Empire builder

“ Empire-builders have usually achieved empire as an accident attending their search after security—security against the ambition of a neighbour, against lawless hordes which threaten the frontier, against the fires of revolution and disorder spreading from adjacent territories. Britain, like Rome before her, built up her empire piecemeal; for the most part reluctantly; always reckoning up and dreading the cost, labour, and burden of it; hating the responsibility of expansion, and shouldering it only when there seemed to be no other course open to her in honour or safety. ”

“ Policies of expansion, conquest and occupation rely upon weaponry and war-making as essential instruments. Historically their role has been frankly recognized by builders of every empire and the leaders of every civilization. All civilizations known to history prepared for war and utilized war as the final arbiter in their pursuit of expansionist policy. Empire builders and civilizers have taken it for granted that might made right. The mighty, in terms of military striking power and killing power, have fought over and inherited the earth. ”

“ New names are being used but it is the old struggle. Egypt and India helped to win the war, and by that very process, they fastened the shackles of servitude more firmly upon their own hands and feet. The imperialists of the world never had less intention than they have to-day of quitting the game of empire building. Quite the contrary—a wholly new group of empire builders has been quickened into life by the experiences of the past five years. ”

“ The empire builders of old who enriched themselves with the spoils of war and the tribute of subject States, not only satisfied personal ambition and afforded protection for industrious traders and workers, but also incidentally promoted culture and endowed research. When a conqueror returned to his capital laden with treasure, he made generous gifts to the temples. ”

“ If he was somewhat disappointed in the tumble-down, ruinous old mass of building which held the state secrets of the empire, he was not the less awestruck as he found himself at the threshold where the great men who guide empires were accustomed to pass in. ”

“ The great tramp of horses startled me, and then came the roll of wheels. I looked up: an equipage was passing from the gate, a peloton of dragoons escorted it; a second followed at full speed. The colonels formed their men; the word to march was given; the drums beat out; the grenadiers moved on; the chasseurs succeeded; and last the artillery rolled heavily up. The court was deserted; not a man remained: all, all were gone! The Empire was ended; and the Emperor, the mighty genius who created it, on his way to exile! ”

“ The ultimate ground, the ultimate arbiter of their empire, is force."
"Empire!" said Sir William. "That is the cry! [Pg 107] In your greed for empire you lose sight of everything but the aggrandisement of a dominion already so immense as to be unwieldy."
"Still," said Rendel, "as we have this big thing in our hands, it is better to keep it there than let it drop and break to pieces."
"I don't wish to let it drop," said Gore. "I wish to be content to increase it by friendly intercourse with the world, by the arts of peace and civilisation, and not by destruction and bloodshed." ”

“ Thus passes this glorious array—Emperors on horseback or in chariots, their guards and soldiery, captives and slaves both men and women, trophies and spoils of war. In these few minutes while we watch, the triumphs of seven centuries of Empire rise up before us and fade away into that general oblivion which so few men survive, and even those often, as it seems, only by some chance or trick of fortune. ”

“ In addition to the natural and accidental predispositions of the Emperor, certain general considerations, which imposed themselves irresistibly on all men's attention as the century drew to its close, impelled him to more energetic action. A student of the history of other countries as well as his own, and a watchful observer of the tendencies of the time, he felt that the young Empire was incomplete as long as it was without a navy corresponding in size and power to its army, the organization of which had been completed. ”

“ It is an empire made up of geographical fragments, parted from each other by vast stretches of railroad and immense sweeps of sea. It is an empire composed of a tangle of races, tongues, and colors, of types of civilization and enlightened barbarism such as never before in all human history gathered together under one flag. ”

“ It is the one primeval monument which binds together the whole Empire. The iron rings, the battered surface, the crack which has all but rent its solid mass asunder, bear witness to its long migrations. ”

“ So it was that, in the first months of the early fall, with a meagre train of forty knights, the boy emperor boldly [Pg 121] climbed the rugged Alpine slopes, mounting higher and higher, and braving the dangers of glacier and avalanche, blind paths and storm and cold, pressed manfully on toward the peril of an uncertain empire. ”

“ The commander set up a base on the mainland, near the coast, left a portion of his men there to defend it, and, with the remainder, marched inland to come to grips with the Greatest Noble himself.
As they moved in toward the heart of the barbarian empire, the men noticed a definite change in the degree of civilization of the natives—or, at least, in the degree of technological advancement. There were large towns, not small villages, to be dealt with, and there were highways and bridges that showed a knowledge of engineering equivalent to that of ancient Rome. ”

“ Such was the avowed intention of this great general; but in his inner heart he nursed one greater and more daring scheme, which was nothing less than to acquire territory and found a power, that, together with the army, which by his bravery, tact, and lavish generosity adored him, he might be enabled to throw off the yoke of that empire he was pretending to extend, and thus found a regal dynasty of his own. ”

“ That one captain with four hundred men, and another with two hundred, should each march against an extensive and populous empire, cut down their armies at odds of a hundred to one, put their kings to the sword and their temples to the torch, and after it all reap a harvest of gold and precious stones such as for quantity had never been heard of before—all this meets us not in the tales of Ariosto or of Dumas, but in the pages of authentic history. ”

“ Every adventurer who could muster a troop of horse might aspire to a throne. Every palace was every year the scene of conspiracies, treasons, revolutions, parricides. Meanwhile a rapid succession of Alarics and Attilas passed over the defenceless empire. ”

“ Does it seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger scope of empire and conquest. ”

“ Truly this empire is a fabric so wonderful, so many-sided, and so various in its aspects, that it may well escape the rigid categories of a German professor, and seem to him 'wholly a sham.' Now is the crisis of its fate: and if the wisdom of its leaders can solve the riddle of the Sphinx which is being put to them, the Great War will indeed have brought, for a quarter of the world, the culmination of modern history. ”

“ Since the commencement of this century a great empire has been improved from a state of gross ignorance, refined by the arts of peace, and instructed in the arts of war, by the vast genius and industry of one of its Princes, who laid the foundation of its present power and grandeur. ”

“ New towns are designed upon a scale of magnificence, as if each were to be the capital of an empire, and are at least outlined in building within a few years. Should it be necessary, an army can be created within a few months, and in a couple of years a new trade can be established which will kill its European rivals. ”

“ Now we see this empire in subjection—conquered, not by soldiers, with waving banners and sounding trumpets, but by the toil of the farmer, the skill of the artisan, the enterprising spirit of the merchant. They have drained morasses, cleared up forests, opened roads, dug canals, built ships, and founded flourishing states. ”

“ Prosperity of the empire. The empire was not so large as it subsequently became, nor was it at that height of power and prosperity which followed a century of peace, when uninterrupted dominion had reconciled the world to the rule of the Cæsars. But it was the golden age of imperial domination, when arts, science, and literature flourished, and when the world rested from incessant wars. It was not an age of highest glory to man, since all struggles for liberty had ceased ”

“ Without power, neither Civilization nor the Empire could hold itself together, and His Universal Majesty, the Emperor Carl, well knew it. And power was linked solidly to one element, one metal, without which Civilization would collapse as surely as if it had been blasted out of existence. Without the power metal, no ship could move or even be built ”

“ There were about three hundred princes of the empire, each sovereign in his own country, who might enter into alliances, and pursue by all political measures his own private interest, as other sovereigns do; for if even an imperial war were declared he might remain neuter, if the safety of the empire were not at stake. Here then was an empire of a construction, without exception, the most singular and intricate that ever appeared in the world; for the emperor was only the chief of the Germanic confederation. ”

“ By the state’s systematic and methodical mode of conquest for the sole object of preserving and exploiting, military art was carried to the highest possible point, and political skill and administrative talent united to bring together by force the whole of the then known world into an empire organised by one dominant city. ”

“ Of them all, only a handful, including the commander, had any real knowledge of what lay ahead of them, and that knowledge only pertained to the periphery of the area the intrepid band of adventurers were entering. They knew that the aliens possessed a rudimentary civilization—they did not, at that time, realize they were entering the outposts of a powerful barbaric empire—an empire almost as well-organized and well-armed as that of First Century Rome, and, if anything, even more savage and ruthless. ”

“ A solitary traveller, I was meditating a few days since on the ruin of the destroyed empires: and now I see a new empire arise. Scarce have I quitted the graves in which the buried nations sleep, and I perceive a cradle laden with the destinies of the future. The acclamations of the soldier resound on every hand. Cæsar mounts to the Capitol; the nations tell of marvels, of monuments upraised, cities beautified, the frontiers of the country bathed by those distant seas which bore the ships of Scipio, and by those remote waters which Germanicus did not see. ”

“ With its army alone he regarded the Empire as a colossus, no doubt, but a colossus standing on one leg, and was convinced that if the Empire was to be a success it must have a navy at least able to withstand attack by any of his continental neighbours and potential enemies. ”

“ Defended by hireling swords, which, in a series of sanguinary conflicts, wrested the victorious wreath from the brow of the invader, and since supported rather by the memory of departed greatness than by actual strength, small portions of the once vast empire have struggled on, the shadow only of imperial dignity. ”

“ In the competition of the pretenders to the throne, in a competition which was almost always decided by fortune, intrigue, or victory, it may easily be supposed that ambition [259] was often more successful than moderation and virtue. Among the princes who ascended the imperial throne, many were men of great character; but their active and restless genius led them into adventurous and gigantic enterprises, which exhausted their strength and hastened the decline of the empire. ”

“ But his empire was to be more than a confederacy, it was to be an effective entity with the imperial rule supreme over all, with the imperial army a ready instrument of war in the hands of the sovereign, to compel the Universal Peace, as he called his empire, and with the king’s officers able to exercise sufficient authority for the protection, not only of the constituent parts of the empire against one another but also of the individual against the arbitrary action of the individual community. ”

“ The engineers of the Empire of the Great Nobles were a long way above the primitive. They could have, had they had any reason to, erected a pyramid the equal of great Khufu's in size, and probably even more neatly constructed. ”

“ Once established, the old-world empire was not secure. If the territory that it possessed was worth having, it was surrounded by hungry-eyed nations that took the first occasion to band together and despoil the spoiler. The holding of an empire was as great a task as the building of empire—often greater because of the larger outlay in men and money that was involved in an incessant warfare. ”

“ On the contrary, the empire developed resources and energies quite astounding. No other four hundred years of history before A. D. 1800 knew anything like it; and although some of these developments, like the Civil Law, the roads, aqueducts, and harbors, were rather economies than force, yet in northwestern Europe alone the empire had developed three energies,—France, England, and Germany,—competent to master the world. The trouble seemed rather to be that the empire developed too much energy, and too fast. ”