Continental Europe

“ THE NATIONS OF EUROPE—THE GREAT POWERS Of the nations of Europe it may be said that in point of rank Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, and Russia stand first as the “five great powers.” These include within their limits more than two-thirds of the entire population of Europe, and have for a long time controlled all continental questions. Second come Italy, Spain, and Sweden; in third rank are Turkey, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Portugal. ”

“ On the western edge of the continent of Europe lies the island of Great Britain, in the remote past a part of the continent, but long ages ago cut off by the British Channel. Divorced from the mainland, left like a waif in the western sea, peopled by men with their own interests and aims, it might naturally be expected to have enough to attend to at home and to take no part in continental affairs. ”

“ How different from the condition even of Europe in the twelfth century, when a whole city or barony, an entire kingdom, or half the continent even, might have sunk beneath, the ocean, and the rest of the world have known nothing of it by its social results! ”

“ British warships and British soldiers have shown to the world what they can do. Great Britain may rest proud of her sons; and for once Europe should be thankful, in spite of the present drifts of opinion and taste on the Continent. We gladly see Continental Powers acknowledge that he who shares the danger and the toil ought to share the prize and the profit. But the dominant fact that remains unchanged still is about the state of Europe in general in 1882. ”

“ It is a moment when all the nations of Europe seem to be doing something, and he waits to see what England, who has done so much, will do. He has been meeting of late a good many of his country-people—Americans who live on the Continent and pretend to speak with assurance of continental ways of feeling. ”

“ But in the present century our land, and especially our cities, have filled up with a population from the continent of Europe, bringing with them Continental methods of worship which would not yield to or readily adopt British methods. ”

“ The general unity that runs through the history of the more advanced continental states is indeed stronger than appears to a superficial reader of history; but this correspondence of tendency does not always embrace England ”

“ The continental nations of Europe are very differently constituted to what we are; they are generally a distinct people, but they have more or less become amalgamated years ago, and at present have assumed a degree of nationality, having their own peculiar theories, customs, and ideas of religion and politics, and their own notions and standards of a social system. ”

“ From the Northern Atlantic and the Pacific it commanded the trade of Europe and Asia. This region embraces the best climates of the continent for the habitation of a vigorous race of men, and contains all the elements of imperial power. ”

“ No one should flatter himself that he has grasped the elements of the history of western Europe unless he can trace in a clear, if general, way the various stages by which the states which appear now upon the map of Europe—the French republic, the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the kingdoms of Italy, Great Britain, and Spain—have grown out of the disorganized Europe of the ninth century. ”

“ Europe lies between these extremes. Limited in area, diversified in surface, and deeply indented in its coast-line, it has experienced all the advantages which a continent needs for its development, and for that historical greatness which Europe has won for itself. ”

“ During the vast span of the last five centuries, Europe has spared time from her internal combustions to discover and conquer the outer world, the four continents of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. ”

“ Italy, France, Russia, Germany, and Austria have gained more in proportion than we have. In the olden days, when all the trade with the East came to Europe viâ the Cape, England was the great centre of the world. ”

“ One of the most amazing spectacles in history is the expansion of Europe since the sixteenth century. Not resting content with discovering the rest of the world, the European nations with sublime confidence pressed on to divide the new continents among them, to conquer, Christianize, and civilize the natives, and to send out millions of new emigrants to establish beyond the seas a New England, a New France, a New Spain, and a New Netherland. ”

“ The next generation will witness the division of the Continent of Europe into three or four great sections, distinguished by some name or other, perhaps by that of Empire which seems to tickle the ears of languid nations: Germany, with its vast unity, will be one: Russia, with its gigantic extent, another ”

“ Or, to compare the continents to a still higher class of forms, Europe may be called the Face of the Old World, out of which the soul of humanity could look more clearly into the great and promising future. ”

“ We have then traced the shiftings of the powers which lay wholly or partly beyond the bounds of either Empire, the great Slavonic mainland, the Scandinavian and the Iberian peninsulas, ending with that which is geographically the most isolated land of all, the other world of Britain. We have seen too how Europe may be said to have spread herself beyond her geographical limits in the foundation of new European states beyond the Ocean. ”

“ European needs sent explorers on their voyages of discovery, and European ambitions equipped adventurers for their expeditions of conquest; the commercial projects of England, France, Holland, and Sweden led to the establishment of the principal New-World colonies; the economic exigencies and the political and religious struggles of Europe sent a flood of settlers to people them; the institutions of Spain, France, Holland, and England all found a lodgment in the western continent; and those of England became the basis of the great nation which has reached so distinct a primacy in America. ”

“ GROWTH OF THE NATIONS THE NEW NATIONALISM The map of western Europe, that is, of Europe west of the great Russian plain and the Balkan peninsula, shows this part of the continent at present divided into no less than thirteen separate and independent nations. ”

“ Wherever we have gone, we have carried Europe with us; wherever we have gone, we have never got beyond the power of the two influences which, mingling into one, have made Europe all that it has been. The whole of European history is embodied in the formula which couples together the ‘rule of Christ and Cæsar;’ and that joint rule still goes on, in the shape of moral influence, wherever the tongues and the culture of Europe win new realms for themselves in the continents of the western or in the islands of the southern Ocean. ”

“ England, even during the more recent history of the earth, when man already existed, has repeatedly been connected with the European continent and been repeatedly separated from it. Nay, even Europe and North America have been directly connected. ”

“ In contrast with these giant empires, the nation-states of Europe felt themselves out of scale, just as the Italian cities in the sixteenth century must have felt themselves out of scale in comparison with the new nation-states of Spain and France. To achieve the standard of the world-state, to make their own nations the controlling factors in wide dominions which should include territories and populations of varied types, became the ambition of the most powerful European states. A new political ideal had captivated the mind of Europe. ”

“ You stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the waves; your relations with Europe are not only commercial as with Asia, they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take Europe every day by the hand. How then could you believe, that if that hand of Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? ”

“ Nor yet is it Europe only that feels the tread of their feet and the might of their presence and their influence. They have gone out in commerce, in trades, in corporations, and in missions;—streaming along the banks of both sides of the North American continent, and leaving, as their footprints, on those mighty shores, cities, and states, and commonwealths, and empires; filling the archipelagoes of both the eastern and western hemispheres with their offspring, their laws, their letters, and religion ”

“ You express your interest in the future of Germany as seen by your friend, and he shows you a map of Europe which he has himself marked with red ink all round the empire as it will be a few years hence. There is not much Europe outside the red line. ”

“ If in 1878, when the European nations suddenly awoke to the importance of the non-European world, they had been able to agree upon some simple principle which would have secured equal treatment to all, how different would have been the fate of Europe and the world! ”

“ Meanwhile another movement had been going on during the eighth and ninth centuries, which helped to make Europe what it is, and extended considerably the common knowledge of the northern European peoples. ”

“ This has given Europe a character exactly opposite to that of Asia: its North and its South are united, its East and its West; they are not like antagonistic poles, but extend to each other friendly hands. ”

“ The formation of the modern European states system is therefore the main element of continuous interest and importance in the history of the seventeenth century, that is to say, the acquisition by the chief European states of the boundaries, which they have since substantially retained, the adoption by them of the form of government to which they have since adhered, and the assumption by them, relatively to the other states, of a position and influence in the affairs of Europe which they have since enjoyed. ”

“ It was the Commercial Revolution that started Europe on her career of world conquest. The petty, quarrelsome feudal states of the smallest of five continents have become the Powers of to-day, dividing up Africa, Asia, and America, founding empires greater and more lasting than that of Alexander. The colonists of Europe imparted their language to South America and made of North America a second Europe with a common cultural heritage. The explorers, missionaries, and merchants of Europe have penetrated all lands, bringing in their train European manners, dress, and institutions. ”

“ When the second generation of explorers learned that the land that had been discovered beyond the sea was not Asia, their first feeling was not exultation that a new world had been discovered, but chagrin that a great barrier, stretching far to the north and the south, should thus interpose itself between Europe and the eastern goal on which their eyes were fixed. ”

“ Thus a glance at the map of Europe shows that certain frontiers apparently have been drawn by nature, while others are clearly the work of man. The Spanish peninsula, Italy, the British Isles, and the Scandinavian lands are set apart from the mass of the Continent by broad boundaries of sea or mountain which have come to form permanent political frontiers. On the other hand no such obvious natural obstacles separate France from Germany, Germany from Russia, Belgium from Holland, Austria from its neighbors, Serbia from Bulgaria. ”

“ They built, planted, cultivated Europe; all the while saving the treasures of learning, knowledge, human justice, politics, and art. We shall ever recognize in Europe the places where those radiant centres once were. ”

“ But with the transition from medieval to modern history, the conditions were altered in England's favour. The geographical expansion of Europe made the outposts of the Old World the entrepôts for the New; the development of navigation and sea-power changed the ocean from the limit into the link of empires; and the growth of industry and commerce revolutionized the social and financial foundations of power. ”

“ In short, the object of an introduction to mediæval and modern European history is the description of the most significant achievements of western civilization during the past fifteen hundred years,—the explanation of how the Roman Empire of the West and the wild and unknown districts inhabited by the German races have become the Europe of Gladstone and Bismarck, of Darwin and Pasteur. ”

“ We have contrasted the different positions and destinies of the colonizing European powers—where, as in the days of Old Rome, a continuous territory has been extended over neighbouring barbarian lands—where growth beyond the sea was the natural outcome of growth at home—where European powers have colonized and conquered simply of their own free will. In thus tracing the historical geography of Europe, we have made the round of the world. But we have never lost sight of Europe; we have never lost sight of Rome. ”

“ It is obviously no part of our duty to review in detail the complicated history of Europe in the eighteenth century. We are concerned with the course of events on the Continent only in so far as they affected the tourist. But a clear understanding of a few fundamental facts is imperative. Most important is it to bear in mind that participation by the common people in the work of government was relatively slight in nearly every country of the Continent, and only to a moderate degree permitted in England. ”

“ By the end of the eleventh century then the chief nations of Europe had been formed. The Western Empire, after many shiftings, had taken a definite shape. ♦The Western Empire and the Imperial Kingdoms.♦ The Imperial dignity and the two royal crowns of Italy and Burgundy were now attached to the German kingdom. ”