Europeanization

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the European, proud in his might, in his strength, in his civilization and his humanity, rules arrogantly, blindly, selfishly, egoistically, amidst all the intricate cog-wheels of [151] his authority, which he slips into gear with the certainty of clockwork, controlling its every movement, till to the foreigner, the outside observer, this overlordship of tangible things, this colonizing of territory alien in race and mind, appears a masterpiece, a very world created. ”

“ For if, as already shown, our interests are increasingly concerned and involved in Europe; if, further, our pessimism of the nineteenth century in regard to the continent may give way to a hope, however modest, that the tangled skein of continental policy is not a mere noose to hang any intruder; if, therefore, we may enter where our interests call us so imperatively, without sheer foolhardiness or wanton folly—then forward, in the name of prudence itself, and in abandonment of the splendid isolation of old days. We must be Europeans. ”

“ We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and Asia's,—in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than any preceding civilization ever faced. ”

“ Indeed I wonder that the study of the German language is not more attended to in England, France, and Italy; but to the English, methinks, it is indispensable. All the customs and manners of Europe are taken from the German; all modern Europe bears the Teutonic stamp. We are all the descendants of the Teutonic hordes who subjugated the Roman Empire and changed the face of Europe; 'tis they who have given and laid down the grand and distinguishing feature between modern Europe and ancient Europe and Asia: I mean the respect paid to women. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION EUROPE, which carries the fate of the whole world, lives by a life which is in contrast to that of every other region, because that life, though intense, is inexhaustible. There is present, therefore, in her united history a dual function of maintenance and of change such as can be discovered neither in any one of her component parts nor in civilisations exterior to her own. Europe alone of all human groups is capable of transforming herself ceaselessly, not by the copying of foreign models, but in some creative way from within. ”

“ Distinctions of class, profession, or nationality, entering so largely into European life, separating man from man, lose their hold upon Europeans meeting in the distant East. The great [Pg 288] West, seen at that distance, becomes their common country; they are drawn together by the bond of common views, feelings and modes of thought which obliterate the artificial lines of nationality—nay, they feel for, and treat each other as only blood relations and brothers would in Europe. ”

“ What fiend of foolishness has suggested to our absurd kinsmen in the East, through the last sixty years, to generalise themselves under the name of Europeans? As if they were ashamed of their British connections, and precisely at that moment when they are leaving England, they begin to assume continental airs; when bidding farewell to Europe, they begin to style themselves Europeans, as if it were a greater thing to take up a visionary connection with the Continent, than to found a true and indestructible nobility upon their relationship to the one immortal island of this planet. ”

“ It is not merely breaking out of Europe in the search for something non-European. It would be much truer to call it putting Europe together again after it had been broken. It may almost be said of the Britons, considered as the most western of Europeans, that they have so completely forgotten their own history that they have forgotten even their own rights. ”

“ In middle Europe, during the twelve years between 1859 and 1871, the three Powers whose national unity, racially as well as politically, was already achieved at the time of the Congress of Vienna, were brought face to face with three new Powers, united Germany, united Italy, and the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
The nineteenth century has been called the age of European colonization. Europe began to follow its commerce with other continents by the imposition of its civilization and its political system upon weaker races. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Geographical contours, economic forces, the trend of invention and social development, point to a unification of all Western Europe, but they certainly do not point to its Germanisation. I have already given reasons for anticipating that the French language may not only hold its own, but prevail against German in Western Europe. And there are certain other obstacles in the way even of the union of indisputable Germans. One element in Germany's present efficiency must become more and more of an encumbrance as the years pass. ”

“ Since the sixteenth century the European States have been contending for mastery, not only over one another, but over the world. Colonial empires have risen and fallen. Portugal, Spain, Holland, in turn have won and lost. ”

“ This immense continent being peopled with elements of European civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to Europe. But when it is connected with Europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from Europe, would be just such a fault as it was that England did not believe in time the necessity of America's independence. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Is it, then, possible, when considering the lines of settlement, to lay down any general principles? The Europe which we have known has gone beyond recall; the new Europe which is coming to birth will be scarcely recognisable to those who have known its predecessor. Its political, racial, social, economic outlook will be radically changed. Let us then meet fate halfway and admit boldly that we want a new Europe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it is true that the last fifteen years have witnessed a cooling towards Europeanism, this has been a matter of sentiment only, a return from cosmopolitanism to nationalism in matters of minor importance, and has affected nothing practical by so much as a hair's breadth. ”

“ What we call Europe is the geographic territory of the Occident, enlightened by Greek culture, inspired by the powerful heritage of the Roman Empire, its territory enlarged by Germanic colonization. Whether it was the German emperors fighting back invasions from the East on the Unstrut River in 933 or on the Lechfeld in 955 or others pushing back Africa from Spain over a period of many years, it was always a struggle of a developing Europe against a profoundly alien outside world. ”

“ But what has no sense as an expression of the real may have some as the expression of certain tendencies. And it is easy to recognise in the ideology of the primitive the expression of the ethical and national tendencies, aspirations and pretensions of modern Germany. Up to the end of the eighteenth century Germany had felt herself and recognised herself to be a backwater of the traditional European culture of which the Latin nations received the direct heritage from Greece and Rome. ”

“ If we were to endeavour, by a similar test, to ascertain which European nation has contributed the most to the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany, England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming France as clearly next in merit. ”

“ For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the power to construct and to do—underneath all that is the foundation on which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents. ”

“ In coming to understand a mood which so fully reflects an unknown world, the European mind will discover principles which will make it rise superior to itself. May this broad comprehension of human thought lead Europe to estimate with greater justice a civilization numbering its years by thousands, and to refrain from thwarting the fulfillment of its destiny. ”

“ The Bohemian question is simplicity itself when we consider the problem of small nationalities in Europe generally, and when we realize that to regenerate Europe means also the reconstruction of Poland, Serbo-Croatia, and the freeing of the French and Danes in Germany. ”

“ Europe is too far away from the centre of civilization, i.e. the Middle Kingdom; hence Russians, Turks, English, French, Germans, and Belgians look more like birds and beasts than men, and their languages sound like the chirping of fowls. ”

“ Then and before the Great Wars, who could ever possible unite all Europeans in order to face the civilizations of the East? The Englishman always knew what was Right, it was not Right for them to set foot on the continent, nor to aspire rule over Europe. In Europe, they made no great leaders either. ”

“ There is no section of the history of European imperialism more interesting than the story of the growth and organisation of the heterogeneous and disparate empire with which Britain entered upon the new age. ”

“ The forming of the several nationalities of Europe would have to be traced: the Slavonian, including Russia and Poland; the Teutonic, comprising England, Holland, Germany, and the Scandinavian peoples (viz., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland) ; the Romanic or Italic nations (viz., Portugal, Spain, Provence, Italy, Wallachia, the Grisons of Switzerland) , which are the nations the basis of whose languages is the rustic or people's Latin of the middle ages. ”

“ The great empires of to-day, England, France, Germany, Italy, two of which have eaten steadily into its territories until only a tiny Luxembourg remains, together with a small new state with a{16} novel name made greater and more lasting by the events of a year than those of its predecessors, have dulled the memory of an ancient unity, taking to themselves at the same time credit, that is none of theirs, for men and happenings that made ten centuries of enduring history ”

“ For we must not, after all give up the hope that their raised and collective voices — even beneath the din of arms — will not resound unheard, especially, if among these "good Europeans of Tomorrow," we find all those who enjoy esteem and authority among their educated peers.
But it is necessary that the Europeans first come together, and if — as we hope — enough Europeans in Europe can be found, that it is to say, people to whom Europe is not merely a geographical concept, but rather, a dear affair of the heart, then we shall try to call together such a union of Europeans. ”