World War ... and World Revolution

I. The Causes of the Conflict

A. “Entangling Alliances”--the customary reason for the outbreak of hostilities was that the European powers (Great Britain and France on one side, Germany on the other) had made alliances with weaker powers (mainly Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, respectively) that necessitated them going to war against each other because their allies went to war.

1. Austro-Hungarian Empire/Germany--the Austro-Hungarian Empire was teetering on the edge of its demise, and had turned to Germany as an ally should the burgeoning nationalist movements within its borders (Serbs and Croats, in particular).

2. Russian/Great Britain/France--Russian, despite its internal political difficulties (see 1905 Revolution), was looking to expand its influence in southern Europe, largely at the expense of the two teetering empires, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Great Britain and France had already pushed into some of those areas, particularly in Lebanon (France), Egypt (Great Britain, which with assistance from France had constructed the Suez Canal), and Palestine.

B. Rise of Nationalism


1. Resistance to Colonialism--being treated as second-class people in their own countries led many victims of colonialism to develop a sense of national identity where none had existed before.

2. Ethnic nationalism--as the old empires began to fall apart, ethnic enclaves within these empires began to think of themselves as nations, as well. In some cases, these ethnic groups were aided and encouraged by other nation-states hoping to benefit from the downfall of weakened empires--like Russia, which hoped to benefit from both the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and began to encourage their “brother Serbs” to resist both imperial governments.

3. Wars of reconquest--the so-called “long peace” after the end of the Napoleonic Wars (lasting until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870) removed much of the conflict between the European powers from Europe--and made the drive for colonial conquest more fierce. Colonialism was largely driven by the capitalist thirst for raw materials and new markets for goods, but national pride was also in part responsible for this development.

a) The development of the “yellow” press, which provided its audience with sensationalist news and chauvanistic nationalism in a newspaper that only cost the reader a penny, also contributed to the tacit support colonialism enjoyed among the laboring classes.

4. The Non-Colonial World Power--Germany, alone among the European powers, had no overseas colonies in 1880. This colonial activity by Germany injected that country into increasingly tense relationships with other European colonial powers, which contributed to the formation of the alliance system.

a) Treaty port in China

b) Tanganika, Rwanda-Burundi, and South West Africa on the continent of Africa.

c) Maghreb (northwestern Africa), where Germany began challenging French and Spanish control of Morocco and Algiers, creating tensions with those two countries.

d) Middle East--via the Berlin-Baghdad Railway

II. The Socialist Alternative--socialism developed in response to the multiple difficulties that capitalism created for a number of people. Because socialism emphasized class alliance across national and ethnic boundaries. This ideology failed to halt the combined power of capitalism and nationalism, however.



A. Capitalism Economic Depressions--since capitalism emerged as the dominant economic system in 1800, it has been portrayed as creating wealth for everyone (although that wealth has been unequally distributed). This panglossian outlook overlooks some of the significant economic downturns that occurred, however.




1. The Long Depression--a world-wide period of price deflation, which began around 1873 and lasted until about 1888. While economists emphasize the good effect this trend had on prices of goods, for many workers it meant that they struggled to buy goods because they were unemployed, since capitalists would cut production in the hope that scarcity would inflate prices.


2. The “Business Cycle”--this term had largely disappeared from the economist’s vocabularly, although the current economic crisis has reintroduced it. Also known as the “boom and bust” cycle, which is perhaps a bit more descriptive. The “Long Depression” had various antecedents and successors: 1837-1840, 1858-1861, 1893, 1907-1915, 1921-1922, 1929-1941.

3. The Socialist Project

a) With the spread of the capitalist economic system to industries beyond textiles, more workers were drawn to the theories of Marx and Engels and other socialist thinkers; socialist thought ranged from the gradualism of Prudohn to the direct action anarchism of Mikail Bakhunin, among others.


b) The establishment of radical labor unions dedicated to overthrowing the capitalist system emerged by 1905



(1) Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

(2) Confederation General du Travail (CGT) followed similar syndicalist, direct action tactics of direct control by workers of the shop floor

(3) 1905 Russian Revolution--the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 opened an opportunity for revolutionaries because of a crisis in confidence in the Tsar. Although still largely an agricultural society, Russia did have a thin layer of industrial workers in urban centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the latter city, under the leadership of Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (or, as he is better know, Leon Trotsky) worker soviets (Russian for council) were formed to from factories in the city to do the work of government. After the Revolution was defeated, leaders like Trotsky and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) were exiled from the country.

4. Socialists and the Drums of War—whether to support the calls for war or not split many socialist parties on the national level. Socialists had long maintained that wars were fought in order to advance the capitalist enterprise at the expense of the working-class. Gradualists, who worked inside the national political structure, argued that the war effort needed to be supported, or the socialist political movement would be rendered irrelevant and marginalized politically; socialist further to the left argued that this presented an opportunity to overthrow capitalism, because support for the war among workers was “soft” and could be overcome.


a) Germany—the German Social Democratic party voted to support the war effort, while individual socialists—among them Karl Kautsky, Karl Liebnecht, and Rosa Luxemberg, went underground to work against the war, although all three and many of their compatriots ended up in jail, anyway.

b) France—the socialist Guesde and the syndicalist Jouhaux both supported the war …

c) …as did the Marxist Plekhanov and the anarchist Kropotkin in Russia


d) United States—Woodrow Wilson ran for his second term in 1916 promising to keep the United States out of the conflict in Europe, but by late summer of 1917 the United States had declared war on Germany, and the first troops began arriving shortly after that. Socialists who spoke out against the war quickly found themselves in jail; Eugene V. Debs, the 5-time Socialist Party candidate for president, was arrested in Canton, Ohio, in October 1917, tried, convicted of sedition, and remained in prison until 1922; IWW members were also rounded up and put on trial in 1917-18.

III. Total War and Total Carnage

A. Total War—most government officials, military leaders, and participants believed that the war would be over in a matter of months, if not weeks—and that their side would prevail, of course. By 1916, it became obvious to many that all sides would need to devote all possible resources to fighting the war, even though this meant limiting the amount of food available for civilians, while still requiring a full-day’s work to produce war material.


B. Casualties—37 million dead or wounded, including both military and civilians

1. France—1.4 million military deaths, 300,000 civilians. 1 in 5 men of military service age killed; 4,266,000 military wounded.

2. Great Britain and Ireland—885,000 military dead, 109,000 civilian, 1.66 million military wounded

3. United States—116,708 military dead, 757 civilians, 205,690 wounded

4. Germany—2 million+ military dead, 426,000 civilians, 4.2 million wounded

5. Russia—1.8 million military dead, 1.5 million civilian, nearly 5 million wounded.

C. Treaty of Versailles—in the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, germany agreed to surrender. Forced to abandon Alsace-Lorraine (gained in the Franco-Prussian War 1870), demilitarize the Ruhr Valley, give up overseas colonies (which were quickly snapped up by the victors), and pay huge indemnitities to the allies (except the new Soviet Union, which had quit the war in 1917) to allied powers.

1. League of Nations—Woodrow Wilson’s vision of an international body meant to adjudicate international disputes, and thereby end the necessity for war

2. Recognition of national aspirations for some European ethnic groups.

a) Poland

b) Czecholslavakia

c) Yugoslavia

d) Hungary

3. Denied national aspirations

a) Ireland (temporarily—until settlement of the Anglo-Irish War in 1921)

b) India

c) Vietnam

4. Protectorates—a special status given to some groups who aspired to nationhood, but were deemed “not quite ready” for that step (included many groups in the Levant or Middle East)

a) Palestine and Zionism

Weekly Assignment 11

If, as Adam Smith and his followers maintain, the self-interested greed unleashed by capitalism is a positive good, why have so many people been harmed by it? Is it because of weaknesses in the system, or by the way the actions of individuals? Can this same principle be applied to other economic/social systems? Why, or why not?

King Leopold's Ghost

Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.                   --Vachel Linday, The Congo (1914) King Leopold II of Belgium operated his own colony in Africa

 in the area we now know as the Congo Free State. While he could not convince politicians in the country to establish a colony, they did vote to lend Leopold money to establish the colony--which he then turned into a personal fiefdom to extract wealth from. Initially, his army forced the natives to harvest ivory, but by the 1890s, his attention turned to harvesting rubber, initially used to help construct the electrical grid in the developed countries, and later to manufacturing automobile tires. Each village was given a quota, and those that failed to meet their quotas suffered severe consequences--including having the hands and feet of villagers chopped off. This episode was largely forgotten until author Adam Hochschild re-discovered it. Hochschild's book, King Leopold's Ghost, is the basis for the film presented in class

The 18th Brumaire

I. Louis Napoleon--(Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, came to power after the Revolution of 1848 was put down.



A. Bonapartist movement--after the second defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo, all members of the Bonapartist “dynasty” (the members of his family that he had designated as in his line of succession) were exiled from France--although many people in the country held out hope that members of the family would someday return and lead France back to “greatness.”

1. Swiss Exile--Louis Napoleon was raised largely in Switzerland after his uncle’s defeat; in the early 1830s he attempted to lead a coup d’etat to overthrow Louis Phillipe. That attempt ended in failure, but Napoleon escaped back to Switzerland. France demanded that Louis Napoleon be handed over to authorities in France, but the Swiss declined; to prevent hostilities from breaking out between the two countries, Louis Napoleon moved his exile to the United States.

2. Second Coup d’Etat--when Louis Napoleon left the US, he attempted a second coup. This time, in addition to being defeated, he was also captured and place in jail. With the help of Bonapartist, he escaped jail and France, and went into exile in England.

B. 1848 Revolution

1. Return to France--with Louis Phillipe abdicating and fleeing the country, Louis Napoleon returned to France and largely on the strength of the name Napoleon was selected to the National Assembly, and in the election that followed was elected president of the Second Republic.

2. Liberal Political Agenda--Louis Napoleon was elected partly because of his famous name, partly because the monarchists saw him as the “least worst” candidate in the field, and partly because he had spouted platitudes about both modernizing the French economy (placating the bourgeois), as well as temporizing the excesses of capitalism (thus appealing to the workers).

3. Monarchist opposition--because he was seen as the least likely threat to monarchist ambitions to return a Bourbon to the French throne, they thought nothing of is request to amend the new French constitution, to allow him to run for a second term as president--that would interfere with plans to replace him with a king. In response, Louis Napoleon appealed to the dispossessed workers, who were denied the right to vote because of a three-year residency requirement. After also finding allies in the French army, Napoleon stages yet another coup, and seized power from the National Assembly. This seizure was later “authorized” by a referendum by French voters.

C. Second French Empire

1. Declaration--the Second Empire was not declared until December 2, 1852--a year after Louis Napoleon seized power. The first half of the second Napoleon regime was characterized by the heavy hand Napoleon used against his political opponents--censorship of the press, restrictions on parliamentary debate and political power, and manipulation of elections.

2. Liberalization--beginning in 1861, Louis Napoleon began loosening some of these political restrictions, as well as implementing some other progressive programs.

a) Implementation of the Haussmann plan--slum clearance in Paris, which consisted of the removal of many working families to the industrial suburbs of Paris, where they would be closer to the factories they worked in. this allowed the creation of the famous boulevard system that characterizes Paris to this day. It also limited the political power of workers in revolutionary circumstances, since it removed them from the city, and made barricades more difficult to construct and hold during disturbances.

b) Capitalist development--some of Louis Napoleon’s primary backers were followers of an early socialist by the name of Saint-Simonions; these people created one of the early investment banks, the Credit Mobiler, which sold stock to the French public and then used that money to finance industrial enterprises in the country.

D. Foreign adventurism--military conquest and the extension of the French empire had fueled his uncle’s success, and Louis Napoleon was determined to follow that course as well.

1. Algeria--already a French colony (and it would remain so until the early 1960s), Louis Napoleon actually limited French settlement in the country to the coastal area. His reform of land tenure in the country, however, impoverished much of the population. Napoleon abolished tribal holding of land in favor of individual ownership; this concentrated land holding among the well to do, at the expense of the poor.

2. Crimean War--France joined Great Britain in opposing Russian attempts to exercise greater influence over the Ottoman Empire. This ended the long animosity between England and France, but also made France something of a junior partner to Great Britain.

3. East Asia--again joined Great Britain in the Second Opium War, and the French gained greater influence in Indochina (present day Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand); but the same effort failed spectacularly in the Korean peninsula.

4. Papal States--attempted to support both the primacy of the Pope (to appease conservative French Roman Catholics), while also supporting Italian nationalists (who worked in opposition of the Pope). This confused policy also worked to undermine France’s position on the Continent, as Prussia at this time was working to consolidate most of the German-speaking states into one state, under its suzerainty.

5. American Civil War--Napoleon attempted to position France on the side of the Confederacy, but was unable to provide assistance (or even political recognition) without the agreement from Great Britain.

6. Mexico--helped overthrow the Mexican government, and placed an Austrian noble, Maximilian, on the throne there. Napoleon was unable to stop the Mexican resistance, under Benito Juarez, from defeating the forces under Maximilian, and he was defeated and executed in 1867.

7. Austro-Prussian War (1866)--France, occupied by events in Mexico, failed to either come to the aid of Austria, or gain concessions from Prussia to remain neutral in this conflict until it was over. The new threat this posed made conflict with Prussia more likely.

8. Franco-Prussian War (1870)--France was crushed, Louis Napoleon captured. National Guard forces in Paris declared the Third Republic.

II. Paris Commune

A. Refusal to surrender--as Prussian forces, after defeating the French army at Sedan, moved toward Paris, the middle and upper classes in the city fled; this left the working class, and the working-class portion of the National Guard, in control of much of the city.

1. Four-month siege--beginning in September of 1870 and continuing until early January 1871, the city of Paris remained under siege, with much of the population living on what they could capture in the city (rats, etc.)

2. Surrender by the Government of National Reconciliation--the Prussians insisted on a condition that they be allowed to parade in Paris, which the people there vehemently opposed; they took most of the cannon and other weapons, and retreated to Montmarte.

3. Thiers flees to Versailles--the head of the Government of National Reconciliation fled to Versailles, and from there directed the national government forces against the Communards.



B. Socialist Government in Paris--the commune became the first socialist government



1. Separation of Church and State

2. Granting of pensions to unmarried companions and children of National Guards killed on active service

3. Return of tools and property worth up to 20 francs from pawnshops

4. Right of employees to take over enterprises abandoned by their owners (with compensation to be paid to absent owners)


C. Commune crushed--the Communards and National Guard proved to be no match for the combined forces of the regular French army and the Prussian army. Commune forces were defeated, and in the following week between 20,000 and 30,000 suspected Communards and supporters were murdered by the Versailles government

Weekly Assignment 10

Explain the emergence of Japan as a great power, and compare this newly emerging power with the European powers and with China.

The Asian Exception

I. The Tokugawa Bakufu



A. 17th Century Japanese Society


1. Feudalism--Japanese society in the 17th and 18th century is best characterized as feudalistic. It should be noted that during this time most European countries were beginning to shed those same social characteristics.

a) The Han--the Japanese term for the feudal lords who controlled large areas of land, and had peasants working that land, and had samurai to control the peasants and to fight other Han groups when there were disputes.



2. First Contact with Europeans--when the Europeans first showed up on Japanese shores, they and their trade goods were initially welcomed. These trade goods proved to be problematic, however.

3. Social disruption--the disruption this exposure to European trade goods caused--particularly in regards to firearms, which upset the ritualized (and less deadly) style of fighting between samurai warriors.



B. Rise of the Tokugawa Bakufu--this disruption of Japanese society created a crisis in confidence in the leadership of the government, and presented the opportunity for new leaders to emerge.



1. Tokugawa Shogunate--the emperor of Japan was at this time merely a figurehead, but represented the fiction around which the whole government revolved. The Shogun was suppose to act much like a prime minister does in a parliamentary democracy; acting as the directing hand of the emperor. In reality, the Tokugawa Shogun ruled the country, and the emperor usually acquiesed to the wishes of the Shogun.

a) Edo--present-day Tokyo became the new capitol of the country. The other Hans were directed to spend at least part of the year in Edo, and to leave their families there year round, in order to insure that they remained on their best behavior.

b) Restriction of trade--after consolidating power, the Tokugawa restricted trade to a single port--and also insisted that the only trading partners were to be the Chinese and the Dutch



2. 1st Conservative Revolution--the Tokugawa regime intended their rule to return Japan to a “traditional” way of life. But while order was maintained, the Tokugawa regime could not stop the changes that were being made to Japanese society.

a) Urbanization--by forcing other Han leaders and there families to live in Edo, this created opportunities for peasant farmers to sell surplus food to the people living there--and also created the opportunity for craftsmen to take up residence nearby in order to make luxury goods for the nobles living there.


II. Japanese and Western “Free Trade”

A. Commerce in the Pacific



1. Trade--western countries were competing with each other to trade with countries in the Pacific, particularly China (because of its great size), but were also beginning to press other countries to trade, as well.

2. Fishing--the need to find more sources of fish led fishing fleets to move farther and father from home.


a) Whaling expeditions--we know whales are technically not fish, but for the first half of the 19th century they were considered as such. The largest whales, the sperm whale, was also a valued resource for for sperm oil and spermaceti (from which the whale derived its common name).



b) Sailors stranded because of Moby Dick-like encounters with the largest toothed mammal who were able to make it to the shores of Japan were treated like hostile invaders; it was for this reason that a three gunboat fleet from the United States showed up in 1852, and “asked” the Japanese to open their ports to trade. With promises to return in a years for the Japanese response, the Americans withdrew.

IF THAT double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851


B. Commodore Matthew C. Perry--the younger brother of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, he led a small fleet of four gunboats in the return of the American fleet. The Togukawa ruling elites realized that they did not have the capability to resist, and agreed to sign a treaty granting the US rights to trade in Japanese ports.

1. Convention of Kanagawa--the Japanese-style “unequal treaty” granted rights of extraterritorality (meaning foreign nationals were not bound by local laws), and being forced to grant European powers “most-favored nation” status (meaning lower tariffs for the goods they exported), while receiving nothing in return.



C. Fall of the Tokugawa--this development was a rude shock to Japanese pride, and undermined the confidence previously placed in the ruling regime.

1. Tokugawa betrayal--the treaty was portrayed as a betrayal of the emperor by the enemies of the Tokugawa, largely because they did not consult with the emperor before agreeing to the treaty.

2. Internal strife--other Han attempted to move into the power vacuum created by this development, setting off a low-key civil war that lasted until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.



III. Meiji Restoration



A. Role for the Emperor--the emperor remained largely a figurehead.



B. Modernization of society--the Japanese leadership quickly realized that they would need to modernize their society to compete with the West--or, at least, not end up in the position that China had fallen into.


1. Ending feudalism--the Han were largely done away with; while large landowners remained an important part of society, peasants for the first time were allowed to own land as well.

2. Creation of State Capitalism--to compete with the industries of the west, Japanese leaders realized that industries in the country would need state assistance to capitalize (acquire machinery and factories), which they then provided.


C. Acquiring Raw Materials--Japan is a country rich in people, but poor in natural resources; there are minimal sources for iron ore, zinc, tin, or coal--all necessary to begin industrialization at this early time. Realizing that their neighbors China and Korea had these resources, the Japanese modernized their military with an eye to acquiring these materials.

D. Modernizing the military

1. Acquiring western arms--not only firearms, but cannon and eventually ships, until they could build their own (which did not happen until near the turn of the 20th century).

2. Universal conscription--initially opposed by what was left of the samurai class (who saw the large presence of peasants as demeaning to their honorable profession), as these samurai moved into the developing officer corps, this development became more palatable.


E. Asian Imperialism--by the end of the 19th century, Japan was able to raise itself to become a military and industrial power equal to some of those in Europe--although Europe and the United States refused to recognize that that was the case

Imperial Capitalism

I. Imperialism in Brazil

A. Early Portuguese Imperialism



1. Sugar--the early economic impetus for Portuguese imperial development in Brazil was the cultivation of sugar. This lead to the development of slavery in the colony, which provided labor for this endeavor, as well as later economic developments. More than 35% of all slaves taken from Africa were sent to Brazil. Slavery legally existed in Brazil until 1888; slaves are still being found in some places in the country to this day.

B. Later Portuguese Imperialism



1. Gold--the discovery of gold in Brazil gave the Portuguese economy a boost just as the price of sugar was dropping because of increased production from other sugar-producing areas (particularly the Caribbean Islands).

2. Cotton--Portugal, worried about the growing trade imbalance with England, began growing cotton in Brazil to start a domestic textile industry. Portuguese/Brazilian investors, seeing advantages to building factories in Brazil, where the cotton was grown. Eventually, the metropole saw this as a threat to their continuing rule, and demanded the halt of construction of new textile factories, as well as the dismantling of factories already constructed.

a) This policy did not help to maintain a viable textile industry in Portugal (which could not continue to compete as industrial development continued to drive down the price of textiles produced in England, and at the same time ended the chance to further develop textile industry in Brazil.

C. Brazilian independence--

1. In 1808, King Joao the VI fled Portugal to avoid capture during the Napoleonic Wars, governing from Brazil. The center of government remained in the colony until 1821, when the so-called “Liberal Revolution” in Portugal forced the king to return. Upon returning to Portugal, attempts to limit the independence of local governments in Brazil, which had been granted a great deal of autonomy while the king resided in Brazil, created feelings of resentment.

2. Brazilian underdevelopment--tensions this determined underdevelopment of Brazil caused among the Luso-Brazilians (those persons in Brazil of Portuguese descent) and the Portuguese government stirred many to develop the opinion that the interests of those living in Brazil would be best served by severing ties with Portugal

3. Independence--was declared in 1822, and by 1825 an agreement was signed by Portugal recognizing the independence of Brazil. While the revolution was not bloodless, it was far less bloody than many of the other Latin American revolutions.



II. Imperialism in South Africa

A. Cape Colony--after its “discovery” by the Portuguese in 1488, the Cape of Good Hope became an important place along the trade route between Europe and Asia.



B. Afrikaner settlement--during the period of Dutch dominance of the Asian trade, a number of Dutch farmers settled in Cape Colony (called Boers, Dutch for “farmers”). Although the land in southern Africa was occupied by nomadic peoples, the Dutch settlers claimed that the land was “unoccupied” (since it was not occupied as they wished to occupy it), and therefore legitimately theirs for the taking.



C. English settlement--as the English assumed greater dominance on the high seas, they also began dominating the settlement in Cape Colony. Feeling closed in by the British, the Afrikaners moved further inland, which brought them into further conflict with Africans already living there.



D. Exploitation of Colonial Minerals--the discovery of valuable minerals for exploitation brought huge amounts of investment into southern Africa--but this resulted in the displacement on impoverishment of the native peoples



1. Diamonds

2. Gold

E. Colonial Industrialization--mining for these valuable minerals was industrialized, which meant that the native people were hired as miners--but also humiliated and dehumanized.

1. Mining camps--African miners were forced to live in all-male camps as a condition of their employment.
2. Authorization--miners also were forced to carry cards identifying them as miners; not producing a card when required to do so often resulted in a severe corporal punishment.

3. Apartheid--this system of organizing labor for the mines in the region gradually led to the system of apartheid, which defined South Africa for much of the 20th century.




III. Dress as an expression of nationalism


A. Zanibar--an island city-state on the African east coast, was an important trade port of the Indian Ocean.

1. By 1600s, Zanibar was populated by the Swahili people.

2. During the period in history, the kingdom of Oman began challenging the control the Portuguese exercised over the Indian Ocean; the Swahili of Zanzibar became an important ally in this endeavor, and Zanzibar increased in importance as a port city.

3. The Omani expansion of trade helped to create a multi-cultural society; the Omani expansion of the slave trade meant that class differences became expressed in the manner of dress.


4. When the slave trade was finally abolished, and the slaves emancipated, former slaves sought to express their new freedom by creating a new style of dress, which spurred the sale of imported cloth.

B. India

1. The early traders from the East India Company sought to learn about--and many emulated--Indian culture.

2. By the late 1700s, however, the British sought to distance themselves from through clothing.

3. Indians seeking to ingratiate themselves with the British therefore adapted various items of British clothing.


4. When the Indian independence movement began to gain momentum, allegiance to the movement was signified by the way one dressed oneself. Mohandas Gandhi personified this movement, with his insistence that his followers dress themselves in "homespun" in the "traditional" manner--which the nationalist movement re-defined.

Weekly Assignment 9

Explain the external and internal challenges that weakened the Qing Empire in the nineteenth century; why were the Chinese unable to resist the incursions from Europe--in particular Great Britain--in the first half of the 19th century?

Creating Colonial Asia

I. Qing (Manchu) Dynasty--the final dynastic rulers in China, ruling during the period from 1644 to 1912 (with a brief reassertion of power in 1917). The Qing Dynasty originated in the Manchuria Province. The Qing followed most previous dynastic practices, except that they were more despotic and more insular. The Qing insisted on retaining all positions of power, and forbade intermarriage with Chinese.

A. Tributary Trade--the Qing Dynasty continued the Chinese practice of strictly controlling trade, insisting that trade would only take place with “barbarians” at certain ports, and would be supervised by government officials (“mandarins”).


1. The China Trade--with European contact with China, great attraction developed for Chinese trade goods: silk, porcelain, and tea--and trade was only allowed to take place at Canton. England was the last of the European powers to begin trading with China, but quickly became one the the country’s largest trading partners, particularly in regards to the trade in tea, which transformed English social practices.

2. The Chinese Trade Deficit--with Chinese officials controlling the trade relationship, the English were forced to trade silver for Chinese trade goods. Desperate for another commodity to trade for these goods (and worried about the amount of silver flowing out of the country), they turned to a plant that grew in India, and had provided powerful pain relief in Asia for hundreds of years.



3. The Opium Trade--opium was not unknown in China, but to the advent of the opium trade fostered by Britain, it was not used recreationally.


a) Effect of opium use--used recreationally, opium produces a state of euphoria, relieving stress, pain, stunting hunger pangs. Continued use creates the need to use larger and larger doses to reach these pleasurable states, however--and once addicted, opium users have a great deal of incentive to continue use of the drug.


b) Non-medicinal use of opium spread from China to parts of the rest of Asia (including back to India--and to parts of Europe, particularly France), particularly as economic conditions in China deteriorated and the Chinese diaspora took place.

c) Chinese attempts to halt trade--Chinese officials, greased with bribes paid by British opium merchants, had long allowed the opium trade to flourish. By the late 1830s, however, with an estimated 2 million opium addicts located in its port cities, Chinese government officials became alarmed and moved to act against the further importation of the drug. The seizure and destruction of a large quantity of opium “provoked” Great Britain into declaring war on China, in what became known as the Opium War.



B. The First Opium War (1839-1842)--Britain’s declaration of war did not concern China, since most members of the Qing court viewed them as an “inferior” race, interested only in acquiring wealth.

1. British technology--part of China’s lack of concern over these incidents was the fact that 7,000 miles of ocean lay between the two countries. However, that fact that Britain had made great leaps in naval technology, and could bring huge amounts of fire power to attack Chinese forts along the coast, and allowed them to even penetrate the interior of the county up navigable rivers.



2. Treaty of Nanjing--the first of the “unequal” treaties, granted Britain not only the right to continue trading opium for tea, but received the rights of ownership for a swampy island off the coast of China they had used for their base of operations while the war was being fought (Hong Kong--just given back to China in 2000, when their “lease” ran out), the right of access to other Chinese ports, the right of extra-territorality (that is, British citizens were exempt from the law of the land in China)--as well as demanding that the Chinese compensate the British for the cost of the war. These concessions to one European power soon had to be granted to other European powers, as well.

3. The Benefits of “Free Trade”--this “war” was about free trade--the right of Britain to freely trade a destructive substance to China for tea, so that British fears of impoverishment from the amount of silver flowing out of the country could be salved.


a) Tea and British society--tea has been portrayed as a “luxury” good in most accounts, but its use in Britain transcended the restrictions we usually think of when thinking about the people using luxury good. Tea was consumed by all levels of British society by the time of the First Opium War, including industrial workers, who regularly received “breaks” at work (in the morning at 10:00, and the afternoon at 4:00) to consume tea (along with another “luxury” item--sugar)


C. Second Opium War--China, in the midst of attempting to put down the Tai-p'eng Rebellion, boarded a ship called the Arrow suspected of smuggling and piracy. The British, claiming the fact that the ship had been registered in Hong Kong and therefore exempt from Chinese scrutiny under the Nanjing Treaty. Although distracted by the Sepoy Mutiny in India, the British launched the Second Opium War (or the Arrow War, as it is also known) in 1857, with assistance from the French, marching to Beijing and burning the Summer Palace and extracting further concessions and indemnities from the Chinese.


D. Tai-p’eng Rebellion--the internal weaknesses exposed by the First Opium War came to fruition in a popular rebellion led by a former school teacher (and former convert to Christianity) by the name of Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, who preached a doctrine of strict equality between people (particularly men and women), equal division of land, communal ownership of goods, and an end to social distinctions.

1. Rebels sense of purpose--and discipline led them to defeat those Chinese forces sent against them--initially. Success led many in command to develop a taste for the trappings of royalty; combined with the British and French aid to the Qing Dynasty to put down the rebellion (which they believed would undermine the growing European control of the country), led to the rebellion’s defeat in 1864--leaving the Qing in power for another 50 years


II. Transforming Colonization in India



A. Pre-Capitalist Colonies--before the linkage of India to maturing capitalism, British settlements existed at the pleasure of the princes who controlled the area around the colony--much like the slave factories on the African coast at the height of the slave trade remained open for business because some Africans found it profitable to exchange slaves for manufactured goods there.



1. Fall of the Mughal Empire

a) From the slow collapse of the Mughal Empire, power had devolved into six separate kingdoms that were usually at war with one another. This condition meant that there was little popular support for any of the six kingdoms. This situation was also detrimental, however, for the economic well-being of merchants, bankers, and tax-farmers (or peasants, for that matter, which is why popular support was lacking), who were under increased pressure to come up with the money to fund these wars, as well and the money necessary to maintain the opulent palaces and huge courts of these princes.



b) British East India Company--at the beginning of the 18th century, the East India Company was a marginal player in India, limited to redistributing the goods it bought in India to the rest of the world, and reliant upon remaining in the good graces of both the remaining Mughal princes and the Indian Merchants they traded with. In 1750 an official with the company in the province of Bengal saw on opportunity to advance the interests of the East India Company (as well as his own) by stepping into the power vacuum there and playing one claimant to the throne off another. After defeating French forces attempting the same technique, Robert Clive and his associates gained control of the government functions in Bengal, which was by far the richest province in India--but while still maintaining the prince as a figurehead, and supporting his retinue, as well. The Company collected taxes and ran the government, while the Indian official, called nawab, continued to hold the regalia of office. Britain gained a new control of its colonies in India just as it was losing control of its colonies in North America. The Company was able to do this cheaply because it skimmed money in return for collecting taxes from Indian peasants that they used a small portion of to employ upwards of 300,000 sepoy troops.



c) Success Breeds Success--other Indian rulers, seeing the efficacy of having the British East India Company run their government for them--enjoying all of the trappings of monarchy with none of the responsibilities--put up little resistance to “working with” the Company; and what resistance was put up was quickly overcome by force. Merchants welcomed the rise of the Company, because they bought much of textiles the company sold, and the power of the ruling elites was somewhat checked in regards to seizure of property. The Company further cemented its power among the uper classes in India by creating a new class of large landowners out of a portion of the old zamidars--but these landowners owed their alliegance to the East India Company, rather than to any Indian political leader.




B. Empire on the Cheap

1. Divide et impera--Divide and rule, the old Roman principle. Using bribery and violence in equal measure, the British were able to play one ruler against another, kingdom against kingdom, privileged class against privileged class, and caste against caste.

a) 1818 Maratha conquered

b) 1843 Sind

c) 1849 Sikhs

d) 1856 Oudh



2. Creation of British Wealth--colonization of India created wealth for those persons associated with British rule--particularly the British themselves, but including their Indian agents--became very wealth, while Indian peasants were increasingly impoverished.


a) Indian crop failure of 1769--set the stage for the rise of the East India Company. Famine brought on by crop failure is rarely a single year phenomenon. Mass starvation creates the conditions that continue to have detrimental effects for years afterward--particularly on non-mechanized societies that rely upon animal power to aid cultivation (the reason for the Vedic adoration of the oxen in the first place).

b) Impoverishment of the peasantry--the huge scale of Indian peasantry meant that they largely supported the superstructure of imperial government in India, largely by paying taxes (through turning over a large share of the crops that they raised).

c) Ruin of Indian textile industry--before the arrival of the British, most Indian cotton was utilized in the domestic Indian textile industry (textiles made by crafts people, however, rather than by machines). With the mechanization of textile manufacture in Britain (with machines), Indian cotton became an leading export item, that then made its way back as cotton cloth--cutting out Indian craft workers entirely, and impoverishing them as well.

(1) “Free Trade” at work--India was at this early period “de-industrialized” in order to advance British industry--while at the same time providing a huge market for cheaply-made British industrial goods.



3. 1857 Sepoy Mutiny--The prime example of the height of British arrogance. The Indian troops in the employ of the East India Company (called sepoys) mutinied because their officers insisted that they use ammunition lubricated with animal fat, both beef (an anathema to Hindus) of pork (Muslims). This caused the rank-and-file among the sepoy to rebel; eventually they took over control of much of northern India, and began to unravel much of the controls that the British had been able to install. Tellingly, the Hindu and Sikh sepoy in the region placed a Mughal Muslim heir to the throne of Delhi as the prince of the region. The mutiny was eventually put down with 40,000 British troops from outside India, as well as Sepoy from the southern region of the sub-continent. Some peasants who had joined the mutiny were publicly hung, other were publicly flogged (many sepoy avoided this fate as a condition of their surrender).





C. The Killing Fields of Capitalism--the Sepoy Mutiny marked a change in British colonial policy, and the British government began to assume greater control of the functions of the governing apparatus in India.



1. Thomas Malthus--On Population Control is the work Malthus is best known for. In this work, Malthus argues that the poor always have more children than they can support, because of their moral and spiritual failings--their lack of self-control is evidence of these failings, and the reason for their lack of wealth.

a) In combination with Adam Smith, the reasoning of Malthus led the British government in India to see the effects of famine in India (or at least to justify the inaction to those effects) as part of the moral failings of Indian peasants, who simply had too many children, and famine being a part of a “natural” thinning process on the human