The Ifs of History Part 1

The Ifs of History.

by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin.

PREFACE

Whether or not we believe that events are consciously ordered before their occurrence, we are compelled to admit the importance of Contingency in human affairs.

If we believe in such an orderly and predetermined arrangement, the small circ.u.mstance upon which a great event may hinge becomes, in our view, but the instrumentality by means of which the great plan is operated. It by no means sets aside the vital influence of chance to a.s.sume that "all chance is but direction which we cannot see."

For instance, the believer in special providences regards as clearly providential the flight of the flocks of birds which diverted the course of Columbus from our sh.o.r.es to those of the West Indies; but it is none the less true that this trivial circ.u.mstance caused the great navigator to turn his prow.

Those who, on the other hand, reject the idea of special providences, and treat history as a sequence of occurrences emerging mechanically from the relations of men with one another, must admit that causes forever contend with causes, and that the nice balance of action and reaction may sometimes be influenced radically by even so small a circ.u.mstance as the cackling of the geese of Rome. It is true that the evolutionist is apt to become a believer in necessity to an extent which appears unlikely to the mind of the other. Events, in his view, inhere in the nature and character of men, these in their turn being the result of the physical circ.u.mstances that differentiate the nations. This view seems at first to reduce the probability that accident will at any time sensibly alter the course of affairs.

But if we take historical action and reaction at their moments of equilibrium, we see that the tide of affairs may sometimes appear to follow the drift of a feather. Consider, for instance, the declaration of the Duke of Wellington that the issue of the battle of Waterloo turned upon the closing of the gates of Hugomont Castle by the hand of one man. Wellington was certainly in a position to know if this was true; and in the light of the tremendous events that depended upon the trifling act, does it not appear that accident for one moment outweighed in consequence any necessity that inhered in the character of the French people or that of the nations arrayed against them at Waterloo? It may be the function of Contingency to correct the overconfidence of the evolutionist.

At all events, we cannot dismiss the "if"; there is, as Touchstone says, much virtue in it.

J. E. C.

THE IFS OF HISTORY

CHAPTER I

IF THEMISTOCLES HAD NOT BEATEN ARISTIDES IN AN ATHENIAN ELECTION

Mithra instead of Jesus! The western world Zoroastrian, not Christian!

The Persian Redeemer, always called the Light of the World in their scriptures; the helper of Ahura-Mazda, the Almighty, in his warfare with Ahriman, or Satan; the intercessor for men with the Creator; the Saviour of humanity; he, Mithra, might have been the central person of the dominant religion of Europe and modern times, but for certain developments in Athenian politics in the years between 490 and 480 B. C. For it is true that in the first three of four centuries of the Christian era the western world seemed to hesitate between the religion of Mithra and that of Christ; and if the Persians had completed the conquest of Greece in the fifth century B. C., Mithra might have so strengthened his hold upon Europe that the scale would have been turned forever in his direction.

What was it that enabled the Greeks, in the crucial test, the ultimate contingency, to turn back the Persians and maintain their independence?

History says that it was the result of the battles of Marathon and Salamis, in which the Greeks were triumphant over the Persians. This is true only in a limited sense. The battle of Marathon, in 490 B. C., did not save Greece, for the Persians came back again more powerful than ever. At Thermopylae, Leonidas and his band died vainly, for the hosts of Xerxes overran all Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth. They took Athens, and burned the temples on the Acropolis. They were triumphant on the land.

But at Salamis, in the narrow channel between the horseshoe-shaped island and the Attican mainland, Themistocles, on the 20th day of September, 480 B. C., adroitly led the great Persian fleet of six hundred vessels into a trap and defeated it in as heroic a fight as ever the men of the West fought against the men of the East. Seated on his "throne," or rather his silver-footed chair, on a hilltop overlooking the scene, Xerxes, the master of the world, beheld the destruction of his ships, one by one, by the leagued Greeks. When the battle was over he saw that the escape of his victorious army from the mainland was imperiled, and while there was yet time, he led his Persian horde in a wild flight across his bridge of boats over the h.e.l.lespont. The field of Plataea completed the check, and the Persian invasions of Europe were over forever.

What was it that enabled Themistocles to win this decisive victory for Greece after disastrous defeats on land? Simply his skill in the politics of Athens. Themistocles was a h.e.l.lenic imperialist. He was opposed by Aristides, who was a very just man, and an anti-imperialist and "mugwump." Greece was at that time terribly menaced by the Persian power, and threatened with "Medization," or absorption into the Persian nationality. Themistocles saw that the country's only chance lay in a union of all the h.e.l.lenes, and in the construction of a navy worth the name. Aristides was a better orator than he, and at first won against him in the Athenian elections. The Greek spirit was innately hostile to anything like centralization or imperialism. But when aegina, which was the leading Grecian maritime state, and had some good ships, turned against Athens and defeated it on the sea, the Athenians' eyes began to open. Themistocles pushed his plan for the construction of a fleet of two hundred vessels and the addition of twenty new ships every year to this navy.

Squarely across his path stood Aristides, with his ridicule of the attempt of little Athens to become a maritime power, and his warnings against militarism. But Themistocles, by adroit politics, led the Athenians to become sick of Aristides, and persuaded them to ostracize or banish this just man. Aristides went to aegina. Then Themistocles rushed forward his plan of naval reform, and carried it through. The two hundred ships were built, and not a moment too soon. It was this fleet, brilliantly led by Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis, which entangled the Persians in the narrow waters of Salamis and defeated them, and saved Europe for the Europeans.

The victory saved it also for Christ, by keeping alive the worship of the half-G.o.ds of Greece and Rome until a whole-G.o.d came from Judaea. The Persians, too, had a whole-G.o.d. Idea for idea, principle for principle, tenet for tenet, dream for dream, all of later Judaism and all of medieval Christianity, except the person and story of Jesus, was in the religion of Persia. Not only the central ideas of formal Christianity, but many of its dependent and related principles, are found in Mithraism, which was the translation of the fundamental philosophic ideas of Zoroastrianism into terms of human life. The parallel is so striking that many thinkers regard Christianity merely as Mithraism bodied forth in a story invented by, or at least told to and believed by, a circle of primitive and uneducated zealots who knew nothing of the history of the doctrines they were embracing.

But notwithstanding the philosophic likeness, the acceptance of Mithraism as it was held and practiced in Persia in Darius's time, instead of Christianity, which may have been Mithraism first Judaized and afterward Romanized, would have made a vast difference with the western world. If Greece had been Persianized before the rise of Rome's power, Rome, too, would have been Persianized. The influence of Hebrew thought upon the western world would have been forestalled. Zoroastrian rites would have prevailed. Over all would have spread the mysticism of the East.

Our civilization might have risen as high as it has ever gone, in art, in the grace of life; but instead of being inspired with the eager desire of progress, by the restless h.e.l.lenic necessity of doing something better and higher, or at least something other, something new--instead of this, the spirit of peace and of satisfaction with old ideals would have permeated our systems and our life.

Lord Mithra, too, would have been primarily the sun, primarily an embodiment of the light shining down to us through the sky from that central essence which alone can say, "I am that I am," and not, as in the Lord Christ, a humble, suffering, poor and despised man lifted up into G.o.dhead.

CHAPTER II

IF THE MOORS HAD WON THE BATTLE OF TOURS

The most tremendous contingencies in all history--the determination of the fate of whole continents, whole civilizations, by a single incident--are sometimes the occurrences that are most completely and signally ignored by the ordinary citizen. For instance, it does not occur to the man on the street that but for a turn in the tide of battle on a certain October day in the year 732, on a sunny field in northern-central France, he, the man on the street, would to-day be a devout Mussulman, listening at evening for the muezzin's call from a neighboring minaret, abjuring pork and every alcoholic beverage, and shunning stocks and all kinds of speculation as prohibited forms of gambling.

Islamism would to-day, but for a single hard-fought battle and its issue, probably be the established form of religion in all Europe. Even England would have been unable to resist the onset of the impetuous Arabs, once they had established themselves in triumph from the Tagus to the Vistula; and the conversion of all Europe would have carried with it the Moslemizing of the new world--supposing, indeed, that America had up to this time been discovered under Moorish auspices, which is unlikely.

Europe was certainly nearer to conquest by the Moors in the eighth century than most people suppose. There are few finer or more heroic episodes in history than the extraordinary series of conquests by means of which, a handful of fanatical Arabs, inspired by the prophet Mohammed, carried, with fire and sword, the faith of Islam over the world, until, within two hundred years of the date of the prophet's birth, it reigned from the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic to the banks of the Indus. Horde after horde of impetuous warriors of the Crescent had arisen. Their purpose, frankly, was to convert the world, and convert it by force. Cutting themselves off from their bases of supply, and relying upon an alliance of miracle and rapine to sustain them, their triumphant campaigns were one continuous and colossal Sherman's march to the sea.

They struck Europe at the east, and also by way of the west. Greek fire checked them at the gates of Constantinople in the east, but they overran all northern Africa, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and flowed like a torrent over Spain and southern France. By the year 731, as Gibbon truly says, the whole south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Rhone, had a.s.sumed the manners and religion of Arabia.

Abd-er-Rahman, the conqueror, reigned supreme in southwestern Europe.

Spain and Portugal had been annexed to Asia, and now the turn of France had surely come.

But at this crisis a heroic figure arose in Europe--scarcely an elegant figure, though a picturesque one. The throne of the Franks had been seized by an illegitimate son of old King Pepin, a rough and heedless fighter, whose rule pleased the people better than did that of the priests and women whom Pepin had left behind him. This b.l.o.o.d.y-handed usurper was named Charles, or Karl, and he was destined afterward to be called Martel, "the Hammer," on account of the iron blows that he struck upon all who faced him.

Abd-er-Rahman, the victorious Moor, advanced into northern France, overthrowing armies with ease, and sacking cities, churches and convents as he marched. Nothing could stay him, as it appeared. He had planted the standard of the prophet at the gates of Tours, which is one hundred and thirty miles, as the crow flies, from Paris. But meantime the usurping and base-born Charles, in command of a small army mostly composed of gigantic and well-seasoned German warriors, was sneaking along, like an Indian, under the shelter of a range of hills, toward the Saracen camp; and one day, to Abd-er-Rahman's great surprise, Charles fell upon him like a veritable hammer of red-hot iron.

Not in one moment, nor in one day, was the issue decided. Six days the armies fought, and through all Abd-er-Rahman and his fanatical horde held their own. But on the seventh day Charles led a battalion of his biggest, fiercest Germans straight against the Moorish center.

Abd-er-Rahman himself was slain; his army, appalled by this circ.u.mstance, was broken and beaten, and faded away toward the South.

Charles Martel made sure his victory by another successful campaign. The Moors were driven out of France forever. In their stead Charles himself reigned. He had saved Europe to Christianity. Yet for his lack of docility, the church execrated him.

If Abd-er-Rahman had overrun France, as he would surely have done if a less redoubtable and terrible antagonist than Charles Martel had faced him at Tours, he would next have turned his attention to Germany. With its fall, Italy and Rome would have invited his attention. There he would have found few but priests to oppose him, and the empire of the East, attacked in the rear as well as in the front, would speedily have succ.u.mbed. No Saint Cyril would have gone forth to convert the Russians and Bulgarians, who would promptly have been Tartarized.

As we have seen, nothing could have saved England or Ireland. The prophet's world-conquest must have been accomplished.

What then? Would the western world have remained at the stage of cultivation in which we see Arabia to-day? There is no reason to suppose that that would have been quite the case. It was not so in Moorish Spain, which rose to a high level of culture. Christianity would not have been suppressed. It was not suppressed in Turkey or Spain. But it would probably have been ruled, dominated, forced into odd corners, and to some extent Moslemized. Learning would not have languished, for in certain important forms it flourished in Spain. The western brain, the Aryan genius, must have had its way in many intellectual respects. Yet the cast of European thought would surely have been sicklied over with oriental contemplativeness.

The "hustler" never could have existed under Moslem rule. The speculator never would have risen, because he would not have been tolerated. The Moslem doctrine forbids censuses and statistics, treating them as a form of wicked curiosity concerning the rule of G.o.d on earth. Pictorial art, and sculpture, which the Koran regards as idolatrous, would have been sternly repressed. Literature would have been great along the line of poetry; science great along the line of mathematics.

The western woman would have been orientalized. So far from forming clubs, she would not have been permitted even to pray in the mosques.

America would have remained undiscovered for centuries; and if at last accident or search had laid it bare, it would have followed the path of Europe. The mellifluous tones of the muezzin's cadence, "La ilah 'i il 'Allah," "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d," would echo now where the shouts and yells of the Wall Street speculators reverberate. And the abode of the mighty would have been a House of Quiet, not the home of strenuousness.

CHAPTER III