Nation States
A previous chapter: The Beginning, showed that by the middle of the 18th century, the opening date of this book, Europe was well underway to be the uncontested master of the globe. European navies could sail wherever they wished, they had superior firepower to anything the non-European natives could put up against them. 300 years before 1750, the Portuguese caravels traveled practically unhindered round the Cape of Good Hope to India and the Moluccas. They were on the lookout for possible enemies, but it was not for local forces. Other European ships were the predators on the Portuguese.
Despite that the Europeans were masters of the seas, there was surprisingly low level of contact between Europe and the rest of the world; the Americas excepted. The restricted contact between Europe and the rest of the world was the result of European self-restraint, or to use a better expression, it was a lack of European interest. Lack of interest does not mean that there were no explorers, adventurers, seekers of Eldorado, etc. who were sailing the seven seas. There were many and they did a wonderful job. Their expertise helped the Europeans when they really decided to open the rest of the world. At the time of the transition to the Modern Age, Europe was occupied with itself and had no real interest in lands beyond the seas; except for very limited purposes.
After the Thirty-Year War Europe became a continent of nation states. It was the result of lessons that were learned from the depredations of that war. The ruling of the Congress of Westphalia, which ended that war, decided that only states can wage wars and the use of private organizations, rented to states to wage war on their behalf, was prohibited. So no more condottieri and no more Wallensteins. It really meant that only states can have the power to do so, therefore all power, civil and military, had to be concentrated in the states.
As usual, practice lagged behind legality. States did employ irregulars, without calling them mercenaries. In the Seven-Year War, Croatian and Hungarian irregulars in Austrian employ occupied Berlin for a while. That was more than a hundred years after the Peace of Westphalia. The Turks made use of irregulars, the bashi-bazuks, up to the time of the First World War. In naval warfare the use of privateers and ships with letters of marquee were also common. However, Europe's problem was not in warfare alone.
The main problems of Europe in the 18th century, before the French Revolution, were of practical natures, which eventually can be traced back to the demographic question:
The population of Europe in 1750 AD was 167 millions, 21 % of a total population of 791 millions. In 1000 AD the estimated population of the world was 310 millions. If the ratio of the population of Europe to the population of the world, was in 1000 AD the same as in 1750 AD, 21 %, then out of a population of 310 millions in 1000 AD, 65 millions lived in Europe. It means that about 102 million people were added to Europe's population in 750 years. The numbers seem to be very low by our standards, when 60 – 70 million people are added each year to the world's population. In the Middle Ages, with an economy based upon subsistence farming and a rudimentary commerce, any increase was a problem.
The ruling elite of Europe was formed by an alliance of the aristocracy and the Church. That was the alliance that was violently denounced by the Abbe de Sieyes at the early days of the French Revolution, when he accused the first two Etats, of being descendants of the invading Franks and the Church, who became allied to enslave the Gallo-Romans.
The rule of the aristocracy of Europe, who were indeed the descendants of the German tribes, who overran the western Roman Empire, was based upon territories. In the conditions of the early Middle Ages it was the only possibility to create a military force in Europe. Not having a money economy, the only possible payment was land. The feudal system had its problems: private wars, territorial lords who became too powerful to the liking of the central power, no central authority without a multitude of second opinions, etc. European history, from the early Middle Ages until the Modern Age was a long line of conflicts that were the outcome of the feudal system. Those times left a lasting impression on European consciousness. In our modern times, the beginnings of European history are nearly forgotten, but they were well remembered and accounted for even in comparatively modern times.
Abbe de Sieyes remembered it well, and so did all that read his pamphlet, friends and foes. When the South-Americans under Simon Bolivar revolted against Spain; they never referred to their enemies as Spaniards. They, the South-Americans were the Spaniards who were fighting against the invading Goths. The Spanish army that wanted to restore Spanish rule in South America, was always referred to as the army of the Goths. In modern times, in France, Marshal Lyautey, who was the pacifier of French North Africa, said some time after the First World War that although he is French, he feels more at home in the Rhine area of Germany than in the south of France, because he is of Frankish extraction.
It was not only the Abbe de Sieyes, Simon Bolivar and Marshal Lyautey who remembered their past. Ever since the Renaissance, there were strong European undercurrents, from those of Germanic origin, who wanted to separate the stronger Germanic element from the older and weaker part of Europe. It was a kind of secular Lutheranism. The separatist movement of Northern Italy did not start with the Lombard League of the late 20th century. Already in the 14th century there were Lombardian thinkers who emphasized the difference between their compatriots in the north and those in the Mezzogiorno. They remembered very well the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Langobards. The famous Italian saying that Africa starts at Rome was coined at that time.
In France, there was a Comte Henri de Boulainvilliers, who in the 17th century published a pamphlet of race superiority that was not much different from that published 200 years later by Arthur de Gobineau, and by Chamberlain and Rosenberg in the 20th century. There was a difference between him and the Abbe de Sieyes who saw the history of France as a betrayal by the leaders of the church, who made an alliance with the Franks of Clovis and enslaved the Gallo-Romans.
The theory of the Comte de Boulainvilliers was the exact opposite. His theory said that the Franks have brought freedom to Gaul. As the Franks were of a superior race, they deserved to rule in freedom, and the Gallo-Romans, being an inferior race, deserved to be their serfs. However, the kings betrayed the aristocracy, who were the bearers of liberty, by changing the rule from kingship, which was a rule of a first among equals, to the monarchy, where the king was an absolute ruler. What the Duke of St. Simon saw as the advancement of the 'vile bourgeoisie' Comte de Boulainvilliers saw as a betrayal.
Europe was ruled, therefore, at least until the modern age, by a territorially based aristocracy, who were loosely supervised by a central power. However, between its establishment in the 6th century AD until the modern Age, the population of Europe increased by 157 %. What was the outcome of that increase?
As far as the ruling oligarchy was concerned, they had a closed shop. Territorial expansion in the feudal age was a zero-sum game. A territory of a landed aristocrat could not be increased without taking it away from some other estate. Increase in the aristocratic families had three possible outlets:
Acquisition of a territorial base outside the family holding, a military career or the church. All these possibilities were limited. Still, Europe's history is full of attempts to extend the territorial borders in all directions. The mainspring of these attempts was the wish to find a new territorial base to be included into the feudal hierarchy.
Among them were the Reconquista of Spain and Portugal, the Crusades of the East, the Crusades against the Albigensi that was really a drive of northern knights to carve out principalities in the Midi, the expansion of Germany to the east and that of the Russians to the east and south. There were also the attempts of the Germans and the French to obtain principalities from the Byzantine empire, in South Italy, Sicily and the Balkans.
Despite those efforts the possibilities were limited and most of the additional population of Europe concentrated in the towns. That was the situation at the time of the Westphalian Peace. Although most of the people were living in the villages, all the lands were occupied, and the increase had to leave the land and find some solutions. There were those who found land beyond Germany's eastern borders, there were many Frenchmen who found lands in Spain, at the time of the Reconquista, there were even many Flemish people who migrated to England and settled in Ireland and the wild Celtic lands. The common English family name, Fleming, is a silent witness to that migration. Most of them, however, settled in the towns. It applied to the nobles, as well as to the simple people.
There were a number of results of this trend. One of them was that Europe became full of impoverished noblemen, who became a real drag on any future development. There were the Spanish hidalgos, caricatured by Cervantes in the Don Quixote, the French chevaliers, described by Dumas and Rostand, the German robber barons and the Polish minor nobility, whose only salable commodity was their vote in the Assembly, where even one vote could pose a veto.
When Europe reached the opening years of the Modern Age, the aristocracy was still there, full of self-importance and social privileges, but with not much else. Probably only England, among the major countries, solved the problem without a revolution. In fact, they had revolutions but they were much earlier. Since the 15th century, there were at least 4 revolutions in England, which has thinned out the ranks of the original aristocracy. After the last revolution, which was exactly a 100 years before the French Revolution, they came to the same solution as the French did, but with a special English twist. They co-opted the rich of the common people within the aristocracy. After all, a territorially based aristocracy does not have to be the size of a whole county; a manor house with a nice garden round it, should suffice, provided that it has a brewery or some other profitable enterprise somewhere. It was a good solution, for England. It allowed England to lead the world for a. few generations.
The English solution was a good example to follow, because if a baron of industry could become a real baron, then a real baron could become a baron of industry or finance. However, this solution was not applicable everywhere. In the opera of Richard Strauss, 'Der Rosenkavalier' , which shows the life of high society of Vienna at the middle of the 18th century, there are two barons. One is Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, a country bumpkin but a scion of an old noble family. The second is Baron Faninal, a rich merchant who was recently ennobled. Both are from the nobility, but there is only scorn and despise for the newly ennobled Faninal, whose only redeeming feature is his money.
It should be added here that whenever there is mention of old nobility here, the meaning is not of a nobility who can trace its beginning to one of the Germanic tribes, despite the fabricated 'family trees' and artificial legends. There were indeed Germanic tribes who settled in the territory of the Western Roman Empire, and provided the aristocracy of the new states that were carved out of the Empire. There were plenty of reasons, however, why no traces remained of that aristocracy. Families tended to disappear, because of early deaths, or a surplus of daughters over sons, or even being on a losing side in some old and forgotten civil war. There were always plenty of candidates to take their place. Younger sons of other noble families, ordinary knights who wanted to rise in the hierarchy, rich bourgeoisie, or even simple people who had the help of kings.
It probably did not happen in the early days of the Middle Ages, but from later times there are plenty of witnesses of simple people reaching the level of the aristocracy. Thomas Becket, the chancellor of Henry II of England was the son of a London draper, Cromwell, the chancellor of Henry VIII, was also of simple origin. They all had families who probably made good use of the power of their relatives.
So, according the play, Baron Faninal was a despicable figure, despite that he was shown as a polished and polite gentleman, opposite Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, who was a rough country bumpkin. No doubt, it was a common feeling everywhere at all ages. Cicero had to defend himself constantly, that he is a 'new man', meaning that he is the first of his family to reach nobility. However, there is no doubt that the grandsons of Baron Faninal and Baron Ochs together defended the exclusiveness of the nobility against the parvenu intruders, as Cicero himself, in his old age, became the most passionate advocate of the nobility.
So, whenever there is talk about old nobility or old elite, the meaning is always that part of the elite, which saw himself as such. When we are talking about the period of the 18th century and the conflict of the middle class and the old elite. It is unlikely that there were aristocratic families who could honestly trace the roots of their family beyond the 15th century. Even those were probably the minority.
The Westphalian Treaty has decided that waging of wars was the privilege of nation states. However, nation states were still something of an idea and not a reality. There were a number of reasons that prevented it being a reality. First, one cannot have a nation state without having a national language. In the old times, armies were functions of territorial separations, after all that was the main raison d'etre of Feudalism, meaning that aristocrats had to raise a certain number of soldiers from their estates. The number of soldiers was depending on the size of the feudal holding. The question of language did not arise because all the soldiers of that unit came from the same area, speaking the same patois. So did their commanders too.
National armies were supposed to be based on national territories. It supposed the existence of a national language. However, at the time of the Treaty of Westphalia there were no national languages yet. There were the local patois and the language of the court, which was used and understood by the aristocracy and the higher levels of the administration. Most of the courts of Europe, including those of Germany, Sweden and Russia, were speaking French. It was not only the language of diplomacy; it was the language of everyday use by the aristocracy. It is true that German conscripts from Bayern and Sachsen did not understand the language of their commanders; it was worse that they did not understand each other as well. What was true for German and Russian conscripts, was true for French conscripts too. It is doubtful the conscripts from the Midi or from Bretagne really understood the French of the court, or each other for that matter.
Of course, the rule of the patois was really applicable to rural areas. In the towns they were speaking the national language, as they always were in contact with the center. The languages of the towns had national importance. In the mid-16th century when a treaty had to adjudicate part of the territory of Lorraine and Burgundy, there was a decision in the treaty that the bishopries of "Metz, Toul and Verdun will belong to France because they speak French there".
It is not surprising that the century following the Treaty of Westphalia witnessed an intellectual activity in most of western countries, whose main subject was the creation of a national language. That was the time of Dr. Johnson and Boswell in England, Fenelon, Diderot and Voltaire in France, Herder and the Grimm brothers in Germany. The same process of creating of languages, and building of nations, reached eastern and southern Europe a century later.
The creation of national languages did not mean that the local patois disappeared. On the contrary, they certainly did not. In Piedmont, in Italy, even today they speak a language that is unintelligible to other Italians. The same applies to Naples, Sicily, Venice and other districts. However, in Italy, there is a national language that originally was the patois of Firenze. It is taught in schools; in fact it is the language of the schools. Having a national language means that any conscript in a national army should be able to understand the commands, disregarding the origin of the giver of the command.
It was not only the language that had to be shaped and nationalized. Each region had its laws, customs, money, weights and measures, etc and they all had to be brought to a common denominator. The process of unification is not finished yet; it is doubtful that it will ever be finished and there will be countries, like England, France or Germany, only with identical language, customs and habits. Human nature is more amenable to parochial existence than being part of large nation-states. There are, however, pressures of modern life, like contact with large number of people in towns, who might have originated in different areas etc. that advocate the uniformity of the nation state.
In some respect, the nation state by that definition is a unit containing people having a common past, common language and a common future. It was supposed to replace the smaller provinces as a unit of belonging. It is difficult to claim that it was a foregone conclusion. Forces, which are thought to be extinct, founded on basic human nature, will always act as centripetal factors. Anthropologists claim that human beings, disregarding whether they live in Manhattan or in a New Guinea jungle, are genetically programmed to be able to recognize and remember a certain number of people, whose number does not reach one hundred. Of course, it is the residual effect of millions of years of development, in which people were living in extended families or in small hunter-gatherer bands. It is difficult to imagine that loyalty to large national units could replace that genetic law. If it would be so, then we would not have so many separatist movements, street gangs, bowling teams and soccer clubs. They all fill the same purpose. They all give a parochial meaning within a large impersonal environment. It should also be remembered that so far, all large supranational units, empires, have split into smaller units. On the other hand, it is not entirely certain that laws that were in effect when the world had 300 million people, will still be in effect when the population will be 9 billion. The problem is, that nobody can known with any certainty, what laws, if any, will be in effect then.
The transformation of feudal society into nation states was a long process, but by the time of the entry of the Modern Age, most of states in Europe had a common language and a national ethos; meaning that people understood that they were not only Provencals, but French too. However, we would miss the truth to claim that before that time there was no sense of nationality. It certainly existed, but not as widespread as after the beginning of the Modern Age.
When at the beginning of the 16th century, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, has waged war against Francis I. of France, one of the generals in his army was the Constable de Bourbon, one of the peers of France. In one of the decisive battles of that war, the famous Bayard, the chevalier sans peur et reproche, was fatally wounded. Before his death he reproached the Constable for his treachery to France. So, even then there was a sense of nation. But, even at the time of the Hundred-Year War there was a clear sense of France against England. Even Jean d'Arc was a national phenomenon.
But the transition to nation states did not change Europe's attitude to the world outside its periphery. Even at the middle of the 18th century the contacts between Europe and the rest of the world, excluding the Americas, were limited and restricted. What was the cause of that disregard and why did it change in a comparatively short time?
The main reason was that Europe's needs for tropical products was limited and its ability to pay for such a products, she needed, was limited too. The needs of Europe for tropical products could be separated into two parts. There was the luxury trade, to supply the needs of the aristocracy and the very rich of the bourgeoisie of the towns, and there was the popular demand for mass articles, like sugar, rum, tobacco and spices. Of course, there was always a third type of commodity, the precious metals from the mines of South America and Africa,
The luxury trade was negligible as far as general economic activity was concerned. The need for mass articles was filled mainly by the Caribbean islands and partly by the Americas, and also from the Dutch trading posts in the Spice Islands in Indonesia. There was another product that had great importance, although it never reached Europe itself. That was the trade in slaves from West and Central Africa that supplied labor to the plantations in the Caribbean Islands and the Americas. It was a profitable trade in which practically all the nations of Europe participated.
In order to see the European involvement in that trade, it is worth while to examine one small section of the West African coast, a part of the coast that then was called Gold Coast and today is called Ghana. The name Gold Coast was given to it because of the gold mines there. This coast was not the major trading center for slaves, that was either to the north in Senegal, in the small island of Gurree, or to the east of Ghana, that was then called the Slave Coast. It is today the coasts of Dahomey and Nigeria. In the Gold Coast, there were a number of castles and trading posts, which were directly or indirectly involved in the trade in slaves.
One of the quarters of Accra, the capital of Ghana, is called Christianborg. A Swedish castle was built there. West of Accra, in the direction of the Ivory Coast, one reaches a small town, named Cape Coast. The English built their castle and trading station there. Going still further to the west, one reaches a town called Elmina (from el Mina – the mine in Portuguese) where there is an old Portuguese castle, built originally as a slaving station. It has a viewing room where the sea captains could view the merchandise and loading chutes, where the slaves could have been directly loaded to the ships below the castle. This famous castle was built by Christopher Columbus, when he was in Portuguese service as an engineer. That was before his voyage to America. Next to the Portuguese castle, there is another castle, about a mile inland. The Dutch built that. So, in a short stretch of less than 100 miles of the African coast, there were 4 trading station of 4 different European countries. It shows that the trading in slaves must have been profitable, but it also shows that apart of slaves, precious metals and choice items for the luxury trade, there were no real contact between Europe and Africa.
The European ships supplied only the American and Caribbean plantations, their trading stations were on the West Coast of Africa. The slave trade from the East Coast of Africa was in the hands of Arabs, who had trading stations in Zanzibar, Dar es-Salaam and Mombasa.
The first step in the chain of events leading up to the present, the nation state, became an accepted political institution. The previous feudal system was already converted into a political system of central authority, and its accompanying accoutrements, like common, national language, laws, money system, etc., were already in place or were in a state of evolvement.
There was one part in that development that did not change or has changed only slightly: that was the rule of the old elite. At the beginning of the our timeframe, the middle of the 18th century, the old elite was still in place, although with radically diminished or non-existent popular acceptance. The demographic explosion in Europe worked against the old elite, and it was only a question of time before their rule crumbled altogether.
This period was still before the Industrial Revolution, the connections between Europe and the rest of the world was limited and were restricted to a number of specific fields:
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Supplying luxury items to the European ruling elite
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Supplying the needs of the general European public for tropical products, like coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco and spices. |
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As most of the needs for tropical products were already supplied either from the Americas or from Dutch trading stations in the East Indies, there was an important trade in slaves. Those slaves were the labor force of the American and Caribbean plantations. |
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There was an important inflow of silver and gold from the South American and African mines. |
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Europe was still before the Industrial Revolution so she lacked mass-produced industrial articles. She mainly traded the surplus products of plantations for other products, like Indian opium for Chinese silver. The import of raw materials for European factories and the export of finished products was still in the future. |
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