| During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
democracy expanded in Western Europe, while the old order preserved authoritarianism
in central and eastern Europe. During this time, the United States recovered
from the Civil War and became the world’s richest nation. Meanwhile, international
rivalries began to set the stage for World War I.
Western Europe and Political
Democracy
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Growing prosperity after 1850 contributed to the expansion
of democracy in Western Europe.
By the late nineteenth century, especially in Western Europe,
there were many signs that political democracy was expanding. First, universal
male suffrage laws were passed. Second, the prime minister was responsible
to the popularly elected legislative body, not to the king or president.
This principle is called ministerial responsibility, which
is crucial for democracy. Third, mass political parties formed. As more
men, and later women, could vote, parties created larger organizations
and found ways to appeal to many who were now part of the political process.
Great Britain
Before 1871 Great Britain had a working two-party parliamentary
system. These two parties—the Liberals and Conservatives—competed to pass
laws that expanded the right to vote. Reform acts in 1867 and 1884 increased
the number of adult male voters.
With political democracy established, social reforms for
the working class soon followed. The working class in Great Britain supported
the Liberal Party. Two developments made Liberals fear losing this support.
First, the trade unions grew, and they favored a more radical change of
the economic system. Second, in 1900, the Labour Party emerged and dedicated
itself to the interests of workers. To retain the workers’ support, the
Liberals voted for social reforms, such as unemployment benefits and old
age pensions.
France
In France, the collapse of Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire
left the country in confusion. Finally, in 1875, the Third Republic gained
a republican constitution. The new government had a president and
a legislature made up of two houses. The upper house, or Senate, was conservative
and elected by high-ranking officials. All adult males voted for members
of the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. A premier (or prime minister),
who led the government, was responsible to the Chamber of Deputies, not
to the president.
France failed to develop a strong parliamentary system.
The existence of a dozen political parties forced the premier to depend
on a coalition of parties to stay in power. Nevertheless, by 1914, the
Third Republic had the loyalty of most voters.
Italy
Italy had emerged by 1870 as a united national state.
However, there was little national unity because of the great gulf between
the poverty-stricken south and the industrialized north. Constant turmoil
between labor and industry weakened the social fabric of the nation. Even
universal male suffrage, granted in 1912, did little to halt the widespread
government corruption and weakness.
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Central and Eastern Europe: The
Old Order
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Although Germany, Austria-Hungary, and later Russia instituted
elections and parliaments, real power remained in the hands of emperors
and elites.
Central and eastern Europe had more conservative governments
than did Western Europe. Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia
were less industrialized, and education was not widely available. It was
easier, then, for the old ruling groups to continue to dominate politics.
Germany
The constitution of the new imperial Germany that Otto
von Bismarck began in 1871 set up a two-house legislature.
The lower house, the Reichstag, was elected on the basis
of universal male suffrage. Ministers of government, however, were responsible
not to the parliament, but to the emperor, who controlled the armed forces,
foreign policy, and the bureaucracy. As chancellor (prime minister), Bismarck
worked to keep Germany from becoming a democracy.
By the reign of William II, emperor from 1888 to 1918,
Germany had become the strongest military and industrial power in Europe.
With the expansion of industry and cities came demands for democracy.
Conservative forces—especially the landowning nobility
and big industrialists—tried to thwart the movement for democracy by supporting
a strong foreign policy. They believed that expansion abroad would increase
their profits and would also divert people from pursuing democratic reforms.
Austro-Hungarian Empire
After the creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary
in 1867, Austria enacted a constitution that, in theory, set up a parliamentary
system with ministerial responsibility. In reality, the emperor, Francis
Joseph, largely ignored this system. He appointed and dismissed his own
ministers and issued decrees, or laws, when the parliament was not in session.
The empire remained troubled by conflicts among its ethnic
groups. A German minority governed Austria but felt increasingly threatened
by Czechs, Poles, and other Slavic groups within the empire. Representatives
of these groups in the parliament agitated for their freedom, which encouraged
the emperor to ignore the parliament and govern by imperial decrees.
Unlike Austria, Hungary had a parliament that worked.
It was controlled by landowners who dominated the peasants and ethnic groups.
Russia
In Russia, Nicholas II began his rule in
1894 believing that the absolute power of the czars should be preserved.
“I shall maintain the principle of autocracy just as firmly and unflinchingly
as did my unforgettable father.” Conditions were changing, however.
By 1900, Russia had become the fourth largest producer
of steel. With industrialization came factories, an industrial working
class, and pitiful working and living conditions. Socialist parties developed,
including the Marxist Social Democratic Party, but government repression
forced them underground.
Growing discontent and opposition to the czarist regime
finally exploded. On January 22, 1905, a massive procession of workers
went to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition of grievances
to the czar. Troops opened fire on the peaceful demonstration, killing
hundreds. This “Bloody Sunday” caused workers throughout Russia to call
strikes.
Nicholas II was eventually forced to grant civil liberties
and to create a legislative assembly, called the Duma. By 1907, however,
the czar had already curtailed the power of the Duma and again used the
army and bureaucracy to rule Russia.
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The United States
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In the United States, the Second Industrial Revolution produced
wealth that was more concentrated than it was in Europe.
Civil war had not destroyed the national unity of the United
States. Between 1870 and 1914, the country became an industrial power with
an empire.
Aftermath of the Civil War
Four years of bloody civil war had preserved the American
nation. However, the old South had been destroyed.
In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was
passed, abolishing slavery. Later, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments
gave citizenship to African Americans and the right to vote to African
American males. New state laws in the South, however, soon stripped African
Americans of the right to vote. By 1880, supporters of white supremacy
were back in power everywhere in the South.
Economy
Between 1860 and 1914, the United States shifted from
a farm-based economy to an industrial economy. American steel and iron
production was the best in the world in 1900. Carnegie Steel Company alone
produced more steel than all of Great Britain.
As in Europe, industrialization in the United States led
to urbanization. By 1900, the United States had three cities with populations
over 1 million, with New York reaching 4 million.
In 1900 the United States was the world’s richest nation,
but the richest 9 percent of Americans owned 71 percent of the wealth.
Many workers labored in unsafe factories, and devastating cycles of unemployment
made them insecure. Many tried to organize unions, but the American Federation
of Labor represented only 8.4 percent of the labor force.
Expansion Abroad
In the late 1800s, the United States began to expand
abroad. The Samoan Islands in the Pacific were the first important U.S.
colony. By 1887, Americans controlled the sugar industry on the Hawaiian
Islands.
As more Americans settled in Hawaii, they wanted political
power. When Queen Liliuokalani (lih•LEE•uh•woh•kuh•LAH•nee) tried to stengthen
the monarchy to keep the islands under her people’s control, the United
States sent military forces to the islands. The queen was deposed and the
United States annexed Hawaii in 1898.
In 1898 the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American
War. As a result, the United States acquired the former Spanish possessions
of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. By the beginning of the twentieth
century, the United States, the world’s richest nation, had an empire.
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International Rivalries
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The German emperor pursued aggressive foreign policies that
divided Europe into two hostile alliance systems.
Otto von Bismarck realized that Germany’s emergence in 1871
as the most powerful state in continental Europe had upset the balance
of power established at Vienna in 1815. Fearing that France intended to
create an anti-German alliance, Bismarck made a defensive alliance with
AustriaHungary in 1879. In 1882 Italy joined this alliance.
This Triple Alliance thus united the powers of Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy in a defensive alliance against France. At the
same time, Bismarck maintained a separate treaty with Russia and tried
to remain on good terms with Great Britain.
New Directions: William II
In 1890 Emperor William II fired Bismarck and took control
of Germany’s foreign policy. The emperor embarked on an activist policy
dedicated to enhancing German power. He wanted, as he put it, to find Germany’s
rightful “place in the sun.”
One of the changes William made in foreign policy was
to drop the treaty with Russia. Almost immediately, in 1894, France formed
an alliance with Russia. Germany thus had a hostile power on her western
border and on her eastern border—exactly the situation Bismarck had feared!
Over the next decade, German policies abroad caused the
British to draw closer to France. By 1907, an alliance of Great Britain,
France, and Russia—the Triple Entente—stood opposed to the Triple Alliance
of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
Europe was now dangerously divided into two opposing camps
that became more and more unwilling to compromise. A series of crises in
the Balkans between 1908 and 1913 set the stage for World War I.
Crises in the Balkans
During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire that
had once been strong enough to threaten Europe began to fall apart. Most
of its Balkan provinces were able to gain their freedom.
As this was happening, however, two Great Powers saw their
chance to gain influence in the Balkans: Austria and Russia. Their rivalry
over the Balkans was one of the causes of World War I.
By 1878, Greece, Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro had become
independent. Bulgaria did not become totally independent but was allowed
to operate autonomously under Russian protection. The Balkan territories
of Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under the protection of Austria-Hungary.
In 1908 Austria-Hungary took the drastic step of annexing
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This step led to a controversy with international
complications that threatened to end in a general European war. This controversy
was known as the Bosnian Crisis.
Serbia was outraged. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
two Slavic-speaking territories, dashed the Serbians’ hopes of creating
a large Serbian kingdom that would include most of the southern Slavs.
The Russians, self-appointed protectors of their fellow
Slavs, supported the Serbs and opposed the annexation.
Backed by the Russians, the Serbs prepared for war against
Austria-Hungary. At this point, Emperor William II of Germany demanded
that the Russians accept Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
or face war with Germany.
Weakened from their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in
1905, the Russians backed down but vowed revenge. Two wars between Balkan
states in 1912 and 1913 further embittered the inhabitants and created
more tensions among the great powers.
The Serbs blamed their inability to create a large Serbian
kingdom on Austria-Hungary. At the same time, AustriaHungary was convinced
that Serbia and Serbian nationalism were mortal threats to its empire and
must be crushed at some point.
As Serbia’s chief supporters, the Russians were angry
and determined not to back down again in the event of another confrontation
with Austria-Hungary or Germany in the Balkans. Finally, the allies of
Austria-Hungary and Russia were determined to support their respective
allies more strongly in another crisis. By the beginning of 1914, these
countries viewed each other with suspicion. It would not take much to ignite
the Balkan “powder keg.”
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