socialism, it may be said that it was
preceded by the conception of Communism, or equal distribution of the
proceeds of labor among the members of a community. This has long since
passed from the stage of belief to that of experiment, many Communistic
societies having been founded in both ancient and modern times. The
Essenes, prominent in Palestine in the time of Christ, were one of the
ancient examples. In modern times the United States has been a favorite
field for the founding of Communistic societies, probably from the
reason that they were less likely to come into conflict with existing
institutions than in Europe.
The best known of those societies of a religious character comprise
the Dunkers, founded at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in 1713; the Harmony
Society, established in 1824, and still in existence at Economy, near
Pittsburg; the Separatist Community, established at Zoar, Ohio, in
1817; the Shakers, first organized at Watervliet, N. Y., in 1774; and
the Perfectionists, founded by John H. Noyes, at Putney, Vermont, in
1837. Several others, less well known, might be named, but it must be
said that the persistence of several of these organizations has been
mainly due to the religious enthusiasm of their members, and is in no
sense a proof of the economic correctness of their principle. Many of
them require celibacy of their members, while the Perfectionist Society
practiced free love until broken up by the strong disapproval of the
community.
[=Secular Communistic Experiments=]
In addition to these religious experiments in Communism, a number
of secular communistic societies have been founded in this country.
Prominent among these was that established by Robert Owen, in 1824,
at New Harmony, Indiana. Every effort was made to promote the success
of this enterprise, and ten other communities on the same principle
were organized elsewhere, but they all failed in a few years, and the
Owenite movement came to an end in this country by 1832.
A second example was the celebrated Brook Farm enterprise, first
suggested by Dr. Channing, and founded at West Roxbury, Mass., in 1841.
It included the most remarkable group of men and women ever embraced
in such an undertaking, among its members being Emerson, Hawthorne,
Dana, Ripley, Alcott, and other well known literary men. Its business
management was anything but practical, and it came to an end in 1847.
The form of community suggested by Fourier, the French theorist, was
abundantly tried in the United States, where thirty-three communities
or "phalanxes" were founded in the years 1842-53. They had all failed
by 1855.
The result of these efforts to establish societies where everything
shall be in common between the members, of which hundreds have been
founded and none persisted for more than a few years, except where
sustained by religious fanaticism, does not speak well for the
practical nature of communism. The mass of the people have always
kept away from it, and its abrogation of the principle of personal
reward for personal effort seems likely to prevent its ever becoming
successful.
[=Development of Socialism=]
Socialism was originally similar to Communism, but as now understood
and advocated differs essentially from it, since the principle of equal
division of property or products is no longer maintained. Nationalism,
or the ownership of all productive property and all manufactures and
their products by the nation, with the complete distribution of profits
among the people, on the basis of the value to the community of the
labor or service of each person, is the existing form of Socialism.
Originated and developed within the nineteenth century, it has now
become one of the prominent social and political movements of the age,
and some brief description of it is here in order.
France is the birth place of Socialism in its primary form. Two
writers, Mably and Morelly, advanced a scheme for a communistic
reorganization of society about the middle of the eighteenth century,
and in 1796 a communistic conspiracy to revolutionize the government,
organized by a man named Babeuf, at the head of a society called the
Equals, was discovered and suppressed. Later arose Robert Owen in
England, with his communistic scheme, and St. Simon and Fourier in
France, whose plans were only in part communistic. A more properly
Socialistic movement was attempted by Louis Blanc in Paris during the
revolution of 1848, when national workshops for the industrial classes
of France were established. In Paris 150,000 workmen were employed
in these shops, but they were closed after a brief trial. Their
failure, it is claimed, was largely the result of bad management. Of
recent English Socialistic movements may be named that of Maurice and
Kingsley, the originators of Christian Socialism, which continues to
exercise an important influence.
[=Lasalle and Karl Marx=]
After 1850 the socialistic movement temporarily declined in France and
Great Britain, but it gained a great impetus in Germany, under the
teachings of certain able and skillful advocates. German Socialism
first became active in 1863, through the efforts of Ferdinand Lasalle,
though it had earlier supporters. He proposed to establish a German
workman's republic, with himself as president; but ended his career
in the following year, being killed in a duel. After his death his
system of "social democracy" fell under the control of the notable
Karl Marx, a writer of original genius, to whom Socialism as it exists
to-day is largely due. The International Association of Workingmen, as
reorganized by him in 1864, changed its purpose from an industrial to
a political one, and soon became a threatening compound of dangerous
elements. It was socialistic in aim, having, below its declared purpose
of the protection and emancipation of the working classes, schemes for
the abolition of the wages system, the state control of all property,
and the grading of compensation for labor on the basis of time
occupied, instead of on the more logical basis of ability and industry
shown and value of product.
[=The Literature of Socialism=]
Karl Marx's famous work "Capital," is the ablest and most logical
exposition of the socialistic theory yet produced, and has exerted
a powerful influence on recent thought. It set in motion a great
political and social movement which has grown with extraordinary
rapidity, in spite of repressive laws against it, and has given rise
to a large number of volumes dealing with the subject, some of which
have had a phenomenal sale. The popular little volume entitled "Merrie
England" is said to have sold to the number of considerably more than a
million copies, while Bellamy's "Looking Backward," which advocates a
communistic organization of society, has had a sale of several hundred
thousands.
[=Growth of the Socialist Party in Germany=]
In recent years Socialism has spread upward from the working classes
and gained many advocates among the leaders of thought. It has had a
considerable development in all western Europe, and particularly in
Germany, in which country the Socialists form a powerful political
party, which as early as 1887 polled eleven per cent. of the total
vote, and gained a considerable membership in the Reichstag. By 1890
its vote had so largely increased that liberalism obtained a majority
in the Reichstag. At the end of the century the Social Democrat party
had 56 members in the Reichstag as contrasted with 54 members of the
German Conservatives. The remainder of the 396 members were divided
among a number of parties, the Clericals or Centre being the strongest,
with 104 members. As will be seen from these figures, Socialism has
made a remarkable advance in that country, having within less than
forty years become a power in Parliament. The time may come in the
near future when it will be the controlling party in legislature and
government.
[=The Populist Party in the United States=]
In the United States Socialism has grown with less rapidity, yet within
recent years it has sprung into political importance in the rapid
growth of the Populist party, organized in 1892. This new organization
gained five senators and eleven representatives in Congress in the year
of its origin. In 1896, while its success was no greater, it had the
striking effect of gaining the adhesion of the Democratic party, not
only to the Free Silver plank in its platform, but to some of its more
socialistic features. There are probably very many citizens of this
country of strongly socialistic views who are opposed to the radical
measures advocated by the Populists, and the real strength of Socialism
in the United States may be much greater than is commonly supposed. It
is shown in other directions than that of party affiliation, and at the
end of the century was particularly indicated in the movement for the
municipal ownership of street railways, gas works, and other forms of
what are known as public utilities. This movement has gone farther in
Europe than in this country, several nations owning their railway and
telegraph plants, while municipal control of street railways and other
public utilities is becoming general. In short, it would be difficult
to point to a popular movement in the history of the world that has
made a more rapid and substantial advance than has Socialism within the
past forty years.
[=The Development of the Trust=]
As the nineteenth century approached its end a new element in the
economic situation, which had been displaying itself in some measure
for a considerable number of years, suddenly assumed a striking
prominence in the United States, and remarkably transformed the
industrial situation. This was the element of the combination of
distributive and manufacturing enterprises, shown at first in the
growth of the department stores and the pooling of manufacturing
interests, and later in the formation of trusts and monopolies,
powerful corporations of industrial interests, which assumed gigantic
proportions in 1898 and the succeeding years.
Several of these great organizations, absorbing all the factories or
plants of the special trades concerned into single vast corporations,
have been in existence for years. Most prominent of these are the Sugar
Trust and the Standard Oil Company, which have eliminated the element
of competition from those industries and accumulated their profits in
the hands of a few great capitalists.
The complete control of important productive interests gained by these
groups of capitalists has instigated those connected with other lines
of production to similar methods, and the formation of trusts has
gone on at an accelerating ratio, until all the great and many of the
minor industries of the country have formed trust organizations, while
a large number of establishments have been closed, and thousands of
workmen and other employees dismissed.
[=Probable Effect of Trusts=]
The result of all this has been to produce a state of affairs in which
competition, so long considered the life of trade, is practically
eliminated from many branches of industry, while the opportunities for
individual enterprise, which have been active for so many centuries,
have in great part vanished. An economic situation seems at hand in
which the mass of the community will be obliged to assume the position
of employees, the class of employers being reduced to a few very rich
men, absorbing the profits of industry and holding the remainder of the
community in a condition of galling servitude.
[=To What the Trust Must Lead=]
Such an undesirable condition of industrial affairs as is here
threatened has naturally aroused a strong feeling of opposition, and
the forces of the community are being marshalled to prevent such a
radical revolution in industry. Just how the brake is to be applied is
not clear. It is not easy to prevent capital from pooling its forces,
and legislation may fail to find a remedy which will reach the root
of the disease. Yet a cure must come, in one way or the other--the
trust movement being either reversed or carried forward to its logical
conclusion. It is being widely recognized and acknowledged, even
by some of the trust potentates themselves, that the movement thus
inaugurated is likely to hasten the advent of socialistic institutions.
The abolition of individual enterprise under the trust must eventually
become almost as extreme as it would be in a socialistic community, and
if the trust movement continues the principal objection to socialism
will be removed. It must be evident to all that the tyranny of a group
of irresponsible and grasping capitalists, ambitious to obtain enormous
wealth, will be much greater than that of officials chosen as the
servants of the people, and subject to removal at their will, can ever
become.
[=An Industrial Revolution=]
The Roman despot wished that all the Roman people had but one neck,
that he might cut it off with a single blow. Capital is in a measure
reducing itself to this condition, and the people may in time cut off
its head in a similar manner. It is easier to deal with the few than
with the many, and the relation into which capital and labor has now
come can have, sooner or later, only one or the other of two endings.
As above said, the evolution now in operation must go forward or go
backward; go backward until the former state of affairs is regained, or
go forward until industrial slavery grows complete, in which case the
people will, in the end, inevitably rebel. It is impossible for such
a movement to stop half way, one result or the other must inevitably
come, either a return to individualism or a progress to collectivism.
Which it shall be depends upon the people themselves. The power is in
their hands the moment they elect to cast aside their differences and
act in concert, and the presence of a great danger or an intolerable
situation is the one thing to bring them to this common action. In
such a case it will rest with themselves which status of industry
they prefer, the old state of individualism and competition or a new
state of collectivism and industrial alliance. Though it is but dimly
recognized, the world of industry is in the throes of a revolution, the
final result of nineteenth century development, and it must be left for
the twentieth century to decide what the outcome of this revolution is
to be.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Charles Darwin and the Development of Science.
[=Progress of Scientific Discovery in the Past=]
Science by no means belongs to the nineteenth century. It has been
extant upon the earth ever since man began to observe and consider the
marvels of the universe. We can trace it back to an age possibly ten
thousand years remote, when men began to watch and record the movements
of the stars in the heavens above the broad Babylonian plain. It grew
active among the Greeks of Alexandria in that too brief period before
the hand of war checked for centuries the progress of mankind. It rose
again in Europe during the mediæval period, and became active during
the later centuries of this period. In the centuries immediately
preceding the nineteenth numbers of great scientists arose, and many
highly important discoveries were made, while theoretical science
achieved a remarkable progress, its ranks being adorned by such names
as those of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and various others of
world-wide fame that might be given. Thus at the dawn of the nineteenth
century there existed a great groundwork of scientific facts and
theories upon which to build the massive future edifice.
[=Scientific Activity of the Nineteenth Century=]
This building has been going on with extraordinary rapidity during the
present century, and to-day our knowledge of the facts of science is
immensely greater than that of our predecessors of a century ago; while
of the views entertained and theories promulgated previous to 1800, the
great sum have been thrown overboard and replaced by others founded
upon a much wider and deeper knowledge of facts.
New and important theoretical views of science have been reached in
all departments. Recent chemistry, for instance, is a very different
thing from the chemistry of a century ago. Geology has been largely
transformed within the century. Heat, once supposed to be a substance,
is now known to be a motion; light, formerly thought to be a direct
motion of particles, is now believed to be a wave motion; new and
important conceptions have been reached concerning electricity and
magnetism; and our knowledge of the various sciences that have to
do with the world of life is extraordinarily advanced. As for the
practical applications of science, it may suffice to present the
startling fact that the substance of the atmosphere, scarcely known
a century ago, can now be reduced to a liquid and carried about like
water in a bucket.
In view of the facts here briefly stated it might almost be said that
science, as it exists to-day, is a result of nineteenth century thought
and observation; since that of the past was largely theoretical and
the bulk of its theories have been set aside, while the scientific
observations of former times were but a drop in the bucket as compared
with the vast multitude of those of the past hundred years. As regards
the utilization of scientific facts, their application to the benefit
of mankind, this is almost solely the work of the century under review,
and in no direction has invention produced more wonderful and useful
results.
[=Wallace's "Wonderful Century"=]
[=Epoch-Making Discoveries of Past Times=]
Alfred Russell Wallace, one of the most distinguished scientists of
recent times, in his work entitled "The Wonderful Century," has made
a careful inventory of the discoveries and inventions to which the
progress of mankind is mainly due, and he divides them into two groups,
the first embracing all the epoch-making discoveries achieved by men
previous to the present century, and the second taking in the steps of
progress of equal importance which have been made in the nineteenth
century. In the first list he finds only fifteen items of the highest
rank, and the claims of some even of these to a separate place are
not beyond question, since they may not really be of epoch-making
character. He puts first in the list the following, viz.: Alphabetic
writing and the Arabic notation, which have always been powerful
engines of knowledge and discovery. Their inventors are unknown, lost
in the dim twilight of prehistoric times. As the third great discovery
of ancient times he names the development of geometry. Coming after a
vast interval to the fourteenth century A. D., we find the mariner's
compass, and in the fifteenth the printing press, both of which beyond
question are of the same character and rank as alphabetic writing. From
the sixteenth century we get no physical invention or discovery of
leading importance, but it witnessed an amazing movement of the human
mind, which in good time gave rise to the great catalogue of advances
of the seventeenth century. To this he credits the invention of the
telescope, and, though not of equal rank, the barometer and thermometer
(which he classes as one discovery), and in other fields the discovery
of the differential calculus, of gravitation, of the laws of planetary
motion, of the circulation of the blood, and the measurement of the
velocity of light. To the eighteenth century he refers the more
important of the earlier steps in the evolution of the steam engine
and the foundation of both modern chemistry and electrical science.
This completes the list. To the above many would add Jenner's discovery
of vaccination and probably several others. Each writer, in making up
such a list, would be governed in a measure by his personal range of
studies, but no one would be likely to deviate widely from the above
list.
[=Great Discoveries of the Nineteenth Century=]
Now what has been the record since 1800? How does the nineteenth
century compare with its predecessors? In Wallace's view it is not to
be compared, as regards scientific progress and discovery, with any
single century, but with all past time. In fact, it far outstrips the
entire progress of mankind in the ages preceding 1800.
Estimating on the same basis as that which he previously adopted,
Wallace finds twenty-four discoveries and inventions of the first class
that have had their origin in the nineteenth century, against the
fifteen enumerated from all previous time.
Of the same rank with Newton's theory of gravitation, which comes from
the seventeenth century, stands out the doctrine of the correlation
and conservation of forces, one of the widest and most far reaching
generalizations that the mind of man has yet reached. Against Kepler's
laws of planetary motions from the seventeenth century we can set the
nebular theory of the nineteenth. The telescope of the seventeenth is
matched by the spectroscope of the nineteenth. If the first reveals to
us myriads of suns, otherwise unseen, scattered through the illimitable
fields of space, the second tells us what substances compose these
suns and maintain their distant fires, and, most wonderful of all,
the direction and the rate in which each is moving. Harvey's immortal
discovery of the seventeenth century finds a full equivalent in the
germ theory of disease of the nineteenth. The mariner's compass of
the fourteenth century easily yields first place to the electric
telegraph of the nineteenth, while the barometer and thermometer of the
seventeenth century are certainly less wonderful, though perhaps not
less serviceable, than the telephone and phonograph and the Röntgen
rays of our own day.
[=Useful and Scientific Steps of Progress=]
We may more briefly enumerate the remaining discoveries cited by
Wallace, partly, as will be perceived, mechanical, but mainly results
of scientific research. Early in the century came the inestimable
inventions of the railway engine and the steamboat, and somewhat later
the minor but highly useful discoveries of the lucifer match and of gas
illumination. These were quickly followed by the wonderful discovery of
photography, than which few things have added more to the enjoyment of
man. Equally important in relation to his relief from suffering are
the remarkable discoveries of anæsthetics and the antiseptic method in
surgery. Another of the great discoveries of the age is that of the
electric light, with its remarkably rapid development and utilization.
More purely scientific in character are Mendeljeff's discovery of the
periodic law in chemistry, the molecular theory of matter, the direct
measurement of the velocity of light, and the remarkable utility of
floating dust in meteorology. The list concludes with the geological
theory of the glacial age, the discovery of the great antiquity of
man, the cell theory and the doctrines of embryological development,
and last, but, in pure science, perhaps the greatest, Darwin's famous
theory of organic evolution--developed by Spencer into universal
evolution.
It is quite possible that other nineteenth century scientists would
be tempted to expand this list, and perhaps add considerably to
Wallace's twenty-four epoch-making discoveries. Indeed, since his book
was written, a twenty-fifth has arisen, in the discovery of wireless
telegraphy, the scientific marvel of the end of the century, too young
as yet for its vast possibilities to be perceived. We might also
mention the electric motor and liquid air as of equal importance with
some of those enumerated.
[=Foster's Views on Recent Progress=]
An interesting review of the advances made in science during the
nineteenth century was offered by Sir Michael Foster, President of the
British Association in its 1899 meeting, from which we may quote. He
first touched upon chemistry. The ancients, he said, thought that but
four elements existed--fire, air, earth, and water. Anything like a
correct notion of the composition of matter dates from the latter part
of the eighteenth century, when Priestley and Lavoisier revealed to the
world the nature of oxygen, and thus led to a long series of fruitful
discoveries.
The whole history of electricity as a servant of man is confined to the
last sixty or seventy years, and really springs from Volta's invention
of the galvanic battery. Frictional electricity had long been known,
but nothing beyond curious laboratory experiments were conducted
with it. The investigations and discoveries of Oersted and Faraday,
which made possible the telegraph, dynamo, trolley car and telephone,
followed Volta's discovery of the means of producing a steady current
of electricity--first announced in 1799.
Geology, too, he states to be a new born science. Although numerous
ingenious theories were entertained in regard to the origin and
significance of the strata rock, it was only at the close of the
eighteenth century that men began to recognize that the earth's crust,
with its various layers of rock, was a vast book of history, each leaf
of which told of periods of thousands or millions of years. The slow
processes of formation, and the embedding of the remains of the animal
and vegetable life of those ancient times, were only interpreted aright
after Hutton, Playfair and Cuvier had wrestled with the problem.
[=Headlights of Progress=]
With these interesting views of prominent scientists, we may proceed
to a more detailed consideration of the scientific triumphs of the
century. To present anything other than the headlights of its progress,
in the space at our command, would be impossible, in view of the
extraordinary accumulation of facts made by its many thousands of
observers, and the multitude of generalizations, of the most varied
character, offered by the thinkers in the domain of science. These
generalizations vary in importance as much as they do in character.
Many of them are evidently temporary only, and must fall before the
future progress of discovery; others are founded upon such a multitude
of significant facts, and are of such inherent probability, that they
seem likely to be as permanent as the theories of Galileo, Kepler,
Newton, and others of the older worthies.
[=Discoveries in Astronomy=]
Beginning with astronomy, the oldest and noblest of the sciences, we
could record a vast number of minor discoveries, but shall confine
ourselves to the major ones. Progress in astronomy has kept in close
pace with development in instruments. The telescope of the end of the
century, for instance, has enormously greater space-penetrating and
star-defining powers than that used at the beginning, and has added
extraordinarily to our knowledge of the number of stars, the character
of their groupings, and the constitution of solar orbs and nebulæ.
These results have been greatly added to by the use of the camera in
astronomy, the photograph revealing stellar secrets which could never
have been learned by the aid of the telescope alone. This has also the
great advantage of placing on record the positions of the stars at any
fixed moment, and thus rendering comparatively easy the detection of
motions among them.
[=Revelations of the Spectroscope=]
But it is to a new instrument of research, the spectroscope, that
we owe our most interesting knowledge of the stars. This wonderful
instrument enables us to analyze the ray of light itself, to study the
many lines by which the vari-colored spectrum is crossed and discover
to what substances certain groups of lines are due. From studying with
this instrument the substances which compose the earth, science has
taken to studying the stars, and has found that not only our sun, but
suns whose distance is almost beyond the grasp of thought, are made
up largely of chemical substances similar to those that exist in the
earth. A second result of the use of this instrument has been to
prove that there are true nebulæ in the heavens, masses of star dust
or vapor not yet gathered into orbs, and that there are dark suns,
great invisible orbs, which have cooled until they have ceased to
give off light. A third result is the power of tracing the motions
of stars which are passing in a direct line to or from the earth. By
this means it has been found that many of the double or multiple stars
are revolving around each other. A late discovery in this direction,
made in 1899, is that the Polar star, which appears single in the most
powerful telescope, is really made up of three stars, two of which
revolve round each other every four hours, while the two circle round a
more distant companion.
[=New Facts in the Solar System=]
Late astronomy has revealed to us many marvels of the solar system.
Before the nineteenth century it was not known that any planetary
bodies existed between Mars and Jupiter. On the first day of the
century--January 1, 1801--Ceres, the first of the asteroids or
planetoids, was discovered. Three others were soon discovered, and
later on smaller ones began to be found in multitudes, so that by the
end of the century not less than four hundred and fifty of these small
planetary bodies were known. Of other discoveries we may briefly refer
to the new facts discovered concerning comets and meteors, planets and
satellites, the condition of the sun's surface, the detailed knowledge
of the surface conditions of Mars and the Moon, the character of
Saturn's rings, the discovery of the planet Neptune etc., all due to
nineteenth century research.
[=The Advance of Chemistry=]
In the group of sciences known under the general title of
Physics--chemistry, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism--the
progress has been equally decided and many of the discoveries of almost
startling significance. Chemistry, as it exists to-day, is almost
wholly a child of the century. Many chemical substances were known
in the past, but their number sinks into insignificance as compared
with those of late discovery. Of chemical conceptions of earlier
date, Dalton's theory of atoms is the only one of importance that
still exists. The view long maintained--until late in the nineteenth
century, in fact--that organic and inorganic chemistry are separated
from each other by a wide gap, is no longer held. Hundreds of organic
substances, some of them of great complexity, have been made in the
chemist's laboratory, and can now be classed as properly with inorganic
as with organic substances. The gap has been closed, and there is now
but one chemistry. Only the most intricate chemical compounds still lie
beyond the chemist's grasp, and the isolation of these may be at any
time overthrown. Organic chemistry has become simply the chemistry of
carbon-compounds.
[Illustration: BARON F. H. ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
LOUIS AGASSIZ.
CHARLES DARWIN.
THOMAS H. HUXLEY.
ILLUSTRIOUS MEN OF SCIENCE, 19TH CENTURY]
[Illustration: PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY
The discovery of the mission of the exceedingly minute
organisms known as bacteria in producing disease ranks
among the greatest and most beneficient of our age.
By it the art of the physician was first raised to
the rank of a science. The honor of this discovery
belongs to Louis Pasteur, the eminent French chemist
and biologist.]
One chemical theory of recent date, the vortex atom theory of Lord
Kelvin, has quickly met its fate, being abandoned by its author
himself, but the study of it has been rich in results. It is now
widely held that the universe is made up of two great basic elements,
ether and matter, or perhaps one only, since it seems highly probable
that the atom of matter is a minute, self coherent mass of ether. It
is further held as doubtful that atoms ever exist alone, they being
combined by their attractions into small bodies known as molecules,
which are in incessant motion, and to whose activity the physical force
of the universe is largely due.
One of the most important chemical discoveries of the century was
that of the "periodic law" of the chemical elements, advanced by the
Russian scientist Mendeljeff, under which the weights of the atoms of
the elements were for the first time placed in harmony with each other,
and a fixed numerical relation shown to exist between them. We may
conclude this brief glance at the science by mention of the very high
temperature which the electric furnace has now placed at the command of
chemists, and the equally great refrigeration now attainable, by which
the air itself can easily be liquified and even frozen into a solid
mass.
[=Light and Its Phenomena=]
Light, naturally one of the earliest of the phenomena of nature to
attract the attention of man, was little understood until after the
advent of the nineteenth century. It was of old supposed to be a
substance of so rapid motion as to be practically instantaneous in its
movement through space. Even Newton looked upon it as a substance given
off by shining bodies, and it remained for Young, in the beginning of
the nineteenth century, to prove that light is not a substance but a
motion, a series of rapid waves or undulations in a substance extending
throughout space, and known as the lumeniferous ether. The idea
that light is instantaneous in its motion also vanished when Roemer
discovered, by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, that it takes
about eight minutes for the ray of light to travel from the sun to
the earth. A cannon ball moving at the rate of 1,700 feet per second
would take about nine years to make the same journey, the wave of light
traveling at the extraordinary speed of over 186,000 miles in a second.
Yet immensely rapid as is this rate of movement, we do not need to go
to the sun and planets to measure the speed of light, but can now do
so, by the use of delicate instruments, on a few miles of the earth's
surface. This is one of the great discoveries enumerated by Wallace.
[=Late Discoveries in Optics=]
The discoveries in relation to the constitution and characteristics
of light made during the century have been so numerous that we must
confine ourselves to those of major importance. Much might be said
about the phenomena of polarization, refraction, diffraction,
photography, and the development of the power of lenses, to which the
great advance in telescopic and microscopic observation is due. Among
these steps of progress perhaps the most interesting is the development
of instantaneous photography, a striking result of which is the power,
by aid of photographs taken in rapid succession, of portraying objects
in motion--living pictures, as they are called--an exhibit now so
common and so marvelous. But among all the advances in the science
of optics the most important are spectrum analysis and the Röntgen
ray. The remarkable discoveries made in astronomy by the former of
these have been already stated. The Röntgen ray, which has the power
of rendering ordinarily opaque substances transparent, has become
of extraordinary value in surgery, as showing the exact location of
foreign substances within the body, the position and character of bone
fractures, etc.
[=Heat as a Mode of Motion=]
Heat, once looked upon as a substance, and known by the now obsolete
name of Caloric, has been demonstrated to be, like light, a motion,
the incessant leaping about of the molecules of matter, this motion
being readily transferable from one substance to another, and forming
the great substratum of power in the universe. This theory, first
promulgated by Count Rumford, an American by birth, was fully worked
out by others, and put in popular form by Professor Tyndall, an English
scientist, in his "Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion," published
in 1862. Radiant heat is identical with light, being a vibration of
the ether. It may be further said in relation to heat phenomena that
remarkable power in producing very high and extremely low temperatures
is now possessed. By the former the most refractory substances may be
vaporized. By the latter the most volatile gases may be liquified and
even frozen. The point of absolute zero, that in which all heat motion
would disappear, is estimated to be at the temperature of 274 degrees 6
minutes centigrade below the freezing point of water. A degree of cold
within some forty degrees of this has been reached in the liquefaction
of hydrogen. In 1889 the climax in this direction was reached in the
reduction, by Professor Dewar, of the very volatile element hydrogen to
the solid state.
[=Conservation and Correlation of Forces=]
Electricity, formerly, like heat and light, looked upon as a substance,
is now known to be a motion, being, in fact, identical in origin with
light and radiant heat. All these forces are considered to be motions
of the lumeniferous ether, their principal distinction being in length
of wave. In fact, it is easy to convert one of them into the other, and
the great doctrine of the conservation and correlation of forces means
simply that heat, light and electricity may be mutually transformed,
and that no loss of motion or force takes place in these changes
from one mode of motion to another. In the operation of the electric
trolley car, to offer a familiar example, the heat power of coal is
first transformed into engine motion, then into electricity, then
again into light and heat within the car, then into mass motion in the
motor, and finally passes away as electricity. No better example of the
"correlation of forces" than this familiar instance could be adduced.
[=Applications of Electricity=]
As regards the nature of electricity, though innumerable observations
have been made during the nineteenth century and a vast multitude of
facts put upon record, we know little more than is above stated. But
if we turn to the practical applications of electric power, it is to
find these standing high among the great advances of the century. To
it we owe the highly important discoveries of the telegraph and the
telephone; the conversion of engine power into electricity by the
dynamo and the use of this in moving cars, carriages and machinery; the
storage battery, with its similar applications; the use of electricity
in lighting and heating, the latter remarkably exemplified in the
electric furnace, which yields the highest temperature known on the
earth; the welding of metals by electricity; the electrotype and
electro-plating; the conversion of water power into electric force and
its transportation by wire for long distances; the therapeutic uses of
the electric current, and other applications too numerous to mention.
[=The Principles of Magnetism=]
In regard to the magnet, the handmaid of electric power, we know
little other than that the force displayed by it seems to be a result
of some mode of rotation in the atoms or molecules of matter, since
all the effects of magnetism can be produced by the rotary motion of
the electric current in spirals of wire. From this it is thought that
the molecular motion to which magnetism is due may be of an electric
character, though the permanence of the magnetic force renders this
very doubtful. It seems most probable that magnetism is a result of
some special condition of the ordinary, inherent motions of atoms--not
their fluctuating heat activities, but those fixed motions upon which
their organization and persistence depend. The readiness with which
soft iron can be magnetized and demagnetized by the use of the electric
current is of extraordinary value in the practical applications of
electricity. To this fact we owe the dynamo and the electric motor,
with all their varied uses.
With this passing glance at the physical forces, we may proceed to the
consideration of the great science of geology, which, as above stated
by Foster, is a new-born science, almost wholly of nineteenth century
development. Geology as it now exists may be said to date from 1790,
when William Smith published his "Tabular View," in which he showed
the proper succession of the rock strata and pointed out that each
group of rocks is marked by fossils peculiar to itself. With his work
began that great series of close observations which still continue, and
which have laid the constitution of the earth's crust open before us in
many of its intimate details.
[=Progress in Geology=]
Among the many geologists of the century Sir Charles Lyell stands
prominent, his "Principles of Geology" (1830-33) forming an epoch
in the advance of the science. Before his time the seeming breaks
in the series of the rocks were looked upon as the results of
mighty catastrophes, vast upheavals or depressions in the surface,
which worked widespread destruction among animals and plants, these
cataclysms being followed by new creations in the world of life. Lyell
contended that the forces now at work are of the same type as those
which have been always at work; that catastrophes have always been
local, as they are now local; that general forces have acted slowly,
and that there has been no world-wide break, either in rock deposits or
the progress of human beings.
His views gave rise to a conception of the unbroken continuity of
organic life which was greatly strengthened by the publication of
Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species," which went far to do away with
the old belief that each new life-form has arisen through special
creation, and to replace it by the theory now widely held that all
new forms of life arise through hereditary descent, with variation,
from older forms. In this conception we have the basis of the recent
theory of evolution, so thoroughly worked out and widely extended since
Darwin's time--a theory including the doctrine that man himself is a
result of descent, and not of special creation.
[=The Nebular and Meteoric Hypotheses=]
With geology is closely connected the Nebular Hypothesis of Kant
and Laplace, of eighteenth century origin, to the effect that all
the spheres of space originated in the condensation and rotation of
immense volumes of nebulous vapor, similar to the nebulæ now known to
exist in the heavens, and that each planet began its existence as a
great gaseous globe, its evolution being due to the gradual process of
cooling and condensing, by which its surface, and perhaps its whole
mass, were in time converted into solid matter. This interesting
doctrine of world evolution does not remain unquestioned. A new
hypothesis was advanced by Professor Lockyer in the final decade of the
nineteenth century, to the effect that spheral evolution is not due to
the condensation of gaseous nebulæ, but of vast aggregations of those
meteoric stones with which space seems filled, and which are drawn
together by their mutual attractions, become intensely heated through
their collisions, and are converted into liquids and gases through the
heat thus evolved. It is possible that the visible nebulæ, like the
comets, are great volumes of such meteors. This is the meteoric theory
referred to in Wallace's category of great discoveries. It is still,
however, far from being established.
[=The Science of Meteorology=]
Meteorology, the study of the atmosphere and its phenomena, is another
science to which much attention was given during the century under
review. A vast number of facts have been learned concerning the
atmosphere, its alternations of heat and cold, of calm and storm, of
pressure, of diminution of density and loss of heat in ascending, and
of its fluctuations in humidity, with the variations of sunshine and
cloud, fog, rain, snow, hail, lightning and other manifestations.
The study of the winds has been a prominent feature in the progress of
this science, and our knowledge of the causes and character of storms
has been greatly developed. The theory that storms are due to great
rotary movements in the atmosphere, immense cyclonic whirls, frequently
followed by reverse, or anti-cyclonic, movements, has gone far to
clear up the mystery of the winds, while the destructive tornado, the
terrific local whirl in the winds, has been closely studied, though not
yet fully understood. These close observations of atmospheric changes
have given rise to the Weather Bureau, by which the kind of weather to
be looked for is predicted for the United States. Similar observations
and predictions have been widely extended among civilized nations. This
is a practical application in meteorology which has been of immense
advantage, particularly in the field of navigation.
[=Progress in the Biological Sciences=]
Of the sciences with which the nineteenth century has had much to do,
those relating to organic life, classed under the general title of
biology, stand prominent, which includes botany and zoology. Subsidiary
to these are the sciences of anatomy, physiology, embryology,
psychology, anthropology, and several others of minor importance. We
have, here laid out before us a very large subject, which has made
remarkable progress during the past hundred years, much too great to
handle except in brief general terms.
In botany and zoology alike, the development of the cell theory is
one of the most conspicuous advances of the century. It has been
shown clearly that all plants and animals are made up of minute
cells, semi-fluid in consistency, and principally made up of a
highly organized chemical compound known as protoplasm, which Huxley
has denominated the "physical basis of life." These cells are the
laboratories of the system. Motions and changes take place within them.
They increase in size and divide in a peculiar manner, thus growing
in number. Many of them have self-motion like that of the low forms
known as amoebæ. Various chemical substances are elaborated in them,
such as the osseous structure of animals, the wood-fibre of plants, and
others which are given off into the sap or the blood. In short, they
are the foundation stones of life, and the physical operations of the
highest beings are made up of the combined and harmonized activities of
these myriads of minute cells.
[=Classification of Plants and Animals=]
It would be impossible, unless we should devote a volume to the
subject, to do justice to the progress of botany and zoology in the
nineteenth century. This progress consists largely in observation and
description of a vast multitude of varied forms, with the consequent
study of their affinities, and their classification into family groups,
ranging from species and varieties to orders and classes, or from
minor and local to major and general groups. Both plants and animals
have been divided up into a number of great orders, ranging in the
former instance from the microscopic bacteria to the great and highly
organized exogens, and in the latter from the minute unicellular forms
to the mammalia. We have here, aside from the cell-theory, and the
great progress in classification, nothing of epoch-making significance
to offer, and are obliged to dismiss these subjects with this brief
retrospect.
[=Division of the Cell=]
There are, however, two fields in which an important accumulation of
facts in reference to organic life has been made, those of embryology
and palæontology. The study of the organic cell by the microscope is
one of the basic facts of embryology, since living operations take
place within this cell. The network of minute fibres, of which it is
largely made up, is seen to gather into two star-shaped forms with a
connecting spindle of fibres, the division of which in the centre is
followed by the division of the cell into two. This is the primary
fact in reproduction, new cells being thus born. In higher production
two cells, arising from opposite sexes, combine, and their growth and
division give rise to the organs and tissues of a new living being. It
is the development of these organs and tissues that constitutes the
science of embryology.
[=The Sciences of the Embryo and the Fossil=]
The observation, under the microscope, of the stages of this
development, has been of the highest value in the study of animal
origin, and has aided greatly in the classification of animals. Many
old ideas died out when it was clearly shown that all life begins in a
single cell, from which the organs of the new being gradually arise.
The most important lesson taught by embryology is that the embryo
in its development passes through various stages of its ancestry,
resembling now one, now another, of the lower animals, and gains for a
brief time organs which some of its ancestors possessed permanently.
Of these facts the most significant is that the embryo of man develops
gill-slits like those which the fish uses in breathing. These are of
no use to it and soon disappear, but their appearance is very strong
evidence that the fish form lay in the line of man's ancestry, and that
man has developed through a long series of the lower animals.
In palæontology, or the study of fossil forms of animals and plant
life, we have the embryology of races as contrasted with that of
individuals. The study of the multitude of these forms which has been
collected within the past century has enabled man to fill many of the
gaps which formerly appeared to divide animal forms, and has furnished
very strong arguments in favor of the descent of new species from older
ones. One of the most striking of these facts is that in relation to
the horse, of which a practically complete series of ancestral forms
have been found, leading from a small five-toed animal, far back in
geological time, through forms in which the toes decrease in number
and the animal increases in size until the large single-toed horse is
reached.
Two other organic sciences, those of anatomy and physiology, have
added enormously to our knowledge of animated nature. Anatomy, which
is of high practical importance from its relation to surgery, is a
science of ancient origin, many important facts concerning it having
been discovered by the physicians of old Greece and Rome. This study
continued during later centuries, and by the opening of the nineteenth
the gross anatomy of the human frame was fairly well known, and many
facts in its finer anatomy had been traced. In later anatomical work
the microscope has played an active part, and has yielded numbers of
important revelations.
[=Comparative Anatomy=]
What is known as comparative anatomy has formed perhaps the most
important field of nineteenth century study in this domain of science.
Though this branch of anatomical study is as old as Aristotle, little
was done in it from his time to that of Cuvier, who was the founder
of the science of palæontology, and the first to show that the forms
and affinities of fossil forms could be deduced from the study of
existing animals. If a fossil jaw were found, for instance, with the
teeth of a ruminant, it could be taken for granted that it came from
an animal whose feet had hoofs instead of claws. It is often said that
Cuvier could construct an animal from a single bone, and though this is
saying much more than the facts bear out, he did make some marvelous
predictions of this kind.
[=Predictions Concerning Fossil Animals=]
A notable triumph of the science of comparative anatomy was the
prediction made by Cope, Marsh, and Kowalewsky, from the fact that
specialized forms are preceded by others of more generalized
structure, that an animal must once have existed with affinities, on
the one hand, with hoofed animals, and on the other with the carnivores
and the lemurs. This prediction was fulfilled in the discovery of the
fossil Phenacodus in the Eocene deposits of the western United States.
The study of comparative anatomy, particularly in its application to
fossil forms, has aided greatly in the acceptance of the doctrine
of evolution, and has been specially valuable in classification, as
showing how nearly animals are related to each other. To classify
animals and plants, in short, may be simply stated as a method of
sorting them over and placing together those which have similar
characters, just as in arranging a library we keep together books which
relate to similar subjects. We may, for instance, make one general
branch of history, a smaller branch of American history, and yet others
relating to states, to counties, to cities and towns, and, most special
of all, to particular families.
[=Discoveries in Physiology=]
The science of physiology differs from that of anatomy in dealing
with the functions of life instead of with its forms. The study of
these functions has gone on for many centuries, covering the various
operations of motion, nutrition, respiration, nervous action, growth,
and reproduction, with the many minor functions included under these.
Though many of the facts of physiology were discovered in earlier
centuries, the scientists of the nineteenth have been busy in adding
to the list, and a number of important discoveries have been made.
Prominent among these is that of anæsthesia, the discovery that by the
inhalation of certain gases a state of temporary insensibility can be
produced, lasting long enough to permit surgical and dental operations
to be performed without pain; and that of antiseptical surgery, in
which, by the employment of other chemical substances, wounds can be
kept free from the action of deleterious substances, and surgical
operations be performed without the perils formerly arising from
inflammation,--the disease--producing germs and poisons being kept out.
[=Living Threads of the Brain=]
One of the great gains of the century, says Sir Michael Foster, from
whom we have already quoted, is in our insight into nervous phenomena.
"We now know that what takes place along a tiny thread we call a nerve
fibre differs from that which takes place along its fellow threads;
that differing nervous impulses travel along different nerve fibres;
and that nervous and psychical events are the outcome of the clashing
of nervous impulses as they sweep along the closely woven web of living
threads, of which the brain is made. We have learned by experiment and
observation that the pattern of the web determines the play of the
impulses; and we can already explain many of the obscure problems, not
only of nervous disease, but of nervous life, by an analysis, tracking
out the devious and linked paths of the nervous threads."
[=Brain Surgery=]
This observation links together the sciences of physiology and
psychology, the latter the science of mental phenomena, the exact
study of which largely belongs to the nineteenth century. Broad as
this subject is, and much as has been done in it, few facts stand out
with sufficient distinctness to call for special mention here. The
most famous psychical experiments are those made on the brains of some
of the animals below man, and especially on that of the monkey, by
which the functions of the several sections of the brain have been to
some extent mapped out, the important fact being discovered that each
function is confined to a fixed locality in the brain, and with it the
accordant fact that certain regions of the brain control the muscular
movements of certain parts of the body. In consequence, a particular
affection of the hand, foot, or other region has often been traced to a
diseased condition of some known part of the brain, and the trouble has
been removed by a surgical operation on that organ.
[=The Study of Man's Past=]
The sciences last named refer specially to man, in whom they have been
particularly studied. Other sciences relating to him exclusively are
those of ethnology and anthropology, which belong almost solely to the
nineteenth century. Ethnology, the study of the races of mankind, has
been carefully and widely studied, and though the problems relating to
it have not yet been solved, a very fair conception has been gained of
the diversities and relations of mankind. Anthropology, embracing, as
it does, archæology, has been prolific in discoveries. Archæological
research has laid out before us the pathway of man through the ages
and shown his gradual and steady development, through the successive
periods of chipped stone and polished stone implements, of bronze
and iron tools and weapons, with his gradual development of pottery,
ornament, art, architecture, etc.
The most striking and notable fact in anthropological science is the
total reversal of our ideas concerning the length of time man has
dwelt upon the earth. The old limitation to a few thousand years,
everywhere held at the beginning of the century, fails to reach back
to a time when, as we now know, man had reached a considerable degree
of civilization. Back of that we can trace him by his tools and his
bones through a period many times more distant, leading back to the
glacial age of geology and possibly to a much more remote era. Instead
of man's residence upon the earth being restricted to some 6,000 years,
it probably reached back not less than 60,000, and possibly to a much
earlier period.
[=Development of the Science of Medicine=]
Among the minor sciences, there is one that has deserved that name
only within the past thirty or forty years, the science of medicine.
Formerly it was an art only, and by no means a satisfactory one.
Nothing was known of the cause of the most virulent and destructive
diseases--the infectuous fevers, the plague, cholera, etc. And the
treatment of these, and in fact of nearly all diseases, was wholly
empirical, depending solely upon experiment, not at all upon scientific
principles. Experience showed that certain drugs and chemical compounds
produced certain effects upon the system, and upon this physicians
depended, with no conception of the cause of diseases and little
knowledge of the physiological action of medicines.
[=Pasteur and His Discoveries=]
This state of affairs was materially changed during the final third
of the nineteenth century, as the result of an extensive series of
observations, set in train in great part by Louis Pasteur, Professor
of chemistry at the Sorbonne in Paris, who was in large measure the
originator of the germ theory of disease. The discovery that the
fermentation which produces alcohol is due to a microscopic organism,
the yeast-plant, gave Pasteur the clue, and he soon was able to prove
that other fermentations,--the lactic, acetic, and butyric,--are also
due to the action of living forms. It had further been found that the
putrefaction of animal substance was caused in the same way, and it has
since been abundantly demonstrated that if these minute organisms can
be kept out of animal and vegetable substances these may be preserved
indefinitely. This fact has given rise to one of the most important
industries of the century, the keeping of fruits, meats, etc., by the
process of air-tight canning.
Pasteur next extended his observations to the silkworm, which was
subject to an epidemic disease that had almost ruined the silk industry
in France. Others before him had discovered what were supposed to be
disease germs in the blood of these worms. He proved positively that
these bacteria, as they are called, are the cause of the disease, and
that infection could be prevented by proper precautions. From the
insect Pasteur proceeded to the higher animals, and investigated the
cause of splenic fever, a dangerous epidemic among farm cattle. This
he also proved to be caused by a minute form of life, and that fowl
cholera is due to still another form of micro-organism. At a later date
he studied hydrophobia, which he traced to a similar cause, and for the
cure of which he established the Pasteur Institute in 1886.
This was not the whole of Pasteur's work. He discovered not only the
cause of these diseases, but a system of vaccination by which they
could be cured or prevented. By "cultivating" the bacteria in various
ways, he succeeded in decreasing their dangerous properties, so that
they would give the disease in a mild form,--acting in the same way as
vaccination does in the case of small-pox, by enabling the animals to
resist virulent attacks of the disease.
[=Koch and the Comma Bacillus=]
Pasteur's work was performed largely on the lower animals. Others have
devoted themselves to the infectuous diseases which attack the human
frame, and with remarkable success. Robert Koch, a German physician,
applied himself to the study of cholera, which he proved in 1883 to
be due to a germ named by him, from its shape, the comma bacillus. He
discovered about the same time the bacterial organism which causes the
fatal disease of tuberculosis, or consumption. Other investigators have
traced typhoid and yellow fevers, diphtheria, and some other infectuous
diseases to similar causes, and the study of diseases of this character
has at last gained the status of a science.
Methods of cure are also becoming scientific. These minute organisms,
once introduced within the body, tend to increase in number at an
amazing rate, feeding on the blood and tissues, and giving off
substances called toxines which in some cases are of highly poisonous
character. To overcome their effect inoculation of anti-toxines is
practiced. These are yielded by the same bacteria as produce the
toxines, and inoculation with them enables the system to resist the
action of the toxin poisons.
[=Antiseptic Surgery=]
We must dismiss this broad subject with this brief consideration,
saying further that it is still largely in the stage of experiment, and
that many of its theories must be left to the twentieth century for
proof. Its study, however, has been of inestimable value in another
direction, that of antiseptic surgery, a mode of treatment of surgical
wounds introduced by Sir Joseph Lister, and now used by all surgeons
with the most beneficial effects. It being recognized that inflammation
and putrefactive action in wounded tissues are due to the action of
disease germs introduced by the air or by the hands and instruments of
the operators, the greatest care is now taken, by the use of chemical
substances fatal to those germs, to prevent their entrance. As a result
many diseases once common in hospitals--pyæmia, septicæmia, gangrene
and erysipelas--have almost disappeared, fever and the formation of
pus are prevented, and healing is rapid and continuous, while surgeons
now daringly and successfully undertake operations in the most secret
recesses of the body, which formerly would have led to certain death.
[=The Science of Hygiene=]
A secondary result of the germ theory of disease is the great advance
in hygiene, which, formerly almost non-existent, has now reached the
status of a science. It is still against these perilous germs that
continuous battle is kept up, absolute cleanliness being the ultimatum
at which physicians aim. Disease germs lurk everywhere, and can only
be combatted by incessant care. The bacteria of cholera and typhoid
fever, for example, are known to be conveyed in water, and the former
epidemics of these diseases were in great measure due to the free
use of polluted water for drinking. Their ravages have been largely
arrested by boiling, filtering or otherwise purifying drinking water,
while the free use of carbolic acid and other antiseptics in hospitals
has put an end to the reign of infection which once made those places
hives of disease.
We may fitly conclude this chapter with reference to a subject several
times referred to in its pages, and which is looked upon as the
greatest scientific theory of the century, that of evolution. The
belief that new species of animals and plants arise through development
from older ones is not of recent origin, but is at least as old as
Aristotle. It was taught by Harvey, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, and
others in the eighteenth century, but the first attempt to develop a
general theory of organic evolution was made by Lamarck, in the early
part of the succeeding century. Lamarck's view, however, that the
variations in animals are the result of efforts on their part to gain
certain results,--the neck of the giraffe, for instance growing longer
through its attempt to browse on leaves just out of reach,--did not
gain acceptance, and it was not until after the middle of the century
that a more satisfactory theory was presented.
[=Darwin and Natural Selection=]
The theory of evolution, as now understood, was arrived at
simultaneously by Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin, it being
fully worked out by the latter in his "Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection," published in 1859. This theory--that the changes in
animals are due to the struggle for existence among vast multitudes,
and the survival of those whose natural variations in form give them
an advantage over their fellows in the battle of life--is now accepted
by the great body of scientists, while the general idea of evolution
has been extended to cover all changes in the universe, inorganic as
well as organic. This extension has been the work of Herbert Spencer
and many other scientific and philosophical writers, and no domain
of nature is now left outside of the range of evolutionary forces.
The argument which makes man himself a result of evolution, and not a
product of special creation, was the final one presented by Darwin,
and has given point to a multitude of observations in the science of
anthropology made since his day.
[Illustration: BROWNING
WORDSWORTH
TENNYSON
SHELLEY
AUSTIN
THE GREAT POETS OF ENGLAND]
[Illustration: JAMES R. LOWELL
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
OLIVER W. HOLMES
H. W. LONGFELLOW
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
JOHN G. WHITTIER
SIX GREAT AMERICAN POETS]
CHAPTER XL.
Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century.
[=The Literary Giants of Former Times=]
For ages the world has swarmed with writers. Almost since man first
began to think he has been actively engaged in literary labor; long,
indeed, before he had learned the art of writing, and when the work of
his mind could be preserved only in his memory and that of his fellows.
And the progress of man down the ages is starred with names that gleam
like suns in the firmament of thought, those of such great magicians of
the intellect as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton,
and a host besides. In this field of human effort therefore, the
nineteenth century has nothing peculiar to show. Its finest labors are
surpassed by those of others who lived centuries or ages ago. Here,
almost alone in the circle of human labors, the century we deal with
stands on the level of many of its predecessors and below that of
others. Its single claim to distinction is an extraordinary activity in
literary production, and especially in the field of novelistic fiction,
which it may in great measure claim as its own. The novel before the
nineteenth century was a crude pioneer; within the century it has grown
into a product of the most advanced culture.
[=The Standing of the Fine Arts in the Past and the
Present=]
What has been said about literature may be repeated about art. That,
too, seemingly reached its culmination in the past, and the artists of
to-day can merely seek to emulate, they cannot hope to surpass, those
of former centuries. Sculpture, for instance, reached its highest stage
of perfection in Greece, and painting in mediæval Europe; and strive
as our artists may, they seem incapable of producing works of superior
beauty and charm to those of the long ago. The architecture of to-day
is largely a rescript of that of the past, the original ideas are few,
nobler and more beautiful conceptions are wanting. Of the remaining
fine arts, music and poetry--if we may class the latter in this
category--the work of former centuries remains unsurpassed, and the
best that can be done with the nineteenth century authors and artists
is to mention their works and speak of their styles: it is impossible
to place them on a pedestal overlooking that of their predecessors.
[=Early American Writers=]
Yet while what has been said is true as a whole, the literature of at
least one country is almost wholly a product of the nineteenth century.
This is the United States, which had writers, but little which fairly
deserves the name of literature, prior to 1800. Aside from the famous
papers of the _Federalist_, the work of the great statesmen of the
Constitutional Convention, the writings of one or two authors of the
Revolutionary period, and some of those of Benjamin Franklin, this
country possessed hardly any literature, truly so-called, before the
days of Washington Irving, whose polished "Sketch Book" essays, popular
histories of Columbus and Mahomet, and humorous "History of New York,"
first taught the English critics that Americans could write as well as
fight and work, and that a new world of thought was likely to arise
beyond the waters. Irving was not alone. Contemporary with him were a
number of graceful poets, chief among them being William Cullen Bryant,
whose "Thanatopsis," still an American classic, is perhaps unequalled
in depth of reflection and grandeur of thought by the work of any other
author of nineteen years of age.
[=The Poets of the United States=]
Bryant, however, did not rise above this early effort, but rather
declined, and he has been far surpassed in poetic fervor and richness
of diction and conception by a number of his successors, notably
Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, men worthy to occupy a place beside
the famous English poets of the century. Of these, Longfellow has
gained the widest reputation, not, however, through force of superior
genius, but from the sweetness, grace and ease of his diction and
the popular character of his themes and handling, which have fitted
his verse to touch the heart of the people in all lands. Lowell was
not only a poet of rare depth of thought, but stands as the first of
American satirists, his "Biglow Papers" being among the keenest and
most humorous works of satire of the century, while they rank with the
most purely national of American works. Of other American poets, of
whom many of fine powers might be named, we shall mention only Edgar
Allan Poe, the most original in style and musical in tone of all our
writers of verse; the witty and genial Oliver Wendell Holmes; and Ralph
Waldo Emerson, whose verse, while lacking polish and smoothness, is
rich in poetic thought.
It was rather in his philosophy than in his poetry that the rich
imagination and fine powers of reflection of Emerson made themselves
manifest, and his essays stand prominent among the finest thought
products of the century. They are expressed in telling apothems, of
which many are little poems in themselves, while his works are instinct
with the finest spirit of altruism and optimism, taking the most
hopeful and cheerful views of the future of man and his institutions.
[=American Novelists=]
Among popular American novelists James Fenimore Cooper stands as the
pioneer, his tales of ocean and Indian life, while of no superior
merit as literature, holding a wide audience by their spirit of
adventure and careful elaboration. Most original of our writers is
Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," and other
novels stand in a field of their own among the productions of the
century, and take rank with the best of European productions. For the
sensational and lurid tale Poe stands first, and his genius in this
direction still brings him readers, despite the impossible incidents
of many of his plots. Of other novelists we may name Harriet Beecher
Stowe, with her famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" Howells, our leading
naturalistic novelist; Edward Everett Hale, made famous by his "Man
Without a Country;" Edward Eggleston, with the flavor of frontier life
in his "Hoosier Schoolmaster," Lew Wallace, who touched a deep vein of
popular approval in his "Ben Hur;" Henry James, too scholarly perhaps
to be highly popular, but of the finest literary skill; Helen Hunt
Jackson, whose "Ramona" depicts in thrilling idealism the wrongs of the
Indians; and--but we must stop here, for as we approach the present day
novelists of merit so throng the field of view that we cannot venture
even to name them.
[=Historians of the United States=]
Not the least notable field of American literature lies in the domain
of history, in which the authors of our country hold their own with the
best of those abroad. Irving's graceful, though not critical, works
of history we have mentioned. Greatest in this field stands Bancroft,
whose history of our country is a classic of world-wide fame. Close
beside him may be placed Prescott, with his glowing pictures of Spanish
and Spanish-American life; Motley, the skilled and popular historian
of the Netherlands; Parkman, who brilliantly pictures for us the
romance of French enterprise in America; McMaster, who may fairly pose
as the historian of the American people; and Parton, whose historical
biographies are among the most readable of American books of this
character.
[=American Orators=]
Our greatest orators, men whose speeches have become literature, hold
a place in the history of our country. The famous Webster and Clay
and Calhoun we have already described. Close after those come Sumner,
Seward and others who stood high in the stirring period of the Civil
War and of reconstruction. Aside from public speakers devoted to
statesmanship are many others of fame, including the eloquent Edward
Everett; the daring anti-slavery orator, Wendell Phillips; the earnest
platform apostle of temperance, John B. Gough; the greatest of our
pulpit orators, Henry Ward Beecher; the advocate of the "New South",
Henry W. Grady; the most amusing of our recent orators, Chauncey M.
Depew, and others of fine powers whom the need of brevity forbids
our naming. The mention of Depew's vein of humor calls to mind this
domain of literature, of which our country has had many popular
representatives, chief among whom stands the rollicking and favorite
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain).
It has not been proposed here to present more than a passing review of
the authors of the United States, or to attempt to name all those of
leading merit. We might have named in political economy Henry C. Carey;
in American history, John Fiske; in European church history, Henry C.
Lea; and, in addition, eminent authors in legal lore, in science, in
philosophy, in theology, and in other fields, all aiding to show the
vast advance our people have made in this important direction since
their feeble beginnings in the early days of the century.
[=The Poets of Great Britain=]
Unlike the United States, Great Britain came to the nineteenth century
with a great galaxy of famous writers, leading back through many
centuries. The eighteenth century is rich in great names, including
among its poets Pope, Burns, Cowper, Gray and Thompson; among its
essayists, Addison, Swift and Johnson; among its novelists, Richardson,
Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and Goldsmith; among its historians Gibbon,
Hume and Robertson. It crossed the portals of the nineteenth century
with a galaxy of poets more brilliant than has appeared in any equal
period of English literature, including the world-famous Byron,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Moore, Keats, Scott and Campbell, a
group of writers which, taken as a whole, it would be difficult to
match in any age. These sweet singers have been followed by others who
have kept up the standard of British poetry, including Tennyson, one of
the rarest of artists in words, the two Brownings, Matthew and Edwin
Arnold, William Morris, Swinburne, the Rossettis, and various others
of lesser note, among whom we must include Alfred Austin, the latest
though not the most admired poet-laureate. These are but the elder
flight of singing birds of the century, many younger ones being on the
wing, among whom at present Rudyard Kipling leads the way.
[=British Novelists and Historians=]
In the second field of imaginative literature, that of the novel, the
British isles are abundantly represented, and by some of the most
famous names anywhere existing in this domain of intellectual activity.
The names alone of these writers form a catalogue rarely equalled in
the world's literature. It will suffice to name Scott, Thackeray,
Dickens, Bulwer, Charlotte Bronte and Marion Evans as the most
prominent among a multitude of able writers, containing many names
high in merit and rich in variety of style. At the end of the century
the field was crowded with writers of conspicuous skill.
[=Other British Writers=]
History has reached a high level in the hands of some of the ablest
writers in this field known in any age, including Macaulay, Freeman,
Froude, Grote, Thirwall, Hallam, Merivale, Buckle, Leckey, Carlyle
and Green. Two of these, Carlyle and Macaulay, have won as high a
place in the field of criticism and biography as in that of history.
In art criticism Ruskin occupies a unique position, while theological
subjects and religious thought are represented by such able exponents
as Cardinal Newman, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Dean Farrar, Martineau,
Whately, Drummond, Spurgeon and many others. The great reviewers
include Jeffrey, Lydrely, Smith, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Foster; the wits
Sheridan, Hook, Jerrold, Smith and Hood; the philosophers Stewart,
Bentham, Brown, Hamilton, Spencer and Stuart Mill; and the scientists
Owen, Faraday, Murchison, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and various others.
[=French Novelists and Historians=]
The above named are merely some of the best known English writers
of the century. If it were attempted to name all those of merit the
list would be wearisomely long. The same may be said of the literary
men of France, of whom many of world-wide fame flourished during the
nineteenth century. At the beginning of the new age appeared the
versatile Madame de Staël, and Chateaubriand with his famous "Genius
of Christianity." These ushered in a host of able writers, of whom the
leading lyric poets were Victor Hugo, Béranger, Lamartine and Alfred
de Musset, and the most prominent novelists Hugo, Dumas, Sue, Balzac,
Dudevant (George Sand), succeeded in later years by the younger Dumas,
Feuillet, Murger, Zola, About and a host besides. Dramatic writers have
been little less numerous, and essayists and literary critics of merit
might be named by the dozen, among them the well-known names of Renan,
St. Beuve, Gautier, Taine, Girardin and Rémusat.
Perhaps the most successful branch of recent French literature is
history, around which a brilliant galaxy of great names has gathered.
Prominent among these are Guizot, Thierry and Thiers, to whom may be
added, as able writers of the history of their country, Sismondi,
Michelet, Martin, Barante and Mignet. Other workers in this field are
Lamartine and Villemain, while in philosophy, sociology and the various
branches of science the writers have been numerous, and many of them of
high ability.
[=German Poets and Novelists=]
The writers of Germany have been as prolific as those of England and
France, though the greatest names of that country, such giants of
thought as Goethe, Schiller, and Kant, belong to the closing period
of the eighteenth century, and have found no equals in the nineteenth.
Kant was succeeded by three other great metaphysical philosophers,
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, the four forming a group nowhere matched
for depth of thought in any similar period of time. In poetry, Goethe
and Schiller were succeeded by the song writers Körner, Arndt, Rückert,
and Uhland, while of the poets of later date Heine undoubtedly ranks
first. Fiction was enormously developed during the century, Gustav
Freytag being one of the most eminent novelists, while others of note
were Hackländer, Spielhagen, Heyse, Ebers, Auerbach, and of women
writers Ida von Hahn-Hahn, Fanny Lewald, Schopenhauer, and Marlitt.
Famous authors who have dealt with the mysterious agencies of nature
are De la Motte Fouque, the author of the charming "Undine," Chamisso,
with his fantastic "Peter Schlenühl," and Hoffmann, whose tales of
wonder and fantasy are of the first merit. Best known among fantastic
and imaginative writers is Jean Paul Richter, whose satirical and
humorous novels had a striking effect upon German thought at the
beginning of the century. Of German humorists, Fritz Reuter occupies
perhaps the highest rank.
[=German Scientists and Historians=]
In the field of science and exploration the literature of Germany is
rich. Scientific travel was given a great impetus by the famous works
of Alexander von Humboldt,--"Cosmos," "Views of Nature," etc.,--and his
example has been abundantly followed. Among his more famous successors
are Martins, the learned traveler in Brazil; Tschudi, in Peru;
Lepsius and Brugsch, in Egypt; Gützlaff, in China; Barth, Vogel, and
Schweinfurth, in Africa; and Leichhardt, in Australia.
In scientific literature of high value Germany is strong, its writers
including Bessel, Encke, Mädler, and Struve, in astronomy; Müller,
Ehrenberg, Liebig, Virchow, Vogel, Helmholtz, Haeckel, Kirchhoff,
von Baer, and many others in natural science. The historians are of
unsurpassed critical excellence, and embrace Von Ranke, Curtius,
Mommsen, von Müller, Heeren, Niebuhr, Neander, Menzel, and many more.
In philology and critical study may be named Wolf, Hermann, the
brothers Grimm, Bopp, Benecke, and Haupt. Critical essayists include
the two Schlegels, von Hardenberg (Novalis), Tieck, Schelling, and
Wilhelm von Humboldt.
[=The Literature of Russia=]
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the prominent German authors
of the nineteenth century, and we must deal still more briefly with
the other nations of Europe. Russia may fairly be ranked with the
United States, as being, in a literary sense, largely confined to the
nineteenth century. It had some writers of merit of earlier date,
largely poets and fabulists, but the first prose writer of excellence
of style was Nicholas Karamzin, whose famous "History of the Russian
Empire" began to appear in 1815. Poetry also became more meritorious in
this period, Alexander Pushkin, the greatest of Russian poets, giving
to the world some charming narratives in verse. Ivan Kriloff won fame
as a writer of fables, while other poets of merit appeared, among them
Koltsov, the writer of Russian national songs.
In the field of fiction the first of special merit was Nicholai Gogol,
one of the most powerful of Russian novelists; but the first to gain
a European fame was Ivan Turgeneff. Greatest among his successors is
Count Leo Tolstoi, who entered this field with "War and Peace," the
record of his experience in the Crimean war. His radical studies of the
problems of social life have since led to a number of works of striking
character, which have won him a world-wide fame. In romantic fiction
Russian writers have gained much celebrity, and they include able
authors in history, science and other fields.
[=The Authors of Sweden=]
The three Scandinavian nations, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, have been
active in literary production, and possess many authors of national
fame, and several who are read and admired throughout the world. Of
high standing among the poets of Sweden is the popular poet Runeberg,
born in Finland in 1804, who possessed a poetic genius of the highest
quality. But the most celebrated poet of Sweden is Esaias Tegnér,
whose "Frithiof's Saga" has won him a world-wide fame, it having been
translated into the principal modern languages, though with great loss
of the beauty of the original. Almquist, a man of fine genius and wide
knowledge, was a poet and novelist of the romantic school, his novels
including "Book of the Rose," "The Palace," etc. Stagnelius, another
poet of eminence, obtained fame by his epic of "Wladimir the Great."
The novelists include several well-known women writers, the productions
of Fredrika Bremer and Emilie Carlén having gained popularity in
English translations. Fredrika Runeberg, wife of the poet, was also
a popular novelist, while favorite male writers of historical novels
include Mellin, Sparre, Topelius, and Rydberg, the last also a popular
poet. Wetterbergh (Uncle Adam) gained reputation by his humorous tales
of Swedish home life.
[=Literature of Sweden and Norway=]
Most famous of the poets of Norway is Wergeland, the Schiller of his
country, his works including tragedies, poems and satires. Various
later writers followed in his line, including Moe, Jensen, Kjerulf
and Thomsen. Chief among Norwegian novelists is Björnson, the author
of a series of charming studies of the peasant life of his country,
all which are popular in English speaking countries. Others who have
wrought in the same field are Thoresen and Lie. But most famous of the
recent writers of Norway is the dramatist Ibsen, a thorough playwright
on historical and romantic themes, and on social problems. It is the
striking and radical character of his productions in the last named
field, including "A Doll's House" and various others, to which he owes
his widespread fame, and the severe criticism with which his works have
been assailed.
The Danish literature of the nineteenth century opened with Jens
Baggesen, whose lyrics, mock-heroic poems, and "Comic Tales" are much
admired. The great poet of Denmark, however, is Oehlenschläger, who
produced tragedies of the highest merit, while his splendid epic poem,
"The Gods of the North," is one of the noblest modern works of this
character. Of the many other Danish writers of the century we shall
name only the famous Hans Christian Andersen, whose folk-tales are
household words throughout the world.
[=Writers of Italy=]
The literary fame of Spain rests with its authors of the past, there
being few of notable merit of recent date. Much the same must be said
in regard to Italy, the latest of its great poets and dramatists,
Alfieri, dying in 1803. One of its most famous nineteenth century
writers was Ugo Foscolo, whose political romance, "Letters of Jacopo
Ortis," published about 1800, became immensely popular. His finest work
is considered to be "The Monuments," an admirable lyric poem. Count
Leopardi also attained to high eminence as a poet, and Manzoni as a
novelist and dramatist, his "Betrothed Lovers" ("I Promessi Sposi"),
having a wide reputation as a vivid picture of Italian society of the
seventeenth century. We shall speak of only one other, Silvio Pellico,
whose work, "My Prisons," descriptive of his own sufferings in Austrian
prisons, is a classic of its kind and has been widely translated.
[=Other Celebrated Authors=]
This rapid review by no means exhausts the meritorious nineteenth
century authors of Europe, whose smaller countries possess their
writers of fame. Hungary, for instance, presents to us the prolific
novelist Jokai, whose works are read in all civilized lands. Poland,
no longer a country, merely a people, has its famous novelists, chief
among them being H. Sienkiewicz, author of the popular "Quo Vadis." The
same may be said of the Netherlands and of Switzerland, to the latter
of which the United States was indebted for one of its most eloquent
scientific writers, the celebrated Louis Agassiz. Of course, the
literature of merit in the nineteenth century has not been confined to
Europe and the United States. Canada, for instance, has produced able
writers, and the same may be said of the British colonies of Australia
and South Africa, while the nations of Spanish-America have also
produced noted authors.
[=Merit of the Literature of the Past=]
[=Scientific and Historical Literature=]
We have said in the beginning of this chapter that literature has made
no recent advance, writers of conspicuous merit reaching far back
into the past. The "Iliad" of Homer, for example, dates back some
three thousand years, and Dante belongs to an early era of mediæval
Europe. Yet this assertion is true only in a general sense, that of the
comparative merit of authors in style and depth of thought, without
regard to the character of their works. In a more special sense,
that of the distinctive varieties of literature, we may credit the
nineteenth century with several marked steps of progress. The most
meritorious works of the past ages were in the fields of poetry, drama,
philosophy, oratory, and other branches of imaginative and metaphysical
thought. The practice of accurate observation and the literature
arising from it are very largely of nineteenth century development.
The literature of travel, for instance, is confined in great measure
to the past century, and the same may be said of that of science,
the comparatively few scientific treatises of the past having been
replaced by a vast multitude of scientific works. These are in great
measure confined to records of scientific observation and discovery.
Theoretical science, while very active in the past century, has yielded
no works of higher merit than those of such older writers as Aristotle,
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others of the older worthies.
But the gathering of facts has been enormous, and great libraries of
works of science to-day replace the scanty volumes of a century ago.
A second field of nineteenth century advance is in the domain of
history. The history of the past is largely the annals of kings and
the story of wars. Thucydides, the philosophical historian of Greece,
had few successors before the century in question, within which
written history has greatly broadened its scope, reaching to heights
and descending to depths unattempted before. Histories of the people
have for the first time been written, and the outreach of historical
research has been made to cover institutions, manners and customs,
morals and superstitions, and a thousand things neglected by older
authors. History, in short, has at once become philosophical and
scientific, efforts being made in the latter direction to sweep into
its net everything relating to man, and in the former to discover the
forces underlying the downward flow through time of the human race, and
to trace the influences which have given rise to the political, social
and other institutions of mankind.
[=The Novel and Its Development=]
A still more special field of nineteenth century literary development
is that of the novel. Imaginative thought has existed for long
ages, and fictitious tales are as old as civilization, but in the
ancient world these were couched in the form of poetic and dramatic
literature, of fable, fairy tale, and the like. The first steps of
approach towards the modern novel began in late Greek times, and the
development of the tale continued through the Middle Ages, though it
failed to reach the level of what may be distinctively called the novel
until the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel, specially so
called, is the character tale, the development of human personality
under the guise of fiction. This was scarcely attempted in the prose
works of the past, character drawing being then confined to the drama.
Abundant works of romance and adventure were written, but it was left
to Richardson, Fielding, and the contemporary French authors to produce
character novels, works of fiction peopled by individual men and women,
instead of by speaking puppets, shows of man in the abstract, as in
earlier years.
The novel attained some promising development in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, but was still in a crude state at the opening
of the nineteenth, when it was taken up by the powerful hand of
Scott, whose remarkable works first fairly opened this new domain of
intellectual enjoyment to mankind. Since his time the literature of
the novel has grown stupendous in quantity and remarkable in quality,
reaching from the most worthless and degraded forms of literary
production to the highest regions of human thought. The novel, as now
developed, covers almost the entire domain of intellectual production,
embracing works of adventure, romance, literal and ideal pictures of
life, humor, philosophy, religion, science,--forming indeed a great
drag-net that sweeps up everything that comes in its way.
[=The Text-Book and Progress in Education=]
There is another field of literary production, more humble but not less
useful than those named, which has had an immense development in the
past century, that of the school text-book. The text-books of earlier
periods were of the crudest and most imperfect character as compared
with the multitude of works, admirably designed to smooth the pathway
to knowledge, which now crowd our schools. In connection with these
may be named the great development in methods of education, and the
spread of educational facilities, whose effect has been such that,
whereas a century ago education was confined to the few, it now belongs
to the many, and ignorance is being almost driven beyond the borders
of civilized nations. Those who cannot read and write are becoming
a degraded minority, while a multitude of colleges and universities
are yielding the advantages of the higher education to a constantly
increasing multitude.
[=Vast Increase in Books and Newspapers=]
By no means the least among the triumphs of the nineteenth century
has been the enormous development of book-making. The wide-spread
education of the people in recent times has created an extraordinary
demand for books, there being a thousand readers now to the one of a
century or two ago. This demand has given rise to as extraordinary a
supply, which is not offered in books alone, but in periodicals of the
most varied character and scope, including a multitude of newspapers
almost beyond comprehension. The United States alone, in addition to
its numerous magazines, issues more than twenty thousand different
newspapers, of which the aggregate circulation reaches daily far up
into the millions.
[=Wide-Spread Use of Books=]
The demand for reading matter could not have been a tenth part
supplied with the facilities of a century ago, but man's powers in
this direction have steadily increased. From the intellectual side,
the advance in education has provided a great number of men competent
to cater to the multitude of readers, as authors in various fields,
editors, reporters, etc., an army of able men and women being enlisted
in this work., From the mechanical side, invention has served a similar
purpose; the paper-making machinery, with the use of wood as raw
material, the mechanical type-setters, the rapid printing-presses,
and other inventions having not only enormously increased the ability
to produce books and newspapers, but cheapened them to such an extent
that they are now within the reach of the poorest. A century ago such
a thing as an one-cent newspaper was not known. Now a daily that
sells for more than a cent is growing rare. A century ago only a few
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other works of reference were in
existence, and those were within the reach only of the well-to-do.
Now works of this kind are very numerous, and they are being sold so
cheaply and on such easy terms of payment, that they are widely spread
through the families of artisans and farmers.
In truth, the number of books possessed by wage-earners and
agriculturists to-day is very much greater than those classes could
possess a century ago, and the character of these works has improved so
greatly that they serve a highly useful purpose in the advancement of
popular education. In addition to the actual ownership of books, there
has been so great an increase in libraries, and such an improvement in
methods of distribution, that books of all kinds are within the reach
of the poorest of city people, and measures are being taken to place
them at the disposal of country people as well.
[=The Development of Libraries=]
At the opening of the century the free library was almost unknown.
At its close there was not a large city in the United States without
its free library, and many small ones were similarly provided. In
truth, the great library development in this country has been within
the latter half of the century. In 1850 there were only eighty-one
libraries in the United States that contained over 5,000 volumes, and
the total number of books in them was less than a million, a much
smaller number than could be found in the libraries of Paris alone. No
single American library at that date contained over 75,000 volumes.
In 1900 there were more than a dozen with over 100,000 volumes each,
some of these possessing considerably over half a million books. Thus
the Boston Public Library contained over 600,000 volumes, while a
still larger number was housed within the Congressional Library at
Washington, in what is the finest and most magnificently decorated
library building in the world, with room to accommodate as many as
4,000,000 volumes. The great libraries of the United States are far
surpassed in number of books by those of the leading capitals of
Europe, and particularly by that of Paris, which contains the enormous
number of more than 2,500,000 volumes.
[=Art in Past Centuries=]
What has been said about literature can scarcely be repeated about
art. The nineteenth century has developed no new species of fine art,
and in its productions in sculpture, painting, architecture and music
has given us no works superior to those of the earlier centuries.
Many names of artists of genius in this century could be given, if
necessary, but as these names indicate nothing original in style or
superior in merit there is no call to present them. The advance of the
nineteenth century has been rather in the cheap production and wide
dissemination of works of art than in any originality of conception.
[=Great Progress in Pictorial Art=]
In this direction the greatest advance has been made in pictorial
art. Methods of engraving have been very greatly cheapened, and the
photograph has supplied the world with an enormous multitude of
faithful counterparts of nature. Among the many ways in which this
form of art has been applied, one of the most useful is that of book
illustration. The ordinary "picture-book" of the beginning of the
century was an eye-sore of frightful character, its only alleviation
being that the cost of illustrations prevented many of them being
given. The "half-tone" method of reproduction of photographs has made
a wonderful development in this direction, pictures that faithfully
reproduce in black and white scenes of nature or works of art being now
made with such cheapness that book illustrations of superior character
have grown very abundant, and it has become possible to illustrate
effectively the daily newspaper, laying before us in pictorial form the
scenes of events that happened only a few hours before.
[Illustration: COUNT LYOF TOLSTOI IN HIS LIBRARY
Russia came late into the field of modern literature,
yet it has produced a fair number of writers who have
gained a high position in the temple of fame. Chief
among these is Count Lyof Tolstoi, born in 1828,
and to-day the most famous of Russian novelists and
moralists. He is still better known for his ultra
socialistic ideas, he believing it the duty of the
highest to place himself on a level in toil with the
lowest. This theory he has carried out in his life,
working like a common laborer on his estate.]
[Illustration: THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
CHAPTER XLI.
The American Church and the Spirit of Human
Brotherhood.
[=Division of Labor=]
As the century draws toward its end, and men make careful survey of the
work it has wrought in the many and varied fields of human activity,
it is natural that each observer should take a special interest in the
department which constitutes his specialty. The statesman studies the
social and political phenomena and forces of the age. The scientist,
the educator, the manufacturer, the financier, the merchant, find in
their respective spheres problems to be taken in hand and carefully
investigated, that the experience of the past may become wisdom for the
future. While this division of labor may tend to develop one-sidedness
in the individual, it provides ample material for the true student
of history, who, by collecting the data furnished by these various
investigators, may make wide and wise generalizations, and thus
contribute to a more complete study of human nature and human history.
The increase of general interest among special observers and students
will ensure in due time co-operation, increased intelligence, and
enthusiasm in the promotion of the highest civilization.
As the procession of the years which form the most wonderful century
of human history closes its solemn march, those who look on time as
deriving its chief worth from its relations to eternity, and who
estimate civilization as it bears upon the immortal character of man,
will of necessity judge a century by its religious quality and results,
asking: What place has religion held, what work has it wrought, what
errors have weakened it, what are the tendencies which now dominate it,
what are the opportunities which open before it?
[=American Type of Christianity=]
The American type of Christianity is in advance of all other Christian
types, since it grows among and permeates political and social ideas
and institutions which give it larger and fuller opportunities than
it has ever before known, opportunities to develop humanity on all
sides and in all relations. The American Church is made up of all
individuals, classes, societies, and agencies which bear the Christian
name or hold the Christian thought. It is not a "State Church." It is
not a "union Church"--constituted by the formal unification of diverse
sects or denominations. It embraces all believers (and in a sense
all citizens) without visible consolidation; it favors all without
legislative interference; it gives freedom to all without partiality or
discrimination.
[=Distinguishing Feature of American Life=]
The distinguishing feature of American life--which makes what we call
"freedom" mean more and promise more than does the civil, political,
and religious freedom of any other land, and which therefore gives
a distinctive character to the American Church--is that the liberty
of the individual has large and unhampered opportunity for growth
and action. Individual liberty here is actual liberty; unhindered by
governmental provisions for privileged classes, who, by the accident
of birth, leap into place and prerogative without merit of their own,
and whose unearned advantage is detrimental to the well-being of the
multitude. It is liberty which carries with it opportunity,--the
liberty of the lowest in the nation to reach the rank of the highest;
of the poorest to become the richest; of the most ignorant to become
the most learned; of the most despised to become the most honored;
the liberty of every man to know all that he can know, to be all that
he can be, and do all that he pleases to do, so long as he does not
interfere with the right of any other man to know all that he can
know, to be all that he can be, and to do all that he pleases to do.
It is the liberty among brothers, who, with all the prerogatives of
individuality, need not forget the brotherhood of man, and who have
every inducement not merely to guarantee to each other this regal right
of full personal development, but who easily learn how to render mutual
aid--every man helping every other man to know all that he can know, be
all that he can be, and to do all that he pleases to do.
This, then, is the ideal of American civilization: A nation of equals,
who are brothers. This is the doctrine of the closing American century;
the root of the goodly tree that covers such ample area with its
fruitful and bending branches; the vine which the right hand of the
Lord our God hath planted; this the lesson running along the bars and
shining out of the stars of our national flag. It is necessary that the
race experiment with this great idea of freedom and fraternity. It is
an idea that sounds well in rhyme and song, but it must stand the test
of practice as well; and is it capable of this? May this large Gospel
of the Christ be realized by a nation, and this nation become in spirit
and fact a church? This is the glorious thought running through the
civilization of our century, and this we believe to be the purpose of
the God of nations.
The distinctive feature of the nineteenth century in America is the
struggle for the recognition of these two noble ideas: The freedom of
the individual and the brotherhood of the race. And this thought is
thoroughly religious. It is pre-eminently Christian. It was taught,
enforced, and illustrated by the Nazarene. It is asserting itself in
our civilization. The work is now going on. It has not gone far, but it
is bound to go on to the blessed end. The leaven is working every day.
We are in the midst of the great experiment.
[=Development of the American Church=]
The American Church is not a State Church. It is supported not by law,
but by love. No large subsidies corrupt it. No political complications
weaken it. Church and State serve each other best when the only bond
between them is one of individual conviction and mutual confidence. The
beginnings of the Republic were made by religious men, who organized
religious communities. They sought our shores to secure religious
liberty. Some of them may have been narrow, but they were true and
brave. Some of the fetters that bound them had been severed, but some
still remained. They had not yet conceived the idea of an emancipated
and responsible individuality. Protestants fled from the severities
of Roman rule, and Romans from the oppressions of Protestants. And it
took a long time for Protestants to become free. But the founders and
fathers of the Republic were religious and God-fearing men. They were
simply pupils ("primary pupils" at that) in the school of human rights
and human brotherhood. The lessons were long and hard. It has taken
more than a century to get half through the "first reader," and there
is ample work for the century ahead, but as a people we are coming to
see the life of the Church in the aims and order of the State, and to
learn that God is in all history, that His claims upon men extend to
all social relations, sanctifying all secular and political life, and
embracing charity, sympathy, and justice in the minutest details of
life, as well as awe, reverence and worship.
[=The Sunday-school System=]
Simultaneously with the rise of the Republic began the great
Sunday-school system, which went everywhere with the open Bible and the
living teacher, with inspiring Christian songs, attractive books for
week-day reading, juvenile pictorial papers, social gatherings, and the
stimulating power of friendly fellowship in religious life. It brought
the people together, old and young, learned and unlearned, rich and
poor. It did more to "level up" society than any other agency in the
Republic. It made the adult who taught susceptible and affectionate
childhood a better citizen. It prepared the children to be wiser,
more conscientious, and more loyal citizens in the next generation.
In the widely extended Methodist revival, and in the all-embracing
Sunday-school movement, we see the hand of God fashioning the Nation
and the Church, that they might be one in aim and spirit, and that
through them might be promoted liberty, equality, and fraternity.
[=Union Church Associations=]
The various branches or denominations of the American Church are
influenced by these ruling ideas of the century; the freedom and
unrestricted opportunity of the individual and the spirit of generous
fraternity. The old warfare between the Protestant denominations
has virtually ceased. Co-operation in religious and reformatory
effort--the Young Men's Christian Association, the Women's Christian
Temperance Union, the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, the
International Lesson system, the State and International Sunday-school
Conventions, the Evangelical Alliance, the Chautauqua Assemblies,
the exchange of pulpits, the frequent union revival meetings held by
representative evangelists, the ease with which ministers pass from
one denomination to another, the warm, personal friendships between
representative leaders of the several Churches, the growth and
enrichment of non-denominational periodical literature--these are some
of the signs of the larger thought now controlling our people.
[=The Value of Religion in Politics=]
The American Church, which imposes no creed but the creed of the
Republic, which knows no lines of division--sectarian, political, or
territorial--but which seeks the well-being of the individual and the
fellowship of all true citizens, will soon wield an immense influence
in matters political. It will discuss great ethical questions; it will
carry conscientiousness and independence into political action; it
will dissipate the weak heresy that Christians are not to take part in
national affairs. In the days of Christ and the Apostles, the governing
powers, the rulers of this world, were beyond the touch and control
of the people. It was for them humbly to serve and uncomplainingly to
suffer. But now all this has been changed. The people to-day stand
where Cæsar used to stand; and to be a thoughtful, conscientious,
active, consistent politician, is to be doing God's service. The church
member who neglects political duty is guilty of sin against both God
and the neighbor. The power of the people will be felt for good when
the people begin to know and to defend the true and the good. They have
during the century expressed the purpose of the American Church on the
subject of slavery. At its declaration the shackles have fallen. They
pronounced against and destroyed the Louisiana Lottery. Through the
press, the ballot, and the authority of law, the moral force of the
nation expresses itself and the base conspirators surrender. So must it
be with the saloon, and with all political evil. If politicians carry
moral questions into the political arena, the pulpit and all other
agencies of the church must go with the question before the people,
and lead them to consider it no less from the moral than from the
political point of view.
Aside from the development of the Christian religion as distinctively
displayed in the United States, its progress in the world at large
has been great and encouraging. Particularly has the spirit of
sectarianism, strongly manifested a century ago, decreased in force and
fanaticism diminished, while the sentiment of union and brotherhood
between churches of different sects has developed to a highly
encouraging degree.
[=Missionary Activity=]
Outside of Christendom the influences of the religion of Christ
have been widely spread by the active and enthusiastic labors of
missionaries, who have carried the lessons of the Gospels to all
lands, and established Christianity among numerous tribes formerly in
the lowest stages of heathenism and idolatry. The success of these
devoted men has been much less among peoples possessed of a religious
faith of a higher grade, as the Mohammedans, Hindoos, and Chinese, and
perhaps the most important results of their labors everywhere have been
those of education and civilization, necessary preliminaries, in the
case of ignorant and undeveloped peoples, to a just comprehension of
the principles of Christianity and the inculcation of advanced moral
sentiments and the high standard of the Golden Rule.
[=New Religious Movements=]
The religious history of the century does not end with the relation
of the progress of Christianity. There has indeed been some degree
of reaction of heathenism upon Christian countries, particularly in
the case of Buddhism, whose doctrines have made their way into Europe
and America, and gained there a considerable body of adherents. This
infiltration from without has developed into what is known as the
Theosophical Society, which claims over 100,000 members in the United
States alone. In addition may be named various new religious outgrowths
of home origin, including the Mormons, the Spiritualists, the Christian
Scientists, and others of less prominence. Similar new sects have
arisen in Mohammedan and Hindoo countries, such as the Babists in
Persia and the Brahmo Somaj in India, these latter being distinctive
reforms on the more ancient religious creeds and practices.
[=The Religion of Fear and of Love=]
What has been said above does not show the full extent of the religious
movement within the century. There has been an active spirit of
progress within the lines of denominational religion itself, and
liberal sentiment has made a marked and promising advance. The former
insistence upon creed as the essential factor in religion has greatly
weakened in favor of its ethical element, and the supremacy of conduct
over creed is openly taught. Again, the old religion of fear is giving
way before a new religion of love. The doctrine of future punishment,
and the attempt to swell the lists of church members by insistence upon
the horrors of Hades, are rarely heard in the pulpits of to-day, the
old Hell-fire conception having become at once too preposterous and too
alien to the character of the All Wise and All Good to be any longer
entertained except by the most ignorant of pulpit orators. In truth,
the doctrines of the modern pulpit are rapidly rising towards the
level of Christ's elevated teachings, and inculcating love and human
brotherhood as the essential elements of the Christian faith.
[=The Spirit of Liberalism=]
The growing spirit of liberalism has given rise to a large body of
moralists who repudiate the idea that faith in a creed is essential to
salvation, and claim that moral conduct is the sole religious element
that is likely to influence the future destiny of mankind. Persons of
this class are specially numerous in the ranks of the scientists, whose
habit of close observation, and rigorous demand for established facts
as the basis of all theoretical views, unfit them for acceptance of
any doctrines insusceptible of rigid demonstration from the scientific
standpoint. This requirement of hard and fast evidence, appealing
directly to the senses, and discarding all reliance upon the ideal or
upon the broad consensus of ancient belief, has no doubt been carried
too far, and has yielded a narrowness of outlook which will be replaced
by broader conceptions as psychological science develops. That it
exists now, however, cannot be denied, and its adherents constitute a
very large and influential body. Yet it must be said that science and
religion, for a time widely separated, are growing together, and that
in all probability the final outcome of modern thought and research
will be an alliance between these two great forces, a religion which
science can accept and a science in full accord with religious views
and principles.
[=The Movement in Ethics=]
If we now turn aside from religion as a whole, and consider only its
ethical side, it is to find an immense advance within the nineteenth
century. The standard of right conduct may not have risen, but the
sentiment of human sympathy and of the brotherhood of mankind has very
greatly developed, and human charity and fellow feeling, a century or
two ago largely confined within the limits of a nation or a city, are
now coming to embrace all mankind.
[=Child Labour in Factories=]
There has been a great amelioration in manners and customs within the
century, a great decrease in barbarity and cruelty. A few examples will
suffice to point this out. The barbarous practices in regard to child
labor which existed in 1800 and much later have often been depicted in
lurid colors, the selfish greed of employers giving rise to a "massacre
of the innocents" as declared and even more cruel in its methods
than that of the time of Christ. Thousands of children in the days of
our grandfathers were simply tortured to death in dark and dank mines
or gloomy and unhealthy workshops, at an age when they should have
been alternating between the useful confinement of the schools and
the healthful freedom of the playgrounds and the fields. This state
of affairs happily no longer exists, and in the present condition of
public sentiment could not be reproduced. The world has grown decidedly
beyond the level of such heartless cruelty.
[=Prevention of Cruelty to Animals=]
The development of sympathy has not confined itself to a redress of
the wrongs of children, but has made itself manifest in attention to
the wrongs of workmen as a whole, factory inspection having put an end
to many unhealthful and oppressive conditions formerly prevailing, and
saved thousands of workmen from being poisoned in the midst of their
daily labors. And not only human beings, but dumb animals, have been
reached by the awakened sympathy of modern communities. A century ago
the noble and patient horse was frequently treated with the utmost
brutality, without a hand or a voice being raised in its defence. This
barbarity was accepted as a part of the established and necessary order
of things, and dismissed with a shrug or perhaps without a thought.
To-day, in the more enlightened nations, this state of things has
ceased to exist. Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals
keep a close watch upon the brutally inclined, and have almost put
an end to cruel practices which formerly prevailed without a word of
protest, domestic animals being now protected as carefully as human
beings.
[=Prison Reform=]
In no direction did the lack of kindly sentiment of a century ago show
itself more decisively than in prison management. We do not mean to say
that philanthropy did not then exist, but that it was far from being
the active sentiment it has become to-day, and was largely without
effect upon legislators; the condition alike of convicted criminals,
of debtors, and of those held for trial being in many cases almost
indescribably horrible. The first effective movement towards prison
reform was made by John Howard, in the latter part of the eighteenth
century, but public sentiment was so dulled towards the condition of
prisoners that the horrors painted out by him were in great measure
permitted to continue. The legislators of England could not be awakened
to any active interest in the inmates of the gaols.
[=Prison Life a Century ago=]
When Elizabeth Fry made her first visit to the female department of
Newgate, the city prison of London, in 1813, she found a state of
affairs whose horrors, words are weak to convey. The women inmates
"were limited to two wards and two yards, an area of about one hundred
and ninety-two superficial yards in all, into which some three hundred
women with their children were crowded, all classes together, felon and
misdemeanant, tried and untried; the whole under the superintendence
of an old man and his son. They slept on the floor, without so much as
a mat for bedding. Many were very nearly naked, others were in rags;
some desperate from want of food, some savage from drink, foul in
language, still more recklessly depraved in their habits and behavior.
Everything was filthy beyond description. The smell of the place was
quite disgusting."
The condition of affairs on the men's side, unless they were able to
pay for better accommodations, was similar to that here described.
Their treatment, indeed, depended largely on the amount of money they
could pay the jail officials and they were fleeced without mercy. The
practice of fettering them was so common that nearly every one wore
irons, even the untried being often laden with fetters, while their
limbs were chafed into sores by the weight of these useless instruments
of torture.
The report of the Prison Discipline Improvement Society, at as
late a date as 1818, shows the existence of an almost incredible
state of things in English prisons. Many of the gaols were in the
most deplorable condition, and crowded far beyond their powers of
accommodation. All prisoners passed their time in absolute idleness, or
spent it in gambling and loose conversation. The debtors were crowded
into the narrowest quarters conceivable. Twenty men were forced to
sleep in a space twenty feet long by six wide--accomplishing this
seemingly impossible feat by "sleeping edgeways." In the morning the
stench and heat were something terrible; "the smell on first opening
the door was enough to knock down a horse." The jail hospitals were
filled with infectious cases, and in one room, seven feet by nine, with
closed windows, where a boy lay ill with fever, three other prisoners,
at first perfectly healthy, were found lodged. It is no wonder that
the deadly jail fever raged as an epidemic in such pest holes, and
even communicated itself to the judges before whom these wretches were
brought for trial.
[=Improvement in Prison Life=]
We have by no means told all the horrors of prison life at that period,
but will desist from giving any more of its painful details. It need
scarcely be said that an utterly different state of affairs now exists
in all civilized lands, prisoners being treated as human beings instead
of wild beasts; and so warm is the feeling of public sympathy with the
wretched that any of the horrors here depicted would raise a universal
cry of deprecation in the land. Kindness is now the rule in dealing
with criminals of all grades, and every effort is made to supply them
with employment, and to attend to the requirements of comfort and
cleanliness. Prisons are rapidly developing into schools for reform,
and with remarkable success where systems of this kind have been fully
developed.
[=Capital Punishment in 1800=]
The laws of a century ago were barbarous almost beyond conception at
the present day. Capital punishment, now confined to murderers, was
then inflicted for some twenty-five separate crimes, including forgery,
coining, sheep or horse stealing, burglary, cutting and maiming,
rick-burning, robbery, arson, etc. There were, in fact some two hundred
capital crimes on the statute books, but most of these had grown
obsolete. Yet such a minor offence as stealing in a dwelling house
was a crime punishable by hanging, and men were occasionally executed
on the gallows for a small theft that would now subject them to only
a few months of imprisonment. It was not until after 1830 that an
amelioration in these severe laws began, and with such effect that the
number of persons sentenced to death in England decreased from 458 in
1837 to fifty-six in 1839. After 1841 the death penalty was inflicted
only for murder, though seven other crimes remained capital by law
until 1861.
[=Public Executions=]
The practice of public executions was another barbarous feature of the
code, and the scenes around the gallows at Tyburn, on the occasion of
the execution of any criminal of note, were so disgraceful that it
seems incredible that they could exist in any civilized land. Other
relics of the dark ages were the public exhibition of the bodies of
the executed, and hanging in chains on a gibbet, a practice in vogue
until 1832. In one case mentioned, at that late date, "a sort of fair
was held, gaming tables were set up, and cards were played under the
gibbet, to the disturbance of the public peace and the annoyance of all
decent people."
It will suffice to say here that this state of affairs has been
reformed out of existence. Executions, restricted solely to murderers,
now take place wholly in private, and so great is the public desire to
prevent suffering to the condemned that the first electrical execution
in New York raised a cry of horror when it was announced that life
did not cease within the few seconds expected, but that the power of
sensation continued for perhaps a minute. In truth, in this instance,
there was something of a hyper-sensibility manifested, but one of a
kind creditable to human nature.
[=The Spirit of Sympathy=]
The development of the spirit of sympathy with the poor and suffering
is by no means confined to the instances stated, but has gained an
extraordinary extension. The rapid progress of railroad and steamship
communication, the enormous increase in travel, and the bringing of
the ends of the earth together by means of the telegraph wire have
made of all mankind one great family, and the instinct of charity and
benevolence reaches to the most remote quarters of the globe. Notable
results of this feeling, of recent date, have been the efforts to
ameliorate the suffering in India during the late famine, the war
instigated by sympathy in Cuba, the earnest efforts to supply food to
the starving in Porto Rico, and the fervent feeling aroused in favor of
the unjustly punished Dreyfus.
[=The Growth of Charity=]
In regard to charity at home, the instances of it are voluminous beyond
our power to record. Hospitals, asylums, institutions of benevolence
of the most varied character, have been everywhere instituted, alike
in Europe and America, mainly through public donations, and there
is no form of want or suffering which is not met by some attempt at
alleviation. Homes for the afflicted of every kind are rising in
all directions; charity is organized and active to a degree never
before seen; the bettering of the condition of the poor by improved
residences, methods of recreation and instruction, and other acts
of aid and kindness is actively going on, and in a hundred ways
benevolence is striving to lift man from want and degradation into
comfort and advanced conditions.
What is known as altruism, the sentiment of fellow feeling, is, in
part, coming to be one of the active conditions of the age, and is
among the most promising signs of the times. Selfishness, indeed, is
abundantly prevalent still, yet altruistic feeling is rapidly on the
increase, and gifts for benevolent purposes of all kinds are becoming
remarkably abundant. Hundreds of instances might be named, but we shall
confine ourselves to one, Andrew Carnegie's wise and kindly devotion of
the income of his great fortune to the founding of public libraries,
than which nothing could serve better to bring man into a condition of
mind which will prevent him from becoming a willing object of charity.
[=An Advanced Spirit of Benevolence=]
Certainly the Golden Rule is bearing fruit in these later days, and men
are widely doing unto others as they would wish to be done by. The old,
narrow idea of patriotism is being replaced by a growing sentiment of
the brotherhood of all mankind, and altruism is making its way upward
through the dense mass of selfism which has so long dominated the
world. It is still only in its pioneer stage, but the indications of
its growth are encouraging, and we may look forward with hope to a day
in which it will become the leading influence in the social world, and
selfishness lose its long and strong hold upon the heart of man.
[Illustration: JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
HENRY EDWARD MANNING
LEARNED CARDINALS]
[Illustration: HENRY DRUMMOND.
REV. JOHN WATSON (IAN MACLAREN).
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON.
FREDERICK W. FARRAR.
WRITERS OF RELIGIOUS CLASSICS.]
CHAPTER XLII.
The Dawn of the Twentieth Century.
[=The Nineteenth Century and the Era of Mediævalism=]
The nineteenth century saw the modern world in its making. At its
opening the long mediæval era was just ceasing to exist. The French
Revolution had brought it to a sudden and violent termination in
France, and had sown the seeds of the new ideas of equality and
fraternity and the rights of man widely over Europe. In the new world a
great modern nation, instinct with the most advanced ideas of liberty
and justice, had just sprung into existence, a nation without royalty
or nobility, and whose leaders were the chosen servants, not the
privileged masters, of the people.
This grand political revolution, with which the century began, was
paralleled with as notable an industrial revolution. The invention
of the steam engine had brought to an end the mediæval system of
industry. The old, individual, household era of labor, where every man
could be his own master and supply his own capital, ceased to exist;
costly labor-saving machines, needing large accumulations of capital,
came into use; great buildings and the centralization of labor became
necessary; and the factory system, which has had such an immense
development in the nineteenth century, began its remarkable career.
[=The Century's Wonderful Stages of Progress=]
With the opening and progress of the nineteenth century came other
conditions of prime importance. Invention, which first became active
near the end of the preceding century, now flourished until its
results seemed rather the work of magic than of plain human thought
and work. Science, which already had made some notable triumphs,
gained an undreamed-of activity and hundreds of the deep secrets
of the universe were unfolded. Discovery and exploration achieved
surprising results. At the beginning of the century half the world
was unknown. At its end only the frozen realms of the poles remained
unexplored, and civilization was making its way into a hundred haunts
of ancient savagery. Literature and art, while they can claim no works
of acknowledged superiority as compared with the master pieces of past
centuries, have displayed a remarkable activity, and the number of
meritorious books now annually issued is one of the most extraordinary
events of the century.
[=Progress in Education=]
Not less important is the immense progress in education. The
schoolhouse forms the great mile-post on the highway of progress. It is
everywhere in evidence. Free schools extend throughout the civilized
world, and reach upward to a plane far beyond the highest level of
public education a century ago, linking the common school with the
college, and forming a direct stepping stone to university education,
which has widened out with similar activity. In methods of education a
marked advance has been made, while the text-books of to-day are almost
infinitely superior to those of the earlier period. And education is
turning its attention in a highly encouraging degree towards practical
subjects and away from that incubus of the dead languages which was so
strenuously insisted upon in the past. Man is going back to nature in
education, observation is supplementing book knowledge, and experiment
taking the place of authority. In short, education, with its handmaids,
the book and the newspaper, is making its way into the humblest of
homes, and man is everywhere fitting himself for an intelligent
discharge of his social, industrial and political duties.
As regards the development of the spirit of charity and human
brotherhood, it has been spoken of in the preceding chapter and does
not need recapitulation here. Yet there is one stage of advance
of which nothing has so far been said, but which is of high and
significant importance, namely, the great progress made in the
educational, industrial and political position of woman.
[=The Education of Women=]
In the beginning of the nineteenth century education, except of the
most elementary character, was in great measure confined to boys.
In 1788 the village fathers of Northampton, Mass., where Smith's
College for women is now situated, voted "not to be at the expense of
schooling girls;" and in 1792 the selectmen of Newburyport decided that
"during the summer months, when the boys have diminished, the Master
shall receive girls for instruction in grammar and reading, after the
dismission of the boys in the afternoon, for an hour and a half." The
site of this schoolhouse, to which, as is believed, women were first
admitted on this continent to an education at public expense, is still
shown with pride to visitors. The same town established in 1803 four
girls' schools, the first on record, to be kept six months in the year,
from six to eight in the morning and on Thursday afternoon.
[=Women's Colleges=]
Step by step the free school was opened to girls, and gradually
institutions for the higher education of women were established, the
pioneer college which opened its doors to the fair sex being Oberlin,
in Ohio, in 1833. The advance since then has been great, and at the
opening of the twentieth century there was not a college west of the
Alleghanies which denied to woman the full advantages of education,
while the same was the case in many of the older colleges of the East.
In 1865 Matthew Vassar founded in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the first
college exclusively for women. To this is now added Smith, Wellesley
and Bryn Mawr Colleges, within whose doors the highest advantages of
education are to be obtained. The distinction between boys and girls in
education, in short, has nearly ceased to exist in this country, and is
in a fair way of vanishing in Europe.
In industrial occupation the advance of woman has been as great.
A century ago few avenues of labor were open to them outside the
household, and such work as was performed was miserably paid for. At
present there is not an industry which they desire or are suited to
follow from which they are debarred, and the last census enumerated
four thousand different branches of employment in which women were
engaged. This was not only in the lower, but in many of the higher
employments. Women physicians are numerous, women lawyers and preachers
are coming into the field, women professors teach in schools and
colleges, and women authors have given us some of the best books of the
century.
[=Occupation and Suffrage for Women=]
Politically the progress, while not so great, has been encouraging. In
the middle of the nineteenth century no woman had a right to vote, and
the thought of woman suffrage was just being evolved. At the end of the
century women possessed the fullest privileges of the suffrage in the
four states of Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, and partial suffrage
in many other states, while a much wider extension of this privilege
seemed not far distant. In many European countries, and in the British
colonies of Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony, Canada, and parts of
India, woman had won the right to vote, under various restrictions,
for municipal and school officers. Such has been the progress in this
direction of a half century.
[=Peace Propositions of the Emperor of Russia=]
What else shall be said of the state of affairs at the dawn of the
twentieth century? Perhaps one of the most significant and promising
movements of the time is that taken with the object of bringing war,
which has raged upon the earth since the primitive days of mankind, to
an end. The movement in this direction, singularly enough, emanated
from the monarch of the most unprogressive of civilized lands, but one
whose size and power give prominence and influence to any proposition
coming from its court. On August 24, 1898, Count Muravieff, Foreign
Minister of Russia, by order of the Emperor Nicholas II., handed to
the representatives of foreign governments at St. Petersburg copies of
a proposition of such importance, that we give it below in full:
"The maintenance of general peace and the possible reduction of the
excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations present themselves in
existing conditions to the whole world as an ideal toward which the
endeavors of all governments should be directed. The humanitarian and
magnanimous ideas of His Majesty the Emperor, my august master, have
been won over to this view in the conviction that this lofty aim is in
conformity with the most essential interests and legitimate views of
all the powers; and the Imperial Government thinks the present moment
would be favorable to seeking the means.
"International discussion is the most effectual means of insuring all
people's benefit--a real durable peace, above all, putting an end to
the progressive development of the present armaments.
"In the course of the last twenty years the longing for general
appeasement has grown especially pronounced in the consciences of
civilized nations; and the preservation of peace has been put forward
as an object of international policy. It is in its name that great
states have concluded between themselves powerful alliances.
"It is the better to guarantee peace that they have developed in
proportions hitherto unprecedented their military forces, and still
continue to increase them, without shrinking from any sacrifice.
"Nevertheless, all these efforts have not yet been able to bring about
the beneficient result desired--pacification.
"The financial charges following the upward march strike at the very
root of public prosperity. The intellectual and physical strength of
the nations' labor and capital are mostly diverted from the natural
application, and are unproductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are
devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though
to-day regarded as the last work of science, are destined to-morrow
to lose all their value in consequence of some fresh discovery in the
same field. National culture, economic progress, and the production of
wealth are either paralyzed or checked in development. Moreover, in
proportion as the armaments of each power increase, they less and less
fulfil the object the governments have set before themselves.
"The economic crisis, due in a great part to the system of armaments _a
l'outrance_, and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war
material, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing
burden which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing.
"It appears evident that if this state of things were to be prolonged
it would inevitably lead to the very cataclysm it is desired to avert,
and the horrors whereof make every thinking being shudder in advance.
"To put an end to these incessant armaments and to seek the means of
warding off the calamities which are threatening the whole world--such
is the supreme duty to-day imposed upon all states.
"Filled with this idea, His Majesty has been pleased to command me to
propose to all the governments whose representatives are accredited to
the Imperial Court the assembling of a conference which shall occupy
itself with this grave problem.
"This conference will be, by the help of God, a happy presage for the
century which is about to open. It would converge into one powerful
focus the efforts of all states sincerely seeking to make the great
conception of universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and
discord, and it would, at the same time, cement their agreement by a
corporate consecration of the principles of equity and right whereon
rest the security of states and the welfare of peoples."
[=The Peace Conference at The Hague=]
[=The Court of Arbitration=]
This hopeful proposal did not, unfortunately, produce the result hoped
for by its distinguished promulgator. Doubt of the honesty of the
czar and his advisers, and mutual jealousies of the powers of Europe,
stood in the way of an acceptance of the proposition to reduce the
enormous armaments of the great nations. Yet, despite this, it was
not without important results in the direction of doing away with the
horrors of war and bringing about the reign of peace upon the earth.
A peace conference of representatives of the nations, in accordance
with the suggestion of the czar, was held at The Hague, the capital of
the Netherlands, in the spring of 1899, and resulted in the adoption
of a scheme of international arbitration which is full of promise
for the future, as an important step in the direction of settling
international disputes in the high courts of the nations instead of on
the bloody field of war. It proposes to adopt in regard to the nations
the principle long since in vogue in regard to their people, that of
the legal in place of the violent redress of wrongs and settlement
of disputes. A permanent court of arbitration is to be established,
composed of men amply competent to deal with the questions likely to
come before them, and enjoying the public confidence, to deal with
national disputes which previously had no other ready arbiter but the
sword. There is, it is true, no legal obligations upon nations to
submit their differences of opinion to this tribunal, but there is a
high moral obligation, whose force is sure to grow as the years pass
on, and in the establishment of this court we have the most promising
step yet taken towards the abolition of the barbaric custom of war.
[=Labor Saving Machines=]
With the question of the development of the peace sentiment comes that
of the advance of industry, which has been one of the most important
results of nineteenth century progress. This, as already indicated
in these pages, has made an enormous advance within the century, the
invention of labor-saving machinery having so enhanced man's powers
of production that the results of each person's labor is very much
greater than that of a century ago. Where slow hand processes then
widely prevailed, now the whirr of wheels, the intricate play of almost
human-like machines, which need the eye rather than the hand of the
mechanic, turn out products in astonishing profusion and phenomenal
cheapness, while the "man with the hoe" of the past is everywhere
making way for the man with the machine.
[=Industrial Expositions=]
The rate of progress in this direction has been well shown in the
successive fairs of the nations, of which, as we have already stated,
the first was held in Paris in the first year of the century, while
the last was held in 1900, the closing year of the century. Between
these two dates a large number of fairs, international and national,
have been held in Europe and America, each surpassing its predecessor
in size and in the variety and originality of its exhibits, and each
showing new and important steps of advance. It was the middle of the
century before the ideas of mankind expanded to the conception of an
international exhibition, or "world's fair," the first of which was
held in London in 1851. Since then many others on this extended scale
have been held, the first in the United States being the Centennial
Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. The Columbian Exposition, which
followed at Chicago in 1893, was full of indications of great progress
in the intervening seventeen years, especially in the department of
electricity, which had made a remarkable advance in the interval. Still
more significant, as showing the vast industrial progress of the United
States, was the National Export Exposition at Philadelphia in 1899, a
display of commercial products significant of the great development of
American commerce in the final decade of the century, and justly held
in the city which had established the first great commercial museum in
the world.
[=Development of American Commerce=]
As indicative of the progress in American commerce, a few statistics
may be of importance. In 1873 the exports of the United States amounted
to $522,479,922, a sum surpassed by that of the imports, which reached
$642,136,210. In 1892 the exports had increased to $1,030,278,148; the
imports reaching $827,402,462. In 1898 the total exports aggregated the
great sum of $1,231,482,330; while the imports fell to a lower figure
than in 1873, the total being $616,050,654, almost exactly one half the
sum of the exports. It must further be said that these exports are no
longer predominately agricultural, as in the earlier period, but that
the mechanical products of the United States are being sent abroad in
a constantly increasing ratio. And a significant fact in this relation
is that of our growing sum of exports to England herself, long the
dominant lord of manufacture and commerce. This is strikingly indicated
in the shipment of locomotives for use on English railroads, and of
iron bridges for English use by the British authorities in Egypt, the
rapidity and cheapness with which American workshops can turn out their
products being the ruling elements in this remarkable diversion of
trade.
[=Progress in Science=]
The progress in other fields of human endeavor, as indicated at the
dawn of the twentieth century, has been equally pronounced. Science,
for example, manifests a wonderful activity, and displays results of
bewildering variety and great importance; while the rapid and varied
applications of scientific discoveries to useful purposes is one of the
most significant signs of the age. Striking recent examples of this
have been the Röntgen ray and wireless telegraphy.
[=Political Evolution=]
Politically the world has been by no means at rest during the century.
In 1800 despotisms, of greater or less rigidness, controlled most of
the countries of the world. The republic of the United Netherlands had
been overthrown, that recently established in France was sinking under
the autocracy of Napoleon, and the small mountain-girdled republic
of Switzerland alone remained. Beyond the seas this was matched by a
new republic, that of the United States, at that time small and of
little importance in the councils of the world. In 1900 a vast change
manifested itself. The whole double continent of America was occupied
by republics, Canada being practically one under distant supervision,
France had regained its republican institutions, and Great Britain had
all the freedom of a republican form of government. Through all Western
Europe autocracy had vanished, constitutional governments having
succeeded the absolutism of the past, and the only strongholds of
autocracy remaining in Europe were Russia and Turkey, in both of which
the embers of revolution were smouldering, and might at any moment
burst into flame.
[=Great Development of Great Britain=]
These are not the only significant signs of progress which present
themselves to us at the dawn of the twentieth century. In truth, in
a hundred directions the world has been equipping itself for the new
century, which seems to have before it a destiny unequalled in the
history of the world. It is of special importance to observe how
prominent the Anglo-Saxon peoples have been in the great advance which
we have chronicled. Great Britain, and, following in her footsteps, the
United States, have occupied the position of the leading manufacturing
and commercial nations of the world. The contracted boundaries of
the British Islands long since proved too narrow to contain a people
of such expanding enterprise, and they have gone forth, "conquering
and to conquer," settling and developing, until, at the beginning of
the twentieth century, the empire of Great Britain and its colonies
covered an area of 11,336,806 square miles, inhabited by 381,037,374
human beings. This area is nearly one fourth that of the habitable
land surface of the earth, and its population quite one fourth of all
mankind. The East Indian possessions of this great empire are larger
than all Europe without Russia, and the North American ones, if their
water surface be included, are larger than the whole of Europe.
[=Territorial Progress of the Nations=]
The other nations which have made a great advance in territory are
Russia, with its 8,644,100 square miles of territory, and the United
States with its 3,602,990. But in both the latter cases these are
compact territories, held not as colonies, which at any time may
break loose, but as integral parts of the national domain. This
is particularly the case in the United States, whose territory is
inhabited by a patriotic and largely homogenous population, and is not
made up of a congeries of varied and dissatisfied tribes like those of
Russia. The remaining great territorial nation is France, which, with
its colonial acquisitions, covers 3,357,856 square miles of territory.
But France herself is only 204,177 square miles in extent, and her
immense colonial dominions in Africa are held by so weak and uncertain
a tenure as to count for little at present in the strength of the
nation.
[=Probable Future of English Speech=]
A significant fact, in respect to the recent proposition to establish
a universal language, is that the English form of speech, spoken in
1801 by 20,000,000 people, is now used by 125,000,000. Russian comes
next, with 90,000,000, German with 75,000,000, French with 55,000,000,
Spanish with 45,000,000, and Italian with 35,000,000. The rate of
increase in the use of English has far surpassed that of any other
language, and it is said that two-thirds of the letters that pass
through the post-offices of the world are written and sent by people
who speak this cosmopolitan tongue.
This immense advance of the English form of speech is full of
significance. If it goes on, the question as to which is to become
the dominant language of the world will settle itself by a natural
process, and the necessity of inventing a special form of speech will
be obviated. English is to-day the chief commercial language of the
world, and is fast becoming the polite tongue of Europe, a position
held a century ago by French. By the end of the twentieth century it
may well have become the only language besides their own which the
peoples of the earth will find it necessary to learn. And its marked
simplicity of grammatical form adapts it to this destiny beyond any
other of the prominent languages of mankind.
[=Influences Aiding Development=]
To return to the subject under consideration, that of nineteenth
century progress, it may be claimed as due to several influences,
materially to the extended use of the forces of nature in mechanical
processes, in which it went far beyond any of the earlier centuries;
scientifically to the rapid extension of observation and the
vast collection of facts. While there was no superior faculty of
generalization, this accumulation of scientific facts added greatly to
the probability of the theoretical conclusions thence derived. Again,
this activity in investigation, and the great increase of the numbers
engaged in it, are legitimate results of the extension of education,
and in a large measure of the replacement of classical by scientific
instruction. The progress in ethical sentiment is doubtless largely
due to the same cause, that of educational development. This has gone
far to dispel the cloud of ignorance which formerly hung heavily over
the nations, to ripen human intelligence, to broaden man's outlook, to
extend his interest far beyond the range of his immediate surroundings,
and, by increasing his information and widening his mental grasp,
to develop his sympathies and enhance in him the sentiment of the
universal brotherhood of mankind.
The intense activity of the human mind in those late days, and the
quickness with which men take practical advantage of any new suggestion
of workable character, are strikingly exemplified in an example that
is well worth relating. In the famous sociological novel by Edward
Bellamy, entitled "Looking Backward," in which the author describes an
ideal community placed at a date near the end of the twentieth century,
he pictures a number of advanced conditions which he evidently hopes
will exist at that coming period. One of these is a newspaper on a
new type, a spoken instead of a written paper. By aid of telephone
connections running in all directions, the events of the day in all
parts of the world are to be "phoned" to subscribers in their homes,
while great orations, theatrical entertainments, concerts, etc., may be
enjoyed without leaving their rooms.
[=A Telephone Newspaper=]
Whether suggested by this imaginative picture or not, it is said that
something of this kind has been already introduced, a century in
advance of its appointed time. We are told that the city of Budapest,
Hungary, has had for several years a spoken newspaper named the
_Telephone Gazette_, in which all the news of the day are transmitted
by telephone to the subscribers, who are constantly growing in numbers.
It has a corps of forty reporters and literary men for the collecting
and preparing of material, and sends its news to clubs, restaurants,
cafés, public and private residences, the hours of publication
beginning at 8.30 A.M., and continuing without interruption
until 11 P.M. Each hour is devoted to some special class of
news, beginning with telegraphic dispatches from abroad, following with
local and provincial news, etc., while at 8 P.M. there are
given concerts, lectures, recitations, or other forms of instruction or
entertainment.
We have hitherto dealt solely with the progress of the nineteenth
century. Now, standing like Bellamy at the dawn of the twentieth, it
may be well to take a long look ahead, and strive to trace some stages
of the probable progress of the coming time, looking forward from this
summit of the ages and stating what this outlook into the dim and
distant future brings to our eyes.
[=Limits of Nineteenth Century Progress=]
Before making this effort there is one thing that needs to be said. The
progress of the nineteenth century, great as it has been in various
directions, must be considered as confined within comparatively narrow
limits of space, its effects rapidly diminishing as we pass into the
remoter lands of semi-civilization and barbarism. The United States,
Western Europe, and such British colonies as Canada, Australia, and
Cape Colony have been the seats of most active progress; Spanish
America, Russia, and Southeastern Europe have played secondary parts in
this movement; Asia, with the exception of Japan, has taken very little
part in it; and Africa almost no part at all, except in a few of its
European settlements.
[=Progress in China and Hindostan=]
This is one of the important directions in which we may look for
a declared exercise of twentieth century activity, that of the
planting of the results of recent civilization in all the regions of
the earth. This work, as above said, has been done in Japan, whose
people have responded with wonderful alacrity to the touch of the new
civilization. In the great empire of China the response has been much
less encouraging, not from lack of intellectual activity in its people,
but from self-satisfaction in their existing institutions and culture.
At the close of the nineteenth century, however, this resistance to the
thought and mechanical inventions of the West was rapidly giving way,
and doubtless one of the triumphs of the twentieth century will be the
rejuvenation of China, which we may look to see rivalling Japan on the
path of progress.
Of the other great centre of intellectual activity in Asia, the
populous land of Hindostan, its progress is likely to depend far more
on its British overlords than on the people themselves. While as
mentally active as the Chinese, the Hindoos are far less practical. The
Chinaman is natively a man of business, and needs only to be convinced
that some new method is to his advantage to take active hold of it. The
Hindoo is a dreamer, remarkably lacking in the business instinct, and
is so deeply imbued with the ancient religious culture of his land that
it will not be easy to rouse him from the fatalistic theories in which
his whole nature is steeped. National progress in that land must be the
work of British energy. But it has already made such marked advance
that India may be trusted to wheel into line with the West in the new
century.
[=Among the Dull-Minded Peoples=]
The future of the remainder of the world is less assured. The slow
thinking peoples of the remainder of Asia, the fanatical populations
of Mohammedan lands, the negroes of Africa, the natives of Brazil and
Patagonia, the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific, the peoples
of the tropics in general, all are likely to act as brakes upon the
wheels of progress, and the "white man's burden" with these tribes and
races during the twentieth century is certain to prove an arduous one.
Yet it is not well to be too pessimistic in regard to this problem. It
must be remembered that the work of the nineteenth century in these
lands has been largely one of discovery. The labor of settlement and
development has only fairly begun; what the results will be it is not
safe to predict. To make thinkers of these dull-minded savages and
barbarians will perhaps be the work of many centuries. To make workers
of them is a far easier task, and civilized processes may be active in
all these lands long before the nations are in condition to appreciate
them. One method of solving the problem is already under way. In the
Hawaiian Islands the native population is rapidly disappearing and
being replaced by a new one. In New Zealand it has in great measure
disappeared and British immigrants have taken its place. The natives
are diminishing in numbers elsewhere, as in Australia. The problem of
civilization in many of the new lands is likely to be solved in this
easy way. But in the thickly settled countries this radical solution
of the problem is not to be looked for, and the white man has before
him the burden of lifting these unprogressive populations into a higher
state.
[=Conditions of Twentieth Century Development=]
To come back to the question of the general advance of the world during
the twentieth century, we find ourselves facing a difficult and varied
problem. That the great progress of the nineteenth century will be
continued cannot well be questioned, but the directions this progress
will take is far from easy to decide. In some of its phases progress
seems approaching its limiting point, in others its rapidity is likely
to decrease, while in still others it may be enormously enhanced. It
is by no means improbable that the development of human institutions
during the century at hand will be in quite different lines from
those of the century just closed, less mechanical perhaps and more
moral, less scientific and more philosophical, less political and more
industrial, less laborious and more artistic.
In some branches of invention and discovery we seem approaching a
termination. It is not easy to see, for instance, how telegraphy can
advance in the future as it has in the past. Its powers seem nearing
their ultimate measure of ease and rapidity. Yet it is dangerous to
predict. Here at the end of the century comes wireless telegraphy,
with untold powers. And by its side appears telepathy, mental
telegraphy,--the direct action of mind upon mind in a manner analogous
to that of telegraphing without wires--of which as yet we know little,
yet which may have in it great possibilities of development.
[=Limitations to Progress=]
Other discoveries which seem approaching their ultimate condition are
telephony, photography, illumination, and apparently labor-saving
machinery in some of its fields, since the performance of some machines
appears to have practically reached perfection. Transportation may well
be one of these. The rapidity of railroad travel will, no doubt, be
increased, yet natural limitations must check its indefinite increase.
The same may be said in regard to steamship travel, it appearing that
any great future increase of speed must be at an increased ratio of
cost so considerable as to bring development in this direction to a
speedy termination.
Of course, we are speaking only from our present point of view. It
is quite possible that some new and luminous conceptions may break
down the bars which now appear to be erected and open the way for new
progress in all these directions. Yet it seems safe to assert, as a
general principle, that development in any one direction can go on only
unto a certain point, and that the limitations of nature must check it
at that point.
[Illustration: GREATER NEW YORK
On January 1, 1898, Greater New York was created by
the union of New York, Brooklyn, Long Island City,
and Staten Island, into one municipality. The city
now covers nearly 318 square miles, contains over
three and one-half millions inhabitants, and, next to
London, is the largest city in the world.]
[Illustration: DELEGATES TO THE UNIVERSAL PEACE CONGRESS AT THE
HAGUE, 1899
This memorable Congress, held in 1899, in the Summer
Palace at the Hague, the capital of Holland, was
called at the suggestion of the Czar of Russia for the
purpose of promoting peace by a reduction of the great
armaments of the nations. This purpose failed, but a
system of International Arbitration was adopted, which
may prove still more useful in the prevention of war.]
[Illustration: KEY TO THE UNIVERSAL PEACE CONGRESS, NAMES OF DELEGATES
AND GOVERNMENTS REPRESENTED
1.--L. Bourgeois (France). 2.--Baron de Staal
(Russia). 3.--Comte de Munster (Germany).
4.--Chevalier de Karnebeek (Holland). 5.--General
J. C. C. Den Boer Poortugael (Holland). 6.--A.
Beernaert (Belgium). 7.--Phya Suriya (Siam). 8.--De
Bille (Denmark). 9.--Comte Weisersheimb (Austria).
10.--A. D. White (United States). 11.--E. M.
Rahusen (Holland). 12.--Baron Hayashi (Japan).
13.--Yang Yu (China). 14.--Hoo Wei-Teh (China).
15.--A. Roth (Switzerland). 16.--Sir J. Pauncefote
(England). 17.--J. Motono (Japan). 18.--Comte
de Grelle Rogier (Belgium). 19.--A. Beldiman
(Roumania). 20.--Raffalovich (Russia). 21.--J. N.
Papiniu (Roumania). 22.--Seth Low (United States).
23.--Baron d'Estournelles (France). 24.--A. G.
Schimmelpenninck (Holland). 25.--Tadema (Holland).
26.--Von Schnack (Denmark). 27.--G. Merey de
Kapos-mére (Austria). 28.--Phya Visuddha (Siam).
29.--Corragioni d'Orelli (Siam). 30.--S. Ardagh
(England). 31.--Stanford Newel (United States).
32.--C. Coanda (Roumania). 33.--E. Rolin (Siam).
34--H. Howard (England). 35.--C. Descamps (Belgium).
36.--C. de Selir (Portugal). 37.--Voishave Weljkovitch
(Servia). 38.--Kreyer (China). 39.--V. de Khnepach
(Austria). 40.--Abdullah-Pasha (Turkey). 41.--Louis
Renault (France). 42.--A. Cour (England). 43.--T.
Mahan (United States). 44.--Guido Pompilj (Italy).
45.--Mourey Bey (Turkey). 46.--Mirza Rizakhan
(Persia). 47.--Ovtchinnikow (Russia). 48.--A. de
Castilho (Portugal). 49.--E. Odier (Switzerland).
50.--Miyatovitch (Servia). 51.--Uyehara (Japan).
52.--Comte de Villiers (Luxembourg). 53.--Nago Arigo
(Japan). 54.--S. Heine (Russia). 55.--Comte Barantzew
(Russia). 56.--A. Kunzli (Switzerland).]
[=Probable Lines of Future Activity=]
We cannot, indeed, well conceive of a greater activity of invention
and a more rapid unfoldment of new processes than we have had before
us in the nineteenth century. But an equal activity may long continue.
While invention appears to have yielded practically perfect results
in some fields, great imperfection exists in others, and in these the
minds of inventors have still abundant room for exercise. Thus while
the bicycle seems almost to have attained perfection, the automobile
is only in its pioneer stage and may be capable of extraordinary
improvement. It is quite possible that the horse may in the near future
end his long career as man's chief instrument of carriage and traction.
Navigation of the air is still in embryo, but it may in time supplant
travel on land and sea.
The possibilities in these and some other directions seem immense. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century wood was the chief fuel, and
had in great measure to serve the needs of household and workshop.
At the dawn of the twentieth century coal had taken its place, and
the forest had been replaced by the mine. We look back with pity, not
unmixed with contempt, on the slowness of our ancestors, slaves to the
axe and the firebrand. Our descendants of a century hence may look back
with like feelings upon us, and marvel how we could content ourselves
with delving in the deep rocks of the earth's crust for fuel when far
more abundant and useful resources lay everywhere about us.
[=Employment of the Forces of Nature=]
We are beginning to perceive, somewhat dimly still, the immensity and
inexhaustibility of these powers and are prospecting among them with
the footsteps of pioneers. The powers of falling water have long been
employed, but only recently has it been discovered that they could
be conveyed to a distance by means of the electric conductor and
applied to motors for the movement of machinery. The electric plant
at Niagara Falls is the greatest nineteenth century installation in
this direction. Thousands of such plants may be installed in the near
future, and the flowing currents of electricity yield light, heat and
power in a profusion and with a cheapness that will quite throw coal
out of the race, and release the slaves of the mine from their age-old
fetters.
Falling water is only one of these sources of natural power. The
tidal rise and fall of the seas is another. The movement of the winds
is a third. The vast heat contents of the sunlight is a fourth. The
variable and periodical character of these is capable of being overcome
by methods of storing energy, electrical or other, already somewhat
developed and doubtless capable of much further development.
This is one of the most promising directions that appear before us
for the exercise of twentieth century invention. Yet, despite this
and other fields of inventive activity, what we have said appears
to hold good, that one by one each of the varied lines of invention
will reach its ultimatum, and gradually the activity of man in this
direction decrease. While the twentieth century may be as active in the
development of mechanism as the nineteenth has been, it seems unlikely
to be more so, and in succeeding centuries, inventive activity must
decline for want of fields in which to exercise itself.
[=Possible Decline in Mechanical and Scientific
Progress=]
In some other fields of mental activity a similar slackening of
energy may appear. Science has been as active as mechanics in the
century just closed, but in some of its fields of exercise an approach
towards a limiting point seems evident. Observational science has
been phenomenally busy, and the multitude of facts collected has been
extraordinarily great; so great indeed that in some lines the facts
remaining to be observed have become limited. Such is the case in
zoology and botany. The species of animals and plants are by no means
all known, but only the inconspicuous and those existing in lands
yet unexplored remain to be discovered. There is much room for work
still in this field, but future labors must be more difficult and
results less abundant. The same can be said of several other fields
of scientific observation, such as chemistry, mineralogy, anatomy and
physiology, and others that could be named. Doubtless there is still
large room for observation, but it must be in the finer and less
evident domains of science, the surface facts having been largely
gathered in. In theoretical science great progress has also been made
by such men as Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Young, Darwin and a host
of others. But many important problems remain to be solved, and human
thought may profitably be exercised in this direction for a long time
to come.
[=New Lines of Mental Activity=]
Yet it may be that the progress of the twentieth century will be
directed most largely towards fields of research or improvement
which have been secondary considerations, or have made only partial
advance, in the century we have been considering. These will perhaps be
intellectual rather than physical in character, and the advance social
rather than material. Man has been struggling actively with inanimate
substances and physical forces and adapting them to his ends. There lie
before him the world of the animate and the forces of society and the
intellect, to be treated with similar activity. The political, moral,
educational, and industrial problems of the day need to be taken hold
of more decisively than ever before, and the reign of fraud, injustice,
autocratic power, unnatural inequality, ignorance, unnecessary want and
suffering, etc., brought to an end.
[=Purity in Politics=]
There has been, as above stated, very considerable political evolution
during the recent century, but the political condition of the world
remains very far from satisfactory, even in civilized lands, and
there is abundant room for progress in this field. Man will not be
satisfied until every vestige of autocratic power and hereditary rank
is swept away and the rulers of the nations have become the chosen
servants of the people, as in the republic of the United States, and
what we may call the prime-ministry of Great Britain--for the so-called
monarchy of that kingdom has sunk to a title without power. Nor will
man be satisfied until the rule of the political boss is similarly
swept aside and honesty in office and in elective methods secured.
This state of affairs cannot be reached under the present condition
of public opinion. In the educational activities of the age political
instruction is sadly needed. The masses need to be taught their duties
and their rights. If they can once be brought to act together for their
own interests and their own ideas of right and wrong, and cease to be
led astray by the shibboleth of party or partisanship, there will be
a rapid change in the state of public affairs, and men be chosen for
official positions who can be trusted to act for the good of those who
sent them there.
[=The Vice of Intemperance=]
Advance in education is not alone needed for this, but its
accompaniment, advance in moral standards, is equally requisite. The
moral progress of mankind, which has been so marked during the past
century, is sure to go on to higher levels, and with every step upwards
there will doubtless be demanded a higher standard of action in those
who are called upon to act as servants of the public. We have not
mentioned in this work one of the great evils of the age, the vice of
intoxication, which has done so much to degrade and pauperize mankind,
and has been one of the leading influences in the retention of the
unworthy in power. Legal enactments have failed to put an end to this
indulgence in a debased appetite, but public opinion is beginning to
succeed where law has failed. Drunkenness has ceased to be respectable,
and as a result open intoxication among respectable people is growing
more and more rare. At the same time the desire to be considered
respectable is making its way downward among the people, and widening
the field of its effect. Drinking in moderation is prevalent still.
Drinking in excess is plainly on the decrease. And with every step in
this direction the self-respect of the people must grow, pauperism
decrease, and an enlightened conception of public duty develop.
Whatever else the twentieth century brings about, we may reasonably
look for a great revolution in the political status of the world.
[=Industry in the Twentieth Century=]
There is one farther field of twentieth century progress to be
reviewed, the industrial. The nineteenth century has reached its
end leaving this great domain of human interests in a highly
unsatisfactory condition. The progress of labor during the century
under review has been considered in a preceding chapter, and brought
down to its existing state. What the character of its progress will
be in the twentieth century is open to conjecture. While nothing
concerning it can be stated positively, some deductions from the
present condition of things may be made.
[=The King, the Priest, and the Cash Box=]
Mankind for some thousands of years past has been subjected to tyranny
of various kinds, and in particular to the tyranny of the king, the
priest, and the cash box; the first controlling him by the power of
the sword, the second by that of superstition, the third by that of
material wants. The control of the first two of these have long been
slipping away from them. That of the king has quite vanished in the
most advanced lands, and the political equality of all men has been
assured. That of the priest has similarly vanished in these lands and
is diminishing everywhere, liberty of thought being made secure. That
of the cash-box, on the contrary, has grown as the authority of its
rivals has decreased, and it stands to-day as the great power in the
most advanced communities, it being particularly dominant in the United
States.
Shall this third of the great tyrants of the world retain its
supremacy? Shall it not in its turn be overthrown, and liberty and
equality in this direction be also attained? Certainly great progress
is likely to be made in this direction, whatever the final outcome may
be. For ages a state of protest and quiet or active revolt against
kingcraft and priestcraft prevailed. This state now exists in regard
to the money power, the industrial classes of all lands struggling
bitterly against it, and combining with a view to its overthrow. Such a
state of revolt, bitter, persistent, unrelenting, indicates something
innately wrong in the industrial situation, and cannot fail in the end
to have its effect. We may safely look forward to an amelioration in
the situation, even though we cannot tell how it is to be brought about.
[=The Vast Growth of Wealth=]
The extraordinary activity of productive industry within the century is
the cause of the state of affairs which now exists. The wealth of the
world has increased enormously, and has fallen largely into the hands
of individuals. A century ago there was not a millionaire in our land,
and few in any land. Now they exist by the thousands, and millionaires
two hundred fold multiplied are not unknown. This vast accumulation of
wealth in single hands does not satisfy its owners. They are eager for
more, and capital is widely combining into great corporations for the
purpose of reducing expenses, so that the cost of manufacture may be
decreased, and doing away with competition, so that prices of goods
may be augmented. This is but one result of the trust combination. A
second and highly important one is a great reduction of the opportunity
for individual business operations, the tendency being to reduce the
great mass of the community to the position of employees.
[=National and Municipal Ownership=]
This problem has been already considered in Chapter xxxviii., with
the suggestion there made that it is apt to strengthen the force of
Socialism, the purpose of which, as there indicated, is to put an end
to individualism in productive enterprises, and place all workshops,
stores, railroads, etc., under government control, to be conducted
for the good of the people as a whole, not for that of individual
capitalists. A step in this direction somewhat widely taken in Europe,
is the control of railroads and telegraphs by the government. Another
step is the control of all municipal functions, including street
railways, electric lights, etc., by the city authorities. The latter
system, adopted by many European cities, is being actively advocated in
the United States, and is gathering to its support a vigorous public
opinion which promises to be strong enough in the end to achieve its
purpose.
Abroad the forces of Socialism are organizing themselves actively,
and are gaining a political strength vigorous enough to create much
alarm in the ruling powers. Whether this cult of Socialism has come to
stay, and has in it sufficient force of growth to give it an eventual
supremacy, or whether it is to be classed with the many popular
movements which have played their parts for a time and passed away, is
not for us to say, only the arbitrament of time can decide.
[=The New Psychology=]
We might consider the question of the twentieth century progress from
other points of view, such as agriculture, architecture, household art,
literature, medicine, surgery, social relations, etc., though in doing
so we should be considering simply developments of existing conditions.
Perhaps the most promising line of progress is in experimental
psychology, the study of the brain and nervous system, the instruments
of the mind from the scientific point of view, in distinction from the
old, theoretical psychology. This, the latest of the sciences, has
recently begun its development, and is full of promise of important
discoveries concerning the conditions of mental phenomena. It must
suffice here, however, to refer to it as one of the lines in which
science has before it a broad field of research, and with this mention
we shall bring to an end the long journey we have made in this work
through the stirring history and marvelous events and discoveries of
the wonderful nineteenth century.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
The many illustrations have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.
A number of illustrations are composite portraits. Each name is
listed in the caption.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Proper names, especially Russian, were not spelled consistently, and
are generally given here as printed. The exceptions are noted below.
Compound words that are hyphenated on a line break are given here with
or without a hyphen, following the most frequent appearance elsewhere
in the text.
Diacritical marks are frequently missing either in the text or in
captions. The variants are retained. The name 'Blücher' appears twice
as 'Blucher' (p. 66 and the caption of the illustration on p. 91). The
variants are retained. The word 'insistent' was consistently spelled
'insistant' (pp. 168, 172, 305), all of which are retained. The given
name of Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier appears twice (pp
515-516) as 'Wilfred', and is retained.
The following table itemizes the various (and numerous) textual
issues encountered in preparing this version of the text, and their
resolutions. Corrections have been made, as noted, when it is obvious
that a printer's error has been made, or when other instances of a
misspelled word appear correctly elsewhere. The words 'indispensible'
or 'indispensable' appears once each as 'indispensible' or
'indispensibly' and were corrected here. 'Dispatch' and 'despatch' are
used interchangeably, and are retained. Any errors appearing in quoted
matter are retained as printed. The word 'infectuous', an obsolete form
of 'infectious', appears on pp. 586-587. Although 'infectious' appears
several times as well, the obsolete form is retained.
p. 7 General Hayna[n/u] Corrected.
p. 8 2[59] Page number completed.
Sir Arthur Wel[l]esley Added.
p. 13 Andrée[']s Fatal Balloon Venture Added.
p. 14 a[min/nim]als Transposed.
p. 24 great continent of[,]America. Removed.
p. 27 ind[e/i]spensible Corrected.
p. 49 persist[a/e]nce Corrected.
p. 51 two forces[,/.] Decaen Corrected.
p. 56 D[e/i]vised Corrected.
p. 58 despa[i]ring Added.
persist[a/e]nt Corrected.
p. 66 simultaneo[u]sly Added.
Demor[i/a]lization Corrected.
Generl Benni[n]gsen Removed.
p. 68 northe[r]ners] Added.
p. 70 Benni[n]gsen's troops Removed.
p. 71 hind[e]red Added.
p. 74 sovereign[i]ty Removed.
p. 76 Austr[ai/ia]ns Transposed.
p. 78 more[o]ver Added.
p. 88 stubborn[n]ess Added.
p. 107 Westmin[i]ster Removed.
Nap[a/o]leon Corrected.
p. 117 delib[e]rations Added.
p. 122 the absolute kings[.] Added.
p. 124 arbit[r]ary Added.
p. 141 their daring[s] keels Corrected.
p. 142 persist[a/e]nt Corrected.
William of Norman[d]y Added.
p. 143 Dardanell[e]s Added.
p. 145 su[p/r]pass Corrected.
Great Brit[ia/ai]n Corrected.
p. 162 perc[ie/ei]ved Transposed.
p. 166 persist[a/e]nt Corrected.
p. 168 di[s]missed Added.
p. 174 out[b]reak Added.
p. 176 desp[a/e]rate Corrected.
p. 191 enthusia[s]tic Added.
p. 193 engag[e]ments Added.
p. 198 sovereign[i]ty Removed.
p. 204 twice[d] rammed Removed.
p. 205 strengthened with a [a] new French Removed.
p. 222 [h/b]eheld Corrected.
p. 239 the various state[s] Added.
p. 244 state[s]manship Added.
p. 248 announ[c]ed Added.
p. 250 Gladstone[e] Removed.
p. 260 ac[i]tivity Removed.
p. 261 massacres on both sides[,/.] Corrected.
p. 262 occas[s]ion Removed.
p. 264 forstalled _Sic._
p. 265 enthu[is/si]astic Transposed.
p. 267 gradual[ly] repayment Removed.
p. 268 Wellesl[e]y Added.
Eve[r/n] there Corrected.
p. 269 A[l/f]ghans Corrected.
Bri[s]tish Removed.
p. 273 he[or/ro]ic Transposed.
p. 279 Repu[b]lican gover[n]ment Added.
p. 284 Th[ei/ie]rs had just performed Corrected.
p. 285 fort[r]ess Added.
p. 287 streng[t]h Added.
p. 288 cause celèbre _Sic._
p. 305 for[e]seeing Added.
p. 311 I[t] indicates Added.
p. 324 re[gco/cog]nize Transposed.
remar[k]able Added.
p. 326 possesses[s] Removed.
p. 329 impor[t]ant Added.
its innumerable affluents _Sic._
p. 331 Egyptian[s] troops Removed.
p. 335 The S[ei/ie]ge of Sontay Transposed.
p. 337 h[re/er]oic Transposed.
p. 341 the ruined fort[r]ess Added.
enterp[r]ise Added.
p. 345 inaptitude _Sic._
p. 347 Right of Suff[e]rage Removed.
p. 348 Massac[h]usetts Added.
which the[,] crushing Removed.
p. 350 in hundreds [of] libraries Added.
p. 353 eno[u]rmously Removed.
p. 354 Mer[r]iwether Lewis _Sic._
p. 356 Actio[h/n] Corrected.
p. 370 proc[c]eed Removed.
p. 381 concentration of [d/p]ower Corrected.
p. 384 suc[c]eeded Added.
p. 388 war-[w/v]essels Corrected.
p. 412 and he did force it.["] Added.
p. 418 I decline [acceeding] to your request _Sic._
p. 421 [batallions/battalions] Corrected.
irresist[a/i]ble Corrected.
p. 429 Lou[i]siana Added.
disfellowship[p]ed Added.
p. 435 orator has a [a] special significance Removed.
p. 441 Assas[s]ination Added.
p. 457 Virginia Campai[g]n Added.
p. 460 with [t]he utmost Added.
p. 461 resis[t]ance Added.
p. 464 cap[ti/it]al Transposed.
p. 469 d[i/e]spite Corrected.
p. 473 Indian Territor[r]y Removed.
came [n/u]pon them Corrected.
p. 474 commis[s]ion Added.
p. 479 unin[i]tiated Added.
p. 481 responsibilit[i]es Added.
p. 486 Curaçoa _Sic._
p. 491 Hampton R[h]oads Removed.
p. 504 while hundreds[,] of their crews Removed.
p. 506 a yell f[or/ro]m the sentinel Transposed.
p. 507 [u/i]neffectively Corrected.
p. 511 suprema[n]cy Removed.
p. 514 commer[ic/ci]al Transposed (twice).
p. 518 mount[ia/ai]n Transposed.
ac[c]ross Removed.
fr[ie/ei]ght Transposed.
p. 519 vis[i]tor Added.
p. 532 Robe[r]t E. Peary Added.
near the 81st parallel[,/.] Corrected.
p. 533 walrusses _Sic._
unsuc[c]essful Added.
p. 536 Del[a]ware Added.
p. 543 compet[it]ion Added.
p. 546 telegrap[h]y Added.
p. 552 millionairs _Sic._
p. 554 For a centur[e/y] Corrected.
p. 564 to prevent its[,] ever Removed.
p. 565 conspira[r/c]y Corrected.
F[r]ance Added.
p. 574 signifi[c]ance Added.
p. 578 pheno[n/m]e[m/n]a Transposed.
d[e/i]stinction Corrected.
p. 581 Subsid[u/i]ary Corrected.
p. 582 pal[a/æ]ontology Corrected.
p. 585 ever[y]where Added.
p. 592 the people in all lands[,/.] Corrected.
p. 593 "Scarlet Letter,['/"] Corrected.
p. 594 "New South["] Added.
p. 595 "Genius of Christianity.[']" Removed.
p. 597 the poets [a/o] Norway Corrected.
p. 598 Litera[t/r]ure Corrected.
ninete[e]nth Added.
Sienkiewi[e/c]z Corrected.
p. 599 sc[ei/ie]ntific Transposed.
p. 600 Th[e/o]se who cannot read Corrected.
p. 609 insist[a/e]nce Corrected.
p. 618 the selectmen[t] of Newburyport Removed.
p. 620 prop[a/o]rtions Corrected.
p. 621 eco[m/n]omic Corrected.
p. 628 possibilit[i]es Added.
p. 635 persist[a/e]nt Corrected.
accum[m]ulation Removed.
sati[s]fy Added.
p. 636 phenom[en]a Added.
a[r]bitrament Added.
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