The World War and What was Behind It Part 5

The rest of the continent of Europe, with the exception of the Turkish Empire, formed what was called the Holy Roman Empire, a rule which had been founded by Charlemagne (A.D. 800), the great Frankish monarch, who had been crowned in Rome by the pope as ruler of the western world. (The name "Holy Roman Empire" was not used by Charlemagne. We first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon emperor, who was crowned in 962.)

[Map: The Empire of Charlemagne]

This Holy Roman Empire included all of what is now Germany (except the eastern third of Prussia), all of what is now Bohemia, Austria (but not Hungary), and all of Italy except the part south of Naples. There were times when part of France and all of the low countries (now Belgium and Holland) also belonged to the Empire. (The mountaineers of Switzerland won their independence from the Empire in the fourteenth century, and formed a little republic.) See map "Europe in 1540."

[Map: Europe in 1540]

In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not necessarily succeed his father as ruler. There were seven (afterwards nine) "electors" who, at the death of the ruling monarch, met to elect his successor. Three of these electors were archbishops, one was king of Bohemia, and the others were counts of large counties in Germany like Hanover and Brandenburg. It frequently happened that the candidate chosen was a member of the family of the dead emperor, and there were three or four families which had many rulers chosen from among their number. The most famous of these families was that of the Counts of Hapsburg, from whom the present emperor of Austria is descended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XIV]

This Holy Roman Empire was not a strong government, as the kingdoms of England and France grew to be. The kings of Bohemia, Saxony, and Bavaria all were subjects of the emperor, as were many powerful counts. These men were jealous of the emperor's power, and he did not dare govern them as strictly as the king of France ruled his n.o.bles.

France in the 18th Century

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough]

During the 18th century, there were many wars in Europe caused by the ambition of various kings to make their domains larger and to increase their own incomes. King Louis XIV of France had built up a very powerful kingdom. Brave soldiers and skillful generals spread his rule over a great part of what is Belgium and Luxemburg, and annexed to the French kingdom the part of Germany between the Rhine River and the Vosges (Vozh) Mountains. Finally, the English joined with the troops of the Holy Roman Empire to curb the further growth of the French kingdom, and at the battle of Blenheim (1704), the English Duke of Marlborough, aided by the emperor's army, put an end to the further expansion of the French.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Elector of Brandenburg]

Prussia

The 18th century also saw the rise of a new kingdom in Europe. You will recall that there was a county in Germany named Brandenburg, whose count was one of the seven electors who chose the emperor. The capital of this county was Berlin. It so happened that a number of Counts of Brandenburg, of the family of Hohenzollern, had been men of ambition and ability. The little county had grown by adding small territories around it. One of these counts, called "the Great Elector," had added to Brandenburg the greater part of the neighboring county of Pomerania. His son did not have the ability of his father, but was a very proud and vain man. He happened to visit King William III of England, and was very much offended because during the interview, the king occupied a comfortable arm chair, while the elector, being simply a count, was given a chair to sit in which was straight-backed and had no arms. Brooding over this insult, as it seemed to him, he went home and decided that he too should be called a king. The question was, what should his t.i.tle be. He could not call himself "King of Brandenburg," for Brandenburg was part of the Empire, and the emperor would not allow it. It had happened some one hundred years before, that, through his marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Prussia, a Count of Brandenburg had come into possession of the district known as East Prussia, at the extreme southeastern corner of the Baltic Sea. Between this and the territory of Brandenburg lay the district known as West Prussia, which was part of the Kingdom of Poland. However, Prussia lay outside the boundaries of the Empire, and the emperor had nothing to say about what went on there. Therefore, the elector sent notice to all the kings and princes of Europe that after this he was to be known as the "King of Prussia." It was a situation somewhat like the one we have already referred to, when the kings of England were independent monarchs and yet subjects of the kings of France because they were also dukes of Normandy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Frederick The Great]

The son of this elector who first called himself king had more energy and more character than his father. He ruled his country with a rod of iron, and built up a strong, well-drilled army. He was especially fond of tall soldiers, and had agents out all over Europe, kidnapping men who were over six feet tall to serve in his famous regiment of Guards.

He further increased the size of the Prussian kingdom.

His son was the famous Frederick the Great, one of the most remarkable fighters that the world has ever seen. This prince had been brought up under strict discipline by his father. The old king had been insistent that his son should be no weakling. It is told that one day, finding Frederick playing upon a flute, he seized the instrument and snapped it in twain over his son's shoulder. The young Frederick, under this harsh training, became a fit leader of a military nation. When his father died and left him a well-filled treasury and a wonderfully drilled army, he was fired with the ambition to spread his kingdom wider. Germany, as has been said, was made up of a great many little counties, each ruled by its petty prince or duke, all owing homage, in a general way, to the ruler of Austria, who still was supposed to be the head of the Holy Roman Empire.

[Map: The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1400-1806]

This empire was not a real nation, but a collection of many different nationalities which had little sympathy with each other. The ruler of Austria was also king of Bohemia and of Hungary, but neither country was happy at being governed by a German ruler. Then, too, the Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, and Slovaks were unhappy at being ruled, first by the Hungarians and then by the emperor, as they were Slavic peoples who wished their independence. It so happened that about the time that Frederick became king of Prussia in place of his father, the head of the House of Austria died, leaving his only child, a daughter, Maria Theresa, to rule the big empire. Frederick decided that he could easily defeat the disorganized armies of Austria, so he announced to the world that the rich province of Silesia was henceforth to be his and that he proposed to take it by force of arms. Naturally, this brought on a fierce war with Austria, but in the end, Frederick's well-trained troops, his store of money, and above all, his expert military ability made the Prussians victorious, and at the close of the fighting, almost all of Silesia remained a part of the kingdom of Prussia. The Austrians, however, were not satisfied, and two more wars were fought before they finally gave up trying to recover the stolen state. Frederick remained stronger than ever as a result of his victories.

Questions for Review

1. Why were the fighting men of the Middle Ages a source of loss to a nation in general?

2. How was it that Spain became one nation?

3. What did Peter the Great do for Russia?

4. Why did the Emperor have less power than many kings?

5. What was the ambition of Louis XIV of France?

6. What effect had the training of his father upon the character of Frederick the Great?

7. Had Frederick the Great any right to Silesia?

CHAPTER VIII

The Fall of the Two Kingdoms

The Poles, a divided nation.--The three part.i.tions.--Wars and revolts as a result.--The disappearance of Lithuania.--The growing power of the king of France.--An extravagant and corrupt court.--Peasants cruelly taxed and oppressed.--Bankruptcy at last.--The meeting of the three estates.--The third estate defies the king.--The fall of the Bastille.--The flight and capture of the king.--The king beheaded.--Other kings alarmed.--Valmy saves the revolution.--The reign of terror.

In the flat country to the northeast of Austria-Hungary and east of Prussia lay the kingdom of Poland, the largest country in Europe with the exception of Russia. The Poles, as has been said before, were a Slavic people, distant cousins of the Russians and Bohemians. They had a strong n.o.bility or upper cla.s.s, but these n.o.bles were jealous of each other, and as a result, the country was torn apart by many warring factions. The condition of the working cla.s.s was very miserable. The n.o.bles did not allow them any privileges. They were serfs, that is to say, practically slaves, who had to give up to their masters the greater part of the crops that they raised. In the council of the Polish n.o.bles, no law could be pa.s.sed if a single n.o.bleman opposed it. As a result of this jealousy between factions, the Poles could not be induced to obey any one leader, and thus, divided, were easy to conquer.

Frederick the Great, regretting the fact that he was separated from his land in East Prussia by the county of West Prussia, which was part of Poland, proposed to his old enemy, Maria Theresa of Austria, and to the Empress Catharine II of Russia that they each take a slice of Poland. This was accordingly done, in the year 1772. Poor Poland was unable to resist the three great powers around her, and the other kings of Europe, who had been greedily annexing land wherever they could get it, stood by without a protest. Some twenty years later, Prussia and Russia each again annexed a large part of the remainder of Poland, and two years after this, the three powers divided up among them all that was left of the unhappy kingdom. The Poles fought violently against this last part.i.tion, but they were not united and were greatly outnumbered by the troops of the three powers.

This great crime against a nation was the result of the military system; and this in turn was the result of the feudal system, which made the king, as commander-in-chief of the army, the supreme ruler of his country. The men in the Prussian and Austrian armies had no desire to fight and conquer the poor Poles. Victory meant nothing to them.

They gained no advantage from it. To the kings who divided up the countries it simply meant an enlargement of their kingdoms, more people to pay taxes to them, and more men to draw on for their armies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Catharine II]

Instead of crushing out the love of the Poles for their country, this wrongful tearing apart has made their national spirit all the stronger. There have been revolts and b.l.o.o.d.y wars, caused by Polish uprisings, time and time again, and the Poles will never be satisfied until their unhappy country is once more united.

To the northeast of the Poles live the Lithuanians, whose country had been annexed to the Polish kingdom when their duke, who had married the daughter of the king of Poland, followed his father-in-law on the Polish throne. Lithuania fell to Russia's share in the division, so that its people only changed masters. They are a distinct nation, however, possessing a language and literature of their own, and having no desire to be ruled by either Poles or Russians. If they were to receive justice, they would form a country by themselves, lying between Poland and Russia proper.

The Downfall of the French Monarchy

[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtier of time of Louis XIV]

In the meantime, a great change had come about in France. There, for hundreds of years, the power of the king had been growing greater, until by the eighteenth century, there was no one in the country who could oppose him. He had great fortresses and prisons where he sent those who had offended him, shutting them up without a trial and not even letting their families know where they had been taken. The peasants and working cla.s.ses had been ground down under taxes which grew heavier and heavier. The king spent millions of dollars on his palaces, on his armies, on his courts. Money was stolen by court officials. Paris was the gayest capital in the world, the home of fashion, art, and frivolity and the poor peasants paid the bills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Taking of The Bastille]

For years, there had been mutterings. The people were ripe for a revolt, but they had no weapons, and there was no one to lead them. At last, came a time when there was no money in the royal treasury. After all the waste and corruption, nothing was left to pay the army and keep up the expenses of the government. One minister of finance after another tried to devise some scheme whereby the country might meet its debts, but without success. The costly wars and wasteful extravagances of the past hundred years were at last to bring a reckoning. In desperation, the king summoned a meeting of representative men from all over the kingdom. There were three cla.s.ses represented, the n.o.bles, the clergy, and what was called "the third estate," which meant merchants, shopkeepers, and the poor gentlemen. A great statesman appeared, a man named Mirabeau. Under his leadership, the third estate defied the king, and the temper of the people was such that the king dared not force them to do his will. In the midst of these exciting times, a mob attacked the great Paris prison, the Bastille. They took it by storm, and tore it to the ground. This happened on the fourteenth of July, 1789, a day which the French still celebrate as the birthday of their nation's liberty. All over France the common people rose in revolt. The soldiers in the army would no longer obey their officers. The king was closely watched, and when he attempted to flee to Germany was brought back and thrown into prison.

Many of the n.o.bles, in terror, fled from the country. Thus began what is known as the French Revolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Palace of Versailles]

As soon as the king was thrown into prison and the people of France took charge of their government, a panic arose throughout the courts of Europe. Other kings, alarmed over the fate of the king of France, began to fear for themselves. They, too, had taxed and oppressed their subjects. They felt that this revolt of the French people must be put down, and the king of France set back upon his throne, otherwise the same kind of revolt might take place in their countries as well.

Accordingly, the king of Prussia, the king of England, and the emperor of Austria all made war on the new French Republic. They proposed to overwhelm the French by force of arms and compel them to put back their king upon his throne.

Of course, if the soldiers in the armies of these kings had known what the object of this war was, they would have had very little sympathy with it, but for years they had been trained to obey their officers, who in turn obeyed their generals, who in turn obeyed the orders of the kings. The common soldiers were like sheep, in that they did not think for themselves, but followed their leaders. They were not allowed to know the truth concerning this attack on France. They did not know the French language, and had no way of finding out the real situation, for there were no public schools in these countries, and very few people knew how to read the newspapers. The newspapers, moreover, were controlled by the governments, and were allowed to print only what favored the cause of the kings.

The French, however, knew the meaning of the war. A young French poet from Strasbourg on the Rhine wrote a wonderful war song which was first sung in Paris by the men of Ma.r.s.eilles, and thus has come to be called "La Ma.r.s.eillaise." It is the cry of a crushed and oppressed people against foreign tyrants who would again enslave them. It fired the French army with a wonderful enthusiasm, and untrained as they were, they beat back the invaders at the hard-fought field of Valmy and saved the French Republic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Reign of Terror]

The period known as "the reign of terror" now began in earnest. A faction of the extreme republican party got control of the government, and kept it by terrorizing the more peaceable citizens. The brutal wrongs which n.o.bles had put upon the lower cla.s.ses for so many hundred years were brutally avenged. The king was executed, as were most of the n.o.bles who had not fled from the country. For three or four years, the gutters of the princ.i.p.al French cities ran blood. Then the better sense of the nation came to the front and the people settled down. A fairly good government was organized, and the executions ceased. Still the kings of Europe would not recognize the new republic. There was war against France for the next twenty years on the part of England, and generally two or three other countries as well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First Singing of 'The Ma.r.s.eillaise']