Wars and Conflicts permalink
European Civil War
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Â
Posted by GoldenOak (U9497749) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
The peace established in 1919 wasn't really a peace at all; the interbellum was marked by almost constant conflict. Rather than being the war to end all wars, the First World War was responsible for starting more conflicts than any other war in history.
Furthermore, the Second World War clearly has its origins in the results of the First. Hitler was only made possible because of the First World War, and the depression which effected Germany because of the way that its post-war economy had been built. The connections between the two conflicts clearly make it easy to see the period 1914-1945 as a period of non-stop European conflict, which eventually destroyed Europe as a power and reduced the world to two spheres of influence; one Russian and one American.
Discuss. -
Message 2
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
Seems over the years Europe has always been in constant conflict, France and Germany a good example. Perhaps the EU is the best thing to have happen for Europe in modern times, tied together economically maybe a good deterrent to war. (legal stealing as opposed to armed robbery?)
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Message 3
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
Rather than being the war to end all wars, the First World War was responsible for starting more conflicts than any other war in history.Â
It certainly laid the road to the Second World War in Europe, and the 1919 settlement probably laid the seeds for the violent break up of Yugoslavia (though Tito's meddling with the internal borders gave Serbia a legitimate complaint when the country finallly collapsed - this does not justify Serbian attrocities). The Winter War between the USSR and Finland is also a result of a 1919 border.
Other than that, how many conflicts did it cause?
The Japanese were miffed by their "reward" for being an ally in the Great War, but the potential rewards denied them wouldn't have yielded the resource security they needed or prestige they desired.
Surely the settlement after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 set the world up for more wars? -
Message 4
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
Surely the settlement after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 set the world up for more wars?Â
Good point. The idea that European warfare began in 1914 is flawed. For example before that there was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, before that the Napoleonic Wars, before that the Seven Years War in the 1750s, before that there were the wars of succession (Spanish and Austrian), before that there was the Thirty Years War in the 17th century and so on. -
Message 5
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
The idea that European warfare began in 1914 is flawed.Â
You're absolutely right. Almost every conflict in Europe since way back had its antecedent in a previous war. In fact the Treaty of Versailles was remarkably equitable. Only Germany and Hungary really suffered. Germany as a punishment (mirroring that inflicted on France in 1871 - which is where the money for all those beuatiful buildings in Berlin came from), and Hungary as an attempt to set up national states for different slavs.
Austria was shorn of her Empire, but was that much of a loss? Russia lost much territory, but by 1919 had already decided on a different course for herself.
In contrast the Congress of Vienna thrust "liberal" states in Italy and western/central Germany back under the regimes of repressive Empires, a repressive King owned Spain once again and millions of people with a brief taste of relative freedom were once more subjected to relative tyranny. Spanish and Portuguese rule in the new world was fundamentally ruined in the aftermath, Belgium and Norway were subjected to foreign domination again and Poland was once more carved up by greedy neighbours (ensuring a 100 years of revolt and repression). In 1990, the borders of in Europe (apart from Germany) look much like those of 1919, however, those of 1815 have been consigned to history by the blood of thousands (if not millions).
Imperial France had its flaws, but those in Italy, Germany, and Poland subjected to the authoritarian nightmare of Prussia, Austria and Russia certainly showed plenty of remorse for the passing of the relatively benign hand of Napoleon. In fact by 1849 Sweden was the only victor of 1815 where at least part of the populace hadn't risen up against their kingsh. All ther revolutions of the 1830's and those of 1848 had their beginnings in the liberties proclaimed by France in 1789 and harshly supressed by imperious monarchs. -
Message 6
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
Austria was shorn of her EmpireÂ
Or strictly speaking the Habsburg Empire was dissolved. In fact the Austrian monarchy was outlived by the Hungarian monarchy by 2 days de facto and by 28 years de jure. It was not until 1946 that the Kingdom of Hungary was officially ended. -
Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
I do think that we are in great danger of dismissing the inter-war period as just an ongoing series of catastrophes.. Not least because we have been encouraged and indoctrinated to think this by a deliberate policy of using overwhelming force to maintain and ultimately unsustainable way of life ever since 1945- mostly in the form of money.
This was greatly to the advantage of the USA that had a terrible inter-war experience and in spite of New Deal etc, only really "got going" economically during the 2WW... They realized that with things like the Marshall Plan and other foreign aid, there would still be full employment at home..because countries rebuilding would still need "the tools for the job"' Thus prosperity on the never-never was calculated to persuade people that the "Happy Times" had come again. That was so much better than risking that terrible Communist experience that had also had its terrible times in the inter-war period-- and the Cold War kept up to 20% of the US economy going for the next 50 years.
Though there were one or two new bits of thinking, and a general devaluation of any idea that History actually helped to understand the general pattern of what was going on in the Present, as far as Humanism was concerned it was safer to go back to the confident ideas and the apparently solid foundations of the Victorian era- including supposedly "progressive ones" like those on which the Labour Party had been founded in the 1890's.
Thus great ideological divide behind the Cold War was Victorian Capitalism against Victorian Communism, with the advocates of each pointing to the pathetic actual subsequent history of the other.
Meanwhile science and technology continued to claim the "purity" of their knowledge ,and their ability to build on the past, without really understanding how to forge the future-- for that requires value judgements.
Thus generally the really radical and forward thinking people of the inter-war period, who did work on the premis that the First World War had been the product of an Old Civilization and that there had to be radically different thinking were pushed aside for a generation of more.
D.H.Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, for example, really seemed to break through again in the 1960's. It was only a chance remark by Shirley Williams in "Any Questions" that alerted me to the fact that our school, Dick Sheppard School, had been named after one of the most significant individuals of the inter-war period-- a significant individual as opposed to those people who were elevated to significant positions. Dick Sheppard was in many ways a man of his own creation, and a "one off".
So I would very much recommend anyone interested in the inter-war period as it felt at the time to read Stephen King-Hall's "Our Own Time 1913-1938". Commander King Hall was educated at the Royal Naval School and had a command at Jutland. After the war he did many things, including taking a very lively and detailed interest in international affairs. He initially published this 1935, and then, because of the popularity of the work, took it up to 1938.
King-Hall thus was not a Historian, and I get the impression that by this time many historians were keeping their heads down in their libraries and studies busy on the historical revisionism- that Namier was so famous for. King Hall, however, had the Naval man's attitude to "gathering storms" etc; and he divides the book into quite distinctive years with "tides in the affairs of man", some of which if taken at full flood might well have produced a very different outcome.
As that artificial post-war world has now been thrown into acute danger by a potential World Chaos like the Thirties we are now once more out of the harbour, or the narrow seas, and once more likely to be tossed into a seemingly boundless and fathomless ocean. Having had the chance to enjoy being "Sunday Sailors" just playing at being "all at sea", we are now badly prepared for the stormy times ahead: and it is time to call "all hands on deck" for we have had the Captains of the Titanic at the helm thinking our ships of State to be unsinkable.
Cass -
Message 8
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
Re: Message 5.
Cloudyj,
interesting message that I completely support from my last years' studies for these messageboards. With growing esteem also for what I recently read from you on this forum. I have not that much time nowadays to start some replies, but just to say that there is also a silent public, who appreciates your messages.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 9
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 14th July 2010
As for the basic premis of the thread, the Civilization that many thought was coming to an end was that of Europe of the State. Writers like the historian G.G. Coulton and C. Delisle Burns were writing in 1938 that the modern age had seen two periods of European History- the Age of the Church and age of the State. Burns went so far as to say that the great strength of the State system was its ability to make a successful business out of war, and that the only thing that had stopped Europeans States from really destructive wars had been their ability to spread their statism and military competence around the Globe..
Hence any attempt to make the First World War "the War to end all wars" by re-shaping the States of Europe and its Empires, with a view to just creating more States on a European model was merely going to be just more chapters in the demise of the State system..
Delisle Burns called his book "The First Europe" and he talked of a possible third Europe that would be more like the Medieval Christendom than the "modern Europe" of nation States engaged in a struggle for the survival of the fittest.The book was published in 1947 when such an idea was being put forward by some enthusiasts; and the USA bankrolled the European Recovery Programme to set it on its way.
Recently, however, someone on French TV commented that the current crisis in the EU would not prove terminal, because neither the USA nor China would accept that. That just about underlines the place of the States of Europe in the modern world. We must now touch our forelocks and show respect to our lords and masters because we bought the Presidents dollar instead of the King's shilling.
Cass -
Message 10
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Hello GoldenOak,
The real problem for Europe has been that the only stable alliance, viz. one that would have prevented a war, was a French-German one and that kind of alliance was impossible to forge because Bismarck's decision to annex Alsace-Lorraine would prevent the French politicians from making any overtures.
After the Great War the French politicians were prevented from making overtures to the Germans because of their electorate's hatred for the Germans. It was not until after WW II that the French politicians were given enough leeway by their electorate to make overtures to the Germans.
The real problem for Europe was that the process of democratisation prevented a French German alliance from 1870 to 1955. -
Message 11
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Surely the settlement after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 set the world up for more wars?Â
If so they took their time in coming.
There wasn't another fight between great powers until 1854, and even then it remained small and localised, as did the other wars between then and 1871, following which there wasn't a shot fired outside the Balkans until 1914.
In 20C terms, that's equivalent to no clash between any of the great powers from 1918 until 1957, and no Second World War until 2017, so that we'd still be waiting for it. Afaik, to find a longer-lasting peace you'd have to go back to before the fall of the Roman Empire. -
Message 12
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Mikestone
The peace after 1815 owed a great deal to the military reputation established by Britain, and arguably the resurgent Prussia. The gunboat diplomacy of Lord Palmerston became legendary, and after the French Revolution of 1830-the Bourgeois Revolution that established limited monarchy, Palmerston having used naval operations to discourage both French and Dutch moves to annexe what became Belgium, offered the hand of friendship to France, telling Parliament that as France and Britain had been the greatest military powers in Europe, together they would make an unbeatable combination.
This situation was formalised in the Quadruple Alliance of 22 April 1834 (?) which tied the two countries with Spain and Portugal. Along with Palmerston's sponsored independence for Belgium this created an effective settlement throught the whole region that had caused most of the great wars of the last couple of hundred years.
Further east the British backed creation of Greece also helped to reduce possible cassus belli between the Three Emperor's League. But in fact they were more interested in forming a club with a mutual interest in resisting revolution and reform. The year of European Revolution 1848 had some impact upon that. But the next major war was the Crimean War which Britain and France initially entered into as a limited action to drive back a Russian invasion of the Danube plains that had been part of the Turkish Empire: and nothing daunted just over ten years after the end of the Crimean War an Anglo_French military expedition invaded China and captured Peking and the Holy City just in the interests of forcing China to abandon policies of total isolationism and to enter onto a course of developing normal and peaceful relations with the outside world.
It was perhaps no sheer accident that others were persuaded that power politics was the way forward... But as the Queen recently highlighted waging peace is more difficult than waging war, and other people just see the "waging" and assume that it is all one and the same thing.
Cass -
Message 13
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
CASS,
Recently, however, someone on French TV commented that the current crisis in the EU would not prove terminal, because neither the USA nor China would accept that.Â
A pity, if that's the case. The EU as it is now is as built to fall apart as the Congress of Vienna and the League of Nations were, despite their respective diplomatic founders' niceties. The sooner it falls, the better, because it'll open an opportunity for a better and more lasting arrangement.
That just about underlines the place of the States of Europe in the modern world. We must now touch our forelocks and show respect to our lords and masters because we bought the Presidents dollar instead of the King's shilling.Â
? -
Message 14
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
White Camry
This was a French "expert" and the French are a bit prone to fatalism.. My own preference for some time has been the Ancient Roman model and the Hapsburg one.. But of course the EU was subsidised and supported for a long time as the Western part of a divided Europe.
Since the fall of Communism and the reinstatement of Berlin, I feel that Germany will feel increasing pressure fromi its owm dynamics to see the cast economic potential [as Hitler did] in Eastern Europe, and especially in the Turkey. The French look most unlikely to ever accept Turkey into the EU, but German-Turkish relations are different- not least thanks to the huge Turkish immigrant labour force that helped out during the economic miracle.
As the Germans are currently apparently a bit annoyed at having to bail out less industrious and hard-working countries within the EU I can anticipate a new arragement in which Germany decides to make some kind of different relationship with countries that feel a similar need to WORK to build a better future without any US dollars or Brusselles "gravy train".
Cass -
Message 15
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
CASSEROLEON,
My own preference for some time has been the Ancient Roman model and the Hapsburg one.Â
One what? -
Message 16
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
The peace after 1815 owed a great deal to the military reputation established by Britain, and arguably the resurgent Prussia. The gunboat diplomacy of Lord Palmerston became legendary, and after the French Revolution of 1830-the Bourgeois Revolution that established limited monarchy, Palmerston having used naval operations to discourage both French and Dutch moves to annexe what became Belgium, offered the hand of friendship to France, telling Parliament that as France and Britain had been the greatest military powers in Europe, together they would make an unbeatable combination.Â
Agreed, as far as that goes, but surely the significant point is not that the hand of friendship was offered, so much as that it was
accepted.
This seems to me the crucial difference between 1815 and 1919. France was given a very lenient peace, essentially her prewar borders give or take the odd village. It was a settlement she could live with, and indeed still lives with to this day, save for the acquisition of Nice and Savoy in 1860 (and it took her half a century even to get round to that). This made it possible for her to ally with a principal "victor" power. OTOH, try and imagine Germany striking up an alliance with any of the principal[1] victors of 1918.
[1] Whether Italy counts as a "principal" victor may be argued, but she certainly wasn't as far as Germany was concerned. Her war effort had been almost entirely against Austria-Hungary. -
Message 17
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
White Camry
Sorry for being too brief for once.. You obvious got the Roman Empire being eventually divided into the Western one based on Rome and the Easter one based on Constantinople.
The Hapsburg one was what happened when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V eventually retired to a monastery and handed over to his two sons. Phillip of Spain just got half, and with the Spanish lands in Latin America and the Netherlands that was enough for any one ruler.
I am not sure that Charlemagne- the First Holy Roman Emperor did not do something similar.. He is claimed by both France and Germany.. and Charles de Gaulle in the Fifties had ambitions that Europe might produce a new Charlemagne.. after all he had cut his teeth in the wars against the Red Army in the 1920's..
Cass -
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Mikestone
My main source on Palmerston is a book entitled "A Most English Minister" and it does give me leave to believe that the main thrust of English history is "English Peace".. And of course it takes two parties to make peace.
As 22 April is my birthday, and I have had my own personal French alliance for 42 years minus one or two days, I always thought it interesting that the first main alliance between France and "England" [as the French insist on calling it- and they know they know best] occurred on this date..
And I have my own experience of the level of work involved to "keep the peace" in such an alliance.
Cass -
Message 19
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Cass.
I sometimes compare the Anglo-French relationship (in the 20c anyway) with a certain kind of marriage, where the partners have "never thought of divorce, but often of murder". -
Message 20
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Mikestone
I like that one .. Perhaps I will not pass it on to my wife.. It might give her ideas the day after Bastille Day.. Fortunately I think she has done enough cutting and hacking already today, butchering her grapevines.. Is there another culture that has found so many ways to produce nice food and drink by means of torture?
Cass -
Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 15th July 2010
Mind you , when we do get the next New Europe, having personally invested so much in Anglo-French relations, I am not averse to Churchill's idea of a wider Anglo-French Union- meaning English in the English sense and not the French.
As "old enemies" England and France seem to get on better than England does with the rest of the British Isles. I suppose the greater equality of power and similarity of standards- all that chivalry and later courtesy on the battle fields etc- leaves both sides more prepared to move on. The French had to fight us hard enough to believe that English victories were also hard earned, and that even the French could learn from the English.. That is not always a common idea especially with those who believe that THEY were the real geniuses behind British history.
Cass -
Message 22
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 16th July 2010
What's stopping Europe from tearing up the EU constitution and starting again?
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Message 23
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 16th July 2010
History, of course, WhiteCamry!
What is stopping the Irish from sorting out the marching season?
What is stopping the Jews and the Arabs from sitting down together and working out a sensible compromise?
What is stopping anyone from throwing away the silly mistakes of their past, and moving on to make a whole new set of silly mistakes?
History, of course! -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 16th July 2010
giraffe
I would add "history as it has been written".. the History of justifiable conflict and the waging of war, the waging of peace that QEII referred to has been less popular.
Was it not St Augustine who prayed "God make me good but not yet".
Historians have informed politics and held out paths to Promised Lands and Utopias, but they way to get there will just involve them first settling a few old scores and getting revenge and retribution.
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 16th July 2010
Very true, Cass!
Everyone wants peace, just as soon as they can settle up for that last insult!
The myths are even worse than the written history - 'Everyone knows' that so-and-so did so-and-so on us, and we refuse to believe any amount of clear evidence that it never happened.
So I'll offer you my hand, in peace and friendship, just as soon as I can stick the knife in it in your back . . . . -
Message 26
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 16th July 2010
So the EU constitution was written with the past in mind rather than the future?
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Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 16th July 2010
giraffe
At the risk of over kill, you may know the great quote of the Polish President, the eminent concert pianist Paderewski, who, on being interviewed just before the International Disarmament Conference c1929, said:
"Everybody thinks that disarmament is a very good thing... for the other fellow."
Cass -
Message 28
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 16th July 2010
WhiteCamry,
What I am saying is that it would be very difficult to 'throw it away and start again', because that would be admitting that the politicians have all got it all wrong, and that is very difficult for politicians to do. Each country has it's little bit of something that it wants to hang on to at all costs, each country has it's own view of who it is and what it is, and it is very difficult to let go on those beliefs.
For instance: Does it really matter if we call our currency the Pound, or the Euro, or the Franc, as long as it has the same value? Just try to change it's name, and wait for the howls of protest!
The present EU has grown (too rapidly, perhaps?) bit by bit, and gathered it's traditions and it's sacred cows along the way, and the people who are doing well out of it will fight like hell to keep the bits they like, regardless of what is wrong with it.
If it stops us killing each other for another generation or two, perhaps it is worth it? -
Message 29
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Hello Cass,
Surely you must agree that the English and British interventions in internal European affairs have been detrimental for Europe?
Hundred Years' War
The intervention of Elisabeth in the rebellion of the Netherlands that saved the Dutch, but was not so good for the Spanish
Cromwell's War against the Spanish
The four sea wars against the Dutch
The War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Austrian Succession
The Seven Years' War
The Coalition Wars
The Crimean War
The Great War
The Second World War
It seems that any time Britain didn't belong to an alliance Europe was at peace! -
Message 30
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Poldertijgr
Well the Hundred Years' War, as I argued this morning on another thread, was not really an "English" war. It was a foreign adventure by the un-English monarchy and ruling class..
A French book that I have about GB points to the historical possibility, brought up I believe by Poincare in France in the 1920's, that the marriage of Henry V (?) with his French princess, both French speakers should by rights have produced a French-speaking heir to both thrones, and that subsequently the whole development of England, and then the British Empire might well have been as part of one unified, and predominantly French speaking country.
It is not a theory that I buy into. Nor do I accept your point.
The English people did not want to get involved in Europe, and probably came to these islands with this in mind, because they knew that Europe was a savage and oppressive place- even in the times of Greek and Roman slavery.
Briefly perhaps in the first couple of centuries of Christendom it may have seemed possible that Europe might eventually come to know a genuine spirit of peace and harmony. But the Black Death threw Europe, and to some extent England, back into a new dark period- obsessed with the Dance of Death and the possibility of constructing artificial and external sources of power to combat evil..
Yet as Machiavelli described, Europe remained a place where "The Prince" could be advised that it was better to be feared than loved: and fear and oppression became main instruments of successive European powers that tried to achieve European hegemony.
So I can not regret the exploits of the Sea Dogs of Elizabeth that made this country one of the few places in Europe where Catholics and Protestants were able to live and cohabit peacefully [though I believe that there was a truce in the Netherlands in the period when the Pilgrim Fathers were there]
Of course the Seventeenth Century saw the problems of Stuart rule and various policies that threw doubt upon England's relations with dominant European powers [Spain and then France] and at the same time doubts about a monarchy that did not understand how England worked, and perhaps showed its worst face in telling English people that they would be 'harried out of the land'.
Even worse- they applied to Ireland an old policy of the Stuarts regarding the inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands. A various times Stuarts had treated these people as vermin, fit only for extermination, and the Ulster Plantation was deliberately set up in order to export religious war (of the kind so familiar on the continent) to Ireland so that Protestant Loyalists would treat the Gaels and the Roman Catholics as vermin in countryside that did not present quite the same difficulties as the regions where they found sanctuary in Scotland. This concept of genocide in order to gain "lebensraum"- was very much in keeping with what the English saw happening in Europe.
In fact by the Eighteenth Century and the wars that you mention, a visitor like Voltaire, escaping to safety and English freedom as a mere commoner who dared to challenge an aristocrat to duel, was astonished at the rights, liberties and respect accorded to the common people in England, and began (along with other writers) the movement in Europe in which groups like the French Third Estate began to press for similar rights to those enjoyed by the English.
As I explain early on in my "Towards" project it was a similar period of exile in England that resulted in Carsten Niebuhr taking his understanding of the genius of the "English way" back to Prussia, where he kick-started the Prussian Revolution, which swelled into the creation of various modern Germanies.
Meanwhile those traditional English rights had reslulted in the creation of the USA.
Meanwhile, as I was explaining to Tas on his "Plus ca Change" thread this morning, it was the right of the common people of England to work as they saw fit in order to achieve their own gaols, and thus to afford a standard of living and comfort that impressed and surprised foreign visitors that actually created the leap in Supply and Demand that created the first economic lift off- and the process that is still galvanising world events.
[My French book, however, refuses to accept that the freeborn Englishmen were any better off than their French "peers" groaning the corvee, "salt tax" and absolute monarchy. He used the "table test". Just look what the English were eating. The French were eating much better.. But then from what I know from my family experience, when the British were eating their rations during the 2WW, behind their closed doors under German occupation they were also eating pretty well..An oppressed people learn to make do with some compensations]
For the English their liberty was priceless, and though there were other people with other motivations, and more material things to gain from these wars, for the common people their object and their prize was the defence and maintenance of a rare and unique Liberty, which has become a much wider aspiration.
But with allies of not the struggle for freedom and liberty is likely to be an eternal one- and hopefully English people will still feel that the right to live your own life freely is a priceless gift, and one that other people are entitled to...
But "waging peace" is very demanding, and the first requisite is some kind of inner peace, or at least quiet.
Cass -
Message 31
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Monday, 19th July 2010
The Europeans did a pretty workmanlike job during the Thirty Years War, with little or no British help.
There was also the Polish Succession War. How did Walpole put it "Madame, there are 50,000 men killed in Europe this year, and not one Englishmen"?
Nor, for good or ill, were we involved in any of Bismarck's wars, or in Nappy III's war with Austria.
There are probably other cases. -
Message 32
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Poldertijgr
As a matter of interest did the Netherlands once independent have to worry unduly about neighbouring Kingdoms or would be kingdoms having envoys and ambassadors at foreign courts seeking alliances and aid to destroy it.. This was, of course, the case for the English who- arguably to some people's minds with justification- had to be constantly aware of not just the dagger pointed at the heart of England but others ready to stab in the back and any other of its reachable parts.
I seem to remember that the William of Orange and Marlborough campaigns put an end to credible French ambitions to push up to the Rhine at least, until 1793. And from memory the Treaty of Utrecht established the barrier forts between France and the Rhine, while to the east Shleswig Holstein was at least one small border Germanic state.
Perhaps as a newly founded State that had suffered a great deal, the Netherlands did not have the burden of more than at least 500 years of History... And we should not forget that the Dutch Army in the early Seventeenth Century was the best in Europe.
Cass -
Message 33
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Re: Message 32.
Cass,
your last paragraph. No I think it was the fleet and not the army. But Poldertijger will explain it better I suppose.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Paul
The Dutch may have had the best fleet too in the early Seventeenth Century, but they certainly had the best army. They recruited top professional mercenaries from various parts of Europe, including Scotland, and trained, equipped and deployed them with all the advantages of the leading country in the Northern Renaissance. It was for example supposed to be a Dutch general who first used the telescope as a miitary aid to examine the deployment of the enemy forces. And he even sent one as a gift to his enemy- perhaps by legend.
For many years in the Seventeenth Century any young man anxious to learn military skills joined the Dutch army.
Cass -
Message 35
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 19th July 2010
The Dutch Blue Guards who fought for William Of Orange at the Boyne in 1690 were reputed to be the 'best regiment in Europe' at the time.
Mind you, they still had a hard time of it carrying the river crossing against Sarsfield's Horse. -
Message 36
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Monday, 19th July 2010
Weren't they also Catholic to a man, or am I imagining that...?
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Message 37
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Re: message 30.
Hello Cass,
Don't get me wrong; I'm not denying that Britain has provided invaluable services to Europe in general and the Netherlands in particular, but it has always come with a steep price to pay; a blockade and a war that would devastate the very regions that the British forces were meant to protect. Both world wars have shown that the price to pay for British protection has become too high. The British are no more the solution; the British have become part of the problem.
In message 10 I set out to show that the problems the Europeans were facing in the interbellum were not so much the results of a badly wrought peace, although that had been bad enough, but were the outcome of an inherent instability that has plagued Europe ever since the French invaded Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. No matter how well the Versailles peace might have been designed, if it hadn't solved the problem of Europe's inherent instability it would probably have given rise to another war.
So what is this inherent instability; it is the French German rivalry. There are several ways to solve this problem: one can imagine the foundation of a multinational state, but this would mean giving up on democracy, so this medicine would be worse than the illness it is supposed to cure.
Another solution would be a French German alliance. This would keep the peace and has the added advantage that it will let the participating members keep their particular brand of democracy, of all possible solutions to the inherent instability of Europe, the French German alliance is the most benign.
After the Great War such an alliance would have been unthinkable; the French electorate would not have given the French politicians enough leeway to make overtures towards the Germans.
But in the middle of the fifties the situation had changed dramatically; the French electorate no longer posed a problem to the French politicians as the French wanted peace above all other things. At the same time France was a political giant with huge economic problems and Germany was a political dwarf, but an industrial giant. A deal was now likely to be beneficial to both nations, so a French German deal was the logical thing to do. And you know by now, not in the least by personal experience, that nothing appeals to the French so much as logic.
In the middle of the fifties all the chips finally fell into place for a benign solution to the inherent European instability.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 38
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Hello Paul,
From Parma's departure from the Netherlands until the French intervention in the Thirty Years' War the Dutch soldiers were the best of Europe. This was due to the military discipline that Maurits had forced upon the Dutch soldiers. Maurits had found a way to make the Dutch soldiers shoot more volleys within a given period of time than any other military organization. This was the key to the Dutch success at the battle of Nieuwpoort, the first time that "Spanish" troops had been beaten in a century.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 39
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Hello Catigern,
You write:
Weren't they also Catholic to a manÂ
A strong minority in the armies of the Dutch was catholic, as the military was the only career left for the catholic minority in the Dutch republic. Quite a few members of my family have been officers in the armies of the Dutch Indies.
At the battle of the Boyne the catholic soldiers of the Dutch Blue Guard were dressed in the papal colours to drive home the point that the Irish were not only fighting the protestant powers but the pope as well.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 40
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Poldertijger,
There are several ways to solve this problem: one can imagine the foundation of a multinational state, but this would mean giving up on democracy, so this medicine would be worse than the illness it is supposed to cure.Â
By that logic neither Belgium, Switzerland nor Canada should exist. Yet they do. -
Message 41
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Ploderijgr
This must be quick-- for once.
My thesis is that England provided the momentum for Britain, and much of Europe.. Last year I started writing a piece about post-war Europe as "An Anglo-Saxon Plantation" since the 2WW had shown the basic strength and durability of the two great AS Empires, the British and the USA.
But these two as well as the devastated German one had really been the product of a surge in the 1860's, when the ability of Teutonic folk to deal with the struggle for the survival of the fittest encouraged a whole new belief in power politics.
I deal with all of this in my "book" "Towards a View of History for Our Own Times"..
By 1870 the world of the Great Powers was locking both States and Citizens onto a trajectory that led to the two world wars.
By 1918 it was obvious that one idea of Civilization was either dead or dangerously damaged. It turned out to be the latter as totalitarianism appropriated to itself the power of the modern industrial State.
About ten years ago I wrote "The Rediscovery of Social Man"-- which to my mind is the way forward, hence David Cameron's "Big Society".
So in amity and common cause
Regards
Cass -
Message 42
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Re: Message 38.
Poldertijger,
just lost again a message
to you, while when I went to "preview" I was directed to a "register again" window, because perhaps? something contravened the rules. Some moderator or robot don't send a message anymore to your E-mail, but simply annihilates your message? It is now the second time in some days it happens to me.
Perhaps because I used a Dutch title of a book followed immediately by the English translation?
In essence I said to you that I read about it in the three books I mentioned to you yesterday on the French messageboard but that I thought that the period was later in the 17th century. But as you mentioned Maurits of Nassau I saw immediately my mistake. And of course you and Cass are completely right.
I found a work especially focused on the subject, which one can read on the net:
"State of war: arms industry and military reform in the Republic of the United Netherlands 1585-1621" page 21 by M.A.G. de Jong
Kind regards and with esteem,
an angry Paul.
PS: And now I see it pass... -
Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Thanks Paul
If at first u don't succeed etc
Cass -
Message 44
Posted by VoiceOfReason (U14405333) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Cass
If England and the English wanted to stay English and not British then why did they coerce the other home countries into Union? -
Message 45
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Glencairn
I am not sure that coerce is the appropriate term..
Though I know there is some controversy in Scotland over the Union, there were Scots who decided that Union with England was better than the end of the existing relationship. England by this time, thanks perhaps to her partnership in European affairs notably with William of Orange as King of England and head of State and chief military commander of the Netherlands, the country that had pioneered the new world, was confident enough to pass the Act of Succession to the throne of England. Scotland had undergone a terrible period during the 1690's -"the dear years" which were characterised by disatrous harvests and terrible famines. Fletcher of Saltoun wrote about the dire situation in which he estimated 20% of the population of Scotland were roaming around as near starving beggars, or "soarners" producing near anarchy in places. Fletcher suggested the Scottish solution of the widespread use of slavery, though I do not know whether that was to be shipped off to the Caribbean or sent into places like the mines that continued to operate on a system something like slavery for much of the eighteenth century.
The Scottish Parliament chose another solution which was a massive programme to educate the Scots, but like the much later great drives for education in Wales this seemed most likely to help the Scots by giving them an advantage in the English labour market.
It is of course possible to argue that the Scots who decided to go along with the Union misjudged the situation. I have seen it alleged that they were bribed. But is it really possible for the English to coerce the Scots? Glencairn you may have let a secret out of the bag!
As for the Union with Ireland, anyone who reads Thomas Pakeham's account "The Year of Liberty. The Great Irish Rebellion of 1798" can surely not believe that the Irish were coerced. But perhaps one should first define just who one means by "the Irish". The problems between the two communities seemed such during the various attrocities of that year, that no purely Irish solution to the problems of government there were possible. As Britain was becoming something of a multinational State- a Union like the United States of America [and Belgium], and the European entities that were being encouraged by revolutionary and later Napoloeonic France it seems again not illogical to believe that as just two strands of a larger political entity the Irish might find some way to co-exist.
Of course William Pitt understood that the whole thing really hinged upon the United Kingdom changing its laws regarding Roman Catholicism. King George III categorically refused, and Pitt resigned and left office - such was the importance that he attached to that issue. Once the wars of 1793-1815 were over, among the disturbances that animated the post-war demonstrations, riots and repressions the most potent force for radicalised and even revolutionary sentiment, according to Asa Briggs was the issue of Roman Catholic emancipation.
As it turned out it took another couple of centuries and joint British and Irish membership of an even greater unity for real progress to be made on addressing the problems of the two communities within the island of Ireland.
Cass
PS.. The English as such had made it a practice centuries before to let other people chase all these glittering prizes on their behalf, while they got on with making lives of the "pure gold" of earthly happiness. -
Message 46
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Glencairn,
Cass has some very strange ideas about England and the English. As for coercion, though, while Wales and Ireland may have been coerced, that was hardly the case in 1603 and 1707. When it came to parliamentary union, both sides got part of what they wanted and both sides made sacrifices to secure that. In general... The English would've liked to maintain Monarchical union without letting the Scots in on imperial trade, and didn't care much about Parliamentary union either way. The Scots wanted economic union, ie access to imperial trade, but would've preferred to have avoided Parliamentary Union and were flexible over Monarchical union (except that they were sure they didn't want a Catholic, hence the relevant provisions in the 1704 Act of Security, whatever fantasies of popular support Jacobites enjoyed...). In the End, the English got their Monarchical union, which was guaranteed by the Parliamentary union, but made the massive compromise of letting the Scots in on the imperial game. The Scots, for their part, got their economic union and went on to do rather well out of the British Empire, not just in terms of individual careers, but in terms of spreading the fame and culture of the nation throughout the world, as evidenced by the pride that bodies like the Singaporean police take in their tartan-clad pipe bands. The compromise the Scots made in order to get access to the Empire was, of course, that their Parliament was subsumed by Westminster.
What's next, I wonder... In the current context, the English need not make any sort of economic concessions to the Scots in order to avoid being invaded from the north. The Scots, on the other hand, would be just as capable of international trade without access to English imperial markets that no longer exist if they went fully independent. Who will ditch whom first...?
Poldertijger,
Thanks for the info on the Dutch Blue Guards. I have been wondering how continental Germanic attitudes to religion interacted with religious strife in the British Isles...
Under Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden effectively led the 'Protestant Cause', but in the eighteenth century there was some fear amongst British ministers that the Swedes would support Jacobite insurrection.
William of Orange sent the Dutch Blue Guards across the Boyne first, in the Papal colours if you say so, while many of his British troops were inspired to follow him because he opposed Bad King James, one of whose most unpopular policies was to try and establish Catholics within the British Army.
The House of Hanover was inextricably associated with the Protestant Cause in its capacity as a British Royal House, from 1714 onwards (or should we say from the Act of Settlement onwards...?). In the continental German context, however, the Guelphs played a full part in (Holy Roman) Imperial politics. Georg Ludwig, the future George I of GB and Ireland, fought for the Emperor against the Turks and the family's longstanding ambition had been to gain not a British crown, but an Imperial Elector's cap... -
Message 47
Posted by VoiceOfReason (U14405333) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
The English did bribe the Scottish Aristocracy to vote for Union
That was what coined the phrase "bought and sold for English gold"
Daniel Defoe was and English Government spy active in Edinburgh at the time
These are well known facts and I can't believe you are unaware of them
The Union was driven by England and its proclamation was greeted by rioting in Edinburgh
Still it was a long time ago and maybe we will regain our independence - possibly once the North Sea oil has run out? -
Message 48
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
Glencairn
I referred to such things.. But for some of us neither bribery nor mere intimidation amounts to coercion..
I am afraid your comments merely point once again to the scant respect that Scots often seem to have for Scots.
"bought and sold for English gold".. It goes back to the Merlin quote I used a couple of days ago.
Cass -
Message 49
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Tuesday, 20th July 2010
The English did bribe the Scottish Aristocracy to vote for UnionÂ
The Union was a divisive issue in Scotland, with pro- and anti- individuals found at all levels of society. It was NOT something the Aristos imposed upon a reluctant people.
That was what coined the phrase "bought and sold for English gold"Â
A phrase coined by Burns several generations later, and best analysed alongside other 'antiquarian' lines he wrote, such as:
"O let us not, like snarling tykes,
In wrangling be divided;
Till slap come in an unco loon
And wi' a rung decide it.
Be Britain still to Britain true,
Amang oursels united;
For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted!"
The Union was driven by England...Â
If you look at the full text of the Scottish Parliament's Act of Security of 1704, you'll find that it's pretty much a blueprint for the Union of 1707.
and its proclamation was greeted by rioting in EdinburghÂ
A pretty pathetic response compared to genuine expressions of national sentiment, such as the Covenant.
Still it was a long time ago and maybe we will regain our independence - possibly once the North Sea oil has run out?Â
The only reason Scotland isn't independent already is that Scots continue to vote for unionist MPs in general elections. What on earth does England get from the Union that makes you imagine there is any sort of English desire to restrain any Scottish instinct for independence that may lurk beneath the voting habits of the Scottish electorate...? -
Message 50
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 21st July 2010
The English did bribe the Scottish Aristocracy to vote for Union
That was what coined the phrase "bought and sold for English gold"Â
Whereas Robert Burns was writing his silly poem nearly a hundred years after the event, the actual contemporary English of 1707 were being warned by the more astute among their own, such as Edward Seymour, that:
‘Whosoever marries a beggar will only find a louse for the portion.’
Unfortunately for England, however, the Little Englanders, like Seymour, in the English Parliament were sidelined (but not silenced) and it were the Great Britons who achieved a majority.
The Union was driven by EnglandÂ
The Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament were both divided about 70% for, and 30% against, the Union.
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